RELIGION INC. The Church of Scientology by Stewart Lamont

[Plaintext version 1.0, August 18, 1998]

ÿ RELIGION INC. The Church of Scientology

Stewart Lamont

The story of Scientology reads like the plot of a bizarre and sensational movie. A science-fiction writer founds a religion, makes millions of dollars in the process and then becomes a recluse. His followers, who dress in naval-style uniforms, engage in a cops and robbers game with the FBI and the American Inland Revenue Service which leads to Watergate style burglaries and multi- million dollar lawsuits for and against the cult. Smear campaigns are conducted against its enemies and accusations of brain-washing are levelled against the church by psychiatrists. A breakaway movement leads to purges and the break-up of families and hundreds of members are declared 'Suppressive Persons'. Then a young lieutenant of the cult leader takes over amid accusations that he has forged the documents which give him power over the cult's millions.

The locations for this 'movie' are a former mansion of a maharaja in deepest Sussex, an ocean-going yacht where punishments akin to keel-hauling are ordered by the cult leader for those who disobey his whim; a sleepy Florida town which is taken over by the church; and sumptuous Los Angeles properties where movie celebrities are lionized by the cult. Behind it all is the guru, described by his estranged son as a sadist, a debauched devotee to occultism, and yet seen by his followers as a genius who discovered a religion that combines the ancient mysteries of the East with Western technology and psychotherapy. He is denounced by judges as a 'charlatan' and in 1980 he disappears with lawsuits pending against him and accusations by his followers that they are being persecuted for their religion.

Incredible as this scenario is, it is the true story of Scientology and its founder Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Previous books have dealt with the early years of the cult, now Stewart Lamont gives the first full account of its controversial history in recent years, drawing on interviews with principal participants in the drama. He reveals the top-secret upper levels of the cult's teachings and discusses the allegations that Ron Hubbard possibly died several years before the 'official' announcement in 1986. This is the book of the movie that has already happened, but has yet to be made...

RELIGION INC. The Church of Scientology

'...falsehood must become exposed by truth - and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails.'

L. RON HUBBARD, _My Philosophy, 1965_

RELIGION INC. The Church of Scientology

Stewart Lamont

HARRAP LONDON

First published in Great Britain 1986 by HARRAP Ltd 19-23 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7PD

ISBN O 245-54334-1

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents Acknowledgements 9 Prologue 11 1 L. Ron Hubbard: Guru, God or Demon? 18 2 A Religious Technology 30 3 Life on the Ocean Wave 53 4 God's Admiralty 67 5 Gamekeepers and Poachers 89 6 Mindbenders and Faithbreakers: Scientology and Psychiatry 114 7 Cops and Robbers: Scientology and the Law 134 8 Battlefield Earth 153 Epilogue 163 Appendices 169 Glossary 184 Index 188

Illustrations

*Unless otherwise stated, the photographs listed below are from the author's own collection*

*Between pages 64 and 65*

L. Ron Hubbard (*Frank Spencer Pictures*) Saint Hill Manor, Sussex London Scientology HQ in Tottenham Court Road Candacraig House, Scotland Robin Scott and family Municipal Buildings, Clearwater Author with an E-Meter Confidential folders in 'Flag HQ' Frank McCall with model of *Apollo* Frank McCall with ship's wheel Ron Hubbard and film crew (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*) Hubbard on location (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*)

*Between pages 128 and 129*

Los Angeles Scientology HQ Mrs Shirley Young and Mrs Susan Jones Dr. John G. Clark Michael Flynn

David Mayo (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*) Finance Police (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*) A security guard (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*) Golden Era Studios at Gilman Springs Heber Jentzsch at Golden Era Studios Aerial view of the clipper-ship at Gilman (*Nik Wheeler/Sunday Times, London*) The swimming-pool and clipper-ship at Gilman Author on board the clipper-ship TV documentary picture of Hubbard in 1973 (*Sunday Times, London*)

Acknowledgements

It may seem bizarre in the light of the conclusions at which this book arrives, that some of the people I have to thank most for help, infor- mation and co-operation in writing it, are officers of the Church of Scientology. My gratitude is nonetheless sincere and although I know that I may be accused of biting the hand that fed me, I should make it clear that it was my purpose to hear all shades of opinion both for and against Scientology with an open mind. After collecting and studying the evidence by interview, from documents and published material, the fact that I felt compelled to make adverse comments upon L. Ron Hubbard and his religion is, I believe, a reflection upon the content of that evidence rather than upon any bias or capricious ingratitude upon my part. I hope it does not sound too patronizing to say that I hope that many of the friendly people within the Church of Scien- tology (and there are many unaware of the true nature and practices of their church) may one day come to a similar decision when they view the evidence away from the glow of uncritical commitment.

In particular, I would like to thank Mike Garside, the Director of Public Affairs of Scientology in the UK, who, along with his team at Saint Hill in East Grinstead, supplied me with material and allowed me access to Scientology organizations; Rich Haworth, then Director of Public Affairs at Flag HQ in Clearwater, Florida when I visited there in September 1984; Mrs Shirley Young and Mrs Susan Jones, who were my chaperons in Los Angeles; Mr Marshall Goldblatt for generous hospitality, and Rev Heber Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology International.

Among the disaffected Scientologists and 'independents' I would particularly like to thank are: John Atack of East Grinstead; Robin Scott and his wife Adrienne at Candacraig, Strathdon; John

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McMaster; Neville Chamberlain; 'Alyson'; and Gulliver Smithers. From the opponents of Scientology I would like to single out the Clark family: Dr John Clark MD of Harvard Medical School, his wife Eleanor and daughter Cathy; Dr Michael Langone of the American Family Foundation; and Boston attorney, Michael Flynn.

Other sources of material and assistance were the Editor of the *Sunday Times*, Andrew Neil, and Julian Browne of the Colour Magazine; Kevin Holland of Reader's Digest; Sarah Hogge for per- mission to use her study undertaken within the Religious Studies Department at Lancaster University; Peter Clarke of the Centre for New Religious Movements at King's College, London; Professor Roy Wallis and Dr Steve Bruce of the Department of Sociology at Queen's University, Belfast.

Last, but most of all, I would like to thank my friend and agent, Andrew Hewson; and Simon Scott, Editorial Director of Harrap, for encouragement, advice and in the journalistic cliche, for 'doing the biz'. STEWART LAMONT

Prologue

IT WASN'T a bad substitute for paradise: the rolling hills, the mani- cured landscape gardens, stitched into a lush patchwork by the long, straight, freshly painted white fences. The scrub which is a common feature of the hills south of Creston in Southern California had been meticulously cleared from the 160 acre ranch, designed originally for horse training. The quarter-mile track was still there, plus a grand- stand painted white and an observation tower. Wild life abounded and in the hothouse corn stalks grew alongside orchids. The tri-level ranch house sat atop a hill overlooking a lake. A satellite dish and pool were perched beneath a patio and sun porch. The lord of this manor might have been forgiven for thinking he had found heaven on earth.

As the winter sun reached its highest point on Monday, 27 January 1986, two station-wagons turned slowly out of the ranch gates and drove up Donovan Road making for the port of San Luis Obispo, which lay a few miles away on the coast. There a boat was waiting to help the occupants perform their macabre and secret task.

In the front seat of the lead car were two lawyers: Earle Cooley and John Peterson. Cooley was a tall man of vast bulk who had weighed in on the side of the Church of Scientology in several court cases before becoming one of its most influential members. He had once spent a few hours cooling off in the cells for contempt of court when he had defended his clients too zealously. The previous Friday he had dashed the hundred and fifty miles north from Los Angeles as soon as he had heard the news. He had spent the weekend with his assistant, John Peterson, who was driving the station-wagon, seeing that everything went exactly to plan. There had been no autopsy on the deceased. But the sheriff of San Luis Obispo County and the coroner had been

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satisfied with the death certificates and the fingerprints and blood samples with which they had been furnished. They had managed to arrange a swift cremation that morning for the body. With the ashes scarcely cool, Cooley and Peterson and others were on their way to perform one final task before returning to Los Angeles to announce their secret to the world that very evening.

The small silver urn Cooley held between his knees contained the remains of a giant among men - the man he admired above anybody else who had lived. Behind Cooley and Peterson sat a large man with greying hair, his tinted glasses concealing soft and tearful eyes. Heber Jentzsch was an emotional man. A man with a big heart. As well as his personal grief was his regret that he had never met the man whose remains occupied the urn, yet in the eyes of the world Jentzsch was the man who represented the deceased when he disappeared six years previously. Beside Jentzsch sat his wife Karen, a dark-skinned woman who had known their dead leader. Gossip had it that she had been a night-club hostess before Scientology had given her a new career, one in which she had gone quickly and ruthlessly to the top before her marriage to the President of the Church of Scientology International.

The other station-wagon contained three people: two men and a woman. It drew ahead as they neared the jetty to meet the skipper of the large motor-boat which they had chartered for the morning. The man did not know that this was to be the 'Commodore's' last voyage or that the funeral he was to witness that morning in the gentle calm of a bay in the Pacific Ocean on the Californian coast was that of a man who had started his life's voyage as a Navy man in these very waters and ended it as a notorious recluse. Not for a moment did he suspect that the name of the bulky Caucasian whose ashes occupied the silver urn was Lafayette Ron Hubbard, science-fiction writer and founder of a religion which had millions of followers worldwide. Now only seven of those followers were present, as the sun glinted on the ocean around their small vessel, to say goodbye to Ron as they affectionately and devotedly knew him. There was a reason for the seclusion and the privacy. It was a very simple reason. Those millions of followers around the world did not know that Hubbard was dead. The seven secret mourners intended to keep it that way for at least a few more hours.

The youngest of the seven, a slim youth in his early twenties with a drooping moustache, was dressed in black trousers and a white short- sleeved shirt. The insignia and epaulettes he wore were not from the United States Navy, but the badges of the Sea Organization, the elite

corps of Scientology. Commander David Miscavige opened a slim volume bound in maroon leather and began to read, his strong, deep voice trembling with emotion. '*The finely grist mill of time is spent in service such as yours*,' he began. '*We gained from Ron, who gave to us from his past the ability to live and fare against the tides and storms of fate. Its true we've lost his shoulder up against the wheel and lost as well his counsel and his strength. But lost them only for a while*.'

As the blank verse from Scientology's book of ceremonies was read, two mourners stood with their heads bowed, looking into the water. Pat and Annie Broeker were husband and wife and the only two people, apart from Miscavige, who knew where and how Ron Hubbard had lived these past three years. Pat Broeker was well suited to such clandestine activities, He had a voracious appetite for spy stories, fictional and factual, and had the nickname within Scien- tology of '007'. He was in his mid thirties, a High School graduate who had attended college but had been no high flier. His succession of posts within Scientology had resulted in his being 'busted' from every one except the last, which was as a financial courier to Hubbard himself. That post proved to be providential in 1980 when Hubbard learned that the authorities were about to force him into court. He dis- appeared and Pat and Annie Broeker became his only link with the outside world.

'*We do not tremble faced with death - we know that living is not breath. Prevail! Go, Ron, and take the life that offers now, and live in good expectancy that we will do our part*.'

Annie Broeker let a tear glisten on her cheek. She was Pat Broeker's third wife. But in this marriage Annie was the dominant partner. Now in her late twenties, she had fifteen years of service in the Sea Org and despite being 'busted' in 1979 from her post as deputy commanding officer of the organization by Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, with whom 'bad blood' still existed, she had survived. She was tough. 5' 6" in height, she stood 2" higher than Miscavige and above her husband in the pecking order.

'*Your debts are paid. This chapter of thy life is shut. Go now, dear Ron, and live once more in happier time and place. Thank you, Ron. And now here lift up your eyes and say to him goodbye*.' David Miscavige was nearing the end of the funeral service written by Ron Hubbard, although seldom performed throughout the hundreds of Scientology churches scattered round the world. For twenty years now Ron had developed the doctrine of its 'religious technology' or 'tech' as he called it. He had administered it through memos and

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bulletins from the Hubbard Communications Office. If the tech was Scientology's Bible, the HCOBs were its canon law. Neatly bound in green folders, they defined what to do, how to do it, and to whom to do it. Ron had even covered the present circumstances.

The Press, those 'merchants of chaos', and the Government, stacked full of 'Suppressive Persons', would have a field-day when they realized that Ron had 'dropped the body', Miscavige reflected. They would move in for the kill. It would lead to severe strain on the orgs. Where would the leadership come from? They had always relied on Ron's word to settle policy matters. In recent years out- siders had been told that he had retired to devote himself to study and writing, but insiders knew that Ron was always there in memo or in spirit. Now they would not know where to turn. That was why David Miscavige had to keep his control. As Ron's protege he had the task of 'keeping the show on the road' and 'getting the stats up'.

'*Come, friends, he is all right and he is gone. We have our work to do, and he has his. He will be welcome there*.' Miscavige raised his hand in a spontaneous salute to the leader to whom he was devoted. The ocean air was not suited to his asthma. His enemies called him the 'asthmatic dwarf' behind his back. Those who had felt the lash of his tongue usually changed it to 'poison dwarf'.

Despite his youth and his size, Miscavige had a reputation for getting things done. He had learned from Ron that if a little hysterical screaming and shouting was necessary to achieve something, you didn't think twice - you shouted. He had used the technique to great effect at the Mission Holders' Conference in San Francisco in 1982. It had been a tense time. The grasp on power which the founding documents of the Religious Technology Center had granted to him and his colleagues was incomplete until he was seen to be in control. The next task had been to remove those who might challenge that authority. Ron could not help him. He had been incapacitated by a severe stroke, far worse than the one he had suffered in 1975. As Ron lay dying, David Miscavige knew that the Religious Technology Center was the only thing that could save Scientology. It protected him from prosecution, it safeguarded the tech and the orgs and it gave him the authority he needed to get the job done. The body had been properly certified and all formalities had been completed. The 'high crime' would have been to stand by and watch the enemies of Scientology destroy the organization that had nurtured him since he was a small child. He was not ashamed to look on Ron as a father figure. To his enemies Scientology was a

PROLOGUE

cult, a con, a corporation marketing false religion. To David Miscavige, it was all he knew.

What you have just read is mostly fictional. However, the characters are real. There *is* a ranch at San Luis Obispo in Southern California. L. Ron Hubbard mysteriously disappeared in 1980. The Religious Technology Center *does* own the Scientology trademarks which bring in millions of dollars per month worldwide. David Miscavige, a relatively inexperienced member of the full-time staff of the Church of Scientology, became within months its most influential figure. All that is documented and acknowledged. But six years after he disappeared and became a recluse, it was still not known whether Ron Hubbard was alive or dead.

Then on Monday night, 27 January 1986, Earle Cooley, Chief Counsel for the Church of Scientology, and Heber Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology International, made their fateful announcement. Hubbard was 'officially' dead. They explained that he had left the bulk of his multi-million dollar estate to the Church of Scientology. They revealed that his body had been cremated and its ashes scattered. No post mortem had been carried out, and although the coroner of San Luis Obispo County had received blood specimens and fingerprints, speculation inevitably arose that Hubbard did not die in January 1986 but had been dead for over two years. During the past six years since he had disappeared immense changes had taken place in the leadership of the organization he founded. During that time his followers were encouraged to believe that he was still keeping a watchful eye on matters from his secret retreat, now revealed to have been a ranch near San Luis Obispo, 150 miles north west of Los Angeles. His followers continued to act as if he were still alive. He was away studying for another book, they said. He was entitled to his privacy, they argued, when asked why he did not come out of seclu- sion to answer the charges made against him. He was no longer in charge of Scientology, they protested, and could not be brought to court to justify some of the malpractices of those who were.

His opponents took a different view. He was in hiding to avoid his crimes of tax avoidance, criminal conspiracy and fraud, they alleged. Far from his having retired from running Scientology, they produced documents which linked him to the burglary by his wife and nine others of Federal offices in 1977. He was laughing all the way to the bank, they said, as money continued to pour into the Scientology coffers in the early eighties. The banks were in Luxembourg and Switzerland.

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There were others within Scientology who never lost their admira- tion for Hubbard. But in his absence several catastrophes befell the organization. His wife and her ten fellow conspirators were impris- oned. A cleansing of the Guardians' Office followed in which the Church of Scientology was forced to admit that many criminal acts had been done in its name. There was a purge. However, the new leaders - Miscavige prominent among them - were resented. Longstanding Scientologists with a string of qualifications from the church were 'busted' from their posts and they left to form an indepen- dent movement, but retained their devotion to the 'tech' (the doctrine and practices of Scientology) and their personal loyalty to Hubbard. They were declared 'Suppressive Persons' by the church, 'Declares' (effectively ex-communication orders imposing a ban on associating with their former friends within the official church) began to pour forth. A bitter battle ensued with both movements fighting to win con- verts, the official church from outside its own ranks, and thus to bring fresh money into the rapidly emptying coffers. The independents lowered their prices for courses in Scientology and were accused by the official church of 'squirrelling the tech' - as great a crime in their eyes as heresy was to medieval theologians. If the penalty stopped somewhat short of that advocated by Aquinas for counterfeiters of the faith, the animosity was no less than that which the Inquisition felt for its victims. The church which had campaigned so virulently against psychiatrists and governments for 'persecuting' it, found itself conducting a crusade against its own adherents.

One result of this was that disaffected Scientologists began to cam- paign against the cult. They duplicated memos, disclosed confidential processes, vilified the official church and joined in lawsuits as prose- cution witnesses. What emerged was a mountain of testimony, much of it unfavourable to Scientology. Journalists seized on these revel- ations but until now the inside information has not been collected and published in book form.

Another consequence was that the Church of Scientology realized that it had either to reform its ways or be subject to wholesale attack in the courts and in the media. I have benefited from this more open policy in that I have had the co-operation of the Church of Scientology in writing this book. I have also had the advantage of talking at length to dissident Scientologists, former members of the church who now repudiate it utterly, and the two men whom Scientology regards as its public enemies numbers one and two: Boston attorney Michael Flynn and Harvard psychiatrist Dr John Clark.

PROLOGUE

Faced with friendliness and co-operation from all these irrecon- cilable sources, my task was made more difficult, not easier. I origin- ally wanted to write a book telling the story without offending anyone, but the more written material and personal evidence I gathered, the more I became convinced that despite my good inten- tions and those of many Scientologists, I could not avoid the verdict that Scientology does more harm than good and that its founder Ron Hubbard was more of an evil genius than an idol with feet of clay.

1 L. Ron Hubbard: Guru, God or Demon?

IT WAS Mr Justice Latey in the Royal Courts of Justice on 23 July 1984 who made the most swingeing public attack on L. Ron Hubbard's credibility yet mounted. He was trying a custody case involving a ten- year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. Their mother had left Scien- tology and contended that if the children remained with their father they would be brought up as Scientologists and severely damaged. The teachings and practices of Scientology became an issue in the trial, as did the character and conduct of its founder, Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Mr Justice Latey described Hubbard variously in the course of his judgement as a 'charlatan and worse'; 'a cynical liar'; 'grimly reminiscent of Hitler'; and his church as 'corrupt, sinister and dangerous'. On the other hand, Hubbard's followers saw him as a unique spiritual teacher who had an insight into the mysteries of life, a guru who had been a prolific science-fiction writer (with claims of over twenty-three million books sold) and teacher, pouring forth articles, memoranda and books on the subject of Dianetics, which he transformed into the religion of Scientology.

Where there is such a sharp divergence over a person it is usual to turn to the published facts as any historian would. This is where Hubbard achieves a unique distinction among controversial figures. Not even the facts about him are beyond dispute. That he was born on 13 March 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, is about the only agreed fact. Thereafter the claims Hubbard made for himself in submitting material to reference works (or the claims that were made on his behalf by his zealous admirers) part company with the facts. Even a little detail such as the claim that he grew up on a ranch owned by his grand- parents in Montana is completely untrue. His exploits as an explorer or as a young boy travelling extensively in the Far East, sitting at the

L. RON HUBBARD: GURU, GOD, OR DEMON?

feet of gurus, are as fictional as any of his later sci-fi stories. The picture of a romantic adventurer invented by Hubbard for himself is forgiveable in a teller of stories as a harmless vanity, but when his academic record is claimed as some kind of authority for his views, or his war record touted as evidence of his courage and moral integrity, and then both are shown to be a tissue of lies, then one begins to suspect that Hubbard was more of a pathological liar than a dreamer. The 'doctorate' from Sequoia University is nothing more than a $20 mail order effort. The nuclear physics course ('the first of its kind ever') that he attended while gaining his civil engineering degree at George Washington University was one of the courses he registered for while there for ONE term - and he failed it, gaining an overall grade of 'D'. The exploits of Hubbard as an explorer and pioneer of geological surveys of Puerto Rico are fictitious. His career as a 'Barnstormer' pilot before the war must have been severely handicapped by the fact that he never possessed a licence to fly powered aircraft, only a glider licence.

All these claims and more have been subjected to extensive research - none more so than Hubbard's war record in the US Navy. He claimed to be a much-decorated war hero who commanded a corvette and during hostilities was crippled and wounded. The only true fact is that he was in the Navy. The rest is pure fiction.

It was the discovery that Hubbard's war record was bogus which sparked off the defection of researcher Gerry Armstrong from Scien- tology. He had been assigned to assist writer Omar Garrison in preparing a biography of Hubbard and kept some of the documents as proof to protect himself. It was in the court case to win them back in 1984 that Scientology scored its biggest own goal. The case was presided over by Judge Paul Breckenridge in California Superior Court (Los Angeles County) and was brought by Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue.

At first it looked as if the defence documents tracing Hubbard's naval career were to prove damning. When Hubbard was briefly in command of an escort vessel USS PC-815 in the spring of 1943, he ordered its guns to be fired on an uninhabited island in neutral terri- torial waters off Mexico. He was summoned to a court martial and removed from command. In 1945 he was hospitalized - not from war wounds, but on psychiatric grounds. Documents testifying to his unfitness for command were introduced. Then the Scientologists brought out their star witness, Captain Thomas Moulton, who testified that he had known Hubbard at submarine school in 1942.

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Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, under cross-examination Captain Moulton related that Hubbard had told him how he was involved in the first action in the Second World War at Pearl Harbour and how his destroyer had gone down with all hands save himself. Hit in the kidneys, Hubbard had crawled ashore and subsequently sailed to Australia. Captain Moulton's testimony not only stressed his cred- ulity but exposed yet another well-spring in the abundantly irrigated fields which had been sown with Hubbard's lies.

The difficulty Hubbard had in urinating at the time he knew Moulton was not the result of a war wound. Documents in Hubbard's handwriting produced in court showed he had contracted gonorrhoea after sex with a lady named Fern.

In the British case, Justice Latey poured scorn on another claim that Hubbard was sent by US Naval Intelligence to break up a black magic ring in California: 'He was not. He was himself a member of that occult group and practised ritual sexual magic in it.'

Thus the picture of Hubbard as a romancer and purveyor of flim- flam gives way to a darker portrait of a pathological liar distorting the truth about himself for personal gain. His application for a disability pension for a war wound that never existed was cynically undertaken. Armstrong's attorney Michael Flynn tells of a document which relates how Hubbard declared he was going into the hearing for the pension and 'convince the Feds I'm disabled and then I'm gonna laugh at them'. 'This is the mindset which created Scientology, a man who is making these fraudulent claims about himself,' says Flynn.

It was in 1946 that Hubbard was first involved with Aleister Crowley's black magic movement, the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Oriental Temple). The Church of Scientology claims that Hubbard was working as an undercover policeman for the Los Angeles Police Department when he infiltrated a black-magic ring in Pasadena at that time. It was run by Dr Jack Parsons, a top rocket scientist who was a disciple of Crowley. In this instance the facts are not in dispute: Hubbard ran off to Florida with a lady named Betty in a yacht belonging to Parsons and with $10,000 of his money. Soon afterwards the ring broke up. Hubbard's devotees hold this up as a successful undercover operation, but in the absence of official acknowledgement by the authorities of Hubbard acting as their agent, many may choose to believe that it was a case of one scoundrel ripping off another.

The Church of Scientology was successful in obtaining a retraction by *The Sunday Times* in 1969 and in winning an action in 1971

L. RON HUBBARD: GURU, GOD, OR DEMON?

against the author John Symonds and publishers of *The Great Beast*, a biography of Crowley, which alleged that Hubbard's new religion was derived from black magic. There is no evidence that Hubbard con- tinued his occult practices through the time that he was in charge of the cult in the sixties and seventies, but there is evidence linking him with Crowley's beliefs.

First, there is the *Penthouse* interview of June 1983 with Hubbard's son Ronald (nicknamed 'Nibs'), who broke with him in 1959. There are some grounds for doubting Hubbard Jr. as a reliable witness. As we shall see in a later chapter, he has at different times retracted some of his allegations against his father, but in this interview he stated: 'When Crowley died in 1954, my father thought he should wear the cloak of the beast and become the most powerful being in the universe ...What a lot of people don't realize is that Scientology is black magic ...spread out over a long time period. To perform black magic generally takes a few hours or, at most, a few weeks, but in Scien- tology it's stretched out over a lifetime and so you don't see it. Black magic is the inner core of Scientology - and is probably the only part of Scientology that really works.'

The fact that Nibs Hubbard (or Ronald DeWolf as he is now known) still conducts courses in techniques derived from Scientology, for fees, perhaps undermines the credibility of these allegations. His analysis of the dependency of Scientology on black magic is perhaps tinged by his deep animosity towards his father. But the 'mindset' of an occultist, who uses ritual to acquire power and dominance over others, is totally consistent with Hubbard's psychological profile. In his Philadelphia lectures in 1952 he makes the link himself in his own words: 'The magical cults of the 8th-12th centuries in the Middle East were fascinating; the only modern work that has anything to do with them is a trifle wild in spots but is a fascinating work in itself, and that's written by Aleister Crowley - the late Aleister Crowley - my very good friend...Crowley exhumed a lot of the data from these old magic cults and he handles cause and effect quite a bit. Cause and effect is handled according to a ritual...Now a magician - getting back to cause and effect and Aleister's work - a magician postulates what his goal will be before he starts to accomplish what he is doing.'1

Ron Hubbard was never openly a magician but in cause and effect through Scientology he created rituals and held millions spellbound through the power of his will. How he came to discover the means to

1 (PDC Lecture 18)

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do it is a fascinating story. Like Mae West's 'Come up and see me sometime', or Bogart's 'Play it again, Sam', or Cagney's 'You dirty rat', the saying attributed to Hubbard regarding the profit to be made out of starting a new religion, was probably never made by him. Scien- tologists have drawn attention to a letter of Eric Blair (George Orwell: *Collected Essays*, Vol. 1, p. 304) which ironically suggests that the way to make a million is to start a new religion. Hubbard certainly achieved that, but before the chicken of Scientology came the egg of Dianetics.

Dianetics means literally 'through the mind', although Hubbard defined it as 'through the soul': Since he did not complete even a fictitious course in Greek, the mistake is perhaps understandable. The bible of Dianetics is his book *Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health* (DMSMH), published in 1950. This date has been adopted by the Church of Scientology as the *fons et origo* of its religion and you will sometimes see red-letter events designated 'A.D. 25', which means 1985 or 'after Dianetics 25', not *anno Domini*.1

It is uncertain how much of Dianetics was actually discovered by Hubbard. In the late forties he was writing science-fiction stories and spent some time in California as a screenwriter. Whether or not he plagiarized the ideas in DMSMH became irrelevant after its publica- tion, when he became widely acknowledged as the authority on the subject. It defines the principal driving force in life as the will to sur- vive. This expresses itself through eight dynamics - the original four being: through self-preservation; through procreation; through family or race; through all mankind. Thus if you hear a Scientologist saying that someone is '2-D out-ethics' he means that they have been guilty of a sexual misdemeanour or unethical behaviour in the second dynamic. This org-speak is a feature of Scientology in which all terms are defined strictly and processes given technical names by Ron. Like the Red Queen, a word means what Ron says it means. Dianetics postulates the analytical mind which sets men apart from the animals and the 'reactive mind' which absorbs all experiences of pain and pleasure as individuals pass along the 'time-track' of life. Hubbard took an Eastern view that this time-track was cyclic through suc- cessive reincarnations. In the early years of Dianetics there were prac- titioners who violently disagreed with this. It led to some of the first splits within the Dianetics movement.

1 The first Church of Scientology org was opened in Los Angeles in 1954: the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, DC in 1955.

L. RON HUBBARD: GURU, GOD, OR DEMON?

The theory of Dianetics was developed by Hubbard through lec- tures and publications. Other dynamics were added. Number five dealt with the urge to survive as a life organism. Six was the urge to survive as part of the physical universe of MEST, which stood for Matter-Energy-Space-Time. Seven was the survival of the spirit or 'theta', as he called it. Thetans are spiritual beings who have realized their potential and are not held back by the handicap of 'engrams'. Up to this state a person is a 'preclear'. Engram-free, they become 'Clear' - a state akin to salvation, but different from the religious concept in that Clears could supposedly be made and measured, The contro- versial claim was made that Clears recovered from illness more quickly and suffered disease less often, a result which has, not surpris- ingly, never been borne out in proper scientific research. The eighth dynamic was survival as part of the supreme being, Scientology's nirvana.

Two other dogmas are worth noting. First, the ARC triangle, which stands for Affinity-Reality-Communication. These are mutually related so that if communication is low then it follows that affinity and reality will be low. Secondly, there is the tone-scale invented by Hubbard, which ranges from 0.0 (dead), through grief at 0.5, sym- pathy at 0.9 and covert hostility at 1.1, to the ceiling of 4.0, which equals enthusiasm. Walking tall at 4.0, the individual would be a MEST clear, free from psychosomatic ills and nearly immune to bacteria. Hubbard extended his observations to declare that some political ideologies were higher on the tone-scale than others. Liberalism has a 'higher tone' than Fascism, which is superior to Communism.

The preclear who cannot recall incidents in his present life while conscious, awake and 'in present time' (known as straight-wire pro- cessing), is badgered time and again with the same question until he remembers. Or various techniques can be used by the auditor, the person who is conducting the session with the preclear (often abbrevi- ated to pc). For example: 'The auditor asks the pc to run through a moment of sexual pleasure and then when his pc, who does not have to recount this moment aloud, appears to have settled into that moment, the auditor demands that the pc goes immediately to conception. The pc will normally do so...' (*Science of Survival* II, p. 173). Persistent cross-examination by the auditor can break down the resistance of the pc to confronting certain painful incidents or engrams in his or her past. The induction of Dianetic reverie heightens this quasi-influence of the auditor over the pc, but clearly in the right hands Dianetics

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could be an effective form of releasing mental blocks and trauma. It was a tool that Hubbard was to develop into a complex system dominated by his strong and ugly personality, which has more than once been called paranoid and schizophrenic.

With the publication of DMSMH in 1950, Hubbard had been lucky enough to acquire two influential figures to join the Board of Directors of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, which he set up in 1950. One was John W. Campbell, the editor of *Astounding Science Fiction*, which Hubbard had contributed an article on Dianetics in 1948. The other was a medical man, Dr Joseph Winter. When the initial interest waned and cash-flow to the Foundation became a problem, Don Purcell of Wichita, Kansas, stepped in to provide a cash injection in 1951. Purcell became President of the Foundation, with Hubbard as Chairman and Vice-President, and the Foundation was relocated in Wichita. However, in 1952 the Foundation went bankrupt and Hubbard sold his stock to Purcell along with all the copyrights, including DMSMH.

There were many reasons for the fragmentation. The various scat- tered field groups jealously guarded their independence and did not acknowledge Hubbard as chief. His authoritarian style was a problem and this led to a split with John Campbell. Hubbard's espousal of occultism and his identification of 'past lives' as the source of many engrams did not please those, including Dr Winter, who wanted to see Dianetics accepted by the scientific community. It had been lumped together with psycho-analysis and hypnotism because of its stress on childhood trauma and its use of Dianetic 'reverie'. The battle was fierce, each group having its own journal (*Dianews, Dianotes*, etc), and several breakaway methodologies based on Dianetics were formed at this time, including Synergetics.

Hubbard was faced with a problem in the early days of the HDRF. So far the state of 'Clear' had been much touted but there appeared to be no means of agreeing that Clears had been achieved. With characteristic initiative, Hubbard announced that his second wife, Sara Northrup, was one, but when she divorced him, making bitter accusations against him, the status of Clears and of the HDRFs suffered another blow.

Roy Wallis, the sociologist who catalogued the rise of Scientology from its origins in Dianetics in his book *The Road to Total Freedom* (1976), accounts for the popularity of Dianetics in 1950 as a reason for its demise. Like the concept of a 'flying saucer' current at the time, 'Clear' became a Rorschach blot concept which could be all things to

L. RON HUBBARD: GURU, GOD, OR DEMON?

all people. They could impose their aspirations upon it. Simply by reading DMSMH they could start auditing one another and, unlike other psychotherapies, it did not insist on professional training or standards for its practitioners, whose claims about their competence could not be verified. In *Marginal Medicine* (1976) Wallis argues that when Hubbard came to found Scientology, he profited from these lessons. 'Scientology was organized from the outset in a highly cen- tralized and authoritarian fashion and was practised on a professional basis. Its theory and method were only gradually revealed to those who displayed commitment to Hubbard and practised its techniques in a pure and unalloyed fashion. A rigorous method of social control emerged and it was made clear to all followers that Hubbard was the sole source of new knowledge and of interpretation of existing knowledge.'

However, in 1952 the phoenix had yet to arise from the ashes of the HDRF in Wichita. Hubbard took himself off literally to the town of Phoenix, Arizona, and opened a centre there in March 1952. He trav- elled in September of that year to England to lecture in London and returned again in January to find interest in his theories increasing. In between these visits he delivered the famous Philadelphia Doctorate Lectures (1-19 December 1952). These are still for sale on cassette by the Church of Scientology at over $2000 for the set and include Hubbard's notorious reference to the R2-45 process for exteriorisation. In plain language, it means that someone can be released from their body by shooting them with a Colt '45, which Ron proceeded to demonstrate by firing a revolver into the floor of the podium.

Hubbard then 'invented' the term Scientology. Whether or not he borrowed the term is immaterial. He has made it all his own, one of the few achievements which is undisputed. He defined it as 'the science of knowing how to know' and differentiated it from Dianetics, which he explained as derived from through (*dia*) the soul (*nous*). 'Dianetics addresses the body. Scientology addresses the thetan [spirit]...Thus Dianetics is used to knock out and erase illnesses, unwanted sen- sations, misemotion, somatics, pain, etc. Scientology and its grades are *never* used for such things. Scientology is used to increase spiritual freedom, intelligence, ability, to produce immortality.' (*What is Scientology?*, p. 209)

In Phoenix, Hubbard began HASI (Hubbard Association of Scien- tologists, which later gained the suffix International) and waged war on Purcell in Wichita, accusing him of profiteering from Dianetics. In late 1954 Purcell switched his support to the splinter group

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Synergetics and Hubbard had a lucky break. Anxious to free himself from Hubbard's lawsuits, Purcell gave Hubbard back the copyrights of the Dianetics material. Ron now had the opportunity to have his Scientology cake and to eat Dianetics for breakfast. He took it.

In the next chapter we shall see how the tools of Dianetics became the trappings of a religion. One of the most important of these tools had hardly been used by the Dianetics movement. This was the E-Meter which had been developed by Volney G. Mathison in 1959. Although there is very little that Scientologists do not attribute to the apparently limitless genius of Hubbard, they do agree that Mathison produced the device which with minor modifications has now been renamed the 'Hubbard Electrometer'. Hubbard's original specification was for a device that was capable 'of measuring the rapid shifts in density of a body under the influence of thought and measuring them well enough to give an auditor a deep and marvellous insight into the mind of his preclear'. The instrument which fulfilled these great expec- tations was a form of galvanometer which operated on the principle of the wheatstone bridge so beloved of school physics labs. It was wired up to two tin cans such as those used to hold baby food or frozen orange juice. The terminals are held, one in each hand, by the preclear and thus measure the conductivity (or conversely the resistance) of the skin of the hands. Obviously this will be affected by pressure, but operators attempt to stabilize the reading for each preclear (the 'body reading') and then look for significant swings in the galvanometer needle. This is also the principle on which the lie detector works and

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Mr. Hamra said, "The Church of Scientology now had a database of information on every subscriber which included names, credit card info., credit reports, telephone info., computer info., who had referred them to Earthlink and who were their previous ISP providers." Mr. Hamra told me about the "other Earthlink building" which was next door on New York Avenue in Pasadena. Mr. Hamra told me that the other building was high security and is where Earthlink and the Church of Scientology did all the monitoring of the internet. - DECLARATION OF ROBERT J. CIPRIANO.