The "Affirmations", also referred to as the "Admissions", is a document written around 1946 or 1947. It does not list an author, but it is widely believed to have been written by L. Ron Hubbard, a few years before he established Dianetics (1950), which formed the basis for Scientology (1952). The document consists of a series of statements by and addressed to Hubbard, relating to various physical, sexual, psychological and social issues that he was encountering in his life. After the Affirmations became public knowledge in 1984, the Church of Scientology initially disputed their authenticity. However, they later effectively admitted the document's authorship, describing the work in legal papers as having been "written by" Hubbard and seeking to retain ownership of it.
The Affirmations were intended to be used as a form of self-hypnosis with the intention of resolving Hubbard's psychological problems and instilling a positive mental attitude. They are closely linked to the occult philosophy of Thelema, devised by Aleister Crowley in the early 20th century, in which Hubbard participated for a while during 1945–46. In her book Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion, Janet Reitman calls the Affirmations "the most revealing psychological self-assessment, complete with exhortations to himself, that [Hubbard] had ever made".
Background
L. Ron Hubbard had become a well-known writer of pulp fiction stories in the 1930s before he joined the United States Navy in 1941, a few months before the US entered World War II. His military career was not a success; he was removed from both of the vessels that he commanded after disagreements with his superiors and an incident in which he inadvertently shelled neutral Mexico. He spent a lengthy spell in hospital with chronic stomach ulcers in the last year of the war. After the war ended in 1945 he moved in with Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist and occultist who shared a large house in Pasadena, California with various like-minded individuals. Hubbard was an enthusiastic participant in the sex magic rituals which Parsons, a member of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), performed with the aid of his girlfriend and muse, Sara "Betty" Northrup, who was 20–21 years old in 1945. Hubbard subsequently eloped with Sara to Florida and eventually married her bigamously, without divorcing his first wife Polly, whom he had abandoned in Washington state along with their young son L. Ron Jr.
At some point around 1946 or 1947, Hubbard is said to have composed what have become known as the "Affirmations" or "Admissions". They were written with the intention of reading them into a recording device and playing them back to himself as a form of self-hypnosis. The document came to light in the 1984 court case Church of Scientology v. Gerald Armstrong when the Church of Scientology's former archivist, Gerry Armstrong, read sections of them into the record against the strong objections of the church's lawyers. Other sections of the document were subsequently posted on the Internet by Armstrong after someone anonymously emailed a copy of the Affirmations to him in 2000. The name "Affirmations" was given to the document by Omar V. Garrison, a British writer hired by the Church of Scientology to write an official biography of Hubbard.
In the Armstrong case in 1984, Hubbard's wife's lawyer acknowledged that the document, written in Hubbard's own handwriting, was by Hubbard himself and claimed that it was part of his "research". It was, he said, "far and away the most private and personal document probably that I have ever read by anybody". Armstrong's lawyer agreed, commenting that "most Scientologists ... if they read these documents would leave the organization five minutes after they read them." The church argued that they constituted "a kind of self-therapy". It later backtracked, claiming that Hubbard had not written the document. However, as part of the agreement with the Church of Scientology that settled the 1984 case, Armstrong was required to return "all originals and copies of the documents commonly known as the 'Affirmations' written by L. Ron Hubbard". As religious studies scholar Hugh Urban comments, "here the church clearly indicates that the text was written by L. Ron Hubbard, and it seems difficult to understand why the church would file suit to retain ownership of the text were it not an authentic document."