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Parsons is the captivating subject of a new biography called "Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons," published by quirky Feral House, which bills itself as the "publisher that refuses to be domesticated." (The author is listed as John Carter, although Feral says Carter is the pseudonym of a writer who has withheld his name so as not to jeopardize his job.) It's not the most artfully written book, but the story is so fascinating it transcends the author's rather pedestrian style. And, unlike the many accounts of Parsons' life you can find online, "Sex and Rockets" provides a fairly objective telling of the story that seems to have intrigued many an occultist writer.

Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons By John Carter Feral House 236 pages Buy Sex and Rockets

The stuff of myth since his death in a mysterious laboratory explosion in 1952, the darkly handsome Parsons is sometimes referred to as the "James Dean" of American rocketry. His innovations in solid and liquid rocket fuel during the 1930s and '40s responded to the challenges of the era: developing a fuel source that would burn long enough and with sufficient thrust to reach outer space. And his successes propelled rocketry forward; America's space program owes much to Parsons' rocket design and innovations -- and in 1972 the International Astronomical Union honored him by naming Parson's Crater on the dark side of the moon. After co-founding the JPL -- which his admirers referred to as "Jack Parsons' Laboratory" -- Parsons started Aerojet Corp., now the world's largest rocket producer and manufacturer of solid-fuel boosters for space shuttles.

But while his peers considered him one of the top rocket scientists, "Carter's" biography suggests that Parsons' contribution to American rocketry was overshadowed by the professionally questionable intrigues of Parsons' life: He messed with the Enochian Tablets (a magical alphabet) and took part in bizarre rituals involving menstrual blood and masturbation. Not surprisingly, Carter implies in his plain but serviceable prose, Parsons' professional reputation suffered -- and yet, he was something of a failure as a worshipper of the occult. After joining a young L. Ron Hubbard in an exotic attempt to communicate with the whore of Babylon and being hand-picked to succeed Crowley as a leader of the quasi-Masonic organization, the Ordo Templi Orientis, Parsons never managed to engage his own group of followers.

Carter makes a laudable effort to assess Parsons and his contribution to the worlds of technology and Gnosticism as he addresses the question: Was Jack Parsons a New Age revolutionary and prophet or simply a Southern California crackpot?

Next page | Parsons tries to conceive a "moonchild"