Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

by Lawrence Wright

He could easily invent an elaborate, plausible universe. But it is one thing to make that universe believable, and another to believe it. That is the difference between art and religion.

In addition to tax advantages, religion supplies a commodity that is always in demand: salvation.

For both the shaman and the schizophrenic, the boundaries between reality and illusion are soft, and consciousness slips easily from one to the other.

Religious geniuses arise all the time, but the historical test falls upon the successor, whose fate is to be forever overshadowed by the founder.

Still, Aum exposed the narrow boundary between religious cultism and terror, which would soon become more obvious with the rise of al-Qaeda.

“Scientology is a machine for manipulating human beings.”