Rocket and Rituals: Part 2 — Sex and Rockets and Burning Man

Unlike Dark Mission, which appears to be several hundred pages of predictable conspiracy schlock, Sex and Rockets seem to promise an intriguing read. The introduction, by Robert Anton Willson, is itself worth reading if you have even a passing interest in Aliseter Crowley, Masons, psychadelics, American anarchism and, oh yeah, rocket science.

Sex and Rockets is the story of the rocket scientist and sci-fi hobnobber John Parsons, the occultist Jack Parsons and the Anarchist writer John Whiteside Parsons who all happened to be the same man, named at birth Marvel Whiteside Parsons.

JP, as I’ll call him, as a boy was fascinated by the “disreputable” pulps of early science fiction, specifically the idea of traveling to the moon. He saw that these worlds of fantasy could become reality through the application of science:

“… after Jules Verne’s “fantasy” submarine appeared in the world’s real seas, nobody with more brain cells than a chimpanzee or a Fundamentalist felt totally secure about the differences between the probable, the improbable and the totally impossible. If Verne’s submarine could become materialized, why not his rocket to the moon?”

With this goal in mind JP spent his life at the forefront of space science by playing a significant role in the foundation of JPL. (This does of course, tie in quite nicely with the Dark Mission conspiracy involving NASA being founded by oculists. I wonder if JP believed there were fantastical, glass-like, alien ruins on the moon. He seems like he’d likely be in on the conspiracy)

The idea that science is method for understanding the universe and then systematically manipulating it in accordance with you will is the cornerstone of Alister Crowley’s modern conception of Magick. Crowleys Science is just another instantiation of the works historically known as magick. When I first read Crowley as a young boy I found this connection mind blowing and in retrospect is one of the many early realizations that drove me towards studying neuroscience. I now see this as only a powerful metaphor. But I also suppose that Crowley also viewed it as a metaphor but he probably also believed that metaphors are more powerful then I do.

And as an adult JP socialized with contemporary radical sci-fi writers like Robert Heinlein who, disguised in their work a radical, librarian, anarchist conceptualization of the world. In this radical, heady world of politics, science and fiction they discussed the potential “humanity” of aliens and thinking robots and openly discussed the implication of extending the concepts of American freedom in include sexual and gender freedom, interracial relationships and true mental independences. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the most influential book on my early intellectual life, specifically my understating of humanity potential (and my individual potential) and a crystallization of my atheism. Also, highly influential on me were the Lazuras Long books, also written by Heinlein. This Lazuras Long quote still pops into my head at least once a month:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I find it personal very revealing that a scientist had such a powerfull relationship these two authors who were so important to my youth.

Willson does an good job of contextualizing these radical “sci-fi” ideas in a time in American history completely dominated by oppressive, racist, Christan, capitalist culture (wait — is that the past he’s taking about there).

It was from this radical world of science and fiction, where any ideal or idea could be possible given the right application of science, that JP found his way to the Occult world of Crowley. In this world he found a group of intellectual radicals using sex, drugs and art in attempt to alter their understanding of and interaction with reality in a way that had been forgotten in the western world.

“Crowley spoke for this tradition when he said true religion always invokes Dionysus, Aphrodite and the Muses, which he also called “wine, women and song.” Nowadays we call this magick trinity Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, and celebrate them at Raves that hauntingly resemble the earliest stirrings of cosmic questing by ancestors who dressed in animal skins and looked even more like gorillas than we do.”

This notion is also deeply relate to Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy and his dichotomy of the Apollonia and Dionysian. The whole intersection fo Nietzsche, Crowley, art and anarchy is also fascinating.

Perhaps, the historical junctions explored in this book might provide a deeper understandingly of Burning Man as a phenomena. Of course as an event it is a more developed extension of the Dionysian traditions then any rock show could even been (yes old hippy, including Woodstock). But is is also more then that. Burning Man has its core a deep connection with science and technology. I’ve always assumed this was a simply because the bay area has so many technologists. But perhaps there is something deeper going on. Burning Man might be an evolution of the intersection of movements that JP straddled. JPL is after all only a few miles south of the bay, Nevada has long been home to radical social and scientific experimentation including legal gambling, prostitution and the early days of Los Alamos.

More to think about.

Bottom line — this book seems worth reading.