going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

that redheads are the living remnant of the Neanderthals.
Hubbard invited one of his paramours from New York, Vida Jameson, to join him at
the Parsonage, with the ostensible task of keeping the books. It’s a testimony to his
allure that she came all the way across America to be with him, although soon after she
arrived, she discovered that she had been displaced.
The other boarders watched in astonishment as Hubbard worked his charms on the
available women in the household, before setting his sights on “the most gorgeous,
intelligent, sweet, wonderful girl,” as another envious suitor described Sara Northrup.
“There he was, living o Parsons’ largesse and making out with his girlfriend right in
front of him. Sometimes when the two of them were sitting at the table together, the
hostility was almost tangible.” Enlivened, no doubt, by their rivalry over Sara, Parsons
and Hubbard quickly developed a highly competitive relationship. They liked to begin
their mornings with a bout of fencing in the living room.
Parsons struggled with his feelings of jealousy, which were at war with his philosophy
of free love. He could understand Northrup’s attraction to the new boarder, describing
Hubbard in a letter to Crowley in 1946 as “a gentleman, red hair, green eyes, honest
and intelligent.… He moved in with me about two months ago.” Then Parsons admits,
“Although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual aections to Ron.”
He went on to admire Hubbard’s supernatural abilities. “Although he has no formal
training in Magick, he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in
the eld. From some of his experiences I deduced that he is in direct touch with some
higher intelligence, possibly his Guardian Angel. He describes his Angel as a beautiful
winged woman with red hair whom he calls the Empress and who has guided him
through his life and saved him many times.”
The extent to which Scientology was inuenced by Hubbard’s involvement with the
OTO has long been a matter of angry debate. There is little trace in Hubbard’s life of
organized religion or spiritual philosophy. In the Parsonage, he was drawn into an
obscure and stigmatized creed, based on the writings and practice of Crowley—the
“Great Beast,” as he called himself—who gloried in being one of the most reviled men of
his era. The Church of Scientology explicitly rejects any connection between Crowley’s
thinking and Hubbard’s emerging philosophy; yet the two men were similar in striking
ways. Like Hubbard, Crowley reveled in a life of constant physical, spiritual, and sexual
exploration. He was a daring, even reckless mountaineer, and his exploits included
several failed attempts to climb the world’s most formidable peaks. He, too, was a
prolic writer who authored novels and plays as well as books on magic and mysticism.
Boisterous and highly self-regarding, he had been kicked out of an occult society called
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn after feuding with some of its most prominent
members, including William Butler Yeats, whom Crowley accused of being envious of his
talent as a poet. He may have served as a British spy while living in America during
World War I, despite the fact that he was constantly publishing anti-British propaganda.
Crowley relied on opiates and hallucinogens to enhance his spiritual pursuits. During an
excursion to Cairo in 1904, he discovered his Holy Guardian Angel, a disembodied spirit
named Aiwass, who claimed to be a messenger from the Egyptian god Horus. Crowley