L. Ron Hubbard 2.0 still awaits trial, but the Freezone is buzzing about his origin story

We prove day in and day out with our “Overheard in the Freezone” feature that we have a fondness for Independent Scientology.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, these are folks who revere Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and engage in his ideas and practices, but are independent of the Church of Scientology. Their numbers are small, but we appreciate them because they will often say things publicly about Hubbard and Scientology that church members keep quiet about.

Some of the best fun we’ve had with the Freezone came courtesy of a California ex-con named Justin Craig who, in 2018, showed up in Elma, Washington, home of a tiny enclave of indies, announced that he was the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, legally changed his name to Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, and then proceeded to actually convince some of the other Hubbardites that he was telling the truth.

We had a lot of fun in 2018 conversing with “Lafayette” and revealing that as Craig he had a pretty extensive criminal background, including some attempted carjackings and a four-year prison sentence in California. After that he experienced some rocky times, announced in the Summer of 2020 that “Scientology is dead,” and then created something he called “Esperianism” as he left Washington State.

To our surprise, LRH 2.0 turned up in the Anderson County Jail in Clinton, Tennessee, where he had been arrested on October 13, 2021. He was initially facing charges of false imprisonment (later dropped) and aggravated assault, but then he was also rung up on charges when police found heroin and a heroin/fentanyl compound in the hotel room where he’d been staying, along with other drug paraphernalia. And while some of those initial charges have been dismissed, Craig/Hubbard is apparently having a hard time in custody, because he’s been arrested two more times and is facing even more charges for assaults that occurred in the hoosegow. On January 5, 2022, while he was already in custody LRH 2.0 was arrested on four counts of assault, later reduced to two counts. And then on March 27, he was slapped with another felony assault charge along with misdemeanor vandalism. The total bond amount now keeping Craig in jail has reached $506,000, and his August trial appears to have been set back to October.

Meanwhile, through intermediaries at Facebook he gets out messages to his Esperianism followers, who dutifully send him money every month convinced that he’s the reincarnated Hubbard, and we published some of those messages in April.

Now, there’s been a remarkable new statement to emerge at Facebook, but this one wasn’t by Craig/Hubbard, it was posted by Patricia Krenick, who has decided now to come forward and explain the LRH 2.0 origin story. (And we want to thank Chris Shelton for bringing it to our attention.)

We know that some of you, like us, are connoisseurs of the Freezone, and we knew you’d want this stuff just poured into your veins. For the rest of you, we apologize for the distraction, but think of it as a side door into the mind of how many actual Scientologists think, inside and outside the church itself.

And thank you to Pat Krenick, for speaking up at this time, and filling us in. We really appreciate it.

How I met Ron2.

He was introduced to me by Craig Robert, an auditor who lived in CA, via e-mail. Craig said, “There is something different about this cat,” as he encouraged the then Justin Craig to come to the Revitalizing Ministry. Indeed there was something different, and I found it quite positive. In Scientology we use an e-meter in auditing, which is a sort of mini lie detector or, as I like to think of it, a “truth detector” because when truth is there the needle on the e-meter “floats,” thus showing no resistance on the subject under discussion. Justin’s needle was floating widely, at exactly 3.0 when he first came here and picked up the cans. Consequent auditing showed much TA motion and what we say in the freezone “a Cadillac preclear”. During the time I audited him I gained a considerable respect for him and his views. Outside of auditing he was very “A to B” as we would have called it in Scientology, setting his targets and getting them done. He went through the Level’s training and NOTs training in very short time and really understood it. I have trained many people, so this one who really didn’t have much of an education this lifetime, impressed me.

Some time shortly after the auditing and training he had here in Elma, WA, Justin cognited on being L. Ron Hubbard, returnee, went to the examiner and floated widely on that.

His first accomplishment after that was going to Court in Aberdeen, WA and successfully getting his name changed to Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. While that was still in process he decided to pick up the research hat of LRH1, and produced what I called amazing tech, amazing that with just the training he had here that he could come up with such a needed and wanted workable tech, the Infinity Procedure.

There were so many OT’s who still felt something in their case was not yet handled, and the Infinity Procedure filled that gap. In the C.O.S if you wanted something handled after OT III you were encouraged to do L-11, at some very expensive cost; $60,000 one person told me. Since not everyone had both $60,000 and time free to take off for a couple of weeks, very few OT’s were getting their cases handled. Infinity procedure substituted for that very well, at very little or no cost.

All Was Not a Bed of Roses

This needs to be mentioned because it is known — it needs acknowledgement. Ron2 once said to me, “I am the most ethical person on this planet.” This was shortly before problems set in. He couldn’t and didn’t hold that position; if he had he wouldn’t be where he is now, awaiting trial for assault in a Tennessee prison. Giving him a break I would say it isn’t easy to research the bank and come up with workable tech…case can stir up. While we all know that is no excuse, it does go toward the understanding of unacceptable behavior.

Returning to the Subject of Tech

That is what it is all about — the technology of how to free beings. So first “New Era Scientology” came out with the Infinity Procedure many Scientology OT’s used it with benefit. It was easy to do — any solo auditor could do it. Almost everything else Ron2 wrote came out after he left our premises. For a couple or so years after that I was not in communication with Ron2, New Era Scientology, or Esperianism. (As an aside, notice that Esperianism starts with ESP! A difference in intention from Scientology.)

So now I am playing catch-up, and it isn’t easy. I frankly don’t understand much of what Ron2 writes, but what I do understand works like a charm on Scientology Pre-OTs. In a way it reminds me of early Dianetics, e.g. you didn’t have to fly ruds in Dianetics, you would just pick up the out rud he was sitting in and take it earlier and run out the engram. No where in Esperianism does it say “fly 3 ruds if no f/n.”

You pick up by assessment where the pc’s attention is, and you run a procedure whereby your postulates actually work to change the condition. That is basically what Esperianism does. Oddly enough, that is what Scientology is supposed to do. It does – eventually – but you are lucky indeed to have an auditor and/or c/s that understands what is going on with you and knows what to use to handle your complaint.

Ron2 wrote “Scientology is Dead.” That didn’t mean we were not to use Scientology – he states in other materials that the better the auditor you are the more effective you can be in phasing. Basics are basics. You never run a pc over an upset, a present time problem, a withhold, an overt, an overrun, a protest or out body ruds (e.g. not enough sleep, on drugs, bad diet) Out body ruds mean no session, get sleep, off drugs, eat properly. The others you may start the session but you wouldn’t run anything other than the out rud if you had one. You just don’t run it ruds style, you run it similar to older Dianetics where you take what the pre-clears attention is on and run a process to handle that.

So you are upset because Mom kicked you out of the house. Can you then run the Ability, Intelligence Rundown over that situation? I would say yes, because the first thing you do in the AIRD is make a list of 100 abilities you would like to have or improve upon. That list will certainly include any GPM (Goals, Problem, Mass) item whether or not you are aware of that at the time of listing – something there will “read’ and of course you will take it up. It will be connected to what you are sitting in such as being kicked out of the house by Mom. By doing the procedure you will handle the situation because postulates work and all of Esperianism is based on that. So I highly recommend anyone who can read an e-meter read and apply Numbers 15 and 16 of the Ultimate Series – with proper postulate processing you can achieve miracles.

Not copyrighted, ok to copy without changes.

Patricia Krenik, Scientology Case Supervisor. I am not an Esperianist, I am a Scientologist. But I have found workability in much of Esperianism and I am willing to deliver either Scientology Bridge or parts of Esperianism where I have personally checked out the tech and found it workable. I am available on Meta’s (Facebook’s) messenger.

Krenick’s message did not go down well with everyone in the Freezone. Here’s one comment she received:

It's an endorsement...same as you've done since you foisted that lunatic off on the Scientology field a number of years ago. You even still refer to him as Ron 2.0

Your inability to apply standard Scientology and yet remain clueless about the damage you've done to the field is astounding.

Well, not everyone is down with Infinity Procedure, apparently. But Craig, facing trial, certainly knows that he has fans.

But how will he convince a judge that he’s the Great Thetan?

---

Want to help?

You can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail).

---

Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series every week…

Up the Bridge: A weekly journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news