Episode 50: The Bridge Deep Dive Part 1 with Bruce Hines
Leah and Mike’s old friend Bruce Hines joins them for Part 1 breaking down the scientology “Bridge to Total Freedom.” They delve into scientology testing, Introductory Services and how scientology hooks new customers (“raw meat”).
L. Ron Hubbard’s pathway to “spiritual freedom” one must follow (and pay for)
These are the “routes” that lead you onto “the Bridge”
The non-scientific “personality test” used to hook people. It’s a means of getting someone sitting in front of them so they can be sold scientology as the solution to the supposed problems the “test” reveals
The scientology term for new customers.
The senior principle in scientology sales. You must be able to “control” people and that does not mean “pleasant control.”
A blog post about the danger of niacin
Another blog post — Purification Rundown Debunked
The influence of peer pressure
A sample price list from Flag — the “international spiritual headquarters” of scientology in Clearwater FL
11 Comments
Listener question: how are Scientologists submitting knowledge reports? Is it by email? Do they get any confirmation of receipt? Could be treasure troves of snitching and policing behaviour for all to see…
These days I bet a lot of them are by email, but historically they were always paper reports. You don’t get any receipt and often times you don’t even know if anything is done about it. Of course, if it’s something big, you know shit is about to go down.
I remember going through some filing cabinets at my mom’s house and finding a bunch of KRs she had written on me when I was a kid, I had no idea she’d been reporting on me.
We used to have couples that would write KRs on each other weekly. Just reporting everything they didn’t like about the other. It’s actually seen as an attempt to help the other person.
Does David really believe in this shit or he is power hungry?
I think he is a little man that just wants power.
I’ve thought a lot about that, but I think he’s a true believer. But power corrupts and now that he has absolute power, he’s corrupted absolutely.
He’s exactly who he was raised to be. From his perspective, he’s probably the only person living up to the expectations that he was presented with.
I have a question I just thought of for both of you Mike and Leah. After you got out of Scientology, when did you start celebrating holidays? I’m Christian and I’ve celebrated holidays like Christmas and Easter my whole life but when did you guys start to feel comfortable celebrating holidays for other religions?
Scientologists generally celebrate all the holidays, we just do it like most American atheists. There is no religious significance, but we have Christmas trees and Easter baskets and all that.
Of course, in the Sea Org is a different story. In the SO you don’t have anything but work. If someone happens to know it’s your birthday, you might get a song at the mess hall lunch table. And you might get a day off around Christmas or New Years.
In fact, Mike should do a whole show about the Beer and Cheese parties, and how many SO lives were ruined by getting too wild at one.
I have loved everything Leah and Mike have done about Scientology, but PLEASE let your guests speak!!! It has been nearly 20 minutes and he has been practically silent. Also, we need to know who the guests are and how they got into Scientology. Most journalists would start their podcast saying, “Tell us about yourself, including how you got into and out of Scientology.” It’s not hard and it would help SO much!
Agree! Bruce was so polite and barely talked.
I’ve always wondered how Scientology explains when high ranking “ parishioners“ leave Scientology. If the technology does these great things, why would anyone leave it? If a high rank “parishioner” (for example OT8) is declared, how did they trick the “perfect technology “ to make it that far up the bridge?
With circular logic. If you get to OT8 and then leave, you were either a Suppressive Person the whole time who was so evil and cunning that you evaded detection, or you “keyed in” some evil purpose and weren’t good enough to continue in Scientology and handle that new found evil.
Scientology is perfect and good, so anything other than it is various shades of evil. And the more compassionate Scientologists will say with pity “well, they’ll have to come back and handle this next lifetime”.
Are these blocked in the UK? I am unable to get the episodes to play. I am able to listen via YouTube. Thank you for posting there.