Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

operate as a religion in Washington DC probably in an attempt to claim tax-free status, and the
Personal Property Division reported that it was having difficulty persuading the church to produce its
records so that a personal property tax could be levied. Repeated telephone calls had produced
nothing but excuses as to why the records could not be produced.
In the end, the CIA file could do no more than chronicle a multitude of vague suspicions; it certainly
uncovered no hard evidence of wrong-doing and it revealed curiously little about the remarkable
career of the founder of the Founding Church of Scientology. 'Dr Hubbard', it noted simply, 'received
a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1954 and throughout his adult career has been a minister.'
The increasingly obvious success of Scientology from 1957 onwards unquestionably prompted
federal agencies to keep a closer eye on Hubbard. The Washington Field Office of the FBI, for
example, maintained an extensive file which included film and sound recordings as well as
photographs and doggedly noted every example of Hubbard's exuberant irreverence to authority.
When the Academy of Scientology delivered twelve thousand feet of film to a Washington laboratory
for processing, outraged technicians forwarded it to the FBI for investigation, alleging that the
speaker on the film was anti-American. The film covered six one-hour lectures by Hubbard, during
which he made a crack about the Government developing the hydrogen bomb in order to 'kill more
people faster'.
He also talked about his experience, when 'he was a policeman', in dealing with the criminal mind.
'The FBI thinks there's such a thing as the criminal mind - always a big joke,' he said. 'There's a
criminal mind and a non-criminal mind. The FBI have never shown me a non-criminal mind. Of
course, these are terrible things to say - simply comments on J. Edgar who is an awfully good guy,
stupid, but awfully good.' The Washington Field Office, which perhaps lacked Hubbard's sense of
humour, solemnly took note of this analysis of their director and diligently forwarded to him the
advice that L. Ron Hubbard thought he was 'stupid'.[8]
Largely unaware of the extent of federal interest in his activities, Hubbard had remained in
Washington after the Freedom Congress to lecture on a more permanent basis at the Academy of
Scientology. Mary Sue and the children joined him from London and they all moved into the
brownstone house on 19th Street. Although she was soon pregnant once more, Mary Sue was
appointed 'Academy Supervisor' and remained a powerful figure in the organization. On 6 June
1958, she gave birth to her fourth child - a son, Arthur Ronald Conway Hubbard. Like his other
brothers and sisters, Arthur emerged into the world with a wispy topping of bright red hair.
Through most of 1958 Hubbard lectured in Washington at the Academy. In one famous lecture,
taped for posterity and marketed for profit, he recounted the colourful 'story of Dianetics and
Scientology', interlacing the resumé with anecdotes and jokes, all delivered with a fine sense of
timing and generating roars of laughter from an appreciative audience. It was essentially the story
of his own life as it had come to be compiled in his mind, with extraordinary adventures tagged on
to a slender framework of facts.
'The story starts when I was 12 years old', he began, 'and I met one of the great men of Freudian
analysis, Commander Thompson, a great man and explorer. He was a commander in the US
Navy. His enemies called him Crazy Thompson and his friends called him Snake Thompson. He
was a personal friend of Freud and had no kids of his own. On a big transport on a long cruise he
started to work me over. He had a cat by the name of Psycho with a crooked tail. The cat would do
tricks and the first thing he did was teach me to train cats . . .'