modern folklore Archives - Bone and Sickle

Ashtar, Orthon, and the Rosicrucians

By boneandsickle | July 30, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:06 — 53.9MB)

Messages delivered by the extraterrestrials Ashtar and Orthon to Contactees of the 1950s represented a sort of repackaging of 19th-century Theosophy, a philosophical descendent of the Rosicrucianism of the 1700s.

After our previous epiosde examining George King of the Aetherius Society, this episode looks at two other Georges of the Contactee movement, George van Tassel (channeler of Ashtar) and George Adamski (allegedly visited by Orthon).

We begin with a look at George van Tassel’s pre-Contactee life in Southern California during which he worked in aviation, a path that led to him taking ownership of a tiny airstrip in the nearby desert, Giant Rock Airport, named for the landmark boulder beside it.

We hear about van Tassel’s early involvement in a metaphysical group, The Brotherhood of the Cosmic Christ, and his progression into channeling messages from Space People. By 1953, he claimed to have encountered a Venusian by the name of Solganda, who welcomed him into his space craft. We hear some amusing details revealed in interviews with the Contactee-friendly radio host Long John Nebel. (Nebel’s late-night show, Partyline, out of New York anticipated paranormal shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast and are well worth checking out.)

Chief among the Space People van Tassel claimed to contact was Ashtar, whose messages were largely devoted to warnings about humanity’s ill-fated dabbling with nuclear weapons. Strangely, messages from Ashtar began to be received by other channelers even in van Tassel’s day, and he continues to be channeled in New Age circles to this day.

van tassel images — Van Tassl’s Integratron under construction and Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention.

We also hear about the Giant Rock Spacecraft conventions van Tassel hosted from 1953 to 1977, and about the Integratron, a domed construction van Tassel claimed would function as a sort of time machine or rejuvenator of the human body. Unsurprisingly, the plans for the latter were provided by the Space People.

We next look at the first Contactee to supposedly meet a being from space, George Adamski. His connection to Theosophy is particularly obvious and is illustrated through newspaper excerpts read by Mrs. Karswell, in which Adamski represents himself as an esoteric teacher from Tibet or Egypt (take your pick).

While continuing to publish metaphysical pamphlets in the late ’40s, Adamski was becoming more obsessed with space, including both astronomy and astral experiences of a more cosmic nature. He relocated to a camp owned by one of his students at the base of Mount Palomar, where he set up a telescope and was sometimes mistaken by visitors to the famous observatory on Palomar’s peak as a professional associate of the astronomers (something he actively encouraged).

After producing, the first of his UFO photos in 1947, and 1950, Adamski arranged a saucer scouting expedition with friends and students, during which he claimed to have met Orthon. We hear Adamski himself describe this meeting to Long John Nebel and about some curious clues and photographs left in Orthon’s wake — including the much debated bell-shaped flying saucer photos published in his 1953 book, The Flying Saucers Have Landed.

Even at the height of his fame, rumors swirled within the flying saucer community that Adamski was a fraud, but alongside this are slightly mitigating reports by acquaintances that he occasionally confessed as much, while pleading that it was all in support of redemptive spiritual truths.

Oddly, perhaps — this brings us to the Rosicrucians, a movement influential upon Theosophy, and one founded upon a sort of hoax, more or less confessed to by its founder, the German Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andreae.

It’s believed that Andreae was behind at least the first publications mentioning Rosicrucianism, a series of anonymous pamphlets that appeared in Germany between 1614 and 1617. In these, it was implied that a hitherto unknown body of knowledge, an amalgam of alchemy, hermeticism, Christian mysticism and Kabbalah had been gathered by the brothers of the Rosy Cross, themselves followers of a 14^th century seeker named Christian Rosenkreuz, (German for “Rose Cross”). Many Enlightenment-era scholars inspired by Rosicrucian ideals and not privy to the hoax went on to dedicate well intentioned projects dedicated to Rosicrucian ideals — all similar to Adamski’s notion of good teachings brought by imposters.

The similarity between the notion of hidden Rosicrucian adapts and the Masters of Theosophy did not go unnoticed by the movement’s leading light, Helena Blavatsky. In writing about the 1842 novel Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, she described the characterization of the Rosicrucian hero Zanoni as a perfect description of Theosophy’s hidden Masters of her.

Stranger still, it’s believed that Blavatsky’s notions of a sort of “higher science,” a technology that manipulates subtle spiritual energies, seems to have been directly influenced by Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 novel, The Coming Race and its concept of the “vril,” used by hidden survivors of a an advanced civilization comparable to Blavatsky’s Atlanteans. A comparison to the mysterious powers channeled by van Tassel’s Integratron is naturally mentioned here.

We wrap up with a look at A.M.O.R.C. (The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) a uniquely American Rosicrucian organization known for its flamboyant advertisements for cosmic know-how published in the backs of magazines of the 1940s and 50s. Founded in 1915, this group of media-savvy adepts also went on to produce some particularly peculiar records in the 1960s, which we hear sampled at the closing of the show.

Friends from Venus, Theosophists in Space

By boneandsickle | July 22, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:18 — 45.0MB)

The esoteric teachings of Theosophy, particularly those regarding Venus, were surprisingly influential on the tales told by flying saucer Contactees of the 1950s and ’60s.

We begin with a quick review of Theosophy and its principles as defined by the Russian international adventurer Helena Blavatsky in the later decades of the 19th century. Blavatsky had worked as a spirit medium and transformed Spiritualism’s spirit guides, into what Theosophy calls its Masters of Ancient Wisdom, advanced adepts from the East secreting themselves primarily in the mountains of Tibet — beings after which the spiritually evolved “Space People” of the Contactees were patterned. Theosophy’s myths of previous technologically advanced but morally or spiritually flawed civilizations like those of Atlantis or Lemuria also also offered a framework for Contactees who believed mankind faced a similar dilemma under the Cold War threat of annihilation.

Venus was regarded as the most significant and spiritually advanced of the planets by the Theosophists. In its guise as the “morning star,” it became a symbol of esoteric illumination and the dawning of a new illuminated era. It also played a significant role in Theosophy’s spiritual hierarchy as a home to advanced beings including the figure of Sanat Kumara, a Master advanced to the level of deity. Unsurprisingly, Venus was also the home-planet to the majority of Space People encountered by the Contactees.

Key players in the Contactee movement coincidentally all shared a first name: George Adamski, George van Tassel, George Hunt Williamson, and George King, the only Brit among the Americans, and the primary subject of this episode.

Before discussing King and his experiences, we take a brief side-trip to discuss another, slightly later Contactee, who provided a bit of audio used in our opening montage, a clip from a 1957 record he sold at his saucer talks called Authentic Music from Another Planet. Along with his bizarre recording of musical scores he claims to have received telepathically on Saturn, Menger is of interest for his marriage to a woman from Venus, or at least the alleged reincarnation of a past-life lover from Venus.

Menger’s book featuring the Venusian, Marla.

George King, a taxi driver from London, arrived upon the scene a few years later than our other Georges, but his teachings hew closest to Theosophical doctrines. Some of this, no doubt, is due to the influence of his mother, who was known locally as a healer and clairvoyant. We hear some clips from a May 21, 1959 episode of the BBC show “Lifeline,” in which he demonstrates his technique of channeling extraterrestrial intelligences, including that of a Master from Venus named Aetherius, whose name is represented in the organization King founded in 1959, The Aetherius Society.

In the interview King also discusses another extraterrestrial who came to him in the early days of his career as a Contactee for the purposes of teaching him the channeling techniques he would need. In keeping with Theosophical bias, the earth body this teacher had taken is that of sage from India.

King also discusses his relationship with the “Master Jesus” (another resident of Venus) and a meeting between his mother and Jesus on a spacecraft, during which Jesus blessed King’s book, The Twelve Blessings, a foundational text of the Aetherius Society.

George King wearing his transmission goggles. (via Aetherius Society)

Channeled messages to date in 1975. (via The Pantagraph)

Another Theosophical principle King seems to have embraced is Blavatsky’s notion of a “higher science” using technology to manipulate subtle, spiritual energies (something present in her descriptions of Atlantis and Lemuria). In King’s case, this concept lies behind his invention of “prayer batteries” used to capture and then deploy where needed the spiritual energies emitted during group prayers conducted by the Society.

King also takes the Theosophical myth of Atlantis and goes it one better. Rather than a continent being destroyed through human evil, a whole planet by the name of Maldek, he says, was destroyed in a similar manner eons before man was present on earth. The actual asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter he regards as Maldek’s ruined remains.

We close with some considerations regarding the Pentagon’s release of reports of “unexplained aerial phenomena” this spring. Included is a clip from the 1960 song “When You See Those Flying Saucers” by The Buchanan Brothers.