Busloads of wide-eyed flower children opened their hearts to this, the sacred tongue of the Upanishads. Intellectuals noted with interest that the symbols had originated with George Bernard Shaw. And skeptics of every stripe were gratified to learn that these were the shapes first envisioned by Sir Thomas More — or was it John Dee? (In a pinch, it would be Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, whose obscurity made him an unimpeachable patsy. Brother Lemuel kept a copy of the book on hand, just in case.) In truth, the mystical ciphers that adorned the Celestial Benevolence Welcome Center in Las Vegas were leftovers from a local scrapyard, purchased at a discount by Boyd Walter Jephson, long before he began styling himself as Brother Lemuel.

At his trial, experts would testify that invented alphabets had played an important part in the development of Mormonism, and had a continuing role in respected literary works such as The Lord of the Rings. The Assistant United States Attorney took a different tack, focussing on the ‘revealed texts’ of Jephson’s barmy, syncretic religion, connecting them persuasively to an episode of The Twilight Zone, and the cryptic markings on the slim volume carried by the visitor from outer space. (As a teenager, Jephson’s fascination with aliens had made him a plummy target for the many UFO cults that thrived in Chicago in the fifties: he fell under the spell of Dorothy Martin, the middle-aged housewife who led the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays on instruction from beings from the planet Clarion, later joining William Ferguson, whose psychic communications with ‘Khauga of Mars’ had prompted the establishment of the Cosmic Circle of Fellowship.) As a condition of his copping to seventeen counts of tax fraud, Jephson’s elocution included an admission that his ‘Divine Symbology’ was nothing more than a typographic prop for performing a cold read, a mechanism to help Jephson draw in visitors, gain their trust, and abscond with their savings.

Shown here are the symbols representing the ‘ten spheres of enlightenment’ in the Center’s cosmology, assembled from parts originally used to promote two casinos, two liquor stores, a car wash, a check cashing service, an amusement park, a nightclub, a variety theatre, and a drive-through chapel. How these origins related to the ten enlightenments of the Center, only Jephson knew.

Published December 1, 2023. Copyright © 2023 Jonathan Hoefler.