Doug Kramer | @DazedbutNotConfuzed

That's a great question, man. Um, when I came... just to answer that, when I came out of Scientology, you know, we all go back to the Normie world, Aaron, you know, and that's what we were trying to get away from in the cult. So because of the experience I went through in Scientology, it kind of deprogrammed me from a lot of things. The wider world, I could see some of the techniques that were being used against us with the mind control in the wider world, so I try to cover that. But that, you know, because if you're a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, and many other high control groups, they would be able to relate to our experience coming out. I'm just trying to broaden that. That's basically what the channel is about, but with the theme of Scientology because it has one of the most comprehensive packages of control aspects, so it could be used as a good model for other things.

I had that realization in that day, Aaron, where somebody dropped off that book on my doorstep. That's how I got out. And I didn't have to go through, like a lot of ex-Scientologists where you know it takes forever to figure out that Hubbard's bad and then we just blame the tech... I was a completely hardcore Scientologist. I just finished OT3, you know, not that long. I was really into it. There was no reason to leave. But I got the right book at the right time where I didn't have to go through all the layers of figuring out years later that Hubbard was bad and the tech was not special. I got all that from Steve Hassan's book.

Yes, I was. I was taking acting classes here in LA and there was a guy from my acting class who knew... everybody knows that it's a cult, Aaron, except for us that are in it, right? So he was like half concerned, half trying to get back at me, is how I would describe it. It wasn't necessarily a humanitarian thing. As a non-Scientologist, we report on anybody that's doing something like that, right? So rather than... the hours were going by, it was kind of late. I was lazy. This one moment, bro, was going to determine my entire life. So I just thank God I was lazy that night because I said, what the hell, I'm gonna write this guy up in the morning and I'm just going to crack open this stupid book and see what this idiot Steve Hassan has to say about... you know, oh, my friend thinks I'm in a cult, bro. It only took me 20 minutes because he has that thing called the BITE model, which stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion. And you know, reading that those are the various areas that a cult controls, that was one of the things that causes you to snap. The Moonies, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology, they all have those same... I went on the internet and found out, you know, all the stuff that I'm not supposed to read, Aaron. I was shaking for like two hours. Um, and so rather... not because I had read... I just read Steve Hassan's book and then either later that night or the next day, I just sat there for two hours going, should I type in OT4 or not? Because that was my next action. And I felt like that could prove if this is BS or not. But if you do that and I'm wrong, then I got to go through the whole ethics thing and report to the church because, you know, how we tell anything that we do that we're not supposed to do, we're just trained that way. So after shaking, man, I went on to, I think it was Operation Clambake, and I read OT4, OT5, and I'm like, OT7, they're all body fading still. They promised me when I was done with OT3, no more body fading. So as soon as I realized... I was genuinely hopeful there was not going to be more body things on the rest of the OT levels. The tech tells us that, dude. I don't remember exactly why I'm thinking that, but I know it's in the policy, it's in the course somewhere. Along the lines, he makes it very evident that there's no more body thing.

I was genuinely convinced because, like I said, I can't point to the reference, but... that's okay. Yeah, so for any possible new listeners, you know, um, when you hear that Scientologists believe in Xenu and these disembodied alien souls that are stuck to your body, most Scientologists have no idea that's what Scientologists find out about on OT3. These upper OT levels are so confidential, it's hard to actually imagine something a secret could be that well kept. And you know, when I was in the Sea Organization, I literally worked in the Advanced Organization whose sole job is to deliver OT levels, and I had never heard... I never heard the word 'body thetan' until after I left Scientology. That's how well guarded this information is. I worked in... I was the Tech Sec at that show, and then from 2005 to 2006, I was the Lower Level Cramming Officer at AOLA.

Um, half of the acting class were Scientologists. In this acting class, it was a guy named Bobby Lyons who's like an OT8, and you would go to Milton Katselis or Bobby Lyons out here. Those were the two Scientology acting teachers that we as Scientologists would probably go to. And in this class, he... um, it... so there were 30 that were non-Scientologists. I don't want to say the word for what that is because I hate using that word. But one time it came up after class when we're all sitting around at the restaurant, um, one of the wogs asked if... um, because you know it's a horrible word, it means the N-word. I don't wanna... although Americans would never know that. That's true. That's true. Public, so I had no problem just laughing it all off. Oh, don't be silly. I knew damn well what she was saying was accurate, but she completely believed what I was saying. She knew I wouldn't fuck her. And by the way, I called her up years later when I got out and I just apologized. There's a lot of people I apologize to, man, for being a piece of shit artist in Scientology. And that's one of the things that you have to say because we're giving them pneumonia, we're subjecting them to possible death. We're told that if we tell our friends anything that's on these confidential levels, we're possibly going to kill them. I know that sounds crazy, but you know how it is, Aaron, when you believe that we're saving the planet and this is the technique, this is the way to do it, you know?

When... but when you were telling that other person in your acting class that it was all BS, was that after you did OT3?

I don't recall.

I want to say yes, it was out there. And because Tom... confronting me about, hey, you know, is this true? So when you finally started OT3, were you like, oh no, they were right, or like how did that go for you?

I completely believed it. Um, I've heard other people's reactions. I know Paul Haggis said this must be an insanity test. I think Leah was looking at her mother going, what the hell did you bring me into, Mom? No, bro, I hate to admit it, but it's exactly what you said. We're already indoctrinated with endless hours of tapes of L. Ron Hubbard babbling about all the space opera crap, so it's not far out there at all. I was kind of... I wasn't like, oh, this sucks. I was a little weirded out, but I'm like, this is whatever. Ron said this is what I have to do. This is what it is. And then I also thought I was special because I knew this secret, you know? You have to work really hard, as you know, bro.

Okay. Um, first of all, to your listeners, we are security checked by people like you, the Sea Org. So I had a Sea Org member come down to my apartment and they had to make sure that the doors were locked and everything because, as you know, you can't show this to anybody. And you pick up the materials in the day and you put them in a lock briefcase you strap to you with a dog leash. And then even driving home, Aaron, I felt so freaking special, man. Like all the people that were around me when I was driving in my car, I had this briefcase on. I was just like, if only you people knew. You know, it's such a really weird headspace. I'm so happy to be out of it. So anyways, you come home with the... you're writing down on the other, just like a typical auditing session, and then you find an area of pressure and then you run... let's say it's completely physical, like physical pressure. Yes. What he says is that the BTs, the body thetans, um, and to your listeners, there's a whole galactic story about how those get implanted on us, but all of us supposedly, according to Scientology, are infested with these BTs. And this is the big secret. So the way we get rid of them is we're to locate a pressure point. And Aaron, it's all in my imagination because I didn't feel any pressure points or anything. But I remember getting drilled constantly because I went crazy on this level and they were... and I had a lot of problems, so I was constantly being drilled on how to put tone 40 intention into that ashtray because I was having... these are incidents. I have a video on them if you want to know what the incidents are, but they're basically when we were implanted a long time ago, um, these alien souls that we're trying to get rid of were exploded in volcanoes. They themselves were implanted with like a movie screen, you know, for 36 days. And then, like I said, I'm not gonna explain the whole galactic story. And then they're on us. So we run them out. We have to run them through that incident that they're trapped in, um, with the implants that they have, and then they go away. And by the way, Aaron, like, it's all your imagination. It's being in a light trance and you just sort of believe everything. But I gotta tell you, I felt like it was saving the planet because I would... I just felt like I was freeing beings. It was like beautiful. And then me and my dad would be able to share our success... only you knew what I was doing during the day, just saving the planet. It's crazy. It really pumps up the superiority complex of Scientologists for sure. I mean, that's where you get that maniacal Tom Cruise persona. Exactly. You know exactly. Scientologist, you're the only one who can help and he has all these secrets, like we're talking about, that people don't see that give you that fanatical elitist attitude. And it's powerful, dude. I'm so ashamed at how superior I thought I was just because of this garbage in my head that I was believing.

Pretty quick. Um, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Um, I would do several a day and they're... how many months did you spend on OT3?

That's a great point. You know, another thing I've always wondered, bro, is like, I was so infuriated when I found out. I was calm... just everything. I mean, I was angry, bro. I wasn't gonna go bomb the building. I wasn't going to do anything illegal. I wasn't going to go through a hammer through their door. I'm so surprised, though, bro, with them holding... abilities that that just gives you a level of the anger and of being deceived on that level. And then also, you know, my parents are trapped in there for the rest of their lives. My dad's at the top of the bridge, man. He has been for like 20 years. That's OT8. They're so in it that, um, the fact that this dead man, this guy, I mean, I wanted to... bear you know, find out where L. Ron Hubbard was buried, you know, un-burying him and beat the fuck out of him because he took my family, man. And it's like there's no way to offload the anger. I had to learn to heal it myself. But I'm so surprised they haven't had people attacking their buildings, dude. Well, I mean, I mean, you know, um, one of the members of one of the...

Totally, totally. And by the way, since we're doing more of a casual chat today, uh, if there are any super chats, we'll answer them without, you know, being too disruptive to the interview. I did an interview with Mike Rinder. We did an hour interview. I didn't answer any questions because I was more focused on... yeah, yeah, wanting to get him to answer certain questions. So how old were you when you did your first like Scientology service?

So a switch flipped there for you and you started to be about it?

I mean, the TRs for me were always an incredible chore and were just something I had to get through.

Involved at such a young age. Uh, for me, auditing was something I always tried to avoid. I don't... you know, I mean, I never... it's like, what child is like, oh yeah, I want to sit down with a stranger and tell you all the things I really don't want to talk about? Like, there's a reason I don't want to talk about them. Um, it, uh, you know, I always did everything in my power to not get auditing. That being said, there was probably two or three major blowout wins that I had in auditing that put me in a frame of mind. These wins didn't make me more desirous of getting audited. Really, what these wins did was give me a real big problem, a big conundrum. Like I had an interest in attaining full OT, and so it created this problem for me. Wow. In order to get to where I want to go, I have to go through this thing I don't want to do, and I don't know how to resolve that for myself. But in the meantime, I'll just stick around and keep doing my job.

It was in 2003. I was born in '73, so how old does that make me? 30. I would have been 30 years old.

No, the LXs are what they put you on when you're a bad person. It's kind of like a no-case-gain type scenario. You're not really... don't even try to figure it out. There's a million of these little... they have LX1, these are not totally known about. You could be forgiven for not knowing this. You only get put on that, the LX1, LX2, and LX3 I believe, if you're not progressing in auditing, you're teetering between being a suppressive slash no case gain.

No, it's... I mean, it might be a part of Dianetics. I don't remember if we ran Dianetic processes. Well, Expanded Dianetics is a totally different thing than New Era Dianetics or whatever. That's okay. No, it's incredible that even after all of that auditing, all of that being addicted to it, um, that book is what did it for you. It is amazing. So are both of your folks still alive?

Interesting. Well, that's very... I did a lot of, Aaron, this is after 10 years or 12 years or whatever of processing. Believe me, I threatened their life, bro, straight up. And they had to get a restraining order on me. Oh, geez. I went... I tried every tactic. Not tactic... I mean, I would cry on the phone because you know how it is. It's like I was so desperate and I couldn't get on with my life. And plus, I'm trying to undo all the... I'm trying to figure this thing out. Steve Hassan's book popped open to my mind. That was just the beginning. I had to figure out Hubbard's past and blah blah blah. And I was trying to pass this information over to my parents too. But as you know, as soon as I wasn't going to be quiet... I needed a lot of time to process and I wasn't planning on ever necessarily speaking out. But I had been lied to my whole life. There was no way from that point forward I was going to compromise on anything. So that included trying to talk to my parents when they don't want to talk. Or I tried to find all sorts of ways to challenge them on their belief system, but it didn't work. And also, like I said, a lot of soul searching later, my family's also a little bit, um, Aaron, their sociopaths with or without Scientology, straight up. And I think that that led us into Scientology. My family dynamic was very similar to being in a cult, like being in an abusive relationship with a narcissist, um, it's just on a grander scale. So I don't really have a family to go back to. I am going to try to reconnect with my sister once my parents pass. And if they leave Scientology, they would still be manipulative people, which is what got me into Scientology in the first place. Because I knew it was fucked up. I thought Dianetics was a piece of crap when I read it as a teenager. But they would manipulate me to make sure that they would get me in there while pretending that they're not. So I wouldn't want to go back to that anyways. I wish them the best life, and like I said, they are good people. They're just extremely brainwashed and extremely damaged.

I know what that feels like, you know. Do you think your sister is mostly staying in so that she doesn't have to lose your parents, you know?

You don't know where she's at?

Right. To even think of someone going from Scientology to Mormonism... it doesn't sound crazy. Um, speaks to some mental plasticity that I cannot wrap... I can't even hear it.

Yeah, for sure. Um, like my younger brother, uh, before I got declared, I would have described my younger brother as someone who most definitely was not a Scientologist. And yet when I got declared, he disconnected anyway because his dad is a Scientologist. And wow. Um, yeah, I run into my younger brother here and there. He doesn't ignore me. We'll chat briefly when we run into each other.

I mean, by definition he is. I don't... no, he'll talk to me. Yeah, good, bro. I mean, good weather. He's not really a Scientologist. Yeah, you know what you mean. Didn't want to get officially declared, right? He didn't want his dad to disconnect from him. That I understand. People must be listening going, that sounds so crazy. But this is the way Scientology works. It's politics as to who you're going to stay with and who... yeah. It's so evil, by the way, because we would have had a totally normal family. I mean, we did, more or less. And then I describe Scientology like a third-party predator coming into someone's life. And then it takes how you need to live your life. And everybody was just fine before this thing squeezed itself into our lives. And then all of a sudden it tells us how we need to do our... you know, nobody would split. How many times, Aaron, do people leave comments on your videos where 'I can't believe you know that they hear the stuff we talk about and they go, I would never leave my kid. I mean, that's my flesh and blood.' But when you're in that North Korea environment, it's like a Sophie's Choice. It's like everything's a Sophie's Choice. Everything's intense. And I had the hardest thing I had trouble wrapping my mind around, and what I talked to my parents the most about when I could email them or just get any communication in was, how could you select Scientology over your own family? Like, can't you see they're breaking up families and we're supposed to be uniting the world, uniting families? You can't see this cognitive dissonance, you know?

So that's how... I'm so sorry to hear that. And for your wife, dude, that's the end product of Scientology right there, dude.

Is she... yeah, no, I mean, it's been a long time. Um, we've had... I mean, it will always be a source of pain. It will, you know, it'll always be... ex-Scientologists can have with each other, right, to sort of heal the pain. Yeah, uh, sometimes the easiest way to heal the pain is to get information from other sources instead of... oh, that makes sense of each other. Yeah. Um, so you know, when I find a good book or a good documentary that sort of is like, hey, this will help you re-contextualize everything we've been through... exactly. Share all those things. Good, good. Um, but so one of those things recently was, for example, um, NXIVM. Have you studied up on what the whole NXIVM thing is? They're almost exactly like Scientology. They've stolen everything from the word 'postulates' and 'intentions'. I mean, I don't know exactly... I've been looking into that a lot. I don't know where the heck Keith Raniere got... down of what, because they're a smaller cult. I mean, why didn't Scientology beat him to the punch? The only thing they're doing different is the sex trafficking or the sex cult and the branding. But everything else is pretty much on point with LRH, you know, with what Keith Raniere was doing.

They don't have the same religious protection in the courts that Scientology has.

Really. Well, they were not recognized. There you go. That's it. I completely forgot about that, but you're right. They were not registered obviously as a religion, right? Uh, yeah, they didn't have IRS recognition as a religion. Okay, that's why they got shut down. And also the thing that made it easier to prosecute them is that they had this guy... um, I'm gonna go totally blank on his name... like X amount of episodes into it that I watched a couple years ago and it came out, and it was just like, it's amazing how much it's similar to Scientology. If Keith would have somehow been able to get that, um, just simply add the religion protection on it, I think they'd still be going.

Yeah, and you see, he even succeeded in getting the Dalai Lama to come and give him a full... that's right, full-blown endorsement, which is incredible. Yeah. Um, what was I gonna say? There's something I was gonna say. Oh, oh, about Keith Raniere and how much Scientology he used. There's much more to know there because the stuff that he took from Scientology is not the stuff that you would have ever learned about by just buying the basic books. Exactly. There's evidence to say he was an actual member of the church. So I don't know. It's a little mind-boggling. And if he had ever, um, like if he'd maybe been at a mission or something... there's no evidence of that.

Does it? I don't think it's a part of it. Not that I know. I mean, Mark Vicente and Sarah would know a lot more, but as far as I know, no. No, they're kind of... OT levels was the freaking branding, you know, was the compartmentalization of their little secret society where only a few little people at the... as they went up the levels, apparently the branding and the secret part of NXIVM, which these gals talk about, that was sort of their advanced levels. I don't know that they get into any of that, but maybe if we would have given them more time, Keith would have gone even more crazy like Hubbard. Because you know, Hubbard believed in these body thetans. He was trying to get rid of these freaking things up until he died. So maybe Keith would have just gone more and more... uh, you know, I haven't done a ton of reading about other high control groups other than Steve Hassan's book and, um, you know, checking out The Vow. What else have you run into that kind of, um... man, I mean, just what happened in the last three years, you know. I know you guys didn't get it bad, Aaron, in Florida, but I've been living under communism here in Los Angeles, you know, since what happened a couple years ago. Um, I recognize it. And like I said, the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, if you grew up in one of those things, they'll be able to come out and give a very similar account. Um, and then on a lesser level, you know, just learning the brainwashing techniques from Hassan's book made me... out of Scientology, I just looked at it as a condensed version of the wider world because it's so ubiquitous, it's so everywhere. I'm not going conspiracy territory, Aaron. I'm just talking about when I learned Steve Hassan's material, just starting there, it really allowed me to protect myself and open up the wider world to realize Hubbard didn't come up with these things. He was just able to package them and do his own little microcosm of the macrocosm, you know.

So hey, you mentioned the one acting school that you went to. How come you never went to the Milton Katselis at the Beverly Hills Playhouse? Or did you?

So here's why I'm asking about Milton. Um, Mike Rinder this past week did an interview with... oh my God, I just had his name. Who's the guy that does the podcast with Brendan Schaub? He was involved in a controversy with Bobby Lee. Oh my God, I can't believe I just... they have Fighter and the Kid podcast. Um, Bryan Callen. Okay. Mike Rinder just did an interview with Bryan Callen. And usually when Mike's doing an interview, the most interesting part of the interview is Mike's answers. Um, but in this interview, Bryan Callen wanted everyone to know how much experience he's had with Scientology. And that was news for me. And the right where... and PTSes and all this kind of stuff. And so I was wondering, you know, if you were at Milton's, did you know Bryan Callen there?