From Dinosauria to the Land of Have-A-Lot:
Inside Los Angeles' Universal World Church
written and photographed by Jodi Wille

Unbeknownst to the heathens now populating the area, Los Angeles — home of Hollywood Babylon and host to every imaginable excess — was the center of one of the most important spiritual revivals in US history. At the turn of the century, a new religious movement blossomed as Pentecostal believers gathered at the Azusa Street Revivals in 1906. Thousands came to be healed, speak in tongues, and be baptized by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

In the decades since, manifest destiny has lured scores of self-proclaimed prophets and visionaries to the cheap, plentiful land and wide-open possibilities of the Southland. Myriad new religious groups have been born, flourished, or declined and disappeared in the area, mapping a mesmerizing, though largely undocumented, history of esoteric spiritual and supernatural thought. When I moved to the city a decade ago, I began to encounter these mysterious, strangely alluring buildings on anonymous side streets and in forgotten downtown neighborhoods. Curiosity soon turned me into a compulsive churchgoer, traveling from one enchanting tabernacle to the next.

From the extraterrestrial devotees at the Unarius Academy of Science and the Aetherius Society, to the Gladiators and Champions for Christ, and the Holy Ghost Repair Service (it’s in the Yellow Pages), these chapels range from simple gathering places of like-minded folk to the elaborate creations of visionaries with ministries devoted to their own complex spiritual and ideological belief systems. The churches are noteworthy not only for their founders’ unique philosophies, but often for a highly individualistic, otherworldly aesthetic awash with extraordinary iconography relating to the doctrines of each church.

Growing up, my own religious experience was in a conservative, plain-spoken, traditional Lutheran church, where any form of decoration or idolatry was frowned upon. We looked down at Catholics with their grandiose ceremonies, incense, and ornate depictions of Christ – which may account for the sense of information overload I experienced upon first entering the Universal World Church. Established in 1952 by Dr. O. Lee Jaggers, the church is located in a large, white Hacienda-style auditorium on a quiet foothill around the corner from Beverly Boulevard and Alvarado Street, a stone’s throw from 1920’s evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple, and a few minutes north of downtown Los Angeles.

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