# Going Clear, Alex Gibney's new documentary about Scientology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259 "2015-03-29T03:10:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/81 "2015-03-31T01:55:45Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I probably won’t see this until Netflix gets it or it goes up on You Tube, but I wondered if Scientologists existed outside Hollywood until I happened to drive by a Scientology temple in a suburb of St. Louis (I used to live in that region). Yep, they do. Clearwater, Florida (west of Tampa) is Scientology’s Rome. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/82 "2015-03-31T01:58:45Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Sorry about that guys! Nothing creepy happening, just brain damage. Can you do the same thing to the Global warming thread in the pit? ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/83 "2015-03-31T02:25:22Z")
I was struck by the way John Travolta talked about his experiences. “Scientology helped me get where I am today.” People in other\* religions don’t say that. A football player may thank God or Jesus, but rarely the Pope, or their minister, at least not in the same way. \*Arguendo ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/84 "2015-03-31T02:29:32Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > That’s the former [Cedars of Lebanon Hospital](https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVw1tmxlVl00AhctXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzbWozNzgyBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVklQNTc4XzEEc2VjA3Nj?p=Cedars+of+Lebanon+Hospital&fr=yfp-t-901). It looks like the Scienos painted it blue. Quinn Cummings tweeted last night “That used to be a hospital. I was born there. May that be the closest I ever come to being a Scientologist.” She’s so funny. Everyone should follow her. Quinn Cummings? “The Goodbye Girl” Quinn Cummings? ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/85 "2015-03-31T02:59:02Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > I was struck by the way John Travolta talked about his experiences. “Scientology helped me get where I am today.” People in other\* religions don’t say that. A football player may thank God or Jesus, but rarely the Pope, or their minister, at least not in the same way. > > \*Arguendo David Wong talked about [this](http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-you-get-tricked-into-believing-stupid-things/) in a Cracked article today. Basically, he said, they just take shit that is known to work, put them in their courses, and _that_ is what ventriloquist’s dummies like Travolta mean when they “say” stuff like that. > [@](#): > > […] This particular course is Scientology’s advice for what to do when work/life gets overwhelming. The advice is not, “Perform the thetan-summoning ritual!” or “Find your nearest psychiatrist and take a shit in his driveway!” Instead it suggests you should lock in on one task and focus on completing it quickly and correctly, to the exclusion of all others. So instead of thinking of all the work you have to get done, only think of the one, single task you have to get done right now. Then, once completed, you’ll have the confidence to proceed to the next. This is great advice; every single successful person I know does this. And none of us knew that we were really doing Scientology all along! > > “But wait,” you say. “Scientology didn’t invent that; they probably just pulled it off of some ‘10 Tips to Work Better’ email forward. It’s just common sense!” > > Right, and so is virtually everything on their course list. Their process for how to organize a group project is probably identical to one you’re already using at the office, […] ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/86 "2015-03-31T03:10:28Z")
I just watched the movie. Gibney had to leave a huge amount of the book out of the film, and the book left an even larger amount out of the history of Scientology. Anything useful in the most basic parts of Scientology was ripped off from Alfred Korzybski and [general semantics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics) - that’s the part that pulled people in. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/87 "2015-03-31T03:41:04Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > I was struck by the way John Travolta talked about his experiences. “Scientology helped me get where I am today.” People in other\* religions don’t say that. A football player may thank God or Jesus, but rarely the Pope, or their minister, at least not in the same way. > > \*Arguendo What gets me is that Travolta said early on what Scientology’s goals are: a world without crime, insanity or war. But they decide what constitutes “crime” (the end justifies the means, and can be seen in everything from Operation Snow White, to Operation Freakout, to harassment of their critics and a million other ways), and even based on their attack ads against the people in the film, all the participants in the film are criminals. Really, all critics and SPs are criminals. Mike Rinder said himself that he believed that people attacking Scientology were criminals. He said it in an old interview shown in the documentary. (God he must cringe when he sees what he was like and what he was saying during his spokesperson years) War? Forget that one. How are they going to stop wars? They don’t ever go into how they’re going to do that. I figure they’d cross that bridge (ha) when they come to it. Insanity? Well, Hubbard himself said, right there in the documentary, that they don’t have anything to do with the insane. So if their goal is a world without criminals (by their definition) and a world without the insane (who could never be audited even if Scientology wanted to help them, which they don’t), what is the proposal to deal with those people in order to “Clear” a planet? What’s on Tom Cruise’s mind when he said in that black turtleneck “interview” that one day people would speak of “SPs” as ancient history? Nobody wants to say what the answer might be because it would sound to conspiracy theory batshit, but it bears thinking about what the answer might be to those questions. Not that I think anyone should fear them regarding the answer. The people they’ve killed so far [happen to be their own people](http://www.xenu-directory.net/mirrors/www.whyaretheydead.net/), so they’re not very competent. But it is right there in the documentary, not commented on, but there. Massive war chest, multi-billion dollar stashes, none of that money means anything if they don’t have people to help clear the planet (in the normal “Let’s clean this place up!” as Tom Cruise so gleefully shouted to the faithful, rather than the “Ok, we’re almost good to go except for those criminals and insane people” L. Ron was aiming for). They need bodies, they need new members, and they’re getting fewer and fewer new ones to replace the horrified and disillusioned people who are leaving in droves. Where are they going to find them? They’re searching, searching. South America, maybe? > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Quinn Cummings? “The Goodbye Girl” Quinn Cummings? Yep, one and the same. She always makes me smile or laugh out loud. > [@Morgenstern](#): > > Can you do the same thing to the Global warming thread in the pit? Ha. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/88 "2015-03-31T04:06:01Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Yep, one and the same. She always makes me smile or laugh out loud. Well, I’ll be. I guess there’s one less name for the “celebrities who disappeared without a trace” thread. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/89 "2015-03-31T04:14:30Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I bought the book _The Bare-Faced Messiah_, Russell Miller’s bio of Hubbard, as soon as I saw it in the bookstore, because I knew it would be litigated ouit of existence immediately. > > \ > > If you want, you can read both books online at **Operation Clambake** at [http://www.xenu.net/](http://www.xenu.net/) . The Scientologists tried multiple times to gget that site shut down, too. Fortunately, it’s based in Norway, and relativerly immune to US prosecution. By all means, visit that site for more than you ever wanted to know about Hubbard and the Scientologists. It’s a real eye-opener. I checked out the Operation Clambake site, and [Barefaced Messiah](http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm) has been removed because it’s been republished. You can buy it and _The Unbreakable Miss Lovely_ from[Silvertail Books](http://www.silvertailbooks.com/books/). ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/90 "2015-03-31T04:27:52Z")
I’ll have to get the new version of Bare-Faced Messiah. The Unbreakable Miss Lovely is coming in May. I hope there’s a studio bidding war for it. I see Kathryn Bigelow, David Fincher or Quentin Tarantino (not really, but it would be fun). Jennifer Lawrence would make a great Paulette Cooper! > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Well, I’ll be. I guess there’s one less name for the “celebrities who disappeared without a trace” thread. She’s out of the business, been raising kids, but could be a stand-up comedian except that she’s actually an introvert, except on Twitter. She usually responds to a tweet before she quotes it. She’s a die-hard liberal, which makes her even more fun. Here’s an example of her usual style: > [@](#): > > @quinncy: GIVE THE CORGIS WHATEVER THEY WANT. @thedailybeast Members of the Queen’s staff are planning to strike for the first time in history. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/91 "2015-03-31T05:22:26Z")
Alex Gibney did a Q&A on Twitter after tonight’s showing and said that Going Clear will be released in some theaters in Canada in May, and will then be shown on HBOCanada. I saw in another tweet by someone else that it’s going to be in shown in some theaters in Australia in June. Nothing was said about HBO there. No word yet on anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/92 "2015-03-31T07:56:57Z")
I watched this film and I enjoyed it tremendously. I found it extremely informative and extremely well made. It has prompted me to want to make this post. Later on, I may have more to say. But at this time, I’d just like to say something very brief and that has to do with Yul Brynner and his dying remarks. I don’t know how many people here will know of Yul Brynner. He was a famous movie actor who died in 1985. He was famous for many of the films he made. But most of his films were made during the 1960s and so many people here may not know about him. I don’t want to talk about his films here however. I want to talk about what he had to say on his deathbed. I always admired him tremendously for those remarks. They took a great deal of courage and he became and to this day, he remains one of my greatest personal heroes. Yul Brynner was a heavy smoker all his life and he died from a disease that most people believed was caused by his smoking. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article that quotes his deathbed remarks. I’m going to paraphrase those remarks after the link. > **[Yul Brynner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yul_Brynner)** > > Yuliy Borisovich Briner (Russian: Юлий Борисович Бринер; July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985), known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was best known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical The King and I, for which he won two Tony Awards, and later an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film adaptation. He played the role 4,625 times on stage and became known for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long af... "Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985 in New York City. The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article from which the link is given above. \*\*\ “He then looked directly into the camera for 30 seconds and said, “Now that I’m gone, I tell you: Don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer. I’m convinced of that.” \” \*\* I recall his remarks as being somewhat different from that. I’m quite certain that what he said was very close to the following: **“If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, then quit. For God’s sake, whatever you do, quit as quickly as you can. Quit right away!”** It took a great deal of courage for Mr. Brynner to say that because at the time, the tobacco companies were extremely powerful and they arranged that actors who spoke against them would not get any work. Very few actors were willing to speak against them in public. But after Yul Brynner made the above remarks, it opened a floodgate and it seems to me that thousands of actors followed his lead and the tobacco companies were just done for. They were essentially out of business after that. At least they couldn’t advertise at all after that. It was a magnificent example of the power of personal freedoms and the power of the media. Yul Brynner has always remained one of my greatest personal heroes for doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/93 "2015-03-31T08:07:54Z")
What does my post above have to do with Scientology? Well, I want to say to you all, "If you are not a member of Scientology, don’t join. Stay away from them. Stay as far away as you can. Don’t ever give them any money. Not one thin dime. If you are a member of Scientology, then quit. For God’s sake, whatever you do, quit as quickly as you can. Quit right away. They will make it very difficult for you to quit. I know because the following happened to me. They will phone you relentlessly. They will come to see you. They will tell you that you are in the middle of one of their courses or exercises and they need you to come back in to finish. Of course, that will then become something more. They will not let you alone until you tell them forcibly to fuck off and leave you alone or you will call the police and ask the police to arrest them. That will get them to stop. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/94 "2015-03-31T08:17:15Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I’ve had a hunch for years that people like Travolta and maybe Cruise were somehow being blackmailed. They address that in the movie. They tell people they are not being blackmailed because they are not asking for money. But they are being extorted. The definition of “Extortion” (which is a felony and will get you 5 years in a penitentiary) is close to the following: Forcing someone to \*\*do \*\*something that you have \*\*no \*\*right to force them to do. Or … forcing someone to \*\*not \*\*do something that you have no right to force them \*\*not \*\*to do." So, it’s just symantics whether they are guilty of blackmail or extortion. Either way it’s the same kind of crime and it is despicable. It’s all just a big scam very much like the North Korean govt or many others. Remember all those meetings and parades where people talk about the “beloved leader” or the “dear leader”. It’s remarkably similar to that kind of scam. Remember the big meetings where people talked about that man who was the head of a giant cult … damn I forget the name. But it’s all the same kind of deal. There is one “strong man” at the top and all the money and power goes to him. Everyone else just gets to help him recruit and maintain suckers to join their cult. Don’t be a sucker. Please don’t be a sucker. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/95 "2015-03-31T08:18:20Z")
Sorry. Duplicate post. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/96 "2015-03-31T08:26:27Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > That was extremely powerful. Even though I knew most of it, I still cried at several points because reading about something and actually hearing these people talk about these things is a completely different experience. I was so engrossed I barely glanced at #GoingClear and didn’t read Ortega’s feed at all. I am going to go back and read it all now. > > I hope everyone gets a chance to see it at some point in the future, even if they have to wait for Vimeo or the DVD. > > Anyone who sees it, know this. The movie, and the book, didn’t touch a fraction of the horror stories that are out there. As bad as it looks, it’s much much worse than you can imagine. Heh Heh. Good post. But even your post fails to come close to the horrors perpertrated by this cult. I knew of some girl who got some members of the cult to come to her grandparents and forcefully tell them she needed all the money in their bank account (all the money they had in the world (about $150K) so that she could take some courses that would save her life. She told them that if she did not get the money to take the courses her live would be over. They stayed there for a few hours and strong armed this poor couple until they got the money. They never got it back. Her grandparents died penniless and broken human beings. It was a horror story that was quite common for the Church. Some fucking joke to call this scam a “church”. It is nothing more than a bunch of thugs and thieves disguised in suits and ties. If you don’t have anything to do with Scientology, don’t join. For God’s sake, stay away. Stay as far away as you can. If you are a member of Scientology, for God’s sake, quit! Quit as fast as you can. Quit right away! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/97 "2015-03-31T08:27:28Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > The part that will always make me laugh is that so many countries were not wanting them there, that they took to the seas! I don’t know what the book says about them, but that’s not the only reason (and probably not the primary reason). A huge component of cult programming is isolation. On land, it’s difficult to truly isolate people–police poke their noses in, families try to make contact, and so on. On the sea, you can control _everything_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/98 "2015-03-31T11:35:58Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > I checked out the Operation Clambake site, and [Barefaced Messiah](http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm) has been removed because it’s been republished. You can buy it and _The Unbreakable Miss Lovely_ from[Silvertail Books](http://www.silvertailbooks.com/books/). Are you sure? When I posted the link to Operation Clambake I saw that they still had it listed, although I admittedly didn’t click on the link to go to BFM. Edited to add: I clicked on the link. You can still access some parts, but the main body of the book is, indeed, removed. It’s another measure of the fading influence of the Scientologists, I think, that this book is finally seeing print in the US again. Maybe this will finally be the US paperback release that they never had (It was published in paperback in the UK) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/99 "2015-03-31T11:56:31Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I don’t know what the book says about them, but that’s not the only reason (and probably not the primary reason). A huge component of cult programming is isolation. On land, it’s difficult to truly isolate people–police poke their noses in, families try to make contact, and so on. On the sea, you can control _everything_. It’s not just that. Hubbard was a sailor from early on, and loved it. He was an officer in the Navy during WWII, and for a brief time commanded his own ship, until (as the documentary points out) he mistakenly thought a magnetic anomaly was a Japanese sub and depth charged it, then went on to fire on an island that turned out to be Mexican territory. After that he was removed from command, and never got to helm another Navy ship. Some folks think that his commanding the Scientology fleet (They eventually had three ships, IIRC) was his way of compensating for that. They even got to wear uniforms! I have to admit that the one thing I feel sorry for LRH about was his comedown in the Navy. I don’t say that he didn’t deserve it, but it had to be an extreme and devastating blow to hi and his ego. Not only was he deprived of command (although he still remained an officer, but travelling on _other_ people’s ships), but the Navy boards criticized his reports. He, a mariner from way back, a member of the Explorer’s Club, was told that he was unfit to command a ship. That was bad enough. But to be told that he couldn’t _write_ – that must have been intolerable. He had already published widely in the pulps, and written one screenplay (that was filmed). Incidenatally, Hubbard was a compulsive myth-builder vand self-promoting liar. If that documentary tells you anything, take that away from it. In that light, claims in both the documentary and in things like Martin Gardner’s book _Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science_ about Hubbard ought to be looked at with a skeptical eye. So I don’t buy claims that he published more books – 1000 – than anyone else, or that he wrote on a long reel of butcher paper threaded into his typewriter, or that he had a special typewriter that had keys for “the” and “and”. Bull Gardner, a longtine skeptic and member of CSICOP, should’ve been more skeptical (in a book that was supposed to take a critical look, at that). Until someone produces that typewriter, or shows us a story he submitted on a continuous roll I won’t buy it. Hubbard’s entry on the Internet Speculative Fiction database is lengthy, but not extremely so: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?645](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?645) Asimov’s is a helluva lot longer: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?5](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?5) as is Arthur C. Clarke’s, and others [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?17](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?17) and if you say “well, not all of Hubbard’s stuff was in science fiction”, well, you can say that in spades about Asimov. Hubbard did write an awful lot of manuals and stuff for internal use in Scientology (and not all of it “tech” – he wrote procedural manuals for handling everyday business, too). And if you add those in, you might get 1000 manuals and pamphlets as well. But it’s certainly not material that should be counted among his “prolific writer” stage, as the documentary tries to make it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259/100 "2015-03-31T13:44:48Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > I wish that Travolta would just come out already. Being gay just isn’t that big of a deal to reasonable people anymore, and who cares about the rest? I’d much rather see him come out of the closet and leave the church than to stay in the church because he’s afraid of being found out. It’s not a big deal to most people, but I could see how it would be a big deal to him. He’s been in a group most of his adult life that has said that homosexuality is wrong, and can be fixed if you follow their teaching close enough. He probably also has helpful Scientology advisers who tell him how he would be ruined and everyone would be against him if he came out as gay. I don’t know how that would affect your state of mind, but I imagine it would have a big impact. I would also love to see Travolta leave the church, but I know it would be hugely, hugely difficult for him. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I don’t know what the book says about them, but that’s not the only reason (and probably not the primary reason). A huge component of cult programming is isolation. On land, it’s difficult to truly isolate people–police poke their noses in, families try to make contact, and so on. On the sea, you can control _everything_. This is true, it is much easier to isolate people on boats, and that’s definitely part of the reason for taking to the waters. But also like CalMeacham said, Hubbard was compensating for what went wrong with his Navy career. He was a funny guy, and all of Scientology would be hilarious, if it also wasn’t hugely harmful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-clear-alex-gibneys-new-documentary-about-scientology/716259.md?page=6)