Along Melrose or La Brea on Friday nights, you might see a parade of men dressed in medieval black with circular fur hats, their wives behind them wearing wigs or other head coverings – Orthodox Jews en route to celebrate Shabbat, the Jewish day of...
Mountains everywhere have inspired spiritual feelings -- in the face of vast vistas, the ego becomes right-sized. Whether we’re in a car or standing still after hiking with all our endorphins pumping, the view from the summit is exhilarating,. We can’t deny that we’re not...
Spain’s plan to steal the land of the indigenous people and bully them into accepting Catholicism was in full force in Southern California. In the 18th Century the Church established 21 missions along the Camino Royale, now known as the 101. The missions were built...
Toypurina (1760-1799) had watched the white settlers at the San Gabriel Mission steal her people’s land and steadily usurp their culture since she was 12 years old. She was sister to the head of her village and a powerful shaman, spiritual leader, and medicine woman...
Surely you’ve heard of 666, the number of the Mark of the Beast? The reference is from the Book of Revelations of the Christian Bible and denotes the Devil or Satan. Aleister Crowley audaciously chose this number as his moniker. Most if not all of modern...
I entered from the parking lot into the tiny kitchen where smatterings of junk food were laid out on paper plates for fellowship after the service. The door opened onto a large room with gleaming linoleum floors and about 30 people sitting on folding chairs,...
Anyone who’s sensitive cannot deny that certain places carry more spiritual energy than others. Sometimes the energy is high because of the people who’ve prayed there for decades (or centuries), performed good works there, or perfected themselves to raise their own frequencies. Perhaps a Being...
“Of course, you can’t forget Miss Velma,” Greg says. He grew up in the South Bay and remembers watching the annual Christmas pageant on TV. (Yet another friend providing yet another fascinating factoid for this book, making me fear I will never get done.) An...
The Rolling Stones et entourage traveled to the high desert mountain to await UFOs with him. He directed the video of Timothy Leary’s wedding on the mountain where the presiding shaman was too stoned on acid to perform the ceremony. The infamous campfire scene in...