Scientology is “quite logical” in the beginning, according to one of the religion’s dissenters featured in Alex Gibney‘s upcoming HBO documentary, “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.”
The first trailer for the film that caused a ruckus at Sundance last month features voices of those who left the church created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, and were willing to speak to Gibney about it.
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“They sell it all in the beginning as something quite logical,” an anonymous man says.
A different voice adds: “You take on a matrix of thought that is not your own.”
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In the film, Gibney interviews several senior members of Scientology who have left the church in the past half-dozen years, suffering continual harassment by the church and the abandonment by family members as a result. They admit to submitting to punishment by church leader Miscavige, who kept some of them in a private Florida prison camp where they were humiliated and physically abused for years.
More hot topics covered in the documentary include slave labor on Scientology’s Sea Org boats, members forced to “disconnect” from disobedient family members and a plot to destroy Tom Cruise‘s marriage to Nicole Kidman.
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“Going Clear” premieres on HBO on March 29 at 8 pm.