Who is L. Ron Hubbard?
L. Ron Hubbard was a writer, philosopher and humanitarian who
founded the Scientology religion. He passed on on January 24, 1986.
As a prolific and popular author, Mr. Hubbard is best known for his works on Dianetics and Scientology -- which include 18 volumes of technical writings, 12 volumes of administrative works and more than 3,000 taped lectures describing various aspects of Scientology. He also wrote on the subjects of education, drug rehabilitation, morals, art and many other areas.
A remarkable man of many accomplishments, his legacy includes:
A drug rehabilitation program that has freed more than 100,000 people from the scourge of drugs. Today, this program is administered by Narconon International in 40 centers in 15 countries.
A Study Technology that is used today in 31 countries, ranging from China to the black townships of South Africa and the inner cities of the United States. More than three million people around the world have attained literacy through the work of the organization that administers this technology, Applied Scholastics International.
The first non-religious moral code based wholly on common sense. This new moral code, which can be used by anyone to improve their lives, is presented by Mr. Hubbard in his booklet The Way to Happiness. Fifty million copies have been distributed internationally in more than 20 languages.
A method for hard-core criminals to increase responsibility, regain their self-respect and fully rehabilitate themselves through the Criminon program, which utilizes The Way to Happiness booklet, operates in hundreds of correctional facilities throughout the United States.
A revolutionary administrative and management technology that has a secular application in thousands of businesses throughout the world.
A wholly rational ethics system which anyone can use to enhance his own survival and that of others.
Breakthroughs in the subject of logic and data analysis that make it entirely applicable to every endeavor.
An examination and codification of the subject of art which enables creative people in every field to expand their abilities and realize greater success.
Added to these was a body of writing that includes fiction books in many genres, and nonfiction books, articles, novelettes and short stories, screenplays and poems, with more than 100 million of his works sold in 100 countries and 31 languages.
And then came an unparalleled feat of authorship in the 1980s when (to celebrate his 50th anniversary as a writer) he returned to the field of science fiction with the biggest science fiction book ever written -- Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 -- soon followed by the 10-volume Mission Earth series of novels. All 11 of these books were consecutive bestsellers.
But his greatest achievement was the legacy of his technology which provides mankind, for the first time ever, the gift of true spiritual freedom.
This achievement is measured by the millions of people on all continents who have realized their potentials through use of Scientology and now lead happier and more successful lives. And in the millions who today consider they have no greater friend.
Mr. Hubbard was born in Tilden, Nebraska, on March 13, 1911. His desire to help his fellows was apparent at an early age. "I wanted other people to be happy, and could not understand why they weren’t," he wrote of his youth.
His mother was a well-educated woman who attended teacher’s college prior to her marriage. Because of her husband’s naval career and the family’s extensive travel, she tutored her son at home. He was well-grounded in academic subjects and the humanities.
L. Ron Hubbard learned much from life itself. In 1923, for example, through his father’s contacts and travels, he became friends with Commander Joseph C.Thompson of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, the first officer sent by the Navy to study under Sigmund Freud. Because of Ron’s keen interest, Commander Thompson took it upon himself to pass on the essentials of Freudian theory to his young friend.
In 1927, at the age of 16, he took the first of several voyages across the Pacific to Asia, where he studied Far Eastern culture. Through these travels he gained access to the much-talked-about but rarely seen Buddhist lamaseries in the Western Hills of China. Once again, he spent much of his time investigating and questioning, seeking answers to the human dilemma.
By the age of 19, he had traveled more than a quarter of a million miles, including voyages to China, Japan, Guam, the Philippines and other points in the Orient. His sojourns in Asia and the Pacific Islands had a profound effect, giving him a subjective understanding of an Eastern philosophy that had predated even the Greeks.
Returning to the United States in 1929, he resumed his education. After graduating from the Woodward School for Boys in Washington D.C., he enrolled at George Washington University.
Theorizing that the world of sub-atomic particles might possibly provide a clue to human thought processes, L. Ron Hubbard enrolled in one of the first nuclear physics courses taught in the United States. He also conducted a series of experiments to determine whether or not minds responded identically to the same stimuli. (They did.)
He soon realized, however, that formal study had little to offer. Or, as he put it, "To be very blunt, 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."
L. Ron Hubbard left college, again taking his quest to learn about life out into the world. He directed two expeditions, the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition, a two-and-a-half month 5,000 mile voyage aboard the four-masted schooner, Doris Hamlin, and the West Indies Mineralogical Expedition, which completed the first mineralogical survey of the island of Puerto Rico under U.S. rule. Upon his return to the United States, and with scientific grants few and far between, he began to write to support his research.
His primary outlets were those now-fabled pulp fiction magazines that also helped launch the likes of Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dashiell Hammett. Although he contributed greatly to what is now known as the golden age of science fiction, factually Mr. Hubbard wrote in virtually every genre available to him -- from adventure to mystery, Westerns to romance -- and science fiction constituted only 17% of his prodigious output. As president of the NewYork chapter of the American Fiction Guild he associated with many of the greats of the day, including L. Sprague De Camp, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, who remained a lifelong friend.
Yet throughout these busy years, he never forgot his primary purpose and continued his research into the human condition. He said of this period, "My writing financed research and this included expeditions which were conducted in order to investigate primitive peoples to see if I could find a common denominator of existence which would be workable."
In recognition of this work, he was elected a member of the prestigious Explorers Club in New York City and bestowed custody of their flag, a high honor in the field of exploration, for the Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition in May 1940.
At the outbreak of World War II, L. Ron Hubbard was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) in the U.S. Navy, first serving as an intelligence officer and then as a commander of corvettes. He saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and thoroughly distinguished himself in the eyes of those who served beneath him.
In 1945, left partially blind with injured optic nerves and lame from hip and back injuries, Mr. Hubbard was hospitalized at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. Among the 5,000 naval and marine Corps patients at Oak Knoll were hundreds of former American prisoners liberated from Japanese camps on South Pacific Islands. Many were in terrible condition from starvation and deprivation, unable to assimilate protein.
In an attempt to resolve this problem, navy physicians were administering testosterone, a male hormone. This medical treatment, however, was not effective on all patients, and Mr. Hubbard utilized the opportunity to not only help his fellow-servicemen, but to test in application, a theory he had developed.
In case after case, he found that by utilizing his techniques previously unresponsive patients immediately improved with medical treatment once the mental blocks were removed. His theory that in fact function did monitor structure gained further proof. As he noted at the time, "Thought is boss."
This was then a revolutionary concept and opened the gates wide for further research.
In 1947, Mr. Hubbard wrote a manuscript detailing some of his new discoveries about the mind. It was not published at that time, but circulated among friends, who copied it and passed it on to others. The result was an increasing flood of letters wanting more information about these new breakthroughs. He soon found himself spending all his time answering letters and decided to write a comprehensive text on the subject.
His first published article on the subject, "Terra Incognita: The Mind," appeared in the 1949 Winter/Spring issue of the Explorer’s Club Journal, followed by the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health which was published in May 1950. It became a nationwide bestseller almost overnight. By late summer, people across the country were not only reading the book but were also organizing their own groups for the purpose of applying Dianetics techniques. The book has remained a bestseller ever since, again becoming No. 1on the New York Times bestseller list almost four decades after its initial publication. It continues to appear on bestseller lists around the world.
During the course of thousands of hours of Dianetics counseling on thousands of individuals all over the country, incontrovertible evidence was amassed about the fundamentally spiritual nature of man. L. Ron Hubbard himself had discovered early in his research that man was a spiritual being, inhabiting a body and using a mind. These discoveries led him to realize that he had entered the realm of religion.
In 1954, Scientologists formed the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. Within a few years churches had been started across the country and around the world.
In the years that followed, L. Ron Hubbard completed his research into the spiritual nature of man. Today, all his writings on the subject are available to anyone who wishes to study Scientology.
Though he passed on in 1986, the legacy of his work continues to help millions of people around the world successfully improve their lives through Dianetics and Scientology.
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