The delightful result when Scientology was infiltrated by a reporter — in Hawaii
We have been stunned to see the devastation on Maui from wildfires, and we assume you probably have been as well. If you are interested in sending aid, the New York Times put together a handy guide to where to send your donations so that it has the most impact as the people there try to recover.
We suspect that Scientology will try to capitalize on the disaster in Lahaina by sending its “Volunteer Ministers.” And we have posted fliers from Scientology in the past indicating that they are pushing wealthy members to donate money for an “Ideal Org” in Honolulu.
But it turned out there was another reason to put Hawaii and Scientology together for a story here at the Underground Bunker, thanks to our special researcher who digs through old newspaper archives. Once again, he’s found a gem.
On January 4, 1963, the FDA raided Scientology in Washington DC and seized hundreds of E-meters and many more documents.
It turned out that the federal government had been investigating Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard since at least 1958 for making health claims about his “technology” and the E-meter in particular. The FDA had even sent in an undercover investigator to join the organization and find out what it was doing.
The raid produced major headlines around the country, which resulted in people wondering what Scientology was up to in their area.
One newspaper which grew curious after the FDA raid was the Honolulu Advertiser, which decided to send in its own undercover operative.
On December 3, 1963, the newspaper published a story about its infiltration by reporter Bob Jones.
We find it as charming and startling today as it must have been then.
Curious Writer Probes Mystery of Scientology
By Bob Jones
In a $150-a-month room at 1481 S. King St., 12 people sat in straight-backed chairs and faced a blackboard. Except for the chairs, two filing cabinets and two card tables, the room was bare.
On one table was a small machine labeled the “Hubbard Electrometer.” Over it was a chart called the “Tone Scale.” The scale showed electrometer readings from minus 8 (“hiding”) to plus 40 (“serenity of beingness”).
The 12 people were there for a “classroom” meeting on the fourth floor of the Professional Center.
It was a session of “scientology” — a controversial cult which claims about 500 practitioners in Honolulu and 100,000 on the Mainland and in Australia.
I was in the session in the role of a student paying his $7.50 for a therapy meeting.
The class leader was James L. Watson, a 31-year-old former elevator-installation man from Salt Lake City.
Watson, of 140 Dowsett Ave., Nuuanu, and his wife, Diana, conduct a scientology group here, charging $7.50 for group sessions and $25 for private audiences. Classes meet each Monday and Thursday for about 16 weeks.
An extroverted and personable man, Watson calls himself a “Hubbard certified auditor,” one of scientology’s therapists.
He began his class by pointing to the electrometer, which, he said, pinpoints emotional stress by showing body resistance to electricity as a student holds two electrodes.
Then he wrote on the blackboard.
“Everyone,” he said, “fits in somewhere on a Charge Scale. It has eight increments.”
He listed them as:
(1) No track, (2) Full control of track, (3) Spotty track, (4) Invisable (his spelling), (5) Dub in, (6) Dub of dub in, (7) Awareness of own evaluation, (8) Unconsiousness of Thetan (his spelling).
A “no track” student, Watson said, “dismisses all ‘charges’ from his past life. They forget the time they got their fingers smashed or their heads chopped off.”
He said students who have “full control of their tracks can run up and down their time tracks. They can remember when you ask them, ‘What was you doing in 1808?'”
The students took notes, looked like they understood what Watson was talking about.
An “invisable” student “can’t remember living on the American prairies, say, in the 1800s,” Watson said.
In the case of a “no track” student, he continued, “he can remember the last 50 bodies he had.”
Watson and his scientologists say that everyone has had prior lives, both on Earth and on other planets. Remembering those lives, he says, is one of the keys to mental health.
“If you remind John Doe of a prior life,” he lectured the class, “and his attention falls on the time he had his head chopped off and it fell in a basket, 24 hours later he gets an ache in his gut.”
Then Watson cautioned the class: “Of course, you don’t go out and talk to people about this prior life stuff. They aren’t ready for it. You’ll get a very hostile reaction. If you remind John Doe about the time his head was chopped off, he’ll think you’re pretty nasty.”
Then Watson switched to two new subjects: “Reality” and “solids.”
Most important in “reality” to the scientologist is the “communication line,” he told the class.
The students still took notes.
“Sex is a solid communication line. This is where things really get real, you know. Oui, oui and all that stuff.”
A student, a middle-aged woman from a well known Honolulu family, raised her hand.
“What is the definition of a ‘solid’?” she asked.
“Well,” Watson answered, “like sexual intercourse. When two bodies come together.” He drew two parallel lines on the blackboard. “That’s about as solid as you can get.”
Then Watson broke up his class into two segments. One was students, the other coaches. I was a student.
My coach identified himself. His job was to sit in front of me and make faces, wiggle his ears and laugh. If I laughed with him, I wasn’t in full control, in scientology terms.
Across the room from me, an elderly matron was being coached by Mrs. Watson.
“Who have you been sleeping with?” Mrs. Watson was asking her. “Who have you been…around with? Where have you…?”
This is part of scientology’s “therapy,” the Watsons say, which will help people better confront life.
Next to me, an attractive dress-shop operator was being coached by a young man.
“I’ll bite you…,” he was intoning. “I’ll bite you…” If the girl flinched or snickered, she wasn’t in control.
There was laughter, crying, shouting in the room.
According to Watson, it’s all part of scientology therapy and the students will feel better adjusted when the session is over.
The sessions meet twice a week. The posted rules say no drinking for 18 hours before class, and no drugs.
The class broke up at 10:30 p.m. It broke up with the students sitting in a semicircle and shouting “hello! hello! thank you!” to each other.
Then everyone left with this admonition from Watson:
“When you are coaching a student, stick to questions about the present. After all, you don’t know how long he’s been on this planet.”
Sidebar: Watson Terms Story Accurate
James L. Watson, who conducts a scientology group here, was given an opportunity to read and comment on this article. He said:
“This is an accurate report, but since Bob Jones attended a class which came one-third of the way through the current course, the article does not reflect the full scope of scientology. I feel it would have been better had h started at the outset of the course and continued with it for the 14- to 16-week schedule.”
Watson said he came to Honolulu about three years ago and since has reached about 300 persons with his lectures and classes.
“I do not claim to be a psychologist,” he said.
The Personal Relations Center, with which Watson has been associated, was listed under “Psychologists” and also under “Scientologists” in the Yellow Pages of the 1963 Honolulu telephone directory.
Watson said he did not have a State gross income-tax license at the time reporter Jones attended the class. State tax records show that the tax license for the Personal Relations Center, including Watson, was canceled in July, 1962, and since has been listed as delinquent because no income report ever was filed.
Asked about this by The Advertiser, Watson yesterday paid $3 at the Tax Office and was issued license No. 38526 to conduct “communication classes.”
We were unable to find what happened later with Scientology evangelizer James L. Watson. However, the reporter of this story, Bob Jones, was another matter.
An Air Force veteran, Jones had been a police reporter in St. Petersburg, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky before he arrived at the Honolulu Advertiser in 1963.
He really made a name for himself reporting in Vietnam for NBC the next year, and then returned to Hawaii to become a well-known news anchor for the NBC affiliate there until his retirement in 1994.
Sadly, he passed away two years ago at the age of 85, but until just a few months before his death he had been writing a fiery blog, “The Bob Jones Report: Red-Hot Opinion Erupting From Diamond Head.” (He didn’t have much patience for the resistance to mask-wearing and vaccines as the pandemic wore on. We hear you, Bob.)
Bob Jones was noted as an old-fashioned news reporter who was very popular in Hawaii, and we’re glad to remember his excellent exposure of Scientology’s nonsense, way back in 1963.
Chris Shelton is going Straight Up and Vertical
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Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
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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Selling $cientology is a very difficult thing to do. Watson could have made more money by selling used cars or time shares. Except I don't think time shares were a thing in '62. The Clampire has tried to put up an Ideal mOrg in Hawaii for some time, but I see no progress. I expect the VMs to show up on Maui and take a few selfies and then disappear.
Give Jones some loving, being a reporter dogging $cientology in '62 was not something most reporters would have done.
Well we can give credit to the fact this this reporter is accurate as to what comes up in a Scientology church and the training and conversations that happen. It was the same all the way up to when I left in 2004.
Hubbard says not to talk to reporters because they are biased and already have their mind made up. Besides using the word “cult” in the article, it looks like a fair (and accurate) report.