For my interests, the post-War period is the most critical in Haas's life. It's also the most difficult to document as closely as I would like.
After the War--presumably he separated from the Navy after VJ Day--Haas returned to Oakland. He became a gardener, experimenting with organic methods. He was a Buddhist, too, and a sorcerer, although it's unknown exactly when those practices began. As Herron describes it, Haas's was a visualization magic: he imagined something happened, and often it did. This was a system that forced one to look at the world from (ahem) an oblique angle, to pay attention to coincidence and serendipity. For example, Haas saw his going to the South Pacific during the War the result of visualization: he had been reading about the area since his late teens, and had watched ships built while he worked in Richmond, and these two things fated him to be a gunner who sailed the Pacific. Because it is unknown whether Haas believed in magic before the War, it is also unknown whether he actively applied his magic to make those things happen, or retrospectively explained them as resulting from magic. In either case, the point still stands, his system of magic had him look for obscure connections between events.
It was also during this time that he became more active in the world of modern Romance--in Weird Tales and fantasy fandom. He befriended the Portland artist and fellow Buddhist Ralph Rayburn Phillips, who did the illustrations for fanzines. He met Robert Barbour Johnson, a pulp writer who lived in San Francisco. He also wrote Richard Matheson his first fan letter, for "Born of Man and Woman" in the summer 1950 Magazine of Fanatsy and Science Fiction. Matheson visited Haas in 1951.
That same year, Haas christened his hom "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis." It was an allusion to the title of story by Clark Ashton Smith, which appeared in the May 1932 issue Weird Tales. The vaults were the ancient ruins or a Martian town that were infested with terrbile creatures--leechlike things that, once attached, could possess a person. The story was one of Smith's most famous and, in time, Robert Barlow, a fantasy fan and acolyte to H.P. Lovecraft, appropriated the name for his closet, in which he kept his collection of fantast magazines. Barlow killed himself in 1951, and Haas then christened his own library with that name.
Where were these original vaults? Not sure. But, within a couple of years, at least, Haas was living with his mother Bertha M. Boyd, at 2915 Hillegass Avenue. It may be that he was living there in 1951, too. (His step-father, Daniel Webster Boyd, died in October 1944, and so it seems possible that Haas had been living with his mother since returning from War.)
Haas's devotion to Smith became more than allusory at this time, as well. The poet-author lived in Auburn, California, just across the Central Valley and into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Haas wrote to Smith, and the two met in September 1953, beginning an intense relationship that each would remember later as their closest friendship. Haas also became something of a patron to Smith, buying his books and sculptures so that the author could continue to eke out a living.
After the War--presumably he separated from the Navy after VJ Day--Haas returned to Oakland. He became a gardener, experimenting with organic methods. He was a Buddhist, too, and a sorcerer, although it's unknown exactly when those practices began. As Herron describes it, Haas's was a visualization magic: he imagined something happened, and often it did. This was a system that forced one to look at the world from (ahem) an oblique angle, to pay attention to coincidence and serendipity. For example, Haas saw his going to the South Pacific during the War the result of visualization: he had been reading about the area since his late teens, and had watched ships built while he worked in Richmond, and these two things fated him to be a gunner who sailed the Pacific. Because it is unknown whether Haas believed in magic before the War, it is also unknown whether he actively applied his magic to make those things happen, or retrospectively explained them as resulting from magic. In either case, the point still stands, his system of magic had him look for obscure connections between events.
It was also during this time that he became more active in the world of modern Romance--in Weird Tales and fantasy fandom. He befriended the Portland artist and fellow Buddhist Ralph Rayburn Phillips, who did the illustrations for fanzines. He met Robert Barbour Johnson, a pulp writer who lived in San Francisco. He also wrote Richard Matheson his first fan letter, for "Born of Man and Woman" in the summer 1950 Magazine of Fanatsy and Science Fiction. Matheson visited Haas in 1951.
That same year, Haas christened his hom "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis." It was an allusion to the title of story by Clark Ashton Smith, which appeared in the May 1932 issue Weird Tales. The vaults were the ancient ruins or a Martian town that were infested with terrbile creatures--leechlike things that, once attached, could possess a person. The story was one of Smith's most famous and, in time, Robert Barlow, a fantasy fan and acolyte to H.P. Lovecraft, appropriated the name for his closet, in which he kept his collection of fantast magazines. Barlow killed himself in 1951, and Haas then christened his own library with that name.
Where were these original vaults? Not sure. But, within a couple of years, at least, Haas was living with his mother Bertha M. Boyd, at 2915 Hillegass Avenue. It may be that he was living there in 1951, too. (His step-father, Daniel Webster Boyd, died in October 1944, and so it seems possible that Haas had been living with his mother since returning from War.)
Haas's devotion to Smith became more than allusory at this time, as well. The poet-author lived in Auburn, California, just across the Central Valley and into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Haas wrote to Smith, and the two met in September 1953, beginning an intense relationship that each would remember later as their closest friendship. Haas also became something of a patron to Smith, buying his books and sculptures so that the author could continue to eke out a living.
