Flunk, start : reclaiming my decade lost in Scientology / Sands Hall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hall, Sands, author.

Contributor:

Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hall, Sands.

Ex-church members--United States--Biography.

Ex-church members.

Scientologists--United States--Biography.

Scientologists.

Scientology.

United States.

RELIGION / Scientology.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious.

RELIGION / Faith.

Local Subjects:

RELIGION / Scientology.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious.

RELIGION / Faith.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xix, 392 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2018.

Summary:

"In Flunk. Start., Sands Hall chronicles her slow yet willing absorption into the Church of Scientology. Her time in the Church, the 1980s, includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. Hall compellingly reveals what drew her into the religion--what she found intriguing and useful--and how she came to confront its darker sides. As a young woman from a literary family striving to forge her own way as an artist, Hall ricochets between the worlds of Shakespeare, avant-garde theater, and soap opera, until her brilliant elder brother, playwright Oakley Hall III, falls from a bridge and suffers permanent brain damage. In the secluded canyons of Hollywood, she finds herself increasingly drawn toward the certainty that Scientology appears to offer. In this candid and nuanced memoir, Hall recounts her spiritual and artistic journey with a visceral affection for language, delighting in the way words can create a shared world. However, as Hall begins to grasp how purposefully Hubbard has created the unique language of Scientology--in the process isolating and indoctrinating its practitioners--she confronts how language can also be used as a tool of authoritarianism. Hall is a captivating guide, and Flunk. Start. explores how she has found meaning and purpose within that decade that for so long she thought of as lost; how she has faced the "flunk" represented by those years, and has embraced a way to "start" anew."--Jacket flap.

Contents:

I Nothing Better to Be

We need you to be a zealot 3

Claptrap 11

Enthusiastic devotion to a cause 16

If God exists, why is he such a bastard? 22

Training Routines 25

Dancing through life 34

This is so weird! 37

Saint Catherine's wheel 41

He was kind of a nutcase 45

Nothing better to be 48

She went Clear last lifetime! 52

You do know C. S. Lewis was a Christian? 62

Imagine a plane 68

Age of Aquarius 74

Guilt is good 80

I'm me, I'm me, I'm me 84

Wills and things 89

II The Whole Agonized Future of This Planet

You do know that guy's a Scientologist? 97

Your brother's had an accident 106

Please, please, please don't take his mind 115

That's that Scientology stuff he does 124

Hope springs eternal 133

That's Source! 144

How much electricity? 154

A comb, perhaps a cat 164

Flunk. Start. 172

You could take a look at Doubt 181

The Ethics Officer 189

Every sorrow in this world comes down to a misunderstood word 196

The true sense of the word 205

Sunny 214

Gah 225

Imagination? 233

What is true for you is true for you 240

He has simply moved on to his next level 253

Because, you know, you did just turn thirty-six 262

Anasazi 272

Binding back 280

That spiritual stuff does matter 290

III After Such a Storm

Modernism? 301

It doesn't matter 311

Spit happens 322

The loss of nameless things 328

Pilgrimage season 336

Who never left her brother for dead 342

After such a storm 347

Treasure 352.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-392).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9781619021785

1619021781

OCLC:

1014010558

Publisher Number:

99976532947