going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

exercise. As he observed her, “I noticed her nice skin, her eyes, eyebrows. I noted that
behind the skin on her forehead was the bone of her forehead, and I knew that behind
that lay her brain. As I thought that thought, her forehead absolutely disappeared. I was
looking directly at her brain. I was rst astounded and then quickly horried. Here I
was exposing her brain to germs and the cold. At once her forehead was back in place.”
If Scientology really did bestow enhanced powers upon its adherents, Hubbard himself
—of all people—should be able to exercise them. Hubbard’s frailties were obvious to
everyone; among other things, his hands shook from palsy and he was hard of hearing,
constantly exclaiming, “What? What?” He sensed the presumptions that surrounded him.
“Your friends,” he said one day to Urquhart as his bath was being prepared, “might be
curious as to why I employ somebody to open the shutters in my room when I can do it
myself.” He meant that he should be able, by sheer mental power, to project his
intention and the shutters would open themselves. “Well, a lot of people would like me
to appear in the sky over New York so as to impress the world. But if I were to do that
I’d overwhelm a lot of people. I’m not here to overwhelm.” Urquhart thought of saying
that he was perfectly willing to be overwhelmed in order to see such a demonstration,
but he wasn’t altogether sure that Hubbard could actually do it. The failure of Hubbard’s
followers to challenge him made them complicit in the creation of the mythical gure
that he became. They conspired to protect the image of L. Ron Hubbard, the prophet,
the revelator, and the friend of mankind.
On the other hand, there were moments when Hubbard seemed to be toying with the
limits of possibility. It was rumored that he could move the clouds around in the sky or
stir up dust devils in his wake. Urquhart remembers a time when Hubbard was talking
to him while sitting in a chair more than an arm’s length away. “My attention
wandered,” he recalled. Suddenly, he felt a nger poking him in the ribs. “I came back.
He was talking away, grinning and eyes twinkling. He had not moved his arms or
gotten up from the chair.” Such ineable experiences seemed to add up to something,
although it was not clear what that might be.
Hubbard’s neighbors soon learned more about the new lord of the manor.
Scientology’s expansion, coupled with the increasingly bold claims that Hubbard made
about the health benets that could be expected, brought the organization under
scrutiny by various governments. The first blow was a 1963 raid by US Marshals, acting
on a warrant issued by the Food and Drug Administration to seize more than a hundred
E-Meters stored in the Washington church. The FDA charged that the labeling for the E-
Meter suggested that it was eective in diagnosing and treating “all mental and nervous
disorders and illnesses,” as well as “psychosomatic ailments of mankind such as arthritis,
cancer, stomach ulcers, and radiation burns from atomic bombs, poliomyelitis, the
common cold, etc.” 2
The IRS began an audit that would strip the church of its religious tax exemption in
1967. At the same time, an Australian government board of inquiry produced a
sweeping report that was passionate in its condemnation. “There are some features of
Scientology which are so ludicrous that there may be a tendency to regard Scientology
as silly and its practitioners as harmless cranks. To do so would be gravely to