Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

or Hoax?' The text left the reader in little doubt as to which the magazine thought it was. 'Half a
million laymen have swallowed this poor man's psychiatry . . .' it began. 'Hubbard has
demonstrated once again that Barnum underestimated the sucker birth rate.' The tens of
thousands of people who had swallowed Hubbard's doctrine were characterized as 'the usual
lunatic fringe types, frustrated maiden ladies who have worked their way through all the available
cults, young men whose homosexual engrams are all too obvious . . .' The article referred to the
'awe, fear and deep disgust' with which the medical profession viewed Dianetics and quoted a
doctor at the famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, who conceded that sufferers from
mental malaise might find temporary relief from 'Dianetic hocus pocus' just as they sometimes do
from hypnotism or voodoo. 'But,' he added, 'the greatest harm to a person would come not because
of the vicious nature of Dianetic therapy but because it will lead them away from treatment which
they may badly need.'
Hubbard's primary attraction, Look concluded, was that his ersatz psychiatry was available to all.
'It's cheap. It's accessible. It's a public festival to be played at clubs and parties. In a country with
only 6000 professional psychiatrists, whose usual consultation fees start at $15 an hour, Hubbard
has introduced mass-production methods. Whether such methods can actually help you if you're
sick is a moot point.'
As always in the face of an attack, particularly from the direction of the despised media, committed
Dianeticists closed ranks and there was no lack of cheer at the LA Foundation's Christmas party,
attended by staff and students alike. Barbara Kaye turned up and was asked to dance by Hubbard.
'I need some counselling, doctor, 'she whispered in his ear. 'What do you do with a pre-clear who
keeps dreaming she is in bed with you?' He grinned broadly and replied, 'I have been thinking of
beginning a series of empirical tests on the result of substituting the reality for the dream.' Within a
few days, their affair resumed: on New Year's Eve, Hubbard missed the party he was supposed to
attend with Sara and spent the night with Barbara at her apartment on Dale Drive in Beverly Hills.
In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners instituted proceedings against the
Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, accusing it of teaching medicine without a
licence. The Foundation hired an attorney who was confident he could defend the suit, but there
was a strong feeling among the directors that they should 'skip'; inquiries were instituted to find a
state where they would be more welcome.[12] Hubbard, who clearly thought the prospects in New
Jersey looked bleak, asked two reliable students at Elizabeth - John Sanborn and Greg
Hemingway, the youngest son of the writer - to load all his personal possessions into his black
Lincoln limousine and drive it to Los Angeles.
In the interim, perhaps still hoping to save his marriage, he persuaded Sara and the baby to
accompany him to Palm Springs, where he had rented a single-storey adobe house with a small
garden of flowering shrubs on Mel Avenue. He wanted to get away from the distractions of Los
Angeles, he explained, to start writing a sequel to Dianetics. It was to be called Science of Survival
and would introduce faster, simplified auditing techniques.
Hubbard, Sara and Alexis were joined in Palm Springs by Richard de Mille, son of the film director
Cecil B. de Mille, who had recently been appointed Hubbard's personal assistant. 'Although it never
occurred to me at the time, I think my name had something to do with it,' de Mille acknowledged.
'He liked to collect celebrities. I had got into Dianetics as early as possible after reading the article
in Astounding and I was working at the LA Foundation making publications out of Hubbard's
lectures when he asked me to go with him to Palm Springs.