In 1951 a small group of intellectuals and activists began meeting to discuss the crisis affecting Black communities living on Chicago's South Side. Dissatisfied with solutions proposed by business leaders, the Black church, the NAACP, and other mainstream institutions, they turned to alternative, countercultural, and esoteric sources of information to help them build a new path forward. They called themselves Thmei Research, after the Egyptian goddess of truth and justice, specializing in “subjects cosmic, spiritual, philosophical, religious, historical, scientific, economical, etc.” The group included jazz musician Herman “Sonny” Poole Blount and the young radiologist Alton Abraham, who would become Blount's music producer and business manager. They circulated their wisdom through community meetings, the sales of used books, distribution of mimeographed newsletters, and public lectures in Washington Park. In 1952 Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra and began performing under the name Sun Ra. By 1955 he had organized a performing collective that came to be known as the Arkestra: part musical ensemble, part experimental sound lab, part esoteric study group, and—after their relocation to New York City in 1961 and then to Philadelphia in 1968—a communal living experiment.

This chronology suggests that Thmei's activities informed both Blount’s transformation into Sun Ra and his founding of the Arkestra. Despite Thmei's importance to Sun Ra's performing philosophy, there has been littlesustained analysis of group's ideological orientation and sources. Scholars have often noted how Thmei's general ambition of Black advancement through the dissemination of countercultural spiritual knowledge paralleled groups such as the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple, but they disagree on whether these groups actually influenced Thmei. While it is important to understand how Thmei fits into what Justine Bakker calls “the Black esoteric milieu,” the frequent comparisons of Ra and Abraham’s work with only the most visible and geographically proximate Black esoteric organizations minimizes the uniqueness of their project, which was shaped by both the rich, heterodox esoteric landscape of mid-century Chicago as well as their access to a geographically expansive print culture. Abraham and Sun Ra collected thousands of occult pamphlets and volumes, purchased at bookstores, library sales, street vendors, private exchanges, and ordered through the mail. Abraham subscribed to dozens of magazines and newsletters produced by esoteric organizations located in California, Virginia, Washington DC, Missouri, and the United Kingdom.