Jack Parsons

John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons on October 2, 1914 – died June 17, 1952), better known as Jack Parsons, was an American rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute of Technology. He was one of the principal founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Aerojet Corp. He was also an occultist and one of the first Americans to take a keen interest in the writings of English author and Thelema's founder Aleister Crowley. In this capacity, he joined and eventually led an American lodge of Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Parsons was the only child of a rich but dysfunctional family. When he was a teenager his father walked out on his mother and him. Parsons landed a job with the...