Inside Scientology (56 page)

Some of the very best coverage of the Church of Scientology has appeared in the
St. Petersburg Times,
the
New York Times,
and the
Los Angeles Times
—Pulitzer Prize winners all, for their reporting on the church in the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, the investigative reporter Richard Behar did some of the bravest and most groundbreaking reporting on the movement, first for
Fortune,
and then for
Time
magazine. The reporting of journalists at the
Boston Herald
and the
Wall Street Journal
provided great help in my research into the Church of Scientology's social betterment organizations and its IRS tax battle and secret agreement; the Lisa McPherson case might have never come to light were it not for the reporting of Cheryl Waldrip from the
Tampa Tribune,
who broke the story of Lisa's death in 1996. I also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Robert Farley at the
St. Petersburg Times
for his continued assistance and research, and to his colleagues, Tom Tobin and Joe Childs, whose 2009 and 2010 reporting on abuse at the International Base confirmed many of the stories I had been told by former staffers and officials for several years prior. The thoroughness of the
Times
's recent coverage, particularly the paper's video interviews with Marty Rathbun, which were posted on the paper's website, were invaluable to me in piecing together the very complex story of Scientology's current leadership.

Though Rathbun, for reasons known only to him, chose not to be interviewed for this book, he provided a wealth of information on the church's recent history and the mindset and behavior of David Miscavige on his blog, Moving On Up a Little Higher (markrathbun.wordpress.com). Similarly, the former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder, whom I interviewed at length early in my reporting, has also helped fill in those blanks through his frequent posts and, while still a church official, was hugely helpful in shining a light on some of the more positive aspects of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, and the movement's early history.

Finally, L. Ron Hubbard's own books, policy letters, and other directives informed almost every page of this book and were made available to me through a variety of former Scientologists, through the Church of Scientology itself, and through the assistance of numerous researchers, notably Professors Stephen A. Kent at the University of Alberta and J. Gordon Melton and the J. Gordon Melton Collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Library's Special Collections; I also appreciate the work of the researcher Chris Owen and, most crucially, Gerry Armstrong, whose tremendous contribution to the historical record of Scientology I have detailed in the notes for chapter 2.

Though there has been a profound lack of unbiased scholarship on Scientology, there is plentiful critical information about the church for those who seek it. Dozens if not hundreds of websites, with new ones popping up all the time, are devoted to debunking various aspects of Scientology and critiquing L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige. These sites, most of which have been created by former Scientologists or free-speech activists, with names such as Scientology-cult, Scientology Lies, and Operation Clambake, do not pretend to be neutral. Nonetheless, many could be characterized as an independent, if biased, research library: a repository for troves of Scientologist documents, newspaper articles, letters, affidavits, and other materials that might otherwise take a researcher months to acquire. Because scans of those documents have been freely posted on these sites, I have turned to many of them as a secondary source of information, keeping in mind their anti-Scientology bias. In every case, I have been extremely careful which documents to use; whenever possible, I acquired the originals or original photocopies of all historical materials.

All quotes are sourced in these notes except in the case of a subject who was interviewed by me and was speaking to me. Unless specified, it should be assumed that all quotes by a single source within a single paragraph come from the same page or document noted.

Scientology's policy letters and bulletins are voluminous, so when citing them in the notes, I have used the church's standard abbreviations. Hubbard Communication Office Bulletins and Policy Letters are referred to by the acronym HCO.

Introduction

The description of the New York Church of Scientology, and the people who work there, comes from my own observation and notes from several visits I made to the organization in July 2005 while on assignment for
Rolling Stone.
In order to get a sense of what a newcomer might experience upon simply walking into a Scientology organization, I concealed my identity as a journalist (though not my name or any other important details of my life) and was thus availed of the typical "orientation package" offered to newcomers: lectures, films, and introductory auditing. As this would amount to an "undercover" bit of research, I could not take notes while in the New York church. However, I wrote copious notes just after leaving it each day, recalling every part of my conversations and other important information gleaned from my interaction with Scientologist greeters and registrars. Many of these observations first appeared in an article I wrote for
Rolling Stone,
"Inside Scientology," in February 2006.

The statistics on Scientologists' previous religious affiliations found in this chapter come from Scientology's primer
What Is Scientology?
and from the church's website,
www.scientology.org
.

page

[>]
In Germany, where the church:
Kate Connolly, "German Ministers Try to Ban Scientology,"
The Guardian,
December 8, 2007.
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, "documented 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 documents 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 documents 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 relationship with Parsons and the underground world of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in Los Angeles, as well as an excellent analysis 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 documented 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 analysis 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 Willies,"
The Sportsman Pilot,
1931.
[>]
L. Ron "Flash" Hubbard:
"Controversial Author–Stunt 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 advertisement, "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 psychoanalyst, at the age of twelve while sailing with his mother through the Panama Canal en route to Washington, D.C. The story of Hubbard's friendship with Thompson, including his assertion that Thompson took him to the Library of Congress as a boy and explained Freudian theory to him, is part of Scientology lore, first asserted 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 Brass,"
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.