**NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS
CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The
Looming Tower comes "an utterly necessary story" (The Wall Street
Journal) that pulls back the curtain on the church of Scientology: one
of the most secretive organizations at work today. - The Basis for the
HBO Documentary.
**
Scientology presents itself as a scientific approach to spiritual
enlightenment, but its practices have long been shrouded in mystery. Now
Lawrence Wright--armed with his investigative talents, years of archival
research, and more than two hundred personal interviews with current and
former Scientologists--uncovers the inner workings of the church. We
meet founder L. Ron Hubbard, the highly imaginative but mentally
troubled science-fiction writer, and his tough, driven successor, David
Miscavige. We go inside their specialized cosmology and language. We
learn about the church's legal attacks on the IRS, its vindictive
treatment of critics, and its phenomenal wealth. We see the church court
celebrities such as Tom Cruise while consigning its clergy to hard labor
under billion-year contracts. Through it all, Wright asks what
fundamentally comprises a religion, and if Scientology in fact merits
this Constitutionally-protected label.
