Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

went through them one by one. Finally he fastened on to Betty. Parsons was desperately in love, but
could not countenance marriage because of his beliefs. The atmosphere became very tense. You
would sit at the table and the hostility between Hubband and Parsons was tangible. Eventually he
just plain ran off with Betty. Betty was not her name, Sara was her name. Everyone knew her as
Betty, beautiful, sweet as nice as could be. She had dropped out of school to be with Parsons.
I heard stories about Parsons chasing him. When they ran off it was the last time I saw Hubbard
and Betty.
There was a bunch of people there, 18-20 in the big house and 5-6 in the coach house. When he
broke it up into apartments, I think there were about 19 of them. The atmosphere because so
tense... Lou Goldstone, an artist, was living there and he was my entree to the place.
Parsons was experimenting one night with a chemical [nitroglycerine] and literally blew himself up.
Chemists since then have told me that no one who knows much about chemicals would mess with
it. I can only think that Parsons committed suicide.
He [Hubbard] was a fascinating story teller. Everyone believed him. But I had read a lot and
recognised a lot of stories. I'd try to trip him up and say, "if you said once you were in such a theatre
you'd have had to have..." He did not care much for me at all. He'd laugh it off. He was a real
conman. He was very sharp and quick.
The polar bear story is an old, old story in folklore. It goes way back to the old explorers [e.g.
Nelson].
He talked interminably about his war experiences. I'd say, "you couldn't have been in both of those
battles." He said he was on the staff of so many great admirals, I think one was Halsey. I called a
friend of mine who was on the admiral's staff and he said, "Shit, I've never heard of him!"
I think Lou Goldstone introduced Hubbard to the house. Although I think Parsons was an early
science fiction fan.
Lou said he stumbled into a couple of meetings. I presume it was a black mass. People talked
about it quite openly.
He had circulated among science fiction fans. He may have been in New York. I think he had come
straight out of the Navy. I can't stand phoneys and he was so obviously a phoney. But he was not a
dummy. He could charm the shit out of anybody and had tremendous personality. But completely
worthless.
Science fiction fans in those days were nerds. Lots of strange people found refuge in science
fiction. I would get into big arguments with Lou about Dianetics - "do you really believe this shit?" I
never understood why people followed him all the way.
Betty was beautiful - the most gorgeous, intelligent, sweet, wonderful person. I was so much in love
with her, but I knew she was a woman I could never have. Hubbard was making out with her right in
front of Parsons, living off his largesse. How could he do it? He'd already had affairs with other girls
in the house. Betty was a raving beauty.
Jack was one of the early people at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). I think one of the things he
was doing was working on something called flare [actually jet] assisted take-off, equivalent to after-