Mrs Smith Reads Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright, #CBR5, Review #6

Strangely, I wanted to read Going Clear, not because it’s about the crazytown that is Scientology, but because it was written by Lawrence Wright. I lovedThe Looming Tower and Wright’s ability to define and explain the birth and history of Al Qaeda had been clear and relatively free of prejudice. I was impressed with his ability to create a roadmap of the terrorist network from it’s fundamentalist beginnings to the massive 9/11 attack and was impressed with his informative and yet accessible writing style. I knew an examination of Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard made a perfect undertaking for Wright’s investigative journalism skills and I was not disappointed.

Going Clear is really a story in two parts. The first, examines the life and work of L. Ron Hubbard, the inventor of Dianetics and subsequently, The Church of Scientology. The Church is notoriously protective of it’s founder’s image, yet Wright seems to have dexterously separated the facts from the fiction—mostly propagated by Hubbard himself. I found this section to be the most fascinating. It’s a deep-dive into the psyche of a seemingly self-loathing sociopath who managed to turn himself from a charismatic prevaricator into a messiah; a man who used his own self-defeating tactics to create a never-ending series of humiliating tests that would keep his followers on an unobtainable quest to become “clear.” Since Hubbard himself began his career as a science fiction writer, it will surprise no one that ultimately his new religion would include aliens and a quadrillion-year back story that generally serves to confuse even the most committed acolytes. I had heard jokes aboutXenu and Thetans, but upon reading the full explanation, I was laughing out loud.

Mrs Smith Reads Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright