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"With its keen attention to the language and tactics of the church, Hall’s memoir is unique among the assortment of Scientology reports and exposés, offering insight into the certainties that its subjects gain." —The NationIn the secluded canyons of 1980s Hollywood, Sands Hall, a young woman from a literary family, strives to forge her own way as an artist. But instead, Hall finds herself increasingly drawn toward the certainty that Scientology appears to offer. Her time in the Church includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. In this compelling memoir, Hall reveals what drew her into the religion—with its intrigues and unique contemporary vision—and how she came to confront its darker sides and finally escape.
"Some of the most penetrating, illuminating prose about how an educated and skeptical person could get so deeply into, and then struggle to escape, what everyone around her warned was a dangerous cult . . . brilliant." —The Underground Bunker"If it is Scientology's offer of a life with meaning that hauls her in . . . it is its approach to meaning that keeps her . . . Hall's fascination with this is palpable." —Camille Ralphs, The Times Literary Supplement
List of contents
Foreword: Knowledge Report
A note to the reader, and a bit about the endnotes
I: Nothing Better to Be
We need you to be a zealot
Claptrap
Enthusiastic devotion to a cause
If God exists, why is he such a bastard?
Training Routines
Dancing through life
That is so weird!
Saint Catherine's wheel
He was kind of a nutcase
Nothing better to be
She went Clear last lifetime!
You do know C. S. Lewis was a Christian?
Imagine a plan
Age of Aquarius
Guilt is good
I'm me, I'm me, I'm me
Wills and things
II: The Whole Agonized Future of This Planet
You do know that guy's a Scientologist?
You brother's had an accident
Please, please, please don't take him mind
That's that Scientology stuff he does
Hope springs eternal
That's Source!
How much electricity?
A comb, perhaps a cat
Flunk. Start.
You could take a look at Doubt
The Ethics Officer
Every sorrow in this world comes down to a misunderstood novel
The true sense of the word
Sunny
Gah
Imagination?
What is true for you is true for you
He has simply moved on to his next level
Because, you know, you did just turn thirty-six
Anasazi
Binding back
That spiritual stuff does matter
III: After Such a Storm
Modernism?
It doesn't matter
Spit happens
The loss of nameless things
Pilgrimage season
Who never left her brother for dead
After such a storm
Treasure
Afterword: Disconnection
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Endnotes
About the author
Sands Hall is the author of the novel
Catching Heaven, a WILLA Award Finalist for Best Contemporary Fiction, and a Random House Reader’s Circle selection; and of a book of writing essays and exercises,
Tools of the Writer’s Craft. She teaches at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and is an associate teaching professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Summary
"With its keen attention to the language and tactics of the church, Hall’s memoir is unique among the assortment of Scientology reports and exposés, offering insight into the certainties that its subjects gain." —The Nation
In the secluded canyons of 1980s Hollywood, Sands Hall, a young woman from a literary family, strives to forge her own way as an artist. But instead, Hall finds herself increasingly drawn toward the certainty that Scientology appears to offer. Her time in the Church includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. In this compelling memoir, Hall reveals what drew her into the religion—with its intrigues and unique contemporary vision—and how she came to confront its darker sides and finally escape.
"Some of the most penetrating, illuminating prose about how an educated and skeptical person could get so deeply into, and then struggle to escape, what everyone around her warned was a dangerous cult . . . brilliant." —The Underground Bunker
"If it is Scientology's offer of a life with meaning that hauls her in . . . it is its approach to meaning that keeps her . . . Hall's fascination with this is palpable." —Camille Ralphs, The Times Literary Supplement
