In this post I review the writing of Robert Vaughn Young, former high-ranking Scientologist who has had rather extensive access to insider information on executives of the Cult of Scientology. [Note to reader: Please be sure to read the important addendum following the main article]

L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986. Or, as the Cult of Scientology would have you believe, he voluntarily discarded his body and is now living on another planet a galaxy away continuing his “research”. The cult has to lie about the nature of the end of LRH’s corporeal life because one of the claims the cult makes is that Scientology training at its highest levels (Operating Thetan level 8, or OT8) equips Operating Thetans (OTs) with superpowers such as the ability to choose not to die. If LRH, the highest OT of them all, cannot play God with his own life, who can?

In a post-mortem blood test, traces of the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril were found. Pardon? A psychiatric medication found in the blood stream of a man who had spent half of his life trying to dismantle the field of psychiatry? [Additional note added after initial posting: Vistaril has other applications in addition to serving as an anxiolytic and tranquilizer; LRH may well have been using the medication for one the other purposes]

This was not the only oddity surrounding LRH’s death. Autopsy was prevented on religious grounds. The personal physician of LRH, Dr. Gene Denk, disappeared for a year immediately following the death. There is also confusion as to LRH’s intentions for the new leadership of the cult following his passing. In LRH’s final writing saying his goodbyes and appointing the new head of the Sea Org (which ran Scientology), Pat Broeker was identified as the new man at the top of the heap. David Miscavige, the person who actually came to lead Scientology and still does, came out and claimed that the LRH final writing was a forgery of Broeker. Miscavige came to take power, and according to Robert Vaughn Young, proceded to basically eliminate all those who he viewed as potential threats to his coup (e.g., the wife of Broeker, Annie, and friends of Broeker). Pat Broeker himself had vanished. Annie, though some unknown set of events, had become a broken person and was detained in the cult’s Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), where other potential threats were also said by Young to be held (Young was there, himself, though I’m not clear as to why). Ex-members of Scientology have described the RPF, which is said to be intended for the ”rehabilitation” of Scientologists who have not lived up to the cult’s expectations, as a labour camp comparable to the gulag system of the Soviet Union where overworking and mistreatment has been reported, and where RPFers  are sometimes held for years. Young claims that those who distrusted the Miscavige with respect to his claims of forgery either disappeared or kept quiet about their doubts out of fear of being sent to the RPF.

Young does not believe that Broeker had forged anything. According to Young, for LRH to have not left a final communication would have been very highly uncharacteristic of him. Yet, all that was present was the document alleged to be a forgery. Young claims that no one was willing to demand from Miscavige the “real” final communications, out of fear of being sent to the RPF.

Finally, Young writes that LRH signed a new last will shortly before his death while on Vistaril, which he claims that even the coroner was suspicious of.

All of these oddities led Young to believe that LRH may well have been murdered, rather than having died of a stroke, as was/is believed (by those who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool Scientologists, that is). His investigations focused primarily on Miscavige.

But, was L. Ron Hubbard murdered? This is still a mystery, as far as I know. In fact, for all that I know, most who are in the know (including critics), think that he simply died, and all of this is just naive conspiracy theorism. Perhaps the increasing Internet discussion of this topic will shed some light.

For more on Scientology, click here.

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Addendum:

As was pointed out to me by commenter ThetaguyARC, Vistaril has additional applications aside from its uses as an anxiolytic and tranquilizer. Thus, there are a number of potential reasons for which LRH was administered the application.

From Wikipedia:

It is used primarily as an antihistamine for the treatment of itches and irritations, an antiemetic for the reduction of nausea, as a weak analgesic by itself and as an opioid potentiator, and as an anxiolytic for the treatment of anxiety.

Thanks to ThetaguyARC, and apologies for the inadvertently incomplete story.