Part 15 (1/2)
in May 2008, for example: Anil Dawar, ”Teenager Faces Prosecution for Calling Scientology 'Cult,'” The Guardian, May 20, 2008.
one outspoken member: Anne Wright, ”Senator Nick Xenophon Brands Scientology a 'Criminal Organization,'” Herald Sun, November 18, 2009. Xenophon, an independent senator from South Australia, began receiving letters from former Scientologists after questioning the organization's tax-exempt status during a 2009 television interview. Those letters, he said, detailed ”a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality.” Since then he has become one of the most vocal critics of Scientology, repeatedly calling for inquiries into the church's activities and the repeal of its tax exemption. In September 2010, at his urging, Australia's Senate initiated an investigation into Scientology and other nonprofit organizations; it then created a committee to ensure that such groups deserve their charity status. (Its work is ongoing at the time of writing.)
[>] ”I don't think that's going”: ”Scientology: Former Scientologist,” The Current, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 30, 2009.
[>] Roughly a quarter of them: Church of Scientology, What Is Scientology?, p. 463.
[>] ”If it isn't written”: Hubbard, ”The Hidden Data Line,” HCO Policy Letter, April 16, 1965.
”growing faster now than”: Church of Scientology, ”Frequently Asked Questions,” e largely from Barefaced Messiah. To supplement this biographical research, I did my own interviews with Armstrong about these materials, and interviewed him at length about the authenticity of the affirmations, which Scientology viewed as confidential. I also used doc.u.ments presented in the 1984 Armstrong case. In addition, and where at all possible, I quote from Hubbard's own writing, some of which the Church of Scientology has made available on its websites /wisdom/lib49.html. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Parsons regarding Hubbard's behavior are from these sources. I gained invaluable insight into the Western esoteric tradition that gave birth to Crowley's Thelema, and a fascinating explanation of Scientology as a religion with esoteric roots, from Professor J. Gordon Melton of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his archive at the UCSB Special Collection.
The history and development of science fiction as a literary genre has been doc.u.mented extensively. For background on the pulp fiction world of New York during the 1930s, I turned to Frank Gruber's The Pulp Jungle, which gives an excellent portrait of both the key players and the overall scene. Jack Williamson's Wonder's Child; Isaac Asimov's In Memory Yet Green and I.Asimov: A Memoir; L. Sprague De Camp's The Science Fiction Handbook; and the unparalleled John Campbell Letters give a more detailed a.n.a.lysis of the science fiction world and its golden age, as well as recollections of L. Ron Hubbard from the late 1930s.
For historical and sociological perspective on the birth and development of Los Angeles, Mike Davis's City of Quartz and Carey McWilliams's Southern California: An Island of the Land were outstanding resources, as were Kenneth Starr's The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s and Harry Carr's Los Angeles: City of Dreams. Complete publication information for all books mentioned here is given in the selected bibliography.
[>] When I was very young”: L. Ron Hubbard, ”A First Word on Adventure,” from ”Letters and Journals, Early Years of Adventure,” circa 1943, ics and Scientology.”
[>] ”If there is anyone in the world”: Ibid.
[>] ”a bit too long on the ambrosia”: L. Sprague De Camp, ”Elron of the City of Bra.s.s,” Fantastic, August 1975; also ”Modern Imaginative Fiction,” in The Science Fiction Handbook, p. 93.
[>] ”I seem to have a sort of personal”: Letter from Hubbard to Margaret Ann ”Polly” Hubbard, 1938. Polly was also known as ”Skipper.”
[>] ”He had been in the United States Marines”: Frank Gruber, The Pulp Jungle, p. 80.
[>] ”one of aviation's most distinguished”: The Sportsman Pilot, editorial by H. Latane Lewis, July 1934.
[>] ”Corn flakes could”: This letter, addressed to ”General Manager, The Kellogg Company,” was posted by the Church of Scientology on , in a section containing some of Hubbard's literary correspondence.