Accounts by Ex-Scientologists of their Experiences
2013 Beyond Belief | Jenna Miscavige Hill with Liza Purlitzer
2013 Have You Told All? | Lucas A Catton
2012 Damaged Lives: The Legacy of Scientology | Margery Wakefield
2010 Scientology: Abuse at the Top | Amy Scobee
2010 Counterfeit Dreams | Jefferson Hawkins
Read Online: Book is a revised and expanded version of this series of blog entries HTML
2009 The Psychiatrist Who Cured the Scientologist | Aaron David Gottfried
2009 Blown For Good | Marc Headley
2009 My Billion Year Contract | Nancy Many
2009 The Road to Xenu: Life Inside Scientology | Margery Wakefield Full Text Online HTML |PDF
2008 The Complex | John Duigan with Nicola Tallent
2000 Naked Scientology Ali’s Smile |William S Burroughs | View online (.pdf) | Download (.pdf)
2000 Scientology With(out) an End | Tom Volz Read Online HTML | HTML
1999 The Cheryl S Story | ‘Cheryl S’ Full Text Online HTML | PDF
1996 The OJ Roos Story | Otto Roos Full Text Online HTML
1991 Lonesome Squirrel | Steven Fishman Read online HTML
1989 My Nine Lives in Scientology | Monica Pignotti Full Text Online HTML English and French Versions
1972 Inside Scientology | Robert Kaufman Full Text Online HTML
1971 The Mind Benders | Cyril Vosper Full Text Online HTML | PDF
1966 Dianetics in Limbo |Helen O’Brien | Full Text Online TXT
2016 Ruthless: My Son David Miscavige and Me (UK Edition) | Ron Miscavige with Dan Koon
Books About Scientology by Ex-Scientologists
2013 Lets Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky | John Atack
(1990 A Piece of Blue Sky (Original Edition) | John Atack Full Text Online PDF)
1996 An Essay on Scientology: Overview of the Cult’s Ideology | David John Carter | Full Text Online HTML
1995 Chronological View of L Ron Hubbard and Scientology | Kaj Moos
1992 The Total Freedom Trap | John Atack Read Online HTML
1987 L Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman | Bent Corydon and L Ron Hubbard Jr (AKA Ronald DeWolf) Full Text Online TXT
1951 Dianetics: A Doctors Report (AKA: A doctors Report on Dianetics) | J A Winter MD
Books About Scientology by Journalists
2013 Going Clear | Lawrence Wright
2013 The Church of Fear | John Sweeney
2013 God Bless America: Strange & Unusual Religious Beliefs & Practices in the United States | Karen Stollznow
2011 Inside Scientology|Janet Reitman
1987 Bare-Faced Messiah | Russell Miller Full Text Online HTML | PDF
1986 Religion Inc: The Church of Scientology | Stuart Lamont Full Text Online HTML
1971 The Scandal of Scientology | Paulette Cooper Full Text Online HTML | PDF
1971 Scientology: The Now Religion | George Malko Full Text Online HTML
2015 The Unbreakable Miss Lovely | Tony Orgtega
Academic Books
2013 Scientologist! William S Burroughs and the ‘Weird Cult’ | David S Wills
2011 The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion | Hugh B Urban
2001 From Slogans to Mantras – Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam Era | Stephen A Kent
1987 Renunciation and Reformulation | Harriet Whitehead
1978 Satan’s Power: A Deviant Psychotherapy Cult | William Sims Bainbridge
1976 The Road to Total Freedom | Roy Wallis Full Test online TXT
1973 Believe What You Like | CH Rolph
Miscellaneous Books
2012 Leaving Scientology: A Practical Guide to Escape and Recovery | Jefferson Hawkins
2010 A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant | Kyle Jarrow
1999 Ron the War Hero| Chris Owen Read Online HTML
1980 The Commodore and the Colonels | John Forte Full Text Online HTML
Books With Sections About Dianetics/Scientology
2011 Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron | Spencer Kansa
2009 Stripping the Gurus | Geoffrey D Falk
2005 The Joy of Sects | Sam Jordison
2005 Strange Angel | George Pendle
1999 Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons | John Carter and Robert Anton Wilson |Download as .pdf
1997 Remote Viewers: the Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies | Jim Schnabel
1997 net.wars | Wendy M Grossman
1994 Countercultures: A Sociological Analysis | William W Zellner
1993 Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile | Steven Pressman
1987 The Future of New Religious Movements | (Chapter 5) Science and Religion: The Case of Scientology
William Sims Bainbridge | Full Text Online HTML
1985 The Future of Religion | Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge
View Chapter“Scientology: to be Perfectly Clear” online
Download Chapter“Scientology: to be Perfectly Clear” as .pdf
1984 Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction | Jack Williamson
1983 | Psychology’s Occult Doubles: Psychology and the Problem of Pseudoscience | Thomas Hardy Leahey and Grace Evans Leahey
1973 Cults of Unreason | Dr Christopher Evans Full Text Online HTML
1952 Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science | Martin Gardner
Fiction Which Refers to / Satirises Scientology
2010 The Symphony of Leif | Paul Y Csige
1992 Heads | Greg Bear
2016 Blown| Lauren Halsted Burroughs | 2016 | ISBN 978–0-692-68160-2 | Read Online
1985 The Mind Game | Norman Spinrad
1982 Friday | Robert A Heinlein
1971 Assignment in Eternity | Robert A Heinlein
1976 Inferno | Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Apologist Books
2009 Scientology | Edited by James R Lewis
1985 The Sad Tale of Scientology | Eric Townsend
Brainwashing and Deprogramming
1998 Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements | Lorne L Dawson
1981 Strange Gods | David G Bromley and Anson D Shupe Jr
1980 The New Vigilantes | Anson D Shupe Jr and David G Bromley
1955 Brainwashing | Purportedly by Lavrentiy Beria Ascribed to L Ron Hubbard
Full Text Online HTML
1961 Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism | Robert Jay Lifton
Books Referenced in my Series of Posts “Understanding the Scientology Mindset“
2007 The Lucifer Effect | Philip Zimbardo
2007 Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) | Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson
2004 Bounded Choice | Janja Lalich
1974 Obedience to Authority | Stanley Milgram Full Text Online PDF | Download PDF
1985 Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character | Richard P Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton
1956 When Prophesy Fails | Leon Festinger, Henry W Riecken, Stanley Schachter
Scientology Propaganda
1980 | Playing Dirty: The Secret War Against Beliefs | Omar V Garrison | Read Online | Download as .html
1974 | The Hidden Story of Scientology |Omar V Garrison | Read Online | Download as .html
Great website, a really valuable resource, but I’m not sure why Lifton’s Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism is in the “Bad Psychology” section. It is one of the keystone books in developing an understanding of how mind control can be used in authoritarian/totalitarian environments.
Also, Winter’s Doctors Report on Dianetics is not entirely apologetics: while he still had some hope of retrieving something valuable from the system, it was written when he had already broken with Hubbard and was not convinced by the founder’s increasingly sweeping claims for it.
Here’s a passage from the introduction (I think) to illustrate what I mean:
“By October, 1950, I had come to the conclusion that I could not agree with all the tenets of dianetics as set forth by the Foundation. I could not, as previously mentioned, support Hubbard’s claims regarding the state of ‘clear.’ I no longer felt, as I once had, that any intelligent person could (and presumably should) practice dianetics. I noted several points on which the actions of the Foundation were at variance with the expressed ideals of dianetics: one of these points was a tendency toward the development of an authoritarian attitude. Moreover, there was a poorly concealed attitude of disparagement of the medical profession and of the efforts of previous workers in the field of mental illness. Finally, the avowed purpose of the Foundation — the accomplishment of precise scientific research into the functioning of the mind — was conspicuously absent.”
But I’m quibbling here: many thanks for putting together a really informative website.
Jonny Jacobsen
This site started life as a project to provide a simple up-to-date booklist with no broken links… and grew. One of the reasons it grew was that it enabled me to organise my thoughts about a subject that has always fascinated me – why people believe weird things. Scientology is a perfect ‘case study’ for this, not only because it takes everything to extremes, but also because it is so enduring.
Consequently, the site categories have grown up (and changed) as my understanding has developed. At this point, I agree with you. Lifton does not deserve to be in a category called “Bad Psychology” (which was originally called just “Brainwashing”).
However, I do believe that the ‘brainwashing’ paradigm is dated, and associated with cold war ideology and attitudes which tend to justify very bad ideas (and bad psychology) – like deprogramming.
Elsewhere on the site, I argue that advances in social science (especially social psychology) provide a basis for a much more detailed and nuanced understanding of what it going on in inside organisations like Scientology, and ‘brainwashing’ is a concept that should now be put aside (like the concept of phlogiston was, after the discovery of oxygen). For example, books like “Bounded Choice” by Janja Lalich provides not only a better understanding of the cult mindset, but also a better idea of how to help people trapped in abusive organisations.
Consequently, I have tried to confine books about brainwashing to their own space. At some point, I will re-organise the page links, to provide Lifton with a more respectful position (although I have no idea what to call it).
You are also right about Winters, who deserves a place among, “books by ex-scientologists.”
I have changed the “Quick Reference Booklist” page accordingly (and removed “bad psychology” from the title of the page containing Lifton’s book). The page categories, however, will have to stand for a while.
The problem with a site like this is that, as your understanding develops (and changes), you occasionally have to go back and reorganise whole sections to reflect this. When there are more than 180 posts (how did that happen) this can become quite a task.
Thank you for your constructive comment. When I find time for an overdue re-organisation of the categories, and general spring clean, they will be put into effect.
I agree with you about brainwashing being an outmoded concept, but then I think it always was: (Lifton makes it clear in his book that he dislikes it). I had a stab at sketching out the boundaries of the mind control debate in a recent post at Infinite Complacency (The Cult Wars: a Beginners Guide), but it’s a difficult subject.
I’m struggling to keep up with the recent literature: your site at least helps me keep track of what I need to add to my reading list, so thank you again.
Further to Jonny Jacobson’s comments, I would like to point you to Edgar Schein’s work on coercive persuasion (he coined the term “corporate culture” after all), and to Margaret Singer’s Cults in our Midst which, despite its title, offers some deep insight into the psychological pressures recruits into cults are confronted with. Robert Jay Lifton’s arguments have never been clearer than his analysis of Nazi doctors in the death camps which can be read online here: http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/contents.shtml
My difficulty is not with Robert Jay Lifton (which I freely admit did not come over well in this post)
My difficulty with the way in which the early history of ‘anti-cult’ groups adopted the ‘brainwashing’ paradigm, and the way in which it is still applied by some critics today.Basically, I think it is fundamentally flawed when applied to high control groups and can lead to some very questionable actions (e.g. ‘deprogramming’) and some contradictory conclusions (e.g. that Hubbard is on the one hand an incoherent and speaker but on the other a genius of psychological manipulation).
To be clear, I do believe that very powerful psychological pressures are applied to people by the Church of Scientology. This reaches a point (e.g. in Sea Org ‘punishment details’ like the RPF) that is indistinguishable from classical ‘brainwashing’. However, the overwhelming majority of Scientologists are not subject to this degree of control, and ‘brainwashing’ theory is not relevant to many of their activities – recruitment, for example.
My problem is that I think that interpreting every action of the CofS as ‘brainwashing’ is unhelpful, and a new paradigm is required that takes a wider view of a very complex phenomenon. I have recently been struggling with these ideas, and plan to explain myself in detail in a future post.