Talk:Jack Parsons

I thought articles were supposed to be encyclopedic? I think we can do without the overly-elaborated science fiction "magick" crap. "Magick" is akin to creationism nonsense and is not scientifically/factually valid. I don't really care what "rituals" (lol) he did with who. Note that everyone he did "magick" with was generally considered mentally ill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.246.2.11 (talk) 19:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC) Reply

Whether or not it is scientific, magical belief is a fact of human culture. John Dee, Paracelsus, and Isaac Newton were all magicians as well as scientists. Whether magic is hogwash or not, there is ample evidence that Parsons himself believed in it. That said, the article could use a lot more on his childhood, education, and work as an engineer. 208.102.58.109 (talk) 09:32, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Reply

If you want more scientific stuff, please add it! Magick was a integral part of Parsons' life, so it clearly belongs here too. --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 13:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC) Reply

Along those lines, the biographical info is oddly incomplete. We have, "born Marvel Whiteside Parsons;[nb 1] October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952)". When and why did he change his given name from Marvel to John?

And then: "Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena." What does that mean? Was he raised by a different family than he was born to? That is what is seemingly implied. Both of these issues need to be clarified. Venqax (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Reply

I saw this was TFA in a few days so I gave it a series of copyedits. Some of the improvements I made were:

• Reduced "however" per WP:EDITORIAL (and see User:John/however for my essay on the subject of this word's overuse)
• Reduced "would" as this tense (while more common in American English than British English) makes an article harder to read when overused, without any corresponding increase of meaning
• Reduced "while" as it is ambiguous
• "an anonymous benefactor whose identity was never revealed" was a tautology; if the identity had been revealed they would no longer be anonymous
• "Notable attendees of the church" was changed to "Celebrants of the church"; if we are noting something here we may take it as read that it is notable
• "sulfur" is the American and increasingly the worldwide spelling of this element
• "significant damage to the fuselage in the Ercoupe's tail" seemed weird and hard to understand: I changed it to "significant damage to the rear fuselage of the Ercoupe"
• "Providing a thrust five times more powerful than GALCIT-27, and again reducing takeoff distance by 30%, Malina wrote to his parents..." is a truly hilarious ambiguity. Was Malina himself producing the thrust? I changed it to "It provided five times more thrust than GALCIT-27, and again reduced takeoff distance by 30%; Malina wrote to his parents..."
• I redacted the last clause of "In December 1945 Parsons began a series of rituals based on Enochian magic during which he masturbated onto magical tablets, accompanied by Sergei Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto and using his own semen and blood for this purpose." not on grounds of taste, but because it was not clear to me what purpose the bodily fluids served. If this can be clarified and sourced, I would be happy to restore the material.
• The verb is spelled "practice" in American English, contrary to BrEng usage.
• Supercooling and superheating were being used improperly
• We don't use seasons of the year to denote times.
• Image sizes should not be hard-coded per WP:IMGSIZE; I see this was raised at the FAC but never actioned. It should have been.
• Volatility means something other than instability in a chemistry context
• M-dashes were overused in some cases
• Various other nips and tucks.
• Incidentally, what is "dectin"? I've removed that as I have never heard of it, seemingly nether has Google, and the link is dead for the source.

As always, I am very happy to discuss any of these changes here. In particular, JJARichardson as a lead editor here, are you happy with those changes? --John (talk) 21:21, 28 October 2016 (UTC) Reply

There are a couple of better pictures throughout the article that would be better for the infobox in my opinion. I didn't want to switch it out without asking since its an FA, but does anyone that is heavily involved with this article want to switch it out? I can give suggestions if needed. Kees08 (talk) 18:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Reply

WP:BOLD. Go ahead and we'll see how it looks. JJARichardson (talk) 18:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Reply

Can do. I am seeing if I can get someone talented to restore the photo that is there; if I can't, I will look into replacing it. Kees08 (talk) 19:12, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Reply

The whole article is saturated in mindless horseshit about magic and nonsense. Why hasn't this mindless fucking derp been cleared out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:8084:2163:2300:b0af:8a2f:c201:de6a (talk • contribs) 11:26, 4 June 2019 (UTC) Reply

Well apparently Parsons's mind was similarly saturated. E Eng 08:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC) Reply

I've heard there is an effort at NASA to purge all references to Jack Parsons from their archives. Is this true? 108.200.234.93 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:46, 10 November 2019 (UTC) Reply

If they were going to purge someone it would be von Braun. E Eng 08:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC) Reply

They made a TV series about him called "Strange Angel" based on the book of the same name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Angel For some reason, in the TV show his wife Helen and her sister Sara (aka Betty) are renamed Susan and Patty respectively. Minicarmen (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2021 (UTC) Reply

"Parsonage resident Alva Rogers recalled in a 1962 article for an occultist fanzine: 'In the ads placed in the local paper Jack specified that only bohemians, artists, musicians, atheists, anarchists, or any other exotic types need to apply for rooms—any mundane soul would be unceremoniously rejected'."

Alva Rogers's memoir of life as a roomer in Jack Parsons's Pasadena home, did not appear an "occultist" fanzine. It appeared the fifth issue of Lighthouse, dated February 1962, a science fiction fanzine edited and published by the late Terry Carr, who later became a major professional SF editor. The entire issue can be viewed here: https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Lighthouse/Lighthouse05.pdf. The title of Rogers's piece, "Dark House", was a play on the name of Carr's fanzine. Lighthouse was not particularly interested in occult subjects; its contents typically entailed lighthearted anecdotage about personalities in the science fiction world, pro and fan, and Rogers's piece was precisely that.

The passage of this Wikipedia entry that attributes Rogers's piece to "an occultist fanzine" is sourced to John Carter's 2004 Sex and Rockets. I don't know if the mischaracterization actually comes from Carter's book. I also don't know how to set up a new source and citation on Wikipedia, but anyone who does will find that I've recorded here everything necessary to properly source Rogers's piece, including a link to its full text in its original context. pnh (talk) 12:08, 22 October 2021 (UTC) Reply

For brevity I removed the reference to a fanzine from the quotation. JJARichardson (talk) 16:08, 24 October 2021 (UTC) Reply

The Thelema article has been expanded to include Grant as a key figure. The corresponding series navbar has also been expanded to include Grant. Thus the navbar was added to this article, which seems perfectly reasonable and I haven't seen any convincing arguments on the talk page otherwise. @Scyrme: @Randy Kryn: what do you think? Skyerise (talk) 12:05, 17 February 2022 (UTC) Reply

Was he is a black magician? 103.205.135.165 (talk) 09:24, 9 October 2022 (UTC) Reply

@103.205.135.165 That is a highly subjective term that predicates a particular judgment of certain spiritual practices as evil. Jack Parsons was not an evil man, he cared deeply about the people in his life and the future of humanity. He did engage in occult rituals but they were not what is conventionally called "black magick"; i.e. they were not designed to harm or control anyone. 76.78.246.125 (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Reply

In the last paragraph of the summary, there's the beginning of this statement : "Although his academic interest in scientific career was negligible,"... Maybe I'm missing something but that doesn't seem to make sense. Is it supposed to be "interest and scientific"? But that still doesn't make a ton of sense. 24.177.141.229 (talk) 09:26, 25 September 2023 (UTC) Reply

I've changed it back to language used in former edits: "Although academic interest in his scientific career was negligible, historians have come to recognize Parsons's contributions to rocket engineering." Somebody had changed the wording, thanks for pointing it out. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC) Reply

Randy Kryn, I edited the article to shorten the lead, which was tagged. I think I changed your wording in the process. If it is important to you, you might want to have a look and adjust accordingly.--FeralOink (talk) 21:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC) Reply