Born Into a Cult: The Unbelievable True Story of One Man's Escape from Scientology

Change Your Brain Every Day

Dr Daniel Amen

Braintrauma, Healthtips, Sleep, Obesity, Anxiety, Braininjury, Depression, Ptsd, Mentalhealth, Mood, Brainhealth, Health & Fitness, Energy, Disease, Addiction, Mental Health, Healthadvice, Adhd, Memory, Focus

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Abandoned at birth and handed over to Scientology's paramilitary wing, Jamie Mustard spent his first years in a slum-like "orphanage" where babies were stacked in bunks, starved of human touch, and bathed only once a week in filthy water. Decades later, he's a celebrated author, artist, and survivor. And now, he's exposing the global network of abuse that destroyed thousands of children's lives.

In this jaw-dropping conversation with Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen, Jamie reveals how he escaped a billion-year contract, overcame illiteracy and shame, and discovered the neuroscience of healing trauma through brain health. This is one of the most harrowing—and hopeful—survivor stories ever told on the podcast.

You'll learn:

• What really happened to children inside Scientology's secret compounds

• Why he called himself "Child X"

• How he survived a pressure-cooker environment "kind of like Lord of the Flies"

• How medical neglect nearly cost him his hearing… and his life

• How a celebrated author could grow up feeling "stupid"

• Why shame kept him silent for decades

• How trauma rewires the nervous system… and how to reset it

• The radical treatment that erased decades of his anxiety in 20 minutes

• Why so many of the kids he grew up with were lost to addiction and suicide

Jamie's new book, Child X: https://www.amazon.com/Child-Slavery-Poverty-Celebrity-Scientology/dp/163774708X

Transcript

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0:00.0	That's one of the reasons we continue to hold on to the shame is because we're told we're crazy after we survive it.
0:06.6	What did trauma look like in your life?
0:10.7	An anxiety so hard, so turned up, and so deep that it felt like a limb.
0:16.5	I was animalized. Just unbelievable living conditions. What's a word for shame times a thousand?
0:22.1	Right. This occurred to thousands of kids on four continents over 40 years.
0:27.3	Jamie Mustard is a conceptual artist, futurist, and writer, whose work explores perception
0:31.8	in the physical world. Through his books, he examines how attention, meaning and visibility
0:36.4	shaped the way ideas and people stand out.
0:38.7	I overcame something that I shouldn't have been able to overcome, and that has its own feelings
0:43.1	to it, almost like surviving a war. And so the reason I wrote Child X is I want people to know
0:48.2	that you can be in the darkest reaches of impossibility to come back and still come back.
0:55.0	They ask me, okay, well, why would somebody animalize a child like that if they're trying to build a religious movement?
1:00.0	And the answer is that...
1:05.0	Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse.
1:10.0	Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain better or you are making it worse stay with us to learn how you can
1:12.7	change your brain for the better every day hi I'm dr. Daniel Eamon I've experienced
1:26.4	firsthand the powerful impact that proper supplementation can have on your brain, your body, and your mind.
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