Melody Murray's Books

I will confess that the only reason I picked this book up in the first place was because I wanted to learn if there was any truth to the story (which I love) that Heinlein and Hubbard sat down one night and bet each other that they could each make up a religion and have a huge number of bona fide believing converts in 5 years. Heinlein's Church of All Worlds didn't really take off like Hubbard's Scientology. Sadly, Reitman doesn't mention this story, though this will not prevent me from continuing to tell it. I soldiered on, despite my disappointment, and was rendered speechless with horror any number of times. I am not a religious type, and I find all of the religions I know anything in-depth about deeply weird, but the Scientologists are batshit. I knew about the aliens. I didn't know about the billion-year contracts, or the tossing people overboard from the yacht for minor infractions. Or the locking them up, or the letting them die from dehydration resulting from psychosis brought on by "auditing". I knew about the money, the corporate model, but not how punishingly avaricious the church was with its rank and file. It was a fascinating book on a lot of levels. My only minor quibble is that I didn't get a real feel for what, exactly, the devotees get from the various classes/auditings/e-meters & etc. I got a clear picture of the trauma, of the betrayals, of the reporting on one another, of the keeping of files on people- but I really have no understanding of what benefits (and there must be some) there are.