The great-grandson of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard says that the Church of Scientology is one of the most “devious, systematic brainwashing systems that’s ever been invented.”
Jamie DeWolf appeared on CurrentTV's "The Young Turks" on Thursday night and spoke with host Cenk Uygur about how Scientology is able to convince people -- including big-name celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Juliette Lewis -- to believe its message.
"I think it is one of the most brilliant and devious, systematic brainwashing systems that's ever been invented," DeWolf told CurrentTV. "It works through electrified hypnosis. It works through past life regression therapy. It works through a lot of hodgepodge of ideas that you sort of throw together with this extremely brutal sort of security sense and this kind of like CIA-like structure that becomes really intoxicating to people."
Continuing, DeWolf said, "To meet people who've been out of the cult, yeah you want to ask them about Xenu and aliens, but the fact is these are smart people they've just been completely destroyed systematically."
DeWolf, a slam poet, was raised a Baptist Christian and was never involved with his great-grandfather's religion.
He has also opened up to the New York Post about the dangers of Scientology, saying it destroyed Hubbard's life.
"[He] became more and more unhinged in his last days. He was lost in his own little wonderland, surrounded by this armada, this dark security force. He was totally lost," DeWolf said of his great-grandfather, who died in 1986.
DeWolf's disclosures follow the release of Lawrence Wright's new book, "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief," which offers an inside look at Scientology and the life of its founder, who once dreamed of being a screenwriter.
Scientologists have vehemently criticized the book and allege that Wright didn't verify enough of his facts, according to the Daily Beast. The author claims the church's allegations were trumped up, and that the organization didn't want to offer him any insight but did want a list of his sources.
“It’s a big project to write, essentially, a history of a hostile organization that hides its data and tries to mislead you about its past. And if I’ve made mistakes, they will be corrected,” Wright told the Daily Beast. “But it is a monumental task to try to get at the truth of what goes on inside Scientology.”
A Scientology-sponsored article published on the Atlantic's website this month claimed that the Church of Scientology expanded more in 2012 than in any 12 months of its 60-year history. The ad, which ran several days before the release of Wright's book, kicked up a flurry of criticism before the Atlantic pulled it and issued an apology.
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