Inside Scientology (17 page)

This was the crux of OT 3: that one's problems were not caused merely by the reactive mind, but by aberrant "body thetans," each one reliving the trauma of Xenu's ancient genocide. That trauma had set the course of human history, resulting in the social and political ills—war, famine, genocide, poverty, drugs, nuclear weapons, acts of terror—that had played out on the planet for generations. To truly clear oneself, a Scientologist had to audit each one of these body thetans through specific processes Hubbard had designed: unclustering them, clearing their engrams, and ultimately freeing them of their implants. This, Hubbard believed, would be each individual's salvation, and ultimately, it would be the salvation of mankind.

Jeff Hawkins believed every word of this new gospel. Nancy Many, the Scientology executive from Boston, took it with a grain of salt. But then, she'd also taken the idea that Christ walked on water with a grain of salt, she said. "I was raised as a Catholic to believe that Jesus turned water into wine and raised the dead. I mean, is that plausible? So, to me, the Xenu story was like a Bible story." More than a few Scientologists read the Xenu story as "a bizarre science fiction story," as one former member described it. But fearing they'd be denounced for doubting Hubbard's teachings—to do so would be a thought crime—they held their tongue.

Whatever OT 3 and the subsequent OT levels may have been, one thing is certain: they were perfectly timed. Mikael Rothstein, a professor of religion at the University of Copenhagen who specializes in new religious movements, has commented that a number of "UFO religions" emerged during the 1960s. "Hubbard's noting that human souls—thetans—are spiritual implants that originate in another world is ... quite parallel to religious assumptions expressed by UFO religions," he said. Most of these groups were "very much concerned with the mind-body complex and the impact of extraterrestrials. Hubbard was not original in that respect."

But where Hubbard was original was in how he packaged this sci-fi mythology—just as he had been with Dianetics. Scientologists did not have to believe in OT 3. They had to do it. Then they would attain secret knowledge and wisdom unavailable to more pedestrian members. And the more they did it, the more enlightened—and invested—they became. This approach was so successful that within months of Hubbard's announcing OT 3, Scientologists from all over the world began beating a path to Valencia, Spain, to do the level aboard Hubbard's ship.

The stated purpose of becoming OT was to "help Ron clear the planet"
—which included fighting psychiatry. But most public Scientologists had a far more selfish goal in becoming an Operating Thetan. "OT was talked about as the be all and end all," said Mike Henderson, who joined the Church of Scientology in the early 1970s. "You'd be completely powerful, would have total control of matter, energy, space, and time ... you would be able to do anything." Though no one, to Henderson's knowledge, had ever achieved this level of consciousness (not even Jesus or Buddha had been OTs, but "just a shade above Clear,"
according to Hubbard), the fantasy was sold so effectively that "going OT" became for Scientologists the equivalent of reaching nirvana or finding the Holy Grail.
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By the late 1970s, thanks to massive promotion, nearly every Scientologist aspired to the OT levels. The headline of one ad summed up Scientology's new direction: "Clear, OT, and Total Freedom." And because Scientology was now a worldwide spiritual enterprise, it was easy to pursue that goal, provided one could afford it.
^†
In addition to the ships and the Saint Hill Manor, there were now Advanced Scientology churches in cities such as Copenhagen and Los Angeles, enabling more people to go Clear and do the OT levels. To initiate them into the movement, large Scientology churches now functioned in most of the major cities in Europe and the United States; also, dozens of franchised missions, some run by longtime Scientologists, were in operation, and many were far more successful than the formally established orgs.

Hubbard's role took on more and more characteristics of a messiah. As the "Source" of all of Scientology's teachings, Hubbard was decreed the creator of every bit of Scientology scripture, which was considered infallible. To guarantee that his word was followed exactly, an office was set up at every Scientology organization in the world—complete with a desk, chair, telephone, ashtray, and pack of Kools—and run by an official called the "LRH Communicator," whose job was, as Jeff Hawkins put it, "to make sure the org did exactly what Hubbard said to do." The standard tech became a fixed product, sold only at official Scientology organizations around the world.

Hubbard himself, at least the standardized version—maverick, adventurer, seaman; an ascot-wearing hero to whom members were encouraged to write letters, telling of their wins—was heavily marketed. By the early 1970s, a new addition appeared on the list of his personas. Hubbard had written a poem titled
The Hymn of Asia,
in which he presented himself as Metteya, the reincarnation of Buddha. The Scientology magazine
Advance
promoted this new image, presenting drawings of the Founder sporting a reddish topknot and dressed in Indian robes.
Jeff Hawkins thought this was great marketing. Kids all over the world had been embracing Eastern philosophy. Why not cast L. Ron Hubbard as a modern Buddha?

If in doubt about a problem or decision, members were told to ask themselves, "What would Ron do?"
Scientology events were punctuated by tributes to Ron. His followers, whipped into enthusiasm by passionately recounted success stories, stood to face Hubbard's portrait, clapped in unison, and saluted him with Scientology's official cheer: "Hip, hip hooray!"

As the Great Leader L. Ron Hubbard was becoming ever more iconic, the real L. Ron Hubbard was becoming increasingly isolated, locked into the fantasy world he'd created aboard the
Apollo.
To his followers, he was an aging Peter Pan who entertained them with talk of past lives. He'd been a racecar driver of the alien Marcab civilization.
He'd sailed with the Carthaginian fleet
and had served as a tax collector during the time of the Roman Empire.
He was also convinced that he'd buried treasure during his previous incarnations and led his crew on expeditions to find it, following a course he said he'd charted two thousand years earlier and looking for hidden troves of gold and jewels in the Canary Islands and along the coasts of Italy, Spain, and North Africa.

But in the opinion of the parents of his young converts, particularly those in the United States (where in a pre-Internet era, news of Scientology's travails in England and Australia traveled slowly, if at all), the eccentric and volatile L. Ron Hubbard was no Peter Pan, but rather a Pied Piper, captivating their children with his idealistic vision of a cleared planet and then spiriting them away into a life of utter dedication to Ron and his mission. From the late 1960s onward, the FBI was flooded with mail from worried parents, urging the bureau to investigate the mysterious and, according to some, "sinister" and "subversive" church that seemed to have taken control of their children. ("I am literally petrified at this point that [my son] has been brainwashed by the 'processing' he has undergone in 'Scientology,'" one anguished father wrote to J. Edgar Hoover in the early 1970s. "I have seen my son's personality deteriorate and become progressively worse to the point where now there seems to be no sanity present.")

Aboard the
Apollo,
Hubbard urged his crew to write to their families—"If your parents or friends are the kind who worry about you, BE SURE AND WRITE THEM AN AIRMAIL LETTER regularly," he declared on May 2, 1969. "Otherwise they give us [problems] by asking the government to check up on you to see if you're all right."

But finding the Commodore and his crew would prove difficult. The
Apollo
had been ejected from Greece in 1969, after the Greek government received complaints about Scientologists proselytizing on Corfu. Hubbard and his Sea Org set out to find a new home. In 1971, the Sea Org set up a small land base outside Tangier, using what by now had become their new cover name: the Operation and Transport Corporation. If asked, they were to say that they were employees of an international business-management company.

Just a year later, Hubbard pulled up stakes again, after receiving word that the Church of Scientology in France was about to be indicted for fraud. Fearing he might be extradited from Morocco to Paris to testify, and worried about Morocco's worsening political situation, he decided to skip out of Europe altogether and spent most of the next year in New York City, hiding out from French authorities among its populace of eight million people.

It was Hubbard's first time in the United States since the mid-1960s and, accompanied by a bodyguard and a private nurse, he spent most of the year sequestered in an apartment in Forest Hills, Queens, watching TV. "He really wanted to see what was going on in the culture," said his former nurse, Jim Dinalci. "He wasn't very impressed, but he kept the TV on all the time because he wanted to understand the mindset, the buttons he'd have to push to get people into Scientology."

After ten months in New York, Hubbard flew back to Europe. He returned to the
Apollo,
now anchored off Lisbon, and set sail for the Canary Islands. In Tenerife, in early 1974, Hubbard suffered a motorcycle accident, breaking an arm and several ribs. Convalescing for several months, Hubbard spent most of the time in a red velvet chair, a throne of sorts, with various pillows and foot cushions, screaming at his aides. "The red chair to us became a symbol of the worst a human being can be," one young aide, Doreen Smith, later recalled.
"All we wanted to do was chop it up in little pieces and throw it overboard."

In his isolation, Hubbard was coming to resemble the reclusive Howard Hughes. He'd insist that the ship, and any other place he ventured to, be given the white-glove treatment. He also became sensitive to smells and banned the use of perfume, and scented detergents and soaps. He was convinced that far more evil forces surrounded him than he'd ever let on. Now that he'd discovered body thetans, who knew what their intentions might be? He began to scrutinize the people around him, who, by Hubbard's own reckoning, were composed of scores of these individual entities. Did they mean him harm? Who—and what—among his own staff was friend, and who a secret foe?

Hubbard intensified his security checks, asking the Sea Org and even his own family if they had relationships with foreign governments, or if they'd ever had "unkind thoughts" about Hubbard. Those who fell victim to his wrath were subject to a particular disciplinary measure called the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF). Members on the RPF were not allowed in normal crew areas of the
Apollo
and were banned from communicating with anyone outside their own group, said Glenn Samuels, a former Sea Org member who worked as an auditor aboard the
Apollo.
In 1974, Samuels, then twenty-five, was distracted by marital troubles, earning him a six-month stint on the RPF as punishment. "We lived in a dingy hold in the ship infested with roaches, and slept on pee-stained mattresses formerly designated to be thrown out. Study took place there as well." Members awoke at dawn and were sent off to clean toilets or duct shafts. If anyone made a mistake, he was made to do push-ups and run laps around the ship. Walking was prohibited; members had to run everywhere, and even in baking heat were required to wear black boiler suits.

"It was brutal," said Samuels. "But much worse than the menial labor was the extreme 'untouchable' aspect of the whole thing. You were considered 'evil' ... especially if you had upset the Commodore, LRH." One boy who had committed such a sin was stowed in a chain locker for several days. "When he asked Hubbard if he could get out, LRH said, 'You got yourself in there; get yourself out,'" Samuels recalled. "Another young girl was so disoriented from working so hard that she fell into the hold, about twenty feet down. She was twelve years old."

As the 1970s wore on, Hubbard banished more people to the RPF. Virtually no one aboard the
Apollo
was safe. "It was scary because at his whim you could end up in the hellhole—for real or imagined errors," said Samuels. "And not just the Flag crew was sent; but executives, plus three of Hubbard's personal stewards, a cook or two, three of the ship's photographers."

When Hubbard finally recovered from his motorcycle accident, the
Apollo,
which had been sailing off the coast of Portugal, set course for Spain. But the Spanish authorities, like the Moroccans, wondered about the strange, rust-streaked ship whose crew claimed to be affiliated with an international management group. The ship left Spanish waters after the
Apollo
mistakenly tried to enter one of the country's largest naval bases. Hubbard directed his captain to set a new course: ejected from European and North African waters, the
Apollo
would now cross the Sargasso Sea and ply the Caribbean.

A senior marketing executive at the Publications Org, Jeff Hawkins now lived in Copenhagen with his wife, Tina, a fellow Sea Org member, and their seven-year-old daughter, Gwennie. In June 1975, he was summoned back to the
Apollo
to become part of a new international dissemination unit. Thrilling to Jeff, Hubbard, impressed by his work, had asked for him personally.

Much had changed aboard the
Apollo
in the four years Jeff had been away. Gone was the spit-polished, crisply military style of its crew. Now a bohemian atmosphere prevailed. Sea Org members sported beards, long hair, shorts, T-shirts, and bikini tops. Theater sets were strewn on the deck, along with musical equipment belonging to a band composed of Sea Org members, who called themselves the Apollo All-Stars. There also seemed to be a harem of young girls at the center of things. They dressed provocatively in tiny white shorts, white midriff-baring shirts, and chunky platform shoes.

These girls, the children of Scientologists, as it turned out, were called the Commodore's Messengers. Many of them had grown up on the
Apollo,
having been sent by their parents to serve in the Sea Organization. As the youngest people on the ship, they'd been deployed at first as go-fers, running messages to and from L. Ron Hubbard and other members of the crew, but over time, Hubbard began to rely on the Messengers as his personal caretakers, and as his eyes and ears.