Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

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The...

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- Are you suppressing yourself? - I'm being self-critical.

You're gorgeous, Mike Rinder.

And... quiet please.

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We're gonna be beginning.

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Today, we're gonna talk about the Bridge to Total Freedom.

And I think it's pretty important

for us to set up for our audience

what the Bridge is and what Scientology is selling,

and why people give up their children, their lives,

their money for it.

This is a foundation

of everything in Scientology.

It is a delineated path that every Scientologist must follow.

- Must follow? - Must.

Yeah.

And when you progress

on these exact steps,

you are supposed to achieve exact results.

There is precise abilities gained

on this chart.

There are two sides to this Bridge.

One side is the auditing, which is the counseling...

- Counseling. - That you receive.

And the other side is the training,

which teaches you to be

a Scientology auditor or counselor.

And every Scientologist seeks to arrive

at the top of this Bridge.

We've built a Bridge,

and we have this assembly of the Bridge,

and the Bridge goes from this state of existence

to the last state of existence.

And the Bridge is all complete now,

and it can be walked.

You have to walk on the Bridge.

Really, the first thing

that Scientologists hammer home

is Dianetics.

"Dianetics" is considered the book one

of the entire subject,

and it is held in reverence by all Scientologists.

It is the foundation of

everything that followed in Scientology.

What gets in the way of your goals?

What destroys your confidence

and blocks your happiness in life?

Break through the barriers to your success.

Read "Dianetics" by L. Ron Hubbard.

The theory of Dianetics is very clever.

It says, "Whatever your problems are,

"whether you're upset, whether you have pains,

"you have sensations, you have emotions

"and things that you don't like,

it's not your fault".

There is this reactive mind that you have.

That's below your conscious mind?

- Awareness. - Yes.

And that we have the answer

of how you can eradicate that.

Dianetics reveals how these negative experiences are stored,

and contains a technology

to free yourself from them.

The idea then becomes

that you can eradicate your reactive mind

and become what's known in Scientology as a Clear.

Right.

And Clear in Scientology is

the most important step...

- First step. - To be achieved for everybody.

Yes, everybody's trying to get to Clear.

Now, as you process the individual,

you find that he gets better and better and more able,

but is there any end to this?

Yes, it's a finite state known as Clear,

and that means that the individual has erased

his basic illness,

which is his reactive mind.

His unconscious mind is gone,

and he is totally alert and totally capable.

In order to help us navigate our way through

the complexities of the Bridge in Scientology,

we have a number of experts that are gonna join us today.

The first of which was a very highly trained auditor,

and he held a very senior position

in the Scientology hierarchy to oversee the people

moving up the Bridge all over the world.

His name is Bruce Hines, and he was formally in

what's called the Senior CS

International Office of Scientology.

- Another silver fox... - Yeah.

- Amongst us. - Yeah, it's a thing, you know?

It's a thing us old people have.

Yeah, well...

So, Bruce, give us a basic rundown

of your history with Scientology.

So I started in Denver, Colorado in 1972,

and then I joined the Sea Organization in 1979.

You were a Sea Org member for how many years?

24.

In your 24 years,

what did you think you were attaining?

That I would have perfect memory...

Wouldn't get sick very much, if at all.

Why did you think that?

L. Ron Hubbard says it over and over again.

This man sets himself up

in Dianetics and Scientology...

is a science and it can be proven.

The reason Scientology's assumptions are...

can be considered to be true is because they work,

and Scientology is totally a workable science.

He promised I would have supernatural abilities.

You know, I'd be able to move objects with my mind.

I'd be able to communicate with people telepathically.

That's what the big promise is.

So L. Ron Hubbard is selling that

and people are buying that,

and that is what people believe, and that is why they stay.

Absolutely correct.

But had you ever seen anybody who had telepathic powers?

- Or have you ever? - No, of course not.

I probably audited

at least 15,000 hours on people,

and when you audit someone, you get to know them well...

Right.

And never, never was there any supernatural ability

that you could actually verify

- from any of these people. - Right.

I think it's pretty important

for us to set up for our audience

that you were forced to write

success stories at each level that we complete.

And each Scientologist says, "Yes, that happened".

I mean, I did it, you did it.

You basically sign, saying,

"I accomplished that thing".

But if you say,

"I don't really feel like I accomplished that,"

you have to pay to now do something else

to find out why you didn't achieve that.

Right, I...

People learn very quickly, though, Leah.

They learn it's smarter to go,

"Oh, yeah, I achieved that".

I'm still asked how I got into Scientology.

I was brought into Scientology as a child.

And I think we should talk to the person

who got me into Scientology.

I think that's an excellent idea.

And that's my mother.

A lot of times, people say, like,

"I don't know how smart people got into these things".

People assume that you either have to be

- stupid or just... - Gullible...

- Gullible. - Or in a bad place in life,

- or something. - Right.

So, Mom,

when did you get into Scientology and why?

I was 20 something years old,

and I got into Scientology,

because I always wanted to be a nurse.

I wanted to help.

And I was looking for something,

and when I read "Dianetics," I said, "This is so important".

I said, "I could really help people here.

That's so much more valuable than being a nurse".

So I then started to train.

What did you read in "Dianetics" that made you think

you can help people more doing Scientology on them

- than being a nurse? - Okay, well,

you talk about getting rid of the reactive mind

will handle all kinds of health issues.

I thought, "Wow, no one will ever be sick again"...

- Right. - "That's amazing".

By the way, there is a category of people

that got into Scientology, like my mother in the '70s,

that was looking for something more.

And my mother didn't have a mother and father.

They died when she was young.

And, you know, this is a "religion"

that would speak to you,

because it was offering you

something to give back to the world.

Right, because I didn't really have anything.

It gave me a group...

And it gave me a purpose...

- Right. - To help others,

and I thought that was amazing, and I loved it in the beginning.

Right, and then... so when you got in,

what did you think about the state of Clear?