L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard

As the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard’s discoveries on the subjects of man, the mind and spirit have helped people all over the world to better understand themselves and others.

“To know life,” he once wrote, “you’ve got to be part of life. You must get down there and look, you must get into the nooks and crannies of existence, and you must rub elbows with all kinds and types of men before you can finally establish what man is.”

And throughout his long and adventurous pursuit of knowledge, L. Ron Hubbard did just that, in the process also becoming one of the twentieth century’s most influential authors, with more than 160 million copies of his works in worldwide circulation.

His abiding interest in the human mind was initially sparked when, at the age of twelve, he studied under Commander Joseph C. Thompson – an early student of psychoanalysis and the first United States naval officer to study with Freud in Vienna. Although Ron would ultimately reject Freudian theory as both impractical and unworkable, he nonetheless reached one vital conclusion: “Something can be done about the mind.”

LRH giving a lecture

Buddhist monks of Peking; circa 1928 Pursuing his search across the South Pacific to Asia, Ron became one of the few Americans admitted into holy Tibetan lamaseries in the Western Hills of China. He additionally studied with the last in the line of royal magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. Yet for all the fabled wisdom of the East, he found great poverty and despair, and could only conclude, “Learning locked in mildewed books is of little use to anyone and therefore of no value unless it can be used.”

Returning to the United States, Ron pursued a course of study in engineering, mathematics and nuclear physics at George Washington University – all disciplines that would serve him well through his later inquiry into the nature and principles of life. In point of fact, he was the first to rigorously employ Western empirical methods to the study of the mind and spirit, beginning with his university research into subjects as diverse as human memory storage and the nature of aesthetics. Yet beyond basic methodology and thus a yardstick for further inquiry, university offered no real answers.

Indeed, as he later wrote, “It was very obvious that I was dealing with and living in a culture which knew less about the mind than the lowest primitive tribe I had ever come in contact with.” Consequently, he added, “I knew I would have to do a lot of research.”

LRH on West Indies Mineralogical Expedition; circa 1932That research consumed the next several decades, with the world his laboratory. Without access to comfortable “research grants,” and supported only by his own acclaimed literary career, Ron studied some 21 races and cultures – from Pacific Northwest Indian tribes and Philippine Tagalogs to the Jibaros of Puerto Rico. (In consequence, he is also remembered today on the rosters of the prestigious New York Explorers Club in which he was a flag bearing member.)

The Second World War proved both an interruption of his research and a further impetus to develop an actual technology of the human mind. The first procedures he developed were tested at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Northern California where a then-Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard received treatment for wounds suffered in combat. His research cases were former prisoners of Japanese internment camps – whom medical science had all but given up on. Yet with the employment of the Dianetics techniques he had just researched, they regained their health.

The Discovery of Dianetics

L. Ron Hubbard on an expidition

With the restoration of peace, Ron set out to further test the workability of Dianetics, among hundreds of individuals from all walks of life. In 1947, after developing a uniquely effective technology, one tested thoroughly in this real-world laboratory, he collected notes drawn from numerous case histories amassed through preceding years of testing, and prepared a thesis detailing both underlying theory and techniques. Copies of the manuscript were distributed to medical and scientific circles, then eagerly recopied and passed to friends. In that way, Ron’s original thesis on Dianetics saw immediate and wide circulation.

To meet the veritable flood of inquiries from readers, Ron was next urged to author a definitive text on the subject. Accordingly, he began work on Dianetics, the first comprehensive text ever written about the human mind.

LRH holding first edition Dianetics book Its release on May 9, 1950 became a landmark event in publishing history, capturing wide public interest and acclaim. The work immediately topped The New York Times bestseller list and remained there week after week. It has since become the most widely read and used book on the human mind in history, with 20 million copies in circulation. Today, Dianetics is a worldwide phenomenon, used by millions in more than 150 nations and in excess of 50 languages.

Dianetics, however, by no means marked a culmination of Ron’s research. Indeed, with further discoveries he was soon researching the whole track of human existence, so providing the demonstrable proof that man was far more than a “one life” being, and certainly was not his body. With further research, he developed the first techniques to exteriorize the individual from his body, and so realized a 2,500 year-old dream.

The World Wide Movement Begins

Continuing research into the true identity of the life force led Ron to discoveries which formed the basis of the Scientology religion, the study of

L. Ron Hubbard doing Dianetics Audition

the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.
In 1954 in Phoenix, Arizona, just months after the founding of the Church of Scientology by American Scientologists, Ron developed and codified many techniques to increase one’s ability to a level where exteriorization could be accomplished comfortably and at will. Further work led to development of techniques that enabled an exterior being to regain his innate powers to operate independent of the body. Ron had succeeded in mapping a route anyone could walk to higher levels of awareness and ability.

Throughout the 1950s, Ron continued to advance Scientology techniques with the development of hundreds of new techniques, delving deeper into the true nature of man and documenting his progress in hundreds of tape-recorded lectures as well as in books, technical issues and articles. And as more and more people discovered Ron’s breakthroughs, Scientology churches around the world opened to service them.

LRH lecturing to students In 1959, Ron purchased a home in England, Saint Hill Manor, where he lectured to hundreds of Scientology students coming from as far away as the United States, Australia and South Africa. A new era for Scientology began with the opening of the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course in May of 1961 to train auditors in the full theory and technology of the subject. Between 1961 and 1966, Ron not only personally supervised these students, but also delivered more than 440 tape-recorded lectures and auditing demonstrations while continuing his research and overseeing the expanding affairs of Scientology internationally.

He released the Scientology Classification, Gradation and Awareness Chart at Saint Hill in 1965, laying out the standard step-by-step route for higher stats of ability. Additionally, because of Scientology’s rapid expansion, Ron developed administrative policies for Scientology organizations which have proven universal in their application.

On the threshold of breakthroughs never before envisioned, Ron resigned from all directorship in Scientology organizations in 1966 to devote himself more fully to research.

The following years saw the discovery and codification of the technology which allows anyone to move through the levels of Operating Thetan, the highest states of spiritual awareness and ability.

L. Ron Hubbards Legacy

L. Ron Hubbard

Ron continued to seek out methods to help his fellows. As he encountered ever-worsening conditions in society, he developed procedures to address and resolve a wide range of man’s problems. He even refined the techniques of Dianetics in 1978 to bring about faster and easier-to-attain results and released New Era Dianetics.

Portrait of LRHNo area of life was left untouched in this search for ways to improve the human condition. His work provided solutions to such social ills as declining educational standards, moral decay and drug use. He codified the administration of organizations, the principles of ethics, the subjects of art and logic and much more. And yet he never lost sight of the man on the street and his day-to-day problems of living in these complex and troubled times. Thus in Scientology one finds solutions to any difficulty one can encounter in life.

L. Ron Hubbard’s works on the subject of man, the mind and spirit today comprise tens of millions of published words recorded in volumes of books, manuscripts and over 3,000 recorded lectures.

The greatest testimonies to Ron’s vision are the miracle results of his technology, and the millions of friends around the world who carry his legacy forward into the twenty-first century. Both continue to grow in number with each passing day.

Portrait of LRHMr Hubbard said: “I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days.

“These shadows look so thick to him and weigh him down so that when he finds they are shadows and that he can see through them, walk through them and be again in the sun, he is enormously delighted. And I am afraid I am just as delighted as he is.”