On Scientology and Hollywood…

KCRW’s Kim Masters recentlysat down with author Lawrence Wright to talk about his new book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. He described the leader of the church, L. Ron Hubbard, this way:

“He was a spellbinding character, he had a special talent for bringing young people in particular under his spell. And you know, they had a narrative of his own life, which to some extent may have been fabricated — about being a heroic figure in the war, or how he had been blinded and crippled by his wounds and had healed himself. Because at a point where real medicine had not been able to take care of him. And this was a very compelling narrative in post-war America. The therapeutic culture was just beginning to take root and he wrote this book Dianetics, in which he proposed that you can solve your own problems –your neuroses and fears yourself — just by reading this book. Boy, it swept the country. It dominated the New York Times bestseller list for a long time and it really became the prototype for so many of the self help books that followed.”

You can listen to the full interview below and find out more, here.