The rocket scientist who summoned demons: The true horror story of Jack Parsons
AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication
In the winter of 1946, rocket pioneer Jack Parsons and aspiring sci‑fi writer L. Ron Hubbard met in California’s Mojave Desert to conduct the “Babalon Working,” a series of Thelemic rituals intended to summon the feminine deity Babalon and manifest an otherworldly entity. Parsons, a self‑taught chemist who helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and laid groundwork for the later Space Race, had been leading the Agape Lodge of Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis since 1943. Hubbard, then unknown as the future founder of Scientology, lived in Parsons’s Pasadena home and was recruited for the occult experiments despite lacking formal magical training. The bizarre collaboration blended cutting‑edge rocketry with ceremonial magic, drawing scholarly interest for its rare intersection of early American space research and esoteric practice.
💡 Why It Matters
- · The episode reveals how the personal mysticism of a key rocketry figure briefly intertwined with the nascent ideas of a future religious movement, offering a unique lens on the cultural currents that shaped mid‑century scientific ambition.
