A couple of weeks before Alex Gibney’s documentary adaptation of Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear debuts on HBO, here’s a repost of five earlier entries about the religion pulp-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard wrought.
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“A Year Ago, L. Ron Hubbard Was An Obscure Writer Of Pseudoscientific Pulp Fiction”
The opening of Albert Q. Maisel’s highly skeptical1950 Look magazine articleabout a new pseudoscience, something called “Dianetics,” conceived by pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard:
A year ago, L. Ron Hubbard was an obscure writer of pseudoscientific pulp fiction. Today he has:
.. Half a million devout followers.
.. A foundation with a chain of bustling branches stretching from Elizabeth, N.J. to far-off Honolulu.
.. The best-selling nonfiction book since Dale Carnegie discovered the secret of success.
.. A swarm of pop-eyed students, who stand in line for the privilege of plunking down 500 bucks for a one-month course which converts them into “professional auditors,” complete with a couch and capable of outpsyching any ordinary psychiatrist.
.. Even larger and faster-growing tribes who pay $200 each for the 15-lecture short course – or $25 an hour to have their ‘cases opened’ by $500 professional auditors.
.. And a small army of associate members, at a mere 15 smackers each, who gratefully keep up with the whirlwind developments of Hubbard’s new ‘science’ of dianetics through the Dianetics Auditors Bulletin.
Dianetics and the Discovery of Fire
Hubbard, you may gather from the foregoing, has discovered the key to success and demonstrated once again that Barnum underestimated the sucker birth rate.
But that, by Hubbard’s own admission, is probably the least of his discoveries.
Unencumbered by the modesty that hog-ties ordinary mortals, Hubbard starts his book – THE BOOK, his followers call it – with the calm assertion that ‘the creation of dianetics is a milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch.’
A few lines beyond, one learns that, with dianetics, ‘the intelligent layman can successfully and invariably treat all psychosomatic ills and inorganic aberrations.’
Farther on, one discovers that these psychosomatic ills, ‘uniformly cured by dianetic therapy.’ include such varied maladies as eye trouble, bursitis, ulcers, some heart difficulties, migraine headaches and the common cold.
But you ain’t heard nothing yet.•
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“They Become Fanatics On The Subject, Impervious To Argument, Quick To Cut Themselves Off From Doubters”
The lights in the hall go dim, leaving the bronzed bust of the Founder spotlighted at center stage. From the loudspeakers comes L Ron Hubbard’s voice, deep and professional. It is a tape called ‘Some Aspects of Help, Part 1,’ a basic lecture’ in Scientology that Hubbard recorded nearly 10 years ago.
No one in the intensely respectable Los Angeles audience of 500 — some of whom paid as much as $16 to get in — thought it odd to be sitting there listening to a disembodied voice. Among believers, Scientology and its founder are beyond frivolous question. Scientology is the Truth, it is the path to ‘a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war . . .’ and ‘for the first time in all ages there is something that ….delivers the answers to the eternal questions and delivers immortality as well.’
So much of a credo might be regarded as harmless — practically indistinguishable from any number of minor schemes for the improvement of Man. But Scientology is scary — because of its size and growth, and because of the potentially disastrous techniques it so casually makes use of. To attain the Truth, a Scientologist surrenders himself to “auditing,” a crude form of psychoanalysis. In the best medical circumstances this is a delicate procedure, but in Scientology it is undertaken by an ‘auditor’ who is simply another Scientologist in training, who uses an ‘E-meter,’ which resembles a lie detector. A government report, made to the parliament of the State of Victoria in Australia three years ago, called Scientology ‘the worlds largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy.’ As author Alan Levy found out by personal experience ‘pages 100B – 114′, the auditing experience can be shattering.
How many souls have become hooked on Scientology is impossible to say precisely. Worldwide membership — England, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S. — is probably between two and three million. In the U.S. offices in Washington, New York, Los Angeles and seven other cities, the figure may now be more than several hundred thousand. What is astonishing — and frightening — is the rate of growth in the U.S.: membership has probably tripled or quadrupled in the past three years.
Recruits to Scientology are most often young, intelligent and idealistic. They become fanatics on the subject, impervious to argument, quick to cut themselves off from doubters. Many young people have been instructed by their Scientology organizations ‘orgs,’ they are called to ‘disconnect’ from their families. ‘Disconnect’ means exactly that: sever all relations. Such estrangements can be deep and lasting, leaving heartsick parents no longer able to speak rationally with their children.
Scientology is expensive.”•
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“They Take The Best And Brightest People And Destroy Them”
“By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in cash, virtually the only money he hadn’t yet turned over to the Church of Scientology, the self-help ‘philosophy’ group he had discovered just seven months earlier.
His death inspired his father Edward, a physician, to start his own investigation of the church. ‘We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie,’ Lottick says. ‘I now believe it’s a school for psychopaths. Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and brightest people and destroy them.’ The Lotticks want to sue the church for contributing to their son’s death, but the prospect has them frightened. For nearly 40 years, the big business of Scientology has shielded itself exquisitely behind the First Amendment as well as a battery of high-priced criminal lawyers and shady private detectives.
The Church of Scientology, started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard to ‘clear’ people of unhappiness, portrays itself as a religion. In reality the church is a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.”•
What initially brought Burroughs to the Scientologists?
David S. Wills:
Well that’s the first half of the book right there… In a nutshell, he was a deeply disturbed man. He was abused as a child, troubled by his homosexuality, accidentally killed his wife, and was hooked on drugs for decades. He sought out many “cures” for his problems and despite being obviously intelligent in many ways, was incredibly gullible. Ultimately, he came to Scientology for a magic fix, and for a while, he actually believed he was getting it. In fact, as late as 1994 (3 yrs prior to his death) he was convinced of some of its merits.
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Question:
I heard many rumors that scientology cures you of being gay that many high profile celebrities join to get cured of gay. Any truth to that?
David S. Wills:
Long ago, L. Ron Hubbard listed homosexuals as among the lowest forms of human beings (this has subsequently been changed in his books). I have no idea about the rumors of other celebrities… but it is highly likely that Burroughs sought a “cure” for his homosexuality in Scientology. He went through periods of feeling it was a handicap and remarked on a number of occasions that Scientology (temporarily) cured him of various “handicaps.”
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Question:
What is a misconceptions that you had about Scientology that later changed?
David S. Wills:
I thought that the whole Xenu/space opera thing was of more importance. The tabloids and South Park really play it up, but it didn’t get incorporated until later, and even then it was for the high-level members. Really, for the average Scientologist, that wasn’t even a part of it.
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Question:
Did they try to convert you?
David S. Wills:
No. Most Scientologists and ex-Scientologists I talked to were pretty open but not pushy. They were willing to explain concepts but not force them upon me. Interestingly, I did speak to someone who had letters from a Scientologist who’d used Burroughs to convert young people in the 60s.•
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“Their Allegiance And Devotion To The Mysterious Man Is Total”
L. Ron Hubbard interviewed in 1968 about his embattled tax shelter, during the period when he spent much of his time at sea.
