The first in a series investigating the intelligence connections to the Church of Scientology since its founding, including drug trafficking operations, founder L. Ron Hubbard’s work adjacent to the CIA’s MK-ULTRA, and their unprecedented infiltration of the US government.
The majority of current discourse on Scientology centers around insider revelations regarding the radical belief system coded within the pay-to-play hierarchy of the Church –– e.g. allusions to an alien god named Xenu, hydrogen bombs exploding in ancient volcanoes, auditing sessions with e-Meters, and parasitic past-lives in spirit-form covering human bodies known as Thetans. The deepest secrets of Scientology are only made available to members who have diligently climbed the ranks and dished out vast sums of money. Slowly but surely, these secrets have been published on the internet by disgruntled ex-Scientologists, and thus the discussions surrounding this controversial religion have been commandeered into sensational silos. Whether intentional or not, the end result is that the immense ties of the Church to intelligence and drug trafficking –– not to mention the intersection of both as it relates to the CIA’s MK-ULTRA mind control program –– remain largely ignored.
Scientology’s methods and their extremely pervasive effects on the minds of its own cult members only truly begin to make sense when understood within the context of the non-redacted history of founder L. Ron Hubbard, including the Church’s primordial Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation connections to the intelligence community, and Hubbard’s own intelligence career. His role in under-discussed operations, on the behalf of US Naval and other intelligence agencies, include Hubbard’s work at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. in the 1930s –– the hot-bed of psychiatric research during Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke, the precursors to the infamous MK-ULTRA program –– in addition to his infiltration of Jack Parsons’ occult-influenced rocket program, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose work became the scientific foundation for NASA.