The cult of food. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Leib. And this is Ghost Town.

Lots of restaurants have opened up to great acclaim in Los Angeles, but not many can boast being the centerpiece of a cultural, culinary, and ideological revolution.

Pioneering health food restaurant the source certainly can, but what most customers don't fully understand was that the restaurant truly went beyond clean living, yoga, meditation, and organic eating.

It was radical in far more ways than one, evolving into the star-studded, sex-driven, destructive new age cult we now know as the source family.

The source starts not in Los Angeles, but in Ohio with a young James Edward Baker. James Baker was born in July 4, 1922 in Cincinnati.

Raised alone by his mother, Korra Baker, James grew up fast as an athletic kid and a health enthusiast, who also was a self-proclaimed master of jujitsu.

According to LAist, James grew up fast and made a name for himself through his athletic ability and passion for nutrition, with help from mentor and father figure Paul Bragg.

If that name sounds familiar to you, congratulations, you are in two health foods. You might know, Bragg's apple cider vinegar.

But Bragg was also into lots of health trends, including fasting, juicing, and vegetarianism, and even wilder and more damaging shit, like blaming cancer on people who eat, quote, gooey, slimy foods.

At 17, James graduated from Chicago Swedish School of Massage, got a job, married his boss's daughter, and then lied about his age to join the Marines and fight in World War II.

There, James befriended a man by the name of Jacqueline, when the two met at a VA hospital. James was there as a patient, with shrapnel in his leg from the war, and Jacqueline was the dietician slash nutritionist at the Recovery Center.

As a 15-year-old, Elaine had also become a health enthusiast after hearing a lecture by Bragg, and of course would go on to fame as one of the country's first fitness gurus.

In any case, James Baker came home from the war with a silver star for his role in the Battle of Renault Island, though that's according to him, there is no record of him receiving the silver star.

After that, he opened his own gym in Cincinnati. But he wouldn't be in Ohio long. Fame was calling. James left his life abruptly, and by life, I mean his wife Margaret and his young daughter Peggy, to go to Hollywood and audition for the role of Tarzan in an open casting call.

Surprising nobody, I'd imagine. James did not get the part. But there he was in Los Angeles trying to find work as a stuntman and bodybuilder. But his hustle and Hollywood was short lived. Soon, James opened up his own sandal shop on Fairfax Boulevard, and met the woman who would be his second wife, Elaine.

He was also known to hang out with men called the Nature Boys, a group of vegetarian musicians who would wander the hills, hang out in trees, cafes, and nature shops, and places like that.

Eden Abez, the group's leader, actually wrote a hit for Nat King Cole entitled Nature Boy, an obvious homage, and was known to sleep under the first L of the Hollywood sign.

So these were James Baker's friends. But it wasn't all peace and naps and microgreens. Baker killed his Topanga Canyon neighbor with a judo kick after an argument over a pit bull turned violent.

He managed to avoid prosecution, but other bad choices would soon catch up with him. In 1958, James and his wife Elaine opened the AWARE-IN at 8-828 Sunset Boulevard, a block away from the Viper Room if you know the Sunset Strip.

The menu was, surprise surprise, mostly organic, consisting of salads, entrees, and a very well-received cheesecake.

In 1961, Joan Winchell gushed about the place in the Los Angeles Times.

Quote, this is our favorite spot of the evening, reminding us as it did one of those down a side street discoveries in Paris.

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