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

by Lawrence Wright

Russell Miller’s excellent Bare-Faced Messiah (1987) was the first in-depth look at the man. Scientology unsuccessfully sued Miller, a British journalist, who says that while researching his book he was spied upon, his phone was tapped, and efforts were made to frame him for a murder he did not commit. Soon thereafter, Bent Corydon’s L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (1987) appeared, followed by Jon Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky (1990). The church attempts to discredit both of these authors because they are former Scientologists who the church says were expelled from the organization. It is notable that no comprehensive biography of Hubbard has been attempted since the church’s campaign against these books. The scarcity of academic work on the church and its leaders testifies to the caution with which scholars regard the subject, as well as the reluctance of the organization to divulge information about its members, beliefs, and inner workings to qualified social scientists.