Sex and Rockets

Wisconsin Bookwatch, April, 2005

Sex And Rockets

John Carter

Feral House

PO Box 39910, Los Angeles, CA 90039

0922915970 $16.95 feralhouse.com

This new and highly recommended edition of Sex And Rockets: The Occult World Of Jack Parson by John Carter features an informative introduction by Robert Anton Wilson and will serve to introduce the reader into the writings of John Whiteside "Jack" Parsons, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory whose unorthodox genius created a solid rocket fuel that helped the Allies win World War II and NASA to send a spacecraft to the moon. What was less well known to his contemporaries was that Jack Parson was also an occultist who performed Aleister Crowley's Thelemic rituals in an attempt to create a new sort of human being that would finally destroy Christianity. At the age of 37, Jack was to die suddenly under rather mysterious circumstances that would be defined as an accident, suicide, or even murder. Now in a new edition, a new generation of readers can learn the life story, accomplishments and controversies of a unique and influential individual who combined science and occultism, and hosted parties for emerging writers of science fiction that included Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard.