For those who don’t know what exactly Scientology is, you’re not alone. When you break it down, you’ll find that it’s an incredibly complex system. Part religion, part business, part cult, Scientology was invented by a man named L. Ron Hubbard in 1954.

The origins of the religious movement are quite shady as well. Before the Church of Scientology was founded, Hubbard first developed a set of therapeutic principles he called Dianetics, but the organization he created to promote these ideas went bankrupt. Many believe that Hubbard then founded the Church of Scientology as a way to recharacterize Dianetics as a religion in order to avoid paying taxes. From the get-go, Scientology was intended to be a lucrative endeavor.

But where there is worship of money, there, too, you find darkness and depravity. Allie Beth Stuckey invites Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Soncrant, hosts of the podcast "Cultish," to the show to “peel back the layers” of Scientology and evaluate what’s really going on beneath the surface.

“Around 1967 after L. Ron Hubbard had established the Church of Scientology, the IRS … revoked its tax-exempt status” after it became clear that Hubbard “wanted to utilize a religion as a way to obtain wealth.”

This sparked a cycle of revenge that involved “5,000 members of the Church of Scientology … actively involved on multiple different fronts in the government, not just the Internal Revenue Service ... trying to obtain documents, trying to forge documents” in order to “get their tax-exempt status back.”

“It’s a pretty wild story of infiltration,” says Roberts.

To hear the bizarre story of how a cult amalgamated with the federal government and resulted in kidnappings, forced abortions, and rape cover-ups, among other horrors, watch the video below.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.