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

by Lawrence Wright

For the first time, much of Hubbard’s biography came under attack. The litigant said that Hubbard had been portrayed as a nuclear physicist and civil engineer. The evidence showed that he attended George Washington University but never graduated. In response to Hubbard’s claim that he had cured himself of his injuries in the Second World War, the evidence showed he had never been wounded. Other embarrassing revelations came to light. The church stated that Hubbard was paid less than the average Scientology staff member—at the time, about fifteen dollars a week—but witnesses for the plaintiff testified that in one six-month period in 1982, about $34 million had been transferred from the church into Hubbard’s personal bank from a Liberian corporation.