Lafayette Ronald Hubbard

Hubbard was the son of Ledora May Hubbard (née Waterbury) and Harry Ross Hubbard, a retired member of the United States Navy. He spent the first years of his life in Helena, Montana. Here, his father was initially a ticket seller at a theater and in 1914 got a job as an accountant for a coal company. In the spring of 1917, he returned to the U.S. Navy, fought after the U.S. entered World War I, became paymaster after the war, and remained in the Navy to pursue his career. In 1920 he had risen to the rank of supply officer, but was temporarily deferred from duty due to unpaid bills. In 1921, Harry Hubbard was allowed to return to active duty and was given a post as deputy supply officer on the ship USS Oklahoma. As a result, his mother moved with Ron to San Diego, the home port of the USS Oklahoma. Ron joined a scout group there and rose to the rank of Eagle Scout.

In 1924, Hubbard's family moved to Bremerton, Washington, and in 1926 to Seattle. In 1927, Ron accompanied his mother to Guam, where his father was now stationed. Upon his return, Ron left high school in 1928 and returned to Guam.

Upon his return to the United States, Ron Hubbard married Margaret "Polly" Louise Grubb on April 13, 1933. His first son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., was born on May 7, 1934. Later, he changed his name to Ronald DeWolf. In 1936, their second child, Catherine May, was born, and the family moved to Bremerton.

In December 1945, Louise Hubbard Grubb declared that Hubbard had abandoned her and her children. On April 14, 1947, she filed for divorce, which was pronounced on December 24, 1947, in Port Orchard, Washington.

Hubbard married Sara Northrup, who was unaware of his first marriage at the time, on August 10, 1946, in Chestertown, Maryland, eight months before the divorce was filed and a year and a half before it was pronounced. Because of this, Hubbard was accused of bigamy by Sara, but there was never a trial. A few months later, Sara retracted these and other statements, the marriage was divorced, and Sara was given custody of her daughter Alexis, whom Hubbard had previously kidnapped.In 1952, he married Mary Sue Whipp for the third time. On Epiphany Day 1954, his son Quentin Hubbard was born from his third marriage, who was to become Hubbard's successor in Scientology and took his own life in 1976.

In February 1979, Hubbard was sentenced in absentia in France to four years in prison for fraud, but never served that sentence. This year was also the last time he was seen by credible witnesses. Mary Sue, his third wife and head of the organization at the time, was convicted in the United States of obstruction of justice, breaking into government buildings, and stealing documents and government property for her involvement in Operation Snow White. Hubbard died of a stroke on January 24, 1986, at his ranch near Creston, California. The widow from his third marriage became his successor in Scientology; an inheritance dispute was fought out in court against the son from his first marriage over the considerable inheritance.

While Ron Hubbard's family is documented, among other things, by the inheritance dispute, there are considerable differences in Hubbard's self-testimonies and published biographies regarding his education and military service.

Ron Hubbard began writing short stories in Guam in 1928. On December 18, 1928, he failed the entrance exam to the Navy Academy. In 1929, he was rejected by the US Navy because of his poor eyesight. In September 1930, he enrolled in civil engineering at George Washington University. He became a reporter for the campus newspaper Hatchet, but finished the year with only a D-grade exam, a "sufficient". In 1931, his first article appeared in Sportsman Pilot. The Hatchet published his first science fiction stories in February 1932. In the summer of the same year, he had to leave the university.

In 1936, Hubbard had discovered the still largely untapped market of so-called pulp stories for himself (see Pulp Magazine). His first novel, Buckskin Brigades, was published in 1937. In 1938, Hubbard met the editor of Astounding, John W. Campbell. The Dangerous Dimension was released in the same year.

After the U.S. entered World War II, Hubbard again tried to be accepted into the U.S. Armed Forces. In 1941, he was accepted by the U.S. Navy with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade and assigned to the Public Relations Department. After serving 4 years and 8 months, he left the U.S. Navy in December 1945 with the rank of lieutenant (equivalent to a lieutenant captain). According to his own statements, he was "shot to pieces" at the front, according to a biographer, Hubbard received a pension because of a stomach ulcer and arthritis. According to research by a journalist, his file contains the note "Suspicion of mental disorder". In the 1960s, he tried his hand at being an inventor. Among other things, he invented a device that was supposed to measure the pain of tomatoes when they were cut open.

Upon his return to the United States, Hubbard moved to Pasadena via San Francisco. Here he became interested in religion and magic, as persecuted by the Ordo Templi Orientis. However, he did not join this order, but worked with Jack Parsons, a pen student of the occultist Aleister Crowley. When Hubbard and Parsons announced that they would create a "moonchild", a magically optimized child, through a magical operation, Crowley reacted angrily.

Hubbard and Parsons' collaboration ended when Hubbard stole Parsons' yacht and fled with Parsons' former girlfriend Sara Northrup on board. Hubbard believed that after discovering the theft, Parsons summoned a demon that capsized the ship.

In 1950, Hubbard published the book Dianetics, in which he designed therapies and promised that he would make people "immortal geniuses." When the book had some success, he founded a doctrine called Dianetics with corresponding seminars, which he called "applied religious philosophy". In 1954, he founded a church called Scientology for tax reasons. According to Harlan Ellison, the idea came up at a meeting of science fiction writers in New York. Hubbard complained about the poor pay for his literary work, whereupon Lester del Rey half-jokingly suggested that he should found a religious community because it was tax-exempt. Among other things, Hubbard developed a method that traces problems in study back to certain causes, such as words that are not understood or misunderstood, too little connection to reality, or a skipped stage. According to Hubbard, this can cause physical symptoms such as yawning or dizziness, or even a student to drop out of college.

The "study technology" is cited as a supposed remedy against illiteracy and school fatigue. It is used in Scientology communities and some private schools run by Scientologists, sometimes also by non-organized readers of the books. Critics point to the method's lack of scientific validity, the fact that L. Ron Hubbard did not have a college degree, and that David Miscavige, the current leader of Scientology, did not have a high school diploma.

In 1966, Hubbard officially resigned from the leadership of the organization and founded the "Sea Org" as an elite force of Scientology. With a fleet of ships, he traveled the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic for several years. From about 1974 he lived in the United States again, first in Florida, then in California. In the 1980s, he wrote two major science fiction novels, including Battlefield Earth, which was later made into a film starring John Travolta.

In many Scientology organizations, an office was kept ready for him, which is only entered by cleaners.