Inside Scientology Part 15

in May 2008, for example: Anil Dawar, "Teenager Faces Prosecution for Calling Scientology 'Cult,'" The Guardian, May 20, 2008.

one outspoken member: Anne Wright, "Senator Nick Xenophon Brands Scientology a 'Criminal Organization,'" Herald Sun, November 18, 2009. Xenophon, an independent senator from South Australia, began receiving letters from former Scientologists after questioning the organization's tax-exempt status during a 2009 television interview. Those letters, he said, detailed "a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality." Since then he has become one of the most vocal critics of Scientology, repeatedly calling for inquiries into the church's activities and the repeal of its tax exemption. In September 2010, at his urging, Australia's Senate initiated an investigation into Scientology and other nonprofit organizations; it then created a committee to ensure that such groups deserve their charity status. (Its work is ongoing at the time of writing.)

[>] "I don't think that's going": "Scientology: Former Scientologist," The Current, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 30, 2009.

[>] Roughly a quarter of them: Church of Scientology, What Is Scientology?, p. 463.

[>] "If it isn't written": Hubbard, "The Hidden Data Line," HCO Policy Letter, April 16, 1965.

"growing faster now than": Church of Scientology, "Frequently Asked Questions," www.scientologynews.org/faq/frequently-asked-questions-introduction.html.

1. The Founder The true story of L. Ron Hubbard was unknown to Scientologists, and to the public at large, until the early 1980s, when a onetime Hubbard acolyte and church archivist named Gerald Armstrong left Scientology after eleven years in the church's inner sanctum, taking with him a trove of private letters, journals, files, and other materials that, as he said, "doc.u.mented that Hubbard had lied about virtually every part of his life, including his education, degrees, family, explorations, military service, war wounds, scientific research, the efficacy of his 'sciences'-Dianetics and Scientology-along with the actions and intentions of the organizations he created to sell and advance these 'sciences.'"

This material, deposited with several attorneys for safekeeping, became the basis of a 1984 lawsuit, Church of Scientology of California v. Gerald Armstrong, brought by Scientology against its former archivist for theft and breach of trust. (The church did not dispute the authenticity of the doc.u.ments themselves.) During the course of the trial many pages of previously unknown biographical data about L. Ron Hubbard, including his infamous affirmations, were read into the record, ultimately helping to form a counternarrative to the official life of Hubbard that the church promulgates.

This chapter, which covers the first forty years of L. Ron Hubbard's life, relies heavily on Jon Atack's A Piece of Blue Sky and Russell Miller's Barefaced Messiah, both of which drew extensively on the Armstrong materials. Unless otherwise noted, quotes from Hubbard's childhood journals come largely from Barefaced Messiah. To supplement this biographical research, I did my own interviews with Armstrong about these materials, and interviewed him at length about the authenticity of the affirmations, which Scientology viewed as confidential. I also used doc.u.ments presented in the 1984 Armstrong case. In addition, and where at all possible, I quote from Hubbard's own writing, some of which the Church of Scientology has made available on its websites www.aboutlronhubbard.org and www.ronhub bard.org prior to the spring of 2010; it is also published in Scientology's series of Ron magazines (Bridge Publications, 1991).

For background on the life and times of John Whiteside Parsons, I referred primarily to George Pendle's excellent biography, Strange Angel, which offers a detailed portrait of L. Ron Hubbard's relations.h.i.+p with Parsons and the underground world of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in Los Angeles, as well as an excellent a.n.a.lysis of the development of aeronautics and the inspiration it took from science fiction. I also drew from Parsons's own writing, notably "The Book of Babalon," or "Liber 49," available online at hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Parsons regarding Hubbard's behavior are from these sources. I gained invaluable insight into the Western esoteric tradition that gave birth to Crowley's Thelema, and a fascinating explanation of Scientology as a religion with esoteric roots, from Professor J. Gordon Melton of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his archive at the UCSB Special Collection.

The history and development of science fiction as a literary genre has been doc.u.mented extensively. For background on the pulp fiction world of New York during the 1930s, I turned to Frank Gruber's The Pulp Jungle, which gives an excellent portrait of both the key players and the overall scene. Jack Williamson's Wonder's Child; Isaac Asimov's In Memory Yet Green and I.Asimov: A Memoir; L. Sprague De Camp's The Science Fiction Handbook; and the unparalleled John Campbell Letters give a more detailed a.n.a.lysis of the science fiction world and its golden age, as well as recollections of L. Ron Hubbard from the late 1930s.

For historical and sociological perspective on the birth and development of Los Angeles, Mike Davis's City of Quartz and Carey McWilliams's Southern California: An Island of the Land were outstanding resources, as were Kenneth Starr's The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s and Harry Carr's Los Angeles: City of Dreams. Complete publication information for all books mentioned here is given in the selected bibliography.

[>] When I was very young": L. Ron Hubbard, "A First Word on Adventure," from "Letters and Journals, Early Years of Adventure," circa 1943, www.lronhubbard.org.

[>] "a lovely, vicious lonely thing": Ibid. Ibid.

[>] "a deeply conservative plodder": Russell Miller, Barefaced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, p. 97.

[>] "as if he were a well-traveled man": Ibid., p. 44.

[>] "which had a faculty for ground-looping": Hubbard, "Tailwind w.i.l.l.i.e.s," The Sportsman Pilot, 1931.

[>] L. Ron "Flash" Hubbard: "Controversial AuthorStunt Flier Landed in Gratis 52 Years Ago," Preble County News, July 21, 1983. Reprint of original article, "Here and There," September 17, 1931.

[>] "adventurous young men": "The Caribbean Expedition," 1932 advertis.e.m.e.nt, "The Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition," www.lronhub bard.org/biography/adventures-explorations/caribbean-motion-picture-expedition.htm.

[>] "worst trip I ever made": Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, p. 62.

[>] a crucial bit of wisdom: Hubbard claimed to have met Thompson, a navy surgeon and psychoa.n.a.lyst, at the age of twelve while sailing with his mother through the Panama Ca.n.a.l en route to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. The story of Hubbard's friends.h.i.+p with Thompson, including his a.s.sertion that Thompson took him to the Library of Congress as a boy and explained Freudian theory to him, is part of Scientology lore, first a.s.serted during Hubbard's lecture of October 18, 1958, "The Story of Dianetics and Scientology."

[>] "If there is anyone in the world": Ibid.

[>] "a bit too long on the ambrosia": L. Sprague De Camp, "Elron of the City of Bra.s.s," Fantastic, August 1975; also "Modern Imaginative Fiction," in The Science Fiction Handbook, p. 93.

[>] "I seem to have a sort of personal": Letter from Hubbard to Margaret Ann "Polly" Hubbard, 1938. Polly was also known as "Skipper."

[>] "He had been in the United States Marines": Frank Gruber, The Pulp Jungle, p. 80.

[>] "one of aviation's most distinguished": The Sportsman Pilot, editorial by H. Latane Lewis, July 1934.

[>] "Corn flakes could": This letter, addressed to "General Manager, The Kellogg Company," was posted by the Church of Scientology on www.lronhubbard.org, in a section containing some of Hubbard's literary correspondence.

[>] "I have high hopes of smas.h.i.+ng": Letter from Hubbard to Polly Hubbard, 1938.

[>] "We were all exploring": Jack Williamson, Wonder's Child, p. 131.

[>] "Given one slim fact": Hubbard, "Search for Research," www.lronhub bard.org.

[>] "Some thought him a Fascist": De Camp, "Elron of the City of Bra.s.s," and The Science Fiction Handbook, p. 94.

[>] "offer my services in whatever": Letter from Hubbard to the War Department, September 1, 1939.

[>] with a propensity for having: Notice of Hubbard's posting to U.S. Naval Training School (Military Government), January 17, 1945, www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/warhero/1944/441004B.gif.

"The Great Era of Adventure": Hubbard, "A First Word on Adventure."

[>] "conjured into existence": Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island in the Sun, p. 134.

[>] "Do what thou wilt": Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law, p. 9.

[>] "He was a fascinating storyteller": Russell Miller's interview with Nieson Himmel, August 14, 1986, www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/interviews/himmel.htm.

[>] "From some of his experiences": Letter from Parsons to Aleister Crowley, January 1946, cited in John Carter, s.e.x and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons, p. 106.

[>] "the most profitable ecclesiastic": H. L. Mencken, The American Mercury, April 1928.

[>] "good friend": Hubbard, "Conditions of s.p.a.ce/Time/Energy," Philadelphia Doctorate Course ca.s.sette tape #18 5212C05.

[>] "crippled and blinded": Hubbard, "My Philosophy," 1965; also Hubbard, Ron-Letters and Journals, published by the Church of Scientology, 1997.