Jack Parsons - The Magician's Laboratory cover art

Jack Parsons - The Magician's Laboratory

Jack Parsons - The Magician's Laboratory

Listen for free

View show details

About this listen

 In this revealing episode, Alexandra Reeves takes us behind the closed doors of 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue, where Jack Parsons transformed his Victorian mansion into one of the most extraordinary research facilities in American history—part cutting-edge chemical laboratory, part mystical temple, part bohemian commune. We explore the remarkable community that gathered around Parsons in the 1940s, where rocket engineers discussed propulsion theory with poets, artists sketched ritual diagrams alongside mathematical equations, and the boundaries between science and magic dissolved completely. This was the setting for Parsons' most ambitious experiments in consciousness and reality manipulation. The episode delves deep into Parsons' systematic approach to magical practice, revealing how he applied rigorous scientific methodology to ancient occult techniques. Through fragments of his surviving magical diaries, we discover his detailed documentation of ritual variables, environmental conditions, and measurable outcomes—treating magic as a natural phenomenon governed by discoverable laws. Central to this episode is Parsons' fateful encounter with L. Ron Hubbard in 1945 and their collaboration on the "Babalon Working"—a series of elaborate rituals conducted in the Mojave Desert that Parsons believed would summon a goddess and herald a new age of human evolution. We examine the psychological techniques, the documented experiences, and the apparent synchronicities that convinced Parsons he was reshaping reality itself. But beneath the remarkable achievements lay the seeds of destruction. We trace how Hubbard's charismatic manipulation and eventual betrayal would shatter both Parsons' magical partnership and his faith in human nature, setting the stage for the tragic downfall that was to come. This episode reveals the hidden world where America's space program intersected with its occult underground, showing how the same creative ferment that launched rockets also spawned new approaches to consciousness and human potential.

https://amzn.to/3QLIU93
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.