Erin Jensen

USA TODAY

Set in sunny Los Angeles, Tuesday’s Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath shared another dark account of a former parishioner’s time in the Church.

The latest episode of the A&E docuseries introduced viewers to Brandon Reisdorf, a sufferer of mental illness who alleged he did not receive the proper care from members of the religious organization.

“From a psychiatry point of view, he had bipolar issues,” Brandon’s mother Lois, a Scientologist for 22 years, confided to the camera. “We didn’t even know that at that time. All we knew is that he was having problems. So even though we had left the Church, we were trying to handle it with Scientology.”

“The Scientologists don’t believe in mental conditions being treated with drugs,” Remini claimed in an interview. “They believe they have the answer, and so they will handle this disorder with Scientology auditing, assists, and or vitamins.”

Remini’s partner for the project, Mike Rinder, alleged that the religion’s founder was the reason parishioners disagreed with psychiatry. “Scientology hates psychiatry so much because L. Ron Hubbard said that Scientologists should hate psychiatry,” Rinder claimed to the camera. “L. Ron Hubbard offered Dianetics (a book he penned) to the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association in 1950, and they laughed at him. He then determined that they were the enemies of mankind.”

However, Scientology’s website explains its “objection to psychiatry does not stem from any desire to deny the insane treatment. Rather, the Church objects to the mistreatment of the insane…”

The statement also says, “… psychiatry has invented numerous ‘cures’ which eventually proved destructive in the extreme,” citing electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies and drugs.

“Being born into Scientology, it’s kind of passed down that psychiatry’s not the answer to any spiritual problems or mental problems or whatever,” Brandon told Remini and Rinder, “and so the Church gave me their solution to that problem, which is called the introspection rundown.” This process was defined in the docuseries as, “Scientology’s method of treating a psychotic episode wherein the subject is isolated then put through rigorous auditing.”

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In a conversation with Remini and Rinder, Brandon claimed that he was at the home of two Scientologists trained in the process for approximately six weeks, and that he was watched “basically for 24-hours around the clock.”

“I was locked in a room for 24 hours a day,” Brandon shared, “experiencing craziness in my mind. It was just colors and pictures and hallucinations.”

He said the Church’s goal is, “to just let it go, and they claim (the episode will) run out eventually and then you’re fine again. It’s hard to explain. I should’ve been in a psychiatric hospital.”

At the time, Brandon’s bipolar disorder was not diagnosed.

When Brandon chose to leave the Church after his parents were allegedly declared Suppressive People in 2016, his brother Craig remained a Scientologist. The idea of losing his sibling sent Brandon into a spiral, and he threw a hammer through a Scientology Church window.

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Brandon said after the incident he was placed in a psychiatric ward for 19 days, where he reluctantly took medicine that helped in his recovery.

“I did protest taking the psychiatric drugs ‘cause I was still a bit brainwashed about it," he said. "They had to get a federal court order for me to take it and so I took the drugs after I lost that.”

The Church of Scientology discredits Brandon’s parents on a website, alleging they were removed from the organization “for dishonesty and unethical behavior.”

“Now, frustrated that their son Craig remains in the religion and that he refused to let them run his entire life, they are resorting to Leah Remini’s hate-filled reality TV show to lie,” the Church’s statement reads.

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“Rather than accept responsibility as parents, the Reisdorfs use the program to offer excuses while allowing warped hatemongers Remini and Mike Rinder to actually try to blame their former religion for a violent attack against the Los Angeles Church by their son Brandon in which he was arrested and charged by authorities before pleading guilty.”

You can read the Church’s full statement here and also review its letter to the series’ production company.