Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Chapter 15
Visits to Heaven
'Well, I have been to heaven . . . It was complete with gates, angels and plaster saints - and
electronic implantation equipment.' (L. Ron Hubbard, HCO Bulletin 11 May 1963)
• • • • •
The FDA raid on the Church of Scientology on 4 January 1963, was a farce better suited to the
Keystone Cops than a federal agency. Two unmarked vans, escorted by motor-cycle police,
screeched to a halt outside 1810-12 19th Street, Washington NW, in the middle of the afternoon
and as police blockaded both ends of the quiet residential street, FDA agents and US marshals in
plain clothes jumped out of the vans and ran into the building. Passers-by might well have
assumed they were after terrorists of the most dangerous order. It would then have been
something of a surprise when the brave officers began staggering out shortly afterwards with
nothing more menacing than piles of books and papers and stacks of boxed E-meters. Such was
the haul that two more trucks had to be called in before the afternoon's work was complete, by
which time the FDA was able to announce, with an evident sense of triumph, that it had seized
more than three tons of literature and equipment.
The feeble justification for these heavy-handed tactics was unveiled when the FDA filed charges
accusing the Church of Scientology of having 'false and misleading' labels on its E-meters. As it
would have been perfectly feasible to file a similar charge by purchasing a single E-meter from any
Scientology office, the raid exposed the Food and Drug Administration to considerable derision and
provided the church with a wonderful opportunity to capitalize on its newly martyred status. FDA
agents were portrayed as armed thugs bursting into 'confessional and pastoral counselling
sessions' and desecrating the sanctity of a church. Scientology press releases described the raid
as a 'shocking example of government bureaucracy gone mad' and a 'direct and frightening attack
upon the Constitutional rights of freedom of religion'.[1]
On 5 January, L. Ron Hubbard issued a statement from Saint Hill Manor: 'All I can make of this is
that the United States Government . . . has launched an attack upon religion and is seizing and
burning books of philosophy . . . Where will this end? Complete censorship? A complete ignoring
of the First Amendment? Are churches to be attached and books burned as a normal course of
action?'
There had been no suggestion that the material carted away by the FDA would be burned, but that
did not prevent Hubbard returning to the theme in a second statement the following day, as well as
making the connection between the FDA raid and his letter to President Kennedy. He claimed that
'twice in recent years' the White House had asked for a presentation of Scientology and he had
thought it only courteous to make the same offer to Kennedy, not realizing that lesser officials were
'imbued with ideas of religious persecution'. He was still hoping for a conference with the
president, he said, slyly alluding to recent events by adding that he would expect to be given some
guarantee for his 'personal safety'. Hubbard ended on an almost jocular note: 'As all of my books
have been seized for burning, it looks as though I will have to get busy and write another book.'
In fact, 1963 was one of the few years in which Hubbard did not produce a single book. Instead, he
chose to remain at Saint Hill issuing increasingly bizarre proclamations. On 13 March - his fifty-