Eden Ahbez, Jack Parsons, and other LA kooks...

Parsons co-founded a company called Allied Enterprises with Hubbard and Sara, into which Parsons invested his life savings of $20,970. Hubbard suggested that with this money they travel to Miami to purchase three yachts, which they would then sail through the Panama Canal to the West Coast, where they could sell them on for a profit. Parsons agreed, but many of his friends thought it was a bad idea. Hubbard had secretly requested permission from the U.S. Navy to sail to China and South and Central America on a mission to "collect writing material"; his real plans were for a world cruise.

Left "flat broke" by this defrauding, Parsons was incensed when he discovered that Hubbard and Sara had left for Miami with $10,000 of the money; he suspected a scam but was placated by a telephone call from Hubbard and agreed to remain business partners. When Crowley, in a telegram to Germer, dismissed Parsons as a "weak fool" and victim to Hubbard and Sara's obvious confidence trick, Parsons changed his mind, flew to Miami and placed a temporary injunction and restraining order on them.

Upon tracking them down to a harbor in County Causeway, Parsons discovered that the couple had purchased three yachts as planned; they tried to flee aboard one but hit a squall and were forced to return to port. Parsons was convinced that he had brought them to shore through a lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram containing an astrological, geomantic invocation of Bartzabel—a vengeful spirit of Mars.

they really need to make a docu drama of this. picture this guy in a hotel in Miami drawing magic symbols on the wall while L. Ron Hubbard is escaping to yacht rock. Magickal Miami Vice.

otm

...Adam I think your wish came true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncfFNRKjgaI

that looks rad

Never watched that but was curious.

Came to post that this new book might be of interest on this thread, although I already mentioned on ThReads Must Roll, hope I'm not spamming.
https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/about-astounding/

Ha, I just bought that book a couple days ago. There's an excerpt here: https://longreads.com/2018/10/23/the-dawn-of-dianetics-l-ron-hubbard-john-w-campbell-and-the-origins-of-scientology/

But of course!

In fact, I debated with myself whether to post on this thread or on I Am Reading A Novel That Seems To Be Something That Elvis Telecom Would Like

A 50s-era cult that didn't end well.

https://laist.com/2018/12/10/bizarre_story_behind_the_suicide_bombing_of_a_socal_cult.php?fbclid=IwAR27k0UFxLRH59Sad4DDkNbCVq6ZwQtkiYy8V_2rky43MYzXqF1Sku-SQ-Q

wow

Mentioned by Elvis T above in 2014, but new article with pictures.

lotta weirdass shit happened around those Santa Susana mountains man

lotta weirdass shit happened around those Santa Susana mountains man

Oh hell yes... https://data.nbcstations.com/national/KNBC/la-nuclear-secret/

that is interesting

Kurt Braunholer did a podcast years ago where he blindfolded a guest & took them to an obscure location somewhere around LA - in one of the eps he took a guest to this site & it blew my mind (no pun intended) that it existed

Lotsa crazy shit up there

A 24 min talk on a book. Offered by the Autry Museum in LA, but I haven't listened to it.

Bohemians West: Free Love, Family, and Radicals in Twentieth Century America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5T4t-Xx_6M

Erik Davis' latest email looks at Eden Ahbez's Dharmaland https://www.burningshore.com/p/dharmalands

From 1948...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UVpj0K6RO0

Cool, thanks.

yay! i love when you bump this thread, Elvis! <3

If I want founding of LA, Chinatown, and occult weirdness to read on vacation, which book to I want?

Just got around to Dharmaland the other day it and dug it. I liked how they took it seriously with the arrangements - not kitschy or goofy at all

This is cool, thanks!

At least one of these tunes sounds a lot like a Hair outtake.

http://shadowboxstudio.com/edenahbez.htm Joe Romersa's website is my favorite Eden Ahbez thing. The best part is the section called "phone messages from ahbe" which consists of 4 long, rambling voicemails he'd left on Romersa's answering machine. In message #3, he performs an original song called "Gone Yogi".

I liked Erik Davis's blog post more than the embedded track from Dharmalands.

Speaking of Erick Davis, this one is on my short list... I heard a couple interviews with him when it was released:

High Weirdness -
Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/high-weirdness

RIP Skylaire Alfvegren. I knew her back when she was writing for Ben Is Dead and she went on to be a great writer and source for a lot of what I've been posting here. Kinda shocked here...
http://www.cryptozoonews.com/alfvegren-obi/

i'm here for jack parsons

but you know what, i'm open to other kooks as well

Have you read Strange Angel?

nope! currently trying to find somewhere i can stream the tv version though

yeah i want to watch the tv series too

The Dollop comedy podcast did a surprisingly great episode on Parsons

cant find the ep in their feed but it’s on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTT0Om5rJw

yeah i want to watch the tv series too

The TV series' pacing isn't great. Season two (and by extension, the entire series) ends when L Ron Hubbard shows up - so you're missing a good 75% of the story. Also because it's CBS, everything has been cleaned up for broadcast television. Sex And Rockets is still the book to read first before tracking down the show.

good to know, thx Elvis

One a somewhat related note... twilight for the back-to-the-land movement:

https://www.gq.com/story/californias-vanishing-hippie-utopias?utm_source=pocket-newtab

parsons and l. ron are fuckin dorks its all about marjorie cameron

marjorie cameron: also fuckin dorks iirc

https://arcana-media.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbcache/5e/6f/5e6f87d242071503607bc932fb5f47f6.jpg

Found a used copy of this recently... really cool little book (the font is quite large), very well put together with tons of interesting illustrations. Gordon Kennedy's Children of the Sun already covered a lot of the fruit & nut germanic proto-hippies, but I found the stuff about California TB sanitoriums to be especially interesting - and how this architecture had a profound influence on the modernist look (Neutra to Eames, etc.).
I knew TB was a scourge but I don't think I was aware of just how bad it was... and SO many people came to California & the Southwest to heal themselves of it.

I went to a closing sale at a sanatorium in Altadena, not much left when I was there. It's now a bunch of expensive single family houses (called La Vina, as was the sanatorium).

Zorthian Ranch in Altadena has a commune vibe (and is still around), though it really isn't one.

The Wormwood Star is leaving Criterion at the end of this month - of course you can catch it on YouTube, but the Criterion's copy is far better looking. (check out Curtis Harrington's other stuff while you're there)

Can't believe I literally learnt about eden ahbez last night and this is the second time today I come across him mentioned in my daily trawl through the internet

Almost wanted to revive this thread recently to mention that cult leader Mel something who had something to do with Zabriskie Point but I think he was more East Coast, Boston-based.

Mel Lyman.

Ryan Walsh's book Astral Weeks talks about Lyman and the entire Fort Hill community in Boston. Worth checking out

Yeah. Love the quote here from Jonathan Richman and then the rest is something I only just recently heard about:

If the Velvets were busy, Richman would wander through Cambridge and sometimes pick up an issue of Avatar. (“I wasn’t sure I understood all of it but could seethey admired this Mel fellow,” he says.) Meanwhile, another young Velvet Underground fanatic was also reading Avatar, and he felt he understood everything it published, especially the Mel-centric pages. Wayne McGuire had been arrested and convicted for selling the paper in November 1967. For his loyalty, Lyman invited him and other salesmen to Fort Hill for a celebratory dinner, and McGuire dedicated himself to turning the population of Boston on to his guru’s brilliance. Once the Velvets started frequenting the Tea Party, the band got rolled onto McGuire’s hero roster, leading to his Crawdaddy essay “The Boston Sound,” easily the most intense endorsement of the Velvets to be published during their career. “NOW IS THE TIME FOR DISTORTIONS TO BURN,” McGuire screams via typewriter, “with flaming sword in hand I will clear away those ugly growths which parade as insightful musical criticism. . . . This is a review of the Velvet Underground, this is a review of the end of the world.”

Walsh, Ryan H.. Astral Weeks (pp. 120-121). Penguin Publishing Group.

Mel Lyman seems like a real prick

Yeah, Rolling Stone did an expose of him pretty early on: among many other things, he saw Jim Kweskin coming, got into the Kweskin Band as harmonica player (in the witty, lively, multiple POV music doc Festival, he condescends to drop us some pearls ov wisdomb), may have had something to do with Kweskin disbanding them at peak, then moving into Lyman Family house, butt of jokes, called "Jimmy the Jew" by Mel, back on stage later ranting about end of the world, did at least one album about that, some better stuff later, at least he's outlived Mel, I think.
probably in the Rolling Stone anthology Mindfuckers, published by their Straight Arrow Press, long OOP< but some other stuff in there I wish I could forget. (Nah if I could find an affordable copy, would prob re-read)