Thinking Sideways: Michele Miscavige

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking sideways. I don't stories of things we simply don't
know the answer too. Well. Hey there, and welcome again
to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I'm Steve of course,

(00:27):
joined by and I don't know. I just feel like
I have to imitate him sometimes. Oh the deep boys. Okay, okay,
I'll be high pitched from now. Okay, okay, on I'll
go low. Okay. Well, today we've we've of course, got
another bit of a mystery for you. And what we're

(00:49):
gonna talk about is we're going to talk about the
story of Michelle Shelley Miss Cabbage. Michelle is the wife
of David Miscabbage, who you may know. That name you
may not. You might not recognize it because that's not
how a lot of people pronounce it too. Yeah, Mscovige,
I've seen or her in Miss Cabage, So I just

(01:12):
kind of chose when it ran with it because that's
what Ted Copple used. Uh Well. David Miscavage is the
current chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center of
the Church of Scientology, So for all intentsive purposes, David's
Miscabbage is the leader of the Church of Scientology. Michelle Miscavage,

(01:34):
of course, being the wife of the head of this
church is a fairly well known figure, seen publicly and
known by members of the church, and she was very
active up until August of two thousand and seven when
she completely dropped off the radar and essentially disappeared from

(01:58):
the public eye. So she's taking a sabbatical. In other words, honestly,
not nobody. Nobody'll say anything an unsolved mystery Exactually, uh,
there there's a couple of things that I want to
cover first before we get into the story. First of
which is I want to send out a big thank

(02:19):
you to Aubrey who sent the story into us. Uh.
This really was one of those ones where I just
went down the rabbit hole because I'm talking. I've been
doing that a lot lately, I really have. It's it's
a it's a bad personality quirk. I guess you just
like clicking on links. That's all it is. And the
thing about it is, when you're dealing with the Church

(02:40):
of Scientology, there's a lot a lot there's an interesting topic. Yeah,
well it it is. And that's kind of the second
thing I want to talk about here is that this
story deals with the Church of Scientology and why we're
going to discuss how the church works and some of
its practices. That's in no way reflective of any feelings

(03:04):
or personal beliefs towards it or anything like that. I mean, honestly,
I don't understand the Church of Science. I don't understand
any churches though, so that's I'm I'm not a religious individual,
so you know, these faith based systems, I just I
can't really wrap my head around. So what we talk
about here is going to be accounting and information that

(03:29):
we have found through our research, and there's there's no
personal malice or anything like that. This is just trying
to lay out facts as much as we can, and
also we don't want to alienate Tom Cruise, who's one
of our listeners. We're pretty sure. Yeah, of course, you
know you said this guy named Tom who sends us
links and stuff, So I'm assuming it's Tom Cruise. Tom,

(03:53):
it is a safe bat. Yeah. Before we get into
the story of Michelle, I do need to give a
little bit of background on the Church of Scientology. Most
people probably know something about the church or some information
about the church. I mean, there's obviously Joe alluded to.

(04:14):
They've got some pretty famous members. Tom cruise. Uh, Kirsty Alley,
what's the other Yeah, I think back to back back
back is a member of the church. I didn't realize that.
I'm pretty sure. Again, I've gonna be wrong. I don't remember.
I'm pretty sure though. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to say,

(04:35):
but but there is a ton of information out there
how their ideology and their history and the organization. It's
all important and it plays a role in the story.
So we've kind of got to do a little bit
of backwork before we actually get to the story of Michelle.
It's also very well preserved. It's a modern religion for

(04:59):
all intents and purp. This is so, you know, information,
accurate information about origins and things like that are pretty
pretty readily available, which is kind of nice. Actually, it's
not one that you're like, well, maybe this thing happened,
and I guess we you know, to be part of it,
you have to believe it. But also maybe it didn't
and we don't have any good records or anything, so

(05:20):
I don't know. And the cool thing about it is
for future of archaeologists and anthropologists or whatever you want
to call them, is that even after all this has
been lost, you'll be able to dig up some crips
that have a lot of stuff inscribed on them, the
entire fact they're describing. You weren't going to talk about
this later, were you? A little bit? But go ahead,
it's fine, continue on now. The church is actually describing

(05:42):
every word that L. Ron Hubbard ever wrote on the
steel plates, casing them in in what titanium cases, and
then putting them in underground bunkers. So someday, actually somebody
is going to dig that stuff up and negative think
this is what we all believed. It's quite possible. Interesting, Well,
let's let's go into some of the beliefs of Scientology.

(06:05):
As Joe alluded to a little bit there. H. L.
Ron Hubbard, who was an author, founded the Church of Scientology,
and he brought forth the information and the ideology and
a lot of that stuff. And and and we'll get
into some of the tenants in the origin story. Is
is the best way that I can think of to

(06:25):
say this, Yeah, the origins of the religion, yeah, and
or something. Yeah. So here is a very very simplified
version of how this goes. And this is based again,
like I said, on what L. Ron Hubbard wrote. He
says there was a galactic confederacy seventy five million years ago,

(06:49):
and it was ruled by Zenu. Zenu brought billions of
his people to Earth in spacecrafts, stacked them around volcanoes
on our planet, and then killed them all with hydrogen bombs.

(07:11):
Another version of this, I heard that he just basically
dumped them into volcanoes active volcanoes and they were fried alive.
I I have seen that as well, but I don't.
This is the hard part is that, again, people have
their notions of scientology. I took as much of this
as I could from some of the more reputable sites,

(07:34):
so it's hard to say if people twist some of that,
but I'm just going to kind of run with it
as I have it. According to the official Scientology scriptures,
these creatures were Thetan's. I believe. It's how you pronounce that.
Thetan's are evidently immortal souls that were the souls of
these people who were killed off by Zeno, and these

(07:57):
Satan's adhere to hue means and cause them spiritual pain
and harm. All those events that we just talked about
within scientology are known as incident to and what was
incident one? I'm not positive. Again, this thing is so
hard for me to wrap my head around. I'm not

(08:18):
exactly sure. But the traumatic memories that people have based
on these satan's that's known as the wall of fire
or the R six implants. So in other ways, I
say that the thetans have a huge amount of like
pain because of their ending, and then they carry that

(08:39):
into humans and sort of we experience that. That's what
causes Yeah, so we'd be a much happier and easier
going people if we didn't have these pains attached to
us by these souls. Yes, that's that's the way my
understanding is. And I may be incorrect, but the narrative
of Zenu is described as the space opera by l

(09:05):
Ron Hubbard, and he delivered all of this and warned
that anyone who tried to understand this past trauma or
as they call it, the R six implant, uh, that
our six implant was calculated to kill, so you basically
couldn't figure out how to get around it and free

(09:28):
yourself of it naturally. So the thing and that here's
to your body or sway, and that's an our six implant,
I think. So Okay, again, this is so far out
of outside of my wheelhouse, and it's really hard sometimes
to suss apart, and obviously goes thout saying there's a
lot of information about this online. This is like most yeah,

(09:50):
from pro and anti and Scientology website, so be careful
to note which kind of website you're on. And that's
a very good point, I mean, and what and we
got a little bit more here. But this is, like
I said before, a very brief overview, your bullet point overview.
If you're interested in this, as Devin said and Joe said,
there is a ton of resources out there for you

(10:13):
to look at it and dig into it and come
to your own conclusions about it. Now, where we were
at here is we were talking about those spirits, the
Thetan's what you're holding us back. The church believes that
the Satan's, like I said, are Thetan's Satan's They Thetans
are holding us back. And uh, it seems that the

(10:37):
members have of the Church of Scientology have set about
to free themselves from those spirits. The church's method of
spiritual rehabilitation is through a type of counseling that they
call auditing, which the practitioners they try to re experience

(11:01):
consciously painful or traumatic events that happened in their past
and try to free themselves from the limitations that are
caused by that. So again, very high level, very basic
overview of scientology, or I should say, the beliefs of scientology.
So we should now talk about probably the history. And

(11:22):
now you're understanding that we all have multiple tatans in us, right,
not just not just one, but a bunch of them.
I think so, yes. And so if you're if you've
got like say, just a ton of thetans in you,
then you become a serial killer perhaps, and then if
you've only got a few, then you get to be presidents.
That's the way it works, I think. I mean, I

(11:44):
think this is something that people need to go Yeah,
I think, yeah, you're gonna have to dig into this
on your own because it's just there's so many details
and avenues that it goes down and I, like I said,
I started running down through some of the alleys and
then I just had to turn back because it just
I can't rab my head around it. Yeah, as I

(12:07):
was saying, though, we should probably get into some of
the history and the organization of the church, because again
this is important and it plays into the story of Michelle. Obviously,
we've we've explained that l. Ron Hubbard founded the church Scientology.
He officially founded the church in nineteen fifty three, though
he had been operating the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International

(12:32):
as of nineteen fifty two, So to me, it's almost
like he rebranded it and from there he was always
the head of the church up until his death in
and here's a here's a quote from Hubbard to kind
of give you an idea. I took this as a
way to understand what his his beliefs and aims for

(12:55):
the church were and what he intended it to be
for people. The quote is a civilization without insanity, without criminals,
and without war, where the able can prosper and honest
beings can have rights, and where man is free to
rise to greater heights are the aims of Scientology. So

(13:17):
at its simplest level, it's you know, the better people?
Would I take that to me? Which one could argue
is the name of all religions. I would agree. The
church itself is broken into many, many divisions and subdivisions,
and this is where it gets confusing. I would say

(13:38):
it's different than like the religion of Christianity is broken
into divisions and subdivisions. Would you agree with that, it's
more like a hierarchy in a in a corporation, or
more more than if like, well, the Protestants believe this,
and then you know Russian Orthodox believe this. You know

(13:58):
that it's more of a every but he believes the
same thing. And it's just like different callings within the
organization or religion instead of being like, well, we believe
all these different things that we have this one kind
of smaller belief or I guess we have one belief
in common and then believe a lot of other things.
It's it's it's definitely it's definitely organized almost like a corporation.

(14:20):
To me, that's a very great description. And it's it's
hard to imagine different sects of scientology, you know, like
Catholic and Protestant. It's kind of well, it's too new
of a religion. That's that's why it's hard to think
of that because it's brand new for all intensive purposes.
It's sixty years old round figure, So it's hard to

(14:40):
see it having fracture because that takes a long span
of time. Just saying yeah, right, We're gonna go through
some of the divisions here just briefly. And I apologize
this is full of acronyms, because every one of these
names is kind of long, But try and hang on
some of these because they do play a role later on. Uh.

(15:03):
There is the Religious Technology Center or RTC, which protects
the church's copyrights and trademarks, and from the reading that
I've done, that's primarily done through legal action exercising their right.
There is a division of the Association of Better Living

(15:27):
and Education, which helps further and promote the church and
its belief through social programs. So I'm guessing they're going
out in the community and helping out and fostering and
saying this is what scientology does and this is why
it's great. And they also have like a drug rehab
program and stuff like that. I assume that's underneath in

(15:47):
this too. I would presume that that would be likely.
It's spot for it. And then the one that's going
to be really important to our story is especially the
beginning of the story is ce org or Sea Organization.
Sea org was created in nine seven by Hubbard, and

(16:09):
this is it cracks me up a little bit. He
was taking a series of voyages around the Mediterranean Sea,
the Mediterranean, and I thought even mostly the Mediterranean. I'm
sure that he went other places, but if everything that
I've seen was mostly the Mediterranean. While he was on
his trips, Hubbard gave himself the title of commodore, because well,

(16:34):
why not. I would be the commodore of the fleet.
Uh well, and the crew of his ship. And sometimes
it sounds like there was more than one ship. He
called them the Sea Organization, which is how the name
came to be from what I gathered through the research.
Joe can correct me if I'm wrong, But I think

(16:55):
you can only be a commodore if it's a fleet
of ships, I believe so wise you're a captain or
an admiral. Yeah, unless you bestow the title on yourself.
Typically admirals don't usually command ships, so usually like commanding
more than one. But I'm just saying, you know, I
stand there's a respect for actual correct Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(17:19):
we need to correct him. Yes, Okay, I think there
were more. I'm just I was saying that to say
I think there were more than one, and I would
agree with that. U se Org is still in existence today,
it's actually kind of an elite group. Getting into see
org isn't easy, and it's considered a very high honor

(17:42):
in the Church of Scientology to become a member now,
but now it seems to me that was essentially Hybrid's
portable bureaucracy while he was at sea at that time.
Yet at that time, but what purpose do they have now?
You know, you know, I don't want to go into it.
They or there's a lot of stuff there there, it's

(18:03):
too much to go into. If we go into every
level of this church, we're gonna be here for hours
and we're not going to get to our story. And
that's why I'll encourage people, if you're curious, please go
and look at some of this stuff on the web,
and we're gonna start talking faster. Now here's something about
sea ORG that I was actually really kind of shocked.

(18:26):
I mean, getting into the lead organization that's you know,
that makes sense not being easy, but it actually requires
a lifetime commitment to the Church of Scientology and its organizations.
Actually interesting to me because that was like one of
the first things I ever read about se ORG was
it requires a lifetime equipment. Oh and also it's like

(18:47):
a super high honor. So for me it was flipped.
So that's it's interesting that that came second for you
when you were doing your reading and research. Yeah, it's
just I guess a thing of perspective. I guess what
where you're reading it. Here's why you get if you
were accepted in or you you make it into the
status of being a member of s ORG. In exchange

(19:08):
for your membership, you get room and board and training
and auditing. And again remember we talked about auditing a
little bit earlier, which it turns out is often very expensive. Yeah,
so it's like actually a good benefit. I mean, yeah,
these doesn't do these things for free. As a member,

(19:29):
there's course or dues as there are lots of churches,
so if you want to go through processes, you have
to pay. But as a member of c OR, you
don't pay for that. Yeah, you're you're you're in a simple,
simplified version, you're an employee. Yeah, and I know if
we're from so I from talking to and reading about scientologists,

(19:49):
I know some people wind up putting a lot of
money in auditing over the years. Yeah, it can be
an expensive thing. And the reason I made the analogy
that's like being an employee is that you also get
a small weekly allowance or stipend. Here's the thing that
really caught me off guard about Sea Org is that, Okay,

(20:10):
you have to pledge your loyalty. I totally get that,
But it was the contract in the length of the
contract that you sign, which is not a billion years.
We did not make that up. That is real. No,
that is absolutely based on you know, everywhere it says
it's a billion years and they have a uh and

(20:32):
I actually I fact checked this to make sure that
they were not that this was accurate. The Sea Ords
motto is re venomous, which is Latin and loosely translated
means we come back. It was like it was a
good try at pronunciation, Steve. It was a W in
the thing that I read that put it phonetically, and

(20:54):
I was like, why that W doesn't work? About it? So, basically,
how do they just work out when you when you
die and are reborn a new body. Do they come
and they come and get you, impress you into service
or do you just know I think you're called But
I guess that would be the theory that the theory
of you know, like uh, reincarnation or things like that.

(21:17):
Is that a great example? It would be something similar
to the Dalai Lama. Certainly there's that aspect of the
higher ranking people go and find that child that's going
to be the Doali Lama, but also that that child
is like call, like they know in their heart of
hearts or whatever. So I think it's it's a combination
of that, and I can't I can't imagine that. It means,

(21:38):
you know, maybe maybe see or is going out there
and like, hey, you you signed a contract, you're coming
with us, But I don't get the impression. I The
impression I have is that people show up and say
it's weird. I was you know this. I'm really interested
in this and I don't really know why, and they say, oh, well,
you probably sign a contract a billion years ago. Let's
sign another one. Let's re up and we'll go from there,

(22:00):
you know, carrier like that once. Okay, all right, well
I think that's enough about the basic structures and tenants
of scientology to get us into the story. Oh my gosh,
we still haven't even started talking about you started talking.
We'll be quick about it. I mean, because obviously everybody

(22:22):
knows enough about scientology from our thorough investigations, not even
not even not even Okay, well, let's let's move on
to the subject of today's show, which is Michelle Misscavage,
formally known before she was married by her maiden name
of Michelle Barnett. Michelle's parents were Barney and Flow Barnett,

(22:47):
and they were sorry his parents named him that. Um.
They were members of the church in the seventies, and
they they really believed in the church to the point
that they gave their daughters over to the custody and

(23:10):
care of the church. So Michelle and her sister Clarice
became wardens of the church for lack of a better term, well, okay,
they were put in the church's care and their parents
just basically their their parents weren't doing anything. The girls

(23:31):
when they have they have one of these, um they have.
There's a scientology church and school up a kind of
near Portland. It's not actually in Portland, but it's kind
of near there. Um actually know somebody who works there. Uh,
and it's a boarding school. So I think essentially what
you do, it's not like, oh, you're just like a
ward of the state, award of the church as you

(23:52):
send them off to their boarding school and they lived
there and then they do their summer programs through the
church and then they you know, go back to their
boarding school, and then once they grow joy they become
you know, they start working at the church and joins whatever.
You know. So it's not so much of like, oh,
just go away just like be kids in the church.
It's not. It's also not like becoming a nun. I

(24:13):
would say, it's not, you know, but it's it's more
of a you just become entrenched in the church itself
because you you go to boarding school, your friends are there.
It's just that that would just be my like little
addendum to that, like and that's my understanding of how
and I have a hard time finding a lot of information.
But this is back in the seventies, so the church
has been around twenty years. L Ron Hubbard is making

(24:37):
changes in making additions to the church. So I don't
know that that structure was in place at that time,
but from what I can figure out, Michelle herself was
about ten or eleven years old at the time, and
she from that point forward was raised and educated by
the church and surrounded by its members. Uh, and she

(25:00):
evidently really excelled. She did really well. She became a
member of what is and this is gonna be another acoryum,
what is known as CMO, which stands for Commodore's Messenger Organization,
and that is a group that is inside of SORG itself.
So again we're talking about layers within layers of the elite.

(25:24):
Okay um. In N one, she married David Miss Cabbage.
He was also a member of CMO, and she was
seen on a regular basis by members, and she took
on duties. From that point forward, she became a liaison

(25:45):
to some of the more famous members of the church. Again,
Tom Cruise was one of the people that she worked
directly with. Uh. This this is a little bit of
a sidetrack, but this is an odd bit of information
that I came across. Every accounting of her marriage and
her relationship with David gives me the impression that it

(26:07):
wasn't a romantic relationship. People never saw them kiss, no affection,
no touching. Its appears to have been a very formal arrangement.
Well there's you know, who knows, maybe maybe the roses
off the bloom and you know, they're just getting a
little tired of each other. But this is this is

(26:30):
kind of from the beginning. But also the thing that
I think might help explain some of that, because I
did a little digging on this is sea Org is
really conservative and it forbids pretty much anything that is
sexual in nature in its members, I would assume, except

(26:51):
for approcreation. Except for approcreation, so there's no no premarital anything.
And I kind of get the impression that sex is
for making children and that's it, which would explain why
they weren't lovey, dovey, huggy kissy all the time, but
it would also what they believe it could also be.

(27:12):
I mean, there are a number of American political marriages
that you can look at and say, well, that really
just looks like a partnership of two people who saw
the benefit of being married and that it would improve
their status to be married, and they just made it romantic. Yeah,
it probably happens. I still think Bill and Bill and

(27:34):
Hillary you're obviously talking about. Probably. I think they probably
cared about each other at the beginning, but that was
gone probably after Bill's fifth affair. I mean, I would
say that they're definitely certainly not the only people that
come to mind in that sort of and you know,
I think I think it's you know, it could be
any number of things. Yeah, I personally just had the

(27:56):
impression that was based on the ideology they were following,
but in sew York. But you, I mean, it's hard
to say exactly. There are definitely couples in this world
that do come from conservative places where like the only
thing you'll ever see them doing is holding hands sometimes,
and they get bashful if they're caught holding hands, and
you know, that's just it's part of a lot of cultures.

(28:17):
This is very true. In seven, I said, I think
I mentioned this earlier. L Ron Hubbard passed away and
left a power vacuum in the church. That was it
like a sudden death. He how do I say this?

(28:39):
He had been going downhill for a while. Okay, I
guess mentally and physically what I've read. I generally just
kind of have this kind of like weirdness in my
brain about people who like are in these positions of
power that are like on the slow decline and don't think, oh,
you know would be good is naming a successor or

(29:00):
okay whatever? Ce like fine, I honestly, you don't even
have the problem with like, I'm gonna hold this office
until like they pry it from my cold that hands.
That's fine as long as you say, I'm gonna have
this office until they pry it from my cold that hands,
at which point this person is in charge. But he
did he didn't do that. He didn't do that. And

(29:20):
this is this, this is a good point to put
in that the Church of Scientology is waiting for his return. Well,
there's at a lot they have a lot of campuses,
and there's there's things at these campuses that are signs
for him to go to for when he returns, things

(29:40):
to encourage his return. So I almost wonder if some
of it was he said I'll be right back, and
some of it was people just denying that this was
gonna happen. People deny death a lot. That's a tenant's
fair got to do, you know, I mean, I mean,
if you know, I mean, obviously we all know that

(30:01):
we're going to die one day, you know, Nope, not happening.
I'm going to live forever. But yeah, but we're all
mean you can't functionalize, no. But but in this power vacuum,
there was a lot of political jockeying. From the information
that i've I've read for who was going to be

(30:25):
in charge, there's here's an example of something that I
came across. And obviously we all know I'll just you know,
I'll pull the cat out of the bag. We know
that David Miscabbage came out on top and he is
now the head of the church. But there were things

(30:46):
that were going on. Just before Hubbard died. He put
out an apparent order that's circulated in Sea Org which
promoted to scientologists. It was a husband and wife his
The gentleman's name was Pat Broker and I don't have
his wife's name, but they were going to be promoted

(31:08):
to a new rank, which was loyal Officer, which made
them the highest ranking members in the organization or short
of Hubbard. David MS. Cabbage said that the order was forged,
and I don't know the details of what happened, but

(31:29):
from what I understand, that didn't actually ever go through.
They didn't get that position, and I'm going to make
a presumption that that would not have allowed him to
move into the position of chairman of the board. So
so after he after he came out on top, what
happened to Pat Broker and his wife. I don't know.

(31:51):
I don't know. I don't. I that's the only information
that I came across about them. I can't find any
specific information saying what happened to them within the church.
I don't. I just don't, simply don't know. Once David
had his position, Michelle was also given a position befitting

(32:15):
the first Lady of Scientology, and that her title was
Chairman of the Board's Assistant. She worked in the executive office,
and from what I gather, her primary responsibility officially was
to manage the dozen or so employees that were in

(32:38):
that office. I guess I if it were, it's my
reading of the situation that it's it's very similar to
uh CEO, and an executive assistant in the position of
executive assistant is often kind of diminished to this leg well,
he just she just does whatever the CEO wants her
to do. But I think that a's that misses a

(33:01):
lot of the nuances I mean executive assistance. If their
CEO has gone there in charge there, they are instrumental.
You know, there are many organizations in which executive assistants
are senior staff or sea level employees, even though they
don't have that official title. So I think it would
be naive to say, like, oh, she was just like

(33:21):
a gopher aaron boy for her husband in that capacity.
I think that it's more like being the first lady
in that like she has a lot of responsibilities. It's
kind of like being executive assistant or office manager or something,
not just like we'll go get me coffee and like
make babies. True, but it also unofficially in things that

(33:45):
have come across her job was as you kind of said,
the the executive assistant, as you would say, was her
job duty was to go getting coffee. But really she
was supposed to do She basically did whatever he wanted
her to do. He she did whatever her husband dictated.
And again this is from the reporting that I've come

(34:07):
across and and all of that, so I can't confirm that.
And of course, you know that's that's not the most
flattering descriptions, and I you know, we don't do this
a lot. But I'm going to cite a source here,
which is there's a Vanity Fair article and it's quite lengthy,
and the author did a bunch of interviews with people

(34:28):
who have since left the church, and I feel like
there were not a lot of names, so that that
that's where some of this internal executive level stuff that
I'm I'm repeating here, that's where I got that, all right,
And yeah, that's that's totally fair. It's just been my
kind of understanding of other stuff. So let's talk a

(34:50):
little bit more about David. After David assumed power, things,
and I used that phrase loosely, after he became chairman
of the board, things in the executive level of the church,
they appear to become more and more tense. And his

(35:13):
behavior and this is my impression based on the information
I've read read this is I read read his behavior
seems to evolved or devolved to the point of almost meglemania. Again,
these are from people who have left the church, saying

(35:36):
that he became quite cruel and quite brutal to people. Uh,
And I can't back any of that up, but there's
enough people that say that it's it's hard. It's hard
when anybody leaves a group like you know, scientology, to

(35:56):
you kind of have to grain of salt it, you know,
you want to leave that stuff. I think that a
lot of the stuff about scientology that you read, it's
kind of like it's believed because like you kind of
want to believe in this like big shadow organization. He's
the same sort of thing as like the Illuminati almost
to me, where yeah, where you're like, oh gosh, the
shadow organization that probably exists, and they're like super evil

(36:19):
and everything is the worst and everybody's in on it.
It's this huge conspiracy. So I think that you have
to be careful on like both sides. I think that
there's probably a middle ground truth behind every story. Yeah,
there probably is. But I do have to say though,
having having a bet a few scientologists in my time,
they tend to be pretty devoted to the to the church,

(36:42):
and they seem to be the kind of people who
really really want to stay with the church, and I'm
taking what they must take quite an extreme thing to
drive them out. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that
you find that within all religions. You know, I know
a lot of Christians who are really dedicated to the church,
and you know, that's it's kind of the same argument
either way. Well let's let's let's get back to the

(37:04):
story here. Yeah, So in other words, he is he's
becoming more cruel. Um, He's he's obviously going the wrong direction.
He's getting more thetent's in him. What Michelle in her role,
her official role, she seems to have taken on the
task of putting herself between her husband and the staff,

(37:28):
um to the point of running interference for everyone. And again,
this is my interpretation, is in attempt to spare them
from the actions that she's seen him, you know, presenting
to others. UM. Now, obviously that's going to take its toll,

(37:49):
that's going to wear someone down, and it seems to
have done that to Michelle, and that actually helps kind
of it lines up with the events that take place
before she disappears from the public eye. In two thousand

(38:09):
and six, Michelle was given the task by David of
creating a new organization board or again as everything seems
to be shortened in this religion organ board, they call
it the organ board with Originally l Ron Hubbard had

(38:32):
created the organization Board, which as I understand, was seven
divisions of the church that had different functions and duties,
and for reasons that I don't know, David had decided
that it needed to be reorganized and restructured, and he

(38:53):
had assigned this task to several people. Every time somebody
came back with something, he rejected it. He just he
didn't like what they gave, and so he finally gave
it to his wife and said, you can do this.
It seems like the kind of case of like, I
don't like it, change it. Well, what do you want?

(39:13):
I don't know, I just don't like it. Change it.
That's that's exactly, you know. Obviously it sounded to me
like there was actually sort of it was sort of
a group effort by Michelle and a few other people
to put something together, a plan that But yeah, and
the thing about it is is like, you know, at
a certain point, after the third or fourth rejection, if
I think they should have gone to David and said, hey,

(39:36):
you need to be in this group because sending us
off to waste our time and then you rejected, I mean,
just come in here and tell us what you think
of what you want. But that's the hard part. I mean, again,
we made the analogy of a corporate structure. You see
that in corporate institutions, and you think this would be
so much simpler if but that's just not the way
it happened. Yeah, it's too bad. But here's the thing

(40:00):
ing Michelle finished the task, and she went ahead and
began to tell people what the changes were and give
them their new jobs based on those changes. She did
this without running this by David first, which appears to

(40:22):
have been a giant problem. And at the same time,
so these are two events running in tandem. While she
was doing that, David had evidently gone to stay in
Los Angeles for a period of time, and she had

(40:43):
taken the opportunity to renovate their living quarters. And they
lived at what is known as Gold Base, which is
it's in Riverside County, California, UM. And that meant that,
of course all their stuff had to be boxed up
and moved around and set aside. And when he found

(41:04):
came back and he found out what his wife had
done with both the organ board and the renovations, he
keeps saying borg but it's or board, it's they're not
creatures from They're not Psylon creatures from Star Trek Boorg
their board board board and just that you just like

(41:28):
to clarify, and they're not borgs. Okay. Well, when he
got back and he found out what his wife had done,
he was supremely pissed, not happy at all, and he
stripped her of her job title and he assigned her

(41:51):
a handler. Oh. She was seen in two thousand and
seven at her father's funeral with her handler in tow
and that was it. She wasn't seen again in public
from that point forward. Yeah, And I think that she

(42:11):
actually between this incident in two thousand and six and
it was it was in December of two thousand six,
is when it happens, So we're looking at a eight
month period. Now. She actually disappeared at red not long
after this, and that the only time, the only time
she reappeared was in August two thousand seven, with her
last public sight. Yeah. Correct, and that has not been
seen since. The official statement. The official line from the

(42:36):
Church of Scientology is that Michelle's fine, She's fine, She's fine.
Does she stop questioning? Is she's fine? She's working on
a special project special the church is completely outside of
the public. Yeah's with an she's just taking some time.

(42:57):
This is happening on the laptop in home. I mean,
she spent all that time on the renovations. She might
well be enjoying them. Totally fine, it's fine, it's fine,
She's fine. Everything is fine. That's my interpretation of that statement,
just saying, do either of you know who Leah REMANI is?

(43:21):
Actually I had. I didn't know her by name. I
had seen her on TV a few times, and I
had not realized she was a scientologist. Lea Remini. She
plays the wife on the TV show The King of Queens.
Until about a year ago, she was a member of
the church. She had also developed a friendship with Michelle.

(43:46):
I thought Michelle was her handler, right, I mean she
wasn't her handler, wasn't she the Oh no, I'm sorry,
Liaison is the word I was looking for. I don't know.
Were you gonna mentioned that Scientology has this this place
in l a that they called the Celebrity Center. No,
I wasn't going to go into that, Yeah, celebrity Well,

(44:08):
I saw this BBC News thing about that was like
documentary about the Scientologists, and they interviewed ly ever meaning
and this was before her break with the church, and
she was just all, you know, all just glowing about
the church and how wonderful it was. And they interviewed
her at the Celebrity Center. Well, and she's not so
glowing about the church. Because obviously left and she was

(44:31):
friends with Michelle. She is one of the few outspoken
people who has asked about Michelle's whereabouts vocally and rather publicly.
She went so far as in two thousand thirteen to
file a missing person's report with the Los Angeles Police Department, saying,

(44:56):
this woman's disappeared. I guess if you haven't seen like
a close friend for like, what is it, six plus years,
six years or so, you probably start to get suspicious. Yeah,
and that I think the reason she got angry and
left the church is that people were people were just
stone walling her, like, why can't you just give me
an answer? Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a very simple question.

(45:18):
You think it could be a very simple where Yes, Well,
the Los Angeles Police Department investigated, and they say that
they met Michelle and then she's fine. From what I read,
and I haven't read that they actually went to her home,
but they did actually speak to her in person. Well, yes,
they spoke to her in person. The information I had

(45:39):
said that they had the detectives had confirmed that they
had met her and knew who she was, and that yes,
she was fine. So we're saying this is a case
of like one woman being like, I don't really want
to be friends with that person anymore, so I'm going
to stop returning her phone calls, and then that person
being like, well she's dead, right, that's all. That's not

(46:03):
a fair one now, because I mean she lear remdi
uh would see. They would have events and all sorts
of things like that. Clearly major once who was what
was the wedding that her husband, David Muscavage was the
best man at that was and that was since two
thou seven, So yeah, but his wife wasn't there. Yeah,

(46:25):
and was there and his wife wasn't there, and that
made her really suspicious. Yeah, I think that's fair for
a reason. They used to they used to exchange Christmas
cards and gifts and stuff like that, and that ceased. Well,
I guess, like the thing I guess the thing that's
like a little weird about that is that, like the

(46:48):
the excuse that the Church of Scientology is giving, right, Yeah,
that she's fine, she's just working on something out of
the public eye. But that doesn't mean that, like you
stopped going to these social events, right, doesn't mean you
stop calling your friend even if okay, fine, like let's
say that also she doesn't want to be friends with
this woman. It doesn't mean that, like you don't go

(47:08):
to a wedding at which your husband is the best man.
It doesn't mean that you don't you stop going to
these galas and things like that, or even just like
internal parties. It means that you like take a step
back out of the public eye and like stop giving
press conferences. Maybe. But well, there's and we'll we'll get
into some reasons for why it could be such an

(47:31):
extreme removal from everything. Is it she's becoming Tom Cruise? Okay,
not at all? Okay, Well, and and quite obviously we've
told the story. Now we're in our theory. Yeah, okay.
I have essentially three theories here for us, first of
which is not the happiest theory, which is that she's

(47:53):
dead by Tom Cruise. No, no, don't, don't even joke
about that. It is entirely possible that she's passed away. Now,
I'm not pointing fingers to say that somebody killed her
or ordered her death, or how she died or anything
like that. But for somebody to disappear that completely usually

(48:19):
requires that they are no longer living. And I've seen
some stuff about her husband where he has said that
he wanted her gone forever, and I've also seen things
that said that before everything went to Helen a hand asked,
she was extremely unhappy. So you know, to me, it's

(48:44):
entirely possible that she might not be here anymore. But
I have you know, there's this weird thing about well,
the church was all she knew, and that's her entire life.
So so you know, what where does that leave us
if she's no longer among the living. Well, you know,
maybe she took her own life. Okay, so let's let's

(49:09):
run down this is that. Okay, she she is at
the top, She is second in command for all intents
and purposes, and then her world gets turned upside down
and she is shunned from power. Well, she doesn't have
the option to leave the church in her mind, because

(49:31):
everyone she knows in her entire life is based in
the Church of Scientology. And she probably actually doesn't have
a lot of useful skills It could be applied in
the outside world either. I think useful is the wrong term.
Marketable and knowing how to put that out in the
world to make yourself an employee of someplace. It is

(49:52):
probably a better way to put that and more. Yeah, yeah, now,
you know, I mean I think we've got into this
a little bit. But you know, like I said, she
couldn't just leave the church because people who leave the
church are ostracized by anyone who is still in the church.
And if every person that you know is a member

(50:13):
of the organization, where does that leave you. You're denounced,
you don't exist. And could you imagine trying to make
I mean, people do it, but for someone who's been
in that organization for that length of time, at that age,
I don't think that's conceivable. Yeah. The thing about it,
a lot of the people that have left are people

(50:34):
who have with with some obvious exceptions. There's people who
went in as kind of like adults, and once they
left the church, they still had family who were outside
the church and friends that they used to know that
they can go back to. Whereas this person was in
it from from the very beginning and probably didn't know
anybody who wasn't a scientologist at least that was not

(50:55):
friends with anybody exactly, so her her resources are limited
outside the church. Yeah, it was. It would have been
a tough trying to leave the church for her would
have been a tough thing. Here's the problem with Michelle
being dead theory. I have a problem with it. Well,
I have a lot of problems with him, but my
major problem with it is that the Los Angeles Police

(51:16):
Department says they met her. Yeah, well, if she's dead,
how do they meet her? Well, I mean I've seen
pictures of her and like, she it's not like she's
looking that it would be hard to with the right
makeup artist and some good sunglasses. I mean, she looks

(51:37):
kind of normal to me. She's not. They're just pictures
of her, and they're all kind of like crappy pictures.
You would be easy to just say even you know,
like on the missing reports flyer or missing person's flyer,
the picture of her is like not good, like it
could be any Like I have friends that could look
like that for I mean, you know, well, and the

(51:58):
cops would have never these police officers who went to
meet her would have never had occasion to meet her before.
So the only thing they could go off as a photo, which,
like you said, if I'm going to say a double,
if there was a double, then we can say that

(52:19):
maybe this theory has some a leg to stand on.
But that's that's really to me pushing it. I don't know,
I guess for me, my big problem with this theory
is that, like it's super easy, like okay, Like this
is a very insular religion, right, with a lot of
things that people don't understand. So it's easy to say,
like it's part of our religion that like autopsies not

(52:40):
happen on bodies, right, Okay, easy, And then it's very
easy to say, oh, she slipped and fell and it's
super tragic that she's dead. Now, I mean, it doesn't
make sense for an organization to cover up a death
when you like to just like lie about her being alive,
for instance, right when it's so easy to be like, oh,

(53:00):
she was having a hard time and mixed pills, or
there's so many different accidental death things that could happen.
You stage a car accident for Christ's sake. I mean,
like it's so easy to just have all of these things,
especially for an organization or religion as large as scientology,

(53:21):
that like, even if her death was under mysterious circumstances,
you can make it look reasonable and then just say no,
you're not having an autopsy, we're going to cremate her
and then that's it. She'll come back in another life
and if she wants to tell you then then she'll
tell you then. But I just I just have such
a hard time with the like, well, let's just yeah,

(53:41):
let's just carry on like she's alive. That for me,
that's like the biggest part of it. I don't know. Yeah,
And and also I think she's probably lie because you know,
the cops are you know, detectives and actually met her,
and you know they're not babes in the woods. These
guys realize that, you know, they probably had some way

(54:02):
to verify that she was actually who she said she was.
How would be my only guest driver's do you think
that when you're when a cop is going to check
on a missing person's report and the person shows up,
the first thing they do is whip out the ink path?
I think I think it just it depends on the situation.

(54:27):
I don't have the problem Joe has. I'll be honest
with you. I mean, if somebody says, like, here's my idea,
and like, oh, I've lost a little weight and like
dyed my hair, it's I know it's weird, but it's
l A. So that's what happens. It happens, you know,
Like I definitely have had ideas in the past where
I've been like, well, I know, I've like lost twenty pounds.
It's like it doesn't really look like me so much anymore,

(54:49):
and they're like, we'll get a new one, and You're like, okay,
I will like it. If she has all of the
information of that person, she passes that person. I mean,
they could find somebody who looks just like have you
seen pictures of her? Yeah? She It would be super
easy in LA especially to find somebody who looked like
that to me at least. But the problem with this

(55:09):
is is that once you've once you've found this double
and you fool the police, then you have somebody you
have to murder. No, you pay her enough money, I mean,
like give her a couple of million dollars and or
if she's a member that's also the church, then I
mean there are ways to convince people that that's part

(55:30):
of their duties as a member. I mean, I don't
want to be labor this to what I'm saying, No,
none of us do, none of us like it. I'm
just saying that that creates another loose end. Even if
even if you paid her a million bucks, even remember
the church. That's a big old loose end, it is.
And I think that there's no really, no real reason
to believe that she's dead personally because scientology, I mean,

(55:51):
whatever you say about it, and people say a lot
of bad stuff about it, there's no record of any
scientologists ever murdering anybody, not that, not that I know.
But let's let's let's move Yeah, the church. We're going
to move forward to the next which is that the
church is telling the truth. It's completely possible that what

(56:16):
they say is accurate. I know Devin is shaking her
head there with me. Okay, we've already talked about how
much of Michelle's life was and is and was about
the Church. Here's what we need to consider is that
maybe it is it is true that she is working

(56:40):
in the background pursuing projects for them, and she just
doesn't want to be in the prying eyes of the
press and the congregation. And bear with me. There's a
couple of things about the church that I want to
go into that may help explain some of this. We talked.
We've talked already about auditing that audit process. There's also

(57:01):
two other practices that I've I've read about. One is
called introspection rundown and the other one is set check. Okay,
these practices have been legally reviewed because people have raised
some concerns and issues about them, and there is allegations

(57:22):
that their processes that are used for indoctrination or re
indoctrination into the church. And it's possible that Michelle went
through these processes. I'm not saying that she did, but
here's what they are. Is introspection rundown is a process
that is used specifically to help with people who have,

(57:45):
according to the church, psychotic episodes. It could be construed
that her behavior prior to everything that happened at the
end of December of two thousand and six was us
iconic episode and she was treated for that. And after

(58:05):
she was treated, she took up another job in the
church that had less stress. So the public and the
job was too much. But do you have an idea
what introspection rundown actually is. It's it's a muddy mess.
I don't want to go into it, but it is.
It is something where the church uses some techniques to

(58:31):
help people that are having some psychotic issues, and I
didn't go too far into it, and I think, again,
this is one of those things that we've got to
kind of take the line of if you want to
really delve into it, I'm going to leave that up
to folks to go onto their own. But the other
thing that she could have gone through is the one

(58:52):
that we talked about called set check. And set check is,
according to my research and the things that I've come across,
is where the security personnel of the church will put
people through repeated interrogations and there these interrogations are designed
to elicit confessions or repentance or even submission for deeds

(59:20):
and misdeeds to help you reset and come back to center.
So she could have gone through that, and maybe she
gave in, maybe it worked, I don't know, and then
based on that, they put her in another place outside
of everybody's perview. You're freaking out over there, I I am.

(59:42):
You're right, And there's a lot of things that I
want to say that I'm just going to go ahead
not say, but I do. Just you know, the problem
that I have with this is similar is that, like
you don't miss your friend's wedding because you're going through
this stuff, right, you appear for six years because of
the stuff. I don't think she's voluntarily going through this.

(01:00:02):
It doesn't sound like sex check is something that you voluntarily.
But if the whatever she went through, whatever process, if
she went through some kind of process, she came to
a revelation. So let's just run down this this avenue.
She comes to a revelation of these are the things

(01:00:24):
that she needs to do. And I'm going to use
this phrase and it might light some people's hair on
fire to repent for her misdeeds against the church and
her husband. Then she needs to serve the church, and
she needs to do it in her way. We I
mean there's historical accounts of people joining churches and abandoning

(01:00:48):
everyone they know and leaving everything they know behind and
I mean convents or crusades or whatever it may be,
and going somewhere completely different and cutting off all communication
because that doesn't let them do what they need to

(01:01:09):
do for themselves and what they believe. I guess my
argument against that is that like, that's not the church
isn't then also telling the truth about that, right? I mean,
I think it's one thing to say, well, she's taking
like a backburner role. It's like totally normal. It's another
to say there were some problems and we've worked through

(01:01:30):
them and whatever. I think that there's just like more
explanation that you can do, and there's definitely a pr
way to do it right. It's not like you're like, wow,
she had a mental breakdown and them like we cleansed
her and she's fine. Now, you know, I think that
you there are pr ways to say that. And but
but ere's ere's the thing we have seen so not

(01:01:54):
in the church, scientology, not in religion. Let's just spin
to politics for a second. We have seen things happen
in politics that were strange or untoward or whatever they were,
and somebody came in to do damage control, and the
initial description or explanation whatever, their their initial concept of

(01:02:19):
solving the problem was made it worse. But once that
was there, they were screwed. They had to try to
stick to it because the line is, here's my explanation.
Don't waiver from that, because if you waiver from it,

(01:02:39):
then you're opening up a bigger can of worms, and
you've gotta stick with it. I just think that, like
you can build on their initial thing, right, either initial
thing was while she's taking a back burner position, and
that's fine because you build on that. If this, like
you know, if she did go through sec check or
did do this introspection rundown is you know, essentially like

(01:03:01):
in the Scientology version of a convent, whatever that may be.
Maybe she went back to sea, or maybe she you know,
there's so many different options that builds on the taking
a back burner, and it gives the public at least
more of a sense of a fleshed out story that
might be believable in real as opposed to like she's

(01:03:22):
taking backburner role. What I know, you want more information. Now,
there's no more information. She's just out of the public eye.
But but there there are a number of things within
the Church of Scientology and and for people in general.
I'm not going to make this just about the church
where you want to keep things privately. I mean, again,
I'm not trying to defend if this is true, but

(01:03:42):
people have I mean, I have a private life. There
are things that I do in my life that I
don't want to talk about and I don't want other
people to know about. And so I just don't talk
about it, so it's conceivable to say, you know, yeah,
the world wants to screw the world. They don't get
to know. It's my life. I think there's a there's

(01:04:06):
an end to that though, right, And you don't get
to say that if you're the president of the United States,
for instance. Right, So if you're like the leader of
a large, powerful church, the pope doesn't get to say that.
The pope doesn't get to say, like, I don't know,
I just like took a sabbatical for whatever. I mean,
you know. I think a great example is like the
pope resigning, like you know, he couldn't just be like

(01:04:26):
I just want to take like a more of a
backburner role. He had to say, like, here are some
specific reasons, and whether they are true or not, whether
they were the main reasons or not. He came up
with some reasons for that. So I think that's my
big problem with this theory. I have problems with all
the theories. I'll be honest with you. This theory is that,
like you give, you give small specifics at the very least.

(01:04:50):
If you're part of a public organization in the public
eye for whatever reason, you're obligated. You have that obligation
to your community to explain it a little bit at least. Well,
and I know we've kicked the crap out of this,
but do you have any final thoughts on this theory? Well, yeah,
it's it's it's crap because you know, if yeah, yeah,

(01:05:12):
if she was doing work in the background, you know,
she's still in good terms with the church and everything
and things are all everything's okay, okay. Meantime, meantime, there's
all this stuff whirling around the internet saying, gee, what
happened to Michelle. The simplest thing would be for the
church to just produce her, you know what I mean,
the church would just say, you know, and Michelle, I mean,

(01:05:33):
you'll go call a press conference. Let it, just let
everybody know you're okay. Just say hey, I'm cool. Men
show up on TMZ. That's all you mean, like truly
post one selfie and you're fine. Yeah. People are getting
all twitchy about this, Michelle, So just get out there.
And I gotta get you back out there a little bit,
you know. And uh, and so there's just no conceivable
reason for them to stonewall. I mean, I'm in agreement

(01:05:55):
with you as well. This is a weird one we
we have and this is a very short list of theories,
but we are we're really going into him. Here is
our final theory is that she's locked up somewhere. This
this is far and away the most popular one, and

(01:06:16):
it's with good reason. Your hair is on finding. Okay,
all right, well again, I'm gonna I'm gonna lay out
some some accountings and this is from the Vanity Fair
article as well as a couple of other articles that
I found online. Uh, and these are accounts from people

(01:06:38):
who have left the church. We have a former church
member by the name of John Brousseau, and he came
forward and he said that Michelle is being held at
a location. It's known as the Church of Spiritual Technology
or the acronymic CST. Can't get rid of the acoryms.

(01:07:00):
And it's located in north of San Bernardino, near Lake Arrowhead,
which is in California, as most of their locations, their
major locations are. And you might remember earlier when we
were talking about some of the divisions, I had talked
about the rd C, the one who uses legal uh
motions to protect their rights and their copyrights. And all

(01:07:23):
that well, all of that stuff is owned by CST.
So R S t R r TC is defending what
is owned by CST. And if you put write that
all down sequentially on a piece of paper, it's crossword puzzled. Yeah.

(01:07:44):
This campus, the one that's in uh near Lake Arrowhead,
it's like five hundred acres. It's huge. It's a big
campus and presumably quite a beautiful place if you've developed
that much land for people to be at. Well, here's

(01:08:06):
the thing. People refer to it. Uh we don't. They
call it the whole, you know, as in when you're
in prison and you're in the hole and you're in
lock up the hole. That's not great. No, it's considered
a place that people go to and they don't come
back mail anybody who's there. Their mail and their phone

(01:08:28):
calls are monitored. And I've seen pictures of the front
gate and it's it's shocking because it's a wrought iron fence,
which you think is nice, but it's got spikes inward
and outward, mostly inward, which would further you're keeping people in. Yeah, okay,

(01:08:54):
well let's go back to so um he according to him,
the CST headquarters there's several buildings on this campus house
they house workers, and those workers are archiving. UM. I mean,
there's there's there's vaults as Joe had talked about in

(01:09:14):
the beginning, where they're etching all of the words of
l Ron Hubbard and storing them in titanium boxes for
future generations. UM. There is also UM I apologize, it's
it's amazing the things that are on this campus. They're

(01:09:36):
according to another person who is named Dylan Gill, who
has also left the church and was a member of
Sea Org. Uh, Dylan Gill evidently oversaw the construction of CST.
There's a log cabin primed and set up for the
return of l Ron Hubbard, and there's also a structure

(01:09:59):
that is set up for the v I p s
such as David Misscabbage and guys like Tom Cruise and
a couple of the other famous people that we've talked
about to go in the event of nuclear armageddon. So
it's just an underground bucker, it's not above ground. That
seems kind of counter now stead of kind of interesting though.

(01:10:22):
I mean, I guess the rank and the file, the ranking,
the rec and file, it's like your host, dude, sorry,
it's just usking, our celebrity pal. Yeah, and a whole
lot of booze that's actually not listening anywhere. It's interesting,
actually the pictures of this place right as you're saying,
it's like roar fence with whatever, and there's like one
house on a hill and like that seems to be

(01:10:46):
the only guy. Sure everything else is like underground or
like weird cutouts or in the turf or whatever. So yeah,
it probably is all a bunch of underground. And Rousseau
says that he says that for seven years Michelle has

(01:11:10):
lived and worked on the campus or the compound, whichever
you want to call it, working to preserve those writings
of l. Ron Hubbard. So it's it's possible that she
was there at one point and then she went somewhere else.
We don't know, but people have said that. I mean

(01:11:32):
a lot of several people have come forward and said, no,
she's there. I guess I I could see is like
in a combination of that this theory and the previous theory, right,
is that like, okay, so what she decided to do
with her life is like become essentially like a monk
transcribing the religions, well I transcription, you know, and so

(01:11:54):
she just lives on this compound and like that's her
life and that's fine. But then like but then in
it's that question of like why wouldn't they just say, oh,
that's what she decided to do that satisfies everybody's curiosity.
I mean, I just you know, it could be too.
Maybe she she accepted that life because the alternative was

(01:12:16):
was banishment, complete banishment from the church. You know, it's
for her what would have been maybe pretty dam Yeah.
There's another possibility though, too, which is that her husband
was basically sick of her and wanted to be rid
of her, not necessarily for reasons that are her fault.
Sounds like he's kind of I don't know, well, well
hard to get along with. Yeah, it sounds like, yeah,

(01:12:37):
uh so he might have just wanted to be rid
of her, and so he might have just said, look,
I want to leave the church because I just don't
want to have anything to do with you anymore. So
here's the deal. We'll send you a check for a
couple hundred grand year so you can live comfortably. You
go off somewhere well will establish you in a new identity,
you go live wherever you want to live, will send
the checks. And she just did that. She just left

(01:12:59):
and took on a new identity. I mean people do it, yeah,
because uh, and it might be it might well be
that maybe they had some discussions and maybe she might
have actually at this point have been thinking, you know,
I really don't believe this stuff anymore, because here we're
talking a yeah, yeah, because it would be hard to

(01:13:22):
to be around and see all these abuses of power
and it's really a kind of quasi totalitarian structure and
nature of the church and not at some point see
the basic clash with the original writings of l. Ron Hubbard.
What she was talking about peace, love, dope and all
that stuff, and you look at the actual behavior of
the church brass and she was involved with she was

(01:13:48):
she worshiped him, She she totally did. But it might
have been that she was just totally disillusioned. I guess
for me, that seems like something that happens earlier in life,
you know, I think that, like and that's a generalization,
to be sure, but it just kind of seems like
you hit a point where you're just kind of committed

(01:14:10):
to that, all right, you've made that marriage. Your whole
life has been this thing. You're in it, and maybe,
you know, maybe it was the kind of like abuses
or like the aggression that she experienced from her husband
or from you know, other people. I don't know, but
it just kind of seems like you get disillusioned in

(01:14:30):
your like early twenties, Like that's kind of the general
time that like people leave teens in twenties. So I
don't know. I mean, Steve's shaking his head at me.
I totally I have to totally disagree. And that's well,
there's there's there's stories of people who are in religions

(01:14:52):
or relationships that don't hit their breaking point until they're
in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and then they finally come
to the realization that what they think is no longer
what is. So I'm not disagreeing with you that she
may have become disillusioned, but I'm saying that doesn't necessarily
always happen as a twenty or thirty something. Yeah, I

(01:15:16):
guess this. This whole case is just like so frustrating
to me because just the it's frustrating because the church
just refuses to elaborate at all. You know. It's just
like there are there are so many explanations and all
of them could be totally reasonable if they would just say, oh, hey,

(01:15:39):
one small, minor detail, but they're just like, now we
said the one like tiny super can like it's just
like this huge, like blanket statement. This is what we said,
and that that's it. That's all you get. That's all
you get about this person who has been like literally
not heard from for seven six seven years, and that
that's the thing that really bothers me is that it's

(01:16:00):
just like, hey, we made this one blanket statement seven
years ago, so you all should be good here. To
me is one of the hardest facts to reconcile with,
and it also in a way is the most heartwrenching.
Is it's entirely possible that all of this is her decision.

(01:16:23):
It is entirely possible that she has decided to do this,
and whether she has put herself into exile intentionally or
she is doing something that isn't a state of exile,
if it's her choice, and from the things that I

(01:16:44):
have read, she was not happy. The worst part is
is that the person who could solve it the easiest
is her by saying I'm done, and now we're kind
of dealing with sort of a little minor variations I
think on theory is I think a might a variation
on on my theory, which is that he wanted her
gone and paid her off. Another another possibility is that

(01:17:06):
she suddenly realized that she couldn't deal with it anymore
and she didn't believe it anymore, and she just And
it might have been because well, here's here you got
that would be kind of a blow to the church,
because the wife of the head of the church leaves
the church, and this would be, you know, shortly there

(01:17:28):
thereafter followed by his niece leaving, and that's that's a
double damaging bloo. Yeah, And so you know, they can't
even if they have her locked up. It's kind of
hard to keep somebody locked up forever. I mean, it's possible.
But it might have been that they just thought, well, Okay,
maybe what we're gonna do here is pay you off,

(01:17:50):
get you a new identity, and you go somewhere and
we just won't talk about it. Well, yeah, so I'm
trying to No, it wasn't. The differences between my earlier
one is that is that in the first. In the
first one it was her husband's idea, he wanted you're gone.

(01:18:11):
Another another it could be that she just wanted out
really bad and that because you know, not only would
it be damaging because she's the wife at the head
of the church, but also she knows where the bodies
are buried. And I mean that ephemistically, of course. You know.
The big question mark in my mind is that, like, okay,

(01:18:32):
so I just I can't imagine existing and hearing please
from like good friends they're saying like, hey, where are you,
Like we're worried about you, like what's going on, and
just like ignoring it, you know what I mean. So
like for me, there I guess a couple options. One

(01:18:52):
is that like she's not hearing them because she's dead.
One is that she's not hearing them because she's locked
up or quarantine in isolation. And then you know, the
third one just like wouldn't make sense to me, is
that like she's hearing them and choosing to ignore them,
because like you know, we've all been in those situations
where we're like, well, I don't really want to talk
to that friend. But if a friend is like, hey,

(01:19:13):
we were super close and you literally have just dropped
off the face of the earth, And I don't understand.
Can you just like tell me you're okay, Like give
me one sign that you're okay, and you're and that
person is so worried about you for six years. Can
you imagine just ignoring somebody who was like your best
friend for a really long time, like for six years.
That person is reaching out to you and saying, like,

(01:19:34):
I just want to know you're okay. Like it's cool
if you don't need to be friends anymore, that's fine,
but like, I just want to know if you're okay.
So for me, it's just those two theories of like
she's not hearing it because she's dead, or she's not
hearing it because she doesn't have access to it. You know,
I just can't imagine being in that position, because it's
not just one friend. Surely there are other people in
the organization who are saying, like, hey, we miss Michelle.

(01:19:56):
What's going on with her? Like we want to talk
to her. It's hard to imagine, but there are There
are plenty of examples of people who have left family
members behind, whether it's one or all, and they still
had contact and they still heard those please for contact,

(01:20:18):
and they chose to ignore them, whether they were out
of anger or guilt or whatever it may be, people
do that. I guess my like, my big thing is
like with um, what's her name, Leo, what's her name?
The actress? Right? Yeah, yeah, so right. I can see like,

(01:20:40):
if you want to stay in the church, you like
you don't necessarily like talk to that those people who
are in the church. But then when somebody leaves, you
talk to that, you know, I think that there's there's
so much room there. I don't know. But the thing
about it is you don't know that she hasn't contacted
Leo remaining. She wasn't close to very many people the
church at all, from what I understand. At some point,

(01:21:03):
um she could obviously if she's been paid off and
told to disappear, then she was probably also best part
of the agreement told she can't contact anybody. Yeah, that's
certainly true. But I guess like the two people right
would be like Lea Remini Thenice nice. But you don't
know these people have these people have gone public and

(01:21:24):
said that they want to know where she is. But
Lea REMANI wasn't doing it for years and years and years.
I mean, it was like, when does she start actually asking?
It wasn't like in two thousand and seven, it was
quite a while after. I don't remember when Tom Cruise
got married, but at Tom Cruise's wedding, I think that's
really got into hot water because she asked at the wedding, Yeah,

(01:21:45):
where is she? Where is she? Yeah? Exactly, And so
she probably asked a few times, and she asked a
few times again, and Michelle, knowing, you know, hearing these
reports and hearing about it, probably found a way to
covertly contact her and let her know that she was okay.
So but if she, if Michelle had contacted Lea remediing,
then then after she was done reassuring it that she

(01:22:06):
was okay, the next thing she would have said to
her is, I want you to keep asking where the
hell I am because they can't know that I've talked
to you. And if you stop asking where where I am,
They're going to smell a rat. So she might well
have been in contact with Leader Remedians and a few
of the people, but another in order to cover that up,
they've got to keep asking the question. Yeah, I I

(01:22:28):
really feel like we just took in drill a bunch
of scribbles on a piece of paper and together I
think we just did like a bunch of different dots
and we were like connect them to something. I do
want to say, Lea REMANI I I hope you find her,
hope you've already found her, And what you need to
do next time. Let's go file the missing person's complaint

(01:22:48):
and when the technists go out to have an interview
with her, you must insist on going along. That would
that would solve our double issue. I don't know, It's
just it's so huge and confusing, and this whole thing
is just like a mess of like spaghetti monsters. Yeah,
and and obviously unfortunately we haven't solved it. We definitely

(01:23:08):
haven't solved Actually, I actually I'm gonna give Leo a
little bit more advice, better ideas. Still detectives. The detectives
have to bring her to see you, and that which
means that she has to leave the compound. And if
there's a problem with that, and for having for having six,
why would there be a problem with her leaving the compound?
And you know, then I'll come and see you and

(01:23:30):
if there is a problem with leaving the compound, well,
other textives can call him the swat team and that's
that's yeah, No, I can't I that would work. Absolutely Well,
We're gonna We're gonna stop with the story because I
think that we have literally run down every alley and
rabbit hole and conceivable that we could come up with.

(01:23:52):
And however long we've been talking now I don't even
know anymore. Um, if you have any thoughts on this story,
you can, of course let us know. You can always
go ahead and put a comment on our website. That
website is thinking Sideways podcast dot com. At the same time,
you can of course listen to and download episodes from

(01:24:14):
the website. If you're not using that, you can of
course use iTunes. If you're on iTunes, do take the
time to leave a comment and a rating that helps
other people find us and everybody. We're getting a bunch
of new people and it's fantastic. We are on Twitter.
Not super active on Twitter, but try, I will try.

(01:24:41):
We are on Facebook. We have the Facebook page and
the Facebook group, and we're having some I've been having
some really fun discussions on there. There's a number of
different places that you can stream the show. You can
do it on Stitcher, there's uh FM something or other.
I can't even think about it. I mean, there's a
whole slew of places that were streaming online. And of course,

(01:25:06):
if you're Michelle, you can always just send us an email. Yeah,
I would love that. Actually that little spot. Maybe she
all she has to do is listen to podcast. Maybe Hi, Michelle,
you can send us an email at Thinking Sideways podcast
at gmail dot com. And speaking of email, we do

(01:25:27):
have one listener mail that I wanted to share. I
know that this is a big episode. We normally don't
do it, but it's a little pertinent to some things
that are going on. So first off, this email is
from Alyssa and she said that she, uh I found
the podcast a while ago and it's my new favorite.
I listened to him when I'm walking my dog and

(01:25:47):
it keeps me entertained for an hour or so while
she patrols the neighborhood, which I believe is code for
uses the neighbor's law. But she, of course, you know,
she likes the fact that there's a variety we're doing.
Not only UFOs are missing persons, but we do the
whole slew and anything and everything that we can come across.

(01:26:10):
But she did bring up one concern that I wanted
to talk to everybody about, which is that she wasn't
able to download the episodes off of the website, like
we have continually told everybody they could. I apologize, guys.
It turns out the player that we were using, it's
sort of broke at one point, and I'm not quite

(01:26:31):
sure when. Uh, and she, as well as one or
two other people, let me know this week. They all
kind of came at once and said, Hey, this isn't
working by the time this episode comes out. How do
we fixed? We will replace the player and we will
make sure that you're able to download the show. So
sorry about that, but it's fixed now. When this happens.

(01:26:55):
By the time you're hearing this, Yeah, in that couple
of weeks, I'll have figured out a solution. Alright, you
guys over alright. Well, that's all I've got on this,
So thanks everybody, and we'll talk to you next week folks. Bye, guys.