When I realized this, down to the moment, the clouds opened up. This is called “trusting your intuition,” and there is an incredibly moving moment in this strong, passionate, clear-spoken, and very worthwhile book, where Jenna suddenly gets it: “I knew without a doubt that I was a good person, and, no matter what anyone else thought or said about me, no matter who they were or how important, I didn’t care. It all just gave me a skeevy feeling, and I refused. Two young men I knew were hanging about, and they began to proselytize and pressure me to come in and experience something-or-other, it was all so wonderful, etc. Next to the door was a table with literature on it. Later I was in Oxford, mooching about, when I came across the same thing: a tall building with a sign. It just sounded weird, anyway – as if it was saying, “Quasi-science here!” My dad was a real scientist, so why would this quasi-thing seem the least bit legit?

“Oh, some weird religion-thing,” he said, and because in those days religion, the institution of marriage, and the flag were all regarded with equal contempt, I dismissed the sign from my thoughts.

I remember, on a trip into LA with my then-boyfriend in 1969, noticing a big sign atop a tall building, spelling out SCIENTOLOGY. I think she really meant Southern California, where we lived, rather than the cool northern part of the state, where she herself was raised.Īnd indeed, in the desert not far from our town, a science fiction writer named L Ron Hubbard was on his way to realizing that if you wanted to get away with all kinds of outrageous hoo-ha, all you had to do was… start a religion! My mother used to say, “They tipped up the map and all the nuts rolled down to California.” And then she’d laugh… a little ruefully, maybe.

Beyond belief jenna miscavige