Los Angeles Has A History With The Occult Unlike Any Other U.S. City
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Scientology has attracted so many members it's frequently described as a legitimate religion, not a cult. According to CNN, there are at least hundreds of thousands of practitioners. The Church of Scientology claims that number is in the millions, with 167 missions and more than 10,000 churches spread across the globe. However, many believe these stats to be vastly inflated. Whether any religion qualifies as an occult organization is a debate for another day. Merriam-Webster defines occult as "matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them", a definition that could very easily apply to any and all religious beliefs. So, potato potahto.
A native of Nebraska who also spent time in Montana as a child, Hubbard moved to California after service in World War Two. Scientology's beliefs are perhaps most succinctly described by a South Park (watch the clip above and click through to the playlist that appears in the upper right corner) episode in which the whole system of apes with alien souls and ancient volcanoes is explained . Hubbard, a science fiction writer, has a background rooted in California occult circles. Before his rise to power, Hubbard lived for a time with Jack Parsons in Pasadena. The pair took part in the “Babalon Working” ritual in the hopes of bringing forth a goddess through a creative combination of chanting, parchment paper, and semen. Their relationship imploded when Hubbard stole Parsons's mistress, his boat, and $20,000 of his savings.
Hubbard’s son accused his father of fraud, drug use, black magic, and Satanism, and talked of how the organization is a business that used religion as a way to evade taxes. According to Hubbard's wife, he once said: "The only way to make any real money was to have religion. That's essentially what he was trying to do with 'Dianetics.' Get a religion where he could have an income and the government wouldn't take it away from him in the form of taxes." In 1993, the Church of Scientology won a decades-long battle with the IRS to be fully tax exempt, and the case was extremely bizarre. For instance:
"Scientology's lawyers hired private investigators to dig into the private lives of I.R.S. officials and to conduct surveillance operations to uncover potential vulnerabilities, according to interviews and documents. One investigator said he had interviewed tenants in buildings owned by three I.R.S. officials, looking for housing code violations. He also said he had taken documents from an I.R.S. conference and sent them to church officials and created a phony news bureau in Washington to gather information on church critics. The church also financed an organization of I.R.S. whistle-blowers that attacked the agency publicly."
Rocket Scientist Jack Parsons Used His Mansion As A Hub For Occult Practice, Inviting Esoteric Orders, Witches, And L. Ron Hubbard To Take Up Residence
Photo: Anonymous / Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainJack Parsons was a rocket scientist whose pioneering work and role in the formation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were instrumental in the space race. Throughout the '30s and '40s, Parsons was also a devotee of the occult, performing sex magick rituals in his attempts to summon deities. When L. Ron Hubbard was living with Parsons before the founding of Scientology, Parsons had Hubbard sleep with his wife as part of one such ritual.
Parsons was taken with the occult as a young man, after witnessing a Gnosis Mass performed by Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an occult society co-founded by an Austrian esotericist and a German tantric occultist. The ritual, described: "On a black and white stage stood an altar embossed with hieroglyphic patterns, a host of candles and an upright coffin covered with a gauze curtain out of which the group's caped leader would appear. Poetry was read, swords were drawn, breasts kissed, and lances stroked. It was a highly charged sexual atmosphere. Wine was drunk and cakes made out of menstrual blood were consumed."
Not long thereafter, Parsons became an adherent of Thelema, a religion created by English occultist Aleister Crowley (and which was practiced as scripture by the members of Ordo Templi Orientis). He bought a mansion in Pasadena and used it as a new hub or OTO operations in Los Angeles. Witches and fellow scientists moved in with him. He was known to answer the door with a snake wrapped around his shoulder, and brought secretaries from the laboratory back to his place for drug-fueled ritualistic debauchery. Eventually Hubbard moved in, and the pair tried summoning a goddess. As author George Pendle writes: "For weeks the two of them engaged in ritual chanting, drawing occult symbols in the air with swords, dripping animal blood on runes, and masturbating in order to 'impregnate' magical tablets."
Parsons died at 37, ripped apart by an explosion in his home laboratory.
Charles Manson Used Bizarre Occult Teachings To Turn The Hippy Dream Of A New World Into A Murder Spree
Photo: State of California, San Quentin Prison / Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainCharles Manson's troubled childhood is well-documented. In broad strokes: he never knew his father, his mother was 16 when he was born and landed herself in jail not long thereafter, he lived with an aunt and uncle for a few years before spending most of his adolescence and young adulthood in reform centers and jails for a slew of minor crimes. In 1967, at age 33, Manson was released from prison and moved to San Francisco, where he anointed himself a messianic figure and began his occult preachings, which foretold of a race war that would destroy America and leave Manson and his devotees, whom he referred to as the Family, in an advantageous position to rise ot power. The counterculture explosion that took place in the summer of '67 created just the right environment for Manson's message, and he attracted a following.
Around this time, Manson, who was also an aspiring musician, met Denis Wilson of the Beach Boys. He then relocated his Family to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, setting the scene for the Manson Family Murders. Between August 8 and 10, 1969, Manson's followers murdered seven people at his behest, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, wife to filmmaker Roman Polanski. One of Manson's followers even tried to assassinate Gerald Ford, then President of the United States.
UCLA Anthropologist Carlos Castaneda Started The New Wave Movement After Experimenting With Psychedelics At The Behest Of A Shaman He Met At A Bus Stop
Photo: Jacob Wayne Bryner / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0Los Angeles's reputation for new age religions and seeking truth and divinity through the use of psychedelic drugs can be more or less totally attributed to Carlos Castaneda. Castaneda was born in Peru, though he told people he was from Brazil. He arrived in Los Angeles in the early '50s to study anthropology at UCLA. He spent the 17 years living in obscurity. At some point during this time, according to Castaneda's account, while at a bus stop in the southwest, he met Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui (indigenous Mexican) mystic who claimed, among other things, the ability to manipulate time and space. Castaneda became a pupil of Don Juan, and in 1967 submitted a manuscript entitled The Teachings of Don Juan to the University of California Press in Los Angeles. The book was published in 1968, and became a bestseller around the world. Castaneda wrote a total of 10 books, which are attributed with starting the New Age movement and invigorating interest in using drugs like peyote to achieve religious experiences.
The Castaneda's obituary in the New York Times states:
"Mr. Castaneda spun extraordinarily rich, hallucinogenic evocations of ancient paths to knowledge based on what he described as an extended apprenticeship with a Yaqui Indian shaman named Don Juan Matus. His 10 books, etched in layer upon layer of psychological nuance and intrigue, became international best sellers translated into 17 languages and were credited with helping to usher in the New Age sensibility and reviving interest in Indian and Southwestern cultures."
A typical passage from Castaneda's writing, quoted from Don Juan: "We men and all other luminous beings on earth are perceivers. That is our bubble, the bubble of perception. Our mistake is to believe that the only perception worthy of acknowledgment is what goes through our reason. Sorcerers believe that reason is only one center and that it shouldn't take so much for granted."
Castaneda was frequently accused of inventing Don Juan Matus, or at least of making up the shaman's teachings. Rather than defend himself or provide evidence, Castaneda lived in Los Angeles in total anonymity, refusing to be photographed and never making public appearances. By the end of his life, he was such a recluse his death wasn't public knowledge until two months after it happened.
Former Stuntman Father Yod Took 14 Wives, Started A Psychedelic Egalitarian Commune In The Hollywood Hills, And Ran A Very Successful Health Food Restaurant
Photo: Gravitas VenturesJim Baker was a retired marine and Hollywood stuntman who rechristened himself Father Yod, took 14 wives, fronted a fully improvised psychedelic band, and used a cocktail of occult philosophy to lead his disciples in the Source Family. The Family was entirely sustained by a health food restaurant on Sunset Boulevard also called The Source (which appears in Annie Hall), and from which Father Yod recruited for his family, in part using his music (his group was the restaurant's house band). The Source was frequented by everyone from dirty hippies and drugged out wayward youth to Andy Warhol and John Lennon (no word on whether Father Yod's music influenced Lennon).
The Source Family flourished from 1972 until 1977, and moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco and Hawaii. In Los Angeles, the Family lived in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where they donned flowing robes, partook in sex magick, and lived by ancient mystic traditions. Members of the Family shared everything, and each was allowed to participate in Father Yod's band. They didn't drink, and referred to marijuana as "the sacred herb". A typical day-in-the-life of a Source Family member, according to Isis Aquarian, one of Father Yod's wives, went something like this:
"We would get up, and do some yoga stretches and some breathing. We usually had a pool wherever we would live, so we would just kind of dip into the cold water, which was very refreshing, and get dressed, have a cup of coffee and wait for morning meditation, which was our morning class. We always greeted the sun wherever we were. We would go outside and watch the sunrise and then we would start our day. People would either go and work at the Source or we would do our duties around the house, or whatever business energies were happening. The band would go into the band room and try different things—you know, make a few more albums. We had artists. We all were a thread that made up that tapestry, and everybody had their part that they did."
Sex was sacred, and seen as the creative force of the universe. It was governed by strict rules, there were never orgies, and no one was ever expected to do something with which they were uncomfortable. As for Father Yod's teachings, Isis Aquarian explains:
"We took from everything. We took from every religion. We took from past lives. We took from the mystery teachings. We took from the yogis. We took from the Buddha. We took from whatever made sense and worked to us and distilled it into our own uniqueness. There is one concept that I do want to tell you about because many people do say, Well, how did you see him as god? That’s very confusing to a lot of people, but to us it was not confusing because we saw each other as god. We saw the god and goddess in each of us at a time when that concept wasn't really popular, or it was misunderstood. That’s how we saw Father, and that’s how he tried to get us to see each other, and that was our evolution from being just a human to a spiritual being."
Filmmaker and publisher Jodi Wille explains the importance of the Source Family in the cultural fabric of Los Angeles during the psychedelic days of the early 1970s:
"[T]hey gave so much to the community of Los Angeles. In the early 1970s we had some of the greatest culture on the planet being produced here: films, music, art, and literature. And many of the people responsible for it hung out at the Source Family restaurant. Frank Zappa and all of those Laurel Canyon musicians who lived close by came into the restaurant all the time. To me, the Source Family represents a time in Los Angeles when the city was at its very coolest. Not since the 1910s and the 1920s had spiritualism and esotericism been so prevalent in this city."
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Avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger was born in Santa Monica in 1927, when there was basically no downtown Los Angeles skyline, Grauman's Chinese Theatre had vacant lots on either side of it, Inglewood looked like a small town in the Midwest, and you could park your Model T on Santa Monica Pier. He in essence grew up with the city. Given the esoteric and occult nature of his films, it's no surprise Anger was involved with some of LA's most well-known eccentrics.
Anger directed a number of short films staring Marjorie Cameron, wife to occultist and rocket scientist Jack Parsons, who, along with Parsons, was involved with the The Gnostic Mass at the Church of Thelema, participated in sex magic rituals, and knew L. Ron Hubbard in the pre-Scientology days. Cameron was also a painter and, allegedly, a witch. An interview with Anger in the Guardian reads:
"'She was extraordinary – a genuine witch,' Anger says matter-of-factly. 'She had powers. Unusual powers. Extra powers. She kind-of knew things before they happened. She loved a full moon.'
During their time living together, Anger was able to observe Cameron at work; she painted Anger as Saint Sebastian nailed to the ground with swords. 'She considered them talismans. In her lifetime she never sold anything. She didn’t want to be a commercial artist. She had a couple of gallery shows but insisted they were not for sale.'
Mysteriously, Cameron destroyed much of her work. 'If she destroyed some of them, it was for magical reasons that [she] consigned them to the flames. Of course, this sounds insane. If I’d been there I’d have tried to stop her. But it was her business she wanted to do that.'"
In the 1960s, Anger met fellow Aleister Crowley obsessive Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, and asked him to contribute music for Anger's Crowley-inspired cult classic Lucifer Rising. Page agreed but never finished the music, which led to Anger putting a curse on him. Anger also worked with Rosaleen Miriam Norton, known as the Witch of Kings Cross. His 1954 short film The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome starred, and was partially shot at the home, of part time actor and full time eccentric and self-described warlock Samson DeBrier, who hosted sensual salons at his Georgian house in Hollywood, where regular guests included Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick, James Dean, Jane Fonda, and even Igor Stravinsky. Anger was also friends with a member of the Manson Family at the time of the murders.
A Russo-German Mystic From Tehran Arrived In Los Angeles In 1916 To Spread The Teachings Of An Ancient Zoroastrian Prophet
Photo: Photographer Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainOn Saturday, January 3, 1920, the LAPD raided the Temple of the Sun, meeting place of what the Los Angeles Times described as the "the Mazdaznan cult of 'sun worshipers'". On January 7 of that year, the LA Times ran an article entitled "Child Witnesses Missing in Mazdaznan Cult Sex Case", which reads in part: "The five children, against whom Hanish is said to have committed unprintable acts, were sought in vain Monday". Hanish here refers to Otoman Zar-Adusht Hanish, founder of the neo-Zoroastrian cult Mazdaznan, which he ran from a house in Arlington Heights, in central Los Angeles, for about 20 years. Nothing is known for certain about Hanish before he began his religious movement in Chicago in 1900, before moving to Los Angeles in 1916, but it's believed his real name was Otto Hanisch, and that he was born to a German mother and a Russian father in Terhan, Iran, in the mid-19th century.
Legal charges against Hanish were eventually dropped, and he lived the rest of his life in relative quiet, although acolytes, known as electors, helped spread his teachings to Europe, where they were accused of being racist and anti-Semitic (and also, ironically, banned in Nazi Germany). As for his occult teachings, Hanish claims to have become a member, while in Iran and/or Tibet (the history of Mazdaznan is a bit confusing), of a secret order that taught him the ancient secrets of a Ainyahita, a prophet whose teachings preceded Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra) by 3000 years, dating her to about 3500 BCE. According to Hanish, these teachings formed the basis of all major monotheistic religions; he described them as "the eternal religion that stands behind all religions". He spoke of making Earth a garden once more, in which man would coexist with God, and of the importance of breathing exercises. He was also a vegetarian, who "carefully taught the 'why' and the 'how' of diet, menu-making, food preparation, food care, and all relating to the subject. Frequent simple 'banquets' were demonstrations to the students." A deep dive into his beliefs reveals a strong sense of mysticism and esotericized folk beliefs.
Hanish's followers make a number of claims about him, including that he was the first person in America to drive a car, and that Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were disciples of Mazdazan.
- Photo: Hunter Desportes / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
In 1975, David Bowie moved to Los Angeles and took up residence in the home of Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes. As it turns out, Hughes lived in the former home of Leno LaBianca, who, along with his wife Rosemary, was murdered by the Manson gang a few days after Sharon Tate and four others. While living with Hughes, Bowie intentionally kept himself in a permanent state of cocaine-induced psychosis. As Bowie biographer Marc Spitz writes:
"Hughes was, at the time, leading a somewhat debauched lifestyle but soon realized his new best friend was taking such decadence to extremes uncommon even for a rich rock 'n' roller. Unlike Hughes, Bowie was not ingesting blow for the fun of it. He remained awash in a state of neurosis and fears and obsessed with using occult black magic to attain success and protect himself from demonic forces. A self-induced cocaine psychosis was, addiction aside, maintained in part because it was a mental instability he could control, unlike the one he was convinced was still encoded in his DNA..."
Spitz goes on to reference members of Bowie's family who suffered from mental health issues Bowie feared would also consume him. To protect himself against evil forces, Bowie drew pentagrams on surfaces throughout the house and collected books on witchcraft, white magic, and black magic. Hughes speaks of Bowie's state of mind at the time: "He felt inclined to go on very bizarre tangents about Aleister Crowley or the Nazis or numerals a lot. It'd leave me scratching my head. He was completely wired. Manically wired. I could not keep up with him. He was on the edge all the time of paranoia, and also going about things I had no friggin' idea of what he was talking about."
A Pre-Hippy, Pseudo Communist Free Love Cult Flourished In A Tent City Called Mount Helios In Glassell Park During The Early 1920s
Photo: Pamela Coleman Smith / Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainIn the heady jazz days of 1921, Glassell Park was a sparsely populated hinterland northeast of downtown Los Angeles. In that year, a woman named Edith Maida Lessing was arrested. According to a contemporary newspaper account, she was charged with "criminal syndicalism" on account of being the "so-called 'high priestess' of an alleged love-cult said to have flourished at her 'Mount Helios' colony in Glassell Park." Los Angeles Magazine describes Mount Helios as a "ramshackle compound of tents and shacks" and attests "Lessing declared free love would replace marriage, believed in communal ownership of property, and boasted that she had control over more than 1,000 men. She was imprisoned in 1922 for sending obscene material through the mail".
Pasadena's Devil's Gate Has A Muddled History Of Supposed Evil And Occult Activity
The devil's gate is a feature of the Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena, erected to control the flood waters of the San Gabriel mountains. Behind the gate is a concrete tunnel covered in graffiti that is either a portal to hell or "a concrete dead end", depending on your beliefs. The idea that area is cursed goes back to the indigenous Tongva people, who allegedly saw the face of the devil in the surrounding rock formation stayed away from it (why indigenous people were seeing the face of the Christian devil remains unexplained). In more recent lore, Aleister Crowley supposedly recognized the occult power of the location and, according to some, say the activities of Parsons and L Ron Hubbard opened a hell portal in the area (why Crowley would say this when he believed Hubbard was a fraud remains unexpelained). Jack Parsons was attracted to the place, using conduct early liquid-fuel motor tests on Halloween of 1936 (and not to partake in any of his occult rituals). At least four children went missing in the area in the 1950s. In the 21st century, most visitors to the Devil's Gate are those with an interest in the occult or paranormal.
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The curse of Griffith Park began long before the land was gifted to the city of Los Angeles. In the mid 1800s, the area was a ranch belonging to Don Antonio Feliz, a bachelor who lived on the land with his niece, Petronilla. As Feliz lay dying of small pox, local politician Antonio Coronel, along with his lawyer, convinced the wealthy man to agree to the terms of a new will that saw all his land left to Coronel. According to legend, a stick was affixed to Feliz's head and moved back and forth to force him to nod in agreement to the will. In response, Petronilla cursed the land, saying “The substance of the Feliz family shall be your curse! The wrath of heaven and the vengeance of hell shall fall upon this place.”
According to a history of Griffith Park published in the Washington Post:
"Coronel swiftly ceded the property to his lawyer, who was shot and killed while celebrating the sale of the land’s water rights. The next owner attempted to turn the ranch into a dairy business, but the cattle sickened and died, and grasshoppers and fires demolished the crops. During the tenure of its last owner, Griffith J. Griffith, a lightning storm brought down huge stands of trees and sent a wall of water cascading through the canyons, ruining much of the ranch. According to the book Victorian Los Angeles, ranch hands claimed they saw Feliz’s ghost riding the waves down a hillside, cheering his successor’s demise.
Afterward, Griffith would only visit the property during the day, and in 1896 — apparently having decided that the land was more trouble than it was worth — he donated it to Los Angeles as a Christmas present."
In 1933, 29 people died in a wildfire in the park. In 1976, a couple was crushed to death by a tree while boning on a picnic table. In 2012, hikers found a severed head in a plastic bag.
