Another interesting but new chestnut...
Ron the stereotypical Navy guy?
In Jeff Hawkins's excellent manuscript on his times in the SO and Pubs (in another thread), Chapter 9 has an incompletely explained little bombshell. It's around 1980, and Ronni is working on some fiction......
But most of our attention was on getting the campaign launched. Nancy had her team of researchers and surveyors who were out every day. We had added a Public Relations member to the team, a young lady named Beth, who was working out how to get out publicity releases on Dianetics when the time came. She also got roped into a “confidential” proofreading project, which turned out to be Hubbard’s Mission Earth manuscript. He had completed Battlefield Earth, which was being prepared for publication, and this was his next work, a massive ten-volume science fiction series. Beth helped on the proofreading several hours a day at ASI, and came back increasingly disturbed. She was shocked by the graphic, and repeated, descriptions of gay oral sex in the book, and was appalled that such writing was coming from the Founder of a religion. She didn’t last long, and in fact soon decided to leave staff.
One did not criticize Hubbard.
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[This next is just a good jab at DM and those awful photos and films-GB]
One day, I got a strange phone call. After I picked up the phone and said hello, a strident and intense male voice came on the line.
“If I hear another report of any of your staff nattering about LRH Tech Films, they, and you, will be immediately sent to the RPF. Have you got that?”
I managed to stammer “Yes, Sir.” There was a click on the other end.
I had just had my first conversation with David Miscavige.
The “Tech Films” were Hubbard’s Technical Training Films. He had scripted a series of short, 20 to 30 minute films teaching various points of Scientology “technology,” from how to operate an E-Meter, to how to conduct an auditing session. Each film had a story line – characters who went through some drama to illustrate a point of technology. He had then directed the filming of a number of these scripts himself at his confidential location. Like his earlier photo shoots on the ship, they were strictly amateur hour. The sets were hastily thrown together, something a high school drama department would be ashamed of. The actors were all amateurs – staff thrown into costume for the occasion – and they would stumble their way through Hubbard’s overcooked dialogue.
But of course it was like the Emperor’s New Clothes all over again. No one wanted to admit that they didn’t see Hubbard’s genius in every detail. It was obvious to anyone with two eyes that they were pathetically amateur, but no one was willing to say so. One of my staff, Linda, had been so impolitic as to make a disparaging comment about the quality of the films within earshot of some other staff. The resulting “Knowledge Reports” had gotten to Miscavige, who took it as a personal affront. After all, he had been the “cameraman” on many of these early films. Hence the call. I took Linda aside and explained the facts of life to her. If one expected to survive in the world of Scientology, one did not say anything negative about the films, no matter how obvious their flaws.
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Dart... any thoughts on Ron's, ahem, florid sword-swallowing descriptions?