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| '''Lafayette Ronald Hubbard''' (] ] – ] ]), better known as '''L. Ron Hubbard''', was a |
'''Lafayette Ronald Hubbard''' (] ] – ] ]), better known as '''L. Ron Hubbard''', was a fucking bastard that created a FAKE religion to get to fuck little boys. | ||
| ==Biographical outline== | |||
| The ] has produced that make extraordinary claims about Hubbard's life and career. In the end, however, numerous investigations from journalists and critics have found most of these claims to be fabrications. Regardless, there is still a general agreement about the basic facts of Hubbard's life. | |||
| ===Parents=== | |||
| L. Ron Hubbard was born in ] in ], to Harry Ross Hubbard (] - ]) and Ledora May Waterbury, whom Harry had married in ]. Hubbard was an ]. | |||
| Harry was born "Henry August Wilson" in ] but was ]ed as an ] and adopted by the Hubbards, a farming family of ]. Harry joined the ] in ], leaving the service in ], then reenlisting in ] when the US ]. He served in the Navy until ], reaching the rank of ] in ]. | |||
| May was a ] who had trained to become a ] teacher. Her father, Lafayette O. Waterbury (born ]), was a ] turned ] merchant. Her mother, Ida Corinne DeWolfe, was the daughter of affluent banker John DeWolfe. May's paternal grandfather Abram Waterbury was from the ] of ] and later headed West, employed as a veterinarian. | |||
| ===Education, pulp fiction, and military service=== | |||
| During the ], L. Ron Hubbard traveled twice to the ] to visit his parents during his father's posting to the ] base on ]. | |||
| Although he claimed to have graduated in civil engineering from ] as a nuclear physicist, university records show that he attended for only two years, was on academic probation, failed in physics, and dropped out in 1931. It is also claimed that he obtained his ] from ] in California, which was later exposed as a mail-order diploma mill. | |||
| Hubbard next pursued writing, publishing many stories and novellas in ]s during the ]. He became a well-known author in the ] and ] genres, and also published ] and adventure stories. Critics often cite "Final Blackout", set in a war-ravaged future Europe, and "Fear", a psychological horror story, as the best examples of Hubbard's pulp fiction. His 1938 manuscript "Excalibur" contained many concepts and ideas that later turned up in Scientology. | |||
| Hubbard married Margaret "Polly" Grubb in ], with whom he fathered two children, L. Ron, Jr. (]–]) and Katherine May (born ]). They lived in ] during the late ]. | |||
| In June ], with war looming, Hubbard joined the ] as a ] junior grade. After the ]ese attack on ] in December 1941, he was posted to ] but was returned home, possibly after quarrelling with the US Naval Attaché, who rated him "unsatisfactory for any assignment". Subsequently, he was given command of the harbor protection vessel ], based in ]. Again, he fell out with his superior officer, who rated him "not temperamentally fitted for independent command." This reality contrasts with the claims of official Scientologist literature, which often portrays Hubbard as a brave and heroic figure during the war. | |||
| Hubbard was relieved of command and transferred to a naval school in ] where he was trained in anti-submarine warfare. On graduating, he was given command of the newly built subchaser ] (based in ]). Shortly after taking the ''PC-815'' on her maiden voyage from Astoria to ], his crew detected what he believed to be two Japanese submarines near the mouth of the ]. They spent the next three days bombarding the area with ]s, after which Hubbard claimed at least one Japanese submarine had been sunk. A subsequent investigation by the US Navy concluded Hubbard's vessel had in fact been attacking a "known magnetic deposit" on the seabed, and postwar casualty assessments found no Japanese submarines had been anywhere near the Columbia River at the time. | |||
| Shortly after reaching San Diego, Hubbard ordered his crew to practice their gunnery by shelling one of the ], a small ] archipelago off the northwest coast of ], in the belief it was uninhabited and belonged to the United States. Neither assumption was correct. The Mexican government complained and following a brief investigation, Hubbard was relieved of command with a sharp letter of admonition. | |||
| Most of Hubbard's wartime service was spent ashore in the ]. He was mustered out of the active service list in late ], and continued to draw disability pay | |||
| for arthritis, bursitis, and conjunctivitis for years afterwards, long after he claimed to have discovered the secret of how to cure these ailments. In June ] the Navy attempted to promote him to Lieutenant Commander, but Hubbard appears not to have learned of this and so never accepted it; consequently he remained a Lieutenant. He resigned his commission in ]. | |||
| In later years, Hubbard made a number of claims about his military record that are difficult to reconcile with the govenment's documentation of his service years. For example, Hubbard claimed he had sustained wounds "in combat on the island of ]" , but his service record offers no indication he came anywhere near Java. He also claimed to have received 21 medals and awards, including two ]s and a "Unit Citation". The Church of Scientology has circulated a US Navy notice of separation (a form numbered DD214, completed on leaving active duty) as evidence of Hubbard's wartime service. However, the US Navy's copy of Hubbard's DD214 is very different, listing a much more modest record. The Scientology version, signed by a nonexistent Lt. Cmdr. Howard D. Thompson, shows Hubbard being awarded medals that do not exist, boasts academic qualifications Hubbard did not earn, and places Hubbard in command of vessels not in the service of the US Navy. The Navy has noted "several inconsistencies exist between Mr. Hubbard's DD214 and the available facts." | |||
| ===The debut of Dianetics=== | |||
| In May 1950, Hubbard published a book describing the ] of ''],'' titled "The Modern Science of Mental Health." With ''Dianetics,'' Hubbard introduced the concept of "]," 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." | |||
| Unable to elicit interest from mainstream publishers or medical professionals, Hubbard turned to the legendary science fiction editor ], who had for years published Hubbard's science fiction stories. Beginning in late 1949, Campbell publicized Dianetics in the pages of ]. The science fiction community was divided about the merits of Hubbard's claims. Campbell's star author ] criticised Dianetics' unscientific aspects, and veteran author ] described Dianetics as "a lunatic revision of ] psychology" that "had the look of a wonderfully rewarding scam." But Campbell and novelist ] 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. | |||
| ''Dianetics'' was a hit, selling 150,000 copies within a year of publication. With success, Dianetics became an object of critical scrutiny by the press and the medical establishment. In September 1950, '']'' published a cautionary statement on the topic by the ] 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. ''],'' in an August 1951 assessment of Dianetics, 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." | |||
| On the heels of the book's first wave of popularity, the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated in ]. 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 ]. | |||
| Hubbard's private behavior became the subject of unflattering headlines when his second wife, Sara Northrup, filed for divorce in late 1950, citing that Hubbard was, unknown to her, still married to his first wife at the time he married Sara. Her divorce papers also accused Hubbard of kidnapping their baby daughter Alexis, and of conducting "systematic torture, beatings, strangulations and scientific torture experiments." | |||
| ===Scientology=== | |||
| {{main|Scientology}} | |||
| In mid-], Hubbard expanded Dianetics into a secular philosophy which he called ]. Hubbard also married his third wife that year, Mary Sue Whipp, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. With Mary Sue, Hubbard fathered four more children—Diana, ], Suzette and Arthur—over the next six years. | |||
| In December 1953, Hubbard declared Scientology a religion and the first ] was founded in ]. He moved to ] at about the same time, and during the remainder of the ] he supervised the growing organization from an office in ]. In 1959, he bought ] Manor near the ] town of ], a ] manor house owned by the ] of ]. This became the world headquarters of Scientology. | |||
| Hubbard claimed to have 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 . He codified a set of axioms and an "applied religious philosophy" that promised to improve the condition of the human ], which he called the "]." 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 "]." It was invented in the 1940s by a ] and Dianetics enthusiast named Volney Mathison. This machine, related to the electronic lie detectors of the time, is used by Scientologists in auditing to evaluate "mental masses" surrounding the thetan. These "masses" are claimed to impede the thetan from realizing its full potential. | |||
| Hubbard claimed a good deal of physical disease was ], and one who, like himself, had attained the enlightened state of "clear" and become an "]" 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 claimed, 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 purportedly paid emoluments directly to Hubbard and his family. However, Mr. Hubbard denied such emoluments many times in writing, proclaiming he never received any money from the church. | |||
| ===Legal difficulties and life on the high seas=== | |||
| ] across the English-speaking world during the mid-1960s, with ], ], ], the ]n state of ] and the ] province of ] all holding public inquiries into Scientology's activities. | |||
| Hubbard left this unwanted attention behind in ], when he moved to ], following ]'s ]. 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 ], L. Ron Hubbard further distanced himself from the controversy attached to Scientology by resigning as executive director of the church and appointing himself "]" of a small fleet of Scientologist-crewed ships that spent the next eight years cruising the ]. Here, Hubbard formed the religious order known as the "Sea Organization," or "]," with titles and uniforms. The Sea Org subsequently became the management group within Hubbard's Scientology empire. He returned to the United States in the mid-] and lived for a while in ]. | |||
| In ], Scientology offices on both coasts of the United States were raided by ] agents seeking evidence of ], a church-run espionage network. Hubbard's wife ] and a dozen other senior Scientology officials were convicted in ] of conspiracy against the ], while Hubbard himself was named by federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator." Facing intense media interest and many subpoenas, he secretly retired to a ranch in tiny Creston, California, north of ]. | |||
| ===Later life=== | |||
| During the ], Hubbard returned to science fiction, publishing '']'' and '']'', the latter being an enormous book, published as a ten volume series. He also wrote an unpublished ] called '']'' which dramatizes Scientology's "Advanced Level" teachings. Hubbard's later ] sold well and received mixed reviews and press reports describing how sales of Hubbard's books were artificially inflated by Scientologists purchasing large numbers of copies in order to manipulate the bestseller charts . 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 exceeded US $40 million. | |||
| Hubbard died at his ranch on ], ], reportedly due to a stroke. He had not been seen in public for the previous five years. Scientology attorneys arrived to claim his body, which they sought to have cremated immediately. They were blocked by the ] County medical examiner, who, according to critics, conducted an autopsy revealing high levels of a ] drug called ]. The Church of Scientology announced Hubbard had deliberately "discarded the body" to do "higher level spiritual research," unencumbered by mortal confines. | |||
| In May 1987, ], one of L. Ron Hubbard’s former personal assistants, assumed the positon of Chairman of the ] (RTC), a corporation that owns the trademarked names and symbols of Dianetics and Scientology. Although Religious Technology Center is a separate corporation from the Church of Scientology International, Miscavige is the effective leader of the religion. | |||
| ==Controversial episodes== | |||
| L. Ron Hubbard's life is embroiled in controversy, as is the history of Scientology (see ]). His son, ] claimed in 1983 "99% of what my father ever wrote or said about himself is totally untrue." | |||
| Some documents written by Hubbard himself suggest he regarded Scientology as a business, not a religion. In one letter dated ], ], 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. 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." | |||
| In a 1983 interview, L. Ron, Jr. 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". | |||
| One controversial aspect of Hubbard's early life revolves around his association with ], an aeronautics professor at ] and an associate of the ] ] ]. Hubbard and Parsons were allegedly engaged in the practice of ritual ] in 1946, including an extended set of sex magick rituals called the ], intended to summon a goddess or "moonchild." (Among occultists today, it is widely accepted Hubbard derived a large part of 'Dianetics' from ] occult ideas such as the ].) The Church insists Hubbard was a US government intelligence agent on a mission to end Parsons' magickal activities and to "rescue" a girl Parsons was "using" for magical purposes. Critics dismiss these claims as after-the-fact rationalizations. Crowley recorded in his notes that he considered Hubbard a "stupid lout" who made off with Parsons' money and girlfriend in an "ordinary confidence trick." Discussions of these events can be found in the critical biographies , and in . | |||
| Hubbard later married the girl he claimed to have rescued, Sara Northrup. This marriage was an act of ], 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). Both women allege Hubbard ] them. He is also alleged to have once kidnapped Sara's infant, Alexis, taking her to ]. Later, he disowned Alexis, claiming she was actually Jack Parsons' child. <!---this paragraph needs dates and better documentation--> | |||
| Hubbard had another son in ], ], who was groomed to one day replace him as the head of the Scientology. However, Quentin was deeply depressed, possibly due to his father's ], and wanted to leave Scientology and become a pilot. As Scientology rejects homosexuality as a sexual perversion and views mental health professionals and the drugs they can prescribe as fraudulent and oppressive, Quentin had no avenues available to deal with his depression. Quentin attempted suicide in ] and then died in ] under mysterious circumstances that might have been a suicide or a murder. | |||
| Hubbard has been interpreted as both a savior (Scientologists refer to him as "The Friend of Mankind") and a con-artist. These sharply contrasting views have been a source of hostility between Hubbard supporters and critics. A California court judgement in 1984 involving Gerald Armstrong, who had been assigned the task of writing Hubbard's biography, highlights the extreme opposition of the two sides. The judgement quotes a 1970's police agency of the French Government and says it part: | |||
| :"In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization over the years with its "]" doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and the bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH . The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents." -- Superior Court Judge Paul Breckinridge, ''Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong,'' June 20 1984. | |||
| "Fair Game" was introduced by Hubbard, and incites Scientologists to use criminal behavior, deception and exploitation of the legal system to resist "]s", 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.'' | |||
| The Church of Scientology today claims that it has removed those policies from its doctrine and it is no longer in existence, but this claim is just as vigorously contested by its critics. (See ] for a more detailed examination.) | |||
| Conflicting interpretations of Hubbard's life are presented in the online version of Russell Miller's biography of Hubbard, ; this largely critical version includes links to Scientology's official accounts of Hubbard's past, embedded within Miller's description of the same history. | |||
| Several issues surrounding Hubbard's death and disposition of his estate are also subjects of controversy — a swift cremation with no autopsy; the destruction of coroner's photographs; coroner's evidence of the drug ] present in Hubbard's blood; questions about the whereabouts of Dr. Eugene Denk (Hubbard's physician) during Hubbard's death, and the changing of wills and trust documents the day before his death, resulting in the bulk of Hubbard's estate being transferred not to his family, but to Scientology. | |||
| ==Parody== | |||
| On the ] episode ], it was claimed that ] is L. Ron Hubbard reincarnated. As a reference to Scientology's litigious tendencies, all the credits at the end of this episode were changed to read "John/Jane Smith". | |||
| In ]'s rock-opera album ] the main character Joe is at one point seeking for advice from L. Ron Hoover of the First Church of Appliantology, who directs him to a lifestyle of having sex with appliances and robots. | |||
| Hubbard was awarded the ] ] in Literature for "his crackling Good Book, ''Dianetics,'' which is highly profitable to mankind — or to a portion thereof." The presenter observed he was also the most prolific posthumous author that year. | |||
| There have also been numerous other jabs at L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology from other sources; for example, the final city in the computer game ] contains the Hubologist cult which is a direct take on Scientology. | |||
| Hubbard is also a featured character in the novel ''The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril'' by Paul Malmont, scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2006. | |||
| ==Bibliography== | |||
| {{main article|]}} | |||
| Hubbard was an unusually prolific author. Because the majority of Hubbard's writings of the 1950s through the 1970s were aimed exclusively at Scientologists, the organization founded its own companies to publish his work, Bridge Publications (http://www.bridgepub.com/) for the US market and New Era Publications (http://www.newerapublications.com/nep/index.htm), based in Denmark, for the rest of the world. New volumes of his transcribed lectures continue to be produced; that series alone will ultimately total a projected 110 large volumes. A selection of Hubbard's best-known titles are below; ] is available in a separate article. | |||
| ===Fiction=== | |||
| *''Buckskin Brigades (1937)'' | |||
| *''Final Blackout (1940)'' | |||
| *''Fear (1951)'' | |||
| *''Typewriter in the Sky (1951)'' | |||
| *''] (1982)'' | |||
| *''] (1986)'' | |||
| ===Dianetics and Scientology=== (total published works are more than 50 feet of shelf space) | |||
| *'']: The Modern Science of Mental Health,'' New York 1950 ISBN 088404632X | |||
| *''Child Dianetics. Dianetic Processing for Children,'' Wichita, Kansas 1951 | |||
| *''Scientology 8-80,'' Phoenix, Arizona 1952 | |||
| *''Dianetics 55!,'' Phoenix, Arizona 1954 | |||
| *'']'' Phoenix, Arizona 1955 | |||
| *''Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought'' Washington, DC 1956 | |||
| *''The Problems of Work'' Washington, DC 1956 | |||
| *''Have You Lived Before This Life?,'' East Grinstead, Sussex 1960 | |||
| *''Scientology: A New Slant on Life,'' East Grinstead, Sussex 1965 | |||
| *'''' Los Angeles 1976 | |||
| *''Research and Discovery Series,'' a chronological series collecting Hubbard's lectures. Vol 1, Copenhagen 1980 | |||
| *''The Way to Happiness,'' Los Angeles 1981 | |||
| ==Unofficial biographies (online)== | |||
| * Stories and bio details about L Ron Hubbard not found elsewhere. | |||
| * by ] <!--not "Brent"--> and ] | |||
| * by ] | |||
| * by ] | |||
| *'''' by ], a critical review of Hubbard's ] Navy record | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| ===Official sites=== | |||
| *, from the Church of Scientology | |||
| * published by the Church of Scientology | |||
| * | |||
| *, L. Ron Hubbard's literary agency | |||
| * A contest sponsored by L.Ron Hubbard to encourage upcoming SF and fantasy writers | |||
| ===Critical sites=== | |||
| * from The Smoking Gun (in which Hubbard asks for protection from communists) | |||
| *] (a comprehensive archive of critical material on Hubbard and Scientology ) | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * {{nndb name|id=545/000026467|name=L. Ron Hubbard}} | |||
| * (''Slate'' magazine, July 15, 2005) | |||
| * videopresentation describing the life of L. Ron Hubbard, about 90 min | |||
| * videopresentation describing the life of L. Ron Hubbard, about 90 min | |||
| * (L. Rick Vodicka, ] file) | |||
| ===Neutral sites=== | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| *{{imdb name|id=0399196|name=L. Ron Hubbard}} | |||
| * {{isfdb name|id=L._Ron_Hubbard|name=L. Ron Hubbard}} | |||
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Revision as of 16:58, 16 February 2006
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13 1911 – January 24 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was a fucking bastard that created a FAKE religion to get to fuck little boys.