Product Description
The first book to tackle the formidable task of collecting the best of Crowley's voluminous lifework.While many of the details of Crowley’s flamboyant life have been well documented, his position as the major intellectual figure on the occult has often been eclipsed by his own notoriety. Infamous for scandalizing society on both sides of the Atlantic, Crowley devoted his life to the study of Qabalah, gematria, numerology, astrology, myth, glyphs, yoga, and linguistics. His intense, methodical exploration of so immense and arcane a range of knowledge yielded a huge and challenging body of literature, an abstruse oeuvre.In bringing together Crowley’s best writings, editor Scott Michaelsen makes Crowleyan philosophy both accessible and intelligible. Here are those works which best display and illuminate Crowley’s razor-sharp insight and intellectual range.• Organized thematically by Crowley’s favourite subjects, the power of language, yoga, sex, and Magick• Accompanied by Michaelsen’s cogent essays• Features material not included in the original Random House edition ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

GREAT BOOK
This is a great book anyone looking to discover a great philosopher should pick this up.

The Master who failed to master himself
The Beast was an iconclast. In this handy volume you have a flavour of his idea: whatever the source, whatever the reason, whatever the idea, smash it up then put it back together. If it's really strong it won't break. It'll bounce off the floor and smash you in the face. Crowley was notorious for abusing his disciples. The reason he did this was he did'nt want disciples, he wanted empowered fearless individuals like himself capable of exploring the heights and depth of humanity and beyond. He 'broke on through to the other side' and in doing so actually broke himself. He was a pioneer for the rest of us. This is a sketch map not a treasure hunters guide to his pilgrim's progress.

Don't waste your time or money
I now understand why this book is still available so cheaply; I'm sorry I wasted $10 on it.

I was hoping it would be an insightful commentary on Crowley's writing; however, what it is mostly is a collection of works by Crowley that Michaelsen feels are important. Each section is preceded by an "essay" by Michaelsen which amounts to little more than excerpts from Crowley strung together in a confusing way; he doesn't really contribute anything that would help a person understand Crowley better. His use of parentheses is so extensive it makes me wonder why he didn't just put everything in parentheses and be done with it. He also makes liberal use of footnotes which are at the end of the essay, so you have to keep flipping back and forth. It's illustrated with black & white photos but there's nothing new, all the usual suspects. All in all, poorly done and disappointing.

Amazing
This is the book I wish I'd had many years ago, when I started reading Crowley. Excellently put together. I highly recommend this book! I couldn't put it down!

The title is apropos
This book gives a good survey of, or introduction to, Crowley's work.I suggest that anyone interested in Crowley start here and then read The Beast's writings. ... Read more

Product Description
A brilliant scientist, passionate poet, and political dissident, Jack Parsons (1914-1952) was one of the most enigmatic figures in history. In Sex and Rockets, John Carter divulges the life of a genius and self-proclaimed Antichrist in a biography that reads like science fiction. Using in-depth research including interviews with Parson's peers, Carter offers an intriguing portrait of this dark figure shrouded in cultish myth, from his childhood to his mysterious death in 1952.

Parsons cofounded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), led the Agape Lodge of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), and mingled with notable scientists, thinkers, and writers of his day, including Ray Bradbury, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert A. Heinlein. Among Parsons' hobbies — including explosives and solid rocket fuels — was the avid practice of magical rituals in the vein of Aleister Crowley. Carter initiates readers into the world of angels and demons, magical languages, and numerology used.Amazon.com Review
Scientist, poet, and self-proclaimed Antichrist, Jack Parsons was a bizarre genius whose life reads like an implausible yet irresistible science fiction novel. Sex and Rockets looks at his short life and dual career as cofounder of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and leader of the Agape Lodge of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Author John Carter scours primary documents and interviews surviving friends and contemporaries to deliver an intriguing portrait of a dreamy, driven man equally interested in rocketry and magick. From his early childhood and deep attachment to his mother (who killed herself hours after he died) through his nonacademic research and brilliant innovations in solid fuels to his mysterious 1952 demise in a garage-laboratory explosion at the age of 37, the reader gets the impression of a man whose obsession with explosives and propellants was nearly single-minded. Yet this same man found spiritual fulfillment through Crowley's Law of Thelema, conducted magickal operations with L. Ron Hubbard, and signed an oath asserting himself to be the Antichrist--clearly Parsons wasn't a boring guy in a white coat. Carter pulls off the difficult task of integrating Parsons's disparate drives into one compelling story; though there are some rough spots and awkward transitions, one gets the sense that this illuminates the man's life better than a smooth, flawless work would. Robert Anton Wilson's introduction is smart and funny as always, initiating the uninformed into the basics of Crowleyanity while placing Parsons in the context of his times. While it might not be possible to read universal themes into Parsons's life, Sex and Rockets is an excellent study of a passionate life fully lived. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (40)

A lot of fun if you have the right frame of mind.
I found the first half of this book riveting - really drew me in - enough so to get me through the rest of the book. I also found the portrait of L. Ron Hubbard as a loathsome confidence trickster extremely believable. This in turn was a catalyst for me to seek out an objective biography regarding the detestable Mr. Hubbard.

The later chapters (especially the Babalon Working piffle) is excruciating. I can see why this claptrap is referred to as "research notes" in other reviews. The timeline of events in these chapters are completely (and unnecessarily) disjoint. This seemingly arbitrary compilation of tidbits glued together with grandiloquent "magickal" twaddle becomes tedious after a few pages. A sustained chapter of this bilge is downright torturous. There is little to no context framing. Pure incoherent blarney. Some of most orotund logorrhea I have had the misfortune to struggle against. The excerpts from Crowely's correspondence were beacons of clarity in this otherwise cesspool of nonsense. It's not that I am against fustian arcana, which can be quite interesting from a psychoanalytical perspective. It is the presentation here that makes it obnoxious.

That all said I still enjoyed this book.

Fascinating - but poorly written
An absolutely fascinating story about the world of Jack Parsons, both his rocket expertise and his journey into the occult. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard puts in a brief appearance as a shadowy occultist and con man. The book suffers, unfortunately, from being poorly written and presented. The scientific sections have all the charm of a Unix manual, and the occult sections are tedious - too heavy on the fine points of arcana and not enough on the human foibles and interactions.

Most Deadly Bomb of All?The Turgid Prose Bomb
Fascinating man, boring biography--author John Carter's turgid prose style--the man apparently has no sense of humor--and the lengthy quotations from Thelemic rites, etc.--make this read One Big Snooze.Indeed, the sections about Parsons-as-rocket-scientist are much more lively, and they're not why I picked up a copy of the book at all.Carter apparently didn't gain access to a host of source documents, and that may not be a bad thing--he'd have quoted them lengthily.

In the end, one gets little sense of the man nor of what drove him into the metaphorical arms of Aleister Crowley and Black Magic.Carter's sense of proportion is best-represented by his statement toward the end of the book, that Parsons had achieved more in five years as a rocket scientist than Robert Goddard did in a lifetime.Well, of course he did; he stood upon the shoulders of a giant--Goddard.

Few footnotes, no endnotes, flawed index: a hugely important character appearing on many of the book's pages--Wilfred T. Smith--is missing in action.Not that many will want to re-thumb their way through this.If magick is indeed this boring, few will follow The Path.

luminary
Sex and Rockets is an illuminating and inspiring book that provides a detailed account of the rich and bizarre world of Parsons. The reader takes a mind-bending mystical journey through a dynamic realm of magic and science that reads more like great fiction than reality. Parsons was as interesting as any character in a science fiction novel of the time.

He was a visionary in the world of the occult and an accomplished iconoclastic rocket scientist. The author confidently conveys the humanity behind Parsons and the extent of his influence upon many diverse realms of thought. Additionally, the author uncovers miraculous details.

This penetrating work offers a straightforward portrayal of events and includes a thoroughly entertaining foreword by RAW and extensive photographs. I preferred the elegantly written "Strange Angel," for the language and the insights into the relationships, but this well-researched and enjoyable book was certainly worth the time. The author and his publisher deserve much credit for their accomplishment.

Strongly recommended to science, occult and literary enthusiasts.

Honey, I blew up the magician.
By day, Jack Parsons was one of the founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratories and basically single-handedly invented the rocket.By night, he was Frater 210, the self-proclaimed Antichrist, a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and a follower of Aleister Crowley (rhymes with 'holy'.)Oddly enough, he was a very meticulous, if reckless scientist, but a very sloppy and reckless magician.(Though his death might suggest otherwise.He was killed in an explosion in his home when he was 37.)

The information in the book was great and I drank it up, but Carter's writing is simply bad and uninteresting.His speculations are often spotty and he blindly repeats some untrue myths about Crowley as fact.Otherwise, it was a nice view into the early years of the OTO and Thelema in America.My favorite parts, I think, were the excerpts from Crowley's correspondence.He was intelligent and witty till the very end.(Jack Parsons sent large amount of money to Crowley on a regular basis, supporting Crowley in his last years.)Much of this time period was not covered in Crowley's autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.

L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, also appears in quite a large chunk of this book as a magical scribe and con man.Parsons and Hubbard performed some powerful rituals that were well beyond their skill levels and there is a whole branch of conspiracies that say they opened a sort of magical portal and that's where UFOs came from.Considering that Aleister Crowley once contacted an entity named LAM who looked much like a modern grey alien, it's an interesting story to delve into, which this book only touches upon.Parsons and Hubbard also had strange connections with John Dee & Edward Kelley.(Hubbard stole a very large sum of money and ran off with Parsons' wife.Kelley did the same to Dee way back in the ye olde 1500s.)

Hopefully further books will be better written.I can see why this is the only book John carter has written. ... Read more

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Word count: 2488. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson, January 18, 1932 - January 11, 2007), the American author of 33 influential books, became, at various times, a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized as an Episkopos, Pope, and a Saint of Discordianism by Discordians who care to label him as such, Wilson helped publicize the group/religion/melee through his writings, interviews, and strolls. Wilson described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth." His goal being "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything." ... Read more