In January 1939, Parsons attended his first Gnostic Mass of the Church of Thelema at a large wooden house on Winona Boulevard in a run-down section of Hollywood. The ceremony held hints of Catholic mass but with an intense sexual motif. Parsons met the group's leader, Wilfred Smith, who invited him to attend weekly mass, suggesting that he might first attend one of the secular events at the house, such as the annual Walt Whitman birthday party. Parsons began attending meetings sporadically but was hesitant about joining, having mixed feelings about the group and its leader.
Parsons was initially attracted to the group because it was the creation of Aleister Crowley; Parsons had become enamored of Crowley's book Konx Om Pax. Crowley was a British mountaineer, writer, drug user, early yoga enthusiast (author of Yoga for Yahoos), and magick practitioner who was determined to start his own religion of "Thelema." In 1912 he joined and later seized control of a small, quasi-Masonic organization named the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO, in order to spread the religion of Thelema around the world. By 1939, however, Crowley was a heroin addict in poor health and with diminishing finances. Both Crowley and Parsons had been influenced by Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough, a book which suggests that powerful primal forces link mankind through time and space and that ritual magic is similar to science.
Despite his dislike of Los Angeles, Crowley was thrilled when OTO member Smith asked for permission to form a branch of the OTO there. Crowley hoped Smith might capture a "Rich Man from the West" who could bankroll future projects. Smith, however, was unable to attract a substantial benefactor, instead pulling in an unusual array of "communists and pacifists." Harry Hay, who later became the father of the gay rights movement, was hired to play the organ for the Gnostic Mass, occasionally undermining the proceedings by slipping in a dirgelike version of "Yes, We Have No Bananas."
That same year, Malina gave a lecture in Washington, D.C. on how strapping rockets under the wings of a plane could greatly improve its performance. He changed the word "rocket" to "jet" when giving the lecture because of the poor reputation of rocketry. As a result of this lecture, the National Academy of Sciences gave the Suicide Squad $1000 to prepare a proposal for full-time research into Jet-Assisted Take-Off (JATO). The core group of Forman, Malina, and Parsons were able to deliver proof by June that they could produce a rocket providing "superior performance" for aircraft and were granted an additional $10,000 by NAS. Four long years of poverty had eroded the group's initial qualms about working for the military, and they were pleased that they would be creating rockets not as munitions but as aids for aircraft.
After several more mishaps, Caltech told the group that they had to move their dangerous experiments off campus, so they leased six acres of the Arroyo Seco from the City of Pasadena, on which they built sheet-metal buildings to conduct experiments in. These buildings unfortunately became extremely hot to work in.
Within a couple of months, the project expanded to twelve workers, all of whom had to undergo a security check due to rumors of the Nazis' interest in rockets.
In 1941, Jack and Helen Parsons were initiated into the Agape Lodge of the OTO. Shortly before their initiation, Helen's sixteen-year-old half-sister Betty had moved in with the couple. Parsons later persuaded her to join the OTO as well. Parsons wrote Smith that he had been a lonely child and that the OTO felt like a large family with Smith as the father figure he had longed for.
The Suicide Squad soon began to stage successful tests of their JATOs. In a public relations photo from the first successful test, which is reprinted frequently in rocketry textbooks, Parsons is unfortunately cropped from view. Because of their success, the NAS renewed their grant and increased it to $125,000. Due to their association with the military, however, levels of security soared. The FBI began to investigate the group's past flirtation with Communism and the extracurricular activities of Parsons.
Parsons, Forman, Malina, and a few others decided to form a company, the Aerojet Engineering Corporation, to produce JATOs for the armed forces. Apollo Smith was lured back as chief engineer. While working for the company, Parsons invented a whole new category of rocket fuel that used asphalt rather than black powder. This discovery caused a paradigm shift in the world of rocketry. Although he would not live to see space travel become a reality, the booster rockets that thrust the space shuttle into space are modeled after Parsons' invention.
In June 1941, Parsons began an affair with Betty while Helen was away on vacation. Betty was seventeen, ten years younger than Parsons. Parsons and Helen fought violently over the matter, but Helen eventually found solace in a relationship with Wilfrid Smith. Parsons embarked open an open relationship with Betty but couldn't keep himself from falling for her.
Parsons eventually persuaded the OTO to move from Winona Boulevard to a house at 1003 Orange Grove, which was the former Pasadena home of lumber millionaire and Caltech benefactor Arthur Fleming. Parsons helped finance the move, setting up the new place as communal housing for the eclectic group.
Parsons appeared to have been experimenting with cocaine and amphetamines during this period, possibly to cope with the pressures of Aerojet and GALCIT. Internal feuding at the OTO eventually caused an exodus of members from the house, but Parsons filled the vacancies with various friends and acquaintances. He worked hard on learning magic rituals but also participated in the bacchanalian parties at the lodge.
Crowley eventually grew disenchanted with Smith, and after Smith and Helen had a son, Kwen, Crowley devised a scheme to rid the lodge of him. He told Smith that he was the incarnation of a God and that he must journey into the desert to figure out which one. As a result, Smith, Helen, and Kwen moved to a turkey farm in the desert town of Barstow. Parsons gained a closer relationship with Crowley and began to call him "father."
Parsons continued to associate with science fiction writers. He met Robert Heinlein at a meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society and was invited to attend the Manana Literary Society meetings at Heinlein's Laurel Canyon home. Those attending included William White, Clive Cartmill, Jack Williamson, L. Ron Hubbard, and Fritz Lang.
In 1944, the GALCIT project was given carte blanche to move from developing aircraft rockets to developing guided missiles. As a result the Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project was reorganized and renamed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the number of workers in the Arroyo grew from eighty-five in 1943 to nearly four-hundred by the war's end. As operations expanded, the original rocketeers became less involved. Parsons still dreamed of travel to the moon, but it was becoming clear that the military was directing rocketry research solely into warfare.
Aerojet began receiving such large orders from the Navy that a search for outside investors became necessary. The General Tire and Rubber Company agreed to buy a majority shareholding in the company, but the Caltech contingent within Aerojet decided that Parsons and Forman would have to go if the sale became a reality. Parsons and Forman were persuaded to sell their stock for about $11,000 each; by the 1960s, each of their shares would have been worth over twelve million. New rocket companies began popping up across the country, and the era of the independent rocketeer ended.
At the end of the war, L. Ron Hubbard announced his intentions of moving into 1003 Orange Grove. He quickly charmed Parsons, and the two would often fence in the living room. Hubbard seduced his way through the women in the lodge, eventually settling on Betty. Despite their open relationship, this disturbed Parsons greatly. He became obsessed with his magick rituals and decided to carry out a series that would produce his "Elemental mate." Although Parsons had evidence that his magick was working, it is possible that Betty and Hubbard were playing with his mind. Three months later, however, an attractive redhead named Candy Cameron appeared at the lodge and began a relationship with him.
Parsons then entered a period of excitement bordering on mania. He became convinced that he could incarnate a goddess on earth named Babalon. He journeyed to the desert where he completed a jumbled work entitled the "Book of Babalon."
Exhausted after his desert excursion, Parsons declared that he was returning to practical matters. He made plans to sell the house at 1003 and disperse the inhabitants. During the Babalon period, Parsons had been persuaded to enter into a business partnership with Hubbard and Betty called "Allied Enterprises." Parsons invested his entire savings-- $20,970.80-- while Hubbard invested $1,183.91. Betty and Hubbard left for Miami with a plan to buy three yachts that they would sail to the West Coast and sell at a profit. Eventually Parsons realized that he had been had. He intercepted the duo in Miami and took Hubbard to court. Hubbard gave Parsons a promissory note for $2900; Parsons dropped further charges after Betty made threats concerning the beginning of their romance, when she was still a minor. A month later, Hubbard married Betty.
Years later, in founding a worldwide religion, Hubbard eventually succeeded where Crowley had failed. Whereas Crowley's Thelema focused around Old World concerns with mysticism, magic, and secret societies, Hubbard's Scientology focused on the New World's fascination with science and self-improvement.
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