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When you hear the term “rocket scientist,” you might think of a meticulous, white-lab-coated engineer hunched over calculations in a sterile lab. When you hear “occultist,” you might picture a robed figure in a candlelit room chanting arcane verses. Jack Parsons was both — a man whose story defies categorization and sounds almost too bizarre to be true. A pioneer in American rocketry, Parsons helped lay the groundwork for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the technology that would eventually put men on the Moon. Yet outside of his engineering achievements, he was deeply involved in the world of ceremonial magic, sex cults, and esoteric experiments inspired by British occultist Aleister Crowley. His life was a whirlwind of genius, scandal, and mystery — and his death in 1952 was as d...