Since his influential collection, Apocalypse Culture, was first released in 1987, the award-winning writer Adam Parfrey has been credited for discovering and revealing the inner workings of cults and unusual pop culture histories. With "Love, Sex, Fear, Death," Parfrey has captured the cooperation of primary players in the most secretive and talked about cult of our time.
Noted for his
foresight as both a writer and publisher, Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture (1987)
was hailed by J.G. Ballard as “the terminal documents of the Twentieth
Century.” Cult Rapture (1995), subject of a notorious art exhibition
at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art, included among its dozen pop culture
investigations, Parfrey’s Village Voice cover story which was the first
published article on militias and domestic terrorism.
Apocalypse Culture II (2000),
Parfrey’s lauded sequel, anticipated anthrax terror with a disturbing article
on Biological Warfare. Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda of Muslim Fundamentalism (2001),
“a frightening primer on radical Muslim thought” (New York Press), reveals the
ways in which East Jerusalem has become Ground Zero for a coming World War.
In 2012, with
co-author Craig Heimbichner, Adam wrote the seminal book on American secret
societies, Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on
American Society.
But writing is
not Parfrey’s sole forte. According to the Disinfo.com website, “Adam Parfrey
is probably the most influential ‘underground’ publisher in post-millennial
America.” In an L.A. Weekly feature, writer Doug Harvey celebrated
“Adam Parfrey’s notorious, perpetually ahead-of-the-curve company, Feral House,
whose encyclopedic interest in taboo (and conveniently forgotten) cultural
phenomena helped define independent media through the ’90s.”
Tim Burton's bio-pic on
the B-movie director Ed Wood was based upon the Feral House
book, Nightmare of Ecstasy. The 2018 Jonas Akerlund film Lords of
Chaos was based on the Feral House title of the same name. Feral House’s
collections of bizarre conspiracy theories, such as Secret and Suppressed:
Banned Ideas and Hidden History, were noted influences on Chris Carter’s
X-Files. Parfrey himself appeared in and co-wrote Crispin Glover’s
controversial What Is It? a 2005 Sundance Film Festival selection.
Adam passed
away in May 2018. The impact he made, friends empowered, enemies enraged,
is at the very heart of Feral House, and we will embrace that for as long as we
are able.
