Exorcist Letter Symbols – Another Theory
The January 29, 1974 sent to the Los Angeles Times, commonly referred to as the Exorcist letter, contained a strange doodle at the bottom. The meaning of the doodle has been debated for years, yet no one has found agreement on its actual intimation. One theory suggests it is based on a Chinese symbol borrowed from a soy container that once belonged to a suspected Zodiac victim. Another claims it to be the call letters of a local television station. Some think the symbols may be the killer’s initials. There are other theories, as well.
I am about to introduce another theory. Suppose those of us looking at the doodle haven’t been seeing the “forest for the trees.” I believe, along with others, that the Zodiac may have been influenced by the San Francisco underground. Though the word underground alludes to the hidden and/or esoteric, the San Francisco underground was very public and vocal in the days of the Zodiac killer.
There were underground comics drawn by the like of Spain Rodriguez and Robert Crumb. There were underground magazines and various underground artists of all sorts. there was the psychedelic underground. There were the poster artists and various other so-called nonconformists. There was the Haight Theater which became the Straight Theater.
The Straight Theater was a place many of the rock bands of the day came to perform. There seemed to be a lot of imagery and references that may seem familiar to anyone who has looked at the Zodiac case. Bobby Beausoleil‘s band, The Magick Powerhouse of OZ played there. The posters for their performances contained a symbol depicting the letter Z inside of a circle (the letter o). Kenneth Anger presented his assemblage of performers in a show billed as the “Equinox of the Gods.” The handbills for these shows contained many occult references; after all the show was named for an Aleister Crowley work. One of the handbills for the Anger show depicted Osiris with his crook and flail, an image I have found to be similar to the so-called wide flange beam symbol of the Zodiac killer.
Straight theater artists created many posters for the performing bands. Many of these posters contained astrological imagery. One of the artists even called himself Zodiac. The occult and astrology were very prominent in the San Francisco underground. But what, if anything does the Straight Theater and/or the San Francisco underground have to do with the symbols found at the bottom of the Exorcist letter?
If you look at some of the music posters from the time, you will find that the artists had certain creative methods for displaying text. Sometimes, instead of the normal fonts, we see blocks containing small patches of ink which depict the spaces between and inside of the letters of the alphabet.
Look at the posters below, and then look at the enlarged detail of one of the posters.
See the letters? Note how they are basically square blocks with squiggles or doodles added to form alphanumeric characters. Now consider this:
What if the doodle at the bottom of the Exorcist letter is really such a doodle without the defining block or outline of the actual letters?
For example, look at the figure below.
Note how the upper part of the doodle resembles alphanumeric characters (6,G or E) once an outline is added. See how the two slanted strokes at the end of the doodle seem to form another letter (W) once it has been outlined. I don’t know what characters, if any, the author was trying to portray with this drawing. I thought this might be another angle to consider. Without any know reference point, a conclusion on which characters should be formed is rather difficult.
If anyone has any ideas, or thinks they may have solved this riddle, let me know. Post here, or send me an email. I hope this post has been of some value to someone investigating the Zodiac, even though it is mainly my thinking out loud.
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