One common element to most cultures is the belief in disembodied spirits. Disembodied spirits can be found in the teachings of all the major religions 99) . Crowley shared with many the belief that such spirits can be used in the practice of magic 100) . Most of the secret teachings of Scientology concern such disembodied spirits.
Toward the end of his life, Hubbard wrote some chirpy pop songs which were recorded under his direction 101) . One of these songs, The Evil Purpose, begins "in olden days the populace was much afraid of demons and paid an awful sky high price to buy some priestly begones". The song goes on to explain that there are no demons, "just the easily erased evil purpose". In fact, the Operating Thetan levels are concerned almost entirely with "body thetans" or indwelling spirits or demons.
Hubbard first floated the idea to his adherents in spring 1952, during his first Scientology lectures 102) . He spoke of "theta" as the life-force and went on to describe "theta beings" and "theta bodies". Mention was made again that June in the book What to Audit, which is still in print, minus a chapter - as Scientology: A History of Man. Here Hubbard said that we are all inhabited by seven foreign spirits, the leader of which he called the "crew chief". The idea did not find favour, so it was abandoned for fourteen years.
In December 1966, in North Africa, Hubbard undertook "research" into an incident which he claimed had occured 75 million years ago. In a tape recorded lecture given in September, 1967, Hubbard announced his revelation to Scientologists. One the same tape he boasted about his wife Mary Sue Hubbard's use of "Professional Intelligence Agents" to steal files. His wife, the controller of all Scientology organizations subsequently went to prison.
Scientology continues to claim that its creator knew nothing of the events that put his wife into prison, but also continues to sell the tape. Armstrong, Hubbard's former archivist has said that the Hubbard archive contains letters written while he was creating Operating Thetan level three. In his lecture, Hubbard claimed to have broken his back while researching. Armstrong told me in 1984 that Hubbard had in fact got very drunk and fallen down in the gutter. A doctor had been called out to him to deal with a sprain. Hubbard also detailed his drug use in this correspondence. In February, 1967, Hubbard flew to Los Palmas and the woman who attended him there has told me that he was taking enormous quantities of drugs and was in a very debilitated state.
The result of Hubbard's "research" was a mixture of science-fiction and old-fashioned magic. According to Hubbard, 75 million years ago, Xenu, the overlord of 76 planets, rounded up most of the people of his empire, some 178 billion per planet - and brought them to Earth. Here they were exploded in volcanoes using hydrogen bombs and the spirits or thetans collected on "electronic ribbons". Disorientated from the massacre, the disembodied thetans were subjected to some 36 days of hypnotic "implanting" and clustered together. From seven indwelling spirits per person Hubbard's estimate had gone into the thousands. The "implants" supposedly contained the blueprint for future civilizations, including the Christian teaching, 75 million years before Christ. Operating Thetan level three had to be kept secret, according to Hubbard, because the unprepared will die within two days of discovering its contents. The story has in fact been published in many newspapers without noticeable loss of life. Hubbard was so taken with his science fiction, that he finally wrote a screenplay called Revolt in the Stars about the "OT3" incident, ignoring his own warnings.
It is often the case with Hubbard's work that he has simply taken other ideas and dressed them up in new expressions. Careful study shows that Dianetics included such words as "operator", "reverie", and "regression" common to hypnotic practitioners at the time. On leaving Scientology, most people cannot see that the "body thetans" of Operating Thetan levels three to seven are in fact the demons of Christian belief. The "OT levels" are factually the most expensive form of exorcism known to man.
Unfortunately, such beliefs and practices can have a severe effect upon practitioners, who take Hubbard's warning to heart and come to believe themselves multiple personalities. I have been called to help in several times in such instances.
Indeed, the whole process of "auditing" can be seen as an update of magical ritual. Scientology is a mixture of occult ritual and 1950s style psychotherapy. The adherents travel through increasingly expensive initiations with the hope of attaining supernatural powers. There are badges, symbols and titles for almost every stage of the way.
Other links with ritual magic have emerged. A peculiar event occured aboard Hubbard's flagship, the Apollo, in 1973. Those aboard ship responsible for overseeing the management of Scientology organizations were involved in a ceremony called thee Kali ceremony after the Hindu goddess of destruction. The whole was staged very seriously, and the managers were led into a dimly lit hold of the ship and ordered to destroy models of their organizations. A few years before, a high-ranking Sea Organization Officer claims to have been ordered to Los Angeles where he was meant to mount an armed attack on a magician's sabat. He did not mount the attack but claims that the meeting happened exactly where Hubbard had told him it would.
In 1976, Hubbard ordered a secret research project into the teachings of gnostic groups. He had already carried out a project to determine which of his ship's crew members were "soldiers of light" and which "soldiers of darkness". The latter group were apparently promoted. Jeff Jacobsen has provided insight into a possible connection between Hubbard's OT levels and gnostic teachings 103) . Jacobsen quotes from the third century Christian gnostic Valentinus: "For many spirits dwell in it {the body} and do not permit it to be pure; each of them brings to fruition its own works, and they treat it abusively by means of unseemly desires". Jacobsen goes on to cite the gnostic Basildes, man "preserves the appearance of a wooden horse, according to the poetic myth, embracing as he does in one body a host of such different spirits." Jacobsen points out that multiple possession seems to have been considered normal by these gnostics.
Possession equates to madness in orthodox Christianity, and example of multiple possession are rare [the Gadarene swine for example]. Jacobsen draws other interesting parallels between gnosticism and Scientology.
Another former Sea Organization member affidavited a meeting in the 1970's with an old man whose description fitted Hubbard's. She claimed to have been taken to the top floor of a Scientology building by high-ranking officials and left there with this man, who performed the sexual act with her, but very slowly 104) . Indeed, in the way advocated by Crowley and called karezzo. No outside witness has corroborated this statement.
I have already said that the public and private faces of Scientology are very different. The vast majority of Hubbard's followers are good people who genuinely believe that the techniques of Scientology can help the world. Most are ignorant of the hidden Fair Game teachings. Hubbard presented himself as a messiah, as Maitreya the last Buddha, but in fact he was privately a highly disturbed and frequently ill man. There are a number of reports of his drug abuse. He advocated the use of amphetamines 105) . He admitted to barbiturate addiction 106) and was also at times a heavy drinker. His treatment of those around him was often deplorable. Although holding himself out as an authority on child-rearing, his relationship with his children was geniunely dreadful. He disowned his first son, barely saw his first daughter, and Quentin, the oldest son of his third marriage, committed suicide.
Quentin had reached the highest level of Scientology twice. He was a Class XII auditor and a "cleared theta clear", but he was also a homosexual. Hubbard was publicly homophobic - saying that all homosexuals are "covertly hostile" or backstabbers. I have received alarming reports of his sexual behaviour. I must emphasise that these reports are not corroborated, so can only stand as allegations.. One Sea Organization officer claims to have witnessed a sexual encounter between Hubbard and a young boy in North Africa. Another claims that Hubbard admitted to a sexual relationship with one of his own children. It is impossible to substaniate such reports. But such behaviour would be in keeping with an extreme devotee of Aleister Crowley who said that in the training of a magican "Acts which are essentially dishonourable must be done." 107) .
In conclusion, I believe that Hubbard was a classic psychopath. Some trauma in infancy separated him from the world and made him untrusting of other people. This developed into a paranoia, a need to control others. He created a dissociated world, inhabited by the Empress. Bear in mind that he actually saw the Empress in full colour, and that she spoke to him 108) . From his comments about automatic writing and speaking, it could be averred that Hubbard was in fact "channeling" the Empress. Hubbard separated off a compartment of himself calling it the Empress and gave in to its urging. He lived a life of dreadufl contradiction. He claimed expertise in all things, but factually was a failure at most. Some will see him as having a psychiatric complaint, others will believe that he invoked the very devil, or Babalon, and was possessed. Hubbard's own belief lives on with all of its contradictions in his teaching. Ultimately, as Fritz Haack put it, Scientology is twentieth-century magic.
99) Francoise Stachan, Casting out the Devils, Aquarian Press, London, 1972. See also Alexandra David-Neel Initiates and Initiations in Tibet, pp. 168-169.
100) Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 16
101) The Road to Total Freedom, BPI records, L.A., 1986
102) The Hubbard College Lectures
103) The Hubbard is Bare
104) Affidavit of Ann Bailey, p. 34
105) e.g. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Bridge, L.A.m 1985, p. 389 or AOSHDK, Denmark, 1973, p. 363. See also the Research and Discovery series.
106) The Research and Discovery Series, vol. 1, 1st edition 1980, Scientology Publications Org, p. 124
107) Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 339
108) Hubbard ordered that new dust sleeves should be put onto his books after he'd released OT3, in 1967. These book covers are supposedly meant to depict images from the 36 days of implanting and will supposedly compel people to buy the books. The cover for Hubbard's Scientology 8-80, Publications Department, AOSH Denmark, 1973, shows a winged couple. The woman could well be the Empress. A similar design was used on the dust sleeve of Hubbard's Scientology 8-8008 in the 1990 Bridge, L.A., edition.