These three classic 1950 photos of pensive, unsmiling people were taken at a Dianetics seminar in Los Angeles, with the shadowy L. Ron Hubbard himself leading the meeting. Hubbard and his $4 self-empowerment book were largely ignored by the mainstream press until the title became a mammoth bestseller. From a 1950 Look magazine article about the rise of a new belief system, which initially took root most strongly in Los Angeles:

“Of all the dianetic centers, Los Angeles is the most exuberantly expansive and enthusiastic. There the Hubbard Foundation moved into a suite of modest offices last July. In August, it took over a two-story building housing a lecture theater and 20 ‘processing’ rooms. A few weeks later, it had to expand again – this time into a 110-room building where swarms of student auditors raptly attend Hubbard’s lectures and practice processing one another.

Still more recently, there have been instituted a series of weekend sessions at the swank Country Club Hotel in Hollywood. Here, taking over 20 or 30 rooms, a band of student auditors and pre-clears meet under the guidance of professional auditors for ‘intensive auditing with chemical assist.’

Hubbard and his associates insist that this use of drugs has nothing to do with narcosynthesis. They claim that ‘chemical assistants,’ purchasable in California at any drugstore, aid in helping resistant pre-clears to achieve dianetic reverie and to dredge up their basic-basic engrams.”