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

by Lawrence Wright

Compared with other religions I have written about, the published literature on Scientology is impoverished and clouded by bogus assertions. Some crucial details one would want to know about the church have been withheld—for instance, the number of people who are members of the International Association of Scientologists, which would be the best guide to knowing the true dimensions of the church’s membership. The church promised to provide an organizational chart, but never did so; in any case, it would have been more notional than actual in terms of the flow of authority and responsibility, since many of the church’s executive hierarchy have been quarantined for years in the Hole at the direction of the only individual who controls the institution.