L. Ron Hubbard's 5 Most Impressive Lies (Besides Scientology)Some things are self-evident: Murder is wrong, kindness is good and 75 million years ago, a ruler of a Galactic Confederacy rounded up billions of his own citizens and shipped them to Earth (then called Teegeeack), tied them to volcanoes and used hydrogen bombs to blow up their bodies. Adultery is bad. Lying is wrong.
Yet somehow, some statements made by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, even those having nothing to do with the religion, have actually come into question by critics who often refer to them as "exaggerated" and "laugh out loud retarded."
And then, as if his followers wouldn't be crapping their pants in excitement over his Blackfeet Indian connections, L. Ron also insists that he spent his adolescence sitting at the feet of shamans of the Orient, eventually applying their ageless wisdom to produce--TA-DA!--Scientology.
Probably just an innocent misunderstanding. But what about his travels to Asia, you ask?
There is some authenticity to Hubbard's story. His father, Harry Hubbard, was actually stationed in Guam at the US Naval Base, so, yeah, young Hubbard did have the opportunity to spend some time in Asia. What did Hubbard learn from the wise men there? From his actual diary:
"They smell of all the baths they didnt take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here."
He Said:
One of Scientology's big selling points is that they claim they can get even the worst crack head off drugs in seconds flat. And Xenu help you if you're on any kind of psychological medication of any sort. Because those pills are going to send you straight to crazyland and you're going to wind up losing your wallet to some wackjob with something called a medical degree. That's only if he doesn't rape and murder you first:
"A psychiatrist today has the power to (1) take a fancy to a woman (2) lead her to take wild treatment as a joke (3) drug and shock her to temporary insanity (4) incarnate [sic] her (5) use her sexually (6) sterilise her to prevent conception (7) kill her by a brain operation to prevent disclosure. And all with no fear of reprisal. Yet it is rape and murder ... We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one ... This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them."
That's from the confidential memo "Project Psychiatry" (February 22, 1966).
So we can see that Mr. Hubbard certainly had a reasonable understanding of the psychiatrist/patient relationship. But surely his insistence that Scientologists abstain from drugs of all sorts must have come from his own spotless standards of clean living, right?
But Actually:
L. Ron was certainly a fan of clean living. Because in his universe, clean actually meant "drug fueled" and "paranoid" and "GOOD LORD, DID YOU SEE HUBBARD'S STASH? HOW IS HE STILL ALIVE?"
It seems that L. Ron had a long and erotic love affair with drugs of all sorts, in spite of the religion he created that advocated abstinence from drugs, even the life-saving drugs. In 1967, Ron wrote his third wife, Mary Sue:
"I'm drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys."
The 'pinks and grays,' are assumed to be uppers and downers, not grapefruit and gravy-flavored Skittles as previously thought.
At one point, Hubbard took to the sea, as most charismatic cult leaders do, and it appeared he ran a cozy little society aboard his yacht. One witness made the following observation upon walking into Hubbard's cabin:
"It was the largest drug chest I had ever seen. He had everything!"
And his own son, L. Ron, Jr. said:
"I have personal knowledge that my father regularly used illegal drugs including amphetamines, barbiturates and hallucinogens. He regularly used cocaine, peyote and mescaline."
But despite all that, it appears his favorite drugs were actually the psychiatric kind. He loved those so much that when he died in 1986, it was discovered that he had been habitually injecting himself with Vistaril, a drug used for "acutely disturbed" patients and for those suffering from alcohol withdrawal, among other things.
Yes, it appears that L. Ron had a stash that could make the average '80s metal band hold a tearful intervention.
