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Black Mass was born in 1963, the brain-child of Jack Nessel, who was the Drama & Literature Director at KPFA in Berkeley, the first voluntarily listener-sponsored non-commercial FM station in the world. (The BBC was compulsorily supported by a government-imposed license system.) Jack suggested the idea to Erik Bauersfeld, who taught aesthetics and philosophy at the California School of Fine Art, and had recently begun to do readings of classic and modern literature for the station. Erik was not wildly enthusiastic, but thought that it might be interesting to search out some of the best stories of the supernatural by first-rate authors who did not normally write within that genre. Obligation soon became obsession.