This has been played out over and over throughout history. People get caught up in it because they have no larger overview of how this has happened OVER and OVER in the past.
I am currently reading a VERY interesting book,
Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America by Peter Washington. Blavatsky is the woman who began Theosophy after she claimed to receive detailed messages from a few
Tibetan Masters. Entire books were transcribed by her (so she said). Today there are MANY groups, and MANY websites, that take as total truth all these ideas about
Tibetan Masters and
The Great White Brotherhood. Blavatsky and Theosophy mark the beginning of when these sort of ideas began infiltrating into the West, and also the beginniong of the West's deep
infatuation with "esoteric and exotic eastern ideas":
Man and life are not products of physical evolution.
Man is a spiritual being on a path of evolution and growth.
There is one (spiritual) reality that exists behind all physical appearances and diversity.
Now, I am not saying that there isn't some truth to these ideas, but anyone who seriously studies all of the various "movements" that occurred through the 1800s until now, can't help but notice that these ideas MAINLY slid into America on the coat-tails of
tricksters, liars and deceivers. Hoaxsters! Personally, I think Hubbard was familiar with how well some of these con artists did, and he modeled himself after them.
Theosophy mingled with masonry, and with Rosicrucianism. Then that morphed into Steiner's Anthroposophy, and various occult magical groups such as the Golden Dawn. Those influenced what became Crowley's Thelema. And from there, thus was begat Scientology. Now, amidst all of these there was a wide range of people, from the wholly sincere and honest, to the horribly secretive and deceptive. One can't and shouldn't generalize about these things too much, but that the vein of
charlatanry runs DEEP throughout them there is no denying. To me, Hubbard follows THAT aspect of it - the deceivers.
The book is a critical look at just exactly HOW and WHEN various eastern ideas began seeping into the west, usually at the behest of
charlatans and con men (or women). I am about 90 pages into it now, and the similarities to Scientology are many and varied. Interestingly, Hubbard could almost be the reincarnation of Blavatsky. She had a reputation for telling VERY TALL TALES about herself. She could manipulate and control others easily. She "spewed" her "data" in volumes upon volumes. She would make up just about anything to get what she wanted. AND, many BELIEVED everything she said!
Just like Hubbard she "convinced some people that
she had unlocked the mysteries of the universe". She was an heir to Hubbard in this regard. There are some other very good books out there about the "history of the occult in the West", and anybody who wants to get a grasp of what Scientolgy is and where it comes from needs to read about such things. It gives one a much larger frame of reference from which to view and understand Hubbard & Scientology. Simply, Hubbard was just another trickster on a great long line of earlier tricksters beginning with Spiritualism and mediums in America. The tricksters took advantage of the decent people's hopes and dreams about "spiritual things".
What is interesting about Hubbard is that he never resorted to "shows". Spiritualism had its tapping of spirits on tables. Theosophy had the first examples of "channeling of advanced beings from other places and dimensions". And while Hubbard TALKS about OT abilities and Advanced States of existence, he managed to convince people without much "stage gimmicry". Though, yes the movies of him auditing ARE a sort of "stage show act". And, his lectures are very much "an act". But, somehow he convinced people that these various states existed without EVER exihibiting them to anybody!
People just believed him. While reading the above book, I did find a key here about all of these. These people WANTED TO BELIEVE. It is easy to trick people when they want to see the end result of the trick!
It is easy to get people to see illusions when they very much WANT the illusion to exist. It seems that people like Hubbard (and Blavatsky) had an almost uncanny natural instinct for knowing what certain groups of people WANTED to BELIEVE. And, once they knew THAT, they worked it - damn, they worked it!