Aaron Smith-Levin

But I never did for a couple of years.

I lied my ass off about it.

Eventually they were like, this guy's going to keep lying to us.

Right.

And they're like, yeah, like, all right, you're out.

So then they go to my wife.

So you got to divorce your husband or you're going to get kicked out.

And she goes, no.

And that's why I take joy in it.

I don't even have to get into all the academic discussions of what's a religion and what's a cult and what's the difference.

I go, as long as they destroy families like that, they're a cult.

And why is it that way?

I mean, it started with L. Ron Hubbard laying out a policy framework, a policy structure that, if interpreted and applied in the worst possible way, with the worst possible judgment, can be abused in that way.

I would make the argument that

That if an anti-broker had taken over, that Scientology policy does have enough little caveats baked into it that even the policies about disconnection could be interpreted and implemented in a non-destructive way.

There is room for judgment and discretion.

And Miscavige has just created the worst possible version of Scientology.

And that's where you sort of get that argument of, does he even want Scientology to succeed?

Because he seems to be hell-bent on making sure that he doesn't.

And I don't want to see him make it succeed, but it does bring that question up of like, what are his motivations?