Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

While Hubbard had been suffering so vociferously, the messengers had assumed many extra little
tasks on his behalf. They washed and combed his hair, helped him dress and undress,
massaged his back, mixed his special night-time vitamin drink and smeared on his fleshy features
the cream he mistakenly believed kept him looking youthful. When he recovered, the messengers
continued with these duties and constantly competed with each other to find further little ways of
pleasing the Commodore.
The ritual of his ablutions, as devised by the messengers, set the tone for Hubbard's increasingly
baroque lifestyle. 'At first I was surprised at all the things we had to do,' said Tanya Burden, who
had joined the ship in Madeira as a trainee messenger at the age of fourteen. 'But then I thought
this man has studied for fifty years to help the world and has done so much for mankind, why
should he have to do anything for himself?
When he woke up he would yell "Messenger" and two of us would go into his room straight away.
He would usually be lying in his bunk in his underwear with one arm outstretched, waiting for us to
pull him up to a sitting position. While one of us put a robe round his shoulders, the other one
would give him a cigarette, a Kool non-filter, light it and stand ready with an ashtray. I would run into
the bathroom to make sure his toothbrush, soap and razor were all laid out in a set fashion and I
prepared his bath, checked the shampoo, towel and the temperature of the water.
'When he went into the bathroom we would lay out his clothes, powder his socks and shoes and
fold everything ready to get him dressed. Everything had to be right because if it wasn't he would
yell at us and we didn't want to upset him. The last thing we wanted to do was upset him. When he
came out of the shower, he would be in his underwear. Two of us held his pants off the floor as he
stepped into them. He didn't like his trouser legs to touch the floor, God forbid that should happen.
We pulled up his pants and buckled his belt, although he zipped them. We put on his shirt,
buttoned it up, put his Kools in his shirt pocket, tied his cravat and combed his hair. All this time
he'd be standing there watching us run around him. Then we'd follow him out on to the deck
carrying anything he might need - cloak, hat, binoculars, ashtray, spare cigarettes, anything he
could possibly think of wanting. We felt it was an honor and a privilege to do anything for him.'[8]
The messengers were all potential high school cheerleaders in appearance - pretty blondes with
even white teeth and red lips, pert little breasts straining against knotted halter tops, bare midriffs,
tight hot pants, long tanned legs, bobbysox and platform-soled sandals.
They had devised the uniform themselves, with the Commodore's approval, and it gave them
maximum opportunity to flaunt their pubescent assets to advantage.
While male members of the crew competed avidly to deflower the messengers, Hubbard himself
never once exhibited any sexual interest in them. 'He never tried anything with me,' said Tanya, 'and
as far as I know he never did with any of the other girls. He didn't sleep with Mary Sue; we thought
perhaps he was impotent. I think he got his thrills by just having us around.'
'I once asked him why he chose young girls as messengers,' said Doreen Smith. 'He said it was
an idea he had picked up from Nazi Germany. He said Hitler was a madman, but nevertheless a
genius in his own right and the Nazi Youth was one of the smartest ideas he ever had. With young
people you had a blank slate and you could write anything you wanted on it and it would be your
writing. That was his idea, to take young people and mould them into little Hubbards. He said he
had girls because women were more loyal than men.'
The more the messengers did for the Commodore, the more he came to think of them as the only