L. Ron Hubbard - Controversies and Crisis

Controversies and Crisis

By the start of the 1960s, Hubbard was the leader of a worldwide movement with thousands of followers. A decade later, however, he had left Saint Hill Manor and moved aboard his own private fleet of ships as the Church of Scientology faced worldwide controversy.

The Church of Scientology says that the problems of this period were due to "vicious, covert international attacks" by the United States government, "all of which were proven false and baseless, which were to last 27 years and finally culminated in the Government being sued for 750 million dollars for conspiracy." Behind the attacks, claimed Hubbard, lay a vast conspiracy of "psychiatric front groups" secretly controlling governments: "Every single lie, false charge and attack on Scientology has been traced directly to this group's members. They have sought at great expense for nineteen years to crush and eradicate any new development in the field of the mind. They are actively preventing any effectiveness in this field."

Hubbard believed that Scientology was being infiltrated by saboteurs and spies and introduced "security checking" to identify those he termed "potential trouble sources" and "suppressive persons". Members of the Church of Scientology were interrogated with the aid of E-meters and were asked questions such as "Have you ever practiced homosexuality?" and "Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?" For a time, Scientologists were even interrogated about crimes committed in past lives: "Have you ever destroyed a culture?" "Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?" "Have you ever zapped anyone?"

He also sought to exert political influence, advising Scientologists to vote against Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election and establishing a Department of Government Affairs "to bring government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology." This, he said, "is done by high-level ability to control and in its absence by a low-level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies."

The U.S. Government was already well aware of Hubbard's activities. The FBI had a lengthy file on him, including a 1951 interview with an agent who considered him a "mental case". Police forces in a number of jurisdictions began exchanging information about Scientology through the auspices of Interpol, which eventually led to prosecutions. In 1958, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service withdrew the Washington, D.C. Church of Scientology's tax exemption after it found that Hubbard and his family were profiting unreasonably from Scientology's ostensibly non-profit income. The Food and Drug Administration took action against Scientology's medical claims, seizing thousands of pills being marketed as "radiation cures" as well as publications and E-meters. The Church of Scientology was required to label them as being "ineffective in the diagnosis or treatment of disease."

Following the FDA's actions, Scientology attracted increasingly unfavorable publicity across the English-speaking world. It faced particularly hostile scrutiny in Victoria, Australia, where it was accused of brainwashing, blackmail, extortion and damaging the mental health of its members. The Victorian state government established a Board of Inquiry into Scientology in November 1963. Its report, published in October 1965, condemned every aspect of Scientology and Hubbard himself. He was described as being of doubtful sanity, having a persecution complex and displaying strong indications of paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur. His writings were characterized as nonsensical, abounding in "self-glorification and grandiosity, replete with histrionics and hysterical, incontinent outbursts". Sociologist Roy Wallis comments that the report drastically changed public perceptions of Scientology:

The former conception of the movement as a relatively harmless, if cranky, health and self-improvement cult, was transformed into one which portrayed it as evil, dangerous, a form of hypnosis (with all the overtones of Svengali in the layman's mind), and brainwashing.

The report led to Scientology being banned in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, and led to more negative publicity around the world. Newspapers and politicians in the UK pressed the British government for action against Scientology. In July 1968, the British Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, announced that foreign Scientologists would no longer be permitted to enter the UK and Hubbard himself was excluded from the country as an "undesirable alien." Further inquiries were launched in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

Hubbard took three major new initiatives in the face of these challenges. "Ethics Technology" was introduced to tighten internal discipline within Scientology. It required Scientologists to "disconnect" from any organization or individual — including family members — deemed to be disruptive or "suppressive". Scientologists were also required to write "Knowledge Reports" on each other, reporting transgressions or misapplications of Scientology methods. Hubbard promulgated a long list of punishable "Misdemeanors," "Crimes" and "High Crimes". The "Fair Game" policy was introduced, which was applicable to anyone deemed an "enemy" of Scientology: "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."

At the start of March 1966, Hubbard created the Guardian's Office (GO), a new agency within the Church of Scientology that was headed by his wife Mary Sue. It dealt with Scientology's external affairs, including public relations, legal actions and the gathering of intelligence on perceived threats. As Scientology faced increasingly negative media attention, the GO retaliated with hundreds of writs for libel and slander; it issued more than forty on a single day. Hubbard ordered his staff to find "lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on attackers."

Finally, at the end of 1966, Hubbard acquired his own fleet of ships. He established the "Hubbard Explorational Company Ltd" which purchased three ships — the Enchanter, a forty-ton schooner, the Avon River, an old trawler, and the Royal Scotman, a former Irish Sea cattle ferry that he made his home and flagship. The ships were crewed by the Sea Organization or "Sea Org," a group of Scientologist volunteers, with the support of a couple of professional seamen.