Sex and Rockets The Occult World of Jack Parsons

The occult, in the early part of the 20th century, set the stage for how it has come to be
perceived in the 21st Century. Never has the explanation of the third way come into a
mainstream light (except in works of fiction books and film) where it has been readily
played up with bright flashes of scintillating energy and half mad megalomaniacs bent on
short cutting their way to the realms of the Gods. Few have gone so far as to suggest the
connection between space and the realm of the divine powers except in some of the more
bizarre Lovecraftian tales of horror and suspense. (See The Best of H. P. Lovecraft). But
the ground work of this 20th century occult, while shaped in one part by Manly P. hall
was

Jack Parsons also shaped in character that was formed by the man Marvel Jack John
Parsons. And this tale, as told in the book Sex and
Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by
John Carter is every bit science fact of rocket to the
moon as it is Aleister Crowleys failure in inspiring
his new aeon and Babylon working to manifest in
his Thelemic following in Los Angles circa 1946.
In Jack Parsons, hubris and vanity were very much
a part of his wonder at the idea of sending rockets
into space. But even in his explosive demise,
Parsons legacy on earth has crowned him a father

of modern Rocketry with a crater dedicated to him on the dark side of the moon.
First published in 2004, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons is the
biography of Jack Parsons. A self taught scientist and rocketer, Parsons started his career
path as a hobby of sorts, fueled in the exhaust of creating rockets to soar into the high
earth atmosphere. This was in the age of fiction and rockets were only the dreams of
explorers and fiction writers. Like all men of vision, however, Parsons worked endlessly
to create sufficient thrust to make the rocket work. In this early life he also found and
embraced the works of Aleister Crowley which became his faith, of sorts, by his practice
of Thelema. His devotion grew over time in that he became the head of the Agape Lodge
of the OTO in the mid 1940s which met and practiced in his Bohemian home in
Pasadena. In this period, Parsons regularly corresponded with Crowley, whose agents
locally praised him as the successor of Crowleys New Aeon and great work.

left to right: Rudolph Schott, Apollo Milton Olin Smith, future JPL Director Frank
Malina (white shirt, dark pants), Ed Forman and Jack Parsons (right, foreground). Nov.
15, 1936. Image from NASA/JPL-Caltech
The book spends a considerable amount of time on Parsons life, but also included some
interesting details on the Ordo Templi Orientis order that Parsons was at first so devoted
to. As it reads Carter spends considerable time in developing the history of the OTO
from 1895 through Crowleys taking over and the credibility collapse of its founders
Kellner, Reuss, Mathers, and Westcott. The history, as encapsulated in the book, is an
interesting read especially as it contextualizes their history with Crowley, but also with

their connections in Los Angeles in the early incubation of the occult today. Unlike
Manly P. Hall (the author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages), Crowley sent Wilfred
Smith (himself a student of the OTO and Crowley) with the purpose of opening an OTO
lodge, which was incorporated in 1934 and met for the first time in 1935.

L. Ron Hubbard
It was in this era that Jack Parsons variously worked at the predecessor of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, a variety of explosives companies, Electric companies, and gas
stations (notably, even rocket scientists needing to work). In this mix of engineering
academia and occult practice, Parsons path merged in a John Dee/Edward Kelly fashion
with the infamous L.Ron Hubbard (before his Scientology fame). In this time, Hubbard
variously played scribe, confidant, and polyamerious love interest to Parsons spouse
Betty who, Carter writes, Hubbard absconded with along with the start up capitol that he
and Parsons had used to start a business. Crowley even going so far to say of Hubbard:
Suspect Ron playing confidence trickJack Parsons weak foolobvious victim prowling
swindlers. In a letter a few days later he said, It seems to me on the information of our
brethren in California that Parsons has got an illumination in which he lost all his
personal independence. From our brothers account he has given away both his girl and
his money. Apparently it is the ordinary confidence trick.. Included in the book are the
notes Hubbard took while acting as scribe in Parsons ritual workings.
From his start, it seemed Parsons was destined for something great (magickly or
otherwise), but ultimately met his demise in a fiery explosion in his garage turned
laboratory/workshop. Sensing his end, perhaps, Carter reports that the last words spoken
by Parsons were I wasnt done. This final utterance is cryptic in that his professional
life had blurred the line with his occult life leaving us to wonder which work he saw
unfinished. Carter suggests that Parsons was a man drawn by an over arched Oedipious
complex and a life long search for a father figure, both in Smith and in Crowley himself.
At his end, it would seem he found it in neither.

The ruins of Parsons lab 1952

Carter does an ample job in giving life to Parsons beyond his mundane occupation of jet
propulsion and established him as one of the patriarchs of the occult in Los Angeles. As
notable as he is in the scientific community, few know his name in the occult
community. What his tangible contribution is will be up to those who follow in his
footsteps, but his early dalliances and their display in the public sphere ushered in the
modern perception of the occult and quite possibly the era of the baby boomers and their
unknown working of the Thelemic philosophy that Parsons hoped would take hold.
Parsons, despite his end, explored the paths he wanted to physically and spiritually. His
unfinished work being his legacy, left for us to continue to explore.
I recommend the book Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John
Carter, which is available at Amazon.com.

Jack Parsons
Jack Parsons was one Hell of a guy, and not just
because he might have been the Antichrist.
John Whiteside Parsons was born in 1914, a child of
wealth and privilege in unholy Los Angeles. His father
took a hike while Parsons was a teen, and like so many
other kids, young Jack successfully summoned Satan to assuage his
loneliness. Hey, haven't we all been there?

The departure of his father also left Parsons with an Oedipal fixation on
his mother, according to his biography Love and Rockets (the author
adds that later in life, Parsons is rumored to have filmed himself working
through his complex through the novel approach of actually having sex
with Mom).
Parsons was a bit of a wunderkind in two key areas the occult and
rocket science. Parsons legitimate claim to fame was in the latter field.
He was by all accounts a brilliant chemist, who made major
breakthroughs in designing the chemical composition of liquid rocket
fuels.
Parsons' fuel mixtures eventually helped America land on
the moon According to countercultural journalist Richard
Metzger, Werner von Braun claimed that Parsons (a highschool dropout) was the true father of the American space
program. Parsons helped create the famous Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (the JPL, also
affectionately called the "Jack Parsons Lab").
You would think all this scientific achievement would be
enough for one person in one lifetime, but Parsons had a
much loftier set of ambitions. He wanted to tear down the
walls of time and space, and he had an entirely non-scientific set of
ideas on how to do it.
Parsons had always been interested in occultism, but his path to
notoriety really started in 1941, when he joined the California-based
Agape lodge of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis. Parsons threw

himself into the Eastern-inspired mysticism and hormonally inspired sex

magic of Thelema, the religion Crowley had either devised or channeled
from beyond, depending on your point of view.
Parsons was an immediate success. He quickly took over the Agape
lodge. Crowley and his associates spoke of him as a potential
successor to the Great Beast himself.
One of Parsons' best pals in the OTO was a young L. Ron Hubbard.
They shared a zest for the work, as well as a mistress. One of their big
projects was the notorious Babalon Working. The ritual was supposedly

Marjorie Cameron
intended to create a new age of free love by shattering the confines of
four-dimensional space time, but the major portion of it appears to have
been primarily focused on getting Parsons laid.

The first stage of Babalon involved invoking an "elemental mate"

which, fortuitously enough for Parsons, turned out to be a voluptuous
redhead named Marjorie Cameron, who would later emerge as a star of
occult-oriented films by experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger.
Flush with the thrill of success, Parsons and Cameron set out to perform
part two of the Babalon working, with Hubbard taking notes: Wild
monkey sex with the goal of creating a "moonchild." A moonchild in this
context is best described as an Thelemic messiah, a magic homonculus
monster child along the general lines of "Rosemary's Baby."
Phase Two collapsed on itself when Hubbard left town with a mistress
and (allegedly) a substantial sum of money, both of which had
previously been attached to Parsons. So if you're angrily wondering why
the Earth isn't currently sex-soaked carnal paradise of peace, you can
blame Hubbard.
Parsons got into a bit of a funk in the post-Hubbard era, which is
reflected in the evolution of his magical work. Parsons' next big
project turned out to be the "Book of the Antichrist," which is unsubtle
making the connection clear:
"Now it came to pass even as BABALON told me, for after receiving Her
Book I fell away from Magick, and put away Her Book and all pertaining
thereto. And I was stripped of my fortune (the sum of about $50,000)
and my house, and all I Possessed. Then for a period of two years I
worked in the world, recouping my fortune somewhat. But that was also

taken from me, and my reputation, and my good name in my worldly

work, that was in science."
Parsons "swore the Oath of the Abyss, having only the choice between
madness, suicide, and that oath. (then) I took the oath of a Magister
Templi, even the Oath of Antichrist before Frater 132, the Unknown
God. And thus was I Antichrist loosed in the world; and to this I am
pledged, that the work of the Beast 666 shall be fulfilled." Who knew it
was so easy?
Apparently noting that Antichrist is only a few letters away from
"anarchist," the manifesto that follows is in large part an exhortation to
"do what thou wilt" in most things bodily-fluid-drenched, economic
and/or political. The goal of all these efforts, according to Metzger, was
to bring on the Apocalypse, since in theory things can only get better
from there.
By now you may be thinking "What a load of crap!" But the FBI, none
too keen about the notion that Parsons' taxpayer-funded salary might be
supporting the Antichrist and the hastening of the Apocalypse, took it
seriously enough to open an investigation.
Documents recently released through the Freedom of Information act
make up 130 pages of heavily redacted text in which G-Men try to make
sense of Parsons' religious beliefs and document his frequently careless
handling of classified materials.
Parsons died in 1952 in his home laboratory, in an explosion generally
characterized as "mysterious." Various theories suggest that the

explosion was the result of old grudges by his enemies, a sinister plot
by the FBI, a magical experiment gone bad, the fact that his garage was
filled with lots of explosive chemicals, or some combination of the
above.
As for Babalon? Well, the jury is still out on the Apocalypse, but it's
worth noting that within two years of the Babalon workings, which began
in 1946, the first Atomic Bomb was detonated, the Roswell crash
sparked a rash of UFO sightings that continues to this day, and LSD
was invented.
In other words, things got a lot weirder, and they're getting weirder every
day. Parsons is legitimately one of the fathers of the space program,
after all, which is no small thing. Maybe he knows something we don't...
or maybe, in the end, he was just a sex-crazed maniac.