Old Father Hubbard
AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS
. . Things really have been moving for me since I started Scientology. . . . Since then I have made several big changes in my environ- ment, I find I can apply Scientology to a great number of things, including my work, which is dentistry, and I find that success in applying Scientology is steadily increasing. My other interest is music. I have played the harmonica professionally for a number of years, and since studying the courses in Scientology I have found a definite increase in my musical ability.'
`... My former talents have come out to bloom like a plant suddenly introduced to the sun.... With the amazing tool Ron has given me, I have completed to an extent, all my, this life- time known (sic) goals, the ones I made when the other boys were planning to be firemen and cowboys. . .. At twenty years old, I'm a writer, dancer, artist, musician, traveller, and "people saver." ' Whoopee!
Outrageous 'spoof,' you may think. Tasteless parody. On the contrary, direct quotations from the selected testimonials printed at the back of The Scientology Field Staff Member Magazine, Volume One Number One, Copyright /968 by L. Ron Hubbard. A slim, shiny, blue-covered publication, containing in all seven signed articles by L. Ron Hubbard in styles ranging from that of the Petticoat Lane huckster to daft mystic, and with a sensitive cover photo- graph of coverboy L. Ron Hubbard, wearing an extremely expensive watch, a curious signet ring, a short-sleeved open-necked white shirt and a made-up spotted cravat, and staring thoughtfully into the camera. 'A self-portrait,' we read within, 'by L. Ron Hubbard. In addi- tion to founding and developing the largest self- betterment organisation in the world, L. Ron Hubbard has shown a lively and active interest in the arts. A graduate of the New York In- stitute of Photography, his superb photographs help bring home his message of Total Freedom for all mankind.'
Inside there is another superb photograph of L. Ron Hubbard, 'an American writer and philosopher,' this time wearing a suit and dark tie, sitting at a large desk with a chain bracelet round one wrist, holding a quill pen, and look- ing down into the camera with the same ex- pression of sour contempt we observe on the cover. Opposite there is a brief biography of L Ron Hubbard, outlining his own progress towards self-betterment, and explaining to some extent the expression of sour contempt. 6. .. At the age of ten he rejoined his father and mother. Two years later, in Washington, oc, at the time, he became a fast friend of the President's son, Calvin Coolidge, Jnr, whose untimely death is probably responsible for L. Ron Hub- bard's early interest in mental research.' Pro- bably it is. During his adolescence, we are told, the man Hubbard travelled with his father, an officer in the United States Navy, through Asia, 'studying on the one hand with Lama Priests, and making himself agreeable to war- like people by his ability to ride.'
`Having first in Asia become interested in the mind and in Man, he multiplied his interest
with his investigation of savage peoples, and by 1938 he had written a never-published work on the subject of the basic principles of human existence.' But self-betterment was on the way. `Crippled and blind at the end of the war, he resumed his studies of philosophy and by his discoveries recovered so fully that he was re- classified in 1949 for full combat duty. It is a matter of medical record that he has twice been pronounced dead and that in 1950 he was given a perfect score on mental and physical fitness reports.' After this miraculous turn of events, and after many years as a writer of science fiction and westerns, he hit the jackpot in 1950 with his best-selling Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health. Since then, Scien- tology has developed from Dianetics, and in 1959 L. Ron Hubbard and his family made their home and headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in Sussex, England.
The rest of the magazine is devoted to articles by L. Ron Hubbard and to advertisements for the various products marketed by L. Ron Hub- bard and his organisation : courses costing be- tween £5 and £156—`you get a 5 per cent dis- count if you pay in full in advance'— gramophone records of L. Ron Hubbard talking for £6 5s—'order this beautiful album today'— the basic Scientology Library. seven books by L. Ron Hubbard at a special offer price of £6, or your own Electrometer, 'developed and per- fected by L. Ron Hubbard after many fears of painstaking research,' though 'not intended or effective for the diagnosis, treatment or pre- vention of any disease,' for only £50. Almost all these advertisements, for some reason, show attractive young women in woolly pullovers smiling in an ambiguous manner at relaxed young male initiates, or in the case of the £156 course, at a relaxed, fat, middle-aged initiate.
What is strange, for the organ of so awesome and notorious an organisation, is its similarity to a more modest catalogue dropped through the letterbox some months back, and called Success Digest. This includes advertisements for books like How To Stay Young Till Ninety—`A direct attack on the stored-up emotional poisons in your body that eat away strength like internal acid. A series of exhilarating new exercises which take as little as three minutes a day— half of which you spend resting?—How to Harness the Powers of Creation to Your Desires—`At the commencement of the Korean War, Dr Manning was called to active service. The Natural Laws he evoked protected him from all harm throughout the war.'—How To Get Thinner Once And For All—'You even eat when you don't feel hungry'—How To Develop A Million Dollar Personality—'actually make creditors happy to wait until you want to pay them, get money out of long-overdue debtors even if the statute of limitations has expired'— or Psycho Pktography—'Wyman S., caught in a rain storm, invoked Mental Picture No. 32 to protect himself so that he could not be harmed by rain or wind!' But as L. Ron Hubbard says : 'Let the ignorant laugh : the ignorant always do. Let the smug and pompous ride their toboggan to nowhere. Thousands of philosophers . . . from Socrates to Russell . . . couldn't have been totally wrong.' And they haven't risen from the dead. Not twice, anyway.
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