In the wake of the Tate-LaBianca murders, The Girls captured the world’s attention as suburban young women who enthusiastically murdered for Charlie. Charles Manson seemed as if he stepped into his role fully formed. Incarcerated from the age of 8, this West Virginia throwaway never stood a chance. Mediagenic, bouncing between gnomic and terrifying, he kept the public in thrall for years. But the longer I live with this story, the more I think Tex Watson is the key to the whole thing.

In the 1960s, the American public was obsessed with the brain. Popular culture ranged from bestselling books on cryonics to psychedelia, while science clarified the legal definition of death (brain death) in 1968. (Image: Grok)

In 1925, Soviet professor Aleksandr Beliaev published "The Head of Professor Dowell," a rather strange story about a severed head living in a laboratory supported by mysterious machinery. #Cryonics

I thought I remembered the movie Factory Girl but watching it again I realize that it is much darker, stranger than what is in my memory.

The Maplewood Hotel at Lily Dale Assembly, New York, June 2025. #spiritualism #summer

Excited to be offering a workshop at the 2026 Lily Dale Assembly Summer Festival. #spiritualism

The stunning view from the plaza of the Hilton Resort in #barbados

Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995) was one of those intriguing figures that mid-century America had in droves. This artist, self-styled witch, bohemian, occultist, friend of Kenneth Anger, and wife of the inimitable Jack Parsons, played by her own rules, willingly paying the price of being an original. #marjoriecameron #occultism #art