John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons on October 2, 1914 – died June 17, 1952) 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. A psychologically unstable occultist and Thelemite he was one of the first American to take a keen interest in the writings of English author and Thelema's founder Aleister Crowley. In this capacity, he belonged to an American lodge of Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis .

Youth more less

Parsons and the Space Age more less

Parsons and the Occult more less

Babalon Working and Marjorie Cameron more less

Parsons, a science fiction fan, had read in the fantasy pulp magazine Unknown the 1940 original shorter version of Jack Williamson "Darker Than You Think". Parsons had identified the redheaded female love interest of the protagonist with Babalon or the "Scarlet Woman", who Crowley had prophesied would help to fulfill the Aeon of Horus and announce to the world the end of the Aeon of Osiris represented by Christianity and other patriarchal religions and social institutions. In 1946, Parsons and Hubbard (whose works Fear and Typewriter in the Sky, among others, had actually appeared in Unknown) participated in a work of ceremonial magic known as the Babalon Working. In simple terms, the Babalon Working was a ritual to summon this Scarlet Woman. Paul Rydeen writes:

The purpose of Parson's operation has been underemphasized. He sought to produce a magickal child who would be a product of her environment rather than of her heredity. Crowley himself describes the Moonchild in just these terms. The Babalon Working itself was preparation for what was to come: a Thelemic messiah.

Crowley himself, meanwhile, who lived in England at this time and had little say over the matter, however, disagreed strenuously. Though he had never met him, had no love for Hubbard and considered Hubbard a con artist with plans to abscond with Parson's money and current girlfriend.

Almost immediately he met Marjorie Cameron right in his own home, and regarded her as the Scarlet Woman and the fulfillment of the ritual. Parsons, Hubbard, and Cameron then proceeded to the next stage of the Babalon Working in which Cameron acted as Parsons' magical sexual partner with whom he could sire a Moonchild. (The creation of this Moonchild had been previously covered in fictional form in Crowley's novel Moonchild.) Parson ended the ritual by declaring it successful. A physical child was not conceived, but this did not affect the results of the ritual, as Parsons and Cameron soon married.

In January 1946, Parsons, Sarah Northrup, and Hubbard began a boat dealing company named Allied Enterprises. Parsons put in the sum of approximately $21,000 of which Hubbard contributed $1,200. Just as Crowley had predicted, Hubbard eventually abandoned Parsons and their business plans, leaving for a port in Florida with the boat and with Sarah. Parsons retreated to his hotel room and summoned a typhoon in retribution (viz., with an evocation of Bartzabel ... an intelligence presiding over the astrological forces associated with the planet Mars). A Florida court later dissolved the poorly-contracted business, ordered repayment of debts to Parsons, and awarded ownership of the boat to Hubbard. Parsons resigned his leadership of the Agapé Lodge in 1946.