going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

Epilogue
If Scientology is based on a lie, as Tommy Davis’s formulation at the New Yorker
meeting suggests, what does it say about the many people who believe in its
doctrine or—like Davis and Feshbach—publicly defend and promote the
organization and its practices?
Of course, no religion can prove that it is “true.” There are myths and miracles at the
core of every great belief system that, if held up to the harsh light of a scholar or an
investigative reporter, could easily be passed o as lies. Did Mohammed really ride into
Heaven on the back of his legendary transport, the steed Buraq? Did Jesus’ disciples
actually encounter their crucied leader after his burial? Were these miracles or visions
or lies? Would the religions survive without them?
There is no question that a belief system can have positive, transformative eects on
people’s lives. Many current and former Scientologists have attested to the value of their
training and the insight they derived from their study of the religion. They have the
right to believe whatever they choose. But it is a dierent matter to use the protections
aorded a religion by the First Amendment to falsify history, to propagate forgeries,
and to cover up human-rights abuses.
Hubbard once wrote that “the old religion”—by which he meant Christianity—was
based on “a very painful lie,” which was the idea of Heaven. “Yes, I’ve been to Heaven.
And so have you,” he writes. “It was complete with gates, angels and plaster saints—
and electronic implantation equipment.” Heaven, he says, was built as an implant
station 43 trillion years ago. “So there was a Heaven after all—which is why you are on
this planet and were condemned never to be free again—until Scientology.” He went
on: “What does this do to any religious nature of Scientology? It strengthens it. New
religions always overthrow the false gods of the old, they do something to better man.
We can improve man. We can show the old gods false. And we can open up the universe
as a happier place in which a spirit may dwell.”
One might compare Scientology with the Church of Latter Day Saints, a new religion
of the previous century. The founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, claimed to have
received a pair of golden plates from the angel Moroni in upstate New York in 1827,
along with a pair of magical “seeing stones,” which allowed him to read the contents.
Three years later, he published The Book of Mormon, founding a movement that would
provoke the worst outbreak of religious persecution in American history. Mormons were
chased all across the country because of their practice of polygamy and their presumed
heresy. Smith himself was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. His beleaguered
followers sought to escape the United States and establish a religious theocracy in the
territory of Utah, which they called Zion. Mormons were so despised that there was a
bill in Congress to exterminate them. And yet Mormonism would evolve and go on to
become one of the fastest-growing denominations in the twentieth, and now the twenty-
rst, centuries. Members of the faith now openly run for president of the United States.