Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
by Lawrence Wright
I slugged through almost half of this and just couldn't take it anymore. I don't fault the research or the writing, but I couldn't stomach the subject matter. It reads like a horror story--a madman makes up an ridiculous (but detailed) cosmology, founds a religion based on it, and stupid people believe him. This stuff makes Christianity look benign.
My struggles started in the part one of three, that described L Ron Hubbard's life up through the early years of the church. At that point it was beginning to target specific celebrities in Hollywood, hoping to recruit them as prominent spokesmen. And share their wealth, of course.
He was a total lunatic. How was he not committed to a psychiatric hospital? He jumped from one interest or adventure or love affair to the next, with no pattern or logic or even the tiniest bit of humanity that I could discern. I could almost view him as a psychopath who drew other loony, sadistic or masochistic individuals to himself, and along the way, attracted a sad number of the emotionally disturbed. Teenagers trying to find their place in the world; losers who could never get ahead; and of course, that sorry prey for every "charismatic" religion in the world--
People who never learned to think critically.
By the time the church's founder died and it was facing hard knocks in Hollywood I couldn't sustain even a prurient interest. Sorry.
Abandoned.
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