Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

time permits a true evaluation of the human mind and its function in health and in illness - the
greatest advance in mental therapy since man began to probe into his mental make-up.'
In the midst of all this accelerating activity, of writing and revising, proof-reading, 'running patients'
and answering the inquiries that were beginning to arrive as a result of the advance editorials
inAstounding, Hubbard became a father for the third time. On 8 March, 1950, Sara gave birth to a
daughter, Alexis Valerie, in the local hospital. Winter, conveniently on hand, supervised the delivery.
When she cradled the baby in her arms for the first time, Sara registered with considerable
pleasure that her daughter had flaming red hair.
By the beginning of April, Campbell's editorials had stimulated so much interest that it was decided
to establish a Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation to disseminate knowledge of the new
therapy and stimulate further research. The Foundation was incorporated in the unlovely environs
of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a grimy industrial town on the shores of Newark Bay, opposite Staten
Island. The board of directors was made up of Ron and Sara Hubbard, Campbell, Winter, Don
Rogers, Art Ceppos and a lawyer by the name of Parker C. Morgan. Dr Winter, who had by then sold
his practice in Michigan to devote himself full-time to Dianetics, accepted the post of medical
director 'without qualms'.
The Foundation rented the top floor of an old office building on Morris Avenue and furnished it with
second-hand sheet-metal desks, Navy surplus lecture-hall chairs and Army surplus cots. Ron and
Sara rented a small frame house at 42 Aberdeen Road, Elizabeth, and moved in with the baby.
Sara very much regretted leaving Bay Head and viewed Elizabeth with unconcealed distaste, but
Ron persuaded her that it was vital for him to be on hand to direct the affairs of the Foundation.
Campbell's wife, Dona, was similarly suffering from her husband's obsession with Dianetics, so
much so that she walked out of their marriage, declaring Dianetics to be the 'last straw'. Regular
contributors to Astounding also began to express concern that the editor no longer seemed
interested in anything but Ron Hubbard's wonderful new science and many of them failed to share
his enthusiasm. Isaac Asimov read an advance copy of the Dianetics article and thought it was
'gibberish'[6] while Jack Williamson said he thought it was like a 'lunatic revision of Freudian
psychology'.
But Campbell's ardour could not be cooled. In a letter to Williamson be said he had witnessed Ron
restoring sanity to a 'raving psychotic' in thirty minutes and curing a Navy veteran of ulcers and
arthritis. 'I know dianetics is one of, if not the greatest, discovery of all Man's written and unwritten
history,' he added. 'It produces the sort of stability and sanity men have dreamed about for
centuries.'[7]
The May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction appeared on the streets in the third week of
April. A hairy, ape-like alien with yellow cat's eyes glowered menacingly from the cover. Readers
would discover that he was the evil Duke of Kraakahaym, special envoy from the Empire of Skontar
to the Commonwealth of Sol, but everyone knew there was something much more diverting in the
magazine that month - the long-awaited introduction to Dianetics, the first science ever to be
launched in a pocketbook pulp magazine.
So startling were the tidings that Campbell felt obliged to emphasize that the author was entirely
serious. 'I want to assure every reader, most positively and unequivocally,' he wrote, 'that this article
is not a hoax, joke, or anything but a direct, clear statement of a totally new scientific thesis.'