L. Ron Hubbard

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard
File:L Ron Hubbard.jpg An official Church of Scientology portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1970
Born	March 13, 1911 Tilden, Nebraska, United States
Died	January 24, 1986 San Luis Obispo County, California, United States
Occupation(s)	Science fiction Author Founder, Scientology
Spouse(s)	Margaret "Polly" Grubb Sara Northrup Mary Sue Hubbard
Children	7
Website	lronhubbard.org

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (13 March 1911 – 24 January 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was an American pulp fiction and science fiction writer, creator of Dianetics and founder of the Church of Scientology.

Hubbard was a controversial public figure, with many details of his life disputed. The Church of Scientology official biographies present Hubbard as "larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in a dozen fields". However, the Church's account of Hubbard's life has changed over time, with editions of the biographical account published over the years differing from each other.

In contrast, biographies of Hubbard by independent journalists and accounts by former Scientologists paint a much less flattering, and often highly critical, picture of Hubbard and in many cases contradict the material presented by the Church.

Early life

L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska. His father Harry Ross Hubbard was born Henry August Wilson in Fayette, Iowa, but was orphaned as an infant and adopted by the Hubbards, a farming family of Fredericksburg, Iowa. Harry Ross Hubbard joined the United States Navy in 1904, leaving the service in 1908, then re-enlisting in 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany. He served in the Navy until 1946, reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in 1934.

His mother Ledora May Hubbard (née Waterbury) was a feminist who had trained to become a high school teacher and married Harry in 1909. Her father, Lafayette O. Waterbury (born 1864), was a veterinarian turned coal merchant. Her mother, Ida Corinne DeWolfe, was the daughter of affluent banker John DeWolfe. May's paternal grandfather, Abram Waterbury, was from the Catskill Mountains, and later headed West, employed as a veterinarian.

The Hubbards moved first to Kalispell, Montana and then to Helena, the state capital. Church biographies have stated that during this period Hubbard became the protegé of "Old Tom, a Blackfoot Indian medicine man ... [who] passe[d] on much of the tribal lore to his young friend" and that at the age of six, he was "honored with the status of blood brother of the Blackfeet in a ceremony that is still recalled by tribal elders." However, contemporary records do not record the existence of "Old Tom". Blackfeet historian Hugh Dempsey has commented that the act of blood brotherhood was "never done among the Blackfeet", and Blackfeet Nation officials have disavowed attempts by Scientologists to "re-establish" Hubbard as a "blood brother" of the Blackfeet.

Harry Ross Hubbard's naval career led to the family moving several more times, first to San Diego, then to Oakland, California followed by Puget Sound in Washington state and finally to Washington, D.C.. During this period L. Ron Hubbard joined the Boy Scouts of America and became an Eagle Scout at the age of 13. Church biographies routinely state that he was "the nation's youngest Eagle Scout." According to the Boy Scouts of America, however, at the time they only kept an alphabetical record of Eagle Scouts, with no reference to their ages — thus there was no way of telling who was the youngest.

Hubbard later said that while he was in Washington, D.C., he was befriended by Commander Joseph "Snake" Thompson, who [had] recently returned from Vienna and studies with Sigmund Freud. Through the course of their friendship, the commander [spent] many an afternoon in the Library of Congress teaching Ron what he knows of the human mind." Thompson is an important figure in official Church accounts of Hubbard's life and was referenced in many of Hubbard's works in support of his claims to possess expertise in Freudian psychoanalysis. Thompson presents a somewhat mysterious figure; Miller, writing in 1986, casts doubt on his existence, though Atack, writing in 1990, cites evidence that he did in fact exist. Both unofficial biographers, however, note that Hubbard's extensive boy scout diary makes no mention of Thompson or studies at the Library of Congress; Miller comments that during this period, "the most frequent entry in his diary was a laconic 'Was bored'".

Between 1927 and 1929, Hubbard traveled twice to the Far East to visit his parents during his father's posting to the United States Navy base on Guam. Church biographies published from the 1950s to the 1970s stated that with "the financial support of his wealthy grandfather" Hubbard journeyed throughout Asia, "studying with holy men" in northern China, India and Tibet. Hubbard said that on several occasions he visited India. However, the Church of Scientology's current official account makes no mention of India or Tibet, and according to Jon Atack "a flight change at Calcutta airport in 1959 seems to have been his only direct contact with the land of Vedantic philosophy."

Education

After graduating from Woodward School for Boys in 1930, Hubbard enrolled at the George Washington University, where he majored in civil engineering. His grades varied widely, and university records show that he attended for only two years, was on academic probation for his second year, and dropped out in 1932 without a degree. The Church of Scientology's official account of Hubbard's university career does not mention its premature conclusion or his lack of qualifications.

Critics have questioned many of the claims that Hubbard and the Church of Scientology later made about his university years. According to the Church's official account, "Here he studies engineering and atomic and molecular physics and embarks upon a personal search for answers to the human dilemma. His first experiment concerning the structure and function of the mind is carried out while at the university." One of his classes was indeed a second-year physics course entitled "Modern Physical Phenomena; Molecular and Atomic Physics", for which he received a grade of "F". On the basis of this class, however, Hubbard claimed to be a "nuclear physicist" and asserted expertise in dealing with the problems posed by radioactive contamination of the environment.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hubbard claimed to have been awarded a Ph.D. by Sequoia University in California. This non-accredited body was, however, later closed by the California state courts after it was investigated by the Californian state authorities on the grounds of being a mail-order "degree mill". Hubbard publicly "resigned" his degree after it had become the subject of comment in the British press.

Hubbard also claimed to have been educated at Princeton. In the preface for his 1951 book Science of Survival, he thanks "my instructors in atomic and molecular phenomena, mathematics and the humanities at George Washington University and at Princeton". However, he was never a member of Princeton University's student body; instead, he participated in a four-month course in military government at the Naval Training School, Princeton during the Second World War.

Pulp fiction career

Cover of October, 1950 edition of Fantastic Adventures featuring Hubbard's 43,000 word novella "The Masters of Sleep".

Hubbard published many stories and novellas in pulp magazines during the 1930s. Critics often cite Final Blackout, set in a war-ravaged future Europe, and Fear, a psychological horror story, as the best examples of Hubbard's pulp fiction.

Among his published stories were Sea Fangs, The Carnival of Death, Man-Killers of the Air, and The Squad that Never Came Back; among the pseudonyms Hubbard used were Rene Lafayette, Legionnaire 148, Lieutenant Scott Morgan, Morgan de Wolf, Michael de Wolf, Michael Keith, Kurt von Rachen, Captain Charles Gordon, Legionnaire 14830, Elron, Bernard Hubbel, Captain B.A. Northrup, Joe Blitz and Winchester Remington Colt. He became a well-known author in the science fiction and fantasy genres; he also published westerns and adventure stories.

Hubbard's metafiction novel Typewriter in the Sky, published in 1940 in two installments in John W. Campbell's Unknown magazine, provides an amusing insight into the New York writing scene within which Hubbard worked. The novel is centered around a character named Horace Hackett, who is a hyper-productive, multi-genre hack writer desperately trying to finish his latest potboiler to an ever-approaching deadline while (unknown to him) his friend Mike de Wolf is trapped inside the potboiler's action. Two of Horace's author friends, in Hubbard's novel, are named Winchester Remington Colt and Rene Lafayette after Hubbard's own pseudonyms.

After leaving the Navy, Hubbard returned to writing fiction briefly for a few years at the end of the 1940s, his best-remembered work from this period being the Ole Doc Methuselah series for Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction magazine. It was in the pages of this magazine that the first article on Dianetics appeared; while some fiction works appeared after that (including "Masters of Sleep", which promotes Dianetics and features as a villain "a mad psychiatrist, Doctor Dyhard, who persists in rejecting Dianetics after all his abler colleagues have accepted it [and] believes in prefrontal lobotomies for everyone") most of Hubbard's output thereafter was related to Dianetics or Scientology. Hubbard did not make a major return to fiction again until the 1980s.

Hubbard's 1938 manuscript, Excalibur, contained many concepts and ideas that later turned up in Scientology. However, there is some question as to whether Excalibur ever really existed.

Hubbard married Margaret "Polly" Grubb in 1933, with whom he fathered two children, L. Ron, Jr. (1934 – 1991) and Katherine May (born in 1936). They lived in Bremerton, Washington, during the late 1930s.

Military career

In 1941 Hubbard was commissioned as a as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade in the United States Navy after one of his professors recommended him for service in intelligence and a successful interview with the Office of Naval Intelligence. The position offered Hubbard the chance at a distinguished career, as intelligence officers were badly needed. This allowed him to skip the initial officer rank of Ensign. After Pearl Harbor he received orders deploying him to the Philippines, specifically Manila. While embarked on the SS President Polk Japanese forces cut off the sea route to the Philippines, diverting the ship to Brisbane, Australia. Upon arrival Hubbard asked the Naval Attaché if he could leave the Polk in order to secure faster transport to the Philippines. He was unable to locate other transport, and instead began working as a sort of liaison for a deployed Army unit. This duty had not been ordered and he made himself somewhat of a nuisance by working outside the established chain of command. He was then sent back to the United States.

The situation cost him the opportunity to work as a Naval Intelligence officer, and he was subsequently made prospective Commanding Officer of the USS YP-422, a motor yacht undergoing conversion into a shipyard patrol vessel near Boston, Massachusetts. Again, he fell out with his superior officer, who rated him "not temperamentally fitted for independent command." These statements are in stark contrast with official Scientologist literature, which often portrays Hubbard as a brave and heroic figure during the war.

Possible submarine contact off Cape Lookout

Hubbard was relieved of command and transferred to a naval school in Florida where he was trained in anti-submarine warfare. On graduating, he was given command of the newly built subchaser USS PC-815, supervising her fitting and the training of her crew, and taking her on her maiden voyage from Astoria to San Diego, California.

In the early hours of May 19, the crew of the PC-815 detected what Hubbard and his crew evaluated as first one then later two Imperial Japanese Navy submarines approximately 10 miles off the shore of Cape Lookout. Lt. Hubbard, his Executive Officer, Lt. Moulton, and the SONAR operator, all trained in the use of the equipment, evaluated the echo of an active sonar ping, combined with apparent propellor noises ("screws") heard through the ship's hydrophone as indicating contact with a submarine.

Over the next two and a half days, the ship expended 37 depth charges in an action that also involved the US Navy blimps K-39 and K-33, the US Coast Guard patrol boats Bonham and 78302, and the subchasers USS SC-536 and USS SC-537, all summoned to act as reinforcements, and, according to Hubbard's battle report, placed under his command. Eventually, with depth charges exhausted for the second time and nearby ships unwilling to resupply her, the PC-815 was finally ordered back to Astoria on May 21.

In his eighteen page after-action report, Hubbard claimed to have "definitely sunk, beyond doubt" one submarine and critically damaged another. However, the subsequent investigation by the Commander NW Sea Frontier, Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, cast a skeptical light on Hubbard's claims. His summary memorandum to Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, stated:

It is noted that the report of PC 815 is not in accordance with "Anti-Submarine Action by Surface Ship" (ASW-1) which should be submitted to Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet.

An analysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area. Lieutenant Commander Sullivan states that he was unable to obtain any evidence of a submarine except one bubble of air which is unexplained except by turbulence of water due to a depth charge explosion. The Commanding Officers of all ships except the PC-815 state they had no evidence of a submarine and do not think a submarine was in the area.

Fletcher added that "there is a known magnetic deposit in the area in which depth charges were dropped", as the responding blimps being equipped with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector for submarine detection. After the war, British and American analyses of captured Japanese Navy records confirmed that no Japanese submarines had been lost off the Oregon coast. Hubbard, however, continued to claim that he had engaged the enemy, as did his Executive Office, Lt. Moulton, in later testimony. Years later, Hubbard told Scientologists:

I dropped the I-76 or the Imperial Japanese Navy Trans-Pacific Submarine down into the mouth of the Columbia River, dead duck. And it went down with a resounding furor. And that was that. I never thought about it again particularly except to get mad at all the admirals I had to make reports to because of this thing, see? This was one out of seventy-nine separate actions that I had to do with. And it had no significance, see?

But the other day I was kind of tired, and my dad suddenly sprung on me the fact that my submarine had been causing a tremendous amount of difficulty in the mouth of the Columbia River. Hadn't thought about this thing for years. Of course, it's all shot to ribbons, this thing. It's got jagged steel sticking out at all ends and angles, and it's a big submarine! It's a -- I don't know, about the size of the first Narwhal that we built. And the fishermen coming in there and fishing are dragging their nets around in that area, and it's just tearing their nets to ribbons -- they've even hired a civilian contractor to try to blow the thing up and get it the devil out of there -- and has evidently been raising bob with postwar fishing here for more years than I'd care to count.

Coronado Islands incident

A month later, the PC-815 travelled to San Diego, which was to become her home port. She arrived there on June 2, and at the end of June was ordered to sea to join an anti-submarine training exercise. The exercise, held on June 28, ended early and Hubbard took the opportunity to order an impromptu gunnery exercise while anchored just off the Mexican territory of South Coronado Island to the south-west of San Diego. The Mexican government sent an official protest to the US Government, as no gunnery operations had been scheduled.

On June 30 a Board of Investigation was convened concerning PC-815 which concluded that Hubbard had disregarded orders, both by conducting gunnery practice and by anchoring in Mexican territorial waters without proper authority. His orders stated that the PC-815 was supposed to return after completing that days training. Hubbard argued that his crew was inexperienced, it was foggy, and he was tired so he did not return to port as ordered. A month earlier in his after action report concerning the recent fiasco off Cape Lookout, he had described the same men as "experienced" and "highly skilled". Vice Admiral Fletcher, who both chaired the board and read the prior after action report, rated Hubbard "below average" and noted: "Consider this officer lacking in the essential qualities of judgement, leadership and cooperation. He acts without forethought as to probable results. He is believed to have been sincere in his efforts to make his ship efficient and ready. Not considered qualified for command or promotion at this time. Recommend duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised". Hubbard was relieved of command effective July 7, 1943.

Most of Hubbard's wartime service was spent ashore in the continental United States. He was mustered out of the active service list in late 1945 and continued to draw disability pay for arthritis, bursitis, and conjunctivitis for years afterwards, long after he claimed to have discovered the secret of how to cure these ailments. About the time of his discharge, Hubbard was petitioning the Veterans Administration for psychiatric care to treat "long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations." He was also arrested for petty theft in connection with checks. When he wrote to the FBI that communist spies were after him, an agent attached a note to one of his letters: "Make 'appears mental' card."

In later years, Hubbard made a number of claims about his military record that do not reconcile with the government's documentation of his service years. For example, Hubbard claimed he had sustained wounds "in combat on the island of Java", but his service record offers no indication he came anywhere near Java, and places him in New York on the day (7 December, 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor) he was supposedly landed on Java by a naval destroyer. He also claimed to have received 21 medals and awards, including two Purple Hearts and a "Unit Citation". The Church of Scientology has circulated a US Navy notice of separation (a form numbered DD214, completed on leaving active duty) as evidence of Hubbard's wartime service. However, the US Navy's copy of Hubbard's DD214 is very different, listing a much more modest record. The Scientology version, signed by a nonexistent Lt. Cmdr. Howard D. Thompson, shows Hubbard being awarded medals that do not exist, boasts academic qualifications Hubbard did not earn, and places Hubbard in command of vessels not in the service of the US Navy. The Navy has noted "several inconsistencies exist between Mr. Hubbard's DD214 [the Scientology version] and the available facts".

Dianetics

Main article: Dianetics

Beginning in late 1949, Hubbard sought to publicize Dianetics, the self-improvement technique. Unable to elicit interest from mainstream publishers or medical professionals, Hubbard turned to the legendary science fiction editor John W. Campbell, who had for years published Hubbard's science fiction. The first article on Dianetics was published in Astounding Science Fiction. The science fiction community was divided about the merits of Hubbard's claims. Campbell's star author Isaac Asimov criticized Dianetics' unscientific aspects, and veteran author Jack Williamson described Dianetics as "a lunatic revision of Freudian psychology" that "had the look of a wonderfully rewarding scam." But Campbell and novelist A. E. van Vogt enthusiastically embraced Dianetics: Campbell became Hubbard's treasurer, and van Vogt—convinced his wife's health had been transformed for the better by auditing—interrupted his writing career to run the first Los Angeles Dianetics center.

In April 1950, Hubbard and several others established the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey to coordinate work related for the forthcoming publication of a book on Dianetics. The book, entitled Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was published in May 1950 by Hermitage House, whose head was also on the Board of Directors of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. With Dianetics, Hubbard introduced the concept of "auditing", a two-person question-and-answer therapy that focused on painful memories. According to Hubbard, dianetic auditing could eliminate emotional problems, cure physical illnesses, and increase intelligence. In his introduction to Dianetics, Hubbard declared that "the creation of dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch."

Dianetics was a hit, selling 150,000 copies within a year of publication. Upon becoming more widely available, Dianetics became an object of critical scrutiny by the press and the medical establishment. In September 1950, The New York Times published a cautionary statement on the topic by the American Psychological Association that read in part, "the association calls attention to the fact that these claims are not supported by empirical evidence", and went on to recommend against use of "the techniques peculiar to Dianetics" until such time it had been validated by scientific testing. Consumer Reports, in an August 1951 assessment of Dianetics, dryly noted "one looks in vain in Dianetics for the modesty usually associated with announcement of a medical or scientific discovery", and stated that the book had become "the basis for a new cult." The article observed "in a study of L. Ron Hubbard's text, one is impressed from the very beginning by a tendency to generalization and authoritative declarations unsupported by evidence or facts." Consumer Reports warned its readers against the "possibility of serious harm resulting from the abuse of intimacies and confidences associated with the relationship between auditor and patient", an especially serious risk, they concluded, "in a cult without professional traditions."

The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Branch offices were opened in five other US cities before the end of 1950 (though most folded within a year). Hubbard soon abandoned the Foundation, denouncing a number of his former associates as communists to the FBI.

Hubbard's private behavior became the subject of unflattering headlines when his second wife, Sara Northrup, filed for divorce in late 1950, citing that Hubbard was, unknown to her, still married to his first wife at the time he married Sara. Her divorce papers also accused Hubbard of kidnapping their baby daughter Alexis, and of conducting "systematic torture, beatings, strangulations and scientific torture experiments."

Scientology

Main article: Scientology

In mid-1952, Hubbard expanded Dianetics into a secular philosophy which he called Scientology. That year, Hubbard also married his third wife, Mary Sue Whipp, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. With Mary Sue, Hubbard fathered four more children— Diana, Quentin, Suzette and Arthur—over the next six years.

In December 1953, Hubbard declared Scientology a religion and the first Church of Scientology was founded in Camden, New Jersey. He moved to England at about the same time, and during the remainder of the 1950s he supervised the growing organization from an office in London. In 1959, he bought Saint Hill Manor near the Sussex town of East Grinstead, a Georgian manor house owned by the Maharajah of Jaipur. This became the world headquarters of Scientology.

Hubbard claimed to have conducted years of intensive research into the nature of human existence; to describe his findings, he developed an elaborate vocabulary with many newly coined terms. He codified a set of Scientology axioms and an "applied religious philosophy" that promised to improve the condition of the human spirit, which he called the "Thetan." The bulk of Scientology focuses on the "rehabilitation" of the thetan.

Hubbard's followers believed his "technology" gave them access to their past lives, the traumas of which led to failures in the present unless they were audited. By this time, Hubbard had introduced a biofeedback device to the auditing process, which he called a "Hubbard Electropsychometer" or "E-meter." It was invented in the 1940s by a chiropractor and Dianetics enthusiast named Volney Mathison. This machine is used by Scientologists in auditing to evaluate "mental masses" surrounding the thetan. These "masses" are claimed to impede the thetan from realizing its full potential.

Hubbard claimed a good deal of physical disease was psychosomatic, and one who, like himself, had attained the enlightened state of "clear" and become an "Operating Thetan" would be relatively disease free. According to biographers, Hubbard went to great lengths to suppress his recourse to modern medicine, attributing symptoms to attacks by malicious forces, both spiritual and earthly. Hubbard insisted humanity was imperiled by such forces, which were the result of negative memories (or "engrams") stored in the unconscious or "reactive" mind, some carried by the immortal thetans for billions of years. Thus, Hubbard claimed, the only possibility for spiritual salvation was a concerted effort to "clear the planet", that is, to bring the benefits of Scientology to all people everywhere, and attack all forces, social and spiritual, hostile to the interests of the movement.

Church members were expected to pay fixed donation rates for courses, auditing, books and E-meters, all of which proved very lucrative for the Church, which paid emoluments directly to Hubbard and his family. In a case fought by the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. over its tax-exempt status (revoked in 1958 because of these emoluments) the findings of fact in the case included that Hubbard had personally received over $108,000 from the Church and affiliates over a four-year period, over and above the percentage of gross income (usually 10%) he received from Church-affiliated organizations. However, Hubbard denied such emoluments many times in writing, proclaiming he never received any money from the Church.

Legal difficulties and life on the high seas

Scientology became a focus of controversy across the English-speaking world during the mid-1960s, with the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa, the Australian state of Victoria and the Canadian province of Ontario all holding public inquiries into Scientology's activities.

Hubbard left this unwanted attention behind in 1966, when he moved to Rhodesia, following Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Attempting to ingratiate himself with the white minority government, he offered to invest large sums in Rhodesia's economy, then hit by UN sanctions, but was asked to leave the country.

In 1967, L. Ron Hubbard further distanced himself from the controversy attached to Scientology by resigning as executive director of the church and appointing himself "Commodore" of a small fleet of Scientologist-crewed ships that spent the next eight years cruising the Mediterranean Sea. Here, Hubbard formed the religious order known as the "Sea Organization" or "Sea Org", with titles and uniforms. The Sea Org subsequently became the management group within Hubbard's Scientology empire.

He was attended by "Commodore's Messengers", teenaged girls dressed in white hot pants who waited on him hand and foot, bathing and dressing him and even catching the ash from his cigarettes. He had frequent screaming tantrums and instituted brutal punishments such as incarceration in the ship's filthy chain-locker for days or weeks at a time and "overboarding", in which errant crew members were blindfolded, bound and thrown overboard, dropping up to 40 ft. into the cold sea, hoping not to hit the side of the ship with its sharp barnacles on the way down. Some of these punishments, such as imprisonment in the chain-locker, were applied to children as well as to adults. He returned to the United States in the mid-1970s and lived for a while in Florida.

In 1977, Scientology offices on both coasts of the United States were raided by FBI agents seeking evidence of Operation Snow White, a church-run espionage network. Hubbard's wife Mary Sue and a dozen other senior Scientology officials were convicted in 1979 of conspiracy against the United States federal government, while Hubbard himself was named by federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator." Facing intense media interest and many subpoenas, he secretly retired to a ranch in tiny Creston, California, north of San Luis Obispo.

In 1978, Hubbard was convicted of felony fraud and sentenced to four years in jail and a 35,000₣ fine by a French court. Hubbard refused to serve his jail time or pay his fine and went into hiding. Hubbard's refusal to talk to British immigration officials about this conviction later caused the British Home Office to re-affirm an earlier decision to bar him from the UK.

A judgment from a court in Victoria said:

"Scientology is evil; its techniques are evil; its practice is a serious threat to the community, medically, morally, and socially; and its adherents are sadly deluded and often mentally ill... (Scientology is) the world's largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy." -- Justice Anderson, Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.

Later life

During the 1980s, Hubbard returned to science fiction, publishing Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth, the latter being an enormous book, published as a ten volume series. He also wrote an unpublished screenplay called Revolt in the Stars which dramatizes Scientology's "Advanced Level" teachings. Hubbard's later science fiction sold well and received mixed reviews, but some press reports describe how sales of Hubbard's books were artificially inflated by Scientologists purchasing large numbers of copies in order to manipulate the bestseller charts. While claiming to be entirely divorced from the Scientology management, Hubbard continued to draw income from the Scientology enterprises; Forbes magazine estimated his 1982 Scientology-related income exceeded US $40 million.

Hubbard died at his ranch on 24 January 1986, aged 74, reportedly from a stroke. He had not been seen in public for the previous five years. Scientology attorneys arrived to claim his body, which they sought to have cremated immediately. They were blocked by the San Luis Obispo County medical examiner, whose examination revealed the presence of a drug called hydroxyzine (brand name Vistaril). The drug is commonly prescribed by psychiatrists for treatment of anxiety or Neurosis. The medication is also sometimes used for its antihistamine properties in patients who may be allergic to other more common varieties. The Church of Scientology announced Hubbard had deliberately "discarded the body" to do "higher level spiritual research", unencumbered by mortal confines.

In May 1987, David Miscavige, one of Hubbard's former personal assistants, assumed the position of Chairman of the Religious Technology Center (RTC), a corporation that owns the trademarked names and symbols of Dianetics and Scientology. Although Religious Technology Center is a separate corporation from the Church of Scientology International, Miscavige is the ecclesiastical leader of the religion. Rev. Heber Jentzsch is the President of Church of Scientology International.

Controversial episodes

L. Ron Hubbard's life is embroiled in controversy, as is the history of Scientology (see Scientology controversy). Several issues surrounding Hubbard's death and disposition of his estate are also subjects of controversy — a swift cremation with no autopsy; the destruction of coroner's photographs; coroner's evidence of the drug Vistaril present in Hubbard's blood; questions about the whereabouts of Dr. Eugene Denk (Hubbard's physician) during Hubbard's death, and the changing of wills and trust documents the day before his death, resulting in the bulk of Hubbard's estate being transferred not to his family, but to Scientology.

Legitimacy of Scientology as a religion

His son, Ronald DeWolf (nee L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.) stated in a lengthy 1983 interview with Penthouse magazine that "99% of anything my father ever wrote or said about himself is untrue." In the same interview, he claimed his father was a con man, a Satanist, a KGB accomplice, and a drug addict. Scientology, he said, was little more than a cult that existed to make money. Ron DeWolf retracted most of his statements in a later sworn affidavit of July 1, 1987 (Ronald E. DeWolf v. Lyle Stuart Inc.)

Some documents written by Hubbard himself suggest he regarded Scientology as a business, not a religion. In one letter dated April 10 1953, he says calling Scientology a religion solves "a problem of practical business", and status as a religion achieves something "more equitable...with what we've got to sell". In a 1962 official policy letter, he said "Scientology 1970 is being planned on a religious organization basis throughout the world. This will not upset in any way the usual activities of any organization. It is entirely a matter for accountants and solicitors." A Reader's Digest article of May 1980 quoted Hubbard as saying in the 1940s "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

According to The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. Brian Ash, Harmony Books, 1977:

"... [Hubbard] began making statements to the effect that any writer who really wished to make money should stop writing and develop [a] religion, or devise a new psychiatric method. Harlan Ellison's version (Time Out, UK, No 332) is that Hubbard is reputed to have told [John W.] Campbell, "I'm going to invent a religion that's going to make me a fortune. I'm tired of writing for a penny a word." Sam Moskowitz, a chronicler of science fiction, has reported that he himself heard Hubbard make a similar statement, but there is no first-hand evidence".

See additional discussion in The legitimacy of Scientology as a religion.

Ritual magic and second marriage

One controversial aspect of Hubbard's early life revolves around his association with Jack Parsons, an aeronautics professor at Caltech and an associate of the British occultist Aleister Crowley. Hubbard and Parsons were allegedly engaged in the practice of ritual magick in 1946, including an extended set of sex magick rituals called the Babalon Working, intended to summon a goddess or "moonchild." (Among occultists today, it is widely accepted that Hubbard derived a large part of 'Dianetics' from Golden Dawn occult ideas such as the Holy Guardian Angel.) The Church insists Hubbard was a US government intelligence agent on a mission to end Parsons' magickal activities and to "rescue" a girl Parsons was "using" for magickal purposes. Critics dismiss these claims as after-the-fact rationalizations. Crowley recorded in his notes that he considered Hubbard a "lout" who made off with Parsons' money and girlfriend in an "ordinary confidence trick".

Hubbard later married the girl he said that he rescued, Sara Northrup. This marriage was an act of bigamy, as Hubbard had abandoned, but not divorced, his first wife and children as soon as he left the Navy (he divorced his first wife more than a year after he had remarried). Both women allege Hubbard physically abused them. He is also alleged to have once kidnapped Sara's infant, Alexis, taking her to Cuba. Later, he disowned Alexis, claiming she was actually Jack Parsons' child.

Family relations

In a 1983 interview, L. Ron, Jr. said "according to him and my mother" he was the result of a failed abortion and recalls at six years old seeing his father performing an abortion on his mother with a coat hanger. In the same interview, he said "Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game" and described his father as "only interested in money, sex, booze, and drugs".. DeWolf retracted most of his statements in a later sworn affidavit of July 1, 1987 (Ronald E. DeWolf v. Lyle Stuart Inc.).

Hubbard had another son in 1954, Quentin Hubbard, who was groomed to one day replace him as the head of the Scientology. However, Quentin was deeply depressed, allegedly because he was homosexual and his father was homophobic, and wanted to leave Scientology and become a pilot. As Scientology rejects homosexuality as a sexual perversion and views mental health professionals and the drugs they can prescribe as fraudulent and oppressive, Quentin had no avenues available to deal with his depression. Quentin attempted suicide in 1974 and then died in 1976 under mysterious circumstances that might have been a suicide or a murder.

Biographies

Hubbard has been interpreted as both a savior (Scientologists refer to him as "The Friend of Mankind") and a con-artist. These sharply contrasting views have been a source of hostility between Hubbard supporters and critics. A California court judgment in 1984 involving Gerald Armstrong, who had been assigned the task of writing Hubbard's biography, highlights the extreme opposition of the two sides. The judgment quotes a 1970's police agency of the French Government and says in part:

"In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization [Scientology] over the years with its "Fair Game" doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and the bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH [L. Ron Hubbard]. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents." -- Superior Court Judge Paul Breckinridge, Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong, June 20, 1984.

"Fair Game" was introduced by Hubbard, and incites Scientologists to use criminal behavior, deception and exploitation of the legal system to resist "Suppressive Persons", i.e. people or groups that "actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by Suppressive Acts". He defined it "Fair Game" as:

ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.

The Church of Scientology today says that it has removed those policies from its doctrine and it is no longer in existence, but this statement is just as vigorously contested by its critics. (See Fair Game (Scientology) for a more detailed examination.)

Conflicting interpretations of Hubbard's life are presented in the online version of Bare Faced Messiah, Russell Miller's biography of Hubbard. This largely critical version includes links to Scientology's official accounts of Hubbard's past, embedded within Miller's description of the same history.

Attitudes regarding race

File:China text hubbard.gif

One of Hubbard's controversial journal entries during his visit to China in 1928

Hubbard sometimes displayed racist attitudes that were at odds with the picture his followers try to present of him. For instance, when Hubbard visited China at the age of seventeen, he made diary entries such as: "As a Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down." and "They smell of all the baths they didnt [sic] take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here." Similarly, Hubbard described the Lama temples as "miserably cold and very shabby . . . The people worshipping have voices like bull-frogs and beat a drum and play a brass horn to accompany their singing (?)" and called them "very odd and heathenish".

While such attitudes might not be especially surprising for a teenager born in 1911, they are vastly at odds with the stories he would later tell and his followers would repeat: "Among other wonders, Ron told of watching monks meditate for weeks on end, contemplating higher truths ... he took advantage of this unique opportunity to study Far Eastern culture. ... he befriended and learned ... a thoroughly insightful Beijing magician who represented the last of the line of Chinese magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. ... Old Mayo was also well versed in China’s ancient wisdom that had been handed down from generation to generation. Ron passed many evenings in the company of such wise men, eagerly absorbing their words ... he closely examined the surrounding culture. In addition to the local Tartar tribes, he spent time with nomadic bandits originally from Mongolia ... [t]hese sojourns in Asia and the Pacific islands had a profound effect, giving Ron a subjective understanding of Eastern philosophy ... the world itself was his classroom, and he studied in it voraciously, recording what he saw and learned in his ever-present diaries, which he carefully preserved for future reference." Hubbard said that he was made a lama priest himself by Old Mayo. Hubbard's "ever-present diaries" were introduced into evidence in the Armstrong trial; they make no mention of Old Mayo the Beijing magician or nomad bandits and no reflection on Eastern philosophy.

L. Ron Hubbard expressed support for creating townships in South Africa: "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."

Hubbard in popular culture

Main article: List of Scientology references in popular culture

L. Ron Hubbard has been depicted in novels, motion pictures, television cartoons, video games and other cultural forms. Though Hubbard turns up in a fellow pulp author's fiction as early as 1942, his fame increased greatly after the introduction of Dianetics and Scientology, and he has continued to be a popular subject since the time of his death.

In Keith Giffen's Justice League International, a robot appeared aptly named L-Ron. In later issues, L-Ron's full programming code, "L-Ron H*bb*rd" was revealed. L-Ron is still a minor character in the DC Universe.

Hubbard was awarded the 1994 Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for "his crackling Good Book, Dianetics, which is highly profitable to mankind — or to a portion thereof". The presenter observed he was also the most prolific posthumous author that year.

Writing career

Main articles: L. Ron Hubbard bibliography and Scientology bibliography

Hubbard was an unusually prolific author and lecturer. Because the majority of Hubbard's writings of the 1950s through to the 1970s were aimed exclusively at Scientologists, the Church of Scientology founded its own companies to publish his works - Bridge Publications for the US and Canadian market and New Era Publications, based in Denmark, for the rest of the world. New volumes of his transcribed lectures continue to be produced; that series alone will ultimately total a projected 110 large volumes. Hubbard also wrote a number of works of fiction during the 1930s and 1980s, which are published by the Scientology-owned Galaxy Press. All three of these publishing companies are subordinate to Author Services Inc., another Scientology corporation.

In 2006, Guinness World Records declared Hubbard the world's most published and most translated author, having published 1,084 fiction and non-fiction works that have been translated into 71 languages.

A selection of Hubbard's best-known titles are below; an extensive bibliography of Hubbard's work is available in a separate article.

Fiction

• Buckskin Brigades (1937), ISBN 0-88404-280-4
• Final Blackout (1940), ISBN 0-88404-340-1
• Fear (1951), ISBN 0-88404-599-4
• Typewriter in the Sky (1951), ISBN 0-88404-933-7
• Ole Doc Methuselah (1953), ISBN 0-88404-653-2
• Battlefield Earth (1982), ISBN 0-312-06978-2
• Mission Earth (1985-87), 10 vols.

Dianetics and Scientology

• Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, New York 1950, ISBN 0-88404-416-5
• Child Dianetics. Dianetic Processing for Children, Wichita, Kansas 1951, ISBN 0-88404-421-1
• Scientology 8-80, Phoenix, Arizona 1952, ISBN 0-88404-428-9
• Dianetics 55!, Phoenix, Arizona 1954, ISBN 0-88404-417-3
• Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science Phoenix, Arizona 1955, ISBN 1-4031-0538-3
• Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought Washington, DC 1956, ISBN 0-88404-503-X
• The Problems of Work Washington, DC 1956, ISBN 0-88404-377-0
• Have You Lived Before This Life?, East Grinstead, Sussex 1960, ISBN 0-88404-447-5
• Scientology: A New Slant on Life, East Grinstead, Sussex 1965, ISBN 1-57318-037-8
• The Volunteer Minister's Handbook Los Angeles 1976, ISBN 0-88404-039-9
• Research and Discovery Series, a chronological series collecting Hubbard's lectures. Vol 1, Copenhagen 1980, ISBN 0-88404-073-9
• The Way to Happiness, Los Angeles 1981, ISBN 0-88404-411-4

Unofficial biographies (online)

• L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
• A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack
• Bare Faced Messiah by Russell Miller

External links

• U.S. Government FBI Files for Hubbard via The Smoking Gun

Church of Scientology owned sites

• Index of L. Ron Hubbard Site
• A profile of L. Ron Hubbard
• Websites about L. Ron Hubbard on the Yahoo directory
• ScientologyToday: Who is L. Ron Hubbard? 6 commonly asked questions by the media
• Author Services Inc. Various fictional genres by L. Ron Hubbard
• Writers of the Future A contest founded by L. Ron Hubbard to encourage upcoming fiction and fantasy writers

Independent studies of L. Ron Hubbard

• Ron the Nut (A critical look at the biography of LRH)
• Operation Clambake (critical material on Hubbard and Scientology)
• Factnet Report: Hubbard and the Occult
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• "L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's esteemed founder," by Michael Crowley (Slate magazine, July 15, 2005)
• Scientology Exposed! L. Ron Hubbard on Drugs videopresentation describing the life of L. Ron Hubbard, about 90 min
• L. Ron Hubbard on Drugs videopresentation describing the life of L. Ron Hubbard, about 90 min
• An Illustrated History of Scientology (L. Rick Vodicka, PDF file)
• Annotated bibliography of literature by and about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, by Marco Frenschkowski
• Negative: Summary of Hubbard's writing career, hosted on Amazon.com
• Positive: Hubbard's writings, hosted on Amazon
• L. Ron Hubbard - The Rotten Library
• L. Ron Hubbard at IMDb
• L. Ron Hubbard at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Guinness World Records: L. Ron Hubbard Is the Most Translated Author
• A complete resumé of his works of fiction
• L. Ron Hubbard at the Internet Book List [1]

Directories

• Websites about L. Ron Hubbard (from the Open Directory)