“Strange Angel; The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons” by George Pendle.
John Parsons, rocketry pioneer, died in an explosion at his Pasadena home in 1952. He was 37 years old. Parsons had been affiliated with Caltech, was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was deeply involved in a leadership role with the cult society, “Ordo Templi Orientis” (OTO).
Parsons came to believe that rocketry and magic were two sides of the same coin: intellectual challenges to be conquered by a keen and open mind.
Parsons grew up in a wealthy Pasadena home, but his family became impoverished by the depression and unable to send him to college. As a boy he became fascinated with pulp publications such as Weird Tales and the new Amazing Stories. Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories was the first publication devoted to what Gernsback called “scientifiction.”
In middle school, at age 12, he met his life-long friend and colleague, Edward Forman. Both boys were dyslexic, and though Parsons could read well, his handwriting and spelling were always poor. The two also shared an interest in explosives and rocketry and began experimenting almost immediately.
In 1932, at age 18, having not yet finished high school, Parsons went to work to support his family. He found a part-time job with Hercules Powder Company in Los Angles. It was hog heaven for an explosives freak.
In 1933-34 he tried enrolling in Pasadena Junior College, but had to drop out after just one term. Hercules, however, was impressed with him, and transferred him to full-time work at their main explosives manufacturing plant in Pinole, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The work was physically demanding as well as dangerous. He was offered a place at Stanford University, but couldn’t afford the tuition, so he returned to Pasadena where he could live at home. In his time at Hercules, he’d gained a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of explosives, and was considered to have an instinctive “global” grasp of chemical theory.
In 1935, the 20-year old Jack Parsons and 22-year old Ed Forman started hanging around at Caltech. There they met graduate student Frank Malina, then 22 years old. The Rocket Research Group (aka "The Suicide Squad) soon acquired an additional member, Apollo (Amo) Smith, a master's student at Caltech. The group started conducting test firings in 1936, in a remote part of the still wild Arroyo Seco.
By 1937 Fascism was a rising force in Europe, and the conflict between Fascism and Communism was erupting into open warfare in Spain. European Jews immigrated to the US in increasing numbers. Some who had been banned from teaching in Nazi Germany found a home at Caltech.
Communism had an intellectual appeal, especially to left-leaning students. It was not illegal to be a member of the communist party at the time, but it was frowned upon, and most people kept their affiliation secret for fear of job repercussions. Parsons never officially joined the party, and eventually stopped going to the meetings, but Frank Malina did, as did Tsien (a Chinese member of “The Suicide Squad”).
In 1934, Hugo Gernsback, founding editor of Amazing Stories and Science Wonder Stories launched the Science Fiction League. The Los Angeles chapter (LASFL) met on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown LA. Parsons never joined the league, but he did attend and speak upon occasion, impressing, among other people attending a 1938 lecture, an 18-year old Ray Bradbury.
Parsons had been attracted to the writings of English writer and magician Aleister Crowley for some time. Eventually he was introduced to a group which practiced what they called “The Gnostic mass of the Church of Thelema”, which had been created by Crowley. Crowley defined “magick” as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.”
Mystical societies had become very popular in late 19th century Britain, and Crowley joined one of the more influential ones: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But Crowley chaffed under the hierarchy that worked to slow his advancement, and instead chose to develop his own religion, or law, of “Thelema” (from the Greek word for law). It’s central doctrine was of total self-fulfillment, expressed as, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” In 1912, Crowley joined and eventually took over a “quasi-Masonic” organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO. The one thing he kept from the original OTO’s ritual was the use of sex as a component of working magic.
The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer was first published in 1890, as a study of mythologies and belief systems of the world’s cultures. Frazer was an anthropologist and fellow of Trinity College. Parsons was fascinated by this book that treated “magic not as blasphemy or heresy but as a legitimate (if flawed) system of thought.” The book highlighted the similarities between the rites, superstitions, and magic of primitive and pagan cultures and those of Christianity and orthodox religion. While Frazer did not believe in magic, he did see intellectual similarities between the pursuit of magic and the pursuit of science. To Frazer, “acts of magic were the logical precursors to scientific experiment, for as with science ‘the succession of events is assumed to be perfectly regular and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely.’…Magic, with its unshakeable belief in cause and effect, made it ‘the bastard sister of science.’ Parsons would always treat magic as such, seeing it as a strictly literal branch of learning--one that could be mastered by concentrated scientific application.”
In the early 1940ies Parsons invented a solid, castable rocket fuel made from black tar and potassium perchlorate. He is believed to have gotten the idea from Greek Fire—a terrifying flaming liquid weapon recorded in Sparta as early as 429 B.C.. It was reputed to be inextinguishable and burned even on water. The exact nature of its composition remained secret and was eventually lost. Naturally occurring asphalt (black tar) was one of the possible ingredients postulated. Parsons invention was one of “the most important discoveries in the long history of solid rockets.”
In 1942 Parsons bought a decaying Pasadena mansion and moved in with his wife Helen, her young half-sister Betty (who was Parsons’ mistress), and several of his OTO friends (including Wilfred Smith who was Helen’s lover). In this environment, Parsons created for himself an idyllic lifestyle. Fencing, womanizing, magick, drinking…all his favorite activities were freely available. Parsons was also using drugs by this time: home-brewed absinthe, marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines.
Parsons also became a regular guest of the Mañana Literary Society, a group of SF authors who met at the Laurel Canyon home of writer Robert Heinlein. Anthony Boucher, Cleve Cartmill, Jack Williamson, and L. Ron Hubbard were among those Parsons met at the Mañana Society.
During the years of WWII, the “Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project,” which had been funding the Suicide Squad’s research, reformulated into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL. The budget swelled and the staff mushroomed. JPL was the fully-funded military concern, while Aerojet was the business side of the operation. Parsons and Forman were bought out in 1944, and Parsons was pretty much set adrift after that.
After the war ended, nuclear physicist Robert Cornog (who had discovered tritium while at UC Berkeley) moved into Parsons’ mansion, as did L. Ron Hubbard. Parsons and Hubbard became friends and rivals. Hubbard stole Parsons' girlfriend, Betty, who he eventually married.
Parsons immersed himself in the practice of Enochian magic, with a goal of summoning an “Elemental mate”. The rituals he performed took and exhausting two hours and involved recitation as well as “focused masturbation” (a form of sympathetic magic as he tried to “fertilize” magical symbols drawn on paper “tablets” strewn around the floor). When Parsons met the woman who was to become his second wife (Marjorie "Candy" Cameron), he believed his magic had, indeed, summoned her.
Hubbard “helped” Parsons with his magical “workings” and eventually they formed a business partnership along with Betty. It was a highly uneven partnership with Parsons contributing most of the money which Hubbard and Betty soon absconded with.
Hubbard wrote an article about “Dianetics” for the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. According to Hubbard, Dianetics is a form of psychotherapy, which can eventually optimize the potential of the human brain. Like Thelema, Hubbard’s Scientology preaches “that man is an immortal spiritual being, that his capabilities are unlimited, and that his spiritual salvation depends upon his attainment of a ‘brotherhood of the universe’.”
By the late 1940ies, anticommunist feelings ran high, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities was in full swing. Frank Malina left the U.S. in 1946 because he was afraid of the FBI. Robert Cornog lost his security clearance, and was effectively unable to continue working in an industry that dealt largely with classified government contracts. Parsons was investigated, listed as an “Undesirable Employee for National Defense Work,” and consequently lost his job with North American Aviation. Later on he was able to have his security clearance reviewed and restored, and he did return to work with Hughes Aircraft Company.
SF writer L. Sprague de Camp sought a meeting with Parsons—the scientist-magician—as part of his research for a book on magic and the occult. He declared Parsons “an authentic mad genius.”
Parsons' troubles with the FBI were not over, and he became the focus of yet another investigation. No charges were filed, but he once again lost his security clearance.
He and Candy rented the old coach house of a former Pasadena estate, and Parsons set up a laboratory on the ground floor. He was apparently making drugs and absinthe, as well as explosives. He found occasional work in the movie special effects industry, and it was a special effects project he was working on when the explosion that killed him occurred.
Parsons first wife, Helen, had married Wilfred Smith (who had been Parsons’ original guide into the occult world). Helen established Thelema Publications, and continued to publish Alister Crowley’s work. The OTO was revived in the 1970ies, and has become an international organization with thousands of members.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
“It is therefore a truism, almost a tautology to say that all magic is necessarily false and barren; for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would no longer be magic but science.” Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough.
John Parsons, rocketry pioneer, died in an explosion at his Pasadena home in 1952. He was 37 years old. Parsons had been affiliated with Caltech, was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was deeply involved in a leadership role with the cult society, “Ordo Templi Orientis” (OTO).
Parsons came to believe that rocketry and magic were two sides of the same coin: intellectual challenges to be conquered by a keen and open mind.
Parsons grew up in a wealthy Pasadena home, but his family became impoverished by the depression and unable to send him to college. As a boy he became fascinated with pulp publications such as Weird Tales and the new Amazing Stories. Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories was the first publication devoted to what Gernsback called “scientifiction.”
In middle school, at age 12, he met his life-long friend and colleague, Edward Forman. Both boys were dyslexic, and though Parsons could read well, his handwriting and spelling were always poor. The two also shared an interest in explosives and rocketry and began experimenting almost immediately.
In 1932, at age 18, having not yet finished high school, Parsons went to work to support his family. He found a part-time job with Hercules Powder Company in Los Angles. It was hog heaven for an explosives freak.
In 1933-34 he tried enrolling in Pasadena Junior College, but had to drop out after just one term. Hercules, however, was impressed with him, and transferred him to full-time work at their main explosives manufacturing plant in Pinole, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The work was physically demanding as well as dangerous. He was offered a place at Stanford University, but couldn’t afford the tuition, so he returned to Pasadena where he could live at home. In his time at Hercules, he’d gained a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of explosives, and was considered to have an instinctive “global” grasp of chemical theory.
In 1935, the 20-year old Jack Parsons and 22-year old Ed Forman started hanging around at Caltech. There they met graduate student Frank Malina, then 22 years old. The Rocket Research Group (aka "The Suicide Squad) soon acquired an additional member, Apollo (Amo) Smith, a master's student at Caltech. The group started conducting test firings in 1936, in a remote part of the still wild Arroyo Seco.
By 1937 Fascism was a rising force in Europe, and the conflict between Fascism and Communism was erupting into open warfare in Spain. European Jews immigrated to the US in increasing numbers. Some who had been banned from teaching in Nazi Germany found a home at Caltech.
Communism had an intellectual appeal, especially to left-leaning students. It was not illegal to be a member of the communist party at the time, but it was frowned upon, and most people kept their affiliation secret for fear of job repercussions. Parsons never officially joined the party, and eventually stopped going to the meetings, but Frank Malina did, as did Tsien (a Chinese member of “The Suicide Squad”).
In 1934, Hugo Gernsback, founding editor of Amazing Stories and Science Wonder Stories launched the Science Fiction League. The Los Angeles chapter (LASFL) met on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown LA. Parsons never joined the league, but he did attend and speak upon occasion, impressing, among other people attending a 1938 lecture, an 18-year old Ray Bradbury.
Parsons had been attracted to the writings of English writer and magician Aleister Crowley for some time. Eventually he was introduced to a group which practiced what they called “The Gnostic mass of the Church of Thelema”, which had been created by Crowley. Crowley defined “magick” as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.”
Mystical societies had become very popular in late 19th century Britain, and Crowley joined one of the more influential ones: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But Crowley chaffed under the hierarchy that worked to slow his advancement, and instead chose to develop his own religion, or law, of “Thelema” (from the Greek word for law). It’s central doctrine was of total self-fulfillment, expressed as, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” In 1912, Crowley joined and eventually took over a “quasi-Masonic” organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO. The one thing he kept from the original OTO’s ritual was the use of sex as a component of working magic.
The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer was first published in 1890, as a study of mythologies and belief systems of the world’s cultures. Frazer was an anthropologist and fellow of Trinity College. Parsons was fascinated by this book that treated “magic not as blasphemy or heresy but as a legitimate (if flawed) system of thought.” The book highlighted the similarities between the rites, superstitions, and magic of primitive and pagan cultures and those of Christianity and orthodox religion. While Frazer did not believe in magic, he did see intellectual similarities between the pursuit of magic and the pursuit of science. To Frazer, “acts of magic were the logical precursors to scientific experiment, for as with science ‘the succession of events is assumed to be perfectly regular and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely.’…Magic, with its unshakeable belief in cause and effect, made it ‘the bastard sister of science.’ Parsons would always treat magic as such, seeing it as a strictly literal branch of learning--one that could be mastered by concentrated scientific application.”
In the early 1940ies Parsons invented a solid, castable rocket fuel made from black tar and potassium perchlorate. He is believed to have gotten the idea from Greek Fire—a terrifying flaming liquid weapon recorded in Sparta as early as 429 B.C.. It was reputed to be inextinguishable and burned even on water. The exact nature of its composition remained secret and was eventually lost. Naturally occurring asphalt (black tar) was one of the possible ingredients postulated. Parsons invention was one of “the most important discoveries in the long history of solid rockets.”
In 1942 Parsons bought a decaying Pasadena mansion and moved in with his wife Helen, her young half-sister Betty (who was Parsons’ mistress), and several of his OTO friends (including Wilfred Smith who was Helen’s lover). In this environment, Parsons created for himself an idyllic lifestyle. Fencing, womanizing, magick, drinking…all his favorite activities were freely available. Parsons was also using drugs by this time: home-brewed absinthe, marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines.
Parsons also became a regular guest of the Mañana Literary Society, a group of SF authors who met at the Laurel Canyon home of writer Robert Heinlein. Anthony Boucher, Cleve Cartmill, Jack Williamson, and L. Ron Hubbard were among those Parsons met at the Mañana Society.
During the years of WWII, the “Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project,” which had been funding the Suicide Squad’s research, reformulated into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL. The budget swelled and the staff mushroomed. JPL was the fully-funded military concern, while Aerojet was the business side of the operation. Parsons and Forman were bought out in 1944, and Parsons was pretty much set adrift after that.
After the war ended, nuclear physicist Robert Cornog (who had discovered tritium while at UC Berkeley) moved into Parsons’ mansion, as did L. Ron Hubbard. Parsons and Hubbard became friends and rivals. Hubbard stole Parsons' girlfriend, Betty, who he eventually married.
Parsons immersed himself in the practice of Enochian magic, with a goal of summoning an “Elemental mate”. The rituals he performed took and exhausting two hours and involved recitation as well as “focused masturbation” (a form of sympathetic magic as he tried to “fertilize” magical symbols drawn on paper “tablets” strewn around the floor). When Parsons met the woman who was to become his second wife (Marjorie "Candy" Cameron), he believed his magic had, indeed, summoned her.
Hubbard “helped” Parsons with his magical “workings” and eventually they formed a business partnership along with Betty. It was a highly uneven partnership with Parsons contributing most of the money which Hubbard and Betty soon absconded with.
Hubbard wrote an article about “Dianetics” for the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. According to Hubbard, Dianetics is a form of psychotherapy, which can eventually optimize the potential of the human brain. Like Thelema, Hubbard’s Scientology preaches “that man is an immortal spiritual being, that his capabilities are unlimited, and that his spiritual salvation depends upon his attainment of a ‘brotherhood of the universe’.”
By the late 1940ies, anticommunist feelings ran high, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities was in full swing. Frank Malina left the U.S. in 1946 because he was afraid of the FBI. Robert Cornog lost his security clearance, and was effectively unable to continue working in an industry that dealt largely with classified government contracts. Parsons was investigated, listed as an “Undesirable Employee for National Defense Work,” and consequently lost his job with North American Aviation. Later on he was able to have his security clearance reviewed and restored, and he did return to work with Hughes Aircraft Company.
SF writer L. Sprague de Camp sought a meeting with Parsons—the scientist-magician—as part of his research for a book on magic and the occult. He declared Parsons “an authentic mad genius.”
Parsons' troubles with the FBI were not over, and he became the focus of yet another investigation. No charges were filed, but he once again lost his security clearance.
He and Candy rented the old coach house of a former Pasadena estate, and Parsons set up a laboratory on the ground floor. He was apparently making drugs and absinthe, as well as explosives. He found occasional work in the movie special effects industry, and it was a special effects project he was working on when the explosion that killed him occurred.
Parsons first wife, Helen, had married Wilfred Smith (who had been Parsons’ original guide into the occult world). Helen established Thelema Publications, and continued to publish Alister Crowley’s work. The OTO was revived in the 1970ies, and has become an international organization with thousands of members.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
“It is therefore a truism, almost a tautology to say that all magic is necessarily false and barren; for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would no longer be magic but science.” Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough.
posted by Marlissa | 6:01 PM
