L. Ron Hubbard

Hubbard in 1950

*This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).*

**Lafayette Ronald Hubbard** (March 13, 1911 - January 24, 1986) was an American author and the creator of Scientology. A prolific writer of pulp science fiction and fantasy novels in his early career, in 1950 he authored *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health* and established organizations to promote and practice Dianetics techniques. In 1952, having lost the rights to Dianetics in bankruptcy proceedings, Hubbard invented Scientology and managed the Church of Scientology until his death in 1986.

Born in Tilden, Nebraska, in 1911, Hubbard spent much of his childhood in Helena, Montana. While his father was posted to the U.S. naval base on Guam in the late 1920s, Hubbard traveled to Asia and the South Pacific. In 1930, Hubbard enrolled at George Washington University to study civil engineering but dropped out in his second year. He began his career as a prolific writer of pulp fiction stories and married Margaret Grubb, who shared his interest in aviation. Hubbard was an officer in the Navy during World War II, where he briefly commanded two ships but was removed from command both times. The last few months of his active service were spent in a hospital, being treated for a variety of complaints.

In 1953, the first churches of Scientology were founded by Hubbard, and in 1954 a Scientology church in Los Angeles was founded, which became the Church of Scientology International. He also added organizational management strategies, principles of pedagogy, a theory of communication and prevention strategies for healthy living to the teachings of Scientology. Scientology became increasingly controversial during the 1960s and came under intense media, government and legal pressure in a number of countries. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hubbard spent much of his time at sea on his personal fleet of ships as "Commodore" of the Sea Organization, an elite quasi-paramilitary group of Scientologists.

Hubbard returned to the United States in 1975 and went into seclusion in the California desert after an unsuccessful attempt to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida. In 1978, Hubbard was convicted of fraud after he was tried *in absentia* by France. In the same year, eleven high-ranking members of Scientology were indicted on 28 charges for their role in the Church's Snow White Program, a systematic program of espionage against the United States government. One of the indicted was Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, who was in charge of the program; he himself was named an unindicted co-conspirator. Hubbard spent the remaining years of his life in seclusion in a luxury motorhome on a ranch in California, attended to by a small group of Scientology officials. Following his 1986 death, Scientology leaders announced that Hubbard's body had become an impediment to his work and that he had decided to "drop his body" to continue his research on another plane of existence. Though many of his autobiographical statements were fictitious, the Church of Scientology describes Hubbard in hagiographic terms and says its account of his life is factual.

## Overview

Hubbard was born to a Navy family that repeatedly relocated through the United States and overseas. After numerous academic difficulties, Hubbard dropped out of university, taking a wife and beginning a career as a pulp fiction author.

In the summer of 1941, Hubbard applied and was accepted to join the Navy as an officer. Amid poor performance reviews, Hubbard was repeatedly removed from his assignments. Ultimately, Hubbard began reporting health complaints and spent the remainder of his active duty career in hospital.

After the war, Hubbard conducted occult rituals with California rocket scientist Jack Parsons and wrote self-hypnotic 'affirmations' to address his physical and psychological problems. He bigamously married a second wife, Parson's former girlfriend. After he penned a request to the Veterans Administration begging for psychiatric treatment, Hubbard traveled to Savannah, Georgia where he was associated with a charity psychiatric ward for veterans. Hubbard claimed to have worked as a "lay analyst" (or peer counselor), listening to indigent African-Americans who couldn't afford professional psychoanalysis.

Inspired by the science-fiction of his friend Robert Heinlein, Hubbard announced plans to write a book which would claim to "make supermen". In 1950, Hubbard published "Dianetics", which offered readers a chance to reach a superhuman state of "Clear". Hubbard promised that a "Clear" would have a perfectly functioning mind, a photographic memory, increased IQ, and would be cured of poor eyesight, ulcers, or the common cold. The book was an immediate commercial success, despite being roundly rejected by scholars, psychiatrists and other experts.

Capitalizing on the book's fame, Hubbard began writing, lecturing and training others in Dianetics. Despite substantial income, his organization went into debt. A public demonstration of the world's "first Clear" at the Shrine Auditorium failed horribly when the subject was unable to recall the color of Hubbard's necktie. Citing abuse and kidnapping, Hubbard's wife Sara and her lawyer told press that Hubbard had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by doctors who concluded he was 'hopelessly insane' and should be committed to a sanatorium.

By 1953, having lost the copyrights of Dianetics to his creditors, Hubbard formed a new organization, this time organized as a religion called Scientology which offered followers a chance to achieve the god-like state of "Operating Thetan". The church spread throughout the United States and United Kingdom, with a large percentage of its income going to Hubbard. In 1959, Hubbard purchased and moved to Saint Hill Manor in England, making it the worldwide headquarters of Scientology. By 1968, however, the British government announced foreign Scientologists would no longer be permitted to enter the UK and that Hubbard himself was excluded from the country as an "undesirable alien".

Hubbard traveled to Rhodesia in 1966, hoping to form a remote "safe haven" for Scientology, but he was ordered to leave the country. Seeking to avoid further legal troubles, Hubbard founded the "Sea Org", a private navy of dedicated Scientologists, and took to the sea, spending the next eight years touring the Atlantic aboard a repurposed passenger ferry that Hubbard dubbed the *Apollo*.

In 1975, the sixty-four-year-old Hubbard suffered a heart attack and pulmonary embolism that left him hospitalized for three weeks. In response to mounting health concerns, Hubbard secretly returned to the United States, hiding in various locations across the country.

In July 1977, the FBI staged a simultaneous raid of Church of Scientology locations in Los Angeles, Hollywood, and D.C. They seized documents which revealed a wide range of crimes committed by Church of Scientology members, leading to eleven high-ranking Scientologists being indicted. Hubbard was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

In 1980, Hubbard disappeared further into hiding. He spent the last five years of his life in a luxury motor home on a ranch in Creston, California, cared for by high-ranking Sea Org members. In December 1985, Hubbard reportedly attempted suicide by electrocution. The circumstances of Hubbard’s death including the exact date of his death has not been established.

## Early life

L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, the only child of Ledora May (née Waterbury), who had trained as a teacher, and Harry Ross Hubbard, a former United States Navy officer. Like many military familes of the era, the Hubbards repeatedly relocated around the United States and overseas.

In 1923, the Hubbards traveled by ship from Seattle to Washington, D.C. via the Panama Canal. Also on the voyage was Commander Joseph "Snake" Thompson, a U.S. Navy medical doctor and psychoanalyst.

During his time in Washington, D.C., Hubbard was active in the Boy Scouts, and earning the organization's Eagle Scout rank in 1924, two weeks after his 13th birthday.

After his father was posted to Guam, and Hubbard and his mother traveled to Guam with a brief stop-over in a couple of Chinese ports. The teenage Hubbard recorded his impressions of the places he visited and disdained the poverty of the inhabitants of Japan and China, whom he described as "gooks" and "lazy [and] ignorant".

### Education

Hubbard attended Helena High School, where he contributed to the school paper, but was dropped from enrollment at Helena High due to failing grades. After he failed the Naval Academy entrance examination, Hubbard was enrolled in a Virginia Preparatory School to prepare him for a second attempt.Template:Sfn However, Hubbard complained of eye strain and was diagnosed with myopia, a diagnosis that precluded any future enrollment in the Naval Academy. As an adult, Hubbard would write to himself: "[Your eyes] became bad when you used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy".

Following his myopia diagnosis, Hubbard was sent to the Woodward School in Washington, D.C., which would allow him to qualify for admission to George Washington University without having to sit for the University's entrance examination. He successfully graduated from Woodward in June 1930 and entered the University the following September, studying civil engineering.

Academically, Hubbard did poorly: his transcripts show he failed many courses including atomic physics, though later in life he would claim to have been a nuclear physicist. In September 1931, he was placed on probation due to poor grades, and in April 1932 he again received a warning for his lack of academic achievement. During his first year, Hubbard helped organize the university Glider Club and was elected its president. He also contributed to the University student newspaper as a reporter.

### Caribbean trips

During what would become Hubbard's final semester at GWU, he organized an ill-fated trip to the Caribbean for June 1932 to explore and film the pirate "strongholds and bivouacs of the Spanish Main" and to "collect whatever one collects for exhibits in museums".Template:Sfn Amid multiple misfortunes and running low on funds, the ship's owners ordered it to return to Baltimore.Template:Sfn Hubbard failed to return to University the following year.Template:Sfn

Papers reported that the students had become stranded, with Hubbard's father Lt. Harry Ross Hubbard telling press he cabled $300 but his son would not accept the funds.

Historian Lawrence Wright observed: "Hubbard demonstrated an impressive capacity to summon others to join him on what was clearly a shaky enterprise. Throughout his life he would enlist people—especially young people—in romantic, ill-conceived projects, often at sea, where he was out of reach of process servers."Template:Sfn

After his father volunteered him for a Red Cross relief effort, on October 23, 1932, Hubbard traveled to Puerto Rico.Template:Sfn En route, Hubbard apparently "decided to abandon the Red Cross", instead opting to accompany a mineral surveyor in a futile bid to find gold.Template:Sfn

### Interactions with D.C. psychiatrists

For much of the 1920s and 30s, L. Ron Hubbard lived in Washington D.C. Hubbard described later encounters with navy psychiatrist Joseph Thompson, who he had first met seven years prior: "In 1930 I knew a fellow by the name of Commander Thompson. I had known him before, actually". As an adult, Hubbard called Thompson a "great man" who inspired Hubbard's interest in the mind, saying that through Thompson's friendship, "I attended many lectures given at naval hospitals and generally became conversant with psychoanalysis as it had been exported from Austria by Freud." Hubbard credited Thompson with the adage "If it's not true for you, it's not true.", a purportedly-Buddhist maxim which was later incorporated into Scientology.

William Alanson White was an American neurologist and psychiatrist who served as superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital — a hospital Hubbard later described as "where they sent the naval officers after they had received their fifth contradiction from the Navy Department". Hubbard later claimed to be trained by both Joseph Thompson and William Alanson White. Hubbard recalled "Dr. William Alanson White, a very fine man. He was head of the big St. Elizabeth’s, the big mental institution there in Washington, D.C., and he had been a friend of mine for quite a while. I had met him through other friends of Dr. Thompson's".

Hubbard recalled:

"The… it was an interesting thing, for instance, to William Allen White. And Commander Thompson. Both of them, where I was concerned, that I wasn’t very interested in sitting around figuring about this stuff and didn’t seem to be terribly interested in the insane."
In a lecture, Hubbard described consulting White about a theoretical calculation of human memory capacity, apparently during Hubbard's university days. Hubbard recalled that "he [White] used to see me every once in a while".

In a 1952 lecture, Hubbard would recall his interaction with staff and patients at a D.C. facility specializing in schizophrenia which he calls "Walnut Lodge" (presumably Chestnut Lodge):
Template:Blockquote

## Young adulthood

### First marriage

Hubbard returned from Puerto Rico to D.C. in February 1933. He renewed a relationship with a fellow glider pilot, Margaret "Polly" Grubb.Template:Sfn The two were quickly married on April 13 amid speculation Grubb was pregnant - she did have a miscarriage shortly afterwards; in October, she was pregnant again.Template:Sfn On May 7, 1934, she gave birth prematurely to a son who was named Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, Jr., whose nickname was "Nibs".Template:Sfn Their second child, Katherine May, was born on January 15, 1936.Template:Sfn

### Pulp fiction career

See also: Written works of L. Ron Hubbard
 File:Two Complete Science-Adventure Books Winter 1950.jpg
Hubbard became a well-known and prolific writer for pulp fiction magazines during the 1930s. Six of his pieces were published commercially during 1932 to 1933.Template:Sfn The going rate for freelance writers at the time was only a cent a word, so Hubbard's total earnings from these articles would have been less than $100 (Template:Inflation).Template:Sfn The pulp magazine *Thrilling Adventures* became the first to publish one of his short stories, in February 1934. Over the next six years, pulp magazines published many of his short stories under a variety of pen names, including Winchester Remington Colt, Kurt von Rachen, René Lafayette, Joe Blitz and Legionnaire 148.Template:Sfn

Although he was best known for his fantasy and science fiction stories, Hubbard wrote in a wide variety of genres, including adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mysteries, westerns and even romance. Hubbard knew and associated with writers such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur J. Burks, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and A. E. van Vogt.

In Spring 1936, the Hubbard family moved to Bremerton, Washington to live with Hubbard's aunts and grandmother, later settling in nearby South Colby.Template:Sfn Hubbard spent an increasing amount of time in New York City,Template:Sfn working out of a hotel room where his wife suspected him of carrying on affairs.Template:Sfn

His first full-length novel, *Buckskin Brigades*, was published in 1937. He became a "highly idiosyncratic" writer of science fiction after being taken under the wing of editor John W. Campbell, who published many of Hubbard's short stories and also serialized a number of well-received novelettes that Hubbard wrote for Campbell's magazines *Unknown* and *Astounding Science Fiction*. These included *Fear*, *Final Blackout* and *Typewriter in the Sky*.Template:Sfn

He wrote the script for *The Secret of Treasure Island*, a 1938 Columbia Pictures movie serial.

### Perceived near-death experience inspires manuscript

Main article: Excalibur (L. Ron Hubbard)
On New Year's Day, 1938, Hubbard reportedly underwent a dental procedure and reacted to the anesthetic gas used in the procedure.Template:Sfn According to his account, this triggered a revelatory near-death experience. Allegedly inspired by this experience, Hubbard composed a manuscript, which was never published, with working titles of *The One Command* and *Excalibur*.

Arthur J. Burks, who read the manuscript in 1938 and suggested the title *Excalibur*, recalled that Hubbard had wanted to distill down all the wisdom of the world into a single word. They argued if it was "Be" or "Survive", though Burks recalled the book from there on had to do with survival. The theme of "survive" would be revisited in *Dianetics*. Burks also recalled the work discussing the psychology of a lynch mob. Hubbard would later cite *Excalibur* as an early version of *Dianetics*.

According to Burks, Hubbard believed that *Excalibur* would "revolutionize everything" and that "it was somewhat more important, and would have a greater impact upon people, than the Bible." According to Burks, Hubbard "was so sure he had something 'away out and beyond' anything else that he had sent telegrams to several book publishers, telling them that he had written 'THE book' and that they were to meet him at Penn Station, and he would discuss it with them and go with whomever [sic] gave him the best offer." However, nobody bought the manuscript.

Hubbard's failure to sell *Excalibur* depressed him; he told his wife in an October 1938 letter: "Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do because it retards my progress by demanding incessant attention and, further, actually weakens my name. So you see I've got to do something about it and at the same time strengthen the old financial position." He went on:

Template:Blockquote

Forrest J Ackerman, later Hubbard's literary agent, recalled that Hubbard told him "whoever read it either went insane or committed suicide. And he said that the last time he had shown it to a publisher in New York, he walked into the office to find out what the reaction was, the publisher called for the reader, the reader came in with the manuscript, threw it on the table and threw himself out of the skyscraper window."
In 1948, Hubbard would tell a convention of science fiction fans that *Excalibur*Template:'s inspiration came during an operation in which he "died" for eight minutes.Template:Sfn

Template:Blockquote

### Military aspirations and Alaska trip

Hubbard joined The Explorers Club in February 1940 on the strength of his claimed explorations in the Caribbean and survey flights in the United States.Template:Sfn He persuaded the club to let him carry its flag on an "Alaskan Radio-Experimental Expedition".Template:Sfn The crew consisted of Hubbard and his wife aboard his ketch *Magician*.Template:Sfn

The trip was plagued by problems and did not get any further than Ketchikan.Template:Sfn The ship's engine broke down only two days after setting off in July 1940. Having underestimated the cost of the trip, he did not have enough money to repair the broken engine. He raised money by writing stories and contributing to the local radio stationTemplate:Sfn and eventually earned enough to fix the engine,Template:Sfn making it back to Puget Sound on December 27, 1940.Template:Sfn

After returning from Alaska, Hubbard applied to join the United States Navy. His friend Robert MacDonald Ford sent a letter of recommendation describing Hubbard as "one of the most brilliant men I have ever known". Ford later said that Hubbard had written the letter himself: "I don't know why Ron wanted a letter. I just gave him a letter-head and said, 'Hell, you're the writer, you write it!'"

## Military career

Main article: Military career of L. Ron Hubbard
 File:Hubbard and moulton.jpg
Hubbard was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Naval Reserve on July 19, 1941.

### Sent home from Australia and relieved of gunboat command

On December 18, Hubbard was posted to the Philippines and set out for the posting via Australia. While in Melbourne awaiting transport to Manilla, Hubbard was sent back to the United States.

The US Naval Attaché to Australia accused Hubbard of sending blockade-runner *Don Isidro* "three thousand miles out of her way". Hubbard was ordered back to the United States at the instigation of the Attaché, who cabled Washington to complain about Hubbard:

> By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, he became the source of much trouble... This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.
>
>

Hubbard would later claim that "for the next two or three years I'd run into officers, and they would say 'Hubbard? Hubbard? Hubbard? Are you the Hubbard that was in Australia?' And I'd say 'Yes.' And they's say 'Oh!' Kind of, you know, horrified, like they didn't know whether they should quite talk to me or not, you know? Terrible man".

 File:Yp422 large.jpg
After a brief stint censoring cables, Hubbard's request for sea duty was approved and he reported to a Neponset, Massachusetts, shipyard which was converting a trawler into a gunboat to be classified as Template:USS.

On September 25, 1942, the commandant of Boston Navy Yard informed Washington that, in his view, Hubbard was "not temperamentally fitted for independent command".Template:Sfn Days later, on October 1, Hubbard was summarily relieved of his command.Template:Sfn

### Battle with magnetic anomaly and firing on Mexico

 File:Uss pc-815 1.jpg
Hubbard was sent to submarine chaser training, and in 1943 was posted to Portland, Oregon, to take command of a submarine chaser, the Template:USS, which was under construction. On May 18, *PC-815* sailed on her shakedown cruise, bound for San Diego.

Only five hours into the voyage, Hubbard believed he had detected an enemy submarine. Hubbard spent the next 68 hours engaged in combat, until finally receiving orders to return to Astoria. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, commander of the Northwest Sea Frontier, concluded: "An analysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area." Fletcher suggested Hubbard had mistaken a "known magnetic deposit" for an enemy sub.Template:Sfn

The following month, Hubbard unwittingly sailed *PC-815* into Mexican territorial waters and conducted gunnery practice off the Coronado Islands, in the belief that they were uninhabited and belonged to the United States.

The Mexican government complained and Hubbard was relieved of command. A report written after the incident rated Hubbard as unsuitable for independent duties and "lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation". The report recommended he be assigned "duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised".Template:Sfn

### Discovery of sabotage attempt?

 File:USS Algol (AKA-54) underway off the coast of Southern California on 22 September 1944.jpg
In 1944, Hubbard was posted to Portland where Template:USS was under construction. The ship was commissioned in July and Hubbard served as the navigation and training officer. Hubbard requested, and was granted, a transfer to the School of Military Government in Princeton. The night before his departure, the ship's log reports that "The Navigating Officer [Hubbard] reported to the OOD [Officer On Duty] that an attempt at sabotage had been made sometime between 1530–1600. A coke bottle filled with gasoline with a cloth wick inserted had been concealed among cargo which was to be hoisted aboard and stored in No 1 hold. It was discovered before being taken on board. ONI, FBI and NSD authorities reported on the scene and investigations were started."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Hubbard's estranged son Nibs would later speculate that his father had "apparently concealed a gasoline bomb on board the USS Algol in order to avoid combat". In contrast, Scientology critic Cris Owen argues "One cannot completely rule out his involvement, but the balance of factors suggests that [Hubbard] was not the culprit."

### Repeated hospitalizations

After being relieved of command of *PC-815*, Hubbard began reporting sick, citing a variety of ailments, including ulcers, malaria, and back pains. Hubbard was admitted to the San Diego naval hospital for observation—he would remain there for nearly three months.Template:Sfn Years later, Hubbard would privately write to himself: "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you."Template:Sfn

Hubbard attended school in Princeton until January 1945, when he was assigned to Monterey, California. In April, he again reported sick and was re-admitted to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, Oakland.Template:Sfn His complaints included "headaches, rheumatism, conjunctivitis, pains in his side, stomach aches, pains in his shoulder, arthritis, hemorrhoids".Template:Sfn An October 1945 naval board found that Hubbard was "considered physically qualified to perform duty ashore, preferably within the continental United States".Template:Sfn He was discharged from the hospital on December 4, 1945, and transferred to inactive duty on February 17, 1946. Hubbard would ultimately resign his commission after the publication of *Dianetics*, with effect from October 30, 1950.

## Life after the war

Hubbard's underwent a turbulent period immediately after the war. According to his own account, he "was abandoned by family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple and a probable burden upon them for the rest of my days". His daughter Katherine presented a rather different version: his wife had refused to uproot their children from their home in Bremerton, Washington, to join him in California. Their marriage was by now in terminal difficulties and he chose to stay in California.Template:Sfn

### Occult involvement in Pasadena

See also: Scientology and the occult and Affirmations (L. Ron Hubbard)
 File:JackParsons3.jpg
In August 1945, Hubbard moved into the Pasadena mansion of John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons. A leading rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute of Technology and a founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Parsons led a double life as an avid occultist and Thelemite, follower of the English ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley and leader of a lodge of Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO).Template:Sfn He let rooms in the house only to tenants who he specified should be "atheists and those of a Bohemian disposition".Template:Sfn

Hubbard befriended Parsons and soon became sexually involved with Parsons's 21-year-old girlfriend, Sara "Betty" Northrup.Template:Sfn Despite this, Parsons was very impressed with Hubbard and reported to Crowley:

Template:Blockquote

Hubbard, whom Parsons referred to in writing as "Frater H", became an enthusiastic collaborator in the Pasadena OTO. The two men collaborated on the "Babalon Working", a sex magic ritual intended to summon an incarnation of Babalon, the supreme Thelemite Goddess. It was undertaken over several nights in February and March 1946 in order to summon an "elemental" who would participate in further sex magic. As Richard Metzger describes it,

Template:Blockquote

The "elemental" arrived a few days later in the form of Marjorie Cameron, who agreed to participate in Parsons's rites.

During this period, Hubbard authored a document which has been called the "Affirmations" (also referred to as the "Admissions"). They consist of a series of statements by and addressed to Hubbard, relating to various physical, sexual, psychological and social issues that he was encountering in his life. The Affirmations appear to have been intended to be used as a form of self-hypnosis with the intention of resolving the author's psychological problems and instilling a positive mental attitude. In her book, Janet Reitman called the Affirmations "the most revealing psychological self-assessment, complete with exhortations to himself, that [Hubbard] had ever made".Template:R Among the Affirmations:

* "Your eyes are getting progressively better. They became bad when you used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy. You have no reason to keep them bad."
* "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you. You are free of the Navy."
* "Your hip is a pose. You have a sound hip. It never hurts. Your shoulder never hurts."
* "Your foot was an alibi. The injury is no longer needed."Template:Sfn
* "You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. ... But you know which ones were lies ... You have enough real experience to make anecdotes forever. Stick to your true adventures."
* "Masturbation does not injure or make insane. Your parents were in error. Everyone masturbates."Template:Sfn

### Elopement with Sara

 File:L Ron and Sara Hubbard June 1946.jpg
Parsons, Hubbard and Sara agreed to set up a business partnership, "Allied Enterprises", in which they invested nearly their entire savings—the vast majority contributed by Parsons. The plan was for Hubbard and Sara to buy yachts in Miami and sail them to the West Coast to sell for a profit. Hubbard had a different idea; he wrote to the U.S. Navy requesting permission to leave the country "to visit Central & South America & China" for the purposes of "collecting writing material"—in other words, undertaking a world cruise.Template:Sfn Aleister Crowley strongly criticized Parsons's actions, writing: "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick—Jack Parsons weak fool—obvious victim prowling swindlers". Parsons attempted to recover his money by obtaining an injunction to prevent Hubbard and Sara leaving the country or disposing of the remnants of his assets.Template:Sfn They attempted to sail anyway but were forced back to port by a storm. A week later, Allied Enterprises was dissolved. Parsons received only a $2,900 promissory note from Hubbard and returned home "shattered". He had to sell his mansion to developers soon afterwards to recoup his losses.Template:Sfn

Hubbard's fellow writers were well aware of what had happened between him and Parsons. L. Sprague de Camp wrote to Isaac Asimov on August 27, 1946, to tell him:

{{blockquote|text=The more complete story of Hubbard is that he is now in Fla. living on his yacht with a man-eating tigress named Betty-alias-Sarah, another of the same kind ... He will probably soon thereafter arrive in these parts with Betty-Sarah, broke, working the poor-wounded-veteran racket for all its worth, and looking for another easy mark. Don't say you haven't been warned. [Robert A. Heinlein] thinks Ron went to pieces morally as a result of the war. I think that's fertilizer, that he always was that way, but when he wanted to conciliate or get something from somebody he could put on a good charm act. What the war did was to wear him down to where he no longer bothers with the act.Template:Sfn

On August 10, 1946, Hubbard bigamously married Sara, while still married to Polly. It was not until 1947 that his first wife learned that he had remarried. Hubbard agreed to divorce Polly in June that year and the marriage was dissolved shortly afterwards, with Polly given custody of the children.Template:Sfn

### Request for psychiatric treatment

See also: L. Ron Hubbard and psychiatry and Scientology and psychiatry
After Hubbard's wedding to Sara, the couple settled at Laguna Beach, California, where Hubbard took a short-term job looking after a friend's yachtTemplate:HairspaceTemplate:Sfn before resuming his fiction writing to supplement the small disability allowance that he was receiving as a war veteran.Template:Sfn Working from a trailer in a run-down area of North Hollywood,Template:Sfn Hubbard sold a number of science fiction stories that included his *Ole Doc Methuselah* series and the serialized novels *The End Is Not Yet* and *To the Stars*. However, he remained short of money and his son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr, testified later that Hubbard was dependent on his own father and Margaret's parents for money; Hubbard's writings, which he was paid at a penny per word, never garnered him any more than $10,000 prior to the founding of Scientology. He repeatedly wrote to the Veterans Administration (VA) asking for an increase in his war pension.Template:Sfn

In October 1947 he wrote to request psychiatric treatment:

Template:Blockquote

The VA eventually did increase his pension,Template:Sfn but his money problems continued.

In December 1947, press announced the death of British occultist Aleister Crowley, founder of the Thelema religion. Hubbard's son Nibs would later recall his father told him that Crowley's death as a pivotal moment.Template:Sfn

### Interactions with Savannah psychiatrists

Beginning in June 1948, the nationally-syndicated wire service United Press ran a story on an American Legion-sponsored psychiatric ward in Savannah, Georgia, which sought to keep mentally-ill war veterans out of jail. That summer, Hubbard was arrested by the San Luis Obispo sheriff on a charge of petty theft for passing a fraudulent check.Template:Sfn

In late 1948, Hubbard and his second wife Sara moved from California to Savannah, Georgia, where he would later claim to have "worked" as a "volunteer" in the psychiatric clinic. Hubbard claimed he had "processed an awful lot of Negroes". Hubbard later wrote of having observed a "Dr. Center" in Savannah:Template:Sfn Template:Blockquote

In letters to friends sent from Savannah, Hubbard began to make the first public mentions of what was to become Dianetics.Template:Sfn

## In the Dianetics era

### Origins in science-fiction "supermen"

Hubbard wrote in January 1949 that he was working on a "book of psychology" about "the cause and cure of nervous tension", which he was going to call *The Dark Sword*, *Excalibur* or *Science of the Mind*.Template:Sfn

Inspired by science-fiction of his friend Robert Heinlein, Hubbard announced plans to write a book which would claim to "make supermen". On March 8, 1949, Hubbard wrote to Robert A. Heinlein from Savannah, Georgia; In that letter, Hubbard connected his upcoming book to Heinlein's earlier work Coventry, in which a utopian government has the technology to psychologically "cure" criminals of violent personality traits, turning them into psionic supermen called "nul-A's". He wrote to Heinlein:
Template:Blockquote

Hubbard wrote that there existed a superhuman state which he called the state of "Clear". He claimed people in that state would have a perfectly functioning mind with an improved IQ and photographic memory.Template:Sfn The "Clear" would be cured of physical ailments ranging from poor eyesight to the common cold,Template:Sfn which Hubbard asserted were purely psychosomatic.

### Initial success of *Dianetics*

Main article: History of Dianetics and Scientology
 File:L. RON HUBBARD RESIDENCE AT BAY HEAD, OCEAN COUNTY, NJ (cropped).jpg
To promote his upcoming book, Hubbard enlisted his longtime-editor John W. Campbell, who had a long-standing fascination with fringe psychologies and psychic powers ("psionics"). Campbell invited Hubbard and Sara to move into a cottage at Bay Head, New Jersey, not far from his own home at Plainfield. Campbell, in turn, recruited an acquaintance, medical doctor Joseph Winter, to help promote the book. Campbell wrote Winter to extoll Hubbard, claiming:
Template:Blockquote
The birth of Hubbard's second daughter Alexis Valerie, delivered by Winter on March 8, 1950, came in the middle of the preparations to launch Dianetics.

Dianetics was launched in *Astounding's* May 1950 issue and on May 9, Hubbard's companion book *Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health* was published by Hermitage House.Template:Sfn
In an editorial, Campbell said: "Its power is almost unbelievable; it proves the mind not only can but does rule the body completely; following the sharply defined basic laws set forth, physical ills such as ulcers, asthma and arthritis can be cured, as can all other psychosomatic ills."Template:Sfn

The basic content of Dianetics was a rehash of Psychoanalysis. Like Freud, Hubbard taught that the brain recorded memories (or "engrams") which were stored in the unconscious mind (which Hubbbard restyled "the reactive mind"). Past memories could be triggered later in life, causing psychological, emotional, or even physical problems. By sharing their memories with a friendly listener (or "auditor"), a person could overcome their past pain and thus cure themselves.

Dianetics was an immediate commercial success and sparked what Martin Gardner calls "a nationwide cult of incredible proportions".Template:Sfn Five hundred Dianetic auditing groups had been set up across the United States.

Dianetics was poorly received by the press and the scientific and medical professions. *Scientific American* said that Hubbard's book contained "more promises and less evidence per page than any publication since the invention of printing", while *The New Republic* called it a "bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology". Some of Hubbard's fellow science fiction writers also criticized it; Isaac Asimov considered it "gibberish" while Jack Williamson called it "a lunatic revision of Freudian psychology".Template:Sfn

### Collapse of Dianetics Foundation

 File:L. Ron Hubbard conducting Dianetics seminar in Los Angeles in 1950.jpg
In April 1950, a "Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation" was established in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with Hubbard, Sara, Winter and Campbell on the board of directors.Template:Sfn Hubbard abandoned freelance writing in order to promote Dianetics, writing several books about it in the next decade, delivering lectures, and founding Dianetics organizations.

Dianetics lost public credibility on August 10, 1950 when a presentation by Hubbard before an audience of 6,000 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles failed disastrously.Template:Sfn He introduced a Clear named Sonya Bianca and told the audience that as a result of undergoing Dianetic therapy she now possessed perfect recall. However, Gardner writes, "in the demonstration that followed, she failed to remember a single formula in physics (the subject in which she was majoring) or the color of Hubbard's tie when his back was turned. At this point, a large part of the audience got up and left."Template:Sfn

In December 1950, the American Psychological Association publicly criticized Hubbard's claims as "not supported by empirical evidence".

Although Dianetics was not cheap, a great many people were nonetheless willing to pay; van Vogt later recalled "doing little but tear open envelopes and pull out $500 checks from people who wanted to take an auditor's course".Template:Sfn Financial controls were lax. Hubbard himself took large sums with no explanation of what he was doing with it. On one occasion, van Vogt saw Hubbard taking a lump sum of $56,000 (Template:Inflation) out of the Los Angeles Foundation's proceeds.Template:Sfn One of Hubbard's employees, Helen O'Brien, commented that at the Elizabeth, N.J. branch of the Foundation, the books showed that "a month's income of $90,000 is listed, with only $20,000 accounted for".Template:Sfn

By late 1950, the Elizabeth, N.J. Foundation was in financial crisis and the Los Angeles Foundation was more than $200,000 in debt (Template:Inflation).Template:Sfn Winter and Art Ceppos, the publisher of Hubbard's book, resigned under acrimonious circumstances.Template:Sfn Campbell also resigned, criticizing Hubbard for being impossible to work with and blaming him for the disorganization and financial ruin of the Foundations.Template:Sfn In 1951, Winter publicly wrote that he had never seen a single convincing Clear: "I have seen some individuals who are supposed to have been 'clear,' but their behavior does not conform to the definition of the state. Moreover, an individual supposed to have been 'clear' has undergone a relapse into conduct which suggests an incipient psychosis."Template:Sfn He also deplored the Foundation's omission of any serious scientific research.Template:Sfn
By the summer of 1951, the Elizabeth, N.J. Foundation and all of its branches had closed.Template:Sfn

### Abuse and kidnapping of Sara and daughter

Template:External media
The collapse of Hubbard's marriage to Sara created yet more problems. He had begun an affair with his 20-year-old public relations assistant in late 1950, while Sara started a relationship with Dianetics auditor Miles Hollister.Template:Sfn On December 20, Hubbard paid a $50 fine for leaving 8-month-old daughter Alexis locked in car.

On February 9, 1951, the bodies of David Cary and his wife Helen were found after about two weeks. Both had recently been involved in the Dianetics Institute in Los Angeles, David serving as an instructor there. Police conclude Helen shot her husband and then turned the gun on herself.

On February 23, Sara Hubbard contacted Jack Maloney, the national executive officer of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Sara informed Maloney "that competent medical advisors recommended that said Hubbard be committed to a private sanitarium for psychiatric observation and treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia". Maloney informed L. Ron Hubbard. That night, L. Ron Hubbard, accompanied by Foundation staffers Frank Dessler and Richard De Mille, kidnapped Hubbard's year-old daughter Alexis and wife Sara and forcibly took them to San Bernardino, California, where he attempted unsuccessfully to find a doctor to examine Sara and declare her insane.Template:Sfn He let Sara go but took Alexis to Havana, Cuba.

Hubbard secretly denounced the couple to the FBI in March 1951, portraying them in a letter as communist infiltrators. According to Hubbard, Sara was "currently intimate with [communists] but evidently under coercion. Drug addiction set in fall 1950. Nothing of this known to me until a few weeks ago." Hollister was described as having a "sharp chin, broad forehead, rather Slavic". He was said to be the "center of most turbulence in our organization" and "active and dangerous".Template:Sfn The FBI did not take Hubbard seriously: an agent annotated his correspondence with the comment, "Appears mental".

 File:Sara Hubbard custody hearing 24 Apr 1951.jpg
On April 11, Sara's story was published in press.Template:Citation needed. On April 15, Hubbard wrote to Sara: "I have been in the Cuban military hospital and I am being transferred to the United States next week as a classified scientist immune from interference of all kind... I may live a long time and again I may not. But Dianetics will last 10,000 years-for the Army and Navy have it now."Template:Citation needed

Sara filed a divorce suit on April 23, 1951, that accused him of marrying her bigamously and subjecting her to sleep deprivation, beatings, strangulation, kidnapping, and exhortations to commit suicide. The case led to newspaper headlines such as "Ron Hubbard Insane, Says His Wife".

On May 14, Hubbard again wrote to the FBI, this time claiming Sara had tried to kill him: "I was knocked out, had a needle thrust into my heart to give it a jet of air to produce "coronary thrombosis" and was given an electric shock with a 110 volt current."

Sara finally secured the return of her daughter in June 1951 by agreeing to a settlement with her husband in which she signed a statement, written by him, declaring:

Template:Blockquote

### Wichita and the loss of rights to Dianetics

Dianetics appeared to be on the edge of total collapse. However, it was saved by Don Purcell, a millionaire who agreed to support a new Foundation in Wichita, Kansas.

In August 1951, Hubbard published *Science of Survival*. In that book, Hubbard introduced concepts as the immortal soul (or "Thetan") and past-life regressions (or "Whole Track Auditing"). The Wichita Foundation underwrote the costs of printing the book, but it recorded poor sales when first published, with only 1,250 copies of the first edition being printed.Template:Sfn

The Wichita Foundation became financially nonviable after a court ruled that it was liable for the unpaid debts of its defunct predecessor in Elizabeth, N.J. The ruling prompted Purcell and the other directors of the Wichita Foundation to file for voluntary bankruptcy in February 1952.Template:Sfn

Hubbard resigned immediately and accused Purcell of having been bribed by the American Medical Association to destroy Dianetics.Template:Sfn

## The pivot to Scientology

See also: Scientology and Timeline of Scientology
Hubbard established a "Hubbard College" on the other side of town in Wichita where he continued to promote Dianetics while fighting Purcell in the courts over the Foundation's intellectual property.Template:Sfn Non-Scientologist writers have suggested that Hubbard aimed "to reassert control over his creation", that he believed "he was about to lose control of Dianetics",Template:Sfn or that he wanted to ensure "he would be able to stay in business even if the courts eventually awarded control of Dianetics and its valuable copyrights to ... the hated Don Purcell."Template:Sfn

### New names and a new gadget

 File:Mary sue hubbard 1957.jpg
At a conventionTemplate:When of about 80 followers assembled in a Wichita hotel banquet hall, Hubbard introduced a device called an "electropsychometer" (or e-meter) which had been constructed by inventor Volney Mathison. The device, which called for users to hold two soup-cans in their hands, measures changes in skin conductivity due to variance in sweat or grip. Roughly similar devices had been in experimental use by psychologists for decades. Rather than a mundane biofeed device, Hubbard presented the e-meter as having "an almost mystical power to reveal an individual's innermost thoughts".Template:Sfn

Hubbard announced that he had discovered a new science beyond Dianetics which he called "Scientology". Whereas the goal of Dianetics had been to reach a superhuman state of "Clear", Scientology promised a chance to achieve god-like powers in a state called Operating Thetan.

Only six weeks after setting up the Hubbard College and marrying a staff member, 18-year-old Mary Sue Whipp, Hubbard closed it down and moved with his new bride to Phoenix, Arizona. In April 1952, Hubbard arrived in Phoenix, and began operating out of a small office he dubbed the headquarters of the "Hubbard Association of Scientologists".Template:Sfn That summer, Hubbard was joined in Phoenix by his 18-year-old son Nibs, who moved into his father's home and went on to become a Scientology staff member and "professor".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

On September 10, 1952, Hubbard incorporated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists — he could not use the term Dianetics in the name as he no longer owned it.Template:Sfn Scientology was organized in a very different way from the decentralized Dianetics movement — The Hubbard Association of Scientologists (HAS) was the only official Scientology organization. Branches or "orgs" were organized as franchises, rather like a fast food restaurant chain. Each franchise holder was required to pay ten percent of income to Hubbard's central organization.
On September 24, 1952, while in London, Hubbard's wife Mary Sue gave birth to her first child, a daughter whom they named Diana Meredith de Wolfe Hubbard.Template:Sfn

### Philadelphia lectures, the occult, and arrest over debts

Although this model would eventually be extremely successful, Scientology was a very small-scale movement at first. Hubbard started off with only a few dozen followers, generally dedicated Dianeticists; a seventy-hour series of lectures in Philadelphia in December 1952 was attended by just 38 people.Template:Sfn

In the lectures, Hubbard connects Crowleyite magical rituals and the practice of Scientology.Template:Sfn Hubbard explains the use of Tarot, and discusses "the magic cults" of the 8th-12th centuries. Hubbard discusses astral projection which he terms "going exterior".

He recommends *The Master Therion* as "the only modern work that has anything to do with them". He describes the book's author, Aleister Crowley, as "my very good friend," though there is some question about his intent in this remark because Hubbard never met Crowley personally. Hubbard also explains that Crowley signs himself "The Beast"; "The Mark of the Beast, 666."Template:R Hubbard's eldest son Nibs, wrote that "In preparation for the next day's lecture, [Hubbard]'d pace the floor, exhilarated by this or that passage from Aleister Crowley's writings."

During the Philadelphia course, Hubbard jokes that he is "the prince of darkness", which is met with laughter from the audience.

On December 16, 1952, Hubbard was arrested in the middle of a lecture for failing to return $9,000 withdrawn from the Wichita Foundation. He eventually settled the debt by paying $1,000 and returning a car that he had borrowed from Wichita financier Don Purcell.Template:Sfn

### "The religion angle"

In April 1953, Hubbard authored a letter outlining plans for transforming Scientology into a religion. In that letter, Hubbard proposed setting up a chain of "Spiritual Guidance Centers":Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Template:Blockquote

The letter's recipient, Helen O'Brien, resigned the following September.Template:Sfn She criticized Hubbard for creating "a temperate zone voodoo, in its inelasticity, unexplainable procedures, and mindless group euphoria".Template:Sfn

Despite objections, on December 18, 1953, Hubbard incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering in Camden, New Jersey. Hubbard, his wife Mary Sue and his secretary John Galusha became the trustees of all three corporations.Template:Sfn The reason for Scientology's religious transformation was explained by officials of the HAS:

Template:Blockquote

The idea may not have been new; Hubbard has been quoted as telling a science fiction convention in 1948: "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." Harlan Ellison has told a story of seeing Hubbard at a gathering of the Hydra Club in 1953 or 1954. Hubbard was complaining of not being able to make a living on what he was being paid as a science fiction writer. Ellison says that Lester del Rey told Hubbard that what he needed to do to get rich was start a religion.

## Hubbard and the Church of Scientology

### Success and profit

By 1954, the IRS recognized the Church of Scientology of California as a tax-exempt organization and by 1966, the Washington, D.C. 'Founding Church of Scientology' received tax-exempt status nationwide. The Church of Scientology became a highly profitable enterprise for Hubbard,Template:Sfn as he was paid a percentage of the Church's gross income. By 1957 he was being paid about $250,000 (Template:Inflation).Template:Sfn

His family grew, too, with Mary Sue giving birth to three more children—Geoffrey Quentin McCaully on January 6, 1954;Template:Sfn Mary Suzette Rochelle on February 13, 1955;Template:Sfn and Arthur Ronald Conway on June 6, 1958.Template:Sfn

In 1955, Hubbard and family moved to D.C., with Hubbard arguing the Church was safer under federal jurisdiction.Template:Sfn

In 1958, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service withdrew the Washington, D.C., Church of Scientology's tax exemption after it found that Hubbard and his family were profiting unreasonably from Scientology's ostensibly non-profit income.Template:Sfn. Thereafter, Hubbard advised Scientologists to vote against sitting-Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. Hubbard sought to establish a Department of Government Affairs "to bring government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology". This, he said, "is done by high-level ability to control and in its absence by a low-level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies."

### Saint Hill in England

In the spring of 1959, he purchased Saint Hill Manor, an 18th-century country house in Sussex, formerly owned by Sawai Man Singh II, the Maharaja of Jaipur. The house became Hubbard's permanent residence and an international training center for Scientologists.Template:Sfn

In 1959, while Hubbard was in Melbourne, he learned his son Nibs had resigned from the organization, citing financial difficulties, and planned to seek full-time employment elsewhere. Hubbard regarded the departure as a betrayal.Template:Sfn

By the start of the 1960s, Hubbard was the leader of a worldwide movement with thousands of followers. A decade later, however, he had left Saint Hill Manor and moved aboard his own private fleet of ships as the Church of Scientology faced worldwide controversy.Template:RTemplate:Sfn

#### Psychiatrists as source of attacks

The Church of Scientology says that the problems of this period were due to "vicious, covert international attacks" by the United States government, "all of which were proven false and baseless, which were to last 27 years and finally culminated in the Government being sued for 750 million dollars for conspiracy." Behind the attacks, stated Hubbard, lay a vast conspiracy of "psychiatric front groups" secretly controlling governments: "Every single lie, false charge and attack on Scientology has been traced directly to this group's members. They have sought at great expense for nineteen years to crush and eradicate any new development in the field of the mind. They are actively preventing any effectiveness in this field."

#### Security checking (1960)

Hubbard believed that Scientology was being infiltrated by saboteurs and spies and introduced "security checking"Template:Sfn to identify those he termed "potential trouble sources" and "suppressive persons". Members of the Church of Scientology were interrogated with the aid of E-meters and were asked questions such as "Have you ever practiced homosexuality?" and "Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?"Template:Sfn For a time, Scientologists were even interrogated about crimes committed in past lives: "Have you ever destroyed a culture?" "Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?" "Have you ever zapped anyone?"

#### Years of medical claims prompt FDA raid (1963)

On January 4, 1963, FDA agents raided offices of the Church of Scientology, seizing over a hundred E-meters as illegal medical devices and tons of literature that they accused of making false medical claims.Template:Sfnm The original suit by the FDA to condemn the literature and E-meters did not succeed,

Hubbard marketed Scientology through medical claims, such as attracting polio sufferers by presenting the Church of Scientology as a scientific research foundation investigating polio cases.Template:Sfn One advertisement during this period stated:

Template:Blockquote

The Food and Drug Administration took action against Scientology's medical claims, seizing thousands of pills being marketed as "radiation cures"Template:Sfn as well as publications and E-meters. The Church of Scientology was required to label them as being "ineffective in the diagnosis or treatment of disease".Template:Sfn

#### Australian government reaction (1963)

Following the FDA's actions, Scientology attracted increasingly unfavorable publicity across the English-speaking world.Template:Sfn It faced particularly hostile scrutiny in Victoria, Australia, where it was accused of brainwashing, blackmail, extortion and damaging the mental health of its members.Template:Sfn The Victorian state government established a Board of Inquiry into Scientology in November 1963.Template:Sfn Its report, published in October 1965, condemned every aspect of Scientology and Hubbard himself. He was described as being of doubtful sanity, having a persecution complex and displaying strong indications of paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur. His writings were characterized as nonsensical, abounding in "self-glorification and grandiosity, replete with histrionics and hysterical, incontinent outbursts".Template:Sfn Sociologist Roy Wallis comments that the report drastically changed public perceptions of Scientology:

Template:Blockquote

The report led to Scientology being banned in Victoria,Template:Sfn Western Australia and South Australia,Template:Sfn and led to more negative publicity around the world. Newspapers and politicians in the UK pressed the British government for action against Scientology.

#### Internal discipline: "Ethics", "Disconnection" and punishment

Hubbard took three major new initiatives in the face of these challenges. By 1965, "Ethics Technology" was introduced to tighten internal discipline within Scientology. It required Scientologists to "disconnect" from any organization or individual—including family members—deemed to be disruptive or "suppressive".Template:Sfn According to church-operated websites, "A person who disconnects is simply exercising his right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person." Hubbard stated: "Communication, however, is a two-way flow. If one has the right to communicate, then one must also have the right to not receive communication from another. It is this latter corollary of the right to communicate that gives us our right to privacy." Scientologists were also required to write "Knowledge Reports" on each other, reporting transgressions or misapplications of Scientology methods. Hubbard promulgated a long list of punishable "Misdemeanors", "Crimes", and "High Crimes".Template:Sfn

#### Guardian's office (1966)

At the start of March 1966, Hubbard created the Guardian's Office (GO), a new agency within the Church of Scientology that was headed by his wife Mary Sue.Template:Sfn It dealt with Scientology's external affairs, including public relations, legal actions and the gathering of intelligence on perceived threats.Template:Sfn As Scientology faced increasingly negative media attention, the GO retaliated with hundreds of writs for libel and slander; it issued more than forty on a single day.Template:Sfn Hubbard ordered his staff to find "lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence Template:Sic on [Scientology's] attackers".Template:Sfn

#### Handling enemies: Attacking, legal harassment, "fair game"

A few years later he told Scientologists: "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace ... Don't ever defend, always attack."Template:Sfn Any individual breaking away from Scientology and setting up his own group was to be shut down:

Template:Blockquote

The 1950s saw Scientology growing steadily. Hubbard finally achieved victory over Don Purcell in 1954 when the latter, worn out by constant litigation, handed the copyrights of Dianetics back to Hubbard.Template:Sfn Most of the formerly independent Scientology and Dianetics groups were either driven out of business or were absorbed into Hubbard's organizations.Template:Sfn

The "fair game" policy was introduced Template:When, which was applicable to anyone deemed an "enemy" of Scientology: "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."Template:Sfn

### Rhodesia

 File:Zimbabwe (orthographic projection).svg
In April 1966, hoping to form a remote "safe haven" for Scientology, Hubbard traveled to the southern African country Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) and looked into setting up a base there at a hotel on Lake Kariba. Despite his attempts to curry favour with the local government—he personally delivered champagne to Prime Minister Ian Smith's house, but Smith refused to see him—Rhodesia promptly refused to renew Hubbard's visa, compelling him to leave the country.Template:R In July 1968, the British Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, announced that foreign Scientologists would no longer be permitted to enter the UK and Hubbard himself was excluded from the country as an "undesirable alien".Template:Sfn Further inquiries were launched in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.Template:Sfn

### Taking to sea

Finally, at the end of 1966, Hubbard acquired his own fleet of ships. He established the "Hubbard Explorational Company Ltd" which purchased three ships—the *Enchanter*, a forty-ton schooner,Template:Sfn the *Avon River*, an old trawler,Template:Sfn and the *Royal Scotman* Template:Sic, a former Irish Sea cattle ferry that he made his home and flagship.Template:Sfn The ships were crewed by the Sea Organization or Sea Org, a group of Scientologist volunteers, with the support of a couple of professional seamen.Template:Sfn

## Commodore of the Sea Org

Main article: Sea Org
 File:CityofCorfu.jpg
When Hubbard established the Sea Org he publicly declared that he had relinquished his management responsibilities. According to Miller, this was not true. He received daily telex messages from Scientology organizations around the world reporting their statistics and income. The Church of Scientology sent him $15,000 (Template:Inflation) a week and millions of dollars were transferred to his bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.Template:Sfn Couriers arrived regularly, conveying luxury food for Hubbard and his familyTemplate:Sfn or cash that had been smuggled from England to avoid currency export restrictions.Template:Sfn

After Hubbard created the Sea Org "fleet" in early 1967 in the Canary Islands it began an eight-year voyage, sailing from port to port in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern North Atlantic. The fleet traveled as far as Corfu in the eastern Mediterranean and Dakar and the Azores in the Atlantic, but rarely stayed anywhere for longer than six weeks. Ken Urquhart, Hubbard's personal assistant at the time, later recalled:

Template:Blockquote

At the same time, Hubbard was still developing Scientology's doctrines. A Scientology biography states that "free of organizational duties and aided by the first Sea Org members, L. Ron Hubbard now had the time and facilities to confirm in the physical universe some of the events and places he had encountered in his journeys down the track of time." In 1965, he designated several existing Scientology courses as confidential, repackaging them as the first of the esoteric "OT levels".Template:Sfn

### "The Wall of Fire" (1967)

Two years later he announced the release of OT3, the "Wall of Fire", revealing the secrets of an immense disaster that had occurred "on this planet, and on the other seventy-five planets which form this Confederacy, seventy-five million years ago". Scientologists were required to undertake the first two OT levels before learning how Xenu, the leader of the Galactic Confederacy, had shipped billions of people to Earth and blown them up with hydrogen bombs, following which their traumatized spirits were stuck together at "implant stations", brainwashed with false memories and eventually became contained within human beings.Template:Sfn The discovery of OT3 was said to have taken a major physical toll on Hubbard, who announced that he had broken a knee, an arm, and his back during the course of his research.Template:Sfn A year later, in 1968, he unveiled OT levels 4 to 6 and began delivering OT training courses to Scientologists aboard the *Royal Scotman*.Template:Sfn

### Sea org life

Scientologists around the world were presented with a glamorous picture of life in the Sea Org and many applied to join Hubbard aboard the fleet.Template:Sfn What they found was rather different from the image. Most of those joining had no nautical experience at all.Template:Sfn Mechanical difficulties and blunders by the crews led to a series of embarrassing incidents and near-disasters. Following one incident in which the rudder of the *Royal Scotman* was damaged during a storm, Hubbard ordered the ship's entire crew to be reduced to a "condition of liability" and wear gray rags tied to their arms.Template:Sfn The ship itself was treated the same way, with dirty tarpaulins tied around its funnel to symbolize its lower status. According to those aboard, conditions were appalling; the crew was worked to the point of exhaustion, given meager rations and forbidden to wash or change their clothes for several weeks.Template:Sfn Hubbard maintained a harsh disciplinary regime aboard the fleet, punishing mistakes by confining people in the *Royal Scotman*Template:'s bilge tanks without toilet facilities and with food provided in buckets.Template:Sfn At other times erring crew members were thrown overboard with Hubbard looking on and, occasionally, filming.Template:Sfn David Mayo, a Sea Org member at the time, later recalled:

Template:Blockquote

From about 1970, Hubbard was attended aboard ship by the children of Sea Org members, organized as the Commodore's Messenger Organization (CMO). They were mainly young girls dressed in hot pants and halter tops, who were responsible for running errands for Hubbard such as lighting his cigarettes, dressing him or relaying his verbal commands to other members of the crew.Template:Sfn In addition to his wife Mary Sue, he was accompanied by all four of his children by her, though not his first son Nibs, who had defected from Scientology in late 1959.Template:Sfn The younger Hubbards were all members of the Sea Org and shared its rigors.

### Quest for a safe haven

Along the way, Hubbard sought to establish a safe haven in "a friendly little country where Scientology would be allowed to prosper", as Miller puts it.Template:Sfn The fleet stayed at Corfu for several months in 1968–1969. Hubbard renamed the ships after Greek gods—the *Royal Scotman* was rechristened *Apollo*—and he praised the recently established military dictatorship.Template:Sfn The Sea Org was represented as "Professor Hubbard's Philosophy School" in a telegram to the Greek government.Template:Sfn In March 1969, however, Hubbard and his ships were ordered to leave.Template:Sfn In mid-1972, Hubbard tried again in Morocco, establishing contacts with the country's secret police and training senior policemen and intelligence agents in techniques for detecting subversives.Template:Sfn The program ended in failure when it became caught up in internal Moroccan politics, and Hubbard left the country hastily in December 1972.Template:Sfn

### Hiding in Queens from threat of French extradition

During the 1970s, Hubbard faced an increasing number of legal threats. French prosecutors charged him and the French Church of Scientology with fraud and customs violations in 1972. He was advised that he was at risk of being extradited to France.Template:R Hubbard left the Sea Org fleet temporarily at the end of 1972, living incognito in Queens, New York.Template:Sfn Hubbard's health deteriorated significantly during this period. A chain-smoker, he also suffered from bursitis and excessive weight, and had a prominent growth on his forehead.Template:Sfn Hubbard returned to his flagship in September 1973 when the threat of extradition had abated.Template:Sfn

### Motorcycle accident

He suffered serious injuries in a motorcycle accident on the island of Tenerife in December 1973.

He remained active in managing and developing Scientology, establishing the controversial Rehabilitation Project Force in 1974Template:Sfn and issuing policy and doctrinal bulletins.Template:Sfn However, the Sea Org's voyages were coming to an end. The *Apollo* was banned from several Spanish portsTemplate:Sfn and was expelled from Curaçao in October 1975.Template:Sfn The Sea Org came to be suspected of being a CIA operation, leading to a riot in Funchal, Madeira, when the *Apollo* docked there. At the time, *The Apollo Stars*, a musical group founded by Hubbard and made up entirely of ship-bound members of the Sea Org, was offering free on-pier concerts in an attempt to promote Scientology, and the riot occurred at one of these events.

Quentin Hubbard reportedly found it difficult to adjust and attempted suicide in mid-1974.Template:Sfn

### Espionage operations prompt FBI raid

 File:IRS building on constitution avenue in DC.jpg
Throughout this period, Hubbard was heavily involved in directing the activities of the Guardian's Office (GO), the legal bureau/intelligence agency that he had established in 1966. He believed that Scientology was being attacked by an international Nazi conspiracy, which he termed the "Tenyaka Memorial", through a network of drug companies, banks and psychiatrists in a bid to take over the world. In 1973, he instigated the "Snow White Program" and directed the GO to remove negative reports about Scientology from government files and track down their sources.Template:Sfn The GO was ordered to "get all false and secret files on Scientology, LRH  ... that cannot be obtained legally, by all possible lines of approach ... i.e., job penetration, janitor penetration, suitable guises utilizing covers." His involvement in the GO's operations was concealed through the use of codenames. The GO carried out covert campaigns on his behalf such as Operation Bulldozer Leak, intended "to effectively spread the rumor that will lead Government, media, and individual SPs to conclude that LRH has no control of the C of S and no legal liability for Church activity". He was kept informed of GO operations, such as the theft of medical records from a hospital, harassment of psychiatrists and infiltrations of organizations that had been critical of Scientology at various times, such as the Better Business Bureau, the American Medical Association, and American Psychiatric Association.

Members of the GO infiltrated and burglarized numerous government organizations, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.Template:Sfn

### Heart attack prompts return to land

In the summer of 1975, at Curaçao, Hubbard suffered a heart attack and pulmonary embolism.Template:Sfn Hubbard spends two days in the ICU, three weeks in hospital.Template:Sfn

Hubbard decided to relocate back to the United States to establish a "land base" for the Sea Org in Florida.Template:Sfn In October 1975, Hubbard moved into a hotel suite in Daytona Beach. The Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, was secretly acquired as the location for the "land base".Template:Sfn On December 5, 1975, Hubbard and his wife Mary Sue moved into "King Arthur's Court", a condominium complex in nearby Dunedin.Template:Sfn
Their presence was meant to be a closely guarded secret but was accidentally compromised the following month Template:Sfn when Hubbard revealed his identity to a tailor who was a science-fiction fan.

Hubbard immediately left Florida and moved to Georgetown, Washington, D.C., accompanied by a handful of aides and messengers, but not his wife.Template:Sfn

### Hiding in California

Template:Location map+
Six months later, following another security alert in July 1976, Hubbard moved to another safe house in Culver City, California. He lived there for only about three months, relocating in October to the more private confines of the Olive Tree Ranch near La Quinta.Template:Sfn

## Hubbard after the FBI raid

On July 8, 1977, after two GO agents were caught in the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the IRS, the FBI carried out simultaneous raids on GO offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.,  They retrieved wiretap equipment, burglary tools and some 90,000 pages of incriminating documents.

His wife Mary Sue was indictedTemplate:When and subsequently convicted of conspiracy. She was sentTemplate:When to a federal prison along with ten other Scientologists.
Template:R Hubbard was not prosecuted, though he was labeled Template:When an "unindicted co-conspirator" by government prosecutors.

On July 15, a week after the raid, Hubbard fled with Pat Broeker to Sparks, Nevada.

### Increasing legal and health troubles

Hubbard's troubles increased in February 1978 when a French court convicted him in absentia for obtaining money under false pretenses. He was sentenced to four years in prison and a 35,000FF ($7,000) fine, Template:Inflation.
In September 1978, Hubbard had a pulmonary embolism, falling into a coma, but recovered.Template:Sfn

On August 18, 1978, Hubbard collapsed while filming in the desert. Hubbard was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and fell into a coma, later recovering.Template:Sfn

### Death of Quentin

On November 12, 1978, Hubbard's second son Quentin committed suicide in Las Vegas.Template:Sfn

### Hiding in Hemet and last meeting with Mary Sue

In April 1979, Hubbard went further into hiding, moving to an apartment in Hemet, California, where his only contact with the outside world was via ten trusted messengers.

In August 1979, he saw his wife for the last time.Template:Sfn Hubbard faced a possible indictment for his role in Operation Freakout, the GO's campaign against New York journalist Paulette Cooper.In February 1980 he disappeared into deep cover in the company of two trusted messengers, Pat and Annie Broeker.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

On October 26, eleven senior people in the church's Guardian's Office were convicted of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property.Template:Sfn

### Hiding with the Broekers

For the first few years of the 1980s, Hubbard and the Broekers lived on the move, touring the Pacific Northwest in a recreational vehicle and living for a while in apartments in Newport Beach and Los Angeles.

Hubbard used his time in hiding to write his first new works of science fiction for nearly thirty years—*Battlefield Earth* (1982) and *Mission Earth*, a ten-volume series published between 1985 and 1987. They received mixed responses; as writer Jeff Walker puts it, they were "treated derisively by most critics but greatly admired by followers". Hubbard also wrote and composed music for three of his albums, which were produced by the Church of Scientology. The book soundtrack *Space Jazz* was released in 1982. *Mission Earth* and *The Road to Freedom* were released posthumously in 1986.

## Death and legacy

 File:Church of Spiritual Technology ranch Creston.jpg
For the last two years of his life, Hubbard withdrew from public life, prompting various rumours and media speculation. He spent his time "writing and researching" in a luxury Blue Bird motorhome on Whispering Winds, a Template:Convert ranch near Creston, California, according to a spokesperson, and pursued photography and music, overseeing construction work and checking on his animals. He repeatedly redesigned the property, spending millions of dollars remodeling the ranch house—which went virtually uninhabited—and building a quarter-mile horse-racing track with an observation tower, which reportedly was never used.

He was still closely involved in managing the Church of Scientology via secretly delivered orders and continued to receive large amounts of money, of which *Forbes* magazine estimated "at least $200 million [was] gathered in Hubbard's name through 1982". In September 1985, the IRS notified the Church that it was considering indicting Hubbard for tax fraud.

Hubbard suffered further ill-health, including chronic pancreatitis, during his residence at Whispering Winds. He suffered a stroke on January 17, 1986, and died a week later. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered at sea.Template:Sfn

Scientology leaders announced that his body had become an impediment to his work and that he had decided to "drop his body" to continue his research on another planet, having "learned how to do it without a body".Template:Sfn

Hubbard was survived by his wife Mary Sue and all of his children except his second son Quentin. His will provided a trust fund to support Mary Sue; her children Arthur, Diana and Suzette; and Katherine, the daughter of his first wife Polly. He disinherited two of his other children.Template:Sfn L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. had become estranged, changed his name to "Ronald DeWolf" and, in 1982, sued unsuccessfully for control of his father's estate.Template:Sfn Alexis Valerie, Hubbard's daughter by his second wife Sara, had attempted to contact her father in 1971. She was rebuffed with the implied claim that her real father was Jack Parsons rather than Hubbard, and that her mother had been a Nazi spy during the war.Template:Sfn Both later accepted settlements when litigation was threatened.Template:Sfn In 2001, Diana and Suzette were reported to still be Church members, while Arthur had left and become an artist. Hubbard's great-grandson, Jamie DeWolf, is a noted slam poet.

The copyrights of his works and much of his estate and wealth were willed to the Church of Scientology.Template:R In a bulletin dated May 5, 1980, Hubbard told his followers to preserve his teachings until an eventual reincarnation when he would return "not as a religious leader but as a political one". The Church of Spiritual Technology (CST), a sister organization of the Church of Scientology, has engraved Hubbard's entire corpus of Scientology and Dianetics texts on steel tablets stored in titanium containers. They are buried at the Trementina Base in a vault under a mountain near Trementina, New Mexico, on top of which the CST's logo has been bulldozed on such a gigantic scale that it is visible from space.

In the 1980s Hubbard's followers were buying large numbers of the books and re-issuing them to stores, in order to boost sales figures. Opinions are divided about his literary legacy. Scientologists have written of their desire to "make Ron the most acclaimed and widely known author of all time". The sociologist William Sims Bainbridge writes that even at his peak in the late 1930s Hubbard was regarded by readers of *Astounding Science Fiction* as merely "a passable, familiar author but not one of the best", while by the late 1970s "the [science fiction] subculture wishes it could forget him" and fans gave him a worse rating than any other of the "Golden Age" writers.

In 1996, the Los Angeles City Council renamed a street close to the Scientology headquarters "L. Ron Hubbard Way". In 2011, the West Valley City Council declared March 13 as L. Ron Hubbard Centennial Day. In April 2016, the New Jersey State Board of Education approved Hubbard's birthday as one of its religious holidays.

 File:L. Ron Hubbard influences.png
In 2004, eighteen years after Hubbard's death, the Church claimed eight million followers worldwide. According to religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, this is an overestimate, counting as Scientologists people who had merely bought a book. The City University of New York's American Religious Identification Survey found that by 2009 only 25,000 Americans identified as Scientologists. Hubbard's presence still pervades Scientology. Every Church of Scientology maintains an office reserved for Hubbard, with a desk, chair and writing equipment, ready to be used.Template:R Lonnie D. Kliever notes that Hubbard was "the only source of the religion, and he has no successor". Hubbard is referred to simply as "Source" within Scientology and the theological acceptability of any Scientology-related activity is determined by how closely it adheres to Hubbard's doctrines.Template:Sfn Hubbard's name and signature are official trademarks of the Religious Technology Center, established in 1982 to control and oversee the use of Hubbard's works and Scientology's trademarks and copyrights. The RTC is the central organization within Scientology's complex corporate hierarchy and has put much effort into re-checking the accuracy of all Scientology publications to "ensur[e] the availability of the pure unadulterated writings of Mr. Hubbard to the coming generations".Template:Sfn

The Danish historian of religions Mikael Rothstein describes Scientology as "a movement focused on the figure of Hubbard". He comments: "The fact that [Hubbard's] life is mythologized is as obvious as in the cases of Jesus, Muhammad or Siddartha Gotama. This is how religion works. Scientology, however, rejects this analysis altogether, and goes to great lengths to defend every detail of Hubbard's amazing and fantastic life as plain historical fact." Hubbard is presented as "the master of a multitude of disciplines" who performed extraordinary feats as a photographer, composer, scientist, therapist, explorer, navigator, philosopher, poet, artist, humanitarian, adventurer, soldier, scout, musician and many other fields of endeavor.Template:Sfn The Church of Scientology portrays Hubbard's life and work as having proceeded seamlessly, "as if they were a continuous set of predetermined events and discoveries that unfolded through his lifelong research" even up to and beyond his death.

According to Rothstein's assessment of Hubbard's legacy, Scientology consciously aims to transfer the charismatic authority of Hubbard to institutionalize his authority over the organization, even after his death. Hubbard is presented as a virtually superhuman religious ideal just as Scientology itself is presented as the most important development in human history.Template:Sfn As Rothstein puts it, "reverence for Scientology's scripture is reverence for Hubbard, the man who in the Scientological perspective single-handedly brought salvation to all human beings."Template:Sfn David G. Bromley of the University of Virginia comments that the real Hubbard has been transformed into a "prophetic persona", "LRH", which acts as the basis for his prophetic authority within Scientology and transcends his biographical history. According to Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Hubbard's hagiography directly compares him with Buddha. Hubbard is viewed as having made Eastern traditions more accessible by approaching them with a scientific attitude. "Hubbard is seen as the ultimate-cross-cultural savior; he is thought to be able to release man from his miserable condition because he had the necessary background, and especially the right attitude."Template:Sfn

According to Donald A. Westbrook's interviews with Scientologists, it might seem that Hubbard has been deified through the placement of busts and an office reserved for him in every organization, but Hubbard is not considered God to Scientologists—he is "Founder", he is "Source", he is fondly referred to as "Ron", and he is the model Operating Thetan to which adherents aspire.Template:Rp

## Biographies

In the late 1970s, several men began to assemble a picture of Hubbard's life. Michael Linn Shannon, a resident of Portland, Oregon, became interested in Hubbard's life story after an encounter with a Scientology recruiter. Over the next four years he collected previously undisclosed records and documents. He intended to write an exposé of Hubbard and sent a copy of his findings and key records to a number of contacts but was unable to find a publisher.Template:Sfn Shannon's findings were acquired by Gerry Armstrong, a Scientologist who had been appointed Hubbard's official archivist.Template:Sfn

Armstrong had been given the job of assembling documents relating to Hubbard's life for the purpose of helping Omar V. Garrison to write an official biography. Garrison, a non-Scientologist who had previously written two books sympathetic to Scientology,Template:R was hired in October 1980 to write a biography. However, the documents convinced both Armstrong and Garrison that Hubbard had systematically misrepresented his life. Garrison refused to write a "puff piece" and declared that he would not "repeat all the falsehoods the Church of Scientology had perpetuated over the years" and he wrote a "warts and all" biography. Meanwhile, Armstrong had left Scientology, taking five boxes of papers with him and the two continued to work together on the biography. Garrison referred to Armstrong as "an extremely efficient researcher with an extraordinary memory and astonishing recall". Unable to come to agreement with the Church of Scientology on the tenor and contents of the biography, Garrison reached a settlement which included turning over the documents in his possession and agreeing not to publish his nearly completed biography.Template:R

The Church of Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard sued Armstrong for the return of the remaining documents Armstrong had deposited with his lawyer, however in October 1984 Judge Paul G. Breckenridge ruled in Armstrong's favor, refusing to order the return of the documents, saying:

Template:Blockquote

In November 1987, the British journalist and writer Russell Miller published *Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard*, the first full-length biography of L. Ron Hubbard. He drew on Armstrong's papers, official records and interviews with those who had known Hubbard including ex-Scientologists and family members. The book was well-received by reviewers but the Church of Scientology sought—unsuccessfully—to prohibit its publication on the grounds of copyright infringement.

Other critical biographical accounts have since been written, including *L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?* by Bent Corydon in 1987 and *A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed* by Jon Atack in 1990.

### Scientology biographies

Hagiographical accounts published by the Church of Scientology describe Hubbard as "a child prodigy of sorts" who rode a horse before he could walk and was able to read and write by the age of four.Template:Sfn A Scientology profile says that he was brought up on his grandfather's "large cattle ranch in Montana" where he spent his days "riding, breaking broncos, hunting coyote and taking his first steps as an explorer". His grandfather is described as a "wealthy Western cattleman" from whom Hubbard "inherited his fortune and family interests in America, Southern Africa, etc."Template:Sfn Scientology claims that Hubbard became a "blood brother" of the Native American Blackfeet tribe at the age of six through his friendship with a Blackfeet medicine man.Template:Sfn

However, contemporary records show that his grandfather, Lafayette Waterbury, was a veterinarian, not a rancher, and was not wealthy. Hubbard was actually raised in a townhouse in the center of Helena.Template:Sfn According to his aunt, his family did not own a ranch but did own one cow and four or five horses on a few acres of land outside the city. Hubbard lived over a hundred miles from the Blackfeet reservation. While some sources support Scientology's claim of Hubbard's blood brotherhood, other sources say that the tribe did not practice blood brotherhood and no evidence has been found that he had ever been a Blackfeet blood brother.Template:Sfn

According to Scientology biographies, during a journey to Washington, D.C., in 1923 Hubbard learned of Freudian psychology from Commander Joseph "Snake" Thompson, a U.S. Navy psychoanalyst and medic.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Scientology biographies describe this encounter as giving Hubbard training in a particular scientific approach to the mind, which he found unsatisfying.Template:Sfn In his diary, Hubbard claimed he was the youngest Eagle Scout in the U.S.Template:Sfn

Scientology texts present Hubbard's travels in Asia as a time when he was intensely curious for answers to human suffering and explored ancient Eastern philosophies for answers, but found them lacking.Template:Sfn He is described as traveling to China "at a time when few Westerners could enter" and according to Scientology, spent his time questioning Buddhist lamas and meeting old Chinese magicians.Template:Sfn According to church materials, his travels were funded by his "wealthy grandfather".

Scientology accounts say that Hubbard "made his way deep into Manchuria's Western Hills and beyond — to break bread with Mongolian bandits, share campfires with Siberian shamans and befriend the last in the line of magicians from the court of Kublai Khan". However, Hubbard did not record these events in his diary.Template:Sfn He remained unimpressed with China and the Chinese, writing: "A Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down." He characterized the sights of Beijing as "rubberneck stations" for tourists and described the palaces of the Forbidden City as "very trashy-looking" and "not worth mentioning". He was impressed by the Great Wall of China near Beijing,Template:Sfn but concluded of the Chinese: "They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here."Template:Sfn

Despite not graduating from George Washington, Hubbard claimed "to be not only a graduate engineer, but 'a member of the first United States course in formal education in what is called today nuclear physics.'"Template:R However, a Church of Scientology biography describes him as "never noted for being in class" and says that he "thoroughly detest[ed] his subjects". He earned poor grades, was placed on probation in September 1931 and dropped out altogether in the fall of 1932.Template:RTemplate:Sfn Hubbard is noted as once being offered employment at the Soviet-American trade organization AMTORG

Scientology accounts say that he "studied nuclear physics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., before he started his studies about the mind, spirit and life" and Hubbard himself stated that he "set out to find out from nuclear physics a knowledge of the physical universe, something entirely lacking in Asian philosophy". His university records indicate that his exposure to "nuclear physics" consisted of one class in "atomic and molecular phenomena" for which he earned an "F" grade.Template:Sfn

Scientologists claim he was more interested in extracurricular activities, particularly writing and flying. According to church materials, "he earned his wings as a pioneering barnstormer at the dawn of American aviation" and was "recognized as one of the country's most outstanding pilots. With virtually no training time, he takes up powered flight and barnstorms throughout the Midwest." His airman certificate, however, records that he qualified to fly only gliders rather than powered aircraft and gave up his certificate when he could not afford the renewal fee.Template:Sfn

After leaving university Hubbard traveled to Puerto Rico on what the Church of Scientology calls the "Puerto Rican Mineralogical Expedition". Scientologists claim he "made the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico" as a means of "augmenting his [father's] pay with a mining venture", during which he "sluiced inland rivers and crisscrossed the island in search of elusive gold" as well as carrying out "much ethnological work amongst the interior villages and native hillsmen". Hubbard's unofficial biographer Russell Miller writes that neither the United States Geological Survey nor the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources have any record of any such expedition.Template:Sfn

According to the Church of Scientology, Hubbard was "called to Hollywood" to work on film scripts in the mid-1930s, although Scientology accounts differ as to exactly when this was (whether 1935, 1936 or 1937Template:Hair space). The Church of Scientology claims he also worked on the Columbia serials *The Mysterious Pilot* (1937), *The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok* (1938) and *The Spider Returns* (1941), though his name does not appear on the credits. Hubbard also claimed to have written *Dive Bomber* (1941),Template:Sfn Cecil B. DeMille's *The Plainsman* (1936) and John Ford's *Stagecoach* (1939).Template:Sfn

Scientology accounts of the expedition to Alaska describe "Hubbard's re-charting of an especially treacherous Inside Passage, and his ethnological study of indigenous Aleuts and Haidas" and tell of how "along the way, he not only roped a Kodiak Bear, but braved seventy-mile-an-hour winds and commensurate seas off the Aleutian Islands." They are divided about how far Hubbard's expedition actually traveled, whether Template:Convert or Template:Convert.

The Church disputes the official record of Hubbard's naval career. It asserts that the records are incomplete and perhaps falsified "to conceal Hubbard's secret activities as an intelligence officer". In 1990 the Church provided the *Los Angeles Times* with a document that was said to be a copy of Hubbard's official record of service. The U.S. Navy told the *Times*, "its contents are not supported by Hubbard's personnel record." *The New Yorker* reported in February 2011 that the Scientology document was considered by federal archivists to be a forgery.

The Church of Scientology presents him as a "much-decorated war hero who commanded a corvette and during hostilities was crippled and wounded".Template:Sfn Scientology publications say he served as a "Commodore of Corvette squadrons" in "all five theaters of World War II" and was awarded "twenty-one medals and palms" for his service.Template:Sfn He was "severely wounded and was taken crippled and blinded" to a military hospital, where he "worked his way back to fitness, strength and full perception in less than two years, using only what he knew and could determine about Man and his relationship to the universe". A. E. van Vogt recounted that Hubbard had seen combat repeatedly, and that he had once sailed his ship "right into the harbor of a Japanese occupied island in the Dutch East Indies. His attitude was that if you took your flag down the Japanese would not know one boat from another, so he tied up at the dock, went ashore and wandered around by himself for three days."Template:Sfn

Hubbard's war service has great significance in the history and mythology of the Church of Scientology, as he is said to have cured himself through techniques that would later underpin Scientology and Dianetics. According to Moulton, Hubbard told him that he had been machine-gunned in the back near the Dutch East Indies. Hubbard asserted that his eyes had been damaged as well, either "by the flash of a large-caliber gun" or when he had "a bomb go off in my face". Scientology texts say that he returned from the war "[b]linded with injured optic nerves, and lame with physical injuries to hip and back" and was twice pronounced dead. Hubbard's official Navy service records indicate that "his military performance was, at times, substandard" and he received only four campaign medals rather than the claimed twenty-one. He was never recorded as being injured or wounded in combat and never received a Purple Heart.

The Church of Scientology says that Hubbard's key breakthrough in the development of Dianetics was made at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. According to the Church,

Template:Blockquote

Scientology accounts do not mention Hubbard's involvement in occultism. He is instead described as "continu[ing] to write to help support his research" during this period into "the development of a means to better the condition of man". The Church of Scientology has nonetheless acknowledged Hubbard's involvement with the OTO; a 1969 statement, written by Hubbard himself,Template:Sfn said:

Template:Blockquote

The Church of Scientology says Hubbard was "sent in" by his fellow science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, "who was running off-book intelligence operations for naval intelligence at the time". However, Heinlein's authorized biographer has said that he looked into the matter at the suggestion of Scientologists but found nothing to corroborate claims that Heinlein had been involved, and his biography of Heinlein makes no mention of the matter.

The Church of Scientology says Hubbard quit the Navy because it "attempted to monopolize all his researches and force him to work on a project 'to make man more suggestible' and when he was unwilling, tried to blackmail him by ordering him back to active duty to perform this function. Having many friends he was able to instantly resign from the Navy and escape this trap." The Navy said in a statement in 1980: "There is no evidence on record of an attempt to recall him to active duty."

 File:L. Ron Hubbard House - Dupont Circle.JPG
Following Hubbard's death, Bridge Publications published several stand-alone biographical accounts of his life. Marco Frenschkowski notes that "non-Scientologist readers immediately recognize some parts of Hubbard's life are here systematically left out: no information whatsoever is given about his private life (his marriages, divorces, children), his legal affairs and so on." The Church maintains an extensive website presenting the official version of Hubbard's life. It also owns a number of properties dedicated to Hubbard including the Los Angeles-based L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition (a presentation of Hubbard's life), the Author Services Center (a presentation of Hubbard's writings), and the L. Ron Hubbard House in Washington, D.C.

In late 2012, Bridge published a comprehensive official biography of Hubbard, titled *The L. Ron Hubbard Series: A Biographical Encyclopedia*, written primarily by Dan Sherman, the official Hubbard biographer at the time. This most recent official Church of Scientology biography of Hubbard is a 17 volume series, with each volume focusing on a different aspect of Hubbard's life, including his music, photography, geographic exploration, humanitarian work, and nautical career. It is advertised as a "Biographic Encyclopedia" and is primarily authored by the official biographer, Dan Sherman.

During his lifetime, a number of brief biographical sketches were also published in his Scientology books. The Church of Scientology issued "the only authorized LRH Biography" in October 1977 (it has since been followed by the Sherman "Biographic Encyclopedia"). His life was illustrated in print in *What Is Scientology?*, a glossy publication published in 1978, with paintings of Hubbard's life contributed by his son Arthur.Template:Sfn

## Bibliography

Main article: L. Ron Hubbard bibliography
See also: Bibliography of Scientology and Written works of L. Ron Hubbard
According to the Church of Scientology, Hubbard produced some 65 million words on Dianetics and Scientology, contained in about 500,000 pages of written material, 3,000 recorded lectures and 100 films. His works of fiction included some 500 novels and short stories.

## See also

Template:Portal

* Norton S. Karno, an attorney for the Church of Scientology and for L. Ron Hubbard
* Timeline of L. Ron Hubbard

## Works cited

Template:Refbegin

* Template:Cite book
* Bromley, David G. "Making Sense of Scientology: Prophetic, Contractual Religion", in Lewis, James R. (ed.), *Scientology*. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Template:ISBN Template:OCLC
* Template:Cite book
* Evans, Christopher. *Cults of Unreason*. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974. Template:ISBN, Template:OCLC
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Melton, J. Gordon. *Encyclopedic handbook of cults in America*. Taylor & Francis; 1992. Template:ISBN
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book
* Template:Cite book

Template:Refend

## Further reading

Template:Refbegin

* What The Church Of Scientology Doesn't Want You To Know. FACTNet.
* Behar, Richard. Pushing Beyond the U.S.: Scientology makes its presence felt in Europe and Canada. David Touretzky.

Template:Refend

## External links

Template:Sisterlinks

* Template:Official website
* Biographical documentation from *The New Yorker*
* Operation Clambake. Critical material on Hubbard and Scientology
* U.S. Government FBI Files for Hubbard via *The Smoking Gun*
* Frenschkowski, Marco, "L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology: An annotated bibliographical survey of primary and selected secondary literature", *Marburg Journal of Religion*, Vol. 1. No. 1. July 1999, Template:ISSN
* Template:IMDb name
* Template:Isfdb name
* Hubbard, L Ron at *The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction*
* Hubbard, L Ron Template:Webarchive at the *Encyclopedia of Fantasy*

Template:L. Ron Hubbard
Template:Scientology
Template:Authority control

1. ↑ Dericquebourg R. Scientology. Nova religio. 2017;20(4):5–12. Template:Doi
2. ↑ Ron's Org Grenchen: L. Ron Hubbard/Free Zone - https://www.ronsorg.space/l-ron-hubbard-the-freezone-alternative
3. ↑ Hall, Timothy L. *American religious leaders*, p. 175. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2003. Template:ISBN
4. ↑ Ortega, Tony (November 14, 2016). At an early age, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard learned how to captivate the press.
5. ↑ Template:Cite book
6. ↑ Template:Cite book
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Ortega, Tony (February 24, 2015). New government release contains a surprise: L. Ron Hubbard flunked out of high school, too!.
8. ↑ Wakefield, Margery. Understanding Scientology / Chapter 2: L. Ron Hubbard – Messiah? Or Madman?.
9. ↑ The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio) 11 Aug 1932, Thu
10. ↑ 1922-1927,1929-1932
11. ↑ The Purpose of Human Evaluation (3) (1951)
12. ↑ "L. Ron Hubbard – Shaping the 21st century with solutions for a better world – On the road to discovery 1923–1929 Template:Webarchive" Church of Scientology International, 2005. Accessed March 7, 2011
13. ↑ Wright: "One of Thompson’s maxims was 'If it's not true for you, it's not true.' He told young Hubbard that the statement had come from Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha. It made an impression on Hubbard." (Wright 2013, p.22)
14. ↑ Archived at GhostarchiveTemplate:Cbignore and the Wayback MachineTemplate:Cbignore: LRH Birthday event Hubbard talks about Snake Thompson.Template:Cbignore
15. ↑ "Purpose of Human Evaluation", 1951
16. ↑ Letter: Scientology executive John Galusha to FBI.
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Hubbard, L. R. (1952, 6 February). Dianetics: The Modern Miracle. LRH Recorded Lectures
18. ↑ "The Mind and the Tone Scale", 1954
19. ↑ Lecture: The Purpose of Human Evaluation (1).
20. ↑ Lecture: Know to Sex Scale: The Mind and the Tone Scale.
21. ↑ About L. Ron Hubbard — Master Storyteller. Galaxy Press.
22. ↑ Template:Cite journal
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Template:Cite book
24. ↑ Template:Cite news
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Template:Cite book
26. ↑ Template:Cite book
27. ↑ 'Going Clear': A New Book Delves Into Scientology. NPR (January 24, 2013).
28. ↑ The History of Excalibur.
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 Burks, Arthur J. (December 1961). Yes, There Was A Book Called "Excalibur" By L. Ron Hubbard.
30. ↑ Ortega, Tony (October 23, 2014). L. Ron Hubbard explains to a friend the real reason he wrote *Dianetics*.
31. ↑ Letter from L. Ron Hubbard, October 1938, quoted in Miller 1987, p. 81
32. ↑ Ackerman, Forrest J (November 19, 1997). *Secret Lives: L. Ron Hubbard*. Channel 4 Television.
33. ↑ Ron the "War Hero" – Joining Up. Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science.
34. ↑ Ron The War Hero, Chris Owen
35. ↑ Quoted in Atack 1990, p. 72.
36. ↑ Ron The War Hero, Chris Owen
37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 37.4 37.5 37.6 Template:Cite news
38. ↑ "Battle Report – Submission of", A16-3(3)/PC815, Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, Commander NW Sea Frontier, June 8, 1943; Image of document
39. ↑ Template:Cite news
40. ↑ Owen, Chris (1999). Ron the War Hero : 3.8 "Mister Roberts" and the USS Algol.
41. ↑ Template:Cite book
42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Template:Cite news The 1980 Pulitzer Prize Winner in National Reporting. The Pulitzer Prizes.
43. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron (1965). "My Philosophy". Church of Scientology International. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 44.3 44.4 44.5 Wright, Lawrence (February 14, 2011). The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. The New Yorker.
45. ↑ Template:Cite book
46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 Template:Cite book
47. ↑ Template:YouTube
48. ↑ e.g. The Herald-News (Passaic, New Jersey) 10 Jun 1948, Ventura County Star-Free Press 23 Jun 1948, Spokane Chronicle (Spokane, Washington)29 Sep 1948
49. ↑ PDC43
50. ↑ Abraham Hyman Center per Biographical Directory of Fellows & Members of the American Psychiatric Association, 1950
51. ↑ Article: Today's Terrorism – Decoding Scientology Propaganda.
52. ↑ Template:Cite book
53. ↑ Template:Cite book
54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Staff (August 21, 1950). "Dianetics book review; Best Seller". *Newsweek*
55. ↑ Rabi, Isaac Isador. "Book Review". *Scientific American*, January 1951
56. ↑ Gumpert, Martin. (August 14, 1950) "*Dianetics*: book review by Martin Gumpert". *The New Republic*
57. ↑ L. Ron Hubbard.
58. ↑ Maisel, Albert (December 5, 1950). "Dianetics — Science or Hoax?" *Look* magazine, p. 79
59. ↑ The San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, California) 21 Dec 1950, Thu Page 6
60. ↑ Los Angeles Evening Citizen News (Hollywood, California) 10 Feb 1951, Sat
61. ↑ Sara Northrup Hubbard - Complaint for Divorce.
62. ↑ 62.0 62.1 Methvin, Eugene H. (May 1990). "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult". *Reader's Digest*. pp. 16.
63. ↑ Martin, Walter Ralston; Zacharias, Ravi K. (ed.). *The Kingdom of the Cults*, p. 338. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2003. Template:ISBN
64. ↑ Staff (April 24, 1951). "Ron Hubbard Insane, Says His Wife". *San Francisco Chronicle*
65. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron (May 14, 1951). Letter to FBI.
66. ↑ Marshall, Gordon. *In praise of sociology*, p. 186. London: Routledge, 1990. Template:ISBN
67. ↑ e.g. Jung 1906
68. ↑ Template:Cite news
69. ↑ Owen, Chris (1997). Scientology's battle for tax exemption, 1952-80.
70. ↑ Blood Relation, Blood Ritual: A Hubbard Family Occult Mystery (September 28, 2013).
71. ↑ Template:Cite book
72. ↑ Wakefield, Margery (1991). What Christians Need to Know about Scientology.
73. ↑ Template:Cite book
74. ↑ Williams, Ian. *The Alms Trade: Charities, Past, Present and Future*, p. 127. New York: Cosimo, 2007. Template:ISBN
75. ↑ Voltz, Tom. *Scientology und (k)ein Ende*, p. 75. Solothurn: Walter, 1995. Template:ISBN
76. ↑ Lawrence, Sara. (April 18, 2006) "The Secrets of Scientology". *The Independent*. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
77. ↑ Staff. (April 5, 1976). "Religion: A Sci-Fi Faith". *Time*. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
78. ↑ Template:Cite journal
79. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "Department of Government Affairs", HCO Policy Letter of August 15, 1960; quoted in Miller 1987, p. 241
80. ↑ 80.0 80.1 80.2 Flag Information Letter 67, "L.R.H. Biography". Sea Organization, October 31, 1977.
81. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "Constitutional Destruction". June 9, 1969, retrieved February 8, 2011.
82. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "Sec Check Whole Track", HCO Bulletin of June 19, 1961; quoted in Atack 1990, p. 152
83. ↑ Template:Cite book
84. ↑ What is disconnection?.
85. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "Penalties for Lower Conditions". HCO Policy Letter of October 18, 1967, Issue IV. Quoted in Atack 1990, pp. 175–176
86. ↑ Template:Cite news
87. ↑ Template:Cite news
88. ↑ 88.0 88.1 Hubbard, L. Ron. *Mission into Time*, p. 7. Copenhagen: AOSH DK Publications Department A/S, 1973. Template:ISBN
89. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "Ron's Journal '67", quoted in Atack 1990, p. 173.
90. ↑ Sappell, Joel; Welkos, Robert (June 24, 1990). "The Mind Behind the Religion : Life With L. Ron Hubbard". *Los Angeles Times*, retrieved February 20, 2011.
91. ↑ Beresford, David (February 7, 1980). "Snow White's dirty tricks". London: *The Guardian*
92. ↑ Template:Cite news
93. ↑ Template:Cite news
94. ↑ Template:Cite news
95. ↑ Marshall, John (January 26, 1980). "The Scientology Papers: The hidden Hubbard". Toronto: *Globe and Mail*
96. ↑ Bare-Faced Messiah: Timeline.
97. ↑ Template:Cite news
98. ↑ 98.0 98.1 98.2 Sappell, Joel; Welkos, Robert W. (June 24, 1990). The Mind Behind the Religion : Chapter Four : The Final Days : Deep in hiding, Hubbard kept tight grip on the church." *Los Angeles Times*, retrieved February 8, 2011.
99. ↑ Queen, Edward L.; Prothero, Stephen R.; Shattuck, Gardiner H. *Encyclopedia of American religious history*, Volume 1, p. 493. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Template:ISBN
100. ↑ Walker, Jeff. *The Ayn Rand Cult*, p. 275. Chicago: Open Court, 1999. Template:ISBN
101. ↑ Template:Cite news
102. ↑ Template:Cite news
103. ↑ The Mind Behind the Religion. *latimes.com* (24 June 1990).
104. ↑ Religion: Mystery of the Vanished Ruler. *time.com* (31 Jan 1983).
105. ↑ Brown, Mark (January 30, 1986). "Creston provided quiet retreat for controversial church leader". *The County Telegram-Tribune*, San Luis Obispo, pp. 1A/5A.
106. ↑ Behar, Richard (October 27, 1986). "The prophet and profits of Scientology". Forbes 400 (*Forbes*)
107. ↑ Church of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard's death. Image of Death Certificate. Retrieved on: June 15, 2012.
108. ↑ Template:Cite news
109. ↑ Template:Cite book
110. ↑ [Staff] (February 7, 1986). "Hubbard Left Most of Estate to Scientology Church; Executor Appointed". The Associated Press.
111. ↑ Lattin, Don (February 12, 2001). "Scientology Founder's Family Life Far From What He Preached". *San Francisco Chronicle*, retrieved February 12, 2011.
112. ↑ Template:Cite journal
113. ↑ 113.0 113.1 Template:Cite book
114. ↑ 35°31'28.6"N 104°34'20.2"W.
115. ↑ 115.0 115.1 Template:Cite news
116. ↑ Bainbridge, William Sims. "Science and Religion: The Case of Scientology", in Bromley, David G.; Hammond, Phillip E. (eds). *The Future of new religious movements*, p. 63. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987. Template:ISBN
117. ↑ Times, Los Angeles (March 31, 2015). How Scientology got L.A. to name street after L. Ron Hubbard.
118. ↑ Tribune, Pamela Manson The Salt Lake. West Valley City recognizes L. Ron Hubbard Day.
119. ↑ N.J. approves more than 100 school religious holidays (April 11, 2016).
120. ↑ N.J. Now Has More Than 100 School Religious Holidays You May Not Know About (April 12, 2016).
121. ↑ Template:Cite news
122. ↑ Template:Cite news
123. ↑ 123.0 123.1 Bromley, p. 89
124. ↑ Template:Cite book
125. ↑ Template:Cite news
126. ↑ Template:Cite news
127. ↑ "About The Author", in Hubbard, L. Ron: *Have You Lived Before This Life?: A Scientific Survey: A Study of Death and Evidence of Past Lives*, p. 297. Los Angeles: Church of Scientology Publications Organization, 1977. Template:ISBN
128. ↑ 128.0 128.1 "L. Ron Hubbard and American Pulp Fiction", in Hubbard, L. Ron: "The Great Secret", p. 107–108. Hollywood, CA: Galaxy Press, 2008. Template:ISBN
129. ↑ Template:Cite news
130. ↑ Template:Cite book
131. ↑ "About the Author", in Hubbard, L. Ron: *Battlefield Earth*. (No page number given.) Los Angeles: Galaxy Press, 2005. Template:ISBN
132. ↑ "Appendix" in Hubbard, L. Ron: *Hymn of Asia*. (No page number given.) Los Angeles : Church of Scientology of California, Publications Organization, 1974. Template:ISBN
133. ↑ "L. Ron Hubbard Biographical Profile: Asia and the South Pacific". Church of Scientology International, 2010, retrieved February 17, 2011.
134. ↑ 134.0 134.1 134.2 "A Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard", *Ability*, Church of Scientology Washington, D.C. Issue 111, January 1959.
135. ↑ KGB Deep Background: Reference Detail. PBS.
136. ↑ "Foreword", in Hubbard, L. Ron: *Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought*, p. vii. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, 2007. Template:ISBN
137. ↑ 137.0 137.1 137.2 137.3 "L. Ron Hubbard: A Chronicle, 1930–1940". Church of Scientology International, 2007, retrieved February 17, 2011.
138. ↑ 138.0 138.1 "L. Ron Hubbard Biographical Profile — Puerto Rican Mineralogical Expedition". Church of Scientology, 2010, retrieved February 8, 2011.
139. ↑ 139.0 139.1 "About the Author" in Hubbard, L. Ron: *Dianetics Today*, p. 989. Los Angeles: Church of Scientology of California, 1975. Template:ISBN
140. ↑ Hubbard, L. Ron. "The Story of Dianetics and Scientology", lecture of October 18, 1958
141. ↑ 141.0 141.1 "L. Ron Hubbard Biographical Profile — Alaskan Radio-Experimental Expedition". Church of Scientology International. 2010. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
142. ↑ "L. Ron Hubbard: A Chronicle, 1941–1949". Church of Scientology International, retrieved February 8, 2011.
143. ↑ Frenschkowski, Marco. "L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology: An annotated bibliographical survey of primary and selected secondary literature". *Marburg Journal of Religion*. **4**:1, July 1999. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
144. ↑ Available at www.lronhubbard.org
145. ↑ Cowan, Douglas E.; Bromley, David G. *Cults and new religions: a brief history*, p. 30. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Template:ISBN
146. ↑ The L. Ron Hubbard Series.
147. ↑ Gallagher, Eugene V. *The new religious movements experience in America*, p. 216. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. Template:ISBN