American entrepreneur, engineer, and prolific writer of science fiction who established the Church of Scientology in 1954. He was the author of “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health” which has sold millions of copies.
A red headed, hot tempered boy nicknamed Brick, Hubbard lived with his aunt, Margaret Roberts, in Helena, Montana on a small farm with a barn, one cow and a few horses until he was in the 11th grade. A mediocre student, one day he threw a piece of chalk at an assistant principal teaching geometry, the chalk missed, the teacher threw an eraser at him. Being a husky young man, he stuffed the teacher in a trash can and stormed out never to return.
Brick left Montana to live with his parents in Guam where his dad was stationed in the Navy. He visited China but didn’t like the Chinese. Later in his life he told stories of how at four years old he was made a blood brother of the Blackfeet Indian Nation and how he had been made a lama by a priest after being a neophyte for one year.
Living the life of an adventurer, he was a master sailor who charted waterways in Alaska, piloted a glider plane and panned for gold in Puerto Rico, 1932. Attending George Washington University in Washington, DC as a civil engineering student, he flunked out after two years. He did attend one of the nation’s early classes on molecular and atomic physics, but he did not pass. Hubbard was said to have patented a device called an E-meter to measure engrams. It consisted of two tin cans, one to be held in each hand, wired to a galvanometer that measured emotional stress and was invented by Volney Mathison, a chiropractor.
Hubbard became a lieutenant (jg) in the US Navy Reserve 7/2/1941. According to official US Navy records, he was relieved of command on two ships. One was a PC815 submarine chaser docked along the Willamette River in Oregon, from which he fired 37 depth charges during 55 hours when he said he encountered two Japanese subs, and the second when he used Mexican islands for target practice in a disregard of orders. His file holds a letter of admonition and records that his performance was substandard. His superiors stated he was not temperamentally fitted for independent command and he was lacking essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. He acted without forethought as to probable results. Although he told others he was highly decorated, his only decorations of record were four given to all servicemen and two marksmanship medals for rifle and pistol. He never saw active combat. He claimed at times that he had been blinded when a bomb exploded in his face and had cured himself using Scientology principles, but as a matter of record, he was never wounded or injured. In 1947 he asked the Veteran’s Administration to help him get psychiatric treatment. He received a 40% disability check through at least 1980.
Imaginative, intelligent, and with a mind that was a factory of ideas, broke and in debt in the late 1940s Hubbard was forced to sell his typewriter for $28.50 to pay alimony to his first wife. As a writer of science fiction, he sometimes filled whole magazines by himself using pseudonyms. Troubled, restless and adrift he became an expert hypnotist, and shared an aging mansion in Pasadena, CA with writers, artists, Bohemians and occultists in the late 1940s. Neighbors complained when their rituals of sexual magic got out of hand in the back yard. Hubbard’s best friend at the time, John Whiteside Parsons, was a lover of Hubbard’s second wife and they all followed the black magic practices of Aleister Crowley.
Published in May 1950, “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health,” was written in one draft in 30 days and became an instant bestseller. Hubbard became an overnight celebrity. He spent his first royalties on a luxury Lincoln. His system became known as “the poor man’s psychotherapy.” By 1951 profits were beginning to fall and Dianetics became Scientology as he turned from pop therapist to religious leader. His first lectures were given in Wichita, KS, Phoenix, AZ and Philadelphia, PA in 1952 telling people of his belief in reincarnation and that he had been a marshal of Joan of Arc and Cecil Rhodes in previous lives. The first Church of Scientology was established in Washington, DC in 1954 and took hold like wildfire, growing to include major centers in Clearwater, FL, Los Angeles, CA, Saint Hill Manor Sussex, England, and Copenhagen, Denmark, counting 79 churches, 172 missions and study groups in 34 nations from Argentina to Zimbabwe. The Church of Scientology has its own film studios and library of tapes and books made and written by Hubbard, approximately 5,000 writings and 3,000 tapes. The church’s cultish image has continued through the years.
Skillfully transforming himself from a pulp fiction writer to a writer of “sacred scriptures,” Hubbard made a fortune and achieved his dream of fame. Starting as a collection of mental therapy centers it grew into one of the world’s most controversial and secretive religions. The courses included instruction of how to help kick drug habits, improve communication skills, build confidence and help people take control of their lives. From preying on the anxieties and the loneliness of his converts by using hypnotherapy, Pavlovian conditioning and twisted psychotherapy, Hubbard was able to establish himself as the leader of a movement of millions, less than 900 of which ever reached the highest levels of his imparted wisdom. As early as 1966, Hubbard claimed to relinquish control of funds in the church, but he did not. Feeling persecuted by bad press and disgruntled former members in 1967, several hundred of his followers escaped with him on three ships, one a converted cattle ferry named Apollo, as they made their way from port to port in the Mediterranean and then the Caribbean. No nation would allow them entrance as they were suspected to be CIA operatives. At the height of the movement in the 1970s the church claimed to have more than six million members, but ex-members say the number is closer to two million. The Church of Scientology was said to be a highly coercive dictatorship. A wealthy church, it has battled the Internal Revenue Service and fought lawsuits filed by former members. At its peak the church reportedly earned $100 million a year. When some of his personal notebooks turned up in the Los Angeles Superior Courtroom in 1984, four decades after being written, the judge called him a virtual pathological liar about his past, but charismatic, highly capable of motivation, organization, controlling, manipulating and inspiring adherents.
Hubbard enjoyed being pampered and collected a cadre of youths around him. Dressing in simulated Navy attire, giving his organization a paramilitary structure, and being called Commodore, he was waited on night and day, insisting that temperature, humidity, and every other aspect of his comfort be taken care of. At this point he had the temperament of a spoiled child with eccentricities that equaled the reclusive Howard Hughes. He could erupt like a volcano spewing obscenities and insults if his shirts had not been rinsed correctly and smelled of soap.
In 1972 author Paulette Cooper of New York City wrote “The Scandal of Scientology” and moved to the top of the Hubbard roster of enemies. Cooper was framed by the church when forged bomb threats were sent to the church on stationery she had touched. She was taken to court by the FBI and it took her two years to prove her innocence. The US Justice department and the FBI were investigating special members of the church, the Guardian Office, who had planted spies in these agencies. The Guardian Office members also planted listening devices and made nighttime raids to photocopy documents. Learning of this the FBI staged one of the largest raids in their history with 134 agents simultaneously descending on locations in Los Angeles and Washington. They found eavesdropping equipment, burglary tools and 48,000 documents. Several people were sentenced to five years in jail. Mary Sue Hubbard, third wife of L. Ron, was sentenced to four years and given a fine of $10,000. Someone erroneously tipped Hubbard off that the FBI was going to raid again and a massive shredding frenzy took place in Palm Springs, CA as he left on 2/14/1980, again going into hiding, never to return. After two days of shredding, any documents that were too valuable to shred were buried. He took two of his closest aides, Pat and Anne Broeker, with him in a 40 foot Bluebird motor home and traveled the Northwest before settling in Creston, CA, population 270, in the summer of 1983. They paid $700,000 in 30 cashier’s checks drawn on different California banks for the 160 acre ranch. Spending over $3 million in renovations, Hubbard never stayed in the ranch house as he continued to live in his motor home. `Between 1985-90 more than 20 of Hubbard’s fiction and nonfiction books became national bestsellers, most after his death.
Married three times, he had seven children, one of whom he later claimed he did not father. He married his second wife, Sara Northrup Hubbard, before he divorced his first wife of 12 years. Claiming he had done scientific torture experiments on her, Sara called him paranoid and a schizophrenic. He suggested she kill herself as a divorce would hurt his reputation. Hubbard’s first wife wrote Sara a letter stating “Ron is not normal,” hoping that Sara would be able to help him gain emotional stability as she was not able. Hubbard took their daughter Alexia to Cuba, threatening to cut her out of his will. Their stormy marriage ended in 1951 and Alexia was returned to Sara. Later he denied fathering her and didn’t leave her a cent.
Mary Sue Hubbard, his third wife, insisted on having a family dinner on Sundays in spite of Ron not being an affectionate or family man. This is the only time he would see his kids. Oldest son, L. Ronald Hubbard, Jr., born 5/7/34 in Encinitas, CA, had a feud with his father for years. He split with the Scientology church in 1959, saying his job did not make enough to support a family. He changed his name to Ronald DeWolfe and accused his father of cavorting with mobsters and abusing drugs. The elder Hubbard retaliated by calling his son crazy. Another son, Quentin, was a problem and an embarrassment. Confused about his sexual orientation, he tried suicide with a drug overdose and failed, and finally drove to Las Vegas, NV, parked in a deserted area, piped the exhaust into his car and killed himself at age 22, 1976. Hubbard expressed concern over the publicity, as it might discredit Scientology, but not over his son’s death.
Although Hubbard claimed to be able to cure maladies with Dianetics, he suffered from long periods of moroseness, suicidal inclinations, allergies, arthritis, bursitis, conjunctivitis, duodenal ulcer and a heart problem. He crashed a motor cycle in the Canary Islands in the early 1970s breaking his arm and several ribs. He was in agony for months saying he was going to heal himself, but it didn’t work. By 1980 he was physically weak and deteriorating mentally. His hair, now gray with red streaks, hung to his shoulders and he had grown a stringy, unkempt beard and mustache. His round face was sunken and his once ruddy complexion turned pasty. Hubbard suffered a stroke on 1/17/86 which left him debilitated and bedridden, with his speech badly impaired. He died at his Creston, CA ranch at 8:00 PM on 1/24/1986. For 11 hours cars came and went, but no official was called until two lawyers had given the OK. When the mortuary realized whose body they had, they called the county coroner. They were shown documents signed by Hubbard the day before his death that stated “due to religious beliefs” there should be no autopsy. Blood tests were done, finger prints and photos of the body taken. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. Two days later a gathering of his followers was told he had made a conscious decision to sever all ties with this world so he could continue his Scientology research in spirit form, lay down in bed and left. They cheered thunderously. He was survived by Mary Sue Hubbard who had helped him found the church in 1954.
Australian courts have revoked the status of Scientology as a religion as of 1983, and France convicted Hubbard in absentia of fraud. Interpol, the US Food and Drug Administration, the IRS and FBI have all had investigations of Hubbard and his organization. In spite of all the exposure, he still ignited the fire of self-improvement in many sincere people.
Link to Wikipedia biography