The Secret History of Twin Peaks
Source: OceanofPDF.com
The Secret History of Twin Peaks.
Copyright © 2016 by Mark Frost. All rights reserved.
For information, address
Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
pg: 294 ff
Summary:
In September 1949 Congressman Richard Nixon (U.S. President 1969 - 1974) reported to General Twining (Project Grudge) about a report from L. Ron Hubbard concerning Jack Parsons. Parsons, working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory should be investigated.
The case was assigned to Major Dough Milford (Pjt. Grudge) who interviewed Parsons and reported his findings in Dec. 1949.
Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but continued in a minimal capacity until late 1999. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Grudge)
Timeline
1945-08
On 1949-10-17LRH reported to Richard Nixon (then Congressman, California) about Jack Parsons.
LRH: In August 1945 he was introduced to a group of people living in Pasadena revolving around John Whiteside Parsons, who went by the name of Jack (cofounder of JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)).
Parsons invited him to live at his mansion... Orange Grove Boulvard, Pasadena. He dubbed it "The Parsonage".
A number of people lived there. They were involved with Thelema (OTO, Alister Crowley, died in Dec. 1948). Crowley was Parsons friend and mentor. LRH says he heard Crowley described as "the most evil man in the world".
Parsons house functioned as Thelema church, better described as "coven".
Parsons interest in the occult developed after his fascination with rockets. 1939 Parsons first came in contact with Thelema. Three years later he became leader of the West Coast branch (lodge).
LRH took up residence at Parsons and later attended Thelema gatherings...
Quote (pg. 299): "Crowley and Parsons and his followers believe in some very strange things.
"Openly partaking of various drugs. The practice of free love and the periodic enactment of bizarre "sex magicx rituals".
Quote (pg. 301): "assemblage of leftists, bohemians and hangers-on, attended by a cadre of attractive young JPL secretaries, all of them swept up into a kind of fever cult. Many of the guests wore colorful, erotic masks, and a few were in elaborate Egyptian costumes or masks with distorted animal faces. Disturbing atonal music played from somewhere and prompted much uninhibited dancing".
Drug use and mind altering drinks... sex...
1948, early
LRH secretly tape recorded a conversation with Parsons (pg. 302... must have been after the death of Crowley because Parsons said... "yes, he shed his body just last year").
Report LRH: "At one point I found myself alone in a strange room upstairs with Parsons. The walls were festooned with crossed swords, symbols from the Tarot, pagan artwork. It was furnished only with a scull-shaped altar, what looked like a throne and an unnerving life-sized statue of a bestial satyr, which Parsons told me is the demi-god Pan". That's where he taped the conversation.
Parsons:
"You see? The power of the will is all. But without eros, or agape--love and sex, joined together--"will" is nothing but hollow, patriarchal without direction or force. What he (Crowley) taught us is that both forces must exist in balance. In order to stand besides God you have to first reject the idea of "God". Then, and only then, will you come to realize that you are God. Every man and woman is a star".
... "Rockets and magick: Ask yourself, what do they share? They're about transcending all limits. Acts of rebellion against the limits of gravity and inertia, and the limits of human existence".
... "Alchemy isn't only about "chemistry" or turning base metals to gold. The medieval philosophers and alchemists knew this--even Isaac Newton knew it--but their knowledge was lost until Crowley brought it back. You see, alchemy actually speaks to internal processes, and a radical revolution in our spiritual development transforming the "base metal" of the primitive man into the "gold" of an enlightened soul. Rockets and magick are both about breaking through the minimal boundaries of space and time that hold us back from realizing our potential. Either, maybe both, will someday take us to the moon and the stars beyond. Magick is just the name we've always given to things we don't yet quite understand."
LRH: He stares at me a moment with his dark brown eyes, and then turns his gaze to the statue of Pan, get a faraway look and mutters something under his breath.
..."The magician longs to see..." (He trails a hand along one of the walls.) "I've often felt there were spirits in this wood... Parsons then leaves for the other guests.
LRH: He glides out of the room. I looked at my arms; the hair standing on end.
I left the Parsonage near midnight, but the party was just getting started. People were jumping over a bonfire out by the pergola. Some of them were naked. This was a Thursday night... Presumably all these people where expected to show up for work in the morning.
The next day at JPL--where Parsons himself did not show up for work---I spoke with scientists and administrators who had not been at the party. They expressed serious concern that Parsons is on the verge of going off the rails. They are underestimating the situation; I believe he slid off the rails into an amoral swamp years ago. His scientific mind might be as sharp as ever, but the consensus is that what once was tolerated as personal eccentricity, has overwhelmed his native brilliancy. To my eyes he now seems to be as stable as a soufflé. (pg. 304, 305)
1949-10-17
LRH reported to Richard Nixon about Jack Parsons (1945-08)... "in the spirit of my duty and obligation as a former Naval Intelligence Officer"...
LRH quote (pg. 299) about the reason he's reporting is: "entirely about the threat that Mr. Parsons represents to the security of the rocket program at JPL".
LHR introduced into evidence a report he prepared on the activities he observed (pg 300 ff).
Header: IN REPLY RETURN TO NO. 002-45, U. S. NAVAL AIR STATION, POINT MUGU, CALIFORNIA, FIELD REPORT: LT. L. RON HUBBARD, ret., TOP SECRET.
1949-11-13
Letter from Nixon to General Twining concerning (former Navy Intel Officer) L. Ron Hubbard's report about Jack Parsons involvement in JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Parsons considered to be a security risk.
1949-12-03
During those postwar years, JPL grew into a multimillion-dollar business, occupying a central role in the aerospace industry and the emerging military-industrial complex. As his company took off, Parsons doubled down on his involvement in occult mumbo-jumbo and came under suspicion for, possibly, selling secrets of America’s rocket program to a foreign government.
Soon after these charges came to light--although he was ultimately acquitted--JPL terminated its official relationship with Parsons. With his income gone and his professional reputation damaged, he was forced to sell the Parsonage. Struggling financially, he sued Hubbard to try to get his money back, while working as a consultant on a military missile program, when it came time to renew his national security clearance.
Which is why, soon after the foregoing report from Congressman Nixon landed on Major Doug Milford’s desk, Project Grudge (Air Force UFO investigation) dispatched him to Pasadena to investigate. This is the report he soon filed in response (interview with Parsons):
Header: PASADENA, CALIFORNIA December 3, 1949, TOP SECRET, FIELD REPORT: MAJOR DOUGLAS MILFORD, SUBJECT: JACK PARSONS
I found Jack Parsons living in an apartment near the beach, in meager circumstances, trying to scrape together a living from a variety of consulting and manufacturing jobs. I approached him using cover as a journalist for a left-wing magazine, and he agreed to meet me for an article I told him I was writing about “what really happened to him at JPL.” He welcomed the opportunity to, as he put it, “set the record straight.” He appeared fleshy and downtrodden, and his handsome features had started to corrode. His personal life had taken a recent turn and that was where, in a Manhattan Beach coffee shop, our conversation began:
DM: I heard you just got remarried, Jack. Congratulations.
JP: (chuckles briefly) I wish it were that simple, but thank you.
DM: If you don’t mind my asking, what’s happened to your ex?
JP: Helen?
DM: I thought her name was Sara.
JP: Oh, you mean Betty--Sara’s middle name is Elizabeth, that’s what she goes by, Betty. No, I was never married to Betty. She’s Helen’s younger sister--half sister. Helen was my first wife, but she’s married to someone else now, too.
DM: Wow. Sounds complicated.
JP: It is. And Betty just got married. To him.
DM: Him?
JP: Hubbard, Ron Hubbard. He was part of our crowd in Pasadena. Showed up after the war. Navy man, intelligence, a hack science fiction writer, maybe you’ve heard the name.
DM: Can’t say that I have.
JP: People wandered in and out of that house all the time. When Ron showed up, with his war stories and his wit and his polymath brilliance, I thought I’d found a boon companion. Betty hated him on sight. (He lights a cigarette, long exhale.) That’s when I knew she and I were in trouble.
DM: How so?
JP: Oh, within weeks they were together, Ron just drew her to him like he had her under a spell. So she left me. But he was such a friend--and we weren’t, you know, any of us, focused on bourgeois shit like monogamy. So I still thought of him as my friend. We were as close as could be. I thought he understood me better than anyone I’d ever met.
DM: Was he a member of your church as well?
JP: Oh yeah, he dove right in. Relentless, he wanted to know everything about it. We worked together, tirelessly, for two years on a, uh … on a really important project.
DM: Are you talking about rockets or magic?
JP: (lowers his voice) See, these were things Crowley had written about. A ritual that he’d attempted in Europe--important work--but no one had ever tried it over here.
DM: A ritual? And Hubbard was helping you with this?
(He nodded, a faraway look in his eye.)
JP: We saw things that maybe men aren’t supposed to see.
DM: Where was this?
JP: Out in the desert. The desert’s a perfect medium for summoning … an empty canvas, a beaker into which, under certain circumstances and with fearless rigor, you can create an elixir that will call forth … call them what you will … messengers of the gods …
DM: (I laughed nervously) Wow. What does that look like?
JP: Oh, they assume many forms. The grays, for instance. You know, Zeta Reticulans.
(Continues) The tall ones, now, the Nordic types, they’re different. More benign. Some say they’ve always been here. Supposedly they come from the Dog Star.
(I notice he’s sweating heavily as he says this and his eyes have taken on a glassy sheen. I wonder if he’s on drugs right now.)
DM: The Dog Star?
JP: Serious.
DM: Yes, I’m serious.
(Slight laughter from Parsons, but I’m not sure why.)
JP: Ever been to Roswell?
DM: Roswell, New Mexico? As a matter of fact, I have.
JP: We were near there. In the desert. A place they call Jornada del Muerto.
DM: That’s near White Sands, isn’t it?
JP: Right. It means “Journey of the Dead Man.” Isn’t that beautiful? The way we all move through our lives. Eyes closed, head down, shuffling along. Dead before our time, journeying toward the grave.
DM: That’s where they tested the bomb.
JP: Yes. (The faraway look again, eyes unfocused) Such a fertile ground for the Working.
DM: Pardon? What’s the Working?
JP: The ritual. The Working of Babalon. Calling forth the Elemental.
DM: Could you elaborate on that, Jack?
(A car horn blares. I look outside, where an old Buick roadster convertible has pulled up. A striking, Technicolor redhead is behind the wheel. Jack snaps back to himself, out of his dreamy reverie, looks at his watch and smiles.)
JP: Sorry, that’s the wife. We’re supposed to hit the flea market today. Anyway, Hubbard, yeah. He really knew how to stick in the knife. And twist it.
We shake hands, and after he leaves I drive to Pasadena. I’d arranged to meet with one of Parsons’s former colleagues, a longtime scientific associate, calm, cerebral and sober as a judge. I told him the truth, that I was conducting a confidential military investigation, and he agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity. I of course agreed. He had worked with Parsons from the mid-1930s as part of his “Suicide Squad,” and still had great affection for him, so he had seen changes diminish the man he knew as well as anyone.
He took me into the Arroyo Seco near the JPL labs. The Arroyo Seco is a forbidding and desolate 25-mile-long dry river canyon, lined with rocks and immense boulders washed down over geologic eons from the San Gabriel Mountains that tower above the city. This desolate patch is where Parsons and company used to test their fuels and shoot off rockets in their halcyon days. During the sporadic monsoonal rains peculiar to the region, the Arroyo Seco (“dry stream” in Spanish, named by the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola in the late 18th century) becomes a raging torrent. As the city of Pasadena grew down below, a dam was built there in 1920, where a waterfall rumbles during the rains, to contain the seasonal floods.
They call this spot the Devil’s Gate, named for a rock outcropping at its base that many believe resembles the face of a devil.
