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Equal Time For Kerry Thornley

I recently happened upon a post at To Seek A Newer World blog entitled “Vindication for Kerry Thornley” where a fellow named Matthew Scheufele navigates some of the same choppy waters explored in my book Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation; in specific the famous altered photo caper hatched by Harold Weisberg, in addition to Judyth Vary Baker’s claim (in Me and Lee) of two alleged Thornley-Oswald sightings in May of 1963.

In Caught in the Crossfire, I noted the same discrepancy Scheufele points out: that Kerry Thornley was in California during the same time-frame Baker places him in NOLA meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald and banging his wife, Marina, behind Oswald’s back. Baker’s version of events contradict Thornley’s Warren Commission testimony as having arrived in California on May 5th and then returning to New Orleans on September 4th of ‘63. (Baker claims she saw Thornley and Oswald together on May 8th and May 28th of that year.)

In response, Baker supporters will no doubt counter that Thornley fibbed about traveling to California—or about the exact timeframe of where he was and when, etc. Having reviewed hundreds of letters written to and from Thornley during this period—as well as his many JFK assassination related writings—I’ve seen no glaring inconsistencies in any of Kerry’s statements regarding his movements in the summer of ’63. It was based on Kerry’s own timeline (of having traveled through Texas on his way to California and then spending time in Mexico City on his way back to NOLA) that Jim Garrison cobbled together his theory that Kerry staged the famous doctored photo of Oswald (with his trusty Mannlicher Carcano) while passing through Texas and then on his return trip visited Mexico City in around the same time that Oswald (or someone pretending to be Oswald) was making a nuisance of himself at the Cuban and Russian Embassies.

Baker further asserts that Oswald’s “Neighbors testified to the Warren Commission that Thornley was there so often they were unsure as to which one (Lee or Thornley) was really Marina’s husband. Jim Garrison’s investigation confirmed the same point.” (Me and Lee, page 321.)

Baker’s claim that the Warren Commission investigated Thornley’s supposed relationship with Marina Oswald has no factual basis—unless someone can identify the specific Warren Report sections where the testimonies of Oswald’s neighbors presumably appear. Nor did Garrison “confirm” any of these rumors, which from what I’ve been able to piece together first surfaced in a February 22nd, 1968 letter to Garrison from John Schwegmann, Jr., owner of Schwegmann Bros. Super Markets:

An employee of our store, Mrs. Myrtle LaSavia… says that she, her husband, and a number of people who live in that neighborhood saw Thornley at the Oswald residence a number of times—in fact they saw him there so much they did not know which was the husband, Oswald or Thornley…
(From In History’s Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation by Joe Biles, pages 60-61.)

In 1977, Garrison resurrected LaSavia’s allegations in a memo to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), shown below. In said memo, Garrison states that “an effort will be made to locate these neighbors’ statements…” However, there’s no evidence that Oswald’s neighbors “positively” identified Thornley, aside from the second hand account attributed to Myrtle LaSavia. Garrison never produced any of these neighbor statements (identifying Thornley) for the HSCA—for the simple reason that they probably never existed to begin with.

Page 00001 of a 1977 memo sent from Jim Garrison to Jonathan Blackmer
of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra paid a visit to a Mr. and Mrs. Tony LaSavia on February 29th, 1968—a week after Garrison received the Schwegmann letter. From this meeting a memo was produced, which is cataloged among Jim Garrison’s Papers (Box 7) in the National Archives. In Farewell to Justice, Joan Mellen—quoting from Sciambra’s Feb. 29th, 1968 memo—states that LaSavia and her husband identified Thornley “…as being the person who used to walk with Marina to the Winn-Dixie food store.”

When Garrison informed the HSCA that ”neighbors of the Oswald’s responded positively to Thornley’s picture”, he seems to be referring exclusively to the claims of Myrtle LaSavia, as well as her husband, Tony, who probably got roped into backing up his wife’s story. However, let’s not confuse a memo for a witness statement; documents of this nature are of subjective value, in my opinion, and in particular the many Garrison Investigation memos related to Kerry Thornley that were rarely, if ever, supported by witness statements. It confuses the matter even more when memos such as these are presented as “evidence.”

Curiously, another woman bearing the last name of LaSavia—Mary Lee LaSavia—was interviewed by Andrew Sciambra during the same time frame as Myrtle LaSavia. It’s unclear if the two LaSavia’s were related—or if Sciambra had simply misidentified Myrtle as Mary Lee, which is my suspicion.

Andrew Sciambra memo to Jim Garrison about David Ferrie, March 1, 1968.

As noted in the memo above (from March 1st, 1963, a day after Sciambra’s meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Tony LaSavia), Mary Lee LaSavia passed on information that Oswald’s former neighbor “MRS. EAMES today said that DAVID FERRIE came to see her in regards to where the OSWALDS were right after OSWALD left Texas…” Later in the memo, Mrs. Eames states “that David Ferrie did come to her house but it was not until after the assassination…”

As hard-core JFK assassination junkies should be well aware, it was right after the assassination that Jack Martin (future Garrison witness) was questioned by the FBI, and at that time leveled a number of charges against David Ferrie, including the allegation that Ferrie’s library card was discovered among Oswald’s posthumous possessions. It appears that Ferrie’s appearance at Mrs. Eames residence was probably to gather information to refute Jack Martin’s claim.

In the same memo, Mrs. Eames states that “she cannot remember seeing anybody with the OSWALDS or go to the OSWALDS home. She said that they were loners and didn’t associate with anybody.” This comment seems to refute Myrtle LaSavia’s assertion that a number of Oswald’s neighbors had seen Marina in the company of Kerry Thornley—or, at least, it appears she was the only neighbor making this claim.

It’s interesting to note that Andrew Sciambra neglected to ask Mrs. Eames about Kerry Thornley, as the timing of this interview was just a week after the emergence of the Schwegmann letter. Or perhaps Sciambra did ask Eames about Kerry Thornley, but neglected to include her answer in his memo.

On March 4th, 1968—three days after Sciambra met with Mrs. Eames, and a week after his meeting with the LaSavia’s—Garrison staff member Tom Bethell compiled a list of residents in Oswald’s neighborhood, in addition to visitors seen at the Oswald residence, none of whom included Kerry Thornley.

Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00001.
Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00002.
Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00003.

On instructions from Sciambra, investigator Gary Sanders interviewed Miss Rose Cavalier of 918 Upperline, the same street where the LaSavia’s lived. During this interview, Cavalier indicated that, on several occasions, she’d seen Lee and Marina Oswald pass by her residence walking in the direction of the Winn-Dixie Supermarket. However—when presented with a photo of Kerry Thornley—Miss Cavalier apparently had difficulty distinguishing between the two: Oswald and Thornley. Gary Sanders also noted that Miss Cavalier “may have eyesight problems although she told me that she did not wear glasses.”

Memo from Gary Sanders to Louis Ivan about Miss Rose Cavalier, March 4, 1968, page 00001.
Memo from Gary Sanders to Louis Ivan about Miss Rose Cavalier, March 4, 1968, page 00002.

Although Thornley was similar in height and build to Oswald (depending on the source), their facial features were not at all similar—unless of course Sanders was showing Miss Cavalier the infamous touched up photo of Thornley. In this regard, any photo identifications of Kerry Thornley (courtesy of Garrison’s investigation) inevitably leads us down that slippery slope we discussed in our previous posts Fred Newcomb, Harold Weisberg and Photographic Tomfoolery in the Garrison Investigation Part 00001 here and Part 00002 here.

The infamous touched-up photo of Kerry Thornley
taken from the Garrison Investigation suspect files.

Whatever the case, I’ve come across nothing substantive (at least not yet!) to suggest that this Kerry Thornley-Lee and Marina Oswald-love-triangle was ever “confirmed” by Garrison’s investigators, and that these allegations all seem to have originated from the same sole source: Myrtle LaSavia.

However, Kerry and Marina were spotted together on February 8th, 1968 as they passed one another in the courtroom hallway coming and going from their respective grand jury testimonies. Apparently, this “chance encounter” was staged by Garrison to place the two together in the prospect that Marina would react to Kerry’s appearance and suddenly spill the beans about their supposed romantic tryst. According to Tom Bethell’s account, Marina registered no recognition of Kerry, and when questioned by Andrew Sciambra if she knew him (Thornley), Marina responded to the contrary.

February 9, 1968 Times-Picayune article that incorrectly identifies Kerry Wendell Thornley’s middle name as 'Lee,' a rather curious mistake in light of Garrison’s theory
that Kerry was one of notorious Oswald doubles.

In his blogpost, Matthew Scheufele concludes that Baker is a faker, a theme trending of late at JFK assassination research forums where Judyth’s apparently been taking it on the chin (from a rather vocal anti-Baker faction) who insist that Me and Lee is a largely fictional account backed only by a pay stub from when she worked at the Reilly Coffee Company concurrent with the employment of her purported paramour, Lee Oswald.

Whether Baker actually knew (and loved and lost) Oswald is fodder for endless debate in these aforementioned JFK assassination forums dating back over the last decade. If you’re a part of this scene then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about—and if not, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. But say what you will about her, Baker is indeed a polarizing figure within the ranks of current day assassination researchers who appears to attract as many staunch supporters as she does detractors. Jesse Ventura is one such ardent Judyth Baker believer, for whatever that’s worth.

Scheufele closes out his post: “Garrison concluded that Thornley was in California visiting his relatives” at the time of the Judyth Baker sightings—although it’s hard to know what Garrison really believed, or if his many charges against Thornley were simply flavors of the week spoon-fed by the likes of Harold Weisberg and the other Dealey Plaza Irregulars. Although Garrison labeled Thornley a perjurer, he seemed content to endorse Thornley’s summer of ‘63 travel log because it dovetailed with his claims that Kerry was working behind the scenes during this period to incriminate Oswald.

February 21, 1968 Garrison press release, page 00001.
Full PDF here.
But if one is seeking vindication for Kerry Thornley, why stop at Judyth Baker? Baker’s alleged Thornley sightings seem rather tame in comparison to the charges leveled by Jim Garrison in his February 21st, 1968 press release [Adobe PDF here.] that characterized Thornley as a diabolical CIA agent based on the startling revelation that Kerry had a post office box in a federal building where most post offices tend to be located… in federal buildings.

In this somewhat rambling press release (replete with footnotes), Garrison identified Kerry as part of a clandestine cabal engaged in “image creating” that falsely portrayed Oswald as a lone nut commie symp with a happy trigger finger. It could be similarly argued that Garrison played the exact same game by portraying Thornley as a rabid right wing super-spook, the ultimate intent of which was to implicate an innocent man in a convoluted JFK assassination conspiracy.

Granted, Kerry Thornley naturally raises some curious eyebrows—and deservedly so—due to his propinquitous associations to Oswald and Garrison’s rogue gallery of spooks. To this end, I claim no ultimate certitude as to Thornley’s innocence or guilt as a witting or unwitting participant in the JFK assassination.

My motivation for writing Caught in the Crossfire was not so much a case of seeking vindication for Kerry Thornley as to provide equal time to present Thornley’s side of the story; to dig deeper beneath the surface story (The Gospel according to Garrison) and not immediately assume that Thornley was a CIA agent (or one of the notorious Oswald doubles or was staging fake photos or writing incriminating books or bedding down Marina) just because someone entertained “theories” that have been subsequently parroted as “facts.”

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Brit Covers of Illuminatus!

Over at the facebook, Geoff Blogg recently posted the images below of the British editions of Illuminatus! (Amazon) paperbacks published by Sphere Books in 1976-77.

Although we haven’t been able to completely confirm it, the covers appear to be the work of artist Chris Foss who illustrated a slew of Sci-Fi titles during this period by such authors as Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin and prog rock album covers by the likes of Hawkwind.

Cover, Illuminatus! The Eye in the Pyramid
Cover, Illuminatus! The Golden Apple
Cover, Illuminatus! Leviathan
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Fred Newcomb, Harold Weisberg, and Photographic Tomfoolery in the Garrison Investigation (Part 00002)

Caught in the Crossfire:
Kerry Thornley,
Lee Oswald and
the Garrison Investigation
Order The Chaos Now!
In the first part of this series, I recounted how Harold Weisberg (working on behalf of Jim Garrison’s investigation) hired a California artist named Fred T. Newcomb to touch-up photos of Kerry Thornley to make him more resemble Lee Harvey Oswald. The apparent intent behind this photographic skullduggery was to bolster Garrison’s contention that Thornley was one of the notorious Oswald doubles.

Fred Newcomb’s May 8, 1968 letter to Harold Weisberg addressing his concerns
about the Kerry Thornley touch-up job. From the Harold Weisberg Archives.

Prior to my research for Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon), I was unfamiliar with Fred Newcomb, but as I recently discovered he was a long-time Warren Report critic and active player in the early days of the JFK assassination research scene. In fact, Newcomb was one of the early investigators to analyze the backyard photos of “Oswald” (holding his trusty Mannlicher Carcano rifle) and produced the first report detailing how those photos had apparently been doctored. (Later, Jim Garrison would even go so far as to suggest that it was Kerry Thornley who staged these photos!) Due to his association with the Garrison Investigation, Newcomb was among the handful of JFK assassination researchers who obtained a copy of the film Farewell America (Amazon).

Although it was never commercially released in the U.S., Farewell America had been passed on to Garrison investigator Jim Rose (aka E. Carl McNabb), who then supplied boot-legged copies to the likes of Fred Newcomb, as mentioned in this letter.

December 5, 1968 Los Angeles Free Press article on Farewell America.

Farewell America included Zapruder film footage that’d been purportedly liberated from Time-Life who owned the rights to the film at the time, as well as possession of the physical copy. Over the years, rumors have circulated that French Intelligence was somehow involved in the heist of the film then later returned it to the Time-Life vaults after making duplicates. French Intelligence, in turn, shared this footage with the producers of Farewell America who incorporated it into their film. On account of this bootlegged version of Farewell America, the Zapruder film had now began (circa 1968) to circulate within the JFK assassination research community.

French Intelligence notwithstanding, a more likely source of the Zapruder footage (featured in Farewell America) was Jim Garrison, who subpoenaed the film from Time-Life in 1967 and received a copy that was several generations removed from the original. Unsatisfied with the low quality of this multi-generational version, Garrison subpoenaed Time-Life again in early 1968 in an attempt to obtain an original copy of the film but was denied this request.

March 15, 1968 newspaper article, Zapruder Film Subpenaed.

At some point, Mark Lane borrowed Garrison’s copy of the Zapruder film and had several copies reproduced at a lab in New Orleans, which he then distributed to his network of cronies across the JFK assassination landscape.

One recipient of Lane’s largesse was Penn Jones, Jr, editor of a small town Texas newspaper called the Midlothian Mirror, whose major claim to fame was a death chart he compiled listing every dead person he could think of who could’ve possibly been associated with the Kennedy assassination. In 1970, Jones arranged the first television broadcast of the Zapruder film on a late night television show that aired in Chicago called Underground News with Chuck Collins.

Meanwhile, a firm called EFX Unlimited was awarded a contract by Time-Life in 1969 to work on a Zapruder film related project, which is where part time JFK assassination sleuth and photo-optics technician Robert Groden enters the story. Groden—as the story goes—was working as a subcontractor for EFX Unlimited during this period and was “granted access” to an unauthorized version of the Zapruder film provided to him by EFX’s owner, Moses Weitzman.

Over the next few years, Groden enhanced this unauthorized (and much higher quality) version of the Z-film, basically slowing down the significant frames and making the footage less shaky and easier to view. In 1973—on the tenth anniversary of the JFK assassination—Groden presented his Zapruder footage at a symposium hosted by Georgetown University, an event attended by comedian activist Dick Gregory who met with Groden afterwards and encouraged him to take the film to a larger audience. This ultimately resulted in the first national airing of the Zapruder film in 1975 on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America.

Fred Newcomb, circa 1995.
In 1974, Fred Newcomb—in collaboration with fellow researcher Perry Adams—self-published one hundred copies of their JFK assassination tome, Murder From Within, which they distributed to members of the Senate, Congress, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Murder From Within presented the theory that JFK’s assassination was an inside job orchestrated by LBJ and executed by Secret Service agents. Newcomb and Perry based their conclusions on an eight year investigation that included over fifty witness interviews as well as their analysis of the Zapruder film.

During the course of their analysis, Newcomb and Perry discovered in a couple of the Zapruder frames—just before and after the fatal headshot—that JFK’s limo driver turns around and appears to be holding a pistol at the exact instant that the President’s head went supernova. Newcomb and Perry were later called to share their findings before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).

At first blush, Murder From Within might seem just one in a slew of many “crackpot” JFK assassination books that emerged over the years, mainly due to its controversial assertion that the triggerman of the operation was the aforementioned limo driver, and secret service agent, William Greer. But when one delves into the material presented in the book, it soon becomes evident that the authors went deep into their research and produced a well documented account, which included the theory that JFK’s wounds had been altered during his autopsy, a theme later explored in greater depth in David Lifton’s Best Evidence (Amazon).

In the early-80s, Newcomb and Perry started shopping around Murder From Within and over the next several years apparently struck deals, at one time or another, with three different publishers all of whom eventually decided against publishing the book because, according to Newcomb, “they were scared.”

In the late 1980s, the Greer-shot-Kennedy theory gained renewed traction when Perry Adams joined forces with researchers David Evans with Lars Hansson and the trio—using Zapruder film footage—produced what Hansson later described as a “rough, preliminary videotape” entitled The Truth Betrayed: Dallas Revisited. In Lars Hansson’s Lear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the videotape was “to serve only as a preliminary research tool to spur potential investors to underwrite a thorough professional investigation into the theory that the driver of the presidential limousine, William Greer, actually turned around and fired the fatal shot at JFK with a handgun… It was never intended at any time to be considered a final statement on the issue, much less to be shown publicly and/or distributed as such.”

During the Dallas Revisited period, Lars Hansson was part of the UFOlogical-conspiratorial scene then erupting out of Las Vegas, Nevada that included such “patriots” as James “Bo” Gritz, John Lear and William “Bill” Cooper, all of whom were often featured on The Billy Goodman Happening radio show in their mission to bust to the New World Order’s chops and expose not only the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, but also reveal the reality of reverse-engineered alien technology being developed at Areas 51, not to mention the shocking existence of a certain secret underground alien base in Dulce, New Mexico where all sorts of sinister doings have supposedly transpired over the last several decades.

John Lear was the son of the Lear Jet inventor, Bill Lear, and so Lars Hansson—figuring Lear had deep family pockets—shared a copy of Dallas Revisited with him in the prospect that he could get Lear to invest in his research. Little did Hansson know, but by this time Lear had fallen out of favor with his father, thus losing access to those deep family pockets.

Meanwhile, Lear was beginning to make a splash in UFOlogy and was responsible for setting up the first televised interview with Area 51 whistle blower Robert Lazar, who allegedly worked on reverse-engineered craft at the facility. Lear was also on the forefront of promoting the Dulce Base story and presenting this material at public lectures for the UFO faithful. After getting his paws on Dallas Revisited, Lear began showing the film at his lectures, little to the knowledge of Lars Hansson, who had never intended the film for public consumption. Lear then shared a copy of Dallas Revisited with Bill Cooper, who not only trotted it out and presented it like his own baby, but also started selling videotape copies.

When Lars Hansson caught wind of these developments, a shit-storm soon started brewing between he and Bill Cooper. According to Hansson:

“Cooper’s supporters told me a couple of months after my visit to his home that Cooper had a copy of the tape and was showing it publicly. At that time, in late October 1989, I confronted him over the phone about his dishonesty regarding his use and sale of the videotape, and have since done so publicly in print, on television, and on the radio. When he chickened out of appearing on the TV program INSIDE REPORT, which was taped in April and aired in May 1990, after learning that I would also be appearing to counter him, the producers deliberately left out half of my statement. I had made it clear on their videotape that at the time I threw the rough video together I believed that there was sufficient supporting evidence to warrant a complete investigation; however, after seeing a much clearer version of the Zapruder film, discussing the issue with a number of other respected researchers, and combing through the evidence at hand more closely, I had decided by November 1988 the theory was no longer tenable…”

Below is a YoutTube vid from the above-mentioned episode of Inside Report, featuring not only Lars Hansson, but also Fred Newcomb, Perry Adams, Robert Groden and Harold Weisberg.

And here is the startling evidence of what is either Roy Kellerman’s hair glare or, as Bill Cooper termed it in the video, William Greer firing an “electrically operated, gas powered assassination pistol built by the CIA” containing a shell fish toxin dart!

As for Murder From Within (Amazon), it was finally published in 2011 by Fred Newcomb’s son, Tyler. In the book’s introduction, Tyler Newcomb makes these comments about the Zapruder film:

“The ‘optical illusion’ on the film of the Driver turning, aiming, firing and turning back to drive at the moment Kennedy’s head explodes is mind shattering. What are the odds such a thing could actually happen at that exact instant on the most important amateur film ever made? The ‘gun’ however upon close frame inspection appears to be part of Roy Kellerman’s hair. But is it? No one can prove it either way because the film was in possession of the Secret Service and if Dad’s theory is correct they were busy altering the film itself creating a new original obliterating their complicity in the killing.”

More on the sordid history of the Zapruder film here.

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John Higgs Interviewed by Nick Margerrison: The KLF, Discordianism, Chaos Magic

The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs
From The Cult Of Nick podcast:

In 1994 Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty took a million pounds to a deserted boathouse on the island of Jura and burnt it. The writer JMR Higgs looked at this event from a magickal perspective and came up with some interesting results. The story involves the world’s first joke religion, the JFK assasination, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Moore and a bunch of ideas collectively known as “Chaos Magick”.

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Tales of the Brunswick Shrine (Part 00003)

“No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident; just as no Apollonian poet can perform his proper function unless he lives under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy. A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse…

But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom, and love of woman, and the individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument…

The Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have knowledge of her through his experience of another woman…”
—Robert Graves, The White Goddess

 
Robert Graves—in the above passage—was obviously referring to Eris, although he tried to sugar coat the whole thing to make it appear as if our Lady of Perpetual Chaos is all sweetness and light, which is totally missing the point. Or as Eris herself once said in a certain SoCal bowling alley:

I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, my consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding. You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun. I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.

In The Big Lebowski, the Coen Brothers use the holy bowling alley metaphor to further expound upon the Erisian mythos, featuring Jeff Bridges in his classic role of The Dude, the embodiment of Southern California-cool-Eristic-forces-in-action. The last line he delivers in the film is: “The Dude abides,” which certainly seems a wink and nod to a certain Goddess who also abides—or as a way of saying that the Goddess abides in The Dude.

An erstwhile political activist—fond of White Russians, smoking dope and bowling (but not The Eagles)—The Dude goes with the Erisian flow, unconcerned about paying his rent and, in fact, it appears he has no visible means of support and relies entirely upon the will of Eris to guide his chaotic movements and settle his bills. Here the Dude expounds upon The Eagles:

At the eighteen minute mark in the film we see The Dude’s bowling lane identified as the holy Discordian number 23.

The Erisian forces are then set in motion when a guy named Smokey from the opposing bowling team steps over the line during a league match, which sends Walter (John Goodman) on a tirade; Walter brandishes his gun, aims it at Smokey and screams: “Has the whole world gone crazy?” Some may see Walter as an out of control gun wielding wacko, but in reality he’s channeling the chaotic Erisian forces in an attempt to bring some semblance of real order and sanity to a world gone mad with lane violations.

With all his ups and downs, The Dude always seems to land on his feet (more often than not in slippers… or bowling shoes) which attests to the fact that if you put your trust in Eris (In Goddess We Trust!) then some spectacular shit is bound to happen along the way—or at least you won’t be bored!

Conversely—on the other side of the yin-yang coin (or the Hodge-Podge, have you)—there’s that big meanie Jeffrey Lebowski; a man—due to his fucked-up control freak nature—who is crippled, both literally and karmically; a constricted and conniving sour-pus possessed by The Curse of Greyface.

Thus you have the two competing Lebowski’s, a veritable yin-yang/hodge-podge of counter push pull contrasting styles. First, Jeffrey Lebowski (The Big Lebowski played by David Huddleston) who has employed his wealth and power in an attempt to control others; whereas The Dude, well, you know how he rolls. Or as Sam Elliot (as “The Stranger”) says: “Dude, I like your style” …or something to that effect.

The grey-faced aneristic order the Big Lebowski conjures into existence is a group of nihilist Nazis ne’er-do-wells who attempt to rob The Dude of his Erisian powers. In the final showdown, the nihilists attempt to harness Eris and control chaos, but end up getting their asses handed to them when Walter invokes Goddess and launches a bowling ball (the symbolic Golden Apple) knocking the crap out of one of the nihilists along with chomping off the ear of another. Although a glorious Erisian victory, a casualty is unfortunately suffered during the melee when their buddy Donny (Steve Buscemi) dies of a heart attack. Here is Walter’s moving eulogy for Donny.

Goddess reveals herself in many others ways throughout the course of the film, one of which comes in the form of the Big Lebowski’s free spirited and fun loving wife, Bunny, who embodies the trickster spirit of that Great Discordian Saint, Bugs Bunny.

 

And of course the Goddess manifests in the Big Lebowski’s daughter—Maude (Julianne Moore)—who has rebelled against hers father’s control and chooses The Dude to impregnate her with a magickal child of Chaos; an intentional act to get that old Hodge-Podge-counter-push-pull moving in a positive direction, Eristic vs. Aneristic.

At the 20 minute mark, another deity in the Discordian pantheon appears, none other than his holiness Richard Milhous Nixon shown in full stride as he prepares to roll a Kallisti-inscribed bowling ball into the dark, savage heart of the American dream. Just one more among many apparent Discordian winks and nods imbedded in The Big Lebowski.

I must also mention another Nixon-related synchronicity that occurred not long ago when Andrew West Griffin of the Red Dirt Report tweeted a pic of Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society with the very same Tricky Dick image in the background. And if that wasn’t enough, on Andrew’s table rested a copy of Jung’s Red Book—another stone-cold synchronicity which I probably shouldn’t need to explain.

When I asked if he’d intentionally placed the Nixon bowling photo in his Historia Discordia pic—or Jung’s Red Book, for that matter—Andrew replied it’d happened by pure dumb luck, which once again confirms the spirit of Eris busy at work directing human affairs and simultaneously blowing our brains.

If all of this wasn’t enough, I just recently discovered a religion dedicated exclusively to The Dude called The Church of the Latter-Day Dude.

In this regard, it should also be noted there are now more Dudeist Priests in Ireland than Catholic ones. Hail Eris!

Included in the Dudeism iconography is a yin-yang like symbol, which seems also a twist on The Sacred Chao but instead of the Golden Apple yin-yanging the Pentagon you have the bowling ball symbol with finger holes balanced against one another in the cosmic drama of life.

 

 
 
 And just like Mal-2 back in the day, The Church of the Latter-Day Dudes likewise issues their own certificates of ordination if you so desire to become a Dudeist Priest.

And now, here’s the greatest musical interlude in… well… musical interlude history:

Eris abides.

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Fred Newcomb, Harold Weisberg, and Photographic Tomfoolery in the Garrison Investigation (Part 00001)

Caught in the Crossfire:
Kerry Thornley,
Lee Oswald and
the Garrison Investigation
Order The Chaos Now!
In the chapter from my book Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon) called “Photographic Tomfoolery,” I recount some rather sketchy activities undertaken by Harold Weisberg (on behalf of Jim Garrison’s investigation) which involved the recruitment of California artist and JFK assassination investigator Fred T. Newcomb to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, the intent of which was to use these altered photos to build a case against Thornley suggesting he was one of the notorious Oswald doubles.

Recently, ace investigator of the odd and arcane, Tim Cridland, shared with me the following letter he uncovered in The Harold Weisberg Archive at http://jfk.hood.edu that an embittered Fred Newcomb sent to Weisberg in the aftermath of this debacle, the second paragraph of which is the most telling:

“Ever since you asked me (on New Orleans stationary) in an unsigned letter, to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, I have had a bad taste in my mouth. Not only did you send me on this foolish assignment, but when the flack started, you ducked for cover…”

Letter from Fred Newcomb to Harold Weisberg, dated January 15, 1969.

Fred Newcomb’s January 15th, 1969 letter also includes snipes at “investigators” Steve Jaffe and Jim Rose, who were both on the Garrison dole, and who both spent a considerable amount of time attempting to dig up dirt on Kerry Thornley. (More about the enigmatic “Jim Rose” in future installments!)

As for the abovementioned touch-up caper, this was first exposed by Kerry Thornley’s lawyer, Arnold Levine, in an article that appeared in the November 27, 1968 edition of the Tampa Times:

Photo touch-up charged
By TOM RAUM
Times Staff Writer

Did New Orleans Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison commission a set of deliberately “touched-up” photographs of Tampan Kerry Thornley to show an allowed likeness to accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald?

The possibility was confirmed to The Times today by Thornley’s attorney, Arnold Levine. An aide to Garrison has disclaimed any such order.

The Times learned of the existence of a letter which was reportedly mailed to a freelance artist in California bearing the letterhead of Garrison’s office. The letter contained a purported request to “touch-up” photographs “to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald.”

THORNLEY, onetime buddy of Oswald, is being prosecuted by Garrison about his connection with the alleged assassin in New Orleans during the months prior to the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963.

Attorney Levine said he has reason to believe Garrison wanted to use the touched-up photographs to support a theory that Thornley posed as Oswald on several occasions when Oswald was away from New Orleans—apparently on clandestine missions.

The Times has also come into the possession of copies of photos which Levine said were re-touched by the California artist, as well as another letter apparently from one of Garrison’s assistants denying that the district attorney had any intention of using a “‘touched-up’ photograph of Kerry Thornley in his trial.”

The 29-year old Tampa free lance writer, who served in the same Marine Corps outfit with Lee Harvey Oswald, is presently awaiting trial on the perjury charge. Specifically, he is charged with lying before a New Orleans grand jury last winter.

LEVINE TERMED the request to touch-up Thornley’s photograph “just another example of the sham” of Garrison’s investigation, and the charges which have been lodged against the Tampan.

The letter asking for the “re-touch” job bears the date of March 12, and the name of Harold Weisberg, a New Orleans writer whom Levine said has a “well-known” connection with Garrison.

Written on what appears to be official stationery, the letter, addressed to Fred Newcomb of Sherman Oaks, Calif., says:

“Enclosed are four sets of pictures of Kerry Thornley printed backwards but otherwise entirely untouched. My purpose was to emphasize the resemblance to Oswald and his receding hairline, which when his hair is combed the opposite of his normal fashion is quite emphatic.

“WHAT I WOULD like you to do with one of each pair is pretend you were a make-up man doing the minimum necessary to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald as for example by pruning off or brushing back the forelock, trimming the eye¬brows, shadowing the chin, etc.

“I would like you to keep one pair for your use out there, send one pair to me and the other two to Jim Garrison …”

The letter indicates that it was typed by a secretary with the initials “bb.”

A second letter, dated May 21, and also bearing the “bb” initials purports to be from executive assistant Dist. Atty. James Alcock to artist Newcomb, and reads:

“I HAVE just received the documents you sent concerning Harold Weisberg’s request for you to do some photograph touching-up on pictures of Kerry Thornley. So that the record may be set straight, Mr. Weisberg, who is not a member of our staff, made the request without our authority or consent.

“Further, this office has absolutely no intention of using any ‘touch-up’ of Kerry Thornley in his trial…”

Neither Garrison nor Alcock could he reached by The Times today for comment, but a receptionist in the district attorney’s office confirmed that there is a typist in the office typing pool with the initials “bb.” She declined to give her name.

THE RECEPTIONIST said that while Weisberg “isn’t a member of the staff he was well known in the office.”

Weisberg, author of “Whitewash,” is presently in Frederick, Md., the DA’s office said.

Garrison alleges that Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby, working on the fringe of the CIA hatched the assassination plot while they were in New Orleans in 1963.

Thornley, who has published a book on his acquaintance with Oswald, denies he met with Oswald in New Orleans.

No trial date has been set for Thornley’s case.

November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page one.
November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page two.

According to Kerry Thornley, this wasn’t the last of such photographic chicanery:

“Visitors to (Garrison’s) office from the Los Angeles Free Press were shown half a photograph with me in it.

“In the other half of this picture is Marina Oswald,” they would be told, and it was obvious that I had my arm around someone. Soon enough a Free Press staffer identified this photo as the same one which had appeared in a January 1968 Tampa newspaper. It showed me standing outside the courtroom just after my extradition hearing with my arm around my wife, Cara. The negative was flopped in Garrison’s print, but even Garrison’s most fanatical partisans had to admit it was the same picture….”
—Kerry Thornley, Star Witness Story (Unpublished essay, 1975)


Kerry Thornley and his wife Cara from the Tampa Tribune, January 23, 1968.

Fred Newcomb—working from a flopped negative of the above photo of Thornley and his wife—modified it per instructions from Harold Weisberg.

The evolution of Newcomb’s touch-up job.

In the November 28th edition of the Tampa Times, Harold Weisberg responded to the touch-up allegations.

November 28, 1968 Tampa Times article on 'Weisburg.'

To be continued…

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Recent Interviews with Adam Gorightly

Adam Gorightly at The Find The Others Conferestival, Liverpool, England, Nov. 23, 2014. Photo by Adam Clark.
Here’s some recent interviews. One wonders what 60 Minutes and TMZ are waiting for…?

An Offbeat JFK Murder Conspiracy Book
Read here.

“The assassination of President John Kennedy and the conspiracy theories that have developed about it might seem to have been covered in many previous books, but self-described ‘crackpot historian’ Adam Gorightly, who has written nine books so far, appears to have found a fresh angle. His new book, Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation details how Thornley, a little-known but influential counterculture figure, had to fight off accusations from conspiracy theorist and district attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans.”

__________________________________

Jim Harold’s Conspiracy Corner
Listen here.

“Researcher and author Adam Gorightly joins us to discuss Kerry Thornley, a man who found himself in the hall of mirrors that was Jim Garrison’s JFK assassination investigation. We discuss on this Conspiracy Corner.”

__________________________________

Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis: The Tale of Two Oswalds
Listen here.

“One particular conspiracy theory that is compelling and is seldom talked about is the possibility that there were doppelgangers posing as Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination even occurred. The idea of multiple assassins or Oswald doppelgangers running loose remains a troubling issue and adds a strange curve to the tragic event. It is one theory that only a hand full of JKF researchers wish to examine as it is viewed as one of those truth is out there topics, one worthy of bring a script for the X-Files.”

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Coast To Coast AM JFK Assassination Special
Listen here.

“In the third hour, Gorightly spoke about Kerry Thornley, who met Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 during basic training at El Toro Marine base and, rather curiously, began writing a book featuring a main character based on Oswald (after he defected to the Soviet Union). Gorightly speculated that Oswald was at El Toro as a spy on some sort of intelligence mission. Thornley claimed he never saw Oswald after 1959 yet both men ended up in New Orleans shortly before JFK’s assassination in 1963, he said. During that period Thornley met some shadowy characters, Gary Kirstein and Slim Brooks, that would later lead him to suspect he’d been unwittingly manipulated into a JFK assassination conspiracy, Gorightly explained, noting that Thornley had been specifically asked about how one could go about killing the president.”

__________________________________

Type 1 Radio Lounge with Adam Gorightly
Listen here.

“Adam Gorightly is coming to England, before that he will join the gang in the lounge to take us on a trip back to our conspiratorial roots.”

Check Out Art Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Type1RadioAshram on BlogTalkRadio

__________________________________

Adam Gorightly Interviewed on The Outer Edge 11/16/2014: Caught in the Crossfire
Listen here.

“This Sunday night, we talk to Adam about his ground-breaking new work Caught in the Crossfire, which examines the connections between Kerry Thornley (the founder of Discordianism) and Lee Harvey Oswald.”

__________________________________

Caravan To Midnight – Episode 173 UFO Sightings with Adam Gorightly
Listen here.

“Take a trip today with John B. and Adam Gorightly as they explore the hidden world of global conspiracies and UFO sightings with a few drops of psychedelia here and there.”

__________________________________

For a list of my books, check out my Amazon Author Page.

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Was the Discordian Society a CIA Front?

Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation by Adam Gorightly
An excerpt from my latest book Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation, available at Feral House and Amazon.

Among Jim Garrison’s more colorful unofficial investigators (otherwise known as the “Irregulars”) was Allan Chapman who subscribed to the theory that the JFK assassination had been orchestrated by the Bavarian Illuminati, that infamous secret society much ballyhooed in the annals of conspiracy lore.

After catching wind of Allan Chapman’s Illuminati theory, Kerry Thornley—with the support of some of his fellow Discordian Society pranksters—initiated what became known as Operation Mindfuck (OM), a campaign designed to screw with Garrison’s head by sending out spurious announcements suggesting that he (Kerry) was an agent of the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (AISB). Among the culprits who helped perpetrate OM was none other than Robert Anton Wilson. As Kerry later noted:

Wilson and I founded the Anarchist Bavarian Illuminati to give Jim Garrison a hard time, one of whose supporters believed that the Illuminati owned all the major TV networks, the Conspiring Bavarian Seers (CBS), the Ancient Bavarian Conspiracy (ABC) and the Nefarious Bavarian Conspirators (NBC).

Another of the “Irregulars”—assassination researcher Harold Weisberg—was also on the business end of OM communiqués as demonstrated in the following anonymous letter authored by Robert Anton Wilson:

Robert Anton Wilson’s OM letter to Harold Weisberg.
From the Harold Weisberg Collection.

The above letter is unfathomable unless one is familiar with the Discordian antics that Thornley and his cohorts were engaged in during this period. Wilson’s prank letter to Weisberg mentions someone named Homer Ravenhurst, another named Hassan Saba X, in addition to Simon Moon and the Illuminat Eye. In Discordian lore, Kerry Thornley’s pseudonym was Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, and so Wilson’s mention of a “Homer Ravenhurst” was a playful way of messing with Weisberg’s mind. As for Simon Moon, this was Wilson’s sometime alias and a character that later appeared in Wilson and Shea’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Hassan Saba X (or Hassan-i-Sabbah X) was a fictitious black militant character that Thornley and Wilson created to propagate the Illuminati mythology, later to be immortalized in a put-on letter planted in the April 1969 issue of Playboy during the period Wilson was an editor at the magazine. As for the Illuminati Eye mentioned in the Weisberg letter, this was an obvious wink and nod to that aforementioned all-seeing secret society from Bavaria. No telling what Weisberg thought of this letter; however, he found it important enough to place in his files for future researchers to ponder.

These OM communiqués led Garrison to suspect that the Discordian Society was a CIA front organization involved in the JFK assassination. As outlandish as this all sounds, those of a conspiratorial bent might find some merit to this theory, due to the fact that—among the handful of people involved in the New Orleans Discordian Society—each of them was, in one way or another, connected to the Garrison investigation as either a witness, suspect or correspondent.

According to legend, the first edition of the Discordian bible, The Principia Discordia: Or How The West Was Lost, was reproduced after hours on a mimeograph machine in Jim Garrison’s office, of which only five copies were produced. This clandestine copying operation predated Garrison’s investigation by nearly two years, and was allegedly perpetrated by a typist in the District Attorney’s office named Lane Caplinger, who was friends with Discordian Society co-founder Greg Hill. (Lane just happened to be the sister of a French Quarter poet named Grace Caplinger who was friends with both Thornley and Hill. Grace later ventured to Hollywood and changed her name to Grace Zabriskie, and has made numerous Movie and TV appearances, including the role of Laura Palmer’s mother in Twin Peaks.)

As for Greg Hill, his association with Garrison’s investigation was minimal, consisting of a letter he wrote to Garrison in support of Thornley. Garrison, most likely having already made up his mind as to Kerry’s guilt, probably placed said letter immediately upon receipt into his round file.

Greg Hill’s letter to Jim Garrison, February 19th, 1968.
Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.

While it’s a given that Hill and Thornley were both in possession of the first edition of The Principia Discordia, what is not commonly known is that Roderick “Slim” Brooks—another key player in the New Orleans Discordian Society—also received a copy of this rare first edition.

Slim Brooks—as it turns out—was the first person Thornley met when he moved to New Orleans. In early 1961, Slim and a shadowy character named Gary Kirstein—referred to as “Brother-in-law”—engaged Thornley in conversations about how to kill a president, and in particular, JFK. Thornley later suspected that he’d been manipulated into these conversations by Brooks and Kirstein with the intent of setting him up as a JFK assassination patsy.

It appears quite likely that Slim Brooks was actually Jerry Milton Brooks, a former Guy Banister employee and member of the Minutemen, a far-right anti-communist militia organization active during the 1960s. According to former Minutemen national spokesman R.N. Taylor:

The fellow mentioned as Slim Brooks, I think he was either Jerry Milton Brooks, or Jerry’s brother… If it was Jerry, that was one of the most bizarre individuals I have ever encountered. One of a kind. For better and worse. I know he spent some time down there with Banister and that crowd in the sixties. He was a walking card reference file of names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Had a very photographic mind, quite amazing at times. Never knew re¬ally what side he was on. He will forever remain an enigma to me.

It can also be assumed, with some degree of certainty, that the other recipients of The Principia Discordia first edition were Barbara Reid and Roger Lovin, both New Orleans Discordian Society members. In fact, a Discordian Society business card from 1965 lists Lovin as head of the New Orleans Discordian chapter.

Discordian Society membership card.
Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.

Lovin—known in the Discordian Society as Fang the Unwashed—was identified by Garrison witness Bernard Goldsmith as being connected to Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans, as well as allegedly involved with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Whatever the case, Lovin had a reputation as a charming con man who, for all we know, might have been pulling Goldsmith’s leg about his connections to Oswald and the Bay of Pigs.

A rare photo of Barbara Reid.
Perhaps the single most curious member of the New Orleans Discordian Society was Barbara Reid, the person most responsible—other than the District Attorney himself—for dragging Kerry, screaming and kicking, into Jim Garrison’s three-ring circus. Reid claimed to have seen Oswald and Thornley in New Orleans during September of 1963, an allegation Kerry denied, insisting that the last time he’d been in contact with Oswald was at El Toro Marine Base in the fall of 1959. Curiously enough, Reid became one of Garrison’s “Irregulars” and often accompanied Harold Weisberg during his rounds questioning French Quarter witnesses.

Among the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) files related to Kerry Thornley (now residing in the National Archives) one will find excerpts from the first edition of The Principia Discordia. It seems unlikely that Kerry would have provided these documents to the HSCA, unless he was trying to make a case that the Discordian Society had been infiltrated by the intelligence community, a theory he entertained upon occasion, particularly during the period in the late seventies when his paranoias ran high.

However, I suspect that it may have been Barbara Reid who provided these Discordian documents to the HSCA, as included among the HSCA files is a Discordian Society membership certificate awarded to Reid and signed by none other than the Bull Goose of Limbo (a.k.a. Kerry Thornley) dated September 18th, 1964. Reid also claimed, at one time or another, to be the incarnation of Goddess Eris, which would certainly explain the unbridled chaos that entered Thornley’s life during the Garrison investigation period.

Barbara Reid’s Discordian Society membership certificate.
From the House Select Committee on Assassinations files.

Another way these Discordian documents might have found their way to the HSCA files was through Harold Weisberg, who noted in an interview he conducted with Roger Lovin, that Lovin “…acknowledged his membership in the Discordians. Today he gave me his files on that outfit…” It could then be assumed that Weisberg copied these files and later submitted them to Garrison and/or the HSCA. That Weisberg was willing to entertain the notion that a religion worshipping the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Confusion was somehow involved is certainly one of the wilder theories in JFK assassination lore, right alongside such other Garrison mainstays as the homosexual thrill kill theory and the involvement of the dreaded Bavarian Illuminati. As Robert Anton Wilson observed in Cosmic Trigger:

Try to picture a jury keeping a straight face when examining a conspiracy that worshipped the Goddess of Confusion, honored Emperor Norton as a saint, had a Holy Book called “How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her After I Found Her,” and featured personnel who called themselves Malaclypse the Younger, Ho Chi Zen, Mordecai the Foul, Lady L, F.A.B., Fang the Unwashed, Harold Lord Randomfactor, Onrak the Backwards, et al….

Allegations that Thornley and Oswald met at Ryder Coffee House came courtesy of Barbara Reid, who claimed she had evidence backing this up in the form of a guest¬book belonging to the manager of Ryder’s, Jack Frazier, that both Oswald and Thornley had allegedly signed. In a memo Harold Weisberg sent to Garrison, he noted that “several names may be disguised in this book, for example, Thornley’s in the “Discordian” language on the ninth page. You have the Discordian files that I obtained on a previous trip. These will reflect which Omar Khyam is who….” Make of this what you will, but apparently Weisberg thought he was hot on the trail of a Discordian conspiracy and provided Garrison with Frazier’s guestbook as evidence of this. A review of the guestbook reveals that Thornley did indeed sign it using his Discordian persona of Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, which indicates that Kerry visited Ryder Coffee House on at least one occasion. However, there’s no evidence that Oswald—using his real name or an alias—signed the guestbook. (Sometime Discordian conspirator Lane Caplinger’s name appears elsewhere in the guestbook, which provides further incontrovertible evidence of the Discordian Society’s sinister role in JFK’s assassination!)

Guestbook signed by Kerry Thornley’s Discordian alter ego,
Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst.
From the Harold Weisberg Collection.

Robert Karno—who in the absence of Jack Frazier was managing Ryder Coffee House during the relevant time frame—stated in an interview with Garrison investigator James Alcock that he thought he met Oswald at Ryder’s on one occasion, although he didn’t sound completely positive: “Well, I—I believe I did. I’m almost sure I did…” As for Thornley, Karno remembered meeting him there only once as well, and said nothing about having seen Thornley and Oswald together.

Thanks to Tim Cridland for unearthing the Robert Anton Wilson letter to Harold Weisberg.

Purchase Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation from Feral House and Amazon.

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Tales of the Brunswick Shrine (Part 00001)

Trippy Dick Pickin' Up The Split
Not only is your humble author a card carrying Discordian (aka The Wrong Reverend Houdini Kundalini of the Church of Unwavering Indifference) but I also serve as the Northern California Bureau Chief for the League of Western Fortean Intermediasts (LOWFI), founded by my friend and fellow conspirator, Skylaire Alfvegren.

Over the past few years, LOWFI has sponsored a number of esoteric field trips. In early 2009—as a pilgrimage to the Nixon Museum was in the planning stages (in the prospects of summoning Tricky Dicky’s ghost!)—a Canadian-Discordian colleague contacted me (who was unaware of our forthcoming Nixon Museum freakout) and sent a couple of unsolicited Discordian Initiation Rites, which included a ritual dedicated to the legendary Brunswick Shrine, the Whittier, California bowling alley where Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill allegedly discovered Discordianism. It should be noted that the specter of Nixon is an integral part of this Discordian mythos, one of which involves Tricky Dick growing up in Whittier.

In the Principia Discordia the legend of the Brunswick Shrine is related, but I won’t spoil it for you right now, as at the end of this post I’ll share with you the aforementioned Discordian Initiation which relates the vision encountered in a long ago bowling alley that led to Discordianism’s un-maculate conception.

When I interviewed Discordian co-founder Dr. Robert Newport regarding the legend of The Brunswick Shrine, he claimed that no specific bowling alley was the site of the Discordian Society’s birth, and that it had evolved at several different bowling alleys located throughout the greater Whittier and La Habra area in the late 1950s. At the time, this revelation came as a devastating disappointment to your humble author, who—in the course of my research—had planned a grand religious pilgrimage to this envisioned holy site, where I would snap sacred photos and perhaps even fall to my knees before this fabled Mecca of Discordianism. But such was not to be my fate, or so I assumed at the time, because—according to Newport—the choice of a bowling alley really held no mystical significance, other than the fact that bowling alleys stayed open all night and served alcohol. Or at least this is what Newport claimed, explaining that Kerry Thornley, who—during that period looked old for his age—usually bought the beer for the rest of the Discordian gang, which all drank thereof and through holy intoxication summoned forth the chaotic spirit of the Goddess of Confusion and Discord. (So much for Hill and Thornley’s contention that they were busy sipping coffee in a Whittier bowling alley when the revelation of the Goddess Eris struck!) Thus, according to Newport, the revelation of the Goddess had as much to do with alcohol-induced reveries as it did caffeine-inspired visions.

Brunswick Shrine: Friendly Hills Lanes.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

Nixon’s Museum is located in the town of Yorba Linda, not far from Whittier, the home of this fabled bowling alley/shrine. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, but—for some inexplicable reason—decided to do a websearch for bowling alleys in Whittier. And in so doing, I stumbled across a flickr page that made me do a double take, depicting—as it did—a retro looking bowling alley that immediately struck a discordant chord, and somehow I felt this was THE PLACE. I noted the name: Friendly Hills Lanes, and said AHA! The clouds then parted and I knew that it was so; that I was gazing upon a photo of the one and only Brunswick Shrine, which I’d previously convinced myself—with the aid of Dr. Newport—had never actually existed. But I now believe it is the real deal: Friendly Hills Lanes = The Brunswick Shrine, and I will present my evidence for you now!

First, as mentioned in Principia Discordia, it was Kerry and Greg (aka Mal-2 and Omar) who bore witness to the mystical experience that transpired at the Brunswick Shrine. So—while there can be no doubt that Bob Newport spent many an hour hanging out with Greg and Kerry in a multitude of SoCal bowling alleys—on the particular night in question (when Eris first appeared and blew their minds), Newport was not in attendance, at least according to the Principia Discordia, The Bible of Discordianism. (And everybody knows that bibles never lie!)

Brunswick Shrine: A Sign From Eris.
Courtesy of Discordian Archives.

Secondly, in The Prankster and the Conspiracy it is recounted—from stories shared by Kerry’s brother, Dick Thornley—how as lads Kerry used to take his younger brothers to explore the Friendly Hills Development then under construction located nearby their Whittier home. And so we have in Friendly Hills Lanes a bowling alley that fits the timeline (constructed in the late-40s/early-50s) and located within walking distance from where Kerry Thornley grew up. As I was unearthing these amazing Discordian discoveries, I learned from LOWFI Chief Skylaire that not long ago a SoCal preservation society known as The Modern Committee was instrumental in saving the Friendly Hills Lanes “BOWL” sign. Little did they know they were also saving a piece of the Discordian legacy for the ages. As further evidence that Friendly Hills Lanes and the Brunswick Shrine are one and the same, when you walk through the main door the first lane that you see is Number 23! (Coincidence? You decide!)

Brunswick Shrine: Lane 23.
Courtesy of 23ae.com.

As the revelation hit me that The Brunswick Shrine did indeed exist and was still in operation, I thought it might be cool—after visiting the haunted Nixon Museum—that our LOWFI group afterwards made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Discordianism. To this end, I ran a Mapquest from the Nixon museum to Friendly Hills Lanes and discovered it would take approximately 23 minutes to drive from one locale to the other! When I floated this idea by Skylaire of visiting said shrine, she was down for it, and so I began contemplating what exactly we could do to consecrate the holy event and then remembered the Brunswick Shrine/Discordian Initiation rite with the Dick Nixon tie-in that had been sent to me by my Canadian/Discordian colleague, Mike Cook. And so it came to be, with me reciting the initiation along with Skylaire playing the role of Eris and throwing fairy dust on the assembled initiates gathered below the neon glow of the BOWL sign. Not to mention my wife squawking the ceremonial rubber chicken 5 times and another participant holding up a sign that said: “DOOM!”

Brunswick Shrine: Impending Doom!
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

But once again I’m getting ahead of myself, and I need to mention that prior to this Brunswick Shrine visitation/initiation rite, we did indeed pay tongue-in-cheek homage to the haunted Nixon Museum and I’ll be damned if our entrance ticket didn’t include a photo of a psychedelic Richard Nixon bowling! (We also learned that one of Nixon’s brothers died at age 23!)

Nixon Museum: Ticket with Psychedelic Richard Nixon Bowling.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

And now, in its entirety, I present to you the Fifth Degree Discordian Initiation Rite (its narrative lifted from Principia Discordia), which was performed the evening of March 1, 2009, at the one and only Brunswick Shrine.

The Fifth Degree Discordian Initiation Rite

In the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier there lives a bowling alley, and within this very place, in the Year of Our Lady of Discord 3125 (1959), Eris revealed Herself to The Golden Apple Corps for the first time. In honor of this Incredible Event, this Holy Place is revered as a Shrine by all Erisians. Once every five years, the Golden Apple Corps plans a Pilgrimage to Brunswick Shrine as an act of Devotion, and therein to partake of No Hot Dog Buns, and ruminate a bit about It All. It is written that when The Corps returns to The Shrine for the fifth time five times over, than shall the world come to an end:


IMPENDING DOOM HAS ARRIVED!

And Five Days Prior to This Occasion The Apostle The Elder Malaclypse Shall Walk the Streets of Whittier Bearing a Sign for All Literates to Read thereof: “DOOM”, as a Warning of Forthcoming Doom to All Men Impending. And He Shall Signal This Event by Seeking the Poor and Distributing to Them Precious MAO BUTTONS and Whittier Shall be Known as The Region of Thud for These Five Days. As a public service to all mankind and civilization in general, and to us in particular, the Golden Apple Corps has concluded that planning such a Pilgrimage is sufficient and that it is prudent to never get around to actually going. It was here that the following occurred…

Brunswick Shrine: The Ritual Unfolding...
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.


THE BIRTH OF THE ERISIAN MOVEMENT

Just prior to the decade of the nineteen-sixties, when Sputnik was alone and new, and about the time that Ken Kesey took his first acid trip as a medical volunteer; before underground newspapers, Viet Nam, and talk of a second American Revolution; in the comparative quiet of the late nineteen-fifties, just before the idea of RENAISSANCE became relevant. Two young Californians, known later as Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger, were indulging in their habit of sipping coffee at an all night bowling alley and generally solving the world’s problems. This particular evening the main subject of discussion was discord and they were complaining to each other of the personal confusion they felt in their respective lives. “Solve the problem of discord,” said one, “and all other problems will vanish.” “Indeed,” said the other, “chaos and strife are the roots of all confusion.”


FIRST I MUST SPRINKLE YOU
WITH FAIRY DUST

Suddenly the place became devoid of light. Then an utter silence enveloped them, and a great stillness was felt. Then came a blinding flash of intense light, as though their very psyches had gone nova. Then vision returned. The two were dazed and neither moved nor spoke for several minutes. They looked around and saw that the bowlers were frozen like statues in a variety of comic positions, and that a bowling ball was steadfastly anchored to the floor only inches from the pins that it had been sent to scatter. The two looked at each other, totally unable to account for the phenomenon. The condition was one of suspension, and one noticed that the clock had stopped.

Brunswick Shrine Chimp
There walked into the room a chimpanzee, shaggy and grey about the muzzle, yet upright to his full five feet, and poised with natural majesty. He carried a scroll and walked to the young men. “Gentlemen, why does Pickering’s Moon go about in reverse orbit? Gentlemen, there are nipples on your chests; do you give milk? And what, pray tell, Gentlemen, is to be done about Heisenberg’s Law?” (pause). “SOMEBODY HAD TO PUT ALL OF THIS CONFUSION HERE!” And with that he revealed his scroll. It was a diagram, like a yin- yang with a pentagon on one side and an apple on the other. And then he exploded and the two lost consciousness. They awoke to the sound of pins clattering, and found the bowlers engaged in their game and the waitress busy with making coffee. It was apparent that their experience had been private. They discussed their strange encounter and reconstructed from memory the chimpanzee’s diagram. Over the next five days they searched libraries to find the significance of it, but were disappointed to uncover only references to Taoism, the Korean flag, and Technocracy. It was not until they traced the Greek writing on the apple that they discovered the ancient Goddess known to the Greeks as Eris and to the Romans as Discordia. This was on the fifth night, and when they slept that night each had a vivid dream of a splendid woman whose eyes were as soft as feather and as deep as eternity itself, and whose body was the spectacular dance of atoms and universes. Pyrotechnics of pure energy formed her flowing hair, and rainbows manifested and dissolved as she spoke in a warm and gentle voice:

ERIS: I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, my consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding. You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun. I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.

During the next months they studied philosophies and theologies, and learned that Eris or Discordia was primarily feared by the ancients as being disruptive. Indeed, the very concept of chaos was still considered equivalent to strife and treated as a negative. “No wonder things are all screwed up,” they concluded, “they have got it all backwards.” They found that the principle of disorder was every much as significant as the principle of order. With this in mind, they studied the strange yin-yang. During a meditation one afternoon, a voice came to them:

ERIS: It is called the Sacred Chao. I appoint you Keepers of It. Therein you will find anything you like. Speak of Me as Discord, to show contrast to the pentagon. Tell constricted mankind that there are no rules, unless they choose to invent rules. Keep close the words of Syadasti: ‘TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO MINDS. And remember that there is no tyranny in the State of Confusion. For further information, consult your pineal gland.

What is this?” mumbled one to the other, “A religion based on The Goddess of Confusion? It is utter madness!” And with those words, each looked at the other in absolute awe. Omar began to giggle. Mal began to laugh. Omar began to jump up and down. Mal was hooting and hollering to beat all hell. And amid squeals of mirth and with tears on their cheeks, each appointed the other to be high priest of his own madness, and together they declared themselves to be a society of Discordia, for what ever that may turn out to be.


Grand Hailing Sign of Awkwardness and Confusion

As a Keeper of the Sacred Chao I now impart to you a secret Discordian sign. This sign originates from when Richard Nixon boarded his helicopter after he had resigned the office of the Presidency of the U.S. Put both hands in the “peace” sign and thrusting them forward on an upward 45 degree angle at the same time speaking the words “I am not a Crook.” Richard Nixon, having unconsciously taken part in our secrets as a Knight of the Five Sided Castle we rightly recognized this as the Grand Hailing Sign of Awkwardness and Confusion. It is only to be given when in of moments of extreme awkwardness or to display the feeling of total confusion, or when blatantly lying.

For more Brunswick Shrine memories, go here:
http://23ae.com/2011/12/the-brunswick-shrine/.

Plan your trip to Friendly Hills Lanes.

Categories
book brother-in-law daisy eris campbell discordianism eff illuminati interview james shelby downard jfk jim garrison kerry thornley lee harvey oswald monkey business photo play robert anton wilson warren commission writings

C2C, JFK & The Cosmic Trigger Play: A Historia Discordia Triple Whammy

Ewige Blumenkraft: Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
November 22nd commemorates a lot of things here at Historia Discordia, including the date we first launched this site—on JFK Assassination Day, no less!—an event forever after ingrained in Discordian mythology. And although we would never be so bold as to suggest that Eris had a five fingered hand in orchestrating the Killing of the King, it nonetheless appears that in some way or another our Goddess of Perpetual Chaos was responsible for the torrent of high weirdness that engulfed Kerry Thornley’s life after meeting Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines, then afterwards encountering a couple of shadowy JFK assassination conspirators in New Orleans. If that wasn’t enough, Jim Garrison claimed that Thornley was a CIA agent who masqueraded as Lee Oswald and also pronged Oswald’s wife, Marina. For more on this mind-blowing caper check out Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and the Garrison Investigation.

Discordianism—for good or ill—will be forever linked to this dark day in American history. Like a chaos magician reaching down into his top hat-rabbit hole, the Discordian-JFK Assassination landscape is inhabited by Playboy magazine bunny ears, Ozzie Rabbit (Oswald’s nickname), Echo and the Bunnymen (see JMR Higgs’ KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money), a certain pooka named Harvey (“How are you, Mr. Wilson?”)  as well as Bugs Bunny’s role as a Discordian Society patron saint. I could explain all of these Discordian-Bunny-JFK assassination associations, but that would be like trying to explain a complicated joke disguised as a religion.

Oliver Senton as
Robert Anton Wilson
in the Cosmic Trigger Play.
11/22 is one of those magic, yet chaotic dates on the Discordian Calendar when the Eristic (as well as Aneristic forces!) come together to perform a triple whammy of sorts, and this year is no exception as Daisy Eris Campbell premieres her much anticipated Cosmic Trigger Play on this very day (11/22) in Liverpool, England at the Camp and Furnace, which looks like a very cool venue where I plan to hoist a pint or two and then slip into a Liverpudian accent.

To complete this Erisian Triple Whammy (the first anniversary of the Historia Discordia website coinciding with the premiere of the Cosmic Trigger Play), I’ll be a guest on Coast To Coast AM with weekend host Richard Syrett to discuss Caught in the Crossfire. And to confuse matters even more (Hail Eris!), my C2C interview—although slated for November 22rd—won’t actually air until the 3rd hour of the program, the witching hour, midnight 11/23. Appearing in the 3rd hour of C2C seems apropos in that it relates to the theories of that late great conspiracy sleuth James Shelby Downard who proposed that JFK’s assassination was orchestrated by high level Freemasons to occur along the 33rd degree latitude as a part of a death ritual ceremony known as The Killing of the King with the numbers 3 and 33 repeated throughout.

James Shelby Downard in the early-90s.
Photo by Adam Parfrey.
In Masonry there are the three mystical steps or degrees: The Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. The third degree of Master Mason pertains to symbolic Death and Resurrection and the ceremonial Killing of the King. To this end, 11/22 (11 + 22=33) signifies (maybe) a Masonic triple whammy, as 33 is the highest degree in Freemasonry. Dealey Plaza—situated near the Trinity River—was the site for the first Masonic temple in Dallas. Kennedy’s ill-fated motorcade was just about to pass through the Triple Underpass when three shots rang out, wounding Kennedy twice and Texas Governor John Connally once.

Photographic comparison of the
Old Man Tramp (on left) and E. Howard Hunt.
The 3rd Degree of Freemasonry tells the legend of three “unworthy craftsman”—Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum—who murdered Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon’s Temple. Similarly, three tramps were arrested in Dealey Plaza, then afterwards released. One of the tramps was later identified as E. Howard Hunt, who Kerry Thornley later came to suspect as being one of his MK-ULTRA handlers.

On the afternoon 11/23, I’ll be speaking at the Find The Others Conferestival, along with other such illuminaries as Robert Temple (author of The Sirius Mystery), Daisy Eris Campbell, John Higgs and Robin Ince.

The number 23—as sumbutnotall of you may be aware—is yet another holy Discordian number (2+3=5) which in turns relates to the Discordian Law of Fives, so I think we should have all our bases covered. And although I might have taken the steam out of my so-called Discordian Triple Whammy by not actually appearing on C2C on 11/22, I will be on Clyde Lewis’ Ground Zero Radio on 11/21, although for me it will actually be 11/22 (at the illustrious hour of 4am!) calling in from my hotel room in Liverpool, which further illustrates the quantum mechanical nature of the universe where I can travel back in time from the future to appear on a radio show in the past!

And, of course, 11/21 also has its place inDiscordianism as 1+1+2+1=5!