Sex and Rockets Read online

  13. Cited in Heretic's Handbook, op. cit. p. 105.

  Preface

  “How shall I write of the mystery and the terror, of the wonder and pity and splendor of the sevenfold star that is Babalon?” I shall tell of the tragic life of her most devoted disciple and beloved son—known to her as Frater Belarion, and to the world of men as Jack Parsons.

  In The Rebirth of Pan, Jim Brandon says that “Parsons” is one of the few names that turns up repeatedly in reports of anomalous phenomena. He does not mention Jack Parsons by name, but I think we shall see that the attribution is fitting. “Parson Jack,” for instance, was a devil along the lines of the better known “Springheel Jack” who accosted astonished villagers. Our Jack was likewise hounded by his own devils.

  In the aerospace world, there is a joke that “JPL”—the initials for Jet Propulsion Laboratory—actually stand for “Jack Parsons’ Laboratory” or even “Jack Parsons Lives.” How would you react to the statement that one of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's founding fathers was a practicing ceremonial magician who attempted to summon a dangerous spirit and incarnate it into human form by impregnating a woman during one of his rites? The rite failed, and just a few years later this same Parsons would sign an oath stating he was the Antichrist. This man was at the same time the author of several once-classified government documents on explosives and patented means of rocket propulsion, and the Aerojet Corporation—which he personally founded—now produces solid-fuel rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle based on his innovations. The remarkable Parsons died at the early age of 37 in a mysterious explosion that even today is not definitively explained. Was it murder, suicide, or simply an accident?

  I'd like to thank the following people for their contributions during the preparation of this manuscript: Carl Abrahamsson, Acharya (my copy editor), Judith Bauer, Greg Bishop, John Bluth, Peter Breton, Stephen Emmons, Allen Greenfield, Amy Lawrence, Marjorie Malina, Roger Malina, Adam Parfrey, Dave Reimer, Peter Stenshoel, Mick Taylor, Jourrie Van Der Woude, and all the unnamed others who helped make this book the best it could be. I'd also like to thank the staff of the following organizations: GenCorp Aerojet, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Los Angeles Public Library, Pasadena Central Library, Pasadena Historical Museum, and Sherikon Space Systems.

  A special thanks goes to my wonderful wife, Judy, for all her love and support throughout this entire endeavor. I couldn't have done it without her.

  one

  The Early Years: 1914–1936

  Marvel H. Parsons was from the Boston area, born circa 1894, the son of an egg merchant. Marvel does not appear in the Boston city directories for the years 1910 through 1913, so he was either living at home with his parents or he was from a small town just outside of Boston. When Marvel reached the age when men have to make a living for themselves, he realized there was no way he could do it selling eggs with his father. So Marvel decided to head west—to California, the land of sunshine and opportunity.

  Marvel arrived in Los Angeles in 1913, a fact known because his name shows up in the 1914 city directory as residing at 2375 Scarrf, where he was a tenant. He was employed by the English Motor Car Company of 1132 S. Grand Ave., which was not an imported car dealer but named for its president, P.A. English. On a 1914 document, Marvel listed his occupation as “auto accessories,” so he was probably employed in sales.

  Parsons met Ruth Virginia Whiteside when he arrived in California and married her soon after. Ruth was from Ohio, but was born in Chicago, Illinois, in late 1893 or early 1894. Ruth had lived in several cities around the country and had also traveled to Europe with her parents on different occasions. I was unable to find her in any of the Los Angeles or Pasadena city directories prior to her marriage. Marvel and Ruth Parsons gave birth to a son on October 2, 1914 and named him Marvel Whiteside Parsons. He was their second child, the first having died at birth or in infancy. The younger Marvel was born at Good Samaritan Hospital, 1225 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, California, at 8:45 p.m. The attending physician was Julian Coffey.

  About this time the senior Marvel did something that was less common in 1914 than it is today. It was certainly less talked about then, and not condoned at all. Marvel had an affair with another woman. Ruth responded to his affair by doing something equally shocking: she divorced her new husband. Marvel can be found in the 1915 Los Angeles city directory, living alone at 2401 Romeo St., listed as owner of this home, where Ruth, listed as a housewife, and their son also lived for a while.

  Embittered by her ex-husband's adulterous affair, Ruth began calling the boy “John” rather than “Marvel,” but she never legally changed his name. As the boy grew, close friends and family would come to call him “Jack,” which is how he is often remembered today. Because of these name changes, it is possible to tell at a glance whether a biographical account of Parsons originates from the scientific community or the occult community, as the latter uniformly calls him “Jack.” Members of the scientific community call him “John,” which is how he will be referred to throughout this book.

  Curiously, Ruth Parsons kept her ex-husband's surname for herself and the boy, for she is consistently referred to as Mrs. Ruth Parsons for the rest of her life. It may be that there was no legal divorce at all, as one of her son's later documents makes reference to a “separation,” which may mean that his mother may have merely kicked Marvel out.

  In an ominous coincidence, Charles Taze Russell, whose “Russellites” now call themselves the Jehovah's Witnesses, predicted the end of the world would happen on October 2, 1914, the day of John Parsons’ birth, and just a couple months after the start of World War I. When Russell announced to his congregation in Brooklyn, New York, that the end had begun, he meant the finale was not an instantaneous end to all things, but rather the beginning of the end as outlined in the Book of Revelation—the appearance of the Antichrist and the harlot, Babylon the Great, being two of the key events. It is ironic that John Parsons, who would later attempt to incarnate Babylon and who would also sign an oath stating that he was the Antichrist, was born the very day of Russell's eschatological event.

  Of his own birth, the mystical Parsons wrote in Analysis By A Master of the Temple 34 years later, “I chose this constellation [Libra] in order that you might have an innate sense of balance and ultimate justice, responsive and attractive nature, a bountiful environment & sense of royalty and largesse, strength, courage & power combined with cunning and intelligence. Saturn [time] was bound [i.e., the planet was at aphelion] in order that you might not easily formulate a lower will which would have satisfied and overwhelmed you with its spectacular success.”

  Parsons’ mother, Ruth, first appears in the Pasadena city directory in 1916, shown as living with her parents, Walter H. and Carrie Whiteside at 537 S. Orange Grove Ave., where Walter is listed as homeowner. After Marvel and Ruth separated, Ruth's parents apparently made the big sacrifice and moved west to help care for their daughter and grandson. Whatever occurrence or sentiment that had brought Ruth to California to begin with was evidently strong enough to make her want to stay. Rather than packing up and moving home after separating from Marvel, her home moved to her.

  South Orange Grove Avenue was known locally as “Millionaire's Mile,” and the family's presence here indicates Walter Whiteside was a successful man. Ruth's obituary lists Walter's occupation as president of both Stevens Duryea and the Allis Chalmers Manufacturing Company. Ruth and her parents, along with young John, stayed at 537 S. Orange Grove for a number of years. Ironically, John Parsons’ life would end 37 years later just blocks from the very place where he grew up, at 1071 S. Orange Grove. The path he took to get there was a very interesting one, as we shall see.

  John's father, Marvel H. Parsons, drops out of sight after 1915 and does not appear in any of the Los Angeles or Pasadena city directories again. We do know that he joined the army, and though it is thought that he did so after World War I ended in November 1918, the Department of Veterans Affairs has a record of a Marvel
H. Parsons who enlisted in August 1917, one year before the war ended. This is the only Marvel Parsons in the VA's files. The army seems a natural refuge for a former salesman who had lost his wife, his son, and possibly his home.

  John Parsons’ FBI files refer to his father as a captain (i.e., “Captain Marvel”), and one of the newspaper articles written at the time of John's death refer to his father as a major. It has been said that Marvel worked for Woodrow Wilson (President, 1913–1921) or Warren G. Harding (President, 1921–1923), but this information is unconfirmed.

  Marvel may have passed away in 1922, because the 1923 Pasadena city directory lists Ruth Parsons as a widow for the first time. However, the Marvel H. Parsons in the VA records was retired from active duty in October 1939 and didn't die until May 12, 1947, although he is evidently not buried in any of the VA's national cemeteries. Rather than his having passed away in 1923, it seems more likely that a man who rose from enlistee to captain or even major would require an entire career to do so, and four or five years just isn't enough. It may be that Ruth Parsons fibbed a little to cover up the stigma attached to her divorce.

  According to John, Ruth (and perhaps her parents) cultivated a hatred in her son for the father he never knew. In his essay Analysis By A Master of the Temple he wrote (in the third person), “Your father separated from your mother in order that you might grow up with a hatred of authority and a spirit of revolution necessary to my work. The Oedipus complex was needed to formulate the love of witchcraft which would lead you into magick, with the influence of your grandfather active to prevent too complete an identification with your mother.”

  Of his childhood he wrote, “Your isolation as a child developed the necessary background of literature and scholarship; and the unfortunate experiences with other children [developed] the requisite contempt for the crowd and for the group mores. You will note that these factors developed the needful hatred for christianity [sic] (without implanting a christian [sic] guilt sense) at an extremely early age.”

  In The Book of Antichrist (written by him just prior to Analysis By A Master of the Temple) John Parsons alleges to have invoked Satan at age 13, cowering in fear when he appeared. This event would have occurred in late 1927 or sometime in 1928. The reason for the invocation is not given, but it may have had to do with his problems with other children. It seems that in moments of distress not a few children have turned to magic, witchcraft or called upon “the devil.”

  In the directory listing of 1928 the Parsons and the Whitesides show up at 1105 Glen Oaks Blvd., Pasadena, where Walter Whiteside was listed as homeowner. Glen Oaks was a brand new street that year, not listed in any of the previous city directories. There was only one other house on the street, which must have been the start of a new housing development. Evidently Walter was doing very well at work, selling the old place and having a brand new home built for himself.

  Around this time, when he was in the eighth grade, John made a lifelong friend when he found himself at the wrong end of a bully's attention. One young fellow, Edward S. Forman, intervened on Parsons’ behalf, and the two were inseparable after that. Parsons and Forman soon learned they shared other interests: For example, both read the works of Jules Verne, especially From the Earth to the Moon, and Hugo Gernsback's new magazine of “scientifiction” called Amazing Stories.

  The boys shared an interest in rockets that was more than theoretical. They loved to blow off fireworks in Parsons’ backyard, and in 1928 they began to experiment with small, solid-fuel rockets. People who knew Parsons at the time said his yard was full of holes and burn spots from the constant activity. Interestingly, Forman later stated that he and Parsons often used glue as a binder to hold together the various gunpowder mixtures they prepared for their little rockets, a fact that will be important later on.

  The adult male role model in Parsons’ life was his grandfather Walter, though Parsons’ own writings show that Ruth was clearly the major influence in his life. It seems Parsons never knew his birth father, growing up from infancy with Walter and Carrie Whiteside in their house. John Bluth, archivist of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has speculated that some adult must have encouraged Parsons’ early interest in rockets and fireworks. Perhaps it was merely a neighbor or a teacher, but it may have been his grandfather Walter.

  For some reason the family moved very quickly, appearing in the Pasadena city directory of 1929 at 285 N. San Rafael Ave. This address was a new number on this street in this year, which leads one to assume that Walter Whiteside was taking advantage of the expansion taking place in Pasadena. For the first time the city directory lists Walter's occupation. Here he's shown to be the manager of Annandale Corporation, indicating a probable promotion.

  Years later, John Parsons would tell the FBI that he toured Europe in 1929 with his “parents,” a reference that must have been to his mother and grandparents, who were the only parents he had. Such a trip would be affordable for a well-to-do man like Walter. Ruth's obituary said she traveled to Europe on several occasions with her parents. At least one of these trips must have included her son.

  Of his teenage years, Parsons wrote in Analysis By A Master of the Temple, “Early adolescence continued the development of the necessary combinations. The awakening interest in chemistry and science prepared the counterbalance for the coming magical awakening, the means of obtaining prestige and livelihood in the formative period, and the scientific method necessary for my manifestation. The magical fiasco at the age of 16 [1930 or ’31, reference uncertain] was needful to keep you away from magick until you were sufficiently matured.”

  Around the time of this mysterious “magical fiasco” in 1931, John's grandfather, Walter, passed away. Carrie Whiteside subsequently listed herself as a widower in the 1932 directory. John Parsons, just turning 17, had now lost his father figure and role model. Most of his adult life John sought out others to fulfill this role.

  In the year after his grandfather's death, Parsons and his boyhood friend Ed Forman devised a successful experiment that shows their interest in rockets was more than an amateur concern: they heated black powder—which involved no little danger—and cast it into a wax matrix. Aluminum (presumably aluminum oxide powder) was also added as an oxidizer. During the heat of combustion, the mixture would release oxygen, which further fueled the burn. Parsons and Forman remembered these early experiments later, when they began to work on rockets as a profession.

  That same year, 1932, Parsons took a job with the Hercules Powder Company of Pasadena, where Ed Forman may have worked as well, as certainly he did later on. In 1933 Parsons graduated from the University School, which some have confused with University High School in West Los Angeles. The University School John Parsons attended was a small, private establishment located at 985 E. California St. in Pasadena. Attendance at such a private school is another indication of the Whiteside-Parsons family's wealth.

  Parsons and Forman attended Pasadena Junior College together, and though it remains is unclear what subjects they studied, both spent two years at the expensive private college, USC (University of Southern California) but neither man graduated.

  As they continued to indulge their passion for rockets, Parsons and Forman corresponded with Robert Goddard and some of the Germans and Russians working in the field. One of the Germans was science writer Willy Ley, who later fled the Nazis to America. Ley was a member of the German Rocket Society in Berlin, as was Wernher von Braun.1

  Parsons and Forman probably also corresponded with Hermann Oberth, the father of German rocketry. Oberth had been born in Transylvania and then immigrated to Germany. Ley and von Braun owed much to him. They no doubt contacted Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Oberth's peer in Russia. They may have also contacted the Frenchman Esnault-Pelterie, though no mention is made of him in the records. Esnault-Pelterie was contemporary with Oberth and Tsiolkovsky, and was just as well known in the field.

  Forman later reminisced that they actually learned very little from the correspondence
within this field, beyond the fact that nobody else had yet achieved much. Parsons and Forman eventually discontinued their letter-writing when they realized they were being pumped for information about their own work, without the others revealing anything about what they were doing, a problem that a later associate of the Pasadena pair, Frank Malina, would also experience when he went to visit Robert Goddard.

  In 1934, John, Ruth, and Carrie moved to 620 St. John Ave., Pasadena, where Carrie is listed as homeowner, even though at 20 years of age John must have assumed the role of man of the house. John left his high school years employer Hercules Powder in 1934 to work for Halifax Explosives in the Mojave Desert. Ed Forman was also employed by Halifax, though possibly at a later date.

  At this time Parsons bought a used car from a local dealership. The salesman was Robert B. Rypinski, who later worked for Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Rypinski liked Parsons immediately, and the two shared many interests, becoming good friends and remaining so for a number of years. A chance discovery at Rypinski's house a few years later would have great consequences for Parsons, but in the meantime the two enjoyed frequent weekends together, and Rypinksi later remembered that Parsons “burned with a warm, gem-like flame.”

  In the spring of 1935, John married Helen Northrup in the Church of the Little Flowers. The couple met at a church dance. Helen was the daughter of Burton A. and Olga Northrup, and worked as a secretary at her father's business, Northrup Business Adjustments. John and Helen bought themselves a home at 168 S. Terrace Drive, Pasadena, while Carrie Whiteside bought a new house for herself and Ruth Parsons at 723 Lincoln, possibly a smaller house just big enough for two widows.

  In his memoirs Parsons cryptically referred to a “loss of family fortune” around this time, perhaps in connection with his grandfather's death. He wrote, “The early marriage to Helen served to break your family ties and effect a transference to her, away from a dangerous attachment to your mother. The experience at Halifax and Cal Tech served to strengthen your self reliance, scientific method and material powers. The influence of Tom Rose [reference uncertain] at this period, as that of Ed Forman in adolescence, was essential in developing the male center.” Parsons also refers to “…Music, Lynn, Curtis, and Gloria, and the increasing restlessness.” Parsons’ love for classical music was great—as was his mother's—but the references to Lynn, Curtis, and Gloria, obvious early influences, remain uncertain.