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a detailed portrait of L. Ron Hubbard's relationship with Parsons and the underground world of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in Los Angeles, as well as an excellent analysis of the development of aeronautics and the inspiration it took from science fiction. I also drew from Parsons's own writing, notably "The Book of Babalon," or "Liber 49," available online at hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Parsons regarding Hubbard's behavior are from these sources. I gained invaluable insight into the Western esoteric tradition that gave birth to Crowley's Thelema, and a fascinating explanation of Scientology as a religion with esoteric roots, from Professor J. Gordon Melton of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his archive at the UCSB Special Collection.

The history and development of science fiction as a literary genre has been documented extensively. For background on the pulp fiction world of New York during the 1930s, I turned to Frank Gruber's The Pulp Jungle, which gives an excellent portrait of both the key players and the overall scene. Jack Williamson's Wonder's Child; Isaac Asimov's In Memory Yet Green and I.Asimov: A Memoir; L. Sprague De Camp's The Science Fiction Handbook; and the unparalleled John Campbell Letters give a more detailed analysis of the science fiction world and its golden age, as well as recollections of L. Ron Hubbard from the late 1930s.

For historical and sociological perspective on the birth and development of Los Angeles, Mike Davis's City of Quartz and Carey McWilliams's Southern California: An Island of the Land were outstanding resources, as were Kenneth Starr's The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s and Harry Carr's Los Angeles: City of Dreams. Complete publication information for all books mentioned here is given in the selected bibliography.

[>] When I was very young": L. Ron Hubbard, "A First Word on Adventure," from "Letters and Journals, Early Years of Adventure," circa 1943, www.lronhubbard.org.

[>] "a lovely, vicious lonely thing": Ibid. Ibid.

[>] "a deeply conservative plodder": Russell Miller, Barefaced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, p. 97.

[>] "as if he were a well-traveled man": Ibid., p. 44.

[>] "which had a faculty for ground-looping": Hubbard, "Tailwind Willies," The Sportsman Pilot, 1931.

[>] L. Ron "Flash" Hubbard: "Controversial Author–Stunt Flier Landed in Gratis 52 Years Ago," Preble County News, July 21, 1983. Reprint of original article, "Here and There," September 17, 1931.

[>] "adventurous young men": "The Caribbean Expedition," 1932 advertisement, "The Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition," www.lronhub bard.org/biography/adventures-explorations/caribbean-motion-picture-expedition.htm.

[>] "worst trip I ever made": Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, p. 62.

[>] a crucial bit of wisdom: Hubbard claimed to have met Thompson, a navy surgeon and psychoanalyst, at the age of twelve while sailing with his mother through the Panama Canal en route to Washington, D.C. The story of Hubbard's friendship with Thompson, including his assertion that Thompson took him to the Library of Congress as a boy and explained Freudian theory to him, is part of Scientology lore, first asserted during Hubbard's lecture of October 18, 1958, "The Story of Dianetics and Scientology."

[>] "If there is anyone in the world": Ibid.

[>] "a bit too long on the ambrosia": L. Sprague De Camp, "Elron of the City of Brass," Fantastic, August 1975; also "Modern Imaginative Fiction," in The Science Fiction Handbook, p. 93.

[>] "I seem to have a sort of personal": Letter from Hubbard to Margaret Ann "Polly" Hubbard, 1938. Polly was also known as "Skipper."

[>] "He had been in the United States Marines": Frank Gruber, The Pulp Jungle, p. 80.

[>] "one of aviation's most distinguished": The Sportsman Pilot, editorial by H. Latane Lewis, July 1934.

[>] "Corn flakes could": This letter, addressed to "General Manager, The Kellogg Company," was posted by the Church of Scientology on www.lronhubbard.org,