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  Later in the same year that the Mars stories appeared, Burroughs turned the pulp world on its ear with the publication of his novella, Tarzan of the Apes. Tarzan was a huge hit and brought Burroughs all sorts of merchandizing opportunities. He formed his own company, and aggressively licensed his characters to radio, movies, comics, and all manner of enterprises. A pioneer of saturation marketing, he provided a model for later companies like Disney and DC Comics. As The New York Times noted “before Tarzan, nobody understood just how big, how ubiquitous, how marketable a star could be.”71

  Following the success of Tarzan and John Carter, Burroughs introduced the Pellucidar novels, starting with At the Earth's Core in 1922. In this tale, a group of scientists discover Pellucidar, a world inhabited by dinosaurs and—believe it or not—psychic pterodactyls inside the Earth's crust.72 Burroughs even sends Tarzan to Pellucidar in 1930 in Tarzan at the Earth's Core. Later, he introduced the Carson of Venus books, starting with The Pirates of Venus, first serialized in Argosy in 1932. This series stars astronaut Carson Napier, who, like Carter, has occult powers—in this case, telepathy. All these psychic supermen seem to reflect Burroughs' straining toward a new race, one that is both physically powerful and morally upright, and possessed of extrasensory, occult powers that set them apart from the rest of humanity.

  SAX ROHMER

  For some bizarre reason best left to sociologists, the Chinese became the favorite villains of the pulps. Baddies like Shu Ling, Yow Sum Gay, Wu Fang, and Chang Ch'ien regularly wrought havoc in magazines like Dime Detective and Spicy Mystery. The granddaddy of all Asian arch-villains, Fu Manchu, was created by Englishman Arthur Sarsfield Ward (1883–1959), writing as Sax Rohmer. Fu Manchu is an occult-oriented character whose existence Rohmer describes as a danger to the entire white race.73 He heads a network of Chinese secret societies bent on destroying Western civilization. His nemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, is a blatant Sherlock Holmes knockoff, complete with his own Watson, Dr. Petrie. However offensive their racist edge today, the Fu Manchu books were a huge hit in their time and inspired a horde of imitators, several film adaptations, a Republic Pictures serial, a radio program, a comic strip, and even a short-lived television serial. Rohmer was not some jingoistic, ethnocentric nativist, however. He was a worldly, erudite man completely immersed in the occult. Rising above humble beginnings, he developed an early interest in writing and in 1903, at the age of twenty, netted his first sale (“The Mysterious Mummy,” Pearson's Magazine). He took his pen name from the Old English sax, meaning “sword,” and rohmer, meaning “roamer.”

  As a youth, Rohmer, like many of his time, had a deep-seated fascination with ancient Egypt. Indeed, Peter Haining records that Rohmer is “most clearly remembered for his knowledge of Egyptology and as a practitioner of its rites.”74 Rohmer's introduction to the Egyptian rites came by way of his family doctor, Dr. R. Watson Councell, who reportedly initiated him into the Rosicrucian Society. In 1925, Rohmer wrote an introduction for Councell's book Apologia Alchymiae, reportedly the only introduction he ever wrote for another author's book.

  Rohmer's involvement with the occult was extensive.75 He joined the Golden Dawn and wrote occult-themed works, including stories like “Brood of the Witch Queen” (1918), “Grey Face” (1924), and “The Green Eyes of Bâst” (1920), and books like The Romance of Sorcery (1913). Through his work with the occult, Rohmer came to believe that “a great new adept” was coming—one who would “pour the light of the East into the Darkness of the West.”76

  Of course, this fascination with superhuman powers brings us right back to the comic books. And it is through Marvel Comics that Rohmer's work was introduced to a new generation. In 1972, Marvel bought the rights to Fu Manchu and assigned two of its most mystically minded creators to update the property. Capitalizing on the Kung Fu craze inspired by Bruce Lee, Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin created “Shang Chi, the Master of Kung Fu” in 1973 (Marvel Special Edition #15). Shang Chi, the son of Fu Manchu, rebels against his father and joins the British Secret Service to combat the paternal villain's quest for world domination. The series, which greatly mitigates the racist tinge of Rohmer's original tales, was a big hit and ran for ten years. Shang Chi survives as a Marvel character, although the company gave up rights to the original Rohmer characters.77

  Sorcery was an ever-present theme in the pulps, but a new generation of writers would move beyond the usual witch-doctor/murderous cult riffs and make the occult the focus of their fiction. Coincidentally, the three leading lights of this movement—H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Dion Fortune—would lead unhappy lives and die before their time. But their work would become the entry point for serious exploration of mystical themes in popular fiction.

  H. P. LOVECRAFT

  No investigation of the occult roots of pulp fiction would be complete without some mention of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937). Lovecraft had a knack for conveying pure, existential terror unmatched by any other writer in the genre. Born the last scion of an old aristocratic family, Lovecraft lived and worked in obscurity. Left penniless by a father driven mad by syphilis and a grandfather who squandered the family's fortune, he was haunted by images of decay and degeneracy throughout his life.

  Lovecraft was a child prodigy who exhausted his grandfather's library at a very early age. He began to write—first, nonfiction articles for a variety of magazines, and eventually stories for pulp magazines. His career in the pulps brought him into contact with writers like Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard, both of whom he kept as correspondents. He is most famous as a writer of horror stories for Weird Tales.

  Lovecraft was heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and an Anglo-Irish fantasy writer named Lord Dunsany. When it comes to pure imaginative power, however, Lovecraft has no match. He constructed a coherent, overarching “mythos” that runs throughout all of his (non-serial) stories, complete with a fictional satanic bible, The Necromonicon, that many readers believe to this day is a real book.78 To enter Lovecraft's imaginative world is to enter a world of unending nightmare that is crystalline in its lucidity and luminous in its clarity.

  Though Lovecraft insisted that he was a scientific rationalist, he constructed a complex cosmology of hideous extraterrestrial beings that once ruled the Earth. With the rise of man, these chimeras go into hiding, and begin preparing for the day when they will reemerge and take possession of the planet once more. Creatures with names like Chthulu and Nyarlathotep gather human acolytes to worship them as gods in rites replete with blasphemy and depravity. Lovecraft's descriptive powers are so effective that many readers seriously question his self-professed mechanistic atheism.

  Many researchers have speculated that Lovecraft had extensive contacts with esoteric and occult organizations like the Theosophists or the OTO. Aleister Crowley's disciple Kenneth Grant, for instance, has written extensively on the parallels between Lovecraft's and Crowley's work.79 Lovecraft has featured prominently in occult conspiracy theory, with some writers claiming that he was actually in contact with demonic spirits and wrote his numinous tales under their direction. Occultist Tracy Twyman maintains that Lovecraft's stories are adaptations of the stories of the so-called Nephilim, or fallen angels, from the ancient Book of Enoch.80 And mercenary-turned-pulp writer E. Hoffman Price introduced Lovecraft to several occult and Theosophical concepts during their extensive correspondence.81

  Lovecraft had a marked influence on the horror and sci-fi genres, and many popular writers have tried to replicate his Cthulu Mythos in their tales. He also had a strong influence on comics writers like Gardner Fox and Alan Moore. It's interesting to note that legendary DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz began his career as Lovecraft's literary agent.

  ROBERT E. HOWARD

  Robert Ervin Howard (1906–1936) was born the only child of a Texas country doctor and a sickly mother. A voracious reader, he developed an early interest in boxing and weight lifting that found expression in his writing for the adventure pulps and boxing
magazines. An early interest in ancient history led to a lasting fascination with barbarian tribes like the Picts of ancient Scotland. He was also a fan of occultic fiction of magazines like Weird Tales, and began a long-lasting correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft, joining what came to be known as The Love-craft Circle, a precursor of later sci-fi societies and organizations.

  Howard became a successful writer for the pulps, contributing to magazines like Argosy, Spicy Adventure, and Strange Detective. He invented warrior heroes like Bran Mak Morn, Kull the Conqueror, and Solomon Kane whom he set against the machinations and conjurings of wizards and warlocks, and a host of demons, monsters, and spirits. His signature character, Conan the Cimmerian, appeared in the story “The Phoenix on the Sword” in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.

  It's unclear why Conan became so much more popular than his other characters, who were expressions of the same essentially Nietszchean ethos. Howard explained in a letter to a fan that “Conan simply grew up in my mind …. He simply stalked full grown out of oblivion and set me at work recording the saga of his adventures.” He wrote to Clark Ashton Smith: “I have sometimes wondered if it were possible that unrecognized forces of the past or present—or even the future—work through the thoughts and actions of living men.” Indeed, writing Conan's adventures became a total preoccupation for Howard. “The character,” he claimed, “took complete possession of my mind.”82 Conan became a huge success, but Howard did not enjoy the fruits of his labors for long. Distraught over the death of his mother, he committed suicide in 1936.

  Conan, however, lives on, and Howard's work has had an incalculable effect on popular culture. The spirit of Conan has informed many other rough-edged superheroes, and even J.R.R. Tolkien acknowledged him as an influence. The sword-and-sorcery genre itself, however, did not play well in comics until the early 1970s. With superheroes slipping in the marketplace, Marvel licensed Howard's characters in hopes of tapping into the fantasy craze of the late 1960s. As before, it was Conan who hit the jackpot. In 1982, the John Milius film Conan the Barbarian launched the career of Austrian muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film was a hit, but its dismal 1984 sequel, Conan the Destroyer, killed the franchise in its infancy. Two totally unfaithful cartoon series appeared in the 1990s, followed by a short-lived action series in 1997 that tried to cash in on the success of the campy series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

  DION FORTUNE

  British author Dion Fortune provides our strongest link between the occult underground and the pulps. Born Violet Mary Firth in 1890 to a Christian Science family in Wales, Fortune reported mystical visions at an early age. In her teens, she studied occultism under Dr. Theodore Moriarty and developed an interest in psychoanalysis, particularly the occult-tinged teachings of Carl Jung. Said to be a “natural psychic,” she was credited with powers of clairvoyance and astral projection, and the ability to read Edgar Cayce's Akashic Records. She also claimed to be in direct contact with the Ascended Masters, who she said aided her in her writings.

  Fortune was initiated into the Golden Dawn in 1919, but later became disenchanted with the “bare bones” approach to occultism taught by McGregor Mathers. In 1922, she formed a new society called The Society of the Inner Light and later joined the Theosophical Society. She was a prolific writer of what she considered to be practical and accessible works on the occult, among them The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage, Sane Occultism, The Training and Work of an Initiate, and Practical Occultism in Daily Life. She befriended Aleister Crowley, corresponded extensively with him, and wrote eloquently of their friendship in The Mystical Qabalah (1935), which many consider to be her masterpiece.

  Fortune also tried her hand at fiction and created the occult detective Dr. Taverner, who first appeared in the British pulp, Royal Magazine, in the early 1920s, basing the detective on her own mentor, Dr. Moriarty. These stories were later reprinted in the collection The Secrets of Dr. Taverner. She also wrote a series of occult novels, including The Demon Lover, a cautionary tale about the dark side of occultism, The Sea Priestess, The Winged Bull, about sex magic and occultism in the British military, and Moon Magic, in which she embedded many actual spells and rituals used in the Society of the Inner Light.

  As if all this weren't enough, Fortune claimed to have become a kind of real-life superhero with her participation in the “Magical Battle of Britain” during World War II. Fortune gathered a number of witches and occultists from across the United Kingdom in order to cast spells of protection to stave off a German invasion.83 This effort, which became legendary in occult lore, allegedly left her in a weakened state. She died of leukemia in London in January 1946.

  JACK PARSONS: ROCKETMAN

  The rise of science fiction and fantasy fandom would play a crucial role in the development of comic book culture. Several clubs would form that would allow fans and creators to meet and exchange ideas, and eventually would lead to creation of the sci-fi and comic book convention circuit. The rise of this network closely mirrored the rise of the neopagan and occult movements of the mid–20th century. In fact, many of the leading figures in fandom were also deeply involved in occult activity. As former Eclipse Comics publisher and occult author Catherine Yronwode, put it, “Neopaganism would never have gotten started without the rise of Science Fiction and comics fandom.”84 One figure who straddled both worlds would also play a crucial part in development of the real-life “World of Tomorrow.”

  Jack Parsons (1914–1952) combined his love of sci-fi with a prodigious knack for chemistry and became one of the founding fathers of the Space Program. Parsons was an avid reader of pulps like Amazing Stories and had a particular love for Bur-rough's John Carter stories. From an early age, he experimented with explosives, a hobby that eventually led to his invention of solid rocket fuel. He played a major role in the development of the Apollo space program and in the formation of Jet Propulsion Laboratories—indeed, some have joked that the initials JPL actually stand for Jack Parsons' Laboratories.

  Jack Parsons was also an avid practitioner of Thelema, and a regular correspondent with Aleister Crowley. Some even claim he recited Crowley's “Hymn to Pan” before every rocket launch. His family estate in Pasadena became the site of the Agape Lodge of the OTO; offerings collected there provided Crowley with one of his few sources of income in his declining days.

  In addition to his work with the OTO and his scientific pursuits, Parsons also had contacts with the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, the forerunner of modern fandom. The LASFS grew out of Hugo Gernsback's Science Fiction League and eventually hosted weekly meetings where writers and fans mingled. Parsons gave talks on rocketry at LASFS meetings and befriended several future sci-fi legends, among them Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, German sci-fi pioneer Fritz Lang, and Vril Society theorist Willy Ley.

  Parsons' circle of sci-fi writers grew to include L. Ron Hubbard, with whom he undertook the infamous “Babalon Working” in January 1946. This ritual, which earned them both a place in occult conspiracy-theory lore, was inspired by Crowley's writings, particularly his novel Moonchild. Hubbard and Parsons sought to summon the Scarlet Woman, whom Parsons saw as an incarnation of the Whore of Babylon. His goal was to mate with her and conceive the Moonchild—the future Antichrist.85 When informed of the working, Crowley himself exclaimed: “I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these goats.”86 Not long after the Babalon Working, Parson's friendship with Hubbard faltered and Hubbard went on to found his new occult religion, Scientology, in 1950.87 Parsons later fell on hard times, and his OTO activities earned him some unwelcome attention from the federal government. He developed an addiction to methamphetamines and cocaine, eventually lost his security clearance. Parsons would die in a laboratory accident in 1952 that some claim was murder.

  Parsons' favorite novel, Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, was originally serialized in Unknown in 1940. A powerful and chilling work even today, the book tells the story of journalist Will Barbee, wh
o stumbles across a worldwide cult of shape-shifting witches bent on world domination. Barbee's own occult powers are awakened by a seductive redhead named April Bell, and he soon realizes that he himself is the prophesied “Child of Night”—the “Black Messiah” that will lead the witches out of the shadows and into the halls of power. The story ends, not with the obligatory defeat of the forces of darkness, but with their rise to power. Parsons was fascinated by the book's description of a magickal race that doesn't want to coexist with mankind, but wants to dominate it completely and covertly. It's hard not to find echoes of Williamson's theme of an occultic super-race—which is, in itself, an echo of Bulwer's Vril—throughout Parsons' Thelemic writings.

  By mid-century, the cross-pollination between sci-fi, fantasy, and occultism had flowered and borne fruit, but the pulps were beginning to fade. The emerging superheroes would need a new place to grow and a new, fresh audience as well. The dingy monochromatic pages of Amazing Stories and Weird Takes would have to give over to a new and colorful format so the new gods could truly come into their own.

  Oh, before we go on it's probably important to note that Jack Parsons' birth name was “Marvel.”

  67 Whatever Burroughs' enthusiasms, he seems to have kept them in his novels. Burroughs had no known association with any occult groups or secret societies (unless, of course, they were truly secret societies). Yet noted anti-cult activist Carl Raschke, Dean of Religious Studies at the University of Denver, goes so far to claim that writers like “Edgar Rice Burroughs, progenitor of the Tarzan and Jane tales, were practicing occultists.” See Carl Raschke, Painted Black: From Drug Killings to Heavy Metal Music (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), p. 183.