The Legacy
The Ligon Legacy:
The Aquarian Spiritual Center & Bookstore
Dr. Alfred M. Ligon, founder of the Aquarian Bookstore, was born on April 5, 1906, in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1916, Dr. Ligon, his parents, brother, and two sisters left the south and moved to Chicago. It was a rich, fertile time for artistic and intellectual growth. Ligon became a printer for the sister of Ida B. Wells, who championed the anti-lynching movement. As an actor, he started a traveling troupe, “Aethiops Little Theater School.”
But Ligon’s passions became astrology, metaphysics, and the occult. He formed the occult group “The Circle of Nine.” In 1936, Alfred Ligon made his way from Chicago to Los Angeles, continuing his studies in Astrology and with the Brotherhood of Light. He also joined the Rosicrucians, the Men of Goodwill, and the Sabian Assembly, an esoteric group founded by Marc Edmund Jones.
“He found his calling when he discovered the book The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ — which spoke of the Aquarian Age as a spiritual age, when the spiritual side of the great lessons Jesus gave to the world may now be comprehended by multitudes coming into an advanced stage of spiritual consciousness.”
In 1941 he opened the Aquarian Book Store and Library on East Jefferson Ave in Los Angeles with $100 he saved working as a railroad porter. Dr. Ligon felt his unction was to prepare “Seed People” to enter this new age of enlightenment. In addition to selling metaphysical books, he presented esoteric classes and lectures.
Seven years later, he met and married Bernice Goodwin, a native of Riverside, California. In 1957 the Ligons moved the Book Shop to 1302 West Santa Barbara Ave (now Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) and established The Aquarian Spiritual Center — a place where “men and women of good will, without regard to race or nationality, sex or creed,” could come to participate in spiritual, religious, and esoteric classes and lectures.
The shop became prominent within the Black community. They hosted the first Black history classes offered in Los Angeles, the founding of the US organization, Community Theater, occult philosophy lectures, and Black authors’ autograph parties. Through the bookstore, the Ligons provided books by and about African Americans and Africans which were not available elsewhere in Los Angeles at the time.
After the Watts Uprising in 1965, in 1969 the ASC became the birthplace for the Ligons’ new group — the Black Gnostic Studies (BGS). The concentration was on the connections between metaphysical thought and Ancient African cultures including Egypt and Ethiopia. From these studies came the concept of Black people as “Seed People” — the source of life and culture.
“Using George G.M. James’ Stolen Legacy, Marc Edmund Jones’ Occult Philosophy, and Levi’s Aquarian Gospel as foundations, the Ligons and students created a curriculum based on the Ancient African Egyptian Mystery Schools.”
Courses drew from the seven major religions as well as from African-derived religions such as Yoruba, Macumba, and Santeria. An initiatory system similar to the Masonic degree structure was incorporated to advance students through each level of studies.
The Aquarian Bookshop was burned to the ground in Spring, 1992 — during the uprisings associated with the acquittal of the officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. A group of independent bookstore owners organized donations and a benefit featuring Maya Angelou and Alice Walker to raise more than $70,000 to reopen the store.
Dr. Ligon made his transition on August 22, 2002, at the age of ninety-six. His legacy lives on through the work of The Black Gnostic Collective, revitalized in 2024 to carry forward the flame he lit in 1941.
Life and Legacy cited in Beseeching Light, Journal of an Eccentric Anachronism, by Dorothy Jean Collins, longtime secretary to Dr. Ligon.