410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco 94110
March 14, 1969
Prof. Archie J. Bahm
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, N. M. 87106
Dear Prof. Bahm:
I greatly appreciate your having sent me copy of The World’s Living Religions. Offhand, I am struck with the resemblance to The Religions of Man by Prof. Huston Smith of M.I.T. I not only admire The Religions of Man as a literary work, but have had the advantage of listening to Dr. Huston Smith on many occasions. It is therefore unfair to compare your works unless there are factors at work which merit some attention.
I do not know how far you have advanced in your comprehension of Hinduism? In India I was not permitted to enter certain gatherings without first giving a comprehensive and acceptable, dissertation on the Gita. In this country I have been barred not only from the table, but from the audience, in gatherings dominated by several well-known persons you have named. The difference essentially and I say most essentially, is the difference (from the Indian standpoint) of the manas-ahankara outlook and that of Vijnanavada. While the Gita is emphatic on this point, the properly credentialed “expert” does not have to be.
In India, debates are held so that we might find that Truth from which various views have been derived. In the West, debates are only too often between “right” and “wrong.” But in the field of comparative religion, credentials have been more important than knowledge or wisdom.
So far as Buddhism concerned, this place is known as the Mentorgarten, a name bestowed by the Zen Roshi Shaku Soen on earlier efforts to bring East and West together. I have inherited at least the name, and when the world stops relying on “experts” and goes to sources, they will find proper credentials on the walls in this house etc.
I met Dr. Huston Smith first at a psychedelic conference held here in San Francisco in 1965. My theme—not well received then—was Joy Without Drugs. Perhaps I horrify both of the camps of Buddhists in that I adhere to Mahayana philosophy and Theravada techniques. The horrible things is that if I say that these techniques work, this conclusion has not been accepted by those very “experts” whom you have named as being most active in trying to bring East and West together Provided….
On the other hand, the simple fact that Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul Pismai and I are excellent friends—this fact is more important than a 1000 arguments. It has had to be accepted simply because those who verbally adhere to anatta seem slightly more affected by names and forms than non- Buddhists.
I have just had doubtful success in my criticism of a local educator whose name is mentioned so often today. My basic opposition to him is derived not from any philosophical animosity, but because he has failed to accept the life and work of William James. No doubt, I am more affected by traditional American philosophies than by any stemming from Europe, and I mean any. In this instant, I was ready to copy from James, and especially from his Varieties of Religious Experiences. I think the attitude that this great American had is more important than niceties and conclusions.
All my stands in all religions is based on including in them “varieties of religious experience,” insofar as it effects them. Thus, Al-Ghazali has said, “Sufism is based on experiences and not premises.” It is unfortunate that the men you have selected as your authorities in Sufism are men who have not had any of those experiences which would validate them, in the scientific sense, to be spokesmen for anybody but themselves.
There is today a publication Studies in Comparative Religion, most of the articles of which have been written by savants who have had the valid experiences. In other words they affirm Al-Gazali’s, “Sufism is based on experiences and not premises.”
Last month some of the professors on the Berkeley campus of the University of California witnessed the joyful reunion of the Vedantic Swami Ranganathananda Maharaj and this writer, who is a dervish in dervish circles; and when we are objectively honest, he also will be received as a dervish generally. And the hard fact is Professor Bahm, I am teaching dervish dances to an over-growing number of young people. And the harder fact is, I have been admitted into dervish circles in a number of places, though this is still by-passed by the several so-called leaders of East-West conferences???
The professors at the University of California, after witnessing the aforesaid meeting, were more than willing to have a discussion on Fatehpur Sikri; this very important historical monument is most unfortunately by-passed by too many purporting to work in the fields of comparative religion and universal religion.
At the moment I am most concerned with The Temple of Understanding under construction near Washington, D.C. I believe it may bring out into objective manifestation, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.”
I am also interested in the efforts toward a new civilization at Pondicherry in South India. There is a vast difference between some subjective “universal religion” and group or mass movements affecting multitudes.
Actually, this firmness is not in any way personal. The fact that one man or a number of men welcome the possibility of various religionists coming together is very marvelous.
I believe, but certainly cannot prove, that beyond all doctrines and outlooks is a Universal Love instilling heart outlooks. It may surprise you that here a Sufi (myself) has gone much further in the interpretations of the Upanishads than many Hindu leaders (all pretenders). It is possible to have a Krishna-outlook involving the functions Vignanamayakosh and Anandamayakosh. This comes from experiences in spiritual awakening, and I believe the next generation will be far more open to this than the dialecticians of the present and past. I was much moved by the originalParliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. I am looking for a day when we can, here in America (other countries permit it), have Parliaments of Religions where the speakers, at least occasionally, are the direct representatives of “exotic” faiths, and not some scholars carefully selected for the occasion who in the end clarify almost nothing.
I shall be glad to get you copies of Studies in Comparative Religion. The dream of Emerson, the dream of Akbar, the dream of Flora Annie Steel, the dream of Stanley Lane-Poole is now moving towards objectivity. I believe we are moving toward a real one world. Again thanking you and hoping to know more about you and your work in other lines,
Most Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco, Calif.
March 16, 1969
Prof. J. Bahm,
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, N. M. 87106
Dear Professor Bahm.
In Re: Organicism: The Philosophy of Interdependence
I am so delighted with this work I can hardly read it. One gets almost into an ecstasy. Of course the Upanishads teach that with each grade of consciousness the capacity for Ananda is multifold increased. I believe this is true. I believe the experience is true but not statements about such experience. I believe it is possible for man to consciously function Vijnanavada but I do not believe it is possible for analytical and dialectical man to do more than describe such states. He does not partake of them.
Since childhood I was involved on the one hand with the Mathematical Philosophy of Cassius Keyser and the profound teachings of the Upanishads. I sought an integration and from the standpoint of fluxions and calculus worked in that direction. But each step of assuredness was also marked by read-blocks established by persons and institutions which made of “Universal Brotherhood” and “Integration” a crystallized, separateness “thingness” or function for very exclusive persons or groups.
This seemed to fit in with neither the premises of Keyser or Peirce or more lately Oliver Reiser on the one hand; or with the Sufis and Emperor Akbar or Sri Aurobindo on the other. But the vast majority at the “Universal Brotherhood” or “Integrational” groups have excluded and sometimes more than excluded one or more of these persons, elements and movements. So we have had the anomaly of “Exclusive Integration” in the pseudo-cultural facets of our society.
Examples of these “Exclusive Integration” movements have manifested in Nicholas Roerich in another generation and Dr. Zitko today, with their very selective choice of “gurus.”
I am old enough to have been under the influence of Peirce and James and Dewey, all of whom seem rather out of fashion today. And the so-called movements of “integration between East and West” have fallen into the bands of the “Professors Suez Canal” who tried to palm off that East and West could only meet through them. The physical occupation of the Suez Canal and subsequent history show that East and West might meet otherwise. And they have. And the younger generations are as appalled of the gradually disappearing “Professors Suez Canal” as their seniors greeted them.
It is not surprising that I have been refused a admittance to seminars and conferences, for the more mention of Akbar or Emerson or Dewey has been sufficient to draw down thunderstorms.
Out here there has been a passing parade of East-West movements, all carefully selective, but often legally empowered to grant degrees in the “only in America” Oriental Philosophy. Having lived a la Kipling I do not see such East nor West. Botany, Geology, Meteorology, etc. see beyond boundaries.
Facing a group of Englishmen, Europeans and Western educated Asians, it was in vain to get them to recognize our New England Transcendentalists or their (to me) successors at Columbia. They are excluded from “integrationalist” efforts. And likewise many great movements of Asia, This is in one direction.
The other is concerned with the depths of consciousness. But as one enters into the integrational aspects one sees that Truth from which all draw ideas and therefore the differences do not matter. The all-inclusiveness is of supreme importance. One almost dances through your brochure. I should like to read more.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
P.S. At the University of California—but not yet elsewhere, I have been permitted to pursue the theme, “Buddhism is not scientific but Lord Buddha was a great Scientist.” “Yes,” said the professor (Anthropology) “and I wish more people knew it.” Or “realization is the death of religion.”
March 29, 1969
My dear Prof. Bahm;
I wish to thank you for your brochures. The first impression was to lay them aside and use them at a seminar to be held shortly under the auspices of the University of California on the mystical experience.
But meanwhile I am having an experience, which may seem simple to you and is simple to others, but still persists. I have lived many years with a clean face, shaving regularly. Then at the urging of some young people I left my hair to grow both somewhat long on the head, and also in full beard. I look in the mirror every day and cannot identify this as myself. I have had many pictures taken but always seem to regard them as pictures of a stranger.
I know that it is but I do not know why it is. I simply cannot establish what some would call “self-identity.” Indeed sometimes I do not feel any identity at all, either with my former pictures or present visage. Nor can I reconcile myself either with the acceptance or non-acceptance of being. I feel that I am but there the feeling stop.
I do not wish at the moment to say more about your brochures. I wish to go over them and the other materials you have sent. I shall be going into a seminar, perhaps for the first time in this land, and maybe the first time anywhere having had validated Zen experience and validated Sufi experience. By that I mean actual Sufis whom I can name and actual Zen masters whom I can name have validated this and I can name them and even give detail.
And yet I use the Jhana method rather than the Zen method or even what would be considered “orthodox” Sufi methods, although it is generally non-Sufis who self-determine just what an “orthodox” Sufi method is.
The seminar will be concerned with required reading. There is now so much literature whish actually blocks a discussion on cosmic experience. In 1956 when I visited Kamakura the attendant said, “You are already two grades beyond D. T. Suzuki.” So far several real Zen real Masters have accepted that. And as written before I am on excellent terms with Her Serene Highness, Princess Poor Diskul. I am not on such good terms with a number of “experts” on either “Zen” or “Buddhism.” I mean the terms, terms used loosely in American without reference to contents.
By 1931 I had read the Tipitaka entirely and this has been held against me by those who have teaching privileges without having the complete reading or study; still less without having experienced the “Bhumis” and “Paramis” actually indeed for the deep understanding of the Dharma (Dhamma).
A further report will be made when I can go over your materials and after the conference.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Ave.,
San Francisco, Calif.
August 2, 1969
Archie J. Bahm
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
My dear Professor Bahm:
Preparing to leave for New Mexico and perhaps calling on you while there, or just before taking off to return here, I have been going over your notes with a definite purpose in mind which may be of importance to the work of our good friend Oliver Reiser.
I have again read “The World’s Living Religions” and consider it from four standpoints:
a. As literature. Treating it this way there is nothing to comment on, but just to accept it as if one were a student in class.
b. Analysis and book review. It is so obvious that one can do this and so easy. Everybody has his own ideas which differ in some respects from others. This could lead either to:
1. dissonances
2. acceptance of criticisms calling for corrections, but I am objecting to this because it would augment the original book.
Such augmentation would have to consider not only “truth” (whatever that means) but communication. And literature which fails to communicate has a very limited value.
c. Integrational outlook. This is very difficult when one seeks for that Integral from which the various derivatives might be obtained. Thus the word “truth” may be ambiguous, and it again may mean that which is common to the human experience of many investigators. In this sense science is true when the researches or laboratory work of one is corroborated by others.
I once did work on Fuchsias and Primroses and was surprised to find that a whole research class at the University of California in Los Angeles was doing some research work on the same flowers at the same time with identically the same results.
But this may not happen often and the search for “Integrals” in life is still worth pursuing.
d. Two-way street communication.
This is the purpose for writing. Too may talk on “communication” etc. when the theme is “How can I reach you?” It is seldom, if ever, “How can I listen to you?” It would seem that propaganda (the one-way street) is always desired, and seldom real learning.
On this point the religionists and analytical humanists are very much of the same kind. They have excellent or not so excellent themes, generally mutually exclusive. They are both self-satisfied with their own limited outlooks and failed to comprehend others, much less agree.
The rise of new outlooks, the “Generation Gap,” etc. all arise from the fact that young people more and more want to “listen and learn” and also to communicate, and I fell this is the only valid knowledge. In practice one still finds the two cultures of Lord Snow, which he called “scientific” and “literary humanist.” We can almost call them “alterocentric” and “egocentric.” It is certain that many religionists and humanists agree in evaluating from the personalities involved and that most or all scientists evaluated from the facts and data regardless of persons.
Along with this—and perhaps you have already reached your conclusions—is the anatta outlook of Buddha. This is basically in line with “science” but neither “religions” in general, nor “humanists” in general accept it. The failure yet of any scientific philosophy to consider Perry and Spalding and their solution of “the egocentric predicament” is one which will have to be considered and is not. And until it is we shall have wars and misunderstandings and enjoy, “I am right and you are wrong.”
Therefore it is foolish to be critical when no end is gained, and it is important to work toward a scientific form of communication based at least in part on human consideration and human potentialities. And therefore at this point the conclusions concerning “The World’s Living Religions” are most favorable.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
August 4, 1969
Archie J. Bahm,
Department of Philosophy,
University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
My dear Professor Bahm:
In Re: Organicism
My movements are now uncertain, although I leave for New Mexico Thursday. The difficulty is a very full program here and everywhere else, but as there is a probability of financial stability, if not enough is accomplished on the immediate visit, there is no reason for not returning. And so, in case you are not available, or I have not enough time it is within my purview to make another trip or at least arrange for a proper interview.
The overall outlook which was mentioned in the previous letter was fully justified by re-reading your “Organicism” and I am unable to find weaknesses—they may be there but I have not found them. There have been too many examples of “Holism,” “Integrative Philosophy,” “World Outlooks,” etc. which, when one gets closer to them are largely re-wordings of old outlooks with fine emotions, and sometimes tinges of humanistic morality.
Economic Philosophy. Your reference to Texas-Egyptian cotton comes well within the purview of my objective experiences, and I guess is basic to my last trip to many lands and the underlying philosophy thereof and therefrom. Copious notes were taken and I am optimistic enough, despite almost total failures with publishers, editors and what Lord Snow calls the “literary humanist” culture that these notes will be accepted some time on their objective value. I do not recall a single scientist that rejected them!
Social Philosophy. This is outside my purview and I am quite incompetent here.
Metaphysics. Having at least read Whitehead if not studied him I am in total agreement with you. I have objected to the pseudo-”holists,” the pseudo-”Integrationalists,” the so-called “Semanticians” just as much for their by-passing Charles Perry as for ignoring the Indian and Chinese cultures.
I am finding, despite all the diatribes against Hitler, such a positive over-laying of “Aryanism” in our culture, that it has led us into interminable difficulties, none of them solved by the choice use of words. The lack of knowledge of mathematical philosophy and “functionalism” by many who have convinced themselves that they are against Aristotle and/or Plato, shows how much confusion there is. And also in this connection I shall try to send you copy of a poem based on the possibility of reconciliation between Mahayana and Vedanta. The refusal, sometimes most absolute, even to consider Nyaya or Dignaga will stand as a blot and blotch on much of the present-prevailing “culture’.
Philosophy of Science, page 267: “Was there a single scientific method common to all the sciences and to every scientific investigation, or does each science have some unique problems which require unique methods for solution? Organicism must answer “Both.” Bravo! And I think this will be of great value in the struggle between objective-science and parlor-”science.”
Philosophy of Language. You have included humanity. When humanists do that we shall have real “humanism.”
As for the rest the hard fact that you have included, and not just verbally, may lead to greater understanding. I used to say: “Remember, Europeans are human beings and Asians are thought-forms.” The last conference on “Asia” locally was nearly all restricted to European born and educated “experts” and the only Indian a Christian! I think, but am not sure, there was another Asian on the panel. But the same more or less holds for the “East-West” gatherings in Honolulu. “East” has now come to include all Aryans even from communist lands, but not many Asians, in fact huge facets of Asian culture are barred!
Comparative Philosophy. Excellent. No comment.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco, Calif.
December 6, 1969
Prof. Archie Bahm,
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
My dear Archie:
I believe you realize there are two quite different ferments going on at the moment which may be called positive and negative and which rather overlap. No doubt the protest against the war in Vietnam and the arguments indulged in by the Vice-President get the most headlines. But there are a lot of other things, which do not get headlines.
I am enclosing a couple of letters which give one aspect of the present situations. It is noticeable that in serious discussions in “Halls of Ivy” today far more attention is paid in the colleges and Universities to the potential “Shangri-las” of New Mexico than to anything going on in or from India. The “reason” is simple—the American Shangri-la-ists tend to respect one another, to socially intermingle and even to cooperate. The Indian “New Worlders” pay “respect” only to ancients and to themselves. And there are so many of them.
Oliver had suggested I look at the college scene and it has overwhelmed me and favorably as much as the picture of a generation back brought only sad and pessimistic notes. Our poetry seminar ended and it is remarkable how many of these young people lean or look to universal consciousness, a consciousness in which all can share. This is totally different from the propagandized Indian “cosmic consciousness” which is very exclusive. Each does not recognize others.
The result is that now in the classes in the arts, history, religion, philosophy. etc. those groups which are exploding their own world outlook (sinn fein) are not being considered at all! Why, even the funky “Maharshi” is coming up for discussion but nobody has even mentioned Sri Aurobindo among several groups visited, or classes enrolled in. It is simple and easy: the followers of Sri Aurobindo don’t recognize the contributions of anybody else!
No doubt in a “philosophic” treatise Love does not have a major place. That modern non-Indian mystic, Edward Carpenter, placed Love first. And lacking “humility” he went through a complete Jnani training and did not have any PhD. title to make him an authority.
We are planning a Christmas without Santa Claus. This is a several-edged sword. The Aurobindo people came out for Santa Claus—not for God, not for universality but for Santa Claus. And if by a hidden moral law, the Negro communities are beginning to revolt. They don’t belong in Sri Aurobindo’s world anyhow.
This week, in the face of the Palestinian complex, the Hebrew Chassid and my own disciples in Sufis are having a joint love meeting. This cannot possibly be understood by either Vice Presidents or the commentators whom the V.P. is criticizing who are super-authorities on absolutely everything excepting true love, of course. It won’t be world news. Indeed it will be an unwelcome interruption of up teen plans for “one world—Us Leading!
After that attention will be paid to the suffering of Vietnam. This will be climaxed in January so after Christmas.
One writes because one of my disciples has been transferred to your university. I don’t know whether he is coming in the Winter or Summer, but will see him during the Christmas vacation. His name is Joshua Seeger. He has also been up on many of the “revolt” movements on campuses. He has been a revolutionist but also a Gandhian, and is opposed to naming either person or property. But he is also more interested in perfecting himself than in just being destructive to others. So for a while he has become a sort of loner.
As you can surmise in the letter to Oliver, things are humming around this personality. Having studied and even disciplined in all the faiths (without gutting any PhD degree) and knowing pretty well the history of all lands of Asia and some others, this puts one in a strong position when cards have to be laid on the table, and I think this is coming soon.
Season’s greetings.
Samuel L. Lewis
January 2, 1970
Dear Sam,
Thanks for the four volumes of the Buddhist Encyclopedia and your numerous letters. And now thanks for your mention of Josh Seeger. I have not seen him yet, but I suppose he will not be along until the second semester, in February.
You have a penetrating observation in noting that those who form their own communes for their own reasons tend to develop their own philosophy with its own implications, some of which are cosmic. One can gain insights from other civilizations, and one may even adopt their language and details of their views; but they have to ring true to one’s own experience or they soon come to be felt as artificial.
George Morgan has written a book, The Present Predicament: Dissolution and Wholeness, Brown U. Press, 1968, which I have just started reading. I judge it to be one of the soundest and most penetrating evaluations of the present situation. Hope you have a chance to read it; if you do, let me have your reactions.
Cordially,
Archie J. Bahm
May 8, 1970
Prof. Archie Bahm
Dept. of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
My dear Archie:
I am writing, hoping we can meet again to our mutual convenience. Things are happening in my private life indicating that I may have to be working on a larger geographical and even a social scale. There was no trouble in Geneva in attending the summit meeting. Partly as a reaction, and partly as natural concomitant, more and more doors are opening up. Some of these involve subjects of mutual interest. At the moment I am more interested in learning what you are doing then imposing on you what I am doing, although no doubt these subject overlap.
I am enclosing copy of a letter to Oliver Reiser and hope to hear from you soon. Mansur and I will be leading a caravan to New Mexico which will leave as soon as we get advise as to the proper day of departure.
Cordially
Samuel L. Lewis
May 23, 1970
Prof. Archie Bahm
c/o University of New Mexico Dept. of Philosophy
Albuquerque, NM
My dear Archie:
I have your brochure Aesthetic Experience and Moral Experience. At this moment I am rather tired. We hive three very big enterprises going on. A. The growth of my local work. B. Preparation for a camp for the Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan to be instituted shortly. C. Our departure shortly for Lama. We are expecting to arrive in Albuquerque on the day or evening of May 30—that is Mansur, myself and a few others.
We have also decided, subject to confirmation, to have Tuesday as our day off, and we could drop down and see you on my Tuesday, subject to confirmation. We also have two disciples at Taos who report rather dire events going on there not publicized.
I must say I was jolted and excited by your diagram on page 117. It is the rejection, and worse than rejection, the seemingly absolute refusal of the followers of Sri Aurobindo to examine such outlooks that make me feel sooner or later the Shangri-la may be established in America and not in India. I feel you have something very powerful and relevant here, and hope to into those matters as soon as my mind is rested.
I have always said that the enemies of our foreign policy have been not the Communist but Jesus Christi, Dale Carnegie and Oswald Spangler and the greatest of these has been Spangler. I believe here we have more than overlooked bets; we have overlooked actualities. But these statements, even if true, do not formulate a positive approach. And I believe you have a positive approach, which can be used constructively to help promote sanity in this world.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
c/o L. Less
27 W. 71 Street
New York, New York 10023
October 22, 1970
Dr. Archie Bahm
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dear Archie:
“Then the cat began to bite the rat, the rat began to gnaw the rope, the rope began to hang the butcher.” This is being written from Cambridge, Massachusetts, which we shall be leaving shortly to spend the next two days in sundry parts of New England, then back to New York.
I suppose in the time-space world this series of events began when Gunnar Jarring had his name in the paper as being the chief representative of the UN in the Near East. Mr. Jarring was once my traveling companion. He is not one of those preachers of liberty and democracy, but he listened to this “Jude-the Obscure” and said I had the best plan for the Near East he had ever encountered. In this he was in a hopeless minority. The churches, the humanists, the “peace organizations” and those “studying” international affairs all dissented. And you can bet after thirty-three rejections of my paper on Vietnamese Buddhism, I did not want any more of that.
I could not call on you in New Mexico because of a sudden interest in my “Dances of Universal Peace.” They are making headway, and how; while all the “good” people are snubbing them, the youths are enjoying them so much I am unable either to have them properly copied and sent out or even less to have accredited teachers, or any teachers at all. I find that young people become very amenable after they have danced and reached heights far beyond Timothy Leary’s conceptions. Indeed, I led a thousand young folks in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco the day before I left to come east. But by this time, two things had happened;
a. I followed our good friend Oliver Reiser’s suggestion and concentrated on universities and professors. It is most wonderful to find people who are more interested in facts than opinions; in working operations than in private schemata. These do not always make the most interesting articles, but they do affect the history of the world. In fact, just before I left I started my own peace scholarship at the U. of California. Small it is true, but!
b. The success of the missions of Mansur Otis Johnson and myself has impressed some young people so they have gone ahead and established the Halleluiah! The Three Rings. This name is derived from that scoundrel pornographic author, Boccaccio! And, of course, from Lansing’s Nathan the Wise. The time evidently was right. Enough people are tired of the almost universal quest for excitement. Some people want peace—not grandiose dialectical dreams, but actual peace.
The last news from the West is so amazing it is making typing difficult. It seems there are plenty of Arabs who prefer to get money from Jewish customers than to pay monies to landlords of their own religious persuasion. There are plenty of Jews who are no longer enamored with the synagogue and want to be leaders, and if they stick to conventions they cannot do much leading. I used to say in humor, “There will be thirty world faiths, and every one of them will have a leader named Cohen.” Don’t laugh, I know three such Cohen already, and a lot of the world faiths are also led by people of Jewish extraction.
It has not been difficult to start a program, let us say: Shish kebab for the Israelis and Gefilte fish for the Arabs. This, of course, is objectionable to all vice presidents, and even more so to all people who hate vice presidents. There are slot of human beings who prefer food to words, and how they are getting together. If we had not sound substantial bases drawn from Boccaccio, Lessing, and Sam Lewis, what has happened would have upset them, but they are ready. The dinners have not only been oversubscribed, the shekels are coming. I may have no details until I reach Yew York.
In the meanwhile, we have visited several universities with such excellent results we cannot possibly visit more. When I went to Columbia University former Ambassador Badeau invited me into his office without an appointment, but the secretary is now satisfied. There was a young man named Bob Kauffman who followed me all the way from Geneva to an Francisco, and he also is at Columbia. One of the top deans is an in-law. I told the dean about former visits with one professor Joseph Blau of the Department of Philosophy. “Why, Joseph is my best friend.” He is now head of the Department of Religion.
Ten years ago some time was spent with Doctor Blau, and we were so much in accord that the philosophical basis of my programs has been (hail Columbia!) Cassius Keyser, Joseph Blau, and Charles Pierce. Not a dialectician or European in the crowd. Of course it worked, and of course it was offensive because it was entirely out of line—then. I am only sorry that Doctor Blau is still an invalid, but I feel so happy over our meetings, and we have such mutual plans that we hope that this to me leading American philosopher will become better known. I found his books in many libraries; they are hardly ever read, so you can understand that I have been at war with all those Sophistic instructors who admire various non-American existentialists—so-called, and dialecticians.
I must say that the doors to Philosophy Departments are so wide open I am slightly aghast at the moment because a lot of other doors are opening, and very rapidly.
Most important of these is an editor in Tucson, Arizona. You may have heard of Philip Davenport who once edited The Oracle. Between him and Mansur Johnson I could be busy enough for the rest of the life quite exclusive of my wonderful Three-Ring colleagues referred to above; or the dancing. Anyhow, Walter Bowart of Tucson wants material from me and may invite me to Tucson this winter, if so I am considering very seriously also visiting you if that is convenient.
In the meanwhile I have run into so many people from New Mexico both here and in New York that I am welcome everywhere. Tonight we shall be stopping with a Lama group not far from Cape Cod. We may also lay plans both for the winter and next summer. In fact, we shall have to lay plans.
Secretary Mansur has been lost to a well-paying technical job editing films. These films cover both dances of the New Age and mystical ceremonies from various parts of Asia which have never been taped or filmed before. Philip is also very active in this field and is still in India. He is visiting various ashrams and will have some pretty good objective reports on their present status. His retorts so far are hardly in accord with the Madison Avenue methods now used by the New Age “holy men.” In fact, he had the audacity to promote a Sufi-Israeli dinner while in Jerusalem—newspapers, please don’t copy—mustn’t. But I am no longer worried on this score because the more rejections I get from the press—and they are the only ones rejecting today—the stronger and more effective the articles which Walter Bowart will publish.
(Here the press and radio-TV part company. We have already been on the air in both East and West. And I understand the American Broadcasting Company is also mentioning the joint Israeli-Christian-Arab functions.)
Back in New York we shall again visit Columbia, certain religious people, and both Arab and Israeli groups. There is a lot of mail there. It is very hard to impress those who do not want to hear that the totality of my mail is increasing both quantitatively and geographically. Most welcome to me have been the reports from San Francisco State College. For many years I have been a nuisance—Jude the Obscure to Don Hayakawa. He has deliberately and viciously turned me down in everything. And he is the worst one in never forgiving the fact that I studied under Cassius Keyser, friend and mentor of Alfred Korzybski. But now he has jumped on the Hallelujah! The Three Rings bandwagon—he and his closest associates are giving every support. I don’t know if he knows that Sam Lewis is the prompter of these efforts, and in a sense the originator, but let the dead bury their dead. I haven’t the time to follow my predecessor Samuel Morse fighting and exposing all those who deliberately and selfishly stood in the way. I am working for peace, not fame.
Incidentally, the latest Nobel award was very close to my own research. Indeed, I know a good deal more than the grand commentators, editors, lecturers, etc, about adaptations of strains of grains for different climates and soils and for the animalization of proteins in them. This is only one of the items on which I have done research, and of course my research work will now be—pardon me if I use a terrible word—integrated in the sense that the word integration used to mean before it fell into the hands of the illiterati and promoters.
Have also attended a “peace” conference of a totally different type than that of Geneva. When I was a boy I used to say all Hindus were either mahatmas or coolies. This has not changed much. But the number of mahatmas has greatly increased, and the peace conference consisted mostly of mahatmas who regard all Americans as second-grade personalities subject to be converted. They came late, they left early, they made a lot of speeches, and this is supposed to be the basis for fund-raising and world peace, but particularly for fund raising for themselves, of course. Some have been very active right in your own bailiwick. Oh, I am not opposing them. I have too many disciples and too much to do to bother, and in my perhaps narrow outlook I consider the worst of them considerably better than a Billy Graham. And a lot of your, people agree with that too.
This is not all the good news, and of course it is not all the news. But the most interesting one can convey at the moment. One foresaw the possibility of the accretion of funds. One will not handle these additional funds excepting to promote real peace, spiritual dancing, and of course the peace scholarship established at the University of California. But it should encourage others, and the door is wide open for all possibilities.
Or to summarize, I believe I am putting into practice Oliver Reiser’s Project: Prometheus and Project: Krishna
Most faithfully and cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
Archie Bahm
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
November 1, 1970
My Dear Archie:
In re What Is Needed To Achieve New Morale In America?: I do not know whether this was recently forwarded or was caught in materials brought here. In any case I feel very much inspired to write you in what I hope is a practical matter to support your point of view.
When the UN met in San Francisco the honorable U Thant said, “What this world needs is a moral and spiritual revolution.” Thunderous applause. But all I could see was an increase of holocausts and terrors encompassing the world. There on the platform with the Secretary General of the UN was a host of the world’s actual leaders and they, damn them and I mean damn them, had the audacity to demand from the public leadership in directions for which they had no capacity at all and mere confessing their inability’s. Life has absolutely proven I was correct, though it has resulted in the breaking of many old friendships, and I’m glad today they have been broken. This is a new age, and it demands some honesty, some objectivity, and some standards other than the blind acceptance of pompous egos. It is very clear to me that in this space age one of the worst horrors is the common usage of procrastinating all persons of prominence into the sub-Euclidean world of the French convention of 1790. However else our Vice President and meta-super-encyclopedic commentators may differ—and how they differ—they agree in trying to measure by outworn standards. You call it “this medieval world.” Maybe you are correct and my 1790 reference is not sufficient.
I was deeply moved by the late Alfred Korzybski. I got to Korzybski by the back door—that is introduction from his friend and mentor, Cassius Keyser. Half of me belongs to oriental disciplines and studies. The other half from a mélange of James, Emerson, Dewey, Pierce, and more recently Oliver Reiser, I hope. Certainly my interviews at Columbia University where I ran into at least two leading professors with the same outlook on almost everything seems to stubbornize me.
Alfred Korzybski said the world must become free of Aristotle, Newton, and Euclid. The so-called semanticists are verbally free from Aristotle, and Newton. Ignorant men have dared not criticize Euclid. They are unaware of the importance of non-Euclidean mathematics. This non-Euclidean mathematics became the basis of the philosophy, morality, and metaphysics of Cassius Keyser. It is easy for me to move right into your arena. “The Doctrine of Doctrines,” one of the greatest of Keyser’s teachings, remains with me, and this opens up infinite possibilities in moral and psychological outlooks. The term “infinite” being the same as that of Korzybski—far far from those of his follower.
We are in the Space Age. We are not only not in the medieval world; we are not in the world of the French Revolutionaries of the late 18th century. I go further. We are not in Hegel’s subjectivity or in the realisms of Hegel’s disciples of the sub-Euclidean right and left. You see, Archie, I am also under the influence of the late H.G. Wells and do not like flatlanders. In fact, I can’t understand them and they can’t understand me, even though they are called” “realists,” existentialists, dialecticians, and humanists.
I think if Dewey were alive he would support me. Things are happening. Boy, how they are happening.
1. My plan for the Near East which was accepted by Gunnar Jarring and nobody else practically, excepting engineers and technicians and a few scientists, has now reached the UN through a back door. It has reached a lot of young people through the front door, and they have organized some rather successful joint Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners and other functions.
2. My “Dances of Universal Peace” have gotten beyond me. They have gotten beyond me partly because they keep on coming to me. They have gotten beyond me because the geographical and social demands are growing more rapidly than persons who partake in these dances can reach new audiences. True, some of them are gravitating towards San Francisco. I led a thousand real human beings in these dances before leaving San Francisco. We have reached many hundreds in the Boston-Cambridge area, and maybe a hundred or so around New York.
3. My Paper, “The Three-Body Constitution of Man According to Saint Paul” has been placed in certain important hands, and if they do not follow their own statements that they would see it published, I have without even looking two other sources for potential early publication. Although this seems to be a religious subject it throws much light on all the problems connected with psychedelics. The hard and simple fact that the methodology works and works so rapidly that I am overburdened in this time-space complex itself would be regarded by pragmatists as valuable no matter how much the many schools of “realists” spurn it. I have had no trouble whatever in getting a large number of young people to abandon psychedelics, though I am now convinced they do not do ten percent of the harm caused by alcoholics.
4. My own work has been filmed, and there is a possibility of drawing the Columbia Broadcasting Company into further filming. I shall know more about this after my return to Sam Francisco.
5. Jarring is jarring. The fact that Dr. Jarring of the UN said I had the best plan for the Near East he had ever heard of is stimulating others to action. This in turn is making some members of the fourth estate curious, at least curious. I was on the air at two stations in Boston. There is a possibility of being interviewed shortly by representatives of AP.
I look over your paper and, despite all the crying that I have done above here, cannot find the least thing to criticize. I think it is wonderful. My own work is being presented through the back door at the University of California. I may go further now and visit N.Y.U. if possible. Their E.G. Spaulding wrote about “The Egocentric Predicament and its Solution.” This needs to be integrated, I believe, into a real philosophy. I am absolutely for you. I am absolutely with you.
Copy of this is going to my friends in Arizona (Tucson), and I am hoping that one of them can join me later on to visit you in Albuquerque. To be followed up.
Kindest regards,
Samuel L. Lewis
November 5, 1970
Professor Archie Bahm
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
My Dear Archie:
Our work here on the East Coast is coming to a close. I am particularly gratified because of two meetings with a man who fulfills, in a sense, both project Krishna and Project Prometheus of our good friend Oliver Reiser, who is receiving a copy of his. Some seers have declared that in the new age the lines of demarcation of science and religion will terminate. What I see terminating are the emphases on analysis, dialectics, and personality prestige. They stand in the way of both progress and understanding. Of course there are many advocates of each of these, basing their logistics on the faults of others, rather than on their own contributions.
I am, in a sense, annoyed by personality proclamations. The greatest difficulty has not come from criticism or opposition, but from unsupported Messianism. This is particularly true of those personalities who were involved in what I call the “Zitko-fiasco.” These self-styled supermen were going to bring in the new age if only enough of us peasants would contribute to them financially and accept their proclamations. We still see this going on in those groups around Sri Aurobindo, who have captured thewords integration, new age, and world, employing them in very narrow senses and substituting the United Nations concept for spiritual guidance and awakened states of consciousness. Indeed, they are trying to smother the actual wisdom teachings of the past and present and substitute personalities as seers and prophets. When these personalities fail the general public is blamed. Thus the Zitko-fiasco was followed by God refusing to destroy California!
We were given an introduction to Cleve Backster by Dr. Huston Smith of M.I.T. It is not an easy career for one not accepted by the elite to present his notes to the world. I have piles of notes, and they are going to be presented; they are either going to be accepted by the universities or published by my friend, Walter Bowart of Tucson. I should prefer the former, but I am constantly running into the Messiahs and their retinues.
Some illusion to the work of Jagadish Bose resulted in an introduction to Cleve Backster. I found him not only researching, and I mean researching, where Bose left off; I found that he, like Bose and his colleagues, accepted in some sense the cosmic psychology which is behind both Hinduism and Buddhism—in their depths, I don’t mean their superficialities.
We went to a meeting under the auspices of the Spiritual Fellowship Foundation. I found this group to be real. None of the superficialities and personalizes of the Cayce Foundation or Garrett or Rhine or the so-called psychic research groups. Indeed, as I look over their literature I feel sure they will not exclude Asians and non Aryans from the wonderful people of the world.
Backster agrees entirely with an outlook, an outlook I found first in Mme. Curie, that having discovered radioactivity she researched into every known chemical element. This “smartyaleckism” of a large number of Americans especially has made honest psychic research impossible. Indeed, we do not know where the physical begins or ends, the psychic begins or ends, or the meta-psychic, etcetera, begin or end. But now we are beginning to see this in honest impersonal research with fine people backing it up and also making use of laboratory equipment where that can be involved, knowing of course, the limitations of man’s inventions to date.
Anyone who has studied organic chemistry knows that some of the most profound discoveries have been made because of dreams, visions, psychic impressions, and intuitions of laboratory scientists. This itself upsets the orthodox humanists who wish to confine investigation within their own intellectual limits. The term “consciousness” is one which we cannot determine whether it is finite, indefinite, infinite, or trans-finite. Dr. S.I. Hayakawa, the chief general of Semantics, turned down every paper I have ever written that used these words, and then I found the same themes in Alfred Korzybski’s Science and Sanity. The ecclesiastication of General Semantics by non-laboratory authorities has resulted in scientists as a whole turning against Korzybski and parallel out-looks. This in turn has led us into a world of utter confusion, a world which you have recognized and are trying to help us to become free of it.
Forty years ago I challenged the head Baha’i whether the world would be any better if it had seven hundred competing religions or seven hundred competing “universal brotherhoods.” We are rapidly reaching that state. But we are not going to get there because the young do not think analytically or dialectically, and there are enough serious older people anxious to promote real research and investigation. I therefore see Reiser’s Project Prometheus and Project Krishna coming into being. But I see the boundaries overlapping. To me, Cleve Backster is a veritable Prometheus who nonetheless has accepted real Krishna outlooks far more seriously than, let us say, the emotional Hare Krishna young who parade our streets and contaminate them with their noise.
I see in his work the union of East and West and also the bridging of science and occultism. In fact, the possibilities are so tremendous I hesitate to look further. I feel that you and others will be interested—not ought to be but will be. He has what I call a real integrative fourth-dimensional approach, stepping beyond from imaginative reality to actual reality. But the best thing would be for you to contact him in person, if that be possible, or if not for my own young devotees to act as go-between.
I am sending a copy of this also to my disciple and friend, Daniel Lomax, who is at Tucson. Daniel had his education at the companion institute to M.I.T., i.e., the California Institute of Technology, but I am also sure that he would be interested.
Faithfully and Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis