Hugh Bayard Urban is a professor of religious studies at Ohio State University's Department of Comparative Studies and author of eight books and several academic articles, including a history of the Church of Scientology, published by Princeton University Press in 2012.
Urban is the son of a psychologist and Pennsylvania State University professor and was brought up in a devout Episcopal family.
He is married to Nancy Jesser, who also teaches in the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University.
[3] In 2006, Urban wrote an article for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion) titled "Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America".
[5] By 2011, Urban had expanded his research into the practices of the Church of Scientology,[6]incorporating his information into a new book titled The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion[7] (published by Princeton University Press) which received praise: Urban also observed that Hubbard formed many of his theories from those previously written about by the early to mid 20th century astral projection pioneer Sylvan Muldoon[9] in his (Muldoon's) 1951 book The Phenomena of Astral Projection[10] co-written with Hereward Carrington.