" `We're all prisoners at the bottom of a 4000-foot gravity well,' Jack used to say. `We'll never be free until gravity's tyranny is toppled.' "
"Gravity's tyranny?" I repeated.
"Parsons believed man's evolution to this point had been largely controlled by Ialdabaoth, the God of Genesis in Gnostic tradition, a basically earthbound presence whose intention was to hold man in slavery through ignorance. Ialdabaoth was one sense man's creator, but was also an evil tyrant who wanted his creation to obey him and believe everything he said with no questions asked. He would go into a rage at the first sign of individual initiative or independence of thought, like the experimental process of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The latter was `original sin'."
I didn't say anything. I just listened.
"Not a nice guy, Ialdabaoth. He existed on a regular diet of human- provided sacrificial blood, for example. He was pleased with Abel, the shepherd, because Abel made animal offerings out of the flocks he tended. But Cain, the farmer, was rejected because he could only offer fruits and vegetables from the field.
"Ialdabaoth's control somehow depended on man remaining a terrestrial creature. By contrast to Ialdabaoth, there was Lucifer, the light-bringer, the Serpent, or Prometheus, who wished to release mankind from the bonds of ignorance, and, by analogy, from his earthly prison. Lucifer's sin was the attempt to ascend into the heavens, so the legend of Lucifer cast down to earth symbolizes man's imprisonment in, among other things, Ialdabaoth's gravitational gridlock."
"You seem to be awfully well-informed about Jack Parsons," I said. I emphasized "awfully" to see what reaction it would provoke.
He grinned. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Srinivasa Muthuswamy, Secretary-Treasurer of the Jack Parsons Memorial Society. Just call me Renny."
