the advertisements of L.W. de Laurence

I've held off posting more about Lauren de Laurence, as I assumed that others were probably getting tired of hearing about my personal favorite local dubious historical publisher.  After some positive feedback, I'm giving in and posting a few things that I've come across.

Firstly, Michael Nowicki has posted several images from de Laurence's catalogs, along with an amusing story on Rosicrucians.org.

 

 According to Nowicki, the de Laurence company was still in business in the 1960s (despite the fact that de Laurence himself died in 1936).  Rather than post his story here, I'm just going to suggest that you visit the website to read his anecdote about visiting the de Laurence company.

A Tarot website at http://home.comcast.net/~vilex includes many images regarding the de Laurence Company's Tarot deck (a blatant copy of the Ryder-Waite deck).  The author goes into great detail regarding different printings of de Laurence's deck and related books.

"The Key to the Tarot: Oracles Behind the Veil, by Dr. L.W. de Laurence. It is, or should be, common knowledge that this book is AE Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot word for word!"

A very interesting read for those interested in the history of occult literature.  Start here for several pages of scans and information:  http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/Adverts.html


Website Church of Good Luck includes scans of de Laurence's catalogs.  Follow the link to see several advertisements.

"Artist's Conception of de Laurence Wearing a Turban and a Tunic"

"De Laurence wrote a lot of his own material in addition to his habit of "borrowing", and what he wrote best was ad copy.  He managed to fill over 500 pages in his 1931 catalog, and it stands to this day as a monument to bombast."

And so that I am able to contribute something of my own, here is a snapshot of the back page of an issue of Occult Digest from 1933 (three years before de Laurence would pass away).  Included are ads for Practical Lessons in Hypnotism and Magnetism, and The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occultism.  The latter, you may recall, was found in a local bookstore (with alternate "Hindoo" spelling).

Occult Digest covers

Lucky for us, Tumblr user onanhero has scanned many of those early, hard to find painted Occult Digest covers.

Many more on the original post here:
http://onanhero.tumblr.com/post/15646669281/covers-from-9-of-the-first-10-issues-of-occult

Thank you for sharing these, onanhero!

Spirit photography - W.K. Dunmore, Photographing the Unseen

Looking through an issue of Occult Digest, I saw a listing for a book by local spirit photographer W.K. Dunmore, "Photographing the Unseen."  After a variety of fruitless searches I worried that this book was lost to history.

At some point I realized that this book was taken from a collection of essays in Occult Digest's predecessor, Psychic Power magazine.  So I tracked down the appropriate issues in archives and took the time to scan each article, collecting them into a single PDF.

So if you are interested in the methods of a Chicago-based spirit photographer from the earlier part of the 20th Century, visit this link:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9QYMrCUmLu1UlkwV1Nja2xWWGc

The file looks much better when downloaded than when viewed in a web browser.

For more information about W.K. Dunmore, see this earlier post regarding Psychic Power magazine.

Choronzon Club ad, 1933

Here is one of CF Russell's ads for the Choronzon Club, the same that caused much controversy for his "abbreviated" rituals and shortcuts to the eleventh degree.  This ad is from the Occult Digest, 1933 (the same year that a massive schism affected Russell's organization).

Previous location of the Occult Digest Center

Previously I wrote about the beautiful building that used to house the Occult Digest Center and the Occult Book Mart (previously home to Psychic Power magazine). Publisher Effa Danelson and her husband moved to Chicago from St. Louis and built the structure to be home to their studies of spiritualism and the unexplained.

As part of a day-long exploration of some of Chicago's historical sites, I decided to see what now sits in this location that used to be home to a variety of seances and occult studies.

 What sits there is a small park with a fountain and a skinny sculpture. 

 I believe that this park could stand to have a plaque honoring the previous inhabitants.  Anyone want to champion the cause?

Next door, on land that was also part of the Occult Digest building, sits this building.  

Psychic Power magazine

Psychic Power magazine was the forerunner of Occult Digest, being published in the earlier part of the 1920s.  Like the Digest, it was edited and published by Effa Danelson.  Psychic Power was just slightly different in that it had less illustrations and focused a bit more on Spiritualism, seances and etc.

A year's worth of Psychic Power, bound.

Local spirit photographer W.K. Dunmore published a series of essays in Psychic Power which would later be published in book form.

Dunmore also had ads featured in the back of the magazine.

The Psychic Power headquarters, later home to the Occult Digest and Occult Book Mart.

Documenting seances and other events at the center.

Two articles from the same year regarding radio gaining "sight."

I'd read before about Edison's secretive inventions intended to contact the deceased.  I appreciate finding this article published during his lifetime.

 Publisher and editor Effa Danelon

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.