Religion: Mystery of the Vanished Ruler

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The fate of L. Ron Hubbard underlies Scientology's turmoil

A reclusive multimillionaire who preferred to work all night. A man terrified of germs who fought his growing array of ailments with a variety of drugs and massive vitamin injections. A brilliant and dominating figure who built an empire and who was both revered and feared. And now, to make the comparison more compelling still, the question of his fate. Even longtime intimates have not seen him in more than two years. They do not know whether he is living in seclusion by his own choice, or whether he is mentally incompetent and a captive of former underlings. Some of his old aides think he may even be dead.

Those eerie similarities to the last years of Howard Hughes are part of the mysterious portrait that onetime associates sketch of L. (for Lafayette) Ron Hubbard, 71, founder and guiding inspiration of the Church of Scientology. As proclaimed by Hubbard, Scientology is a religion that sees life as a relentless struggle to erase painful mental images (called "engrams" in the cult's jargon) that block a person from achieving his full potential and that may accumulate through his successive incarnations. Hubbard has insisted that he lived through a series of incarnations and that he was in fact 74 trillion years old.

In Hubbard's absence, Scientology is deeply riven by bitter disputes. A dozen or so of Hubbard's youngest followers, who have spent much of their lives in the cult's bizarre world, have seized control of the organization. Claiming to be "on Source" with Hubbard, and to be acting under his direction, they are also trying to gain control of the church's assets, estimated to be more than $280 million. About 75 senior leaders have been purged by the young zealots in a coup that has shaken the 29-year-old church.

Fighting these activists for Scientology's riches is Hubbard's estranged son, Ronald DeWolf, 48, who changed his name in 1972 in an effort, he says, to escape harassment by Scientologists.

DeWolf has asked a California superior court to appoint a trustee to protect his father's estate from the new leaders. In his court petition, DeWolf contends that his father, who he says has long suffered from "severe mental illness and physical disease," is either dead or "incompetent." DeWolf also charges that his father used "criminal means" to acquire "wealth, fame and power." In another California court, Scientology is seeking to recover three cartons containing about 5,000 Scientology documents. The papers were placed under court protection by Gerry Armstrong, 36, who was authorized in January 1980 by Hubbard to gather papers for a laudatory biography. Armstrong found documents so damaging to the cult's credibility that he quit the church in disgust. He vows to use the papers to prove his charges, made in a sworn statement for a court case in Florida, that "Mr. Hubbard had continually misrepresented himself and had lied about his past."