Inside Scientology (23 page)

Hubbard made a special point of stating his "unequivocal confidence in David Miscavige," whom Nibs had accused of "stealing" from Hubbard, and from Scientology, by mismanaging the Founder's money. "Any activities which he may have engaged in at any time concerning my personal or business affairs have been done with my knowledge and authorization and for my benefit," Hubbard said. He refuted the charge that Miscavige was organizing the theft of his assets as "completely false," noting that Miscavige was a "long time devoted Scientologist." And Scientologists, he explained, "are my most trusted associates and would never do anything to harm me, much less ... steal from me."

In June 1983, a California Superior Court judge, convinced by Hubbard's declaration, dismissed Nibs's case.

Now Miscavige had no rival other than Pat Broeker, who was still the sole conduit to Hubbard and, it was widely believed, Miscavige's co-conspirator. The two men met regularly and secretly at a truck stop off the 10 Freeway, near Barstow. From there, they drove in unmarked rented cars to a safe house in the nearby town of Newberry Springs, where they exchanged boxes: Broeker giving Miscavige Hubbard's communiqués, Miscavige giving Broeker reports from various organizations and officials and also cash. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash would show up for LRH in that banking box," said Mark Fisher, who then served as corporate liaison between Miscavige, ASI, and the rest of Scientology.

Virtually everything that went on in Scientology was filtered through Broeker and Miscavige, who returned to Gilman Hot Springs with increasingly angry missives from Hubbard, who continued to be convinced that Scientology was falling prey to external influences. Sea Org officials hardly knew what they were guilty of, but there was no defense, said Fisher, because while legally the corporations of Scientology were supposed to be separate, in reality they all depended entirely on Miscavige's goodwill. "Only people who worked in the Commodore's Messenger Organization or on other parts of the base were aware of this—it was not something known to the average Scientologist. But all of the executives understood that if they didn't do what Miscavige ordered, he could report them to Hubbard and they'd be removed."

Before presenting anything meant for Hubbard, Miscavige screened all of the written communiqués and reports. "If he didn't like anything in them, he kicked them back [to whoever wrote them]"—or just threw them out, said Fisher. "Whoever controlled that communication line had the power, and Miscavige controlled it entirely. Hubbard just got this box, and whatever was in there is what he believed."

In January 1984, Hubbard delivered an unusual taped message to his flock titled "Today and Tomorrow: The Proof." As Jon Atack noted in
A Piece of Blue Sky,
it was not the typical Hubbard talk in that it was scripted, with frequent interruptions where the Founder "was asked questions, given answers, even corrected on some slight underestimation of a statistic." At the crux were a bitter indictment of what he saw as the corruption of the former management of Scientology and an elevation of individuals he called "a small hardcore group of founding members, devoted on-Policy, in-Tech Scientologists who suddenly understood what was happening ... and just as it looked like the churches were finished and about to fall into hostile hands, they suddenly isolated the infiltrators and threw them out."

It was an undisputable homage to Miscavige and his posse. But whether Hubbard was ever fully aware of the extent of Miscavige's changes was, and remains, unclear. In five years, the young Messenger and his allies had demoted or otherwise dispensed with nearly every person who'd served Hubbard aboard the
Apollo,
eased out long-serving executives, and dismantled the independent franchises, a network the Founder had established and relied upon as a feeder for his movement. The overhaul did away with most of the institutional memory, technical expertise, and earning power of the church.

On January 27, 1986, Captain David Miscavige, light brown hair cut short, his blue Sea Org uniform pressed and starched, epaulets sitting smartly on his shoulders, stood before a crowd of eighteen hundred fellow Scientologists at the Hollywood Palladium, in Los Angeles. "Fellow Sea Org members, Org staff, and Scientology public, I am here before you today to announce that Ron has moved forward to his next level of research," he said. A hush fell over the audience. "It is a level reaching beyond the imagination," Miscavige continued, "and in a state exterior to the body. Thus at 2000 hours, on Friday, the 24th of January, 1986, L. Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in this lifetime for seventy-four years, ten months, and eleven days."

L. Ron Hubbard died in a luxury forty-foot Bluebird motor home on his property in Creston, California, a 160-acre spread called the Whispering Winds Ranch. There, overlooking a vista of rolling green hills and sprawling meadows studded with wildflowers, Hubbard had been living in seclusion with the Broekers since 1983.

For a man who'd sought both notoriety and refuge his entire life, Creston, population 270, was an obscurely apropos place for L. Ron Hubbard to end up. The ranch was down a dirt road, not obvious from any approach. The neighbors rarely saw him. Those who did would later recall an old man, noticeably overweight, usually dressed in baggy trousers and a straw hat. His name, they were told, was Jack.

The three-story, ten-room ranch house had been gutted, remodeled, and then (upon Hubbard's orders) remodeled again, making it uninhabitable while the renovations were going on. One group of painters would later tell a patron of a local tavern that the old man was so demanding he'd insisted they paint the white walls over and over again because, as he told them, they "weren't white enough."

While the house was being worked on, "Jack" lived in the Bluebird trailer, which was parked just behind the stables. He could occasionally be seen driving a Subaru Brat around the property, or padding around the stables in his robe and slippers. Once in a while, he'd stop to chat with the Scientologist caretaker, Steve Pfauth, who was the only other full-time custodian at the ranch, aside from the Broekers. The group was generally unfriendly to outsiders, although "Jack" could surprise people. The ranch's former fencing contractor, Jim Froelicher, later told the
Los Angeles Times
that he'd once asked the old man for advice on buying a camera. A few days later, Hubbard gave the contractor a 35-mm camera as a gift.

During his exile Hubbard was attended by his Scientologist physician, Dr. Eugene Denk, who was one of only a few people, other than Pat and Annie Broeker and Pfauth, who saw the Founder in his final years. Obsessed with Hubbard's security, Pat Broeker ordered that Denk be kept in the dark about the ranch's exact location, sometimes blindfolding the doctor during the drive there. In early 1985, Denk moved onto the property and into his own trailer, the Country Aire, where he would live for the rest of the year as he tended the Founder, who would frequently yell at the doctor to leave him alone. "LRH was not a good patient," Pfauth recalled.

Denk, setting aside all talk of "dropping the body," later stated that Hubbard had died of a stroke. His health had been failing for several years. A month before his death, said Denk, Hubbard had suffered a brain hemorrhage, which had made it impossible for him to speak and had left him bedridden. The San Luis Obispo County coroner, who briefly took possession of Hubbard's body, accepted the diagnosis of a stroke, and a blood test revealed the presence of anti-stroke medication in Hubbard's system. It also revealed a quantity of hydroxyzine, sold under the brand name Vistaril, an anti-anxiety medication often used to treat psychosis. This suggested that Hubbard, who'd preached against the use of "psych" drugs for decades, had been taking them himself.

This bit of information would never be imparted to the faithful, however. Nor would it be known that Hubbard had been left without medical attention for several days while gravely ill. Roughly a week prior to Hubbard's death, Broeker, Miscavige, and several other Commodore's Messengers took Dr. Denk on a gambling trip to Reno. While they were gone, Hubbard summoned Ray Mithoff, Scientology's top auditor, to administer a "death assist," a form of auditing that is comparable to last rites. Whether Hubbard had ordered his aides to dispense with Denk, or whether the Messengers had taken it upon themselves to whisk him away, would never be firmly established—some former Messengers would later say that Hubbard would not have wanted his doctor nearby, as Scientology forbids a person to have any medication in the system within twenty-four hours of auditing. "Gene was the kind of guy who believed in keeping his patients alive. So if LRH wanted to leave his body, Gene wouldn't have wanted to be a part of that," said Julie Holloway. By the time Denk returned, Hubbard was prepared. He died a few days later.

By 11
P
.
M
., January 24, Pat Broeker had notified a small group of Scientology officials that the Founder was dead. They gathered at the ranch to await the mortician and discuss the future. The flock, of course, would have to be told that Hubbard was gone. But Scientology had to go on. And so a story was concocted.

"The being we knew as L. Ron Hubbard still exists, and is still with us," Miscavige continued, days later, from the podium. "He has simply moved on to his next step on the Bridge." This was the central theme of the official story. Hubbard, Miscavige explained to the audience, had found that his physical body had "ceased to be useful, and in fact had become an impediment to the work he now must do outside its confines." He reminded the audience that they should not feel sorrow, for Hubbard had used his life to "accomplish what no man has ever accomplished. He unlocked the mysteries of life and gave us the tools so we could free ourselves and our fellow men."

Then Pat Broeker, a tall, thin, dark-haired man who, like his boss, had not been seen publicly for six years, took the stage. "I want to reiterate that it was absolutely Ron's causative decision to discard his body," Broeker said. Indeed, as far back as 1984, he pointed out, Hubbard had known that he'd have to "move on from where he was, through phenomena that required him to be free from encumbrances." Just a few days earlier, said Broeker, Hubbard had completed his earthly research, declared "this was it," and then "handled in [an auditing] session all things that were necessary so that he could completely sever all ties."

Broeker also announced that the balance of Hubbard's estate, "which is substantial," would go to the church. "It is Ron's wish and postulate that we Clear this planet now, and he has given us this gift in order to get the job done." As for who might lead the charge, neither Broeker nor Miscavige, nor any of the other representatives of Scientology's senior management, all of whom stood onstage, said a word. "There is only one Source," said Broeker. "Source does not pass to Management. Source is Ron, the only one! The Power of Source is the Route to Total Freedom."

The crowd rose to their feet and cheered.

Power in my estimation is if people will listen to you.

—
DAVID MISCAVIGE

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outpouring of grief among Scientologists when L. Ron Hubbard died. To mourn excessively would have been to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Hubbard's teachings: that one life is a mere blip on the screen of a thetan's eternal existence. And yet, despite this assurance, Scientologists were stunned by Hubbard's demise, most notably the dedicated Sea Org members who'd spent years hoping and preparing for their leader's return. Among them, Mark Fisher, for example, had worked diligently at Gilman Hot Springs, helping to build Hubbard's mansion, Bonnie View. On the evening of January 27, 1986, Fisher and his wife drove to Los Angeles, attended the memorial at the Hollywood Palladium, and drove back to Hemet in silence. "My biggest dream at the time was to work for LRH directly, and now that goal and dream were shattered for me," said Fisher. "We were shocked, to say the least. We were wondering what would happen now."

Whether Hubbard had intended to will most of his estate to Scientology has been an enduring question. Just one day before he died, the Founder's will—the third
^*
will he'd drawn up since 1979—was revised, leaving most of his fortune to a trust, appointing as trustee Norman Starkey, a close ally of Miscavige's and executor of the will. In previous wills, Hubbard's personal attorney and then Pat Broeker had been named the executor. Given reports that the Founder was seriously ill for some time before he died, some conspiracy theorists have maintained, and will no doubt continue to maintain, that Hubbard's will was illegitimate. But considering the manner in which Hubbard had always regarded his family, there is little doubt that he intended to leave the majority of his estate to the Church of Scientology. To ensure that there would be no challenge from the family, however improbable that it might succeed, Miscavige made a side agreement with Mary Sue Hubbard, whereby she agreed to a settlement of $100,000 in exchange for giving up her share of a claim to Hubbard's estate—a fortune worth approximately $400 million. Each of Hubbard's children by Mary Sue received settlements of $50,000. Hubbard's children by his previous marriages, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., Katherine, and Alexis, were also paid settlements; Nibs received his after threatening litigation.

But aside from bequeathing his material wealth, Hubbard had never appointed a successor, nor had he provided his followers with a clear road map for the future. Who among them had the vision and strength of purpose to ensure that Scientology would continue to grow and prosper?

Many in the Commodore's Messenger Organization already viewed Miscavige as that leader. Just twenty-five, he had been slavishly devoted to Hubbard, and though he spent most of his time at Scientology's Los Angeles headquarters, where Author Services was based, he made weekly trips to Gilman Hot Springs to meet with executives in the Commodore's Messenger Organization and other branches of the Sea Org. His wife, Michele "Shelly" Barnett,
^*
a cool and pretty young woman with long strawberry-blonde hair, usually accompanied him on these trips as his assistant.