Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard Offered Rewards For Celebrity Recruits In 1955

Publish date: 2024-07-09
2012-07-19T16:10:00Z

Plenty of celebrities practice Scientology today. However, when the religion first started out, Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had a few suggestions of his own for top recruits.  

Filed under the name "Project Celebrity," Hubbard announced a celebrity wish list to help spread word of his religion saying there are "many to whom America and the world listens." 

Walt Disney was among 63 celebrity recruits L. Ron Hubbard wanted to recruit to Scientology in 1955. Wikipedia

Published in the Xenu.net archives, the list appeared in an early 1955 "Ability" newsletter, a bulletin sent out to Scientology members. "Project Celebrity" contained 63 well-known celebrities comprised of athletes, actors, artists, writers, and singers from the '50s.

Hubbard requested current followers to claim one celebrity, whom he referred to as "quarry," and bring them in for a formal auditing session in which the celebrity would be told the benefits of Scientology and be made "much more effective."

The note also says Project Celebrity was just one action of more to come. The announcement came complete with a plan of how to enlist "quarry" into the religion:

"These Celebrities are well guarded, well barricaded, over-worked, aloof quarry ...

If you want one of these celebrities as your game, write us at once so the notable will be yours to hunt without interference." 

If you were successful in converting a celebrity you'd even receive a token of thanks for your efforts.

"If you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as your reward."

Read the entire announcement of Project Celebrity below: 

Ability Magazine 1955 / Xenu.net

Notable celebrities on Hubbard's wish list included:

Pablo Picasso, Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan, Ernest Hemmingway, Orson Welles, Walt Disney, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. 

Here's the full list of Hubbard's celebrity "quarry" list:  

  • Walter Winchell
  • Edward R. Murrow
  • Ed Sullivan
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Robert Q. Lewis
  • Orson Welles
  • Ernest Hemmingway
  • Danny Kaye
  • Joseph Alsop
  • Stewart Alsop
  • Sid Caesar
  • Louella Parsons
  • Liberace
  • Walt Kelly
  • Charles Laughton
  • Gaylord Hauser
  • Eric Johnson
  • Fred Allen
  • Harry Seeger
  • John Ford
  • Elliott White Springs [sic]
  • Gabriel Heatter             
  • Arthur Godfrey
  • George Gobel
  • Fulton J. Sheen
  • James Stewart
  • Howard Hughes
  • Philip Wylie
  • Billy Graham
  • Hedda Hopper
  • Bob Hope
  • Artie Shaw
  • Pablo Picasso
  • Al Capp
  • Walt Disney
  • Milton Berle
  • Duncan Hines
  • Dorothy Kilgallen
  • Gene Fowler
  • Jimmy Hatlo
  • Gordon MacRae
  • Jackie Gleason
  • Lowell Thomas
  • Frank Edwards
  • Joe Lewis
  • Vincent Price
  • Red Skelton
  • Joshua Logan
  • Henry Luce
  • Walter Lippman
  • Groucho Marx
  • Darryl Zanuck
  • Cecil B. DeMille
  • Leopold Stokowski
  • Arturo Toscanini
  • Bing Crosby
  • Edward G. Robinson
  • Greta Garbo
  • Robert C. Ruark
  • Earle Stanley Gardner
  • Charles Addams
  • Robert Montgomery
  • Donald O'Conner

Thanks to Robert Vaughn Young for posting the newsletter. 

Ex-Scientologist who wants to weigh in? Know anything more about these "reward" plaques? Please email me at kacuna@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: 21 famous Church of Scientology members >

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