L. Ron Hubbard

Name at birth: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard was a writer in the 1930s and '40s, cranking out westerns and science fiction stories and novels. In 1950 he published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and in 1954 he founded the Church of Scientology to promote his "applied religious philosophy." A form of psychotherapy, it involves confronting negative experiences from the past in order to achieve ultimate mental health. Hubbard was the executive director of the church until 1966, but as founder he remained sole authority until the 1980s. In 1981 he published the gargantuan science fiction novel Battlefield Earth.