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

by Lawrence Wright

HAGGIS SPENT much of his time and money taking advanced courses and being “audited,” a kind of Scientology psychotherapy that involves the use of an electropsychometer, or E-Meter. The device measures bodily changes in electrical resistance that occur when a person answers questions posed by an auditor. Hubbard compared it to a lie detector. The E-Meter bolstered the church’s claim to being a scientific path to spiritual discovery. “It gives Man his first keen look into the heads and hearts of his fellows,” Hubbard claimed, adding that Scientology boosted some people’s IQ one point for every hour of auditing. “Our most spectacular feat was raising a boy from 83 IQ to 212,” he once boasted to the Saturday Evening Post.