Jack Parsons

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John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons on October 2, 1914 – died June 17, 1952) was an American rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute of Technology and one of the principal founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Aerojet Corp. An enthusiastic occultist, he was one of the first Americans to take a keen interest in the writings of English author and occult teacher Aleister Crowley, and he became a leading member of his organisation, Ordo Templi Orientis.

Youth

Parsons was the only child of a rich but dysfunctional family. When he was a teenager his father walked out on his wife and son.

In the biography Sex and Rockets, the author speculated that Parsons developed an Oedipal complex.

Parsons landed a job with the Hercules Powder Company while a senior in high school. The following year he entered Pasadena Junior College and spent two years at the University of Southern California though he never graduated.

Parsons and the Space Age

In 1936, he joined the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) working for Frank Malina and Theodore von Kármán in Pasadena. While his formal education was limited, Parsons demonstrated tremendous scientific aptitude and genius, particularly in chemistry. His rocket research was some of the earliest in the United States, and his pioneering work in the development of solid fuel and the invention of JATO units for aircraft was of great importance to the start of humanity's space age. The noted engineer Theodore von Kármán, Parsons's friend and benefactor, declared that the work of Parsons and his peers helped usher in the age of space travel. Parsons co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commonly referred to as JPL. According to von Kármán, Parsons' work in solid fuel research "... made possible such outstanding rockets as the Polaris and the Minuteman.

It was in 1942, the same year Parsons was appointed as head of the Agape Lodge by Aleister Crowley, that Parsons made the crucial breakthrough in the development of rocket solid fuel. He came up with a solution that could only have come from someone having a knowledge of alchemy and magic: Greek fire. Try as they might the GALCIT people would fail again and again with their black powder. Then, by an intuitive stroke of genius, Parson switched from black powder to asphalt and potassium perchlorate. Compared with Peenemünde, America was finally in the race for jet propulsion with solid fuel for the space age. Wernher von Braun would acknowledge Parsons as the father of America's space program.

Parsons and the Occult

Parsons was also an avid student and practitioner of the occult arts, and a Thelemite. He saw no contradiction between his scientific and magical pursuits, and before each rocket test launch, Parsons would invoke the Greek god Pan.

In 1942 Parsons was chosen by Aleister Crowley to lead the Agape Lodge of the Thelemic Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in California after Crowley expelled Wilfred Smith from the position.

Sara Northrup (aka "Sarah Elizabeth" or "Betty" Northrup), began living with Parsons after his wife, Sara's half-sister Helen Northrup, left with Wilfred Smith. Sara Northrup later married author L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology and sometime magical partner of Parsons.

Babalon Working and Marjorie Cameron

In 1946 Parsons and Hubbard participated in a ritual known as the Babalon Working which is famous in occult circles — loosely, it was an attempt to summon a living goddess and change the course of history. Paul Rydeen writes:

The purpose of Parson's operation has been underemphasized. He sought to produce a magickal child who would be a product of her environment rather than of her heredity. Crowley himself describes the Moonchild in just these terms. The Babalon Working itself was preparation for what was to come: a Thelemic messiah.

Parsons ended the ritual by declaring it successful. Almost immediately he met Marjorie Cameron right in his own home, and regarded her as the Scarlet Woman, the fulfillment of the ritual.

Parsons, Hubbard, and Cameron then began the next stage of the Babalon Working, with Cameron acting as Parsons' magical sexual partner with whom he could sire a Moonchild. The creation of this Moonchild had been previously covered in fictional form in Crowley's novel Moonchild. A physical child was not conceived, but this did not affect the results of the ritual to that point. Parsons and Cameron soon married.

In January 1946, Parsons, Sarah Northrup, and Hubbard started a boat dealing company named Allied Enterprises. Parsons put in the sum of approximately $21,000, and Hubbard put in $1,200. Hubbard eventually abandoned Parsons and their business plans, leaving for a port in Florida with the boat and with Sarah. Parsons retreated to his hotel room and summoned a typhoon in retribution (viz., with an evocation of Bartzabel — the so-called intelligence supposedly presiding over the planet Mars). A Florida court later dissolved the poorly-contracted business, ordered repayment of debts to Parsons, and awarded ownership of the boat to Hubbard.

The Hubbard/Allied Enterprises relationship lasted until 1947, when Hubbard again defrauded Parsons of a sum of money and ran off again with Sara Northrup.

Parsons resigned his leadership of the O.T.O. in 1946.

Death

Fritz Zwicky, a member of the original Aerojet team, did not like Parsons, and called him a "dangerous man." This pronouncement proved prophetic.

On 17 June 1952 Parsons was killed in an explosion of fulminate of mercury at his home laboratory. Though gravely injured, he survived the immediate explosion, but he died of his wounds a few hours later. Distraught, Parsons' mother killed herself just hours after he died.

Unsubstantiated rumors of suicide, murder or magical ritual gone wrong have circulated. However Parsons stored many volatile chemicals and compounds in his laboratory and had been working to finish a contract for a special effects firm.

Honors

The crater Parsons on the far side of the Moon is named after him.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons