Sammy Davis, Jr. was in the Church of Satan?!

Categories: Entertainment , Staff Picks , Nonfiction , Horror & Supernatural

Need a reading suggestion for that special oddball in your life?  I may have a perfectly esoteric recommendation.  If the person has an interest in the 1960's, the occult, eccentric people, and strange tales, Gary Lachman's intriguing Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius might be just the ticket (to ride). This fast-paced and highly entertaining reader of otherworldly and sometimes sordid activities alleges connections between many colorful figures such as: L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and the Beach Boys, Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey (founder of The Church of Satan), and other strange bedfellows too numerous to mention here.  

Upon reading this book, you (or your friend) may ask, as I did, "How much of this information is really real, or based on rumor/apocrypha, or just plain false?”  Whether you buy it all hook, line, and sinker, or refute as much as possible, in the end you'll also probably come to the conclusion that "flower power" wasn't the only kind of energy wafting in the air like incense and/or pot smoke back in those days.  Don't let it bring you down or bum you out, just relax, float downstream, and enjoy the trip...

Gary Lachman has written other biographies of weirdness: A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult, In Search of P.D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff, and A Secret History of Consciousness.  Interestingly, he was the original bassist for the band Blondie and recently published a memoir, under stage name Gary Valentine, New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation, with Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Others, 1974-1981. 

Articles and reviews by Mr. Lachman/Valentine can be found in