L Ron Hubbard is known world over as the founder of the Scientology religion. A truly international figure, he reached out to people in all lands and all cultures with his philosophy, and Scientology missions and churches now span five continents.

That international growth began at a pivotal time in Mr. Hubbard’s life when he called Europe home. Throughout the 1950s, as the vanguard of the Scientology movement, he would regularly traverse the Atlantic to Europe, touring the continent, establishing new centres and delivering lectures. In 1959, when expansion in both Europe and abroad created the need for a truly international training and administrative centre, Mr. Hubbard purchased the southern England country estate of Saint Hill. It was from here he directed the worldwide expansion of Scientology and established the Saint Hill College, offering ministerial graduate courses.

Today, the works of L. Ron Hubbard are studied and applied around the world — a vast body of knowledge comprised of more than 5,000 writings and 3,000 tape-recorded lectures.

The universal acclaim for the man — including thousands of awards and recognitions and the unprecedented popularity of his works among people from all walks of life — is but one indicator of the effectiveness of his technologies. More importantly are the millions world over who consider they have no better friend.

L. Ron Hubbard in Paris, 1953.

“I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived and the scholar who will not share. “There have been many wiser men than I, but fewer have travelled as much road. “I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know there is wisdom and that there is hope.” — L. Ron Hubbard

Although long celebrated as an author and explorer, it was the 1950 publication of Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health that initially focused world attention on L. Ron Hubbard. That book, which marked a turning point in history, provided the first workable approach to solving the problems of the mind, the first hope that something could be done about the causes of war, crime, insanity and other irrational behaviour. Dianetics is something that anyone can use to help improve himself and his fellows. For just that reason, shortly after the book was released in the United States and Great Britain, Williams College Professor of Government, Dr. Frederick L. Schuman declared in The New York Times, “History has become a race between Dianetics and catastrophe. Dianetics will win, if enough people are challenged in time to understand it.”

Although most men might have been satisfied with such an accomplishment, L. Ron Hubbard did not stop at Dianetics. Yes, he had solved the riddle of the human mind, but there still remained questions on the nature of the human being himself — puzzles concerning that long-sought-after “something” we call life. From Mr. Hubbard’s methodical and exacting research into just that realm — the spiritual nature of man — came the applied religion of Scientology. It provided the means to not only greater happiness, ability and awareness but practical remedies to such seemingly hopeless social problems as drug abuse, the decline of moral standards and illiteracy.

How exactly L. Ron Hubbard arrived at the founding of Dianetics and Scientology is a vast story and actually begins long before the publication of his first book on the subject. Indeed, even in his early youth he exemplified a rare sense of purpose and dedication which, combined with his adventurous spirit, made him a living legend. His life-long search for answers to the human condition was equally adventurous, for unlike other philosophers content to view events from an ivory tower, he knew that to really understand man, one had to be part of life. One had to rub elbows with all kinds and types of people. And one had to explore the nooks and crannies of all existence. By any measure, it was an immensely full and interesting life. The pages that follow attempt to offer some sense of that life, but the true value of it lies in the legacy that he left mankind.

He said it best himself, when he wrote, “I have gone through the world studying man in order to understand him and he, not my adventures in doing so, is the important thing... . My intentions in life did not include making a story of myself. I only wanted to know man and understand him.”