Biography of L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard was a prodigious writer. Yet despite the legacy of fiction and non-fiction works he left, he never wrote an autobiography.

He shed light on why in an essay titled "My Only Defense for Having Lived."

I first ran into this piece when I saw a video presentation of the essay, narrated by Mr. David Miscavige. The occasion was an LRH birthday celebrations (one of the Scientology holidays, celebrated every year - usually the first weekend after Ron's birthday -- the 12th of March).

Mr. Miscavige usually also acts as master of ceremonies for this yearly event and gives the keynote speech as well.

Here's an excerpt from the essay:

"The only tests of a life well lived are: Did he do what he intended? And were people glad he lived?

"People have often desired me to write an autobiography and while I would be perfectly willing to do so had I the time, I consider such a work, as I do myself, quite unimportant.

"I have led an adventurous life and it would possibly be entertaining to read, but I doubt such a work would shed any background light on my researches and would not clarify my intentions or why I developed Dianetics and Scientology.

"My motives have not been fame. I tried to give Dianetics, the entire work, to the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association in 1949 and the AMA only said “Why should you?” and the APA said “If it is important we will hear of it.”

"I tried to avoid, until July 1950, saying I had personally done the research but then owned to it when I saw that unowned, it could be lost in its original form.">>continued

What follows is after this is an amazing tale of intrigue, and accomplishment in the face of formidable odds.

It is fortunate for all of us that L. Ron Hubbard lived up to the test he described above, because what he set out to do was to discover and lay out for us a truly workable spiritual technology that anyone can apply to gain greater ability and personal freedom.

I respect the work Mr. Miscavige has done to keep Scientology technology exactly the way Mr. Hubbard wrote it, thus ensuring its effectiveness.