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HOWARD STERN: OK, here’s the Scientology guy. Richard?
RICHARD [Scientologist, on phone]: Yeah?
HOWARD: Quickly, what’s a clay table?
HOWARD: Oh, the clay table--it’s how you demonstrate ideas in a solid form.
ROBIN QUIVERS: What do you mean by that?
HOWARD: Be more specific.
RICHARD: OK, like if I want to think of a pencil, then if I put a clay representation of the pencil, then it gives me a more concrete idea so it’s not all in my head.
HOWARD: You following any of this?
ROBIN: Why do you do that? Why not pick up a pencil?
RICHARD: Because the complaint is--well, you could pick up a pencil, but--I’m just giving you an example of a pencil--like, when you start to talk about concepts that are more complex, instead of keeping them all in your head and all cerebral where there’s no application applied to it here--
HOWARD: I can’t handle this. I can’t handle your--
ROBIN: That makes no sense!--
HOWARD: Now what are you saying? The clay table is--you sit down--
RICHARD: Yeah, it’s--
HOWARD: What’s the clay table look like?
RICHARD: You know how you go to--you know how you go to college or you go to school and all you hear is words and books and concepts--
HOWARD: Right.
RICHARD: But you never go out and do anything with that information.
HOWARD: OK?
RICHARD: Well, a clay table is a way of taking of taking those concepts and ideas and putting it in a solid form.
HOWARD: All right--
ROBIN: Give me a better example than a pencil.
RICHARD: OK, so, like, uh--I’m gonna talk to somebody and ask them a question, and they’re gonna give me an answer, right? So what I do is I make a clay table of a person and then, um--
HOWARD: You mean you make it out of clay?
RICHARD: Yeah--
HOWARD: You make a person out of clay, like a voodoo doll--
RICHARD: That’s right, yeah, and then I make another voodoo doll out of clay and I put ‘em across from one another, and then I draw a little string of clay and send a communication to them so it shows a message going from one person to another--
HOWARD: Now do you realize how messed up John Travolta and Tom Cruise are?
RICHARD: [laughs]
HOWARD: Do you realize?
ROBIN: Wow.
RICHARD: Yeah--
HOWARD: So wait, let me get this straight--so you want to communicate with a person, so you think about that person and you make a clay figure of them--this is voodoo--and then you take another clay, you take another clay--
ROBIN: You make another clay figure--
HOWARD: That’s you, and you put a string of clay between them and therefore that’s gonna help you communicate with that person?
RICHARD: No, it’s not gonna help you communicate; it’s gonna help you understand what the communication cycle is between two people--
HOWARD: Whoa--whoa!
ROBIN: Really?
RICHARD: Yeah, you just get a more clear--
HOWARD: OK, so in other words--so in other words, uh, I never understood how to talk to people; therefore, now that I look at these little clay figures--
ROBIN: With a string between them--
RICHARD: Yeah, a lot of people don’t. A lot of people don’t understand how to talk to people.
HOWARD: They don’t, huh?
RICHARD: Yeah.
HOWARD: No, I don’t think that’s gonna help them.
RICHARD: [laughs]
HOWARD: So you’re telling me like, John Travolta goes there and makes things out of clay on a clay table like a two-year-old?
RICHARD: I’m not--well, yeah, that’s it exactly!
HOWARD: Oh!
GARRY DELL'ABATE: Howard, can this possibly be true?
HOWARD: Yes.
RICHARD: Yeah--
GARRY: You’re saying that--
HOWARD: Because I read an interview with Travolta where he was talking about he wants his son Jett--he named his son Jett--
RICHARD: Yeah--
HOWARD: Cuz he, cuz he likes to fly jets?
RICHARD: Right.
HOWARD: Jesus Christ! So they go there and they--
RICHARD: He would want to make a clay representation of a landing field and of a plane.
HOWARD: So let’s say I’m a gay guy, OK?
RICHARD: [laughs]
HOWARD: And I want to understand--like, I want to get rid of my gayness or I want to understand it, so I would make two clay figures out of two guys and, like, put a line from their genitals to their butts?
RICHARD: [laughs]
ROBIN: And put a slash mark to say no to that?--
HOWARD: Yeah--
RICHARD: If you wanted to explain to a heterosexual what a gay man was all about--
HOWARD: I see--
RICHARD: That might be a good idea to do. A gay man probably wouldn’t need it but a heterosexual who didn’t comprehend what it was to be gay--
HOWARD: Can you make me an Amy Lynn and Howard out of clay? I don’t understand why she’s badmouthing me.
[laughter]
RICHARD: Yeah, that would work.
HOWARD: All right.
RICHARD: That will work [laughs].
HOWARD: And the E-meter is the thing they hook up to your skin with some clamps?
RICHARD: No, no, you just hold two cans. You--they don’t hook up anything to your body--
ROBIN: Two cans?--
HOWARD: Like soup cans?
RICHARD: Yeah, yeah, two soup cans. You hold the one on one and one on the other, and it registers a resistance--
HOWARD: Oy!
RICHARD: Say--so, so say you have a thought that comes into your--it’s like a lie detector. You have a thought that comes into your mind; if it’s a thought that has a little trauma to it, you’ll see the needle jump because some resistance is coming in.
HOWARD: Robin, you have cans.
[laughter]
ROBIN: You can’t hold these two and do--[laughs]
HOWARD: So how can anybody take Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley, any of these people seriously?
RICHARD: How can you take--when, when--
ROBINS: Well, cuz they get money when you, uh--
HOWARD: Imagine, like, they hook you up to some cans--
ROBIN: Go to their movies--
HOWARD: And you--
RICHARD: No, you just hold them. And after a while you learn how to do it to yourself. In other words, you learn how to hold the cans yourself and, uh--
HOWARD: Wow!
RICHARD: You process yourself.
HOWARD: Gee, you think one day I could learn how to hold these cans myself?
RICHARD: Yeah, it’s great.
HOWARD: Wow!
RICHARD: Yeah, it’s great; you can see how you think and everything.
HOWARD: Man, I gotta get--I gotta invent a religion. Thank you.
RICHARD: [laughs] You’re welcome.
HOWARD: I gotta get involved in this. "Do you think I can hold the cans myself?" "Well, no, you must have a tremendous knowledge which I can teach you, but it’s gonna cost you an arm and a leg. I mean, you might spend your whole life trying to figure out how to hold these cans. I mean, I know how, because I’m enlightened; but for you to hold these cans? You’ll be looking at 10 grand easy, maybe 20 because you look like a real dope."
ROBIN: And they’re probably told that they’re at the higher level of consciousness--
HOWARD: Yeah--
ROBIN: Because they have so much money.
HOWARD: "Holding a can? That is very difficult."
[laughter]
HOWARD: "To hold the cans properly to get a proper E-meter reading, you’re looking maybe 50 grand."
ROBIN: Yeah--
HOWARD: "All right, I’m gonna be honest with you"--
ROBIN: You’re not holding them right!--
HOWARD: "I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna, you know--forget about it! You’re an idiot!"
ROBIN: You need a professional to tell you how to do that.
HOWARD: "It’s not like you just hold these cans--you’re talking about an E-meter here. These aren’t just ordinary cans."
[laughter]
ROBIN: It’s all in the grip.
HOWARD: "L. Ron Hubbard figured this out for himself; it took us years to hold these cans. What, clay? I can put you right on the clay table"--
[laughter]
HOWARD: "We’re talking 2 grand here, you’re gonna get a whole bunch of crap worked right out."
ROBIN: We’ll give you a fresh [??]
HOWARD: "You know Travolta’s kid? We got HIM on the clay table. Kid didn’t understand the relationship between pee-pee and doo-dee."
["Whoa!" from people in the background]
HOWARD: "He made a pile of pee-pee and a pile of doo-dee and he drew a string between them, now he understands."
[laughter]
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