Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
(2015, Alex Gibney)
This documentary is an in-depth look at the inner-workings of the Church of Scientology and whilst it does cover a lot of the same ground as the BBC expose from a few years ago, this one is presented with a lot more inside footage and an updated list of escaped cult members.
The findings are well presented and very damning but one sided due to the Church of Scientology's refusal to respond to interview requests. For those who were not previously aware of the craziness that goes on in this corporate cult this will be quite a sad and crazy eye-opener. Recommended.​

 

I watched it on HBO last week and thought it was a terrific documentary. I liked it more than Citizenfour and The Jinx, two other recent HBO documentaries.

I really didn't know much about Scientology, aside from Cruise and Travolta's strange behavior and the South Park episode. What was presented here is extremely shocking and kind of terrifying, certainly moreso than most horror films I've seen lately. It's hard to believe this is allowed to go on. The HBO docs Paradise Lost and The Jinx resulted in actions being taken, and I hope that's the case here with Going Clear as well.

I did a little reading up on it after. I'm surprised they didn't interview Leah Remini. When she left the church, she filed a missing persons report for Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige. Even though the LAPD closed the case and reported her as alive, many think the leader of Scientology is holding his own wife captive in one of his work camps. Crazy stuff.

Highly recommended. HBO has been airing it non-stop, and it should be on HBO OnDemand, so definitely seek it out.

 

You should check out the bbc one from a few years ago then

 

Do you know what it's called?

 

Whenever I'm asked by people what scares me, this is what scares me. These fucking people are flat out insane!

 

It is called "Scientology and me" from 2007, pretty sure the whole thing is on YouTube

 

I just find it amazing that people get sucked into such things and don't realize the insanity.

 

People look the other way once you slap "religion" on something.

Frankly it's all crazy talk to me. Degrees of crazy I'll grant you, but crazy talk none the less.

 

What gets me about Scientology is that it doesn't appear to be a religion so much as it is a multi-level marketing scheme. How the fuck that gets tax exempt status, I will never know.

 

Politician$

 

Actually, the story of how they managed to get tax-exempt status is pretty interesting/angering/sad. Basically, they blackmailed the IRS.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-why-scientology-keeps-winning/

The story that has always pissed me off the most though is what they did to get off the Cult Awareness Network's list of known cults. CAN was an independent group of "cult watchers" who were pretty powerful and effective in the 70s and 80s. But, they went after Scientology. And Scientology bombarded them with lawsuits until CAN had to declare bankruptcy. Then the Church just bought them and changed the list to their liking.

 

The IRS piece was the scariest part of the doc to me. The fact that the IRS is so dirty that once Scientologists began to publicize said dirt, the IRS caved is quite damning.

If not for the IRS tax exemption, Scientology would have gone bankrupt.

 

Tom Cruise is the witch finder general

 

I don't recall this even being addressed in the documentary. This doc was so jam packed with crazy, it's hard to believe there's so much more they didn't have time to touch upon.

I was expecting the documentary to be all about the crazy "thetan" backstory and their money schemes, but I was really stunned by how psychotic these people are.

I mean, the inventor of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, bullied his wife into marrying him by threatening to kill himself if she didn't. Then when she finally wised up and was going to leave him, he kidnapped their child and fled to Cuba. When he got there, he realized he didn't know how to take care of a baby, so he gave it to an autistic couple that lived nearby, who kept the baby in a cage. Then he repeatedly called her, telling her he'd killed the baby, then that the baby was alive, back and forth, etc.

Not to mention the church pretty much has prison camps for any members they deem troublesome. The whole Spanky Taylor story about them taking her kid away, and when she saw him he was covered in flies with his eyes crusted shut, I just don't understand how they can get away with this stuff no matter how much money they have. It's insane.

Then there's the whole Tom Cruise stuff. There's a guy in the documentary that claims his job was to break up Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Her father was a psychologist, and since she was close with him, she was deemed troublesome. Then once Tom Cruise was single, they plucked some random girl from the church, fancied her up to Cruise's liking, and assigned her the job of being Cruise's new girlfriend. But when she said the wrong thing to Scientology leader David Miscavige, Cruise went ballistic on her, she was fired as his girlfriend, and sent to the workcamps to scrub toilets with a toothbrush. I guess now she's an actress on the show Homeland? Cruise comes off like a real scumbag here, I hope Hollywood stops giving him work.

The video footage near the end of them stalking and terrorizing their former members is pretty frightening. It's like something out of a horror movie. These guys are as bad as Westboro Baptist, maybe worse.

 

The Scientology cult is also most likely responsible for this undersized beard

 

Actually, I thought this was Travolta's beard:

 

picture aint working for me

 

I'm guessing it's his wife.

 

Its fixed! and you were correctomondo

 

Such a shame that a dame like Kelly Preston is just married to this dude as a beard. I hope she is getting something great out of it.