Originally Posted by
Sturgeon's Lawyer
OK. Let's set some facts straight.
1) Hubbard was not "a Sci-Fi novelist in the beginning." He was a pulp writer who wrote adventure tales of all sorts, from the Western to military to whatever. His name on the cover of a magazine added notable sales to its normal numbers, so the publishers of Astonishing Science Fiction sat its editor down and said, "We're having Hubbard write some stuff for you. You will publish it, you will pay him your top rates, and you will put him on the cover." So they did.
2) So Hubbard started writing SF. It was reasonably good adventure-type SF (with one notably good yarn, the novel Fear), and was reasonably popular with ASF's readership.
3) Hubbard came up with, not Scientology, but Dianetics. This was a pseudo-scientific psychology that promised to "clear" your "reactive mind" of "engrams." A large number of intelligent people have claimed over the years that Dianetics helped them, from William S. Burroughs to Leonard Cohen. (That's what the line about "going clear" means in "Famous Blue Raincoat".) John Campbell, the ASF editor, was quite taken by Dianetics, and his magazine was the first place that the basic text of Dianetics was published (ASF always had "fact articles", and Campbell was a bit of an enthusiast for a number of kooky ideas, notably the Dean Drive, which claimed to turn circular motion directly into linear motion to propel a spaceship.)
4) The medical/psychiatric establishment began to take notice of Dianetics, and accused their "auditors" of practicing medicine without a license, and Hubbard of quackery.
5) What happened next is a little unclear. Several science-fiction people later claimed to have been at a party with Hubbard, where someone (possibly Hubbard, possibly Robert Heinlein, possibly someone else) commented that "if I were smart, I'd start a religion. That's where the big money is."
6) In 1952, the Dianetics organization actually managed to go bankrupt, and Hubbard lost the rights to the Dianetics text.
7) Later in 1952, Hubbard opened the Church of Scientology, a religion based on the idea that we are all reincarnations of space people. It proved significantly profitable - by the end of the first year, Hubbard had reacquired rights to the Dianetics text.
Also of possible interest: Hubbard had, in 1945, participated in "the Babalon working," a sex magic ritual intended to summon an incarnation of Babalon, the supreme Thelemite Goddess. (The Scientology organization has claimed that he was doing this while underground for the US Navy, something that the Navy denies.)
Finally, a disclaimer. I have had profitable dealings with an offshoot of Scientology/Dianetics, as a winner of the "Writers of the Future" contest. All the Scientologists I met at this time were very nice people (to the point where their constant cheerfulness sometimes seemed just a little freaky). I am not myself and never have been a member of the Church of Scientology.
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