In celebration of a day of worldwide protest against the Church of Scientology organised by the shadowy hacker group Anonymous, I’ve decided to share some history that I have recently discovered.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, spent a considerable amount of time living in South Africa, and the then Rhodesia, where he frequently wrote to members of the white minority governments of both territories. You can see pictures of his Johannesburg home here.
Hubbard’s time in Africa influenced many aspects of Scientology. For example, one activity that Scientology prescribes for members of some ranks is the security check. The Scientologist holds the cans of an E-Meter while responding to a rapid-fire list of questions. While living in Johannesburg, Hubbard developed the Johannesburg Security Check, which he described as, “the roughest security check in Scientology.” Most of the questions are crime related and include, “Have you ever murdered anyone?” and, “Have you ever raped anyone?”, as well as this absolute zinger:
“Have you ever slept with a member of a race of another color?”
Of course, times change and the Johannesburg Security Check was subsequently replaced by the Only Valid Security Check, which has a slightly different set of questions including, “Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?”
Religion, as we all know, works in mysterious ways. It would perhaps exceed the level of unkindness that Mr Hubbard merits for him to be branded as a racist based on the Johannesburg Security Check alone. After all, according to the Church of Scientology itself, Hubbard was a liberal who devoted his time in Africa to fostering human rights and encouraging governments to extend the franchise to people of all races.
A greater understanding of his views on race relations can be attained from his open support of the apartheid township policy in a letter to Dr H. F. Verwoerd, the “architect of apartheid”:
“Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence.” – L. Ron Hubbard
Hubbard’s ingrained racism does not stop there. Like “security checks”, Scientology includes “rundowns“, a set of procedures designed to address specific problems. South Africa is unique in that there is a rundown specifically for her citizens, the South African Rundown. According to Mr Hubbard himself, it was necessary to create a rundown specifically for South Africans because:
“The South African native is probably the one impossible person to train in the entire world – he is probably impossible by any human standard.” – L. Ron Hubbard
The sources for these quotations have not been checked thoroughly due to the unavailability to me of original documents. I’ve been careful to use only material that has been property referenced in other sources, to which all links have been included. A big-up to Martin for drawing my attention to these utterances in the first place.
By no means do I mean to imply that the Church of Scientology is a racist organisation. The Church of Scientology is a cruel, deceitful and manipulative organisation just like any other church. The evidence suggests very strongly, however, that L. Ron Hubbard, their founder and the object of their personality cult, was a racist in the purest definition of the word, and did not consider applying of his apparently inexhaustible arcane knowledge to the upliftment of those who suffered oppression in the countries he visited. Oppressed people tend to have less money than their oppressors. One must wonder if these two facts are connected.
