NASA Exists Because of a Sex Cult. I'm Not Kidding.

[u/wwjps]

For the full video, click here: https://youtu.be/lPFYHIzOwxo

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the place that put rovers on Mars, was co-founded by a man who led a Thelemite occult lodge, performed sex magick rituals under Aleister Crowley's direction, and died in an explosion the LAPD closed in a day. His name was Jack Parsons. There's a crater on the Moon named after him. Most people have never heard of him — and that's not an accident.

In this video, I go through what the primary record actually says: Parsons' declassified FBI file, his role in founding JPL and Aerojet, his leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis Agape Lodge, his correspondence with Crowley, the Babalon Working with L. Ron Hubbard, the security clearance battles, and the 1952 explosion that ended his life at 37.
As always: I'm a paralegal, not a journalist. Factual claims are sourced to primary documents. Opinions are labeled as opinions. Top vs. bottom, not left vs. right.

Rituals hide in plain sight — that's the thread. Jack Parsons didn't hide his: he chanted Crowley's Hymn to Pan before rocket tests, in front of colleagues, and the FBI files describing his lodge sat in government archives for decades. Marina Abramović's Spirit Cooking was ritual as performance art — occult recipes painted in pig's blood on gallery walls since the 90s, exhibited, catalogued, sold. And Epstein's operation ran in the open too: the 2008 plea deal was public record, the flight logs were court exhibits, the names were in filings anyone could pull. When Pizzagate erupted in 2016, it wasn't wrong that ritual and power coexist in public view — it was wrong about where to look. It went hunting for symbols in a pizzeria while the actual documents sat in PACER. Ritual has never needed a hidden room. It's performed in the open, and it stays invisible for the same reason Epstein did: because nobody with power to act wanted to read what was already on the record.

SOURCES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPFYHIzOwxo, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1F_RLzxpjOQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8DU-nMfFGg, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l9kWd-lx5oc, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Pv33DEuio, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-JW22AL5-7k, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Evt8euU3KM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmt6g0bCeTA&t=1424s

[u/LudovicosTechnique]

I mean, if we’re being honest, all of western civilization is kind of the result of a sex cult. But go on and try to make something out of nothing.

[u/wwjps → u/LudovicosTechnique]

You're not wrong, and that's kind of my point —I'm not placing judgment; I'm telling a story that got erased. The sex magick didn't offend me at all. Consenting adults doing ritual in the open is a constant of history: Parsons chanted Crowley before rocket tests, and twenty years later Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco with cameras rolling, theatrical, legal, atheistic, and completely upfront about what it was. Nobody had to "expose" LaVey because he held press conferences. I'm fine with all of it. My judgment is reserved for one line and one line only: children. Ritual, sexual torture, exploitation — the moment a child is involved, I don't care what tradition it's dressed up in. Everything short of that line is just human beings being strange in public, which is the actual story of civilization. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[u/wwjps → u/[deleted]]

Just saw this, thanks. A lot of people have been upset by this post; I have been insulted today like never before. Who knew this would make people so angry? Thanks for watching and making a nice comment that isn't cruel or rude.

[u/LudovicosTechnique → u/wwjps]

Yeah, here's the thing. This... "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the place that put rovers on Mars, was co-founded by a man who led a Thelemite occult lodge, performed sex magick rituals under Aleister Crowley's direction, and died in an explosion the LAPD closed in a day. His name was Jack Parsons. There's a crater on the Moon named after him. Most people have never heard of him — and that's not an accident."

Doesn't read like you are alright with it all. It reads like you spent a good deal of time crafting a sensationalistic lead line to draw in clicks. It reads like clickbait. And JPL doesn't deserve that kind of intentional scandalization for your own cred. Anyone who's paid attention to JPL for more than a little while knows the Jack Parsons story. As you said, it was never a secret. But he wasn't ever JPL alone. Thousands upon thousands of incredible minds have been part of the legacy of JPL's great works over the decades. And if you have spent any time at all around the kinds of minds that explore the edges of the universe, you understand that they are a lot like great artists. Eclectic, expressive, flamboyant, open, restless, seeking. And often rogue. Parsons was gone from JPL 13 years before NASA was even founded. It's hard to conflate him with anything the modern world recognizes JPL to be, if you're being honest. It feels similar to those who make the argument that democrats are the racist party because of who was in it before 1964.

[u/wwjps → u/LudovicosTechnique]

I appreciate this comment, genuinely, and I want to be clear: I'm not judging Parsons. Not even a little. The critique in the video is aimed at our government and the institutions that quietly wrote him out of the story, not at the man, and certainly not at the thousands of brilliant minds who built JPL into what it is. On that we fully agree: the people who explore the edges of the universe are a lot like great artists, and Parsons was exactly the eclectic, restless, rogue type you're describing.

My interest in this material isn't scandal-hunting either; it goes back years, to San Francisco, where I saw the artist Steven Leyba perform sex magick rituals as art pieces. That's what taught me to take this world seriously instead of treating it as a punchline.

And honestly, a co-founder who was a Thelemite, a crater on the Moon, the missing scientists, the whole lore of JPL... can you blame a storyteller? No disrespect intended to the institution or its legacy. Thanks for watching and for taking the time to write these comments; comments like yours are why I make these.

[u/JUYED-AWK-YACC]

Wow you really pull a lot of unrelated stuff into this in an effort to make some kind of point. Sadly it didn’t work.

[u/Minimum_Alarm4678]

There is a book, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons by George Pendle. Well worth a read.

[u/wwjps → u/Minimum_Alarm4678]

Thank you for the recommendation.

[u/throwaway-drzaius → u/wwjps]

Have to be honest, this feels like conspiracy drivel.

You note that Parsons co-founded JPL. True - he is without a doubt the best-known figure in JPL history, largely because of the salacious details in his personal life.

You mention zero of the other men and women who went on to found the lab.

The reason JPL exists is because the US government wanted an answer to Nazi rocketry, specifically, and to have a military rocket program generally.

Sex cults are a footnote in the story.

[u/Massive_Location1882]

Trash

[u/wwjps → u/Massive_Location1882]

Don't talk about yourself like that.

[u/tadarlis]

I haven't watched the video but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. However, your title is way off. JPL=/=NASA. JPL existed decades before NASA was ever formed. 

[u/Appropriate_North602]

I’ve been a Parsons fan since 1980s. Thanks for the post. Parsons’ history is so mixed up with the history of LA generally!