Occult L.A.

Los Angeles has long been home to one of America’s most powerful occult scenes. The frontier town was already packed with Theosophists and Hindu gurus when the mystic Manly P. Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society in 1934 and started compiling the largest occult library west of the Mississippi. Some of Aleister Crowley’s most influential followers also made the Southland a crucial center of Crowley’s magickal religion of Thelema. Tonight’s program will combine presentations by independent scholars, and experimental esoteric films from Kenneth Anger, Curtis Harrington, Chick Strand, and others. Leading the evening will be Arthur columnist Erik Davis, author of “The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape.” Also presenting will be Louis Sahagun, author of “Master of the Mysteries”, a new bio of Manly P. Hall; and Brian Butler, an expert on the life of Cameron, mistress of JPL rocket scientist Jack Parsons and LA’s most intriguing enchantress.

Tickets – $12/ $8 for members