Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (37 page)

There is no power under existing law to prohibit the
practice of scientology; but the Government have concluded that it is so
objectionable that it would be right to take all steps within their power to
curb its growth.
¹

Scientology establishments in Britain were stripped of their
educational status. Foreign nationals were prohibited from studying Scientology
or working in Scientology Organizations, by invoking the “Aliens Act,” through
which the Home Secretary can deny entry to Britain. The Home Office banned
Hubbard from Britain as an “undesirable alien.” East Grinstead's Member of
Parliament, Geoffrey Johnson Smith, repeated Robinson's earlier statement,
originally made in Parliament, that Scientologists, “direct themselves towards
the weak, the unbalanced, the immature, the rootless and the mentally or
emotionally unstable.” He made the statement on television, beyond the bounds
of parliamentary privilege, so the Scientologists filed suit against him for
defamation.
²

At the end of July, 100 foreign Scientologists were rounded
up, and detained under guard in hotels, pending deportation. Scotland Yard
began to investigate Scientology.
³
The National Council for Civil
Liberties objected to the use of the Aliens Act on the grounds that it was
“objectionable in principle and dangerous in practice.”
⁴

The Scientologists sued four English newspapers, and sought
injunctions to prevent further stories. The injunctions were denied.
⁵
New telephone directories carried a large advertisement for Scientology, and an
embarrassed General Post Office announced that no further ads would be
accepted.
⁶

There was a general feeling that although something should
be done about Scientology the Aliens Act was not the way to do it. But the expression
of public sympathy was restrained. A fortnight before the ban, the
Daily
Mail
had reported the death of ex-Scientologist John Kennedy, in South
Africa. Kennedy had left Scientology to set up his own Institute of Mental
Health, taking a number of Scientologists with him. He allegedly shot himself
accidently while cleaning his revolver, but the coroner returned an open
verdict. Hubbard's
Auditor
magazine recorded the matter simply, and
ominously
⁷
:

JOHN KENNEDY, SP [Suppressive Person], who messed up Rhodesia,
shot dead in accident in South Africa.

This was actually stale news, Kennedy died in 1966, but
three days after the Aliens Act was introduced, another South African Scientologist
died in mysterious circumstances. James Stewart had been a student at the
Scientology Advanced Organization in Edinburgh. He was a 35-year-old epileptic,
whose body was found 50 feet beneath his hotel window.
⁸
The
newspapers missed vital information in their reports. A few days before his
death, Stewart had completed an Ethics Condition wherein he stayed awake for
eighty
hours. One of his tasks during this period was to crawl about the carpets
picking out bits of fluff.
⁹
According to Robert Kaufman, in his
first-hand account; a bulletin had been posted on the Advanced Org notice board
¹⁰
:

James Stewart has been put in a Condition of Doubt for having
[epileptic] seizures in public thus invalidating Scientology. If there is any reoccurrence
of these either consciously or unconsciously on his part he will be placed in a
Condition of Enemy.

Stewart's real crime, having had a severe seizure, was
telling the hospital that he was a Scientologist, thus supposedly giving
Scientology a bad name. He had injured his head, and wore a blood-stained
bandage while performing his demeaning “amends project.”
¹¹
He was
possibly made to crawl across the steep and slippery slates of the Org roof, as
a final part of his Doubt Formula. This bizarre practice was quite usual at the
time.
¹²

Shortly before his death, Stewart had been suspended from
his course at the AO. On the day he read a funeral notice for Stewart, fellow
student Robert Kaufman saw Stewart's widow, Thelma, giving an enthusiastic
speech on her completion of OT2. In his book,
Inside Scientology
,
Kaufman said Thelma “victoriously received the applause of AO members.” A
Scientology spokesman told the press, “Mrs. Stewart does not know how it
happened, but she does know it had nothing to do with Scientology.” The press
was also told that Mrs. Stewart was a “more serious” student than her husband.
¹³
In fact, Stewart, described in the newspapers as an encyclopedia salesman, had
been a founder of the Cape Town Scientology Org, and was a senior executive
there. He was a Class VII Auditor, the highest level of training at the time,
Clear number 153 (there were over 2,000 by then), and was on OT3 when he died.
One of his Success Stories was published in
The Auditor
magazine at
around the time of his death. It was headed, “How Scientology Training Has Helped
Me In Life”
¹⁴
:

I find that training and auditing experience helps me in
innumerable ways - in driving a car (patiently, in heavy traffic), waking up in
the morning, confronting anything unpleasant in life, keeping myself occupied
in leisure hours, in writing letters, making telephone calls, in chance
conversations with strangers - In fact, training helps in every conceivable
situation or experience anywhere, any place, anytime - Try it for yourself and
see!

The Scientologists very readily disown embarrassing members,
especially in death. Unfortunately, to them the repute of Scientology is invariably
more important than the truth. In a curious twist, Stewart's name was given to
the press by the police. In Scotland, the names of suicides were not given to the
press. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Stewart was murdered.

This bizarre period of Scientology is recorded in stark
detail in Robert Kaufman's
Inside Scientology
. Kaufman was the first who
dared to publish details of the OT levels, and made many penetrating and amusing
comments about both Hubbard and his followers.

The response to the British Aliens Act ban was fairly
immediate. Hubbard announced that his work was finished, saying he had resigned
his “Scientology directorships two or more years ago to explore and study the
decline of ancient civilization,” perpetuating the tale he had told to receive
his Explorers’ Club flag. Hubbard accused England of being a police state.
¹⁵
An Advanced Org was started in Los Angeles to serve Scientologists in the
Western hemisphere.
¹⁶
But the ban, although rigorously enforced at
first, soon fell into disuse. By the early 1970s, most of the students and
staff at Saint Hill were foreigners.

In London, The
Daily Mail
published details of
Hubbard’s private bank accounts in Switzerland, account numbers and all. It
said Hubbard claimed to have $7 million. It also unearthed a prescription
signed “L. Ron Hubbard Ph.D.,” for the sedative Nembutal, “for horticultural
purposes only.” Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturers of Nembutal said there
was “no conceivable” way in which Nembutal could be used in horticulture.
¹⁷
Perhaps it was for Hubbard’s “ever-bearing” tomatoes.

Hubbard was interviewed by the
Daily Mail
, aboard the
Royal Scotman
, in Bizerte, Tunisia
¹⁸
: “He chain-smoked
menthol cigarettes, fidgeted nervously ... He taped the conversation ...
Outside Scientologists, some in uniform and some young children, stood rigidly
to attention ... Hubbard’s mood ranged from the boastful – ‘You’d be fascinated
how many friends of mine there are in the British Government’ to the menacing:
‘I get intelligence reports from England. You’d be surprised at the dirty
washing I have got.’”

Hubbard insisted he was no longer connected with
Scientology, and told the reporter that everything in the
Daily Mail
’s
Scientology file was forged. He knew because he had seen it, through his
“spies.” Hubbard also gave a rare interview to British television,
¹⁹
again looking nervous, and contradicted himself both on the number of his
marriages, and whether or not he had a Swiss bank account. Despite his supposed
discoveries about communication and public relations, Hubbard fell far short of
winning over the press.

At the end of August 1968, Jill Goodman became the world’s
youngest Clear, in New York. Her picture was featured in
The Auditor
magazine.
She was 10 years old, and she and her eight-year-old brother were already
qualified Auditors.
²⁰

In mid-August, the
Royal Scotman
had slipped into
Corfu harbor. At first all went well. According to one newspaper, the Sea Org
enriched the Corfiot economy by about £1,000 per day.
²¹
They were
welcomed by the harbormaster, and the local press.
²²

In September, Hubbard announced the new Class VIII Auditor
Course, in
The Auditor
magazine.
²³
The announcement was accompanied
by a center-spread of Hubbard’s photographs. The editor of “
Auditor
41”
thought the photos were a Hubbard joke. There is a shot of an Ethics Officer,
carrying a heavy wooden baton, wearing dark glasses, and full uniform, and
scowling at a student who is smiling back, apprehensively. The caption reads:
“No one can fool a Sea Org Ethics Officer. He knows who’s ethics bait.” Another
shot shows a Sea Org member suspended in mid-air by two Ethics Officers, one
wearing a broad grin. He is about to be thrown over the rail, into the sea. The
caption reads: “Students are thrown overboard for gross out tech and bequeathed
to the deep!” “Out tech” is a Hubbardism for “misapplication of Scientology
auditing procedures.” Hubbard was deadly serious.

Every Scientology Org was ordered to send two Auditors to be
trained as “Class VIIIs.” As “VIIIs” their auditing would be “flubless.” The
course would take three weeks, so previous Ethics procedures were of little use
- they took too long to administer. Rather than languishing in the chain locker
for a week, or doing three days without sleep on “amends projects” students
were to be subject to “instant Ethics,” or overboarding. There is no doubt that
Hubbard ordered this (one ex-Sea Org officer says Hubbard even took out his
home movie camera and filmed it once or twice).
²⁴

Scientologists who joined after 1970 are often unaware that
overboarding took place. Most who have heard of it, and those who were
subjected to it, dismiss it as a passing phase; unpleasant, but no longer
significant. People who experienced it often shrug it off, and even insist that
it was “research.” It can take persistence to extract an admission of the
reality of overboarding. Students and crew were lined up on deck in the early
hours every morning. They waited to hear whether they were on the day’s list of
miscreants. Those who knew they were would remove their shoes, jackets and
wristwatches in anticipation. The drop was between 15 and 40 feet, depending
upon which deck was used. Sometimes people were blindfolded first, and either
their feet or hands loosely tied. Non-swimmers were tied to a rope. Being
hurled such a distance, blindfolded and restrained, into cold sea water, must
have been terrifying. Worst of all was the fear that you would hit the side of
the ship as you fell, your flesh ripped open by the barnacles. Overboarding was
a very traumatic experience.
²⁵

The course lectures too seem to have been a traumatic
experience for many. Hubbard lectured from a spot lit dais, surrounded by the female
Commodore’s Staff Aides in flowing white gowns. The lectures were peppered with
the old easy-going manner, but punctuated with table-banging and bouts of
shouting. The lectures were “confidential,” and only fully indoctrinated
Scientologists could attend. Later, some of Hubbard’s tantrums were edited from
the tapes of the lectures.

Students wore green boiler-suits, and, after a certain point
on the course, added a short noose of rope around their necks as a mark of
honor.
²⁶
They had little time for sleep, and were inevitably
extremely cautious in their auditing. If they made a mistake, it was “instant
Ethics,” and they were heaved over the side.

Hubbard gave the purpose of the Class VIII course: “It’s up
to the Auditor to become UNCOMPROMISINGLY STANDARD ... an uncompromising zealot
for Standard Tech.”
²⁷
Sea Org “Missions” were dispatched from Corfu
to all corners of the world to bully Org staffs into higher production. Hubbard
pronounced that such “Missions” had “unlimited Ethics powers.”
²⁸

Alex Mitchell of
The London Sunday Times
reported
that a woman with two children had run screaming from the ship, only to be
rounded up and returned by her fellow Scientologists. The journalist also said
that eight year old children were being overboarded
²⁹
:

Discipline ... is severe. Members of the crew can be officers
one day and swabbing the decks the next. Status is conferred by Boy Scout like
decoration; a white neck tie is for students, brown for petty officers, yellow
for officers, and blue for Hubbard’s personal staff ... Recently the crew
decided to paint the water tanks. Unwilling to give the job to local
contractors the Scientologists did it themselves - only to find that when they
next used their taps the water was polluted with paint.

Kenneth Urquhart joined the ship at Corfu. From Hubbard’s
butler he had risen to become a senior executive at Saint Hill. He had resolutely
avoided joining the Sea Org, but was finally cajoled into travelling to Corfu.
He was amazed at the change in Hubbard. At Saint Hill he had seen him every
day. Although he occasionally lost his temper, Urquhart had only once seen him
quivering with rage. Now screaming fits were a regular feature. OT3 and the Sea
Org had transformed Hubbard.
³⁰