Lex Fridman Podcast #361 – Aaron Smith-Levin: Scientology
Machine transcription by Qwen3-ASR 0.6B (MLX, local, Apache-2.0). May contain recognition errors.

The following is a conversation with Aaron Smith Eleven, a former Scientology raised in Scientology and have worked in the organization full time for many years as a staff member and a Corg member including the job of training Scientology auditors. Today he educates the public about Scientology on his YouTube channel called Growing Up in Scientology. And now a quick second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Green Chef for delicious and healthy easy to make meals, Inside Tracker for bio monitoring and Athletic Greens for gut health. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work on our amazing team, we're always hiring. Go to lexfreeman dot com slash hiring. And now onto the full ad reads as always no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. 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Let's do a full overview of Scientology. Its ideas, how it operates, how it wields its power and influence, and let's start at the very basics. What is Scientology? Scientology is a belief system, created by El Run Hubbard. That does fundamentally believe that we are all immortal spiritual beings called Thaitans, that we have native godlike potential. That there is nothing more powerful in the universe than a Thaitan, like so godlike is you know quite literal here. And that through various decisions, Thaitans have made they have fallen away from their native godlike power. To fallen down to a state where most Thaitans aren't even aware that they are Thaitans, aren't even aware that they ever have lived before or have these powers, and that Thaitans are now in a state where they're trapped in bodies, trapped here on Earth, trapped in this prison of a physical universe, trapped on this prison of a planet. And that only Scientology can restore a Thaitan to its native state. Are these multiple beings? Like is there one Thaitan inside of me that's trapped in this prison? Well, the thing would be you. The thing would be me. The Thaitan is you, but I'm presumably limited in some fundamental way. So this Thaitan that is me is is limited. So there's like eight billion Thaitans on the planet. There's one primary Thaitan animating each body. Later in Scientology, you learn there's actually like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of like sick unconscious half dead Thaitans stuck to you that are now an additional cause of problems for you. But fundamentally at the lower levels, the non confidential levels, there's just one Thaitan per body. Well, I mean it's an interesting idea. I just would like to kind of explore the philosophy of that. So there's a being that's all powerful that's immortal, and its projection its manifestation on this earth is. Fundamentally limited, and you're trying to the process of Scientology, is the process of letting go of those limitations. You know that's an interesting idea. I mean a lot of religions have this kind of idea that there's not just religions but like we have the capacity. As human beings to do to achieve greatness in all kinds of ways, and that that's the question we have with our cognitive abilities. We start with a embryo and build up and into this organism and like this world of opportunities before us. What are we capable of? And the idea that we're capable of almost anything is a really powerful one. And there's a lot of religions, there's a lot of philosophies, there's a lot of advice, self help that kind of explore those ideas and so. It seems like with Scientology, this the application of this religious philosophy means. That there's we're limited and we have to break through those limitations and there's a process to break through those limitations. That would be correct. So what can make it challenging to. Adequately and completely describe Scientology in the beginning is what Scientologists believe actually changes as they progress. Further into or further up in Scientology, so the explanation as I've given it is pretty consistent with what you would get at the lowest levels. Right, you're a Thaitan. I'm a Thaitan. Everyone's a Thaitan, and we have a reactive mind. El Run Hubbard would say the reactive mind is a collection of these recordings, mental recordings of any moments of pain and unconsciousness you've ever had in your life. It's like the subconscious mind. It's always recording in moments of pain and unconsciousness, and that these are called these recordings are El Run Hubbard called them n grams. Now when El Run Hubbard first wrote Diagnostics in 1950, this was before Scientology came along a couple years later, right? So in 1950 when he wrote Diagnostics. It wasn't a spiritual endeavor. It was supposed to be a mental health, a science of mental health. So as of that time, the earliest n gram you could have was the incident of birth. Being born was an n gram, and technically in Diagnostics he said you could have prenatal n grams like when you're still in the womb. But there was no concept of past lives as of 1950 version of Diagnostics, right? And so the idea there was that. The reactive mind is essentially a stimulus response mechanism created through evolution millions of years ago to protect the individual from things that would harm them. In other words, things that would bring about pain and unconsciousness. So you have these recordings of things that hurt you, create pain and unconsciousness, and in present time these things will react upon you in a way. To cause you to avoid similar things, reacting upon you in a in a subconscious unconscious way. So the reactive mind protects you. From the trauma that is inside your subconscious mind, yes, and the idea is we've now as human beings evolved to a state where it no longer serves us beneficially and only serves us negatively. This was Hubbard's theory, and he said so you can get rid of these n grams by you know basically recalling them and going over them again and again using Diagnostics auditing therapy. And if you get back to the moment of birth and erase the earliest n gram, all the other subsequent n grams on the chain would vanish. Oh nice, so there's a chain earlier similar earlier similar earlier similar earlier similar. Okay, so that gives you a pretty good understanding of how El Run Hubbard thought of the mind because that carries on has applicability later on in Scientology. I mean that's a pretty powerful model of the mind. I mean Freud had. Similar conceptions that a lot of our traumas are grounded in sort of poor formulation of sexuality or imperfect formulation of sexuality in early childhood something like this. And then we're trying to figure out the puzzle of whatever we formed in early childhood. I mean it's similar similar kind of it is similar. It's probably what Hubbard took it from. In the early days of Diagnostics before he decided psychiatry was evil, he actually credited Sigmund Freud with some of the shoulders he was standing on in writing Diagnostics. The so he still admired psychiatry at that time so that's an interesting moment of Diagnostics. So what else you mentioned Diagnostics auditing was there too. So if we just before Scientology, what what are the ideas that formed what we know as Diagnostics. As I've just described, that is the fundamental that is that is pretty much the nuts and bolts of Diagnostics. Was it applied? Was it applied often? Oh yeah, no that's what Diagnostics in the early days was all about was just auditing. Auditing is the process of the one on one counseling, recall a moment of pain and unconsciousness, run through the n gram over and over and over again, find something earlier similar. That is Diagnostics auditing. One of the main things that changed with Scientology is that birth or prenatal n grams were no longer the earliest n grams on the chain. The idea is you have to get the earliest n gram on the chain for the later ones to blow, which is erase. And so but all of a sudden now with the addition of an immortal spiritual being into the equation, well now the earliest incident could be trillions of years ago in other galaxies and universes. Other universes so before the origin of this universe. Yes, is there a model of physics integrated in any of this? No, the model is you have the physical universe. And then above that you have the theta universe. So we use the word Thaitan earlier. So in Scientology, we use the word theta. I don't know theta is just basically Thaitan power, Thaitans collectively. So Hubbard would say you have the theta universe, which is senior to the physical universe and creates the physical universe. And remember I said I said native godlike potentials. So we're not talking about the god who created the Earth. We're just like Scientologists don't believe in a god, but we'll get into that later. We're talking about just creating universes, like just think like Matrix, like just when I say creating a universe, essentially just creating different Thaitan simulations. But it sounds like a little bit more like the ideas of Plato, which is there's these Platonic forms, there's abstract forms that are. Bigger, more general than our particular reality here, and those forms are used to construct the reality. Well, I grew up in a cult, so I'm not familiar with the works of Plato. You can't use that as an excuse for everything. I would like to you know non jokingly steal man the case because a lot of philosophies, a lot of religions, a lot even scientific endeavors. Are a little bit full of uncertainty. You can call it bullshit, but you're on unsteady ground because we're surrounded by mystery and you have to take these ideas. Somewhat seriously and see where those ideas go wrong. This happens with communism. This happens with capitalism. These ideas sound beautiful in their ideal forms and then they somehow go wrong and some go more wrong than others. And so I don't think sort of it's easy to. Sort of caricature and make fun of the ideas. I think if we take them seriously, you'll start to understand like when you're in it, it was serious. It can be very convincing. It's you know the the devil is going to be a charismatic person. He's not going to be a caricature of ridiculous person. So that that helps us understand which ideas. Will sound appealing but will become dangerous. I totally agree. In fact, it's one of the thrusts I have on my channel is wanting to talk about Scientology in a way that would actually resonate with current Scientologists, not just resonate with former Scientologists. I want people who are still in to be able to hear how I talk about it and go, wow, he's being really fair and really accurate. He's not just a hater, you know what I mean. If you look at the you know let's take one of the worst places on Earth is North Korea. You have Kim Jong Un, and the reality is there's a lot of citizens of that nation that deeply love the leader. Because they've grew up in that way, and you I mean through fear through all kinds of manipulation through propaganda and so on, they're not allowed to love members of their own family. They're not allowed to have romantic love. They're only allowed to have love for the leader. And to reach those people, you have to empathize with the fact that in their eyes, in some sense, this is a great man, this is a god, a Messianic figure. You can't just make fun of. The ridiculousness of the situation that there's this pudgy person waltzing around creating propaganda like how is this with a funny haircut with a funny haircut like it's so easy. Hitler too to make fun of to make a caricature of the person, but this is a real person, a real person that. Influenced the minds of millions of people in the case of Hitler, you know tens of millions of people and and created a huge amount of suffering not because of. Um, the caricature version, but because he was a charismatic leader. He was somebody that people deeply deeply loved, and that just over time I mean with the the abuse of any kind of ideology. This this happens over and over and so yeah it's it's interesting because Scientology is so close to the. Uh to to to the core of what is America because so many Americans are involved with it so it's interesting to study the the beauty and the power of the ideas that underlie it and where things go wrong. Yeah, and I'll just say it's interesting to note you would never get a representative of the Church of Scientology to sit down and have a conversation with you and even be as fair and accurate about Scientology as I'm going to be, which is which is noteworthy. Do you honestly deeply believe that's the case? There's not going to be a high level official that would sit down. For a conversation, no, I disagree with you. I hope you're right because I think that given the current dynamics of what's happening, I think in order to say from their perspective, in order to save the Church of Scientology, they have to. Be transparent and authentic, basically steal man their case, but better you would think so. Well, we'll talk about the other ways you could do that with just the manipulation through propaganda through control media and all that kind of stuff. They paint themselves into a corner of not being able to send a representative out into the world to speak honestly about it because. You're literally not allowed to. So when faced, you know if you're just sitting down with an entertainment journalist, a representative might be able to fudge their way through an interview, but sitting down for a long form format interview with someone who. Is going to ask them about Zenu and the body Thaitans and Leah Remini and Lisa McPherson. That's a no go zone. So so I'm representing why it will never happen, but shit I would I would tune in for that interview. I mean I hope you do get someone. You don't think David Miscavige would sit down for an interview? I would love to be wrong. You know in general journalists in these kinds of situations can be can attack. In a way that doesn't empathize and doesn't come from a place of deep knowledge and understanding, and I think it's possible to have serious conversations with people like that in an empathetic way, but it's also in a challenging way. I think there's a huge amount of trust required, and obviously for a very secretive organization. The amount of trust yes might be too much required. Anyone over there if they've done their homework knows you're going to be as fair as anyone in the world's going to be, and yet there's simply things they're not allowed to talk about and they're not even allowed to say I'm not allowed to talk about it. So that's a fundamental part of the Church of Scientology is the secrecy. Yeah. So that's where you are trained as you go up through the ranks is secrecy, secrecy. It's not even a matter of training. It's that there is an entire the entire upper half of Scientology's bridge is simply confidential. I mean and I never even did those levels when I was in Scientology. I didn't learn what Scientologists actually believe on those upper levels until after I got out of Scientology and I was freaking born and raised in it. Let's go there. Let's go to a personal story. So you spent thirty years in Scientology. Yeah, I was four years old when my mom got in, and then about seven years ago got out. Yeah, and you are on what YouTube channel now and you are an educator. So I was four years old when my mom got introduced to Scientology, and she got in really fast really quick. Um so but I was twelve years old when I was taken out of school and started officially full time working for Scientology. Okay, so um in various capacities I worked for them from the ages of twelve to the age of twenty six. Yeah. Okay, so and then I was thirty four when I officially parted ways with Scientology, which was really more them officially parting ways with me but we can get into all that later. That's just kind of how Scientology does it. And what do you do now in terms of Scientology? So now I run growing up in Scientology the YouTube channel but what I primarily do is I help run an organization that helps people who are escaping from Scientology. I am the vice president of the Aftermath Foundation, and we created the foundation after the television show Leah Remini Scientology in the Aftermath. And there was such an outpouring of support from non Scientologists all over the world. What can we do to help people leave Scientology? That we decided to create a foundation and it's been incredibly successful. We've helped people escape from all regions and echelons of Scientology. We we we've accomplished what we've accomplished is far beyond what we actually envisioned would be possible. It's been a huge success. So we'll talk about the the negative aspect the abuses of power but let's just explore the ideas a little bit more. So the the public facing three fundamental truths of Scientology maybe correct me if I am wrong. Man is an immortal spiritual being like we said with Thanos. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime so infinite memory backwards. His capabilities are unlimited even if not presently realized. The capabilities are unlimited. Yeah, so that when I say God like I really just mean you know Thanos like unlimited. Scientologists don't believe in a god so when I say God like I just mean the most powerful entity the creator the prime mover unmoved except we are all that you know a Theon in definition in Scientology a Theon has no position in space or time a Theon does not actually exist in the physical universe. It might choose to locate itself in the physical universe right and then forget that it made that decision and then sort of get caught and trapped in the physical universe but that once the Theon is restored to its native powers. Um everything you see here in the physical universe is just a Theon playing a game like literally we are in a simulation right now of some Theon so like physics doesn't have to make sense when we're talking about it this way like technically you are Theon I am a Theon we're here but this could also all just be another Theon's game. So Theon's all the way down. Yeah it's just Theon's everywhere Theon's all comes down to the Theon. Is there an idea of a god? Because I read there is a kind of there is a sense of a supreme being. Is that basically the Theon that's at the core at the bottom of it all? Yes not not defined undefined correct Scientology has this concept of the dynamics Elrond Hubbard breaks life into eight different dynamics and the a dynamic meaning a thrust towards survival. So he would say you know the first dynamic is you yourself second dynamic is your family third dynamic is any other group that you are a part of other than your family fourth dynamic is all humankind the fifth dynamic is plant and animal life all non human life. Sixth dynamic is the physical world seventh dynamic is sort of like spirituality collectively. Theatons as a Theon's and the eighth dynamic Elrond Hubbard says Scientology doesn't deal with the eighth dynamic but we recognize that people have this idea of a supreme being. And so Scientology says you can call the eighth dynamic the supreme being dynamic but we call it infinity just the allness of everything without having to define it and then they sort of do a little dance and they're like Scientology the purpose of Scientology is to get you to the point where you have your own understandings or realizations about the nature of the eighth dynamic. We don't tell you what you have to believe about that and technically speaking that is true technically speaking that is true. There is no point in Scientology where they sit you down and say you are not required to revoke your belief in a supreme being. It's just that everything in Scientology is is inconsistent with a belief in the supreme being. You can still find Scientologists who through cognitive distance will tell you they believe in a supreme being mostly they're lying to you. How is this inconsistent with a supreme being because like Theon's because Theon's have created everything not God. Okay so Theon's created they they're also created force they're not just the force that runs everything right but can't those be just the fingertips of a god. Sure the only way you could reconcile a supreme being is if you say a single supreme being created all theta. Yeah like the spiritual big bang. Yep but that's not what most people think when they when they talk about God they're talking about a creator of. The physical universe. Yes there is no theta. Right I mean even as I've described Scientology so far none of what I've said is something I even subject to ridicule this is pretty common sense stuff actually I mean if you believe in spirituality or spirits at all there is nothing I've described so far that's crazy. Yeah you know believing in past lives isn't particularly unique or special. Right the fact that Scientology does this little dance of pretending to believe in a god I mean it's even like a PR line Scientology representatives will tell you you can be a Christian and be a Scientologist. Well let me tell you what Christians don't believe in past lives and lives on other galaxies and planets and universes they but in Scientology knows that Scientology knows you can't be a Christian and be a Scientologist but they will say that it's just an example of sort of the fundamental baked in dishonesty because it's so important to Scientology on the organization level to have tax exempt status. I wonder how do you do you know the process of what it takes to prove that some an organization is a religion while going through that process with the IRS for the second time by the way Scientology actually had tax exemption in the early days and the IRS pulled it and then they got it back in nineteen ninety three. While going through that process again, the IRS actually took issue with the fact that Scientology was claiming you could be a Scientologist and a member of another religion. The IRS actually said. Pump the brakes there. Yeah if you are going to say that we're going to say you are not a religion. Yeah and they actually in put in writing to the IRS no no no no no that's not what we meant that's not what we meant. We meant in the beginning you can be both but eventually you just have to be a Scientologist. So you mentioned the eight the eight dynamics but you also mentioned survival so that seems to be a core principle that. That human existence is about survival. Can can you elaborate what is meant by survival? We talk about survival of the human species survival of the individual humans survival of the manifestation of Theon's in human form what what do we what's survival. So it would be all of that because survival is the the dominant force across all the dynamics. That I mean Elrond Hubbard it was either dynamics or science of survival he he he says he discovered the principle upon which all life exists and that is. All life no matter what it is trying to do are you ready Lex it's trying to survive that's pretty powerful that's pretty powerful here is it here is no I got to tell you I got to you might get me back in Lex I am not I am not trying to get you back in I am trying to take you get you to take seriously the power of the ideas behind Scientology because I think those ideas are not bad ideas. They resonate with a lot of ideas throughout philosophy throughout religions throughout the history of human civilization. The interesting aspect is how it goes wrong but here is the thing like here is the thing it is consistent with prior efforts or studies it's just that Elrond Hubbard said this was a watershed breakthrough that was being discovered for the first time that's kind of what I am mocking really. Yeah but you can mock Nietzsche for saying man is will to power you can mock but did he claim to be the first person to ever say it. Well Nietzsche he's had a bit of an ego so like and he's full of contradictions but I am pretty sure the the implied thing is that he was the first first to say it. There is a lot of scientists there is one of the people I really admire Stephen Wolfram who wrote a book called a new kind of science that explores complex systems and cellular automata and these mathematical systems that have been explored before. But he boldly kind of defined I am presenting to you a whole new way to look at the world and if you just set a little bit of the ego behind that aside there is actually beautiful ideas in there they have of course been done before and explored before but sometimes people declare this is the coolest. That's the only thing I am really mocking is said this discovery that life is trying to survive is greater than the discovery of fire okay I mean it gets a little silly but that's fine we can agree that the fact that life is trying to survive has meaning and is meaningful and can be is valuable and it's true I mean life is trying to survive. Also there is a non trivial definition of what is life here so this idea of a Theon the thing that permeates through lifetimes through people there is some some fabric that is bigger than individual biological bags of meat. That's a philosophically interesting idea of course if it's not grounded in a little bit more. A physical reality then it becomes a little too woo woo and the way Elrond Hubbard and Scientology define survival is very much intertwined with how they define ethics ethics anything you know to be ethical is pro survival to be unethical is counter survival. But we were talking about just the concept of the dynamics like what does survival refer to and it actually does refer to all of them but just keep in mind when it comes to the seventh dynamic Theon's collectively. Um involved in here is the idea that a Theon cannot die there is no such thing as killing a Theon a Theon can only can only survive. And so um anyway this concept of the dynamics is one of the most fundamental and important concepts in Scientology but but because I mentioned that it also gets tied up with ethics and this probably speaks to what you are just talking about is you can have the ideas and the concepts and you can have how do they go wrong. Because they hold that Scientology applying Scientology getting people into Scientology is the key to basically saving every spiritual being in existence. When you are analyzing what is ethical it becomes whatever is good for Scientology becomes by definition ethical because anything that's good for Scientology which is a third dynamic is inherently good for all the dynamics. So that's where you get. The ends justifying the means to do any anything possible and use any means necessary to forward the aims of Scientology that's kind of where a lot of Soviet implementation of communism went wrong is the ends justify the means the equality the justice for the workers. If we have to kill murder imprison censor in in the name of that then it's it's for the greater good in the long term to achieve the the ideal of communism. In some respect Scientology created a near perfect communist experiment in its C organization. What is it from everyone according to their ability to each according to their need or something like that Scientology C organization is damn near a perfect communist experiment. Coming from someone who doesn't necessarily know what a perfect communist experiment really is because I am not grew up in a cult Lex you can't keep using as an excuse. It's a funny tagline I use in my videos I like it but like it is interesting that an organization that is so hyper capitalist and so money hungry and is known to be very wealthy at its core is run by this group of Corg members that live a communist lifestyle. We're going to jump around let's go what is Corg what is C organization what is this organization the C organization is the most dedicated version the most dedicated brand of Scientologists so there is three like echelons of Scientologists. There is public who just live normal lives in the real world and they pay to do Scientology courses and auditing. Then there is staff members who also live in the real world. Uh but work on two and a half year contracts or five year contracts at their local Scientology organization and then once they finish their contract their their debt is paid or whatever. And then there is the Corg members these are the guys who sign the billion year contracts they don't have lives in the outside world they don't own property they live in Scientology provided housing they eat Scientology they eat in Scientology run cafeterias. Is there an actual contract that says a billion years? It's symbolic but yes okay like no it's not a legally enforceable contract. They haven't succeeded in enforcing it in any subsequent lifetimes yet marriage contract should be like that a billion year because I make not till death was part by a billion years it really makes it. Very concrete of what you are signing up for yeah those are the billion year guys you hear a lot about the billion year contract the billion year contract that's the Corg and and all of Scientology management international management middle management continental management and even some lower level service orgs are one composed one hundred percent of Corg members. You are not allowed to marry or date someone who's not in the Corg you are also not allowed to have children. With anybody outside the Corg in general you are not allowed to have children Corg members are not allowed to have children unless they leave the Corg if you there you are expected to have an abortion and stay in the Corg because it's the greatest good for Scientology if you accidentally get pregnant. Interesting because it distracts from the focus of the work yeah what about sexual relations only once married but that's why people get married after like three days you like hey you you look you look all right let's get married are you allowed to have divorce. Yeah you get divorced a lot in the Corg I've known people get married divorced three times by like by the age of twenty five oh wow because in the Corg getting married is practically like dating right also unless you are married you are living in dorms with a bunch of other people so in order to get your own room you also have to get married. So there is many benefits. Oh wow okay so you mentioned communism in which way because is there a hierarchy inside Corg is there a redistribution of influence position money power inside Corg everyone in the Corg makes fifty dollars a week. Everybody except David Miscavige but and and some some posts might have a cash bonus incentive structure but fundamentally their pay is fifty dollars a week so so even the head of a big Scientology organization. Is getting fifty bucks a week. Are celebrities also part of Corg or no not usually so this is really the management layer. So what's the idea behind fifty dollars a week is that basically live a humble life they don't have to give you anything at all it's just oh you mean like what's the idea behind not paying. Yeah basically not paying everything you need is already being provided for you you are not here for the money you are working all the time anyway it's not like you don't have days off I mean you you are working all the time there is there is not it's there is no concept of the weekends there is no thank god it's Friday Friday's just another day. And how are the position the tasks the jobs allocated within the Corg what do you mean like like what kind of tasks you are doing what kind of stuff you are doing it's very similar to just any other business as far as you can have your human resources you can have your sales you can have your accounting your operations your quality control it's just that in Scientology your operations is delivering courses and auditing. So your operations and your quality control are where most of the activity occurs as far as delivering Scientology and then you've got your you call it business development but that's just bringing in new members right. So the the function of Scientology's organization is very. Very comparable to a a normal business in the normal world so let's talk about the products of this business auditing and courses so what's auditing. So auditing is so we described earlier dynamics auditing Scientology auditing is very similar to that so at first glance it it looks like psychotherapy a kind of therapy all Scientology auditing is going to look like that. It's one on one talk therapy. Uh you are in a a room by yourselves no distraction no noise one on one yeah so like this yeah but and in Scientology they have what's called an e meter. Who writes almost all auditing employs the use of an e meter what's an e meter. So an e meter is a device that just measures the resistance to a small electrical flow except Scientologists believe that this e meter can be used to simply direct the progress of an auditing session to determine whether. The auditing has reached a good satisfactory conclusion all auditing sessions have to end on a satisfactory conclusion like that's the job of the auditor you don't just it's not like sorry the session sucked see you next week it's not like that every auditing session has to end. Um on a positive note and if it doesn't there is corrections to be made so the e meter what does it look like visually like oh you can pull it up pull up mark eight e meter mark eight. So there is a few dials yeah there is a basic information about time and duration I presume and then a dial that just goes zero to something. Okay so let's say that the meter is in front of me and you are the one holding the cans I am holding the cans you are doing the auditing of me yeah okay I am holding the cans no literally in the beginning of an auditing session when you are calibrating the sensitivity sensitivity of the e meter you do a can squeeze so I go squeeze the cans please okay so I am just like squeezing the can and I am just changing the sensitivity because when you squeeze the cans I want to get about a one third of a dial drop on the needle the idea is you don't want if the needle's too sensitive then every time you shift around in your chair the needle is going to bounce all over the place so you are trying to set the sensitivity of this thing. And that's all the the knob there on the bottom to the left that's the sensitivity knob and that determines just how much how sensitive the needle is going to be and the the bigger dial is called the tone arm. And that is changing I want to say voltage or current but I am not intending I am going to get one of those words is wrong right but it is a real device it's a real device that you can actually calibrate to probably. You know get an outcome that you want yeah so here is even how just how a Scientology auditor believes it works you are holding the cans there is a tiny little battery in that e meter that's sending you are completing the circuit when you pick up the cans right so you got a little thing go in there and that needle will respond to your physical movement but that's not what we want we want you to sit the hell still so that we can read this thing when I am asking you questions. Okay so you are sitting there still very still