kaos

Jack Parsons & Babalon
Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter
(California: Feral House, 1999)
reviewed by Joel Biroco
“I proceeded with the rituals, noting a mounting tension, and the sense of a presence
inexpressibly poignant and desirable.”
Jack Parsons, The Book of Babalon, March 2, 1946
Philip Larkin once said that when reading a biography he starts halfway through because
by that time a person has got interesting. Jack Parsons of course did not live much past
the halfway mark, being blown up at the age of 37 in his Pasadena coachhouse on June
17, 1952. It is usually said that he dropped a vial of the detonator fulminate of mercury,
but cordite may have been involved, and details are sketchy not to say suspicious. He
was apparently moving explosives for transportation on a “vacation” to Mexico with his
wife, his “elemental mate” Marjorie Cameron, who was around the corner buying supplies
for a picnic when the explosion happened. Possibly it was murder by a Captain Kynette,
a car bomber Parsons testified against in 1938 who had recently been paroled, the theory
is discussed in the book, towards the end, by which time Parsons has grown into a very
interesting man indeed. Certainly Marjorie Cameron, who died in 1995 of cancer aged
73, an excellent artist, wrote in the Caliphate oto journal The Magical Link that she
believed it was murder and implied it was Kynette. Cameron played the Scarlet Woman
and Kali in Kenneth Anger’s 38 minute film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954,
recut in 1966 in a version intended to be watched on magic mushrooms).
Well-known to occultists for his 1946 Babalon Working, at which time he had studied
magick for seven years and had supervised at the Agapé Lodge of the oto in California
for four, Parsons’ life as a rocket scientist is not so well studied. Much of the first half of
the book is taken up with it, and, though important in getting a true picture of Jack—
John to friends at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory—Parsons, I must admit I did find it
bogged down in rocket fuel burn-times and it will not be the main focus of attention
here. Carter’s style of writing is somewhat lacklustre, and, more annoying, he rarely
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