Plenty of America found out what it’s like to be an operating thetan on Sunday by tuning in to HBO’s premiere of the Scientology documentary, “Going Clear.” Its 1.7 million viewers provided the network with its most-watched doc premiere since Spike Lee’s two-part 2006 Hurricane Katrina film, “When the Levees Broke,” which accrued 1.75 million.

Those 1.7 million viewers reflect the premiere telecast, meaning the number does not include HBO Go streams, DVR views or the encore that aired on Monday night. It’s a particularly strong statistic given the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was given a limited theatrical release earlier this month.

By now, we probably don’t need to reiterate just how incendiary “Going Clear” is to Scientology. Based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book of the same name, the Alex Gibney film been roundly blasted as “one-sided, bigoted propaganda” by the Church of Scientology. For more, read this, this and this.