BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
With the publication of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, on May 9th, 1950, a national movement began. By summer people who had read Dianetics flocked to L. Ron Hubbard’s home in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They wanted to know more. They wanted to become more proficient in Dianetics auditing. And with this demand, four individuals (an attorney, a publisher, a doctor and an engineer) approached Mr. Hubbard to form a Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation (HDRF). With his consent the Foundation was formed in Elizabeth.
Appearing on the New York Times bestseller list for 26 consecutive weeks, Dianetics created a storm of interest across the United States, requiring that four additional foundations be formed across America where students were trained on Dianetics.
With his continuing research into the mind, Mr. Hubbard, by late 1951, found himself studying the human spirit to answer the question of who or what was operating the mind. With this basic and elementary discovery of the human spirit, a new subject was founded: Scientology.
Groups of students from around the world traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, where Mr. Hubbard held classes and lectured on the subject of Scientology. As a result students returning to their areas formed Scientology groups not only in America, but in England, Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand and South Africa.
As the human spirit was truly in the realm of religion, a group of Los Angeles Scientologists formed the first Church of Scientology in February 1954. By the middle of the next decade over a dozen Churches of Scientology existed in some five countries along with scores of Scientology groups in dozens of nations.