Just released last week by Amazon Prime Video: “Jack Parsons: The Devil and the Divine,” episode 6 in the “Lore” docudrama series. Imdb says:
“In 1922 only one person, Jack Parsons, believed that we could send a rocket into space and conjure a demon. By 1952 he had done both. But all he cared about was the Scarlet Woman he had both summoned, and lost, Marjorie Cameron.”
fathersonholygore.com‘s review says, in part:
Jack was inspired by childhood heroes like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Jules Verne to go on to be the visionary rocketeer he became as an adult. A steady diet of science fiction and real life in equal doses helped him feed his quest for knowledge. We get lots of historical information about Parsons and his trajectory, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and his relationship to Theodore von Kármán. The lab specifically was where things really took off. He and the lads were dubbed as the infamous Suicide Squad because of their daring experimentation. And Jack’s strange ways of doing things – his ‘spellcraft’ – wasn’t working for his partners, who found it childish and silly.
He was insistent that magick was the key. Ever since he was a boy, he knew magick and science was one and the same.
“At a certain point, Jack started writing to Aleister Crowley (Ian Gelder) — ‘The Wickedest Man in the World.’ Crowley had started the religion and spiritual philosophy, Thelema. This involved ceremonies, rituals, and sex magick. People assumed he was worshipping the devil. At twenty-four, Jack chose ‘sex over cannibalism’ and converted from Catholicism into the Thelema order. Parsons and Crowley never met, though they corresponded often via letters. The Great Beast himself helped Jack see finding his ‘Scarlet Woman’ he saw during the rocket’s explosion was a key to manifesting his will in the world.
“So Jack went back to the desert with nothing but magick and blood and drugs. He sought out the woman of his visions, tripping on hallucinogenic substances until the answers came to him. Later, in 1945, Jack’s polyamory and his differently lifestyle made people uncomfortable, so he was pushed out of JPL.”
Meanwhile, Rich Kaczyinski opined on FB:
“They may mispronounce ‘Crowley,’ dress him as an Illuminati admiral, and get the Gnostic Mass wrong (quelle surprise) BUT they use the names of actual people, get some significant things right, and slip in a few details that made me smile…like when Cameron hands Jack a picture of his soul. Some things are inaccurate. They also gloss over the details of his relationship with Cameron (who nevertheless plays a significant role in this episode) and skip other events entirely (like Hubbard and the boat) to fit the 43-minute format. Still, I thought this dramatization of Jack Parsons’ life–including nice use of archival photos and footage–was worth the watch. Be sure to pause the end credits and see if you recognize any of the folks who provided archival material.”
