Should I be writing this?

by robynrobotron

Alright, book 17 for the Cannonball Read, and it was another one over 400 pages.  Unlike the snoozefest about murder in Victorian times, this one didn’t take me that long to get through.  That’s because Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief  by Lawrence Wright was actually scary and therefore quite gripping.  So scary, that I feel the need to put a disclaimer on this thing:  This book is full of footnotes that state that so-and-so and their attorney say that this thing never happened.  You can take it as read that almost everything in this review would have one of those notes.

Like any good South Park fan, I already knew the Scientology origin story for life on this planet, but I knew nothing about L Ron Hubbard as a person or how he started this whole thing.  Have you ever had a friend who lied all the time for no reason other than to feel cool?  He was a lot like that.  He was also an abusive misogynist who neglected his children (and those of his followers, actually).  Here’s a list of things he did to his second wife:

• pistol-whipped her in her sleep because she was smiling and therefore thinking about someone else
• frequently threatened suicide
• when she was pregnant he repeatedly kicked her in the stomach to try and induce a miscarriage (which is strange considering one of the things he felt had a negative effect on a person was residual memories of attempted abortions {and other things like the mother masturbating to orgasm})
• tried to talk her into killing herself because it would look bad for him if they got divorced
• threatened to kill their daughter, then went on to kidnap her and tell his wife that he did kill and dismember her (although he didn’t, and the mother eventually got her back)

It was while he was with her that he developed his techniques that became the basis for Dianetics (being an 80’s child, and experiencing many late night commercials featuring volcanoes, I was surprised to see that it was written in the 50’s).  Which is interesting how much they mirror things pyschistrists might ask a patient to do, considering how Hubbard felt about the profession.  In one of his early documents using these techniques, comes up with this bit of misogyny:

You have no fear what any woman may think of your bed conduct . . . You know they will be thrilled . . . Many women are not capable of pleasure in sex and anything adverse they say or do has no effect whatever upon your pleasure.

You have no fear if they conceive.  What if they do?  You do not care.  Pour it into them and let fate decide.

The emphasis is mine.  That is very disturbing, if you ask me.

 

I’m actually not even comfortable saying what I think about the current head of the Church, David Miscavige.  He scares me that much.  Just read the book.  It’s really informative regarding all aspects of how Scientology came to be and how it is run.  It’s not all misogyny and beatings, those are just the parts that stick in my head.