Strange Angel
by George Pendle · first published 2005
4mentions
4recommended by
4HN commenters
2014–2018first – last mentioned
100% recommend
A lonely misfit born into a wealthy Pasadena family, as a boy Parsons read science fiction and launched rockets in his backyard. By his early twenties, he was a leader of Caltech's "Suicide Squad," the motley band of young enthusiasts who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But his visionary imagination also led him into the occult community thriving in 1930s Los Angeles, and when fantasy's pull became stronger than reality, he lost both his work and his wife. With a cast of characters that includes Aleister Crowley, Howard Hughes, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, Theodore von Kármán, and A
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Unfortunately this article doesn’t load for me, I wanted to see it because I really enjoyed reading Strange Angel by George Pendle. There is a series on CBS All Access that is very, very loosely based on the book which is fun to watch if not at all accurate.
on “Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL” ↗My dissertation is actually about the origins of the drug trade, but I think you'd be interested in the journalist George Pendle's Parsons biography, Strange Angel, which I think does a great job of teasing out what alchemy meant for 1940s practitioners: http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Angel-Otherworldly-Scientist-W... I also touch on the topic a bit (albeit from…
on “John Dee and the occult in California” ↗There's also a TV series: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7210448/ and a book by the same name: https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Angel-Otherworldly-Scientist-.... I read the book but haven't seen the series. The book was quite good but has some slow patches and seems to get a little lost at times. (I work at JPL)
on “Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL” ↗…Madeleine L'Engle Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick Unnatural Selection - Mark Roeder Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick Dinosaurs Without Bones - Anthony J. Martin Strange Angel - George Pendle Farewell to Reality - Jim Baggott Moon Shot - Jay Barbree, Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton Seven Elements That Changed the World - John Browne Time Travel in Einstein's Universe - J. Richard…
on “Science and Non-Fiction Humble Bundle” ↗