BEYOND Magazine
Dec 1968
Cover Story - "Australian Government Bans Scientology"
by David Hanna

A moon-faced, balding, stocky, 57-year old American has become the center of a controversy that has penetrated the highest levels of Government in two countries separated by thousands of miles of land and sea. England and Australia.

The man is Ron Hubbard, a former sailor and one-time American science-fiction writer who, since 1951, has been the High Priest of a "mind-training" cult called Scientology.

Rumblings against Hubbard and his ever-growing legions of Scientologists are not new in either country. But the lid has been exploded dramatically by way of a 169-page, documented report of an Australian State Government inquiry conducted over 160 separate sessions at which 151 witnesses testified.

The report is a verbal blockbuster which damns Scientology as "evil" and resulted in the cultists being banned from the Australian State of Victoria.

It said in part:

"Its practice is a serious threat to the community medically, morally and socially. Its adherents are sadly deluded and often medically ill.

Its founder is an American, Ron Hubbard, who falsely claims academic and other distinctions. His sanity is to be gravely doubted.

The report revealed that Hubbard's philosophy appealed to the weak, the anxious, the disappointed and the lonely. Some of his processes were hypnotic. Normal inhibitions were shed while cultists indulged in abnormal and erotic sexual orgies.

The investigation uncovered evidence that people had paid as much as $4,000 to be "processed" by Scientologists. Because cultists were invited to reveal their innermost thoughts, particularly in respect to their sexual drives, the Inquiry Board said it could hot outlaw the possibility that blackmail schemes also existed, and stated: There were many examples of shocking mental depravity.

Reaction to the Australian report came quickly in England where Scientology and Ron Hubbard have been under attack for more than eight years. They have been denounced repeatedly in the Houses of Parliament. Public petitions against them have been collected and submitted to the Government, but until recently no action was ever taken.

The uproar occasioned by the Australian findings finally forced Health Minister Kenneth Robinson to take some measures and "to consider others." The immediate clampdown, considered by enemies of Scientology as "too little and too late," is aimed at barring foreign members of the cult from visiting the Scientologist headquarters at techniques which masquerade as mental therapy."

While the storm whirls around him, Ron Hubbard is sailing through it with the aplomb of the Ancient Mariner navigating Central Park Lake.

Invited to testify at the hearings in Melbourne, he refused unless compensated for his plane fare and living expenses. When the report was issued, he denounced it as "rubbish" and dubbed the Board of Inquiry "a kangaroo court."

At the height of the furor in England, Hubbard was sailing the Mediterranean with a group of his followers called "Sea Org" which, translated into the special language of the society, means "Sea Organization." They were aboard one of three vessels owned by the Scientologists which ply the Mediterranean coast in search of converts.

His followers have shown themselves to be equally imperturbable. They promptly answered the Australian inquiry in a pamphlet which said:

"The insane attack on Scientology can best be understood by understanding if Australia is seen for what it is-a very primitive country, somewhat barbaric with a rudimentary knowledge of the physical sciences. They do not know that they are ignorant."

Far from being discouraged by the newspaper headlines denouncing them and demanding that Scientology be prohibited, the group's young workers have taken to the streets of London in droves, passing out literature inviting the public to participate in free "personality tests."

In the vanguard of the critics of Hubbard and Scientology are the residents of East Grinstead. Their village is no longer theirs the people say angrily. It is being taken over by the Scientologists. Besides the manor house containing the group's headquarters, the sect owns a hotel and scores of houses.

Some 300 Scientologists live in East Grinstead and have established small businesses. Some time ago they decided they didn't like some of the town's other business men, so they simply decreed twenty-two of them as "out of bounds," and issued a list of people they disapprove of, terming them "suppressed persons."

Plainly the grandiose dream of the Scientologists is to create an army of followers that will enable them to dominate the world just as they are taking over an English village.

One prominent East Grinstead merchant appeared less perturbed than his neighbors. He said, "I don't think the English will fall for it despite the recruiting drive. Now that there has been such a devastating indictment of Scientology, I think it will collapse from its own fraudulent veneer."

"Beyond" investigations discovered wide spread dissatisfaction in the ranks of the scientists. Quite a few feel they are not getting their money's worth. Others, who have split from the group, are vocally outraged at Scientology. One man has gone so far as to lecture upon its evils, citing his own case history as an example of the mental damage it causes its followers.

One of the more shocking incidents involved a school situated near headquarters manor house where children were discovered practicing Scientology. They were told to imagine they were dead and turning to dust as a result of failing examinations. Parents complained and removed the children from the school until the practice was stopped.

Another involved a 22-year old boy who disappeared after joining the cult. He wrote one letter to his mother-saying that he had "disconnected" from her.

An 11-year old girl began shoplifting while taking a Scientology course.

The high cost of paying for Scientology courses has caused numerous family problems among members who hoped membership in the cult would solve their emotional problems. Far from bringing families together, Scientology has proven to breed distrust and unhappiness.

British doctors complain that cultists are unclean. Psychiatrists reveal that one of their most difficult jobs today is repairing the damage done to their patients by Scientology.

In view of the staggering evidence that Scientology is a sick and dangerous cult, what can be done about it? One state in Australia has succeeded in kicking it out, but Britain's Parliament hems and haws although the leading newspapers persistently protest its presence on the island.

"Beyond" asked a highly placed official in the British Government if Britain will ever restrain the activities of the cult.

"Not likely," he said. "The State Government of Victoria in Australia was fortunate in succeeding in out-lawing the Scientologists. The validity of the ban was never tested in the courts. Doubtless, because Ron Hubbard wasn't interested.

"The action of our own Health Minister in keeping foreign cultists out of, England and in depriving the sect of privileges accorded educational groups may dampen enthusiasm for Scientology in England. But whether it will stop Scientology altogether is another matter.

"Under existing law, no legal action can be taken against them. They are well informed as to their rights. They apparently have libel suits pending against every British newspaper which has attacked them. They obviously have ample funds and I don't think they would mind spending it testing a government ban in the courts. '

"We must remember that groups like this frequently come and go. They are nothing new. The regrettable thing is that they obscure the work of therapists and genuine philosophical groups which are really dedicated to a better understanding of the cosmic world.

"Science, therefore, suffers because of a man who has been described as a paranoid schizophrenic and who himself admits psychological difficulties while a patient in a U.S. Naval hospital."

Like so many other healers, men. talists and cultists who prey on ignorance and human weakness he lives in a palatial manor house. He travels with his private fleet surrounded d by young and pretty girls.

How long his fantastic prosperity will last is anyone's guess. But fortunately competent authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are sifting the mass of evidence and watching him closely-looking for a chink in his legal armor that could precipitate his downfall.

Meanwhile, what of the thousands who've been bilked and victimized in the past and the thousands more standing ready to take their places?

In the meantime, "Beyond" issues a solemn warning to its readers. Shun the advances of the "Scientist" when they come knocking at, your door or invite you to their social gatherings. Their missionaries are often attractive young people who are paid high commissions to gain converts.

Above all, protect your children from the influence of this evil cult which destroys the mind as surely as do chemical narcotics which it claims to combat.

FLASH-As "Beyond" went to press with this issue, a report from London stated that British Home Secretary, James Callaghan has issued orders banning Lafayette Ron Hubbard from entering Britain. Under. British law no specific reason need 6e given for such a ban, but when the British House of Commons banned foreign adherents of the cult from entering Britain, Mr. Kenneth Robinson, Minister of Health, said, "The Government is satisfied, having reviewed all the available evidence, that Scientology is socially harmful. It alienates members of families from one another and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who oppose it. "

-END

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