Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

The Bare-Faced Messiah Interviews
Interview with Ken Urquhart,
Mclean, Virginia, Apr/May 86
Ken Urquhart was a young musician when he joined Scientology - not an unusual background -
and soon moved up into the "OT élite", L. Ron Hubbard's Sea Org. His loyalty and discretion were
rewarded by a promotion to the impressive-sounding post of "LRH Personal Communicator" -
effectively, Ron's eyes and ears aboard the Sea Org's fleet of three ships. Over the next few years
he was in closer contact with Hubbard than almost anybody else - he claims to have devised the
infamous Rehabilitation Project Force, though Hubbard soon established this as a punishment
régime - and saw some most peculiar things. Fortunately for posterity, he was interviewed in 1986
by the British writer and journalist Russell Miller for the unauthorised biography of L. Ron Hubbard,
Bare-Faced Messiah. The following is the transcript of that interview.
TAPE 1:
I was born in 1938 in Wales, my family was Scottish. My father had been very active in a
theosophical society in South Wales. A friend of my father wrote to me to say he had paid for me to
take a Dianetic course over a weekend in London. I was studying music at Trinity College.
I was very impressed and thought what they were doing was very, very valuable. I thought the
cobwebs had been swept out of my mind. I gave up my studies and started working for church in
'64.
I first saw LRH at a meeting across from the London org at 37 Fitzroy St, at Mahatma Ghandi Hall
on the corner of Fitzroy Square. He was giving a talk. I was outside when he arrived and was
tremendously impressed. I was surprised at the intensity of his beingness. He was walking up the
steps with Mary Sue, smiled very cordially, and said Hello. But he left an impression of
overwhelming power. He was wearing a brown felt hat and a brown raincoat. He spoke on the
subject of Help. I was still under his spell. It was crowded. with a very strong outflow from him. Later
on I perceived that as you approached his body you entered his space, you were very much aware
of being in his space, the space around his body that was his. This was in '59 or '60. He gave a
couple more lectures at the Empire Hall further down Tottenham Court Rd.
By the early '60s I was auditing and visiting Saint Hill at weekends. I was still dabbling in music. I
wasn't making enough to make ends meet so I would take jobs waiting at the table in restaurants.
In '64 I was told the butler [at Saint Hill] had been fired, he had been caught stealing a camera, and
he [Ron] asked me if I would help out. I would have done anything I could for Ron. I went down to St
Hill, was interviewed by Ron's secretary, Irene Thrupp, then was introduced to Ron for the first time
and was accepted. I arrived a week or two later and found myself having to cook as well because
they didn't have a cook for a week. Eventually I was responsible for everything to do with the house.
He and Mary Sue worked mostly into the night, they'd go to bed very late, in the early hours of the
morning. They would get up in the early afternoon. He would call down to the kitchen, I would be
there. We had cooks come and go so generally speaking I was on my own. I cooked breakfast for
the childrem at 8 and lunch at 12.30 and some time in the afternoon cook his breakfast and serve it
At 5.30 a meal for the children in the afternoon, at 6.30 cook dinner for him and Mary Sue.