Scientology vs Jehovah's Witnesses - A Talk with Lloyd Evans

okay hello and we are doing our first collaboration video here today with Lloyd Evans he is an ex Jehovah's Witness and Jehovah's Witnesses are a destructive cult in the same way that Scientology is and I thought it would be a good idea to connect up with him and see you know how things compare and contrast between the two destructive cults and what life is like in them and how we both what our different stories and how we got out and decided to be activists against them and proceed from there and see what sort of things come up so hi welcome Lloyd thank you for having me on the video and thank you for taking the initiative with this absolutely okay good well why don't we start with you briefly telling your story as a JW how you got involved and how you eventually you know twigged on something was wrong with it and got yourself out okay so I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness from childhood I was baptized at the age of 11 it's not uncommon for witnesses to be baptized as your news9 and from that point on which from being baptized you essentially locked into the cults there's no graceful way of leaving and when I was 20 I started to you know see gaps in the matrix so to speak and realize that there were issues but when I was 21 my mother died and that forced all of those things onto the back burner because when you were Jehovah's Witness you're told that well yes your mother is dead but she's not quite that she's still alive in Jehovah's memory and the way for you to see her again is to be a good loyal Jehovah's Witness so I bought into that and continued to advance in the organization to the point of being an elder and then through a series of events I ended up moving to Croatia when I was 29 and within a year I had woken up because I was no longer attending indoctrination meetings in English I could no longer understand the local language and as a results I literally felt myself get unplugged from my indoctrination and since then I've been involved in activism awesome awesome that's that's fascinating I'm by your story really that way with your well you know it's it's it's the comparison actually the direct comparison is more along the lines of you know you went to a place where you know you couldn't be as deeply embedded or as deeply involved with it because of the language barrier right yeah yeah and for me that happened because I was traveling all over the United States for a couple years and so I was kind of unplugged from the central core of the of the see organization in Los Angeles because I was literally in a car driving around and you know and meeting various people who were kind of disaffected with the church and trying to get them back in and that was my job was to allemande about ground will you in the sea look oh yes I was right yeah I was I was in the Sea Org for 17 years right and it was when I was in the last four years of that was spent traveling around the United States working on different projects and opening up different churches you know they have that they have this ideal board program where they're opening up nice big buildings show show yeah yeah and so I was working on that and in the process of doing that I saw things that most cult members don't see with their own two eyes you know which was a lot of big empty buildings yeah you know and I know I was I'm just curious how does the how do the JW's promote their success or their expansion within the JW community do they have big events where they announce lots of good news or anything like that cuz that's a real big deal in Scientology sure well events have been very much a part of the JW calendar for four decades but probably they're structured differently to Scientology I mean from what I can tell you have these events that seems to be focused around buildings opening up buildings opening ceremonies we don't really have that we do have dedications of new buildings and they can sometimes be quite big events but they're not given anywhere near the same kind of Hollywood treatment that Scientology gives the main events which I hope as witnesses are the regular conventions that take place on a yearly basis for most witnesses in between that you you've got kind of smaller assemblies which are about four about a thousand people and then you have the larger conventions that are between five and ten thousand people and then you also have versions of those conventions that are kind of designed for people to come up from all over the world and kind of congregate and they can be anything from fifteen to twenty thousand people so you do have these big events but they're not given from what I can tell will actually let me go back and they haven't traditionally been given the same razzmatazz treatment that Scientology gives its opening ceremonies but we are starting to see all a great deal of hype surrounding the international conventions where governing body members are slated to appear and there's a lot more hype surrounding them now so you are starting to see people going crazy with handing out souvenirs I'm putting on special entertainment events for the convention delegates so it's starting to go a little bit more like Scientology in that way before miss Cabot Devin stabs the current leader of Scientology started the ideal organization program which was around 2004 and and since then but but all the way back to the 80s he started this idea of international events where he would get thousands of Scientologists at a time to attend this big event and he and other people others ontology luminaries would go onstage and make these you know grandiose announcements about the expansion of Scientology and how great it was doing and they initially they were more fact-based they showed actual facts and figures and had other people and must a vagina staged talking and as the years progressed it became you know it whittled down to just Miscavige standing on stage right and and the facts and figures became more and more hype and less and less reality you know the graphs and that they would show and things like that became ridiculous ridiculously exaggerated and yeah and so but I but I'm I'm fascinated by what you just said because you know you the JW's will have these events where you said you know fifteen thousand people ten ten thousand people at a time yeah to show up at these you know the the big huge is funny to me because in Los Angeles where I worked the big unachievable target for every single event the one we never even came close to hitting well except once at one event was 10,000 if we could get 1,000 people you know it was online with Scientology in the world isn't it over about well exactly and it makes me wonder you know with your guys's events it doesn't sound like it was that big of a deal they got that many people know it's easy they could do bigger ones if they wanted and in fact in the early years of Jehovah's Witnesses though there was like the the heyday in the 1950s and 60s when they would literally crammed for example the Yankee Stadium in New York with something like a quarter of a million witnesses also tied in by by audio link so it's just purely the the the rules and regulations that stopped them from doing that nowadays but if they want it if they have the means to get you know those sorts of figures together again logistically then they would do it it's just purely the you know health and safety regulations and and and the capacities of these stadiums as prevent preventing them because you know you have 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses around the world so it's really no stretch for them to get those sorts of figures Wow well that is itself a statement about the size of Scientology because those events are a real barometer for how many members they really have and have Scientologists claim to have tens of millions of members then it should be easy to pack the Yankee Stadium yeah and believe me if they could they would oh yeah yeah yeah that's a thing called cults like the like the self-congratulation of seeing throngs of people all crowded together to sing the praises of the leaders it's something that really binds into the ego of of co-leaders isn't it well it is that's interesting in fact I wanted to ask you about that I was watching some videos you know some of the critiques and things that you do or the breakdowns that you do where the the JW leaders are talking and it's funny these daddies are these old you know I don't know I don't want to say for money but they're they're not very sinister looking people you know know and you know David Miscavige and Scientology is kind of a an intense man he's in a really yeah yes he's he's quite something you know and he really spends a lot of money and time to put on this very flashy showy image and and he's very Tom Cruise like that way you know it doesn't it's no surprise he and Tom cruiser or BFFs you know yeah but looking at the JW governing body I guess these love these older men it's quite different yeah well that's a good observation I think there's a reason why it's different in Scientology there's only really ever been LRH and Miscavige mm-hmm you had this kind of very how can I put it rather aggressive takeover that was staged by by Miscavige what once a la LRH died we kind of had that in 1916 quite a lot hundred years ago we had that when the original founder of Jehovah's Witnesses Charles taze Russell died while he was on his train and that was kind of like a leadership coup and this stronger Thorat Arian figure grabbed control of the organization his name was Joseph Rutherford and he was really our Miscavige but we're talking as I say about a hundred years ago that's all that happened the leaders of the organization that you see today have have kind of arisen from an entirely different how can I put it evolutionary process hmm nothing like David Miscavige what you look at when you look at the seven governing body members that are currently in office it's almost like the byproduct of like a microcosm of survival of the dumbest so in being a case of the smarter you are and the cleverer you are and the more aggressive you are the more likely it will be that you'll be the leader the way the way the leadership structure is is set up with Jehovah's Witnesses is that the more the less independent thinking you have the less education you have the more you're willing to say yes the more you're willing to follow orders the more likely it will be that you will rise to the top and as a result of that when you look at the seven men who are now the governing body members you don't see a great deal of intelligence you don't you they don't come across as being particularly intimidating I can think of one example but for the most part you're right they come across as rather beguiling and and unfriendly and you know not too intimidating but what you're really looking at is is simple stupidity and similar tea I would suggest they really are the byproduct of an organization that quenches or pours water over any kind of free inquiry and they criticism on rewards people for just saying yes wow that that is really fascinating it opens the door to a line of inquiry I'd like to kind of segue into for just a second that I didn't know I would be asking you about but there is a lot of conjecture a lot of I'm often asked about what will happen to you know who will secede who will succeed mismanage what will happen if Miscavige takes the money and runs or dies or or simply you know what one day says okay I'm done and turns it over to somebody else right and it's always been my conjecture that that when he goes the whole thing collapses because he's got the keys to the kingdom and I don't think he's interested in sharing the passwords to the bank accounts with anybody else and that sort of thing but it makes me wonder how you know you mentioned the Rutherford was your was the JW Miscavige what happened with him that had evolved into what it is now how did that succession occur well there was no real smooth transition all you had was Rutherford dying so he didn't really I suppose you could you could say that he he lined up Nathan nor to replace him but it wasn't as though he was going to let Nathan know replace him while he was still alive it was very much over my dead body so it literally took for Rutherford to die in his mansion in San Diego which is another story entirely I mean he he had a house built out over in San Diego because he believed that this is where the likes of Moses Abraham King David Sampson would be resurrected in 1925 to start ruling over overpoured effect messianic Kingdom on the earth and and now he had his house in Beth's Arum deeded to all of these Bible characters and he could the idea was that he would hold it interest for them and that's a I've actually visited this house so I know it exists and I've got all of the old books that mention it where they're very open about what the purpose of the house is and it's a perfect example without deviating from your question too much of how when you really start looking in the organization's history all the clues are there that it's a crazy cult was now it was inherited by a Nathan nor in when Rutherford died in 1942 and it was only when Nathan noir took over that we started to see the transition to the governing body format that we see today because in 1971 when Nathan noir was starting to get a little bit old and vulnerable and senile he thought he'd shared some of his power with an expanded group or governing body with the idea being that he would still also ultimately make all the decisions but at least he had a little bit more delegation and things kind of overtook him so that while he was still president of the governing body said no if he wants us to be a governing body then we want to govern and this entire entity kind of rose from the ashes and said we are going to be the leadership moving forward so it's quite fascinating I'm writing about about the whole thing at the moment in my book and it has been covered by other writers as well but it's very interesting to see the transition in Jehovah's Witnesses from a Miscavige LRH style set up where you have one leader to an organization where there is a group of leaders who consider themselves the same as Jesus's apostles that that is absolutely fascinating and you know there's no preordained any sort of path for Scientology but it certainly does open up the idea that maybe that could occur for that organization as scary as that might be as a thought because I've always somewhat been comforted by the idea that once Miscavige is done it's over could another that holds a lot of crazy leaders if if mr. goes I'm afraid well yeah apparently apparently that could be the case it really is a matter of how the transition of the bank accounts and the lawyers who control so much behind the scenes in Scientology how that transition occurs if somebody else can step up and actually gain access to those things and gain control of them and that's that that's a pretty big logistical question when it comes to Scientology's labyrinth of corporations but if somebody does manage to wrangle control of that then it could carry on just in the same way that the JW's house how having said that I can't help the feel when I look at Scientology that it's a dead man walking already and yes I think it's alive sort of in name only and I don't see where the growth in Scientology is coming from I just think the global exposure is I mean Jehovah's Witnesses are getting to the stage where like Scientology they have a toxic run they're not quite there yet and even if we've kind of pressed hit we even if we hit the fast-forward button and made it so that tomorrow Jehovah's Witnesses are as toxic as Scientology you would still have a case where Jehovah's Witnesses have about eight million members and Scientology has about fifty thousand or less right we've got a lot of gas in the tank or Jehovah's Witnesses have got a lot of gas in the tank in terms of of how much they can survive off their members but when you have a cult that is as toxic as Scientology with such a tiny membership core you know it's an only going in one direction that is down so I'm amazed amazed it's lasted this long after going clear in fact but yes must must be very encouraging for Scientology activists at the moment and which is partly why I'm trying to get a few of you to think about moving on so Jehovah's with is off designer well well to be totally honest with you that was is one reason why we're having this conversation baby because I've it's been my goal on for a while now a couple a few months now to to expand what I'm talking about and when doing because because I've realized that Scientology is but one of many destructive cults yeah you know and and in fact um for my own recovery it was a huge deal for me to hit on the fact that Scientology is nothing special no no you know and and it fell ron Hubbard was really just rolling out you know point by point right out of the cult leaders playbook yeah so to speak and and it was it was quite something because in Scientology and I'm kind of last about JW's here as well my you have an idea as a member of Scientology that you are part of something that is very unique very special no one else has this or anything else even approximating it and so therefore you know you're you're in a special place and to realize after the fact you know that Hubbard was no different than Jim Jones some myung-soo you know these guys moon right the movies was doing the exact same things the exact same indoctrination techniques although you know albeit in Scientology it's pretty you know method eyes yeah but to see those those similarities was was shocking to me and to realize how onion eek it was yeah I think I think that that is a key strategy in helping people who are inside cults because one thing that I I really try and do with my own activism is reach into my mindset from where I was to the Jehovah's Witness and try and remember how I would have reacted to certain bits of information have I been shown them and the trouble is with most of the negative information about Jehovah's Witnesses that's available online including on my website and on my youtube channel is that immediately the moment a Jehovah's Witness sees something this is remotely critical the barriers will go up and it's like no I cannot listen to this but the beauty of you looking at other cults is that you're basically using a backdoor approach because if there's one thing Jehovah's Witnesses are good at is criticizing every other religion there's a few books I can think of one more one in particular the revelation book which which I was raised on very very fiercely critical of the Catholic Church and I'm in fact most Christian denominations that obviously weren't Jehovah's Witnesses and when you when you use that strategy against them by by showing a Jehovah's Witness well look at this documentary on the Mormons look at these BBC documentaries bailu through on the Westboro Baptist Church look at this fantastic documentary film by Alex Gibney called going clear none of these films use the word Jehovah's Witnesses but all of the same characteristics are there so that you're watching and thinking oh my word it's pressing all of the buttons without directly confronting Jehovah's Witnesses so I think that that this project and a new reaching out to me and is hoping to kind of work together a bit better can only improve that and and help people who are in different cults start to see the similarities I agree completely I've I'm just finishing Steve Hassan's but the combating cult mind control and what we're talking about right now is very much a strategy to address somebody who's in a destructive cult and start getting them to start putting some connecting some dots by showing them other calls things they would be willing to look at that you know we're who exactly what you were just they won't look at critical things about their own cult but boy will they will boy will they laugh at other causes another Colts yeah exactly so that's a very valid strategy and and I can see in my own path how that how that you know played out for me so let's get to you know so maybe some of the basics of how people get involved I'm really curious about this how do you how do people get other than being born into it what sort of in in Scientology they use the word dissemination right that's the word in there spreading seeds right disseminating is where that word comes from for getting in new members you know you disseminate to new members they don't use the word proselytize for you know that that word has nothing to do with land all of you but disseminate does how do you JW's go about are they aggressive or are they passive how do they how do they do it I think I think most people are familiar with the scenario of two Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on their door and having the magazine's in their hand and the nice smiling face and you know leading with some question like you know wouldn't it be wouldn't it be nice to see an end of suffering wouldn't it be nice to see an end of poverty and though that's the the classic technique that Jehovah's Witnesses use is door-to-door evangelism the problem is is that we're now in the Internet age I mean if you have sales people coming to your door offering you a remarkable opportunity that seems too good to be true you know if you've got any kind of common sense or intelligence the first thing you do when the door closes is jump on Google and see whether it is too good to be true because you can guarantee that that there will be something that's that comes up straight away if there's anything negative to it and that's what people are doing with Jehovah's Witnesses and that's why the the door to door technique of gaining new members is already kind of obsolete and I'm not working they've tried diversifying a little bit with using literature carts in cities and and that's quite a big thing now when you go into a city center and walk around for any length of time you'll usually find somewhere Jehovah's Witnesses with carts full of literature trying to encourage people to have new Bible studies but that suffers from exactly the same problem as soon as people go home and go on Google they'll again have the same information thrown at them the only effective way to make a jehovah's witness nowadays is child indoctrination and that's where you really do see some of the most potent propaganda there's a series of cartoons on jw.org for children called become jehovah's friend and it centers around a fictional boy and girl called Kayla and Sofia and they're JW parents and the cartoons are all designed to teach children to be good loyal Jehovah's Witnesses and to be scared of of dying at Armageddon if they don't pay attention at the meetings and to be scared of growing old and wrinkly like Adam and Eve if they play with the wrong kind of toy so very very sinister very very potent and aimed at children wow that's that's fascinating and and again you know not dissimilar to Scientology because you know the Internet has been referred to as Scientology's Vietnam yeah because there's just no there's no coming back from from the toxic you know label that they have who creates those cartoons and that who writes that stuff and does that is that all in-house or well I think when that when the cartoons first appeared there were some conjectures to whether they hired an outside firm and I think there's definitely been some outside expertise because the cartoons are done to quite a high standard but I think ultimately it's done in-house and you know all of the voices in the scripts and everything comes from the watchtower headquarters so it's very much an in-house job now ok cool what kind of grinning at the background at 7:00 a.m. I'm in someone else's house I'm letting them kind of come and go hopefully it's not too distracting there are fine slowly fine how how how much how much exact methodology or you know precise miss of of the techniques and what that they use you know in in Scientology there's a lot of policy letters and and bulletins that Hubbard wrote just just books and book some books of these things about how to do everything from washing windows to properly disseminating to doing the counseling and it's all very precise how how much of that is there beyond the scriptural texts of you know the Bible and whatnot are there very many policies or procedures for doing these kinds of things in the JW's yeah you name it there's a policy for it a similar thing really I don't know whether you familiar with what's happening in Australia at the moment but there's a Royal Commission into institutional responses to child abuse that's going on and Jehovah's Witnesses are really under the spotlight there because of their terrible track record in mishandling child abuse and one thing that the Commission are doing is they're going into the policy documents of Jehovah's Witnesses all of the memos all of the letters all of the guidelines there are books that only elders are allowed or sorry there's one book that only elders are allowed to read normal witnesses don't get to see it and in fairness to the Commission they're doing a very skillful job of bringing up all of all of this information and challenge and challenging the watchtower leaders in Australia on it but I can remember when I was an elder I was an elder only a brief period only a year but on a on a almost weekly basis we'd get letters passed down from headquarters on even the most menial things you know what how to run the parking lot how to empty the donations boxes who should hold the microphones at meetings who qualifies to read the watchtower at the watchtower study any is the really the most menial things all had rules for them that's fascinating that's actually very interesting because it's completely parallel to Scientology and and another thing that's that's parallel is actually destroying I don't know if you know and then in the 60s I think it was there was a Royal Commission in Australia investigating Scientology and it ended up with for a brief period of time there was a ban on Scientology in Australia as a result of that Wow yeah I didn't yeah yeah yeah it was quite something that old Australian Scientologists would tell war stories about how they were defying the Australian Commission's you know findings and whatnot back in the day and they they had their Scientology materials buried in the backyard and you know would run meetings out of their living rooms and things like this because there couldn't be official organizations it was all very you know presented in a very heroic light you know against the suppression of the Australian government you know well that foam foam that absolutely a little bit to be persecuted and to feel closer and that's one of the reasons why I don't advocate overs witnesses to be barman you know I genuinely believe that everyone should have the choice to to join what have a wacky called they want to choose but by the same token I think cults have responsibilities to society especially if they're going to claim tax breaks and in some cases charitable status I think you should work both ways so I it particularly insults me that in the United Kingdom Jehovah's Witnesses are registered as a charity even though they print propaganda telling my sister and my dad that I should be shunned as a mentally diseased person apparently it's okay for a charity to do this so there's clearly issues there that needs to be looked at and they're at there are responsibilities that all organizations should have whether they're religious or not but ultimately I don't think the answer lies in in banning because all you do is is you make it more exciting and romantic and and you feed into the whole persecution complex that cults already have exactly I agree completely that that underdog meant you know sort of image that a cult can you know then foster with with non cult members you know they'll garner a lot of support on that and that's that's definitely not a winning strategy to you know I think I agree completely with you you know freedom of thought freedom of speech and encouraging people to think for themselves is really what gets people out of cults you know ultimately I think it's Steven Hassan who who's whose quite well when he said nobody likes being lied to you know ultimately no one likes being lied to so provided all of the informations out there and provided you know these organizations themselves are being forced to play by other rules which at the moment they're not you can more or less leave it to people to figure out for themselves but at the moment you have this very uneven situation where you know organizations like Scientology like Jehovah's Witnesses like a good number of other cults are getting away with murder in terms of tax breaks and an official status and charity and charitable status and it's only through the efforts of people like you and I that you know that the awareness is gradually being raised about it so that governments can start to think how actually we do have responsibilities here we do need to look into this exactly exactly well okay so so now in terms of indoctrination you have you know people who are raised in the JW's but then you also have people really have been proselytize to they come in you know let's say I you know were to want to convert to Jehovah's Witnesses right how does how is a fanatical frame of mind created in the JW's well famous with any cult deception yeah I if there was one word I could use to oil down the whole idea of mind control and undue influence and brainwashing whatever you want to call it I would I would shrink it down to deception you know you can get people to do pretty much anything that you want them to do provided you're skillful enough for lying to them and withholding information you see it with Scientology you see with your hope as witnesses if there's if there's published information that's critical about the organization guess what it's wrong and it's actually we the cult leaders who are right and all of that other stuff is some huge conspiracy to mislead people into doing about things or saying about things about about us it's actually us that mister telling the truth all of this is deception on some level and it's inexcusable enough when it's done between adults but when you have the situation where children are being lied to I think that's one of the most distressing things for me because I can see it happening with my own relatives who are becoming the next generation of Jehovah's Witnesses in my family I can see them being deceived and lied to as well but I think you can kind of excuse it to some extent when it's between adults but you know child indoctrination for me is is one of the most sickly forms in which cults do indoctrinate new people agree I H I totally agree with you I'm not I don't have you know a broad solution for this really figured out well yet but I definitely consider that you know some of the mental and psychological anguish that children are put through in the name of religious beliefs is tantamount to child abuse yeah yeah you know I really don't have another word for it I mean especially when when when physical violence comes into it where a child is beaten into believing something or punished for not believing it which is acquainting to the same thing yeah you know I know I think that's child abuse and I think it's wrong and there's a of course in the States you know there's freedom of speech and freedom of thought and that sort of thing so there's a little bit of a how do you regulate this effectively because you know you can't tell people what they can and can't believe and you know you can't easily tell people too much about how to raise their kids in terms of you know inculcating belief but so it's a tough question but but it seems kind of you know clear that that it can become you know a form of abuse and that's definitely unacceptable I think I think were just at the wrong point in history at the moment I think that future generations will figure out how to navigate these nuances of how do you keep religious liberty and how do you give parents you know freedom to you know to teach their children without without allowing for this situation where cults can so easily exploit the whole arrangement I think future generations will have it all figured out much better but you know it falls to us unfortunately to help lay the groundwork and we are getting some really powerful pieces chunks of information by people like Alex given me by people like Lawrence Wright who are just you know helping the broader public realized listen there are people who were exploiting the status quo and they're getting clean away with it and they're gonna keep getting away with it until we do something about it so I mean that there are things I think about from time to time from time to time I think there will be nice if school children could have a compulsory lesson in their syllabus where they're told about mind control and undue influence and they have at least this idea given to them that not everything that their parents or friends or community leaders tell them is necessarily going to be true it's always important to question things it's always important to do research and when you think you have all the answers that's probably the point where you're on the where it's most urgent that you do research so there are things that we can do there are things that I'm sure future generations will do but I think it's exciting to be in a way to be part of the kind of to be among the pioneers in trying to raise awareness in this area I agree it is it is it's fun to do this you know from a certain point of view it's certainly status that is very satisfying yeah do you know to be on on what we now consider to be the right side of things you know when you wake up for you know from my control you know there's there's certainly an urge and desire to want to do something about it yeah and it's satisfying to to fight back against that sort of thing and I agree completely about what you're saying about you know teaching children about mind control undue influence I think also critical thinking skills you know it should be just mandatory in in schools you know and it's a it's a real omission that's not in there and even up to the college level here in the States I'm not sure internationally but here in the states it's woefully inadequate in teaching our kids about that yeah how how are violations of all of these rules and policies and whatnot in the JW's dealt with you know on a real like like in a real practical manner how did our elders responsible for dishing out discipline and how does that you know what-what can somebody expect is it as a job as witness if they start going off the reservation or off the path not fully out they haven't left but they just start disagreeing with things and start start manifesting those disagreements well there isn't really any room for disagreeing with things first you can have is a situation where a Jehovah's Witness has doubts they could maybe be open about the fight with their we witness friends and family oh well I have doubts at the moment but there's only so much mileage in that in terms of staying afloat in the congregation at some point you're gonna get attention from the elders and the solution that will be put to you is that well if you have doubts really you shouldn't be entertaining them you should be you should be doing research into only Watchtower publications and if you still can't find the answers in those publications then you should forget about them and stop talking about them so that's the approach to doctrinal differences that there is no room for doctrinal differences among witnesses but in terms of discipline probably you are aware there's a great big long list of things that Jehovah's Witnesses simply aren't allowed to do and a good number of those are what's termed this disfellowshipping offenses so if you do one of those things and you're unrepentant for it then you will be dispeller ships now the interesting thing is is that some of these things are actually quite trivial compared to crimes so for example you could have you know let's say an 18 year old girl sleeping with her boyfriend so that would be a diss fellowshiping offense someone getting involved in in professional boxing that's a disco shipping offense someone smoking a cigarette that's a disfellowship offense so lots of reasonably trivial things are clusters disfellowshipping offenses but you could be a pedophile you could rape a child and if you say the right things and convince the elders that you're sorry you won't be dispeller ships you know you've committed a crime a crime that will leave a long-standing scar on on the poor child but if you say the right things and you convince the elders that you're sorry then you get to continue on as a jehovah's witness him as we're finding out in the Australian Commission in the majority of cases these crimes go under the radar so it really is remarkable the the lack of fairness and the lack of of justice when you actually really starts to examine the disfellowship in practice very that's very interesting and again it brings to mind exact parallels in Scientology where I know of well two cases come to mind where you know the one was a guy who was a convicted pedophile why he got caught yeah and went to jail and within the Scientology world they covered it up covered up to the point where nobody even knew the guy was in jail right they kept up his Facebook page you know they kept up an apparent see that he was you know was okay and his wife went along with this and at least that's the information that I have right is shocking and then this death this came out you know another activist you know did a new story on this and it was like what what what you know I got and I actually knew who that this guy you know solo like quite shocking to find out he was pedophile and then again Australia rears its head there was a woman out there who was the the president is Australian and she was the president of their the church's anti-psychiatry organization that that's called CCHR the citizens Commission on Human Rights and she had encouraged a child to not testify or not not you know press charges or something in regards to being abused and this came out years later and she got how stood Rana but within the Scientology world you know no real major consequences it was all just a big you know in Scientology non Scientologists are called walks right right so it was just a big thing you know that walk conspiracy walk justice was was wrong you know in this case because she was doing the right thing sort of sort of deal so totally parallel you know it was there and they would pay me you would think they would really know to be criminal but for something well this will reflect back beyond those but and we need to do our part to suppress the truth from coming to lightest remarkable stuff but exactly right it's all about the PR and it's interesting seeing that also in the in the JW's yeah so so okay now if a person is dis fellowshipped and I you know I mean I'm sorry I'm not as familiar with this as I as I should be is that a step in the direction of being shunned or is that is it like zero to 100 I mean you're you're nothing you know everything's great and then boom you're shunned like how how does that progression work yet zero to a hundred and the ironic thing is that they used to be a strong anti anti disfellowshipping sentiments in the organization and again we reach back into the history of the witnesses when it was very much a different religion in 1947 not long after other four died there was an awake published about excommunication that was fiercely condemning the practice of excommunication and saying this it was being used as a weapon by the Catholic Church but it was completely against Bible verses that's hidden away oh they were very very strongly against it but within only a few years in 1952 there was a complete u-turn and they decided actually it's not so bad after all and in fact we're gonna start doing it ourselves so they they started disfellowshipping people in 1952 for as I said this this list of wrongdoings but even then it was better than it was now more than it than it is now because in 1952 let's say you had a relative who was unfairly disfellowshipped for something and you could see for yourself that the witnesses weren't anything special they were just another religion you you needed to get out there was a way for you to disassociate yourself as a witness but still not be shunned so in other words you could kind of gracefully the organization and still maintain ties with those who were still in the organization but then in 1981 or most of the point in 1980 there was a huge scandal involving apostasy right at the top of the organization as a result of which one of the governing body members resigned and was later disfellowship and amid that scandal came in the new rules that said actually disassociation we now view is just the same as disfellowshipping so if someone wants to leave of their own free will they can do but we're going to punish them the same way as we would punish someone who'd sinned so it became just as bad and and that was really when the doors closed and it became impossible to gracefully leave the organization I would only have been about two years old at the time and but changes were made that I'm I'm now living the consequences of so yeah right I do understand that yeah the whole disconnection thing is is horriffic in Scientology there's a there's a very definite progression and it very rarely goes zero to 100 because they they and I think a reason for that might be because it's so small right you know and they don't want to give up members they do a lot to try to you know keep somebody in yeah it's kind of funny because at the same time they're doing everything they can to drive the person out by treating them so badly but but in their own kind of way you know and in the Scientology mindset what they're doing is trying to handle the guy so that he gets his head on straight and wakes up and stops being so you know evil and you know it's and so up so they really drag it out in some cases months or even years where they'll have a guy doing a toning and you know and trying to make up for the damage that he caused and all this sort of stuff on the force they like money yeah oh yeah definitely you're gonna get money and and they and other things too you know they have to stand out on the street corners and pass out their way to happiness books and you know and all that sort of thing I'm curious is there a road back for somebody who's been you know shunned is disenfranchised yeah it just it's very humiliating if you've been disfellowshipped and you want to become a witness again you need to attend months and months of meetings without people talking to you so you literally need to go into the kingdom hall and sit at the back and spend meeting after meeting with people pretending you don't exist so it's like immersing yourself in that environment where people have their backs to you and pretending they're not you know pretending that you're not there for months often for months and months to establish the fact that you're repentant because the idea is they feel put you if you'll drag yourself through that kind of humiliation and you must really really want to come back and then after a few months if the elders believe that you're finally repentant for your sin an announcement will be made and you and hey presto you're a Jehovah's Witness again but I think that in many ways the way that former Witnesses are treated is kind of it's refreshingly counterproductive so for example recently we had somebody who who left the witnesses and I'm quite proud to say he credits my videos as helping him you know at least part of that process to wake up and he really really would believe that you know that the witness religion was right and he was pioneering in a congregation in Canada he was having meetings with elders and he was he was really really wanting to progress within the organization but purely by virtue of the way that his elders treated him and made him jump through hoops to have very very basic standard privileges that they could easily have given to him they made it unnecessarily difficult for him to stay as a witness so they they kind of did my work for me in a way by treating him in a needlessly a draconian way and I think that's an encouraging thing about cold probably about Scientology too is because they are so deluded and because they have bought into their own crap so thoroughly it leads them to do things and make mistakes that are counterproductive it's a little bit like in world war two you got to a situation where the Allies no longer wanted to kill Hitler because he was making all the all the best decisions for them so it's a little bit like that with cults as well I think I exactly I've made my initial analysis of Scientology after I got out I realized the best way to for me to describe it is the you know it's the seeds of its own destruction or in its very DNA yeah and it you know the the way people act in Scientology the way the organization treats its members isn't it it's in its very DNA to abuse them yeah you know and you know another ex friend of mine has said you know look everybody leaves yeah everybody leaves it's just a matter of time in and I mean I'm of course very encouraged by that because I've observed that to be the case yeah what have what sort of results you know you mentioned one guy there what sort of other results have you found from your activism so far and and how long have you been been doing this by the way about three years I've set up my web sites I'll hang on and I set up my web site in 2011 so I've been at it since then and then in 2013 I started making videos so I'm still relatively new at the game to be honest but I I run a web site that surveys ex-jehovah's witnesses encourage Jehovah's Witnesses and asks them a range of questions and one of the questions on the very latest survey relates to how's this website helped you to wake up from your indoctrination I forget the figure that yes so far but it's in into the hundreds which I take a great deal of of encouragement from and I hear these stories I can't answer all the emails I'm guessing already from people not necessarily thanking me personally but you know expressing their appreciation for something I've written or has helped them to kind of wake up but this for example there's one couple who just started making YouTube videos a young married couple and I think this perfectly illustrates the fact that the Internet age is so difficult for cults to operate in because they describe the fact that only only recently as recently as 2013 they were believed they were a believing young pioneer couple so in other words they were spending about 70 hours a week each doing preaching work for jobs witnesses and they went away on holiday and while they were on holiday they were told by the local witnesses oh well when you get back to Canada because they also were from Canada they're not all from Canada by the way when you get back to Canada there's a really really big story and you'll love to hear about it so they're like oh that's interesting and they were so intrigued to know what was happening that they thought well let us go on Google and see if we can find any information on it and the story was that the Jehovah's Witnesses it just brought out a new revision of their Bible which I happen to be covering at the time so my article on it was the first result that they saw they clicked on it and when they were reading my website they didn't know immediately the type that I was an apostate because I was I try and write my articles in such a way that you're not going to know straightaway who was writing it and what their position is and this same thing happened maybe two or three times later where where there was a big story that all Jehovah's Witnesses would know about and they went on Google and my website was one of the first ones that they saw I think that really illustrates the fact that the the game has just completely changed it's impossible for cult leaders to lie to people as easily as it was say 20 years ago it's just it's just difficult now for them to do that and Google really has changed everything I agree completely the internet is is a total GameChanger and it's interesting how the cult policies and the whole methodology of how cults operate has changed as a result of of the internet because the whole point of destructive cults is information control and that's the one thing that that you can't really handle or control in the Internet age yeah the funny thing is with Jehovah's Witnesses is their response has been to try and put out more information on the Internet and the problem that you have is that they're now thinking well what what what we really need is we need to show the governing body members themselves more and that's actually the last thing they do when I was the Jehovah's Witness I took great pride in not necessarily knowing who the governing body were so I could say to people in other in other religions well you have the Pope you have this leader you have that leader I don't know who my leaders are I just know they're called the governing body well now we have the governing body of the 21st century who are saying well we really need to show ourselves on camera more so that the brothers conceals you know and see our smiling faces and all they're doing again they're being counterproductive which is the beautiful thing about cults they don't know when they're shooting themselves in the foot and they're showing Jehovah's Witnesses these befuddled senile characters with jewelry draping off their fingers and unable to string together a coherent sentence and having to read off the autocue looking completely unnatural and completely disconnected from what's happening it's the best thing I could have hoped for so the only downside is that I now have to do these rebuttals every month their videos but you know it's like shooting fish in a barrel because they will always say something outrageous exactly it's the same parallels and same time exactly they're there press releases are awesomely bad you know just just holographic I went through a phase where I was kind of addicted to watching Scientology videos you know you know these tours of like new ideologues in in Zurich or or wherever and I used to love watching those videos just because of how over-the-top and outrageous the narration was I just found it quite funny you know I've passed through that phase now but you know who knows it's quite something even and I gotta tell you even within the church when you're when you're in the church you know with it when you roof in Scientology and you're watching those things they're so over the top though so you know insane that even within you know they create their own doubters they create their own problems because people watch those things and they're just like oh no you see these conference rooms and huge meeting rooms with all of these seats and all these tables and all these amita's and you're thinking there's no way they're ever gonna fill that room they'll be looking to get a couple of people in that room you know exactly as know that's exactly the case that you you gotta and and they are the world's fastest shrinking religion right now you know which is it's just how I like to talk about them so okay well let's um let's wrap this up what do you what's next for you what are you what do you do have any big big plans on the horizon in terms of your activism that you can share or you know what you're doing now I'm very thank you for asking I'm very excited about my book I'm more than halfway through writing it it basically tells my story but it also kind of interspersed is my story with information about the organization in its history so I try and go backwards and forwards a little bit with explaining you know what it's like to be a Jehovah's Witness and basic details about the organization while telling it through the lens of my own experience so I'm really really hoping they'll be able to release that maybe next year and in the meantime it's just basically trying to keep my head above water with covering JW stories on my website and doing the YouTube channel and there's there's a lot of work but I wouldn't change it for anything because it's it's life-affirming it's very very rewarding and it's exciting to be a part of something which you feel is is gaining momentum excellent excellent yeah I agree completely we've both we're both relatively new at this they only been doing this for a couple of years but it is exciting work and it is I love what you just said it's very life-affirming yeah yeah you feel as though you know you're making your own little contribution to the universe and leaving it a slightly better place for people so it's good stuff exactly exactly the case and so much more satisfying and rewarding then then though then what we used to do which was supposed to be so much more life affirming and rewarding and satisfying but really wasn't you know and now that we're doing this it is so it's it's a lot of fun it is I'm new on you meet great people all the time I'm meeting you now and I'm sure that we'll have all the projects together in the future absolutely absolutely thank you thank you very much for for your time on this I really appreciate it this was a lot of fun and very educational and I actually really look forward to reading your book so Varian get it done alright and and good we will talk again soon thank you very much for being here is Lloyd Evans who again his YouTube channel is under john cedars and you should definitely check it out it is fascinating information about the Jehovah's Witnesses and the kind of goofy things that go on in that group you know what these destructive cults are actually all about so check it out and thank you very much for watching

Channel: Chris Shelton

Views: 47,742

Rating: 4.7545457 out of 5

Keywords: Scientology (Religion), Jehovah's Witnesses (Religion), Religion (TV Genre), Interview

Id: XpVKMj5Sm04

Length: 64min 14sec (3854 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 13 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/wifibandit]

Is the following correct?

Scientology	Jehovah's Witnesses
International Events	International Conventions
L. Ron Hubbard	Charles Taze Russell
David Miscavige	Joseph Rutherford
Sea Org	Bethel
Committee of Evidence	Investigation Committee
	Judicial Committee
Ethics officers	Elders
Technology	Publications
Clearwater, Florida	Brooklyn, New York (Moving to Warwick, NY)
Wogs	Worldly People
Suppressives	Apostates
Inside Scientology and Going Clear	Crisis of Conscience
http://www.xenu.net	http://www.jwfacts.com

[u/[deleted]]

There is a lot of food for thought in the whole idea of comparative cultism, rather than just looking at the Church of Scientology in isolation. Lloyd Evans seems to be as effective a speaker about the Jehovah's Witnesses as Chris Evans is about Scientology, and the discussion between them is quite interesting.

Years ago I would never have seen any connection between the Church of Scientology, which I used to think of as being essentially a scientific type of activity, ultimately based on Dianetics, the supposedly modern science of mental health, whereas the Jehovah's Witnesses are based on the bible and hence, are essentially antiquated and obsolete in their whole approach (although paradoxically, their membership is much larger than that of the Church of Scientology). But those differences are superficial. The underlying similarities are greater than the differences. Cults operate in a certain manner, no matter what the specifics of the cult doctrine may be.

[u/revenimus8]

It should be noted that the LDS (Mormons) had their own infiltration missions sent into the Church of Scientology in the 70's and 80's, in an attempt to usurp the CoS and prevent the mass loss of their followers who were giving up Mormonism and studying Scientology in droves.

Mormons, in league with the CIA (which recruited a lot of Mormons itself), successfully infiltrated CoS, and to this day still control key parts of the organization - its computerization division (INCOMM), elements of Flag, the Int Clearance line, etc. It was their mission to set up the secret "higher orgs" over which no Scientologist had any influence or control - CST, RTC, etc. Together with the CIA, the Mormons have been a very impinging influence on the way the CoS operates today. I would say that what has happened to Scientology, is that it has been usurped by its competition... and those same infiltration techniques are being applied successfully all over the place - within the Federal government agencies of the USA, in commercial and industrial contexts, etc. They got very, very good at usurpation as a result of their successful takedown of the CoS.

(EDIT: excultist subsequently banned me from /r/scientology)