WRITER & PROFESSIONAL IN DOZENS OF FIELDS

There are only two tests of a life well lived L. Ron Hubbard once remarked: Did one do as one intended? And were people glad one lived? In testament to the first stands the full body of his life’s work, including the more than 5,000 writings and 3,000 tape recorded Dianetics and Scientology lectures. In evidence of the second are the tens of millions of individuals whose lives have been demonstrably bettered because he lived.

Who are they? Well, there are the more than 26 million children now reading because of L. Ron Hubbard’s educational discoveries; the millions of men and women freed from substance abuse through his breakthroughs in drug rehabilitation; the more than 59 million who have been touched by his non-religious moral code; and the many millions more who hold his work to be the spiritual cornerstone of their lives.

Although best known for Dianetics and Scientology, Ron, or LRH, as he is known to millions, cannot be so simply categorized. Bantu tribesmen in southern Africa, for example, who know nothing of Dianetics and Scientology, know Ron the educator. Likewise, factory workers in Albania know him only for his administrative discoveries; children in China know him only as the author of their moral code, and readers in a dozen languages know him only for his novels. So, no, LRH is not an easy man to categorize and certainly does not fit popular misconceptions of “religious founder” as an aloof and contemplative figure. Yet the more one comes to know this man and his achievements, the more one comes to realize he was precisely the sort of person to have brought us Scientology — the only major religion founded in the 20th Century. He was larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in two dozen fields.

The pages to follow will offer some sense of L. Ron Hubbard and his accomplishments. Given that he himself always measured the success of an idea in terms of its workability, that point has been stressed. Yet given the scope of what he achieved — as an author, educator, humanitarian, administrator, artist and much more — no such treatment can be entirely complete. After all, how can one convey, in a few dozen pages, the impact of someone who has so deeply touched so many? Nevertheless, this concise profile of the man and his achievements is provided in the spirit of what he himself declared: “If things were a little better known and understood, we would all live happier lives.”