cults Archives - Bone and Sickle

Inside the Hollow Earth

By boneandsickle | July 1, 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:00 — 69.8MB)

Borrowed from fairy lore, the notion of a hollow earth peopled by superior beings became a theme of literary fantasies as early as the 17th century and went on to influence fringe theories of the earth’s structure into the 19th century.

We begin with a snippet of the medieval Norwegian ballad “Liti Kjersti,” telling the fairy story of a young woman abducted into the earth by the Mountain King, and follow this an anecdote from Gerald of Wales’ 12^th-century Itinerarium Cambriae (Journey through Wales) describing a kidnapping of a young boy by “two tiny men,” and the interior world he visits.

We then hear from Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century poet, playwright, and writer on a variety of philosophical, political, and scientific topics. Her poem “The Fairy Queen’s Kingdom”(1653) and prose fantasy The Blazing World (1666) introduce the idea of interior kingdoms accessible only through entrances at the polar ends of the earth.

Over the next couple centuries, at least a half dozen novels describing travels into an interior world appeared. We briefly touch on Danish-Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg’s Niels Klim’s Underground Travels (1741), Giacomo Casanova’s Icosaméron (1788), American writer Mary Bradley Lane’s Mizora: A Prophecy (1880), and Irish-American writer William R. Bradshaw’s The Goddess of Atvatabar (1892), the last coming closer to what we would think of today as science fiction. Universal to these hollow earth tales is portrayal of the interior civilization as a utopia, highlighting the failings of our own.

We then spend some time examining the particularly weird hollow 1895 earth novel by John Uri Lloyd, Etidorhpa, or, the end of the earth: the strange history of a mysterious being and the account of a remarkable journey, an underground adventure tale larded with odd religious, philosophical and pseudoscientific theories. It describes the education of a character identified only as “I—Am—The—Man—Who—Did—It,” guided by an eyeless amphibious humanoid along a subterranean route, with stops for various knowledge-imbuing experiences, i.e., “How to See Your Own Brain,” as one chapter is titled.

Next we explore a late 19th-century cult founded in upstate New York by Cyrus Tweed, who went by the name “Koresh.” Koreshanity, as it was called, regarded Tweed as a second coming of Christ and taught that earth’s inhabitants actually live on the inside of our hollow planet. His teachings began with an 1869 vision experienced during his laboratory pursuit of what he called “electro-alchemy.” Mrs. Karswell reads for us his account in which he encounters God in his female aspect. We hear of the cult’s heyday in the first years of the 20th century on Estero Island, of the coast of Fort Myers, Florida, and of the uncomfortable situation that attended Tweed’s death in 1908.

We then hear a bit about the man most widely associated with hollow earth pseudoscience, the American John Cleves Symmes, Jr., who in 1812 declared these beliefs in published his “Circular No. 1,” and later lobbied Congress to mount an expedition that would verify his theory. Symmes’ bold proposition was so widely known at the times as to be spun into a novel, our next topic, the anonymously penned Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery (1819), a work of utopian fiction with steampunk-style details.

Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel, written in 1838, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, describes a voyage into the South Polar seas. Passages from the novel’s startling ending, which appears to describe entrance into the hollow earth, are read by Mrs. Karswell. Poe is believed to have been introduced to this concept by writer, and explorer J.N. Reynolds, who figures into the mystery of the writer’s mysterious death, as we hear.

A bizarre culinary experience is next described in passages from William F. Lyon’s 1821 book, The Hollow Globe. We hear how meat from the frozen remains of mammoths, is taken as evidence for their survival in the earth’s interior.

Finally, we discuss Journey to the Center of the Earth, not just the 1864 novel by Jules Verne but a same-name French novel written earlier in 1821 by Jacques Collin de Plancy. Mr. Ridenour offers some final thoughts on the dinosaurs from Verne’s novel as well as its 1959 film adaptation.

Ashtar, Orthon, and the Rosicrucians

By boneandsickle | July 30, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:06 — 53.9MB)

Messages delivered by the extraterrestrials Ashtar and Orthon to Contactees of the 1950s represented a sort of repackaging of 19th-century Theosophy, a philosophical descendent of the Rosicrucianism of the 1700s.

After our previous epiosde examining George King of the Aetherius Society, this episode looks at two other Georges of the Contactee movement, George van Tassel (channeler of Ashtar) and George Adamski (allegedly visited by Orthon).

We begin with a look at George van Tassel’s pre-Contactee life in Southern California during which he worked in aviation, a path that led to him taking ownership of a tiny airstrip in the nearby desert, Giant Rock Airport, named for the landmark boulder beside it.

We hear about van Tassel’s early involvement in a metaphysical group, The Brotherhood of the Cosmic Christ, and his progression into channeling messages from Space People. By 1953, he claimed to have encountered a Venusian by the name of Solganda, who welcomed him into his space craft. We hear some amusing details revealed in interviews with the Contactee-friendly radio host Long John Nebel. (Nebel’s late-night show, Partyline, out of New York anticipated paranormal shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast and are well worth checking out.)

Chief among the Space People van Tassel claimed to contact was Ashtar, whose messages were largely devoted to warnings about humanity’s ill-fated dabbling with nuclear weapons. Strangely, messages from Ashtar began to be received by other channelers even in van Tassel’s day, and he continues to be channeled in New Age circles to this day.

van tassel images — Van Tassl’s Integratron under construction and Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention.

We also hear about the Giant Rock Spacecraft conventions van Tassel hosted from 1953 to 1977, and about the Integratron, a domed construction van Tassel claimed would function as a sort of time machine or rejuvenator of the human body. Unsurprisingly, the plans for the latter were provided by the Space People.

We next look at the first Contactee to supposedly meet a being from space, George Adamski. His connection to Theosophy is particularly obvious and is illustrated through newspaper excerpts read by Mrs. Karswell, in which Adamski represents himself as an esoteric teacher from Tibet or Egypt (take your pick).

While continuing to publish metaphysical pamphlets in the late ’40s, Adamski was becoming more obsessed with space, including both astronomy and astral experiences of a more cosmic nature. He relocated to a camp owned by one of his students at the base of Mount Palomar, where he set up a telescope and was sometimes mistaken by visitors to the famous observatory on Palomar’s peak as a professional associate of the astronomers (something he actively encouraged).

After producing, the first of his UFO photos in 1947, and 1950, Adamski arranged a saucer scouting expedition with friends and students, during which he claimed to have met Orthon. We hear Adamski himself describe this meeting to Long John Nebel and about some curious clues and photographs left in Orthon’s wake — including the much debated bell-shaped flying saucer photos published in his 1953 book, The Flying Saucers Have Landed.

Even at the height of his fame, rumors swirled within the flying saucer community that Adamski was a fraud, but alongside this are slightly mitigating reports by acquaintances that he occasionally confessed as much, while pleading that it was all in support of redemptive spiritual truths.

Oddly, perhaps — this brings us to the Rosicrucians, a movement influential upon Theosophy, and one founded upon a sort of hoax, more or less confessed to by its founder, the German Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andreae.

It’s believed that Andreae was behind at least the first publications mentioning Rosicrucianism, a series of anonymous pamphlets that appeared in Germany between 1614 and 1617. In these, it was implied that a hitherto unknown body of knowledge, an amalgam of alchemy, hermeticism, Christian mysticism and Kabbalah had been gathered by the brothers of the Rosy Cross, themselves followers of a 14^th century seeker named Christian Rosenkreuz, (German for “Rose Cross”). Many Enlightenment-era scholars inspired by Rosicrucian ideals and not privy to the hoax went on to dedicate well intentioned projects dedicated to Rosicrucian ideals — all similar to Adamski’s notion of good teachings brought by imposters.

The similarity between the notion of hidden Rosicrucian adapts and the Masters of Theosophy did not go unnoticed by the movement’s leading light, Helena Blavatsky. In writing about the 1842 novel Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, she described the characterization of the Rosicrucian hero Zanoni as a perfect description of Theosophy’s hidden Masters of her.

Stranger still, it’s believed that Blavatsky’s notions of a sort of “higher science,” a technology that manipulates subtle spiritual energies, seems to have been directly influenced by Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 novel, The Coming Race and its concept of the “vril,” used by hidden survivors of a an advanced civilization comparable to Blavatsky’s Atlanteans. A comparison to the mysterious powers channeled by van Tassel’s Integratron is naturally mentioned here.

We wrap up with a look at A.M.O.R.C. (The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) a uniquely American Rosicrucian organization known for its flamboyant advertisements for cosmic know-how published in the backs of magazines of the 1940s and 50s. Founded in 1915, this group of media-savvy adepts also went on to produce some particularly peculiar records in the 1960s, which we hear sampled at the closing of the show.

Toad Magic

By boneandsickle | June 21, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:32 — 60.1MB)

Toads have long been associated with magic, as witches’ familiars and as a source both of poison as folk healing.

We begin with a poison allegedly brewed from a toad by the “wise wife of Keith,” Agnes Sampson, one of the accused in Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials in 1591-2. The poison was to have been used against Scotland’s James VI before he ascended England’s throne as James I. At the center of the trial was the accusation that Sampson and others had raised a storm to sink the ship bearing James home from Oslo with his new wife Anne of Denmark.

Macbeth and the Witches (Thomas Barker, 1830)

Shakespeare seems to allude to elements from this trial in his play Macbeth, mentioning toads and frogs as elements of the concoctions brewed by his witches in Act IV and seemingly referencing the events in an aside uttered by a witch regarding sending a storm against an enemy’s ship. The Bard’s inclusion of “real” witchcraft in his play has long been said to be the reason for a “curse” upon productions of Macbeth. Included in our discussion is a particularly ugly (and lethal) 1848 incident in New York City attributed to this bit of lore.

A witch’s servant, or familiar, in the form of a toad is also alluded to as an offstage character in Macbeth. Mrs. Karswell reads for us a number of accounts from 16th and early 17th century England presenting toad familiars sent to torment the enemies of witches. We also hear of a toad exploding in a fire, and toads sustained on the blood of their witch mistresses, as well as a sad story from Newmarket, England, involving William Harvey, physician to Charles I, and an bruitish attempt to subject an alleged toad familiar to scientific scrutiny.

A woodcut illustration from a book published in 1579 of a witch feeding her ‘familiars’.

Next we discuss the fear of toad’s venom in the Middle Ages, hearing some comments on the subject from 12th-century German mystic and theologian Hildegard von Bingen and a tale associated with the English boy-saint William of Norwich involving some prisoners and an unfortunate attempt at the use of toad poison.

Toad’s venom, according to medieval folklore, could be neutralized by the toadstone, a particular mineral also assigned powers against stomach and kidney ailments. We hear of a peculiar method of obtaining this prized artifact and an obscure reference to the toadstone in the 1973 folk-horror classic The Wicker Man.

We also hear a clip from The Wicker Man in which a toad or frog is used in folk medicine to cure a sore throat. Superstitions about toads and their magical efficacy against various ailments continued into the 19th century, resulting in the phenomena of traveling “toad doctors” and “toad fairs.” The use of toad bones in a midnight ritual performed by English “Toadmen” in order to gain mastery of horses to be trained is also discussed as is the discovery of miniature frog coffins, stashed in Finish churches, in a folk-magic practice similar to the British and American use of “witch bottles.”

We return to the continent and the discussion of toads’ association with witches (and heretics) as conceived by the Church in terms of service to Satan. This topic brings us a letter written by Pope Gregory IX to bishops of the German Rhineland involving Satan as a french-kissing toad, as well as a ritual attributed to French and Italian members of the Waldesenian sect allegedly consuming a ritual beverage brewed from toad excrement.

In Spain’s Basque province of Navarre, home to the “Cave of Witches” at Zugarramurdi, witchcraft trial testimonies demonstrate a particular emphasis on toads. We hear of them raised by novice witches in the fields, used to poison the land, and dancing at the witches’ sabbath.

Toads are sometimes mentioned as an ingredient of the “flying ointment” believed to have induced a visionary experience transporting witches to hilltop revels. However, this effect is more likely attributed to other ingredients in historical recipes (particularly plants of the nightshade family.)

While the venom produced by toads of the Old World doesn’t seem to contain the quality and quantity of bufotoxin necessary to produce such visions, this can’t be said for certain New World species.

One of these is the Cane toad (bufo rhinella) that invasive species best known for infesting Australia, Florida and other southern states and native to South and Central America. In the Caribbean, it’s been identified by Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis as a possible ingredient in a drug administered in Haiti to transform an enemy into a zombie, (i.e., to drug the individual into a deathlike state from which he is later “resurrected.”). Research into this subject was documented in Davis’ 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, later serving loosely as inspiration for Wes Craven’s 1988 film of the same name (from which we hear a clip).

The show ends with a quick look at the role of the Colorado River toad or Sonoran Desert toad, (bufo alvarius) as a source of psychedelic experience, particularly as its been reinvented with the last years as part of a life-changing “shamanic experience” for drug consumers already bored with ayahuasca.

Episode 5: The Great God Pan

By boneandsickle | June 4, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:34 — 33.5MB)

We follow our previous episode on the god Pan with a second this week, delving even deeper into the creative and bizarre ways the figure has been embraced after his much publicized “death.”

Our first several minutes are devoted to literary explorations of Pan in the decades around World War I. Naturally we examine only writers providing the more fantastic or horrific examples, including the creator of the high fantasy genre Anglo-Irish writer Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the 18th Baron Dunsany (aka Lord Dunsany). In The Blessings of Pan, he imagines ancient rites to Pan resurrected in the England of his day. If you like what you hear, you might want to have listen to another one of his stories narrated by Vincent Price here.

Lord Dunsany wrote The Blessings of Pan in 1928.

Wilkinson also provides us a reading from “The Music on the Hill,” by writer Hector Munro, who wrote under the name “Saki”. There is a spoiler in the reading, but it’s pleasingly grisly. We make up for the spoilage by providing you this additional unsettling, darkly comic (to us) story by Saki, one in which a defiant young boy decides to provoke his caretaker by creating a religion around his ferret, whom he names “Sredni Vashtar.” As it turns out, the ferret proves to be a dreadfully vindictive god.

But I digress.

As it turns out, the idea of a return to pagan Pan worship in the Christian era written about by Dunsany and others, may be more than simply a matter of fiction. Our next segment deals with such a case. In 18th-century England, in the town of Painswick, England, a member of the gentry, one Benjamin Hyett, was known to have built “an Arcadian retreat” featuring a building known as “Pan’s Lodge.” You can have a look here at a contemporaneous painting of the lodge grounds and Hyett’s statue (one of two — the other met a curious fate).

The statue at Hyett's "Pan's Lodge in Painswick. Background: contemporary painting of grounds. — The statue from “Pan’s Lodge in Painswick. Background: contemporary painting of grounds.

Hyett eventually brought the entire community around to join in these rites to Pan. The story grows more complex and curious as these rites are resurrected roughly a century later by a priest who, as we learn, had some intriguing notions about their meaning and origin. Entangled within this story are other local oddities of Painswick culture, including a dish known as “Puppy Dog Pie,” and a practice known as “clipping the church” or “church clipping,” in which members of the congregation join hands and perambulate their place of worship.

Clipping the church. Painting by W. W. Wheatley in 1848

Somehow we then arrive at the topic of Lupercalia, the Roman festival involving priests dressed in nothing chasing the Roman woman through the streets with whips. Oddly enough this topic brings us back to Arcadia, home of Pan.

Detail: Lupercalia by Andrea Camassei. 1635.

Lupercalia brings us to some interesting myths and tales related to the Arcadian festival Lykaia and King Lycaon, whom Zeus transformed into a wolf (history’s first werewolf, some would say.) Find out what loathsome act drove Zeus to take this action as Wilkinson provides another excellent reading from Ovid.

Detail: More details Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf. Hendrik Goltzius. 1589. — Detail: Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf. Hendrik Goltzius. 1589.

A bit more ancient Greek werewolf lore, a ghastly story about Pan and his ill-fated pursuit of the nymph Echo, and we end up — of all places — on Summerisle, that is, talking again about The Wicker Man, as we are wont to do. Somehow, the Wicker Man leads us back to Pan. You’l have to just trust me on this.

Benjamin Hyett, was not alone in resurrecting the notion of Pan worship. We find religious devotion to Pan and other pagan nature spirits (as well as inexplicably thriving vegetables) at Northern Scotland’s Findhorn Community. Some clips from a 1973 BBC show make clear their roots in the hippy culture of the era, giving us a bit of background before we meet Findhorn’s primary acolyte of Pan, Robert Ogilvie Crombie (aka ROC). His encounters with Pan in 1970s Edinburgh bring up an interesting point about the difficulties of directly encountering Pan. And naturally, this brings us to our next and final topic.

Early Findhorn meditation circle and book by ROC.

Arthur Machen’s 1890 horror novel, The Great God Pan was highly influential not only to Lovecraft, but other writers in his circle, and in general on the genre variously identified as “weird fiction” or “cosmic horror.” Neil Gaiman, Guillermo Del Toro, and Arthur C. Clarke have all praised the story. Stephen King has called it “one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language.”

Once again Wilkinson provides a couple readings of wonderfully morbid passages from the book complete with the usual Bone and Sickle audio ambiance.

We go out with the song “The Great God Pan” from the soundtrack to Mondo Hollywood, a 1967 a documentary in the “mondo” style presenting a mix of LA celebrities and countercultural oddballs, heavy on the oddballs.