The History of Dianetics and Scientology in Washington, D.C.

On July 21, 1955, the Founding Church of Scientology Washington, D.C., opened its doors to the Scientology religion for the citizens of the nation’s capital. Events which led to that singular occasion began decades earlier, however...

The Doris Hamlin, which L. Ron Hubbard used in his 1932 Caribbean Expedition
The Doris Hamlin which L. Ron Hubbard used in his 1932 Caribbean Expedition.

For more than a quarter of a century, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics and Scientology, had searched for answers to the mind and life, a search that had taken him to the far corners of the Earth. Notwithstanding that quest, he continually returned to Washington, D.C., which he had long called his home.

It was here, in fact, at the age 12, that his initial studies into the mind had begun, when he met a commander in the US Navy who had studied directly under Sigmund Freud. Although keenly interested in what these early authorities had to impart, he was also left with many unanswered questions, and a realization of how little man knew of the mind.

Mr. Hubbard at George Washington University
Attending George Washington University, Mr. Hubbard (top row, second from right) became a well-known figure as president of the university Glider Club and the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His college days further saw the formal start of his literary career as an award-winning playwright and contributor to the GWU Hatchet literary review. Then, too, these days saw his work as a reporter and photographer for the Washington Herald, and even a balladeer on local radio station WOL.

L. Ron Hubbard on the West Indies Mineralogical Expedition
In late 1932, L. Ron Hubbard directed the West Indies Mineralogical Expedition which left Washington, D.C. in October.

While still in his teens, L. Ron Hubbard traveled extensively throughout Asia and the Pacific, studying Far Eastern philosophies firsthand and again seeking answers to the human dilemma. Returning to Washington in 1929 to complete his formal education, he enrolled at George Washington University (GWU).

Although Mr. Hubbard’s interests lay particularly in writing and ethnology, his major at GWU was engineering, for it was this field that provided the scientific methodology that would later prove so vital to his work toward the resolution of the human condition. Indeed, it was while still at GWU that he conducted his first crucial experiments into the structure and function of human memory.