Weekly Wikipedia Find: Jack Parsons

Jack Parsons is a badass modern renaissance man. That's right, I said is. He's so badass to transcend both death and the past tense. First off, his birth name was Marvel Whiteside Parsons. Like what the fuck? Did he eat his mom's pussy on the way out too?

Jack Parsons died of a mercury fulminate explosion in his home laboratory in 1952 at the age of 37. Let's stop for a second and calculate the badass rating of that sentence. Home laboratory? Check. Explosion? Check. Nineteen fifties? Check. Dead before age forty? Check. Jack Parsons? Check.

I should also mention that Jack Parsons was a rocket scientist. And he helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Oh, and he was a noted occultist who knew and socialized with both Aleister Crowley and one Lafayette Ronald Hubbard.

Not to go too deep into Parsons and Hubbard's magickal adventures, but they attempted to summon a living goddess, Parsons tried to sire a Moonchild, they co-owned a boat company and Hubbard stole Parsons' wife.

Here's a photo of Parsons from the cover of his book of essays. Badass:

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