Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Dianetics group which had formed there spontaneously and Mary Sue insisted on accompanying
him. The Hubbards' first impressions of London were gloomy. As they drove into the city from the
airport, they were shocked by the extent of the bomb damage which they could see from the back of
their taxi. The people on the streets seemed drab and dispirited, the shop windows were empty -
rationing was still in force - and Hubbard thought there was an air of 'quiet desperation' about the
place. He was also quietly desperate himself, having discovered that American cigarettes were
unavailable. However, their spirits lifted somewhat when the taxi drew up outside 30 Marlborough
Place, Maida Vale, the house that had been rented for them by local Dianeticists. It was a
handsome, double-fronted late Edwardian villa with light, airy rooms, not far from Regent's Park
and the West End.
Two nights later, Ron and Mary Sue were guests of honour at a welcoming dinner party arranged by
a member of the Dianetics group who had an apartment only ten minutes' walk from Marlborough
Place. Among the guests was a woman called Carmen D'Alessio who, like most of those present,
admitted to being 'totally fascinated' by Dianetics. She was, of course, greatly looking forward to
meeting Hubbard, not least because she was hoping that he might be able to cure her of the
unexplained attacks of panic she had suffered since she was a child.
'My first impression was of a big, tall man with a highly coloured face and brilliant red hair combed
back from a high forehead. He was a very magnetic, powerful man, not really very attractive, but you
couldn't ignore him. He dominated the evening, talking about energy, electronics, tractor beams,
etcetera. I heard him say he'd been in the Navy and had some trouble with his leg and got the
impression he was talking about a war injury.
'After dinner, when we were all sitting around, I told him about my problem and he immediately
began to audit me. I was sitting on a sofa against a wall and he told me to do something that would
prompt most people to think he was mad, although I thought I knew what he was talking about.
What he said to me was, "Be three feet back of your head"- those were his exact words. I thought I
would have to go into the wall, or the room behind, but I attempted to do it in my imagination. He
gave me quite a long session, with everyone sitting around completely silent, but it did nothing.'
Not long afterwards, Carmen D'Alessio attended Hubbard's introductory lecture at his house in
Marlborough Place. 'About 30 or 40 people were foregathered in the sitting-room and when
Hubbard walked in it was obvious to me he had a bloody awful cold,' she recalled. 'He had a very
high colour, much more so than normal, he was sweating profusely, his eyes were streaming and
he kept blowing his nose. He even talked like man with a cold, but he told us that he was suffering
from the effect of leaving his body and visiting another planet. While he was advancing across the
floor of this other planet, he said, something like a bomb blew up in his face. Everyone was taking it
very seriously, but I didn't believe it. I thought, "the man's a thumping liar." I was right. A nurse was
living in the house at the time because Hubbard's wife was extremely pregnant. She was a friend of
mine and she told me afterwards that he had flu. She'd even given him an injection for it.'
The nurse was soon obliged to direct her ministrations elsewhere: on 24 September, less than
three weeks after arriving in London, Mary Sue gave birth to a daughter, Diana Meredith de Wolfe
Hubbard. Ron cabled the good news back to Phoenix, adding a terse plea for cigarettes: 'SEND
MORE KOOLS.'
Miss D'Alessio, meanwhile, was continuing to be audited by Hubbard, at his instigation, despite an
unnerving experience during a second session at Marlborough Place. 'While I was sitting there
trying to do what he told me, I suddenly opened my eyes and saw that he was sitting opposite me
laughing silently. I didn't like that at all.'