The extraordinary group of scientists and occultists, writers and pulp fiction fans, who had been living at 1003, slowly began to disperse. As a condition of the sale (for which he would receive some $25,000), Parsons arranged to move into the old coach house in the grounds. He handed the running of the now home- less Agape Lodge over to a baffled Roy Leffingwell and asked that he be allowed time to recuperate from his magical ordeal. He planned to get his new explosives business off the ground. While the Babalon working had been taking place, Parsons had been persuaded to forgo Ad Astra and his old friend Ed Forman and to enter a new business partnership with Hubbard and Betty. The aim was similar to that of Ad Astra: "To pool and accumulate earnings and profits of any nature whatsoever, coming from any source whatsoever, and flowing from the ca- pabilities and craft of each of the partners." Thus, any and all profits from their various works-Hubbard's writing, Parsons' Vulcan Powder Corporation-should go towards what they called "Allied Enterprises."

Parsons' attachment to Hubbard, despite the loss of Betty, had only been intensified by the central role Hubbard played throughout his magical workings. This new venture would ce ment the menage with Hubbard and Betty and, Parsons hoped, create some much needed stability in his life. He invested close to his entire savings-$20,970.80, largely gained from the house sale-into the company. Hubbard did the same, although his savings, at $1,183.91, were considerably less. Betty contributed nothing. Parsons' financial role in the OTO had long ago proven his generosity, but this new undertaking also seemed tinged with desperation: Despite Candy's presence he still wanted to win back Betty's affections. As he wrote to Crowley, "I think I have made a great gain, and as Betty and I are the best of friends, there is little loss." He was soon proved entirely wrong. Hubbard came up with a proposal for the new company. He and Betty would travel to Miami to buy three yachts. Once they found crews, they would sail the yachts back through the Panama Canal and sell them on the West Coast at a much higher price. As told by Hubbard, with his naval background, the plan sounded both eminently practical and glamorously adventur- ous, and Parsons was easily persuaded by his friend's confidence and by Betty's entreaties. Not everyone bought Hubbard's plan, especially not the OTO members who remained at 1003. They feared that their one-time "Rich Man of the West" risked mak- ing himself poor very quickly. Grady McMurtry, now based in San Francisco but keeping an eve on Agape Lodge, warned, "It would seem more of an adventure than a business proposition." Jane Wolfe joined in the chorus of dissatisfaction. "I am won- dering," she wrote to Germer, "if Ron is another Smith?" Even Parsons, blind to all suspicion, might have recognized the danger had he seen the letter Hubbard now wrote to the chief of naval personnel, requesting permission to leave the United States "to visit Central & South America & China" for the purpose of "collecting writing material" under the auspices of Allied Enterprises. Hubbard was preparing for a world cruise, not a business trip. Ignorant of these plans, Parsons waved good-bye to his best friend and his ex-lover as they headed east with over $20,000 of his money in their pockets.

However, once out of the direct beam of Hubbard's cha- risma, Parsons began to lose confidence in the venture. As the weeks passed, Parsons' explosives work dwindled to a halt-he had no money for supplies. He began to worry. He told friends that he was going to persuade Hubbard and Betty to return to Pasadena immediately so they could dissolve the partnership; he realized it had been a mistake to invest all his money in such a scheme. But when he received a phone call from Hubbard, col- lect from Miami, his manner changed immediately. Parsons suc- cumbed once more to Hubbard's ebullient persuasiveness, swinging from anger and distrust to acquiescence and an almost childlike respect. Louis Culling, one of the remaining OTO members, was shocked to hear Parsons end the conversation "eating ow of Ron's hand," telling Hubbard, "I hope we shall always be partners."

The other members of the household saw the dangers of the situation clearly Culling wrote to Germer and Crowley, express- ing his frustration at Parsons' gullibility, "Ron and Betty have bought a boat for themselves at Miami Florida for about 10,000 dollars and are living the life of Riley, while Bro John is living at Rock Bottom, and I mean Rock Bottom. It appears that origi- nally they never secretly intended to bring this boat around to California coast to sell at a profit, as they told Jack, but rather to have a good time on it in the east coast." Crowley needed no more evidence. In a cable to Germer, he cast his judgment: "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick; Jack Parsons weak fool--obvious victim prowling swindlers." When Parsons heard this assessment, he finally shook himself out of his indecisive stupor. With the last of his money, he bought a plane ticket to Miami.

Hubbard and Betty had been busy. They had bought three sailing yachts, the Harpoon, the Blue Water II, and the Diane, and were only waiting for Hubbard's latest navy disability check to arrive before they set sail. Parsons, meanwhile, was hot on their heels. He checked into a cheap hotel in Miami Beach and began scouring the marinas and yacht clubs for any information about the two or their purchases. It did not take long before he traced the sale of the Harpoon to a harbor on County Causeway, but Betty arid Hubbard were nowhere to be seen. On July 1, Parsons managed to place a temporary injunction and restrain- ing order on Hubbard and Betty to stop them from leaving the county, selling the yachts, or touching any other assets of Allied Enterprises. Now all he could do was wait for them to appear.

After four days of pacing in his hotel room, Parsons received a phone call from the marina. Hubbard and Betty, presumably having heard of his presence in Miami, had rigged up the double masted Harpoon and sailed out of the harbor with the aid of a crew paid for with Parsons' money. He was powerless to stop them. In his hotel room, he drew a magic circle on the floor and stepped into it. He performed "a full invocation to Bartzabel," a ritual for invoking the spirit of Mars to help him in his plight. The spirit failed to materialize, or did it? "At the same time, as far as I can check," he wrote to Crowley, "his [Hubbard's] ship was struck by a sudden squall off the coast, which ripped off his sails and forced him back to port." Was this yet another side ef- fect of his magic? Alerted by the harbor master, Parsons was waiting for the errant pair when they limped back in.

In court the following week, Allied Enterprises was dis- solved. The court settlement ordered Hubbard to give Parsons a promissory note for $2,900, and Parsons agreed not to press any further charges-partly, it seems, because Betty had threat- ened to press charges against him over their past relationship, which began when she was under the legal age of consent. The episode left Parsons shattered. He flew back west. One month later, Betty and Hubbard were married. When Parsons arrived back in Pasadena, 1003 looked more overgrown and dilapidated than ever. The last of the OTO lodgers had moved out, but not before stripping the gold leaf from the library ceiling. The remaining members of Agape Lodge now met in Los Angeles. From the coach house where he now lived with Candy, Parsons wrote to Crowley and once more offered his formal resignation from the OTO. This time Crow- ley accepted it.

Parsons completed the sale of 1003 and watched as the new owners demolished it with tractors and wrecking ball. For all his talk of new aeons, of new ways of living, of a whole new morality, the demolition did not feel like a new beginning. The Parsonage, as it had come to be called, had briefly been an adult playground saturated with philosophical hopes and pungent ro- manticism, fruit brandies and fencing, bohemians and scientists, poetry and rockets. Now it was gone forever.

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