Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Chapter 11
Bankrolling and Bankruptcy
'The money and glory inherent in Dianetics was entirely too much for those with whom I had the
bad misfortune to associate myself . . . including a woman who had represented herself as my wife
and who had been cured of severe psychosis by Dianetics, but who, because of structural brain
damage would evidently never be entirely sane . . . Two of the early associates, John W. Campbell
and J.A. Winter, became bitter and violent because I refused to let them write on the subject of
Dianetics, for I considered their knowledge too slight and their own aberrations too broad to permit
such a liberty with the science . . . Fur coats, Lincoln cars and a young man without any concept of
honor so far turned the head of the woman who had been associated with me that on discovery of
her affairs, she and these others, hungry for money and power, sought to take over and control all
of Dianetics.' (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: Axioms, October 1951)
• • • • •
Don Purcell was a shy, unassuming man who was once a short-order chef in a little fourteen-stool
café opposite the Orpheum Theater in downtown Wichita before he made his fortune in oil and real
estate during the post-war boom. Very tall and thin - he was usually described as all 'skin and
bones' - he turned to Dianetics in the hope of finding a cure for his chronic constipation.[1]
He attended an auditor's course at Elizabeth with his wife in the autumn of 1950 and returned to
Wichita brimming with enthusiasm for the new science. Although he never mentioned if it had
eased his constipation, he did frequently claim that 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 for the first time.
Purcell's real estate company, Golden Bond Homes, was building 150 houses in the south-west of
the city, an ambitious development which put him in the burgeoning ranks of Wichita's post-war
millionaires. Yet despite his success and wealth, he never aspired to social prominence in the
town; imbued with the quintessential hardworking, god-fearing values of the mid-West, he
preferred to remain quietly in the background, perfectly content with his reputation as a
businessman of integrity and a good Christian.
Like most early Dianeticists, Purcell was a true believer, both in the efficacy of the science and the
genius of its founder. When he heard the Elizabeth Foundation was in difficulties, he immediately
offered to 'lend a hand', with both short-term finance and practical business advice. He also
provided the funds to set up a branch of the Foundation in Wichita, in a two-storey building
sandwiched between Hope's Hamburger Hut and an auto repair firm at 211 West Douglas Avenue,
Wichita's main street.[2]
It was, then, entirely to be expected that Purcell would respond unhesitatingly to Hubbard's
dramatic plea for help. Ron told him over the telephone from Havana of his plans to set up the
headquarters of the Dianetics movement in Wichita and, as far as Purcell was concerned, if the
great L. Ron Hubbard chose to make his home in Wichita, it could do the town nothing but good.