Episodes

  • Jack Parsons Trailer

    Jack Parsons Trailer
    Aug 22 2025
    In this series premiere, AI host Alexandra Reeves introduces us to one of history's most paradoxical figures—Marvel Whiteside "Jack" Parsons, the brilliant chemist who co-founded NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory while secretly practicing Aleister Crowley's occult magic. From his unconventional childhood in Depression-era Los Angeles to his groundbreaking rocket fuel innovations at Caltech, we explore how a self-taught scientist with no formal engineering credentials became instrumental in launching America's space program. But Parsons lived a double life that would have shocked his scientific colleagues: by night, he transformed his Pasadena mansion into a temple where he conducted elaborate rituals, believing he could bridge the gap between empirical science and mystical experience. This episode examines how Parsons' early fascination with both explosives and ancient mythology set him on a collision course with conventional thinking. We dive into the formation of Caltech's "Suicide Squad," his revolutionary solid rocket fuel discoveries, and his simultaneous descent into the shadowy world of ceremonial magic. Through declassified documents and surviving magical diaries, Alexandra reveals how Parsons saw no contradiction between launching rockets into space and summoning ancient gods—viewing both as aspects of humanity's evolution beyond terrestrial limitations. The episode sets the stage for understanding how one man's refusal to accept boundaries between science and spirituality would lead to innovations that enabled space exploration while pioneering approaches to consciousness decades ahead of their time. It's a story that challenges everything we think we know about the relationship between rational inquiry and mystical experience.
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    1 min
  • Jack Parsons - Final Years and Explosive End

    Jack Parsons - Final Years and Explosive End
    Aug 22 2025
    In this haunting final episode, Alexandra Reeves chronicles the tragic downfall of Jack Parsons—from celebrated rocket pioneer to suspected subversive, from magical visionary to paranoid exile, culminating in the mysterious laboratory explosion that ended his life at just 37 years old. The episode begins in 1946, as Cold War paranoia transforms post-war America into a surveillance state. We follow Parsons' devastating fall from grace as FBI investigators compile a 300-page file on his unconventional lifestyle, political associations, and occult practices. His security clearance is revoked, effectively ending his aerospace career and reducing the co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to conducting small-scale consulting work from his garage. Through declassified documents and surviving testimonies, we explore how the betrayal by L. Ron Hubbard—who fled with Parsons' money and girlfriend—shattered both his finances and his faith in human nature. The Orange Grove mansion, once a vibrant intellectual salon, becomes a shadow of its former self as friends abandon him and his magical community dissolves. The episode examines Parsons' final desperate experiments, his increasing paranoia about government surveillance, and his plans to flee to Mexico. We investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding the June 17, 1952 laboratory explosion that killed him—was it truly an accident, or something more sinister? Through careful analysis of witness testimonies, police reports, and physical evidence, Alexandra presents the various theories while exploring the deeper tragedy of a brilliant mind destroyed by a society unable to accommodate unconventional genius. This concluding episode reveals how Parsons was systematically erased from official aerospace history, only to be rediscovered decades later as both his scientific innovations and consciousness experiments proved remarkably ahead of their time.

    https://amzn.to/3QLIU93
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    24 mins
  • Jack Parsons - The Magician's Laboratory

    Jack Parsons - The Magician's Laboratory
    Aug 22 2025
    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
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    25 mins
  • Jack Parsons - The Rocket Scientist Who Danced with Devils

    Jack Parsons - The Rocket Scientist Who Danced with Devils
    Aug 22 2025
    In this series premiere, AI host Alexandra Reeves introduces us to one of history's most paradoxical figures—Marvel Whiteside "Jack" Parsons, the brilliant chemist who co-founded NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory while secretly practicing Aleister Crowley's occult magic. From his unconventional childhood in Depression-era Los Angeles to his groundbreaking rocket fuel innovations at Caltech, we explore how a self-taught scientist with no formal engineering credentials became instrumental in launching America's space program. But Parsons lived a double life that would have shocked his scientific colleagues: by night, he transformed his Pasadena mansion into a temple where he conducted elaborate rituals, believing he could bridge the gap between empirical science and mystical experience. This episode examines how Parsons' early fascination with both explosives and ancient mythology set him on a collision course with conventional thinking. We dive into the formation of Caltech's "Suicide Squad," his revolutionary solid rocket fuel discoveries, and his simultaneous descent into the shadowy world of ceremonial magic. Through declassified documents and surviving magical diaries, Alexandra reveals how Parsons saw no contradiction between launching rockets into space and summoning ancient gods—viewing both as aspects of humanity's evolution beyond terrestrial limitations. The episode sets the stage for understanding how one man's refusal to accept boundaries between science and spirituality would lead to innovations that enabled space exploration while pioneering approaches to consciousness decades ahead of their time. It's a story that challenges everything we think we know about the relationship between rational inquiry and mystical experience.
    https://amzn.to/3QLIU93
    Show More Show Less
    24 mins