The accolades for his work would fill a volume—awards recognizing his literary accomplishments, his humanitarian contributions, his discoveries. But the greatest reward, particularly in Mr. Hubbard’s own estimation, were the lives he was able to help through Dianetics and Scientology.

As just one indication of Mr. Hubbard’s continued popularity, fully 38 years after its initial publication, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health achieved the unheard of, returning to the top of the New York Times bestseller list in 1988. It still rides on bestseller lists around the world to this day and has thus far sold more than 18 million copies.

No less dramatic was the popular acceptance of Mr. Hubbard’s other discoveries. To date, for example, over a quarter of a million people have been freed from the effects of drugs, utilizing his rehabilitation methods in centers across the globe, including the world’s largest drug rehabilitation and training facility in Oklahoma.

For many more throughout the world – two million in South Africa alone – the name L. Ron Hubbard means literacy and an ability to learn any subject, thanks to his developments in the field of study.

His breakthroughs in administration have enabled thousands of professionals in industry, business and community affairs to bring sanity and stability to their workplaces and their groups.

Every day, Mr. Hubbard’s discoveries on the subject of ethics help bring new order into people’s lives, into their families, their communities and their environment. A long-confused subject, it has been endowed with new clarity and workability.

Today, millions of people are using his principles and are finding they work. And through this application, L. Ron Hubbard’s dream, a dream that perhaps summarizes the hopes of thinking men throughout the ages – “a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights” —is not only possible but attainable.

Although best known as the founder of Dianetics and Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard cannot be so simply categorized. His life was too varied and his influence too broad. Bantu tribesmen in southern Africa know him as an educator; factory workers in Albania know him for his administrative discoveries; children in China know him as the author of their moral code; and readers in a dozen languages know him only for his novels. Had Mr. Hubbard stopped after only one of his many accomplishments he would still be celebrated today.