[VIDEO] What Scientology Taught Me

You know, people think I always run down Scientology and say that I never got anything out of it. That’s just not true. I learned all kinds of things from my experience with L. Ron Hubbard and his amazing technology. In fact, I learned so much I thought I’d share some of those things with you today. Some of these may sound kind of cynical, but I don’t mean them to be. It’s just that some truths aren’t always fit for Hallmark cards.

(1) There isn’t any one thing that is going to save the world.

(2) Some people will believe anything you tell them, as long as you tell them in the right way.

(3) It only takes one bad choice or decision to set you on the road to disaster.

(4) The mind can be a terrible thing. It works really hard to make sense out of things that don’t make sense and sometimes that’s not such a good thing.

(5) Getting close to someone is not always the best way to understand them. I’m pretty sure that no matter how close I get to people like Ted Bundy or Donald Trump, I’m never going to actually understand them.

(6) Ignorant people are far more dangerous than evil people. Education will do a lot more for all of us than police any day of the week.

(7) Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is good.

(8) Anyone can be fooled. There is no one who is too smart or too clever to not buy someone’s bullshit.

(9) There are some people who will say anything to get you to do what they want.

(10) Communication is not always the universal solvent. Sometimes the best way to handle a problem is to shut the hell up.

(11) It was a lot easier to fool people before the internet.

(12) Having critical thinking skills is not an option if you want to stay out of trouble.

(13) The best way to get people to con others is to make them believe it themselves.

(14) Just because you know you got fooled once doesn’t mean you won’t get fooled again.

(15) There are no saints. Everyone is human and we all make plenty of mistakes. The more someone is trying to convince you how perfect they are, the more they are trying to hide.

(16) The easiest way to fool someone is to make them feel good.

(17) Maybe reality really is just what we agree it is, but if we all think it’s a great idea to jump off a cliff, we’re still going to be really dead when we hit the ground.

(18) Most people you meet are good people who are just trying to get along in life and do the best they can.

(19) The kind of person who would take advantage of those people is not the kind of person who is going to save you or the world.

(20) If you have to lie to people about how happy you are all the time, you probably aren’t that happy and maybe should do something about that.

Being involved in Scientology and then the time spent recovering from that experience has been a source of many valuable lessons which I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I can’t really thank L. Ron Hubbard for these, since I had to learn the hard way that almost everything he claimed to have discovered was the exact opposite of what I’ve found to be true in real life. But I guess that’s a lesson in itself – people who want to control you will try really hard to convince you that up is down and black is white simply because they get off on being able to do that. Those aren’t good people.

But that leads me to the last thing I learned. The world is actually not a bad place and I think you’ll find that people who are trying to convince you it is are really just selling something. Sure, it’s not all butterflies and gummy bears, but the world is what we make it and always has been. As long as we’re doing our part to make ourselves and those around us better off and get along, we’re doing everything we need to be doing.

Thanks for watching.