Editing L. Ron Hubbard (section)

===Before Dianetics===
{{main|Life of L. Ron Hubbard from 1911 to 1950}}
{{see also|Scientology and psychiatry# Hubbard's early encounters with psychiatry}}
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born on March 13, 1911,<ref name="Hall">Hall, Timothy L. ''American religious leaders'', p. 175. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-8160-4534-1}}</ref> the only child of Ledora May Waterbury, who had trained as a teacher, and Harry Ross Hubbard, a low-ranking United States Navy officer.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=11}}{{sfn|Christensen|2004|p=236}} Like many military families of the era, the Hubbards repeatedly relocated around the United States and overseas.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=23}} After moving to [[Kalispell, Montana]], they settled in Helena in 1913.{{sfn|Christensen|2004|p=237}} Hubbard's father rejoined the Navy in April 1917, during [[World War I]], while his mother worked as a clerk for the state government.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=19}} After his father was posted to Guam, Hubbard and his mother traveled there with brief stop-overs in a couple of Chinese ports.{{sfn|Atack|1990|pp=53–54}}{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=31}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=James R. |title=Scientology |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0195331493 |location=New York, NY}}</ref> In high school, Hubbard contributed to the school paper,{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=34}}<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Clarke |editor-first=Peter |title=Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=9781134499700 |page=281}}</ref> but was dropped from enrollment due to failing grades.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite web |last=Ortega |first=Tony |author-link=Tony Ortega |date=February 24, 2015 |title=New government release contains a surprise: L. Ron Hubbard flunked out of high school, too! |url=https://tonyortega.org/2015/02/24/new-government-release-contains-a-surprise-l-ron-hubbard-flunked-out-of-high-school-too/}}</ref> After he failed the [[United States Naval Academy|Naval Academy]] entrance examination,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wakefield |first=Margery |title=Understanding Scientology / Chapter 2: L. Ron Hubbard – Messiah? Or Madman? |url=http://www.religio.de/books/wakefield/us-02.html |access-date=July 25, 2016}}</ref> Hubbard was enrolled in a Virginia Preparatory School to prepare him for a second attempt.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=45}} However, after complaining of eye strain, Hubbard was diagnosed with [[myopia]], precluding any future enrollment in the Naval Academy.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=46}} As an adult, Hubbard would privately write to himself that his eyes had gone bad when he "used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy".{{sfn|Wright|2013|pp=53–54}}

Hubbard was sent to the Woodward School in D.C., as graduates qualified for admission to [[George Washington University]] without having to take the entrance exam. Hubbard graduated in June 1930 and entered GWU.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=47}}<ref name="ReferenceA"/>{{sfn|Atack|1990|p=59}}{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=47}} Academically, Hubbard did poorly and was repeatedly warned about bad grades,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> but he contributed to the student newspaper and was active in the glider club.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=47}} In 1932, Hubbard organized a student trip to the Caribbean, but amid multiple misfortunes and insufficient funding, the passengers took to burning Hubbard in effigy and the trip was canceled by the ship's owners. Hubbard did not return to GWU the following year.{{sfn|Atack|1990|p=63}}

{{multiple image|perrow = 1|total_width=250
| image1 = Center building at Saint Elizabeths, National Photo Company, circa 1909-1932.jpg
| image2 = Chestnut Lodge Postcard 1909.jpg
| footer = Hubbard spoke of interactions with psychiatrists at both St. Elizabeth's psychiatric hospital in D.C. (top) and nearby Chestnut Lodge Sanitarium (bottom).}}
For much of the 1920s and 1930s, Hubbard lived in Washington D.C., and he would later claim to have interacted with multiple [[psychiatrist]]s in the city.<ref>1922–1927,1929–1932</ref> Hubbard described encounters in 1923 and 1930 with navy psychiatrist Joseph Thompson.<ref>The Purpose of Human Evaluation (3) (1951)</ref><ref name="AtackOrigin">{{Cite web |last1=Atack |first1=Jon |title=Possible origins for Dianetics and Scientology |url=https://www.spaink.net/cos/essays/atack_origin.html |quote="Through his [Thompson's] friendship I attended many lectures given at Naval hospitals and generally became conversant with [[psychoanalysis]] as it had been exported from Austria by Freud"  LRH's autobiographical notes for Peter Tompkins. Exhibit 500-I in CSI v. Armstrong, pp.7-8}}</ref> Thompson was controversial within the American psychiatric community for his support of [[lay analysis]], the practice of [[psychoanalysis]] by those without medical degrees. Hubbard also recalled interacting with [[William Alanson White]], supervisor of the D.C. psychiatric hospital [[St. Elizabeths Hospital|St. Elizabeth's]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/5182 |via=carolineletkeman.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211205233336/http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/5182 |archive-date=December 5, 2021 |title=Lecture: The Purpose of Human Evaluation (1) |author=L. Ron Hubbard |date=August 13, 1951}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/7398 |via=carolineletkeman.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206000935/http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/7398 |archive-date=December 6, 2021 |title=Lecture: Know to Sex Scale: The Mind and the Tone Scale |author=L. Ron Hubbard |date=June 4, 1954}}</ref><ref name="Hubbard, L. R. 1952">Hubbard, L. R. (February 6, 1952). Dianetics: The Modern Miracle. LRH Recorded Lectures</ref> According to Hubbard, both White and Thompson had regarded his athleticism and lack of interest in psychology as signs of a good prognosis.<ref>"The... it was an interesting thing, for instance, to William Allen White. And Commander Thompson. Both of them, where I was concerned, that I wasn't very interested in sitting around figuring about this stuff and didn't seem to be terribly interested in the insane." – Lecture: "The Mind and the Tone Scale", 1954</ref> Hubbard later claimed to have been trained by both Thompson and White.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/5169 | title=Letter: Scientology executive John Galusha to FBI |date=June 12, 1954 |website=Refund and Reparation | access-date=July 26, 2023 | archive-date=November 29, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211129201027/http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/archives/5169 | url-status=dead }}</ref> Hubbard also discussed his interactions at [[Chestnut Lodge]], a D.C.-area facility specializing in [[schizophrenia]], repeatedly complaining that their staff misdiagnosed an unnamed individual with the condition:
{{External media
|video1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtj425cDI18 Hubbard lecture] on schizophrenia and his interactions at Chestnut Lodge
}}
{{blockquote|There's a place by the name of Walnut Lodge... They don't see anything humorous in that, by the way... They sent three people to see me and every one of them was under treatment—and this was their staff! But anyway, very good people there, I'm sure... Didn't happen to meet any. Have some fine patients though! Anyway, they treat only schizophrenia. And so they take only schizophrenics. Now how do they get only schizophrenics? Well, anybody sent to Walnut Lodge is a classified schizophrenic. And they take somebody who is a [[dementia praecox]] unclassified or a more modern definition, a [[Bipolar disorder|mania-depressive]] and they take him from [[St. Elizabeths Hospital|Saint Elizabeth's]] and they take him over to Walnut Lodge and he goes onto the books as a schizophrenic. Why? Because Walnut Lodge takes only schizophrenics.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://carolineletkeman.org/dsp/1952/12/04/lecture-the-logics-methods-of-thinking-02/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190201120228/http://carolineletkeman.org/dsp/1952/12/04/lecture-the-logics-methods-of-thinking-02/ |archive-date=February 1, 2019 |title = Lecture: The Logics Methods of Thinking (2) – Decoding Scientology Propaganda}}</ref>}}

====Pre-war fiction====
{{main|Written works of L. Ron Hubbard|Excalibur (L. Ron Hubbard)}}
[[File:New mystery adventures 193508.jpg|thumb|right|Hubbard's adventure story "Yukon Madness" which was published in 1935.]]

In 1933, Hubbard renewed a relationship with a fellow glider pilot, [[Margaret Grubb|Margaret "Polly" Grubb]]{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=59}} and the two were quickly married on April 13.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=61}}
The following year, she gave birth to a son who was named [[Ronald DeWolf|Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, Jr.]], later nicknamed "Nibs".{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=64}} A second child, Katherine May, was born two years later.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=70}} The Hubbards lived for a while in [[Laytonsville, Maryland]], but were chronically short of money. In the spring of 1936, they moved to [[Bremerton, Washington]]. They lived there for a time with Hubbard's aunts and grandmother before finding a place of their own at nearby [[South Colby, Washington|South Colby]]. According to one of his friends at the time, [[Robert MacDonald Ford]], the Hubbards were "in fairly dire straits for money" but sustained themselves on the income from Hubbard's writing.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=74}}{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=62}}

Hubbard began a writing career and tried to write for mainstream publications. Hubbard soon found his niche in the [[pulp magazine|pulp fiction magazines]], becoming a prolific and prominent writer in the medium. From 1934 until 1940, Hubbard produced hundreds of short stories and novels.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About L. Ron Hubbard&nbsp;— Master Storyteller |url=http://www.galaxypress.com/l-ron-hubbard |access-date=February 8, 2011 |publisher=Galaxy Press |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711070539/http://www.galaxypress.com/l-ron-hubbard |archive-date=July 11, 2011 }}</ref> Hubbard is remembered for his "prodigious output" across a variety of genres, including adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mysteries, westerns, romance, and science fiction.<ref name="Frenschkowski">{{Cite journal |last=Frenschkowski |first=Marco |date=July 1999 |title=L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology: An annotated bibliographical survey of primary and selected secondary literature |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144316914.pdf|via=[[CORE (research service)|CORE]]|doi=10.17192/mjr.1999.4.3760|publisher=[[University of Marburg]]|journal=[[Marburg Journal of Religion]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427171605/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144316914.pdf|archive-date=April 27, 2021 |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=15 |url-status=live|access-date=May 13, 2015 |doi-access=free }}</ref> His first full-length novel, ''[[Buckskin Brigades]]'', was published in 1937.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Staff |date=July 30, 1937 |title=Books Published Today |page=17 |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref> The novel told the story of "Yellow Hair", a white man adopted into the Blackfeet tribe, with promotional material claiming the author had been a "bloodbrother" of the Blackfeet. ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'' praised the book, writing "Mr. Hubbard has reversed a time-honored formula and has given a thriller to which, at the end of every chapter or so, another paleface bites the dust."<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wMAfAQAAMAAJ | title=The New York Times Book Review | date=July 1937 }}</ref>

[[File:Dentist's office, early 1930s - Arppeanum - DSC05417 (cropped).JPG|thumb|right|upright|Museum recreation of a 1930s dentist office; the setting where Hubbard reported having a "near-death experience".]]

On New Year's Day, 1938, Hubbard reportedly underwent a dental procedure and reacted to the anesthetic gas used in the procedure.{{sfn|Wright|2013|p=29}} According to his account, this triggered a revelatory [[near-death experience]]. Allegedly inspired by this experience, Hubbard composed a manuscript, which was never published, with working titles of ''The One Command'' and ''Excalibur''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 24, 2013 |title='Going Clear': A New Book Delves Into Scientology |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/01/24/170010096/going-clear-a-new-book-delves-into-scientology |publisher=NPR}}</ref><ref name="lermanet.com">{{Cite web |title=The History of Excalibur |url=http://www.lermanet.com/excalibur/ |website=lermanet.com}}</ref> Hubbard sent telegrams to several book publishers, but nobody bought the manuscript.<ref name="Burks">{{Cite web |last=Burks |first=Arthur J. |date=December 1961 |title=Yes, There Was A Book Called "Excalibur" By L. Ron Hubbard |url=http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/essays/burks.html |website=The Aberee |via=[[David S. Touretzky]]}}</ref> Hubbard wrote to his wife:

{{blockquote|Sooner or later ''Excalibur'' will be published... 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 am concerned.<ref name="Letter-1938">Letter from L. Ron Hubbard, October 1938, quoted in [[#CITEREFMiller1987|Miller 1987]], p. 81</ref>}}

Hubbard found greater success after being taken under the supervision of editor [[John W. Campbell]], who published many of Hubbard's short stories and serialized [[Novella|novelettes]] in his magazines ''[[Unknown (magazine)|Unknown]]'' and ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Astounding Science Fiction]]''.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=86}}<ref name="Stableford">{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8108-4938-9 |location=Lanham, MD |page=164}}</ref> Hubbard's novel ''[[Final Blackout]]'' told the story of a low-ranking British army officer who rises to become dictator of the United Kingdom.<ref name="sf-encyclopedia.com">{{Cite web | url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hubbard_l_ron | title=SFE: Hubbard, L Ron }}</ref> In July 1940, Campbell magazine ''Unknown'' published a psychological horror by Hubbard titled ''[[Fear (Hubbard novella)|Fear]]'' about an ethnologist who becomes paranoid that demons are out to get him—the work was well-received, drawing praise from [[Ray Bradbury]], [[Isaac Asimov]], and others. In November and December 1940, ''Unknown'' serialized Hubbard's novel ''[[Typewriter in the Sky]]'' about a pulp fiction writer whose friend becomes trapped inside one of his stories.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kent |first1=Stephen A. |last2=Raine |first2=Susan |title=Scientology in Popular Culture: Influences and Struggles for Legitimacy |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4408-3249-9 }}</ref>

====Military career====
{{Main|Military career of L. Ron Hubbard}}
[[File:Hubbard and moulton.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Two men in naval uniform|Hubbard (left) in 1943]]
In 1941, Hubbard applied to join the [[United States Navy]]. His application was accepted, and he was commissioned as a [[lieutenant junior grade]] in the [[United States Naval Reserve]] on July&nbsp;19, 1941. By November, he was posted to New York for training as an intelligence officer.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=97}} The day after [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]], Hubbard was posted to the [[Philippines]] and departed the US bound for Australia. But while in Australia awaiting transport to the Philippines, Hubbard was suddenly ordered back to the United States after being accused by the US Naval Attaché to Australia of sending blockade-runner ''[[Don Isidro (1939)|Don Isidro]]'' "three thousand miles out of her way".<ref name="Ron The War Hero, Chris Owen">Ron The War Hero, Chris Owen</ref><ref>Hubbard would [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd2u8DsfUJc later claim] that "for the next two or three years I'd run into officers, and they would say 'Hubbard? Hubbard? Hubbard? Are you the Hubbard that was in Australia?' And I'd say 'Yes.' And they's say 'Oh!' Kind of, you know, horrified, like they didn't know whether they should quite talk to me or not, you know? Terrible man." {{citation |title=The Key Words (Buttons) of Scientology Clearing (a lecture given on July 21, 1958).}}</ref>

{{multiple image|perrow = 1|total_width=250
| image1 = Yp422 large.jpg
| image2 = Uss pc-815 1.jpg
| footer = Hubbard's first command was a yard patrol boat in Massachusetts (top), while his second was a West Coast sub-chaser (bottom). In both cases, Hubbard was relieved of command.
}}
In June 1942, Hubbard was given command of a patrol boat at the [[Boston Navy Yard]], but he was relieved after the yard commandant wrote that Hubbard was "not temperamentally fitted for independent command".{{sfn|Atack|1990|p=74}} In 1943, Hubbard was given command of a submarine chaser, but only five hours into the shakedown cruise, Hubbard believed he had detected an enemy submarine. Hubbard and crew spent the next 68 hours engaged in combat. An investigation concluded that Hubbard had likely mistaken a "known magnetic deposit" for an enemy sub.<ref>"Battle Report – Submission of", A16-3(3)/PC815, Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, Commander NW Sea Frontier, June 8, 1943; [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Batconcl.gif Image of document]</ref>{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=105}}{{r|mystique}} The following month, Hubbard unwittingly fired upon Mexican territory and was relieved of command.<ref name="mystique">{{Cite news |last1=Sappell |first1=Joel |last2=Welkos |first2=Robert W. |title=The Mind Behind the Religion : Chapter Two : Creating the Mystique : Hubbard's image was crafted of truth, distorted by myth. |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-06-24-mn-1012-story.html |access-date=July 25, 2022 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 24, 1990}}</ref> In 1944, Hubbard served aboard the {{USS|Algol|AKA-54|6}} before being transferred. The night before his departure, Hubbard reported the discovery of an attempted sabotage.{{sfn|Atack|1990|p=81}}{{sfn|Miller|1987|pp=108–109}}

In June 1942, Navy records indicate that Hubbard suffered "active conjunctivitis" and later "urethral discharges".{{Efn|Owen argues that Hubbard likely suffered from venereal disease, writing: "Sulfa drugs were used in treatment but in excess could cause bloody urine, something which Hubbard's shipmate Thomas Moulton saw him passing on at least one occasion. Hubbard himself later complained about the amount of sulfa he had been fed in the Navy. Former Scientology spokesman Robert Vaughn Young claims that Hubbard's private papers refer to him having caught gonorrhoea from a girlfriend named Fern, which forced him to secretly take sulfa."{{r|cowen}} }} After being relieved of command of the sub-chaser, Hubbard began reporting sick, citing a variety of ailments, including ulcers, malaria, and back pains. In July 1943, Hubbard was admitted to the San Diego naval hospital for observation—he would remain there for months.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=107}} Years later, Hubbard would privately write to himself: "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you."{{sfn|Wright|2013|pp=53–54}} On April 9, 1945, Hubbard again reported sick and was re-admitted to [[Oak Knoll Naval Hospital]], Oakland.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=110}}{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=112}} He was discharged from the hospital on December&nbsp;4, 1945.<ref name="cowen">{{Cite book |url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/warhero/crippled.htm |via=[[David S. Touretzky]] |isbn=9781909269897 |first=Chris |last=Owen |date=2019 |title=Ron The War Hero: The True Story of L Ron Hubbard's Calamitous Military Career |chapter=Crippled and blinded|publisher=Silvertail Books }}</ref>

====After the war====
{{main|Scientology and the occult|Affirmations (L. Ron Hubbard)|L. Ron Hubbard and psychiatry}}
[[File:Jack Parsons (cropped).jpg|right|thumb|Parsons in 1943]]
After Hubbard chose to stay in California rather than return to his family in Washington state,{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=125}} he moved into the [[Pasadena, California|Pasadena]] mansion of [[Jack Parsons (rocket engineer)|John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons]], a rocket propulsion engineer and a leading follower of the English [[Occultism|occultist]] [[Aleister Crowley]].<ref name="Wright2011">{{Cite magazine |last=Wright |first=Lawrence |author-link=Lawrence Wright |date=February 14, 2011 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all |title=The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=February 8, 2011}}</ref>{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=113}} Hubbard befriended Parsons and soon became sexually involved with Parsons's 21-year-old girlfriend, [[Sara Northrup Hollister|Sara "Betty" Northrup]].{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=117}}<ref>Parson letter to Crowley: "[Hubbard] is a gentleman; he has red hair, green eyes, is honest and intelligent, and we have become great friends. He moved in with me about two months ago, and although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual affection to Ron. Although he has no formal training in Magick, he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field. From some of his experiences I deduced that he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence, possibly his [[Holy Guardian Angel|Guardian Angel]]. He describes his Angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair whom he calls the Empress and who has guided him through his life and saved him many times. He is the most [[Thelema|Thelemic]] person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our own principles." as quoted in Symonds, John. ''The Great Beast: the life and magick of Aleister Crowley'', p. 392. London: Macdonald and Co., 1971. {{ISBN|0-356-03631-6}}</ref> Hubbard and Parsons collaborated on "[[Babalon Working]]", a [[sex magic]] ritual intended to summon an incarnation of [[Babalon]], the supreme Goddess in Crowley's pantheon.<ref name="Urban">{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Hugh B. |author-link=Hugh Urban |title=Magia sexualis: sex, magic, and liberation in modern Western esotericism |page=137 |publisher=University of California Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-520-24776-5}}</ref>

During this period, Hubbard authored a document which has been called the "[[Affirmations (L. Ron Hubbard)|Affirmations]]", a series of statements relating to various physical, sexual, psychological and social issues that he was encountering in his life. The Affirmations appear to have been intended to be used as a form of self-hypnosis with the intention of resolving the author's psychological problems and instilling a positive mental attitude.<ref>"Your eyes are getting progressively better. They became bad when you used them as an excuse to escape the naval academy. You have no reason to keep them bad.", "Your stomach trouble you used as an excuse to keep the Navy from punishing you. You are free of the Navy.", "You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. ... But you know which ones were lies ... You have enough real experience to make anecdotes forever. Stick to your true adventures.", "Masturbation does not injure or make insane. Your parents were in error. Everyone masturbates."  –  Hubbard's [[Affirmations (L. Ron Hubbard)|Affirmations]]</ref>{{sfn|Wright|2013|pp=53–54}}

{{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=250
| image1 = L Ron and Sara Hubbard June 1946.jpg
| image2 = Sara Northrup.jpg
| footer = Hubbard and Northrup aboard the schooner Blue Water II in June 1946 (left). The Church of Scientology has republished this photograph with Northrup (pictured right) airbrushed out.
}}

Parsons, Hubbard and Sara invested nearly their entire savings — the vast majority contributed by Parsons and Sara — in a plan for Hubbard and Sara to buy yachts on the East Coast and sail them to the West Coast to sell. Hubbard had a different idea, writing to the U.S. Navy requesting permission to undertake a world cruise.{{sfn|Pendle|2005|p=268}} Parsons attempted to recover his money by obtaining an injunction to prevent Hubbard and Sara leaving the country or disposing of the remnants of his assets, but ultimately only received a $2,900 promissory note from Hubbard. Parsons returned home "shattered" and was forced to sell his mansion.{{sfn|Pendle|2005|p=270}}{{sfn|Pendle|2005|p=269}}

[[File:Two Complete Science-Adventure Books Winter 1950.jpg|thumb|right|Hubbard's novella "[[The Kingslayer]]" was reprinted in ''[[Two Complete Science-Adventure Books]]'' in 1950 after its original publication in a 1949 Hubbard collection.]]
On August 10, 1946, Hubbard married Sara, though he was still married to his first wife Polly.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=134}} Hubbard resumed his fiction writing to supplement his small disability allowance.{{sfn|Streeter|2008|p=210}} In August 1947, Hubbard returned to the pages of ''Astounding'' with a serialized novel "The End is Not Yet", about a young nuclear physicist who tries to stop a world takeover by building a new philosophical system.<ref>Miller, 134</ref> In October 1947, the magazine began serializing ''[[Ole Doc Methuselah]]'', the first in a series about the "Soldiers of Light", supremely skilled, extremely long-lived physicians. In February and March 1950, Campbell's ''Astounding'' serialized the Hubbard novel ''[[To the Stars (novel)|To the Stars]]'' about a young engineer on an interstellar trading starship who learns that months aboard ship amounts to centuries on Earth, making the ship his only remaining home after his first voyage.<ref name="Stableford" /> During his time in California, Hubbard began acting as a sort of amateur stage hypnotist or "[[Orientalism|swami]]".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://tonyortega.org/2015/01/30/another-secret-lives-leak-l-ron-hubbard-enjoyed-humiliating-people-under-hypnosis/ |title=Another Secret Lives leak: L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed humiliating people under hypnosis |first=Tony |last=Ortega |date=January 30, 2015}}</ref>{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=231}}

Hubbard repeatedly wrote to the [[United States Department of Veterans Affairs|Veterans Administration]] (VA) asking for an increase in his war pension.{{sfn|Miller|1987|pp=125, 128, 131}} Finally, in October 1947, he wrote to request psychiatric treatment:

{{blockquote|After trying and failing for two years to regain my equilibrium in civil life, I am utterly unable to approach anything like my own competence. My last physician informed me that it might be very helpful if I were to be examined and perhaps treated psychiatrically or even by a psychoanalyst. Toward the end of my service I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations, and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all. ... I cannot, myself, afford such treatment.<br /> Would you please help me?<ref>Hubbard, L. Ron, letter to Veterans Administration, October 15, 1947; quoted in [[#CITEREFMiller1987|Miller 1987]], p. 137</ref>}}

The VA eventually did increase his pension,{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=139}} but his money problems continued. In the summer of 1948, Hubbard was arrested by the San Luis Obispo sheriff on a charge of petty theft for passing a fraudulent check.{{sfn|Miller|1987|page=142}} Beginning in June 1948, the nationally-syndicated wire service [[United Press International|United Press]] ran a story on an American Legion-sponsored psychiatric ward in Savannah, Georgia, which sought to keep mentally-ill war veterans out of jail.<ref>e.g. The Herald-News (Passaic, New Jersey) June 10, 1948, Ventura County Star-Free Press June 23, 1948, Spokane Chronicle (Spokane, Washington) September 29, 1948</ref><ref>{{multiref2
| 1 = {{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-atlanta-journal-dont-put-the-insane/130026022/ |title=Don't put the Insane in Jail, part 1 of 2 |first=Ash |last=Gerecht |newspaper=The Atlanta Journal |date=May 23, 1948}}
| 2 = {{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-atlanta-journal-dont-put-the-insane/130027904/ |title=Don't put the Insane in Jail, part 2 of 2 |first=Ash |last=Gerecht |newspaper=The Atlanta Journal |date=May 23, 1948}}
}}</ref> In late 1948, Hubbard and his second wife Sara moved from California to Savannah, Georgia, where he would later claim to have worked as a volunteer in a psychiatric clinic.{{sfn|Miller|1987|page=143}} Hubbard claimed he had "processed an awful lot of Negroes"<ref>PDC43</ref> and wrote of having observed a psychiatrist using the threat of institutionalization in a state hospital to solicit funds from a patient's husband.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://carolineletkeman.org/dsp/2010/04/28/article-todays-terrorism/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008130619/http://carolineletkeman.org/dsp/2010/04/28/article-todays-terrorism/ |archive-date=October 8, 2017 |title = Article: Today's Terrorism – Decoding Scientology Propaganda|quote="I well recall a conversation I had with a Dr. [Abraham Hyrman] Center in Savannah, Georgia, in 1949. It well expresses the arrogance and complete contempt for law and order of the psychiatrist. A man had just called to inquire after his wife who was "under treatment" in Center's hospital. Center asked him, "Do you have the money...? That's right, thirty thousand... well you better get it or I'll have to send your dear wife to the state institution and you know what will happen then!" I was there doing work on charity patients the local psychiatrists wouldn't touch. Center had forgotten I was in the room."}}</ref><ref>Abraham Hyman Center per [https://books.google.com/books?id=0F0ZAAAAIAAJ&dq=abraham+center+savannah Biographical Directory of Fellows & Members of the American Psychiatric Association, 1950]</ref> In letters to friends sent from Savannah, Hubbard began to make the first public mentions of what was to become Dianetics.{{sfn|Miller|1987|p=143}}