Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [198]
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[>] In Germany, where the church: Kate Connolly, "German Ministers Try to Ban Scientology," The Guardian, December 8, 2007.
in May 2008, for example: Anil Dawar, "Teenager Faces Prosecution for Calling Scientology 'Cult,'" The Guardian, May 20, 2008.
one outspoken member: Anne Wright, "Senator Nick Xenophon Brands Scientology a 'Criminal Organization,'" Herald Sun, November 18, 2009. Xenophon, an independent senator from South Australia, began receiving letters from former Scientologists after questioning the organization's tax-exempt status during a 2009 television interview. Those letters, he said, detailed "a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality." Since then he has become one of the most vocal critics of Scientology, repeatedly calling for inquiries into the church's activities and the repeal of its tax exemption. In September 2010, at his urging, Australia's Senate initiated an investigation into Scientology and other nonprofit organizations; it then created a committee to ensure that such groups deserve their charity status. (Its work is ongoing at the time of writing.)
[>] "I don't think that's going": "Scientology: Former Scientologist," The Current, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 30, 2009.
[>] Roughly a quarter of them: Church of Scientology, What Is Scientology?, p. 463.
[>] "If it isn't written": Hubbard, "The Hidden Data Line," HCO Policy Letter, April 16, 1965.
"growing faster now than": Church of Scientology, "Frequently Asked Questions," www.scientologynews.org/faq/frequently-asked-questions-introduction.html.
1. The Founder
The true story of L. Ron Hubbard was unknown to Scientologists, and to the public at large, until the early 1980s, when a onetime Hubbard acolyte and church archivist named Gerald Armstrong left Scientology after eleven years in the church's inner sanctum, taking with him a trove of private letters, journals, files, and other materials that, as he said, "documented that Hubbard had lied about virtually every part of his life, including his education, degrees, family, explorations, military service, war wounds, scientific research, the efficacy of his 'sciences'—Dianetics and Scientology—along with the actions and intentions of the organizations he created to sell and advance these 'sciences.'"
This material, deposited with several attorneys for safekeeping, became the basis of a 1984 lawsuit, Church of Scientology of California v. Gerald Armstrong, brought by Scientology against its former archivist for theft and breach of trust. (The church did not dispute the authenticity of the documents themselves.) During the course of the trial many pages of previously unknown biographical data about L. Ron Hubbard, including his infamous affirmations, were read into the record, ultimately helping to form a counternarrative to the official life of Hubbard that the church promulgates.
This chapter, which covers the first forty years of L. Ron Hubbard's life, relies heavily on Jon Atack's A Piece of Blue Sky and Russell Miller's Barefaced Messiah, both of which drew extensively on the Armstrong materials. Unless otherwise noted, quotes from Hubbard's childhood journals come largely from Barefaced Messiah. To supplement this biographical research, I did my own interviews with Armstrong about these materials, and interviewed him at length about the authenticity of the affirmations, which Scientology viewed as confidential. I also used documents presented in the 1984 Armstrong case. In addition, and where at all possible, I quote from Hubbard's own writing, some of which the Church of Scientology has made available on its websites www.aboutlronhubbard.org and www.ronhub bard.org prior to the spring of 2010; it is also published in Scientology's series of Ron magazines (Bridge Publications, 1991).
For background on the life and times of John Whiteside Parsons, I referred primarily to George Pendle's excellent biography, Strange Angel, which offers