What if an investigative journalist could have written an in-depth book on Jesus Christ? Scientologists are likely going to have the same reaction as Christians would to the claims investigated and stories exposed by Janet Reitman in Inside Scientology. Luckily for the reader, they’ll have a hard time refuting it with the amount of research and documentation that she put into the project.
The book begins with then-floundering science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard churning out the maximum amount of text in order to afford his somewhat frugal lifestyle. Reitman finds early connections, however, less set apart than Hubbard would have you believe, to people like Aleister Crowley, who began his own religion, too. She documents Hubbard’s life through the beginning of Scientology, giving voice to members of the affable Sea Org, whose members dedicate their lives for 1 billion years. As the religion grows, so do Hubbard’s bank account and eccentricities.
Reitman has put together one of the only cumulative histories of Scientology, including much of Hubbard’s rise to fame within the organization, behind-the-scenes dealings, and the personality of Hubbard, who became paranoid as the government cracked down on his organization’s finances and allegedly illicit activities. Something that stands out in the book is the story of Hubbard’s estranged son, who works his way up the Scientology food chain. As he begins to stray from the organization, as a number of members do, Hubbard launches missives banning him from using any of the Scientology facilities. If he’s not on the path to being faithful to the organization, he’s an outsider. Blood or not.
Is Hubbard crazy? The term would certainly be an easy thing to call a person who talks of aliens as the beginning of creation, the evils of psychology, and a form of past-life regressions as reality. But then, Christians believe that a guy turned water to wine, that the same guy was resurrected from death, and that humans lived on Earth with dinosaurs. It’s the access to documents and a clear path of the history that decries Hubbard as a false Messiah.
However slanted Reitman may be accused of being, she seemingly gives proper voice to the people she interviewed, though isn’t against correcting their allegations or Hubbard’s own accounts with a footnote explaining her idea of the truth behind the claim. This is one of the things that makes the book a little less of a nonfiction biography of Scientology as a whole and more of a textbook on the trials and tribulations of not only starting a religion, but also being the snake-oil salesman that Hubbard was.
Reitman avoids the couch-jumping celebrity of Scientology and focuses on the story of the people she’s interviewed, and uses her unprecedented access to the overly secret Scientology religion for good.
