A PIECE OF BLUE SKY

SCIENTOLOGY DIANETICS AND L.RON HUBBARD EXPOSED BY JOHN ATTACK


CONTENTS

    It was 1950, in the early, heady days of Dianetics, soon after L. Ron Hubbard opened the doors of his first organization to the clamoring crowd. Up until then, Hubbard was known only to readers of pulp fiction, but now he had an instant best-seller with a book that promised to solve every problem of the human mind, and the cash was pouring in. Hubbard found it easy to create schemes to part his new following from their money. One of the first tasks was to arrange "grades" of membership, offering supposedly greater rewards, at increasingly higher prices. Over thirty years later. an associate wryly remembered Hubbard turning to him and confiding, no doubt with a smile, "Let's sell these people a piece of blue sky."
Acknowledgments

Preface - by Russell Miller

What Is Scientology?

PART 1:
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY 1974-1983

1. My Beginnings

2. Saint Hill

3. On to OT

4. The Seeds of Dissent

PART 2:
BEFORE DIANETICS 1911-1949

1. Hubbard's Beginnings

2. Hubbard in the East

3. Hubbard the Explorer

4. Hubbard As Hero

5. His Miraculous Recovery

6. His Magickal Career

PART 3:
THE BRIDGE TO TOTAL FREEDOM 1949-1966

1. Building the Bridge

2. The Dianetic Foundations

3. Wichita

4. Knowing How to Know

5. The Religion Angle

6. The Lord of the Manor

7. The World's First Real Clear

PART 4:
THE SEA ORGANIZATION 1966-1976

1. Scientology at Sea

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:
THE GUARDIAN'S OFFICE 1974-1980

1. The Guardian Unguarded

2. Infiltration

3. Operation Meisner

PART 6:
THE COMMODORE'S MESSENGERS 1977-1982

1. Making Movies

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:
THE INDEPENDENTS 1982-1984

1. The Mission Holders' Conference

2. The Scientology War

3. Splintering

4. Stamp Out the Squirrels!

PART 8:
JUDGMENTS 1984-1990

1. Scientology at Law

2. The Child Custody Case

3. Signing the Pledge

4. Dropping the Body

5. After Hubbard

PART 9:
SUMMING UP

1. The Founder

2. The Scientologist

3. Fair Game, Ethics and the Scriptures

Epilogue

Bibliography

List of Abbreviations




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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.
	
	


PREFACE

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
Author of Bare-Faced Messiah
	
	


1.1 - MY BEGINNINGS
	

WHAT IS SCIENTOLOGY?

    "Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious... it is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based upon lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power for Mr. Hubbard, his wife and those close to him at the top. It is sinister because it indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line unquestioningly and to those who criticize or oppose it. It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult, withdrawn from ordinary thought, living and relationships with others."

    - Justice LATEY, ruling in the High Court in London in 1984

    "As soon as one's convictions become unshakeable, evidence ceases to be relevant - except as a means to convert the unbelievers. Factual inaccuracies... are excusable in the light of the Higher Truth."

    P.H. HOEBENS

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.
	


Back
WHAT IS SCIENTOLOGY? 	Contents 	Forward
1.2 - SAINT HILL
	

PART ONE:
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY 1974-1983

    This is useful knowledge. With it the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner. By its use the thousand abilities Man has sought to recover become his once more.

    L. Ron HUBBARD, Scientology: A History of Man, 1952

CHAPTER ONE
My Beginnings

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 I 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 tactic 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:

    Student: Do birds fly?

    Coach: It's hot in here!

    Student: I'll open the window (opens window). Okay, I'll repeat the question, do birds fly?

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.
	
	



CHAPTER TWO
Saint Hill

    My purpose is to bring a barbarism out of the mud it thinks conceived it and to form, here on Earth, a civilization based on human understanding, not violence.

    That's a big purpose. A broad field. A star-high goal.

    But I think it's your purpose, too.

    L. RON HUBBARD, Scientology 0-80

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
On to OT

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:

    I have probably done something on the order of a century of research in the very few years since 1963, and can advise you now that I have completed any and all of the technology required from wog [non-Scientologist] to OT...

    The mystery of this universe and this particular area of the universe has been, as far as its track [history] is concerned, completely occluded . . . it is so occluded that if anyone tried to penetrate it, as I am sure many have, they died. The material involved in this sector is so vicious that it is carefully arranged to kill anyone if he discovers the exact truth of it. So, in January and February of this year I became very ill, almost lost this body and somehow or other brought it off, and obtained the material and was able to live through it. I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material.

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 back-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
The Seeds of Dissent

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:

    Mayo was simply a bird-dog. The definition of a bird-dog is: "Somebody sent in by an enemy to mess things up." (LRH) [sic] . . . The actual situation is that you had a bird dog right in the middle of the control room: David Mayo. He was sabotaging execs [executives] by wrecking their cases [destroying their psychological well-being]. None of this was by accident or incompetence. Of all the crazy, cockeyed sabotage I've ever seen, man, he was at it. He was not doing Dianetics and Scientology. He was just calling it that and using the patter. His obvious intention was to wreck all cases of persons who could help others.

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"):

    He had long reddish-grayish hair down past his shoulders, rotting teeth, a really fat gut... He didn't look anything like his pictures ....

    The Messengers went everywhere with LRH. We chauffeured him, we followed him around carrying his ashtray and cigarette lighter, and we also lit his cigarettes for him. LRH would explode if he had to light his own cigarette.

    I found LRH was very moody, and had a temper like a volcano. He would yell at anybody for something he didn't like, and he seemed mad at one thing or another 50% of the time. He was a fanatic about dust and laundry. The Messengers, at the time I was there, were also doing his laundry. There was hardly a day that he wouldn't scream about how someone used too much soap in the laundry, and his shins smelled like soap, or how terrible the soap was that someone used (though it was the same soap used the day before), so someone must have changed the soap . . . I was petrified of doing the laundry.

    He is also a fanatic about cleanliness. Even after his office had just been dusted top to bottom, he would come in screaming about the dust and how "you are all trying to kill me!" That was one of his favorite lines - like if dinner didn't taste right - "You are trying to kill me!"

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:
BEFORE DIANETICS 1911-1949

    Appoint Amongst you
    Some small few
    To tell about me lies
    And invent wicked Things
    And spread out infamy
    Abroad and Within
    And to stand before
    Our altars
    And insult and
    Lie and tell
    Evil rumors about us all.

    L. RON HUBBARD, Hymn of Asia

CHAPTER ONE
Hubbard's Beginnings

    To be free, a man must be honest with himself and with his fellows.

    L. RON HUBBARD, "Honest People Have Rights Too"

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.

    I started buying books. Lots of books. There was a second hand bookstore a few blocks away and they were cheaper, and I discovered they had books by other writers that were about Scientology - I happened on the hard-to-find Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper. Now I was fascinated, and started collecting everything I could get my eager hands on - magazine articles, newspaper clippings, government files, anything.

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."

[L. RON HUBBARD'S PARENTS]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. 2

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."

[HUBBARD IN SCOUT UNIFORM]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.

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 in the East

    As a still very young man, with the financial support of his wealthy grandfather, L. Ron Hubbard traveled throughout Asia. He studied with holy men in India and Northern China, learning at first hand the inherited knowledge of the East.

    L. RON HUBBARD, Hymn of Asia

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:

    "it was not until I was sixteen [in 1927] that I headed for the China Coast .... In Peiping . . . I completely missed the atmosphere of the city, devoting most of my time to a British major who happened to be head of the Intelligence out there. In Shanghai, I am ashamed to admit that I did not tour the city or surrounding country as I should have. I know more about 181 Bubbling Wells Road and its wheels than I do about the history of the town. In Hong Kong - well, why take up space?"

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).
"They smell of all the baths they didnt take.  The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here."

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
Hubbard the Explorer

By his own account, Hubbard led his first "expedition" while in college. In fact, the "Caribbean Motion Pict