Mystical Medicine, Wicked Weapon
New clues about Marcia Moore's death + reflections on her impact on ketamine culture
The following is an excerpt from p. 197-201 of Chapter 4, “Mystical Medicine, Wicked Weapon: A Both/And Approach to Ketamine” from my new book, Drugism (2022):
[This excerpt is the third in a three-part series exploring the strange story of Marcia Moore, the Sheraton hotel heiress. This excerpt is continued from last week’s.]
Marcia Moore’s brother Robin Moore believed that his sister was murdered. In an interview shortly after the skull fragment was found, Robin said “I don’t for one minute believe that my sister died a natural death.”[i] “Marcia was targeted,” he insisted.
Robin, who served in the Air Force during the war in Vietnam, wrote several books himself. They cover topics including the military, drug trafficking, and the CIA. He was keenly aware of the hidden forces at play beneath the surface of US politics and culture. He also grew up with Marcia, and maintained correspondence with her throughout her life.
At the time of her disappearance, Marcia was working on a book about the Kennedy family.[ii] Not coincidentally, Robin was an acquaintance of Robert F. Kennedy while they were students at Harvard. Marcia had even gone so far as to make plans for the book’s release with Robin’s publisher. But the book was never published.
At the time of her disappearance, Marcia was working on a book about the Kennedy family.
Robin believed “a cult” may have been responsible for his sister’s death. A year before her disappearance, he received a letter “offering...condolences about the death of his sister.” He immediately called her—she was alive. She told him that “an occult group” was trying to mess with her.[iii] Later, when she actually did disappear, Robin suspected that her body had been cut into several pieces and dispersed to avoid detection. As alarming as this may sound, it makes more sense than Jansen’s theory.
If we look back to the contents of Journeys into the Bright World itself, there is a clue that suggests that Moore was involved with “an occult group.” In a transcription of one of her ketamine sessions with Alltounian, Moore remarked, “we are members of the Order of the Serpent.” In the same conversation, she said “the lovers have to die,” not once but twice.[iv]
Additionally, in the course of their exhaustive research, the DiSommas encountered loads of evidence that not only Marcia but the whole Moore family was in fact well-connected to several notable figures within the occultist milieu. Her great grandfather Augustus Moore was a personal friend of Andrew Jackson Davis. Her father Robert was an acquaintance of Alice Bailey and made substantial donations to Bailey’s Lucis Trust. Marcia had also met Bailey and corresponded with her. Bailey encouraged Marcia to pursue her interest in the occult. Marcia and her first husband were also enthusiastic members of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky.[v]
If we look back to the contents of Journeys into the Bright World itself, there is a clue that suggests that Moore was involved with “an occult group.”
However, if we return to the same conversation documented in Journeys into the Bright World, we find another clue—one that does not suggest a cult but rather Howard as the perpetrator of Marcia’s death. In response to Moore’s musings on death and her comment about the Order of the Serpent, Alltounian replied, “The book’s going to come out; I’ll have to quit my job. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”[vi]
Later on in the book, we find the following passage: “A spectacular martyrdom might just do the trick in publicizing samadhi therapy.”[vii] And once again, this idea of death is juxtaposed with concerns for Alltounian’s job on the same page. In retrospect the book reads almost like a mystery novel.
After her disappearance, the Moore family hired private detectives to try to locate Marcia. Some in the family suspected Alltounian was responsible for her disappearance. He, however, insisted he was innocent and just as distraught and confused as the family was. After the incident, Alltounian claimed that he tried to psychically locate his wife by simultaneously fasting, doing yoga, and using ketamine.[viii] Needless to say, it did not work.
Alltounian worried: “The book’s going to come out; I’ll have to quit my job. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”
In the aftermath of Moore’s disappearance, Alltounian was unable to find a job in Washington. He believed this was due to publicity of his activities with Moore. He had to move across the country, to Detroit, to find a job.[ix] Eventually he was able to return to Washington.
Although Alltounian was able to completely escape responsibility for Moore’s death, the DiSommas’ extensive research heavily suggests that he in fact murdered her. An abundance of clues, suppressed for decades, have finally emerged with the publication of the DiSommas’ book Dematerialized in 2021. They indicate that Alltounian targeted Moore largely because of her wealth and that he killed her hoping to cash in on it.
According to the DiSommas, Howard had an immediate and unusual interest in Marcia’s trust fund, which her father noticed and thought suspicious. Shortly after their marriage, Howard called the trust company that managed it to inquire about the policy details for Marcia’s trust fund.[x] And soon after her death, he complained about financial frustrations to a friend and expressed a desire to “go after [Marcia’s] trust.”[xi]
New clues suggest that Alltounian targeted Moore because of her wealth and that he killed her hoping to cash in on it.
If Howard did in fact kill Marcia, he did an excellent job of concealing it. He made up various lies about Marcia to try to explain her death, such as that she suffered amnesia and that she enjoyed long walks at night. He also posed numerous other obstacles to the investigation.[xii]
As mentioned above, some of the Moore family suspected Alltounian’s guilt. So, too, did the detective assigned to the case and at least one of Marcia’s friends.[xiii] Although the detective was unable to find conclusive evidence of Alltounian’s guilt, the DiSommas later uncovered some rather disturbing information. It concerns Moore and Alltounian’s marriage as well as his life after her death, and all of it seems to further implicate him as the perpetrator.
Marcia’s disappearance generated a considerable amount of media attention. In a way, the story was perfect for tabloids: a wealthy hotel heiress gets hooked a new drug and goes missing. At the center of most of the coverage was Howard, who strangely seemed to relish the media attention. After a television appearance he had, Howard told a friend, “I am getting so good at this...I eat it up...I love being on television.” Astonishingly, in one interview, he inadvertently admitted that “he hated women.”[xiv]
According to acquaintances, Howard was quite the misogynist.
According to acquaintances, Howard was indeed quite the misogynist. He was thought to be responsible for numerous sexual assaults and has been described as “a serial rapist.” An ex-girlfriend who was involved with him after Marcia’s death described him as “diabolical” and “a sociopath.”[xv]
The same woman told the DiSommas that Howard admitted to her that he had killed Marcia with an overdose of ketamine and then dumped her body.[xvi] This posthumous third-party testimonial is likely the strongest piece of information we will ever find which indicates Howard’s guilt. And if this is in fact true, it has disturbing ramifications for ketamine’s place in the world today.
If Howard did murder Marcia with ketamine hoping to cash in on her trust fund, then in a way the whole story is a rather fitting microcosm for the culture around ketamine more broadly. The drug that provided such deep and meaningful experiences for the Sheraton heiress was also the instrument of her demise. The same doctor who granted her access to “the bright world,” as she called it, also ushered her into the afterlife with the very same drug. In her story we see clearly that ketamine is both a mystical medicine and a wicked weapon.
Marcia Moore’s story is a rather fitting microcosm for the culture around ketamine more broadly.
But the impact that Moore and Alltounian had on ketamine culture was not entirely negative. Marcia felt that ketamine made the world a better place. And her work foreshadows several themes which have only grown more concrete since her passing.
In many ways, Moore represented the vanguard of ketamine science, culture, and politics. She speculated about the existence of a ketamine-like substance which might be endogenous to the human body.[xvii] Later, clinical researchers such as Rick Strassman and Karl Jansen also wrote about the possibility of endogenous substances which have a similar function to ketamine, lending their expertise in psychiatry to flesh out the theory.[xviii]
Through their book, Moore and Alltounian recommended ketamine for depression, obesity, “addiction,” and more.[xix] Had she lived longer, Moore would likely have been enthusiastic about the research in the ‘90s in which ketamine was used to treat compulsive eating disorders, with some success.[xx] She would likely be fully supportive of the drug’s current use for depression, which received FDA approval in 2019.
In many ways, Moore represented the vanguard of ketamine science, culture, and politics.
From Journeys into the Bright World we also see clearly that Moore was well-versed in mid-century psychedelic literature and culture. She placed her work with ketamine squarely in the tradition of Gordon Wasson, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, etc.[xxi] According to the DiSommas, she was personally acquainted with Timothy Leary.[xxii] The book also mentioned Salvador Roquet and loosely compared Moore’s own style of samadhi therapy to Roquet’s practices.[xxiii]
However, along with this comparison of ketamine to LSD, psilocybin, etc. came, naturally, a kind of drugism. Moore believed ketamine was objectively superior to other drugs. The only time DMT is mentioned in Journeys into the Bright World, for example, is in reference to its illegal status.[xxiv] Ketamine, Moore insisted, was better than such drugs in part because it was not federally controlled (at the time—this changed in 1999). While this can be interpreted as a noble measure to protect the user from persecution, in the context of the book it can also be read as a judgment of DMT and illegal substances more broadly. Moore clearly felt comfortable binging on ketamine and publicizing her experiences, and her enthusiasm for the drug was anchored firmly in its legality.
Moore envisioned spiritual centers in which people would vape ketamine together and practice samadhi therapy.[xxv] Although this particular combination does not exist yet (to my knowledge), there are spiritual centers that feature the use of psychoactive drugs as well as legal ketamine clinics, and, in more casual scenarios, people do vape ketamine. The basic ingredients of her vision, if not the final product, have all become reality.
The basic ingredients of Marcia Moore’s vision, if not the final product, have all become reality.
Perhaps most importantly, Moore and Alltounian held a concern about ketamine which many are only now beginning to share. In Journeys into the Bright World, they wrote that they were less worried about the consequences of recreational ketamine use than they were about the consequences of its use by medical professionals who are unaware of the drug’s potential effects.[xxvi] Unfortunately, this precise issue has increased drastically in recent years [and it is one we will discuss in an upcoming excerpt].
Endnotes
[i] “Author says sister’s...”
[ii] Rule, 255.
[iii] “Author says sister’s...”
[iv] Moore and Alltounian, 74 and 75.
[v] On Davis connection, see DiSomma and DiSomma, 57. On Bailey connection, see ibid., 73-74. On Theosophical Society membership, see ibid., 58 and 102.
[vi] Moore and Alltounian, 75.
[vii] Ibid., 162.
[viii] Rule, 262 and 267.
[ix] Ibid., 268.
[x] DiSomma and DiSomma, 50 and 339.
[xi] Ibid., 295.
[xii] Ibid., 246, 319, and 349.
[xiii] Ibid., 295-296, 318-319.
[xiv] Ibid., 244 and 276.
[xv] Ibid., 382 and 392.
[xvi] Ibid., 390.
[xvii] Moore and Alltounian, 102.
[xviii] Strassman et al, 79; Jansen, 116.
[xix] Moore and Alltounian, 121.
[xx] Jansen, 293-294.
[xxi] Moore and Alltounian, 2 and 58.
[xxii] DiSomma and DiSomma, 151.
[xxiii] Moore and Alltounian, 157.
[xxiv] Ibid., 181.
[xxv] Ibid., 121 and 160.
[xxvi] Ibid., 163.
Sources
“Author says sister’s death may be work of witches or bizarre cult.” United Press International, Mar 26, 1981.
DiSomma, Joseph and Marina DiSomma. Dematerialized: The Mysterious Disappearance of Marcia Moore. Post Hill Press, New York: NY. 2021.
Jansen, Karl. Ketamine: Dreams and Realities. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Sarasota, FL. 2004.
Moore, Marcia and Howard Alltounian. Journeys into the Bright World. Para Research, Inc. 1978.
Rule, Ann. Rage to Kill and Other True Cases: Ann Rule’s Crime Files, Vol. 6. Pocket Star Books, New York, NY. 1999. Print.
Strassman, Rick, et. al. Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Park Street Press, Rochester, VT. 2008.
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