Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief Read Online Free PDF Page A

The trick is to conceive of both at the same time. This tends to knock one out.”
    Each new level of achievement marked the entrance to a more select spiritual fraternity. Haggis didn’t have a strong reaction to the material, but then, he wasn’t expecting anything too profound. Everyone knew that the big revelations resided inOT III.
    Hubbard called this level theWall of Fire.
    “The material involvedin this sector is so vicious, that it is carefully arranged to kill anyone if he discovers the exact truth of it,” hewrote in 1967. “So in January and February of this year I became very ill, almost lost this body, and somehow or another brought it off, and obtained the material, and was able to live through it. I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material.”
    In the late seventies, the OT mysteries were still unknown, except to the elect. There was no Internet, andScientology’sconfidential scriptures had never been published or produced in court. Scientologists looked toward the moment of initiation into OT III with extreme curiosity and excitement. The candidate had to be invited into this next level—Scientologists were cautioned that the material could cause harm or even death to those who were unprepared to receive it. The enforced secrecy added to the mystique and the giddy air of adventure.
    One could look back at this crucial moment and examine the pros and cons of Haggis’s decision to stay in Scientology. The fact that people often sneered at the church didn’t deter him; on the contrary, he reveled in being a member of a stigmatized minority—it made him feel at one with other marginalized groups. The main drawback to belief was his own skeptical nature; he was a proud contrarian, and it would never have occurred to him to join the Baptist church, for instance, or to return to Catholicism; he simply wasn’t interested. Intellectually, faith didn’t call to him. Scientology, on the other hand, was exotic and tantalizing. The weirdness of some of the doctrines was hard to fathom, but there was no doubt in Haggis’s mind that he had gained some practical benefits from his several years of auditing and that his communication skills had improved through some of the coursework. None of that had required him to “believe” in Scientology, but the religion had proved itself in certain ways that mattered to him. The process of induction was so gradual that things that might have shocked him earlier were more acceptable by the time he came upon them. Whenever he ran into something on the Bridge to Total Freedom that he couldn’t fathom, he convinced himself that the next level would make everything understandable.
    Scientology was a part of his community; it had taken root inHollywood, just as Haggis had. His first writing jobs had come through Scientology connections. His wife was deeply involved in the church, as was his sisterKathy. His circle of friends was centered in the church. Haggis was deep enough into the process by now to understand implicitly that those relationships would be jeopardized if he chose to leavethe church. Moreover, he had invested a considerable part of his income in the program. The incentive to believe was high.
    He was also looking forward to having the enhanced abilities that his fellow adherents on the Bridge were constantly talking about. Although Hubbard had explicitly told Operating Thetans not to use their powers for “parlor tricks,” there was a section of
Advance!
, a magazine for upper-level Scientologists, titled “OT Phenomena,” where members could report clairvoyant or paranormal experiences. Parking spaces magically made themselves available and waiters immediately noticed you. “I saw that my goldfish was all red and lumpy,” one Scientologist writes in
Advance!
“My husband, Rick, said that he’s had goldfish like that before and they don’t recover.” The correspondent relates that she used