It started as a self help method called Dianetics and wasn't considered a religion until about 10 years later.Hubbard often acknowledges his philosophical forerunners and influences. In Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the seminal "Book One" of Dianetics and Scientology, he states that:
"There are just so many pieces in any puzzle."
Hubbard credits Francis Bacon and Herbert Spencer, along with "a very few more" for having put together parts of the answer. Hubbard also recalls a meeting with Cmdr. Joseph Cressman Thompson, a U.S. navy officer who studied with Sigmund Freud. Hubbard, himself the son of a navy officer, met Thompson at the age of 12 during a trip from Seattle to Washington D.C. via the Panama Canal. Thompson introduced him to Freudian analysis, and Hubbard later gave his opinion on Sigmund Freud: “I think that was Freud’s great contribution that something could be done about the mind... He was the first man that ever stood up and said: 'there is hope for it'... Now there was a great humanitarian." However, there are discrepancies between Scientology as a religion and Psychoanalysis.