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charges, “You have to establish an ethics presence hard. Otherwise, you’re just gonna be
wrapped around a telegraph pole.”
The years at sea were critical ones for the future of Scientology. Even as Hubbard was
inventing the doctrine, each of his decisions and actions would become enshrined in
Scientology lore as something to be emulated—his cigarette smoking, for instance,
which is still a feature of the church’s culture at the upper levels, as are his 1950s habits
of speech, his casual misogyny, his aversion to perfume and scented deodorants, and his
love of cars and motorcycles and Rolex watches. More signicant is the legacy of his
belittling behavior toward subordinates and his paranoia about the government. Such
traits stamped the religion as an extremely secretive and sometimes hostile organization
that saw enemies on every corner.
Because Hubbard viewed the world that way, he awakened suspicion that there must
be something very dangerous about Scientology. One by one, ports began turning away
the eet. It had begun with Gibraltar in 1967, when the ship was refused assistance
during a heavy storm in the strait. England banned foreign Scientologists from entering
the country for study in July 1968 and declared Hubbard an undesirable alien. Hubbard
took out his frustration on his crew. He assigned Yvonne Gillham a condition of Non-
Existence and reduced her to a “swamper,” which he dened as “one who cleans up.”
Her hands became raw and gnarled. “She was like Cinderella,” a friend recalled,
“always scrubbing.”
While the ships were docked in Valencia, a storm arose. Hubbard happened to be
aboard the Avon River when he noticed that the Royal Scotman had torn free from one of
its mooring lines. He screamed that someone should hoist the anchor and start the
engines, but before the crew reacted, the big ship crashed against the dock, damaging its
prop. Although the ship was not badly damaged, Hubbard assigned the crew and the
Royal Scotman itself to a condition of Liability, which is below Non-Existence on his
ethics scale. Hubbard stayed aboard the Avon River and steamed o to Marseilles until
the Royal Scotman was returned to favor. Mary Sue was made the captain and ordered to
retrain the crew and spruce up the ship to an acceptable state. No one could bathe or
change clothes for months. The crew wore dirty gray rags on their left arms, which
signaled their degraded status. Even Mary Sue’s snappish Corgi, Vixie, had a rag around
its collar, and the ship itself wore a bracelet of gray tarpaulins around its funnel. An
Ethics Officer walked the decks actually swinging a mace.
Despite the squalid conditions, Mary Sue ran the ship with a minimum of hysteria,
earning her the respect and loyalty of many aboard. Without Hubbard, the mood
lightened. Mary Sue used to have parties in her cabin with Candy Swanson, the
children’s tutor, and two men they were sweet on. They danced to Jimi Hendrix records.
But when Hubbard returned, the party was over.
A YOUNG MAN with a gift for languages named Belkacem Ferradj joined the Sea Org when
the ship docked briey in Algiers in 1968. Hubbard, surrounded by his Messengers, had
made an immediate impression on Ferradj. He was dressed like an admiral, and he