EVIL MINDS
As he was developing the highly explosive and toxic chemicals that would launch America into space, Pasadena’s Jack Parsons was ingesting cocaine, morphine and other drugs in his own earthly world of orgies and Satanism
Part 1 of 2
By Michael Collins
Pasadena Weekly – January 3, 2002
“Only in the irrational and unknown direction can we come to wisdom again.” — Jack Parsons
Hard on the northwest corner of Pasadena is an institution that the city has long identified with – NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. First directed and founded, in part, by the legendary Caltech professor Theodore von Kármán, JPL is now the 6,000 employee, 176-acre spread to some of America’s greatest technological triumphs. Our space program began January 31, 1958 when the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, built and controlled by JPL, soared towards the heavens. JPL had made its mark in space craft navigation and control. The company has since constructed deep space vehicles that have explored every planet, save Pluto, and also manages the worldwide Deep Space Network which studies the ozone, oceans and our own terra firma.
A tarnished plaque, by JPL’s visitor’s center, commemorates the Halloween 1936 event where history was made. A group of scientists, under von Kármán’s direction, initiated the “first rocket motor burning gaseous oxygen and methyl alcohol (which resulted in) the subsequent founding of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1944.” One of the “individuals who participated…” was John W. Parsons.
A delightful screwball
Von Kármán later wrote in 1958 that Parsons was in the top three of American rocketry only after von Kármán himself and fellow rocket scientist Frank Malina. Parsons helped lead the way in creating the first American rockets putting the “jet propulsion” in JPL’s name. He also was key in the idea to start using potassium perchlorate as a rocket fuel oxidizer instead of aluminum and other chemicals. This idea led to the development of aluminum perchlorate which is still used today for the same purpose in the Space Shuttle and America’s nuclear missile arsenal. Breakthroughs like these led to the March 19, 1942 formation of the then Pasadena-based Aerojet Corporation, now a massive military industrial complex company called Aerojet General Corporation.
Even though von Kármán praised him for his “rich talent for chemistry,” the grand man of rocketry also called Parsons “a delightful screwball” who “loved to recite pagan poetry to the sky while stamping his feet.” According to former Aerojet employee Frank Zwicky, Parsons invoked Pan, the untamed horned god of fertility, before each rocket test. But Parsons’ wackiness extends far beyond the random pagan chant according to the Feral House book “Sex and Rockets” by John Carter (which is the pseudonym of an individual who wishes to remain unknown for fear of losing his government job).
Carter writes that Parsons immersed himself in the black “magick” rituals of famed British occultist and bisexual drug addict Aleister Crowley. Soon Parsons began holding cabalistic drug-drenched sexual soirees at “the Parsonage” in an exclusive part of Pasadena then called the “Millionaire’s Mile.” Visitors to his home included science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and future founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Before being mysteriously blown to bits at the tender age of 37, Parsons went on to proclaim himself the Antichrist and apparently consummated his Oedipal complex with his mother, and the family dog. On film.
“Here in one man is about a dozen incredible stories — and all in the city of Pasadena!” said notorious Feral House book publisher, Adam Parfrey. “If only the Little Old Lady from Pasadena knew what was going on in the house next to hers!” Parfrey has made his name publishing a wide and wild variety of tomes including “Apocalypse Culture,” “Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook,” and, my favorite, “Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient.”
“I’ve always been interested in the Jack Parsons story — here’s a man who is considered one of the most influential ‘left-hand path’ (dark) occultists of the 20th century, and at the same time was an extraordinary rocket scientist and co-founder of JPL,” Parfrey told the Weekly. “Without John Whiteside Parsons it would be hard to imagine the United States getting to the moon in the 1960s. And here is a man who dabbled in hard drugs, promoted occultism in his Pasadena mansion, and influenced the development of L. Ron Hubbard.”
Mixin’ it up
“In these experiences the ego will be totally altered or completely destroyed in the death that must precede a rebirth into life. The terror, agony and despair that accompany this process cannot be minimized.” — Jack Parsons
Marvel Whiteside Parson was born October 2, 1914, in Los Angeles to Marvel and Ruth Parsons, but was mostly raised in Pasadena’s famed Millionaire Mile. Soon thereafter, Marvel Sr. started having an illicit affair, which resulted in a Parsons divorce. Ruth never called her son Marvel again and began addressing him as John.
