L. RON HUBBARD
Youth. The coming age of youth, Crowley predicted. What was life like before the baby boomer era, and the ongoing love affair with everything young?
When you look at the ages of the people getting married from the pilgrims to the wild west right on up to the depression and World War 2 one notices a huge discrepancy in age between married couples. Before World War 1 that discrepancy could be as much as 20 or 30 years. The explanation for this is simple- many women died in childbirth. Women in their 40's weren't willing to uproot and move out west, but teen girls and girls in their 20's would. Music, plays, finally films- were all geared for entire populations. There was no youth market. Kids dressed in suits like their dads, women were told at 18 to either get married or become a teacher or secretary- and try to marry a man at the job. ( Today a girl like that would be sent to "sensitivity classes"). Look at the Mickey Rooney films of the 30's (ANDY HARDY) and he wears suits, dads are shown as all knowing, everyone likes the same music.
In World War 2 sailors and soldiers dreamed of islands inhabited all by beautiful young girls- which would lead to a slew of men's magazines about Amazon tribes found on an island during the war, scantily clad stunning women tortured by enemies, all of it culminating in Tiki culture and Bettie Page. Both of which are still around and more popular than ever.
After the war, states like Illinois passed laws that men had to be 21 to drink, but women could drink at 18. Have parents or grandparents who married between 1945 to 1965? You may have noticed they usually aren't the same age.
Being surrounded by pretty young girls was every sailors fantasy.
The two studs of the 40's and 50's, Errol Flynn and Ali Khan were middle aged. Khan was fat, balding. Yet he dated Gene Tierney, Rita Hayworth, and almost every single young beautiful socialite and actress that was known at the time.
Ben Hecht, the Chicago newspaperman who wrote plays and films (THE FRONT PAGE has been made and re-made over and over) contributed to all this with his script THE QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE with the Paris Hilton of the 50's, Zsa Zsa Gabor. It is about soldiers stranded on a planet of women!
Then along came James Dean, who Del knew (more on that coming) and suddenly a t- shirt and red breaker jacket became a uniform for young people everywhere. Rock music began to appear, and was instantly hated by the all ages folk music crowd. It was red neck music with a colored beat. And it wasn't even jazz. Just 4 chords and a riff. But young people were creating their own fashions and music and films. The cat was out of the bag.
Divorce was uncommon and in many areas unknown before the youth rebellion. But when kids the same age started hooking up, and there was no longer an already established person or mature person in the relationship, divorce from 18 to 34 went through the roof. And has continued to do so.
So did Crowley cause this age to occur? Or was it marketing? Was the youth culture nurtured and centuries of dating and marrying habits changed to make it easier to sell to people? Will it pass as the baby boomers grow up? And the size of the youth market diminishes?
We shall see.
Critics of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard often question his past. Well, I'm someone who left home at 12 and 1/2 and never went back. I was suspended from Grady High School in Atlanta after I discovered that many poor schools were picking out girls that were considered to be so flirty that they would grow up to be promiscuous and were being sterilized. Keep in mind, this was before they had actually done anything sexually. I was caught passing out leaflets at a PTA meeting urging parents not to do this to their kids. (In Ireland and the UK in the 20th century, Catholic girls who were thought be too pretty were sent to work camps and forced to work all day and half the night as punishment for having looks that would tempt men. So please, spare me the 'real religion' versus 'fake religion' crap). I would get kicked out for protesting mandatory ROTC as you read earlier. I came to Chicago, got a scholarship to go to the Art Institute and took my academic classes at Roosevelt and the University of Chicago. I lived in a lesbian commune, where I discovered 95% of the lesbians were actually bi.
Look, I'm reading that and I don't believe it. But it happens to be true. I was a high school kid kicked out and homeless and I ended up a college student, and my second year, became the first second year student to actually teach- and get paid for it, at the school! Over the objections of 90% of the college profs. I was even allowed to skip faculty meetings! I can tell you about the power of the will!
So do I believe Lafayette Ronald Hubbard at 6 was taught to read Shakespeare?
Yes. You see there were two books everyone who went out west took with them, from the settler days on. The Bible. And works of Shakespeare. Many people for decades learned to read from those two books.
Do I believe he entered the Boy Scouts and earned Eagle Scout in less than five months? Yes actually, because he wasn't the only one! In the period he was growing up it was possible to become an Eagle Scout within a year (that practice has since ended).
As an ex-member of the biggest cult in western culture, Catholicism, nothing that Scientology has been accused of comes close to the deaths from fights between Catholics and Protestants, burning witches, killing scientists, land grabs etc. NOTHING. So, which one is real? By the way, right now in Ireland and the UK charges that police collaborated to torture and assassinate Catholics by the hundreds are rocking the two nations. Protestants have kept the old traditions alive! In fact, the press is speculating as I write that far more Catholics were killed by torture and assassination than all those killed by IRA bombs. This isn't the far past- this is now. I won't even bring up the Spanish missionaries blessing unarmed Indian tribes, before soldiers opened fire and killed them.
So. Which is the harmful cult?
There is only one known interview with Hubbard in the regular press, let's read it, and then I'll discuss Del's therapy sessions with Hubbard in this monolog. And more on this fascinating philosopher, Hubbard.
By the way, all my life stories up to now must seem romanticized. The darkness is coming.
1968
The only time Hubbard allowed an outside crew to interview him.
Granada Television - England
V.O) Tonight, World in Action has tracked down one of the most elusive men on earth.
This was the end of our search, an ex cattle boat, The Royal Scotman, docked at Bizerte, a small port in North Africa. On board, about 250 people making some sort of a crew and this, mysterious man. The local ice cream man thought he was a great scientist looking for insects. Everybody seems to think he is a millionaire. These are no ordinary sea men; their allegiance and devotion to the mysterious man is total. To them, he is: "My Commodore."
The man is L. Ron Hubbard: charmer, science fiction writer and showman, the creator of Scientology and the man who is pushing it into its new more militant phase. He now requires that his crew must have training in judo and weaponry and that they must be ethically beyond reproach, tough, formidable and effective. To them, he is a savior. One of them wrote: " ...that which I have really found is the nearness to the greatness which is Ron, our founder. To me, above all, my Commodore."
Today, shyness[?] has overcome Mr. Hubbard when asked to appear on television. After several weeks of hunting for him with the help of almost every radio station along the mediterranean and beyond, World in Action at last tracked Hubbard down. Just before dawn, on a recent Sunday morning, Hubbard, who finds sleeping difficult, decided at last to speak. He spoke for a long long time about his money, his beliefs, his critics and the new authoritarian structure of Scientology. But first he spoke about his troubles with the British government. He put on his hat, he smiled and he began.
Hubbard: Well, that's very interesting, but let's correct an impression first. You said you were in trouble. Let's get my relationship to this completely straight and so on... I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology. About 2 1/2 years ago or so I even ceased to be the director of organisations. The governement, in the first place I'm not in trouble with the British government not even faintly, and 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.
(V.O) The immigration officials might well tip their hats, but they couldn't let him in. The day we filmed Mr Hubbard the Home Office decided that Britain would be better off without him.
The Shrinking World of L Ron Hubbard
(V.O) Saint Hill Manor, England. Hubbard's British headquarters handling an income of something like 1 million £ a year. But as Scientology expands more and more governments and mental health authorities condemn it.
Journalist: I wondered, Mr Hubbard, if you could explain simply to a layman what Scientology is?
Hubbard: I think that would be a relatively easy idea[?] because it is actually a subject which is designed for the layman and if you couldn't explain it to the layman you would have a very difficult time on it. The subject, the name means "scio," which means knowing how to know in the fullest sense of the word, "ology" which is study of, so it is actually study of knowingness [sic]. That is what the word itself means. The...
Journalist: To me that doesn't mean very much. I didn't understand that. I mean, what does it do for you - in theory?
Hubbard: It increases one's knowingness. But if a man were totally aware of what was going on around him, he would find it relatively simple to handle any outnesses [sic] [note: that word not only is not an english word, but it is not even defined in any Scientology dictionaries] in that. [sic]
(V.O): After 3 hours of talking we never got an explanation from him that we could understand.
In fact, Scientology is a faith, a religion. Because faiths are now out of fashion it calls itself a science. But scientists would just have as much difficulty with the beliefs of Scientology as they do with virgin births and resurrection from the dead.
Saint Hill is a nice place, Scientologists are very friendly and honestly believe they can help whoever goes to them. Usually, they can.
Scientologists do 2 basic things; first, they sit for hours listening to recordings of Hubbard and they are examined to see how well they learnt it.
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Hubbard on tape
Now the mind when it has an old experience will add that data into its current experience and it keeps coming up with wrong answers. A profesor looks at some college student -ah- with a slight -ah- twitch -ah- of the-ah- eyes. And this girl says: "he has winked at me." [garbled] |
(V.O) What he tells them, when you cut through the jargon, is partly good sense, teaching his disciples how to calm down and deal with the things that worry them. The rest is religious ramblings and stories about his achievements in this life and the ones he's led before which are as imaginative as his science fiction.
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Hubbard on tape continues
... because she was assaulted when she was 10 by this fellow who winked at her first and it messed her up considerably.
Student, on tape
I don't understand what "out-conscious" are... [garbled] |
(V.O) The real hooker in Scientology is this instrument. They call it an E-meter. It's a very simple electronic device that's been around for years as a lie detector. There is no mystery whatsoever about it. Hubbard uses it in a process he calls auditing; the Scientologist's confessional. Here, the student talks often for many hundreds of expensive hours about himself. His inner-most secrets are dug into. As they question embarrassment, fear, guilt, shame any emotion will make the needle waver.
American courts have condemned the E-meter of being totally unscientific; it measures only emotion. It can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. If you feel ashamed because you believe that, in a previous incarnation, you hammered the nails into Christ's feet, the Scientologists think that proves that you lived before as a Roman centurion. Unburdened, the student feels free at last. It's this area that is a deepest concern to the medical world, although discussing the deepest problems naturally makes many people feel better, the Scientologists also applied this technique to people in no fit mental state to stand it. Sometimes, digging with the best will in the world into a student's problems they can reduce him into a state of collapse well known to psychiatrists. The Scientologists gayly call it the sad effect [sic]. The only mystery about the e-meter is its price. In a recent US income tax trial, it was stated that it cost about 4 £ and 9d to make while Hubbard was selling it for between 44 and 51£. As the court commissioners said, such profitability, while not at all conclusive, is indicative of a commercial operation.
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Award ceremony - MC
The Hubbard College of Scientology Qualifications division department of Certifications and Awards does hereby certify that Janet E Lundy has obtained the state of Clear!
[Applause] |
(V.O) This girl has reached her goal: she's gone "clear." Clears like her have gone through a list of 60 questions written in Hubbard 's own handwriting without showing any emotional reaction on the E-meter to any of them. Towards us the unbelievers they feel pity, they call us "wogs" [racist term]
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Janet
I've never given a speech before, so this is the first one for me, but I did want to say one thing -ah- validate yourselves [cult's jargon] you're beautiful, thank you. |
(V.O) For many, Scientology becomes not only a faith but a way of life. They become dependent upon the org for their social life and even their livelihood. They work for very long hours and almost no money. A year ago, the org did not deny a profit of 1/2 a million £ since then the income has touched 30 000 £ a week. They neither know nor care what happens to the money.
About 3 years ago, Hubbard introduced a new note into his new kingdom, discipline. He laid down a rigid line of conduct. Since then, the ethics department has taken over more and more. This is one of Hubbard ethics orders on critics of Scientology, so called suppressives.
SP ORDER - FAIR GAME
May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued, or lied to, or destroyed.
Last year, Hubbard wrote:
Now get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea. Every time we've investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes which that person or group could be emprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts. Over and over we prove this.
Politician A stand up on his hind legs in a parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over we find crimes: embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys - sordid stuff. Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he didn't know about.
Most recently, Hubbard wrote this about a group of people who defended against the ethics department.
They are declared enemies of mankind, the planet, and all life. They are fair game. No amnesty may ever cover them. The criminal prosecution bureau is to find any and all crimes in their past and have them brought to court and a prison. Any sea organisation member contacting any of them is to use auditing process R2-45.
Hubbard called R2-45 "an enormously effective process of exteriorization frowned upon by society at this time."
But it's here back on the ship with Hubbard that ethics really flourish. The stated purpose of the ship is to "get ethics in." Hubbard is captain. On the ship he is not governed by English law. But we asked him about his authoritarian activities at his English headquarters.
Hubbard: If there is an authoritarian structure at Saint Hill, it has been brought into being by the government itself. Saint Hill is trying to correct itself; it doesn't know what it's trying to correct because nobody has told it what to correct. We get these odd allegations, we used to in the old days and I'm sure they still do, and all I'd have to do, all Robinson would have to do is say: "You fellows mustn't do so and so and you must do so and so and immediately these fellows would straighten out -ah- as it is...
Journalist: but listen , but surely...
Hubbard: They trying to prevent Scientologists from doing something wrong but they don't know what would be wrong
Journalist: but Britain, we hope is not an authoritarian place it does not say to people you will now stop doing this, you will now start doing that. And that is what your organisation does and some people find that helpful they're told by you, and I'm sure you can do it very well...
Hubbard: ...not by me, not by me, the ship's company right now -ah-...
Journalist: they think they're told by you at Saint-Hill and they feel that you are a strength for them in that way
Hubbard: Anybody who has inspired a movement would be a strength for them. But let me clarify this very definitely. It is not an authoritarian organisation and the only reason why it is trying desperately to keep itself in some sort of very firm order and so on is because they're trying to correct things.
Journalist: But surely it's authoritarian in its treatment of suppressive people that kind of thing, I mean, you don't allow criticism.
Hubbard: Oh no a suppressive person isn't critical, a suppressive person is a person who denies the right of others.
Journalist: But surely you are doing precisely that thing to them by denying them the right to do what they want to do.
Hubbard: Perhaps but if it's somebody's [sic] going to kill a baby I think you would deny him the right too. This is beside the point. The only thing, the only reason why any discipline has had to enter the scene, and the government should be very glad of that discipline, is to keep the lunatic fringe and from other people from exploiting this subject, and victimising people with it. If the government were to knock out the control point of Scientology they would reap the whirlwinds.
Why do they just fight it and say there's something bad but they never specify what's bad. They haven't specified. For instance, right now they say we're breaking up marriages. Why, that's a lie. As a matter of fact they're saying that at the moment when you've got this book which was just about to go on the press is "How to save your marriage" because it contains thousands of successful marriages.
Journalist: How many times have you been married?
Hubbard: How many times have I been married? I've been married twice. And I 'm very happily married just now, I have a lovely wife, I have 4 children, my first wife is dead.
Journalist: What happened to your second wife?
Hubbard:I've never had a second wife.
(V.O) What Hubbard said happens to be untrue. It's an unimportant detail but he's had 3 wives. He did have a second wife, Sarah Northrup Hubbard, from whom he was divorced on the 12th of June, 1951. He has at least 3 other children. What is important is that his followers were there as he lied, but no matter what the evidence they don't believe it.
Journalist: What are you actually doing on this ship now?
Hubbard: I am studying ancient civilisations trying to find what happened to them finding out why they went into decline why they died.
Journalist: This studying, what do you do, how do you do it?
Hubbard: I have sent out several people to look over areas and so on they come back they tell me what they are, I go out to the important ones.
Journalist: Do you believe that you have lived before?
Hubbard: Now to answer that question would be very unfair.
Journalist: Scientologists believe they lived before, though, don't they?
Hubbard: Oh yes as a matter of fact it's quite interesting that exercises can be conducted which demonstrate conclusively that there are memories which exist prior to this life.
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Ship PA system
This is a drill, this is a drill. Fire. Fire. Fire on poop deck |
(V.O) These are some of the faithful at fire drill, one of the few things we were able to film before they got angry.
One crew member wrote a letter published in the ship's magazine:
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My body was seen in the ship at a certain place, whereas at the very time it was being seen, I was discussing the various spots[?] with another 3 sea org members way away from where I was seen.
After this I received three letters from South Africa the writers of which were glad having seen me and congratulated me on looking so well. My last time in South Africa was in 1957.
Recently I went there 4 times bodyless, to see my friend Chris Veideman[?]. Mybody has not left Spain since it got here. |
(V.O) Those who stay provide Hubbard with an almost free crew. There are no professional sailors he pays them just enough for cigarettes and sweets but they pay him rather more. The new advanced courses costs something more than 1000 £ plus keep, payable to an account in the name of Hubbard's present wife. If all 250 people have signed for these advanced courses, which according to Hubbard can be completed in weeks, days and even hours, that makes over a quarter of a million £. The scrapers could be scraping for quite some time; they've been asked to sign a contract for 1 billion years.
Journalist: You say that you have retired from Scientology, you're now on a very smart and spenditious ship, well what are you doing on the ship?
Hubbard: I don't think the labour government ought to know this, because they don't aprove of loafing, but I'm loafing.
Journalist: What are you loafing on? on what proceeds? Where did you get all the money to loaf?
Hubbard: Well 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 propertiesand so on accumulated during that period of time.
Journalist: ...is that really where the money for all this comes from?
Hubbard: Yes - yes, one of the things...
Journalist: It doesn't come from the Scientologists at Saint Hill?
Hubbard: No the Scientologists at Saint Hill. As a matter of fact, I wish I had the bill here to show you, but we added up over the years what monies I had loaned organisations and what monies of mine personally, royalties and so on, had been collected by Scientology organisations, and the amount of money paid out for research, and it amounts to 13 millions $. That's a fantastic sum of money.
Journalist: because the other thing that we hear about are things like Swiss bank accounts, the Bigtay[??] bank, that kind of thing, and there is a great temptation to believe that your yacht and the standard of life to which you are now accustomed is paid for by Scientologist in England
Hubbard: The amounts of money in Switzerland are minimal, very small amount of money.
Journalist: So why do you have Swiss bank accounts?
Hubbard: I don't have Swiss bank accounts, there is - there is a bank account in Switzerland I don't know how much money is in it but not very much. The amount of money which comes to me, at this time, is mostly capital, because I don't take any income; these days in days of income tax it's almost impossible to take any income.
Journalist: So your capital, that did come from the Scientologists?
Hubbard: No. No, the Scientologists and so on... Actually, what I tell you is quite true.
Journalist: ...yes but the only problem I have with that sum is you haven't told me where the money does come from. Where the obviously very large sums of money that you have...
Hubbard: Ah there were very very large sums of money that I made when I was very young. 15 million published words and a great many successful movies don't make nothing.
(V.O) Hubbard's finances are almost impossible to unravel but in the pre-boom days of Scientology from 55 to 59 he and his immediate family got at least 154.971 $, plus a percentage usually 10 of the gross income of all other scientology organisations. If he still gets 10 % from Saint Hill alone, that's roughly 100 000 £ a year. And he doesn't deny selling his name to the organisation for a 100 000 £ but says he never got the money.
Journalist: Don't you wake up some times in the middle of the night and think to yourself "Well I've been on this ship with a whole lot of Scientologists who believe I'm fantastic? I've been here for a whole year and not seen anybody else and I wish to hell I could get away from them?"
Hubbard: Ha ha. Well I haven't been here a whole year you know. I have been out associating with Arabs and all kinds of people. Ah, one of the way you learn about life is to associate with people and ...
Journalist: But you don't! you only associate with Scientologists
Hubbard: Perfectly happy to associate with anybody. The whole point about it is that they don't believe I'm fantastic if you saw the number of times they [grins] don't follow my orders
Journalist: You say that Scientology is a science. Now, it seems to me that Scientologists believe quite a lot of things which would be scientifically unacceptable and that, therefore, Scientology isn't a science at all, it's a faith like flying saucers are a faith.
Hubbard: Ha ha ha ha ha! A science is something which is constructed from truth on workable axioms, there are 55 axioms in Scientology which are very demonstrably true and on these can be constructed a great deal...
Journalist: But there are also a lot of things that aren't true.
Hubbard: Not necessarily aren't true but aren't usual.
Journalist: But you think you're OK, yeah?
Hubbard: Well, I don't know that I'm OK any more than anybody else is OK but I've led at least a happy life and a very full one, I have a happy marriage, and my kids are all cheerful and I'm not - nobody's finding any fault with me personally.
Journalist: Do you ever think that you might be quite mad?
Hubbard: Oh yes! The one man in the world who never believes he's mad is the madman.
