Chapter 15
- Scientology and Scientologists are not revolutionaries. They are evolutionaries. They do not stand for overthrow. They are for the improvement of what we have. Scientology is not political.
- -- L. Ron Hubbard{1}
Hubbard outlined a program for Scientology expansion in the mid-1950's, and while it pertained specifically to South Africa, much of it seems relevant to their policies elsewhere. Their goal then, Hubbard wrote, was 1) to get Scientology known 2) to get Scientology established in schools 3) to have Scientology established in the universities 4) to have it established in industries 5) to have Scientology in the mines 6) and finally, to get Scientology "into the government and government department and services."{2}
As for some of these goals, examples were cited earlier of the methods Scientologists used to get known and to get their methods taught in schools. The Australian Inquiry found that the Scientologists had explored the possibility of promoting Scientology in various government departments. They said that they "considered the Education Department to be a good procurement area" and made some effort to "infiltrate it," but with no real success.{3}
The Scientologists also tried to "take over" the British National Association of Mental Health. (To be discussed later) Hubbard seems to be especially interested in getting into this field. He was once planning to start an auditing program for retarded children -- a text for The Society for the Mentally Retarded Children which he said was a program "we are now piloting in the U.S." There is also some evidence that Hubbard wanted to get his auditing methods into prisons, because he said he was planning to write a book called The Criminal Mind for a "clearing course for prisons."{4}
Scientology has also approached business organizations to get their methods taught there, and has had some success in this field. In fact, they have gone into a number of business deals themselves.{5} There is a lot of private enterprise among Scientologists, some related to Scientology. For example, two Scientologists started a School of Stage Confidence using Scientology techniques,{6} and two other Scientologists put out a record called "Free" under a Scientology label, dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard.{7}
In East Grinstead, Scientology owns a number of houses and stores.{8} The Scientologists also tried to buy Lundy Island in England,{9} which is inaccessible for large portions of the year, "as a retreat for people with nervous disorders," one paper quoted the Scientologists as saying.{10} (According to another British paper, they were planning to buy it as a refuge for foreign students to beat the Government ban on their coming into the country.{11})
Scientologists once also sold a pill called "Dianezene" which Hubbard said would prevent and treat harmful effects caused by exposure to radioactivity. Twenty-one thousand of these tablets were seized on October 1, 1965, for being misbranded, adulterated, and containing less than the declared amount of stated ingredients.{12}
According to the London Sunday Dispatch, Hubbard
allegedly sold stock at about $65 a share in 1959 to a company that
didn't exist.{13} Hubbard apologized afterward,
explaining that certain legal formalities he thought were completed were
not. He returned all the
money, and allegedly said, "It's lucky the police did not become
involved, otherwise something most unpleasant might have happened."
Scientologists attempt to expand into various fields
(schools, prisons, mental health, businesses, and as shall be seen,
politics) because they believe they have a method that can and will save
this world, and they altruistically feel they must get as many people as
possible to join them or the world will be doomed. The Scientologists
are actively trying to increase their number.{14}
In one of their recent advertising brochures, they wrote
that if every person who took the course would bring in two other
people, etc., "this planet would be clear in eighteen months."{15} Hubbard must also be very pleased with the
potentialities inherent in the moon landing, since he wrote in
Scientology Expansion, "I don't think Scientology will be
contained very long on this planet -- expansion will be that swift."{16}
Another reason that Scientologists are trying to get into
so many different areas may be found in their recently revised "Code of
a Scientologist." This code not only states that their goal is to
increase their number in the world, but also their strength.{17} Early in Hubbard's career, he claimed that
Dianeticians, because of their higher I.Q.s, would form an aristocracy,
and that this elite corps would subjugate the rest.
One sees with some sadness that more than three-quarters
of the world's population will become subject to the remaining
[one-quarter Dianeticians] as a natural consequence and about which we
can do exactly nothing.{18}
"But even if they do want to take over," said one former
Scientologist, "they can't become dangerous unless they become political
and then somebody gives them a government or an army."
While the Scientologists may not see themselves as a
political force yet, they do consider themselves to be as important as
the major political forces today. A 1968
mailing from a Scientology Org said that Hubbard would compare the 1968
accomplishments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics with the achievements of Scientology.{19} Hubbard has also hinted that the Russians might like
to see him on their side.
In 1964, the Saturday Evening Post reported that
Hubbard had stated that he had been approached for the secrets of
Scientology by Castro's government. And the Russians, who didn't mind
stealing My Fair Lady, etc., were supposed to have offered
him $200,000 for Scientology. (When he supposedly turned them
down, he claims his apartment was "blasted open" and his "basic
manuscript disappeared.")
At other times, Hubbard has also said that the Russians
offered him Pavlov's laboratories in 1938 and "large sums" to complete
his work under their auspices. He repeated his charge that they had
stolen part of his manuscript in 1942 and the rest of it in 1950, and
connected this to his refusal of the Russian's 1938 offer. This 1938
manuscript, by the way, was called Excalibur{20}
and Hubbard claims that the first four of fifteen people who read it
went insane.{21}
Hubbard's interest in politics is not just verbal. In
1962 Hubbard wrote a letter to President Kennedy offering the services
of Scientology and promising that "Scientology is very easy for the
government to put into effect."{22} The letter begins
by stating that it is as important as the letter sent to the White House
on the subject of the atom bomb, signed by Professor Albert Einstein.
To show Kennedy how important he was, and how effective
Scientology is, he told him that Scientology had "coached the British
Olympic Team with the result that not one team member blew up in the
events." (Hubbard's Italics) (He did not tell Kennedy that in an
early issue of Ability, he had said that only two members
of the British pentathlon team had received "Scientology ...
processing."{23}) Hubbard also told Kennedy how the
Russians had offered him Pavlov's laboratories, had been stealing his
secrets, etc., and concluded with "I feel sure
that there exists a growing library on Scientology in Russia."
He then told Kennedy not what the country could do for
Scientology, but what Scientology could do for the country. "The
government only need turn over to us anyone it desires to condition to
space flight or anyone whose I.Q. it desires to have raised and we will
take it from there," Hubbard offered. (At the cost of $6,250 per pilot,
although this was not spelled out.) Hubbard added that Scientology
"could decide the space race or the next war in the hands of America"
and generously concluded, "This is a duty letter ... I do not wish to
seem the cause of denying my own government this technology."
Hubbard has also been accused of getting entangled with
politics while he was in Rhodesia,{24} and, in fact,
may have been barred from that country a few years ago.{25} The Daily Mail in England reported that this
occurred because the Rhodesian authorities believed he was using the
political situation in that country to expand Scientology. At first no
one complained: Hubbard had invested nearly $80,000 in Rhodesia; he
bought a house for a reputed $40,000 and a hotel to "show his confidence
in the country and its government" -- although they were worthwhile
investments for him, too, because Scientology was said to have taken in
$25,000 in a city of only 45,000 whites.
But the Daily Mail reported that Hubbard
allegedly alienated people by constantly praising Ian Smith, expressing
his sympathy for the cause of the white Rhodesians, and exploiting
racial prejudices (allegedly by saying that the Africans wouldn't
qualify for membership in Scientology because their I.Q. was too low).
Such statements, had they ever been widely circulated, would not have
made Hubbard popular among Scientologists in America, since Hubbard's
constant emphasis of "freedom" and "equality" has recruited a number of
American Negroes to the organization.
Scientologists may also have tried to get Scientology
into the South African government -- but in much less
subtle ways. The Rand Daily Mail reported on June 12, 1969, that
one witness told the board of the South African Inquiry that Mr.
Parkhouse, Scientology's chief executive there, planned to arm and
organize 5,000 Africans to seize control of South Africa. Below is the
quote from the newspaper.{26}
The witness also told the commission that he did not know
what became of Hubbard's plans or of Mr. Parkhouse.
In Communication magazine, Hubbard outlined ways
that Scientology could get into government.
Locate its leaders. Get a paid post as a secretary or
officer of the staff of the leaders of that race. And by any means,
audit them into ability and handle their affairs to bring
cooperation....
A nation or a state runs on the ability of its department heads, its
governors, or any other leaders. It is easy to get posts in such
areas.... Don't bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial
staff or the bodyguard, use any talent one has to get a place close in,
go to work on the environment and make it function better.
The cue in all this is don't seek the cooperation of groups. Don't
ask for permission. Just enter them and start functioning to make the
group win through effectiveness and sanity.{27}
The Australian Inquiry related the story of a boy who
took Hubbard's instructions quite seriously:
One preclear who had affiliations with the Australian
Labor Party saw ... [Hubbard's] Zone Plan as "a very able plan for
infiltration and subversion of the key institutions of the country," the
intention of the plan being "to create by those subversive means a
Scientology government" and he was so enthusiastic about the
possibilities which Scientology offered for political domination that he
concocted a plan to scientologize the Australian Labor Party.{28}
His plan to scientologize the Australian Labor party
concluded as follows: "With Australia led by a government employing
Scientology principles we should soon have a civilization which can
extend influence overseas." He submitted the plan to Hubbard, and
supposedly gained his approval. Later, the boy ran into some
difficulties with the Labor party and changed his affiliations.
Scientologists are obviously political and have tried to
get into government positions. Do they also have an interest in getting
into the army to realize their ambitions? Who knows? It is interesting
to note, however, that in a story Hubbard published in Astounding
Science Fiction magazine when he was in his twenties, he had one of
the characters say, "Now you see, if you run the army you are bigger
than the army and it won't try to get you."{29}
{1} 1st quote
[48]
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{2} South African goals
[30]
{3} getting into schools in Australia
[261]
{4} retarded child and prison program
[78]
{5} Scientology tried to get into businesses
[255]
{6} (27) Scientology school
[212]
{7} (28) Scientology record
[248a]
{8} (6) Scientology owns houses in East
Grinstead & banned others
[15]
{9} (7) try to buy Lundy
[234]
{10} (8) for nervous disorders
[218]
{11} (9) for beating ban
[190]
{12} (10) Dianezene
[255]
{13} (11) selling stock
[208]
{14} (12) increasing number
[115]
{15} (13) everyone clear in 18 months
[116]
{16} (14) Scientology on this planet
[17]
{17} (15) increasing strength
[115]
{18} (16) forming elite corps, quote on
subjugation
[109]
{19} (17) Scientology and political powers
[141a]
{20} (30) Excalibur
[264]
{21} (18) offer of Pavlov's laboratories;
manuscript stolen; etc
[29]
{22} (19) Kennedy Letter
[29]
{23} (20) 2 members of British team have
Scientology
[37]
{24} (21) Rhodesian situation
[175]
{25} (22) Hubbard barred from Rhodesia
[248, 222]
{26} (23) South African seizing control and
quote from paper
[247]
{27} (24) how to get into politics
[52]
{28} (25) boy who tried
[261]
{29} (26) Hubbard story in ASF magazine
[106]
Extraneous citation notes:
{30} (29) UN
[122]