Sci Fi Messiah

Hubbard holding court in 1950 -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
What is it that we love so much about a master story teller? If the story is something like a Jackie Collins novel, we know it’s all a fiction but love it nonetheless. A good friend may thickly embellish a story to make it funny or poignant -- we fully appreciate and forgive (nay, encourage) such excesses. In other cases, a religious luminary may tell us a story as an article of faith. If it’s told in a compelling way, we want it to be true; don’t douse us with cold reality. In yet other situations -- a court of law, a science classroom, the truth must come unadorned. The story teller might be perjuring himself if he regales us from a witness stand.

LaFayette Ron Hubbard was a master story teller. Between 1933 and 1938, the prolific author wrote 138 sci-fi and adventure novels (e.g., Buckskin Brigade and Final Blackout). Hubbard who could write (not just type) at 70 words per minute, was just getting warmed up. If his career had been defined only by his writing, his manic achievements would put him in the publishing stratosphere. But Hubbard created a worldwide Dianetics empire and had a net worth of $600,000,000 at the time of his death. Given his excesses, his giddy heights and his (at one point in 1947) suicidal despair, Hubbard was probably an undiagnosed bipolar but that is just this blog author’s speculation.

Egotist, story teller, messiah -- these names attach themselves to Hubbard. But also liar, felon, con artist and letch, depending on the source. Born in 1911, the red-headed Hubbard was nicknamed “Brick”. As a Navy brat, he got to see exotic places such as the Far East. He was a bright, curious boy who achieved Eagle Scout rank in the Boy Scouts. He also had an early interest in psychiatry and spirituality although those didn’t translate into any great college career -- he was drummed out of Georgetown University after only two years with failing grades. Now you might think his career was stymied but you’d be wrong -- he was just winding up. Hubbard’s life covers such broad expanses I’ll just hit some highlights. An in-depth story would take days to tell.

Hubbard was a highly outgoing man with the gift of self-promotion. His biography is filled with proud assertions readily disputed by various witnesses, friends and scholars. There are also some dents and dings along the way, that aren’t part of the official story. Hubbard claims to have been made a lama priest in Beijing; Jon Atack (former Scientologist) says that Hubbard’s own diary from that time fails to make any such mention. In Naval Training School for WWII, Hubbard claimed to be a nuclear physicist though he’d actually flunked those courses at Georgetown. Hubbard touted his 1953 PhD from Sequoia University (in Dianetics), while soft-pedaling the fact that Sequoia was a discredited degree mill. He later claimed to be a Blackfoot Indian blood brother though tribal spokesmen said that their tribe didn’t do such inductions. He was implicated in a 1945 confidence scheme (“Allied Enterprises”) that resulted in a $2900 court settlement (payment by Hubbard to the other litigant). He was relieved of a naval command post after conducting unauthorized gunnery practice off the Mexican shoreline.

With all these scurrilous details one might think Hubbard was a washed up, braggart blowhard. But in fact he was able to recover credibility by attacking the very prominent Achilles Heel of the nascent psychiatry field. In the 1940’s, psychiatrists were routinely doing lobotomies and electroshock. Whatever folly one might see in Scientology audits, they never involved removal of frontal lobes. In 1950, Hubbard authored a pseudoscientific treatise about Dianeteics, “the scientific method of mental therapy”. Dianetics survived several early setbacks. Contemporary authors and science reviewers described Dianetics as “lunatic” and “cult-like”. His earliest public demo of a “Clear” (healthy mental state from Dianetics) fell on it’s face -- his subject failed to remember any relevant facts. But the bombastic Hubbard pressed forward and founded the Church of Scientology in 1953. He soon had followers throughout Europe and the English speaking world. He added the E-meter, a “biofeedback” auditing device in 1959.

Hubbard started to have IRS problems early on -- his acceptance of salary and emoluments from E-meter sales went beyond the accepted norms for non-profit groups. Scientology also had worldwide credibility issues going forward. They were exiled from Rhodesia for possible economic manipulation. They were expelled from Greece as undesirables. Hubbard was actually convicted of fraud in France, though the fine was never enforced. Hubbard decided to avoid national penalties by putting his headquarters outfit (dubbed Sea Org) on a ship at sea. Hubbard was said to engage in very un-Messiah like behavior -- he had Commodore’s Assistants. These were buxom teenage girls who fixed him drinks and laid out his clothes. The thrice-married Hubbard was also said to be given over to fits of pique and anger. He could swear like a sailor which probably befits his naval background (as well as his probable bipolarity).

Apologies for compressing so much into so little a space. Hubbard’s life sprawled big and far like one of his novels -- so much to cover. Hubbard entertained a fantasy, maybe a self-delusion that he was immortal. He had certainly taken much of the world by storm, he was starting to believe his own mythology. He was involved in a near-fatal motor cycle accident in the 1970’s and Hubbard began to rethink his time usage. He realized that he was a flesh-and-blood person living with the same hourglass that all we mere mortals have. He returned to sci-fi writing in 1977 and wrote Battlefield Earth in 1982 (4 years before his death in 1986 at age 74). He stayed in seclusion the last 6 years of his life, hoping to avoid indictment by a New York grand jury; They were investigating his possible “Fair Game” harassment of a Scientology critic.

Hubbard was certain that he would return to Earth as a reincarnated political leader within our own lifetime. When he actually died in 1986, the Church explained that Hubbard had deliberately discarded his physical body and was conducting spiritual research “one galaxy away”.

Whatever you may think about this man’s credibility, you have to be amazed by his prolific writing and imagination as well as his evangelistic zeal. I was impressed that Marshall Applewhite (of Heaven’s Gate fame) could convince his male followers to castrate themselves. Let’s think about it …A car salesman sells a car and a comedian sells a joke. That L. Ron Hubbard, a sci-fi “philosopher king” could sell a whole reality, a future and a lifetime orientation of audits and e-meters is probably several orders of magnitude more impressive than any salesman, anywhere. In an odd way of looking at it, Hubbard is still alive and well -- his vibrant organization (replete with celebrity “thought leaders”) is thriving today.

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