Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology by Jon Atack

he
learned there. By applying the rigorous discipline of Western scientific method
to the secrets of Eastern mysticism, Hubbard later claimed to have isolated the
laws of life itself. 3
    Quite typically, Scientology accounts of Hubbard’s sojourn
in the East are packed with contradictions. In one we are told his father was
posted to Asia in 1925, and that Ron travelled extensively between 1925 and
1929. Hubbard allegedly spent a considerable period of time in the western
hills of Manchuria, and while in China visited many Buddhist monasteries.
    In his book Mission into Time , Hubbard claimed he had
studied with Holy men in Northern China and India. In What is Scientology? Hubbard’s life is depicted in a series of amateurish paintings, amongst them
one of three fur-clad Tibetan bandits, with the caption: “In the isolation of
the high hills of Tibet, even native bandits responded to Ron’s honest interest
in them and were willing to share with him what understanding of life they
had.” 5 We can only speculate how Hubbard incorporated facets of Tibetan
bandit “philosophy” into his science of the mind and spirit.
    If provoked, the Scientologists hand out an article,
allegedly from a Helena newspaper (though the paper does not exist in the
Helena records). 6 In the article, Hubbard described a “trip to the
Orient” lasting from April 30, when he left San Francisco, to September 1, when
he returned to Helena, to stay with his maternal grandparents and attend high
school. The year was 1927, not 1925. Scientology accounts say Hubbard returned
to the US upon the death of his maternal grandfather, but the clipping the
Church provides says he was again living with this same grandfather, who in
fact died in 1931. In the article Hubbard said he had visited Guam, the
Philippines, Wake Island, Hong Kong and “Yokohoma.”
    In a short autobiography written for Adventure magazine in
1935, Hubbard said: “it was not until I was sixteen [in 1927] that I headed for
the China Coast ... in Peiping ... I completely missed the atmosphere of the
city, devoting most of my time to a British major who happened to be head of
the Intelligence out there. In Shanghai, I am ashamed to admit that I did not
tour the city or surrounding country as I should have. I know more about 181
Bubbling Wells Road and its wheels than I do about the history of the town. In
Hong Kong - well, why take up space?” 7
    So, Hubbard travelled extensively in Northern China and
India between 1925 and 1929, though by his own account he did not leave the US
until 1927, when he was 16. He allegedly learned the wisdom of the East, yet
was ashamed at his lack of inquisitiveness whilst there.
    Shannon dredged up Ron’s school records, from which we learn
that Ron spent the school year 1925-1926 at Union High School, Bremerton,
Washington, 8 while his father was stationed at nearby Puget Sound. 9 At the start of the school year 1926-1927, Ron enrolled at Queen Anne High
School, in Seattle 10 Harry Hubbard’s Naval record 9 shows
that his first shore duty outside the US began on April 5, 1927, when he was
assigned to the US Naval Station on the island of Guam, in the western Pacific.
Ron left Queen Anne High School in April 1927. 10
    Hubbard recorded two short visits to China in his teenage
diaries. The first in 1927, en route to Guam, and the second the following
year. 11, 12
    The 1927 diary 11 records a round trip to Guam,
with summaries of the people and places he saw. The summaries are brief, as was
Hubbard’s time in the China ports. The “President Madison,” on which he and his
mother sailed, didn’t seem to stay put for more than a day anywhere. It was a
transport, not a cruise liner. The President Madison visited Hawaii,
where Hubbard watched young men diving for coins.
    Hubbard was unimpressed with Yokohama, Shanghai and Hong
Kong. Any sympathy he felt for the people who lived in the squalor his diary
records quickly evaporated, and was displaced by a