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A Piece of Blue Sky Scientology, Dianetics & L. Ron Hubbard Exposed
By Jon Atack
Text is © Jon Atack 1990
This book was
reproduced gratefully from:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
He has consulted on three other books relating to this subject, as well as with various British newspapers, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, CBS, CBC and The British Medical Association. He lives near Nottingham, England
PART 1: 2. Saint Hill 3. On to OT
PART 2:
PART 3: 3. Wichita 7. The World's First Real Clear
PART 4:
2. Heavy Ethics 3. The Empire Strikes Back 4. The Death of Susan Meister 5. Hubbard's Travels 6. The Flag Land Base
PART 5:
2. Infiltration 3.
Operation Meisner
PART 6:
2. The Rise of the Messengers 3. The Young Rulers 4. The Clearwater Hearings 5. The Religious Technology Center and the International Finance Police
PART 7:
2. The Scientology War 3. Splintering 4. Stamp Out the Squirrels!
PART 8:
1. Scientology at Law 2. The Child Custody Case 3. Signing the Pledge 4. Dropping the Body 5. After Hubbard
PART 9: 1. The Founder 2. The Scientologist 3. Fair Game, Ethics and the Scriptures Epilogue Bibliography List of Abbreviations
My particular thanks are due to my three good friends Mitch Beedie, Lawrence Kristiansen and George Shaw. Mitch Beedie has been a constant source of encouragement, support and editorial insight throughout six years of research and writing. Lawrence Kristiansen has proved to be an invaluable resource, sharing freely his knowledge and understanding of Scientology. His meticulous research, and his painstaking editing, helped me to focus ever more closely on the subject matter. George Shaw also signed up as an unpaid (and exceptional) researcher, gave me the benefit of his considerable knowledge of Scientology, and provided fascinating perspectives on Hubbard's character and motives. This book is based upon statements made by over 150 individuals whether in interviews, correspondence, taped talks, published accounts, affidavits or sworn testimony. Those of my sources whose statements were made publicly, and those who have given permission, are named in the reference summary. I am grateful to them all and to the many people who have asked to remain anonymous, for reasons which the book should make clear. In return for access to my manuscript and my collaboration as a consultant, Russell Miller made his interview notes available to me, and for this and our friendly working relationship I am most grateful. l also wish to express my thanks to Dave Waiters and the staff of the Montana Historical Society; to Ron Neuman for access to his collection of Hubbard letters and first editions; and to Brenda Yates and Carol Kanda for ensuring that I received the 28 volumes of the transcript of the Armstrong case. Without Brenda these vital documents would not have become available in the first place. Gratitude is also due to those authors whose work made my own less daunting: the late Joseph Winter, Martin Gardner, the late Helen O'Brien, George Malko, Paulette Cooper, Cyril Vosper, Bob Kaufman, the late Christopher Evans, C.H. Rolph, John Forte and most especially Roy Wallis for The Road to Total Freedom. I am also in debt to the St. Petersburg Times and the Clearwater Sun for their excellent coverage of Scientology. I am grateful to the many friends who have revived my sometimes flagging spirits on the long road to publication. Gratitude is due especially to: Robyn, Joy, Fiona, Joyce, Marcia, Sam, Gall, Hana, Gay, John, Greg, Sarge, Marcus, Lew, Chris, Callan, Otto, my parents, my brother Andrew, and my wife, Noella. The litigious nature of the Scientologists has frightened most publishers into silence. Lyle Stuart and Steven Schragis were not intimidated, and I am extremely grateful to them. Finally, my thanks to our attorney, Mel Wulf, for his patient attention to detail; to my editor Bob Smith; and to all at Carol Publishing Group for making this book a published reality.
Several years ago, when I began making inquiries into the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard, almost the first name that was mentioned to me was that of Jon Atack. Subsequently it was a name that would crop up time and time again. Almost anyone who knew anything about Hubbard invariably suggested that I should talk to Jon Atack. Of course by then I had talked to Jon and discovered him to be one of the world's foremost unofficial archivists of the Church of Scientology. In the loft of his house in East Grinstead, he had collected literally thousands of documents, letters, pamphlets, books and pictures, all of it indexed and cross-referenced on computer. For anyone interested in the history and development of Scientology, it is a treasure trove of reliable information on a subject positively riddied with deeply unreliable information. At some time in the future, the Atack archive will be lodged with an academic institution in order that it will be forever available to future researchers. Jon was extremely generous with his time, knowledge and help while I was working on my biography of Hubbard and I am therefore delighted to write this brief preface to his own much more comprehensive and wide-ranging book. It is, in essence, a distillation of his extraordinary attic archive and thus provides the reader with a dispassionate, thoroughly documented account of how Scientology was created and nourished by a struggling science-fiction writer, how it grew into a worldwide organization and how it has managed to dominate (and damage) so many thousands of lives. Because this book recounts the stark truth about Scientology, it is certain to provoke the ferocious hostility of practicing Scientologists around the world. Anyone who dares to publicly criticize the Church of Scientology or its founder is liable to be viiifled and hounded through the courts, as I can personally testify. (Although it is a mystery to me that Scientologists continue to believe that their founder was a man with the highest regard for the truth, whereas the records consistently indicate that he was a charlatan and a congenital liar.) Jon Atack is a former member of the Church of Scientology and I have no doubt that he will be attacked as a turncoat and traitor seeking to cause damage to his former church. All I can say is that over the months and years of our association I never doubted that his motives were decent and honest; I never felt for a moment that he was spurred by malice or any unworthy desire to settle old scores. It is my firm conviction that Jon began to assemble his archive because he had become aware that he had been fed untruths for years and he simply wanted the truth to be known about the antecedents and antics of his former church and its founder. It is for this reason that he willingly cooperated with me when I was writing my book, never offering opinions or information without comprehensive documentation to back it up. Jon Atack believes that people have the right to know the truth about Scientology. That belief is the laudable genesis of this book.
RUSSELL MILLER
Scientology is among the oldest, largest, richest, and most powerful of contemporary cults. The "Church" of Scientology, first incorporated in 1953, claims to have seven million members, and reserves of a thousand million dollars. There are nearly 200 Scientology "Missions" and "Churches" spread across the globe. During the 1970's, cults became big business and big news. Yet in the welter of books published about these "new religious movements," there has been no real history of Scientology. This is rather surprising, because the history of Scientology is at turns outrageous, hilarious and sinister. Accurate information about Scientology is scarce because the cult is both secretive and highly committed to silencing its critics. A few sociologists have argued that involvement in any cult is usually short-lived and sometimes beneficial. However, after four years of research, including interviews with over a thousand former cult members, researchers Conway and Siegelman came to very different conclusions about Scientology: "The reports we have seen and heard in the course of our research... are replete with allegations of psychological devastation, economic exploitation, and personal and legal harassment of former members and journalists who speak out against the cult…" 1 Making a comparison with the tens of other cults in their study, they said: "Scientology's may be the most debilitating set of rituals of any cult in America." 2 Scientology, a peculiar force in our society, escapes tidy definition. The "Church" of Scientology claims religious status; yet at times Scientology represents itself as a psychotherapy, a set of business techniques, an educational system for children or a drug rehabilitation program. Officers of the Church belong to the largely landbound "Sea Organization," and wear pseudo-Naval uniforms, complete with campaign ribbons, colored lanyards, and badges of rank, giving Scientology a paramilitary air. Although Scientology has no teachings about God, Scientologists sometimes don the garb of Christian ministers. The teachings of Scientology are held out not only as scientifically proven, but also as scriptural, and therefore beyond question. Scientology was also the first cult to establish itself as a multinational business with marketing, public relations, legal and even intelligence departments. Scientology is also unusual because it is not an extension of a particular traditional religion. It is a complex and apparently complete set of beliefs, techniques and rituals assembled by one man: L. Ron Hubbard. During the 36 years between the publication of his first psychotherapeutic text and his death in 1986, Hubbard constructed what appears to be one of the most elaborate belief systems of all time. The sheer volume of material daunts most investigators. Several thousand Hubbard lectures were tape-recorded, and his books, pamphlets and directives run to tens of thousands of pages. In 1984, judges in England and America condemned both Hubbard and Scientology. Justice Latey, in a child custody case in London, said: "Deprival of property, injury by any means, trickery, suing, lying or destruction have been pursued [by the Scientologists] throughout and to this day with the fullest vigour," and further: "Mr. Hubbard is a charlatan and worse as are his wife Mary Sue Hubbard... and the clique at the top privy to the Cult's activities." In America, dismissing a case brought against a former member by the Scientologists, Judge Breckenridge said: "In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization over the years ... has harassed and abused those persons not within the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH [L. Ron Hubbard]. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile." The evidence cited by Judge Breckenridge consisted of some 10,000 pages of material forming pan of Hubbard's personal archive, including his teenage diaries, a black magic ceremony called the "Blood Ritual," and hundreds of personal letters to and from his three wives. Some of these documents were read into the record, and others released as exhibits. The picture they reveal is very different from Hubbard's representations about his life. Nevertheless, Hubbard's personal history is one of the great adventure stories of the 20th century. A penny-a-word science-fiction writer who created an immense and dedicated organization to act out his grandiose ideas on a global scale, Hubbard commanded the devotion of his followers, who revere him as the greatest man who has ever lived. At the height of his power, Hubbard controlled a personal intelligence network which successfully infiltrated newspapers, medical and psychiatric associations throughout the world, and even a number of United States government agencies. Eleven of Hubbard's subordinates, including his wife, received prison sentences for their part in these criminal activities. There is also something tantalizing in the psychotherapeutic techniques which are at the core of Scientology. Cult devotees are sometimes seen as adolescent, half-witted zombies easily coerced into joining an enslaving group because of their inadequacy. But Scientology has attracted medical doctors, lawyers, space scientists and graduates of the finest universities in the world. One British and two Danish Members of Parliament once belonged to Scientology. Even psychologists, psychiatrists and sociologists have been enthusiastic practitioners of Hubbard's techniques. And such people have often parted with immense sums of money to pay for Scientology counselling which can cost as much as $1,000 per hour. Hubbard's ideas have inspired many imitators, and several contemporary "psycho-technologies" and New Age movements derive from Scientology (est, eckancar and co-counselling, for example). Any assessment of Scientology is further complicated because it has demonstrably been the target of harassment. A Tax Court judge admitted in a ruling that the IRS had investigated Scientologists solely because they were Scientologists. Governments have panicked and over-reacted: for example, for several years in three Australian states the very practice of Scientology was an imprisonable offence. The secret inner workings of Scientology have long been zealously guarded, but in 1982, two years after Hubbard disappeared into complete seclusion, a purge began and the Church began to disintegrate. Hundreds of long-term Scientologists, many of whom had held important positions within the Church, were excommunicated and expelled. They were placed under the interdict of "Disconnection," whereby other Scientologists were prohibited from communicating with them in any way. At a rally in San Francisco, young members of the new management harangued and threatened executives of Scientology's franchised "Missions." While the newly created International Finance Dictator spoke, his scowling, black-shirted International Finance Police patrolled the aisles. Huge amounts of money were demanded from the Mission Holders. In the following weeks, Scientology's Finance Police swooped down on the Missions collecting millions of dollars and almost bankrupting the entire network. Hubbard had styled himself the "Commodore" of his "Sea Organization," and by 1982, the new leaders, some still in their teens, were members of the "Commodore's Messenger Organization." Many of these youngsters had been raised in Scientology, separated from their parents, originally working as Hubbard's personal servants. Anonymous letters describing incredible events circulated among Scientologists. We read about Gilman Hot Springs, a 500 acre estate in south California, surrounded by high fences, patrolled by brownshirted guards, and protected by an elaborate and expensive security system. We heard accounts of bizarre punishments meted out at this supposedly secret headquarters. A group of senior Church executives had been put on a program where they ran around a tree in near desert conditions for twelve hours a day, for weeks on end. Some Scientologists gave accounts of their treatment at the hands of the International Finance Police, where they had been abused verbally and physically, sometimes signing over huge amounts of money before coming to their senses. During this reign of terror, thousands of Scientologists left the Church, believing that Hubbard was either dead or under the control of the Messengers. These new "Independent" practitioners of Scientology were subjected to prolonged and extensive harassment and litigation. Private Investigators followed important defectors, sometimes around the clock for months. The Church widely distributed scandal sheets packed with fabricated libels concerning defectors. The essential question which plagued Scientologists who had left the Church was whether Hubbard knew what was happening. By the time Hubbard's death was announced in January 1986, many Scientologists believed his body had been deep-frozen for several years. Others believed he was still alive, that the coroner had been bribed, and that his death had been staged to escape the net of the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Internal Revenue Service, which was investigating the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars of Church funds into Hubbard's personal accounts. As part of its campaign to stem the tide of defectors, Scientology brought law suits against several former members. In return, multimillion dollar counter-suits were filed against Scientology. In 1986, a Los Angeles jury awarded $30 million in damages to a former Church member. On the last day of 1986, a group of over 400 former members initiated a billion dollar suit against the Church. Former highly-placed Hubbard aides broke silence for the first time. The documentary evidence referred to by Judge Breckenridge pierced the self-created fantasy of Hubbard's past. The sinister reality beneath the smiling mask of the Church of Scientology was at last revealed. FOOTNOTES 1. Snapping, Conway and Siegelman, p. 161. 2. "Information Disease," Conway and Siegelman, Science Digest, January 1982.
PART ONE:
It was 1974 and I was nineteen. I had just returned to England after a disastrous tour of the South of France only to find that my girlfriend, with whom I had been living for over a year, had been sleeping with one of my friends and was going to live with him in New Zealand. A few weeks later while alone at a friend's house, I found a copy of Hubbard's book Science of Survival. After reading 200 pages, I was hooked. I was impressed by Hubbard's insistence that his "Dianetics" was not dependent on faith, but was completely scientific. The book began with an impressive array of graphs purportedly depicting increases in IQ and betterment of personality through Dianetics, which appeared to have undergone extensive testing. Dianetics claimed to be an extension of Freudian therapy. By re-experiencing unconfronted traumas it was allegedly possible to unravel the deep-seated stimulus-response patterns which ruin people's lives. Hubbard departed from Freud by denying that sexual repressions were basic to human aberration. He promised a new and balanced emotional outlook through the application of Dianetics. It seemed that Dianetics had been absorbed by Scientology. Science of Survival contained an out-dated list of Scientology Churches. Eventually I found a phone number for the "Birmingham Mission of the Church of Scientology." After a few minutes of conversation, the receptionist insisted that I take a train immediately. About three hours later, after a complicated journey, I arrived at the "Mission." It was over a launderette in Moseley village, at that time the dowdy home of the Birmingham hippy community. The receptionist sat behind an old desk at the head of the steep stairs. It was just after six in the evening, and the rest of the Mission staff had gone home to take a break before returning for the evening session. The receptionist was in her early twenties, and had abandoned a career in teaching to become a full-time Scientologist. She was cheerful and self-assured, and she looked me straight in the eye. She exuded confidence that Scientology was the stuff of miracles. I mentioned my interest in Buddhism, so she gave me a Scientology magazine called Advance! which claimed that Scientology was its modern successor. I was passionately interested, but she would not trust me to take a copy of Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and pay the next day. Perhaps to her surprise, I did return the next day and bought the book. I spent the Christmas season locked away with my misery and "Dianetics." The 400 pages took ten days to read. The book was turgid and difficult, but I was not interested in Hubbard's style, I was interested in Dianetic therapy. Hubbard claimed to have found the source of all human unhappiness. Dianetics would eradicate depression, and the seventy percent of all ailments which Hubbard claimed are mentally generated, or "psychosomatic." According to Hubbard's book, each of us has a stimulus-response mind which records all trauma. This "Reactive Mind" is hidden from the conscious or "Analytical Mind." When elements of an environment resemble those of an earlier traumatic incident, the Reactive Mind cuts in and enforces irrational behavior upon the individual. The Reactive Mind is idiotic, and tries to resolve present situations by regurgitating a jumble of responses from its recording of the traumatic incident. Failing to see the cause of this irrational behavior, the Analytical Mind justifies it, in exactly the way a hypnotized subject justifies his enactment of implanted suggestions. According to Hubbard, the deepest personal traumas were moments of unconsciousness or pain, which he called "engrams." By relieving engrams an individual could erase the Reactive Mind and become well-balanced, happy and completely rational. The earliest engram would have occurred before birth, and would be the "basic" of all subsequent engrams. Those who had relieved this original engram, and consequently erased their Reactive Mind, Hubbard called "Clears." People receiving Dianetics were "Preclears." I began to absorb this elaborate and complex new language. More recent incidents would have to be relieved before the Preclear would be capable of reliving his birth and his experiences in the womb. I was wary of Hubbard's constant assertion that most parents try to abort their children, but glossed over it, thinking his initial research must have been done on rather strange people. What severe "engrams" had I received? Because so much emphasis was put on birth and the prenatal period, I asked my mother about her pregnancy. Her answers horrified me. After an emergency operation to treat a twisted ovary, the doctor had told her she was pregnant. The doctor said he had held the evidence (me) in his hand. A very nasty "prenatal engram" indeed; perhaps explaining my backache, my slight near-sightedness, or my current intense depression. I was a romantic teenager, deeply upset by the end of a love affair. I wanted help and I thought that L. Ron Hubbard could provide that help. A year before, a Zen teacher had warned me to join only groups where all the members had something I wanted. The people I met at the Scientology "Mission" all seemed unusually cheerful. They were confident and positive about life. Qualities I sorely needed. l had met Moonies, Hare Krishnas, and Children of God, but Scientologists had an easy cheerfulness, not the hysterical euphoria I had seen in these "cult" converts. Within a few weeks, I moved into the house where most of the Mission staff lived. I asked my Scientologist roommate if he had any pet hates. He smiled broadly and said, "Only wogs." I was startled, and launched into a defense of dark-skinned people. He laughed, and explained that "wog" was a Hubbardism for all "non-Scientologists." This gave me pause for thought, but I dismissed it as an unfortunate turn of phrase. I thought that Hubbard probably did not realize how racially offensive the term is in Great Britain. I became intrigued by the many claims Hubbard had made about himself. In the 1930s he had been an explorer. A trained nuclear physicist, he had applied the rigorous precision of Western science to the profound philosophy of the East, which he had encountered at first hand in his teens in China, Tibet and India. One of Freud's disciples had trained him in psychoanalysis. During the Second World War Hubbard had distinguished himself as a squadron commander in the U.S. Navy, sinking U-boats and receiving no less than 27 medals and awards. 1 The end of the war found him in a military hospital, "crippled and blinded." 2 Applying scientific method to Eastern philosophy, and combining the results with Freudian analysis, Hubbard claimed to have cured himself completely. Out of this miracle cure came Dianetics. Because of his experience of "man's inhumanity to man" in the war, he had continued his research and brought Scientology into being. 3 The young woman who ran the Scientology Mission was attractive, intelligent, and bubbling with enthusiasm. She was a "Clear," having "erased" her Reactive Mind, and seemed living proof of the efficacy of the system. The five Mission staff members generated a friendly atmosphere. They listened to whatever I had to say and steered me towards a more optimistic state of mind. I was convinced that they were genuinely interested in my well-being, and found their positive attitude very helpful. Scientology Organizations are eager to make new converts, and all Scientologists who are not Organization staff members are designated "Field Staff Members," or FSMs, and are expected to recruit new people. Desperately wanting to help, I became a full-time FSM. Before I really knew anything about Scientology, I was recruiting everyone I could. I did "body-routing" from the street, which is to say "routing" people's "bodies" into the Mission. I was "drilled" step by step, by an experienced Scientologist. Pretending to be a member of the public, the coach dreamed up situations. If I made a mistake the coach would say "flunk," and the mistake would be explained. Then the coach would repeat the phrase and the gestures ! had mishandled. Through the drills I was meant to become confident in real life situations. The drills often took strange turns. One coach asked if I wanted to "screw" her. I was flunked for not simply excusing myself. She explained that we were not trying to interest prostitutes in Scientology. Homosexuals, Communists, journalists and the mentally deranged were not to be approached either. Scientology's goal was to "make the able more able." I would introduce myself to someone on the street as if I was conducting a survey. I would ask "What would you most like to be?" then "most like to do?" then "have?" The questions were purely a device to start people talking. As soon as they did, I would slip into Hubbard's "Dissemination drill" 4 by saying I was a Scientologist, and dealing with any negative response by attacking the person's source of information. If someone said, "Didn't the Australians ban Scientology?" I would say, "Where did you hear that?" They would almost inevitably say, "In the newspapers." This could often be dismissed with "Well, you can't believe anything you read in the papers," diverting attention from the complaint. It sounds remarkable, but many people would agree and abandon their criticism. This trained lactic underlies Scientology's self-defense: divert the critic, attack the source not the information. Next, I was told to direct the person to their "ruin": whatever they thought was ruining their life. I would keep asking questions until they showed genuine emotion about some aspect of their life. Then I was supposed to "bring them to understanding" by letting them know that whatever their problem was, there was a Scientology course that dealt with it. "You're frightened of dying? Scientology has a course that can help you! .... Oh, yes, Scientology can help you with your asthma!" I was told to say these things, and I believed what I was saying. The course which would help their problem, from obesity to pre-menstrual tension, was always the "Communication Course." I would take an interested person to the Mission, and hand them over to a "Registrar" to be given a lengthy Scientology personality test, or a free introductory lecture. I took many strangers into the Mission, and most of my friends. Several started courses, though most drifted away without finishing. The yellow walls of the Mission were covered with small notices, newspaper clippings about Scientology "wins," testimonials ("Success Stories"), and Hubbard quotes: "Scientology leads to success in any walk of life," for instance. The Mission consisted of a course room, an office, a tiny kitchen, a lavatory, and two counselling rooms. The course room could hold about 30 people, but most of the time only a few students were present. The receptionist doubled as a Course Supervisor. In the evenings seasoned Scientologists would arrive to take more advanced courses. Among these were a bank manager and his wife, who held a senior position with the county Health Authority. I also did drills with the managing director of an engraving business, and with an active Quaker. They were all very encouraging about the benefits they felt they had experienced because of Scientology. I expected to take a short course in Dianetics, and then start shifting my engrams around. This was not to be. In the quarter century since the publication of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard had allegedly conducted a great deal of research, and the original procedure was now outmoded. A rigidly defined series of steps constituted the Scientology "Bridge." It was possible to receive counselling for a fee, or to train as a counselor and co-counsel with another student for free. There were several courses involved, but before Mission staff would even discuss the cost, they insisted that I do the Communication, or "Comm," Course. The Comm Course is the beginning of most Scientology careers. Hubbard claimed to have been the first person to scientifically dissect communication. The Comm Course drills are called Training Routines, or TRs. 5 The first two TRs are similar to meditation. They are supposed to help you focus your attention on the person you are talking to. Two people sit facing each other, without speaking or moving. In the first drill (OT TR-0) they sit with their eyes closed, in the second (TR-0) open and staring at one another. These drills are often done for hours without pause, and form part of most Scientology courses. As with meditation, I hallucinated while doing the open-eyed TR-0. My coach explained vaguely that people who had taken drugs often experienced this. In fact, hallucination is not unusual for anyone who stares fixedly for long enough, but I did not realize this, and was genuinely concerned. The next step is "TR-0 Bullbait." One student baits the other, verbally and through gestures, trying to disturb the recipient's motionless composure. If the recipient moves, laughs, speaks, or even blinks excessively, the coach "flunks" him. It is presumed that something the coach said or did provoked the reaction, so the drill is restarted, and the coach tries to repeat the earlier stimulus exactly. This is done until there is no reaction from the recipient. I was first "bullbaited" by a dour, middle-aged house painter who had little time for me. In "bullbaiting," the coach can do anything save leave his chair; so he sat and insulted me, told obscene jokes, and pulled faces until I stopped responding. The idea is to find "buttons" which when pushed force an immediate reaction and, through drilling, to overcome these reactions, allowing a more considered response to real-life stimuli. His main approach was to insist that because I had long hair I must be a homosexual. It took about two hours before I attained immobility in the face of this onslaught. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment. The next Training Routine, TR-1, is supposed to teach the student to speak audibly and coherently, and to teach him to ask written questions in a natural way. In TR-1, the student reads lines at random from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland; he "makes the line his own," and then repeats it to the coach. The coach must hear clearly what is said, and feel it was intended that he hear it. A course room full of people declaiming, "Off with his head!" or "Contrariwise" is one of many surreal experiences Scientology provides. TR-2 deals with acknowledgments. In counselling it is necessary to show you've heard, so you say "Good," "Thank-you," "Okay," or something similar. This ends what Hubbard calls a "cycle of communication," and prepares the way for a new "cycle." The coach reads a line from Alice in Wonderland and the student acknowledges it. By the time the student comes to TR-3, he has learned to concentrate on the person in front of him and not be thrown by his reactions. The student has also learned to make sure that he is clearly audible, and to show he has heard what is said to him. The lessons of the earlier TRs must be retained throughout the course. In TR-3, the student learns to repeat an unanswered question without variation. TRs were designed for Scientology counsellors, and Hubbard's counselling questions are exactly worded. To prevent the drilling from turning into counselling, two non-sensitive questions are used: either "Do birds fly?" or "Do fish swim?" If the coach answers, the student accepts the answer by acknowledging it. If the coach does anything else, the student says, "I'll repeat the question," and does so. TR-4, the last Training Routine on the Comm Course, drills the student to "handle originalions" made by the coach, and to return his attention to the original question. For example:
Over the years I persuaded about 20 people to do the Communication Course. I instructed some of them, or in Scientology terms "supervised," as Hubbard's course materials do all the talking, and the supervisor adds nothing by way of explanation or comment. He meets the confused student's queries with, "What do your materials state?" This is supposed to ensure that Hubbard's materials are not altered by personal interpretations. The Comm Course helps people to hide, though not overcome, their nervousness, and to look people "right in the eye." It also inculcates persistence with questions until they are answered. It can have a positive effect, generating self-confidence. Of course, people on the receiving end sometimes feel intimidated. Critics of Scientology usually mention the "relentless stare" which for the great majority of Scientologists is habitual. After completing the Comm Course, I was allowed a few pounds against the "Hubbard Qualified Scientologist Course" for all the people I had brought in. Scientology usually pays a 10 or 15 percent commission for recruitment. I was already too involved in Scientology to realize I had been working for the Mission for several weeks without pay. The Hubbard Qualified Scientologist (HQS) Course packages many of the basic ideas of Scientology. The student does the Comm Course Training Routines again, and four additional Training Routines called the "Upper Indoctrination TRs." These drill the student to maintain control of someone through physical contact, but more so through "intention," or sheer will power - really by having a very determined approach. On the HQS course I learned about several of Hubbard's many "Scales," among them the key Scale of Scientology: the "Emotional Tone Scale." Hubbard believed that there is a natural progression of emotional states, and that any individual can be led through these simply by conversation. The purported idea of Scientology counselling is to permanently raise the Preclear on the "Tone Scale." The scale rises from Death through Apathy, to Grief, to Sympathy, to Fear, to Hostility, to Boredom, to Cheerfulness, to Enthusiasm. Scientology seeks to take someone who is apathetic, miserable, anxious, or antagonistic and make of him someone cheerful and positive. While on the HQS Course, I had my first stab at "auditing," or counselling. A friend and I drilled the procedures using an over-size rag doll as the Preclear receiving counselling. One of us would be the "Auditor," and the other the coach, making verbal responses on the rag doll's behalf. Despite painstaking drilling, my first Auditor collapsed while giving me a session. He was asking me to touch objects in the room, one by one, and suddenly crumpled against the wall, sinking to the floor in uncontrollable laughter. The artificial atmosphere of auditing was too much for him. I was unprepared for this, and felt dizzy and confused. A seasoned Auditor gave me a "Review," asking questions about the session and "earlier similar incidents." After 20 minutes I felt better. To me it seemed to prove Scientology's validity. Considering myself a Zen Buddhist, I readily accepted Hubbard's ideas about reincarnation. He said that during counselling so many people had spontaneously volunteered "past life" incidents that he had had to accept it as a reality. Auditing is virtually impossible without such a belief. By the time I became involved in Scientology, "Clear" was no longer the ultimate attainment; now there were levels beyond. Hubbard used the word "thetan" to describe the spirit, the "being himself," and beyond "Clear" were the "Operating Thetan" (OT) levels. Here the individual would purportedly break away from the limitations of human existence. Having completed the "OT levels" one would be able to remember all of one's earlier lives, to "exteriorize" from the body at will and perform miraculous feats. Such ideas were completely foreign to me. Interest in psychic abilities is frowned upon in the Zen community as a distraction from the road to wisdom. What I wanted from Scientology was emotional equilibrium, so I could win my girlfriend back, make a successful career in the Arts, and concentrate on achieving Enlightenment. But gradually I was absorbed into the pursuit of the state of "Operating Thetan." By this time I had a fairly well developed picture of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. His voice on tape was rich and jocular. Photographs of Hubbard in Scientology magazines and on the walls of the Mission showed a smiling man, not a dry philosopher, but a man of action with a tremendous love for humanity, who had devoted his life to the solution of other men's ills. Hubbard seemed to be a true philanthropist; a learned man with a grasp of science and a comprehension of the mysteries. Hubbard had a sense of humor, and was given to anecdotes. He was not trying to impress anyone with his intellect, instead he wanted you to help yourself, and all mankind, by using the subject he had developed. This view of Hubbard is shared by all devoted Scientologists. By the summer of 1975 I was coming back onto an even keel. My life revolved around Scientology, and I had put my ex-girlfriend out of mind, although the subject had never been addressed in my counselling. I had abandoned those of my friends who were not interested in Scientology, because my lifestyle had changed so much, and I had made new friends - all of them Scientologists. I had a powerful feeling of comradeship for the Mission staff, and wanted to become one of their number. I knew that they took only a day off each week, and worked all the weekday evenings too. From their comments it was obvious that the pay was very low. Even so, I wanted to work with them. I was told that I would have to "petition" the Guardian's Office of the Church to obtain permission to join the Mission staff and that I would also have to become more highly qualified in Scientology. In order to qualify for staff, I would have to do Auditor training courses which were only available at a "Church of Scientology," or "Org" (for "Organization"). The nearest was in Manchester, and was in a partially condemned building in the Chinese district. Some of the walls had just been painted purple to try and brighten up the remarkably dingy premises. There was only one student there. The "Registrar" was too insistent, even belligerent. He seemed to take an immediate dislike to me. I decided to go to Saint Hill instead. FOOTNOTES 1. Flag Operations Liaisons Office East US letter to National Personnel Records Center, 28 May 1974. 2. Flag Divisional Directive 69RA. 3. FSM mag 1. 4. "The Dissemination Drill," Organization Executive Course vol. 6, p.112. 5. HCO Bulletin, "TRs remodernized," 16 August 71R.
Ron Hubbard bought Saint Hill Manor from the Maharajah of Jaipur in 1959. The Manor is on the edge of the hamlet of Saint Hill, a few miles from the small Sussex town of East Grinstead, 30 miles south of London. For eight years Saint Hill was the axis of the Scientology world, and many of Hubbard's research "breakthroughs" were made there. Following Hubbard's departure in 1967, Saint Hill remained a major Scientology center. I visited Saint Hill in August, 1975, to see whether to commit myself to six months of study there.
Saint Hill Manor, a large gray-stone building set in about 50 acres, was built by a retired soldier in the early eighteenth century. The house has a solid military severity, largely devoid of Georgian charm. By the time I arrived, students no longer studied in the Manor, but in the "castle," a peculiar folly on which construction had started in the mid-1960s and which was eventually finished in 1985. The word "castle" conjures images of an imposing Norman fortress, but Saint Hill "castle" is only a castle in the sense that it is faced with yellow stone and has a few turrets. As castles go, it is very small, especially considering the score of years invested in its construction. By 1975, only one single-story wing was finished. The castle is a monstrosity; a hybrid of breeze-blocks, leaded windows and battlements under a flat, tarmac roof. However, I was not interested in Hubbard's architectural taste. The place buzzed with smiling people, many in pseudo-naval uniforms. Although I had encountered "Sea Org" members before, it was strange seeing them en masse. At Saint Hill they wore colored lanyards and campaign ribbons on their navy blue blazers. A religion run by sailors? I pushed the thought aside. An attractive brunette whisked me around, carefully avoiding the Manor, which housed the mysterious "Guardian's Office." Between the Manor and the castle there was an encampment of huts occupied by busy Sea Org members. The expensive canteen was also housed in a corrugated hut, as were the book-store and several of the administrative offices. The "castle" housed the course-rooms and the public pans of the Organization. My tour ended in the office of the "Registrars" (the sales staff), where I was treated as royalty. I handed over what seemed to me a fortune (some £400), borrowed only after repeated assurances that I would make money easily after taking the Auditor training courses. Despite my insistence that I was only visiting, I was ushered into a course-room. Scientology has a tremendous sense of urgency, which took hold of me. I read the "Basic Study Manual" until the evening session ended. I was then told that a Sea Org member wanted to see me. I was surprised as it was eleven o'clock, and I had to find my lodgings. The Sea Org member was a recruiter, who, for the next two hours, tried to persuade me to join that group. In 1967, Hubbard had put to sea with a group of devoted followers, who became the "Sea Organization." I was shown photos of Hubbard dressed up as the "Commodore." Sea Org Members signed a billion-year contract, swearing to return life after life to fulfill "Ron's purpose." They also staffed the four "Advanced Organizations," where the secret upper levels of Scientology were delivered. Saint Hill was one of the four. I had heard much of this before and had already been tempted to join the Sea Org and work at the Publications Organization in Denmark. I saw the Sea Org as the monastic order of Scientology, something like the Knights Templar, perhaps. I felt guilty, because I was not ready to renounce everything for the good of the cause. I doggedly insisted that I wanted to train as an "Auditor," and "go Clear" before deciding whether to join the Sea Org. I was going to be a full-time student, and felt that as a trained Auditor I would be far more useful to the Sea Org. Eventually the recruiter showed me a "confidential" Sea Org issue, which claimed that the governments of the world were on the verge of collapse. The Sea Org would survive and pick up the pieces. Her attempt to stir up a sense of impending doom failed miserably. l wanted no part of it. Hubbard had said elsewhere that Scientology was non-political. I was interested in Scientology as a therapy, nothing more. As a therapy I felt it might have a world-changing impact. Completely exasperated, the recruiter retreated into the argument that anyone who did not join the Sea Org was insane. I was flustered, not understanding that I was her last chance to reach her weekly quota of recruits. Moreover, I did not know that her pay, her self-esteem and the esteem of her fellow staff members all depended upon increasing her quota each week. The Sea Org was a bemusing aspect of Scientology. It was difficult to reconcile the military appearance of its members with religion or psychotherapy. However, I was convinced that Scientology was a valid and potent therapy, so I accepted the existence of the Sea Org. I moved to East Grinstead in September 1975, living with my new girlfriend in a rented room. All three bedrooms of the small house were occupied, as was one of the two downstairs rooms. There were eight of us living there, including a baby. The couple who ran the house rented it from another Scientologist. They were both Sea Org members who were "living out," away from the house run by the Scientology Church. They worked incredibly long hours (the husband from eight in the morning to midnight Sunday to Friday, as well as Saturday afternoons). They were American, although the 1968 use of the Aliens Act prohibited non-UK residents from studying or working for Scientology in Great Britain. They bought their clothes from rummage sales, as do most Sea Org members in Britain. They always looked gray and exhausted. Somehow they managed to support their baby, though seeing little of him. In spite of it all, they were usually cheerful. The husband was supposedly a Clear, and had done three levels beyond Clear. He often hinted at his psychic abilities, but excused himself from any demonstration, in case it "overwhelmed" me. He claimed to be able to back the right horse, which is how he spent his only free morning. Nonetheless, he continued to live below the poverty line. I went to Saint Hill daily and applied myself to my studies. Scientology courses are run in a similar way to correspondence courses. The student is given a "checksheet," which has the written materials, Hubbard tapes, and practical work listed in strict sequence on it. The student signs off each completed step. I sailed through the Basic Study Manual, and went onto the Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course. On the Dianetics Course I learned how to use the "Hubbard Electropsychometer," or "E-meter," which shows changes in a person's electrical resistance through movements of a needle on a dial. The person receiving counselling holds two electrodes (in fact, empty soup cans) and the E-meter is supposed to show changing states of mind, or the "movement of mental mass." A "fall" or "read" (rightward needle movement) shows that a subject is "charged." A "floating needle" is "a rhythmic sweep of the dial at a slow, even pace." This supposedly happens when there is no emotional "charge," or after any "charge" has been released. So areas of upset are found with the "fall" of the needle, and their resolution is shown by a "floating needle." 1 The E-meter is used in most auditing. Lists of questions are checked for responses. A "floating needle" is one of the indications that an auditing "process" or procedure is complete. I had been given my "Original Assessment" at Birmingham. Dianetic auditing is supposed to dig out buried memories, so it seemed reasonable that the first step should be an E-metered questionnaire about my background. This included questions about my relationships with everyone in my family; anyone I knew who was antagonistic to Scientology; my education; and a complete alcohol and drug history (including all medicines), listing every occasion of use. My Auditor asked for precise information about emotional losses, accidents, illnesses, operations, my present physical condition, whether I had any family history of insanity, any compulsions and repressions I felt I was suffering from, whether I had a criminal record, and if so the details, and my involvement with "former practices," which in my case included Zen meditation. 2 This "Original Assessment" is the beginning of the "Preclear folder," which contains notes taken during auditing sessions. Auditors keep a running record of the Preclear's more significant comments during each session. At that time, Dianetic auditing first addressed the psychological effect of drugs. This procedure was called the Dianetic Drug Rundown, and it followed a very exact pattern, which has changed little to this day. The Auditor reads out the list of drugs given by the Preclear, looking for the most marked E-meter reaction. He then asks for attitudes associated with taking that drug. If an attitude given by the Preclear "reads" on the E-meter, the Auditor sets about "running" Dianetics on it. 3 Having asked the Preclear to locate an incident of the given attitude, the Auditor directs the Preclear to "move to the beginning of the incident," and then go through it. When the E-meter shows that enough "charge" has been released from the incident, the Preclear is directed to find an "earlier similar incident." In theory the Preclear will at first give conscious moments of this attitude (called "Locks"). Then he will usually run into an Engram. The Auditor asks for earlier and earlier incidents, and the Preclear almost invariably goes into "past lives." When the earliest Engram is found and relieved, the Preclear is supposed to have a realization ("cognition") about its effect upon him, "Very Good Indicators" (VGIs), which is to say a grin, and a "floating needle." From then on, the Preclear should be free from the effects of the Engram chain. The whole drug list is treated painstakingly in this way. Going through every attitude, emotion, sensation and pain associated with each drug. Then the drug list is checked on the E-meter until nothing on it "reads" any more. I remember Victory-V cough sweets being a persistent "item" on my drug list. I spent hours trying to think of some attitude, emotion, sensation or pain associated with Victory-Vs. I was disappointed with my Dianetic auditing, because I did not experience any real change. My back-ache and my near-sightedness remained. A few times, inexplicably powerful images of what seemed to be "past lives" rushed into mind. At one point, I had the very vivid sensation of being burned at the stake. But for the most part I could not quite believe it. Not because I doubted Dianetics, but because I felt that I was not yet capable of fully contacting my past. After the Dianetics Course, I did several Scientology Auditor courses. As well as receiving Dianetic auditing, the Preclear was meant to go through eight "Release Grades" before doing the "Clearing Course," and then the mysterious "Operating Thetan" levels. As a Scientology Auditor, I learned how to audit the first three of these "Release Grades." These were meant to deal with memory, communication and problems. During this time, I had my first brush with Saint Hill "Ethics." The "Ethics Officer" would try to resolve disputes, and to remove any obstacles to a resolute practice of Scientology. I had arrived at Saint Hill with the remainder of a small court fine to pay. The papers had been transferred to one office and I had been told to deal with another, so I received a summons for non-payment. The morning I received the summons I went to the Saint Hill "Ethics Officer," an intense, overweight Australian, who wore knee-length boots with her dishevelled Sea Org uniform. I requested a morning off to attend the court-hearing. She insisted I tell her all the details. I explained that the remainder of the fine was less than £40, and that it was all due to an administrative mix-up. I was amazed when she told me that she was removing me from the course because I was a "criminal." She insisted that even if a fine were the result of a parking ticket, the offender would be barred from Scientology courses until it was paid. Saint Hill was very different from the Birmingham Mission where there was an easy-going attitude. The Ethics Officer there would apologise for having to "apply Policy." At Saint Hill, the Ethics Officers were daunting, overworked and unsmiling. Saint Hill Registrars (salesmen or, more usually, saleswomen) were a little too sugary, and it was obvious that they wanted money. The constant and unavoidable discussions with Sea Org recruiters at Saint Hill were wearing. Virtually everyone there was too busy trying to save the world to create any genuine friendships. The advantages of "going Clear" still loomed large for me. I did not think of leaving Scientology, just going back to the friendlier atmosphere of Birmingham - which I finally decided to do. My decision was accelerated by continuing price rises. In November 1976, the price of Scientology auditing and training began to rocket. Until then auditing had been £6 an hour ("co-auditing" between students was free). My Dianetics Course had cost £125. Beginning in November 1976, the prices were to go up at the rate of 10 percent a month, allegedly to improve staff pay and conditions. I did not object to that goal, but I did object when the prices continued to go up with each new month. The price rises were to continue for the next four years. FOOTNOTES 1. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 12, p.322 2. Board Technical Bulletin, "Preclear Assessment Sheet," 24 April 69R 3. Board Technical Bulletin, "Drills for Auditors," 9 October 71R.
CHAPTER THREE In September 1977, I started Art college, and did no more Scientology courses for over two years. I did not question the "workability" of Scientology, but had serious reservations about the increasingly high prices and the incompetence of the organization. I simply could not understand how Hubbard's extensive research into administration had created such a bumbling and autocratic bureaucracy which churned out inane advertising. BUY NOW! was a favorite slogan. Although staff worked themselves to a frazzle, they seemed to achieve very little. Then there were the little Hitlers who used their positions to harass anyone who did not fit neatly into their picture of normality. But I was puzzled rather than embittered. Like most Scientologists, I presumed that Hubbard was "off the lines," busily involved in "research." The price increases and the failure to attract throngs of new people had to be the fault of the caretaker management. I waited for Hubbard's return to management while my girlfriend and I ran a Scientology group one evening a week from our home. We heard very little about the July 1977 FBI raids on the Scientology "Guardian's Offices" in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. I had virtually no contact with the Guardian's Office ("GO"). The GO was supposed to deal with all attacks on Scientology, and to create a good public image. The GO was established so that Scientology Orgs would not be distracted from providing Scientology services. Public Relations and Legal were major functions of the GO. If Scientology was sued, the GO would deal with it. Beyond that the Guardian's Office was meant to create socially useful programs such as Narconon to help addicts get off drugs. The GO also campaigned against electric shock treatment and psychiatric brain surgery, as well as for Freedom of Information in Britain. There was scant mention of the FBI raids in British newspapers and the GO only commented on the subject when forced to do so by the few reports that did emerge. After nearly two years, top Scientology officials admitted to having taken documents from United States government offices. I was uneasy about this, but was told government agencies had failed to release information which should have been available via the Freedom of Information Act. We were told nine GO staff members were being indicted for "theft of photocopy paper." It was argued that they had the right to the information they had copied, but had made the mistake of using government photocopiers, thereby stealing the paper. l had not even heard of the raids when the new Executive Director of the Manchester Org came to see me in 1979. He was a veteran Sea Org member who had taken Manchester from the verge of collapse, and turned it into a thriving Organization with 38 staff. He listened to my complaints and reservations about the Church and, to my amazement, agreed with me totally. By sheer force of personality he persuaded me to go back "on course." In 1978, Hubbard decided that people had been "going Clear" on Dianetic auditing. The Scientology "Clearing Course," given only by the few senior Orgs since 1965, was no longer necessary to achieve the state of "Clear." Hubbard also said that some people had never had a Reactive Mind and were "Natural Clears," supposedly an extremely rare occurrence. The number of Clears leapt from less than 7,000 to over 30,000 in two years. I was told I was a Natural Clear. In fact, as I later learned, in order to be judged a Clear, it was only necessary to reword one of the Scientology dictionary definitions of "Clear" into a personal '"realization." Now I could go almost immediately onto the mysterious "Operating Thetan" (or OT) levels, where I would revive my dormant psychic abilities. All I had to do was earn the money to pay for it, a process which took almost three years. In November 1979, I learned first-hand how relentlessly Sea Org members work. The Manchester Org was at last moving from its crowded, partially condemned offices into an imposing, five-story building on one of the main streets. I was persuaded to help with its renovation. For four weeks, I worked and slept in the empty building. I would work for twenty-four hours, then sleep for eight. Because I had some experience I became the "Renovations In-Charge." In retrospect, the hours and the conditions were impossible. My workforce consisted largely of tired and inexperienced staff members, who did a twelve hour day before starting work on the building. Fortunately, a few non-staff Scientologist carpenters, a decorator and an electrician volunteered their help. We had to build partitions, completely rewire, put in doors, sand and varnish floors, and decorate the whole place. It was a very large building. Although we were not paid, there was no duress. We did the work willingly. The whole project was undertaken at Scientology's usual breakneck speed. A Sea Org member had been sent to supervise the whole project. He had worked extensively on the building of Saint Hill castle and described various shortcuts taken in its construction. I was horrified, but often had to yield to his use of similar shoddy methods to finish the job on time. By September 1980, the price of Scientology services had risen far beyond my reach. Auditing, which had been £6 an hour only four years before, was now £100 an hour. The Dianetics Course I bought for £25 had been revised slightly and re-named the "New Era Dianetics" (or NED) Course, and by this time it cost £1,634. Many Scientologists complained bitterly. In October 1980, a new list came out, and the prices had been slashed. The cost of auditing was down to £40 an hour, and the NED Course to £430. These prices still seemed excessive, but at least it was a step in the right direction. I returned to East Grinstead in May 1982, having handed over about £2,000 for the levels up to OT 3. In March, "OT Eligibility" had been introduced. I had to do a "Confessional" before starting the OT levels, to make sure that I was "ethical." Several "OTs" had apparently given the secret course materials to newspapers in the United States and Holland. In a Confessional, a list of questions is checked on the E-meter. The questions are supposed to clear away any residual guilt about earlier discreditable activities. Details of a transgression which "reads" on the E-meter are given to the Auditor. If there is no "floating needle," the Auditor asks for "earlier similar" transgressions. This procedure is supposed to bring relief to the Preclear and, especially in "OT Eligibility" Confessionals, to root out any infiltrators or people who might later attack the organization. I had only three and a half hours of auditing left in my account for "OT Eligibility." I was told I had to buy thirty-seven and a half more auditing hours at an extra cost of about £2,400. I protested and the estimate was reduced to twenty-five hours. I still refused, so, finally, my Confessionals were started. There were a few embarrassing episodes, since my Auditor was a friend's wife. I had received Confessionals at Manchester a short time before and felt the procedure was largely unnecessary. I certainly did not gain anything by it, but I was glad that it took only the three and a half hours I had on account. At last I was allowed into the "Advanced Organization" (AO), the Holy of Holies, prohibited to all but OTs. The AO course room was rather scruffy, with peg-board partitions and decrepit furniture, but I did not mind. At last I was here, among the gods. Most of the Operating Thetan levels are "Solo-audited," which requires yet more training. On "Solo part 1" I had already learned how to hold the two tin cans (electrodes) "solo," separated by a piece of plastic, in my left hand, while working the E-meter and keeping session notes with my right. At Saint Hill I did "Solo Part 2": a series of simple auditing procedures by which I "solo-audited." At last I was starting the OT levels! After nearly seven years in Scientology I was going to discover the hidden secrets of myself. I would be able to "exteriorize" from my body at will, read minds, change conditions purely through my intention, and so much more. I would perceive the truth directly and at last be free of the need to speculate or to rely on belief. But most of all, I would be able to help others to free themselves. In the 1970s, the Church of Scientology became cagey about the promised results of the OT levels. Nonetheless, references to the "End Phenomena" of the OT levels were not hard to come by. The purported "End Phenomenon" of OT 1 is: "Extroverts a being and brings about an awareness of himself as a thetan in relation to others and the physical universe." 1 Section I of the OT Course was presented to me in a pink cardboard folder. I was instructed not to read anything but the very next "process." I went back to my lodgings in East Grinstead, carrying the folder in a locked bag, a compulsory precaution with all OT material. Shut away in my auditing room I opened the folder. The first OT 1 "process" consisted of walking about counting people until you had a "win" (i.e., felt good). I remember counting somewhere over 600 people before deciding I must have failed to notice the "win." Back at my lodgings, the E-meter seemed to confirm my suspicions. All of the OT 1 processes are similar. I could not understand the secrecy. No one could hurt themselves doing this. But it was a preparation for OT 2 and OT 3, after all. The "End Phenomenon" of OT 2 is supposed to be the "Rehabilitation of intention; ability to project intention." Even the Course Supervisor admitted that the materials were confusing. OT 2 is an extension of the "confidential" Grade 6 and the Clearing Course. Since "Dianetic" and "Natural" Clear, few people had done these courses. I had to cross reference to the earlier materials and watch Hubbard's 20-year-old Clearing Course films. These were very poor quality black and white and were barely audible. According to Hubbard, when an individual is caught up between two opposed possibilities he becomes confused and incapable of decision or action. Long ago, Thetans (spirits) were trapped, and "Implanted'' with contradictory suggestions while being tortured. These contradictions reduced most Thetans to blank apathy. The Implant commands were very simple, and a ready example is provided by Hamlet's famous question, "To be or not to be." As Implant commands the statement would be split into "To be" and "Not to be." Apparently Thetans who have been cowed into inaction in this way are more susceptible to control, more malleable, being next to incapable of making up their minds. Implants are the true foundation of the Reactive Mind. The OT 2 materials consist of tens, perhaps hundreds, of pages of such Implant commands in Hubbard's writing, forming a wad over an inch thick. My heart dropped at the thought of auditing my way through all of this. It would take months. Using the E-meter as a guide, the "Pre-OT" is supposed to strip away the "charge" of these Implants. He is instructed to focus on particular areas of his body, read off the next Implant command (which might be as simple as the word "create"), to sense the shock that accompanies the Implant command, and sometimes to "spot the light" which shone simultaneously with the shock. OT 2 is actually a continuation of the Clearing Course. Originally both were done ten times through. One of my friends did 600 hours of auditing on OT 2 when it was first released in 1966. I was more fortunate. I spent about three days on it and started to feel rotten. I had the suspicion that it was doing precisely nothing. I began to wonder if I was really ready for OT 2. Maybe I had skimped OT 1? Maybe I wasn't really Clear? I did not question the efficacy of the "Technology" itself. I made an E-metered statement to the Advanced Org's "Director of Processing," a wizened seventy-year-old Sea Org veteran and was taken into session by an OT Review Auditor. He asked whether I had "over-run" (gone past) the end of the process. The needle obviously floated, as the Auditor told me I had indeed "over-run" OT 2. I was never able to pinpoint any tangible benefit from doing OT 2, but for the rest of that day I was as pleased as Punch. At last I was ready for OT 3. After "Clear," OT3 is the most significant level to Scientologists. In a 1967 tape announcing the release of OT 3 Hubbard had this to say:
The purported "End Phenomenon" of OT 3 is "Return of full self determinism: freedom from overwhelm." Before being allowed onto the OT 3 Course I had to sign a waiver, to the effect that any damage incurred during the auditing was my own responsibility. The mystique was being poured on with a ladle and I loved every moment of it. In the Advanced Org course room I signed out the OT 3 folders. Behind a thin partition at the back of the course room I opened the eared, pink cardboard folder. A few pages in I came to a photocopy of the handwritten instructions for OT 3. The story was fragmented, little more than a series of notes. Hubbard asserted that some 70 million years ago, our planet, then called Teegeeack, had been one of the 76 planets of the Galactic Confederation. The Confederation was badly overpopulated, with hundreds of billions on each planet. Xenu (also called "Xemu" by Hubbard), the president of the Confederation, ruled that the excess population should be sent to Teegeeack, put alongside volcanoes and subjected to nuclear explosions. The spirits, or Thetans, of the victims were then "implanted" with religious and technological images for 36 days. They were then sent to either Hawaii or Las Palmas to be stuck together into clusters. Human beings, so Hubbard said, are actually a collection of Thetans, a cluster of "Body Thetans." Xenu was rounded up six years after the event and imprisoned in a mountain. According to Hubbard, anyone remembering this material would die. I was reminded of Colin Wilson's novel The Mind Parasites, where invisible creatures from outer space attach themselves to human beings and feed off their emotions. Not that I disbelieved any of it. In seven years, I had come to trust Hubbard implicitly. The proof would come in the auditing, but I felt a tremendous sense of relief. Here at last was the remedy for my problems! My body was inhabited by a mass of "Body Thetans" which had formed into "Clusters" and were influencing my thoughts, my feelings, my behavior. This at last explained why, although I was Clear, I still felt depressed occasionally, lost my temper sometimes, and did not have a perfect memory. It explained my hack-ache and my near-sightedness. Body Thetans! OT3 also addressed an earlier incident of some four quadrillion years ago. This was an implant which was supposedly the gateway to our universe. The unsuspecting Thetan was subjected to a short, high-volume crack, followed by a flood of luminescence, and then saw a chariot followed by a trumpeting cherub. After a loud set of cracks, the Thetan was overwhelmed by darkness. Back at my lodgings I carefully locked my auditing room door, unlocked my bag, and placed the OT 3 folders on the table. I did not think about the ramifications of what I was doing. I simply wanted to find a Body Thetan. This was done by thinking about parts of the body, and seeing if there was a reaction on the E-meter. Then with "a very narrow attention span" (so as not to upset any other Body Thetans in the vicinity) the Body Thetan would be audited through Incident 2 and then Incident 1, at which point it should unstick and go on its way. If a "Cluster" of Body Thetans (or "BTs") was discovered the incident that made it a Cluster had to be audited, and then the individual BTs that formed it run through the Incidents. A list of volcanoes was checked to see where the BT had received Incident 2. Although I did not stop to think if this was self-induced schizophrenia, nor to consider the parallels to demon exorcism, I did wonder if I was inventing the whole thing. It suddenly seemed too farfetched. But the E-meter responded, so I put my doubts aside and got on with it. Originally Scientologists had taken months, even years, of auditing on OT 3, but since the late 1970s the emphasis was on moving on to OT 5 quickly. I finished OT 3 in a week. Again I felt euphoric. I waited to see whether any new and miraculous powers became evident. I expected to "exteriorize" from my body at any moment. Two days after finishing, I felt awful. I was worried that I had "falsely attested," although the Auditor who checked me out had failed to find any more "Body Thetans." Still, I was worried I might have to go back onto OT 3, which would mean paying for the course again. It had cost me £800 earlier that year and by now was considerably more expensive. I told the Senior Case Supervisor that I was disappointed that I had not achieved anything spectacular on OT 3. To my surprise, he confided that many people did not. I expected to be sent to Ethics for even daring to make such a suggestion, so I was relieved to hear that most people got what they wanted on the New OT 4. This was also known as the "OT Drug Rundown" and was supposed to free one from the cumulative effects of drugs taken in past lives. At the Senior Case Supervisor's insistence, I borrowed £1,000. On OT 3, I had supposedly rid myself of Body Thetans, so l was dismayed to discover that OT 4 was also solely a matter of Body Thetans. This time it was Body Thetans that had been Clustered through drug incidents. The Senior Case Supervisor visited me again. I again expressed reservations about the results I had obtained. Now he said that OT 5 did the trick for most people. He had the sort of eccentricity I enjoy and we got on well together. He was living on a diet of nothing but bananas, because he had heard that Hubbard was researching carbohydrate diets. Before Scientology, the Case Supervisor had studied at one of the prestigious Art Colleges, so we had topics of mutual interest. He even asked me to put one of my paintings aside for him. He arrived at midnight one night, with a Scientologist moneylender. I held the £7,000 cheque for several minutes before seeing the insanity of borrowing so much money, especially at over 30 percent per year interest. A few days later, the Senior CS spent thirteen hours solid with my business partner and I, to convince us to pay for me to have twenty-five hours of OT 5. The Supervisor claimed that when I had completed the auditing, our business would flourish and it would be easy for us to pay back what we had borrowed, and to pay for my partner and my wife to do their OT 5. My whole life would be transformed and everything I touched would turn to gold. It is no secret that Scientology Registrars take courses to learn hard-sell techniques. OT 5 was called "the living lightning of life itself" in the promotional material. Its "End Phenomenon" was given as "Cause over Life." I borrowed £2,500 and began. When I opened the "indoctrination pack" I was dismayed to find that it too dealt wholly, solely and only with Body Thetans. I did not do well on OT 5. The sessions are very short, often just ten minutes, so twenty-five hours of auditing took weeks to finish. About three days into the auditing, I developed a pain in my shoulder. You are required to report any aches and pains which "turn on" during auditing and I dutifully did so. For the next several days, we concentrated on Body Thetans in my shoulder. To no avail. While on OT 5, I was involved in the most insistent Registrar interview I experienced in Scientology. An ex-Sea Org member was working on a "project" to get people onto OT 7 in Florida. She tried to talk me into borrowing about £50,000. I half-heartedly looked into borrowing the money. I was displeased with the auditing and expressed my reservations to my Auditor. OT 5 had been sold to me with the understanding that the results were nothing short of miraculous. I was given a one-hour lecture, the essence of which was that OT 5 was simply a preparatory action prior to doing the real OT levels. I should not have expected to make any gains. I would have to wait until OT 8 and beyond for that. OT 8 had not yet been released. I had used the last of my paid hours, so I quietly "routed out" of Saint Hill. I had not hidden anything from the Org about my attitude and it was considered "unethical" to talk about any personal problem or dissatisfaction with Scientology to anyone but the auditing staff of the Org. So I kept quiet. I had more or less decided that it was my own fault. After all, no one I had met who had done OT 5 had complained and their written "success stories" were usually pretty remarkable. FOOTNOTES Principal sources: Ron's Journal '67, Section 3 OT course materials 1. Hubbard, Scientology 0-8, p.138
CHAPTER FOUR During 1982, a stream of "Suppressive Person Declares" poured out from Church management. 1 Labelling someone a "Suppressive Person" (SP) is Scientology's ultimate condemnation. According to Hubbard, SPs make up about two and a half percent of the world's population. Unlike other people, SPs are intent upon the destruction of everything good, valuable or useful. In Hubbard's philosophy, association with SPs is the ultimate explanation for all illness and failure. Hubbard also called SPs "merchants of chaos" and "anti-social personalities." They are synonymous with anti-Scientologists, of course. I had been involved in Scientology for eight years, and although occasionally I heard of people being "Declared SP," no-one I knew was among them. In 1983, however, a close friend with whom I was working was Declared. I was summoned to the Ethics Office at Saint Hill, and shown a Scientology Policy Directive which reintroduced the practice of "Disconnection." Hubbard had introduced the policy of Disconnection in 1965. Once someone was labelled Suppressive, no Scientologist was allowed to communicate with that person in any way. This policy had caused problems with several governments, and in 1968 Hubbard had acquiesced to demands that the policy be cancelled. Now the policy was back. 2 I was told not to communicate with my friend. I did not have the choice, my friend was still a "good" Scientologist, and insisted that I disconnect. Losing my friend was not the only cause for concern; monthly price rises were re-introduced in January 1983. At the same time, a newsletter was broadly distributed, which contained extracts from a conference held in October 1982, at the San Francisco Hilton. For the first time we heard of David Miscavige, who seemed to hold a high position in the Sea Org. The newsletter announced the "get-tough attitude of the 'new blood in management.' " It also introduced the "International Finance Dictator." Inside Scientology, complaints must only be addressed to the relevant section of the Organization, and mentioning dissatisfaction to anyone else is frowned upon. I wrote letters complaining about the ridiculous prices and the Declare of my friend and, by inference, all other recent Declares. After each evasive reply, I wrote to the person on the next rung of the organizational ladder. The curious titles of these Scientology officials say a great deal: the "Special Unit Mission In-Charge," the "International Justice Chief," the "Executive Director International." It took me seven months to climb all the way to the "Standing Order Number One Line." The Church of Scientology routinely reprinted "Standing Order Number One." It gave the idea that anyone could write to Ron Hubbard, and receive a reply from him. Although I did not believe this, it was nevertheless the last recourse in Scientology. So I wrote to "Ron," fastidiously enclosing my earlier petition to the Executive Director International, and a copy of his reply. At first I believed that my references to the violations of Hubbard's Policy Letters would suffice, and that the Organization would automatically correct itself. By this time I was not so sure. It was rumored that Scientology had been taken over by young Sea Org members. I thought I was witnessing an overreaction to an internal plot on the part of some of those who had been "Declared." But I was amazed at the genuine fear expressed by some Scientologists I knew, who privately said it was pointless to complain. In September 1983, I visited a friend who had been in Scientology for 20 years. She showed me a letter from David Mayo that had just been broadly circulated among Scientologists. Mayo had been the "Senior Case Supervisor International," and Hubbard's heir apparent. Mayo had been declared "Suppressive" earlier that year. With the reintroduction of Disconnection, Scientologists were not supposed to read his letter. Even so, many did. Mayo described his background in Scientology from his first involvement in 1957. He had been a staff-member from that time, joining the Sea Org in 1968, shortly after its inception. He had been trained by Hubbard personally, and was one of a handful of top-grade "Class 12" Auditors. From the early 1970s Mayo had supervised Hubbard's own auditing. He had worked with Hubbard on OT 5, 6 and 7 (NOTs and Solo NOTs) and was Hubbard's Auditor in 1978. He was one of the very few people privy to the many as yet unreleased OT levels. Mayo claimed that Hubbard had appointed him his successor in a "long and detailed letter" in April 1982. Hubbard had said he was going to "drop the body" (his expression for dying). Mayo would be responsible for the "Technology" of Scientology until Hubbard's next incarnation. Mayo wrote that a group of young Sea Org members had cut his line to Hubbard, who was in seclusion by this time, and that "after all my efforts to rectify matters internally, I left in February 1983." He had started an independent Scientology group called the "Advanced Ability Center" in Santa Barbara, California. Mayo's letter had a tremendous impact on me. My complaints to the management were getting nowhere, so I decided to have a straight talk with a Sea Org member I knew well, who had just returned from Scientology's Florida headquarters. He enthused about his experiences there and assured me that Scientology management was in better shape than ever before. He had worked briefly in the Ethics Office at the Florida "Flag Land Base" and, to my surprise, said that resignations from the Church were pouring in. He said this in an attempt to reassure me that the Church was aware of the situation. I was far from reassured. I had only heard of one resignation, an Australian. John Mace, who lived in East Grinstead. Pouring in? How could David Mayo, who had worked so closely with Hubbard for so many years, suddenly turn out to be "Suppressive"? Surely, Hubbard should be pretty good at spotting Suppressives. Why had it taken him twenty years to spot Mayo? I asked my Sea Org friend to tell me who was actually running Scientology, having heard about a mysterious group called the "Watchdog Committee" for some time. He said they ran the Church, but although he was a long-term Sea Org member, he had no idea who was on the Watchdog Committee. Worse yet, he did not care. I grew heated and said I was not willing to be ordered to Disconnect from friends, least of all by these anonymous people. I wanted to know who they were. I told him that I would write to my "Declared" friend if the reply I received from "Ron" was unsatisfactory. I had followed "Policy" to the letter and my genuine grievances were being ignored. I was unwilling to lose a close friend because of the whims of bureaucrats. The following day I received my reply from "Ron." It was as evasive as the earlier replies. I was completely dismayed. Again my request had been ignored. It did not matter that Hubbard's published Policy was being flaunted. I could do nothing more inside the Church: the "highest authority" had denied my request. The next day I wrote to my Declared friend, who had been a senior Church executive, and expressed my lack of confidence in the new management. I asked him what was really going on. A few days later I received a copy of a Church "Executive Directive" called "The Story of a Squirrel: David Mayo." "Squirrel" is one of the most disparaging terms in the Scientology vocabulary. It means someone who alters Scientology in some way, the most heinous of crimes. Squirrels are profiteers who pervert Scientology because of their inability to correctly apply it. "The Story of a Squirrel" was written by Mayo's replacement, the new Senior Case Supervisor International, Ray Mithoff. It was full of fatuous statements, many of which were attributed to Hubbard:
What shocked me most was the carping tone of the issue. It seemed to be the product of a deranged mind. It gave me the distinct idea that the faceless "Watchdog Committee" was a self-interested power group, intent upon destroying the Church, and all that I thought the Church stood for. I was suffering from a severe bout of influenza and went to Saint Hill for a counselling "assist." Instead, I was interrogated about my, at that time non-existent, connections with people who had resigned from the Church of Scientology, most especially John Mace. The following afternoon I was summoned back to Saint Hill. Having denied all of the supposed connections, and bearing in mind my physical condition, I expected to receive counselling. To my surprise, I was subjected to an Ethics interview. I sat there for over an hour, with a raging temperature, trying to keep my distance so that no-one would catch the virus, and besieged by a series of half-smiling, half-menacing justifications of the excesses of Scientology management. All the Ethics Officer unwittingly persuaded me to do was to ignore the taboo, and ask questions of those who might know: the "Suppressives." The next day I phoned John Mace. The Church was clearly frightened of him and its insistent criticism determined me to hear his story. Mace said I would probably be "Declared" for seeing him. I did not care, I wanted to know the truth and to assert my right to communicate with whomsoever I chose. Mace probably thought I was a Church agent. He said later that several copies of tapes had disappeared during visits from people ostensibly upset with the Church. The tapes were by various Declared Scientologists and described events leading up to an alleged take-over by Miscavige and his cronies. I listened to tapes and read newsletters and resignations that had been passing from hand to hand in the Scientology world. The message was clear. The Church had been taken over. Hubbard was dead or incapacitated. The new rulers were fanatics intent on completely taking over all power within the Church. To do this they had "Declared" hundreds of people suppressive. When John Mace left for Australia a few weeks later, I found myself at the center of the burgeoning English Independent Scientology movement. I helped to establish the first Independent group to deliver auditing, but mostly concentrated on finding out what had caused the schism and on persuading people either to make their complaints against the Church thoroughly known, or to leave and help to create an Independent movement. People I had known for years suddenly stopped talking to me. I came under pressure from the Church's new Guardian's Office, redubbed the "Office of Special Affairs." I was followed by Private Investigators, who snapped photos of me in the street. I became the target of a whispering campaign. A Scientologist who once worked for me called my friends and acquaintances and told them lies about me; for example, claiming that I had undergone electric shock treatment. For months, I was inundated with calls and visits by frightened and confused Scientologists. I devoted all of my time to helping them escape the clutches and some of the conditioning of the Church. During this time in November 1983, a friend left me 700 pages of material relating to Hubbard and the Church. In that mass of documents were affidavits by former members of Hubbard's personal staff; affidavits by ex-Guardian's Office staff about their criminal activities while working for the Church; and 100 pages about Hubbard's past, including his college reports, an abstract of his naval record and letters answering enquiries about his supposed achievements. Each and every Hubbard claim about his past seemed to have been false. One of the affidavits was by Anne Rosenblum, who joined the Sea Org in June, 1973. By the end of 1976, she was in the "Commodore's Messenger Organization." The following spring she was finally assigned to Hubbard's personal retinue at his California hide-out. This is Rosenblum's description of Hubbard (she calls him "LRH"):
In another affidavit, former Hubbard aide Gerald Armstrong alleged that Hubbard had received millions of dollars from Scientology, despite his public protestations to the contrary. 3 My idea of Hubbard as a compassionate philosopher-scientist, a man of great honesty and integrity, was shaken to the core. Even so, for several months I retained my belief in the "Technology," or auditing procedures, of Scientology. I started a newsletter called Reconnection, which was read by thousands of Scientologists, but my belief was evaporating. I finally realized that I had taken much of this "Science" on trust. By the summer of 1984, I had drifted away from the "Tech." but was still caught up in the quest for the truth about Hubbard and his organization. What follows is the fruit of that quest. FOOTNOTES 1. Sea Org Executive Directive 2192 Int, "Re: List of Declared Suppressive Persons", 27 January 83. 2. Scientology Policy Directive 28 "Suppressive Act - Dealing with a Declared Suppressive Person" 13 August 82. 3. Gerald Armstrong affidavit, 19 October 1982.
PART TWO:
CHAPTER ONE
Novelists often elaborate their own mundane experience into fictional adventures. Hubbard did not confine his creativity to his fictional work. He reconstructed his entire past, exaggerating his background to fashion a hero, a superhero even. Although Hubbard wrote many imaginative stories, his own past became his most elaborate work of fiction. Hubbard's works are peppered with references to his achievements. He often broke off when lecturing to relate an anecdote about his wartime experience or his Hollywood career. Even before he generated a following he would tell tall stories to anyone who cared to listen. He stretched his tales to the ridiculous, claiming he broke broncos at the age of three and a half, for example. Most Scientologists believe these tales. Few have bothered to compare the anecdotes or the many and varied biographical sketches published by Hubbard's Church, so the many discrepancies pass largely unnoticed. The pattern of Hubbard's reconstructed past is the translation of the actual, sometimes mediocre, sometimes sordid, reality into a stirring tale of heroic deeds. Even critics of Scientology occasionally swallow part of the myth. Paulette Cooper, in her penetrating exposé of Scientology, assured her readers, quite erroneously, that Hubbard was "severely injured in the war... and in fact was in a lifeboat for many days, badly injuring his body and his eyes in the hot Pacific sun." But Hubbard's accounts are not the only source of information. By the summer of 1984, the fabric of his heroic career had been badly torn, largely through the work of two men: Michael Shannon and Gerald Armstrong. In July 1975, on a muggy evening in Portland, Oregon, Michael Shannon stood waiting for a bus. A young man approached him, and asked if he wanted to attend a free lecture. Shannon went along, thinking that at least the lecture room would be air-conditioned (it was not). He listened to a short, plausible talk about "Affinity, Reality and Communication," and after a brief sales pitch signed up for the "Communication Course." Many Scientologists' stories begin this way. Shannon's soon took a different turn. The next day he decided he did not want to do the Communication Course and, after a "brief but rather heated discussion," managed to get his money back. He kept and read the copy of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health which kindled his curiosity, not for Dianetics, but for its originator.
By 1979, Shannon had spent $4,000 on his project and had collected "a mountain of material which included some flies that no one else had bothered to get copies of - for example, the log books of the Navy ships that Hubbard had served on, and his father's Navy service file." Shannon intended to write an exposé of Hubbard. After failing to find a publisher, Shannon sent the most significant material to a few concerned individuals and ducked out of sight, fearful of reprisals. Five years later, he was still in hiding and my efforts to contact him failed. The hundred pages Shannon sent out included copies of some of Hubbard's naval and college records, as well as responses to Shannon's many letters inquiring into Hubbard's expeditions and other alleged exploits. The "Shannon documents" also found their way to Gerald Armstrong. Armstrong had been a dedicated Sea Org member for nearly ten years when he began a "biography project" authorized by Hubbard. Much of the immense archive collected by Armstrong consisted of Hubbard's own papers, not the forgeries that Hubbard claimed had been created by government agencies to discredit Scientology. The archive largely confirmed Shannon's material. Armstrong and Shannon reached the same eventual destination from opposed starting points. To complete the picture has taken a great deal more research, but the foundations were well laid by Armstrong and Shannon. Let us compare Scientology's changing versions of the life of L. Ron Hubbard with the truth. There is some agreement between all concerned on at least one fact: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born in Tilden, Nebraska, on March 13, 1911; despite one of his later claims, it was not Friday the 13th. 1 His Birth Certificate also shows that Ron was born in Dr. Campbeil's Hospital on Oak Street with S.A. Campbell "in attendance."
Ron claimed that he was born the son of a U.S. Navy Commander. Harry Hubbard had served a four year stint in the Navy as an enlisted man until 1908. He re-enlisted when America entered World War I, when his son was six. Harry Hubbard eventually did become a Lieutenant Commander, but not until 1934. From this point, the Scientology accounts of Hubbard's life are usually at variance with the facts and often at variance with one another. We are told that when Ron was six months old (or three weeks, in another Hubbard account) 3 his family moved to Oklahoma. In fact, the first account is nearly accurate: the Hubbard family spent the Christmas season in Oklahoma, with Ron's maternal grandparents, then moved on to Kalispell, Montana. 4 Before he was a year old, one Scientology version continues, Hubbard was sent to his maternal grandparents, the Waterburys, because his "father's career kept the family on the move." His grandparents owned an enormous cattle ranch, "one quarter of Montana." Shannon found no record of the Waterbury ranch, because he looked for it in Helena. But Ron's grandfather did briefly own 320 acres (a half-section) west of Kalispell, where he pastured horses. 5 Montana amounts to 94 million acres. Ron supposedly learned to ride before he could walk and was breaking "broncos" at the age of three and a half, at which age he could also read and write. He became a bloodbrother of the Blackfoot Indians in 1915 (aged four at most) and remained with his grandparents, the Waterburys, until he was ten. Hubbard described his early years thus: "Until I was ten, I lived the hard life of the West, in a land of 40-degree-below blizzards and vast spaces." The City Directories published in many U.S. towns listed the inhabitants, their jobs, addresses, and the value of their taxable assets. In the 1913 Kalispell Directory, Lafayette Waterbury was assessed at $1,550. He was comfortable, but by no means rich. In truth, when Ron's grandfather moved to Kalispell and bought his half-section, he continued to earn his living as a veterinarian. By 1917, he was living in Helena, running the Capital City Coal Company. Ron's father, Harry, had left his job on a Kalispell newspaper to become manager of the Family Theater in Helena, Montana, in 1913. Between 1913 and 1916 he was working as a book-keeper at the Ives Smith Coal and Cattle Company. The next year, when Ron was six, Harry was working at the same place as a wagon-driver. Harry Hubbard helped his father-in-law set up the Capital City Coal Company before re-enlisting in the U.S. Navy on October 10, 1917, where he remained until his retirement in 1946. Ron's mother did clerical work for government agencies. There is actually no way of checking whether Ron, or anyone else, became a "bloodbrother" of the Blackfeet in 1915. There are no records. It seems unlikely, as the Piegan reservation was over sixty miles from the Waterbury half-section, and over 100 from Helena, where Ron was living with his parents in 1915. A Scientologist eighth-blood Blackfoot, having failed to find any record, recently admitted Hubbard without the Blackfoot nation's approval. In the 1930s Hubbard admitted that what he knew of the Blackfeet came second hand from someone who really had been a bloodbrother. Hubbard was certainly an enthralling story-teller. He once told an audience that when he was six, his neighborhood was terrorized by a twelve-year-old bully called Leon Brown, and by "the five O'Connell kids," aged from seven to fifteen. Ron leamed "lumberjack fighting" from his grandfather, and took on the two youngest O'Connell kids one after the other. The O'Connell kids "fled each time I showed up . . . Then one day I got up on a nine foot high board fence and waited until the twelve-year-old bully passed by and leaped off on him boots and all and after the dust settled that neighborhood was safe for every kid in it." 6 Shannon located school registration cards for five Helena boys called O'Connell. When Ron was six, the oldest O'Connell boy was sixteen, and the youngest five. Shannon did not find Leon Brown, but he did exist, living a few doors away from Ron, and he was twelve in 1917. Ron Hubbard must have been a very tough six-year-old! Ron's grandfather's coal company in Helena had failed by 1925, and the Helena City Directory listed him as the owner of an automobile spare parts business. By 1929, Waterbury had returned to veterinary work. He died two years later, still at 736 Fifth Avenue, Helena. His obituary made no mention of his having been a rancher. Ron Hubbard claimed he had been raised by his maternal grandparents. In fact, he was with both of his parents until his father rejoined the Navy, in 1917. Even then his mother stayed put with her family until 1923, when she joined her husband, taking Ron with her. Ron was part of a tolerant and joyful family community. The young Hubbard probably spent a few weeks on his grandfather's small stud farm. To a three-year-old boy those 320 acres near Kalispell probably seemed like a quarter of Montana. He undoubtedly met cowboys, and perhaps even Blackfoot Indians (possibly on the rail journey from Helena to Kalispell). There is nothing wrong with any of this, except, from Hubbard's point of view, the scale. It was all far too small. To be revered as the most amazing man who had ever drawn breath, Hubbard would have to do far better. Hubbard claimed that his interest in the human mind was sparked by a meeting with one Commander Thompson when Hubbard was twelve. According to Hubbard, they met during a trip through the Panama Canal en route to Washington, DC. Thompson was a Navy doctor, with an abiding interest in psychoanalysis, supposedly "a personal student of Sigmund Freud." From Thompson, Hubbard "received an extensive education in the field of the human mind." In a 1953 publication Hubbard claimed that his "research" began when he met Thompson. 7 The claim has the romantic ring of Hubbard's pulp fiction. Commander "Snake" or "Crazy" Thompson (as Hubbard called him) is something of an enigma. Neither Shannon nor Armstrong discovered anything about him. During the Armstrong case in 1984, Scientology Archivist Vaughn Young at least proved "Snake" Thompson's existence. Young had spoken to Thompson's daughter, who attested her father's love of snakes. A library catalogue listing several papers by Thompson on the subjects both of snakes and the human mind, and a postcard from Freud to Thompson were produced. His death certificate showed that he had indeed been a Commander in the U.S. Navy. For Scientology Archivist Young, an educated man with a master's degree in Philosophy, Thompson's existence, evidence of his nickname, and a postcard were sufficient proof of Hubbard's claims to have been tutored in the Freudian mysteries by this Navy doctor, at the age of twelve. Hubbard's extensive teenage diaries make no mention of either Thompson or Freud. Nor do they contain any material which supports the idea that the juvenile Hubbard was "researching" the human mind. Scientologists claim Ron became the youngest Eagle Scout in America at the age of twelve, in Washington, DC, and that he was a "close friend of President Coolidge's son, Calvin Jr., whose early death accelerated L. Ron Hubbard's precocious interest in the mind and spirit of Man."
In the same diary, Hubbard recollected a meeting with President Coolidge. He was one of some forty boys. The meeting consisted of Hubbard telling his name to the President and a handshake. Rank Pathé took newsreel film of the boys. 8 Out of this meeting blossomed the supposed close relationship with Coolidge's son, Cal Jr., whose early death was to spur Hubbard's "research." The relationship existed only in Hubbard's mind, which is confirmed by comparing Cal Jr.'s movements to Hubbard's. Moreover, there is no mention of Cal Jr. in Ron's teenage diaries. In March 1924, a few days after Ron shook the President's hand, the Hubbard family left Washington, DC., moving across the country to the state of Washington. FOOTNOTES Quotations from and reference to Hubbard and Scientology biographical sketches of Hubbard: Mission into Time (Hubbard, 1973) pp.4-5; A Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology Public Relations Office News, Los Angeles 1960); Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974; Hubbard, Story of Dianetics and Scientology (taped lecture of 1958); Hubbard, Dianetics Today p.989. (CSC Publications Organization, 1970) Shannon story and quotations from four page article, "A Biography of L. Ron Hubbard" by Michael Linn Shannon. 1. Exhibit 63, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.24. 2. Affidavit sworn by H. R. Hubbard's true brother, J. R. Wilson, 13 September 1920. Harry Hubbard naval record. 3. Adventure, 1935. 4. Russell Miller interview with Margaret Roberts, Helena, April 1986. 5. Land transfers. 6. Volunteer Minister's Handbook, p.284 (CSC Publications Organization, Los Angeles, 1974) 7. The Factors, Scientology 8-8008 (Hubbard, 1967). 8. Exhibit 63, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153
CHAPTER TWO
Hubbard added to his mystique by making believe that he had spent his teens communing with the great masters of Asia. Some part of Hubbard's authority rests on his alleged journeys in China, India and Tibet, because Scientology is supposedly a reformulation of the mystic truths he learned them. By applying the rigorous discipline of Western scientific method to the secrets of Eastern mysticism, Hubbard later claimed to have isolated the laws of life itself. Quite typically, Scientology accounts of Hubbard's sojourn in the East are packed with contradictions. In one we are told his father was sent to Asia in 1925, and that Ron travelled extensively between 1925 and 1929. Hubbard allegedly spent a considerable period of time in the western hills of Manchuria, and while in China visited many Buddhist monasteries. In his book Mission into Time, Hubbard claimed he had studied with Holy men in Northern China and India. In What Is Scientology? Hubbard's life is depicted in a series of amateurish paintings, amongst them one of three fur-clad Tibetan bandits, with the caption: "In the isolation of the high hills of Tibet, even native bandits responded to Ron's honest interest in them and were willing to share with him what understanding of life they had." We can only speculate how Hubbard incorporated facets of Tibetan bandit "philosophy" into his science of the mind and spirit. If provoked, the Scientologists hand out an article, allegedly from a Helena newspaper (though the paper does not exist in the Helena records). In the article, Hubbard described a "trip to the Orient" lasting from April 30, when he left San Francisco, to September 1, when he returned to Helena to stay with his maternal grandparents and attend high school. The year was 1927, not 1925. Scientology accounts say Hubbard returned to the U.S. upon the death of his maternal grandfather, but the clipping the Church provides says he was again .living with this same grandfather, who in fact died in 1931. In the article Hubbard said he had visited Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, Hong Kong and "Yokohoma." In a short autobiography written for Adventure magazine in 1935, Hubbard said:
So, we are led to believe that Hubbard travelled extensively in China, Tibet and India between 1925 and 1929, though by his own account he did not leave the U.S. until 1927. He purportedly learned the wisdom of the East, yet was ashamed of his lack of inquisitiveness while there. Shannon dredged up Ron's school records, from which we learn that Ron spent the school year 1925-1926 at Union High School, Bremerton, Washington, while his father was stationed at nearby Puget Sound. At the start of the school year 1926-1927, Ron enrolled at Queen Anne High School, in Seattle. Harry Hubbard's naval record shows that his first shore duty outside the U.S. began on April 5, 1927, when he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Station on the island of Guam, in the western Pacific. Ron left Queen Anne High School in April 1927. Hubbard recorded two short visits to China in his teenage diaries. The first in 1927, en route to Guam, and the second the following year. The 1927 diary describes a round trip to Guam, with summaries of the people and places Hubbard saw. The summaries are brief, as was Hubbard's time in the China ports. The President Madison, on which he and his mother sailed, was a transport, not a cruise liner. The President Madison visited Hawaii, where Hubbard watched young men diving for coins. Hubbard was unimpressed with Yokohama, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Any sympathy he felt for the people who lived in the squalor his diary records quickly evaporated, and was displaced by a contempt which permeates all of his descriptions of the natives of the places he visited. The President Madison took Ron and his mother to the Philippines, where he complained about the idleness and stupidity of the inhabitants. In Cavite, where they joined the Navy transport USS Gold Star, a Lieutenant McCain told Ron that under a derelict cathedral crawling with snakes were tunnels full of gold. Hubbard vowed to his diary that he would return. Ron and his mother left Cavite on the Gold Star for the rough seven day passage to Guam. In his diary, Hubbard gave his analysis of the natives of Guam, the Chamarros. He considered them more intelligent than the inhabitants of the Philippines, but felt they had hardly been touched by civilization. They did not compare favorably with American youngsters. Hubbard's dislike of the Spanish inhabitants of Guam was even more pronounced. Hubbard had been warned that his red hair would generate considerable interest; as it was he claimed that the Chamarros fell silent at his approach. Hubbard spent about six weeks on Guam in 1927. On July 16, he left on the USS Nitro, leaving his parents behind. The pages covering the journey back to the U.S. preserve his only philosophical speculation of the trip. Hubbard and a young friend were perplexed by a book about atheism, so much so that Hubbard decided he would have to wait until his return home before resolving this difficult issue. Ron was the first to sight Hawaii. An officer told him to wake the lookout, and Hubbard described his perilous climb to the crow's nest. The Nitro docked at Bremerton, Washington, on August 6th, 1927. According to his later accounts, Hubbard's diary was the product of a sixteen-year-old who had studied Freudian analysis, read most of the world's great classics, and started to isolate the rudiments of a philosophical system some four years earlier. In fact, none of these subjects is even touched on in the diary. Hubbard was at Helena High School from September 6, 1927 to May 11, 1928. While there he joined the 163rd Infantry unit of the Montana National Guard. In a notebook written when he was nineteen, Hubbard described the events which led him to leave school and make his second trip to Guam. These accounts show that Hubbard had a fanciful imagination even then. On May 4, 1928, the inhabitants of Helena celebrated a holiday. Hubbard described the procession of clowns and pirates along Main Street. After the parade, he was driving two friends around in his 1914 Ford, when he was struck on the head by a baseball. Hubbard pulled up and started a fight with his assailant, claiming to have broken four of the bones in his right hand in the process (though later medical records give no indication of this). The fight supposedly took place a few days before school examinations, so Hubbard failed to collect the necessary credits toward graduation. As it was, he had been doing badly, having had to repeat the first semester's geometry and physics. 1 Hubbard visited his aunt and uncle in Seattle, and from there, in June, revisited the Boy Scouts' Camp Parsons. After a week or two, he grew restless and went off on a lone hike. The first night, he made camp about two miles beyond Shelter Rock. While asleep he fell fifty feet, and when he recovered consciousness found blood gushing from his left wrist. At the end of June, Hubbard learned that the USS Henderson would be leaving for the Philippines on July 1, and on impulse decided to join her. He would return to his parents on Guam. Hubbard raced to San Francisco only to discover that the USS Henderson had already left port. He decided to sign on as an ordinary seaman with the President Pierce, which was China bound. but at the last minute changed his mind and went chasing after the Henderson again. He caught up with her in San Diego. According to Hubbard's notebook, the Henderson's Captain said he would need permission from Washington to join the ship. Time was running out. Washington said Harry Hubbard's consent would be needed. An answer from Guam usually took two days, but Hubbard was in luck. Permission came an hour before the Henderson sailed. Meanwhile, Ron's trunk had been lost en route. He did not recover it for a year, but in spite of this, Hubbard thoroughly enjoyed the voyage. There are two accounts of this trip in the same notebook. Although they are within a few pages of one another, they differ in detail. Ron was already making a habit of elaborating his past, and the accounts teach us to question the veracity of any Hubbard claim. The Henderson's passenger list shows that rather than having been allowed aboard only an hour before, Ron was aboard fully 24 hours before she sailed. On Guam, the seventeen-year-old Ron was tutored by his mother, a qualified teacher, for what should have been his twelfth or senior high school grade. He was being prepared for the Naval Academy examination. During this period, Ron made his second trip to China, this time with both parents. China was still in the throes of civil war, and travel there was limited. Hubbard kept a diary of his trip aboard the USS Gold Star. The ship docked at Tsingtao on October 24, 1928, and stayed there for six days before putting to sea for Ta-ku. The Hubbards then travelled inland to Peking, where they spent about a week. In his diary, Hubbard gave a fairly elaborate description of the sights, probably seen on tours given by the Peking YMCA. He was unimpressed by the marvels of Chinese architecture, and the only building which won his vote was the Rockefeller Foundation. Even the Great Wall failed to elicit more than a comment about its possible use as a roller coaster. Two years later, in another notebook entry, hindsight had transformed the visit to the Great Wall into a far more romantic experience, but that was Hubbard's way. Hubbard's opinion of the Chinese was consistently low. Among many other criticisms, he said the Chinese were both stupid and vicious and would always take the long way round. While in Peking, Hubbard visited a Buddhist temple. He was later to say that Scientology was the western successor to Buddhism, yet his only comment at the time was that the devotees sounded like frogs croaking. After Peking came Cheffoo and then Shanghai. Ron made little comment about Shanghai. It was cold, and the native part of the city had only been reopened to foreign nationals two weeks earlier. Then came Hong Kong, again with little comment, and by December 15, the Chinese adventure was over and the Gold Star was back at sea. The deep understanding of Eastern philosophy acquired by Hubbard in China was boiled down to a single statement in one of his diaries. He said that China's problem was the quantity of "chinks" (see below).
Inscrutable, but hardly a compendium of the great thoughts of the Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian masters. Hubbard was seventeen and this was his last visit to China. In his diary, he made no reference to any meeting in Peking with "old Mayo, last of a line of magicians of Kublai Khan," mentioned in one of his Scientology books. 2 David Mayo would tum up far later in Hubbard's life, as one of the rebels who split Scientology apart in the 1980s. But he is a New Zealander and makes no claims of ties to Kublai Khan. There is no record of Hubbard's supposed travels in Tibet, the western hills of China or India. A flight change at Calcutta airport in 1959 seems to have been his only direct contact with the land of Vedantic philosophy. Indeed, in one of his early Dianetic lectures he dismissed his teenage journeys, saying "I was in the Orient when I was young. Of course, I was a harum-scarum kid. I wasn't thinking about deep philosophical problems." 3 By Christmas 1928, Hubbard was back in Guam. He took the Naval Academy entrance examination, failing the mathematics section. In August 1929, Harry Hubbard and his family returned to the U.S. Harry was posted to Washington, DC, and Ron enrolled at the Swavely Prep School, in Manassas, Virginia, for intensive study to prepare him for the Naval Academy. His mother returned to her parents in Helena. In December 1929, Hubbard acted in the school play. By this time he had developed eyestrain and his near-sightedness prevented him from qualifying for the Naval Academy. 4 Hubbard enrolled at the Woodward School for Boys on February 30, 1930, and graduated that June. Woodward was a school run mainly for difficult students and slow learners. At nineteen, Hubbard was a year late in graduating from high school. At Woodward, Hubbard won an oratory contest. He was always a great talker. The set subject was apt for a man later to be accused of entrapping his followers in a brainwashing cult: "The Constitution: a Guarantee of the Liberty of the Individual." Hubbard's book Mission into Time says he enlisted in the 20th Marine Corps Reserve while a student at George Washington University. Shannon obtained Hubbard's Marine service record which confirms that Hubbard actually joined the Reserve in May of 1930, four months before enrolling at the University. Within two months, he had been promoted to First Sergeant, a leap of six ranks. When Shannon asked the Marine Corps Headquarters they were as baffled as he was by such rapid peacetime promotion. The answer is quite simply that the 20th was actually a Reserve training unit connected to George Washington University. Hubbard later explained his promotion by saying it was a newly formed regiment and his superiors "couldn't find anybody else who could drill." 5 On October 22, 1931, Hubbard received an honorable discharge from the Marine Reserve. In his service record, there is a handwritten note under the character reference: "Excellent." In another hand beneath this is written, "Not to be re-enlisted." There is no explanation of either statement. Hubbard's discharge followed on the heels of criticism of his poor academic performance. Differing claims have been made in Scientology literature for Hubbard's achievements at George Washington University. It has been said he attended the first courses in nuclear physics, even that he was "one of America's first Nuclear Physicists." 6 The former is unlikely (it was a little late to be the first such course) and the latter is a downright lie. Even Hubbard's last wife, Mary Sue, has admitted that her husband was not a nuclear physicist, though she made the preposterous statement that he had never claimed to be. 7 The claim was excused as a mistake made by over-zealous Scientologists, which remained uncorrected in literature copyrighted to Hubbard for 30 years. In fact, Hubbard made that very claim in a Bulletin called The Man Who Invented Scientology, published in 1959. Hubbard was not a "nuclear physicist" by any stretch of the imagination. He was a student in the School of Engineering at George Washington University, majoring in Civil Engineering. According to his college records, he was enrolled in a course called Molecular and Atomic Physics in the second semester of the 1931-32 college year, receiving an "F" grade in what was certainly an introductory course. By his own admission, Hubbard was poor at mathematics, 8 and his records support this by showing nothing better than a "D." He was later to demonstrate how superficial his understanding of physics was in a book called All About Radiation. Ignoring Hubbard's admission, two Scientology biographical sketches say he graduated not only with an Engineering degree, but also a Mathematics degree. For some time Scientology publications carried the legend "C.E." (Civil Engineer) after Hubbard's name. In fact, Hubbard failed to graduate. At the end of his first year he was put on probation for his poor academic performance, and at the end of the second asked to leave. In 1935, Hubbard wrote: "I have some very poor grade sheets which show that I studied to be a civil engineer in college." 9 Scientology official Vaughn Young says the idea that "C.E." stands for "Civil Engineer" is mistaken. Apparently the initials represents a certificate awarded in the early days of Scientology. The same logic applies to Hubbard's BSc (Bachelor of Scientology), and his self-awarded "Doctor of Divinity." Hubbard's inflated claims usually have some slim basis in fact. He was an elaborator, not an originator. His much publicized authority as a scientific and philosophical pioneer was founded on his purportedly long, intimate experience of Eastern mysticism, and his training as an engineer and physicist. Hubbard built his house on the very shaky foundation of a two-week vacation in Peking and a Fail grade in Molecular and Atomic Physics. Behind the prosaic facts was a clever and articulate boy, who did not manage to keep up with his schoolwork. Far from the legend Hubbard was to create, there is little exceptional about Ron Hubbard's childhood and adolescence. Contrary to his later claims, he was with his mother until he was sixteen. The evidence shows he was part of a loving family. His parents were probably upset by his failure to win a place in the Naval Academy or to qualify as an engineer, especially in the dark times of the Great Depression. Ron later said: "My father... decreed that I should study engineering and mathematics and so I found myself obediently studying." Hubbard was already writing in his teens, struggling to generate fiction. His journals are packed with attempts at pulp stories. Even his diary entries were obviously written for an audience, suggesting that even then Hubbard's distinction between fantasy and reality had blurred. FOOTNOTES Quotations from and reference to Hubbard and Scientology biographical sketches of Hubbard: Hubbard, Dianetics: The Original Thesis, p.158. (Scientology Publications Organization, Copenhagen, 1970); Hubbard, Have You Lived Before This Life? p. 298 (Dept of Publications Worldwide, England, 1968); Hubbard, Mission into Time pp.5-6 (American St Hill Organization, 1973); Hubbard, The Phoenix Lectures p. 34 (Publications Organization World Wide, Edinburgh); What Is Scientology? p. xlii (CSC Publications Organization, Los Angeles, 1978); Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974; Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 1, p. 2; vol. 3, p. 470; FSM magazine 1; Hubbard diaries/notebooks (exhibits 62, 63, 65, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153) 1. H. R. Hubbard letter to George Washington University, 19 September 1930. 2. What Is Scientology? p. xl. 3. Research & Discovery Series, vol. 4, p. 2. 4. H. R. Hubbard letter to George Washington University, 19 September 1930. 5. Research & Discovery Series, vol. 7, pp. 98f. 6. All About Radiation (1979 ed.) dustwrapper. 7. Mary Sue Hubbard in vol. 7, p. 1083 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 8. Hubbard, Story of Dianetics and Scientology. 9. Adventure, 1935.
CHAPTER THREE By his own account, Hubbard led his first "expedition" while in college. In fact, the "Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition" set out after Hubbard's last semester at college. Dates vary in the Scientology accounts, but the "expedition" actually took place in the summer of 1932. The "expedition" is mentioned frequently, but briefly, in Scientology literature. It allegedly provided the "Hydrographic Office" and the University of Michigan with "invaluable data for the furtherance of their research." Hubbard's Church supports these claims with copies of the George Washington newspaper, The University Hatchet, of May 1932, and the Washington Daily News of September 13, 1932. As ever, the documents support only the basis of Hubbard's story, and completely undermine his inflated claims. The University Hatchet article preceded the trip, and was enthusiastic about its possible outcome. The headline reads: "L. Ron Hubbard Heads Movie Cruise Among Old American Piratical Haunts," and the article gives considerable detail about the personnel and the objectives of the "expedition." The equipment was to include a light seaplane. Cameras were to be supplied by the University of Michigan. Among the personnel were to be "botanists, biologists and entomologists." The article continues: "Buccaneers, however, will have the center of the stage. According to Hubbard, the strongholds and bivouacs of the Spanish Main have lain neglected and forgotten for centuries, and there has never been a concerted attempt to tear apart the jungles to find the castles of Teach, Morgan, Bonnet, Bluebeard, Kidd, Sharp, Ringrose and L'Ollanais, to name a few." Apparently Hubbard and crew intended to make "motion pictures" for Fox Movietone News: "Down there where the sun is whipping heat waves from the palms, this crew of gentlemen rovers will re-enact the scenes which struck terror to the hearts of the world only a few hundred years ago - with the difference that this time it will be for the benefit of the fun and the flickering ribbon of celluloid .... Scenarios will be written on the spot in accordance with the legends of the particular island, and after a thorough research through the ship's library which is to include many authoritative books on pirates." Hubbard had become one of the eight Associate Editors of The University Hatchet with this issue, so quite possibly he wrote the piece. The style certainly fits. The voyage took place aboard a 1,000 ton sailing ship, the Doris Hamlin, captained by F.E. Garfield. Fifty students were to take part, and the Hatchet article gives an impressive list of proposed ports of call. However, the "expedition" failed to realize its promise. On his return to the U.S., Hubbard wrote an article for the Washington Daily News:
The Doris Hamlin called at Ponce, Puerto Rico, then, on the insistence of its owners, returned to Baltimore. No mention was made of any underwater filming, despite the Scientologists' claim that films made provided the Hydrographic Office and the University of Michigan with "invaluable data." The University of Michigan told Shannon they had no film, and knew nothing of the expedition. Nor is there any mention of the buccaneer film, which was to have been the core of the "expedition." The seaplane, mentioned in the article written before the trip began, has also disappeared in Hubbard's account. The Doris Hamlin failed to reach all but three of its sixteen proposed destinations. A few years later, Hubbard wrote of the "Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition": "It was a crazy idea at best, and I knew it, but I went ahead anyway, chartered a four-masted schooner and embarked with some fifty luckless souls who haven't stopped their cursings yet." 1 The Captain of the Doris Hamlin, who had thirty years of seagoing experience, summed up by saying that it had been "the worst trip I ever made." In an interview published in 1950, Hubbard was quoted as saying "it was a two-bit expedition and a financial bust.'' 2 Undeterred, Hubbard undertook his next "expedition" at the end of 1932. In his Mission into Time we read: "Then in 1932, the true mark of an exceptional explorer was demonstrated. In that year L. Ron Hubbard, aged twenty-one, achieved an ambitious 'first.' Conducting the West Indies Minerals Survey, he made the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico. This was pioneer exploration in the great tradition, opening up a predictable, accurate body of data for the benefit of others. Later, in other, less materialistic fields, this was to be his way many, many times over." The Scientologists supply a survey report for manganese, dated January 20, 1933, and signed "L. Ron Hubbard." There is also a letter dated February 16, 1933, headed ' 'West Indies Minerals, Washington, D.C." The letter's author says he was accompanied on a survey by L. Ron Hubbard. Attached to the letter is a crude map entitled "La Plata Mine Assays," and signed with the "LRH" monogram familiar to Scientologists. As ever, Shannon explored more deeply. He found that a Bela Hubbard had made a survey of the Lares district of Puerto Rico in 1923, but the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey, and a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, who had prepared the Geology of Puerto Rico in 1932-1933, had no knowledge of L. Ron Hubbard.
Long before Scientology, Hubbard told stories about an expedition to South America. Frank Gruber, who knew him in 1934, said Hubbard told him about a four-year expedition to the Amazon. After the War, Hubbard told a fellow writer he had been wounded by native arrows on this supposed expedition. 5 By the time Dianetics came along, this tall story had faded away, to be replaced with others. There is one Scientology biographical sketch which makes a fleeting mention of an "expedition" to Central America, made immediately on his departure from college. Hubbard also claimed to have been a barnstorming pilot (nicknamed "Flash"). Shannon found that for two years Hubbard had a license for gliders, but non for powered aircraft. The barnstorming career seems to have been another student vacation, taken in the summer of 1931 with a friend who was an experienced pilot. The Scientologists, in a 1989 publication called Ron the Writer, claim that having left college Hubbard "went straight into the world of fiction writing and before two months were over had established himself in that field at a pay level which, for those times, was astronomical." Apart from a few contributions to The University Hatchet Literary Review, Hubbard's only commercially published article while at the University was for the Sportsman Pilot. It was called "Tailwind Willies," and was published in January 1932, and it probably earned little or nothing. During 1932 and 1933, Hubbard contributed five articles to the Sportsman Pilot, including one entitled "Music with Your Navigation," and one to the Washington Star Supplement, called "Navy Pets." That was his entire commercial output during those years; hardly enough to support himself, let alone produce an "astronomical" level of pay. It was not until 1934 that Hubbard's stories were accepted by pulp magazines such as Thrilling Adventure, The Phantom Detective, and Five Novels Monthly. His later denials of having written pulp wear thin given some of the titles in question: "Sea Fangs," "The Carnival of Death," "Man-Killers of the Air," and "The Squad that Never Came Back." Hubbard later wrote Western Fiction too. The Church usually makes no mention of Ron's first two marriages. Upon his return from Puerto Rico, Hubbard married Margaret Louise Grubb, in Elkton, Maryland, on April 13, 1933. He called her "Polly," or "Skipper," and she called him "Redhead." The first child, "Nibs," or more properly Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, Jr., was born prematurely in May 1934. In 1936, Polly bore Hubbard a daughter, Catherine May. Summer 1934 found Hubbard living in a hotel in New York, where he met Frank Gruber, also an aspiring pulp writer. They spent a lot of time together, and in his book, The Pulp Jungle, Gruber told this story:
Hubbard was actually twenty-three. Gruber had been taking notes throughout:
Gruber added: "I will say this, his extremely vivid imagination earned him a fortune, some years later." His Church claims that Hubbard moved to Hollywood in 1935, 1936 or 1937 (depending on which account you read), and while there wrote many major films. Shortly after Gerald Armstrong started working on the Hubbard biographical Archive, he was told that the film Dive Bomber, a 1941 Warner Brothers film release, allegedly written by Hubbard, was to be shown to raise money for the legal defense of eleven indicted Scientology staff members. Armstrong started researching the background of the film in February 1980.
Armstrong was in a quandary: "It would have been embarrassing if someone had said, 'where is your name' and his name wasn't on it. People had paid money. So I thought perhaps I could come up with something else that could be a substitute .... I wrote to Mr. Hubbard and let him know what I had found to date . . . he didn't answer me. But he sent down a dispatch." 6 Hubbard's dispatch, dated February 11, 1980, was sent to the organizer of the showing. It was read into the court record, in the Armstrong case. 7 Hubbard claimed that Warner Brothers had forgotten to put his name on the movie, and had paid him after distribution. He had not cashed the check until the end of the war, when he used the money for a trip to the Caribbean. Hubbard's most noteworthy work during his brief time in Hollywood was the co-authorship of a 15 part serial called The Secret of Treasure Island. He was, however, a successful pulp writer. Many of his stories were published during the 1930s. Among his pseudonyms were Rene Lafayette, Legionnaire 148, Lieutenant Scott Morgan, Morgan de Wolf, Michael de Wolf, Michael Keith, Kurt von Rachen, Captain Charles Gordon, Legionnaire 14830, Elron, Bernard Hubbel, Captain B.A. Northrup, Joe Blitz and Winchester Remington Colt. Only his remarkable writing output enabled Hubbard to make a living in those "penny-a-word" days. He wrote a number of "true stories," two of which concerned his alleged experiences in the French Foreign Legion. His first hard-covered book, Buckskin Brigades, was published in 1937. According to Hubbard, his first philosophical breakthrough came in 1938, with the discovery that the primary law of all existence is "Survive!" The notion that everything that exists is trying to survive became the basis of Dianetics and Scientology. In 1938, Hubbard detailed his supposed insights in a book called Excalibur. Hubbard's hints about Excalibur are the source of several Scientology myths. It is whispered that the entirety of Scientology was available in the book, but in such a concentrated form that many people would have gone mad had they read it. Indeed, in an early Scientology promotional piece, it was claimed that fifteen copies of Excalibur were distributed, but four of the people who read the book went mad as a result, so the manuscript was withdrawn. The book has never been published. Gerald Armstrong found three different manuscripts of Excalibur among Hubbard's personal effects, one of which was between 300 and 400 pages long. 8 Later, someone who had seen a version of Excalibur said it was so "dangerous" he would "willingly let his four-year-old daughter read it." Writer A.E. van Vogt, an important figure in the early Dianetic movement, has said that Hubbard claimed his heart had stopped for six minutes during an operation, in 1938. Excalibur was the result of the revelation Hubbard had during this near death experience. Armstrong has said it was a dental extraction under nitrous oxide. Hubbard told his literary agent that a "smorgasbord" of knowledge had been laid out before him. He had absorbed it all, and managed to avoid the command to forget, which was the last part of the incident. Excalibur is an expansion of Hubbard's argument that "Survive!" is the basic law of existence. Hubbard's friend and fellow writer, Arthur Burks, saw the book when it was offered to publishers in New York in the summer of 1938. He was impressed, but could not manage to instill his enthusiasm into a publisher. Burks later hinted that he put up money for the book to be published, but that Hubbard returned to Port Orchard in the autumn, dejected that he had failed to find a proper publisher, taking Burks' money with him. 9 Hubbard often claimed that the only people who understood the value of his research in 1938 were the Russians. In an interview given in 1964, he said that the Russians had offered him $100,000 and laboratory facilities he needed in the USSR, so that he could complete his work. After Hubbard refused, a copy of Excalibur was stolen from his hotel room in Miami. Hubbard made no mention of these supposed events when complaining to the FBI about approaches from the Russians in 1951. 10 In 1938, Hubbard became a science fiction writer, claiming he was "summoned" by the publishing firm of Street & Smith to write for Astounding Science Fiction. Hubbard protested that he wrote about people, not machines, and was told that this was precisely what was needed. Hubbard joined editor John Campbell's circle of friends, and became a major contributor to the reshaping of science fiction which Campbell brought about. Campbell was also to figure in the birth of Dianetics, twelve years later. Recently this pre-war period has been dubbed the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Hubbard's work appeared alongside that of Robert Heinlien, A.E. van Vogt, and Isaac Asimov, each of whom has stated his admiration for Hubbard's stories. Although Hubbard's writing was patchy in places, he certainly had a very inventive imagination. He became a regular contributor to Astounding, moving back to New York in the autumn of 1939. Hubbard's interest in the occult continued, and for six months in 1940 he belonged to the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC). He completed the first two "neophyte" degrees (probably by mail) before his membership lapsed on July 5, 1940. 11 In February 1940, Hubbard was accepted as a member of the Explorers' Club of New York (though one Scientology account says 1936). According to his book Mission into Time, Hubbard was awarded the Explorers' Club Flag in May 1940, for an expedition to Alaska aboard his ketch, the Magician. Hubbard called this trip the "Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition." Another Scientology account claims the expedition was undertaken for the U.S. Government.
In a letter sent to the Seattle Star in November 1940, Hubbard complained that his Alaskan trip had been greatly delayed by frequent failures of the boat's motor. Repairs had been expensive, and Hubbard and his wife were stranded in Ketchikan while he tried to write and sell enough stories to bail them out. Eventually he borrowed $265 from the Bank of Alaska, a debt he blithely forgot as soon he departed. 12 Hubbard was apparently an accomplished sailor, receiving a License to Master of Steam and Motor Vessels in December 1940, and a License to Master of Sail Vessels (any Ocean), in May 1941. In 1938, Hubbard had failed to secure a place in the Air Corps, and in 1939 the U.S. War Department turned him down. By the spring of 1941, Hubbard was living in New York, and waging an all-out campaign for a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve with assignment to intelligence duties. Hubbard pursued this objective by coaxing his friends to write letters of reference to the U.S. Navy. 13 In March, Jimmy Britton of KGBU radio in Alaska wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, claiming that during a "ten month" stay in Alaska, Hubbard had been "instrumental in bringing to justice a German saboteur who had devised it to be in his power to cut off Alaska from communication with the U.S. in time of war." Hubbard does not seem to have mentioned this episode himself, but it is highly likely that Britton heard the story from Hubbard. Hubbard, in a letter to the Seattle Star written in 1940, said he had been in Alaska from July to November. Britton said Hubbard had spent ten months in Alaska. There was a letter from Commander W.E. McCain, of the U.S. Navy which stated: "I have found him to be of excellent character, honest, ambitious and always very anxious to improve himself, to better himself and become a more useful citizen." A letter written in April 1941, by Warren Magnuson of the House of Representatives to President Roosevelt, said: "An interesting trait is his distaste for personal publicity. He is both discreet and resourceful as his record should indicate." One letter, allegedly from a professor at George Washington University, explained that Hubbard' s "average grades in engineering were due to the obvious fact that he had started in the wrong career. They do not reflect his great ability." In May came a letter from Robert Ford, also of the House of Representatives, who recommended Hubbard as, "one of the most brilliant men I have ever known . . . discreet, loyal, honest." Ford says that he and Hubbard were close friends at the time, and admits that he probably gave Hubbard some of his note-paper and told him to write whatever he liked. 14 Lastly, a letter from the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, John Campbell, who confined himself mainly to praise of Hubbard's ability to turn in a story on time, but added: "In personal relationships, I have the highest opinion of him as a thoroughly American gentleman." Hubbard stepped up his campaign after he was rejected by the U.S. Navy Reserve in April. His eyesight was inadequate. However, with the expansion of the armed forces due to the growing U.S. committment to the European war, Hubbard's poor eyesight was waived, and he achieved his goal. In July 1941, five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy finally yielded to Hubbard's entreaties, and gave him a commission in the Reserve. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Hubbard, Mission into Time (American St Hill Organization, 1973); Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974; FSM magazine 1; A Report to Members of Parliament on Scientology (Worldwide PR Bureau, Church of Scientology, 1968); Hubbard's college grade sheets; The University Hatchet; Washington Daily News, 13 September 1932; Gruber, The Pulp Jungle; Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974; "L. Ron Hubbard," by the LRH Public Affairs Bureau, Church of Scientology of California, 1981; Motion Picture Herald, 23 January 1937; Hubbard, Battlefield Earth, p. viii; Rocky Mountain News, 20 February 1983 1. Adventure, 1935. 2. Look magazine, 5 December 1950. 3. Vol. 12, p.1972 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 4. Vol. 11, p.1867-8 of transcript of ibid. 5. Alva Rogers, Darkhouse 6. Vol. 10, p.1577 of transcript of ibid. 7. Vol. 10, pp.1581-3 of transcript of ibid. 8. Vol. 15, pp.2423-4 of transcript of ibid. 9. Dianetic Auditors Bulletin III, no.l; Aberree, December 1961. 10. Exhibit 500-6J, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153; Hubbard letter to FBI, May 1951. 11. Letter to the author from AMORC, 1984. 12. Exhibit 500-3H, ibid. 13. Letters from Hubbard naval record. 14. Russell Miller interview with Robert Macdonald Ford, Olympia, Washington, 1 September 1986.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hubbard's claims about his Navy career form a major part of the Superman image he tried to project. He and his followers have claimed he saw action in the Philippines upon the U.S. entry into World War II. Hubbard was supposedly the first returned casualty from the "Far East," and was dispatched immediately to the command of an antisubmarine warfare vessel which served in the North Atlantic. He allegedly rose to command the "Fourth British Corvette" squadron, and then saw service with amphibious forces in the Pacific, ending the War in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, "crippled and blinded," the recipient of between twenty-one and twenty-seven medals and palms. His exploits were, Hubbard claimed, the basis for a Hollywood movie starring Henry Fonda. As ever, there are inconsistencies between Hubbard's own accounts. Hubbard also referred to his time in Naval Intelligence, and much is made of this experience by Scientologists. On his U.S. Navy Reserve commission papers, issued in July, 1941, he was designated a volunteer for "Special Service (Intelligence duties)," an assignment he requested. His service record shows that when he was eventually called to permanent active duty in November, he was indeed posted as an "intelligence officer." The expression conjures up cloak and dagger images better associated with the CIA's forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, which did not exist at that time. Although the U.S. was not yet at war, France had fallen and the Japanese threat was recognized. The U.S. Navy was on a major recruiting drive when Hubbard was commissioned. The duties of intelligence officers at that time were largely routine, including the censorship of letters, and the collection, compilation and distribution of information. Hubbard nominally served in this capacity for five months, spending much of that time either in transit or in training. After receiving his Naval Reserve commission, Hubbard was not immediately called to active duty. By this time he was employed as a civilian by the Navy in New York City, working with public relations and recruiting. He was only on active duty for two weeks between his commissioning in July and the end of November. He was ordered to the Hydrographic Office, Bureau of Navigation, in Washington, DC. There he annotated the photographs he had taken during his trip to Alaska the year before. A Hydrographic Office memo reads: "These items are all brief, and some are unimportant, but in the aggregate they represent a very definite contribution." The memo adds that Hubbard's information would be used in the 1942 update of the Sailing Directions for British Columbia, section 175, and possibly in section 176. On October 6, he was "honorably released from temporary active duty." Hubbard was next called to active duty at the end of November, two weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1984, Captain Thomas Moulton testified in court as a witness for the Scientologists. Moulton had served briefly with Hubbard, and expressed a deep admiration for him. Moulton recounted another of Hubbard's claims of military prowess that the Scientologists probably had not expected. According to Moulton, on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hubbard "had been landed, so he told me, in Java from a destroyer named the Edsall [misspelled "Edsel" in the Court transcript] and had made his way across the land to Surabaja .... When the Japanese came in, he took off into the hills and lived up in the jungle for some time .... He was, as far as I know, the only person that ever got off the Edsall ....She was sunk within a few days after that." Hubbard had allegedly been a gunnery officer on the Edsall. Hubbard also told Moulton that he had been hit by machine-gun fire, "in the back, in the area of the kidneys .... He told me he made his escape eventually to Australia .... He and another chap sailed a liferaft... to West Australia where they were picked up by a British or Australian destroyer... on the order of seventy-five miles off Australia .... It was a remarkable piece of navigation." Sailing over 700 miles in a life-raft is remarkable indeed. In fact, Hubbard's naval record shows no time on Java. He had been ordered to active duty on November 24, 1941, and, on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, Hubbard was half a world away from Java in New York. Eight days after his supposed landing in Java, Hubbard was receiving instruction at the District Intelligence Office, in San Francisco. Hubbard was en route to the Philippines when the ship's destination was changed to Australia. Hubbard left the ship in Brisbane on January 11. Japanese action against Java began at the end of February. The USS Edsall was sunk at the beginning of March (long after Pearl Harbor), and Java surrendered to the Japanese on March 9. On the same day, Hubbard in fact boarded the MV Pennant, in Brisbane, Australia, bound for the United States. When Hubbard arrived in Brisbane in January 1942, he seems to have informally attached himself to a newly landed U.S. Army Unit. Within a few weeks, he was in trouble with his Navy superiors. There had been a mix-up over the routing of a ship, and a copy of a secret dispatch had gone astray. While Hubbard may not have been to blame, he took the undiplomatic course of writing a report about the incident which was openly hostile of his senior officers, including the U.S. Naval Attaché. The Scientologists offer a document written by Infantry Colonel Alexander Johnson to the Commander of the Base Force, Darwin, Australia, dated February 13, 1942. The document describes Hubbard as "an intelligent, resourceful and dependable officer." The following day the U.S. Naval Attaché to Australia expressed a very different point of view: "By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, he became the source of much trouble. This, however, was made possible by the representative of the U.S. Army at Brisbane .... This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think that he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty." Far from being an important intelligence operative, as the Scientologists fondly believe, Hubbard was simply a nuisance. So much so that after only a month in Australia, orders were prepared for Hubbard's return to the United States. Twenty years later, Hubbard described his brief time in Australia: "My acquaintance ... goes back to being the only anti-aircraft battery in Australia in 1941-42. I was up at Brisbane. There was me and a Thompson sub-machine gun .... I was a mail officer and I was replaced,I think, by a Captain, a couple of commanders . . . and about 15 junior officers .... They replaced me. I came home." He made no mention of his supposed adventures on Java. 1 A Scientology press release claims that Hubbard was "flown home in the late spring of 1942 in the Secretary of the Navy's private plane as the first U.S. returned casualty from the Far East." Another Scientology account adds that Hubbard "was relieved by fifteen officers of rank [no longer "junior officers"] and was rushed home to take part in the 1942 battle against German submarines as Commanding Officer of a Corvette serving in the North Atlantic." Yet another Scientology account says he "rose to command a squadron." In reality, after his return by ship to San Francisco at the end of March 1942, Hubbard was hospitalized for catarrhal fever, which he had contracted aboard ship. Being the "first U.S. returned casualty from the Far East" seems to have consisted of having a bad cold. A doctor noted that he was "somewhat preoccupied with himself." Upon recovering from his cold, Hubbard was posted to intelligence duties at Naval Headquarters in San Francisco. He immediately requested transfer to New York. After two weeks, he was sent to the Office of the Cable Censor in New York. A dispatch written in April says: "The Chief Cable Censor is cognizant of the letter from the Naval Attaché, Australia, dated February 14, 1942, and has considered the suggestion made therein. It is therefore recommended that no disciplinary action be taken." In New York, Hubbard went on the sick list almost immediately, suffering from conjunctivitis for a few days. During World War II, junior U.S. Naval Officers were promoted in batches, and in June, Hubbard became a Lieutenant senior grade. This was the highest rank he achieved, which was unusual, as he continued in active service for more than three years beyond this date. When Hubbard was transferred to New York, cable censorship had just ceased to be a function of Intelligence, so Hubbard ceased to be an "intelligence officer." His designation for work in Intelligence was amended to that of a Deck Officer. He requested sea duty in the Caribbean, but was posted to Neponset, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, at the end of June 1942. There he was to oversee the conversion of a trawler, the MV Mist, into a Navy yard patrol craft, the USS YP-422. A Scientology press release says that the Mist, under Hubbard's command, served with British and American anti-submarine warfare vessels in the North Atlantic. The truth is less heroic. The Mist, or YP-422, put to sea from the Boston Navy Yard on training exercises in August. The exercises lasted twenty-seven hours, in which time YP-422 fired a few practice rounds, but it saw no action against the enemy under Hubbard's command. Once again Hubbard managed to antagonize his superiors. In a dispatch to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard wrote: "Lt. L.R. Hubbard is in command of YP 422 completing conversion and fitting out at Boston, in the opinion of the Commandant he is not temperamentally fitted for independent command. It is therefore urgently requested that he be detached and that order for relief be expedited in view of the expected early departure of the vessel. Believe Hubbard capable of useful service if ordered to other duty under immediate supervision of a more senior officer." On October 1, Hubbard was summarily detached from the YP-422 and ordered to New York. So ended his only command in the Atlantic. Although his record shows no service in the eastern Atlantic, a photograph shows Hubbard wearing the "European and African campaign" ribbon nonetheless. The Scientology tale, doubtless inspired if not written by Hubbard, about his command of a squadron pursuing German submarines is entirely fanciful. Back in New York, Hubbard wrote to the Bank of Alaska, who had finally caught up with him, explaining that he could not repay the $265 he had borrowed during his 1940 "expedition." This is only one of a number of unpaid debts recorded in his Navy file. Hubbard again requested sea duty in the Caribbean, but in November 1942 was ordered to the Submarine Chaser Center, in Florida, for training. In a lecture given in 1964, Hubbard talked about his time there: "Fortunately, it was a lovely, lovely warm classroom, and I was shipped for a very short time down into the south of Florida... and, boy was I able to catch up on some sleep." 2 A Scientology publication claims that in 1943 Hubbard became a Commodore of Corvette Squadrons. Whatever else he was, Hubbard was certainly never a Commodore (the rank between Captain and Rear Admiral) in the U.S. Navy; at least until he appointed himself to that rank in his Sea Org, nearly twenty-five years later. After two months in the warm classrooms of Florida, Hubbard was posted, on January 17, 1943, to the Albina shipyards, in Portland, Oregon. There he was to assist with the fitting out of the PC 815, and to assume command when she was commissioned. The PC 815 was a patrol craft, a "sleek hulled submarine chaser of approximately 280 tons full load," according to Jane's Fighting Ships. Hubbard asked Thomas Moulton, with whom he had studied in Florida, to become his executive officer when the PC 815 was commissioned. Moulton was posted to Portland in March 1943. He arrived to find Hubbard recovering from another bout of catarrhal fever in the care of his wife, Polly. Hubbard's eyes troubled him and he wore dark glasses constantly. At a dance at the Seattle Tennis Club, he took off the glasses, and Moulton says Hubbard's eyes reddened and began to water in a matter of minutes. He told Moulton his difficulty was due to the "flash from a large caliber gun . . . on a destroyer he had been on." During a medical examination in 1946, Hubbard attributed his visual trouble to "excessive tropical sunlight." The real problem was a recurrence of his conjunctivitis. Moulton added: "he frequently complained of pain in his right side and the back in the area of the kidneys which he said was due to some damage from a Japanese machine gun .... And from that he had considerable difficulty in urination. And upon at least one occasion I saw him urinating bloody urine." Attorney Michael Flynn later suggested that Hubbard's difficulty might well have been a "social disease," allegedly mentioned in Hubbard's private papers. Bloody urine can result from an excess of sulfa drugs, commonly used at that time as a treatment for venereal disease. Hubbard later complained about the amount of sulfa drugs he had been fed in the Navy. When the USS PC 815 was commissioned on April 21, Hubbard became her Commanding Officer. The next day, a remarkable article was printed in the Oregon Journal. The text is headed with a picture of Hubbard, in dark glasses, and Moulton, and reads in part:
We are then told that Hubbard spent his youth in Portland, and are given his statement about the "Albina Hellships": "Those little sweethearts are tough. They could lick the pants off anything Nelson or Farragut ever sailed. They put up a sizzling fight and are the only answer to the submarine menace. I state emphatically that the future of America rests with just such escort vessels." In the Journal, Hubbard has been promoted and his father demoted. There is no mention elsewhere of "Captain" Waterbury's naval career, and "I. C. De Wolfe" was the maiden name of Hubbard's maternal grandmother, Ida Corinne. As usual the story was tailored to fit the circumstances, Hubbard had cut his cloth to fit a man of greater stature than himself. In mid-May 1943, the newly refitted USS PC 815 sailed from Astoria, on the Oregon coast, into the Pacific on a "shake-down" cruise. Her destination was San Diego. Shortly after leaving Astoria, sonar readings indicated the presence of a submarine; at least according to Hubbard and Moulton in the Action Report they filed at the time. Strangely enough, Hubbard does not seem to have recounted this story to his followers. Despite many remarkable tales about his naval career, this was the only action which even approached a "battle" in which he took part. Hubbard's report runs to eighteen typewritten pages. It was written two days after the PC 815 had returned to Astoria, facing general disbelief, as Hubbard admitted, so he backed up his report with several others from the crew. Admiral Fletcher, Commander Northwest Sea Frontier who reviewed Hubbard's report found it was "not in accordance with 'Anti-Submarine Action by Surface Ship.' " Fletcher had a point: the action report reads strangely like a short story. The "battle" took place off Cape Lookout, some fifty miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River. The PC 815 was in the steamer track, ten or twelve miles off the Oregon coast. After an echo contact had been checked, the PC 815 laid three depth charges, just before 4:00 a.m., on May 19. Shortly before 5:00 a.m., Hubbard gave orders to fire on an object that had appeared in the early morning light. In his report he admitted that it was probably a large piece of driftwood, but justified the attack as a means of checking the PC 815's guns. In the first hour, the PC 815 made three runs, using nine depth charges. Hubbard had to be more sparing with the remaining three, which were laid one at a time on three successive runs. Hubbard said that his object was to force the submarine to come up, so it could be attacked with the guns. The PC 815 was joined by two anti-submarine "blimps" (non-rigid airships) at nine that morning, by which time she had no charges left. The submarine had failed to respond in any way to these attacks. By midday, eight hours into the battle, Hubbard had decided that the submarine could not fire torpedoes. The PC 815 would have provided an easy target, as, according to Hubbard, the sea was calm (Moulton later contradicted this, saying the sea was sometimes "quite rough"). Hubbard complained that his requests for more depth charges were acknowledged but not answered. For at least four hours, the PC 815, which had no depth charges, kept the purported submarine in place. No oil or debris from the submarine had been sighted, so there was no indication of damage. The submarine made no attempt to retaliate or escape. The PC 815 was joined in the afternoon by the SC 536 (SCs, or Sub Chasers, were slightly smaller vessels than the PC 815). The SC 536 seems to have had inadequate detection equipment, so had to follow the PC 815 over the target, and lay her depth charges at the signal of a whistle. In his report Hubbard praised the lieutenant commanding the SC 536 to the skies. Later that afternoon the PC 815's soundman found a second submarine. Hubbard said the blimps saw air bubbles, oil and a periscope. The blimps' own reports do not seem to have mentioned this. Throughout the "battle" several oil boils appeared, but the PC 815 failed to take samples. The SC 536 had made three attacks by 4:36 p.m., when a Coast Guard patrol boat delivered twenty-three new depth charges to the PC 815. That evening, the USS CG Bonham and the SC 537 arrived. They could not locate a submarine with their detection equipment. Hubbard castigated them for their lack of co-operation, suggesting that the commander of the Bonham was afraid he would damage his ship if he fired a depth charge. On the second day, the "battle" continued at a slower pace. Hubbard was officially given command of the assembly that afternoon. On the third day of this one-sided contest, a periscope was allegedly sighted, but rapidly disappeared when the PC 815's gunners opened fire. They were joined by the larger PC 778, which carried fifty depth charges. She found no indication of submarines, so refused either to lay depth charges, or to supply any to Hubbard. Indeed, Hubbard had such difficulty obtaining more ammunition that Moulton sent a message to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, in Pearl Harbor, "asking why in thunder we couldn't get any help." At midnight, on May 21, the PC 815 was ordered back to Astoria. According to Hubbard's report, the action had lasted for 55 hours, 27 minutes. The PC 815 had remained in the area searching for a further thirteen hours. They had used a total of thirty-five depth charges, and despite the failure of either of the submarines to respond, they had sustained three minor casualties and shot away their own radio antenna. In a personnel report attached to his Action Report, Hubbard congratulated his crew without exception for their part in the "battle." In his summary, Hubbard again sang the praises of Lieutenant Kroepke of the SC 536. He criticized the commanding officers of the blimps for their lack of knowledge of anti-submarine warfare. Hubbard concluded his report with the claim that the PC 815 had completely immobilized one Japanese submarine, and severely damaged a second. Another officer, Ensign Walker, mentioned only one submarine in his report. Moulton confirmed Hubbard's report, both at the time and forty years later in court. Admiral Fletcher was not impressed. In his comment on the report of June 8, 1943, he said:
It seems that at the time Hubbard managed to win his crew over into believing they had disabled two submarines. They certainly believed in him. One of the reports submitted by the crew included this statement: "But above all the crew, each and every man looks up to and respects the captain, L. Ron Hubbard and everything in every way that the men should respect a leader [sic]. And I might add that the crew thinks that he is one of the best leaders of any ship afloat." And in court Moulton said of Hubbard: "He ran a very competent, extremely competent attack throughout the thing. He did a very fine job." Hubbard's report, written before Admiral Fletcher had interviewed anyone, was defensive from the start. His statements about those who disagreed with him are interesting: he criticized the very officers who were to deny the submarines' existence. For someone who claimed to have slept during his only course in Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), and had not seen action previously, Hubbard's comments about the other commanders' inadequate knowledge of ASW were distinctly high-handed. On June 28, the PC 815 put to sea once more for training exercises. At Hubbard's order, she fired three practice rounds from her three-inch gun in the direction of Los Coronados islands. Hubbard had anchored in Mexican waters, and the islands were Mexican territory. Within two days a Board of Investigation was underway. On July 7 a fitness report on Hubbard was written by Rear Admiral Braisted, Commander Fleet Operational Training Command, Pacific. In the "Remarks" section, the Rear Admiral said: "Consider this officer lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. He acts without forethought as to probable results. He is believed to have been sincere in his efforts to make his ship efficient and ready. Not considered qualified for command or promotion at this time. Recommend duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised." As we have seen, this observation about Hubbard's need for supervision had been made by the U.S. Naval Attaché in Australia and by the Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard. This time it was heeded, and Hubbard did not receive another command. On July 15, 1943, Rear Admiral Braisted wrote a "letter of admonition" to Hubbard and for the record. On the same day, Hubbard complained of epigastric pain and was put on the sick list in San Diego. In his private papers, Hubbard later admitted that his illness was a way of avoiding discipline. 3 He was under observation for nine days for malaria, which he claimed to have suffered from sixteen months before, in a "combat area," according to a doctor's report of Hubbard's statement at the time. Malaria was not diagnosed at this time, nor does diagnosis of malaria appear anywhere in Hubbard's extensive Navy and Veterans Administration medical files, despite his repeated complaints that he was suffering from the symptoms. Hubbard was on the sick list for a total of seventy-seven days, suffering, it was finally decided, from a duodenal ulcer. At the end of this period, in October 1943, he asked to be ordered to landing vessels, attaching a list of his qualifications to the request which included the command of three expeditions, and a puffed-up account of his brief spell with the Marine Reserve at George Washington University. He also attached a statement seeking to justify the shelling of the Coronados, saying that most of the crew of the PC 815 had asked to return to his command. He claimed to have been given permission to fire at his own discretion, and complained that other vessels had not been censured for anchoring off the Coronados. Hubbard added, pathetically, that although he knew that he was in the grip of a throat infection at the time, this could not excuse his error. Hubbard's statement failed to impress. Following the PC 815 fiasco, it was a year before he put to sea again. In early December 1943, Hubbard was assigned to fitting out and training the crew of the USS Algol, in Portland. In July 1944, when the Algol was commissioned, Hubbard was posted as the "Navigation and Training Officer" aboard the ship, an Attack Cargo Auxiliary Vessel. The Algol followed the same initial route as the PC 815, south from Portland, but docked at Oakland after training exercises. On Wednesday, September 27, at 4:30 p.m., the Deck Log of the Algol shows that the "navigating officer reported to the OOD [Officer on the Deck] that an attempt at sabotage had been made sometime between 1530-1600. A Coke bottle filled with gasoline with a cloth wick inserted had been concealed among cargo which was to be hoisted aboard and stored in No. 1 hold." The log is signed by the navigating officer, L. Ron Hubbard. The FBI and Navy Intelligence were called in to investigate. The next day's log records a dispatch received at 10:14 on the night of the incident, confirming earlier orders for Hubbard to leave ship. The Algol put to sea six days later. It was to play a part in the Okinawa invasion, and by the end of the war had won two battle stars. Hubbard remained safe ashore. He later claimed that the title role in "Mr. Roberts" was based on his experiences aboard the USS Algol, with Hubbard's part taken by Henry Fonda. His Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Axton T. Jones (upon whom Hubbard was later to claim the vicious James Cagney character was based), did give Hubbard a generally favorable Fitness Report, but remarked: "Lieutenant Hubbard is a capable and energetic officer, but is very temperamental and often has his feelings hurt. He is an above average navigator and is to be trusted. This officer is of excellent personal and military character. Recommended for promotion when due." Hubbard responded to a general Navy request for applicants "for intensive training with eventual assignment to foreign duty as civil affairs officers in occupied areas." Commander Jones had earlier approved Hubbard's request for appointment to the School of Military Government. In his application, Hubbard had claimed that he was a trained civil engineer with a knowledge of Spanish, Japanese, Pekin and Shanghai Pidgin, Tagalog and Chamorro. He had also claimed an understanding of the social psychology of the peoples of the Philippines, North China and Japan. Hubbard was one of hundreds of officers who did a three month course in "Military Government" at Princeton. However, his later claims to have studied at Princeton University are misleading. During the war the U.S. Navy had a training establishment on the campus at Princeton, which was not part of the University. It seems likely that Hubbard was in training for the anticipated postwar occupation of Japan. By his own admission, he failed the examination for overseas posting and became depressed as a consequence. 4 In April 1945, Hubbard's duodenal ulcer flared up, and he spent the next seven months on the sick-list, largely as a patient in Oak Knoll Hospital, Oakland, California. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Hubbard naval record; Hubbard Veterans Administration file; Thomas Moulton testimony in GA 22; U.S.S. PC-815 Action Report; Auditor 63; A Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard (originally printed circa 1960, [Scientology] Public Relations Office News, Los Angeles) Donvart, Conflict of Duty, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1983; Hubbard's service in Australia was with Base Section No. 3, Brisbane - see U.S Army in World War II - The Technical Services vols. The Ordnance Dept. and The Corps of Engineers, pp. 114-115; Hubbard, Mission into Time (American St Hill Organization, 1973); Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974; FSM magazine 1; A Report to Members of Parliament on Scientology (Worldwide PR Bureau, Church of Scientology, 1968) 1. Hubbard 1963 interview. 2. Hubbard lecture "Study: Evaluation of Information," 11 August 1964 (Study tape 5). 3. Vol. 12, p. 1925 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 4. Hubbard, Professional Auditors Bulletin 124, 15 Nov 1957.
CHAPTER FIVE Scientology accounts claim that Hubbard, having served in all five theaters of World War II, and received between twenty-one and twenty-seven medals and palms, was taken crippled and blinded to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Hubbard's service record presents a different picture: A man who never saw action against the enemy, and received not twenty-one, but four awards, none for combat or wounds. The Scientologists frequently reissue a Hubbard article called My Philosophy, which reads in part:
This moving history was designated "Broad Public Issue" by Hubbard, so it is well known to all Scientologists. It is a remarkable story, reinforced by biographical sketches published by his Church. To the Scientologist, Hubbard's miraculous recovery gives hope for his or her own. Hubbard's My Philosophy is not one of the biographical statements containing "errors made by former public relations people who have since been removed," as a high-ranking Scientology official put it, in 1986. 1 There is no doubt that it was written by Hubbard, as the original is in his handwriting, and was admitted into evidence in the Armstrong case. Documents from Navy and Veterans Administration files tell a very different and far less stirring tale of Hubbard's war wounds. Hubbard did not spend a full year in Oak Knoll Hospital. He was hospitalized for tests in April 1945, took a month's convalescent leave from the end of July, and was again hospitalized (though spent some time as an outpatient) from the end of August until he was mustered out of the Navy on December 6, 1945. In October 1945, a Naval Board gave the opinion that Hubbard was "considered physically qualified to perform duty ashore, preferably within the continental United States." The restriction to duty ashore was due to his chronic ulcer. The official files give a fairly complete record of Hubbard's medical condition from 1941 well into the 1950s. He was first hospitalized in Vallejo, California, in March 1942, immediately upon his return from Australia. There is no mention there, or anywhere in the extensive records, of "injured optic nerves," or of blindness. When Hubbard was admitted to Oak Knoll hospital, in 1945, he had 20/20 vision, with glasses. When he was mustered out, that December, his eyesight was 12/20 in the right eye, and 14/20 in the left, again with glasses. The major deterioration coincided with his decision to apply for a disability pension. In a plaintive letter to the Veterans Administration, Hubbard claimed that reading for longer than a few minutes gave him a headache. Following his accidental attack on one of the Coronados Islands, in June 1943, Hubbard was hospitalized for "stomach trouble," which was diagnosed as a duodenal ulcer.
At the time of his separation from the Navy, Hubbard applied to the Veterans Administration for disability benefits. In February 1946, he was awarded a ten percent disability pension of $11.50 per month. His visual deterioration was not considered pensionable. For several years he campaigned, with some success, to have his pension increased. Despite his enormous income in later years, Hubbard continued to draw the pension until his death. Claims relating to Hubbard's miraculous recovery from his war wounds have been many and various: "Thanks in great part to the unusual discoveries that L. Ron Hubbard made while at Oak Knoll in 1944, he recovered so fully that he was reclassified for full combat duty." "By 1947, overworked and in poverty, he found he had the glimmerings of a workable process." "By 1947 he had recovered fully." "In 1949 Hubbard had had the processes applied to him to the extent that he could again see and sit at a typewriter. He became better physically until he passed a full combat physical - and lost his naval retirement." 3 In an interview given shortly after the creation of Dianetics, Hubbard was more candid about his war wounds. The December 5, 1950, issue of Look magazine quoted him as saying he had been suffering from "ulcers, conjunctivitis, deteriorating eyesight, bursitis and something wrong with my feet." This description fits very well with Hubbard's Navy and Veterans Administration records. There are further contradictions in Hubbard's published Scientological works. At least twice Hubbard referred to an incident shortly before the end of the war, when, according to his other statements, he was supposedly incapacitated by his wounds. The first reference was made in a tape recorded lecture, given on July 23, 1951; the second in a bulletin published on November 15, 1957. 4 In both Hubbard claimed that he was on leave in Hollywood on July 25, 1945, when he was attacked by three petty officers, one with a broken bottle. Because of his knowledge of Judo, Hubbard was able to fight them off. An impossible feat for a blind cripple. At the very time that he was supposed to have "recovered fully," in October 1947, Hubbard wrote to the Veterans Administration. In the letter, he claimed that after two years he was still unbalanced because of his wartime service. He was suffering from prolonged bouts of depression and frequently thought of taking his own life. He asked for psychiatric treatment. Hubbard was examined again in December 1947, and a few dollars were added to his pension for the arthritic condition of his right hip, spine and ankles. Hubbard said he had sprained his left knee in the service, but the doctor did not allow this. His award was raised to a forty percent disability, which in 1947 amounted to $55.20 per month. In 1948, he applied for a Navy disability retirement, which at the time would have amounted to $181 per month, tax-free. His disabilities were not sufficient for such a retirement. Far from being "permanently disabled physically," Hubbard was twice refused a physical disability retirement from the Navy Reserve. In his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, published in May 1950, Hubbard made many claims for the curative powers of his new therapy. They are very revealing in the light of the Veterans Administration documents. Dianetics would supposedly cure or alleviate arthritis, bursitis, poor eyesight, ulcers, and even the common cold. Hubbard suffered from all of these, and fifteen months after announcing his miracle cure to the world, he still privately claimed to be disabled and continued to collect his Veterans pension. On August 1, 1951, he was examined again. He said he had been suffering from stomach trouble since 1943. The examining physician noted:
Under the heading "Impression," the doctor wrote: "duodenal ulcer, chronic." Under the heading "Diagnosis," he wrote: "Duodenal ulcer, not found on this examination." This was one of two specialist examinations performed on Hubbard that day in 1951. The second was orthopedic. In that report, it is noted:
Hubbard's Sea Org "Medical Officer," Kima Douglas, testified in court that while she attended him from 1975 to 1980, he suffered from arthritis, bursitis and coronary trouble, which Dianetics was also supposed to alleviate. 5 Hubbard wore glasses throughout his adult life, but only in private. During the Armstrong case, a Hubbard letter to the Veterans Administration, dated April 2, 1958, was produced. Gerald Armstrong had this to say of it:
During the case, a document was read into the record which clearly shows Hubbard's state of mind during the period when he was supposedly developing his science of mind. It is part of a collection of documents which Armstrong dubbed "The Affirmations," because they are a series of positive suggestions which Hubbard was instilling into himself through self-hypnosis. In "The Affirmations" Hubbard attributed each of his physical difficulties to some evasion on his part. His eyesight was poor because he had wanted to avoid school. His ulcer was an excuse to avoid discipline in the Navy. He admitted that he had never really had any trouble with his hip. He added, however, that through hypnotic command he would be able to convincingly pretend any of these and several other disabilities to obtain a pension, but would return to health an hour after any examination, amused by the stupidity of his examiners. He also commented that his lies would have no effect upon his true condition. 6 FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Hubbard naval record; Hubbard Veterans Administration file; Flag Divisional Directive 69RA, ""Facts About L. Ron Hubbard Things You Should Know," 8 March 1974, revised 7 April 1974. 1. Ken Hoden, LA Weekly, 4 April 1986. 2. Look magazine, 5 December 1950. 3. Hubbard, Mission into Time; Hubbard, Self Analysis; Hubbard, All About Radiation 4. Research & Discovery Series, vol. 6, p.409;Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 3, p.146 5. Kima Douglas in vol. 25, p. 4459 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 6. Vol. 12, pp. 1925-7 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153.
CHAPTER SIX
In 1969, the London Sunday Times exposed Hubbard's magickal connections. The Scientologists threatened legal action, and the Sunday Times, unsure of its legal position, paid a small out-of-court settlement. Without retracting their earlier article, they printed a statement submitted by the Scientologists: 1
During the Scientologists' case against Gerald Armstrong in 1984, the original of this peculiar statement was produced. It is in Hubbard's handwriting. The statement is mistaken on several points. Karl Germer, not Parsons, was in charge of Crowley's organization in America. Parsons, known as "Frater Belarion" or "Frater 210," was head of the single "Church of Thelema," or "Agape Lodge," in Pasadena. Hubbard's opening statement, the claim to have broken up black magic in America, is of course ridiculous. Hubbard did, however, contribute significantly to Jack Parsons' later financial difficulties. There is no evidence to support the claim that Hubbard was working for "Intelligence." Parsons' FBI file shows that he was routinely investigated from 1943 onwards, because of his peculiar lifestyle. Them is no mention of Hubbard in the file, and despite investigations, Parsons retained his high security classification until shortly before his death in 1952. However, the Scientology statement does admit Hubbard's involvement with Parsons. In a "Bulletin" written for Scientologists in 1957, Hubbard said this of the man whose black magic group he had "dispersed":
Parsons was indeed "quite a man." He was one of the developers of Jet Assisted Take-Off (JATO) units, and an original member of CalTech's rocket project, which became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In the Scientology "Philadelphia Doctorate Course" lectures, given by Hubbard in 1952, there are several references to Crowley. 3 Hubbard made it clear that he had read Crowley's pivotal Book of the Law. He also said: "The magic cults of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th centuries in the Middle East were fascinating. The only work that has anything to do with them is a trifle wild in spots, but it's fascinating work... written by Aleister Crowley, the late Aleister Crowley, my very good friend .... It's very interesting reading to get hold of a copy of a book, quite rare, but it can be obtained, The Master Therion . . . by Aleister Crowley. He signs himself 'The Beast', the mark of the Beast, six sixty-six." In another Hubbard lecture we are told: "One fellow, Aleister Crowley, picked up a level of religious worship which is very interesting - oh boy! The Press played hockey with his head for his whole life-time. The Great Beast - 666. He just had another level of religious worship. Yes, sir, you're free to worship everything under the Constitution so long as it's Christian." Jack Parsons wrote to Crowley early in 1946:
"Betty" was both Parsons' sister-in-law (his wife's sister) and his mistress. Her full name was Sara Elizabeth Northrup, and there is no doubt that she was the girl Hubbard "rescued" from Parsons. She was later to play an important part in the creation of Dianetics. Parsons' house was a meeting place for a group of California's eccentrics, so many people met Hubbard during his stay there. Science fiction fan Alva Rogers gave a detailed account of the comings and goings of the "Parsonage." He said the place was run as a "cooperative rooming house," so Parsons could afford to keep it up: "In the ads placed in the local paper Jack specified that only bohemians, artists, musicians, athiests, anarchists, or other exotic types need apply for rooms." Rogers struck up a relationship with a girl who lived in the house, and came to know Parsons and Betty quite well. He gave this description of Parsons: "Jack was the antithesis of the common image of the Black Magician .... He bore little resemblance to his revered Master, Aleister Crowley, either in looks or in his personal conduct. He was a good looking man... urbane and sophisticated, and possessed a fine sense of humor. He never, as far as I saw, indulged in any of the public scatological crudities which characterized Crowley .... I always found Jack's insistence that he believed in and practiced magic hard to reconcile with his educational and cultural background." Of Sara "Betty" Northrup, Rogers wrote: "She was young, blonde, very attractive, full of joie de vivre, thoughtful, humorous, generous, and all that. She assisted Jack in the O.T.O. and seemed to possess the same devotion to it and to Crowley as did Jack." Rogers' impression of Hubbard was favorable:
Alva Rogers had no involvement with Parson's attempt to conjure a "Moonchild." To Aleister Crowley the personification of female-kind was "Babalon," his capricious respelling of "Babylon." Chapter seventeen of St. John's Revelation tells of "Babylon the Great," the "Scarlet Woman":
Crowley's black magic centered upon Babalon, and he identified himself with the "Beast" upon which Babalon is to ride in her conquest of the Earth. In his novel, The Moonchild, Crowley described the creation of an "homunculus," elsewhere described by him as "a living being in form resembling man, and possessing those qualities of man which distinguish him from beasts, namely intellect and power of speech, but neither begotten and born in the manner of human generation, nor inhabited by a human soul." Crowley said this was "the great idea of magicians of all times: to obtain a Messiah by some adaptation of the sexual process." Crowley's "Messiah" was the Antichrist who would overthrow Christianity: Babalon the Great. The secret rituals of Crowley's "Ordo Templi Orientis" were made public by Francis King in 1973. 4 They laid out the strict sequence of mystic rites and initiations that the adept is to follow as a series of "degrees." Jack Parsons was intent upon conjuring Babalon as a "Moonchild." He wanted to incarnate the "Eternal Whore" in human form using Crowley's Rituals. The ceremonies, which Parsons recorded, are known as "The Babalon Working." Parsons' transcription was later typed and given very limited distribution as "The Book of Babalon." In January 1946, Parsons performed the "VIIIth degree" of the OTO, with Hubbard's assistance. The ritual is called "Concerning the Secret Marriages of Gods with Men," or the "Magic Masturbation." 5 After a lengthy preamble to the ritual we find the following, under the title "Of Great Marriages":
It does not take much imagination to understand what Hubbard was watching Parsons do. The ritual took place over twelve consecutive nights in January 1946. To the strains of a Prokofiev violin concerto, Parsons made a series of eleven invocations, including the "Conjuration of Air," the "Consecration of Air Dagger" and the "Invocation of Wand With Material Basis on Talisman." John Symonds, in his book The Great Beast, explains that "wand" is a Crowleyism for "penis." Parsons wrote to Crowley "nothing seems to have happened. One night, there was a power failure, but nothing more eventful, until January 14, when a candle was knocked from Hubbard's hand. Parsons said, "He [Hubbard] called me, and we observed a brownish yellow light about seven feet high in the kitchen. I banished with a magical sword, and it disappeared. His [Hubbard's] right arm was paralized [sic] for the rest of the night." The next night, Hubbard saw a vision of one of Parsons' enemies. Parsons described this in a letter to Crowley, adding: "He attacked this figure and pinned it to the door with four throwing knives, with which he is expert." In the same letter, Parsons spoke of Hubbard's guardian angel again: "Ron appears to have some sort of highly developed astral vision. He described his angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair, whom he calls the Empress, and who has guided him through his life and saved him many times .... Recently, he says, because of some danger, she has called the Archangel Michael to guard us .... Last night after invoking, I called him in, and he described Isis nude on the left, and a hint figure of past, partly mistaken operations on the right, and a rose wood box with a string of green beads, a string of pearls with a black cross suspended, and a rose." Parsons performed rituals which led up to "an operation of symbolic birth." Then he settled down to wait. For four days he experienced "tension and unease .... Then, on January 18, at sunset, while the Scribe [Hubbard] and I were on the Mojave desert, the feeling of tension suddenly snapped .... I returned home, and found a young woman answering the requirements waiting for me." The woman was Marjorie Cameron. Parsons wrote to Crowley: "I seem to have my elemental. She turned up one night after the conclusion of the operation and has been with me since .... She has red hair and slant green eyes as specified." Parsons continued to invoke Babalon. On February 28, he went out to the Mojave on his own, and "was commanded to write" a "communication" from Babalon, supposedly the fourth chapter of the Book of the Law. This rambling "communication," similar in style to Crowley's "inspired" writings, describes Babalon, and the tribute she seeks to exact. Further, it describes the ritual which Parsons is to perform. Babalon is to provide a daughter, and Parsons is charged with a significant task:
Hubbard launched into a stream of suitably mystical outpourings, for example: "She is flame of life, power of darkness, she destroys with a glance, she may take thy soul. She feeds upon the death of men. Beautiful - Horrible." Hubbard continued, instructing Parsons:
Using a mixture of his earlier desert inspiration, Hubbard's instructions, and a large helping of Crowley, Parsons began the rituals to incarnate the daughter of Babalon. The next day, Hubbard once more acted as Babalon's medium, and gave instructions for the second and third rituals. During the second ritual, Parsons was to gaze into an empty black box for an hour when a "sacred design" would become apparent which he was to reproduce in wood. Then, robed in scarlet ("symbolic of birth") with a black sash, Parsons was to invoke Babalon yet again.
A commentator has noted that the "material basis" was probably a mixture of semen and menstrual blood. On March 6, Parsons sent an excited letter to Crowley:
Parsons obviously thought Babalon was gestating in Marjorie Cameron's womb; it all smacks of horror tales like The Omen and Rosemary's Baby. Crowley thought so too, and said as much to Parsons: "You have me completely puzzled by your remarks about the elemental - the danger of discussing or copying anything. I thought I had the most morbid imagination, as good as any man's, but it seems I have not. I cannot form the slightest idea who you can possibly mean." A curious admission from the author of The Moonchild, and the "IXth degree magic," of which "Of the Homunculus" is a major part. Crowley wrote to his deputy in New York: "Apparently he [Parsons] or Ron or somebody is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts." Crowley's "IXth degree" ritual, which was performed by Parsons, Hubbard and Cameron, says this of the Homunculus: "Now then thou hast a being of perfect human form, with all powers and privileges of humanity, but with the essence of a particular chosen force, and with all the knowledge and might of its sphere; and this being is thy creation and dependent; to it thou art Sole God and Lord, and it must serve thee." 6 None of the accounts of "The Babalon Working," performed by Parsons and Hubbard, fully explain the phrase "the essence of a particular chosen force." Crowley viewed the gods not as distinct individuals, but as representations of particular energies, which could be tapped. In his own words: "Gods are but names for the forces of Nature themselves." 7 The "IXth degree" magic is concerned with embodying such an energy or force. In May, OTO member Louis T. Culling wrote to Crowley's deputy, Karl Germer, suggesting that Parsons should be "salvaged from the undue influence of another." He spoke of a partnership agreement signed by Parsons, Hubbard and Sara Northrup "whereby all money earned by the three, for life, is equally divided." There was disquiet in the Ordo Templi Orientis. In a cable to his U.S. deputy, dated May 22, Crowley said, "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick, Jack evidently weak fool obvious victim prowling swindlers." On the 31st, he added, "It seems to me on the information of our Brethren in California that (if we may assume them to be accurate) Frater 210 [Parsons] has committed... errors. He has got a miraculous illumination which rhymes with nothing, and he has apparently lost all of his personal independence. From our brother's account he has given away both his girl and his money - apparently it is an ordinary confidence trick." Parsons and Hubbard had indeed agreed to pool their funds immediately after the original ceremonies. They set up Allied Enterprises to buy yachts in Florida and sell them in California. Parsons put up $20,970.80, and Hubbard $1,183.91. The third partner, Sara "Betty" Northrup, made no financial contribution. In May, Ron and Sara went to Florida and started buying yachts. Parsons worried when Hubbard failed to give any account of the expenditure of Allied Enterprises. In June, Parsons travelled to Florida, writing to Crowley, "Here I am in Miami pursueing [sic] the children of my folly. I have them well tied up: they cannot move without going to jail. However I am afraid that most of the money [in the joint account] has already been dissipated. I will be lucky to salvage 3,000-5,000 dollars. In the interim I have been flat broke." On July 1, 1946, Parsons filed suit against Hubbard. He charged that his partners had failed to present him with any accounting, and though using money from the company bank account, had paid nothing into it. A receiver was appointed by the court to wind up Allied Enterprises, and a restraining order was placed on the boats involved, all of Hubbard and Sara's personal property, and any bank accounts in their names. Hubbard and Sara were also ordered to remain in Miami. On July 11, the partners signed an agreement dissolving Allied Enterprises. A settlement was approved by the court on July 16. Parsons took two of the boats, a schooner, the Blue Water II, and the yacht Diane, and Hubbard a two-masted schooner called the Harpoon. Hubbard also gave Parsons a promissory note for $2,900 secured against the Harpoon, and paid half of Parsons' costs. The Parsons affair was over. Hubbard's affair with black magic was not. Parsons and Hubbard went their separate ways after their legal settlement, in July 1946. In October 1948, Parsons repeated the "Babalon Working," as it has come to be known, and in 1949 wrote The Book of the Antichrist, and proclaimed himself "Belarion, Antichrist" ("Belarion" was his OTO name). In The Book of the Antichrist, Parsons alluded to his dealings with Hubbard:
Parsons was fatally injured by the blast of an explosion in his laboratory in 1952. Parsons has the distinction of being the only twentieth-century magician to have had a crater on the moon named after him (though for his contributions to rocketry). Appropriately, it is on the so-called dark side. Hubbard continued the practice of Magick after leaving Parsons. During the Armstrong case, portions of Hubbard's "Affirmations" were read into the record, much to the protest of Mary Sue Hubbard's attorney, who said "this particular document is... far and away the most private and personal document probably that I have ever read by anybody." Armstrong's lawyer, Michael Flynn, tended to agree: "Most Scientologists . . . if they read these documents would leave the organization five minutes after they read them." The "Affirmations" are voluminous. The introduction alone runs to thirty pages. They are in Ron Hubbard's own hand. Only a tiny portion was read into the court record, and the originals were held under court seal. In the "Affirmations" Hubbard hypnotized himself to believe that all of humanity and all discarnate beings were bound to him in slavery. Mary Sue Hubbard's attorney claimed these statements were pan of Hubbard's "research." Also under court seal was a document with the tantalizing title "The Blood Ritual." The title was Hubbard's own. This document was apparently so sensitive that no part of it was read into the record. The Scientology lawyer asserted that the deity invoked in "The Blood Ritual" is an Egyptian god of Love. Parsons had mentioned Hubbard's guardian angel, "The Empress." Nibs Hubbard says his father also called his guardian angel Hathor, or Hathoor. Hathor is an Egyptian goddess, the daughter and mother of the great sun god Amon-Ra, the principal Egyptian deity. She was depicted as a winged and spotted cow feeding humanity; a goddess of Love and Beauty. But she had a second aspect, not always mentioned in texts on Egyptian mythology, that of the "avenging lioness," Sekmet, a destructive force. One authority has called her "the destroyer of man." This is the "God of Love" to whom "The Blood Ritual" ceremony was dedicated. Since doing my research I have seen a copy of "The Blood Ritual," and it is indeed addressed to Hathor. Nuit, Re, Mammon and Osiris are also invoked. The ceremony consisted of Ron and his then wife mingling their blood to become One. Arthur Burks has left an account of a meeting with Hubbard before the Second War, where Hubbard said that his guardian angel, a "smiling woman," protected him when he was flying gliders. 8 One early Dianeticist asked Hubbard how he had managed to write Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in three weeks. Hubbard said it was produced through automatic writing, dictated by an entity called the "Empress." In Crowley's Tarot, the Empress card represents, among other things, debauchery, and CrowIcy also associated the card with Hathor. 9 To Crowley, Babalon was a manifestation of the Hindu goddess Shakti, who in one of her aspects is also called the "destroyer of man." It seems that to Hubbard, Babalon, Hathor, and the Empress were synonymous, and he was trying to conjure his "Guardian Angel" in the form of a servile homunculus so he could control the "destroyer of Man." There was also a correspondence between Diana and Isis to Crowley, and the Empress card represented not only Hathor, but Isis, in Crowley's system. Diana is the patroness of witchcraft. Hubbard later called one of his daughters Diana, and the name of the first Sea Org yacht was changed from Enchanter to Diana. 10 Nibs has said he was initiated into Magickal rites by Hubbard, even after Dianetics was released, that his father never stopped practicing "Magick," and that Scientology came from "the Dark Side of the Force." After the settlement with Parsons, Hubbard left Florida for Chestertown, Maryland. On August 10, 1946, he married Sara Northrup, the girl he had "rescued" from Parsons' black magic group. The marriage was bigamous since Hubbard was still legally married to Polly. The couple turned up next at Laguna Beach, California. By the end of 1947, Hubbard was living in Hollywood, and complaining to the Veterans Administration of his mental instability. He also mentioned that he was attending the "Geller Theater Workshop," presumably brushing up his acting skills. The VA was paying for this under the GI Bill. In December, Hubbard's pension was increased (to about a third of a living wage), and his first wife's divorce from him became final, more than a year after his second marriage. Hubbard was not satisfied with the increase in his pension, and wrote to the Veterans Administration complaining about his poor physical condition, and saying that if he did not have to worry so much about money, he would be able to produce a novel which had been commissioned. That novel, The End Is Not Yet, had already been published in Astounding Science Fiction, in August 1947. It is about a nuclear physicist who overthrows a dictatorial system with the creation of a new philosophy. It has been suggested that the novel had some bearing upon the creation of the Scientology movement. Hubbard's writing and the VA pension combined apparently did not provide sufficient funds, and in August 1948 Hubbard was arrested in San Luis Obispo for check fraud. He was released on probation. 11 By January 1949, the Hubbards were in Savannah, Georgia. In a letter written that month, Hubbard said that a manuscript he was working on had more potential for promotion and sales than anything he had ever encountered. Hubbard was referring to a therapy system he was working on. In April, he wrote to several professional organizations, offering "Dianetics" to them. None was interested, so Hubbard had to find another outlet for Dianetics, which he very promptly did. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Alva Rogers, Darkhouse; "L. Ron Hubbard: A Fan's Remembrance," article by Alva Rogers; Book of Babalon, Jack Parsons; Hubbard naval record; Allied Enterprises articles of co-partnership; Clayton R. Koppes, JPL and the American Space Program (Yale University Press, 1982) records in Parsons vs. Hubbard & Northrup, Dade County, Florida, case no. 101634; letters from the OTO New York Jack Parsons file; Jack Parsons' FBI file. 1. Sunday Times, London, 5 October & 28 December 1969. 2. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 3, p. 31 3. Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures 40, 35 & 18. 4. Francis King, The Secret Rituals of the OTO, p.233 (C.W. Daniel, London, 1973). 5. Francis King, The Magical World of Aleister Crowley (Weidenfield & Nicholson, London, 1977). 6. Francis King, Rituals, p.238. 7. Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice (Castle, New York). 8. Burks, Monitors, p.99 (CSA Press, Lakemount, Georgia, 1967). 9. Magick in Theory and Practice, p.310. 10. King, Ritual Magic in England, p. 161 (Neville Spearman, London, 1977); The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, p.693 (Bantam, New York, 1971); Crowley, The Book of Thoth (Samuel Weiser, Maine, 1984); R. Cavendish, The Magical Arts, p.304 (Arkana, London, 1984). 11. Exhibit 3, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153.
PART THREE:
CHAPTER ONE In December 1949, an announcement appeared in America's leading science fiction magazine:
On the facing page was a story by the originator of Dianetics, called "A Can of Vacuum." It is about an unschooled practical joker who makes remarkable scientific discoveries, for example that of "a quart of rudey rays." The magazine was Astounding Science Fiction, and editor John Campbell's article was the first mention in print of Dianetics. The first Hubbard article on Dianetics was published in the Spring of 1950, in an unusual place for a "science of the mind," The Explorers Club Journal, under the title "Terra Incognita: The Mind." In the article Hubbard explained that Dianetics "was intended as a tool for the expedition commander and doctor who are faced with choosing personnel and maintaining that personnel in good health." Hubbard had arrived in Bay Head, New Jersey, in mid-1949, armed with the fundamentals of his new science. He was widely known in science fiction, having contributed to Astounding Science Fiction for over eleven years. John Campbell, the highly influential editor, had been convened to Dianetics by a counselling session which relieved his sinusitis, and became an eager recruiter. Soon, a small group of disciples gathered around Hubbard. Among those brought into the Hubbard circle by Campbell was Joseph Winter, M.D., who had written medical articles for Astounding. Winter wanted to break down the mystique surrounding medicine. He specialized in endocrinology, and had tried to modify behavior with hormones, in experiments at the University of Illinois. Hubbard was later to claim that he had himself been involved in such experiments at Oak Knoll Hospital. An early letter to Winter, written in July 1949, shows Campbell's enthusiasm for the new subject:
Winter wrote to Hubbard asking for more information about Dianetics. Hubbard replied that he was writing a technical paper and in the fall of 1949 sent a treatise on "Abnormal Dianetics" to Dr. Winter, who was so impressed that he gave copies to two colleagues in Chicago. Winter was disappointed when his colleagues pointed to the shortcomings of Dianetics without first trying it out. Winter visited Hubbard in Bay Head in October 1949, later saying he "became immersed in a life of Dianetics and very little else." By January 1950, Winter had closed his medical practice in Michigan and moved to New Jersey. Winter, Campbell, Hubbard and Don Rogers, an electrical engineer, worked together refining techniques and coining a new language to voice Hubbard's ideas. Hubbard was probably the major contributor to these discussions, and certainly the final arbiter. Winter submitted papers to the Journals of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. The papers were rejected, because of a lack of clinical experimentation, or indeed of any substantiation. The Bay Head group then decided to publish the therapy in Astounding Science Fiction, and by January 1950, Hubbard had prepared an article, a modified version of which later became the book Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science. Unbeknownst to his co-workers, while they were refining Hubbard's cure-all, he was still trying to obtain a naval disability retirement to augment his Veterans Administration award. In 1950, Astounding Science Fiction had a circulation of approximately 150,000. Its most noteworthy subscriber was Albert Einstein. The letters pages often carried correspondence from research scientists and professors, disputing the feasibility of previous stories (including criticisms of the poor scientific understanding displayed in Hubbard's stories). Campbell continued to praise Dianetics in his editorials, generating considerable interest in the subject without giving away anything substantial concerning Dianetic methods. Arthur Ceppos, the head of a medical and psychiatric textbook publishing company, joined the Bay Head circle, and commissioned a manual on Dianetics. In April 1950, the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation (HDRF) was incorporated to answer the many inquiries generated by Campbell's editorials. Hubbard, his wife Sara, Campbell, Winter, Ceppos, Don Rogers, and lawyer Parker C. Morgan made up the Board of Directors. The HDRF had its headquarters in Elizabeth, New Jersey, not far from New York City. Hubbard's 400-page textbook was outlined and written in six weeks. He sometimes claimed it took him only three, and an eyewitness has confirmed this, saying the first three weeks were spent working out how to write the book. The writing process was punctuated, on March 8, by the birth of a daughter to Sara Hubbard. The child, Alexis Valerie Hubbard, had her father's red hair, though he later denied paternity, suggesting she was Jack Parson's child! 1 She was delivered by Joseph Winter.
Dianetics was supposed to "Clear" people of irrational behavior. A "Clear," according to the book, would have no compulsions, repressions, or psychosomatic ills. A "Clear" would have full control of his imagination, and a near perfect memory. With Dianetic counselling, IQ would "soar" by as much as "fifty points," and the Clear would be "phenomenally intelligent." Dianetics would even rescue a broken marriage. It was claimed that through Dianetics the individual would be freed of psychoses and neuroses. Among the "psychosomatic" conditions Dianetics claimed to cure were asthma, poor eyesight, color blindness, hearing deficiencies, stuttering, allergies, sinusitis, arthritis, high blood pressure, coronary trouble, dermatitis, ulcers, migraine, conjunctivitis, morning sickness, alcoholism and the common cold. Even tuberculosis would be alleviated. Dianetics would also have "a marked effect upon the extension of life." A Clear could do a computation which a "normal would do in half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds."
The new therapy which prompted these incredible claims was basically a reworking of ideas abandoned by Freud in favor of the interpretation of dreams. Dianetics extended Freud's earlier techniques slightly, and allied them to a different theory. It was a form of abreaction in which the patient remembered and then acted out, or supposedly re-experienced, the memory of a traumatic incident. Freud had speculated that traumas with similar content join together in "chains," embedded in the "unconscious" mind, causing irrational responses in the individual. According to Freud a "chain" would be relieved by inducing the patient to remember the earliest trauma, "with an accompanying expression of emotion." Earlier traumas would only become available as later traumas were remembered and abreacted. Forty years before Dianetics, in the Clark lectures at Worcester, Massachusetts, Freud had explained this theory and methodology. The description is uncannily similar to Dianetics. Freud would repeat one of the patient's common phrases to him. This would often induce a buried memory to surface. In Dianetics, the therapist asked the patient to repeat the phrases. Hubbard called this "repeater technique" and, in early Dianetics, it was the principal method for discovering traumatic incidents. Hubbard renamed the "unconscious" the "Reactive Mind." He differentiated two principal types of trauma: "physical pain or unconsciousness," and "emotional loss." Before Dianetics was published, three words had been tried out to describe the first type of trauma: norn, impediment and comanome. Eventually, Dr. Winter suggested that a word already current would fit the bill. The word was "engram," defined in Dorland's 1936 Medical dictionary as "a lasting mark or trace .... In psychology it is the lasting trace left in the psyche by anything that has been experienced psychically; a latent memory picture." Hubbard limited the term to actual pain or unconsciousness, separating out emotional losses as "secondary engrams" or "secondaries," meaning they were only stored where an earlier, similar "engram" existed. Freud too had commented on trauma based on both physical pain and emotional loss. 2 So, according to Hubbard, the "Reactive Mind" is composed of recordings of incidents of physical pain or unconsciousness called "engrams." The earliest engram (or "basic") is the foundation of a "chain" of engrams, and through re-experiencing it, the "chain" will dissipate. To make an earlier engram available it is necessary to "destimulate" more recent engrams by re-experiencing them. Hubbard claimed it was possible to relieve all such engrams, thus "erasing" the Reactive (unconscious) Mind. A person without a Reactive Mind would be "Clear." To make a Clear, it would be necessary to erase the earliest engram by re-experiencing it. Hubbard asserted that the engram of birth was very important, and claimed it was possible, and necessary, to find the earliest engram, long before birth, perhaps as far back as conception, the "sperm dream."
Someone at the publishers must have noticed the similarities between the two books prior to the publication of Dianetics. Arthur Ceppos was both the head of Hermitage House and a director of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. It is highly unlikely that Hubbard did not know about Fodor, even though his book was certainly not as popular as Dianetics. Fodor did publish first, and had been expressing his ideas on the trauma of birth in psychiatric journals for some years. The first edition of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health even carried an advertisement for Fodor's book on the dust-jacket, subtitle and all. Fodor and Hubbard each argued that birth and the pre-natal period could be abreacted, or re-experienced, and were fundamental to later behavior. Scientologists mistakenly credit Hubbard with the discovery of the trauma of birth and the pre-natal period. Hubbard did nothing to disabuse them of this notion. Although Fodor's patients supposedly relived their birth, his method differed from Hubbard's. Dianetics was closer to Freud's original approach. Fodor believed that very few people were able to reexperience their birth, whereas Hubbard claimed nearly everyone could. Using hypnosis, Hubbard tried out some of Freud's ideas, and eventually came up with a "non-hypnotic" therapy, a few months before Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published. Hypnosis, which already had a Hollywood Svengali image, was to be given an even more vicious, mind-bending image by Hubbard. To this day many people think that hypnosis refers only to a state of deep-trance. In that sense, Dianetics is not hypnosis, but Dr. Winter and others were later to argue that Dianetics creates a light trance, a highly suggestible condition. In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Freudian ideas were presented in a new, elaborate language. Dianetics, a survivor of several abreactive therapies practiced in the 1940s, differed by approaching the general public directly, rather than through the psychiatric or psychological professions. Dianetics also completely avoided the libido theory, the interpretation of dreams, transference and complex Freudian evaluations. The early Dianeticist simply directed the individual in the exploration of his memory and, inevitably, his imagination, leaving the individual (or "Preclear") to make his own interpretations about the validity or significance of his memories. According to Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health ("DMSMH," as Scientologists call the book), an engram contains every "perceptic' ' - sight, smell, touch, taste, sound and so forth. It is a running, three-dimensional record of experiencing during moments of unconsciousness or pain which acts as a post-hypnotic suggestion on the recipient. He has no real idea why he reacts irrationally in certain circumstances, but rationalizes his responses. In the book Hubbard described an engram and its effects:
The experiential content of the engram is outside conscious recall except, of course, when probed by the Dianeticist. When enough elements of the environment match elements of an engram, then it, and all engrams similar to it (the "chain" to which it belongs), comes into force, or "key-in." The individual must either feel the pain of the engram, or "dramatize" (act out) the often inappropriate verbal content. An engram which contained the phrase "Get out!" might well create an escapist. The Reactive Mind is literal and puns crazily. Hubbard called the sequential record of experience the "Timetrack." In Dianetics, he claimed that by finding the earliest engram on a chain the whole chain would refile in the "Analytical" (conscious) mind, losing its reactive power. So came the idea that finding the earliest engram ("basic-basic"), and thoroughly re-experiencing its content, will knock away the foundation of all later engrams, emptying the Reactive Mind, and creating a Clear. A rather peculiar aspect of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was Hubbard's emphasis on "attempted abortions." Hubbard claimed "it is a scientific fact that abortion attempts are the most important factor in aberration," and that "Attempted abortion is very common .... Twenty or thirty abortion attempts are not uncommon in the aberree." Hubbard asserted that ulcers were caused by attempted abortions. He had been suffering from a duodenal ulcer since 1943. Going against popular belief, Hubbard insisted that life in the womb was fraught with pain and that the fetus is constantly receiving engrams. Hubbard gave a gruesome list, which he claimed was from a real case: Coitus chain, father fifty-seven incidents; Coitus chain, lover nineteen incidents; Constipation chain fifty-two incidents; Douche chain twenty-two incidents; Morning sickness chain twenty-three incidents; Fight chain thirty-eight incidents; Attempted abortion chain twenty-eight incidents; Accident chain eighteen incidents; Masturbation chain eighty-one incidents. This unfortunate individual had received over 300 engrams before coming into the world. In Scientology: The Now Religion, author George Malko wrote that "Hubbard's extensive discussion of things sexual, his concern with abortions, beatings, coitus under duress, flatulence which causes pressure on the foetus, certain cloacal references, all suggest to me a fascination which borders on the obsessive, as if he possessed a deep-seated hatred of women. All of them are being beaten, most of them prove to be unfaithful, few babies are wanted." 3 Dianetic counselling was called "auditing." Hubbard defined the verb "audit" as "to listen and compute," which he considered the basic functions of the therapist. So the Dianetic therapist was called the "Auditor." In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard used the analogy of building a bridge. He had built a bridge to a better state for mankind, pleading with his readers "For God's sake, get busy and build a better bridge!" To Scientologists, the steps of Hubbard's therapy are still known as "The Bridge." The original idea in Dianetics was that the Reactive Mind could be completely "erased," thus turning Homo sapiens into the new man, "Homo novus," the Clear. Otherwise the basic theory was not original, and the therapy a modification of earlier techniques. Dianetics was initially successful because it was so readily accessible, and because it was espoused by a brilliant publicist, John Campbell. All the reader needed was a copy of the book and a friend to "co-audit" with, and they could start erasing their engrams. Amateur Dianetic groups sprang up throughout the English-speaking world. In June 1950, Hubbard gave the first full-time Auditor training course to ten students at the Elizabeth Foundation. Hubbard said students there were charged $500 to "hang around the office and watch what was going on" for a month. August found him in California, where he lectured for a month to 300 students. The fee was still $500. Professional auditing was charged at $25 an hour. There were hundreds of thousands of dollars involved. 4 Dianetics emerged against a backdrop of international tension and fear. Russia had added Czechoslovakia to its empire in 1948. The United States had reintroduced the draft. 1948 also saw the Soviet blockade of Berlin, and the U.S. airlift. In September 1949, the Soviets successfully tested an atomic bomb. The Communists came to power in China, under Mao Tse-tung, the following month. At the beginning of 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy announced that he had a list of 205 card-carrying Communists in the employ of the U.S. State Department. The McCarthy Communist witch-hunt was to last four years. In June, the North Koreans, using Soviet arms and tanks, invaded the South, and the Korean war began. In The New York Times, Frederick Schuman's review of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health played to the fears of the United States of America: "History has become a race between Dianetics and catastrophe," echoing Hubbard's own sentiments. In 1950, Dianetics was a craze. Campbell wrote that Astounding was receiving up to a thousand letters a week. 5 Within a year, the book had sold 150,000 copies. The Hollywood community eagerly embraced the new system. Aldous Huxley received auditing from Hubbard himself, and, although he did not complain about the therapy, he simply could not locate any engrams, even under Hubbard's direction. 6 FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Winter, A Doctor's Report on Dianetics; author's correspondence with a former HDRF director; Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950 and passim); Freud's Clark Lectures, published in Two Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis 1. Exhibit 500-47, vol 12. p. 1946-7 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153, p.24. 2. Freud, Studies in Hysteria, vol 2 3. George Malko, Scientology: The Now Religion (1970). 4. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 1, pp. 14 & 22; van Vogt in California Association of Dianetic Auditors Bulletin, vol. 17, no. 2 5. Astounding Science Fiction, U.S. edition, August 1950. 6. Sybille Bedford, Aldous Huxley, a Biography, vol. 2, pp. 116-7 (Collins and Chatto & Windus, London 1974)
CHAPTER TWO
By the end of 1950, five new Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundations had been added to the first at Elizabeth. They were in Chicago, Honolulu, New York, Washington and Los Angeles. The L.A. Foundation was headed by science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt. That year, much of the letters section of Astounding Science Fiction was devoted to Dianetics, where letters were answered by both Hubbard and Winter. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was on the bestseller lists for several months. But despite the tremendous popularity of Dianetics, and the river of cash pouring into the Foundations, there was trouble on the horizon. The first signs came in August 1950, when Hubbard exhibited a "Clear" [Ms. Sonia Bianca] at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Despite claims of "perfect recall," and the fact that she was majoring in physics, the "Clear" was unable to remember a simple physics formula. When Hubbard turned his back, she could not even remember the color of his tie.
In September, The New York Times published a statement by the American Psychological Association:
The following month, Dr. Joseph Winter and Arthur Ceppos, the publisher of Dianetics, resigned from the Board of Directors of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. Winter described his experiences in the first book critical of Hubbard, A Doctor's Report on Dianetics. Winter felt Dianetics could be dangerous in untrained hands, and asserted that repeated attempts to persuade Hubbard to adopt a minimum standard to test student applicants had failed. Winter felt Dianetics should be in the hands of people with some medical qualification. He had changed his mind since writing the introduction to Dianetics a year before. He had also begun to feel that "Clear" was unobtainable. In a year of close association with Hubbard, Winter had not seen anyone who had achieved the state described in the book. Winter also said he saw no scientific research being performed at the "Research" Foundation. He was tired of Hubbard's disparagement of the medical and psychiatric professions, and alarmed by Hubbard's use of massive doses of a vitamin mixture called "Guk." Winter was even more alarmed by the auditing of "past lives," which he considered entirely fanciful. Winter wrote, "there was a difference between the ideals inherent within the dianetics hypothesis and the actions of the Foundation .... The ideals of dianetics, as I saw them, included nonauthoritarianism and a flexibility of approach .... The ideals of dianetics continued to be given lip service, but I could see a definite disparity between ideals and actualities." Winter set up a psychotherapeutic practice in Manhattan, and soon drifted away from Dianetics. In an article in Newsweek, entitled "The Poor Man's Psychoanalysis," American Medical Association representative Dr. Morris Fishbein labelled Dianetics a "mind-healing cult." Dianeticist Helen O'Brien has said that one member of the Elizabeth Foundation resigned because in a month when $90,000 income was received, only $20,000 could be accounted for. A Board member of the time denies this, but there are certainly questions about the disbursement of income. Later events suggest that much of it went into Hubbard's pocket. One early associate says Hubbard "spent money like water." In November 1950, the Elizabeth Foundation set up a Board of Ethics to ensure that practitioners were using the "Standard Procedure" of Dianetic counselling approved by Hubbard. Innovators had been adding their own ideas to Dianetics, which was anathema to Hubbard who called techniques he had not approved "Black Dianetics," insisting they were dangerous. 4 This was in spite of his pronouncement in Dianetics that "if anyone wants a monopoly on dianetics, be assured that he wants it for reasons which have to do not with dianetics but with profit." 5 Hubbard obviously excluded himself from this pronouncement. Hubbard moved to Palm Springs to work on his second book, Science of Survival. He was living with a girlfriend, and drinking heavily. He sniped at Foundation directors, trying to force their resignations. Distrust of his associates and subordinates manifested itself repeatedly throughout his life. Hubbard's paranoia had already shown itself in Elizabeth where he had assured a Foundation Director that American Medical Association spies made up a high proportion of the student applicants, the Preclears, and even the customers in the restaurant below the Foundation. The Los Angeles Foundation cooperated with two university researchers, who tried to validate Dianetics by knocking a volunteer out with sodium pentathol, and reading him a passage from a physics textbook, while inflicting pain. In six months of "auditing" the subject failed to remember any of the passage. Hubbard dismissed the matter in Science of Survival, writing that "Psychotherapists with whom the Foundation has dealt have been eager to plant an engram in a patient and have the Foundation recover it .... The Foundation will accept no more experiments in this line .... A much more natural and valid validation [sic] of engrams can be done without the use of drugs." 6 For some time Sara Hubbard had been Ron's personal Auditor; now they were living apart, and her confidence in Dianetics had slipped so far that she urged the Elizabeth Foundation to obtain psychiatric treatment for her husband. A few months later Hubbard wrote a secret missive to the FBI, giving his own account of his separation from Sara. He described himself as a nuclear physicist who had transferred his expertise into a study of psychology. He said that he had thought Sara was his legal wife, before realizing there was some confusion about a divorce. Sara was accused of destroying one of Hubbard's therapeutic organizations. She had supposedly forced him to make out a will, in October, 1950, bequeathing to her his copyrights and his share of the Foundations. Later that month, Hubbard claimed he had been attacked while sleeping, since which time he had been unable to recover his health. Hubbard blamed Sara for an incident in Los Angeles in which Alexis, their baby daughter, had been left unattended in their car, and for which Hubbard himself had been put on probation. In December, he was again supposedly attacked in his sleep. Hubbard's letter went on to describe another assault, which supposedly took place in his apartment on February 23, between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. Having been knocked unconscious, air was injected into his heart and he was given an electric shock, in an attempt, according to Hubbard, to induce a heart attack. The night following this purported attack, Hubbard kidnapped baby Alexis, and deposited her with a nursing agency. To avoid detection, he called himself James Olsen. He claimed his wife was suffering from ill health. The same night, he also kidnapped Sara, with the help of two of his lieutenants. Hubbard wanted to have Sara examined by a psychiatrist, but failing to find one, they ended up in Yuma, Arizona, having driven through the night. After releasing Sara, Hubbard flew to Chicago. There Hubbard found a psychologist who was willing to write a favorable report about Hubbard's mental condition, refuting Sara's charge that he was a paranoid-schizophrenic. 7 In March, Hubbard wrote to the FBI denouncing sixteen of his former associates as Communists, a serious charge during those days of the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hubbard even included in his accusations people who were still working at the Foundations. Two, Ross Lamereaux and Richard Halpern, continued to be his staunch supporters for years to come. Ironically, Hubbard's complaints about the executives running his organizations inevitably led to an investigation by the FBI of those very organizations. 8 In the midst of these problems, Hubbard's first wife, Polly, demanded the forty-two months of support payments Hubbard had failed to make since their settlement forty-two months before. The bill, including interest and fees, came to $2,503.79. Hubbard had also failed to pay a debt to the National Bank of Commerce, taken out in 1940, which with interest now came to $889.55. Hubbard left a trail of unpaid bills, despite the fortune Dianetics had earned him. During the eventual collapse of the Los Angeles Foundation, one of its directors wrote, "I am being flooded with personal bills for L. Ron Hubbard, going back as far as 1948 and earlier." 9 In his secret report to the FBI, Hubbard had said that Sara and her boyfriend, Miles Hollister, were Communists. He also said Sara was a drug addict. Hubbard offered a reward of $10,000 to anyone in Dianetics who could resolve Sara's difficulties by Clearing her. She was suspended as a trustee and officer of the California Foundation. 10 Taking Alexis and his close supporter Richard de Mille with him, Hubbard flew to Florida, and from there to Cuba. He continued to drink heavily while finishing the dictation of Science of Survival. In a letter to his lieutenant in Los Angeles, Hubbard spoke of the enormous amount of money to be made by insisting that every Dianeticist buy a psycho-galvonometer. The mark-up would be sixty percent. There is no mention of any benefit to auditing from the use of the psycho-galvonometer or "E-meter," as it was later known. 11 In her book, Dianetics in Limbo, Helen O'Brien wrote: "The tidal wave of popular interest was over in a few months, although a ground swell continued for a while. The book became unobtainable because of a legal tangle involving the publisher. People began to see that although dianetics worked, in the sense that individuals could cooperate in amateur explorations of buried memories, this resulted only occasionally in improved health and enhanced abilities, in spite of Hubbard's confident predictions." By the end of 1950, Hubbard's world was collapsing, income had dropped dramatically and the Foundations were unable to meet their payrolls or their promotional expenditures. An attempt to start a new Foundation in Kansas City failed. In January 1951, Parker C. Morgan, a lawyer who had been a founding director of the Elizabeth Foundation, resigned. In March, John Campbell followed suit. He too complained of Hubbard's authoritarian attitude. Thus four of the seven original directors had resigned, and Sara had been suspended, leaving only Don Rogers and Hubbard. 12 Campbell's resignation followed close on the heels of an investigation by the New Jersey Medical Association, which filed a case against the Elizabeth Foundation for teaching medicine without a license. Hubbard was not only claiming all sorts of cures, he was also experimenting on "Preclears" with drugs, especially benzedrine. In a lecture in June 1950, Hubbard had admitted to having been a phenobarbitol addict. He also spoke knowledgeably about the effects of sodium amytal, ACTH (a hormone), opium, marijuana and sodium pentathol. 13 New directors were appointed in Elizabeth and fought a losing battle to keep the Foundation solvent.
Sara Northrup Hubbard's original complaint against her husband has mysteriously disappeared from the microfilm records of the Los Angeles County Courthouse. Fortunately, copies are still in existence. Among the alleged torture experiments was this:
Sara claimed that such "experiments" were frequent during the course of their marriage. She also claimed that Hubbard had many times physically abused her, once strangling her so violently that the Eustachian tube of her left ear had ruptured, impairing her hearing. Hubbard had allegedly asked her to commit suicide "if she really loved him," because although he wanted to leave her, he feared a divorce would damage his reputation. Eventually, Hubbard decided Sara was in league with his enemies - the American Medical and Psychiatric Associations, and the Communists. He quite usually levelled similar charges against anyone who criticized him. In his May 14 letter to the FBI, Hubbard again attacked Sara as an agent of the Communist peril. He claimed he had discovered, and could undo, the techniques used by the Russians to obtain confessions. He said that whenever he made an overture to the Defense Department offering them his own techniques of psychological warfare, his organizations were harassed. He pleaded for the removal of the Communist elements who had obviously infiltrated even the Defense Department. Hubbard went on to accuse Sara's father of being a criminal, and her half-sister of being insane. He said she was sexually promiscuous, and suggested that she had ruined Jack Parsons' life. Hubbard claimed that Sara had been on intimate terms with scientists working on the first atomic bomb, and suggested that she might yield under FBI questioning. What she might yield is unclear. Despite remarkable income, the Foundations foundered. The Los Angeles HDRF went down with a retired rear admiral at the helm. In April 1951, Hubbard himself resigned from the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. Hubbard had risen from a penny-a-word science fiction writer to the leadership of the largest self-improvement group in the U.S. Now, after only a few months, the Foundations were more or less bankrupt, thousands of followers were disillusioned, and Hubbard's private life was splashed all over the newspapers. It was time to cut and run. For a less resourceful or a less fortunate man, this would have been the end. For Hubbard, it was just another of many new beginnings. The head of the Omega Oil Company, Don Purcell, an ardent Hubbard admirer who had been an early visitor to the Elizabeth Foundation, saved the day. FOOTNOTES 1.
Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science p.270 (Dover,
New York, 1957); 2. Research & Dicovery Series vol.3, pp.20-24; vol.1, p.696; Gardner, p.270 3. New York Times, 9 September 1950 4. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology, vol. 1, p.280 5. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, p.168 6.
Roy Wallis, The Road To Total Freedom p.71 (Columbia, New York, 1977); 7. Dessler letters; Russell Miller interview with Richard de Mille, Santa Barbara, 25 July 1986; Sara Northrup Hubbard vs. L. Ron Hubbard, Superior Court, Los Angeles, divorce complaint, no. D414498. 8. Hubbard letter to FBI, 3 March 1951; FBI memo, 7 March 1951. 9. Dessler letters. 10. Hubbard telegram to Dessler, March 1951; Dessler letters. 11. Hubbard letter to Dessler, 27 March 1951. 12. "A Factual Report of the Hubbard Dianetic Foundation," John Maloney, 23 February 1952; Frank Dessler letters file. 13. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, pp.363, 365; Research & Dicovery Series vol.1, p.124
CHAPTER THREE Don Purcell was a self-made millionaire. He offered Hubbard funds and new premises in Wichita, Kansas. He also offered to pay the debts of the original Foundation, without realizing what he was letting himself in for. The paltry assets of the Elizabeth Foundation, some second-hand furniture and a lot of files, were moved to Wichita. The remaining Foundations were closed. Hubbard, who had been in Cuba for about a month, was in poor health, as his ulcer was flaring up. Purcell sent a plane and a nurse to bring Hubbard and Alexis back to the United States. They arrived in mid-April. The use of the name "Dianetics" was assigned to the new Wichita Foundation, and it was to retain the rights of Hubbard books it published. Purcell was the President, and Hubbard the Vice-President and Chairman of the Board. A few days after his return to the U.S. Sara, not knowing his whereabouts, filed for divorce. 1
The retraction is clearly Hubbard's work (even containing his invented word "enturbulating"), which Sara has confirmed. 2 Sara remarried, and has largely evaded interviewers ever since. In 1972, she broke silence to write to author Paulette Cooper. In that letter, Sara described L. Ron Hubbard, the "fine and brilliant man," as a dangerous lunatic. She explained that her own life had been transformed when she left him, but that she was still frightened both of him and of his followers. June 1951 brought a major change in Hubbard's fortunes. His divorce was made final, and his book Science of Survival was published by the new Wichita Hubbard Dianetic Foundation. The title was coined to appeal to readers of Korzybski's highly popular Science and Sanity. Korzybski was even acknowledged in Hubbard's new book. The size of the first edition, 1,250 copies, is evidence of Hubbard's decreasing popularity. He later blamed poor sales on Purcell. 3 The book elaborated the theories of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in relation to Hubbard's "Tone Scale," gave variations on earlier Dianetics techniques, and made yet more claims for the miraculous properties of auditing. In Science of Survival, Hubbard asserted that an individual's emotional condition, or "tone level," is the key to the interpretation of his personality. The purpose of Dianetics was to raise the individual's tone level to Enthusiasm. In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health the Tone Scale was divided into four numbered "zones": from Apathy to Fear, from Fear to Antagonism, from Antagonism to Conservatism, and on to Enthusiasm. In Science of Survival, the Tone Scale was laid out in far more detail. Death was below Apathy at Tone 0; Grief at 0.5; Fear at 1.0; Covert Hostility at 1.1; Anger at 1.5; Antagonism at 2.0; Boredom at 2.5; Conservatism at 3.0; Cheerfulness at 3.5; and Enthusiasm at 4.0. The numbering was arbitrary, but Hubbard would continue to speak of an enthusiastic person as a "Tone 4," and the wolf in sheep's clothing, or covertly hostile individual, is still called a "1.1" (or "one-one") by Scientologists. The new book was accompanied by a large fold-out "Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation," with forty-three columns, each relating to a particular trait, from "Psychiatric range" to "Actual worth to Society," all related to "emotional tone level." By knowing someone's emotional level, Hubbard claimed you would know their physiological condition, and be able to predict their behavior. An Enthusiastic person will be "near accident-proof" and "nearly immune to bacteria." An Antagonistic person will suffer "severe sporadic illnesses,'' and a Frightened person will suffer from "endocrine and nervous illnesses." An Enthusiastic person will have a "high concept of truth," while a Bored person is "Insincere. Careless of facts," and an Angry person, engages in "blatant and destructive lying." Hubbard also expounded upon the idea of A.R.C., which was to become central to Scientology. He asserted that Affinity, Reality and Communication are inextricably linked, and dubbed them the ARC triangle. The increase or decrease of one of the comers of this triangle would influence the other two by the same amount. Reality, according to Hubbard, was fundamentally agreement. In its eventual formulation, Affinity, Reality and Communication were said to equal understanding. In Science of Survival, Hubbard referred to the exploration of "past lives." If the "pre-clear" offered a "past life incident," the Auditor should simply "run" him through it. Hubbard complained that Elizabeth Foundation Directors "sought to pass a resolution banning the entire subject" of "past lives." However, several Auditors trained at Elizabeth ran "past lives" on Preclears there and say it was Hubbard who was slow to adopt the idea. Eventually Hubbard adopted it with gusto and "past lives" became a focus of Scientology. Although reincarnation was a commonplace idea in the West by this time, Hubbard had undoubtedly met the notion in the works of Aleister Crowley, who also preferred the expression "past lives" to "reincarnation." In the new book Hubbard also advanced his "theta-MEST" theory. MEST stands for "Matter, Energy, Space and Time" - the physical world. By this time Hubbard asserted that "MEST" and that which animates it are two very different things. He used the Greek letter "theta" to categorize "thought, life force, elan vital, the spirit, the soul." Hubbard described the relationship between "theta" and "MEST"'
The Dianetic movement in 1951 consisted mainly of small autonomous groups, many of which had rejected Hubbard's leadership after the collapse of the Elizabeth Foundation with the ensuing bad press. There were a number of newsletters in circulation, some openly hostile to Hubbard. There was an air of experimentation. Helen O'Brien, who attended, wrote "Audiences at Hubbard's lectures were always partly composed of oddly dynamic fringe characters who were known to us as 'squirrels'.... They practically never enrolled at a dianetic foundation, seeming to obey some unwritten law which prohibited them from supporting an organization acting in Hubbard's interest. Nevertheless, his ideas dominated their lives." At the Wichita Foundation, Hubbard's only duties consisted of giving weekly lectures, and signing students' certificates which were awarded for time spent studying rather than as the result of any examination. The price of the Dianetic Auditor course remained at $500, but there were far less takers than there had been in Los Angeles six months before. Only 112 people attended the first major conference held at Wichita. They were the remaining core of the Dianetic movement. Small editions of new Hubbard books and pamphlets poured out of the Wichita Foundation: Preventative Dianetics, Self Analysis, Education and the Auditor, A Synthesis of Processing Techniques, The Dianetics Axioms, Child Dianetics, Advanced Procedure and Axioms, Lectures on Effort Processing, Handbook for Preclears, and Dianetics the Original Thesis were all published in the last six months of 1951. By October 1951, Hubbard attracted only fifty-one students to a brief series of lectures. In December, he held a convention for Dianeticists, and, according to O'Brien, felt betrayed when none of his old Elizabeth colleagues showed up. The men who had helped to make Dianetics a nationwide movement had deserted him. Winter, who had lent the air of medical authority; Morgan, the lawyer who had incorporated the first Foundation; Ceppos, the publisher who had unleashed Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health on the world; and, most important, Campbell, Hubbard's first recruiter and greatest publicist, who had virtually created the Dianetics boom. Winter had even written a book which, although it defended Dianetics, attacked Hubbard. Ceppos had published Winter's book. The first major challenge to Hubbard's leadership came in January 1952. A Minneapolis dianeticist, Ron Howes, was declared "Clear" by his Auditor, Perry Chapdelaine. 4 Remarkable claims were made for, and by, Howes including his statement that he was seeing if he could grow new teeth. To many dianeticists Howes seemed proof of Hubbard's claims. Unfortunately for Hubbard, Howes set up on his own, and attracted a following for his "Institute of Humanics." 5 More desertions from the Hubbard camp followed. In an effort to raise money, Hubbard launched "Allied Scientists of the World," the name of the organization which had figured in his first post-war novel, The End Is Not Yet. From its headquarters in Denver, Colorado, Allied Scientists solicited donations from scientists. Some of the scientists approached were working on secret government projects, and the Justice Department took a keen interest in the approach. Long hours were demanded of the Foundation's lawyer to sort out the ensuing problems. 6 Unsurprisingly, Hubbard and Purcell had a falling out. At Wichita, Hubbard had joined the "past lives" faction. This leap of attitude from a supposed precision study of the mind to a spiritual practice aggravated the conservative Purcell. Purcell had also initially failed to realize that the Wichita Foundation would be treated as the legal successor to the Elizabeth Foundation, and would therefore be forced to settle Elizabeth's extensive debts, which ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Purcell tried to persuade Hubbard to put the Wichita Foundation into voluntary bankruptcy. Hubbard refused, but in February, after creditors had threatened receivership, he resigned. He sold his seventy percent holding to the Foundation for $1.00, and was granted permission to teach Dianetics. He opened the "Hubbard College" on the other side of town, leaving Purcell the complicated task of settling accounts. The Foundation filed for voluntary bankruptcy. 7 On the same day, Hubbard sent a telegram to Purcell informing him that he was filing two suits against Purcell for a total of $1 million. Hubbard then published an attack on Purcell, accusing him of bad faith and incompetence. Despite this, the Foundation sent a moderate and matter-of-fact account of events to their members. No one was blamed. The report included a simple record of income and expenditure, showing that the Foundation had earned $141,821, of which $21,945 had been paid to Hubbard. The Foundation had overspent by $63,222 in less than a year of operation. Hubbard launched an out-and-out attack on the Foundation using its mailing lists, which he had misappropriated, and claiming Purcell had been paid $500,000 by the American Medical Association to wreck Dianetics. 8 In March, a restraining order was put on Hubbard and his lieutenant, James Elliot, requiring that they return the mailing lists, the address plates, tapes of Hubbard's lectures, typewriters, sound-recorders, sound-transcribers and other equipment which had disappeared from the Wichita Foundation. Elliot admitted having "inadvertently" removed this immense haul from the Foundation. When they were eventually returned, in compliance with a court order, some of the master tapes of Hubbard lectures had been mutilated. 9 The Court auctioned the Foundation's assets, freeing it from debt. Purcell bought the assets outright for $6,124; Hubbard had left the sinking ship a little too hastily. The battle between Hubbard and Purcell continued throughout 1952, with attacks and counterattacks being sent to everyone on the Wichita Foundation mailing list. Purcell distributed the record of the bankruptcy hearings. Hubbard sent out a statement insulting those who had chosen to remain with the official Foundation. He accused them of emotional inadequacy and intellectual shallowness, saying that they obviously preferred shams to the genuine article. Using the tone of a spoiled child in a tantrum, he grieved about his isolation, his unswerving devotion and his unselfishness. Yet again, he claimed to have new techniques which would solve the ills of mankind. 10 Hubbard also sent out increasingly desperate pleas for funds. For the first time he introduced the ploy of steadily escalating prices. Would-be franchise holders could buy a package of tapes and books, along with the right to use and teach his methods, for $1,000. Soon the price would rise to $1,500, then $2,000 and finally $5,000 within three months. Hubbard outlined the goal of his new organization thus: "Bluntly, we are out to replace medicine in the next three years." He also promised "degrees" in Dianetics. 11 When the fundraising efforts failed, Hubbard's chief lieutenant, James Elliot, sent out an impassioned plea to Dianeticists: "Dianetics and Mr. Hubbard have been dealt a blow from which they cannot recover .... Somehow Mr. Hubbard must get funds to keep Dianetics from being closed down everywhere .... He is penniless." Elliot went on to solicit funds for a "free school in Phoenix for the rehabilitation of auditors" and for "free schools across America," saying that Hubbard would "no longer commercialize Dianetics as organizations have made him do." Elliot asked for $25.00 per reader. Donors would be called the "Golds." A month after the announcement of the "free school," Hubbard was advertising counselling at $800 per twenty-five hours. 12 For six weeks after deserting the Wichita Foundation, Hubbard tried to establish his rival Hubbard College. In this short time, Hubbard gave a series of lectures that changed the whole complexion of Dianetics. He demonstrated the "Electro-psychometer" (or "E-meter"), which later became an integral part of auditing. He talked openly about matters which in later years became the secret "OT" levels, and started to favor the word Scientology. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Helen O'Brien, Dianetics in Limbo (Whitmore, Philadelphia, 1966); author's correspondence with a former HDRF director; Russell Miller interviews with Barbara Klowdan, Los Angeles, 28 July-5 August 1986; Hubbard letters and telegrams to Barbara Klowdan; author's interview with a former executive of various Hubbard organizations; information on publications and conference attendance - What Is Scientology? (1978 ed.) pp.289-290; Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, pp.122-3 & 165 1. Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, Inc., bankruptcy proceedings, District Court, Wichita, no.379-B-2; Don Purcell circular letter, 21 May 1952. 2. Corydon, L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (Lyle Stuart, New Jersey, 1987), p.285. 3. Hubbard circular letter, 20 February 1952. 4. Letter to the author from Chapdelaine, 1984. 5. Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom, pp. 84-5. 6. Hubbard circular letter, 20 February 1952. 7. "A Factual Report of the Hubbard Dianetic Foundation," John Maloney, 23 February 1952; Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin vol.3; Hubbard circular letter, 28 February 1952. 8. Purcell circular letter 21 May 1952; "Dianetics Today" newsletter, January 1954; Hubbard circular letter 20 February 1952; Hubbard College Lecture no.21 "Anatomy of the Theta Body," March 1952. 9. Jack Maloney circular letter, 29 March 1952. 10. "The Dispatch Case," Hubbard circular letter 8 April 1952. 11. Hubbard College Reports, 13 March 1952. 12. Elliot circular letter, 21 April 1952; Hubbard circular letter, 25 April 1952; Hubbard circular letter, 21 May 1952.
CHAPTER FOUR
The word "scientology" was not original to Hubbard, having been coined by philologist Alan Upward in 1907. Upward used it to characterize and ridicule pseudoscientific theories. In 1934, the word "Scientologie" was used by a German advocate of Aryan racial theory, Dr. A. Nordenholz, who defined it as "The science of the constitution and usefulness of knowledge and knowing." The "E-meter," adopted by
Hubbard by the time of the 1952 Wichita lectures, has become an indispensable
tool of Scientology. Electro-psychometers were not a new idea. Their origins
trace back to the 19th century. Jung had enthused about "psychogalvanometers"
before the First World War, and A Preclear is connected to the meter by two hand held electrodes (soup cans, shown right), closing a circuit through which a small electric current is passed. Fluctuations in the current are shown on the E-meter dial. The E-meter used by Hubbard was designed and built by dianeticist Volney Mathieson. Its primary use was, and still is, to detect areas of emotional upset, or "charge." Hubbard once said that his E-meter compared to similar devices "as the electron microscope compares to looking through a quartz stone." 1 He was not given to understatement. The greatest innovation of the Hubbard College Lectures of March 1952 was the introduction of a new cosmology: Hubbard's history of the universe. Dianeticists had sometimes audited "past lives," but Hubbard had published next to nothing on the subject. Now the "timetrack" of the individual was extended long before the womb. The "Theta-MEST" theory (where Theta is "life," and MEST, "Matter, Energy, Space and Time") was expanded to include single "lifeunits" which Hubbard called "Theta-beings." According to Hubbard, the "Theta-being" is the individual himself, and is trillions of years old (he was later to increase even this, to "quadrillions"). In simple terms the "Theta-being" is the human spirit. Unfortunately, Theta-beings have to share human bodies with other lesser spirits, or entities, originally called "Theta bodies." The doctrine of the composite being emerged again in the mid-1960s, becoming the basis of the secret "Operating Thetan," or "OT," levels. Hubbard claimed that "Theta-beings" had been "implanted" with ideas during the course of their incredibly long existence through the use of electrical shock and pain, combined with hypnotic suggestion; aversion therapy on a grand scale. Hubbard said it was necessary to recall these implants, and to separate out the different entities in an individual, and put them firmly under the command of the Theta-being. This was the direction of Hubbard's new auditing techniques. Hubbard said he had been researching Theta-beings for over a year, but had not considered it timely to release his findings. He said he had originally called his subject "Scientology" as early as 1938, and was now reviving the name. Hubbard later said his third wife, whom he met in 1951, helped coin the word. 2 During 1952, he produced the basic substance from which Scientology was wrought. Hubbard also introduced the franchising of his techniques. Satellite organizations would pay a ten percent tithe to him, as well as paying for training in new methods created by Hubbard. 3
Despite Hubbard's assertions that Purcell was determined to wreck Dianetics, the latter continued to run the Wichita Foundation after buying it in bankruptcy court proceedings. Ron Howes' Humanics and other derivatives were flourishing, beyond Hubbard's control, and drifting away from his original ideas. Hubbard's former publicist, John Campbell, had accused him of increasing authoritarianism and dogmatism in an independent Dianetic newsletter, writing that "In a healthy and growing science, there are many men who are recognized as being competent in the field, and no one man dominates the work .... To the extent Dianetics is dependent on one man, it is a cult. To the extent it is built on many minds and many workers, it is a science." 5 Hubbard had decided that psychology had forgotten that "psyche" meant "spirit," and with Scientology he was going to put this right. Therapy would now center upon the Theta-being, the spirit. By the final Wichita lectures, his audience had been down to around thirty. According to Helen O'Brien, the Hubbard College in Phoenix "languished with never more than a handful of students." Hubbard's image as a popular psychological scientist had deteriorated. To many he was a crank with a few impassioned devotees, all magnetized by his unfiagging charisma. Hubbard set up the Hubbard Association of Scientologists in Phoenix, and announced a new state of Clear. The Theta Clear was supposedly an individual "capable of dismissing illness and aberration from others at will" and "able to produce marked results at a distance." 6 Hubbard's book What to Audit, was published in July, claiming in the foreword to be a "cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years." As the book progresses, sixty million becomes seventy, and then seventy-four trillion years. With Scientology, we are told, "the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner." In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health Hubbard insisted "Dianetics cures, and cures without failure." 7 In What to Audit, he said "in auditing the whole track [ie "past lives"], one can obtain excellent results... in auditing the current lifetime, one can obtain slow and mediocre results." In just two years, the allegedly miraculous techniques of Dianetics had become "slow and mediocre." When he left the Wichita Foundation, Hubbard also left the rights to his earlier books. He had to find something new and different if he was to retain any of his dwindling following.
Hubbard claimed to have absolute proof of past lives, though he made no attempt at verifiable case histories. He wrote that "Gravestones, ancient vital statistics, old diplomas and medals will verify in every detail the validity of 'many lifetimes.' "He was in fact relying on the E-meter which, if it works at all, can do no more than indicate the certainty with which a conviction is held. The book contains the usual series of representations for the eradication of illnesses and physical disabilities, ranging from toothache to cancer. Scientologists' medical histories bear witness to the inadequacy of these remedies. Hubbard was already equivocating about his discovery of the many "entities" compacted into the individual, and commented that these entities were probably just "compartments of the mind." Otherwise, his imagination ran on unchecked. The Theta-being, or "Thetan," governs the composite which we think of as the individual, but the body itself is governed by the "genetic entity," a sort of low grade soul, which passes to another body after death. Hubbard claimed the Thetan could remodel his physical form, lose weight, enhance features, even add a little height and was readily capable of telepathy, telekinesis and remote viewing. What to Audit lists a series of incarnations or a "time-track" from the beginnings of the universe to man: the evolution, or "genetic line," of the human body. According to Hubbard, the "time-track" runs back to a point where the individual seemed to be "an atom, complete with electronic rings." After which came the "cosmic impact," then the "photon converter," and then the first single-cell creature to reproduce by dividing, the "helper." Passing quickly through "seaweed," the evolutionary line moved on to "jellyfish" and then the "clam." The description of the "clam" makes particularly fine reading. Hubbard was quite right when he warned that the reader may think that he, the author, has "slipped a cable or two in his wits." He warned his followers of dangers inherent in any discussion of "the clam":
The next stage in Hubbard's evolutionary theory was another shellfish, the "Weeper" (also the "Boohoo," or as Hubbard jovially refers to it at one point, "the Grim Weeper"). This creature is the origin of human "belching, gasping, sobbing, choking, shuddering, trembling." Fear of falling has its origin with hapless Weepers which were dropped by predatory birds. After a few comments on "being eaten" (which allegedly explains diet fads and vegetarianism), Hubbard moves forward in evolution to the sloth. It seems that none of the incarnations between shellfish and the sloth was unpleasant enough to cause major psychological damage. From the sloth, Hubbard moves on to the "ape," and the Piltdown man (who had very large teeth, and a nasty habit of eating his spouse); then the caveman (who presumably had smaller teeth, and used to cripple his wife instead of eating her). From there, usually "via Greece and Rome," Hubbard's theory moves to modern times. What to Audit was published in the year before complete proof discrediting the Piltdown man was announced. However, Hubbard's book has remained uncorrected. Quite typically, as Hubbard did not tend to revise or correct his earlier works. However, this explanation of evolution relates only to the "genetic entity." The "Theta-being" only came to earth 35,000 years ago (presumably from outer space; Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision was on the best-seller lists with Dianetics in 1950), to transform the caveman into Homo sapiens. The Theta-being has been systematically "implanted" with a variety of control phrases. The earliest such implant was "facsimile one" (or "Fac one"), which originated a mere million years ago "in this Galaxy," but was only given out about ten or twenty thousand years ago in this particular neck of the galaxy. Hubbard claimed that "Fac one" was inflicted with a black box, the "Coffee-grinder" which played a "push-pull wave" over the victim from side to side, "laying in a bone-deep somatic [pain]." After this the victim was "dumped in scalding water, then immediately in ice water," and finally whirled about in a chair. This was "an outright control mechanism" to prevent rebellion against the "Fourth Invader Force," and created "a nice, non-combative, religiously insane community." Hubbard described many other implants in bizarre detail including the Halver, the Joiner, the Between-lives (administered in an "implant station" in the Pyrenees, or on Mars), the Emanator, the Jiggler, the Whirler, the Fly-trap, the Boxer, the Rocker, and so on, and so on. In What to Audit, Hubbard also warned that the Earth was on the verge of psychic war. In a 1952 lecture called "The Role of Earth," he explained that the Fourth Invader Force still had outposts on Mars. These were the very individuals responsible for the "between lives implants." Hubbard made no comment on the later failure of planetary probes to discover any signs of the Invaders on Mars, nor of the Fifth Invader Force, who supposedly inhabit Venus. After What to Audit was published, Hubbard went to England for three months, taking his pregnant wife with him. Mary Sue's first child, Diana Meredith DeWolf Hubbard, was born in London, in September some six months after their marriage. At the end of November, Ron was back in Philadelphia at the most successful of the Association centers, the Scientology organization run by Helen O'Brien and John Neugebauer (or "Noyga"). Helen O'Brien's book, Dianetics in Limbo, gives a vivid account of her close association with Hubbard. In December 1952, Hubbard gave the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures to an audience of just thirty-eight. 8 The lectures were taped, all seventy-two hours of them. The tapes are still heavily promoted, and sold for a high price, as is a course including them all. The lectures were based on Hubbard's newest book, Scientology 8.8008. Here the cosmology of Scientology was further expanded. Hubbard took the symbol "8" for infinity (by turning the mathematicians' infinity symbol upright), and explained that the book's title meant the attainment of infinity (the first 8) by the reduction of the physical universe's command value to zero (the 80), and the increase of the individual's personal universe to an infinity (the last 08). In short, through the application of the techniques given in the lectures, the individual would become a god. The Theta-being, or individual human spirit, acquired the name it retains in Scientology: the Thetan. The Thetan is the self, the "I," that which is "aware of being aware" in Man. Since its entry into the physical universe trillions of years ago the Thetan, originally all-knowing, has declined through a "dwindling spiral" of introversion into Matter, Energy, Space and Time. The Thetan can allegedly "exteriorize" from its physical body, and Hubbard gave auditing techniques which he claimed would achieve this result. The Thetan is immortal and capable of all sons of remarkable feats. Scientologists call these "Operating Thetan" (or "OT") abilities. They include telekinesis, levitation, telepathy, recall of previous lives, "exterior" perception (or "remote viewing"), disembodied movement to any desired location, and the power to will events to occur: to transform, create or destroy Matter, Energy, Space and Time (or "MEST"). The main new auditing technique was Creative Processing. In Creative Processing, the Auditor asks the Preclear to make a "mental image picture" of something. During a demonstration Hubbard asked a female subject to "mock-up" a snake. She refused, because she was frightened of snakes. So Hubbard asked her to "mock it up" at a distance from her. He directed her to make it smaller, change its color, and so forth, until she had the confidence to let it touch her. Theoretically, this would allay the subject's fear of snakes. In the seventy-two hours of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course, Hubbard expounded an entire cosmology. He talked about implants, the Tarot, a civilization called Arslycus (where we were all slaves for 10,000 life-times, largely spending our time polishing bricks in zerogravity), how to sell people on Scientology, "anchor points" (which Thetans extend to mesh their own space with that of the physical universe), how to bring up children, and how to give up smoking (by smoking as much as you can) - about a hundred and one things. And he did it all with his usual mischievous charm. Hubbard also defined his Axioms of Scientology at great length. We learn that "Life is basically static" without mass, motion, wavelength, or location in space or in time; that the physical universe is a reality only because we all agree it is a reality. (Robert Heinlein used this idea in Stranger in a Strange Land. Mahayana Buddhists have mulled it over for centuries.) It was during the course of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course that Hubbard mentioned his "very good friend," Aleister Crowley, and in places his ideas do seem to be a science fictionalized extension of Crowley's black magic. Crowley too was an advocate of visualization techniques. On the afternoon of December 16, the lectures were abruptly interrupted by the arrival of U.S. Marshals. A warrant had been issued against Hubbard for failing to return $9,000 withdrawn from the Wichita Foundation. There was something of a scuffle with the Marshals. Hubbard was arrested, but returned to finish the lecture that evening. 9 Almost immediately afterward, he left for England to complete the "Doctorate" series there. Hubbard had claimed to have no idea of his income from the Wichita Foundation, saying he had been denied access to the financial records. 10 Eventually, he settled by paying $1,000 and returning a car supplied by Purcell. Remarkably, this was the last time that Hubbard was apprehended by the law. Hubbard kept his devotees apace of his ideas by issuing regular newsletters. He continued to make strenuous claims for his miraculous mental "technology," for example: "Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully with Dianetics after medicine had traditionally [sic] given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase 'It turns my blood to water.' " 11 In England in May 1953, Hubbard complained that he had just given "probably the most disastrous lecture in terms of attendance in the city of Birmingham." In the same month he explained that he was off to the Continent "to stir up some interest in Scientology. I will be stopping at various spas and have an idea of entering this little bomb of a racing car I have in a few of the all-outs in Europe. The car has a 2.5 litre souped-up Jaguar engine. It is built of hollow steel tubing and aluminium and weighs nothing. Its brakes sometimes work but its throttle never fails. I have also a British motorcycle which might do well in some of these scrambles .... I think by spreading a few miracles around the spas, I will be able to elicit considerable interest in Scientology." No report followed about the miracles performed or the races run. Hubbard seems instead to have taken a long holiday in Spain. 12 Meanwhile, Helen O'Brien and her husband were managing the Scientology empire from Philadelphia. Under their direction, it started to prosper. The last Hubbard Congress they arranged was attended by about 300, and "each paid a substantial fee to attend." But in October, O'Brien and Noyga became disillusioned with Hubbard's attitude and actions:
Having entered the realm of the spirit, or Thetan, it was only natural that Scientology should shift its legal status from a psychotherapy to a religion. Religious belief is protected in the United States by the Constitution. So Hubbard could entice the public with claims of "spiritual" cures, and the U.S. government, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association would be severely handicapped in any attempt to restrict him. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Helen O'Brien, Dianetics in Limbo (Whitmore, Philadelphia, 1966);pp. vii,52-55, 73, 76-77; Hubbard, A History of Man; Hubbard, Philadelphia Doctorate Course (taped lectures, 1952) 1. Hubbard, A History of Man, p.6 2. The Auditor 21, p.1 3. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, pp.218, 220 4. The Auditor 21; Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, pp.218 & 220 5. Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom, p.80. 6. Promotion piece, "Announcing the Theta Clear." 7. Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, p.40 8. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, p.298 9. Letter to the author from Helen O'Brien; letter to the author from L. Ron Hubbard Jr.; letter to the author from an attendeed of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course; L. Ron Hubbard Jr., transcript of Clearwater Hearings vol.1 p.283, May 1982 10. Hubbard College Lecture, no.21 11. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, p.337 12. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, pp.343, 369; What Is Scientology?, p.295
CHAPTER FIVE
In his autobiography Over My Shoulder, publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshbach remembered taking lunch with John Campbell and Ron Hubbard in 1949. Hubbard repeated a statement he had already made to several other people. He said he would like to start a religion, because that was where the money was. In 1980, Hubbard issued a statement saying Scientologists had "insisted" their organization become a "Church," adding, "It is sometimes supposed that I founded the Church. This is not correct." Perhaps time had affected Hubbard's memory. The Scientologists maintain that the Church of Scientology of California was their first Church. It was incorporated in California on February 18, 1954, by Burton Farber. In an explanatory letter of the following month, Hubbard said the new "Church" was contracted to the "Church of American Science," to which it paid a twenty percent tithe. Naturally, Hubbard was the President of the Church of American Science. 1 In fact, both the Church of American Science and a Church of Scientology had been incorporated without fanfare by Hubbard in December 1953, in Camden, New Jersey, along with the "Church of Spiritual Engineering." (See below.) The Church of American Science was represented as a Christian Church. 2
Evidence of Hubbard's interest in moving Scientology into a religious position was given in the Armstrong case. On April 10, 1953, Hubbard wrote from England to Helen O'Brien, who had just taken over the management of Scientology in the U.S., telling her that it was time to move from a medical to a religious image. His objectives were to eliminate all other psychotherapies, to salvage his ailing organization, and, Hubbard was quite candid, to make a great deal of money. Being a religion rather than a psychotherapy was a purely commercial matter, Hubbard said. He enthused about the thousands that could be milked out of preclears attracted by this new promotional approach. 3 As usual, Hubbard was keeping all of the options open. In his explanatory letter to the membership about the new "Church," he also introduced the "Freudian Foundation of America." A variety of degrees were offered to students, including "Bachelor of Scientology," "Doctor of Scientology," "Freudian Psycho-analyst," and "Doctor of Divinity" to be issued by the "University of Sequoia," an American diploma mill (which was closed down by the California Department of Education in 1958). Hubbard had already received an "honorary doctorate" in philosophy from Sequoia. 4 In New Zealand, the Auckland Scientology group also became a Church in February 1954. Gradually other centers followed suit, and "Churches of Scientology" came into being all over the world. These "Churches" were franchises paying a tithe to the "mother church." Scientology had become the McDonald's hamburger chain of religion, increasingly absorbing the mass-production and marketing aspects of North American commerce. In 1954, Don Purcell, weary of the battle with L. Ron Hubbard, and unable to make his Dianetic organization self-sustaining, withdrew to join Art Coulter's "Synergetics," a derivative of Dianetics. Purcell dissolved the Wichita Dianetic Foundation, and gave its assets to Hubbard. These included the copyrights to several Hubbard books. The use of the word "Dianetics" and even the name "L. Ron Hubbard" had been in dispute. Hubbard had complete control of his original subject once again. He expressed his jubilation in a newsletter to Scientologists, in which he even forgave Purcell, if only for a short time. Purcell had given his own attitude succinctly earlier that year: "Ron's motive has always been to limit Dianetics to the Authority of his teachings. Anyone who has the affrontry [sic] to suggest that others besides Ron could contribute creatively to the work must be inhibited." 5 Hubbard had learned from his mistakes. He employed a simple method of retaining complete control over his many Scientology and Dianetic corporations. He was not on the board of every corporation, so a check of records would not show his outright control. He did, however, collect signed, undated resignations from directors before their appointment. Hubbard also controlled the bank accounts. 6 In May 1953, in a "Professional Auditor's Bulletin," Hubbard had written: "It is definitely none of my business how you apply these techniques. I am no policeman ready with boards of ethics and court warrants to come down on you with a crash simply because you are 'perverting Scientology.' If there is any policing to be done, it is by the techniques themselves, since they have in themselves a discipline brought about by their own power. All I can do is put into your hands a tool for your own use and then help you use it." By 1955, Hubbard's attitude had changed markedly. In one of his most bizarre pieces, "The Scientologist: A Manual on the Dissemination of Material," Hubbard recommended legal action against those who set up as independent practitioners of Scientology, or "squirrels" : "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." Hubbard further urged that Scientologists employ private detectives to investigate critics of Scientology, adding: "we should be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest chance so as to discourage the public press from mentioning Scientology." During the late 1950s, most of the independent groups either became "Churches," or went out of business. They had accepted Hubbard's direction, and were under contract to his "Hubbard Association of Scientologists International," but Hubbard wanted complete legal control. The franchised "Churches" were gradually absorbed into various organizations controlled directly by Hubbard. Hubbard continued to write to the FBI's Department of Communist Activities. He asserted that the Russians had on three occasions tried to recruit him, and were upset by his patriotic refusal to work for them. By now, Hubbard felt that his organizations had been harassed from the outset not only by psychiatrists but also by Communist infiltrators. He claimed that the most recent approach was from an individual with a position in the U.S. government. 7 A few months later, Hubbard again complained of Communist infiltration into Scientology organizations. He cited examples of Scientologists suddenly going insane, and attributed this to psychiatrists using LSD. He made no suggestion that Scientology itself might have had anything to do with these eruptions of insanity. He alleged that since offering his brainwashing techniques to the Defense Department, his organizations had been under constant attack. 8 In September 1955, Hubbard published an issue entitled "Psychiatrists," calling Scientology "the only Anglo-Saxon development in the field of the mind and spirit," and insisting that Scientologists inform the authorities if they suspected that any of their clients had been given LSD surreptitiously by a psychiatrist. The FBI tired of Hubbard's missives, and stopped acknowledging them. One agent wrote "appears mental" on a Hubbard letter. Hubbard later privately admitted to having taken LSD himself. 9 At the end of 1955, the "Hubbard Communications Office" in Washington, DC, published a peculiar booklet entitled Brainwashing, which claimed to be a Russian textbook on "psychopolitics" written by the Soviet chief of the secret police, Beria. In an elaborate charade, Hubbard claimed the booklet had arrived anonymously, and mentioned a version in German, published in Berlin in 1947, and discovered in the Library of Congress. The Library has no record of the German booklet. The version published by the Scientologists cannot have been written before December 1953, as there are several references to the "Church of Scientology." In fact, the author of Brainwashing was none other than L. Ron Hubbard. There are two witnesses, and the literary style and the slant of the contents provide further evidence of Hubbard's authorship: 10
Hubbard was perfectly willing to cash in on the intense interest in brainwashing, a hot topic in the United States with the return of POWs from North Korea. He was also willing to infect his devotees with his paranoia, and the booklet highlighted the grand conspiracy supposedly directed against Hubbard and his organizations. In 1956, Hubbard recommended that Scientologists recruit new people by placing the following advertisement in the newspapers: "Polio victims. A research foundation investigating polio, desires volunteers suffering from the effects of that illness to call for examination." Hubbard said that the "research foundation" could also advertise for asthmatics or arthritics. Further: "Any auditor anywhere can constitute himself as a minister or an auditor, a research worker in the field of any illness .... It is best that a minister representing himself as a 'charitable organization' . . . do the research." Hubbard also recommended that his followers engage in "Casualty Contact": "Every day in the daily papers one discovers people who have been victimized one way or the other by life. It does not much matter whether that victimizing is in the manner of mental or physical injury .... One takes every daily paper . . . and cuts from it every story whereby he might have a preclear .... As speedily as possible he makes a personal call on the bereaved or injured person .... He should represent himself to the person or the person's family as a minister whose compassion was compelled by the newspaper story." This strategy underlines the cold-bloodedness which Scientology gradually inculcates in its adherents. Compassion becomes a tactical display rather than natural feeling. "Sympathy" is frowned upon as being emotionally "down-tone," and the word "victim" is a term of derision. The Scientologists even have a course which requires that students go into hospitals and, representing themselves as "volunteer ministers," use Scientology techniques on the patients, encouraging them to take up Scientology. 11 Hubbard was also making claims that his "technology" could deal with the effects of radioactive fallout. In 1956, he gave a lecture series in Washington, styled "The Anti-Radiation Congress Lectures." In April 1957, he held the "London Congress on Nuclear Radiation and Health Lectures" at the Royal Empire Society Hall. Three of these lectures were condensed, and became chapters in his book All About Radiation, allegedly written by "a Nuclear Physicist and a Medical Doctor." The "Nuclear Physicist" was L. Ron Hubbard, the "Medical Doctor" hid behind the pseudonym "Medicus" (the Library of Congress lists him as Richard Farley, quite possibly a Hubbard pseudonym). In the section purportedly written by "Medicus" we are told that "some very recent work by L. Ron Hubbard and the Hubbard Scientology Organization, has indicated that a simple combination of vitamins in unusual doses can be of value. Alleviation of the remote effects and increased tolerance to radiation have been the apparent results." 12 While it was possible to defend against prosecution in the United States for claims of miracle cures by invoking the First Amendment's freedom of belief, it was stupid of Hubbard to sell his vitamin mixture as a specific for radiation sickness. In 1958, the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) seized a consignment of 21,000 "Dianazene" tablets, which were marketed by a Scientology company, the Distribution Center. The tablets were destroyed by the F.D.A. because their labeling claimed they were a preventative and treatment for radiation sickness. 13 This was not the last time Hubbard tangled with the F.D.A. Nor was it the last time he claimed a cure for the effects of radiation. The Scientologists still advertise All About Radiation with a flier which claims that "L. Ron Hubbard has discovered a formula which can proof a person against radiation." Scientologists believe that enormous doses of Niacin, a form of vitamin B3, will protect them from the devastating effects of exposure to radiation in the event of nuclear war. The Church encountered other legal problems in the United States. One of the possible advantages of dubbing an organization "religious" was the right to claim tax-exempt status. The Washington "Church" had obtained exempt status in 1956, and other "Churches" had followed suit. Then, in 1958, exemption was denied. The Washington Church appealed to the U.S. Court of Claims. The Tax Court ruled that exempt status was rightly withdrawn, because Hubbard and his wife were benefiting financially from the Church of Scientology beyond reasonable remuneration. Between June 1955 and June 1959, Hubbard had been given $108,000 by the Scientology Church, along with the use of a car, all expenses paid. The Church maintained a private residence for him through 1958 and 1959. His family, including his son Nibs and his daughter Catherine, had also withdrawn thousands of dollars. Mary Sue Hubbard derived over $10,000 income by renting property to the Church. On top of this, Hubbard received his tithes (ten percent, or more) from Scientology organizations throughout the world. Despite Hubbard's pronouncements, Scientology and Dianetics were very definitely a business, a profit-making organization, run by Hubbard for his personal enrichment. 14 Through the 1950s, Scientology tried to develop a good public image. The therapy had become a religious practice, compared by Hubbard to the Christian confessional, and the therapists had become ministers. The trappings of religion were assembled, including ministerial garb complete with dog-collar, and wedding, naming and funeral rites. Hubbard's berserk outbursts were lost amid a welter of new auditing procedures. His paranoia was better contained, though Church leaders were told to cease communication with critics of Scientology whom Hubbard called "Merchants of Chaos," the beginnings of the doctrine of "disconnection." 15 To the general public, Scientology was represented as a humanitarian, religious movement, intent upon benefiting all mankind. Its opponents were dangerous enemies of freedom, and were tarred with unfashionable epithets such as communist, homosexual, or drug addict. Opponents were portrayed as members of a deliberate conspiracy to silence Hubbard, and bring down the "shades of night" over the Earth. 16 To its membership, Scientology was represented as a science, liberating man from all his disabilities, and freeing in him undreamt abilities. To the Church hierarchy, Scientology was the only hope of freedom for mankind, and must be protected at all costs. Hubbard was nothing short of a Messiah, whose wisdom and perception far outstripped that of any mere mortal. Hubbard's commandments might at times be unfathomable, but his word was law. The Hubbard Communication Office Manual of Justice laid down the law for Scientology staff members. In it Hubbard wrote: "People attack Scientology; I never forget it, always even the score." The Manual of Justice introduced a comprehensive "intelligence" system into Hubbard's organizations. Hubbard wrote: "Intelligence is mostly the collection of data on people which may add up to a summary of right or wrong actions on their part .... It is done all the time about everything and everybody .... When a push against Scientology starts somewhere, we go over the people involved and weed them out." If "intelligence" failed, then investigation was called for: "When we need somebody haunted we investigate .... When we investigate we do so noisily always. And usually investigation damps out the trouble even when we discover no really pertinent facts. Remember that - by investigation alone we can curb pushes and crush wildcat people and unethical 'Dianetics and Scientology' organizations," and, "intelligence we get with a whisper. Investigation we do with a yell. Always." Hubbard explained to staff members: "Did you ever realize that any local viciousness against Scientology organizations is started by somebody for a purpose? Well, it is . . . rumours aren't 'natural'. When you run them down you find a Commie or a millionaire who wants us dead .... You find amongst all our decent people some low worm who has been promised high position and pay if we fail .... When you have found your culprit, go to the next step, Judgment and Punishment." Hubbard's instruction to use private detectives has certainly been followed by the Scientology Church over the ensuing years. The reader of the confidential Manual is told: "Of twenty-one persons found attacking Dianetics and Scientology... eighteen of them under investigation were found to be members of the Communist Party or criminals, usually both. The smell of police or private detectives caused them to fly, to close down, to confess. Hire them and damn the cost when you need to." Magazine articles unfavorable to Scientology were to be met with a letter demanding retraction, followed by an investigation of the author for his "criminal or Communist background" by a private detective. The magazine would be threatened with legal action, and the author sent "a very tantalizing letter ... tell him we know something interesting about him," and invited to a meeting, "chances are he won't arrive. But he'll sure shudder into silence." In the "Judgment and Punishment" section of his Manual of Justice Hubbard wrote:
In the Manual, Hubbard's suggested punishments were actually mild, consisting largely of the cancellation of any certificates awarded by his organizations. He suggested that an organization "shoot the offender for the public good and then patch him up quietly." A mood was being created in which staff members would become "deployable agents," as sociologist Roy Wallis called Hubbard's henchmen in his excellent study of Scientology. After all, Hubbard never gave any indication of the possibility that a complaint against him or against Scientology could be justifiable. The tactic of "noisy investigation" originated in the Manual, and came to mean harassment by defamation. Hubbard certainly did not mind if the defamation was grossly exaggerated, or even a total fabrication. If you throw enough mud, some will stick. The Manual of Justice clearly suggests outright blackmail. The Scientology organizations grew steadily, and, in the spring of 1959, Hubbard purchased the Maharajah of Jaipur's English manor house and estate in the beautiful Sussex countryside, at Saint Hill village, a few miles from East Grinstead. FOOTNOTES Additional sources: Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.1, p.298; vol.2, p.32, 157, 267-9, 353-5; What Is Scientology? (1978 ed.), p.142, 154 1. Professional Auditors Bulletin 74, "Washington Bulletin no.1," 6 March 1956 (only in original) 2. L. Ron Hubbard Jr., transcript of Clearwater Hearings vol.1 p.286, May 1982; Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom, p.128. 3. Vol 12. pp. 1976, 26, 4619 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153; exhibit 500-4V in ibid. 4. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.2, p.32; St Petersburg Times, "Scientology," p.17. 5. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.2, pp. 84, 124; Purcell quote - "Dianetics Today" newsletter, January 1954. 6. Vol 12. pp. 2008, 26, 4643 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153; exhibits 500-5 and 500-5F in ibid; Kima Douglas in vol. 25, p.4435 of ibid. 7. Hubbard letter to FBI, 29 July 1955 8. Hubbard letter to FBI, 7 September 1955 9. Interview with David Mayo, October 1986, Palo Alto 10. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.2, pp.309, 312; letter to the author from Henrietta de Wolf; interview with former executive at Washington, DC. 11. Hubbard, The Volunteer Minister's Handbook (1979), p.77, part K 12. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.2, pp.378, 364; vol.3, p.27; dustwrapper of All About Radiation. 13. Wallis, pp.190, 128 14. Sir John Foster, Report into the Practices and Effects of Scientology (HMSO, 1971), para 118 15. Donna Reeve in vol. 24, p. 4185 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 16. Philadelphia Doctorate Course #21
CHAPTER SIX
Saint Hill, a sandstone,
Georgian manor house, built in 1733, was an unlikely setting for the red-headed
maverick from Montana.
With a typical lack of modesty Hubbard announced his horticultural innovations to Scientologists, claiming, in the third person, that "Ron has already created everbearing tomato plants and sweet corn plants sufficiently impressive to startle British newspapers into front page stories about this new wizardry." How Hubbard knew the tomatoes were "everbearing" after only a few months is not known. Hubbard's stated purpose for this project was "to reform the world food supply." 2 At the end of the 1959 growing season, Hubbard introduced "Security Checking." The E-meter was now to be used to discover "overts" committed by Scientologists. An "overt" is basically a transgression against a moral code. In later times Security Checking was renamed "Integrity Processing" or "Confessional Auditing," linking the procedure to the Confessional of the Christian Church. Rather than a simple request to confess, the Preclear is asked a series of precise questions (often several hundred), and must describe very exactly any overt discovered during the process. The E-Meter is used throughout to try to ensure there are no evasions. The Auditor carefully notes the details of any overt he has "pulled" from the Preclear. 3 In theory, Security Checking could be applied either as a Confessional, in which case the replies obtained were said to be confidential, or during the course of an investigation, in which case they were not. In practice, the Confessional has proved to be a double-edged procedure, sometimes giving genuine relief, but always harboring the potential future use of the material as blackmail. An enthusiastic convert is willing to expose even his most tortured secret. Should he become disillusioned by Church practices, he will keep quiet for fear that his confession will be disclosed. Hubbard's oldest child, L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., or "Nibs," had been a leading light in Scientology since 1952, when, at the age of eighteen, he became Executive Director of the Washington Scientology Church. He was even one of the handful of people who had given "Advanced Clinical Courses" in Scientology. His father had described him as "one of the best auditors in the business." In November 1959, Hubbard senior ordered that the staffs of all Scientology Orgs be given an E-meter check. On November 23, Nibs left the Washington Org, and the Church of Scientology. Hubbard said his son was unable to "face an E-meter," and issued a Bulletin saying the cause of all "departures, sudden and relatively unexplained" was unconfessed overts. 4 According to Nibs, his departure from the Church was actually due to inadequate remuneration. Nibs later suggested that his father needed to confess his overts, and for many years Nibs was his father's most outspoken opponent. Hubbard senior disowned Nibs completely in 1983. Nibs accepted a financial settlement from the Scientologists after his father's death in 1986, agreeing not to make further comment. The idea that unrevealed transgressions cause departures from the Church is now deeply embedded in Scientology theory. No one who leaves has a chance to explain his departure. Scientologists are sure that the person must have "overts" against Scientology, therefore nothing a former member says can be trusted, so it is not worth listening to them. In March 1960, Have You Lived Before This Life? A Scientific Survey was published. The book is a jumble of Scientology auditing sessions, where Preclears related fragments of their "past life" experiences. No attempt was made to verify any of the incidents. Freudians would have a field day with the contents. That month, in an internal memo to his press officer, Hubbard also commented on the public image he wished to create for himself. In every press release it was to be made clear that he was an atomic scientist, a researcher, rather than a spiritualist or a psychiatrist. 5 Hubbard's major research at the time was into "Security Checking," and he was looking for applications for this new "technology." Hubbard saw potential political uses, and sent a Bulletin to all South African Auditors called "Interrogation (How to read an E-Meter on a silent subject)," which reads in part:
This interrogation was recommended for tracing the true leaders of riots:
In April 1960, the Bulletin "Concerning the Campaign for the Presidency" was published recommending that Richard M. Nixon "be prevented at all costs from becoming president." Hubbard blamed Nixon for a distinctly unfriendly visit to the Washington Scientology Church by "two members of the United States Secret Service," which had upset Mary Sue Hubbard. Scientologists were offered shares in the "Hubbard Association of Scientologists Limited," registered in England, for £25 each that June. When the HASI Ltd. failed to obtain nonprofit status in England, the shares were bought back, for a shilling each and a life-membership in Scientology, which was later cancelled. 6 Also in June, the "Special Zone Plan - The Scientologists Role in Life" was promulgated by Hubbard. It recommended that Scientoloo gists who were not on Church staff achieve influence in the society at large, by taking positions next to the high and mighty. "Don't bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the bodyguard," Hubbard advised. The secretary or bodyguard would then use Scientology to transform the organization they had joined. These Scientologists would be part of a network, reporting back to the project's administrator; as Hubbard put it, "If we were revolutionaries this HCO Bulletin would be a very dangerous document." The Special Zone Plan was absorbed into a new Church "Department of Government Affairs" within weeks of its inception. In the Policy Letter announcing this move Hubbard said, "The goal of the Department is to bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by high level ability to control, and in its absence, by low level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies." Hubbard not only defined the sinister and covert objective of the Department of Government Affairs, but also delineated the policy Scientology has rigorously followed to this day toward any perceived threat: "Only attacks resolve threats .... If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to sue for peace .... Don't ever defend. Always attack." During a visit in October 1960, Hubbard again gave his observations on the situation in South Africa: "There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England! .... The South African government is not a police state. It's easier on people than the United States government!" 7 Scientology made the headlines in England when headmistress Sheila Hoad was accused of giving "Death Lessons" to her young pupils. For twenty minutes a day, her small prep school students were asked, among other things, to close their eyes and imagine they were dying, and then imagine they had turned to dust and ashes. After the story went to the press, Miss Hoad resigned. 8 In the Spring of 1961, Hubbard expanded his Special Zone Plan, by introducing the Department of Official Affairs, "the equivalent of a Ministry of Propaganda and Security." The Department was to create "Heavy influence through our own and similarly minded groups on the public and official mind," and "A filed knowingness [sic] about the activities of friends and enemies." 9 On March 24, Hubbard launched the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (or, inevitably, "SHSBC"). Students arrived from all over the world to hear him lecture on new techniques in the Saint Hill chapel. One "technical breakthrough" followed another, and eventually the Briefing Course came to consist of over 300 taped lectures (most delivered during this period). All of Hubbard's recorded lectures, some 3,500 of them, have more recently been designated "religious scriptures" by his Church. Even the most dedicated of Scientologists can not have heard them all, but about 600 tapes are still used in courses. Hubbard was a remarkable lecturer. A woman close to him in the 1950s, who thought he was a fraud even then, says he was quite hypnotic. He raced from one idea to another, illustrating his talks with embroidered stories from his life (and sometimes his previous lives). He effused good humor, and spoke with apparent ease, usually without notes. There is nothing dry or academic about his lectures. He was an accomplished comedian, especially if you knew the "in" jokes, many about his pet hate, psychiatry. On April 7, 1961, Hubbard published the "Johannesburg Security Check," which he described as the "roughest security check in Scientology." An amended form is still in use, and referred to by Scientologists as the "Jo'burg." The security check began with a series of nonsense questions, such as, "Are you on the moon?" and "Am I an ostrich?" to ensure that the recipient's E-meter response was normal. Then there were a hundred questions. They covered sexual activities thoroughly, with questions such as:
Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee were long gone, but Hubbard was still inflamed with anti-Communist fervor, and the sec-check was interspersed with questions about Communism, such as:
The "Jo'burg" covered all manner of wrongdoing, from simple theft to "illicit Diamond buying." It also asked, "Have you ever been a newspaper reporter?" A cardinal sin to Hubbard. At the end of the security check a series of fourteen questions designed to ensure the recipient's loyalty to Hubbard and his organization was asked, among them:
Throughout 1961, additional Security Checks poured out of the church. There was even one for children. Hubbard ordered that "All Security Check sheets of persons Security Checked should be forwarded to St. Hill." 10 Hubbard was assembling a comprehensive set of intelligence files on Scientologists with their willing assistance, as well as on supposed enemies without their knowledge. The procedure has been refined, and remains to the present day. The Scientology Church keeps a file on everyone who has ever taken a course or even had a single hour of counseling. Scientologists are not allowed to see the contents of their own confessional files, so cannot correct any errors. The most elaborate Sec Check was for the "Whole Track" (the whole "Time-Track," "past lives" included), and consisted of over 400 questions. It was written by a couple devoted to Hubbard, and was approved by the man himself. A few sample questions:
Any wrongdoing discovered during the questioning would be traced back to "earlier similar incidents." It must have taken months to check and recheck all 400 questions. However, it was not very useful for intelligence gathering. You could hardly threaten to expose a person for "zapping" someone 20 trillion years ago. Security Checks were soon limited to "this lifetime." 12 Hubbard even tried to extend Security Checking into the outside world, by advising Scientologists to set up a "Citizens' Purity League" in their area. The Scientologists would Sec Check local officials and the police. An attempt at this was made in Melbourne, Australia, which was soon to become a very dangerous place indeed for Scientology. 13 On August 13, 1962, in between lectures at Saint Hill, Hubbard again offered Scientology to the American government. The FBI Communist Activities Department had ceased to exist, and Hubbard decided to go right to the top. He wrote to President Kennedy. 14 FOOTNOTES 1. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.4, p.29; What Is Scientology?, p.142; East Grinstead Courier, 16 August 1959; Garden News, 8 April 1960; Dr. Christopher Evans, Cults of Unreason, pp.72f; Sunday Mirror, 28 July 1968 2. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.3, p.522 3. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.3, pp.555 & 557; vol. 12, p.245ff 4. Professional Auditors Bulletin 74, "Washington Bulletin no.1," 6 March 1956 (only in original); Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.2, p.474; vol.4 p.11 5. Vol 25. p. 4617 of transcript of Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, case no. C 420153. 6. HASI share certificate; Foster report, para 71 7. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.4 p.161 8. Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom, p.191; Cooper, The Scandal of Scientology, p. 102 9. Organization Executive Course, vol. 7 p. 487 10. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.4 p.378 11. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.4 p.337 12. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol.12, p.245ff. 13. Wallis, p.202; HCO Executive Letter, 14 April 1961 14. The Findings on the U.S. Food and Drug Agency [sic, should be "Administration"], The Department of Publications World Wide, East Grinstead, CSC, 1968
CHAPTER SEVEN On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy, in a momentous speech before the United States Congress, urged America to put a man on the moon before the decade was out. It took Hubbard a little while to jump on the bandwagon. His letter to President Kennedy began:
Hubbard offered his mental "technology" to the President to assist in the Space Program. He repeated his usual tale about Russian interest in his work, saying he had been offered Pavlov's laboratory in 1938. He said Scientology "conditioning" would increase the IQ and "body skills" of astronauts, and that "the perception of a pilot or Astronaut can be increased far beyond normal human range and stamina and be brought to an astonishing level, not hitherto attainable in a human being." The "conditioning" was to cost $25 per hour. Hubbard ended with an admonition to President Kennedy: "Such an office as yours receives a flood of letters from fakes, crackpots and would-be wonderworkers. This is not such a letter .... If that earlier letter from Einstein had been filed away, we would have lost our all in the following twenty years. Is this such a letter?" Hubbard did not receive a reply from the President. On January 4, 1963, however, the Food and Drug Administration raided the Washington Church, and Hubbard felt this constituted an indirect response. The FDA seized a huge quantity of E-meters and books. As with "Dianazene," the FDA charged mislabelling. The raid was precisely the sort of theater Hubbard could use to effect. The dour agents, and the scale of the raid, could only create public sympathy for Scientology. Such reactions by government agencies can do more good than harm to a cult, uniting it and feeding its public image. It makes wonderful press. Eventually, the FDA won their case against the labelling of the E-Meter, and forced the Scientologists to label it ineffective in the diagnosis or treatment of disease. The Scientologists failed to thoroughly comply with the ordered wording, and took issue with the court's decision (never implemented) to destroy the confiscated books and meters, rather than returning them. The U.S. government was not alone in its concern about Scientology. On November 27, 1963, the Governor of the Australian State of Victoria appointed a Board of Inquiry into Scientology. The board consisted of one man, Kevin Victor Anderson. He conducted his inquiry with considerable showmanship and ferocity, taking nearly two years to investigate and present his immense report. While the Australian Inquiry was underway, Hubbard added to his mystique by telling the Saturday Evening Post he had been approached for the secrets of Scientology by Castro's Cuban government (the latest Communist threat). 1 At Saint Hill, Hubbard released his "Study Technology." He began with the premise that no one teaches people how to study. Korzybski had argued that it is crucial to fully understand every word in a text, and that there is a physiological response to misunderstood words. Hubbard adopted these ideas, without mention of their source. He dubbed the misunderstood word an "m.u." (mis-understood). Hubbard emphasized the necessity of studying "on a gradient." It is important to base study on a completely understood idea, and to proceed from one fully comprehended idea to the next. A student should progress with no gaps in his understanding. In a school system, this process would mean that a child would need to do first year chemistry to a 100 percent pass, before moving on to second year chemistry. Hubbard also asserted that much failure in study is due to an "absence of mass." Where possible the student should come to grips with what he is studying. So an engineer should have a good look at construction materials and real bridges, rather than spending all of his time studying books explaining the chemical makeup of materials, and structural mathematics. Abstractions should be represented by the student through drawing, or with plasticine models (called "clay demos"). Through these a sequence of actions could be demonstrated, and so more thoroughly grasped. Typically, there has been no proper scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of Hubbard's Study Tech, but pupils of the several Scientology children's schools do not display astonishing aptitude; indeed they seem to perform below the educational average in some cases. The Scientology world changed rapidly through the early 1960s. By 1965, Hubbard had released an entire organizational system with which Scientology "Orgs" had to comply, the Study Technology, the Ethics Technology, and the new "Bridge." The approach to Preclears became more systematic. They would start with specific auditing processes or procedures at the bottom of the "Bridge," progressing through numbered grades of "release," at each of which a definite ability should be regained. These release grades deal with memory, communication, problems, "overts" and "withholds," upsets, and justifications for failure, from Grade 0 to IV. 2 Perhaps the most drastic changes came with the Ethics Technology. Hubbard said that certain people are "antisocial," and are determined opponents of anything which can benefit humanity, especially Scientology. He labelled such people "Suppressive Persons" (or SPs), and asserted that SPs make up two and a half percent of the population. A further seventeen and a half percent are said to be influenced by SPs to such an extent that they are "Potential Trouble Sources" (or PTS). Hubbard decided that PTS people would have to "disconnect" (refuse any communication or contact) from SPs identified by the organization. The rigidity with which this rule has been applied over the years has varied, but marriages have been split up when someone had to disconnect from a spouse labelled "Suppressive." With the new Ethics Technology came a department of the Org which would "keep ethics in." Hubbard determined that unethical people would not make gains in Scientology, so conversely anyone who did not make gains in Scientology was unethical ("out-ethics"). Where Scientology failed it was the fault of the recipient, never of Scientology. Ethics Officers came into being to deal with "out-ethics" people. Hubbard introduced a system of reports, where any Scientologist seeing a supposed misapplication of the Technology, or any transgression against Scientology morality, would write a report, which was sent to the Ethics Office. A copy would be filed, and the original sent to the offender. When enough Knowledge Reports had stacked up in a person's folder, he would theoretically be hauled before a Committee of Evidence, and his behavior assessed against Hubbard's extensive list of "Crimes" and "High Crimes." If his "criminality" was sufficient, he would be given a Suppressive Person Declare, copies of which would be posted in Scientology Organizations. Suppressive Person Declares are still issued, and Scientologists could not, and cannot, associate with SPs, without themselves becoming the subject of a Declare. John McMaster witnessed the introduction and intensification of Ethics first hand. He arrived at Saint Hill in 1963 to do the Briefing Course. His stepmother had pressured him into Scientology a few months earlier, in South Africa. McMaster had been a student of medicine, hoping to specialize in neurosurgery. His fascination for medicine came from direct experience - part of his stomach had been removed because it was cancerous. On his arrival at the Durban Scientology Center he had been in considerable pain for some years. McMaster claims that his first auditing session relieved the pain completely. 3 By the time Hubbard introduced "SP Declares," in 1965, McMaster was overseeing the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. Any interesting ideas generated by the students would be taken to Hubbard. The "Power Processes," or "Level V," came into being this way. They coincided with Hubbard's decision that he was the "Source" of Scientology. From this time on, Scientologists were assured that Hubbard had "developed" all of Scientology and Dianetics. To quote his own words, first published in February 1965, and still a part of every major Scientology course: "Willing as I was to accept suggestions and data, only a handful of suggestions (less than twenty) had long run value and none were major or basic." 4 In the beginning, Hubbard tried to legitimize his ideas by acknowledging his debt to thinkers as diverse as Anaxagoras, Lao Tze, Newton and Freud. For a while, Hubbard had awarded the title "Fellow of Scientology" to major contributors. Time had convinced Hubbard that he alone was the fount of all wisdom.
Hubbard frequently released new "rundowns" or "levels" which attempted to justify the failure of earlier techniques. Each new rundown would be launched amid a fanfare of publicity, and claims of miraculous results. One critic has complained of "auditing junkies," forever waiting for the next "level" to resolve their chronic problems. The issue of a new "level," was invariably greeted with a rash of incredible Success Stories, written as soon as an individual finished the auditing in question. These were usually vague, and always enthusiastic. "This level cracked my case!" is a fair example of these often meaningless statements. Power, or Level V, was more successful in attracting people than previous "rundowns," starting a financial boom at Saint Hill. Over the years, Hubbard asserted time and time again that he had achieved a routine way of "Clearing" people. Both the definition of Clear and the methods for its achievement changed periodically. After Power, he released Level VI, of which he said:
Even this breakthrough proved ephemeral, and a few months later, Hubbard announced Level VII, which became the "Clearing Course." The Clearing Course was to prove the most durable method of Clearing, lasting until 1978, and is still occasionally used today. The usual trickle of defecting members who set up their own Scientological groups continued through the 1960s. A splinter group called Compulsions Analysis came into being in London, in 1964, under the direction of a couple named Robert and Mary Ann Moor, who called themselves the "De Grimstons." They later renamed their organization "The Process," and later yet, "The Church of the Final Judgment." Mass murderer Charles Manson was an enthusiastic supporter both of The Process, and of Scientology. Author Maury Terry is convinced that David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer, was also involved with The Process. 6 In 1965, Charles Berner, a leading Scientologist, left the fold, and founded "Abilitism." Berner later headed the "Anubhava School of Enlightenment," and was responsible for the "Enlightenment Intensive," which has achieved a certain respectability. Hubbard made Berner the target of considerable harassment. A major challenge to Hubbard's leadership reared its head in 1964 in the shape of "Amprinistics." The founder of this new movement was Harry Thompson. He said Hubbard had refused his offer of a new and highly workable procedure in 1963, so he had spent two years researching it, and having proven its validity beyond doubt, wished to give it to the world. Unfortunately for Thompson, he chose to give it, or rather sell it, to Scientologists first. Thompson announced his discovery in a huge mailing to Scientologists. He asked that they simply try his method to see if it worked. Thompson also offered an escape from the Ethics Officers, and the increasing discipline of Hubbard's organization. Jack Horner was one of the very few people who had stayed the course with Hubbard from his beginnings in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Horner took the first Dianetic course in June 1950. He was one of the first to try to convince Hubbard of the validity of "past lives" and the first "Doctor" of Scientology. Horner was one of the few people that Hubbard trusted to give Advanced Clinical Courses. In 1965, Horner had been promoted in The Auditor magazine as the first "Honors graduate" of the final section of the immense Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. Disillusioned with the increasing control which Hubbard was visiting upon Scientologists, Horner joined Amprinistics. 7 Hubbard decided to designate certain materials "confidential" at this time, perhaps so that Scientology could offer something Ampfinistics could not. Scientologists believe Hubbard's argument that confidentiality was introduced because the relevant materials are highly "restimulative" (upsetting) to people who are not ready for them. Whatever the reason, Power, Level VI and the Clearing Course were designated "confidential," and remain so to this day. The same is true of the later OT levels. On September 27, 1965, Hubbard issued a "Hubbard Communications Office Executive Letter" dealing with Amprinistics and its members. Every member of the new group, whether they had entered it via Scientology or not, was labelled Fair Game. Their gatherings were to be broken up. Complaints were to be made to the police and any chance of litigation was to be taken. Scientologists were to attack the followers of Amprinistics in every way they could. Hubbard forbade mention of the very word "Amprinistics." The "Executive Letter" disappeared from public circulation long ago, but despite these severe measures, Homer's "Eductivism," an offshoot of Amprinistics, exists to this day. Level VI was "solo-audited," as was the Clearing Course. In solo-auditing the person holds both of the E-meter cans in one hand, while giving himself the "auditing commands." Level VI and the Clearing Course consist of similar material to OT 2 (for which see the chapter "On to OT"). The auditing is likened by Hubbard to digging a ditch, because it is excruciatingly boring. The first Clearing Course Auditors spent at least six months solo-auditing for several hours daily.
As with the earlier FDA raid in the United States, the ban in Australia probably did Scientology more good than harm. It provided free publicity, and because it had the trappings of a witch-hunt, made Scientology the underdog, gaining Hubbard much needed support. Martyrdom is a valuable ingredient in the creation of mass movements. Further, it was impossible to ban Scientology. The followers in Victoria simply changed their name to the "Church of the New Faith," and carried on where they had left off. In Britain on February 7, 1966, in the House of Commons, Lord Balniel asked Health Minister, Kenneth Robinson, for an Inquiry into Scientology. Within two days of Balniel's request Hubbard had published an "Executive Directive" in which he put forward his plan to "get a detective on that Lord's past to unearth the tidbits. They're there . . . governments are SP [Suppressive People]." 8 Soon after, Hubbard left England, travelling by stages to Rhodesia. Over the next few weeks he continued to react to Lord Balniel's demand for an official investigation. On February 14, Hubbard resigned his doctorate in a "Policy Letter" headed "Doctor Title Abolished": "The title of 'Mister', implying 'Master' I also abandon. I wish to be known solely by my name 'Ron' or Hubbard." Another Policy Letter, "Attacks on Scientology," was issued the next day. If anyone started an investigation into Scientology the following actions should be taken:
On February 17, Hubbard created the "Public Investigation Section": "to help LRH investigate public matters and individuals which seem to impede human liberty so that such matters may be exposed and to furnish intelligence required in guiding the progress of Scientology." 10 A month after these events, the story of a private investigator was carried in British newspapers. Vic Filson had been recruited to establish an investigation section. He lasted a week. The Scientologist who gave him his instructions at Saint Hill told him dossiers were to be made on "special subjects":
Hubbard instructed Filson to find a skeleton in the cupboard of every psychiatrist practicing in England. Hubbard was looking for crimes such as assault, rape and homicide. His objective was to eliminate every single psychiatrist." 11 The Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter "Attacks on Scientology" was expanded on February 18, to include, "investigating noisily the attackers." At the end of February, John McMaster, who had just flown to Los Angeles, was surprised to hear that he had become the "World's First Real Clear." Hubbard had sent out a promotional piece announcing this to Scientologists throughout the world. Only then was McMaster recalled to England, and given his "Clear Check," to set the record straight. After all, Scientologists needed a boost in morale. 12 In March, Hubbard published "What Is Greatness?" which rounded off his statements of February: "The hardest task one can have is to continue to love one's fellows despite all reasons he should not .... A primary trap is to succumb to invitations to hate. There are those who appoint one their executioners. Sometimes for the sake of the safety of others, it is necessary to act, but it is not necessary also to hate them." On March 1, the short-lived Public Investigations Section became the Guardian's Office (GO). "Noisy investigation," or rumor-mongering, was not their only talent, and the GO became a formidable force. After the false starts of the Department of Official Affairs and the Department of Government Affairs, Hubbard at last had his own private Intelligence Agency. John McMaster became the ambassador of Scientology. He was Hubbard's deliberate choice for the "First Clear." McMaster is slight with naturally white hair, and is a remarkable public speaker with a compelling voice. He was Scientology's spokesman in television interviews throughout the English-speaking world, a personification, so it seemed, of gentleness and love. While his message was being beamed over the airwaves, and delivered personally to packed audiences the world over, the Scientology Organizations were becoming increasingly less gentle and loving in their treatment of both their members and their critics.
FOOTNOTES 1. Cooper, The Scandal of Scientology, p. 118 2. Organization Executive Course, vol. 0, p. 166 3. Interview, John McMaster, London, May 1984 4. Organization Executive Course, vol. 0, p. 35 5. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics & Scientology vol. 6, p. 19 6. Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom, p.149; Daily Mail, 8 December 1965; Guardian's Office memos in "Squeaky" Fromm, former follower of Charles Manson 7. Wallis, pp. 152 and 150 8. Foster report, paras 12 and 181 9. Reprinted in Foster report, para 181, and in Latey judgement, 23 July 1984 10. Foster report, para 181 11. The People, 20 March 1966 12. The Auditor 13; interview, John McMaster. Continue the Book on Web Page 2
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Jon
Atack was involved in Scientology from 1974 to 1983, and has since taken a lead
role in ongoing investigations of L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology.
1.
1.
1.
Scientology at Sea
1.
The Guardian Unguarded
1.
Making Movies
1.
The Mission Holders' Conference
![[L. RON HUBBARD'S PARENTS]](parents.jpg)
His
mother, Ledora May Hubbard (left in photo), had returned to
the town of her birth to bring her son into the world. His father was Harry Ross
Hubbard (right in photo). Although Ron boasted about his paternal
ancestry, the famous Hubbard name, in fact, Harry Hubbard had been an orphan and
was born Henry August Wilson. L. Ron had not a drop of Hubbard blood in him.
![[HUBBARD IN SCOUT UNIFORM]](scout.gif)
In
a diary, written when he was about nineteen, Hubbard recalled his acquisition of
the Boy Scout Eagle. A photograph taken at the time (right) shows
Hubbard in uniform, all freckles and ache, with the twenty-one necessary merit
badges stitched on to a sash. There is no way of knowing whether he was the
youngest Eagle Scout in America. The Boy Scouts place no value on the age
at which a boy becomes an Eagle Scout, and have never kept a record, nor was
there any way that Hubbard could find out. But the Boy Scouts do have a record
of a Ronald Hubbard who became an Eagle Scout in Washington DC, and was a member
of Troop 10. The Eagle was actually awarded on March 28, 1924, some two weeks
after L. Ron Hubbard's thirteenth birthday. 
![[ON PUERTO RICO, 1932]](puerto_r.gif)
Armstrong
says Hubbard had gone to Puerto Rico to prospect for gold (right).
![[ABOARD THE MAGICIAN, 1940]](sailing.gif)
Hubbard
seems to have been trying out a new system of radio navigation developed by the
Cape Cod Instrument Company. At least the Scientologists provide documentation
to that effect. The "expedition" seems to have consisted of Hubbard and his
first wife, Polly, aboard the 32-foot Magician (right). Some
film was sent gratuitously to the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. As ever, we are
faced with a germ of truth embedded in Hubbard's exaggeration. The habit of a
lifetime.![[MEDICAL RECORD]](medrecrd.gif)
In
January 1945, he suffered from arthritis, which he attributed to a climatic
change from the tropics to winter in New York. Hubbard had in fact just served
for almost a year in Oregon and northern Califomia. He was hospitalized in April
1945, for a recurrence of the duodenal ulcer. The official files (right)
support these statements, which were also given by Hubbard to a Veterans
Administration doctor in Los Angeles on September 19, 1946, and to the press in
1950. ![[JACK PARSONS]](parsons.gif)
Hubbard
met Jack Parsons (right) while on convalescent leave in Los Angeles, in
August 1945. When Hubbard's terminal leave from the Navy began on December 6,
1945, he went straight to Parsons' Pasadena home. Jack Parsons was a science
fiction fan, a rocket and explosives chemist, and a practitioner of ritual "magick."
Hubbard and Parsons quickly formed a powerful bond, and over the following
months engaged in variations on Aleister Crowley's "magick." Later, Hubbard was
eager to make light of this involvement. After all, the world famous explorer,
nuclear physicist, war hero and philosopher could not be known to have engaged
in demonic sexual rites. ![[ALEISTER CROWLEY]](crowley.jpg)
Hubbard
also had something to say about Aleister Crowley [right], Parsons'
mentor, and the most notorious practitioner of black magic of the 20th century.
Crowley was a determined opponent of Christianity, who had proclaimed: "Do what
thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." He was well known for his defiance of
conventional morality. Crowley recorded his considerable abuse of drugs in
The Diary of a Drug Fiend, and his bizarre sexual practices in numerous
other works. He called himself the "Beast," after the "Beast" spoken of in the
biblical Revelation of St. John the Divine.![[ROBED OTO MEMBER]](otorobes.jpg)
During
the first two days of March 1946, Parsons prepared an altar and equipment
according to the instructions he had just received. Hubbard has been away for a
week, but: "On March 2 he returned, and described a vision he had that evening
of a savage and beautiful women riding naked on a great cat like beast." Hubbard
and Parsons set to work immediately. As Parsons described it, "He was robed in
white, carrying the lamp, and I in black, hooded [right], with the cup
and dagger. At his suggestion we played Rachmaninoff's 'Isle of the Dead' as
background music, and set an automatic recorder to transcribe any audible
occurrences. At approximately eight PM he began to dictate, I transcribing
directly as I received."![[ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, MAY 1950]](astoundi.jpg)
The
May 1950 edition of Astounding (right) sold out at record
rate. It was soon followed by the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of
Mental Health, which became an immediate best-seller. The Hubbard Dianetic
Research Foundation was inundated with inquiries and requests for therapy.
![[ADVERT FOR DIANETICS, 1950]](dianetad.gif)
Hubbard
claimed to have examined and treated 273 people and, through this research,
found the "single and sole source of aberration." The book claimed that
Dianetics was effective on anyone who had not had "a large portion of his brain
removed," or been "born with a grossly malformed nervous structure." Better yet,
Dianetics could be practiced straight from the book with no training. Therapy
would take anything from 30 to 1,200 hours, by which time the person would be
Clear, and thus free of all irrationality, and every psychosomatic ailment.
![[COVER OF DMSMH, 1950 ED.]](dianetic.jpg)
A
year before Hermitage House published Dianetics: The Modern Science of
Mental Health (right), it published an extensive psychoanalytic
study by Dr. Nandor Fodor, called The Search for the Beloved, subtitled
"A clinical investigation into the trauma of birth and prenatal conditioning."
Fodor credited Otto Rank, another Freudian, with original work on the trauma of
birth.
Sara,
who despite her husband's reward was supposedly "Clear" already, brought a
divorce suit in Los Angeles. She was desperate for the return of her
one-year-old daughter. She alleged that Hubbard had subjected her to "scientific
torture experiments," that her marriage was bigamous, that she had medical
evidence that Hubbard was a "paranoid schizophrenic," and that he had kidnapped
their daughter. 
Hubbard
felt so confident of his change of fortunes that he telegrammed a proposal of
marriage (right) to his Los Angeles girlfriend. Then in June he filed
for divorce in Wichita, and negotiated a settlement with Sara. Alexis was
returned to her mother, who had not seen her baby for over three months. In
return, Sara dropped her Los Angeles suit, abandoned any claim to the million
dollars that she said the Foundations had earned in its first year, instead
accepting $200 per month for the support of Alexis. She also signed a
retraction: 
they were still in use in the 1940s. Some psychologists use them to this day,
and they are standardly incorporated in polygraph lie detectors. None of these
devices could have the mystique created around the E-meter by Hubbard.
In
March 1952, Hubbard was married for the third and final time. Mary Sue Whipp (right)
had arrived at the Wichita Foundation in mid-1951, and worked on the staff there
as an Auditor. By April, Ron and Mary Sue had left the short-lived Hubbard
College in Wichita, and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where they opened the new
world headquarters of Hubbardian therapy. So it was that Scientology, which
Hubbard defined as "knowing how to know" (close to Nordenholz's definition), was
born. 
What
to Audit is the foundation of Scientology. It is still in print, minus one
chapter, under the title Scientology: A History of Man (right).
The material in the book is hardly encountered in contemporary auditing, but is
still required reading for the second secret "OT" level of Scientology. A slim
pretense at scientific method is blended with a strange amalgam of
psychotherapy, mysticism and pure science fiction; mainly the latter. What
to Audit is among the most bizarre of Hubbard's works, and deserves the
cult status that some truly dreadful science fiction movies have achieved. The
book leaves the strong suspicion that Hubbard had continued with his experiments
into phenobarbitol, and into more powerful "mind-expanding" drugs, as his son
Nibs later asserted.
Upon
his arrival, Hubbard set up the Scientology World-wide Management Control
Center, though he told the East Grinstead newspapers he had retired to England
to do horticultural experiments and to work in theoretical physics. He claimed
to be treating plants with radioactivity. Hubbard became a regular contributor
to Garden News, even demonstrating his horticultural findings on
English television. His experiments consisted in part of using an E-meter to
measure a plant's response to threats in its environment. There is an amusing
newspaper picture (right) which shows Hubbard gazing intently at a
tomato, still on the vine, with two E-meter crocodile clips and a nail jabbed
into it. 
Since
its inception four years before, only Briefing Course students had received
auditing at Saint Hill (right). However, with the advent of Power
Processes, Saint Hill began to accept paying Preclears. A Hubbard Guidance
Center came into being, initially consisting of one man, John McMaster. McMaster
says huge amounts were charged to individuals for "Power" auditing, and adds,
wryly, that he received none of the money. Despite the high price,
Scientologists flocked to Saint Hill. The Hubbard Guidance Center rapidly
increased in size. 
In
December 1965, while these pioneers were digging their respective ditches, the
Australian State of Victoria introduced a Psychological Practices Act which
completely outlawed Scientology. The Anderson Report, published in October (and
widely reported in the Australian press - right), contains much sound,
factual information and many perceptive remarks. However, it has been criticized
even by some who are vocal in their opposition to Scientology. The report was
173 pages long and had nineteen appendices. The evidence of 151 witnesses was
gathered into a supplement of 8,290 pages. In the report Anderson concluded: