An Introduction to L. Ron Hubbard There are only two tests of a life well lived, L. Ron Hubbard once remarked: Did one do as one intended? And were people glad one lived? In testament to the first stands the full body of his life’s work, including the more than ten thousand authored works and three thousand tape-recorded lectures of Dianetics and Scientology. In evidence of the second are the hundreds of millions whose lives have been demonstrably bettered because he lived. They are the generations of students now reading superlatively, owing to L. Ron Hubbard’s educational discoveries ; they are the millions more freed from the lure of substance abuse through L. Ron Hubbard’s breakthroughs in drug rehabilitation ; still more touched by his common sense moral code; and many millions more again who hold his work as the spiritual cornerstone of their lives. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF L. RON HUBBARD The following chronology presents the milestone events along the many avenues L.

Ron Hubbard walked—as an adventurer, explorer, author, philosopher and all else that led him to truthfully declare: “I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived and the scholar who will not share.” “I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know there is wisdom and that there is hope.” HUMANITARIAN Notwithstanding this century’s array of technological wonders—in medicine, transportation, nuclear energy and electronic communications—we live in a seriously troubled society. Under the triple onslaught of drug abuse, criminality and declining morals much of this world has truly become a wasteland... Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911 - 1986) - Genealogy Lafayette Ronald Hubbard in Creston, San Luis Obispo, California, USA Cause of death: Cremated, Ashes scattered at sea. Immediate Family: Circa 1911 - Nebraska, United States Residence: 1930 - Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Parents: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ...

ranch near San Luis 150 miles northwest of downtown Los An Ron Hubbard is mauled by wild now struggles to live Dallas Times Herald ... t... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ... angered by suggestions that the reported death of founder L. Ron Hubbard was a hoax de.signed to end an Internal Revenue Service investi... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...to try to confirm the announced death of L. Ron Hubbard, the reclusive founder of the Church of Scientology. The wealthy organization... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...of the United Food and Commercial Workers Coroner verifies Hubbard death LOS ANGELES AP Authorities Wednesday confirmed the death of ... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: ... Ca. 95953. Authorities confirm death of Scientology founder Hubbard LOS ANGELES (AP) - Authorities confirmed the death of Scientology fo... Date: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Text: "...of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, saying there’s no reason to doubt that he died of a stroke. At the time of Hubbard’s... Date: Australian Newspapers Text: "...of Scientology three decades ago, L. Ron Hubbard, had died of a stroke at 74, the church said last night.

Mr Hubbard, who had not bee... Publication: Jan 29 1986 - Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia Page: Mar 13 1911 - Tilden, Madison, NE Death: Jan 14 1986 - Creston, San Luis Obispo, CA Parents: Harry Ross Hubbard, Ledora May Hubbard (born Waterbury) Wife: Sara Elizabeth Bruce Hubbard (born Northrup) Wife: Mary Sue Hubbard (born Whipp) Children: ...t; Hubbard, Catherine May "kay" Gillespie (born Hubbard), Alexis Valerie Connolly, Hollister (born Hubbard), Diana Meredith De ...

Cause of death: Stroke - Jan 24 1986 - Creston, California Parents: Ledora May, Harry Ross Hubbard Wife: Sara Northrup Hollister, Mary Sue Hubbard, Margaret Grubb Children: Ronald Dewolf, Suzette Hubbard, Diana Hubbard, Quentin Hubbard, Alexis Valerie Hubbard, Arthur Hubbard Residences: Mar 11 1911 - TILDEN, MADISON CO., NE Death: Jan 14 1986 - CRESTON, SAN LUIS OBISPO CO., CA Parents: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard (pron.: /ɛl rɒn ˈhʌˌbərd/, ELL-ron-HUB-ərd) and often referred to by his initials, LRH, was an American pulp fiction author and the founder of the Church of Scientology. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a self-help system called Dianetics which was first published in May 1950.

He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and rituals as part of a new religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations that address such diverse topics as business administration, literacy and drug rehabilitation. Although many aspects of Hubbard's life story are disputed, there is general agreement about its basic outline. Born in Tilden, Nebraska, he spent much of his childhood in Helena, Montana. He traveled in Asia and the South Pacific in the late 1920s after his father, an officer in the United States Navy, was posted to the U.S. naval base on Guam. He attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C. at the start of the 1930s, before dropping out and beginning his career as a prolific writer of pulp fiction stories. He served briefly in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and was an officer in the United States Navy during World War II, briefly commanding two ships, the USS YP-422 and USS PC-815. He was removed both times when his superiors found him incapable of command.

The last few months of his active service were spent in a hospital, being treated for a duodenal ulcer. Later he developed Dianetics, "the modern science of mental health." He founded Scientology in 1952 and oversaw the growth of the Church of Scientology into a worldwide organization. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he spent much of his time at sea on his personal fleet of ships as "Commodore" of the Sea Organization, an elite inner group of Scientologists. His expedition came to an end when Britain, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela all closed their ports to his fleet. At one point, a court in Australia revoked the church's status as a religion. Similarly, a high court in France convicted Hubbard of fraud in absentia. He returned to the United States in 1975 and went into seclusion in the California desert. In 1983 L. Ron Hubbard was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an international information infiltration and theft project called "Operation Snow White." He spent the remaining years of his life on his ranch near Creston, California, where he died in 1986.

The Church of Scientology describes Hubbard in hagiographic terms, and he portrayed himself as a pioneering explorer, world traveler, and nuclear physicist with expertise in a wide range of disciplines, including photography, art, poetry, and philosophy. His critics have characterized him as a liar, a charlatan, and mentally unstable. Though many of his autobiographical statements have been proven to be fictitious, the Church rejects any suggestion that its account of Hubbard's life is not historical fact. Early life L. Ron Hubbard’s Life, Work, Research, Scientology & Dianetics: Official Church of Scientology » FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS WHO WAS L. RON HUBBARD? L. Ron Hubbard was an author, philosopher, humanitarian and Founder of the Scientology religion. He was born March 13, 1911, in Tilden, Nebraska, and passed away January 24, 1986. His long and adventurous road to discovery began at an early age. Under the tutelage of his mother, a thoroughly educated woman, he was reading well beyond his years: Shakespeare, Greek philosophy and an array of later classics.

Yet his early years were far from bookish and with his family’s move to Helena, Montana, he was soon breaking broncos with the best of the local wranglers. As an inquisitive youth in what was then still a rough and tumble American West, he was also soon befriending indigenous Blackfoot Indians—learning tribal lore and legend from a local medicine man and so achieving that very rare status of blood brother. By the age of 13 he had further distinguished himself as the nation’s youngest Eagle Scout, and represented American scouting to US President Calvin Coolidge. Yet what most distinguished the young L. Ron Hubbard was an insatiable curiosity coupled with an innate desire to better the human condition. Recognizing exactly those qualities, a student of Sigmund Freud’s and the only American naval officer to study psychoanalysis in Vienna, Commander Joseph C. Thompson introduced the young L. Ron Hubbard to Freudian theory. Although genuinely fascinated with the possibilities of plumbing the human mind, Ron was left with many unanswered questions. When his father was assigned to the South Pacific as a United States naval commander, Ron embarked upon the first of his famed Asian travels.

By the age of 19 he had traveled more than a quarter of a million miles and traversed much of China and India. Through the course of it, he became one of the few Western adventurers to enter forbidden Tibetan lamaseries in the Western Hills of China and study with the last in the line of royal magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. Yet for all the wonders he witnessed, he could not help but conclude the legendary wisdom of the East did nothing to ease suffering and poverty in these overpopulated and underdeveloped lands. Returning to the United States in 1929, Ron resumed his formal education and enrolled in George Washington University the following year. There, he studied mathematics, engineering and attended the first American class on atomic and molecular phenomena. Although not necessarily subjects of choice, such were the disciplines that provided him the investigatory tools with which to pursue outstanding questions of the human mind and life. Indeed, L. Ron Hubbard became the first to bring a scientific methodology to age-old questions of existence. To round out his university days, he also became one of the foremost pioneers of American aviation and a barnstorming sensation across the Midwest.

Ultimately, however, and particularly in light of what passed for a “science of the mind” in university psychology labs, he could only conclude that Western academia held no answers. As he later wrote: “It was very obvious that I was dealing with and living in a culture which knew less about the mind than the lowest primitive tribe I had ever come in contact with. Knowing also that people in the East were not able to reach as deeply and predictably into the riddles of the mind, as I had been led to expect, I knew I would have to do a lot of research.” To fund that research through the Great Depression, Ron embarked upon the first leg of a fifty-year literary career. By the mid-1930s he was among the most widely read authors in the fabled heyday of American pulp fiction. He also scripted several memorable screenplays in Hollywood’s Golden Age, and is still remembered for his work on various box office blockbusters and a classic Clark Gable film. But never losing sight of his primary quest, he continued his mainline research with far-flung expeditions to primitive lands.

He would eventually study 21 races and cultures while searching out an underlying “common denominator of existence” upon which to build a workable philosophy for the betterment of Man. In early 1938, he isolated that common denominator as Survive! That survival was a key motivation within all living things was not a new idea. That all life was ultimately and only attempting to survive—this was entirely new. Ron originally presented this discovery in a manuscript entitled “Excalibur.” Although he eventually chose not to publish the work as it lacked any actual method for improvement, here nonetheless was the philosophic yardstick with which to align all further research. In recognition of his exploratory achievements through these years, 1940 saw Ron’s admittance to the famed Explorers Club where he stood among the foremost adventurers of his day. Consequently, all subsequent expeditions were carried out under the coveted Explorers Club flag—most immediately a 1940 voyage to Alaska wherein he not only conducted landmark studies of Pacific Coast Indian tribes, but also pioneered a prototypic navigation system employed along all sea and air lanes into the latter decades of the twentieth century.

With the advent of the Second World War, Ron entered the United States Navy as a lieutenant. He initially served as a senior American intelligence officer in Australia. Upon his return to the United States (as the first American casualty of South Pacific combat) he went on to serve with distinction in both the North Pacific and Atlantic—commanding antisubmarine corvettes and training crews for amphibious landings. Although highly decorated for duties under fire, he was deeply saddened by the resultant carnage and inhumanity. Thus, he resolved to redouble his efforts to improve the human condition. Accordingly, he continued his research even through the darkest days of 1943 and 1944. Left partially blind and lame from injuries sustained in combat, Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard was diagnosed as permanently disabled by 1945 and hospitalized in Oakland, California. By this point, however, he had evolved the first practical procedures for alleviating trauma. He tested those procedures on former prisoners of war who, notwithstanding intensive medical treatment, had failed to regain their health. With the employment of early Dianetics techniques to remove “mental blocks” inhibiting response to medicine, all those Ron treated swiftly and remarkably recovered under standard medical care.

Utilizing the same procedures, he likewise regained his own health—much to the bafflement of medical examiners. With the restoration of peace, Ron set out to further test the workability of Dianetics among hundreds of individuals from all walks of life. After continued refinement in that “real-world laboratory,” he prepared a paper detailing both underlying theory and techniques. That paper was Dianetics: The Original Thesis . Copies of the manuscript were initially distributed to medical and scientific circles. In no time at all, however, those copies were eagerly recopied and passed on to others, until Ron’s Original Thesis was literally circulating around the world. To meet the veritable flood of inquiries from readers, Ron was next urged to author a definitive text on the subject. In reply, he began work on Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health the first comprehensive text ever written on the human mind and life. Released May 9, 1950, the work immediately rode the New York Times bestseller list and gave rise to some 750 Dianetics groups from coast to coast. It further inspired the formation of Dianetics Foundations in six American cities to help facilitate Ron’s advancement of the subject.

That advancement was swift, methodical and at least as revelatory as what had preceded it. For extending from the final chapter of Dianetics, wherein Ron wrote of plans to pursue “further research into life force,” he soon found himself investigating mounting evidence that this life force was intrinsically spiritual and extended well beyond any one lifetime. That is, as he phrased it: “As it develops, Dianetics more and more seems potentially able, eventually, to contact the often-postulated, but never thoroughly sensed, measured and experienced human soul.” The statement proved entirely accurate and, with further investigation through late 1951 and 1952, Ron indeed contacted, measured and provided a means to experience the human soul. Thus the Scientology religion was born as “the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.” Through the latter 1950s, Ron continued delving ever deeper into the nature and potential of the spirit, while documenting discoveries in recorded lectures, technical issues, articles and books. As the community of Scientologists commensurately swelled, Churches of Scientology opened across the United States, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

Accordingly, he both oversaw the worldwide growth of Scientology and worked to codify an exact and standard route along which individuals could ascend to higher states of awareness. Yet, as Scientology embraces the whole of life, there is finally no aspect of human existence L. Ron Hubbard’s subsequent work does not address. Residing in Great Britain, then aboard a research vessel in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Caribbean before returning to the United States, he drew from the larger body of Scientology procedures to develop an array of social betterment technologies. To wit: L. Ron Hubbard’s procedures for drug rehabilitation are presently employed in some 50 nations. They have proven five times more effective than any similarly aimed program. His program for criminal reform is presently at work in more than 2,000 prisons and penal institutions internationally and has produced an 80 percent reduction in recidivism. His technology for learning and literacy is delivered across better than 74 countries. L. Ron Hubbard’s universally acclaimed moral code and guide to better living, The Way to Happiness , is nonreligious and appeals solely to common sense.

It has statistically proven effective in reversing declining moral trends across whole communities, with some 100 million copies distributed in more than 90 languages in over 150 nations. But, of course, the greater story of L. Ron Hubbard can only conclude with his completion of his mainline research. Before his passing in 1986, he fully codified all Dianetics and Scientology materials for application across every level of society and to the utmost spiritual heights. Today, those materials comprise tens of millions of published words, recorded lectures and films. With over 250 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard has inspired a movement millions strong and spanning all continents. In testament to the workability of his legacy are the miracles of his technology and his millions of friends world over who carry that legacy forward. Both continue to grow in number with each passing day, and otherwise affirm what Ron declared in his own essay, “My Philosophy”: “I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days.

“These shadows look so thick to him and weigh him down so that when he finds they are shadows and that he can see through them, walk through them and be again in the sun, he is enormously delighted. And I am afraid I am just as delighted as he is.” ﻿ The Mysterious Death of L. Ron Hubbard The Mysterious Death of L. Ron Hubbard Strange Death in a Strange Land The Old Man in the Desert He had achieved success beyond his wildest dreams; wealth, fame and the adulation of thousands of devoted adherents. Yet for the last five years of his life, L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, dwelt, a virtual prisoner of his own paranoia, a recluse in self-imposed exile, on a ranch in the desert of Creston, California. Surrounded by a handful of trusted aides, he handed over the running of his multimillion dollar empire to a chosen few. Even his wife was cut off - after she got out of prison after serving a sentence for her part in the notorious Snow White case, she never saw her husband again. In fact, few did.

Fearing indictment in the Snow White case, Hubbard fled to the desert in the early 80s, leaving behind his role as de facto controller of the Scientology empire and taking with him only a handful of trusted aides, mostly those now-grown messengers from the Commodore's Messenger Org, who had, in some cases literally, grown up under the Machiavellian tutelage of Hubbard, and became his emissaries to the empire he oversaw. The Vultures Gather Of these former messengers turned executives, the future head of Scientology, David Miscavige, was amongst those angling to take control of the church upon its founder's death. But despite chronic ill health, the founder lived on, leaving Miscavige - and others, including Terri Gamboa, Vicki Aznaran, Lyman Spurlock and Norman Starkey -- in a state of flux. They controlled the church, for all intents and purposes. But their authority came only through their appointed - some say self-appointed - role as the controllers of LRH's communication with the world. As LRH himself may have written, he who controls the comm controls the game.

But events, as we shall see, were spinning out of control for these so-called young rulers of Scientology. Also omnipresent during Hubbard's final years were Pat and Annie Broeker, a couple who lived with LRH in Creston. While their official duties were to take care of Hubbard's welfare, as those closest to Source, they became important players in the operation of the church itself, given their enormous influence over LRH as his day-to-day caretakers. On a more practical level, Pat Broeker, in particular, oversaw the financial dealings between Hubbard and the church, and eventually became such a trusted friend that LRH named him as successor, the Loyal Officer who would look after his church after his passing. A body; still warm, much mourned but quickly forgotten On January 24 1986, under circumstances that can at best be characterised as 'suspicious', L. Ron Hubbard died. Although his condition had been steadily deteriorating for years, even the coronor noted that there were irregularities surrounding his death, including the presence in his body of vast quantities of Vistaril, a powerful ani-psychotic medication.

Just days before Hubbard's death, his personal physician, Scientologist Gene Denk, left for a gambling vacation in Las Vegas with some of Hubbard's top aides, including Gamboa, Miscavige and wife, and the Aznarans. By the time he returned, there was nothing he could do. Hubbard died, and the battle for control of his legacy, which had been simmering for years, took centre stage. LRH left behind a vast corporate empire, including millions of dollars worth of copyrights and trademarks, as well as a personal fortune rumoured to be in the hundreds of millions. Rumour, though, is all that is available - the vast portion of Hubbard's riches were buried far inside the CoS ledgers, safe from the prying eyes of the IRS, which had been threatening an audit of Hubbard for years, right up until his death. But even leaving aside his personal fortune, Hubbard's legacy was rich - and there was no shortage of people eager to take a cut. Fatal Curiousities The day before Hubbard died, his will was redrafted. Gone was the reference to Pat Broeker, who had been the executor in the previous will.

The new executor, who would oversee the transfer of all Hubbard's intellectual property to a trust known as Author's Family Trust-B, and from there, into the newly created vessel, the Church of Spiritual Technology, was Norman Starkey, a longtime CoS heavyweight who had earned the animosity of many now-disenfranchised Scientologists during the days of the Missionholders Conference in 1982, when David Miscavige and the young rulers first made waves as the new power behind LRH's throne. Gone, too, was Norton S. Karno, Hubbard's former tax lawyer whose presence weaves through the story of the Church of Scientology like an invisible, but unbreakable thread. Starkey became Hubbard's executor, and David Miscavige took the reins of power as effortlessly as he had disposed of his rivals to the throne in previous internal skirmishes. There was no explanation for this last minute changing of the guard. But it was not long before those most likely to raise questions about the new regime - Pat and Annie Broeker - disappeared from the eye of the storm as though they had never been.

With the Broekers out of the picture, there was no one who could pose a significant threat to Miscavige, and, like one born with the divine right of kings, he took his place as titular head of the church, highest ranking officer in the Sea Org and ruler of the Scientology empire without firing a single shot. He remains there to this day. And the truth shall set them free The world, however, has moved on - and now, some of those same people who were present during the last days of LRH have come forward to tell what they know. Day by day and thread by thread, the real story of what happened to this present day Lear at the end of his reign is emerging. It is to assist in this exploration of the secret history of Scientology that this web page was created. We have assembled documents, including - for the first time on the internet - the 1979 Last Will and Testament of L. Ron Hubbard, one of the few pieces of tangible evidence linking the mysterious Norton Karno with the Scientology empire. We have also collected posts from those who were there, and legal filings from those who have gone before us down the path towards solving what could be the greatest murder mystery of the last part of this century.

We invite those with a story to tell to contact us, and share any information that could shed light on what really happened in the desert that fateful January day. Confidentiality is, of course, assured. Eyewitness Accounts Robert Vaughn Young, an accomplished writer and former high-ranking official within the CoS, gives his recollection of the death of L. Ron Hubbard. Jesse Prince, formerly Inspector General Ethics, the second-highest ranking post at RTC, has a very different - but no less intriguing - perspective . 1986 These documents give the reader a rare peek inside the constantly shifting power structure within the CoS. In the first Will , dated 1979, Hubbard's lawyer Norton S. Karno, immortalized on the Friends of Norton Karno pages, appears as Executor and Personal Representative, a position which would have given him considerable power over the bulk of the church's money. In 1982, however, mere days after the corporate restructuring had taken place, Hubbard drafted another Will , and Karno was removed from his position as Executor, to be replaced by Patrick Broeker, then amongst those closest to the old man.

A codicil , dated 1983, includes a clause forbidding any autopsy, viewing or service, stating instead that Hubbard's body is to cremated as soon as possible after his death. Broeker's moment in the sun comes to an end with the establishment of the final Will of LRH , drafted the day before his death in January, 1986, which handed control of the estate to Norm Starkey. His duties mainly concerned with transfering the vast number of copyrights left in trust by LRH to the Church of Spiritual Technology, the ultimate keeper of the tech, Starkey is also head of Author Services Inc. His real role within the CoS command structure is as yet unclear. FACTnet Probate Brief During the course of his herculean struggle with the CoS corporate hydra, FACTnet board member Larry Wollersheim challenged the probate that had originally disposed of LRH's estate. In this filing, part of an ognoing case that is yet another volley in his legal onslaught against the CoS, he lays out what he sees as the real story behind LRH's death . Inconclusions For those who read this page seeking an answer, we apologize.

Like life itself, this page is a work in progress. We would be happy to receive email from anyone with information, questions, comments, or even an opinion on the question of what really happened to L. Ron Hubbard. Future additions to this page will include a text version of the coroner's report, as well as more information from the probate filing - as well as, we hope, more personal recollections from those who know the answers that we seek. Send us email at snefru@earthlink.net Scientology - Religious Holidays Religious Holidays L. Ron Hubbard: Scientologists observe birthday of religion’s founder FRIDAY, MARCH 13: Scientologists pour into Clearwater, Florida, for a birthday celebration for their founder, as thousands more perform community service in their own locales for the birth anniversary of L. Ron Hubbard. Born in Nebraska in 1911, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard gained attention for his science fiction and fantasy books before launching the Dianetics self-help system, which was released in printed form in 1950. ( Wikipedia has details .) As Dianetics expanded, Hubbard developed a set of doctrines and rituals, which led to the new religious movement known as Scientology.

Several aspects of Hubbard’s life are controversial, but the group continues to expand. At the 2014 LRH Birthday Celebration in Clearwater, expansion was discussed —with particular mention made of the first Ideal Advanced Organization, in Denmark, and the Ideal Pacifica Bridge in Los Angeles. Additional controversy is stirring in the midst of the new HBO-funded documentary, “Going Clear,” which recently was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. ( The Huffington Post reported .) Based on Lawrence Wrights’s 560-page book, the documentary has spurred legal action from the group. Nonetheless, L. Ron Hubbard remains one of the 100 most influential Americans of all time—at least, according to Smithsonian magazine . est and Werner Erhard - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com est and Werner Erhard "In life, understanding is the booby prize." -- Werner Erhard Werner Erhard 's est [Erhard Seminar Training and Latin for "it is"] was one of the more successful entrants in the human potential movement. est is an example of what psychologists call a large group awareness training program .

The first est seminar was held in October, 1971, at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco with nearly 1,000 in attendance. Erhard and est were known for training people to get "It", a concept taken from author, teacher and expert communicator Alan Watts . At the time Erhard arrived in the Bay Area, Watts was teaching his version of Zen to small groups on his houseboat in Sausalito. Erhard, like Watts, would teach people to "Get It." Watts, however, did most of his teaching through books. His seminars were small. Erhard and his trainers would not teach through books, but in large hotel ballrooms and auditoriums to hundreds at a time. (Writing about a program that no longer exists and that was taken by hundreds of thousands of people is risky, to say the least. Clearly, the experiences of those who took the program varied greatly. Whatever I say that resonates with one group of participants will seem false to another group.

What follows is an attempt to reflect the background and the experience of est, but the reader should realize that whatever I say will be inadequate, perhaps even false, for some participants.) est adopted, in part, the Zen master approach, which was often abusive, profane, demeaning, and authoritarian. (One of my favorite Zen stories is of the master who asks his disciple a series of questions. No matter what the disciple answers, the master hits him with a stick. Even contradictory answers are met with the stick. The result is not resentment but enlightenment. If you stick around long enough, life will teach you this lesson for free: no matter what you do, it hits you with its stick!) While many participants did not perceive the training as particularly abusive, some were not used to the discipline requested of them. Some have claimed that one typically abusive approach was the requirement of extraordinary bladder control in est training. Participants were advised not to leave the room, even to go to the toilet, during training.

According to one est participant, however, "bathroom breaks were scheduled at regular and reasonable intervals....Two or three rows at the back of the room were reserved for those who required more frequent bathroom breaks (and I think either some sort of documentation or personal insistence were required to qualify). No one was ever physically required to stay in the room at any time" (personal correspondence). (This aspect of est training was humorously ridiculed in the movie "Semi-Tough" (1978) with Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristoferson.) In any case, one should expect some sort of discipline and required order for this kind of training. Having people come and go as they please is distracting and not conducive to the concentration necessary for such a program. Erhard and Scientology In the late 1960s, Erhard studied Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard became a significant influence. Scientologists to this day accuse Erhard of having stolen his main ideas for est from Hubbard. We do know that when Erhard set up est he considered making it a non-profit, as Hubbard had done with dianetics and the Church of Scientology. But Erhard decided to incorporate as an educational firm for profit in a broad market.

Erhard and his supporters accuse Scientology of being behind various attempts to discredit Erhard, including hounding by the IRS and accusations of incest by his children. Erhard won a lawsuit against the IRS and the incest accusations were recanted. Erhard has claimed he has good evidence that Scientologists made a strong and concerted effort to destroy him. est is not dianetics est bears little resemblance to Dianetics or Scientology, however. est is a hodgepodge of philosophical bits and pieces seemingly culled from the carcasses of existential philosophy, motivational psychology, Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-cybernetics, Zen Buddhism, Alan Watts, Freud, Abraham Maslow, L. Ron Hubbard, Hinduism, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, P. T. Barnum, and apparently anything else that Erhard's intuition told him would work in the burgeoning human potential market. (I'm not saying that such eclecticism is a bad thing or that Erhard consciously constructed est out of just these sources. I employ bits and pieces from many of the same sources in my teaching.

In fact, after a Socratic performance on the first day of an Introduction to Philosophy course, a student once blurted out: "This is just like est!") What did Erhard promise those who would shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for his programs? He promised he would "blow their minds" * and "empower" them "to produce effective action." He would enable them "to produce new ways of working." He would transform the basis of their communication. They would be able "to cause life instead of just living it." "Werner Erhard held out the tantalizing promise of transformation, a word and a concept never precisely defined in the fuzzy syntax-twisted jargon of est" (Pressman 1993) . Erhard's self-training Where did Erhard get his training? Mostly, he is self-taught. His study was undirected and accidental. In 1960 he was John Rosenberg, a 25-year-old married with children. Apparently dissatisfied with his life but with no Large Group Awareness Training available to him, he did what many unhappy men have done: he abandoned his family. He left Philadelphia and went to St. Louis, changed his name and sold cars.

Some might find it interesting that a man with a Jewish father whose parents had him baptized in the Episcopal church would come to identify himself with a German name. Of more interest to his transformation, however, are the books he read and was influenced by. William Warren Bartley III (Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man) tells us that Erhard was "profoundly dissatisfied with the competitive and meaningless status quo" and was deeply affected by Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Hill's three basic principles are: every achievement begins with an idea; plans call for their implementation and; what you think is what you do. Think positive, you will do positive deeds. Hill also advised visualizing objectives and selecting similar-minded friends. Hill gives good advice, but it is very vague and is not very systematic. It doesn't offer much to people who haven't got a clue what their objectives are or should be. Some of his ideas can be harmful, if not properly applied. For example, some people are taught that they should always talk positive, even if this means lying. Even if you haven't made a sale in two years, you must put on a positive front and tell everyone that business couldn't be better.

Even if you know nothing about the product you are selling, you must praise it beyond belief. Even if you are experiencing one failure after another, you must lie to yourself and tell yourself that you are doing great. You must never blame the product for not selling. You must try harder, have more faith, be more positive. The est training was not, however, a prelude to, say, The Secret , where the message is an extension of Hill's think it and it will become so philosophy. est was not just more Norman Vincent Peale. Another significant influence on Erhard was Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-cybernetics. As a young man, Erhard apparently had a lot of negatives in his self-image and was deeply affected by Maltz who emphasized, among other things, self-hypnosis. Erhard put his new ideas and new self to work as a traveling salesman for a correspondence school. The basic idea he came to espouse is that we've developed debilitating habits and beliefs. The point is to get rid of them and replace them.

As one participant said, his est trainer told them that the brain always was functioning as a self-perpetuating machine, programmed to repeat over and over again the same mechanistic responses to similar situations facing people in their daily lives. "I'll tell you everything there is to know about life," the trainer gleefully announced.

"What is, is, and what ain't, ain't." (Pressman 1993) Another participant describes what he got out his est training this way: Perhaps the most eloquent and concise description of "it" that I have ever come across is from an Alan Watts essay, "This Is It": "To the individual thus enlightened it appears as a vivid and overwhelming certainty that the universe, precisely as it is at this moment, as a whole and in every one of its parts, is so completely right as to need no explanation or justification beyond what it simply is....the mind is so wonder-struck at the self-evident and self-sufficient fitness of things as they are, including what would ordinarily be thought the very worst, that it cannot find any word strong enough to express the perfection and beauty of the experience...The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living." That, in a nutshell, is "it," and as Watts indicates, it occurs now. And I do believe, some two decades later, that that is what I got at the est training. Of course, that was then.

(Although when I got it, it was now.) (Sobel 1998) For Sobel, the training was something like one might expect in a Zen Buddhist retreat: And so yes, I did "get it" at the est training twenty years ago, and what I got is that it always already is (and isn't), so therefore I still have it today (and don't), and it includes at times having the absolute certainty that I in fact never truly got it (or lost it) and nor do I still have it (although I do.) Get it? This is the sound of one hand clapping for itself, I guess. By the time Erhard arrived in San Francisco, he'd had jobs selling and managing salespersons for Great Books and Parent's magazine. He became part of the self-help movement after hiring Robert Hardgrove, who introduced Erhard to the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers . Maslow and Rogers were unique in psychology at the time, for they emphasized not the disturbed or ill person, but the healthy, happy, satisfied, accomplishing person. The human potential movement was just getting started and Erhard would be in on the ground floor.

It is estimated that some 700,000 people did the training before the seminars were halted in 1991, when Erhard packed up and left the country [Faltermayer] . There must have been a lot of satisfied customers to rack up that kind of participation over little more than a decade. He sold the est "technology" to some followers who established Landmark Forum . Erhard's brother, Harry Rosenberg, heads Landmark Education Corp. (LEC), which does some $50 million a year in business and has attracted some 300,000 participants. LEC is headquartered in San Francisco, as was est, and has 42 offices in 11 countries. Apparently, however, Erhard is not involved in the operation of LEC.

Question: L. Ron Hubbard is known as the founder of what movement?
Answer: Scientology