Going Clear

Current Read: Going Clear      
        Just finished the book GOING CLEAR on #Scientology by @lawrence_wright. Informative exciting disturbing & frightening read. Impressed & thankful 4 his efforts & boldness. Journalists of that caliber -- evidently Wright conducted over 500 interviews over a period of years to complete this book -- impress the hell out of me. I find it hard to fathom how deeply enmeshed into psychosis and psychotic behavior some people can be talked and brainwashed. Vows of poverty, slave labor, physical emotional and mental abuse, forced abortions, forced disconnection from family and friends. All in the name of what exactly? It's an odd thing... Not much apparent benefit and yet there are tens of thousands of Scientology hopefuls around the world.
        Hopefully this book will save a lot of people through the years from ever experiencing what so many have already simply by having the information floating out there. The intuitive feeling I had while reading the book is that Scientology really flourished before the internet age, when it was much easier to hide what was happening within an organization. There wasn't the transparency we have today, in this new age of free public and personal expression, it would be difficult for an organization like Scientology to exist, at least in the form described in this book, and keep many adherents except the utterly insane.
       Regarding the book itself, sure it's long and unnecessarily detailed for the average person outside of the organization, but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in sociology, psychology, religion, cults, philosophy or human behavior. It's an engaging read.