Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

He continued the story in similar vein. Finding himself in Asia while still a teenager, he discovered
he was able to 'operate in the field of Asian mysticism'; in college he was 'never in class' but got
through by persuading other students to take his mathematics examinations while he did their
psychology papers. It was easy, he said. He simply read the textbooks the night before and sat the
exam next morning. During the Prohibition years he knocked around with newspaper reporters and
drank bathtub gin acquired from the 'very best gangsters'.
In 1938, having 'associated rather thoroughly with twelve different native cultures, not including the
people in the Bronx', he identified the urge to survive as the common denominator of all forms of
life. In hospital at the end of the war, 'recuperating from an accumulation of too much wartime
Scotch and overdoses of lead', he continued his research. 'I found out that by taking off one collar
ornament I became an MD. They don't let anybody in a medical library except doctors but by
stopping off with one collar ornament and for a couple of bucks having a marine on crutches come
by and say, "Good morning, doctor", I was able to get in a year's study at the medical library.'
After leaving hospital he bought a yacht, took a cruise to the West Indies, then used his wartime
back pay to finance further research - 'I went down to the middle of Hollywood, rented an office,
wrapped a towel round my head and became a swami.'
Perhaps the most revealing thing Hubbard said about himself during the lecture was a comment
on one of Commander Thompson's favourite little aphorisms. It appeared that the Commander
used to tell Ron, 'If it's not true for you, it's not true.' It aligned with his own personal philosophy,
Hubbard explained, 'because if there is anyone in the world calculated to believe what he wants to
believe it is I'. Never did L. Ron Hubbard speak a truer word.
In October, Hubbard flew back to London to preside over a six-week 'Advanced Clinical Course' at
HASI's smart new West End offices in Fitzroy Street. Cyril Vosper was one of the students on the
course hoping for a Bachelor or Doctorate of Scientology and he noticed a marked change in
Hubbard's appearance: 'The flashy American clothes were gone. Now he was wearing grey tweed
suits and silk shirts. He looked like a well-dressed professional gentleman and there was a feel of
money and class about the whole thing.'[9]
Much of the course, Vosper recollected, was devoted to students investigating each other's past
lives. As Hubbard made frequent mention in his lectures of past lives on other planets, with zapp
guns, flying saucers, mother ships, galactic federations, repeller beams and suchlike, Vosper
reported that many of the past lives excitedly revealed during the course sounded like 'Flash
Gordon' adventures.
Nibs, who was one of the instructors, proved to be enormously resourceful in the past lives area.
'When a student was having difficulty in making his past life gel,' said Vosper, 'Nibs would helpfully
fill in bits. Students knew that unless they could bring forth a past life with full recall, pain, emotion,
full perception, the lot, they would be regarded as something less than real Scientologists. There
was a good deal of rivalry as to who could dig up the most notable or extraordinary past life. Jesus
of Nazareth was very popular. At least three London Scientologists claimed to have uncovered
incidents in which they were crucified and rose from the dead to save the world. Queen Elizabeth I,
Walter Raleigh and the venerable Bede were also popular. Funnily enough, I never met anyone
who claimed to know anything about Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan or Pontius Pilate.'