Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 –
January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was
an American author in numerous pulp
fiction genres[2][3][4][5] as
well as a prolific writer of non-fiction[6][7] works, creator of
Dianetics, and founder of the Church of
Scientology.
Hubbard was a highly controversial public figure during his lifetime. Many details of his life remain disputed, with official
and unofficial biographies depicting Hubbard in radically different ways. Official Scientology biographies present him in
hagiographic terms as "larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic,
charismatic and immensely capable in two dozen fields"[8][9]. In
contrast, unofficial biographies (some of which are by former Scientologists) paint a much less flattering picture which often
contradicts official Church accounts[10][11]. One of Hubbard's unofficial biographers,
Russell Miller, describes him as "one of the most successful and colourful confidence
tricksters of the twentieth century" and comments that "every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with
lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments."[12]
Parents and early life
L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska to Ledora May Hubbard (née
Waterbury) and Harry Ross Hubbard. His father was born Henry August Wilson in Fayette,
Iowa, but was orphaned as an infant and adopted by the Hubbards, a farming
family from Fredericksburg, Iowa. Harry joined the United States Navy in 1904, leaving the service in 1908, then re-enlisted in 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany. He served in the Navy until 1946, reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in 1934.[12] Ledora was a feminist who had trained
to become a high school teacher and married Harry in 1909.
The Hubbards moved first to Kalispell, Montana and then to Helena, the state capital. Church biographies have stated that during this period Hubbard became the
protegé of "Old Tom, a Blackfoot Indian medicine man ... [who] passe[d] on much of the tribal
lore to his young friend" and that at the age of four, he was "honored with the status of blood brother of the Blackfeet in a
ceremony that is still recalled by tribal elders."[13]
Hubbard's interest in the Blackfeet took literary form in his 1937 novel, "Buckskin Brigades", a "novel of one man's courageous
struggle to save the Blackfoot Nation from destruction by the Northwestern fur traders".[14] In 1985, members of Blackfeet Nation, Montana, acknowledged L. Ron Hubbard's
"seventieth anniversary of . . . becoming a blood brother of the Blackfeet Nation".[citation needed] Contemporary records do not record
the existence of "Old Tom". The white Blackfeet historian Hugh Dempsey has commented that the act of blood brotherhood was "never done among the Blackfeet", and Blackfeet Nation officials have disavowed
attempts to "re-establish" Hubbard as a "blood brother" of the Blackfeet.[15] Former vice president of the tribe's executive committee, John Yellow
Kidney has also said of the letter claiming to re-establish Hubbard as a blood brother, "You should not give it (the document)
very much credibility, I don't."[15]
Harry's naval career led to the family moving several more times, first to San
Diego, then to Oakland, California followed by Puget Sound, Washington and finally to Washington, D.C.. During this period L. Ron Hubbard joined the Boy Scouts of America and became an Eagle
Scout at the age of 13. Church biographies routinely state that he was "the nation's youngest Eagle Scout."[16] which is based on a March 25, 1930,
report of the "Evening Star"}[17] and Hubbards Boy Scout
Diary of 25 March 1924{{Fact} According to the Boy Scouts of America, their documents at the time were only kept in alphabetical
order with no reference to their ages — thus there was no way of telling who was the youngest.[12]
Between 1927 and 1929, Hubbard traveled twice to the
Far East to visit his parents during his father's posting to the United States Navy base on Guam. Church biographies published from the
1950s to the 1970s stated that with "the financial support of his
wealthy grandfather" Hubbard journeyed throughout Asia, "studying with holy men" in northern
China, India and Tibet.[18][19] Hubbard said that on several occasions he visited India.[20] However, the Church of Scientology's current official account makes no
mention of India or Tibet,[21] and according to
Jon Atack "a flight change at Calcutta airport in 1959 seems
to have been his only direct contact with the land of Vedantic philosophy."[11]
One of Hubbard's controversial journal entries during his visit to China in 1928
Hubbard sometimes displayed attitudes that were at odds with the picture his followers try to present of him. For instance,
during his visit to China at the age of seventeen, he made diary entries such as: "As a Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down."[12] and "They smell of all the baths they didnt [sic] take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here."[12][22] Similarly, Hubbard described the Tibetan Buddhist temples as "miserably cold and very shabby . . .
The people worshiping have voices like bull-frogs and beat a drum and play a brass horn to accompany their singing (?)"[12] and called them "very odd and
heathenish".[23] He also wrote about
colored people in Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought : "Unlike the yellow and
brown people, the white does not usually believe he can get attention from matter or objects. The yellow and brown believe for
the most part ... that rocks, trees, walls, etc., can give them attention"[24] and "...so we see the African tribesman, with his complete contempt for the truth, and his emphasis
on brutality and savagery..."[25] Interestingly, these
sentences have been rewritten in the 2007 edition of the book.
While such attitudes might not be especially surprising for a white teenager born in 1911, they
are vastly at odds with the stories he would later tell and his followers would repeat: "Among other wonders, Ron told of
watching monks meditate for weeks on end, contemplating higher truths ... he took advantage of this unique opportunity to study
Far Eastern culture. ... he befriended and learned ... a thoroughly insightful Beijing magician who represented the last of the
line of Chinese magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. ... Old Mayo was also well versed
in China’s ancient wisdom that had been handed down from generation to generation. Ron passed many evenings in the company of
such wise men, eagerly absorbing their words ... he closely examined the surrounding culture. In addition to the local Tartar
tribes, he spent time with nomadic bandits originally from Mongolia ... [t]hese sojourns in
Asia and the Pacific islands had a profound effect, giving Ron a subjective understanding of Eastern philosophy ... the world itself was his classroom, and he studied in it voraciously,
recording what he saw and learned in his ever-present diaries, which he carefully preserved for future reference."[26][27] Hubbard said that he was made a lama priest himself by Old Mayo.[23] Hubbard's "ever-present diaries" were introduced into evidence in
the Armstrong trial; they make no mention of Old Mayo the
Beijing magician or nomad bandits and no reflection on Eastern philosophy.[11] Similarly, L. Ron Hubbard expressed support for creating townships in South Africa: "Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the
world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and
adequate resettlement activity in existence."[28]
While in Guam[29] Hubbard was befriended by
Commander Joseph "Snake" Thompson (1874-1943), who had recently returned from
Vienna and studies with Sigmund Freud, and was stationed as a member of the Naval Medical
Corps.[29] Through the course of their
friendship, the commander spent many an afternoon teaching Ron what he knew of the human mind. [16] Thompson is an important figure in official Church accounts of
Hubbard's life and was referenced in many of Hubbard's works in support of his assertions of possessing expertise in Freudian
psychoanalysis.[30]
Education
After studies at Swavely Preparatory School in Manassas, Virginia, and graduating from Woodward School for Boys in 1930,
Hubbard enrolled at George Washington University in September of 1930,
where he began studying a major in civil engineering. There he became one of eight
assistant editors of the University newspaper "The University Hatchet"[31][32] and was a member of
several of the university's clubs and societies, including the Twentieth Marine Corps Reserve and the George Washington College
Company.[33] His grades were poor, and university
records show that he attended for only two semesters after which he was placed on academic probation "for deficiency in
scholarship" in September of 1931, leaving the university without a degree and "entitled to a statement of honorable
dismissal."
Observers have questioned assertions that Hubbard and the Church of Scientology later made about his study at George
Washington University. According to the Church's official account, "Here he studies engineering and atomic and molecular physics
and embarks upon a personal search for answers to the human dilemma. His first experiment concerning the structure and function
of the mind is carried out while at the university."[34] One of his classes was indeed among the nation's first schools offering curriculum
in molecular and atomic physics, however he failed the course. Critics[35] and government reports[36] cite his poor performance when evaluating claims to have been a "nuclear physicist". The Church
denies that he ever made that claim[37][23] Hubbard
asserted expertise in dealing with the problems posed by the effects of radiation
exposure on the human body in the book "All About Radiation" (co-authored by Hubbard
in 1957).[38]
After leaving George Washington University, Hubbard worked as a writer and aviator.[39][40] In
June 1932 Hubbard headed the "Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition", a two-and-a-half-month, 5,000-mile voyage aboard a chartered
200-foot, four-masted schooner called "Doris Hamlin" with over fifty fellow college students. Its purpose was to collect floral
and reptile specimens for the University of Michigan and to film recreations of pirate activity and haunts. The voyage was a
disappointment, with only three of the sixteen planned ports of call visited. Hubbard later called it "a two-bit expedition and a
financial bust".[11][34]
Hubbard's first wife was Margaret "Polly" Grubb whom he married in 1933, and fathered
two children; L. Ron, Jr., known as Ronald DeWolf, (1934 – 1991) and Katherine May (born
in 1936). They lived in Los Angeles, California
and, during the late 1930s, in Bremerton,
Washington. In a 1983 interview for Penthouse
magazine that he later retracted, DeWolf said, "according to him and my mother", he was the result of a failed abortion
and recalls at six years old seeing his father performing an abortion on his mother with a coat hanger. In the same interview, he
said "Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game" and described his father as "only interested in money,
sex, booze, and drugs."[41] Later, in a sworn affidavit,
DeWolf stated that he had "weaved" stories about his father's harassment of others, that the charge he had made about drugs was
false, and that the Penthouse story was an example of statements that he deeply regretted and that had caused his father and him
much pain.[42]
Hubbard was accepted as a member of the Explorers Club on 19 February 1940 and carried
one of its flags[43] in May 1940 for his
"Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition". [44] In 1961 he
carried the Explorers Club flag for his 'Ocean Archaeological Expedition' and in 1966 Hubbard was awarded custody of the
Explorers Club flag for the 'Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition'.[citation needed]
In December 1940 Hubbard was licensed by the United States Department of Commerce to "Master of Steam and Motor Vessels",
valid first in the Pacific Ocean only and - from March 1941 on - in "Any Ocean."[citation needed] In the preface for his 1951 book Science of Survival, Hubbard thanks "my instructors in atomic and molecular phenomena,
mathematics and the humanities at George Washington University and at Princeton".
Hubbard attended a four-month course in military government at the Naval Training School, located at Princeton during the
Second World War.[12] This training was preparation of Naval and Marine officers for administrative duties in
Japan during the Allied occupation, which Hubbard did not participate in.
Early fiction career
Hubbard published stories, novellas in aviation, sports, pulp magazines and even a
screenplay "The Secret of Treasure Island".[33][45][2] Literature critics have cited Final
Blackout, set in a war-ravaged future Europe, and Fear, a psychological horror story, as the best examples of
Hubbard's pulp fiction.[46] Among his published stories
were Sea Fangs, The Carnival of Death, Man-Killers of the Air, and The Squad that Never Came Back;
using pseudonyms like Rene Lafayette, Legionnaire 148, Lieutenant Scott Morgan, Morgan de Wolf, Michael de Wolf, Michael Keith,
Kurt von Rachen, Captain Charles Gordon, Legionnaire 14830, Elron, Bernard Hubbel, Captain B.A. Northrup, Joe Blitz and
Winchester Remington Colt.[11] He became a well-known author in the science fiction
and fantasy genres; he also published westerns and
adventure stories. His agent was well known science fiction agent and guru Forrest
Ackerman.
Hubbard's metafiction novel Typewriter in the Sky, published in 1940 in two
installments in John W. Campbell's Unknown magazine, provides an amusing insight into the New York writing scene within which
Hubbard worked. The novel is centered around a character named Horace Hackett, who is a hyper-productive, multi-genre
hack writer desperately trying to finish his latest potboiler to an ever-approaching deadline while (unknown to him) his friend Mike de Wolf is trapped inside the
potboiler's action. Two of Horace's author friends, in Hubbard's novel, are named Winchester Remington Colt and Rene Lafayette
after Hubbard's own pseudonyms.
World War II
-
From the summer of 1941 to late 1945, during World War II, Hubbard served in the United
States Navy. Based on the representations of his experience overseas and as a writer,[47] he was able to skip the initial officer rank of Ensign and was commissioned a Lieutenant, Junior Grade
for service in the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was unsuccessful there,
and after some difficulty with other assignments found himself in charge of a 173 foot[48] submarine chaser. In May 1943, while taking the USS PC-815 on her shakedown cruise to San Diego, Hubbard
attacked what he believed to be two enemy submarines, ten miles off the coast of Oregon. The "battle" took two days and involved
at least four other US vessels plus two blimps, summoned for reinforcements and resupply.[12] After reviewing instrument data, battle reports, interviews with the
various captains and taking into account the fact that Japanese submarines didn't regularly operate there, Admiral
Frank Jack Fletcher, Commander Northwest Sea Frontier concluded; "An analysis of all
reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area. ... The Commanding Officers of all ships except the PC-815
state they had no evidence of a submarine and do not think a submarine was in the area."[49][12] In June 1943, Hubbard was relieved of command after anchoring PC-815 off the
Coronado Islands, which is Mexican territory. He further erred by conducting gunnery
practice there. An official complaint from Mexican authorities, coupled with his failure to return to base as ordered, led to a
Board of Investigation. It determined that Hubbard had disregarded orders, admonished him by letter to include in his records and
transferred him to other duties. Having been the third leadership position lost in his tenure, the following assignment was one
where he was not given command authority.[12] His service ended with an honorable discharge after resigning his commission in 1950. In
all he had one promotion and six decorations to show for his service, however he would claim to have accomplished much more than
that in the decades which followed. It would also come out that he was relieved of command twice, and was also the subject of
negative reports from his superiors on several occasions. [12][11][23]
Post war activities
Hubbard's post war writing career: Cover of October, 1950 edition of
Fantastic
Adventures featuring Hubbard's "The Masters of Sleep".
While convalescing after the war, Hubbard met Jack Parsons, an aeronautics professor at
Caltech and an associate of the British occultist Aleister Crowley.[50] Hubbard and Parsons were allegedly engaged in the practice of ritual
magick in 1946, including an extended set of sex magic rituals called the Babalon Working, intended to summon a goddess or "moonchild." The Church says Hubbard was a working as
an ONI agent on a mission to end Parsons' supposed magical activities and
to "rescue" a girl Parsons was "using" for supposedly magical purposes. In a 1952 lecture series, Hubbard recommended a book of
Crowley's and referred to him as "Mad Old Boy"[51][52] and as "my very good
friend".[53] Hubbard later married the girl he said that
he rescued from Parsons, Sara Northrup.[54] Hubbard also described Parsons as his friend in his Scientology lectures rather than a person he
was investigating. Crowley recorded in his notes that he considered Hubbard a "lout" who made off with Parsons' money and
girlfriend in an "ordinary confidence trick."[12][11]
Sara Northrup became Hubbard's second wife in August 1946.[55] It was an act of bigamy, as Hubbard had
abandoned, but not divorced, his first wife and children as soon as he left the Navy (he divorced his first wife more than a year
after he had remarried).[11] Both women
allege Hubbard physically abused them. He is also alleged to have once kidnapped
Sara's infant, Alexis, taking her to Cuba. Later, he disowned Alexis, claiming she was actually
Jack Parsons' child.[56] Sara filed for divorce in late 1950, citing that Hubbard was, unknown to her, still legally bound
to his first wife at the time of their marriage. Her divorce papers also accused Hubbard of kidnapping their baby daughter
Alexis, and of conducting "systematic torture, beatings, strangulations and scientific torture experiments."[57]
Hubbard returned to writing fiction briefly for a few years, his best-remembered work from this period being the
Ole Doc Methuselah series for Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction magazine. It was in the pages of this magazine that the
first article on Dianetics appeared; while some fiction works appeared after that (including "Masters of Sleep," which promotes
Dianetics and features as a villain "a mad psychiatrist, Doctor Dyhard, who persists in rejecting Dianetics after all his abler
colleagues have accepted it [and] believes in prefrontal lobotomies for everyone")[58][59] most of Hubbard's
output thereafter was related to Dianetics or Scientology. Hubbard did not make a major return to non-Dianetics fiction until the
1980s.
In 1948 Hubbard was working as a "Special Officer" for the Metropolitan Detective Agency, licensed by the Los Angeles Police
Department. According to Scientology, he performed the duties of an armed security guard:[60] "The guarding of particular properties, e.g., banks and warehouses, and the
patrolling of a general neighborhood on behalf of local merchants. In the latter, the Special Officer’s duties were virtually the
same as the regular officer, although he had no powers of arrest beyond the "citizen’s arrest."[61]
Dianetics
-
Beginning in late 1949, Hubbard sought to publicize Dianetics, the self-improvement technique. Unable to elicit interest from mainstream publishers or medical
professionals,[62] Hubbard turned to the legendary
science fiction editor John W. Campbell, who had for years published Hubbard's science
fiction. The first article on Dianetics was published in Astounding Science
Fiction. The science fiction community was divided about the merits of Hubbard's offering. Campbell's star author
Isaac Asimov criticized Dianetics' unscientific aspects, and veteran author
Jack Williamson described Dianetics as "a lunatic revision of Freudian psychology" that "had the look of a wonderfully rewarding scam."[12] But Campbell and novelist A. E.
van Vogt enthusiastically embraced Dianetics: Campbell became Hubbard's treasurer, and van Vogt—convinced his wife's
health had been transformed for the better by auditing—interrupted his writing
career to run the first Los Angeles Dianetics center.[12]
In April 1950, Hubbard and several others established the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey to coordinate work related for the forthcoming publication of a book on
Dianetics. The book, entitled Dianetics: The Modern Science
of Mental Health, was published in May 1950 by Hermitage House, whose head was also on
the Board of Directors of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation.[11] With Dianetics, Hubbard introduced the concept of "auditing," a two-person question-and-answer therapy that focused on painful memories. According
to Hubbard, dianetic auditing could eliminate emotional problems, cure physical illnesses, and increase intelligence. In his
introduction to Dianetics, Hubbard declared that "the creation of dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his
discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch."
Dianetics sold 150,000 copies within a year of publication.[11] Upon becoming more widely available, Dianetics became an object of critical scrutiny by the
press and the medical establishment. In September 1950, The New York Times
published a cautionary statement on the topic by the American Psychological
Association that read in part, "the association calls attention to the fact that these claims are not supported by
empirical evidence," and went on to recommend against use of "the techniques peculiar to Dianetics" until such time it had been
validated by scientific testing. Consumer Reports, in an August 1951 assessment
of Dianetics,[63] dryly noted "one looks in vain in
Dianetics for the modesty usually associated with announcement of a medical or scientific discovery," and stated that the
book had become "the basis for a new cult." The article observed "in a study of L. Ron Hubbard's text, one is impressed from the
very beginning by a tendency to generalization and authoritative declarations unsupported by evidence or facts." Consumer
Reports warned its readers against the "possibility of serious harm resulting from the abuse of intimacies and confidences
associated with the relationship between auditor and patient," an especially serious risk, they concluded, "in a cult without
professional traditions."
The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated in Elizabeth, New
Jersey. Branch offices were opened in five other US cities before the end of 1950 (though most folded within a year).
Hubbard soon abandoned the Foundation, denouncing a number of his former associates as communists to the FBI.[64][65]
Scientology
Hubbard's book, "Notes on the Lectures".
-
In mid-1952, Hubbard expanded Dianetics into an "applied religious philosophy" which he called Scientology. That year, Hubbard also married his third wife, Mary Sue
Whipp, to whom he remained married until his death (though separated by the early 70s). With Mary Sue, Hubbard fathered
four more children— Diana, Quentin, Suzette and Arthur —over the next six years.
Quentin Hubbard, born in 1954, was groomed to one day replace him as head of the
Scientology organization.[11] Quentin was
uninterested in his father's plans and had preferred to become a pilot. He was also deeply depressed, allegedly because he was
homosexual and Hubbard was homophobic.[66] Quentin unsuccessfully attempted suicide in 1974, then in 1976 died under circumstances that might
have been a suicide or murder.[67][68][69]
On February 10, 1953 Hubbard was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by Sequoia University, California, "in
recognition of his outstanding work and contributions in the fields of Dianetics and Scientology."[70] (This non-accredited body was closed
by the California state courts some 30 years later [71]
after it was investigated by California authorities on the grounds of being a mail-order "degree
mill."[72]) In December of that year, Hubbard
declared Scientology a religion and the first Church of Scientology was founded in
Camden, New Jersey. He moved to England at about the
same time, and during the remainder of the 1950s he supervised the growing organization from an office in London. In 1959, he bought Saint Hill Manor near the
Sussex town of East Grinstead, a Georgian manor house owned by the Maharajah of
Jaipur. This became the world headquarters of Scientology. Hubbard says he conducted years of
intensive research into the nature of human existence; to describe his findings, he developed an elaborate vocabulary with many
newly coined terms.[73] He codified a set
of Scientology axioms and an "applied religious philosophy" that
promised to improve the condition of the human spirit, which he called the "Thetan."[74] The bulk of Scientology
focuses on the "rehabilitation" of the thetan.
Hubbard's followers believed his "technology" gave them access to their past lives, the traumas of which led to failures in
the present unless they were audited. By this time, Hubbard had introduced a biofeedback device to the auditing process, which he
called a "Hubbard Electropsychometer" or "E-meter." It was invented in the 1940s by a
chiropractor and Dianetics enthusiast named Volney
Mathison. This machine is used by Scientologists in auditing to evaluate "mental masses" surrounding the thetan. These
"masses" are said to impede the thetan from realizing its full potential.
Hubbard also said a good deal of physical disease was psychosomatic, and one
who, like himself, had attained the enlightened state of "clear" and become an "Operating
Thetan" would be relatively disease free. According to biographers, Hubbard went to great lengths to suppress his recourse
to modern medicine, attributing symptoms to attacks by malicious forces, both spiritual and earthly. Hubbard insisted humanity
was imperiled by such forces, which were the result of negative memories (or "engrams") stored in the unconscious or "reactive"
mind, some carried by the immortal thetans for billions of years. Thus, Hubbard asserts, the only possibility for spiritual
salvation was a concerted effort to "clear the planet," that is, to bring the benefits of Scientology to all people everywhere,
and attack all forces, social and spiritual, hostile to the interests of the movement.
Church members were expected to pay fixed donation rates for courses, auditing, books and E-meters, all of which proved very
lucrative for the Church, which paid emoluments directly to Hubbard and his family.[11] In a case fought by the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington,
D.C. over its tax-exempt status (revoked in 1958 because of these emoluments) the findings of fact in the case included that
Hubbard had personally received over $108,000 from the Church and affiliates over a four-year period, over and above the
percentage of gross income (usually 10%) he received from Church-affiliated
organizations.[75] However,
Hubbard denied such emoluments many times in writing, proclaiming he never received any money from the Church.[11]
L. Ron Hubbard's philosophy, Scientology, and the Church of Scientology that he founded are controversial. Some documents
written by Hubbard himself suggest he regarded Scientology as a business, not a religion. In one letter dated April 10 1953, he says calling Scientology a religion solves "a problem of
practical business," and status as a religion achieves something "more equitable...with what we've got to sell." In a 1962
official policy letter, he said "Scientology 1970 is being planned on a religious organization basis throughout the world. This
will not upset in any way the usual activities of any organization. It is entirely a matter for accountants and
solicitors."[76][77] A Reader's Digest article of May 1980 quoted Hubbard as saying in the 1940s
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his
own religion."[78][79]
According to The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. Brian Ash, Harmony Books, 1977:
... [Hubbard] began making statements to the effect that any writer who really wished to make money should stop writing and
develop [a] religion, or devise a new psychiatric method. Harlan Ellison's version
(Time Out, UK, No 332) is that Hubbard is reputed to have told [John W.]
Campbell, "I'm going to invent a religion that's going to make me a fortune. I'm tired of writing for a penny a word."
Sam Moskowitz, a chronicler of science fiction, has reported that he himself heard Hubbard
make a similar statement, but there is no first-hand evidence."
Though Hubbard himself was also quoted driving his people toward financial results:
"Make sure that lots of bodies move through the shop," implored Hubbard in one of his bulletins to officials. "Make money.
Make more money. Make others produce so as to make money . . . However you get them in or why, just do it."
– L. Ron Hubbard[80]
- See also: Scientology
controversy
Legal difficulties and life on the high seas
Scientology became a focus of controversy across the English-speaking world
during the mid-1960s, with the United Kingdom, New
Zealand, South Africa, the Australian state of
Victoria and the Canadian province of
Ontario all holding public inquiries into Scientology's activities.[81] Hubbard left this unwanted attention behind in 1966, when he moved to
Rhodesia, following Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Attempting to ingratiate
himself with the white minority government, he offered to invest large sums in Rhodesia's economy, then hit by UN sanctions, but
was asked to leave the country. In 1967, L. Ron Hubbard further distanced himself from the controversy attached to Scientology by
resigning as executive director of the church and appointing himself "Commodore" of a
small fleet of Scientologist-crewed ships that spent the next eight years cruising the Mediterranean Sea. Here, Hubbard formed the religious order known as the "Sea Organization" or
"Sea Org," with titles and uniforms. The Sea Org subsequently became the management group within
Hubbard's Scientology empire.
He was attended by "Commodore's Messengers," teenage girls dressed in white hot pants who
waited on him hand and foot, bathing and dressing him and even catching the ash from his cigarettes.[11] He had frequent screaming tantrums and instituted brutal
punishments such as incarceration in the ship's filthy chain-locker for days or weeks at a time and "overboarding," in which
errant crew members were blindfolded, bound and thrown overboard, dropping up to 40 ft. into the cold sea,[11] hoping not to hit the side of the ship with
its sharp barnacles on the way down.[11][82] Some of these
punishments, such as imprisonment in the chain-locker, were applied to children as well as to adults.[11]
A letter[83] Hubbard wrote to his
third wife, Mary Sue, when he was in Las Palmas around 1967: "I’m drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys...". The
author of an unauthorized Hubbard biography also says that "John McMasters told me that on the flagship Apollo in the late
sixties he witnessed Hubbard's drug supply. 'It was the largest drug chest I had ever seen. He had everything!'". This was
confirmed by Gerald Armstrong through Virginia Downsborough who said in 1967 he returned to Las Palmas totally debilitated from
drugs.[84]
We found him a hotel in Las Palmas and the next day I went back to see if he was all right, because he did not seem to be
too well. When I went in to his room, there were drugs of all kinds everywhere. He seemed to be taking about sixty thousand
different pills. I was appalled, particularly after listening to all his tirades against drugs and the medical profession. There
was something very wrong with him... My main concern was to try and get him off all the pills he was on and persuade him that
there was still plenty for him to do.
He was existing almost totally on a diet of drugs. For three weeks Hubbard was bedridden, while she weaned him off his
habit."[11] His experimentation with drugs
appears to pre-date the 1967 accounts. [85] A letter written by Hubbard to his ex wife was given special attention in the Church of Scientology
v. Armstrong case,
I do love you, even if I used to be an opium addict.
In 1977, Scientology offices on both coasts of the United States were raided by FBI agents seeking evidence of Operation Snow
White, a church-run espionage network. Hubbard's wife Mary Sue and a dozen other
senior Scientology officials were convicted in 1979 of conspiracy against the United States federal government, while Hubbard himself was named by federal
prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator."[86] At this time the IRS also had
evidence that he had skimmed millions of dollars from Church accounts and secreted the funds to destinations overseas.[87] Facing intense media interest and many subpoenas, he
secretly retired to a ranch in tiny Creston, California, north of San Luis
Obispo.
In 1978, as part of a case against three French Scientologists Hubbard was convicted for "making fraudulent promises" and
given a suspended prison sentence and a 35,000₣ fine by a French court. Hubbard - who had not been defended in the trial at all
and had not been in the country during the whole time - refused to appear for the appeal. The case was then appealed by one of
the convicts - in 1980 - with fraud charges against the appellant being dropped and Scientology recognized as a religion. The
court indicated that those who had also been convicted could be pardoned, if they appealed. Another defendant made an appeal in
1981 and the fraud charges were canceled by judgment on November 9, 1981. Hubbard himself did not take any action and the fine
was never enforced.[88][89]
Hubbard's refusal to talk to British immigration officials about this conviction is said to have later caused the British
Home Office to re-affirm an earlier decision to bar him from the UK.[90] In 1989 however the then Home Office Minister of State, Tim Renton, confirmed in writing that from 1980 until the date of his death,
Hubbard had been free to apply for entry to the United Kingdom under the ordinary immigration rules and that any ban had been
lifted on 16 July 1980.[91][92]
The accuracy of Hubbard's self-representations was challenged in court in a 1984 custody case of a Scientologist and his
former wife about two of their children. The judgment of the High court of London
(Family Division) quotes the single judge, Latey, that Scientology is "dangerous, immoral, sinister and corrupt" and "has its
real objective money and power for Mr. Hubbard."[11]
The 1965 Anderson Report, an inquiry on Hubbard and Scientology held in Australia,
presented Hubbard as a man who made "pretentious and completely misleading pronouncements on scientific matters of which he is
ignorant" based on knowledge that was "fragmentary and inaccurate and sometimes positively incorrect."
All that he writes and says is either accepted by his followers or, at the very least, it is not rejected. They are taught
that they are entitled to question his pronouncements, but they are conditioned to the belief that whatever he says is
right.[93] A later finding in the report addresses his
assertion of medical knowledge and ability by saying:
Hubbard's claims to have found the only known cure for atomic radiation effects is not only unsubstantiated, but, in view of
its obvious military value, hardly likely to have been left uninvestigated by military authorities if it was of any value
whatever.[94]
"Fair Game" was introduced by Hubbard, and incites Scientologists to use criminal behavior, deception and exploitation of the
legal system to resist "Suppressive Persons", i.e. people or groups that "actively
seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by Suppressive Acts." He defined it "Fair Game" as:
- ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any
discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.[95]
Use of the term "Fair Game" was canceled in 1968, with Hubbard stating that "The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will
cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any policy on the
treatment or handling of an SP."[96] The practice was
continued, as Hubbard noted that his statement did not cancel the "fair game treatment" of Suppressive People as can be seen in
the case of Paulette Cooper.
Hubbard said in a 1976 affidavit that Fair Game was never intended to authorise harassment, stating that: "There was never any
attempt or intent on my part by the writing of these policies (or any others for that fact), to authorise illegal or harassment
type acts against anyone. As soon as it became apparent to me that the concept of 'Fair Game' as described above was being
misinterpreted by the uninformed, to mean the granting of a licence to Scientologists for acts in violation of the law and/or
other standards of decency, these policies were cancelled."[97] He returned to the United States in the mid-1970s and lived for a while in Florida.[11]
Later life
During the 1980s, Hubbard returned to science fiction, publishing Battlefield
Earth and Mission Earth, the latter being an enormous book,
published as a ten volume series. He also wrote an unpublished screenplay called Revolt in
the Stars, which dramatizes Scientology's OT III teachings.[98]Hubbard's later science fiction
sold well and received mixed reviews, but some press reports describe how sales of Hubbard's books were inflated by
Scientologists purchasing large numbers of copies in order to manipulate the bestseller charts.[99][100]
While claiming to be entirely divorced from the Scientology management, Hubbard continued to draw income from the Scientology
enterprises; Forbes magazine estimated his 1982 Scientology-related income as at
least US $200 million.[1]
Hubbard died at his ranch on 24 January 1986, aged 74,
reportedly from a stroke. Scientology attorneys arrived to claim his body, which they sought to
have cremated immediately per his will. They were blocked by the San Luis Obispo County medical examiner, who ordered
a drug toxicology test of a blood sample from Hubbard's corpse. The examination revealed a trace amount of the drug
hydroxyzine (brand name Vistaril).[101][102][103] Vistaril is an antihistamine and
mild sedative sometimes used for symptomatic treatment of anxiety, neurosis or as an adjunct in
non-related diseases in which anxiety is apparent. It is also useful as an anti-emetic (to prevent nausea), and in treating
allergic pruritus such as chronic urticaria and atopic and contact dermatoses.[104] After the blood was taken, Hubbard's remains were cremated.
The Church of Scientology announced Hubbard had deliberately discarded his body
to do "higher level spiritual research," unencumbered by mortal confines, and was now living "on a planet a galaxy away."[105] In May 1987, David
Miscavige, one of Hubbard's former personal assistants, assumed the position of Chairman of the Religious Technology Center (RTC), a corporation that owns the trademarked names and symbols
of Dianetics
