James Baquet

There was a time when L. Ron Hubbard was one of the world’s best-known authors. Although successful enough as a science fiction writer, he turned ultimately to religion, where his book “Dianetics”—the “Bible” of the modern religion known as Scientology — has sold over 83 million copies, according to its Scientology-owned publisher. (These figures are disputed.)

Despite his notoriety — with 1,084 works, he holds a Guinness World Record as the most published author — Hubbard managed to make himself something of a man of mystery. He was reclusive in the years before his death, and his “true believers” say that he didn’t really die; instead he decided to “drop his body,” as he had learned to live without it. Furthermore, like any good Messiah, he would return — but not as a spiritual leader, as a political one.

All this high drama surrounds a man who, at least before founding the religion, seemed to have feet of clay. Two incidents in his military career support this contention.

Many know of “Sea Org,” the paramilitary group of Scientologists in which Hubbard was the “Commodore” of a personal fleet of ships. Its roots may lie in his naval career during World War II. In 1943, Hubbard was placed in command of a submarine chaser, a small, fast vessel intended for anti-submarine warfare. During the boat’s “shakedown cruise” from Astoria (near Portland), Oregon, to San Diego, California, Hubbard spent 68 hours “in combat” with an enemy submarine he believed he had detected about 20 kilometers off the coast of Cape Lookout, Oregon. At last, he received orders to return to Astoria, where his superior officer surmised that he had mistaken a known magnetic deposit on the sea floor for a submarine.

A month later, he unwittingly entered Mexican territorial waters where he conducted target practice on a group of Mexican-owned islands inhabited at the time by the Mexican Coast Guard. When the Mexican government lodged an official complaint, Hubbard was permanently relieved of his command.

He spent part of his remaining service in hospitals for a variety of complaints.

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. guessed; conjectured;

2. accidentally; without knowing;

3. group with a structure and operations similar to a military;

4. savior;

5. fame (not always for positive reasons);

6. weakness or hidden flaw;

7. living in seclusion;

8. “practice” voyage of a new vessel;

9. claim; suggestion;

10. placed; filed