Unbiased book shows appeal, weaknesses of Scientology

"Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion," by Janet Reitman (Houghton Mifflin, $28)

Like most of us, you probably know enough about Scientology to make you curious. It sounds a little hinky as a religion, but the government says it's correctly tax-exempt; the kids handing out its literature look clean-cut; and Tom Cruise says it's terrific.

Lisa Reitman's book, one of the few written by someone other than a lover or hater of Scientology, hopes to explain the details that account for the yin and yang of its appeal. Even though you will still have questions after reading it (that "secretive" label is well-deserved), it will provide a portrait of a movement that rings true in detail and concept.

Scientology doesn't claim to have divine roots. It springs almost entirely from the fertile brain of L. Ron Hubbard, a pulp-fiction writer of some reputation who in 1954 published an extended essay called "Dianetics."

Reitman describes Hubbard as a lovable rogue whose colorful past includes an exaggerated naval career, two wives at the same time and a flair for marketing.

That marketing savvy led Hubbard to promote his ideas as an alternative to psychotherapy in the analysis-happy 1950s. When the 1960s gained full flower, the same notions became partners with the anti-Establishment Youthquake. In the 1990s, they clasped hands with a growing self-help movement.

By that time, however, Hubbard had massaged his message into a full-fledged religion that included paths to happiness, all of them with a price tag. After Hubbard's 1986 death, an acolyte named David Miscavige insinuated himself into the movement's leadership by virtue of not having any competition.

Under Miscavige, things haven't gone as well. Lacking Hubbard's flair for exploiting trends, Miscavige has tied Scientology's marketing to celebrities (John Travolta, Kirstie Allie, Priscilla Presley, etc.) and found himself unable to adapt Hubbard's preachings to current movements.

Even worse, under Miscavige's leadership, reports of abuses have grown dramatically. Ex-Scientologists have accused Miscavige of physical and mental violence. The 1995 death of Scientology devotee Lisa McPherson in Clearwater elevated images of Miscavige's leadership from bizarre to dangerous.

Reitman, a well-published journalist whose five years of research started as a Rolling Stone article, collects information that presents an even clearer picture than previously shown in coverage by The Tampa Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times and other publications.

Scientology's debt to fast-food giant McDonald's becomes an essential part of explaining the franchise nature of the religion's branches. Reitman documents the upward cash flow from auditing sessions to the select organization management led by Miscavige. A combination of the two concepts affirms Reitman's conclusion that today, real estate income comprises the bulk of Scientology's revenue.

Here in the Bay area, such revelations are particularly relevant. The Los Angeles area and Clearwater, home to the headquarters Fort Harrison Hotel, form the religion's two largest membership populations.

After reading this book, arguments about whether Scientology is a religion or a cult (the label often applied by Germany and Australia) seem almost irrelevant.

Criticism has fallen not to books or critics, but to the wide reach of the Internet. Rather than being fast-growing, Scientology seems built on gimmicks (its literature is "best-selling" by virtue of legions of organized member purchases, for example). Its appeal must compete in an arena of an array of spiritual cure-alls also aimed at the insecure, the young and the dysfunctional.

Without its messiah, Scientology, as Reitman describes it, may survive as an economic entity only to suffer a malaise as a viable belief system.