L. Ron Hubbard

Battle Creek Enquirer/February 25, 2001

He wrote in a variety of genres, delivered thousands of speeches and a handful of films. Yet L. Rob Hubbard's name and likeness will forever be remembered alongside his signature book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. That book sparked the beginnings of Scientology, an organization founded in 1954 that now plans to open a church in Battle Creek.

Just as there are vocal critics of the Church of Scientology, there are several of Hubbard. He has been the subject of several books, including the 1987 Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller that chronicles the life of Hubbard through eyes other than those of a Scientologist. Miller's book examines Hubbard's professional and personal life, which includes fathering seven children with three wives.

All of the church's scriptures, including a massive 18-volume research collection, are the work of Hubbard, who died in 1986. The church appears to continue to grow even after his death and the bookstores in Scientology churches are lined with various books, lectures and videos that are his life's work.

While Hubbard, born Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, is not "worshipped" by Scientologists, he is clearly honored and highly regarded by them. A bust of Hubbard rests in the corner of the bookstore in Ann Arbor, overlooking the podium from which the Sunday service is given.

The following account is gleaned from the What is Scientology? book, based on Hubbard's work and compiled by Scientology staff.

Born March 13, 1911, Hubbard spent most of his youth in Montana and began traveling the country and parts of the world as a teen-ager. Hubbard enrolled at George Washington University, where he wrote for the student newspaper, and continued his travels through the Caribbean and the West Indies. He launched his fiction writing career in 1934, with his work published in a variety of magazines through the 1930s.

Hubbard then joined the U.S. Navy, serving briefly during World War II, then returned to his writing career in 1946 after being discharged from the military. In 1950, Hubbard released Dianetics, which served as a catalyst for more than 10 books and nearly 1,100 lectures in the next four years. The first Church of Scientology was founded in Los Angeles in 1954.

Hubbard resigned from all directorships and management of Scientology churches in 1966, yet continued his research on topics including the spiritual nature of people and the causes and effects of drug addiction and use.

In the early 1980s, Hubbard resumed his science-fiction writing with the 10-volume Mission Earth and the lengthy Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, which recently was made into a movie by famous Scientologist and actor John Travolta. Hubbard died Jan. 24, 1986.