This week I welcome back Bryce Blankenangel and Shannon Grover to help me understand first the financial rapaciousness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an organization that clearly values money over morality or good works. In explaining why this is, Bryce and Shannon break down the violent origin story of the Mormon "faith" and how Joseph Smith went from one calamity to another as he conned people over and over again, committed criminal acts against children and had more than a few "enemies" outright killed. This is not a history anything like the sanitized, whitewashed nonsense the LDS Church publishes and it needs to be heard by a lot more people.

This week I welcome Lindsey Hartzel, who is sharing her experience growing up in a family connected heavily with Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education) and the large group awareness training format of human transformation. This was not a positive or helpful experience for her as a child and young adult and we cover exactly why from her perspective. Landmark comes from Est, which was taken directly from Scientology so there's a lot of compare and contrast in this episode too. Enjoy!

Today I welcome back Jon Atack to continue our series of podcasts to debunk the "basics" of Scientology, one bit at a time. This week we are taking on self-determinism, pan-determinism and "games" theory in Scientology. This is a wide-ranging and hopefully interesting discussion where we pull no punches on how we see Scientology. Enjoy!

This week I welcome former Scientologist and Sea Org member Mat Pesch, someone who joined up in the 1970s, was early friends with Marty Rathbun and had decades of experience in Scientology at its highest levels. This is the first of a series of interviews with Mat to discuss not only his own time in Scientology but also the flavor of the subject and the times in which it has existed. In this episode, we cover Miscavige's early days and how he rose to power, who Marty Rathbun was and how he got involved and what things were like in the much wilder times. Enjoy!

This week I welcome back former Scientologist Natalia Hirsch, originally from Ecuador but who had a wide-ranging life and Scientology experience she is sharing with us. In today's final episode, we cover her experience in WISE and at the Delphi School in Oregon, both Scientology front group operations which are just satellites of Scientology churches. Natalie's story has been fun to feature and I hope you enjoy this one. Join me for my book workshop starting this month! https://ilumn8.life/op/reclaiming-your-mind-and-life-chris-shelton/

This week I welcome back former Scientologist Natalia Hirsch, originally from Ecuador but who had a wide-ranging life and Scientology experience she is sharing with us. In today's show we cover what life and belief is like for Scientologists who are broke or in the lower bands of the socioeconomic ladder. This level of cult membership is a whole different thing from what the rich Scientologists experience.

This week I welcome Ru Marshall, author of the new book American Trickster which is on sale now, about the infamous 1970s cult guru Carlos Castaneda, a man who is still fooling professional academics at major universities with his schtick about Native American spiritualism. This was a sexual predator who gained an outsized amount of influence despite not ever really showing up in public. Ru Marshall breaks it all down for us. Enjoy! Ru Marshall's website: rmarshallstudio.com American Trickster book: https://orbooks.com/catalog/american-trickster/

This week I welcome Carol Merchasin, the Board President of the International Cultic Studies Association and also known as the "Cult Assassin" for her legal work against cultic enterprises in successfully suing them for ex-members. We have a frank discussion about the difficulties of taking on cults legally but why it is so important and necessary to do so. Enjoy! ICSA: https://internationalculticstudies.org/ Carol's email: Carol (at) Merchasinlaw.com

This week I welcome back former Scientologists and musician Geoff Levin to discuss the Art Series and L. Ron Hubbard from a different perspective, that of an artist. There's a lot to say and some interesting analysis which comes out of this. Enjoy! Geoff's website: https://geofflevin.com

This week I welcome back former Scientologist Natalia Hirsch, originally from Ecuador but who had a wide-ranging life and Scientology experience she is sharing with us. In today's show we cover a lot more about WISE, her time as a Golden Age of Tech trainee at Flag and what happened when she became a poor Scientologist in Clearwater along with her family. It takes a heartbreaking twist.