A Conversation with Adam Parfrey, Author of “Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on America, A Visual Guide”

Ed Wood, black metal, conspiracy theory, cults, con artists, the Weimar Republic, aliens, punk rock, drugs, sex, and the Unabomber—all are topics that interest Adam Parfrey, and have been the subject of books published under his provocative imprint, Feral House.

Parfrey will offer a slide lecture and book signing on the latest book he himself has authored, Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on America, A Visual Guide, this Friday at Apop Records. (You can read Parfrey’s guest post about the book at Huffington Post here, and an excerpt at BoingBoing here.) The coffee-table tome charts the influence of Freemasonry and related secretive clubs—including St. Louis’ own Veiled Prophet gang—in American culture.

What is so fascinating about Freemasonry?

My interest came about in different levels and at different times. I got interested in it as a kid, and then about 15 years ago, I really started researching the subject. Then Dan Brown came out with his books, and after that there was a motherload of reprints of books about Freemasonry, so I put off my book. Then later on I saw an encyclopediafrom 1899 or 1902 or something like that, that showed how many orders there were in this country, and how one in every three Americans were involved in a secret society. It was so common. The big secret is that there is no secret. But people have ignored and forgotten how common it was. I wanted to bring that back, that this was America, and to explore how it influenced America so much.

I understand many of the images in the book are from your own collection.

I’ve been collecting for a long time. I wanted to reproduce a lot of one-of-a-kind things, too. It took quite some time and effort to do.

What is the state of Freemasonry today?

It has a great backing, but with far fewer numbers. The people who are really into Freemasonry these days are mainly police and military, and even NASA, they have a Masonic lodge within their Houston headquarters. That surprised me. But who are the Masonic officers ruled by? The lodge? A police commander or the mayor? Who has the final authority? It’s never been clear. Even back in the Civil War era there were Confederate and Yankee Freemasons, and some of them carried notes that declared their Freemasonry and used them as a way to get out of prison if they were caught.

Consider the Masonic oath—it’s pretty drastic. It’s much more drastic than the oath you take if you’re signing up to become a police officer, for instance. The Masonic oath says that if you give away any secrets then you’re obligated to die for that offense, but that hasn’t happened much, frankly. A fellow named William Morgan was murdered early in the 19th century for writing a book about Freemasonic secrets. He was kidnapped and murdered by Freemasons, and as a result there was a huge backlash against Freemasonry for about 20 years. A big political party that came about as a result was the Anti-Masonic Party.

Has there been any blowback from your book from the Masons themselves?

Apparently there’s a small review in the Scottish Rite Journal, and I hear it’s not that approving, but I won’t see it ‘til I get to St. Louis, because there’s a guy there who’s gonna give it to me.

In the new book, you have some info and images of our Veiled Prophet here in St. Louis.

I first heard about it a couple decades ago, and I remember seeing an image from the parade—it’s so freaky. I was really curious about how that came about. I read a book about it called Unveiling the Prophet, and that was fun, I was totally into it.

Supposedly the Veiled Prophet itself began as a direct reference to the KKK.

I wouldn’t be surprised. Masonic orders are Protestant, and Albert Pike, who was presumably also involved with the creation of the KKK, was the main man behind Scottish Rite Freemasonry. He ran a newspaper called the Memphis Daily Appeal, which became the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and he put out a lot of pro-slavery stuff in the newspaper. There’s a statue of him in Washington, D.C., too.

How would you describe Feral House to the uninitiated?

Feral House has a reputation for being fairly extreme and ornery. It’s been going on since the late ’80s, and we have about 150 titles, not all of which are in print, but a significant amount still are. We publish a fairly broad perspective of nonfiction books from esoteric cult material to pop-culture investigations to political-conspiracy books to photo books. I keep it broad, because my own interests aren’t so narrow. We have another publishing company now, too, called Process Media.

What have been some of Feral House’s biggest sellers?

There’s a film they’re making of a book of called Lords of Chaos that’s done quite well. Apocalypse Culture. Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA. Our Suicide Girls photo book. We’ve done well with our urban homesteading books sold through Process Media.

Feral House was famously sued a while back over a book alleging a cover-up in the Oklahoma City bombing.

That was settled. I didn’t have the money to fight a legal battle with that guy. He was the deputy chief of the FBI. At the time I did not have legal insurance. I certainly do now. I was not supported by the ACLU or PEN. The only people who wanted to support me were some extreme right wingers trying to oppose Bill Clinton, and I didn’t want to get into bed with them. The author, with the help of those right-wingers, wound up going all the way to the Supreme Court to get the charges dismissed. The book got some very good reviews. It has a lot of different material from good investigations in Texas and Oklahoma, from local investigators. The things that were discovered were pretty remarkable, and it didn’t look that great for the FBI. I think they would have ignored the book if it were being ignored by others, but it was starting to embarrass them.

How did you come to publish the writings of the Unabomber?

This fellow knew of my work, and he was in communication with Ted Kaczynski, so he came to me and showed me the revised manifesto and other things Ted had written, and asked if we’d put it together. I had to investigate the legalities of it, and see if it was worth printing… You cannot pay a criminal in the U.S., that’s the “Son of Sam law,” so I had to get the rights from a French / Swiss publisher, not from Kaczynski himself. Whatever you think of Kaczynski, he’s an extremely intelligent man, and his perspective fascinates me. It’s not the usual perspective on technology and the destruction of the planet and how to avoid it.

I was first exposed to Feral House in the early ’90s, when I read one of the books about Anton LaVey authored with Blanche Barton.

He’s no longer alive, but she is. She lives south of San Diego, raising the son she had with Anton. She’s no longer involved with the church. These guys in New York take care of that stuff. My interest was in Anton himself and not the followers. He was a grand eccentric. That was my end, not Satanism, per se.

A lot of the LaVey Satanism looks like Objectivism to me.

Oh yeah, the Satanists have a regard for Ayn Rand.

So, Apple recently refused to e-publish some of your titles…

Yes. One of them is this book called Voluptuous Panic, and that’s a book you can buy in art museum gift shops, it’s used for course study. It’s a historical book by a professor

at U. Cal.–Berkeley, and still Apple has banned it from their stores. It astounds me that we still have that going on. And it’s not salacious in the way that, for instance, the Peter Sotos book is [see below]. It’s human history. It’s about the sexual culture of the times, in Weimar Berlin. They don’t mind selling it at the Museum of Modern Art, right there on the shelves. I can’t explain why Apple refused us. They don’t tell you why. That’s their way.

I understand one of the things you dig about St. Louis is The Evening Whirl crime newspaper?

I had a subscription to it about a decade ago. I liked everything about it: the weird design, the bizarre way the articles are written—there’s nothing like it. Of course, when I think of St. Louis, I think of Kenn Thomas, too, whom Feral House has published.

The Feral House Book Tour stops at Apop Records (2831 Cherokee), Friday, October 19 at 7 p.m. The event will also feature an appearance by Peter Sotos, the controversial author of Pure Filth, a book of interviews with Jamie Gillis, the model for Jack Horner, Burt Reynolds’ character in Boogie Nights. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 314-664-6575 or visit apoprecords.com.