More on Scientology.

Isteve notes the irony of Haggis' reason for quitting Scientology:

That's pretty funny when you think about it: a major player in Hollywood is a Scientologist for his entire career, but he finally rebels because ... one Scientologist staffer in another city signed a petition against gay marriage.

And this bit about L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer:

To me, the most interesting thing about Scientology is how it was an outgrowth of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. L. Ron Hubbard was a sci-fi writer, the great editor John W. Campbell heavily promoted his Dianetics (which was originally intended not as a religion but as an equally plausible and cheaper competitor for Freudianism), and Hubbard's pal Robert A. Heinlein supposedly gave him the idea that you could get rich starting your own religion.


I've wondered how often Heinlein was tempted to launch his own cult, seeing the success of lesser popular novelists like Hubbard and Ayn Rand as cult leaders. I suspect Heinlein was too easily bored for the repetition necessary.

L. Ron Hubbard was supposed to be the basis of the leader trapped in his own delusions in Fritz Leiber's "Poor Superman, " although Fritz Leiber said the model for the character was actually John W. Campbell, Jr.

Here's an audio presentation of "Poor Superman."

Leaving the Cult.

I don't know which is funnier in this story about Paul Haggis' departure from Scientology - that it took him 37 years to figure out that he was a member of a cult or that what motivated him to leave Scientology wasn't because his wife was told by Scientology to "disconnect" from her family, but because Scientology breached Hollywood protocol by coming out in favor of Proposition 8.

The closest historical parallel to Scientology I can think of is Manichianism.  We know from The Confessions of St. Augustine that Manichianism provided its adherents to access to movers and shakers in the Roman Empire  which was useful for job placement and self-promotion, along with a system of gradual indoctrination into bizarre and unbelievable doctrines