Book Report || Going Clear

 7/31

General Overview   

    “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & The Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright examines Scientology and the grip that it has on its followers. Wright goes into the organization's history/development (including information on prominent figures such as founder L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige), practices, and beliefs. Much of this information is kept very secretively within the organization. Throughout the book there are also plenty of actual interviews the author has conducted with past members of Scientology. The main questions that Wright uses as a framework for the novel are “what counts as a religion and what are religions made up of” as well as “what makes people join and stay in organizations such as Scientology?” There is years worth of research presented in this novel and the information is presented in a way that keeps readers engaged and wanting to read more. This book is a great introduction to Scientology for those who are interested in learning more about the organization (from an outside perspective of course.) After "Going Clear" was published, a documentary was created based on the book with the same name, to which many of the people criticized in the book responded.    

Favorite Part 

     The section of the book that I thought was the most interesting was on Hubbard’s life and how he began to develop the ideas that would later turn into what we now know as Scientology. Reading this section was like being on a rollercoaster of different emotions. He grew up in what seemed like an average family for the time period and had somewhat of a normal life until he joined the military. That’s when all of these new ideas he had began developing, mostly from the experiences of people he admired as well as his own health. Going further into his life, it begins to be obvious that there is nothing anybody can do to change his mind on his ideas and if something doesn’t make sense or is proven wrong, he just changes it to make sense. Since he is so confident in his beliefs and is seemingly able to demonstrate his ideas, other people begin to see this and follow his words. One of his favorite quotes is literally “If it’s true to you it’s true, if it’s not true to you it’s not true.” Essentially, confirmation bias is his strongest weapon, which ties back to some of our class lessons. 

Related

    In relation to class material, there is a lot that can be said. One of the things that stood out to me from the book is the amount of times members said they had “Out of Body Experiences” or OBE’s. Hubbard himself even stated that he had several OBE’s in relation to seeing his past lives and seeing his birth. One of the main teachings of Scientology is that the body is just a vessel for your soul and when you sign the “billion-year contract,” your soul is essentially saved from death. This is a concept called “dualism,” which was also mentioned in previous lessons. In a way, Scientology can be compared to the Heaven’s Gate Cult that was mentioned in the same lesson. Scientology doesn’t end in mass suicide, but their beliefs are very similar. They both believe in alien lifeforms, dualism, and that they are a religion. At the center of it all, they also both get their teachings from one main person, in Scientology this is Hubbard and in Heaven’s Gate this is Marshall Applewhite. 

Creative

    One of the most discussed topics in “Going Clear” is celebrities involved in Scientology. I created a slideshow of information on some of these celebrities, some of which are mentioned in the book and some of which are not.  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1429RpJyfHDXXPoZ_oglHpQPanmCNR2L_q-EvrPqOCow/edit?usp=sharing

Extension

    “Going Clear” by Lawrence Wright does an excellent job at going into why people join groups like Scientology. There are many reasons, some of the main ones being to find a sense of purpose in life and because they have friends or family members already involved. The author also does an excellent job at giving those who need a place to share their stories a place to do so. Through these stories, us as readers begin to gain more empathy and understanding as to why people join and why people often don’t leave. It is really easy for outsiders to hear about things like Scientology and just brush it off like the people who join it are “crazy,” but we learn that isn’t necessarily the case. The novel teaches us about having empathy and sympathy without ever telling you that you should feel that way; you just do. Having resources like this book can help people that are trying to leave and get people who aren’t involved to help those that need it.