The Teachers
A Teacher
Jack Parsons
A rocket pioneer who fused experimental propulsion with ceremonial magick.
The transmission
Jack Parsons was an American rocket engineer and chemist who was a principal founder of Aerojet Engineering and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1939 he converted to Thelema, the religious movement founded by Aleister Crowley, and joined the Ordo Templi Orientis. He died in 1952 in a home laboratory explosion at the age of 37.
What they gave
He invented the first castable composite rocket propellant and advanced both liquid- and solid-fuel rockets, while leading Thelemic ritual work in California.
The line they stand in
He became leader of the O.T.O.’s Agape Lodge in California in 1942, the principal North American branch of Crowley’s order.