MYSTICAL: The Aquarian Foundation

In 1927, a group called The Aquarian Foundation opened a private compound on Vancouver Island designed to study the occult. It was led by Edward Arthur Wilson, who claimed he’d received a message about the end of the world–and he, and his followers, were destined to save mankind with their spiritual wisdom.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  We don't just alert, we help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 0:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  I'll admit it, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for tales about magical schools. I mean, who hasn't imagined what it would be like to go to Hogwarts? We all know I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter. Except for that one time I accidentally said, "Harry's hometown was Hogsmeade instead of Godric's Hollow." I have apologized profusely, but we don't talk about that. Anyway, moving on. Yvette was actually with me when I was officially sorted into the House of Gryffindor at Warner Brothers Studio in Hollywood back in 2018. And of course, I have always fantasized about joining the Quidditch team

• 1:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  or deciding whether I wanted to study Care of Magical Creatures or Divination. And if you're a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, you might know about Miss Kottonic University, where students can study the dark arts. Dungeons and Dragons has more grave university, and Marvel's X-Men is set at the Xavier Institute, where students discover how to use their powers. The point is, every time I watch or read about a magical school, I have one thought and one thought only. I have to go there and I have to learn how to cast all the spells.

• 1:55Yvette Gentile?

  Which is why we are so intrigued to cover today's topic, about a real magic school not far from a small Canadian town of Nanaimo, British Columbia. When it was established in the 1920s, it was run by an organization called the Aquarian Foundation, and they advertised courses on occult training. But they claimed they weren't just doing this to make a buck. The Aquarian Foundation needed their students to be soldiers, to defend the world in the event of what they thought was going to be an upcoming apocalypse. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 2:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. Welcome back to So Supernatural.

• 3:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  Full disclosure, before we dive into today's episode, our family actually had ties to the Aquarian Foundation for a short time in Honolulu. We will talk about that a bit later in the episode.

• 3:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  But today, we want to start from the beginning and share the story of a man who used several different names over the course of his lifetime. He went by Brother 12, Amiel de Valdez, Julian Scotto. But in the interest of keeping things simple, we're going to refer to him by the name he used most often, Edward Wilson. Edward was born and raised in England in the late 1800s. In 1902, when he was 24 years old, he married a woman named Marjorie and together, they had two kids. Five years later, in 1907, Edward and his family relocated to Canada,

• 4:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  specifically to the beautiful shores of British Columbia. But at his heart, Edward wasn't a man meant to settle down in just one place. He was an explorer. He loved taking sailboats out into the Pacific and getting away from it all. So for years, he worked menial jobs, you know, making deliveries and doing administrative work, just so he could afford to go sailing during his downtime. Then, when he was in his mid-30s, Edward quit those low-paying jobs to become a sailor full-time, which was a dream come true. But, his career change came with a cost.

• 4:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  Edward literally abandoned his family for the job. He cut off all contact with his wife and children to go sailing around the world. But, in his mind, the sacrifice was worth it. There was something about being out on the open water, smelling the salt air, getting rocked by the waves, and looking up at the stars above. Edward found the ocean spiritually nourishing. Between that and being exposed to new people with new ideas, Edward developed a fascination with mysticism and the occult.

• 5:29Yvette Gentile?

  By this point, it was now the 1910s. Occultism was very popular and pretty mainstream all across the Western world. Secret societies were flourishing. Mediums and psychics made a lot of money by hosting seances. Spiritual movements were springing up all throughout Europe and North America. And this included a school of thought known as theosophy.

• 5:55Yvette Gentile?

  That word comes from the Greek words "theos", meaning "God", and "sophia", meaning "wisdom". The people who follow theosophy believe they can use magic and occultism to gain divine wisdom, or get knowledge directly from God. Most of the principles of theosophy come from a woman named Helena Blavatsky. In the late 1800s, she claimed that she'd learned secrets about the universe from enlightened beings, who she called "the great masters". They told her there were two realities. First, there's the one that we live in. It's full of all of the things we can perceive with our five senses,

• 6:38Yvette Gentile?

  where everything follows the laws of science. But according to Helena and the great masters, there's also a second reality, a spiritual one. And this is where the enlightened beings exist. Magic and other forces that defy scientific explanation are real in this universe. Now, we can't perceive this other world directly, but theosophists say we can connect to it by meditating, studying sacred texts, and performing magic rituals. And this allows the great masters to essentially upload occult knowledge directly to our brains. We can also learn more about this other world by embracing all religions,

• 7:23Yvette Gentile?

  because theosophy teaches that every faith has a grain of truth to it. But each one gets things a little wrong. So if you want to learn the truth about God, you need to know a little about Christianity, a bit of Judaism, some Buddhism, and Islam, and so forth.

• 7:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now, after Edward heard about theosophy and learned a few of Helena's teachings, he was hooked. He spent hours on the ship reading theosophic books and pamphlets. He also studied world religions, astrology, and magic. Edward wanted to make sense of this world and the spiritual one. He regularly performed rituals, he meditated, and he prayed to God and the great masters to give him a revelation.

• 8:13Yvette Gentile?

  By 1924, 46-year-old Edward was still waiting for that awakening. It had been over a decade of studying theosophy, and it hadn't brought him anything it promised. On top of that, his personal life wasn't going great, and he hadn't spoken to his wife or their two kids in over a decade. He was living in the south of France, and he had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Plus, he was dealing with some serious health issues and was too sick to work. He was dead broke, and he had no idea how he was even going to make ends meet. Then, one chilly autumn night, Edward was lying in bed, unable to fall asleep.

• 8:58Yvette Gentile?

  After he tossed and turned for a bit, he opened his eyes, and he saw a symbol floating in the air above his head. It looked like a cross, except the top was a loop rather than a straight line. Edward had studied the occult long enough to recognize the symbol. It's called an Egyptian cross or an ankh. It symbolizes life and rebirth, and at this time, Edward desperately needed a fresh start, so it was a welcome vision. Then Edward heard a voice speaking to him inside his head. The voice didn't announce itself, but Edward intuitively knew he was communicating with an ancient Egyptian god of some kind.

• 9:42Yvette Gentile?

  The voice told Edward that he had a special purpose, and very soon, he was going to do something very important, something that would change the world, and he had to get ready. And then this impulse came over Edward, and he had a sudden, urgent need to write. He grabbed a pen and paper and started scrawling pages and pages of text. He wasn't consciously aware of what he was writing, and yet, these words and phrases came pouring out of his pen, almost like this other being had taken over his body, and they were using him to transcribe this message.

• 10:24Yvette Gentile?

  After a short rest, Edward had another vision where he spoke to the Egyptian god. It took control of his body again and had him write even more texts. This whole process lasted three or four days. And once everything was done, Edward went back over his papers and read everything he'd written.

• 10:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  Between the texts and his conversations with the god, Edward now understood who he'd been in communication with. A great master of wisdom who was once worshipped by the ancient Egyptians. One of the same spiritual beings who taught Helena Blavatsky about theosophy decades earlier. The great master told him he's been chosen to be a teacher and to help enlighten other people who wanted to learn mystical truths. Which is why the great master was now teaching Edward everything he knew. They also said Edward had a divine purpose.

• 11:28Yvette Gentile?

  Dark times were coming and according to the great master, Edward was destined to help humanity through a series of upcoming trials and tribulations. He'd become a great teacher and helped society improve to the best possible version of itself. But he wouldn't be able to do it alone.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  We don't just alert, we help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 12:25Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because that's what I'm doing.

• 12:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 13:03Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:21Yvette Gentile?

  In 1924, 46-year-old spiritualist Edward Wilson was broke and penniless in the south of France. While there, he was reportedly visited by a powerful, spiritual being called the Great Master, and it told Edward that he had a destiny to fulfill. According to the Great Master, the apocalypse was coming. It didn't tell Edward when it was going to happen, but it did sort of say how. At some point, dark spirits would make the world's leaders given to their greed, selfishness, and cruelest impulses. Government officials would become corrupt, and the powerful would prey on the weak.

• 14:04Yvette Gentile?

  Then society would collapse, and many people would die. And that's supposedly where Edward came in. His job was to rebuild civilization by teaching humanity how to care for the earth and to love one another. And that's how he transformed the post-dystopian world into a paradise. And Edward realized, if he began educating people right away, he'd have lots of disciples to help him build his utopia.

• 14:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  So Edward's next steps were clear. First, he published all those pages of texts he wrote under the great master's control. Over the next two years, Edward released two books and multiple articles. They warned that doomsday was coming and explained some of the spiritual secrets he'd learned. Well, sort of. His writing was dense and full of symbolism. It was hard for anyone to make sense of it, unless they were already familiar with theosophy. But, to put it in simple terms, Edward wrote that God and magic had always existed, even before humanity evolved.

• 15:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  The only way to connect with the divine was by spending years studying, just like Edward had done. He also wrote that the universe is always going through continual cycles of death and rebirth. Natural disasters wipe out forests or destroy cities, just for new plants, animals, and people to take root and thrive afterward. People are also continually dying and coming back. And according to Edward, each time someone is reincarnated, they have an opportunity to become a better version of themselves, and to avoid repeating past mistakes from previous lives.

• 15:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  But Edward also said there were some occult truths that were too complex to explain in a book. He said they required more of a one-on-one approach. So he traveled through Europe, Canada, and the United States, offering classes on spirituality and magic.

• 16:20Yvette Gentile?

  Edward's lessons were an instant hit, and by 1927, he had more students than he could teach on his own. But also, the clock was ticking. Edward knew the apocalypse was coming any day now, and he wanted to prepare as many people as he could. So he realized he needed to up his game. And the best way to do that was establishing a formal school. That way, he could hire his top students as teachers and take on more disciples.

• 16:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  More importantly, though, Edward saw his school as being like an ark. If he and his students could weather the apocalypse, they could also go out into the world and rebuild society after it collapsed. So in early 1927, he bought property just outside of Nanaimo, British Columbia. It sprawled across 100 remote acres, roughly a seventh of a square mile, on Vancouver Island just off of the coast. Edward chose the location because he said the great master themselves had come to him in a vision. They said this was the perfect place to establish his school. But we should also note that Nanaimo was also

• 17:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  pretty close to where he used to live with his wife and children at one time. So maybe it just felt familiar and comfortable to him.

• 17:47Yvette Gentile?

  You know, I was doing research on this and that is not, let's just say, a cheap area. So he was making some money, you know, from all of his students that were paying him. Regardless, this is where Edward officially established the Aquarian Foundation. The name came from another one of Edward's visions. In it, the great master told him that period of enlightenment, post-apocalypse, would be called the Aquarian Era. And over the next few years, Edward made the Aquarian Foundation a reality. He hired teachers, built classrooms, dining halls, storage areas, and residences.

• 18:31Yvette Gentile?

  The school officially opened its doors in 1928. Within a few months, Edward had over 1,200 followers. People were flocking to British Columbia from all over the world, but mostly the United States, Canada, and England.

• 18:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Even though his books were never bestsellers, they were incredibly popular in theosophical circles. If you wanted to learn the teachings, they said Edward was the best of the best. But by early 1928, less than a year after the Aquarian Foundation was established, the problems began.

• 19:11Yvette Gentile?

  That's right. Edward had been involved for some time now with a woman named Elma Wilson. And whenever Edward introduced anyone to Elma, he said she was his wife. But she wasn't. And from what I can tell, he never formally divorced his original wife, Marjorie, who he abandoned when he became a sailor. And Edward and Elma were also never officially married. Then, in 1928, Edward was traveling to Chicago when he met a beautiful woman on the train. And her name was Myrtle Baumgartner. She lived in New York City with her husband, who was a very rich and influential doctor.

• 19:53Yvette Gentile?

  But she was interested in learning about spiritualism. Edward invited Myrtle to come to the Aquarian Foundation, where he promised to give her special one-on-one lessons. Okay. Yeah. That way, Myrtle could develop her mystical abilities faster than average. Myrtle accepted the offer and abandoned her family to join the school. Her private lessons took place in a building called "The House of Mystery." It was supposed to be a holy place where people could meditate and get in touch with the divine. And this building was supposed to be sacred. Except, it was pretty obvious to everyone at the Aquarian Foundation

• 20:38Yvette Gentile?

  that when Edward and Myrtle were in the House of Contemplation, they weren't meditating or learning about magic. They were having an affair. And they were pretty blatant about it.

• 20:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  Escandaló. I still have to say it. Escandaló.

• 20:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  Many of Edward's followers thought he and Myrtle were being incredibly disrespectful. They were mistreating their respective spouses and also using a sacred place for activities that were anything but spiritual. But when they confronted Edward about it, you know he had an excuse ready. He said he'd received a new divine revelation. He now knew he was the reincarnation of the Egyptian god Osiris, who ruled over fertility, the underworld, and the kings. According to Edward, Myrtle was the reincarnation of Osiris's wife, Isis.

• 21:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  And he was going to get Myrtle pregnant with the reincarnation of Horus, the god of the sky. Most importantly, Horus was destined to rule over humanity during the Aquarian Age. So in other words, Edward said he wasn't cheating on his wife with a married woman because he wanted to. He was just fulfilling his spiritual duty. Not all of Edward's followers bought this, though. Some dropped out of the school and abandoned him. But a few loyal students stuck around. And sure enough, a few months after Edward made his announcement, Myrtle got pregnant.

• 22:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  But sadly, she lost the baby before it was born. She later even had a second miscarriage. Edward was devastated. But in 1929, the 50-year-old found something new to focus on. He had met two new students, a 39-year-old beauty named Mabel Scotto and her husband. Almost as soon as Edward laid eyes on Mabel, he announced that he'd made a mistake the previous year. He wasn't destined to get Myrtle pregnant. Mabel was his Isis. Edward told Mabel and her husband that he'd only teach them about theosophy if they agreed to let him sleep with Mabel.

• 23:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  And they were both, apparently, okay with it.

• 23:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  Poor Myrtle basically got dumped and left the community after suffering from mental health issues. I mean, can you blame her? And the wondrous child Edward spoke about never ended up coming to be.

• 23:26Yvette Gentile?

  Well, neither did the apocalypse. But Edward's followers didn't lose faith, in part because he made other suspiciously accurate predictions. For example, in the late 1920s, Edward started telling his students they shouldn't trust the banks, and they weren't safe. At the time, nobody knew what he was talking about. But on October 28, 1929, the stock market crashed, and this kicked off the Great Depression. Before the crash, a lot of bankers and financial experts had believed the economy would remain strong forever. And for the past decade, they've been lending a ton of money to stockbrokers, business owners, and investors.

• 24:11Yvette Gentile?

  Except now, most of those customers couldn't pay back their loans. The loss was too big for them to absorb. And roughly 33 to 50% of all the banks in the United States went bankrupt. And those who had their life savings in those institutions lost everything. But Edward managed to escape the disaster because he withdrew all of his money from the banks before the crash, which was enough to convince many of his followers that he really was a prophet who could see the future. And while they might be delayed,

• 24:53Yvette Gentile?

  they believed the rest of his predictions were about to come true. And that the end of the world was imminent.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe: Ahead of Crime in Real Time. Outdoor deterrents plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 25:46Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines, and I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files, we're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 26:17Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  In the mid to late 1920s, a man named Edward Wilson taught mystical secrets at the Aquarian Foundation near Nanaimo, Canada. But after a stock market crash in 1929, he became convinced that his predictions were correct and the apocalypse was imminent. That's when Edward took things to the next level. He made his students learn how to use guns to defend themselves. He also established several new settlements in and around his original headquarters, with their own schools, their own farms, and even more residence. That way, if his enemies attacked and destroyed one campus, there would still be survivors

• 27:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  elsewhere. Edward also ordered his followers to spend all day, every day farming, preserving food, storing water, and prepping for a coming disaster. He even hired outside hands from the community to help his students with the work. Then he traded most of the cash he had for gold coins. He figured if the Canadian government collapsed, paper money would be worthless, but gold always had value.

• 27:49Yvette Gentile?

  And he had a ton of gold coins to manage. For years, his students had been paying top dollar for his classes, and many of them made voluntary donations on top of their tuition fees. He routinely received checks worth tens of thousands of Canadian or American dollars. By the early 1930s, Edward's personal fortune was worth an estimated 400,000 Canadian dollars, the equivalent of over 8 million US dollars today. And he was hoarding all those gold coins in a secret hiding place. And get this, to this day, no one knows exactly where,

• 28:34Yvette Gentile?

  because Edward supposedly never told a soul.

• 28:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  But Edward's students were starting to feel frustrated about the whole situation, and their patience was wearing very thin. Edward was incredibly wealthy. He was sleeping with multiple women, and a couple of them were married to other men. All while his followers were doing backbreaking manual labor, some of it pointlessly cruel. They were stockpiling food and supplies, including guns, which meant tensions with the local police were getting pretty high. In fact, throughout the early 1930s, officers routinely came to the Aquarian Foundation to check up on the residents. It was almost like the authorities were hoping to catch them doing something wrong.

• 29:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  That way, they'd have an excuse to arrest everyone and shut down the school. Soon, Edward told his students to be ready to start shooting police officers on sight if they got too close to the property. And his followers were not okay with those orders. It's one thing to learn how to use a gun for self-defense. It's a whole other thing to fire at law enforcement. That's when a lot of students stopped trusting Edward and stopped following his orders.

• 29:53Yvette Gentile?

  Even his paid employees were having issues with him. Earlier, we mentioned that Edward hired local laborers to help with farm work, maintenance, and prepping. The problem was, he never paid them for their work. So, they sued him for back wages. Except during that trial, Edward demonstrated that he actually was a force to be reckoned with. Right there in the courtroom, in front of everyone, the main witness dramatically collapsed. It was like someone had punched him in the face, or knocked him over. Except, nobody had touched him. And then, before anyone could react, the entire front row of spectators also fell over, all at once.

• 30:39Yvette Gentile?

  The judge went to bang his gavel, but he couldn't. And every time he opened his mouth, a growl came out, as though he was possessed by something. On a later date in the courtroom, the plaintiff's attorney was giving a speech when, all of a sudden, he stopped talking mid-sentence. He admitted out loud that his "mind" had just gone blank, and he had completely forgotten the argument he was about to make. Edward's followers claimed it was because he psychically wiped the lawyer's mind clean. They also said he used his powers to prevent the judge from speaking, all in an effort to prove he was the real deal.

• 31:23Yvette Gentile?

  After that, the judge dismissed the case, and Edward walked away, unscathed. At least, for the time being. But his legal troubles were still brewing.

• 31:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  In 1933, two of Edward's former students filed a different lawsuit against him. They said he was a con artist who'd faked his abilities. They also said he took their tuition money under false pretenses, and they wanted a refund. For whatever reason, this case went very differently than the first. There was no sorcery in the courtroom. Both sides presented their evidence, and everything played out in the way you might expect. The judge ruled Edward was a fraud, and ordered him to give those students their money back. Except, he didn't.

• 32:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  When the authorities went to campus to see why, there was no sign of Edward anywhere. His lover Mabel was also missing. They had fled the country, and their home was trashed. In fact, several buildings at the Aquarian Foundation had been ransacked and raided. Someone had even sunk one of the school's boats using dynamite. And all of the furniture, textbooks, and other supplies had been completely destroyed. There was a message, though, discovered years later in 1941. It was written on a piece of paper and tucked away beneath a trapdoor in a chicken coop. It rudely mocked Edward's enemies and former followers,

• 32:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  calling them "fools and traitors." Many believe it was Edward himself who left that letter and damage in his wake.

• 33:09Yvette Gentile?

  They didn't appear again until Edward and Mabel were finally spotted in England before moving on to Switzerland in August of 1934. But there was nothing his former students could do from the other side of the Atlantic. And then, three months after the sighting, news broke that Edward had died of a heart condition. His death certificate said he passed on November 7, 1934, in the comfort of his own home. He was just 56 years old. However, two years later, a man named Donald Cunliffe was in San Francisco near the harbor, and so he could see the ships coming and going from the docks. Donald had never been a member of the Aquarian Foundation,

• 33:54Yvette Gentile?

  but his father Frank was a former student. And Donald had met Edward plenty of times when he visited his dad on campus. So one day, Donald saw someone on one of those ships he recognized. It was Edward alive and well. It was just a glimpse. I mean, Donald didn't get a chance to speak to Edward, but he had no doubt in his mind Edward wasn't dead. He was traveling the world by boat. So of course rumors started circulating that Edward had faked his own death.

• 34:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  If that's true, then it's impossible to say how much longer he lived after 1934, where he was staying, or how he spent the final years of his life. There's also no record of what happened to Mabel. But they're not the only ones missing. To this day, Edward's trove of gold coins has also never been found. Treasure hunters have searched the old Aquarian Foundation campus top to bottom, and they haven't uncovered a single trace of the money. People are still organizing treasure hunting events in the hopes of discovering it.

• 35:15Yvette Gentile?

  Eventually, the original Aquarian Foundation was shut down on the orders of the British Columbia government. Edward and Mabel had disappeared. There was no sign of their wealth, and the compound near Nanaimo had been abandoned. It's absolutely also worth noting that there was an ugly side to his views. Edward blamed the Jews for the world's problems, and he hated Catholics, too. He even tried to get in good graces with the Ku Klux Klan. And I just have to say that, doing my research, when we're talking about his followers that were there, working for him, he treated them like slaves because they were doing incredibly hard,

• 36:00Yvette Gentile?

  like, manual labor, and not taking care of them, not paying, as we mentioned earlier.

• 36:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  He just wasn't a good man, it seemed like.

• 36:09Yvette Gentile?

  No.

• 36:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  But there were some who still believed Edward's teachings were legitimate, particularly his ideas on how the universe worked.

• 36:21Yvette Gentile?

  At that time, a nineteen-year-old philosophy student named Keith Reinhardt was enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle. And when he wasn't doing homework, he was studying theosophy just like Edward. He was fascinated by world religions, magic, and past lives. Then, one night during the summer, he had a vision. In it, the great masters told him he had a divine purpose, and he needed to establish a magical school and lead humanity to become a better version of itself. Does that sound familiar, y'all?

• 37:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  Hello. Yes. And the similarities didn't stop there. In late 1955, Keith established a magical school that would teach people how to perform seances, meditate, recall past lives, and make contact with the great masters. It was in Seattle, Washington, and it was called the Aquarian Foundation. And here's another eerie parallel. Keith seemed to have special powers, but different ones from what Edward had. Specifically, Keith was very good at performing seances and communicating with the spirits of the dead. For example, one time,

• 37:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  a Seattle woman named Hazel Clark came to the Aquarian Foundation. But she didn't want to study theosophy. She wanted Keith's help. Hazel's mother, Phoebe, had been missing for several days. The police hadn't been able to find her, and neither had search parties. So Hazel asked if Keith could use his magical abilities to figure out where her mother had gone. Keith agreed to perform a seance. And during the ritual, he supposedly made contact with Phoebe's spirit. She told him that on the day she'd gone missing, she had been walking alongside a river when she tripped and fell into the water and died.

• 38:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  After Keith delivered the bad news to Hazel, she asked the police to look for Phoebe in the river. And sure enough, they found her remains right where Keith had said she would be. Pretty much everyone agreed. There was no way he could have guessed something that specific. This had to be a sign that he really had magical abilities. So word spread about Keith, just like it did with Edward. But there was one huge difference. Keith wasn't focused on an upcoming apocalypse. He never preached that the end of the world was coming. Instead, he actually worked to make people's lives better in the here and now.

• 39:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  Throughout the 1960s, Keith was very outspoken about what we now call the LGBTQIA+ Two-Spirit Rights Movement. He fought for legalized same-sex marriage and interracial marriage, both of which were very controversial at the time. And interracial marriage didn't even become legal until 1967 with the Loving Act.

• 39:38Yvette Gentile?

  Loving, yeah, exactly.

• 39:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  So it's no surprise that his teachings resonated with so many people. But there's also quite a bit of controversy surrounding the modern-day Aquarian Foundation, including sources that mention coercive dynamics amongst some of its branches. And like I mentioned earlier, we have our own connection to the modern-day Aquarian Foundation. I want to be fully transparent here. I have not had a relationship with my father since I came out to him as a lesbian in 2009. So I can't go back and ask him what his experience was like. But I do know that he visited the Aquarian Foundation several times in Honolulu, Hawaii in the late 1970s.

• 40:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  I was born in December of 1978, so I obviously don't remember much other than the stories our mom and Yvette have shared with me. But Yvette, I vividly remember you telling me about going to a séance with my dad and our mom. I think you even talked about it on this show before, but you didn't go into detail. I would love to know more about it.

• 40:49Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, and that was for the Aquarian Foundation. But you know, when I look back on that time, it was when mom was really exploring, you know, her spiritual, like her deeper spiritual path. Because I remember going to EST and SI and doing all these different things with her. But I remember being in a room at a hotel, like a ballroom, close to the wall. It was pitch dark and I could swear, like from looking at Keith's picture, that he was there speaking.

• 41:25Rasha Pecoraro?

  He was the one doing the séance?

• 41:27Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, he was the one doing the séance. But it left me with such a traumatic feeling. Like that's, I think that's why I'm a little bit claustrophobic. I just remember, you know, being in this very dark room, feeling scared. I mean, I was glad that mom was there, but I was squeezing onto her hand so tight. And when I, when I look back on that now, I feel like that has created a little bit of trauma in me because I get claustrophobic.

• 41:56Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 41:57Yvette Gentile?

  So, and it definitely was for the Aquarian Foundation. That I remember for sure.

• 42:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  And didn't you think that the man who was doing the séance, you thought it was Keith, right?

• 42:10Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, absolutely. When I, when we were doing the research and I was looking at all the photos, that was the person that was there because he always had this long blond hair. And I was like, oh my God, that was the guy. The Aquarian Foundation is still operating today. Keith passed away in 1999, but his teachings and lessons still live on. Unlike Edward's Aquarian Foundation, which fell apart in his absence.

• 42:40Yvette Gentile?

  But there are others who say Edward didn't get it totally wrong. His Aquarian Foundation did in fact accomplish some of the things he set out to do. After all, you can't deny that Edward correctly predicted the collapse of the banking system in 1929. And in the 1920s, he warned that soon one or more dictators would rise and try to take over the world. Sure enough, in 1925, Benito Mussolini declared himself the dictator of Italy. And then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany.

• 43:20Yvette Gentile?

  Eight years after that, in 1941, Joseph Stalin became Premier of the Soviet Union. All to say, Edward was right on the money with certain predictions.

• 43:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  He also warned that in the future, several large businesses would merge and form giant mega corporations. This would lead to economic inequality. And those companies would wield immense power, rivaling governments. And in the 100 or so years since then, we've seen countless corporate mergers. And the rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer.

• 44:04Yvette Gentile?

  Today, the seven largest companies in the world have more money than every country in South America, the Caribbean, and Africa combined. And experts warn that the economy is on track for more monopolies to form, for their CEOs to accumulate more wealth, and for the gap between the have and the have-nots to get bigger. So that's another prediction Edward got right.

• 44:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  Plus, we can't forget the story about what happened in the courtroom the first time he was sued. It's possible that Edward had some kind of psychic ability on top of his gift of prophecy.

• 44:46Yvette Gentile?

  When I think about what happened in the courtroom, though, there were no cameras, like, so we have no physical evidence, right? It's just hearsay of what people saw.

• 44:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 44:56Yvette Gentile?

  And Edward also made many predictions that never came true. The biggest one was that an apocalyptic event was going to destroy Western society, and his son was going to lead the world to a new utopia. It has been nearly a century since Edward made those prophecies, and Canada, the US, the UK, and the rest of the Western world are all still here. We didn't have an apocalypse, nor are we currently living in paradise ruled by any member of Edward's family. Plus, as we mentioned, some of his prophecies relied on very bigoted stereotypes. I am not going to get into them

• 45:41Yvette Gentile?

  because we don't even need to put those ideas out into the world, especially today. But trust me when I tell you, they were very hateful, and they weren't based in reality. And Edward had major character flaws. He lied, and he cheated on his partners, abused his followers, hoarded his wealth. He was bigoted, he manipulated people, he caused a lot of harm. I just have to say, none of that fits with what I'd expect from a deep spiritual visionary.

• 46:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  Couldn't agree with you more. So if Edward got something right, does that make him a prophet? Or does it just make him lucky? Evil doesn't stop someone from being intuitive. And even if he did receive some spiritual message from another realm, he still used it for his own gain. Which is why we need to keep asking ourselves, at what cost do we keep believing a message when the messenger is compromised? So, that's why we as a society need to follow and trust our own intuition, and not follow a false prophet.

• 47:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Because good will always conquer evil.

• 47:17Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 47:37Yvette Gentile?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 47:43Speaker 06

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful: you never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.