15 Jan. 1960
Dear Gavin:
I am enclosing copy of letter to Hugo. The experiences written therein are to be followed by others first here and then in other parts of the United States.
I feel very much like Alice at the end of, “The Looking Glass” turning around on many and saying, “You are nothing but a pack of cards.”
I am no longer concerned with any personal success because the factors which have stood in the way have stood in the way of others who have tried to be honest and fair-minded. The man that will not grant an interview, or meet somebody else on equal terms, has something to hide. It does not matter who he is, he has something to hide.
The dream of an Oriental Academy here has “been busted twice” and for the same reasons. A few years will go on and there will be another attempt here or elsewhere but now there is another generation of persons who are objective. Why does the Professor at California permit me to submit evidence or credentials that I might be a Yogi and others—and there have been a lot of others, rule out a priori? Because they are ignoramuses. They may be nice gentlemen, they may know a lot on other subjects but at this point they reveal they are ignoramuses, not just ignorant. An honest ignorant man has an open mind; it is when there is a closed mind the ignoramus steps forth.
Now the Asians are striking back and we can expect more. They don’t like travesties on their teachings and they don’t like our “morality.”
Sam
[Enclosed in a letter to Gavin Arthur]
772 Clementina St.,
San Francisco, Calif.
January 15, 1960
My dear Hugo:
As Gavin may have to go to Los Angeles soon I was going to give him a message but I hear he has to travel by the Valley and will therefore probably not be able to call on you.
This year has become climactic, or anti-climactic. When I was a boy “The Count of Monte Cristo” was among my favorites. Later on I read that the type of revenge or nemesis in it was childish, not worthy of an adult. It took me a long time to agree but it is better now because daily I am getting more and more in the position of Edmond Dantes.
Yesterday I visited Saratoga. I talked to Jane and we have a happy bond enriched by the fact that I seem to stand in my career about half way between her father and her father-in-law so that any facet interests her and I shall probably have extensive reports to send. I did receive a brochure from a Prime Minister which is going to help in this. I have found it becomes easier and easier to reach Prime Ministers and Ambassadors and I have been going with the wrong crowds and that is that.
Jean especially asked after you. She sounded more stable than I have ever known her, but I did not have time to go over there although my hostess lives within a stone’s throw. However I may also write to her from time to time.
I shall also probably see Fred and Corinne when I stop off at San Fernando or Los Angeles. My check for fare has not arrived and I am not rushing it because a little delay here will settle things.
Excepting for timing, and even that can be accounted for, your predictions for me are coming true and almost in the manner foreseen. The slight differentiation was not erroneous but due to the probability I may live a little longer on earth than when you made predictions. That is to say, if you said that when I was two-thirds the way through these things were to happen or were bound to have happened; so that a ten years’ miscalculation can be accounted for. At the moment the prospectus for remaining long on earth are bright. And I am even taking up dancing and Yogic gymnastics with the Baptists in San Francisco both to condition the body and find out sources of irritation or difficulty.
My main visit to Saratoga was to a Mrs. Ramsdell. The reason for the visit is definitive. She had gone to the Orient and had found out a lot of things of which she had been told differently and this kept on going and going. What is more important, she found acceptance where her (mis)informers had not and that made her hesitate as she is already to give public lectures. So we had to compare notes and it took well over a full day to do that, without interruption, too.
Harriet had originally been drawn to the Academy through Judith Tyberg. She stayed on in all sincerity studying with Watts, Spiegelberg and Chaudhuri, as well as others. She did not find the India foretold by either Spiegelberg or Chaudhuri and she found herself in all sorts of places as a lone American—where she was accepted. I gave her an introduction to my “Mr. India” and proved itself even to the degree that she is studying real Yoga with a real teacher and no flim-flam, nonsense and noise-words. But this has disenchanted her with the nice intellectuals who have poise, savoir faire, charm and what not. She did find that the Ramakrishna people are superb and also not like their confreres here. She found a tremendous negative note at the Aurobindo Ashram and that is one reason for wanting to see me as she is a friend of Judith and it would be her word against Chaudhuri and Spiegelberg, who have been widely accepted. One can understand why Spiegelberg would be permitted to speak in churches—she charms without informing so there is little danger of people wanting to change their views. Spiegelberg is a fine man but you cannot put Aurobindo, Ananamaya, Tillich (especially) and Jung into the vat of supermen and say they rest of us are inferior.
The same was found in Japan. Two students of Alan Watts are there and learning the hard way. They are discovering that “Zen” is nothing like what they had been told before. I am sorry for Alan who has lost many followers. He lost some of them because they went over to Subud and they went to Subud because Alan gave lectures and not techniques. But there is no question the karmic law operates. Alan was a prime source in rumor mongering. There are a tremendous number of antagonistic rumors going on concerning him which are 90% lies, but unfortunately the 10% has a fragment of truth and this fragment is strong because he himself indulged in rumors.
There is now a flurry of literature by Japanese and Chinese to the effect that Watts, Benoit and Humphreys don’t know what they are talking about when they write on Zen. But Humphreys agreed and asked for advice. So I sent him advice and he accepted the advice. I don’t ask for people to accept my advice; I ask to be heard. Watts was a champion at not letting me be heard but many of the Academicians were not too far behind. If I am heard, and then my stuff is rejected, all right. But the point, Hugo, is that when it is heard it is generally accepted. There were other profs. at the Academy who let me submit papers and they accepted them.
Now the University of California is filled with profs. of similar points of view. When I went to one man the other day he said: “I suppose you are a Yogi.” “Yes.” “Well, my pupil here is a Yogi, too.” I extended my arms and said I could hold them indefinitely. The Hindu student said: “Pranayama.” “Of course.” So we had a valid conversation on the real stuff—something that seldom goes on here but it has gone on at last. Indeed I was surprised to find general acceptance all over the campus, but was I? The secretary of the South Asian department knows me and with that one person on “my side” the rest was easy. To hell with the metaphysicians from now on. Being nice is one thing, being honest and informed is another.
But the whole tenor of things is the same. Monday I am to have my third long interview with the new cultural attaché at the Indian Consulate. And so on.
One thing I am not interested in is to remove people from their jobs. What I want is to have papers submitted. When the prof. refuses I know he must be insecure inwardly, or outwardly. He may be a very nice man. The joke on poor Spiegelberg is in this incident. He was called to speak on Rocks in Landscaping and was given a grand send off—the Orientalist, the explorer, the Tibetan Scholar, etc., etc. So he talked and then the teacher spoke highly in favor of the lecture. Up piped one small voice:
“But papa was wrong. He was wrong on ocean pebbles because…. He was wrong on river pebbles because…. He was wrong on granite stones because…. In fact papa was wrong in everything he said.”
Kerplunk. The prof. can do no wrong. If you don’t like this you have a choice of flunking the course or quitting. But when it is his child that makes this remark what is to be done? Why can’t we be honest and objective to be with? We can’t; this is our failing. The TV exposé is just part of whole thing. (And incidentally Corinne has been fighting a long, lone war on this.)
Anyhow this is 1960. Everything looks bright. I think I’ll make the grade. I am not afraid of names or persons any more. The Sufis have made me their international representative (I mean the Oriental ones—the Americans Europeans are tough just like their fellows.) And if I don’t feel like I am sitting on top of the world, at least I don’t feel like the world is sitting on top of me.
Cheerio,
Postcard
Mar 7, 1960
Dear Gavin,
Write a long letter on train which will be mailed later. Fred & Corinne too busy and did not have the address so I stayed with Uncle and Aunt.
I told everything: Vocha Fiske vs cousin Germane to Renies mother! First warm day in Apple Valley and it was warm until I reached Kansas and not so cold there or in Chicago where this is written. Arrived Cleveland about 8 pm.
Sam
(cc: Gavin Arthur)
March 30, 1960
My dear Jack:
It is not my intention to write to you or anybody in particular, but when one has direct experience, then I send letters to people whom I consider will be most interested.
At the present time this district is endangered by floods. A very long snow season was followed by a most rapid rise in temperature and the continuance of high humidity. No doubt the papers in California reported the damage done in Florida. But now the Missouri Valley is in difficulty and it seems that the danger may spread rather than otherwise.
Under such circumstances the Institute was held on “Giants of Asia” confined almost entirely to China and Russia. The chief speakers on China had recently been there and report, confirming what I have said, that the greatest problem of China remains flood control and water distribution. This was overlooked in the final report. But the first speaker left after his opening talk and his extreme anti-Communist attitude was not held by anybody else, and this was not “extreme” in the Knowland sense. Indeed some of the most “reactionary” people present do not accept our present Chinese policy.
The general attitude was that we need realism and not moralism. And with all differences common to American points of view the evident hostility toward Trujillo and South Africa was so great that Nixon is going to lose out unless he adopts some universal standard and applies it all around. In other words, the conservative people are reacting against reaction and the liberals are against it anyhow.
An added factor is that there is little news in the papers. The press here looks like elongated district press sheets. “The Toledo Blade” has far more news in it that you can get here. The TV stations are just the three chain networks with moronical materiel. The radio commentators are like Fulton Lewis Jr. minus brains and whatever happens is blamed on Khrushchev, whether it be a revolt in Bolivia or South Africa or at a lunch counter in Alabama. The result is that there is a smouldering threatening to break out first in an open war between the Networks and the Press; and what is much more important here a tremendous enrollment in the colleges and universities where one can obtain news and whose representatives dominated the Institute.
Unless the speakers were dishonest, one came upon a series of conclusions very different from the usual stuff. One speaker was long Charges d’Affaires in Peiping. According to his report Russia did not denude the factories in Manchuria. I never could see how they could have transported heavy materiel along with their vast army on the Siberian Railroad. There is no evidence that they did. What they seemed to have done is to send engineers and technicians to study the Japan heavy industry. And these men are now well equipped to operate the giant factories and are so doing. Neither did Russia over-invest in China. Instead they have offered much technical aid. This gives Russians jobs, insures good-will and does not involve financial liabilities. There is nothing to show in the reports that Russia will lose regardless of the future of China. Indeed their financial offers in the Southeast run contrary to China policy.
The two black marks on China seem to have been (a) the flood damage, always great, but coming at a critical time; (b) this critical time was due to an enforced reorganization due to government policy, abolishing as much as possible both privately owned and cooperative farms to institute giant collectives. This policy in turn arose out of the Old Army control and is a sort of militarism, in the name of communism. In other words it is cadre-ism. Soldier-heroes are rewarded with jobs of agricultural and even industrial direction and this has brought about uprooting and with this neglect of agricultural processes during the growing season. Both of these resulted in a lowering of harvests at a time when population has been increasing, and so less food available all around. And some of the program has involved sending out surpluses abroad as raw materials and has not been successful. This may explain the retreats in regard to both Burma and Nepal—which does not necessarily mean a retreat before Nehru.
In turn the vast army has been demilitarized in order to provide harvest hands. There does not seem to be much danger of China going overboard to arm itself to conquests when it cannot feed its people. The Russians here seem to know thoroughly what it is all about and there has been no sign of them flooding China to help the food supplies.
Most speakers and the audience felt this had nothing to do with recognition. One recognized because one recognized. You cannot abolish the atlas. But some went so far as to suggest that we place some of our farm surpluses at the disposal of China whether directly or in a roundabout fashion because there is evident need here. Socializing need does not abolish it.
The best change in China has been in the steel industry. But here one makes the mistake of percentage increased as a final instead of plotting the curves. I would not be surprised if the percentage increase in the Philippines was not much greater, but nobody foresees that land as a great steel producer. Indeed we have all kinds of alloys today for various purposes. The Chinese increase is largely in traction and railway steels and will no doubt continue high for a long time. It will not impress the world market but will impress all kinds of emotional people, particularly the press while the Japanese will continue to gain the world markets.
The worst thing in China is the inability to settle on any policy with regard to internal criticism. One day the howl will be against criticism and the next against waste, corruption and inefficiency which have been allowed to continue. And this in turn has been larger due to the giving the top Civil Service jobs to the old veterans of the Retreat Army. As younger people graduate from college, they are going to protest, and in the traditional manner demand a strict examination system.
Another difficulty is in regard to a National language. The government shilly-shallied on Romanization and at a time when criticism was frowned upon some wit wrote a long punnish letter and asked the officials to put it in Latin or Russian script. This showed two follies—the follies of a simplified Script in the European manner (the Japanese methods have been ignored), and the refusal to take sincere criticisms seriously.
Meanwhile the increase in popular education stressed more local pronunciations instead of less, causing confusions in conversation, multiplied by the transference of populace to fit the farm and industrial programs. Communications and orders have had to be in writing. All of this has decreased efficiency.
I have also learned that there have been greater military difficulties in Turkestan than in Tibet. These difficulties are more complex because while to begin with one has the presence of another nationality and economy, part of that economy has been basically feudal, and despite Islamic teachings, of a very low moral order. The masses have been suppressed in that part of the world to a degree we can hardly grasp. It became a choice there, too, between communism and despotism. But the Muslims have been receiving some outside help and encouragement and one cannot dismiss lightly the charges against the Catholic priests of espionage. My sources of information would indicate some strong evidence of espionage in general, without any in particular cases.
The reports on India showed much more unanimity. The universities here stand very strong against the commentators who see every independent act as a wile of Khrushchev. The main speaker asked for heavy financial aid and in general it was felt that the help going to Korea, Taiwan and S.W. Vietnam should be transferred to India and other lands which offer evidence of development.
The percentage increases in India are small but determinate. The population increase is much less than in China and so is the steel increase. The food-harvest/population ratio is more encouraging than in China but not in an over-all picture; but from my point of view there is too much assumption that this world has been in a continual prosperity broken by occasional wars and disasters whereas as I know it prosperity has been sporadic and occasional until recently—all over.
There was too much stress on education without explaining what one meant by it. There is also the difficulty of explaining what “socialism” and “capitalism” really mean. But the audience was almost unanimous pro-Indian; there were a number of Hindus on the panels, they were given carte blanche to speak and were quite informed. In this way I made an appointment already for the Embassy and a friendship with one Prof. Saha from Calcutta.
I went to Ann Arbor to see my friend Prof. Richard Park but he was away. However the event proved very fruitful. I have been getting some outside help, in the way of lecturing and research jobs here and have my eye on funds available for Asian Studies. Not only has Michigan University a valid school for Asian Studies at both undergraduate and graduate levels, but I know where moneys are available. I tried for years to report on this but was spurned by all kinds of people, none born in the U.S. It is their loss, not mine.
I also received a long report from Jonathan Garst. He is the brother of the Iowa farmer who was Khrushchev’s host. Evidently the grape-vine is now working in my favor, too, from the remarks in his letter. This plan will give me prestige (the doors are already open).
A combination of circumstances, too long to relate, may enable me to collect data to enlarge the Strawberry industry in India. This is only one of several projects. I have to go to Wooster and Columbus during April and have already some lectures lined up in Columbus. I am supposed to leave here on the 25th and fortunately, too, my most important arrangements for Washington are already settled. I shall be very busy there.
Under-currently there is going to be a big smash soon between the Universities on the one side and the Press on the other. “Underpaid” teachers will ask for more opportunities to address the public and will get it and will give out objective facts and information and not so much deplorable commentary.
There is comparatively little interest here in the Khrushchev-De Gaulle talks. There is much on South Africa and Dixie. This is the most integrated city in the country, it is said, and believable. Hundreds of thousands of Negroes are both American and educated; an almost equal number of Whites are either refugees or second generation from Europe, not so Americanized nor so integrated and educated. That is where a conservative like Lausche gets is votes. If Khrushchev came here today he would be welcomed not because he is admired, but because of the antipathy toward all differentiations.
Behind all this in turn is a marked tendency toward factualism, and a fatigue at too much emotional strain caused by headlines. Ever the papers seem to think that the Administration ought to meet Russia on disarmament, increased by protests against unnecessary high taxes.
The Institute overlooked the basic facts that Japan and Germany are winning world market. If Germany is not an armed camp, it is anti industrial camp. That country is putting out the best motor cars and a lot of other heavy equipment. We are almost back in the 1910-4 era with potential trade wars—and here Russia is having a tough time and knows it. In our financial support to Germany we may be undermining both Russia and ourselves. I find the World Almanac almost useless today, for though it mentions facts it does not tabulate them when the tabulations are unfavorable. The leadership of Germany does stand out, and its demilitarization places a large labor supply available in needed industries, at home and abroad. The “Giants of Asia” have still a long way to go.
Sam
May 3, 1960
My dear Gavin:
I am in New York and in the midst of uncertainties. What is peculiar is that what one would expect to find uncertain has brought few questions or problems; and where one has a quest, one would expect to find refusals and blocks. It is the other way around.
There is a strike going on against the ship on which I am supposed to sail. That should not be for five weeks. But my travel agent is coming here so I can do nothing now but sit until he arrives and I am even delaying my trip to Boston. My cousins have disappeared, and all I have left is one lone address (no phone) and no assurance of answer. Legally this might necessitate a new will although at the moment I am in the pink, my health—and especially the last few days—has been tops. Then I am caught between some problem in negotiations between the banks which handle my moneys, have to sign papers and can’t because the bank of the second part has not reported. Everything was running smoothly before and I don’t understand it (no problem about dollars, however).
As for my interviews. Last night my Japanese colleague took me to dinner. He is very prosperous today. I told him I had visited at least twelve embassies and not a problem or difficulty—quite the contrary. It was only among the Americans that there were impasses. You can see it in the article in Satevepost on the Near East situation. We have something, which we call “diplomacy” which works fine in front of everybody’s faces and horribly behind their backs.
Thus there is Islamic culture. In this country it has been largely in the hands of Europeans who, being neither Americans nor Muslims, have brought nothing but offence to the Islamic Nations. This is something you can’t discuss in the State Department—they won’t believe you; and don’t have to discuss with the Muslims—they know it better than you do. In this particular correction the bull’s eye came and hit me and I could be having a fine job if I remained in this country.
My American colleagues are Robert Minor of the American Friends of the Middle East, Roland Gammon of the World Congress of Faiths, and William Hughes of The Friends of the World. I met Gammon yesterday and he also understands the Islamic, as well as the other situations. This habit of haling non-Asia, non-Americans get into the fields of Oriental studies has produced little more than fog, smog and confusion. “Brand names” are highly regarded in some parts and the same “brand names” are loathed elsewhere. What is wrong is not the regard or the loathing but the highly metaphysical assumption that “brand names” communicate learning. That is to say, the American attitude is basically wrong, not the pseudo-famous people. This attitude has to change. We don’t learn the sciences by signing up with some favorite minister.
Gammon had reached the same conclusion as the leading Muslims which means that I have to go to Harvard with a quizzical eye on their plans for a new school for religious study. There Gibb has the money and has interviewed Landau. This pleases (??) the Afro-Asian bloc no end (“no end” makes it impossible to stick a period there).
Actually the low points are few, outside the personal confusion with which I have been tested. I ran into one of my oldest friends in Washington in a strange manner. The interviews at all Embassies were excellent. I am sorry I cannot supply details (matter of time, not of secrecy). I did have troubles with Blondes—Puckian type. The blonde in the Sudan office did not know what a dervish was; in the Persian office never heard of Sufis or poetry; in the Afghanistan office had never heard of Khaibar Pass and Peshawar. I did ball out a blonde in the State Department who would not furnish me with information, which I finally got by a threat and it took me five minutes at the Near East desk to put over my ideas, almost unnecessary for the diplomat who had been in the field knew what was what at least as well as I did.
In New York I have twice run into a wandering Islamic preacher who is highly amused and somewhat delighted at my efforts. I have been offered a farm in Egypt and another in India. Dr. Baker’s introductions are going to prove most valuable, but the main problem at the moment is I can’t carry on the writing on all subjects. I do not know when I shall be leaving here either in case you should come.
I can safely-look back now on all and sundry persons who have been operating in the Oriental field—all persons and all branches—and see that it is useless to go around preaching morality and rejecting anybody. Who has any right to reject? This is horrible.
The other day a man looked over my shoulders on the sub—I took the wrong one “by accident.” I found he was Prof. Namiar from Mysore. He wants to start an international Whitman Society to bring India and America closer together. We had discussions on high levels—discussions which would have opened the eyes of some people who intransigently refused to admit the possibility thereof—and passing through philosophy and real Yoga came at last to the food problem and he also offered me a farm. I therefore have to write to Wooster and San Francisco.
As I look back now at the last few years the last rejections in San Francisco came almost unanimously from non-San Franciscans and the city itself both recognized and commissioned me before I left. My meeting tomorrow with my colleague, Wm. Hughes, at the U.N. may establish the program and regimen. I feel fairly certain and my main problem next is a literary agent.
Faithfully,
SAM
May 13, 1960
My dear Hugo:
I am writing to you hoping this finds you among the living but to be assured am sending a copy to Gavin. For if anything this will support some of your earlier predictions about me. And I should say that on the whole everything is going well.
In the first place, though I sometimes forget it, a certain deference has been paid to my age and experience. As a rule this deference is greater among the scientists and the higher on the scale the scientists, the greater has been the deference. Among the metaphysical people it is the exact opposite and the higher on the metaphysical scale, the more opposition one might encounter. Only it is today that I run into opposition against “brand names” and “celebrities” who are widely touted in California and as widely hooted elsewhere. This seems to be the general trend.
I have been most fortunate in my contacts with scientists. This was partly due to the introductions received from Dr. Blanche Baker of San Francisco. But the ability to carry on intelligent conversations and the proof, actual proof of long years experience, carried weight. Metaphysical people often blindly pooh-pooh such possibilities off hand, close their ears and minds and think they are going somewhere. And actually I have run into more metaphysical people in New York than good devotees of Zen, Vedanta and Sufism. The good devotees are very good indeed.
The Zen people here are not only adept at meditation; they are still more antagonistic toward “famous” book writers who are confusing the public. Years ago there was an article called “Zowie” in the “New Yorker” written in an asylum, by a professor who dunked into Orientalia without a teacher. This madness is somewhat prevalent and it is much easier to make a New Yorker mad than wisely sane. But now there are books against the “brand names” by other people who are successful because the “brand names” are well known and by mentioning them, they get an audience. As the “brand names” have caused much confusion and have multitudes of enemies outside of California this is successful business though where it leads I do not know.
My old Sufi “colleagues” will not accept what happened in Cleveland where I revived Sufism. The old order is divided into at least three mutual antagonistic branches which oppose each other and all ignore me. I not only hold the balance of power legally, but was officially appointed by the Dervish Brotherhoods as their representative early in the year. And to my amazements, without knowing this, the head Muslims in this country have given me, independently, the same appointment. This in the face of “brand name” professors, non-American, non-Asian and often quite popular and, to say the least, ignorant.
On the West Coast you can not even get an interview with a “professor.” Here in New York a cultural attaché had me spend an evening going over two papers by ”brand name” professors, non-American, non-Asian, who have been commissioned to write two “vital” papers on Oriental philosophy. Here they may give out Ph.D. degrees; in Asia they could hardly qualify for freshman class.
I visited the Ramakrishna Center near here. They are doing very well; people prefer the metaphysicians and “brand names.” I have meditated at both the Zen Center and a Yoga Center by one Majumdar. The latter is near these rooms and he teaches Patanjali Yoga, that old “out warn” system which is never practiced because somebody has a better one—which never succeeds. In both places there was a strong anti-California atmosphere but California brand names must go on and many people on the Coast will accept the personalities thinking they have arrived somewhere.
Although I do not know how to get along with Asians (consult any brand name in California), I have been to a multitude of Embassies and my first application for a Visa was granted without cost as a Courtesy Visa. This will come as a shock to the professors of Orientalia in certain parts. But Hugo, between 40 years of study and practice, I have accumulated more knowledge, if not downright wisdom, in this field than I have in the sciences; though the scientists have everywhere accepted me as one of them.
There is one argument I do carry with me which is most effective, and that is I do not age with the calendar. I notice that this was also true of some of the Zen people in California and also is true of Mrs. Farkas, the Zen leader here. I do not know what the condition is, but when people challenge me about Yoga I pull out my passport and they can see my birth date. This is something even the “brand names” cannot confute.
I have in the offing a literary, an artistic, a horticultural and a philosophical mission. I should say that 90-95% of the interviews have been very good. The others were due to the fact that the organizations visited were not as opulent as their advertisements suggest; or else in the State Department where a ready acceptance would be subject to suspicion. However all meetings with Congressmen or their staffs were wonderful. I had only one long interview with a Congressman, which was Judge Saund of Riverside, because of his Indian birth.
I do not know when I shall leave, how long I shall be, or what is coming out of it but feel I shall be in the top brackets of cultural exchange when I return. It is one thing to say “knowledge is power” and another to have it demonstrated in life. However some of my suggestions are very very simple, and just overlooked. I do mingle with all people, all races, all classes, all religions—something often heard in lecture halls but not demonstrated.
I wrote once to Jane and Vince about my Ohio experiences—which were tops. Only I am doing something. Won’t try to convince Americans, least of all metaphysical ones—they would not understand. Farmers would understand off hand and do. Asians understand only too well.
Regards,
Sam
June 1, 1960
My dear Gavin:
I have just come back from Massachusetts and may return there for unforeseen reasons; I have failed to get confirmation of my sailing date despite all precautions and heavy over-payments to my travel agent. There have been series of strikes on the water front here which has thrown everything out of kilter.
I undoubtedly had the best good-natured “trick” played on me in my whole life. My cousins are now in the nursery business; I met Adolph in Cambridge a said: “I have done something unusual; instead of bringing a present I have brought my work-clothes.” They have an operative nursery and were and are badly in need of help: So I am just staying in New York long enough to find out what my travel agent has done for and about me and then expect to return to Massachusetts and work!
You also have plans like Sam and Bryn which might land you anywhere. Fortunately my own plans are much better laid that most people around S.F. have considered and although I have had many refusals, I know what I am about. I did get my magazine project accepted by the largest distributors in the country, one Mr. Robert Kenyon. It took him 5 minutes to accept plans which have been rejected mostly a priori. It means two years further leg work—which will be easy. I have all my basic groundwork laid and was able to come up with all the answers to all the questions.
The same irony follows me everywhere. All Asians have accepted all proposals on all subjects. I have still to get a single refusal from a single Asian whom I have met. In Cleveland two did refuse meetings but elsewhere it has been a cinch and is getting easier. From 75-90% Europeans engaged in Asiatica I get opposition. Fortunately the librarian who was in the department on 5th Avenue has been removed and there are now several Asians working in the Oriental Department and a single Jew. I am all for Jews in the Jewish department but there should be some Asians in the Asian section, and today there are. Result: fast, efficient and cooperative service.
In Gloucester I met a considerable number of Jews and realize I am far away from my people. Many of these are in-laws of my relatives: My own people seem like re-incarnated Hindus. I spoke to a distant cousin whose father (an in-law) introduced the Vedanta into this country. I shall probably be their guest on my return. Adolph, my closest relative spiritually, wants to study Zen. I left Mrs. Sasaki’s books with him and there are several people in that region who are interested.
The Jewish Bostonians seem to be strongly Zionist, but in religion they were not so inclined to the synagogue. Opposed to Nasser, they are not opposed to Mohammed!
I rather upset them by a curious incident. A beautiful blonde came in and all the men made a play for her. I paid little attention as I am not drawn to young blondes. But it seems she had been in an auto accident and was completely paralyzed. She has recovered but still cannot smell or taste: The accident provoked a complete revolution and now all she is interested in are Yoga, Mysticism and Nursing. This threw all the men out of the conversation and we had a wonderful dialogue.
After she had gone I turned to my relatives and said: “Why she would make a perfect companion for my protégé Norman. Only he is a mulatto.” “Oh, that is all right; her room-mate is a mulatto and they are nearly always together.” (What am I do to now?)
My plans for India are very well laid and will probably keep me in that land a long time. I am seeing Myra tomorrow. She says that Saturn will dominate my 1961 and off-hand that might mean my staying in the Orient. I shall know more about it, but am not worrying.
Well you have your private revolution. We all do that. Naturally one does not know what to suggest in these things. However it looks as if you should take the boat—you are limited by plane. In Hong Kong you should call on Jimmy Chen for Oriental-tropical clothing. In Japan the Kimono serves well in hot weather unless you also prepare.
I have not yet heard from Blanche. I have extra funds due me and intend to buy certain books here on Indian medicine, etc. If you get to India you will not have trouble purchasing their “erotica.” I dislike this word on account of connotations and implications. The sexual attitudes of Hindus and Japanese are far from each other and from their own and none of them, nor those of New Guinea fit into “our” molds. If you publish your book and travel you are going to get new ideas, both from observation and study. In India you are going to be stuck because there often the sex life and the astrological life are combined. The horoscope may determine suitability, especially for marriage. In the bookstore I found a tome on the Mandeans whose astrology is combined with their religion—an ancient heritage.
Your Neptune trine Mercury is good for mobility, whether in travel or in writing.
My cousin does some painting and his outlook is at the moment actually somewhere between those of Verde and Gordon. With few exceptions he does not go before the Impressionists and he is actually a Jungian in his outlook. He spent years studying dreams and this is reflected in his art. He accepts the idea of “spaces” rather than space. And he is also interested in both Zen and Vedanta. But he wants to remain in Massachusetts. It is his son who has dreams of travel, especially with relatives on both sides in California.
I have not been moved by so-called “world events” which don’t get anywhere. Walt Lippman’s remarks on India, published of course, are pitiable. All the press keeps on mealy-mouthing that the world is starving. The world has always been so and so. Most people—and we can’t accept it—most people are not thinking in terms we say and insist upon saying they are thinking. The rise of the Afro-Asian bloc is imminent. We give in one step to Israeli against the UAR and first 6, then 12, now over 20 nations turn against us. We do not see any handwriting because we won’t look at any wall. These nations are turning against all white leadership.
In Massachusetts there is a pro-Kennedy sentiment something like the former pro Al-Smith sentiment, The difference is that Smith never discovered the U.S. much less the world. And he did have all Catholics with him which Kennedy has not. The college students are coming out for Stevenson but older people are not so impressed. It is a revolt, not of the masses but of professional Protestants. This means that political bosses are opposed to it. The press and TV seem to be boosting Johnson, or even suggesting a Johnson-Kennedy hook-up.
On the whole I see this struggle between the professors and the press. They don’t understand each other, One labor leader has said, “We got rid of the eggheads and put up the meat-heads….” Mrs. Roosevelt conducted one forum and I don’t think it will be reported. The outlooks are simple and real and universal with a leaning on facts. There was another TV program by a Prof. Parkinson who has become very famous and he wrote making Singapore the world center. Those who want to make Berlin the center could not understand him and opposed him. But Parkinson is right and the world is made up of other than blondish Caucasians. We accept the statement but not the implication. “Africa for the Africans” is a good slogan but a bad happening.
Rockefeller has come out again foe a good-neighbor policy with Latin America. But our refusal to have a Catholic for President has stirred up more opposition than our earthquake relief. Latin America is Catholic and will join the Afro-Asian bloc if Nixon is the next President. So we are going to vote ourselves out of power in the U.N.
I just missed being called in to the U.N. as an expert. I was away when the meeting took place. Of course I am not going to be an expert in the U.S. yet; At Harvard the Near East studies are in the hands of an American who is admired by Orientals and Buddhists; and a Japanese who is a very advanced scholar in actual Oriental philosophies and linguistics. The Near East is in the hands of an Englishman and Hungarian exile who is Jewish. Why can’t we have the same basis? So the Far East will applaud and the Near East will scowl and one of these days there is going to be an outbreak among the Afro-Asian bloc on this point. I know what I am talking about, getting it out of the horse’s mouth. But then I knew all about Pearl Harbor before it happened and it does not do any good.
Professor Sorokin remains my ideal more than ever after seeing him. He is a Universal Man, a beloved man—even an excellent flower grower. The world he lives in is the world, not a mental projection which is called “the world” and excludes most everybody and their ideas. His books are being translated into all languages. We agree that there must be a grander advertising of the old Master of Harvard, and of the poets of New England.
I could write endlessly but have much to do. I would like to know you schedule more than your plans because we just might meet in some far off land. After that you could see for yourself and then realize that my protests against the metaphysical people were and are valid. Even your Humanists fail to take humanity as it is, into account.
Faithfully,
SAM
P.S. Dorothy & Rick are supposed to have arrived. I got contradictory reports from the hotel. Have seen the Stices and they look fine, but have no phone.
Gavin: This may interest you. Sam.
Gloucester, Mass.
June 20, 1960
My dear Mr. Miller:
In re: “The Air Conditioned Nightmare.”
This is a long delayed letter set off by a series of explosions which have no causal connection. Neither is the order in which they are stated logical.
The other night I met my young cousin Amy Mats who proceeded to tell me that Walt Whitman and Henry Miller were the two greatest forces in American literature. I have met quite a few young people lately and they all hold that Walt Whitman and Henry Miller are the greatest forces in American literature. I have met a few Orientals who are quite willing to concur that Walt Whitman and Henry Miller are the greatest forces in American literature, but nobody in Washington will believe it, is going to believe it or even admit the possibility until a few more USIS libraries are burned or otherwise demolished. Then when we ask the Asians the absolutely verboten question: “What books do you want us to send you, there won’t be enough copies of Walt Whitman and Henry Miller around. But we aren’t going to ask that “infamous” question yet.
I was walking through Boston the other day and I saw a sign on a building of an organization for the guardianship of public morals. In Japan a young girl must be faithful—to her father. In India, to her horoscope. In Thailand, to her children.
I agreed with these, O sir, in thy esthetics, but not in thy psychology. But I was unable to joust because I have had enemies—never mind who, never mind why, never mind where. My enemies all had one thing in common—they held that Henry Miller was the representative of his satanic majesty on earth. These people are all “nice” which means they served daggers carved out of sugar. They were very much afraid that I might fall under your influence, although I am conceited enough to hope you might even fall under mine!
The last of these people—who still holds you are the devil or something, gossiped about me because I like Allen Ginsberg. Allen and I have little in common except some presumable Semitic ancestry, and love for something we call poetry. But I try to write epics and think they may be published some day. I felt Allen is groping and I do not feel I am groping.
But you have cut the cord of division by your opinion of Sri Ramakrishna. Sir, I am not a devotee of Billy Graham or Billy Sunday or spy-in-the-sky. The opposite. In the struggle between the Yogi, and the commissar I am the Yogi. People who do not like me—and they have that right—admit I do not age. So I either have the devil or God with me (I actually have both, but nobody wants to admit Iblis and Allah can be in the same camp—they once were, you knew.)
The greatest poetry in the world was written by mystics. I heard representatives of six different Nations quote Rumi in public meetings in San Francisco and among the elite, the savants, the commissars of the press, the well dressed, the “hard working,” I was the only one present who knew Rumi.
Two Persian kings once want to war. The victorious said: “Give me 10,000,000 dinars or your ten best poets.” He got the dinars. Unthinkable. But there is a vast difference between the Asian Oriental and the “Asian” we read all about in the papers.
So one major reason for writing is that your book is prophetic. Whether you wanted it or not, it is so. I am sure Golfing Ike never read any of your things. So he was briefed on “Asians” and not on Whitman and Miller, and he is only allowed to visit countries with “good Christian” governments whether the majority of the citizens are Christian (and corrupt) or non-Christian, with only corrupt governments on top.
I am a sort of ugly American (not like the look) who has learned that there are tourists, diplomats and bums who travel in Asia and only the bums succeed. But we can’t send bums. We can’t accept what you write. We just can’t.
The Ambassador from India said: “What we want from you Americans is more Whitmans.” Then the Ambassadors from Iraq, Ceylon, Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc., etc. said the same. Now you are coupled with Whitman, which means you are out-protocoled.
I met a Hindu in the subway in New York. He read the paper over my shoulder. This is a privilege I grant to young girls and to Hindus of all ages. He has returned to start a Whitman Society in his country—it can’t happen here. Maybe you may be included before it is all over. Especially as you quote Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. The Hindus will like you—lots much than they will like golf.
I am supposed to meet one Charles Olson here. I suspect he admires you. I am going to find out.
I am going to Asia with a whole book of clippings on America poets who are not read, mostly any more. The new ones will be handled differently. Asians like poetry and I think they will like a lot of New England poetry, both the 1840-1850 variety and the 1950-1960 variety. Anyhow I have a bunch of invitations to speak at Universities all over the Orient.
I have, of course, done the unforgivable. The mob roused by communists when I spoke turned on them. I am not a diplomat. I am not a reporter; I get there and have no formula. But I am a specially privileged bum with very special degrees which give me the right to beg and enter holy places and a lot of things. I talked with Dr. Radhakrishnan and with Harijans and enjoyed them all.
And despite this address, I am a born Californian and have lived much of my life in that State and some day may return. Tokyo is a long way off, but betcha I’ll do better than Mr. Haggerty who does not know the real facts about real life.
Keep up your prophesying. Maybe the young are correct.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
August 28, 1960
Dear Gavin:
This is my diary note. This morning I woke up after some complicated dreams in which you were the chief character. I arrived back in S.F. to find you in a very strange state of mind. You told me you were in a horrible fix as Dr. Baker had just died and you could not get any more horoscopes, but through the series of episodes, in one after another, you had no time to sit down with me as you had a sudden appointment to go out and arrange a chart. So you were in and out constantly and I could make no head or tail of your affairs because it appeared you were earning more money than ever.
I was not to stay in San Francisco so I paid a month’s rent on a place to put my baggage and furniture in it, and had to go away, presumably to Southern California for I took only two pieces with me. I was not going to stay a full month and said you could use the place. But when I got back everything was clean and in order and it seemed you had not been using the place much excepting the first few days after I had gone.
You were not happy but your astrology work was taking you further afield. You not only had more clients but they were spread out and evidently informing others. So, with the disappearance of Blanche you were not only on your own but making good.
I could learn nothing more in the dreams from you either about yourself or anybody. You looked somewhat better than when I had last seen you but carried a look of dismay.
We did have some differences in other fields. I called to your attention that not only had I been rather successful but successful in just those things about which there had been dark forebodings and not always so successful where it was presumed I would succeed.
There was the need for substantial real thinking both in regard to Asia and on other matters. The disappearance of the American Academy made the way open for honest, objective teachings on Asia, but if I said anything, all you said was, ”yes, yes” or “I have to go“ and you really did.
Turning to Bertrand Russell today I am strengthening myself in just those matters of logic and thinking upon which doors were closed in California and opened on the East Coast. What that means at the moment I do not know, but I am carrying Oliver Reiser and Pitirim Sorokin around and may be introducing them into the Orient.
I have three complete avenues in Egypt: The American University, the mixed ones and those which are obviously Arabic. I am planning first to call at the American University at Beirut. Most on board want to go to the Holy Land—there will not be much time, but they will go so I may be the only passenger the last few days. We passed near Tunis today, and the other night through Gibraltar—we could see the lights. Tonight I am getting only French and Arabic music and one U.S.A. station but tomorrow should be near Sicily. I like Spanish music most and far prefer Italian to French.
September 8:
I am in Cairo. While my putative hosts are away, God has been most kind in that there are several University of California men around and they have been extremely cooperative. I expect to be a guest of the Agricultural Department of the Central Government shortly: I have much to read of materials placed in my hands.
My present war of “the professor versus the commentator” is a sort of variant of my “Real Asia versus phant-Asia.” Evidently there are sections of the Federal government which agree. For the best work by the United States is not only given no publicity, but turns out no folders or circulars and no advertising or public reports. It is as if we had gone underground.
So far I have not seen the slightest, indication of any Russian influence here. Private enterprise is running all over and there is a strong and growing banking system. True, religion tends to make people feel satisfied and in this sense they are conservative. But the whole policy of the State is to raise the peasants’ status.
There is no way for me to compare things here with Israel, but they are certainly much better than in Pakistan or India, and I suspect very much better than in Jordan, Iraq or Iran. The press seems to take the attitude that if the people of Jordan or Iran believe in the Declaration of Independence, there is something wrong with Nasser. I am pretty sure he is busy trying to benefit his own nation which is more than I can accept from certain other governments.
Excepting in Japan I saw nothing to compare with the whole countryside from Alexandria to here and this without rainfall which is copious in Japan. I am reading as much as I can and have a few conferences each day, in the morning.
By the end of the week I shall be making out reports for possible publication. The general policy here is one basically American, our old 40 acres and a mule varied. Generally a cow or buffalo is offered because they can still be draft animals and afford milk. But I am going to learn more before I speak much.
When I do return to California I shall probably visit Claremont, not that I expect objectivity to be accepted there yet, but at least one door has opened. Another book recently published attacking Sufism has been itself strongly criticized by the reviewer who holds that before Sufism is attacked it should at least be given an opportunity to explain and even defend itself. No such honesty around San Francisco, but then look at what has happened to the karma-mongers. Rom Landau is still writing books and making reviews, which are not generally admired but the people at home don’t know that.
I have had my trials and tribulations and also comedies. The chief of which was at Beirut when a barber, constantly harassing me, heard me say: “I am Ahmed Murad and a Darveesh.” He dropped his jaws, his tools aid his knees sagged. “I am Ahmed Murad and a Darveesh; come, I give you free haircut!” And I did not think it possible to beard a Lebanese.
Anyhow I got along fine in Beirut by asking about the Phoenicians: That’s what they like: to be called Phoenicians and I played it up. “Go thou and do likewise” if you ever came this may. But the American University was having its summer session and I shall have to return depending on other things.
But Gavin, I have a problem. My last letter to Jack was returned and I have had no mail from Clementina St. and so no banking reports and don’t know what has happened. I wrote to Evelyn just before I left New York but no answer and no letter from New York either. It is going to take a while to straighten this out.
Sam
Things are getting better and better for me here.
October 20, 1960
My dear Gavin:
With the copy of letter enclosed a certain phase of my life is over. Undoubtedly there were factors which we night call karmic or occult or astrological, which brought about a sudden up-turn on a certain day, pushing me forward, but this has been at a rapid rate, at time at such a rapid rate that complete self-control has been difficult.
The difference between the scientist and metaphysician is obvious. The first is concerned with facts, the second with opinions. We have to have facts but facts alone will not accomplish everything, for there must be a cementing and harmonization and congealing in order to build a structure.
It is a long way from the Socratic and I repeat Socratic situation in which I was placed in San Francisco. The most ridiculous of the factors was the attack on me at the same time by Rom Landau and Rom Landau’s worst enemies; by Alan Watts and his worst enemies. The enemies concerned were women and I did not mention their names. Suffice to say they were all connected with the square of Neptune-Moon in my planet which set my mother against me and in turn some older woman who invited me to some large city and then turned against me. This was true of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, Washington, Berkeley and other places; the “plot” was the same in every instance and after Dr. Baker and I worked this out this “old woman” complex disappeared. A few of the persons you know or know about.
So far as the men are concerned it has been, in my opinion 90% insecurity on their part. The insecure man attacks, the secure man does not. He listens and if you are wrong he gives you plenty of rope. Excepting Northrup at Yale and Moore at Harvard all the men were foreign born and these two, while Americans, are hopelessly insecure. They both pride themselves as being the Suez Canal between the East and West and are despised all over the Orient.
You can understand that the McArthur Legend led to a Hagerty’s being mobbed. We insist that McArthur is popular in Japan and there has been nothing worse than in sending the nephew as Ambassador. But you do not understand that there are equally legends about other persons being popular in the Orient and we, without investigating, tend to accept these legends. For instance, Arthur Auberry, Landau’s teacher. But I don’t want to go into it any more. So long as we keep our Moores, our Northrups, Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Hungarians as the “authorities” on Asian subjects, we will not get the respect of the world. I am in favor of Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Hungarians being authorities on European culture and even science.
Fortunately today I have tremendous forces and even personalities with me. The Socratic story is over.
I hope your book gets out and sells. This, of course, is cut of my field.
Sam
Cairo, UAR
December 11, 1960
My dear Gavin:
The fact that I have not heard from you indicates that your affairs are none too good. There is in man the faculty of insight and foresight; we all have it and we all ignore it, excepting a few. In Asia as a whole this is not so. Insight and foresight are regarded with respect.
Today the rate of change in my position and effectiveness is about all I can take. The ridiculousness of Koestler’s latest book comes out. Carl Jung whom you and Frederick Spiegelberg adore, is sponsoring Koestler. Koestler says that certain persons are humbugs or worse whom Fred has been parading as great saints or prophets. Both of them cannot be right in their attitude toward certain Asians and if Jung is right then Fred is wrong end as Fred thinks Jung is wonderful, where is the sanity?
Actually it is about time to look at Asian peoples directly, even look at them cock-eyed and stop listening to fairy-tales of various Germans, Hungarians, Englishmen and Russians. We would not respect a Persian authority on Hungary or a Burmese authority on German culture. Where do we get these crazy ideas that because somebody has been to Leiden or Oxford or Heidelberg or Berlin he knows more about Yoga or Zen or Sufism? Gavin, as a whole we are crazy. We are mad and until we become sane we cannot win any cold war.
The dervishes here are unanimously anti-communist. But we either deny their existence or say they are fanatics or parasites. I could introduce a few dervishes into polite society and if anybody could keep up with them in biology or physics I would give him a free dinner, anywhere, any price. There are millions and millions and millions of dervishes, all over, from Prime Ministers to paupers.
I went to the reception of Ambassador Hussein from India (he used to be in S.F. Uncle Louis knows him, Fred knows him). I was introduced as an American dervish and was soon surrounded by all kinds of people. The other day when I went to the Indonesian Embassy the Arab attendants said I could not meet anybody, but as soon as one door opened and an Indonesian stepped out, I was given a most friendly welcome. And don’t think I am going to take this lightly or permit anybody else to take it lightly. I say to hell with all European misinformers about Asia and to hell with men like Northrup of Yale whose Ph.D. in Physics permits him to be an authority on Asia and he is the best friend of communist propaganda we have with his array of ignorant insults and refusal to face even simple facts.
The fact is that I am in here and in thick. By the end of this month I shall probably have addressed more people than Billy Graham. I am introduced as “The American.” I don’t speak Arabic and your friend Burdick would not last two minutes with me in objective debate. And, thank God, I have convinced some Americans—the whole Embassy here from bottom to top to bottom. They have seen me at work. I am in the news. And praise be to Allah, no more of those idiotic, egocentric, a priori rejections. Everybody has a right to rejects but only phonies reject a priori.
That is why people don’t understand your attitude toward the Pope. I certainly would not expect the Pope or the corner parish priest to accept what I have to offer, but I can bet that before they reject they would listen and that is much more than your “tolerant friends” do. I am Whitman’s “answerer” and I don’t give a whoop whether you accept it or not. I shall probably die being known as such. I don’t mind opposition, criticism, even animosity, but I do mind this a priori smug negativity of your friends whom I shall not name here. And especially the inhuman humanists who don’t understand human nature at all.
Every single project that I have proposed has been accepted, and some are in operation. The Ministry of Agriculture has thanked me. The American Consul-General has admitted that I have proved every one of my points. I even went so far as to resurrect my plan for Palestine which I placed twice before UN officials and they both said it was the most sensible thing they ever heard of. I have been compelled to be timid because of opposition, frustration, inhibition and most a priori “no.”
The dervishes have long since accepted me as one of themselves and there is probably more coming.
The reactions on my poetry are terrific. My chief consultant proved to be an expert in the world’s greatest literature and he gave the highest commendation of all. It all but stunned me but I know the source of my inspiration and my faculties. Someday I may get an editor to answer me.
Anyhow today I did get a reply from one of the country’s top commentator—in fact he may be the very No. 1 commentator for what he has been doing this year. Whether he is or not, I can now write knowing that my reports will not be pigeonholed. The rise of Cubas is not so shocking but disgusting. One can see that we really don’t know how to practice the golden rule or the declaration of independence.
Kennedy’s victory has been received with cheers all over Asia; and I must presume Latin-America. The world is not made up of Protestants but the worst government outside of Russia is.
And Russia is not leading us in very much. I have access to records, and I am tired being snubbed by metaphysical poseurs who can’t tell one science from another. Yet despite my strong language here I do not bear ill-will. I would never say “no” to these people who say “no” a priori to me. If I were chairman, I would give them the floor; if I were teacher I would let them report in class or by paper and not shut the door beforehand.
Anyhow the foundations are always laid for a good welcome in San Francisco, from two opposite sources. One is from newcomers who don’t know anything about this a priori top-foolery or European experts on Asia. The other is from old time San Franciscans; I must not lose my head that is all. I am even more serious in my plans for Pakistan, which are gradually receiving attention. I face the world, not my private ideas and call them “the world.”
Indeed there are no persons so naive as the sophisticates. They are the easiest to fool-sex, food and drink excepted. You see lots of them here, especially among the French. They really never communicate with the Arabs and they are easily preyed upon.
I get letters occasionally from Jim Pike. He understands now what I fought against at the Academy and elsewhere. Academy freedom means the right, especially in graduate schools, for individual research. I suppose someday I shall land in the courts, or at least before the Income Tax Bureau of all this nonsense of tax-exemptions for movements that are nothing like what they claim to be. We can’t win the good-will or the world until we love them and we shall never love them until we look at them face-to-face, mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart. This is the only Whitmannian position. I hope you will appreciate it someday. And I still mingle with the hoi polloi, and how.”
Sam
December 24, 1960
My dear Gavin:
I have your letter telling of the departure of Blanche Baker. I note your personal remarks but they seem to be reflected in the chart: There was a progressed Saturn conjunct Natal Sun and this shows the completion of a cycle. This was whacked by an unfavorable Moon, the Moon being unfavorable because of attitude. I think her great mistake was in not accepting Bill’s virtues.
My own idea is that when people are married or in any partnership and they have unfortunate or unfavorable aspects, they should resign for the while to the other or others. When this is not done something drastic happens and I know of several other cases, more women than men, who left this world under just the same sort of circumstances.
The transiting Mars was just past the Port of Fortune too and this would accentuate matters of health or life. The Sun (transit) was trine to Natal Mars and this would have brought great strength for an impending cycle. I feel, however, these things are more relative in a person in partnership than one living singly.
I am sorry I am unable to give more thought to it. It seems as if I am going into another cycle. All my dismay circumstances are gone. All those pseudo-Orientalists will have to become honest from now on, the conditions are so unpredictable and most of the people who criticized me were so far out of line, that some of them at least will have to discipline themselves or be disciplined when I return. I am not fooling.
When I presented my outline of “Oriental Philosophy and Modern Science” to the National Research Centre” it was taken up at once. I was passed to the top Botanist whom I had already met and to the top Physicist. Now I am meeting the top scientists in profusion. The remains of what Bryn left have been taken up and I have made all sorts of contacts. He ought to be in that Research Centre but God knows where he is. I have spoken to so many people on Salt-Water conversion. Saudi Arabia is also interested now and I gave excellent contact there. But I am a man and not an institution,
I have seen every one of my projects brought to light in every field of mutual understanding—horticultural exchange, seed exchange, progress of U.A.R. along several lines and better cultural understanding. Then I have met piles of Sufis and it looks as if I hall meet many more, despite Landau, Spiegelberg, Chaudhuri, Uncle Louis, the Near East Department of U.C. and sundry colleges in Southern California. They might outnumber me but I have the Embassy, Intelligence, and of course about everyone in the U.A.R. for me here.
I became more confident and trotted out my original plan for Palestine. The UN officials liked it. Now I am timidly talking it over with both Arabs and Americans and so far not one difficulty. So I took another step forward. A. trotted out four different scientific ideas which Lloyd would never permit me to discuss, and which Don Hayakawa waste-basketed. What a difference between meeting scientists and metaphysicians. Totally, absolute. You discuss the subject, not the personalities involved. There has been a whole parade of acceptance of ideas in every field. My Socrates days are over, long past. I am very popular here without seeking popularity; I am news here without trying to be the news. I am welcome everywhere—dervishes, scientists and socially, it is all I can take, but my poetry is coming up. That has been praised in highest terms and by big people.
I don’t want to be over-confident, I can’t handle all before me, but this trip was certain been a psychological prophylactic. Anyhow the San Rafael paper wants my story and so has Chet Huntley and I think others will follow. I have little time for rest but won’t leave here until the middle of February.
I hope 1961 will be better for you. I would advise that sometimes you put your thoughts down and follow them. Failure always follows when we say one thing and do something else. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Faithfully,
Sam
December 31, 1960
My dear Gavin:
I am closing the book of the year. It has been a successful year. It has been a year in which not only have my detractors proven to be wrong and perhaps wrong on every county, but the events also demonstrate and demonstrate clearly that the law of karma is inexorable without being ultimate and final; that is there is at least one way beyond karma, but that is not self-determined or self-determining. I am putting your address in my book. It is a return by you to conditions which you verbally avoided but did not karmically avoid.
The death of Blanche has not made me wish to return to San Francisco. I shall probably return. It will be a different return or no return—that is, if it be not a different return, it will be no return at all. Life teaches me, it does not teach everybody. I see the same mistakes made. I have never asked to avoid mistakes but I have said that if I repeat the same mistakes I ought to be punished. Dr. Baker and I worked out my two basically detrimental karmic patterns. One was a pattern which was “inherited”—the pattern of the dominating woman which was in my Neptune Square Moon. After that I saw it was imperative not to have an older women dominant me. Of course there were not many older women. My mother is in a sad state. I was going to write to Gladys Phelps whose birthday it is and decided against. Her mother did the same thing, returning nothing but evil for good.
But the big villain in my life was never mentioned; the woman who tried to destroy me did everything humanly possible and accused me on top of that. Someday you will come upon her name. If you even allude to this fact to some people they will mention her. She had a position of influence and she smashed my peace élan, caused me to lose my job and home and accused me of all kinds of villainy. Then a strange thing happened—my mother who wanted to get rid of me also refused to join her. They worked independently and at the climactic moment fought each other just long enough to enable me to escape. I got out of the clutches of that woman but not from my mother. But today the very associates of that other woman are not respecting and even cooperating with me and it is possible—I am no Addison Brown—that any peace plans I have, if trotted out, may find their way into the U.N. As time goes on more and more people associated with that body are known to me and by me, tough this itself is not determinant.
Even from my own point of view I am out of my depth. I have passed from meeting the chief men in horticulture to the chief in physics and other sciences and recently the top Entomologist and I have been requested now to meet the top Sociologists and other social scientists. There is nothing keeping me back but me.
I look back on a year in which several different detractors, playing smaller poles than the above, have come to no good end. Detractors do not work with each other, they detract. People who hold small views of others hold small views. Posers get by for a while, and so do popular mad men. California is full of them, people who could not stand up ten minutes in a debate. Alan Watts stood up five minutes; Haridas Chaudhuri and Fred Spiegelberg did not stand up at all although the former at least cried. Rom Landau gets by and that is all. He has nice reviews in Great Britain but not here. And the Arab is not like the Arab of texts and we are a mad people who insist on reading books by Europeans about Asians and think we can get along by Asians thereby.
The American colony here is made up of splendid people but I believe, with a few exceptions, I have met more Arabs than the whole bunch combined. Sometimes they get 300-400 people together, if they are most fortunate. Usually it is about 50-60. While I often meet that many in a single day, and more. You don’t have to believe it. I am not out to convince people who do not wish to be convinced.
You have chosen your path or no path. Giving up morality is or is not reprehensible. But when one gives up morality and chooses maximisms instead, what is that? Instead of quoting the Bible, one quotes from everything and everybody and thinks there is a standing. At least I have standards and now as the year is over they have seized my position socially, psychologically and otherwise.
Today I have two conferences, one to close the year in a sense; the other at the Pakistani Embassy to open the coming year, in a sense. I am not troubled about either. It is others who are troubled now. I tried to contact Al Azhar and they refused to see me. I sent reports to the government and warned that in a short time there could be Zionist money behind Islamic missions in competition with Al Azhar. It is true. I happened three days of after I wrote the letter and Al Azhar is crying all over, but not doing anything. Islamic teachings will get out, they will probably be heterodox or phony but who is giving out the true teachings?
The Sufis are different. They recognize both God in the supreme and facts as they are. They are not speculative and speculating metaphysicians. They are not ego-maniacs. Place 20 Sufis in a room and ask them to present their innermost philosophies and they will be in substantial or absolute agreement, inner experience does not contradict inner experience—this is something neither European intellectuals nor American metaphysical people can understand. You have tried a different path, and it might have brought you to the same truth. Sufis claim no monopolies on truths or paths, but they are superior because they do recognize the others and the others do not recognize them. Carl Jung is not neutral, he has chosen Koestler and that about finished him. There is no Nehru, there is no Prasad, there is no Radhakrishnan and there was no Ramakrishna. Boloney marches on and I don’t know whether Fred Spiegelberg is on his own side or Jung’s or the Harvard theologians who are not recognized at Harvard.
When we look at Asians, when we look at Africans, there may be world peace. I just read in Harpers an article on Cuba in which the writer shows that the United States as a whole never saw Cuba. I can see that. We certainly don’t see other nations, either. It is not a question of right or wrong, we are looking inside our minds and thinking we are thinking about an outside world.
I am no longer bothered. I challenged you at the time of utter rejection. I am not challenging because there is almost universal acceptance. There are ways of looking at people’s minds; there are ways of communing with and communicating with people’s hearts. The Sufis are human beings more than they are lecture-material. There are more disciples in Sufism than there are inhabitants of Great Britain—wanna bet? They may or may not do something at this time of real or fancied crisis. I expect to meet some of the great teachers here soon, I have met some already. I have met some elsewhere. Generally I know what I am doing; mistakes yes, shortcomings yes, but nonsense, no.
You are back on Sixth St. It is a symbol. You might have been in Paris; I knew you would not get to Kyoto, Kyoto is not written in your akashic records. You do not see these things. Both Myra and you were for Nixon. I was neutral and the vote rather bore out my neutrality. Bowles and Stevenson are near where I wanted them, the rest I do not care for or about.
I do not know how much the local disturbances disturb the U.S. At the moment the U.S. seems to be in a recession and China and Russia in partial famine, at least. There is a campaign on to get people living in Israel to return or go to East Germany which has a dearth of skilled labor, while Pope Juive is telling the world that all Jews must return or help or they don’t believe in God or god. (I am not sure which and I don’t know which he identifies his insignificant self with.)
At least here there is progress; it is not a question of progress but whether the progress is controlled or uncontrolled. It looks both but it is real. When I return I shall be challenged all over no doubt, or may be ignored. If the former I am ready; if the latter I shall settle in Ohio State and that is that; I am not bothered.
I am writing to the University of California on a higher level too. I don’t want justice or revenge but if people want amends I shall accept. And what do I call amends? Not apologies, not reconciliations, not compromises, but merely the opportunity to present my own views, that is all, and then if people want to cut me to pieces, they are at liberty to do so. But the karma works, for any and all, there is no difference—what we sow determines what we reap. Brand names are not exceptions, but less than exceptions. I hope you can learn something of this for 1961.
God bless you.
Postcard:
Sept. 1, 1962
Postcard
Sep. 1 1962
Dear Gavin:
I hope this finds you. I have tried all kinds of ways and was given this number but when I called there were two drunks and they would give me no information but barred the way and I had the choice of calling the police or getting, so I went.
I am probably moving shortly with Norman’s help to 1088 Fulton. Visited Jim Pike and now he is up here. Have seen Yvonne; Fred & Corinne in Hollywood; Emily in Mill Valley but am constantly flitting. First book: “How California Can Help Asia.” Everybody favorable and this includes a lot of the lot. Never better in my life. Hugo supposed to have recovered. Will visit SLO later. Also have some family problems which is natural. Well I have been to “Shangrila,” which is at the base of the Himalayas, etc. You can write to either Fulton or Clementina.
Sam
November 15, 1962
Dear Gavin:
Nathaniel Hawthorne has delineated the American character in his “The Great Stone Face.” The hero is always somebody else, hip, hip hurrah. We seldom recognize the genius in our midst. Oakland is importing a man from afar to direct its educational policy and Sacramento the same, etc.
You have lectured on “The Song of the Answerer.” What song? What answerer? In 1946 there was a conference of the Methodist Church and an impasse over biblical interpretation. I sneaked in through the back door and that ended the controversy. Not a murmur, then I sneaked out.
Recently a conference of Zen Buddhists and complete acceptance except from a bunch of schmuck PhDs who had to keep away—aren’t they such wonderful men? No doubt they are wonderful because they can charm audiences into believing they are learning something about Zen Buddhism.
The top Sufis accept my interpretations of Sufism, the top Vedantists of Vedantists and the really real Yogis who don’t sit like cranes, snakes, fig trees or weeping willows accept my interpretation of Yoga. There is a secret highly esoteric group of Jews here and their mentor is a close friend of mine and I feed him and he feeds them and they feed the rabbis and the rabbis feed the congregation and we shall have more lectures on “The Song of the Answerer,” ho hum and a PhD from Europe knows so much more about Asia than a PhD from America and this is called sanity.
Now I have been to Sacramento. One day was spent at Davis, top-level scientists and the Soils men greeted me as a Soils man and the Pomologists as an apple-polisher and the Plant Nutrition men as one of them and here we go round the mulberry bush. Then yesterday I called at the Capitol and was not there five minutes when the telephones began ringing and I began skidding and skimming—a repetition of my 1956 experiences in Indian Central Government offices, but now nearer to home thank God. And the Irrigation Engineers thought I was one of them and the Agricultural Advisers one of them and I had top-level talks on salt Water Conversion and Fruit Marketing and a lot of things outside my immediate profession until I excused myself—to be a biologist, engineer, chemist, botanist and what not in a short time is psychically wearing, and now you may have another lecture on “The Song of the Answerer” but don’t forget “The Great Stone Face.”
The rest of the time was spent with Vera Van Voris who made incursions and excursions into esoteric astrology. She says she knows you and I say I know her.
In the meanwhile I began to get all the contacts that Bryn would like to have (Bryn has lived in Vera’s home when she had a boarding house) and I think I am anticipating Senator Engel. Anyhow I dropped the name of Tom Kuchel ever so lightly and if the fun hadn’t begun then it would have.
As soon as a man really starts to do something—when the gods arrive, the half gods go. I am forced to pull punches. I can see clearly and someday we Californians are coming out of our shells and show what we have. I am not going to start any real school for real Asian studies to be bush-whacked by pretenders when I get nothing but open-armed welcomes from real men in real places and then some.
I have taken defeat after defeat in trying to bring in what I know rather than whom I know. If some of the people who being very modest and humble (?) had said “Yes” instead of “No,” no doubt I would have reached superficial goals sooner but they would have accomplished their aims in life. I am slowly playing my whom I know as my what I know is accepted. My “The authorities on Asia are European professors and American newspaper men and never, never may they be American professors and European newspaper men.” Now the American professors want to be heard and a lot of them have been to Asia and lived in Asia and worked with Asians on a far greater scale than any European professors whomsoever, whatsoever, and wheresover. So I may be leading a caravan.
Prior to that I visited the Berkeley campus. I know what my next visit will be. Why did Dr. Radhakrishnan invite me to his home when I entered India when he was too busy for other appointments? Ho hum and back to work.
The visit to Vera Van Voris gives me the spiritual liberty and opportunity to open my mouth. “Buddha never said a word” and Kerouac is an authority on “Dharma.” Well this guy is going to teach now and when people have less suffering, less misery, more happiness and more insight I shall say “kamerad.”
I had one series of arguments: to deflate analysis at all levels. I had one series of successes: using the Integrative Method. I have already written Dr. Reiser. But this thing works and the PhDs look up to me as one of them or even over them. How do you like that?
I once met a PhD; he was then one of the biggest intellects in this region. There was no philosophical conference without him. He spoke splendid English and splendid other languages too. He was the brain.
At the same time he worked at most humble tasks: cook, valet, butler, railroad yard laborer. There was no connection.
In 1926 he gave up all this both the humble work and the PhD consultations. When he died it was discovered he was the Patriarch of the Age. His name was Nyogen Senzaki. Now let us hear more about “The Song of the Answerer” and God bless you.
Sam
December 6, 1962
My dear Gavin:
Bessie Fuller Turner has invited me to come speak at her house. I don’t know whether she plans an open evening or a tête-a-tête, but if an open meeting, you will be invited. You will certainly be free to mingle and if you can get any horoscopes there, that will be up to you.
I have also been invited to Fritzi’s. It will be quite another talk although in both incidents I shall present that comic consciousness does not depend upon peyote or mushrooms or a new drug or an old drug or any college degrees whatsoever.
Yesterday I had to use a combination of blackmail and browbeating to get an article accepted but fortunately all the girls in the departments visited are for me. At the very simplest level, being Cal. graduates, they do not look too kindly upon honors being given to “foreigners,” i.e. graduates of other states as well as other Nations. This is always true of articles on Asia; the further the writer has come, the more likely his views are to be received.
But I found among both the American students of Asiatic and Asians on the campus a beautiful wide open heart acceptance of actualities.
You have probably forgotten the dinners to Dr. Radhakrishnan and Chester Bowles. That is your right.
I had to use the “back door” to get the acceptance I wanted in Berkeley but it is coming. The intellectuals are divided between the “What do you know” and “who are you” people and it seems in the end the whatknows are going to lick the whoknows to death. Wait and see.
With three gigantic projects going on I have neither time nor energy for anybody else no matter what the need or occasion. After all, I have been now to Ph.D. gatherings in Egypt, India—and America all based on “what do you know?” and I think more are coming.
Time out. Just spoke to Thea. I am not mad at anybody, just tired. Have reached the end of mental, but neither psychic nor physical endurance. Have now to write some very heavy letter, and no nonsense.
Sam
December 8, 1962
My dear Gavin:
I am writing this to have it on record. I wrote yesterday and tore the letter up. What you are liable to witness now is the “Fall of the House of Ussher.”
Yesterday afternoon when I walked into “Asia Foundation” they did not exactly salaam me, but I was treated like I have been in the Orient and was recently in Sacramento. “Asia Foundation” is the only one which “only in America” confines its employment only to Californians and Asians. This inconceivable, unthinkable, irrational policy operates, as yet, in very few places indeed. Not even on the campus of the University.
The idea that the local person might just know something about Asia—well I was amazed to find that all my letters and reports were circulated throughout the staff, and had become not exactly a “must” reading but something close. The day when “Only America reporters and European professors are ‘experts’ on Asia and never, never American professors and European reporters.” You may think this is a joke. It is one of the most horrible travesties in existence.
All the staffs in the University are for me. Here is one of the richest institutions in the world. In Physics, Chemistry and Agriculture, they take No. 1 place in the whole world and they permit their graduates to carry on unlimited research. But in Social Science and Asiatics! The grass is still greener on the other side and some of the grads who put in yeas and money don’t exactly like it that the doors are always open to those in Physics, Chemistry, Agriculture and Medicine and all of a sudden the full stop here. Some of them want those top jobs. They get them at Asia Foundation. And they are going to get them on the campus, Inshallah, after what I have just gone through.
I had to use a combination of blackmail and suasion. The scientists at Davis all want my stuff—the non-scientists, ho-hum and tooty-fruitee. I won’t tell you what the blackmail is because it can result in a mighty big-stink.
The Indian Consulate is all for me, as they have always been but never more than now. I am giving it to everybody and you had better take it: I walked into India this year and was greeted by the Chief of Protocol and President (when they weren’t giving interviews) and by the chief Indian Spiritual Leader and the chief Sufi. I was soon greeted by the chief Economists and the chief scientists and the chief Holy Men. Now go back to your “humble” expects and tell them. Who do you think is being fooled?
Well there was an anti-climax. There is one other “Sam Lewis” here, I mean a fellow San Franciscan who has the keys to Asia and. Period. End of subject. He asked me if I knew anybody who could teach Islamic and Comparative Religion. Now, Mr. Answerer of Walt Whitman, I have taught and I mean taught in the councils of five of the worlds’ religions and I did not get this knowledge from Cambridge, Leiden, Oxford and Heidelberg, or Upsala or Pavia either. You might even see this not humble person in the public teaching what he knows and which people all over Asia know he knows and now Asia Foundation people know he knows.
Krishnabai who is the most humble person I have ever met (she was with Swami Ramdas) says: “Pride is to be avoided but the proudest of all are those who pretend to be humble. Humility is usually the worst form of pride.” This is going to hurt some “humble” people who with all their humility never accept anything Sam Lewis says and never reject anything Krishnabai says. Ouch!
In scientific research honesty, fists, data, events are needed and the operator is no more important than his equipment. But in other research, ego, meeny, miney mo. That day is over. I heard or saw Channel 9 last night. Now Wittgenstein is the expert on Oriental philosophy. What’s the difference between summoning a mathematician who has never been to Asia or having a man who speaks Thai lecture on Persia just because he “has been to Asia.”
When one reaches the stage of laughter and ridicule the next steps are assured. Not one “expert” showed up at the Zen conference. Not one “expert” has been called in by the Indian Consulate. Not one “expert” is on standing record with the American Friends of the Middle East, and on the staff of the latter was a world famous (elsewhere) Californian who never had a chance here—I mean Harold Lamb. Nor did Nicol Smith, who is still alive and whose statements on Tibet ran afoul of the experts, but whose predictions!
I don’t care anymore if I am rejected, because I am having fun. But the chief rejecter of the University of California was discovered and demoted in a grand drama. He had been rejecting other Californians and we are tired of it. He was not a Californian and if I mention his name it will come pretty close to an early portion of your own life.
Sometime I wish you could go around with me. Dr. Baker did and did she get a surprise!
SAM
December 25, 1962
Dear Gavin:
Enclosed is copy of letter to Fritzi. I am indifferent to public lectures but neither am I permitted to refuse an offer. The return to my orbit of several friends from the past impels me to move out of a silence although I know right well that the skepticism of acquaintances is usually egotism.
Thea pierced a piece of my armor with a gift which would hardly be understood in this part of the world, and would be openly accepted in Asia. Very gradually the Consulate, the Asia Foundation and others are perceiving—from experiences with which I have no connection—the difference between honest, objective reports and the symbolism of persons as conveyors.
Actually these pseudo-conveyors are found all over—“only in America.” The disintegration of Alan Watts is a direct karmic function. People lead who have never known how to follow, and the Sufi teaching, “lender is he who is leader of himself, ruler is he who is ruler of himself” holds regardless. Persons have the right to faults, short-comings, even evil-committing, but not the right to remain as symbols of truth during such short-coming behaviorisms.
When I find an Englishmen, a European, or an American who is accepted by Asians as interpreters of their teachings, I also accept him. But every Englishman, European and American has a perfect right to enunciate his own beliefs or philosophy if he is straightforward enough to announce it as his own. Nobody objects to a Nietzsche who produced his own, and his short-comings are unimportant. There can be no battle for “truth” for there is nothing universally accepted or acceptable as “truth,” but there can be a battle for honesty, for there is a standard there, “to thine own self be true.”
Leon Levy told me he believed that if Blanche had lived ten years more, she would have found the “truth.” Blanche is the only person here who ever to follow me and gave up in three days. Now after a long time some few people are trying to find out something, absolutely obvious, but which they always try to connect with remote persons, and so fail.
Paul Brunton pointed out three ways to cosmic consciousness: breath, heart and “the eye.” I have never heard of any other ways and I have never heard of anybody not using one of them who got “it.” This I shall bring forth. When Swami Ramdas was here nobody, meaning nobody could touch him. That was it.
Happy New Year,
SAM
cc: Gavin Arthur
December 25, 1962
My dear Fritzi:
On this Holy Day I am sending you greetings with a sort of apology. A number of weeks ago I put in an order for copies of a picture to be placed on Christmas Greeting cards and the order was pigeon-holed. This picture is rather necessary as a prelude to any lectures I may give, publicly or otherwise. I am leaving in a few days and must be back on January 7th, remaining here indefinitely. I am writing some data so you can determine whether there are to be public or private sessions.
Since my return I have had a number of sessions with a life-long friend, Ted Reich. We are two of a group of “Young Theosophists” of many years ago. I did not have to tell Ted much about my adventures. By a combination of simple logic and intuition he knew pretty well, and has even “psyched” or clairvoyanced some of the more important facets of the trip.
Then I met Leon Levy, another life-long friend, at a party. He wants to know when I shall lecture and said he would come and challenge, which will be very foolish. When I was about to enter India, I told the Customs Officials that I knew all the answers.” All the answers? “Yes, all the answers?” They challenged me and this Yogi gave them an answer so fast that they let me in immediately without further ado.
Then I saw the President, the Chief of Protocol, the Chief Vedantist, the Chief Sufi and went on to Poona to see the top scientists and to Bombay to see the top economists. This sort of thing will no doubt be challenged by a lot of people who used to know me but it is a laughing matter around Asia Foundation, a somewhat important organization which hires only Americans and Orientals and has no “experts”! They are laughing with me and laughing hard too.
“Experts” don’t tell us anything and Justice William Douglas who was there has just told the American public that they know practically nothing, which is true. Anyhow I can clear up a number of mysteries:
What happened to Paul Brunton?
Who is the successor of Rama Maharshi?
Who was Upasni Maharaj, the teaching of Meher Baba, and where does or did he stand?
Where did Gurdjieff go for instruction and what did he really learn?
These, of course, are side issues.
My general thematic material is “Beyond Paul Brunton,” for like him I visited Egypt and India, now split into two countries. Like him I contacted people at many levels of “eccentricity.” Unlike him I contacted the top political and the bottom social figures; mingling with both that anybody who is not a disciple of Walt Whitman might readily understand. Jesus Christ said: “I am the first and the last” and unlike a lot of other people I have been permitted to socialize with both the “first” and the “last” and in no case was a college degree of any consequence whatsoever.
I think I have purposely hurt some of our local “experts.” When I knew the late Zen Monk, Nyogen Senzaki, he was a great scholar, a Ph.D., a linguist, the top authority on Goethe and that general period of German literature and poetry, and could read most of the “Sacred Books of the East” in the original and did his own translation—which almost always differed from Suzuki.
When he opened the Zendo in San Francisco in 1926 he threw everything overboard; began speaking in pigeon English, disclaimed any intellectual knowledge and opened his teaching to anybody, high or low, without regard to any college degrees. Actually in Japan it has been found that college degrees worked against one about 15-1, in spiritual advancement.
This is said because so far as I know (one could be mistaken) the majority of your audience are not university graduates and no doubt believe or would welcome that “esotericism” has nothing to do with these outside things— and it has not.
At the time my picture referred to was taken, I was in the midst of a vast assemble of Dervishes (and promoted over all of them, too), and they contained top retired army men and university professors, peasants and farmers, business men and a very large sprinkling of professional people, civil servants and jurists—roughly, perhaps not too different from your audiences.
Unfortunately we have a split between the “spiritualists” who are often of low scholasticism and the “experts” who have college degrees and know how to mislead and then some; the truth would integrate these but not necessarily make either type or any type leaders. The one teaching of Jesus Christ that I temporarily despair of enforcing is “a little child shall lead them.” This will be interpreted symbolically and esoterically.
I may or may not contact you before going South and wish you a
Happy New Year,
A. M.
Sufi Ahmed Murad
Samuel L. Lewis
December 31, 1962
Dear Gavin,
I left San Francisco feeling rather heavy because of no news, or rather only grapevine news of Bryn; and my last visit to Mill Valley was exceedingly disappointing so far as the Wingates are concerned. I had hoped to take these and other matters up with the Reinholds and made every effort to do this. But Corinne started out by inviting some friends (of mine too), and then acting as if I were not present, and paid no attention to Fred at all. Both of them proceeded to get drunk and I nearly lost not only a night but much more. This has made it necessary to write them separate letters and if I can’t explain all in the mail I must do so when I return.
Hugo was not at Pismo, but has moved to Shell Beach which is nearer to S.L.O. We could not retrace our steps. At S.B. I found Edward Connaughton now withdrawn and preparing for his last days. He has sent me a Tibetan painting to be marketed in S.F. but as I am away I shall have to write to the post office to see it is properly received.
Jim looked better than I have ever seen him and I am hoping to arrive in S.B. by Friday night. Tuesday or Wednesday I shall go to my Uncle Harry (you met him once) in San Clemente unless I hear to the contrary. My aunt has been very Ill but my foster-sister gave me an encouraging report.
Then Gina was ill too. But at the last moment, today, things began to change as if there was a favorable aspect these last hours of the year. I found the friend of Thea after a search and that was good. Then I visited Judith Tyberg, stayed about an hour with a fine meditation. There I met the grandson of Hazrat Inayat Khan, my first spiritual teacher. He is a charming boy and is making friends rapidly. Judith has been given charge over his education. His mother came in but that did not interpret our conversation.
Judith, of course, was originally responsible for the AAAS and Uncle Louie gave her the coup de grace, etc. This, to me, was the biggest mistake and I have felt badly ever since by the way we ignore our own people who know the Orient for those surrounded by glamour. Judith won first place in intercollegiate examinations in this country and was one of the first four students sent abroad therefor. But in her absence there was a complete change of policy all over the country, utterly inexplicable to me which upgrades Europeans and downgrades Americans in Asian studies. This is true all over the country with very few exceptions. The Asia Foundation is now reversing this policy.
For reasons that are hard to describe Corinne downgrades my occult reports and for quite other reasons Gina has upgraded them. The result is first that I am going to a party shortly as a sort of stand-in for Gina—spiritualists, psychics and occultists, which I should prefer to another party by friends of the Reinholds which I am told would be wild. Actually I don’t like the heavy stuff and I do like wine excepting when there are fruit punches. I can generally drink wine up to kidney capacity, and with intellectual discussions can tolerate far more.
Just before I left S.F. I received a fine letter from Hugh Lynn Cayce. We have come to absolute agreement. I have been indirectly concerned because the University of Islamabad which I temporarily represent wishes to have psychic and occult exchanges with the U.S. Besides this I have found that there is not a very complete interchange. Mrs. Garrett has faculties but she keeps them to a closed circle end previously refused absolutely to have anything to do with the Orient. I made it clear to Judith that the original land of the Vedas, which was the very country I have been staying in in Pakistan is surcharged with psychic electricity and brings out psychometric faculties in man because of this, etc. Judith understood and my job is to get others to understand.
Now this evening Gina has kept the telephone humming and given me leads, which will require writing after I return and a visit to you. The nature of the visit will depend in part on what happens tonight, and perhaps other aftermaths. I shall try again to reach the Reinholds. I don’t know if I can shake Fred out of it but with John Wingate’s condition I feel both uncomfortable and sad. There are forms of inner love I find almost incommunicable when they ought to be clear. But Emily sidesteps on Fred and Corinne does when she gets “under the weather.”
Gina says she has your book but on account of illness has not paid much attention to it. My visits to the Vedanta Ashram very good. This is a much better institution than that of S.F. The basic difference between Vedanta and Sufism in practice (not in theory) comes in the attitude of sex. Both position the Universal Consciousness etc. but Vedanta sets this up in opposition to the limited consciousness with the evils of money and love while Sufism sets it up against egotism or egocentricity rather than against any particulars.
I shall be interested in Fritzi’s reactions. She may make any arrangements she pleases, any terms, any time and I’ll just do the rest. On Tuesday, January 8, I give my first talk on the inter-relations of the Arts at the Rudolph Schaeffer School. Have not answered Bessie Turner but will take that up on return. There are also some private persons—old S.F. friends, cooperating with me in other matters. I think the deck is entirely clear of frustrations. I do not regard Alan Watts as an obstacle but as an example of pity (a cover for something else). I am only hoping he can submit to some kind of real self-discipline before he buckles under. Now the new legislature is tackling the subject of drugs, peyote, etc. While I am not in favor of it the medical people are no doubt going to push it through.
More will undoubtedly happen between now and my time of leaving here but all I can do is wish you a
Happy new Year,
Sam
February 5, 1963
My dear Gavin:
I should like to arrange that we each get our books back—your copy of the work on telepathy and mine on the lesser Upanishads.
I have had several letters recently from persons who tell me they have not heard from you and have been wondering why. One of these came from somebody who has met Charlotte. Charlotte is now in California and has made an inquiry about you.
Faithfully,
Sam
Indio
June 7, 1963
Dear Gavin:
Old soldiers do not have a monopoly on fading away.
The whole of life is changing and the doors are all open for a nice disappearance to distant parts where one can live in grandeur and even luxury doing such things as some persons say is impossible for me especially those who won’t look under any circumstances.
Anyhow I came to Indio on one mission and it has been a grand success. Have been to Los Angeles on another which was even more successful because it was in a series of surprises and this will be completed tomorrow. Then to my uncle’s and thence to Santa Barbara but for somewhat different reasons than in the past.
Then after collecting mail and laundry up to Mendocino County. But not “Ah! Wilderness.”
The background of my life is today full of increasingly favorable stories so these are being written down either for a future biography or with suggested plots for a fiction writer and one hardly cares.
One man had the temerity to ask me if I would show him, let us say, a Yogi technique—which a lot of people are sure I don’t possess. Anyhow though it was one man against a multitude it has opened doors for both of us and this is only an unessential in a dramatic if not successful career.
I don’t know what the stars say. The climaxes seem to come and go independently of the heavens but this may be due to mis-readings.
Once Sabro Hasegawa said: “The Hindus think, the Chinese say, the Japanese do.” Well I am more or less with the Japanese although some people may never find this out. My missions to Santa Barbara this time are of a totally different order, “making history.”
Faithfully,
Sam
August 15, 1963
My dear Gavin:
I have just received a letter from Vocha who has seen Hugo Seelig in San Luis Obispo. Hugo is again facing a climax and thinks the next moon cycle may determine whether he leaves soon or will be revivified.
He has asked us to find out if any of his old friends have copy of his dune poetry. I presume Vocha will look over Whitie’s things which she has down at the Desert. I shall look over my things while I am moving—the next week by pieces.
If don’t know if you have any copy or if you could be willing to release it to Hugo. If so, his address is Hotel Obispo on Court St., S.L.O.
I may see Ed Hunt shortly and will probably see John Wingate Sunday.
We have had orders to vacate this house—very indefinite—but I found a place even without looking. Norman remains here with some friends.
Faithfully,
Sam
May 29, 1964
Dear Gavin:
I am sorry to have missed you and now I am preparing to go away for a while.
The whole picture of life is radically changing. The complete acceptance of my efforts by leading scientists, the gradual infiltration of Americans into chairs of Oriental studies hitherto occupied by Europeans, and the responses abroad have all come at the same time, giving me at least the opportunities I have long sought.
It is an enigma that Misha has not restored your vitality. Either he lacks some techniques or some factors have been overlooked.
It is curious that both Bryn and I, who have had real Oriental training from real Oriental Masters display vigor and vitality not yet general. It is also of importance to us, if the world, that our plans in both the scientific and spiritual endeavor are not being accepted and if not here then elsewhere to the full capacity of our persons.
It will be interesting to check the calculations against the events of the future. However you have done exactly what I wished.
Faithfully,
Faithfully,
Sam
Tuesday, November 30, 1964
Dear Gavin:
Thank you for the invitation to Lottie’s talk. We got together very quickly and next time I make the trip South will no doubt meet her colleagues at UCLA.
This is a very interesting campus to me. For some time ago when I went there to correct some serious mistakes in writing about the Orient, I was not only welcomed but sent to Mr. X, one of those mysterious but very real persons who function in two or three different manners.
Outwardly he is bland, very acceptable socially, suave and discrete. Inwardly he is very powerful both politically and spiritually and knows the real controllers of this world, and perhaps the next. Between us also is a recognition of the functions of faculties somewhat beyond telepathy and the psychisms of either Rhine or Cayce.
One could not but accept Lottie’s claims. I have two teachers in Anthropology who are strong advocates of reincarnation and one at least, of “initiation” as well. My position in the classes has changed. It began, of course, in the scientific classrooms. When the teacher would mention a tree, for instance, I would describe the tree and nobody objected. This is scientific procedure—experience counts, personality does not count.
But the Anthropology classes are toddy the same—if you have been to Asia and met Asians and had experiences with Asians that matter, and all the personality and suavity and decors do not make up for ignorance.
Once in these rooms a friend and I “conspired” to get a petition signed by all the Prime Ministers of Asia in order to get a State Department or newspaper interview here. It was not nonsense. He died of a broken heart because of the universal rejection of his warnings about Vietnam. Some of his closest associates are here and can support this.
Now he has been given ample space in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism and at least two foundations have already been established in his name and soon you will probably see statues of him and people will ask who he was. He is one of an innumerable group of real “Ugly Americans” who are not recognized, come hell, come high water and particularly come war.
Whether it is the politics, i.e. history, or the esoterics, one finds tragic sarcasms. Now my memories are demanded, not asked but demanded by two Asian nations and one here goes around with the same rejections.
I asked Lottie about other psychics and got the answers I wished—they are none of them scientific; they do not recognize each other and most of the so- called “experts” are afraid of reports from Asia. Having met so many Adepts myself one can quickly understand Lottie’s seeing “pink’ in the undeveloped here and the absence of White, Silver and Gold which she said are the highest colors. I know she has White or Silver or both because I could see them. But ordinarily I do not see auras. When people oppose me I can see their psychic bodies and when they are friendly or indifferent I cannot. But I have met too may clairvoyants and some far higher developed than anybody contacted in America that one leaves this—at least until I go to UCLA again.
Witch Sybil Leek is still to come to try to unite scientists and occultists and there is some evidence she will succeed if the metaphysicians can be kept out or at least silenced. At school they readily accept my memory of past lives. The metaphysicians and theosophists do not and it does not matter. Now I hope to have Lottie meet Sybil but Lottie usually seems to get along better with men.
Anyhow, thanks, it was a very nice evening, even with Jack’s “ghost.”
Sam
December 18, 1964
My dear Gavin:
I hope you will not confuse my remarks about Alan Watts. When I first met him I urged he continue to keep his office open for psychological and psychiatric work. Instead he gradually got into the Academy.
I have a perfect right to challenge his integrity when he not only refused to accept it that I had studied with Nyogen Senzaki and Sokei An Sasaki but made public issues of it so I could not reply. Furthermore his “Buddhism” was entirely subjective and personal and had nothing to do with living institutions.
As for his private live and public career outside the above it is outside the realm of my right to criticize or comment. I have not had even a slight interest in psychedelic drugs and phenomena.
He has a perfect right to offer any kind of personal philosophy with any views whatsoever and to charge whatever he desires.
Unfortunately or karmically he has opened the doors to a number of rivals who also act publicly as personal enemies and critics. I have nothing to do with them. The Intelligence Services of the United States Government have complete dossiers on him for his permitting it to be assumed that he was a communicator of Oriental philosophies—again this is his karma, not mine.
I have been sent for to act on a panel next year discussing the real
philosophies and religions of the real Orient, so there is no time to turn
backward.
Faithfully,
Sam
Postcard:
Aug 20, 1966
Dear Gavin,
The same dire aspects which sent me on this trip seem to be pretty general. My dear friend, Mrs. Barrenberg, of Hollywood, went through a series of accidents after which I asked you about the Uranus-Pluto aspect.
Just before leaving San Francisco Prynce Hopkins advised me he had gone through the same. Then yesterday when I asked to meet Linus Pauling, the same.
These two men are close friends but neither knew of the others’ affliction. And while I may go to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions again before leaving, the main thing is a session with P.H. scheduled for Tuesday morning. I tendered him your greetings.
The Connaughtons do not look too bad considering their age. I heard a lot of “the other Jim Pike” yesterday. He is supposed to be here but is not. Our “Jim” has changed his job again. Having parties being given, tonight here and Monday night in Ojai. After seeing P.H. on to Hollywood.
Sam
April 1, 1967
My dear Gavin:
Some time ago I sent a letter, wrongly addressed, with a check (now enclosed) to make a lunary or what you will. I am particularly concerned with movements, both in travel and with housing arrangements here.
The last period has been marked with two sorts of events. Some time ago I had three decks of solitaire cards and within three days the Ace of Spades fell out of each one. “Death!” And Death followed—three of my own close friends died and many others were ill. But I found this all around me too. The illness of others has worked to my benefit. Complete reconciliation with brother and he has released me from all obligation to go away even though he may not live the year out. On the other hand he may keep on going.
This same period—and you saw it—was marked with illness of so many friends that it was very awkward.
On the other hand there have been events which are very droll for me. Every time I am criticized another Asian Master shows up. The last one from Vietnam refused to meet anybody here excepting “Asia Foundation.” Now this is one organization with whom I have been on excellent terms and which has accepted my objective experiences in the real Orient which “cawn’t” be true because they do not jibe with others’ dreams and vanities.
Most important of all has been my summoning to England. There is going to be an international meeting call, by Asians and one representative of each Occidental country. The requirements are that these Occidentals shall have studied one or more Oriental philosophies with Orientals and then been rejected by their own culture. There are a lot of us; even in San Francisco quite a few. I won’t know what this means until I reach London but off we go next month.
At the same time I have been given a library by a lady who was looking for somebody here also who had studied Oriental philosophies with Orientals. I have divided the books into about three sections (one minor one, too): (a) General culture which I am giving to Asia Foundation; (b) Theosophy and Asian teachings—which I shall keep intact; (c) Astrology which I intend to sell, money to go to Rev. Iru Price for Buddhist orphans. (People lecture on “Ha-ha-Compassion.” I have no time for such nonsense.)
Indeed I am getting ready for some big projects on world food problems and have no time to argue with selfish persons who attach values to names and not to truths. I shall visit Kew to get technical answers on important problems.
1703 Buchanan St.
S.F. 15
(Phone 346-2878)
27 Apr. 67
Sam,
Sorry this has taken so long. I am sending you an up to date copy of your chart with the progressions for this year on the middle circle and the transits of the slower moving planets on the inner circle. Have you got the Ephemeris for 1968? I am sending for the 1968 and I’ll get one for you also.
I don’t like that Mars retrograding back to Pluto. Notice the Moon all of 1967 in the money house.
Get well as soon as you can. I will come to see you as soon as the pressure lets up (yesterday I had to read 2 horoscopes and go to Berkeley to talk to a mysticism class on Astrology).
The transits around the inner circle are from May l through Dec.31, 1967.
As ever,
Gavin
Postcard:
1968, date unknown
Dear Gavin,
Will be leaving Seattle in the morning. Had a long visit with Bryn Liddy. He lives way up the Sound. Most of my business concerned Asian Affairs and persons. Saw Robert Sarfras who studied with Alan. He has been to Indonesia and teaches Ethno musicology. Called at the Tibetan Center and we discussed Roerich and his art. Expect to come home again in June.
Tomorrow with my uncle Harry Rosenthal who now lives in Vancouver BC, returning Monday evening.
Regards,
Sam
Postcard:
Mar 1968
Dear Gavin,
Hope you had a nice party. Left on 22nd after equinox on one errand and engaged in something quite different. Due to Bryn. Bryn is like our “experts,” accepts the real adventures of real people in real Asia. He is in confidence of one of the President’s top advisers. We simply have to have human Asian (nor editorial) friendships. Missed my Vietnamese friend but have a Vietnamese mission when I return.
Expect to see Robert Sarfras the musician today. he has broken the barrier with music. He once studied with Alan etc. at the AAAS.
Allen Ginsberg has been in Apple Valley campaigning against that sort of Carthyism [?] movement weak. Here too cold. Return about Tuesday.
Sam
Feb. 20, 1969
My Dear Gavin:
While working hard in the most inspired fashion, the inspiration extended to your field, and I am writing to you, in a certain sense as a chela of Edward Carpenter.
I believe that the uncovering of the distant planets also brought with them the awakening of the corresponding psychic and scientific faculties in man. Thus Uranus and the piano, and which it the growing sensitivity to seven octaves and more, in our awakened consciousness. We do not realize that many primitive peoples do not comprehend automatically all these notes.
The discovery of Neptune was accompanied or followed in the musical field by the invention of a number of new instruments and vast improvements in old ones. Thus Berlioz, Wagner, etc.
I am not an authority on the Aquarian Age. I have every belief that the psychic and super-constituent rays of Uranus and Neptune are now being felt in the lives of men. In other words Uranus and Neptune are growing up. People may call this the “Aquarian Age” or they may not. Therefore I am not contradicting any of your contentions. I am not imposing or proposing any Aquarian age but I am definitely presenting that the subtle factors of both Uranus and Neptune are now part of the Mise-en-scene.
Another aspect of this can be seen in the rise of the homophile and even on a pseudo-transvestite performance of last night. I find so many of the young people act as Uranians not in any particular sense but in many senses. They may even establish their own norms and these norms may expand.
This is not written with any degree of insistence but it may give you ideas or may support ideas which you already have.
By analogy perhaps Plutonic influences may penetrate into human behavior patterns with about the same time lapse as Uranian and Neptunian have.
Faithfully,
Sam
3/19/ 69
Dear Sam,
I have your most interesting letter here, for which I thank you. Only a lack of discipline has kept me so long in answering—and the realization that we may, in fact, find ourselves fellow students again—if not in the same class, at least in the same institution. Though I am not quite firm in my decision at the moment.
I do want you to know that I appreciate your invitation for Sunday—a celebration of birthdays, you say, which amused me since it is also the day on which I am celebrating mine. Or, that is, my family is preparing for me. Perhaps we can exchange toasts in absentio, or whatever the appropriate term is.
I will be brief, since I do want you to get this before the weekend. Many thanks and
greetings,
Gavin
August 26, 1969
My dear Gavin:
One is in a state of utter bewilderment. Before leaving for New Mexico, Goddaughter Saadia Khawar Khan gave a Pakistani dinner here and during the dinner there was one phone call that a dear friend was dying; another that one’s brother was going in for a capital operation; and then Nancy took sick. And the dinner had to go on. This was one occasion.
I do not recall any official invitation for dinner, and am always overworked. At the Novato residence all the men are out working; one woman has left; another is about to become a mother, leaving a single lady to carry on. And the replacements have left also. This means in going there one is even busier than here and our Sunday attendance has been slowly but steadily mounting.
The New Mexico visit was entirely successful and one will have his own Summer School next year—everything provided, meaning everything.
One wishes to visit Bryn in Seattle and has been invited, but one cannot have a vacation until God-daughter Saadia leaves. On Saturday, September 6, while the Precita Fair is on, Saadia will cook another Pakistani dinner and we shall have Open House. We also have accepted invitation to join with our dances. And on Sunday, again open house but Sam will cook whatever is needed, etc, and the doors will be open.
Hope you like your new place.
Cordially,
Sam
16 Nov. 1969
Sorry that you did not make my reception for Swami Vishnudevananda. He flew in from Montreal for the Peace March. He also has an ashram in Nassau.
I don’t know how I got this stationary. But it brought you to main.
With Love
And love to all your chelas
Gavin
Nov. 24, 1969
My dear Gavin,
Appreciate very much your last letter but one thing has to be made clear, and that is I have a continual full program all the time. Appointments can be made even though this means cancellation of routine affairs, but for this notice has to be given.
On Moratorium Day this house was suddenly visited by a real Vietnamese—there are such people; he was also what corresponds to a Zen Master, in his country. Vietnamese Buddhism, which is the religion of the majority, remains a totally unknown subject in this land. It would seem that the majority of Americans, quite anxious to get at each other’s threats, are alike unconcerned with the religions or ideals of the Vietnamese, or for that matter most Asians.
Not only will Rev. Dr. An return here sometime, perhaps in December, but in January I am joining in an effort to raise funds for the Vietnamese Buddhists who are alike ignored and despised by hawk Christians and dove unbelievers. You can also understand my cynical attitude toward many American problems because we only seem to have “solutions” for the problems of others, while our own surmount.
Within a short period of two weeks I had most loving meetings with a Jewish mystic, a Vietnamese Master, a teacher of Indian spiritual dancing, and a recently arrived real Zen, real Roshi. The latter happens to be a disciple and associate of the late Phra Sumangalo, my very dear friend, who lived only 15 years in Vietnam. His history and tragedy were the saddest and most painful of all episodes of my past.
I received from a very strange source some prayers of Meher Baba, and when I wrote his followers that we would have them published, it infuriated them. This is their exemplification of “universal love.” But we are going to publish these prayers of Meher Baba and face the consequences, any consequences.
We are now teaching “esoteric” astrological walks and dances as rapidly as these can be assimilated by the students. I now have two good classes with almost as many enrollees as one could possibly look after. This is very encouraging but it is more serious than encouraging. The young want their own experiences, not the opinions of others. Especially of others who have not been there.
Appreciating your kind invitation, and assuring you this is not all of my present day life that would interest you.
Sincerely,
Sam
Dec. 28, 1969
My dear Gavin,
I wish to express my appreciation here for the charts you so kindly made on Hazrat Inayat Khan and his son Pir Vilayat Khan. I do not wish to discuss the former for it may (or may not) have particular bearings on what is going on now, and what may be going on in the near or not so near future.
I have been rather struck by the potential harmonies between Pir Vilayat and my ego-personality.
Our suns are practically trine. Our Mercuries also are practically trine. Our venues are practically trine. Our Saturns are practically trine; our conjunctions of Saturn and Venus show remarkable similarities.
While I think this ought to be enough for basic harmonization, there are still enough differences to produce I hope effective co-operation. He has sun conjunct Pluto and I have Mercury trine Pluto, indicating as I may interpret it, work on a vast plane instead of with “small” things. His Mercury is trine to Moon and Uranus which are more or less conjunct. I should say this means his leaving details to others, while himself concerned with “grand views.” Despite the square of Mercury and Mars, he has a weak sextile between Mars and Pluto, which again means effectiveness on a large scale. His Mars quincunx his Moon has been demonstrated in life by his relations with his mother. His Saturn conjunct Venus in his relations with his wife and perhaps in another sense with his relations with women in general. I am inclined to accept the chart as being basically correct and that arguments for divergences in behavior will not be favorably effective unless there is a complete acceptance of spiritual guidance. To me his Mercury trine Uranus (involving the Moon) shows infinite capacity for intuition and originality, and there are many signs that this is so.
Pir Vilayat should be here soon, but he has not indicated to as whether he wishes to address large audiences, small audiences, or to confer with individuals. He has indicated that our mutual affairs should be discussed in North Hollywood whither I expect to go on the dates he indicates, and have so prepared myself.
With love and blessings and wishing you a happy New Year,
Sam
January 22, 1970
Mr. Gavin Arthur,
1575 Octavia St.,
San Francisco, Calif. 94109
My dear Gavin:
Not only has it been advisable to write but today’s “Chronicle Horoscope” for Virgo reads:
“Although you may feel that others are imposing on you, you find that it is this feeling that makes you rise above the mold now. Show that you have what it takes. Be courteous with everyone though rushed.”
It is remarkable that these horoscopes correspond so remarkably and closely with my actual life. I don’t know who is responsible.
When Pir Vilayat Khan was here we performed “The Whirling of the Spheres.” There is a cartoon in the current issue of Playboy showing a little old man entering a room and the doorkeeper saying, “You are just in time to take the part of Neptune.” This may be a cartoon, but that is what we have accomplished and we hope to convince anybody not an “occultist” that we can do just that, There is a lot more and I said to one friend, someday we’ll do that for Fritzi Armstrong and it will strangle her. “ After all it is only strangers that know anything anyhow. All the doors shut to me here are open elsewhere. One’s main credential is one’s geography.
But now I have another credential: The credential. My brother has repeated almost exactly what my father did. He thinks he is dying and has summoned me and re-instated me in his Will. If he does that I shall be in such a comfortable position. But we have already agreed on what the money will be used for. He is not gone but I am sending a copy of this inter alia to Herb Caen who knows Gavin Arthur and Elliott M. Lewis.
You see the meeting with Azam was uniformly and remarkably harmonious and cordial. We both have access to the same facts which it is impossible for the press and literati to accept. Anybody but an eye-witness may express his views with perfect “freedom.” The scientists, of course, are different but they do not control the vehicles of communication. Let us have more “Biafras” but eyewitnesses are upstarts, believe me.
There will be no repetition to Vietnam. This time we are going to bring some human beings together and will permit outsiders only by unanimous agreement. Azam, of course, is impossible. He is an Israeli citizen who has also been an Islamic Haji. He knows Mecca and he knows Jerusalem; he knows Hebrew and Arabic and English—what worse platform can you find? Of course he has had to see mayhem and murder while diplomats wrangle.
What is even more against him, he is a Sufi. We just cawn’t permit any Sufi to speak on Sufism, yet. Too many experts!
Saturdays are at the feet of Prof. Richard Kozicki of the University of California. He is also “impossible” (French pronunciation). He only lived in Asia with Asians. What worse platform can you have? I found that he had already listed all the literature for a potential “How California Can Help Asia” upon which I have been working for years; rejected, of course, by all the “experts” and literati and accepted by all the scientists!
He is the man who accepted—how odd!—my paper on “Vietnamese Buddhism.” Then I gave my golden anniversary gift to him, and perhaps more is to follow. The idea of giving credence to the little or big people who have been there was impossible a little while back; now it is the only thing the young will have. We will let Reston and Agnew write interminably about peoples with whom they have never mingled, but this old “American way” is going out and rapidly.
Next Tuesday Baba Ram Dass. Despite his excellent credentials (a la Americaine) he had the audacity to live with Asians and learn from them. Now the young want him and he wants them. He is a sort of spiritual Leary. My latest secretary has been his secretary and will introduce us although we have often cross-trailed. When we met years ago he was an aristocrat and I a paysant. I think things will be different.
This Saturday I shall be welcomed at the Indian Independence Day program held in Berkeley by the Indian students themselves. No “experts” on the program and I certainly know the two chief speakers, friend Lal of the Examiner and Swami Swahananda. I believe I have met Prof. Stout, the other chief speaker. But he is out—so far as the press and “experts” are concerned, a scientist who has lived with the peasant-farmers of India!
There are a lot of things also going on of quite a different nature. Our “commune” has been so successful it is kept out of the news. But we are having more and more people from New Mexico coming to our doors.
Private problems about which you know have been solved, for all practical purposes. So it would appear I can concentrate on attending the next all-religion conference where the speakers will be “religionists” and not “experts.” This is a tremendous undertaking by itself. It is notable it is held outside the United States. Since 1893 we have not permitted any international religious conference where the speakers are the direct representatives of the groups concerned but I think sooner or later well have to return to that. You should meet our new type of university professor! What a difference.
cc- Herb Caen
cc- Art Hoppe
cc- B. Beorse
From “The California Monthly”—current issue Feb. 1970
Sent to me from Sam Lewis—(Gavin)
The Convergence of Science and Religion
By Charles H Townes
The ever-increasing success of science has posed many challenges and conflicts for religion—conflicts which are resolved in individual lives in a variety of ways. Some accept both religion and science as dealing with quite different matters by different methods, and thus separate them so widely in their thinking that no direct confrontation is possible. Some repair rather completely to the camp of science or of religion and regard the other as ultimately of little importance, if not down-right harmful. To me science and religion are both universal, and basically very similar. In fact, to make the argument clear, I should like to adept the rather extreme point of view that their differences are largely superficial, and that the two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of each. It is perhaps science whose real nature is the less obvious, because of its blinding superficial successes. To explain this, and to give perspective to the non-scientists, we must consider a bit of the history and development of science.
The march of science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced enormous confidence in its success and generality. One field after another fell before the objective inquiry, experimental approach, and the logic of science. Scientific laws appeared to take on an absolute quality, and it was very easy to be convinced that science in time would explain everything. This was the time when Laplace could say that if he knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, and could calculate sufficiently well, he would then predict the entire future. Laplace was only expressing the evident experience of his time, that the success and provision of scientific laws had changed determinism from a speculative argument to one which seemed inescapable. This was the time when the devout Pasteur, asked how he as a scientist could be religious, simply replied that his laboratory was one realm, and that his home and religion were a completely different one. There are today many vestiges of this nineteenth-century scientific absolution in our thinking and attitudes. It has given Communism, based on Marx’s nineteenth-century background, some of its sense of the inexorable course of history and of “scientific” planning of society.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, many physical scientists viewed there work as almost complete and needing only some extension and more detailed refinement. But soon after, deep problems began to appear. The world seems relatively unaware of how deep these problems really were, and of the extent to which some of the most fundamental scientific ideas have been overturned by them. Perhaps this unawareness is because science has been vigorous in changing itself and continuing to press on, and has also diverted attention by ever more successes in solving the practical problems of life.
Many of the philosophical and conceptual bases of science have in fact been disturbed and revolutionized. The poignancy of these changes can be grasped only through sampling them. For example, the question whether light consists of small particles shot out by light sources, or wave disturbance originated by them, had been debated for some time by the great figures of science. The question was finally settled in the early nineteenth century by brilliant experimentation which could be thoroughly interpreted by theory. The experiments told scientists of the time that light was unequivocally a wave and not particles. But about 1900, other experiments turned up which showed just as unequivocally that light is a stream of particles rather than waves. Thus physicists were presented with a deeply disturbing paradox. Its solution took several decades, and was only accomplished in the mid-1920s by the development of a new set of ideas known as quantum mechanics.
The trouble was that scientists were thinking in terms of their common everyday experiment and that experience encompassed the behavior of large objects, but not yet many atomic phenomena. Examination of light or atoms in detail brings us into a realm of very small quantities with which we have had no previous experience, and where our intuitions could well be untrustworthy. Ad now in retrospect, it is not at all surprising that the study of matter on the atomic scale has taught us new things, and that some of these were inconsistent with ideas which previously had seemed so clear.
Physicists today believe that light is neither precisely a wave nor a particle, but both, and we were mistaken in even asking the question, “Is light a particle or is it a wave?” It can display both properties. So can all matter, including baseballs and locomotives. We don’t ordinarily observe this duality in large objects because they do not show wave properties prominently. But in principle we believe they are there.
We have come to believe other strange phenomena as well. Suppose an electron is put in a long box where it may travel book and forth. Physical theory new tells us that, under certain conditions, the electron will be sometimes found towards one end of the box and sometimes towards the other, but never in the middle. This statement clashes absurdly with ideas of an electron moving back and forth and yet most physicists today are quite convinced of its validity, and can demonstrate its essential truth in the laboratory.
Another strange aspect of the new quantum mechanics is called the uncertainty principle. This principle shows that if we try to say exactly where a particle (or object) is, we cannot say exactly how fast it is going and in what direction, all at the same time; or, if we determine its velocity, we can never say exactly what its position is. And so, according to this theory, Laplace was wrong from the beginning. If he were alive today, he would probably understand along with other contemporary physicists that it is fundamentally impossible to obtain the information necessary for his precise predictions, even if he were dealing with only one single particle, rather than the entire universe.
The modern laws of science seem, then, to have turned our thinking away from complete determination and towards a world where chance plays a major role. It is chance on an atomic scale, but there are situations and times when the random change in position of one atom or one electron can materially affect the large-scale affairs of life and in fact our entire society. A striking example involves Queen Victoria who, through one such event on an atomic seals, became a mutant and passed on to certain male descendents in Europe’s royal families the trait of hemophilia. Thus one unpredictable event on an atomic seals had its effect on both the Spanish royal family and, through and afflicted czarevitch, on the stability of the Russian throne.
The new view of a world which is not predictable from physical laws was not at all easy for physicists of the elder tradition to accept. Even Einstein, one of the architects of quantum mechanics, never completely accepted the indeterminism of chance which it implies. This is the origin of his intuitive response, “Herr Gott würfelt nicht”—the Lord God doesn’t throw dice! It is interesting to note also that Russian Communism, with its roots in nineteenth-century determination, for a long time tock a strong doctrinaire position against the new physics of quantum mechanics.
When scientists pressed on to examine still other realms outside our common
experience, further surprises were found. For objects of such higher velocities
than we ordinarily experience, relativity shows that very strange things
happen. First, objects can never go faster than a certain speed, regardless of
how hard they are pushed. Their absolute maximum speed is that of
light—186,000 miles per second. Further, when objects are going fast, they
become shorter and more passive—they change shape and also weigh more. Even
time moves at a different rate; if we send a clock off at a high velocity, it
runs slower. This peculiar behavior of time is the origin of the famous
cat-kitten conceptual experiment. Take a litter of six kittens and divide them
into two groups. Keep three of them on earth, send the other three off in a
rocket at a speed nearly as fast as light, and after one year
bring them back. The earth kittens will obviously have become cats, but the
ones sent into space will have remained kittens. This theory has not been
tested with kittens, but it has been checked experimentally with the aging of
inanimate objects and seems to be quite correct. Today the vast majority of
scientists believe it true. How wrong, oh how wrong, were many ideas which
physicists felt were so obvious at the turn of the century!
Scientists have now become a good deal more cautious and modest about extending scientific ideas into realms where they have not yet been thoroughly tested. Of course, an important part of the game of science is in fact the development of general laws that can be extended into new realms. These laws are often remarkably successful in telling us new things or in predicting things which we have not yet directly observed. And yet we must always be aware that such extensions may be wrong, and wrong in very fundamental ways. In spite of all the changes in our views, it is reassuring to note that the laws of nineteenth-century science were not so far wrong in the realm in which they were initially applied—that of ordinary velocities and of objects larger than the point of a pin. In this realm they were essentially right, and we still teach the laws of Maxwell, because in their own important sphere they are valid and useful.
We know today that the most sophisticated present scientific theories, including modern quantum mechanics, are still incomplete. We use them because in certain areas they are so amazingly right. Yet they lead us at times into inconsistencies which we do not understand, and where we must recognize that we have missed some crucial idea. We simply admit and accept the paradoxes and hope that sometime in the future they will be resolved by a more complete understanding. In fact, by recognizing these paradoxes clearly and studying them, we can perhaps best understand the limitations in our thinking and correct them.
With this background on the real state of scientific understanding, we come now to the similarity and near identity of science and religion. The goal of science is to discover the order in the universe, and to understand through it the things we sense around us, and even man himself. This order we express as scientific principles or laws, striving to state them in the simplest and yet most inclusive ways. The goal of religion may be stated, I believe, as an understanding (and hence acceptance) of the purpose and meaning of our universe and how we fit into it. Most religions see a unifying and inclusive origin of meaning, and this supreme purposeful force we call God.
Understanding the order in the universe and understanding the purpose in the universe are not identical, but they are also not very far apart. It is interesting that the Japanese word for physics is butsuri, which translated means simply the reasons for things. Thus we readily are inevitably link closely together the nature and the purpose of our universe.
What are the aspects of religion and science which often make them seem almost diametrically opposite? Many of them come, I believe, out of differences in language used for historical reasons, and many from quantitative differences which are large enough that unconsciously we assume they are qualitative ones. Let us consider some of these aspects where sciences and religion may superficially look very different.
The essential role of faith in religion is so well known that it is usually taken as characteristics of religion, and as distinguishing religion from sciences. But faith is essential to science too, although we do not so generally recognize the basic need and nature of faith in science.
Faith is necessary for the scientist to even get started, and deep faith necessary for him to carry out his tougher tasks. Why? Because he must be personally committed to the belief that there is order in the universe and that the human mind—in fact his own mind—has a good chance of understanding this order. Without this belief, there would be little point in intense effort to try to understand a presumably disorderly or incomprehensible world. Such a world would take us back to the days of superstition, when man thought capricious forces manipulated his universe. In fact, it is just this faith in an orderly universe, understandable to man, which allowed the basic change from an age of superstition to an age of science, and has made possible our scientific progress.
Another aspect of the scientist’s faith is the assumption of an objective and unique reality which is shared by everyone. This reality is of course mediated by our senses and there may be differences in individual interpretation of it. However, Berkeley’s idea that the world springs entirely from the mind, or the possible existence of two or more valid but discordant views of the world, are both quite foreign to scientific thinking. To put it more simply, the scientist assumes, and his experiences affirms, that truth exists.
The necessity of faith in science is reminiscent of the description of religious faith attributed to Constantine: “I believe so that I may know.” But such faith is now so deeply rested in the scientist that most of us never step to think that it is there at all.
Einstein affords a rather explicit example of faith in order, and many of his contributions come from intuitive devotion to a particularly appealing type of order. One of his famous remarks is inscribed in German in Fine Hall at Princeton: “God is very subtle, but he is not malicious.” That is, the world which God has constructed may be very intricate and difficult for us to understand, but it is not arbitrary and illogical. Einstein spent the last half of his life looking for a unity between gravitational and electromagnetic fields. Many physicists feel that he was on the wrong track, and no one yet knows whether he made any substantial progress. But he had faith in a great vision of unity and order, and he worked intensively at it for 30 years or more. Einstein had to have the kind of dogged conviction that could have allowed him to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”
For lesser scientists, or lesser projects, there are frequent occasions when things just don’t make sense and making order and understanding out of one’s work seems almost hopeless. But still the scientist has faith that there is order to be found, and that either he or his colleagues will someday find it.
Another common idea about the difference between science and religion is based on their methods of discovery. Religion’s discoveries often come by great revelations. Scientific knowledge, in the popular mind, comes by logical deduction, or by the accumulation of data which is analyzed by established methods in order to draw generalizations called laws. But such a description of scientific discovery is a travesty on the real thing. Most of the important scientific discoveries come about very differently and are much more closely akin to revelation. The term itself is generally not used for scientific discovery, since we are in the habit of reserving revelation for the religious realm. In scientific circles one speaks of intuition, accidental discovery, or says simply that “he had a wonderful idea.”
If we compare how great scientific ideas arrive, they look remarkably like religious revelation viewed in a non-mystical way. Think of Moses, in the desert, long troubled and wondering about the problem of saving the children of Israel, when suddenly he had a revelation by the burning bush. A similar pattern is seen in many of the revelations of the old and new testaments. Think of Gautama the Buddha who traveled and inquired for years in an effort to understand what was good, and then one day sat down quietly under a Bo tree where his ideas were revealed. Similarly, the scientist, after hard work and much emotional and intellectual commitment to a troubling problem, sometimes suddenly sees the answer. Such ideas much more often come during off-moments than while confronting data. A striking and well-known example is the discovery of the benzene ring by Kekulé, who while musing at his fireside, was led to the idea by the vision of a snake-like molecule taking its tail in its mouth. We cannot yet describe the human process which leads to the creation of an important and substantially new scientific insight. But it is clear that the great scientific discoveries, the real leaps, do not usually come from the so-called “scientific method,” but rather more as did Kekulé’s—with perhaps less picturesque imagery, but by revelations which are just as real.
Another popular view of the difference between science and religion is based on the notion that religious ideas depend only on faith and revelation while science succeeds in actually proving its points. In this view, proofs give to scientific ideas a certain kind of absolutism and universalism which religious ideas have only in the claims of their proponents. But the actual nature of scientific “proof” is rather different from what is approach so simply assumes.
Mathematical or logical proof involves choice of some set of postulates, which hopefully are consistent with one another and which apply to the world around us. Next, on the basis of agreed-on laws of login, which must also be assumed, one can derive or “prove” the consequences of these postulates. How can we be sure the postulates are satisfactory? The mathematician Gödel has shown that in the most generally used mathematics, it is fundamentally impossible to know whether or not the set of postulates chosen are even self-consistent. Only by constructing and using a new set of master postulates can we test the consistency of the first set. But these in turn may be logically inconsistent without the possibility of our knowing it. Thus we never have a real base from which we can reason with surety. Gödel doubled our surprises by showing that, in this same mathematical realm, there are always mathematical truths which fundamentally cannot be proved by the approach of normal logic. His important proofs came only about three decades ago, and have profoundly affected our perspective on human logic.
There is another way by which we become convinced that a scientific idea or postulate is valid. In the natural sciences, we “prove” it by making some kind of test of the postulate against experience. We devise experiments to test our working hypotheses, and believe those laws or hypotheses are correct which seem to agree with our experience. Such tests can disprove a hypothesis, or can give us useful confidence in its applicability and correctness, but can never give proof in my absolute sense.
Can religious beliefs also be viewed as working hypotheses, tested and validated by experience? To some this may seem a secular and even an aberrant view. In any case, it discards absolutism in religion. But I see no reason why acceptance of religion on this basis should be objectionable. The validity of religious ideas must be and has been tested and judged through the ages by societies and by individual experience. Is there any great need for them to be more absolute than the law of gravity? The latter is a working hypothesis whose basis and permanency we do not know. But on our belief in it, as well as on many other complex scientific hypotheses, we risk our lives daily.
Science usually deals with problems which are so much simpler and situations which are so much more easily controllable than does religion that the quantitative difference in directness with which we can test hypothesis generally hides the logical similarities which are there. The controlled experiment on religious ideas is perhaps not possible at all, and we rely for evidence primarily on human history and personal experience and observation in testing hypotheses instead of only easily reproducible experiments.
Suppose now that we were to accept completely the position that science and religion are essentially similar. Where does this leave us and where does it lead us? Religion can, I believe, profit from the experience of science where the hard facts of nature and tangibility of evidence have beaten into our thinking some ideas which mankind has often resisted.
First, we must recognize the tentative nature of knowledge. Our present understanding of science or of religion is likely, if it agrees with experience, to continue to have an important degree of validity just as does the mechanics of Newton. But there may be many deeper things which we do not yet know and which, when discovered, may modify our thinking in very basic ways.
We must also expect paradoxes, and not be surprised nor unduly troubled by them. We know of paradoxes in physics, such as that concerning the nature of light, which have been resolved by deeper understanding. We know of some which are still unresolved. In the realm of religion, we are troubled by the suffering around us and its apparent inconsistency with a God of love. Such paradoxes confronting science do not usually destroy our faith in science. They simply remind us of a limited understanding, and at times provide a key to learning more.
Perhaps there will be in the realm of religion cases of the uncertainty principle, which we now know is such a characteristic phenomenon of physics. If it is fundamentally impossible to determine accurately both the position and velocity of a particle, it should not surprise us if similar limitations occur in other aspects of our experience. This opposition in the precise determination of two quantities is also referred to as complementarity, position and velocity represent complementary aspects of a particle, only one of which can be measured precisely at any one time. Nils Bohr has already suggested that perception of man, or any living organism as a whole, and of his physical constitution represent this kind of complementarity. That is, the precise and close examination of the atomic makeup of man may of necessity blur our view of him as a living and spiritual being. In any case, there seems to be no justification for the dogmatic position taken by some that the remarkable phenomenon of individual human personality can be expressed completely in terms of the presently known laws of behavior of atoms and molecules. Justice and love may be another example of complementarity. A completely loving approach and the simultaneous meting out of exact justice hardly seem consistent. These examples could be only somewhat fuzzy analogies of complementarity as it is known in science, or they may indeed be valid though still poorly defined occurrences of the uncertainly principle. But in any case, we should expect such occurrences and be forewarned by science that there will be fundamental limitations to our knowing everything at once with precision and consistency.
Finally, if science and religion are so broadly similar and not arbitrarily limited in their domains, they should at some time clearly converge. I believe this confluence is inevitable. For they both represent man’s efforts to understand his universe and must ultimately be dealing with the same substance. As we understand more in each realm, the two must grow together. Perhaps by the time this convergence occurs, science will have been through a number of revaluations as striking as those which have occurred in the last century, and taken on a character not readily recognizable by scientists of today. Perhaps our religious understanding will have seen progress and change. But converge they must, and through this should come new strength for both.
In the meantime, even today, with only tentative understanding and in the face of uncertainty and change, how can we live gloriously and act decisively? It is this problem, I suspect, which has so often tempted man to insist that he has final and ultimate truth locked in some particular phraseology or symbolism, even when the phraseology may mean a hundred different things to a hundred different people. How well we can commit our lives, effort and devotion to ideas which we recognize in principle as only tentative represents a real test of mind and emotions.
Galileo espoused the cause of Copernicus’ theory of the solar system, and at great personal cost because of the Church’s opposition. We know today that the question on which Galileo took his stand, the correctness of the idea that the earth rotates around the sun rather than the sun around the earth, is largely an unnecessary question. The two descriptions are equivalent, according to general relativity, although the first is simpler. And yet we honor Galileo for his pioneering courage and determination in deciding what he really thought was right and speaking out. This was important to his own integrity and to the development of the scientific and religious views of the time, out of which has grown our present better understanding of the problems he faced.
The authority of religion seemed more crucial in Galileo’s Italy than it usually does today, and science more fresh and simple. We tend to think of ourselves as now more sophisticated, and science and religion as both more complicated so that our position can be less clear out. Yet if we accept the assumption of either one, that truth exists, surely each of us should undertake the same kind of task as did Galileo, or long before him, Gautama. For ourselves and for mankind, we must use our best wisdom and instincts, the evidence of history and wisdom of the ages, the experience and revelations of our friends, saints, and heroes in order to get as close as possible to truth and meaning. Furthermore, we must be willing to live and act on our conclusions.
The author, Charles H. Townes, won the 1964 Model Prize for Physics for his role in the development of the maser and laser. A UC Professor-at-large based at Berkeley, he teaches at a number of campuses and is currently doing research in astrophysics.
Article taken from the February 1970 issue of California Monthly. Originally published in 1966 in IBM’s think magazine.
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Calif. 94947
February 6, 1970
Tentative Plans for Spring Festival.
This seems to be a group undertaking. One has passed through the stages of 6 disciples to 30, and 30 to 60. One is now progressing to the next stage of 60 to 100 disciples not counting followers. Many of the new disciples have not been hippies, or if they have, they now show no signs of it. But this does not matter. Both my homes have been overgrown, and a system of annexes seems to be on the way.
Plans have already been set afoot to put on a spring festival near Lake Nicasio in the center of Marin County. Two thrones will be set up, one for you and one for Basira, the young lady seeres who was enceinte last year. She has since given birth to a beautiful boy named, and I hope aptly, Samuel Vilayat. If you cannot possibly be present, “your” throne will be occupied by disciple David Hoffmeister who has a physical deformation. There is here one very humorous element, and that is the addition to our ranks of persons born on March 21st and the two preceding days.
There are signs now that this may become a publicized event. Plans are afoot to have cameras and even sound equipment. This is not in my hands; this is in the hands of some very fine and faithful disciples.
When Vilayat Khan was here, we put on the whirls of the seven planets and then added Uranus. Since that time I have presented the walks of combinations of Saturn and Jupiter, and then Saturn mercury and Jupiter, the last indeed is full of potential mastery and self fulfillment.
The next lesson will include the dance of Sun and Moon together and Venus and Mars together. While all these walks and dances are based on the science of breath, the Venus-Mars dance is the only one which is absolutely and essentially a woman-man affair. We shall also go over the Sun ritual; the moon ritual; the wheel dance and others, some partly presented and some not yet offered. One of those partially presented is the Bacchus dance which will have some European elements in it, and vines and garlands if possible. Otherwise we may make something of wire or other materials.
The Sufic dervish dances have increased in number, quality and style. One is beginning to attract professors of universities in this vicinity. Very different from the past when not even interviews were granted. Now the professors themselves are seeking us out.
We have gone far ahead also in our mantric and yoga dances, and no doubt may have some mudras integrated. I am unable always to choreograph, direct and perform. But sometimes with the type of young people now surrounding me, it is only necessary to present and have them take over. I have two or three quite capable.
I may send copies of this to certain people that think they are occultists—maybe they are, maybe they are not. I find it is almost without question that the walks and dances of people are predictable from their horoscopes, excepting in a few cases. There will be two aspects to this—the fulfillment of the ego self which is what I am trying to do; the awakening of the non-ego which comes in spiritual acting and mime, which is outside my field of endeavor.
Both of these may be presented in summer schools. Vilayat is planning for young people 18 to 28. My program will be quite separate geographically and will include persons over 28 and parents who wish their little children to be with them.
Elements of all the above will be presented at the Spring Festival this year. I now have some very simple mixers which will draw in everybody. At the other end, besides the rituals above, there are at least two Krishna dances performed by myself and, I think, one dance of Shiva on the way. The two dancing classes are now over-filled and one is thinking of another one at least. On top of that is the visit of Baba Ram Dass, formerly known as Dr. Richard Alpert. He has been drawing immense crowds and oodles of money from the “poor hippies.” He is planning a book based on the actual spiritual practices of the actual mystics of the world of today. This is quite different from the dialectic subjectivities of the past; it is based on observances and performances and not doctrines.
Life has pressures plus and minus. My presumable program includes invitations from three parts of the world as well as calls to the vicinity of Los Angeles. But at this writing my reconciled brother is in the hospital where he has been for many days and the uncertainties are not over. In addition to that I have not only no free days whatsoever, but am lucky to get a few hours off now and then.
But before you weep, we are closely connected with the expanding New Age Food distribution plans and the possibility also of putting more time into vegetable growing—very successful so far. So there is no need for tears because of life’s sorrows and complications. More later.
Faithfully,
some carbons
Samuel L. Lewis
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato Calif. 94947
March 4, 1970
Ferry Building
San Francisco
Jeremy Eta Hokin
My Dear Jeremy: (cc Gavin Arthur)
Sometime ago I was sent for by the Consul General of Indonesia, and on leaving, passed by a door with your name on it. I did not wish to intrude, but a few days later met Sheila, whom I rarely see, and she chided me for not dropping in. Nevertheless I do not intend to intrude unless you yourself invite me.
We are now preparing to leave this vicinity primarily to attend a conference of the world’s faiths which will be held in Geneva. It will be one of those rare occasions, very rare indeed so far as this nation is concerned, when the religions of the world will be represented for the most part by their own devotees and not by carefully selected orators (as is usually the case) who do not represent tae exotics, the fanatics, the ignorant of faiths which are strange to us, whomsoever we may be.
The main subject matter is going to be “Peace through Religion.” I have worked 40 years in this field and then threw up any hands. Not even the people who begged me to use my funds, to use my mind (insofar as I have a mind), or to use my social entries. Someday, no doubt, my autobiography or biography will be written. It will either be called “I More Than Accuse” or “When Man Bites Dog it Absolutely Mustn’t Be News.”
I am not going over old sores and I am not going to permit new ones. You have seen the flop of Olompali and Morningstar. You have not seen the successes of New Ago cooperative methods based on love, humanity, and wisdom, wisdom which is innate in all of us but interferes with our ambitions and prestige. We much prefer war, and are kidding ourselves when we say we do not—just kidding ourselves. Jut the young are different, and I am hoping later in the year to call a meeting of real Israeli peasants and real Arab peasants both of whom belong to the silenced majority.
But the prestige will largely depend upon the effectiveness of my person and my remarks in Geneva.
In the meanwhile we have planned a spring festival which is a blending of the celebration of Gavin Arthur’s birthday and my farewell for the nonce. We are going to demonstrate and I mean demonstrate and nothing but demonstrate a number of dances and ceremonials which, when they become public, will do much to breakdown the differences and distinctions which divide men.
A number of yours back, 1967 to be exact, I was planning to visit England to make some studies in problems of pollution and ecology before these words fell into the hands of the philistines. If there is one thing worse than Stuart Chase’s Tyranny of Words, it is tyranny of names, and boy what a tyranny. Indeed it was as much a comfort to be balled out at a top-level convention of scientists for not speaking, as it would be for being permitted to speak at any other kind of convention. It just isn’t done.
Years ago I made my only appearance before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. There were traffic problems. We have never solved these traffic problems. I told them what was being done in Brooklyn, in Boston, in Washington, etc. and then I mentioned Los Angeles. I was summarily dismissed—immediately.
Well Jeremy, I have seen where real pollution has been cleaned up. I have had ample opportunities to study the disposition of sewage. I had all the introductions and then became sick, landing in the hospital. I took that as a sign not to be involved in such matters. Inasmuch as the philistines have taken over, one does not expect to be heard any more on these subjects than on international affairs where one has been strangely involved.
But now the young people are listening to me. You can hardly be unaware of the career of Thomas Alva Edison. I read his entire autobiographical record. He has something to say, and I understand he is being resuscitated. Jeremy, do not know a single problem that has not be already solved. We do not permit even educated laymen to say anything about the diseases of the flesh. But we do permit the most uneducated personality connected with the professions of writing and politics to say almost anything on the problems of the day, and by so doing, polluting the mental atmosphere. So to me the tyranny of personalities is worse than the tyranny of words.
This applies to this letter also, and if I do not put into action everything inferred here I am no better than anybody else. But now the doors are being opened. I am leaving on March 26th, and would certainly welcome you to attend the spring festival for Gavin which will be held near Lake Nicasio in the center of Marin County, beginning at 11 o’clock on March the 21st. We are assuming here that high noon will be the exact moment of the equinox, or if this is to be corrected we will rearrange our program accordingly.
Sincerely,
Geneva Switzerland
March 31st, 1970
My dear Mr. Mrs. With: (cc Gavin Arthur)
This letter may come as a great surprise to you, but then it might not. Your erstwhile gardener is attending a conference of the world’s faiths gathered in this city under the auspices of the Temple of Understanding. In one sense this conference is loaded—and in my favor. The respective heads of the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths are all personal friends. In fact we have an appointment with her serene Highness Princess Poon Diskul Pismai to take place when this letter is completed.
Perhaps there was the hand of wisdom in that I am listed without credentials along with those persons considered as top advisors. Actually, the world is very different now. The old type of ersatz expert, British and European professors of Oriental philosophy is disappearing from the scene. Yes, there are now fine German confessors of Oriental philosophy who have studied with Asians and with whom it is possible to communicate and commune. It seems very strange indeed for a person who was never been permitted to address audiences in San Francisco to be welcomed in a far-off land as “uncle Sam.”
But this is a new day. On March 21st we had a very successful spring Festival at Lake Nicasio in the center of Marin County. Some two hundred young people participated, not including a small audience of non-participants and about a dozen technicians who have made tapes pictures, and records for a possible later TV showing. It would seem that the campaign “Joy without Drugs” is attracting the young and will continue to attract the young so long as the press scoffs at such matters.
I shall be gone one month—more or less—because of the airfield strike. We go to London from here and then must visit Boston. When I return my secretary Mansur will probably show his autograph album both to Asia foundation and to the proper department of the University of California at Berkeley first and then at other campuses later. We also hope to do something, not just mere talky-talk about the Near East. There is complete faith in Mrs. Dickerman Hollister, Mr. Finley Dunne and other leaders of The Temple of Understanding and mutual love and reverence.
I hope to continue and increase my interest in the Art and Garden Center and other similar activities after my return. We should be visiting Kew Gardens and later the Arnold Arboretum in Boston.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
Chester Alan Arthur III
1565 Octavia Street, Apartment Five
San Francisco, California 94109
Telephone: (415) 346-2878
7 April 1970
Dear Sam,
My sympathy on your brother’s death.
I don’t know what your plan for Palestine is, so I am bewildered what you said to Bryn. But rest assured that I would never go against you in any important matter. You should know this—being enlightened.
I have written several enthusiastic letters to the East and Europe about my birthday and the Rites of Spring. Drew Langsmur gave me several fine pictures of you and me and I have them on my wall when I work.
Here is Vilayat’s horoscope—Ali says you want it.
Under separate cover I am sending you my horoscope of Nixon—published in Scanlan’s magazine. I am supposed to get $500 for it—but they are tardy. It is the first time my colored charts have been published in an international magazine—which goes to India, Africa and all over.
Let me know when you get home and I’ll throw a party for you. Dom Aelred Graham will be at Nell’s this summer.
Love,
Gavin
April 11, 1970
410 Precita
San Francisco 94110
Dear Gavin:
I held out slightly before acknowledging your letter sent here because of newspaper forenotices of an article which has now appeared and which we enclose. However, we shall go through the papers very carefully to see if there is something else before it is mailed. There are some excellent articles on the Huxley family, but I am not going to cut them out.
Last night we supped with Muz Murray, the director of Gandalf’s Garden. We are to go there once more before we leave to give an initial demonstration of our walks and dances and will be leaving immediately after that, Thursday morning, for Boston. We shall probably telephone from Boston to determine our return date to San Francisco. There has been some confusion. The hospital assured me my brother was doing well and within a few hours he died. They had a cable sent asking for my permission to have a post mortem examination. They went ahead without my permission and with the strenuous opposition of the resident cousin who is presumably Elliot’s chief. Presumably, the funeral has taken place. Nobody wanted to interfere with my work.
Last night I read what the people of Gandalf’s Garden thought of the late Meher Baba. It was mostly a rehash of Baba vs. Brunton and said very little. It is certain that Baba has not taken, because his followers have convinced the public rightly or wrongly that devotion to Baba is superior to morality and consideration. On the other hand, Pir Vilayat has made good here as he did in Geneva. He is having a real inter-faith seminar soon. The people begged me to stay, but if Pir Vilayat and I are not together we can simultaneously be reaching different audiences which is what we both want.
We have left the chart with Muz and it should be delivered by the end of next week. I must say that the aspects have certainly been borne out by what has been happening to my colleague; even if some items are not exact, they certainly have been substantiated by hard but simple facts which is the best criterion.
Much of our work here is to follow up the advice and introductions of Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who is regarded as the world’s leading intellectual authority on Sufism. This will consume about half of our remaining time. We have been to Kew Gardens and will go again. And today await a telephonic call from my dearest Buddhist friend here.
The weather has been almost but not quite miserable: cool but not cold; always partly cloudy, touching rapidly rain hail snow sunshine gloom brightness and Seattle temperature.
Of course life will never be the same and I knew it would never be the same. On the one hand, acceptance at top levels, and on the other the presumably increased and increasing sources of income will make one re-evaluate and rearrange all his affairs.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
May 26, 1970
Dear Gavin,
This is a sort of hasty farewell letter. I am going off to conduct a summer school, everything arranged for me: enrollment, funds, program, everything. No doubt at least indirectly this has been possible through the efforts of Richard Alpert, known as Baba Ram Dass, But it is also quite evident that one has the good will at least of a number of prominent Asian philosophers and holy men, and I mean Asian philosophers and holy men and nothing but Asian philosophers and holy men.
When the cards had to be placed on the table before the real spiritual leaders one was not shut out a priori. Indeed one took every advantage of the differences to work for peace and good will pragmatically, not just verbally.
But I am writing this because yesterday there was a preview of film. Most of the scenes were either of myself or my most active disciple. But some were of spiritual colleagues, especially your neighbor Dr. Warwick and Rev Shlomo of Jerusalem. The very impact of the past month is forcing open doors of the lofty, the proud, the conceited, who have habits of refusing interviews or giving others an opportunity to speak before lambasting them with criticisms. And while the worst of these no doubt has been Dr. Hayakawa, there are enough of them, and I think all of them will pass out of the picture.
One thing I do which the lofty, the proud, the conceited, do not do, and that is give free rein youth, free rein in everything. Youth is recognizing this.
In my absence youth will have another “Holy Man’s Jamboree” where actual or self-styled spiritual personnel will gather before the young, the frustrated, the heart-hungry. Pir Vilayat will no doubt represent Sufism, but if be does not there are now available a number of young people who can do this. When the Gods arrive, the half-Gods go.
But I am writing this because you appeared in the film. There is no explanation, but the picture of you is excellent. Now we have to have explanation, only at this time the producer has gone to New York, both to try to arrange funds and to contact some of the most important people in this field. I am leaving it to them, the young. I am satisfied they will know how to carry on.
As to others, let the dead bury their dead.
We had our last birthday party here, excepting the one on July 5 to commemorate the birthday of Hazrat Inayat Khan who brought Sufism to this country. We are doing this out of protest for we all feel the present administration is entirely wrong in their attitude toward the living people of Asia.
Love and Blessings,
Lama Foundation
Box 444, San Cristobal
New Mexico, 8756.
June 16, 1970
My dear Gavin:
We are about to leave for Santa Fe again; last week we put on some serious astrology dances. The response was great. You might not believe it but now I am known over the whole Rio Grande valley from the Colorado border to Albuquerque. This region may be sparsely settled but a goodly section of this last population consists of near hippies; there are roughly speaking two kinds: the Morning Star type and the karma yogis who work. The Morning Star type gets the publicity. “The others strive on and in not a few cases have been most successful.
Up to now they have received little news coverage, but now I am almost in a jam. An enterprising disciple thought he would film my work; he also filmed the work of some spiritual teachers who are my very good friends. Then Ralph Silver got a hold of him; he included in the project both real spiritual teachers who are most certainly not my friends and others who are not spiritual teachers. Ralph got money; everybody else lost.
Now, other personalities and some with very good connections want to film several projects including my own. If they do this may knock out entirely the other efforts, for I have not received a cent and would have willingly foregone pay but not the inclusion of enemies or promotion schemes with verbal but very unreal ideals. In fact, we may have to make some very quick decisions on this matter.
I think I ought to have a new nickname, “Timon of San Francisco.” In Shakespeare’s play Timon began as a rich man and then found his so-called friends were fraud; my career is exactly the opposite. I have a goodly income from the family estate to begin with, another fair income from my dancing classes, and promises for further emoluments both for my creative efforts and scientific research. I refuse to be ignored and door-matted. I see a lot of problems on which I have done research and in some of those fields find nothing but confusion and more confusion.
By making sarcastic remarks at the whole pseudo culture I win the applause of more and more young people. Time does not permit me to go into any but two of these problems: the ecological and that of the Near East. My secretary Mansur realizes now not only my backgrounds but the great successes we have made in making contacts With some of the finest people in the world, especially Orientals, the very top Orientalists, and some scientists and philosophers.
Evidentially God Allah approves of my work; the increase in money, in audiences, and in response is being followed by a visit of Dane Rudhyar. His wife has a home in the very next valley and he expects to visit this place shortly. We will have both our astrological walks and dances on the one hand and our new age music on the other to present to him.
The lesson today was the sun and. These are not only exercises, these are not only disciplines, these are awakenings in the consciousness. I am even-minded to submit a paper to the Clanceys or some other group that might pay for them.
Having found that negative tenderness neither got me anywhere nor solved problems I am becoming quite tough. At least Lloyd Morain is beginning to realize that I shall no longer supinely let others use me for a doormat. Neither the humanists nor the semanticists have done anything to solve any of the big problems of the day, although in my opinion they have the keys. But they are thoroughly establishment and their attitude that problems can only be solved by the proper people.
I have piles of stuff on pollution, land reclamation, water resources, etc. I am keeping quiet on them, but I am making alliances with some of the finest men in existence and I am gaining more and more good will with more and more professors with more and more universities.
Faithfully,
July 23, 1970
My dear Gavin:
Haven’t had a day, sometimes hardly an hour since my return from Lama. My experiences at Lama and indeed all over the Rio Grande Valley are exactly the opposite from the articles written by Margaret Meade and published. But who is a “peasant” against a “god.” We have our “democratic society” in which the “peasants” are permitted to listen—and shut up. But I think that day is over. Everywhere the young—who will be the voters of the future, are listening and more and more and more.
I was amazed to receive four long distant calls from different parts of the country regarding “holy men’s jamborees” and “peace gatherings.” Simply do not have the time. We have the “atrocious” “inconceivable” idea of taking pictures of Israeli and Arab girls together. That is only the beginning. While all the “democratic,” “humanitarian” groups shut me out, I not only received a response from one of the secretaries of the “intolerant” Pope Paul (the “tolerant, democratic” never reply), I received letters from two friends of the late Thomas Merton, whom I never met, asking what I was doing for the Near East.
Well the best idea is the way San Francisco society treated Sir Zafrullah Khan of the World Court, so adulating him that they were afraid to speak to “his majesty.” And at Geneva he became small potatoes and in the end all the “intolerant,” “anti-democratic” real leaders of real humanity accepted me. And while the great “experts” on Asia snubbed me my secretary and I were honorably received at the Royal Asiatic Society, etc.
Since then the young have been seeking me out, and after clearing up some misunderstandings with Ralph Silver we are both going ahead full speed. Within three days Baba Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), Vilayat Khan and Paul Reps (a life-long acquaintance) said that they considered “Timon of San Francisco” most capable, but you must “know,” like all (?) San Franciscans do (!) I am impossible and so unworthy of interviews. But you should see my correspondence and have to answer the telephone at both my homes.
Our culture is coming to an end. In the law-courts, eye-witnesses, but in other matters !Crazeee! We are going to destroy San Francisco Bay rather than let competent scientists handle it.
Meanwhile efforts for peace in Palestine will go on. Having the real contacts with the real human beings in many parts of the world, I am now being sought. Why one rabbi even permitted an interview—and, of course, I got apologies. This is going on. For years I have been writing this Nation is dedicated absolutely and unequivocally to the last chapters of A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court, our super-bible for Vietnam and Palestine. We have money for anything but actual workable plans.
There is another “exposé” of Astrology in a recent issue of an important magazine. It is “in the name of science” and by a cleric, of all peoples. It is remarkable how people write “in the name of science.”
Ever since I wrote letters about pollution and had the scientists answer (always) and the non-scientists (practically never) I can sit back and feel assured that Lord Snow is correct. This will not convince the parlor-scientists who know “everything” in the name of science. So we shall destroy San Francisco Bay as was Lake Erie, etc. while “in the name of science” self-important people get their articles published.
I am no longer disturbed. It is tragically laughable. The emotionalists have given us the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the UN and anti-genocide resolutions while mass murders continue. And it is apparently illegal for the Russians to send arms to anybody while we spend hundreds of millions for Francos of Spain and South America.
But now the young listen. And also more and more university professors and now many of these non-scientists. Until recently it was only the laboratory-scientists who listened or talked. I was their equal, but never the sociologists! not a chance!
Eye-witnesses in the law-courts, but in foreign affairs! Stupid, irrational, and unthinkable. It requires ivory-towered comfortably seated “experts” to tell us all about people with whom they have never mingled, indeed can’t mingle.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
July 25, 1970
My dear Gavin:
The impending death of Ed Hunt suggests I write to you. I have had absolutely no time or anything since returning from New Mexico. It is true that the “crazy” young of the day have accepted everything I am doing, not only in the dance but in everything else. It is a “screwy” new ages which pays no attention to the “experts’ of the past.
The death of my brothers followed by complications and the rise of the real New Age industries has promoted the financial situation not only of myself but of many close to me. True my chief lieutenant (Khalif) has been ill for some time. This has caused real loving disciples to see the seriousness of my position.
My Summer School in New Mexico vas entirely successful. The coeval camp of Pir Vilayat Khan was also successful. We may not have a permanent summer camp. But one thing is clear, a rather wealthy American has been in search for Sufis which all the prominent European experts know don’t exist. True I have met many—but I don’t count. I did not graduate from Heidelberg or Glasgow or Cambridge, nor even Harvard.
At Geneva I was asked why didn’t I appear at the gathering of the religious leaders right here in California. “Oh, I was vetoed by Prof. Von Plotz, and he could not possibly be wrong.” But the days of Professors Von Plotz and Schmercase and let us say, Landau, is over, absolutely over. And near liars of self-self-important men are passing away. The young want truth and objectivity.
My secretary could not but contrast the welcome we received at the Royal Asiatic Society with the non-welcome here in California and especially in this Bay Area. But that is past. Some damned fools let me speak, listen to me and are convinced both of my philosophical backgrounds and of the spiritual dancing I have to offer. Fame is transient and popularity which is based on externals will not last.
Independently three men, Pir Vilayat Khan, Paul Reps and Baba Ram Dass planning to go to Asia said they are leaving the spiritual future of the U.S. in my hands. Of course this is contrary to those very nice European professors of Oriental (?) philosophies. But that was only the beginning. I have been getting long distance phone calls and what has stopped it is that Ralph Silver is going in person and he has been most successful in raising funds for films which will show the real Oriental philosophies of real Orientals to the American public, including our spiritual dances which have gotten beyond our control. Not seeking fame like “les fameux,” this is most welcome.
In other lines they are now letting me speak before blasting me, which was a habit of the previous generation. It is so easy to blast, it is so hard to listen.
Not only have the initial stages of getting Israelis and Arab s together succeeded but I have been receiving inquiries from Roman Catholics asking what I have been doing. It seems that only the “narrow-minded” listen before they condemn.
But now there is a wealthy editor who is both a Sufi disciple and devotee (along with his wife) of Gilbert and Sullivan! One of the first articles I expect to submit is “General Semantics and the non-solution of scientific problems.” Then I shall be writing either on Sufi mysticism or the story of my life, which interests only the narrow-minded who have some curiosity and not the “tolerant” who have shut doors in my face. But that is over.
In September I have called for a very private meeting of astrologers, to demonstrate walks and dances. Those who have denied my prowess are not invited. There will be no charge but the audience is to be limited to practicing astrologers.
There are at least two underground efforts to organize occultists and align them with scientists. Dane Sybil Leake tried that , veddy exclusive, and of course, mystics could not join. I am very glad today. I have given Gina the works for talking about the “ethics” of occultism. The day of pretense is gone. I work seven days a week but hope to have a day off next week for reasons of health.
In New Mexico about 200 young people found me in the midst of the woods. Now I am not in the midst of the woods and more and more people are seeking me out. All excepting the “fair-minded,” “tolerant” experts who are hold-overs from the ages of darkness.
Everything else is of the same genre, the same tenor. We are moving and at a rapid rate. I have so many classes, I can’t keep track of them but have the most wonderful followers and disciples! We are in absolute alliance with Pir Vilayat Khan and films and tape recordings from many many lands and apparently more to come. When God is with you, or you are with God, not the whole world can impede progress.
Love,
Aug. 13, 1970
Mr. Gavin Arthur
San Francisco, Calif.
My dear Gavin:
I am going to give you a lot of not-news which will be history. Future generations will look askance on a culture which demands eye-witnesses in law courts but practically forbids them in international discussions. I am also sending a copy of this to Herb Caen. I do not care in the least. I just heard that the wealthy editor, who wants my writing and even my biography, will be returning the first week of September.
The first thing I am going to send him for publication is a letter last written to Rabbi Alvin Fine, a champion at receiving peace awards and otherwise a perfect example of the “Judeo-Christian ethic.” I intend to publish from now on all letters written to all people and organizations representing the “liberty, humanity, democracy, and peasant shut up” outlooks. I am impossible because my philosophy cannot be fitted into the way Frenchman sat in an assemblage after their revolution of 1789. People who do not fit into that construction are regarded, not as mad, but as non-existent.
You may read in the papers about Mr. Gunnar, the Swedish UN official operating to bring at least an armistice in the Near East. When we met he told me that my plan for the Near East was the most sensible thing he had ever heard. The State Department, the American Friends of the Middle East, the groups competing with the American Friends of the Middle East, the Carnegie Peace Foundation, add the World Church Peace Union dissented. The aftermath was that at Geneva when I met the heads of many religions I received countless apologies.
I have never been successful in getting any people in the San Francisco area even to consider what Gunnar thought was the best plan he had ever heard for the Palestine complications, excepting a luncheon sector of the Commonwealth Club dealing with Mediterranean problems. All other peoples: the great editors, the small editors, the commentators, the communists, the New Left, the old anti-left, etc., etc., etc., are all united for “liberty, humanity, democracy, and peasant shut up.”
The aftermath of the meeting of the great religions of the world at Geneva was that I am as respected elsewhere as not at home. My heritage from Ruth St.-Denis, which the “proper people” choose to ignore, is drawing larger and larger audiences and that great virtue more funds. This after family dramas have given me a good income to begin with, the greatest of American virtues. Indeed the cards are set for me to become a speaker in the city of Washington at such places as most people would think it would be impossible for me to appear.
Now my naughty disciples are arranging “impossible” meetings between the Arabs and Israelis, Jews and Muslims and Christians. When Hitler appeared many Jews, and all people friendly to them, supported the theme of Boccaccio’s “The Three Rings,” and its sequel Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.”
Now my disciples have met and are organizing to bring Jew and Gentile, Muslim and Kaffir, and especially us non-existing Sufis together. This group of young people, who prefer Jesus Christ’s “Love ye one another” to the dominant respectabilities are not only succeeding in all their initial efforts, but also in their fund-raising campaign. We are hoping to invite a few Christians—that just may be.
Yesterday I met Alan Watts rather surprisingly. This has given me some excellent inspirations. No doubt someday the real scientists and the real sciences will be able to reach the public. The horrible things done by the actual drug industry are so terrible that leading scientists, seldom moved otherwise, have been appalled. All those drugs which I have always called drugs have been investigated by scientific scientists and found wanting. But of course the media, which depend upon revenue from advertising, can’t say anything.
My difference from Alan is very simple. I simply believe that the highest psychedelic properties will be found in the higher plants. We both agree that the hard-liquor people must be stopped both in their efforts to reach more consumers and in their efforts futile efforts to stop the young from finding out the hidden values in plants.
This morning I had a beautiful interview with Ralph Silver. We had long agreed that I was to be a policy man and he a money man. He is going to Asia along with several of my disciples to take pictures of “non-existent Sufis” etc. The day is coming when this country will have to be willing to learn some Asian philosophies from some Asians. They are planning to take films, etc., and to give us a little more reality add a little less “realism.” Meeting real people, which our culture denies exists.
All my classes are being better attended than ever. I have been invited by the Philosophy departments of U.C. Berkeley and USC to speak on the real philosophies of real Asians.
My main talk last night was in the coining of a word “Gappists.” Practically every faction in this country is a gappist. They emphasize differences. The great sin of the young is that they want to worship together, regardless of whether it is a church, mosque, synagogue, or Indian teepee. They may lose arguments but they are going to win, because they are going to live. They are going to outlast their elders, the gappists, watch and see.
Faithfully,
August 15, 1970
My dear Gavin:
I want to thank you for the meeting last night. When we got down stairs I roared with laughter and my young friends understood me. The last time I did that was at the psychedelic conference years ago. I was sitting next to a very beautiful psychiatrist. She asked me why I lost my temper. “Feel my pulse; take my heart beat; measure my temperature. And my breath.” She did so, and all the measurements were exactly the opposite of what she had expected. Actually it was a trick. She was a beautiful psychiatrist. I have been enough of a Beetle fan to know about “I’d like to hold your hand.” So when things are not expected of me, I do them. If you come to my house you will see on the altar a picture of the late Roshi Furukawa. He was my predecessor as Fudo. But a Fudo does not run around following rules others lay down for him; not at all; it is nothing like that.
That woman was acting exactly like her contemporaries acted toward me before. If you read the newspapers you will find that a man named Gunnar is in charge of the peace negotiations. He is a UN official. He does not believe in “liberty, democracy, humanity, and peasant shut up.” We spent hours together and he told me I had the best plan for the Near East he had ever encountered. Actually my plan was based for the most part on accomplishments of University of California alumni. You won’t read about them in the paper. Indeed, only a small publication of the State Department paid any attention to the greatest accomplishments of these people. We have a new culture which judges by facts not by the importance of personalities stating those “facts.” I am not going into that here.
In the same room where you will find the picture of Roshi Furukawa there have been embraces to and from Zen Masters, Rabbi Shlomo, Sufis, and Hindu spiritual leaders. I am not interested in trying to convince other people that they took place. I don’t have to today. I think I have been embraced and embraced by more people than anybody else in the whole world. Someone might ask, “So What?” and my answer would also be “So What.”
I saw Alan Watts the other day. Today our difference is technical, not philosophical. I simply believe that higher plants have greater psychedelic potentials than “science” has discovered. When I was working with Whitey he told me about the psychic virtues of Tequila. I found out later that my tolerance for Tequila is at least 4 times as great as my tolerance for any other alcoholic beverage. I cannot prove it. It simply is. Someday we will become open enough to study Asian wisdoms. This is a long story into which I do not wish to go. Alan gave me inspirations. I shall soon be talking on psychedelics and the greater and lesser mysteries. I am no longer concerned with the a priori rejections of the “important people.”
My editor returns early in September and we are going to put a lot of “important” people in their places unless they realize what is happening. The greatest of my sins, having been introduced to Alfred Korzybski by my own teacher Cassius Keyser, is going to be made public, and not all the “Generals” can stop that. The day of “Generals” is over. They had better learn it.
Every letter I have written to a scientist, I mean a laboratory-scientist, on pollution has been acknowledged. Not a single letter to a literary expert has been acknowledged. Scientists are today afraid that the “universal experts” are going to destroy our culture, are destroying it. I agree. That’s why last night I mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright.
I consider all people as Bodhisattvas, but sometimes like that woman, people act as asuras and rakshasas. I have no objection to the remarks about President Nixon. I knew Chet Huntley very long ago and we were very good friends until he went East.
On September 11 I believe there will be a meeting for astrologers where I shall present my astrological walks and breaths. But I understand there is already a book coming out on the subject.
Now the universities, one after another, are sending for me. I do not know how to handle the invitations, but I guess it will work out. I now have disciples travelling far and wide. I now have young people trying to raise funds for me. Ralph Silver in effect has become almost like a flesh and blood son. He is going to have a chance to meet a lot of important people elsewhere whom leaders in our present culture deny I know. All right, let it be that way.
So much love has been demonstrated to me followed by expressions of what I call pragmatic intelligence, ability to do things, and doing them, when no experts can block their paths.
Love and Blessings,
410 Precita Ave,
San Francisco, Calif.
August 18, 1970
Gavin Arthur,
1565 Octavia St.,
San Francisco, Calif. 94109
My dear Gavin: “Liberty, Democracy, Humanity and peasants, shut up.”
In a short while I expect to go to the University of California to help establishment a “Peace Scholarship” for the department of near East languages. It is a long story and I am undoubtedly the “wrong person.” Until recently only one man believed I had the formula that would bring peace in the near East. The “experts,” the press and of course, all the European professors of “Asia” cultures were against.
As fate or fortune increased my income I felt it proper to work for peace, but not that “liberty, peace and justice” phrase which any Hitler could commend. It was a question as to whether to work for peace in the Near East or in SE Asia. As Americans replaced the “great” English, Hungarian and Carman “experts” I found myself with new friends; you don’t read about them in the press of course. And in his line I again met Dr. Carrol Parrish who is a dean at UCLA and who was my very first secretary and friend of Vocha Fiske. He is not an expert; he was a top G II man. Otherwise my paper on “Vietnamese Buddhism” was rejected and rejected and rejected. Democracy and humanity, hurrah!
Then I began to meet more and more Vietnamese with whom communication was simple and easy. I moved to Novato and found myself living near one Lt. Edward Lansdale Jr. I contacted him and found he was the son of Lieutenant-General Edward Lansdale, my war hero. I could not have known him, of course, every European “expert” on Asia and every newsman knows better. But I wrote him and we agreed that it would be best for me to stand by him. We are both friends and so is Carrol of her Serene highness Princes Poon whom I again met at Geneva this year. So I turned my attention to the Near East.
At Geneva I told people I was the “incarnation of Nathan the Wise.” In a short time the real leaders of the real religions of the real world were either apologetic or cordial Boy, did I get apologies, and kisses. There were no newsman there from the US. Next time we may invite communists and then the press will appear.
At Geneva Asian-Asians wondered why I had not been to certain world-religion conferences, especially in California. “Oh, Professor Von Schnitzelbaum saw to that.” The Asian-Asians are still unable to understand why I am blacklisted and especially at the University of Hawaii (controlled by associates of the Duce-Generalissimos of Semantics friends).
When we left Geneva we had “impossible” receptions at the Royal Asiatic Society and World Congress of Faiths in London, etc. This simply could not be so I spare details.
After all there was just one man who believed I had some good ideas on the Near East, excepting Admiral Evenson here. That man … Gunnar Jarring! He said that I had the most sensible plan for the Near East he had ever heard of, but after all the “experts” and the “good people” and the “nice” people especially the winners of “peace awards” know better.
When “Silent Spring” was published I was a professional spray operator. When I tried to speak, all the “liberty, democracy and humanity plus peasants shut up” put me in my place, all excepting the entomologists. They thought I knew what I was talking about but they were a hopeless minority. And so when I have been thinking I had a plan for the Near East! Only now there is a growing group of young that think (?) not, what you do know but who has rejected you? and that is making me a superhero.
So I began to call some young people together an presented my ideas and experiences which only a Gunnar Jarring would even listen to (excepting Admiral Evenson and his friends) and they are going ahead with the “inconceivable,” “impossible” and Verboten. If Jew and Arab shared pornography: world news. If they shared marijuana: world news. But if they eat together and pray together. This simply can’t because, because, because.
Now I am looking better simply because the young listen to me and accept facts while their elders would not listen to me or accept facts. As Russ Joyner says, “Don’t let facts confuse the issues.” But between assumedly knowing and being rejected and ejected, what is happening! My audiences increases, my incomes increase and we are getting prosperity from many sources.
Already my uncontrollable young disciples have arranged a dinner given by Jews for Muslims and another to be given by Arabs for Jews. This ain’t news, darling, this mustn’t be news. Wrong persons involved. Of course, of course.
But … in the meanwhile a millionaire publisher has discovered this person and actually believes what is in his diaries. He will be home soon. We don’t care if the press believes or not. The “great” men who have received peace awards never answer letters but now my letters to them may be published. We are getting Muslims to say the “Sema” and Jews to say the “Kalama” which mustn’t, mustn’t and cawn’t be … wrong people. But some have votes and we are getting more and more money and often by honest work and sometimes by inheritance.
I am going to the department of Near East languages, the University of California. Once I wrote a paper, based on Paul Brunton and all “experts” who followed one another at the American Academy of Asian studies turned me down. They said it was ridiculous. Then I went to the department of Near East languages in Berkeley and they offered me a PhD Degree on the spot! Asians have such queer ideas about Asia. I never forget.
As we can’t avoid death and taxes and as death left me in sole charge of my father’s estate, plus the fact that I continue to work and work hard, what to do? Well we are establishing a peace scholarship.
One team of disciples is busy now here contacting sources of funds and doing everything possible to bring the “peasants” together and rather succeeding. Another team plus Ralph Silver is getting funds to take pictures and tapes of my spiritual colleagues in real Asia, of whom there are many despite all the “experts” and press and radio-TV. And now I tell the young who have turned me down and they are making me a hero, not on knowledge but on naming who has turned me down.
My next “adventure” will be Washington. Oh, I have contacts, and not just General Lansdale above. And my dear disciples and friends are working so hard and so successfully. It may be as I said before the young at the family dog: “Youth of the world unite, you have nothing to lose.”
Anyhow I am so busy getting addressed for Phillip Davenport and Ralph Silver and also writing letters to Asian-Asians that there is not a dull moment. I even have two Jerusalem rabbis with them. But not the nice bourgeois who sermonize to the comfortable in our synagogues. After all don’t the synagogues and mosques tell their congregations that the Deity has special real estate for them in the hereafter, so they are assured they can even hate the others. “God” is with them. The Christians also agree, etc.
As I told you, a secretary of the “intolerable” Pope has answered one of my letters and I think I shall have the Jesuits on my side when I get to New York. But now the “experts” and after a while the press may conclude that occasionally if only rarely, reality may be more important that “realism.” After all doesn’t the press agree with the communists on the values of “realism” and ethnocide for Buddhist orphans!?
I am in a peculiar position. I agree not at all with the regents of the University of California, nor the new left, nor the old left, and least with the press and radio-TV. I agree with the president of the Alumni Association in making public the positive accomplishments which anybody not a newsman, or a revolutionary or a regent might comprehend and accept. Wonderful wonders, but not news. I can give endless lists of these “not-news” accomplishments but now we are doing, damn it doing.
Our jury trials demand eye-witness. Someday, perhaps in the international field, we may permit the peasants eye-witnesses to express along with the opinions of the high and mighty who were not there. “Liberty, democracy, humanity and peasants, shut up” is going to its natural or unnatural death.
Faithfully,
Sam
cc- Herb Caen
cc- Art Hoppe
August 28, 1970
My dear Gavin:
I am writing with two regrets: one is that you are confined at least part time. This, combined with the illness of Ed Hunt and of my chief disciple, Moineddin Jablonski is of some concern especially as I have now not only no days off but am lucky to get a free hour or two.
The other concerns the little boy, Nathan Johnson. You reed his horoscope terrifically correctly. All kinds of things unforeseen at the time have happened, are happening. His father, Mansur, is no longer my secretary. The dances, inspired by Ruth St. Denis whom “good” people know I could not have known, are spreading like wild-fire. They have been filmed and recorded and now this has become a world project with Mansur Johnson acting as local technician, a full time paid job.
Already a team has left for Asia to meet the Asians and Sufis of God and Rand-McNally, quite different from those of the American Academy of Asian Studies, the California Academy of Asian Studies, the World Affairs Council, etc., etc. Ralph Silver is with them and I had to spend hours getting out addresses of people that I could not possibly have met, of course, of course, but who at least read my things before criticizing and then they did not criticize. Quite the contrary.
Another secretary is in Arizona teaching the Asian philosophies of Asians with considerable success. People have gotten tired of Gurdjieff and Subud and want realities, and they are getting them. He is also working for a very wealthy publisher who wants my things and said he would publish them.
The third secretary in San Francisco is with a number of other people carrying out principles of my plan for peace in the Near East. The first dinner, absolutely impossible and inconceivable was a total success. Arabs and Israelis dined and prayer together and embraced. There was no news reporter there although I have been writing to Herb Caen.
You see, Gavin, only four men ever listened to me abroad and one here. The one here is a retired admiral who listened and agrees thoroughly and absolutely. The second was a professor from the University of California who has accomplished wonders—not news; only Russian plans are news, American accomplishments are never news.
Then there were three other men, two gave me two hours and the third four hours. This man who had the effrontery to listen to me for four hours was Gunnar Jarring and he told me in person that my plans were the most sensible and beautiful he had ever encountered but every “expert,” clergyman, religionists, news man, humanist and sociologist knows better.
In the meanwhile I am trying to arrange a Peace scholarship. I have at thousand dollars to spare for the coming year but the complexities are in the opposite direction, not obstacles. I shall not bother about these. It is remarkable how few people not born in California have accepted that I might know some Californians, but why argue.
The next step is the plan to go East. I have a new secretary of sorts, the sweetheart of my chief secretary and she has a car in New York so we hope to go there and travel. But you should see our invitations?
Emerson said that if one invented a better mousetrap and lived in the midst of the woods, people would find him. About 200 people found me at Lama, and since returning only l’impossible is happening. The phones at both houses continually ringing and many long distance calls.
At Geneva it was declared I looked and acted like Walt Whitman. This was the conclusion of others.
For the Ladies who want super-equality I read not-existing literature (if you accept the “experts”), of the hymns of the early Buddhist nuns and referred to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Renascence.” I realize no “good” Buddhist would have anything to do with such literature so that gives me a nice monopoly. Anyhow the young accepted it.
Actually this is to blow off steam between tasks. But there are nice signs of growth and expansion, and I have such a wonderful “following,” growing in size and even the universities are beginning to open doors. We shall see. Get well.
Love,
Sam
cc Alan Watts
Novato,
September 2, 1970
My dear Gavin:
At this moment I am in utter confusion due to the amount of work, but other than the illnesses, including your own, there is nothing wrong. So many of the disciples are now working for New Age and Ralph and Phillip Davenport are abroad with utterly “impossible” news, real news concerning real people in the real world. And I am not in the least concerned because an Arizona publisher will now accept this and make easy scoops simply because the news media won’t accept unless it pleases them.
As I told you before every letter written on “pollution” to scientists has been accepted and many of my own laboratory-technician-scientists say I was one of the best students they ever turned out. This is their opinions, not mine and it is very different from the “opinions” of important people who verbally attack “value-judgments” and are champions of it.
The reason for writing at his moment is that a letter has been received from Santa Barbara. Alan Watts asked a favor and it as granted but I regret to infer you that Prince Hopkins died two weeks ago. This “scundrel” gave Luther Whiteman and myself page after page of recommendation while the “good people” of California either attacked or ignored us. I did not “play” upon him but it was comforting to find somebody who would listen to you before dumping “vague-judgments” upon you. That day is done now, but I shall always remember him as a great humanitarian and a champion of what should called “free speech,” actually, without regard to the personalities involved.
I do not expect to convince any “Buddhist” or “New Age-Hindu” of the actual truth of Karma, I mean the operation, not the words. The preachers of “Karma” think they are satisfying the universe by their talking, and they are the worst.
True Gunner Jarring gave me hours and said that my plan for the Near East was the best he had ever encountered. But although the official he was a hopeless minority. I am however, not alone in the boat. My friend, Paul Keim of the University of California has accomplished more than any other American abroad. You don’t read about him. It just is not done. If the Russians try something it is news; if the Americans accomplish it is not news. So doors are opening for me at the University of California.
Even in the Philosophy Department and we are going to end once and for all this terrible anti-scientific cult by very important people, the Generals of Semantics. They may relent but I no longer care. My efforts to get “in” at Columbia follow the real Law of Real Karma, not the superficial lectures of “experts.” I have already been invited and will resume the follow up on Cassius Keyser whom I shared with Alfred Korzybski as having had as teacher in Philosophy, for which I have neither been recognized or forgiven. But Vocha knows all.
The real conference of the leaders of the real religions of the real world was not “news,” but when Ralph reached Switzerland he was given a wonderful welcome by the cleric who acted as host, and also introductions. And it is quite evident that the real leaders of real India don’t agree with local “experts” at all. I understand that permission has been given for filming and recording the ceremonies of the “non-existent Sufis.” All letters from India are wonderful and the Indians of the Consulate and Travel Bureau will be pleased although they differ from the “official-experts.”
The receipt of a fine letter from a top Rabbi of Jerusalem was followed immediately by a long distance call that my personal representative, Phillip Davenport, was openly and joyously welcomed by another Rabbi. That can’t be, I mean it jest ain’t news but it is going to be history, you can bet.
I was the only outsider when Papa Tara Singh met Pundit Nehru. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs embracing and kissing each other just can’t be news, It ain’t done. Bu now we are doing it. It is a new age, and the efforts to bring Jews, even Israelis and Arabs together has been overwhelming and I think I can get some persons at Washington to accept that. Why even the “intolerant” Roman Catholics are interested and you can bet that I will receive a much better greeting if I visit Saint Ignatius than if I try to reach any of our “experts” or “peace” groups.
The “great” Sir Zafrullah Khan, whom “everybody” idolizes was challenged at Geneva if he had anything more than oratory and emotions and he sat down. Why even this person was told he was the Walt Whitman of the convention—that was the impression upon real leaders of the real world. So one need not be too surprised if Phillip and Ralph, and soon others are being greeted and if my foreign mail alone has snowballed.
This coming week I may be speaking at a closed conference to Astrologers. I am not making the arrangement sand have not heard but it was scheduled. After all anybody can speak on “Yoga” but an “arrived one.” But my walks and dances are moving at a tremendous rate and while all the “nice” people won’t accept my relations with the late Ruth St. Denis, there are now so many not-so-nice people, so many, many.
So as soon as possible I should be going East. I am not crying for bakshish but maybe some will come. I have now a new helper who will go over all the research on the Near East and the University of California is interested. Maybe We Shall Overcome. With centers in Novato, San Anselmo, Corte Madera, Larkspur and Mill Valley, this week we “invade” Sausalito—invitations. No time for more.
Love,
Published by Shafayat, P.O. Box 7168, Seattle, Washington, 98133 September 1970
Sufis Speak
Dedicated to:
Those who have held aloft the light of truth through the darkness of human ignorance.
This newsletter is sent out once a month to those who request it. News of the Sufi world is appreciated and will be printed as sent as we use a stencil printer. A signed permission slip must come with material (to publish). We will appreciate all help toward continued publication of this newsletter.
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Ecstasy
Masti: A word used by Sufis for their ecstasy. Sufis have been always interested in ecstasy, more than any other sect of philosophers. There are different causes which produce ecstasy. Every cause has its peculiar effect and that is why the ecstasy produced by any cause cannot necessarily be called the ecstasy of the perfect Sufi.
Ecstasy cannot be called happiness nor could it be called the joy or peace because these are common expressions which are experiences of everybody. But the real Sufic ecstasy is quite different from the ecstasy that is commonly experienced by everybody.
If you consider why people have the habit of taking liquors and drugs, even knowing themselves that it is utterly injurious, you will come to an understanding that they enjoy such a state where they lose their senses. Loss of sense takes place owing to the increased activities of senses. At the same time passion as well as the intense joy and sorrow also can produce the ecstasy. This common ecstasy could not be called the Sufi ecstasy. This is experienced by every living creature on the earth consciously or unconsciously so how could it be a particular state of spirituality?
If Sufi ecstasy could be attained by merely these sources then there would be no importance to the Sufic ecstasy in the line of spirituality. Really speaking, Sufi ecstasy is incomparably and vastly different from the above described ecstasies. A Sufi advances by his spiritual practices to see, to know and to appreciate the nature’s beauty in all the names, forms and figures, to love in all the visible and invisible planes of the Absolute. And the more perfection he achieves in it, the more love in his heart grows and illumines his body, mind and soul with the spiritual light.
During his progress towards perfection he realizes five kinds of ecstasies: one which he feels in his body, another he feels in his intellect, the third in his heart, the fourth in his soul, and the fifth when he loses himself absolutely.
Sufism is called the religion of love, and as a person evolved in love he experiences the ecstasy by degrees. The physical beauty, also the beauty of thoughts, ideas, merits, arts like music and poetry appeal to him intense in proportion to his advancement. In appreciating beauty his perfection grows so that he at last arrives at such a state that he all the time sees all over beauty and nothing else.
He first loves one Beloved and then he sees the same Beloved in all forms and figures and the manifestation becomes for him his Beloved in various aspects. He then resigns himself to the Beloved’s will and rejoices himself all the time with the Beloved Who is found all over in the time and space. This keeps him in a real state of ecstasy which is the holiest, purest and most divine condition of joy and peace.
He sometimes feels it more intense and sometimes less according to nature’s mood. Every little thing makes him feel emotional and devotional because he is full of life and energy, more lively than others because this is the real life. All others are dead in comparison with him who is not subject to miseries, decay or death.
He who has arrived to this perfection is called by the Sufis sahib-i-hal. People in the East have such regard for this ecstatic state of Sufis. They never ridicule him but get his best wishes because that is the time when his will is the Universal Will, in other words God’s Will, and in that mood whatever he wishes is fulfilled as this manifestation has been nothing but the Will of God.
The miracles performed by the prophets and saints were in the state of ecstasy, and they were successful in proportion to the degree of the force of their ecstasy. It has many times happened in the East that Sufis separated their souls from the bondage of the body and passed off from this world by their own will and command during this condition of ecstasy.
This state is also the only means of perceiving right inspiration. The prophets, saints that have been receiving any inspiration, is the outcome of, their ecstatic condition. When Mohammed was receiving the Divine Message, also Moses and Jesus used to have communion with the Supreme Being. They used to have it after the intensity of their ecstasy.
Sufis experience this condition as the greatest joy, especially by their spiritual advancement by the invocation of Allah’s Name. The admiration of Mohammed, the devotion of Murshid, the verses of Qur’an, the nice perfume, the beauty of nature, the discourses on truth, the poetry of love and the music can help a great deal in producing the ecstasy. The most emotional and devotional Sufis are the Chistis who are very ecstatic and devotional. They are leading today in the East for their most charming personality, wisdom and spirituality.
After a Sufi acquires perfect control on ecstasy, he has the control on death and decay. He becomes as pure as the water of the Ganges, and his heart of self becomes the Kaaba. His brain becomes illuminated with the divine light. Then his actions become the actions of Jesus and his words become the words of Moses, and his expression becomes the expression of Mohammed. At last he unites with Allah and becomes one with Him.
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The Sufi Order and the Sufi Movement:
Readers wonder...
We have been submerged in comments from all over the world regarding our report on page 3 of our previous issue about “The Day of Urs in India when “Pir Vilayat and Fazal stood at the head of the tomb….”
Readers ask: Aren’t Pir Vilayat and Fazal heads of two irreconcilable factions, the Sufi Order and the Sufi Movement?
This matter will be thoroughly explained and documented in subsequent issues of Sufis Speak. In the time of Hazrat Inayat Khan the Sufi Movement was a vehicle and servant of the Sufi Order. Sometime after Hazrat Inayat’s passing a few of his relatives doubted the wisdom of some of Hazrat Inayat’s dispositions for the future of the Order and the Movement—which they had a perfect right to do. They took it upon themselves to run the Movement according to their own ideas. Through certain legal actions they believed they had acquired ownership. The Order, on the other hand, could not be touched or acquired by any legal effort. It still functions as Hazrat Inayat Khan wished and planned.
The fact that Pir Vilayat and Fazal stood together at the head of the tomb argues well for the future. Fazal, appointed head of the “Movement” by Musharaff Khan, before the latter’s passing, never shared the ideas of his predecessors. For a while, however, he acted as if he apparently did. At a very young age he faced great problems. It appears that he may master them. The Order and Movement may again be one; or, if certain members prefer to uphold the ideas to which they have become accustomed and will maintain separate organizations for some time to come, the two groups may at least acknowledge and respect each other.
The Occultist, the Mystic….
Looking beneath him, the occultist sees millions of rungs on a ladder he has climbed. He may feel proud. Looking ahead and up, he sees more millions of rungs, yet unclimbed. Is there no end then, no relief, no completion, ever? No final and complete truth?
At this stage he may wonder: Could there be an escape? An easy way out, cheating Fate, as it were?
He finds that there is. But what is the price? The cost? The price is himself; his ambition, his achievement: His whole personality then? Yes, his own concept of his personality; but not his personality as others see it! Is it worth all that?
He may turn away in fear, in disgust, and continue his weary climb. This is his right. That way he may even gain knowledge he would not otherwise have acquired. He continues an occultist. At the same time he may be a scientist, a publisher, an editor. He is sure of his standards and can’t be quite as tolerant to people below it as he knows he ought to be. And those above? He isn’t there and doesn’t understand them, sometimes dismissing them as being beneath him, sometimes as being irrelevant and irritating.
Then again there are those who face the choice and make the change. They have begun to see that the million rungs in the ladders, real enough to the climbers, are as elusive as the phantom of a separate self. They see not a lone individual but a chain of creation starting from the first beginnings; reaching through the present toward all future. So they give up the illusion of the separate self since they no more believe in it. To them there is no one below them, hardly a soul above them, but they themselves encompass all. There is no question of being tolerant or even “understanding” for who needs be tolerant to himself and who doesn’t understand himself? All that he thought he “knew” dissolves into an ocean of thrilling possibilities. Such words as clairvoyance, reincarnation, astral, projection are dropped as inaccurate approaches. Instead of words, he begins to see, hear, feel. His ambition is no longer to change nature’s procedures into what some call miracles, but to see and grasp the miracle of nature as it is.
Nicos Kazantzakis in his book Report to Greco tells us about a mountain trip where, from the majesty of the wilderness he suddenly sees the lights of a village. He shakes his fist at it, shouting, “retched creatures, I’ll slaughter you.” Embarrassed, he explains to his shocked companion that these were not his words but those of a distant ancestor, with whom he suddenly became one. In other parts of the book he projects himself into future man, also part of himself. He dreams man’s future: He is a mystic. Not all Sufis are mystics, but among Sufis the mystic is understood and encouraged.
Answers to your questions to the editor
Pir Vilayat’s youth camps.
We regret to tell all of you who have written to ask about these camps that they are just that—Youth Camps. The attendance is limited to those who are between the ages of 18 and 28. Perhaps we may one day prevail upon Pir Vilayat to have something for those of us who cannot qualify agewise.
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Back Issues
Again we regret that we cannot send out back issues. We print a limited number. In the case of the last issue we had so many requests we reran that number again. As we are dependant entirely upon your generosity our means are tightly limited. Those of you who have Not Written in and requested being place upon our permanent mailing list Must do this or you will be dropped. We cannot send to those who are not interested.
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No News about your Center or Activities??
You, the reader who has something to say or tell must send us these things you want published. It should be typewritten it must be neat and ready to stencil. If your material comes in handwritten and has great news value we will print it but just as you send it. If you wish your work signed with your name you must send it in in that manner. In any case permission to print must be sent with each pager for publication.
Send in the time and place of your Universal Worship if you desire it published. Send in time and place and date that you are to have important speakers. If you wish to swell attendance be sure that copy is send in time to reach us by the 25th.
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Please don’t write in and tell us we haven’t mentioned your group unless you have sent your material in time to be timely and of interest to others. We might be Sufis, but even then we need your permission to print.
Monthly Universal Worship Service each fourth Wednesday each month 8 P.M. in the Chapel of Light, Unity By the Sea, Santa Monica, California.
Monthly Universal Worship Service each first Sunday each Month 2 P.M. Chapel of the Downtown Unity Church Seattle Washington.
Gratitude is expressed to the Ministers and Members of Unity for the privilege of worshipping in such Blessed surroundings
Summer School At Lama, New Mexico, June 1970
Samuel L. Lewis, Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti, went with seven of his disciples, which included three women with five children, two single men, and one couple with three children, to Lama, New Mexico, where he conducted a summer school in the month of June, 1970.
Lama is located high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, over 8,000 feet, and overlooks the Rio Grande River valley. Standing in the huge octagonal shaped window in the domed adobe dance hall where Sufi Sam or Murshid, as he was called, put on his spiritual dances two or three times a day, it was possible to look out 25 or 30 miles across the valley to the snow-capped peaks on the horizon.
Lama is a New Age community with a universal outlook. They have a group meditation every morning and a different member of the Community acts as pujari, the pueblo word for ritual-leader, and presents a chant or song of his choice in addition to the regular program which included an Essene prayer and meditation and a Buddhist chant.
The people at Lama maintain excellent relations with the Indians in the pueblo at nearby Taos. There was a group effort for one week, where practically the whole community, male and female, went to the pueblo to make adobe bricks for the Indian family that three years before, when Lama was first established, taught them the native technology which was used in the construction of the main building. There is not only the dome mentioned above, but also a library, a bath and an all-purpose room called “the only room,” from the time when it alone was the only finished room in the whole building. Surrounding the central complex are A-frames and domes and tents for sleeping.
There is also a large octagonal kitchen-dining room, two stories tall. The kitchen is downstairs and the dining room which seats 22 people comfortably is upstairs. There were nearly 40 of us in June and, consequently, the children frequently ate separately. The dining room was entered by a staircase set on the outside of the building.
Besides offering the group his spiritual dances, where movements are secondary and chanting the Name of God in either Arabic or Sanskrit is primary, Sufi Sam had a class every night which included readings from and commentaries on “The Sufi Message” of Hazrat Inayat Khan. He also took the community through a series of Buddhist practices which overcame the differences of the various Buddhist sects and his musical director developed themes from “The mysticism of Sound.” Inevitably the devotees demanded more dancing and this usually closed the meetings.
Sufi Sam also made contact with groups of young people living on a commune north of Lama and visited weekly other such groups in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We departed from New Mexico after a huge festival of dancing and singing in Yale Park on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and arrived home by July 5th for a grand reunion with Murshid Sam’s San Francisco disciples and the celebration of Inayat Khan’s birthday.
Mansur
In our last issue we told you of the workshop Pir Vilayat conducted at Pacific Palisades, California. As a direct result of this through the attendance of some Unity ministers, Pir Vilayat will conduct a three day course in Meditation at Lee’s Summit. We will give you the date and more details in the next issue.
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Again our thanks to L. Hayat Bowman who writes:
“We await the arrival of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan who is to conduct the Urs of Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chisthi September 3rd. in Ajmer. I look forward to it very much; it is an indescribable experience, but I shall try to describe it a little for Sufis Speak. On September 6 we hope to have a Universal Worship there in the courtyard of Muzaffar Hussain Khan. We hope to have the service in Urdal with Fir Vilayat conducting. I return on the 9th. On the 13th. Pir Vilayat will give a public lecture here (New Delhi) on The Life and Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan. It being 60 years ago that Murshid left India. I hope he will be here a few more days and I am giving a reception for him here at the centre.”
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It is our aim to give those of you who are a distance from a center a tie with important Sufi events in all parts of the world. We hope that those of you who find pleasure in the things that others send in, will be moved to send things it too or at least write in and tell us what you like or don’t like for that matter.
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The reports we had hoped for from Summer School have not yet arrived but there was little time. We can hope for this next month.
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from Words of Earth by Cerdic Wright, sent in by Daphne Beorse
From within the sounds and
banners of the vast horizon,
without words, into an inner
silence, can:
“Remember well this magnitude
lift your eyes,
That the great meanings shall not
flow by unheeded.”
See
Suddenly one becomes awake, one lives
in an eternity,
and hears strange footsteps
ascending ancient trodden pathways.
From the unknown,
from the immense and infinite,
weaving into consciousness
like long fingers of fog
through coastal canyons,
comes a far-off singing
Out of the sea, in vast currents
a mystic essence arises
Essence of the infinite godliness
which creates worlds.
The craving of the soul for truth becomes a driving force only when other things have become secondary.
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To most the truth is far away but to some it is no more than a thought.
*****
Sept. 15, 1970
Mr. Gavin Arthur
1565 Octavia
San Francisco, Ca. 94109
My dear Gavin,
The way affairs are today it is utterly impossible for me to visit you if you are in the hospital or to attend your lectures, or anybody else’s. With a completely full program, and with a hard hard fact that a number of my disciples have been successful in having joint Israeli-Arab-Christian dinners, and performing my dances! The whole was stimulated by the fact that the world is now paying respect to one Gunnar Jarring, one of the three men in the world who listened to my proposals for peace in the Near East.
I am leaving for the East Coast shortly. The number of my disciples has increased tremendously. The real news of real events in the real world, from the very real Phillip Davenport, Fred Cohn, and Ralph Silver, is tremendously favorable. All the “good” people such as the press, the peace organizations, and the vast majority of the Judeo-Christian ethical clergymen, have refused even to give an interview, let alone examine what I have to say.
Evidently the real leaders of the real religions of the real world are slightly unbalanced, for they declared that I looked like and acted like Walt Whitman while I was parading myself as an incarnation of Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.” I think the future generations may accept this a little.
In this land of “peace, freedom, liberty, democracy,” “peasant shut up,” and European professors of Oriental philosophy, apparently the only way to get attention is to have a marijuana festival. I have given notice that if our work continues to be ignored I shall put on an advertised marijuana festival when I return. By “ignored” I mean ignored, I do not mean derided. I have had such loving letters from both Rabbis and Muslims, and such tremendously favorable reports from Christians and Hindus as to be “unbelievable,” but entirely in accord with the real teachings, the actual writings, of Walt Whitman.
Added to this is the very good fact that my revenues are increasing so that it is possible to have new paid secretaries. My former secretaries have remunerative jobs in connection with the efforts to bring peace in the Near East, have real cultural exchange with real Asians, and to teach spiritual philosophies of the world. Indeed, almost the first man I shall meet in New York City will be one of your “intolerant” Jesuits. He has been quite willing to listen to the program which I presented to Gunnar Jarring, and which the churches, peace organizations, world affairs council, and humanists, derided, Amen.
Let the dead bury their dead. Indeed I am going all the way with Alan Watts excepting on one point; I believe the higher plants will have higher psychedelic properties. This is still to be discovered and uncovered. I am not an expert; I am a horticulturist.
Love,
September 25, 1970
My dear Arthur:
This is written in great hurry. One never has a day off and one’s life is proceeding exactly as the real spiritual and real moral laws of the real universe proclaim—any resemblance to metaphysics being strictly incidentally. I do not have days off and have had little sleep for a month. We are wedded to war, war, war and make a shambles out of spiritual traditions—the best or worst. I am not in the politics.
My “Dances of Universal peace,” shunned by all the “good people” and especially by the “peace” organizations (any camp) are winning among the young. I had to lead a whole thousand yesterday in Golden Gate Park, and then teach a class of spiritual women and then put on a public session in Sausalito and then have to pack, leaving for Ithaca and should be in New York City an Monday.
I have no time for either patience or oppositions. Gunnar Jarring said my plan was the best he ever heard of Bang! bang ! But I have hung on and wish to have a place for His Holiness in the Holy Land. I have to see a colleague in your City as soon as possible, Father John Haughey of “America.” This is a long story. Whatever knowledge or sincerity, shunned by all the “good” people and metaphysical groups (all types), is now rising to the surface. Not only the young but the universities and I have a disciple authorized to teach “my” spiritual dancing at the University of California in Berkeley. And Cornell and Columbia will at least hear me, and depart from the good old American Judeo-Christian ethic of a priori rejection. Ministers and Rabbis all over the world are apologizing and I have at least partly “converted” the nearby Franciscan Fathers. Rabbis in Jerusalem, yes; here????
We have put on very successful Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners and expect more, and more. One TV station has cognized and we hope to have a radio station—you soon find out how “liberal” the liberals are. But I am not troubled. My disciples and colleagues have been exceedingly successful in their ventures far and wide, and excellent news from Palestine, Iran and India, at least. And slowly from and in this country.
My New York address will be c/o Lonnie Less, 27 West 71st St. Programs have been laid out for me in the New York and Boston areas and partly laid out in the Washington area. Young people have very successfully launched a “Three Ring” corporation based on Boccaccio which was followed by Lessing in his “Nathan the Wise.”
The only time I was ever permitted locally to a peak on Palestine was by the “intolerant” Jesuit Fathers and when I finished the chair declared the meeting over, that all problems were solved. There were no pacifists or “peace” people there.
No time to rest. My chief disciple very ill and the garden flourishing so well we hardly have time to pick the crops. Ten times as many grapes on our vine as last year. And this covers all other activities. Not thinking of the morrow but hope you can communicate with me.
Faithfully,
27 West 71st St.,
New York, N. Y.
c/o Lonnie Less
October 8, 1970
Gavin Arthur
1565 Octavia St.
San Francisco, Calif. 94109
My dear Gavin:
Have not heard from or about you for some time and the last news was not too good. I came East totally tired but not otherwise harmed and good rests have enabled one to do things.
Last night I heard Vilayat Khan. He spoke to the audience as if this were the Aquarian Age and he supported his theme so well that almost everybody agreed with him. I see no more reason for science and religion having to be one than for biology and architecture to be one, or for mathematics and lawn tennis to be one.
He called attention to the different way the Aquarians are acting. It is very simple. They do not have chairmen or speakers endowed with “revelations” so that the audience must be in awe of them. Peasants also are permitted to express their views. Character assassinations are not permitted in public meetings nor is anyone refused the right to express himself if it be on the subject matter. All these and other signs demonstrate humanity is in a New Age.
While his talk centered on Meditation I find myself in such total agreement with him that I have even joined the “old ladies” who are so profusely laudatory. Besides that he has done things. He has done more to build real cultural exchange between real Asians and real Americans than any man I know, and especially far more than the passing English and Europe an “experts” on Asia (whatever that means). Have not heard from Ralph but the other news is so favorable one does not feel he has lived in vain.
Before leaving I have found that the University of California has not only accepted my Peace Scholarship but has a course presenting the Sufism of the Sufis—not of the grand lecturers who give us literary gems and no substance. Lead a thousand young in spiritual dancing proving the heritage from Ruth St. Denis rejected by Pisceans (of course) and accepted by Aquarians (of course). Evidence is evidence regardless and this proves the New Age.
I have however, joined occultism, spirituality and astrology. This was originally a challenge from Pir Vilayat. Now we have it. I may present it to Norman whom I have seen. Am not in the least interested in the negative reactions of Piscean astrologers. We even have Pluto down pat—which the Aquarians will at least examine and the Pisceans spurn.
Pir Vilayat will be back later in the month and we expect to get together. The Aquarians in Boston are anxious to see me. The Aquarian girls all want kisses! This never happened among the Pisceans. But there is something more involved, and when we get the superficial people out of the way we can, indeed we do demonstrate.
Was received gloriously at Columbia and have full approval of efforts to and understanding between Arabs and Israelis. I happen to know the “right people” despite our acquaintances in S.F. who are so sure I do not, or that it is “bragging,” which does not get me permission to talk either. Now one does not care.
Tomorrow we meet with a local leader in the efforts to bring Israelis and Arabs together. Why even one of the papers is publishing our accomplishments, not our plans but our deeds. Those young people who went to the Summer School of Pir Vilayat Khan may be the leaders of the New Age, in reality. Everything points to that, in the West and here and perhaps elsewhere.
Presumably meeting with the “spiritual leaders” of the New Age next week. We shall see. Something doing every day and night.
Love,
November 1, 1970
Wali All Meyer
410 Precita
San Francisco,
My Dear Wall Ali:
This letter is really to Gavin Arthur. I do not know if he is well at all. I would like to write him, and you may send him this if you wish or telephone him. I don’t know if he can understand what is going on. The sessions I have had with an AP representative and also CBS representative show that there are members of the fourth estate who are quite open, who let a person speak before they damn them. Why they even listen! On these two instances if they stopped listening it was because we were in such substantial agreement it was hardly necessary to talk at all.
From a private point of view, it is wonderful to have anybody listen to hard facts. I know so many people who have been victimized, not for wrong views, but simply because they were aware events were reported to be happening. When they have spoken the truth they have found audiences and even publications against them. And it is wonderful to get confessions from members of the fourth estate who know that most reporting as published conveys not so much actual news of events, but emotional reactions which are supposed to interest or excite readers. We are about ready to leave for Washington and have met with nothing but goodwill from persons concerned with the making of news, with representatives of universities connected with our present efforts, and with multitudes of young.
Personally I am absolutely through with the non-violence which permitted people of self-importance and social prestige but often very ignorant to take it out on personalities. There is no agreement among such people excepting in their negative attitudes toward those who annoy them.
In Washington I expect to see an old friend of mine, a retired general, who is devoting himself to clearing up so much confusion about Vietnam—I mean the Vietnam of the Vietnamese people, not the Vientiane of the Vice President and his dishonorable super-encyclopedic critics; both sides know nothing and both sides make themselves appear as if they were the experts. The people do not count.
This was fine in days when masses were uneducated. It no longer works.
We expect to call on several embassies in Washington, and in the short while remaining also on their UN representatives. I am no longer going to permit people who attack my person when there should be sober discussions on issues. I had the audacity last week to criticize a rabbi openly, and before we got through he apologized to me. The day is over when persons of so-called self-importance can lie, cheat, and mislead and get away with it. Incidentally, in the end I won the goodwill of the vast majority of people present when the rabbi exhibited all those faults which are thrown at Jewish people but which really exist among only a small portion of them. Unfortunately this small portion includes a large percentage of their so-called leaders.
My return home is going to present me with a new set of enigmas; there are just so many hours in the week. My own dances and philosophy are now being presented at the University of California for credit. This is a long way from Rom Landau who had me blackballed by most of the universities and colleges in central California. While an old friend of his did the same in the South.
One has no difficulty whatsoever in communicating to the young or in having them communicate with him.
One thing I am not going to have on my return, and that is time. There has been considerable advance on all my efforts: organic gardening, spiritual dancing, Oriental philosophies, poetry, and creative writing. There is even an editor demanding my things, so they will be published as fast as I can write to him.
I expect to be home on November 9, and programs and schedules have already worked out for me. We have been most successful so far in bringing a lot of Arabs and Israelis closer together. I am going to ring up Norman McGhee and tell him I approve of the Black Panthers’ program for the Near East. Have not seen very much of him because I am over occupied and he has not been very well. Will not have time to call on people much anymore. I will not permit anymore self-important persons balling me out in public no matter what the occasion.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Nov. 17, 1970
My dear Gavin,
I do not know whether one can shoot in the dark at a target which isn’t there and hit it. I have proposed many times for a convocation of astrologers and had series of excuses why they couldn’t meet. So recently I wrote that if they couldn’t meet, we would call a convention at this house or some other place. As neither the time nor the place has been designated, it would be very difficult to send out invitations.
Besides, the telephone book is not very informatory. It is not like the New York telephone book which lists Astrology. So if I don’t hear in a few weeks we may take the bull by the horns and also the lamb and the twins and all the other constellations, and do it ourselves. Naturally you would be invited.
I cannot even tell you what the program will be. I want to present the astrological walks for the professionals, not for the public. Then other things. Then I have two disciples who wish to become professional astrologers. They will have something to present. One of them is working with the constellations, one is working on Pluto, and I am working on the planetary walks.
Apart from this, I am preparing a semi-mystical “Dance of the Hours.” It is easy enough to be an Apollo. It is simple enough to have horas varying in number. But I wish to choreograph a “Dance of the Hours” which will be astrological, with a different person depicting each sign of the Zodiac.
Outside the astrological work, I am presenting occult and mystical dances and walks based on knowledges of the sciences of the elements. These are unknown to most of the world and are part of the material of Sufi esotericism. They are only slowly being divulged because too many proper persons have refused to accept that this person is a valid Sufi teacher. One doesn’t care what others think, but as long as such views prevail, one does not have to reveal anything.
Anyhow, I am training a number of persons in the sciences of the elements and perhaps in what might be called ancient wisdom, and perhaps otherwise. But all these knowledges will be integrated in the “Dance of the Hours” and it is even possible that a version will be presented in Sausalito on Sunday, December 20, when there will be a bazaar for the benefit both of myself and my colleagues.
We had to leave New York because of total success of disciples and myself in series of endeavors for which one has had bundles of a priori rejections in this vicinity. I believe there is something in a name, and I have long foreseen that part of my career would resemble that of Samuel Morse, and you can bet your life I am going to name persons and organizations that gave me a priori rejections. I don’t mean those who opposed me, either validly or invalidity. I mean those who would never let me speak and who either wastebasketed my articles or spurned me otherwise. They are going to be named in writing, and soon. And the sooner we get rid of the “humble” fameuses or fameux, the better it is going to be for the world. Indeed I get no greater applause from the young than when I name those who have given me the a priori rejection in the name of liberty, democracy, and humanity. Amen.
We will let you know further when there will be a convention.
Love and Blessings,
December 8, 1970
Dear Gavin:
We almost had a riot here Sunday. Late in the p.m. Bill Hathaway phoned and I found he was munching a sandwich. I told him to come at once as we had an open house on Sunday night. Actually I had some fried chicken and Vermouth. I always have the last in case he ever shows up.
When he arrived I took him into the kitchen where there is a chief domo and four beautiful girls and they had to line up and kiss him. Then we went downstairs and there was a mob scene. I don’t know who was the most anxious, Bill or the girls. But the fellows also got in line and Bill had a hard time keeping decorum and nobody cared. It is a New Age here and anything reassembling older pattern behaviorism simply isn’t. Bill stayed and met my old friend Ted Reich and also the grand psychic Freda who is a marvel.
Everything else is different. The Asian-Asian are all for me. I have to join them Friday night in San Rafael. And today two different missions at the University of California. They are letting me speak. They are very different from the “experts” who know all about my character but nothing about whatever my knowledge happens to be. Not only am I speaking but the Alumni Association is interred in my Peace Program—newspapers, diplomats and “experts” keep out!
We are stacked for the Christmas season. On the 20th a big benefit in Sausalito and then birthday parties. Disciple Phil Davenport is back from his tour of Asian-Asia. We have films which will produce a better understanding between Asian-Asia and the U.S. No experts.
My closest relatives invited me to a big party at the old family home on 9th Avenue. This was always verboten. My parents never let me have parties, only my brother and I was kicked out so many times, every time my brother committed a crime I was expelled. And the younger have found this out. Besides my chief cousin happens to be a democrat and a politician.
Big programs to the end of the year. Then Vilayat Khan will be here. Then I must go to Arizona where an editor-publisher wants my stuff. He not only is not giving me the a priori “Christian-Jewish ethic,” he is already publishing some of my things without asking permission. And this at a time when more and more people want to come to my dances and some folks are finding my primal inspiration was the late Ruth St. Denis. It could not be, of course, but it was and is.
So we won’t have an astrological gathering until February 15 and that strictly invitational. My first Sufi teacher had been an occultist. But as the “good” people would not accept that I know any occultist I have waited and now the young are ready and others will not be excluded but before slam-banging at me they will have to learn what I have. This is the New Age, when sometimes people listen before they condemn.
Love,
December 12, 1970
My dear Gavin:
Have just received a letter from Selandia and she is wandering why you are not writing. One has to assume you are busy but I know your activity includes travel. I shall no doubt write to her after this. But of course she is going to meet disciples of Sufism and the young—not their elders who know better, will find there are multitudes of disciples of Sufism in many lands. They are not necessarily “better” than others but they are certainly more tolerant.
Vocha has recently told Lloyd and others that Sam is one of the best informed men on earth. It may be her opinion but I notice that this is also being held in greater and greater degree at both Columbia and Cal. not to mention others. The universities are becoming a little different from the “tolerant” and “broad-minded” in that they listen before they condemn. And no they are not commending. Indeed everything is most beautiful in all relations with the University of California and my own teachings are being presented, and for credit. Maybe somebody made a mistake but there it is. They are not “broadminded” and “universal” and, of course, extremely exclusive which is the “right” of the “tolerant.’
There are now seven absolutely world organizations (excepting the Baha’is) that I know of, all ignoring each other and the top bananas all Englishmen, Americans and Hindus! God apparently did not make the Jews and Chinese. Every time a new “savior” appears, they tack my name and organization along with them without asking permission. The hard and simple fact that there are over 40,000,000 disciples in Sufism is well known to God and Rand-McNally but not to “world saviors” and European professors of “Oriental Philosophy” including men like Lama Govinda. These people know “everything” and therefore are superiorly superior. I am not equipped to write on “Oriental Philosophy.” I have not the “credentials,” being a drunkard and lecher. I like drunkards and lechers but have never found what that has to do with Asian-Asian philosophies. Anyhow the books sell well, but “only in America.”
We have tentatively set down February 15 for a meeting of Astrologers. Absolutely private. Nobody is permitted to bring somebody with them unless that other person pays $25—I mean twenty-five dollars and no nonsense. Otherwise I simply will not talk. The professionals free.
We are doing the planetary walks and soon will be working on “The Dance of the Hours” with twelve girls as the constellations. As Sam Lewis is the inventor, choreographer and teacher I am sure some very “humble” local astrologers may not wish to come. Besides they are adepts at character analysis. We don’t analyze, we transmute. But our alchemy is derived from ancient Egypt via the Sufis and not from marvelous Germans and Chinese and dream-worlds. That is a different alchemy.
On Sunday the 20th a great bazaar in Sausalito. The press has finally I discovered that this person has met real Asian Masters in real Asia without consulting local “experts.” The young are coming to me more and more and they think they are learning and maybe they are.
Love,
December 12, 1970
My dear Elizabeth, (cc: Gavin Arthur)
I was very glad to hear from you and to learn what you are doing but we are simply not in a position to grant your request to furnish names. Sam has hardly a moment off day or night and while things are going well, often too well, it has taken almost a revolution to make others understand how overworked and undermanned we are.
There are now over a hundred disciples in this region and many applicants. We have three general public meetings and attendance though still small has been steadily increasing. We have six dancing classes besides. One secretary is making a good living in Arizona and another in Novato. Excepting Melvin Wali Ali have not had proper replacements. A hundred disciples means an increased number of interviews and more esoteric classes.
Next Sunday we are having a bazaar. The original idea as to raise money for Murshid and also for our “Three Ring” peace plan, derived from Boccaccio and “Nathan the Wise.” But we also feel we must help the East Pakistanis.
There are now so many “peace movements” all headed by super-meta-supermen, so moved by compassion and consideration they have no time to be sidetracked by any suffering of East Pakistanis or others. That is “their karma.” So say the avatars and messiahs and mahahahahasadgurus. Even now I have people coming here and asking for travel information. It is not rudeness; I am simply overworked. But if you write me after you have reached Kabul I may be able to get some material for you.
I am supposed to have a class this afternoon and it is already over an hour ahead and a lot of people have imposed on hospitality. I have to choose always between rudeness and no rest. But it is also the time for the repassing of real Sufism.
We have been most fortunate in getting the finest books but books are just indicators. If you meet more Masters of Islam tell them about an American who is Master in hal and makam.
We go as often as possible to the Khyber Pass Restaurant here which is owned and operated by Afghans, who are our best friends and we all find their meals most delightful.
Love and Blessings,
Gavin Arthur
Astrological Counselor :1565 Octavia Street : San Francisco 94109 : Apartment 5 : Top Floor
Phone: (415) 346-2878
2 May 1971
Dear Wali Ali,
Please excuse my seeming negligence. I was quite ill the day of your wedding—too ill to go anywhere what with a bad heart and dreadful arthritis. In fact I go hardly anywhere now, but stay home desperately trying to finish my books before I go to a better world.
But of course I wish you both every happiness and soul-growth, and I still want to do both your horoscopes as a wedding present, but you do not give the time of birth in either case, so I don’t know whether the Sun was rising or setting.
Love to you both,
Gavin
P.S. I have left you all of Sam’s letters—two fat loose-leaf binders full—in my will. Be sure to claim them if you read of my death.
S. F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, April 30, 1972
G.C. Arthur, a Man of Quality, Mourned
By Don Branning.
Gavin Chester Arthur, who was always correctly identified in the first paragraph of any newspaper story about him as “the grand-son of President Chester A. Arthur,” had a special quality which reporters everywhere needed for the creation of a true eccentric.
He had social tone. In addition to being a nationally famous astrologer and a President’s grandson, it was true, as the Associated Press noted in its lead on his obituary out of San Francisco last night, that he was “a latter day bohemian who named Greta Garbo, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt among his friends.”
Helped Jackie
He had once served as secretary of the California Democratic Party. During the administration of her late husband, he helped Jacqueline Kennedy locate art objects stored and forgotten by former Presidents. With that kind of class, Gavin Chester Arthur was a natural to make the papers when he committed some oddity. Such as, a number of years ago, selling newspapers on San Francisco street corners.
What happens between the last feature in the file on a valuable, public eccentric—say, something done two years ago—and his death, is real life.
Thus, those who mourned him yesterday at his colorful astrological fricassee of an apartment at 1565 Octavia St. were those commonly called hippies. It was not surprising.
Hippies love astrology. And Arthur, who had no small ego, had found a following among them. He held weekly astrology seminars, heavily attended by long hairs. Arthur died, of a heart ailment, Friday night at Fort Miley Veterans Hospital, at the age of 71.
Cast of Characters
There was at Arthur’s apartment, Marge “The Barge” Piaggio, astrologer, former secretary to Arthur, touched with the glamor of a thousand and one nights as a one time resident of Ken Kesey’s place at Laguna Honda. She made Tom Wolfe’s book, “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.”
‘There was “Cappy,” known to his mother as Roy Inquist, who was poignant, at 44, for more than one reason, one of them being that he is a period piece. He seems to be dashing ceaselessly into the past, trying to catch up with “On the Road,” so that Jack kerouac can put him into it. But Kerouac is dead and will never put Cappy in “On the Road.”
Also there were all the tranquilizer pills that Cappy was popping like cough drops yesterday to still his grief. He really needed and loved Gavin Chester Arthur, who had apparently been an ebullient, c1ever, childlike man, who also could be quite irascible, even cruel—from what they told of him. Cappy’s eyes looked like Mayan ruins that have not yet been restored by the government authorities.
Strange Void
And Murray, a stout, calm girl, who seemed the most realistic. And Lorenz Tronet, a young man from the Midwest, the latest in a long line of secretaries to Arthur. The astrologer called them cheltas; and some of them thought of him as a guru.
They talked into that strange void, like a still day, a sentence left for them to finish, that the death of someone leaves.
Cappy was down and out six years ago when he moved in with Arthur. He’d started out from Duluth, Minn., with a close friend named Harold, in a secondhand Buick. The Buick wouldn’t back up. “Harold never studied dynamics,” Cappy said, “You can’t go all the way to San Francisco without backing up.” The car was abandoned in Montana, and after a bad time, Cappy stumbled to Gavin Arthur’s doorstep in San Francisco.
“Man’s Way”
“I loved him,” Cappy said. “He saved my life. We grooved together and we had so much fun. He made a new life for me and he got me out of jail. I used to steal food.
“He was a wonderful cook. He used to shout, “You people be quiet, I’m cooking!” he would throw a half pound of butter in and it would throw off smoke. “This is a man’s way of cooking,” he would say to me. “You cook like a sissy, Cappy.”
He was part John Barrymore and part W. C. Fields.”
“That’s a good line, Cappy,” said Marge “The Barge” Piaggio. “That’s just what he was like,” Marge added, “He was incredibly dynamic and extremely intelligent. He was a sort of a patriarch in a way, a strange sort of a man. There was a lot of the child in him.
“Once he said, “I’m so furious with Cappy. He’s fallen down the stairs and incapacitated himself.” Marge said, “Cappy is a large elf, a pixie.”
“Oh my,” said Cappy,” popping another tranquilizer pill, without water, “all my friends are dying.”
Magical Quality
Murray, the stout girl wanted to say privately, in another room, what she thought. “I was attracted to his household because it had a magical, enchanted quality. He felt that he and Cappy had been through a million incarnations.
“His negative side was that he could be hypercritical, and capable of cruelty. Cappy was the person he was closest to, although Cappy was very irreverent about astrology.
Marge “The Barge” Piaggio said there will be “one hell of a wake” today for Arthur at the Lyman country estate near St. Helena. His ashes will be circled by watermelons and roses, she said, and there will be reading of some of Walt Whitman’s thoughts on death.