Church of Scientology (Introduction)
The man to your left is Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology in 1954. There is a lot of backdrop to this story, so I’ll only hit the high points.
He had dropped out of college with failing grades. Although he would later claim a distinguished wartime naval career, Hubbard in fact never saw combat and left the US Navy petitioning the Veterans Administration for psychiatric care. Two bigamous marriages would be failures. He did find some success writing “pulp” or science fiction, but as he said in the late 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.”1
Hubbard took up ritual magic, the occult and hypnosis, giving demonstrations of hypnosis in 1948 and also writing to his literary agent about a therapy system he was working on that had tremendous promotional and sales potential.2 Hubbard came up with Dianetics by piece-mealing together Freudian theories, Buddhist concepts and elements of other philosophies and practices. He published Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health in 1950.
In Dianetic practice the “patient,” working with a partner called an “auditor” recalls past painful experiences in reverse chronological sequence, supposedly erasing their negative effects and attaining a state called “clear,” allegedly free from all ills.3 The auditor carefully records any intimate revelations, including sexual or criminal activities and marital or family troubles; these records are kept on file.
Hubbard represented Dianetics as a mental health therapy. He strongly asserted that it was scientifically based and developed through meticulous research, and his use of the word “patient” suggests that he anticipated acceptance of Dianetics by the medical profession. But he never produced copies of any research protocol. Dianetics was opposed immediately by the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, the latter recommending that its members limit use of Dianetic techniques to investigation only, until Hubbard’s claimed results could be corroborated.4
The public, however, made the book a bestseller, and it seemed that Hubbard’s ship had come in. He created the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation to promulgate his theories and techniques.
- Eugene M. Methvin, “Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult,” READER’S DIGEST, May 1980. [↩]
- Jon Atack. “The Total Freedom Trap: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard,” Chapter 9. Online article: http://tinyurl.com/245dd [↩]
- L. Ron Hubbard. DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH. (Los Angeles, Bridge Publications, original copyright 1950, edition 1992., pp. 13-14). [↩]
- Lucy Freeman. “Psychologists act against Dianetics,” The New York Times, September 9, 1950 [↩]
For those of you who aren’t aware, I happen to hold Pastor Mark Driscoll of 
Praying for the cross in our own lives requires seeing the cross for what it is.
