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us 02
---
title: "Understanding Scientology — us-02"
source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-02.html
retrieved: 2026-06-28
---
Understanding Scientology, by Margery
Wakefield
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Chapter 2
## L. Ron Hubbard -- Messiah? Or Madman?
It is worthy of note that the most notorious quacks, often
men of genius and education, though mentally ill-balanced, and morally
of low standards, have been great travelers and shrewd observers of
human nature. When such an one becomes ambitious to acquire wealth, he
is likely to prove a dangerous person in the community.
-- Robert Means Lawrence, 1910
Ironically, ... most messiahs have had markedly unstable
lives. Their backgrounds and life histories are rife with traumatic
experiences. It is commonplace among them that their calling is
precipitated by crisis, nervous breakdown, and physical collapse. Most
messiahs are people who have been unable to successfully integrate
themselves into ordinary society. They are marginal individuals --
members of groups denied access to power, or individuals who for a
variety of reasons have failed to achieve it. As a group, messiahs also
display other characteristics. They are ambitious, intelligent, and
rigid; thus, despite their inability to follow the usual routes to
success, they manage to create their own.
-- Willa Appel, Cults in America
To his followers, L. Ron Hubbard was larger than life. The
biographies of Hubbard given within the cult portray the metamorphosis
of this legendary man in stages from youthful prodigy, to teenager
adventurer, to brave war hero, to the long-suffering messiah who gave
his life for all. It would seem only logical that a man of the
extraordinary accomplishments boasted of by Hubbard would have had an
equally extraordinary life.
Unfortunately, while the legendary accomplishments of this cult guru
might have made interesting fodder for one of his swashbuckling
adventure novels, the true facts of his life reveal quite another
picture. As with the Wizard of Oz, once the curtain was drawn, the
fearsome wizard was just an ordinary man. So it was with Hubbard.
The official biography states:
L. Ron Hubbard was born in Tilden, Nebraska, on the 13th of March,
1911. His father was Commander Harry Ross Hubbard of the United States
Navy. His mother was Dora May Hubbard.... (1)
So far, everything is true.
Because his father was away at sea, the biography continues:
Ron spent his early childhood years on his grandfather's large
cattle ranch in Montana, said to cover a quarter of the state. It was on
this ranch that he learned to read and write by the time he was three
and a half years old. (2)
The truth is that Hubbard's grandfather was a small town
veterinarian who did not own a cattle ranch in Montana. After Hubbard
and his parents relocated to Helena, Montana, where his father was hired
to manage a local theater, the grandparents soon followed, bought a
house on Fifth Avenue, and the grandfather opened the Capital City Coal
Company.
In another biography, Hubbard boasted that his great-grandfather,
I. C. DeWolfe, was a distinguished sea captain. It is not known whether
the grandfather was a sea captain; however, it is known that I. C. were
the initials of his great-grandmother, not his great-grandfather.
The story continues:
L. Ron Hubbard found the life of a young rancher very enjoyable.
Long days were spent riding, breaking broncos, hunting coyote and taking
his first steps as an explorer. For it was in Montana that he had his
first encounter with the Blackfoot Indians. He became a blood brother of
the Blackfoot.... When he was ten years old, he rejoined his family....
(3)
Although these events may have existed in the imagination of a young
boy in Montana, that is the only place where they did, in fact, exist.
Young Ron Hubbard lived with his parents in a small apartment on
Rodney Street in Helena, and he attended the local kindergarten. His
grandparents and his lively maternal aunts lived nearby. When he was six
years old, his father enlisted in the Navy after the start of World War
I. For the next few years, Ron and his mother followed Harry to a series
of port cities where he was stationed.
By the time he was twelve years old, young Ron Hubbard had read a
large number of the world's greatest classics -- and his interest in
philosophy and religion was born. Ron Hubbard had the distinction of
being the only boy in the country to secure an Eagle Scout badge at the
age of twelve years. In Washington, D.C., he had also become a close
friend of President Coolidge's son, Calvin Jr., whose early death
accelerated L. Ron Hubbard's interest in the mind and spirit of man. (4)
Although Hubbard did receive an Eagle Scout badge at the age of
thirteen, the Boy Scouts of America keeps only an alphabetical listing
of Eagle Scouts, with no record of their ages. Hubbard was chosen,
during his thirteenth year, to go with forty other scouts to shake the
hand of President Coolidge, who was being given an honor by the Scouts.