Steinway Hall

Built in 1896, Steinway Hall was located at 64 E Van Buren St.  The building went through a variety of name changes over the years and also housed a number of activities of interest to readers here.

Image courtesy the Steinway Hall Wikipedia page.

In its early days, the 11-story office building housed a number of architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright (who remained in the building until 1908). During this time, Steinway Hall was briefly being advertised as a "Temple of Magic."

Image courtesy the Chicago Magic blog.  While focusing on stage magic, there is definitely information of interest.

Image of the theater during it's run as the "Punch and Judy Theater" courtesy the Cinema Treasures website.


The 850-seat theater in the building originally was a branch of Ziegfeld's theaters (while the Follies were taking off in New York, Flo Ziegfeld was originally from Chicago).  The theater was home to acts such as Sophie Tucker and Fatty Arbuckle.  In 1915 the theater's name was changed and Shakespearean plays were produced.

The same theater was rented out by the Theosophical Society, who secured every Sunday for a six month period of time.  During this time, Charles Leadbeater lectured on a variety of subjects relating to the occult and Theosophy.  Leadbeater, having just arrived from England, packed the theater to the extent that would-be listeners regularly had to be turned away at the door.  His lectures here in Chicago would be published as the book Some Glimpses of Occultism Ancient and Modern.

In 1941, after the schism of C.F. Russell's Choronzon Club, one of the splinter groups housed itself at Steinway Hall (practically around the corner from the Fine Arts Building where they had previously met).  They would remain here until the 1960s, when they would return to the Fine Arts Building.    For more information on this, please visit my previous post regarding C.F. Russell and the Fine Arts Building.

Around this time the theater was being used to show adult movies.  Public sentiment had swayed against the building, and it was demolished on April 5, 1970.  Apparently it was written in the Chicago Tribune that “Few, if any, will mourn it.”

In its place, we now have a parking lot.

CF Russell, Sex Magick and Fine Arts

I mentioned CF Russell in my previous post regarding the Occult Digest, and promised that I would devote an entire post to him.  This is a fascinating subject in relation to Chicago's history, the history of the occult and the local gay community that worked in esoteric circles locally in the early 20th century.  Needless to say, someone could write an amazing essay/book/thesis on the subject.  This is my attempt to show the tip of the iceberg.


Cecil Frederick Russell (1897-1987) was at first an ardent follower of Aleister Crowley.  After getting dishonorably discharged from the US Navy, Russell stayed at Crowley's Abbey of Thelema briefly, where the two fought and parted ways.  Russell (who Crowley referred to as having a "violent reaction against any act of authority") then founded his own order, the Choronzon Club, in 1928. Some sources say that Crowley suggested that he The Choronzon Club changed its name to G.B.G. in 1931 - it is often believed stand for "Great Brotherhood of God," though apparently Russell was evasive regarding the meaning of the acronym. 



Dues were only $5, and if a new member got a friend to enroll then they were able to keep half of this amount.


Russell put out advertisements in the Occult Digest, which he also wrote several articles for:

A shortcut to Initiation

The Choronzon Club

Box Chicago, 111

Naturally there are those who disagree with any idea of "shortcut," so Russell raised some eyebrows with what some called "abbreviated rituals" (though they may have just been jealous of his quickly growing numbers due to the fast track and low dues).  "For his first few months of membership the initiate of the G.B.G. was kept in ignorance of its sexual-magical affiliations and were only revealed to him (or her) after he had satisfactorily completed a course of occult training devised by Russell" (Francis King, "Sexuality Magic & Perversion").  This course can be found online as a PDF very easily.

 "But in 1933 a schism broke out in Russell's ranks; a meeting was held
 on the 8th floor of 410 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago, with the
 object of forming a group consisting exclusively of homosexual men (the
 basis on which all contemporary XI° groups are founded). Eventually
 four groups could be distinguished as springing from Russell's initial
 foundation... 

"The remaining members in Chicago, who had been an
 exclusively XI° group for some time, had held their meetings at 64 East Van Buren
 Street since 1941 independently of Russell; in the 1960s they returned
 to Michigan Avenue."

(http://parareligion.ch/sunrise/xi.htm)

For those not aware, XI° was the anal sexual magick degree of Crowley's formulated for the O.T.O.  

Those of you who are paying attention will recognize the 410 South Michigan Avenue address as being the Fine Arts building.  The building how houses artist studios, several music instructors, a Kundalini Yoga studio and others.  There is an art walk on the 2nd Friday of every month.  The building was built in 1885 and at one point housed a number of Theosophical groups, among other things.  If you wander through the building, it's easy to feel some of the earlier roots.

entrance

Prepare for an obligatory elevator ride with a human elevator operator.

 Murals on the top (10th) floor.

 staircase finials

8th floor, as mentioned previously

also on the 8th floor

Selected Works bookstore on the 2nd floor - these are only the discount books outside of the entrance.  They have a cat that roams the stacks, and if you look you can find books that were originally part of different Theosophical / esoteric groups.

Many of Russell's writings can be found online here:  http://cfrussell.homestead.com/files/intro.htm

All of the information in this post taken from:

1.  XI°: Anal Intercourse and the Ordo Templi Orientis - http://parareligion.ch/sunrise/xi.htm

2. Sexuality, Magic & Perversion, Francis King

3. Magick - The Order of the GBG (online PDF)

The Occult Digest

The Occult Digest - A Magazine for Everybody was a Chicago magazine published from 1925 until 1947.

It was published for quite some time in a great looking building known as the "Occult Digest Center," which also included the "Occult Book Mart."  This was located near what is now Lincoln Park (and coincidentally right around the corner from where Process Church and the Foundation Church of the Millennium would set up headquarters in the 1970s).  They also published Psychic Power magazine in the early 1920s and a variety of books on occult subjects.

This cover image blatantly stolen from the Jackie Gleason Archives at the University of Miami Libraries

As far as I can tell, the Occult Digest had amazing cover art for only the first couple of issues, then utilized a fairly generic (though decidedly Art Deco) cover design.  Please forgive these low quality snapshots.

By the early 1930s they switched to a more blocked off design.

 

Some subjects are obviously problematic now.  There are allusions to the fallout from the Civil War and the ideas regarding eugenics and race.

I love both of these articles about magic and music.

 

It was interesting for me to see several ads referring to psychic or clairvoyant phenomenon as "human radio."  It put some things into perspective regarding the things I've been reading about Radionics lately.  Imagine how crazy it must have seemed, sending sound through the air invisibly.  

 

The National Theosophical Convention was held in Chicago at the Stevens Hotel, which is now the Hilton.

Effa Danelsen was the driving force behind Occult Digest, appearing to edit and publish the magazine as well as writing for it. 

CF Russell wrote regularly for the magazine from 1930 - 1933.  Also, he regularly placed ads for his  Choronzon Club in Occult Digest.  His writings from this time have been archived online on this website.  Russell definitely deserves an entry all of his own here at some point.

By 1939 The Occult Digest merged with the Telepathic Magazine.  The format changed from a standard magazine size to a small digest with only 30 pages per issue.  At this point it was published by Maha Publishing, and the headquarters would move to south 89th street with new editor Marie Harlowe.  Much of the magazine seems to have revolved around Harlowe at this point, with her writing the editorial column and various articles relating to comparative religion.  Several pages were also dedicated to advertisements for Harlowe's "Occult Lessons" in "Breathing Methods Suitable to Western Vehicles."  In 1942 the magazine changed its name to World Philosophy.