Weird Encounter With Hubbard?

[curiosity]

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is no guarantee that the events described below involving Hubbard are real. The story is being re-posted ONLY as an exploratory thread to see if there is anyone out there who might have corroborating information or not.

Several years ago, an ex-Sea Org member had told me this story and I wrote it up as a first-person narrative. I posted it briefly a couple of years ago in the “My Story From Scientology” section of OCMB, but then had second thoughts and deleted it right away until I could find further corroboration.

But time goes by quickly. The alleged event happened over 30 years ago which means that anyone who could corroborate any element of the story will be much older now, and maybe even deceased. I therefore feel that I should post it to see if there is anyone who can offer any corroboration, or show why the event is improbable. I believe that it may have happened, but I cannot rule out that it may have been a dream followed by false memories later. The witness himself agrees that this is a possibility. He is also not entirely certain this was real, except for the part about waking up with a vivid image of the events on the divan, but that could have just been him waking up from a dream.

The witness mentions being escorted by two men about his age (late teens/early 20’s) who would probably be in their fifties today and probably out of Scientology. The witness says that he had also seen the tall blond man several times outside on the Manor Hotel grounds playing volleyball who was employed by the Guardian’s Office in the building where Celebrity Center is today. Does anyone have any information about who this person might be?

The story that follows is from a man who was a young unmarried adult in the Sea Org in the 1970’s. He says that he woke up one morning with what seemed to be a vivid memory or “dream” of the events on the divan, but all of the other “memories” connected to it did not fill in until years later. He says that the “dream” stuck in his mind even after he left the Sea Org, and when he tried to remember more, the details seemed to fill in and trigger “heavy somatics” like sharp head pains, drowsiness, and disorientation, which eventually passed as he seemed to recall the “incident.”

I believe the incident MIGHT have happened because of these things:

(1) First is the testimony of a young lady who also said that she had a weird sexual encounter with Hubbard at the Manor Hotel during which Hubbard simply lay on top of her. (Her story was published in one of the major critics’ books and was referenced here at OCMB in the past.) My witness says that he woke up and remembered what seemed to be a vivid dream of a similar experience. He was in the Sea Org then, and of course he had not read about the young woman’s experience at the time. I am not even sure that her story had been published then. (The rest of the details that the young man seemed to remember—the hypnosis and the weird programming—were not "remembered" that same morning but only years later, and it is those later “memories” that are most open to doubt.)

(2) I read on OCMB (“Historical Origins of OT3” thread) that someone connected to Hubbard claims that Hubbard believed that other beings could take over a person and change his or her personality, and that Hubbard had even issued a confidential SP declare to the effect that such a thing had happened to a Scientologist making him “SP.” The episode described by my witness appears to have been an effort to cause such a personality change.

(3) The incident would have happened in the 1970’s when Hubbard was getting neck-deep in shady activities like Operation Snow White. In the late 1960’s, he had already gone homicidal with his “shoot on sight” SP declares. There was some recent discussion and quotes at OCMB about Hubbard’s continued occult leanings and use of hypnotism even after he started Dianetics. Hubbard was also familiar with the story of the “Old Man on the Mountain”—the Assassin sect centuries ago that programmed young men to become assassins through drugs and programming. The apparent “filled in memory” from my witness seems to suggest that Hubbard was trying to do the same thing with the witness.

My witness believes that the incident happened on the 6th or 7th floor of the Manor Hotel when those floors were occupied by the U.S. Guardian’s Office. (I have learned that the Guardian’s Office also filled the fifth floor, so it cannot be ruled out that this incident, if it really occurred, happened on the fifth floor.) It was a room to the far right as one exited the elevator. The room appears to have had windows that faced both Franklin Avenue and Tamarind Street, and there was a bathroom to the left as one stood in the room facing Tamarind.

Here is the story as it was relayed to me and as I wrote it up in the form of a first person narrative. Certain details have been left vague to protect the man’s privacy. Please read it with a very critical eye. This is intended as a fact-finding thread, not a declaration of a truth. If the event really happened, I suspect that it was a rare experiment by Hubbard, maybe the only one of its kind. In the years that I have perused OCMB, I have not read anything similar except for that one young lady, and even her story did not have the programming element to it.

If any part of the man’s story is true, it is also possible that after he was hypnotized he was led directly to the divan without any of the programming first, so the programming part of the story would be the false memory but the hypnosis and divan part might have been real.

Anyway, here it is, with sincere apologies to Hubbard if the story is not real:

“MY ENCOUNTER WITH HUBBARD”
As Told By an Ex-Sea Org Member

I was a young unmarried adult man in Los Angeles when I joined the Sea Org. I bunked with four other men who were about my age in a dorm-style room. The episode occurred in the 1970’s.

One night I was awakened in the early morning hours by two men whom I had never seen before. From their clothing I could tell that they were Sea Org staff members, but from a different org. One was tall, handsome, and had blond hair. They were about my age. The time was about 2 or 3 a.m.

They shook me awake and told me to get out of bed because I was going to get an assist. (An assist is a special type of Dianetic or Scientology auditing to deal with illness or some temporary problem.) I was confused because I did not think that I was sick, but I felt happy that I was going to get some auditing.

I got out of bed. I slept only in boxer shorts, so one of my escorts pulled the blanket off my bed and put it around my shoulders. It was one of those thin itchy dark grey blankets that were issued to all of us.

They took me to the basement of the Manor Hotel where I was guided to the elevator. They did not say much to me except that I was going to get a special assist. I sensed that they felt that I was lucky.

We got into the elevator, and one of the guys operated the lever that made the elevator go up and down. It was an old-fashioned elevator that operated manually. I was surprised when it went past the fifth floor because I knew that the sixth and seventh floors were used by the Guardian’s Office. Security there was very strict. Although I was still feeling groggy and not totally awake, I felt special at being allowed to enter the Guardian’s Office area.

We went past a security guy who was sitting at a desk where the elevator opened. We went to the right and walked down the hallway. Things were very quiet and felt nocturnal. As we walked down the hallway I saw another man in a room that looked like it had some kind of communication or telex equipment. The floor felt deserted since it was used as office space and I sensed that nearly all of the staff were gone.

We got to the end of the hallway, and the blond guy knocked on a door. I heard a muffled “alright, come in” from the inside. The blond guy opened the door and they guided me into a large dimly-lit room. To the left was a small round old-style antique desk with a couple of chairs and a lamp. The blond guy came in with me while the other stood outside the open door and faced the other way like he was there to guard the entrance. The blond guy said, “Sir, this is [my name]. “

On the opposite side of the room I saw a man who was big in both height and weight. My heart skipped a beat when I realized that it was Hubbard. It looked like he had just risen from one of the high-backed chairs that were near the corner of the room to my right. He had a strong presence that seemed to fill that whole side of the room. It was not a warm presence, it was just “big.”

Hubbard said to the blond guy, “Very good, I’ll take it from here.” The blond guy replied, “Very good, sir.” I could tell from the way they talked to each other that there was a bond of trust between the blond guy and Hubbard, like the blond guy was a special aide to him. He left the room and closed the door behind him.

Even though I was still feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, I felt an undercurrent of excitement and nervousness at being in Hubbard’s presence. This was my Commodore—the thetan I practically worshipped. Then I thought that maybe I had done something really bad as a Sea Org member that caused me to be summoned to the Commodore himself. I started to think that he was going to chew me out for something.

He asked me, “Tell me your rank.” (Meaning my rank in the Sea Org.)

I told him. It was one of the lower ranks.

He said, “Well, you come sit over here and maybe we’ll just do something about that.”

I felt excited at the thought of being awarded a higher rank by the Commodore himself. Then I hesitated and became aware that I was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and an itchy blanket. I felt uncertain at what I was supposed to do.

He put on a reassuring tone and said, “We’ll just you and I sit here and have a talk.” I suddenly felt very relieved.

I went to one of the high-backed chairs to my right and sat down. I liked the chair because it engulfed me, and that made me feel protected. Hubbard sat down in the chair opposite about three feet away. I remember wrapping the blanket tighter around me to avoid exposing my body and underwear. He saw my movement and said, “You don’t need to be that way around us boys. Now we’ll just remove this so you feel comfortable.”

I remember being told that I was going to get an assist, so I loosened my hold on the blanket, which felt itchy and uncomfortable anyway. Hubbard stood up and took it from me, and draped it over the back of my chair. I remember that the blanket was draped just a few inches from my right cheek, and for some reason that annoyed me because I could still sense the itchiness of it.

Hubbard sat down again. I still felt awkward at having my upper body exposed, so I scrunched my arms and shoulders together. Although I was considered a handsome young man, I was always shy about my body.

Hubbard smiled at my shyness and told me, “Now just sit up straight and put your hands on your knees.”

Hubbard sat in that position so that I could mimic him, which I did.

Hubbard said, “Now let’s have a look here.”

There was a lamp near us to my right that had a low-wattage bulb that cast light on our faces. He leaned over and said, “Mmm, you have nice [color] eyes.” He took my jaw in his hand to move my head back and forth, and examined my eyes for what seemed like a full minute or so.

He released his hold on my head and then held up a finger. He asked me, “Do you see my finger?” He nodded as he said it, and I thought that I was supposed to mimic him, so I nodded like he did. He said, “Good boy.”

He moved his finger slowly to my left and asked me, “do you see my finger here?” Again he nodded, and I nodded like him saying “yes.” He replied reassuringly, “There you go.”

He repeated his slow back-and-forth finger movements multiple times, and each time he asked me the same question. I would always nod yes and sometimes add a quiet “uh-huh.” He always responded with words like, “that’s a good boy,” etc. At one point he told me to stop nodding my head and only to answer him with a verbal “yes.”

I started to believe that he was performing some kind of very advanced “OT assist” because he was holding up a finger as though to do a touch assist, but he was not actually touching my body. For some reason I got really fixated on that finger and was noticing every detail of it. Then I started to nod off. I felt embarrassed that I was having trouble staying awake in the presence of the Commodore, especially since I thought that I was getting advanced assist auditing. I was alarmed at the thought that I might not get the full benefits of it because of my sleepiness.

As I was in the middle of my half-stupor with my eyes closed, he said to me, “You’re an excellent fellow, and you make good case gain, don’t you?”

I started nodding again.

“Of course you do,” he replied.

Hubbard continued to ask me questions that I continued to say or nod “yes” to. I cannot remember all of the questions, and they became very strange. He asked me if I would die for Scientology. If I would die for him. If I would completely embrace my “kill dynamic” and become a soldier to protect mankind. (There was no teaching of a “kill dynamic” in Scientology that I was aware of, so it was very strange to hear it.)

After about fifteen or twenty minutes of this, I felt myself make an abrupt psychic shift. I emotionally detached myself from human beings and felt that I could kill any person as a “soldier for mankind.” Hubbard said, “You can do it as easily as jamming your toast, couldn’t you?” (Nod.)

It is impossible to describe how complete this mental shift was. It was like I was an entirely different personality who had nothing in common with who I had been when I first entered the room. People, things, meant nothing. I was “exterior” to all that. It gave me a sense of global transcendent “power” that I had the capacity to kill without any sense that it was wrong. I am not sure if Hubbard said it, but I felt that my previous ethic against killing was just an aberrated “wog” moral. It was not as though I hated or disliked other people, it was simply that I now viewed human beings with the same indifference that I would feel looking at an ordinary piece of furniture.

Hubbard’s questions encouraged me to embrace the new personality. He spent time saying how I would be so much more powerful as a being if I no longer let “wog feelings about life and death” consume me. My mind would be completely liberated, and I would no longer be shackled. He kept going on about it and really seemed to want to convince me that becoming like this was good for me. It was like an invitation to join the gods—I thought I was going to advance to become the highest level OT right then. The temptation was strong and scary at the same time.

Finally Hubbard told me, "Well, I think you’re fit to be a Commodore’s legionnaire. How do you like that?” “Legionnaire” was not a word that I had ever heard used in Scientology, so I was surprised to hear it. Hubbard said, “A legionnaire is always with me, you understand?” I nodded. I had the sense that being a “legionnaire” was some secret status superior to being a mere “missionaire.”

Hubbard told me that I must not tell anyone about all of this, including my auditor or commanding officer. He told me that I would kill myself before I would reveal my special status to anyone, and that was for the good of everyone. One by one Hubbard suggested every conceivable way that I could kill myself if I ever felt the urge to tell anyone or if I thought that my secret would be discovered: drinking different poisons that he named, cutting my jugular with a kitchen knife (he took his finger and touched my neck where the jugular is, making sure that I clearly understood where to cut myself), cutting my wrists (and he pulled my left hand so that my wrist was upturned and showed me exactly which veins should be cut), jumping off a high building (which for some reason scared me the most because I was aware that I was on one of the top floors of a high building, and for a moment I thought that he was going to throw me out to my death). After each suicide suggestion, he would say, “You will do that, won’t you?“ I was still in the nodding phase, and he would respond to each nod with acknowledgements like “Atta boy,” “good boy,” or, “of course you would.” The list of suicide instructions seemed to last so long that I got a sense of “OK, already, I get it” even though I was still in a stupor.

My eyes were closed during all of this time. As Hubbard kept going, I began to feel like I was in a massive black void completely detached from my body and the physical world, and under a severe psychic assault. I felt like I had entered an apocalyptic struggle for my personality, and a whole new personality was being encouraged to take over. If I did not win, I was doomed to become something I never wanted to be. That sense of being “transcendent” and “powerful” left me, and I felt like I was locked in a do-or-die battle for who I was.

That led to a funny thought. I felt like I needed to find a polite way to “cop out” without just saying “no” to Hubbard. I decided that I needed to ask my family for their opinion before I made the change. In my half-stupor with my eyes still closed, I brought up mental images of my mother, father, and sibling (who were not Scientologists). Those images had a strong sense of normalcy and morality. Seeing them in my mind’s eye caused me to resume my original personality. I understood at that moment that I liked my original personality much better than the one that I was being encouraged to accept. I knew that I wanted to stay connected with my family, and if I became this new person, I would lose my connection to my family forever and only have Hubbard and other “legionnaires” as my “parent” and “family.”

I stopped nodding at Hubbard’s questions and started smiling, my eyes still closed, because I felt like the psychic assault no longer affected me. I felt at peace. I felt like I wanted to tell Hubbard my “win” even as he was telling me, “I will send for you when I need you. You just go about your regular duties in the while.”

I opened my eyes. He smiled at me then, but he seemed confused as though he was not sure what was going on. I felt that I had reached the “EP” or “FN” of the process. I thought that I had just been put through an incredible OT bullbaiting session that taught me how to maintain my own personality even under complete psychic assault, and that I had found the true core of “me.” I realized that I liked that “core.” I liked “me.” I said none of these things to Hubbard. I just sat there feeling very strong and serene, but still in a half-stupor. I also felt physically exhausted like I had just gone through a very deep and prolonged stress. I started craving sleep.

Hubbard said, “Alright, you’re all set. Now let’s give you a little assist.”

Hubbard stood up and had me stand up. I grabbed the blanket and put it around my shoulders again.

Hubbard guided me toward the windows that faced Tamarind Street. There were curtains on them and some kind of couch or divan next to them. It was very dark in that part of the room and I could barely make out the silhouette of the furniture. I could see some street lights through the cracks in the curtains.

Hubbard hesitated. He then said, “You’re not cold, are you?” He shook his head in a manner intended to get me to mimic him, which I did.

“Of course you’re not,” he said as he removed the blanket from my shoulders and put it on the floor.

“Now let’s have you lie down right here.” He patted the divan.

I felt awkward at being half-naked again. I started to sit down on the divan with the idea of lying on it face up, but he said, “No, the other way, with your stomach on the cushion.”

I turned and lay face down on the divan and waited a second or two. “There you go,” said Hubbard.

“Now this needs to come off,” Hubbard said as he pulled down my boxer shorts. He had a little trouble since the weight of my body prevented the boxers from sliding easily past my legs. It did not occur to me to help him or to resist.

I could not see where he put my shorts, and in fact, I could not see Hubbard at all since he was behind me. I remember feeling a little bit suffocated with half my face in the cloth of the divan. I became aware of the texture of the cloth. I lay there for what seemed like a minute as I heard the rustling of clothing behind me. I thought that he was hanging up my blanket and boxers, and I was expecting him to start giving me a touch assist.

I felt great surprise when I felt his entire body weight climb on top of the divan with his knees by my knees. Suddenly his body lowered itself on me, and I could feel all of his body weight on my back, buttocks, and legs. He stretched himself over the length of my body, and I could feel that he had no clothing on.

“Alright, you just relax now. We're going to do something very special,” Hubbard said in the same reassuring tone that he had been using before.

He moved around a little bit, and I felt his penis come into contact with my bare buttocks. He did not try to sexually penetrate me. In fact, he stopped moving and just lay there. I then noticed that his face was just an inch or two behind my head because I could feel his breathing on the back and side of my head. I heard his breathing very close to my left ear. I remember that his fingers seemed meaty and thick. His breathing was deep and regular, and I could tell he was focused on what he was doing. I noticed how heavy he was. The weight of his body pushed mine into the cushioning of the divan.

I can’t say exactly how much time passed as we lay there, but I don’t think that it was more than ten minutes. It was long enough that I finally started feeling adjusted to the strangeness of it, and my sleepiness started taking over. I actually began to relax and thought that we might sleep together like that the whole night. I really did not mind the thought because he felt like a large heavy blanket, and I was craving sleep.

Suddenly I got a shock because I felt wetness on my upper buttocks and lower back. My reaction was to think, “LRH peed on me!” It was an extremely vivid feeling that shocked me. To this day I don't know if the wetness was urine or semen.

I shifted and tried to turn around to see what happened. Hubbard was still lying on me breathing, but he sensed my reaction. He said, “Now you just relax. It's all perfectly fine.”

He lay there for a little bit longer, and then got up. “You just lie there and we’ll get you tidied up,” he said.

He got up, put on what seemed to be an elegant man’s robe that I had not noticed before, and went into a bathroom. He came back with some tissue or toilet paper and cleaned the moisture from my back as I continued to lie on my stomach. I craned my neck around to look at him, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed and a little vulnerable. It was as though I had somehow gained power over him. The bigness that I had sensed in him when I first entered the room was gone. There was a humanness in him that made me feel like we were equals. My sense of him being the awe-inspiring greater-than-God Commodore was gone. He was just a much older man standing there.

Hubbard said to me, “Alright, it’s time to get you back home.” He reached down to the floor for my blanket and boxer shorts which he put on the divan after I climbed off. I put them on, and he directed me to the little antique table with chairs near the front door of the room. He had me sit down on one of the chairs, and he turned on the lamp. He examined my eyes again. He walked to the bathroom and brought back a glass of water. He reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a little metal box from which he took out two pills that looked white in color.

“Now you take these,” he said to me and handed me the pills. I swallowed them with the water. Then we just sat there as he studied my face. We seemed to sit there for an eternity. He would occasionally look deeply into my eyes waiting for something. I kept wondering what he was waiting for because I craved sleep very badly and wanted nothing more than to be back in bed in my dorm room. Finally he seemed to see in my eyes what he was looking for. He reached down toward the floor and brought up some kind of instrument that he held in his hand and said, “You’ll not remember this night at all. It’s just a hazy dream that you’ll soon forget when you fall asleep. You’ll have no memories tonight.”

I started nodding off again as he said these things, and then I felt a hot heat on the crown of my head, like electricity. He kept repeating how I would forget everything I saw or heard that night, especially to my auditor, and I kept feeling the heat on my head.

I became so groggy that I faded out of consciousness as I was sitting in the chair. The next thing I knew is that I was shaken awake again. The two men who had escorted me to the room were beside me to escort me back to my dorm. I noticed that Hubbard was now in his regular clothes, not his robe. He said to the two guys about me, “The boy’s just a little tired. He’ll be just fine.”

I was guided out of the room by the two guys and could hardly stay awake. They had to prop me up as we walked down the hallway to the elevator. I faded in and out of consciousness as we moved along.

I woke up the next morning, and the instant I did, I vividly remembered the shock of feeling the wetness on my back and that it came from Hubbard lying on top of me. That shock seemed to cut through the commands not to remember. I also had a feeling of being incredibly special even though I remembered no other details at the time—like I was one of the most special elite in Scientology and therefore on the whole Earth, but it was all a big secret shared only by me and Hubbard. I had some great mission that I was going to perform in the future for Hubbard that would make him proud of me and change the Earth.

That was my only experience like it. I never again met Hubbard, and I never did any “legionnaire” or missionaire activities. I remained in the Los Angeles area. I never went to any secret locations or worked on any confidential posts. All of my time in Scientology was open and easily accounted for. There were no “missing time” episodes. A lot was happening to Scientology around that time, and I believe that this kept Hubbard away from where I was or from following through with me. I remember that I started to have a lot of trouble with my auditing, and it never went smoothly after that night.

I realize today that I was very lucky that circumstances kept me separated from Hubbard after that night with him. I later left Scientology, but not for that incident. The overall environment had become too suffocating and paranoid. After leaving Scientology, I led a much happier and more fulfilling life.

END OF NARRATIVE

[thorn]

I've read this story somewhere else.... but the mention of volleyball brings back memories... I worked for AOLA at that time and we worked in a building on Bronson, that connected to the Manor by a walkway. Every day at lunch we played volleyball. There was an old tennis court that we put a volleyball net on. We had amazing volleyball matches, AOLA combined with GO and Manor staff. We would have over 9 players on each team. We got so good that one day, a bunch of us went to Malibu (on liberty) and challenged a group of buff, blond surfer types who looked like they played volleyball all day, every day. We beat them 2 out of three games.

I don't recall a tall blond guy from the GO. There was a tall redheaded guy named Bob (not sure who he worked for). Names i recall: Bob Grey (AOLA), Ken Grey (AOLA), Brad Ballantine (GO), Mike Pincus (GO), myself (Peter McMahon), Peter Mead (AOLA), Harold Sims (AOLA) Paul Kellerhaus (AOLA), Kim Hawkins (AOLA), Kent Davis (AOLA)... Harry Paskiewicz (AOLA)... and my memory runs out at that point.

Fascinating story about Hubbard. Who can say whether it's true or not. Maybe someone else who played volleyball with us back then can shed more light on this... -- Peter

[curiosity]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear that there was a time in Scientology when Sea Org actually got a little time off and could hang out with wogs!

Thanks for the list of names. I'll see if I can locate any of them. I'm sure that the majority are out of COS by now. If anyone out there reading this knows where any of those people are, please post it here or PM me.

Please allow me to ask you a couple of questions, if you know. Did the USGO maintain an "LRH Office" in the USGO part of Manor building like other COS orgs? Or a secured suite on one of the upper USGO floors for overnight stays? I'm sure that it would have been top-secret, but did you hear any rumors that Hubbard ever clandestinely stopped by the Manor in the 1970's to visit USGO?

[thorn]

Another person who played volleyball with us was Jerry Boswell, also AOLA staff. The taller guys could put a curve on the ball when they served making it drop right over the net.

I don't know if the GO had an LRH Office, but I know that there was one floor no one was allowed on. All SO staff had to stand QM (quarter master) duty, which meant you had to act like a security guard for one night every few weeks or so. I remember having to patrol the property of the manor and do walk-throughs of every floor including the roof -- except that one floor which was off limits.

Also, around that same time, a friend of mine was looking at used cars at a local car dealership in Hollywood. The dealer mentioned that Hubbard had just bought a used car there recently. We didn't believe it at the time but now I think it's possible it was true.

-- Peter

[Simonymous]

I have an idea of what might bring you closer to the truth. The original person has to be available, though, so if he's not, then it won't work.

Have victim team up with an artist critic and give a fully-detailed description of the room it occurred in. Artist critic can make a replica computer model or drawing. Post it somewhere (all over!) and see if anybody says "that's Hubbard's room, I remember!"

It's unlikely victim would have access to any of Hubbard's rooms in his day-to-day Sea Ogring. So if some old-timer who was near Hubbard in those days recognises the drawing, it points heavily to the story really happened. How else would victim know what the room looked like?