From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 18 - August 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Reminiscences of Ron -1(1)
Ron comes to England
By Dennis H. Stephens, Australia
Like many staff members, I used to call Ron 'the old man' -
affectionately. It was only in later years that I started to
call him Ron Hubbard.
My personal contact with Ron Hubbard, the most intimate period, was
from September 1952 to either 1955 or early 1956. Then I went to
Australia,
and there was no personal contact with Ron until 1962, when I was
on the Saint Hill Briefing course. Yet a comm line had continued on
and off over the years when I was in Sydney, and I could always write
to him and get a reply. But there was no personal or written comm
with Ron after 1965.
My first contact with Dianetics had been through Astounding Science
Fiction. In 1950, I had a subscription to the magazine, and as
soon as the article Evolution of a Science appeared, in the
May issue, I wrote off for the book Dianetics: the Modern Science
of Mental Health. It was air-freighted over, and I started using
it, co-auditing from September 1950. My co-auditor and I were the
second co-auditing team to start up in Britain.
Later, I joined George Wichelow's North-West London Dianetics group,
and was its secretary and a group auditor until September 1952.
Until then, the only trained Dianeticist or Scientologist that we
had seen from America was Jack Horner, who was an HDA (Hubbard
Dianetics
Auditor) and a B.Scn (Bachelor of Scientology). In 1951, he gave a
congress in England, which I attended. A few other individuals came
from the States and spoke to us, but their use of the subject had
been no more than ours: they were book auditors and so on.
I had been getting very excellent results from Dianetics as a
preclear,
was mightily impressed by the subject, but did not know that I was
a very easy-running pc. Any auditor would have given his back teeth
for a pc like me. Only after years of auditing tough cases did I
realise
that the vast majority of humanity was much more difficult than I
to audit.
Big news
In August 1952, George Wichelow received big news from America: Ron
Hubbard was coming to London. In September or late August, Ron
actually
appeared at the Wichelow Dianetics group.
On Sundays, we normally had a group meeting, and about 15 to 20 people
would turn up, regulars and visitors. Well, that night we had about
60 people packed in at George Wichelow's place. The word that Ron
was in London and that he was going to devote the whole evening to
being with the Wichelow Dianetics group was enough! George had been
burning the telephone lines, and he got all and sundry there, everyone
who could conceivably make it was there.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and in strode this very, very
large person.
He filled the room immediately, that was the impression. It was his
presence. Everything stopped, he was immediately the center of
attention.
So that was my first impression of the man, his startling physical
impression. One definitely knew there was somebody there.
He was the sort of person that, if he was in the room behind you,
you would know it, and turn around and not be surprised to find him
there. That happened on many occasions with Ron in those early days.
I would be talking to someone in the room - the door would be
open - and suddenly I would be aware that Ron was in the room.
I would turn around and there he would be, standing patiently, waiting
for me to finish my conversation. I knew he was behind me: I could
sense his presence.
Mock-up
But it was only when I got to know him that I realised this was a
part of the mock-up that he put up - his size. Actually, he was
not nearly as big physically as you thought he was, but was a shade
under 6 feet, weighing about 180 pounds. He got a lot heavier in his
later years.
That group meeting at George Wichelow's was a milestone in my life,
which was never the same again. Ron spoke about Scientology for about
three-quarters of an hour. He answered some questions, and said he
was going to give a demonstration and wanted a volunteer.
If somebody wanted to give a demonstration, I was always the group's
guinea pig, because I had a virtually indestructible case, and
everybody
knew it. Some of them could be damaged in a group demonstration, but
they could leave me in an engram and I would find my way out of it
and no harm would come from it.
This time, I thought I would give some of the others a go at the
demonstration,
but, as I looked around, no hands were going up. Ron had announced
that he would give an auditing demonstration of exteriorization, and
maybe that had put everybody off, they were a bit scared of it. Not
even George Wichelow put up his hand, and George was not shy of coming
forward when he was interested in something.
Life changed
I thought it might never happen again, so my hand shot up and Ron
Hubbard smiled at me and called me over to the stand, and my life
changed. He ran a technique of giving commands to my foot and
receiving
commands back and turning a few energy masses white and so on. Next
thing, I told him that I was exteriorized, and he said 'Very good'
and moved me around the room. I was struck with the tremendous
perception
and the weird sensation of sitting above 60 people. I could see them
all clearly below me: I was up near the ceiling, where Ron had moved
me, and I could see Ron there and my body, and see the whole thing
much, much clearer than I would through my eyes.
Everybody was watching the demonstration and I was up on the ceiling.
It was an incredible experience. And he moved me around and moved
me out on the road and I found I could move through the wall. I could
see through the wall; all sorts of things I could do. Ron moved me
around and got me comfortable, and said 'Do you want to come back
into your body or stay outside?' And I said 'No, thank you
very much, I am quite happy out here'. So he said 'Right,'
and got me to open my eyes again, and that ended the demonstration.
By that time, it was 10 o'clock, and people had buses to catch. I
caught my bus, then walked a mile and a half to my house along
deserted
roads, with the extraordinary feeling of walking along, being exterior
from my body, the body in front of me, and a weird sensation of the
body shadowing street lights. It startled me for a moment, then I
realised what was going on, and moved further back behind my body.
The exteriorization was almost complete. It was almost the sort of
exteriorization you would get between lives, as I later discovered.
And I just walked one and a half miles down that road sitting ten
or fifteen feet behind my body, just moving down the road with my
body, looking at the houses as my body was walking along the road.
A most incredible experience.
Then I got into my house and went to bed, went up into the loft, nosed
around on the roof, and ended up about midnight sitting out on the
lamp post in the road, watching the moths flying around the lamp post.
I went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I had moved into my
body again. But I then knew that Scientology was absolutely right,
and I knew that when Ron spoke of exteriorization, talked about a
thetan, that he was right. I had so much tremendous personal certainty
on it, there was not a shred of doubt in my mind.
Theta Clear
I was a Theta Clear. This enormous exteriorization ability lessened
slowly, but stayed with me for months. It had an interesting
validation.
At the time, I was courting my future wife, Anne Walker, and she was
down in Battersea but I had a flat in London. We were very much in
love, and I used to go and visit her as a thetan late at night, and
she always knew I was there. I would go in, look around the room,
and she would be laying on the bed, reading. I would go and touch
her forehead; she would look up. The following day I would see her
or talk to her on the phone, and she would say 'You were over
last night,' and I would say, 'Yes, I came over to visit you'.
She could not do it, had not got the ability, but she always knew
when I was there, and could sense my presence very strongly. So there
was another person who could validate the exteriorization, my presence
could actually be felt by another person in the present time universe,
so it was not all in my mind.
Ron Hubbard audited me more than once, always in demonstration
sessions,
but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he was the best auditor
that ever audited me. He was the smoothest, he was the greatest, and
I have been audited by some very fine auditors including the late
Jack Horner, who I rate only slightly below Ron Hubbard.
Ron was the only auditor I ever met or knew of that never really
needed
an E-Meter. When you were in session with Ron something would happen,
some mental scene would occur, and he would come in and say: 'What
is happening?' Ron would know it, would spot it straight away.
He would use a meter, but did not really need one. Ron knew the
slightest
change in the session, he was on to it. That is the mark of the truly
great auditor, and he had that ability, could determine the slightest
change in the pc by direct perception.
That gave an enormous feeling of confidence. He was right there with
you. You felt there was somebody holding your hand. I got that feeling
whenever Ron audited me; never with any other auditor. Slightly with
Jack Horner, but only very faintly, whereas with Ron it was very
strong.
I have never experienced it with other auditors at all. So Ron stood
head and shoulders over other auditors.
With a man like that, who discovered and formulated the subject -
and when he tries it on you, it works exactly as he said and you get
validation that it is not imagination but actually real - you
are inclined to grant certain god-like qualities, especially when
you realise his personality, this enormous presence that I have
already
mentioned.
Beingness
On easy running pcs, Ron could make the subject work exactly the
way he said that it worked. The effect on me was to grant him enormous
beingness. It was inevitable that it would happen and it did happen,
I was awe-struck by the old man. I wondered what sort of a person
he was, whether he was a god, a demi-god or what?
Ron had said at the group meeting that he was going to run a
professional
course - well, that was where I wanted to be. I knew that what
he talked about was the goods, and the one thing I wanted to be was
a professional Scientologist. For this was the future, this was the
way it was.
(1)New Series of articles by old timers who worked closely with Ron in
the exciting early days of Scientology. Not a regular series but
articles
will appear as we get people to write them.