beings from a planet called ‘Clarion.’ These beings have been visiting the earth, she says, in what we call flying saucers. During their visits, she says, they have observed fault lines in the earth’s crust that foretoken the deluge. Mrs. Keech reports she was told the flood will spread to form an inland sea stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, she says, a cataclysm will submerge the West Coast from Seattle, Wash., to Chile in South America.
The story went on to report briefly the origin of Mrs. Keech’s experiences and to quote several messages that seemed to indicate she had been chosen as a person to learn and transmit teachings from the “superior beings.” A photograph of Mrs. Keech accompanied the story. She appeared to be about fifty years of age, and she sat poised with pad and pencil in her lap, a slight, wiry woman with dark hair and intense, bright eyes. The story was not derogatory, nor did the reporter comment upon or interpret any of the information he had gathered.
Since Mrs. Keech’s pronouncement made a specific prediction of a specific event, since she, at least, was publicly committed to belief in it, and since she apparently was interested to some extent in informing a wider public about it, this seemed to be an opportunity to conduct a “field” test of the theoretical ideas to which the reader has been introduced.
In early October two of the authors called on Mrs. Keech and tried to learn whether there were other convinced persons in her orbit of influence, whether they too believed in the specific prediction, and what commitments of time, energy, reputation, or material possessions they might be making in connection with the prediction. The results of this first visit encouraged us to go on. The three of us and some hired observers joined the group and, as participants, gathered data about the conviction, commitment, and proselyting activity of the individuals who were actively interested in Mrs. Keech’s ideas. We tried to learn as much as possible about the events that had preceded the news story, and, of course, kept records of subsequent developments. The means by which the observers gained entree, maintained rapport, and collected data are fully described in the Appendix. The information collected about events before early October is retrospective. It comes primarily from documents and from conversations with the people concerned in the events. From October to early January almost all the data are first-hand observations, with an occasional report of an event we did not cover directly but heard about later through someone in the group of believers who had been there at the time.
The next three chapters are a narrative of events from the beginning of Mrs. Keech’s automatic writing up to the crucial days in December just before the cataclysmic flood was expected.
These chapters provide background material. They will introduce the members of the group, describe their personal histories, their involvement in the movement, and the preparations they made for the flood. We shall also describe the ideology accompanying the prediction and some of the other influences to which the group was exposed. Such background is necessary to make-understandable some of the behavior and the events that led up to the night of December 21. Much of this material is not directly relevant to the theoretical theme of the book, but we hope that these details will re-create for the reader some of the vividness of these months.
CHAPTER II
Teachings and Prophecies from Outer Space
The first contact between a prophet and the source of his revelation is likely to be marked by confusion and astonishment, not to say shock. So it was with Mrs. Marian Keech, who awoke near dawn one morning in the early winter about a year before the events with which we are concerned. “I felt a kind of tingling or numbness in my arm, and my whole arm felt warm right up to the shoulder,” she once remarked later, in describing the incident. “I had the feeling that someone was trying to get my attention. Without knowing why, I picked up a pencil and a pad that were lying on the table near my bed. My hand began to write in another handwriting. I looked at the handwriting and it was strangely familiar, but I knew it was not my own. I realized that somebody else was using my hand, and I said: ‘Will you identify yourself?’ And they did. I was much surprised to find that it was my father, who had passed away.”
Although it was her most impressive experience with psychic phenomena, the message from her father was by no means the first contact Mrs. Keech had had with the occult, either as an interested student or as a participant. At least fifteen years earlier, while living in New York, she had been invited by an Indian acquaintance to attend a lecture on theosophy. She was fascinated by what she heard, and deeply impressed with the profundity of the lecturer’s message. She attended several lectures on theosophy and, after each, picked up a mimeographed copy of the talk to study it more carefully.
In the years following her exposure to theosophy, Mrs. Keech’s deep strain of curiosity about the cosmos and about her own nature led her to explore a variety of sources of enlightenment. She read the works of Godfré Ray King (Guy Ballard), the founder of the I AM movement, and the idea that one might “walk in the light” of superior knowledge was communicated to her. During a lengthy convalescence she became absorbed in Oahspe, subtitled “A Kosmon Bible.” The Reverend John Ballou Newbrough, who held the first copyright on Oahspe, disclaimed authorship in the ordinary sense when he asserted that the contents of the book were given to him by direct revelation; he served merely as the scribe of higher forces. Oahspe challenges the orthodox Christian account of human downfall by setting forth a story of the division of mankind into two forces: the “Faithists,” who forswore war, dissipation, and drunkenness and followed God’s commandments; and the “Uzians,” signifying destroyers.
Besides her quest for cosmic knowledge, Mrs. Keech sought insight into herself. She joined a dianetics group and was “cleared” by an auditor and friend who later took up residence in Mrs. Keech’s home. Discussing this experience later, she remarked: “I prefer to call it Scientology, which is the art and science of taking someone back as far in his life as he can go. My friends have helped me take myself back to the period of my birth — in fact, even before my birth. I can remember the day I was conceived.” On another occasion, Mrs. Keech explained that everyone knew his true identity when he was born, but, in growing up, lost this clear knowledge and, thus, his true self. One of the chief advances in Scientology, she felt, was that it not only made possible an understanding of the circumstances of an individual’s conception and birth, but also gave access to knowledge of one’s identity in earlier incarnations.
At about the same time that she began to receive messages from nonterrestrial sources, Mrs. Keech had become actively interested in one of the major popular mysteries of our time — flying saucers. Her interest led her to attend one or more lectures on the subject by an expert on saucers who expounded the belief that these objects did indeed transport visitors from outer space or other planets. The connection between extraterrestrial messages and such visitors was probably immediately apparent to Mrs. Keech.
With this background of esoteric knowledge, Mrs. Keech took her first active step into the occult when she transcribed her father’s message. Like many beginnings, it was not especially impressive. It was a letter from her father to her mother giving some instructions to the latter for planting flowers that spring. There was a certain amount of information about her father’s state of spiritual health, and a brief, and rather unclear, description of his present surroundings and his “way of life” in “the astral.” Un-clarity and incoherence were characteristic of this first message as well as of several of the immediately subsequent ones. They were written haltingly and contained many indecipherable words and perplexing neologisms. Mrs. Keech concluded that the fault lay at least partially in her, and set herself the task of developing, through concentration, through prayers for help and guidance, and through constant, obedient practice, a higher level of skill in transcribing the messages from the spiritual realm.
She soon learned that the world was populated with scoffers and unbelievers. At her father’s command she had transmitted his first message to her mother, who answered by reprimanding her and ordering her to stop such nonsense or, at least,
