It appears to be a 1950 first edition of '
Dianetics', which would have the Introduction by Dr. J. A. Winter. A year later, Winter would write in his 1951 book, '
A Doctor's Report on Dianetics':
"
There was a difference between the ideals inherent in the Dianetic hypothesis and the actions of the Foundation in its ostensible efforts to carry out these ideals. The ideals, as I saw them, included non-authoritarianism and a flexibility of approach. The ideals... continued to be given lip-service, but I could see a definite disparity between ideals and actualities."
And, in 1959, Hubbard, thinking of Dr. Winter, would write in his '
HCO Manual of Justice':
"Dianetics and Scientology are self-protecting sciences. If one attacks them one attacks all the know-how of the mind. It caves in the bank. It's gruesome sometimes.
"At this instance there are men hiding in terror on Earth because they found out what they were attacking. There are men dead because they attacked us - for instance Dr. Joe Winter [wrote Introduction to 'DMSMH', and the book, 'A Doctor's Report on Dianetics' with an Introduction by Fritz Perls].
He simply realized what he did and died. There are men bankrupt because they attacked us - [Don]
Purcell, Ridgeway, [publisher of 'DMSMH']
Ceppos."
And it appears to be the hard bound third edition of 'Messiah or Madman?' which would have this in its book flap material:
"I have high hopes of smashing my name
into history so violently that it will take a
legendary form even if all the books are
destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as
I am concerned. Things which stand too
consistently in my way make me nervous.
It's a pretty big job. In a hundred years
Roosevelt will have been forgotten - which
gives some idea of the magnitude of my
attempt. And all this boils and froths inside
my head...
"Psychiatrists, reaching the high of the
dusty desk, tell us that Alexander, Genghis
Khan and Napoleon were madmen. I know
they're maligning some very intelligent
gentlemen."
L. Ron Hubbard wrote these words in a letter to
his first wife in 1938.
In 1950 he wrote the bestseller 'Dianetics, the
Modern Science of Mental Health. This inspired a
layman oriented mental health movement which,
ultimately, developed into Scientology, the most
profitable of the money-making new religions.
Hubbard's early Dianetic and Scientology writings
borrow freely from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and
the founder of General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski.
And P.T. Barnum appears to have been an inspiration.
Hubbard also took much from the writings of Aleister
Crowley - self-proclaimed "Beast 666." This is a source
of embarrassment for the Scientology Church, which
is determined to achieve broad public acceptance.
In the 1960s Hubbard incorporated Brainwashing
methodologies into the subject. He established the
"Fair Game Policy" which states that an "enemy" of
Scientology "may be deprived of property or injured
by any means by any Scientologist, without
discipline of that Scientologist. May be tricked,
sued, lied to or destroyed."
He also became the Commodore of his own private
navy, and began to refer to himself as "Source."
L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? exposes
as never before the dark side of Scientology, yet
contains an in-depth examination of the potential
positives of the subject and their actual origins.
As for the bottles, I can't quite make out the brands, although I do recall that Scientology once attempted to "dead agent" Tony Ortega by claiming that he was an "alcoholic," so they may have been strategically placed in the photo, just to play with Scientology's collective Hubbard-cult-mind.