Sara consults psychiatrist
"In 1951, Hubbard's wife Sara went to a psychiatrist to obtain advice about his increasingly violent and irrational behavior and was told that he probably needed to be institutionalized and that she was in serious danger. She gave Hubbard an ultimatum: get treatment or she would leave with the baby. He was furious and threatened to kill their daughter Alexis rather than let Northrup care for her. Sara later recalled: "He didn't want her to be brought up by me because I was in league with the doctors. He thought I had thrown in with the psychiatrists, with the devils."[63]"
"In a letter to the Attorney General dated May 1951, Hubbard claims that on "Feb. 25 she [Sara] flew to San Francisco and my general managers Jack Maloney in New Jersey received a phone call from her and Miles Hollister and a psychiatrist named Meyer Zelig in San Francisco that I had gone insane and that they needed money to incarcerate me quickly."[64]
Two decades later, in 1972, Hubbard would write to followers:
The NY Times Literary Section began an attack and a lot of violent track ran by which included DR. MEYER-ZELIG, a psychiatrist in San Francisco master-minding a kidnapping of me to fly me to St. Louis and be put away. His (Zelig’s) plans miscarried. MILES HOLLISTER, formerly a psych student, got hold of SARA NORTHRUP (really Komknoidominoff) (or ov) and handed her over to Zelig who put her in deep hypnosis, fixated her on the idea I was trying to kill her, and spun her in, in which state she has remained since. This caused the final destruction of the HDRF [Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation] as the national press only played up her divorce.[65]"
Public allegation of Hubbard having 'paranoid schizophrenia'[edit]
After her release, Sara filed for divorce, charging Hubbard with causing her "extreme cruelty, great mental anguish and physical suffering". Her allegations produced more lurid headlines: not only was Hubbard accused of bigamy and kidnapping, but she had been subjected to "systematic torture, including loss of sleep, beatings, and strangulations and scientific experiments". Because of his "crazy misconduct", she was in "hourly fear of both the life of herself and of her infant daughter, who she has not seen for two months".[6]
On April 23, 1951, it was publicly reported that Sara had consulted doctors who "concluded that said Hubbard was hopelessly insane, and, crazy, and that there was no hope for said Hubbard, or any reason for her to endure further; that competent medical advisers recommended that said Hubbard be committed to a private sanatorium for psychiatric observation and treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia."[6] The San Francisco Chronicle coverage used the headline "Ron Hubbard Insane, Says His Wife". [68]
Request for psychiatric treatment
After his discharge, Hubbard sought out psychiatric help to treat his "long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations" but reported that he could not afford it. A letter dated October 15, 1947 which Hubbard wrote to the Veterans Administration (VA) begins: "This is a request for treatment". The letter continues:
After trying and failing for two years to regain my equilibrium in civil life, I am utterly unable to approach anything like my own competence. My last physician informed me that it might be very helpful if I were to be examined and perhaps treated psychiatrically or even by a psychoanalyst. Toward the end of my service, I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all. ... I cannot, myself, afford such treatment.
Would you please help me?[37]
The following year, Hubbard and his wife moved to Savannah, Georgia where he was associated with a charity psychiatric clinic.
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Scientology and psychiatry - Wikipedia
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"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." -California Superior Court Judge Breckenridge, speaking of L. Ron Hubbard, in a 1984 decision.
“[The court record is] replete with evidence [that Scientology] is nothing in reality but a vast enterprise to extract the maximum amount of money from its adepts by pseudo-scientific theories… and to exercise a kind of blackmail against persons who do not wish to continue with their sect…. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder, L.Ron Hubbard.” —Judge Breckenridge, Los Angeles Superior Court