|
L. Ron Hubbard is perhaps best known
as an author, his works published in 54 languages, with over
150 million copies in print. Yet he is also known to and remembered
by millions as a great humanitarian who, after more than half
a century of  research
into methods to better the human condition, left a legacy that
improves men’s lives in innumerable ways. This legacy is
recorded in an immense body of work that literally comprises
tens of millions of words.
His life was uniquely dedicated to an inquiry into the nature
of man and to research into ways to help man improve his lot.
Mr. Hubbard wrote in an essay, “My Philosophy”: “I
know no man who has any monopoly upon the wisdom of this universe.
It belongs to those who can use it to help themselves and others.
If things were a little better known and understood, we would
all lead happier lives.”
Mr. Hubbard is also widely recognized as the founder of the
religion of Scientology, a religion which embodies all of his
core research and subsequent technical development which enables
individuals to understand and deal with their own lives and
to improve their relationships with family, friends and associates,
as well, importantly, to gain greater insight into their spiritual
nature.
But there is another aspect to L. Ron Hubbard’s work—an
aspect which informs and directs the activities of ABLE and
its four associated social betterment organizations. That is:
a concern for the individual and an appreciation that the social
barriers which that individual faces can bar him from having
a productive and satisfying life. These barriers include drugs,
lack of an effective education, a criminal outlook on life or
fear of criminality and a failure to comprehend what behavior
is likely to lead to happiness and fulfillment.
As early as 1950, he noted that “Today’s children
will become tomorrow’s civilization,” and warned that
society was destroying itself by its own educational systems,
a prediction that has proven nightmarishly accurate. Today we
face a society which demands a sophisticated education and an
ability to assimilate new facts in the face of a rapidly changing
technology. Yet vast numbers of children are consigned to menial
tasks—and often to gangs, drug dealing and other criminality—due
to a failure to obtain an education that equips them to succeed.
In response to his recognition of the failings in modern education,
Mr. Hubbard systematically researched the fundamentals of learning.
And his resultant breakthroughs in this field open the doors
to learning for anyone who applies them.
Today this “Study Technology” is used and delivered
around the world through Applied Scholastics educational services.
Ranging from teacher training programs delivered to thousands
of educators in third world countries, to community and inner
city literacy programs in the United States and to private schools
and tutoring programs around the world, these services have
a common denominator: Mr. Hubbard’s workable Study Technology.
Mr. Hubbard also achieved path-breaking results in the field
of substance abuse and drug addiction. Observing the drug “revolution”
of the 1960s and early 1970s, he accelerated his research into
the consequences of substance abuse and the techniques necessary
to handle the effect of drugs and other toxic chemicals on individuals,
warning that “the planet has hit a barrier which prevents
any widespread social progress—drugs and other biochemical
substances. These can put people into a condition which not
only prohibits and destroys physical health but which can prevent
any stable advancement in mental or spiritual well-being.”
Through his research he not only addressed the problem of why
people take drugs in the first place (for without such an address
they are forever left with the original condition for which
drugs were a “solution”), he also developed effective
methods to alleviate the horror of withdrawal from drugs. Then
he developed procedures that remove drug residuals from the
fatty tissues and bring about a physical detoxification which
removes the stimulus responsible for much drug reversion. All
this resulted in development of the Narconon drug rehabilitation
program which successfully ends addiction.
The problem of criminality and the fact that incarceration in
a penitentiary tends to make hard-core criminals, not penitent,
reformed citizens, were areas which Mr. Hubbard studied as early
as the 1930s and, in the 1940s when he served as a Special Officer
in Los Angeles.  His
studies of the causes of crime—primary among them being
the individual’s loss of self-respect—brought about
the Criminon criminal reform program which truly rehabilitates
offenders so they regain that lost self-respect and become productive
members of society. Today the Criminon program utilizes materials
and technology developed by Mr. Hubbard to rehabilitate criminals
around the world. The root words of “rehabilitate”
mean “to make useful again” or “to make able
again”. And that is what is accomplished through Mr. Hubbard’s
technology. Men and women are restored to ability—not through
lectures telling them to “be good” but through enabling
them to discover themselves, to regain their self-respect and
to shed the perspective and outlook on life that dictated criminality
as a solution.
The 1970s marked a period of intensive moral decline in the
West. The place of religion became increasingly circumscribed
and moral and ethical standards were broadly challenged on many
fronts. In 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled that
a public school in Kentucky could not post the 10 Commandments
as to do so would violate the separation of church and state
mandated by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Commenting
on this and other developments of the period, Mr. Hubbard wrote, “When religion is not influential in a society or has ceased
to be, the state inherits the entire burden of public morality.
It then must use punishment and police. Yet this is unsuccessful
as morality, not inherent in the individual, cannot be enforced
with any great success”. Seeing the collapse of moral standards
and reduction in influence of the institutions which historically
had advanced those standards, Mr. Hubbard wrote a wholly secular
and non-religious, common-sense moral code, The Way to Happiness,
a booklet that can be used as a logical guide by individuals
of any race or religious background to help themselves, their
families and associates. With 21 fundamental precepts, fully
discussed, the booklet is used by children and adults to develop
moral standards based on their own reasoning and understanding
of why and how those standards promote a happier life.
While Mr. Hubbard’s accomplishments cover far broader ground
than noted, it is these in particular which provide ABLE with
its impetus and, indeed, its reason for being. In a world facing
a perilous future, it is imperative that ABLE energetically
work to bring about widespread implementation of these effective
solutions, for without them man’s most ambitious aspirations
and dreams may never materialize.
While ABLE helps to make these achievements known and applied,
the greatest testament to Mr. Hubbard’s endeavors lies
in the fact that today, as a direct result of his lifelong dedication
to helping others, individuals from all walks of life on every
continent in scores of nations utilize his principles to better
their lives and free themselves and others of those shadows
which darken their days.
More information on L. Ron Hubbard:
L. Ron Hubbard Website | L. Ron Hubbard - Literary Correspondence | L. Ron Hubbard & Education - Applied Scholastics
L. Ron Hubbard & the Narconon Program | L. Ron Hubbard, The Writer | L. Ron Hubbard, A Profile
L. Ron Hubbard, The Humanitarian - Education | L. Ron Hubbard: Study Technology
|
