The views, personal accounts, and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the guest Ann Goldert Hill based on her own lived experiences and recollections. This podcast makes no independent factual claims regarding the Church of Scientology or any of its members, leaders, or affiliated individuals. All statements reflect the guest's personal perspective and memories should not be construed as established legal fact. The Church of Scientology denies many of these claims by former members. Neither this podcast its host, its production team, nor its parent company endorses, verifies, or assumes legal responsibility for the guest's accounts. This episode is produced for informational and entertainment purposes only. Listeners are encouraged to seek out multiple sources when forming their own conclusions. Nothing in this episode casso toots legal advice. Now let's get obsessed with this episode. Okay, stop what you're doing. I mean it. You need to put down those snacks. Stop your scrolling and sit the heck down because what we are about to get into right now in the obsessed podcast, Meek and I have never talked about. We are literally sitting at the edge of our seats. We're talking about Scientology. You've watched Leah's show with your jaw on the floor. You've been two hours deep in a Reddit thread at 1am. Don't lie to us. You think we don't get it? We get it. Today our guest, she's going to uncover things with us that normal people don't just stumble across on Reddit and she didn't just stumble across on any podcast. She lived it. She lived it for nearly two decades. Her name is Anne Hill. She grew up in Canada. Yes. Hey Canada, we love you. She was high achieving magnum, whom loud, five beta Kappa academic. She's genuinely brilliant. I had the honor of meeting her. You know she's brilliant when she walks in the room and at age 27, fresh out of a bad marriage, she walked into something that was maybe a little worse. I'm not sure we're going to hear about this. She walked into something that she thought was a counseling session in Noscatos, California and she really didn't walk back out for almost 20 years. She joined the SEA organizations, Scientology Elite Military Style, Inner Order and she wasn't sent into some random outpost. She was recruited specifically to the Gold Base, international headquarters. The compound deep in the California desert where David Muscovy runs this entire operation. This is so much and if you are not following me right now, we're going to get really into this. Wait for a minute because Anne is going to explain this all to us. Scientology is where some of the celebrities really get coddled, where the real decisions get made, where the people who don't comply disappear into something that's called the RPF. Again, we're going to talk more about this. Anne was there witnessing this all and she was a writer for the organization and was recruited specifically by the writer's team, the inner sanctum of Scientology, which means she was producing content for the very top of the Scientology machine. I know this is going to be huge. She was in the building with Muscovige. She was in the same world as Leah Remney, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Christie Alley. You've heard those names. And on August 3rd, 2007, a day she now calls her freedom day. She walked out of Scientology's so-called spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida with nothing but the clothes on her back and whatever was left in her purse. She left everything else behind. We're getting a glimpse into the cult. If you want a cult, a cult, we're going to really dive deep into this. Anne, thank you so much for being here. We want to learn more about your Scientology story and what it's like to live inside a true cult for almost two decades. Meek and I have been looking so forward to this conversation. Welcome, and guys, get ready to be truly obsessed with Anne Hill and her story. Yes. And Anne, I'm going to go right in. You were 27 years old at that time. You were smart, highly educated, and you had your whole life ahead of you. And somehow, you walked into this free counseling session in Los Gatos, California, and that turned into nearly 20 years inside of one of the most controversial organizations on the planet. And need you to take me back to that very first moment, what was actually going on in your life that made you walk through that door? Wow. So much. So, yes, I was a high achiever. I was always a high achiever, but there's always a but, right? I had divorced my husband after only two years of marriage and was, oh, my parents had basically disowned me for marrying him because I was going to go do something else with my life, and they weren't happy with where I was going. So, I divorced him. I was having an affair with my married boss who was 10 years older than me. Oh, yes. And then I couldn't get out of that. For some reason, I was obsessed with him, and I could not escape this, and this was going on like for years. I started doing a lot. My ex-husband had gotten me into cocaine, and I was not a druggy growing up at all. So, I started doing cocaine a lot, drinking a lot. I had my own business. I had great friends, but I was rudderless, I guess you could say. I had no direction. Everything I thought was going to happen with my life didn't happen the way I thought it was going to, and I felt like a big mess, but I knew I could get it back on target if I just dove in and tried to figure some things out, because I always tried to figure things out, right? So, I read all these books, and I was, you know, men who love women who don't love them anymore, and blah, blah, you know, all these books. Didn't do any good for me. I went to about seven different types of churches, nothing. I went to a therapist, and she talked to me. Well, she sat me down. It was part of what I got from work, so I didn't have to pay for it, which was good at the time. She sat me down, and she said, tell me what's happening, and so I just spewed all this stuff at her for an hour, and she didn't say a thing. At the end, she goes, well, how do you feel about that? I'm like, what? What do you mean? How do I feel about that? Aren't you supposed to tell me, you know, what to do or how to feel or give me some tips on how to figure this out? I never went back to her, because she didn't really help me, right? So then, I got involved with a nutritional counselor, because I was really into that at the time, and this nutritional counselor started, I started kind of opening up to her, and she started giving me all these little tidbits about how to handle things in my life, like how to communicate better with the people I was working with. I was in a partnership and a print shop, and we weren't really getting along that well, so she gave me tips, and they worked. And then, she started giving me tips on how to improve things in my finances, in my relationship with my boyfriend, all these things, and everything she told me, I tried it, and it worked. I was like, wow, great, you know? So, I started trusting her more, and then one day, I told her everything, because I hadn't told her about the affair and the drugs and everything else, and I broke down, and I told her, and I was in tears, and she said, how would you like to never feel like that again? How would you like that to be gone? Imagine somebody says that to you, right? I went, what? That's impossible. If that doesn't happen, she goes, yeah, I can, and I know somebody who can help you. So, that's what got me into that office in Los Gatos. You, by all intents and purposes, are a very intelligent woman. I mentioned that you graduated Manicun Loud from which school? UCLA? I mean, that's not a small feat. So, you have your brains and wits, so there was a point where you detoured. It seems like they were just waiting for you. What they do, they try to get the smartest, but most vulnerable combination. If you're smart and vulnerable, they can get you, because they know how to, and I learned how to do this, they know how to dig into the point in your life that you're really messed up, and then give you the tools to help you with that, and then they just lead you along slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, until pretty soon, you're just sucked in, and you think, well, at least I did. I think, well, if this works for me, maybe it'll work for other people, then I can help other people get better, and blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, that's how it works. They groomed you, and you became a recruiter. They understand that you have become broken, and that you are your own ruins, and I believe ruins is a term in Scientology, correct? Yeah, finding a ruin. I learned how to do that right away. I first didn't join an organization. I was just like a public Scientologist for about a year, I guess, and then I joined an organization, and I became in charge of their public division, which is basically getting new people in because of my personality, obviously, I guess. So, so I learned how to find a person's ruin, which is basically you find what's quote unquote ruining their life, and you do that in a very specific way, and you ask very specific questions, and you get them to break down in front of you. That's the point. Once they break down, start crying or whatever, or just a light bulb goes off, yes, that's ruining my life. Good. Okay, here, use this, this will help you. Wow. So, Ann, it sounds like an emotional hook, like almost like a climax of the movie, where that huge hook, so it sounds like that moment of that social relational interaction is that emotional hook, where they're feeling the most pain, and you're kind of like holding it to them like a mirror. Here's where you're suffering. And by the way, we have the antidote for that. We have to hold it back. 100,000% correct. That's exactly what they do. They just hold up a mirror. That's what he did. That's what this guy did. He had me do this little test, right? And then I learned how to do that on other people, but he had me do the test, and then he was explaining to me what my answers were, and I was like, that's exactly right. How did you know this about me? He said, I didn't. That's what you told me about you. This is actually good information if anybody wants to start a cult. And I'm not saying this in a bad way because I get it. Starting a cult, we're going to start the obsessed cult. Well, obsessed cult is fine. It's the other thing. You're fine. I don't care what you believe as long as you don't hurt people. Exactly. I think everybody wants to have a sense of belonging. And I'm guessing young Ann, I mean, you're still young, but a younger version of Ann at age 27, you were searching for belonging and healing. And it probably seemed like the easiest route at the time. Oh, well, it seemed like long and easy. I'm going to give up my life. I'm going to sign a billion-year contract. And I want to talk about that. Yeah, that didn't happen for a while. Okay. That was down the road, but it did seem like an answer. And back then, you got to understand, this was 1988, 7, 8, somewhere in there. There was no internet. There was no nothing. You couldn't find out about Scientology. So he asked me after I'd been seeing this counselor for one session. And then the next one, he said, have you ever heard of Scientology? I said, no. He goes, you ever heard of Dynetics? I said, well, isn't that that ad on TV where the volcano and the book and whatever, because it was a big ad in the 80s? And he said, yeah, that's it. I said, no, okay, well, I don't know anything about it one way or the other. That was dangerous because I didn't know. So many more people know now. And it's just such a wonderful thing that they do. Is Scientology a Christian faith because people might get that mixed up that it's a faith? It's not. Okay. So what they tell you, which is a complete lie, is that you can be any religion and also be a Scientologist. That's not true. Completely untrue. But they tell you that because Scientology is, they call it an applied religious philosophy. Love those words? Applied religious philosophy. The reason it became a religion is because Elron Hubbard wanted tax exemption. So he could make money. And they finally got tax exemption in 1993. And that's why they're still growing because they're sucking money out of all their people and putting it into buildings and putting it away so that David Miskevich has his nice little nest egg, you know. Wow. Impressive. That's a good business. Yeah, right. Patrick. And Anne, I was wondering, because you said, because you didn't know much, you said it was like 1988-ish. And there were no internet. There wasn't any Instagram and Google mainstream at that time to let people know what this was about. So when last got those, California, you got connected there, was there at around that time, many offices of Scientology? More than now. Yeah. There were much more field offices like this was. So you've got different levels. You've got what's called your field office, which is like your run-of-the-mill Scientologist, but he's training or she is training or delivering what's called auditing, which is Scientology counseling to people. And that funnels into another level organization, which is called a mission, which then funnels into a Scientology class five organization. And then that funnels up to an advanced organization that teaches the advanced levels of Scientology. But the highest level is the C organization, and that's a whole different story. A whole different story. Tell me this story. Is Christian Science book reading room, is that the synium at Scientology? No, they're separate. Okay. Totally different. Easy to get them mixed up, but no. Scientology is not Christian. Scientology isn't Muslim. Scientology is a business. Oh, interesting how people get that mixed up. Well, it's easy to get it mixed up, right? It's easy to get religion and science mixed up when they're in the same sentence or in the same title, like Christian Science and then Scientology. So, Ann, you've been recruited. You have the counseling slash audit. You're feeling like somebody or someone, some group understands you and they're slowly grooming you into their system. Take us on that journey from you just being an enthusiast, you're getting off the drugs, you're leaving the bad relationships. All of a sudden, you have Meany, you have Purpose, you are going to change the world. And how do they get you from that to signing the billion year contract? Walk us through that moment and tell us first of all what the billion year contract is, because that is the most mind-boggling part of Scientology that I've ever heard. I think everybody needs to hear about this because it's facts on papers, oddities, odd. So, when you join this organization, you basically, it's like becoming a monk almost. You're just giving up everything and you're going to do, you're going to be in this organization with all these other people who have devoted their entire eternity to helping Elron Hubbard, what's called Clear the Planet, which is save the world basically from its reactivity and insanity and all these, you know, he says, a world without war, without insanity, where people have rights and, you know, it sounds wonderful, right? Don't we all want that? So, that's why it's so appealing, especially if you've gone up the levels and you've also helped other people at the basic level, which is what I was doing. I was there for three years before I signed a Seer contract. So, it was a long process. It wasn't like tomorrow I'm signing a Seer contract and devoting a billion years to Scientology. First of all, when I first got in, I didn't believe in past lives, but boy, when you get into Scientology, boy, do you learn fast that apparently we've lived four millions of lifetimes, just FYI. And this is what they teach you, and that you've been here and done the same thing. This is one of the things that my first counselor said, you know, we've done the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. We've lived this life, this same life over and over again. Don't you want to do something different? Don't you want to have more purpose? Don't you want to really change things? That really appealed to me, wanting to help others and change the world, because I was young and idealistic, and I thought I could, you know, because we all think we can at 27. Yeah, you were a little misguided at that time. You were searching for something, right? You know, that's what we do, like the escapism through drugs, and then these relationships that were not healthy for you at 27 years old. So, you were searching for something, and it looked like this answer just kind of dropped into your lap, sort of speak. Yeah, it did. So, you were on a basic level for three years before you signed the billion-dollar contract? Billion-year. Billion-year. So, here's why that happened. I was signed the billion-dollar contract. Me too. If I have a billion-dollar contract, yes, ma'am, I'm signing it, but no. So, what happened was, I had been working in this organization, and in every Scientology organization below the SeaOrg, they have one representative that's a SeaOrg member that comes in and works in that organization, and is like a SeaOrg representative in that organization. And the person that came into my organization was really sweet and nice and a cute guy, and we kind of hit it off, and I wanted to have a relationship with him, but I couldn't, because he was in the SeaOrg, and if you're in the SeaOrg, you can't have a relationship with someone who isn't. So, we petitioned, this is the craziest story, we petitioned the Executive Director of International to be able to get married, even though he was in the SeaOrg and I wasn't because he was posted in my organization. And the Executive Director of International wrote back and said, well, that's fine, but you have to sign a SeaOrg contract, and then it'll get activated when it's time, not right away. And I believed that. I believed them, which was really dumb at this point, but, you know, I was not thinking. Wow. So, you ended up getting married to this guy, and I know, spoiler alert, you ended up signing away. Did you sign away your rights to have children, or what was that all about? So, here's what happens. I did not. I did not know that you couldn't have children in the SeaOrg, and nobody told me. And my plan with him was to have kids and then eventually activate my SeaOrg contract. But a week later, after I'd signed this billion, pledged myself for a billion years. So, basically, how that works is, what they're saying is, basically, once you're in the SeaOrg, you just keep coming back lifetime after lifetime back in. You get a 10-year reprieve, basically, is how it works. You die, you pick up another body, you get 10 years, and then you have to join again. I'm not kidding. This is true. So, so I signed the contract, didn't think anything about it. We got married, we were having a wonderful time, and then a week later, this group of people shoves up in my organization in their uniforms, in all their gold and epaulettes and whatever, and said, we're on the IntWriters mission. We're looking for writers to bring up to Int Management. And I was like, uh-huh. And you're the one. And they were like, I'm like, uh-huh. And then they gave me the, how do I describe this, the whole idea of how prestigious this was, and how nobody goes from this level of an organization up to international management. That just doesn't happen. So, of course, that fed into my, oh, I'm special. Right? I've always been at this higher level. So, this makes total sense. Of course, they want me. I was young and not understanding the world yet, right? So, I signed it. But that week, they came and they recruited me to go straight up to international management. But I had signed the contract so I couldn't do anything about it. So, there I was. Wow. How did that affect your marriage? Marriage number two? I said, well, he was already in the C-organ. I said, I'm only going to do this if he goes with me. So, he got to go too. How did he do it? On my coattails. They wouldn't have asked for him. So, that happened. So, the two of us, well, I went up first and then he came after me. It's also odd and they make you dress the same way. They don't pay you. Right. And then you go to Hemet, California and then you end up in Clearwater, Florida, correct? That was after a long time. After a long time. But you're working shoulder to shoulder with David Muscovy. Muscovy? Yeah, in Hemet. David Muscovy. Sorry, I know. I was going to say his name, Ron. You can say it any way you want. I do not care. Gold base. And I knew I was going to say his name, Ron. First question, is he still at the helm? And second of all, what is energy like when he enters the room? Not what he's like, but what is the energy like when he enters the room? What does that feel like for you? What kind of energy did you have with him? The head Scientology. So, he was, he still had a Scientology. He feels mostly in hiding. Okay. And his wife too. Well, she's not in hiding. He just put her somewhere else. Oh, he don't. So that nobody can. I know. Oh, wow. Yeah. Most of us know where she is. But we can't get to her. That's nuts. But anyway, back to this. So what was the energy like? Let me give you the difference between public Scientology energy and Sea Org energy. Okay. When David Muscovy walks into any room where there's a lot of public Scientologists, the energy is like electric. They're screaming and yelling and jumping up and down. And oh my God, he's so amazing. And he's changed everything for Scientology and he's helping all of us, blah, blah, blah. Right? Now, that is the public Scientology impression of him. For a Sea Org member, the impression is he walks in the room. It is utter panic, instant, heart in the throat. What is going to happen to me today? Did he like what I just did? Did he not? What kind of moods he in? What's he going to do to me? That's literally how it feels. And we were in a constant state of panic for 10 years. I didn't manage it constant. That is insane. Like on so many levels, to be a organization like this and a faith-based organization that is your tax exempt, you're saying you're a church. So this is a faith-based organization. And you create this much fear and fright into the people that are working with you in this mission. That is insane to me. I can't even fathom having that duality. It's hard. That's where the cognitive dissonance comes in. Basically, the idea that your brain can't handle two opposing ideas at the same time, it has to pick one or you'll go insane. We were trained that if he was mad or if he was upset, we had done something wrong. It wasn't him. It was us. If he was mad at me or if he did something to me, it's because I quote unquote pulled it in. Like I had evil intentions towards him, or my own ideology, or Elron Hebert. This is how they train you. This is how they manipulate your mind. There are so many things you can learn from him, both good and bad. And when you were in, and you were totally committed, how did you believe him? What was that ideology? And what was the part you saw so clearly and that you loved that was so hard to give up? I know there must be some really great memories of it. There can't be all negatives looking back. That's exactly right. These people, even now, are some of the best people I ever knew, the people I worked with. And we were a very, very, very tight knit group. And all of the people who have left as well, all of us, even if we didn't work together, we have a camaraderie that is unlike anything I've ever experienced. Because when you go through something like that together, you have bond that can't be broken. And that bond, that was really hard for me to leave, first of all, but also so many people that I admired and respected were still there. None of us would show each other that we were upset or that we were having doubts because we weren't allowed to. You can't express your emotions. You can't tell anybody what's going on in your heart because if you do, they'll write you up. They'll write up what's called a knowledge report and that will go up and then you'll be punished. They'll be punished if they don't write a knowledge report about you. Wow. So these people, you became a tight knit group, going through this experience and you had a bond and a love for each other like no other. And so I imagine just being attached to each other and relying on one another and looking out for one another. And does that mean that this entire group signed an agreement to not have kids? Like this entire group, like you and this group that signed that agreement? They didn't sign an agreement. What happened was they created a policy in about the late early 90s, I guess, where C-OR members could no longer have children because up to then they were having children. There was a whole separate place on the int base, it was called the ranch, and that's where all the kids were. So they did, like Jenna Muscavin, she was born into the C-OR, right? And you've heard of her, I'm sure, she's all over the unit. And I worked with her dad and her uncle, clearly. But the point being, the policy became you cannot have children because it takes away from your focus, to clear the planet. That's the opposite of a pulp, though. Most cults want you to breed and bring more babies into the cult. Well, that's for the public Scientologists to do, not the C-OR members. Public Scientologists need to breed for sure. The biggest thing that they just released was this new golden age for children, like get all your kids in because they know they're losing people. They just released this on March 13th. Craziness. Okay, there were a lot of misgivings that I understood. First of all, I thought it was a religious based cult, but now I know it differently. And we did ask Ann prior, if there was anything off limits, and please listen to this claimer at the beginning of this podcast, can we dive deep into the celebrities? And the celebrities are the ones that have brought Scientology to the light, to the light that everyone's like, Oh, oh my gosh, Chris DeAli, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, all these people who are amazing, who are successful. And guess who knows them all, Ann Hill. I met Ann Hill a few months ago in person, and she buried the lead. We're at the top of the C-OR, and I've watched Leah Remini's documentary on Netflix, fascinated by it. And we were talking about her book, by the way, everything's going to be in the show notes. If you guys do not follow Ann Hill, Meek and I will never talk to you, you will be out of our cults, the upsets. Make sure you check out those show notes. Talking to her, she was telling me about her story. I said, can you get Leah Remini to do the forward? She's like, Oh, let me just make a note of that. Sure, sure. I was like, what? And her stories are so real. That's when I knew how powerful her story is. Blew my mind. Can we go over these celebrities? It's not the center of your story, but we'll be fascinating for sure. So who do you want to know about first? If this episode hit you the way it hit us, and we know it did, please go leave us a rating and review right now. It literally takes two minutes and it means everything to us. It helps us so much. It helps get obsessed, reach more people. And honestly, stories like these need to be heard. So please do it, do it for yourself. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you never miss an episode. We are just getting started. You don't want to sleep on what's coming next. We love you guys. See you next week and get obsessed with your life. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.
