'Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.' - Exhibit book's deep dive into occult and science fiction LGBT SoCal communities

  • by Jim Provenzano
  • Tuesday October 22, 2024
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'Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.' - Exhibit book's deep dive into occult and science fiction LGBT SoCal communities

The intersection of early LGBT rights activism, science fiction, and the occult are beautifully recounted in the new book, "Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagination."

Marjorie Camron's 'Holy Guardian Angel According to Alistair Crowley' (photo: courtesy Inventory Press)  

Published by Inventory Press through association with the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, editors Alexis Bard Johnson and Kelly Filreis have assembled their own essays with five contributors who discuss early science fiction zine makers, occult worshipers, and filmmakers who explored futurism, iconic symbolic rituals, and more esoteric themes in publishing, artwork, and essays.

The book is a companion catalog to the Los Angeles exhibit at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, which is on display through November 23.

Along with being a fascinating historical account of various arts movements in the underground queer communities, it's also a beautifully designed book with dozens of reproductions of artwork, flyers, photographs and film stills.

Tom Wright's illustration in a 1942 issue of 'Voice of the Imagi-Nation' (photo: courtesy Inventory Press)  

The hardback book itself is beautifully trimmed with gold, and each chapter has its own color tint in the pages' edges. There's even a little pull-out poster that charts the intersection of different groups throughout the 20th century.

The roots of these varied communities go back to the 1930s with the science fiction fanzine, "Voice of the Imagi-Nation," co-published by Forest J. Ackerman, who although straight, was very queer-friendly. He would later publish the popular "Famous Monsters of Filmland" monthly magazine.

As with anything both queer and occult, mention of Alistair Crowley, the famed wizard of weird, is included. Rituals that involved sexual activities are recounted as well.

Marjorie Cameron in a still from Kenneth Anger's 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.' (photo: courtesy Inventory Press)  

Notable contributors
The illustrations in other zines like 'Toward Tomorrow' show various futuristic, symbolic and homoerotic imagery and other artworks published in the independent publications that dodged censorship through the mail by discreet subscriptions, or by being sold at small kiosks and bookstores.

Related gatherings and meetings publicized in the zines led to organizations like the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. Ackerman and Hugo Bach, a sexologist dubbed "the father of Science Fiction," maintained clubs through the 1940s and 1950s. One early contributor to such publications was gay writer Arthur C. Clarke.

Another notable person in these varied communities was Jim Kepner, who would go on to establish and run The ONE Institute archives in Los Angeles, and edit ONE Magazine. Drummed out of San Francisco science fiction clubs because of his association with the Communist Party, Kepner fled to Southern California, where he found his underground community.

The cover of 'Toward Tomorrow' volume 2. (photo: courtesy Inventory Press)  

An excerpt from one of Kepner's diaries includes his rumination and surprise that male attendees at Los Angeles science fiction gatherings were overwhelmingly gay-identified, and the women were presumed to be lesbians. The book includes several photographs of such gatherings.

One of the early editors and writers in the community was Lisa Ben, who wrote under various pseudonyms, as did many other contributors to the various zines. Few were able to come out in the decades of 1940s wartime and 1950s McCarthyism.

The parallel independent publishing of occult zines with a queer edge included the historic "Amazing Stories," which started 1926, but would later include images of busty women that appealed to not only to male readers, but to women as well. One prominent example is an issue of "Weird Tales" with an illustration by Margaret Brundage, in which a master and slave female nude duo offered shocking allure.

A Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society membership card (photo: courtesy Inventory Press)  

This was at the same time that small magazines published by the likes of Bob Mizer and "Physical Culture" became the default erotica for a deeply repressed gay subculture.

Music also plays a part in the varied history, including sheet music reproduced from the works of Harry Hay, who, before cofounding the Mattachine Society, based some of his compositions of gnostic mass rites and temple rituals led by Crowley. However, Hay is quoted as saying that he thought the occult rituals were a silly lark.

And of course, filmmaker Kenneth Anger gets a mention in an extensive essay that recounts his experimental filmmaking and use of occult symbolism in his films like "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome," which he actually re-edited multiple times from 1954 to 1966.

Compact yet lavish in its design, the book also includes an extensive glossary of notable figures as well as notes from the exhibit on the various illustrations.

'Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagination,' Inventory Press, $39.95 www.inventorypress.com 
www.one.usc.edu/exhibition

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