2. Did Hubbard break up black magic in America?

Origin of Issue:

Hubbard broke up black magic in America […]

The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered.

London Sunday Times 28 December 1969 SCIENTOLOGY: New Light on Crowley

Analysis:

This is Hubbard’s own title for his “information,” and is a key issue in this study; along with the issue of his motivation or reason for doing whatever he did in or with black magic in America; and the issue of what he incorporated into his science or religion of Scientology from the science or religion of black magic.

Hubbard didn’t define “black magic” in his “information,” so it is not possible to know exactly what he was claiming to have broken up. It is likely Hubbard intended this effect, and his vagueness, with this important term and throughout his “information, weighs with other facts and indicators that explain what he was doing, specifically, lying. Hubbard was often vague in his claims, and seemingly unconcerned with supporting them.

As far as is known by the participants in this study, there is no record of Hubbard ever providing any more details or specifics than what he provided in his “information.” He was surrounded for the rest of his life with people who would never dare to ask him about his black magic involvement, or the facts in his “information,” and no record is known of him ever being asked about these matters. Statements by Scientology representatives or agents after Hubbard’s death have provided additional claims or details, but these are minimal and might be simply the result of the reps’ or agents’ misduplication, perhaps deliberately, of his “information.”

It is quite believable that people in Hubbard’s organization who may have known very well that his “information” was false could have considered it great fun, or a big win, to get his false information accepted or published, or the truthful information suppressed. These people comprised, after all, by Scientology’s later admission, a cadre of criminals. Their job functions included helping Hubbard by fabricating and disseminating knowingly false information to victimize all sorts of innocent people.

The people in Scientology who knew the truth could have thought it admirably clever of Hubbard to falsely claim he’d been on a secret mission from some intelligence service or agency, because, at first blush anyway, it can’t ever be disproved. If the CIA issued an official statement that someone wasn’t on a secret mission for them, this could serve as certain “proof” the guy was an agent and was on a secret mission. Scientology would later use the secret agent gimmick to attempt to whitewash, or reverse sheepdip, Hubbard’s whole naval history.

The organization and its collaborators tried to reverse sheepdip him into an intelligence officer who was so important to the war effort, and whose missions were so secret and so vital, that the Office of Naval Intelligence fabricated his entire navy record to make it appear ordinary, not too glorious, and dotted with disciplinary actions. In fact, Hubbard had been an “Intelligence Volunteer (Specialist)” for a few months at the start of WW II, then had transferred to “Deck Volunteer (Specialist),” and spent the rest of the war out of naval intelligence. His actual career in the navy was exactly the same as sheepdipped version, ordinary, not too glorious, and dotted with disciplinary actions.

Although Hubbard doesn’t say what he meant by “black magic,” from the rest of his “information,” he made it clear that he was connecting “black magic in America” to the occult practices of John Whiteside Parsons and Aleister Crowley, who Hubbard called “the infamous English black magician.” Hubbard also stated in his “information” that Crowley’s organization “had savage and bestial rites,” and that Hubbard “investigated the black magic rites … and found them very bad.” His claim in his “information” that the Crowley-Parsons “black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered” means something different from his claim that he broke up black magic in America.

Hubbard is recognized, even by Scientologists, as a colossus among “story tellers,” and is recognized by countless Homo sapiens as a gargantuan bullshitter. His writings and recorded lectures evidence a career of false claims, extreme carelessness about facts, and ceaseless disingenuousness.

In the judgment following the Armstrong I trial, Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. stated that the evidence presented to the Court portrayed Hubbard as “virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements.” Evidence that Hubbard had been involved in “black magic,” and specifically in the “black magic group,” which in 1969 he had claimed or implied he broke up, was not rebutted at trial, and has not been rebutted since. Evidence refuting Hubbard’s claims in his “information” was also not rebutted at trial and not rebutted since, although Scientology agents and others have disseminated the same “information,” with some alterations, in lieu of reasoned rebuttal.

In addition to violating and abusing its own members civil rights, the organization over the years with its “Fair Game” doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies.

The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during the trial as a “genius,” a “revered person,” a man who was “viewed by his followers in awe.” Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers. He has, of course, chosen to go into “seclusion,” but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons. The Breckenridge Decision ¹

The judgment was affirmed on appeal ² in 1991.

Hubbard’s claim that he broke up black magic in America, and all the other claims in his “information” are of his history, background, and achievements.

Considerable evidence exists that Hubbard had acted outrageously and even antisocially while involved with the Crowley-Parsons “black magic group,” had caused strife, tension or concern in certain group members, and consequently precipitated considerable correspondence. Hubbard’s dishonest and destructive behavior, or anything else he conjured up, did not, however, break up either the subject, philosophy and practice of black magic, or the “black magic group.”

Jodi M. Lane, MA, and Stephen A. Kent, PhD last year published an article “Malignant Narcissism, L. Ron Hubbard, and Scientology’s Policies of Narcissistic Rage,”³ in which the authors stated:

Apparently [Hubbard’s] pathological narcissistic traits damaged his ability to relate meaningfully to others over long periods of time.

[…]

At least regarding L. Ron Hubbard, however, it is abundantly clear that “the personality of a single individual” is the central variable needed to explain Scientology’s deviant and sometimes criminogenic policies, and that the evidence for Hubbard’s malignant narcissism is overwhelming.

It is true that Hubbard fled, or “blew,” the “black magic group,” and took with him a woman who had been a member. According to credible reports, he did so following his commission of offenses against the group, which would conform with his psychology. Logically, however, his sudden departure with the woman and failure to return to the group does not equal breaking up black magic any more than someone who had left a Scientology group with a Scientologist broke up “New Religion Movements in America.” The woman, it is universally agreed, was Sara Elizabeth Northrup, whom Hubbard would marry, albeit bigamously, in August 1946.

When Alexander Mitchell’s article appeared in the October 5, 1969 Sunday Times, Hubbard was in Morocco or on the “Apollo,” being the Commodore of the Sea Organization. The Guardians Office headquartered in the UK dealt with media at that time, certainly in a situation of this importance with a London newspaper. Hubbard ran the GO, both through his third wife Mary Sue, the “Controller,” and directly as he wished. The GO leaders handling the Sunday Times undoubtedly knew that Hubbard’s “information” contained false statements, and knew that the Mitchell article was largely true. This knowledge would not have deterred the GO leaders dealing with the matter. They would have executed Hubbard order that his “information” be published, in a planned, programmed, drilled and professional manner to the best of their abilities.

Dealing with the matter would have included intelligence, public relations and legal personnel executing Scientology’s deviant and criminogenic policies. Its Fair Game operations against media organizations and individual journalists were flourishing in 1969. What was done to get the Sunday Times to publish Hubbard’s “information” is not yet known. Jon Atack stated in A Piece of Blue Sky⁴:

In 1969, the London Sunday Times exposed Hubbard’s magickal connections. The Scientologists threatened legal action, and the Sunday Times, unsure of its legal position, paid a small out-of-court settlement. Without retracting their earlier article, they printed [Hubbard’s “information”] submitted by the Scientologists

Although Hubbard bragged and lied publicly about his history and achievements in the US Navy, including his history and achievements in navy intelligence, there is no mention of his breaking up black magic in America, or of his being on a “mission,” official or unofficial, US Navy or otherwise, to do anything related to black magic in America, until he wrote his “information” in response to Mitchell’s article in the Sunday Times.

In a set of affirmations, generally known as his “Admissions,” which Hubbard wrote in 1946 shortly after he absconded from the “black magic group” with Sara, he admitted to some of the truth, but made no mention of breaking up black magic, or being on a mission when he was involved with the group. The Admissions were entered into evidence in the Armstrong I trial in 1984. It is doubtful that Hubbard predicted, when he had his “information” sent to the Sunday Times in 1969, that his Admissions might surface some day. Some relevant excerpts:

(c) I can have no doubts of my psychic powers. My magical ability is high and clear. I earned my titles and command.

(d) Any distaste I may have for Jack Parsons originated in a psychic experiment. Such distaste is foolish. He is my friend and comrade-in-arms.

[…]

Sara, my sweetheart, is young, beautiful, desirable. We are very gay companions. I please her physically until she weeps about any separation. I want her always. But I am 13 years older than she. She is heavily sexed. My libido is so low I hardly admire her naked.

[…]

(j) That I never need be jealous of Sara’s past. That she loves me and is utterly faithful. That she thrills me more than Helen ever did.

[…]

(m) That I have only friendship for Jack Parsons.

[…]

(u) That my code is to be all things a “magus” must be, that I am those things. That I burn high and bright and will last as a potent and brilliant force until well after this century has run.

[…]

(x) That my magical work is powerful and effective.

[…]

There is nothing wrong in the sex act. Nothing any woman may say can change your opinion. You are a master. You are as sensitive and sexy as Pan. Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. You cannot now accumulate karma for you are a master adept. Your voice is low and compelling to them. Singing to them, for you sing like a master, destroys their will to resist. You obey the conventions, you commit no crimes because you need not. You can be intelligently aware of their morals and the laws of the land and fit your campaign expertly within them.

Jack is also an adept. You love and respect him as a friend. He cannot take offense at what you do. You will not wrong him because you love him.

[…]

You are a master adept and do not exist to serve people. You are kind. But you are not affected by the desires of others save out of the deep and graceful courtesy which you know so well and use.

[…]

The lot of humanity does not outrage you. Its government is merely amusing. You are a major adept and such considerations are far, far beneath you. You are not cynical or bitter about people. You have no jealousy in you of any kind for fellow craftsmen. You are not in competition with them for your work is infinitely superior and will sell quickly as you desire. Editorial desire does not affect you for you can write whatever they publish with ease, and any length.

[…]

The One Command applied but slightly to the spiritual world and other planes. There is psychic will power, possessed by a very few. You possess such will power and it is enormously strong and irresistible. You work it consciously. Those things you consciously state that you will come to be.

L. Ron Hubbard, ca. 1946.  ⁵

In that rational descriptions of “black magic” include the same intentions, directions and sometimes even steps as Scientology, as documented in this study, Hubbard actually expanded black magic, in America, and elsewhere, and could not have broken it up.

Conclusion:

No, looking at the matter sanely, Hubbard didn’t break up black magic in America, or even in his own mind and heart. Even after the period in which he claimed he’d broken up black magic in America, his code remained to be in all things a “magus.”

Further reading:

Carter, J. (1999). Sex and Rockets The Occult World of Jack Parsons. Venice, California, Feral House.
Biography of Jack Parsons.

Templi Orientis Mysteria Mystica Maxima The ‘Caliphate’The Swiss O.T.O.
A detailed timeline by P.R. Koenig, 2009.

Evidence: