A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed [Hardcover]

Jon Atack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 1999

Atack exposes Hubbard's bizarre imagination and behavior, tracing the creation of Scientology in the years following World War II to perhaps its final schism following Hubbard's death in 1986. A shocking book that reveals all: the abuses, falsehoods, paranoia, and greed of Hubbard and his pseudo-military Scientologist henchmen.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Lyle Stuart (June 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081840499X
• ISBN-13: 978-0818404993
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Other Practices > Scientology

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

176 of 187 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars science fiction religion, March 13, 2005

By 

William R. Harwood (somewhere in Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (Hardcover)

A Piece of Blue Sky is not the latest expose of the Scientology scam. More recent dissections of brainwashing cults have touched on Scientology. But there has not been a later book sufficiently focused to justify including the word Scientology in the title, perhaps because Atack does such a thorough job of exposing this moneymaking scam posing as a religion, that there is little more to say.
Human beings are not descended from any terrestrial lifeforms. The first humans were brought to earth by benevolent aliens millennia ago from a galaxy far, far away. If you believe that, you are not necessarily a Scientologist. But if you are a Scientologist, you are required to believe it, since the alternative is to recognize that you have been hoaxed by a cult that originated in the imagination of L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer with such total contempt for anyone who could take his fantasy seriously, that he gloated to an associate, "Let's sell these people a piece of blue sky." When the associate expressed skepticism, Hubbard bet him that he could invent a new religion and have it showing a profit within a year. He won the bet. While no other evidence survives that Hubbard had a sense of humor, his naming the aliens' home planet "Arslycus" cannot have been a random choice.
But while it was L. Ron Hubbard who first organized the conspiracy to pass off science fiction as a religion, the cult leaders' true role model was Benito Mussolini. When A Piece of Blue Sky was first published, the Scientology hierarchy were able to intimidate Amazon into removing it from their catalogue, out of fear of the vicious reprisals that got eleven members of the cult, including Hubbard's wife, convicted and jailed in 1979. In 1978 Hubbard was himself convicted of fraud in a French court, in absentia, and sentenced to four years imprisonment. Amazon only relisted the book when public outrage threatened them with more serious financial consequences than even Hubbard's enforcers could inflict.
Much of Atack's book is an analysis of Hubbard's own published accounts of his life, which are so impossible to harmonize into a single biographical chronology, that the only reasonable conclusion is that they are a pack of lies from start to finish.
A judge of the High Court of London in 1984 ruled that, "Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious.... It is corrupt because it is based on lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power." An American judge ruled, "The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar."
That Scientology is a criminally felonious swindle is the recorded judgement of law courts in America, England and France, and governments in Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and Germany.
See my unabridged review in, Where Is George Washington Now That America Really Needs Him?

115 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, courageous piece of journalism..., July 21, 2002

By 

Brett Weir (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (Hardcover)

Considering Scientology's penchant for suing everyone and anything (they even sued Time/Warner when Time Magazine called Scientology a "cult of greed and power"), this book took a lot of guts to write, and the author and publisher should be applauded.

Living in Los Angeles, I have met people whose lives have been destroyed by Scientology, and it is creepy driving down Hollywood Boulevard and seeing how much real estate the "church" owns. (I recommend, for a good laugh, people check out the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit.) That the group can afford so much premium property in one of the most expensive districts in the country is indicative of the millions of dollars "donated" by so many weak-minded, hapless people.

This book unmercifully exposes the cult for what it is, as seen first-hand by former members. Even if one has no interest in Scientology, it is a fascinating commentary on human behavior vis-a-vis modern cults. Atack's work is indicative that, in the face of brain-washed celebrities pushing Scientology, there is still some sanity left in the world.

274 of 304 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Despite legal threats, Jon Atack stands vindicated, June 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (Hardcover)

As I type this review, "A Piece of Blue Sky" still remains firmly within the top 1000 sellers here at Amazon after years of obscurity. Ironically, if it weren't for the aggressive efforts by the Church of Scientology to eradicate this book, it probably would have disappeared off the shelves years ago. The Scientologists ought to apply the lesson learned ten years ago during the controversy over Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses": Threaten it, and it gains notoriety.

"A Piece of Blue Sky" is one of those Books Scientology Doesn't Want You to Read. As they did with "Bare-Faced Messiah," Russell Miller's excellent biography of founder L. Ron Hubbard (unfortunately now out of print, although available on the Web with the author's blessing), the Church has attempted to stop publication of this book. They will tell you it is libelous. It is not - it has been challenged in the courts and vindicated. They will tell you it has been banned in Britain. It has not - one single paragraph did not meet Great Britain's stricter standards for documentation, and was removed (the book survives unexpurgated elsewhere). Given the Scientologists' well-known habit of aggressively defending their interests in the courts, surely they must accept the authority of the courts in this case, as well?

In addition, "A Piece of Blue Sky" will tell you Things Scientology Doesn't Want You to Know. If you read the Scientologists' own publication, "What is Scientology?", for example, you will learn that during the late 1970s, the Guardian's Office (GO) of the Church was "infiltrated and set up to fail." Criminal elements within the GO supposedly overstepped their authority, infiltrating and burglarizing government offices to steal files concerned with the Church, without the knowledge or approval of L. Ron Hubbard. These criminal elements, we are told, were caught, prosecuted, and "forever banned from Church employment." Will Scientology tell you that these convicted criminals included Hubbard's own wife, who was running the GO? Will they tell you that Hubbard himself, though unindicted, was named a co-conspirator in the trial? No, but Atack fills in the blanks that the Scientologists' PR department would rather have left unfilled. One wonders why the Church is quick to volunteer unsavoury details about Atack and his book, yet remains strangely silent when it comes to its own embarrassing moments . . .

I found Atack's writing style a little threadbare in spots. Also, I wish he had devoted more space to examining the space-opera "theology" of the Church. "A Piece of Blue Sky" is nonetheless compelling reading, and well-documented. This book is one of the must-reads for anyone interested in the Church of Scientology, the true story of which is often weirder and more fascinating than Hubbard's pulp science fiction.