"Here is what the Church has to say about Aaron Smith-Levin." ""The Church disputes many of the statements made by Aaron Smith-Levin." "Membership was terminated after a series of physically abusive and violent attacks on fellow staff members." "He poisoned his mother and father and lost relationship with their daughter Heather and their grandchildren through his hate campaign." "He is lying about his family and former Church to cover up his own history of erratic and violent behavior."" "Man:" "Have you ever been in the ocean in Clearwater?" "You know like going on vacations or taking the time to enjoy this life is not, you know, not the goal." "The goal is you do the work now so that there is a life for your children." " Right." " You know?" "While I was working on "The King of Queens,"" "you know, I would come here to Florida to do work from 9:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night while my co-stars were going to the Bahamas, they were going to Hawaii with their family, you know?" "For most of my life in Scientology," "I was just doing the work every day, all day," "365 days a year." "Are you okay?" "What?" "Whatever you all have on that pizza smells good." " Gotcha." " It smells good." "Be careful, yeah?" "Here's what's so funny." "I wanna save her, you know what I mean?" "Like I wanna do something about it." "Like I wanna go tell her, she needs to go home." "Me as a scientologist walking away from her right now like I'm feeling emotions of guilt for not doing anything about it." "It's like that girl coming up to me and asking me if I had drugs would only reiterate to me as a scientologist," "I better get back, the world needs me, look how [bleep] up it is, you know?" "Our work is so important." "That's the mind-set." "I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology." "The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition, where he him..." "can solve his own problems." "It offers you a sense of purpose in life." "Not only are you fixing yourself, but you're also helping mankind." "Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet." "Woman:" "After years of slowly questioning Scientology..." "Man:" "Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology..." "I didn't want to find out that what I had done my whole life was a lie." "Fight for your family." "Fight for your daughters, your sons." "Get them out of this thing." "You're not going to continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives." "If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it." "Captioning Provided by A+E Networks" "Leah:" "I think it's so crazy how many of you live in the same neighborhood as the Church." "Mike:" "Like you know, in California" "I don't even want to drive on the freeway near Celebrity Centre." "I feel like they are watching me." "Mike:" "Flag today is what's called the Flag Service Organization." "It is the spiritual headquarters of Scientology." "The Flag Service Organization, the Flag of States Organization, the Religious Technology Center, the Commodore's Messenger Org and a few others." "All of those things form what's called the Flag Land Base." "So we are gonna be talking to Aaron, and now his wife doesn't want to speak on camera?" "Right." "The reason why scientologists don't speak out is because they usually have family members in the Church and that is a moral sin to speak out against Scientology." "You can leave quietly, don't put any pressure on any family members not to do Scientology, but if you speak out against it, pressure will be put on the remaining family members in Scientology to disconnect from that family member." "This house here on the left, Leah," "Heather's mother and father owned that house and rent it out and they come here often." "And that's Aaron's house right across the street, and they do not talk." "They see Aaron and Heather outside, they go inside." "And they have kids, they have grandkids." "And they have three beautiful daughters who are sitting over here." "So the kids will be out here and their grandparents ignore them?" " Correct." " That's so [bleep] disgusting." "It is." "It's really gross." "Aaron:" "My name is Aaron Smith-Levin and I was a scientologist for about 29 years and I was in Scientology until two years ago," "2014 when I was 33." " How are you?" "Nice to meet you." " Nice to meet you." "He just told me that you send your babies over there and their grandparents just ignored them?" "My mother-in-law, she is the one who is much more nervous about it and would go inside and then the kids would go in the house to find her and she, they can't find her." "She hides." " She would hide." " Yeah." "She would hide from her grandbabies?" "And not because she didn't wanna see them." "Because she didn't wanna get in trouble." " Right." " Because the Church said it is not okay for you to see your grandchildren and for you to be over there and for you to be seeing your grandchildren." "Everything you are doing right now, you are doing it 'cause you think you are somehow trying to hold the family together or what's left of the family, but you are this second generation or the third generation." "All they know of Scientology is its the reason they don't have a [bleep] family." " It's crazy, it's crazy." " I know." "My mom was raising me and my twin brother Collin as a single mother." "My parents were never married." "We're living on the East Coast, so we were in like South Jersey, Philadelphia." "Her whole life she always had the feeling that there has to be something more, something greater to life than you know what we see and what we spend our, you know, day being concerned about just you know, day to day life." "There has to be something more, something greater that gives a greater meaning." "Price of that freedom we almost paid" "From now on" "She felt like she had found something in Scientology that gave her the answers in a way that made sense to her and she jumped in pretty... pretty heavy." "She joined staff, she decided to work for the Church of Scientology pretty much right off the bat, like within the first few weeks." "I would say the first moment when Scientology started to be something that I personally was paying attention to, right, as opposed to just being something that my mom was doing," "That first moment was in the 1993 IAS event." "So the IAS is the International Association of Scientologists." "That event was particularly to announce the IRS Tax Exemption." "On October 1st, the IRS issues letters recognizing Scientology and every one of its organizations as fully tax exempt." "I think that if the exemption had not happened, that Scientology would still be around in some form, but it would be far less powerful and have far less money than it does now." "Aaron:" "I was led to believe the IRS had been persecuting Scientology forever and David Miscavige was now the first one to ever make the IRS recognize Scientology as being fully tax exempt." "Scientology did have tax exemption before and it took away because it found out L. Ron Hubbard was using the money for his own personal gain." "I never knew that." "So, I'm watching this event, and it culminates with the announcement that the war is over." "Everyone goes crazy." "You know, it's like a 10 minute standing ovation or something like that." "And I just remember the feeling of elation that I personally felt as a 12-year-old and, you know, not even sure I considered myself a scientologist really at that point." "I'm not even trying to give it much thought." "But at the event is when I was like," ""Okay, this is something."" "That was a big thing." ""We won the war," you know?" "The IRS had finally acknowledged we are a real religion, we are a real church, you will stop attacking us." "You understood that, wow, the government..." " Yes." " ...is saying what I'm doing and what my mother's involved in is legit." " Exactly." " Yeah, so that's..." " That's right." " ...that's a powerful message" " to be sending..." " That's right." "...to parishioners and children." "The IRS had finally acknowledged we are a real religion, we are a real church, and you will stop attacking us." "That was a big thing." "That event was a start of a huge campaign to recruit people for staff and send them here to Clearwater for training to be auditors." "And that's when my mom started explaining to me as best as she could what it meant to be an auditor and that the idea was we were all gonna join staff to all train as auditors." "You are ready to audit and audit and audit." "Hours and hours every day." "Auditing, in theory, is those steps that you take toward attaining spiritual enlightenment." "Leah:" "What happens in this auditing is they have this thing called an E-Meter." "You would sit with a person who is trained in the technology of helping people to get rid of this part of your mind that is reactive, that is causing you to think bad thoughts for yourself, making bad decisions." "So you are trying to get rid of this reactive mind in this auditing." "The E-Meter tells the auditor you are in the right direction." "We basically lived down here in Clearwater and stayed right down the street at the hacienda with all the Sea Org members who are the clergy of the Church really." "And how old, how old were you guys?" "So, I was 11 or 12, probably closer to 12." "And my brother was the same age." "And..." "Children?" "Children." "And, um, it was hard at first, but then you get used to it." "We didn't realize it at the time that our trip to Flag was part of the first golden age of tech, training evolution." "Mike:" "David Miscavige had come up with the new way of now training all auditors." "That it had all been being done wrong for the 50 years previously." "He had now discovered the real way that it should be done so every auditor in the world had to be trained newly in this golden age of tech." "You know, the whole IRS tax exemption was really protecting the religion." "But now David Miscavige was kind of moving into his role of shaping, um..." "I hate to use the word scripture because it's bull..." "Scientology doesn't have a scripture but shaping... but shaping the scripture of Scientology." "So to purists it feels that the only true things in Scientology are things that came out of L. Ron Hubbard's mouth, and many feel that that was the first time" "David Miscavige changed Scientology to match his own image of what he felt was proper Scientology." "And I know I'm speaking about it slightly derisively, but I had no problem with the fact that we were being groomed to be the new and the best and the greatest thing that ever happened to Scientology and I really embraced it actually." "And for the next three years I basically lived as a Sea Org." "What does that mean?" "You are studying Scientology full time from, you know, 8:30 in the morning to 10:00 at night." "And those are your study hours." "I mean, you are up at 7:00, you are in bed at 11:00." "And who's taking care of you?" "Well, in a respect, we're taking care of ourselves but our mom is there too." "She just lives in her own apartment with other women because it's segregated men and women." "Could you have imagined your children living in an apartment by themselves?" "No, I mean, it seems crazy." "But you know as a child you are thinking "I'm pretty important." " I'm doing some important work."" " Yeah." " You have this now mission" " Absolutely." "And that also, I think, is a mental [bleep]..." " Absolutely." " ...for children." "So, what's happening with your schooling?" "There is no schooling going on." "No." "And you are studying Scientology." "You are studying Scientology full time." "And that might sounds like... a really tedious, boring experience, but me and my brother Collin we are doing this at a time when there is like 1000 other people from every city in the world." " Yeah." " ...doing the exact same thing." "It really reinforced that thing like this is the [bleep]" "Yeah, and you are part of something powerful." "This is..." "We are on crest of a wave..." "A movement." " ...of something important." " Yes, yes." "You know, and we both really excelled in what we were doing." "We are being acknowledged and recognized for how well we are doing in our training." "So, David Miscavige had put together these two special courses that were supposed to be the hardest versions of these courses ever done." "These drills that auditors in training do to practice how to use an E-Meter in an auditing session, they're videoed." "So there is a camera from behind shooting the E-Meter dial with the needle and then there is a camera shooting the auditor in training's face." "These mock auditing sessions are recorded and scrutinized looking for any mistakes on calling the E-Meter read incorrectly." "It's gonna be reviewed by the supervisor and passed and then it's gonna be sent to international management and passed." "Collin at the age of 14 was the first person to ever get a final video pass on how to perfectly operate an E-Meter." "The Flag is supposed to be the best, highest level Scientology Church in the world." " Yeah, it's the Mecca." " And the auditors here are supposed to be the best auditors in the world." "Yeah." "And so it might sound a little absurd but, you know, my brother Collin was the held up as the standard of the first person to ever learn to how to correctly operate an E-Meter." "Right." "Underage." " Right, right." " Yes, we know." "So that kind of launched my brother Collin to kind of a little celebrity status at Flag." "And then David Miscavige decided that the video that people were doing to finish the program at the time when my brother finished the program that he wanted the video done a different way." " Okay." " So he made everyone who had already passed this video" " on how use the meter properly..." " To do it again." "To do it again and do it in a way that made it much longer and much harder." "Okay." "And Collin couldn't get through it." "Okay." "I think he felt really embarrassed that he couldn't pass this video the second time." "Also in Scientology there is kind of a principle that if you are not doing well in your courses it's because you are doing something unethical that you are not being honest about." "The way they describe it is if ethics is in then the tech will go in." "So if the tech doesn't seem to be working well, it's because you are being unethical and you haven't come clean about it." "So when he went back to try to do this video the second time, you know, he was getting a lot of pressure that there was something wrong with him that he wasn't getting this done." "And so one morning when we got up and we were in line to go to, to get on the bus to go to the buildings where we study, instead of getting on the bus, he skipped it" "and called my dad in Minneapolis and said, "I don't wanna be here anymore."" "Dad said "Take a cab to the airport"" "and bought him a ticket to Minnesota." "Really once someone blows, they are considered to kind of be a criminal." "Scientologists believe that someone leaves Scientology for one reason alone... they have crimes, they have transgressed against the good of Scientology and that it is their moral obligation to unburden the person of their crimes for having left." "So they will spend as long as it takes interrogating the person as to what the crimes are that they have conducted that has caused them to want to leave." "Aaron:" "So my mom got on a plane to go get him and they brought him back." "So he is now gone from being this superstar to someone who is now Scientology demoted and now his existence is going into a room that is being filmed and recorded." " Yeah." " With somebody who is badgering him for transgressions." " Exactly." " Over and over again, hour after hour, "What have you done?" "What transgressions don't we know about?" "What are your evil intentions towards David Miscavige?" "What are your evil intentions towards Scientology?"" " Mm-hmm." " What does it do to a person who is continually put on E-Meter and asked," "What are your crimes?" "What are you hiding from me?"" "That has to do some damage to a person's mental state." "And that's what the Church does continually throughout your Scientology career until eventually you just become a zombie and you just let it go and you just go, "It's not worth the fight."" "So day in and day out, your brother is being abused and he somehow gets through this?" "He gets through it and he decides to stay." "After all was said and done he stayed and he was considered part of the group again and he went back onto his training and then David Miscavige decide that anyone who is training at Flag who had previously blown was now no longer qualified to be at Flag," "and unfortunately that included Collin." "Now he is being kicked out of Flag." "No one at Flag told my mom she should go with Collin." "She wasn't expected to go back to Philadelphia with my 15-year-old twin brother." "She was expected to stay." "I think when he was going back to Philadelphia he was definitely sort of scared and apprehensive about being sent back on his own and I feel that he would have been embarrassed to ask my mom to stay with him." "So he goes back to Philadelphia of course as a failure, you are supposed to go back to your Church once you finished your training." " Right." "Collin is sent back as just a nothing, a piece of [bleep] failure." " And how old is he now?" " He is 15." "He should be in school still, right?" "At the time, I was not upset with my mom for letting this happen." "I was more upset with Collin for being such a screw up, you know?" "So I finished my training." "I'm a superstar because I was now the first..." "I was now the first person in the world to finish the training I was doing." "Right." "I still felt like I was kicking life's ass." "The extra time that I spent at Flag doing that extra training, being responsible, living the Scientology life, has put me in a better position to control life than what I see in my brother." "I guess he got a GED and he enrolled at the University of New Mexico and he was really excelling as a student." "He was like an honor student at UNM." "And through some phone calls he had with me he had said in his writing college papers on how Scientology is a destructive cult that tears apart families, is literally how he communicated to me on the phone." "You can't call Scientology a cult and be taken seriously by a scientologist." " Right." " To a scientologist that's..." " Insanity." " ...the most absurd thing." " It's insanity." " Like they are the anti-cult." " You have gone crazy." " Right." "Yeah, you can see somebody's face that you've been looking at your whole life and then when they say that, you're like, "You're a [bleep] lunatic."" "Right, you are insane." "You are bat... insane." " You stop being my mother." " Right." "You stop being my sister, my brother, my husband, my wife, and you become a crazy person in their eyes." " Right." " I was fighting the critics of Scientology even as a young child" "I was told to stand out in the corner and hand out Scientology pamphlets." "I remember people hitting it out of my hand and yelling, "You're in a cult," you know?" ""Get out of this cult, kid," you know?" "And it was like the hatred that was coming towards me as a young person only solidified that I'm..." "I need to fight and I needed to defend this Church of Scientology." "They probably wouldn't have any members if they didn't create the world is your enemy mentality." "I mean honestly if you ever hear me characterize my state of mind at that time as being similar to the Hitler Youth..." "It's just blind allegiance, unflinching allegiance and no remorse." "I got off the phone with him." "I wrote a big report on him and the conversation." "And it wasn't even..." "it wasn't like a vicious thing." "I'm gonna get my brother kicked out of the Church." "It was my brother is committing suppressive acts and has been for a long time." "And what was the suppressive act you felt that he was doing?" "Publicly attacking and departing Scientology." "For that you wrote an internal report called the Knowledge Report in Scientology." "Knowledge reports are things that scientologists are expected to write and report to the Church about non-optimum situations." "Scientologists are expected to write such reports because they believe that, by writing them, the person who is transgressing in some fashion or doing something wrong will be pulled in by the Church and corrected and that will be for their own good." "If you are found guilty of a crime and somebody knew about it and didn't tell us, they are gonna be punished the same." "So you learn that I better write this thing up that I heard about because if I don't I'm gonna get in trouble just like the other person so you will write somebody up." "Doesn't matter if it's your husband, sister, child." "Their personal relationships are being corroded over time, so it's easy to walk away from someone, it's easy to be dissociated from any real emotion from people that you love." "Mike:" "Knowledge reports are the epitome of a snitching culture." "And the intention is to help the person, not to hurt them, but it does create a fear factor so you do nark on each other." "And the Church has put this policy in play under the guise of, well, you don't wanna... you wouldn't just watch somebody put a needle in their arm." "I mean, you love them, right?" "And helping them means reporting them." "Basically you said "My brother's dis-affected." "He's now an enemy to us."" "I was like "[Bleep] you." "You're gonna attack me, you are gonna attack my Church, you are gonna attack my mother, you're not really my brother who loves me anyway."" "Right." "And so I wrote the report, and my mom wrote a report as well and I think about four to six weeks later we got the official word that Collin had been officially kicked out of the Church." "Officially kicked out of the Church and that means that nobody who is affiliated with the Church can talk to him." "Right." "And if they do, they would themselves be kicked out of the Church." " Right." " And long story short, he sent me an e-mail afterwards like, "You guys are dead to me."" "And I realize what he's doing there." "He's doing to us what he already knows we are gonna do to him." "Now I say that because it makes me feel less guilty about writing a report on him that's gonna get him declared, but just the fact that any of us had to make any...decision about that at all..." " Right." " You know?" "Or that, you know, unconditional love does not exist in Scientology." "Right." "Gayle was watching us film the interview with Aaron and she had to leave." "She..." "She just couldn't even watch it." "And I couldn't imagine her pain of having to deal with the guilt that she gave up her son because she thought she was helping him by doing that." "The Church was telling her "Look, push him away." "Shun him." "That's the only way he's gonna return to the path of Scientology."" "Unconditional love is what Scientology isn't." "I mean, the Scientology "family"" "turns their backs on their own family members because they are not in good with the Church." "Aaron:" "I finished the two years left on my staff contract and then I joined the Sea Organization." "And the fact that I had a declared brother did sort of follow me around as a problem in the Sea Org." "My brother was always hanging in the background as a potential problem "with Aaron."" "He has a declared twin brother." "I met my wife Heather in the Sea Org." "And she was in a higher level organization than I was in." "It was tradition in the organization she was in to ask the commanding officer for permission to get married." "It's supposed to be for show, it's not literally supposed to be approve and disapprove." " Right." " It came back disapproved." "The fact that I had a declared twin brother and also was in touch with my father who was in touch with my brother prevented me and Heather from being able to get married for a while." "So I was technically still "connected" to my brother even though I haven't seen him or spoken to him in over a year." "Right, it wasn't enough." "They made me sign something that said" "I would disconnect from my father so that I could get [bleep] married." "Right." "My father's never been a scientologist and has never said one negative word about Scientology to me." "How do you take disconnection to that level?" "You can't get married because you talk to your dad who talks to your brother." "I mean, this stupidity is incredible." "Well, at this point, I only talk to my father couple of times a year anyway for like 10 or 15 minutes at a time, and I was like, "Look, I'll sign whatever you want me to sign, okay?"" "And I said, "Okay, fine." "I'll disconnect from my father."" "Now I say that nonchalantly because in my mind" "I wasn't disconnecting from my father." "I was just getting a piece of paperwork out of the way so I could get married like it was a joke." "And about six months after I joined the Sea Org," "I get a phone call from my dad." "I called him back and he said," ""There's been an accident and your brother has died."" "I just..." "lost it." "And, um, h-having to call my mom and tell her was probably the worst experience of my life 'cause I know that..." "I know that my mom was very, very much hoping that one day somehow everything was gonna change and things will get better and she would see Collin again." "And, um, so I had to..." "I had to wake her up." "I called her... and she answered the phone out of a dead sleep." "And I'm like, "Collin died in a car accident,"" "and she just..." "she [bleep] lost it, you know?" "And, um, I had to fight..." "I had to fight to go to the funeral." "My commanding officer was like," " "Oh, he was just a SP."" " What?" ""He was just a Suppressive Person." ""Why would you bother taking time off post to go the funeral?"" "I'm like, "He's my identical twin brother." "That's why."" "And I said to my dad..." "I said, "Do you think he would want me to go the funeral?"" "And he said, "I don't think you understand how much your brother missed you."" "He said, "We were at a restaurant with a bunch of friends having dinner and your name came up, and Collin just broke down at the table because of how much he missed you."" "Do you know the pain of this mother and this brother looking back going "We gave up a relationship for the Church of Scientology and now he's gone?"" "I-It's..." "It's maddening." "It's maddening." "Because of how much trouble Scientology has caused in his life, he didn't talk about it much when he was going to college other than in his papers." "I know this because when I went to the funeral" "I met all of his friends, only some of whom even knew he had a twin brother." "I walked into the building." "I said I wanted to see his body." "And I walked into the building where that was gonna happen and his girlfriend was standing there and she looked at me and she almost passed out." "She didn't know he had a twin brother." "She thought it was [bleep] Collin walking into the room or something." "I got to meet all these people when I went to his funeral who had been involved in his life for the last three or four years." "I went out with his friends for dinner after the funeral and they were like, "Boy, your brother hated Scientology."" "They're like, "Yeah, he really [bleep] hated scientology."" "It took me about a year or two after I left the Sea Org to be comfortable reading, um, media that was critical of Scientology." "When you're in Scientology, you believe what you have been taught, what you have been brainwashed." "Most of us are second, third generation scientologists." "You are raised in it, you believe that outside sources of information mean Scientology harm." "Because when you are a scientologist you go in every single day two and a half hours a day minimum," "365 days a year, correct?" " Yeah." " When you are going in, you're reporting to your ethics officer or in session you are reporting to your auditor so you feel that you can't" " withhold anything." " Right." "And you have to say "I Googled something."" " Right." " So to save yourself pain and agony, you just don't do it." " Right." " Mm-hmm." "The mind-set that I had was very, very hard to shake." "And what shook it was in 2009 when the St. Petersburg Times did "The Truth Rundown" series of articles and high level executives from the Church like Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder and Tom DeVocht were saying how incredibly abusive the environment was" "at international management." "For Scientology to be true, international management had to be a utopia, nothing but highly trained scientologists and veteran Sea Org members." "If that place is an unpleasant and abusive place, then Scientology's not true." "And so it was electrifying, it was eye-opening." "All scientologists know who Mike Rinder is." "They seem him five times a year at almost every international event and he is key speaker introduced by David Miscavige." " Right." " In my entire..." "It's as embarrassing to look back on and admit it." "In my entire time on staff and working for the Church, it never occurred to me that anything I was told was false." " Right." " Ever." " Right." " It didn't even cross my mind." "Never." "Never." "That is what kept me in, you know?" "Yeah." "So yeah the St. Petersburg Times "Truth Rundown"" " was the beginning of the end." " Yeah." "Because me and my mom, were both, you know, reading and becoming aware of this at the same time." " Right." " And we are both coming to the same conclusions at the same time." " Yeah." " My mom and her boyfriend, her boyfriend had gotten his son into Scientology." "And his son was now grown and worked full time for the Church." "And her boyfriend felt very guilty that he got his son down this direction in life." "So, they sat down with his son and started talking to him about the stuff they had been reading online." "But he worked for the local Church, so he wrote them up that they were now sympathizers of the world's biggest suppressive persons and... and she got declared." "So they say "She's gone to the dark side,"" "is how scientologist would put in." "In the middle of the work day..." "Uh-huh." "...I get called in my boss's office, um, and essentially I get told I'm going to be declared if I don't disconnect from my mom." "Before my mom got declared, the Church actually called my employer because the guy is a VIP in Scientology." " They let him know before me." " What?" "What?" "That my mom's going to be declared because that puts him in a legal situation of does he fire me if I stay connected to my mom?" "So I keep in mind the guy who's employing me and my wife..." "Uh-huh." "is asking me on the spot in his office basically if I want to lose my job" " and my friends and my family." " So what happens?" "So for about a year I pretend to be disconnected from my mom." "And you weren't?" " No." " Oh." "Eventually I get turned in." " By whom?" " Our kid's nanny." "Shut the [bleep] up." "So she found out, like, what?" "She saw?" "The kids would make comments that made it seem like they were still seeing their GG." " Their grandma?" " Yeah." "Like grandmother this, grandmother that." "She wrote it up and turned it in to the Church." "So she wrote knowledge report on you." "Yeah." "Yeah." "So he "laid me off" just before I got declared, right." "Why did he lay you off?" "Because if I get declared and then he fires me after having a stellar performance record for five years and getting raises and bonuses every year, then it's obviously a discrimination lawsuit." "Mm-hmm." "So you lose your job?" "I lose my job." "They call Heather in." "They say, "You got to divorce your husband or you are gonna be declared." As a matter of fact." "Got to divorce your husband or..." "She says?" ""That's not going to work out for me."" " We have three kids together." " Okay." "And within two weeks, my kids are being kicked out of their school" " and Heather had lost her job." " Hmm." "Because Heather worked for a Scientology company." "She worked for Narcanon which is the Scientology drug rehab." "And then your kids went to Scientology School?" "My kids went to a local, private school which is run by a former Sea Org member." "Okay." "Then her parents were called in." " Mm-hmm." " You know," ""You got to disconnect from Heather and Aaron or you are going to be declared."" "I didn't even expect what has happened now with my wife's family to happen." "Every step of the way I was telling myself that could never happen, that could never happen." "I should have known better, and even I was still naive enough to think Scientology would never do this to us." "Scientology would never do this to us." "It happened anyway." "She is like, staring, staring, staring." " Who, who?" " My neighbor is a scientologist." "Your neighbor is a scientologist?" " Yeah, that lady over there." " What's her name?" "Aaron:" "Sue." "So let me ask you this is she not connected to you when living here?" "She is connected to us through our dog." "She actually put a doggie door in her house so that our dog could have free rein in and out of her house, like she just loves our dog, right?" "Okay." "When I got declared, she found out about it but she knew Heather wasn't declared yet." " Okay." " So she had a talk with Heather and she said, "Okay let's have a conversation on how to handle the disconnection and how we are gonna handle the disconnection with the children, but I don't wanna disconnect from the dog."" "I can't..." "Leah, she said, uh, "The dog wouldn't understand."" "Aaron, you're a [bleep] liar." " I'm serious." " You're [bleep] liar." "These words did not come out of her mouth." "Voice mail recording." "She said, "The dog wouldn't understand." "I wouldn't want him to feel like I, you know, didn't want to see him anymore."" "And I'm thinking, "No, but the kids..." " the kids totally get it."" " Totally get it." "Right, the animals, that's crossing a line." "You know I think if Scientology wants to still be around in 20 years they need to cancel disconnection because they are killing themselves." "As much tragedy has happened, a lot of good has come out the other end." "Our life is much happier now." " Boo-boo!" " Wow!" " Hi, Daddy." " Hi, sweetie." "Hello!" "I never would have imagined" "I'd be able to live the life that I'm living now." "We don't have to worry about our friends spying on us or turning us in or reporting on us." "We can just live our lives the way we want to live it." " Do I get a hug?" " Yeah." "Oh, my goodness." "Oh, group hug." "I want people who are still in Scientology or who are on the fence to not be afraid to leave if fear is the only thing keeping them in because Scientology instills that fear for a reason." "They don't want you to leave." "They want you to think that the world is a terrible place." "The world's a great place to live." "You can talk to me." "What would you like to talk about?" "I'm..." "I'm the producer." "I'm the executive producer." "My name's Alex." "Yeah, Alex Weresow." "Okay, cool." "And what's your name?" "What is your name, ma'am?" "You don't know your name?" "Why can't you tell me your name?" "Hmm, all right." "There is a lot of cars with like, um, tinted windows that we're seeing over and over." "Oh, there's that." " Wow." "That's interesting." " That's them." "Man:" "That's interesting." "That's the third time we have seen that SUV." "Okay." "All right." "Hey, Leah, how's it going?" "So we're, um, downtown in Clearwater shooting B roll and didn't take more than 30 seconds for security to come out and ask what we were doing." "And I told them that we were doing a documentary." "Um, this van has also been there for quite some time." "They know and it was very, very cheeky." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "The Church of Scientology is accusing me of inciting hate crimes." "Brandon Reisdorf drove to the Church of Scientology and threw a hammer through a window." "I should have been in a psychiatric hospital." "We are dealing with mental illness." "It starts eating into your head." "Who are these people?" "Why are they doing these things?" "This is taking it to a level that is so [bleep] vile." "I'm not gonna be intimidated, the Church will get exposed, and I'm not gonna stop."