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I'd read Leah Remini's book about her experience in Scientology, and this was really interesting to see from a super-researched view. It's a really harmful community, and I hope that it continues to be brought to justice.

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counterfeitnickel's review against another edition

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4.0

A compelling & informative read that occasionally meanders. A great resource for those curious about Scientology.

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ally_bur's review against another edition

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4.5

This book is incredibly well-researched and written. I was worried that reading about a religion would be dry, dull, etc. but I was proven wrong. I was shocked at how much physical abuse, violence, and forced labor is prevalent within Scientology. Wright expertly contextualized this new religion with the larger history of religious movements and "cults." His discussion of brainwashing and faith was very interesting.

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libbyhb's review against another edition

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4.5

I picked this up after seeing Top Gun: Maverick and loving Tom Cruise in it and thinking, I need to learn everything I can about Scientology so I don't love him anymore, lol. This is such a great read. I appreciated the amount of time Lawrence Wright spent on L. Ron Hubbard's backstory and how he came up with the framework for Scientology. I also obviously liked the more current-day sections about the celebrity work, especially the weird Cruise stuff. This gave me such comprehensive insight into the evils of Scientology and for that I'm grateful!

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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4.75

I didn't know a whole lot about Scientology going into this book. I knew it targeted the rich and famous because it wanted money, it liked solving its problems with lawsuits, a little bit about its attempts to infiltrate the government, and that its belief system involved some completely ridiculous stuff about aliens. That's about it. This book is thorough and very intense. Anything you want to know about Scientology is here.

It starts with an extremely deep dive into L. Ron Hubbard himself - his family, his military service, and the contrast between what he and Scientology say about him and what non-church sources say - and give a well-researched portrait of the man himself. He may have just been a really good con man whose con got bigger than he planned, but Lawrence Wright shows a man who may very well have been a paranoid schizophrenic who truly believed everything he was teaching through Scientology.

This book is hard to read in many places. It doesn't shy away from the many awful things done by the church. Anything you told any church member could and would be reported to superiors and held against you. Thought crimes could earn you years in the Rehabilitation Project Force, a program of abuses and forced labor that differed from literal slavery only in that it technically wasn't against your will. Children taken away from their parents and working ten- or twelve-hour days. A method of treating mental breakdowns involving complete and total isolation that led to at least one death. It's hard to read straight through due to all the many ways Scientology has hurt so many people.

For me, the most interesting part of the book was learning about Scientology's cosmology, what the aliens are actually about, and why Scientology needs so much of your money to advance through the ranks. There was some of that in this book, but not as much as I'd expected. Lawrence focuses less on the "woo" bits of belief and cosmology and more on facts - people who actually existed, what they did and what was done to them, discrepancies between the church's official story and what outside records show. I would have liked to know a little more about Scientology beliefs, but that's not really what this book is trying to be about. It's trying to be more of a history.

I learned a lot about Scientology, the people behind it, and the people affected by it from this book. It's a lot more thorough than is probably necessary for a casual interest (at over 400 pages, it's highly engaging but definitely more in-depth than passing curiosity would warrant), but if you need a deep dive into Scientology's history for any reason, this is a fantasic place to start.

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