Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Understandably, the VA saw no cause to increase the veteran's pension, but on this occasion the
veteran was perhaps not too concerned since Don Purcell was still providing ample funds for his
activities, even though their relationship was fraying. It had been agreed between them that Purcell
would be responsible for the management and business affairs of the Foundation while Hubbard
looked after training, processing and research, but a simple division of responsibility proved to be
unworkable.
'Things went along fine for a while, then Ron began to encroach on my territory,' Purcell recorded.
'The more he did this the ornerier I got. Ron established an overhead structure that far exceeded
the gross income. I began to hold out for an organizational structure that could exist within its
income with the idea of expanding the structure as our income increased. This idea did not satisfy
Ron. He kept telling me that I had agreed to pay off all the old debts and underwrite a new start for
the Foundation and why didn't I go ahead and do it?'[13]
Purcell's Wichita lawyer, Jean Oliver Moore, was present on many occasions when money was
discussed. 'The bills were reaching astronomical proportions,' he said. 'Ron believed one thing
should be done and Don another and there was a divergence of opinion. But in the end it had to be
a matter of prudent business judgement - the Foundation was losing money hand over fist at a rate
faster than Purcell could replace it.'[14]
Money was not the only problem. Purcell and Hubbard were in fundamental disagreement over the
issue of 'past lives'. From the earliest days of auditing, pre-clears invited to travel back along the
time-track had occasionally progressed beyond birth or conception to previous, often romantic,
existences, recalling their adventures as medieval knights or centurions in ancient Rome. It
happened to Helen O'Brien, who received the experience of being a young peasant woman in
Ireland in the early nineteenth century who was killed by a British soldier when she tried to prevent
him raping her.
Hubbard was at first ambivalent about the validity of 'past lives', but by the time he got to Wichita he
had embraced the concept so enthusiastically that he showed up for one of his regular Friday night
lectures with a dreadful limp; he explained to the audience that he had returned on his genetic
time-track to a moment when he was shot in the leg during the Civil War and had not had time to
complete 'running' the incident.
Purcell, who was still hoping that Dianetics would achieve academic and professional recognition,
considered the notion of 'past lives' to be unscientific and wanted it dropped. Hubbard resented his
interference in his 'research' and was anyway disinclined to heed the views of a pragmatic real
estate developer. 'Ron's motive was always to limit Dianetics to the authority of his teachings,'
Purcell noted. 'Anyone who had the effrontery to suggest that others beside Ron could contribute
creatively to the work must be inhibited.' Friction between the two men increased markedly.
Meanwhile, the FBI, ever vigilant, continued to fret about what Hubbard was up to, at the same time
displaying a remarkable talent for obfuscation. On 1 October 1951, for example, the FBI office in
Kansas City, which apparently did not read newspapers, asked Washington for any information
about a school or clinic of 'Dyanetics' operated by an L. Ron Hubbard in Wichita. The reply indicated
that the FBI was quite as paranoid about Hubbard as Hubbard was about the FBI. Prominent
mention was made of allegations that the activities of the Foundation were of 'particular interest to
sexual perverts and hypochondriacs' and that Sara had accused her husband of being 'mentally
incompetent'. The file failed to note that she had retracted her accusations.[15]
In November and December, Hubbard played a starring role in FBI communications when he