Lawrence Wright wrote a fascinating account of L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology with his book Going Clear. Given Scientology has used litigation, lies, and lobbying more effectively than any other organization, he's also terribly brave to have published it.
Here is some of his reporting that I found mind boggling.
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While official sources estimate there are only 25,000 Americans who call themselves Scientologists, the Church has enormous wealth. Their $1 billion in liquid assets is worth just a portion of their real estate holdings, about 12 million square feet of property that includes landmark buildings near key locations, such as Music Row in Nashville, Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, and Times Square in New York City.
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L. Ron Hubbard Jr (L. Ron Hubbard's son) said, "What a lot of people don't realize is that Scientology is black magic just spread out over a long time period. Black magic is the inner core of Scientology - and it is probably the only part of Scientology that really works."
In the late 40s, Hubbard lived in a household with Jack Parsons, who had a goal of producing a "moonchild" who would grow up to become the Antichrist. Hubbard presided over Parsons' attempts at conception.
"Dressed in a hooded white robe, and carrying a lamp, Hubbard intoned "Display thyself to Our Lady; dedicate thy organs to Her, dedicate thy heart to Her ... whereupon Parsons and Cameron [the woman Parsons planned to impregnate with the moonchild] responded, 'Glory unto the Scarlet Woman, Babalon, the Mother of Abominations, that rideth upon the Beast.' Then, as Hubbard continued the incantation, Parsons and Cameron consummated the ceremony upon the altar."
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L. Ron Hubbard's claim was that the "technology" in Dianetics helped him to heal himself from a broken back and multiple injuries sustained during World War II. The military has no record of such injuries.
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L. Ron Hubbard - and thus Scientology - has a creation cosmology.
Seventy-five million years ago there was a Galactic Confederacy, which was composed of seventy-six planets and twenty-six stars, "The world we live in now replicates the civilization of that period," Hubbard said. "People at that particular time and place were walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute .... The cars they drove looked exactly the same, and the trains they ran looked the same, and the boats they had looked the same. Circa nineteen-fifty, nineteen-sixty."
A Tyrannical overlord named Xenu ruled this confederacy with a few evil conspirators - mainly psychiatrists - and lured the population into centers for income-tax investigations. ... They were attacked and the frozen bodies of these people were loaded onto space planes, which resembled the DC-8 jetliner. "No difference - except the DC-8 had fans - propellers - on it and the space plane didn't." In this fashion, billions of thetans were transported to Teegeeack, the planet now called Earth, where they were dropped into volcanoes and then blown up with hydrogen bombs.
These thetans are immortal and float around Earth now and attach themselves to living people. Ridding yourself of these hitchhiking thetans is a major task of Scientologists who are working to be clear of such obstructions to spiritual progress.
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Scientologists claim that the religion is a form of science, relying on things that can be proven. This would be more credible if they seemed aware of the difference between a testable hypothesis and a Galactic Confederacy from 75 million BC equipped with DC-8s.
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S. I. Hayakawa, later one of California's senators, said that Dianetics was neither science nor fiction but something else: "fictional science."
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The Church essentially puts members in the equivalent of a prison, a place where they have to work off penance for offenses real, imagined, or even incurred during a past life. They might work 20 hours a day and have no contact with the outside world (other than being allowed to call home on Christmas). They have no days off. The Church spends less per meal on these people, 75 cents, than the State of California spends to feed prisoners. The Germans refer to these places (Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF) as penal colonies, and the reported practices of confinement, forced confessions, and punishing physical labor they said amounted to brainwashing. "This is not a church or religious organization," claimed one German authority. "Scientology is a machine for manipulating human beings."
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The Church of Scientology hit the Cult Awareness Network with 50 lawsuits, eventually bankrupting this major critic of their continual abuses of human rights. An individual Scientologist purchased its name and assets at auction. Soon after that, the reorganized Cult Awareness Network sent out a brochure lauding the Church of Scientology for its efforts to 'increase happiness and improve conditions for oneself and others."
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David Miscavige, who became leader of the Church after L. Ron Hubbard's death, was not named by Hubbard as his natural heir. But, like Renaissance Popes who saw the incredible wealth and power that flowed from being positioned as head of an organization that demanded obedience (like Catholics with their pope, Scientologists are taught that every word of L. Ron Hubbard's is true revelation), Miscavige made a power play that involved the use of force. Eleven former Scientologists, including a number of executives, reported to Wright that they'd been assaulted by Miscavige. 22 told Wright or testified in court that they witnessed Miscavige assault other church members one or more times. Miscavige's own wife has now disappeared.
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With all this, it is unsurprising that L. Ron Hubbard wrote that psychiatry was the source of all evil in the universe. Psychiatrists are so old-school about perceptions of reality that they would likely conclude that neither Hubbard nor Miscavige should be running an organization.
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