Exhaustively researched (and full of footnotes) this chronicle of a modern religion's birth and growth reads like a horror story. I thought lot of the stuff that came out of the mouths of the founder and later the current leader of Scientology was just jaw-droppingly bonkers. Not that I don't think the same of lots of religions, because I do. Well-written, and given Scientology's history of persecuting their questioners, very brave.