Alex Gibney's new documentary doesn't exactly blow the lid off Scientology, about which rumors, ever crazier, have been swirling for years. And the book by Lawrence Wright that it's based on, which was published in 2013, was able to delve more deeply into the many, many reports of physical abuse, financial scams and bizarre practices that characterize the more extreme aspects of the religion. But there's something to seeing the actual footage of the Nazi-esque Scientology rallies, and hearing direct accounts from eight former members of the Church over the course of this two hour expose, that really makes your jaw drop when you realize that seemingly rational people can allow themselves to be so taken in by what's become the most widely recognized cult in the world.
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, is a gripping, thoroughly engrossing takedown that hooks you in the first hour with its biography of founder L. Ron Hubbard, exposed as nothing less than a mentally ill fraud, who came up with the idea of starting a new religion, because "that's how you make money," and took nearly all the tenets of it from the science fiction pulp novels he wrote in the 1930's and 40's. As his mental state deteriorated, he gained followers who treated him like a god, and he responded as one, by gathering his members together and testing how far they were willing to go for him. It's clear from the start that nearly every move Hubbard made declaring his made up beliefs a religion was so he could evade federal taxes and hoard the money he was making from his willing devotees- but it's also clear that this man was violent, unstable and desperately in need of mental help, which he tried and failed to procure from real psychologists in the late 1940's.
As the story unfolds, the second hour of the documentary details the progression of the church in the wake of Hubbard's death in the 1980's, when one of his lifelong followers, David Miscavige, then in his 30's, voluntarily stepped up to take his place, and made it his life's mission to wage war on the IRS and get Scientology declared an official religion and a tax exempt organization. Unbelievably, the IRS backed down in the early 90's in the face of bad PR from the thousands of lawsuits by Scientology members threatening to expose the agency's own mistakes, and the church was granted tax exempt status and forgiven its billion dollar debt. In the decades since, abuse has only run more and more rampant by the leaders against their own members, especially those involved in the upper levels of the organization (you know, the levels after you've forked over enough cash to be allowed in on the secret alien origins of the universe and Xenu, the Galactic Overlord).
