As many as 12,000 Scientologists came from all over the world in May and June 1985 to protest the judgment in what they called the Battle of Portland. Day after day they marched around the Multnomah County courthouse, shouting “Religious freedom now!” and carrying banners reading WE SHALL OVERCOME! Chick Corea flew in from Japan to play a concert, along with other musicians affiliated with the church, including Al Jarreau, Stanley Clarke, and Edgar Winter. Stevie Wonder phoned in and sang “I Just Called to Say I Love You” as the crowd cheered.
The most notable presence in Portland was John Travolta. It was a decisive moment in his relationship with the religion. The church had made enormous efforts to persuade him to attend. Two years before the Portland crusade, Travolta had told Rolling Stone that although he still believed in Scientology, he had not had any auditing for the past year and a half. When asked if he was being exploited by the church to promote its cause, he responded, “I’ve been something of an ostrich about how it’s used me, because I haven’t investigated exactly what the organization’s done. One part of me says that if somebody gets some good out of it, maybe it’s all right. The other part of me says that I hope it uses some taste and discretion. I wish I could defend Scientology better, but I don’t think it even deserves to be defended, in a sense.”
But here he was in Portland, unshaven and exhausted, having flown his own plane in at midnight for a two-hour visit. “Once in a while you have to stand up for what you believe in, and I’m here tonight, I’ve had counseling, I give counseling, and I don’t want to lose that,” he declared. “And it’s as simple as that.”
The Portland march was one of the greatest triumphs in Scientology’s history, capped by the judge’s declaration of a mistrial. He ruled that Christofferson Titchbourne’s lawyers had presented prejudicial arguments to the jury by saying that Hubbard was a sociopath and that Scientology was not a religion but a terrorist organization. Church members who had been in Portland would always feel an ecstatic sense of kinship. (A year and a half later, the church settled with Christofferson Titchbourne for an undisclosed sum.)
FOR YEARS, Hubbard’s declining health was a secret known to few in the upper levels of the church. Only a handful of his closest followers were allowed to see him. He had made no clear arrangements for a successor, nor was there any open talk of it. There was an unstated belief that Operating Thetans did not grow frail or lose their mental faculties. Old age and illness were embarrassing refutations of Scientology’s core beliefs.
Death was a subject that Hubbard rarely addressed, assuring Scientologists that it was of little importance: “If you had an automobile sitting out here on the street and you came out totally expecting to find this automobile there and it’s gone, it’s been stolen and so forth, you’d be upset,” he said in 1957, reflecting on the death of one of his close followers. “Well, that’s just about the frame of mind a thetan is usually in when he finds his body dead.” The thetan has to report to a “between-lives” area, Hubbard later explained, which for most of them is the planet Mars. There the thetan is given a “forgetter implant.” “The implant is very interesting,” Hubbard later wrote. “The preclear is seated before a wheel which contains numbers of pictures. As the wheel turns, these pictures go away from him.… The whole effect is to give him the impression that he has no past life.” The thetan is then sent back to Earth to pick up a baby’s body as soon as it is born. “The baby takes its first gasp, why, a thetan usually picks it up.” Sometimes there is a shortage of new bodies, and occasionally a thetan will follow a pregnant woman around waiting for the moment of delivery so he can pounce. Contrarily, when a body dies, it’s important for the thetan to be freed as quickly as possible—preferably by cremating the corpse and scattering the ashes in water, so that nothing clings together. “It’s very confused, this whole subject of death,” Hubbard observed. “It’s quite funny, as a matter of fact, the amount of this and that that is paid, the amount of flowers and that sort of thing which are shipped around at dead corpses after the thetan has shoved off, and so on. It’s very amusing.” He presented himself as an expert on the subject, claiming he had been pronounced dead but had come back to life on two or three occasions.
Hubbard suffered a severe stroke on January 16, 1986, at the Creston ranch. He realized that he was in his final days. He summoned Ray Mithoff, one of his most senior Messengers, to help him put his affairs in order and administer a “death assist.” He didn’t ask to see any of his family members; indeed, one of his last actions was to sign a will reducing their inheritance, except for a provision for Mary Sue, who received $1 million, which may have been a part of the agreement that had kept her from testifying against him. He had previously disowned his daughter Alexis, an embarrassing reminder of his bigamous marriage to Sara Northrup. Hubbard was in a nightgown, pacing up and down, saying, “Let’s get this over with! My head is hurting!” He signed the will with a shaky hand.
Hubbard also proclaimed Flag Order 3879, “The Sea Org & the Future,” in which he promoted himself to Admiral and retired the rank of Commodore. He instituted a new rank, that of Loyal Officer, after the stalwart members of the Galactic Confederacy who had imprisoned the tyrannical overlord Xenu. Hubbard appointed only two persons to serve at that level, Pat and Annie Broeker. They were an attractive couple, his closest advisers; he was clearly passing them the scepter. “I’ll be scouting the way and doing the first port survey missions,” Hubbard promised his followers. “We will meet again later.”
On Friday evening, January 24, 1986, Hubbard died in the Blue Bird bus that had served as his living quarters for the past three years. Ray Mithoff, Pat Broeker, and Hubbard’s personal physician, Eugene Denk, were at his side, along with a handful of acolytes and employees. His body had suffered the usual insults of old age, along with the consequences of obesity and a lifetime of heavy smoking. Dr. Denk had given him injections of Vistaril, a tranquilizer, usually prescribed for anxiety. Whatever powers Scientology was supposed to bestow were no more evident in the death of its founder than they had been in his life.
Late that night, a handful of senior executives and a couple of private investigators drove to a restaurant in Paso Robles, where they were met by Pat Broeker, who guided them to the Creston ranch. The site was so secret that none of the executives, including Miscavige, had ever actually been there. They arrived around four in the morning. Earle Cooley, a church attorney, took charge of the body. At seven thirty that morning, about twelve hours after Hubbard’s death, the mortuary in San Luis Obispo was notified. Cooley demanded an immediate cremation, but when the owner of the mortuary saw the name on the death certificate, she called the coroner. After learning that Hubbard had signed a new will the day before his death, the coroner ordered an autopsy, but Cooley was able to produce a document signed by Hubbard stating that an autopsy would violate his religious beliefs. The lawyer did permit the coroner to take a blood sample and fingerprints to verify that the corpse was actually Hubbard. Many questions would be asked, since Hubbard hadn’t been seen in public for nearly six years.
There was another problem that had to be dealt with quickly: how to explain Hubbard’s death to Scientologists. Broeker and Miscavige came up with a plan: Hubbard didn’t die, he had intentionally “dropped his body” in order to move on to a higher level of existence.
Miscavige told one of the other executives he didn’t want to see “any grief bullshit.” Sinar Parman, Hubbard’s former chef, arrived that morning, to help with cooking and logistics. He found Annie Broeker sitting on the floor of the cabin, with Miscavige’s wife, Shelly. Annie had obviously been crying. Meanwhile, he noticed Miscavige and Broeker in another room. “They were joking,” he recalled. “They were ecstatic. They’d never been so happy.”
That Sunday, Hubbard’s ashes were scattered in the Pacific.
The next day, more than two thousand Scientologists gathered in the Hollywood Palladium for a special announcement. The news had been kept quiet until then. Misca
vige stepped onto the stage. He was twenty-five years old, wearing his double-breasted Sea Org uniform with a black tie and a gold lanyard over his right shoulder. For most Scientologists, this was their first introduction to the man who would dominate the religion in the decades after the founder’s death. Short and trim, with brown hair and sharp features, Miscavige announced to the assembled Scientologists that for the past six years of exile, Hubbard had been investigating new, higher OT levels. “He has now moved on to the next level,” Miscavige said. “It’s beyond anything any of us has imagined. This level is, in fact, done in an exterior state. Meaning that it is done completely exterior from the body.” Someone in the audience whistled in amazement. “At this level of OT, the body is nothing more than an impediment, an encumbrance to any further gain as an OT.” The audience began to stir as the realization began to sink in. “Thus—,” Miscavige said, then paused and adjusted the microphone. “Thus, at two thousand hours, Friday, the twenty-fourth of January, A.D. 36 [that is, thirty-six years after the publication of Dianetics], L. Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in this lifetime for seventy-four years, ten months, and eleven days.” Miscavige turned to a large photograph of Commodore Hubbard with the waves behind him and began to applaud. “Hip, hip, hooray!” he cried, as the audience echoed him. “Hip, hip, hooray!”
MISSIONAIRES HAD BEEN SENT to Scientology centers all over the world to coordinate the announcement of Hubbard’s death. Afterward, they flew back to Los Angeles and met at the Liberace mansion in West Hollywood, near the church headquarters. Most executives in the church naturally assumed that the leadership had already passed to Pat and Annie Broeker, who were the Loyal Officers, the highest post available. That seemed to be as clear a statement of the line of succession as anyone would ever find. Miscavige was not mentioned in the founder’s final declaration.
Jesse Prince was at the gathering, having just returned from delivering the news to Scientologists in Italy. After his lengthy indoctrination in RPF, Prince had become a trusted member of the Sea Org inner circle. He and Miscavige were friendly. Prince could tell that he was upset when Miscavige confided that something would have to be done about Pat Broeker. During the memorial service at the Hollywood Palladium, Broeker had told the assembled Scientologists that Hubbard had made significant breakthroughs in his research. At that point, the highest level possible on the Bridge to Total Freedom was OT VII (OT VIII would not be introduced for another two years). Broeker surprised everyone by saying that before Hubbard dropped his body, he had completed the OT IX and OT X levels. Broeker even held up a handwritten page that he represented as being from OT X. It was a very long string of numbers, which he said was a date. It was so far back in time he couldn’t denominate it, except to say it was “twelve down and fifteen across,” about 180 numerals altogether. “I wanted to show the significance, the magnitude of what he’s done,” Broeker had said. The audience had tittered in amazement. The little teaser about the OT X materials reinforced Broeker’s standing as the new leader of the church. Only he knew what lay ahead.
Every new religion faces an existential crisis following the death of its charismatic founder. Through his missionary work, Paul the Apostle kept Christianity alive after the crucifixion of Jesus. Brigham Young rescued the Church of Latter Day Saints following the murder of Joseph Smith by leading the Mormon exodus across the Great Plains into Utah. Religious geniuses arise all the time, but the historical test falls upon the successor, whose fate is to be forever overshadowed by the founder. Miscavige knew his own talents and limitations. He didn’t pretend to be a prophet, nor was he skilled in public relations. “People think I’m trying to be the leader,” he confided to his brother-in-law, John Brousseau. “That’s not my job. I’m the whip.” Other possible successors had been purged or had fled the organization, however, leaving only the Broekers as rivals. Neither of them was a match for Miscavige. He angrily told Prince that Pat had made a fool of himself at the Palladium. Prince was surprised. Until that night in the Liberace mansion, he had been convinced that Miscavige had no interest in leading the church; now he realized that Miscavige felt compelled to remove the Broekers in order to keep Scientology from being destroyed. Whatever reservations Miscavige had had about seizing power had fallen away.
Over the past six years, Pat Broeker and David Miscavige had forged a powerful alliance. Broeker had been on one side of the gate, controlling all access to Hubbard; Miscavige had been on the other, acting as the conduit for the church. Broeker deliberately stayed in the shadows, setting up elaborate drops for the messages that had passed to and from Hubbard’s hideaway, sometimes adopting disguises and carrying an Uzi machine gun when he left the ranch. He fancied himself a crafty undercover operative. The consequence of his secrecy, however, was that even Scientology insiders knew little about him.
David Miscavige speaking at the inauguration of the Church of Scientology in Madrid, 2004
Miscavige was also well schooled in intrigue. Although he was still quite a young man, he had been running operations for Hubbard for several years, with brutal efficiency. In order to eliminate Hubbard’s designated successors, however, Miscavige needed a lieutenant with similar qualities of remorselessness and total commitment.
MARK RATHBUN CAME FROM a distinguished but deeply troubled family. His father was a graduate of the US Naval Academy. His artistic mother was the daughter of Haddon Sundblom, the illustrator who created some of the most enduring images in American commercial history—Aunt Jemima, the Quaker Oats man, and the famous Santa Claus drinking a Coca-Cola beside the Christmas tree. The Rathbun family lived in Marin County, a Bohemian enclave just north of San Francisco. When Mark was a young child, his mother had a series of nervous breakdowns. On five or six occasions she received what was the standard treatment of the day, electroshock therapy. In September 1962, when Mark was five, his mother’s body was found floating in San Francisco Bay. Her car was parked on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Mark turned into a restless young man. He went to college to study creative writing but dropped out in order to experience the real world. In 1976 he was living in a camp of migrant workers, hoping to become the next Jack London, when he learned that his brother Bruce had become catatonic and had been committed to a state hospital in Oregon.
Mark hitchhiked to Portland to oversee Bruce’s care. He carried around a backpack full of books on Buddhism and the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Although it is easy to see in hindsight that the nineteen-year-old Mark Rathbun was primed, because of his troubled background and questing philosophy, to become a part of the Church of Scientology, it wasn’t clear to him at the time. His current spiritual mentor, Krishnamurti, preached against the idea of messiahs, but he also stated that every individual has the responsibility for discovering the causes of his own limitations in order to attain universal spiritual and psychological freedom. That resonated with Hubbard’s aim of “clearing the planet.”
Psychotherapy had evolved somewhat from the indignities that had been inflicted on their mother; it had moved into pharmacology. But drugs didn’t seem to offer a solution to Bruce’s problems; in Mark’s opinion, his brother was just being warehoused, held in a chemical straitjacket. Rathbun got a job as a short-order cook at Dave’s Deli, and each day, when he went to the bus stop in downtown Portland on his way to the hospital, he would pass the Scientology mission on Salmon Street. He would banter with the Scientology recruiters and soon got to know them by name. One day, he told a recruiter, “I’ve got ten minutes. Why don’t you give me your best shot?” The Scientologist started pitching the Hubbard communications course, which at the time cost fifty dollars. It immediately appealed to Rathbun. “The problem is, I’ve only got twenty-five bucks to my entire name,” he said. The recruiter let him take the course, and threw in a copy of Dianetics as well.
In that first course, Rathbun went exterior. It was completely real to him. All the Eastern philosophy he had absorbed had been leading to this moment. He finally realized
that he was separate from his body. Hadn’t this been the point of the Buddha’s teachings—to isolate the spirit and end the repetitive cycle of life and death? From that moment on, Rathbun never looked back. He was transformed.
Another recruiter persuaded Rathbun that he would be better able to deal with his brother’s problems if he had more training, which he could afford if he joined the Sea Org. Rathbun signed the billion-year contract in January 1978.5
A few months later, Rathbun was sent to work in LA. One night, he was assigned to escort Diane Colletto, the twenty-five-year-old editor of Scientology’s Auditor magazine, from the publications building to the Scientology complex in Hollywood where they both lived. It was late at night on August 19, 1978. Diane was a petite and mousy intellectual, with thick glasses. A diligent worker, she was often the last to leave the office. On this night, she was frightened.
Diane’s husband, John Colletto, a highly trained auditor, had recently been declared a Suppressive Person. John had gotten into an argument with church officials over a matter of policy. After being declared, he went to visit a Scientology chaplain, who could see that he was having a breakdown. He kept crying and grabbing his head in despair. At that point, he was forcibly detained in the RPF. He spent several weeks there, but managed to escape. Diane was ordered to disconnect from him. She told the chaplain that John had threatened her, saying that if he couldn’t have Scientology, then neither could she.
Rathbun—a big man, a former college basketball player—knew nothing of this as he rode back to the berthing with Diane in her Fiat. She was uncommunicative. She drove north on Rampart Boulevard, where the Pubs Org was located, to Sunset, and then left on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was mid-August, but there was a breeze from the ocean and the night air was unseasonably cool. As soon as Diane turned the corner from North Edgemont Street onto Fountain Avenue, in front of the Scientology complex, a pair of headlights on high beam blinded them, then a car rammed into them, pinning Diane’s vehicle against the curb.
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