Critical Q&A

The weekly show where I answer viewer questions left for me in the comment section of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:

(1) Do you ever worry or feel that OSA may, in fact, spend money on fake Patreons for you, or does that explicitly contravene the edict that an ex-member/SP may be “ruined utterly”? The way the policy is applied certainly does not seem to be either equal or make sense to me – for example, an OSA operative infiltrated some people’s business for several years while being quite a good sales person & was therefore temporary an asset for them (I seem to recall). Actually, there are countless instances of this “policy” being applied rather haphazardly, so perhaps the question above isn’t that silly after all!

(2) In your Santa Barbara years, have you ever come across a dude named Reed Slatkin? He worked at the Celebrity Center between approximately 1975 and 1984, then moved to Santa Barbara and started offering investment management services to fellow Scientologists (among the high-profile Scientologists he roped in were Anne Archer, Giovanni Ribisi, Greta Van Susteren, and Sky Dayton). In reality, it was a Ponzi scheme, which gradually unraveled between mid-1990s and 2001, when he was arrested. He pleaded guilty in 2003 (he actually claimed something along the lines of “Scientology made me do it”, but the Church retained Latham & Watkins to fight the allegations). He was sentenced to 14 years of prison, served ten, was released to a halfway house in Long Beach in 2013, and died in 2015.

(3) After reading your book and seeing how clunky and inefficient the Sea Org bureaucracy is, the only way I can see anything getting done in a quick way is a direct order from David Miscavige (as proven by your encounter with him). So is the entire upper management of Scientology just full of people trying to get what they want or need via proximity to him?

(4) I’ve known a number of Scientologists personally and found them to be personable, interesting people and, above all, extremely articulate and able to express themselves. Yet there seems to be a dearth of advanced formal education in the people that run the organisation. So my question is whether you know of any authoritative academic studies, PhD’s or Master’s theses, or academics within the organisation who have written descriptions and analyses of some kind. I don’t mean the Lawrence Wright book, which obviously fulfills that function, but more from within the Church itself. How many of its people have actually attended university or hold academic positions of some kind?

(5) What is the biggest “known” secret within the Sea Organization? Meaning, something everyone knows but nobody wants to talk about? Or biggest thing that everyone knows is a scam / lie / false information, but nobody dares to question it and just kinda goes with it?

(6) Would you ever get a tattoo?

(7) Is the term “wog” really used frequently by any and all Scientologists? Also, do you think Tom Cruise has indeed not seen his daughter Suri in years? If not, is it because he is obeying Miscavige or do you think he’s willingly not seeing her because he wants to prove how dedicated he is to Scientology?

(8) Do you know any Scientology jokes?