L. Ron Hubbard

[Guest guest]

http://www.slate.com/id/2122835/

L. Ron Hubbard

Scientology's esteemed founder.

By Crowley

Posted Friday, July 15, 2005, at 6:16 PM ET

Our summer of Tom Cruise's madness and Holmes' creepy path

toward zombie bridedom has been a useful reminder of how truly

strange Scientology is. By now those interested in the Cruise-Holmes

saga may be passingly familiar with the church's creation myth, in

which an evil, intergalactic warlord named Xenu kidnaps billions of

alien life forms, chains them near Earth's volcanoes, and blows them

up with nuclear weapons. Strange as Scientology's pseudo-theology may

be, though, it's not as entertaining as the life story of the

church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

To hear his disciples tell it, Hubbard, who died in 1986, was the

subject of " universal acclaim " and one of the greatest men who ever

lived. Not only did he devise the church's founding theory of

Dianetics, which promises to free mankind of psychological trauma, he

was a source of wisdom about everything from jazz music to nuclear

physics. The official Web site dedicated to his life features

subsites that expound upon his brilliant callings: " The

Humanitarian, " " The Philosopher, " " The Writer, " " The Artist, " " The

Poet/Lyricist, " " The Music Maker, " " The Yachtsman, "

and " Adventurer/Explorer: Daring Deeds and Unknown Realms. " Visitors

can hear an audio recording of Hubbard singing one of his own poems

or learn about the soundtrack he composed for his 1,000-page sci-fi

epic Battlefield Earth (later brought to Hollywood by Scientologist

Travolta). Hubbard's composition " utilized elements from several

genres—from honky-tonk and free-swinging jazz to cutting-edge

electronic rock. The result is a wholly new dimension in space opera

sound. " (Sign me up for a copy!)

There's a deep chasm between the erudite, noble Hubbard of

Scientology myth and the true identity of the church's wacky founder.

To those not in his thrall, Hubbard might be better described as a

pulp science-fiction writer who combined delusions of grandeur with a

cynical hucksterism. Yet he turned an oddball theory about human

consciousness—which originally appeared in a 25-cent sci-fi magazine—

into a far-reaching and powerful multimillion-dollar empire. The

church now claims about 8 million members in more than 100 countries.

The slow creep of Scientology's anti-drug programs into public

schools, the presumably tens of millions of dollars the church keeps

with the help of its tax-exempt status, and the accusations that the

church has convinced people to hand over their life savings, make

Hubbard's bizzarro legacy seem less like tragicomedy and more like a

scandal. Comparable crackpots-in-chief like Lyndon LaRouche and Sun

Myung Moon have had almost no detectable national influence. But

famous Scientologists—Cruise, Travolta, the singer Beck, and even—say

it ain't so!—the voice of Bart Simpson, have given Hubbard a veneer

of popular credibility and his church a perpetual recruitment ticket.

Hubbard always imagined himself a great man of history. " All men are

your slaves, " he once wrote in a diary entry unearthed during a 1984

lawsuit. He reportedly once claimed to have written a manuscript that

contained such brutal truths that anyone who read it went insane or

committed suicide. He fancied himself a nuclear physicist, never mind

his lack of training, and posited that fallout from Cold War nuclear

tests were interfering with Scientology therapies. (Hubbard even

wrote a book titled All About Radiation—a swell read, according to

one reviewer on Amazon who says, " I understand radiation better and

feel like I could survive an atomic explosion somewhere on the

planet, if it wasn't, of course, really close to me. " ) He reportedly

constructed the myth that he was a World War II combat hero, when in

fact the Navy reprimanded him after a San Diego-based ship he

commanded shelled some nearby Mexican islands for target practice.

Hubbard's version is understandably preferable to the reality, which

was a dark farce. Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Neb. After

flunking out of Washington University, he became a pulp

science-fiction and adventure writer. In the mid-1940s, he fell in

with Parsons, a wealthy and brilliant young rocket scientist in

California, who also happened to be under the tutelage of the

infamous satanist Aleister Crowley (no relation to yours truly,

thankfully). According to 's damning biography of

Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, Parsons was a science-fiction fan who

briefly hosted Hubbard at his Pasadena, Calif., mansion, which

featured a domed backyard temple and a rotating cast of occultists

and eccentrics. Parsons described Hubbard as his " magical partner, "

and together the men engaged in a rite in which Parsons tried to

impregnate with an antichrist child a woman he considered the whore

of Babylon, a goal that Crowley had long promoted. With

Rachmaninoff's " Isle of the Dead " playing in the background, Hubbard

allegedly chanted spells over the copulating couple, according to

and others. (Ultimately Hubbard would steal Parsons'

girlfriend and allegedly bilk him in a Miami yacht venture.) Years

later, when Hubbard had grown famous and realized the antichrist

episode didn't comport with his image as a man of culture and wisdom,

he would reportedly claim to have been working on an undercover

mission for U.S. Naval Intelligence to investigate black magic.

Dabbling in (or investigating) witchcraft didn't pay the bills, and

by the late 1940s Hubbard was in debt and despondent. Then in 1950 he

published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which he

billed as " a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire

and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch. " The theory of

Dianetics promised to cure almost any physical and mental ailment—

including wrinkles—by cleansing people's memories of traumatic past

experiences so they could arrive at a " clear " mental state. Well

poised to capitalize on a growing national fascination with

psychotherapy, the book was an instant best-seller. Dianetics groups

and parties sprung up nationwide.

Hubbard became an icon, and thousands of fans sought him out. In

1954, as the book's success—and his income—began to fade, Hubbard

founded the Church of Scientology. His son Ron Jr. claimed in a 1983

interview with Penthouse that money was the motive, saying his

father " told me and a lot of other people that the way to make a

million was to start a religion. " Hubbard made his millions quickly

and used them to style himself as a sophisticated aristocrat,

relocating to an English country home dubbed " Saint Hill Manor. "

But Hubbard quickly alienated governments at home and abroad. He and

his followers developed a reputation for intimidating critics and

church defectors. An official inquiry in Australia concluded that

Scientology is " evil " and " a serious threat to the community,

medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and

often medically ill. " In 1963, federal agents, suspicious that

Hubbard's therapy might pose a health risk, raided the church's

Washington, D.C., branch. The IRS concluded soon after that Hubbard

was skimming millions of dollars from church funds and revoked

Scientology's tax-exempt status. (The church won back that status in

1993 after a long, fierce campaign; several European countries still

don't recognize Scientology as a religion.) In 1967, Hubbard fled to

the high seas for most of the next eight years. During this period he

dreamed up the " Sea Org, " a special branch of Scientology whose

members wear sharp blue naval uniforms and sign contracts pledging

their service for 1 billion years.

Hubbard finally returned to land in 1975, first to Washington, D.C.,

and then to the California desert. Lying low, Hubbard was doted on by

a special group of teenage " messengers " who pulled on his socks and

followed him with ashtrays when he smoked. He developed -

like eccentricities, flying into rages if he smelled detergent in his

clothes, which caused the terrified messengers to rinse his laundry

in multiple water buckets.

Meanwhile, the church's ongoing paranoia and vindictiveness

culminated in a shockingly elaborate operation, which Hubbard

dubbed " Snow White, " to spy on and burglarize multiple federal

offices, including the IRS and the Justice Department, with the aim

of stealing and destroying government documents about Scientology.

The Scientologists even planted moles in some federal offices. In

1983, 11 church leaders, including Hubbard's wife, were convicted and

sentenced to prison for the conspiracy. Though Hubbard was named as a

co-conspirator, he was never indicted.

By that time, in any case, he had gone into hiding. On or around Jan.

17, 1986, Hubbard suffered a catastrophic stroke on a secluded ranch

near Big Sur, Calif. A week later he was dead. Scientology attorneys

arrived to recover his body, which they sought to have cremated

immediately. They were blocked by a county coroner, who, according to

Scientology critics, did an autopsy that revealed high levels of a

psychiatric drug (Vistaril). That would seem like an embarrassment

given the church's hostility to such medications (witness Tom

Cruise's recent feud with Shields), but it didn't stop the

church from summoning thousands of followers to the Hollywood

Palladium days after Hubbard's death. There they were told that

Hubbard " willingly discarded the body after it was no longer useful

to him, " and that this signified " his ultimate success: the conquest

of life that he embarked upon half a century ago. " Perhaps it would

be more accurate to say that Hubbard's ultimate success lay in

convincing millions of people he was something other than a nut.

If you liked this Assessment column, check out Backstabbers, Crazed

Geniuses, and Animals We Hate, a collection of our all-time funniest,

meanest, sweetest, and weirdest profiles.