THE HISTORY OF SCIENTOLOGY’S EXPANSION
Dianetics Bursts on the Scene
Published on May 9, 1950, Dianetics quickly led to a national movement. Bookstores, unable to keep copies on the shelves, slipped them beneath the counters for favored customers. Campus discussion groups and Dianetics clubs sprang up from coast to coast. Having grasped the essentials of Dianetics from their reading, thousands were either auditing or receiving auditing, while a number of hospitals adopted Mr. Hubbard’s technology as the only effective means of helping those suffering from psychosomatic ills. As for the author, by summer 1950, readers were actually camping on his lawn in the hopes that he might consent to offer personal instruction.
To meet this demand, the Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation opened in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in June 1950. There, Mr. Hubbard delivered the first Professional Auditor Course to students arriving from across the nation. With sales of the book approaching the 100,000 mark, five more branch offices soon opened – in Chicago; New York; Washington, DC; Los Angeles and Hawaii.
Concurrent with the establishment of the Dianetics offices, those first hectic months after publication saw Mr. Hubbard on the lecture circuit – first to Los Angeles where, with little promotion, more than 6,000 people welcomed him to the Shrine Auditorium; then on to the San Francisco Bay area for a series of lectures in Oakland.
More statistical facts about Scientology
