Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Chapter 16
Launching the Sea Org
'Hearing of L. Ron Hubbard's plans for further exploration and research into, among other things,
past civilizations, many Scientologists wanted to join him and help. They adopted the name "Sea
Organization" . . . Free of organizational duties and aided by the first Sea Org members, L. Ron
Hubbard now had the time and facilities to confirm in the physical universe some of the events and
places he had encountered in his journeys down the track of time . . .' (Mission Into Time)
• • • • •
In 1967, L. Ron Hubbard was fifty-six years old, the father of seven children and a grandfather
several times over. With a loyal wife, a home in England and four children still at school, he was at
an age when most men put down roots and plan nothing more ambitious than a comfortable
retirement. But he was not like most men.
In 1967, L. Ron Hubbard raised a private navy, appointed himself Commodore, donned a dashing
uniform of his own design and set forth on an extraordinary odyssey, leading a fleet of ships across
the oceans variously pursued by the CIA, the FBI, the international press and a miscellany of
suspicious government and maritime agencies. He had begun making secret plans to set up the
'Sea Organization' on his return from Rhodesia in the summer of 1966, shrouding the whole
operation with layer upon layer of duplicity. His intention was that the public should believe that he
was returning to his former 'profession', that of an explorer, and accordingly, in September 1966,
Hubbard announced his resignation as President of the Church of Scientology. This charade was
supported by the explanation that the church was sufficiently well established to survive without his
leadership. In preparation for his anticipated resignation a special committee had been set up to
investigate how much the church owed its founder; it was decided the figure was around $13
million, but Hubbard, in his benevolence, forgave the debt.
Still a member of the Explorers Club, Hubbard applied for permission to carry the club flag on his
forthcoming 'Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition'. Its purpose, he explained, was to conduct a
geological survey from Italy, through Greece and Egypt to the Gulf of Aden and down the east coast
of Africa: 'Samples of rock types, formations, and soils will be taken in order to draw a picture of an
area which has been the scene of the earlier and basic civilizations of the planet and from which
some conclusions may possibly be made relating to geological dispositions requisite for civilized
growth.'
This highfalutin nonsense sufficiently impressed the Explorers Club for the expedition to be
awarded the club flag. [The club could not, however, be said to examine such applications very
scrupulously - Hubbard had also been awarded the flag in 1961 for another entirely fictitious
venture - the 'Ocean Archaeological Expedition', allegedly set up to explore submerged cities in the
Caribbean, Mediterranean and adjacent waters.[1]]
On 22 November 1966, the Hubbard Explorational Company Limited was incorporated at
Companies House in London. The directors were L. Ron Hubbard, described as expedition
supervisor, and Mary Sue Hubbard, the company secretary. The aims of the company were to
'explore oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and waters, lands and buildings in any part of the world and to
seek for, survey, examine and test properties of all kinds'.