London Thinks: What Has Scientology Got To Hide? (at Conway Hall)

what else wants to do so I shall do a quick intro but beforehand there are a few people who we are actually filming this is such being live-streamed as soon as we can if you do not want yourself to be filmed McDonald's is just down the road so you can get one of those bags stick them over your head and then no one will be able to see your face if that's not an option then you can without the q and A's the the cameras all turn towards the audience so in the interval or before then you can always run upstairs and go to the balcony upstairs and you'll be let up there if you do not want to be filmed it was written on your tickets obviously a lot of you don't read your tickets so I will introduce all of our lovely speakers and London thinks if you are a member here thank you very much for turning up if you are not we do have forms for comical ethical Society any of the money here goes to our Chapel aims and causes which is involves putting on events like this and supporting our library and other events that we have on throughout the year we do try and record and livestream everything to make it available to everyone we've had probably about half a million people view our videos on YouTube so it's a big resource for us and for anyone else out there he wants to to watch and view any of the things that we actually do so thank you for supporting us and being a part of that so without further ado Jim I'll be doing alright sir yeah big thumbs up for my my CEO back there so without further ado I should introduce our speakers who will give probably 45 minutes of witty banter um and then we'll open out to Q&A s and then there'll be book signings with the censored books that you can't get in the States because the publishers have been forced to rescind these books from publication from the liturgist people at the Church of Scientology and you can buy them here in the UK because we're brilliant Simon Singh thank you very much we were there and then we're going to soft down to the pub which is which is the old Nick which is on Sunderland Street which is red lines red line Street down to the side and you're all welcome to join us afterwards if you want to carry on conversation and enjoy a few drinks with us before we break up the summer holidays so without further ado I welcome to the stage BBC Panorama journalist author of The Church of fair John Sweeney sitting on John's right-hand side is our Scientology representative is there in spirit in the form of Xenu Tom Cruise every one of the around for Tom Cruise Tom Cruise - Tom Cruise is right hand side will introduce the stage Tony Ortega all the way from USA you should yeah I've already got the sheeting Raven screaming greatly and to Tony's left will be Humphrey hunter the publisher of all their naughty naughty books so now I leave the stage to these lovely guys thank you very much Grayson click tell them we have some clips which have not been approved by the Church of Scientology the first one is okay the second one if you're hard of hearing you'll be all right the third one is a statement by the director-general of the BBC we'll play the clips and then we'll hear from Humphrey can you play the second clip I'm not an expert on brain motion and now there's a statement from the director-general of the BBC there wasn't advert for injury lawyers four years ago either to start with I just think my my role in this is very small really because all I've done really is facilitate the the work that these two very very fine gentlemen have done to get out into public domain and in this country to boil a quite a complicated issue down to really what what matters the Church of Scientology makes its position very clear to media outlets about what will happen to the myth if they say things that the church doesn't like and I don't mean that any kind of not gonna not gonna do in the middle the night or do any harm but they do effectively threatened to sue you until you cannot take it anymore and but ultimately and thanks to Jones quite punchy attitudes or things not literally punchy as she's about by the way I'm going to sit on Tom Cruise as it you don't you doesn't monkey this - Tom's fine with that are there any lawyers in like Sochi all I've done is open up the avenue to these two guys to throw their bet their content out through and essentially all it boils down to as a decision about whether or not what we had was we just default we were justified in believing it was true which you know film evidence would seem to suggest that much it was true and they're also a long line of ex-scientologists who i just want to say just very very quickly who when we were going through the process before John's first book was published of assessing whether or not we were crazy to do it which my lawyer did say we were and the the fact that we had these eight or ten or seventeen or how many there were excellent soldiers who are saying if anything legal kicks off in London and if there's any kind of court case just tell us when we need to be there we will be on a plane we will be there to help out so it was those guys who were so willing to jump in on our behalf that really made me think we could publish it and nothing would happen and ultimately I have a letter from the churches always saying if you publish this book you will be sued we published a book we weren't sued and here we are so I don't have a very great deal to say which was interesting about the inner workings of the church that's what these two guys here for so what can I can I say something about the video that I hadn't noticed before Tommy Davis was Scientology had this interesting strategy for a while that they were very aggressive with the press like with John and they had Tommy Davis who's the son of an archer of the famous actress and good-looking kid was clearly in over his head but there's something interesting he said in that clip I don't know if you noticed he said that the definition of religion is very clear in this country and it really couldn't be farther from the truth the definition of religion is so impossible to pin down in my opinion especially the United States Scientology will tell you that it has been recognized as a religion in the United States that is not true the US Constitution prevents the government from recognizing anything as a religion all you can do in the United States is get tax-exempt status as an organization with a religious purpose that's what Scientology has and whether it's a religion or not is is a fascinating question and one that I tend to ignore because it gets you into such an arcane argument there was just an article that came out I think yesterday by somebody saying that Scientology is clearly a religion people are setting out to transform themselves they're looking to a higher power l ron Hubbard being a higher power to some people and that they go through certain rituals to get there and so this writer concluded easily that the church Scientology is a religion showing that this writer doesn't know the first thing about Scientology Scientology is fascinating because it's sold to people as an exact science not as a religion if you talk to people that have been in for many years they'll tell you that what attracted them was that idea that this this electronic device can help you pinpoint memories from your life going back tens of millions of years and not just that you were running a prison planet on another solar system ten million years ago but you have to tell the auditor that it was ten million four hundred and fifty two thousand three hundred and seventy eight years ago on an October morning the 12th at 10 a.m. that's how exact Scientology is sold as a science and in order to progress through Scientology you are given goals most of which ultimately come back to flows the number one thing you can do in Scientology is increase your flows which is their word for money the more you can bring in money the better Scientologist you are and once you look at these details and the the the incredible pressure people are under to advance and do these things that they could science the more you realize it's as far from the religions as you can imagine it really is so I'm less interested in whether or not there's a spiritual side to Scientology or not I'm marched in what they're doing along the way on that path they're splitting up families they're having children working 90 hours a week for pennies an hour there for decades they force young women to have abortions because having a baby would keep them from working 100 hours a week when they bring foreigners over to work in Florida and California the first thing they do is lock up their passport and then those folks work for 20 cents an hour for a hundred hours a week I can't think of a better definition of slavery in the United States today than the Scientology workers in Florida and California and yet Scientology never gets investigated for it or prosecuted so it's a that to me is a much more interesting question what they do to people what they do to families and less about what Tommy says that it's obviously a church it just isn't that easy I looked up the dictionary definition of a religion awhile ago with this very question in mind and it said that a religion is the belief fund work to sum up a few different versions the belief in and worship of a higher being now maybe l ron Hubbard to some is that higher being but surely that higher being would have to be constant across every every believer in this religion if it really was a religion but it's an interesting question about whether they consider Hubbard God l ron Hubbard was this science fiction writer who came up with his science of the mind and there's no question that Scientologists hold him in the highest possible esteem they call him wrong they think of him as mankind's best friend they don't like to think that he died in 1986 which he did but he's not a God in the sense that they cyan't 1-point Hubbard wanted Hubbard wanted to be considered a God and I think it's every crackpots dream right and the problem was he wasn't sure if he could quite go there because he had started it as the science of mental health and and he had sold it as a science and then he had in 1953 he told one of his followers let's try the religion angle he literally set it that way and because for tax reasons and many longtime Scientologists will tell you that they never considered it a church or religion that it was just for the tax reasons but and if some of the old timers can correct me on this I think it was the late 70s Nancy Manni told me this for the first time that Hubbard was tempted and they actually sent out questionnaires to the people in Scientology judging their reaction if Hubbard were to announce himself as a messiah and apparently the questionnaire did not give him the answer he wanted because he never did it yeah because I'm sitting in Tom Cruise's bottom as it were I'm tempted to to defend Scientology and many of the people when I do my sort of church affair gig around the country many people say come on Scientology is no different from all the other religions the Catholic Church the pedophile disgrace the jihadi edge of Islam beheadings murdering x' ISIL all of that Buddhists are murdering Muslims in the edge of Burma so why you why you bothering with this thing which after all gives us one the gracious motion picture actually they four-stars who was in no sense whatsoever triumph this is serious okay it's a serious question I guess for me yes I run into that all the time you know that that Isis is a chi control organization that isn't far worse there's no question but I think what I find so fascinating about Scientology is that it's a totalitarian organization that exists inside the United States today yes and inside England countries that are enlightened and modern and and and where we don't have beheadings and so and also the way that Scientology wraps itself in ideals like freedom of religion freedom of speech and and ends up using some of our you know our bedrock values not as shields but as weapons to destroy other people that I find fascinating that there this is a very sophisticated group whose effects are not always obvious and the more you dig into it the more you find the ruined lives the split up families and I you know I think the reason why our stories always get such a huge response is that it's that combination of celebrity its secretive nature and it's odd beliefs you it's just it's a it's a really fascinating little combination that it exists so openly in in free countries in so many places it's it couldn't hide in plain sight any more effectively if it stands there shouting and screaming about how how free it is and for me that's the thing which I that there's nothing comparable to it that I excelling that I can think of in this country or States or the world where you have this this thing which I get for me it's not a religion full stop it doesn't matter what they say I do not believe it's a religion where the property and tax fairs for its businesses because there are businesses in this country I channeled through Australia nothing is owned in this country there's no incorporation there's no company there's no there's no charity that is that is Scientology in this country if let's say I was going to be sued because of something one it wanted one of you tear it in your boots or in other reason then I one of the things I would be fascinated to see and I hope it doesn't ever happen it might would be who actually sues me because if it's not an individual then the organization might soon and the question whether or not organizations can sue is a moot point for now but which organisation would it be would it be the one in Australia would it be I don't know I don't know who actually that when we want to get lawyers letters I don't know who they're writing on behalf of really because it's so a Paik you just you don't know that well let's take an example from my book my book is about Paula Cooper who wrote about Scientology in 1971 and the answer your question is everybody suit her ok not they imported copies of her book into England so they could then sue her from England she was sued in England Canada Australia South Africa United States several places United State and at that point there was only one entity in each country that did so but they basically everybody who could super did she ended up being sued 19 times by the Church of Scientology and that was only the overt legal attack they had on her they also had this in you know Scientology has a spy wing I don't know how many churches in England have spy wings but the Church of Scientology has had in the day back in the day something called the Guardians office it was replaced by something today called the Office of Special Affairs it is very by the way are you here tonight what kind of eye will they be okay sir they ever there's a sinister looking bloke over there just what his hand up it's more than one actually all right listen oh okay so the answer is they're here and the Guardians office decided to destroy Paulette because she wrote that book they tapped her phones they sent smear letters about her to people in her apartment they sent smear letters to attempt to get her boyfriend fire they said operatives to try to get her father's business destroyed they got her fingerprint on a piece of paper typed up a bomb threat to themselves mailed it to themselves the FBI investigated she was she was indicted and faced 15 years in federal prison and wasn't fully exonerated until five years later when the FBI raided the Church of Scientology and found all of these planning documents explaining how they were going to frame her and how they attempted again four years later so I guess the answer question is Scientology throws everything at you that they can once they've decided to target you and in in the United States there are several lawsuits right now that involve a lot of entities all kind of ganging up on people so it could be a lot of people attack you they've begun by Scientology or begun by someone suing them ah the one the one that I can think of where science Scientology is not suing people as much as it used to that's true now they're hacking people but a hold on you wait a second what a dreadful allegation and I and and you're an American when nothing like that happens whatsoever as I'm told by the National Security Adviser people so by the way so we we should all say this the Church of Donnell Scientology denies everything that we've said thus far and the film and we're all denied and we're all bad people suppressive persons what's the worst thing they've said about you they call me a parasite which i think is wonderful um what do they call you they call you uh I'm a wreck of drunken men okay give it a couple of hours it's true it was me and Mike Rinder we were both wrecks of drunken men or something like this and I find fair enough that's a fair descriptive essay but they didn't really complain about anything in my book for except for one thing they hate that I mentioned Charlie Manson in it which they also hate about Paulette's book at Paulette's book came out in 1971 in 1969 the New York Times had broken the news that Charlie Manson had been a Scientologist and Scientology by the way to the younger people in the audience who is joining out of whom there is nobody if you a relative of Prince Charles this John's food bully Charlie Manson was a cult leader who had some young people kill people for him in 1969 including Sharon Tate and anyway when he was a pillar of the community no he was he was he spent most of his life in in one institution or another and when he was in prison in from 63 to 67 up in Washington State he got into Scientology there's no question about this he did something like 150 hours of auditing last year there was a wonderful new book about Manson that came out I don't know if you saw it by Jeff Gwynn it's really good book I highly recommend it one of the things Jeff did was he went back to that prison to look through their records and he found that the warden wrote that well thank goodness Charlie's into something so there's just no question that Charlie Manson with him Scientology but so that but the church hates that so the only thing they've complained about in my book is that one sentence I have in a foreigner page book about Charlie Manson they complained about everything in my book there are none such as need to set up they could have they know simple question I think you're being unfair to the church okay ah Tefo bless them has the church ever impacted upon your own life you know I usually dodged that question but I was recently in the movie-going clear or when I have something to say about that yep say no they're not interested all right they pay BBC low navies I may be speaking out of school and I might get in trouble for this but I just got an email a couple of hours ago asking me to be available for interviews because using suspend wait for is good they want me to be available for interviews because sky will be debuting going clear on September 21st and now they probably won't want me to be interviewed at all to pasture so okay so don't dodge your question okay as you'll know every when I was so I'm very fortunately going clear is a movie by Alex Gibney was one of the world's best documentary makers today and he made it based on he said 101 Oz okay and and and he made it based on Lawrence Wright's book going clear which is wonderful wonderful book about Scientology and its basic it's mostly centers around the lives of eight former Scientologists who span an incredible time of the church from the 60s to the present day and they're all fascinating people and for some reason they let me in there to to say a few things mostly about Tom Cruise and so what was the question about going oh so so he asked at one point Alex Gibney asked me have you been harassed and I like I said I usually dodge that question but I mean this is Alex Gibney so I did admit to him yeah they they harassed me a lot and in particular what I mentioned the film is they they would send their chief dirty-tricks private investigator to go to my mother's house and just sort of accost her which was not nice but they've done worse than that and it's just I don't know I just consider part of the job you know I don't make it part of my stories as much as you know you did with the way they followed you and harassed you but it's you know it's part of the gig right Humphry we're going to tell the truth have you ever feared you may not be real about this over the other why did lots of things without a very vivid imagination the ban and side your house there wasn't a VAT it was a man with a camera oh I didn't know you got that yeah I didn't talk I don't know for sure where he was but we live there's a row of houses then there's a wall on the other side of the road and I used to be journalists I know what a professional photographers camera looks like hanging around their neck and and there was one standing across the road from our house when was this this was around the time your book came out in early 2013 coincidence maybe I hadn't seen one before haven't seen once then but I definitely thought well yeah that's that maybe I don't see I'm not alleging it because I don't know but I couldn't think of any other reason why and it certainly did mess in my head a bit but we fell that legal letter probably did so more that got me more stressed because they said we're going to bring the legal the worst legal stuff you can imagine Oh down on you and for small business family cetera et cetera these things do tend to stress you but three months after the book had been published and not a peep had come from them I'm over now it to be fair to the Church of Scientology because I'm sitting on Tom Cruise's bottom I was arrested or detained anyway by the I aside the Pakistani secret police in Pakistan's and we film something we'd probably filmed one of their torture centers by mistake and they said who are you and I said my name is John Sweeney I work for BBC Panorama so can you prove that there was about seven goons the guy was talking to me at a very nice suit and pitted skin and he said can you prove that and hand it over my passport my BBC pass and he gave it to one of the goons who gotten into a car and drove off into the dust then he turned to me and he said who are you and can you prove it and I looked him in the eye and I said my name is John Sweeney and I work for panorama and I have seven million hits on YouTube look me up and he went away he would have seen the clip of me arguing Tommy Davis and then he came back and he gave him motorsport and BBC press person sort of very sorry mr. Sweeney on so I'd like to thank the church that's all right saved saved your life under the the church's which saved my fingernails such um so I I think you're being too mean about the church is it is it horrible it's not horrible to ordinary people is that they don't behead them they don't sexually abuse them generally it's okay yeah sure what is most evocative that's my role right okay I think the thing that's changed from from the date the days of all this terrible stuff having to pull out which is in Tales book which will show you so for that um he's a you a publisher I we sell books yes sir it works is that the internet and a whole lot of Scientologist leaving means that these this network of people now exists who are in touch with each other but not only that they can make noise so publicly that's doing something like suing a a journalist that the author of a book in nineteen different places would be monumentally counterproductive because the news of such that cause of action would be around the world within seconds if not minutes and and the result of publicity will be horrendously damaging to the church so the if they are fighting there which I'm sure they are in ways we don't know that they'll be doing it maybe they are no they're not I don't know it will be done very subtly and in ways that that you you probably you'll find very hard to know about I think as it were going in your face in the way there's no question the Internet has been very very bad for them Scientology is based on information control in huh virgin in Hubbard's language II called it a gradient you're not supposed to learn more than according to the steps he is laid out and it can take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars before you get to the top levels of learning which is called the OT levels operating thetan levels and these are supposed to be incredibly secret you can't get to ot2 until you've been to OT one you can't get to ot three you get to ot three cost you ten thousand dollars they literally bring it out in a locked briefcase okay there's this whole production to it and then in 1995 a couple of knuckleheads put all of that material online and it's been online ever since and and and for Scientology it's been a disaster and they tried they tried very hard in the 90s to put the genie back in the bottle and sue people they literally raided people's homes with the use of federal warrants in in the United States and Europe and and ultimately I think they realized that they just can't do that anymore and the Internet has won but the people who are in Scientology still very quickly become part of that information system of control I did a series at the underground bunker called up the bridge with a technical expert named Claire Headley and she and I because I'd always heard this at their levels and you pay and it gets more and more expensive but I wanted to know what was each level what did each level cost and what was in each level and we did this level by level from the very beginning and one of the things I had not really learned before was it in the very lowest levels things later called the student hat for example where you learn how to use a dictionary um that's you well literally know Claire how do you use a dictionary you open the [ __ ] book is that a special dictionary Claire showed me how the indoctrination begins almost from day one and that you immediately begin to learn that Scientology has all of the answers and if there's anything good in your life it's because of your association with Scientology and if there's anything bad in your life it's your own fault and it's because you've misapplied Scientology and that becomes a very strong controlling force so that you don't it doesn't matter that OTS are on the internet no Scientologist is there it would dare go look at it because they know they need to follow the gradient they not only won't look at the material that's been leaked they won't look at a negative article they won't watch going clear they won't watch this streaming on the internet because they know that the penalties are severe Scientology is a snitchin culture it's it's an interrogation culture if you see your father watching going clear on television you have an obligation to turn him in with what's called a knowledge report and they do this all the time one of the most remarkable stories we had at the website this year involved a woman named Sylvia de Waal she had been turned in by a friend and she then went to be interrogated now I will tell you that the e-meter is a very crude device which simply measures galvanic current differences in your skin which mean nothing but to a Scientologist an ammeter is an infallible tool that can tell when you're holding back information and as long as you believe that it becomes a fabulous interrogation tool Scientologists spill all of their secrets because they believe they cannot hold them back Sylvia was brought into an interrogation because her friend had turned her in and her crime she had watched Leah Remini on Dancing with the Stars and she had watched Lawrence Wright interviewed on television and she had sent some emails to Mike Rinder so this interrogation went on for three weeks at the end of which she received a bill for $4,500 and then they determined that she had said enough that she should be kicked out of the church and she went to a interrogation room at the flag land base in Clearwater Florida which is all wired up and a recording of her being told her fate made its way to me and I put on my website and you can actually hear this young ethics officer explaining to her that her crimes of watching Leah Remini on television watching warrants when on television is resulting in her being kicked out now she then explained him very upset you don't know what you're doing to my life you're going to make my husband divorce me she her husband was such a devoted Scientologist his nickname was literally mr. Church and she knew that if she was being kicked out of Scientology in their language declared a suppressive person he then would have to cut off all ties to her if he wanted to remain in the church she went home he took one look at her and said you were declared weren't you and she said yeah and then like a good Scientologist he sat down to examine the data and he thought about it he thought about it and then he told me Tony I decided my wife was more important to me than the Church of Scientology and they both left and it was it was really difficult for them not just because they were facing the prospect of leaving the church and leaving their friends their business was painting the homes of Scientologists they lost an entire clientele they had to move across the country and start over again and they were about you know mid-40s that grown children and so this was a although it turned out to be a happy ending it was devastating for them and again it all happened because a friend of hers turned her in because she happened to watch something on television so you were asking me earlier about you know the headings and how evil they are the thing about Scientology is that kind of control over people is so I don't know opposite of the values we have in the United States and United Kingdom that's what I think is such an insidious thing about this organization I honor someone who was who was born into it and he got to his mid-twenties and just nothing that made sense anymore he just he said he was if he didn't leave he was going to die because so many years so many things have happened over so many years he would go to school and the guidance of school with his friends would go home and play football or whatever he'd have to go back to his home also on the south side wherever and and work and he had no kind of childhood in the way we think about a childhood and there are so many people like that in there and and out there now and an organisation which is prepared to treat children in that sort of way and to do it so overtly because we know they're doing it they know we know they're doing it yet they're allowed to carry on doing it and so that that for me the comparative headings of this sort of thing obviously there are dreadful dreadful things they don't happen here in our country in the States and that's that that's what what makes me think that you it is something which people like Tony and John should be hammering away out to the simple reason that there are people who being born in born into it and right now while being treated appallingly I mean their lives literally taken away from them who don't who would never deserve such a thing literally born into it it is a it's a horrific horrific and if there's one thing that Alex I think regretted about going clear he had so much material his first cut he told me was four hours long and HBO he went to HBO and asked him about a miniseries they said no sorry I think I think they're regretting that decision now but they said no you need to get it down to two hours and so he got it he did a terrific job in two hours and it became the most-watched documentary in a decade at HBO and it's going to be coming back into theaters in the United States next month yeah I'm looking forward to that and it's got been nominated for seven Emmys and and it's also qualified for Oscars but he did not talk about the young people he really didn't tell the stories of people he wanted to he wanted to explain the appeal of Scientology and why people join but there are many people who had no choice they were brought up in it and it's also important to that Scientology had a special concept about children the scientist I ontology is that we're all immortal beings called fate ins and my mentor and the back row will tell you that Hubbard was lisping one day and meant to say Satan's but that we're all immortal beings called Satan's that have lived countless times through countless bodies sometimes mail sometimes female over billions and trillions of years and so when you look at a child you know you and I might see a developing young mammal which is not got its act together or its brain knotted together correctly a Scientologist sees an ancient creature in a small package and so they have they could they cannot always but they can have remarkable disinterest in their own children because in the scientology conception that son of yours might have been your father 30 or 40 lifetimes ago you've just flipped the roll and if children are confused and stumbling it's literally because they've had they've just come through such difficult time being reborn and they're still getting their bearings and they will get their bearings treat them like adults and so you hear so many stories of parents just literally dropping their kids off at the org going to do their job and the children have to be raised in these awful cadet orgs one of the worst was here in England I'm going to get the name wrong green fields or green stone he's green stuff because they and I did a story with a woman named Melissa Parris you should read if you get time who talked about what a horror show it was to grow up in that school here in East Grinstead and it was simply because the parents were too busy doing their Scientology to have really any care for their children but they were told they're they're your kids this lifetime but they won't be your kids next time and they're fine but it's important to keep that in mind you know and I will say that they're not all scientists think that sites ought to think that way there there are very good family people in Scientology but in general that's what they think my perception of it the organization as a whole is that the the people lower down the food chain you get within Scientology the more straightforwardly nice people you find they are obviously followed well many of them are vulnerable knowing ways which is why they're there in the first place but essentially the the stuff that we consider malevolent is is the fault of a pretty small proportion of the organization I haven't met a Scientologist yet that didn't tell me they got into it because they wanted to improve themselves and improve the world I mean these are good people that wanted to do good things and I think that again is one of the things Alex set out to do in his film was to show they're very intelligent very creative people that got in all for the right reasons and then within a few years were shocked to find what they were capable of doing because they buy into the idea that Scientology l ron Hubbard was literally the only human being who ever figured out how the human mind works and what the universe is doing here and that we're all living on a prison planet and that the few enlightened Scientologists are trying to clear the planet and all of the rest of us are too stupid to understand what's going on they really have a very superior attitude about themselves but they they get into it hoping to improve their lives hoping to make the planet a better place I mean you've met some somebody but Bruce Hinds for example Bruce was a physicist before he became a Scientologist if we say Sir Bruce Hine this is the man who said I spent 30 years in Scientology then I left and then I read and this man used to audit Tom Cruise Tom Cruise denies it etc etc and he said I got out and I went online and I read about Robert Lipton who wrote a book called thought reform or brainwashing Robert Lipton was a brilliant American military psychiatrist who treated American GIs who had been brainwashed by the Chinese Communists during the Korean War inside North Korea and he then his book was turned into a novel by the journalist Richard Condon a Manchurian Candidate which became a film and then the Israelis turned that into their own version which I think a Hezbollah or Hamas kidnap of an Israeli soldier who becomes almost the Israeli prime minister and then the Americans borrowed that and turn that into homeland which which just goes to show there's only so many plots in Hollywood but but what Lifton's great insight is about brainwashing the rate tests number one constriction of information and I've been to Afghanistan Iraq Syria not lately but certainly the thing the big frightening thing for the West for our beautiful open society is how do we deal with this problem how do we deal with the jihadis and doing Scientology is a very strange way uh for me anyway at least of its to be honest it's my hobby but it's also it helps me understand people who have been brainwashed and when I come across people like Bruce Hines and Mike Rinder who then leave I feel this is great because they've been brainwashed and then they've left and that process how that happens that's fascinating and it's about information and information being light and I and absolutely I do feel and people may disagree with me the church they do that blah blah blah but I think that this is a brainwashing organization one of my favorite moments in my North Korea book research was I went to Belfast I tracked down an IRA man an official not a Provo I'm sorry gone with the story John and anyway he had been gone to North Korea in 1988 to learn how to kill a British mi6 comrades and I met him in a bar in Belfast and I'm I've got an Irish surname and I drink Irish whiskey but I'm English and I work for the BBC still and he leaned forward he's a big guy quite tense just met him and he said John I have one thing to tell you I'm a member of the Church of Scientology and I don't really have to explain myself in this room but I just said [ __ ] you and he laughed he was winding me up but hey but going to North Korea was for him the moment he's IRA West Belfast brainwashing started to crumble because for him for the first time in his life he saw that however dark things were for a Northern Irish Catholic Republican nationalists in West Belfast it was nothing like as dark as ordinary life for North Koreans inside North Korea this was the moment his brainwashing started to crumble and this is why what we try and write and do what humphrey publishes and what trying to just even by doing here is actually I think slightly more important than it's important and it's not a waste of time because what we're doing is countering a kind of brainwashing which is one of the legal decisions in 1984 can you remember which one one of the judges breckenridge are lazy both of them I buy you a pint if you're in the pub but you won't be here almost certainly dead but but that's the point causes this is a kind of brainwashing and that's why we fight it well I've been I you know one of the things that I've been most grateful about with the bunker I run this website in 2011 I was at the Village Voice and I started covering the story of this bizarre goon squad that was hanging outside the home of a former Scientology official named Marty Rathbun they called themselves squirrel Buster's and I thought it was the most remarkable story I had heard in a long time and they came back day after day after day and I thought you know there's something going on in Scientology somewhere around the world every day I bet I could do this and make it like a daily thing and four years later I'm still stories but great decisions on stage anyway so but the it's called the underground bunker now and it's got kind of a life of its own and I get so much mail from around the world but the best are those that that send me messages and say that they would just starting to question they were looking around they've ran into my website and sometimes they had a violent reaction to it because I not only write about what David Miscavige is doing in the current organization and the abuses but I also write about l ron Hubbard in a way that makes some people who are leaving because of Miscavige are very uncomfortable to see Hubbard criticized but they stick with it and they look at what people are saying in the comments and I'm very fortunate that I have amazing people in the comments who know far more than I ever will about Scientology and the discussions are very intelligent and you know I just this week I got an email from somebody who I had written a story about and she had lost her parents her parents disconnected from her which is disconnection is one of Scientology's most toxic policies if once somebody leaves and for whatever reason is kicked out or made of suppressive person everybody else has to cut off ties them even if it's mother and son brother and sister and so this woman had left Scientology and was associating with somebody the church didn't like and so everyone had to cut off ties her including her own parents and I wrote a story about that and she never expected to see her parents again they are members of the see organization where you sign a billion-year contract and cut yourself out from the outside world but her father had fallen ill and he had had to spend some time in the hospital and I'm told that that's one of the few times when you're in the Sea Org that you actually may get some sense of what's going on outside and he got on the internet and found that story I had written about his daughter and then called her sister and was just crying like a baby and the person I wrote about said now I know how this works I need to wait a little bit longer but she really believes that that family will be reunited so it is about cutting through that programming that indoctrination and getting them to see how the church takes good people and spins them in a way that's so against family against you know their own interests and and it's not always easy I mean I think there are some families that you wonder if they're ever going to be reunited you know these people are so adamantly opposed you know following the rules sure you have some questions questions anyone have any questions we can talk all night if you want Chuck white and white white t-shirt there's this is too much to me are the mics oh that's good okay question to the whole panel why do you think Scientology of the church in the United States has not been prosecuted for some of the crimes or the exploits that you've been detailing tonight and are there some of which they have been successfully prosecuted for the FBI were looking into them when we were making the secrets of Scientology yeah and we knew about that and and I thought that's a story but I'm not gonna report it he did well yeah I did because by the time I wrote about it it was over yes the FBI investigated Scientology were labor trafficking in 2009 and 2010 they knew about the stories about children working 90 hours a week for pennies and about families you know being separated and they got so serious about it that by the summer of 2010 they were talking to informants about would you like to ride the van with us when we raid the base near Hemet the secretive international headquarters so the FBI was very serious at that time and then it fell apart I differ with Larry Wright and the Tampa Bay Times guys about the reason they all blame the Headley's mark and Claire Headley sued Scientology over those same issues saying that we were trafficked we were made to work incredible hours we were made to cut off all ties the rest of our family we were slaves we were prisoners and they lost in court because again the courts just won't deal with Scientology's practice because it calls itself a church because the Headley's lost the one theory goes the FBI then realized they would have the same problem and they dropped investigation the legal reason was literally because it is in the eyes of the law a religious organization which meant that what it did to the Headley's was was okay was allowed if they be any other kind of organization there would have been as guilty as you can get right anyway as in the allegations were proved beyond doubt it was simply the fact it was a religious organization which meant that its behavior was was not legally punishable I think it was more complex than that I think the investigation was compromised when an FBI special agent shared a document in a civil lawsuit it's a little complex but Scientology will look for anything it can then complain to the Department of Justice about and I think that it won the on that one but for homeland the homeland uh what's it called let me call it the department of fuel country I know one of these it's one of these home security one of these 911 things okay who a homeland security did investigation they dropped it the one everybody wants to see happen is for the IRS to revisit the decision in 1993 to give Scientology tax-exempt status I have talked to someone who has been feeding information to criminal investigators at the IRS that are sound very interested but whether there's enough political will to really revisit that and have the IRS investigate that it's hard to say there's a lot of inertia there and it would be difficult to see that happens things all these organizations know that if they were to start any kind of legal inquiries let alone actual proceedings they would be tied up in Appeals and Yung sorts of legal processes for law enforcement will tell you they face two big problems the first big problem is when Scientologists come out it can take years to recover before they finally realize they were victimized I mean lordy what the one that you should all watch that I'm looking forward to is in December the tribe they lost the trial of Lord decrescendos coming up she's suing Scientology at 12 she was working 90 hours a week at 16 she was forced to have a 17 she was forced to have an abortion she's suing Scientology they have gone to the US Supreme Court trying to keep her from getting docked in her own documents in that case they lost that she's now going to court with those documents and it should be a fascinating test but her whole case is jeopardized because it took her four years after she left Scientology to file that lawsuit and it's just that it takes so long to recover I talked to an FBI agent the other day about something regarding Scientology don't get too excited but and the first thing is when I told him about an instant he said well how long ago was that I mean that's it's it's really difficult for law enforcement because they want to kind of catch scienter Algie an act and yet we ought we tend to hear about this awful treatment of children years after it happens that's the biggest problem who's that with the microphones oh here we go thank you and great word by the way all of you have seen going clear and your documentary John and it's really great whether you're doing and you're out there kind of promoting this sort of actual intellectual assault on such ridiculous things anyway but and do you think I can lecture and this is to any of you are do you think that Scientology has the kind of life span that other religions might have you know say Islam Christianity in a lot live do you think we'll see Scientology you know for another 100 200 years or do you think you know it's just that I might is it will carry on existing in some form but in the same way that it changed after Hubbard was no longer in charge it will change when David Miscavige is no longer in charge and it is probably it's likely to become a very different organization I don't know how what that will mean in practice but I think we can say with pretty solid confidence that it's not going to go from strength to strength over thousands of years in the way that some religions are going to exist over thousands and thousands of years in the way some religions have we think because there's not a religion I think it's bollocks as I said I wasn't very intellectual about it and I think that a lot of thought went to know I think it's but there are things like theosophy I don't even know what it was or is but that was something which is very fashionable or cultism and these things can do damage and then there's a moment when they they kind of fall I mean when I what I like to say is I so in defense of the big religions for a second I believe that people should believe in anything or nothing and you go to somewhere like North Korea there is there's a political religion but there is no true freedom to leave and that's wrong and I defend the right to believe in things I really do I defend and this sounds weird but I'll say it that North Korea will never truly be free unless there is a Scientology Hawk in Pyongyang hey by the way all my ex Scientology friends are completely fascinated with North Korea because they've been inside it North Korea some say the church will deny this is Scientology - Tom Cruise Scientology is North Korea plus nuclear weapons but it's the same thing number one restriction of information but but i but i feel there is something fundamentally so the big religions Christianity you know what it is Christ has died crisis risen Christ will come again Islam follow the Prophet Judaism marry a nice Jewish girl don't eat bacon sandwiches I'm not I'm not a I'm not a theologist however Scientology tells lies about what it is Tom Cruise if he was sitting here and he clearly hasn't turned up much more disappointment would say that it helps you communicate but deep down they believe that 75 million years ago space aliens were massacred by Lord Sano in volcanoes by hydrogen bombs and the remains of the dead space pesky space alien Souls have stuck to us contaminated us and any sounds always gonna bring us prayer I think that's all pretty simple it's bollocks and I think over time people this is what we've seen is a fantastically rich competence trick which still works for some people many of whom a second or third generation but I think ultimately it will fade it's not it's not growing so it's not growing its ah ever going to say something arrogant that's oh I've almost sold more books of church and further than there are members of the Church of Scientology and if you'd like to buy one and if you put the sales of both our books together we're getting close so the good Patrick not patriotic that's the wrong thing to say the people who run away from our wonderful country and form their own frankly rubber ball by the way square brackets where does Donald Trump stand on Scientology it's that reason or there are lots of natural Trump supporters in the audience tonight oh okay the answers not interesting is Jung comment so yeah if you want to buy a book that would be great and there we could defeat this northeaster the thing I think that when those two Scientologists were allowed to get married on Scientology premises in this country that was I thought it might be the first the first in a line of small legal victories that they won and my instant reaction was well that's a bit I'm not - every other but actually when you think about it if looking back my instant reaction was wrong if two adults want to get married somewhere then Who am I to tell them that they shouldn't Franny said the church said this is proof that Scientology is a religion in the United Kingdom hold on there's no such thing as evil is it the more thing you two have the right are you a [ __ ] agent you shut up sorry let's say he'll get me back later you can these days you can get married in Tesco because you can get in the dog food aisle next to the cat food because you can get married in Tesco does not make Tesco a religion and actually that would be a bad thing because they would pay even less tax than they do now at certain but what they did do was and as a story in The Daily Telegraph blessings not be upon it that actually that this was proof that Scientology is a religion and it's a classic example of Scientology tweaking a minor victory into a colossal Universal global success and it's not true it is still in the United Kingdom not a religion to me it's a shop what do you think well I thought that case was more about England's outdated marriage laws than it was about Scientology anyway yeah yeah I think they're forward-looking and okay but yeah I but I wasn't by the way you've never beaten us at cricket so more extinct to me was who they were you know Louis's father Peter hodkin is you know one of scientific this guy is one of Scientology's you know sharpest attorneys it's always always at the forefront of their various legal attacks so I mean this was very much a church initiative and her groom all a calculon is nephew to Neil Gaiman and which brings up the whole game and family which is fascinating David Gaiman was the face of Scientology for 30 years in this country and Neil himself at one point was executive director of the Birmingham org before he became one of the world's most famous science fiction and fantasy authors and it's fat it's really fascinating to me that he can't really talk about that today because his mother is still deep into it his sisters are still very much into it and his nephew became a symbol for marriage in England so that was just a very fascinating story to me I wasn't too worried about what it said about Scientology's place in England I think it's very clear that Scientology's on fumes in this country at the last census I think there were what 2,000 Scientologists in the entire country and this is supposed to be one of their strongholds right I mean they claimed hundreds of thousands of Scientologists as is not the case I think the best evidence that Scientology is in big trouble going back to the question is how much effort David Miscavige is putting into this whole ideal thing if David Miscavige was confident in the health of his organization the last thing he care about is what we think of his facilities and instead he's madly replacing every Church around the world to try to convince everybody that the church is expanding and it's a sleight-of-hand he's taking a drab facility and replacing it with a nice one and saying look we have a bigger Church now but the people aren't expanding the people are dwindling and I agree with you there will always be people fascinated with l ron Hubbard and his ideas and a thousand years from now Scientology uh bird will be considered like you know a municipal Macpherson and the rest of them but Scientology is not just a simple interest it's this very complex organization that always requires constant new people constant inflow of cash that is breaking down and I don't know exactly what's going to happen but it's getting difficult to keep that engine going do another question it's got the microphones Oh hi um it doesn't seem to me like Scientology has that many distinguishing features unfortunately from a philosophical point of view Buddhism seems to also not have a deity but more like a messiah figure and obviously from the harm point of view Mormons and Hasidic Jews seem to also employ some of the techniques that you were talking about in terms of making people be cut off from everybody who leaves their religion and such does it ever occur to you that maybe instead of trying to assert that Scientology is definitely not a religion we should just strip all religions from all the benefits though and exemptions that we give them as a society and just treat them as any organization should be treated so treat treat treat all religions the same tax them all touch rule I I'm an atheist so I find it very but I don't want to go around telling people what they should or shouldn't believe I mean I'd loved it but I can't I won't and I think if you if you have you can name any relationship with John mentioned a few earlier which have good and bad parts to them and if if societies countries authorities are trying their best to weed out the bad bits constantly because I know the humans of human seems a weak he was a bad thing so the bad bits of all these religions are constantly happening and constantly regenerating on different scales and as long as they're being monitored and and people are trying to ensure that these religions are pure it's possibly one word but doing things properly then and if a country decides that the religion should be child should be exempt from tax on that basis then it's not for me to say that they shouldn't be especially if they can prove that the money that has been used for using the right way but you look at something like Catholicism as a pyramid from the very top down the bad parts are very small parts really relative to the size of the whole thing and I'm not belittling any of the suffering in one way through but but it's simply saying is that it's not the entire thing it's not like it's that it's imposed from above and and and and filters down through through the whole organization Scientology to me that is that it's rotten from the top down all the way through and if another religion is shown to be rotten in the same way then I would say should not have any kind of benefits whatsoever and and and the law enforcement authorities tax authorities whatever kind of authorities you've got should be looking at it very closely and getting very busy with speakings people who've been through bad things so for that reason I think Scientology is different to other religions and I think we have to respect people's rights to believe what they believe in and I would respect people's rights to believe in Scientology any way they want but when it comes to the suffering that the organization imposes on other people who don't ask for it who were conned and hoodwinked into getting involved in something then that's that's that's not something that you can treat I think the same way as a rotten part small part of a bigger religion when the rest of it is actually a positive force for good in the world and I say that as an atheist Alex Gibney asked me something somewhat similar to that in the film going clear because that's shorter that's one of the first things that comes up is you know don't all religions have strange beliefs don't they all have questionable practices and I told him that for me what makes Scientology so interesting and worth paying attention to is that the other some of these other organizations Christianity Judaism Islam they can explain what they believe in a minute or two and although there's clearly a lot more to learn if you decide to become a Christian for 30 years that essential belief of what brings people together never really changes Scientology is nothing like that they tell you at the beginning that it's a self-help philosophy that's going to help you with your communication seven or eight years later you're paying seven or eight hundred dollars an hour to remove invisible alien Souls from your body and they would never tell you that up front and that's the problem I have with it is it so it's it's so deceptive about what it does Jon told you earlier about ot3 which gets all the attention I it's so unfair that Xenu gets so much attention I like ot4 okay once you're once you're done once you're done with ot3 these operating thetan levels cost anywhere between ten and fifty thousand dollars each OT four on ot three you learn that you have all these invisible alien Souls attached to you left over from the Zeno genocide and seventy five million years ago and you drive them away with the e meter great I'm free ot for you find out there's a whole nother set of them and they're junkies and so you literally have to put them through rehab and l ron hubbard writes that the pre-clear is a prio t is going to tell you but i don't abuse drugs i've never done any it doesn't matter your your BTS are a bunch of junkies not only were they heavy users but they were using some kind of space coke that we haven't even invented yet in some other galaxies and you've got to literally dry them out one by one hundreds and thousands for hundreds of dollars an hour this is why I find Scientology so fascinating I think I think the patient I think I think I think people who see psychotherapists are in a slightly different position these are the free will and and payment for services than people at the lower reaches of Scientology I know I know you mean it when the function is on aren't incomparable we should have some all what I have a simple take on this which is this is and it's embarrassing I went to the halo Tree Festival and gave my talk about Scientology Church affair and I had too much to drink in the greenroom afterwards and the arch of the former Archbishop of Canterbury and always get his name wrong it's Rowan Atkinson it wasn't Rowan Atkinson it's the other guy what's his name really yeah anyway looks like God and and I had a lot to drink and I said the thing about you Archbishop X is that I admire you because when you left the Church of England you said I apologize all the mistakes I've made and I thought that was really good for the religious leader to apologize for his mistakes um and and he said thank you and I certainly other things I bet you've never said you suck [ __ ] on Hollywood Boulevard which is allegedly what david miscavige says and i'm desperate to get the pub now to get out of this anecdote but what i'm aiming at is what gave us a gag actually that sandy Smith who was the editor of panorama when the first one went out the CEO Scientology and me and he wrote the last line of the show which was great which was Scientology if you get something out of it well good luck to you but as far as we're concerned they won't be presenting songs of praise anytime soon I can't imagine the Church of England ever sensing sending private eyes against use that dancer to me or to to to Tony's mother or whoever the Builder in the band was outside Humphreys house but and the hall or psychotherapy I'm looking to defend psychotherapy I had psychotherapists once and I realized it was more cost-effective for me to buy toaster but but psychotherapy doesn't as an organization as a thing hire private eyes to spy on people who dare criticize it as the lady behind the lady who made the point beautifully expressed the freedom to discuss psychotherapy with no real problem so I don't think it's like that I do feel especially dark and doesn't deserve to be considered to be religion because it's pay-as-you-go in my book there's no such thing as opposed you go religion we should do some more questions like three or four and I should shut up hi real interesting talk guys I wanted to focus on what Tony Ortega was saying right near the start on Scientology not being a religion given its money orientation and I'm interested to know what you there will think of people like Joel Osteen and the the prosperity gospel so similar idea but not Scientology I think that's ultimately going to come back to the definition of religion which has obviously been an ongoing theme and I wanted to raise interesting point from a talk that it was here quite some time ago about the Advertising Standards Authority here in the UK the comparison was drawn between a complaint about an ad that depicted a Catholic imagery and made it somewhat sexual so subverted Catholic imagery and there were three or four complaints and the ad was struck any other basis for a complaint needs hundreds or thousands of complaints for the ad to be struck so the problem there just like a problem you're saying with Scientology and potentially with Joel Osteen seems to be that with no definition everyone is on a very very broad sort of cautionary oh well we'll just do it because you really don't understand what the problem is and it's just easier to go ahead and say that's fine or that's not or whatever because we don't really understand what religion is we can't pin it down and therefore we can't actually make a black and white decision that has any legal weight so I'm curious to know what you think about Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel and whether or not that sort of has the same idea and whether that ties in with what you were saying about the definition of religion particularly with regards to fiber one sees in the states well I don't have much respect for any ministers that put so much emphasis on money the way Osteen does and some of these other charlatans in the United States I don't but I again I don't know how that affects the definition of religion I think again the definition religion is so it's like Sam through your fingers what's a cult to one person is as a religion to another what's a religion to one person is a business to another and I think I think you just go around circles and it's a big waste of time to me what's important is that Scientology sells itself as a self-help organization to help you with your communication and several years later your family's ripped apart you're completely bankrupt and and you're wondering what the hell happened and then they kick you out and then if you say something then they try to destroy your life so you know again we could argue about whether that's a church or a religion or not but I'm more interested in talking to the people whose lives have been destroyed and to ask them how that happened and try to help them were you know reunite with their family the thing that struck me about following up these these cousins days you can be arguing about what is or isn't a religion probably ultimately comes down to what one person says they feel about something really there's there's no there's no way of I think ultimately cutting through it I can say what I think you can't say anything but really that's what it does does it but what you can tell is when someone or an organization is taking advantage of other people a bit financially or in terms of time or whatever you can tell when that's going on and that enclosed bit because it kind of you know the groove one one minister in the people who looks after or who listen to him you can tell when some kind of abuse is going on there that doesn't necessarily mean the whole thing isn't and shouldn't be considered a religion in my eyes and as I was saying only the point of our Scientology's it's different cuz that that in closed culture of a conversion of people and possibly reason comes from the very top so that for me is why stick well and now they're going through a real crisis because at least in past days the pressure to give money was to for your own journey up what's called the bridge to total freedom give us a several thousand dollars so you can pay for your next three levels give us fifty thousand dollars and you'll get all the way to Ooty but it was always give the money so you can advance now it's just give us the money because we need it and it's they're all being asked to donate to something called the International Association of Scientologists and it's like a video game you've given us fifty thousand if you give us a hundred thousand you get this special back and you're called patron meritorious or whatever the hell they call it and it all the emphasis is on give us money for our projects of building buildings and they're no longer moving up the bridge I mean the difference is radical and again I think it's another sign of that that that machine is breaking down we should do I I'm sorry this yeah this is this is a very I hear this a lot from people who felt that what I was just describing that l ron hubbard wanted you to spend money so you could move up this cause scheme of courses hubbard died in 1986 by then a young man named david miscavige had already exerted control over the organization you got to give him some credit he's been running the thing for 29 years most organizations like this don't survive the death of their founder but as he's gone along he's pushed out a lot of people who don't like his current policies and feel that he's mucking up what upward had done earlier and so a lot of the people he's got an exodus on his hands a lot of longtime loyal members who are used to paying a lot of money are leaving because they don't like the extreme fundraising that hub that Miscavige is doing that he's changing some of the tech in ways that data that they don't like and so people come out and they will tell you that what Hubbard had was valuable and Miscavige is ruining it and I meet a lot of people that feel that way however some people will come out saying that and I'll come back to them a year later and so are you auditing on your own outside the church oh no Tony I sold all the books so some some people will remain loyal to Hubbard I mean there are people that have been outside of the church who are still auditing outside of the church thirty years later other people come out and they key on going out and I I'm having to talk to them either way I think either either scenario is a big problem for david miscavige and that's why I think he's facing a day of reckoning yes we should we get which probably going to your neck the old neck its Satan worship is okay yes a one last question yeah my questions about David Miscavige and the people at the top do you view them as being fukui coldly and cynically running a business and knowingly peddling [ __ ] or do you see them as true believers who genuinely take her all his gospel so like I don't I don't know what they told you John but when I talked to render and Rathbun and some of the others about that they Rathbun will tell you that Miscavige really believes in the tech and in Hubbard and in despite the fact that he's changing things well how did you did you get the same thing from them there was a copper on use in the the West Midlands whatever it was serious crime squad which was eventually busted because of corruption but we give it we've been given pictures of good people here anyway he said I dealt with conman and the thing about the really good con man was they believed in the con so the answer to your question is yes and no but at the same time I think at some at some and also the remotes in my life when I've realized I've been conned and I am or I'm in the process of being conned and part of me looks at myself almost like an out-of-body experience and thinks hold on a second John you're being conned here but the psychological consequences of accepting that I've made a terrible mistake are so damaging that you don't want to admit to that so at the same time and think this is what happens in Scientology people who are in Scientology when I did my screaming thing I apologized them I apologized now what with I should say that with more convictions say I can remember thinking oh isn't that dreadful and also at the same time there's something wrong and that's in a sense one of the proudest moments of my life that the that you helped push that so the answer is yes and no they know I think Miscavige himself knows that he's what he's doing is wrong and at the same time he believes that he's saving humanity and let me just add let me just add one thing to that if Miscavige is a believer where does that put crews and I wondered this question if maybe Miscavige is just in awe of Tom Cruise and sucks up to him and but I got it straight from John Bruce Oh John Bruce all was David Miscavige's brother-in-law John Brousseau worked with Tom Cruise renovated his cars nobody knows he's two like John Rizzo and the way John Purcell put it to me was Tom proves worships david miscavige like a god they are convinced they are the only two big beings on the planet which is a prison planet and they're superior to the rest of us so just something to keep in mind talking in prison planets should we sell the books in the pub we do here all right we can sell them on the back before making the answer's no we do it here because you told me okay this is it here well thank you very much i if you didn't get a photo opportunity before I printed out a couple of masks for each of our panelists here so would you give a big THANK to you well hold up mass for John Sweeney Humphrey Hanukkah and so you okay go I thank you all for coming along will be resuming london thinks on the 1st of September with Steven keen talking about the downfall of our economy and everyone else has gotta me Humphrey hunter will be selling books to the back come and eat us or meet us down the pub afterwards which is the old Nick which is just off redline Street thank you very much everyone and good night thank you

Channel: Conway Hall

Views: 183,591

Rating: 4.5943518 out of 5

Keywords: Scientology (Religion), Conway Hall, London Thinks, louis theroux, myscientologymovie, my scientology movie

Id: 0B5ojfWryqA

Length: 84min 54sec (5094 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2015