Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard
Language: English
Pages: 396
ISBN: 1909269360
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Bare-Faced Messiah tells the extraordinary story of L. Ron Hubbard, a penniless science-fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology, became a millionaire prophet and convinced his adoring followers that he alone could save the world. In the words of his 'official' biography, Hubbard was an explorer, engineer, scientist, war hero and philosopher. In the words of a Californian judge, he was schizophrenic, paranoid and a pathological liar. What is not in dispute is that Hubbard was one of the most bizarre characters of the twentieth century. His was a unique life. While writing pulp science fiction, he claimed to have made discoveries about the workings of the human mind that would enable cures to be found for everything from cancer to the common cold. He soon founded his own 'church' and then rampaged around the world variously pursued by the CIA, the FBI and outraged governments. For nearly ten years he sailed the oceans as the commodore of his own private navy, served by nymphet messengers in hot-pants who dressed and undressed him and were trained like robots to relay orders in his tone of voice. Back on shore in the US, he directed an operation aimed at infiltrating government offices to launder their bulging files on the Church of Scientology. In 1980, fearing arrest, he disappeared. He was never seen again. Bare-Faced Messiah exposes the myths surrounding the fascinating and mysterious founder of the Church of Scientology and provides the definitive account of how the notorious organisation was created. Using all his skills as a top investigative journalist, Russell Miller reveals that the true life of L. Ron Hubbard - a man of hypnotic charm and limitless imagination - was even more astounding than the fiction
Dianetics had given him the ability to work a twenty-two-hour day, which was useful to a real estate developer in Wichita in 1951. The farming town in the heart of the winter wheat belt had been transformed by the arrival of the oil and aircraft industries and it was expanding at a phenomenal rate. Roads, houses, schools, churches, office blocks and factories were being built everywhere. Between 1950 and 1951, the population of Wichita rose by more than 30,000, pushing the figure above 200,000
who was one of the instructors, proved to be enormously resourceful in the past lives area. ‘When a student was having difficulty in making his past life gel,’ said Vosper, ‘Nibs would helpfully fill in bits. Students knew that unless they could bring forth a past life with full recall, pain, emotion, full perception, the lot, they would be regarded as something less than real Scientologists. There was a good deal of rivalry as to who could dig up the most notable or extraordinary past life.
street kids. It discouraged him from venturing out again by himself. His aching teeth appeared to trigger other complaints and Dincalci was driven to distraction trying to nurse an intractable and irritable elderly patient who was at first reluctant to consult either doctor or dentist. When one of Hubbard’s rotten teeth dropped out, Dincalci painstakingly ground all his food. Eventually Hubbard agreed to seek professional medical help. On visits to a chiropractor in Greenwich Village he always
annual training with the 20th Marine Corps Reserve and was rated ‘excellent’ for military efficiency, obedience and sobriety.[8] On the morning of Sunday 13 September 1931, the good people of Gratis, Ohio, a small farming community in Preble County, were surprised to see a small biplane swoop out of the sky and land on a field to the east of the town. The pilots, according to an awed report in the Preble County News, were Philip Browning and ‘L. Ron “Flash” Hubbard, dare-devil speed pilot and
at the wheel, Hubbard and Frank Dessler were in the back. Inside the house, Sara sat in her nightgown by the telephone, weeping into a handkerchief as she waited for news of Alexis. She jumped up in alarm when she heard a key scraping at the door, but her fear turned to anger when her husband and Dessler appeared in the doorway. ‘Where’s Lexie?’ she screamed. Neither man said a word. They grabbed her by each arm, one of them clamped a hand over her mouth and they bustled her out of the house,