On Jack Parsons and OTO, this has gotten good reviews. Sex & Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons ---
Jack Parsons, in the late 1940's, with his disciple L. Ron Hubbard, did an months long series of rituals (this being magick with a "k") to invoke the Scarlet Whore of Babylon. Doing so, they believed, would usher in a new Aeon for the world. Some say these rituals tipped both of them into madness.
L. Ron Hubbard ended up walking away from Parsons, taking Parsons wife and most his money. Hubbard has never denied his association with Parsons and said he did it because he was secretly an undercover agent for Naval Intelligence (?).
Parsons got so weird that even Aleister Crowley was appalled (I'm thinking it would take some -serious- weirdness to appall Crowley), and a few years later, blew himself up in a rocket fuel accident. L. Ron Hubbard, of course, started Scientology a few years later.
As Dave Barry would say, "And I am NOT making this up"...