Welcome back to Geek Time, advanced. Hello, lulu.

Hi, Brad.

We were talking about Scientology in the last episode. When did you first hear about Scientology?

Actually, usually in like all these TV shows, cartoons or movies that make fun of it. Or they probably do like a parody piece of it. 其實我第一次接觸Scientology主要就是因為看到這些電視電影或者說動漫里面去惡搞, 基本上they are basically making fun of it, mocking it. But the other thing that is really much related to Scientology is the whole thing with Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is probably one of the most famous Scientologist. There are a lot of people in Hollywood that have been pulled into Scientology. I think they wanted to get a foothold in Hollywood as a way to kind of help spread their cult.

And that's not even a singular case. I think Hollywood stars, celebrities seem to be particularly susceptible to things like cults or like secret societies. I don't know if it's because they have already got so much materialistic things so that they're searching for something that can, I don't know, help them live on forever or to hold on to those riches or claim even more riches. What do you think?

I think that's fairly true. It's like you're in Hollywood, you're with all these other elites. People have this view of you and I think that kind of changes your view on the world and makes it a little bit easier for you to be kind of tricked into joining some of these groups like Scientology. But at the same time, I almost think that people like Tom Cruise, maybe the reason why they have their careers is because of Scientology. They're almost like put into the position so that they can spread Scientology.

That is true conspiracy theory. I’ve never thought about that. I always thought about these celebrity endorsement is because they have managed to, for example, the Scientologist they managed to convert people like Tom Cruise, but it might be like what you said because they scammed people out of their money. They collected so much capital, they used these capital, used their network to make someone famous so that this famous person then can be the spokesperson.

Exactly. I mean, you get one or two people in like that. And then you can draw in everyone else, you can use Tom Cruise to get John Travolta. I'm not quite sure that's how they got John Travolta. It might be they might have used him the same way as Tom Cruise, but they probably use famous people to draw in other famous people. They have celebrity marriages. They got Tom to marry Katie Holmes and then that didn't work out. And so just kind of, I think they kind of use this as a way to just get more and more people.

And you know what, I bet they have dirt on these people. They probably collected some private not to be released information on these people and they can even blackmail these celebrities into spreading their messages.

Exactly. I mean, you're sitting there in these auditing sessions, right? And the person's probably recording it or writing down information and they probably keep all that information. So if you say one thing that you don't want everyone to know, but you're talking to someone kind of like your psychologist, you know, they're gonna use that against you.

That’s so convenient, as that's such a... easy to detect scam. I have to say, I know I'm even in scamming situations and fraud situations, you're not supposed to blame the victim, but they're basically asking you to bare your soul, bare your heart, everything, all of your private thoughts and experiences to people you barely know, and they are gonna then hold against you.

Mhm. I mean, one of the things that makes it so easy for Scientology to do this is in the US it's really easy for someone to start a religion.

That's actually my next question. Like how is it possible for someone to just say, Ok, I will start a religion. Please! Everyone believe what I say.

Just as kind of like a joke, someone said, hey, if I wanted to, I could start a religion about pasta. And so they created the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And...

Is that a real thing?

It's a real thing. It's an actual church in the US now, no one in the church actually really believes there is a flying spaghetti monster. But by doing this, you can have reduced taxes on things like your home if you use your home as part of church related services. But you can also get special rules and exemptions. They have an exemption for anyone who's part of the church. They can get... put a colander, something you used to er... to strain the water off the spaghetti on your head. When you take your photo to get your driver's license, ...

You can just claim it. It's a religious practice, then they will have to let you do it.

Yeah, and you just say, in my religion whenever I take a photo, I have to have a colander on my head.

Or maybe you would just go in tell your boss that this is a religious holiday for your religion so that you cannot work on that day.

That's a little bit different, that's something more related to business and so that doesn't exactly work the same way. But you might be able to get it off for that if the company wants to oblige it. But it's crazy. Just some of the things that people can do through creating their own religions.

So basically that is why that these religions can start and thrive because there aren't a lot of restrictions.

Exactly.

And they are, let me just to be clear, unlike some of the other cults, they haven't really done things like mass murder, suicide that sort of thing.

I don't know if they have any mass murders, but I, there have been, I have heard of people getting murdered in the past because they've spoken out against the church. I don't think it was necessarily church connected, but some believer in the church did do the murder. From what I hear, they do have places where they basically imprison people to speak out against the church who were past church members.

And how is this still not a cult in America? That I don't really understand.

I don't either.

So let's talk about the general reaction from the general public in the US.

Most people probably aren't going to go to the church and join. They go out and do recruitment. They have people who walk around and just get you to try to join a psychological study. I was actually asked to take part in a psychological study and I was like, no, I'm having my lunch. I just want to relax with my family. They gave me a pamphlet and it was the church of Scientology.

They don't say join our church. They say, well, would you want to participate in a psychological study. That is so low, so they're trying to trick you.

Right, so someone's just like I would like a psychologist or something, you go and join one of them and then next thing you know you're going to church meeting somewhere.

But Scientology in itself is actually pseudo science that is against real psychology.

Right. They're fighting a lot against psychologists. Their book was originally being sold on TV with other like pseudo science books about things like Aliens on Mars and things like that. But...and so like their book was originally not even religious text and so it's people don't really see it as like a true religion that might change in over 100 years when it's a little bit more older. But I don't really see that. I think for the most part Scientology has run its course and it's probably not going to get much bigger. But at the same time, a lot of people don't like the church and so like hacking groups like Anonymous have...

We talked about this

... have attacked the church and tried to get data. There have been a lot of documentaries talking about the abuses of the church and I mentioned they imprisoned some people. The documentaries have brought that forth to light.

Plus they're banned in so many countries. Like Scientology is banned in China definitely as a cult, and in the UK as well if I'm correct.

Yeah. A lot of countries have banned it. In the US it's a lot more difficult to do to get banned as a religion. But they do find a way to silence detractors. I mean, they even fought against the IRS (美國國稅局Internal Revenue Service) in the US and won. Yeah, just they have a lot of money because they do have people like Tom Cruise within their ranks and because it's a cult they're able to get much more of the people who join with money so they can use that as a way to further spread themselves.

Scary, scary thoughts. But hopefully these type of cults won't last, we would just hope they'll be like what you're saying running this course. But then again these celebrities probably, these filthy rich celebrities will probably just move on to the next one which some of them have already.

So some have left the church, some just don't acknowledge the church, even though that they're probably still considered a member or whatnot, they just don't acknowledge the fact anymore. I think it has for the most part run its course, but most cults like that have like a big point where they have like a big explosion, but then they'd either die out or they have something where all the members kill themselves like mass suicide.

Yeah. To be honest, I think if we dig deeper into humanity, this is perhaps when people have too much power, influence, material, wealth. And they just want to, they see themselves as elite and they want this whole idea of an exclusive group, the secret society that they are somehow different. They are the only ones who see the real truth in life that is very common, that idea is very common and there's nothing new, what's Scientology is trying to say is nothing really new.

Exactly.

Okay, so again, we finish up with a reminder. All of this is more like doing a public service to letting you know some of the information so that you can have better judgment and to watch out for things like that.

Stay away from cults.

Stay away from cults, be nice kids. All right. And on that note we're gonna wrap up here if you have anything to say leave us a non-sensitive comment in a comment section or you can make a request on what we're gonna talk about next. Thank you Brad for coming to the show.

No problem. Thank you. Lulu.

I'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye everybody.