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Part 1:
The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Chapter
One: The
Mind Behind the Religion From
a life haunted by emotional and financial troubles, L. Ron Hubbard brought
forth Scientology. He achieved godlike status among his followers, and his
death has not deterred the church's efforts to reach deeper into society. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A1:1)
"Hip,
hip, hurray!" thousands of Scientologists thundered inside the Hollywood
Palladium, where they had just been told of this remarkable feat. "Hip,
hip, hurray! Hip, hip, hurray!" they continued to chant, gazing at a
large photograph of Hubbard, creator of their religion and author of the
best-selling "Dianetics: The Modern Science of
Mental Health." Earlier
that day, the They
were told nothing more, just to be there. As
evening fell, thousands arrived, most decked out in the spit-and-polish mock
Navy uniforms that are symbolic of the organization's paramilitary structure. The
excited assemblage was about to learn that their beloved leader, a man who
dubbed himself "The Commodore," had died. Yet, death was never
mentioned. Instead,
the Scientologists were told that Hubbard had finished his spiritual research
on this planet, charting a precise path for man to achieve immortality. And
now it was on to bigger challenges somewhere beyond the stars. His body
had "become an impediment to the work he now must do outside of its
confines," the awe-struck crowd was informed. "The fact that he ...
willingly discarded the body after it was no longer useful to him signifies
his ultimate success: the conquest of life that he embarked upon half a
century ago." The
death certificate would show that Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, 74, who had not
been seen publicly for nearly six years, died on Jan. 24, 1986, of a stroke
on his ranch outside But to
Scientologists, the man they affectionately called "Ron" had
ascended. The
glorification of L. Ron Hubbard that brisk January night was not surprising.
Over more than three decades he had skillfully transformed himself from a
writer of pulp fiction to a writer of "sacred scriptures." Along
the way, he made a fortune and achieved his dream of fame. "I
have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will
take a legendary form, even if all the books are destroyed," Hubbard
wrote to the first of his three wives in 1938, more than a decade before he
created Scientology. "That
goal," he said, "is the real goal as far as I am concerned." From the
ground up, Hubbard built an international empire that started as a collection
of mental therapy centers and became one of the world's most controversial
and secretive religions. The
intensity, combativeness and salesmanship that distinguish Scientology from
other religions can be traced directly to Hubbard. For, even in death, the
man and his creation are inseparable. He wrote
millions of words in scores of books instructing his followers on everything
from how to market Scientology to how to fend off critics. His prolific and
sometimes rambling discourses constitute the gospel of Scientology, its
structure and its soul. Deviations are punishable. Through
his writings, Hubbard fortified his clannish organization with a powerful
intolerance of criticism and a fierce will to endure and prosper. He wrote a
Code of Honor that urged his followers to "never desert a group to which
you owe your support" and "never fear to hurt another in a just
cause." He
transmitted to his followers his suspicious view of the world -- one
populated, he insisted, by madmen bent on Scientology's destruction. His
flaring temper and searing intensity are deeply branded into the church and
reflected in the behavior of his faithful, who shout at adversaries and even
at each other. As one former high-ranking member put it: "He made
swearing cool." Hubbard's
followers say his teachings have helped thousands kick drugs and allowed
countless others to lead fuller lives through courses that improve
communication skills, build self-confidence and increase an individual's
ability to take control of his or her life. He was,
they say, "the greatest humanitarian in history." But
there was another side to this imaginative and intelligent man. And to
understand Scientology, one must begin with L. Ron Hubbard. In the
late 1940s, Hubbard was broke and in debt. A struggling writer of science
fiction and fantasy, he was forced to sell his typewriter for $28.50 to get
by. "I
can still see Ron three-steps-at-a-time running up the stairs in around 1949
in order to borrow $30 from me to get out of town because he had a wife after
him for alimony," recalled his former literary agent, Forrest J.
Ackerman. At one
point, Hubbard was reduced to begging the Veterans Administration to let him
keep a $51 overpayment of benefits. "I am nearly penniless," wrote
Hubbard, a former Navy lieutenant. Hubbard
was mentally troubled, too. In late 1947, he asked the Veterans
Administration to help him get psychiatric treatment. "Toward
the end of my (military) service," Hubbard wrote to the VA, "I
avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance
a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. "I
cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal
inclinations, and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above
this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all." In his
most private moments, Hubbard wrote bizarre statements to himself in
notebooks that would surface four decades later in Los Angeles Superior
Court. "All
men are your slaves," he wrote in one. "You
can be merciless whenever your will is crossed and you have the right to be
merciless," he wrote in another. Hubbard
was troubled, restless and adrift in those little known years of his life.
But he never lost confidence in his ability as a writer. He had made a living
with words in the past and he could do it again. Before
the financial and emotional problems that consumed him in the 1940s, Hubbard
had achieved moderate success writing for a variety of dime-store pulp
magazines. He specialized in shoot'em-up
adventures, Westerns, mysteries, war stories and science fiction. His
output, if not the writing itself, was spectacular. Using such pseudonyms as
Winchester Remington Colt and Rene LaFayette, he
sometimes filled up entire issues virtually by himself. Hubbard's life then
was like a page from one of his adventure stories. He panned for gold in
Puerto Rico and charted waterways in Although
Hubbard's health and writing career foundered after the war, he remained a
virtual factory of ideas. And his biggest was about to be born. Hubbard
had long been fascinated with mental phenomena and the mysteries of life. He was
an expert in hypnotism. During a 1948 gathering of science fiction buffs in Hubbard
sometimes spoke of having visions. His
former literary agent, Ackerman, said Hubbard once told of dying on an
operating table. And here, according to Ackerman, is what Hubbard said
followed: "He
arose in spirit form and looked at the body he no longer inhabited.... In the distance
he saw a great ornate gate.... The gate opened of its own accord and he
drifted through. There, spread out, was an intellectual smorgasbord, the
answers to everything that ever puzzled the mind of man. He was absorbing all
this fantabulous information.... Then he felt like a long umbilical cord
pulling him back. And a voice was saying, 'No, not
yet.' " Hubbard,
according to Ackerman, said he returned to life and feverishly wrote his
recollections. He said Hubbard later tried to sell the manuscript but failed,
claiming that "whoever read it (a) went
insane, or (b) committed suicide." Hubbard's
intense curiosity about the mind's power led him into a friendship in 1946
with rocket fuel scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Parsons
was a protege of British satanist
Aleister Crowley and leader of a black magic group
modeled after Hubbard
also admired Parsons
and Hubbard lived in an aging mansion on Hubbard
met his second wife, Sara Northrup, at the mansion.
Although she was Parsons' lover at the time, Hubbard was undeterred. He
married Northrup before divorcing his first wife. Long
before the 1960s counterculture, some residents of the estate smoked
marijuana and embraced a philosophy of promiscuous, ritualistic sex. "The
neighbors began protesting when the rituals called for a naked pregnant woman
to jump nine times through fire in the yard," recalled science fiction
author L. Sprague de Camp, who knew both Hubbard and Parsons. Hubbard
and Parsons finally had a falling out over a sailboat sales venture that
ended in a court dispute between the two. In later
years, Hubbard tried to distance himself from his embarrassing association
with Parsons, who was a founder of a government rocket project at California
Institute of Technology that later evolved into the famed Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. Parsons died in 1952 when a chemical explosion ripped through his
garage lab. Hubbard
insisted that he had been working undercover for Naval Intelligence to break
up black magic in Hubbard
said the mission was so successful that the house was razed and the black
magic group was dispersed. But
Parsons' widow, Cameron, disputed Hubbard's account in a brief interview with
The Times. She said the two men "liked each other very much" and
"felt they were ushering in a force that was going to change
things." In early
1950, Hubbard published an intriguing article in a 25-cent magazine called
Astounding Science Fiction. In it, he said that he had uncovered the source
of man's problems. The
article grew into a book, written in one draft in just 30 days and entitled
"Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Health." It would become the most important book of Hubbard's life. The
book's introduction declared that Hubbard had invented a new "mental
science," a feat more important perhaps than "the invention of the
wheel, the control of fire, the development of mathematics." Hubbard
himself said he had uncovered the source of, and the cure for, virtually
every ailment known to man. Dianetics, he said,
could restore withered limbs, mend broken bones, erase the wrinkles of age
and dramatically increase intelligence. Not
surprisingly, the nation's mental health professionals were unimpressed. Famed
psychoanalyst Rollo May voiced the sentiments of
many when he wrote in the New York Times that "books like this do harm
by their grandiose promises to troubled persons and by their
oversimplification of human psychological problems." But
"Dianetics" was an instant bestseller
when it hit the stands in May, 1950, and made Hubbard an overnight celebrity.
Arthur Ceppos, who published the book, said Hubbard
spent his first royalties on a luxury Hubbard
had tapped the public's growing fascination with psychotherapy, then largely
accessible only to the affluent. "Dianetics,"
in fact, was popularly dubbed "the poor man's psychotherapy"
because it could be practiced among friends for free. In the
book, Hubbard claimed to have discovered the previously unknown
"reactive mind," a depository for emotionally or physically painful
events in a person's life. These traumatic experiences, called "engrams," cause a variety of psychosomatic
illnesses, including migraine headaches, ulcers, allergies, arthritis, poor
vision and the common cold, Hubbard said. The goal
of dianetics, Hubbard said, is to purge these
painful experiences and create a "clear" individual who is able to
realize his or her full potential. Catapulted
from obscurity, Hubbard decided in the summer of 1950 to prove in a big way
that his new "science" was for real. He
appeared before a crowd of thousands at the Shrine Auditorium to unveil the
"world's first clear," a person he said had achieved a perfect
memory. Journalists from numerous newspapers and magazines were there to
document the event. He
placed on display one Sonya Bianca, a young Someone,
for example, told Hubbard to turn his back while the girl was asked to
describe the color of his tie. There was silence. The world's first clear
drew a blank. "It
was a tremendous embarrassment for Hubbard and his friends at the time,"
recalled Arthur Jean Cox, a science fiction buff who attended the
presentation. More
problems were on the way for the man whose book promised miracles but whose
own life would move from one crisis to the next until his death. He
became embroiled, for instance, in a nasty divorce and child custody battle
that raised embarrassing questions about his mental stability. His
wife, Sara Northrup Hubbard, accused him of
subjecting her to "scientific torture experiments" and of suffering
from "paranoid schizophrenia" -- allegations that she would later
retract in a signed statement but that would find their way into government
files and continue to haunt Hubbard. She said
in her suit that Hubbard had deprived her of sleep, beaten her and suggested
that she kill herself, "as divorce would hurt his reputation." During
the legal proceedings, Sara placed in the court record a letter she had
received from Hubbard's first wife. "Ron
is not normal," it said. "I had hoped you could straighten him out.
Your charges probably sound fantastic to the average person -- but I've been
through it -- the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits which
you charge -- 12 years of it." At one
point in the marital dispute with Sara, Hubbard spirited their 1-year-old
daughter, Alexis, to "I
have been in the Cuban military hospital, and am being transferred to to the "I
hope my heart lasts. I may live a long time and again I may not. But Dianetics will last ten thousand years -- for the Army
and Navy have it now." Hubbard,
who had earlier accused his wife of infidelity and said she suffered brain
damage, closed his letter by threatening to cut his infant daughter from his
will. "Alexis
will get a fortune unless she goes to you, as she then would get
nothing," he wrote. He also
wrote a letter to the FBI at the height of the Red Scare accusing Sara of
possibly being a Communist, along with others whom he said had infiltrated
his dianetics movement. The FBI,
after interviewing Hubbard, dismissed him as a "mental case." In one
seven-page missive to the Department of Justice in 1951, he linked Sara to
alleged physical assaults on him. He said that on two separate occasions he
was punched in his sleep by unidentified intruders. And then
came the third attack. "I
was in my apartment on February 23rd, about two or three o'clock in the
morning when the apartment was entered, I was knocked out, had a needle
thrust into my heart to give it a jet of air to produce 'coronary thrombosis'
and was given an electric shock with a 110 volt current. This is all very
blurred to me. I had no witnesses. But only one person had another key to
that apartment and that was Sara." After
months of sniping at each other -- and a counter divorce suit by Hubbard in
which he accused his wife of "gross neglect of duty and extreme
cruelty" -- the couple ended their stormy marriage, with Sara obtaining
custody of the child. In later years, Hubbard would deny fathering the girl
and, as threatened, did not leave her a cent. Not only
was Hubbard's domestic life a shambles in 1951, his once-thriving self-help
movement was crumbling as public interest in his theories waned. The
foundations Hubbard had established to teach dianetics
were in financial ruin and his book had disappeared from The New York Times
bestseller list. But the
resilient self-promoter came up with something new. He called it Scientology,
and his metamorphosis from pop therapist to religious leader was under way. Scientology
essentially gave a new twist to the Dianetics
notion of painful experiences that lodge in the "reactive mind." In
Scientology, Hubbard held that memories of such experiences also collect in a
person's soul and date back to past lives. For many
of Hubbard's early followers, Scientology was not believable, and they broke
with him. But others would soon take their place, conferring upon Hubbard an
almost saintly status. But as
Hubbard's renown and prosperity grew in the 1960s, so, too, did the questions
surrounding his finances and teachings. He was accused by various governments
-- including the In 1967,
Hubbard took several hundred of his followers to sea to escape the spreading
hostility. But they found only temporary safe harbor from what they believed
had become an international conspiracy to persecute them. Their
three ships, led by a converted cattle ferry dubbed the "Apollo,"
were bounced from port to port in the Mediterranean and While
anchored at the Portuguese "They
(were) throwing Molotov cocktails onto the boat but they weren't lit," a
crew member recalled. "Fortunately, this was not an experienced
mob." The
years at sea were a watershed for Hubbard and Scientology. He instituted a
Navy-style command structure that is evident today in the military dress and
snap-to behavior of the organization's staff members. Hubbard
named himself the "Commodore," and subordinates followed his orders
like As
former Scientology ship officer Hana Eltringham Whitfield put it: "Scientologists on the
whole thought that Hubbard was like a god, that he could command the waves to
do what he wanted, that he was totally in control of his life and
consequences of his actions." |
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Part 1:
The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Chapter
Two: Creating
the Mystique Hubbard's image was crafted of truth, distorted by myth. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A38:1)
A Los
Angeles Superior Court judge put it bluntly while presiding over a Hubbard
was an intelligent and well-read man, with diverse interests, experience and
expertise. But that apparently was not enough to satisfy him. He transformed
his frailties into strengths, his failures into successes. With a kernel of
truth, he concocted elaborate stories about a life he seemingly wished was
his. There
was his claim, for example, of being a nuclear physicist. This was an
important one because he said he had used his knowledge of science to develop
Scientology and dianetics. Hubbard
was, in fact, enrolled in one of the nation's early classes in molecular and
atomic physics at Perhaps
Hubbard's most fantastic -- and easily disproved -- claims center on his
military service. Hubbard
bragged that he was a top-flight naval officer in World War II, who commanded
a squadron of fighting ships, was wounded in combat
and was highly decorated. But Navy
and Veterans Administration records obtained through the federal Freedom of
Information Act reveal that his military performance was, at times,
substandard. The Navy
documents variously describe him as a "garrulous" man who
"tries to give impressions of his importance," as being "not
temperamentally fitted for independent command" and as "lacking in
the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. He acts
without forethought as to probable results." Hubbard
was relieved of command of two ships, including the PC 815, a submarine
chaser docked along the According
to Navy records, here is what happened: Just
hours after motoring the PC 815 into the Pacific for
a test cruise, Hubbard said he encountered two Japanese submarines. He
dropped 37 depth charges during the 55 consecutive hours he said he monitored
the subs, and summoned additional ships and aircraft into the fight. He
claimed to have so severely crippled the submarines that the only trace
remaining of either was a thin carpet of oil on the ocean's surface. "This
vessel wishes no credit for itself," Hubbard stated in a report of the
incident. "It was built to hunt submarines. Its people were trained to
hunt submarines." And no
credit Hubbard got. "An
analysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the
area," wrote the commander of the Northwest Sea Frontier after an
investigation. Hubbard
next continued down the coast, where he anchored off the A Navy
board of inquiry determined that Hubbard had "disregarded orders"
both by conducting gunnery practice and by anchoring in Mexican waters. A letter
of admonition was placed in Hubbard's military file which stated "that
more drastic disciplinary action ... would have been taken under normal and
peacetime conditiions. During
his purportedly illustrious military career, Hubbard claimed to have been
awarded at least 21 medals and decorations. But records state that he
actually earned four during his Naval service: the American Defense Service
Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and
the World War II Victory Medal, which was given to all wartime servicemen. One of
the medals to which Hubbard staked claim was the Purple Heart, bestowed upon
wounded servicemen. Hubbard maintained that he was "crippled" and
"blinded" in the war. Early
biographies issued by Scientology say that he 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 Thomas
Moulton, second in command on PC 815, said Hubbard once told of being
machine-gunned across the back near the On
another occasion, Moulton testified during the 1984 Scientology lawsuit,
Hubbard said his eyes had been damaged by the flash of a large-caliber gun.
Hubbard himself, in a tape-recorded lecture, said his eyes were injured when
he had "a bomb go off in my face." These
injury claims are significant because Hubbard said he cured himself through
techniques that would later form the tenets of Scientology and Dianetics. Military
records, however, reveal that he was never wounded or injured in combat, and
was never awarded a Purple Heart. In
seeking disability money, Hubbard told military doctors that he had been "lamed"
not by a bullet but by a chronic hip infection that set in after his transfer
from the warm tropics of the Pacific to the icy winters of the East Coast,
where he attended a Navy-sponsored school of military government. Moreover,
his eye problems did not result from an exploding bomb or the blinding flash
of a gun. Rather, Hubbard said in military records, he contracted
conjunctivitis from exposure to "excessive tropical sunlight." The
truth is that Hubbard spent the last seven months of his active duty in a
military hospital in Hubbard
did, however, receive a monthly, 40% disability check from the government
through at least 1980. Government
records also contradict Hubbard's claim that he had fully regained his health
by 1947 with the power of his mind and the techniques of his future religion. Late
that year, he wrote the government about having "long periods of
moroseness" and "suicidal inclinations." That was followed by a
letter in 1948 to the chief of naval operations in which he described himself
as "an invalid." And,
during a 1951 examination by the Veterans Administration, he was still
complaining of eye problems and a "boring-like pain" in his
stomach, which he said had given him "continuous trouble" for eight
years, especially when "under nervous stress." Significantly,
that examination occurred after the publication of "Dianetics,"
which promised a cure for the very ailments that plagued the author himself
then and throughout his life, including allergies, arthritis, ulcers and
heart problems. In
Hubbard's defense, Scientology officials accuse others of distorting and
misrepresenting his military glories. They say
the Navy "covered up" Hubbard's sinking of the submarines either to
avoid frightening the civilian population or because the commander who
investigated the incident had earlier denied the existence of subs along the
West Coast. Moreover,
church officials charge that records released by the military are not only
grossly incomplete but perhaps were falsified to conceal Hubbard's secret
activities as an intelligence officer. To
support their point, a church official gave the Times an authentic-looking
Navy document that purports to confirm some of Hubbard's wartime claims.
After examining the document, though, a spokesman for the He
declined further comment. Hubbard's
biographical claims were not confined to the events of his adult life. He
claimed, for example, that as a youth he traveled extensively throughout "My
basic ordination for religious work," Hubbard once wrote, "was
received from Mayo in the Western Hills of Hubbard
did, in fact, tour He
described the lama temples he toured as "very odd and heathenish." After
visiting the Great Wall of China, Hubbard remarked: "If He
described the "yellow races" as "simple and one-tracked."
Wrote Hubbard: "The
trouble with Hubbard
also claimed that he spent many of his childhood years on a large cattle
ranch in "Long
days were spent riding, breaking broncos, hunting coyote and taking his first
steps as an explorer," according to a Hubbard-approved biography issued
by the church. But
Hubbard's aunt laughed when asked whether he had been a pint-sized cowboy. "We
didn't have a ranch," said Margaret Roberts, 87, of Hubbard's
biographical claims took center stage during the 1984 Superior Court lawsuit
in which the church accused a former member of stealing the Scientology
founder's private papers. Ex-member Gerald Armstrong said he took the
documents as protection against possible church harassment. Judge
Paul G. Breckenridge Jr. found in Armstrong's favor and, in his ruling,
issued a harsh assessment of the church's revered leader. "The
evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it
comes to his history, background and achievements...." "At
the same time," Breckenridge continued, "it appears that he is
charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling,
manipulating and inspiring his adherents." Hubbard,
the judge said, was "a very complex person." The
church and Hubbard's widow, Mary Sue, have appealed Breckenridge's decision,
saying that it was based on "irrelevant, distorted and, in many
instances, invented testimony" of embittered former Scientologists. "Any
controversy about him (Hubbard) is like a speck of dust on his shoes compared
to the millions of people who loved and respected him," a Scientology
spokesman said. "What he has accomplished in the brief span of one
lifetime will have impact on every man, woman and child for 10,000
years." |
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Part
1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Chapter
Three: Life
With L. Ron Hubbard Aides indulged his eccentricities and egotism. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A39:1)
He
surrounded himself with teen-age followers, whom he indoctrinated, treated
like servants and cherished as though they were his own children. He
called them the "Commodore's messengers." " 'Messenger!' " he would boom in
the morning. "And we'd pull him out of bed," one recalled. The
youngsters, whose parents belonged to Hubbard's He
taught them how to sprinkle powder in his socks and gently slip them on so as
not to pull the hairs on his legs. They
made sure the temperature in his room never varied from 72 degrees. They
boiled water at night to keep the humidity just right. They would hand him a
cigarette and follow in his footsteps with an ashtray. When
Hubbard's bursitis acted up, a messenger would wrap his shoulders in a
lumberjack shirt that had been warmed on a heater. Long
gone were those days when Hubbard was scratching out a living. Now, in the
early 1970s, he fancied silk pants, ascots and nautical caps. It was evident
that the red-haired author had enjoyed many a good meal. It was a
high honor for Scientologists to serve beside Hubbard, even if it meant
performing such dreary tasks as ironing his clothes or ferrying his messages.
But, for some, it was also disconcerting. The privileged few who worked at
his side saw personality flaws and quirks not reflected in the staged
photographs or in Hubbard's biographies. They
came to know the man behind the mystique. They
said he could display the temperament of a spoiled child and the
eccentricities of a reclusive Howard Hughes. When
upset, Hubbard was known to erupt like a volcano, spewing obscenities and
insults. Former
Scientologist Adelle Hartwell once testified during
a "I
actually saw him take his hat off one day and stomp on it and cry like a
baby." Hubbard
had been hotheaded since his youth, when his red hair earned him the nickname
"Brick." One of
Hubbard's classmates recalled a day in 11th Grade when the husky Hubbard, for
no apparent reason, got into a fight with Gus Leger, the lanky assistant
principal at "Old
Gus was up at the blackboard," recalled Andrew Richardson. "He
taught geometry. He was laying out this problem and Brick let loose with a
piece of chalk and he missed him. Leger whirled and threw an eraser at Brick,
who ducked, and it hit a girl right behind him in the face." Hubbard
wrestled with the teacher, then stuffed him into a
trash can, said "We
all got to laughing and he (Leger) couldn't get up," In later
life, one thing that could throw the irascible Hubbard into a rage was the
scent of soap in his clothes. "I was petrified of doing the
laundry," one former messenger said. To
protect themselves from a Hubbard tirade, the messengers rinsed his clothes in
13 separate buckets of water. Doreen Gillham, who had who spent her teen years with Hubbard,
never forgot what happened when a longtime aide offered him a freshly
laundered shirt after he had taken a shower. "He
immediately grabbed the collar and put it up to his nose, then threw it
down," said Gillham, who died recently in a horseriding accident. "He
went to the closet and proceeded to sniff all the shirts. He would tear them
off the hangers and throw them down. We're talking 30 shirts on the
floor." He let
out a "long whine," Gillham said, and
then began screaming about the smell. "I
picked up a shirt off the floor, smelled it and said, 'There is no soap on
this shirt.' I didn't smell anything in any of them. He grudgingly put it
on," said Gillham, who added: "Deep down
inside, I'm telling myself, 'This guy is nuts!' " Gillham
said that Hubbard had become obsessed not only with soap smells but with
dust, which aggravated his allergies. He demanded white-glove inspections but
never seemed satisfied with the results. No
matter how clean the room, Gillham said, "he
would insist that it be dusted over and over and over again." Gillham,
formerly one of Hubbard's most loyal and trusted messengers, said his
behavior became increasingly erratic after he crashed a motorcycle in the "He
realized his own mortality," she said. "He was in agony for months.
He insisted, with a broken arm and broken ribs, that he was going to heal
himself and it didn't work." According
to those who knew him well, Hubbard was neither affectionate nor much of a
family man. He seemed closer to his handpicked messengers than to his own
seven children, one of whom he later denied fathering. "His
kids rarely, if ever, got to see him," Gillham
said, until his wife Mary Sue "insisted on weekly Sunday night
dinners." Hubbard
expected his children to live up to the family name and do nothing that would
reflect badly on him or the church. And for that reason, his son Quentin was
a problem. Quentin
had once tried suicide with a drug overdose and was confused about his sexual
orientation -- a fact that was quietly discussed among his friends and at the
highest levels of the church. "He
thought Quentin was an embarrassment," said Laurel Sullivan, Hubbard's
former public relations officer, who had a falling out with the organization
in 1981. "And he told me that several times." In 1976,
Quentin parked on a deserted road in When
Hubbard was told of the suicide, "he didn't cry or anything,"
according to a former aide. His first reaction, she said, was to express
concern over the possibility of publicity that could be used to discredit
Scientology. Hubbard
also had problems with another son, his namesake, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. Hubbard
feuded with his eldest son for more than 25 years, dating back to 1959 when
L. Ron Hubbard Jr. split with Scientology because he said he was not making
enough money to support his family. In the years that followed, he changed
his name to Ronald DeWolfe and accused his father
of everything from cavorting with mobsters to abusing drugs. For his
part, Hubbard accused his son of being crazy. Although
Hubbard cast himself as a humble servant to mankind, former assistants said
he was not without ego. He craved adulation and coveted fame. Sullivan,
the former public relations officer, recalled how after an appearance he
would ask: "How many minutes of applause did I get? How many times did
they say, 'Hip, hip, hurray!'? How many people showed up? How many
letters did I get?" "If
you remained in awe of him ... he was great," said Sullivan, who had a
falling out with the church in 1981. "If you crossed him, or appeared to
cross him, he would lash out at you, scream at you, accuse
you of things." Gillham
and other former aides said he would accuse even his most devout aides of
trying to poison him if he did not like the taste of a meal that had been
laboriously prepared for his table. "Somebody's trying to kill me!"
former aides said he would shout. "What have I done? All I've tried to
do is help man." He
envisioned global conspiracies designed to smash Scientology, and he
ingrained this dark view in the minds of his followers through his many
writings. "Time
and again since 1950," Hubbard said in 1982, "the vested interests
which pretend to run the world (for their own appetites and profit) have
mounted full-scale attacks. With a running dog press and slavish government
agencies the forces of evil have launched their lies and sought, by whatever
twisted means, to check and destroy Scientology." "Our
enemies on this planet are less than 12 men," he announced in a 1967
tape-recorded message to his adherents. "They are members of the Bank of
England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper
chains and they are oddly enough directors in all the mental health groups in
the world which have sprung up." Chief
among his suspects were psychiatry and government agencies that probed his
organization, including Interpol the Paris-based international police agency,
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the
FBI. Former
Scientologist Hartwell told the "I
was in makeup and we had so much blood on those actors, which was made out of
Karo syrup and food coloring," Hartwell said.
"And we couldn't get enough on them to suit Hubbard. We had guys' legs
off, there were hands off, arms -- I mean, it was a mess
from the word go." Even
before Scientology, Hubbard believed that unseen forces were against him. "I
watched him operate," said "Dianetics"
publisher Arthur Ceppos, who later split with
Hubbard. "If he felt he was under attack, that's when his paranoia showed." This
siege mentality led Hubbard to author a series of church policies on how to
combat suspected foes -- writings that, more than any of his others, have
worked to reinforce Scientology's cultish image and undermine its quest for
legitimacy. He counseled
his followers to discredit the opposition to "a point of total
obliteration" and to remember that "the thousands of years of
Jewish passivity earned them nothing but slaughter. So things do not run
right because one is holy or good. Things run right because one makes them
right." In this
spirit, during the mid-1970s, Scientologists launched nasty smear campaigns
and turned to criminality, burglarizing private and government offices. Eventually,
11 top Scientologists were jailed, including Hubbard's wife Mary Sue, who
oversaw the sweeping operation. Hubbard was named as an unindicted
co-conspirator. At one
point during this period, FBI agents raided church headquarters in "When
the raids happened he never really knew what they (the FBI) had,
"recalled Dede Reisdorf,
one of those who accompanied Hubbard. To
disguise Hubbard's appearance, Reisdorf said, she
cut his red hair and dyed it brown. He often wore fake glasses, donned a phony
mustache and pulled a hunter's cap down over his ears. "He
got to a point," Reisdorf said, "where he
wouldn't even walk in front of a window.... He was afraid of being seen by
somebody. There was always somebody in a bush somewhere. A reporter or an FBI
agent or an IRS agent." It was
not the last time Hubbard would go into hiding. In 1980, on St. Valentine's
Day, Hubbard pulled another disappearing act. This time, he never returned. |
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Part 1:
The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Chapter
Four: The
Final Days Deep in hiding, Hubbard kept tight grip on the church. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A40:3)
There is
no better illustration of this than the way he secretly controlled the Hubbard
was last seen publicly in February 1980, in the desert community of The
church said Hubbard went into seclusion to continue his Scientology research
and to resurrect his science fiction-writing career. But former aides have
said he dropped from sight to avoid subpoenas and government tax agents
probing allegations that he was skimming church funds. Publications
throughout the world ran stories about Hubbard's disappearance. "Mystery
of the Vanished Ruler" was the headline in Time magazine. In 1982,
Hubbard's estranged son filed a probate petition trying to wrest control of
the Scientology empire. He argued that his father was either dead or mentally
incompetent and that his riches were being plundered by Scientology
executives. The suit
was dismissed after Hubbard, through an attorney, submitted an affidavit with
his fingerprints, saying that he was well and wanted to be left alone. No
doubt, Hubbard would have chuckled with satisfaction over the speculation
surrounding his whereabouts. For he had always considered himself a shrewd
strategist and a master of the intelligence game, endlessly calculating ways
to outwit his foes. Hubbard
took with him only two people, a married couple named Pat and Anne Broeker. Pat Broeker, Hubbard's personal messenger at the time, had
gone into hiding with him once before and knew how to ensure his security. Broeker
relished cloak-and-dagger operations. His nickname among Hubbard's other
messengers was "007." Anne had
been one of Hubbard's top aides for years. She was cool under pressure and
able to defuse Hubbard's volatile temper. Hubbard
and the Broekers spent their first several years
together on the move. For months, they traveled the Then, in
the summer of 1983, they decided to settle down in a dusty ranch town called
Creston, population 270, where the hot, arid climate would be kind to Hubbard's
bursitis. About 30
miles inland from Hubbard
and the Broekers concocted an elaborate set of
phony names and backgrounds to conceal their identities from the townsfolk.
Pat and Anne Broeker went by the names Mike and
Lisa Mitchell. Hubbard became Lisa's father, Jack, who impressed the locals
as a chatty old man, charismatic but sometimes gruff. They
purchased a 160-acre ranch known as the Whispering Winds for $700,000, using
30 cashier's checks drawn on various At the
time, the Shahans were suspicious. As Ed Shahan recalled, "They were having trouble deciding
whose name to put the property in." In less
than three years, Hubbard poured an estimated $3 million into the local
economy as he redesigned the ranch to his exacting and elaborate
specifications. He
launched one project after another, some of them seemingly senseless,
according to local residents. He ordered the construction of a quarter-mile
horse-racing track with an observation tower. The track reportedly was never
used. The
10-room ranch house was gutted and remodeled so many times that it went
virtually uninhabited during Hubbard's time there. He lived and worked in a
luxurious 40-foot Bluebird motor home parked near the stables. All this
was done without work permits, which meant that Hubbard and his aides would
not have to worry about nosy county inspectors. Like
Hubbard's aides in earlier years, the hired help saw extreme sides of the man
who was chauffeured around the property in a black Subaru pickup by Anne Broeker. Fencing
contractor Jim Froelicher of Paso Robles remembers
asking him for advice on buying a camera. Several days later, Froelicher said, Hubbard presented him with a 35mm camera
as a gift. Longtime
Creston resident Ed Lindquist, on the other hand, said painters dropped by
the local tavern at lunch to talk about how the "old man" was
acting eccentric. They said he had them paint the walls again and again because
they "weren't white enough," according to Lindquist. Scientology
officials insist that Hubbard was in fine mental and physical health during
his years in seclusion. Most of his days, they say, were spent reading,
writing and enjoying the ranch's beauty and livestock, which included llamas
and buffalo. But
Hubbard was doing much more, according to former aides. Even in hiding, they
say, he kept a close watch and a tight grip on the church he built -- as he
had for decades. As early
as 1966, Hubbard claimed to have relinquished managerial control of the
church. But ex-Scientologists and several court rulings have held that this
was a maneuver to shield Hubbard from potential legal actions and
accountability for the group's activities. Over the
years, efforts to conceal Hubbard's ties to the church were extensive and
extreme. In 1980,
for example, a massive shredding operation was undertaken at the church's
desert compound outside "Anything
that indicated that L. Ron Hubbard controlled the church or was engaged in
management was to be shredded," recalled Hubbard's former public
relations officer, Laurel Sullivan. For more
than two days, Sullivan said, roughly 200 Scientologists crammed thousands of
documents into a huge shredder nicknamed "Jaws." Documents
too valuable to destroy, she added, were buried in the ground or under
floorboards. In his
self-imposed exile, Hubbard continued to reign over Scientology with almost
paranoid secrecy. He
relayed his orders in writing or on tape cassettes to Pat Broeker,
who then passed them to a ranking Scientologist named David Miscavige, the man responsible for seeing that church
executives complied. Hubbard's
communiques travelled a
circuitous route in the darkness of night, changing hands from Broeker to Miscavige at
designated sites throughout Sometimes
Broeker himself appeared from parts unknown to
personally deliver Hubbard's instructions to church executives. From his
secret seat of power in the oak-studded hills above They
alleged that Hubbard skimmed millions of dollars from church coffers while he
was in hiding -- carrying on a tradition that the Internal Revenue Service
said he began practically at Scientology's inception about 30 years ago.
Hubbard and his aides had always denied the allegations, and accused the IRS
of waging a campaign against the church and its founder. While
Hubbard was underground, the IRS launched a criminal probe of his finances.
But the investigation would soon be without a target, and ultimately
abandoned. By late
1985, Hubbard's directives to underlings had tapered off. At age 74, he no
longer resembled the robust and natty man whose dated photographs fill
Scientology's promotional literature. Living in isolation, separated from his
devoted followers, he had let himself go. His thin
gray hair, with streaks of the old red, hung without sheen to his shoulders.
He had grown a stringy, unkempt beard and mustache. His
round face was now sunken and his ruddy complexion had turned pasty. He was
an old man and he was nearing death. On or
about Jan. 17, 1986, Hubbard suffered a "cerebral vascular
accident," commonly known as a stroke. Caring for him was Gene Denk, a Scientologist doctor and Hubbard's physician for
eight years. There
was little Denk could do for Hubbard in those final
days -- the stroke was debilitating. He was bedridden and his speech was
badly impaired. One week
later, at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24, Hubbard died. Throughout
the night, according to neighbor Robert Whaley, heavy traffic inexplicably
moved in and out of the ranch. Whaley, a retired advertising executive, said
that he was kept awake by headlights shining through his windows. For more
than 11 hours, Hubbard's body remained in the motor home where he died.
Scientology attorney Earle Cooley had ordered that Hubbard not be touched
until he arrived by car from The next
morning, Cooley telephoned Reis Chapel, a Once
chapel officials learned who Hubbard was, however, they became concerned
about the church's rush to cremate him. They contacted the When
then-Deputy Coroner Don Hines arrived, Cooley presented him with a certificate
that Hubbard had signed just four days before his death. It stated that, for
religious reasons, he wanted no autopsy. Cooley
also produced a will that Hubbard had signed the day before he died,
directing that his body be promptly cremated and that his vast wealth be
distributed according to the provisions of a confidential trust he had
established. His once-ornate trademark signature was little more than a
scrawl. After
the blood tests and examination revealed no foul play, coroner Hines approved
the cremation. With Cooley's consent, he also photographed the body and
lifted fingerprints as a way to later confirm that it was the reclusive
Hubbard and not a hoax. Within
hours, Hubbard's ashes were scattered at sea by the Broekers
and Miscavige. Two days
after Hubbard's death, Pat Broeker stood before a
standing-room-only crowd of Scientologists at the Hollywood Palladium. It was
his first public appearance in six years, and he had just broken the news of
Hubbard's passing. The
cheers were deafening. Broeker
announced that Hubbard had made a conscious decision to "sever all
ties" to this world so he could continue his Scientology research in
spirit form -- testimony to the power of the man and his teachings. He
"laid down in his bed and he left," Broeker
said. "And that was it." Hubbard
left behind an organization that would continue to function as though he were
still alive. His millions of words -- the lifeblood of Scientology -- have
now been computerized for wisdom and instructions at the touch of a button. In
Scientology, he was -- and always will be -- the "Source." |
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Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Defining the Theology It's
a space-age religion that abounds in galactic tales, and its deepest secrets
are known to few (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A36:1)
Not even the vast majority of
Scientologists can fully answer the question. In the Rather,
Scientology's theology is scattered among the voluminous writings and
tape-recorded discourses of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard,
who founded the religion in the early 1950s. Piece by
piece, his teachings are revealed to church members through a progression of
sometimes secret courses that take years to complete and cost tens of
thousands of dollars. Out of a membership estimated by the church to be 6.5
million, only a tiny fraction have climbed to the
upper reaches. In fact, according to a Scientology publication earlier this
year, fewer than 900 members have completed the church's highest course,
nicknamed "Truth Revealed." While
Hubbard's "Dianetics: The Modern Science of
Mental Health" typically is one of the first books read by church
members, its relationship to Scientology is like that of a grade school to a
university. What
Scientologists learn in their courses is never publicly discussed by the
church, which is trying to shake its cultish image and establish itself as a
mainstream religion. For to the uninitiated, Hubbard's theology would
resemble pure science fiction, complete with galactic battles, interplanetary
civilizations and tyrants who roam the universe. Here,
based on court records, church documents and Hubbard lectures that span the
past four decades, is a rare look at portions of Scientology's theology and
the cosmological musings of the man who wrote it. Central
to Scientology is a belief in an immortal soul, or "thetan,"
that passes from one body to the next through countless reincarnations
spanning trillions of years. Collectively, thetans
created the universe -- all the stars and planets, every plant and animal. To
function within their creation, thetans built
bodies for themselves of wildly varying appearances, the human form being
just one. But each
thetan is vulnerable to painful experiences that
can diminish its powers and create emotional and physical problems in the
individual it inhabits. The goal of Scientology is to purge these experiences
from the thetan, making it again omnipotent and
returning spiritual and bodily health to its host. The
painful experiences are called "engrams."
Hubbard said some happen by accident -- from ancient planetary wars, for
example -- while others are intentionally inflicted by other thetans who have gone bad and want power. In Scientology,
these engrams are called "implants." According
to Hubbard, the bad thetans through the eons have
electronically implanted other thetans with
information intended to confuse them and make them forget the powers they
inherently possess -- kind of a brainwashing procedure. While
Hubbard was not always precise about the origins of the implants, he was very
clear about the impact. "Implants,"
Hubbard said, "result in all varieties of illness, apathy, degradation,
neurosis and insanity and are the principal cause of these in man." Hubbard
identified numerous implants that he said have occurred through the ages and
that are addressed during Scientology courses aimed at neutralizing their
harmful effects. Hubbard
maintained, for example, that the concept of a Christian heaven is the
product of two implants dating back more than 43 trillion years. Heaven, he
said, is a "false dream" and a "very painful lie"
intended to direct thetans toward a non-existent
goal and convince them they have only one life. In
reality, Hubbard said, there is no heaven and there was no Christ. "The
(implanted) symbol of a crucified Christ is very apt indeed," Hubbard
said. "It's the symbol of a thetan
betrayed." Hubbard
said that one of the worst implants happens after a person dies. While
Hubbard's story of this implant may seem outlandish to some, he advanced it
as a factual account of reincarnation. "Of
all the nasty, mean and vicious implants that have ever been invented, this
one is it," he declared during a lecture in the 1950s. "And it's
been going on for thousands of years." Hubbard
said that when a person dies, his or her thetan
goes to a "landing station" on Venus, where it is programmed with
lies about its past life and its next life. The lies include a promise that
it will be returned to Earth by being lovingly shunted into the body of a
newborn baby. Not so,
said Hubbard, who described the thetan's re-entry
this way: "What
actually happens to you, you're simply capsuled and
dumped in the "And
you just eventually just pick up a baby." But
Hubbard offered his followers an easy way to outwit the implant: Scientologists
should simply select a location other than Venus to go "when they kick
the bucket." Another
notorious implant led Hubbard to construct an entire course for
Scientologists who want to be rid of it. Shrouded
in mystery and kept in locked cabinets at select church locations, the course
is called Operating Thetan III, billed by the
church as "the final secret of the catastrophe which laid waste to this
sector of the galaxy." It is taught only to the most advanced church
members, at fees ranging to $6,000. Hubbard
told his followers that while unlocking the secret, he "became very ill,
almost lost this body and somehow or another brought it off and obtained the
material and was able to live through it." Here's
what he said he learned: Seventy-five
million years ago a tyrant named Xenu (pronounced
Zee-new) ruled the Galactic Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets,
including Earth, then called Teegeeack. To
control overpopulation and solidify his power, Xenu
instructed his loyal officers to capture beings of all shapes and sizes from
the various planets, freeze them in a compound of alcohol and glycol and fly
them by the billions to Earth in planes resembling DC-8s. Some of the beings
were captured after they were duped into showing up for a phony tax
investigation. The
beings were deposited or chained near 10 volcanoes scattered around the
planet. After hydrogen bombs were dropped on them, their thetans
were captured by Xenu's forces and implanted with
sexual perversion, religion and other notions to obscure their memory of what
Xenu had done. Soon
after, a revolt erupted. Xenu was imprisoned in a
wire cage within a mountain, where he remains today. But the
damage was done. During
the last 75 million years, these implanted thetans
have affixed themselves by the thousands to people on Earth. Called
"body thetans," they overwhelm the main thetan who resides within a person, causing confusion and
internal conflict. In the
Operating Thetan III course, Scientologists are
taught to scan their bodies for "pressure points," indicating the
presence of these bad thetans. Using techniques
prescribed by Hubbard, church members make telepathic contact with these thetans and remind them of Xenu's
treachery. With that, Hubbard said, the thetans
detach themselves Hubbard
first unveiled his Scientology theories during a series of often breathless
lectures he delivered in His
talks were sprinkled with tales of interplanetary adventures he said he had
experienced during earlier lives. There
was the time, for instance, that Hubbard said he was resting in a peaceful
valley on a barren planet in some remote galaxy, and decided to spruce up the
place. He said he "fixed up a lake" and "managed to coax into
existence a few vines." Then,
"all of a sudden -- zoop boom -- and there was
a spaceship," Hubbard recalled, saying "I got pretty mad about the
whole thing." "I
remember bringing a thunderstorm," Hubbard said. "Moved it over the
ship.... And then (I) let them have it." Hubbard
told associates that he had been many people before being born as Lafayette
Ronald Hubbard on March 13, 1911, in After
Hubbard's death in 1986, a Scientology publication described him as "the
original musician," who 3 million years ago invented music while going
by the name "Arpen Polo." The publication
noted that "he wrote his first song a bit after the first tick of
time." Hubbard
realized that his accounts of past lives, implants and extraterrestrial
creatures might sound suspect to outsiders. So he counseled his disciples to
keep mum. "Don't
start walking around and telling people about space opera because they're not
going to believe you," he said, "and they're going to say, 'Well,
that's just Hubbard.' " |
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Part 1:
The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Burglaries
and Lies Paved a Path to Prison A web
of criminal conspiracy to discredit the church's foes resulted in 5-year
sentences for 11 defendants. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A39:2) It began
with the title of a fairy tale -- Snow White. That was
the benign code name Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard gave to an ominous
plan that would envelop his church in scandal and send its upper echelon to
prison, a plan rooted in his ever-deepening fears and suspicions. Snow
White began in 1973 as an effort by Scientology through Freedom of
Information proceedings to purge government files of what Hubbard thought was
false information being circulated worldwide to discredit him and the church.
But the operation soon mushroomed into a massive criminal conspiracy, executed
by the church's legal and investigative arm, the Guardian Office. Under
the direction of Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, the Guardian Office hatched one
scheme after another to discredit and unnerve Scientology's foes across the
country. Guardian Office members were trained to lie, or in their words,
"to outflow false data effectively." They
compiled enemy lists and subjected those on the lists to smear campaigns and
dirty tricks. Their
targets were in the government, the press, the medical profession, wherever a
potential threat surfaced. The
Guardian Office saved the worst for author Paulette Cooper of Among
other things, Cooper was framed on criminal charges by Guardian Office
members, who obtained stationery she had touched and then used it to forge
bomb threats to the church in her name. "You're
like the Nazis or the Arabs -- I'll bomb you, I'll kill you!" warned one
of the rambling letters. The
church reported the threat to the FBI and directed its agents to Cooper,
whose fingerprints matched those on the letter. Cooper was indicted by a
grand jury not only for the bomb threats, but for lying under oath about her
innocence. Two
years later, the author's reputation and psyche in tatters, prosecutors
dismissed the charges after she had spent nearly $20,000 in legal fees to
defend herself and $6,000 on psychiatric treatment. It
seemed that no plan against perceived enemies was too ambitious or daring. In In
nighttime raids, they rifled files and photocopied mountains of documents,
many of which the church had unsuccessfully sought under the federal Freedom
of Information Act. The
thefts were inside jobs; the Guardian Office had planted one agent in the IRS
as a clerk typist and another in the Justice Department as the personal
secretary of an assistant So bold
had they become that one Guardian Office operative slipped into an IRS
conference room and wired a bugging device into a wall socket before a
crucial meeting on Scientology was to be convened. The operative rigged the
device so he could eavesdrop over his car's FM radio. The Two
Scientologists used fake IRS credentials to gain access to government
agencies and then photocopied documents related to the church. Their
conspiracy was exposed when one of the suspects, after 11 months on the lam,
became worried about his plight and confessed to authorities, prompting the
FBI to launch one of the biggest raids in its history. Armed
with power saws, crowbars and bolt cutters, 134 agents burst into three
Scientology locations in They
carted off eavesdropping equipment, burglar tools and 48,000 documents
detailing countless operations against "enemies" in public and
private life. In the
end, Hubbard's wife and the others were found guilty of charges of conspiracy
and burglary. The grand jury named Hubbard as an unindicted
co-conspirator; the seized Guardian Office files did not directly link him to
the crimes and he professed ignorance of them. In a
memorandum urging stiff sentences for the Scientologists, federal prosecutors
wrote: "The
crime committed by these defendants is of a breadth and scope previously
unheard of. No building, office, desk, or file was safe from their snooping
and prying. No individual or organization was free from their despicable
conspiratorial minds. The tools of their trade were miniature transmitters,
lock picks, secret codes, forged credentials and any other device they found
necessary to carry out their conspiratorial schemes." The 11
defendants were ordered to serve five years in federal prison. All are now
free. Church
leaders today maintain that this dark chapter in their religion's history was
the work of renegade members who, yes, broke the law but believed they were
justified because the government for two decades had harassed and persecuted
Scientology. "The
question that I always have in my mind," Cooley said, "is for how
long a time is the church going to have to continue to pay the price for what
the (Guardian Office) did.... Unfortunately, the church continues to be
confronted with it. "And
the ironic thing is that the people being confronted with it are the people
who wiped it out. And to the church, that's a very frustrating thing." |
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Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard The
Man in Control A protege of L. Ron Hubbard now leads the
church, wielding power with the stern approach of his mentor. (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A41:4) The At 30,
David Miscavige is chairman of the board of an
organization that sits atop the bureaucratic labyrinth known as the This
organization, the The He is
the man in control, charting a direction for the organization that is at once
expansionist and combative -- in keeping with the dictates and personality of
Hubbard, his role model. He refused repeated requests to be interviewed for
this report. Church
spokesmen say Miscavige is a tireless, no-nonsense
leader who works 15-hour days and whose vision is guiding the church's foray
into mainstream society. "He
has a tremendous ability to cut through bull and get to the point," said
one Scientology spokesman, who has worked closely with Miscavige. "He's
an initiator," said another. High-ranking
former Scientologists describe him as a ruthless infighter with a volatile
temper. They say he speaks in a gritty street parlance, punctuated with
expletives. One
recalled the time that Miscavige became enraged
with the performances of Scientology staffers on a church record album. He
propped its cover against an embankment outside his To the
public, the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the The real
power is consolidated among a handful of Scientologists, led by Miscavige, who keep low public profiles. Miscavige's
climb to prominence is a lesson in the origins and nature of power in the
church that Hubbard built. At the
age of 14, with the blessing of his Scientologist parents, Miscavige joined a cadre of trusted youngsters called the
"Commodore's messengers." In the beginning, they merely ran
Hubbard's errands. But as they emerged from adolescence, Hubbard broadened
their influence over even the highest-level church executives. In time,
the messengers controlled the communication lines to and from Hubbard -- a
critical component of power in an organization that revered him as almost
saintly. When messengers spoke, they did so with Hubbard's authority. Bad-mouthing
a messenger, Hubbard said, was tantamount to personally challenging him. When
Hubbard went into hiding in 1980, he left behind but did not forget Miscavige, one of his favorites. It was Miscavige's job to ensure that Hubbard's orders, secretly
relayed to him, were followed by church executives. In effect, Miscavige became the sole link between church leaders and
Hubbard. Miscavige
also was put in charge of a profit-making firm called Author Services Inc.,
which was established in 1981 to manage Hubbard's literary and financial
affairs. The job further enhanced Miscavige's
reputation as having Hubbard's confidence. Church
defectors say Miscavige wasted no time flexing his
new muscles. Among
other things, he spearheaded a purge in 1981 of upper-echelon Scientology
executives accused of subverting Hubbard's teachings and plotting to seize
control of the organization. He also
cracked down on owners of Scientology franchises, or missions, who pay the
church roughly 10% of their gross income. At a
1982 church conference, Miscavige accused the
mission owners of cheating the "mother church." He and his aides
announced that "finance police" would audit the missions to ensure
that the church was getting its fair share of money. And the audits would
cost the missions $15,000 a day. In
taking command of Scientology after Hubbard's death, Miscavige
survived a challenge from two other Hubbard lieutenants once thought to be
his likely successors: Pat and Anne Broeker, who
had been in hiding with Hubbard. The power
struggle was so intense at one point that even Hubbard's final Scientology
writings, revered as sacred scriptures, became the object of a tug of war
between Miscavige and Pat Broeker,
according to Vicki Aznaran, a top Scientology
executive who left the church in 1987 after a falling out. Aznaran said Broeker threatened
to use the writings to start his own church. Miscavige
today has achieved exalted status within the Scientology movement. He has
personal aides who walk his dog, shine his shoes and run his errands,
according to Aznaran, a top Scientology executive
who left the church in 1987 after a falling-out. In his rare public
appearances, he is surrounded by respectful subordinates. And like
Hubbard, who was frequently referred to by his initials, David Miscavige is called D.M. |
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Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Staking
a Claim to Blood Brotherhood (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A38:5) As L.
Ron Hubbard told it, he was 4 years old when a medicine man named "Old
Tom" made him a "blood brother" of the Blackfeet
Indians of Montana, providing the inspiration for the Scientology founder's
first novel, "Buckskin Brigades." But one
expert on the tribe doesn't buy Hubbard's account. Historian
Hugh Dempsey is associate director of the He said
that blood brothers are "an old As for
"Old Tom," Dempsey has informed doubts. For one thing, he said, the
name does not appear in a 1907 Blackfeet enrollment
register containing the names of hundreds of tribal members. For
another, "It's the kind of name, for that period (1915),
that would practically not exist among the Blackfeet,"
he said. "At that time, Blackfeet did not have
Christian names." In 1985,
church leaders produced a document that they say proves Hubbard was not
lying. Typed on
Blackfeet Nation stationery, it states: "To
commemorate the seventieth anniversary of L. Ron Hubbard becoming a blood
brother of the Blackfeet Nation. Tree Manyfeathers in a ceremony re-established L. Ron Hubbard
as a blood brother to the Blackfeet Tribe." The
document actually is meaningless because none of the three men who signed it
were authorized to take any action on the tribe's behalf, according to Blackfeet Nation officials. The
document was created by Richard Mataisz, a
Scientologist of fractional Indian descent. Mataisz
said in an interview he tried to prove that Hubbard was a Blackfeet
blood brother but came up empty-handed. "It's
not," he said, "something you go down to the courthouse and look
up." So Mataisz, using the name Tree Manyfeathers,
said he held a private ceremony, made Hubbard his own blood brother and,
along with two other men, signed the commemorative document. "You
should not give it (the document) very much credibility," said John
Yellow Kidney, former vice president of the tribe's executive committee.
"I don't." |
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Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard Church
Scriptures Get High-Tech Protection (Sunday,
24 June 1990, page A40:5) Scientology
is determined that the words of L. Ron Hubbard shall live forever. Using
state-of-the art technology, the movement has spent more than $15 million to
protect Hubbard's original writings, tape-recorded lectures and filmed
treatises from natural and man-made calamities, including nuclear holocaust. The
effort illustrates two fundamental truths about the Scientology movement: It
believes in its future and it never does anything halfheartedly. In
charge of the preservation task is the It has a
staff -- but no congregation -- and its fiscal 1987 income was $503 million,
according to court documents filed by the church. The
organization has purchased rural land in According
to Three of
the doors purportedly will be "nuclear blast resistant." All this
to house mere copies of the original works, which include 500,000 pages of
Hubbard writings, 6,500 reels of tape and 42 films. The originals themselves
are being kept under tight security on a sprawling Scientology complex near While
details of the facility are sketchy, a At the
Arrowhead repository, sophisticated methods are being used to prepare
Hubbard's works for the bomb-proof vaults. Here, according to Scientology
officials and documents, is the process: First,
the original writings are chemically treated to rid the paper of acid that
causes deterioration. Next, they are placed in plastic envelopes that church
officials say will last 1,000 years. From
there, they are packaged in titanium "time capsules" filled with
argon gas to further aid preservation. Hubbard's
writings also are being etched onto stainless steel plates with a strong
acid. Scientology officials said the plates are so durable that they can be
sprayed with salt water for 1,000 years and not deteriorate. As for
Hubbard's taped lectures, they are being re-recorded onto special "pure
gold" compact discs encased in glass that, according to Scientology archvists, are "designed to last at least 1,000
years with no deterioration of sound quality." |
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Part 2: The Selling
of a Church Church Markets Its
Gospel with High-Pressure Sales (Monday,
25 June 1990, page A1:1) Behind
the religious trappings, the Its
governing financial policy, written by the late Scientology founder L. Ron
Hubbard, is simple and direct: "MAKE MONEY, MAKE MORE MONEY, MAKE OTHERS
PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY." The
organization uses sophisticated sales tactics to sell a seemingly endless
progression of expensive courses, each serving as a prerequisite for the
next. Known collectively as "The Bridge," the courses promise
salvation, higher intelligence, superhuman powers and even possible survival
from nuclear fallout -- for those who can pay. Church
tenets mandate that parishioners purchase Scientology goods and services
under Hubbard's "doctrine of exchange." A person must learn to
give, he said, as well as receive. For its
programs and books, the church charges "fixed donations" that range
from $50 for an elementary course in improving communication skills to more
than $13,000 for Hubbard's secret teachings on the origins of the universe
and the genesis of mankind's ills. The
church currently is offering a "limited time only" deal on a select
package of Hubbard courses, which represent a small portion of The Bridge. If
bought individually, those courses would cost $55,455. The sale price:
$33,399.50. As a
promotional flyer for the discount observes, "YOU SAVE $22,055.50." To
complete Hubbard's progression of courses, a Scientologist could conceivably
spend a lifetime and more than $400,000. Although few if any have doled out
that much, the high cost of enlightenment in Scientology has left many deeply
in debt to family, friends and banks. Ask
former church member Marie Culloden of "I'm
trying to recover my mortgaged home," says Culloden, who spent 20 years
in Scientology and obtained three mortgages totaling more than $80,000 to buy
courses. The New
courses continually are added, each of which is said to be crucial for
spiritual progress, each heavily promoted. Church
members are warned that unless they keep purchasing Scientology services,
misery and sickness may befall them. For the true believer, this is a
powerful incentive to keep buying whatever the group is selling. Through
the mail, Scientologists are bombarded with glossy, colorful brochures
announcing the latest courses and discounts. Letters and postcards sound the
dire warning, "Urgent! Urgent! Your future is at risk! ... It is time to
ACT! NOW! ... You must buy now!" By far
the most expensive service offered by Scientology is "auditing" --
a kind of confessional during which an individual reveals intimate and
traumatic details of his life while his responses are monitored on a lie
detector-type device known as the E-meter. The
purpose is to unburden a person of painful experiences, or "engrams," that block his spiritual growth, a process
that can span hundreds of hours. Auditing is purchased in 12 1/2-hour chunks
costing anywhere between $3,000 and $11,000 each, depending on where it is bought. Even
Scientology's critics concede that auditing often helps people feel better by
allowing them to air troubling aspects of their lives -- much like a Catholic
confessional or psychotherapy -- and keeps them coming back for more. The
church makes no apologies for the methods it uses to raise funds and spread
the gospel of its founder. Scientology spokesmen said in interviews that it
takes money to cover overhead expenses and to finance the church's worldwide
expansion, as it does for any religion. "You
can't do it on bread and butter," said one. Church
leaders will not discuss Scientology's gross income or net worth. But they
contend that Scientologists who pay for spiritual programs are no different
from, say, Mormons who tithe 10% of their income for admittance to the
temple, or from Jews who buy tickets to High Holiday services or from
Christians who rent church pews. "The
fact of the matter is that the parishioners of the Many
Scientologists say that Hubbard's teachings have resurrected their lives,
some of which were marred by drugs, personal traumas, self doubts or a sense
of alienation. They say that, through the church, they have gained confidence
and learned to lead ethical lives and take responsibility for themselves,
while working to create a better world. Scientology
"works," they say, and for that, no price is too high. "It
takes money," acknowledged Scientologist Sheri Scott. "It took
money for my father to buy his Cadillac. I wish he'd sell the damn thing and
give me the money (for Scientology).... I have never felt cheated at
all." "I'm
not glued to the sky or anything. I'm a very normal person," she added.
"I just wish more people would take a look, would read (about
Scientology), before they decide we're cuckoo." While
other religions increasingly advertise and market themselves, none approaches
the Its
tactics come directly from Hubbard, who wrote entire treatises on how to
create a market for, and sell, Scientology. He
borrowed generously from a 1971 book called "Big League Sales Closing
Techniques." Touted as the "selling secrets of a supersalesman," the book was written by former car
dealer Les Dane, who has conducted popular seminars at Scientology
headquarters in Hubbard
said Scientology must be marketed through the "art of hard sell,"
meaning an "insistence that people buy." He said that,
"regardless of who the person is or what he is,
the motto is, 'Always sell something....' " Hubbard
contended that such high-pressure tactics are imperative because a person's
spiritual well being is at stake. Among
other things, he directed his followers to: "rob the person of every
opportunity to say 'No.' "; "help prospects work through financial
stops impeding a sale"; "make the prospect think it was his idea to
make the purchase"; utilize the two man "tag team" approach,
and "overcome and rapidly handle any attempted prospect backout." One of
the most important techniques in selling Scientology, Hubbard said, is to
create mystery. "If
we tell him there is something to know and don't tell him what it is, we will
zip people into" the organization, Hubbard wrote. "And one can keep
doing this to a person -- shuttle them along using mystery." Frequently,
a person's first contact with Scientology comes when he is approached by a
staff member on the street and offered a free personality test, or receives a
lengthy questionnaire in the mail. Using
charts and graphs, the idea is to convince a person that he has some problem,
or "ruin," that Scientology can fix, while assuaging concerns he
may have about the church. According to Hubbard, "if the job has been
done well, the person should be worried." With
that accomplished, the customer is pushed to buy services he is told will
improve his sorry condition and perhaps give him such powers as being able to
spiritually travel outside his body -- or, in Scientology jargon, to
"exteriorize." Former
church member Andrew Lesco said he was told that he
"would be able to project my mind into drawers, someone's pocket, a
wallet and I would be able to tell what's inside ... " Church members
are required to write testimonials -- "success stories" -- as they
progress from one level to the next. The
testimonials regularly appear in Scientology publications. Usually carrying
only the authors' initials, they are used to promote courses without the
church itself assuming legal liability for promising results that may not
occur, according to ex-Scientologists. Here is an example: We were
having trouble with the windshield wipers in our car. Sometimes they would
work and sometimes they wouldn't.... We were driving along, and my husband
was driving. I got to thinking about the windshield wipers, left my body in
the seat and took a look under the hood. I spotted the wires that were
shorting and caused them to weld themselves together, like they were supposed
to be. We haven't had any trouble with them since. Scientology
staffers who sell Hubbard's courses are called "registrars." They
earn commissions on their sales and are skilled at eliciting every facet of
an individual's finances, including bank accounts, stocks, cars, houses,
whatever can be converted to cash. Like all
Scientology staffers, a registrar's productivity is evaluated each week.
Performance is judged by how much money he or she brings in by Thursday
afternoon. And, in Scientology, declining or stagnant productivity is not
viewed benevolently, as former registrar Roger Barnes says he learned. "I
remember being dragged across a desk by my tie because I hadn't made my
(sales quota)," said Barnes, who once toured the world selling Scientology
until he had a bitter break with the group. Barnes
and other ex-Scientologists say that this uncompromising push to generate
more money each week places intense pressure on registrars. Another
former Scientology salesman in "This
made the person feel so harassed," he said, "that he would sign the
check because it was the only way he was going to get out of there." A 1984
investigative report by Canadian authorities quoted a The
Canadian report also recounted a meeting during which Scientology staffers
chanted: "Go for the throat. Go for blood. Go for the bloody
throat." Former
Scientologist Donna Day of Ventura said that church registrars accused her of
throwing away money on rent and on food for her cats and dogs --
"degraded beings," they called her pets. They said the money should
be going to the church. "I
was so upset, I finally left the house with them sitting in it," said
Day, who sued the church to get back $25,000 she said she had spent on
Scientology. Several
years ago, church members persuaded a The Wheatons were longtime church members. Joanne
Wheaton gave nearly $150,000 to the church and almost as much to a private
business controlled by Scientologists. But the deal was blocked when a
lawsuit was brought by an attorney appointed by the court to protect the
children's interests. The suit
claimed that the Scientologists had disregarded the future welfare and
financial security of the After
protracted discussions, the money was refunded and the Scientologists who
negotiated the deal were expelled by the church for their role in the affair. For
years, one of Scientology's top promoters was Larry Wollersheim.
He traveled the country inspiring others to follow him across Hubbard's
Bridge. Then he became disenchanted with the movement. In 1980,
he filed a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, accusing the church of
subjecting him to psychologically damaging practices and of driving him to the
brink of insanity and financial ruin after he had a falling out with the
group. Three
years ago, a jury awarded him $30 million. The award was recently reduced to
$2.5 million. During
the litigation, Wollersheim filed a 200-page
affidavit in which he offered this analysis of what keeps Scientologists
hooked: "Fear
and hope are totally indoctrinated into the cult (Scientology) member. He
hopes that he will receive the miraculous and ridiculous claims made
directly, indirectly and by rumor by the sect and its members. "He
is afraid of the peer pressure for not proceeding up the prescribed program.
He is intimidated and afraid of being accused of being a dilettante. He is
afraid that if he doesn't do it now before the world ends or collapses he may
never get the chance. He is afraid if he doesn't claim he received gains and write a success testimonial he will be shunned.... "How
many people could stand up to that kind of pressure and stand before a group
of applauding people and say: 'Hey, it really wasn't good.'?" Wollersheim
said that the courses provide only a temporary euphoria. "Then
you're sold the next mystery and the next solution.... I've seen people sell
their homes, stocks, inheritances and everything they own chasing their hopes
for a fleeting, subjective euphoria. I have never witnessed a greater preying
on the hopes and fears of others that has been carefully engineered by the
cult's leader." |
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Part 2: The Selling of a Church Shoring
Up Its Religious Profile The
church has adopted the terminology and trappings of traditional theologies.
But the IRS is not convinced. (Monday,
25 June 1990, page A18:1) Since its founding some 35 years ago by the late science fiction
writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology has worked hard to shore up its religious
profile for the public, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service. In the
old days, for example, those who purchased Hubbard's Scientology courses were
called "students." Today, they are "parishioners." The
group's "franchises" have become "missions." And
Hubbard's teachings, formerly his "courses," now are described as
sacred scriptures. The word
"Dianetics" was even redefined to give it
a spiritual twist. For years, Hubbard said it meant "through the mind."
The new definition: "through the soul." Canadian
authorities learned firsthand how far Scientologists would go to maintain a
religious aura. According
to police documents disclosed in 1984, an undercover officer who infiltrated
Scientology's For
three decades, critics have accused Scientology of assuming the mantle of
religion to shield itself from government inquiries
and taxes. "To
some, this seems mere opportunism," Hubbard said of Scientology's
religious conversion in a 1954 communique to his
followers. "To some it would seem that Scientology is simply making
itself bulletproof in the eyes of the law...." But,
Hubbard insisted, religion is "basically a philosophic teaching designed
to better the civilization into which it is taught.... A Scientologist has a
better right to call himself a priest, a minister, a missionary, a doctor of
divinity, a faith healer or a preacher than any other man who bears the
insignia of religion of the Western World." Joseph Yanny, a In In the
beginning, Hubbard toyed with different ways to promote his creation. For a
time, he called it "the only successfully validated psychotherapy in the
world." To those who completed his courses, he offered
"certification" as a "Freudian psychoanalyst." He also
described it as a "precision science" that required no faith or
beliefs to produce "completely predictable results" of higher
intelligence and better health. Hubbard bestowed upon its practitioners the
title "doctor of Scientology." This
characterization, however, landed him in trouble with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and a federal judge, who concluded in 1971 that Hubbard was
making false medical claims and had employed "skillful propaganda to
make Scientology ... attractive in many varied, often inconsistent
wrappings." The
judge said, however, that if claims about Scientology were advanced in a
purely spiritual context, they would be beyond the government's reach because
of protections afforded religions under the First Amendment. In the The A
tax-exempt religion may not, for example, operate primarily for business
purposes, commit crimes, engage in partisan politics or enrich private
individuals. It should, among other things, have a formal doctrine, ordained
ministers, religious services, sincerely held beliefs and an established
place of worship. In 1967,
the So began
Scientology's most sweeping religious make-over. Among
other things, Scientology ministers (formerly "counselors") started
to wear white collars, dark suits and silver crosses. Sunday
services were mandated and chapels were ordered erected in Scientology
buildings. It was made a punishable offense for a staffer to omit from church
literature the notation that Scientology is a "religious
philosophy." Many of
the changes flowed from a flurry of "religious image" directives
issued by high-level Scientology executives. One policy put it bluntly: "Visual
evidences that Scientology is a religion are mandatory." None of
this, however, convinced the IRS, which assessed the church more than $1
million in back taxes for the years 1970 through 1972. Scientology
appealed to the U.S. Tax Court, where, in 1984, it was handed one of the
worst financial and public relations disasters in its history. In a
blistering opinion, the court backed the IRS and said the Church of
Scientology of California had "made a business out of selling
religion," had diverted millions of dollars to Hubbard and his family
and had "conspired for almost a decade to defraud the United States
Government by impeding the IRS." The
church lost again when it took the case before the Stripped
of its tax-exempt status, Scientology executives turned the Once
called the " It has
been replaced by a number of new organizations that Scientology executives
maintain are religious and tax exempt. But, once again, the IRS has
disagreed, ruling that the new organizations are still operating in a
commercial manner. Scientology
is appealing the IRS decision in the courts. |
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Part 2: The Selling of a Church The
Courting of Celebrities Testimonials
of the famous are prominent in the church's push for acceptability. John
Travolta and Kirstie Alley are the current
headliners. (Monday,
25 June 1990, page A18:5)
As far
back as 1955, Hubbard recognized the value of famous people to his fledgling,
off-beat church when he inaugurated "Project Celebrity." According
to Hubbard, Scientologists should target prominent individuals as their
"quarry" and bring them back like trophies for Scientology. He
listed the following people of that era as suitable prey: Edward R. Murrow, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway, Howard
Hughes, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney, Henry Luce, Billy
Graham, Groucho Marx and others of similar stature. "If
you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as a reward," Hubbard
wrote in a Scientology magazine more than three decades ago. Although
the effort died, the idea of using celebrities to promote and defend
Scientology survived -- though perhaps not as grandly as Hubbard had dreamed. Today,
the church's most famous celebrity is actor John Travolta, who credits
Hubbard's teachings with giving him confidence and direction. "All
I've had are benefits," said Travolta, a church member since 1975. Another
Scientology celebrity is actress Kirstie Alley,
co-star of the television series "Cheers." Last year, Alley and
Travolta teamed up in the blockbuster comedy film, "Look Who's
Talking." Alley is
international spokeswoman for the Scientology movement's controversial new
drug and alcohol treatment center in A former
cocaine abuser, Alley has said she discovered Hubbard's Narconon
program in 1979 and that it "salvaged my life and began my acting
career." Alley
also has become active in disseminating a new 47-page booklet on ways to
preserve the environment. The booklet, entitled "Cry Out," was
named after a Hubbard song and was produced by Author Services Inc., his
literary agency. Author Services is controlled by influential Scientologists. In April,
Alley provided nationwide exposure for the illustrated booklet -- which
mentions Hubbard but not Scientology -- when she unveiled it on the popular Arsenio Hall Show. Since then, it has been distributed to
prominent environmental groups throughout the Besides
Alley and Travolta, the Scientology celebrity ranks also include: jazz
pianist Chick Corea; singer Al Jarreau;
actress Karen Black; opera star Julia Migenes;
Priscilla Presley and her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, and Nancy Cartwright,
who is the voice behind Bart Simpson, the wisecracking son on the animated TV
hit, "The Simpsons." After
the 1988 Summer Games in "I
am by far the healthiest person on the team," he said. "They (other
team members) are actually resentful of me because I don't have to train as
long as they do." Celebrities
are considered so important to the movement's expansion that the church
created a special office to guide their careers and ensure their
"correct utilization" for Scientology. The
church has a special branch that ministers to prominent individuals,
providing them with first-class treatment. Its headquarters, called Celebrity
Centre International, is housed in a magnificent old turreted mansion on In 1988,
the movement tried to associate itself with a non-Scientology celebrity, race
driver Mario Andretti, by sponsoring his car in the
GTE World Challenge of Tampa, Fla. But the plan backfired. When Andretti saw seven Dianetics
logo decals stripped across his Porsche, he demanded that they be removed. "It's
not something I believe in, so I don't want to make it appear like I'm
endorsing it," he was quoted as saying. For
years, Scientology's biggest celebrity spokesman was former Brodie
said that when pain in his throwing arm threatened his career, he applied Dianetics techniques and soon was "zipping the
ball" again like a young man. Although
he still admires Hubbard's teachings, Brodie said
he gave up promoting them after some of his friends in Scientology were
expelled and harassed during a power struggle with church management. "There
were many in the church I felt were treated unfairly," Brodie said. |
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