If you’ve never been to a service at the Agape International Spiritual Center, you ought to go if just for the music. Or the sense of joyous celebration, or for the fact that your neighbor will greet you with loving kindness. Services are definitely a finely crafted show: the entertainment value is enormous.Agape was founded and headed by the charismatic 
A retrospective of the artwork of Marjorie Cameron (April 23, 1922 – June 24, 1995) entitled “Cameron: Songs for the Witch Woman” was held at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014. Although she had been established within the artistic and avant-garde communities for decades, it was only after her death that her reputation grew.Before that time, Cameron, as she chose to be called, was perhaps most well-known as
In 1968, during the height of the hippie and sexual liberation era, a group of Jesus Freaks began baptizing new converts near the Huntington Beach pier. Four years later, by 1972, the Children of God had moved to Laurel Canyon and expanded to include 130 communes around the world. At its peak it claimed eighteen thousand members.How did they grow so quickly? Part of their recruiting method was
The neighbors found Edith suspicious on account of her hair being “bobbed in true radical style.” They fussed about “weird proceedings reported to be of lurid character.” The misfits over there on Mount Helios flew a “crimson love flag,” and participated in “revels and weird rituals.” Further evidence of dubious activity was that a red light was kept
In 1975, a “sting” was arranged by an undercover policewoman against a lone Tarot card reader at her store in Venice, CA, “The Feminist Wicca.” It is hard to believe, but only such a short time ago practicing “fortune telling,” including Tarot, astrology, and psychic readings, was against
Timothy Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was one of the most prominent figures of the 60s counterculture. Originally from the East Coast, Leary lived in LA from 1976 until his death in 1996.Leary was most famous as a loud, vocal proponent of LSD. It may seem strange in a day when acid is mostly considered one of a smorgasbord of festival drugs,
If you were interested enough to pick up this book, you’ve undoubtedly been influenced by the Theosophical Society (TS) whether you know it or not. The TS has been a major conduit for Eastern thought into the West, and is thus a progenitor of alternative spirituality and the New Age movement. The main beliefs include karma, reincarnation,
We all know Arianna Huffington as the larger-than-life media personality: president and co-founder of the Huffington Post, best-selling author of 15 books (her The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul states that our drive for spirituality is as great as those for sex, survival, and power), former candidate for Governor of California after years as a politician’s wife, and “the Sir Edmund Hillary (the first Caucasian to top Mount Everest) of social climbers”
Levitating saints, a swami materializing a palace in the Himalayas, the woman yogi who never eats: these are just a few of the wonders encountered by over 4 million readers of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. The book has served many seekers as the first introduction to Eastern spirituality, including Steve Jobs who said he first read it as a teen andParamahansa Yogananda’s reach was immeasurable, elevating the consciousness of millions worldwide; and we are lucky here in LA to be able to visit sacred spots where he actually walked and taught. To see and feel the energy of these places quiets the mind and helps one center on what’s really