Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

complete pain in the ass. It was like having a sick, crotchety grandfather. You never knew what he
was going to be like when you went in there.'[5]
'He didn't get out of that red velvet chair for three months,' said Doreen Smith. 'He'd sleep for about
forty-five minutes at a time, then be awake for hours, screaming and shouting. It was impossible to
get him comfortable. None of us got any sleep. I was better with a cushion, someone else was
better with a footstool, someone else with cotton padding, so every time he woke up we all had to
be in there, fussing around him while he was screaming at us that we were all "stupid fucking
shitheads" . . . he was out of control and even the toughies were in tears at times. The red chair to
us became a symbol of the worst a human being can be - all we wanted to do was chop it up in
little pieces and throw it overboard.'[6]
While Hubbard was still fuming in his red velvet chair, still ascribing sinister motives to every
mishap and imagined slight, he issued an edict that would introduce another Orwellian feature to
life on board the Apollo. Convinced that his orders were not being carried out with sufficient
diligence, he established a new disciplinary unit called the Rehabilitation Project Force. Anyone
found to have a CI (a 'counter-intention' to his orders or wishes) was to be assigned to the RPF,
along with all trouble-makers and back-sliders. 'I was shocked when I heard about it,' said Hana
Eltringham. 'To me it was like setting up a penal colony within our midst.'
Since it was only necessary to incur the Commodore's disfavour to be assigned to the RPF, its
numbers swelled rapidly. RPF inmates wore black boiler suits, were segregated from the rest of
the crew and slept in an unventilated cargo hold on filthy mattresses that were due to be thrown out
before the Commodore decided they would be suitable for his new unit. Seven hours' sleep were
permitted, but there was no leisure time during the day and discipline was harsh. Meal breaks
were brief and the RPF was obliged to eat whatever food was left from the crew meal.
'Things took a real downhill turn around that time,' said Gerry Armstrong, who was then the ship's
port captain. 'He became much more paranoid and belligerent. He was convinced there were evil
people on board with hidden evil intentions and he wanted to get them all in the RPF. The RPF was
used as an incredible daily threat over everyone. If he could smell something cooking from the
vents, whoever was the current vents engineer would be assigned to the RPF. If the cook burned
his food - RPF. If a messenger complained about someone - RPF.
'His actions definitely became more bizarre after the motor-cycle accident. You could hear him
throughout the ship screaming, shouting, ranting and raving day after day. He was always claiming
that the cooks were trying to poison him and he began to smell odours everywhere. His clothes
had to be washed in pure water thirteen times, using thirteen different buckets of clean water to
rinse a shirt so he wouldn't smell detergent on it.
'At that time no one would have dared to think that the emperor had no clothes. He controlled our
thoughts to such an extent that you couldn't think of leaving without thinking there was something
wrong with you.'[7]
To the relief of the entire crew, the Commodore was more or less recovered from his accident by
the time of his sixty-third birthday in March 1974 and the ship resumed its aimless wandering, this
time on a triangular course between Portugal, Madeira and the Canaries. But a subtle and bizarre
change had taken place in the pecking order on board: after the Commodore and his wife, the most
powerful people on the ship were now little girls dressed in hot pants and halter tops - the new
uniform of the Commodore's faithful band of messengers.