HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, I was trying to work out some bit about if I was smoking weed and doing a bunch of magical workings and stuff, right, you'd call me the Brolarion, right? But that's not a thing, right? That's not common.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No. No, that assumes a lot of knowledge about Jack Parsons' magical aliases.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what's kind of fun about that is is that then in and of itself a lesson of the mystery schools? Because what I've done is said yes, some people would say hacky dumb joke perchance from some Seth Rogen ritual magic comedy from 2006, right. Again, this is a time machine when we could have been very famous.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like very, very good, right? But instead what it is, yeah it's kind of half funny, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're gonna shoehorn Mahalo in today. But again, maybe that's an allegorical thing here, we do some numerology on Mahalo, how does it break out, right? Because Mahalo is spelled M as in Mary, A is in Asshole, H as in Hurricane.
BEN KISSEL
Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. And then I think it's...
MARCUS PARKS
Mahalo. Another A.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
O?
MARCUS PARKS
A. No, I think it's Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Brolarion. Brolarion. That was still at the same time, you have to unpack it. Because you see the term Brolarion and you're like oh wow, that's funny, what a funny weed joke, that guy must be fucking amazing in bed. Right?
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then they take it apart and they realize it's a whole reference to a bunch of books that they should have fucking read if they wanted to be anybody that mattered.
BEN KISSEL
All right, Brolarion sounds like a guy not allowed near schools. What's up everybody? Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left. I am Ben hanging out with Henry and hanging out with Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Mahalo everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just saying it. You're just saying Mahalo a bunch because you drank a bunch of red wine last night and that has become your weird hangover talisman.
MARCUS PARKS
You just walked into the studio today and just kept going, 'Mahalo!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not a thing.
BEN KISSEL
Well anyway, what is a thing is this episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
We are onto Jack Parsons Part 4! It is the final and it's the conclusion.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the conclusion.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If a conclusion even can be made.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it seems that Jack Parsons' end actually brought a lot more questions than answers.
BEN KISSEL
All right, let's get into it.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard had just swindled him out of his life savings, literally sailing away with not only the majority of Jack's fortune but Jack's main squeeze Sara to boot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And guess what? He didn't even like Sara.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
By the time it all rolled around, he was so sad that he had married Sara and he was so upset with the whole situation. That's when he wrote the affirmations. Yeah, because he was super bummed out.
MARCUS PARKS
Now what were the affirmations again?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like I am an attractive man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was where L. Ron-
BEN KISSEL
Was he fucking Stuart Smalley?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's exactly like Stuart Smalley.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Just like the mole on your face is not as noticeable as you believe it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am a compelling writer. He says these things. But it's really interesting because in a way, we'll get into it, the Jack Parsons journals, they're way more honest and open.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what L. Ron was doing was creating the legend from the inside out by lying to the source which is yourself.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't it ironic? Al Franken should have listened to Stuart Smalley a little bit before he got perp walked out of the Senate.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it I'll grope anyone I fucking want to!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is great. Thank you, Kissel.
MARCUS PARKS
Perfect.
BEN KISSEL
Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That doesn't fix it.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while losing Sara to L. Ron was certainly no easy thing for Parsons to deal with, the blow was softened because he still had his so-called elemental Marjorie Cameron, who if you'll remember was the woman who helped him through the second part of the Babylon Working.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And who had helped him through the first part of the Babylon Working without her knowing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But since Parsons had sold the mansion where the OTO Agape Lodge had effectively set up their headquarters, he moved out of Pasadena and got a job at North American Aviation after L. Ron Hubbard was through with him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See ya, fucker! I love that they made a call because I did read a little bit between the lines, I forgot that Parsons had called LRH when he ran off and he was like hey LRH, I have this feeling that you might have taken all my money. Right? And he was just like no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The thing was is that we just can't... Because originally they were supposed to truck the boats. But he got there, he's like these boats, we don't wanna truck these boats, we don't wanna truck these boats.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're boats, we gotta sail these boats.
BEN KISSEL
I'm with Ron on that one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is but that was the promise. And that's why he's like that's why it's taking so much longer. But then it turns out he just bought the one boat and then they just spent all the money fucking and drinking on the boat.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
One boat, two schooners. Technically three boats, not three yachts.
BEN KISSEL
Not the deal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not the deal.
MARCUS PARKS
Living in Manhattan Beach in the Greater Los Angeles area, Parsons worked on the government funded Navajo missile program by day, once again a workaday man. But by night Jack Parsons and Marjorie Cameron lived the lives of bohemian magicians.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of cool. He couldn't not end up in the coolest group possible. He went from magicians which I mean obviously we argued last episode, are they the coolest group possible? I don't know. They definitely ate a lot of come which I love about them, love them.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then they found themselves into the jazz scene.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All the jazz.
BEN KISSEL
Cool. I love jazz. We're making jazz here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sort of.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm bebopping and scatting, how about you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(scatting) That's all jazz is.
BEN KISSEL
It's about the words you don't say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's her name, Billy Elliot? Billie Holiday. That's all she did was (scatting).
BEN KISSEL
She was immensely talented.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Not even close. That's not even close to what she did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(scatting)
BEN KISSEL
She had a beautiful voice, one of the most iconic voices in American history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Scat! Scat scat!
BEN KISSEL
Billy Elliot was a child dancer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
While Parsons delved into tarot and astrology, Marjorie created fantastic paintings. They're haunting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sometimes she would portray famous magicians of yore like John Dee, sometimes she would paint pictures of Jack's ex Sara bleeding out with her legs cut off, just to make Jack feel better.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Isn't that nice?
BEN KISSEL
That is nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When he was crying she showed up with pictures of his tortured ex and he was like Marjorie, baby, you know what I like.
BEN KISSEL
That's their love language.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it is. But while Cameron was certainly a practitioner, she didn't see magic as a practical everyday thing like Parsons did. In one example, Sara said that a windstorm swept through the house but while she was focused on closing the windows, Parsons went upstairs to find his magical dagger to stop the wind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very difficult. Very, very difficult. Because again he was chasing after results and synchronicities.
MARCUS PARKS
Always.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Parsons was head over heels for Cameron, both emotionally and physically. Parsons, it could be said, was a man who loved big and fucked bigger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Wow. Like Crumb.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Like R. Crumb.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he means physically larger but yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You do mean like big lady large.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, it was a fetish.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, it not a fetish, it's called common sense. I love the idea. Honestly some of those pictures he drew I was like I could put myself right in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know, riding a woman with a little saddle on her and stuff. A really big tall woman. Is that weird?
BEN KISSEL
His brother was a pedophile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well we know that. But R. Crumb liked them extra big, that's how you know he wasn't a pedophile.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
I can't get R. Crumb out of my head now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Parsons, as far as his physical love, that's more evident in the poetry that Parsons wrote for Marjorie Cameron. Here's an example.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can we play some of that Thelema jazz?
MARCUS PARKS
The Thelema jazz?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Over this. You can do it in post. Let's set the mood a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, all right. I'm gonna take my pants off. Sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now I am a whip coiling across your naked buttocks. Your flesh writhes under my caress and your voice is shrill with pain and passion. (moaning)
BEN KISSEL
This is you sensual?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. (moaning) "I am a flame that crosses slowly about you." Ooh, it's hot. "I have found the soles of your feet and seek each nerve center."
BEN KISSEL
Oh nothing says romance like nerve centers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a scientist. He's a scientist first.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But at the same time Marjorie and Jack had agreed to an open marriage before they'd said their vows.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know it normally means that the woman seems to get a lot more action.
MARCUS PARKS
A lot more action, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And that was certainly the case here. Marjorie was decidedly less emotive and less affectionate than Jack. And while this tended to drive them apart as lovers, it seemed to actually strengthen their bond as magical partners.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well as we see, it's a classical magician combo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
LRH and Jack Parsons, he realized it too afterwards in his journals. Jack Parsons realized that he had created the exact relationship that John Dee and Edward Kelly had, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That it was the same group. But now Marjorie, there's something about opposites kind of coming together that is again and again in every piece of alchemical writing I look at, that's always the magic sauce is that you've got fire and stone, wind and water. You put them together.
BEN KISSEL
Right. Yeah, Paula Abdul had sex with a cartoon cat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I don't think that that should have been allowed.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you seen the unrated one?
BEN KISSEL
It's pretty hot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's pretty crazy. She puts tuna all over her fucking asshole. Unbelievable.
BEN KISSEL
Unbelievable. Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Well for Jack's part, he started sharing more intimate details about the Babylon Working with Marjorie, telling her that she might one day be in charge of the working in the event of his demise.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One day when it comes down to you women, you figure out to wear some pants. It's a little bit harder than your little skirts, right? Because you gotta figure out how to get your feet through the tiny holes.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. That reminds me of when my father looked at his truck and he said Ben, one day all this will be yours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it wasn't just Bud Light?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it was.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Jack told her that Babylon was the great work that linked them together, although he did warn her that if the magic was misused the results could be disastrous. Interestingly Jack also told her that he would be quote unquote "blown away" on the day of Marjorie's manifestation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wink.
MARCUS PARKS
And while we don't know exactly what Marjorie Cameron was doing all day on the date of Jack's death, blown away-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Swish swish, wink wink.
MARCUS PARKS
Is certainly an interesting choice of words.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now in a further bid to support Marjorie's magical education, Jack began planning a trip for the two of them to travel to England to meet with Aleister Crowley himself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh and what a fun day that was going to be watching him die.
BEN KISSEL
Every lady's dream.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, everyone loves going to England, going all the way to England on a steamer ship to hang out with a heroin addict.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, covered in his own shit!
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
And in the process Jack hoped to use Marjorie's charm to convince Crowley to forgive Jack for his past weaknesses concerning L. Ron Hubbard because he of course lost all of Crowley's respect by getting swindled by the ruddy-faced Navy man.
BEN KISSEL
Well he's the victim here, you can't victim blame.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the thing is in Thelema, you have let this happen to you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You are a man of pure agency, he is a man of action. And anybody that should be in charge of a lodge would be able to see his way around these things according to Crowley. Crowley, how you know it got bad is that he was like he used to remind me of me, now he reminds me of a certain Victor Neuberg.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So basically the guy that he let bottom him out. Because again he was the power bottom of all time.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like Jack Parsons is that guy, the guy that he destroyed with his butt.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness gracious.
MARCUS PARKS
But just after Parsons sent Crowley a letter stating his intentions to visit while of course also making a case for his own magical growth, Aleister Crowley died at the age of 72. Famously his last words were either:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"I am perplexed!"
MARCUS PARKS
Or my favorite:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes I hate myself. I can see it, man. Myself just dying and looking in the mirror like sometimes a fucking hate myself.
BEN KISSEL
That's a sign of a good life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And so Jack and Marjorie stayed in the United States where Jack was about to be swept up in the Red Scare of the 1940s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was kind of ripe for it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. See by this time the Soviet Union had of course become America's big bad guy after WWII. And you may not be surprised to find out that Parsons ran in one or two Communist circles in his time as a groovy dude about town.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It used to be kind of normal. We talked about this yesterday about how your family in, was it Oklahoma?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. My ancestors in Oklahoma, they were all Commies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they refused to leave the Dust Bowl because they're like we will organize this dirt. We will bring this dirt, we will gain its power.
MARCUS PARKS
We will organize how to all die of dust pneumonia before the bank takes our house.
BEN KISSEL
That's fantastic. It's communal living.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But wasn't there legit communist presidential candidates and shit in the 1800s?
MARCUS PARKS
Eugene V. Debs, wasn't he? Yeah, he was the big communist back in the day.
BEN KISSEL
He didn't do well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But still, it used to be more open and then obviously things had changed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, let's get into it. I would say get political.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You did up top.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Parsons wasn't a communist at all, quite the opposite. He was a Dr. Demento level libertarian.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, is a parody song dangerous or good?
BEN KISSEL
It's neutral.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Two-edged sword.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It knows no religion, it knows no country.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing, man. It's free, dude. It doesn't get taxed. It does though.
BEN KISSEL
God I love fucking Dr. Demento. Everything does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because again I'll never forget that that clip I saw of Dr. Demento at the libertarian conference playing his own parody song from a recorder, they didn't put in the PA. He put a recording device up to the microphone and played it being like, 'I ain't got no taxes! No taxes.'
BEN KISSEL
They are a special bunch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, wow. It takes something like freedom and just makes it so fucking stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Jack Parsons, he wasn't a communist. But some members of the Suicide Squad were communists or they had communist ties. Additionally the United States Government was quickly discovering that a lot of scientists who heavily contributed to the war effort, guys like fucking Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atomic bomb, they were either communists or were at least communist adjacent. Now Parsons had been the subject of an FBI-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait, is that true?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that true? Because I know what we found from a lot of these guys is that they were all kind of fringe thinkers within that group. And I feel like a lot of their politics also kind of changed once you made a bunch of weapons for mass destruction.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Oppenheimer, I'm not quite sure about his communist affiliation but his brother was a communist, like a card carrying communist. He'd gone to a lot of communist meetings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that these guys were just sort of free thinkers, open thinkers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That's why you had a lot of people here in Hollywood that got caught up in the Red Scare because they're curious people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's something to do! Again we're actors, all right. We just like showing up.
MARCUS PARKS
It was mostly writers actually. Actors, yeah. Those curious intellectual giants that are actors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not that they're intellectuals but they like going places and wearing costumes and badges. It's why Scientology applies too because I think that's a part of it, being like ooh, we get to go to a little house and all talk about voting. They're like ooh, this is fun. And they're in the circle and they don't understand.
BEN KISSEL
Actors are fun because they say stuff like mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You say stuff like mahalo. And so does most of Hawaii.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Parsons had been the subject of an FBI investigation ever since he'd started working on the Navajo missile program. And after very little digging, the bureau discovered a whole bunch of police reports from busybodies who thought that it was worth calling 911 over magical rituals and odd behavior.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever.
BEN KISSEL
The bureau, I believe you mean the deep state.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly, honestly!
MARCUS PARKS
Then of course someone flat out said that Parsons was a communist, they just said it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
And the rumors of voodoo cults and homosexuality at The Parsonage didn't help in 1947 America, especially after an unknown source talked to the FBI and described Jack's mansion as quote "a gathering place for perverts".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of like yeah, I want to go there.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like an Arby's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In this economy? That means nothing.
BEN KISSEL
No it really doesn't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's interesting because he put that list out, right. When he did a thing where he's like I want only atheists to live here. I feel like there's also those things they attached to it because didn't they also believe that communism was some gigantic atheist movement that was going to destroy the beloved Christian bedrock of America? Some garbage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Worshiping the state, not god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So Parsons was immediately listed as a quote "undesirable employee" for national defense work and he was suspended from his job pending further investigation.
BEN KISSEL
With pay?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
God dang it.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no. From there life truly began falling apart for Jack Parsons. After Jack lost his job, Marjorie decided that even though she and Jack were doing magic and she was painting, they're having a good time-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She still felt, and this is how author George Pendle put it, she still felt like a scientist's wife living in Manhattan Beach.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's bad or...?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She wanted herself.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She wanted to be known as Cameron, herself.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so she left Jack to join an artist colony in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.
BEN KISSEL
She just joined more people that are going to dilute her personality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
MARCUS PARKS
It's an artist colony.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's choosing this group. The last group she sort of was fucked into literally.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So now this way she's choosing a new group.
MARCUS PARKS
She fucked herself into that group.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She had agency, she chose to fuck herself into that group.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now she's gonna go fuck herself into a new group.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
With Marjorie gone and defense work not an option, Jack Parsons, the founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and sometime master of the magical arts, he got a job pumping gas on the weekends.
BEN KISSEL
No kidding? In New Jersey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love that guy. I love the guy because Jack Parsons famously was like it's just a job.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was not all concerned about the quote unquote "drop in status". He was really just like I gotta pay my bills and I pump gas and you don't think I don't fuck? Every day he's pumping gas, 'You don't think I don't fuck?!'
MARCUS PARKS
Well for me it's not about a lack of status, it's about a lack of respect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
This guy is a genius, he's brilliant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a genius.
MARCUS PARKS
He founded the company that took us to Mars for fuck's sake.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. But this was the time where the gas pump operator really had wise words for everyone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'd come by just being like oi is low, I see that there's a dog that is dead that's attached to your bumper.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know why you kids want to go messing around in an old house like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that guy. You don't want to go down there, don't go down that road.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gas pumper.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. That was when it was different. People were more mythical I think back then. Wise perhaps.
MARCUS PARKS
Perhaps.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mahalo.
MARCUS PARKS
The guy who said don't go down that road, he lived across the street. That was Fred Gwynne.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, Fred Gwynne. But yeah, he was a neighbor but still you imagine him pumping gas.
MARCUS PARKS
As at the gas station. Yeah. Okay, so he pumped gas on the weekends, spent the rest of the time working as a mechanic or as a hospital assistant, just kind of making cash here and there. Briefly and bizarrely, he even had a staff position at the Department of Pharmacology at USC and it's speculated that he got that job because he was really good at making narcotics at home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude lived the libertarian dream.
BEN KISSEL
I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had two separate high level jobs that he did not have to go to school for at all. They were all just from his backyard.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of all of the people that were quote unquote "self made", he really is one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He learned it all just from fucking around with gunk in his backyard. And making his own drugs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Right. What kind of narcotics are we talking here? Like cocaine?
MARCUS PARKS
That's what I really want to know. I really want to know, like Jack Parsons hands you a pill and says take this, you take it, what's gonna happen?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. I feel like he probably made his own psychedelics, I think he probably did a lot of stuff. I was actually reading this thing-
MARCUS PARKS
He probably made his own speed quite a bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot. There was a book that's this gigantic book about this one guy, goddammit, where is this thing? So many tabs! I have so many tabs!
MARCUS PARKS
I just looked, there's at least 40 tabs open.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So many tabs! It was this guy who made 72 of his own different hallucinogens and tried it on himself and each time he did one... Oh yes, here it is. It's called 'PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story' by Alexander Shulgin. And basically it's 1-4 stars. One star is like you get high on it and you can still do stuff though. And then level four is you lose your personality, you become the curtains.
MARCUS PARKS
Ego death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ego death.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he made them all in his own house.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he just would inject them and then be like all right and then just sit back. And he looks like a guy who would, he's one of those guys whose eyes are permanently high shut. Like hey, man. Hey man, are you a microscope? Oh you're the mailman. That's funny. Sometimes you're all just microscopes to me.
BEN KISSEL
Right, right. Perhaps he has brain damage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But even though Jack Parsons' days were menial, his nights were still dedicated to magic. Since his elemental was-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, who is his new elemental?
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing, since she's no longer around to collaborate in sex magic rituals, he oscillated between brief sexual relationships and just plain old hiring sex workers to just participate in the sex magic.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what Aleister Crowley did for years because it actually kind of helps because then you don't get all the emotions involved.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, nothing emotional at all, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
It's true sex work. It's contracting at the end of the day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. It's like you know how Jimmy Carter goes and build all those houses?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if instead of doing that he was sucking dick through all of these little towns?
BEN KISSEL
We just don't know what's kept him alive all these years, do we?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know what it is. I heard it was Pedialyte.
MARCUS PARKS
But nevertheless, during this time Jack Parsons carried out a series of rituals over what he called 40 days of madness and horror.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
When thoughts of death and suicide almost overtook his entire being. Jack came to think of this time as his crossing of the abyss.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The abyss!
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now after, this because he felt you know how they say in religion, I don't feel this, right, but people have felt this or there was letters from Mother Teresa, how we know she was a fucking faker and a liar, right.
BEN KISSEL
She's a scam, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She wrote in her journals that she lost touch with god, that she felt that she used to be in the const the presence of god and then one day it was gone and now she's just this husk and she's kind of operating through like kind of like I should be doing this but I'm also going to create a bunch of PR ops for the church while I'm doing it, take a look at my fucking my hoodie or whatever, my virgin... Whatever her hat is called.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think she was a virgin. I bet you she fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
You think so?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man.
BEN KISSEL
I think so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A couple of those guys, sometimes you got some guy dying of leprosy right there and he's like mama, come on.
BEN KISSEL
Just one more time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just give it one little lick.
BEN KISSEL
Well absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she's so used to it, she's been so covered and she's like I've always wanted to know what human soup tasted like.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I can see that she may have licked a leper's dick.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, absolutely. It falls off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's succor, that's literally the word of succor which is like to give help.
MARCUS PARKS
Succor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Succor. But so Jack Parsons-
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bring it all back around.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was suffering from the same magical literally abyss.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He lost all touch with it. It used to be such an intrinsic part of his life and he loved operating and he used to feel it all the time, again he was always with the knocks and the things knocking over and that kind of shit and he loved all of it, he was obsessed with it. But once it all fell away, he didn't know what to do.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he had a vision, it showed back up. He said he was doing nothing, he was kind of giving all the magic up. He said that he had a dream that Babylon showed back up and was like kid, get back in the game.
BEN KISSEL
Oh back in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he had he decided to go back in and he decided to make this rip-off ritual essentially because the crossing of the abyss ritual isn't even an OTO ritual.
MARCUS PARKS
You say rip-off, I say remix.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See? He's learning.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's it.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the so-called abyss was a concept used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as a way to explain the last stage of a magical journey that was supposed to end in becoming one with the universal consciousness.
BEN KISSEL
That'll be fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What a nightmare.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's supposed to be truly neutral.
BEN KISSEL
Why would you ever want to be part of the universal consciousness? Twitter has taught us one thing, I don't want to know what you're thinking. I don't care anymore, I'm done.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're talking about the endless creationary mix that lies behind the skeleton of the Kabbalah.
MARCUS PARKS
The universal consciousness is much more peaceful than that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When we got him hungover like this it's kind of good because then we can both like convex at him with these concepts.
BEN KISSEL
I'm being railroaded here. Also for some reason you kind of turned me on there. Very feminine energy you just provided me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have big tit energy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah you do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he retrofitted all this. So the abyss thing, Aleister Crowley branded after this for his AA, for for that group.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well according to the Golden Dawn's interpretation, the abyss is a chasm of existence in which our binary conceptions dissolve.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
MARCUS PARKS
And once one enters the abyss, you either pass through and enter a mystical realm beyond good and evil where all is one-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Or you plummet into madness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The sea of madness!
BEN KISSEL
No! Is it fun madness though or is it horrible?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Like eating your own skin and stuff?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You become what's his name from The Flash, you become that actor.
BEN KISSEL
Ezra Miller?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. Ezra Miller.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You become that guy where you're just stealing candy out of a bank, like the bank bowl. And then you run across the street and you grab a child and then you run across the street and you take all the taquitos off the top of a 7/11, try to start a little cult.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's being out of pocket I think they call it nowadays.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
Well supposedly once one does pass through the abyss, they meet the secret chiefs, the highest of the high when it comes to magical knowledge and understanding. And then and only then do you become one with the universal consciousness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you remember from our Aleister Crowley series, one of the biggest schisms in the Golden Dawn was the one guy being like I'm the only person who talks to the Secret Chiefs! And then a new guy showing up being like hey, guess what? Secret Chief just called me. I'm the new guy who talks to the Secret Chiefs. And then apparently the whole thing is where are these Chiefs at?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, where are these guys at? Do you have a picture of one? I want to see their punch card from the local coffee shop.
BEN KISSEL
If I told you they wouldn't be secret.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. There's the Secret Chiefs and of course Blavatsky also had the Hidden Masters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And she had the exact same problem with people saying I got a line into the Hidden Masters.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
They told me that they don't want to talk to you anymore. And they told me that if you say that you're talking to the Hidden Masters, if you think that you're talking to the Hidden Masters, you're not actually talking to the Hidden Masters, you're talking to somebody else.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're not. Cause that's what I do, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause I do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. That's me.
MARCUS PARKS
That's me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I call them. You don't call them, I call them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they don't physically show up. You just kind of have a feeling that they show up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A feeling, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So you can just kind of say it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what's cool about magic is you just make it the fuck up. You just say whatever and hopefully a bunch of people in hats, enough of them agree with you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. PlayStation is better than all of this. I'm just happy that we have video games and stuff now. You don't have to make up like-
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I would like to do disagree with you but the number of hours I've logged on my PlayStation absolutely agrees with you.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Well supposedly the last person to try crossing the abyss was a Canadian accountant named Charles Stansfeld Jones. He claimed to have crossed successfully and he declared himself master of the temple in 1916.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But was soon after arrested for walking naked through the streets of Vancouver.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, he's like the guy from KONY 2012.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah! I remember that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't seem to separate the two, being master of the temple and then walking down the middle of the street naked in Vancouver.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because we saw a bunch of masters of the temple the last time we were in Vancouver.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But Charles Stansfeld Jones was actually made in basically a moonchild ceremony by Aleister Crowley. He is supposed to be one of Aleister Crowley's illegitimate children.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so he was made by charged magical come in what is the real homunculus ritual which we'll get into later. He was made into one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's kind of what happened to him.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not trusting a Canadian wizard. I don't even trust a Canadian accountant. That's bizarre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think there it is wizardry, accounting.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Oh you don't want to do magic like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well if you want to do magic the hard way I guess you can go ahead and keep doing it like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shut up! Shut up!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the point is Parsons was using knowledge from other magical disciplines and applying it to his own practices, taking what he wanted and needed for his own purposes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted to make his own thing because after the Babylon Working he was really sick of I guess quote unquote "walking the steps of his master". So he was really trying at that point to... How do I be the legit new Aleister Crowley without all the trappings of Aleister Crowley's PR bullshit?
BEN KISSEL
He just didn't wanna get gaped.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Well I think that is part of it because he just wouldn't submit.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But technically he would not be able to be master of the temple without submitting, that is the 10th level. You're supposed to take it up the butt.
MARCUS PARKS
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, that is the final level. That is what you're supposed to do.
BEN KISSEL
Do they tell you that when you're in like level 3 or when you get to level 10 they're like, 'Now bend over.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no. You literally show up at level 10 at the exam.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then a man dressed up as Saladin, literally a big Arabian night guy shows up and you're supposed to give yourself over because that's what it is, it's the ego death of the man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Why are all these pineapples... What are these going to be used for?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'll see. We're making a salsa.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the Xenu reveal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Xenu. You thought you were about to be in charge of air? Sorry buddy, first things first.
BEN KISSEL
Well Xenu, I mean at least it's kind of fun. You don't have to bleed from your asshole.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I mean have a good time with it. Whatever you wanna do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just difficult. Honestly with Xenu you just bleed from the wallet.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, that's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually I think that's worse.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause that asshole, it'll heal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. My asshole's been doing great for about a year now.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Even longer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Year, year and a half.
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome, Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I gotta see how the California air is gonna treat it but I'm hopeful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. When you sun it?
BEN KISSEL
You walk backwards a lot?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know actually there's a big practice out here, they do believe that you show your butthole to the sun like an hour a day, it helps.
MARCUS PARKS
I've heard of this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It helps.
BEN KISSEL
Is that a thing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. Actually it's becoming very big in the alt right.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfortunate.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll talk about it later.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. I can't keep up anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he put together his own, he looked at this ritual because he knew Aleister Crowley did this and he said that he got this word... So Babylon told him when he wrote 'The Book of Babylon', there was a thing in there where he talked about you're gonna do this black pilgrimage. And so he was like, this is what Babylon was talking about when I channeled her that I need to do this black pilgrimage, which is something only a couple other esoteric groups even had workings for. Because again, the whole point was if you succeed you become one with the universe and if not you become unrepentantly insane, right.
BEN KISSEL
A lot of risk.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of "risk", quote unquote. But he put this together and he said that he created his own version, what was called the Great Obligation, which is what Aleister Crowley wrote. Because Aleister Crowley's crossing the abyss was a 40 day walk across the desert. Do you remember?
MARCUS PARKS
In China.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he faced the demon Choronzon but he was in fucking circle and so Victor Neuberg watched from afar. It's that story where he bottomed out for Victor Neuberg because this was earlier in his magician's career.
MARCUS PARKS
I know but I think when he said he finally crossed the abyss was when he was in China, when he went there with his wife and he said oh hey, I crossed the abyss!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, well that's where the ritual was done.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the ritual was the 40 day walk, he got gaped. Remember he fought himself as a demon in the circle?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Choronzon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Victor Neuberg was-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Terrified of him.
MARCUS PARKS
He was tempted by both this woman that he had a crush on, like she showed up naked and brought her tits out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, Aleister Crowley.
MARCUS PARKS
She was like, 'Come on, Victor.'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Basically becoming Bugs Bunny is what he did. And he loved it but he wanted to do his own thing and decidedly less sexy. But he wrote this Great Obligation. So he started calling himself, it was obviously Belarion and several different words for the devil. That was how he started. This is his AntiChrist Working. "I OMNC, a member of the body of god hereby bind myself on behalf of the whole universe even as we are now physically bound under the cross of suffering that I will lead a pure life as a devoted servant of the order, that will understand all things, that I will love all things, that I will perform all things and endure all things, that I will continue in the knowledge and conversation of my holy guardian angel, that I will work without attachment, that I will work in truth."
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That I will rely upon myself and that I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of god with my soul. Which makes you a very paranoid person.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And did you want to supersize order?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course I would.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm eating for a god today.
BEN KISSEL
That's good, that's good. We have adult Happy Meals now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually would prefer a sadness meal. Is that just a bullet and a bottle of wine?
BEN KISSEL
I love that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it has all these personal notes where he's like he needs to be reticulous in his observations which he was. And where did all those go? We'll answer that soon. And then you're supposed to be neat.
MARCUS PARKS
Did you just say reticulous?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mahalo. I'm gonna start doing it. I'm gonna work my way out of situations by saying that.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, that's all you have to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Well if we're looking at the human element here, it seems more like the purpose of Jack Parsons crossing the abyss, it was kind of a way to make sense of how his life had so quickly fallen apart after he was destroyed by the psychological tornado that was L. Ron Hubbard.
BEN KISSEL
Right. So he got robbed, he lost his job, he lost his chick, and now he's just kind of alone searching because he lost his god also.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, basically everything destroyed. Because he did write a book, he wrote this thing that he tried what a lot of magicians do, it's called 'The Manifesto of the AntiChrist', that's where it begins.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it ends on 'The Analysis of the Master of the Temple'.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where he basically writes a bio of himself explaining why all of these things happened to me, it's because I let them happen to me because I was chosen to be born in a certain consolation.
MARCUS PARKS
He recast all of his failures as successes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It's like everything happened-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It had to!
MARCUS PARKS
Everything leads up to this moment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to be destroyed, this had to happen.
BEN KISSEL
Well you have to fail to succeed. There's some truth to that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like you know what though, it's really a lot better? Succeed to succeed.
BEN KISSEL
But it's not possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes it is. Some people just do it. Michael Jordan.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he lost. He lost to The Pistons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he won more. We know him more. Michael Phelps.
MARCUS PARKS
He lost to depression.
BEN KISSEL
Depression.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Weed. Michael B. Jordan.
MARCUS PARKS
He's actually done quite well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying, succeed.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he lost to the Fantastic Four.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh interesting. Michael Jackson never lost in his life.
BEN KISSEL
Well I don't know about that. He lost as a child.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's coming up a lot recently.
BEN KISSEL
He lost his childhood, that's why he's asking everyone if you've seen it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Damn. If you really want to get depressed, listen to that newly released audio recording of him on the phone talking about how his father treated him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is really, really bad.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god, all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you listened to it?
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
It's intense. He's talking about getting hosed down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They used to cover me in oil. hey hit me with. But it's also in Michael Jackson's voice saying the most harrowing shit you've ever heard in your life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Dang. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after the 40 days were done, he wrote the autobiography but at the same time he also decided to define his libertarian principles in the aforementioned political tract 'Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword'.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Y'all need to read that shit. It's beautiful.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I bet. In his tract he not only espoused libertarianism, he also responded to his treatment at the hands of the government, denouncing the increasingly intolerant nature of post-war American society.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cancel culture.
BEN KISSEL
I mean he did make a bunch of bombs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he was feeling guilty.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I think so.
MARCUS PARKS
And in this Parsons was absolutely correct in his reading of the situation. When I say increasingly intolerant nature of post-war American society, I mean basically anybody who doesn't conform needs to get the boot. You go get out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gon get out.
MARCUS PARKS
But instead of suggesting say social or political reform, Parsons maintained that the only way to solve intolerance was with the arrival of Babylon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's on brand.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Who would be quote "good with the sword of freedom".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's me!
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey it's me, Babylon!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey everybody, free!
BEN KISSEL
Feel like that's at the CPAC merch store.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey everybody! Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Sword of freedom.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Sword of freedom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah yes, this commemorative Stephen Miller sword of freedom, now only with three easy payments of $49.95 you too can get this brilliant obsidian cleaver of human rights.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
Now Parsons actually seemed to be on a bit of a manic kick by the time he crossed the abyss. Soon after the ritual he contacted Wilfred Smith, his old rival and mentor, saying that he, Parsons, was the antichrist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm the antichrist, I know. Big whoop, big deal. Jumping the shark. But I need a conference with you, buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Is he still pumping gas on the weekends?
MARCUS PARKS
Yup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the antichrist.
BEN KISSEL
So the antichrist is pumping gas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, that sounds like a fucking old fashioned song.
BEN KISSEL
The Levin Brothers or the Louvin Brothers?
MARCUS PARKS
Louvin Brothers? Yeah, The Louvin Brothers. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, Louvin Brothers like to go more old school with it, they like to go very, very old. It's more of a Jerry Jeff Walker song.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Or maybe a John Prine song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's a John Prine song.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
(singing) I'm just the antichrist, I'm just pumping gas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's it. It's that easy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a simple man telling a simple story.
BEN KISSEL
(singing) Look at me bend over, lick my ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right well that took a turn.
MARCUS PARKS
We need to pair you with a guitarist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You need a lyricist. Like a guy who writes the libretto, that's what he needs.
BEN KISSEL
I know. By the way, the person who writes the lyrics, more difficult than the actual singer. But when we had a chance to go perform in Grand Rapids, I believe it was Grand Rapids-
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know, I actually can see his point on that. Writing a song is much more difficult than singing a song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember I did see the thing where Elton John can write songs off of like instruction manuals and stuff. And he only writes songs that are easy for him to write.
BEN KISSEL
I also learned that Billy Joel doesn't like We Didn't Start The Fire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From who?
BEN KISSEL
He said he didn't like the song because he came up with the lyrics first, not the music. But anyway, John Prine's son listens to the show.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh hi!
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hi!
MARCUS PARKS
Hi!
BEN KISSEL
Because we had a chance to perform in the same venue as they did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No way.
BEN KISSEL
Remember? In Grand Rapids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's right! That's right!
BEN KISSEL
It was Todd Snyder and John Prine's son.
MARCUS PARKS
I love your father's music, as does my father. My father's a gigantic John Prine fan.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I will discover yours.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
So we're done talking about John Prine?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think we're good.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
All right. Well using his magical alias Belarion AntiChrist-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
As Henry had mentioned.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually it's Dr. Belarion AntiChrist. I didn't go to 12 years of antichrist school to be called Mr. AntiChrist.
BEN KISSEL
I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Parsons wrote a manifesto appropriately titled 'The Manifesto of the AntiChrist'.
BEN KISSEL
Got it.
MARCUS PARKS
Which pitted him against the evil forces of the Christian church, which both Parsons and Crowley, they refer to it as the black brotherhood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's weird is that it was so unpopular to go against the Catholic church at the time period-
MARCUS PARKS
Was it Catholic church or just the entirety of Christianity?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
According to them it's Catholicism, that was like the big bad, that's the big bad. But yes, Christianity applies, it is all applied. But the black brotherhood actually had to be discerned by allegory, right, because they went and they were like he never said it that it was the church because technically he used a lot of Christian imagery in his spell workings.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
BEN KISSEL
So as the antichrist he's good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's how he sees himself.
MARCUS PARKS
Totally.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but AntiChrist is about trying to create a movement that is going to take us away from organized religion.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's how he saw it. The AntiChrist is the harbinger of a new era which in-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Women wear pants.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You know, I'm starting to think we maybe need to get rid of this disorganized religion. Seems like everyone's lost their minds.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So maybe we need to organize a religion again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
We definitely need to organize it again. Yeah, yeah. All of these people, they lost the organization, they lost their fucking minds. They really actually do need that. I'm starting to see that.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We need reorganized religion. Reorganized.
BEN KISSEL
Reorganize it.
MARCUS PARKS
Reorganized. Yeah, that's right. Well while all this does sound goofy, Parsons was using all this imagery to make some damn good points.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, it is goofy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel the vibes, I know if I had to try to describe this to my father, I mean he'd just walk away from me. I know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But to them it was very real.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he felt that the political witch hunts of the Red Scare were quote "symptomatic of the authoritarianism inherent in the Judeo-Christian values that underpinned the whole country, a belief system that upheld racism and the subjugation of women and persecuted free thought."
BEN KISSEL
Very good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, get with it, dog.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm with it.
MARCUS PARKS
It's forward thinking stuff in 1949.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But put nicely, if we're giving Parsons the benefit of the doubt here, magic was pretty much the only thing he had left. And he built his entire life to revolve around magic and magical thought. So he can be excused for mixing in good points with stuff that might be a little difficult to swallow.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the book 'Sex and Rockets' by John Carter, it is a love letter to Jack Parsons but even they at the very end are like, 'So in science he had a lot of success. In magic, we all love him.'
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was this kind of thing. Like we loved his energy but he technically was one of the least successful magicians of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. We say that this is a story of a student and he is technically a good student-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea!
MARCUS PARKS
But I don't know if he would have graduated magna cum laude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. Again, I still feel like if he had some rearing up in a different generation, who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe.
BEN KISSEL
Well he's like John Starks with the New York Knicks, my favorite player of all time. Not very good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Starks is your favorite player. Interesting.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, John Starks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really, why?
BEN KISSEL
Shooting guard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You say he's not good though.
BEN KISSEL
Badass dude, man. Came out of nothing, dude made something out of his life. Well he had flashes of greatness but then he didn't sleep before game seven against The Rockets and then he went like 2 for 25 and then they lost.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See this is how we keep it equal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that he can tell us something that he knows. You just told us. I didn't know who that was.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But John is a great shooting guard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I know John Starks, it's surprising as a favorite though.
BEN KISSEL
All right. I used to argue that he was better than Jordan and I was wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
But by 1949, two years after the Babylon Working and Jack's subsequent break with L. Ron Hubbard, Parsons finally gathered himself and got to work regaining his security clearance, time to get back to work once again.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
In court Parsons both denied affiliation with communism and defended the OTO, calling his magical order a non political religious organization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is also kind of funny because he had to send a big letter of resignation to to Aleister Crowley leaving the OTO because he was so over it because he said you weren't doing the real workings anymore, now I'm gonna do it. And then that's why he did a 12 day ritual where he prayed everyday and then looked at a thing called the antichrist and masturbated as much as he could and then nothing happened.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Very communist of him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he called himself master of the temple at the end of it but then again Aleister Crowley said it wasn't legit because he didn't actually pass the test.
BEN KISSEL
This is McCarthy era?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jenny McCarthy.
BEN KISSEL
This is before Jenny McCarthy.
MARCUS PARKS
This is pre-McCarthy because McCarthy is like mid '50s, '54, something like that. This is '49, this is a little bit before that.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. So they didn't even know what a communist really was.
MARCUS PARKS
They had a very good idea of what a communist was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like at the time they had a clearer vision of what a communist was than we even do now. I feel then it was happening, right?
BEN KISSEL
But it was almost like the witch trials in Salem because they'd be like well you had a party and there was a charcuterie board.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We think you might be a communist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
BEN KISSEL
They would just throw random shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Like if you were gay, you're a communist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well they kind of started from the inside out where they started with these defense contractors, they started with the scientists, the people that were inside the defense department and in the government, they started with them. By the time it got to McCarthy, that's when it got out to-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To all of us.
MARCUS PARKS
Like oh yeah, let's go after fucking Dalton Trumbo.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like who gives a shit? He read screenplays, he wrote Spartacus. Are you really gonna fuck with this guy who wrote Spartacus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Then it really shows how the US government started implanting themselves in the Hollywood system.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They used the Hollywood system as a mouthpiece for their ideals.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was a thing at the time.
BEN KISSEL
That's not even a conspiracy.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's not a conspiracy at all. Ronald Reagan, he tattled, he turned coat on so many people.
BEN KISSEL
I know. When they tried to unionize, so did hulk Hogan. That's why Jesse Ventura doesn't like him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Ventura tried to unionize, Hogan snitched him out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
And Ronald Reagan named names, that motherfucker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he named that monkey like three times.
MARCUS PARKS
Bonzo, Bonzo, Bonzo goes to Bitburg!
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow! Isn't that great? I think it's early onset Alzheimer's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who? What?
MARCUS PARKS
Now Parsons also tried to move on from Marjorie Cameron. He began seeing an Irish woman named Gladis Gohan and moved from the home he'd shared with Marjorie to new digs at Redondo Beach. Reportedly when friends during this time would ask how his wife was, he'd drolly say quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"She's in Mexico getting divorced."
BEN KISSEL
Wait, the Irish chick?
MARCUS PARKS
No, his wife.
BEN KISSEL
The other one.
MARCUS PARKS
Marjorie, the other one.
BEN KISSEL
But they're not officially broken up then.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no. They're still married.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's down in Mexico getting a divorce.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like she's having a great time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, she was having a really good time.
BEN KISSEL
Cabo Wabo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she was getting balled out in a fucking artist commune while he was sitting here being like, 'I'm the antichrist.' He was being a sad sack.
MARCUS PARKS
And indeed divorce proceedings were well underway as the 40s became the 50s.
BEN KISSEL
That must have been controversial in itself. Makes him a communist!
MARCUS PARKS
But even though Parsons was actively trying to clear his name and return to defense work, the FBI was not quite satisfied with the testimony of Jack Parsons. And Parsons in turn wasn't doing a good job of keeping his nose clean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No because he's the sword, man. He's Babylon's sword, dog.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
See Parsons, in true libertarian form, he did whatever he wanted to do using his own principles as a guiding light.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the whole thing, man. He's a fucking outdoor cat.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
But in doing this, Jack ignored the fact that the rest of the world did not play by his libertarian rules, or should I say his lack of rules.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's how he almost got charged with espionage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It seems to happen a lot.
BEN KISSEL
How the hell did that happen? Was he leaking documents?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very presidential of him. Mahalo, man.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely dude.
MARCUS PARKS
See when Parsons briefly reentered the scientific workforce, he got connected with an organization called the American Technion Society. The American Technion Society was providing technical and weapon knowledge to Israel, which was then a little less than a year old. Brand new Israel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh nice. That new Israel smell.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, dude. They've had some cool weapons for a long time.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They got that dome!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But at the same time Parsons also got a job working on chemical plant design and construction at the Hughes Aircraft Company owned by Howard Hughes. So Parsons figured that since he'd worked on this stuff-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this is my stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
This is my stuff, I'm working on it, it's okay to give it to whoever I want.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, it's an idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right? Is a piece of paper good or bad? No. Is a file good or bad? Right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so he handed the work he did for Hughes over to the American Technion Society who handed it to Israel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. So he's sort of accidentally became, he was sort of kind of working for the Mossad and he didn't know that.
MARCUS PARKS
He got he got a hair's breadth away from giving state secrets to another country.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just did that thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Very Clue of him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Communism was a red herring.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh, I love that movie.
MARCUS PARKS
This of course drew the heavy attention of the FBI.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Jack was quickly fired after making a powerful enemy in Howard Hughes who was a virulent antisemite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know if he's in our wheelhouse but I would be fascinated to do something on Howard Hughes.
MARCUS PARKS
He's a weirdo of the highest order.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like him. I mean not that I like him but-
MARCUS PARKS
That story.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The story.
MARCUS PARKS
Super antisemitic, super racist. He's got a whole thing going.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But him wearing the tissue boxes on his feet. I don't like him, I'm just saying I like the concept of him shuffling around with the long fingernails and stuff, it's fun.
MARCUS PARKS
I can find you a guy who keeps jars of his own urine. I can find that guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Are you about to point at yourself? And the guy is me.
MARCUS PARKS
Who's got two thumbs and keeps jars of his own urine? This guy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he's pretty cool.
MARCUS PARKS
But this episode in Jack's life did have a positive effect. Once Marjorie Cameron heard about Jack's troubles with the FBI, she returned from Mexico to give the marriage another shot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Aw, isn't that nice?
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's nice. Well maybe she was turned on by espionage.
MARCUS PARKS
Perhaps. They stopped divorce proceedings and moved back to Pasadena, just one block away from the former site of The Parsonage. Now Parsons was starting to realize that he probably wasn't going to get his security clearance back anytime soon, if ever.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, the whole giving the government secrets.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's light espionage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay?
MARCUS PARKS
So he started working at powder companies again. And by 1951 he'd set up shop right here in North Hollywood with his own explosives business and called it the Parsons Chemical Manufacturing Company.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Isn't that fun?
BEN KISSEL
What do they there?
MARCUS PARKS
They made fucking booms.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. They did it for finally an innocent group of people, vaguely innocent. They did it for Hollywood.
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
They did it for show business. They manufactured explosives, pyrotechnics, fog effects.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Specialization though, squibs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No kidding? Love a good squid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the little things that make gunshot wounds look realistic.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, you should have seen the set of that movie Rust. Some of the best squibs of all time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So realistic. And can you believe it? Have you seen Terrifier 2 yet?
MARCUS PARKS
I have not.
BEN KISSEL
Not yet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly it's fine, it's fun. But they finally brought back juicy squibs.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing is that there's never gonna be a better squib in cinematic history, no one is ever gonna top the boardroom scene in Robocop when ED-209 fills that fucking dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(machine gun sounds) That's the best.
BEN KISSEL
I agree. Also juicy squibs are gonna be performing at the Paramour this weekend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mahalo.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, you're gonna love them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm doing it now. I'm doing it for him.
MARCUS PARKS
You're doing it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
At the same time Parsons returned to the groovy life, hosting parties for the beat generation crowd that looked at Parsons as somewhat of an old man, even though Parsons was only in his mid 30s. See Parsons, he's still rocking out the classical music.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
He's liking the violins, he's getting all weird with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what he likes cause it's his ritual music.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the cool kids, they're into jazz.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh yeah. (scatting) Remember that? I did it before.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Really good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like Billy Elliot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Billie Eilish maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
Billy Elliot was that movie about the Irish boy who dances.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I said this before. Again, it's Billie Holiday.
BEN KISSEL
it's Billie Holiday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that was the one that was Jimi Hendrix's nanny.
BEN KISSEL
Oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe. Maybe.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can say whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe you're thinking of Slash. I think you're thinking of Slash.
BEN KISSEL
Slash?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wish.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they looked at Parsons, these new cool kids, they looked at him as an old fogey. He's still wearing a suit, vest, and tie every single day. He's a bit of a pre-war relic.
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck are they wearing?
MARCUS PARKS
You know, they're wearing turtlenecks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's Charlie Parker, man. Big hats.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, pretty edgy. Those turtlenecks are petty hip.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was revolutionary at the time, they didn't know what a shirt can extend up to the chin.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But Parsons' parties, they were still a good time. Charlie Parker came once.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no kidding?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he probably fucked Marjorie.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, probably. Seemingly infused with a new energy, Parsons even formed his own religion, perhaps as a response to the increasing popularity Of dianetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, there was a little bit of jealousy in it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because dianetics hit hard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it did. And dianetics was making a lot of money, $600 for the first course of dianetics. And that's in 1952 money.
BEN KISSEL
That's a lot of money.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And Jack thought that he needed something to replace the indirection that compromised the OTO.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is hilarious because it's actually very directed. It's very directed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just wanted something else. He wanted something simpler.
MARCUS PARKS
But the other side of that is that that whole every man and woman is a star thing, that tends to keep shit from getting done sometimes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it is like herding cats.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it is at the same time... What he was trying to do, what he thought that what L. Ron, which we brought up a little bit in the last episode, is that he took the arcane highly intense rituals. Right, because I didn't cover the full detail of how these rituals are done because I think it makes a lot of people go to sleep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think they don't like to hear it.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what it is is days and days and days of role playing. Literally it's like you memorize pages of of these long tomes and stuff. It does sort of seem in a way what Jack Parsons was doing was a proto proto version of chaos magic at this point. Where what he wanted was to strip it away. Because he said that in his mind LRH with Scientology was already stripping away a lot of the super ornate ritual shit and trying to get to quote unquote "the core" which was for LRH, giving him money. But for Jack Parsons, he's like I want to put the tools of magic to ruin other people's lives like it ruined mine.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I want to put those tools into other people's hands and I'm gonna do it like sleek. I'm gonna strip it down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well his religion would be created for a modern spirit. He wanted it to have an austere simplicity of approach.
BEN KISSEL
Well that'll be fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Make it super simple. That's what he wanted. He wanted it simple.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's trying to make his iPod.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Although I'm not entirely sure that he achieved this goal based on the religion's description. Mostly Jack's religion was a combination of Crowley's teachings and the Babylon prophecy that Parsons had created himself. But mixed in was a horror novel called 'Darker Than You Think' which is a great name for a horror novel.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did you get to read any of it?
MARCUS PARKS
I did not. I got to read the synopsis of it. It was published first as a novella in one of Jack's sci-fi digests and later was so popular that it was expanded to a novel. 'Darker Than You Think' is a werewolf novel that tells a secret history of humanity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cool actually.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
In which mankind and werewolves have been locked in a hidden battle for hundreds if not thousands of years. And also the werewolves can sometimes turn into other animals depending.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There are other types of weres. There's werepigs and wereducks.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fun, right. Wereseagull.
BEN KISSEL
I wanna be a werepig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You already are. Every time I want to know where Kissel goes, I just go werepig! Werepig! And then I hear him. Oink oink.
BEN KISSEL
How the piggies eat. (snorting)
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah I remember that, A Christmas Story.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's Christmastime too, isn't it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in this world, in the world of 'Darker Than You Think', medieval witch hunts were actually a means of protecting mankind from werewolves and the modern skepticism towards witchcraft is an attitude deliberately fostered by hidden werewolves as a way to gain a quote unquote "breathing spell" for a counterattack.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very pulpy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The book's very pulpy, it's really fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read about 50 pages of it. It's cool, you can find it on the internet archive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I love the werewolves.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do.
BEN KISSEL
They're fun little creatures.
MARCUS PARKS
They are. And it's fun to work werewolves into a religion.
BEN KISSEL
Why not?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is, of course!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. You're gonna make shit up anyway, have fun with it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And the novel's apparently amazing based on the reviews I read. And I'm glad Henry, I'm glad that you enjoyed it as well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Parsons was apparently first drawn to it because of the story's description of a scarlet- haired woman riding a great beast, which was of course supposed to be the end game of the Babylon Working.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the idea is that we each have a werewolf inside of us we're trying to release, that's what that is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The werewolf is the primal energy that we're trying to get to by eating nut butter and raw liver and being natty natty.
BEN KISSEL
Being natty, yeah. Requires a full moon.
MARCUS PARKS
Natty?
BEN KISSEL
Natural.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh, like Natty Light.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, natural, like not on steroids like the Liver King.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I'm doing a Liver King, like that's my thing.
MARCUS PARKS
What's the Liver King?
BEN KISSEL
Liver King eats a bunch of liver and then he's like that's why I got all buff. But it turns out he spent almost $12,000 a month on steroids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he lied about not being on steroids.
MARCUS PARKS
I see. But using the elements of his werewolf novel along with what he'd learned from Crowley and what he created himself, Parsons created a religion called The Witchcraft, which is a cool name for a religion.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, that is cool.
MARCUS PARKS
And he priced a basic course of instruction, 10 bucks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fine. That's all you need for the secrets of the universe.
BEN KISSEL
Cheaper than dianetics.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Unfortunately though The Witchcraft never got a chance to take off, even though Jack's life was starting to level out by the early 50s. The FBI finally dropped their investigation into Parsons concluding that while he was certainly a fruitcake, to use the parlance of the times-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a fun 1950s term.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He was not a communist. But the damage had already been done.
BEN KISSEL
okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The eccentricities that were excused during the war became liabilities in the 1950s when the existence of all grooviness was threatened by the Levittown brand of conformity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Therefore Jack's security clearance to work on DOD classified information and/or material was forever revoked.
BEN KISSEL
Revoked!
MARCUS PARKS
And so Parsons decided he's got to clear his head.
BEN KISSEL
He does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, man. That's difficult.
BEN KISSEL
I hope he doesn't do it with fucking a shotgun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he might do it with nitroglycerin in a couple of months.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he and Marjorie planned to move to Mexico for a few months where Parsons said he might grow grapes to make brandy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Or he might build a pyramid to quote "reestablish the ancient glories".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if I know anything about my sweet magician is I think once you get to that first level of pyramid, you're gonna be like god, let's just get to the grapes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, maybe just go with the grapes. Yeah, you make wine out of those or just eat them.
MARCUS PARKS
But on the very day that Parsons and Marjorie were planning to leave, Jack got a phone call from a company called the Special Effects Corporation. They specialized in special effects.
BEN KISSEL
Oh!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh!
MARCUS PARKS
They needed a rush order on a batch of explosives before Jack left and Jack figured why the hell not?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I have some time if I work quickly and who couldn't use a bit of extra cash before an extended vacation?
BEN KISSEL
It seems like something you don't want to rush.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like he was distracted.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, a bit so. Now when it came to explosives, Jack was what you'd call a collector. His storage space included cartons of nitroglycerin, trinitrobenzene, and a substance known as PETN which is apparently one of the most powerful explosives in existence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, I better get that box of that out from under my bed. I didn't even know what that was.
BEN KISSEL
I'm just gonna put it by all these candles and matches and see what happens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll see.
MARCUS PARKS
And this is in addition to all of the other stuff whose properties were only known to Jack. Other scientists and people that were into this type of shit, they'd go in and they'd look at all this and they're like what the fuck is all this shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's like that's my family. That's my family. But he also might have been doing a little bit of like light arms dealing as well.
BEN KISSEL
I feel like you guys are really kinda whitewashing all the-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
MARCUS PARKS
I'm not whitewashing. I haven't heard about this, this seems like one of those patented Zebrowski exaggerations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No! In 'Sex and Rockets' one of his friends were like because there was a period of time where it was like how is he getting his money? Because he was inbetween jobs and they were like I think he might have been selling nitroglycerin to a bunch of people.
BEN KISSEL
I mean he's got a bunch of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing, he's got it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I dunno. Closer than we are to selling it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just sitting there. They're all like the clock and the candlestick in Beauty and the Beast. If they're not exploding, they don't serve any purpose. You know how many times he comes home and they're all just sitting there like just here gathering dust.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, indeed. Also they made him gay, huh? The candlestick. Little offensive, I thought.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
BEN KISSEL
The candlestick. They made him gay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where?
BEN KISSEL
In Beauty and the Beast.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
The cartoon.
MARCUS PARKS
Why is that offensive?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, what are you talking about?
BEN KISSEL
Flame.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh cause of the flamer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god Kissel, I just don't even know.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a long road to walk, my friend.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's offensive. They did it wrong. That's Disney. And they put dicks in everything too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know how mahalo is gonna fix it.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know if mahalo is gonna fix this one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I dunno if the spirit of Hawaii-
BEN KISSEL
I've talked about this before, I talked about this for a decade. You can archive how I've said that's a little inappropriate.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually I vaguely remember a Roundtable episode in which this was discussed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, the original Lumière was a pussy hound. The original Lumière was fucking the mop.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The duster.
BEN KISSEL
The duster, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The duster. Wasn't fucking Angela Lansbury, wasn't fucking the teapot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. I mean honestly and that's sad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
She just died.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, she did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah we know, whatever. I know, it's nice, it's sad, it's sad.
BEN KISSEL
Sad, I loved her. I loved her.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as I said, the trip down to Mexico was supposed to be an extended stay so Jack had emptied out his explosives storage space at the Special Effects Corporation and he'd moved carton upon carton of highly volatile materials in cardboard boxes to the laundry room of his house.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. What is happening?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a crazy person.
MARCUS PARKS
And it was in that laundry room full of explosives using a tin coffee can as a mixing bowl because he had no beakers or flasks on hand to properly do the job, that's where Jack Parsons decided to fill a rush order of explosives.
BEN KISSEL
This isn't good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But Jack and Marjorie weren't planning on leaving their house empty. They'd already had friends move in to take over the lease while they were gone. Those friends probably weren't fully aware of what Jack was storing in the laundry room when they agreed to move in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely not.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But regardless, at 5PM that day one of those friends saw Jack rushing around the laundry room, pouring explosive liquids from one test tube to the other and putting the results in an oven while he waited around for his concoctions to coalesce.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sexy guy.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
And reportedly one of these friends said to Parsons, 'For god's sakes Jack, don't blow us up.' And to this Parsons maniacally laughed and said:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(laughs maniacally) "Don't worry about it."
BEN KISSEL
I am a little bit worried about it. You saying that actually makes me worry about it more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What about my maniacal laughter doesn't make you feel comforted? (laughs maniacally) Things will be fine.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not often that you get to say famous last words and actually mean them. They were famous last words, that's the last words Parsons said to anyone.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. 8 minutes later, two almost simultaneous blasts blew off the doors of the laundry room, broke the windows, collapsed the ceiling frames, and stripped the walls of plaster. And when the smoke cleared the first people on the scene saw Jack Parsons in a pool of blood, missing an arm and the left side of his face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's Two-Face.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You're gonna want that part of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I always like having both parts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It helps.
BEN KISSEL
It does.
MARCUS PARKS
It helps. But incredibly Parsons was still alive when the ambulance loaded him up, even though his right arm was so thoroughly blasted off that it was never found.
BEN KISSEL
Hear me out, how am I doing guys?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I think I'm gonna need a BAND-AID.
MARCUS PARKS
Reportedly Jack struggled to say something on the ambulance ride but no one could understand what he was trying to say.
BEN KISSEL
The whole missing the face thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
(lisping) Do you think I'm gonna be okay?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very scary. You can't make fun of the victim, he is a victim of explosives.
BEN KISSEL
He blew himself up. He's a maniac.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(lisping) You see my tongue?
BEN KISSEL
(lisping) Not so much here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(lisping) Not so much here.
BEN KISSEL
(lisping) Just level with me, doc. How serious is it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just holding his leg. Which one's left, which one's right?
MARCUS PARKS
And so by the time Parsons reached the hospital, he was pronounced dead at the age of 37.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Jack's mother Ruth was actually supposed to go on the Mexico trip with Jack and Marjorie, and Jack and Marjorie had actually been living with Ruth in the lead up to their departure. But when Jack's mother heard of Jack's death, she swallowed a bottle of sedatives with a liquor chaser. The only people around were other old people, they weren't quick or strong enough to stop her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude. So her roommate was an invalid, I think that was the term at the time, I don't know if we used that term anymore. But it was a bed bound woman, right. She couldn't move. Whatever, old as fuck.
BEN KISSEL
We know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she apparently just watched in horror as she choked down these pills and then just died in front of her just going hip, hip, hip. You know, no one did anything.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But their closeness is why there was also sort of weird incest rumors about Jack Parsons and his mother. But then I didn't find anything else about that. I think it's slander.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I don't know where you found this claim that Jack Parsons-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'm all over.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he found this claim that there was a picture of Jack Parsons and his mother having sex with a dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was a bunch of shit. It's all over, man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. You must have really searched for that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's called research, buddy.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's called production. And I'm out there, man. I'm out in these fucking streets.
BEN KISSEL
I appreciate all the research.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Marjorie Cameron meanwhile seemed to be more single-minded. When she heard about Jack's death, she was more concerned with the three pounds of weed sitting in her house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She did the thing. I can't even name names, it reminds me of a very specific person in our past. She comes to the house and it's all exploded, the first thing she's like oh no, the weed!
BEN KISSEL
The weed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh fuck, it's the weed!
BEN KISSEL
That's a serious crime back then.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, you go to real jail. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah. She was less concerned about the weed and more concerned about what would happen if the gaggle of investigators who were showing up at the house, what would happen if they found the weed. It's three pounds of weed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
BEN KISSEL
That's a lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I also wanna say Cameron, listen, the house is also full of explosives. I think they're gonna also maybe have a thing to say about the fact that he's been storaging fucking piles of nitroglycerin in the house.
BEN KISSEL
Is that illegal? How is this a crime?
MARCUS PARKS
It was illegal, it was highly illegal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just got investigated for espionage.
MARCUS PARKS
So Cameron called her friend Julie and told her to bring the largest purse she had.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the old fashioned way to do it, man.
MARCUS PARKS
And the two women were able to bypass a horde of cops and FBI agents with 3 pounds of weed stuffed into their purses and clothes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like the end of Goodfellas.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like one of those two, especially because it's just so crazy. So much shit has happened and they lived this loosey goosey life for so long. Obviously it spun everybody out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I wonder how good that weed was. It was probably pretty mid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've heard mixed things. I've heard mixed things about old weed. Some people say it's stronger now, some people say that it was better then.
BEN KISSEL
There's no way it was better then. No way.
MARCUS PARKS
For my personal taste it was certainly better then, I loved weed in the 90s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I miss regs sometimes.
MARCUS PARKS
Regs, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You can still get them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I miss that.
BEN KISSEL
You can get them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I can get you fucking regs, man.
MARCUS PARKS
You can get me regs?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah bro.
MARCUS PARKS
Fuck yeah, bro.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, for real bro.
MARCUS PARKS
We're living in California now, we don't get to keep this shit a secret. We can talk openly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Weed.
BEN KISSEL
I think we've been talking openly for quite a while.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For like two decades.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I can buy you bags of shake.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool. Bags of shake, loving it. Getting into it. Getting back into weed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'll get you my favorite pre rolls, you can try them out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Are you a sativa or indica guy?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh I'm a sativa man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you ever tried crack? Wanna try it? Come on man, wanna try it?
MARCUS PARKS
We'll see. California Marcus, I don't know if that works. Marcus California maybe. LA Marcus. Hollywood Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like that. Hollywood Marcus.
BEN KISSEL
Hollywood Marcus loves crack.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hollywood Parks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Hollywood Parks. But then that's just a park in Hollywood. That's the Hollywood Parks system.
BEN KISSEL
Hence the crack.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I like Hollywood Marcus, let's go for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mahalo, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Mahalo.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
The investigation into the explosion found residue of mercury fulminate in a shredded coffee tin. It's assumed that Parsons had been using the coffee tin to mix the mercury fulminate because Jack's friend had seen Parsons using a coffee tin earlier.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
Because that's the thing is that some of his friends are like oh Jack Parsons, he was too meticulous, he would never use anything like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely not!
MARCUS PARKS
A friend, a woman actually saw him mixing shit in a coffee tin. He was like yeah, I don't have my beakers, don't have anything here, I'm just having to use this coffee tin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's also how he invented the fucking JATO, it's how he did it. All just making it up as they went.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well it's thought that Jack may have accidentally dropped the tin and tried to catch it before it hit the ground. But when he whiffed it, the tin exploded when it hit the floor because mercury fulminate is highly volatile. You ever seen Breaking Bad?
BEN KISSEL
Of course, I've seen some episodes there. I watched the last episode and I watched the whole thing in reverse. He turns out to be a great teacher. He died a nerd's death.
MARCUS PARKS
He did.
BEN KISSEL
This is like the nerdiest way to die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually don't think so. I think the nerdiest way to die is to choke on a protractor. I think this is actually a cool way to die.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my beaker! Oh! If he would have caught it he would be alive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I don't wanna die in a goof 'em up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I don't want to. I'm so afraid that my last words are gonna be oh shit! And that's it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I just don't want my last word to be wait, wait, wait.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Boom!
MARCUS PARKS
No, I don't want that. But if you've seen Breaking Bad, first season episode 2, remember when Walter White comes in and he's got that bag and he throws it down on the ground and it blows all the windows out and convinces Tuco?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That's mercury fulminate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Science.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing is that mercury fulminate, he might have been able to survive that blast. It did of course blew his arm off and it did blast off half of his face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but we got boys fighting in the wars that have the same shit happen to them and we patched them up.
MARCUS PARKS
But the problem is that the laundry room was filled with explosives.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was all the other explosives.
MARCUS PARKS
So when the mercury fulminate went off, all the other explosives went off almost immediately after.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Looney Tunes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. (lisping) Do you think Marjorie is still gonna like me?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(lisping) Come here, come here, listen. Just sit on my face, just one last time. Please god.
MARCUS PARKS
His jawbone was exposed, his teeth were exposed.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
He's all fucked up. That however is the accepted version of the story, the one put forth by the authorities.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lame stream media.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wants you to think that that's what happens, the fact that he was also very clumsy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well true to a man of Jack's reputation, his death in the years since has become shrouded in the shadow of both multiple conspiracy theories and the possibility that his death was a case of magic gone wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I think it's exactly what he would have wanted. His death just became another mystery for other people to decipher.
BEN KISSEL
You say conspiracy theory. How did they somehow blame the Jews for it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll get there.
BEN KISSEL
Because every conspiracy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You mean the term merchant which I read in the book about the Saturn Death Cult.
BEN KISSEL
If anyone's in conspiracy theory, they always just end that way.
MARCUS PARKS
Well actually this one, are the Jews involved? Yes.
BEN KISSEL
They are?
MARCUS PARKS
They are involved but not as the perpetrators.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
Thank god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Of course the FBI files surrounding the investigation into Jack's death is heavily redacted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is interesting in and of itself.
MARCUS PARKS
That's very interesting. And that leads some to believe that he might have been killed by any number of people or organizations, mostly for political reasons. Some think that Jack Parsons was killed by Howard Hughes as revenge for handing over company secrets to the Israelis because as I said earlier Hughes was a well known antisemite. And relatedly, some think Jack Parsons was murdered by anti-Zionists who killed anyone who was even tangentially involved with the state of Israel. So yes, part of the conspiracy theory but not the perpetrators of the conspiracy theory.
BEN KISSEL
I say drop the hate.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Drop the hate, add some love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You heard it here first, folks.
MARCUS PARKS
You heard it here first. There were even rumors that Parsons was killed in a revenge served cold stemming from his testimony years before that had put away LAPD police chief Earle Kynette.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Who if you'll remember tried to assassinate a fellow officer in a car bombing to cover up corruption.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's actually the one of all of them that I think that could have been a thing. It's that one. But I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Possibly.
BEN KISSEL
That reminds me of when at the Fleshbot Awards I gave the best mainstream porn award to Chyna, the WWE wrestler which went on YouTube that night and she said Vince, holding the silver dildo I gave her, Vince, to Vince McMahon, revenge is a dish best served cold. And she held up the silver dildo.
MARCUS PARKS
The big dildo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait because the dildo was itself cold?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well I don't know because she was like see Vince, I made it. I got a porn award for Backdoor to Chyna.
MARCUS PARKS
It was a night in February, it was really cold.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It should have been hot cause didn't she want her vagina to be wet and receiving?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know exactly what happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I don't know, I'm just being a backseat porn man.
BEN KISSEL
It was smuggling, it was a movie about smuggling.
MARCUS PARKS
Her clit was quite large.
BEN KISSEL
Huge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I remember.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, she was on the juice. She wasn't natty. She wasn't natty at all.
MARCUS PARKS
No, not natty. But in an explanation of suspicion that smacks a bit of Building 7, the reason why most people at least entertain the idea that Parsons was assassinated, that's because a chemical engineer named George Santmyers said that the explosion could have only come from beneath the floorboards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no other way. There no other possible way it could have come from anything else. Do explosions just come from the sky? Yeah, you're saying missiles, sure.
BEN KISSEL
Lightning. Fire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, fuck you. I'm the expert, all right? Fuck you. Fuck you, buddy. All right? Cause explosions only come from the ground up. Because they're like potatoes. All right? They come up like the carrots. All right? That's what comes from the ground is explosions and carrots. All right? I ain't got time for this! Are you oppressing me, buddy?
BEN KISSEL
The room is full of explosives.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But he says it could only come from beneath the floorboards.
BEN KISSEL
But what about the room full of explosives?
MARCUS PARKS
But the first explosion.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You fucking piece of shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Not the second explosion. The room of of explosives, that's the second explosion.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When he's like this he's being very un-mahalo. All right? Now I'm using it as a weapon. It's my two-edged sword.
BEN KISSEL
I know it is.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing, a lot of this doesn't make any practical sense. First of all, it's a pretty piss poor operation that waits until the day before Jack moves to Mexico to blow him up using a Byzantine plan to lure him into his laundry room with a last minute explosives order from the Special Effects Corporation which would have required the involvement of multiple witnesses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You fucking simp. I can't even believe this fucking guy after all this shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Who am I simping for right now?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The US government. All right? Because when it comes down to it of course they would choose the most highly unlikely, nay impossible way to kill him because truth is stranger than fiction.
MARCUS PARKS
I see.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know why they would though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Truth is stranger than fiction.
BEN KISSEL
It can be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It always is!
BEN KISSEL
Not always.
MARCUS PARKS
Second, if you wanted to kill Jack Parsons, wait a day until he's in Mexico, you do it quickly and quietly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You also could have just shot him in the head.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, in Mexico.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And you definitely could have laced his drugs with shit or any of his stuff or anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Charlie Parker could have got in there because he was on so much heroin you could have told him it was a saxophone.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely, hit him with the guitar.
MARCUS PARKS
All of this seems much more covert than using a massive explosion on Millionaire's Row in Pasadena that very well could have killed dozens of people had the conditions been just a little different.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was to send a message.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh that was to send a message. To who?
BEN KISSEL
About what?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jazz.
BEN KISSEL
About jazz?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about jazz.
MARCUS PARKS
What about jazz?
BEN KISSEL
He didn't listen to jazz.
MARCUS PARKS
To who?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not even gonna answer. The audience can't see it but I'm giving you the hm.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're giving me the hm. But you also didn't explain what the hm is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the audience, again, allegory.
BEN KISSEL
They know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Discover, decipher.
BEN KISSEL
They can see.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But when it comes to allegations of magical ritual gone wrong, this is more where the human element comes into play. See some say that Parsons had accidentally summoned a fire demon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's all in his writings, right. 'The Book of Babylon' says that he's gonna die in flame, he talked about being blown away.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You remember quotation marks, winky wink, right?
BEN KISSEL
it's a fire demon.
MARCUS PARKS
But if that's true, why was-
BEN KISSEL
It's not true.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's entertain the idea.
BEN KISSEL
Of a fire demon. Entertain the idea of a fire demon.
MARCUS PARKS
I need you to be a little more mahalo right now. A little more mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude. Cause you're being very mahal-no.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, all right. A fire demon.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So if that's true, why was he-
BEN KISSEL
It's not true!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's just say, presuppose.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Presuppose we're in a world where all of this is real.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But if that's true, why was he summoning anything on his way out of town when he had a last minute explosives order?
BEN KISSEL
That's the issue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about time management.
BEN KISSEL
That's the issue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about like have I packed?
BEN KISSEL
When he has a vacation.
MARCUS PARKS
Why would he do it?
BEN KISSEL
Why would he summon the fire demon that's totally real if he has a vacation coming up?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Yeah, if that's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Presuppose.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Yeah. That's not logical at all! Wow. That's fucking brilliant, guys. That is absolutely-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hours of research.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it, man. Hours of research.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read four books. I read four books! We had production calls.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I know. It's a lot of research. It's a four parter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man.
BEN KISSEL
Four part series. All right, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
To that same point-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Others in the magical community, they said that Parsons was trying to create a-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen. A homunculus. It's real.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you know what a homunculus is?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know what a homunculus is.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a tiny version of yourself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's trying to make a Barbie version of himself.
BEN KISSEL
I'm so angry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Six hours of the show, six hours of the show. It's fake, it's fake.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But that the thing is that the whole thing went sideways. See according to the alchemical writings of Paracelsus-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Correct.
MARCUS PARKS
Which were kindly summarized in the Wikipedia entry on homunculi
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Disgusting that you would do that, truncate the reading like that.
MARCUS PARKS
A homunculus can be made by putrefying one's own semen in a sealed gourd.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like in that Timothy Chamalamadingdong movie.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Preferably you want to use a cucurbit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
If you wanted to do it right. And you're gonna keep it for 40 days at the temperature of a horse's womb.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh, what the fuck?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is just nice. Like San Diego?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I'm assuming it's probably 98-100?
MARCUS PARKS
It's 98-100 degrees, I looked it up, yeah. It's about 100 degrees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A cucurbit is a melon.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a melon. It's a gourd.
BEN KISSEL
It's a gourd, okay. So you come inside of a gourd, you put it inside of a horse's womb.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you treat it like it.
MARCUS PARKS
At the temperature of a horse's womb.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And then eventually the come will come to life. And you feed it human blood for 40 weeks. Always keeping it at the even temperature of a horse's womb. And then after 40 days, a tiny little version of yourself-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey everybody, hey! Hey, how you doing? You guys like jazz? I don't, I like classical music, I don't like jazz.
BEN KISSEL
Remember Lil' Penny?
MARCUS PARKS
Lil' Penny, oh yeah. Lil' Penny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's him, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a homunculus created from Penny Hardaway's come.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No kidding!
BEN KISSEL
I had no idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
According to 'The Secret Rituals of the OTO' which is a book that breaks down the symbolic meaning of a homunculus, right, is that partially what you're supposed to do, again spiritual revolution, right.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not maybe making a direct actual carbon little tiny person version of him because even though that would be cute-
BEN KISSEL
It'd be fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It would be kinda fun. Wouldn't it be kind of fun, right, you're having sex with Carolina. I'm putting this on your head.
MARCUS PARKS
Put it on me, put it on me.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're having sex with Carolina, right. But then you have a little tiny you that can jump around and play with her butthole.
MARCUS PARKS
Huh.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're in the front, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I'm in the front.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or he's he's working the clitoris.
MARCUS PARKS
He's doing whatever he wants to do.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he's there cause he's also her husband.
BEN KISSEL
It would work.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah I know but he's still gonna do what he wants to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah of course, yeah. Cause he's you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well how would you feel?
MARCUS PARKS
With a tiny little version of myself? I would ask her how she felt about it first.
BEN KISSEL
That's respectful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I forget about her. I forget that she should be included.
MARCUS PARKS
I would first have a conversation about-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You would pull up little Marcus, be like Marcusini wants in, right. Being like I don't know if I want Marcusini in me tonight.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I'm guessing she's gonna say no.
BEN KISSEL
Probably no. Lil' Penny on the other hand...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
According to 'The Secret Rituals of the OTO' the ego is not installed into a fetus until it is at three months.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so up until three months you can do magical workings and replace the ego of the fetus with anything that you want. Anything. Any kind of elemental imagery but it is that.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you cycle it out and then you give birth to a child. That's what Aleister Crowley did.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay. Well I'll go home and I'll ask my wife, I'll ask Carolina.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would love an update.
MARCUS PARKS
I'll ask her about it, remind me to give you an update next week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll call her tonight.
BEN KISSEL
We'll figure it out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm going to ask her.
BEN KISSEL
Good.
MARCUS PARKS
Because I don't want to speak for her. Now call me crazy-
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're crazy!
BEN KISSEL
You did it.
MARCUS PARKS
But it seems like the death of Jack Parsons involved just a bit more heat than a horse's womb. And besides, it would have been odd for Parsons to rush his homunculus before going out of town because it's not like he had a plane to catch. He'd just leave the next day. If my homunculus isn't done yet, let's leave on Thursday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate rushing my homunculus.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I need my time. This is my homunculus time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing is I don't know, what did he need to rush it for before he went to Mexico? Did they need something fun in the car to play with?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It would be kind of cute.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Did you play basketball with a football as a child?
MARCUS PARKS
Me or Jack Parsons?
BEN KISSEL
You.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I played football with a football.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he played football.
MARCUS PARKS
I was all district.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, him and Crowley, wide receivers.
BEN KISSEL
Seems a lot more like a tight end.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I played safety and running back, my friend.
BEN KISSEL
Oh. I could actually see you being a great running back.
MARCUS PARKS
I was actually a much better running back than I was a safety.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I could see that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well really if we're done with that-
BEN KISSEL
We are.
MARCUS PARKS
The most likely explanation for Jack's death was put forth by his old friend Ed Forman. And Ben, you might be right in saying that it was a nerd's death. You know why he died?
BEN KISSEL
Why?
MARCUS PARKS
Sweaty hands.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, he had like clinically sweaty hands.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like one of those dudes where he would probably get a procedure now done to stop the sweaty hands.
BEN KISSEL
I heard that if you have that procedure done you just sweat elsewhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's not good.
BEN KISSEL
Cause the sweat still has to go somewhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They believe that Bruce Lee died of hidrosis, that he was drinking too much water because he got laser treatment on his armpits.
BEN KISSEL
It's that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. This is a new theory because he didn't want people to see pit stains when he was on film because he thought that it looked undignified.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh wow. That's horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It means nothing, I don't know if it's real.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well usually Jack was meticulous in his work but in using shitty equipment for a rush job, Jack's hand's got slippery, Jack got himself killed.
BEN KISSEL
God dang.
MARCUS PARKS
Now sadly Ed Forman was sort of broken by Jack's death. He was reportedly aggressive and withdrawn after his oldest friend was blown to bits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Forman claimed to have been visited years later by Jack Parsons' spirit during one terrifying night driving alone in the desert.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(lisping) Hey, you got any gum?
MARCUS PARKS
Marjorie Cameron meanwhile fell apart after Jack's death once the reality of the situation set in. And she lost her grip on reality completely. She burned her possessions and claimed that she was the scarlet woman summoned from the Babylon Working. Consequently she was briefly institutionalized.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Once you start yelling about being an ancient Sumerian goddess thing, everyone gets all concerned.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And they would just institutionalize a lot of people back then.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did.
MARCUS PARKS
They really would. Yeah, they really would. But once she gathered herself just like Jack had done after he crossed the abyss, Cameron returned to California, got more interested in witchcraft and magic, and continued living the groovy life for the next 40 years.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting lady.
MARCUS PARKS
In addition to becoming a well respected creator of haunting paintings, Marjorie acted in a number of films directed by well known Thelemite Kenneth Anger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a view that she gave him all of the stuff, like showed him Thelema.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Showed him Thelema. Remember Kenneth, that's all wrapped up with Charles Manson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Marjorie Cameron once claimed to have participated in a reverse gangbang with Bob Hope after Bob Hope told her about that one time he saw a UFO.
BEN KISSEL
Wait.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't even think of Bob Hope with an erection.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I can.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Bob Hope?
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You really think that he worked it?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I think so. Bob Hope back interesting he day, dude?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Like when he jutted his jaw.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember seeing my grandfather in his underwear, like the old style boxer short that was like a full pant that he wore.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something about Bob Hope with those around his ankles with his USO hat on and his weird fluorescent pink-
BEN KISSEL
So he had a bunch of chicks gangbang him?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It was Marjorie and a couple of her friends.
BEN KISSEL
I can totally see it.
MARCUS PARKS
They showed up a Bob Hope's house one night, they started talking about UFOs, before you knew it everyone's naked and Bob Hope's got the biggest smile on his face.
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that is called the UFO effect.
BEN KISSEL
There you go. Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But no matter what Marjorie Cameron did, the presence of Jack Parsons haunted her, although she did seem to enjoy using Jack as a handy tragedy to hang her hat on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it made her very mysterious.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. This of course led to problems mostly from jealous lovers. See much of Jack's writings on magic, including his quote unquote "magical box", they were destroyed in the explosion that killed him. But the surviving documents were entrusted to Marjorie Cameron who wasn't what you'd call the most responsible archivist. First a jealous lover destroyed Jack's magical diary because he wanted to replace Jack as Marjorie's magical partner, believing that she'd never get over Jack unless all vestiges of his memory were incinerated.
BEN KISSEL
He's dead, who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The thing about if you're trying to have sex with a widow, you gotta act like the husband was cool.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I mean it. If she loved the husband and you're like oh man, I wish Steve could see me banging you. You know what I mean? Like I miss Steve too.
MARCUS PARKS
He would have loved this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He would have loved this.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. He was a cool guy.
MARCUS PARKS
The rest of Jack's magical manuscripts and his occult library, they were entrusted to a public librarian. But since I suppose Marjorie didn't stress the importance of the collection, the librarian just threw it all away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's on the librarian, they should take everything seriously.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To honestly be a librarian, that's kind of the opposite of what librarians are trying to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It is the exact opposite, they're supposed to archive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But at the same time, Marjorie was also key to our understanding of the Babylon Working. She was contacted by Aleister Crowley's archivist and she was quite open about the ritual because of course L. Ron Hubbard never talked about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no. L. Ron Hubbard, he stopped it. He stopped it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he stopped it. Remember? He stopped it. He was sent there by the Navy to break up a black magic cult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And rescue a girl.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely.
BEN KISSEL
That's what the Navy does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm pretty sure he knows what the Navy does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ask my father.
MARCUS PARKS
Well by the 70s, Marjorie Cameron had taken to carrying around a velvet bag that she claimed contained the head of Jack Parsons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
And she was quite charmingly known to say that all Scientologists were bastards.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
And didn't hesitate to say that to the face of every Scientologist she met.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they went (laughing). Ah, very good.
BEN KISSEL
Can I jump on your couch?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Tom Cruise!
BEN KISSEL
Kirstie Alley is dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know. Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
We know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God got himself another angel.
MARCUS PARKS
Xenu got himself another pilot. But in the end, Cameron seemed to enjoy the mystery of Jack's death just as much as Jack would have enjoyed it. She always acted as if the official narrative was uncertain and sometimes even suggested that the government had faked Jack's death so they could whisk him away to work on other covert operations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is all y'alls job if I die is to maintain the mystery of my death.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the idea of it. It's that hopefully if it all works out, if it goes according to plan, it's gonna be big.
BEN KISSEL
Right. Yeah, you often say you're not gonna have a head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be big!
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so just know to be like I don't know what happened, I heard Henry was channeling the pantychrist and that's what it was.
BEN KISSEL
Brilliant. Jack Parsons wasn't like muddling guacamole, he wasn't like making salsa.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I might die a salsa-related death. I don't know. But keep it mysterious.
MARCUS PARKS
Sadly though Marjorie Cameron died in 1995 of a brain tumor.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And reportedly her last words were just as amusing as her life. She said quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"The dog's dying, the car's dying, I'm dying, we're all dying."
BEN KISSEL
I like her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like her, yeah. And again she went as Cameron by then. Now she's Cameron.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Cameron. She hated the name Marjorie because remember that was the name of the aunt that haunted her when she was a child. Yeah. Went by Candy sometimes.
BEN KISSEL
I love a good Candy. Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Candy Cameron.
BEN KISSEL
Candy Cameron.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cute.
BEN KISSEL
Candace Cameron?
MARCUS PARKS
Indeed!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Murphy Brown! That's the formula! The Murphy Brown incantation formula.
MARCUS PARKS
Did you know that Murphy Brown hated her father because he was a ventriloquist and she always felt that he loved the doll more than he loved her?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We put more money, I can't believe how much, there was literally several million dollars were spent to bring Murphy Brown back.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it did nothing. And it's garbage. I can't believe it.
BEN KISSEL
When did that happen?
MARCUS PARKS
Exactly. But no, she hated the ventriloquist. She always thought that the ventriloquist, that she was competing with the ventriloquist as an actual sibling.
BEN KISSEL
I get it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's how it works.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as the legacy of Jack Parsons goes-
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
People are somewhat split on how important his contributions were to the history of 20th century science. The more buttoned up types say that his role is exaggerated but that's only because Parsons didn't publish papers and he was again just a little too groovy for the scientific establishment.
BEN KISSEL
A little odd, a little out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they didn't like that he didn't have degrees and he wasn't passed, that's the whole thing, he wasn't pass asked by the inside group.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He didn't do it the right way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He didn't do it the right way and he just didn't pay the money.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. From what more open minded historians say, Parsons was a key figure in the road towards space travel and exploration. And the company he helped found was responsible for flawlessly landing the Mars Curiosity rover amongst many, many other accomplishments. But the more interesting question here is whether or not his magical work had any bearing on the world we live in today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Aliens!
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Aliens?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He made aliens!
BEN KISSEL
He made aliens?
MARCUS PARKS
Well some say that the Babylon Working ripped a hole in reality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Aliens!
MARCUS PARKS
Goddammit, quit interrupting me by yelling aliens!
BEN KISSEL
Aliens?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did it.
MARCUS PARKS
Because the very same year that Parsons claimed to have finished the ritual, the Babylon Working ritual, the Roswell incident occurred and UFO sightings have not slowed down since.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Coincidence? Not one.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Aleister Crowley also claimed that WWI began because he fucked up a ritual.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows? But again, that's magic history.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's the idea that he fucked something up, he did bring in the aeon of Babylon and we're seeing it unfold. And a part of that is replacing the old gods with new ones instead of seeing elementals like fairies and aliens, we're now seeing our new technological gods.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't it OCD?
MARCUS PARKS
Isn't what OCD?
BEN KISSEL
What Aleister Crowley thinks?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh he might.
BEN KISSEL
Because he thinks that he brought... I mean WWI was going to happen if he got buttfucked or not.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but he was bragging that he was responsible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I did it.
BEN KISSEL
Oh he was like I fucked so hard I caused WWI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
I see, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but coincidence does have to be taken into account.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Coincidence?
MARCUS PARKS
But it must be said that Jack Parsons' life was almost defined by the phenomenon of mysterious coincidence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's true.
MARCUS PARKS
No matter what though, Jack Parsons is certainly an American character worth remembering and worth admiring. He was a free spirit and an independent thinker in an age when either of those things could land you in jail if you weren't careful. So while the Babylon Working may not have been successful in the way Parsons wanted, his influence still matters. That is to say Babylon or no, Jack Parsons still helped change our reality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I really do believe it. I think that he was interesting and what he did was that he brought... If there was one thing he did, he was the figure of ritual magic for our age. Which is why we bring him into this fourth series that sort of like rounds out this section of quote unquote "modern ritual magic".
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where he brought it to a new height again. He kind of quote unquote "made it cool" because he brought it into all these counterculture movements. I think there was something to it, maybe Babylon Working is why we got rock and roll.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. But I like this reading. I wanna do a little reading that's from 'Freedom is a Two- Edged Sword'.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think it really describes Parsons. "Our significance does not lie in the extent to which we resemble others or in the extent to which we differ from them. It lies within our ability to be ourselves. And this may well be the entire object of life, to discover ourselves, our meaning. But this cannot be some sudden burst of illumination. It is a constant process which continues so long as we are truly alive. This process cannot continue unobstructed unless we are free to undergo all experience and willing to participate in all of existence. Then the significant questions are not is it right or is it good? But rather how does it feel and what does it mean?"
BEN KISSEL
The McRib is also back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Goddamnit.
BEN KISSEL
And I love it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You had the perfect opportunity to do mahalo.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was a perfect opportunity for you to do what you started today.
BEN KISSEL
Jazz, baby. It's the word you don't say. I ear butted it, I ear planted it and now people say it. Now mahalo, people are like mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now you just did ritual magic.
BEN KISSEL
All day long.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's technically also PR.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Well all right everyone, thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week obviously unless we're dead because we're gonna get into explosives.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well we're supposed to get into rockets now that we're in LA together.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we have been talking about getting into rockets.
BEN KISSEL
Little rockets.
MARCUS PARKS
Little rockets.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, little rockets.
MARCUS PARKS
Little rockets that you paint and you put the little cartridges in, you blast them off.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I used to do it when I was a kid. I blew a bunch of shit up, set it on fire all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah dude, it's awesome.
BEN KISSEL
We can get into, what was it, Love Liza? He gets into RC racing.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah, RC cars. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
RC cars, that's kinda cool.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm not gonna live a Love Liza life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, what's Love Liza?
MARCUS PARKS
Have you ever seen that?
BEN KISSEL
With Philip Seymour Hoffman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that the one with Philip Seymour Hoffman where he's huffing the gas?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what you want him to be?
MARCUS PARKS
It's one of the most depressing yet also heartwarming movies I've ever seen.
BEN KISSEL
It's funny and it ends with an explosion.
MARCUS PARKS
It's funny, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, it does.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. All right, everyone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just can't wait to close some tabs.
BEN KISSEL
I'm very happy that you can. Thank you so much for listening. Do we have any other things to discuss?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We have announced our new, because we are bumping up, obviously Marcus is still getting over long COVID, he's doing great honestly.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's still process. So we are postponing our Australian tour to August and those dates are now put out there. But we're coming, can't wait.
BEN KISSEL
Can't wait.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you to all my Australian friends for being understanding about the postponement. It's just we didn't wanna run into another situation where I get on the other side of the world and forget how to breathe again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
I was watching an Australian comedian and the audience was in masks but they had a really weird smile on the mask.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's scary.
BEN KISSEL
It was really trippy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That really, really scares me.
BEN KISSEL
It was scary. I'll show you a picture after.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't like fake smiles.
BEN KISSEL
No, it was weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So do yourself a favor. I really feel like again if you're interested in more of this stuff, read Jack Parsons' writings to kind of see how a wizard thinks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some of it's more impressive than others.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But 'Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword' is beautiful.
MARCUS PARKS
It's nice. And just to bring a little bit of capitalism into this communism conversation... That's terrifying, Ben just showed me the picture. It's absolutely terrifying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow. She likes it.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that weird?
MARCUS PARKS
If you're looking for a Christmas gift for one of your loved ones, go to lastpodcastmerch.com.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, we got an ornament!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we got an ornament. Get yourself a three headed dog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cute.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It is cute.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is cute. They did a good job.
MARCUS PARKS
Or buy the book. Or buy the trade of Soul Plumber which came out a couple of months ago.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's on sale, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a great idea. Also we're going to make an announcement about another project pretty soon. I don't know when that is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Very cool shit.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, thank you for listening. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein!
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Hail me, cause there's only one me. And it's gonna be me.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh shit, got one more thing.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The new No Dogs In Space series has started.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Patti Smith.
MARCUS PARKS
Patti Smith Part 1 and Part 2 are currently out.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a three part series if you wanna wait for the whole thing to be out, the third part will be out next week. But yeah, Part 1 and 2 are out. We're very proud of this one. So go on and check out Patti Smith if you're interested in one of the godmothers of punk.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's a lot more rocking than I thought she was.
MARCUS PARKS
So much more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's great. Bye! See ya in hell!
BEN KISSEL
There you go. Now you got it.