(The following text has been taken from the FACTNET archives and made readable by Martin Hunt) SCIENTOLOGY THE NOW RELIGION *by George Malko* DELACORTE PRESS / NEW YORK I would like to thank Michaela Williams, articles editor of the now defunct *eye* Magazine, who invited me to write an article about Scientology. Research into the subject led to this book, which contains most of the material from that original article, but in much different form. G.M. Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from the following copyrighted material: *Nine Chains to the Moon* by Buckminster Fuller: Used by permission of Southern Illinois University Press. Extracts from *Scientologie 34* by A. Nordenholz, translated by W.R. McPheeters: Used by permission of W.R. McPheeters, P.O. Box 641, Lucerne Valley, California 92356. "The Polygraph" by Burke M. Smith: Copyright c 1967 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Copyright c 1970 by George Malko All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-108660 Manufactured in the United States of America First printing *To the memory of my father* "...miracles don't happen. It's always the apparatus and the spiel which have to do the work. The clergy have the same sad experience. God is silent and people chatter." INGMAR BERGMAN in *The Magician* INTRODUCTION xi ONE I. The Now Religion 1 II. "Ron" 27 III. Enter Dianetics 43 IV. Scientology 60 TWO V. The Real Truth 101 VI. Techniques, Drills, and Processes 123 VII. "Ethics" 153 THREE VIII. Conclusions 175 EPILOGUE 201 INTRODUCTION On Sunday, December 22, 1968, John McMaster, the world's first *clear* - a being enlightened and totally free - spoke at the weekly services of New York's Church of Scientology. The church is headquartered at 49 West 32nd Street in the main ballroom of the Hotel Martinique, a moderately priced estab- lishment of well-worn respectability which is just off Herald Square, on the fringes of the bustling crowds that daily attack Macy's, Gimbel's, and E.J. Korvette. I bad been in the ball- room once before, at a Scientology congress. Then, the large high-ceilinged room had been a dun-yellow, with something used and shabby about it. Now, presumably in honor of Mc- Master's singular appearance, the whole room had been painted white and the ceiling had been cleaned. Because it was ap- proaching Christmas, there were decorations and a tinseled tree. The proceedings began with some singing of blues songs by a girl named Doreen Davis. She introduced each song with a few simple appropriate words, linking them to Scientology if possible, to what she had learned from being part of it. She was well received and then introduced her accompanist, Amanda Ambrose, herself an accomplished blues singer, who followed Miss Davis and sang a few more songs, finishing with what was obviously the gathering's favorite, "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever." The room was packed. There must have been four hundred xi xii INTRODUCTION people there, filling all the seats and crowding the narrow aisles. In the hack, in areas usually partitioned off into small offices, the partitions had been pushed back and people stood on desks, a few having scrambled up to sit on filing cabinets. A little boy, not at all lost, pushed his way with young de- termination among the people crowding everywhere, the sweat shirt he wore bearing the announcement "Scientology Works!" At the front of the room, dominating everything, was an enormous black and white photograph of L. Ron Hubbard, the man who had devised and developed all of the basic theories and teaching techniques of Scientology, from its melodramatic beginnings as Dianetics to the present day and its promise of the realization of one's *theta*, one's true spirit. It was an im- posing photograph, a head shot, three-quarters face, his chin resting on the thumbs of his joined hands, his receding white hair smoothly combed hack from a high forehead, his eyes slightly narrowed giving him something of a vulpine look. It was a study in self-confidence. Then McMaster was announced and appeared. He was wearing clerical garb and a clerical collar, white cuffs of a thin wool turtleneck showing at the wrists of his black jacket. He had a purple sash around his neck, with some kind of pendant hanging just at the juncture of the jacket, under the button. McMaster, a one-time medical student who was born in South Africa, is of indeterminate age, anywhere from forty- two to fifty. His features are very fine and his face is soft, al- most beautiful, almost ascetic, with very clear light blue eyes that always gaze out peacefully, with only one or two moments when, while making a point, they widen the way William F. Buckley's do when he is on to something pertinent and rich on the tongue to say. McMaster's hair is corn-silk blond and looks whitened by the sun. His hands, as he speaks, move slightly, airily, meeting in front to let fingers touch in the barest kind of clasp. He began almost immediately by telling of his experiences INTRODUCTION xiii with a television program, the Alan Burke Show, which had invited him to appear to talk about Scientology. He had ar- rived at the studio, he said, and found that people he knew to be hostile to Scientology had been placed in the studio audience to question Him when open questioning was invited. Challenging the program's producer on this, McMaster said the man had explained the program was merely trying to present both sides of the subject. McMaster, looking out at us with the same calm he had shown the producer, told the man, "How can there be two sides to the truth?" and walked out. The audience loved it! They applauded warmly, very very warmly, and watched him as he spoke with a kind of adoring, sure hunger, knowing that here was the proof, the living proof, that everything they were studying and absorbing and ac- cepting and agreeing upon led *somewhere*. McMaster said "reality is *agreement*," and spoke of the warmth he felt emanat- ing from the gathering, and how the last time he had spoken in New York there was so much agreement it was as if the entire Hotel Martinique would rise and float gently down Broadway. The audience laughed again and clapped, knowing it wouldn't be so, knowing they could do it if they wanted to, but it didn't have to be challenged. Because they believed it, and John McMaster believed it, and there *agreement* was all that counted. "Scientology," he said, "is essentially the study of truth...." "The basic human right," he said, "is the right to be you." There were many children in the hall. their parents let them wander with a kind of soft indulgence, and the children were never in the way; one little girl wandered from person to per- son, reaching up to grasp a lapel clumsily and be helped up onto a lap, there to sit and listen for a while until the urge to move on made her slide back down to the floor and con- tinue her wanderings. Another tot, barely walking, clutched a man's knee, tears coursing down her little face. The man, who xiv INTRODUCTION was not her father, soothed her with gentle words and picked her up and held her in his lap. In two minutes the child was asleep. In front of me, a mother wearing bell-bottomed denims, her light chestnut hair "natural," round-rimmed granny glasses on her nose, raised her poor-boy knit T-shirt and suckled her tiny son, who had been whimpering uncomfortably. No- body seemed to mind. Here was fellowship, communion, un- derstanding, *agreement*. And all the while McMaster, exuding something enormously benign, spoke on, about levels of agree- ment, about "Ron" being just somebody who was offering the world liberation, about the love he sensed around him, about - all of a sudden a digression, and he shifted his stance because he wanted us to know what had happened - wandering into one of the porny-type magazine and book stores next to the Hotel Dixie where he was staying and seeing the covetous quality of the guarded browsings of the men there, saddened to think it could not be all out in the open. It was, to me, a curious admission of appetite, and I admired McMaster for bringing it up: into the bookstore, masses of photo books, the young men pictured lax and bland-faced, pendants drooping, legs asunder, strength seeped out, eyes watching, waiting, some half-closed, a few smiles, so little joy. McMaster continued speaking with an infinite calm which seemed to emanate from some deep wellspring of febrile ten- sion kept in extraordinary check. He interspersed what he said with moments of light, graceful wit. He bathed us all in the loving clarity of Scientology's sweet reason. Then he was finished, and the congregation rose, applauding wildly, unable to make their hands and the expressions on their faces com- municate what they really felt for him as he moved sideways to an exit, raising his arm in gentle benediction, stopping to accept an embrace from a girl, nothing shy, no embarrassment - were the Apostles embarrassed? - continuing to the door, INTRODUCTION xv turning once more, right hand raised, a blessing, a grateful farewell, and he was gone. The hall emptied slowly but I lingered behind, and turning, I found myself once more staring at the photograph of L. Ron Hubbard, the man whose inventive genius had allowed Mc- Master to become the world's first *clear*. What he had said, I realized with some surprise, had not impressed me very much. In the now almost empty room, I barely remembered whether or not he had actually spoken on any particular theme. Only one thing stuck in my mind, and I saw him saying it once more, fingers of his hands touching to form a delicate bridge, his eyes slowly sweeping all of us with a look both generous and shy: "How can there be two sides to the truth?" ONE THE NOW RELIGION I I was never indifferent, or uninformed. Scientology, I had once written, was a Reality of its own, using techniques which draw on various principles: "Confession" similar to that de- veloped by Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, father of the Moral Re-Armament movement; Emile Coue's self-improve- ment teachings ("Every day and in every way, I am becoming better and better"); with elements of sensitivity training and encounter-sessions, those now-popular seventy-two hour group encounters where exhaustion finally leaves you with shredded nerve ends ready to absorb anything. As a unique reality, Scientology is, I realized, manifestly ready - and more than a little able - to absorb *people*. Scien- tology spokesmen now claim a worldwide church membership of 15,000,000. Figures for the United States vary, but it is said that Scientology enjoys a membership of 250,000 in California alone - Double the number of a year ago. As for income, the estimated weekly gross in this country is $1.4 million. And I think that these membership and weekly gross figures are modest. I had also heard various stories, had been told things, and had read things. Scientology was dangerous. A housewife in Los Angeles put $4,000 into Scientology processing because she was told it would help her overcome her frigidity. It didn't work. Her husband divorced her. 3 4 SCIENTOLOGY Scientology is insidiously taking over. In England, a village where Scientology had set up its world headquarters was sup- posedly being "bought up" by the movement, house by house and business by business. Scientology is a con game. According to the records of one police department in this country, a millionaire in Florida who said he suffered from acute "nervousness" turned to Scientology after both Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic found nothing wrong with him. Twenty-eight thousand dollars and two years later, he was still convinced Scientology processing would help him. Scientology is "an evil cloud," which "settles on a person." In Sydney, Australia, a judge sentenced a man to prison for the mishandling of funds, and said, "It is clear that a good deal of your mental difficulty is due to your association with people who call themselves Scientologists." He went on to label it "an evil cloud." "You could make a very cruel statement," said one former Scientologist who had spent enough time close to its hot center to be convinced he knew what he was talking about, "and say that Scientology is a kind of spiritual fascism. My analogy is a little ruthless, and a more fair way of saying it is that there are elements of dictatorship in it as an organization, which is basically a spiritual organization derived from a spiritual un- derstanding and methods of spiritual advancement." But I also met scores of young people, some of them the youthful drifters now becoming such a wrenching sight in our cities, others high school and college dropouts, all of whom spoke with fervid sincerity and enthusiasm as they told me of incredible personal gains they had made in Scientology, how they had suddenly "seen themselves" for the first time. They were, particularly in the strange conformity of their dedica- tion, very much like a subculture, similar to many of the seri- ous and sincere members of acid and pot subcultures I've known, glowing with that special, private knowledge and fund THE NOW RELIGION 5 of insights which is so much of the strength which brings and holds them together. Comparably, what Scientologists feel they possess is so extraordinary, so marvelous, that only giving it, forcing it if necessary, upon the rest of mankind, will ful- fill the promise of this cherished treasure. They spoke of the beauty in themselves they had never known existed, how Scientology's teachings and techniques had opened doors they thought forever closed. "The whole world has come alive," wrote one. "I can't remember when I have felt so great!" wrote another. "The most important factor," wrote a third, "was that I gained *awareness*." The one very important contrast to our other modern subcultures was that all these kids seemed to be contradicting the popular notion of disillusioned youth as they energetically embraced a philosophy which not only welcomed them with open arms, but seemed to show them A Way which was foolproof. So strong is Scientology in attracting these kids that in some instances it has done more than simply alienate children from their parents. I met one family where the total, absolute in- volvement of the children resulted in such a cataclysmic break, such a destruction of all the bonds which had kept six people together and sustained them as a family that, in desperation, the mother had decided to get into Scientology to try and understand what it was that had, in effect, taken her children from her. Within months - she told me all this in a voice which dropped at times to a nervous, confidential whisper, rising at other times to declare, posit, be strong and confident - within months she had become convinced that she had discovered a philosophy which did work, just as her children claimed, and she was certain it would eventually help her as much as it had helped them. She argued sincerely that she had experienced all of the soul-illuminating insights Scientology promises man- kind. When I asked her what her husband thought of what she had done, she grew hesitant, almost confused, and finally con- fessed she couldn't begin to describe the bitterness he felt. 6 SCIENTOLOGY He had, I realized with a shock as she tried to explain the situation, been betrayed by his entire family and now he was the outsider who refused to open his eyes and "see" the truth. Not only did he no longer know what it was that had taken his sons and daughters from him, but now he watched his wife struggle to conform to this new philosophical religion, struggling to make herself believe that through passionate acceptance of all that Scientology promises, she would achieve the only thing which really had ever mattered to her, the rediscovery and salvation of her children. Who was she, I wondered, really? Chain-smoking nervously, getting up repeatedly to refresh her drink, jumping in her conversation from one aspect of Scientology to another, mak- ing oblique references to one daughter who was off at one of Scientology's centers, to a son who was somewhere else, to her husband, whose reasonable efforts to make his own traditional, almost scholarly doubts known to all of them had been ignored and rejected with that merciless and arrogant confidence of the blind believer....Who was she? What had happened to her, and her children? How had it been done? What was I investi- gating, a genuine religion, which Scientology quite legally claims to be, or something much simpler yet at the same time incredibly more insidious, some subtle union of *The Power of Positive Thinking*, a Dale Carnegie course, some kind of self- hypnosis, and a liberal spicing of a most refined science fiction? It was a long time before I found out. My ambivalence was based, partly, on a reluctance to go out and find the flaws in what lot of people looked at as being their religion. You just don't go out and knock a religion. Just the same, there was this freaky faddishness to the whole thing, everybody talking about the celebrities getting into it: Leonard Cohen, and Tennessee Williams - prior to his conversion - and William Burroughs, and then you hear that Cass Elliot got her Grades down in St. THE NOW RELIGION 7 Thomas. Movie Star Stephen Boyd, a Grade IV Release at the time, wrote an enthusiastic letter to Scientology describing how he had used his newfound abilities to survive the rigors of location shooting in Louisiana. And now the word is that the Beatles are definitely interested! And Jim Morrison! Official Scientology publications are emphasizing the big names. "That's the sign," it said in a recent issue of *The Auditor*, the monthly journal of Scientology. "Remember twenty years ago," it went on, "when artists were taking up psychoanalysis? It's always the beginning of the big win when celebrities - song- writers, actors, artists, writers, begin to take something up." The big win. Or as Bob Thomas, a minister of the Church of Scientology who is now executive director of Scientology for the continental United States and probably the highest- ranking scientologist in the country, called it: "the most vital new movement in America today." Wherever you go, the Scientology word is being shouted at you from Dayglo posters showing an exultantly leaping man, his very vibrancy dividing his body into a discord of parallel striations. Pick up your telephone in New York and dial 565-3878, and you hear: "Hello. This is a recording inviting you to step into the exciting world of the totally free, the world of Scientology. Find out who you really are. Discover your real abilities, and how you can be in control of your own life once again. Attend or free film presentation at two P.M. every day and at four and seven- thirty Monday through Friday at forty-nine West Thirty-sec- ond Street. That's the corner of Broadway. Also, at the sound of the tone leave your name and address, and we will mail you a free information packet. And *thank you* for calling." If you leave your name and address you are bombarded by a direct- mail campaign which urges you to take courses! buy books! bring friends! On street corners everywhere attractive-looking young people hand out cards in the form of tickets which read: Admit One To Total Freedom - Film and Talk, What Scien- tology Is. Every evening of every day introductory sessions 8 SCIENTOLOGY are being held in cities all over the world. The Big Win for the Big Now Religion. Bob Thomas is a very large fleshy man with a high forehead and long, fine brown hair worn thickly combed back, giving him the appearance of a somewhat enormous George Wash- ington. His New York office, where we spoke the first time I saw him, was tastefully decorated, with a handsome red wall- to-wall carpet, paintings on the wall, and well-chosen, com- fortable furniture. His large desk had a white push-button telephone on one side and a Sony cassette tape recorder on the other. As we talked, he often leaned back to put his alligator loafers up on the desk. To the front of the desk, right in front of the leather armchair I was sitting in, was an E-Meter, Scien- tology's basic and all-important auditing tool, with his name Dymo-taped on it. Behind the desk, to the right as I faced him, books were lined up on top of a radiator which was under an air conditioner. Though the weather outside had turned brisk, the air conditioner was on. Thomas chain-smoked Spring men- thol cigarettes during our talk, and over my right shoulder, on a dresser, a color television set was on, Walter Cronkite drumming Vietnam casualty figures into my ear. I looked at the books on the radiator and noticed Adam Smith's *The Money game*, and next to it, on its side, a paperback copy of Norman O. Brown's *Love's Body*. Thomas was telling me why so many young people in particular are being drawn to Scien- tology. "Scientology has the answers these kids are looking for, plus all the ingredients of novelty, freshness, and depth. It doesn't have the old pat answers, and it validates creativity." I asked if Scientology was replacing drugs for some of them. "The drug experience," he explained in a manner which was frank and direct, using Scientology's private lingo sparingly, "produces a kind of artificially induced insight into some of the more metaphysical aspects of man's consciousness. But it's very frustrating because it is limiting, and now here's Scien- THE NOW RELIGION 9 tology, a drugless psychedelic - using, the exact meaning of the word *psychedelic*, which is soul-expanding - which deals in the very same insights without drugs. We provide the philosophical background which can he understood by young people who have taken drugs and have seen the dead end of drugs, but who are still haunted by the visions they saw. Scientology is a root to the achievement of some of these awarenesses on a natural basis, by natural means. In a warped way, kids under drugs *have* seen themselves, but that is *at effect*, not *at cause*." But what *is* it, I wondered. Did I really have to achieve an understanding of a new theology and disciplines similar to canon law? Wasn't there some simple statement which would make it all fall into place? I asked Thomas. "What we're really trying to do," he said simply, "is increase a person's confidence in being able to remember what he wants to remember and not remember what he doesn't want to remember, to increase his confidence in being able to control his memories." That made sense. Feeling somewhat enlightened, I asked Thomas how he had gotten involved in the movement. He told me he was living in New York in 1950 when L. Ron Hubbard wrote a long article for *Astounding Science Fiction* called "Evolution of a Science." He read it, and then went out and bought a copy of Hubbard's magnum opus, *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health*. "It said," Thomas said, "do this and it'll happen, and I did it, and it happened." Some- what modestly, he added, "And I've been impressed ever since." I was right back where I had started, confused, absolutely unequipped to ask the right questions, the ones which would explain to me *what* happened, what Thomas meant. "Any- body," he was saying, "who seriously looks into Scientology rapidly gets over their misgivings. But there is always the sensational treatment in the press...the opprobrious use of the word 'cult,' which implies something secret. That is *wrong*. Scientology is open." That reminded me of something and I 10 SCIENTOLOGY asked him if he thought it would be all right for me to go to the Scientology Congress coming up shortly. "You can go," he said, "but I wouldn't make a big deal about being a reporter." It was suddenly refreshing, hearing him say that, to see that he was basically a realist, and quite sensitive to what the press has reported about Scientology in the past. I had almost been convinced they were genuinely above such secular concerns. As I went down the hall from his small reception room to get my coat, he said, "You come back yourself, will you?" He meant that he wanted me to come back on my own, not on any kind of an assignment, and find out what Scientology had for me. I turned to thank him for the invitation. He was standing in the light of the reception room, his arm raised, pointing straight at me. It was almost a command, something min- isterial in his stance, his head down slightly. It was uncom- fortable and enveloping. It all became something more than the few questions I had been sorting out in my mind. It be- came, all over again, a religion, a very mysterious religion. I knew nothing. I went to the Scientology Congress. The first person I talked to there was a girl named Mary-Lou. She was tall and slender, quite attractive, very much like many of the young girls deeply involved in the movement. She had long brown hair and wore long false eyelashes, which she tried not to flutter as she stared into my eyes; being slightly nearsighted, her stare seemed even more intense. We were in the main ballroom of the Hotel Martinique. The Second Annual Eastern Scientology Congress was presumably a festive occasion because a few balloons were scotch-taped to the ceiling, several strands of wide crepe paper festooned from corner to corner, and a large banner across the front of the room proclaimed WELCOME CLASS VIII. Behind me somebody said, "There are only thirty-five Class VIII's on the planet." Most of the people there were young, good-looking, smartly dressed, the girls in miniskirts, with THE NOW RELIGION 11 good long legs and bright open faces. The guys looked healthy, composed, some of them leaning to hippie-type open shirts and beads and long hair, others in smart semi-Edwardian suits. There were also quite a few older people, men in sports jackets and sports shirts that were buttoned up to the neck, elderly women sitting on wooden folding chairs as if to rest their tired feet, professional types wearing their overcoats and expressions of concentrated involvement, retired folk with tired faces and slight smiles. Somebody had patched WABC-FM into the loudspeaker system, and the tail end of the Beatles' "Hey, Jude" was blasting its interminable non-resolution over everything. It ended, finally, and on the same station - it was weird - some warm-voiced Latin type began singing "More." A girl sitting with a few friends began mouthing the words: "*More than the greatest love I've ever known*...." There was this peculiar feeling in that room, not so much of unity, as of some kind of movement, not of being busy but of being fraternal, in *it* to- gether, talking about this and that: your Grades, Straight Wire, Power, ARC, Successes! It all *felt* like movement, like action, but when you reached out for it, it just wasn't there. Mary-Lou said she had been in Scientology for about a month and a half and it was just wonderful. Why, I asked her. What was she getting out of it? Freedom, she said, and I wondered if she had existed in some kind of bondage before Scientology. I asked her what she had done before. She just sort of shook her head. It was the same answer I would get from everybody I talked to. Before Scientology was a void, an emptiness nobody would discuss because it wasn't there. So I said, "Freedom?" to get her back to why she was in it. She smiled and nodded. "It brings out what's really me," she said with great sincerity. But, I pressed, didn't she know what she really was before? "Scientology tells you what you *really* are," she insisted, "and then shows you how to be it." I said nothing for a moment and she must have sensed a lack of enthusiasm, because she said, not in answer to any question, that in the 12 SCIENTOLOGY past four months Scientology's enrollment had grown 500 per- cent. She didn't say she had been told that, or had heard it or read it; she *told* me. I asked if that was in terms of world- wide membership and she said she wasn't quite sure. I asked if it meant this country, or New York, and she said, twice, "I'm not really sure about that, I'm not really sure about that." So I said, "But it's grown five hundred percent...." And she looked at me, struggling to maintain some kind of eye-lock which I suddenly understood was essential to people in Scien- tology, and said, "Yes, isn't that something?" I thanked her - Scientologists thank each other incessantly to indicate communication has been achieved successfully - and turned to find myself looking up at the enormous, ever- present photograph of L. Ron Hubbard. For some reason, that first time, he made me think of a cross between H. L. Hunt and Len Deighton's General Midwinter, whose million-dollar brain was going to save the freedom-loving people of the world. "I got nothing against cliches, son. It's the quickest method of communication yet invented...." Behind me a young man tapped on the microphone for our attention, and as people found seats and sat down, he explained that instead of the scheduled lecture we would hear a brand new tape from "Ron." Everyone grew quiet with that uncomfortable rustle of not being quite ready to give full attention. The young man switched on a tape recorder and left the platform. There was some continued shuffling in and out of the ballroom and I began to wonder if everybody might not make a slow, unob- trusive exodus during the speech, seeing as how the tape recorder could not possibly feel offended. I was wrong. Though there was a steady in and out at the door, more people came in than left, and by the time somebody on the tape finished introducing Hubbard to what was obviously an audience somewhere else, the applause which met him where *he* was was joined by warm applause where I was. That was spooky. It was certainly a sign of respect for Hubbard, but let's face THE NOW RELIGION 13 it, there was nobody there, just this tape recorder with its slowly turning reels, and Hubbard's even, somewhat mellow disembodied voice coming out of it. His topic was "Scientology: The Future of Western Civilization." He admitted it sounded presumptuous of him to bite off something like that, the no- tion that Scientology *was* the future of Western civilization. It was not at all presumptuous, he said, and launched into a long discourse on why man got to be the way he is. His talk touched on chaos-to-form or form-to-chaos, the latter being what history is *really* all about, the former what we are made to believe our path has been. The truth, he said, was that order - or form - preceded chaos, and it was man who was re- sponsible for the chaos. He mentioned the obliteration of the individual, and how groups can be dangerous to the individual. He said war was government's attempt to do what taxes had failed to do; sustain confusion, I suppose. At one point, after a particular comment, he said, "You get the idea?" A voice behind me unhesitatingly answered, "Yeah!" Hubbard went on to say that there is no such thing as the masses, that the Com- munist powers - the commissars, as he called them with obvious relish - are fooling themselves when they talk about the great- est good for the greatest number of people. He pointed out that all troubles stem from individual aberrations; thus it is the solution of individual aberrations which will produce the salvation of Western civilization. It was a neat return to his major topic, from which he had ranged far and wide, rambling, cajoling, tossing off a few jokes which sent chuckles rippling through our audience while his, wherever he was, laughed heartily. Then be paused, and said, almost as a directive, "So introduce a little order, okay?" Two seats away from me, Mary-Lou and several other people said softly, almost in uni- son, "Okay." Bob Thomas was in the reception room as I came out of the ballroom. He was smiling, tall, imposing; several people clus- tered around talking to him. He asked what I thought of the 14 SCIENTOLOGY Congress and I said I'd just heard the Hubbard tape. He looked around as several young girls walked by, all of them mod and very miniskirted, little bottoms sweet and round, and seemed about to say something. He caught himself, either because what he wanted to say might seem the kind of levity he wasn't used to revealing, or because he remembered I was writing about Scientology. I said goodbye to him and left. I was tired. In my mind, I tried to put some order into all I'd seen and heard. I remembered Mary-Lou telling me that Scientology's goal was to *clear* the planet within ten years. I suddenly understood that the ten years was from the *now* of her joining. There was no *fixed* date. It was a constant, a continuum, so that everybody who joins can tell themselves that, can give themselves the ultimate *raison d'etre*: Ten years from today we will have saved the planet. I was beginning to respect Scientology's ability to persuade. This was brought home to me even more tellingly when a very close friend told me why she involved herself with it. Her boy- friend had been in Scientology quite seriously, and when they began having problems, she agreed to go to several sessions to see if it might help them. "I never saw it as being a danger or anything like that," she told me. "It was a system. I wasn't sure it was a system I wanted to spend time on - I wasn't sure I wanted to spend time on *any* system investigating human functions. I was very passively involved, in that I wanted to work out my relationship with ______, and this was where he was working it out and it made sense to me to go to the same place. I remember at one point we had a really bad break and we thought we'd separate for good, and he was involved in Scientology at the time and through it it occurred to him we should try to work it out together. We stayed together another year. It had that much effect on our relationship." Investigating Scientology, I was constantly confronted by my own feelings and convictions, my own doubts and fears. THE NOW RELIGION 15 Much of what I believed about people, about their wisdom and discretion, was challenged, as if I was reluctant to admit to myself that all of us - not only young people, whose lemming- like embrace of fads and fancies is so casually put down as just kids trying to be hip - are susceptible to movements such as Scientology which profess to have all the answers. My own skepticism was something I wanted to find in everyone, par- ticularly in people already *in* Scientology. Some well-expressed doubts, I felt, would only enhance Scientology's validity. I only found unqualified enthusiasm, a determination to convince me of its enormous worth, and great efforts to get me to join. Everyone I talked to, particularly the kids trying to grab you with their eyes so that the electricity of their exuberance would crackle through to you, was only too eager to tell me about Scientology's various levels of "Release," and how they now feel "Marvelous!" and "Free!" And they were all advising me on the best way to get into Scientology: Take the Com- munications Course, you just *have* to take the Communications Course. Why the Communications Course to start with? I asked a young girl at a Scientology branch office, 30 Fifth Avenue, where I had already been several times. This time I was there to buy some books, as well as a copy of Scientology's "Classifi- cation Gradation and Awareness Chart of levels and Certifi- cates." The girl was short, dark, plumpish, with thick legs that looked bad in the black English schoolgirl stockings and abbreviated wool miniskirt she was wearing. She said the reason everyone is encouraged to take the Communications Course is that it "helps establish the reality of Scientology." I must have looked puzzled, because she said it helps you un- derstand the definition of things around you. You mean, I asked her, things we may have been seeing the wrong way? Her face lit up. "Yes," she said. "That's it!" I nodded, and then asked if she could see about a copy of 16 SCIENTOLOGY the chart. I'd been to several branches and no one seemed to have any copies. She went into the small office just off the tiny area where stacks of Scientology's books were on display. I couldn't see who was in the office, but I heard a man's voice. I heard the girl ask him if I could buy a chart - he didn't see me or know who I was. I heard him, slightly incredulous, say, "Sure, if he wants one." As if to say, why not? sell it to him. He won't make head or tail of it. His arrogance was exactly what I needed. Sure, the inten- tional mystery and complexity of Scientology was far from making sense to me, but after having visited this and other branches, I was getting some very strong feelings about the people in it; talking to them I knew I was beginning to touch the fringes of what it was all about. My very first visit to the 30 Fifth Avenue branch had been to attend one of the small weekly parties Scientology throws to bring new people in, give them a chance to rap with the gang, buy a book or two, and maybe sign up for something. Almost the first thing I had asked about was whether or not Scientology is genuinely a religion, comparable to, say, Zen Buddhism? The people I talked to said that whereas religion is an abstraction, Scientology's strength lies in the fact that it is concrete, scientifically organized, and works. They all stressed that a lot, that it works. But why bother to call your- self a religion then, I pressed. A blond, crew-cutted fellow who sat behind the desk in the branch's small reception room sat back and said, "It's a religion only in that it's tax-free." He seemed to think that would satisfy whatever reservations I had about organized religion. I nodded, and then said, as if remind- ing myself what it was that put me off religions, that at some point, by necessity, to succeed, a religion becomes punishing. They - I think there were four of us now - quickly said that there was no element of that in Scientology. I remembered that later, when I was to read in a book called *Introduction to Scientology Ethics*: "There are four general classes of crimes THE NOW RELIGION 17 and offenses in Scientology. These are ERRORS, MISDE- MEANORS, CRIMES AND HIGH CRIMES." Oh, there is *discipline*. The blond fellow told me that when he didn't fulfill his "statistic," as he called it, a control was put on him which was in effect a penalty. lie spoke in terms of five *chits*, and explained it was being penalized 5 or 10 per- cent of his salary for the week - the clear implication being that there is a quota system for everyone who works in Scien- tology. Exactly how it is measured I didn't know yet, but there was this quota system. At one point, explaining something about L. Ron Hubbard, he glanced over his right shoulder and pointed, casually, the way you would point to a minor objet d'art as you strolled down the halls of the Louvre, to the obligatory 11 x 14 photograph of Hubbard, looking down upon us. I should describe this particular branch office because it was typical of many of the offices I would eventually visit. The small room we were in, the reception room, had a desk, with an easy chair next to it. Two easy chairs sat opposite the desk, with a potted plant between them. the desk was set at an angle to the door, to face any visitors who came in through the front door, which led directly off 12th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. To my right - I was sitting in one of the two easy chairs facing the desk behind which the blond fellow was telling me that after eight years in the Navy he retold Scien- tology to be much better organized than the Navy - to my right was a small room with the piles and piles of Scientology books arranged on a table. Next to this room was the "execu- tive" office of the branch. To my left was a hallway which led to several other rooms. In the hallway a wall had been made over into a large bulletin board. Most of the notices on it, be- sides a list of what a good Scientologist does, and a list of what a good Auditor does, and rules for the *Preclear*, were short little notes from people in Scientology called "Successes." Each is a small, heartfelt testimonial to Scientology: "My ability to 18 SCIENTOLOGY communicate has increased greatly and people find me much more desirable to communicate with." "Life is really worth living. I appreciate everything Ron is doing more than ever. Everyone come on the Road to Clear and O.T....IT'S FREE- DOM." Each "Success" carries the name of the person making the testimonial and its date. They are all a little like those votive offerings you find at the shrines of saints in churches throughout Greece, those small silvered plaques depicting parts of the body, put up by people who have been restored to health; in gratitude, once healthy, they bring flowers to the particular plaque because their backache or foot ache or eye discomfort has miraculously disappeared. Beyond the bulletin board, all by itself, was posted a copy of the Classification Gradation and Awareness Chart of Levels and Certificates. I was reading off such things as "Relief Re- lease" and "O/W ARC Process Case Remedies," and it made absolutely no sense to me, when a young fellow began talking to me. He proudly showed me where he was on the chart, a Grade IV - "Ability Release," I read. "Moving Out Of Fixed Conditions and Gaining Abilities To Do New Things." "There are several Grade IV's around here," he was saying. Then he pointed to a woman who was sitting off to the side in one of the rooms talking to somebody. "She's an O.T.III," he said with enormous respect. An O.T., I learned eventually, was an *operating thetan*, the ultimate. This woman was at the third level of achieving that sublime state, where, if I understood the oblique references made to O.T., you would be revered and listened to, and would possess *incredible* abilities - being able to walk on water or something, yet wise enough to know that it was not necessary to walk on the water to prove you could do it. The young Grade IV suddenly offered to give me a small demonstration of the first thing you get in the Communications Course. As he was leading me over to some chairs stacked against the wall, he told me the course cost twenty-five dollars. THE NOW RELIGION 19 Later, his girlfriend, a pretty little thing with blonde hair and thin-outlined eyes that were wide and friendly, told me, "It's twenty-five dollars for the Communications Course, and if you don't dig it, they refund it." So her boyfriend tried to give me a simple demonstration of what is called *Confrontation*. He set a chair opposite mine and sat down, and the point was we were to stare at each other. We were to sit there and dig each other, free of all the little things we let intrude when all we should he doing is *looking* at someone. I suppose the procedure could make people who don't *like* to do that overcome their resistance to it. I suppose I could even convince someone that not being able to stare comfortably at a person is a hang-up to get rid of. It all felt a trifle self-conscious-making and we soon gave up on each other. Back in the reception room, the blond guy behind the desk was about to say something when a young English girl walked in. He saw her, greeted her, and said, "I want to get your Success right away." The girl was surprised. "Already?' she asked. "I only finished my Grades last week." "Yes," the boy said. "We want to get it as quickly as possible when somebody Releases." Releases. Insights. The terminology was getting to me, this private language which made it all a very private world. The girl said, about herself, "We've been clearing up quite a few engrams, some minor ones. We've located one which we can see is going to he a bit of a problem." She seemed proud of that. She had a problem. Something to sink your teeth into. My own feeling was that if it was a matter of dredging up a cranky wisdom tooth which refused to budge, okay. But these so-called *engrams*, as used in the lexicon of Scientology, are episodes in your past which left deep impressions, no matter how you recorded the event, consciously or unconsciously. Confessing to some clown staring at the needle readings off a simple meter, a Wheatstone bridge setup, that you watched 20 SCIENTOLOGY your older brother groping with Mom did not seem the most fortuitous way to nullify the effect of that particular moment. What the young English girl had said was additionally un- pleasant because it smacked of the same kind of blithe, guile- less simplicity I used to run across in behavioral psychology textbooks. I prefer complexity. Rats in a maze, I believed somewhat naively, isn't you and me, Charlie. I couldn't help but compare the outright blandness of the girl's "We've located one which we can see is going to be a bit of a problem" to the wrenching confession which confronts you in the unforgettable documentary film *Warrendale*. One of the children at Warrendale, the school for the emotionally disturbed, a girl, beautiful, sublimely lovely, reaches into her- self and manages to say to one of the attendants, a calm, caring woman, that what she fears most of all in the whole world is that she will never, ever get well! It is a moment so crushing, so absolutely crushing, I shall never forget it. You not only are made to absorb this fact within the context of the girl's emotional state, her illness, but in that moment, because of how we've watched her wake up and dress and eat and lose her temper and scream and cry and then speak, you *know* where that confession came from; you know and you finally love the infinite complexity and tragedy of this girl because she is truly *alive*. My own suspicion that Scientology was dangerously sim- plistic was further strengthened when I began reading some of the inexhaustible number of Scientology books, almost all of them written by L. Ron Hubbard. All of them seem to be, in their body, somewhat like all the books that keep coming out on the subject of bridge: How To Bid, How To Lead, How To Be Dummy...they go on and on and on. Which makes sense because it sustains interest and inertia. It is, in fact, the simplest way to breathe life into the movement. Hubbard lives, the books say to us; he lives and he thinks and continues handing down the Word. Despite the fact that I already felt, THE NOW RELIGION 21 firmly, that most of the Scientologists urging me to read the books had not necessarily done so themselves, I did, from cover to cover. It was a chilling task, both numbing and annoying. What it all got down to, what was drenched in complexity, was the following message: You Can Do It, Fella! All By Your- self! Alone! Because Your Mind Is A Perfect Machine! And... you *cannot fail*. That's the hooker. You *cannot fail*. I should say the phrase in hushed tones, with reverence, wondering whether my own material self is capable of absorbing the enormity of that concept. And Hubbard, possibly because of his early experience as a writer of action science fiction, eschews lower case and con- tinually lets you have it with all-capitals firing. YOU CAN- NOT FAIL. Got that? YOU CANNOT FAIL...CANNOT ...CANNOT...CANNOT. That is one hell of a beautiful promise: attain the unattain- able; it *is* accessible. That is so much more attractive than merely learning How To Win Friends & Influence People, or pepping yourself up by Thinking Positive, or even getting caught up in the passion of a fiery revival meeting and Stand- ing Up For Christ. And as opposed to traditional religions which speak of *someday*, in Scientology it is...soon. But then reality seems to step in, clumps in, in the person of the franchised Scientology branch, with its office and auditing rooms - often converted maids' rooms, the whole place usually a converted apartment. And the thought crosses my mind that if, two thousand years from now, the followers of the infallible system known today as Scientology record their humble be- ginnings, will the detailed descriptions of their difficult origins include the surroundings of neat lower-Fifth Avenue apart- ments as well as seedy West Side apartments, where *Preclears* step through a kitchen to reach the auditing room, where bare floors and folding chairs and a lack of ventilation accompanied it all as this determined science of the mind stood up to make itself known. Will all that mean as much to people in two thousand years as did the simple caves of the early Christians - 22 SCIENTOLOGY a fetid, difficult, impossible sustaining of a faith which, because it represented a political alienation, was seen to be dangerous and therefore had to be eradicated? Is that what is missing from Scientology as a modern religion, a feeling held in com- mon by its followers that there is something dangerous in the air, something antisocial, something which may push them and their beliefs to an ultimate risk? Scientology has of course received a great deal of criticism, much of it serious and sincerely concerned with what Scien- tology's processing techniques might do to what is popularly called "mental health." *Life* magazine published a lengthy, extremely subjective piece written by Alan J. Levy who took Scientology processing up to and including Grade IV. "I have Hubbard to thank," he wrote, "for a true-life nightmare that gnawed at my family relationships and saddled me with a burden of guilt I've not yet been able to shed....I explored some nooks and crannies of my own psyche that I wish to God had never been unearthed." I asked Bob Thomas what he thought of the article. He was of two minds. "There were," he said, "fortunately, a couple of redeeming features. You get the impression that here is a very vital, powerful, worldwide spiritual movement, in spite of the fact that it [Levy's article] is presented in a very kooky way." I hadn't found the piece at all kooky. What happened was that during the course of the processing, Levy relived the anguish of his father's death, feeling he was somehow personally responsible for an inade- quate response to the tragedy. Then, at one level, he was made to isolate the date of what he remembered to be a particularly serious argument he had with his wife. With his auditor's help he ruled the date, Sunday, March 18, 1958. Later, beginning to suffer severe headaches, he discovered that March 18, 1958, had been a Tuesday. He felt, he wrote, that he had been made to believe something which was simply not the truth. To this, Thomas said, "He tried to fool the meter-" Levy had not mentioned he was researching a piece for *Life* at any time THE NOW RELIGION 23 while being audited by someone using Scientology's E-meter - "which *always* gives you a headache. We could've told him that." Thomas laughed. I asked what might have happened if Levy had said be was working for *Life* magazine. Rather than suggest Levy then might not have been allowed to continue, Thomas said, "He would've continued to have the insights that he relates having had. But it [the lie] caught up to him. Actually," he added, "his insights there are quite typical, quite classic, as a matter of fact, up to the point where his basic withholding of himself from full participation catches up to him. He couldn't fully participate because be was unwilling to really present himself as he was, fully. It's like going to a doctor, or going to a dentist to have a tooth pulled, and telling him it's *this* tooth, not the real one that hurts. So he pulls the one that doesn't hurt and you've still got the one that does hurt." As if I wasn't beginning to think so myself, Thomas said, "These techniques are very powerful, and when you go into a situation on a dishonest basis to begin with they can be shattering only because you're using something that's very powerful and direct, at the wrong targets, and you're not really participating validly. Not telling about being a reporter is a 'basic withhold.' Which, in terms of our technology of the reactive mind, activates the reactive mind. If you withhold something, it tends to reactivate the charge in the reactive mind. That's why we insist on no 'withholds,' on a very high degree of honesty. So if you have the finagle factor involved at the outset of the thing, no wonder it didn't go well. I'm surprised it went as well as it did. But the undeniable im- pression you get as you read his accounts of the processing is that something happened, he had some insights, in spite of the fact that be wasn't really there to do that." I was impressed with what Levy had tried to do. He had put himself on the line to learn the facts. Feeling what I did about Scientology, his experience only made me more un- comfortable, and I wondered if there was a way to *experience* 24 SCIENTOLOGY the whole thing without getting trapped. I encouraged myself by telling myself that many of the young people I had met were in it only because it was the Now thing to be in. I saw an invisible joyless quality to Scientology which would eventu- ally discourage some of the younger people who were look- ing for excitement and entertainment. The weekly party at 30 Fifth Avenue was particularly typical to me. No one there was ever on any kind of a defensive when I pressed them about Scientology, but there was a blandness and an atmosphere which resolved itself, finally, into a kind of desultory joy. There was openness, but there was also a little boredom. I thought in particular of the little blonde and her Grade IV boyfriend. For her I knew it was all a social gathering and she would one day get tired and cut out. She had been in Scientology, only a month and a half and must have joined because of the boy. She probably walked in one day, found him there, and stayed. For the moment, Scientology was happening. She was the one to first tell me about the celebrities getting into it. "*Jim Mor- rison*," she said, and rolled her eyes. "I mean, that's what they say...but *then* - Wow!" What she was trying to say was that it *may* have been true - Scientology was not above using names to enhance its image - but if it was true...wow! What I felt in that branch office was that all of them, all the good-looking kids who permeate Scientology and give it a well-scrubbed gloss which is enormously advantageous, believe in Scien- tology. Up to a critical point, a point I sensed instinctively rather than saw. And then they either became members of the staff and accepted a few hard realities, like the risk of not producing and being docked a few *chits*, or they suddenly realized they were beginning to lead double lives: they talked about how honest and direct and responsible and *able* they were, but then you see them begin to exchange small looks which you've seen somewhere else - an uncertainty about ap- pearing totally involved, at ease, or *at cause*, as Scientology calls it. An ego thing, as someone was to call it much later. THE NOW RELIGION 25 Is it all that *real*? is what they seem to be asking each other with their eyes. One incident in particular made it all come to life and showed me something of the quality of the belief these young people had. The little blonde girl sat down across from her Grade IV and they began to stare at each other. It went on for a long long time, and suddenly it was like being back in high school, at some dance or party, where you've run out o[ things to talk about, dances to dance, risks to take, dreams to dream, and you unexpectedly find yourself in a staring contest with your date, and that contest becomes the most important thing in the world, and you stare and stare and stare, and just be- fore you lose it, just before it goes, you suddenly wonder, my God, what is it I'm supposed to see there in her eyes? Isn't this just a simple exercise of wills? That was the innocence I began to feel about all of them, a wonderful, loving inno- cence of being able to survive a test of wills, as well as a test of what they were convinced they could bring out of them- selves. The individual has become preeminent, and there is no such thing as mediocrity. We are all important. We all count. Someone named L. Ron Hubbard is telling us incessantly that we not only count, but count in superlatives. Yes, it is so very much like a test of wills, but in that, it becomes a small act of faith. In the best writings about faith, and the problems of faith what is ultimately most moving and affecting is that at a cer- tain point all cant and ritual are torn away, all the beauty and solemnity and mystery of a church are done away with, and the individual finds himself confronted with his own capacity to *believe*. L. Ron Hubbard seems to appeal to the other side of that coin, to the idea that one needn't risk believing in an abstraction which may some day capriciously break his heart when, by using a very complicated and tinkertoy-like set of sophisticated steps, he can achieve pure rationale. What trou- bled me was that Hubbard was receiving more than undivided 26 SCIENTOLOGY attention from the people in Scientology. He had their faith. That was why I felt a small sense of betrayal as I continued to investigate Scientology. When I spoke to people whose beliefs I was trying to assemble so that I could *grasp* it, my very questioning was a form of attack. But Scientologists do have trust in the system, and by virtue of trusting their system they, seeing me among them, trusted me. It was disarming. If I was ever to understand Scientology for whatever it is, genuinely a religion, or a lesser social movement, or just a "cult," I had to begin with the man who had made it all come to life, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. "Ron." "RON" II To most people in Scientology, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard is accessible only as a disembodied voice on a reel of tape, or as the source of a never-ending stream of books, pamphlets, mimeographed bulletins and directives, or as somebody they once saw on film, seated behind a large desk, patiently an- swering questions about Scientology. The man they see in the film wears an open-necked shirt and exudes a sense of enor- mous self-confidence, tempered with a certain joviality and homeyness. He is sleek and sure, with the suggestion of some- thing once robust, totally in command, snatching at random, as he speaks, for simple analogies with which to prove a point, unexpectedly somber at the thought of man's inability to see what existence is all about. The voice itself is rich, with a kind of Don McNeill rolling of the "r's," and careful enunciation of words which are particularly telling to the comprehension of a particular thought. Where once, according to once-intimate acquaintances, there was an immediate sense of sheer power, of a "very big" man, with "tremendous" even "fantastic charm," not unlike *Henry VIII*, a man with "a powerful mind," and "a bit cynical," there is now calm and control and something very patriarchal. Today, living in semimystical isolation on a converted ex- cattle boat in the Mediterranean, L. Ron Hubbard has, with characteristic grandeur, officially retired from the public arena, 27 28 SCIENTOLOGY having withdrawn to his secular seclusion for the purpose of continuing his "studies and researches." Assembling the facts of Hubbard's personal history was ex- tremely difficult because whatever information I was able to unearth carried within itself seeds of its own contradiction. For example, references to places and events were written to imply that Hubbard had been on the spot without coming right out and saying unequivocally that L. Ron Hubbard had, on such and such a date, been *there* and done *this*, and if you wish you can quickly verify this by checking *The New York Times Index*, or *Who's Who*, or *The Encyclopaedia Britannica*, or...*some- thing*. As a result, I began to wonder whether information given was always accurate, or whether one made conclusions about the man which were based on vague comments he might once have dropped, and had not disputed when they crept into print, as if to help create that aura of being shrouded in that charismatic vagueness obligatory to all men of vision. The technique of implication which Hubbard used - and continues to use - is clearly evident in the following, which he wrote in his book *Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science*: I remember one time learning Igoroti, an Eastern primitive language, in a single night. I sat up by kerosene lantern and took a list of words that had been made by an old missionary in the hills of Luzon - the Igorot had a very simple language. This missionary had phoneticised their language and he had made a list of their main words and their usage and grammar. And I remember sitting up under a mosquito net with the mosquitoes hungrily chomping their beaks just outside the net, and learning this language - three hundred words - just memorizing these words and what they meant. And the next day I started to get them in line and align them with people, and was speaking Igoroti in a very short time. I don't dispute that Hubbard did find himself at some point in the Philippines. This was more than confirmed for me when I talked to Jack Horner, who for many years had been if not the most dedicated of Scientologists, then certainly among the "RON" 29 first and the most faithful. Now working and living in Chicago, where he is an actor and free-lance writer and is developing his own system of thought which he is calling "Dianology," Horner told me: "I have a very parallel background to Hub- bard: My father was in the Navy, my father was from Mon- tana, I grew up for part of my childhood in the Orient. Hub- bard and I even swam in the same swimming pool, only at different times; in Cavite, in the Philippine Islands. Near Manila, before World War II, there were some large naval bases, and there was a town called Cavite, which was fight near Manila. And the Cavite swimming pool had salt water, and Hubbard and I got to discussing this one day and realized we had actually swum in the same swimming pools out there." This is the kind of tantalizing reference which is continually being fleshed out to form a substantial element in L. Ron Hubbard's past. Nothing is ever absolutely precise, and we are never sure when and under what circumstances he did something or went someplace. And it is all cloaked in a kind of prophet's discontent. Hubbard was in the U.S. Navy. That is certain. And he was raised for some years of his life in Montana, on the cattle ranch owned by his maternal grandfather. He was born on March 13, 1911, in Tilden, Nebraska. His father was Commander H. R. Hubbard, U.S.N., and his mother was Ledora May Hubbard nee Waterbury. But even these few bedrock facts may be open to question. When I was talking to Horner, he suddenly said, "By the way, if you want to check his birthplace and birth date, you will find there is no record." You mean, I said, in Tilden, Nebraska? "Yep," Horner said. Well, I asked, where was Hubbard born? "I don't know," Horner said. "But you won't find any records there." Is it true, I asked further, that Hubbard's father was in the Navy? "Yes," Horner said, "though I'm not sure whether that was his father or his stepfather. His [Hubbard's] son told me that years ago, and then recently somebody doing research tried to find a record of his birth in 30 SCIENTOLOGY Tilden and couldn't." Regarding Ron Hubbard's own military career, Horner said, "I'm sure he was in the Navy, but I'm sure a lot of the things he said happened in the Navy didn't." Assuming Hubbard's father was his true father, the family was Scottish on the father's side and came to this country in the nineteenth century. Hubbard has embellished these bare bones by claiming other ancestry as well, particularly a Count de Loup, "who entered England with the Norman invasion and became the founder of the English de Wolfe family which emigrated to America in the seventeenth century." This is an attractive, even thrilling, notion, but in all fairness to the Almanach de Gotha, I must mention that in one of Hubbard's science-fiction adventures, he created a character named Mike de Wolfe - de Wolfe being the anglicized version of de Loup - who found himself back in 1640 as Miguel Saint Raoul Maria Gonzales Sebastian de Mendoza y Toledo Francisco Juan Tomaso Guerrero de Brazo y Leon de Lobo. De Lobo is Span- ish for de Loup, which is French for...de Wolfe. Which inspired which? Hubbard lived on his grandfather's Montana ranch until he was ten. A brief biography which appeared in *Scientology: The Field Staff Magazine*, written in a declamatory style which was to become increasingly familiar to me, said that he "could ride before he could walk," and "later became a blood brother of the Blackfeet (Pikuni) Indians, and his first novel, pub- lished in 1936, concerns them." The reference is probably to *Buckskin Brigade*, which appeared in hardcover in 1937. Hubbard left Montana to rejoin his family, and when he was twelve was living in Washington, D.C., where Calvin Coolidge, Jr., was supposedly one of his best friends. The sudden death of the President's young son was supposed to have inspired Hubbard's "early interest in mental research." The biography I'm quoting goes on to relate that when Hubbard was fourteen years old, his father was sent to the Far East, and it was not long before the boy found himself in "RON" 31 China, spending the next few years traveling throughout Asia. In northern China and India, the anonymous biographer ex- plains, "he became intensely curious about the composition and destiny of Man, and studied on the one hand with Lama Priests, and made himself agreeable on the other hand to war- like people by his ability to ride." In 1930, this biography continues, Hubbard returned to Washington, D.C., and was enrolled at George Washington University. I found, however, that Hubbard had attended Helena High School in Helena, Montana, and had then come to Washington, D.C., where, in June of 1930, he graduated from Woodward School for Boys, a YMCA preparatory school. When, I asked myself, did he travel throughout Asia? Hubbard's career at George Washington University is im- portant because many of his researches and published con- clusions have been supported by his claims to be not only a graduate engineer, but "a member of the first United States course in formal education in what is called today nuclear physics." The facts are that Hubbard never received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. He flunked freshman physics, was placed on probation in September of 1931, and failed to return to the university after the 1931-32: academic year. In later years, in addition to the "C.E." which he allowed to appear after his name, he added a "Ph.D." It eventually came out that the degree had been "granted" by Sequoia University, a nonaccredited California institution with the reputation of being something of a diploma mill. The inhospitable memories of academic life did not seem to dim Hubbard's ravenous curiosities and zest for adventure. The biography in question states that upon leaving college, whenever that might have been, he led an expedition into Central America. "In the next few years he headed three fur- ther expeditions, all of them undertaken to study savage peo- ples and cultures to provide material for his articles and stories. Between 1933 and 1941 he visited many barbaric 32 SCIENTOLOGY cultures and yet found time to write seven million words of published fact and fiction." Put this all together and you have very few facts about the first thirty years of the man's life. I was very lucky to stumble across a zippy little profile which appeared in the July 1934 issue of a West Coast magazine called *The Pilot*, "The Magazine for Aviation Personnel," which threw a bit more light on Hubbard's youth. "Whenever two or three pilots are gathered together around the Nation's Capital," the col- umn's author, one H. Latana Lewis II, wrote, "whether it be a Congressional hearing or just in the back of some hangar, you'll probably hear the name of L. Ron Hubbard mentioned, accompanied by such adjectives as 'crazy,' 'wild,' and 'dizzy.' For the flaming-haired pilot hit the city like a tornado a few years ago and made women scream and strong men weep by his aerial antics." The colorful little sketch goes on to tell how Hubbard - "(also known as 'Flash')" - had stayed out west only long enough to be born, that he had then traveled all over the world, and eventually "fell from grace and became an aviator." Lewis reveals that Hubbard had already been, by the tender age of twenty-three, "a top sergeant in the Marines, radio crooner, newspaper reporter, gold miner in the West Indies, and movie director-explorer, having led a motion picture expedition into the south seas aboard an ancient windjammer." Hubbard then turned to flying a glider and became so proficient and fearless that he could make a sailplane perform stunts which brought "undertakers...out to the field...." Lewis gives a brief, vivid account of one day in Chicago when "Flash" took up a glider and kept it aloft so long sailing on the heat waves rising from the baked tarmac that he set some record "for sustained flight over the same field." Turning to power planes, the amazing Hubbard is credited with soloing his first time in a prop-driven craft, and quickly began to barnstorm around the country, flying "under every "RON" 33 telephone wire in the Middle West." The piece concludes by saying that "after being one of aviation's most distinguished hell-raisers, he finally settled down with great dignity and became director of the flying club at George Washington Uni- versity. And to make his taming complete, he took unto him- self a co-pilot, a very wise and charming little aviatrix, whom Ron refers to as 'the skipper.' At present," the piece ends, "our young hero is buzzing around on the West Coast, where he writes magazine stories between flights. His playboy days over, he is now recognized as one of the outstanding glider pilots in the country." The whole question of exactly how many expeditions Hub- bard actually led into the uncharted wastes of Central America when he was not buzzing cows and hopping hedges from coast to coast is left unanswered. It is a fact that in 1940 - not 1936 as his Scientology biography asserts - he was duly elected a member of the august Explorer's Club in New York. On his application, which Ward Randol, the club's executive director, refused to let me see because it was against policy, Hubbard wrote that since 1931 he had supported himself as a writer, specializing in adventure, with an outpost over the nine years of four million words.* In explaining the circumstances of Hubbard's election to the club, Mr. Randol told me in no un- certain terms that he personally knew the members who had sponsored Hubbard and certainly does not hesitate to vouch for their integrity and judgment. What is more, Randol was quite ready to reveal, in 1940 Hubbard made his first expedi- tion as a member of the Explorer's Club, and was granted the club flag to carry on his voyage, a distinct honor given only when a member's application and description of an intended expedition has been given the severest scrutiny. "It's easier to * This business of how many words Hubbard has actually written and had published insinuates itself perpetually though unobtrusively and manages to play a continuing role in reaffirming the substantiality of his labors. The figure also fluctuates enormously. 34 SCIENTOLOGY get money from us," Randol said drily, "than it is to get the flag. The flag is awarded only to members, and is treated rather jealously." Hubbard's expedition that year was to Alaska, under the title of the Alaskan-Radio Expedition. In the years since, Hubbard has made two more voyages flying the Ex- plorer's Club flag, one in 1961, an Oceanographic-Archeo- logical Expedition, and one in 1966, the Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition. Much earlier, by 1941, American science-fiction fans were already familiar with Hubbard's distinctive writing style, which was bold and highly imaginative. His first serials began to appear in a pulp magazine called *Astounding Science Fiction* in 1938. One after another, titles such as *Slaves of Sleep*, *King- slayer*, *Typewriter in the Sky*, *Fear*, *Death's Deputy*, and *Final Blackout* were eagerly welcomed by devoted fans. In addition to his own name, Hubbard also wrote under a variety of pen names, including Rene Lafayette (whose work appeared in such magazines as *Thrilling Wonder Stories* and *Startling*), Winchester Remington Colt, and, I suspect, some of the pe- ripheral characters with names such as Jules Montcalm and Kurt von Rachne who popped up in his stories. Moments in some of his sagas are particularly interesting be- cause they offer insights into the workings of Hubbard's sense of fantasy, an imagination which was to achieve its full flower years later in Scientology. *Typewriter in the Sky* was the story of one Mike de Wolfe, who found himself trapped in the past as the unwilling villain of a swashbuckling tale being churned out by a science-fiction writer named Horace Hackett. How it happened never quite makes sense to Mike, but "he had no doubt at this was 'Blood and Loot,' by Horace Hackett, and that the whole panorama was activated only by Horace Hack- ett's mind. And what Horace Hackett said was so, was so. And what Horace Hackett said people said, they said." Mike eventu- ally survived what he suspected was going to be a nasty finish, not because Horace Hackett wanted him dead, but because "RON" 35 he knew how Horace's prolific mind resolved his melodramas. The end of the book finds Mike miraculously back in New York, at first grateful to have survived, thinking of seeing all of his old friends again. Then, remembering how he had wandered into Hackett's bathroom only to hear a typewriter begin to type and have everything disappear, only to awaken on a beach in the year 1640. Mike grows furious. It was Horace who had been responsible for the fate he had suffered, the killing of men he did not know, the falling in love with a woman he knew could never be his because she was just one of Hackett's creations. And then..."Abruptly Mike de Wolfe stopped. His jaw slackened a trifle and his hand went up to his mouth to cover it. His eyes were fixed upon the fleecy clouds which scurried across the moon. Up there - God? In a dirty bathrobe?" In a novella entitled *Fear*, Hubbard told of James Lowry, an ethnologist particularly fascinated by the notion of demonol- ogy in modern society, who, in what can only be described as a moment of blind jealousy, murders his wife and best friend, and then blanks out, growing steadily convinced that he is being secretly controlled by actual demons for reasons which he cannot understand. At one point in the story he hotly de- fends an article he has written on his favorite subject. "I have sought," Lowry argues, "to show that demons and devils were invented to allow some cunning member of the tribe to gain control of his fellows by the process of inventing something for them to fear and then offering to act as interpreter-" Much later, just before everything falls back into some kind of order in his mind and he realizes what he has done, Lowry actually confronts what he knows to be his demons. They have told him he is the "Entity." "You are the Entity, the center of control. Usually all life, at fleeting instants, takes turns in passing this along. Now 36 SCIENTOLOGY perhaps you have, at one time in your life, had a sudden feeling, 'I am I'? Well, that awareness of yourself is akin to what men call godliness. For an instant nearly every living thing in this world has been the one Entity, the focal point for all life. It is like a torch being passed from hand to hand. Usually innocent little children such as myself are invested [the *demon* has appeared in the guise of a four-year-old girl with blonde locks, bow lips, and lewd eyes] and so it is that a child ponders much upon his identity." Lowry does not seem to understand completely. The *demon* explains. "So long as you live, then the world is animated. So long as you walk and hear and see, the world goes forward. In your immediate vicinity, you understand, all life is con- centrating upon demonstrating that it is alive. It is not. Others are only props for you....You are the Entity, the only living thing in this world." Gripping and inventive, the story is interesting because Hubbard later uses this idea of man's capacity to realize his godlike "Entity" in some of Scientology's fundamental beliefs and theories. World War II found Hubbard an officer in the U.S. Navy, commissioned, according to the Scientology biography, before Pearl Harbor. "He was ordered to the Philippines at the out- break of the war and was flown home in the late spring of 1942 as the first U.S. returned casualty from the Far East." What his wounds were is unknown, but he was in sufficiently good trim to be ordered at once to take command of a corvette, this due, it is said, to his considerable experience with small boats. He spent most of 1942 with his corvette and with the British and American antisubmarine vessels of the North At- lantic, rising to command an entire squadron. In 1943 he was back in the Pacific. No mention is made of the name of the ship he served on, in which campaigns, and in what capacity, but Hubbard has said on several occasions that it was he who provided Thomas Heggen with the model for "Mr. Roberts." This has never been substantiated. Heggen, before his un- "RON" 37 timely death in 1949, would only say about Roberts: "He is too good to be true, he is a pure invention." When the war was over, Hubbard, to continue quoting his revealing, anonymously authored, and totally unsubstantiated biography, was "crippled and blind....He resumed his studies of philosophy," this document goes on, "and by his discoveries so fully recovered that he was reclassified in 1949 for full combat duty. It is a matter of medical record that he has twice been pronounced dead and that in 1950 he was given a perfect score on mental and physical fitness reports....Re- volted by war and Man's inhumanity to Man, he resigned his commission rather than assist government research projects." With due respect to Hubbard's personal feelings of revulsion for war and man's inhumanity to man, I was unable to con- firm a single one of these critical claims: that he had been crippled and blind, the nature of his "discoveries," and the medical records stating he had "twice been pronounced dead." I flew to Washington, D.C., and learned that the Unite States Navy would not confirm or deny the details of Hub- bard's military career. "The records of members and former members of the armed forces," I was told in an official letter from the Department of the Navy, "are privileged in nature and information therefrom cannot be furnished without the written consent of the person whose records are concerned." I was able to learn, in conver- sations I had when I was in Washington, that Hubbard had been commissioned before the war broke out, that his rank during his military service was that of lieutenant, and that his classification or specialty was DVS, something called Deck Volunteer Specialist, if I understood the designation correctly. It also seems he did spend some time in a military hospital. Several ex-Scientologists have told me that Hubbard was an outpatient while in the Navy, and that he felt free to roam around the grounds and wards and make friends with various patients, particularly those with psychological disturbances. It 38 SCIENTOLOGY may be one of those apocryphal tales which only serves to cement the notion of already-developing wisdom and insight, but I think it is essentially true. Gary Watkins, a young man who had been a highly placed auditor* in Scientology at the time of being expelled by the movement, says that Hubbard, in the hospital, would talk to various patients. "He had lots of doubts about the theory [theories of mental illnesses] and would run off and find out what they knew - the experts in the books - about these patients and their cases, and then probably made his own extensions on that, and would sort of meet them casually in the garden and try to treat them." After the war, according to an article in the *Saturday Eve- ning Post* in 1964, Hubbard "banged around L.A. and Pasa- dena, where he was known as a fellow of an intense curiosity." Hubbard himself says that he first went to Hollywood as a screenwriter in 1936. This may be so, but the only screenplay which can be directly attributed to him is a fifteen-episode serial made by Columbia Pictures called *The Secret of Treasure Island*. I could find no mention anywhere of what happened to his wife, "the skipper," as Hubbard had called her, though he was, by the end of the war, the father of two children, a son, L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., nicknamed "Nibs," now working for a home protection agency in the Pacific Northwest, and a daughter, Kay. Hubbard himself has said only that his first wife died. Whatever the facts may be, Hubbard was certainly a man of nervous versatility. Yet the wandering glider pilot and small- boats mariner who once sang and played the banjo on a radio program in California seemed gripped, in his various stories, by a genuine determination to explore the helplessness of man *Scientology's own official definition of an auditor is: "A listener or one who listens carefully to what people have to say. An auditor is a person trained and qualified in applying Scientology processes to others for their betterment." The application of Scientology processes is called auditing, and will be defined and examined at length later. "RON" 39 as he inhabits his body, of being constricted by his own shell and thus unable to discover the higher meanings of existence. In one tale, *Death's Deputy*, the story of a fighter pilot chosen by Death to lead a charmed life which magnetically surrounds itself with tragedy after tragedy to create a source of supply for Death, the ill-fated hero is led to meet Death by a mes- senger who, when the pilot unconsciously touches his collar and finds no flesh there, says, "Don't be a fool. Does a man have to drag a body everywhere?" So it was the *mind* of man which fascinated Hubbard, and his biography emphasizes that life and travel in Asia kindled the flame of this interest. Expeditions into savage wildernesses intensified his hunger for knowledge and resulted, in 1938, in the writing of a book which has never been published. Its sub- ject, according to Hubbard, was "the basic principles of human existence." Its name: *Excalibur*. Like the steel of its namesake, the title rings on the imagination. "Mr. Hubbard wrote this work in 1938," advertising copy announced in the early 1950's. "When four of the first fifteen people who read it went insane, Mr. Hubbard withdrew it and placed it in a vault where it has remained until now. Copies to selected readers only and then on signature. Released only on sworn statement not to permit other readers to read it. Contains data not to be re- leased during Mr. Hubbard's stay on earth. The complete fast formula for clearing. The secret not even *Dianetics* disclosed. Facsimile of original, individually typed for manuscript buyer. Gold-bound and locked. Signed by author. Very limited. Per copy...$1,500." Somewhat conflicting details about this phenomenal work were revealed in the July 1952 issue of *Science-Fiction Ad- vertiser*, a sort of science-fiction newsletter published in Glen- dale, California. The article was written by a science-fiction devotee named Arthur J. Cox and related how, in 1948, Hub- bard had told his fans about "dying" for eight minutes during 40 SCIENTOLOGY an operation performed on him while in the Navy. According to Cox, Hubbard realized that, while he was dead, he had received a tremendous inspiration, a great Message which he must im- part to others. He sat at his typewriter for six days and nights and nothing came out. Then, *Excalibur* emerged. *Excalibur* contains the basic metaphysical secrets of the universe. He sent it around to some publishers; they all hastily rejected it....He locked it away in a bank vault. But then, later, he informed us that he would try publishing a "diluted" version of it....*Dianetics*, I was recently told by a friend of Hubbard's, is based upon one chapter of *Excalibur*. Whatever the price tag, *Excalibur* has actually inspired fans to try and buy it. Jack Horner told me of being with Hubbard in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1953, when Hubbard was living and lecturing there, "and some guy came to the door trying to buy it. Well, Hubbard sent the guy away - handled him - and then looked at me and Jim Pinkham, and smiled." The moment seemed right, so Horner, who had begun to wonder if *Ex- calibur* really exists, got up enough courage and asked Hub- bard point-blank. "I don't really recall word for word what he said," Horner went on, 'but he implied that *Excalibur* was something that had been put there to create interest." "You mean Hubbard made the whole thing up?" I said, stunned. "*Excalibur* doesn't exist?" "I do not believe it does," Horner said candidly. "I don't believe that such a book did or does exist." Not that Hubbard was incapable of sitting down and knocking out a book he would title *Excalibur*. He was always prolific, almost driven, and had once said to Horner, "Any writer who can't write forty thousand words a week is not worth his salt." To help you appreciate that claim, 40,000 words is somewhat more than half the size of the book you are reading at this moment. Hubbard's innate sense of what creates *interest* was definitely failing into place in the late 1940's when he wrote something called *Original Thesis*. He peddled it unsuccessfully to several "RON" 41 publishers, including Shasta, a Chicago house specializing in science fiction which had published some of his other works. It was when he changed the name of his thesis to *Dianetics* that things began to happen. Whatever fire had burned inside La- fayette Ronald Hubbard for thirty-eight years had now found the beginning of its ultimate outlet and form of expression. He was home. Or, put another way, he had begun to fulfill a promise he once made, according to Jack Horner, to well- known science-fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt. "One of these days," he supposedly said to Van Vogt before he had written *Dianetics*, "I'm going to come out with something that's going to make P.T. Barnum look like a piker." Jack Horner grows almost nostalgic when he talks about Hubbard and their closeness - "about the same relationship, over the years, that Mr. Nixon had with Mr. Eisenhower when he was in office" - and the gol'darned *similarities*. "We grew up in fairly parallel lives," he said to me. "I lived all over the United States; I was in the Navy myself during World War II, I lied about my age to get in. And because of having lived in many countries and around in different places, I had a very definite sense of equality and of people. Just before Hubbard came out with *Dianetics*, I was saying to myself: 'Why do people remember what they remember? And why do they forget what they forget?' I was doing my own line of thinking on this whole thing when *Dianetics* came out. I read what it had to say and I was fascinated! I got hold of the damn book and I sat down and audited three people and Boy! it worked just like Hubbard said it would. I was familiar already with the techniques of Freud and Breuer and pretty well into the his- tory of Western psychology, so I said, 'Gee, he may not have it *all*, but he sure got a good piece of it! Let's go!' I just dropped everything and got involved. I was a very hardheaded, prag- matic atheist at the time *Dianetics* came out. You talk to me about past lives, I was very skeptical. Because as far as I was concerned, you had one life to live and that was it; you better 42 SCIENTOLOGY do what you could while you were living it. However, when I audited enough people, and all of a sudden they kept drop- ping into past lives without my having mentioned them or their having read any books-" Horner suddenly gave a long, machine-gun-like laugh, as if to break the tension of what he was about to profess to believe, "-you begin to wonder, you know?" The substantial contradictions of fact regarding Hubbard's background seem suddenly unimportant, or, as novelist Wil- liam S. Burroughs put it in an article called "Scientology Re- visited," published in England in *Mayfair* magazine: "Mr. Hub- bard's degrees and credentials seem hardly relevant. Dianetics and Scientology are his credentials and he needs no others." I agree. Let's take a look at the credentials. ENTER DIANETICS III I can remember, back in 1950, a high school friend telling me about some new thing his mother was involved with. He said it was called "Dianetics" and made it possible for you to re- member things which had happened to you when you were just a baby. Then he said - and it was hard to believe, coming from an intelligent, level-headed guy - that Dianetics could make you experience things which had happened to you *before* birth. Why would you want to do that, I wanted to know, know things which had happened before yon were born? As I remember, he didn't seem to know. He showed me a copy of the book his mother was studying, *Dianetics: The Modern Science o[ Mental Health*. Reading it recently, that moment came back to me, par- ticularly the book's first sentence. If ever a opening sentence introduced a theme with matchless daring, it was Hubbard's declaration that "the creation of dianetics is a milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch." What was Dianetics, a word manufactured from the Greek word *dianoua*, meaning thought? It was a science of the mind, "an exact science and its application is on the order of, but simpler than, engineering. Its axioms should not be confused with theories since they demonstrably exist as natural laws hitherto undiscovered." Hubbard said his new science was simpler than physics or chemistry but on a much higher level - 43 44 SCIENTOLOGY he called it an "echelon" - of usefulness. "*The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration has been dis- covered and skills have been developed for their invariable cure* [italics his]." To give us all some perspective with which to appreciate the magnitude of his discovery, Hubbard, after a synopsis, an introduction, and instructions on how to read the book - "read straight on through....Treat it as an adventure" - began Chapter I as follows: "A science of mind is a goal which has engrossed thousands of generations of Man. Armies, dynasties and whole civilizations have perished for lack of it. Rome went to dust for the want of it. China swims in blood for the hope of it; and down in the arsenal is an atom bomb, its hope- ful nose full-armed in ignorance of it." Without in any way lessening the impact of the complete text, here is the essence of what Hubbard had found. He postulated that the mind consists of two parts: the analytical mind (what Freud called the "conscious"), which perceives, remembers, and reasons; and the reactive mind (what Freud called the "unconscious"), which neither remembers nor per- ceives, but simply records. Normally, the analytical (con- scious) mind is dominant. But, according to Hubbard, injury or anesthesia or, more important, acute emotional shock or physical pain, can "switch off" the analytical mind. Then the reactive mind goes into operation. This reactive mind does not record memories, but what Hubbard termed *engrams* - complete sound impressions on protoplasm itself, "a complete recording," as he put it, "down to the last accurate detail, of every perception present in a moment of...unconsciousness." Unhappiness, emotional upsets, even the common cold, were caused by the existence of these engrams. Dianetics therefore was the discovery, study, and technology for dredging up these troublemakers and getting rid of them. Probably the first man to learn something about Hubbard's discovery and immediately accept it was John Campbell, Jr., ENTER DIANETICS 45 editor of *Astounding Science Fiction*, the magazine which had published many of Hubbard's stories and serials. Hubbard had explained his extensive theories and techniques to Camp- bell, and provided dramatic proof by alleviating Campbell's chronic sinusitis. Campbell was enormously impressed, so much so that he and Hubbard quickly established a Dianetics organization in Bay Head, New Jersey, a town not far from Elizabeth, New Jersey, where Campbell's magazine was head- quartered. At the same time (this was July of 1949), Camp- bell wrote a long letter to Dr. Josephus Augustus Winter, a general practitioner from St. Joseph, Michigan, who had pub- lished several articles on medicine in *Astounding Science Fiction*, telling him all about Hubbard's investigations. "L. Ron Hubbard," Campbell wrote, "who happens to be an author, has been doing some psychological research....He's gotten important results. His approach is, actually, based on some very early work of Freud's, some work of other men, and a lot of original research. He's not a professional psychoanalyst or psychiatrist...he's basically an engineer. He approached the problem of psychiatry from the heuristic viewpoint - to get results...." Campbell went on to describe some of Hubbard's results, particularly the taking of an amputee veteran right through a period of unconsciousness to discover why he was feeling so troubled, why be thought there was nothing to live for. When Dr. Winter, as he was later to describe it in his book, *A Doctor Looks At Dianetics*, wrote Campbell asking for more details of what, at first glance, clearly looked interest- ing, Campbell answered with another long letter that once more urged the doctor to come and see for himself, and then added, in substantiation of Hubbard's work: "He has one statistic. He has *cured every patient* [italics his] he worked. He has cured ulcers, arthritis, asthma." Winter found this blatant confidence almost too much to believe, but refused to dismiss Hubbard outright. Instead, he wrote directly to Hub- 46 SCIENTOLOGY bard, asking for even more details. Hubbard wrote back to say that he was "preparing, instead of a rambling letter, an operator's manual for your use....Certainly appreciate your interest. My vanity hopes that you will secure credit for me for eleven years of unpaid research, but my humanity hopes above that that this science will be used as intelligently and extensively as possible, for it *is* a science and it does produce exact results uniformly and can, I think, be of benefit." Dr. Winter arrived in Bay Head on October 1, 1949, and was quite impressed with Hubbard's theories and the few demonstrations he witnessed. His feelings, however, were not fully secured until after he had returned to St. Joseph, Michi- gan, to spend Thanksgiving with his family. There, when his little son's fear of ghosts became quite serious, Dr. Winter decided to try some of Hubbard's dianetic methods. When, with only a little assistance, the boy was able to describe ac- curately the moment of his own birth and the certainly frightening image of the white-masked doctor who had brought him into the world, Dr. Winter was forced to acknowledge that not only had he discovered his son's "ghosts," but L. Ron Hubbard's discovery appeared to be a working science pre- cisely as claimed. Dr. Winter returned to Bay Head to continue his work with Campbell and Hubbard. After another short trip back to Michigan for Christmas, he decided he must devote all his energies to Dianetics. He closed his practice and, with his family, moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was now Hubbard's headquarters. In April of 1950 the first Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated, with Dr. Winter as its first medical director. The world at large, meanwhile, was only beginning to learn something of this revolutionary discovery. Under what Hub- bard has described as enormous pressure from followers, he finally allowed John Campbell to publish, in May of 1950, in *Astounding Science Fiction*, an article called "Evolution of a Science." This caused great turmoil among science-fiction ENTER DIANETICS 47 devotees and was followed, very quickly, with the appearance of the book, *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health*. Much to everyone's surprise, it became an immediate best seller, the first book to achieve such instant success since Thomas Merton's *The Seven Storey Mountain*. Though most of the reviews were adverse, people all over the country were not only buying the book, but enthusiastically organizing themselves into coven-like Dianetics groups eager to practice the phenomenal techniques Hubbard revealed in his tome. While sociologists dismissed the whole thing as just another American fad, more of that postwar hysteria which had pro- duced pyramid clubs and canasta marathons, they could not pretend that everybody wasn't getting into it. I have already mentioned that Hubbard had tried to sell the book under another title, *Original Thesis* - this was the volume he sent Dr. Winter, the "operator's manual" which inspired the doctor to go personally and see what Dianetics was all about. Naming his science "Dianetics" and then gen- erating a great deal of talk through the *Astounding Science Fiction* article finally made the difference and put Dianetics on its feet. Hubbard himself has discussed the torturous path he followed to develop his science, but not only in terms of hitting upon just the right name and achieving the right kind of exposure. "In a lifetime of wandering around," he wrote in the *Astounding* article, "The Evolution of a Science," many strange things had been observed. The medicine men of the Goldi people of Manchuria, the shamans of North Borneo, Sioux medicine men, the cults of Los Angeles, and modern psychology. Amongst the people questioned about existence were a magician whose ancestors served in the court of Kublai Khan and a Hindu who could hypnotize cats. Dabbles had been made in mysticism, data had been studied from mythology to spiritualism. Odds and ends like these, countless odds and ends....First, attempts were made to discover what school or system was workable. Freud did occasionally. So did Chinese acupuncture. So did magic heal- ing crystals in Australia and miracle shrines in South America. 48 SCIENTOLOGY But eclectic as his bent was, the answers had to be worked out by Hubbard and Hubbard alone. After many long years of wrestling with these questions, he concluded that man, possessed of a brain which is in fact a miraculous, perfect computer, needs a *dynamic* (italics his) principle by which to examine his existence. With this firmly in mind, L. Ron Hubbard began to postulate, build, and conclude. In charting the hitherto unknown mysteries of man's true existence, he was constantly guided by one basic principle: "a science... is something pretty precise....It has to produce predictable results uniformly and *every time* [italics his]." I must empha- size one thing here: in all the millions of words which followed the appearance of *Dianetics*, in all the contradictions and verbal gymnastics which have led followers into labyrinthine confusion as well as predetermined insights, Hubbard has managed to sustain his dedication to this one scientific notion of validity-through-workability with startling fidelity. In moments of rare candor, Hubbard has boasted that it actually took him a mere three weeks to write the entire weighty text of the original Dianetics book. I don't doubt him. It is known that he wrote on a special IBM electric typewriter which had much-used words such as "the," "and," and "but" slugged in as entire keys. He also typed on a con- tinuous roll of paper to avoid the interruptions of changing sheets. However long it actually took Hubbard to write *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health*, the style of the book is diffuse, rambling, and repetitive, and very quickly intro- duces us to one of the basic characteristics of a new school of thought: its own vocabulary. Words such as *Anaten, Basic- Basic, Chains, Clear, Denyer, Perceptic*, and many more, peppered the writing, bringing a reader to a grinding halt as he stopped to ask himself exactly how Hubbard had chosen to employ a particular word. Hubbard justified his rampant neologism in a lengthy footnote - footnotes becoming an essen- ENTER DIANETICS 49 tial technique in everything he wrote. He explained that verbs and adjectives were being used as nouns because old terminol- ogy was useless in defining the elements of his new science. It was much simpler to invent language and give it mint-new definitions. Dr. Winter's book, *A Doctor Looks At Dianetics*, threw more candid light on Hubbard's use of language. Winter said that when he and Hubbard and Campbell first developed the advanced aspects of Dianetics, organizing it and codifying its principles, "we concluded that terminology should be revised with the following criteria in mind: Older terminology or terminology from other medical fields should be avoided, be- cause the acceptance of a term from a certain school of thought might imply acceptance of the tenets of that school of thought." Whenever possible, "we would coin a new term," so that Dianetics would possess its own validity, its own substantiation of its discoveries.* The usefulness of this tactic has been, through the years, reinforced by a small *Important Note* which appears as the frontispiece of virtually every book written on either Dianetics, or its successor, Scientology: "In studying Scientology (Dianetics) be very, very certain you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is that he or she has gone past a word or phrase that was not understood. If the material becomes con- fusing or you can't seem to grasp it, there will be a word just earlier that you have not understood. Don't go any further, but go back to BEFORE you got into trouble, find the mis- understood word and get it defined." * A curious exception to this neologism was the word *engram* itself. It had already been defined as a psychical change caused by some sort of stimulation in 1936, in the 17th Edition of Dorland's *Medical Diction- ary*. Even earlier, in 1923, Richard Semon used the term in his book *Mnemic Psychology*. Dr. Winter hotly denied that the term had been lifted from the Semon book, though he acknowledged finding it in the Dorland. 50 SCIENTOLOGY Once we actually understand the definitions of Hubbard's analytical and reactive minds, we are introduced to the high drama of how engrams become implanted. Wrote Hubbard: A woman is knocked down by a blow. She is rendered "un- conscious." She is kicked and told she is a faker, that she is no good, that she is always changing her mind. A chair is overturned in the process. A faucet is running in the kitchen. A car is passing in the street outside. The engram contains a running record of all these perceptions: sight, sound, tactile, taste, smell, organic sensation, kinetic sense, joint position, thirst record, etc. The engram would consist of the whole statement made to her when she was "unconscious": the voice tones and emotion in the voice, the sound and feel of the original and later blows, the tactile of the floor, the feel and sound of the chair overturning, the organic sensation of the blow, perhaps the taste of blood in her mouth or any other taste present there, the smell of the person attacking her and the smells in the room, the sound of the passing car's motor and tires, etc. The intensity of an engram's moment of implantation was balanced by the delicate probing designed to dredge it up years later. Called auditing, it was performed when a person was in what was called *dianetic reverie*, a supposed partial sleep which simplified recalling an engram, bringing it up to the surface and, in the ever-expanding jargon of Dianetics, "boiling it off." The one engram dianetic auditors were de- termined to locate as quickly as possible was the one Hubbard named the *Basic-Basic*, or BB, which, Dianetics believed, was formed a few weeks after conception, or even earlier, in the zygote, the fertilized ovum. Tracing a BB was extremely sophisticated auditing, and one usually "ran" countless lesser engrams which had been experienced prior to the moment of birth before confronting this ultimate nemesis. That there were plenty of engrams to locate from the time of the forma- tion of the embryo is argued convincingly by Hubbard in his description of life in the womb. "Mama sneezes," he wrote in ENTER DIANETICS 51 *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health*, "baby gets knocked 'unconscious.' Mama runs lightly and blithely into a table and baby gets its head stoved in. Mama has constipa- tion and baby, in the anxious effort, gets squashed. Papa becomes passionate and baby has the sensation of being put into a running washing machine. Mama gets hysterical, baby gets an engram. Papa hits Mama, baby gets an engram. Junior bounces on Mama's lap, baby gets an engram...." There are also the noises, the incessant cacophony of the interior universe: "Intestinal squeaks and groans, flowing water, belches, flatulation and other body activities of the mother produce a continual sound....When mother takes quinine a high ringing noise may come into being in the foetal ears as well as her own - a ringing which will carry through a person's whole life." The techniques of auditing and locating engrams were made immeasurably simpler by Hubbard's strongly held con- viction that there was one engram common to almost all of us. "What happens to a child in a womb?" he wrote rhetori- cally in "The Evolution of a Science." "The commonest events are accidents, illnesses - and *attempted abortions!* [italics and emphasis his] Call the last AA. Where do people get ulcers? In the womb, usually, AA. Full registry of all perceptics down to the last syllable, material which can be fully dramatized." Much as we would do, Hubbard asks the question which is on our minds. "How does the foetus heal up with all this damage?" His answer: "Ask a doctor about twenty years hence - I've got my hands full." But what he was talking about was not just *one* attempted abortion: "Twenty or thirty abortion attempts are not un- common in the aberee, and in every attempt the child could have been pierced through the body or brain." Pierced, be- cause the AA is usually done with knitting needles. It is no wonder that he firmly believes these horrible experiences produce the worst possible engrams. 52 SCIENTOLOGY A large proportion of allegedly feeble-minded children are actually attempted abortion cases [he wrote] whose engrams place them in fear paralysis or regressive palsy and which command them not to grow but to be where they are forever. Morning sickness [he writes further] is entirely engramic, so far as can be discovered....And the act of vomiting be- cause of pregnancy is via contagion of aberration. Actual illness generally results only when mother has been interfering with the child either by douches or knitting needles or some such thing. If the husband uses language during coitus, every word of it is going to be engramic. If the mother is beaten by him, that beating and everything he says and that *she* says will be- come part of the engram....A woman who is pregnant should be given every consideration....*For every coital experience is an engram in the child during pregnancy* [italics his]. Hubbard's extensive discussion of things sexual, his concern with abortions, beatings, coitus under duress, flatulence which causes pressure on the foetus, certain cloacal references, all suggest to me a fascination which borders on the obsessive, as if he possessed a deep-seated hatred for women. All of them are being beaten, most of them prove to be unfaithful, few babies are wanted. According to everything he has written, however, Hubbard is merely trying to describe how man responds to threats, no matter what dramatic form they may take. Hubbard believes that man is motivated by the need to survive; he writes it in capitals, SURVIVE, and calls it his First Dynamic. To this he adds three more Dynamics, the urge to survive via the sexual act, the urge to survive as a group, and the urge to survive as Mankind. During auditing, with a patient in *dianetic reverie*, there was a reported tendency to yawn and stretch, immediately interpreted as visible proof that the session was progressing successfully and engrams were being brought to the surface. Unexpected aches and pains also appeared mysteriously, and then disappeared just as mysteriously. These, Hubbard ex- ENTER DIANETICS 53 plained. were the lingering effects of psychosomatic ills which would never return. After the particular, long-sought-after engram was finally brought up and 'boiled off," the patient had a sense of enormous relief, so intense that he often began to laugh uncontrollably. Dr. Winter reported that shortly after arriving at the Foundation in Elizabeth he was completely taken aback by the sight of a patient who had been extremely morose suddenly breaking out in laughter, not to stop for several hours. Hubbard brushed this off as being normal, and said there was one patient who had laughed for two days. *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health* contains several vivid examples of auditing at work. At one point Hubbard described a technique he called the "repeater," and gave a vivid example of how it was used on a young girl who had resisted confronting her "basic area" for seventy-five hours. The technique involved the repeated use of what ap- pears to be a key phrase in the person's life to take them back to that time, that "basic area" where trouble originated. The incident is reprinted in script form, with the auditor's and the girl's dialogue accompanied by parenthetical observations ex- plaining what is happening and why. The auditor leads the girl, whom he (Hubbard) describes as being "very bored and uncooperative," back to where she suddenly feels a pain (somatic) in her face which grows stronger and stronger. Suddenly the girl hears a voice, her father's. The auditor asks her to repeat his words, The girl says he is talking to her mother, and complains of the pain, or pressure, on her face being uncomfortable. The auditor prompts her to repeat the words she hears. The girl says she hears her father telling her mother he won't "come in you now." As we realize the girl is remembering her parents having sexual intercourse while she was in her mother's womb, the girl is telling the auditor that the moment she recalled her father's voice, the pressure on her face became less. The auditor, patience personified according to the script, insists the girl stay there 54 SCIENTOLOGY and repeat what her mother is saying. The girl says her mother is angry, and is telling her father she doesn't want him. "Say," the girl says at this point, "the somatic stopped." The parenthetic explanation is "(Coitus had ended at this point.)" The auditor then asks the girl to start all over again. She does, wonders what her parents are up to, realizes herself what is happening, and is momentarily embarrassed. The auditor calmly asks her to go through the event once again. She does so, in detail, recalling her father's words and then her mother's angry answer. The auditor insists on yet another repetition. This goes on until, according to Hubbard, the pain disappears completely. He ends the scene by saying that the girl "feels quite cheerful...but doesn't think to mention that she doubted prenatals existed." According to Hubbard, it takes some twenty hours of audit- ing before a person who is aberrated becomes a "release," someone free of all major neuroses and ills. Hubbard calls it "a state superior to any produced by several years of psycho- analysis, since the release will not relapse." Beyond being a release lies becoming a *preclear* and finally a *clear*, someone completely free of engrams. "Clears," Hubbard explains, "do not get colds," their wounds heal quickly if injured, their eyes are keener, and their I.Q.'s visibly increased. "The dianetic clear," he put it quite simply, "is to the current normal indi- vidual as the current normal is to the severely insane." An auditor, the person responsible for bringing someone to this obviously desirable state, needed very little qualification to practice his ability. A careful reading of the original dianetic text was considered sufficient, though student auditors were strongly urged to go to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and take the professional course at the Foundation. What with best-sellerdom and the extensive coffee-klatch practicing of dianetics techniques, L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and the startling results it claimed received so much attention that it was inevitable that before too long, professional as- ENTER DIANETICS 55 sociations would take a closer look at his activities. The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, Inc., had, early in the summer of 1950, made a presentation of Dianetics to a group of psychiatrists, educators, and lay people in Washing- ton, D.C. It was the only genuine such presentation ever made, and Dr. Winter found it to be something of a failure. Some of the psychiatrists [he wrote in his book] - perhaps the more progressive and open-minded ones - had evinced an in- terest in the novel postulates and intriguing conclusions of dianetics....I did not feel that the Washington venture was a successful one - at least, not from the medical point of view. It was noteworthy that most of the people whose interest in dianetics had been augmented by this presentation were members of the laity, rather than the profession, and I thought that I could detect in their attitudes the fervor of the convert, rather than the cool, objective interest of the scientist. The professional people evidenced an interest in the philosophy of dianetics; their interest was repelled, however, by the man- ner of presentation of the subject, especially the unwarranted implication that it was necessary to repudiate one's previous beliefs before accepting dianetics. In September of 1950, the American Psychological Associa- tion called on psychologists not to use dianetic therapy, "in the public interest." Struggling to maintain circumspection, the Association unanimously adopted a resolution at the last session of a meeting of its council of representatives which stated that, "While suspending judgment concerning the even- tual validity of the claims made by the author of 'Dianetics,' the association calls attention to the fact that these claims are not supported by empirical evidence of the sort required for the establishment of scientific generalizations. In the public interest, the association, in the absence of such evidence, recommends to its members that the use of the techniques peculiar to Dianetics be limited to scientific investigations designed to test the validity of the claims." From Los Angeles, where he was lecturing and setting up 56 SCIENTOLOGY another Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, L. Ron Hub- bard answered that he was ready to furnish proof of every claim made in his book. He went on to say that as long as a year earlier he had made such an offer to the American Psy- chological Association and had never heard from them. He said he had already submitted proof to several scientists and associations, and expressed total agreement with the notion that the public was entitled to proof. He said he was ready and willing to give it in detail. And then he made what I can only charitably call a tactical blunder. Speaking to 6,000 people in the Los Angeles Shrine Audi- torium, Hubbard introduced a girl named Sonya Bianca and said she was a *clear*, possessing total recall of all *perceptics* (sense perceptions) for her entire past, as well as kinetic abilities. It was a disaster. Miss Bianca not only could not remember basic formulas in physics, the subject she was supposedly majoring in, but could not give the color of Hubbard's tie when his back was turned, and certainly could not, exercising her kinetic powers, knock off somebody's hat at fifty feet. In a matter of minutes the audience was streaming out of the hall in moods ranging from gagging hilarity to plain disgust. But Hubbard, with a sense which suggested anticipa- tion, explained the whole thing away as having been his fault. He had, he said, called Miss Bianca on stage by saying, "Will you come here *now*, Sonya?" and in doing so, using the "now," trapped her in present time. At about the same time, the first cracks began to appear within the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Eliza- beth. Dr. Winter was growing increasingly annoyed at Hub- bard's authoritarian behavior and his flat refusal to use some semblance of a scientific approach - scientific in Dr. Winter's terms. In his lectures in California, Hubbard was already talking about something he called the *Theta*, and MEST (a conglomerate word created from the first letters of matter, energy, space, and time). There was also talk of doing away ENTER DIANETICS 57 with *dianetic reverie* in auditing sessions and replacing it with something called an electropsychometer, a crude polygraph or lie detector developed by an inveterate West Coast gadgeteer named Volney Mathison. Rather than be in reverie, a person being audited would hold two cans connected to the small box which had a meter on it, and a minute current would be passed through the person's body, giving various readings on the meter as the person answered various questions. Dr. Winter, hearing these reports, grew increasingly apprehensive. Jack Horner, who was at the foundation taking the auditor's course, remembers the disagreements which flared between the two men, particularly with regard to the business of "past lives," which was offensive to Winter who was struggling for order and scientific neatness. Yet he was constantly being undermined. "There was a bulletin on the board," Horner tells, "which said: 'Any Student Running Past Lives Will Be Suspended.' So of course everybody started running past lives." In October of 1950 Dr. Winter finally severed his relations with the Foundation and left to establish his own dianetic practice. The book he wrote soon after, *A Doctor Looks At Dianetics*, is revealing not only because of the way he openly criticizes Hubbard and some of his methods, but because Dr. Winter argues emphatically that there are valid and valuable aspects to Dianetics. To begin with, he strongly doubted that what Hubbard had called a patient's "sperm dream" actually occurred. He also disputed, rather critically, Hubbard's claim that anyone could be an auditor - Hubbard had once described a potential auditor as "any person who is intelligent and possessed of average persistency." Dr. Winter wrote that "something more than enthusiasm for a new idea was needed to make a good therapist." Finally, the doctor wondered aloud why he had never encountered anyone who was actually *Clear*. While he did support the principles of the existence of prenatal engrams, and the importance of precise methods for locating troubles whose cause was psychosomatic, he was 58 SCIENTOLOGY completely put off and angered by the science-fiction elements of Hubbard's thinking. At about the same time that Dr. Winter was leaving the New Jersey foundation, the flamboyant, totally confident Hub- bard was already having problems with the board of his California Research Foundation, barely a few months old. Jack Horner had been sent to Los Angeles to help establish the training courses and remembers one incident when Hub- bard summarily fired two men from the L.A. staff. "It seemed very unjust," Horner told me, "so I went to see him about it. You have to understand that I was only about twenty-one at the time." Brash, committed, and unafraid to face the boss. "I went to his office and I said, 'This is ridiculous. These people are not Communists!' And he paced up and down, and he said, 'Look, I've got a battle to fight. I may lose some people along the way, but I'm going to win the battle.'" If Hubbard meant the frictions between himself and the Los Angeles staff, and problems with Dr. Winter back in New Jersey, and mounting criticism from outsiders, then the battle had surely been joined. In January of 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners instituted proceedings against the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, Inc., for conducting a school which, it was charged, was teaching medicine, surgery, and a method of treatment, without a license. The New Jersey operation quickly closed its doors, and Hubbard moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he incorporated another Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. Despite all the movement and allegations and internal dif- ficulties, the work of the foundation had by this time taken on a somewhat formal look. Both the West Coast and Wichita foundations offered a one-month professional Dianetics audi- tor's course for $500. There was a second course consisting of a series of fifteen lectures involving two teams which would "co-audit" each other. This course cost $200 per person or ENTER DIANETICS 59 $350 per team. A third course consisted of one two-hour ses- sion conducted by a "professional auditor" who would lead each member of a team through *dianetic reverie* - it was still being used - under the observation of the team member, the "co-auditor" in training. This course cost $15. In addition to the courses, the foundations advertised "associate" member- ships in the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. This entitled one to receive copies of *The Dianetic Auditor's Bul- letin*, the foundation's official publication which told sub- scribers all about the latest developments in Dianetics. The "associate" membership cost $15 a year. The public excitement and controversy generated by Dianetics at this time was matched by upheavals in Hubbard's personal life. He had married a second time, and in April of 1951, Sara Northrup Hubbard sued him for divorce, testifying that doctors had told her that her husband was suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia." She also charged that he had sub- jected her to "systematic torture" by beating and strangling her, and denying her sleep. The divorce was granted in June and gave Mrs. Hubbard custody of their fourteen-month-old son, Alexis, and $200 a month support. In a surprise move, however, it was Hubbard who actually won the divorce decree on a cross petition in which he charged gross neglect of duty on the part of Mrs. Hubbard. The ex-Mrs. Hubbard eventually remarried. Meanwhile, Hubbard's relations with the Los Angeles Dianetic Foundation had deteriorated to such a point that he summarily broke with them that same year, 1951. The opera- tion in Wichita was also doing badly and on February 21, 1952, filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. A Wichita businessman eventually bought it from the bankruptcy court, publicly announcing that he would have absolutely nothing to do with Hubbard. To anybody underestimating Hubbard's imagination and resilience, it seemed obvious that he was finished. SCIENTOLOGY IV The more I learned about Hubbard the more fascinated I became to find how eagerly everybody kept *underrating* him. The reason, I guessed, was because we tend to give others much more credit for insight, objectivity, and personal self- confidence than we should. Hubbard survived to succeed because enough people wanted him to succeed. At the same time, news stories about him and his activities have always been smugly snide, written in that almost traditional "God-forbid-we-should-give-the- crackpot-credence" style. Which is also understandable, except for the fact that a man like Hubbard *thrives* on being dis- missed by the establishment. Late in 1952, *Time* magazine reported the appearance of Scientology, saying: "His [Hub- bard's] latest ology is compounded of equal parts of science fiction, dianetics (with 'auditing,' 'preclears,' and engrams), and plain jabberwocky." The jabberwocky was substantiated by quoting from one of Hubbard's new books, *Scientology: 8-80*: "An individual who cannot get out of his body im- mediately can look around inside his head and find the black spots and turn them white...." I would be perfectly prepared to dismiss this sentence as utter nonsense, except that a sincere Scientologist I met during my inquiries told me, with no prompting or being brought around to the subject, that "the greatest thing was the day I suddenly looked inside my head and I turned the black 60 SCIENTOLOGY 61 spots white!" To me, this seemed there than a believer swallow- ing everything and *anything* the leader says; here was an apparently rational being demonstrating that he had been brought to a stage where he was capable of doing - to him- self - that which L. Ron Hubbard said could be done. How the hell do you just dismiss that? In the spring of 1952, Hubbard resigned from the bankrupt Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Wichita "to further pursue," in the words of the Foundation, "investigations into the incredible and fantastic." Hubbard ignored the jibe and immediately set up something which he called The Hubbard College. He had married once more - his new wife was a Texas girl named Mary Sue Whipp who had been active in the research foundation - and was busy developing the tenets of his new science: Scientology, an exact definition of which would be "Knowing how to know." Scientology introduced theories and techniques which made the engrams and reveries of Dianetics look like a mild dress rehearsal. I will go into their absolutely monunmental propor- tions later, but for the moment, to suggest a little something of what Hubbard was about, listen to this from one of the new books, *Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought*. "Probably the greatest discovery of Scientology," Hubbard wrote, "and its most forceful contribution to the knowledge of mankind has been the isolation, description and handling of the human spirit. Accomplished in July, 1951, in Phoenix, Arizona, I estab- lished along scientific rather than religious or humanitarian lines that that thing which is the person, the personality, is separable from the body and the mind at will without causing bodily death or mental derangement." He named this "thing" the *theta*, after the Greek letter 0, and said it possessed the capacity to create. What it created Hubbard called MEST, that acronym of the first letters of matter, energy, space, and time, the stuff of existence as we know it. Hubbard taught 62 SCIENTOLOGY these theories and the techniques necessary to achieve a state of enlightened discovery of one's own *theta*. This became his new definition for *clear*, replacing the old dianetic notion, which now became the preliminary state to *clear*, and made of the person studying Scientology a *preclear*. Hubbard taught all this at his Hubbard College, awarding graduates a degree of "Registered Dianeticist," with a license to give courses in dianetic processing in their own offices and schools. The cost of the course, which, when concluded, pro- vided not only the degree but necessary films and texts, was originally $1,000. By March 1, 1952, the price bad gone up to $1,500, and a few weeks later, on the twentieth, it went up to $2,000. On June 1, Hubbard raised it once more, to a flat $5,000.* At much the same time, he organized another corpora- tion in Kansas, Scientific Press, Inc., which published and distributed the writings and texts used by his students and his "Registered Dianeticists." He also went to Phoenix, Arizona, and organized the Hubbard Association of Scientologists (HAS), stating that its purpose was to publish material re- lated to behavior studies and to train qualified people in Scientology. In early 1953 Hubbard went to Philadelphia and incorpo- rated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists of Pennsyl- vania, Inc., and in the fall, opened HAS branches in Camden, New Jersey, and London, England. Things did not go well for Scientology either in Camden or Philadelphia, so early in 1954 he closed down both those operations and returned to Phoenix, now his headquarters, and incorporated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International (HASI), Inc., pre- sumably to facilitate Scientology's overseas expansion. He began publishing a periodical, *Scientology*, and offered a "Summary Course In Dianetics & Scientology" for $382.50. *Records give no indication of how many people actually signed up for any of these courses, no matter what the cost. SCIENTOLOGY 63 He also set up a Hubbard College Graduate School and charged a flat $25 registration fee, offering a degree of Bache- lor of Scientology. Electropsychometers, now called E-Meters, were also on sale, for $98.50. They had by this time completely replaced *dianetic reverie* and were essential to Scientology. Hubbard's brochures for the machines described them as capable of registering "relative degrees of dynamic psycho- physical stress from moment to moment during the dianetic session," indicating "the approximate Hubbardian tone-scale of the preclear from 1.0 to *infinitely high ranges* [italics his]." He fixed the importance of the E-Meter once and for all when he wrote, in a later brochure: "Bluntly, auditing can't be at optimum without an electropsychometer. An auditor auditing without a machine reminds one of a hunter hunting ducks at pitch black midnight, firing his gun off in all directions." By 1955, Dianetics had rejoined Hubbard's fold on some- thing of an official basis. The Research Foundation in Los Angeles with whom he had broken had fallen on hard times and Hubbard was able to make some kind of peace with its directors. Hubbard celebrated this reunion by holding what he called a Unification Congress. But he was not about to throw his weight behind the reintroduction of the name "Dianetics." Scientology was doing well and it would have been foolish to drop it. In his own special way, Hubbard him- self explained the reason for retaining "Scientology." In an article entitled "Scientology: A New Science," which was published in *Scientology magazine* in 1954, he wrote: "The basic science was named 'Scientology' in 1938. In 1947 L. Ron Hubbard [many of Scientology's articles, written in a style and syntax that can only be his, seek some special pertinence by being both anonymous and referring to Hubbard in the third person] changed its name to 'Dianetics' in order to make a social test of publication and popularly. The test completed, in 1952 he changed the science back to its original name, 64 SCIENTOLOGY Scientology. This was done to inhibit its being monopolized for private purposes."* In June of 1955, Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue, moved the center of his activities to Washington, D.C., where they set up The Founding Church of Scientology. That same year, in November, a Founding Church of Scientology was in- corporated in New York as an unincorporated independent church "pursuant to Article 8 of the Religious Corporations Law," which states that "an 'unincorporated church' is a con- gregation, society, or other assemblage of persons who are accustomed to statedly meet for divine worship or other religious observances, without having been incorporated for that purpose." Scientology was able to qualify easily, and auditors and officers of The Founding Church of Scientology legitimately began to call themselves "ministers," defined by the same law as follows: "The term 'clergyman' and the term 'minister' include a duly authorized pastor, rector, priest, rabbi, and a person having authority from, or in accordance with, the rules and regulations of the governing ecclesiastical body of the denomination or order, if any, to which the church belongs, or otherwise from the church or synagogue to preside over and direct the spiritual affairs of the church or syna- gogue. Some years later, Hubbard was asked by an interviewer why he had turned Scientology into a religion. "To some," he answered, "this seems mere opportunism, to some it would seem that Scientology is simply making itself bulletproof in the eyes of the law, and to some it might appear that any association with religion is a reduction of the ethics and pur- poses of Scientology itself....Why should Scientology ally * For the record, the name Scientology was first used by a German social psychologist, Dr. A. Nordenholz, who in 1934 published a book entitled *Scientologie: Science of the Constitution & Usefulness of Knowl- edge/Knowing* (Ernest Reinhardt, Munich). Its contents and relevance to Scientology will be discussed in greater detail elsewhere. SCIENTOLOGY 65 itself with religion? There are many, many reasons. Amongst them is that a society accords to men of the church an access not given to others. Prisons, hospitals, and institutions... cannot do otherwise than welcome men of the church...." In answer to what must have obviously been inquiries regarding the ritualistic nature of Scientology, the Founding Church eventually published a book entitled *Ceremonies of The Founding Church of Scientology*. It described the basic church services practiced by Scientology and gave outlines for sample sermons, as well as the procedure for weddings, christenings, and funerals. Most of the ceremonies are tradi- tional, one might even call them basic, with Scientological acknowledgments of aspects of mortality and immortality not unlike those expressed by other faiths. Only the christening ceremony stands out as somewhat unique, free to express itself more along the lines of Scientology's theology. The section for this ceremony explains that, "the main purpose of a Christen- ing is to help get the thetan oriented. He has recently taken over his new body. He is aware that it is his and that he is operating it. However he has never been told the identity of his body." As an example, an informal christening service Hubbard performed in 1957 is reprinted. Addressing himself to the babe, he introduced the parents and designated godparents to those gathered. Then, still addressing the child, he con- tinued: "How are you? All right. Now your name is ______. You got that? Good. There you are. Did that upset you? Now, do you realize that you're a member of HASI? Pretty good, huh? All right. Now I want to introduce you to your father. This is Mr. _____. (To the parent): Come over here. (To the child): And here's your mother. And now, in case you get into trouble and want to borrow some quarters here's Mr. _____. See him? He's your godfather. Now, take a look at him. That's right. And here's _____, in case you want some real good auditing; she's your godmother. Got it? Now you are 66 SCIENTOLOGY suitably christened. Don't worry about it, it could be worse. O.K. Thank you very much. They'll treat you all right." For the years between 1955, when Hubbard came to Wash- ington, D.C., and 1959, when he and Mary Sue left for England, The Founding Church of Scientology was the "Mother Church." All Scientology churches and congregations in the United States, as well as locally incorporated branches of either a local HASI or the Phoenix corporation, were under the leadership and guidance of L. Ron Hubbard. Advertise- ments for The Founding Church of Scientology in local news- papers made little reference to its activities as a religious organization. Their messages were directed more to the im- provement of an individual's health, personality, and tech- niques to increase one's I.Q., as well as offering guidance in problems of marriage and the raising of children. In the Yellow Pages, Scientology was listed under three categories: "Per- sonal Development," "Personal Consultants," and "Churches - Various Denominations." The Founding Church of Scientology offered a three-week intensive processing course for $1,250, and practiced a variety of methods designed to increase the rolls of its membership. Among the most prominent in the late fifties were three Hub- bard had outlined in issue No. 73 of the *Professional Auditors Bulletin*: "I Will Talk To Anyone," "Illness Researches," and "Casualty Contact." The first involved the placing of news- paper advertisements which announced: "Personal counsel- ing - I will talk to anyone for you about anything. Phone Reverend so-and-so between hour and hour." When someone would call the reverend and try to explain a particular prob- lem, he would explain, with utmost discretion, that it was impossible to discuss a case over the telephone and please to come in personally. "Illness Researches" also involved the placing of advertisements in newspapers, but these read: "Polio Victims. A research foundation, investigating polio, desires volunteers suffering from the after effects of that SCIENTOLOGY 67 illness to call for examination at _____." Anyone coming in would find himself being audited and then strongly urged to join The Founding Church of Scientology. Typically, Hubbard justified any suggestion of duplicity by writing, "It was given under the guise of investigation and was in actuality a research project....Any auditor can con- stitute himself as a minister or an auditor, a research worker in the field of any illness. In that he is not offering to treat or cure the illness but is strictly investigating it, the laws con- cerning medicine do not obtain to him. Anybody, even a ditch-digger, can look over polio or arthritis or asthma or anything else." Thus his instructions continued: "It is best that a minister representing himself as a 'charitable organization,' which is what he is, do the research so that the advertisement would then read: 'Polio victims - a charitable organization investigating polio desires to examine several victims of the after effects of this illness. Phone so and so." Grimmest of all the methods was "Casualty Contact," which Hubbard calmly described as follows: One takes every daily paper he can get his hands on and cuts from it every story whereby he might have a preclear. He either has the address in the story itself or he gets the address as a minister from the newspaper. As speedily as possible he makes a call on the bereaved or injured person....He should represent himself to the person or the person's family as a minister whose compassion was compelled by the newspaper story concerning the person. He should then enter the presence of the person and give a nominal assist, leave his card which states exactly where church services are held every Sunday and with the statement that a much fuller recovery is possible by coming to these free services takes his departure. A great many miracles will follow in his wake and he is later to become a subject of the press himself. However, in handling the press we should simply say that it is a mission of the Church to assist those who are in need of assistance. Anticipating that certain practices and policies of his Found- ing Church of Scientology might run into trouble, Hubbard 68 SCIENTOLOGY organized something called the National Academy of Ameri- can Psychology, and in 1957 sent out a "loyalty oath" to psy- chologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and "ministers of various denominations who engage in mental practice." The oath's text was reprinted in Scientology's *Certainty* magazine, in 1958, as follows: I hereby subscribe to the following Code of Ethics and Prac- tice and swear to abide by it at all times. I do solemnly swear: 1) To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to same. 2) To refuse to practice "Brainwashing" upon American citi- zens. 3) To actively prevent the teaching of only foreign psychology in public schools and universities. 4) To engage in no conspiracy to commit or "treat" persons for purely self-interested or political reasons. 5) To refuse to protect criminals by supporting questionable pleas of insanity at trials. 6) To discourage all violence against the mentally ill. 7) To refuse to use, advocate or experiment with physical methods of "therapy" upon patients which might bring about incapacitating physical injury to the patient's brain tissue or body. 8) To use only methods of mental practice or techniques of therapy upon patients which I would willingly experience myself to the same extent or duration that I apply them or advocate that they be applied. 9) To refuse to contribute money, dues or my services to organizations which knowingly impede American scientific research programs or which work to discredit American psy- chologists to the public. 10) To refute propaganda to the effect that the study of psychology is hopeless, that I.Q. cannot be improved and that personality cannot be changed. 11) To refuse to accept for counseling or psychological as- sistance and to refuse to accept money from any patient or group I feel I cannot honestly help and to offer no solution or cure I cannot accomplish. SCIENTOLOGY 69 12) To refuse to advertise beyond the display of my profes- sional card and the supported claims of my school of mental practice. 13) To render good treatment, sound training and good dis- cipline to those students or people entrusted to my care. 14) To engage in no unseemly disputes with the uninformed on the subject of my profession. 15) To refuse to interfere with the lives of my patients be- yond actual treatment. 16) To refer to competent medical treatment, ills which demand medical attention. 17) To hold in confidence the secrets of my patients. 18) To accept as fellow psychologists only psychologists ad- hering to this code and to speak no words of criticism in public of them. I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations, or purpose of evasion: So help me God. Hubbard wrapped up his ingenious, all-purpose loyalty oath by announcing that anyone who refused to sign it - it was not only to be signed, with two witnesses, but "subscribed and sworn to before" a notary public - would be classified "poten- tially subversive," while anyone who dared to "rail" against it would be openly branded "subversive" and his name would be turned over to the Federal government for "appropriate action." Over the years Hubbard's running war with psychiatry and psychology has, if anything, become more ferocious. Last spring, he wrote: "The psychiatrist and his front groups operate straight out of the terrorist text books. The Mafia looks like a convention of Sunday School teachers compared to these terrorist groups." I could never make out a consistent pattern to Hubbard's restless and continual establishment of new organizations designed to advance and disseminate the world of Scientology. They seem more motivated by an urge to keep things *moving*, generating a kind of business which implies importance. There is something of the overworked, hyper-pressured conglomerate 70 SCIENTOLOGY executive in the way Hubbard threw together - legally in- corporating every time - groups, organizations, and associa- tions. All of it had that smell of the grandiose but insubstantial, the quickie letterhead house designed to keep you from asking too many "technical" questions. Rather than allow Hubbard's various ventures to confound me, I carefully took them apart, one by one, tried to describe their function, and then located the links which represented his ever-expanding network. It all leads to no small appreciation of the shining versatility he had for generating Scientological activities, *all* of which he controlled absolutely. In 1955, Hubbard incorporated something called the Con- gress of Eastern Scientologists, a name which, in 1957, he changed for some obscure business reason to the Congress of Scientologists. During the four years of his Washington, D.C., activities, two congresses were held, each lasting a few days, normally two, at a hotel in the city. In 1956, some 450 people attended "The Games Congress," and in 1958 about 140 persons paid $800 each to attend a second congress. Hubbard personally made all the plans and worked out each program for the conventions. He wrote and delivered all the lectures, and for all this he was paid a fee by the Congress oF Scien- tologists, Inc., a total of $22,683.94 for his energetic contribu- tion and participation on the two occasions. Hubbard incorporated a Washington, D.C., branch of HASI in 1957, and until 1959 its operations were directed by a three-member board of directors, two of whom were Hub- bard and his wife, Mary Sue. Between them they had the power to elect all officers. In addition to being on the board of directors of The Founding Church of Scientology as well as working on and being personally responsible for every facet of Scientology's activities, Hubbard was also the organi- zation's financial manager and had complete operational re- sponsibility for all fiscal affairs. This control encompassed not only HASI and The Founding Church of Scientology, but yet SCIENTOLOGY 71 another organization called the Distribution Center, Inc., which was responsible for the printing and distribution of all Scientology publications. The business of books had become particularly important to Hubbard because, as he put it, they made "thousands in money and friends" for Scientology. A new book appeared on an average of one every six months and resulted in local sales of between 6,000 and 9,000 copies, recovering all printing costs in approximately eighty days. Quite simply, Hubbard ran Scientology like a very tight ship. A disbursement sheet of each week's financial activities had to be on his desk by 2 P.M. of the Monday of the follow- ing week. He personally hired and fired each and every member off the staff. He supervised all processing and read all of the auditor's reports. He wrote the teaching materials for the elementary course then being taught, the Personal Efficiency Course, and he also taught it. All awards of certifi- cates were made by him personally. And in his office safe he had signed resignations from every officer and trustee of every Scientology church in the country. Until 1959, everyone in Scientology worked on straight salary. Then Hubbard made a few changes. He created a new post, HCO Accounts, HCO standing for the Hubbard Com- munications Office, and he appointed Mary Sue director of accounts. From then on she received weekly income sheets showing the total income from HASI, Inc., and DCI, Inc. At the same time, Hubbard stopped paying straight salaries and introduced a percentage or commission system of payment. Hubbard himself was paid 10 percent of all gross income. Outside Washington, D.C., Scientology churches and organiza- tions paid this amount into a local HCO account. Anyone owing Scientology money became the subject of a collection folder. Each folder had copies of any outstanding invoices and a careful record of all payments made. In addi- tion, folders contained copies of all contracts and due notes - people were allowed in effect to borrow money from Scien- 72 SCIENTOLOGY tology to pay for being in Scientology. Once a month, these folders were summarized and statements were sent out. If somebody was late to pay, The Founding Church often mailed out collection letters, some of them rather harshly worded and not averse to threatening legal action. Past-due notes were also turned over to collection agencies. In March of 1959, Hubbard and Mary Sue left Washington, D.C., and moved to England, where Scientology was already well established. Rather than settle in London, Hubbard chose Saint Hill Manor, a splendid English mansion which had been built in 1728, located just outside the small town of East Grinstead, in Sussex, some thirty miles from London. The Manor had at one time been the property of Mrs. Anthony Drexel Biddle, who had sold it to the Maharaja of Jaipur. In 1959 it became Scientology's world headquarters, presided over with baronial reserve by L. Ron Hubbard, who soon acquired a chauffeur, a car to be driven in, a Jaguar for him- self, and a staff headed by a butler named Shepheardson who every afternoon brought Hubbard a bottle of Coca-Cola on a silver tray. Through the extensive deployment of a Telex network on behalf of HCO (WW) - Hubbard Communications Office, World-Wide - Hubbard maintained split-second communica- tion with all of the HASI and Scientology Church organiza- tions throughout the world. While he was actively involved in the day-to-day operation of these various HASI and church branches, it was via HCO (WW) that he produced the never-ending stream of bulletins, policy letters and information letters. These communiques were crucial because they spelled out, in no uncertain terms, *exactly* what the latest technique was, or how official policy had been changed. They were identifiable not only by name, but by color of ink as well. HCO Bulletins were normally printed in bright red ink, with a headline at the top announcing the procedure to be dis- cussed. HCO Policy Letters were printed in green ink and SCIENTOLOGY 73 would discuss anything from a specific policy change to a general warning about "Things That Shouldn't Be." HCO Information Letters came in blue ink and tended to be rather chatty. Each type of letter bore a legend explaining to whom distribution was to he made, as for example: "Remimeo: All Students, All Staff." Conversely, any communiques from people in the field were sent directly to HCO (WW), though protocol dictated the notion that they were addressing them- selves to HASI, Ltd. Hubbard himself described the proper function of HCO (WW) in an HCO information letter dated February 8, 1964. "HCO (WW) Ltd.," he wrote, "is con- cerned with the Organizations of Scientology on a world wide basis. It deals with Ron's personal communications to and from the HCO's, ORGS and Field, and with the Franchise Holders. It sends out Ron's policies and technical data. It has its own direct line to the HCO's, ORGS and City Offices all over the world." In addition, though not necessarily through HCO (WW), a weekly report on the processing of every *preclear* throughout the world was forwarded to Hubbard at Saint Hill. In the years that followed Hubbard's arrival at Saint Hill, there was both a mellowing and a refinement in his policies for bringing new people into Scientology. The somewhat grisly methods of "Illness Researches" and "Casualty Contact" seem to have been forsaken for a more direct, snappy, busi- nesslike approach. In an HCO Bulletin of April 9, 1960, Hub- bard wrote: When the prospect comes in, see him or her at once (No waiting). Be courteous, friendly, businesslike. Rise when they enter and leave. Call reception to show them out if they stay too long. Be willing to take their money. Always prefer cash to notes. We are not a credit company. Always see the student or the pc [preclear] before they leave the place after service. You can often sell more training or processing....It is a maxim that unless you have bodies in the shop you get no 74 SCIENTOLOGY income. So on any pretext get the bodies in the place and provide ingress to the Registrar when they're there. By 1965, through obvious trial and error, Hubbard was out- lining the only way a local organization should set up its courses and services. Writing in an HCO Policy Letter dated August 13, 1965, he said: One must NEVER recruit a body of people and then carry just that group up, opening new courses only when they are ready and closing the lower ones when emptied. I can tell you by grim experience that that is NOT the way to handle basic courses....One must continually nightly recruit new people and one must have in existence the next area up for them to move into....The assembly line must exist before one can get traffic to put on it....The key is standardize. Even out the traffic flow. Hubbard went on to describe the proper allotment of space for the courses being given. He was emphatic on the need for an organization to have a separate reception room. If you don't have a public reception centre and only have your org Comm Centre you ought to be ashamed and no wonder your receptionist and comm lines jam up. Public Reception ought to be separate. It should be plastered with promotion, personality graphs, tone scales, anything promo- tional. And the evening Introductory Lecture is given *every* evening. Same lecture. Hubbard went on to urge heavy advertising of the free intro- ductory lecture. He also urged each organization to "Get a Chaplain on the job and prominently display this sign: If you are in trouble with your training or Processing and nobody seems to listen, see the Chaplain, Room _____. He can help." Then, Hubbard explained, "groove in the Chaplain to be a Problems Officer, to listen and try to straighten up goofs by auditors and supervisors and suddenly your student and pc loss rate will almost vanish." Finally, Hubbard urged every- one to "Be Good. Your courses now *have* to be good. Your SCIENTOLOGY 75 income depends not on enrollment but reenrollment...be crisp." A proper, steady flow of new people into Scientology was particularly important to Hubbard, at Saint Hill, because the local churches and organizations throughout the world could take fledgling scientologists only up to a certain stage. Beyond that, actually to approach and then realize the pure state of "clear," they all had to make the trip to England, at their own expense, of course, and take their advanced grades of release; for the truly ultra-dedicated there was also another course, the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. Quite obviously, if the source of new Scientologists was improperly managed, the number of people, considering a normal statistical attrition or percentage of dropouts, who would ultimately make that pilgrimage to Saint Hill, would simply dwindle. In 1963 Scientology faced its first major challenge when the United States government filed suit requesting "seizure and condemnation of a certain article of device, hereinafter set forth," in accordance with laws established and enforced by the Food and Drug Administration. What the FDA was talk- ing about was the E-Meter, and a complaint was filed on January 4, 1963. A lawful writ was issued and in short order the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., was raided. E-Meters and books were seized, and further charges were filed Hubbard knew the FDA had been nosing around his activi- ties and tried to promulgate a change in the use of the E-Meter by Scientology. In an HCO Policy Letter dated October 29, 1962, he wrote that "regardless of any earlier uses of psycho- galvanometers in Dianetics or Psychology or in early Scien- tology publications when research was in progress, the Electrometer in Scientology today has *no* other use" except to "disclose truth to the individual who is being processed and thus free him spiritually." The E-Meter, he went on, "is a valid 76 SCIENTOLOGY religious instrument, used in Confessionals, and is in no way diagnostic and does not treat." This declaration did not seem to help Scientology's predica- ment. The meters were seized, and the government charged that in that the labeling for the E-Meter contains statements which represent, suggest and imply that the E-Meter is adequate and effective for diagnosis, prevention, treatment, detection and elimination of the causes of all mental and nervous disorders and illnesses such as neuroses, psychoses, schizophrenia, and all psychosomatic ailments of mankind such as arthritis, cancer, stomach ulcers, and radiation burns from atomic bombs, poliomyelitis, the common cold, etc., and that the article is adequate and effective to improve the intelligence quotient, and to measure the basal metabolism, mental state and change of state of man; which statements are false and misleading.... Scientology appealed, arguing that the search and seizure had been illegal, but some months later, from Saint Hill, Hub- bard, something of a pillar of calm, issued an HCO Bulletin which said, "Government attacks have entered a more desul- tory stage. Meters will go to jury trial eventually and we will certainly win. The U.S. Government Attorney handling the case became terribly ill and had to resign it." Hubbard was wrong and Scientology lost its appeal that the case be thrown out of court. The case was finally heard, and on April 19, 1967, more than four years having gone by, a decision was returned against Scientology, directing that the meters and all accompanying literature be destroyed. Scien- tology immediately appealed, again claiming illegal search and seizure. At the same time, Scientology's lawyers deposited a brief which suggested that all E-Meters be labeled as fol- lows: "The Hubbard Electrometer is not intended for use in or effective for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of any disease." It was their hope that this dis- claimer would satisfy the FDA and inspire withdrawal of the destroy order. Though the government did not accept the SCIENTOLOGY 77 proposals, all meters still in use were subsequently labeled with a message which reads: "The E-Meter is not intended or effective for the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease." In February of 1969, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washing- ton, D.C., handed down its decision on Scientology's appeal. It reversed the decision of the federal jury and stated that until the government can offer proof that Scientology is not a religion, the E-Meters and the literature seized are protected by our rights of freedom of worship. The decision, which was handed clown by Judge J. Skelly Wright, said that from the point of view of Scientology, "auditing or processing is a central practice of their religion, akin to confession in the Catholic Church." Since the E-Meters do state that they are not used to diagnose or treat physical ills, but merely to work on the spirit, all accompanying E-Meter literature must be treated as Scripture. Possibly because of the FDA's publicized interest and activi- ties in 1963, Australia's Scientologists found themselves, that same year, the object of much scrutiny and criticism. By No- vember of the year outcries reached such proportions that a formal board of inquiry, in the person of Queens Counselor Kevin Victor Anderson, was named. Scientology had arrived in Australia in 1956. During the years which followed, it had become strongly established, par- ticularly in Melbourne, in the state of Victoria. From the very beginning, Scientology's activities had drawn some curiosity on the part of civil authorities, but it was not until the press began to attack it publicly that demands were made in the Legislative Council that something be done. The Board of Inquiry was the result. Hubbard had visited Australia in 1959 and, enthusiastic about the success his branches were enjoying, advanced the notion that Australia would be the world's first totally *clear* continent. Based on something he called his "Special Zone 78 SCIENTOLOGY Plan," Be devised a plan through which he intended to bring the Australian Labor Party into Scientology. In January of 1961 he wrote Peter Roger Williams, Scientology's continental director for Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania: My goals for the Zone Plan are to make my organization a Scientology Organization with all executives HPA (Hubbard Professional Auditor) graduates, and to use our publications to improve administration, management and communication in the Labor movement and interest the Australian Labor Party and Trade Union officials in taking scientology training. The Australian Labor Party as an organization using scientol- ogy principles would soon win a Government as soon as the next Federal election. With Australia led by a government employing scientology principles we should soon have a civili- zation which can extend influence overseas."* In the beginning, Australian Scientologists welcomed the Board of Inquiry enthusiastically and proclaimed that the findings would once and for all vindicate Scientology and Dianetics. Hubbard himself went even further and said that the Board had actually been appointed because of Scientology's insistence that such an official investigation be made. The Melbourne HASI offices cooperated fully and made their records available to the Board. Demonstration sessions were organized, both in auditing and exercises, and facilities were provided for the playing of Hubbard's taped lectures. Hub- * The notion of scientology using its principles to improve management is not at all far-fetched and has become something of a reality. Several management consultant firms based on Scientology are active in the United States. For two years now, a successful scientologist named Alan Walter has been working with executives at the home office of Tenneco Oil Company, Dallas, Texas. Another management course is being taught in Austin, Texas, by a man named John McCoy. McCoy has also made a proposal to the administrator of the entire public school system of the state of Florida and it is claimed that a program is being developed by which all Florida public school teachers will be instructed in Scientology techniques to achieve more effectiveness in their classrooms. Furthermore, General Electric's Information Systems Department in Bethesda, Mary- land, is said to be considering a management proposal made by Scien- tology Consultants to Management, a firm operated by Paul and Gloria Nickel. SCIENTOLOGY 79 bard himself was invited to appear before the Board, but declined. Then, in October of 1964, Hubbard's lawyers re- quested that the state of Victoria pay his way from England to fly to Australia to give evidence. The request was refused, and the Board concluded that Hubbard had no intention of ever making such a trip; knowing his request would be re- jected, he was using the rejection to criticize the conduct of the Board and its subsequent findings. All enthusiasm was gone and no more cooperation was given. Any notions of a Scientological Australia had been dashed in May of 1964, prior to the 1964 Victorian elections, when Williams, Scientology's continental director, had written an article in the Melbourne HASI Communications Magazine entitled "A Declaration of War." "It is the urgent duty of every scientologist in Victoria," he wrote, "to get out and make certain that the Australian Labor Party is defeated completely and thoroughly and for- ever at the election." His hostility, Williams explained later, was not political but stemmed from the ALP's wholly negative attitude towards HASI. The final sitting of the Board of Inquiry was held on April 21, 1965, and a report was submitted on September 28, 1965. The Board had sat in hearing for 160 days, heard 151 witnesses, filed 621 numbered exhibits, and took 8,920 pages of testimony. To the best of its ability, it examined Scientology, as well as its predecessor, Dianetics, from every conceivable angle: the theories, the teaching of Scientology, its relationship to reli- gion, the E-Meter, its healing claims, the financial aspects, the alleged benefits of Scientology processing, and the processes themselves. While there is, in the published report, a tendency towards repetition, as well as a fairly clear expression of one man's attitude as influenced by his personal spiritual beliefs, there is also, despite an avowed determination to remain objective, an overall failure fully to grasp either the source or intention of Hubbard's theories, as well as the ramification of the processes, techniques and exercises which go beyond even 80 SCIENTOLOGY the many case histories studied and discussed. Yet one con- clusion is stated in no uncertain terms: "However Hubbard may appear to his devoted followers, the Board can form no other view than that Hubbard is a fraud and scientology fraudulent." On December 4, 1965, the state of Victoria passed an act to provide for the Registration of Psychologists, the Protection of the Public from Unqualified Persons and certain Harmful Practices and for other purposes." It was a sweeping measure, only a part of which - Part III: "Hypnotism and other prac- tices" - dealt directly with Scientology. Use of the E-Meter by anyone other than a registered psychologist or someone who has received the consent of the Council became punishable by a fine of A$500. The teaching and/or application of Scien- tology was to be fined A$200 for the first offense, and A$500 plus a prison term of not more than two years for a second offense. Scientology was specifically defined as being the teachings and writings of L. Ron Hubbard as disseminated by HASI. The law further directed that any and all "scientological records" be delivered to the Attorney General. Failure to do so was liable to a fine of not more than A$200. Upon passage of the bill the police moved swiftly and raided the Melbourne HASI headquarters, seizing some 4,000 personal files. Hubbard's answer was immediate. He issued a booklet en- titled "Kangaroo Court," in which he referred to the transport in the 1700's of convicts from England to the state of Victoria. "The foundation of Victoria," he wrote, "consists of the riff-raff of London's slums, robbers, murderers, prostitutes, fences, thieves....The insane attack on Scientology can best be understood if Victoria is seen for what it is - a very primitive community, somewhat barbaric, with a rudimentary knowl- edge of the physical sciences. In fact, it is a scientific barbarism so bigoted that they know not and do not know they are ignorant." Victoria's neighboring state of New South Wales, possibly SCIENTOLOGY 81 because of the very negative reaction to the speedy seizure of Scientology papers and records, and in light of a declaration that there had been no significant increase in mental hospital admissions which could be directly attributed to Scientology, decided at the time of the Victorian passage of the law to take no action. The feeling was expressed in some N.S.W. govern- ment circles that passing a similar law would be like "using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut." At the same time, the obviously relieved secretary and director of Scientology's N.S.W. headquarters eagerly invited reporters to come in and see Scientology for themselves. They wanted to give "the public a little more information than they already have," and went on to explain that they "do not in any way at all, deal in the realms of psychology, psychiatry, healing, hypnotism or any of the other things we are accused of stating that we are authorities on." In 1966, the New South Wales Minister of Health, answering a question in the Legislative Assembly, said "we have come to the conclusion that there is little or no evidence that action should be taken to ban the organization in New South Wales."* As if the turmoil of both the Victorian ban and the FDA * The question of whether or not to ban Scientology in N.S.W. was raised again in 1968. Western Australia was introducing a bill to ban Sci- entology, South Australia had already passed one. But the Minister for Health for N.S.W., Mr. A. H. Jago, said that in N.S.W. "there is very little incidence of the more unfavourable features of this organisation." Thus, once again, N.S.W. did not act against the movement. Later the same month, the British-based headquarters of Scientology announced that they were making a A$2,679,000 interest-free loan to Scientology in Victoria, where it had been banned since 1965. The announcement said that the money would be used to build a "new study centre for art, culture, and humanity." The *Sydney Morning Herald* reported the loan and said that "local businessmen and civic leaders, with a record of honesty and integrity, would be invited to serve as trustees, a spokes- man at the headquarters, near London, said." The story went on to say that Victoria's Minister for Health, Mr. V. O. Dickie, was doubtful that any Melbourne business or civic leaders would "have a bar of it. We have," he was quoted as saying, "an act which outlaws the teaching of scientology in this State, but we shall have to wait and see just what their real intentions are with this proposed study centre." 82 SCIENTOLOGY case was not enough, by 1966 the Internal Revenue Service in this country was taking a very hard look at The Founding Church of Scientology, its structure, and its activities over the years since its incorporation. Hubbard, in England, possibly worn out by all the hassling, or simply exercising his pro- digious talent for anticipation, made a dramatic move and publicly announced he was leaving Scientology forever. He sold his interests in HASI, Ltd., for 100,000 pounds sterling - $280,000 at the time - relinquishing the organization's "good- will," as well as any legal responsibilities, and, in a move which stunned everyone, left for Rhodesia, where he reportedly bought a house on Lake Kariba and appeared on local tele- vision to repeat that he had finished with Scientology. His English followers, beset by all kinds of rumors, were im- mensely relieved when his self-imposed exile was briskly terminated, some say by the Rhodesian government, and he returned to England. His followers' concern may have been due to the fact that in 1964 Hubbard had stated that he had been approached by Fidel Castro's official representatives in- terested in sending a picked group of fifty to Saint Hill for Scientology training. Hubbard went on to say that as early as 1938 the Soviet Union was courting his services. "I was put under considerable argument and stress," he had told a re- porter in 1964. "They offered me $200,000, all laboratory facilities, everything I needed in Russia." His answer was No, he said, adding that as a result his apartment "was blasted open," and his "basic manuscript" - he may have been re- ferring to *Excalibur* - disappeared. Once back in England Hubbard did not stay long, and soon retreated to the Mediterranean, where he ensconced himself as the commodore of the Scientological fleet, that he named his *Sea Org*, plying the warm waters of the Levant with a full crew of dedicated Scientologists on board, developing new techniques and making even newer discoveries. The Hubbard flagship is an old passenger ferry and ex-cattle boat, originally SCIENTOLOGY 83 christened the *Royal Scotsman*. There is also a former Hull trawler, the *Avonriver*, and a yacht, *Enchanter*. More recently, when the *Sea Org* was made to feel unwelcome in Spanish ports, Hubbard made for the Greek Isles and chose Corfu as a land-base of operations. To please the Greek government, the ships were renamed *Apollo*, *Athena*, and *Diana*. I heard some vague reports that soon after Hubbard's arrival, the American consul in Corfu began receiving requests from scientologists aboard the ships asking for help to get off. This seems somewhat substantiated by the reports, in March 1969, that the Greek government suddenly gave Hubbard and about two hundred of the disciples twenty-four hours to get out - cast off from their Corfu moorings, actually. According to * The New York Times*, "the expulsion order followed months of pressure in Athens by American, British and Australian diplo- mats urging Greek authorities to examine the activities of the *Apollo* residents, most of them...Americans, but some... from Britain, Australia and South Africa." Whether the Greek government went to the trouble of examining these activities is open to question. What they did was brand the crowd "un- desirables" and told them to get out. At the moment, I do not know where, exactly, the winds of chance have carried Hub- bard's defiant little fleet. I do know that it has expanded to include seven vessels with names such as *Apollo*, *Athena*, *Diana*, *Neptune*, and *Aries*. The *Athena* is currently anchored off the coast of Denmark, while *Neptune* is supposedly as- signed to the Pacific Flotilla which I take to be the two Sea Org ships anchored off Santa Monica, California. Hubbard's role with regard to Scientology is virtually intact. He is still director of HCO (WW), collecting his 10 percent as paid in to HCO (WW). (With an estimated weekly gross income of $1.4 million, this means Hubbard is taking in $140,- 000 a week.) He keeps in constant touch with Scientology cen- ters all over the world by way of his direct communications link to HASI, Ltd., at Saint Hill and the American Saint Hill 84 SCIENTOLOGY Organization in Los Angeles. His hold had been additionally strengthened by the fact that his faithful wife, Mary Sue, bore until recently the official designation of "Guardian W.W.," a post now held by a Scientologist named Jane Kember. Hubbard's departure from England in no way affected the IRS inquiries. Contending that The Founding Church of Scientology had a substantial nonreligious and commercial aspect to it through the sale of processing and training services, books, pamphlets, and E-Meters, the argument was simply that Scientology had not operated "exclusively" for religious and educational purposes, as defined in section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. It was discovered that dur- ing the four years, from 1956 to June of 1959, that Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue, operated The Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., the organization took in gross receipts totaling $758,962 in Washington alone, and that during those four years never less than 90 percent of this gross income came from processing and training, rather than from something as clearly religious in nature as donations. The government argued that Scientology's intentions and practice was to make money and to charge substantial sums for its services and to sell the books, not give them away. This was backed by citing Hubbard's HCO Policy Letter of Janu- ary 30, 1966: "Money is a symbol. It represents success when you have it, and defeat when you don't, no matter who is putting out propaganda to the contrary." The government also discovered that from the time Hubbard had left Washington for Saint Hill, the weekly 10 percent paid him by all affiliated Scientology churches and organizations and franchised branches was going directly to him in the name of HCO (WW). Some of the checks, the government found, had been deposited directly into Swiss banks. The case was finally argued in July of 1967. Even before an opinion was handed down, Scientology churches in other states were in trouble. The California church, which had been SCIENTOLOGY 85 granted tax exemption on January 2, 1957, found itself served on January 6, 1967, with a proposed revocation of that status effective back to January 1957. The same thing happened to the churches in New York, Michigan, and Florida. All faced the possibility of being hit for back taxes for periods as long as ten years. In August of 1968, an "opinion" of a trial commissioner of the Court of Claims was affirmed. It favored revocation of the tax-exempt status of The Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, the Mother Church. The decision was immedi- ately appealed. One year later, in the summer of 1969, the full court heard the appeal and held against The Founding Church of Scientology. This opened the road for the Internal Revenue Service to move not only against the Washington Church, but also the other Scientology churches throughout the country. No one can say exactly how much Scientology will be made to pay in back taxes. In the case of The Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, the IRS will be figuring from 1956, with 6 percent interest. Spread that through the country, and it must be the kind of penalty monies capable of hitting Scientology a very serious, if not crippling blow. There are few legal maneuvers left open to Scientology. After losing the appeal in Washington, the church moved for a rehearing, asking the court to be good enough to look at what they did all over again. If that fails, they will certainly go to the Supreme Court and ask for a review of the case. My personal opinion is that it will be extremely difficult for The Founding Church of Scientology to have its case reviewed because the weight of the Court of Claims decision in the summer of 1969 rested on the enormous sums of money L. Ron Hubbard and his family have taken out of Scientology's opera- tion. What was demonstrated to the satisfaction of that court was not that Scientology was functioning as something other than an organization with spiritual overtones, but that it was 86 SCIENTOLOGY functioning for the profit of somebody, that somebody being L. Ron Hubbard. The British government, during the summer of 1968 when Scientology lost the first round of its tax case in Washington, was forced to respond to growing concern on the part of some English citizens and to sharp questions being asked in the House of Commons. It clamped a restriction on non-English nationals from entering the country solely for the purpose of studying or practicing Scientology. England's experience with Scientology was more direct and tumultuous than elsewhere because Hubbard had, until 1966, made Saint Hill Scientology's world headquarters and shrine. As early as 1960, Hubbard was wildly sniping away at English critics. Taking on the British Medical Association, he wrote, in an HCO Bulletin, July 24, 1960: "With what amazed surprise we viewed the recent attack upon us by the British Medical Association. With their hands caked with blood they sought to point a grisly finger at us and to bring down upon us the wrath of the government they claimed they controlled. Folly, thy name is medicine....I have found that the British Medical Association in England...has encouraged its doctors to spread vicious lies about us via their patients." Although the English have a traditional tolerance for all kinds of legally expressed invective, it was inevitable that the matter of Scientology would find its way to the House of Com- mons. In February of 1966, the Minister of Health, Mr. Ken- neth Robinson, answered some very general questions put to him regarding Scientology. In March of 1967 the debate re- sumed, this time much more heatedly. Peter Hordern, Con- servative M.P. from Horsham, rose to bring to the attention of the House the case of one of his constituents, an emotionally disturbed young girl who became associated with Scientology only to end up under medical supervision. Hordern related the findings of the Board of Inquiry in Australia and ended by requesting that a full inquiry be made in the United Kingdom. SCIENTOLOGY 87 In response the Minister of Health acknowledged his personal concern with the question, then discussed "whether the scien- tologists in England carry out the same practices as did their counterparts in Australia and, if so, whether we should take the same view of them as did the state of Victoria? "This leads to the crucial question: to what can we reason- ably take objection in Scientology," he continued. "For a Minister of Health, the overriding consideration must be the effect of these practices on mental health. Here, one must dis- tinguish between what the leaders of the cult currently claim and what they have until recently professed and, in my judg- ment, still perform." Mr. Robinson went on to consider whether or not Scien- tology attempts to heal, citing a letter Hubbard had written the Minister of Health disclaiming any such practices. Pointing out that there is nothing illegal occurring when unskilled peo- ple offer techniques through which they intend to relieve or remove mental troubles, because no claims for medical skills are made, he stated that there was no need for an inquiry because it was quite clear to him that Scientology was po- tentially harmful. Yet he closed by saying he hesitated to suggest that Scientology be prohibited. "My present view," he stated, "is that this would not be the right course to take, and I say this for several reasons. Legislation would certainly be necessary to achieve prohibition because, as I have said, medi- cally unqualified people are within the law in offering or providing treatment with certain very limited exceptions. We would all, I believe, be reluctant to contemplate legislation - which would, on the Victoria pattern, almost inevitably have to range considerably beyond its immediate object if it were to be effective - unless the case for it were overwhelming. We are not in that position - at any rate, not yet." East Grinstead, whose inhabitants their M.P. had said were seriously disturbed by Scientology, had been the center of all the unrest. With Saint Hill Manor just over the hill, the people 88 SCIENTOLOGY of the village found themselves inundated with growing num- bers of scientologists from all over the world, particularly from the United States and Australia. It was not long before HASI, Ltd., bought a hotel and many private houses and began to buy up and run some of the private businesses. Hubbard was a director of two local companies and his wife, Mary Sue, was a director of five, one with a reported nominal capital of L300,000 sterling. Early in June of 1968, in retaliation for criticism in the town, Saint Hill issued a proclamation that twenty-two of the town's businesses, including the local pub, the Rose & Crown, were off limits. Finally, on July 25, 1968, in Written Answers in the House of Commons, Health Minister Robinson announced that certain actions would be taken with regard to Scientology: a) The Hubbard College of Scientology and all other scien- tology establishments, will no longer be accepted as educa- tional establishments for the purposes of Home Office policy on the admission and subsequent control of foreign nationals; b) Foreign nationals arriving at United Kingdom ports who intend to proceed to scientology establishments will no longer be eligible for admission as students; e) Foreign nationals who are already in the United King- dom, for example as visitors, will not be granted student status for the purpose of attending a scientology establishment; d) Foreign nationals already in the United Kingdom for study at a scientology establishment will not be granted ex- tensions of stay to continue these studies; e) Work permits and employment vouchers will not be issued to foreign nationalists (or Commonwealth citizens) for work at a scientology establishment; f) Work permits already issued to foreign nationals for work at a scientology establishment will not be extended. In August, the Home Office barred 800 Scientologists from entering England to attend a Scientology congress. In October, Mr. Alexander Lyons, M.P. from York, asked the Home Secre- tary how many persons had been denied entry into England because they were Scientologists. Mr. Lyon wanted to know SCIENTOLOGY 89 under what powers the immigration officers had acted if entry had been refused. Mr. Callaghan, in written reply, said that no one had been refused admission on the sole ground that "he was a scientologist; but since July 25, 104 foreign nationals intending to study at Scientology establishments have been refused leave to land under the Aliens order, 1953." It was clear that despite continuing apprehension regarding Scien- tology and its activities at Saint Hill, members of Parliament were equally concerned about actions which had been taken and their relationship to the rights and freedoms of citizens. In December, Mr. Hordern, the M.P. from Horsham who had raised the question of Scientology in 1967, rose in the House to ask the Secretary of State for Social Services, Mr. Crossman, if he had any further statement to make on the practice of Scientology. Mr. Crossman answered that he had considered either a public inquiry or a white paper, but felt that for the time being, "the right course is to leave things as they are," owing to what he felt was the efficacious results of the publicity attending the activities of the summer. The M.P. from East Grinstead, Mr. Smith, and his colleague from Accrington, Mr. Arthur Davidson, expressed disappointment at this decision. Mr. Crossman answered that his position was predicated on the fact that "action did not take the form of prosecution, but merely forbidding foreign nationals to study and practice Scientology here." It was as if he meant to say that it was all right for the English to harm themselves - if that was in fact what Scientology led to, it was their legal right - and containment seemed the most responsible course of action. A curious offshoot of all this is that L. Ron Hubbard, be- cause he is an American citizen, is now *persona non grata* in England. This does not seem to disturb him at all. Tracked down recently by a British film team which located the *Apollo* tied up at a tiny North African port, Hubbard blandly stated, 90 SCIENTOLOGY "In the first place I am not in trouble with the British Govern- ment, not even faintly. If I went in today, or tomorrow, through Immigration, they would tip their hats and say, 'How are you, Mr. Hubbard?' as they have been doing for years." Regarding all the criticism of Scientology, he said, "Why do they just fight it and say there's something bad? They never specify what's bad. For instance, right now, they say we're breaking up marriages. Why, that's a lie -" As he said this his intonation lilted, and his voice became full of sweet reason. "As a matter of fact, they're saying that at the moment when you've got this book -" he held up a book to the camera "- which was just about to go on the press: *How to Save Your Marriage*." Hubbard glanced down at the book, still held to the camera, his whole attitude one bordering on disbelief that Scientology could be causing so much of an uproar back in England. When asked about rumors that he had amassed sev- eral million dollars in Swiss bank accounts, Hubbard answered that "one tends to overlook the fact that all during the thirties, and actually during the late forties, I was a highly successful writer, and a great many properties and so on accumulated during that period of time. The amounts of money in Switzer- land are minimal. I don't have Swiss bank accounts; there is a bank account in Switzerland. I don't know how much money is in it, but not very much. While there were very, very large sums that I made when I was very young...." He paused to fix his unseen interviewer with a level stare as I, watching his admirably smooth performance, wondered what final satu- rating generality he would offer to put us all in our places. He said, "Fifteen million published words and a great many successful movies don't make nothing." I wanted to stand up and cheer. Here he was, twenty years after giving us Dianetics - A.D. 20, he designates this year - and Scientology is shaking people up all over the world: the Australians have banned it in some of their states, the British are going to "look into it" with what SCIENTOLOGY 91 I am sure will ceremonial probity, Americans are wonder- ing why their kids are flocking to it, and a tiny fleet of ships is throwing a chill over various Mediterranean port authorities as it heaves into view. I remembered the girl I had spoken with at the Scientology Congress, Mary-Lou, and her meaningless statistic that Scientology had grown 500 percent over a very few months. I decided to look into Scientology's growth more closely. It was already clear to me that Scientology's expansion pri- marily encompasses the English-speaking world, with twenty- six city centers now spread across England, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Rhodesia. Scien- tology claims equal success in other countries, but at the pres- ent time only three non-English-speaking centers are active, in France, Denmark, and Sweden. The obvious problem for non-English-speaking nationals would be one of language, al- though Scandinavians study English at school and from my own experience seldom seem at a disadvantage when speaking the language. Scientology hotly disputes the primacy of English, saying that its texts, at least most of them, translate freely and directly into any foreign tongue. One of Hubbard's books, *Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought*, carries a note at the end of the introduction, which reads: "This text has been organized so that a complete translation of all of it will deliver without interruption or destructive change the basics of Scientology into non-English tongues." I think it's an overly ambitious promise. While Scientology's rampant neologism was part and parcel of making it all valid for people absorbing the meaning of *preclear*, "*thetan*," and "*engram*," the full Hubbardian *meaning* of these and all his other words simply would not translate with ease. A second equally serious consideration for foreigners is that processing and training in a local organization can only be carried up to a certain level. Beyond it, scientologists must go either to Saint Hill, in England - now become difficult, although I've heard English- 92 SCIENTOLOGY men say that someone determined to get into the country wouldn't really have much trouble - or to Los Angeles. When it became apparent that a scientologist determined to achieve the state of *clear* would have at least some difficulty in getting into England, Scientology set up an advanced organization in Los Angeles, offering both the highly regarded Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, as well as the higher Grades of Re- lease unavailable locally. Hubbard also directed the formation of an Advanced Organization, staffed by members of his elite "Sea Org," to take students beyond the state of *clear* towards becoming that absolute perfection, an *operating thetan*. I found additional clues as to how many people are in Scientology in figures printed in recent issues of *The Auditor*, Scientology's monthly journal. Discussing the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, it said that since its inception in April of 1961, 614 students had completed the course, 2001 people have achieved the state of *clear*, and 21,307 have achieved Release. These figures are just for Saint Hill in England, and appear to increase at the rate of 50 persons a month. If you figure that *clear* is the culmination of some twelve grades of advancement, and you allow for *some* attrition, you begin to get some idea of the size of this thing. Bob Thomas, when I talked to him at his New York office, graciously tried to pin it down more precisely. On a worldwide basis, he conserva- tively estimated, "well over a million people" are now involved, with a central organization of about 100,000 of what he called "card-carrying members." He told me that between one and two hundred new people encounter Scientology for the first time each week in New York alone, and between 50 to 75 percent of them go on to take at least the most elementary course offered, the Communications Course. We got into the whole subject of costs, either for Scientology processing by itself, or for both it and Scientology training, and how much you might have to lay out to achieve that state of Total Freedom: *clear*. Thomas compared it to the SCIENTOLOGY 93 price tag on a medium-priced car. Looking through one of Scientology's brochures, I found the figure broken down more or less as follows: $750 to achieve the first Grades of Release which are called 0 through IV; $500 to take the Dianetics Auditor's Course; $1,200 to take the Power Grade, Grade V-VA; $775 to take Grade VI, referred to as SOLO be- cause you do it alone; and $800 for Grade VII, *clear*. Power Processing, Grade V-VA, is also offered as a twenty-five-hour intensive, five daily sessions of five hours each at an overall cost of $500, with a minimum of two intensives required. The Saint Hill Special Briefing Course costs $775. At a certain level of processing and training, students are urged to own their own E-Meter, the latest model of which is the Hubbard Mark V E-Meter, sold for $140. Ever time I get a new brochure or newsletter from Scientology, I see a new package plan being offered. On something called Triple Flow Grades, people are encouraged to prepay and get a 5 percent discount. On the training side, there is now a package to take you to Level IV on the Dianetics Auditor's Course for $1,235 - 5 percent off the usual $1,300 if you pay in advance. There are all kinds of incentive plans offering discounts which range from 5 percent to 50 percent on courses and processes, all of the discounts contingent on your making a long-term commit- ment - usually by written contract - to follow the upward path of scientological advancement. A free six-month membership in HASI offers a straight 20 percent discount on all Scientology books which normally cost over $1.25, as well as on tapes, records, E-Meters, and other miscellaneous items available from Scientology bookstores, one of which is located in every Scientology office throughout the world. In addition to two pamphlets which sell for 50 cents, there are now eleven books available at $1.25 each, nine hooks selling for $2.00 each, eleven books selling for $3.00 each, three - among them the original Dianetics text - selling for $5.00, and two selling for $7.00. With only one exception, something called *Miracles for 94 SCIENTOLOGY Breakfast*, written by Ruth Minshull, the majority of the books - those which aren't anonymously authored - are written by L. Ron Hubbard. A steady flow of mailings which I - and every- body else in or out of Scientology who happens to be on the mailing lists - received, told me that the books are available and that the bookstore officer was my "terminal for informa- tion you may have concerning books." Scientology recently offered an extension course, to be taken at home, for $5.00, consisting of what were called Four Lesson Tablets - "each containing 20 lessons, 8 questions each," each lesson pertaining to one of four books, available at a total cost of $16.25. In addition to the books, scientologists can also buy magazines, charts, the Creed of the Church of Scientology ($.50), a photograph of L. Ron Hubbard - 12" x 15" - a "Study Self-Por- trait," pins, car badges, scarves, and ties. Tapes are available at $30 per roll, and a record called "Dianetics Modernized for Scientology Students Practice" which includes Hubbard's per- sonally written instructions costs $15.00. With all these mate- rials, I thought time and time again, is it any wonder that people's immersion in Scientology is total and absolute? A pertinent curiosity is the picture featured on some of the paperback books which shows an old man, a sad-eyed, white-haired, bearded fellow with unusually flared nostrils. I asked Bob Thomas whether this figure represented anything. "A symbol of knowledge," he said, "and as a symbol it has an impact." I looked again at one of the books, *Introduction to Scientology Ethics*, when I got home. The old man is sitting behind a desk, his arms resting on it. His face is weary, but there was a kind of...*timelessness* about it. His robes are black and his left hand is lying lightly on his right. The back of his chair is high and square. He looks like a judge. A wise, stern judge who will brook no nonsense. As I looked at him, I couldn't help remembering a series of stories Hubbard had written many years ago for *Astounding Science Fiction*, using the pen name Rene Lafayette. The stories were called *Soldiers SCIENTOLOGY 95 of Light* and told of a time in the future when medicine has become so superior and purified that its practitioners are something akin to superbeings, "soldiers of light." Lafayette's - or Hubbard's - hero in these stories was Old "Doc" Methuselah, a man of enormous insight and sagacity, who, as his name implied, is a thousand years old and blessed with a wisdom accumulated over those centuries. In discussing the various prices, Minister Thomas was care- ful to explain that all course costs are on a money-back guar- antee and are established by "the Organization." The base rate, if one can call it that, is "$150 per grade of release...achieved to the satisfaction of the client," though private practitioners like him have the right to charge more, based, he was not loath to suggest, on what the traffic might bear. "The charge is for a particular result," he explained almost loftily. "In my career I've only had one person who asked for his money back, and I gave it to him." There is, Thomas went on, "no legal requirement by World- Wide to be franchised. You don't have to be a franchised auditor to be a professional, but most professional auditors desire to be franchised because of the administrative assistance and advices that are given. The requirements are very strin- gent. You've got to adhere to the policies of Scientology and the ethical codes of Scientology. A professional auditor who is not franchised does not work directly with the organization," but is still "bound by certain codes of ethics." As for the 10 per- cent which goes to HCO (WW), a professional, nonfranchised auditor may or may not pay it. As Thomas explained, "it's up to them." Some cities in the U.S., like Chicago, do not have incorpo- rated Scientology churches or organizations. The reason was explained to me by Jack Horner. "An auditor," he said, "can operate under a franchise agreement as long as he doesn't get too big. He gives ten percent of his gross to the organization. That's fair. He's allowed to teach very rudimentary courses. 96 SCIENTOLOGY He operates independently. So this means that an auditor working alone can make anywhere from nothing up to $25,000 a year. This is why the auditors in Chicago don't work in the organization, because the minute you go to work in an organi- zation you go on their so-called Unit System, and this can mean anything from $30 a week, to a top executive who might get $150. The branch office wouldn't be yours any more; it belongs to Hubbard." I asked Bob Thomas about Hubbard's activities on the *Apollo*, now that he has avowedly severed his connections with the administrative operation of Scientology around the world. "It's like a retreat," Thomas explained, meaning Hub- bard's floating domicile, "for advanced Scientologists. Mr. Hubbard is no longer on the board of directors of any of the organizations. He has relinquished everything but being titular head of Scientology," though he "still contributes any technical advances by virtue of research now going on." Hubbard has, it is true, divested himself of his directorship of the various HASI's and churches, but he is still head of HCO (WW), and, according to Thomas, "ten percent is paid to World-Wide for research, and communications." Exactly what this research is Hubbard himself explained to the persistent British film crew which had located him and his flagship. "I am studying ancient civilizations," he said, "trying to find out what happened to them, finding out why they went into a decline, why they died." As to his relationship to Scientology today, Hubbard blithely said, "Let's get my relationship to this completely straight: I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology." Which is nonsense. Hubbard's hand is evident in almost everything happening in Scientology today. Any doubts I might have had were dispelled early this year when I received a "loyalty petition" issued by the Committee For Democratic Mental Practices of the N.A.A.P., P.O. Box 380, New York, N.Y. 10024. Twelve years after his ridiculous "loyalty oath" which he mailed out to psychologists, psychi- SCIENTOLOGY 97 atrists, psychoanalysts, and "ministers of various denominations who engage in mental practice," here was that old National Academy of American Psychology sending out this incredible petition which begins: 'It is not generally appreciated in the United States that the field of mental healing could be used by a foreign power to undermine our democratic system of gov- ernment." What follows is a rhetorical treatise on how mal- practice in the menial sciences is being used under our very noses to subvert...you name it: individuals, organizations, the whole country! The petition to be tendered Congress states "that every person engaged in the treatment of mental illness, including psychiatrists, psychologists and psychother- apists in the United States and its protectorates, shall solumnly [sic] declare before any Justice of the Peace that he is not a member of any movement or party, nor is he associated with, for fee or reward, any foreign power or organization which has as its aim the undermining or subversion of the Constitu- tion or elected government of the United States of America." It is a sickening piece of tripe and smells of that age-old give- away: somebody or something running scared. A much more personal glimpse of what Hubbard is up to was given by Nick Robinson, a young Englishman who had spent months aboard the *Royal Scot Man* and finally left, bit- terly disillusioned. Speaking in a slightly hesitant, carefully pointed manner, he told the British film team whose work I was able to screen, that Hubbard "really is in charge, all the way. He used to use Telexes every day from his organizations all over the world, especially Saint Hill in England. And he sends Telexes to Saint Hill, gives them instructions and so on and so on. So he really is involved. On board the ship he's a kind of Jesus Christ-cum-Buddha all rolled into one. His busts and photographs are everywhere. He just is God."