By the 1960s he was living at 6114 California Street in San Francisco, a house that he had inherited from his parents. He took an interest in occultism and amassed a large collection of books on the subject. At some point between 1957 and 1960 he began hosting classes at his house every Friday in which lectures on occultism and other subjects were given. Among the topics covered were freaks, extra-sensory perception, Spiritualism, cannibalism, and historical methods of torture. An informal group established around these lectures, which came to be known as the Magic Circle. Among those affiliated with this gathering were the filmmaker and Thelemite occultist Kenneth Anger, and the anthropologist Michael Harner, who later established the core shamanism movement.