In 2009, the Los Angeles Conservancy and its Modern Committee examined LA’s unique religious heritage with a one-day tour of five spiritual institutions. The self-driving sojourn was called City of the Seekers: LA’s Unique Spiritual Legacy, and it brought much-needed attention to Southern California’s role in the founding of 20th-century fringe religious institutions. It also helped shed light on the way spiritual freedom in Southern California has enabled artists to make visionary work as part of their creative practices.

Inspired by the Los Angeles Conservancy’s project and a spiritual-themed adventure from LA’s own offbeat tour company, Esotouric, I decided to pitch a regular column to VICE back in 2016. The column, appropriately titled "City of the Seekers,” profiled over 50 subjects and examined how Southern California allowed creative people to make art as an expression of their spirituality.

In 1928, mystic, lecturer, and occult book-collector Manly P. Hall published The Secret Teachings of All Ages, a dazzling encyclopedic compendium of ancient texts, esoteric traditions, and musings on metaphysics that became a landmark work, with help from the incredibly detailed and visually striking illustrations by J. Augustus Knapp. (Knapp, a Kentucky native, also created a tarot deck with Hall.) Manly P. Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society in the 1930s, and through the artful marriage of images and words, the derided but nevertheless important New Age movement continued to grow in Southern California.

Meanwhile, many other broad-minded people made their way out West, too. Many settled north, as LA was still just known as a frenzied free-for-all feeding off the nascent film industry. Nonetheless, captivating spiritual thinkers such as Annie Besant and later Aldous Huxley helped shape Southern California’s esoteric landscape, with the Theosophical Society establishing Krotona in Hollywood and Vedanta circles inspiring Huxley’s work.

Like Manly P. Hall, Huxley fell in love with the freedom that the rapidly developing area offered. Mirroring Hall’s DIY approach to crafting his own credo, Huxley set out to find his own brave new world in the City of Angels, quoting a line from the late-18th-century artist and writer William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in his slim volume, The Doors of Perception, published in 1954. The book describes Huxley’s experience with mescaline, which would in turn inspire the name of the band, The Doors.

Between 1941 and 1960, Huxley penned countless pieces for a periodical published by the Vedanta Society of Southern California. Vedanta is one of the six classical schools of Hindu philosophy, and in turn has spawned several of its own offshoots. In the Golden State, it was Advaita Vedanta, as interpreted by Indian mystic and yogi Ramakrishna, that flourished. Ramakrishna’s yoga-infused philosophies continue to help define the Vedanta way of life in Southern California.

In the great succession of swamis, it was Prabhavananda who inspired author Christopher Isherwood, philosopher Gerald Heard, and Aldous Huxley. Today, the art of portrait photography and painting remain very important to the Vedanta Society. Take, for example, Swami Tadatmananda—born in 1932 in Detroit, Michigan as John Markovich—who joined the Vedanta Society of Southern California in 1959. Until his passing in 2008, he painted portraits and landscapes as a material representation of his own spirituality.

In Los Angeles, visionary/visual art had officially taken root, but its original purpose may not have been to hang on the walls of patrons. For much of the first part of the century in LA, it seems art was generally not made to be exhibited, but rather it was generated as part of one’s spiritual expression through creativity and vice versa, as well as a way to relay information and illustrate arcane texts and sacred images such as the ones at Manly P. Hall’s Philosophical Research Society.

Another stop on the “City of the Seekers” tour was a campus in the bucolic LA suburb of Glendale, where Ann Ree Colton established the spiritual foundation of Niscience, which means “knowing.” Inspired by its namesake’s early gifts as a dream analyst, clairvoyant, and healer, the Ann Ree Colton Foundation of Niscience, Inc. takes a highly non-traditional approach to Christian teachings that likely wouldn’t fly anywhere else in the country but Glendale. Not surprisingly, for Niscience co-founder Jonathan Murro, creating art was a very important aspect of the faith, which also incorporated philosophy and science.

Meanwhile, preeminent 20th-century occult artist Marjorie Cameron opened her own doors of perception through peyote and her associations with another fascinating LA occult figure, Jack Parsons. In a 1980s interview with art historian Sandra Leonard Starr, Cameron discussed how LA didn’t have much in the way of a visual arts scene in the '40s, despite a flourishing contemporaneous appreciation of jazz, followed by poetry in the '50s. (And, of course, a film industry.) But visual arts, at least in terms of galleries, were a tough sell in LA. Cameron felt its effects firsthand: her drawing, Peyote Vision, shut down the famous Ferus Gallery on its opening night in 1957. It’s now clear that Cameron was among the first to really say it was OK to make art for art’s sake in LA, all while staying true to your own personal philosophy.

Since Cameron, there has been a steady supply of spiritually-inclined Angelenos who are either natives or have come to LA to work as visionary artists, from designing album covers and rock posters to making experimental films, to painting in their own backyards while taking mind-expanding drugs to make their visions real.

Through the visual arts, my “City of the Seekers” column examined the tangled threads connecting spirituality and creativity in Los Angeles, which has always enticed magnetic, charismatic leaders and lost souls alike—luring both seers and seekers to its legendary climate of freedom and promises of ultimate enlightenment. I look forward to rescuing the articles from digital decay and obsolescence in order to share with you here

This article was previously published on VICE and has been modified for republication. All written work © Tanja M. Laden.

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About 20 years ago, I decided to teach myself how to edit video using Final Cut Pro, for which I eventually became Apple Certified. Back then, I used strictly public-domain footage and rights-cleared music to craft my own creations — long before the days of Instagram/Facebook Reels, TikTok, and CapCut.

I have a very clear memory of editing these videos — the exuberant joy I felt in my body, the excitement I had over bringing together rare footage and strange music in a marriage of pure weirdness that became a reflection of my soul. I had no goal, no agenda: The videos were purely a form of creative expression, and they remain a form of testament to my secret inner artist. I was working with very low-res files as they were the only ones available at the time, so the images are a wee bit blurry. But I think you still get the idea.

It Came in the Night (2007) was my first found-footage experiment, set to music courtesy of Andy Arthurs of the band A Raincoat. Kenneth Anger used the same song for the 1979 edit of his film, Rabbit's Moon, which is where I first heard it. The story goes that there were only ever 1000 copies of the 45 single for “It Came in the Night” in existence, but someone had uploaded a snarly digitized version, which is the one I used here. I tracked down Andy Arthurs in Australia to ask permission to use the song. He seemed surprised, but granted it to me nonetheless.

Saucers in the Sky (2008) was created using all public-domain animation set to the music of Rodd Keith, with lyrics by Neil Lindholm. This one was a finalist for Best Animated Music Video at the California International Animation Festival. I discovered the music of Rodd Keith from the documentary film Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story. I found his son, the incredibly affable saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, who granted me permission to use the song.

World on Wheels (2009) was an official selection of the third annual Festival of (In) Appropriation, in association with Los Angeles Filmforum, and was screened at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood in 2010. It features vintage animation from the Prelinger Archives set to music from the UCSB Cylinder and Audio Archive. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was subconsciously crafting a short film that was a critique of capitalism and the oil industry.

Looking back at these three videos now, I realize they were all subconscious reflections of my own aesthetic choices, my love of symbolic systems and pattern languages, and my longing for whimsy in a world that was about to become darker than I could ever predict. The videos still have minimal views, with the exception of It Came in the Night, which has about 30,000+ on YouTube. But I almost look at the low numbers as an achievement, because in that sense, the work remains mine.

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In June of 2022 I was at what might realistically be described as the nadir of my life. The pandemic had robbed me of my travel and events writing career, my short-term foray into the entertainment realm as a nonunion background actor was clearly a bust, and I had just dropped out of graduate school (again). There didn’t seem to be a place for me in this world, other than walking dogs. So that’s what I did.

I was on a dog-walking app for barely a month when Dumpling came into my life. I hadn’t realized when I accepted her owner’s request for a “multi-day walk” that I would be walking Dumpling four times a week through the entire summer and eventually, for four whole years. It became one of the most loving, grounding, and healing experiences of my life.

At our first encounter, Dumpling met me at her door like the lady of the house. She practically showed me where her leash was. She wasn’t a puppy (maybe about 8 years old?) and looked like an American Bully - somewhere between a pit bull and a Staffordshire terrier. She had a blue-gray coat, enormous brown eyes, and her ears were cropped. I later learned that she was a rescue and that’s how she arrived to her owner, Academy Award-winning short documentary film director Ben Proudfoot. Ben could see that Dumpling and I forged a bond immediately and so that is how I earned the privilege of becoming her long-term dog nanny.

The heat of that first summer was almost unbearable. Thankfully, our scheduled walks were at 10:30am so the sun wasn’t as blazing. But it was still hot. My standard wardrobe consisted of shorts, loose tank tops, sun hats, and my dog-walking bag overflowing with green plastic baggies, an alarm keychain, spare keys, and lots of sanitizer. Actually, not much has changed in that department, truth be told.

As the months went by and the weather cooled, strolling in Dumpling’s neighborhood became as much of a joy for me as it clearly was for her. She and I would purposefully walk for miles, pausing only for Dumpling to snort about and do her business. Sometimes she’d plop down and wiggle around so the dry grass could give her a nice back rub. In those instances, I couldn’t get my phone out fast enough to take a video.

Once I brought Dumpling back from a walk and there was a confused man dressed in pajamas who didn’t speak English on the front lawn where she lived. He looked relieved to see Dumpling, but I thought he was a trespasser. (I mean, I had no idea anyone was staying there, and he was in his damn pajamas!) When I called Ben on the phone to elucidate, I learned that the man was Vidal Merma, a Peruvian journalist, documentary filmmaker, and environmental defender known for investigating the human impacts of large-scale mining operations in the Cusco region of Peru. His story was chronicled in an Oscar-shortlisted documentary called Wings of Dust (2023) by Giorgio Ghiotto.

Communicating with our phones, Vidal explained to me that he woke up and didn’t know where Dumpling went. I tried to put into words that I was her walker. “Soy la paseadora de Dumpling,” my phone told him. Vidal still seemed confused, but eventually things became clear, even though I still felt a little foolish at the misunderstanding. Actually, I cringed for a whole week.

Soon, Dumpling was lucky enough to get a wonderful mom, Ben’s now-wife, Elizabeth. I continued to record the routes on my Apple Watch and took a picture of Dumpling every time, compiling all the stats in a group chat that came to be known as the Bullytin. Somewhere around this time Ben earned his second Oscar as co-director of The Last Repair Shop (2023). I came by the morning after the Academy Awards to walk Dumpling and marveled at the statuette just casually standing on the kitchen table. “You’re a Hollywood doggie,” I told Dumpling once we were outside, but she didn’t seem to care. She could just sense joy and responded accordingly.

Dumpling relied on me to walk her, and I relied on her to show me plants and flowers in people’s gardens. I learned their names, just as I learned the calls and species of different birds that would fly around the neighborhood - mockingbirds ganging up on crows, and crows ganging up on hawks. Once, after the fires, I heard a bird call, “C’mere,” only to look up and stare straight into the beady eyes of a stray parrot.

Another time we passed by a pile of gorgeous, large, raw crystals that someone had evidently discarded in haste on a patch of grass. Dumpling somehow communicated to me not to touch them, so even though I love crystals, I left them alone. They were all gone by the next day.

Occasionally, as a treat, I would sit down for a couple of minutes at a picnic table in the nearby park and I’d lift heavy-ish Dumpling so she could sit in my lap and I could hold on to her from behind in order to give her the biggest hugs. Often those were the only hugs I’d have in months.

Dumpling stepped in and became my reason to get up every day. It was a small job in the eyes of the world, but to me, it was as serious as programming train tracks or giving someone an appendectomy. She provided structure, support, affection, the goofiest smile, and the most easygoing company.

But eventually, Dumpling started to lose energy, and her muzzle started to turn grey. Our long walks turned into slow-paced “sniffing safaris.” She became less willing to move, and would often just stand there stubbornly. I began to feel like Atreyu and Artax in The Neverending Story, where one of the main characters is trying desperately to get his horse out of the Swamps of Sadness, but the sad horse just keeps sinking. I’d try to fake run so she’d pick up her pace. I’d try to give her treats to motivate her. I never, ever wanted to pull her. But no matter how I tried to get her to walk, it seemed all she wanted was to be back home, cozy in her bed.

In the end, it wasn’t the Swamps of Sadness that took Dumpling - it was just the passage of time. And so last Sunday, in an afternoon-long fit of ugly crying, I went over there to say goodbye. I hadn’t walked her in three weeks, and Ben said it was time. As a memento, he gave me the extra-thick leash I would always use to walk her. It feels strong and supportive in my hands, as if the object is somehow drawing out my suffering and reminding me of my own strength and resilience that I recognized and embraced during my irreplaceable time with that incredible dog.

Through my years with Dumpling, I facilitated some deep emotional healing and began to see myself through her eyes - as a caring, kind person who loves living creatures and whose love extends beyond my physical body and into the hearts of those around me. Thanks to Dumpling, I eventually stopped bedrotting and hiding from the world. I started to go out more, and most importantly, I started writing again. The murky haze of my existence began to clear, and I began to see a future for myself once more, not just a vague fog of uncertainty.

Dumpling taught me how to be present and in the moment, and to appreciate the colors of the flowers, the screeches of the birds, the frantically waving tails of the squirrels, the butterflies, the gentle breezes, the light rains, and yes, even the scorchingly sunny days.

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Ten years ago, I enveloped myself in a glittering, gleaming cloak and sat for two separate four-hour nighttime shifts in a glass box in the lobby area of what was then the Standard Hollywood Hotel. The glass box was one of the hotel’s big gimmicks — something like a human-sized display case above the reception desk, where hired folks could pose, draw, and even sleep while guests checked in below. In my case, I was in there to study the Unarius Academy of Science, a modern metaphysical school established in the 1950s that not only believes in psychic powers but also holds that everyone has the capacity to develop extrasensory capabilities as tools for creativity. The glass-box performance-art installation was part of a larger photo exhibit about Unarius on display at the hotel. It was facilitated by Jodi Wille, a publisher, curator, and film director whose full-length documentary Welcome Space Brothers is out now and goes into detail about the Unariuns (not “Unarians”).

The glass box was configured as a visual attraction in itself as well as an immersive realm full of raw material for those who had the privilege to sift through the matter and translate it into new material forms, including me. I watched Unarius videos, read Unarius books and pamphlets, made Unarius-inspired art, and wrote about my experience in a journal while people wheeled their suitcases back and forth from the check-in area below me. The golden cape I wore was among the Unariuns’ original costumes, perhaps from one of their pageants for Uriel. Or maybe it came from one of their impromptu “psychodramas” that tapped into past lives to facilitate healing? Or it could have appeared in one of their low-budget outsider films with titles such as Rainbow Bridge to the Inner Worlds, Roots of the Earthman, or Journey Through the Crystal Mountain Cities. Whatever the case, the resplendent mantle was now firmly on my shoulders, and my only mission was to interact with all the stuff around me in order to write and make art.

So what is the Unarius Academy of Science? The name is an acronym for “Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science.” It’s a unique spiritual nonprofit foundation established in 1954 by Ernest Norman and his wife Ruth. When Ernest died in 1971, Ruth, a.k.a. Uriel from the planet Aries, became the organization’s leader, until she herself left this earth in 1993. Under Uriel’s leadership, Unarius produced 80 television programs that beamed across the airwaves of roughly 30 national public-access stations in the 1980s and beyond. From churning out TV shows to a variety of UFO-themed paintings, music, books, and other ephemera, the Unariuns continue to promote the study of extraterrestrial intelligence, reincarnation, and free energy, with a fundamental purpose of the channeling of alien beings for inspiration.

And inspired I was. Being in that glass box was not suffocating or constrictive. Instead, it felt expansive, magical, surreal, and a liminal place if there ever was one. I was free-floating in a sea of mind-blowing matter, armed with my own supply of glitter pens and washi tape to document it all. I tried not to look out at the people in the lobby, but after I sat cross-legged meditating for about 20 minutes just to break up the creative work and alleviate my writer’s cramp, I opened my eyes and caught some tall dudes leaning on their luggage staring at me. It was the only moment I felt self-conscious. Oh, and when I briefly posted about my experience on social media, some guy whose name I don’t remember called me a cult follower and unfriended me.

Now, I am not a trained visual artist by any means. I was always allergic to the concept of art school and, from a young age, I insisted I remain self-taught. My work reflects this. But in the case of Unarius, I think my autodidactic approach fits in mighty well with their idea that we can all develop psychic skills and utilize them in order to foster and develop artistic abilities.

I will admit, I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off if I hadn’t been freely taking the absolute upper limits of my prescribed dosage of amphetamine salts at the time. Otherwise, there would have been no other way for me to sit still for that long to deliver the kind of output that I did. The stuff may not necessarily be great, but there was a lot of it. And from what I’ve learned about the Unariuns, the value is not necessarily in the quality of the art, but in the process of making it.

Watch the trailer for Welcome Space Brothers below.

A note on sources: All words are mine, interwoven from two rescued articles from LA Weekly and VICE. © Tanja M. Laden

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