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

by Lawrence Wright

Mary Sue received the delegation of Messengers coolly. Her case was still on appeal, but the outcome was clear: she was taking the fall for a program that Hubbard, after all, had put in motion. She understood the influence she still wielded in the church and the threat she represented. She demanded to deal with Hubbard himself, but Miscavige refused. He controlled access to the church’s founder so thoroughly that even his wife couldn’t talk to him. Indeed, they hadn’t spoken in more than a year. Mary Sue cursed Miscavige and threatened to throw a heavy ashtray at him. But her negotiating position was not strong, unless she was willing to betray everything she had worked to build with the man she still believed was a savior.