Lecture at the Free Zone Convention 2002

Kenneth G. Urquhart

11th/13th October 2002, Kisslegg, Germany

Good Morning to you all. I am happy and honoured to be invited to speak at this International Free Zone Convention, and to have the opportunity to relate to you some of my experiences with L.Ron Hubbard.

What I intend to cover this morning is this:

  1. My credentials as one who knew LRH.
  2. My background as I entered Scientology, and my early history in it.
  3. Some of my experiences of LRH, with some broad perceptions and observations.
  4. Some conclusions.

My Credentials.

In early 1969 LRH made me CS-7. ‘CS’ stands for Commodore’s Staff Aide. He had CS Aides 1 – 7, and CS-G (MarySue Hubbard, or ‘MSH’). A few months later he created the post of LRH Personal Communicator and put me on it. I was on it until 1978. I was in close proximity with him up to 1975, when he left Florida for Washington DC and then California.

While I was Pers Comm, I sat in an office a few feet from his. I saw him come and go from his office, I heard everything he said in his office (unless he had MSH in there), I heard all the orders and queries he passed to his messengers. Almost always I was present when he had another in for a briefing, and I took the notes. If for some reason I wasn’t there he would take care to tell me later what was the outcome of the meeting.

I was responsible for entry to his office. Anybody other than MSH that sought access to LRH had to come to me. I was responsible for the considerable flow of paper to and from his desk.

LRH frequently called me to discuss ship matters, international management matters, internal ship organization matters, technical matters, family matters. In addition to all this, he had me in his office or out on the deck with him to chat.

Well, did he do this with every body else? No. With anybody else? Not to any comparable extent excepting MSH.

Now, I can’t say that I was perfect by any means in performing all of my many duties (and I did much more than I have outlined up to now). However, LRH kept me on that extremely sensitive post. Since he was a very hard taskmaster, and since he was never one to suffer fools gladly, since I was so close to him for so long, and since he took only the mildest of ethics actions against me—and very rarely at that—I can claim some authority and authenticity in what I have to say about my experiences with LRH.

I have a little more to say about my credentials. There was a foundation to my ship-board relationship with LRH. It was the friendship we had enjoyed at Saint Hill. There again, he had me close to him on a sensitive position. We’ll hear more about this later. For our purpose here, though, I can say that as the in-charge of his household, I worked with him closely every day for the best part of 18 months.

This, then, is the body of first-hand experience of LRH on which I draw for these reminiscences.

My Eyes.

Next, I think it only fair to familiarize you with something of who and what I was as I entered Scientology and experienced my way through it from 1957 to 1982. Of course I can’t give you a wholly objective view. But I aim to make what I say today as simple, clear, and honest as I can, so that my biases are obvious.

I entered this lifetime needing a gentle, close, and supportive nurturing. Life chose that I should have the opposite - not that my adults were unusually abusive. My main source of nurturing between 3 and 7 was the natural environment. My home then was a small village on the west coast of Scotland. It was beautiful. It had a connection to a serenity in a far, far distant place and time. I had a certainty that life consisted of much more than what people seemed to be making of it.

I became aware that the natural environment had a life of its own independent of anything humanity might do or not do. I felt that everything non-human around me manifested a fierce happiness in existing—the trees, the grasses, the ferns, the delicate wild flowers, the beautiful blossoms in the lovely gardens, the dry stone walls, the granite houses with their black slate roofs and their white window-frames, the hills, the rocks, the water, the sky and the clouds, the sun and the rain, the birds, insects, animals, the noisy mountain streams that clattered lustingly down their stony courses into the open arms and soft body of the quiet clear-cold sea. This was my family.

From the age of 8 to 18 I lived with my father in a dull little town in South Wales; the relationship quickly degenerated into a battle. The pressure, stress and misery that we created for each other broke me.

One happy experience occurred on the way home from school on a winter’s evening. In studying poetry that afternoon, the subject of infinity had come up for discussion. As a concept it was not very real to me. Walking home, I pondered it. I looked at the myriads of stars in their unimaginable numbers and distances. I tried to fit some concept of infinity to this space. I saw at once that physical space is finite and that therefore it must come to an end somewhere. What, I wondered, comes after it ends, what’s on the other side? I popped right out. I didn’t see very much but I found out that there is an “out there.” Again, I made a discovery that reality has multiple layers.

At 18, I left my home to move out into the world. Shortly after I arrived in London, a family friend introduced me to Scientology. As I entered my first Scientology experience I was a contradictory mess:

  1. I was full of suppressed fury.
  2. I had terrible self-image and self-respect problems.
  3. I was aware that what people around me seemed to accept as reality was not the only reality, and certainly was not the reality that interested me.
  4. I was sensitive to insincerity and pretense; I was hungry for someone or something to respect.
  5. I knew that there existed people with whom it was possible to live in happy community.
  6. I was aware that having the emotional needs I was born with was a sign of weakness of character. I felt instinctively that I must deal with the weakness rather than try to satisfy the needs.
  7. I wanted more than anything to find out how I relate to Life and to Universe and to all of Existence.

In short, I was ripe and ready for crime or cult. But I wasn’t ready or able to throw myself into any solution to such an extent that I would lose the exterior and critical faculties I did possess.

These, then, as best I can now describe them, were the eyes with which I entered Scientology and viewed L.Ron Hubbard.

My Scientology Career, and how I got to SH

In the summer of 1957 a friend paid for me to accompany him to a Weekend Group Intensive. For 14 hours over Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, a crowded room—the better part of a hundred people—received group auditing. In various processes we looked at walls, ceiling, floor, doors, windows, corners. We noticed this and that. We felt our bodies and parts of chairs. We felt the floor beneath our feet. We gave present time a damn good beating. At the end of the intensive I felt as though all the cobwebs had been blown away from my mind and around my head. I did have a headache. I didn’t feel particularly happy. But I had found something I really respected. This was the professional presence of the auditors. Here were these individuals up there in front, telling us to do things in a very positive manner, and acknowledging when we had done them. They had attention out on us, not in on themselves. They were in control, easily and relaxedly and happily. I was hooked. I wanted that. I applied for training.

A little problem came up at once. My OCA personality test was all along the bottom except for one point and that was high because it was compulsive. The only option available to me was to have auditing. I had no funds to pay for any more. I compromised by doing everything I could afford. If it was free or cheap I did it, more than once.

It was on one of the Comm Courses that my eyes were really opened as to what Scientology might be all about.

One evening, I was coaching a nice little old English lady on TR0. She was doing all right; I didn’t have to flunk her for anything. I continued to observe 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.

Nothing very exciting happened over the next few years. I bought 50 hours in the HGC. It was all right. A couple more years went by, to about 1961. The crippling cluster headaches I’d had off and on since 1955 became more frequent and then almost constant and unbearable. I had emergency auditing. The engram came to view and blew. I have not had a single cluster headache since that moment.

In my life, although feeling much better, and very happy not to have the headaches, I was still drifting.

A friend had been talking to me about Edgar Watson, who worked at SH. Edgar, he told me, was an extremely competent auditor. My ears pricked up. I could do with some very competent auditing to get myself in gear.

In due course, Edgar obtained LRH’s permission to audit me. I went to Edgar’s home in East Grinstead every Sunday regularly for a year or so until 1964. He was an excellent auditor. I gained some confidence in myself. We did fascinating processes, some of which Edgar said were experimental, things LRH was working on. While walking to my then home in North London one day, during this period, I mused on the subject of GPMs. I had no particular intention in so doing. I imagined what a GPM might look like, or a series of them. As I thought about it, a long line of large black spheres came into view, stretching out in my space from around my head. Surprised, I looked at them. As I looked, they disappeared. I quite forgot about that and never mentioned it.

One weekend Edgar told me that he had been placed in charge of staff procurement for SH, in addition to his already heavy duties. Little did I know what that might mean. The next week I had an urgent phone call from him.

Ron had his private domestic staff (who were not Scientologists). One of them was the butler. That week, the butler had allegedly been found in possession of a camera of Ron’s that had gone missing. He was fired. Edgar was on the hot spot. He knew of course that I was working in posh restaurants in London and he considered this sufficient grounds to present me as a solution to his recruitment problem. When he called me, I jumped at it. I had no ambition to be a domestic servant, but if it was for Ron, I was all for it. The chance to associate with him I could not resist.

Edgar arranged for my interviews at SH. He ushered me into the great man’s office. As I walked across the room to his desk, LRH stood up and offered his hand. I was scared to death but loving every moment of it. He was relaxed, calm, confident, warm, powerful, poised—everything I couldn’t be and wanted. He filled the whole room without any visible effort. I grasped his hand, looked him straight in the eye and informed him that I was going to do my very best for him. He blinked, paused for just a moment, then smiled very nicely and said “Very Good.” I let go of his hand and turned to leave. It was all settled. I had hired myself as butler to L.Ron Hubbard, whether he liked it or not.

I abandoned my dream of making a career in music. My Service at Saint Hill

I moved down to SH Manor right away. I had a small room on the top floor looking down to-ward the lake. I loved it. I much preferred the country to the city. I was living in a lovely old house in beautiful, well-kept grounds. I felt very much at home.

The establishment, and particularly the house, seemed to hold a special excitement, an unusual energy, a magical anticipation. Something unique was emanating from this space, something very far indeed from the everyday reality I’d been struggling--and failing—to come to terms with.

The first week was difficult. A new cook was also coming but not right away. So, I had to cook for the whole household as well as learn to buttle for Ron. Somehow, I was not afraid. I could see that LRH and MSH were not too impressed with me but I coped and managed. The new cook arrived and did all right. Now I wasn’t so rushed, and LRH began to talk to me.

He started his day with a cup of hot chocolate served at a small table between the foot of his four-poster bed and a large stone and marble fireplace. There he sat, smoked Kools, and chatted with me. As the days went on, he chatted more and more.

Mostly, I’d listen, but fairly often he would ask me something, or pause for an acknowledgement, or to let me respond. He talked about all sorts of things:

  1. What he was finding in his solo research—how the bank was made up. When he completed his research on what became the Clearing Course, he talked to me about the awareness levels, the org board, and the Power Processes.
  2. His track: this was mostly sci-fi and boys’ adventure type of anecdote, much as one finds here and there in his lectures
  3. The earlier years of his life and sometimes of his childhood.
  4. Organizational things at SH, to do with the Briefing Course and with international management.
  5. Whatever pleased him in the humour he was in--current affairs, cultural matters, things like that. He didn’t think too much of Harold Wilson, then the Prime Minister.

He teased me greatly, always in good humour although now and again a little sharply. “We only tease our friends, you know,” he told me.

He kept me very busy about the house. In managing me, he ran two processes precisely. He ran excellent two-way communication and he ran first-rate control. The communication cycle between us was as smooth as silk most of the time. He acknowledged constantly and with high and easy ARG my actions and my work, especially what I completed at his behest.

Not that it was all plain sailing. I rose rapidly on the tone scale due to the proximity of his much higher tone but I still held on to a lot of my shell, and I was still deficient in social skills. I didn’t know all that a butler should know and do. There were times when I definitely caused upset. To come clean on a couple:

  1. I ruined one of his special circus slides by spilling coke on it while tidying his desk and not having the sense to rinse it off with fresh water. He was regretful but accepted the loss.
  2. I forgot to get the local barber up to the house when LRH had asked for him. I tried to make an excuse and he got quite angry at me. It was the only time he yelled at me, and he apologized for it in the evening.

Many people want to know if LRH really could do “OT” things. I can’t say I saw anything spectacular. He made one reference to his powers and did two strange, para-normal things with me.

The reference was in this context. When first at SH, I would go to London on my day off. Usually, I would see friends. LRH knew this—he always asked about my day off. Although none of my friends asked any questions invasive of his privacy, he assumed that they did, and that I would answer them. He felt a need to maintain an image.

“Your friends,” he announced one day as he prepared for his bath, “Your friends might be curious as to why I employ somebody to open the shutters in my room when I can do it myself.” He meant, of course, that he could do it by remote intention alone and that everybody did or should know that. “Well,” he went on, “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.” Hence, he was saying, he did not demonstrate his OT powers. I wanted to say I was perfectly willing to be overwhelmed so would he please go ahead and close the shutters he had employed me to just open. I chickened out. I wasn’t at all convinced he could do it.

The two strange happenings:

He was talking to me one day from a chair a few feet away, more than arm’s length. My attention wandered. I was gone. Suddenly, I became aware of a finger poking me gently but insistently in the ribs. I came back. He was talking away, grinning and twinkling. He had not moved his arms or got up from his chair.

Another day we were talking in his study at the top of the house—a really lovely room. He asked me to look around the room. I did so. As I looked, I felt a change in my head, and my vision changed. It was as though I was looking through filthy panes of glass. I turned back to him. He was grinning at me again, but my vision was normal.

That evening he gave a lecture to the students. He said something to the effect that “If you look through the usual person’s eyes, it’s like looking through a very dirty window.”

Had he entered my head? Very likely. Was he looking through my body’s eyes? Quite probably. Why did my vision change? I don’t know.

The most interesting and exciting exchange we had occurred at chocolate time while he was still researching the Glearing Gourse. He told me one morning that the subject of music was covered entirely by end words in the bank. He found this very interesting, and assumed that I did too. He

told me what these end words were. During the day, I thought about them. I counted them—an odd number. End words appear in pairs. What was the missing end word? I asked him the next morning. Without a word he got up at once from his chocolate and moved over to the little table at a window where he did his solo auditing at night. He switched on the meter, picked up the solo cans and proceeded to search for the missing end word—very audibly. I just couldn’t help myself. I was listing for it too. When he came to it in his own search I was shouting to myself: “Yes! Yes! That’s the one! That’s it! Take it!” It was the one he took. He ended off and turned around. He was a little taken aback. He said to me, a little severely, “You could make yourself sick, standing there listening like that.” Then he softened, and grinned. “Well, I expect they have been in restim a good long while.” I grinned too.

I thought little more about it, but as I look back I recall that for several days after that, my feet hardly touched the ground.

After 18 months of cooking, cleaning, beds, clothes, new cooks and more new cooks, and all that, I was ready to graduate from buttling. I asked him if I could do something in the office. He made me LRH Comm SH right away. This was in January, 1966.

He began to form the Sea Org. I had no desire to join it. Life as a staff member in the org was not very exciting. The new Ethics Conditions were introduced, with their onerous penalties. The Sea Org became very aggressive with Ethics. I liked less and less the direction in which LRH was leading the organization. My staff contract expired in 1968. I wrote to him to say that I was going to resign from staff to make another stab at a career in music.

His reply was cold: he wasn’t going off to have a career in writing. I felt this was not valid—he had already had his career in writing and he left it willingly. I was undecided. A week or so later, Yvonne Gillham came to SH on a SO mission. She told me she had a special message from LRH for me. It turned out to be a Green Form that Yvonne gave me personally. It didn’t resolve anything, but Yvonne’s charm would warm a statue.

Her glow kept me from leaving outright. However, I was drifting again and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to continue in the org, I didn’t want to go to the SO. I hesitated to go back into the “real world.”

LRH settled the question. He reorganized WW. He sent in a Chairman for ECWW and he appointed a new HESWW and OESWW. The new HESWW was me. Here was some excitement. I went along with it. One tended to go along with these life-changing decisions of LRH’s.

LRH sent one of his staff aides over to brief us, the new ECWW, on SO Ethics. What he said went so far beyond what was written and authorized it made me ill. He said I was white as a sheet. I was horrified and outraged but dared not say anything just yet. The new position started off in a nightmare, and after that it was one nightmare after another. I felt that LRH had changed into some kind of organizational monster and I regretted the loss of the old friendship.

In October, 1968, I’d had enough and rebelled. I was put in Doubt. I decided I would no longer be part of any group that misused and abused Ethics, and said so. I went home to get some sleep. In the middle of the night I was awoken. I was to go at once to the AO in Edinburgh where I would receive auditing to help me recover from my ‘psychotic break’. I had a very pleasant week of solo auditing in Edinburgh and came back to SH feeling more relaxed.

Well, in another few weeks I was again at the end of my tether. I was definitely on my way out. How to tell the Monster? Again, he solved the problem. He sent yet another mission to ECWW and one day this mission showed me a telex they had had from Ron. It read, tersely, “Send Urq to Flag quietly.” Quietly?? I thought he planned to do something with me he didn’t want the local police to find out about.

I went. Part of me hoped my friend was still there. Part of me was curious as to what this extraordinary man would get up to next.

So ended my career at SH.

Review

Having come this far, I’d like to briefly review the ground I have covered. I’ve said that I entered Scientology in a certain state, that I made real but limited progress in Scientology until I went to Edgar Watson. He gave me excellent auditing and got me to Saint Hill. I pushed open that door to become part of the intimate entourage of L.Ron Hubbard. He and I became friends. I found LRH be in intelligence, energy, strength, in breadth, depth, and speed of understanding, in kindliness, courtesy, goodwill, and immensity of presence, far beyond the exceptional. At the same time, I could see that in some respects he was more human than he would have willingly admitted to his public.

After I left his household I became a staff member at SH but increasingly disenchanted with the way the group I’d originally joined was heading. It seemed to me that the kindliness, goodwill, and positive forward motion were diminishing. Before I came to a decision as to what I should do, LRH decided for me: I went to the ship.

Now I will give a broad account of Hubbard and how he changed over these years, 1968-1975. This period divides neatly into two, firstly to September1972 when he left the ship for a year in New York, and then from September, 1973 when he returned to the ship. There were very marked differences between the two periods. The first period became an extension of the relationship we had established at Saint Hill; in the second, we began to part ways.

I went to the ship in October, 1968, expecting punishment. I was made very welcome by those in the crew that knew me from SH; they assumed I’d come to join the Sea Org. LRH seemed to take no notice of my arrival, but when we bumped into each other he was as warm and friendly as ever. So was Mary Sue. I felt very welcomed. I found life on the ship to be dynamic. I stayed.

In early 1969. LRH promoted me to Commodore’s Staff. I was CS-7. A little later he created for me the post of LRH Personal Communicator. I was squarely on his communication and operation lines. I was at his beck and call. I answered to no other.

I observed when I first arrived that he was indeed a bit of a monster. He ranted, raved, and raged a lot. I can’t say that it was I who cooled him off but he did rage a lot less.

Off to Sea

Now I want to get into the meat of the matter. I ask you to join me in imagining a great rosey, glowing sphere sailing over the sea away from the fevered rush and harry of the world ashore. Please imagine this sphere as a universe with its omnipotent god. Accompanying the god is a hierarchy of beings (we won’t call us angels). All the beings have some degree of adoration for the god.

In this universe there is some true, strong light. Most of it emanates from the god, a lovely golden glow. Other beings emit lesser lights. Not all is light; the god has stresses, expressed and not. All the other beings have their own stresses.

The god’s stresses act on him so that some of his light turns dark. The god’s darkness works subtly on him and he begins to see darkness where there is none. Why would he have stress and darkness? This god had ambitions with regard to that world that comes down to the edge of the sea. His true godly purpose was to help. His ambitions, though, were worldly. He thought that achieving his worldly ambitions would enable him to achieve his spiritual aims; achievement of his spiritual aims would amplify his worldly success. He could have been right. But he let his worldly ambitions run away from him and they took control of him and of his light. He let the

darkness pervert the thrust of the light. He gambled with very high stakes, and lost a very great deal. In the end, he lost his light.

Many factors contributed to this monumental failure. I believe that the most effective of these was the “adoration” we beings gave to our god. In insistently agreeing on his godness, we avoided responsibility for two things: his case and his personal ethics.

We who were around him simply failed to observe that his outbursts, his complainings, his makewrong, his refusal to trust as much as he could have, his suspicions of others’ intentions,—these were all evidence of overts, withholds, and missed withholds. We did not think of forcing it as an issue.

There was indeed an effort to take care of his case. Otto Roos, one of the Class XII auditors, all personally trained by LRH to be the most skilled in the world, came to me. He said that the XIIs had got together to do something about LRH’s auditing. They wanted to do a Folder Error Summary and repair of past auditing errors. It is an elementary and magical action.

The keeping of LRH’s folders was in my hands. It was a terrible risk to part with them without his permission, yet that he would grant permission was questionable at best. I trusted the XIIs and I honored their intention. I gave Otto the folders. It all went wrong for two reasons.

Firstly, in the early Goals auditing of which LRH had a great deal, goals were listed for what they called in those days, Rock Slams. A Rock Slam, or R/S, is a crazy, random and violent jerking of the needle. In the days of running Goals, it meant (to keep it very simple) very hot charge on the case. Later, the R/S came to signify proximity to an evil purpose. The XII’s made long lists of these supposed R/Ses for later address and correction.

Secondly, LRH got wind of this folder activity. He at once sent his messenger to bring him what the XIIs had found. Unfortunately, their findings were given to the messenger. LRH found himself looking at long lists of R/Ses from his own folder. So many of them! In vain did MarySue, who was with him at the time, point out that in those days that what they really were looking at were wide f/ns. But he “knew” that the Class XII auditors were gloating over his folders, making fun of him over all these “R/Ses”. He was mortified, humiliated, and beside himself with fury. That was the end of that.

Now, I don’t want to beat this subject to death. But I’m going to. Its importance in the life of LRH must not be underestimated. By 1972, LRH had had twenty years and more of auditing inclulding experimental processing. We know that in his auditing, numbers of errors occurred.

Now, we are not looking here at the occasional out rud or a missed f/n. Look merely at the amount and depth of material on Goals, alone. Look at the magnitude and depth of charge that that level of processing addressed. Look at the amount of work that went into finalizing the Clearing Course, OT II, OT III. Out of all this digging we can be sure that there are numbers of errors. Of these, I imagine the most damage coming from Over-run—going past huge wins, unacknowledged states, confusion over end phenomena and about states of case.

Possibly more. When he was going down with bronchitis at SH back in 1965 he told me how tough it was to hold on to the bank so he could describe it fully for others. You look at these errors and at the magnitude and extent of his auditing history and you wonder how he could have operated sanely at all.

He could act sanely because he was (and is) a Titan. He could shove all that stuff aside when he had to and often he had to. Shoving it aside, he would face the external situation squarely and deal with it head-on. Titans do that. Now, as he got older, and as the effect of his charge grew under repeated shovings-aside and other restimulations, his power to shove it aside diminished. And, with that, his ability to operate independently diminished. Charge clouded his

light, more and more. The more it clouded his light, the faster the darkening overcame his light and pervaded our potentially heavenly sphere on the water.

This, to my mind, offers an explanation of how he changed over the years and how his light seemed to fade. [I must note here that I have no information on the contents or results of the sessions he later had from David Mayo.]

Within the broad framework that I have outlined as to the glowing globe and the complexity of LRH’s beingness, I need to place some details in order to bring the framework into some reality with the world.

My analogy of the glowing universe has of course some unreality and a disconnectedness. But it has validity. It did try to exist. It struggled to exist despite the material plans and ambitions and despite the darkness.

As I say, there were strategic material concerns and ambitions; amongst these we see aspects of the GPM. He sailed about with a purpose. He was looking for something. Remember, he’d been kicked out of Rhodesia. England had refused him permission to stay there. We had been ejected from Corfu. He wanted a stable base. He hoped to ingratiate himself and the ship’s company with a government that would give him facilities and protection. From such a safe space, he would work on four broad programs:

  1. He would popularize Scn and drive huge numbers of people into the existing and new organizations.
  2. He would blast psychology and psychiatry out of any position of authority.
  3. He would enforce Scn as the source of choice for solutions to problems on all dynamics.
  4. He would continue his work through the G.O. to nullify all opposition to Scn.

He might have ended up indirectly owning much of the world. And he also had a good chance of coming back next lifetime to resume ownership of what his body death would have interrupted. Of course, we know that by 1974 he realized that time was running out on this search for a safe space and he decided to brave it out in the U.S. He was no coward.

This set of programs was firstly over-ambitious by far. Secondly, it somewhat shrunk in importance when, in September of 1972 he had to hustle out of his lovely little house in Tangiers, Morocco to avoid being extradited to France. This was in the middle of a ridiculous attempt to train the Moroccan Security Forces in sec-checking! He spent the next year in seclusion in New York.

I would like now to add some personal detail to the big picture I have painted. This has to do with my relationship with him not only in the period 1969-1972, but also in the period of 1973 to 1975, when I saw him last.

In 1969, within the constraints of the new structure we were in (the Sea Org and his position as Commodore), we soon re-established the very smooth relations of our SH days. He could be quite god-like in his thoughts, words, actions, and presence. He certainly could glow beautifully. He could deal with the most adverse situations and turn them to advantage in the blink of an eye. He could also be quite childish in temperament. The god in our universe sometimes had feet of clay, sometimes produced dazzling displays of virtuosity, such as:

Ron was very good to me. He looked after me. He gave me very few acknowledgements now, but he did tell me we made a great team together. He told me he was lucky to have me. This was before he went to NY. The year that he spent in NY changed the way he operated, and the way we related. These changes began the moment I (and another, John Bragin) put him on the plane at Lisbon for New York, in September 1972. LRH told me I looked tired and was to take a rest. I went back to the ship and did that. I eased up. I didn’t think to tell anyone he had told me to do so.

As a rule when LRH was away, MSH would be in command, and would act as the relay point for his communications, in and out. As soon as he left for New York, the ship shifted its focus to her, and she dealt with things differently than he. I did my usual thing of keeping out of the politicking, while enjoying my brief break: two serious mistakes. Word got back to LRH that I was slacking off and overloading MSH. He took this as a criticism of himself, and it was the end of his confidence in me.

He did not remove me then, or when he came back in September, 1973(I kept the title of Pers Comm until 1978) but we were never as close as before. Sometimes, after his return, he was markedly distant, but now and then he warmed up again. Generally, back on the ship, he was more authoritarian and the temper-tantrums increased again in frequency and intensity. Strangely, though, he would often mutter “Sorry” under his breath to me in the midst of the outburst if I was with him and next to him.

While in NY he had noticed how pop music groups had huge followings. He decided he knew exactly how they did it and that he could do it too. On the ship he started a pop music group—then a few more. I took no notice of them. I hated the noise and didn’t think he really knew what he was doing. One day he passed by my office and spoke about his difficulties with these groups. He spoke what I didn’t want to hear: “I sure could do with your help with them.” In sadness I said nothing, just looking back at him, waiting for an order. None came. He turned and went on his way.

He started dressing himself in strange outfits. One powder-blue uniform had a large, flowing cape and a hat like a French general’s. Another day he stopped by my office on the way out to the deck. He proceeded to bitch to me about the man he had promoted to take over much of the management functions I had been helping him with before he went away. This man was one of several who had the S.O. rank of Captain. He had outstanding abilities. LRH’s final remark to me was, with a knowing nod, “’The Captain’ is a valence in R6.” I stared at him in his powder blue fancy dress, speechless. All I could think to myself was, “All right, if the ‘Captain’ is a valence in R6, what about ‘The Commodore’?” He looked at me; he turned and went out on the deck.

He knew I was losing respecifor him. It was extremely unusual for him in such a position to not remove the offender. I think it’s possible he didn’t demote me because he felt that doing so would result in instability he’d prefer not to have to handle. I don’t know for sure.

Things became worse when we came ashore in 1975. He had the strangest ideas about life in the States. He outraged the city of Clearwater by having visibly armed guards on patrol. He indulged in a crazy and vicious attack on the Mayor of the city. He raged constantly.

End of Journey

In February of 1976, in Florida, he called me into his office. He had to leave. He gave me some general last instructions, such as “Keep an eye on things.” Then he looked at me balefully. “You are too much of a gentleman,” he growled. He obviously intended this as a rebuke. I remained on the post, and did as little as possible; the climate within the group had become foreign to me. “You are too much of a gentleman” were his last words to me.

In due course, others took it into their power to remove me. I eventually became a NOTs auditor. In the end, I completed my professional training.

RTC, the new management, came to Clearwater in 1982. I’d been planning to take a long leave as my first quiet step in actually leaving the SO. RTC knew I was what they called “disaffected.” They made a show of me. They kicked me out nastily and noisily as I opened the door to let myself out. One of them spat in my face. I was back in the ‘real’ world. I was back on the street. A journey was truly over.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude by considering, as briefly as I can, three questions:

  1. As I hit the street, in early November, 1982, had I benefited from my involvement with Scientology and LRH, and was the benefit, if any, worth the cost?
  2. How have I fared since leaving Scientology in 1982?
  3. How do I now regard LRH and Scientology?

The first question, on benefits and costs: Yes and Yes. I benefited from my involvement and it was worth the cost. The cost was primarily that I was back on the street pretty much as I had been on the street when I went to Saint Hill. And I was on the street at a fairly advanced age without qualifications I could easily entice employers with. And I found out, as time went by, that having had LRH as my boss had spoiled me. I felt I’d made good progress in dealing with my weaknesses of character. I’d increased self-awareness and self-reliance. I had proven that I could audit, and audit with the best in the world.

The greatest benefit I came away with is a wealth of extraordinary experience. I would not trade it for anything, and for it I will always be more than grateful. I gained my experience as the accepted, close, and confidential assistant and friend of that man, that Titan. And he was nobody’s fool.

Second. How have I fared? Materially, rather worse than better. I have never had material ambition, and cannot blame Scn or LRH for any of that. I said early on that what I wanted most was to understand how I relate to Life, Universe, and all of Existence. LRH gave us excellent tools to use in working towards such Understanding. I have used them. They have helped me use other tools. I cannot say now that I understand everything, but I know I am getting there. I know that on my path I am reaching a peace that passes all understanding. Even though I tread my path alone, I bring a part of Ron with me, and always will.

Third. How do I now regard LRH and Scientology? I have these thoughts: Within LRH’s Scientology are gems of sanity we must not lose.

© Kenneth G. Urquhart 2002

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