Sex and Rockets by John Carter

If memory serves, I got this one on a two-for-one deal with Ritual America by Adam Parfrey and Craig Heimbichner. That makes sense. The subtitle of Sex and Rockets is The Occult World of Jack Parsons, and Jack Parsons is one of the many people “profiled” in Ritual America.

Profiled is in quotation marks because, much like Ritual America, Sex and Rockets is a book -- in this case a kind of biography -- that talks about the secrets of the universe without ever saying what the secrets of the universe are.

Parsons became “Frater T.O.P.A.N.” and was known as “Frater 210” for short. His wife became “Soror Grimaud.” The initials in Parsons’ magical motto stood for ‘Thelemum Obtentum Procedero Amoris Nupitae,’ Latin for “the obtainment of thelema -- Will -- through the nuptials of love.” The initials T.O.P.A.N. were also a declaration of Parsons’ dedication: To Pan. In Hebrew the enumeration for T.O.P.A.N. is 400 + 70 + 80 + 1 + 50 = 601. Parsons counted it as I.O.P.A.N., giving the more desirable sum 210, with “Io Pan” being Greek for “Hail Pan.” Indeed, Crowley’s “Hymn to Pan,” which Parsons had memorized and often recited, begins, “Io Pan! Io Pan Pan!”

The numbers 1 through 20 add to 210. In the book 777 Crowley also speaks of certain numbers important to each of the sephiroth (spheres) of the kabbalistic Tree of Life. The first has the value 1, the second 1 + 2 = 3, the third 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, and so on; there are 10 altogether. Although Crowley does not say so, a little quick math will show these 10 values add to 210. In 777 Crowley calls the meaning of 210 “too holy” to divulge, an allusion to the “N.O.X. formula.” N.O.X., Latin for “night,” is akin to “L.V.X.” or “Lux” -- light. Both are portrayed during simple rituals of Crowley’s that came from the Golden Dawn.

Coincidentally, the interstate highway running through Pasadena which makes a 90-degree turn due north of the beginning of South Orange Grove Ave., heading straight to JPL, is numbered 210, as if some cosmic force numbered the highway in Parsons’ honor.

It never gets any deeper than this. Numerical coincidences and rituals and mottos built on their supposed magical properties.

Parsons, a rocket scientist in the early days of the space program, is a member of a bunch of secret societies, and somewhat obsessed with the secrets that they might reveal, especially, as his “magical motto” describes, through sex practices frowned on by his straightjacketed culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Hence, Sex and Rockets.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.