Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright

talisman”—in other words, masturbating on a piece of parchment. He typically invoked twice a night.
    Parsons records that during one of these evenings a candle was forcibly knocked out of Hubbard’s hand: “We observed a brownishyellow light about seven feet high in the kitchen. I brandished a magical sword and it disappeared. His right arm was paralyzed for the rest of the night.” On another occasion, he writes, Hubbard saw the astral projection of one of Parsons’s enemies manifest himself in a black robe. “Ron promptly launched an attack and pinned the phantom figure to the door with four throwing knives.”
    Evidently, the spirits relented. One day, an attractive young woman namedMarjorie Cameron showed up at the Parsonage. Parsons later claimed that a bolt of lightning had struck outside, followed by a knock at the door. A beautiful woman was standing there. She had been in a traffic accident. “I don’t know where I amor where I’ve come from,” she told him. (Cameron’s version is thatshe had been interested in the stories of the naked women jumping over fires in the garden, and she persuaded a friend who was boarding at the Parsonage to take her for a visit.) “I have my elemental!” Parsons exclaimed in a note toCrowley a few days later. “She has red hair and slant green eyes as specified.… She is an artist, strong minded and determined, with strong masculine characteristics and a fanatical independence.”
    The temple was lit with candles, the room suffused with incense, and Rachmaninoff’s “Isle of the Dead” was playing in the background. Dressed in a hooded white robe, and carrying a lamp, Hubbard intoned, “Display thyselfto Our Lady; dedicate thy organs to Her, dedicate thy heart to Her, dedicate thy mind to Her, dedicate thy soul to Her, for She shall absorb thee, and thou shalt become living flame before She incarnates.” Whereupon Parsons and Cameron responded, “Glory unto the Scarlet Woman, Babalon, the Mother of Abominations, that rideth upon the Beast.” Then, as Hubbard continued the incantation, Parsons and Cameron consummated the ceremony upon the altar. This same ritual went on for three nights in a row. Afterward, Parsons wrote to Crowley, “Instructions were receiveddirect through Ron, the seer.… I am to act as instructor guardian guide for nine months; then it will be loosed on the world.”
    Crowley was unimpressed. “Apparently Parsons or Hubbardor somebody is producing a Moonchild,” he complained to another follower. “I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these goats.” Cameron did become pregnant, but got an abortion, with Parsons’s consent, so it’s unclear exactly what this ceremony was designedto produce. (Parsons and Cameron later married and aborted another pregnancy.) Nonetheless, Parsons asserted that the ritual had been a success. “Babalon is incarnate uponthe earth today, awaiting the proper hour for her manifestation,” he wrote after the ceremony. “And in that day my work will be accomplished, and I shall be blown away upon the Breath of the father.”
    Until that apocalypse occurred, Hubbard and Parsons decided, they would go into business together. The plan was for Hubbard to purchase yachts in Florida, sail them through the Panama Canal to California, and resell them at a profit. Parsons andSara sold the Parsonage and handed over the money to Hubbard—more than twenty thousand dollarsfrom Parsons alone. Hubbard and Northrup promptly left for Miami.
    While in Florida, Hubbard appealed to theVeterans Administration for an increase in his medical disability. He was already receiving compensation for hisulcers, amounting to $11.50 per month. “I cannot toleratea general diet—results in my having to abandon my old profession as a ship master and explorer, and seriously hampers me as a writer.” He said his eyesight had been affected by “prolonged exposure to tropical sunlight,” incurred while he was in the service,