BOOKS: Strange Angel: George Pendle

Published 10:00 am Saturday, August 8, 2020

About two episodes into the CBS All Access series “Strange Angel,” the thought struck, is this possibly true?

It’s a wild idea: An uneducated dreamer gains knowledge about rockets through trial and error in the era when rockets were considered science fiction fantasy while at the same time he becomes intrigued by the magic of the occult religion of Thelema created by Aleister Crowley.

Crowley was real. The rocket research was real. And a quick search of the internet reveals that Jack Parsons, the dreamer scientist/occultist, was also real.

“Strange Angel,” the TV show, proves that fact is stranger than fiction.

“Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons,” the book by George Pendle, proves it’s even stranger still.

Parsons grew up the child of divorce in the early 1900s – his father’s first name was Marvel and so was Jack’s until his mother changed it. He grew up in the wealthy household of his maternal grandparents until the Wall Street crash of 1929 reversed their fortunes.

Young Jack read pulp adventure stories – science fiction adventures – and continued reading them throughout his life.

He was fascinated with the idea of soaring to the moon and saw the science fiction prop of the rocket as the way to get there.

Through perseverance, study of chemistry and friendships, Parsons experimented with rockets with a daredevil zeal. He pushed his way into the development of rockets as the military began taking rocket and jet propulsion seriously. He was a founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He discovered a California off-shoot of Crowley’s Thelema religion – one based on a person’s will power through magic and various rituals.

Parsons story follows the development of rocket science as well as encounters with L. Ron Hubbard, famed science-fiction writers, McCarthyism and a tragic end. Pendle also introduces readers to a scene-setting biography of Los Angeles and Pasadena, as well as introductions to various sects prevalent in California at the time.

“Strange Angel” is a strange trip – one worth taking via this book as well as the two seasons so far of the more fictionalized but very real adventures of Jack Parsons.