Sara Northrup Hollister

Sara Elizabeth Bruce Northrup Hollister (April 8, 1924 – December 19, 1997) was an American occultist and second wife of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. She played a major role in the creation of Dianetics, which evolved into the religious movement Scientology. Hubbard would evolve into the leader of the Church of Scientology.

Northrup was a figure in the Pasadena branch of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), a secret society led by the English occultist Aleister Crowley, where she was known as "Soror [Sister] Cassap". She joined as a teenager along with her older sister Helen. From 1941 to 1945 she had a turbulent relationship with her sister's husband John Whiteside Parsons, a pioneer in solid-fuel rocketry and head of the Pasadena O.T.O. Although she was a committed and popular member, she acquired a reputation for disruptiveness that prompted Crowley to denounce her as a "vampire." She began a relationship with L. Ron Hubbard, whom she met through O.T.O., in 1945. She and Hubbard eloped, taking with them a substantial amount of Parsons' life savings and marrying bigamously a year later while Hubbard was still married to his first wife, Margaret Grubb.

Northrup played a significant role in the development of Dianetics, Hubbard's "modern science of mental health", between 1948 and 1951. She was Hubbard's personal auditor and along with Hubbard, one of the seven members of the Dianetics Foundation's Board of Directors. However, their marriage was deeply troubled; Hubbard was responsible for a prolonged campaign of domestic violence against her and kidnapped both her and her infant daughter. Hubbard spread allegations that she was a Communist secret agent and repeatedly denounced her to the FBI. The FBI declined to take any action, characterizing Hubbard as a "mental case". The marriage ended in 1951 and prompted lurid headlines in the Los Angeles newspapers. She subsequently married one of Hubbard's former employees, Miles Hollister, and moved to Hawaii and later Massachusetts, where she died in 1997.

Northrup was one of five children born to Thomas Cowley, an Englishman working for the Standard Oil Company, and his wife, Olga Nelson, the daughter of a Swedish immigrant to the United States. She was the granddaughter of Russian emigrant Malacon Kosadamanov (later Nelson) who emigrated to Sweden. The couple had three daughters. In 1923 the family moved to Pasadena, a destination said to have been chosen by Olga using a Ouija board.

Although she later remembered her childhood with warmth, Northrup's upbringing was marred by her sexually abusive father, who was imprisoned in 1928 for financial fraud. She was sexually active from an unusually young age and often said she lost her virginity at the age of ten.

In 1933, Northrup's 22-year-old sister Helen met the 18-year-old Jack Parsons, a chemist who went on to be a noted expert in rocket propulsion. Jack Parsons was also an avid student and practitioner of the occult. Helen and Jack were engaged in July 1934 and married in April 1935. Parsons' interest in the occult led in 1939 to him and Helen joining the Pasadena branch of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). At age 15, Northrup moved in with sister Helen and her husband Jack, while she finished high school.

Sara Northrup joined O.T.O. in 1941, at Parsons' urging, and was given the title of Soror [Sister] Cassap. She soon rose to the rank of a second degree member, or "Magician", of O.T.O. In June 1941, at the age of seventeen, she began a passionate affair with Parsons while her sister Helen was away on vacation. When Helen returned, she found Northrup wearing Helen's own clothes and calling herself Parsons' "new wife". Such conduct was expressly permitted by O.T.O., which followed Crowley's disdain of marriage as a "detestable institution" and accepted as commonplace the swapping of wives and partners between O.T.O. members.

Although both were committed O.T.O. members, Northrup's usurpation of Helen's role led to conflict between the two sisters. The reactions of Parsons and Helen towards Northrup were markedly different. Parsons told Helen to her face that he preferred Northrup sexually: "This is a fact that I can do nothing about. I am better suited to her temperamentally – we get on well. Your character is superior. You are a greater person. I doubt that she would face what you have with me – or support me as well." Some years later, addressing himself as "You", Parsons told himself that his affair with Northrup (whom he called Betty) marked a key step in his growth as a practitioner of magick: "Betty served to affect a transference from Helen at a critical period ... Your passion for Betty also gave you the magical force needed at the time, and the act of adultery tinged with incest, served as your magical confirmation in the law of Thelema."