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dummy," said Himmel. "He was very sharp and very quick ... he could charm the shit out of anybody."
    Perhaps the person Hubbard charmed most was Parsons, who saw a kindred spirit in the young naval officer, and Hubbard thought the same of him. As the author George Pendle pointed out in his fascinating biography of Parsons,
Strange Angel,
Parsons was in many ways the embodiment of the man Hubbard wanted to be. Sophisticated, well connected, with impeccable bona fides, Parsons was both an intellectual and a serious scientist, and had no need to lie or embellish his credentials. Though his family had lost much of its fortune in the Depression, Parsons had made a substantial amount as one of the founders of the Aerojet Engineering Corporation, an aerospace company that benefited substantially from government sponsorship during World War II. Prior to that, he'd gained entrance to the rarefied world of Caltech by impressing the Hungarian-born von Kármán with his innate intelligence and enthusiasm for scientific experimentation, which seemed to override his lack of formal training. (Parsons, like Hubbard, lacked a college degree.)
    Soon, Hubbard and Parsons were fencing, without masks, in the living room of the Parsonage. Afterward, often with Robert Heinlein, a frequent guest, they'd engage in lively discussions about science and science fiction. Parsons ultimately began to reveal to Hubbard the secrets of Thelema. This of course involved breaking the sacred code—Hubbard was not even an initiate of the Agape Lodge. But he seemed intrinsically capable of understanding esoteric principles, and, to Parsons's surprise, he was already familiar with Crowley's writing. He also had an impressive grasp of the field of magic, no doubt acquired from the years he spent writing fantasy for John W. Campbell. "From some of his experiences, I deduce he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence, probably his Guardian Angel," Parsons wrote to Crowley. "He is the most Thelemic person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our own principles."
    Hubbard also seemed enamored of Parsons, though self-interest motivated him as much as a sense of fellowship did. Soon after he arrived at the Parsonage, Hubbard succeeded in stealing away Parsons's mistress, Sara Northrup, a seductive and spirited twenty-one-year-old blonde known by house members as "Betty." Just about every man at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue was in love with Betty, recalled Nieson Himmel, but only Hubbard had the audacity to act on it. Hubbard was still married to Polly, though he'd seen her only sporadically since the late 1930s and had left his family behind upon settling in Pasadena. "He was irresistible to women, swept girls off their feet," said Himmel. "There were other girls living there with guys and he went through them one by one." Finally he set his sights on Betty, and the two began a passionate affair. Parsons did nothing; challenging Hubbard and making a stand against free love would have defied his own Thelemic principles.
    Nieson Himmel recalled that Hubbard, on at least one occasion at the Parsonage, talked about his desire to start his own religion. Certainly many others had done it. During the 1920s and 1930s in particular, Los Angeles teemed with new or offbeat religions, from the Theosophists to the Mighty "I Am" to the Church of Divine Science and the yoga-inspired Vedanta Society. There were also many prophets in residence, notably the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, whose International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was one of the country's first mega churches—at its peak, McPherson's Angelus Temple in Echo Park attracted crowds of well over five thousand people, and it had its own Bible school, radio station, and publishing house, as well as numerous bands and choirs. It was also a lucrative business. H. L. Mencken once called McPherson "the most profitable ecclesiastic in America."
    As Hubbard kept scant records during this time,