40ies and earlier

Highlights

Family Roots

1885

Ledora May Waterbury born in Burnett, (later changed to Tilden) Neb. Her father is a small time rancher and veterinarian who did NOT own a quarter of the state as LRH would later claim. The Waterbury's were humble, hard working people who struggled just as everyone did in their location, to make a home for their large family. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1886, 31 August

 Henry August Wilson born at Fayette, Iowa. His mother dies at birth, he is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. James Hubbard of Frederiksburg, Iowa and renamed Harry Ross Hubbard. (The Roots of Scientology)

1904-1916

Harry Hubbard had served a four year stint in the Navy as an enlisted man until 1908. He re-enlisted when America entered World War I, when his son was six. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 47)

 1909, 25 April

 Marriage of Ledora May Waterbury and Harry Ross Hubbard. Harry was at this time working as a clerk for the "Omaha World Herald" newspaper. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1911, 10.3.

 birth of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard in Tilden, Neb. (The Roots of Scientology)
His Birth Certificate also shows that Ron was born in Dr. Campbell's Hospital on Oak Street with S.A. Campbell "in attendance." His mother, Ledora May Hubbard, had returned to the town of her birth to bring her son into the world. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 47)
Another family name which Peter Moon has found crops up in this field with notable frequency is Wilson. One member of the Wilson clan who has been very influential in the modern world and who has been consistently in opposition certainly to some of the agendas of the secret (worldwide) government is L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. Hubbard is the name of his adoptive parents but he was born a Wilson. (Phoenix Undead - The Montauk Project and Camp Hero Today: Chapter "Scientology/Dianetics)
The Wilson clan is a family of highly initiated Scottish witches. Members of this family went abroad and settled in the USA. Ron Hubbard's father Harry Ross Hubbard was a Wilson really and had been adopted by a family named Hubbard. (L.Kin, Volume 4, From the Bottom to the Top)

 1922

Harry Hubbard posted to the USS Oklahoma as assistant supply officer. His wife and child move to San Diego, the ship's home port. Later that year he is sent the US Accounts School in Washington DC. They travel via the USS Grant through the Panama Canal. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1924

March: Hubbard becomes an Eagle Scout, later he would claim to have been the youngest in the country. Critics would later dispute this claim as the Boy Scouts listed their members only alphabetically, not by age. That fall the Hubbards return to the west coast and live in Seattle, WA, his ship's new home port. (The Roots of Scientology)

1925-1927

... Ron spent the school year 1925-1926 at Union High School, Bremerton, Washington, while his father was stationed at nearby Puget Sound. At the start of the school year 1926-1927, Ron enrolled at Queen Anne High School, in Seattle. Harry Hubbard's naval record shows that his first shore duty outside the U.S. began on April 5, 1927, when he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Station on the island of Guam, in the western Pacific. Ron left Queen Anne High School in April 1927. Hubbard recorded two short visits to China in his teenage diaries. The first in 1927, en route to Guam, and the second the following year. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 53)

 1927, 16.7.

Harry Hubbard assigned officer in charge, US Commissary Store at the naval base in Guam. He leaves on 5 April, his family several weeks later. They go via Honolulu, Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Manila. Total time from US to Guam: 36 days. 
Harry's son L. R. Hubbard returns to Bremerton on the USS Nitro. (The Roots of Scientology)

1927, 6 Sept.

L. Ron Hubbard enrolls as a junior in Helena High School while living with his maternal grandparents. (The Roots of Scientology)
Hubbard was at Helena High School from September 6, 1927 to May 11, 1928. While there he joined the 163rd Infantry unit of the Montana National Guard. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 55)

 1928, 14.5.

Ron drops out of school and goes to Seattle to live with his aunt. He receives reluctant permission to go to his parents and arrives in Guam on 25 July. His mother begins to tutor him in hopes of getting him past the entrance examination at the US Naval Academy. (The Roots of Scientology)

1928, Oct.

In October he and his mother go for a two month junket to China. They see Peking, Tsingtao, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Young Hubbard is oppressed by the smell and squalor of the places he visits. An entry in his diary reads: "The trouble with China is there are too many chinks there" and "they smell of all the baths they did not take.". (The Roots of Scientology)

1928, 18.12.

He and mom arrive back in Guam 18 December. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1929

Hubbard fails his entrance exam to Annapolis. His father, now the Disbursing Officer at the US Naval Hospital in Washington, DC puts his son into the Swaely Preparatory school in Manasses, VA, for more intensive study. Here it is found that Ron's eyesight is defective forever ruling out the naval academy. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1930, 30.2.

Ron is enrolled at the Woodward School for Boys, in Washington, DC. That fall he is admitted to the School of Engineering at George Washington University. For the next two years he struggles to stay in school, most of 1931 is spent on academic probation. (The Roots of Scientology)

1930's (early)

Ron Hubbard spent some time in the early thirties at George Washington University Engineering School but did not complete his studies there. He developed a wide range of interests, including exploring, flying, photography and film making. He is said to have supported himself by writing about these and other subjects. 
During the 1930's he seems to have spent his life as an unashamed adventurer, in the sense of someone seeking out adventure.
He gradually gained reputation and material success as a writer of detective stories, westerns and mysteries for popular magazines. He also spent some time in Hollywood and reputedly wrote some film scripts. (The Sad Tale of Scientology, Eric Townsend, Chapt. 4, pg. 11)

1930's

In the 1930's, Hubbard became friendly with fellow adventure writer Arthur J. Burks. Burks described an encounter with "the Redhead" in his book Monitors. The text makes it clear that "the Redhead" is none other than Ron Hubbard. Burk said that when the Redhead had been flying gliders he would be saved from trouble by a "smiling woman" who would appear on the aircraft's wing. Burk put forward the view that this was the Redhead's "monitor" or guardian angel. (Hubbard and the Occult)

Hubbard's 20's

1931

You have seen the First Dynamic Tech of auditing develop over the decades to a highly precise and very workable body of knowledge. The current search began in about 1931. By 1970 it was in full practice over the world. (HCO POLICY LETTER OF 11 APRIL 1970, Third Dynamic Tech)

1932

Hubbard has said that he began his preliminary investigation to determine the dynamic principle of existence in 1932. His initial premise was that "the human mind is capable of resolving the problem of the human mind". (O. Garrison, Hidden Story of Scientology, Chapter 1)
In 1932, an investigation was undertaken to determine the dynamic principle of existence in a workable form which might lead to the resolution of some of the problems of Mankind. A long research in ancient and modern philosophy culminated in 1938 in the heuristically discovered primary law. (Note: See "Excalibur")

 1932, Summer

Summer break. Hubbard organizes a trip to the Caribbean. He and friends charter the old four-masted schooner Doris Hamilton and set forth in search of adventure. Their ambitious schedule includes collecting various fauna and flora as specimens for universities. Treasure hunting is also mentioned. Things, however, go wrong; eleven of the crew defect at the first port of call, the rest grimly persevere in the face of bad weather, seasickness and short funds. None of the high-minded goals had been completed, few even started. (The Roots of Scientology)

1932, September

Hubbard returns to school only to drop out after reviewing his last semester's grades. He got an "F" in molecular and atomic physics. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1933, 13 April

Hubbard marries Margaret Louise Grubb. Nicknamed "Polly" she is pregnant when they wed. Two months after they were married she suffered a spontaneous abortion thought to be caused by overexertion while swimming. (The Roots of Scientology)

1933, 18 August

 A three column article in the Washington Daily News stating that L. Ron Hubbard had found gold (also platinum and iridium) on his in-laws farm in Maryland. Big plans are made to unearth the hidden wealth. Nothing comes of this, they continued living in near poverty. Hubbard's income for that year was a little less than $100.00. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1934

Hubbard studies pulp fiction which is big at that time in an effort to find out what the public is reading. Soon he is writing 5 to 20 thousand words per day. His first story "Green God" published appears in Thrilling Adventures. Soon after the "The Phantom Detective" is printed in Calling Squad Cars followed by "Sea Fang" in Five Novels Monthly. His rock'em, sock'em style appeals to readers. He now has the first steady, although modest, income in his life. (The Roots of Scientology)

1934, 7 May

L. Ron Hubbard Jr. is born. Hubbard tenderly constructs a small incubator out of a cardboard box and lamp. After considerable effort by the parents the boy begins to thrive. The relationship between this boy and his father would become stormy in later life. Junior would one day disown his father and change his name.
Hubbard leaves his family and heads for NYC to get a first hand look at the writer's market. Over the years he would spend more and more time there. He meets the writers of that era, well-known and otherwise. The average pay is a penny a word, only a few get more. Competition is keen and to make more than a bare living wage is a challenge. (The Roots of Scientology)

1934, Oct.

In 1934 Dr. Anastasius Nordenholz published his work "Scientology Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge" (German: "Scientologie - Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und Tauglichkeit des Wissens"). 
The rights to the book are now owned (since 1995) by the Free Zone Assoc. in Germany. (For background information see: http://www.scientologie.de)  
In 1934 Anastasius Nordenholz released his book with the question "What is Knowledge?" 
He was born in Buenos Aires on February 1, 1862 as the son of a German Consul. Nordenholz was a farmer, and a doctor of law and philosophy. 
On August 17, 1934, Nordenholz submitted his book to be published under contract to the Publishing House of Ernst Reinhardt. The number of copies was fixed at 600. 
Nordenholz' relatives stated: "It is rather impossible that my grandfather knew Mr. Hubbard, or that he even had contact with him by letter. At the end of the 40's, my grandfather lived in seclusion at his country residence near Rosario and had little contact with the outside world". (Friedrich Wilhelm Haack "Scientology - Magie des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Scientology - magic of the 20th century), pg. 65-70)

 1935

Hubbard works with great zeal to sell his work. That year he had published 10 pulp novels, three novelettes and three non-fiction stories. He also writes the screen play for the Saturday matinee series The Secret of Treasure Island. This is the ONLY screen play that he ever wrote regardless of any claims to the contrary. Although he would later enjoy a reputation as a writer of science fiction Hubbard wrote many westerns. This year he wrote, among others "The Baron of Coyote River," for All Western besides more thrillers like "The Blow Torch Murder" for Detective Fiction." (The Roots of Scientology)

 1936, 15 January

Catherine May Hubbard born (mother: Margaret Louise "Polly" Grubb (later known as Margaret Ochs)). (The Roots of Scientology)

 1937

Hubbard writes his first hard cover novel "Buckskin Brigades." (The Roots of Scientology)
Forrest Ackerman: ...'Basically what he told me was that after he died he rose in spirit form and looked back on the body he had formerly inhabited. Over yonder he saw a fantastic great gate, elaborately carved like something you'd see in Baghdad or ancient China. As he wafted towards it, the gate opened and just beyond he could see a kind of intellectual smorgasbord on which was outlined everything that had ever puzzled the mind of man. All the questions that had concerned philosophers through the ages - When did the world begin? Was there a God? Whither goest we? - were there answered. All this information came flooding into him and while he was absorbing it, there was a sort of flustering in the air and he felt something like a long umbilical cord pulling him back. He was saying "No, no, not yet!", but he was pulled back anyway. After the gates had closed he realized he had re-entered his body. 
'He opened his eyes and found a nurse standing over him looking very concerned. Just as a surgeon walked into the room, Ron said, "I was dead, wasn't I?" The surgeon shot a venomous look at the nurse as if to say, "What have you been telling this guy?" But Ron said "No, no, I know I was dead."  
'The next part of the story I would find very difficult to direct realistically if I was a movie director. According to Ron, he jumped off the operating table, ran to his Quonset hut, got two reams of paper and a gallon of scalding black coffee and for the next 48 hours, at a blinding rate, he wrote a work called Excalibur, or The Dark Sword. 
'Well, he kept the manuscript with him and when he left the Navy he shopped it around publishers in New York, but was constantly turned down. He was told it was too radical, too much of a quantum leap. If it had been a variation of Freud or Jung or Adler, a bit of an improvement here and there, it would have been acceptable, but it was just too far ahead of everything else. He also said that as he shopped the manuscript around, the people who read it either went insane or committed suicide. The last time he showed it to a publisher, he was sitting in an office waiting for a reader to give his opinion. The reader walked into the office, tossed the manuscript on the desk and then threw himself out of the window.  
 'Ron would not tell me much about Excalibur except that if you read it you would find all fear would be totally drained from you. I could never see what was wrong with that or why that would cause anyone to commit suicide.' 
...Later that morning he telephoned Gordon Dewey and Peter Grainger, repeated the story Ron had told him and asked them if they would take a look at the manuscript. His sly hint of the potential risk only served to whet their appetites. 'They were mad keen to see it,' Ackerman said. 'I remember Dewey saying, "No combination of words, ideas or philosophy will have that effect on me!"'  
 Ackerman reported the good news to his client, but Hubbard, suddenly and uncharacteristically bashful, refused to produce the manuscript. 'He said it was in a bank vault and it was going to stay there. I think he was quite sincere. He seemed like a man who had seen too many people go crazy or commit suicide, who had enough on his conscience already. I never did get to see the manuscript or show it to any publisher. In fact, I never encountered anyone who said they had seen it.' (Miller: "Bare-faced Messiah" - Interview with Forrest Ackerman, Hollywood, 30 July 1986, pg. 134-136) 
LRH: I died once - 1938 - deader than a mackerel. Medico happened to be standing there with a long needle with adrenalin in it. He shoved it into my heart, speeded the heart up again. He thought he had something to do with it, but he didn't have a darn thing to do with it.  
I shoved off and I went way up thataway, I took a look around and I thought about all the things that I hadn't done. I hit the between lives area, bang, and wondered what the hell that was all about.  
...I even went on for some little time, after that particular moment of kicking the bucket, before I realized that I had kicked the bucket. 
Interesting how much information one accumulates without even examining it, how much one can experience without even perceiving it. This was a great shock to me, but the greatest shock was to find out how much game I was playing without knowing I was playing it. 
I recognized subjectively how unaware somebody could be of what is going on at the moment it's going on, because afterwards I tried to explain to somebody about kicking the bucket after that death, and they said "people often have these hallucinations." I was perfectly willing to say "That's probably what it was." 
Many people have exteriorized and much has been hazarded about exteriorization, but for somebody to be out and know he is out, have complete subjective awareness on it and have in his vicinity a complete text on the subject of what it's all about, is quite novel. (LRH: Tape Lecture 5703C20, Games Conditions)
I died in an operation one time back in the '30s and went outside above the street and felt sorry for myself, decided they couldn't do this to me. The body's heart had stopped beating. 
I went back and I grabbed the body by the several - there's a bunch of interesting mechanisms in the head that restimulate a body's heartbeats and so forth - I just took hold of them and snapped the body back to life. I didn't vividly remember after that exactly what had happened. 
It's quite amusing that I would clog around on this subject as long as I did. All I knew is that I'd confronted a mystery of some sort or another, that I couldn't make anything out of. I'd already been studying the subject of the mind for several years since I'd been in the university, and this added just a little fillip to the sauce.

1938

1938

Towards the end of this period in 1938 he started to gain a reputation - a Science Fiction writer. 
During the war he held a commission in the US Navy. During this period he is said to have started to formulate his ideas on the human mind and behaviour by observing the effects of wartime stress on service personnel. Towards the end of the war he spent some time in military hospital and started to apply his early Dianetic techniques to the rehabilitation of injured servicemen and ex-prisoners of war. The claims that Hubbard was decorated as a war hero and that he used his therapy methods to effect a miracle cure on himself are among those now being disputed. 
In his taped lecture on The Origins of Scientology and Dianetics Ron Hubbard states what he did on demobilisation. He had some money accumulating in a savings account from a film script he had written before the war. He took this money and  bought a boat which he took cruising n the Caribbean until the money ran out. He then returned to the United States and set himself up as a practising therapist using the elements of Dianetics that he had developed during the war.  (The Sad Tale of Scientology, Eric Townsend, Chapt. 4, pg. 12)
John W. Campbell takes over as editor of "Astounding Magazine," that he later changes into "Astounding Science Fiction Magazine." His higher standards of writing do much to improve the fare offered readers. He meets Hubbard soon after taking over, a relationship that lasted for some years. July's edition contains "The Dangerous Dimension," that concerns time travel, a topic that interests Hubbard mightily. (The Roots of Scientology)
Hubbard's work appeared alongside that of Robert Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, and Isaac Asimov... He became a regular contributor to Astounding, moving back to New York in the autumn of 1939. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 67)
 Another favorite theme is exaggerated mental powers, "The Tramp," a three-part novelette appeared during that year. Hubbard claimed to have written the mysterious and never revealed book, "Excalibur" that year. Apparently this was an important book on philosophy that he thought "Would have greater impact upon people than the Bible." Although his serious effort at philosophy died on the vine for lack of interest he did sell a large number of stories that included "Six Gun Caballero," "Hot lead Payoff," The Boss of the Lazy B," and Death Waits at Sundown." Perhaps it is well that "Excalibur" was never published for Hubbard claimed the book had such a powerful affect on people that several readers who had reviewed the book for him had either gone crazy or committed suicide. (The Roots of Scientology)
According to Hubbard, his first philosophical breakthrough came in 1938, with the discovery that the primary law of all existence is "Survive!" The notion that everything that exists is trying to survive became the basis of Dianetics and Scientology.
In 1938, Hubbard detailed his supposed insights in a book called Excalibur. Hubbard's hints about Excalibur are the source of several Scientology myths. It is whispered that the entirety of Scientology was available in the book, but in such a concentrated form that many people would have gone mad had they read it. Indeed, in an early Scientology promotional piece, it was claimed that fifteen copies of Excalibur were distributed, but four of the people who read the book went mad as a result, so the manuscript was withdrawn. The book has never been published. 
Gerald Armstrong found three different manuscripts of Excalibur among Hubbard's personal effects, one of which was between 300 and 400 pages long. Later, someone who had seen a version of Excalibur said it was so "dangerous" he would "willingly let his four-year-old daughter read it." 
Writer A.E. van Vogt, an important figure in the early Dianetic movement, has said that Hubbard claimed his heart had stopped for six minutes during an operation, in 1938. Excalibur was the result of the revelation Hubbard had during this near death experience. Armstrong has said it was a dental extraction under nitrous oxide. Hubbard told his literary agent that a "smorgasbord" of knowledge had been laid out before him. He had absorbed it all, and managed to avoid the command to forget, which was the last part of the incident. Excalibur is an expansion of Hubbard's argument that "Survive!" is the basic law of existence. Hubbard's friend and fellow writer, Arthur Burks, saw the book when it was offered to publishers in New York in the summer of 1938. 
He was impressed, but could not manage to instill his enthusiasm into a publisher. Burks later hinted that he put up money for the book to be published, but that Hubbard returned to Port Orchard in the autumn, dejected that he had failed to find a proper publisher, taking Burks' money with him.
Hubbard often claimed that the only people who understood the value of his research in 1938 were the Russians. In an interview given in 1964, he said that the Russians had offered him $100,000 and laboratory facilities he needed in the USSR, so that he could complete his work. After Hubbard refused, a copy of Excalibur was stolen from his hotel room in Miami. Hubbard made no mention of these supposed events when complaining to the FBI about approaches from the  Russians in 1951. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 66-67)
LRH: I suddenly realized that SURVIVAL was the pin on which you could hang the rest of this with adequate and ample proof. It's a very simple problem, idioti-cally simple. That's why it never got solved - nobody had ever looked at anything being that simple to do that much. 
The simplicities of solution lie in this: Life, all life, is trying to survive. And life is composed of two things: the material universe and an X-factor. This X-factor is something that can evidently organize and mobilize the material universe. I began to ham-mer out that secret and, when I had written 10,000 words, then I knew even more clearly. 
I destroyed the 10,000 and began to write again. EXCALIBUR did not contain any therapy of any kind but was simply a discussion of the composition of Life. I decided to go further. (LRH)
LRH: The first material on Dianetics became known to intimates of mine at the Explorer's Club in New York City in 1938. A few days later, one of these fellows got real interested in me. His name was Commissar Golinski. He said, "I'd like you to come over for dinner." At dinner he said, "Your material could be of some interest to the Russian Government."
I went home and the only existing manuscript I'd written on the subject was gone. I don't know just what coincidence could have occurred here, that I would be invited, my whereabouts would be known, and the manuscript would be missing. ...
So a few days went on and Commissar Golinski saw me at the club again. He said, "Are you so busy that you couldn't take a little time off?" "To do what?" He says, "To go to Russia. Are you sure that you wouldn't like to go over to Russia? I could have you in an audience with Stalin within ten days. You could be back here in two weeks."
And I said, "Why?" He said, "Your work on estimating the amount of work that a person should be able to do would be very important to the Russians. Then we would know whether somebody was loafing or not." I was too polite to ask him where he had gotten this data because he would have said, "Page 32 of your manuscript." So I said, "No."
He said, "If you have any information on this subject in written form, we would be very interested." ... (LRH: Tape Lecture 5504C27A, Grey Dianetics)
Commissar Golinski was from Amtorg, the American-Russian Trading Organization, which at that time served as the diplomatic channel with Russia - we had no diplomatic relations with Russia - Amtorg, New York.
He said, "We'd be very happy to make you an offer. I can have you talking to Stalin in about three weeks, we'll just fly over and talk to him." I said, "I have committments in the United States and I won't be able to go to Russia, thank you."
Next time I saw him at tea, he says, "We've taken this up with our government and we're willing to offer you Pavlov's old quarters and $200,000 and all your expenses for further researches." ...
... About two years later, they broke into my quarters - or some unknown people did, something on the order of two or three years later - and stole the original manuscript of this. I have a flimsy copy of the first manuscript of this subject which has never been published... (LRH: Tape Lecture 6012C31 AHMC-1 The Genus of Dianetics and Scientology)
LRH: Burdened by researching during the pre-war period's utter lack of research grants and funds, I had to solve the economics of it all. I did so mainly by writing and did very well at it - at least, enough to finance what else I was doing. I wrote a book in the late 1930's after a breakthrough on the subject, but the book was never published.
Rumors of the book brought me to the attention of Russia, which made me a research offer. As it was conditional upon going to Russia, which was still fashionable, and required of me a system of measuring the work potential of workers there, I had to decline. This was fortunate as the date was 1939. Ideological considerations and requirements of better control or subservience of people was not on my work schedule. (A Paper on the Difficulties of Researching in the Humanities)
Conversation in a Lecture given by LRH in 1958:
Student - I've heard a lot of fabulous stories about the book EXCALIBUR. Could you tell us a little about that?
LRH - The original was stolen by the Russians a long time ago. They offered me $100,000 to go to Russia and work exclusively, and actually offered me any facility and pay and equipment that Pavlov had ever had. And they almost had me on the boat, you know? That was back with Amtorg.
And a few years later, my apartment was raided, doors smashed in, papers were all thrown about and so forth. There were very many valuables there and the only thing missing was the original copy of the book EXCALIBUR. It's still gone. I do have a carbon of it, however. The carbon is the first writing. The book that was stolen had been rewritten somewhat. That answer it?
Student - Well, I was wondering if it would be something that you might ever put in print.
LRH - Highly doubtful.
Student - Was it dangerous to read, I mean, the subject?
LRH - Very very. Terrifically introverting.
Student - How about Scientology?
LRH - No. Scientology offers some hope. EXCALIBUR was nothing of Earth, without any understanding at all on the subject of WHY. It simply said exactly what he was lookin at and it evidently produced the mechanism of making him confront immediately and intimately all of the brain mechanisms. EXCALIBUR is actually devoted to brain mechanisms, as well as many of the principles which led to the research line. Guys read those things and they actually were sitting there looking at them, and they go up the spout. 
In Scientology, you ask a man to confront why, to confront thinkingness, to confront reason and supposition. You don't give him the hard-bound object, you know, and he gets along all right. Yoiu can write too brutally on the subject, evidently.
I've never known anybody to do anyting with Dianetics and Scientology or any book thereof but after reading one, to feel better - even thought they were sometimes worried or something of the sort. And I have had instances of people just reading the first article and stepping out of a hospital bed and so forth.
So, this is true of EXCALIBUR - EXCALIBUR comes under the heading of a dangerous weapon.
Student - Would it still be dangerous for a Scientologist to read?
LRH - Oh no, no. Matter of fact, from that aspect, I wouldn't publish it for another reason - a modern Scientologist would laugh at it. It's the only book that contains any nomenclature straight off my case. Many of the descriptive words in it are straight out of my own engrams. I'd had no auditing at the time, I'd had no broad look at the track or anything of that sort, so I just picked up the handiest stuck phrases in the bank.(LRH: Tape Lecture 5804C04, Case Analysis - Q&A Period)

 1939

Hubbard grinds out more stories like "The Ultimate Adventure," that appeared in Unknown and "Slaves of Sleep," that appeared in the July edition of the same magazine. Not a big year when compared to his previous output. He wrote a mere seven novels and two short stories. His efforts might his been impeded by his persistent attempts to be appointed to the National Aeronautics Association on the strength of his previous gliding and flying experience.(The Roots of Scientology)

1939, 1 September

Britain declares war on Germany. Hubbard writes to the Secretary of War offering his services, nothing is done though as the US declares neutrality. Hubbard virtually abandons his family for a small apartment in Manhattan. (The Roots of Scientology)

1939, 12 December

Using credentials that nobody could have possibly checked out he is approved for membership in the prestigious NY Explorers Club. He now begins to call himself "Captain Hubbard." (The Roots of Scientology)

 1940

Hubbard writes "Fear," that appeared in "Unknown" besides "Typewriter in the Sky," and "Final Blackout." (The Roots of Scientology)

John Rawlings Rees M.D.

Address to the Annual Meeting of the National Council for Mental Hygiene June 18th 1940

Especially since the last world war we have done much to infiltrate the various social organisations throughout the country, and in their work and in their point of view one can see clearly how the principles for which this society and others stood in the past have become accepted as part of the ordinary working plan of these various bodies. That is as it should be, and while we can take heart from this we must be healthily discontented and realise that there is still more work to be done along this line. Similarly we have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine...

If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organise some kind of fifth column activity! (The Men behind Hitler, Chapter VIII)
1940, Feb.

In February 1940, Hubbard was accepted as a member of the Explorers' Club of New York... According to his book Mission into Time, Hubbard was awarded the Explorers' Club Flag in May 1940, for an expedition to Alaska aboard his ketch, the Magician. Hubbard called this trip the "Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition." (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 67)

1940, 16 May

Hubbard reports to the FBI that a German steward working at the Knickerbocker Hotel was a Nazi sympathizer whose sister belonged to the SS. (The Roots of Scientology)

1940, July

Hubbard sails his little 30' vessel the Maggie, north on a trip to Alaska. The name of the adventure was: ”ALASKAN RADIO-EXPERIMENTAL EXPEDITION." They arrive in Ketchican on August 30 after many problems with the ship's engine. While there they get a loan from the local bank which is never repaid. (The Roots of Scientology)

1940 - 5.7.

Hubbard's interest in the occult continued, and for six months in 1940 he belonged to the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC). He completed the first two "neophyte" degrees (probably by mail) before his membership lapsed on July 5, 1940." (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 67)

Hubbard's 30's

1941, July

Hubbard stepped up his campaign after he was rejected by the U.S. Navy Reserve in April. His eyesight was inadequate. However, with the expansion of the armed forces due to the growing U.S. committment to the European war, Hubbard's poor eyesight was waived, and he achieved his goal. In July 1941, five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy finally yielded to Hubbard's entreaties, and gave him a commission in the Reserve. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 69)
On his U.S. Navy Reserve commission papers, issued in July, 1941, he was designated a volunteer for "Special Service (Intelligence duties)," an assignment he requested. His service record shows that when he was eventually called to permanent active duty in November, he was indeed posted as an "intelligence officer."
After receiving his Naval Reserve commission, Hubbard was not immediately called to active duty. By this time he was employed as a civilian by the Navy in New York City, working with public relations and recruiting. He was only on active duty for two weeks between his commissioning in July and the end of November. He was ordered to the Hydrographic Office, Bureau of Navigation, in Washington, DC. There he annotated the photographs he had taken during his trip to Alaska the year before. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 71)
Fletcher Prouty (Quote): I joined the U.S. Army in June of 1941; Hubbard joined the Navy in July 1941. We served contemporaneously during the long years of WW II. I served in the Southwest Pacific area during WW II as an air force pilot. I stayed with the Air Force after the war and in 1955 I began a nine-year assignment with the headquarters U.S. Air Force as Chief of the office of Special Operations. This use of the term "Special Operations" covers the meaning of "Air Force support of the clandestine operations of the CIA." After five years in that capacity I was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense [Gates and McNamara] in the same function. This was followed by two more years as Chief of Special Operations with the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [similar function including responsibility for all services.] 
... Almost all of Hubbard's millitary record is replete with markings that signify deep intelligence service at the highest levels. Many of his records, copies of official records, revealed that even the originals had been fabricated in the manner peculiar to the intelligence community in a process that we call "Sheep Dip". I myself have supervised a lot of that function in the offices I managed during 1955-1964. 
"Sheep Dip" is a process that provides, customarily, three files. One is the true civilian record of the agent. One is his agency or military true record. The third is his "cover" personality and all that it takes to support it. (Fletcher Prouty: L. Fletcher Prouty's Letter to Miller's Publisher)

1941, 6.10.

On October 6, he was "honorably released from temporary active duty." (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 71)

1941, Nov.

Hubbard was next called to active duty at the end of November, two weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (7.12.41). (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 71)

1941, 24.11.

On 24 November, after six weeks' leave, he was posted to Headquarters, Third Naval District, in New York, for training as an Intelligence Officer. (Miller: "Bare-faced Messiah", pg 97) 

1942, 11.1.

Hubbard was en route to the Philippines when the ship's destination was changed to Australia. Hubbard left the ship in Brisbane on January 11. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 72)

1942, February

After being transferred from one desk job to another Hubbard is posted to the Philippines. On a layover in Brisbane he so infuriates senior officers to the extent that he was sent home with a bad report. Again he rode a desk, this time in NYC censoring cables. (The Roots of Scientology)
Fletcher Prouty (Quote): I know very well he served in Australia and in fighting off the western coast of Australia, and that he was involved in many other actions. However much of his service was heavily cloaked in security coverage. Have you ever noted that he worked under FDR's chief of Intelligence Vanderbilt?
 ... His "role" in the government was enourmous. (Fletcher Prouty: Letter from Fletcher Prouty)

1942, March

9.3.: Hubbard boarded the MV Pennant, in Brisbane, Australia, bound for the United States. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 72)
...after his return by ship to San Francisco at the end of March 1942, Hubbard was hospitalized for catarrhal fever, which he had contracted aboard ship.
Upon recovering from his cold, Hubbard was posted to intelligence duties at Naval Headquarters in San Francisco. He immediately requested transfer to New York. After two weeks, he was sent to the Office of the Cable Censor in New York. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 73)

1942, June

Hubbard became a Lieutenant senior grade. 
He requested sea duty in the Caribbean, but was posted to Neponset, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, at the end of June 1942. There he was to oversee the conversion of a trawler, the MV Mist, into a Navy yard patrol craft, the USS YP-422. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 73)
Posted to Neponset, MA to take command of a fishing trawler being converted to a gunboat. He is hounded by debtors who dun him for a variety of unpaid bills. 
Hubbard was passed over to command this vessel due to his inability to get along with anyone. He is sent to the Submarine Chaser Training School in Miami instead. (The Roots of Scientology)

1942, 1. Oct.

On October 1, Hubbard was summarily detached from the YP-422 and ordered to New York. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 74)

1942, Nov.

... in November 1942 was ordered to the Submarine Chaser Center, in Florida, for training. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 74)

1942

1943, 17.1.

Hubbard was posted, on January 17, 1943, to the Albina shipyards, in Portland, Oregon. There he was to assist with the fitting out of the PC 815, and to assume command when she was commissioned. The PC 815 was a patrol craft, a "sleek hulled submarine chaser of approximately 280 tons full load," according to Jane's Fighting Ships. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 75)

1943, 20 April

Hubbard takes command of USS PC 815, a new but small sub-chaser. (The Roots of Scientology)

1943, 18-21 May

Hubbard has his ship repeatedly attack a suspected submarine. Other ships and even blimps join the attack but fail to find a target. (The Roots of Scientology)

1943, 8 June

The navy command, after reviewing all data, discounts all possibility that there was a enemy sub in the area at the time Hubbard's ship attacked. The brass consider it a distinct possibility that Hubbard attacked a "Known magnetic deposit." (The Roots of Scientology)

1943, 8 July

Hubbard relieved of command. (The Roots of Scientology)

1943, 28 June

Hubbard has gunnery practice on a small uninhabited island of the coast of southern California. It turns out that this island is owned by Mexico, a minor diplomatic flap occurs. Hubbard is relieved of command and sent back to San Diego to ride a desk.(The Roots of Scientology)

 1943 October

 Attends Naval Small Craft Training Center, San Pedro, CA, for a six week course. (The Roots of Scientology)

1943, December

Posted aboard the USS Algol, a ship now fitting out for heroic duty in the Pacific. The ship earned two battle stars for involment in the invastion of the Philipines and the landing at Okinawa. Hubbard did not partake of this glory having transferred to the Military Government School in Princeton. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1944, July

In July 1944, when the Algol was commissioned, Hubbard was posted as the "Navigation and Training Officer" aboard the shpi, an Attack Cargo Auxiliary Vessel. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 81)

1945, April

In April 1945, Hubbard's duodenal ulcer flared up, and he spent the next seven months on the sick-list, largely as a patient in Oak Knoll Hospital, Oakland, California. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 82)
He was hospitalized for tests in April 1945, took a month's convalescent leave from the end of July, and was again hospitalized (though spent some time as an outpatient) from the end of August until he was mustered out of the Navy on December 6, 1945. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 84)

1945, August

John Whiteside Parsons, usually known as Jack, first met Hubbard at a party in August 1945. (Hubbard and the Occult)
In 1945, Hubbard became involved with Crowley's acolyte, Jack Parsons. Parsons wrote to Crowley that Hubbard had "described his angel as a beautiful winged women with red hair, whom he calls the Empress, and who had guided him through his life and saved him many times." In the Crowleyite system, adherents seek contact with their "Holy Guardian Angel". (Hubbard and the Occult)

1945, 5 September

Hubbard admitted to the US Naval Hospital at Oakland, CA. Here he was treated for a duodenal ulcer. His other complaints included arthritis, hemorrhoids and headaches. (The Roots of Scientology)

 1945, Oct.

In October 1945, a Naval Board gave the opinion that Hubbard was "considered physically qualified to perform duty ashore, preferably within the continental United States." The restriction to duty ashore was due to his chronic ulcer. (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 84)

1945, 5 December

 Hubbard leaves the hospital and is mustered out of the service.  (Jon Atack: A Piece of Blue Sky, pg 84)

1945, 6 December

When his terminal leave from the US Navy began, on Dec 6th, 1945, Hubbard went straight to Parsons' house in Pasadena, and took up residence in a trailer in the yard. Parsons was a young chemist who had helped set up Jet Propulsion Laboratories and was one of the innovators of solid fuel for rockets. Parsons was besotted with Crowley's Sex Magick, and had recently become head of the Agape Lodge of the Church of Thelema in Los Angeles. The Agape Lodge was an aspect of the Ordo Templi Orientis, the small international group headed by Aleister Crowley.
Parsons' girlfriend soon transferred her affection to Hubbard. With her, Hubbard and Parsons formed a business partnership, as a consequence of which Parsons lost most of his money to Hubbard. However, before Hubbard ran away with the loot, he and Parsons participated in magical rituals which have received great attention among contemporary practitioners. (Hubbard and the Occult)

1946, January

Parsons and Hubbard together performed their own version of the secret eighth degree ritual of the Ordo Templi Orientiis in January 1946. The ritual is called "concerning the secret marriage of gods with men" or "the magical masturbation" and is usually a homosexual ritual. The purpose of this ritual was to attract a women willing to participate in the next stage of Hubbard and Parsons' Sex Magick.
Hubbard and Parsons were attempting the most daring magical feat imaginable. They were trying to incarnate the Scarlet Woman described in the Book of Revelation as "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlot and Abominations of the Earth...drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." During the rituals, Parsons described Babalon as "mother of anarchy and abominations". (Hubbard and the Occult)

1946, March

The women who they believed had answered their call, Majorie Cameron, joined in with their sexual rituals in March 1946.
Parsons used a recording machine to keep a record of his ceremonies. He also kept Crowley informed by letter. The correspondence still exists. Crowley wrote to his deputy in New York "I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts".
Crowley was being disingenous. His own novel The Moonchild describes a ritual with a similar purpose. Further, the secret IXth degree ritual of the Ordo Templi Orientis contains "Of the Homunculus" in which the adept seeks to create a human embodiment of one of the energies of nature - a god or goddess. The ritual says "to it thou are Sole God and Lord, and it must serve thee."
In fact, Hubbard and Parsons were committing sacrilege in Crowley's terms. Crowley respelled "Babylon" as he respelled "magic". His magick was entirely dedicated to Babalon, the Scarlet Woman. Crowley believed himself the servant and slave of Babalon, the antichrist, styling himself "The Beast, 666". For anyone to try to incarnate and control the goddess must have been an impossible blasphemy to him. Crowley, after all, called Babalon "Our Lady".
Hubbard and Parsons attempt did not end with the conception of a human child. However, just as Crowley said that "Gods are but names for the forces of Nature themselves", so it might be speculated that Hubbard embodied Babalon not in human form, but through his organization. (Hubbard and the Occult)
Perhaps to that extent that Hubbard was some kind of influence on the more mystical aspects of Montauk/Phoenix operation, but I don't believe he would have supported the specific goals of the project at all. (Phoenix Undead - The Montauk Project and Camp Hero Today: Chapter "Scientology/Dianetics)
... I'm taking this from a chapter on the Wilson family in "Montauk Revisited". Preston Nichols, like other authors before, tries to explain the relationship of Hubbard and Crowley by saying that Hubbard learned from Crowley and that the link between the two was Jack Parsons who Hubbard did experiments in magick with. (Jack Parsons was a rocket engineer and a disciple of Crowley.
This never clicked with me. Firstly, Hubbard didn't spend a lot of time with Jack Parsons. Secondly - and more importantly - all the session data that went into the "Pied Pipers" clearly show that Hubbard as "Elron" was in dead opposition to Yatrus. Given that Crowley at his time was the senior representative of Yatrus on Earth, it wouldn't make sense that Hubbard should seriously study Crowley's magick - except perhaps to find out what the enemy was up to.
The answer to the riddle fell into my lap when at an auditor's convention in 1996, I met a solo auditor who was also a druid. This puzzled me. How would a druid be a solo auditor on Solo 3 or vice versa?
He told me that druids consider themselves to be the keepers of spirituality in Europe. They keep a low profile since the Catholic Church to this day is up in arms against them. Druids are interested in any new development to find out what it's worth, and perhaps to influence it. 
Hubbard's teachings are of particular importance to them. Because Hubbard (he said) was by education a druid. He was entrusted with the task of making druidic knowledge available to mankind in popular language. 
How would my druid friend know this? Because his teacher told him. So I rang the teacher on the phone (a very long-distance call). He confirmed the story and said he had been told it by his teacher who as a child and a young man knew Hubbard personally, at a time when Hubbard was already in his fifties and sailing the Mediterranean in his Sea Org ships.
I asked him if Ron hadn't told this young man some tall story to impress him, because (don't we know?) Ron loved to create his PR image to suit the demands of his environment.
No, said the druid teacher, the story was again confirmed by his teacher's teacher who studied druidism right at the time when Hubbard studied it - in the 1930's. They didn't study in the same place but knew of each other.
So for better or worse, here is the full story as it was given to me: Ron, born into a clan of magicians and witches, received a druid education from late childhood on. It lasted some 15 years. He was entrusted with the task of rendering Crowley powerless since Crowley was into black magic, and black magic is not what druids favour. Further, and as his masterpiece, he was to rehabilitate druidic knowledge in the eyes of the world. 
Ron was excluded from druidic circles when he founded the "Church of Scientology" in 1954 since it's against druidic policy to start a religion. (L.Kin, Volume 4, From the Bottom to the Top)

1947, August

L. Ron Hubbard marries Sarah Northrup. Divorce 1951. (Friedrich Wilhelm Haack "Scientology - Magie des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Scientology - magic of the 20th century), pg. 26)

1948

During these years his practice and reputation expanded as he continued to develop and refine his techniques. He wrote up the elements of Dianetics in 1948, later published as The Original Thesis. It was not possible to find a publisher at the time and attempts to get articles on the subject published in the medical or psychiatric journals also failed. (The Sad Tale of Scientology, Eric Townsend, Chapt. 4, pg. 12)
World Federation for Mental Health (NGO), founded in 1948... in the same era as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Hubbard later identified it as a rigidly-structured organization whose purpose was social control and world citizenship. He argued that the power and policy making of the WFMH remained in the hands of a few men whose personal backgrounds reveal radical views and subversive connections. (O. Garrison, Hidden Story of Scientology, pg. 125)

1948, early

1949

The need of organizations to serve the First Dynamic (individual) Tech beginning in 1949 forced further and further into view the absence of Third Dynamic (group) Tech and its vital need. (HCO POLICY LETTER OF 11 APRIL 1970, Third Dynamic Tech)

 1949, July

Hubbard had arrived in Bay Head, New Jersey, in mid-1949, armed with the fundamentals of his new science. John Campbell, the highly influential editor, had been converted to Dianetics by a counseling session which relieved his sinusitis, and became an eager recruiter.
Among those brought into the Hubbard circle by Campbell was Joseph Winter, M.D., who had written medical articles for Astounding. An early letter to Winter, written in July 1949, shows Campbell's enthusiasm for the new subject:
With cooperation from some institutions, some psychiatrists, he (Hubbard) has worked on all types of cases. Institutionalized schizophrenics, apathies, manics, depressives, perverts, stuttering, neuroses - in all nearly 1000 cases. He has cured every patient he worked. He has cured ulcers, arthritis, asthma. (A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack, pg. 106)

 1949, September 

In September 1949, the Soviets successfully tested an atomic bomb. The Communists came to power in China, under Mao Tse-tung, the following month. (A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack)

 1949, October 

Winter visited Hubbard in Bay Head in October 1949, later saying he "became immersed in a life of Dianetics and very little else". (A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack, pg. 106)

1949, 17.10.

1949, 13.11.

1949, 3.12.

1949, December 

In December 1949, an announcement appeared in America's leading science fiction magazine:
The item that most interests me at the moment is an article on the most important subject conceivable. It is an article on the science of the human mind, of human thought. It is a totally new science, called dianetics, and it does precisely what a science of thought should do. Its power is almost unbelievable; following the sharply defined basic laws dianetics sets forth, physical ills such as ulcers, asthma and arthritis can be cured, as can all other psychosomatic ills.
The magazine was Astounding Science Fiction, and editor John Campbell's article was the first mention in print of Dianetics. (A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack)
In his autobiography "Over My Shoulder", publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshback remembered taking lunch with John Campbell and Ron Hubbard in 1949. Hubbard repeated a statement he had already made to several other people. He said he would like to start a religion, because that was where the money was. (A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack, pg. 136)

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