WEBVTT - How L. Ron Hubbard Made An Antichrist Using Sex Magic 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:05.840 I'm Robert Evans, broadcasting to you live, although it won't 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.400 be live when you listen to it from the parking 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:13.039 lot behind a random arco in Reading, California, because like 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.400 all professional podcasters, I am working out of a car 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.239 right now, because I decided to funk off to the 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.600 mountains for a week in the reception in the mountains 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:25.680 is not ideal. Um, My guest today is the person 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.960 who normally has to deal with my bizarre decisions that 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.720 wildly impact the sound quality of this show. Um, but 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.000 as instead the co host of today's episode, while Chris 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.280 deals with my irresponsibility. Dania, Hello, Robert, how you doing, Buddy, 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:43.680 I'm doing. I'm doing good, Daniel, how are you doing? 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.320 I'm honestly great. I could not be more thrilled to 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.360 be here, uh side saddle to you right now with 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.280 Sophie on the podcast. I'm honored to be here, truly. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.680 I have my son, and my work husband and my 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.600 dog dog. You can't you can't say that on the mic, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:01.480 that we can't have that be the meta. Now, I'm 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.240 supposed to be in a relationship old That's right, You're 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:15.520 I'm sorry. I appreciate that though, so that again, Daniel. Yes, Robert, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.240 you and I have. You and I have been colleagues 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:22.000 for for a while. Indeed, we've we've worked together. We 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.040 we we enjoy each other's company very much. We've we've 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.920 become friends over the course of many months in many 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.920 recording sessions. And I don't know how things are done 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:37.360 with friendship where you come from, Daniel, guy in a motorcycle. 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.360 I don't know. I don't know how things are done 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.680 where you come from, Daniel. But back in my hometown, 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.800 we have a saying. And that's saying is you weren't 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.280 really friends with someone until you've spent an hour or 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.760 so talking about that One time l Ron Hubbard and 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.160 a rocket scientist tried to summon the Antichrist using sex magic. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:02.960 Do they have that expression where you come from, Daniel, 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.520 It's it's yeah, totally, man. Absolutely, Me and all my 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.400 friends we said down and talking about that thing. You 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:15.519 totally just welcome to our friendship group. So go on, please. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.880 I did. I have done five episodes on Ron Hubbard 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:25.120 because he was amazing in dis Yeah, there was just 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.720 there's just so much about that guy's life that we 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.400 have to talk about. And when I did my initial 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.840 three partner with the wonderful Caitlin Duranti. Um. One thing 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.119 we glossed over was the time l Ron Hubbard tried 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.880 to summon the anti Christ via fucking his friend's girlfriend. Um, 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.120 that's only a small part of it. Daniel, Oh my god, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.400 I'm already in shock today. I felt like, in the 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:57.200 midst of this year of political nonsense and uh coronaviry, Uh, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.960 we should talk about l Ron Hubbard and sex match 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.360 and just just have a relaxing time. That sound good 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.520 to you, Daniel, It sounds great, Robert, I'm in alright. Alright. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.880 So our story begins with one of the most fascinating 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.520 and enigmatic men in the history of science, Jack Parsons. Now, 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.680 depending on your perspective, Parsons was either the smartest idiot 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.840 or the dumbest genius in human history. Uh. He was 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.920 born in Pasadena, California, in nineteen fourteen to a wealthy 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.040 family with a history of incredible names. His father was 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.560 named Marvel Sr. And he abandoned the family when Jack 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.680 was a small child so he can continue to have 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.440 an affair with a young woman. Jack, then named Marvel Jr. 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.560 Was thrust into the position of being the head of 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.480 the family at a very young age. Okay, all right, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.440 I'm with it so far. That's you know, sucks, but alright, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.520 Marvel Junior's mom filed for divorce and to avoid unpleasant 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.320 memories of her ex, began calling Marvel Jr. John. In 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.000 eighth grade, John met a boy named Edward Foreman. Like him, 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.120 Eddie was a big fan of Jules Verne and the 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.120 Amazing Stories science fiction magazine that was then quite new. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.440 John Parsons grew up, Yeah, he grew up on he 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.240 was he was a sci finerd you know, he was 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.160 one of the first generation, the first generation of sci finers. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.280 Love it, I love it. Yeah. So he grows up 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.920 on the steady diet of tales of magic and witchcraft 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.680 and fantasy, along with you know, rockets and robots and aliens. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.960 And like most boys, he was fascinated by fireworks. Unlike 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.280 most boys, he immediately started making his own in nine. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.520 At age fourteen, John and Eddie graduated from cutting up 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.520 and modifying fireworks to trying to build their own solid 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.640 fuel rockets, which did not exist at the at the time. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:48.840 That's that's extremely adventurous. Yeah, and there weren't kits and 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.520 stuff like he were just making bombs basically. Oh, yeah, no, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.680 they were. They were the forefathers. They were the ones 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.600 getting their fingers blown off for all of us. Yeah exactly. 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.600 And uh, because it was the twenties and there were 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.320 no rules at all. Everyone just let them make rockets, 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:11.120 which which rules, honestly, Yeah, totally rules. So the Parson 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.520 family neighbors reported bemusedly that the large backyard of their 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.599 manner was filled with blackened craters and shackle from failed 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:27.440 test launches. Yeah, what a report, and debrah's a lot 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.720 of shrapnel coming from the neighbors. It's the twenties, though, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.200 So I guess we won't do anything about it, Yeah, exactly. 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.680 In an effort to build more efficient and reliable rockets, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.720 John began experimenting with using glue as a binding agent 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.320 to keep the loose powder in his engines together at eighteen, 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.919 while still in high school, John was hired by the 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.839 Hercules Powder Company. When he graduated in nineteen thirty three, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.120 he enrolled in Pasadena Junior College with his friend Eddie Foreman. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.240 The two continued their experiments and began to correspond with 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.520 luminaries in the nascent field of rock Katrie Robert Goddard, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:06.240 Herman O Berth, Konstantine Solkovsky. This proved to be mostly useless, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.600 since rocketry at this point was primitive enough that even 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.120 the luminaries in the field weren't like all that good 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.480 at it. People haven't really figured much out about rockets yet. Yeah, 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.000 I mean this, this seems like still completely fresh ground. 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:23.120 Yeah freshly, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're still in the mostly 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.640 exploding things territory. Neither Parsons nor Goodmen were able to 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.560 divert their focus from mastering the art of shooting random 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.320 shot into the sky long enough to focus on other studies. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.480 They both dropped out of college in the the nineteen 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.760 thirties and got jobs at Halifax Explosives, a company in 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.920 the Mojave Desert that did exactly what you'd guess. For 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.680 a while, John Parsons looked to be on a relatively 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.159 normal path. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Northrop, 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.560 and became increasingly influential in the developing science of rocketry. 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.560 His new colleagues took to calling him Jack. In nineteen 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.719 thirty nine, Jack's interest in fantasy, kindled by those amazing 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.120 story his comics he devoured as a child led him 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.680 to pick up a book by Alistair Crowley. What do 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:10.600 you know about Alistair Crowley? Oh, you know nothing. That 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:12.960 name sounds familiar. Honestly, whenever I hear the name Crowley 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.880 makes me think of that song Mr Crowley. Yeah, I 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.720 think that's about Crowley. Yeah, well that's what I know, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.400 the chorus of that song. Yeah. He is the inventor 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:30.960 of a religion called Plemma. Um. Yeah, he's uh starting 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.560 the late nineteen like by the time Jack sort of 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.480 becomes aware of this guy. Crowley's name for himself is 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:41.200 the Great Beast six six six. Yeah. He was regularly 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.600 called the wickedest man in the world by the media 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.320 of his native England, and considering the fact that Adolf 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.000 Hitler was the dictator of Germany at the time, one 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.760 might question the media's definition of the word wicket. Yeah. Wow, Okay, 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.800 get your priority straight, media. So yeah, Crowley is yeah, 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.240 known today as the founder of Thelemic religion and the 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.080 originator of the phrase do what thou wilt shall be 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.440 the whole of the law. So you've heard that. I'm 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.800 sure that that one gets around. So he's like one 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:09.920 of the founding fathers of like kind of the modern 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:16.720 occult subculture community, whatever you wanna call him. So, Crowley 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.200 had first reached prominence as a mountaineer, leading the first 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.920 expedition to reach the foot of K two and almost 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.240 scaling Catchin Junga, the second and third highest mountains on Earth, respectively. 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.960 During the expedition up Canshon Junga in nineteen o five, 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.679 and avalanche had buried the rest of Carly's team under snow. 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.240 They begged him for help, but, as the story goes, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.240 he made himself a cup of tea and watched them 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.800 die horribly. Instead, he claimed to have no sympathy for them, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.000 as they had attempted to make the descent after he'd 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:48.960 advised them not to. That's such, That's just some ship 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:54.800 you just cannot get away with anymore. I didn't tell 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.600 you so, I told you this was a bad idea. 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.719 Jesus Christ. That's wow, alright, cool Sick Crowley objectively is 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.400 one of the most interesting dudes who ever lived, and 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.480 I honestly don't know enough about the man to declare 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.800 him a bastard or not um. He deliberately spread lies 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.160 about horrible things he'd done that he hadn't really done. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.599 So he also did some really messed up stuff. So 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:16.920 it's really hard to know. The cliffs notes of this 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.880 guy's life is that in nineteen ten he joined a 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.160 secret society called the Ordo Templi Orientis or O t O. Now, 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:25.800 during the turn of the twentieth century, there were a 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.440 lot of different similar occultic societies throughout Europe, and the 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.320 O t OH can be seen in the same family 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:36.360 of organizations as Theosophy Anthroposophy and the Toolist Society. Thanks 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.320 to his charisma and his erotic poetry, Crowley rose to 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.320 eventually command the English speaking sections of the O t What. 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.760 I'm sorry, don't talk about poetry. Just dropped that. You 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.920 get to drop erotic poetry in the middle of the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:53.800 things that make him charismatic. Okay, so it is when 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:55.960 does that come into play? How did the erotic poetry 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.120 come about? He writes a lot of erotic poetry. I mean, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.120 so all of this that's the time outside of the 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.200 occult ship is just like, yeah, I mean, I also 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.360 love to talk about that kind of thing. So Crowley 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.120 is doing magic and telling people other people to do magic, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.880 like that's like his whole thing, but like it's sex magic. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.200 A lot of it involves fucking um. A lot of 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.920 it involves like tons of come um and like blood 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.400 and fucking. He's a big free love advocate um and 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:22.760 he's a big like A lot of this comes out 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.120 of like this rejection of Christian morality, like this, this 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.360 recognition from a lot of like free thinkers that like, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.760 oh wow, are Christian based society is completely fucked and immoral. 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.120 We should just discard all of this and just bang 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:35.960 each other all the time and maybe trying to summon 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.400 the devil. Yeah yeah, Crowley, Yeah, he's Crowley, got the 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.840 commies all right where it sounds good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.160 he loves he's fucking coming like you wouldn't believe. And 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.680 like the fucking early nineteen hundreds, man, this guy is 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:54.080 semen all over the place, a great so uh. In 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.640 nineteen thirty nine, our man Jack Parsons comes across Crowley's 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.640 writing and falls in love with it the whole due 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.040 at that wilt thing is particularly exciting to him as 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.720 a brilliant man. In the late nineteen thirties, he realizes 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.360 that most of the moral restrictions in his very repressed 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.400 society are rooted in bullshit. Jack likes the idea of 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.080 a faith that encourages him to indulge in forbidden pleasures 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.480 and gives him the power to affect his material reality. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.680 He and his wife Heaven joined the O. T O 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.360 S Pasadena chapter known as the Agape Lodge. And I'll 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:29.199 let you guess which what thing is agape? Alright, alright, alright, alright, yeah, 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:35.240 literally nothing to the imagination a gape Lodge, like come on, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.559 it's it's it's all fucking So. Most of the ceremonies 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.040 at the Agape Lodge focus around sex, magic, and the 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.000 meetings take place in an attic properly equipped for secret 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.480 and probably illegal sex, because a lot of sex was 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:51.800 illegal back then. Yeah, meetings were run by a priestess 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.120 wearing sheer gauze who rose out of a coffin to 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.200 lead the worshippers and purposefully blasphemous writes. So that's cool. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:04.400 So Jack Parsons, Yeah, the theatrics wow, Okay. And Jack 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.360 Parsons is one of the founding fathers of the Jet 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:12.520 Propulsion Laboratory, So while he is starting the JPL, he's 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:18.440 also super into magic, into the crazy sex magic and 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.559 also advancing the sciences and also helping to invent rocketry. 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:28.400 That's that's you know, we contain multitudes. It's cool as hell. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:36.240 It's this guy so far. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.520 I got no problems with Jack Parsons. So well, maybe 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.199 a couple, we'll get to those, I'm sure. Yeah. So 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.800 Jack started corresponding with Crowley, and unlike the correspondence he'd 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.319 had with early rocket scientists as a younger man, these 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.440 letters actually went somewhere Before long, Parsons was addressing Alistair 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.839 Crowley as my most beloved father and signing his letters 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.360 to him as vice son John Jack. Quickly he rose 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.160 to become Crowley's American representative for the O t O. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.280 In a few short years. Jack's chapter was responsible for 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.640 the vast majority of the donations the O t O 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.880 brought in. Carley's later years were largely funded by the 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.640 fundraising skill of Jack Parsons. One of Jack's housemates later 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.120 recalled he had a voluminous correspondence with Crowley in the libraries, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.240 some of which he showed me. I remember in particular 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.560 one letter from Crowley which praised and encouraged him for 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.720 the fine work he was doing in America, and also 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.720 casually thanked him for his latest donation and intimated that 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.280 more would shortly be needed. Jack admitted that he was 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.080 one of Crowley's main sources of money in America. So 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.600 Crowley really relies on this guy from money. Um, he's 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.040 an old man at this point in the late thirties 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.760 and um, early forties, and and that's kind of like 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.400 Jack's main purpose in the O t O is raising 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.320 money to keep Crowley alive. And sorry, can this is 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.280 just like a little time check for me. I apologize. 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:55.920 Can you give me how old is Crowley at this point? 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.160 And how old is Jack Parsons at this point? Jesus 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.720 Crowley is like sixties seventies something he dies in forty six, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.439 and Parsons is like in his twenties. Okay, cool, got it, 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.720 got it? Got it? Definitely like relationship kind of ship 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.120 exactly maybeties. Yeah. So raising money for the O t 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.320 O was only a small part of Jack's focus as 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.920 the nineteen thirties turned into the forties. By this point, 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.239 he was working as a rocket engineer for the California 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.000 Institute of Technology, taking part in groundbreaking research and launching 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.800 experimental rockets as well as experimenting with pagan sex magic 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.360 at night. His two lives soon began to blend uh, 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.120 and before long he was dancing and shouting Crowley's him 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.320 to pan before rocket launches. Still bless the endeavors. Hell, 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.720 here's how that him ended. By the way, So imagine 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.640 this guy hanging out with like nineteen forties rocket scientists, 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.400 chanting this ship as they prepared to launch a rocket. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.040 I am pan Yo pen eyeo pen pan Pan. I 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.840 am thy mate, I am thy man, goat of thy flock, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.440 I am gold, I am God, flesh to thy bone, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.120 flower to thy rod. With hoofs of steel, I race 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.200 on the rocks through solstice, stubborn to equinox, and I 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.200 rave and I rape, and I ripped, and I rinned, 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.000 everlasting world without end. Mannequin made and made it man 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.800 in the mite of pan Yo Pan Yo Pan Pan 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:19.000 pan Yo pan Wow. Wow. I'm just thinking about this 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.120 the other scientists sitting around taking their super long drags 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.360 of their cigarettes, being like, God, come on, man, we're 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.120 just trying to launch this rocket. Come on, come on, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:35.320 Jack Christ. Jesus Christ is fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it rules. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.760 Good for him, good for him, good for you, for you. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.320 It's a testament to what a brilliant engineer Jack was. 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.320 That it took his colleagues a while to make a 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.720 fuss about his eccentricities. Um, he would eventually go on, 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.880 they did. He got fired from the JPL for being 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.520 a fucking weirdo. But not just that. It took a 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.800 while that they're like, you know, but it's it's it's okay. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.840 He's such a good sign. He's such a good sign. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.000 He's an incredible science Yeah, I mean yeah, that's you know, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.600 suffw it goes his chief invention. He's like considered to 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.440 be the main inventor of the solid fuel rocket, which 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:12.840 is yeah, we don't have space travel without it. Um yeah, 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.120 um no, less a mine than Werner. Von Brown considered 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.560 him to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.000 So he is hugely influential, and you do not ever 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.200 hear about him. You don't hear about him much. This 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.600 has started to change in recent years, but for a 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:29.840 very long time you didn't hear about him when people 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.520 would talk about the founding fathers of rocketry. Um. Because 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.560 of the story we're about to talk about today. God. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.880 Hell yes. So in nineteen forty one, Jack Parsons and 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:43.920 a group of his colleagues at Caltech. Yeah, this is 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.960 what is when they officially like start to found the 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.800 jpl um. Yeah. They had done so much damage to 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.160 the campus at Caltech. They'd been forced to relocate to 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.760 a series of iron sheds in the Arroyo Seco Canyon 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:01.760 and this became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory sheds. Yeah. Well 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:03.520 but you on the bomb proof shelters. You guys can 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.240 blow yourselves up and not hurt anything else. So to 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.639 Jack Parsons, there was no disconnect between his love of 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.520 the occult and his love of science. One of his 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.919 biographers later noted Parsons had his rocketry as well as 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.920 his normal life. He discovered other worlds by imagining going 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.040 in a rocket to the moon. He wanted to explore 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.520 the new frontier. He saw both space and magic as 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.600 ways of exploring these new frontiers, one breaking free from 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.719 Earth literally and metaphysically. And Jack's rocket ship for these 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.600 metaphysical explorations was an enormous mansion on southern Orange Grove Avenue, 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.560 which he had inherited upon his errant father's death. South 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.640 Orange Grove was maybe the nicest neighborhood in Pasadena at 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.520 that point, and the upright citizens who were Jack's neighbors 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.080 were not happy when a black wizard moved in next 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.560 door and turned his family home into a mystical funk 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:56.040 cavern for a bunch of the strangest people in southern California. Yeah. Yeah, no, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.080 I guess I probably wouldn't be too happy either. I mean, 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.760 I think that sound like it would rule. But I mean, yeah, 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:04.239 that that that feels like. That feels like the kind 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.080 of thing where the first couple of weeks you'd be like, hey, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.360 they're really having a rocket party over there, and then 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.520 just a couple of extra you know, extremities are left 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.359 in your yard and you're like, Okay, this has gone 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.399 too far. This, yeah, this is I've had enough of 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:21.320 these wacky people now. Yeah. So, Jack's dad hadn't left 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.040 him with much money, and the only way Jack could 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.560 afford to maintain the great manner that he now had 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:27.919 was by renting it out. But he wasn't willing to 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.960 compromise his lifestyle by lending out his space to Norman's. 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.760 He put a notice in the local paper asking for 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.600 tenants who were atheists and of a bohemian disposition, with 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.280 no exceptions. This led to a colorful cast of characters 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.040 who occupied his home and also when endless series of 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:47.600 loud parties and orgies, one long term tenant, later recalled 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.680 mundane Souls, were unceremoniously rejected as tenants. There was a 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.600 professional fortune teller and a seer who always wore appropriate 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.320 dresses and decorated her apartment with symbols and artifacts of 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.000 arcane lore. There was a lady well past middle aged 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.639 but still strikingly beautiful, who claimed at various times to 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.920 have been the mistress of half the famous men in France. 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.120 There was a man who had been a renowned organist, 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.560 and the great movie palaces of the silent era. They 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:14.320 were characters, all so pretty cool house. I mean it sounds, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.280 you know, sounds like a great crew, a motley crew 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.520 as well, especially in the early fucking forties when everybody 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.720 sucked even more than they do now. Yeah. So the 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.919 police showed up semi regularly as a result of these 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.119 loud parties, but they were always talked down to. Yeah, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.080 they were always um talked down by Jack Parsons, who 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.800 was handsome, charming and a respectable rocket scientist. He was 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.000 good at dealing with cops. On at least one occasion, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.520 the police were called in having been told by neighbors 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.119 that they had witnessed a pregnant woman being ordered to 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:53.639 jump nine times through a sacred fire. So, yeah, I 0:19:53.640 --> 0:20:01.040 gotta cleanse that baby. I mean, that's just basic obstetrics. Yeah, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:06.080 it's fucking awesome, well done. Yeah, So two rooms in 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.879 the manner had been turned into a temple for the 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.840 o t oh Lodge. Jack's bedroom held the ceremonial altar, 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.600 which was flanked by pyramids and covered with bizarre symbols. 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.760 A massive signed portrait of Crowley hung over the fireplace. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.800 It wasn't short a pretty badass living situation. And then 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.639 into this wonderful place and time stepped an actual demon, 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:34.520 Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Wonderful. Yeah, with that lead in, do 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.040 you know what time it is? It's time for something 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.399 that's not l Ron Hubbard. The products and services that 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.600 support this show, although we would take l Ron Hubbard 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.760 as a sponsor absolutely not scientology, the church, but l 0:20:49.880 --> 0:21:01.360 Ron Hubbard himself. Yeah, we're back. So l Ron Hubbard 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:05.480 is entering the story now Daniel L Ron Hubbard has 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:11.680 l r H has entered play Oh Boys. In September 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.760 nineteen forty five, after World War Two would drawn to 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.720 a close, the future founder of Scientology had enrolled himself 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.920 as a patient in Oak Noll Naval Hospital. There was 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.119 absolutely nothing wrong with him, other than the fact that 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:24.879 he was broke and would soon be mustered out of 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.000 the navy. For three months, l r H dutifully wind 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.520 and moaned and tried to convince doctors to diagnose him 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.760 with something anything that might be vaguely defined as a 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:38.280 service related injury. He complained about headaches, rheumatism, conjunctivitis, pain 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.360 in his side, belly aches, shoulder pain, arthritis, and hemorrhoids. 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.199 After weeks of looking, the only evidence of any sickness 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.000 they found was an ulcer. L r H's injuries were 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.520 described as minimal. In between days spent trying to convince 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:53.920 doctors of his ailments, l r H spent some time 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.960 trawling around Pasadena, and in August of ninety he stumbled 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.639 into the house on South Orange Grove Avenue for a 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.200 regular meeting of science fiction aficionados. Because you know, Jack 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.000 Parsons is a big old nerd. So l Ron Hubbard 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.000 instantly recognized the Jack Parsons circle as the ideal environment 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.800 for an instinctive con man like himself to operate in. 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:15.600 And I'm going to quote now from the book Bear 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.280 Faced Messiah. Ron Ebulliant as always, was not in any 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.760 way intimidated by the egregious company and surroundings. On the contrary, 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.399 he felt instantly at home. Most evenings he could be 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.000 found dominating the conversation at the big table in the kitchen, 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.160 where the rumors tended to gather, telling outrageous stories about 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:33.919 his adventures. One night, he unbuttoned his shirt to display 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.199 the scars left by arrows hurled at him after he 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.640 encountered a band of hostile aborigines in the South American Jungles. 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:42.560 Like almost anyone in the house, Alva Rodgers, a long 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.520 term resident at the parsonage, thought Hubbard was an enormously 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.240 engaging and entertaining personality. Rogers also had red hair, and 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.480 Ron confided to him his belief, confirmed by extensive research 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.040 he had undertaken at the Royal Museum in London, that 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.920