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Book Review: Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
benrothke writes "In its first week, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief was #3 on the New York Times Best Sellers list and will likely be #1 soon. The fact that the book is in print is somewhat miraculous given the voracious appetite Scientology has for litigation. It is the first time that such an expose could have been written and found such wide-scale reading. An interesting analysis of this fact is found in Why the Media Is No Longer Afraid of Scientology by Kim Masters. But as mesmerizing an expose as the book is, I doubt that this will be more than a speed bump to Scientology's growth and fund raising." Keep reading to be clear about what Ben has to say.
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
author
Lawrence Wright
pages
448
publisher
Knopf
rating
10/10
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-0307700667
summary
Compelling and engrossing book, thoroughly researched and extensively fact checked
Scientology has long called anyone who has written against them as having a vendetta. It calls former adherents heretics with a vendetta. But after such hyperbole, it is illogical and questionable that Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright would risk a distinguished career to write an expose simply based on those with a vendetta. But to cover all bases, including those of litigation, the books nearly 50 pages of notes puts Wright and his publisher in a strongly defensible position in case the church decided to litigate.
Wright is aware of the dangers of writing against the church, as he details the story of Paulette Cooper. Cooper, whose 1971 book The Scandal of Scientology, was sued nearly 20 times by the church and harassed for years due to its contents. The book details that an FBI raid a few years later found a Scientology file about Operation Freakout, which had the purpose of getting Cooper in a mental institution or jail.
The book places Church President David Miscavige is a negative light (over 20 people in the book accuse him of abuse, including being kicked, punched, slapped, choked and more). Karin Pouw, a Scientology spokeswoman states that details about Miscavige are false and defamatory.
The church created a web site for what it believes are errors in the book. While Wright is short on drama, the web site hyperbolically states that the book is "so ludicrous it belongs in a supermarket tabloid". The web site states that British publishers have chosen not to print it "which speaks volumes about their confidence in its factual accuracy". The truth is that British libel laws are so onerous and archaic, that publishers are reticent to publish such a work. While it might not be published in the UK, it is easily available via the Amazon UK web site.
In Going Clear, Wright has created a fair and balanced overview (if such a thing is actually possible) about Scientology. The book has interview material and facts from over 200 current and former members of the Church of Scientology, and takes a historical look of its history, and that of its founder L. Ron Hubbard and successor, current President David Miscavige.
In the introduction, Wright notes that he was drawn to write the book by the questions that many people have about Scientology; such as: what is it that make the religion so alluring? What do its adherents get out of it? Why do popular personalities associate themselves with a faith that is likely to create a kind of public relations martyrdom? He notes that these questions are not unique to Scientology, but that they certainly underscore its story.
As 372 pages covering 3 parts and 11 chapters, Wright is a mesmerizing author that creates a non-fiction spellbinding page-turner. The 4 main characters of the book are Hubbard, Miscavige and actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
In chapter 2, the book details the many discrepancies between the legend of L. Ron Hubbard and fact. While Scientologist's may think that Wright has a vengeance against the group, he writes that it is a fact that Hubbard was genuinely a fascinating man. He writes that Hubbard was an explorer, best-selling author and the founder of a worldwide religious movement. At the same time, Wright's research found that the truth is counter to some of the postulated facts about Hubbard's naval career, his miraculous recovery from wartime injuries and overall naval accomplishments.
As to the manipulation of facts, in the final pages of the book, Wrights notes some of Hubbard's medical records do not corroborate his version of the actual events. Some of the naval medals that Hubbard supposedly won were not created until after Hubbard left active service. The supposed Purple Heart medal for being wounded while serving on duty that Hubbard claimed to receive was also different from the Purple Heart medals given out at the time.
In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard specifically names psychotherapy as being dangerous and impractical. Hubbard felt that other methods of mental science are based on principles that are opposed to the principles of Scientology, and Hubbard had an anathema of psychiatry and psychology until his dying day.
Wright observes that Dianetics arrived at a moment when the aftershocks of World War 2 were still being felt. And that behind the exhilarations of victory, there was immense trauma for millions of Americans. With Dianetics, Hubbard offered a do-it-yourself manual to that claimed to demystify the secrets of the human mind and produce guaranteed results, for free, and that was bound to attract a large audience.
Wright notes that given Hubbard's biography, it would be easy to dismiss Hubbard as a fraud. But that would fail to explain his total absorption in his project. Hubbard would spend the rest of his life elaborating his theory and obsessively construct the intricate bureaucracy design to spread and enshrine his understanding of human behavior.
Wright notes that for all of Hubbard's enormous wealth, he spent much of his time in his ship cabin alone, auditing himself with an E-Meter (the electronic device used Scientology auditing sessions) and developing his spiritual technology. Wright rhetorically notes that while Hubbard may have been grandiose and delusional, if Hubbard was a fraud and a con, why would he bother creating such a system?
As objective as Wright is, he takes no quarter when he details Scientology's approach to children. Hubbard viewed children as adults in small bodies. While they were physically small, Hubbard felt that they were responsible for their own behavior. Young children would be sentenced to virtual prisons for weeks, for minor infractions such as messing up an incoming telex.
In Scientology parlance, such an individual was a suppressive person. One young girl, who was deaf and mute was placed in a locker for a week because Hubbard thought it might cure her deafness.
A large part of the book deals with celebrities and how Scientology sees celebrities as a boon to the church. Wrights notes that Scientology orients itself toward celebrities and by doing so, the church awards famousness a spiritual value. People who seek fame in the entertainment industry will gravitate to Hollywood, where the Scientology Celebrity Center is waiting for them, validating their ambitions and promising a recruits a way in. The church has long pursued a marketing strategy that relies on celebrity endorsements to promote the religion.
Some celebrities prominent in the book are Paul Haggis, Travolta, Nancy Cartwright (famous for being the voice of Bart Simpson) and Tom Cruise. Haggis is an ex-Scientologist, recently leaving the church after nearly 40 years, who is interviewed in the book.
Wright is highly critical of Cruise, who he notes that probably no member of the church derives as much material benefit as Cruise does. Cruise then consequently bears a moral responsibility for the myriad indignities (which the book points out in great detail) inflicted on members of the Sea Organization (a unit of the Church, encompassing its most dedicated members), sometimes directly because of his membership.
Wright concludes with the notion that Scientology wants to be understood as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but has no grounding in science at all. Serious academic study of the church has to date been constrained by the church's vindictive and litigious reputation. Researchers and academics are terrified by Scientology and reluctant to direct their research into the church. The book observes that compared with other religions, the published literature on Scientology is improvised and clouded by bogus assertions.
In Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, Wright has composed a bombshell of an expose. This is a compelling and engrossing book, thoroughly researched and extensively fact checked. The book is a perfect read for a long flight as it is riveting and fascinating. Wright has a unique ability to keep the narrative flowing and interesting.
But with all that, it is not a Silent Spring, which 50 years ago helped launch the environmental movement. Had the book come out 20 years ago, it is likely that lawsuits from the church would have prevented its release until today. Yet the passive public has a short memory and Scientology has believers that sign billion year contracts with the church. As salacious as every page of this book is, one is hard-pressed to envision the church of Scientology contracting or being hurt in any way by this book.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Wright is aware of the dangers of writing against the church, as he details the story of Paulette Cooper. Cooper, whose 1971 book The Scandal of Scientology, was sued nearly 20 times by the church and harassed for years due to its contents. The book details that an FBI raid a few years later found a Scientology file about Operation Freakout, which had the purpose of getting Cooper in a mental institution or jail.
The book places Church President David Miscavige is a negative light (over 20 people in the book accuse him of abuse, including being kicked, punched, slapped, choked and more). Karin Pouw, a Scientology spokeswoman states that details about Miscavige are false and defamatory.
The church created a web site for what it believes are errors in the book. While Wright is short on drama, the web site hyperbolically states that the book is "so ludicrous it belongs in a supermarket tabloid". The web site states that British publishers have chosen not to print it "which speaks volumes about their confidence in its factual accuracy". The truth is that British libel laws are so onerous and archaic, that publishers are reticent to publish such a work. While it might not be published in the UK, it is easily available via the Amazon UK web site.
In Going Clear, Wright has created a fair and balanced overview (if such a thing is actually possible) about Scientology. The book has interview material and facts from over 200 current and former members of the Church of Scientology, and takes a historical look of its history, and that of its founder L. Ron Hubbard and successor, current President David Miscavige.
In the introduction, Wright notes that he was drawn to write the book by the questions that many people have about Scientology; such as: what is it that make the religion so alluring? What do its adherents get out of it? Why do popular personalities associate themselves with a faith that is likely to create a kind of public relations martyrdom? He notes that these questions are not unique to Scientology, but that they certainly underscore its story.
As 372 pages covering 3 parts and 11 chapters, Wright is a mesmerizing author that creates a non-fiction spellbinding page-turner. The 4 main characters of the book are Hubbard, Miscavige and actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
In chapter 2, the book details the many discrepancies between the legend of L. Ron Hubbard and fact. While Scientologist's may think that Wright has a vengeance against the group, he writes that it is a fact that Hubbard was genuinely a fascinating man. He writes that Hubbard was an explorer, best-selling author and the founder of a worldwide religious movement. At the same time, Wright's research found that the truth is counter to some of the postulated facts about Hubbard's naval career, his miraculous recovery from wartime injuries and overall naval accomplishments.
As to the manipulation of facts, in the final pages of the book, Wrights notes some of Hubbard's medical records do not corroborate his version of the actual events. Some of the naval medals that Hubbard supposedly won were not created until after Hubbard left active service. The supposed Purple Heart medal for being wounded while serving on duty that Hubbard claimed to receive was also different from the Purple Heart medals given out at the time.
In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard specifically names psychotherapy as being dangerous and impractical. Hubbard felt that other methods of mental science are based on principles that are opposed to the principles of Scientology, and Hubbard had an anathema of psychiatry and psychology until his dying day.
Wright observes that Dianetics arrived at a moment when the aftershocks of World War 2 were still being felt. And that behind the exhilarations of victory, there was immense trauma for millions of Americans. With Dianetics, Hubbard offered a do-it-yourself manual to that claimed to demystify the secrets of the human mind and produce guaranteed results, for free, and that was bound to attract a large audience.
Wright notes that given Hubbard's biography, it would be easy to dismiss Hubbard as a fraud. But that would fail to explain his total absorption in his project. Hubbard would spend the rest of his life elaborating his theory and obsessively construct the intricate bureaucracy design to spread and enshrine his understanding of human behavior.
Wright notes that for all of Hubbard's enormous wealth, he spent much of his time in his ship cabin alone, auditing himself with an E-Meter (the electronic device used Scientology auditing sessions) and developing his spiritual technology. Wright rhetorically notes that while Hubbard may have been grandiose and delusional, if Hubbard was a fraud and a con, why would he bother creating such a system?
As objective as Wright is, he takes no quarter when he details Scientology's approach to children. Hubbard viewed children as adults in small bodies. While they were physically small, Hubbard felt that they were responsible for their own behavior. Young children would be sentenced to virtual prisons for weeks, for minor infractions such as messing up an incoming telex.
In Scientology parlance, such an individual was a suppressive person. One young girl, who was deaf and mute was placed in a locker for a week because Hubbard thought it might cure her deafness.
A large part of the book deals with celebrities and how Scientology sees celebrities as a boon to the church. Wrights notes that Scientology orients itself toward celebrities and by doing so, the church awards famousness a spiritual value. People who seek fame in the entertainment industry will gravitate to Hollywood, where the Scientology Celebrity Center is waiting for them, validating their ambitions and promising a recruits a way in. The church has long pursued a marketing strategy that relies on celebrity endorsements to promote the religion.
Some celebrities prominent in the book are Paul Haggis, Travolta, Nancy Cartwright (famous for being the voice of Bart Simpson) and Tom Cruise. Haggis is an ex-Scientologist, recently leaving the church after nearly 40 years, who is interviewed in the book.
Wright is highly critical of Cruise, who he notes that probably no member of the church derives as much material benefit as Cruise does. Cruise then consequently bears a moral responsibility for the myriad indignities (which the book points out in great detail) inflicted on members of the Sea Organization (a unit of the Church, encompassing its most dedicated members), sometimes directly because of his membership.
Wright concludes with the notion that Scientology wants to be understood as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but has no grounding in science at all. Serious academic study of the church has to date been constrained by the church's vindictive and litigious reputation. Researchers and academics are terrified by Scientology and reluctant to direct their research into the church. The book observes that compared with other religions, the published literature on Scientology is improvised and clouded by bogus assertions.
In Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, Wright has composed a bombshell of an expose. This is a compelling and engrossing book, thoroughly researched and extensively fact checked. The book is a perfect read for a long flight as it is riveting and fascinating. Wright has a unique ability to keep the narrative flowing and interesting.
But with all that, it is not a Silent Spring, which 50 years ago helped launch the environmental movement. Had the book come out 20 years ago, it is likely that lawsuits from the church would have prevented its release until today. Yet the passive public has a short memory and Scientology has believers that sign billion year contracts with the church. As salacious as every page of this book is, one is hard-pressed to envision the church of Scientology contracting or being hurt in any way by this book.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Litigation is actually one of the lesser threats that a Scientology critic has to face. In the past, open character assassination, attempts to jail critics (sometimes successfully), attempts to get critics audited by the IRS, attempts to get them fired from their jobs, sending private detectives to comb through their trash and harass them--these are all typical tools in the CoS toolbox. When Germany labelled them a cult, they even sent Tom Cruise to meet with Richard Armitage and Dick Cheney in 2003 in an attempt to get the U.S. government to try to strong-arm Germany (a fact that only came out by accident during the Scooter Libby/Vallorie Plame scandal, with details of those meetings still remaining largely classified).
They've taken on entire *countries*. Hell, they even made Slashdot their bitch once.
So litigation is the least of your worries when you mess with those guys. Kudos to Lawrence Wright for his set of brass balls.
I'm an atheist without any love for Scientology. I don't see Scientology as any different from the "legitimate religions" that people have grown up in.
- all have done unethical acts ( read your history )
- all have beliefs people not brought in the religion would call
superstition ( and less respectful terms )
- all what people not brought in the religion would call myths.
- all, from my viewpoint, are man-made (apologies to the women in the audience for the term )
The only thing I can think of that separates Scientology from any of the "legitimate religions" is that Scientology is so new that there are people outside of the religion old enough to remember seeing it be created by a person.
My guess is that "being created in murky distance" past as well as being brought up in a certain way gives other religions an aura of credibility that Scientology lacks.
However, when you look at they claim, how they act and what they do, it all seems the same, from an atheists point of view.
No disrespect meant to anyone.
The real problem isn't people who believe in invisible martians (for fun and profit), it's the legal system that lets them torment other people with flagrant abandon.
If you have enough money and a good team of lawyers you can effectively destroy someone else's life.
We live in a nightmare world.
The only thing I can think of that separates Scientology from any of the "legitimate religions" is that Scientology is so new that there are people outside of the religion old enough to remember seeing it be created by a person.
Well, as a fellow atheist to another atheist, I recommend you add a few evaluation factors when comparing religions and faiths: power structure, transparency, material cost, financial cost, temporal cost, preservation of individual sovereignty including right to leave and preservation of inalienable rights ... to name just a few.
all have done unethical acts ( read your history )
At least some allow us to document said unethical acts ... hell, the Church's response to child molestation charges against priests was a primary motivator to me leaving organized religion permanently. And, you know, it was super easy to get out of Catholicism ... you should talk to the lucky few who escape Scientology.
My work here is dung.
But as mesmerizing an expose as the book is, I doubt that this will be more than a speed bump to Scientology's growth and fund raising
From reports I've seen Scientology continues to grow in the sense of buying up property and growing its bank acount, but is not growing and even losing members. Lets not give this science fiction religion credit for anything it really isn't doing.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I'm not a Scientologist. I've encountered a few (to the best of my knowledge, fairly low ranking), and they on average seemed no better or worse than most anyone else. And as far as their belief system goes, I'm not sure it's any crazier than any other religious belief system.
A friend of a friend, though, came up with an excellent evaluation rubric to determine how dangerous it was to belong to any organization, regardless of their beliefs. This has been used by law enforcement as well as cult survivor organizations. The tool is the ABCDEF, short for Advanced Bonewits (the inventor's name) Cult Danger Evaluation Framework.
The idea here is that you don't rate the groups beliefs at all. Instead, you rate their behavior. Groups that score low on the ABCDEF are those that are open about what they believe and stand for, have rights and reasonable expectations of members, and make it easy to leave. Which means that if they or their leadership start getting really crazy, normal people can see that and leave.
So a reasonable position might be that Scientology is a belief system like any other, but the Church of Scientology is dangerous.
I am officially gone from
"But as mesmerizing an expose as the book is, I doubt that this will be more than a speed bump to Scientology's growth and fund raising."
Scientology stopped growing a long time ago. All of their claims about them being "fastest growing religion" are lies, pure and simple.
They reached their peak in the 70's and early 80's. After Hubbard died and Miscavige took over, their membership's been declining steadly ever since. Ask anyone who's been around the orgs in the 70's and 80's. Look up the service completion stats in the Auditor magazine from that time period and compare to recent numbers.
Miscavige is no Hubbard, he doesn't have a cult leader's charisma or reality distortion field. However, he turned out to be very talented as a brutal dictator and a bully. He can put used car salesmen to shame when it comes to high-pressure sales tactics.
So while Miscavige has been unable to inspire people or attract new followers, he has used his talents to beat the staff into submission and extract/extort more and more money from the existing public. But lately with the Super Power scam he's taken it to a new level, and things are so bad that even diehard loyalists are speaking out.
Debbie Cook (longtime Captain of Flag) complains about the relentless money-grubbing and tells the Scientology public to disobey Miscavige's non-Hubbard-policies.
Jan. 2013 - High level public members Luis and Rocio Garcia sue Scientology for fraud
Funny that, the cult would consider you to be a "squirrel," a dangerous renegade who seeks to destroy LRH's perfect life-saving and soul-redeeming "technology", so I think that by both the general "wog" public and the church's standards, you would be considered crazy;)
It is unfortunate that no serious journalism has thoroughly investigated the tech itself. Not the OT stuff, but the tens of millions of words of non-OT tech that Hubbard wrote/spoke during his lifetime. I guess it is not a very compelling story, but it is what draws people in, and what presumably keeps you self-identifying as a Scientologist. It's certainly what drew me in years ago, and is mentioned casually in the review: the promise of a better life, neatly packaged in a repeatable, formulated, "scientific" manner. It tends to draw a person of a spiritual but non-religious bent, and of above average intelligence -- to read through all of Hubbard's writing is no mean feat, to be on staff requires a high IQ (determined by a non-standard test), and to progress far requires a fair amount of money, which most people in the Western world get by some level of professional acumen. This draw will grow only more popular with the general secularization of society and increase in disposable income, and the church has largely edged out competition for this lucrative niche through very shady practices over the last 50+ years.
I know that journalists are regularly screened for, and have been ejected from, the church for trying to report on it, so the general public is destined to stay ignorant of the techniques used to draw in, retain, and ultimately bleed dry its target market. Celebrity is only one of those techniques, and it clouds public perspective on the issue, as Hubbard undoubtedly knew would happen. Everyone knows celebrities have eccentricities, but everyone secretly admires them and fancies themselves capable of celebrity in some sphere of life, so this type of reporting will doubtfully chase away many potential recruits.
Truly, for the parent to claim to be a Scientologist and assert this claim in the same posting is ludicrous. One of the principle tenets of Scientology is that not all opinions, or even information, are equal and valid, which flies in the face of post-modernist doctrine but is really just common sense. Honestly, a lot of Hubbard's writing consists of very spot-on observations of human interactions, and a lot of common-sense and decent prescriptions, at battle with the tendencies of a machiavellian sociopath.
Does anybody still care about Scientology? They've been shrinking since Hubbard died. They've sort of centralized at Clearwater, FL, but other than that, not much seems to be going on.
The amusing thing about Scientology is that it doesn't use science. It's locked into Hubbard's writings and 1930s technology. The "E-meter" is a skin resistance measuring device, the least useful of the three classical polygraph channels. By now, Scientology should have had online and mobile systems as part of their "auditing" process. A modern "E-meter" should have heart rate, respiration, and face gesture recognition sensors, with functional MRI in R&D. But no, they're still using skin resistance.
This may be just as well. With modern sensors, and detailed historical data for each member, much more monitoring and control over the emotional states of members would be possible. Fortunately, Scientology is too inept to bring that off.
I'm not crazy.
And yet, you believe that an alien warlord named Xenu put alien souls in volcanoes on Earth and blew them up with hydrogen bombs while flying a spacecraft that looked like a DC-8. And if you read about that without proper spiritual preparation, you will get pneumonia.
My point being that you don't need a large sample of Scientologists since by definition they all believe this.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I can't speak for the GP, but it's not very well written, for one. The first four paragraphs are about the dangers of speaking out against the CoS, and end up in a -1, off topic point about British libel laws. What is this, self-aggrandisement for daring to write about the CoS? The review lacks focus, and plods randomly from point to point, often without making one:
The first sentence doesn't parse (and who the hell cares about number of parts and chapters anyway?), the second (after the comma) is in dire need of justification, and the third is simply irrelevant. That's just one paragraph, of course, but the first half of the essay is structured almost as poorly. The rest, I consider tl;dr material.
One thing this review does give me is more appreciation for the skill and effort needed for writing book reviews. It's difficult to do well, and perhaps not everyone can do it.
What's your problem w/ the review?
The grammar and typos. Things like this:
Scientology has long called anyone who has written against them as having a vendetta.
How about this instead:
Scientology has long accused anyone who has written against them of having a vendetta.
Several typos like these:
The book places Church President David Miscavige is a negative light
While Scientologist's may think that
He refers to the author as "Wrights" a few times:
As to the manipulation of facts, in the final pages of the book, Wrights notes some of
Wrights notes that Scientology orients itself toward celebrities
Also, I don't think this is the way you use "anathema":
and Hubbard had an anathema of psychiatry and psychology until his dying day.
It just seems like he didn't bother to proofread the review.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
well, ok, a funny image macro on tumblr said:
In a CULT there's one guy at the top who knows it's a scam.
In a RELIGION that guy is dead.
Ergo, Scientology is indeed a religion.