They spent most of their time working; there was very little socializing. They lived there incognito for a few months before moving into an apartment in Dunedin on the west coast of Florida, a few miles north of the town of Clearwater where a Scientology front company had bought the old Fort Harrison Hotel to serve as Scientology's new headquarters. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 2nd wife of L. Ron Hubbard Hubbard's strange writings did seem to imbue him with a special kind of confidence and belief in his own abilities, which for many seemed like supernatural powers. Under his doctrine he believed that "mistakes do not just happen, somebody causes them, always". Mary Sue conspired with her subordinates to concoct alibis for Meisner and work out how to keep him out of the hands of the authorities, keeping him in hiding under a series of false identities. "[46] In November 1950, Northrup attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills. Sometimes when the two of them were sitting at the table together, the hostility was almost tangible. Active and dangerous. [10], Although both were committed O.T.O. Mary Sue strongly opposed these changes and reappointed herself Controller, rescinding the CMO's permission to investigate the GO. She played a major role in the creation of Dianetics, which evolved into the religious movement Scientology. Recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation files show that just over a year after L. Ron Hubbard created the the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, a precursor to the Church of Scientology, he offered to become an informant for the Bureau, and provide the FBI with a list of its members and copies of their fingerprints.. According to the Church of Scientology, the reason for the trip was that "amid the constant violence of the turncoat Don J. Purcell of Wichita and his suits which attempted to seize Scientology, Mary Sue became ill and to save her life, Ron took her to England where several Dianetic groups had asked him to form an organization. The other five defendants received lesser sentences and fines. And since then, the Church of Scientology has maintained in biographical . Apparently it is the ordinary confidence trick."[19]. The news story which the photograph accompanied has been republished by the Church with all mention of Northrup edited out from the text. I make this statement of my own free will for I have begun to realize that what I have done may have injured the science of Dianetics, which in my studied opinion may be the only hope of sanity in future generations. By this time, Mary Sue was well advanced with her second pregnancy and remained largely confined to a rented house at Medford Lakes, New Jersey. Scores of GO staff responded, locking the missionaires out of their premises and were intending to hire armed guards to bar access by me and the other Church officials who had ousted them. ), a secret society led by the English occultist Aleister Crowley, where she was known as "Soror [Sister] Cassap". Her allegations produced more lurid headlines: not only was Hubbard accused of bigamy and kidnapping, but she had been subjected to "systematic torture, including loss of sleep, beatings, and strangulations and scientific experiments". 6 Yet remarkably, despite the tantalizing scandal that surrounds it in popular culture, Scientology . [3] The couple had three daughters. L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, to Harry Ross Hubbard (1886-1975) and Ledora May Waterbury, whom Harry had married in 1909. Following the birth, the Hubbards moved into a house in Silver Spring, Maryland. I then confronted the mutineers, and persuaded Mary Sue Hubbard to again resign, which ended the last vestige of GO resistance.[63]. Had been friendly with many Communists. Photo by the Miami Daily News. This work took a variety of forms, including public relations, legal actions, and the gathering of "intelligence" on perceived enemies. The final experiment [45] One evening he arranged a double-date with his wife and Klowden, who was accompanied by Hollister, an instructor in the Los Angeles Dianetic Foundation. [69] She was sent to the federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky, to serve her sentence,[70] though in the end, she was released after only a year of imprisonment.[71]. I was rather surprised when we were driving back to LA on Sunday evening, he stopped at a florist to buy some flowers for his wife. Mary Sue was given partial responsibility for running the new Dianetics establishment. The protagonist, "a bastard child", would be the son of the three most virile men in the town (a satire of the Holy Trinity). Hubbards mission was successful far beyond anyones expectations. Russell Miller notes: They were indeed an unlikely couple a flamboyant, fast-talking extrovert entrepreneur in his forties and a quiet, intense young woman twenty years his junior from a small town in Texas. He had worked as an archivist for the Church of Scientology, gathering source material for a planned biography of L. Ron Hubbard. How many girls is a man entitled to in one lifetime, anyway? Here I am in Miami pursuing the children of my folly; they cannot move without going to jail. [67] She met him in Wichita to resolve the situation. As part of a wider strategy codenamed Operation Snow White, the GO succeeded in infiltrating a Scientologist into the IRS to steal files about the government's litigation strategy against Scientology. TIL L Ron Hubbard's first wife once discovered two love letters the Scientology founder had written, to two different women, in the couple's outgoing mail. Such conduct was expressly permitted by the O.T.O., which followed Crowley's disdain of marriage as a "detestable institution" and accepted as commonplace the swapping of wives and partners between O.T.O. The arrival of Hubbard and Northrup three weeks after the divorce was filed scandalized Hubbard's family, who deeply disapproved of his treatment of Polly. [43] She left Wichita as soon as Alexis was returned to her. The case was settled out of court eleven days later, with Hubbard and Northrup agreeing to refund some of Parsons' money while keeping a yacht, the Harpoon, for themselves. Hubbard rescued a girl they were using. Fiercely loyal to her husband, brusque and autocratic, she could be a dangerous enemy. She recalled that "I got up and left the house in the night and walked on the ice of the lake because I was terrified." She and Hubbard eloped, taking with them a substantial amount of Parsons' life savings and marrying bigamously a year later while Hubbard was still married to his first wife, Margaret Grubb. 28 Photos Of L. Ron Hubbard And The Birth Of Scientology. He moved in with me about two months ago, and although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual affection to Ron. I did not know or realize these things until I myself investigated the matter. folders or files" to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and or harassment is repugnant. But anyone who underestimated Mary Sue made a big mistake. She recalled that "with or without an argument, there'd be an upsurge of violence. Or whatever. "[14], In August 1945, Northrup met L. Ron Hubbard for the first time. In the pulp-printed pages of a May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, L. Ron Hubbard published, for the first time, a work that would one day grow into an entire religion: Dianetics. The final version of Dianetics was written at Bay Head, New Jersey in a cottage which the science fiction editor John W. Campbell had found for the Hubbards. According to Northrup, Hubbard began beating her when they were in Florida in the summer of 1946. [58] After a fruitless six-week search she finally filed a writ of habeas corpus at the Los Angeles Superior Court in April 1951, demanding the return of Alexis. "[45] A few days later while still married to Northrup he proposed marriage to Klowden. She began a relationship with L. Ron Hubbard, whom she met through the O.T.O., in 1945. On July 13, 1981, a matter of weeks after we had uncovered what was going on, and with no advance warning to the GO, a coordinated series of CMO missions were sent out concurrently to take over the GO. Numerous other Guardian's Office personnel were purged as well. That was one of the reasons L. Ron Hubbard never had a relationship with her. The criminal conviction of the GO's top executives triggered a lengthy power struggle at the top of the Church of Scientology, which would lead eventually to Mary Sue being forced into retirement. [12], Northrup's hostility towards other members of the O.T.O. "[43], By October, the Foundation's financial affairs had reached a crisis point. [51], Northrup went to a psychiatrist to obtain advice about Hubbard's increasingly violent and irrational behaviour, and was told that he probably needed to be institutionalized and that she was in serious danger. . I went back several times later to make sure that she wasn't going to rat on him. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age, including perennial and New York Times bestsellers such as Battlefield Earth . He walked right in there and bought it for me, cash! The dispute immediately became front-page news: the newspapers ran headlines such as "Cult Founder Accused of Tot Kidnap", "'Dianetic' Hubbard Accused of Plot to Kidnap Wife", and "Hiding of Baby Charged to Dianetics Author". Ernie was adopted by Mrs. Kanzler, the sister of the wife of Edsel Ford, at the request of Katherine Hepburn. In 1984 she acted as an "intervenor" in the Church of Scientology of California's lawsuit against Gerry Armstrong. According to his public relations assistant, Barbara Klowden, Hubbard became increasingly paranoid and authoritarian due to "political and organizational problems with people grabbing for power. By August 1978, 11 senior Scientology officials and agents, including Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of the founder, were charged in connection with an alleged conspiracy to spy on the government. "[73] He publicly portrayed his marital problems as being entirely the fault of Northrup and her lover Hollister: The money and glory inherent in Dianetics was entirely too much for those with whom I had the bad misfortune to associate myself including a woman who had represented herself as my wife and who had been cured of severe psychosis by Dianetics, but who, because of structural brain damage would evidently never be entirely sane. [46] In March 1976, she approved an illegal plan to obtain "non-FOI data" from the government, meaning classified documents not available through the Freedom of Information Act. [15] Hubbard soon began an affair with Northrup after beginning "affairs with one girl after another in the house. On the night of February 24, 1951, Alexis was being looked after by John Sanborne while Northrup had a night at the movies. Hubbard took with him only two people, a married couple named Pat and Anne Broeker. The flagship of the Scientology fleet was the 3,280-ton vessel HMSRoyal Scotsman accidentally renamed the Royal Scotman due to a clerical error,[23] a former cattle ferry on the Irish Sea run.[24]. She soon became involved in a relationship with Hubbard and married him in March 1952. She was credited with helping to coin the word "Scientology". [68] The original sentence of five years imprisonment was not carried out, and the court ordered a study of her claimed medical problems, before eventually replacing her sentence with a four-year term of imprisonment, with parole set at 40 months. At age 15, Northrup moved in with sister Helen and her husband Jack, while she finished high school. member, wrote to Karl Germer to explain the situation: As you may know by this time, Brother John signed a partnership agreement with this Ron and Betty whereby all money earned by the three for life is equally divided between the three. Quentin committed suicide in Las. We were talking about guns and she said to me that I was the type to use a Saturday night special" (a very cheap "junk gun"). She was a leading figure in Scientology for much of her life. John Sanborne, who worked with Hubbard for many years, recalled: Earlier on (before the divorce) he made this stupid attempt to get Northrup brainwashed so she'd do what he said. [75], Many years later, another of his followers, Virginia Downsborough, recalled that during the mid-1960s he "talked a lot about Sara Northrup and seemed to want to make sure that I knew he had never married her. Recommended Mary Sue was promoted to the position of Controller "for life" of the Guardian's Office in January 1969, with one of her subordinates, Jane Kember, being appointed to Mary Sue's old post of Guardian. Speaking several years later to the St. Petersburg Times newspaper, Miscavige commented: I knew if it was going to be a physical takeover we're going to lose because they had a couple thousand staff and we (the "messengers") had about 50. Evidently a prime mover but very young. In the world of speculative fiction Your favorite authors Have selected best new voices of the year. Mr. Ronald Reagan President . Upon L. Ron Hubbard's death in 1986, David became Scientology's leader, with Shelly at his side. Mary Sue then travelled with Ron to Phoenix, Arizona where they established the first organisation. She told the court that she had not seen her husband since January 1980, "but I've written him personal letters but I don't believe he's getting them" as he had not replied to them. They married April 25, 1909, in Omaha, Nebraska. [65] Hubbard wrote to the FBI to further denounce Northrup as a Communist secret agent. I telephoned Hubbard's lawyer in Elizabeth and warned him: "Listen, asshole, if you don't get that baby back I'm going to burn you. That's it. [42] Mary Sue continued to manage the GO from her various residences aboard the Apollo, and the villa in Tangier. His lawsuit accused Hubbard and Northrup of breaking the terms of their partnership, dissipating the assets and attempting to abscond. His wife was in prison and his estranged son believed he was either dead or insane. They would go to bed very late, usually in the small hours of the morning, and get up in the early afternoon [Mary Sue] had a separate bedroom, but usually had breakfast with him scrambled eggs, sausages, mushrooms and tomatoes. I doubt that she would face what you have with me or support me as well. [73], A month later, in the English High Court of Justice, Mr Justice Latey declared in a case in which Scientology was a prominent issue that "Mr Hubbard is a charlatan and worse, as are his wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, and the clique at the top privy to the cult's activities. He wasn't married to her. or so the stories go. "All guns were now manned with great attention as it was supposed that the sub was trying to surface. Everyone was very calm, gunners joking about who would get in the first shot," Hubbard wrote. It was horrible. Hubbard would evolve into the leader of the Church of Scientology.[1]. in October 1969, the newspaper printed a statement attributed to the Church of Scientology (but written by Hubbard himself[80]) that asserted: Hubbard broke up black magic in America L. Ron Hubbard was still an officer of the US Navy because he was well known as a writer and a philosopher and had friends amongst the physicists, he was sent in to handle the situation. A year later, on August 15, 1978, Mary Sue Hubbard was indicted by a grand jury, accused of masterminding a conspiracy against the government in her capacity as head of the Church's Guardian's Office.[39]. [72] When the case came to trial in May 1984, she told the Superior Court of Los Angeles County that she had been "mentally raped" and "emotionally distressed" knowing that others had seen the documents. "[53] She was bundled into the back of a car and driven to San Bernardino, California, where Hubbard attempted to find a doctor to examine his wife and declare her insane. Hubbard became Parsons' "magical partner" for a sex magic ritual that was intended to summon an incarnation of a goddess. . "[50] Hubbard enlisted de Mille and another Dianeticist, Dave Williams, in an attempt to convince her to stay with him. Fur coats, Lincoln cars and a young man without any concept of honor so far turned the head of the woman who had been associated with me that on discovery of her affairs, she and these others, hungry for money and power, sought to take over and control all of Dianetics. I gathered a couple of dozen of the most proven Church executives from around the world and briefed them on the criminal and other unethical conduct of the GO. [24] It was not until much later that Northrup discovered that Hubbard had never been divorced from his first wife, Margaret "Polly" Grubb; the marriage was bigamous. There, creased between space adventures and tales of alien invasion, were the pages . Lafayette Ron Hubbard is a controversial figure. [55] He listed them as: SARA NORTHRUP (HUBBARD): formerly of 1003 S. Orange Grove Avenue, Pasadena, Calif. 25 yrs. Although he bluffed it out initially, a warrant was issued for his arrest in August. MILES HOLLISTER: Somewhere in the vicinity of Los Angeles. The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered. However I am afraid that most of the money has already been dissipated. "[42] He began an affair with the twenty-year-old Klowden, much to the annoyance of Northrup, who was clearly aware of the liaison. She had covered up for him so much, and there had been so many opportunities for her to betray him, that she couldn't believe he would think that. After the British Sunday Times newspaper published an expos of Hubbard's membership of the O.T.O. Perhaps in your criminal files or on the police blotter of Pasadena you will find Sara Elizabeth Northrop, age about 26, born April 8, 1925, about 5'9", blond-brown hair, slender . A "Founding Church of Scientology" was established in Washington, D.C. and Mary Sue became its first Academy Supervisor. Although she was not yet twenty-four years old, she exercised considerable power within the Scientology movement and people around Hubbard quickly learned to be wary of her. [It] was made clear that we had no choice but to overthrow the GO and dismiss everyone who had violated Church policy or the law. They set up home in a villa on the outskirts of the Moroccan city of Tangier. Although Hubbard himself was much admired by Scientologists, his wife was said to be much less popular. She informed us that she did not appreciate our investigation of the GO and that if one were needed she would do it. She kept saying to me, 'What is he worried about?' Mary Sue attempted to contact her husband to rescind the CMO's takeover bid but failed, and admitted defeat when the Messengers produced an undated dispatch from Hubbard instructing the GO to be put under the CMO when its senior executives went to prison. Hubbard subsequently returned to the Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. [1] She soon rose to the rank of a second degree member, or "Magician", of the O.T.O. Please report problems, errors or suggestions to heldal@online.no Download all files as ZIP archive(745Kb) Back to introduction DATE TO FROM DESCRIPTION 16 May 1940 FBI L Ron Hubbard Reporting on a possible Nazi. [2] She grew up in Houston, where she attended Rice University for a year before moving on to the University of Texas at Austin, from which she graduated as a Bachelor of Arts. [88] In one publication the Church has airbrushed Northrup out of a photograph of the couple that appeared in the Miami Daily News issue of June 30, 1946. [86] In June 1986 the Church of Scientology and Alexis agreed a financial settlement under which she was compelled not to write or speak on the subject of L. Ron Hubbard and her relationship to him. David went ballistic at his wife while she . A change in the visa regime in the UK enabled foreigners to remain indefinitely if they had sufficient means to support themselves. "[3], During the late 1960s, Scientology was faced by an increasingly hostile media and intensifying government scrutiny in a number of countries, notably Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. I cared for her rather deeply but I have no desire to control her emotions, and I can, I hope, control my own. To that end he wrote Dianetics, proving to all the world just how mediocre a writer he was . He was 74 years old. After Hubbard was convicted of petty theft in San Luis Obispo in August 1948,[32] the couple moved again to Savannah, Georgia. Goodbye I love you. [38] Northrup became Hubbard's personal auditor (Dianetic counselor)[39] and was hailed by him as one of the first Dianetic "Clears". At six-twenty-five I would go into his office with a jacket for him to wear to table and after dinner they would spend an hour or so watching television with the children and then he and Mary Sue would return to work in their separate offices. In 1923 the family moved to Pasadena, a destination said to have been chosen by Olga using a Ouija board. [11], A family friend, Ray Kemp, later recalled: "their relationship seemed OK, but there never seemed to be a lot of love between them. [76], A Scientology spokesman informed the press that she had been left "a very generous provision" in her husband's will,[77] though the details were kept secret. In July 1949 I was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, writing a movie. Despite this, she still "felt so guilty about the fact that he was so psychologically damaged. [20], Northrup later recalled that the boat had been caught in a hurricane in the Panama Canal, damaging it too badly to be able to continue the voyage to California. carry huge amounts of cash around in his pocket. However, their marriage was deeply troubled; Hubbard was responsible for a prolonged campaign of domestic violence against her and kidnapped both her and her infant daughter. In the UK alone, it issued hundreds of writs against the media for publishing negative reports on Scientology. Hubbard attempted to patch up the marriage in January 1951 by inviting Northrup and baby Alexis to Palm Springs, California where he had rented a house. Hubbard blamed Klowden for the suicide bid and told her to forget about him and the Foundation, but resumed the affair with her again within a month.[48]. "I just ran across the airfield, across the runways, to the airport and got on the plane. "[12] Joan Vidal, a friend of the sculptor Edward Harris, who was commissioned by Hubbard to create a bust of him, described Mary Sue as "a rather drab, mousy, nothing sort of person, quite a bit younger than him. Every effort was made to butcher my personal reputation. . [citation needed], The Hubbards traveled to England in September 1952 when Mary Sue was eight months pregnant. [41] Its eventual downfall was to result from the use of illegal methods, ordered and authorized by Mary Sue, to further its campaign. Her actual true name is a Russian name. The veins in his forehead would engorge" and he would hit her "out of the blue", breaking her eardrum in one attack. L. Ron Hubbard PO Box 24152 Tampa, FL 33623 28 November 1980. member living in the commune at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue: "Betty went to almost fantastical lengths to disrupt the meetings [of the O.T.O.] [73] The controversy surrounding the divorce had severely dented his reputation. She was a bitch. A curly haired, middle-aged woman - who US magazine National . [43] L. Ron Hubbard was said to have been fully aware of the GO's actions; the US government would later declare him to be an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the GO's illegal activities. Now a new report claims the 58-year-old is alive and, in mid-December, was spotted leaving a Scientology cruise ship in the Caribbean. [19] His health and emotional difficulties were reflected in another, much more private, document which has been dubbed "The Affirmations". On 9 June 1951, Sara signed a handwritten statement scrawled on the notepaper of The Hubbard Dianetic Foundation Inc. of Wichita agreeing to cancel her receivership action and divorce suit in California in return for a divorce "guaranteed by L. Ron Hubbard" in mid-June. Sharp chin, broad forehead, rather Slavic. [44], One of their primary targets was the IRS, with which Scientology was engaged in a bitter battle over tax exemptions. "[6] Three weeks later, on September 24, 1952, she gave birth to her first child, Diana Meredith de Wolfe Hubbard. [84] Even his own staff were shocked by the contents of Hubbard's letter; he ended his instructions to them with the statement, "Decency is not a subject well understood". She obtained a Hubbard Dianetic Auditor's Certificate and joined the Foundation's staff. Parsons took an immediate liking to Hubbard and invited him to stay in the house for the duration of his leave. It must be noted that Mary Sue Hubbard believed her position as Controller and as the "Founder's wife" to be unassailable and beyond reproach by anyone but Mr. Hubbard who was not around at the time, a fact that she was well aware of. Her disruptive behavior appalled Fred Gwynn, a new O.T.O. [8], Northrup joined the O.T.O. [47] The GO's agent in the IRS, Michael Meisner, was ordered to obtain all files concerning L. Ron and Mary Sue Hubbard from the IRS Office of International Operations, which he succeeded in infiltrating. View Gallery. His misfortunes had been caused by "a woman known as Sara Elizabeth Northrup . The Hubbards had four children: Diana (born 1952), Quentin (1954-1976), Suzette (born 1955), and Arthur (born 1958). Commonly armed. [78] In December 1995, Hubbard had a mastectomy of her left breast. Who Is L. Ron Hubbard's Wife? L Ron Hubbard was an American author, philosopher, and the founder of the 'Church of Scientology.' He started as a writer of science fiction but later moved to self-help and psychology-related topics.