The bizarre Scientology ideas about death being dredged up in a heartbreaking lawsuit

[Broeker at the Hollywood Palladium]

On Thursday, we asked Claire Headley and Mike Rinder about Scientology’s public response to the Whitney Mills wrongful death lawsuit, where the church angrily denied the lawsuit’s allegation that the 40-year-old woman had been told by other Scientologists to “drop the body” as a response to her severe mental health problems, and that she had been told there was a specific Scientology “assist” to help her do this.

Scientologists believe that we are immortal “thetans” that have lived trillions of years, and that we are only temporarily living in our current bodies. So, dropping a body, ending this lifetime, would be a way to get on to the next lifetime.

Here again is what Scientology said about that concept in their response (emphasis theirs):

1. There is no such thing in Scientology as an “assist to drop the body,” by this or by any other name. No such belief or practice exists. It is a pure FABRICATION. There is NOTHING in Scientology that even arguably means such a thing.

But both Headley and Rinder disputed this, saying that Scientologists all know about the concept, at least, of dropping the body. Claire told us that she believed it was spelled out in “advices” by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. And we heard from a number of readers who say they remember seeing an “assist” spelled out during their time in the church.

As Mike pointed out, a lot of strange instructions by Hubbard are likely to come out in this case regarding medical practices, mental health care prohibitions, and end of life instructions, and current church leader David Miscavige will probably do everything he can to prevent a trial where that information is discussed openly.

In the meantime, we wanted to remind you about a couple of things we’ve posted here in the past about Scientology and the ending of lifetimes.

First, we’ll go back to 1986, to a public announcement that the lawsuit itself refers to: What Pat Broeker said at the Hubbard death event.

L. Ron Hubbard died at 74 years old on Friday, January 24, 1986 of a stroke while he was still in hiding at the Whispering Winds ranch near Creston, California. Three days later, on Monday, January 27, 1986, Scientologists in Los Angeles were asked to come to the Hollywood Palladium for an announcement.

It was there they learned from David Miscavige — a figure who most of them had never heard about, let alone seen before — that Hubbard had decided to drop his body and go on to do higher-level research elsewhere. He was followed by several other church figures, as well as Hubbard’s attorney Earle Cooley.

On the 37th anniversary of the event in 2023, we published the entire transcript of the event for the first time.

Here is how Miscavige introduced Broeker, who was third to take the stage that night: “When LRH left in 1980 to do his researches he took with him his two most trusted friends and companions. These two people were Pat Broeker and Annie Broeker. They lived and worked with him for the last six years during the time period of this research. And this evening Pat Broeker is here to speak to you in regards to that. Please welcome him.”

Like Miscavige, Broeker was decked out in his Sea Org naval garb. He began by repeating what the audience had already heard from Miscavige and Cooley, that it was definitely Hubbard’s own decision to leave his body — and not that he was just an older, ill man who had died of a stroke (which was kept quiet).

Pat Broeker followed that with more information about what that research entailed, including the claim that Hubbard had gone so far back in his “Whole Track” of existence that to express that in years, it would take a number with 347 digits, and Broeker held up a page to show them how large that number was.

Then Broeker went into what the audience really wanted to hear, where the current progress was on the “Operating Thetan” levels, the OT levels that experienced Scientologists pay huge amounts to attain. He assured them that OT 8 was almost ready to go, and after they had it ready to be experienced at sea, it would be released.

Here’s what he said next…

OT 9 and OT 10 are also written up. Finished. There are several other OT levels that it is my job to compile. It consists of taking what he has written and putting it essentially in paragraph form, adding the appropriate HCOB references that entail the, that go along with the auditing necessary to do this particular level, and they’ll be released in due course.

We have materials that are in this form. In his, in his, in a thick sheaf of notes per folder of OT 11, OT 12, OT 13 and so forth. And then about, oh a stack this high to be sorted out for subsequent OTs, OT levels.

We also by the way have the OT level that is going to be done immediately after every thetan discards his or her body. He wrote that up before he went.

Now this, don’t take that as an invitation. Because you don’t get it till you’re through with the OT level before it. But know that when it’s time the tech is there so you’re not left with what do I do now or even having to figure it out for yourself. It’s there.

We’re, that will be written up right away because we have that word for word, and it’ll be archived and made safe, and it will be eventually available at Flag and other AOs and people will be allowed to come into AOLA, before they discard it, read the materials, check out on them, be word cleared, demo, so you know it. Now you know it. Now you’re ready for when it happens.

He finished his job. There’s, there’s not, there’s not much else much else to say except that what he came to do he did. Now, now that he’s out there, now he embarks on his further OT research at a completely new level. That’s exactly what he’s doing now.

As the Whitney Mills lawsuit points out, Broeker here refers specifically to instructions for Scientologists “after every thetan discards his or her body.” And we’ve always thought it was curious that he immediately cautions the crowd not to “take that as an invitation.” Did he think he was about to have a Jonestown situation on his hands right there at the Palladium?

Anyway, the lawsuit points to this language about dropping the body in the death announcement as evidence that the church has such instructions.

But we can also go back further, to a rather infamous lecture that L. Ron Hubbard himself gave on April 7, 1972.

In it, the church founder explained that if a Scientologist is in time, he or she could convince a thetan abandoning a dying body to come back.

It is, in other words, an ability to raise the dead.

In the lecture, Hubbard said that when a person dies, as a thetan they leave the physical body in a hurry or “do a bunk.” But if an auditor is persuasive enough, he or she can talk that thetan into returning to the body, even if they’re already speeding past Arcturus by that point.

Here are Hubbard’s actual words from the lecture…

The funniest tale of all of that is — we’ve never had a catastrophe with it — but the funniest tale of all of that is the auditor who all of a sudden had a PC — the English slang term was “do a bunk,” which meant run away or desert — and they started calling this “do a bunk.” This auditor had a PC and the PC did a bunk. Well, when they really do a bunk, boy, they do a bunk.

They’re going past Arcturus, as I’ve said before, at 90 miles an hour, or two light years a second, and really did a bunk. When they do that the whole body collapses and their arms will hang down and they look like an old rag doll that somebody has just grabbed half the stuffings out of.

They really go ruhhhhlllll, that’s it. They don’t roll up on the floor in a prenatal or something like that. They just go. That’s it, you know, boom.

And this auditor talked and talked because they’re still in dim communication, you see. And he talked and talked to her: ”Think of your husband, think of your children, think of…” and so on and he talked and talked to her. He couldn’t get her to come back and pick up the body at all. Until all of a sudden he happened to think, “Think of your poor auditor,” and she came back and picked up the body.

I was just a couple of minutes late. State cops were in my way, but a Negro had been drowned. They were in my road to a point where I couldn’t get to the guy and tell him to pick up the body again, or he would have, don’t you see. And they were busy resuscitating him and that was the end of that. It was too late. He really had done a bunk. He finished.

We’ve actually brought little kids back to life and that sort of thing — just tell them “pick up the body,” you know. Now, you just tell them with Tone 40, just say it around the vicinity, they’re still around. And back they come again.

As a matter of fact, Washington, DC got very mad at a Scientologist one time. He decided he was going to do a bunk and he was going to drop the body and he did. He just had an unpleasant afternoon with IRS, and he came back and he just kicked the bucket. That was it, colder than ice and he just wouldn’t pick up the body again. And they told him and they told him and they told him and he wouldn’t. That was it. He, by the way, has shown up again calling for his favorite cigars at two years old.

But anyhow, the upshot of all of this is, is this opens the door to a fabulous amount of action on your part which will sometimes look very magical, because remedy of havingness in various ways.

Now the only thing that gets wrong with the thing is, what can the guy have? And, you will find that I have just given a demonstration here to the Flag medical officers which is HCOB 7 April 1972 Touch Assist, Correct Ones, which I call your attention to. Now, what’s that all about?

Yes, well this is all about equalizing, and it says at the beginning that this is how you tell a medical doctor about it. On assist, when you’re speaking with medicos, you talk to them in terms of restoring calm in blood and nerve channels. Notice that is in there because that isn’t what you’re doing.

You’re giving him back the havingness of his body.

Please note that last part, where Hubbard explains that it’s important not to tell the doctors what you’re actually doing. They aren’t ready for it. Just say that you’re “restoring calm,” not bringing the dead back to life.

Scientology will dispute it, but here is evidence of Hubbard himself discussing openly the idea of a Scientologist “dropping the body” and then speeding past Arcturus on the way to a new lifetime. As nutty as that sounds, it was something that all Scientologists understood: That they are thetans temporarily in their current bodies, and that they would eventually jump into another body during their trillions of years of existence.

The lawsuit lays out heartbreaking evidence of how this was used to encourage a distraught woman to end her life rather than simply get competent mental health care.

No wonder this lawsuit appears to scare the hell out of the church.

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

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