True story about the Founder of Jet Propulsion Lab, Aleister Crowley, and L. Ron Hubbard
"Some people" say a portal to Hell (Devil's Gate) was opened, and California has been suffering ever since.Really strange and mesmerizing true story!
"Strange Angel" coming to CBS All Access in June
Go down the rabbit hole: Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)I fix.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)one of whom was Jack Parsons, who grew into the larger "suicide squad" because of their dangerous experiments. Parsons was one of a half dozen or so, but Frank Malina is the "rocket boy" it wouldn't have happened without.
They received enormous help through teaching, mentoring and other assistance from a CalTech professor, Theodore von Karman, who helped them form an aeronautical lab and to set up their later experiments on the site JPL now occupies. Von Karman became JPL's first director when it was formally established, but under another name their activities had started taking on military contracts in 1939.
Poor Parsons's personal life was tumultuous, very distracting from his rocket work, and far less successful, of course. His involvement with Aleister, and later Hubbard, happened around the time his brief contribution to world history occurred. His unsavory and possibly illegal personal activities caused his connection with the JPL, officially founded in 1943, to be severed the next year. .
Two very interesting stories (fascinating for Parsons for those who like long stories about self-destructive and often contemptible mad geniuses), but quickly diverging and only peripherally connected, not causally. Or perhaps I should say three interesting stories. Frank Malina later went to the UN for another distinguished career.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)If something terrible happens, I'm going with "portal to Hell" as the more important story.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)is riding the beast.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)And was trying to sell his science fiction novels.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Hubbard and JPL founder Jim Parsons wrote "Babalon Working."
http://blacklies.xenu.ca/about-the-babalon-working/