Yeah, I do love the incoherent cultish nature of that script. Apparently Ackroyd’s family was involved in the psychical research field in the first half or so of the 20th century. I really enjoyed his botched “Tunguska blast of 1909” (it happened in 1908). :^)
I couldn’t find it on IMDB, but I recall a short-lived TV series that was sort of like “Amazing Stories”, but purportedly based on his family’s psychical research files. And the movie Dragnet was an occasionally amusing (greatest movie punchline ever) drag with loony occult crap all the way through it.
Wasn’t that series call “Psi Factor” ?