Jack Parsons & The Sorcerers of Scientism | Slick Dissident, Mario Garza, Juan Ayala, Kayleigh B
Worlds will collide tonight as the Spider-Verse dream team convenes for a magical livestream about the strange secrets & occult occurrences connecting Jack Parsons of JPL, Crowley, dark occult rituals, the founding of NASA, and much more. With mystic perspectives from Slick Dissident, symbolic syncretism from Mario Garza, astrological evidence from Kayleigh Berkana, and the jovial rabbit holes Juan Ayala has been digging, this promises to be an extravagant exploration.
Plus+InnerVerse Plus+
InnerVerse Plus+Hear every full episode
Every extended episode, the complete Plus+ archive, premium video and a private podcast feed for your app.
Cancel any time.
Get tuned with Chance
Tuning forks find where energy is stuck in the field around your body and bring it back into flow. Sessions over Zoom, recorded for you to keep.
30 Minute Consultations
Have something to look at, or looking for guidance? We can consult oracular tools, read your chart, or just talk through whatever you choose.
In this episode
Core themes
Parsons as mystic first, scientist second
Juan Ayala frames Jack Parsons as a mystic before a rocket scientist: a man who never graduated yet innovated rocketry when it was still considered science fiction, much as Juan says Descartes drew ideas from dreams. Juan traces the family back to the Witch of Northampton, then follows Parsons into the Agape Lodge of the OTO near his home, his father and son bond with Crowley, and the Babalon Working with L. Ron Hubbard in the desert. He argues Parsons wanted real results from magic the way he got them from explosives, and lists the competing theories of his death, from a fire elemental to homunculus work to murder.
Fiction as a tool on the world mind
Chance Garton argues that Parsons, Crowley, Lovecraft and Hubbard formed an alchemical inversion aimed at the world mind, getting people to act out a fantasy until parts of it come true. The panel chases that idea through popular culture: Juan's claim that Tony Stark's father is modeled on Parsons' father, with Marvel later tying Stark to Mephisto; Chance's reading of Jonathan Hickman's comic East of West, with a child named Babylon and an AI called Balloon; and a Punisher plot Chance says makes a real conspiracy look fictional. Juan adds that a script Parsons wrote with Frank Malina had its hero blow himself up years before Parsons did.
Sevens, Babalon and the Silver Star
Mario Garza follows the number seven through the story: Juan's account of an entity telling Parsons something would unfold if he lived seven more years, the call of the seventh aether recited in the Babalon Working, and the seven-pointed star of Crowley's Silver Star order with Babalon written in its points. Sharing Lon Milo DuQuette's tarot cards and the short film The Wormwood Star about Marjorie Cameron, Mario links that star to the Lust card, where Babalon rides the seven-headed beast. The panel also notes the respelling of Babylon as Babalon for gematria, which one guest hears as balloon, a word he ties to official UFO explanations.
Reading Jack Parsons through astrology
Kayleigh Berkana reads the story astrologically, starting with the Mars and Saturn conjunction she finds in the sky when the Babalon Working began, a pairing she associates with blow-ups. In Parsons' chart she points to two grand water trines, which she reads as deep psychic sensitivity, and Saturn conjunct Pluto in Cancer in his first house, which she ties to issues with authority and father figures. She calls scientism dark side Aquarius, reads his Jupiter and Uranus in Aquarius as a scientific legacy, and places Lilith in his twelfth house. Juan, who says he does not really believe in astrology, concedes the father figure reading fits.
Scientism as a modern seance
Chance argues that scientism is only presented as materialist in public, while the science with lasting impact is alchemical. Slick Dissident answers with seancism: science as a seance that evokes the names of long dead men of renown, like Einstein, to claim the power to predict outcomes, which he calls necromantic. Another panelist calls scientism a heliocentric program of anti-spirituality that teaches how far away Mars is but never what it means. Mario Garza goes further, calling science fiction mostly propaganda and saying the moon landing looks like science fiction to him, while Juan suggests the alchemists' elixir of eternal life is living on in people's minds.
Quotes
“This whole thing seems to just be riddled with what I consider a corruption of the Gnostic ideal, that there is a jailbreaking needing to be done to this reality.”
“A lot of these figures were mystics. A lot of these guys that were doing these things back then, they were doing it mystically.”
“Lilith can represent things that we don't want to even talk about or look at, and we shove into the back.”
“I think science fiction as a genre is mostly propaganda, and I think that the elites or whomever know that very well. It's so appealing to people.”
“Science is like a seance, because they are evoking the names of men of renown who are long dead and unable to come and represent or state their case.”
“It's really about getting people to believe in a fantasy based reality, and thus act out as if it were true, and then make aspects of that fantasy thus become true.”
“Parsons was a guy that was blowing rockets up. He's a scientist, he's seeing results, he's seeing things blow up, so in his occultic working he's going to want to see results.”
“Scientism is dark side Aquarius. Positive side Aquarius is like decentralized groups and actually making humanitarian adjustments for the world.”
“The fiction, the way it's wielded, is not just to get people to believe in things that aren't real but also to make them not believe things that are real.”
“I feel like I had a better grasp of Jack Parsons' story before this recent dive into his work, and so now I'm not sure how much I believe this whole narrative.”
“I think that the elixir of eternal life is them living on in people's minds, like parasites in their minds, like a Cthulhu-esque type thing, forever.”
“I feel like if this guy had made some serious efforts to look within instead of always looking without, his life could have been different.”
Gabriel, known on air as Slick Dissident, co-hosts InnerVerse's Vibe Rant show and is a longtime recurring guest on the podcast. He teaches occult symbolism and tarot on his YouTube channel, ranging across the Major Arcana, the esoteric Enneagram, mythology and archetype, mystic linguistics, and the symbolism hidden in popular film. He is best known for Tarot-tories, his own system mapping the 22 Major Arcana and zodiac archetypes onto the geography of the United States.
See all Gabe episodes→Kyle and Serena Denton are community herbalists creating wild-crafted and organic plant medicines out of Milwaukee since 2015. I have used their teas and tinctures on an almost daily basis for years now. Kyle is a great friend of InnerVerse and has appeared on the channel more times than I can count. These products work, not in the allopathic "pharma-medicine" way, but in a terrain-support, consciousness bolstering plant-teacher sort of way.
