Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

ackground whatsoever in psychology. He told me that before he wrote Dianetics, because he had
no background in psychology, he went to the University of Chicago library and asked for the latest
book on psychology and read this book - that was the only thing he had ever read on the subject.
My impression was of a very creative, intelligent articulate individual. He was husky, red-haired, with
a full flabby face, not by any means what one would call a handsome man. If I'd seen him on the
street I would not have given him a second look, but he was very dynamic, had a marvelous
personality and was quite magical.
Most of my time was spent answering [press attacks] - he had a clippings service and every time
Dianetics was mentioned I would write to the reporter and reply and defend it. I was writing to
columnists and magazines all the time. No one had anything good to say about it.
There was a lot going on at the office. He was having a lot of political and organisational problems
with people grabbing for power. he didn't trust people and there were a lot of problems with people
in the east, he mentioned names like Art Ceppos [publisher of Dianetics: The Modern Science of
Mental Health]. He felt people were trying to do him in all the time and get power.
There was a time later when for some reason or another he had no access to his money and I paid
out of my own pocket for an ad for the training course in the paper when things were slowing down.
I paid out of my own money. He was very depressed. He was broke. I don't know why he couldn't
get to his money. He should have had millions from the royalties but it was all poured into the
Foundation.
It was busy in the office but not hectic. He was not really a harried executive, everything was
smooth. He had a lot of personal problems with his wife. What he told me and what the facts were I
don't know. I can only report what he told me. He told me at one time....
I was very young at the time and was not as concerned with other peoples wives. I just didn't think
about it. On a New Years Eve he spent with me he was supposed to have been at a party with his
wife and he didn't go home and he said she made a suicide attempt. Then there was the
kidnapping of Alexis [Hubbard] and so on.
After he took Alexis ...
I knew Miles [Hollister] very well, it was really surprising to me when he later took up with Sara.
I lost track of Ron when everything went into a shambles and there was this bad publicity in
newspaper about Alexis when he took off. He had gone home and found Miles in bed with his wife
and that's when he took Alexis; he thought he was perfectly justified to do this. He said they were
going to try and put him into a mental institution, he was afraid they were going to commit him.
When he took off I only knew what I read in the newspaper. The next time I heard from him was
Wichita when he was living with this oil baron [Don Purcell]. He started writing me and wanted me
to come there. I went there and he was like Howard Hughes' last days, really in a bad depression.
His fingernails were long and curved, his hair was stringy. He met at the hotel and was in such bad
shape, he was trembling, like someone who should be in a mental institution. I knew then... he
wanted me to marry him, he'd bought me a ring but I knew then he was such a deeply disturbed
man it could never be and I left the very next day.
Then I was out of contact with him until recently. I was feeling a little guilty about giving stuff to Jerry