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When Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986 his movement was reviled as a ruthless, mind-bending cult. Twenty years on it is a different story. Since 1993, when it won tax-exempt status as a religion in the U.S., the movement’s influence there has grown steadily.
Top-dollar lobbying and the glamour of celebrity members have blinded many American politicians to Scientology’s dark side. And this is despite a string of convictions against Scientologists in other countries for manslaughter, espionage, libel and fraud. These cases show how the movement’s ruthless hard-sell tactics have driven some members to mental collapse and even suicide; how its own private intelligence agency spies on its enemies; and how it still uses legal harassment in a bid to destroy its critics. All of this was sanctioned in Hubbard’s own writings.
Where the politicians have failed however, a new, grass-roots resistance movement is successfully challenging the Scientology behemoth. An international campaign by Internet activists has exposed many of the movement’s darkest secrets and scotched the myth that Scientology is an unbeatable litigation machine. It is this online activism that is getting the message out about Scientology. And the message is that the movement’s slightly wacky image conceals a ruthless, authoritarian ideology combining deceptive recruitment, relentless hard-sell and intense indoctrination.
This book, the first international exposé of Scientology in 18 years, paints a disturbing picture of the movement. It is the fruit of more than a decade’s research by journalist Jonny Jacobsen.
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