His father’s
naval career provided the next avenue of inquiry. Following an
assignment to the island of Guam, the Hubbard family ventured
East, and Ron was soon pursuing answers to very fundamental questions
in what was then a remote Asia. By the age of nineteen, he had
traveled more than a quarter of a million miles, examining the
cultures of Java, Japan, India and the Philippines. With the same
determination, he had even gained access to forbidden Buddhist
lamaseries in the western hills of China.
Returning to the United
States in 1929, Ron resumed his formal education and enrolled
in George Washington University the following year. There, he
studied mathematics, engineering and the then new field of nuclear
physics – all providing vital tools for continued research.
To finance his research,
Ron embarked upon a literary career in the early 1930s, and soon
became one of the most widely read authors of popular fiction.
His stories spanned all genres – adventure, mystery, western,
science fiction and fantasy – and earned him worldwide recognition.
He also scripted screenplays for Hollywood and instructive essays
for fellow writers. Yet never losing sight of his primary goal,
he continued his mainline research through extensive travel and
expeditions to then remote islands in the Caribbean, and off British
Columbia and Alaska where he studied among the Tlingit, Haida
and Aleut tribes. In all, he examined twenty-one races and cultures
while searching for answers to improving conditions. In recognition
of this work, he was awarded membership in the famed Explorers
Club where he was known as a foremost ethnologist. And throughout
all subsequent expeditions he would carry the coveted Explorers
Club flag.
With the advent of
World War II, he entered the United States Navy as a lieutenant
(junior grade) and served as commander of antisubmarine corvettes.
Although highly decorated, he was deeply saddened by the inhumanity
of that conflict and so more resolved than ever to discover some
workable means to better the human condition. To that end, he
continued his research even through the darkest years of conflict.
Left partially blind
and lame from injuries sustained during combat, he was diagnosed
as permanently disabled by 1945 and hospitalized in Oakland, California.
By this point, however, he had already formulated his first theories
on the human mind and, through application of those theories,
was not only able to help fellow servicemen, but also regain his
own health. In short, he found that by relieving the mental trauma
attendant to injuries, one could effect truly miraculous improvements.
After several more
years of intensive work, wherein he applied his techniques to
some four hundred individuals, Ron compiled his sixteen years
of research into The Original Thesis. Although not immediately
published, this work inspired so much enthusiasm among scientific
and professional circles that he was soon called upon to further
explain the techniques he now termed Dianetics.
The first published
article on the subject, entitled “Terra Incognita: The Mind,”
appeared in Winter/Spring issue of the Explorers Club Journal,
generating still greater enthusiasm and hundreds of inquiring
letters. L. Ron Hubbard then commenced the writing of Dianetics:
The Modern Science of Mental Health, the first popular handbook
on the human mind expressly written for the man in the street.
Dianetics was published on May 9, 1950 and became an immediate
bestseller. Moreover, because it offered techniques for self-betterment
that anyone could learn and apply.
In constant demand,
L. Ron Hubbard was soon crisscrossing the country to meet requests
for public lectures and personal instruction in the application
of Dianetics. Yet even through that intensely busy summer and
autumn of 1950, he did not cease his research – first to
perfect the technology with which he had resolved problems of
the human mind, and then to examine an even more elusive question:
What exactly is life? For as he wrote, “The further one
investigated, the more one came to understand that here, in this
creature, Homo sapiens, were entirely too many unknowns.”
Although still applying
a wholly scientific methodology, the research that followed soon
led him into an entirely spiritual realm. In particular, he was
examining the life source; the spirit; and as breakthrough after
breakthrough was carefully codified through late 1951, the applied
religious philosophy of Scientology was born. Offering man a route
to new levels of awareness and ability, the first Church of Scientology
was established in 1954.
Because Scientology
addresses all aspects of life, there is no area of man’s
existence that L. Ron Hubbard’s subsequent work did not
address. Residing variously in the United States and England,
his continued research brought forth solutions to such social
ills as declining educational standards and the disintegrating
family. Also utilizing the basic tenets of Scientology, he was
able to discover remarkable methods of assisting the ill, repairing
marriages, bettering relations and, in short, resolving any problem
or conflict. And because an understanding of individuals ultimately
provides an understanding of groups, he was soon employing Scientology
truths to evolve a sane means of administering organizations –
work which brought about the expansion of Scientology into a worldwide
network.
To continue his research
in the ‘60’s, he returned to sea aboard a 3,200-ton
research vessel, Apollo. For the next seven years, he again traveled
extensively, while devoting his attention to increasingly grave
societal problems. Of special note from this period is his Drug
Rehabilitation program, recognized by government studies as the
world’s most effective. He also developed and refined his
revolutionary Study Technology, which has factually led to increased
literacy for millions.
Moving to shore in
1975, Ron continued his travels – first from Florida to
Washington, DC and Los Angeles before finally settling in a southern
California desert community near Palm Springs, his home until
1979. There, he wrote and directed training films while also continuing
to search out solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
In 1980, as part of
his long-standing effort to reverse late-twentieth-century moral
decay, he wrote the nonreligious moral code, The Way to Happiness.
Applauded by community and political leaders, and civic groups,
The Way to Happiness subsequently spawned a worldwide grass-roots
movement to uplift the decency and integrity of man. To date,
some fifty million copies are in circulation. Effective in many
sectors of society, the booklet has also been described as the
single most effective means of rehabilitating inmates of criminal
institutions.
