Posted on 08/06/2009 7:23:42 PM PDT by Steelfish
From The Times August 6, 2009
Secret mission to expose L. Ron Hubbard as a fake
Dominic Kennedy, Investigations Editor
L.Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology
The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, was exposed as a fraud 30 years ago by British diplomats who were investigating his qualifications.
The science-fiction writer, who invented a religion now followed by celebrities such as Tom Cruise, awarded himself a PhD from a sham “diploma mill” college that he had acquired, the diplomats found.
Such was the climate of fear and paranoia surrounding Scientology that the US believed the sect had sent bogus doctors to declare a high-ranking legal investigator mad and then taken his papers relating to the case.
Scientologists threatened to sue the British Government for libel after it acted in 1968 to ban followers from entering the country to visit the sect’s world headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Oh oh!
Tom Cruise is gonna be upset!
Paging a team of British diplomats to the White House ASAP!
Harlan Ellison has been telling everybody and their dog about the “drunken bar bet” for *years*.
If they won’t listen, they deserve what they get.
Good one.
He didn’t actually write his science fiction?
I started reading pulp Science Fiction magazines when I was still a teenager. I took the train into NYC and visited the used book shops on 14th street.
The going write for SF writers for the pulpiest pulps, back in the 40s and 50s, was one cent a word, or even half a cent a word.
Anyway, I remember reading the letters to the editor in one of those pulps. I had read some of Hubbards early stories, and still have a Gnome Press edition of Typewriter in the Sky and Fear. Anyway, L. Ron Hubbard wrote a letter to the editor, saying that he was through with writing Science Fiction, because there was a lot more money to be made by starting a religion.
Which he then proceeded to do.
I’m pretty sure I have that magazine in a packing box somewhere. But I remember the gist of the letter, which was very clear. And indeed, Hubbard was right. He did a lot better with his fake religion than he ever did with his stories.
FIND THAT MAGAZINE!!
Dad, Tom Cruise won’t come out of the closet. - Stan
“They needed a secret mission? What, they couldn’t read?”
Ha! Ha! And his followers are the Hollywood elites who tell us how to live our lives. What a joke!
You have to be pretty gullible to join a cult promoted by someone who was already known for writing cheap fiction.
However
Obama, the far left public schools and the activist judges are much bigger liars and frauds that continue to do much greater harm than Hubbard ever did.
The cult is busy promoting dianetics again in Cincinnati;do the cultists consider a conscience to be a negative?
weren’t...didn’t they sue, John / Jane Smith.
Ain’t much of a secret if it’s a story in the London Times, is it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.