Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

a table lamp in the corner of his bedroom had been thrown violently to the floor and smashed. 'I
have had little experience with phenomena of this sort,' he recorded. 'Magically speaking, it usually
represents "breaks" in the operation, indicating imperfect technique. Actually, in any magical
operation there should be no phenomena but the willed result.'
Not until 14 January was the frustrated magician able to report an encouragingly mysterious
occurrence. 'The light system of the house failed at about 9 pm. Another magician [Hubbard] who
had been staying at the house and studying with me, was carrying a candle across the kitchen
when he was struck strongly on the right shoulder, and the candle knocked out of his hand. He
called me, and we observed a brownish yellow 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.'
Next morning, the magicians had more prosaic business to attend to. For some time, Ron, Betty
and Jack had been discussing the prospect of going into business together, buying yachts on the
East Coast and sailing them to California to sell at a profit. On 15 January the three of them signed
their names to an agreement setting up a business partnership with the hopeful title of 'Allied
Enterprises'. It was not exactly an equitable financial arrangement, since Parsons put up more than
$20,000, Ron only managed to vouchsafe $1200 and Betty contributed nothing. Under the articles
of co-partnership, it was vaguely stated that Allied Enterprises would indulge in activities of a 'varied
and elastic nature', presumably with an eye to subsequent expansion into other fields.[17]
That evening, the new business partners resumed their magical activities and there was a further
strange incident involving Ron who was by then occupying the role of 'scribe'. Parsons noted that
the scribe had 'some sort of astral vision' and saw one of his old enemies standing behind him
clad in a black robe with an 'evil, pasty face'; Ron promptly launched an attack and pinned the
phantom figure to the door with four throwing knives. 'Later, in my room,' Parsons wrote, 'I heard the
raps again and a buzzing, metallic voice crying, "Let me go free." I felt a great pressure and tension
in the house that night.'
The tension continued for four days, until the evening of 18 January. The magician and his scribe
had ventured out into the Mojave Desert on some unexplained mystical mission and, at sunset, the
stress that Parsons had recently been experiencing drained away. He was suffused instead with a
sense of well-being and turned to Ron and said simply: 'It is done.'
When the two men returned to South Orange Grove Avenue, they found the 'scarlet woman' waiting
for them. Her name was Marjorie Cameron and in truth she was not very much different from many
of the unconventional and free-spirited young women who had gravitated to the Bohemian lodginghouse
in Pasadena. But Parsons was convinced that she was his libidinous elemental spirit, not
least because it transpired she was not only willing, but impatient, to participate in the magical and
sexual escapades he had in mind. 'She is describable', he wrote in the 'Book of Babalon', 'as an air
of fire type, with bronze red hair, fiery and subtle, determined and obstinate, sincere and perverse,
with extraordinary personality, talent and intelligence.'
A few days later he wrote exultantly to Crowley: 'I have my elemental! She turned up one night after
the conclusion of the Operation and has been with me since . . . 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.'
Crowley replied: 'I am particularly interested in what you have written to me about the elemental,
because for some little time past I have been endeavouring to intervene personally in this matter on