The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast XX
[0] Hello, everyone.
[1] Today I'm talking to Aaron Smith Levin, and he has a YouTube channel called Growing Up in Scientology, where he discusses, as you might guess, growing up in Scientology.
[2] And he left the organization after a number of decades, and we talk a fair bit about why he did that, why he came to the realization that this was a sterile route.
[3] more importantly, the conversation allowed us to delve into a problem that we all face, which is the fundamental problem of distinguishing truth from falsehood, especially organized falsehood, the difficulty that we face in determining what organizations, which are clearly necessary, can be trusted and what metaphysics are reliable, how you distinguish bitter fruit from sweet fruit in that regard or separate wheat from chaff.
[4] And so our discussion is very interesting in that regard, enabled us to take those abstract considerations and to nail them down to something very specific, the events of Aaron's own life and the particular cult -like nature of Scientology, which is one cult among many.
[5] And so, well, welcome aboard for the trip.
[6] I've been writing a fair bit in this new book I'm finishing up.
[7] It's called We Who Wrestle with God.
[8] It'll be the subject of my next tour.
[9] I've been writing a lot about the manner in which we come to distinguish truth from falsehood in general in our lives in the scientific enterprise, and then let's say in matters of faith.
[10] Now, the scientist types would say, well, all faith is delusional, but I'm afraid we can't move forward without faith, so that's not a helpful, that's not a helpful objection.
[11] But it does raise us the fact that that is an objection at all indicates the exact.
[12] of a very serious underlying problem, which is, well, how do we distinguish truth from falsehood, especially in relationship to religious claims, which in some sense by definition aren't amenable to scientific analysis or proof?
[13] One answer is we just throw out the entire religious domain.
[14] That's actually not even technically possible.
[15] So I thought it'd be interesting to talk to you today about Scientology specifically, because I think that it's not unreasonable whatsoever to regard it as an outright cult.
[16] And that will enable us to use a very specific example to delve into a more general problem, which is how do you separate wheat from chaff or bitter fruit from good fruit in the pursuit of the truth or even what is the truth?
[17] And it's always better to ground an abstract analysis in something concrete and real.
[18] And so talking to you about your experiences and what you've learned should enable us, to get a long ways in this discussion.
[19] Then we can more broadly flesh it out into the issue of truth versus falsehood and issues of faith.
[20] So let's start right at the beginning.
[21] Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself personally about where you come from, about your background, your employment, let everybody get to know you a bit and then we'll turn to the Scientology issue more specifically.
[22] I'll do my best.
[23] How about I start from present time and then I backfill a little bit?
[24] Sure.
[25] So one of the things I spend most of my time on right now is my YouTube channel growing up in Scientology.
[26] And so that alludes to the fact that I was essentially born and raised in Scientology.
[27] I was actually four years old when my mom got into Scientology as a single mom of two young boys.
[28] And I was 12 years old, maybe just 13 years old, when I was taken out of school and started working for Scientology full time.
[29] full -time, not day job, you know, 100 hours a week, 110 hours a week.
[30] And so, you know, my first employment history was Scientology.
[31] And I've had employment history.
[32] After getting into Scientology, I've had employment history after leaving Scientology.
[33] But just probably most relevant to the conversation that we're having is, you know, by the time I was 30 years old, I'd spent half my life working for Scientology.
[34] as a staff member and what they call a C organization member.
[35] Those are the guys who signed the billion -year contracts.
[36] So, yeah, we can go deeper in that if you want, but that's the nutshell.
[37] Well, okay, I think there's two directions we could go there.
[38] The first is, well, let's start when you were four, even.
[39] So what do you think it was that attracted your mother to Scientology?
[40] Like you said she was a single mother, and so it's easy for single mothers to be preyed upon because they're quite isolated, generally speaking.
[41] And so that's a problem.
[42] What do you think, and what has she told you about what pulled her in the direction to begin with, and what was her structure of belief or background, you know, say metaphysically, before the blandishments of Scientology were laid out in front of her?
[43] So she was raised a Christian.
[44] She was raised in a very religious household, going to church every Sunday.
[45] I don't know exactly to what degree she would have, would describe herself as having been a Christian.
[46] true believer.
[47] But I know the way she's explained it to me, it was just this feeling, this understanding, that there is something more, something greater, something outside ourselves, but not necessarily having bought in to the traditional religious story.
[48] She always, there was that.
[49] She was meant for something greater.
[50] She was here for some reason.
[51] There was some greater value to life than is a, you know, just apparent in this mortal realm.
[52] And for her Scientology answered that question that, you know, it filled that hole.
[53] Whatever shape that hole was, it was a Scientology -shaped hole, apparently.
[54] She was introduced to Scientology by a woman her same age, roughly, who had just had her own son just a few weeks before my brother and I were born.
[55] She was not a single mother.
[56] But that relationship between my mom and this woman named Cheryl who got her into Scientology, that's how my mom was introduced, was through her friend Cheryl.
[57] That's how most people are introduced to Scientology is through some friend or associate, you know, business associates or acquaintance or something like that.
[58] Now, the thing about Scientology, particularly at the lower levels, is Scientology is something that builds itself as requiring no belief, no faith.
[59] Scientology does not see itself as a faith, even though it does see itself as a religion.
[60] And the distinction between those things, if there is one, might be an interesting thing for us to discuss.
[61] But Scientologists do not believe that you have to believe in Scientology.
[62] They believe it is a technology.
[63] It is something you apply.
[64] It can be measured.
[65] The results can be measured.
[66] They have this device, the e -meter that they believe assists with this measurement.
[67] And so it's this kind of two -sided coin where my mom's looking for some greater meaning, looking for some greater purpose, looking for a way to help others.
[68] Scientology doesn't, you know, she comes across.
[69] Scientology and she goes, oh, it's something that will give me greater purpose and greater meaning, but isn't asking me to believe in X, Y, and Z. We can just do.
[70] There's a very kind of like self -helpy, applied practical aspect to Scientology, which, by the way, is why they call themselves an applied religious philosophy, is how a Scientologist would describe Scientology.
[71] Okay, well, there's a bunch of things to delve into there.
[72] So let's list out some of them and we can pursue them.
[73] So your mother was raised religiously and so there's two interpretations of that in the realm of possibility that spring to mind.
[74] And one is that that prepared her to be subsumed into an alternate cult, right?
[75] Because you might say, well, because she was released in a religious family, she was in the belief that you should turn to some sort of religious belief system was inculcated into her.
[76] You could also say that she needed that initial religious belief like everyone does, but it lacked something that she required, which is something you alluded to, which is the sense not only of a higher purpose that specified for her, but a higher purpose that can be practically worked towards.
[77] And then you also mentioned, and this has more broad implications, that Scientology was attractive to her because it claimed at least at the outset to be part of the technological enterprise, the scientific enterprise you might say, that you didn't need faith.
[78] There was a technology that was at hand.
[79] It had that, at least the facade of scientific acceptability.
[80] We can talk about the e -meters in a while, and that it was practical.
[81] And so it seems to me that the most logical conclusion with regard to your mother isn't so much that her previous religious training had prepared her to be subsumed into a cult, but that the lack, that there were lacks in her previous religious training, for example, the specification of a particular destiny for her and the provision of practical, what would you say, practical guidelines for how she might act to bring the world into a higher harmony, all of that was attractive to her.
[82] Does that seem about right?
[83] Yeah, I would agree with that.
[84] Okay, okay.
[85] And we'll talk about the e -meter, from my understanding of the e -meter is that it's a galvanometer.
[86] And, of course, that measures skin conductance changes in people's hands.
[87] And, you know, when I did my PhD, we used a galvanometer essentially.
[88] It was a bit more sophisticated.
[89] But same basic idea back in the 1960s, the thereabouts.
[90] This was done even before then.
[91] I think reaching all the way back to the 1920s, it was shown that, you know, you could ask people questions while they were having the skin conduct.
[92] of their skin surfaces, usually their fingers measured.
[93] And if something produces emotional arousal when it's touched upon, your skin conductance increases because you sweat a little bit and that makes electricity flow more easily.
[94] And so you can use galvanometers to get at underlying complexes.
[95] And I know that the Scientologists have capitalized on that idea and the overlap between what they do with the e -meter, if I understand it properly, and what psychophysiologists have done for 100 years with the galvanometer also adds a layer of scientific credibility to it.
[96] So, you know, and there is some utility in trying to get to the bottom of things.
[97] So let's unpack that a bit later.
[98] Okay, so now she got introduced, invited, let's say, by a friend.
[99] Now, if you're an avid adherent of the Scientology discipline, let's say, or cult, is it incumbent on you to try to bring other people?
[100] into the faith and how is it or into the enterprise how is it that that's done and and how is that also developed and fostered or trained so it's something that's highly encouraged it's not mandatory it's not required um there's an incentive to do it because when you bring someone into scientology you're called their field staff member their fsm and that person is called your selectee and as an FSM, you get 10 or 15 % commission on every dollar that person pays to Scientology for courses or auditing or straight donations.
[101] So there's a financial incentive to bring people into Scientology in addition to the incentive.
[102] Is there a pyramid scheme element of that?
[103] Or is it, does it only go to one person?
[104] Like if your person brings in more people, is that also a benefit to you?
[105] it's a one level it's one level deep so you don't you don't get overrides on your downline you're all you only get credit for the people you you directly bring in and once you bring them in you have to continue to be sort of their personal coach and mentor on their way up Scientology's bridge to total freedom or another Scientologist can swoop in and become that person's FSM and get commissions for them so oh I see so there's a competition for that as well and ongoing competition yes it's definitely a zero -sum game Okay, let's start out by giving the devil is due, you know.
[106] Obviously, your mother was attracted by this, and it's reasonable to assume that by hook or by crook, something that was genuine or at least significantly attractive was offered to her.
[107] What do you think Scientology did for her that filled the void that had opened up inside of her?
[108] at the lower levels scientology gives you an explanation for what's wrong with you that or you know anything that you could in an insecure way feel is wrong with you indecisiveness not living up to your full potential self -doubt insecurity all these things that that the cause of this is called the reactive mind and that's kind of al run hubbard's version of the the fortian subconscious and that the reactive mind is a collection of all the recordings of pain and unconsciousness.
[109] And these recordings are called Ngrams.
[110] And these Ngrams compose your reactive mind.
[111] And you're not to blame for the fact that you have a reactive mind.
[112] It's not your fault.
[113] The Ngrams are the source of all of this wrongness and negativity.
[114] And Scientology and Dianetics give you the tools to resolve your reactive mind.
[115] So there's an attractiveness to this, which is saying you're someone who always has wanted it to do better than how you've been doing.
[116] This thing called your reactive mind is holding you back.
[117] It's not your fault.
[118] And we have the technology through our procedures and our processes.
[119] We can get rid of your reactive mind and that will leave you, once you shed your reactive mind, that basically leaves you as a perfect computing, analyzing, you'll leave you with a perfectly computing and analyzing mind.
[120] That's the pitch in the beginning.
[121] So it's kind of solving a lot of problems at once and shifting responsibility to something.
[122] outside of yourself.
[123] Right.
[124] Now, is that clearing?
[125] Yes, the procedure of getting rid of your reactive mind is called clearing, and then you achieve the state of clear.
[126] And if you ever hear a Scientologist say, our goal is to clear the planet, that's actually what they mean.
[127] It's getting the majority of the population of Earth up to Scientology's state of clear.
[128] Okay, okay.
[129] So we're going to give the devil his due on that front, too.
[130] So, you know, obviously Hubbard pulled his ideas from the broader like intellectual body that was popular and developing during his time.
[131] And all of what you just described is analogous to psychodynamic complex theory.
[132] And so the, and you can see, so let me give you an example of that.
[133] So if you're sitting with a client and they communicate a dream to you and you want to analyze the dream, you can look for corresponding literary motifs, the same way you would when you're trying to understand any story and analyze it, thinking of a dream as a story.
[134] But the association technique that Freud developed is predicated on the idea that you can flesh out the meaning of a dream or any thought, for that matter, any thought by analyzing the pattern of associations that surround that thought or story.
[135] So, for example, if there's an image in a dream, imagine that you were dreaming and you dreamt that you pulled a boot out of a rampaging river and there was a diamond inside of it.
[136] You know, the first thing I would ask you is, well, what comes to mind, and you have to watch this, what comes to mind when you think of a river?
[137] And then maybe a person will tell you a couple stories about a river, and then you can ask them about a boot, and you can ask them what a diamond means.
[138] And you try to flesh out the whole expanse of ideas, that surrounds those images.
[139] And what you're doing is investigating the structure of the associated ideas that gave rise to the images to begin with.
[140] And what you find when you do that is that, and Freud laid this out first, is that if you pursue that with enough seriousness, you'll find something at the bottom of it that's often an unsolved problem.
[141] And that would be, so the Ngrams are memories, that's a good way of thinking about them.
[142] And there are obstacles to people's progress that are unimplicit assumptions that they bring to bear about particular situations that are invisible impediments to their progress.
[143] So, for example, I had a client who had a very traumatic experience in a hospital when she was about five.
[144] She fell into the hands of a, she had kind of a dreadful accident.
[145] She was in a shopping cart that actually rolled down.
[146] and it dumped her and hurt her quite badly.
[147] And when she was put in the hospital, she fell into the hands of a very sadistic nurse who was kind of tormenting her behind the scenes.
[148] And at that time, the hospitals didn't let parents visit because they felt that the continual introduction of a parent and the separation was harder on children than just the absence of the parents, which is an absolutely preposterous, absurd, and cruel theory.
[149] But that was the case.
[150] And so she felt simultaneously betrayed, hurt, betrayed, and then she fell into the hands of this sadistic nurse.
[151] And so when we were investigating some of the dream imagery associated with her memories, that story arose.
[152] And she'd actually developed an entire complex of paranoia and suspicion in relationship to all establishments of authority because when she was five, she had been betrayed by her parents who abandoned her in the hospital.
[153] That's how she felt when she was five.
[154] And then, of course, she fell into the hands of this psychopathic nurse who was basically torturing her behind the seeds.
[155] And so it's often the case that...
[156] So what that would happen to her as a consequence of that was that because she developed such a deep distrust of institutions, every time she was involved with an institution, she got herself in trouble.
[157] Because she was like a little puppy that growled, you know, when someone leaned down to pet it because it had been kicked too many times.
[158] And her paranoia just got her in constant trouble with institutions.
[159] And, of course, that fostered her belief that institutions were basically bad news.
[160] The reason I'm going through all that is because the notion that there are invisible impediments to your progress that are nested inside your systems of memory, that's true.
[161] And it's also true that clearing those, now you don't clear them just by recognizing them.
[162] You clear them by reconfiguring them.
[163] So with her, what we did was a pretty lengthy analysis of under what conditions a mature person would trust institutions and under what conditions you should be skeptical.
[164] We tried to generate a more mature viewpoint of institutions per se rather than this reflexive distrust, which was too unsophisticated and low resolution.
[165] Now, the reason I went through all that is because that explanation is actually quite credible.
[166] And even the alliance of the galvanometer with that explanation, that's derived directly from early psychoanalytic work in the 1920s because that's when all that started.
[167] And psychologists, social psychologists and personality psychologists, psychophysiologists still use psychophysiological measurements of various sorts to infer the existence of these complexes that lurk behind the scenes.
[168] It's very integral part of psychology.
[169] So you can understand, well, first of all, where those ideas actually came from, but even more importantly, why they would be attractive to people.
[170] Now, you added another thing that was of interest.
[171] I want to ask you more about this.
[172] You said that the Scientologists also insist that this isn't your fault.
[173] Now, the classic Christian attitude towards your complex of problems is that the degree to which it's your fault is open up, open for dispute.
[174] So let me give you an example of that.
[175] So imagine that you have a mother who's kind of overbearing and overprotective.
[176] And you're a six -year -old kid, and you didn't do your homework one day, and so you decide to feign illness to skip school.
[177] And your mother, who's overbearing and overprotective, also hasn't pursued her own life, and she's lonesome.
[178] And so you tell her you're sick, but you're not, and she doesn't think you are but she is just as happy if you're at home and so you might say well that's the mother's fault because she's so damn overbearing but it's also to some degree the kid's fault because he's looking for an easy out and so and this is what you do in good psychotherapy too you know like if I found out that you had a complex the first thing I'd try to do is think okay well what were the situational conditions that gave rise to that like maybe you had a very overbearing father but I'd also want to find out well, what temptations did you fall prey to, let's say, that increased the probability that you would develop that complex for reasons of your own?
[179] Those are called secondary gain.
[180] So, for example, this is the secondary gain issue I'm curious about.
[181] You said that these, what did you call them?
[182] Ngrams?
[183] These Ngrams, these engrams in the reactive mind, they're not your fault.
[184] See, you can see why that would be attractive, right?
[185] because it enables you to place the responsibility for your suffering on someone else's, on someone or something else.
[186] And so I'm wondering what do you think about that?
[187] Like, is that one of the things about Scientology that's particularly manipulative?
[188] Or there's a mercy in it, you know?
[189] And I mean, lots of people are abused by their parents and abused by society, and it's not surprising they're hurt, and it's not exactly their fault.
[190] So what do you think about that?
[191] The appeal and the attractiveness of being told that everything that's wrong with you is because of this thing, and you are not to blame for this thing, the attractiveness of that is why that is the message Scientology gives you at the introductory lower levels.
[192] So it's the bait.
[193] The switch is that as you progress in Scientology, you come to realize that actually, as a spiritual being, everything that happens to you, by you, by others, to others is actually your fault.
[194] And to assume full responsibility, you have to understand how you are actually the prime cause for everything that has ever happened, including happened to you.
[195] And so this is the difference between Dianetics and Scientology, actually.
[196] Dianetics is supposed to be a mental science, and it's supposed to be the process of getting rid of these Ngrams.
[197] And then fast forward a couple of years after Erwin Herbert started Dienetics, and then he started pursuing the spiritual angle, the religion angle.
[198] And so instead of trying to recall moments of pain and unconsciousness as early as, you know, prenatal incidents in the womb, all of a sudden people were remembering painful incidents of pain and unconsciousness from previous lives.
[199] And that opened the door to, oh, previous lives, what's happening here?
[200] The introduction of an immortal spiritual being.
[201] And then Al Rund Hubbard continued on with the religion angle and said, well, actually, as a spiritual being, you were the one creating your own reactive mind.
[202] And once you've gotten rid of your own reactive mind, L. Run Hubbard introduces you to the confidential upper -level materials, which is, by the way, you as a spiritual being, in Scientology they call you a Thayton.
[203] You have now gotten rid of your own reactive mind.
[204] But now the reason why there's still things wrong with you is you have tens of thousands of other Thetans, spiritual beings, stuck to you as parasites, as entities, on your body, all over your body, and those beings all have their own reactive mind.
[205] And those beings are, through some sort of, you know, spiritual connection, projecting onto you, you are experiencing their pains.
[206] You are experiencing their neuroses, psychosis, whatever, you know, anything that could be wrong with you.
[207] And so now you have to go through a year's long process of telepathically counseling using the Scientology procedures.
[208] these entities, these beings, these Thaitans, to basically exercise them off of your body, wake them up so that they'll realize who they are, what they are, and go and pick up a new body at the local maternity ward and grow up to be a cleared individual and likely join Scientology.
[209] So this idea of getting rid of your reactive mind is something that's introduced to you at the very lowest levels and applies all the way up to the highest levels.
[210] It just switches from getting rid of your own reactive mind.
[211] to getting rid of these entities' reactive minds.
[212] Okay, okay.
[213] So let me take that apart in a couple of ways.
[214] So the first question I have there is, how is the switch from it's not your fault to it's your responsibility?
[215] How does that come about?
[216] And what's the rationale for that?
[217] It comes about when you introduce the immortal, spiritual, Thayton, the immortal spirit, into the equation.
[218] And Elrond Hubbard's version of that is that about 65 trillion years ago, there was some sort of spiritual big bang when all spiritual entities that exist came into existence.
[219] You'd think he would talk a little bit more about this in Scientology, but it really doesn't.
[220] And that these spiritual entities are all natively godlike.
[221] And I'm not like the Christian God, but like, like, you know, ripping atmospheres off of galaxies, creating planets, destroying planets, creating universes, like that each spiritual entity here on Earth, me, you, we are natively godlike.
[222] And we've basically, we basically got so bored with our power that we wanted a more interesting game.
[223] so we decided to handicap ourselves in various ways and then just choose to forget that we had handicapped ourselves.
[224] We used to not even exist in a physical universe.
[225] They used to not be a physical universe.
[226] So we created a physical universe to have something that we could then trap ourselves in to have some sort of a game that we could try to, some sort of a trap that we could try to get out of to have this interesting experience.
[227] And without being too long -winded about this, it's basically when Elron Hubbard makes the jump from just trying to be a poor man's mental health care, like a mental therapy.
[228] Dianetics was supposed to be a mental therapy, to going, okay, we're going to slightly jump off from what we're pretending as a science.
[229] Now we're going to get into religion and spiritual philosophy.
[230] We're going to, and honestly, that was introduced by going into past lives.
[231] When you start going into past life memories, you have to talk about some entity that transcends death.
[232] And that becomes Scientology's Thayton, the soul, the spirit.
[233] Right.
[234] Well, okay, so there is, he is introduced.
[235] See, part of the reason that cults have such attractiveness is that they do harness archetypal ideas, right?
[236] Eternal religious ideas, that's a good way of thinking about it, or patterns of attention and action that are intrinsic to what it means to be human.
[237] And there's clearly the introduction of a karma -like idea there, right?
[238] that your destiny is a consequence of your past choices.
[239] I mean, that's a tenet of Hinduism, obviously, and that you're playing out the consequences of this infinite array of choices extended over the longest possible period.
[240] And it's also the case that, see, and this is a very tricky issue.
[241] So Dostoevsky said, for example, that you're not only responsible for everything that you do and that everything that happens to you, but for everything that everyone else does and everything that happens to them, right?
[242] And that's, well, that's a doctrine that's associated with the broadest possible conception of responsibility.
[243] And then the Buddha, now, when the Buddha hits enlightenment under the bow tree, he's offered the opportunity to stay in paradise forever, but, you know, eternally.
[244] And he rejects that because he believes that it would be inappropriate for him to occupy the paradisal state unless everyone was brought into the same state.
[245] And so in many religious systems, there is a transition point that you might consider equivalent to the initiation into the religious enterprise that brings people beyond their local concerns, let's say, with their own destiny, and provides them with the insight, let's say, that they are in some sense ultimately responsible, right?
[246] And then God only knows what that ultimate responsibility means.
[247] Now, Hubbard concretized that and added a level of, you know, a variety of levels of strange narrative overlay, including the idea of these Thetons.
[248] But let's take that apart a little bit, too.
[249] You know, you might think that you have your act together quite well.
[250] You know, let's just assume that you do as an autonomous individual.
[251] But then, you know, you're home for Christmas and you go see your family members.
[252] And there's all sorts of unresolved issues.
[253] around within your family, and those are definitely affecting you in all sorts of ways, right?
[254] And then in the broader social community, you're going to be interacting with people who are possessed by one idea or another, and that's going to interfere with your movement forward.
[255] And so, in some sense, there is no redemption for you in an absolute sense in the presence of the pathology, unresolved pathology of the past and of other people.
[256] And so it sounds to me like Hubbard concretized that idea with the notion of these Thayton's.
[257] And so you said that they're, he conceptualized them, is sort of stuck to you.
[258] And so can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
[259] Like how did he conceptualize these, these Thaten -like beings?
[260] And what does it mean that they're intimately associated with you and that you have to also clear them?
[261] And how do you go about doing that?
[262] So this gets, you know, into some things that have been widely ridiculed, fairly so, in places like South Park and other places on the Internet.
[263] So at the lower levels of Scientology, the non -confidential levels, everyone's considered a Thayton.
[264] Athaten is the primary animator of the body.
[265] It is basically the prime mover unmoved.
[266] We are, I'm a Thayton, you're a Tha, and a Thayton is something you are, not something you have.
[267] Okay.
[268] It's not until you get to the upper confidential levels of Scientology that Elvron Hubbard introduces this concept of a body Thayton and a Thayton cluster.
[269] And his explanation for what this is and how it came about is that, by the way, Scientologist's conception of life in the galaxy is very much like Star Wars.
[270] Every planet or every star system has intelligent biological life.
[271] Okay, so Elvon Hubbard discussed this thing called the Galactic Federation, however many in this galaxy of however many planets that was composed of.
[272] There was this politician.
[273] Hubbard decided to give him a name.
[274] It's Zeno or Zimu.
[275] And he decided his system was too populated.
[276] So his plan to get rid of, you know, a good portion of the population was to call everybody in for tax audits under false pretense.
[277] And then when they showed up to freeze them in glycol, and load them up on space planes and fly them to Earth and drop these people into volcanoes and blow them up with hydrogen bombs.
[278] Now, this incident was so severe.
[279] This was such an engram for them.
[280] And this happened about 76 million years ago.
[281] Of course, the volcanoes on Earth didn't exist 76 million years ago, but don't think about it too deeply.
[282] And this incident for these beings was so...
[283] You can't kill a Thayton, but it came about as close to it as you could.
[284] that has basically left these beings in this half -dead, unconscious, you know, crazy state, and they're just blowing in the winds of Earth for the last 76 million years.
[285] And so then when, you know, the human body evolved through natural selection, which Scientologists are not opposed to necessarily.
[286] Hubbard had his own spin on evolution, but it doesn't necessarily contradict with natural selection.
[287] That when human bodies arrived here on Earth, a fresh set of Thaitans that were not exposed to the volcano incident.
[288] A fresh set of Thaitans were rounded up and dropped off to this planet so that this planet could be a prison planet.
[289] And Elrond Hubbard says that if you're on this planet, you were a troublemaker, you were a rebel, you were an artist, you were someone who couldn't be controlled.
[290] The system wanted to, didn't like you, thought you were going to help overthrow the system one day.
[291] You're like the hippies, spiritual hippies.
[292] And so LR