Underground

First, we must explore the origins of a myth—that of the hollow Earth and the supposed inhabitants of said realm. Although the stories of the inner world and its mythical inhabitants go back thousands (some say millions) of years, including legends told among the First Nations people, we'll focus on the most recent iteration of the legend for expediency.

We will focus on the stories known as The Shaver Mysteries.

Richard Shaver's "Formula from the Underworld" debuted in the June 1947 issue of the pulp science-fiction periodical Amazing Stories. The front cover proclaimed, "The Shaver Mystery: The Most Sensational True Story Ever Told." While Palmer, the editor, informs readers at the beginning of the issue that "Formula from the Underworld" is a work of fiction, he insists it is rooted in reality. According to Palmer, Shaver fabricated the events based on real settings and context. He claims that there truly is an underground world filled with strange technology and evil forces, which Shaver has personally witnessed. Much was to evolve from this seemingly innocuous little story, much more than would be evident at first glance at the time of its publication. This intriguing footnote in mid-twentieth-century science fiction history also marked a pivotal turning point in developing the flying saucer movement (UFO/UAP) and other science fiction-inspired religions, including L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology. But we will save L Ron's story for another day, including debunking his supposed involvement in the first (failed) Babalon Working.

Back to Shaver. Some say that Richard Shaver suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He genuinely believed that his life was being controlled by unseen forces from deep underground caverns. He heard voices—some malicious, others benevolent—that he attributed to a subterranean world inhabited by evil and the virtuous descendants of an ancient race that once lived on the Earth's surface but fled to the stars long ago. But that, in our estimation, does not mean that Shaver suffered from any kind of mental malady. Shaver crafted a richly detailed mythology of ancient marvels, sin, tragedy, and conflict from these voices and possibly visions. This mythology appeared to provide meaning to the voices in his head. We contend that this mythology was a chthonic resonance that we have spoken of earlier in this document. Shaver heard the dream.

It seemed the Shaver Mystery might become an enduring pop-culture phenomenon. Sales of Amazing Stories soared, a testament to the deep, triggering psychological elements of the stories. Palmer labeled some stories as fictional versions of the truth and others as entirely authentic. Unfortunately, Palmer faced a revolt within the ranks of science fiction fandom due to his support of the Mystery, threatening his position at the magazine.

Equally critical for the legacy of the Shaver Mystery was another event in June 1947: Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mount Rainier, igniting a nationwide craze. For a while, Palmer suggested that sightings of flying saucers confirmed the Shaver Mystery. Perhaps, he argued, they were flying ships from the caverns. Unfortunately, the extraterrestrial hypothesis of the saucer's origin won out.

Like her late partner Jack, Marjorie recognized that many so-called science fiction stories were simply creative expressions of a message being received by the collective unconscious. The stories of Lovecraft, as well as those of Shaver, had a basis in reality.

Subterranean adventures have long been a staple of science fiction, and there is a long-standing belief in subterranean civilizations, not just among ancient cultures. There have been numerous times when so-called fictional stories about the underworld have been seen by some readers as revealing hidden truths. The Shaver Mystery is not without precedent. John Cleves Symmes's hollow-earth novel Symzonia (1820), Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871), and Willis George Emerson's The Smokey God (1908) are all examples of fictional tales of underground civilizations that have been treated as true accounts and sources of spiritual belief by some occult communities.

According to our sources, Marjorie became infatuated with making contact with these underground races. Using various grimoires that referenced hidden entrances to these worlds located throughout the Southwestern part of the North American continent, she was able to pinpoint an entrance in the Mojave Desert near the Barker Ranch and, therefore, hand-picked a select few to relocate to the Ranch to conduct a search for the fabled entrance.

Her goal was for the Subterraneans to become the guardians and teachers of her "magickal childe." At this point, we are simply working off what we have been told by specific sources who were in the position to know such things. It is said that Marjorie and the group did make contact with the people of the underground and handed over the child to be raised and trained in the old ways. Not much more is known, at least not to the world at large. But the story, in several forms, has survived in the occult underground as an oral tradition.

This brings us to the Manson Family Connection >