L. Ron Hubbard and the second wife he never had: Photos Scientology suppresses

[Karen#1]

TONY ORTEGA
Excerpt:




Our helper who dives through old newspaper archives hit on another gem recently that we’ve told you about before, but we thought it was worth looking at it again for its great photos, which Scientology doesn’t want you to see.

It was Going Clear author Lawrence Wright’s skillful researcher Lauren Wolf who first brought our attention to the 1946 Miami Daily News article which featured Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and his second wife, Sara Elizabeth “Betty” Northrup, as they prepared for a sea voyage on the schooner Blue Water II.

Lauren told us she ran across a mention of the story in Scientology’s own gushing hagiography of Hubbard, “Master Mariner,” and that Scientology’s version had no mention of Betty. Simply based on the dates, Lauren said she knew Betty must have been with him. When she looked up the original article, there she was. Scientology’s whitewashed history had completely erased her.

The story itself is a marvel of tall tales about Hubbard, who clearly knew how to work a newspaper reporter.

There wasn’t a hint, for example, of what was really going on. Ron and Betty weren’t married (yet), but the two of them and Betty’s previous boyfriend, Pasadena rocket scientist Jack Parsons, had come up with a business scheme which would involve buying sailboats in Florida (with money that was almost all Jack’s) and then sailing them to California to sell for a profit. Ron and Betty had gone to Miami and bought a sailboat, but it soon became clear to Parsons that his money had gone to buy his friends a nice life in Florida and they weren’t going anywhere. Jack ended up suing them, there was a settlement, Ron and Betty sold the boat, and by August 1946 they were in Maryland, where Ron convinced Betty to marry him. (Bigamously, it turned out. He had not yet divorced his first wife.)

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L. Ron Hubbard and the second wife he never had: Photos Scientology suppresses

Our helper who dives through old newspaper archives hit on another gem recently that we’ve told you about before, but we thought it was worth looking at it again for its great photos, which Scientology doesn’t want you to see.

tonyortega.substack.com

 

[I M Dex]

I wonder if Hubbard's denial of that marriage was about hiding that he remarried before being divorced, which frankly isn't that big a deal to me, as long as they had separated before this happened, or if it was about hiding the wacky Crowley-based shenanigans he engaged in with her, which paints a very different picture of Hubbard's background, and where much of "his" Scientology shtick derived from.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Hubbard probably met Betty and her sister in pasadena in 1945. Alexis, his daughter was born in Pleasentville, NJ, March 8th 1950. The relationship was not that brief.

The antics of the early Thelemic and Theosophy groups were inspired by the passion for free will and the attitude of do what thou wilt. I remember Pat Krenik commenting on the early Dianeticists back in her day, and they'd the same promiscuity. A couple of founding group members from 1950s Phoenix, became very at home in our 70s mission of hippie girls. These often tried to impress us that they'd some secret occult / magical knowledge. This aspect of the tech lore was stylized by whomever was posturing after our Sunday services. One got the impression that these cats lived thru glory days we'd never be seeing. Funny to later watch them have to wear the minister's collar after espousing Crowley.