Hubbard’s third-floor research room was the enticing inner sanctum; it was painted royal blue, with a bear rug in front of the fireplace, and a private bathroom that was redolent of the Spanish sandalwood soap he favored. Hubbard would disappear into his office every day for hours and hours, alone with his E-Meter, “mapping out the bank and looking for the next undercut,” as he explained, meaning that he was trying to inventory the reactive mind and discover a path through its many snares.
School was, as usual, a secondary consideration. The children would take a taxi to class, when they actually went. Their father didn’t really believe in public education, so he didn’t pressure them. Sometimes, they had a tutor, but it was Diana who taught Suzette how to read. She didn’t want Suzette to suffer the same embarrassment she had when she started school so far behind her peers. By the age of nine, Suzette was reading adult literature. She decided she wanted to be a writer, like her father. Quentin developed an obsession with airplanes, and he would often persuade the nanny or the chauffeur to take him to Gatwick Airport instead of to class, so he could watch the various aircraft taking off and landing. He loved to stand near the runway with the heavy planes lumbering just overhead. He was soon able to close his eyes and identify the make of the plane strictly by its sound.
Hubbard at Saint Hill Manor in 1959 showing an E-Meter to his children, Quentin, Diana, Suzette, and Arthur
In school, other children would ask the older Hubbard kids about their father and what was going on in the castle. They realized that they didn’t actually know. One day, Diana, Quentin, and Suzette marched into Hubbard’s office and demanded, “What is this ‘Scientology’?” Hubbard put them all on a starter Dianetics course.
Scientology was in its formative stage, still unfurling from Hubbard’s imaginative mind. This was a volatile moment in Hubbard’s life and the development of his movement. The fervent response of so many to his revelations must have added reality and substance to what otherwise might have seemed mere fantasies. Not only was he inventing a new religion, he was also reinventing himself as a religious leader. He was creating the legend of who he was in the minds of those who believed in him. And inevitably, he became imprisoned by their expectations.
His followers lived in a state of constant anticipation, trading legends among themselves about the marvels they had experienced or heard about, and speculating upon what was to come. Moments of magic and transcendence kept reason at bay. Ken Urquhart, who served as Hubbard’s butler and later as his secretary—or “Communicator”—recalls coaching a “little old English lady” on a Scientology training exercise. As he observed her, “I noticed her nice skin, her eyes, eyebrows. I noted that behind the skin on her forehead was the bone of her forehead, and I knew that behind that lay her brain. As I thought that thought, her forehead absolutely disappeared. I was looking directly at her brain. I was first astounded and then quickly horrified. Here I was exposing her brain to germs and the cold. At once her forehead was back in place.”
If Scientology really did bestow enhanced powers upon its adherents, Hubbard himself—of all people—should be able to exercise them. Hubbard’s frailties were obvious to everyone; among other things, his hands shook from palsy and he was hard of hearing, constantly exclaiming, “What? What?” He sensed the presumptions that surrounded him. “Your friends,” he said one day to Urquhart as his bath was being prepared, “might be curious as to why I employ somebody to open the shutters in my room when I can do it myself.” He meant that he should be able, by sheer mental power, to project his intention and the shutters would open themselves. “Well, a lot of people would like me to appear in the sky over New York so as to impress the world. But if I were to do that I’d overwhelm a lot of people. I’m not here to overwhelm.” Urquhart thought of saying that he was perfectly willing to be overwhelmed in order to see such a demonstration, but he wasn’t altogether sure that Hubbard could actually do it. The failure of Hubbard’s followers to challenge him made them complicit in the creation of the mythical figure that he became. They conspired to protect the image of L. Ron Hubbard, the prophet, the revelator, and the friend of mankind.