"A Piece Of Blue Sky" by John Atack I'm not sure if this link has been posted yet, but you can read the book "A Piece Of Blue Sky" by John Atack online, or download it for free. http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/apobs/ It's a great read and is a comprehensive and well sourced account of L Ron Hubbard and the history of the church. It's also got a great account of the take over of the church by its current lead David Miscavige. Atack was incredibly high up in the church and this is a excellent way to learn how the church came to be what it is today. More info on Atack and the book here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Atack Much credit to Atack and Operation Clambake for making this available
From the book: "It was 1950, in the early, heady days of Dianetics, soon after L. Ron Hubbard opened the doors of his first organization to the clamoring crowd. Up until then, Hubbard was known only to readers of pulp fiction, but now he had an instant best-seller with a book that promised to solve every problem of the human mind, and the cash was pouring in. Hubbard found it easy to create schemes to part his new following from their money. One of the first tasks was to arrange "grades" of membership, offering supposedly greater rewards, at increasingly higher prices. Over thirty years later, an associate wryly remembered Hubbard turning to him and confiding, no doubt with a smile, "Let's sell these people a piece of blue sky." If there's one thing that can be said about Hubbard he definitely knew what he was doing.
