L. Ron Hubbard - Rise of Scientology

Rise of Scientology

Main article: Scientology See also: Timeline of Scientology

The Church of Scientology attributes its genesis to Hubbard's discovery of "a new line of research", first set out in his book Science of Survival — "that man is most fundamentally a spiritual being". Non-Scientologist writers have suggested alternative motives: that he aimed "to reassert control over his creation", that he believed "he was about to lose control of Dianetics", or that he wanted to ensure "he would be able to stay in business even if the courts eventually awarded control of Dianetics and its valuable copyrights to ... the hated Don Purcell."

Hubbard expanded upon the basics of Dianetics to construct a spiritually oriented (though at this stage not religious) doctrine based on the concept that the true self of a person was a thetan — an immortal, omniscient and potentially omnipotent entity. Hubbard taught that the thetans, having created the material universe, had forgotten their god-like powers and become trapped in physical bodies. Scientology aimed to "rehabilitate" each person's thetan to restore its original capacities and become once again an "Operating Thetan". Hubbard insisted humanity was imperiled by the forces of "aberration", which were the result of engrams carried by the immortal thetans for billions of years.

Hubbard introduced a device called an E-meter that he presented as having, as Miller puts it, "an almost mystical power to reveal an individual's innermost thoughts." He promulgated Scientology through a series of lectures, bulletins and books such as A History of Man ("a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years") and Scientology: 8-8008 ("With this book, the ability to make one's body old or young at will, the ability to heal the ill without physical contact, the ability to cure the insane and the incapacitated, is set forth for the physician, the layman, the mathematician and the physicist.")

Scientology was organized in a very different way to the decentralized Dianetics movement. The Hubbard Association of Scientologists (HAS) was the only official Scientology organization. Training procedures and doctrines were standardized and promoted through HAS publications, and administrators and auditors were not permitted to deviate from Hubbard's approach. Branches or "orgs" were organized as franchises, rather like a fast food restaurant chain. Each franchise holder was required to pay ten per cent of income to Hubbard's central organization. They were expected to find new recruits, known as "raw meat", but were restricted to providing only basic services. Costlier higher-level auditing was only provided by Hubbard's central organization.

Although this model would eventually be extremely successful, Scientology was a very small-scale movement at first. Hubbard started off with only a few dozen followers, generally dedicated Dianeticists; a seventy-hour series of lectures in Philadelphia in December 1952 was attended by just 38 people. Hubbard was joined in Phoenix by his 18-year-old son Nibs, who had been unable to settle down in high school. Nibs had decided to become a Scientologist, moved into his father's home and went on to become a Scientology staff member and "professor". Hubbard also traveled to the United Kingdom to establish his control over a Dianetics group in London. It was very much a shoestring operation; as Helen O'Brien later recalled, "there was an atmosphere of extreme poverty and undertones of a grim conspiracy over all. At 163 Holland Park Avenue was an ill-lit lecture room and a bare-boarded and poky office some eight by ten feet — mainly infested by long haired men and short haired and tatty women." On September 24, 1952, only a few weeks after arriving in London, Hubbard's wife Mary Sue gave birth to her first child, a daughter whom they named Diana Meredith de Wolfe Hubbard.

In February 1953, Hubbard acquired a doctorate from the unaccredited Sequoia University. According to a Scientology biography, this was "given in recognition of his outstanding work on Dianetics" and "as an inspiration to the many people ... who had been inspired by him to take up advanced studies in this field ..."" The British government concluded in the 1970s that Sequoia University was a "degree mill" operated by Joseph Hough, a Los Angeles chiropractor. Miller cites a telegram sent by Hubbard on February 27, 1953, in which he instructed Scientologist Richard de Mille to procure him a Ph.D. from Hough urgently — "FOR GOSH SAKES EXPEDITE. WORK HERE UTTERLY DEPENDANT ON IT." Hough's "university" was closed down by the Californian authorities in 1971. British government officials noted in a report written in 1977: "It has not and never had any authority whatsoever to issue diplomas or degrees and the dean is sought by the authorities 'for questioning'."

A few weeks after becoming "Dr." Hubbard, he wrote to Helen O'Brien — who had taken over the day-to-day management of Scientology in the United States — proposing that Scientology should be transformed into a religion. As membership declined and finances grew tighter, Hubbard had reversed the hostility to religion he voiced in Dianetics. His letter to O'Brien discussed the legal and financial benefits of religious status. The idea may not have been new; Hubbard has been quoted as telling a science fiction convention in 1948: "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." The Church of Scientology has denied that Hubbard said this and insists that it is a misattributed quote that was said instead by George Orwell, although they offer no proof of this claim. Hubbard outlined plans for setting up a chain of "Spiritual Guidance Centers" charging customers $500 for twenty-four hours of auditing ("That is real money ... Charge enough and we'd be swamped."). He wrote:

I await your reaction on the religion angle. In my opinion, we couldn't get worse public opinion than we have had or have less customers with what we've got to sell. A religious charter would be necessary in Pennsylvania or NJ to make it stick. But I sure could make it stick.

O'Brien was not enthusiastic and resigned the following September, worn out by work. She criticized Hubbard for creating "a temperate zone voodoo, in its inelasticity, unexplainable procedures, and mindless group euphoria." He nonetheless pressed ahead and on December 18, 1953, he incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering in Camden, New Jersey. Hubbard, his wife Mary Sue and his secretary John Galusha became the trustees of all three corporations. Hubbard later denied founding the Church of Scientology, and to this day, Scientologists maintain that the "founding church" was actually the Church of Scientology of California, established on February 18, 1954, by Scientologist Burton Farber. The reason for Scientology's religious transformation was explained by officials of the HAS:

here is little doubt but what this stroke will remove Scientology from the target area of overt and covert attacks by the medical profession, who see their pills, scalpels, and appendix-studded incomes threatened ... can avoid the recent fiasco in which a Pasadena practitioner is reported to have spent 10 days in that city's torture chamber for "practicing medicine without a license".

Scientology franchises became Churches of Scientology and some auditors began dressing as clergymen, complete with clerical collars. If they were arrested in the course of their activities, Hubbard advised, they should sue for massive damages for molesting "a Man of God going about his business." A few years later he told Scientologists: "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace ... Don't ever defend, always attack." Any individual breaking away from Scientology and setting up his own group was to be shut down:

The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.

The 1950s saw Scientology growing steadily. Hubbard finally achieved victory over Don Purcell in 1954 when the latter, worn out by constant litigation, handed the copyrights of Dianetics back to Hubbard. Most of the formerly independent Scientology and Dianetics groups were either driven out of business or were absorbed into Hubbard's organizations. Hubbard marketed Scientology through medical claims, such as attracting polio sufferers by presenting the Church of Scientology as a scientific research foundation investigating polio cases. One advertisement during this period stated:

Plagued by illness? We'll make you able to have good health. Get processed by the finest capable auditors in the world today Personally coached and monitored by L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology became a highly profitable enterprise for Hubbard. He implemented a scheme under which he was paid a percentage of the Church of Scientology's gross income and by 1957 he was being paid about $250,000 annually — equivalent to $1.9 million at 2010 prices. His family grew, too, with Mary Sue giving birth to three more children — Geoffrey Quentin McCaully on January 6, 1954; Mary Suzette Rochelle on February 13, 1955; and Arthur Ronald Conway on June 6, 1958. In the spring of 1959, he used his new-found wealth to purchase Saint Hill Manor, an 18th century country house in Sussex, formerly owned by Sawai Man Singh II, the Maharaja of Jaipur. The house became Hubbard's permanent residence and an international training center for Scientologists.