Read Online Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lawrence Wright
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in various parts of world.” Through all the carnage, the end of the war was lurching into view, and the likely occupation of Japan was on the horizon. A polyglot such as Hubbard claimed to be would certainly find a place in the future administration.
When he arrived in Princeton, in September 1944, Hubbard fell in with a group of science-fiction writers who had been organized into an informal military think tank by his friend RobertHeinlein. The Navy was looking for ways to counter thekamikaze suicide attacks on Allied ships, which had begun that fall as desperation took hold of the Japanese military planners. Hubbard would spend weekends in Philadelphia at the Heinleins’ apartment, along with some other of his former colleagues, including his former editor,John Campbell, gaming different scenarios for the Navy. (Some of their suggestions were actually tested in combat, but none proved useful.) Heinlein was extremely solicitous of his old friend, remarking, “Ron had had a busy war—sunk four times and wounded again and again.” The fact thatHubbard had anaffair with Heinlein’s wifedidn’t seem to affect his deep regard. “He almost forced meto sleep with his wife,” Hubbard later marveled.
There was another lissome young woman hanging around with the science-fiction crowd:Vida Jameson, whose father,Malcolm, was a part of the Campbell group of
Astounding
writers. “Quiet, shy little greymouse,”one of the crowd described Vida, “with great soulful black eyes and a habit of listening.” She was twenty-eight, and already selling stories to the
Saturday Evening Post
, a more respectable literary endeavor than the pulps. Hubbard proposed to her. She knew he was married and refused his offer; still, she was captivated by him and continued her relationship with him until after the war.
Hubbard graduated from the School of Military Government in January 1945, and was ordered to proceed toMonterey, California, to join a civil affairs team, which would soon follow the invading forces. The Battle of Okinawa, in southern Japan, got under way that spring, creating the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater. Kamikaze attacks were at their peak. American troops suffered more than 60,000 casualties in less than three months. Japanese forces were fighting to the death. The savagery and scale of the combat has rarely been equaled.
Once again, Hubbard stood on the treacherous precipice, where the prospect of heroic action awaited him—or else indignity, or a death that would be obscured by the deaths of tens of thousands of others. One month after the invasion of Okinawa, Hubbard was admitted to theOak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, complaining of stomach pains.
This is a key moment in the narrative ofDianetics andScientology. “Blinded with injured opticnerves and lame with physical injuries to hip and back at the end of World War II, I faced an almost nonexistent future,” Hubbard writes of himself during this period. “I was abandoned by my family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple.” Hubbard says he healed himself of his traumatic injuries, using techniques that would become the foundation of Dianetics and Scientology. “I had no oneto help me; what I had to know I had to find out,” he recalled. “And it’s quite a trick studying when you cannot see.”
Doctors at Oak Knollwere never sure exactly what was wrong with him, except for a recurrence of hisulcer. In records of Hubbard’s many physical examinations and X-rays, the doctors make no note of scarsor evidence of wounds, nor do his military recordsshow that he was ever injured during the war.
In the hospital,Hubbard says, he was also given a psychiatric examination. To his alarm, the doctor wrote two pages of notes. “And I was watching this, you know, saying, ‘Well, have I gone nuts, after all?’ ” He conspired to take a look at the records to see what the doctor had written. “I got to the end and it said,
When he arrived in Princeton, in September 1944, Hubbard fell in with a group of science-fiction writers who had been organized into an informal military think tank by his friend RobertHeinlein. The Navy was looking for ways to counter thekamikaze suicide attacks on Allied ships, which had begun that fall as desperation took hold of the Japanese military planners. Hubbard would spend weekends in Philadelphia at the Heinleins’ apartment, along with some other of his former colleagues, including his former editor,John Campbell, gaming different scenarios for the Navy. (Some of their suggestions were actually tested in combat, but none proved useful.) Heinlein was extremely solicitous of his old friend, remarking, “Ron had had a busy war—sunk four times and wounded again and again.” The fact thatHubbard had anaffair with Heinlein’s wifedidn’t seem to affect his deep regard. “He almost forced meto sleep with his wife,” Hubbard later marveled.
There was another lissome young woman hanging around with the science-fiction crowd:Vida Jameson, whose father,Malcolm, was a part of the Campbell group of
Astounding
writers. “Quiet, shy little greymouse,”one of the crowd described Vida, “with great soulful black eyes and a habit of listening.” She was twenty-eight, and already selling stories to the
Saturday Evening Post
, a more respectable literary endeavor than the pulps. Hubbard proposed to her. She knew he was married and refused his offer; still, she was captivated by him and continued her relationship with him until after the war.
Hubbard graduated from the School of Military Government in January 1945, and was ordered to proceed toMonterey, California, to join a civil affairs team, which would soon follow the invading forces. The Battle of Okinawa, in southern Japan, got under way that spring, creating the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater. Kamikaze attacks were at their peak. American troops suffered more than 60,000 casualties in less than three months. Japanese forces were fighting to the death. The savagery and scale of the combat has rarely been equaled.
Once again, Hubbard stood on the treacherous precipice, where the prospect of heroic action awaited him—or else indignity, or a death that would be obscured by the deaths of tens of thousands of others. One month after the invasion of Okinawa, Hubbard was admitted to theOak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, complaining of stomach pains.
This is a key moment in the narrative ofDianetics andScientology. “Blinded with injured opticnerves and lame with physical injuries to hip and back at the end of World War II, I faced an almost nonexistent future,” Hubbard writes of himself during this period. “I was abandoned by my family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple.” Hubbard says he healed himself of his traumatic injuries, using techniques that would become the foundation of Dianetics and Scientology. “I had no oneto help me; what I had to know I had to find out,” he recalled. “And it’s quite a trick studying when you cannot see.”
Doctors at Oak Knollwere never sure exactly what was wrong with him, except for a recurrence of hisulcer. In records of Hubbard’s many physical examinations and X-rays, the doctors make no note of scarsor evidence of wounds, nor do his military recordsshow that he was ever injured during the war.
In the hospital,Hubbard says, he was also given a psychiatric examination. To his alarm, the doctor wrote two pages of notes. “And I was watching this, you know, saying, ‘Well, have I gone nuts, after all?’ ” He conspired to take a look at the records to see what the doctor had written. “I got to the end and it said,
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