L. Ron Hubbard:
Founder of Dianetics and Scientology

An event unique in American history, the May 9, 1950, publication of Dianetics is still remembered in publishing circles. With four times the original print run sold prior to actual distribution, the book was in unprecedented demand. Moreover, and remembering that Dianetics offered techniques that any reasonably intelligent reader could apply, there were soon 750 Dianetics groups across the nation and 250,000 people using these principles — in spite of media attacks launched by the medical-psychiatric establishment.

What all this meant to L. Ron Hubbard was immense public demand. Point of fact: By June 1950, he actually found readers camped on the lawn of his New Jersey home. What those readers wished was personal instruction in Dianetics from the author. Shortly thereafter the first Dianetics Research Foundation was formed in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and soon followed by five more: in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Hawaii.

Yet even while continuing instruction and lecturing, Mr. Hubbard's advancement of the subject did not cease, and by 1951 he had authored a second book on Dianetics, Science of Survival. Remembered today for its delineation of the human emotional range, Science of Survival is also notable on another count — as the first public disclosure of psychiatric-intelligence mind control techniques (later confirmed by Central Intelligence Agency testimony regarding the MK Ultra projects and the Navy's Project Chatter). If Mr. Hubbard's condemnation had been accurate, however, it was costly; and as revealed in since declassified documents, he was now to be under constant federal scrutiny. To be sure, for some 40 years L. Ron Hubbard and his work were subjected to the single most intensive federal assault in American history — much of it illegal and unscrupulous. Nevertheless, neither his personal progress, nor Scientology as a whole, were ever to be seriously impeded.

Thus research continued, and along an especially rich vein, as Mr. Hubbard encountered increasing evidence of man as a wholly spiritual entity with experiences extending well beyond the current lifetime. Also now glimpsed were potential states of existence far beyond those previously envisaged.

What followed was the foundation of all that is addressed by Scientology — his definition of that seemingly immortal life-source he eventually termed thetan, from the Greek theta, the traditional symbol for thought, or life. Regarding its characteristics, he was soon describing a potentially omnipotent and limitless being that was, in fact, the source of life. Given the inherently religious nature of these discoveries, it was only natural that those surrounding him would come to see themselves not only as students of a new philosophy but also as members of a new religion. And so, in 1954, Scientologists established the first Church of Scientology. Thus it was that although L. Ron Hubbard founded the religion in Phoenix, Arizona, early Scientologists began the Church in Los Angeles.