Rosicrucian Road Trip: A Comparative Paranoid Analysis of "The Crying of Lot 49" & "Lodge 49" (Pt. I)

Welcome back to ParaPower Mapping. 2 EPs in 1 week? That's goddamn right! And it's the super-hefty first part of our comparative paranoid analysis of alchemical, Rosicrucian, & Pynchonian themes in Lodge 49 and The Crying of Lot 49. Support the show at: patreon.com/ParaPowerMapping ... so I can cont. to churn out the many "paragnostic" parsings of beloved cult-ural classics planned for future episodes. And gain access to the Boston Brahmin Watch Premium Feed! In today's episode, we discuss: Further evidence that AMORC founder H. Spencer Lewis was a German asset or agent during WWI; we examine R. Swinburne Clymer's pamphlet Not Under the Rose Cross, the expose that accuses Lewis of being aligned with "Baphomet" & "Antichrist" Aleister Crowley, AMORC's authority of being derived from the OTO, & Lewis of plagiarizing such New Thought weirdos as Koresh Reed Teed, Crowley, theosophists like Dr. Franz Hartmann, etc.; we talk Lewis's status as a Wandering Bishop & his "radio church" the Pristine Church of the Rose Cross, reading some liturgy from one of his broadcast services; we talk San Francisco's KPO, which hosted Lewis & was founded by a Navy comms man + department store; Pat Robertson mentions; a comparison to Perry Mason & Aimee Simple McPherson; various AMORC newspaper story odds & ends—the possibility one of Thelemite Jack Parsons's relatives joined AMORC; WWII prophecies, AMORC trips to Tibet, etc.; the modern day Alchemy Museum at Rosicrucian Park; the curator's connections to Arizona U. Center for Consciousness Studies; AMORC alchemy lab graduate Frater Albertus, which connects to... the Whole Earth Catalog; we talk sus Stewart Brand; we explore the Catalog's origins in MK-Ultra-adjacent LSD research studies; Myron J. Stolaroff; Ampex; Ram Dass; Merry Pranksters; mass cultural programming; Whole Earth Truck Store; the Whole Earth Festival on UC Davis campus; Brand's involvement in booking venues for the "Acid Tests"; Trips Fest 1966; Buckminster Fuller; Dymaxion houses; callbacks to the French occultism EPs; Fuller's frequent gov't contracts; geodesic domes; his elite Boston brahmin ancestry (Margaret Fuller); Whole Earth Festival as Age of Aquarius Happening; LSD dealing; Int'l Foundation for Advanced Study; Stanford Research Institute; very sus fact that Wavy Gravy was yearly MC... From there, we dive into CoL49 & Lodge 49; a brief history of alchemy; Hellenistic, Arabic, & Medieval periods;early alchemist Bolos of Mendes, his invocation of his dead master, & "arcanum" scrolls in secret rooms; Raff's Jung & the Alchemical Imagination; "reliquum corpus" (NOT MUMMIES) in Lodge 49; Sovereign Protector = Masonic Grand Master; "Magnum Opus" / Great Work; crypto as alchemy; the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx's founder Harwood Fritz Merrill, a Christian Rosenkreutz-esque figure; the processes of the Great Work; running out of gas & dying batteries as divine intervention;... Plot structure & thematic symmetries b/w CoL49 & L49; alchemical pyramid fydration schemes; Hollander's heuristic & narrative structure device for Pynchon Notes; CoL49's allusions to the JFK assassination; Pierce Inverarity as spook?; comparisons b/w Inverarity & "Captain"; LSD subjectivity, gnosis, & paranoia; Dr. Hilarius; Orbis = Yoyodyne; Pierce's investment in aerospace; hints of Bohemian Grove & organized sexual transgression in Chapter 2 at Echo Courts; Book of the Dead; the Scope evoking Acid Tests; Mafia; Fangoso Lagoons & human skeleton black markets; a possible reference to the Hellfire Clubs in The Courier's Tragedy; the inner mysteries of L49; abyss; L. Marvin Metz = Metzger; working class pathos; WWI + WWII = Vietnam & Crimea in L49; subterranean rites in the Ancient Mysteries; death & rebirth underground; Hollow Earth; etc. MUSIC: | Lodge 49 - Theme | | Santana - Soul Sacrifice (Live at Woodstock) | | Ronnie Foster - Mystic Brew | | The Greg Foat Group - Dark is the Sun (Harpsichord Waltz | | The Shields - Nature Boy |