Jack Parsons: The Deviant Occultist Who Helped Create Rocket Science
Wikimedia CommonsJack Parsons was so involved in the occult that the FBI kept rigorous tabs on him.
The litany of bizarre descriptions for Jack Parsons never quite seemed to end. Though he was known as an occultist and a sex fanatic, the California-born eccentric also oversaw the founding of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — and quite literally helped invent rocket science.
Parsons was an unusual mad scientist as his expertise was only matched by his obsession with the occult and dark magic. He pioneered rocketry at a time when sending a man to space seemed like a pipe dream and began that effort with a group of friends at the California Institute of Technology — who called themselves the “Suicide Squad.”
He joined the group after befriending a graduate student named Frank Malina. Though Parsons never pursued any higher education himself, his new friends helped him shoot off primitive rockets in the late 1930s, hopeful to one day lead humankind to the moon.
Wikimedia CommonsJack Parsons (right) with his fellow “Suicide Squad” members, including Frank Malina (center).
Parsons was so adept at making rocket fuel that versions of his mixture would later be used by NASA. With Parsons’ help, Malina garnered funds from the National Academy of Sciences to study “jet propulsion” in the early 1940s — but Parsons’ eccentricities soon got in the way.
Perhaps most controversially, Parsons was a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), which was led by Aleister Crowley. Known as “the wickedest man in the world,” Crowley’s primary instruction was a hedonistic “do what thou wilt,” which primarily involved seeking out pleasure at all costs.
A devout apprentice of Crowley’s, Parsons was soon made the leader of the OTO’s West Coast chapter, often corresponding directly with Crowley himself. Meanwhile, Parsons used his hard-earned income from his rocketry work to purchase a mansion in Los Angeles that mostly served as a hotbed of orgies — where Parsons once slept with his wife’s 17-year-old sister.
Due to Parsons’ controversial actions outside of work, he was eventually cast out of the industry he helped create — at the behest of the FBI. Around this same time, Parsons would meet none other than the future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who ended up stealing one of his girlfriends.
Ultimately, this mad scientist went out in a fiery blaze while working on a film project — and died in one of his own explosions. He was 37 years old.
