September 28, 2018 • 63 mins
Jack Parsons was a rocket engineer and rocket propulsion researcher responsible for astonishing breakthroughs in his field. However, Parsons had a double life -- a private passion for the occult that led him to eventually join Aleister Crowley's new Thelemite religion, attempt the Babalon Working and hobknob with L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Tune in to learn more about the rocket scientist and real-life wizard Jack Parsons.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
they call me Ben. We are joined with our super producer,
Paul Decant. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Today we bring you two worlds that will smash together.
The world of science, rocketry, physics, and the occult, the mysterious,
(00:49):
the the void. M hmmm. Absolutely and that sounds maybe
like a little bit of hyperbole, but it's absolutely true.
Today's episode centers on something that the three of us
find fascinating and we hope you find it fascinating too.
It's a little known cover up that was quite successful
(01:12):
for decades. It occurs in the United States, and it does,
as you said, Matt, combine the bleeding edge of science
with the hidden dare we say occulted heart of the
dark arts? Yes? And how different are they really and
we'll get into that too. The exploration of mankind's abilities.
(01:36):
That's really what both of those pursuits are like, what
can we achieve either with our hands or through our
mind and through some other plane that may be spiritual. Right,
and this also calls to mind the old sci fi
quotation that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Right,
(01:56):
And there you have it. That is the end that
encapsulated to this episode. Yes, let's start at the beginning.
Marvel white Side Parsons. That's not a comic book Character's
his real name, Isn't that a great name? Is? Marvel
Whiteside Parsons is born on October two in Los Angeles, California. Yeah,
(02:21):
he's also known as Jack. That's what he becomes known as. Yes, Yes,
And from his early childhood days, Jack has an abiding
interest in rocketry. At this point in the early twentieth century,
rocketry is still seen very much as a as a
science fiction thing. Yeah, that's where it exists in the
(02:43):
pages of fiction, of drawings of what a rocket could
be like, right, people landing on various lunar shores, weird
space rocks and meeting you know, martians perhaps martians, Yes,
some sort of uh, some sort of alien that functions
as a stand in for whatever ideology the author dislikes.
(03:06):
There's a lot of There was a lot of communism
in space at the time. You gotta love allegory, Yeah,
especially when it's naked allegory, you know what I mean.
But Jack swallows his stuff hook line and sinker. He
loves it, loves it, and I think a lot of
us can understand that feeling. Right in, Jack and his friend,
(03:27):
a guy named Ed Foreman, start experimenting with rockets on
an amateur level. Matt, have you ever done this when
you were a kid? Did you ever make and launch
those model rockets? Yeah? Uh, And that's about the right time.
When he was fourteen, he was doing this. When I
was in middle school to high school, my friend Scott
and I would spend a lot of time in the
(03:49):
backyard experimenting with chemicals and with cardboard tubes actually, which
is something that Jack also did. Hey, Paul, what about you?
Were you? Uh rocketman? A rocket boy and so conspiracy
realist fellow listeners, Our superproducer Paul has asked us to
(04:10):
relay to you because he won't record his own voice
because he couldn't get him on Mike. He asked us
to relate to you that he liked many of us
as a child bought the rock model rocket kits experimented
with him in the backyard. Uh, and noted there was
an element of danger to it. Yeah, there's like there's
(04:30):
an explosion that happens, and then this thing goes up
into the air really high, and then usually at least
in my experience, blows up to some extent. And Jack
Parsons to let the bad rout of the bag here. Uh.
He is from a wealthy family, a very wealthy family,
a very well to do family, and he gets some
(04:51):
leeway experimenting with these rockets studs something a lot of
kids can maybe afford to do. And even if they
can afford to do it, not many of them have
the ingenuity perhaps to do this. So his parents backyard
is filled with craters very soon after he begins experimenting
with stuff, and his neighborhood is littered with flaming bits
(05:16):
of paper and scorched cardboard tubes. Yeah, and this is
a year before the Great Depression hits, by the way,
So everybody's living living the high life shooting off rockets
in their backyard. Well, at least Jack is right right.
And as Parsons and Foremen go to high school, they
become captivated with how ingenious is this? They become captivated
(05:39):
with the idea of creating a solid fuel rocket engine.
And this concept at the time is widely considered poppy
cock nonsense. If it can't happen, why would you study that?
Right now? Yes? What are what? Are you? A buffoon?
You know what I mean? And to get on the
(06:00):
liquid stuff? And if God meant rockets to travel to space,
wouldn't God have put them there already? Yes, one of
those things exactly. But Parsons, also as a kid, has long,
(06:22):
meandering teenage conversations. I'm sure we can all identify with
some of with those situations, like when you're when you're
a teenager, you often get involved in these epic marathon conversations.
You hang up, no, you hang up right? So who
is who is Parsons talking to? He's he's talking to
(06:42):
someone who was born two years before him, who was
also a fairly young man at the time, a man
named Werner von Brown, uh Magnus Maximilian von Brown. There's
there's a lot more names in there. Um, you might
remember this fellow. He has kind of become a name
on this show. Talk about him quite often that he's
the former Nazi scientist who helped to develop the V
(07:04):
two rocket for the for the Nazi Party, and then
he was secretly brought over to the US via that
Operation paper Clip that we speak about, where over six
d scientists were brought to the United States. Uh. And
then you know, he went on to develop the Saturn
five heavy lift vehicle that was used in the Apollo
programs that took us to the Moon, as well as
the original rockets that started the United States space program.
(07:28):
And there's like, there's a whole other host of things
that he did for this country and for rocketry in general. Yeah,
it's a it's a little bit of an eye opener
for anybody who just started listening to our show to
learn that the NASA institution as we understand it would
not be capable of the feats it is capable of
(07:52):
without Nazi engineering and ingenuity. Yeah. And again at this point,
he's just a young guy. Yeah, and I feel, you know,
I feel weird saying Nazi ingenuity. We do have to
point out Operation paper Clip. It was a genuine conspiracy
and cover up that occurred. Um, A lot of the
(08:13):
American public did not know about it. Would not learn
about it for some time. But many of those scientists
were not necessarily like, they were not ideological Nazis. No,
they're the greatest minds in their fields. Yeah, and they
some of them were only there because they couldn't get
(08:33):
out of Germany before things went south, certainly. So that's
the this is all this all stuff that neither Parsons
nor von Braun know about at this time. They're just
two rocket nerds. Yeah, just talking on the phone. And
as he said, Matt, the Great Depression hits here in
(08:54):
the US. We usually think of the Great Depression just
in terms of its effect on this country, but the
Great Depression has consequences that touch the entire globe. Right,
very few people accept arguably the people responsible for the
situation escape unscathed in most countries. The Great Depression starts
(09:16):
in last until the late nine thirties. And because of this,
Parsons family is not elite enough to survive the situation.
So instead of becoming increasingly aristocratic, they lose a ton
of money. And this prevents him from completing his higher
(09:38):
education at Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University, and he
ultimately drops out. Then, in a moment of I don't know.
I guess this was just opportunity fortune. Uh. In nineteen
thirty three, Uh, our our gentleman here, Jack Parsons and
his friend Ed Foreman, they approach another man named Frank Molina,
(10:03):
and he at this point as a graduate student at
cal Tech California Technical Institute, and they asked for his
help for his expertise because he's already kind of working
in these fields, like, how can you help us with
rocket research that we want to do that we're so
passionate about. Right, And Luckily for then Frank is a
pretty open minded guy. He says, you know what, yeah,
(10:26):
I'll team up with you. Yeah, that's yeah, okay, sure,
let's do this. Guys. They must have come to him
with something very compelling. Well also his field of study
concerned rocket treat Yeah, well exactly. But but again it
for them to team up together, the other two gentlemen,
Ed and Jack must have had some pretty good schematics
(10:49):
or some some math and or science worked out to
have Molina go, yes, let's do this, right, yes, So
it's a good partnership for these guys because Frank is
bringing scientific rigor academic discipline and uh, these rocket heads.
Can I say that, sure, the rocket heads, rocketheads, these
these other rocketheads are bringing a lot of practical knowledge
(11:11):
and experience and know enough about rocketry to ask intriguing questions.
And intriguing questions are the best way to talk to
a grad student anywhere. Grad students in the audience, you
know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, these unanswered questions
that perhaps we could be the ones to discover the truth,
(11:33):
and especially when they're niche, because you know, you have
to imagine at this time, it's safe to say that
Frank Malina is probably in need of someone to talk
with about rocketry. Yeah, because we're we're in the days,
you know, the mid nineteen thirties and everything up until
this point, Like we kind of mentioned earlier, rocketry, the
(11:57):
whole idea of jet propulsion, these kinds of things. It's
just it's something of the future. It's something that you
read in a book somewhere, right, it's a work of fiction. Nowadays,
in as we record this, the phrase rocket scientist is
almost always used as a synonym for genius, usually in
a sarcastic way. Right, But back in the nineteen thirties,
(12:20):
pre World War Two, most people did as as you said, Matt,
think rocketry was ridiculous, eccentric and impractical. You know, pseudoscience
a sort of hunt for fool's gold in the sky exactly. Yeah.
It would be like if you went out to a
bar right now and someone introduced themselves to you as
a as like a teleportation specialist or something to that
(12:45):
effect or research. I I researched teleportation. I'm a teleportationist. Yeah,
you're like, oh, okay, well see you later. Right, what
do you really do? Well? I attempt to teleport things
instantaneously through space and time. At this point, it's it's
mostly on paper, but we're getting there, and we've we've
(13:07):
done some very interesting things with very small bits of matter. Yeah.
I could totally see that that's an interesting person, maybe
at a bar as a stranger, but that's not that
doesn't sound like it's a it's a real thing. Yeah,
you're probably not looking to get into any kind of
business venture with that person at this point. So these
(13:28):
guys are not being taken seriously. Jack Parsons, head foreman,
Frank Malina are not being taken seriously. They form a
group called gal Sit Rocket Research Group. They're ridiculed by
professors and learned individuals of cow Tech. They even get
a nickname, Yeah, the Suicide Squad. Not the DC universe,
(13:54):
I P. But yeah, the Suicide Squad. And it's it's
really just due to the reckless nature of what they do,
how they perform their experiments, these things explode, which is
mainly let me go ahead and say it's mainly Parsons.
He's like, are you familiar with the Stand? Okay, So
(14:16):
in the adaptation of the Stand in the novel itself,
which is which is better than the adaptation, no knock
on the adaptation. But in the novel The Stand, there
is a character called the garbage Man trash can Man's
that's his name, uh, and trash can Man without spoiling
the story and without just being wonderful to say yes, yes, uh,
(14:39):
trash can Man has a weird fascination with blowing things up.
And there's a little bit of trash can Man and
Jack Parsons and Parsons and trash can Man, you know, yeah, totally.
And so it's no surprise that the people who are
used to more buttoned up conserve the experiments and methodologies.
(15:02):
It's no surprise that they think this guy is just
somewhere between cartoon and a terrorist. Oh yeah, well, it's
not like he conducts himself in any of those manners
that you're speaking. These guys would probably consider themselves and
acted like um like hot Shots part part two, but
(15:24):
but no for real, like like walking around campus like, hey,
how you doing rocket scientists, ladies, and also smoke a
little pot, probably drink talk about socialism because they hung
out al up. But it wasn't just um hanging out
to build and talk about rockets. They did have social
(15:45):
lives and they spent that time together and they partied.
There goes the suicide Squad. But by the way, I
know you you and Noel had mentioned this before, and
specifically I think you had mentioned this. But Castle Rock
just because we got into a Stephen King novel there
Castle Rock. I'm finally starting to watch and I could
not I could not recommend it more. How far are you?
(16:08):
I'm only three episodes in, but I'm just loving all
the little bits and pieces I keep picking up from
the universe. I'm very interested to hear what you think
about the end, because the whole season's out now it
is Oh that makes me happy. And I think ten episodes. So,
without saying anymore, I don't know how to direct this
(16:30):
in a way that won't spoil it for you. Matt.
How about this votes. I would love to hear what
you think about this, Matt. I know you would too,
but we don't want to spoil it for Matt. So
if you have strong opinions, I would love to hear them.
I'm a little conflicted about the end. You can write
to me directly so that it doesn't go to right
(16:51):
to conspiracy. Just put a conspiracy at how stiff works
dot com. Just put a little note in there that
says at the top, Matt, don't read this. There you go, great, great, Yeah,
I want to. I want to hear what people think.
Because it did get renewed. Yes, so trash can man
aside suicide squad aside Parsons isn't completely counterculture? In nine five, well,
(17:21):
in four he meets a woman at a church dance
incredibly common way to meet people at the time, and
in nineteen thirty five he marries her. Yes, ms Helen Northrop,
who is the sister, the older sister I believe of
Sarah Northrop Hollister. And that's gonna come into play a
(17:44):
little later, so we're not gonna expound on that. If
you know what that is, you can just put a
little a little feather in your cap. And if you're
the sort of person who cheats at cross words in trivia,
don't do it. You will have an opportunity because we're
going to take a break for a word from our sponsor.
(18:09):
We know a lot of people dealt with a moral
or ethical quandary, some of you. To borrow the line
from D and D, we're very lawful, good about it.
I will not cheat. I will wait to hear the story. Yeah,
did you did you eat that one marshmallow now? Or
did you wait until after the ad break to get
(18:30):
two marshmallows? Yeah? Right? Or did you decide? I do
what I want? Because doing what I want should be
the entirety of the law. So many easter eggs already
already keep going back to parsons. So they continue, despite
the ridicule, to make multiple breakthroughs in the study and
(18:53):
manufacture of engines, but more importantly, rocket fuel, the fuel
for those engines. Exactly. They actually received the first government
funding for a rocketry research group, at least in the us.
And you know it's this isn't something that our arch
(19:13):
friendom missis, I don't know our nemesis slash friend Jonathan
strictly he would call it a princely sum. But you
know what they do get where they get mad one
grand to get a stack, they get a single stack.
But man, that is a nice stack at the time, right,
(19:35):
especially in thirties. Right. And here's the thing. They pretty
much they have to spend about of it, about a
quarter of this thousand dollars, good chunk of the budget
repairing damage to buildings on the Caltech campus. Damage you say,
they've just they've been blowing stuff up last it's so
(19:58):
although there. And also they asked for a lot more
than a thousand dollars they got a thousand dollars um.
So they have to spend a bunch of money repairing
the campus and the damage they've done to it. Eventually
they have to move from the campus entirely due to
the danger post by the explosives, and they relocate to
the Arroyo Seco Canyon. They're conducting experiments and someone's watching them.
(20:25):
Oh yeah, um, who is that group? Oh yeah, the
Federal Bureau of investigation is watching them. The FBI. Yeah,
I think generally when you're making explosives or things that
can explode, that's you're gonna get on a list. And
they did. They did get on a list. Also, side note,
maybe maybe we should come up with some alternate some
(20:47):
alternate interpretations of the FBI acronym, but fully bundled institute.
That's not fun Boys International, that's it. That's it, fun
Boys International with a Z on the boys. Oh my gosh.
(21:11):
All right, let us know if that's a good T
shirt idea, and Boys International because we could get the
we could get the FBI logo. Yes. And one of
the reasons they're very much interested in these gentlemen and
they're pensiant to blow things up is because they're interested
in extremists of any sort that might want to get
(21:31):
with these guys and or just blow things up on
the site where they are now located in that Arroyo
Seco canyon right right, Because they are literally just in
a couple of rundown sheds, iron sheds. The security is
not very high. So in addition to being aware of
these um these rocket heads political leanings and the ideologies
(21:55):
with which they identify. The FBI is also aware of
the fact it someone political extremists would be what we
call a terrorists today, that that someone could ride up
there in force, maybe with some firearms, and take the explosives,
take these chemicals, maybe even take this technology and launch
(22:16):
a rocket at a bank, at a city, you know,
or just blow it up from the ground level, or
just blow it up, that's right, without even bothering to
deliver the rocket. So this is when the FBI first
has their eye on Parsons and co. In the suicide
Squad founds the Aero Jet Engineering Corporation to sell rockets
(22:39):
to the military. The scientists who had previously derided and
pooped and pissed on Parsons work. Now we're lining up
around the block across the country to join this booming industry.
Because Uncle Sam has officially opened up his wallet, and
Uncle Sam's while it is big, it is that that
(23:03):
was so big. It's so big, bit of you's got
a lot of money, and Uncle Sam doesn't even really
know how much is in that wallet because it's kind
of infinite, and sometimes that that money just disappears in
the level of trillions in these weird little black budgets
or just a palette of let's see a billion dollars
can disappear in recent memory and barely make a mention
(23:25):
in the news. Gets on a plane. I didn't see
it get off? Did you see it? Get off? I
don't know where it is. It's gone. What am I
a plane? Doctor? Who knows? Who knows? It's not like
we weigh these things, right, Let's get back to the
real issues. Okay, something social and insignificant, perfect man, we has?
(23:47):
Has this show made a cynical No? Has this show
made you cynical? If you're listening, let us don't. We've
had a few people right in about that. That's true.
That's true. And you and I have been in situations where, uh,
the void stared back, you know, or the abyss stared back.
Kind of always is staring. It's just do you choose
(24:07):
to see it or not? Yeah, me and the me
and the abyss have been making some smoldering eye contact recently,
made some smoldering eye contact with the dude earlier today
all bore you with those details. Oh yeah, I was
gonna spring that on you and ask you to mention
that story at the end. Maybe we can do that
at the end, would you be okay with That's perfect? Okay,
And that's this is a Paul and Matt story. So
(24:30):
we'll have to wait till the end. We're we're building
up expectations. Man, we better deliver ours. Let's let's do
it just like these guys. Let's deliver a payload. There
we go. Now again, Paul refuses to be recorded on
this show because he's worried about his future political career.
But he did purposely turn on the mic and chuckle it.
(24:52):
He did. He gave me a little George w. Bush
chuckle it was but that that was that was great.
Deliver the payload, okay. So the industry is booming, right,
There's this need for advanced research into rockets, and it's
growing exponentially because other countries are researching this. And just
(25:16):
as the US is concerned about the technological innovations occurring
in rival countries today, the US is concerned back then
of possible technological gaps. Yeah, because we have you know,
you always have to be ahead of your enemy. That's
that's the whole point that military thing. And as we've
(25:37):
discussed in previous episodes, nation states don't have friends. They
have interests. Yes, So Parsons co founds this thing called
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that you've probably heard of before,
the JPL JPO. Yeah, and they went with this term
jet propulsion at the suggestion of one of the suicide
(25:57):
squad members, the third man, Malie a Uh. And the
whole idea was to avoid the stigma associated with that
idea or term rocket rocketry, right, rocket just as a
as a phrase. It turned a lot of people off.
We're just interested in this jet propulsion. It sounds nice too,
because and you're like jets, you know, propellants. Yeah, it's perfect.
(26:19):
It's just those two things together. It's just the means
of transportation. They're pre gaming before they go into a meeting,
and they're just coaching themselves not to say the R word. Right.
So Parsons and his associates, without going too deep into this,
they play a crucial role in the development of rocketry
technology excuse us jet propulsion as World War Two shifts
(26:43):
into high gear, and the contributions they make also result
in financial windfalls for for all three men, but Parsons
in particular because he is the mad jet fuel gene us,
which is also a cool nickname yea. So we could
(27:04):
spend our entire episode focusing just on his contributions to
the field of rocketry, as well as his obsession with
blowing things up in general. But there is more to
this story. You see. Jack Parsons had another obsession, one
that was even stranger than rocket science, and we're going
to go down that rabbit hole after another quick word
(27:27):
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. In addition
to being obsessed with rockets and rocketry, Jack Parsons was
obsessed with the occult. Yes, the a coach. Yeah really,
(27:47):
these are what our colleague Lauren vogel bamb we call
actual facts. Right. Uh. He is not only obsessed with
the occult, but there is a strange can core it in.
It's a strange confluence and concurrence of events here because
as his career as one of the actually the world's
(28:11):
best rocket scientist jet propulsion scientists. Oh yeah, thank you, Matt,
Sorry guys, as his as his reputation grows there, his
association with the occult also grows and deepens, and he
moves up the rank in these esoteric organizations, one in particular, Yes,
(28:32):
the O T O so so in the late nineteen thirties,
he Parsons begins going to these nightly meetings at the
Los Angeles chapter of the Ordo Temporari Orientis or the
O t OH. And it's an occult society and it
was it was formed by a gentleman that you also
(28:52):
may know from this show. Wow, all the hits in
this episode, all the good ones. Mr Alistair Crowley, Can
we get a sinister sound cue for that? Paul? Here
we go? Oh, yes, quite appropriate for the Master of
the Dark arts. So at this time, Mr Crowley, notice
(29:16):
I say Crowley and Crawley. Uh, we learned from our
mistakes here people. At this time he's known as the
wickedest man in the world. He's got quite the reputation. Yeah.
He's an English occultist, ceremonial magician, um cohn man all
these things, scam artists, yeah, novelist, does weird things in
(29:41):
old ancient Egyptian temples, yeah, uh. And an explorer. He
is a British fellow born in eighteen seventy five. And
as we said, he is the founder of maybe he
would say, the discoverer, the prophet of the O t O.
And when when Parsons is first going to these things.
(30:06):
He's he's a young guy, he's in his early twenties,
and he's seen something that he would he would have
never seen before. Right, he is watching um magical rituals
being performed, and this affects him deeply. But it's easy
(30:30):
to say that someone sees a ritual and it affects
them deeply. That's what religion is about. These rituals are
much more graphic than the typical rituals you would encounter
in most organized religions. Yeah, because we're talking about sex magic. Ultimately,
(30:51):
we're talking about chaos magic rituals that a lot of
times involved blood and other bodily fluids and acts of
a arnald nature. Let's say, well, and and this is
you know, he gets married in five and then now
we're in the late thirties at this time, as he's
really kind of coming into his own as a scientist
(31:14):
in this field. It's right, like you said at that
same time, this is before World War two, this is
before a lot of the huge advancements in his career.
As he's beginning to go to these meetings. UM. But
he is like fairly newly married, and I don't know.
I can't imagine what that relationship was like behind the
closed doors, what it was like knowing that your husband
(31:36):
is out going to these things. Well, every relationship is
a foreign country. That's correct. Each each interaction we have
with any other person, especially romantic interaction, obeys its own
laws and rituals. Yeah, for sure. And well, and the
fact that the whole sex, magic, blood magic thing is
not the only thing going on. Oh yeah. There's also
(31:58):
a ton of spoken word as actually invocations um ritualistic
chanting and so on. And there's there's drinking. There's more
than a dollarp of headedi ism as their conducting these rituals.
There's also the consumption of various things like this mason
(32:19):
gross to some people, but cakes made of menstrual blood,
for instance, mason gross to people. I don't want to
denigrate someone's religion just because it's not my thing, because
that a thing, is that a thing outside of this group.
Menstrual cakes, I do not know. Menstrual cakes. I don't know,
Matt Okay. I guess it's kind of like the placenta
(32:43):
eating the placenta after birth, which is become a thing,
and it's quite popular. Yeah, I look, I'm not in
the O t O. Understood, I'll be I'll be explicit
about that, but more or I'm not in the I
am not currently in the O t O. But there's
still around today. And shout out to any of you
(33:04):
who are currently members of the organization have been affiliated
with it. We'd love to we'd love to hear more
about this stuff. Yeah, if you want to explain menstrual cakes,
I am all yours and you seem very you're fascinated
with this. I guess that's what you could call it.
I'm concerned, you get I wish you could see this
(33:25):
face mats making. Yeah, yeah, maybe you're perplexed. Maybe that's
a better word. This group is practicing Crueley's philosophy of FLIMO,
which is at base kind of um. I read it
described as religious libertarianism, which I thought was pretty pretty
neat way to encapsulate it. This is the origin of
(33:46):
do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Yeah right, we brought it back. Parsons is hooked. He
is very attracted to this idea of radical individualism, of
nonconformity and the focus upon fulfilling oneself, your own goals,
(34:07):
and if anyone else is fulfilled because you are fulfilled,
then so be it. But ultimately it's about you, right,
and sort of admitting the open secret that most people practice,
which is, you know, we're all the main characters of
our own stories. Right, there's nothing you can do about it.
Nothing you can do about it. Go ahead and try
and break that ego. Right, maybe you can. Yeah, I
(34:30):
don't know. It's kind of like you can. You could
be a cult leader, right and make other people echoes
of yourself anyway that maybe that's Some people who are
in the O t O will feel that that is
unfair to Crowley, but he is a master manipulator, and
(34:51):
this organization does have a lot of manipulative people in it.
We'll see how that comes into play. Parsons is especially
intrigued by Crueley's beliefs that sex can be an intrinsic
component of magical rituals, that it's not just um a
necessary but filthy act, as some of the puritanical forces
(35:14):
of the time would have him believe. He's he likes
this idea of sexism means of um increasing epiphany. Yeah,
reaching some higher plane that you couldn't reach just by
walking around or thinking about something or writing. You know,
there's a physical act that can take you somewhere else
(35:35):
and back to his buddies, which, by the way, just
just before you get there, a physical act that can
take you somewhere else. Think about within the context of
jet propulsion, right, what he's trying to create, the technology
that he is creating in tandem with this is a
physical way to get to somewhere else the movie or
other places, planets, and the idea that your thoughts can
(35:59):
have tangible material results upon the world around you through
the force of your will alone. O t O is
all about the will, philemic magic or whatever. And in
the end, you know, it's just physical forces involved. In
one case you've got explosions and the other you've just
got friction. I got explosions. We're a family show. But yes,
(36:23):
that that is a fantastic point and there's something alchemical
about that, right, transformative and Parsons friends back to the
suicide squad. They think this is really weird stuff. They're
they're not on board. They're like, hey man, we're here
for the rockets. We already ate Yeah, I mean we
(36:44):
hear you, we hear you, just not right now, right
right right, Um, you used to be cool, let's be
work friends. But they think it's you know, they think
it's weird, but they're still genuinely friends. At first, they
just feel like this is a harmless obsession. This is
just Parsons being Parsons, at least at first, Yes, and
(37:07):
then he just keeps going, oh my gosh, So let's
let's talk about Filima. This this religion that was founded.
It is a religion, and it was founded in nineteen
o four. So you know, at the time when Parsons
joins up, it's like thirty years old something around. They
are well thirty five. I guess it's pretty young. Yeah,
(37:27):
it's a young religion. Um, it's as old as I am.
If there is a religion that is old as I
currently am as we're recording this podcast, it's very young. However,
like most occult practices, this gentleman Alistair Crowley, he argued
that it's based on these ancient, ancient beliefs, these esoteric
(37:49):
thoughts that have occurred far far before he was born,
far before anyone that is on earth was born. Um,
that are forgotten a lot of times or hidden or
just universal law that exists that is bigger than our
common understanding of the world in which we live. Yes, exactly,
higher planes of consciousness, stuff of the ooze. There we go. Yeah, primordial.
(38:13):
The word the lima itself is a form of ancient
Greek for will, you know, as in like determination, not
some guy will. Yeah, wouldn't that be funny? Though? It's
just Will. It's William William magic. Uh. The limit. Magic
spelled with a K is a system of physical, mental,
(38:35):
and spiritual exercises designed to quote cause change to occur
in conformity with will. This is going to be familiar
to a lot of people who have read things like
The Secret or Mind over matter type of stuff, manifestation beliefs. Right,
if you can believe it, you can achieve it. So
(38:59):
this offers from some of that pop psychology self help
stuff because it has specific instructions meant to meant to
accomplish certain task. So Crowley adds that K to magic
because he wants to differentiate it from stage magic or illusion. Yeah,
(39:22):
and it's not just switching out to sea, it's adding
a K to the full word magic. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
that's really important two Crowley, Yeah, and to and to
people who practice this today. Many of the rituals in
this discipline are a synthesis of older rituals, stuff from
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and then practices
(39:44):
from Eastern belief systems. They captured Crowley's attention, well, and
that's Crowley was a member of the Hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn for a while, and he borrowed a
lot of that stuff, right, And I think it was
pretty open about it. But like this is yes, and
(40:04):
there are some examples of this kind of stuff. There's
a ritual in the Library of Things that he's written.
There's a ritual meant to invoke a holy Guardian angel
that you could have a conversation with, rituals called Libra semic.
There's a gnostic mass, it's a eucharistic kind of kind
(40:26):
of ritual. And then of course there's sexual nosis, the
idea that um through physical acts with oneself or another
person or people, it's possible to achieve a higher plane
of consciousness, which for skeptics is going to sound a
lot like a a way to convince people to sleep
(40:51):
with you. Well, and it's also a It's an interesting
little litmus test. When you're going through and trying to
sell someone on this religion. You can tell if it's
someone you wanted your group or not as soon as
you get there and you start discussing how perhaps, um,
we will use the word masturbation of you and your
(41:14):
friends here that we're all hanging out with as I'm
talking to you about this, that's a that's one of
our major rituals. And a certain percentage of those people
are going to turn around, walk away, and then a
few others are going to go let me hear a
little more about this, And those are the people that
you want in your group. And it's probably something. It's
probably not something where they just throw people to the
deep end and escalates over a period of time. Right sure,
(41:38):
But a little peek behind the curtain get you your converts.
I'm thinking strategically and cult formation and gathering the masses
right right right, the idea of being um special or
privy to this hidden knowledge. But for people who do
believe this, do practice it, and do feel that they
(41:59):
have a tank um the realizations for which they yearned
or the results that they desired. This stuff is legitimate
so we're presenting both sides of the belief. We're despite
not being in the O T O, we're not making
a judgment call about it. These people are all in theory,
(42:22):
consenting adults in full possession of their wits, as long
as you're not hurting anyone like like say, branding them,
uh with with a cattle iron, right, do what thou wilt?
You know what I mean? And many It's important to
mention that many practitioners of this form of magic do
(42:45):
seek material, tangible results, money, power, love, a breakthrough in rocketry,
for example, But it's not a mandatory thing. Sometimes it's
just a higher realization. Cruelly believed himself to be a prophet,
as we said, and Parsons at this time is relating
the concepts of magic that he's exploring to the ideas
(43:08):
of quantum physics and itself. Uh, quantum physics is a
relatively new concept at this time. They're both in their
own way young religions. Yeah, that's that's a really great
point a quantum physics as a young religion. I can
totally see that. I mean, when you get to the
edges of physics, it's really just the smartest people in
(43:28):
the room, throwing their opinions at each other, you know
what I mean, which I think is a beautiful, beautiful
point for our species to be at. So we mentioned
that Parsons makes a lot of money. He encounters significant
amounts of cash as the US government continues to buy
his groups liquid jet fuel first and jet engines designed
(43:53):
to run on this fuel. This money allows him to
start holding his own elaborate o t o rich at
his house, which becomes known as wait for it, the Parsonage.
Oh that's pretty great, It's okay, the parsonage. Well, hey, hey, Ben,
(44:14):
So let's say I've got really nothing to do. It's
a Friday night. Um, I hear about this new group.
I'm gonna go hang out at the parsonage here. It's
a good place to be. What am I gonna get
into while I'm over there? I'm so glad you asked that.
You're gonna get it. If you can get in the door,
you're gonna get into a crazy time. These rituals are
(44:34):
very not safe for work as we call it today,
and they are wild for the standards of the time.
There are people shouting chants during massive orgies and on
multiple occasions there Parsons is taking steps to attempt to
conceive the Antichrist, the moon child wild straight from the invisibles. Yes,
(44:58):
while he is at the forefront of rocket technology, he
is attempting to be at the forefront of Antichrist advocacy. Wow.
And then he he finishes up, has the I'm assuming
the help clean up afterwards, because you don't want to
(45:18):
do that on your own. I'm assuming. Uh, and he's wealthy,
as we said, then you you know, put on your
lap coat and head on into work on Monday. I
mean we've all been in situations like that, right, Yeah,
Good fences make good coworker relationships. That's probably That's probably
what his buddies are saying to each other. Yeah, like, look, man,
(45:40):
he's getting that stuff. But man, he's really got some
great ideas. But when he's when he's here, he's here.
So in nineteen one, things get even stranger. Parsons engages
in an ongoing sexual relationship with his wife's sister, who
is seventeen years old at the time. Underaged person. Yeah,
(46:04):
and here's the problem. The group he's a part of,
the ORDO the O t O. It's kind of encouraged
because it's something that he wants and that's all that matters,
and it seems consensual to everyone involves, so they don't
call the cops or anything. And well there's a flip
(46:26):
side of the coin too. Parson's wife is also in
a sexual relationship with one of these other most senior
members of the O T O. So there's this um
very open attitude towards sex and very fluid relationships, right, monogamy.
That's something for the squares. The Pasadena police. Meanwhile, I
(46:48):
have been receiving repeated complaints about unspeakable acts occurring at
the parsonage. Imagine it's the nineties. You're one of the neighbors.
You live in a nice neighborhood. You're probably wealthy, is
you're don't, you're probably well off if you're living next
door to Jack Parsons. And then you're hearing these crazy chants,
these moans of of sexual ecstasy, and then maybe some
(47:12):
ritualistic screaming. You don't know what's going on. It is
funny that at in every instance they begin as just
a simple noise complaint and the officers show up, and
then they find themselves in a very different situation. But
there's nothing you do privacy of your own home. Just
keep it down, please, I guess you're right. Yeah, well
(47:35):
that's true. I don't know what the blue laws were
at the time where he is, like if he could
actually be arrested for doing something in his home um
thotomy and the like, yeah, or maybe consumption of an
illegal substance. The counterculture is like the Pasadena police Force,
well aware of Parsons activities, and in a way he
(47:58):
becomes a precursor to the common thing that we have
here in the US today on the West Coast, the
billionaire bro tech guru Tony Stark esque genius. Right, he
makes massive amounts of money from his innovations. He spends
massive amounts of money partying, pursuing alternative lifestyles. And we
(48:20):
can compare it today too. Uh. Tech gurs go micro
docing at burning Man and and also come out with
incredible technology, or at least own the companies that come
out with incredible technology, right, And there's this sense that
they are somewhat above the law of the common peasant. Right.
(48:44):
Note quick cut in your head, folks to that picture
of Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan show smoking a
massive blunt and you know his employees can't do that
because there would be problems with their security clearances for SpaceX. Yeah.
I really didn't think that was when I just saw
the thumbnail from YouTube. That nice photoshop. Yeah, that's funny.
(49:05):
Oh wow. I mean, I it's marijuana. It's fine. It's
legal there. It's very close to being legal across the US,
you know what I mean. That's just the money got
too good. That's what happens. The morality this is a
different episode, but the the racism disguised as morality, that
(49:29):
was the original reason for for the the criminalization in marijuana.
Just it doesn't match up to money. Yeah. That being said,
we encourage you not to do drugs everyone listening, unless
you want to. And that's all the whole of the law.
So there you go. Hey there we oh man, no comment,
(49:52):
no comment. So the counterculture is aware of this. This
guy is an l M musk a Tony Stark. Soon,
another figure of California's underground scene joins the activities, a
fellow named l Ron Hubbard. That's true, Paul, can we
did a sound cue? Great man? Who's l Ron Hubbard?
(50:19):
L Ron Hubbard is the father of a little thing
called Diane Neddics. It's a philosophy that he created, that
he summoned, and he would later change his mind and
create the concepts that would become a full on religion scientology,
a religion for tax purposes. Maybe I don't know. I
(50:41):
don't know. L Ron Hubbard was thinking, Well, he joins
the gang. He joins the parsonage in nine and uh.
Around this time, Fumboys International removes their interests in Parsons,
both because they're concerned about his unorthodox private life, his
open practice of the dark arts, and still his political inclinations.
(51:06):
These may lead him to be considered untrustworthy or sympathetic
to communist forces. And yeah, and in the worst he
would be the worst kind of mole, the person who
is at the top creating technology that will then be used.
You know, he's not some he's not a rocket scientists
employed by this thing. He is the rocket scientist running conceptualizing. Yeah,
(51:27):
he's at the point of expertise where his best guest
qualifies as leading scientific theory. Yeah, you don't want iron
Man as an enemy, right there you go, that's a
good quote. Um, Yeah, you don't want iron man is
an enemy. And also a someone who switched or became
a spy or double agent or a mole for ideological
(51:50):
purposes is much more difficult to control than someone who
does it because they're in debt or they're being blackmailed
for instance, right, much more dangerous also, he so they're like, Okay,
the guy's happy, I don't think he's hurting anybody, and
we need rockets. At this time, there's some personal problems
(52:11):
that he encounters. The person that he's infatuated with, Sarah,
that's the sister of Helen, his wife. She becomes infatuated
with l Ron Mr Steel your girl Hubbard, and this
makes Parsons insanely upset and he starts delving into He's
(52:32):
moving up in the ranks of the O t O,
by the way, and that time getting into leadership positions.
He develops a different focus. He has a deeper interest
in witchcraft and the darker side of magic. He's fascinated
by Poultergeist, by spiritual apparitions. Man. Feeling really tortured at
this time and being always an innovator, right, he decides
(52:56):
to try and create a new lover, to create his
own lover an elemental wow, like like a like a golem.
Lover yeah, like um, like a thought form he wants
to manifest perfect lover Uh. Sarah runs off with l
Ron Hubbard and so Parsons takes part in these very
(53:18):
unusual rituals. They're supposed to help him manifest his thought
into the world. He uh. He plants his seed with
magic tablets uh. And he does it to the sound
of music, not the but there's well and well. This
(53:40):
is something that's at the basis of most chaos or
some chaos magic where where seed is planted on a
piece of paper that has writing and or a symbol
on it that is then burned a lot of times
like a run. Yeah. And shortly after this, Parsons meets
a woman named Marjorie Can and he feels as if
(54:02):
this is the elemental force that he has invoked somehow conjured.
She becomes his muse, and he sees his scientific and
spiritual pursuits as increasingly intertwined, you know what I mean.
He sees himself as of the line of great thinkers
like Isaac Newton who totally totally may breakthroughs in physics,
(54:24):
but then also totally believed in alchemy and practiced it
and thought that perhaps the science was part of the alchemy. Right. Yeah,
so Parsons is the same way rocketry is magic and
magic is rocketry. For example, when he works on his
experiments in the desert, he recites a pagan poem to pan.
You can imagine how weird this sounds to the g men.
(54:47):
Fun boys are not You're not having fun. This is
not as fun as It's not as fun as the
boys thought. Uh. Parsons eventually runs into financial trouble after
he gets involved with had investments associated with l Ron Hubbard.
This is a pattern. Hubbert goes on to repeat, By
(55:08):
the way, is this the whole yacht thing? Mm hmmmmm
the yacht boys. Yeah, Hubbard had convinced him to take
money and travel to Miami and buy three yachts. Oh,
three yachts. He has a yacht thing. L Ron Hubbard
has a yacht at a time. That's that's um. That's
a lot. Many of the academics that are suspected of
(55:31):
being Communist sympathizers are blacklisted as the Cold War sets
in post World War two, and this means it Parsons
and a lot of his colleagues lose their security clearances,
and without their security clearances, they are out of jobs.
Oh wow, yeah, that is that is a sweeping change
that starts coming through around that time. And then I
can imagine someone who's associated with something like the O
(55:54):
T O and or those old communists beliefs that he
even maybe had just back in the day of the
fun Boys know about um, I can imagine him just
getting xed off that list. Right. So he found himself
having to earn money as a manual laborer hospital orderly
a car mechanic. He was pushed out of science, so
(56:14):
he dove even deeper into the occult. He ended up
working for the film industry making explosives, creating pyrotechnics, and
just before he took a trip to Mexico, or just
before he was going to leave on a trip of
planned in nineteen fifty two, he received a large order
of explosives for a movie and while getting everything together,
(56:36):
there was an explosion involving mercury. Parsons suffered fatal wounds
and he died at the age of thirty seven. This
was only seven he His death was ruled an accident.
His friends suspected it was a state sponsored conspiracy to
(56:57):
remove this dangerous mad genius on the fold. And that's
where it stops. Parsons controversial private life lead him to
be wiped from NASA history and that magic stuff aside,
esoteric orders aside. That's another true cover up, and for
a long time his role was not acknowledged. According to
(57:20):
biographer George Pendell, Parsons was written out of the history books,
his role in rocketry discredited for decades simply because his
supernatural beliefs did not fit into the other supernatural beliefs
that were more dominant at the time. I mean, that's
an interesting way of looking at it. Really is. It
really is, and I can identify with that um holy mackerel.
(57:43):
It makes you wonder about today the people at the
bleeding edge of science, what are their closed door religious
beliefs bio hackers and stuff. Yeah, bio hackers. I mean
even like maybe your Illen Musk and some of those
people out there right now that can essentially do anything
they want to do at any time. What are their
(58:04):
spiritual beliefs? And is there anything that's hidden enough that
we won't know about it? Oh? I see, Yeah, that's
a fascinating question anything. You know what. You had the
opportunity to ask someone about this earlier today, you and
(58:25):
you and Paul both we didn't forget folks missed that opportunity.
There is a story here, and it's a story that
I really enjoyed hearing. I know that we've been going along,
but can can you give us just like the broad strokes,
the brad strokes. Okay, you're there, the broad strokes. Um.
(58:45):
Right before that we started recording this episode. I walked in.
I was heading in a little bit early so I
could continue researching here. And I was running late. Ben
was Ben was not quite in the office yet. Uh.
And our prey is an ind of our network. His
name's Conald Burne. He was showing somebody around the office
and I'm gathering up my computer and my books and everything,
(59:07):
and I'm heading in. And you know, I don't think
about that because our president walks around with important people
all the time. I don't know who walk around with anyway. Um.
Donald says, hey, Matt, this is my friend Brad And
you know, I just turn and put my hand out
and it's just is Bradley Cooper standing there staring at me.
(59:28):
Um with those beautiful blue eyes. My goodness, they're striking.
But anyway, here's the thing, and I hope, I hope
you wouldn't be upset to mention this. But we begin chatting,
and we get into some conversations about the Apollo missions,
and then he wants to talk a little bit about
(59:50):
September eleven, and then we want to talk about a
little bit about these other conspiracies, and uh, the guy
I think would fit right in with us um and
and perhaps that's just because he's such an enigmatic person
that he will engage you in anything you want to
talk about. But I did not bring up either of
those subjects. So there you go. So there you go.
(01:00:14):
How Matt and Paul met Bradley Cooper, Yes, and Paul
Paul met Bradley a little later over by the water
cooler and they had a very nice conversation about his
new movie coming out by the way, that he is
his directorial debut and he's working with Lady Gaga. Is
called a Star is Born. There you go, plug for
(01:00:34):
Bradley Cooper. You're welcome, brad uh and thank you everyone
for tuning in. We we want to know where you
land on this, I think. Now the story of Jack
Parsons and his legacy is a little more apparent in
the public sphere. It's more common knowledge. But do you
(01:00:55):
feel that as a society our norms limit or ability
to innovate technologically, you know what I mean? Like interesting,
like the US government and this may apply. This surely
applies to other governments as well. The US government in
the past had a very difficult time hiring quality hackers
(01:01:15):
because of their affinity for drugs. And you know, they
were brilliant minds, brilliant computer people, but they didn't want
to stop smoking weed or stop you know, doing whatever
drug they do. And they have to be clean to
pass the security clearance. That's fascinating. So eventually they, I
(01:01:37):
believe in many cases, eventually the US government just folded
and made exceptions to the rule. Do you think those
exceptions should exist? Let us know. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, check out our community page. Here's
where it gets crazy, where there are tons of fascinating
conversations in the mean game is a double plus good?
(01:01:59):
It really is? Okay, and uh, if you want to
give us a call, you can reach us at our
number one eight three three s t d W y
t K. That's stuff they don't want you to know. Uh.
You you can reach us that way, leave us a
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if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
(01:02:21):
and also buy tickets to our live shows if you
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there you go, So do all that stuff. But if
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(01:02:41):
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at how stuff words
dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
they call me Ben. We are joined with our super producer,
Paul Decant. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Today we bring you two worlds that will smash together.
The world of science, rocketry, physics, and the occult, the mysterious,
(00:49):
the the void. M hmmm. Absolutely and that sounds maybe
like a little bit of hyperbole, but it's absolutely true.
Today's episode centers on something that the three of us
find fascinating and we hope you find it fascinating too.
It's a little known cover up that was quite successful
(01:12):
for decades. It occurs in the United States, and it does,
as you said, Matt, combine the bleeding edge of science
with the hidden dare we say occulted heart of the
dark arts? Yes? And how different are they really and
we'll get into that too. The exploration of mankind's abilities.
(01:36):
That's really what both of those pursuits are like, what
can we achieve either with our hands or through our
mind and through some other plane that may be spiritual. Right,
and this also calls to mind the old sci fi
quotation that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Right,
(01:56):
And there you have it. That is the end that
encapsulated to this episode. Yes, let's start at the beginning.
Marvel white Side Parsons. That's not a comic book Character's
his real name, Isn't that a great name? Is? Marvel
Whiteside Parsons is born on October two in Los Angeles, California. Yeah,
(02:21):
he's also known as Jack. That's what he becomes known as. Yes, Yes,
And from his early childhood days, Jack has an abiding
interest in rocketry. At this point in the early twentieth century,
rocketry is still seen very much as a as a
science fiction thing. Yeah, that's where it exists in the
(02:43):
pages of fiction, of drawings of what a rocket could
be like, right, people landing on various lunar shores, weird
space rocks and meeting you know, martians perhaps martians, Yes,
some sort of uh, some sort of alien that functions
as a stand in for whatever ideology the author dislikes.
(03:06):
There's a lot of There was a lot of communism
in space at the time. You gotta love allegory, Yeah,
especially when it's naked allegory, you know what I mean.
But Jack swallows his stuff hook line and sinker. He
loves it, loves it, and I think a lot of
us can understand that feeling. Right in, Jack and his friend,
(03:27):
a guy named Ed Foreman, start experimenting with rockets on
an amateur level. Matt, have you ever done this when
you were a kid? Did you ever make and launch
those model rockets? Yeah? Uh, And that's about the right time.
When he was fourteen, he was doing this. When I
was in middle school to high school, my friend Scott
and I would spend a lot of time in the
(03:49):
backyard experimenting with chemicals and with cardboard tubes actually, which
is something that Jack also did. Hey, Paul, what about you?
Were you? Uh rocketman? A rocket boy and so conspiracy
realist fellow listeners, Our superproducer Paul has asked us to
(04:10):
relay to you because he won't record his own voice
because he couldn't get him on Mike. He asked us
to relate to you that he liked many of us
as a child bought the rock model rocket kits experimented
with him in the backyard. Uh, and noted there was
an element of danger to it. Yeah, there's like there's
(04:30):
an explosion that happens, and then this thing goes up
into the air really high, and then usually at least
in my experience, blows up to some extent. And Jack
Parsons to let the bad rout of the bag here. Uh.
He is from a wealthy family, a very wealthy family,
a very well to do family, and he gets some
(04:51):
leeway experimenting with these rockets studs something a lot of
kids can maybe afford to do. And even if they
can afford to do it, not many of them have
the ingenuity perhaps to do this. So his parents backyard
is filled with craters very soon after he begins experimenting
with stuff, and his neighborhood is littered with flaming bits
(05:16):
of paper and scorched cardboard tubes. Yeah, and this is
a year before the Great Depression hits, by the way,
So everybody's living living the high life shooting off rockets
in their backyard. Well, at least Jack is right right.
And as Parsons and Foremen go to high school, they
become captivated with how ingenious is this? They become captivated
(05:39):
with the idea of creating a solid fuel rocket engine.
And this concept at the time is widely considered poppy
cock nonsense. If it can't happen, why would you study that?
Right now? Yes? What are what? Are you? A buffoon?
You know what I mean? And to get on the
(06:00):
liquid stuff? And if God meant rockets to travel to space,
wouldn't God have put them there already? Yes, one of
those things exactly. But Parsons, also as a kid, has long,
(06:22):
meandering teenage conversations. I'm sure we can all identify with
some of with those situations, like when you're when you're
a teenager, you often get involved in these epic marathon conversations.
You hang up, no, you hang up right? So who
is who is Parsons talking to? He's he's talking to
(06:42):
someone who was born two years before him, who was
also a fairly young man at the time, a man
named Werner von Brown, uh Magnus Maximilian von Brown. There's
there's a lot more names in there. Um, you might
remember this fellow. He has kind of become a name
on this show. Talk about him quite often that he's
the former Nazi scientist who helped to develop the V
(07:04):
two rocket for the for the Nazi Party, and then
he was secretly brought over to the US via that
Operation paper Clip that we speak about, where over six
d scientists were brought to the United States. Uh. And
then you know, he went on to develop the Saturn
five heavy lift vehicle that was used in the Apollo
programs that took us to the Moon, as well as
the original rockets that started the United States space program.
(07:28):
And there's like, there's a whole other host of things
that he did for this country and for rocketry in general. Yeah,
it's a it's a little bit of an eye opener
for anybody who just started listening to our show to
learn that the NASA institution as we understand it would
not be capable of the feats it is capable of
(07:52):
without Nazi engineering and ingenuity. Yeah. And again at this point,
he's just a young guy. Yeah, and I feel, you know,
I feel weird saying Nazi ingenuity. We do have to
point out Operation paper Clip. It was a genuine conspiracy
and cover up that occurred. Um, A lot of the
(08:13):
American public did not know about it. Would not learn
about it for some time. But many of those scientists
were not necessarily like, they were not ideological Nazis. No,
they're the greatest minds in their fields. Yeah, and they
some of them were only there because they couldn't get
(08:33):
out of Germany before things went south, certainly. So that's
the this is all this all stuff that neither Parsons
nor von Braun know about at this time. They're just
two rocket nerds. Yeah, just talking on the phone. And
as he said, Matt, the Great Depression hits here in
(08:54):
the US. We usually think of the Great Depression just
in terms of its effect on this country, but the
Great Depression has consequences that touch the entire globe. Right,
very few people accept arguably the people responsible for the
situation escape unscathed in most countries. The Great Depression starts
(09:16):
in last until the late nine thirties. And because of this,
Parsons family is not elite enough to survive the situation.
So instead of becoming increasingly aristocratic, they lose a ton
of money. And this prevents him from completing his higher
(09:38):
education at Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University, and he
ultimately drops out. Then, in a moment of I don't know.
I guess this was just opportunity fortune. Uh. In nineteen
thirty three, Uh, our our gentleman here, Jack Parsons and
his friend Ed Foreman, they approach another man named Frank Molina,
(10:03):
and he at this point as a graduate student at
cal Tech California Technical Institute, and they asked for his
help for his expertise because he's already kind of working
in these fields, like, how can you help us with
rocket research that we want to do that we're so
passionate about. Right, And Luckily for then Frank is a
pretty open minded guy. He says, you know what, yeah,
(10:26):
I'll team up with you. Yeah, that's yeah, okay, sure,
let's do this. Guys. They must have come to him
with something very compelling. Well also his field of study
concerned rocket treat Yeah, well exactly. But but again it
for them to team up together, the other two gentlemen,
Ed and Jack must have had some pretty good schematics
(10:49):
or some some math and or science worked out to
have Molina go, yes, let's do this, right, yes, So
it's a good partnership for these guys because Frank is
bringing scientific rigor academic discipline and uh, these rocket heads.
Can I say that, sure, the rocket heads, rocketheads, these
these other rocketheads are bringing a lot of practical knowledge
(11:11):
and experience and know enough about rocketry to ask intriguing questions.
And intriguing questions are the best way to talk to
a grad student anywhere. Grad students in the audience, you
know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, these unanswered questions
that perhaps we could be the ones to discover the truth,
(11:33):
and especially when they're niche, because you know, you have
to imagine at this time, it's safe to say that
Frank Malina is probably in need of someone to talk
with about rocketry. Yeah, because we're we're in the days,
you know, the mid nineteen thirties and everything up until
this point, Like we kind of mentioned earlier, rocketry, the
(11:57):
whole idea of jet propulsion, these kinds of things. It's
just it's something of the future. It's something that you
read in a book somewhere, right, it's a work of fiction. Nowadays,
in as we record this, the phrase rocket scientist is
almost always used as a synonym for genius, usually in
a sarcastic way. Right, But back in the nineteen thirties,
(12:20):
pre World War Two, most people did as as you said, Matt,
think rocketry was ridiculous, eccentric and impractical. You know, pseudoscience
a sort of hunt for fool's gold in the sky exactly. Yeah.
It would be like if you went out to a
bar right now and someone introduced themselves to you as
a as like a teleportation specialist or something to that
(12:45):
effect or research. I I researched teleportation. I'm a teleportationist. Yeah,
you're like, oh, okay, well see you later. Right, what
do you really do? Well? I attempt to teleport things
instantaneously through space and time. At this point, it's it's
mostly on paper, but we're getting there, and we've we've
(13:07):
done some very interesting things with very small bits of matter. Yeah.
I could totally see that that's an interesting person, maybe
at a bar as a stranger, but that's not that
doesn't sound like it's a it's a real thing. Yeah,
you're probably not looking to get into any kind of
business venture with that person at this point. So these
(13:28):
guys are not being taken seriously. Jack Parsons, head foreman,
Frank Malina are not being taken seriously. They form a
group called gal Sit Rocket Research Group. They're ridiculed by
professors and learned individuals of cow Tech. They even get
a nickname, Yeah, the Suicide Squad. Not the DC universe,
(13:54):
I P. But yeah, the Suicide Squad. And it's it's
really just due to the reckless nature of what they do,
how they perform their experiments, these things explode, which is
mainly let me go ahead and say it's mainly Parsons.
He's like, are you familiar with the Stand? Okay, So
(14:16):
in the adaptation of the Stand in the novel itself,
which is which is better than the adaptation, no knock
on the adaptation. But in the novel The Stand, there
is a character called the garbage Man trash can Man's
that's his name, uh, and trash can Man without spoiling
the story and without just being wonderful to say yes, yes, uh,
(14:39):
trash can Man has a weird fascination with blowing things up.
And there's a little bit of trash can Man and
Jack Parsons and Parsons and trash can Man, you know, yeah, totally.
And so it's no surprise that the people who are
used to more buttoned up conserve the experiments and methodologies.
(15:02):
It's no surprise that they think this guy is just
somewhere between cartoon and a terrorist. Oh yeah, well, it's
not like he conducts himself in any of those manners
that you're speaking. These guys would probably consider themselves and
acted like um like hot Shots part part two, but
(15:24):
but no for real, like like walking around campus like, hey,
how you doing rocket scientists, ladies, and also smoke a
little pot, probably drink talk about socialism because they hung
out al up. But it wasn't just um hanging out
to build and talk about rockets. They did have social
(15:45):
lives and they spent that time together and they partied.
There goes the suicide Squad. But by the way, I
know you you and Noel had mentioned this before, and
specifically I think you had mentioned this. But Castle Rock
just because we got into a Stephen King novel there
Castle Rock. I'm finally starting to watch and I could
not I could not recommend it more. How far are you?
(16:08):
I'm only three episodes in, but I'm just loving all
the little bits and pieces I keep picking up from
the universe. I'm very interested to hear what you think
about the end, because the whole season's out now it
is Oh that makes me happy. And I think ten episodes. So,
without saying anymore, I don't know how to direct this
(16:30):
in a way that won't spoil it for you. Matt.
How about this votes. I would love to hear what
you think about this, Matt. I know you would too,
but we don't want to spoil it for Matt. So
if you have strong opinions, I would love to hear them.
I'm a little conflicted about the end. You can write
to me directly so that it doesn't go to right
(16:51):
to conspiracy. Just put a conspiracy at how stiff works
dot com. Just put a little note in there that
says at the top, Matt, don't read this. There you go, great, great, Yeah,
I want to. I want to hear what people think.
Because it did get renewed. Yes, so trash can man
aside suicide squad aside Parsons isn't completely counterculture? In nine five, well,
(17:21):
in four he meets a woman at a church dance
incredibly common way to meet people at the time, and
in nineteen thirty five he marries her. Yes, ms Helen Northrop,
who is the sister, the older sister I believe of
Sarah Northrop Hollister. And that's gonna come into play a
(17:44):
little later, so we're not gonna expound on that. If
you know what that is, you can just put a
little a little feather in your cap. And if you're
the sort of person who cheats at cross words in trivia,
don't do it. You will have an opportunity because we're
going to take a break for a word from our sponsor.
(18:09):
We know a lot of people dealt with a moral
or ethical quandary, some of you. To borrow the line
from D and D, we're very lawful, good about it.
I will not cheat. I will wait to hear the story. Yeah,
did you did you eat that one marshmallow now? Or
did you wait until after the ad break to get
(18:30):
two marshmallows? Yeah? Right? Or did you decide? I do
what I want? Because doing what I want should be
the entirety of the law. So many easter eggs already
already keep going back to parsons. So they continue, despite
the ridicule, to make multiple breakthroughs in the study and
(18:53):
manufacture of engines, but more importantly, rocket fuel, the fuel
for those engines. Exactly. They actually received the first government
funding for a rocketry research group, at least in the us.
And you know it's this isn't something that our arch
(19:13):
friendom missis, I don't know our nemesis slash friend Jonathan
strictly he would call it a princely sum. But you
know what they do get where they get mad one
grand to get a stack, they get a single stack.
But man, that is a nice stack at the time, right,
(19:35):
especially in thirties. Right. And here's the thing. They pretty
much they have to spend about of it, about a
quarter of this thousand dollars, good chunk of the budget
repairing damage to buildings on the Caltech campus. Damage you say,
they've just they've been blowing stuff up last it's so
(19:58):
although there. And also they asked for a lot more
than a thousand dollars they got a thousand dollars um.
So they have to spend a bunch of money repairing
the campus and the damage they've done to it. Eventually
they have to move from the campus entirely due to
the danger post by the explosives, and they relocate to
the Arroyo Seco Canyon. They're conducting experiments and someone's watching them.
(20:25):
Oh yeah, um, who is that group? Oh yeah, the
Federal Bureau of investigation is watching them. The FBI. Yeah,
I think generally when you're making explosives or things that
can explode, that's you're gonna get on a list. And
they did. They did get on a list. Also, side note,
maybe maybe we should come up with some alternate some
(20:47):
alternate interpretations of the FBI acronym, but fully bundled institute.
That's not fun Boys International, that's it. That's it, fun
Boys International with a Z on the boys. Oh my gosh.
(21:11):
All right, let us know if that's a good T
shirt idea, and Boys International because we could get the
we could get the FBI logo. Yes. And one of
the reasons they're very much interested in these gentlemen and
they're pensiant to blow things up is because they're interested
in extremists of any sort that might want to get
(21:31):
with these guys and or just blow things up on
the site where they are now located in that Arroyo
Seco canyon right right, Because they are literally just in
a couple of rundown sheds, iron sheds. The security is
not very high. So in addition to being aware of
these um these rocket heads political leanings and the ideologies
(21:55):
with which they identify. The FBI is also aware of
the fact it someone political extremists would be what we
call a terrorists today, that that someone could ride up
there in force, maybe with some firearms, and take the explosives,
take these chemicals, maybe even take this technology and launch
(22:16):
a rocket at a bank, at a city, you know,
or just blow it up from the ground level, or
just blow it up, that's right, without even bothering to
deliver the rocket. So this is when the FBI first
has their eye on Parsons and co. In the suicide
Squad founds the Aero Jet Engineering Corporation to sell rockets
(22:39):
to the military. The scientists who had previously derided and
pooped and pissed on Parsons work. Now we're lining up
around the block across the country to join this booming industry.
Because Uncle Sam has officially opened up his wallet, and
Uncle Sam's while it is big, it is that that
(23:03):
was so big. It's so big, bit of you's got
a lot of money, and Uncle Sam doesn't even really
know how much is in that wallet because it's kind
of infinite, and sometimes that that money just disappears in
the level of trillions in these weird little black budgets
or just a palette of let's see a billion dollars
can disappear in recent memory and barely make a mention
(23:25):
in the news. Gets on a plane. I didn't see
it get off? Did you see it? Get off? I
don't know where it is. It's gone. What am I
a plane? Doctor? Who knows? Who knows? It's not like
we weigh these things, right, Let's get back to the
real issues. Okay, something social and insignificant, perfect man, we has?
(23:47):
Has this show made a cynical No? Has this show
made you cynical? If you're listening, let us don't. We've
had a few people right in about that. That's true.
That's true. And you and I have been in situations where, uh,
the void stared back, you know, or the abyss stared back.
Kind of always is staring. It's just do you choose
(24:07):
to see it or not? Yeah, me and the me
and the abyss have been making some smoldering eye contact recently,
made some smoldering eye contact with the dude earlier today
all bore you with those details. Oh yeah, I was
gonna spring that on you and ask you to mention
that story at the end. Maybe we can do that
at the end, would you be okay with That's perfect? Okay,
And that's this is a Paul and Matt story. So
(24:30):
we'll have to wait till the end. We're we're building
up expectations. Man, we better deliver ours. Let's let's do
it just like these guys. Let's deliver a payload. There
we go. Now again, Paul refuses to be recorded on
this show because he's worried about his future political career.
But he did purposely turn on the mic and chuckle it.
(24:52):
He did. He gave me a little George w. Bush
chuckle it was but that that was that was great.
Deliver the payload, okay. So the industry is booming, right,
There's this need for advanced research into rockets, and it's
growing exponentially because other countries are researching this. And just
(25:16):
as the US is concerned about the technological innovations occurring
in rival countries today, the US is concerned back then
of possible technological gaps. Yeah, because we have you know,
you always have to be ahead of your enemy. That's
that's the whole point that military thing. And as we've
(25:37):
discussed in previous episodes, nation states don't have friends. They
have interests. Yes, So Parsons co founds this thing called
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that you've probably heard of before,
the JPL JPO. Yeah, and they went with this term
jet propulsion at the suggestion of one of the suicide
(25:57):
squad members, the third man, Malie a Uh. And the
whole idea was to avoid the stigma associated with that
idea or term rocket rocketry, right, rocket just as a
as a phrase. It turned a lot of people off.
We're just interested in this jet propulsion. It sounds nice too,
because and you're like jets, you know, propellants. Yeah, it's perfect.
(26:19):
It's just those two things together. It's just the means
of transportation. They're pre gaming before they go into a meeting,
and they're just coaching themselves not to say the R word. Right.
So Parsons and his associates, without going too deep into this,
they play a crucial role in the development of rocketry
technology excuse us jet propulsion as World War Two shifts
(26:43):
into high gear, and the contributions they make also result
in financial windfalls for for all three men, but Parsons
in particular because he is the mad jet fuel gene us,
which is also a cool nickname yea. So we could
(27:04):
spend our entire episode focusing just on his contributions to
the field of rocketry, as well as his obsession with
blowing things up in general. But there is more to
this story. You see. Jack Parsons had another obsession, one
that was even stranger than rocket science, and we're going
to go down that rabbit hole after another quick word
(27:27):
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. In addition
to being obsessed with rockets and rocketry, Jack Parsons was
obsessed with the occult. Yes, the a coach. Yeah really,
(27:47):
these are what our colleague Lauren vogel bamb we call
actual facts. Right. Uh. He is not only obsessed with
the occult, but there is a strange can core it in.
It's a strange confluence and concurrence of events here because
as his career as one of the actually the world's
(28:11):
best rocket scientist jet propulsion scientists. Oh yeah, thank you, Matt,
Sorry guys, as his as his reputation grows there, his
association with the occult also grows and deepens, and he
moves up the rank in these esoteric organizations, one in particular, Yes,
(28:32):
the O T O so so in the late nineteen thirties,
he Parsons begins going to these nightly meetings at the
Los Angeles chapter of the Ordo Temporari Orientis or the
O t OH. And it's an occult society and it
was it was formed by a gentleman that you also
(28:52):
may know from this show. Wow, all the hits in
this episode, all the good ones. Mr Alistair Crowley, Can
we get a sinister sound cue for that? Paul? Here
we go? Oh, yes, quite appropriate for the Master of
the Dark arts. So at this time, Mr Crowley, notice
(29:16):
I say Crowley and Crawley. Uh, we learned from our
mistakes here people. At this time he's known as the
wickedest man in the world. He's got quite the reputation. Yeah.
He's an English occultist, ceremonial magician, um cohn man all
these things, scam artists, yeah, novelist, does weird things in
(29:41):
old ancient Egyptian temples, yeah, uh. And an explorer. He
is a British fellow born in eighteen seventy five. And
as we said, he is the founder of maybe he
would say, the discoverer, the prophet of the O t O.
And when when Parsons is first going to these things.
(30:06):
He's he's a young guy, he's in his early twenties,
and he's seen something that he would he would have
never seen before. Right, he is watching um magical rituals
being performed, and this affects him deeply. But it's easy
(30:30):
to say that someone sees a ritual and it affects
them deeply. That's what religion is about. These rituals are
much more graphic than the typical rituals you would encounter
in most organized religions. Yeah, because we're talking about sex magic. Ultimately,
(30:51):
we're talking about chaos magic rituals that a lot of
times involved blood and other bodily fluids and acts of
a arnald nature. Let's say, well, and and this is
you know, he gets married in five and then now
we're in the late thirties at this time, as he's
really kind of coming into his own as a scientist
(31:14):
in this field. It's right, like you said at that
same time, this is before World War two, this is
before a lot of the huge advancements in his career.
As he's beginning to go to these meetings. UM. But
he is like fairly newly married, and I don't know.
I can't imagine what that relationship was like behind the
closed doors, what it was like knowing that your husband
(31:36):
is out going to these things. Well, every relationship is
a foreign country. That's correct. Each each interaction we have
with any other person, especially romantic interaction, obeys its own
laws and rituals. Yeah, for sure. And well, and the
fact that the whole sex, magic, blood magic thing is
not the only thing going on. Oh yeah. There's also
(31:58):
a ton of spoken word as actually invocations um ritualistic
chanting and so on. And there's there's drinking. There's more
than a dollarp of headedi ism as their conducting these rituals.
There's also the consumption of various things like this mason
(32:19):
gross to some people, but cakes made of menstrual blood,
for instance, mason gross to people. I don't want to
denigrate someone's religion just because it's not my thing, because
that a thing, is that a thing outside of this group.
Menstrual cakes, I do not know. Menstrual cakes. I don't know,
Matt Okay. I guess it's kind of like the placenta
(32:43):
eating the placenta after birth, which is become a thing,
and it's quite popular. Yeah, I look, I'm not in
the O t O. Understood, I'll be I'll be explicit
about that, but more or I'm not in the I
am not currently in the O t O. But there's
still around today. And shout out to any of you
(33:04):
who are currently members of the organization have been affiliated
with it. We'd love to we'd love to hear more
about this stuff. Yeah, if you want to explain menstrual cakes,
I am all yours and you seem very you're fascinated
with this. I guess that's what you could call it.
I'm concerned, you get I wish you could see this
(33:25):
face mats making. Yeah, yeah, maybe you're perplexed. Maybe that's
a better word. This group is practicing Crueley's philosophy of FLIMO,
which is at base kind of um. I read it
described as religious libertarianism, which I thought was pretty pretty
neat way to encapsulate it. This is the origin of
(33:46):
do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Yeah right, we brought it back. Parsons is hooked. He
is very attracted to this idea of radical individualism, of
nonconformity and the focus upon fulfilling oneself, your own goals,
(34:07):
and if anyone else is fulfilled because you are fulfilled,
then so be it. But ultimately it's about you, right,
and sort of admitting the open secret that most people practice,
which is, you know, we're all the main characters of
our own stories. Right, there's nothing you can do about it.
Nothing you can do about it. Go ahead and try
and break that ego. Right, maybe you can. Yeah, I
(34:30):
don't know. It's kind of like you can. You could
be a cult leader, right and make other people echoes
of yourself anyway that maybe that's Some people who are
in the O t O will feel that that is
unfair to Crowley, but he is a master manipulator, and
(34:51):
this organization does have a lot of manipulative people in it.
We'll see how that comes into play. Parsons is especially
intrigued by Crueley's beliefs that sex can be an intrinsic
component of magical rituals, that it's not just um a
necessary but filthy act, as some of the puritanical forces
(35:14):
of the time would have him believe. He's he likes
this idea of sexism means of um increasing epiphany. Yeah,
reaching some higher plane that you couldn't reach just by
walking around or thinking about something or writing. You know,
there's a physical act that can take you somewhere else
(35:35):
and back to his buddies, which, by the way, just
just before you get there, a physical act that can
take you somewhere else. Think about within the context of
jet propulsion, right, what he's trying to create, the technology
that he is creating in tandem with this is a
physical way to get to somewhere else the movie or
other places, planets, and the idea that your thoughts can
(35:59):
have tangible material results upon the world around you through
the force of your will alone. O t O is
all about the will, philemic magic or whatever. And in
the end, you know, it's just physical forces involved. In
one case you've got explosions and the other you've just
got friction. I got explosions. We're a family show. But yes,
(36:23):
that that is a fantastic point and there's something alchemical
about that, right, transformative and Parsons friends back to the
suicide squad. They think this is really weird stuff. They're
they're not on board. They're like, hey man, we're here
for the rockets. We already ate Yeah, I mean we
(36:44):
hear you, we hear you, just not right now, right
right right, Um, you used to be cool, let's be
work friends. But they think it's you know, they think
it's weird, but they're still genuinely friends. At first, they
just feel like this is a harmless obsession. This is
just Parsons being Parsons, at least at first, Yes, and
(37:07):
then he just keeps going, oh my gosh, So let's
let's talk about Filima. This this religion that was founded.
It is a religion, and it was founded in nineteen
o four. So you know, at the time when Parsons
joins up, it's like thirty years old something around. They
are well thirty five. I guess it's pretty young. Yeah,
(37:27):
it's a young religion. Um, it's as old as I am.
If there is a religion that is old as I
currently am as we're recording this podcast, it's very young. However,
like most occult practices, this gentleman Alistair Crowley, he argued
that it's based on these ancient, ancient beliefs, these esoteric
(37:49):
thoughts that have occurred far far before he was born,
far before anyone that is on earth was born. Um,
that are forgotten a lot of times or hidden or
just universal law that exists that is bigger than our
common understanding of the world in which we live. Yes, exactly,
higher planes of consciousness, stuff of the ooze. There we go. Yeah, primordial.
(38:13):
The word the lima itself is a form of ancient
Greek for will, you know, as in like determination, not
some guy will. Yeah, wouldn't that be funny? Though? It's
just Will. It's William William magic. Uh. The limit. Magic
spelled with a K is a system of physical, mental,
(38:35):
and spiritual exercises designed to quote cause change to occur
in conformity with will. This is going to be familiar
to a lot of people who have read things like
The Secret or Mind over matter type of stuff, manifestation beliefs. Right,
if you can believe it, you can achieve it. So
(38:59):
this offers from some of that pop psychology self help
stuff because it has specific instructions meant to meant to
accomplish certain task. So Crowley adds that K to magic
because he wants to differentiate it from stage magic or illusion. Yeah,
(39:22):
and it's not just switching out to sea, it's adding
a K to the full word magic. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
that's really important two Crowley, Yeah, and to and to
people who practice this today. Many of the rituals in
this discipline are a synthesis of older rituals, stuff from
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and then practices
(39:44):
from Eastern belief systems. They captured Crowley's attention, well, and
that's Crowley was a member of the Hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn for a while, and he borrowed a
lot of that stuff, right, And I think it was
pretty open about it. But like this is yes, and
(40:04):
there are some examples of this kind of stuff. There's
a ritual in the Library of Things that he's written.
There's a ritual meant to invoke a holy Guardian angel
that you could have a conversation with, rituals called Libra semic.
There's a gnostic mass, it's a eucharistic kind of kind
(40:26):
of ritual. And then of course there's sexual nosis, the
idea that um through physical acts with oneself or another
person or people, it's possible to achieve a higher plane
of consciousness, which for skeptics is going to sound a
lot like a a way to convince people to sleep
(40:51):
with you. Well, and it's also a It's an interesting
little litmus test. When you're going through and trying to
sell someone on this religion. You can tell if it's
someone you wanted your group or not as soon as
you get there and you start discussing how perhaps, um,
we will use the word masturbation of you and your
(41:14):
friends here that we're all hanging out with as I'm
talking to you about this, that's a that's one of
our major rituals. And a certain percentage of those people
are going to turn around, walk away, and then a
few others are going to go let me hear a
little more about this, And those are the people that
you want in your group. And it's probably something. It's
probably not something where they just throw people to the
deep end and escalates over a period of time. Right sure,
(41:38):
But a little peek behind the curtain get you your converts.
I'm thinking strategically and cult formation and gathering the masses
right right right, the idea of being um special or
privy to this hidden knowledge. But for people who do
believe this, do practice it, and do feel that they
(41:59):
have a tank um the realizations for which they yearned
or the results that they desired. This stuff is legitimate
so we're presenting both sides of the belief. We're despite
not being in the O T O, we're not making
a judgment call about it. These people are all in theory,
(42:22):
consenting adults in full possession of their wits, as long
as you're not hurting anyone like like say, branding them,
uh with with a cattle iron, right, do what thou wilt?
You know what I mean? And many It's important to
mention that many practitioners of this form of magic do
(42:45):
seek material, tangible results, money, power, love, a breakthrough in rocketry,
for example, But it's not a mandatory thing. Sometimes it's
just a higher realization. Cruelly believed himself to be a prophet,
as we said, and Parsons at this time is relating
the concepts of magic that he's exploring to the ideas
(43:08):
of quantum physics and itself. Uh, quantum physics is a
relatively new concept at this time. They're both in their
own way young religions. Yeah, that's that's a really great
point a quantum physics as a young religion. I can
totally see that. I mean, when you get to the
edges of physics, it's really just the smartest people in
(43:28):
the room, throwing their opinions at each other, you know
what I mean, which I think is a beautiful, beautiful
point for our species to be at. So we mentioned
that Parsons makes a lot of money. He encounters significant
amounts of cash as the US government continues to buy
his groups liquid jet fuel first and jet engines designed
(43:53):
to run on this fuel. This money allows him to
start holding his own elaborate o t o rich at
his house, which becomes known as wait for it, the Parsonage.
Oh that's pretty great, It's okay, the parsonage. Well, hey, hey, Ben,
(44:14):
So let's say I've got really nothing to do. It's
a Friday night. Um, I hear about this new group.
I'm gonna go hang out at the parsonage here. It's
a good place to be. What am I gonna get
into while I'm over there? I'm so glad you asked that.
You're gonna get it. If you can get in the door,
you're gonna get into a crazy time. These rituals are
(44:34):
very not safe for work as we call it today,
and they are wild for the standards of the time.
There are people shouting chants during massive orgies and on
multiple occasions there Parsons is taking steps to attempt to
conceive the Antichrist, the moon child wild straight from the invisibles. Yes,
(44:58):
while he is at the forefront of rocket technology, he
is attempting to be at the forefront of Antichrist advocacy. Wow.
And then he he finishes up, has the I'm assuming
the help clean up afterwards, because you don't want to
(45:18):
do that on your own. I'm assuming. Uh, and he's wealthy,
as we said, then you you know, put on your
lap coat and head on into work on Monday. I
mean we've all been in situations like that, right, Yeah,
Good fences make good coworker relationships. That's probably That's probably
what his buddies are saying to each other. Yeah, like, look, man,
(45:40):
he's getting that stuff. But man, he's really got some
great ideas. But when he's when he's here, he's here.
So in nineteen one, things get even stranger. Parsons engages
in an ongoing sexual relationship with his wife's sister, who
is seventeen years old at the time. Underaged person. Yeah,
(46:04):
and here's the problem. The group he's a part of,
the ORDO the O t O. It's kind of encouraged
because it's something that he wants and that's all that matters,
and it seems consensual to everyone involves, so they don't
call the cops or anything. And well there's a flip
(46:26):
side of the coin too. Parson's wife is also in
a sexual relationship with one of these other most senior
members of the O T O. So there's this um
very open attitude towards sex and very fluid relationships, right, monogamy.
That's something for the squares. The Pasadena police. Meanwhile, I
(46:48):
have been receiving repeated complaints about unspeakable acts occurring at
the parsonage. Imagine it's the nineties. You're one of the neighbors.
You live in a nice neighborhood. You're probably wealthy, is
you're don't, you're probably well off if you're living next
door to Jack Parsons. And then you're hearing these crazy chants,
these moans of of sexual ecstasy, and then maybe some
(47:12):
ritualistic screaming. You don't know what's going on. It is
funny that at in every instance they begin as just
a simple noise complaint and the officers show up, and
then they find themselves in a very different situation. But
there's nothing you do privacy of your own home. Just
keep it down, please, I guess you're right. Yeah, well
(47:35):
that's true. I don't know what the blue laws were
at the time where he is, like if he could
actually be arrested for doing something in his home um
thotomy and the like, yeah, or maybe consumption of an
illegal substance. The counterculture is like the Pasadena police Force,
well aware of Parsons activities, and in a way he
(47:58):
becomes a precursor to the common thing that we have
here in the US today on the West Coast, the
billionaire bro tech guru Tony Stark esque genius. Right, he
makes massive amounts of money from his innovations. He spends
massive amounts of money partying, pursuing alternative lifestyles. And we
(48:20):
can compare it today too. Uh. Tech gurs go micro
docing at burning Man and and also come out with
incredible technology, or at least own the companies that come
out with incredible technology, right, And there's this sense that
they are somewhat above the law of the common peasant. Right.
(48:44):
Note quick cut in your head, folks to that picture
of Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan show smoking a
massive blunt and you know his employees can't do that
because there would be problems with their security clearances for SpaceX. Yeah.
I really didn't think that was when I just saw
the thumbnail from YouTube. That nice photoshop. Yeah, that's funny.
(49:05):
Oh wow. I mean, I it's marijuana. It's fine. It's
legal there. It's very close to being legal across the US,
you know what I mean. That's just the money got
too good. That's what happens. The morality this is a
different episode, but the the racism disguised as morality, that
(49:29):
was the original reason for for the the criminalization in marijuana.
Just it doesn't match up to money. Yeah. That being said,
we encourage you not to do drugs everyone listening, unless
you want to. And that's all the whole of the law.
So there you go. Hey there we oh man, no comment,
(49:52):
no comment. So the counterculture is aware of this. This
guy is an l M musk a Tony Stark. Soon,
another figure of California's underground scene joins the activities, a
fellow named l Ron Hubbard. That's true, Paul, can we
did a sound cue? Great man? Who's l Ron Hubbard?
(50:19):
L Ron Hubbard is the father of a little thing
called Diane Neddics. It's a philosophy that he created, that
he summoned, and he would later change his mind and
create the concepts that would become a full on religion scientology,
a religion for tax purposes. Maybe I don't know. I
(50:41):
don't know. L Ron Hubbard was thinking, Well, he joins
the gang. He joins the parsonage in nine and uh.
Around this time, Fumboys International removes their interests in Parsons,
both because they're concerned about his unorthodox private life, his
open practice of the dark arts, and still his political inclinations.
(51:06):
These may lead him to be considered untrustworthy or sympathetic
to communist forces. And yeah, and in the worst he
would be the worst kind of mole, the person who
is at the top creating technology that will then be used.
You know, he's not some he's not a rocket scientists
employed by this thing. He is the rocket scientist running conceptualizing. Yeah,
(51:27):
he's at the point of expertise where his best guest
qualifies as leading scientific theory. Yeah, you don't want iron
Man as an enemy, right there you go, that's a
good quote. Um, Yeah, you don't want iron man is
an enemy. And also a someone who switched or became
a spy or double agent or a mole for ideological
(51:50):
purposes is much more difficult to control than someone who
does it because they're in debt or they're being blackmailed
for instance, right, much more dangerous also, he so they're like, Okay,
the guy's happy, I don't think he's hurting anybody, and
we need rockets. At this time, there's some personal problems
(52:11):
that he encounters. The person that he's infatuated with, Sarah,
that's the sister of Helen, his wife. She becomes infatuated
with l Ron Mr Steel your girl Hubbard, and this
makes Parsons insanely upset and he starts delving into He's
(52:32):
moving up in the ranks of the O t O,
by the way, and that time getting into leadership positions.
He develops a different focus. He has a deeper interest
in witchcraft and the darker side of magic. He's fascinated
by Poultergeist, by spiritual apparitions. Man. Feeling really tortured at
this time and being always an innovator, right, he decides
(52:56):
to try and create a new lover, to create his
own lover an elemental wow, like like a like a golem.
Lover yeah, like um, like a thought form he wants
to manifest perfect lover Uh. Sarah runs off with l
Ron Hubbard and so Parsons takes part in these very
(53:18):
unusual rituals. They're supposed to help him manifest his thought
into the world. He uh. He plants his seed with
magic tablets uh. And he does it to the sound
of music, not the but there's well and well. This
(53:40):
is something that's at the basis of most chaos or
some chaos magic where where seed is planted on a
piece of paper that has writing and or a symbol
on it that is then burned a lot of times
like a run. Yeah. And shortly after this, Parsons meets
a woman named Marjorie Can and he feels as if
(54:02):
this is the elemental force that he has invoked somehow conjured.
She becomes his muse, and he sees his scientific and
spiritual pursuits as increasingly intertwined, you know what I mean.
He sees himself as of the line of great thinkers
like Isaac Newton who totally totally may breakthroughs in physics,
(54:24):
but then also totally believed in alchemy and practiced it
and thought that perhaps the science was part of the alchemy. Right. Yeah,
so Parsons is the same way rocketry is magic and
magic is rocketry. For example, when he works on his
experiments in the desert, he recites a pagan poem to pan.
You can imagine how weird this sounds to the g men.
(54:47):
Fun boys are not You're not having fun. This is
not as fun as It's not as fun as the
boys thought. Uh. Parsons eventually runs into financial trouble after
he gets involved with had investments associated with l Ron Hubbard.
This is a pattern. Hubbert goes on to repeat, By
(55:08):
the way, is this the whole yacht thing? Mm hmmmmm
the yacht boys. Yeah, Hubbard had convinced him to take
money and travel to Miami and buy three yachts. Oh,
three yachts. He has a yacht thing. L Ron Hubbard
has a yacht at a time. That's that's um. That's
a lot. Many of the academics that are suspected of
(55:31):
being Communist sympathizers are blacklisted as the Cold War sets
in post World War two, and this means it Parsons
and a lot of his colleagues lose their security clearances,
and without their security clearances, they are out of jobs.
Oh wow, yeah, that is that is a sweeping change
that starts coming through around that time. And then I
can imagine someone who's associated with something like the O
(55:54):
T O and or those old communists beliefs that he
even maybe had just back in the day of the
fun Boys know about um, I can imagine him just
getting xed off that list. Right. So he found himself
having to earn money as a manual laborer hospital orderly
a car mechanic. He was pushed out of science, so
(56:14):
he dove even deeper into the occult. He ended up
working for the film industry making explosives, creating pyrotechnics, and
just before he took a trip to Mexico, or just
before he was going to leave on a trip of
planned in nineteen fifty two, he received a large order
of explosives for a movie and while getting everything together,
(56:36):
there was an explosion involving mercury. Parsons suffered fatal wounds
and he died at the age of thirty seven. This
was only seven he His death was ruled an accident.
His friends suspected it was a state sponsored conspiracy to
(56:57):
remove this dangerous mad genius on the fold. And that's
where it stops. Parsons controversial private life lead him to
be wiped from NASA history and that magic stuff aside,
esoteric orders aside. That's another true cover up, and for
a long time his role was not acknowledged. According to
(57:20):
biographer George Pendell, Parsons was written out of the history books,
his role in rocketry discredited for decades simply because his
supernatural beliefs did not fit into the other supernatural beliefs
that were more dominant at the time. I mean, that's
an interesting way of looking at it. Really is. It
really is, and I can identify with that um holy mackerel.
(57:43):
It makes you wonder about today the people at the
bleeding edge of science, what are their closed door religious
beliefs bio hackers and stuff. Yeah, bio hackers. I mean
even like maybe your Illen Musk and some of those
people out there right now that can essentially do anything
they want to do at any time. What are their
(58:04):
spiritual beliefs? And is there anything that's hidden enough that
we won't know about it? Oh? I see, Yeah, that's
a fascinating question anything. You know what. You had the
opportunity to ask someone about this earlier today, you and
(58:25):
you and Paul both we didn't forget folks missed that opportunity.
There is a story here, and it's a story that
I really enjoyed hearing. I know that we've been going along,
but can can you give us just like the broad strokes,
the brad strokes. Okay, you're there, the broad strokes. Um.
(58:45):
Right before that we started recording this episode. I walked in.
I was heading in a little bit early so I
could continue researching here. And I was running late. Ben
was Ben was not quite in the office yet. Uh.
And our prey is an ind of our network. His
name's Conald Burne. He was showing somebody around the office
and I'm gathering up my computer and my books and everything,
(59:07):
and I'm heading in. And you know, I don't think
about that because our president walks around with important people
all the time. I don't know who walk around with anyway. Um.
Donald says, hey, Matt, this is my friend Brad And
you know, I just turn and put my hand out
and it's just is Bradley Cooper standing there staring at me.
(59:28):
Um with those beautiful blue eyes. My goodness, they're striking.
But anyway, here's the thing, and I hope, I hope
you wouldn't be upset to mention this. But we begin chatting,
and we get into some conversations about the Apollo missions,
and then he wants to talk a little bit about
(59:50):
September eleven, and then we want to talk about a
little bit about these other conspiracies, and uh, the guy
I think would fit right in with us um and
and perhaps that's just because he's such an enigmatic person
that he will engage you in anything you want to
talk about. But I did not bring up either of
those subjects. So there you go. So there you go.
(01:00:14):
How Matt and Paul met Bradley Cooper, Yes, and Paul
Paul met Bradley a little later over by the water
cooler and they had a very nice conversation about his
new movie coming out by the way, that he is
his directorial debut and he's working with Lady Gaga. Is
called a Star is Born. There you go, plug for
(01:00:34):
Bradley Cooper. You're welcome, brad uh and thank you everyone
for tuning in. We we want to know where you
land on this, I think. Now the story of Jack
Parsons and his legacy is a little more apparent in
the public sphere. It's more common knowledge. But do you
(01:00:55):
feel that as a society our norms limit or ability
to innovate technologically, you know what I mean? Like interesting,
like the US government and this may apply. This surely
applies to other governments as well. The US government in
the past had a very difficult time hiring quality hackers
(01:01:15):
because of their affinity for drugs. And you know, they
were brilliant minds, brilliant computer people, but they didn't want
to stop smoking weed or stop you know, doing whatever
drug they do. And they have to be clean to
pass the security clearance. That's fascinating. So eventually they, I
(01:01:37):
believe in many cases, eventually the US government just folded
and made exceptions to the rule. Do you think those
exceptions should exist? Let us know. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, check out our community page. Here's
where it gets crazy, where there are tons of fascinating
conversations in the mean game is a double plus good?
(01:01:59):
It really is? Okay, and uh, if you want to
give us a call, you can reach us at our
number one eight three three s t d W y
t K. That's stuff they don't want you to know. Uh.
You you can reach us that way, leave us a
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if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
(01:02:21):
and also buy tickets to our live shows if you
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(01:02:41):
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