Citation Needed - L. Ron Hubbard

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (/ˈhʌbərd/ HUB-ərd; [1] March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy stories, and the founder of the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and established a series of organizations to promote Dianetics. In 1952, Hubbard lost the rights to Dianetics in bankruptcy proceedings, and he subsequently founded Scientology. Thereafter Hubbard oversaw the growth of the Church of Scientology into a worldwide organization.[2][3] Hubbard was cited by Smithsonian magazine as one of the 100 most significant Americans of all time.[4] --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

So then he did a crossover and behind the back and then he drove into the paint, junk fucking amazing, just amazing. So he put the ball in the hoop that he was aiming to get the ball in the hoop. But the way he did it, Tom, was like, really cool. It was just like, he's like, I can't, I can't get excited about that. I'm just, it's not working. I am not telling you until we do a Scientology day. We are not doing a Scientology day.

I don't care what the subject is. I mean, today's episode is about El Ron Hubbard, so. Yay! So, it's all on, sorry, what's going on? No. Well, Eli is kidnapped Heath because he wants to be authentic, I guess, for the Scientology show. And, and I won't give him back until this list

of demands is met. Let me see that thing. Give me that. I laminated it. We are not dressing up in Navy outfits with cut off shorts. Thank you, Tom. Yeah. Again. And Eli, this diagram here, I'm not sure the E meter cans are supposed to go there. I think you're just supposed to hold them, not insert them into, you know, boo. Yeah. And I'm not cleaning your boat, even if you someday have a boat. So. All right. Well, then none of you are getting Keith back. That's kind of, that's fine by me. I don't need anything off the top shelf. You guys know, go ladder does that really? You're all just walking away? shelf, you guys. I'm good. I'm good. A ladder does that. Really? You're all just walking away? Well, you won't get Heath back and I can't return these jeans

because I cut them into asless shorts. So, so Heath would be dead and you'd be wasting money. Guys, also Heath has no water. He's gonna dot, guys. So you were just like his parents. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because it's the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be running this group audit without proper accounting credentials

But I won't be the only Thayton from the mean streets of T jack to get blasted out of a volcano today First up a guy who thought an angram was a mediocre football player no illusions Well, I okay and and my definition exists. So, they're in the tangible mode. I feel like I'm in a windfish one. So, too. Also, joining me are two guys that uninstalled their emiters because they were afraid it was tracking their data. Tom and Eli.

Okay. Cecil, I told you, if I can't argue with a Nazi on a piece of technology, I'm not interested. When I got my hands on a couple of sweet cans, I don't want anyone at all reporting to me. No one needs to track that. My business.

Patrons, there's never been a better time to contribute to the citation needed legal fund. If you'd like to learn how to keep our team of lawyers on retainer, be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that, of the way, Noah, tell us what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. Well, thanks to a patron Dan Isarari, and thanks might be the wrong word there. We'll be talking about L. Ron Hubbard. Great. And Tom, you preemptively throughout all your psychology books and anticipation of this. Yeah, man, I like my books the way I like my porn.

So it's scratch and sniff pop up or nothing. All right, Tom, who was Elrond Hubbard? All right. Elrond Hubbard was the world's most prolific author. Oh, I bet his books were really good that, huh? prolific, I said. And founder of the new age, self-help celebrity obsessed naval themed lie detector cult known as Scientology.

And we're sued. There it was, everybody. We can prove all of those words. I think so. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what's indefensible there. Born in 1911 and tilled into Braske, a Lodora May, a schoolteacher and Harry Ross Hubbard and Naval Officer, Elrond Hubbard would emerge from his humble Midwestern origins to eventually

own an international floating boat church and two later dice a questored in hiding in a very nice motor home in California. And as absolutely fucking nuts, a trajectory in life as this may seem, the full story of Elrond Hubbard is quite a bit more lunatic than I had imagined before reading. Right, but not more lunatic than he could have imagined because your story doesn't have alien volcanoes. Well, the volcanoes are terrestrial. It's the aliens in them.

You don't find them on DC8. Well, You don't fly into them on DC eights. Well, they're not. They're not DC eights. They're families. Space DC. Right. In order to not invent technology, I'll just say everything looked the way it looks now. That's what I just invented. Uh, Jesus. As a child, Hubbard moved around quite a lot, as what might expect to the father and the Navy. He moved several times within the States and

also overseas. And despite this, Hubbard managed to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scout organization. Now, I only mentioned this because this seems to be the only formal accomplishment in his biography that I can find. And so it's some, and really for real, it seems somewhat churlish, not to at least throw it in there, but then to be equally fair, he also claimed that he was the youngest person ever to become an eagle spout. A claim which is his nonsensical to make as it would be to test since the scouts don't even track that information. No, shit, it's like weird flags, but okay, dude, the VU. Neil Armstrong, Bill Gates,

Elrond Hubbard, they're on a wall together somewhere else. All together. All right, now Hubbard also claimed to be spent much of his childhood as a cowboy on his family's ranch, despite the fact that his family never owned a ranch. He also claimed that at age four, he became blood brothers with a black foot medicine man. What? Despite the black foot tribes, total lack of having any such blood brother ritual. So they just, you should see this child support. Check yesterday right to the entire Niagara Falls area. It's fucking huge. Elrondbard. Alex Jones before it was cool.

I don't know shit. It reminds me of that story that Alex Jones was telling about how he's like when he was 13, he was banging all the cheerleaders. Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't be like Satan stuff. What did they put makeup on me? I got my magma all over, you know what I mean? Now, throughout his world travels, young Hubbard drank in the richness and variety of the local peoples and he reveled in their customs and cultures. No, that's actually, that's not true at all.

What he did instead was he remarked in his travel journal regarding his visits to China in Japan that the gooks are lazy and ignorant. Jesus Christ. So something of a swing and a miss there. There's a lot of audience. There's quotes around that verse. That is not my editorializing. Tom said what he said. Technically, it broke. Tom, he takes one week off. He takes one week off. I try and fill each other's stick. It's weird. So something of a swing and a miss on the

cultural appreciation front at a young age, though, is accounting of that experience was that he spent a year as a neophyte before I made into a llama priest. So totally can see how he might have confused those. I love the experiences. I'm sorry. A llama. His llama priest mentor is actually kind of famous. Maybe you heard of him. Al Pacca. I'm actually a shitton.

That's a shitton, that's a shitton, that's a shitton. That was a definite shitton. What's great about Hubbard being a crazy liar is that he's like post Joseph Smith. I saw an angel in these tribe massacred themselves, crazy liar, but he's like post Joseph Smith. I saw an angel in these tribe massacred themselves crazy liar, but he's pre no while you're alive. We can Google that crazy liar. So the perfect combination of crazy and lies. He's the Arnold Palmer of crazy. Yeah. No, I see what you mean a person with crazy ideas like that could never find a home on the internet.

Thanks. How do we can check? All right. Now, a few more notes that I just have to throw in here somewhere because they're fucking amazing. And I'm going to have to ask you forgiveness on the chronology. His claims have no specificity as to when he purports that they happen. So and since they never occurred, I figured I could just throw him in any words.

It's here would be a good spot. That's how lies work. Robert claims that he lived with Tibetan bandits that he befriended Manchurian warlords. Who knew all you needed was one code word to do that? That's just one. And he also claims that he helped savages on a South Pacific island lose their fear of cave monsters by explaining to them that it was simply the roar of the ocean. Shots the fuck off of monsters.

Now no one is really sure when these fetishized versions of the exotic savage stories were supposed to have happened, but since they didn't actually happen, I'm just going to say they all happened on October 4th, 1926. It's being taught to five year olds on a secret slave boat international waters. Great job, Tom. Great job. Now it's can. May as well be, man. In 1927, Hubbard began his high school career where he was not a great student, a problem he remedied by ceasing to be a student and dropping out almost as soon as he started. Now eventually he made his way to Guam and his mother began to tutor him with the hopes of helping him gain admittance to the naval

academy, probably because at some point the military is just a boarding school. You don't have to pay for it to get rid of the kids that you don't like. That's actually on all their pamphlets now. The military is just a boarding school. You don't have to pay for it to get rid of the kids. You don't like right there on the front. I'd say they would go up by four in Illinois. I'll say that. In 1928, he failed to Naval entrance exam and he decided perhaps school was a good idea after I'll probably try that again. So you try to enroll in prep school, but it was ruled out for being near-sighted, which I thought that was just kind of fucking rude. And eventually

end up graduating from the Woodward School for Boys in Washington, D.C. in 1930. Yeah, like hold on, they wouldn't let kids in because they were near sighted. No, the prep schools back then went by what? Levitical admission standards. I'm sorry. No, you have a blemish on your leg there. Can't help you. How can you even tell who the nerds in the school that are? That's fucking confusing. Yeah, he wedgy.

You know what the fuck? Hubbard went on to George Washington University declaring a major in civil engineering, but civil engineering is super hard. So he failed so many of his courses. He was placed on probation and eventually given an academic warning due to all those shit grains. His utter and complete academic failure, though, in no way deterred him from claiming to be a nuclear physicist. Also, he failed physics. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever the hardest physics is. Yeah, I did that one.

Yeah. Oh, today would be a quantum physicist. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, I think his whole life is like I tried that once I was bad at it. I'm an expert. Like, that's like his whole trajectory. This is a guy. This is a guy who's like, yeah, I'm an expert in strength theory and he can't even tie his shoes. In his senior year at George Washington, somehow, and I can't it possibly imagine how Hubbard organized an expedition to the Caribbean on a schooner. The point to the expedition being to film pirate strongholds and bivouacs and to, I love this quote, collect whatever one collects for exhibits in museums. I know. Rocks and shit. Please give me a book.

I feel like reasons I can't possibly fathom. This was green lighted, but Hubbard's Caribbean vacation was a shit show from the very start before the ship even left Baltimore, 10 participants quit. Then a storm blew the ship off course to Bermuda where 11 more crew members quit. And then more again quit when they arrived in Martinique. The expedition itself ran out of money before finding anything a museum might want. And the ship's owners decided they wanted their fucking boat back. Participants of the failed expedition demanded recompense for the disaster.

And so, uh, bird, quit the university and ran off. Man, experiential learning credit used to be baller and now it's like feed this homeless guy and then promptly forget that homeless people existed. I wish you were harder. Okay. I'm sorry. I want to reflect on what an incredible asshole Elron Hubbard has to be, right? He's got a bunch of students just lazily sailing in the Caribbean for college credit. And they're going, fuck this jackass.

I'm going back to Baltimore, Maryland. Right. And not just one guy, all of them. He lost them all. right. And not just one guy, all of them. All right, so February of 1933, Hubbard met Margaret Polly Grub and the two were married six months later on April the 13th. Margaret was pregnant at the time that they got married and a cynic might say that that's why they got married, but jokes on them because she miscarried right after the marriage. Fucking classic. A few months later though, she got

re-impegnated and the first of Hubbard's children, Lafayette, Ronald Hubbard, Jr. was born. Just a couple of years after LRH Jr. was born, along came Catherine May in 1936. And if you know anything about El Ron Hubbard, the fact that she wasn't named Ronaldo Hubbardena Hubbardena. Fucking miracle. And I want to He said, I'm fucking miracle. And I want to say too, let's go back, let's roll back to the miscarriage here for a second. I just want to say that the real trick is when someone has a baby and then you pull the

entire uterus out and the miscarriage is still in there. That's the real trick. It's like a tablecloth trick. Exactly. Exactly. You guys still in its wrapper. It's like a tablecloth trick. Exactly. Exactly. You like it? I get it. I'm still in its wrapper.

You like it. Come on. Was this your baby? I know having kids is fucking expensive and I'll run Hubbard and family were chronically broke. So Hubbard turned his attention to writing, paid on average a penny award and writing for pulp fiction magazines, Hubbard worked at an unreal rate. He wrote so much and he wrote so quickly that he had to use rolls of butcher paper in his typewriter so he'd have to change pages and he typed at such a pace that sweat poured

from him onto his keyboard. But for some reason, he published regularly under a number of pseudonyms, all of which are fucking amazing, including Winchester Remington Colt. Fantastic. That's amazing. Oh my God. It's my new name. Joe Blitz.

Nice real name. And sometimes just Legionnaire. Fuck it. His writing was by most accounts passable at best. And although he's most well known for writing sci-fi, he pretty much whore himself out to any genre that had a checkbook. He wrote everything from adventure fiction, travel, mysteries, Westerns to romances. If he could squeeze a penny from a word, he'd write it.

Probably worth pointing out that, well, Wikipedia doesn't mention it either. Hubbard was the fastest typist in the universe or he and his wife both turned out his shitty plot list of genre grabs and gave him the credit because they were hoping he'd get an A for effort. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. So 1884 books is the number I was finding. That's about 21 books a year from 1933 until he died.

And later on, you'll see years that he doesn't write shit in. So incredible. Yeah. Now eventually Hubbard was taken under the wing of editor John W. Campbell. And although they were still struggling financially, Hubbard's first novel, Buckskin Brigades, which sounds like a porn was published as we're a number of serialized novel ads. Hubbard wrote as many as a hundred thousand words a month, often hold up in a hotel room in New York, where he also pursued other holes in the form of affairs. He managed somehow to have, despite being both a fucking horror show to behold and broke to boot. He's trying to pay prostitutes and words. Look, this blog post is worth at least $5.

Let's get it. The very idea that a broke Elron Hubbard managed to cheat on his wife means no woman in the history of ever should feel bad about or doubt herself unless you fucked Elron. He should feel bad about themselves. In 1938, Hubbard had a revelation during a near death experience. And that revelation was, I think, that you can lie about anything. And if you seem sincere enough, people will try not to notice you're lying. It was at this time that Hubbard had the inspiration to write ex-caliber, a manuscript that still

has not been officially published, and which has said to be the basis for dynex, which is the groundwork for Scientology. And that near death experience, by the way, that was actually just a dental extraction with nitrous, but that didn't stop him from claiming a transcendent experience of perfect clarity as having occurred to him while he was dead. Oh, what do you mean that wasn't a near death experience? I was in a graveyard. What? Alron Hubbard, history's first douchebag to claim to have overdosed on marijuana.

Excited about surviving his harrowing dental appointment. And jazz is all hell about ex caliber. Hubbard called the president of the American fiction guild and he proclaimed that ex-caliber would quote revolutionize everything. And I love this, that it was somewhat more important and would have a greater impact upon people than the Bible. Ex-caliber you see put forth the rather radical notion that all life was aimed at surviving, and so behavior of all sorts could be understood if he filtered behavior through that idea. So clearly this is a once in a generation revelation that no one had written about definitely not in 1859.

Yeah, yeah. He, he, he, he Christopher Columbus evolution. He was like evolution according to Eli though. Apparently, right, right. Right. In the book, he's just like, so these finches, they're sitting around, they can, I gotta get a bed of be.

That's it. I totally undeterred by history or science or the history of science. Hubbard contacted several publishers and told him that he had written the book and that they were to meet him at Penn station where I guess he's going to make them do all or something. I don't know for the rights to publish ex-caliber, but instead no one at all offered to publish the book. Hubbard later told his agent that the reason for this was that the book was so powerful that whoever read it went insane or committed suicide and that the last time a reader at

a publishing house read the manuscript, the reader walked into the room, threw the manuscript on the table and jumped out of a skyscraper. Well, well, having read a few dozen pages of dionetics, I can sympathize with that. Let me just say a book that makes you prince Tom and yourself probably isn't very market of bloggers. Oh, Counterpoint, Cecil, infinite jest, infinite jest. I was going to stay on theme and just say season eight

of Game of Thrones, but sure, yeah, no infinite jest. That's also good. No, it keeps jumping out his first floor window. The hunter was depressed and has failure to sell ex caliber, having in his head that he was destined for bigger things, telling his wife, quote, sooner or later, ex-caliber will be published. And I may have a chance to get some name recognition out of it, so as to pave the way to articles and comments, which are my idea of writing heaven foolishly, perhaps, but determined nonetheless, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history

so violently that it will take a legendary form, even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I'm concerned. Uh, I want to have the last book standing is a weird goal. Two books, enter one book, please. I just appreciate his humility. And, you know, the next caliber, while never formally published, would later become part of the Scientology Methos. By the early 1950s, copies of X caliber were sold to Scientologists for $1,500 and they were sold bound and locked with the warning that four of the first 15

people who read it went insane and that information found within its pages were only to be made known after Elrond Hubbard was dead. And one of those four people later went on to jump on a couch on Oprah. I feel like people reading that book start a little insane. Come on. It's on the average. In 1941, a Hubbard applied to join the Navy, begging a letter from a friend of his who was a representative for Washington State.

I fucking love this. The recommendation letter indicated that Hubbard was quote, one of the most brilliant men I've ever known. Unquote. And that sounds great until someone later asked Hubbard's friend about the letter to which he replied that Hubbard had written the letter himself and he wasn't even sure what the letter was supposed to have been used for. Oh, Jesus. Hey, man, you, you, you mind signing this letter?

Oh, sure. What's it saying? And what do you need to do? Oh, oh, oh, all the questions all of a sudden, Jesus, what are the friends now? I know. And a hubbub was commissioned as a lieutenant and sent to New York for intelligence training. Spoiler, it didn't take. Now, a few months later, he was posted to the Philippines, but before he could even get to the Philippines, he was rejected and sent back to the States. The US Naval attaché writing quote, this officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous

and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty. Dude got rejected by the Navy in 1941. Yeah. Wriggle Sam wanted everyone except Elrond. A little asker's on the poster. Jesus. I totally didn't catch that.

I tried his hand for a bit as a censor, but eventually grew bored and rasteless and he put it for ship duty, reporting to a shipyard in Massachusetts where a trawler was being fitted into a gunboat. The common dawn to the Navy indicate that Hubbard was, quote, not temperamentally fitted for independent command. And Hubbard was summarily relieved of his command of a boat that had not yet set to see. But, oh, and remember this whole time, 21 books a year. Think about how great they must be.

He is. Now, Hubbard clearly wasn't terribly useful, but this was wartime. So they tried again, they sent him to submarine chaser school in a 1943. He was given command of the USS PC815 on the first day out of port, first day, five hours after leaving San Diego, Hubbard, insistent that he detected an enemy submarine, spent 68 hours locked in a life or death battle with a rock formation under the sea. Oh, Jesus. Eventually he and the rock called it a draw. And then he called back to a story after having used all of the ships at depth charges.

Okay. Wikipedia doesn't mention it, but when he started giving talks, Hubbard sold himself as the victor of a major naval battle. This was that battle. Well, okay, but to be fair, he was on a submarine commanded by El Ron Hubbard. That's way more near death than even the most harrowing of wisdom tooth extraction. That's true. Now, only a month later, Hubbard mistook an inhabited island belonging to Mexico for an uninhabited American owned island.

And so he used that island for gunnery practice. What? Mexico was deeply fucking unimpressed. Then Hubbard was again relieved of his command. The report of the incident noting that Hubbard was, quote, lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. And they noted that the only possible way to make any use of him was to sign him to a ship full of babysitters, quote, where he can be properly supervised.

I know it weren't paying the person who was writing his reassignment orders per word. Jesus. Now, this is the summation of Hubbard's wartime achievements. And if it sounds like a summation also of his academic achievements, then that just means you're paying some attention here. Hubbard spent the rest of his naval career pretending to be sick to get out of duty. He complained of malaria, ulcers, back pains, headache, rheumatism, conjunctivitis, pains in the sides, stomach aches, arthritis and hemorrhoids. And Noah still gets for podcasts.

That's a man. Uh, uh, uh, uh, anybody else feel like hemorrhoids was the excuse he went to after the commanding officer started saying, okay, show me. Show me. The naval board wasn't having any of this shit. See that he was quote, considered physically qualified to perform duty assure and quote, but then throwing in the rather snarky, preferably within the continental United States, like when I ship in this fucker overseas work counts. For his part, Hubbard had to remind himself that he was faking all of this, writing to

himself quote, you're stomach trouble. You used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you. You are free of the Navy. Hubbard's own accounting has a few minor discrepancies from the official naval records. So, this is Hubbard in his own writing about his naval career. Blinded with injured optic nerves and lame with physical injuries to hip and back. At the end of World War II, I faced an almost nonexistent future. My service record states, quote, this officer has no neurotic or psychotic tendencies of any

kind whatsoever, but it also states permanently physically disabled. Look, guys, I'm so sane. They felt the need to point it out. He goes, and so there came a further blow. I was abandoned by family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple and a probable burden upon them for the rest of my days. Yet I worked my way back to fitness and strength in less than two years using only what I knew about man and his relationship to the universe. I had no one to help me. What I had to know I had to find out and it's quite a trick studying when you cannot see.

It is. It goes himself out. I became used to being told it was all impossible that there was no way, no hope. Yet I came to see again and walk again. Yeah, sure, Al-Ran. that there was no way, no hope yet. I came to see again and walk again. Yeah. Sure. I'll run and that I'll try and check. Curator cancer with salad too, buddy. Hey, credit where credits do bragging about curing yourself of the shit you made up is some next level. Now, none of this, of course, was even remotely true, but it didn't stop Hubbard from

on occasion. And I love this as well. Secredding small pieces of metal in his pocket, which we then dropped as he would walk, claiming that the pieces were shrapneled that his body continued to reject and push out the fuck up. Yeah, sometimes I ejaculate lug nuts. It's a pretty serious condition. It's very serious. So, Emily, I don't laugh at me. It's worse before it's better.

And after the war, Hubbard's wife declined to move to California and uprooted family. And so rather than moving to Washington, where his family lived, Hubbard instead moved into the mansion of famed occultist Jack Parsons. We're cooking got to work, seducing Parsons girlfriend Sarah Northrop. Now, for his part, Parsons didn't seem to mind because he was into some pretty freaky shit. And having someone else sexing up your girlfriend is rather small potatoes when you are focused on creating a Babylonian sex magic ritual to summon the Supreme Thelomite goddess.

So getting away. Hubbard happily participated in these rituals, by the way. They mostly involved watching Parsons jerk off while Hubbard scanned the astral planes for signs of the key mask. Hubbard's like, maybe I could watch from the other room. No, you have to be here to watch for demons. Okay, cool. I could watch from the other room. No, you have to be here to watch for demons. Okay, cool. When I jerk off, now the elemental goddess appeared, which surprised everybody as long as we consider that goddess to be a woman in Marjorie Cameron, she agreed to participate in the sex magic rituals and that made Parsons happy. So I guess everybody won. I don't know. So naturally Sarah Hubbard and Parsons decided to send the whole watch me jerk off into

a goddess arrives plan and worked so well. It only made sense to start a business together together, but mostly individually, they invested a huge amount of Parsons money into a company called Allied Enterprises. Now, their business plan involved sailing yachts from Miami to the West Coast, then reselling the yachts there because somehow that's a business. What? Perfect crime. See, I take this dollar from my back pocket. I light it on fire. I put the ashes in

my front pocket. It's foolproof. Foolproof. Because you see, technically all those pieces of ash are a dollar. So I've got like four million dollars now. If you want one, a Harvard thought this whole thing was a great idea. So you let Parsons sink a ton of money into yachts and then he promptly attempted to steal one of them and sail around the world. But instead of storm, blew them back to the mainland almost immediately and he was discovered

for his theft. Parsons was financially ruined and had to sell that sweet sex dungeon mansion. And then all Hubbard could offer and recompense was a promissory note, which he never repaid. Wait. I owe you one sex dungeon mansion. Do you accept words? I love it. This dude's grandson comes to the funeral or whatever. It says to the executive of state, like, I know this is going to sound weird. The executive is like, not at this

point. Yeah. It really. In 1946, Hubbard became a bigamist, marrying Sarah despite still being married to Polly. As Sarah eventually found out that he was still married and he divorced Polly and set to work writing his affirmations, these appear to be just some very fucking weird things. He felt like he needed to remind himself.

And if nothing else proves to you that Hubbard was a con man, these are the lies he needed to write down. So he wouldn't confuse himself. Oh, okay. One, your eyes are getting progressively better. They became bad when you use them as an excuse to escape the naval academy. You have no reason to keep them bad. What?

Two, your hip is opposed. You have a sound hip. It never hurts. Your shoulder never hurts. Three, your? Two, your hip is opposed. You have a sound hip. It never hurts. Your shoulder never hurts. Three, your foot was an alibi. The injury is no longer needed. Okay. Okay, wait, wait.

I feel like now he's lying about lying about lying about injury. I'm pretty sure that's what's happening now. The next one masturbation does not injure or make insane. Your parents were in error. Everyone masturbates. And everyone masturbates is the title of his unpublished children's book. Everyone masturbates while they poop sold even worse than everyone masturbates. It's a crossover. So we're cause you bought so many copies I would have thought it would have been. But then the weird thing is don't let the pigeon jerk you off while you are pooping

so it's a well. And then if you let a pigeon jerk you off while you're pooping, parents all love those jokes. I do say like I got to read children's books. If you give them out the cookie, wow, thank you, humor. I can have no doubts in my psychic powers, another affirmation. Here's a good one. You can sing beautifully. Your voice can imitate any singer. And the next one is you can throw a football over those mountains. Yes, you can. Then they start to get fucking weird. Man, I only get weird. Well, I mean, yeah, for Hubbard weird, right? Men are your slaves. Elemental spirits are your slaves. I feel like you wouldn't need the men man. You will live to be 200 years old.

Oh, spoiler alert, he would not. Yeah. No. You are as sensitive and sexy as Pan. Pan, sexual. Singing to women for you sing like a master, destroys their will to resist. What? What?

You're my voice is like getting raped. I don't want to have it. What? Your sexual power is magnificent and they know it. If they were afraid of it, that is their loss. You are not affected by it. It's mean to read heates notes while he's not here, guys. Well, time's so far.

We have a dude who tells lies that a rate rarely matched by anyone not holding office. So let's take a break to recalibrate our orgone generators and let the audience enjoy a little apropos of nothing. I don't even know if they use orgone generators, but don't care. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am the Doctor of Spirits, Elrond Hubbard. What you will see tonight made us debut. I trade in forces of the dark. Fourses of the forbidden, so be warned. I can't win. Yeah, first demonstration. The weak willed among you may wish to leave for I.

Shall remove my thumb. Oh, no. No. And now it is crystal. Oh, you have to take all my money and start a boat religion, I say! Mine too! Mine too! This is how it actually went. Okay, so before we took a break, we had a story of a failed naval officer who like to steal

boats and jerk off a look at it the sky. What's next for Al-Ran, Tom? What isn't? In April of 1949, Hubbard began attempting to sell the shit stream of nonsense that would eventually become dyonetics, writing to several professional medical organizations to offer what he called his research. Of course, the random musings of a chronic failure are not research. Correct, Tom, that's a blog. Okay. So not in front of the cult. So he was rejected by, well, everyone. And so he called his science fiction editor for help.

Well, everyone. And so he called his science fiction editor for help. On Campbell, a sucker for New Age mumbo jumbo, psionics bullshit, set Hubbard and Sarah up with a place to live. And along with a friend named Joseph Winter, they began to test Hubbard's therapy techniques on science fiction fans recruited by Campbell. And this was where the basic principles of dyinetics really began to take shape. Vast marking the most disappointing thing to come out of the science fiction genre until the Phantom Menace. Now, Hubbard believed that half of your brain was fucking perfect. It recorded in cataloged every event and moment of your life and all of your past lives

too. And that said, if your brain could do no wrong, was basically just like doing riddle in and coke and molly all the time, just high octane performance always. So remember, kids, if you want your brain working optimally, citation needed recommends riddle in cocaine and MDMA constantly. I mean, at least two of us do. I could promise you that.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work. All right. I need you to say it wouldn't work. Majority. All right. But all that sounds great. But that is only half of your brain. The other half was the reactive side of your brain. And that's side. That side's a real piece of shit. That side is why sometimes you try to sleep. Instead, you remember that time you puked and shit yourself simultaneously. Stay up all night hating yourself. In Dynetics, you had to recall the root memory that was causing you the neurosis. And through a process called auditing, those bad memories or N grams could be robbed of their power. And thus, you would be made clear.

So basically what he did is he renamed some of the basic principles of talk therapy and then he repackaged them. But he also claimed that those who were clear would be free of illness, as all illness was psychosomatic. And this process could improve your IQ, curasma, ulcers, the common cold, you name it. All right. He might as well have called it on Eli yourself in 12 easy facts. Yeah, let's be clear, because he added a bit out on Hubbard.

So he took something that existed and added a bunch of fucking insane. Like he says, like most of those psychoses come from memories you formed while a fetus. So, you're nothing if not originally. So Dynetics was launched in May of 1950 and it was a fucking immediate success. What? I mean, it sold a lot of books. Nobody ever thought a thought so hard that they cured their asthma. That's stupid. Yeah, okay, fair. Success that way. Anyway, by August, Hubbard had sold 55,000 copies

of Dynetics, despite the press, the scientific and the medical communities all panning this fucking thing really hard. Scientific American wrote that in it were, quote, more promises, unless evidence per page than any publication since the invention of writing. The new republic called dionetics, quote, a bold and im modest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from longest acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy newly invented terminology. I love that a book written entirely in gibberish is somehow supposed to lead you to clarity.

But it's fucking amazing to me. Honestly, that's summary by the new Republic could replace like nine tenths of any bookstores self-help section. We'd save everyone a lot of time. Yeah, I just get a sticker. Nonetheless, the book found a niche and the money began to flow in. You see, auditing wasn't free and it wasn't fucking cheap. Auditor courses could cost upwards of $500 and in short order, Hubbard's fortune was

made. A quickly, however, doubts about this nonsense emerged and Hubbard lost much of his credibility when in front of an audience of 6,000 people, a demonstration of the power of the clear failed in grand fashion. Supposedly clear, Sonya Bianca, who was supposed to have perfect recall, failed in front of everyone to remember a single physics formula, despite majoring in the subject and failed to remember the color of Hubbard's tie when he turned his back. That's a little worse. Oh, Jesus.

Much of the audience turned theirs and walked out. No tohocsters, testable claims are not your friend. Okay. I don't know. Still play better than we didn't end, bro. Just saying. He said most. Yeah, that's fair.

All right. Now, Harvard also began losing control of dyinetics within its own community. So practitioners began combining Hubbard's ideas with a cult and esoteric practices, and the organization was now in financial ruin as was Hubbard's marriage to Sarah. Oh, it started so strong. Yeah. Hubbard had begun having an affair with a 20 year old PR assistant and Sarah was offered an auditor named Mike Hollister.

In a fit of peak, Hover to tempted to get the FBI to break them up, turning them in as communists and writing that Sarah was quote, currently intimate with communists, but evidently under coercion, drug addiction set in fall of 1950, nothing of this known to me until a few weeks ago. As for Hollister, he was described as having, quote, a sharp chin, broad forehead, rather Slavic, unquote. So that's, that's great. The FBI did not take Hubbard seriously.

An agent annotated his correspondence with the comment appears mental appears mental. I love it. I love it. The FBI is like, yeah, fucking, there's a shit. Not getting one or less people. 1950s, Komi notes. Well, again, again, like this guy is so bad, he can't, he can't sell someone out as a communist in the 19 fea and without appearing crazy.

Yes. Yes. He fails it. Shit, you can't fail that. He's tried to make his living with writing and he writes things so unbelievable that like McCarthy's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, now, now, how are they kidnapped Sarah? And he moved her to San Bernardino where he attempted

to have her committed his insane. And that thankfully did not work. So he kidnapped their daughter and he fled to Havana, Cuba. Sarah filed for divorce, claiming that Hover was abusive, but Hover had their fucking daughter. So she finally relented and the couple divorced, but only after he made her sign a letter that he wrote, absolving him of any wrongdoing. Uh, to whom it may concern, it's not him, it's me.

That's all so for whatever it's worth, I think you'd make a great naval office. My wife. I mean, I mean me. A dionetics was on the brink of utter failure, but it was bailed out by a millionaire believer named Don Purcell, who agreed to bankroll another dionetics foundation. This partnership failed almost as soon as it began as Hubbard and Purcell clashed over the future of dionetics, Hubbard established Hubbard College, and six weeks later married an 18 year old staff member

named Mary Sue Whip. She would give birth to his second daughter, Dayzex Machina, ball gag the second. A Hubbard College pretty much immediately failed and Hubbard and Mary Sue moved to Phoenix where Hubbard established the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International to promote the quote, science of certainty. Jesus, this guy is such a failure that he can barely find a way to cash in on already having been successful and have the money already. I should have run for president. I am so fuck.

So Scientology was created because Hoverd had uncovered new research. That research being that he was going to have to get into the religion business if he wanted to make some real money. So he moved from self-help to spirituality. All right, now we're not going to get too deep into the weeds on Scientology. We're sticking mostly to Elrod, but Scientology taught that quote, the true self of a person was a faten, an immortal omniscient and potentially omnipotent entity. Fatons have L. Rod, but Scientology taught that, quote, the true self of a person was a fainting, an immortal omniscient and potentially omnipotent entity. Fatons have been created a material universe had forgotten their godlike powers and become

trapped in their physical bodies. And Scientology aimed to rehabilitate each person's self to restore its original capacities and become once again an operating fainting. A Hubbard-insisted humanity was imperiled by the forces of aberration, which result of N-grams carried by immortal fatens for billions of years. Audience, if you were smart, you zoned out at Scientology TOT. Yeah, but that's probably the best place. Yeah.

Now Hubbard also introduced the E-meter at this point in an attempt to make Scientology seem more credible. I guess. Great job with that, right? Because when I think emeter, I think credibility. Now, the emeter is basically one third of a lie detector, which means it's one third is useful as something already completely fucking useless. The idea is that when you're being audited, you hold these big, stupid metal cans and a meter bounces around detecting changes in the mass of your thoughts.

What? That's not a metaphor, the literal mass. Yep. It was way auditors believe that they can tell if you're bullshitting or if there's more to the story than you're letting on. You know, I'm sure that's so be heavier. More dense. But Hubbard also famously connected a stupid fucking e-meter to a tomato and claimed a tomato screamed when you sliced them. Okay.

Also, thoughts don't have mass and the whole fucking idea is preposterous. Okay. Okay. A tomato is basically a juicy bag of seeds. Okay. Yes. The whole fucking purpose of a tomato is to get the seeds outside of the fucking bag by opening

it. That's the fuck. I don't disagree, but I love that that's where you draw the line. She's like, this is become ridiculous. You know that whole tomato stunt with somebody's like that fucking needle just bounces around no matter what you hook it up to. And he was like, no, oh, fuck, I guess that tomato. So really, shit happened when it was a kid would modify prove it to you by hookin it up. Oh, okay, okay. Damn it.

Now, eventually, Hubbard incorporated Scientology as a church. And now, the Scientology franchises were branches of that church. By 1957, Hubbard was making the equivalent of $2.2 million a year. Holy shit, he was right in 220 million words a year. I'm sorry, Tom, you said he made $2.2 million a year. Okay. So here's the thing about fetons. And it's not going to happen, Eli.

Not if we don't try. It won't happen. It's worth a try. No. All right. So for its part, the US government started to catch on that this wasn't so much as a religion as it was a get very, very rich quick scheme. The FBI was keeping tabs on Hubbard and Scientology, as were many local police jurisdictions. The IRS reversed the tax exempt status of Scientology,

noting that vast amounts of money were feeding not into the church in the community, but to Hubbard himself. And the FDA took issue with the false medical claims of Scientology, including seizing pills that were being sold as cures for radiation and requiring that they be labeled as utterly fucking worthless. Jesus. Yeah, but Peter Popoff can say you get out of debt holy water as long as it's a magic we allow. We're good. We're good. Pop off hands the water to a Muslim person and it's bullshit. You're under arrest, motherfucker. All right, so seeking to find a safe haven from both prosecution and persecution, Hubbard started the sea org. This was a fleet of three ships that he filled

with the most dedicated Scientologists. He dressed himself in a Navy style uniform and adopted language and titles borrowed from his Navy days. Mountain, yeah. Well, you might not know this, boys, but that's just a fucking rocket. It is sailorlingo for great job, Captain. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha of the fleet sailed around the Mediterranean for eight years in an attempt to evade capture for fraud.

Hubbard routinely had couriers visit him at ports of call to restock his cabin with luxury goods, fine food, massive amounts of cash, while sea or girls in hot pants waited on his every whim. Okay. Again, the thing about Thetans that I feel like you have an address. Eli, no. What the hell? Hot pants. I want to the illa hot pants.

I want to start a cult so bad. All I've learned is how much I love to start a cult. I'm the hot pants, too. We just like, but hot pants guys. Hot pants. That's what yoga pants. Uh, still, please. All right.

Meanwhile, French officials had charged Hubbard with fraud and custom charges and he feared being caught and extradited. So he returned briefly to the US where he hit out in Queens for a while until the threat of extradition was over. Now during this time, his health, which is already shotty, declined terribly. Hubbard was a chain smoker and he suffered two from Bersitis, a heart attack, a stroke, had a huge fucking growth on his forehead as well as pulmonary embolisms and even laps into a coma after the pulmonary embolisms.

Uh, then he just recalled his root memory through audit and lived to be 200. No, remember what I said earlier about testable claims? No, no, but to be fair, he was just trying to get out of work on the ship. I'm sure. In 1975 in secret, the Ford Harrison hotel was purchased to be the base of operation on land for Scientology in Clearwater, Florida, and Hubbard lived close by until his location, which is supposed to be a secret was leaked. Now, Hubbard ended up moving from Safehouse to Safehouse, four moves in one year to evade capture for tax evasion and fraud.

And I want to say like again, the only reason Christianity is around today is that we don't have records like this for Jesus. You do not have holes in your hands. You just said that to get away from the. A hubbard grew increasingly paranoid, believing that Scientology was under attack by a secret Nazi conspiracy called the Tenyaki Memorial, and that that conspiracy used a series of drug companies, banks, and psychiatrists as their tools to destroy Scientology and take over the world.

So, naturally, Hubbard created the Guardian's office and ordered Scientologists to infiltrate government agencies by pretending to be janitors and other workers so they could remove any incriminating evidence from government files. Members of the geo infiltrated successfully infiltrated the Department of Justice and the IRS, but two of these fucking Yahoo's got caught and the FBI in turn rated Scientology offices and arrested geo members, including Mary Sue, Harvard's wife, and they were sent to prison. All right.

Who should we use for this top secret mission? Oh, I know someone with my last name. What a good idea. Right. No, never connect us. At the French court, not having had any luck capturing Hubbard, tried him and convicted him in absentia, and now Hubbard was beset on all sides. So he once again took to a life on the move, but he was old and shitty and out of boats,

I guess. So instead, Hubbard retreated to a lavish motorhome. Oxymoron. Yeah. So instead, Hoverd retreated to a lavish motorhome. Oxymoron. And he lived on the move until he eventually settled his motorhome on a 160 acre ranch and began work, no kidding on his Space Jazz album. Oh, come on. Among many others,

the Space Jazz album featured the musical stylings of sometimes a horse-naing and laser sound. We hold on. No, laser sounds. Do you just mean like a buzz? Cause that's the sound a laser makes. Like a pew, pew sound. I think it's a pew, pew sound.

But I just want to say, by the way, I'm a huge fan of that kind of music. My favorite band is ELO, equine light orchestra. Now, Neethis is saying you probably don't have a Spotify playlist based on this or any other Hubbard album. And so distraught Hubbard had a stroke and died. Though Scientologists believe that he simply discarded his horrible decrepit meat shell, and then he'll be back anytime now. And so every day, every day, his clothes are washed carefully and laid out for him, so that he's not naked when he returns. And for that, I think we should all be grateful.

Well, Tom, you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence. What would it be? I'm starting a cult next week if you guys want to get together at my house, the code word, the code word ladies is hot pants. Okay. The dress code at least is hot pants. I don't know. Tom, are you ready for the quiz? Yeah, let's do this thing. All right. Eli, start us off. All right, Tom. Elrond Hubbard sure was wacky. And Scientology has followed in his footsteps, which the following is a real thing that Scientologists do. A, maintain a private Navy that makes its recruits sign a one billion year contract when they join. What?

B, Scientology demands that pregnant slash birthing mothers stay totally silent so the baby doesn't get all anger amd up. See, they tie you to a chair and beat the shit out of you if you have depression. Or did that one work? Asking for a friend. I have to find out. D, all of the above and so much other crazy shit that the original bit for this joke was just to go with 22 other letters. I'm going to go with D because I know those are all true. Correct.

I am the friend. All right, Tom, the movie version of Elrond Hubbard's life is called a to live and let That one doesn't work. That one doesn't work. That was not good. T Z new Jack City. All right, I'm going to go with, we didn't get to the Z news. I'm going to go with Z new on this. Okay. Jack City. Absolutely. Z new Jack City. Underrepresented. Yes. All right. I have one final question for you here. Tom, I actually read Dianetics. Oh my god. To cover fuck because a friend of mine wouldn't shut the fuck up about how brilliant it was and how it changed his life and I was living in an RV and it was literally the only book in the RV. And then later when I challenged him to point to a

single passage in that book that made any meaningful impact on him or even could theoretically he admitted that he'd actually only read the first couple of chapters. Oh my God, you're gonna hold me. I have that same friend by the way. So Noah, I want to point out that you're the only person I know that would subject themselves to a 500 book, a 500 page book of gibberish to prove somebody wrong. I can do a lot more than that.

You know, you're wrong. Let me spend like nine hours. We're talking about. All right, so my question to you is obviously what should that friend go fuck himself with. A, an e-meter, B, all the e-meters, C, a parking meter, or D, a kilometer. All right. Well, since I got three tickets yesterday, I'll go with the parking meter because I'm getting fucked by him regularly. That's a good guess.

It's actually a copy of the book Dianetics which is larger than a goddamn parking meter. And I probably should have noticed that only the first few pages really did look leafed through anyway. You're close though. All right Noah, you are the winner this week, you stop Tom. Oh awesome, I like you calling me the winner so you get to do the essay. Great! Alright, well for Heath who isn't here, Eli, Tom and Noah I'm Cecil, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then I will be an expert on something else.

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