L. Ron Hubbard

Hubbard was an officer in the Navy during World War II, where he briefly commanded two ships but was removed from command both times. The last few months of his active service were spent in a hospital, being treated for a variety of complaints. In 1953, the first churches of Scientology were founded by Hubbard, and in 1954 a Scientology church in Los Angeles was founded, which became the Church of Scientology International. He also added organizational management strategies, principles of pedagogy, a theory of communication and prevention strategies for healthy living to the teachings of Scientology. Scientology became increasingly controversial during the 1960s and came under intense media, government and legal pressure in a number of countries. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hubbard spent much of his time at sea on his personal fleet of ships as "Commodore" of the Sea Organization, an elite quasi-paramilitary group of Scientologists.
Hubbard returned to the United States in 1975 and went into seclusion in the California desert after an unsuccessful attempt to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida. In 1978, Hubbard was convicted of fraud after he was tried ''in absentia'' by France. In the same year, eleven high-ranking members of Scientology were indicted on 28 charges for their role in the Church's Snow White Program, a systematic program of espionage against the United States government. One of the indicted was Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard; he himself was named an unindicted co-conspirator. Hubbard spent the remaining years of his life in seclusion, attended to by a small group of Scientology officials. Following his 1986 death, Scientology leaders announced that Hubbard's body had become an impediment to his work and that he had decided to "drop his body" to continue his research on another plane of existence. Though many of his autobiographical statements were fictitious, the Church of Scientology describes Hubbard in hagiographic terms. Sociologist Stephen Kent has observed that Hubbard "likely presented a personality disorder known as malignant narcissism." Provided by Wikipedia
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