Vistaril

What happens when Scientology helps you reach ‘your full potential’

(Note: This article originally appeared on Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker)

Jeffrey Augustine is back to help us think about the message in Scientology’s newest ad…

This year’s Scientology Super Bowl commercial was pretty much like the previous four: It looked like those slick Apple ads from a decade ago, and it tries to give you the warm and fuzzies about learning things about yourself.

This year’s ad concluded with these lines…

…Through all of life’s journey
There’s no language adequate to describe
The ultimate heights you can attain…
Your full potential

Those lines are heard as images of a young woman is taking the sensors for the Scientology E-meter — she’s about to unleash her full potential because she’s engaging in Scientology. That’s the point, right? And now, at Scientology’s website, you can see the same slogan…

Like its previous ads, Scientology’s commercial really doesn’t tell you anything about how Scientology works or what you’ll be asked to accept if you join. So what does it mean that Scientology will help you reach “your full potential”?

In its early history, Scientology made a lot of exorbitant claims about what it could do. L. Ron Hubbard claimed that his “technology” could cure diabetes, allergies, cancer, and other diseases, as well teach people how to “go exterior with full perception” — leave your body at will. In other words, reaching your full potential meant becoming a superhuman with amazing powers.

But is that what Scientology delivers? Seeing this new slogan made us think about some famous cases in Scientology history. Did these people reach their “full potential”?

Lisa McPherson tried to reach her full potential in Scientology. She was from Dallas and had moved to Florida to be at Scientology’s “spiritual mecca,” the Flag Land Base. Scientology leader David Miscavige himself decided in the summer of 1995 that she had gone “Clear,” a major step for a Scientologist. But then what happened over the next few months is a tragic story that this website has told in real time, on the 20th anniversary of Lisa’s death.

Steve Brackett, the one-time fiancé of The Simpsons voice actress Nancy Cartwright and a high-level “OT” Scientologist, never reached his full potential in Scientology because, facing bankruptcy and financial ruin in a church where money is everything, he jumped off the Highway 1 Bixby Bridge on the Big Sur coast of California and plunged nearly 200 feet to his death sometime in the darkness of the very early morning hours of May 28, 2009.

Sons of Anarchy actor Johnny Lewis never reached his full potential in Scientology. He murdered his landlady, killed her cat, and then fell or jumped to his death from a roof in darkness in 2012.

Jenny Linson, Marc Yager, and Dave Bloomberg, three high-ranking Scientology officials, are seen acting like lunatics at Los Angeles International Airport. Is this the full potential they were aiming for?

William “Rex” Fowler never reached his full potential in Scientology. Following a bitter dispute over Fowler’s large donation of company funds to Scientology, Fowler shot and killed his business partner in cold blood and then turned his 9mm Glock pistol on himself. Fowler’s suicide attempt failed, and he was prosecuted and sentenced to life in prison. As police were still investigating the crime scene, Fowler’s Scientologist wife arrived and insisted to police that she be allowed to take her husband’s briefcase as it contained classified Scientology OT materials. The police refused her demand. The briefcase was later returned.

Heber Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology International, never realized his full potential in Scientology because he’s been imprisoned in “The Hole” since 2004, let out only occasionally for a few appearances.

Charles Manson spent some of the 1960s at the federal penitentiary on McNeil Island in Washington State. During that time, he got into Scientology and did quite a bit of auditing — his warden at the time even said it was good to see that Charlie was applying himself to something. But Charlie didn’t reach his full potential with Scientology. When he got out of prison he put together his own amalgamation of ideas as he gathered The Family around him and committed some of the most famous murders of all time.

Reed Slatkin never reached his full potential in Scientology. Instead, he was caught swindling $593 million in a Ponzi scheme and was sent to prison. Slatkin was very generous with his stolen money and donated a great deal of it to the Church of Scientology. After his arrest and conviction, the Church of Scientology was forced to give back some of the money Slatkin had donated, although the church fought having to return the funds. Slatkin died of a heart attack in 2015, two years after being released from incarceration.

A legendary auditor and “Tech Wizard” in Scientology, Class XII Case Supervisor David Mayo was the Senior Case Supervisor International (C/S INT) for all of Scientology. Mayo had been widely credited with having saved L. Ron Hubbard from death in 1978 by using a special program of auditing that later became the basis of NED for OT’s. Mayo was regarded as Hubbard’s successor on the Tech lines of the Church. However, David Mayo fell on the wrong side of things politically in the aftermath of Snow White Program and the widespread paranoia it created inside of Scientology. Hubbard turned on Mayo and declared him an SP. Mayo infuriated Hubbard and Scientology when he defied them by opening his acclaimed Advanced Ability Center in Santa Barbara in 1983. Countless Scientologists left the Church to receive services from Mayo and his team at the AAC. David Mayo quickly became the target of Scientology’s wrath and an incredible program of Fair Game ensued. In a 2013 interview with Tony Ortega, Jon Atack said of David Mayo:

David Mayo was harassed for years. He was the subject of at least one murder attempt. I spent a month in Palo Alto in 1986, where I first interviewed Mayo and I was impressed by his sober grasp. He described without rancor the horrors of his own treatment -– for instance, being forced to run round a pole planted in the desert for hours on end –- and he was very precise. I was most impressed by his obvious distress when adulated, which happened a few times during my stays in Palo Alto. He very obviously didn’t want to assume Hubbard’s narcissistic mantle. I’m very glad that he didn’t take Scientology over, because I might have been tempted to stay in the fold. Wherever he is now, I wish him peace and fulfillment. He deserves it.

Music legend Isaac Hayes had won an Academy award, a Golden Globe, and three Grammys but he had declared bankruptcy in 1977, beset by financial and legal problems. He became a Scientologist in the early 1990s, and then enjoyed a profitable second career when he became the voice of “Chef” on a new animated cable show South Park. Chef proved to be a lucrative role for Hayes and allowed him to support his fourth wife and their young child. Following South Park’s airing of its Scientology parody “Trapped in the Closet” on November 16, 2005, Hayes was heavily pressured by Scientology to resign from the show. Hayes subsequently suffered a debilitating stroke in January 2006. Hayes’ son Isaac Hayes III said in a 2016 interview that someone in Scientology quit the South Park job on his father’s behalf in March 2006. Having lost his substantial South Park income, the post-stroke Hayes was forced to relearn the piano and return to the grueling life of touring on the road in order to earn a living. Hayes collapsed on a treadmill in his Memphis home and died at age 65 on August 10, 2008.

Declared the “World’s First Clear” on March 9, 1966 by L. Ron Hubbard, John McMaster was a celebrated and charismatic Scientology goodwill ambassador. McMaster traveled the world for many years on speaking tours, television appearance, and radio interviews where he extolled Hubbard and Scientology’s tech. A closeted gay man in a homophobic Church, McMaster was routinely punished by L. Ron Hubbard, who ordered him overboarded on the flagship Apollo numerous times. On one trip over the side of the ship, McMaster’s shoulder was seriously injured and was temporarily paralyzed. After years of faithful service while enduring abusive treatment and being paid slave wages, John McMaster left Scientology in November 1969 after being excommunicated by Hubbard. Hubbard’s hateful order read in part, “John McMaster is assigned a condition of Treason for rendering himself liable to blackmail by reason of his homosexual activities.”

Born in 1956, Annie Tidman was an original Commodore’s Messenger who served L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo. Annie married Pat Broeker in 1978, and Hubbard left Hemet in 1980 to go into permanent hiding, he took his trusted aides Pat and Annie with him. Hubbard eventually settled in at his secret ranch in Creston, California in 1983. Pat and Annie lived on the ranch and took care of Hubbard in his final years. After Hubbard’s death in January 1986, Pat and Annie were thought to be potential successors because Hubbard had anointed them with the special title “Loyal Officers.” But David Miscavige pushed them out of the way to take over control of the church. Pat and Annie divorced, and Annie lived at Scientology’s secretive “Int Base” near Hemet, California as a loyal Sea Org member. She was later moved to an apartment in Hollywood to suffer the final stages of cancer. Her own family didn’t learn of her 2011 death at 55 until about six months later.

Is Shelly Miscavige reaching her full potential? It’s hard to know, because since 2005 she’s been kept at a super-secretive Scientology base in the mountains near Lake Arrowhead, California. At one time, the wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige was a major church executive in her own right, but since her banishment Shelly has been seen in public only once, at her father’s 2007 funeral in the presence of a Scientology “handler.” A new sighting of Shelly suggests that she’s still at the mountain compound, and in frail health.

Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of L. Ron Hubbard, never reached her full potential in Scientology because she was sent to prison for her part in the Snow White Program, which she oversaw. After her release from prison, Mary Sue was pushed out of her role as a church executive by David Miscavige, and she lived in Los Feliz with Scientology handlers watching her. She died from breast cancer and COPD on November 25, 2002 at the age of 71.

L. Ron Hubbard never exhibited the potential that he promised for others that would come from Scientology. He was not clairvoyant, did not have total recall, and he was certainly not impervious to disease. On January 24, 1986, he died of a stroke while in hiding, estranged from his wife Mary Sue and their children, and with the psychiatric drug Vistaril in his blood.
— Jeffrey Augustine

The most incredible lie Scientology attorney Monique Yingling told ABC ’20/20′

Monique Yingling, Esq.

Preface: My article below originally appeared on Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker. It is reprinted here with additional material added. I republish the article here because the Church of Scientology has used tens of millions of tax exempt dollars, or more, to pay Monique Yingling (and the law firm for which she works) for her four decades of legal services to Scientology. And yet Yingling had the shamelessness on her recent interview with ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris to criticize Leah Remini for making money to produce and appear in the A&E show Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Monique Yingling’s hypocrisy is staggering: She is a financial beneficiary of the human suffering that occurs in Scientology, and, Yingling helps to enable that suffering by defending it as an attorney for Scientology. Yingling also made a point to ABC’s Dan Harris that she raised her children in the Catholic faith; it is unfortunate that none of the love, compassion, or mercy of the Catholic faith seems to have affected Monique Yingling in her professional work.

Following the sudden departure of Tommy Davis as the Church of Scientology’s spokesman in 2011, the organization no longer has an actual Scientologist to represent it on television or in documentaries. Seemingly by default, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s attorney Monique Yingling — a non-Scientologist – has found herself cast in the unlikely role as the international spokeswoman for the church.

During ABC 20/20’s recent episode, “Scientology: A War Without Guns,” Yingling appeared to speak on behalf of Miscavige at the last minute. Like her previous appearance in April in an episode about Ron Miscavige’s book Ruthless, Yingling was given a lot of airtime to present the church’s side of things. And this time, at one point ABC’s Dan Harris asked her a very straightforward question, and her reply was stunning:

Harris: Scientology has described psychiatry as an “industry of death.” Why is that?

Yingling: Well, I think that’s a catchphrase. But what Scientology has worked hard against are abusive practices of psychiatry. Not psychiatry in general.

Harris: You say, “not psychiatry in general,” but an “industry of death” sounds pretty general.

Yingling: Well because unfortunately there have been a lot of abuses, and psychiatry has caused a lot of deaths.

Right there on national television, this was a pretty spectacular lie.

ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris interviewing Monique Yingling

If you know much about Scientology at all, you know that founder L. Ron Hubbard considered all of psychiatry an abomination that has plagued mankind for trillions — yes trillions of years. Hubbard even claimed that the “evil psychs” were a special race, traceable to the planet “Farsec.” The goal of the psychs, according to Hubbard, is to implant, enslave, and kill humans.

From 1950 until his death in 1986, Hubbard created, expanded, and sustained Scientology’s attack upon psychiatry that continues to this day.

As part of Hubbard’s efforts to expose psychiatry, Scientology created the Citizens Commission on Human Rights in 1969 as a “mental health industry watchdog whose mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health.” But what does CCHR actually do? One thing CCHR does is work to get psychiatrists arrested, tried, and imprisoned for abuses.

CCHR’s Psychiatric Crime Database, yet another typically exaggerated and bizarre Scientology PR effort, puts the lie to Monique Yingling’s claims that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” is merely a catchphrase:

CCHR also markets and sells the book “Psychiatrists – the Men Behind Hitler” on its website. This tawdry book blames psychiatry for the Holocaust:

In 2005, CCHR opened its “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum” in Hollywood. This was the same year Tom Cruise launched into his hostile attack against psychiatry and psychiatric drugs during his interview with Matt Lauer. And then at the 2007 New Year’s event at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles, David Miscavige infamously used animated exploding hand grenades to call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry:

I was in the audience that night and was appalled to see the way in which the gathered Scientologists jumped to their feet to scream wildly and applaud Miscavige’s violent call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry and the mass arrest and imprisonment of psychiatrists. Miscavige further bragged at this event that CCHR had a “smart bomb” that “sniffs out Psych fuel lines and blows the funding mechanism. And in that way, to put it bluntly, we booby-trapped the whole psychiatric ecosystem.”

David Miscavige’s violent 2007 rant against psychiatry was nothing new. In October 1995, Miscavige promised Scientologists that psychiatry would be destroyed in five years:

“There are a lot of opinions out there as to what is wrong with Earth, 1995. But if you really want to eliminate those problems all you have to do is work for the objectives that we, as members of the IAS, have set for the year 2000: Objective One – place Scientology at the absolute forefront of Society. Objective Two – eliminate psychiatry in all its forms. Let’s get rid of psychiatry, and let’s bring Scientology to every man, woman and child on this planet.”

Finally, and here we arrive at the crux of the matter, L. Ron Hubbard was infuriated that psychiatry had obtained what he thought was a fraudulent monopoly on mental health treatment. To Hubbard’s way of thinking, psychiatry was rigged because it required an eight-year medical degree plus a four-year psychiatric residency to become a psychiatrist. This conspiracy to require medical degrees and residencies effectively locked Hubbard and his e-meter out of the tens of billions dollars per year in government funding spent on mental health treatment.

Hubbard wanted that money. He wanted Scientology to have an exclusive global monopoly on mental health treatment and the billions of government dollars pouring into psychiatric and mental health programs. As Hubbard wrote in his confidential 1969 memo Intelligence Actions:

Our war has been forced to become to take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms… Our total victory will come when we run his (the enemy’s) organization, perform his functions and obtain his financing and appropriations.

Monique Yingling was prevaricating when she told Dan Harris that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” was a catchphrase. Yingling knows that, per its own policies, Scientology will not accept anyone as a member who has been suicidal or has been treated with psychiatric drugs. In a paradoxical coda to this article, we note that these two prohibitions disqualify L. Ron Hubbard from Scientology.

In 1947, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to the US Veterans Administration complaining of suicidal ideations and moroseness, or what we would today call depression. Hubbard asked the Veterans Administration to provide him with psychiatric treatment.

And at the end of his life, in January 1986, L. Ron Hubbard suffered a stroke and was treated with the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril.

Hubbard’s intense hatred of psychiatry was most curiously book-ended between his request for psychiatric help in 1947 and his use of a doctor-prescribed psychiatric tranquilizer at the end of his life. I wonder how Monique Yingling would spin that?

— Jeffrey Augustine

When I was doing research for this article I thoroughly examined many CCHR websites. While it feels like internet dumpster diving, the fact is that one has to study Scientology websites in detail in order to be a good researcher. Scientology websites are a gold mine of the Cult’s paranoid mindset and CCHR has the most gruesome and weird of all Scientology websites.

As to “Industry of Death” being a catchphrase, one CCHR website has a CGI reproduction of the actual Industry of Death museum in Hollywood. I toured the museum after it opened many years ago. The decor reminded me of a Marie Calender’s restaurant, sort of a French farmhouse motif, festooned with photos of Nazis and ghastly photos of lobotomies and ECT. There are also psychiatric appliances. The net effect led me to conclude that CCHR itself is in dire need of psychiatric treatment.

On one wall there is a big sign that reads: Psychiatry. Torture & Death Sold as Miracle Cure. When I saw this, I realized Scientology was projecting what it does onto Psychiatry:

There is also a Eugenics display. Curiously, it has never occured to Scientology that its goal to create a master race of Homo Novis and to “dispose of quietly and without sorrow” all those 2.0 or below on the Tone Scale is a form of both Scientology eugenics and genocide.

The Industry of Death museum has a strange display that features a collage of images that is weird and creepy:

On a final note, one CCHR website shows a Mr. Lage Vitus correctly condemning the South African philosopher, psychologist, and Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd (1901-1966) as the architect of apartheid. However, Scientology then uses a non-sequitur to blame Dr. Verwoerd’s work in psychology — and by extension psychiatry — for apartheid. Mr. Vitus is incorrect for apartheid was rooted in racism, segregation, and the goal to keep Black South Africans in a perpetual state of poverty and illiteracy. Apartheid did not occur due to psychiatry.

Moreover, as the Daily Mail noted, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to Prime Minister Verwoerd to praise Verwoerd’s slum clearance projects. In doing so, Hubbard effectively praised and condoned apartheid.

In a letter written in November 1960 to Hendrik Verwoerd, a former president considered the architect of apartheid, Hubbard praises the devastating practice of forced resettlement of non-white South Africans.

‘Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence,’ says the letter, which was brought up during South Africa’s 1972 Commission of Inquiry into Scientology.

While in South Africa, Hubbard developed Scientology’s toughest test: a confessional-style list of probing questions, asked of followers while they hold the tin can electrodes of a lie detector-type device known as an ‘e-meter.’

The Wiki page on Verwoerd describes the brutal tactics he used against opponents of his apartheid policies. If one substitutes “Scientology” for “apartheid” in this quote, the parallels between L. Ron Hubbard and Verwoerd are eerie:

Verwoerd rigidly enforced Apartheid policies through further introducing oppressive laws, which diminished the rights of ordinary individuals… Verwoerd empowered the police, Secret Police and Army to extraordinary levels. During his time in office he ordered a secret all-out offensive against those opposed to apartheid policies….

L. Ron Hubbard created a fascist system of Scientology apartheid in which, if he had his way, only Scientologists would have rights. As Hubbard wrote in Science of Survival:

…any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints.

The Church of Scientology’s Great Big Lie About the Death of Founder L. Ron Hubbard

Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard died at approximately 8:00 PM local time on January 24, 1986 at his ranch in Creston, California. Hubbard was 74 years of age when he died alone inside of the luxury Bluebird motor home in which he had been living.

Three days after Hubbard’s death on January 27, 1986 Church of Scientology officials, led by David Miscavige, announced that the Founder had “discarded his body” to Scientologists gathered at the Palladium in Hollywood.

The great big big lie these Church of Scientology officials told Scientologists was that L. Ron Hubbard’s body was still strong and in perfect health and that Hubbard had simply laid down on his bed and “causitively dropped his body.”

This post deals with the actual facts surrounding the death of L. Ron Hubbard the Church of Scientology officials withheld from Scientology parishioners and the public at large. L. Ron Hubbard’s death certificate, autopsy results, and the San Luis Obispo Sheriff-Coroner’s report are at the bottom of this article. The report can also be found here.

Hubbard’s attending physician was a Scientologist named Dr. Gene Denk. According to Denk, L. Ron Hubbard had suffered a stroke one week before his death. Denk stated that official cause of Hubbard’s death was the stroke, or what Denk dispassionately called in the death certificate, a “cerebral vascular accident.” Hence, Dr. Denk concluded that L. Ron Hubbard had a stroke and died about a week later as a result.

While the Sheriff-Coroner accepted Dr. Denk’s determination of the cause of death, the Sheriff-Coroner nevertheless conducted a formal investigation before allowing Denk to officially certify Hubbard’s cause of death as a stroke. The Sheriff-Coroner was concerned about three things:

1. The long delay between Hubbard’s death and the mortuary being called to arrange for an immediate cremation of Hubbard’s body. Indeed, it was the mortuary that contacted the authorities about Hubbard’s death. The mortuary expressed its concern about the time delay to the Sheriff-Coroner.

2. The possibility of foul play or suicide.

3. As was discovered, Hubbard had signed a new will the day before he died. The Sheriff-Coroner mentions this in his report with respect to Hubbard’s post-stroke mental condition.

Three additional elements must be factored into Hubbard’s death:

- According to the late Robert Vaughn Young (see video bel0w beginning at 2:45), Dr. Denk was in Reno, Nevada on a gambling trip with David Miscavige and other Scientologists when Hubbard had his stroke. Denk had to travel 400 miles back to the ranch. This is a 6-7 hour drive. This is a critical post-stroke period during which Hubbard received no medical care.
- Dr. Denk was in Reno he was notified of Hubbard’s distress. Denk knew he had a 6-7 hour drive ahead of him back to the ranch. Why then did Dr. Denk fail to order the stricken Scientology founder immediately transported by ambulance to the nearest hospital for emergency intensive care? Failing this standard of care, why was a local doctor not summoned to the ranch to care for Hubbard in the critical hours following his stroke? This is very suspect conduct.
- No autopsy was ever performed on Hubbard. The Scientology founder had signed a document four days before he died forbidding an autopsy based on his religious beliefs. Absent an autopsy there is no scientifically conclusive way of knowing L. Ron Hubbard’s cause of death. Hubbard died alone in his Bluebird luxury motorhome.

The late Robert Vaughn Young discussed Hubbard’s declining mental state at the end of his life and the events surrounding Hubbard’s death.

Based upon what Dr. Denk told the Sheriff-Coroner, L. Ron Hubbard had a long standing history of chronic pancreatitis and a recent history of dysphrasia:

“Dysphrasia” is an older medical term that has, in more recent times, been replaced by the word aphasia which is defined as: “Impaired or absent comprehension or production of, or communication by, speech, writing, or signs; due to an acquired lesion of or injury to a language center of the brain; may be transient if cerebral swelling subsides.”

The Sheriff-Coroner noted Dr. Denk’s remarks that Hubbard’s “recent history of dysphrasia” lasted for about eight days prior to Hubbard’s final and fatal stroke:
One can safely assume that Hubbard’s stroke was the cause of his slurred speech and other symptoms of dysphrasia.

The evidence of Hubbard’s attending physician Dr. Denk conclusively proves that senior Church of Scientology officials, led by David Miscavige and Pat Broeker, deliberately and willfully lied to Church parishioners and the public. L. Ron Hubbard had long-term pancreatitis, suffered a stroke after which he experienced dysphrasia, and was being treated with the drug Vistaril in the days prior to his death. Pfizer Data Sheet on Vistaril.

The coroner found ten needle marks on Hubbard’s body. If we assume there were only ten intramuscular injections of Vistaril in the 2-3 days before Hubbard’s death, then this would argue for the use of Vistaril as an anti-anxiety medication. I say this because Vistaril, when used as an antihistamine, is used to treat itching caused by skin conditions such as dermatitis, rashes, and hives. However, the coroner’s examination of Hubbard’s body revealed no dermatological conditions. No hives or rashes were noted.

While the Church of Scientology claims that Hubbard was being treated with Vistaril for allergies, it has failed to substantiate its claim by producing Hubbard’s medical records. Specifically, the Church would need to show Dr. Denk’s written diagnosis of a dermatological allergy. The dosage and frequency of dosing Hubbard with Vistaril is of interest. Specifically:

The recommended dose for treating itching (pruritus) is 25 mg given 3 or 4 times daily by mouth or by intramuscular injection.
Anxiety and tension are managed with 50 to 100 mg in 4 divided doses or 50-100 mg intramuscular injection in 4 or 6 divided doses.

A >25mg daily dose of Vistaril would tend to prove that Hubbard was experiencing post-stroke anxiety and thus Denk prescribed Vistaril to treat psychoneurosis.

*****

The secondary problem with Hubbard’s death is this: We have here an elderly post-stroke man suffering from slurred speech; who may not be able to write or to comprehend written materials; is under the influence of a psychoactive drug; and who arguably has diminished mental capacity. However, we are asked by Church of Scientology officials to believe that L. Ron Hubbard was mentally fit to sign a new will on the day before his death. At the time, San Luis Obispo County Chief Deputy Coroner Don Hines expressed this precise concern:

After conducting an investigation, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office determined that there was no foul play or suicide in the death of L. Ron Hubbard:

The Coroner, however, never ruled or opined as to whether or not L. Ron Hubbard was in a sound state of mind. Clearly, however, an elderly post-stroke man who is being treated with a psychoactive drug is likely suffering from diminished mental capacity. Nevertheless., the Church of Scientology swept all of this under the rug and, three days after Hubbard’s death, created and staged the phony myth of L. Ron Hubbard causitively dropping his healthy, fit, and strong physical body as it had become an impediment to his advanced spiritual researches.

How perfectly “Church of Scientology” it was for Hubbard to have died in hiding from the law and thereafter ascended into glory onstage at the Pallidum in Hollywood: