I wonder why Wired magazine has been wading into "deep politics" more and more recently. I mean the German and Occult underpinnings of NASA is a significant can of worms for a publication with a mainstream readership to be opening.
It's not mainstream knowledge, by any means. And I'm sure a lot of folks are reading about it in Wired for the first time. But Parsons's backstory has been covered pretty extensively -- most recently as a significant side chapter (or two) in "Going Clear," the NYT-bestselling book about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Prior to that, Parsons figured prominently into "Barefaced Messiah," another Scientology history, written in the late 1980s.
For the record, "Going Clear" and "Barefaced Messiah" are fascinating reads. I recommend them. It's unfortunate that Parsons, a man of legitimate and numerous accomplishments, has been so thoroughly overshadowed by the con artist L Ron Hubbard. But Hubbard had a much better knack for publicity.
It was covered (in 2 or 3 pages IIRC) in Mike Davis's 1990 book "City of Quartz". This book was widely reviewed and widely discussed, and was re-issued a couple of years ago.
That's where I first read the Parsons story, and I've seen it a few times since then.
True. I'm just pointing it out because it's a big vector by which a lot of mainstream audiences are likely to have discovered Parsons and his extracurricular activities. Especially in recent years, with "Going Clear" coming out and hitting the charts. My point was mostly that this stuff is not fresh scandal, hot off the presses.