On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the July 31 Salon (additional programs may be added closer to Salon time): 

• Preservationist,  tile historian and LAVA Visionary Brian Kaiser will give a talk on Artistic Tile in Southern California. The main body of the presentation is a slide tour of the house that Rufus Keeler built for himself in South Gate in 1924. Mr. Keeler was founder, plant manager, and sole ceramist of the Calco (1923-1932) and Malibu potteries (1926-1932). His house is tile from start to finish, and was made from Calco Tile, a pottery that preceded Malibu Tile. Meant to be a showcase for the use of clay products in home construction and decoration, the house still stands as a magnificent example of one of the finest ceramists in all of California during the 1920s and 1930s.

• LAVA Visionaries Maja D’Aoust, Librarian at the Philosophical Research Society and host of the July 30 Esotouric bus adventure Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release, and Rev. Paul Nugent of The Aetherius Society will host a joint presentation / conversation on the history of Los Angeles as a magnetic spiritual center: a place where people of all faiths and backgrounds have come to seek enlightenment since the turn of the last century.  Maja will introduce us to some of the major esoteric groups and thinkers that have made Los Angeles their home, revealing the shared aims beneath a seemingly disparate collection of seekers.  These will include The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), Manly P. Hall and his Philosophical Research Society and The Theosophy Society, to name a few. Then Paul will give a brief history of The Aetherius Society, the spiritual organization which was brought to Los Angeles by Yoga Master and extraterrestrial contactee Dr. George King in 1959, as part of his mission to help humanity raise itself from universal suffering and ignorance. Dr. King’s initial communication with the Cosmic Master Aetherius occurred in 1954, spurring Dr. King on to found the Society in England the following year (he ran it until his death in 1997; Paul Nugent was a personal assistant to Dr. King and is a current Director of the organization’s American headquarters). Part of the work of The Aetherius Society is predicated on Prayer, and the mental direction of positive energy towards the world’s trouble spots in a manifestation of the concept that consciousness can impact objective reality. The presentation will provide an overview of the Southland’s fascinating spiritual history and ongoing role in the development of new religious thought and action.