02 Jan Inn of the Seventh Ray
A mainstay of the Topanga Canyon scene since the height of the hippie days, the Inn of the Seventh Ray restaurant opened serving healthy organic fare in 1973. It is rumored to have been built on a sacred site of the Chumash Indians (see page xxx) and to have perhaps been a private retreat spot for Aimee Semple McPherson (see page xxx). And one of her lovers? We will never know.
The Seven Rays is a concept popularized by Madam Blavatsky and Theosophy, sometimes related to the seven chakras, sometimes to seven angelic beings, seven substances that make up the created universe, seven psychological types, etc. Each ray has a different occult energy, with the Seventh being the penultimate.
The website talks about the food being “energized as a gift from the sun with a dash of esoteric food knowledge and ancient mystery school wisdom tossed in for your seasoning and pleasure … The food is prepared with the greatest of care and creativity and charged with the vibration of the violet flame of the Seventh Ray for perhaps your personal transportation to a higher plane.”
I’ve eaten there twice with 25 years in between, and both times, the food was fresh, healthy, and tasteless, and both times the service was cheerful, friendly, and incompetent. Maybe it’s just my luck, because you can’t be a successful business for that long running like that. Maybe people continue to come because the setting is so beautiful – dining outdoors under a canopy creekside “partake[ing] of the angelic vibrations” is an LA Spiritual experience not to be missed.
Next door visit the Spiral Staircase, a gift shop jam-packed full of books and trinkets.
128 Old Topanga Canyon Rd, Topanga, CA 90290
© 2020 Catherine Auman
This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book Guide to Spiritual L.A.: The Irreverent, the Awake, and the True
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