Clambake has a bunch of links to [link|http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/|books.] [link|http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/apobs/|A Piece Of Blue Sky] is also very good.

In any case, Hubbard's descent into kooky paranoia is actually pretty typical. Once you start on that path of mental isolation from the rest of the world, you tend to just drift further and further out. Once it gets going, the paranoia and the isolation become a self reinforcing loop. You can't trust information except what you discover or invent yourself, and the more you do that the more isolated you become. The more isolated you become, the more it seems that a vast conspiracy to keep your special information from reaching the population exists and to keep you from reaching the glorious posistion you deserve.

You can see the same cycle in a lot of cult leaders. They start out not that far from reality, but once they get a group around them that follows their every word they drift further and further. Heck, you can see the same pattern hit some politcal, buisness and sports groups, though usually in a smaller way.

Jay