LOS ANGELES -- L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology and the controversial 'science of Dianetics' has died, the church announced. He was 74.
The church said Monday night that Hubbard died in his sleep Friday of a brain hemorrhage at his home in the San Luis Obispo area on the Central California coast.
At Hubbard's request he was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea, said Earl C. Cooley, legal counsel to the church.
But Hubbard had not been seen in public since 1980, and the delay in announcing his death -- along with the rush to cremate the body without an autopsy -- lent an air of mystery to the death.
Cooley said that only blood samples and fingerprints were provided, by the church, to the San Luis Obispo County coroner. They were confirmed as Hubbard's and a deputy coroner confirmed that the church leader had been cremated.
Cooley said the church delayed announcement of the death so members around the world could be notified by a special satellite network that '... their revered leader had discarded his body.'
'There are six million Scientologists in the world and they all loved L. Ron Hubbard,' said Ken Hoden, president of the Church of Scientology in a telephone interview today. He said he and 'the Scientologists in Los Angeles' spent Monday night mourning their leaders' death.
Hubbard had not been seen in public for several years despite attempts to force him to appear in court in a series of lawsuits filed by disgruntled former Scientologists, who claimed he led a cult that brainwashed its members.
Hubbard provided 'generously' for his wife and children, with the exception of one estranged son. He left an estate said by Cooley to be in the 'tens of millions of dollars' to the church he founded in 1952.
Hubbard, a native of Tilden, Neb., was a little-known science fiction writer until his book 'Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health' appeared in 1950. It landed on American best-seller lists and Dianetics -- a kind of amateu psychotherapy -- became a national fad.
The medical profession called Dianetics hokum. Hubbard called it 'a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and the arch.'
Hubbard also claimed to have been a pilot, explorer, reporter, composer, photographer and seeker of truth.
After interest in Dianetics faded, Hubbard in 1952 founded the Church of Scientology, described as an 'applied religious philosophy.'
A federal judge in 1971 ruled Scientology was a religion entitled to protection under the First Amendment. But that was not the end of the organizaton's legal involvements. It filed hundreds of law suits, taking on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Internal Revenue Service and others.
In 1959 Hubbard established a world headquarters of Scientology in East Grinstead, England, a wealthy community south of London, where adherents established a 'college.' There were complaints susceptible people were taken into the college and taught to hate their families.
In August 1968 Hubbard and some 200 followers -- mostly Americans - moved to the island of Corfu in Greece where they lived aboard a 3,300-ton Panamanian ship, Apollo. In March 1969 they were branded 'undesirable' by the Greek government and ordered to leave the country.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born March 13, 1911, in Tilden, Neb., the son of Harry Ross and Dora May Hubbard. He attended George Washington University in 1934 and Princeton.
Hubbard married three times and had two daughters and a son. Mary Sue Whipp, his third wife, became the church's No. 2 official.
His books include science fiction, suspense and adventure novels. In 1949 he told a meeting of fellow authors, 'Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.'
Hubbard was reclusive in his later years. In 1977 he was reported living in the Mediterranean aboard a converted English Channel steamer.
In 1983, a son, who changed his name from L. Ron Hubbard Jr. to Ronald DeWolf, moved to have himself declared trustee of his father's estate, contending Hubbard was dead or mentally incompetent. A judge dismissed the probate suit after a letter from Hubbard was produced declaring he was alive and seeking privacy and protection from would-be assassins.
Among Hubbard's published works after 'Dianetics' were 'Science of Survival' (1951), 'The Fundamentals of Thought' (1956), 'Scientology: A New Slant on Life' (1966) and 'Dianetics Today' (1975).
Hubbard returned to best-seller lists in 1983 with a science-fiction novel, 'Battlefield Earth.'
