Truth & Fiction: Childhood
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Became a blood brother of the Pikuni [Blackfoot] Indians.
(Source: 'What Is Scientology?', 1978, 1992)The Pikuni, a people with a strong oral tradition, have no record of such an auspicious event, and nor would they, as they do not and have not practiced the "blood bonding" ritual. A Scientologist with a miniscule percentage of Pikuni blood recently performed a ritual to make LRH an honorary Pikuni, but its validity was not recognised by the rest of the tribe. It was, however, an interesting admission that LRH was not in fact an honorary Pikuni, as he would have been if the story of the blood bonding was true.
Given LRH's upbringing in the West, it is quite likely that he did encounter Pikuni, and he certainly wrote of them in his first published novel, Buckskin Brigades. His diaries do not, however, speak of any significant contact with native Americans.
Corroboration: 'A Piece Of Blue Sky' (Jon Atack, 1992)
Befriended Calvin Coolidge Jr. [son of President], whose early death "accelerated his precocious interest in the mind and spirit of man".
(Source: 'Mission into Time', 1973)Hubbard certainly met Calvin Coolidge, as a representative of the Washington scouts on a visit to the White House in late 1923. He claimed in his journal and later that he had become a close personal friend of the younger Coolidge. However, this remains something of a mystery, as the recorded movements of Ron and Calvin Jr. show that it would have been hard for the two to have met.
Corroboration: 'A Piece Of Blue Sky' (Jon Atack, 1992)
Toured Asia, funded by his wealthy grandfather, visiting Manchuria, Tibet and India and befriending warlords and bandits.
(Source: 'What Is Scientology?', 1978, 1992)Hubbard visited Asia on a number of occasions in the 1920s and early 1930s, as his father was stationed in Guam, but his journals show that his trips inland were limited to what he quaintly called "the rubberneck stops" - Peking and the Great Wall of China. There is no evidence that he entered Tibet or India, though Manchuria is possible (depending on which step of the Great Wall he visited). Jon Atack's question as to precisely what LRH learned from warlords and bandits remains, alas, unanswered.
There is also no evidence that Hubbard's grandfather funded his travels. Lafayette Waterbury was by this time in his sixties and living quietly with his family in Helena, Montana. He was far from a wealthy man; he had been put out of business by the Great Depression and had decided around 1920 to retire and live on what capital he had left.
Corroboration: Bare-Faced Messiah (Russell Miller, 1987)
'A Piece Of Blue Sky' (Jon Atack, 1992)
Returned to USA in 1930 on death of his grandfather.
(Source: 'Mission into Time', 1973)Demonstrably untrue, as Lafayette Waterbury did not die until 18 August 1931.
Corroboration: Bare-Faced Messiah (Russell Miller, 1987)
