Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(34)
Although the children had a nanny, they spent much of their time unsupervised. School was an afterthought; it wasn’t until Diana demanded to learn how to write her name that the children began their education. Mary Sue was a chilly presence as a mother; she rarely cuddled or even touched her children, but in the early years she would read to them—Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, and Kipling’s stories—in her slight Texas twang. As she took on additional responsibility in Scientology, she became even more removed; but Ron would hug the kids and toss them in the air. The house echoed with his booming laugh. He taught the children how to play “Chopsticks” on the piano and showed them card tricks with his quick hands and perfectly manicured fingernails. He would play records and dance with the children to Beethoven or Ravel or Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite—bold, soaring music. He liked to sing, and he would burst into “Farewell and Adieu to You Fair Spanish Ladies,” and “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends,” a children’s song that is sung to the tune of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” He was fanatical about taking vitamins, and he made sure the children took theirs, as well. Afterward, they would all roar to see who was the strongest.
Hubbard was restless in Washington, and in 1959 he moved his family back to England, to a luxurious estate in Sussex called Saint Hill Manor, which he purchased from the Maharajah of Jaipur. Hubbard employed an extensive household staff, including two butlers, a housekeeper, a nanny, a tutor for the children, a chauffeur, and maintenance workers for the estate. “Dr.” Hubbard presented himself to the curious British press as an experimental horticultural scientist; to prove it, he allowed a photograph to be published of himself staring intently at a tomato that was attached to an E-Meter. The headline in Garden News was “Plants Do Worry and Feel Pain.”
Hubbard using the E-Meter on a tomato in 1968 to test whether it experiences pain
The grand mansion was a terrific playground for the children. It was actually a U-shaped castle with crenelated rooflines, ivy-covered walls, and rumors of ghosts. There were fifty-two rolling acres to play in, with rose gardens, goldfish ponds, and a lake. The house itself had sweeping staircases, elevators, and even secret rooms where the children could hide from the nanny. The children also prowled through their mother’s closet. Left to herself, Mary Sue was an indifferent dresser, but Ron brought tailors from London carrying gorgeous bolts of cloth, and racks of clothing brought in from the top department stores, all in Mary Sue’s size. Her closet was full of sparkling gowns and shimmering dresses. Trim and regal by nature, Mary Sue was a wonderful model, but she really only dressed for him.
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.”