Scientology writ large: A breakout
account?
Author raises the ire of the church and its
celebrity members
By CHARLES MCGRATH
THE writer Lawrence Wright doesn't seem at all the sort of
person you'd find in public wearing a black cowboy shirt emblazoned
with big white buffaloes.
He's shy, soft-spoken, a little professorial. But
besides working on three plays simultaneously and getting ready to
publish a new book, Wright has been taking piano lessons with Floyd
Domino, the two-time Grammy winner. And on a recent Saturday, in
his buffalo shirt, he played in a concert at the Victory Grill in
Austin, Texas, with the band WhoDo.
Wright was at the keyboard, and sang solo on
Sixty-Minute Man and the Count Basie tune She's'Funny That Way. Not
bad for a bookworm.
"I decided a while ago that I would only do things
that are really important or really fun," he said. "This is really
fun." More fun, probably, than dealing with lawyers.
His new book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood,
And The Prison Of Belief, is about the famously litigious Church of
Scientology, and he said he has received innumerable threatening
letters from lawyers representing the church or some of the
celebrities who belong to it.
(Transworld, Wright's British publisher, recently
cancelled its plans to publish Going Clear, though a spokesman
insisted that the decision was not made in response to threats from
the church.)
The book, which recounts the history of Scientology
through the interweven stories of key figures such as L. Ron
Hubbard, the religion's founder, and celebrity Scientologists like
John Travolta and Tom Cruise, claims among other things that the
church has virtually imprisoned some of its members, threatening
blackmail if they try to leave, and that its current leader, Mr
David Miscavige, has physically abused some of his underlings.
The book won't do anything to enhance the image of
Scientology, already diminished by Janet Reitman's 2011 book,
Inside Scientology: The History Of America's Most Secretive
Religion.
In a statement, Ms Karin Pouw, a Scientology
spokesman, said Wright and his publisher refused to provide a copy
of the book in advance and "showed little interest in receiving
input" from the church. "The portions you cite from the book are
preposterous lies," she said, adding that "the allegation about Mr
Miscavige is false and defamatory".
But Wright insists that he did not set out to write
an expose. "Why would I bother to do that?" he said. "Scientology
is probably the most stigmatised religion in America already. But
I'm fascinated by it and by what drives people to Scientology,
especially given its image."
He added: "There are many countries where you can
only believe more or you can believe less. But in the United States
we have this incredible smorgasbord, and.
it really interests me why people are drawn to one faith rather
than another, especially to a system of belief that to an outsider
seems absurd or dangerous."
Wright, whose previous book, The Looming Tower:
Al-Qaeda And The Road To 9/11, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, is
no stranger to writing about secretive organisations. In the case
of Scientology, he said, he had been looking for what he calls a
"donkey" - a character strong and sympathetic enough to carry a
complicated story. "I don't mean it in a disparaging way," he
explained. "A donkey is a very useful beast of burden."
In 2010 he finally found one in Paul Haggis, the
winner of back-to-back Oscars for Millian Dollar Baby, which he
wrote, and Crash, which he wrote and directed. He defected from
Scientology in 2009, after 34 years in the church, during which he
rose to one of its highest ranks.
In 2011, Wright published a profile of Haggis in
The New Yorker, and in the course of the fact checking process Mr
Tommy Davis, the international spokesman for Scientology, did
Wright an unwitting favour. He showed up in The New Yorker offices
with four lawyers and 47 white binders full of material about the
church.
"I suppose the idea was to drown me in
information," Wright recalled, "but it was like trying to pour
water on a fish. I looked on those binders with a feeling of
absolute joy." .
Among his peers, Wright is known for his
thoroughness and for his legal pads and his filing-card system,
which in the computer age is as complicated and as antique as
the historian Robert Caro's.
In all, Wright spoke to some 200 current and former
Scientologists, only a few of whom insisted on anonymity. He
started with Haggis, he said, and one name led to another. It
helped that, starting in 2009, a number of high-ranking officials
had broken from the church and begun talking to The St Petersburg
Times. (The spiritual headquarters of Scientology is in nearby
Clearwater, Florida.)
"The church for decades has been mopping up as much
information as they can," Wright said. "That's why there are so few
photographs in the book. They've also silenced people through
non-disclosure agreements and through intimidation.
"But this has not been a perfect job on the part of
the church. There are a lot of people out there who were very high
up in the church and know a lot about it who
have become outspoken. I'm very lucky to come along at a time when
a lot of these people are ready to talk."
NEW YORK TIMES
Insight, The Straits Times, Saturday January 12 2013, Pg D16