Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Forrest Ackerman, who had noticeably not been getting rich from his ten per cent of Ron's earnings,
nevertheless remained on good terms with his client. When Ron came bounding up the stairs to
his apartment one afternoon, sweat trickling from under the band of his white straw hat, and said
he needed money to get out of town because his ex-wife was after him for alimony, Forrie goodnaturedly
handed over everything he had in his wallet - $30. 'It was a small fortune to me then,' he
recalled.
For some time, Forrie had been trying to persuade Ron to make an appearance at one of the
meetings of the Los Angeles Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, of which he was naturally a
founding member. The meetings were held every Thursday evening in the basement room of a
small hotel on South Bixel Street in downtown Los Angeles and were often attended by writers with
an eye to future sales.
Ron first turned up at a 'Lasfas' meeting on 15 April and, as a distinguished guest, was invited to
address the members. He gave an impromptu, entertaining little talk about himself and his work,
mentioning his 'shame' that he was only able to write about five thousand words a day and
touching briefly on his philosophical opus, Excalibur, which he had locked in a bank vault when he
'finally realized how dangerous it was'.
'The real surprise of the evening', the club magazine reported, 'came when Hubbard was talking
about his friend, Arthur J. Burks. Someone mentioned Burks's story, "Survival", which had been
judged one of the best of 1938 when it appeared that year in Marvel Tales. "Survival?" questioned
Hubbard. "I don't remember reading that one. What was it about?" It concerned an invasion of
America by the "yellow men of the East", he was told. "What?" said Hubbard. "And how did they
escape the peril?" By burrowing under the ground, he was told. Mr Hubbard was surprised at this.
In fact, he said, "Good God! That dog! Wait till I get hold of Burks . . ." He explained the outburst:
"Back in '38 I wrote a movie treatment of a story called 'Survival'. It concerned an invasion of America
by the yellow men of the East. They escaped by burrowing under the ground! I gave that story and
four others to an agent to sell. He lost them. And now I find that Burks has written and sold a story
just like it!"'[11]
Among the fans present that evening was a young teletype operator by the name of Arthur Jean
Cox. He admitted to mixed feelings about meeting the famous Ron Hubbard for the first time: 'He
was an amusing, lively, animated, dynamic man who dominated the conversation, although I had
the feeling that he told more lies in the club room in the first half hour than had been told there in
the previous month. He talked a lot about his past - I heard the story about the polar bear jumping
on his boat dozens of times - but I thought it was all fantasy.
'At that time he was one of the most famous science fiction writers in America, certainly in the top
ten. Most of the members of the club were very young and in awe of him, but I didn't like him. His
face was pock-marked, as if he'd had smallpox as a child, and I thought he looked like a wolf; he
was a very predatory sort of man.'[12]
Hubbard returned to the Los Angeles science fiction society two weeks later to give a talk about
immortality and the future of medical science. He had become interested in medical matters, he
explained to a mainly spellbound audience, after he had 'died' for eight minutes as a result of
wounds received in the war. He was brought back to life 'by the use of several emergency
measures'. While convalescing he had plenty of time to satisfy his natural curiosity and he had
become convinced that bio-chemists were capable of lengthening life to the point of 'limited
immortality'. Joseph Stalin was only being kept alive, he claimed somewhat obscurely, because of
a particular serum that had been developed by the Russians.