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the meter when he pinched off a leaf.
These experiments attracted quite a bit of press, and a photograph
of Hubbard looking balefully at one of his mutant tomatoes actually made
its way into Newsweek magazine.
In an effort to generate good public relations with the locals in
East Grinstead, Hubbard ran unopposed for the position of Road Safety
Organizer for the town. He initially attacked this post with enthusiasm,
delivering lectures on road safety to the natives of the town. Soon,
however, he resigned this position, giving as a reason his busy
schedule.
In the spring of 1961, Hubbard created on paper the Department of
Official Affairs, a
precursor of the notorious Guardian's Office of Scientology, Hubbard's
private intelligence agency.
In March of 1961, Hubbard created the Saint Hill Special Briefing
Course, a comprehensive training course for auditors on which students
had to listen to as many as 600 tape recorded lectures, each 60 or 90
minutes long, of Hubbard droning on about some esoteric aspect of
auditing.
Soon throngs of students from the United States and other countries
were arriving at St. Hill for the highly regarded privilege of studying
directly under "Ron," who presided as "Lord of the Manor."
The Hubbard family, which had expanded by now to include two more
children, lived in style at St. Hill. They had a personal staff of
seven, including a butler for "Ron," and a nurse and tutor for the
children. The butler would serve Hubbard his accustomed drink,
Coca-Cola, on a silver tray.
At St. Hill, Hubbard instituted the practice in all Scientology
organizations of "security checking" -- interrogations carried out on
the E-meter. The "sec checks" probed for any and all incriminating
information about the person's past and current life. The dossier so
compiled on every person in Scientology was forwarded to St. Hill where
it was filed to be used at a later time against the person should he
decide to defect from the organization.
In 1962, Hubbard sent a letter to President Kennedy, magnanimously
offering the services of Scientology auditors to audit the astronauts in
the space program. Auditing, Hubbard claimed, could greatly increase
reaction times and other abilities critical to the astronauts. Hubbard
was deflated when he received no reply to his letter.
On January 4, 1963, the F.D.A. carried out a surprise raid on the
Scientology organization in Washington, D.C., carrying off nearly three
tons of equipment and Scientology literature.
The F.D.A. subsequently brought a Federal case against Scientology
for illegally using the E-meter as a medical instrument. As a result of
this case, the Scientologists were forced to label the E-meters with a
disclaimer stating that they were not to be used to diagnose or treat
illness, but were to be used only for religious counseling.
Scientology's legal problems were only beginning, however. Later in
1963, the government in Victoria, Australia, initiated a Board of
Inquiry into Scientology as a result of complaints by people claiming
they had been defrauded.
The Board of Inquiry was carried out by one man, Kevin Anderson, a
member of the Victorian Parliament. After a two-year investigation, he
published his findings in a report rabidly critical of Scientology. In
this report, Anderson stated:
Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious
threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its
adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill. (12)
As for Hubbard, Anderson stated that his sanity was to be "...
gravely doubted. His writing, abounding in self-glorification and
grandiosity, replete with histrionics and hysterical, incontinent
outbursts, was the product of a person of unsound mind. His teachings
about thetans and past lives were nonsensical; he had a persecution
complex; he had a great fear of matters associated with women and a
prurient and compulsive urge to write in the most disgusting and
derogatory way on such subjects as abortions, intercourse, rape, sadism,
perversion and abandonment. His propensity for neologisms was
commonplace in the
schizophrenic and his compulsion to invent increasingly bizarre theories
and experiences was strongly indicative of paranoid schizophrenia with
delusions of grandeur. Symptoms", Anderson added, "common to dictators."
(13)
Anderson concluded his report by stating that
Scientology is a delusional belief system, based on fiction and
fallacies and propagated by falsehood and deception.... What it really
is however, is the world's largest organization of unqualified persons
engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as
mental therapy. (14)
As a result of the Anderson Report, the Victoria Parliament passed
the Psychological Practices Act, banning the practice and teaching of
Scientology in that province.
The Scientologists responded by simply changing the name of the
Victoria church to "Church of the New Faith," in which they continued to
teach and practice Scientology.