Church of the Poison Mind: "Going Clear"

LEONARD PIERCE
CHURCH OF THE POISON MIND:
GOING
CLEAR
CHURCH OF THE
POISON MIND:
GOING
CLEAR
Scientology is the ultimate punchline in the world
of religion.
Though its absurd teachings – from
the basic ideas in Dianetics about babies
irrevocably damaged by hurtful words they ‘hear’
in the womb, to the advanced hoo-hah about
aliens and volcanoes you get after sinking
massive amounts of cash into the scheme – are
really no more or less ridiculous than those of any
other religion, its relative youth, questionable
origins in the mind of cut-rate science fiction
hack/pathological fabulist L. Ron Hubbard, and
tendency to attract a bunch of Hollywood
celebrities of dubious talent have made it a
laughing-stock.
While there’s no denying that Scientology is a
deeply zany enterprise, I’ve always found it a bit
odd that it gets shit on while other religions, no
less ridiculous and far more harmful, get a free
pass simply by virtue of having been around
longer. Still, it does have at least one particularly
unique characteristic – that the very tenets of the
faith are not revealed to its adherents unless they
pay a series of ever-escalating fees – and all the
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF
RELIGIOUS DOCUMENTARIES
SALESMAN (Albert & David Maysles and
Charlotte Zwerin, 1969): Technically, this is
a movie about door-to-door salesmen, not
about religion specifically. But the men we
meet in this astonishing documentary sell
the Bible, and it says far more about the
uniquely American intersection of
Christianity and capitalism than a more
explicitly religious work ever could.
A TIME FOR BURNING (William C. Jersey,
1966): This verité work was nominated for
an Oscar for its unflinching look at an
Omaha church’s attempt to bridge the gap
between their congregation and black
members of the faith. Astonishing in its
depiction of how religion can both poison
and repair race relations.
GOD’S ANGRY MAN (1981): Werner
Herzog, as usual, does his best
documentary work by letting his subjects -in this case, deranged small-time
televangelist Dr. Gene Scott -- speak for
themselves. Bonus for Stroszek fans:
cymbal-banging monkey cameo!
THE CHURCH OF SAINT COLTRANE (Alan
Klingenstein, 1996): A short but hugely
entertaining film about jazz legend John
Coltrane’s religious conversion late in life,
and the subsequent founding of a ‘church’,
marked by raucous jam sessions, based
around his ‘teachings’ in San Francisco.
stuff around the edges, from the sci-fi nonsense that led to its founding
to its extremely hostile response to critics to the hyperactive lunacy of
its current leader, David Miscavige, is enough to make it the subject of
an effective documentary. Alex Gibney can’t be faulted for not making
Going Clear, his new HBO film based on the exposé by Lawrence
Wright, a more wide-ranging referendum of religious gullibility as a
whole, and if this isn’t the best film he’s ever made, he at least has the
sense to know that Scientology itself has provided some of the best
material to hang it from its own petard.
Scientology has always been sheer horseshit, an agglomeration of
rinky-dink Freudianism, self-help tropes, vague humanistic religious
rhetoric, and pure space opera nonsense. Skeptic and mathematician
Martin Gardner wrote extensively on its inherent absurdity back in the
1950s, when it was entering its first phase of real popular success;
other countries found it sufficiently profit-driven and ridiculous to label
it a dangerous scheme rather than the religion it now purports to be,
almost entirely for tax purposes. It’s gone through ebbs and flows in
its popularity, but Gibney’s documentary could not have been made
until now.
That’s less due to the menacing power of the ‘church’,
which is on the wane at the moment, than it is because of the defection
from the whole enterprise of a handful of extremely high-ranking former
Scientologists, all of whom cooperated in the making of the film.
Their on-camera testimony is plenty damning, and confirms plenty of
things we’ve repeatedly been told about the way Scientology operates:
the complete lack of transparency, the courting of celebrity
spokespeople, the attacks leveled at critics (“Suppressive Persons” –
Scientology is nothing if not rife with hilarious neologisms), the abusive
behavior inside the church, the pyramid-scheme nature of the whole
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proceedings. But it’s nothing new, if you’ve read anything about
the church, in exchange for dressing up in his reflected glory
Scientology, and it’s all done in straightforward talking-head style
during his peak years, concealed evidence of his homosexuality;
that doesn’t add much to the way Going Clear works as a movie.
but in 2015, being gay is hardly a career-killer even for male
Where the documentary truly comes alive is when Scientology is
matinee idols, so viewers are left wondering what it is they’ve got
allowed to speak for itself.
on him.
Gibney gets his hands on all manner of primary source material
that makes all the right people look bad, from the supreme
charlatan L. Ron Hubbard himself vaporing on about space aliens
driving Buicks to the coked-out enthusiasm of David Miscavige, a
truly repellent individual who uncomfortably combines the
qualities of a greedy and completely cynical corporate executive
and a terrifying true believer. The real daggers in the heart of this
Cruise, on the other hand, comes off like an absolute
monster, an incoherent but aggressive egomaniac who
demonstrates the same qualities of cynicism and devotion as his
leader.
In fact, no one who watches him pal around with
Miscavige – they both have the same unnerving rictus smile –
could doubt that, far from being the tool that Travolta seems to
be, Cruise is likely in training to be Scientology’s head man when
Miscavige ‘drops his body’.
cobbled-together religion are in these moments when Scientology
Going Clear isn’t an exceptionally great documentary, but it’s
blows its own horn: bragging about its jaw-dropping victory over
good enough to be compelling; Scientology alone has made sure
the Internal Revenue Service; putting on Las Vegas-style
of that by supplying it with tons of moments to roll the eyes and
extravaganzas that are part awards ceremony, part religious ritual,
flip the mind.
and all fund-raising telethon; anointing Tom Cruise its own
debuted the week before HBO introduced their new home
personal Jesus.
subscription service, HBO Now, ensuring that millions of people
With Scientology’s influence on the retreat, and many of the
gullible lost who joined up in the 1970s aging out and leaving
behind kids who have zero interest in such a profoundly goofy
lifestyle, the church is highly dependent on celebrities like Cruise
to be the public face of recruiting new members. John Travolta,
for many years the world’s most famous Scientologist, comes
across in the film more as a gullible dupe than an outright villain;
It also came along at exactly the right time; it
who weren’t otherwise subscribers to the pay cable network
would get a chance to see it.
At any rate, it’s certainly the
narrative that Scientology deserves.
It probably won’t kill the
religious that L. Ron Hubbard birthed; demographic and
economic shifts will likely take care of that. But if ever a religion
deserved to die, it’s that one, and if ever a documentary could
finish one off once and for all, it’s this one.
one curious part of the documentary is its unwillingness to
discuss Miscavige’s hold over him. It’s long been rumored that
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