Religion: Mystery of the Vanished Ruler

• Share

(3 of 6)

The turmoil in Scientology began to intensify with Armstrong's scrutiny of Hubbard's private papers. "I went from being a devotee to realizing I was the victim of a con game," he says. Archivist Armstrong concluded in his court statement that Scientology is "behavior therapy masquerading as a 'church' and making a mockery of honest religious practices." His wife Jocelyn, also a former leader in the church, agrees. She declares, "Most Scientologists simply have no idea of what goes on or how the church is really run."

Armstrong discovered that even Hubbard's personal background was a sham. Public records show that when Hubbard had claimed to be traveling through Asia and the South Pacific from 1925 to 1929, learning what he called "the secrets of life" from magicians, lamas, priests and wise men, he was actually a mediocre high school student. Although Hubbard presented himself as a highly educated man, he flunked out of George Washington University's engineering school after two years.

Nor was Hubbard a World War II hero who miraculously cured himself of nearly fatal combat wounds, as he claimed. Hubbard never saw combat. After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he was granted 40% disability pay for arthritis, bursitis and conjunctivitis. He continued to collect this pay long after he claimed to have discovered the secret of how to cure such ailments.

In 1954, while a popular science-fiction writer, Hubbard founded Scientology in Phoenix. The church, which grew at a phenomenal rate in the U.S. and abroad, was based on ideas in a bestseller titled Dianetics that Hubbard wrote in 1950. The aim of dianetics is to rid a person of restricting engrams. The technique involves the use of an "E-meter," which was patented by Hubbard. To use the "meter, a person holds a tin can in each hand while a galvanometer wired to the cans ostensibly indicates emotional stress. While the subject is "on the cans," a Scientologist "auditor" quizzes him to uncover any embarrassing or painful experiences in his past. All such traumas are recorded. Defectors have claimed that church members are often required to confess their wrongdoings in signed statements, which have sometimes been used as blackmail to keep dissidents silent. In the late 1970s, to supplement dianetics, Hubbard developed the "purification rundown," which he said would rid the body of the ill effects of chemicals, drugs, smog and radiation through the use of vitamins, grain oil, exercise and sauna treatments.

Hubbard's followers paid up to $40,000 to take Scientology courses that the church claimed could cure almost any physical or mental ailment. Some people spent hundreds of thousands in all. Says an IRS attorney who interviewed hundreds of members: "Many of them sincerely believed that Scientology helped their lives and made them better people." In the past the movement has attracted such celebrities as Hollywood's John Travolta and Television Sportscaster John Brodie, former star quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers.