
RUMOURS, MYTHS AND URBAN LEGENDS
SURROUNDING THE DEATH
OF JIM MORRISON

Thomas Lyttle

So much has been written and speculated upon surrounding Jim Morrison's
life, death and after-death that it is no longer enough to address just
the facts One must now also address the self-perpetuating mythos that
has developed and enveloped the facts.

In the late 1960s, Doors' singer Jim Morrison founded a publishing
company named Zeppelin Publishing Company with the help of the legal
department of Warner Brothers Pictures and Atlantic Records. According
to promotions for Zeppelin, "Jim wanted to get his hands on the
trademark 'Zeppelin' before Led Zeppelin did. He did this while
everyone in America knew who the Doors were, but before the other rock
group was well known..." Zeppelin Publishing Company was chartered and
put into hibernation for later resurrection.

On July 3, 1971, rock and roll wunderkind James Douglas Morrison was
supposedly, reportedly, found dead in a Paris, France apartment he had
sub-leased as a writer's studio. His "wife," Pamela Courson, was the
first to discover the body in the bathroom. Jim lay in the bathtub,
naked and half-submerged At first she thought that "Jim was
pretending," noticing that he had 'recently shaved."

What immediately followed was a series of bizarre and convoluted
events, probable conspiracies, strange coincidences and surreal news
reports surrounding the death of James Douglas Morrison. Following the
death there was a three day news blackout. This was reported on and
questioned widely in the media, including articles in The Berkeley
Barb, Esquire, The LA Free Press, Sounds, The Baltimore Morning Sun,
and many others Robert Hillburn writing at that time in The Los Angeles
Times, called his obituary of Morrison "Why Morrison Death News Delay
?" igniting a spark that has yet to smoulder.

The blackout prevented Morrison's close friends from getting at the
Principals all witnesses--and the corpse--for close inspection. Even
Jim's parents and his in-laws were prevented from seeing the corpse.

Pamela had called a local French medical examiner--Dr. Max Vasille --to
take charge upon finding her husband's body. Dr. Vasille listed the
cause of death as "heart failure". Several people viewed the sealed
Coffin including Doors manager Bill Siddons, who apparently chose not
to vie,N the corpse. Siddons' official statement to the press was that
"Jim Morrison died of natural causes" and that "the death was
peaceful".

Although Jim's death was listed officially as "heart failure," his
personal physician, Dr. Derwin, stated to the press that "Jim Morrison
was in excellent health before travelling to Paris".

This has recently been complicated by "Queen Mu" writing in Mondo 2000
(Summer, 1991). Apparently Mondo 2000 surfaced a rare medical file
regarding Jim Morrison's various sexual diseases, and the treatments he
was undergoing for them. There was mention of "cancer of the penis...".
Queen Mu reports:"... Hey! No one wants to be expunged from the Book of
Life. How many medical workers at UCLA knew that Jim Morrison was being
treated for gonorrhoea in the Fall of 1970? Knew of the biopsy that
confirmed adenoma of the penile urethra--often consequence to repeated
gonorrhoea? This is a particularly swift form of cancer whose only
alternative may have been radical castration..."-- Queen Mu, pp. 131.

No autopsy was performed on Jim Morrison's corpse, as is the usual
custom in unusual or suspect deaths in France. Had friends been able to
at least see the corpse this might have been done.According to several
reports, Morrison confidant Alan Ronay also helped maintain the
blackout surrounding the death. Jim Morrison's body was quickly whisked
away to be buried at Pere Lachaise. Pere Lachaise is a national French
monument and notables like Balzac, Edith Piaf, Moliere, Oscar Wilde and
other French countrymen are buried there. Regarding Pere Lachaise: Jim
had handpicked the gravesite on several occasions for his impending
"burial." He had visited the site as late as three days before his
"death." This is reported in Break On Through and other Morrison
biographies.

The media at once showed suspicion regarding Morrison's grave due to
the fact that foreigners are rarely buried in a national French
monument. Reports like those in the Baltimore Morning Sun questioned
how he might have cajoled his way into the cemetery to be buried.

Upon viewing the Pere Lachaise grave site, Doors drummer John Densmore
stated: "... the grave is too short!" Doors manager Bill Siddons, when
asked about Pere Lachaise, stated: "... how it happened is still not
clear to me". He was quoted in Bam!, a rock magazine back in 1981
regarding the controversy. At any rate, Morrison's grave at Pere
Lachaise remained unmarked for several months, adding and maintaining a
further cloak around the corpse and the evidence.

Only two people saw Jim Morrison's dead body--his wife Pamela and Dr.
Vasille. Dr. Vasille has repeatedly denied interviews and will not
answer questions, and Pamela is dead.

The Occult Connection

Besides the "facts" as laid out in countless books, films, interviews
and press reports, there exists also a wild and surreal assortment of
rumours regarding "what really took place". Many of these rumours
centre in on the occult, black and white magick, Voodoo, magical
Christianity and assorted mystical strangenesses. In J. Prochniky's
biography of Morrison Break On Through, there is this description of
Morrison-based occult rumours: "... even more incredible were theories
that Morrison had somehow been "murdered" through "supernatural means".
While Jim was fascinated with the occult, it is quite an assumption
that a jealous rival or jilted lover could cause his death in a Paris
bathtub by stabbing a Voodoo doll or melting down a Doors album while
chanting a curse."

"... Another supernatural-based theory is that Morrison's body had been
driven to great extremes by the spirit of the shaman he believed had
entered his body as a child on that New Mexico highway. When this
spirit or a demon has used its talents to influence the world, it
abandoned Jim and left him a physically wasted and mentally exhausted
man who felt betrayed with no desire to go on..."--Riordan and
Prochniky, pp.

Another occult theory exists in No One Here Gets Out Alive by Sugarman
and Hopkins. Regarding Jim's death they state:

"... Other theories abounded in Jim's close circle of friends. One had
him killed when someone plucked out his eyes with a knife ("to free his
soul", as the story had it). Another had a spurned mistress killing him
long distance from New York by Witchcraft..."--Sugarman and Hopkins,
pp.

Anthropologist Alison Bailey Kennedy even went so far as to tie
Morrison in with Orphic mystery cults and the initiatory uses of
various spider venoms, which release the "deuende in Gypsy tradition--
the dark soul that burn incandescently like a cicada, immolating itself
in fiery passion."

Jim Morrison many times claimed connections to the occult and
specifically Voodoo or Voudun philosophy and magick. It was a part of
his "path". The moniker "Mr. Mojo Risin"' was an anagram--a
rearrangement of the letters in Jim Morrison. Mojo is a religious term
describing shamanic "power icon" or affiliation. The African root Mo
refers to the dark or darkness. Mojo is a specific
African/voodoun/obeah

additional term.

"I think that there are whole regions of images and feelings that are
rarelY given outlet in daily life... when they do come out, they can
take perverse forms" said Morrison circa 1968. He goes on to say that
"the shaman is the healer, like the Witch-doctor." Morrison reiterates
elsewhere that "we must not forget that the snake or the lizard is
identified with the unconscious and the forces of evil..." So says the
legendary "Lizard King". "The Lizard King" was one of Jim Morrison's
occult code names He was also called "The Exterminating Angel" in
occult circles, according to film critic Gene Youngblood and others.

In No One Hear Gets Out Alive authors Hopkins and Sugarman recount
Morrison drinking blood with Witch-initiate Ingrid Thompson. In certain
occult traditions, the use of blood combined with certain sexual acts
is regimen, part of a hidden technology for spell casting. This is
especially so in the Tantric Vama Marg (left-handed) rites. It is also
a part of Western ritual magic, used in groups like La Couleuvre Noir,
the Ordo Templi Orientis, Les Ophitis and others, although it is more
uncommon an common in occult work.

This sort of sorcery is also used in Voodoo/Voudun Petro rites to
summon different Loas (gods and goddesses). Speaking of the Tantra Vama
Marg and the Voodoo Petro, there is this description of death mythology
pertinent to Jim Morrison's occult beliefs and possibly his practices.
At the very least he would have known of these ideas.

"... but the human form is no means just an empty vessel for the
Gods... Rather it is a critical locus where a number of sacred forces
may converge. The players are the basic components of man: the
z'etiole, the gros bon ange and the ti bon ange, as well as the n'ame
of the corpse cadaver. The latter is the body itself, the flesh and the
blood. The n'ame is e gift from God and the spirit of the flesh that
allows each cell in the body to function. It is the residual presence
of the n'ame for example, that gives form to the corpse long after the
clinical "death" of the body. The n'ame, upon the "death" of the body
begins to pass slowly into the organisms of the soil... A process that
takes 18 months to complete..."-- Davis, pp. 99

Remember, Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachait remained unmarked for
several months so that no one might disturb the corpse and the
surrounding site.

According to Tibetan tradition, something similar is believed to exist
so far as naming the components of the soul and the body. The Vama
Marg and especially the Bardo Thodol (the Tibetan Book of the Deal)
relate specific death myths concerning what occurs right after someone
dies.

Writing in Psychedelic Monographs and Essays, psychiatrist Dr. Rick
Strassman shows that:

"... Another model of birth and death, and transformation in which the
49 day interval appears is in the Bardo Thodol... This is the time when
the life forces of the deceased--the energetic tendencies accumulated
during "life," "decide on" or gravitate towards or coalesce around the
next incarnate form..."--Strassman, pp. 182

Rock writer Greg Shaw, writing in Bam! and Mojo Navigator interpreted
Morrison's song "The End" along these lines also, stating that each
line in the song is a direct quote from the Bardo Thodol. It all "makes
perfect sense, if one is familiar with the mystical background," said
Shaw.

What are the implications for these ideas in light of the supposed
"death" of Jim Morrison? At clinical death, according to the above, the
person actually splits up into his or her true parts, formerly
connected into a whole being.

According to occult lore, it is possible to ensnare or trap parts of
the personality or spirit during this transition. Wade Davis, author of
The Serpent and the Rainbow and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology
of the Haitian Zombie, has this to say:

"During initiation, for example the ti bon ange may be extracted from
the body and housed in a clay jar called a canari. A canari is a clay
jar that has been placed at the inner sanctuary of the hounfour (ritual
house)."

"... During the stages directly following the physical death and the
first stages of after-death the ti bon ange is extremely vulnerable...
Only when it is liberated from the flesh... is it relatively safe..."--
Davis, pp. 102

Is it Jim Morrison's ti bon ange that is at the root of all these
occult rumours? Was it his ti bon ange that was bought, sold and then
collected on that fateful day in Paris when he "died?"

That canari has a name. It is called Zeppelin Publishing Company. And
the bokor, or Voodoo high priest who cajoled Morrison's ti bon ange
into the canari? He runs a company called the B of A Company (or B of A
Communications), formerly of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and now of Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. He owns an active passport and ID s under the name
of James Douglas Morrison and claims to actually be the not-so dead
rock star!

In the first two years after Jim Morrison's "death" in Paris, many
sightings of the rock star were reported. These sightings range from
the totally spurious and ridiculous to the reliable and very hard to
shake. The LA Free Press and several wire service reports described
someone in 1973 appearing on several occasions in San Francisco. There
Morrison was involved with business and banking transactions with the
Bank of America of San Francisco. The employee that handled the
transactions, Walt Flcischer, confirmed that someone resembling
Morrison and using that name was indeed doing business at the Bank of
America. He did add that he "was far from sure that this was the 'dead'
artist" as Morrison showed no identification. Could this be because a
photo ID was already on file at the bank, with the name James Douglas
Morrison? Yes, it is still on file.

According to authors Riordan and Prochniky, Morrison was also seen on
several occasions hanging out in "unpleasant places" in Los Angeles and
wearing Morrison's leather garb, all in black. This was over a period
of two years right after the Paris "death." I researched this a bit
further and found out that the "unpleasant places" meant notorious gay
leather bars, and the underground gay community in Los Angeles.

There were also many rumours that Morrison was also appearing regularly
in Louisiana and had made several radio interviews. Again, Prochniky
and Riordan reveal that: "... At an obscure radio station in the
Midwest Jim supposedly showed up in the dead of night and did a lengthy
interview that explained it all... After the interview he vanished into
the darkness again. As you might guess, no recordings of the interview
exist and no reliable source remembers hearing the broadcast..."

A record called "Phantom's Divine Comedy" was released in 1974. This
was rumoured to be Jim Morrison singing with an anonymous band with the
names of "drummer X, bassist Y, and keyboardist Z". The music
reportedly resembled Jim Morrison's sound quite well. All this again
added and sparked the rumour mills, and stirred public fascination.

However, in a 1992 press released from the Zeppelin group, it is
revealed that Morrison pal Iggy Pop was actually doing all the singing
and helping the "hoax" along. This added more fuel as to how many
people were actually involved in maintaining his "death hoax." Up until
the 1992 press release, the record company that had released Phantom
had refused to divulge the names on the LP, or the singer's name--which
was indeed Iggy Pop.

Regarding all these rumours, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek stated: "If
there was one guy that would have been capable of staging his own
death--getting a phoney death certificate and paying off some French
doctor... And putting a hundred and fifty pound sack of sand into a
Coffin and splitting to some point on this planet--Africa, who knows
where it is Jim Morrison who would have been able to pull it off."

Jim Morrison's best friend Tom Baker, writing in High Times (June, 1981
had this to say: "I was very tempted to believe the rumours that Jim
had faked his own death "

A group of fans actually went so far as to try to get Morrison's dental
records, apparently to try to get permission to dig up his body and
match the records to the remains. This was immediately blocked both by
Morrison's parents and their attorneys--at least for the time being.

It is known that Jim Morrison had repeatedly planted the seeds which
would lead to this sort of speculation--that he had somehow faked his
own death and dropped out into a new identity. At the Fillmore in San
Francisco in 1967, Jim started suggesting that he should pull a "death
stunt" to bring national press attention onto the band. This was when
he came up with the "Mr. Mojo Risin" anagram which would be used after
he "split to Africa" and wished to secretly contact friends.

Morrison also told Danny Sugarman and Jerry Hopkins on more than one
occasion that he could see himself "radically changing careers,
reappearing as a suited and neck-tied businessman." Jac Holzman's
assistant Steve Harris even remembers Jim Morrison asking what might
happen if he were to suddenly "die"... how might it affect business,
record sales, the press, and would people believe it? With confidant
Mary Francis Werebelow Jim "entertained long conversations about how
the Disciples had stolen the body of Christ from the crypt, jokingly
calling it the 'Easter heist,' etc."

In a Rolling Sone article for September 17, 1981, author Jerry Hopkins
recounts many other Morrison sightings: "The first one I remember was a
beaut... He surfaced in San Francisco shortly after Morrison's death
and began cashing checks in Morrison's name. He was not writing bad
checks, mind you; it was his money he was spending. It was just that he
was dressed as Jim would in his 'leather period,' and that he told
everyone that he was indeed the 'dead singer.'

"The telephone operator asked: 'will you accept a long distance collect
call from Jim Morrison?' It was an interesting conversation... Our
conversations were unsettling. He told me to go to Paris and dig up the
corpse, but that you would need permission from 'twelve Catholic
Bishops' to do it... A visit to his home was more jarring. There at the
end of one room was a Morrison 'shrine,' converted with posters,
flowers, religious icons--the works!"

Years later, I actually got the chance to visit and interview the
shrine's owner. who claimed to be Jim Morrison. He told me
matter-of-factly details about Hopkins, as well as that other reporters
had actually burglarized the shrine in an attempt to get a scoop.
Another surreal sighting involved "Donny" of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He
described Jim Morrison at Morrison's home in 1978. Donny told his
friend "Larry" about it, as Larry was trying to break in to the world
of rock and roll: "I remember Larry telling me about the whole wall of
one room lined with book all across it. Every one of the books were
about Satan, or had something to do with him. He also told me about a
large chair that looked like a throne, on which this man sat and
watched over his nude children running around... I guess that you can
probably guess who that kinky old weird man was--Jim Morrison, The
Lizard King!"--Sugarman, pp. 33

Another person named Rhea (the Greek goddess of fertility) claimed she
was living with Jim Morrison in 1979 with their son "Jesse Blue James".
She matter-of-factly claimed that Morrison had "evolved into a state of
pure energy... And can materialize and dematerialize at will." She and
Jim were also in direct telepathic communication and in
"electromagnetic sync."

The Intelligence Connection and JM2

Rock icon Jim Morrison's father was an admiral in the United States
Navy, privy to intelligence and counterintelligence information. His
name is Steven Morrison.

During the first few years after Jim Morrison's "death" a number of
interesting articles surfaced. These cited references showing various
intelligence interests either in Morrison's underground activity; his
"death" or that intelligence had even masterminded Morrison's death
itself! One of the more explicit appeared in the Scandinavian magazine
Dagblatte. This article detailed French intelligence efforts to
assassinate Jim Morrison in Paris.

Author Bernard Wolfe writing "The Real Life Death of Jim Morrison" for
E.squire (June 1972) related the story of, "Sherry, a Pasadena girl who
knew Morrison well: "...I couldn't make sense out of the stories in the
papers. Suppose he had a heart attack exactly as they reported, is that
what he died of? My God, you might as well say that Ernest Hemingway
died of "extensive brain damage". If you want to know the cause of
Jim's death--not just the physiology of it--ask what triggered his
heart to stop . . And whose finger was on the trigger."--Wolfe, pp. 106

In the first few years after Morrison's "death" the owner of B of A
Communications, named James Douglas Morrison, claimed to be
operating as an intelligence agent for a number of domestic and
international groups including the CIA, NSA, Interpol, Swedish
Intelligence and others. There are also connections between James
Douglas Morrison and various occult groups with probable intelligence
connections. [Author's note: from here on the B of A Morrison will be
referred to as JM2.]

JM2 also claims to be the "dead" rock star and former singer for The
Doors. The new JM2 dropped the old JMI rock and roll identity to become
a "James Bond," wearing the suit and tie that Morrison predicted when
he was with The Doors.

This author has in fact seen what appear to be stacks of
official-looking documents and letters between the CIA, various
government agencies national news groups like CNN and NBC and JM2,
involving what looked like personal meetings, projects and ephemera. Of
special interest is that when I viewed parts of the files, all the
reports had a paper-thin metallic band affixed to them with coloured
UPC bar codes. There is no way for me to authenticate the claims of
JM2, but everything looked extremely official and very elaborate.

From about 1972 through 1992 JM2 has left a surreal trail of paper and
appearances all over the world. These include letters to and from
Loulslana Governor Edwin Edwards and CIA Director William Colby through
the Washington, DC law firm of Colby, Miller and Hanes.

A courtroom transcript which I have seen implicates the FBI and CIA in
several coverups regarding JM2's intelligence career. These show that
there seems to be a systematic destruction of files relating to JM2's
spy activities. An enclosed plate also shows JM2's Swedish Intelligence
ID card, obtained from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act.
Unfortunately the only copy I have is obscured in the facial area, but
the ID numbers are intact. Also in my possession are files concerning
JM2's rogue financial activities with the Bank of America, and news
reports regarding lawsuits by and against JM2 for bank fraud and
espionage, which he claims was done under intelligence auspices as part
of financial experiments to destabilize foreign currencies and exchange
rates.

There also appear to be hundreds if not thousands of miscellaneous
files--both classified and declassified--regarding one James Douglas
Morrison, dated after his "death" in 1971. These also refer to "WBC," a
nom de plume of JM2. These look like real letters, documents, and court
transcripts involving intelligence circles. These involve the CIA,
Danish intelligence, and others. There is also an active passport and
banking IDs under the name James Douglas Morrison.

Like the "multiple Oswald" theories of Kennedy assassination buffs,
there also exist rumours and urban legends describing the "multiple
Morrison" theory.

The idea that Jim Morrison was in fact several different people and
actors. or intelligence agents has been going on for some time. Besides
the "Morrison" singing on the Phantom (now shown to be Iggy Pop) there
also exist rumours that a Louisiana banker as well as Richard Tanguay--
a close friend of Mick Jagger--perpetuated the hoax. Even High Times
ran and old news story about someone claiming to be Jim Morrison (post
1971) running tor governor of Louisiana! Supposedly Richard Tanguay
(related to vaudeville legend Eva Tanguay) took the Morrison persona
on, on several occasions, and even sang with The Doors when they toured
Europe with the Rolling Stones. Is this possible?

In fact JM2 has claimed publicly that there have been numerous James
Douglas Morrisons, and that they all knew one another and met from time
to time to work it all out. The impersonations were part of CIA
sociological experiments like Artichoke or MK-ULTRA.

Is this all for real or is this an elaborate hoax? It is not the scope
of this work to determine the truth--or lack of truth--or the
consequences of such activities. The important thing to note that
someone or some group is actively pursuing and setting up a mass "urban
legend" regarding James Morrison. Whether this is a hoax or not is not
as important as the fact that a lot of official-looking information is
being generated surrounding the myth and legend of Jim Morrison, his
life and his supposed "death."
