L. Ron Hubbard's Birthday

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born March 13, 1911 and died January 24, 1986. He was better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was a prolific and controversial American writer and the founder of the Church of Scientology. In addition to religious works, he authored fiction in many genres, educational and management texts, essays and poetry. Hubbard's Church of Scientology has produced numerous biographical publications that make extraordinary claims about his life and career; many of those claims are disputed by journalists and critics. However, there is general agreement about the basic facts of Hubbard's life. Hubbard was born in Tilden, Nebraska. During the 1920s, he traveled twice to the Far East to visit his parents during his father's posting to the United States Navy base on the island of Guam. He attended the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the George Washington University in Washington, DC between 1930-32 to study civil engineering but failed his course. He chose instead to pursue writing, authoring many pulp magazine stories and novellas during the 1930s. He became a popular author in the science fiction and fantasy fiction genres, and he also authored several Westerns. Critics often cite Final Blackout, set in a war-ravaged future Europe, and Fear, a psychological horror story, as among the best examples of Hubbard's pulp fiction. The real war caught up with Hubbard after he joined the United States Navy in June 1941 as a lieutenant (junior grade). After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was posted to Australia. Among occultists today, it is widely accepted that Hubbard derived a large part of 'Dianetics' from Golden Dawn occult ideas such as the Holy Guardian Angel. In June 1950, Hubbard published a book describing the self-improvement technique of Dianetics. As he was unable to elicit interest from the medical or psychotherapeutic professions, the legendary science fiction editor John W. Campbell, who had for years published Hubbard's science fiction stories, agreed to publicize Dianetics in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction. Dianetics quickly became popular US-wide, but science fiction fans and writers were divided about its merits. In mid-1952, Hubbard expanded Dianetics into a secular philosophy which he called Scientology. The following December, he declared it to be a religion and founded the first Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey. He moved to England at about the same time and during the remainder of the 1950s he masterminded the worldwide development of Scientology from an office in London. In 1959, he bought Saint Hill Manor near the Sussex town of East Grinstead. This became the worldwide headquarters of Scientology. Scientology became controversial across the English-speaking world during the mid-1960s, with Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, the Australian state of Victoria and the Canadian province of Ontario all holding public inquiries into Scientology's activities. In 1967, Hubbard left the controversy behind by appointing himself "Commodore" of a small fleet of Scientologist-crewed ships which spent the next eight years cruising the Mediterranean Sea. He returned to the United States in the mid-1970s and lived for a while in Florida. In 1977, Scientology offices on both coasts of the United States were raided by FBI agents seeking evidence of a suspected Church-run espionage network. Hubbard's wife Mary Sue and a dozen other senior Scientology officials were convicted in 1979 of conspiracy against the United States Government, while Hubbard himself was named by Federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator." Facing intense media interest and a number of lawsuits, he retired privately to a ranch on O'Donovan Road in Creston, California.
During the 1980s, Hubbard returned to fiction writing, publishing Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth, a science fiction satire of 20th century events and culture published in 10 volumes. He also wrote an unpublished science fiction screenplay called Revolt in the Stars. Hubbard's later science fiction works sold well, receiving mixed reviews. The 2000 release of the film version of Battlefield Earth, starring John Travolta (who financed and produced the project), failed to attract audiences or impress critics. Hubbard died in 1986, in an expensive Bluebird motorhome on his ranch. He had not been seen in public since 1981. The Church of Scientology announced his death in 1986, stating Hubbard had deliberately "dropped his body" to do "higher level spiritual research," unencumbered by mortal confines. Within Scientology, new volumes of his transcribed lectures continue to be produced; the publishers project that the series will ultimately total 110 large volumes. Hubbard's publishers continue to release "new" Hubbard books to the public as well, although these are actually anthologies of previously published short stories or Hubbard's "story ideas" expanded into novels by other authors.

Partial bibliography

Fiction

Fear
Final Blackout
Buckskin Brigades
Typewriter in the Sky
Slaves of Sleep
Masters of Sleep
The Kingslayer
Battlefield Earth
Mission Earth series:
1) The Invaders Plan
2) Black Genesis
3) The Enemy Within
4) An Alien Affair
5) Fortune of Fear
6) Death Quest
7) Voyage of Vengeance
8) Disaster
9) Villainy Victorious
10) The Doomed Planet

Dianetics and Scientology

Dianetics:The Modern Science of Mental Health
Science of Survival: Prediction of Human Behavior
Dianetics 55!
Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought
Scientology: A New Slant On Life
Self Analysis
All About Radiation
Have You Lived Before This Life?
A History Of Man
Clear Body, Clear Mind: The Effective Purification Program
Child Dianetics
Speaking From Experience : Illustrated Solutions to the Business Problems You Face Everyday How to Live Though An Executive
Purification: An Illustrated Answer to Drugs
Scientology 8-8008
Handbook For Preclears
The Volunteer Minister's Handbook
Introduction to Scientology Ethics