Speaker 1: Oh Man, Folks, in a world of conspiracy, there are
Speaker 1: all kinds of names. It's easy to miss some of them,
Speaker 1: but one name you should definitely remember is a guy
Speaker 1: called Jack Parsons, a literal rocket scientist and a fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating person. I still read about this guy. Actually, I
Speaker 1: think there's something more to the story. But who was he?
Speaker 2: Well, he was a rocket scientist, as you said, but
Speaker 2: he hit some interesting associates and friends and people you
Speaker 2: would hang out with and let's say, do very specific things.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, besties with Alistair Crowley, who you may ever
Speaker 3: heard of. Kind of a big deal in that occultic space.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of parts about this guy's story,
Speaker 3: Jack Parsons story, that you probably aren't familiar with, And
Speaker 3: if you haven't heard this episode, it's a good time
Speaker 3: to dig in.
Speaker 1: So here we go with sex Hoults in rocket Science,
Speaker 1: the Jack Parsons story, from UFOs to psychic powers and
Speaker 1: government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
Speaker 1: turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
Speaker 2: they call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer Paul Decktt. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you, You are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Today we bring you two worlds that will smash together,
Speaker 2: the world of science, rocketry, physics, and the occult, the mysterious,
Speaker 2: the the void.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and that sounds maybe like a little bit of hyperbole,
Speaker 1: but it's that's absolutely true. Today's episode centers on something
Speaker 1: that the three of us find fascinating and we hope
Speaker 1: you find it fascinating too. It's a little known cover
Speaker 1: up that was quite successful for decades. It occurs in
Speaker 1: the United States, and it does, as you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: combine the bleeding edge of science with the hidden dare
Speaker 1: we say occulted heart of the dark arts?
Speaker 2: Yes? And how different are they really? We'll get into
Speaker 2: that too. The exploration of mankind's abilities, that's really what
Speaker 2: both of those pursuits are. What can we achieve either
Speaker 2: with our hands or through our mind and through some
Speaker 2: other plane that may be spiritual?
Speaker 1: Right, And this also calls to mind the old sci
Speaker 1: fi quotation that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Speaker 2: And there you have it. That is the end that
Speaker 2: encapsulates this episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's start at the beginning. Marvel white Side Parsons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not a comic book character.
Speaker 1: It's his real name. Isn't that a great name?
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: Marvel Whiteside Parsons is born on October two, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also known as Jack. That's what he becomes
Speaker 2: known as.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, And from his early childhood days, Jack has
Speaker 1: an abiding interest in rocketry. At this point in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, rocketry is still seen very much as
Speaker 1: a science fiction thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it exists in the pages of fiction,
Speaker 2: of drawings of what a rocket could.
Speaker 1: Be like, right, people landing on various lunar shores, weird
Speaker 1: space rocks, and meeting you.
Speaker 2: Know, martians, perhaps.
Speaker 1: Martians, Yeah, some sort of some sort of alien that
Speaker 1: functions as a stand in for whatever ideology the author dislikes. Yep,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of There was a lot of communism
Speaker 1: in space at the time. Gotta love allegory, Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: when it's naked allegory. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But Jack swallows the stuff hook line and sinker. He
Speaker 1: loves it, loves it, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us can understand that feeling. Right. In nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: Jack and his friend, a guy named Ed Foreman, start
Speaker 1: experimenting with rockets on an amateur level. Matt, have you
Speaker 1: ever done this when you were a kid? Did you
Speaker 1: ever make and launch those model rockets?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's about the right time. When he was fourteen,
Speaker 2: he was doing this. When I was in middle school
Speaker 2: to high school, my friend Scott and I would spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time in the backyard experimenting with chemicals
Speaker 2: and with cardboard tubes actually, which is something that Jack
Speaker 2: also did.
Speaker 1: Hey, Paul, what about you? Were you a rocketman a
Speaker 1: rocket boy? So conspiracy realists, fellow listeners, our super producer
Speaker 1: Paul has asked us to relay to.
Speaker 2: You because he won't record his own voice.
Speaker 1: Because he couldn't get him on MIC. He asked us
Speaker 1: to relate to you that he, like many of us,
Speaker 1: as a child, bought the model rocket kits, experimented with
Speaker 1: them in the backyard, and noted there was an element
Speaker 1: of danger to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like there's an explosion that happens, and then
Speaker 2: this thing goes up into the air really high, and
Speaker 2: then usually at least in my experience, blows up to
Speaker 2: some extent.
Speaker 1: And Jack Parsons to let the badger out of the bag. Here.
Speaker 1: He is from a wealthy family.
Speaker 2: A very wealthy family, a very well.
Speaker 1: To do family, and he gets some leeway experimenting with
Speaker 1: these rockets, something a lot of kids can maybe afford
Speaker 1: to do, And even if they can afford to do it,
Speaker 1: not many of them have the ingenuity, perhaps yeah, to
Speaker 1: do this. So his parents' backyard is filled with craters
Speaker 1: very soon after he begins experimenting with stuff, and his
Speaker 1: neighborhood is littered with flaming bits of paper and scorched
Speaker 1: cardboard tubes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a year before the Great Depression hits,
Speaker 2: by the way, in nineteen twenty eight. So everybody's living
Speaker 2: the high life shooting off rockets in their backyard. Well,
Speaker 2: at least Jack is right, right.
Speaker 1: And as Parsons and Foremen go to high school, they
Speaker 1: become captivated with how ingenious is this? They become captivated
Speaker 1: with the idea of creating a solid fuel rocket engine.
Speaker 1: And this concept at the time is widely considered poppycock, nonsense.
Speaker 2: It can't happen. Why would you study that right now?
Speaker 1: Yes, what are you a poon? Yes, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 2: And to get on the liquid stuff.
Speaker 1: And if God meant rockets to travel to space, wouldn't
Speaker 1: God have put them there already?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: One are those things. Yeah, but Parsons also as a kid,
Speaker 1: has long, meandering teenage conversations. I'm sure we can all
Speaker 1: identify with some of with those situations, like when you're
Speaker 1: when you're a teenager, you often get involved in these
Speaker 1: epic marathon conversations. You hang up, no, you hang up?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So who is who is Parsons talking to?
Speaker 2: Uh, he's he's talking to someone who was born two
Speaker 2: years before him, who was also a fairly young man
Speaker 2: at the time, a man named Werner von Brown, Magnus
Speaker 2: Maximilian von Brown. There's there's a lot more names in there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you might remember this fella. So he has kind of
Speaker 2: become a name on this show. We talk about him
Speaker 2: quite often. He's the former Nazi scientist who helped to
Speaker 2: develop the V two rocket for the Nazi Party, and
Speaker 2: then he was secretly brought over to the US via
Speaker 2: that Operation paper Clip that we speak about, where over
Speaker 2: sixteen hundred scientists were brought to the United States and
Speaker 2: then you know, he went on to develop the Saturn
Speaker 2: five heavy lift vehicle that was used in the Apollo
Speaker 2: programs that took us to the Moon, as well as
Speaker 2: the original rockets that started the United States space program.
Speaker 2: And there's like, there's a whole other host of things
Speaker 2: that he did for this country and for rocketry in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of an eye opener for
Speaker 1: anybody who just started listening to our show to learn
Speaker 1: that the NASA institution, as we understand it, would not
Speaker 1: be capable of the feats it is capable of, yeah,
Speaker 1: without Nazi engineering and ingenuity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And again at this point, he's just a
Speaker 2: young guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel, you know, I feel weird say
Speaker 1: Nazi ingenuity. We do have to point out Operation paper
Speaker 1: Clip was a genuine conspiracy, yeah, and cover up that occurred.
Speaker 1: A lot of the American public did not know about
Speaker 1: it and would not learn about it for some time.
Speaker 1: But many of those scientists were not necessarily like, they
Speaker 1: were not ideological Nazis.
Speaker 2: No, they're the greatest minds in their fields.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they some of them were only there because
Speaker 1: they couldn't get out of Germany before things went south.
Speaker 2: Certainly.
Speaker 1: So that's this is all this all stuff that neither
Speaker 1: Parsons nor von Braun know about at this time. They're
Speaker 1: just two rocket nerds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just talking on the phone.
Speaker 1: And as he said, Matt, the Great Depression hits here
Speaker 1: in the US. We usually think of the Great Depression
Speaker 1: just in terms of its effect on this country, but
Speaker 1: the Great Depression has consequences that touch the entire globe. Right,
Speaker 1: very few people, accept arguably the people responsible for the
Speaker 1: situation escape unscathed in most countries. The Great Depression starts
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine, lasts until the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and because of this, Parsons family is not elite enough
Speaker 1: to survive the situation. So instead of becoming increasingly aristocratic,
Speaker 1: they lose a ton of money. And this prevents him
Speaker 1: from completing his higher education at Pasadena Junior College and
Speaker 1: Stanford University, and he ultimately drops out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then in a moment of I don't know, I
Speaker 2: guess this was just opportunity fortune. In nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 2: our gentleman here, Jack Parsons, and his friend Ed Foreman,
Speaker 2: they approach another man named Frank Molina, and he at
Speaker 2: this point as a graduate student at Caltech California Technical Institute,
Speaker 2: and they ask for his help for his expertise because
Speaker 2: he's already kind of working in these fields, like, how
Speaker 2: can you help us with rocket research that we want
Speaker 2: to do that we're so passionate about.
Speaker 1: Right, And luckily for them, Frank is a pretty open
Speaker 1: minded guy. He says, you know what, yeah, I'll team
Speaker 1: up with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's yeah, okay, sure, let's do this. Guys. They
Speaker 2: must have come to him with something very compelling.
Speaker 1: Well, also his field of study concerned rocketry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well exactly. But again for them to team up together,
Speaker 2: the other two gentlemen, Ed and Jack must have had
Speaker 2: some pretty good schematics or some math and or science
Speaker 2: worked out to have Molina go yes, let's do this, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, So it's a good partnership for these guys because
Speaker 1: Frank is bringing scientific rigor, yes, academic discipline, and these
Speaker 1: rocket heads can I say that, sure they're rocket heeads,
Speaker 1: rocket heeads. These other rocket heeads are bringing a lot
Speaker 1: of practical knowledge and experience and know enough about rocketry
Speaker 1: to ask intriguing questions. And intriguing questions are the best
Speaker 1: way to talk to a grad student anywhere. Yeah, grad
Speaker 1: students in the audience, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these unanswered questions that perhaps we could be the
Speaker 2: ones to discover the.
Speaker 1: Truth, and especially when they're niche, because you know, you
Speaker 1: have to imagine at this time, it's safe to say
Speaker 1: that Frank Molina is probably in need of someone to
Speaker 1: talk with about rocketry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're we're in the days, you know, the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen thirties, everything up until this point, Like we
Speaker 2: kind of mentioned earlier, rock Tree, the whole idea of
Speaker 2: jet propulsion, these kinds of things. It's just it's something
Speaker 2: of the future. It's something that you read in a
Speaker 2: book somewhere.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a work of fiction. Nowadays, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: as we record this, the phrase rocket scientist is almost
Speaker 1: always used as a synonym for genius, usually in a
Speaker 1: sarcastic way. Right. Yeah, but back in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: pre World War Two, most people did as as you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: I think rocket Tree was ridiculous, eccentric and impractical. You know, pseudoscience,
Speaker 1: a sort of a hunt for fool's gold in the
Speaker 1: sky exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be like if you went out to
Speaker 2: a bar right now, and someone introduced themselves to you
Speaker 2: as a as like a teleportation specialist or something to
Speaker 2: that effect or research. I research teleportation.
Speaker 1: I'm a teleportationist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like, oh, okay, well see you later.
Speaker 1: Right, what do you really do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: I attempt to teleport things instantaneously through space and time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point it's mostly on paper, but we're
Speaker 2: getting there.
Speaker 1: We've done some very interesting things with very small bits
Speaker 1: of matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I could totally see that that's an interesting person, maybe
Speaker 1: at a bar as a stranger, but that's not That
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it's a real thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably not looking to get into any kind
Speaker 2: of business venture with that person at this point.
Speaker 1: So these guys are not being taken seriously. Jack Parsons,
Speaker 1: head foreman Frank Molina are not being taken seriously. They
Speaker 1: form a group called gal Sit Rocket Research Group. They're
Speaker 1: ridiculed by professors and learned individuals of cow Tech. They
Speaker 1: even get a.
Speaker 2: Nickname, Yeah, the Suicide Squad. Not the DC Universe IP,
Speaker 2: but yeah, the Suicide Squad. It's really just due to
Speaker 2: the reckless nature of what they do, how they perform
Speaker 2: their experiments, these things explode.
Speaker 1: Which is mainly Then you go ahead and say it's
Speaker 1: mainly Parsons. Yeah, he's like, are you familiar with The Stand?
Speaker 2: I am?
Speaker 1: Okay. So in the adaptation of The Stand in the
Speaker 1: novel itself, which is better than the adaptation, no knock
Speaker 1: on the adaptation. But in the novel The Stand, there
Speaker 1: is a character called the garbage Man. Yes, trash can Man,
Speaker 1: that's it, that's his name, and trash can Man without
Speaker 1: spoiling the story.
Speaker 2: And without just being wonderful to say.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, trash can Man has a weird fascination with
Speaker 1: blowing things up. And there's a little bit of trash
Speaker 1: can Man and Jack Parsons and Parsons and trash can Man,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Oh, totally.
Speaker 1: And so it's no surprise that the people who are
Speaker 1: used to more buttoned up conservative experiments and methodologies, it's
Speaker 1: no surprise that they think this guy is just a
Speaker 1: somewhere between a cartoon and a terrorist.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, Well, it's not like he conducts
Speaker 2: himself in any of those manners that you're speaking. These
Speaker 2: guys are would probably consider themselves and acted like like
Speaker 2: hot Shots Part two. But no, for real, like like
Speaker 2: walking around campus like you doing rocket scientist lady, and
Speaker 2: also smoke a little pot, probably.
Speaker 1: Drink talk about socialism. Yeah, because they hung admal up.
Speaker 1: But they it wasn't just hanging out to build and
Speaker 1: talk about rockets. They did have social lives and they
Speaker 1: spent that time together and they partied.
Speaker 2: There goes the suicide Squad. But by the way, uh,
Speaker 2: I know you, you and Noel had mentioned this before,
Speaker 2: and specifically I think you had mentioned this. But Castle
Speaker 2: Rock just because we got into a Stephen King, Yeah,
Speaker 2: novel there Castle Rock. I'm finally starting to watch and
Speaker 2: I could not I could not recommend it more.
Speaker 1: How far are you?
Speaker 2: I'm only three episodes in, but I'm just loving all
Speaker 2: the little bits and pieces I keep picking up from
Speaker 2: the universe.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested to hear what you think about the
Speaker 1: end because the whole season's out now.
Speaker 2: Oh it is. Oh that makes me happy.
Speaker 1: I think ten episodes. Okay, So without saying anymore, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to direct this in a way
Speaker 1: that won't spoil it. Where you Matt, how about this, folks?
Speaker 1: I would love to hear what you think about this. Matt.
Speaker 1: I know you would too, but we don't want to
Speaker 1: spoil it for Matt. So if you have strong opinions,
Speaker 1: I would love to hear them. I'm a little conflicted
Speaker 1: about the end. You can write to me directly so
Speaker 1: that it doesn't go to.
Speaker 2: Write to conspiracy. Just put a conspiracy at how stuff
Speaker 2: works dot com. Just put a little note in there
Speaker 2: that says at the top, Matt, don't read this.
Speaker 1: There you go, great, great, Uh, yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: hear what people think, because it did get renewed.
Speaker 2: Yes, so.
Speaker 1: Trash can man aside suicide squad aside parsons isn't completely
Speaker 1: counterculture in nineteen thirty five. Well, in nineteen thirty four
Speaker 1: he meets a woman at a church dance incredibly common
Speaker 1: way to meet people at the time, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five he marries her.
Speaker 2: Yes, miss Helen Northrop, who is the sister, the older
Speaker 2: sister I believe of Sarah Northrop Hollister. And that's going
Speaker 2: to come into play a little later. So we're not
Speaker 2: going to expound on that. If you know what that is,
Speaker 2: you can just put a little a little feather in
Speaker 2: your cap.
Speaker 1: And if you're the sort of person who cheats at
Speaker 1: crosswords trivia.
Speaker 2: Don't do it.
Speaker 1: You will have an opportunity because we're going to take
Speaker 1: a break for a word from our sponsor. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people dealt with a moral or ethical quandary,
Speaker 1: some of you to borrow the line from D and D.
Speaker 1: We're very lawful, good about it. I will not cheat.
Speaker 1: I will wait to hear the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you eat that one marshmallow now? Or did
Speaker 2: you wait until after the ad break to get two marshmallows?
Speaker 1: M hmm, yeah right? Or did you decide I do
Speaker 1: what I want because doing what I want should be
Speaker 1: the entirety of the law.
Speaker 2: Oh, back to well Man. So many easter d eggs already? Alright,
Speaker 2: I keep going.
Speaker 1: Back to Parsons. So they continue, despite the ridicule, to
Speaker 1: make multiple breakthroughs in the study and manufacture of engines,
Speaker 1: but more importantly rocket fuel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fuel for those engines. Exactly.
Speaker 1: They actually receive the first government funding for a rocket
Speaker 1: try research group, at least in the US.
Speaker 2: And you know it's this isn't something that our archfriendemissism,
Speaker 2: our nemesis slash friend, Jonathan Strickland, he would call it
Speaker 2: a princely sum but you know what they do get
Speaker 2: where they get mad one grand, they get a stack,
Speaker 2: they get a single stack. But man, that is a
Speaker 2: nice stack at the time.
Speaker 1: Right, especially in the thirties, right. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They pretty much they have to spend about twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of it, about a quarter of this thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Good chunk of the budget, repairing.
Speaker 1: Damage to buildings on the Caltech campus.
Speaker 2: Damage you say, they've just they've.
Speaker 1: Been blowing stuff up left. So although they're and also
Speaker 1: they asked for a lot more than one thousand dollars, Yes,
Speaker 1: they got one thousand dollars. So they have to spend
Speaker 1: a bunch of money repairing the campus and the damage
Speaker 1: they've done to it. Eventually they have to move from
Speaker 1: the campus entirely due to the danger post by the explosives,
Speaker 1: and they relocate to the Arroyo Seco Canyon. They're conducting
Speaker 1: experiments and someone's watching them.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, who is that group? Oh yeah, the Federal
Speaker 2: Bureau of Investigation is watching them, the FBI. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: think generally when you're making explosives or things that can explode,
Speaker 2: that's you're gonna get on a list.
Speaker 1: And they did, they did get on a list. Also
Speaker 1: a side note, maybe maybe we should come up with
Speaker 1: some alternate some alternate interpretations of the FBI acronym.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, the fully bundled.
Speaker 1: Institute, that's not okay, the fun Boys International, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's it, fun Boys International with a Z on the boys.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, all right, let us know if that's
Speaker 1: a good T shirt idea. And Boys International because we
Speaker 1: could get the we could get the FBI loco.
Speaker 2: Yes. And one of the reasons they're very much interested
Speaker 2: in these gentlemen and their penchant to blow things up
Speaker 2: is because they're interested in extremists of any sort that
Speaker 2: might want to get with these guys and or just
Speaker 2: blow things up on the site where they're now located
Speaker 2: in that Arroyo Siico canyon.
Speaker 1: Right right, because they are literally just in a couple
Speaker 1: of rundown shets iron shets the security is not very high.
Speaker 1: So in addition to being aware of these these rocketheads
Speaker 1: political leanings and the ideologies with which the identify, the
Speaker 1: FBI is also aware of the fact that someone the
Speaker 1: political extremists would be what we call a terrorist today,
Speaker 1: that someone could ride up their in force, maybe with
Speaker 1: some firearms and take the explosives, take these chemicals, maybe
Speaker 1: even take this technology and launch a rocket at a bank,
Speaker 1: at a city, you know, or.
Speaker 2: Just blow it up from the ground level, or just blow.
Speaker 1: It up, that's right, without even bothering to deliver the rocket.
Speaker 1: So this is when the FBI first has their eye
Speaker 1: on Parsons and Co. In nineteen forty one, the Suicide
Speaker 1: Squad founds the Aerojet Engineering Corporation to sell rockets to
Speaker 1: the military. The scientists who had previously derided and pooped
Speaker 1: and pissed on Parsons work now are lining up around
Speaker 1: the block across the country to join this booming industry
Speaker 1: because Uncle Sam has officially opened up his wallet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Uncle Sam's wallet is big.
Speaker 2: It is that No, it's so big. It's so big. Bit,
Speaker 2: You've got a lot of money, and Uncle Sam doesn't
Speaker 2: even really know how much is in that wallet because
Speaker 2: it's kind of infinite, and sometimes that money just disappears
Speaker 2: in the level of trillions and weird little black budgets.
Speaker 1: Or just a palette of let's say a billion dollars
Speaker 1: can disappear in recent memory and barely make a mention
Speaker 1: in the news.
Speaker 2: It gets on a plane. I didn't see it get off?
Speaker 2: Did you see it get off? I don't know where
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: It's gone to buy a plane? Doctor?
Speaker 2: Who knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: It's not like we weigh these things.
Speaker 1: Right, Let's get back to the real issues. Okay, something
Speaker 1: social and insignificant, perfect man, we has? Has this show
Speaker 1: made us cynical? No? Has this show made you cynical?
Speaker 1: If you're listening, let us know.
Speaker 2: We've had a few people right in about that.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. And you and I have been
Speaker 1: in situations where the void stared back, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: or the abyss stared back.
Speaker 2: I feel like it kind of always is staring. Just
Speaker 2: do you choose to see it or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, me and the me and the abyss have been
Speaker 1: making some smoldering eye contact recently.
Speaker 2: Made some smoldering eye contact with a dude earlier today.
Speaker 2: I won't bore you with those details.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was gonna spring that on you and
Speaker 1: ask you to mention that story at the end. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can do that at the end. Would you be
Speaker 1: okay with that?
Speaker 2: That's perfect?
Speaker 1: Okay, And that's this is a Paul and Matt story.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to wait till the end. We're we're
Speaker 1: building up expectations. Man, we better deliver ours.
Speaker 2: Let's let's do it just like these guys. Let's deliver
Speaker 2: a payload.
Speaker 1: There we go. Now again, Paul refuses to be recorded
Speaker 1: on this show because he's worried about his future political career.
Speaker 1: But he did purposely turn on the mic and chuckle it.
Speaker 2: He did. He gave me a little George W. Bush
Speaker 2: chuckle it was but that was great.
Speaker 1: Deliver the payload. Okay, So the industry is booming right
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three. There's this need for advanced research
Speaker 1: into rockets, and it's growing exponentially because other countries are
Speaker 1: researching this. And just as the US is concerned about
Speaker 1: the technological innovations occurring in rival countries today, the US
Speaker 1: is concerned back then of possible technological gaps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we have you know, you always have to
Speaker 2: be ahead of your enemy. The whole point of that
Speaker 2: military thing.
Speaker 1: And as we've discussed in previous episodes, nation states don't
Speaker 1: have friends, they have interests.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Parsons Co founds this thing called the Jet
Speaker 2: Propulsion Laboratory that you've probably heard of before, the JPL
Speaker 2: JPL yeah, and they went with this term jet propulsion
Speaker 2: at the suggestion of one of the suicide squad members,
Speaker 2: the third man, Molina, And the whole idea was to
Speaker 2: avoid the stigma associated with that idea or term rocket rocketry.
Speaker 1: Right, rocket just as a phrase. It turned a lot
Speaker 1: of people off.
Speaker 2: We're just interested in this jet propulsion. It sounds nice too, isn't.
Speaker 1: You like jets? You know, propellants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: It's just those two things together.
Speaker 2: It's just the means of transportation.
Speaker 1: They're pregaming before they go into a meeting, and they're
Speaker 1: just coaching themselves not to say the R word. Right. So,
Speaker 1: Parsons and his associates, without going too deep into this,
Speaker 1: they play a crucial role in the development of rocketry
Speaker 1: technology excuse us jet propulsion as World War Two shifts
Speaker 1: into high gear, and the contributions they make also result
Speaker 1: in financial windfalls. Yeah, for all three men, but Parsons
Speaker 1: and particular because he is the mad jet fuel Genius,
Speaker 1: which is also a cool nickname. So we could spend
Speaker 1: our entire episode focusing just on his contributions to the
Speaker 1: field of rocketry, as well as his obsession with blowing
Speaker 1: things up. In general. But there is more to this story.
Speaker 1: You see, Jack Parsons had another obsession, one that was
Speaker 1: even stranger than rocket science.
Speaker 2: And we're going to go down that rabbit hole after
Speaker 2: another quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Years where it gets crazy. In addition to being obsessed
Speaker 1: with rockets and rocketry, Jack Parsons was obsessed with the occult.
Speaker 2: Yes, the a coat.
Speaker 1: Yeah really, these are what our colleague Lare and Vogelbaum
Speaker 1: will call actual facts. Yeah right. He is not only
Speaker 1: obsessed with the occult, but there is a strange concordance,
Speaker 1: a strange confluence and concurrence of events here because as
Speaker 1: his career as one of the well actually the world's
Speaker 1: best rocket scientists.
Speaker 2: Jet propulsion scientists.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, thank you, Matt, Sorry guys, as his reputation
Speaker 1: grows there, his association with the occult also grows and deepens,
Speaker 1: and he moves up the rank in these esoteric organizations,
Speaker 1: one in particular.
Speaker 2: Yes, the OTO. So in the late nineteen thirties, he
Speaker 2: Parsons begins going to these nightly meetings at the Los
Speaker 2: Angeles chapter of the Ordo Temple Orientis or the OTO,
Speaker 2: and it's an occult society and it was. It was
Speaker 2: formed by a gentleman that you also may know from
Speaker 2: this show. Wow, all the hits in the episode, all
Speaker 2: the goodwins, mister Alister Crowley, can we.
Speaker 1: Get a sinister sound cue for that? Paul? There we go?
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, quite appropriate for the Master of the dark arts.
Speaker 2: So at this time, mister Crowley, notice I say Crowley
Speaker 2: and not Crowley. We learn from our mistakes. Yeah, people,
Speaker 2: at this time, he's known as the wickedest man in
Speaker 2: the world. He's got quite the reputation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He's an English occultist, ceremonial magician, con man, all
Speaker 1: these things, scam artists, yeah, novelists.
Speaker 2: Does weird things in old ancient Egyptian.
Speaker 1: Temples, Yeah, and an explorer. He is a British fellow
Speaker 1: born in eighteen seventy five. And as you said, he
Speaker 1: is the founder of maybe he would say, the discoverer,
Speaker 1: the prophet of the Oto. And when Parsons is first
Speaker 1: going to these things, he's a young guy, he's in
Speaker 1: his early twenties and he's seen something that he would
Speaker 1: he would have never seen before. Right, he is watching
Speaker 1: magical rituals being performed and this affects him deeply. But
Speaker 1: it's easy to say that someone sees a ritual and
Speaker 1: it affects them deeply. That's what religion is about. These
Speaker 1: rituals are much more graphic than the typical rituals you
Speaker 1: would encounter in most organized religions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're talking about sex magic. Ultimately, we're talking
Speaker 2: about chaos magic rituals that a lot of time involve
Speaker 2: blood and other bodily fluids and acts of a carnal nature.
Speaker 2: Let's say, well, and this is you know, he gets
Speaker 2: married in nineteen thirty five, and then now we're in
Speaker 2: the late thirties at this time as he's really kind
Speaker 2: of coming into his own as a scientist in this field.
Speaker 2: It's right, like you said at the same time, this
Speaker 2: is before World War Two, this is before a lot
Speaker 2: of the huge advancements in his career as he's beginning
Speaker 2: to go to these meetings. But he is like fairly
Speaker 2: newly married, and I don't know, I can't imagine what
Speaker 2: that relationship was like behind the closed doors, what it
Speaker 2: was like knowing that your husband is out going to
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: Well, every relationship is a foreign country, that's correct. Each
Speaker 1: interaction we have with any other person, especially romantic interaction
Speaker 1: obeys its own laws and rituals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And well and the fact that the
Speaker 2: whole sex, magic, blood magic thing is not the only
Speaker 2: thing going on.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. There's also a ton of spoken word essentially invocations,
Speaker 1: ritualistic chanting, and so on. And there's there's drinking. There's
Speaker 1: more than a dollop of hedonism as they're conducting these rituals.
Speaker 1: There's also the consumption of various things like this mason
Speaker 1: gross to some people, but cakes made of menstrual blood,
Speaker 1: for instance.
Speaker 2: That mason gross to people.
Speaker 1: I don't want to denegrate someone's religion just because it's
Speaker 1: not my thing, because.
Speaker 2: At a thing. Is that a thing outside of this group?
Speaker 2: Menstrual cakes? I do not know menstrual cakes. I don't know, Matt, Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of like the placenta eating the
Speaker 2: placenta after birth, which has become a thing and is
Speaker 2: quite popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I look, I'm not in the OTO, understood, I'll
Speaker 1: be I'll be explicit about that, okay, all right, but
Speaker 1: I'm more or I'm not in the I am not
Speaker 1: currently in the OTO, okay, but they're still around today. Yes,
Speaker 1: and shout out to any of you who are currently
Speaker 1: members of the organization or have been affiliated with it,
Speaker 1: we'd love to we'd love to hear more about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to explain menstrual cakes, I am
Speaker 2: all yours and.
Speaker 1: You seem very you're fascinated with this.
Speaker 2: I guess that's what you could call it.
Speaker 1: I'm concerned. I wish you could see this face mass making. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe you're perplexed. Maybe that's a better word. This group
Speaker 1: is practicing Crowley's philosophy of Flemo, which is at base
Speaker 1: kind of I read it described as religious libertarianism, yeah,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a pretty pretty neat way to
Speaker 1: encapsulate it. This is the origin of do what thou
Speaker 1: wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Speaker 2: Remember that callback callack?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, we brought it back. Parsons is hooked. He
Speaker 1: is very attract to this idea of radical individualism, of nonconformity,
Speaker 1: and the focus upon fulfilling one's self your own goals.
Speaker 2: Yes, and if anyone else is fulfilled because you are fulfilled,
Speaker 2: then so be it. But ultimately it's about you.
Speaker 1: Right, and sort of admitting the open secret that most
Speaker 1: people practice, which is, you know, we're all the main
Speaker 1: characters of our own stories.
Speaker 2: Right, there's nothing you can do about it, nothing you
Speaker 2: could do about it. Go ahead and try and break
Speaker 2: that ego, right, maybe you can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of like you can.
Speaker 1: You could be a cult leader, right and make other
Speaker 1: people echoes of yourself anyway, that maybe that's Some people
Speaker 1: who are in the OTO will feel that that is
Speaker 1: unfair too. Crowley, sure, but he is a master manipulator,
Speaker 1: and this organization does have a lot of manipulative people
Speaker 1: in it. Will see how that comes into play. Parsons
Speaker 1: is especially intrigued by Croley's beliefs that sex can be
Speaker 1: an intrinsic component of magical rituals, that it's not just
Speaker 1: a necessary but filthy act, as some of the puritanical
Speaker 1: forces of the time would have him believe. He's he
Speaker 1: likes this idea of sexism means of increasing epiphany.
Speaker 2: Yeah, reaching some higher plane that you couldn't reach just
Speaker 2: by walking around or thinking about something or writing. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a physical act that can take you somewhere else
Speaker 2: and back to his buddies, which, by the way, just
Speaker 2: before we get there, a physical act that can take
Speaker 2: you somewhere else. Think about within the context of jet propulsion, right,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what he's trying to create. The technology that
Speaker 2: he is creating in tandem with this is a physical
Speaker 2: way to get to somewhere else, either mood or other places.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, planets, and the idea that your thoughts
Speaker 1: can have tangible material results upon the world around you
Speaker 1: through the force of your will alone. Oto is all
Speaker 1: about the will, philemic magic or whatever.
Speaker 2: And in the end, you know, it's just physical forces involved.
Speaker 2: In one case you've got explosions and the other you've
Speaker 2: just got friction.
Speaker 1: You got explosions. We're a family show. But yes, that
Speaker 1: is a fantastic point and there's something alchemical about that, right,
Speaker 1: transformative and Parsons friends back to the suicide squad. They
Speaker 1: think this is really weird stuff. Yeah, they're not on board.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, man, we're here for the rockets. We
Speaker 1: already ate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we hear you, we hear you, just
Speaker 2: not right.
Speaker 1: Now, right right right? You used to be cool. Let's
Speaker 1: be work friends. But they think it's you know, they
Speaker 1: I think it's weird, but there's still genuinely friends. At first,
Speaker 1: they just feel like this is a harmless obsession. This
Speaker 1: is just Parsons being Parsons, at least at.
Speaker 2: First, Yes, and then he just keeps going double down.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. So let's talk about Thelma, this religion
Speaker 2: that was founded. It is a religion, and it was
Speaker 2: founded in nineteen oh four. So you know, at the
Speaker 2: time when Parsons joins up, it's like thirty years old
Speaker 2: something around. They are well thirty five.
Speaker 1: I guess it's pretty young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a young religion. It's as old as I am.
Speaker 2: If there is a religion that is old as I
Speaker 2: currently am, as we're recording this podcast, it's very young. However,
Speaker 2: like most occult practices, this gentleman Alistair Crowley, he argued
Speaker 2: that it's based on these ancient, ancient beliefs, these esoteric
Speaker 2: thoughts that have occurred far far before he was born,
Speaker 2: far before anyone that is on earth was born, that
Speaker 2: are forgotten a lot of times, or hidden, or just.
Speaker 1: Universal law that exists that is bigger than our common
Speaker 1: understanding of the world in which we live. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: higher planes of consciousness, stuff of the ooze. There we go. Yeah, primordial.
Speaker 1: The word the lima itself is a form of ancient
Speaker 1: Greek for will. You know it's in like determination, not some.
Speaker 2: Guys, not William.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wouldn't that be funny though?
Speaker 2: It's just will It's.
Speaker 1: William will William magic. Thelemic magic, spelled with a K
Speaker 1: is a system of physical, mental, and spiritual exercises designed
Speaker 1: to quote cause change to occur in conformity with will.
Speaker 1: This is going to be familiar to a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have read things like The Secret Yeah, or
Speaker 1: Mind over Matter.
Speaker 2: And type stuff, manifestation beliefs.
Speaker 1: Right, can believe it, you can achieve it. So this
Speaker 1: differs from some of that pop psychology self help stuff
Speaker 1: because it has specific instructions meant to meant to accomplish
Speaker 1: certain tasks. So Croley adds that K to magic because
Speaker 1: he wants to differentiate it from stage magic or illusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's not just switching out the sea, it's
Speaker 2: adding a K to the full word message.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's really important to Croley, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and to people who practice this today. Many of the
Speaker 1: rituals in this discipline are a synthesis of older rituals,
Speaker 1: stuff from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and
Speaker 1: then practices from Eastern belief systems. They captured Croley's attention.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's ye. Crowley was a member of their
Speaker 2: medic Order of the Golden Down for a while and
Speaker 2: he borrowed a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, right, and I think was pretty open about it.
Speaker 2: But like this is my thing now, my thing now.
Speaker 1: Yes, And there are some examples of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: There's a ritual in the Library of Things that he's written.
Speaker 1: There's a ritual meant to invoke a holy guardian angel
Speaker 1: that you could have a conversation with, and rituals called
Speaker 1: libra semic and there's a gnostic mass it's a eucharistic
Speaker 1: kind of ritual. And then of course there's sexual gnosis,
Speaker 1: the idea that through physical acts with oneself or another
Speaker 1: person or people, it's possible to achieve a higher plane
Speaker 1: of consciousness, which for skeptics is going to sound a
Speaker 1: lot like a way to convince people to sleep with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it's also a it's an interesting little
Speaker 2: litmus test when you're going through and trying to sell
Speaker 2: someone on this religion. You can tell if it's someone
Speaker 2: you want in your group or not as soon as
Speaker 2: you get there, and you start discussing how perhaps we'll
Speaker 2: use the word masturbation of you and your friends here
Speaker 2: that we're all hanging out with as I'm talking to
Speaker 2: you about this, that's one of our major rituals. And
Speaker 2: a certain percentage of those people are going to turn around,
Speaker 2: walk away, and then a few others are going to go,
Speaker 2: let me hear a little more about this. And those
Speaker 2: are the people that you want in your group.
Speaker 1: And there's probably something. It's probably not something where they
Speaker 1: just throw people to the deep end. It escalates over
Speaker 1: a period of time, right, sure, But.
Speaker 2: A little peak behind the curtain gets you your converts.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking strategically in cult formation and gathering the masses.
Speaker 1: Right right right, the idea of being special or privy
Speaker 1: to this hidden knowledge. But for people who do believe this,
Speaker 1: do practice it, and do feel that they have attained
Speaker 1: the realizations for which they yearned or the results that
Speaker 1: they desired, this stuff is legitimate. So we're presenting both
Speaker 1: sides of the belief. We're despite not being in the OTO,
Speaker 1: we're not making a judgment call about it, as these
Speaker 1: people are all in theory, consenting adults in full possession
Speaker 1: of their wits.
Speaker 2: As long as you're not hurting anyone, like say, branding
Speaker 2: them with a cattle iron, then we're okay.
Speaker 1: Right, do what thou wilt, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And many It's important to mention that many practitioners of
Speaker 1: this form of magic do seek material, tangible results, money, power, love,
Speaker 1: a breakthrough in rocketry, for example. But it's not a
Speaker 1: mandatory thing. Sometimes it's just a higher realization. Crowley believed
Speaker 1: himself to be a prophet, as we said, and Parsons
Speaker 1: at this time is relating the concepts of magic that
Speaker 1: he's exploring to the ideas of quantum physics in itself.
Speaker 1: Quantum physics is a relatively new concept at this time.
Speaker 1: They're both in their own way young religions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh wow, that's a really great point of quantum physics.
Speaker 2: As a young religion, I can totally see that.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you get to the edges of physics,
Speaker 1: it's really just the smartest people in the room throwing
Speaker 1: their opinions at each other. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: which I think is a beautiful, beautiful point for our
Speaker 1: species to be at. So we mentioned that Parsons makes
Speaker 1: a lot of money. He encounters significant amounts of cash,
Speaker 1: as the US government continues to buy his groups liquid
Speaker 1: jet fuel first and jet engines designed to run on
Speaker 1: this fuel.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This allows him to start holding his own elaborate oto
Speaker 1: rituals at his house, which becomes known as wait for it,
Speaker 1: the Parsonage.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's pretty great. It's okay, the parsonage. Well, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: we ben so let's say I've got really nothing to do.
Speaker 2: It's a Friday night. I hear about this new group.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go hang out at the parsonage here. It's
Speaker 2: a good place to be. What am I going to
Speaker 2: get into while I'm over there?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, Pat. You're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: If you can get in the door, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: into a crazy time. These rituals are very not safe
Speaker 1: for work as we call it today, and they are
Speaker 1: wild for the standards of the time. There are people
Speaker 1: shouting chants during massive orgies, and on multiple occasions, the
Speaker 1: Parsons is taking steps to attempt to conceive the Antichrist
Speaker 1: the moonchild, Wow, straight from the invisibles. Yes, while he
Speaker 1: is at the forefront of rocket technology, he is attempting
Speaker 1: to be at the forefront of antichrist advocacy.
Speaker 2: Wow. And then he he finishes up, has the I'm
Speaker 2: assuming the help clean up afterwards, because you don't want
Speaker 2: to do that on your own, I'm assuming. And he's wealthy,
Speaker 2: as we said. Then you, you know, put on your
Speaker 2: lap coat and head on into work on Monday.
Speaker 1: I mean we've all been in situations like that, right, sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good fences make good coworker relationships. Ok, that's probably That's
Speaker 1: probably what his buddies are saying to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, look, man, he's getting that stuff. But man,
Speaker 2: he's really got some great ideas.
Speaker 1: But when he's here, he's here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty one, things get even stranger. Parsons
Speaker 1: engages in an ongoing sexual relationship with his wife's sister,
Speaker 1: who is seventeen years old at the time. Oh, underage person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And here's the problem. The group he's a part of,
Speaker 2: the ORTO the OTO. It's kind of encouraged because it's
Speaker 2: something that he wants and that it's all that matters.
Speaker 1: And it seems consensual to everyone involved, so they don't
Speaker 1: call the cops or anything.
Speaker 2: And well there's a flip side of the coin too, right,
Speaker 2: Parsons wife is also in a sexual relationship with one
Speaker 2: of these other most senior members of the OTO.
Speaker 1: So there's this very open attitude towards sex and very
Speaker 1: fluid relationships. Right, yeah, monogamy, that's something for the squares.
Speaker 1: The Pasadena police, meanwhile, have been receiving repeated complaints about
Speaker 1: unspeakable acts occurring at the parsonage. Imagine forties, you're one
Speaker 1: of the neighbors. You live in a nice neighborhood. You're
Speaker 1: probably wealthy, as you don't you're probably well off if
Speaker 1: you're living next door to Jack Parsons, and then you're
Speaker 1: hearing these crazy chants, these moans of sexual ecstasy, and
Speaker 1: then maybe some ritualistic screaming. You don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2: It is funny that at in every instance they begin
Speaker 2: as a simple noise complaint and the officers show up,
Speaker 2: and then they find themselves in a oh, very different situation.
Speaker 2: But there's nothing you do privacy of your own home.
Speaker 1: Just keep it down, please, I guess you're right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that's true. I don't know what the blue laws
Speaker 2: were at the time where he is, like, if he
Speaker 2: could actually be arrested for doing something in his home.
Speaker 2: I sawtomy in the like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe consumption of an illegal substance.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: The counter culture is like the Pasadena police Force, well
Speaker 1: aware of Parsons' activity, and in a way he becomes
Speaker 1: a precursor to the common thing that we have here
Speaker 1: in the US today on the West Coast, the billionaire
Speaker 1: bro tech guru Tony Stark esque genius. Right, he makes
Speaker 1: massive amounts of money from his innovations. He spends massive
Speaker 1: amounts of money partying, pursuing alternative lifestyles. And we can
Speaker 1: compare it today to tech gurus go microdosing at burning Man.
Speaker 2: Sure, and also come out with incredible technology, or at
Speaker 2: least own the companies that come out with incredible technology.
Speaker 1: Right, And there's this sense that they are somewhat above
Speaker 1: the law of the common peasant.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Note quick cut in your head, folks to that picture
Speaker 1: of Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan Show smoking a
Speaker 1: massive blunt and you know his employees can't do that
Speaker 1: because there would be problems with their security clearances for SpaceX.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really didn't think that was real when I
Speaker 2: just saw the thumbnail from YouTube.
Speaker 1: That nice photoshop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's funny. Oh wow, I mean, I it's marijuana.
Speaker 2: It's fine. It's legal there.
Speaker 1: It's very close to being legal across the US, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's just the money got too good.
Speaker 1: That's what happens. The morality this is a different episode,
Speaker 1: but the the racism disguised as morality, that was the
Speaker 1: original reason for the criminalization of marijuana. Just it doesn't
Speaker 1: match up to money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That being said, we encourage you not to do drugs,
Speaker 2: everyone listening, unless you want to. And that's all the
Speaker 2: whole of the law.
Speaker 1: So there, Hey there were oh man, no comment, no comment.
Speaker 1: So the counter culture aware of this. This guy is
Speaker 1: an La Musk a Tony Stark. Soon, another figure of
Speaker 1: California's underground scene joins the activities, a fellow named el
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard. Oh that's true, Pauk. We got to sound
Speaker 1: cue great man. Who's l Ron Hubbard?
Speaker 2: El Ron Hubbard is the father of a little thing
Speaker 2: called dionetics. It's a philosophy that he created, that he summoned,
Speaker 2: and he would later change his mind and create the
Speaker 2: concepts that would become a full on religion scientology.
Speaker 1: A religion for tax purposes.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, I don't know. L Ron Hubbard
Speaker 2: was thinking.
Speaker 1: Well, he joins the gang. He joins the parsonage in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, and around this time Fumboys International remaws
Speaker 1: their interest in parson and both because they're concerned about
Speaker 1: his unorthodox private life, his open practice of the dark arts,
Speaker 1: and still his political inclinations. These may lead him to
Speaker 1: be considered untrustworthy or sympathetic to communist forces.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and in the worst he would be the
Speaker 2: worst kind of mole, the person who is at the
Speaker 2: top creating technology that will then be used. You know,
Speaker 2: he's not some he's not a rocket scientist employed by
Speaker 2: this thing. He is the rocket scientist running septualizing thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's at the point of expertise where his best
Speaker 1: guess qualifies as leading scientific theory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want iron Man as an enemy.
Speaker 1: Right there you go, that's a good quote. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't want iron Man as an enemy. And also, a
Speaker 1: someone who switched or became a spy or double agent
Speaker 1: or a mole for ideological purposes is much more difficult
Speaker 1: to control than someone who does it because they're in
Speaker 1: or they're being blackmailed, for instance, right, yea much more dangerous. Also,
Speaker 1: so they're like, Okay, the guy's happy. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's hurt anybody, and we need rockets. At this time,
Speaker 1: there's some personal problems that he encounters. The person that
Speaker 1: he's infatuated with Sarah.
Speaker 2: That's the sister of Helen, his wife.
Speaker 1: She becomes infatuated with l Ron mister Steel your girl Hubbard.
Speaker 2: Oh yep, that's him.
Speaker 1: And this makes Parsons insanely upset and he starts delving
Speaker 1: into He's moving up in the ranks of the OTO,
Speaker 1: by the way, on the time, getting into leadership positions.
Speaker 1: He develops a different focus. He has a deeper interest
Speaker 1: in witchcraft and the darker side of magic. He's fascinated
Speaker 1: by Poltergeist, by spiritual apparitions.
Speaker 2: Oh man. Feeling really tortured at this time.
Speaker 1: And being always an innovator, right, he decides to try
Speaker 1: and create a new lover, to create his own lover
Speaker 1: and elemental.
Speaker 2: Wow like like a like a Golam lover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like like a thought form. He wants to manifest.
Speaker 1: Got you a perfect lover? Uh? Sarah runs off with
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard, and so Parsons takes part in these
Speaker 1: very unusual rituals that are supposed to help him manifest
Speaker 1: his thought into the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He uh, he plants his seed with magic tablets.
Speaker 2: Yep ah, and he does it to the sound of music,
Speaker 2: not the not the musical. Yeah, but there's well and well,
Speaker 2: this is something that's at the basis of most chaos
Speaker 2: or some chaos magic, where where seed is planted on
Speaker 2: a piece of paper that has writing and or a
Speaker 2: symbol on it that is then burned a lot of
Speaker 2: times like a roun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and shortly after this, Parsons meets a woman
Speaker 1: named Marjorie Cameron, and he feels as if this is
Speaker 1: the elemental force that he has invoked somehow conjured. She
Speaker 1: becomes his muse, and he sees his scientific and spiritual
Speaker 1: pursuits as increasingly intertwined, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he sees himself as of the line of great thinkers
Speaker 1: like Isaac Newton who totally totally may breakthroughs in physics,
Speaker 1: but then also totally believed in alchemy and practiced.
Speaker 2: It and thought that perhaps the science was part of
Speaker 2: the alchemy.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, So Parsons is the same way rocketry is
Speaker 1: magic and magic is rocketry. For example, when he works
Speaker 1: on his experiments in the desert, he recites a pagan
Speaker 1: poem to pan. You can imagine how weird this sounds
Speaker 1: to the g men. Yeah, who are listening in the
Speaker 1: fun boys are not You're not having fun.
Speaker 2: This is not as fun as It's not as fun.
Speaker 1: As the boys thought. Persons eventually runs into financial trouble
Speaker 1: after he gets involved with bad investments associated with al
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard. This is a pattern Hubbert goes on to repeat.
Speaker 2: By the way, is this the whole yacht thing? Mm
Speaker 2: hmmmm the yacht boys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hubbard had convinced him to take money and travel
Speaker 1: to Miami and buy three yachts.
Speaker 2: Oh, three yachts.
Speaker 1: He has a yacht thing. El Ron Hubbard has a yacht.
Speaker 2: At a time. That's that's that's a lot, okay.
Speaker 1: Many of the academics that are suspected of being Communist
Speaker 1: sympathizers are blacklisted as the Cold War sets in post
Speaker 1: World War two, and this means a Parsons and a
Speaker 1: lot of his colleagues lose their security clearances, and without
Speaker 1: their security clearances, they are out of jobs.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, that is that is a sweeping change
Speaker 2: that starts coming through around that time, and then I
Speaker 2: can imagine someone who's associated with something like the Oto
Speaker 2: and order the those old communist beliefs that he even
Speaker 2: maybe had just back in the day that the Fun
Speaker 2: Boys know about. I can imagine him just getting xed
Speaker 2: off that list. Right.
Speaker 1: So he found himself having to earn money as a
Speaker 1: manual laborer, a hospital orderly, a car mechanic. He was
Speaker 1: pushed out of science, so he dove even deeper into
Speaker 1: the occult. He ended up working for the film industry
Speaker 1: making explosives, creating pyrotechnics, and just before he took a
Speaker 1: trip to Mexico, or just before he was going to
Speaker 1: leave on a tripa planned in nineteen fifty two, he
Speaker 1: received a large order of explosives for a movie and
Speaker 1: while getting everything together, there was an explosion involving mercury.
Speaker 1: Parsons suffered fatal wounds and he died at the age
Speaker 1: of thirty seven.
Speaker 2: This was only thirty seven. He's done all of this,
Speaker 2: that's crazy.
Speaker 1: He his death was ruled an accident. His friends suspected
Speaker 1: it was a state sponsored conspiracy to remove this dangerous
Speaker 1: mad genius from the fold. And that's where it stops.
Speaker 1: Parsons controversial private life led him to be wiped from
Speaker 1: NASA history and that magic stuff aside, esoteric orders aside.
Speaker 1: That's another true cover up, and for a long time
Speaker 1: his role was not acknowledged. According to biographer George Pendall,
Speaker 1: Parsons was written out of the history books, his role
Speaker 1: in rocketry discredited for decades simply because his supernatural beliefs
Speaker 1: did not fit into the other supernatural beliefs that were
Speaker 1: more dominant at the time.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it.
Speaker 2: It really is, It really is, and I can identify
Speaker 2: with that holy mackerel. It makes you wonder about today
Speaker 2: the people at the bleeding edge of science, what are
Speaker 2: their closed door religious beliefs White biohackers and stuff. Yeah, biohackers.
Speaker 2: I mean even like maybe you're Elin Musk and some
Speaker 2: of those people out there right now that can essentially
Speaker 2: do anything they want to do at any time. What
Speaker 2: are their spiritual beliefs? And is there anything that's hidden
Speaker 2: enough that we won't know about it? Oh?
Speaker 1: I see, Yeah, that's a fascinating question. Anything you know
Speaker 1: what you had the opportunity to ask, oh, someone about
Speaker 1: this earlier today? You and Paul both we didn't forget folks.
Speaker 2: I missed that opportunity.
Speaker 1: There is a story here, and it's a story that
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed hearing. I know that we've been going long,
Speaker 1: but can can you give us just like the broad Strokes,
Speaker 1: the brad Strokes.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're the here're the broad Strokes. Right before we
Speaker 2: started recording this episode, I walked in. I was heading
Speaker 2: in a little bit early so I could continue.
Speaker 1: Researching here, and I was running late.
Speaker 2: Ben was not quite in the office yet, and our
Speaker 2: president of our network, his name's Connell Burn. He was
Speaker 2: showing somebody around the office and I'm gathering up my
Speaker 2: computer and my books and everything, and I'm heading in.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think about that because our
Speaker 2: president walks around with important people all the time. I
Speaker 2: don't know who walks around with Anyway, Conall says, hey, Matt,
Speaker 2: this is my friend Brad and I you know, I
Speaker 2: just turn and put my hand out and it's just
Speaker 2: is Bradley Cooper standing there staring at me with those
Speaker 2: beautiful blue eyes. My goodness, they're striking. But anyway, here's
Speaker 2: the thing, and I hope, I hope he wouldn't be
Speaker 2: upset to mention this. But we begin chatting and we
Speaker 2: get into some conversations about the Apollo missions, and then
Speaker 2: he wants to talk a little bit about September eleventh,
Speaker 2: and then we want to talk about a little bit
Speaker 2: about these other conspiracies. And the guy I think would
Speaker 2: fit right in with us. And perhaps that's just because
Speaker 2: he's such an enigmatic person that he will engage you
Speaker 2: in anything you want to talk about. But I did
Speaker 2: not bring up either of those subjects. So yeah, there
Speaker 2: you go. So there you go.
Speaker 1: How Matt and Paul met Bradley Cooper.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Paul met Bradley a little later over by
Speaker 2: the water cooler, and they had a very nice conversation
Speaker 2: about his new movie coming out by the way, that
Speaker 2: he is his directorial debut and he's working with Lady
Speaker 2: Gagats called a Star Is Born. There you go, plug
Speaker 2: for Bradley Cooper.
Speaker 1: You're welcome, Brad and thank you everyone for tuning in.
Speaker 1: We want to know where you land on this. I
Speaker 1: think now the story of Jack Parsons and his legacy
Speaker 1: is a little more apparent in the public sphere. It's
Speaker 1: more common knowledge. But do you feel that as a society,
Speaker 1: our norms limit our ability to innovate technologically, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like like the US government, and this
Speaker 1: may apply. This surely applies to other governments as well.
Speaker 1: The US government in the past had a very difficult
Speaker 1: time hiring quality hackers because of their affinity for drugs.
Speaker 1: And you know, they were brilliant minds, brilliant computer people,
Speaker 1: but they didn't want to stop smoking weed or stop
Speaker 1: you know, doing whatever drug they do. And they have
Speaker 1: to be clean to pass the security clearance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: So eventually they, I believe in many cases, eventually the
Speaker 1: US government just folded and made exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 1: Do you think those exceptions should exist? Let us know.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, check out
Speaker 1: our community page. Here's where it gets crazy, where there
Speaker 1: are tons of fascinating conversations in the mean game is
Speaker 1: a double plus good.
Speaker 2: And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
Speaker 2: get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
Speaker 2: One of the best is to give us a call.
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