Scientology: a religion built on fanciful foundations
L. RON HUBBARD claimed to have based Scientology on his own wartime experiences.
He insisted he invented his pseudo-mental health science Dianetics – the basis of the so-called religion followed by John Travolta and Tom Cruise – on how he healed himself after being badly wounded while serving as a US Navy officer.
The Church of Scientology presents him as “a muchdecorated war hero who commanded a corvette”.
Official publications state he served as “Commodore of corvette squadrons in all five theatres of the Second World War”, being awarded “21 medals and palms for his service”.
And the crux of their claims is that, after being machine-gunned in the back, Hubbard was taken “crippled and blinded” to a military hospital where he “worked his way back to fitness, strength and full perception in less than two years using only what he knew and could determine about Man and his relationship to the universe”.
However, official records show the man who came up with the religion based on the galactic tyrant overlord Xenu coming to Earth 75 million years ago was only ever treated for an ulcer, received just four medals, mainly served in the United States and was once sacked for opening fire on Mexico.
Hubbard, who died in 1986, aged 74, was commissioned into the navy on the strength of a letter of recommendation by his friend, Robert Ford, a state representative for Washington describing him as “one of the most brilliant men I have ever known”.
Years later, Ford admitted Hubbard had written it himself, saying: “I just gave him a letterhead and said: ‘Hell, you’re the writer, you write it.’”
Hubbard’s service records list his military performance as “substandard” and he was never listed as being wounded in action – or even of seeing combat.
He spent a brief spell in Australia, but was sent home after quarrelling with his superiors, and given command of a small anti-submarine vessel off the Oregon coast where he claimed to have sunk two subs.
This was later found to be false, and he was transferred to the PC-815, a submarine hunter, off California.
But after only a month he sailed her into Mexican waters and conducted gunnery drills against the Coronado Islands believing them to be uninhabited and belonging to the US – but they were actually part of Mexico.
He was immediately relieved of command and spent much of his remaining time in the Navy hospitalised – not with war wounds, but with an acute duodenal ulcer.
There, he dreamt up Scientology and, it would seem, most of his wartime career.
He was once sacked for opening fire on Mexico