L. Ron Hubbard

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13 1911 – January 24 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was a prolific American author and the controversial founder of Dianetics and Scientology. In addition to philosophical works and self-help books, he wrote fiction in several genres, business management texts, essays and poetry.

Biographical outline

The Church of Scientology has produced numerous biographical publications that make extraordinary claims about his life and career; many of those claims are disputed by journalists and critics. However, there is general agreement about the basic facts of Hubbard's life.

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Family

L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, to Harry Ross Hubbard (1886 - 1975) and Ledora May Waterbury, whom he had married in 1909.

Related Topics:
1911 - Tilden, Nebraska - 1886 - 1975 - 1909

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Harry 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 joined the United States Navy in 1904, leaving the service in 1908, then reenlisting in 1917 when the US declared war on Germany. He served in the Navy until 1946, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander in 1934.

Related Topics:
Fayette, Iowa - Orphan - Infant - Fredericksburg, Iowa - United States Navy - 1904 - 1908 - 1917 - Declared war on Germany - 1946 - Lieutenant Commander - 1934

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May was a feminist who had trained to become a high school teacher. 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. Her paternal grandfather Abram Waterbury was from the Catskill Mountains of New York and later headed West, employed as a veterinarian.

Related Topics:
Feminist - High school - 1864 - Veterinarian - Coal - Catskill Mountains - New York

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Education, pulp fiction and military service

During the 1920s, L. Ron Hubbard traveled twice to the Far East to visit his parents during his father's posting to the United States Navy base on the island of Guam. He attended the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at The George Washington University in Washington, DC between 1930–1932. In 1931, he was placed on academic probation and did not complete the program http://www.lermanet.com/L_Ron_Hubbard/mr142.htm.

Related Topics:
1920s - Far East - United States Navy - Guam - The George Washington University - Washington, DC - 1930 - 1932 - 1931

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Hubbard instead pursued writing, publishing many stories and novellas in pulp magazines during the 1930s http://literary.lronhubbard.org/page29.htm. He became a well known author in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he also published westerns and adventure stories. Critics often cite "Final Blackout", set in a war-ravaged future Europe, and "Fear", a psychological horror story, as among the best examples of Hubbard's pulp fiction.

Related Topics:
Pulp magazine - 1930s - Science fiction - Fantasy - Westerns

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

Related Topics:
1933 - 1934 - 1991 - 1936 - Bremerton, Washington - 1930s

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In June 1941, with war looming, Hubbard joined the United States Navy as a lieutenant (junior grade). After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was posted to Australia but was returned home, possibly after quarrelling with the US Naval Attaché, who rated him "unsatisfactory for any assignment". Subsequently, he was given command of the harbor protection vessel USS YP-422, based in Boston, Massachusetts. Again, he fell out with his superior officer, who rated him "not temperamentally fitted for independent command."

Related Topics:
1941 - United States Navy - Lieutenant - Japan - Pearl Harbor - Australia - USS ''YP-422'' - Boston, Massachusetts

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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 (based in Astoria, Oregon). Shortly after taking the PC-815 on her maiden voyage from Astoria to San Diego, California, his crew detected what he believed to be two Japanese submarines near the mouth of the Columbia River. They spent the next three days bombarding the area with depth charges, after which Hubbard claimed that at least one Japanese submarine had been sunk. A subsequent investigation by the US Navy concluded that Hubbard's vessel had in fact been attacking a "known magnetic deposit" on the seabed, and postwar casualty assessments found that no Japanese submarines had been anywhere near the Columbia River at the time.

Related Topics:
Florida - USS ''PC-815'' - Astoria, Oregon - San Diego, California - Columbia River - Depth charge

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Shortly after reaching San Diego, Hubbard ordered his crew to practice their gunnery by shelling a Mexican island off Baja California in the belief that it was uninhabited and that it belonged to the United States. Neither assumption was correct. The Mexican Government complained and following a brief investigation, Hubbard was relieved of command with a sharp letter of admonition.

Related Topics:
Mexican - Baja California

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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, received a promotion to Lieutenant Commander in June 1947, and resigned his commission in 1950.

Related Topics:
Continental United States - 1945 - 1947 - 1950

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In later years, Hubbard made a number of claims about his military record that are difficult to reconcile with the govenment's documentation of his service years. For example, Hubbard claimed that he had sustained wounds "in combat on the island of Java" http://www.ronthephilosopher.org/page82.htm but his service record offers no indication that he came anywhere near Java. 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 shows Hubbard being awarded medals which do not actually exist, boasts academic qualifications that Hubbard did not earn, and places Hubbard in command of vessels that were not in the service of the US Navy. The Navy has noted that "several inconsistencies exist between Mr. Hubbard's DD214 and the available facts." http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/war-rec.htm

Related Topics:
Java - Purple Heart

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The debut of Dianetics

In May 1950, Hubbard published a book describing the self-improvement technique of Dianetics, touted as "The Modern Science of Mental Health." With Dianetics, Hubbard introduced the concept of "auditing," a two-person question-and-answer therapy that involved reviewing painful memories. According to Hubbard, dianetic auditing could eliminate emotional problems, cure physical illnesses, and increase intelligence. In his introduction to the book, 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."

Related Topics:
Self-improvement technique - Dianetics - Auditing

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Unable to elicit interest from mainstream publishers or medical professionals, Hubbard had turned to the legendary science fiction editor John W. Campbell, who had for years published Hubbard's science fiction stories. Beginning in late 1949, Campbell publicized Dianetics in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction. The science fiction community was divided about the merits of this new fiction. Campbell's star author Isaac Asimov criticised 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 that his wife's health had been transformed for the better by dianetic auditing?interrupted his writing career to run the first Los Angeles Dianetics center, a position which would pay a healthy profit.

Related Topics:
John W. Campbell - Astounding Science Fiction - Isaac Asimov - Jack Williamson - A. E. van Vogt

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Dianetics was a hit, selling 150,000 copies within a year of publication. The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and branch offices were opened in five other US cities before the end of 1950 (though most folded within a year and Hubbard soon abandoned the Foundation, denouncing a number of his former associates as communists).

Related Topics:
Elizabeth, New Jersey - Communists

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With success, Dianetics became a subject of critical scrutiny by the medical establishment and the press. In September 1950, The New York Times published a cautionary statement on the topic by the American Psychological Association, which 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 that it had been validated through scientific testing. Consumer Reports, in an August 1951 assessment of Dianeticshttp://www.xenutv.com/print/consumer-review-0851.htm, dryly noted that "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 that "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."

Related Topics:
The New York Times - American Psychological Association - Consumer Reports

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Hubbard's private behavior became the subject of unflattering headlines when Sara filed for divorce in late 1950, citing the fact 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."

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Scientology

In mid-1952, Hubbard expanded Dianetics into a secular philosophy which he called Scientology. Hubbard also married his third wife that year, 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.

Related Topics:
1952 - Scientology

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In December 1953, Hubbard declared Scientology to be 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 Scientology organization from an office in London. In 1959, he bought Saint Hill Manor near the Sussex town of East Grinstead, a Georgian manor house formerly owned by the Maharajah of Jaipur. This became the worldwide headquarters of Scientology.

Related Topics:
Church of Scientology - Camden, New Jersey - England - 1950s - London - Saint Hill - Sussex - East Grinstead - Georgian - Maharajah - Jaipur

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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 http://www.scientology.org/gloss.htm. He codified a set of axioms http://www.scientology.org/wis/WISENG/34/34-scax.htm 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.

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Hubbard's followers in Scientology believed that 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, related to the electronic lie detectors of the time, was (and still is) used by Scientologists in the auditing process to evaluate "mental masses" that surround the thetan. These "masses" are claimed to impede the thetan from realizing its full potential.

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Hubbard claimed that physical disease was largely psychosomatic, and that one who, like himself, had attained the enlightened state of "clear" and become an "Operating Thetan" would be virtually disease free. According to biographers, Hubbard went to great lengths to have evidence of his recourse to modern medicine suppressed, attributing the symptoms of disease to attacks by malicious forces, both spiritual and earthly. Hubbard insisted that humanity was imperiled by such forces, which were the result of negative memories (or "engrams") stored in the unconscious or "reactive" mind, some of which have been 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 to attack all forces, both social and spiritual, that were hostile to the interests of the Scientology movement.

Related Topics:
Psychosomatic - Operating Thetan

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Church members were expected to pay fixed donation rates for courses, auditing sessions, books and E-meters, all of which proved very lucrative for the church, which paid emoluments directly to Hubbard and his family.

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Legal difficulties and life on the high seas

Scientology became a focus of controversy across the English-speaking world during the mid-1960s, with Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, the Australian state of Victoria and the Canadian province of Ontario all holding public inquiries into Scientology's activities. http://whyaretheydead.net/Cowen/audit/ofpapers.html

Related Topics:
Britain - New Zealand - South Africa - Australia - Victoria - Canadian - Ontario

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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.

Related Topics:
1966 - Rhodesia - Ian Smith - Unilateral Declaration of Independence

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In 1967, 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 para-military group known as the "Sea Organization," or "Sea Org." With titles and uniforms of Hubbard's design, the Sea Org subsequently became the controlling group within Hubbard's Scientology empire. He returned to the United States in the mid-1970s and lived for a while in Florida.

Related Topics:
1967 - Commodore - Mediterranean Sea - Sea Org - 1970s - Florida

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In 1977, Scientology offices on both coasts of the United States were raided by FBI agents seeking evidence of a suspected 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 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.

Related Topics:
1977 - FBI - Mary Sue - 1979 - United States Government - San Luis Obispo

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Later life

During the 1980s, Hubbard returned to science fiction writing, 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 is thought to dramatize some of Scientology's "Advanced Level" teachings. Hubbard's later science fiction works sold well, receiving mixed reviews (and provoking press reports describing how sales of Hubbard's books were artificially inflated by Scientologists purchasing large numbers of copies in order to manipulate the bestseller charts http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/sandiego-books031590.htm). While claiming to be entirely divorced from the actions of Scientology management, Hubbard continued to draw an enormous income from the Scientology enterprises; Forbes magazine estimated that his 1982 Scientology-related income exceeded US $40 million.

Related Topics:
1980s - Battlefield Earth - Mission Earth - Screenplay - Revolt in the Stars - Science fiction

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Hubbard died at his ranch on January 24, 1986, reportedly due to 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, who, according to Scientology critics, had conducted an autopsy that revealed Hubbard's bloodstream contained high levels of a psychotropic drug called Vistaril. The Church of Scientology announced that Hubbard had deliberately "discarded the body" to do "higher level spiritual research," unencumbered by mortal confines.

Related Topics:
January 24 - 1986 - San Luis Obispo - Psychotropic

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Following Hubbard's death, David Miscavige, one of Hubbard's former personal assistants, took over the leadership of the Scientology empire, via his position as Chairman of the Religious Technology Center, a non-profit corporation set up in 1982 to safeguard Hubbard's copyrighted works.

Related Topics:
David Miscavige - Religious Technology Center - 1982 - Copyright

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