Portal:Scientology/Selected biography/6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was an American author in numerous pulp fiction genres as well as a prolific writer of non-fiction works, creator of Dianetics, and founder of the Church of Scientology. Hubbard was a highly controversial public figure during his lifetime. Many details of his life remain disputed, with official and unofficial biographies depicting Hubbard in radically different ways. Official Scientology biographies present him in hagiographic terms as "larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in two dozen fields." In contrast, unofficial biographies (some of which are by former Scientologists) paint a much less flattering picture which often contradicts official Church accounts. One of Hubbard's unofficial biographers, Russell Miller, describes him as "one of the most successful and colourful confidence tricksters of the twentieth century" and comments that "every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments." Particular areas of Hubbard's life described differently by the Church of Scientology and unofficial biographies include his career in the military, his motivation for forming Scientology as an "applied religious philosophy," and his role in various Scientology-related controversies.
