Today in History

May 9 1950

L. Ron Hubbard publishes the first edition of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This follows on the heels of a feature article in the pulp sci-fi magazine Astounding Science Fiction. A book review in the The New Republic describes the work as "a bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long-acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology." The subsequent movement goes on to become one of the scariest, most powerful pseudo-religious cults in modern history.