Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

on making an escape. In his Miami hotel room, Parsons donned his magic robes and traced a
circle on the floor with his magic wand. At eight o'clock, he stepped into the ring and performed the
'Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram', the preliminary to all magic, followed by a full invocation of
Bartzabel, the spirit of Mars, whose help he sought to restrain his fleeing partners. In a letter to
Crowley describing his actions, he was able to report a highly satisfactory result: 'At the same time,
so far as I can check, his ship was struck by a sudden squall off the coast, which ripped off his
sails and forced him back to port, where I took the boat in custody.'[27]
On 1 July, the magician sought redress through more conventional means: he filed suit in the
Circuit Court for Dade County, accusing Ron and Sara of breaking the terms of their partnership,
dissipating the assets and attempting to abscond.[28] A receiver was appointed to wind up the
affairs of Allied Enterprises and a restraining order was placed on the defendants, preventing them
from leaving Miami or disposing of any of the partnership's assets.
'Here I am in Miami pursuing the children of my folly,' Parsons wrote gloomily to Crowley on 5 July. 'I
have them well tied up. They cannot move without going to jail. However, most of the money has
already been dissipated. I will be lucky to salvage $3000 to $5000.'
On 11 July, the three partners signed an agreement, drawn up by Parsons' lawyer, dissolving the
partnership. Ron and Sara handed over the Blue Water and the Diane and agreed to pay half
Parsons' legal costs. For his part, Parsons allowed Ron and Sara to keep the Harpoon in return for
a $2900 promissory note which covered his financial interest in the schooner. Jack Parsons
returned to Pasadena satisfied that he had made the best deal he could under the circumstances
and not too distressed at the loss of his former lover and his former best friend. He never saw
either of them again.
In Miami, Ron and Sara were returned to their accustomed state of penury after their brief fling at
the expense of Allied Enterprises. Their most immediate and pressing problem was how to
maintain payments on the $4600 mortgage still outstanding on the Harpoon. Ron, who had never
allowed money matters to worry him over-much, clung to the belief that he would eventually be able
to wheedle a larger pension from the Veterans Administration. On 4 July, Independence Day, he
had spent part of the holiday composing yet another stirring appeal against his pension award and
introducing a further hitherto unmentioned disability, this time a 'chronic and incapacitating bone
infection'.
On the claim form, he painted a harrowing picture of a veteran gamely struggling against
disabilities which he rated at one hundred per cent. His original duodenal ulcer had mysteriously
multiplied; his 'ulcers', he pointed out, had caused him to abandon his old profession of 'shipmaster
and explorer' and severely hampered his work as a writer. 'I can do nothing involving
nervous strain without becoming dangerously ill.' As for his failing eyesight, he now found it difficult
to read for more than three or four minutes without suffering from headaches, making it virtually
impossible for him to do any research. His problems had begun, he noted, after 'prolonged
exposure to tropical sunlight in the Pacific'. Furthermore, he was lame as the result of a bone
infection in his right hip, contracted at Princeton University because of 'the sudden transition from
the tropics to the slush and icy cold of Princeton'. He was unable to walk without suffering severely.
'My earning power, due to injuries, all service connected,' he concluded, 'has dropped to nothing. I
earned one thousand dollars a month prior to the war as a writer. I cannot now earn money as a
writer and attempts to find other employment have failed because of my physical condition.'
To support his case, Hubbard persuaded Sara to write to the Veterans Administration as an old