Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (29 page)

Hubbard also recommended that his followers engage in
“Casualty Contact”
³⁰
: “Every day in the daily papers one discovers
people who have been victimized one way or the other by life. It does not much
matter whether that victimizing is in the manner of mental or physical injury
... One takes every daily paper ... and cuts from it every story whereby he
might have a preclear ... As speedily as possible he makes a personal 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.”

This strategy underlines the cold-bloodedness which
Scientology gradually inculcates in its adherents. Compassion becomes a
tactical display rather than natural feeling. “Sympathy” is frowned upon as
being emotionally “down-tone,” and the word “victim” is a term of derision. The
Scientologists even have a course which requires that students go into
hospitals, and, representing themselves as “volunteer ministers,” use
Scientology techniques on the patients, encouraging them to take up Scientology.
³¹

Hubbard was also making claims that his “technology” could
deal with the effects of radioactive fallout.
³²
In 1956, he gave a
lecture series in Washington, styled “The Anti-Radiation Congress Lectures.”
³³
In April 1957, he held the “London Congress on Nuclear Radiation and Health
Lectures” at the Royal Empire Society Hall.
³⁴
Three of these
lectures were condensed, and became chapters in his book
All About Radiation
,
allegedly written by “a Nuclear Physicist and a Medical Doctor.” The “Nuclear
Physicist” was L. Ron Hubbard, the “Medical Doctor” hid behind the pseudonym
“Medicus” (the Library of Congress lists him as Richard Farley, quite possibly
a Hubbard pseudonym).

In the section purportedly written by “Medicus” we are told
that
³⁵
“some very recent work by L. Ron Hubbard and the Hubbard Scientology
Organization, has indicated that a simple combination of vitamins in unusual
doses can be of value. Alleviation of the remote effects and increased
tolerance to radiation have been the apparent results.”

While it was possible to defend against prosecution in the
United States for claims of miracle cures by invoking the First Amendment's
freedom of relief, it was stupid of Hubbard to sell his vitamin mixture as a
specific for radiation sickness. In 1958, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) seized a consignment of 21,000 “Dianazene” tablets, which were marketed
by a Scientology company, the Distribution Center. The tablets were destroyed
by the FDA because their labeling claimed they were a preventative and treatment
for radiation sickness.
³⁶

This was not the last time Hubbard tangled with the FDA. Nor
was it the last time he claimed a cure for the effects of radiation. The Scientologists
still advertise
All About Radiation
with a flier which claims that “L.
Ron Hubbard has discovered a formula which can proof a person against
radiation.” Scientologists believe that enormous doses of Niacin, a form of
vitamin B3, will protect them from the devastating effects of exposure to radiation
in the event of nuclear war.
³⁷

The Church encountered other legal problems in the United
States. One of the possible advantages of calling one's organization a religion
was the right to claim tax-exempt status. The Washington “Church” had obtained
exempt status in 1956, and other “Churches” had followed suit. Then, in 1958,
the exemption was denied. The Washington Church appealed to the US Court of
Claims. The Tax Court ruled that exempt status was rightly withdrawn, because
Hubbard and his wife were benefiting financially from the Church of Scientology
beyond reasonable remuneration.

Between June 1955 and June 1959, Hubbard had been given
$108,000 by the Scientology Church, along with the use of a car, all expenses
paid. The Church maintained a private residence for him through 1958 and 1959.
His family, including his son Nibs and his daughter Kay, had also withdrawn
thousands of dollars. Mary Sue Hubbard had derived over $10,000 income by
renting property to the Church. On top of this, Hubbard had received his tithes
(10 percent or more) from Scientology organizations throughout the world.
Despite Hubbard's pronouncements, Scientology and Dianetics were very definitely
a business, a profit making organization, run by Hubbard for his personal
enrichment.
³⁸

Through the 1950s, Scientology tried to develop a good
public image. The therapy had become a religious practice, compared by Hubbard
to the Christian confessional, and the therapists had become ministers. The
trappings of religion were assembled, including ministerial garb complete with
dog-collar, and wedding, naming and funeral rites. Hubbard's berserk outbursts
were lost amid a welter of new auditing procedures. His paranoia was better
contained, though Church leaders were told to cease communication with critics
of Scientology
³⁹
whom Hubbard called “Merchants of Chaos,” the
beginnings of the doctrine of “disconnection.”

To the general public, Scientology was represented as a
genuine religious, humanitarian movement, intent upon benefiting all mankind.
Its opponents were dangerous enemies of freedom, and were tarred with
unfashionable epithets such as communist, homosexual, or drug addict. Opponents
were portrayed as members of a deliberate conspiracy to silence Hubbard, and
bring down the “shades of night” over the Earth.
⁴⁰

To its membership, Scientology was represented as a science,
liberating man from all his disabilities, and freeing in him undreamt
abilities. To the Church hierarchy, Scientology was the only hope of freedom
for mankind, and must be protected at all costs. Hubbard was nothing short of a
Messiah, whose wisdom and perception far out-stripped that of any mere mortal.
Hubbard's commandments might at times be unfathomable, but his word was law.

The Hubbard Communication Office
Manual of Justice
laid down the law for Scientology staff members. In it Hubbard wrote: “People
attack Scientology; I never forget it, always even the score.”

The
Manual of Justice
introduced a comprehensive
“intelligence” system into Hubbard's organizations. Hubbard wrote:
“Intelligence is mostly the collection of data on people which may add up to a
summary of right or wrong actions on their part ... It is done all the time
about everything and everybody ... When a push against Scientology starts
somewhere, we go over the people involved and weed them out.”

If “intelligence” failed, then investigation was called for:
“When we need somebody haunted we investigate ... When we investigate we do so
noisily always. And usually investigation damps out the trouble even when we
discover no really pertinent facts. Remember that -
by investigation alone
we can curb pushes and crush wildcat people and unethical ‘Dianetics and
Scientology’ organizations,” and, “intelligence we get with a whisper.
Investigation we do with a yell. Always.”

Hubbard explained to staff members: “Did you ever realize
that any local viciousness against Scientology organizations is
started
by somebody for a purpose? Well, it is ... rumors aren't 'natural'. When you
run them down you find a Commie or a millionaire who wants us dead ... You find
amongst all our decent people some low worm who has been promised high position
and pay if we fail ... When you have found your culprit, go to the next step,
Judgment and Punishment.”

Hubbard's instruction to use private detectives has
certainly been followed by the Scientology Church over the ensuing years. The
reader of the confidential Manual is told: “Of twenty-one persons found attacking
Dianetics and Scientology ... eighteen of them under investigation were found
to be members of the Communist Party or criminals, usually both. The smell of
police or private detectives caused them to fly, to close down, to confess.
Hire them and damn the cost when you need to.”

Magazine articles unfavorable to Scientology were to be met
with a letter demanding retraction, followed by an investigation of the author
for his “criminal or Communist background” by a private detective. The magazine
would be threatened with legal action, and the author sent “a very tantalizing
letter ... tell him we know something interesting about him,” and invited to a
meeting, “chances are he won't arrive. But he'll sure shudder into silence.”

In the “Judgment and Punishment” section of his
Manual of
Justice
Hubbard wrote:

None of us like to judge or punish. Yet we may be the
only people on Earth with a right to punish ... never punish beyond our easy
ability to remedy by auditing [a difficult point in an organization which
believes it can mend the hurt of former lives and
deaths
!]..

Our punishment is not as limited as you might think.
Dianetics and Scientology are self-protecting sciences. If one attacks them one
attacks all the know-how of the mind...

There are men dead because they attacked us – for
instance Dr Joe Winter. He simply realized what he did and died. There are men
bankrupt because they attacked us – Purcell, Ridgway, Ceppos (the publishers of
“Dianetics” in England and the US respectively).

In the
Manual
, Hubbard's suggested punishments were
actually mild, consisting largely of the cancellation of any certificates
awarded by his organizations. He suggested that an organization “shoot the
offender for the public good and then patch him up quietly.” A mood was being
created in which staff members would become “deployable agents,” as sociologist
Roy Wallis called Hubbard's henchmen in his study of Scientology. After all,
Hubbard never gave any indication of the possibility that a complaint against
him or against Scientology could be justifiable. The tactic of “noisy
investigation” originated in the
Manual
, and came to mean harassment by
defamation. Hubbard certainly did not mind if the defamation was grossly
exaggerated, or even a total fabrication. If you throw enough mud, some will
stick. The
Manual of Justice
was clearly suggesting outright blackmail.

The Scientology organizations grew steadily, and, in the
spring of 1959, Hubbard purchased the Maharajah of Jaipur's English manor house
and estate in the beautiful Sussex countryside, at Saint Hill village, a few
miles from East Grinstead.

1.
   
Technical Bulletins
, vol.2, p.94.

2.
   
ibid
, pp.209 & 215.

3.
   
p.125.

4.
   
Technical Bulletins
, vol.2, p.32.

5.
   
Professional Auditor's Bulletin
no.74 (only in the original).

6.
   
Certificates of incorporation, Camden, New Jersey: Church of
Scientology, recorded 22 December 1953, by Hubbard, Nibs, Henrietta Hubbard,
John Galusha, Verna Greenough & Barbara Bryan, #Y31316; American Science,
recorded 22 December 1953, same incorporators, #Y31315; Spiritual Engineering,
recorded 18 January 1954, same incorporators, # 31894 (the number is difficult
to read on this last). Hubbard, Galusha and Mary Sue Hubbard were the trustees
of all three corporations. The registration documents are worth reading as they
show the first, and abortive, venture into “religion” by Hubbard (registrations
referred to by Ron de Wolfe, Clearwater Hearings, vol.1, p.286, and in a letter
to Carol Kanda, 1 March 1985; also Wallis, p.128.)

7.
   
Hubbard’s
Modern Management Technology Defined
, 1976, definition
of Church of American Science (also Wallis, p.128).

8.
   
Copy of the original. This letter was also read into the record in CSC
v. Armstrong, vol.12, p.1976 and vol.26, p.4619. It was exhibit no.500-4V. But
then the very word ‘church’ denotes a Christian organization. For Scientologists
this is another word that remains misunderstood. It is curious how readily even
critics of Scientology refer to it as ‘the Church’, as Hubbard would have
wanted. See his “Propaganda by Redefinition of Words.”

9.
   
Technical Bulletins, vol.2, p.32. See also Hubbard de Mille
correspondence.

10.
 
St.
Petersburg Times – “Scientology – An in-depth profile of a new force in
Clearwater”, 1980, p.17.

11.
 
Hubbard,
What is Scientology?,
p.142.

12.
 
Purcell,
“Special Announcement”, in “
Dianetics Today
”, vol.III, no.10, October
1954.

13.
 
Hubbard,
Technical Bulletins
, vol.2, pp.84 & 124.

14.
 
Purcell,
in “
Dianetics Today
”, vol.III, no.1, January 1954.

15.
 
CSC
v. Armstrong vol.12, p.2008, vol.25, p.4435, vol.26, p.4643; also exhibits
500-5 & 500-5F.

16.
 
Technical
Bulletins
, vol.1, p.358.

17.
 
ibid
,
vol.2, p.157.

18.
 
ibid
,
p.167.

19.
 
Wallis,
p.95.

20.
 
Letter
of 29 July 1955.

21.
 
Letter
of 7 September 1955. A Scientologist called Edd Clark was arrested at this time
for practicing medicine without a license.

22.
 
Technical
Bulletins
, vol.2, p.267-9.

23.
 
Author's
interview with David Mayo, Palo Alto, October 1986. Supported by a letter from
a member of a group of ‘seekers’ who claimed his teacher had taken LSD with
Hubbard.