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.

Dianetics, Hayakawa noted, was neither science nor fiction, but something else: “fictional science.”

“To keep a person on the Scientology path,” Hubbard once told one of his associates, “feed him a mystery sandwich.”

The failure of Hubbard’s followers to challenge him made them complicit in the creation of the mythical figure that he became. They conspired to protect the image of L. Ron Hubbard, the prophet, the revelator, and the friend of mankind.

Nothing in American history can compare with the scale of the domestic espionage of Operation Snow White.

The totalist paradigm begins with shutting off the individual’s access to the outside world, so that his perceptions of reality can be manipulated without interference.

Belief in the irrational is one definition of faith, but it is also true that clinging to absurd or disputed doctrines binds a community of faith together and defines a barrier to the outside world.