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Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

spacesafetymagazine.com

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Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#11

Post by imhelpingu »

api wrote: post #2

If anyone hasn't seen Strange Angel I highly recommend it. It's definitely the "Hollywood version" to some extent but it's relatively close to his biographies and is a decent watch regardless. The title and thesis here is a bit wacky. JPL itself doesn't have "occult roots." Parsons was into occultism and Thelema/Crowley, which is far less sensational than it sounds if you've ever actually read any of that stuff. It's…

Thelema is basically ritual magic and the direct antecedent to mid 20th century new age culture. Many of its practices are probably the basis for modern conceptions of spooky sex-cult behavior. The theory side does seem to be Hinduism-lite, though. I'll give you that.

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#12

Post by killion »

Unfortunately this article doesn’t load for me, I wanted to see it because I really enjoyed reading Strange Angel by George Pendle. There is a series on CBS All Access that is very, very loosely based on the book which is fun to watch if not at all accurate.

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#13

Post by imhelpingu »

armitron wrote: post #10
oflannabhra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the article directly contradicts your perspective of Crowley and Parsons beliefs with: beastiality, incest, and more.

Most of what they ascribe to Crowley is highly dubious and sensationalist. There have been many independent biographies of Crowley published, not to mention his "autohagiography" that shed a lot of light . The article also contains blatant falsehoods, their explanation of the avalanche incident is fabricated and not corresponding to history (diaries and 3rd party first-person accounts of what actually happened). Even…

Casting Crowley as the evil crazed Satanist is basically like if people in 50 years were to watch a bunch of Marilyn Manson videos and decide he was really an evil vampire. It's part of the marketing.

On the other hand, this

> using veiled language meant to offend

is frequently the opposite of the case. Frequently, the veiled language is used to obscure the nature of some rituals which many "uninitiated" would likely find offensive. It strikes me as rather disingenuous to proactively pretend otherwise, frankly.

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#14

Post by bartcobain »

tunnuz wrote: post #4

If you want to know more about this, the Unexplained podcast has a 3-parts episode on the story of Jack Parsons. Really recommended! http://www.unexplainedpodcast.com/episodes/2018/3/20/s03-epi...

And if you want to dig even deeper, the book "John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World" takes this topic even further.

https://www.amazon.com/John-Dee-Empire-Angels-Enochian/dp/16...

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#15

Post by jonathankoren »

api wrote: post #5
wuliwong wrote: post #3

The story of Jack Parsons is one of my favorites. He really contributed scientifically, was certainly in part responsible for L. Ron Hubbards rise to fame and also a protege` of Aleister Crowley.

According to most of what I've read Parsons was kind of conned by Hubbard. They did have an association for a while but I don't get the sense that Parsons had any direct role in Scientology per se. Hubbard invented that later.

The postwar Pasadena areospace scene was wild.

Scientology is basically Crowley’s Thelema but in 1950’s space opera clothing. Parsons didn’t have any role in developing beyond introducing Hubbard to Crowely, and most notably Sara Northrup. Sara Northrup, later L Ron’s wife, helped develop Dianetics, and Scientology.

I read J.W. Carter’s ”Sex and Rockets”, and Lawerence Wright’s “Going Clear” back to back, and together they paint a fascinating portrait of the time.

If you want to round out the Pasadena OTO scene, Spencer Kansa’s “Wormwood Star” about Marjorie Cameron is supposed to be good, but I haven’t read it yet.

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#16

Post by maxxxxx »

Parsons is a very interesting character. I think the same character traits that cause scientists to produce new theories also causes them to go into "weird" directions. You have to have a high level of stubbornness and fearlessness to go against the shared wisdom of the time.

In general I love to read about famous persons who had a lot of on the surface contradictory facets to their personality. There is a tendency in the media to view people as one-dimensional. People don't seem to be able to compute that people are not all-good or all-bad. A famous people would be Newton who was kind of an ass and also spent a lot of time on alchemy and other stuff.

A while ago I saw a British TV show about Hitler and there they had a scene where Hitler shot his dog out of anger. From whatever I know he loved dogs but somehow the show creators thought Hitler has to be portrayed as a totally bad guy.

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#17

Post by theoh »

killion wrote: post #12

Unfortunately this article doesn’t load for me, I wanted to see it because I really enjoyed reading Strange Angel by George Pendle. There is a series on CBS All Access that is very, very loosely based on the book which is fun to watch if not at all accurate.

Try this: http://web.archive.org/web/20181220194510/http://www.spacesa...

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#18

Post by freehunter »

tunnuz wrote: post #4

If you want to know more about this, the Unexplained podcast has a 3-parts episode on the story of Jack Parsons. Really recommended! http://www.unexplainedpodcast.com/episodes/2018/3/20/s03-epi...

The Dollop podcast has an amusing take on Jack Parsons too. NSFW and probably less historically accurate than Unexplained, but amusing at least.

http://thedollop.libsyn.com/jack-parson

Re: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL

#19

Post by armitron »

imhelpingu wrote: post #13
armitron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of what they ascribe to Crowley is highly dubious and sensationalist. There have been many independent biographies of Crowley published, not to mention his "autohagiography" that shed a lot of light . The article also contains blatant falsehoods, their explanation of the avalanche incident is fabricated and not corresponding to history (diaries and 3rd party first-person accounts of what actually happened). Even…

Casting Crowley as the evil crazed Satanist is basically like if people in 50 years were to watch a bunch of Marilyn Manson videos and decide he was really an evil vampire. It's part of the marketing. On the other hand, this > using veiled language meant to offend is frequently the opposite of the case. Frequently, the veiled language is used to obscure the nature of some rituals which many "uninitiated" would likely…

Crowley had a mischievous streak and delighted being in the spotlight. His writing style was infused by sarcasm and was all over the spectrum of using poetic and sexual language to both offend and veil.

I do not think you are correct in your assessment as clearly he couldn't care less about offending people. An example is when he refers to masturbation as "child sacrifice":

“For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim.”

His sense of humor wouldn't be out of place today. Crowley was a visionary genius who tapped into the 21st century and one could say helped bring it into existence. To portray him as nothing more than a sexual deviant or charlatan does not do the man justice.

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