L Ron Hubbard: Founder of the Church of Scientology
The Founding of the Church of Scientology
Had L Ron Hubbard died in 1949, he would most likely be remembered by the world as an author of pulp fiction, a relic of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, writer of such works as “Final Blackout” and “Fear.”
Hubbard did not die in 1949, however, and in 1950 he would write the book that would set the course of the rest of his life. This book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It was a self-help book designed to assist readers in cleansing their minds of ingrained mental scars, bringing them to a state of mental purity and physical health that Hubbard referred to as “clear.”
With the publishing of this work he also opened the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. One of his biggest supporters was John W. Campbell, another science fiction author of the age of pulps and editor of science fiction’s flagship magazine Astounding Stories . Campbell greatly hyped the debut of Dianetics and the Foundation, although he received criticism from some of his star authors such as Isaac Asimov and Jack Williamson.
Although meeting with a successful debut, Dianetics did not receive the total acclaim that Hubbard had hoped it would. He kept at it, however, and in 1952 expanded it into the philosophy of Scientology. In December of 1953 he declared Scientology a religion and founded the first Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey.
The Early Life of L Ron Hubbard
L Ron Hubbard was born on March 13th, 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska. After the United States’ entrance into World War I in 1917, his father Harry Ross Hubbard joined the navy. With his father away, Hubbard spent a great deal of time on his grandfather’s ranch in Montana (an impressively sized ranch, although it does not cover Ã?¼ of the state as some official biographies have claimed).
In 1923 had the tender age of 12 Hubbard became an Eagle Scout. During the 1920’s he also made two visits to Asia while his father was stationed at a US Naval base on the island of Guam.
Hubbard enrolled in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at George Washington University in Washington, DC in 1930. After barely passing his Freshman year he was placed on academic probation in the fall of 1931 and dropped out.
It was after dropping out of college that Hubbard first turned his hand to writing. His writing was popular and he became quite a successful pulp fiction author. During this time he married Margaret Grubb and they had two children: L Ron Hubbard, Jr. (born 1934) and Katherine May Hubbard (born 1936).
War with Europe was looming in the summer of 1941 and Hubbard decided to put away his writing and follow in his father’s footsteps. He enlisted in the United States Navy and served until the end of World War II in 1945.
Hubbard’s wartime service is a subject of great controversy. Official biographies of the Church of Scientology claim that Hubbard served heroically in combat on the island of Java where he received two purple hearts, as well as earning a total of 21 medals.
According to US Naval records, Hubbard never went anywhere near the island of Java, many of the medals listed in the Scientologist rankings do not even exist, and boasts academic achievements on the part of Hubbard that he never acquired.
Looking at Naval records of Hubbard’s service, one sees evidence of an officer disliked by his superiors. In assessments he was referred to as “unsatisfactory for any assignment” and “not temperamentally fitted for independent command.”
That said, Hubbard was given command of a subchaser, the USS PC-815. During his time in command he bombarded a known magnetic deposit at the mouth of the Columbia River, convinced that there were two Japanese subs there, and shelled a Mexican island off of Baja, California for gunnery practice. After complaints were received Hubbard was relieved of command. He spent the majority of World War II on shore.
Dabblings With the Dark Arts
After leaving active duty service in 1945, Hubbard fell in with rocket scientist Jack Parsons. Besides being an important scientist of the period, Parsons was also an associate of Aleister Crowley and a practitioner of many occult arts.
Parsons described Hubbard as his “magical partner.” He described Crowley as having had no formal training in “Magick”, but of having “an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field.”
According to some reports, Parsons and Hubbard’s activities included an attempt to conceive the Antichrist. Parsons tried to impregnate a woman referred to as the “Whore of Babylon” while Hubbard chanted spells over the couple. This attempt would end up a failure, however.
It is the belief of many occultists today that much of Hubbard’s ideas for Dianetics and Scientology came from this period of association with Jack Parsons and their varied magical activities.
The pair then decided to enter into a business venture together, investing in yachts. Parsons gave Hubbard $20,970.80 to the project, while Hubbard’s contribution was $1,183.91. Hubbard took their combined money to Florida where he would buy the boats then sail them back to Los Angeles, where both he and Parsons lived.
Hubbard purchased three yachts and squandered the rest of the money. He never made any mention of paying back Parsons and kept the money for himself. He also stole Parsons’s girlfriend, whom would become L Ron’s second wife: Sara Northrup. However when he married Sara he was still married to his first wife, whom he would not divorce until a year later.
The Church of Scientology has claimed that Hubbard’s actions with Parsons was actually part of a top secret US Naval Intelligence mission to investigate the occult. However no government documentation to this effect have arisen.
During this period Hubbard also made an appeal for psychological assistance from the Veterans Administration. In his letter Hubbard admits to taking psychiatric medication for two years. He confesses to great psychological turmoil, and says he is in need of either psychiatric or even psycho-analytic assistance. No evidence has been exposed that he ever actually received psychological treatment, so it would seem his appeals went unheeded. One can only imagine what difference it might have made.
L Ron Hubbard, Savior of Humanity
Although Dianetics met with some initial success, but in the beginning of 1951 Hubbard was facing bankruptcy. Hubbard blamed the failing of his Dianetics Foundation on his new wife, Sara. His anger at Sara led to a kidnapping of their young daughter, although she was quickly returned. Hubbard would later claim that this was not actually his daughter.
Soon after the kidnapping episode, he reported his wife to the FBI, claiming that she was a Communist. Part of Hubbard’s seeming paranoid dementia revolved around his firm belief that Communists were trying to keep his new system of Dianetics down.
Sara would soon divorce Hubbard on grounds of cruelty. By this time Hubbard was however already involved in a relationship with a 20 year old follower of Dianetics .
After the Church of Scientology was founded, Hubbard’s success seemed assured. The Church began making immense amounts of money, and Hubbard soon found himself to be a millionaire. As he became more and more successful, it began to face government scrutiny. In 1966 its tax-exempt status was revoked, and would not be renewed until 1993.
At this time, Hubbard resigned as executive director of the Church, although he still retained an important leadership role. He left the United States to live aboard a fleet of cruise ships in the Mediterranean Sea, along with the heads of the Church of Scientology.
For almost ten years Hubbard lived this way. During his life at sea he created the Sea Organization (SeaOrg), a paramilitary Scientologist group, an organization that still exists today and is an integral part of the Church of Scientology. Although Hubbard returned to land in the mid-1970’s, the Scientology flagship Freewinds, which sails the Caribbean, is still an important Scientology center today and is the only place that members of the Church can go to be trained in the highest level of the Church (OT VIII).
By the 1980’s, however, Hubbard completely resigned from society, rarely seen in public. An isolated millionaire on his California ranch, he moved away from the Church and returned to writing science fiction. In 1982 he published the massive 1,000 page Battlefield Earth (turned into a failed movie in 1998 starring Scientologist John Travolta).
This was soon followed by the 10 volume tome Mission: Earth. Both of these books received excellent sales, and many critics claimed that sales reports were false as Scientologists were purchasing vast numbers of copies to fake the results. He also wrote an unpublished screenplay dramatizing some of his Scientologist teachings: Revolt in the Stars.
A recluse, Hubbard was never seen in his last years. The Church he had created continued bringing in money, however. Forbes Magazine published that he had earned $40 million from the Church of Scientology in 1982. Hubbard died on January 24th, 1986.
