L. Ron Hubbard

American author and founder of Scientology — who created Dianetics as a self-help system (1950), then transformed it into the Church of Scientology — one of the most controversial religious movements in American history.

Creates Scientology as a new religious movement with a science-fictional cosmology — Hubbard's construction (combining science fiction tropes, amateur psychology, auditing practices, and an elaborate cosmological mythology) produced the most successful self-invented religion of the 20th century.