L. Ron Hubbard

Church of Scientology (Introduction, Part 3)

2008-02-04

Scientologist Protest During the early 1970s the IRS “proved that Hubbard was skimming millions of dollars from the church, laundering the money through dummy corporations in Panama and stashing it in Swiss bank accounts. Moreover, church members stole IRS documents, filed false tax returns and harassed the agency’s employees.”¹

A US federal court in 1971 ruled that Hubbard’s medical claims were bogus and that E-meter auditing could not be called a scientific treatment. The Church of Scientology responded by “going fully religious, seeking First Amendment protection…counselors started sporting clerical collars. Chapels were built, “franchises” became “missions”, fees became “fixed donations”, and Hubbard’s comic-book cosmology became “sacred scriptures.” ²

After years of running the Scientology organization from aboard his flagship, the Apollo, in 1975 Hubbard bought the Fort Harrison Hotel and a former bank building in downtown Clearwater, Florida under the name United Churches of Florida, to hide Scientologys connection. He moved his crew to Clearwater, establishing the Flagship Land Base, a.k.a. “Flag.”

While the Church of Scientology continued to expand, its private intelligence agency known as the Guardian’s Office (GO) ran cloak-and-dagger operations against the mayor of Clearwater, various governmental agencies and anyone else perceived as in their way.

Church of Scientology (Introduction, Part 2)

2008-02-02

Scientology Church in Paris

Hubbard became interested in a type of lie detector called the “electropsychometer” that he believed would yield better results in auditing. He obtained a franchise for this device, which he renamed the Hubbard Electrometer, or E-meter. He began calling patients “pre-clears” and “within six weeks had created a new subject apparently out of thin air.”¹

Hubbard called his new subject Scientology and in introducing it, he claimed to have discovered the human soul. Whereas Dianetics had addressed the body, Scientology involved freeing souls (which Hubbard called “thetans”) from supposed entrapment in the physical or material world and restoring their alleged supernatural powers.

Hubbard established a headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, awarded himself the degree of D.Scn. (Doctor of Scientology) and in May 1952 incorporated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International under the personal control of himself and his third wife, Mary Sue. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association continued its opposition to Dianetics, as well as its new baby, Scientology.

In 1953 Hubbard regained control of Dianetics after a protracted legal battle and incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering. In 1954 he incorporated the Church of Scientology of California, which became the mother church. In 1956 the church was granted US federal tax-exempt status.

In 1957, passing himself off as a nuclear physicist, Hubbard gave a series of lectures in London on “nuclear radiation and health,” promoting a vitamin compound which he claimed cured both “radiation sickness” and cancer. Also that year the CIA began a file on him.

Church of Scientology (Introduction)

2008-02-01

The cult founder himself, L. Ron Hubbard 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.