Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of
Belief, Lawrence
Wright (4)
I had originally read Mr. Wright’s New Yorker article
about Paul Haggis, the long time Scientologist screenwriter who recently left
the church. This book is his full study of the church – from the origins with
L. Ron Hubbard to the present day issues. While he had very little support of
help from current members of the organization, Mr. Wright is a Pulitzer Prize
winning author with the investigative and fact-checking resources of the New
Yorker and therefore this book appears to be well researched, well documented
and as unemotional as possible. That being said, until the epilogue, where he
compares Scientology to older religions, it was hard not to be very biased
against the wackiness that is this supposed religion. Most organized religions
have something, when viewed objectively that comes across as hard to believe,
which is what faith is all about. It is interesting that we tend to give the
older ones (where we can’t prove something is untrue?) more credence. Regardless,
the claims of Hubbard and his Scientologists are relatively easy to confirm and
Mr. Wright shows many key points to be false. It is clear that Scientology has
helped many people with taking control of their lives regarding personal
responsibility and choice. I was slightly disappointed that this wasn’t
investigated more. He spends a large amount of time on the atrocious behavior
of the senior members and the ‘clergy’, known as the Sea Org. I was most
discouraged with the philosophy of their current leader: always go on the
attack, never defend, and how this has been used over and over against anyone
who questions them in any way. This is a very interesting, albeit disturbing
book.
No comments:
Post a Comment