"Going Clear" Writer Lawrence Wright Talks Scientology and Tom Cruise

the jurogan experience one of the most bonkers things in our culture today yeah and amazing that's that scientology is like still i mean i passed by the church of scientology here just the other day i was like still works yeah they've just moved it i when the documentary came out um some woman had just gone to see it at the movie theater and the and the uh it was on the drag you know on guadalupe across from the university and she drove her car through the plate glass windows the scientology building and she didn't stop there she drove around the lobby a little bit knocking over bookshelves and stuff so she had to issue a statement deploring violence in any form was she a victim of it or no she had just seen the documentary and she was really worked up wow so that's a hype she might have some other issues yeah she might yeah maybe scientology could have helped her yeah that might have been a course for that well it's a weird thing when you see so many people that are so successful that are scientology at least you used to see that i had a neighbor who was one of the nicest guys he was a great guy he's a in my old neighborhood and he was a scientologist and i found out in the most bizarre way because uh there was a piece of land that was for sale and he was talking about this piece of land about possibly purchasing it but uh he was gonna have to put it off because he needed fifty thousand dollars because his wife was going clear right it was like like a scene in a movie where the record skips and i went what like what are you doing and this was me of you know i was probably 28 at the time 29. i was the podcast has radically changed the way i look at things because i've had a chance to educate myself and have all these conversations with brilliant people and just enough of these conversations where i have a different perspective but back then i really didn't know too much about scientology other than i had bought a book from um uh dianetics online because uh not online rather on on television late night tv 94 and they wouldn't stop sending me these pamphlets asking me to come to all these various uh meetings and this and that and sending me all these things for programs they have and discounts and i mean i was in one way i was kind of i admired their hustle i was like this is these guys don't stop right like they just kept sending this [ __ ] to my mailbox i thought it was like a self-help book and i would always been in the like anthony robbins and all these different i was into motivation like what can i what can i get that's gonna help me like work harder or succeed better do you know whatever so i saw this thing and it was like wow this seems uh very compelling and i knew that there was a bunch of famous people that were scientologists like tom cruise and all right i was like maybe this is maybe this is legit and i was reading it and i was like this boy this is like seems odd it seems off without getting too much into it so when i talked to this um guy who was my neighbor really didn't have a deep background in understanding it but that was the beginning of me like really getting into it like talking to him and and finding out like how much money he had to spend and what was it about and like what did they do for you and they he was explaining how nothing would ever influence you again no negative influence that's going clear matt that was probably one of the first times i had ever heard that expression i first time i ran into it was when i was in college and i was my girlfriend and i were living in an apartment above this little storefront and uh it was scientology and uh i'd never heard of it before and you know they they showed me the the e-meter and stuff like that and i just thought i thought it was an interesting you know i wasn't put off by it i was you know i thought maybe so i didn't pursue it how old were you at the time i was 21 21 yeah and uh you know it was i've always been interested in religions you know it's one of the the themes i guess of my work and uh and why people go into one religion rather why they believe one thing rather than another because in america you can believe anything you want and you know it's not true in a lot of countries but in our country there's a smorgasbord of religions you can choose from and if you don't see something you know you can make up your own and you know it's a very fertile religious culture uh which interests me and and i i as a reporter i think about how people have strong political beliefs and it doesn't affect their behavior at all you know yeah you know a lot of people like that i'm sure but you know if you have powerful religious beliefs it determines your life and you know as as journalists we should pay more attention to that so i've always been intrigued by different religious manifestations and so scientology was on my list i had wanted to write about it and because they're you know they're always scaring everybody uh with you know legal threats or you know shakedowns and stuff like that do they still do that or have they kind of backed off from that oh the people that some of my sources for that you know they hounded them mercilessly and you know they hire private investigators they're not they're not doing the the job that private investigators are you know they're doing is not so much to uh sneak up on you or you know go through your trash although they do that it's to intimidate you and you know they had somebody following me around for a while mainly to my public events you know when i was making speeches i i'm in a band and he came to one of my gigs what kind of band do you have it's a blues band we play you know texas louisiana music and we used to back before the pandemic i i don't know if our we had a regular gig at the skylark lounge in east austin and uh opening well i want to come see you oh you'll be invited yeah uh we got it we're going to be really rusty we need a lot of rehearsal now that's to be expected so um you got really fascinated by religions and what what made you focus on scientology i mean there's there's a lot of crazy religions out there one of the weirdest ones about scientology is we know who made it right it's like him and joseph smith those are the mormons and and scientology the only ones where we know who the creator is right and the scientology one is particularly weird because it was a science fiction author yeah it's like that would that didn't raise any red flags to people like well you know you you mentioned mormons in the same breath and i think that's apt you know they were the most stigmatized religion in the 19th century uh you know mark twain hated them zane gray wrote a a novel about you know how wicked they were they were hounded from one state to another and scientology is kind of the modern equivalent of that you know they and one of the reasons i wanted to write about it is you have these famous and sometimes wealthy people as you point out affiliating with this organization they must be a kind of public relations martyrdom for them i mean you can admire tom cruise or john travolta for their acting but you also think are they a little nuts you know is there something going on with them that they need this religion and so why do they affiliate why they lend their celebrity and their standing to such a stigmatized religion that was one of the reasons i wanted to write about it well they must get some benefit out of it that's what i and they do yeah i'm not you know i think especially at the lower levels you know they offer courses like jerry seinfeld was in for a while i don't think he was ever in i think he was interested in it and he was studying it he took some courses yeah and he was never like committed as a scientologist what what is a scientologist i mean once you're going to the celebrity center and you're taking courses you know i say you're a scientologist if you go fishing once are you a fisherman yeah that case aren't you that's a good question i'm testing the water i've played basketball a couple times i'm hardly a basketball player it's a little different is it i mean i guess it is but i mean i feel like taking courses and things does well leonard cohen did as well rock hudson i mean there were a lot of people were drawn to it and i think you know part of it is uh scientology set itself up as a religion for celebrities it deliberately targeted people like that and uh for instance if you go to hollywood and you look at you know prominent actors and so on they tend not to be southern baptists you know they is not designed for them and uh you know they may come from a southern baptist uh background but if they move to hollywood and they're looking for a group of spiritual seekers like themselves and they're you know they want to affiliate with people like them scientology says here we are and we have the celebrity center where people like you you know can come and you can hang around with other famous people uh i think they offer a certain amount of protection and i think there's some something that there for that and there's also i think um there's a structure that exists and i think there's a lot of people that especially in such a volatile um sort of it's a uncertain world the world of acting in particular it's such a crazy world i mean i've always said if you want the formula like why is la the way it is well just stop and think about what it is you have a bunch of people that move there from somewhere else because they want fame right and then you make them audition which is the weirdest thing you go into an unnatural environment usually a conference room there's a bunch of people sitting around judging you and you want them to like you enough to pick you to do this thing so you can't in any way buck trends you have to be like uber polite you have whatever the ideology is that's accepted the general vibe of hollywood you must confirm to that you must conform to that rather like there's they don't even have opinions they have this conglomeration of opinions they've adopted in order to be led in to this tribe and then you you hope that they pick you and so you have these incredibly insecure people who want acceptance and love and then you make them beg for it they're essentially like going there and hoping that these people will like them and that's where you get the abuse like the harvey weinsteins of the world and these type of people it's like they're preying on this need to be accepted and brought into this group in order to to to be to to work to be able to work you you have to play this [ __ ] up game and so something comes along like scientology that gives you structure and gives you family and gives you like the we are for you we're going to help you become clear we're going to bring you to the next level you know you're you're a success gives you something where you feel like like have you ever done martial arts i did judo when i was in high school one of the beautiful things about martial arts is the belt system yeah because like you when you're a wipeout and all sudden they tie that blue belt on your waist you're like wow i am making progress this is really happening and you feel fantastic whereas if you went to a martial art like uh i did kickboxing for a while there's no belts and it just feels weird like you don't know where you are like where am i like it's not it's not the most success like and because of that some kickboxing systems even muay thai some weird systems have developed their own belt structure which is weird the system they've just sort of added to the existing martial arts that didn't have a belt structure but it's to give people this sense of progress give people scaffolding give people structure give people this thing where you feel like something is happening for me and i think that's one of the things that scientology does really well for these [ __ ] up people absolutely catch new episodes 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Channel: PowerfulJRE

Views: 3,070,158

Keywords: Joe Rogan Experience, JRE, Joe, Rogan, podcast, MMA, comedy, stand, up, funny, Freak, Party

Id: BQmV3rU8ifE

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/80Hilux]

"Whatever the ideology is, what's accepted, the general vibe of [Utah], you MUST conform to that. The don't even have opinions. They have a conglomeration of opinions in order to be let in to this tribe."

Spot on for Utah. Add the brainwashing from birth to this concept and you have mormonism, UT mormonism in particular.

[u/[deleted]]

Mormons: the Scientologists of the 19th century.

[u/[deleted]]

I've noticed that Joe Rogan has a really negative view of Mormonism. He makes negative comments about Mormonism all the time.