Dispatches from Occult Moundsville

First off, apologies for the lack of new content on this blog. It's been a busy year for Recluse. In addition to hosting the weekly podcast The Farm, I'm also finishing up on my third book. The latter has proven to be quite a task, already totaling well over 100k words. Hopefully, I'll be dropping something truly epic early next year. There are some other projects that I've been working on this past year that will hopefully come to light in early 2022 as well. Again guys, sorry for the lack of content, but I promise I've been staying busy. 

On that note, let's move on to the housekeeping. As I'm sure many of you are aware by now, The Farm has its own subscriber's section, with exclusive guests and content. Appearing in the latest installment is the great Fortean researcher (and fellow Strange Realities speaker) Joshua Cutchin. He has appeared on many radio shows/podcasts, including Coast to Coast AM, Radio Misterioso, Gralien Report, Mysterious Universe and Where Did the Road Go. He has been a guest on the History Channel show Ancient Aliens and is the author of four books. They include A TrojanFeast: The Food and Drink Offerings of Aliens, Faeries, and Sasquatch; The Brimstone Deceit: An In-Depth Examination of Supernatural Scents, Otherworldly Odors, & Monstrous Miasmas; Thieves in the Night: A Brief History of Supernatural Child Abductions; and Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, Volume I & II, with the great Timothy Renner.

In this wide ranging discussion, Josh and I use the mysterious Mound Builders of North American as a starting point. We get into the various traditions explaining them, allegations of both giant and pygmy skeletons found within the Mounds, and the general high weirdness surrounding the structures. This leads us to the concept of "Window Areas" and ley lines.

Ohio's legendary Great Serpent Mound

From there, we tackle the stellar orientation these structures frequently possess and their harmonic vibrations. Then we come to a subject that has long fascinated me: the ritual and symbolic significance of decapitation. Inevitably, UFOs and entheogens are mentioned frequently in this encounter, along with my own personal knowledge of Moundsville, WV, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. Besides mounds, those two locations have some other interesting curiosities. 

And remember, this is just the latest addition to the ever-growing roster of exclusive subscriber shows. Prior guests include Diana Walsh-Pasulka, Richard B. Spence, Christopher Knowles, Russ Baker, Douglas Valentine, Robert Guffey, Adam Gorightly,  Russ Bellant, Greg Bishop, Walter Bosley, Andre Gagne, J. Michael "Doc Future" Bennett, Erica Lukes, and so many more. Up next is the return of Gordon White to The Farm for an epic parapolitical dive. 

A Blast from the Past

Another nice thing about my discussion with Josh is that it provides me with an excuse to revisit a bit of VISUP history. Native American mounds have long fascinated me. I've lived near the remnants of Mound Builder civilizations for much of my life, first in Appalachia, then in Florida, and once more Appalachia. As such, they were one of the first subjects I approached when this blog was launched in 2010. The first installment in my "New World?" series was completely centered around mounds, and was either the second or third thing I wrote for VISUP. It actually appeared online prior to VISUP moving to Blogger in October 2010. 

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being embarrassed by this piece now. Those were the days when it seemed like my well-thumbed copy Sinister Forces Book I provided a clear road map to all things. Hopefully I've grown as a researcher since those bygone days.

I'm still fascinated by the Mound Builders, and even more so by one of the strangest locales (which is say something...) in West "By God" Virginia. That would be Moundsville. I first visited Moundsville towards the end of the '00s, after reading Levenda's opus. It was certainly an experience, and immediately came to mind in terms of odd places I could chronicle for this blog. So, I set out to reacquaint myself with Moundsville and its curious attractions during early November 2021. 

The day I set out was an apt one: November 2. In Catholicism, this is All Soul's Day, a time to remember the departed. In Mexico, it's also a part of the famed Day of the Dead celebration. And to be sure, death loomed over the entire outing. The day before (November 1, Day of the Dead proper and, fittingly, All Saints' Day) I published a personally significant podcast on The Farm: a requiem for Ed Coffman, alias "Don Diligent." Longtime readers of this blog may recognize the name. Ed/Don was a regular commentator and an occasional collaborator. This post was partially based upon his groundbreaking research, for instance. To say nothing of the invaluable contributions Ed made to The Farm. 

Ed was one of the amazing people I've been blessed to encounter during my eleven years running this thing. And he was the only member of the "WACL Crew" whom I did not get to meet in person, much to my eternal regret. We tried to make it happen twice this past summer, but it just wasn't meant to be. 

So, death was in the air by the time I arrived in Moundsville. And it wasn't just from the holiday or my thoughts of Ed. The two locations I was intent upon visiting were also steeped in it.

The first location up for consideration was the legendary Grave Creek Mound, one of the largest native mounds still standing in the entire United States. During it's heyday, the mound stood at 69 feet (it's still 62 in its present incarnation) high with a base diameter of 295 feet. It was composed of 60,000 tons of Earth and is believed to have been built around 200 BC. It is generally credited to the Adena, possibly the most mysterious of the Mound Builder cultures.  

Despite many of the documented curiosities surrounding this culture, embellishments still persist. Levenda claims in Sinister Forces Book I that the Adena were abnormally tall, with men occasionally topping seven foot and women routinely over six foot. This is contradicted by the scholarly account presented by William S. Webb and Charles E. Snow in The Adena People. Per Webb and Snow, the average height for men was 5'6 while women were typically 5'2. This doesn't seem to suggest the women were routinely over six foot. In fairness, Webb and Snow write that the denizens of the Hopewell culture that superseded the Adena one were on average taller. Perhaps Levenda was confused? But he certainly isn't the only one to make such claims:

The museum next to Grave Creek Mound from which this display derives is quite impressive and completely free to the public. It also has a lot of random stuff thrown in that is completely unrelated to the Adena, Mound Builders, or Grave Creek Mound. At least one display was quite synchronistic to yours truly: 

On The Farm, we've been looking at one time Democratic vice-president nominee, New Age guru, and population reduction advocate Barbara Marx Hubbard. She'll also be turning up in my forthcoming book. Hubbard, despite her later ties to the Democratic party, came from a staunch Republican family. Her father, Louis Marx, was a hardline anti-communist and friend of longtime FBI capo J. Edgar Hoover. 

Louis Marx was a wealthy man, having made his fortune in the toy racket. The above display is celebrating his contributions to said industry. Every Christmas, Hoover's top underlinings at the FBI could expect Louis to shower them with free "samples" of his most popular products. Why this display ended up in a museum dedicated to a Native American Mound in northern West Virginia is anyone's guess, but it certainly reinforced the rightness of the trip in my mind. 

Of course, if you're talking Grave Creek Mound, one inevitably has to address the stone/tablet allegedly found within the structure. The mound was initially excavated in 1838, the same year Joseph Smith "returned" the golden plates that contained the Book of Mormon to an angel. I mention Joseph Smith here, because he supposedly found those golden plates originally near Palmyra, New York, which was reputed to possess Adena mounds at one point. Evidence of the Adena east of Pennsylvania is scarce, but there do appear to have been mounds there. Regardless, this was the heyday of archeological forgery concerning the mounds. Smith didn't cash in, but others surely did. 

Joseph Smith

Moundsville was first established by the Tomlinson family towards the end of the eighteenth century. For two generations, the family had avoided tampering with the Grave Creek Mound. But Abelard Tomlinson, a grandson of Moundsville's founder, decided to break with family precedent. He procured $2,500 from a Wheeling physician named James W. Clemens to excavate the site. Adjusted for inflation, that's nearly $75k in 2021 dollars. Not a modest sum of money, in other words, hence Tomlinson and Clemens were not doing this out of a love for history. Rather, they hoped to establish a museum next to the mound. 

And build a museum they did. It was right at the base of Grave Creek Mound, a rotunda carved into the side. It was haphazardly constructed, leaking not just water into the museum, but a white mass of animal and human fat from the burials in the mound. Lighting was provided by candles while a giant Native American skeleton loomed over the whole affair. It was overwhelming described as "morbid." 

Clearly, what was needed was an attraction. While Tomlinson and Clemens expected to find gold and jewels within the mound, only simple artifacts emerged. Save for one. 

Levenda describes the Grave Creek tablet inscriptions as possessing Phoenician characteristics, sometimes dubbed "Punic" (a Semitic language associated with ancient Carthage), that was common in Spain some 2000 years before the tablet's discovery. Further, Levenda claims at the time of the tablet's discovery, the script had not yet been deciphered. 

Elsewhere Jason Colavito, writing in The Mound Builder Myths, alleges that James Clemens himself forged the tablet. Further, Colavito makes a compelling case that Clemens lifted the script from a 1752 work by Luis Jose Velazquez de Velasco, Marques de Valdeflores entitled "An Essay on the Alphabet of Unknown Letters." Clemens even appears to have transcribed several of the errors the Marques made in the original text. 

Carbon dating would go a long way towards resolving this controversy. But that's not an option as the original tablet apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth after the original Grave Creek museum was shuttered in 1844. It was last known to have been in the possession of archaeologist Edwin Hamilton Davis before being lost to the sands of times. That Davis did not feel compelled to do more to preserve such a potentially groundbreaking discovery is telling. 

Another interesting point Colavito raises in The Mound Builder Myths is that six plates, allegedly containing Chinese characteristics, was "discovered" in 1843 near Kinderhook, Illinois, at a local mound. These plates were then dispatched to Joseph Smith for translation. Smith began the process of translating the plates, but soon lost interest. It was for the best, as the plates were later revealed to be a hoax designed to expose Smith as a fraud. 

Controversy over the historical legitimacy of Mormonism was raging at a time when the Grave Creek tablet was unearthed. It seemingly upheld the Book of Mormon's claims of contact between the New World and the Near East from ancient times. If Tomlinson and Clemens were deliberately perpetuating a hoax, did they have a specific audience in mind? To his credit, Smith doesn't appear to have taken the bait. 

Atop modern day Grave Creek Mound, there is a modest obelisk. Fittingly, there are signs that it has been adopted as a pilgrimage site for the dead. In this case, the contemporary tradition of "pennies from heaven" seems to be the basis:

Yes, I left my own penny for Ed. 

On the Dark End of the Street...

As impressive as Grave Creek Mound is, the structure on the opposite side of the street gives it a real run for its money. The West Virginia Penitentiary was originally constructed in 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War. The prison was actually built by it's future inhabitants as the war raged. 

The prison's legendary Gothic revival-style architecture was inspired by the design of Illinois State Prison at Joilet. The design was chosen for the stated purpose of conveying "to the mind a cheerless blank indicative of the misery which awaits the unhappy being who enters within its walls." In other words, the very architecture was selected for its ability to induce terror in the inmates. 

If that wasn't enough, West Virginia conducted it's state executions at the prison for decades. Nearly a hundred men were put to death there between 1899 and 1958. For much of that time, hanging was the preferred means of execution. Public executions were still conducted at the prison until 1931. They were only stopped after a mishap led to a prisoner being decapitated by his hangman's noose in front of the crowd. Later, the electric chair was used to carry out executions during the 1950s. The chair used at Moundsville was dubbed "Old Sparky" and was built by one of the inmates. In total, nearly a thousand people are known to have died on the prison grounds, but records prior to the 1930s are missing. 

Old Sparky wasn't the only contribution the inmates made to the otherworldly design of the prison. One inmate, a former truck driver convicted of murdering his wife, provided some of the more striking works of art present in the prison. The prison cafeteria was considered to be one of the finest eating establishments in the area and open to the public at large. Guests could enjoy some of the compositions of said inmate, who was colorblind, over their lunch:

 

Unicorns actually appear regularly throughout the prison, courtesy of the same artists

A self-portrait...

For reasons that should be obvious, the Moundsville prison has been a recurring staple in American pop culture over the years. Moundsville native and novelist Davis Grubb featured it in several of his works, most notably Fools Parade and The Night of the Hunter. Both of these novels were later adapted into films. The Night of the Hunter in particular is a stone cold film noir classic that captures the eerie vibe of the prison and town. 

It has also appeared regularly on paranormal shows, including MTV's Fear and the Travel Channel's Most Terrifying Places in America. When not appearing as itself, it frequently stands in for other prisons. Most recently it was used to depict the legendary Shawshank State Prison from the fiction of Stephen King in the TV series Castle Rock. It also turns up in Mindhunter and even the video game Fallout 76.

The Moundsville pen standing in for Shawshank in Castle Rock

Nor is pop culture the Moundsville prison's only claim to fame. Another was cult leader Charles Manson. It has long been claimed that Manson's mother, Kathleen Maddox, served time at the Moundsville prison and that he visited her there as a child. I have not been able to definitively confirm this, though Manson did spend part of his wayward childhood near the prison and several unidentified relatives did serve time there. In that Foul Year of Our Lord 1983, Manson even requested a transfer there. For some strange reason, it was declined. 

A bizarre synchronicity in all of this are the similarities to the final assault in Night of the Hunter and Manson family's creepy-crawly activities. For those you who have not seen or read Hunter (*SPOLILERS*) the Robert Mitchum character, a serial killer masquerading as a preacher, tracks the children of a woman he's murdered to an isolated farm house. There, with only a old woman to protect them, the inhabitants try to survive a night of Mitchum's various attempts to breach the house. One is left with the distinct impression Charlie was a fan. 

Nor was Manson the only figure with parapolitical significance who found themselves in the orbit of Moundsville and its prison. Moundsville is fifteen minutes south of Wheeling, WV. It was there, on February 9, 1950, that Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered his infamous "enemies within" speech, brandishing a list of suspected Communists in the State Department for the first time. This marked the onset of McCarthyism and the nation's Second Red Scare. Donald J. Trump's future political mentor, the mobbed-up attorney Roy Cohn, first rose to prominence as McCarthy's chief council during this era. It is quite fitting this chain of events would begin less than ten miles from the Moundsville prison, if I do say so. It further contributed to the haunting of this nation by various sinister forces. 

Cohn (left) and McCarthy (right).
Cohn and McCarthy were both protégés of Louis Marx's pal, J. Edgar Hoover 

Would you be surprised to learn that the Moundsville prison has reputation for being one of the most haunted spots in this nation dear reader? Probably not. One of the earliest images of a purported "Shadow person" was also snapped at the prison during 2004.

Besides the horrendous conditions of the prison, was there possibly something else at play? 

located in the Warden's quarters..

At the edge of 17...

Probably just a coincidence. 

Regardless, one single street in Moundsville, WV has managed to capture the national mind in a striking way. Whether you realized it not, this tiny town in West Virginia has been molding the popular culture in subtle way for decades now. It first haunted us in Night of the Hunter and now it's become a stand-in for Shawshank. But there is no escape from the prison in twenty-first century America.  

Was that always the point? Were the builders fully aware of what they were unleashing when this monstrosity was constructed next to an important Native American ritual center? I suspect so. For those musings and other sinister implications at Moundsville and similar sites across the nation, be sure to check out my interview with Josh. 

Bloody 37th

Hellier fans are no doubt anticipating the upcoming Penny Royal podcast. It's going to provide a much more in-depth account of the mysterious Somerset, KY that plays such a crucial role in the second season of Hellier. Satanic cults allegedly linked to the military and implicated in drug and sex trafficking are hardly the only curiosities that Somerset has witnessed over the years. Not by a long shot. 

As I'm involved in the Penny Royal project I'm not doubt biased in this regard. But the synchronicities are quite incredible, as I hope to illustrate in this post. One particular aspect of Somerset and Hellier that the show invoked was the location of either town upon the mysterious 37th parallel. In recent years, the 37th has developed a reputation as the "UFO Highway" or "Paranormal Highway" due to the staggering amount of high weirdness reported along it:

"Stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to Santa Cruz, CA, the 37th Parallel has been called the “UFO Highway” and the “Paranormal Highway.” From sea to shining sea, this line on the map is littered with histories of cattle mutilations, UFO sightings, reports of underground military bases, and ancient native sacred sites. The phenomena zone stretches about 70 miles either side of the 37th — roughly, the area between the 36th and 38th parallels, 150 miles of anomalous real estate."

Its not just high weirdness that has an uncanny ability of cropping up along the 37th, however. Indeed, there are some disturbing indications that something darker is at a play. Let's just consider a few of the other locations along the 37th parallel. 

In my beloved West Virginia, the 37th stretches through Mingo County. One local history dubbed this region one of "the bloodiest counties in America." It played a significant role in the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud and the Battle of Matewan. The latter paved the way for the Battle of Blair Mountain, the nation's largest ever labor uprising and the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. Mingo provided many of the miners who fought at Blair Mountain, which unfolded in neighboring Logan County. Naturally, Logan is also on the 37th. 

The kind of lawlessness that long characterized Mingo can be seen in a place like Dingess. Between 1900 and 1972, some seventeen local lawmen were murdered in addition to numerous other residents. In recent years, Mingo has been decimated by opioid abuse and resulting crime. More painkillers were shipped to this county than anywhere in the US, with just three pharmacies there receiving over 30 million opioid pain pills. It probably goes without saying, but this strongly indicates a massive drug ring was operating there well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. 

So yeah, that's Mingo. More on some of the strangeness in this area, including what appears to be a ritual murder committed during the early 1930s, can be found here. 

Lost Boys

What about sunny California? The 37th stretches through there and it's every bit as disturbing as the ghosts of Mingo. In particular, the 37th runs through the city of Santa Cruz, The beloved 1980s vampire flick The Lost Boys was set in Santa Clara, which the film proclaimed to be "the murder capital of the world." Santa Clara was actually a fictionalized version of Santa Cruz, which bulked at the murder capital designation. While an exaggeration, it wasn't that far from the mark, at least during the late 1960s and 1970s. 

"To briefly recap, no fewer than six serial killers/mass murderers – Charles Manson, Stanley Baker, Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullen, John Lindsey Frazier, and the Zodiac – were all spawned from the Santa Cruz/San Francisco metropolitan area in the span of just over four years, at a time when 'serial killers' were a rare enough phenomenon that they hadn't yet acquired a name. And another serial killer was said to be at work not far away during the same timeframe. As Bundy chronicler Richard Larson recounts, the bodies of at least fourteen young women and girls were found, nude and with their belongings missing, in Northern California between December 1969 and December 1973. In the immediate vicinity of each of the bodies 'was found an elaborate witchcraft symbol of twigs and rocks.' Remarkably enough, the crimes collectively attributed to these men did not even account for all the ritualized homicides that occurred in the Bay Area during that time. For example, the murder of Fred Bennett, the captain of the Oakland chapter of the Black Panthers whose mutilated remains were found scattered in the Santa Cruz hills, was never solved. And many of the young students who were reported missing from local campuses were never found, either dead or alive, and were therefore never listed as homicide victims.

"On December 12, 1974, the birthday of Aleister Crowley, student Arliss Perry was brutally murdered and left on display in the Stanford Memorial Church on the campus of Stanford University, nestled in the shadows of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Perry was left lying on her back, with her head toward the altar and her legs spread wide. She was nude from the waist down and an altar candle protruded from her vagina; another altar candle was wedged between her exposed breast. Her jeans had been neatly arranged in an inverted V-shape placed across her splayed legs, forming the Masonic symbol of the compass on the square..."

(Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder, David McGowan, pgs. 136-137)

In addition to the serial killers, there were also a litany of cults active in the Bay area (which is largely located along the 37th) during this time. There was of course the Manson family and the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Also present were Jim Jones' Peoples Temple and a rogue branch of the Nation of Islam implicated in the Zebra murders. The Church of Satan was founded and long headquartered in San Francisco while Colonel Michael Aquino pimped the breakaway Temple of Set while stationed at the Presidio during the 1980s. Yes, the same Presidio (which is certainly located along the 37th) that turned up in the daycare abuse of children during the 1980s. 

Finally, there were the radical political groups --the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Weather Underground had a significant presence the Bay area, while Oakland housed one of the more storied chapters of the Black Panther Party. Years ago I did an extensive series of the Zebra killings and a lot of these other curiosities in the Bay area during that era, which can be found here. 

Interestingly, the campuses of both Stanford and SRI (which were united until 1969) are located along the 37th parallel. Those of you who caught my Strange Realities Con presentation will recognize the significance of this. For those of you who did not, it revolved around those two campuses embarking upon the most epic experimentation in human consciousness ever. This is a topic that I will be exploring in much greater depth during the next year. I may drop a few more hints when I appear on Skeptico in a few weeks, so stay tuned on that front. 

Mormon Best Friends

For now, let us turn our attention to another super creepy locale off the 37th: Colorado City, AZ. Colorado City, former Short Creek, is the home base of one of the most infamous "fundamentalist" Mormon sects, the aptly named Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). In recent years, this cult has been taken over by Warren Jeffs, whose currently runs this outfit from prison. He's serving life for child sexual assault. 

Jeffs

For decades, the FLDS has ruled Colorado City as a full blown theocracy, controlling all aspects of the local government and police. Jeffs himself "married" multiple girls while still teenagers, including one as young as 12. He kept a series of safehouses across the American West where he could entertain these "wives" and other such girls.  

Interestingly, about 40 minutes away is Kanab, UT, the longtime headquarters of the Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS). While now largely seen in a positive light due to its association with the popular show DogTown, the BFAS actually has its origins in the Process Church of the Final Judgment. It arrived in Kanab in 1984, while working under the name of the Foundation Faith of the Millennium. This was a Christian fundie rebranding the Process undertook to cash-in on the Jesus Freak movement during the 1970s. 

As longtime readers of this blog are well aware, this researcher is very dubious in regards to the longstanding allegations surrounding the Process. Still, one of the most disturbing and widely acknowledged aspects of the Process is especially relevant here: the abuse and disappearance of various children under the care of the Process. In particular, what became of many of the children sired by Process members still remains a mystery, many having disappeared off the face of the earth. This is especially ominous in light of allegations that a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Mexico was providing the NXIVM cult with teenage girls. 

I should emphasize that there is no direct evidence of a connection with these Mexican Mormon fundamentalists (who are related to the infamous LeBaron family, a cult in their own right) and Jeffs' outfit. What is curious is the disturbing habit some fundamentalist Mormon sects have of "losing" the children they produce. The Process had a similar problem, which is why its so interesting that its successor ended up within close proximity one of the most storied fundamentalist Mormon sites in these United States.

Colorado City was known for its polygamist ways for decades. There's no way the Process/Best Friends were unaware of what their neighbors were up to when they relocated there. And conversely, with the kind of control the FLDS exorcised over Colorado City and the surrounding area, its unlikely they were not aware of the origins of the Best Friends when they relocated there either. But apparently both were okay with one another, which isn't especially surprising. Birds of a feather and all. 

One of the Hellier team first being told about the alleged Satanic cults in Somerset

 

Throughout this scene he's wearing a Best Friends Animal Society T-shirt

Closing Thoughts

As our brief examination of the 37th parallel has hopefully demonstrated, high weirdness was hardly the only thing unfolding along that thread. In the cases of Mingo County, WV; Santa Cruz/San Fran; and Colorado City/Kanab; there are some disturbing patterns present. On the one hand, regions along the 37th parallel appear to be lightening rods for violent and bizarre crime, addiction, and mental instability. As such, it's hardly surprising that many of these same regions also feature staggering amounts of radicals, serial killers, and cults. 

Whether some type of Byzantine conspiracy is at play is highly debatable. But certainly these are some odd and disturbing synchronicities none the less. Synchomystics, Ufologists, occultists and other chronicler of high weirdness tend to focus on Fortean phenomena that congregate in certain geographical regions. But as this small sample seems to indicate, certain regions can also have tragic effects on the people who inhabit them. 

And Somerset, KY, and the broader Pike County appears to attract the same type of sinister forces. Be sure to tune on October 21st for the launch of Penny Royal to see how this enigmatic region of Kentucky measures up. And with that, I'll be signing off for now. As always dear readers, stay tuned till next time.

Programming Notes

For those of you keeping track, its been a bit of a VISUP media blitz for the past few weeks. Earlier this particular week I was back on We've Read the Documents with the great John Brisson. We had a great discussion that began with the Mellon family and then branched off into several other fascinating topics. It can be found here.

Elsewhere, things are really starting to heat up on The Farm, my official podcast with Frank Zero and Jeremy Knight. We were not able to post podcasts for a few weeks there due to technical issues, but kept recording them anyway. Fortunately, we seem to be past that and have posted a slew of interviews we had in the can in addition to some more recently recorded material. Interviews currently available include:

• Just myself and the great Christopher Knowles of The Secret Sun discussing Chris' brilliant debut novel He Will Live Up in the Sky. Podcast can be found here.
• Frank, Knowles, Colin Reid, and myself have an epic discussion loosely related to the similarities to Appalachia and Scotland, with a special emphasis on Indian and Fairy mounds, the fey, ley lines, and the bizarre, mystical heritage of the Scots-Irish in both the Old Country and North America. That one can be found here.
• Frank, the great Jasun Horsley of Auticulture, and myself discussing Manson, Holyweird, and a host of other parapolitical and metaphysical topics. Check for that one here. 
• Frank, Knowles, and myself discussing the ancient aliens zeitgeist present throughout both incarnations of Doctor Who.
• The most recent, featuring just Frank and myself discussing the synchromystical classic Hellier and all of the bizarre synchs we've both had both while viewing it and afterwards. 

Be sure to check them and please subscribe to our channel and like the episodes. While there were a few weeks delay there, we should now be having new podcasts posted practically every week.


For more information on some of the topics discussed in these podcasts, check out the following posts/series:

The House of Mellon series
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Part five

The New World? (deals with Indian Mounds and the curiosities of Appalachia)

Man's Son
Part one
Part two

Man's Son or the Children of the Son

As always, I hope everyone enjoys. Apologies for the lack of new material on the blog of late, but be assured I'm hard at work. My debut book will hopefully be out in the coming weeks while I've already made a good dent on my second book. It will deal with the network that spawned Jeffrey Epstein and will be called A Special Relationship. I'm doing everything I can to have it ready for publication in time for the 2020 US presidential elections, which will probably effect that amount of material I'm able to post here in the coming months. Apologies again, but I think all of you will agree that the Epstein book was worth it when it finally drops.

Of course, there are the weekly podcasts to tide you all over in the meantime. And once my debut book drops in the coming weeks, there will be some other projects unveiled to work in conjunction with it. Please be patient and subscribe to the Youtube channel. I promise dear readers that your patience and support will be rewarded in the coming weeks and months as some of these projects come to fruition. Until then, stay tuned until next time.   

Recluse Back on the Liminalist

The great Jasun Horsley of Auticulture was kind enough to have back on his show. Ironically, the first podcast I ever did for this blog was with Jasun back in 2016. That podcast was actually recorded shortly before I moved from Florida to West Virginia and was, I believe, the last post I made as a Floridian.

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I haven't had the best luck doing podcasts from my isolated cabin in the Mountaineer state (anecdotes can be found here and here). Fortunately, I was not sick for this one, and there was no extreme weather knocking out the Internet and/or power. As such, this podcast went extremely well. In fact, it may be the best one I've done to date.

That being said, I'm not promising that my pronunciation are going to be any better for this one. I tried to brush up a bit before hand, but Jasun brought up a few topics I had not prepped for. At least I think I got Opus Dei right this time.

On the whole, a host of topics were discussed over the course of this two hour plus chat. Many of the usual suspects turned up --Le Cercle, Donald Trump and Julian Amery, among others. In fact, we discussed the British deep state quite a bit. I attempted to lay out a premise I've been working on that a covert civil war played out in the UK beginning with the Profumo affair and ending with the election of Thatcher in '79. In particular, I attempted to highlight the bizarre relationship future Cercle chairman Brian Crozier appears to have had with the Fabian Socialists, most notably David Owen. For those of you unaware, Jasun is quite taken with the Fabians. His most recent book, Vice of Kings, deals heavily with this topic.

the seal of the Fabian Society

As should come as little surprise to those of you familiar with our respective work, we also found the time to discuss pedophile rings in the UK. More compelling, however, was our discussion concerning the differences in the systems of Aleister Crowley and Julius Evola. I think many of you who are more esoterically inclined will find this particular segment of our conversation quite fascinating.

Crowley (top) and Evola (bottom)

The podcast can be found here. My series on Le Cercle can be found here. More information on the forces behind Trump can be found here and here. Additional details on my thoughts concerning the burning of Notre Dame can be found here.

As always dear readers, I hope that you enjoy. Stay tuned until next time.