Aimee Crocker | The Great Zodiac Killer Hoax of 1986 (2025)

And of course, Beverly Paschal Randolph "proselytized" his sex magick and Rosicrucian systems among the Freemasons of San Francisco, including the Stanfords. In fact, the Process sojourned among various communities in the same cities where Randolph had founded cells of his own cult. Of special interest to us, these include Boston, New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. The voudou world of New Orleans seems to have absorbed a lot of Randolph's followers, which is "natural," considering the sex magick aspects of voudou, and since Randolph probably learned a lot of his sex magick in the Caribbean, where mystical Christianity was fused with African religions. The other persistent enclave of Randolph Rosicrucian devotees was San Jose/Palo Alto, global HQ of the Stanford family empire, where Harvey Spencer Lewis built the AMORC Rosicrucian Park complex. Fun fact: Lewis was an early pioneer of "talk-back" radio programs--not unlike The Stones Unturned Podcast. After WWI, Lewis lived in Flushing and worked as a gifted commercial illustrator for Madison Avenue ad agencies. There is no way he left New York for California without leaving some converted coworkers behind. And Madison Avenue (I'm using that term to apply to the whole New York ad industry) is of course where familiar names like Renate Druks and Michael Carr and Andy Warhol and Sissy Spacek worked.

What does this have to do with Aimee Crocker? Well, for one thing, she may have been the (partial) inspiration for the character of Irene Adler in the Sherlock Holmes universe of spiritualist and mystic Arthur Conan Doyle. Fun fact: Doyle most likely heard legends about Randolph when he served as ship's doctor on various whalers in the North Atlantic, during which time he became interested in Spiritualism. Another fun fact: Aleister Crowley may have partly inspired the character of the ruthlessly amoral Professor Moriarty. Doyle was eventually invited to join The Golden Dawn, but was put off by Crowley's amorality. Of course, Irene Adler was too much woman for either Holmes or Moriarty--just like Aimee was too much woman for Doyle or Crowley.

Aimee Crocker was everything Anais Nin aspired to be and pretended to be, and Nin reigned as sort of the successor to Crocker among the sex magickians of OTO--until the arrival of the fabulous Cameron. Which raises an interesting question--who succeeded (or tried to succeed) Cameron/Nin/Crocker? Sharon Tate? Lanie Jacobs? June Ann Mack was a voudou priestess AND a high-priced whore. What about Mary Ann MacLean De Grimston?

Interesting. And it wouldn't be the last time. There was a point where I planned on tracking down and reading all the novels with characters inspired by Crowley but I gave up because it sounded too much like hard work, lol.

Also, great thread, james!

I was going to mention that sweet Kentucky Derby action, but james beat me to it. Here is the link to the Denton Book which I am starting to read today: amzn.to/3dMFcGh

And here's a book about Conan Doyle's Spiritualism days: "Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light: 1887-1920" by Matt Wingett: amzn.to/3ggnYCB