Chapter 1: What is the significance of Scientology in modern society?
Before we begin today's episode, we would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're recording today, the Gadigal people, and pay our respects to elders past and present.
Hi, I'm Hannah. And I'm Sarah.
Welcome to Big Talk.
Big Talk deep dives into the big news stories that you've heard of but you don't know all the serious and salacious details about.
We revisit the most shocking headlines of the past that have shaped the world we know today. And in these next two episodes, we're looking at Scientology.
I'm so excited. I've been wanting to cover this topic since the inception of Big Talk.
I think the two, when we were initially kind of drafting ideas, the two that came up first were Scientology and Julian Assange. Yeah. And then Monica Lewinsky, which ended up being the debut episode as well. The other one is Hillsong. Oh, of course. Because I want to go.
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Chapter 2: Who is L. Ron Hubbard and what is his background?
Anything to do with cults? I'm also now going to go to the church. Are you? Out of curiosity, I think we should go.
Sorry. Sorry. So you signed my excursion permission slip. Yes. So you declared that like you had a booking. I think I'm going to book in to go. And we're actually going together now. You've decided for me. This is very exciting. Part of why we haven't done it earlier is this is such a big topic. It is a big topic.
I also loved on Big Small Talk on Tuesday, I said to everyone, we don't even get to the celebrity element. I thought that's the first time in history that Sarah has comfortably asserted that it's not to do with celebrities. Usually you're like, and we're getting that pop culture in there.
Well, it was pop culture. part of what drew me to it because I do think this is like such a big talk, small talk, perfect story. Yes. Because it's like religion, cult, celebrities all in one. And political. And political.
But also I want to say the reason that it's been possible for us to start tackling Scientology is because of the lovely Grace Valerie Lynette, who is a producer here, who has done... So much research into this. She's done such an incredible job. So thank you. Thank you. This is the first time my dreams come true.
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Chapter 3: What are the core beliefs and practices of Scientology?
Grace has made both of our dreams come true. Also because like after the Iraq war, big talk, Sarah looked like she just returned home from something herself. Like Sarah was like, that took a week of my life and I've lost five years of my life after that deep dive. And so then Grace comes along and Sarah goes, Grace, her notes are like the best thing I've ever seen.
So if you think this big talk is particularly, you know, textured and amazing. Don't get used to it.
All right. Should we get into the pitch?
Let's get into the pitch. Going into this, what I knew personally about Scientology was mostly just big headlines. So a billion dollar organisation that many people called a cult, a galactic alien ruler named Xenu who killed billions of aliens years ago, and then a long list of scandals including psychological control, blackmail and alleged abuse.
I actually remember when I was 14, I read the book Beyond Belief.
Another episode of Sarah and her History Channel shit going down where she's like, I read The Secret as well.
So it was a book that was a memoir written by Jenna Miscaviage, who is the niece of the now head of Scientology, David. Yes. And the whole book was about her experience growing up in the church and then leaving it at 21. And I remember this book rocked me to my core. I thought it was one of the most fascinating reads ever. Please go read it. Highly recommend. But I think that intrigue,
Indo-Scientology really started with Jenna's story and then grew, obviously, the more I heard things like Tom Cruise, John Travolta. And what I realized I still didn't quite understand, though, was what the actual belief system was and where it came from. And now I know that the origin of Scientology is a story that is packed with some of the most unbelievable twists and turns.
Like we have a 68 hour long flight with an invisible submarine, a religion inspired by a famous magician's sex rituals, a man whose real history was more bizarre than the science fiction that he wrote.
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Chapter 4: How did Hubbard's early life influence his creation of Scientology?
He had all he needed to become the source of Scientology.
Those headlines were the things that I knew, but really it was all Tom Cruise for me. I think I was, no, seriously, I think I was watching Oscars every year, confused by what it was, but then there was just this weird cult-like rumour around it. So the fact that you've read this book as well is really helpful. I feel like my teen years were just a bit of a fear and a distancing from it.
Oh, my God. I'm so excited to get into this. Justice for Nicole at the top. We're not even going to get into that.
Hashtag justice for Nicole, even though we're not touching on that aspect. Just like as a separate campaign we're running, like check the link in bio. If people are loving this, I'm not kidding. We'll have to do a part three and part four. No, this is the first. Also, we've covered some big topics and I love that this is the one where we're like, no, let's double down.
Let's do the rest of the timeline. I think it's because a lot of the time with big talks, you can still find a really clear start and end. But with something like this, it's almost irresponsible. It's ongoing. Exactly. It's still evolving as a story. It's like The Crown. You're like, you're chasing your tail at a certain point. You're too close to Harry and Meghan as they are now, you know?
And with that, let's start by talking about the big man himself and separating the fact from the science fiction here. Can we start with a quote?
Yes. Okay. There is a quote here by an unnamed student of Hubbard's, of Dianetics, which we'll explain later.
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Chapter 5: What role did Alistair Crowley play in Hubbard's life?
Hubbard had this incredible dynamism, a disarming, magnetic, and overwhelming personality. I remember being at St. Hill one evening and running into him, and as we started to talk, people gathered round. People had a wonderful feeling with him of being in the presence of a great man.
This is, I love these stories because there's always a pattern to a cult. And the pattern usually is a charismatic leader that gains power and control through charm. It's a very common story. I feel that one person rises up because they are the trusted figurehead, the leader that personally feels like they have a very narrow, like niche relationship with every single individual in the community.
There is a skill and an art. Tom Cruise, another mention. I've seen so many Graham Norton segments with him where he remembers every single person's name that he runs into. Like the makeup artist from three shows ago, he will know their name. There's skills like that that people implement to gain trust, power, and a sense of closeness to large communities.
I just think anyone in any successful position... that has to lead people has that ability, though.
But I think it's a tough skill set sometimes. Like, some people wouldn't be good at remembering names.
Yeah, I know. But, yeah, I think if you think of him like the head of a business.
Yeah. A CEO. But it's, no, it's the most successful. I think cults particularly lend themselves beyond that. A lot of CEOs are cold and kind of cut off people beneath them. Like, people like these cult-like figures, they need to feel that connection to everyone.
It's really interesting.
It's a shame they use these powers.
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Chapter 6: What is the concept of engrams in Dianetics?
was born in 1911. The commonly agreed upon facts about his life pretty much end there. I love that as a starting point.
His three channel, eat your heart out. The rest of it's just up for grabs.
Up for debate. Harvard's account of his own childhood indulged a young boy who was raised on a large cattle ranch. He's said to be riding Broncos by about age three.
Okay, Tiger Woods.
Hunting coyotes by age four. At age six, he became a blood brother of the local indigenous group, the Blackfeet tribe. He traveled the world as a teen and his adventures were funded by a wealthy grandfather. I've played that imaginary game.
That's every week in kindergarten when you had to give news and you had nothing to talk about.
Just make stuff up. I used to play that imaginary game as a kid where I'd be like, and we're lost in the woods. there's no parent in sight. He said in Northeast Asia, he made friends with ruling warlords by showing off his horsemanship. On an island in the South Pacific, he taught the indigenous populations that the scary rumbling within a cave was just an underground river.
In the jungles of Polynesia, he located an ancient burial ground housing the bodies of heroic warriors and kings. And all of that was before he returned home to America at just the tender age of 18 to become a qualified nuclear physicist and medical doctor.
What's the factual history that we know? Do we have a set of facts that are a bit more tangible than that? So, we know who's born in 1911.
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Chapter 7: How did Hubbard’s Dianetics evolve into Scientology?
And whilst he did on two occasions leave the country as a teen to travel Asia, both times were to Guam with his mother. Okay. As for his schooling, Hubbard did not complete high school due to his failing grades. His Navy officer father had instilled a love for boating in him from a young age, and it was his dream to join the Navy.
However, he failed to gain entry to the Naval Academy, not once, but twice. He instead directed his career goals into a nuclear physics degree at university, but once again dropped out due to failing grades. likely contributing then to his decision to leave university, was a botched attempt at a student's expedition to the Caribbean that he'd organised.
The fact that this is like, we're in the first couple of hours of this.
Stories never started so red hot, basically.
The goal was a 5,000 mile, two and a half month voyage to film pirates in the wild and gather botanical specimens for the University of Michigan. However, the mission was plagued with issues from the start.
Over 10 students quit the expedition before the ship even left and then severe storms blew them off course towards Bermuda instead and the expedition ended up running out of money and the trip was considered a failure and some of the students started demanding their refunds.
Just, I love that I thought this was going to be about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Like, this is wild. No, no. We can already get a sense of who Hubbard was as this young adult. Again, someone who's kind of like prone to failure, but also inclined to rewrite. Rewrite being a really generous word, to rewrite that history. Yeah. Wherever he found possible, essentially. I also just love it.
Like, we always joke.
We don't say lie. We say rewrite history. history. Some creative liberties.
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Chapter 8: What controversies surround Hubbard's practices and beliefs?
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Absolutely not. Our personal headlines, I'm like, oh, how can I just add my mayo to this to make it a bit more fun for a Tuesday morning before the heinous news cycle? This is not what we're talking about. This is something entirely other to that. This is if the mayo is the main event. It's not adding mayo. The dish is mayo at that point.
But getting back to it, there was one area that Hubbard stood out above the rest. One thing he was consistently good at throughout his life. He was a great writer and he had a love of inventing wild, far-flinging adventure stories. You want to go on an adventure?
We would have got along at this time, at 18.
And he began by writing stories for the student newspaper in both uni and high school. At first, he'd mostly write action and adventure stories that were inspired by this alleged blood brothership with the Blackfeet tribe and these exploits that he announced and told very sort of exaggeratedly throughout Asia. But he really found his knack in writing science fiction and fantasy books makes sense.
often exploring subjects like demons, mass extinctions, aliens, dictatorships, superhuman capabilities, paranoia and spirituality. So when faced with his prospects for the future after leaving his nuclear physics degree, Hubbard undertook a new career as a pulp fiction writer, and quite a prolific one at that. Across four years, he published hundreds of short stories and novels.
Bit of a Wattpad guy, right? becoming this well-received writer. Massively, like, very successful as a writer. This is so funny because it seems so overt, right? Like, this incredibly successful make-believe guy.
This incredibly successful science fiction writer has something to say about aliens and religion.
Anyway, what I wanted to do, actually, is read the bio of one of his most beloved series, Battlefield Earth.
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