American writer and Church of Scientology founder (1911–1986)

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911:– January 24, 1986) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy stories, music producer, and composer who founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard aut*d Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and established a series of organizations to promote Dianetics. In 1952, Hubbard lost the rights to Dianetics in bankruptcy proceedings, and he subsequently founded Scientology. Thereafter, Hubbard oversaw the growth of the Church of Scientology into a worldwide organization.

Born in Tilden, Nebraska, in 1911, Hubbard spent much of his childhood in Helena, Montana. After his father was posted to the U.S. naval base on Guam, Hubbard traveled to Asia and the South Pacific in the late 1920s. In 1930, Hubbard enrolled at George Washington University to study civil engineering but dropped out in his second year. He began his career as a prolific writer of pulp fiction stories and married Margaret "Polly" Grubb, who shared his interest in aviation.

Hubbard was an officer in the Navy during World War II, where he briefly commanded two ships but was removed from command both times. The last few months of his active service were spent in a hospital, being treated for a variety of complaints.

Scientology became increasingly controversial during the 1960s and came under intense media, government and legal pressure in a number of countries. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hubbard spent much of his time at sea on his personal fleet of ships as "Commodore" of the Sea Organization, an elite quasi-paramilitary group of Scientologists.

Hubbard returned to the United States in 1975 and went into seclusion in the California desert after an unsuccessful attempt to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida. In 1978, Hubbard was convicted of fraud after he was tried in absentia by France. In the same year, eleven high-ranking members of Scientology were indicted on 28 charges for their role in the Church's Snow White Program, a systematic program of espionage against the United States government. One of the indicted was Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, who was in charge of the program; L.:Ron Hubbard was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

Hubbard spent the remaining years of his life in seclusion in a luxury motorhome on a ranch in California, attended to by a small group of Scientology officials. He died at age 74 in January 1986. Following Hubbard's death, Scientology leaders announced that his body had become an impediment to his work and that he had decided to "drop his body" to continue his research on another plane of existence. Though many of Hubbard's autobiographical statements have been found to be fic*ious, the Church of Scientology describes Hubbard in hagiographic terms and rejects any suggestion that its account of Hubbard's life is not historical fact.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 University education and Caribbean trip
• 3 First marriage and early literary career
  • 3.1 Dental procedure, near-death experience, and Excalibur
  • 3.2 Alaska trip
• 4 Military career
  • 4.1 Hospitalizations and "discovery" of sabotage attempt
• 5 Occult involvement in Pasadena
• 6 Request for psychiatric treatment
• 7 Dianetics
  • 7.1 Origin
  • 7.2 Initial success
  • 7.3 Collapse of Dianetics Foundation and subsequent kidnappings
• 8 Rise of Scientology
• 9 Controversies and crises
• 10 Commodore of the Sea Org
• 11 Life in hiding
• 12 Death and legacy
• 13 Biographies
  • 13.1 Scientology biographies
• 14 Bibliography
• 15 See also
• 16 References
• 17 Further reading
• 18 External links

Early life

Main article: Early life of L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, the only child of Ledora May (née Waterbury), who had trained as a teacher, and Harry Ross Hubbard, a former United States Navy officer. After moving to Kalispell, Montana, they settled in Helena in 1913. Hubbard's father rejoined the Navy in April 1917, during World War I, while his mother worked as a clerk for the state government.

During the 1920s the Hubbards repeatedly relocated around the United States and overseas. Hubbard was active in the Boy Scouts in Washington, D.C. and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1924, two weeks after his 13th birthday.

In 1925, Hubbard was enrolled as a freshman at Union High School, Bremerton, and the following year studied at Queen Anne High School in Seattle.

In April 1927, Hubbard's father was posted to Guam, and that summer, Hubbard and his mother traveled to Guam with a brief stop-over in a couple of Chinese ports. He recorded his impressions of the places he visited and disdained the poverty of the inhabitants of *an and China, whom he described as "gooks" and "lazy ignorant".

In September 1927, while living with grandparents, Hubbard enrolled at Helena High School, where he contributed to the school paper. On May 11, 1928, Hubbard was dropped from enrollment at Helena High due to failing grades. Hubbard left Helena and rejoined his parents in Guam in June 1928.

Between October and December 1928, Hubbard's family and others traveled from Guam to China. Upon his return to Guam, Hubbard spent much of his time writing dozens of short stories and essays. Hubbard failed the Naval Academy entrance examination.

In September 1929, Hubbard was enrolled at the Swavely Preparatory School in Man*as, Virginia, to prepare him for a second attempt at the examination. During his first semester at Swevely, Hubbard complained of eye strain and was diagnosed with myopia; this diagnosis precluded any enrollment in the Naval Academy. As an adult, Hubbard would write to himself: "Your eyes are getting progressively better. They became bad when you used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy".

He was instead sent to Woodward School for Boys in Washington, D.C. to qualify for admission to George Washington University without having to sit for the entrance examination. He successfully graduated from the school in June 1930 and entered the University the following September.

University education and Caribbean trip

On September 24, 1930, Hubbard began studying civil engineering at George Washington University's School of Engineering, at the behest of his father. Academically, Hubbard did poorly: his transcripts show he failed many courses including atomic physics, though later in life he would claim to have been a nuclear physicist. In September 1931, he was placed on probation due to poor grades, and in April 1932 he again received a warning for his lack of academic achievement. During his first year, Hubbard helped organize the university Glider Club and was elected its president.

During what would become Hubbard's final semester at GWU, he organized an ill-fated trip to the Caribbean for June 1932 to explore and film the pirate "strongholds and bivouacs of the Spanish Main" and to "collect whatever one collects for exhibits in museums". Amid multiple misfortunes and running low on funds, the ship's owners ordered it to return to Baltimore. Hubbard failed to return to University the following year.

After his father volunteered him for a Red Cross relief effort, on October 23, 1932 Hubbard traveled to Puerto Rico. En route, Hubbard apparently "decided to abandon the Red Cross", instead opting to accompany a mineral surveyor in a futile bid to find gold.

First marriage and early literary career

See also: Written works of L. Ron Hubbard Hubbard's "Yukon Madness" was originally published in the August 1935 issue of New Mystery Adventures Illustration by Edd Cartier for Hubbard's story "Fear" Hubbard's novella "The Kingslayer" was reprinted in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in 1950 after its original publication in a 1949 Hubbard collection

Hubbard returned from Puerto Rico to D.C. in February 1933. He struck up a relationship with a fellow glider pilot named Margaret "Polly" Grubb. The two were married on April 13. She was already pregnant when they married, but had a miscarriage shortly afterwards; a few months later, she became pregnant again. On May 7, 1934, she gave birth prematurely to a son who was named Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, Jr., whose nickname was "Nibs". Their second child, Katherine May, was born on January 15, 1936. The Hubbards lived for a while in Laytonsville, Maryland, but were chronically short of money.

Hubbard became a well-known and prolific writer for pulp fiction magazines during the 1930s. His literary career began with contributions to the George Washington University student newspaper, The University Hatchet, as a reporter for a few months in 1931. Six of his pieces were published commercially during 1932 to 1933. The going rate for freelance writers at the time was only a cent a word, so Hubbard's total earnings from these articles would have been less than $100 (equivalent to $2,093 in 2021). The pulp magazine Thrilling Adventures became the first to publish one of his short stories, in February 1934. Over the next six years, pulp magazines published many of his short stories under a variety of pen names, including Winchester Remington Colt, Kurt von Rachen, René Lafayette, Joe Blitz and Legionnaire 148.

Although he was best known for his fantasy and science fiction stories, Hubbard wrote in a wide variety of genres, including adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mysteries, westerns and even romance. Hubbard knew and *ociated with writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and A. E. van Vogt.

In the spring of 1936 they moved to Bremerton, Washington. They lived there for a time with Hubbard's aunts and grandmother before finding a place of their own at nearby South Colby. According to one of his friends at the time, Robert MacDonald Ford, the Hubbards were "in fairly dire straits for money" but sustained themselves on the income from Hubbard's writing.

His first full-length novel, Buckskin Brigades, was published in 1937. He became a "highly idiosyncratic" writer of science fiction after being taken under the wing of editor John W. Campbell, who published many of Hubbard's short stories and also serialized a number of well-received novelettes that Hubbard wrote for Campbell's magazines Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction. These included Fear, Final Blackout and Typewriter in the Sky.

He wrote the script for The Secret of Treasure Island, a 1938 Columbia Pictures movie serial.

Hubbard spent an increasing amount of time in New York City, working out of a hotel room where his wife suspected him of carrying on affairs with other women.

Dental procedure, near-death experience, and Excalibur

Main article: Excalibur (L. Ron Hubbard)

In April 1938, Hubbard reportedly underwent a dental procedure and reacted to the drug used in the procedure. According to his account, this triggered a revelatory near-death experience. Allegedly inspired by this experience, Hubbard composed a m*cript, which was never published, with working *les of The One Command or Excalibur.

Arthur J. Burks, who read the work in 1938, later recalled it discussed the "one command": to survive. This theme would be revisited in Dianetics. Burks also recalled the work discussing the psychology of a lynch mob. Hubbard would later cite Excalibur as an early version of Dianetics.

According to Burks, Hubbard believed that Excalibur would "revolutionize everything" and that "it was somewhat more important, and would have a greater impact upon people, than the Bible." According to Burks, Hubbard "was so sure he had something 'away out and beyond' anything else that he had sent telegrams to several book publishers, telling them that he had written 'THE book' and that they were to meet him at Penn Station, and he would discuss it with them and go with whomever gave him the best offer." However, nobody bought the m*cript.

Hubbard's failure to sell Excalibur depressed him; he told his wife in an October 1938 letter: "Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do because it *s my progress by demanding incessant attention and, further, actually weakens my name. So you see I've got to do something about it and at the same time strengthen the old financial position." He went on:

Sooner or later Excalibur will be published and I may have a chance to get some name recognition out of it so as to pave the way to articles and comments which are my ideas of writing heaven:... Foolishly perhaps, but determined none the less, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned.

Forrest J Ackerman, later Hubbard's literary agent, recalled that Hubbard told him "whoever read it either went insane or committed suicide. And he said that the last time he had shown it to a publisher in New York, he walked into the office to find out what the reaction was, the publisher called for the reader, the reader came in with the m*cript, threw it on the table and threw himself out of the skyscraper window."In 1948, Hubbard would tell a convention of science fiction fans that Excalibur's inspiration came during an operation in which he "died" for eight minutes.

Hubbard realized that, while he was dead, he had received a tremendous inspiration, a great Message which he must impart to others. He sat at his typewriter for six days and nights and nothing came out. Then, Excalibur emerged.

The m*cript later became part of Scientology mythology. An early 1950s Scientology publication offered signed "gold-bound and locked" copies for the sum of $1,500 apiece (equivalent to $16,894 in 2021). It warned that "four of the first fifteen people who read it went insane" and that it would be "eleased only on sworn statement not to permit other readers to read it. Contains data not to be released during Mr. Hubbard's stay on earth."

Alaska trip

Ketchikan, Alaska, where Hubbard and his wife were stranded during the "Alaskan Radio-Experimental Expedition"

Hubbard joined The Explorers Club in February 1940 on the strength of his claimed explorations in the Caribbean and survey flights in the United States. He persuaded the club to let him carry its flag on an "Alaskan Radio-Experimental Expedition". The crew consisted of Hubbard and his wife aboard his ketch Magician.

The trip was plagued by problems and did not get any further than Ketchikan. The ship's engine broke down only two days after setting off in July 1940. Having underestimated the cost of the trip, he did not have enough money to repair the broken engine. He raised money by writing stories and contributing to the local radio station and eventually earned enough to fix the engine, making it back to Puget Sound on December 27, 1940.

Military career

Main article: Military career of L. Ron Hubbard Hubbard and Thomas:S. Moulton in 1943

After returning from Alaska, Hubbard applied to join the United States Navy. His friend Robert MacDonald Ford, by now a State Representative for Washington, sent a letter of recommendation describing Hubbard as "one of the most brilliant men I have ever known". Ford later said that Hubbard had written the letter himself: "I don't know why Ron wanted a letter. I just gave him a letter-head and said, 'Hell, you're the writer, you write it!'"

Hubbard was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Naval Reserve on July:19, 1941. By November, he was posted to New York for training as an intelligence officer. On December:18, he was posted to the Philippines and set out for the posting via Australia. While in Melbourne awaiting transport to Manilla, Hubbard was sent back to the United States. The U.S. naval attaché reported, "This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty *ignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty."

After a brief stint censoring cables, Hubbard's request for sea duty was approved and he reported to a Neponset, M*achusetts, shipyard which was converting a trawler into a gunboat to be cl*ified as USS:YP-422. On September:25, 1942, the commandant of Boston Navy Yard informed Washington that, in his view, Hubbard was "not temperamentally fitted for independent command." Days later, on October:1, Hubbard was summarily relieved of his command.

Hubbard was sent to submarine chaser training, and in 1943 was posted to Portland, Oregon, to take command of a submarine chaser, the USS:PC-815, which was under construction. On May:18, PC-815 sailed on her shakedown cruise, bound for San Diego. Only five hours into the voyage, Hubbard believed he had detected an enemy submarine. Hubbard spent the next 68 hours engaged in combat, until finally receiving orders to return to Astoria. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, commander of the Northwest Sea Frontier, concluded: "An *ysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area." Fletcher suggested Hubbard had mistaken a "known magnetic deposit" for an enemy sub.

The following month, Hubbard unwittingly sailed PC-815 into Mexican territorial waters and conducted gunnery practice off the Coronado Islands, in the belief that they were uninhabited and belonged to the United States. The Mexican government complained and Hubbard was relieved of command. A report written after the incident rated Hubbard as unsuitable for independent duties and "lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation". The report recommended he be *igned "duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised".

Hospitalizations and "discovery" of sabotage attempt

USS:PC-815, Hubbard's second and final command

After being relieved of command of PC-815, Hubbard began reporting sick, citing a variety of ailments, including ulcers, malaria, and back pains. Hubbard was admitted to the San Diego naval hospital for observation—he would remain there for nearly three months. Years later, Hubbard would privately write to himself: "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you. You are free of the Navy."

In 1944, Hubbard was posted to Portland where USS:Algol was under construction. The ship was commissioned in July and Hubbard served as the navigation and training officer. Hubbard requested, and was granted, a transfer to the School of Military Government in Princeton. The night before his departure, the ship's log reports that "The Navigating Officer reported to the OOD that an attempt at sabatage had been made sometime between 1530–1600. A coke bottle filled with gasoline with a cloth wick inserted had been concealed among cargo which was to be hoisted aboard and stored in No:1 hold. It was discovered before being taken on board. ONI, FBI and NSD authorities reported on the scene and investigations were started."

Hubbard attended school in Princeton until January:1945, when he was *igned to Monterey, California. In April, he again reported sick and was re-admitted to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, Oakland. His complaints included "headaches, rheumatism, conjunctivitis, pains in his side, stomach aches, pains in his shoulder, arthritis, hemorrhoids". An October 1945 naval board found that Hubbard was "considered physically qualified to perform duty as*, preferably within the continental United States". He was discharged from the hospital on December:4, 1945, and transferred to inactive duty on February:17, 1946. Hubbard would ultimately resign his commission after the publication of Dianetics, with effect from October:30, 1950.

Occult involvement in Pasadena

See also: Scientology and the occult and Affirmations (L. Ron Hubbard) Jack Parsons in 1938

Hubbard's life underwent a turbulent period immediately after the war. According to his own account, he "was abandoned by family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple and a probable burden upon them for the rest of my days". His daughter Katherine presented a rather different version: his wife had refused to uproot their children from their home in Bremerton, Washington, to join him in California. Their marriage was by now in terminal difficulties and he chose to stay in California.

In August 1945, Hubbard moved into the Pasadena mansion of John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons. A leading rocket propulsion researcher at the California Ins*ute of Technology and a founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Parsons led a double life as an avid occultist and Thelemite, follower of the English ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley and leader of a lodge of Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). He let rooms in the house only to tenants who he specified should be "atheists and those of a Bohemian disposition".

Hubbard befriended Parsons and soon became sexually involved with Parsons's 21-year-old girlfriend, Sara "Betty" Northrup. Despite this, Parsons was very impressed with Hubbard and reported to Crowley:

is a gentleman; he has red hair, green eyes, is honest and intelligent, and we have become great friends. He moved in with me about two months ago, and although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual affection to Ron. Although he has no formal training in Magick, he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field. From some of his experiences I deduced that he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence, possibly his Guardian Angel. He describes his Angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair whom he calls the Empress and who has guided him through his life and saved him many times. He is the most Thelemic person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our own principles.

Hubbard, whom Parsons referred to in writing as "Frater H", became an enthusiastic collaborator in the Pasadena OTO. The two men collaborated on the "Babalon Working", a sex magic ritual intended to summon an incarnation of Babalon, the supreme Thelemite Goddess. It was undertaken over several nights in February and March 1946 in order to summon an "elemental" who would participate in further sex magic. As Richard Metzger describes it,

Parsons used his "magical wand" to whip up a vortex of energy so the elemental would be summoned. Translated into plain English, Parsons jerked off in the name of spiritual advancement whilst Hubbard (referred to as "The Scribe" in the diary of the event) scanned the astral plane for signs and visions.

The "elemental" arrived a few days later in the form of Marjorie Cameron, who agreed to participate in Parsons's rites. Soon afterwards, Parsons, Hubbard and Sara agreed to set up a business partnership, "Allied Enterprises", in which they invested nearly their entire savings—the vast majority contributed by Parsons. The plan was for Hubbard and Sara to buy yachts in Miami and sail them to the West Coast to sell for a profit. Hubbard had a different idea; he wrote to the U.S. Navy requesting permission to leave the country "to visit Central & South America & China" for the purposes of "collecting writing material"—in other words, undertaking a world cruise. Aleister Crowley strongly criticized Parsons's actions, writing: "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick—Jack Parsons weak fool—obvious victim prowling swindlers." Parsons attempted to recover his money by obtaining an injunction to prevent Hubbard and Sara leaving the country or disposing of the remnants of his *ets. They attempted to sail anyway but were forced back to port by a storm. A week later, Allied Enterprises was dissolved. Parsons received only a $2,900 promissory note from Hubbard and returned home "shattered". He had to sell his mansion to developers soon afterwards to recoup his losses.

Hubbard and second wife Sara

Hubbard's fellow writers were well aware of what had happened between him and Parsons. L. Sprague de Camp wrote to Isaac Asimov on August 27, 1946, to tell him:

The more complete story of Hubbard is that he is now in Fla. living on his yacht with a man-eating tigress named Betty-alias-Sarah, another of the same kind:... He will probably soon thereafter arrive in these parts with Betty-Sarah, broke, working the poor-wounded-veteran racket for all its worth, and looking for another easy mark. Don't say you haven't been warned. Bob thinks Ron went to pieces morally as a result of the war. I think that's fertilizer, that he always was that way, but when he wanted to conciliate or get something from somebody he could put on a good charm act. What the war did was to wear him down to where he no longer bothers with the act.

On August 10, 1946, Hubbard bigamously married Sara, while still married to Polly. It was not until 1947 that his first wife learned that he had remarried. Hubbard agreed to divorce Polly in June that year and the marriage was dissolved shortly afterwards, with Polly given custody of the children.

During this period, Hubbard aut*d a do*ent which has been called the "Affirmations" (also referred to as the "Admissions"). They consist of a series of statements by and addressed to Hubbard, relating to various physical, sexual, psychological and social issues that he was encountering in his life. The Affirmations appear to have been intended to be used as a form of self-hypnosis with the intention of resolving the author's psychological problems and instilling a positive mental at*ude. In her book, Reitman called the Affirmations "the most revealing psychological self-*essment, complete with exhortations to himself, that had ever made." Among the Affirmations:

• "Your eyes are getting progressively better. They became bad when you used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy. You have no reason to keep them bad."
• "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you. You are free of the Navy."
• "Your hip is a pose. You have a sound hip. It never hurts. Your shoulder never hurts."
• "Your foot was an alibi. The injury is no longer needed."
• "You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. ... But you know which ones were lies ... You have enough real experience to make anecdotes forever. Stick to your true adventures."
• "Masturbation does not injure or make insane. Your parents were in error. Everyone *s."

Request for psychiatric treatment

See also: L. Ron Hubbard and psychiatry and Scientology and psychiatry

After Hubbard's wedding to Sara, the couple settled at Laguna Beach, California, where Hubbard took a short-term job looking after a friend's yacht  before resuming his fiction writing to supplement the small disability allowance that he was receiving as a war veteran. Working from a trailer in a run-down area of North Hollywood, Hubbard sold a number of science fiction stories that included his Ole Doc Methuselah series and the serialized novels The End Is Not Yet and To the Stars. However, he remained short of money and his son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr, testified later that Hubbard was dependent on his own father and Margaret's parents for money and his writings, which he was paid at a penny per word, never garnered him any more than $10,000 prior to the founding of Scientology. He repeatedly wrote to the Veterans Administration (VA) asking for an increase in his war pension.

In October 1947 he wrote to request psychiatric treatment:

After trying and failing for two years to regain my equilibrium in civil life, I am utterly unable to approach anything like my own competence. My last physician informed me that it might be very helpful if I were to be examined and perhaps treated psychiatrically or even by a psycho*yst. Toward the end of my service I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations, and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all. ... I cannot, myself, afford such treatment.
Would you please help me?

The VA eventually did increase his pension, but his money problems continued. On August 31, 1948, he was arrested in San Luis Obispo, California, and subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of petty theft, for which he was ordered to pay a $25 fine (equivalent to $282 in 2021).

Dianetics

Origin

In 1948, Hubbard and his second wife Sara moved from California to Savannah, Georgia, where he would later claim to have worked as a volunteer lay prac*ioner in a local psychiatric clinic. In letters to friends, he began to make the first public mentions of what was to become Dianetics.

He wrote in January 1949 that he was working on a "book of psychology" about "the cause and cure of nervous tension", which he was going to call The Dark Sword, Excalibur or Science of the Mind. On March 8, 1949, Hubbard wrote to friend and fellow science-fiction author Robert Heinlein from Savannah, Georgia. Hubbard referenced Heinlein's earlier work Coventry, in which a utopian government has the ability to psychologically "cure" criminals of violent personality traits. He told Heinlein:

Well, you didn't specify in your book what actual reformation took place in the society to make supermen. Got to thinking about it other day. The system is Excalibur. It makes nul A's.

His first published articles in Dianetics were "Terra Incognita: The Mind" in The Explorers Journal and another one that impacted people more heavily in Astounding Science Fiction.

In April 1949, Hubbard wrote to several professional organizations to offer his research. None were interested, so he turned to his editor John W. Campbell, who was more receptive due to a long-standing fascination with fringe psychologies and psychic powers ("psionics") that "permeated both his fiction and non-fiction".

Campbell invited Hubbard and Sara to move into a cottage at Bay Head, New Jersey, not far from his own home at Plainfield. In July 1949, Campbell recruited an acquaintance, Dr. Joseph Winter, to help develop Hubbard's new therapy of "Dianetics". Campbell told Winter:

With cooperation from some ins*utions, some psychiatrists, has worked on all types of cases. Ins*utionalized schizophrenics, apathies, manics, depressives, perverts, stuttering, neuroses—in all, nearly 1000 cases. But just a brief sampling of each type; he doesn't have proper statistics in the usual sense. But he has one statistic. He has cured every patient he worked with. He has cured ulcers, arthritis, asthma.

Hubbard collaborated with Campbell and Winter to refine his techniques, testing them on science fiction fans recruited by Campbell. The basic principle of Dianetics was that the brain recorded every experience and event in a person's life, even when unconscious. Bad or painful experiences were stored as what he called "engrams" in a "reactive mind". These could be triggered later in life, causing emotional and physical problems. By carrying out a process he called "auditing", a person could be regressed through his engrams to re-experiencing past experiences. This enabled engrams to be "cleared". The subject, who would now be in a state of "Clear", would have a perfectly functioning mind with an improved IQ and photographic memory. The "Clear" would be cured of physical ailments ranging from poor eyesight to the common cold, which Hubbard *erted were purely psychosomatic.

Winter submitted a paper on Dianetics to the Journal of the American Medical *ociation and the American Journal of Psychiatry but both journals rejected it. Hubbard and his collaborators decided to announce Dianetics in Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction instead. In an editorial, Campbell said: "Its power is almost unbelievable; it proves the mind not only can but does rule the body completely; following the sharply defined basic laws set forth, physical ills such as ulcers, asthma and arthritis can be cured, as can all other psychosomatic ills." The birth of Hubbard's second daughter Alexis Valerie, delivered by Winter on March 8, 1950, came in the middle of the preparations to launch Dianetics. Shortly afterwards in April 1950, a "Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation" was established in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with Hubbard, Sara, Winter and Campbell on the board of directors.

Hubbard described Dianetics as "the hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration" when he introduced Dianetics to the world in the 1950s. He further claimed that "skills have been developed for their invariable cure." Dianetics was duly launched in Astounding's May 1950 issue and on May 9, Hubbard's companion book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published by Hermitage House. Hubbard abandoned freelance writing in order to promote Dianetics, writing several books about it in the next decade and delivering an estimated 4,000 lectures while founding Dianetics research organizations.

Initial success

Main article: History of Dianetics Hubbard conducting a Dianetics seminar in Los Angeles, 1950

Dianetics was an immediate commercial success and sparked what Martin Gardner calls "a nationwide cult of incredible proportions". By August 1950, Hubbard's book had sold 55,000 copies, was selling at the rate of 4,000 a week and was being translated into French, German and *anese. Five hundred Dianetic auditing groups had been set up across the United States.

Dianetics was poorly received by the press and the scientific and medical professions. The American Psychological *ociation criticized Hubbard's claims as "not supported by empirical evidence". Scientific American said that Hubbard's book contained "more promises and less evidence per page than any publication since the invention of printing", while The New Republic called it a "bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology". Some of Hubbard's fellow science fiction writers also criticized it; Isaac Asimov considered it "gibberish" while Jack Williamson called it "a lunatic revision of Freudian psychology".

Several famous individuals became involved with Dianetics. Aldous Huxley received auditing from Hubbard; the poet Jean Toomer and the science fiction writers Theodore Sturgeon and A. E. van Vogt became trained Dianetics auditors. Vogt temporarily abandoned writing and became the head of the newly established Los Angeles branch of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. Other branches were established in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Honolulu. Psychologist and systems theorist William T. Powers, also prolific as a science fiction writer, was another early advocate and researcher connected with the Chicago branch.

Although Dianetics was not cheap, a great many people were nonetheless willing to pay; van Vogt later recalled "doing little but tear open envelopes and pull out $500 checks from people who wanted to take an auditor's course". Financial controls were lax. Hubbard himself took large sums with no explanation of what he was doing with it. On one occasion, van Vogt saw Hubbard taking a lump sum of $56,000 (equivalent to $630,000 in 2021) out of the Los Angeles Foundation's proceeds. One of Hubbard's employees, Helen O'Brien, commented that at the Elizabeth, N.J. branch of the Foundation, the books showed that "a month's income of $90,000 is listed, with only $20,000 accounted for".

Hubbard played a very active role in the Dianetics boom, writing, lecturing and training auditors. Many of those who knew him spoke of being impressed by his personal charisma. Jack Horner, who became a Dianetics auditor in 1950, later said, "He was very impressive, dedicated and amusing. The man had tremendous charisma; you just wanted to hear every word he had to say and listen for any pearl of wisdom." Isaac Asimov recalled in his autobiography how, at a dinner party, he, Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and their wives "all sat as quietly as *cats and listened to Hubbard. He told tales with perfect aplomb and in complete paragraphs." As Atack comments, he was "a charismatic figure who compelled the devotion of those around him". Christopher Evans described the personal qualities that Hubbard brought to Dianetics and Scientology:

He undoubtedly has charisma, a magnetic lure of an indefinable kind which makes him the centre of attraction in any kind of gathering. He is also a compulsive talker and pontificator:... His restless energy keeps him on the go throughout a long day—he is a poor sleeper and rises very early—and provides part of the drive which has allowed him to found and propagate a major international organization.

Collapse of Dianetics Foundation and subsequent kidnappings

Dianetics lost public credibility in August 1950 when a presentation by Hubbard before an audience of 6,000 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles failed disastrously. He introduced a Clear named Sonya Bianca and told the audience that as a result of undergoing Dianetic therapy she now possessed perfect recall. However, Gardner writes, "in the demonstration that followed, she failed to remember a single formula in physics (the subject in which she was majoring) or the color of Hubbard's tie when his back was turned. At this point, a large part of the audience got up and left."

Hubbard's supporters soon began to have doubts about Dianetics. Winter became disillusioned, and in 1951, he wrote that he had never seen a single convincing Clear: "I have seen some individuals who are supposed to have been 'clear,' but their behavior does not conform to the definition of the state. Moreover, an individual supposed to have been 'clear' has undergone a relapse into conduct which suggests an incipient psychosis." He also deplored the Foundation's omission of any serious scientific research.

Hubbard also faced other prac*ioners moving into leadership positions within the Dianetics community. It was structured as an open, public practice in which others were free to pursue their own lines of research and claim that their approaches to auditing produced better results than Hubbard's. The community rapidly splintered and its members mingled Hubbard's ideas with a wide variety of esoteric and occult practices.

By late 1950, the Elizabeth, N.J. Foundation was in financial crisis and the Los Angeles Foundation was more than $200,000 in debt (equivalent to $1,860,000 in 2021). Winter and Art Ceppos, the publisher of Hubbard's book, resigned under acrimonious cir*stances. Campbell also resigned, criticizing Hubbard for being impossible to work with, and blamed him for the disorganization and financial ruin of the Foundations. By the summer of 1951, the Elizabeth, N.J. Foundation and all of its branches had closed.

The collapse of Hubbard's marriage to Sara created yet more problems. He had begun an affair with his 20-year-old public relations *istant in late 1950, while Sara started a relationship with Dianetics auditor Miles Hollister. Hubbard secretly denounced the couple to the FBI in March 1951, portraying them in a letter as communist infiltrators. According to Hubbard, Sara was "currently intimate with but evidently under coercion. Drug addiction set in fall 1950. Nothing of this known to me until a few weeks ago." Hollister was described as having a "sharp chin, broad forehead, rather Slavic". He was said to be the "center of most turbulence in our organization" and "active and dangerous". The FBI did not take Hubbard seriously: an agent annotated his correspondence with the comment, "Appears mental."

Hubbard's wife Sara at a 1951 custody hearing

Three weeks later, Hubbard and two Foundation staff seized Sara and his year-old daughter Alexis and forcibly took them to San Bernardino, California, where he attempted unsuccessfully to find a doctor to examine Sara and declare her insane. He let Sara go but took Alexis to Havana, Cuba. Sara filed a divorce suit on April 23, 1951, that accused him of marrying her bigamously and subjecting her to sleep deprivation, beatings, strangulation, kidnapping and exhortations to commit suicide. The case led to newspaper headlines such as "Ron Hubbard Insane, Says His Wife." Sara finally secured the return of her daughter in June 1951 by agreeing to a settlement with her husband in which she signed a statement, written by him, declaring:

The things I have said about L. Ron Hubbard in courts and the public prints have been grossly exaggerated or entirely false. I have not at any time believed otherwise than that L. Ron Hubbard is a fine and brilliant man.

Dianetics appeared to be on the edge of total collapse. However, it was saved by Don Purcell, a millionaire businessman and Dianeticist who agreed to support a new Foundation in Wichita, Kansas. Their collaboration ended after less than a year when they fell out over the future direction of Dianetics. The Wichita Foundation became financially nonviable after a court ruled that it was liable for the unpaid debts of its defunct predecessor in Elizabeth, N.J. The ruling prompted Purcell and the other directors of the Wichita Foundation to file for voluntary bankruptcy in February 1952. Hubbard resigned immediately and accused Purcell of having been bribed by the American Medical *ociation to destroy Dianetics. Hubbard established a "Hubbard College" on the other side of town where he continued to promote Dianetics while fighting Purcell in the courts over the Foundation's intellectual property.

Only six weeks after setting up the Hubbard College and marrying a staff member, 18-year-old Mary Sue Whipp, Hubbard closed it down and moved with his new bride to Phoenix, Arizona. He established a Hubbard *ociation of Scientologists International to promote his new "Science of Certainty"—Scientology. Scientology and Dianetics have been differentiated as follows: Dianetics is all about releasing the mind from the "distorting influence of engrams", and Scientology "is the study and handling of the spirit in relation to itself, universes and other life".

Rise of Scientology

See also: Scientology and Timeline of Scientology Hubbard established an "Academy of Scientology" at this Northwest, Washington, D.C. building in 1955. It is now the L. Ron Hubbard House museum.

The Church of Scientology attributes its genesis to Hubbard's discovery of "a new line of research"—"that man is most fundamentally a spiritual being (a thetan)". Non-Scientologist writers have suggested alternative motives: that he aimed "to re*ert control over his creation", that he believed "he was about to lose control of Dianetics", or that he wanted to ensure "he would be able to stay in business even if the courts eventually awarded control of Dianetics and its valuable copyrights to:... the hated Don Purcell." Harlan Ellison has told a story of seeing Hubbard at a gathering of the Hydra Club in 1953 or 1954. Hubbard was complaining of not being able to make a living on what he was being paid as a science fiction writer. Ellison says that Lester del Rey told Hubbard that what he needed to do to get rich was start a religion.

Hubbard expanded upon the basics of Dianetics to construct a spiritually oriented (though at this stage not religious) doctrine based on the concept that the true self of a person was a thetan—an immortal, omniscient and potentially omnipotent en*y. Hubbard taught that thetans, having created the material universe, had forgotten their god-like powers and become trapped in physical bodies. Scientology aimed to "rehabilitate" each person's self (the thetan) to restore its original capacities and become once again an "Operating Thetan". Hubbard insisted humanity was imperiled by the forces of "aberration", which were the result of engrams carried by immortal thetans for billions of years.

In 2012, Ohio State University professor Hugh Urban argued that Hubbard had adopted many of his theories from the early to mid 20th century astral projection pioneer Sylvan Muldoon stating that Hubbard's description of exteriorizing the thetan is extremely similar if not identical to the descriptions of astral projection in occult literature popularized by Muldoon's widely read Phenomena of Astral Projection (1951) (co-written with Hereward Carrington) and that Muldoon's description of the astral body as being connected to the physical body by a long thin, elastic cord is virtually identical to the one described in Hubbard's "Excalibur" vision.

Hubbard introduced a device called an E-meter that he presented as having, as Miller puts it, "an almost mystical power to reveal an individual's innermost thoughts". He promulgated Scientology through a series of lectures, bulletins and books such as A History of Man ("a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years") and Scientology: 8-8008 ("With this book, the ability to make one's body old or young at will, the ability to heal the ill without physical contact, the ability to cure the insane and the incapacitated, is set forth for the physician, the layman, the mathematician and the physicist.")

Scientology was organized in a very different way from the decentralized Dianetics movement. The Hubbard *ociation of Scientologists (HAS) was the only official Scientology organization. Training procedures and doctrines were standardized and promoted through HAS publications, and administrators and auditors were not permitted to deviate from Hubbard's approach. Branches or "orgs" were organized as franchises, rather like a fast food restaurant chain. Each franchise holder was required to pay ten percent of income to Hubbard's central organization. They were expected to find new recruits, known as "raw meat", but were restricted to providing only basic services. Costlier higher-level auditing was only provided by Hubbard's central organization.

Although this model would eventually be extremely successful, Scientology was a very small-scale movement at first. Hubbard started off with only a few dozen followers, generally dedicated Dianeticists; a seventy-hour series of lectures in Philadelphia in December 1952 was attended by just 38 people. Hubbard was joined in Phoenix by his 18-year-old son Nibs, who had been unable to settle down in high school. Nibs had decided to become a Scientologist, moved into his father's home and went on to become a Scientology staff member and "professor". Hubbard also traveled to the United Kingdom to establish his control over a Dianetics group in London. It was very much a shoestring operation; as Helen O'Brien later recalled, "there was an atmosphere of extreme poverty and undertones of a grim conspiracy over all. At 163 Holland Park Avenue was an ill-lit lecture room and a bare-boarded and poky office some eight by ten feet—mainly infested by long haired men and short haired and tatty women." On September 24, 1952, only a few weeks after arriving in London, Hubbard's wife Mary Sue gave birth to her first child, a daughter whom they named Diana Meredith de Wolfe Hubbard.

In February 1953, Hubbard acquired a doctorate from the unaccredited degree mill called Sequoia University.

As membership declined and finances grew tighter, Hubbard had reversed the hostility to religion he voiced in Dianetics. A few weeks after becoming "Dr." Hubbard, he aut*d a letter outlining plans for transforming Scientology into a religion. In that letter, Hubbard proposed setting up a chain of "Spiritual Guidance Centers" charging customers $500 for twenty-four hours of auditing proposing that Scientology should be transformed into a religion:

We don't want a clinic. We want one in operation but not in name. Perhaps we could call it a Spiritual Guidance Center. Think up its name, will you. And we could put in nice desks and our boys in neat blue with diplomas on the walls and 1. knock psychotherapy into history and 2. make enough money to shine up my operating scope and 3. keep the HAS solvent. It is a problem of practical business.I await your reaction on the religion angle. In my opinion, we couldn't get worse public opinion than we have had or have less customers with what we've got to sell.

The letter's recipient, Helen O'Brien, resigned the following September. She criticized Hubbard for creating "a temperate zone voodoo, in its inelasticity, unexplainable procedures, and mindless group euphoria".

The idea may not have been new; Hubbard has been quoted as telling a science fiction convention in 1948: "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." J. Gordon Melton notes, "There is no record of Hubbard having ever made this statement, though several of his science fiction colleagues have noted the broaching of the subject on one of their informal conversations."

Despite objections, on December 18, 1953, Hubbard incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering in Camden, New Jersey. Hubbard, his wife Mary Sue and his secretary John Galusha became the trustees of all three corporations. The reason for Scientology's religious transformation was explained by officials of the HAS:

here is little doubt but what this stroke will remove Scientology from the target area of overt and covert attacks by the medical profession, who see their pills, scalpels, and appendix-studded incomes threatened:... can avoid the recent fiasco in which a Pasadena prac*ioner is reported to have spent 10 days in that city's torture chamber for "practicing medicine without a license."

Scientology franchises became Churches of Scientology and some auditors began dressing as clergymen, complete with clerical collars. If they were arrested in the course of their activities, Hubbard advised, they should sue for m*ive damages for molesting "a Man of God going about his business". A few years later he told Scientologists: "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace:... Don't ever defend, always attack." Any individual breaking away from Scientology and setting up his own group was to be shut down:

The purpose of the suit is to har* and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to har*, and enough har*ment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.

The 1950s saw Scientology growing steadily. Hubbard finally achieved victory over Don Purcell in 1954 when the latter, worn out by constant litigation, handed the copyrights of Dianetics back to Hubbard. Most of the formerly independent Scientology and Dianetics groups were either driven out of business or were absorbed into Hubbard's organizations. Hubbard marketed Scientology through medical claims, such as attracting polio sufferers by presenting the Church of Scientology as a scientific research foundation investigating polio cases. One adverti*t during this period stated:

Plagued by illness? We'll make you able to have good health. Get processed by the finest capable auditors in the world today ... Personally coached and monitored by L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology became a highly profitable enterprise for Hubbard. He implemented a scheme under which he was paid a percentage of the Church of Scientology's gross income and by 1957 he was being paid about $250,000 (equivalent to US$2,412,026 in 2021). His family grew, too, with Mary Sue giving birth to three more children—Geoffrey Quentin McCaully on January 6, 1954; Mary Suzette Rochelle on February 13, 1955; and Arthur Ronald Conway on June 6, 1958. In the spring of 1959, he used his new-found wealth to purchase Saint Hill Manor, an 18th-century country house in Sussex, formerly owned by Sawai Man Singh II, the Maharaja of Jaipur. The house became Hubbard's permanent residence and an international training center for Scientologists.

Controversies and crises

See also: Scientology controversies The L. Ron Hubbard House at Camelback in Phoenix, Arizona. The house is listed in the National Register of Historic Places L. Ron Hubbard's car, a 1947 Buick Super 8. The car is parked behind the house

By the start of the 1960s, Hubbard was the leader of a worldwide movement with thousands of followers. A decade later, however, he had left Saint Hill Manor and moved aboard his own private fleet of ships as the Church of Scientology faced worldwide controversy.

The Church of Scientology says that the problems of this period were due to "vicious, covert international attacks" by the United States government, "all of which were proven false and baseless, which were to last 27 years and finally culminated in the Government being sued for 750:million dollars for conspiracy." Behind the attacks, stated Hubbard, lay a vast conspiracy of "psychiatric front groups" secretly controlling governments: "Every single lie, false charge and attack on Scientology has been traced directly to this group's members. They have sought at great expense for nineteen years to crush and eradicate any new development in the field of the mind. They are actively preventing any effectiveness in this field."

Hubbard believed that Scientology was being infiltrated by saboteurs and spies and introduced "security checking" to identify those he termed "potential trouble sources" and "suppressive persons". Members of the Church of Scientology were interrogated with the aid of E-meters and were asked questions such as "Have you ever practiced *sexuality?" and "Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?" For a time, Scientologists were even interrogated about crimes committed in past lives: "Have you ever destroyed a culture?" "Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?" "Have you ever zapped anyone?"

He also sought to exert political influence, advising Scientologists to vote against Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election and establishing a Department of Government Affairs "to bring government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology". This, he said, "is done by high-level ability to control and in its absence by a low-level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies."

The U.S. Government was already well aware of Hubbard's activities. The FBI had a lengthy file on him, including a 1951 interview with an agent who considered him a "mental case". Police forces in a number of jurisdictions began exchanging information about Scientology through the auspices of Interpol, which eventually led to prosecutions. In 1958, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service withdrew the Washington, D.C. Church of Scientology's tax exemption after it found that Hubbard and his family were profiting unreasonably from Scientology's ostensibly non-profit income. The Food and Drug Administration took action against Scientology's medical claims, seizing thousands of pills being marketed as "radiation cures" as well as publications and E-meters. The Church of Scientology was required to label them as being "ineffective in the diagnosis or treatment of disease".

Following the FDA's actions, Scientology attracted increasingly unfavorable publicity across the English-speaking world. It faced particularly hostile scrutiny in Victoria, Australia, where it was accused of brainwashing, blackmail, extortion and damaging the mental health of its members. The Victorian state government established a Board of Inquiry into Scientology in November 1963. Its report, published in October 1965, condemned every aspect of Scientology and Hubbard himself. He was described as being of doubtful sanity, having a persecution complex and displaying strong indications of paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur. His writings were characterized as nonsensical, abounding in "self-glorification and grandiosity, replete with histrionics and hysterical, incontinent outbursts". Sociologist Roy Wallis comments that the report drastically changed public perceptions of Scientology:

The former conception of the movement as a relatively harmless, if cranky, health and self-improvement cult, was transformed into one which portrayed it as evil, dangerous, a form of hypnosis (with all the overtones of Svengali in the layman's mind), and brainwashing.

The report led to Scientology being banned in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, and led to more negative publicity around the world. Newspapers and politicians in the UK pressed the British government for action against Scientology. In April 1966, hoping to form a remote "safe haven" for Scientology, Hubbard traveled to the southern African country Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) and looked into setting up a base there at a hotel on Lake Kariba. Despite his attempts to curry favour with the local government—he personally delivered champagne to Prime Minister Ian Smith's house, but Smith refused to see him—Rhodesia promptly refused to renew Hubbard's visa, compelling him to leave the country. In July 1968, the British Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, announced that foreign Scientologists would no longer be permitted to enter the UK and Hubbard himself was excluded from the country as an "undesirable alien". Further inquiries were launched in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

Hubbard took three major new initiatives in the face of these challenges. "Ethics Technology" was introduced to tighten internal discipline within Scientology. It required Scientologists to "disconnect" from any organization or individual—including family members—deemed to be disruptive or "suppressive". According to church-operated websites, "A person who disconnects is simply exercising his right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person." Hubbard stated: "Communication, however, is a two-way flow. If one has the right to communicate, then one must also have the right to not receive communication from another. It is this latter corollary of the right to communicate that gives us our right to privacy." Scientologists were also required to write "Knowledge Reports" on each other, reporting transgressions or misapplications of Scientology methods. Hubbard promulgated a long list of punishable "Misdemeanors", "Crimes", and "High Crimes". The "Fair Game" policy was introduced, which was applicable to anyone deemed an "enemy" of Scientology: "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."

At the start of March 1966, Hubbard created the Guardian's Office (GO), a new agency within the Church of Scientology that was headed by his wife Mary Sue. It dealt with Scientology's external affairs, including public relations, legal actions and the gathering of intelligence on perceived threats. As Scientology faced increasingly negative media attention, the GO retaliated with hundreds of writs for libel and slander; it issued more than forty on a single day. Hubbard ordered his staff to find "lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on attackers".

Finally, at the end of 1966, Hubbard acquired his own fleet of ships. He established the "Hubbard Explorational Company Ltd" which purchased three ships—the Enchanter, a forty-ton schooner, the Avon River, an old trawler, and the Royal Scotman , a former Irish Sea cattle ferry that he made his home and flagship. The ships were crewed by the Sea Organization or Sea Org, a group of Scientologist volunteers, with the support of a couple of professional seamen.

Commodore of the Sea Org

Main article: Sea Org Corfu town, where the Sea Org moored in 1968–1969

After Hubbard created the Sea Org "fleet" in early 1967 in the Canary Islands it began an eight-year voyage, sailing from port to port in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern North Atlantic. The fleet traveled as far as Corfu in the eastern Mediterranean and Dakar and the Azores in the Atlantic, but rarely stayed anywhere for longer than six weeks. Ken Urquhart, Hubbard's personal *istant at the time, later recalled:

said we had to keep moving because there were so many people after him. If they caught up with him they would cause him so much trouble that he would be unable to continue his work, Scientology would not get into the world and there would be social and economic chaos, if not a nuclear holocaust.

When Hubbard established the Sea Org he publicly declared that he had relinquished his management responsibilities. According to Miller, this was not true. He received daily telex messages from Scientology organizations around the world reporting their statistics and income. The Church of Scientology sent him $15,000 (equivalent to $121,901 in 2021) a week and millions of dollars were transferred to his bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Couriers arrived regularly, conveying luxury food for Hubbard and his family or cash that had been smuggled from England to avoid currency export restrictions.

Along the way, Hubbard sought to establish a safe haven in "a friendly little country where Scientology would be allowed to prosper", as Miller puts it. The fleet stayed at Corfu for several months in 1968–1969. Hubbard renamed the ships after Greek gods—the Royal Scotman was rechristened Apollo—and he praised the recently established military dictatorship. The Sea Org was represented as "Professor Hubbard's Philosophy School" in a telegram to the Greek government. In March 1969, ho