The Forum for Awareness
Full Index of Issues 1 thru 14
Number 14
1986
What is TAT?
The TAT Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1973 with the express purpose of providing a forum and meeting place for inquirers into the mystery of ourselves; Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? TAT welcomes all inquirers, adventurers of the mind, laymen in search of truth, seekers of knowledge, the self and the unknown to meet others of like interest. Philosophers, psychologists and scientists, both professional and laymen, are on equal ground at TAT.
TAT is non-sectarian and non-denominational; there are no secret oaths, dogmas or rituals at TAT. Its membership, open to all of serious intent, from all walks of life, is united in the friendship of dialogue and fellowship of human spirit.
TAT believes that you can expedite and intensify your investigation of life's mysteries by working with others who are exploring, perhaps down a different road, so that you may share your discoveries, exchange ideas and "compare notes" in order to come to a better understanding of yourself and others. It is for this reason that TAT provides a unique mountain retreat where its members can meet informally, a Journal as a forum for readers and writers of esoteric subjects, symposia in several cities known as TAT Chautauquas as well as a host of small open-forum study groups in several cities. Your TAT Membership helps support these functions giving you access to friends you might not otherwise have contact with.
Membership in TAT is $20.00 a year (Full Membership). Members are invited to attend four quarterly gatherings on the TAT Farm Mountain Retreat in West Virginia. If you are unable to attend our quarterly meetings but would still like to become a member and take advantage of the many benefits, you may apply for our Associate Membership which is $10.00 a year. This type of membership is basically considered a donation to TAT, but Associate Members make an invaluable contribution and are welcome to visit us whenever they are in the area. Requests for memberships or further information should be sent to: TAT Foundation, _____.
Contents
A guide for the perplexed.
The common sense of traditional sexual morality is being validated by new discoveries about body and brain chemistry, and the differences between the sexes.
Excerpts from his ground-breaking 1938 thesis, including a remarkable first-hand account of a demonic possession, reveal the late Rev. Louis Greene to have been a bold investigator of the paranormal.
As he did in his earlier essay with the same title, Richard Rose brilliantly describes the traps that Nature lays for the unwary seeker after Truth, and the counter-measures that must be employed.
Dorothy Eady of London had the rare opportunity to "re-live" what she felt to be a past life in ancient Egypt. A true story.
An original study of a contemporary Italian medium, healer, bi-locator and stigmatic, by a director of the Southern California Society for Psychical Research.
The "pre-civilized" people of ancient Britain had a profound religion/ philosophy that acknowledged the correspondences between mind and matter, and man and nature.
A journey into the richly varied traditions, myths and poems of the Teutonic peoples.
The amazing story of a West Virginia lawyer who recovered from serious and disabling brain injury following a transcendent experience in a graveyard.
TAT Journal is published by the TAT Foundation, a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation, that was established to provide a forum for philosophical and spiritual inquiry, based upon the principle that cooperation with fellow inquirers expedites one's own search. The TAT Foundation supports workshops, seminars, study groups and related services. The views and opinions expressed in the TAT Journal are not necessarily those of the editors or of the TAT Foundation. Address all correspondence, including manuscripts, to: TAT Journal, P.O. Box 236, Bellaire, Ohio 43906. Manuscripts will be returned only upon request and when accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope.
© 1986 TAT Foundation. All rights reserved.
Editor: Louis Khourey;
Production: Cecy Rose, Paul Cramer.
Man chooses a spiritual path according to his capacity, the same as he chooses an occupation or profession according to his capacity. Sometimes a man chooses a profession because of emotional association instead of capacity - knowledge, and very often a man chooses his spiritual path for emotional reasons, and does not know it. This latter man does not know his capacity, in fact very few men really know their capacity, because capacity can only be realized by effort beyond limits which we set for ourselves when we engage in an enterprise, whether the enterprise be economic or spiritual.
As in business, so in spiritual things. Capacity is determined by and identified with intense desire and stubborn application of effort. And as in business, the spiritual capacity of beginners is generally recognized by persons, more mature, who have tested their own capacity and proved the merits of their determination, and who know the symptoms and qualifications that make for success. In business, we may be stubborn and determined, and have all the qualification for a "do or die" project, but unless we find an opportunity or opening in a group of successful businessmen, in their business, or among fellows who dream the same dream as ourselves, our dynamism will flourish like a palm tree at the north pole.
And so in spiritual work. Too many think that they can go it alone. Others choose a path because it appeals to their emotions. Some doubt their own capacity, and settle for an easy course of action. Some overestimate their point of maturity and wish to leap ahead and do anything that is hinted at as being the million dollar step or the discipline that brings knowledge of everything all at once. Some even approach this attempt at the giant step with a foolish reservation that they must hurry at it, get enlightenment so that they can go back to a "normal" life quickly and re-enter the game of life.
They never stop to think that when they reach enlightenment, they will possibly have little or no interest in the game of life.
So the purpose in this writing is to join with the beginner for spiritual exercise, in looking at a yardstick of sorts, so that the beginner, (at least he is a beginner in this field or system) will waste no more time than is necessary, and so that he can establish some balance and discretion in choosing the launching point of his endeavor.
It is not enough just to say that man is a victim of emotional determinations. The business of fooling oneself is very elaborate, and while emotions are generally at the root of the delusion, these emotions are skillfully veiled, and their case is argued against the spiritual convictions of the person with an elaborate diversity and cleverness, so that the person must be very astute and intuitive to survive the argumentative onslaughts.
The attacks upon objectives of a philosophic or spiritual nature, are best labeled as forces of adversity. They include Rationalization, Procrastination, Fear, Fatigue, hereditary inclinations, and others. And the knowledge of the existence of these blocks indicates a need to follow a practice of checking our thinking at all levels.
In speaking here of levels, a good method of designation of levels is the system used by Gurdjieff in which the least exalted man is man number one, and the most exalted man is man number seven.
Man number one is Instinctive Man. He rarely pays much attention to religion.
Man number two is Emotional Man. Most people who read this will be in this category, or in Man number three, which is Intellectual Man. Emotional Man, is he who chooses his spiritual path because of his application of emotions to religion or philosophy. He may have had a state of exaltation, if in his lifetime he evolved from Man number one. The decisive change from one Man-Number to the next is accompanied generally by an exaltation, or intense feeling of spiritual conviction that tells him that he has reached the final answer.
When Man number two supplants number one, it means that the man in question has translated his instinctive animal energies into an emotional attachment for survival. The emotional attachment furthermore may be one stimulated by fear, in combination with an intense love for another person (saviour or spiritual guide) which exceeds his love for his genetic urges. In this transition there is a moment of exaltation known as "salvation," or "being saved."
Man is his own greatest obstacle to finding Truth. It is only when his natural instincts, appetites, and egos have surrendered and left his field of consciousness, that he is able to think without coloring his own thoughts with wishful thinking. In "being saved" there is no doubt that there is a dropping of instincts, and a partial rejection of some of the appetites.
At this point, let us pause and see if we are Man number two. Do we believe in a personal saviour? Do we go to church because the minister is charismatic? Do we follow a guru because he allows us to indulge in autohypnotic methods which bring about a pleasant or peaceful feeling? Are we inspired by writings that appeal to our emotions? Such stories may involve moving accounts of little children, their belief in a religious ideal, or their reaction to such beliefs. They may just as well involve stories of monks and nuns, depicting masochistic reactions to the misery of ascetic life or martyrdom, all of which appeals to the masochism or sadism within ourself.
To summarize a bit for identification of Emotional Man, all who follow a religion or ism with blind belief are people in this category. Devout believers and participators in conventional, organized churches and systems should not look further into this system. This system will not do too much for Man number two. ...except in rare cases where, accidently, an emotional attraction to a system of higher number leads the person attracted, to follow it blindly. This is never advised.
When Man number two graduates from his level, he experiences an exaltation of serenity, in which he no longer makes decisions from emotional motivation. He enters the level of Man number three, and embarks upon a frantic, enthusiastic adventure in which he chooses to reach Truth through logical and systematic thinking-processes. One of the things which he attempts is the systematizing and symbolizing of all esoteric knowledge. He treats it like a science, and he will come up with concept-structures all his own. Or he may decide that there is power in symbols and decide on magic or numerology as a means to all knowledge. Or he may simply devote his life to scientific studies in the field of psychology, or pathology. If he has been a devout fundamentalist, he will step over into a methodical study of scriptures such as the Swedenborgian system, a study of the Kabbalah, or of another literal method of appraising the scriptures. Man number three, is motivated by an intellectual ego that is large. In fact it has taken him quite a few years of his life to reassure himself that his intellectuality knows no bounds. When he reaches the point where he knows beyond doubt that his intellect by itself will not take him to Truth, he suffers the loss of the intellectual ego, and enjoys an exaltation that is known as the bliss of mystics. He becomes a mystic-philosopher. He has learned that he will never learn the Truth, and that if he wants the Truth, he must become it. Of course he does not have any direction in his attempts to become and flounders about, often for many years. He looks into yoga and mysticism. Since he is living in an intellectual vehicle, he will become philosophic, and still try to reason. He has now become Man Number Four. He will try to use his instinctive, emotional and intellectual mechanisms to sort things out for the Truth.
Man Number Four is the man ready for the next and last step, the step into Satori or cosmic consciousness. This man will understand these papers (The Albigen Papers) when he reads them, because he has gone through all three previous levels, and thoroughly knows their symptoms. So that Man Number Four is the man I am most eager to encounter in this adventure, for he has a chance of getting more from the TAT (Truth and Transmission) system than the previous three. Others on the second and third level will not be rejected, but they may reject themselves.
—R. Rose
Conservation Therapy
by Mark Jaqua
CONSERVATION THERAPY IS BASED on the premise that man can best cause psychological cure or development in himself by a conservation of his sexual energies and the living of a moderate lifestyle in every aspect. It has been the traditional viewpoint throughout history that personal energy is lost in sex expression, but until recently this premise has not been supported by biochemical evidence. Until present times hard physical work was continually necessary just for basic survival. A man soon learned he had to conserve his energies for survival over pleasure. It may be that we have only so much personal resource or "energy" at our command. Possibly it is not mere coincidence that a traditional puritanism in this country coincided with the development of the wealthiest and most creative society the world has known.
For the male, the highest concentrations of valuable chemicals in the body are contained in the semen. Just why this is so is a bit of a mystery when looked at superficially, since the primary purpose of seminal fluid is only to provide a vehicle for sperm. While it has been proven that women absorb some of these valuable chemicals from the male in coitus, it may also be reasonable to assume that if not frequently spent in sex they become available for mental and bodily development. It is curious that in several aspects the chemistry of the semen and the brain are more similar to each other than to any other bodily tissues.
Modern psychology is more in the class of voodoo or shamanism than of a true science. Actually shamanism may show better results than psychotherapy. The true status of psychology is demonstrated in legal battles where the prosecution's psychologist declares the defendant sane and the defense's psychologist declares him insane. The judge or jury then decides which psychologist is correct. If a true psychological system existed, then the man could scientifically be declared sane or insane and both psychologists would agree. That present psychology is impotent to bring about improvement or cure in the mentally afflicted is demonstrated by dozens of its own studies. Basically psychotherapy has been found no more effective than a placebo. Many studies have shown that psychotherapy is even harmful and prevents a person from curing himself as quickly as he may if left entirely alone.
There is no "quick fix" for psychological ills. While insight may occasionally result in rapid change, in most cases bringing inner changes about is a time-consuming process which requires effort as any other accomplishment. Many modern psychological systems recommend ways to "hold the head." They recommend the adopting of a particular attitude or perception that will automatically put things in a new light and make previous problems disappear. These systems are all variations of the "positive thinking" philosophy. They result in the inhibition of serious problems and the narrowing of perspective to a shallow and overly simplistic outlook. The real problems "go underground," so to speak, and the person is impoverished from lack of depth.
A true psychological system is holistic in nature. Every aspect of a persons life affects his mentality and emotions. Sexual lifestyle is a primary aspect of this holism since it is such a central facet in everyone's life. Even psychological systems that label themselves "holistic" ignore this fact. Increasing sexual intensity, frequency or variety is lauded but the concept of what actually constitutes a healthy sexual lifestyle is completely ignored. A hundred diets are prescribed for maximum health but there is no sexual diet recommended. Certain foods are found best for the human organism and we may also suppose that a certain sexual lifestyle is also conducive to greatest psychological and physical health. This proper sexual lifestyle is not subject to fickle human whim or philosophy but has been designed into our organism by the past million-odd years of evolution.
If on a basic level the human organism has been designed according to certain psychological principles developed through eons of evolution, it is reasonable to assume a person must live in accordance with these principles to achieve maximum mental health. If a sex role is designed into the body on a basic biochemical and genetic level, can we ignore this foundation and still be a whole and healthy person? A person who is not intellectually or philosophically in tune with this biological determinism may be tortured on an inner level and never learn the source of his torment. It would be irrelevant if he agreed with this programming; the effects would continue nonetheless. An option may be to consider that our intellectual preconceptions may be shallow in comparison to the complexity and wisdom in the design of Nature.
Conservation Therapy contends that psychological cure and any further development will result from the conservation of personal sexual energy coupled with progressive introspection or self-analysis. Nature has placed in our make-up a proper sex life and sex role and we must live in accordance with this inner design to become fully functioning humans, as well as to provide a basis for any possible further development mentally or spiritually. In essence it is a system originating from intuition and practical observation. While it is supported by recent scientific findings in biochemistry and brain functioning, its validity can only be established through application and an attempt at objective evaluation of the effects of sexual lifestyle on mentality. I have seen the system validated in myself and in scores of others.
This paper attempts basically to deal with research findings and introspection is not dealt with. Elaborate theorizing should be avoided in self-analysis and a common sense attitude toward evaluating one's own attitudes and reaction patterns should be attempted. Self-critical meditational systems such as contained in Richard Rose's Albigen Papers and Meditation and Visualization can be especially valuable.
Research Findings
Men have several times the testosterone levels of women. Testosterone is the primary sex hormone in males, as progesterone is in females, and is responsible for all his secondary sex characteristics. Besides physical characteristics, testosterone is responsible for a host of psychological and motivational characteristics in the male. Testosterone has an invigorating effect on the brain, and neurophysiologist Sachar has likened its effects to that of a psychoactive drug. (1)
High blood testosterone levels have been found to correlate with heightened intelligence in males (as well as females) (2) and have also been found to correlate with greater aggression, motivation, energy level and positive mood. (3) Testosterone is produced in the testes and general energy level, mood and motivation have been found to decrease in castrates shortly after castration (due to accident or disease). Energy, mood and motivation increase immediately after testosterone is administered. In natural castrates with inactive testes, energy level has been found to be directly related to amount of administered testosterone. Energy level is high after administration and declines steadily until the next administration when it elevates again. Complete lack of testosterone in the post-pubescent male results in "eunuchoidism," the victim of which is characterized as apathetic, withdrawn, depressed, lacking initiative and hypoactive.
The effect of testosterone on the brain may be the primary chemical reason why men have historically outdistanced women in every avenue of mental achievement. Even today with the many opportunities available to women, men are still responsible for 98% of all patents issued. (4) While women's primary sexual hormone, progesterone, has been found related to mood, no relationship between progesterone levels and intelligence has been established. Recently the superior spatial ability of men has been linked to testosterone. (5) Apparently it must be present in adequate amounts during a critical developmental stage to augment the ability.
Low testosterone levels have been found in all severe forms of mental problems in males, including schizophrenia, psychosis, and anorexia nervosa. (6) Heightened sexual activity is present in most severe mental problems in males (as well as females). (7) Kraemer (1967) (8) established that lower than normal sexual frequency in males elevates testosterone levels, and we may suppose that it has a positive effect on IQ, mood and motivation because of the effects of the elevated testosterone. In periodic schizophrenics, episodes have been found to always be presaged by increased sexual activity. (9) A reasonable supposition from this evidence is that increased sexual activity may aggravate severe mental problems.
Levels of prostaglandins in the body have been found to be controlled by testosterone levels. (10) It appears that elevated testosterone levels also cause an elevation in prostaglandin levels. Prostaglandins are found throughout the body, having been found in at least 23 different areas. They are produced locally throughout the body but by far the highest concentrations are produced and stored in the male seminal vesicles. The seminal vesicles produce 400 times more than any other area of the body. (11) Because of the seminal vesicles, males produce many times the prostaglandins that females do. Prostaglandins produce very strong reactions in living tissue and are perhaps the most powerful biologically-active, naturally occurring substance known. Prostaglandins are involved in many body processes including blood pressure levels, pain and inflammation, and neuro-transmission. It is thought that they may control the turn-over rate of serotonin in the brain since both serotonin and prostaglandins produce similar effects.
It is curious that almost no animals produce prostaglandins, while in nearly every other way human and animal biochemistry is identical. Only the rabbit, sheep and a few monkeys produce prostaglandins, and humans many hundreds of times more than these animals. As the prostaglandins are produced in the male's seminal vesicles, very large amounts are in male semen. Men "waste" more prostaglandins in a single emission than women produce in a day in their entire body. (12, 13) It is a question just why prostaglandins are present in male semen since they have no reaction with sperm and have been proven to do nothing to insure impregnation in the female. (14) It has been found that females absorb male prostaglandins after coitus in the vagina and uterus (15) and actually have special receptor cells in the uterine wall to receive male prostaglandins. (16) An old wives' tale holds that women gain strength from men during coitus, and on this very basic chemical level this observation seems to be validated. Prostaglandins are one of the most refined of the body's products and women absorb these "super-chemicals" from males.
Since seminal fluid has no apparent purpose than as a vehicle for sperm, why does it have such a concentration of valuable body chemicals? An ounce of semen has been found to be basically the concentration of the most valuable chemicals from 60 ounces of blood. No two tissues in the body show greater similarity in their lecithin, colesterin and phosphorous contents than the brain and semen. (17) Semen has proportionally more fructose, citric acid, spermine and prostaglandins than any other tissue in the body. It is also richer than most any other tissue in zinc, ascorbic acid, inositol, glyceryl, phosphory-choline and free amino acids. It has 33 times the neutral amino acids, 28 times the acidic amino acids and 57 times the basic amino acids as the blood.(18) Women may absorb body chemicals from male semen other than prostaglandins to enrich their body chemistry and health. Another possibility for the chemical richness of semen is that, through a conservative sexual lifestyle, a man may reabsorb and utilize these valuable body chemicals. Instead of continually producing semen, he may use these same chemicals to invigorate the brain/body. While modern psychology believes sexual inhibition unhealthy mentally and physically, it fails to account for the fact that such giants as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, da Vinci, Spinoza, Bacon, Newton, Kant, Beethoven, Spencer, and Tesla were celibates. (19) The purpose here is not to universally recommend celibacy but to point out the absurdity of the modern position.
Several studies have indicated that the human brain is programmed either male or female in the fetal stage. The brain has two "programs" for sex role during life and the level of the hormone testosterone in the womb determines which of these programs is "kicked in." Once the program is established, the person has a male or female-programmed brain for life. The critical time is the fourth to seventh month during the development of the hypothalamus. If high levels of testosterone are present in the fetus, then the brain is programmed with a male sex-role. If low levels are present, the brain is programmed female. (20, 21) This is true regardless of the genetic sex of the child.
If testosterone levels are high enough in the womb, a female fetus will even develop male sexual organs, a male penis with an empty scrotum. Very low levels of testosterone in the genetically male fetus may result in intra-abdominal testes and lack of a male sex organ. If pregnant women carrying a female fetus are submitted to high testosterone levels, it has been found the girl will develop into what is traditionally called a "tomboy." This has been characterized by Money & Erhardt (1971, 1972) as "vigorous energy expenditure in athletics, indifference to the rehearsal of 'dollplay' and greater than average selection of male playmates and non-feminine utilitarian clothing." It must be pointed out that for a female fetus to be exposed to a high level of testosterone (or a male fetus to low levels) is a rare event. The above studies were run on women who were being administered testosterone for medical reasons. That a homosexual's brain would be fetally-programmed in an opposite sex-role would not hold water in almost all cases.
While the brain has been proven to be programmed male or female at birth, it has been discovered that there is even a more basic male-female difference. Women have extensive brain connections between the pre-frontal lobes and the cerebellum which men don't have at all. (22) The pre-frontal lobes are thought to be concerned with empathy and higher intellectual functions while the cerebellum is concerned with instinct, sex and movement. These connections may indicate that women's empathy and logic are tempered with sexual and instinctual aspects that men's are not. Progesterone is the primary sexual hormone in women and is responsible for all the secondary sexual aspects. Levels of progesterone have been found to be cyclic and vary with the monthly menstrual cycle. Highest levels occur at ovulation and this has also been found to be the time of peak feeling of well-being during the monthly cycle. Another time of peak progesterone production is during pregnancy which many women have described as the best period of their lives. It has been found that testosterone inhibits progesterone's production of feminine bodily characteristics. (23) Lesbians have been found to often have heightened levels of testosterone and this may account for the masculine physical characteristics taken on by many lesbians.
In these times of day-care centers and bottle-feeding, it is significant that it has been found that infants breast-fed and raised by their mothers rather than a nanny or day-care center develop higher IQ's and better social adaptation than their peers. In the 40's and 50's in the Israeli kibbutz movement an extensive experiment was made to dissolve traditional family lifestyle and also establish a community with "sexual equality" in every aspect. Women were equally assigned jobs as men, from mechanics to business managers. Children were raised in day-care centers and boys and girls had communal dormitories. Every effort was made to isolate kibbutz members from outside influence. The system began breaking down on several fronts despite the idealism involved. Women began competing and fighting among themselves to secure jobs near the nursery and thus be near their children. Upon pubescence girls flatly refused to undress in front of the boys and thus segregated dormitories became necessary. Women began refusing to take higher level management jobs. Today traditional roles are followed in nearly every aspect in the kibbutzim. (25) Six studies have been carried out on the movement, and all have come to the same conclusion as to their failure idealistically despite every precaution. According to Margaret Mead, among the hundreds of known cultures, there have been none that have not discriminated different social tasks between men and women. (26)
Women are not biochemically equipped as well as men to cope with the stressful lifestyles found in business management and other high-driving professions. On one level women do not chemically respond to stress in the same manner men do. (27) Under stressful situations men's adrenaline levels go up drastically while women's exhibit little change. Adrenaline is the body's chief fast-energy chemical that enables great energy and alertness over a short period of time. In studies of women in stressful occupations, disturbing effects on mental and physical health are revealed. In one study of 141 women M.D.'s by Paula Clayton of St. Louis University, it was found that 50% had a history of primary depression. Of 114 women Ph.D.'s, 32 % suffered from a history of depression. A study at U.S.C. unfortunately discovered that an unbelievable 1 in 15 female M.D.'s commit suicide. (28) In the last twenty years suicide rates among women have dramatically increased, (29) and this may correlate with the changing lifestyles among women over this period.
During the premenstrual week women are especially susceptible to the effects of stress. It has been found that approximately 25% of women are severely incapacitated in mood, concentration and general performance during the premenstrual week while 90% are incapacitated to some degree. Numerous studies have found that between 50% to 80% of female crime, 30 mental incarcerations and suicides occur during the premenstrual week. (31) In England the Royal Society for the Preventions of Accidents has issued a pamphlet warning women about driving during this time since this is when 50% of accidents involving females occur. Progesterone seems to be primarily responsible for mood and performance levels in women and this significantly is at its lowest levels during the premenstrual week. While women are subject to monthly cycles in mood and performance due to progesterone fluctuation, men's performance and mood is relatively stable due to stable testosterone levels. The above evidence is an incontestable reason why women are not adequately equipped for some jobs - air traffic controllers for instance. This would apply to all occupations dealing with critical and highly stressful circumstances.
It is likely that man is genetically encoded with a particular lifestyle, including sexuality, which is conducive to his greatest mental and physical health. Nature cannot design an organism without including within that design a specific lifestyle that is appropriate to it. A genetic code of conduct or "morality" is inherent in our very structure. Some things are good for us and some things are bad. If they are bad for us then they are antagonistic to our genetically determined biological and psychological design. A study over a 10 year period at the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Clinic found that 77% of young incest victims had abnormal EEG brain patterns and nearly 30% of these victims suffered epileptic fits. (32) The researcher went so far as to infer that possibly the children with abnormal EEG's may have seduced their parents because of their abnormal brains. He does not even mention the likely and obvious case that the traumatic incest altered their brain chemistry and even caused psychosis and epilepsy. Modern psychology does not consider that a physical act can have an inherent moral reaction that extends to the biological level.
While Nature provides that our brains be encoded male or female, she undoubtedly also extends her design into our sexual lifestyles. Within our biological design is a sexual lifestyle that is conducive to greatest physical and psychological health. Is it mere coincidence that the current outbreak of sexual diseases such as herpes and AIDS occurs in the midst of the sexual revolution? Possibly 30% of people in this country age 20 to 40 have a sexual disease. Biologically we may not be designed for a "sexual revolution," high sexual frequency or promiscuity. It is a little known fact that refraining from sex will cause herpes symptoms to disappear, only for the symptoms to reappear when sexually excited. AIDS is only one of numerous diseases that occur principally among homosexuals. Diseases of the colon such as ambiasis, shigellosis and giardiasis are others. (33) Biologically we may not be designed to have semen in the colon or feces in the urethra.
Male homosexuals have generally been found to have slightly lower but near normal testosterone levels. What is amazing, however, is that it has been found that they convert testosterone to the feminine hormone estrogen. (34) This strange phenomenon could be the result of the mental attitude of the effeminate male homosexual. As is apparent in the placebo affect, mental attitude has the ability to alter body chemistry. The same may hold true for the findings that at least 30% of lesbians have high male hormone testosterone levels. (35, 36) Her aggressive masculine attitude may cause a higher adrenal output of testosterone. The woman with the passive role in the lesbian relationship could not be expected to have higher testosterone levels, since she still maintains a passive or feminine attitude. A detrimental effect is also realized in children raised by lesbian mothers. In a study by Beverly Hoeffer (U.C. of San Francisco) it was discovered that on personality tests 40% of such boys scored feminine as to sex-role while 50% of such girls scored masculine. (37)
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association's 55,000 members voted to no longer regard homosexuality as a disease but as a sane matter of preference. Homosexuality is either something appropriate or antagonistic to Nature's biochemical and psychological design of the human organism. It is not something that can possibly be voted on or subject to the whim of the populace. If homosexuality is appropriate to our organism, why are there so many diseases associated with it? Anything appropriate to our makeup should have no diseases associated with it. There are, for instance, no diseases associated with a moderate monogamous heterosexual lifestyle.
If we have a genetically encoded morality or code of conduct conducive to greatest physical and mental health - just what is it? We may suppose that animals have a similar instinctive code of conduct that they follow without a hitch since they have no active intelligence to interfere with it. Animals breed only on a seasonal basis while man breeds all year around. There are no oral or other exotic sex acts in the animal kingdom. Our intellect is so dominant that we may be forever out of touch on a purely instinctual level with proper human sexual conduct and sex role. Hans Eysenck, the prestigious English psychiatrist, holds that much of modern mental problems are the result of "the intellectual adoption of attitudes that negate biological determinism." What may be necessary is an intellectual and unbiased (by desire) investigation of a Naturally determined human morality, and then a living by our discoveries.
Notes
1. Eberhard Nieschlag, "The Endocrine Function of the Human Testis in Regard to Sexuality," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, Excerpta Medica, 1979.
2. Brambilla and Penati, "Schizophrenia: Endocrinological Review," Perspectives in Endocrine Psychobiology, John Wiley & Sons, 1978.
3. Ibid.; Bancroft and Skakkebaek, "Androgens and Human Sexual Behavior," Sex, Hormones and Behavior.
4. Amaury De Riencourt, Sex and Power in History, David McKay Co., 1974.
5. "Spatial Hormones," Psychology Today, June, 1983, p. 80.
6. Brambilla and Penati, id.; van Praag, Lader, Rafaelsen and Sachar (ed.), Brain Mechanisms and Abnormal Behavior, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1981.
7. Ihsan al-Issa, Gender and Psychopathology, Academic Press, 1982.
8. van Praag, et al., ibid.
9. Friedman and Faguet (ed.), Extraordinary Disorders of Human Behavior, studies by Tsuang (1975), Akhtar and Thompson (1980), Plenum Press, 1982.
10. Norman L. Poyser, Prostaglandins in Reproduction, Research Studies Press, New York, 1981.
11. Bergstrom and Samuelsson, Prostaglandins, Interscience Publishers, 1967.
12. Poyser, ibid.
13. Carlson Wade, "Evening Primrose Oil-Magic Medical Breakthrough," Your Good Health, May, 1983.
14. Poyser, ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Bergstrom and Samuelsson, ibid.
17. Bernard, Science Discovers the Physiological Value of Continence, Health Research, Mokelumne Hill, Cal., 1957.
18. Hafez, Human Semen and Fertility Regulation in Men, C.V. Mosby Co., 1976.
19. Bernard, ibid.
20./21. Money, "Phylogeny and Ontogeny in Gender Identity Differentiation," Perspectives in Endocrine Psychogiology, ibid. G. Dorner, "Hormones and Sexual Differentiation of the Brain," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, ibid., Dorner and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Development, Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press, Amsterdam, 1978.
22. Mary Long, "Visions of a New Faith," Science Digest, November, 1981.
23. Lipsett, "Steroid Regulation of Gonadotropin Secretion," The Endocrine Function of the Human Testis, James, Serio and Martini (ed. ), Academic Press, 1974.
24. Dorner and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Development, ibid.
25. Ihsan al-Issa, Gender and Psychopathology, ibid.
26. Amaury De Riencourt, Sex and Power in History, ibid.
27. Charles Panati, "Women are Losing Health Advantage," Science Digest, March, 1980.
28. "Woman M.D.'s: Depression and Suicide," Science News, June 9, 1979.
29. Ihsan al-Issa, ibid.
30. Warburton, Brain, Behavior and Drugs, John Wiley & Sons, 1975.
31. Robert Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, Penguin Books, 1972.
32. "Incest and 'Vulnerable' Children," Science News, October 13, 1979.
33. Jeffrey Hart, "AIDS Panic is Spreading," Wheeling, W. Va. Intelligencer, June 11, 1983.
34. Domer and Kawakami, Hormones and Brain Development, ibid.
35./36. Ehrardt and Meyer-Bahlburg, "Psychosexual Development: an Examination of the Role of Prenatal Hormones," and "Hormones and Sexual Differentiation of the Brain," Sex, Hormones and Behavior, ibid.
37. "Gay Motherhood: Rewards and Problems," Science News, September 22, 1979.
LONDON (UPI), July 27, 1984 - If humans are willing to give up sex for decades they may someday be able to double or triple the human life span, a scientist suggested Thursday.
Michael Rose of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reported in the magazine New Scientist on laboratory experiments in which delaying reproduction appears to postpone the aging process in various living subjects.
He said the technique, which consists of natural selection of fruit flies and other subjects, can be used to postpone senescence in any organism, including small mammals.
"Our work is now turning towards the physiological basis of evolutionarily postponed senescence," he said.
"We want to find out how natural selection makes our flies live longer. If we learn enough about the biochemical changes underlying such increased resistance to mortality, then we have hope of creating them directly in ordinary flies by genetic engineering or environmental manipulation," he said.
"In principle, there is no reason why the same research program should not be followed with mice. This raises the possibility that we might discover methods of directly postponing mammalian senescence," he said.
"The potential for ultimately postponing human senescence is clear," Rose said.
Spirit-World Research
by Louis Greene
The Universality of the Idea of Survival
THE OLDEST BELIEFS IN INDIA were that the dead continued to live in a ghostly state. They used food and drink and frequently came back to their former homes for such supplies as needed.
The Hebrews of pre-Mosaic times shared in the common eschatology of primitive man. At death, according to them, the corpse corrupts but the soul goes to live in Sheol. Life in Sheol is dim and shadowy; nevertheless the souls are thought to have a real measure of conscious life, with memory and interests.
In the early myths of China we find the "Islands of the Blest," figuring strongly. These islands were a region of everlasting life, or as the abode of those who awaited rebirth, or an elevation to some higher sphere of being. In the writings of Sezu-ma Ch'ien, we find references to these Fortunate Isles. The existence of the dead was thought of in terms of the living; they have the same needs, are prompted by the same motives, and are interested in the same things.
The Celts held to a firm belief in a distant spiritual land where souls are reborn. There is a legend of Tuan mac Carell, who was said to have undergone numerous transmigrations of animals, birds and fishes. Modern research into ancient Celtic lore identifies fairies with the spirits of the dead who are waiting in the afterworld for a chance to enter human form once more (note the reincarnation idea).
In parts of Australia and Oceania, fires were built over the graves and kept going for the convenience of those spirits who may have wandered too far from the grave. A sort of beacon. The Yaliu people of New Guinea believed that the bodies may be separated from the soul during sleep and that the souls may visit the homes of their ancestral spirits in far off places, while the Igorots of Luzon believed that souls may leave at will and not wait for sleep.
Orphism, a Greek religious form of mysticism, had its origin about 600 B.C., and it had to do almost entirely with rites pertaining to the dead. The central purpose was to get the worshiper united with God. It was supremely interested in preparing the soul in this life for the successive lives which finally end in the purification of the soul, qualifying it to live with the gods. On Orphic tablets found in Italy and Crete we find the triumphant soul joyfully addressing the gods: "I have come from the pure—I have escaped from the sorrowful road. I have entered with eager feet the desired." In answer comes assurance. "O happy and blessed one, thou shall be god instead of mortal."
One may sum up by saying that the difference between the primitive and modern man on the question of survival is that the savage accepted survival as though it were as much a matter of fact as breathing. He did not doubt or question its reality. Only the modern man doubts. It seems clear that for the savage mind the fact of survival taken by itself seems to have had no sacred associations. In the words of W.C. Willoughby in The Soul of the Bantu, "To the Bantu survival after death is not a matter for argument or speculation. It is an axiom of life. Those who have not been influenced by the white man never doubt it, or even ask why they do believe it; just as they do not question the relation of breathing to life."
Andrew Lang takes the position that what appear to us as psychic phenomena seem to be perfectly normal experiences among certain primitive or savage people.
Description and Classification of Some Typical Psychic Phenomena
An eminent Congregational clergyman, Dr. Dwight J. Bradley, together with a small group of friends were discussing such matters, when one suggested that they attempt the experiment, and now we quote Bradley: "Forthwith it was agreed. A small table was found in the room and we arranged ourselves about it.... the room was in partial darkness... for about half an hour we sat there, singing well known hymns and talking together.
Just as I myself was ready to declare the attempt a failure, the table began to quiver, and then to rock rhythmically back and forth... By a process of elimination we worked out a code; namely that for yes the table should keep rocking, and for no it should stop. At length we found that the person communicating with us was a close friend of one of our group, a friend who had died ten years since. With him we conversed for more than an hour. Then the table ceased to move and we went home. The burden of our conversation that evening was remarkably fine. We left with the feeling not only that we had actually been in touch with a real individual who, though dead, could still speak, but that the contact had been spiritually and intellectually of great value."
From a book by Rudyard Kipling, called Something of Myself, we quote the great writer. "I am in no way psychic but once I was sure I had stepped along that perilous path. I dreamt that I stood, in my best clothes, which I rarely wear, one of a line of similarly habited men, in some vast hall, floored with rough jointed stone slabs. Opposite me, the width of the hall, was another line of persons with a crowd beyond them. On my left some ceremony was taking place that I wanted to see, but could not unless I stepped out of line. At the ceremony's close both lines of spectators broke up and moved forward and met, and the great space filled with people. Then a man came up behind me, slipped his hand beneath my arm, and said—I want a word with you. It was a perfectly clear dream, and it stuck in my memory. Six weeks or more later I attended in my capacity as a member of the War Graves Commission, a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, where the Prince of Wales dedicated a plaque to the Million Dead of the great war. In black clothes we lined up facing across the width of the Abbey Nave. I could see nothing of the ceremony because of the man on my left. Then my eye was caught by the cracks of the stone flooring, and I said to myself;—but here is where I have been! We broke up, both lines flowed forward and met, and the Nave filled with a crowd, through which a man came up and slipped his hand upon my arm, saying, - I want a word with you, please. How and why had I been shown an unreleased roll of my life film?"
Mr. Scott is city chemist at Steubenville, Ohio. From time to time he has been receiving personal messages, poems, and other forms of literature from various personalities, some of whom were known to him in life. Here is a striking poem.
Automatic script of May 27th 1931. (Pencil began very feebly and haltingly, gathering speed as the writing progressed.)
Where runs the river of eternal things,
Where every bird of endless summer sings,
There is no pain nor sorrow evermore,
Nor fears of Death, the ruler of thy shore.Fair woodlands these, where we may wander long
In rapt enjoyment of life's perfect song.
Fair mansions, where the soul is daily blest,
Where is love, and labor is but rest.O life serene! That earth could only know
Thy beauties, rich reward of earthly woe!
How brightly even there that light would shine,
Illumining its dark deeps with rays divine.So be it that those chosen few
Whose uplift eyes have pierced the shadows through
May be as lighthouse windows, through which earth
May see afar the joys of its rebirth.That men may know there is no life but love.
There is no veil to hide the world above.
There is no soul interred beneath the sod.
There is no end: there is no good but God!
Then Mr. Scott asked, "Who has written this hymn please?" "One not known to you," came the reply. "Please give your name," requested Scott. "Ozoro S. Davis," (Ozoro Davis was an eminent clergyman who had died not long before.)
At a recent conference of the American Theological Society, Professor Rufus Jones mentioned an experience he once had which illustrates the possibility that a determined future may be altered by a vigorous act of the will. Rufus Jones relates that some years ago (about 1915 I think) when he had written a lecture on Quakerism to be delivered in King's Chapel, Boston, and was looking over the manuscript, he was startled to hear a voice speaking the words, "But thee will never give it"... the only auditory mystic experience he ever had. He spent the night before the lecture in the house of a friend in Boston. That night all present became violently ill from ptomaine poisoning. Dr. Jones was removed to a hospital, where he urged the attendants to do everything possible to have him ready to give the lecture. He was told that if he could get out of bed and stand erect by two in the afternoon without suffering nausea and dizziness that he could give the lecture, which was scheduled for 4:30. At 2:00 the room seemed to gyrate wildly, but after resting a bit longer he got up, dressed, and went to King's Chapel, and though his vision went black when he stood up, and he remembers little of what followed, he delivered the lecture. This seems to have been a clear case of true prediction, except that Rufus Jones, by vigorous willed action of his own, interfered with the prediction.
With regard to Telekinesis, we have the statement of Sir William Crookes, who admitting the validity of the phenomenon, declares, after many experiments, that certain psychic rods from the medium's body are responsible for the phenomenon.
Dr. Ochorowicz, late professor in the University of Warsaw and Lemberg, conducted a series of very remarkable investigations in the field of supernormal photography, and has published his findings in the French magazine, Annales des Sciences Psychiques. He used no camera in his experiments; the plate wrapped in opaque paper was placed either between the hands of the medium or against his forehead, and a definite thought was impressed upon the plate at the will of the experimenter. In all cases Dr. Ochorowicz supplied and developed his own plates and they were never under the control of the medium except for the few moments during which the medium's hands were placed on them.
A well known physician in New York wrote to Mr. J.K. Funk, publisher. "I was on a steamer. During the night I felt myself walking in the air with a sensation of exhilaration and clarity of mental vision. In that state I thought of a friend who was more than 1000 miles distant. Instantly I was conscious of standing in the room with my friend, who, amazed, asked, what in the world I was doing there, as he thought I was in Florida. I heard these words distinctly, but was unable to answer. I had the feeling as of a life beyond the power of time and space. I then decided to return, and saw my body propped up in bed as I had left it, but I still retained awareness of another body to which matter offered no resistance. Then I entered my normal body. Next day I wrote a letter to the distant friend. A letter from him crossed mine in the mail, stating that he had been distinctly conscious of my presence and had uttered the exclamation which I had heard."
The following indicates a case in which the entity contacted seems, at least from our viewpoint, to have a completely altered time sense. This séance was held by the Steubenville Psychic Research Society May 13th, 1935:
— —A new communicator was manifested, being in great mental agony and pleading for help. He spoke in German. Conversation proceeded between the entity and a sitter who spoke German. Being stated his name as Oberstleutnant Meyer Achtmann, a German soldier blinded at the battle of Verdun that morning. He seemed in intense pain and unaware of his death.
Now on July 30th, 1935, a trumpet séance was held by the society under the lead of a professional medium, who was entirely ignorant of the Meyer Achtmann incident. Again transcribing the Steubenville report. — —A voice spoke to JWD in German, calling, Achtmann, Achtmann. Encouraged, the voice became stronger, saying, Ja, Ja, Meyer Achtmann. A short conversation ensued in German. None of this information came from the medium. All of it seemed to come from the trumpet.
One of the most remarkable records is one which deals with the R-101 disaster. The R-101 crashed in flames near Beauvais, France, in the early morning of Sunday, October 5th, 1930. News of the disaster reached London during the morning and some Sunday papers issued special editions during the day, giving a brief account of the catastrophe. But no detailed information was available until the next day. On Tuesday, October 7th, a séance was held at the rooms of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, at which were present Mr. Harry Price, his secretary, and the assistant editor of Nash's magazine. The séance was arranged with a professional medium who was unacquainted with any of the sitters. The sitters hoped to communicate with the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
During the séance, while the medium's control was speaking, he was interrupted by a voice calling itself Irwin, who insisted on speaking. He identified himself as Flight Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin, captain of the R-101. He was very agitated, and in a long series of spasmodic sentences gave the listeners a detailed and technical account of how the R-101 had crashed. Some striking information conveyed was: The whole bulk of the dirigible was entirely and absolutely too much for the engine capacity. Engines too heavy, useful lift too small. Gross lift computed badly. Inform the control panel that the elevator had jammed. Oil pipe plugged. This exorbitant scheme of carbon and hydrogen is entirely wrong. Explosion caused by friction in electric storm. Disposable lift could not be utilized. Cruising speed bad and ship badly swinging. Severe tension on the fabric which is chafing. Starboard strakes started. Almost scraped the roofs of Achy.
It will be seen that rather technical language was used in this sitting, such as only a skilled airship man would be likely to know. The medium, says Mr. Price, was an ignorant unlettered woman with scarcely enough education to write her own name.* The expression, "Almost scraped the roofs of Achy" was puzzling to the sitters. The village of Achy could not be located on any maps that were handy. Not until the official map of the air ministry was procured was the tiny village located, and proved to be on the last route of the R-101. Further investigation bore out the substance of the séance communication.
* This may have been Eileen Garrett, whom Mr. Price evidently did not know well. See TAT Journal Vol. 2, No. 2.
Because of its interest I am transcribing in full the case of Zangara and Dasco (D'Ascanio), from the Steubenville Psychic Research Society, dated November 20, 1937. Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian, was electrocuted on March 20, 1933, for the murder of Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago, in Florida. That same evening SPS Séance No. 104 was held, with 12 visitors present. Psychical conditions were low and transmission difficult. Interrupting a discourse by Dr. Harry Morley, suddenly there came in an entity shrieking hysterically in a high pitched voice. "I keel! I keel! They have keel me, now I keel! I Giuseppe Zangara!" This shouting continued until the guides were able to subdue and remove the entity. He had, however, impressed the sitters that he had gone out of earth life in the stress of violence and craving for revenge on his executioners, and that this condition was indelibly fixed in his mind. This impression was confirmed when he returned some weeks later, somewhat calmer, but resolved to avenge his death upon the society that had decreed it. He had formed a plan. To cast about until he could find a person of his own type to influence, through possession, to commit a series of murders. If possible, he intended to bring about the murder of 12 persons; one for each member of the jury. The whole idea was so bizarre that it was not taken seriously by the sitters, although some effort was made to dissuade Zangara from the thirst for revenge. He stated that in view of our incredulity he would carry out the first of these murders in Steubenville. Just as soon as he could find a proper subject for obsession he would proceed to insert himself into the victim's mind, constantly suggesting to him the idea of killing several persons, as many as possible. There need be no motive. At least three persons would be murdered, and the killings would be so associated that we would recognize his handiwork.
In 1934 occurred one of the strangest series of murders in criminal history, the so called Phantom murders of Steubenville. They occurred at the steel mills of the Wheeling Steel Corporation, in the mill yard, just as the shifts were changing at night, when a throng of workmen were moving in and out the mill. A man would suddenly appear from behind a building, discharge a revolver at one of the men, and disappear in the darkness, unrecognized. In this manner a workman named Welsheimer was shot and killed January 30th, 1934. The murderer could not be found by either mill or city police. On March 25th a man named Barnett was shot but recovered. The phantom appeared again under the same circumstances on July 1st. This time two men were shot, named Messer and Kochendorfer. Both died. This time the murderer had waited too long, and, while he escaped, his general appearance had been noticed by witnesses of the crime.
July 29th, the police arrested David Dasco, Italian mill worker. Dasco was an introspective uncommunicative man who roomed by himself and seldom had visitors. He had no close friends, nor was he personally acquainted with any of his victims. He was considered peculiar, and thought of as a communist sympathizer. Dasco steadfastly refused to answer questions, only saying that if he talked he'd die. He did, however, admit having nothing against the murdered men. Police searched the room of Dasco, and found literally hundreds of news clippings relating the details of the life and crimes of Giuseppe Zangara. It was stated that these articles had been clipped from many different papers from widely scattered cities. They filled an entire drawer of a dresser in Dasco's room.
Dasco was sentenced to life imprisonment on November 2nd, 1934. Zangara appeared among us but once more, shortly after this. He called attention with pride to his handiwork, signified his intention of continuing in other localities until the entire 12 had been killed, and remarked that he was deeply disappointed that Dasco had not been condemned to electrocution, since he had found him a valuable aid and needed him on the other side!
Dr. Titus Bull, president of the James H. Hyslop Foundation, says in a report. — —"Our work with patients shows clearly the proof of intelligent forces of a spiritual nature acting with us in our daily lives. Being a physician I fully realize that much that has been called explanation has really been description, yet I have had the experience of seeing medical conditions relieved through spiritual means in the hands of cult operators." He then cites cases where patients were regarded as hopelessly insane, yet as the result of treatments, the method of which he describes, the possessing entity was cast out and the patients cured. The table of one year's work shows startling results. Of the twenty-three cases treated by psychic methods, people ranging in age from 9 to 52 years, only four were not improved, and one of these had prematurely ceased treatments. The types of disorders which he treated include epilepsy, hysteria, catalepsy, anxiety neurosis, paranoic delusions, mental dissociations, incipient paresis, melancholia, delusions of persecution, and dipsomania.
[Newspaper clipping: MILL 'PHANTOM' GOES ON TRIAL 'No Shoot Nobody,' Dave Dasco Stoutly Claims in Triple Crime.]
The method of treatment includes a diagnosis of the patient's psychic state by a sensitive or medium especially developed for such a purpose. The sensitive sits quietly, sometimes in the patient's presence, and sometimes without him, awaiting impressions that may present themselves to his consciousness. This often takes the form of a temporary impersonation, the invisible communicator being permitted to express feelings, memories, purposes, desires, quite alien to the medium's own. Every item in the dramatization and every word is noted. The physician converses with the entity, elicits information of service in the psychologic riddle involved, and then through a process of education, the entity is induced to leave the victim's body. The patient is then cured.
A remarkable outstanding service in the field of release from spirit possession is being done by Dr. Carl A. Wickland of Los Angeles, California. Dr. Wickland is a member of the American Medical Society, and of the American Society for the Advancement of Science. In his book, Thirty Years Among the Dead, he gives detailed accounts of cures effected through the recognition of foreign personalities possessing the bodies of the living. Quoting him. — —One of the early experiences in Chicago occurred on November 15th, 1906. During one of our psychic circles Mr. Wickland became entranced by a strange entity, fell, and remained in a comatose condition for sometime. The spirit was at last brought to the front and acted as though in great pain, saying, "Why did I not take more carbolic acid? I want to die." Pressed for information, it said her name was Mary Rose and that she lived at 202 South Green Street, a street entirely unknown to us at this time. She said the date was November 8th. (Another interesting shift in time sense). Upon investigation at the hospital we found further verification of the facts and were given a copy of the records in the case.
Cook County Hospital
Mary Rose
Admitted Nov. 7, 1906
Died Nov. 8, 1906
Carbolic Acid poisoning. No. 341106
This case may help illustrate the reality of possession. Dr. Wickland in writing to me says that frequently people with suicidal tendencies or homicidal obsessions among others, are victims of foreign entities. His method of treatment is the same as that of Dr. Titus Bull.
Personal Experiences in Psychic Phenomena
On August 27th, 1931 I visited the home of a friend who had planned a sitting that evening, partly for my benefit. Among others he had invited Dr. X (because of his profession he requests me not to mention his name). We sat around a small card table. Instantly the table levitated over our heads, turning upside down, and scraping along the ceiling, while we fruitlessly tried to get it back on the floor. Following this we arranged to experiment with a trumpet, used to amplify sound. A collapsible three section trumpet about three feet in length. We placed the trumpet in the center of the table and sat around it with hands under control (a closed circle). At once the trumpet levitated, touching sitters, moving along the ceiling, tapping various objects in the room, and then, a subdued whistle, followed by a voice from the trumpet, while suspended above the sitters. Here was a voice from a discarnate entity. Identified itself as a Mr. Kline and promised to return at future sittings. It was the general impression of all of us, that the unrecognized medium through whose converted energies these phenomena were made possible, was our friend Dr. X. With the introduction of Dr. X as a nonprofessional medium, I have witnessed some of the most remarkable phenomena on record.
At a sitting held on October 21st, 1931, at which Dr. X was present, a trumpet, violin, bowl of water, slate and pencils, were placed on the table, around which we sat. The sitting was conducted in darkness, hands were under control. During the sitting the trumpet levitated, touching the various sitters, the violin strings were plucked, and water was lightly sprinkled on several. A hymn, "In the Garden," was sung by a voice through the trumpet high over the heads of the sitters. The table weighing 75 pounds, was being pushed against the sitters. Frequently three or four phenomena would occur at the same time.
On August 15th, 1932, I was a guest at the house of Sheldon Scott, who at this time was leading a group in psychic research at Steubenville. He arranged a sitting at this visit, and invited four good friends. These five, together with his wife and myself, formed the circle. We invited Dr. X to be present. I suggested that we arrange for an experiment in materialization. Accordingly, selecting a most likely corner, we set up an improvised cabinet, composed of ordinary blankets commandeered for the purpose. Dr. X knew nothing of our plans until he arrived. Reluctantly he entered the cabinet, this being his first experiment of this kind. The usual preliminaries over, prayer and singing, lights at once appeared on the blankets. Then a peculiar mass of white substance, like dough, endowed it seemed, with life. It moved about the cabinet, now on top, running the full length, now sliding down to the floor and evaporating. This increased in intensity and vigor. During most of the sitting, at the request of Dr. X, I controlled his hands through the blankets. The sitting was conducted in semidarkness, the only light coming from a red bulb. It was light enough, however, to distinguish objects clearly. When Dr. X complained of discomfort we discontinued the experiment. The sitting was concluded with trumpet phenomena, voices and the levitation of objects.
Here we had a first hand study of ectoplasm about which there has been so much controversy. We had it produced without a professional medium, and under conditions we set up ourselves. Ectoplasm we found to be a two dimensional filmy substance, capable of assuming all kinds of shapes and figures. The best description I have for it is solidified light without rays. Light, however, that glows in pattern forms. The theory that ectoplasm is energy converted into matter seems to be born out by the discomfort of the medium.
At my request experiments were held the following night. Dr. X was again prevailed on to enter the cabinet. This time figures built up from the floor. On one occasion a form was so perfectly built up that I and two other sitters left our places and approached it. I examined the form most carefully. The features were suggestive of a foreigner, having prominent cheek bones, black mustache, and wearing a four cornered hat of dazzling brilliancy, with a black band below the crown. The eyes were closed. It wavered before me, as if its essence consisted of visible vibrations. I asked it if it knew anyone there that evening. Nodding the head rapidly twice in affirmative, it quickly vanished before my eyes. While I was still wondering about this another form built up from the floor. This form was imperfect, the body tapering above the neck. There was no head. The body was covered with a white tunic caught at the shoulder. Underneath I could discern a black undergarment, strongly suggestive of a Roman citizen's attire. Dr. X in the cabinet saw nothing. In great discomfort, bathed in perspiration, he begged one of the sitters to enter the cabinet and sit with him. Other forms appeared, but not as clearly visible. The séance concluded at the request of Dr. X.
I mention one more sitting I had with Dr. X. I was a guest at his home on August 25th, 1935. He told me he had invited three friends for a sitting for my benefit. He placed on the table his violin and bow and a trumpet. The sitting was in darkness. Hands were not under control. There were the usual phenomena, speaking, singing, levitation, while general conversation was being carried on by the sitters. Two outstanding things occurred. The first, a voice asking for Patsy, calling himself Dad. It was revealed later that one of the sitters was called Patsy by her father. This was unknown to the other sitters. The other was this. With the crashing of the violin and trumpet, striking sitters about the head and body, I feared for my glasses, being rather dependent on them. Quietly I removed them and placed them on a small stand behind me. None of the sitters knew I was doing this. Instantly the trumpet gently touched both of my eyes, as if an intelligent being were rebuking me for my lack of trust.
The Steubenville Group reports sittings with Dr. X at which times messages came via the invisible operation of the telegraph key, set up for the purpose; supernormal writings were found on slates, there was levitation of objects in the light; various objects were invisibly and mysteriously brought to sitters who mentally requested them. To this latter phenomenon I can fully testify. Repeatedly while sitting with the Steubenville group I would mentally request some object, and frequently that object would be gently pressed into my hands immediately upon my request.
I had an interesting experience with a Mr. Arthur Ford at a public séance in August 1936. I wrote the names of four or five people from whom I had hoped to hear. I placed the list in an envelope and sealed it. This was not done in Mr. Ford's presence. Merely by picking up the sealed envelope he read the names and gave what were considered by the audience to be true answers. In my case he described the persons whose names appeared on the paper. He read the names correctly. There was no fumbling or prying for information.
Psychic Phenomena in the Bible
Dr. Alexis Carrel has made a thorough study of the healing shrines such as those at Lourdes and elsewhere. He came to the conclusion that while suggestion may explain some cures, yet,—and this is the amazing thing,—he found many instances of an extraordinary infiltration of tissue to have taken place, a speeding up process unlike anything observed in daily life. Quoting him. — —Our present conception of the influence of prayer upon pathological lesions is based upon the observation of patients who have been cured almost instantaneously of various afflictions; such as peritoneal tuberculosis, cold abscesses, suppurating wounds, lupus, cancer, etc. Sometimes functional disorders vanish before the corresponding anatomical lesions are repaired.— —
The Present Status of Psychic Phenomena
Says the cautious and reserved Immanuel Kant, who came to a conclusion only after long hard thinking. — —Ignorant as I am of the way in which a man enters the world and the way in which he goes out, I dare not deny the truth of narratives of occult phenomena. By a reserve, however, which some may find singular, I permit myself to doubt each claim in particular, and yet believe in them when taken together.
Professor William James says, "I wish to go on record for the commonness of these occurrences. I am baffled as to spirit return, but as to the claimed phenomena existing I am not baffled at all, for I am fully convinced."
Professor McDougall believes that no one undertaking to review the psycho-physical problem can afford to ignore the results of the investigations that have already been made, without laying himself open to the accusation of culpable ignorance and unscientific prejudice.
Maurice Maeterlinck adds, "In the presence of the mass of evidence collected it would be absurd to persist in denying the reality of the phenomena themselves."
The testimony of Professor Herbert Mayo of King's College, London, is interesting. Says he, "Twenty-five years ago I was a hard-boiled unbeliever. Spiritual phenomena, however, suddenly and quite unexpectedly were developed in my own family. This led me to enquire and to try numerous experiments in such a way as to preclude the possibility of trickery and self-deception. That the phenomena do occur there is an overwhelming evidence and it is too late now to deny them."
Professor Hans Dreisch of Leipsic University, definitely states, "The actuality of psychic phenomena is doubted today only by the incorrigible dogmatist."
Professor Charles Richet makes a frank confession. "To admit the reality of these phenomena was to me an actual pain." He then cites in his treatise on Metapsychics, three fundamental phenomena, which in his judgment have been fully established. Extra sensory perception, telekinesis, and ectoplasm. These, says Professor Richet, have been established and are problems for scientific treatment. In his latest book, The Grand Hope, he says: "In the history of metapsychics, I do not know of a single case, I say not a single case, in which a conscientious observer after two years of study has come to negative conclusions."
Dr. Alexis Carrel, after a critical study of the claims of psychic phenomena says: "This knowledge of the external world may come to men through other channels than sense organs. These facts, which belong to a new science of metapsychics, must be accepted just as they are. They constitute part of reality."
The point to be stressed here is the fact of the phenomena, whatever the explanation or the concluding theory.
Excerpts selected by Robert Jackson Martin from Rev. Louis Greene's thesis, "The Contribution of Psychic Research to the Question of Immortality," submitted at Oberlin College in 1938 for his Masters degree in Sacred Theology.
NOTE: I have known Bob Martin for over forty years, long before he met Dr. Greene in San Antonio. He was one of our initial group in Akron. I met Dr. Greene while visiting Bob in San Antonio. Later I came to meet the members of the Steubenville Psychic Society, including Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Scott and a medium from Michigan. These all were serious, honest students of esoteric direction.
—Richard Rose
Bibliography
Defining The Truth (Part 2)
by Richard Rose
Part 1 of "Defining The Truth" appeared in TAT Journal No. 9. It was also published in pamphlet form, and is available from TAT Book Service.
THE DRIVE BEHIND ALL SPIRITUAL AND ESOTERIC searching is the fear of death. And that fear itself is not caused by our own deductions or determinations. Like any other being in the animal kingdom, we are programmed to fear. Pain and the fear of death are preservers of life. But it is a life without quality, if we must be tortured in order to serve out an unexplained sentence, chained in the cave of Plato.* We do not cause ourselves to fear. All creatures, insects, animals, mice and men are programmed to react with fear. Animals likewise are programmed to desperately try to avoid being killed. We may think that they are merely trying to avoid injury, when they flee from predators, but personal observations will show deeper potentials for animals in the realm of thinking and awareness.
*Plato's Republic
Protoplasm itself is programmed to avoid death, or else it would not have been endowed with antibodies for diseases, the ability to heal its wounds and clot the flowing blood. Protoplasm is an example of extremely astute engineering. Which each jackass views as his own possession, even though his own knowledge is incapable of providing self-protection or self-healing. He has to depend upon factors unknown to himself to keep him alive each day.
Man is better endowed than animals. His endowments are discovered by an ever-evolving technology. Yet all of the magnificent technology may only be a distraction for that which might be an even better technology,—the work on a science of the beginnings and limits of his consciousness.
Man finds himself, (by comparing himself with other animals), to be an extraordinary being. He is also endowed with individual self-esteem, or egotism, to believe that he is also better endowed than most other human beings. And yet he individually knows that he must die, and that no eulogy or funereal elegance will alter the finality of disintegration. Yet, man's reaction to his death, and the death of relatives, is not too different from the reactions of chickens. There is a moment of lamentation, and the chickens go back to picking and clucking.
In the human family, each generation has less time for death, and for the moments of introspection that might occur at the funeral of a relative or friend,—introspection, which, in turn might lead the mind to try to solve some of the mystery of life and death.
If we are here on this earth to vegetate, and supply bodies for predators alone,—then the least that we can do is prevent future births into this meat-grinder. It is time that we should not only pause at funerals for introspection, we should also realize that the sex-act is a willful act, from which much misery is produced. No one can be blamed for being born, and no one should be blamed for the sexual urges with which he is programmed to perpetuate the system that furnishes more candidates for anguish and death.
Now, I have just stated something which will appear foolish to many. For those who think that sex is a wonderful gift from God, or the sole comfort for a drab animal life, let me reply that they should first define God and then examine sex to see how much is gift and how much is a curse.
The statement which might appear foolish, is the advice to prevent future births. There is no doubt, that it is unwise to continue to play a losing game. However when these things are stated, a paradox is immediately set up. It is also unwise to try to thwart a game that is fixed, when that game seems to apply to life forms, on the massive scale that is found in this earthly greenhouse. If as seekers, esotericists or metaphysicians we see a pointlessness to life, we also will have seen, along the way that life is not haphazard. First we realize that the game is fixed. We cannot identify the agency, but we give a name to the code of the computer that monitors life on the planet. We call it Nature.
This Nature-code will react, and its reaction will not be a bolt of lightning from the sky, nor an earthquake. The rumble will come from the zombie-masses, who will blame their crusade on God. The rumble will also come from the individual's body who tries to outwit the "purpose" by abortions, homosexuality, bestiality or ideosexuality.
We also find that Nature is not designed for an uncontrollable overpopulation or a runting-down from premature pregnancies. Nature controls the herd, but does not encourage the herd to multiply beyond a limited food supply. The automatic neutralization that occurs in clans that cause pregnancies in the young females, is manifested in the consequent runting and poverty. The breed tends to extinguish itself. Likewise, overpopulation would ultimately be adverse to any Nature-code that wished to promote the human species.
By observing the existence and habits of nonsexual monastic population-segments down through the centuries, we find that Nature has left a door open for their existence. But this door must be a neutral door.... homosexuality will destroy the monastic sect, but to be sexless (celibate) there will be no blame. Even armies have been slow to attack the monasteries.
The door is the door of neutrality or innocence. In fact Nature may well have the same reaction to armies which destroy innocent monasteries, as it does to individuals who attack or impregnate the children. It is my opinion that this door of escape was not created by a compassionate or maternal deity speaking through the Nature-code. I think that it was a result of positive coding in regard to the approval of sexual restraints. This is a paradox of Nature. There are certain penalties for those who resist reproduction, even in a neutral manner, such as in celibacy. The celibates have to cope with prostatitis and cancer in the males, and in the females we may find amenorrhea, and dysfunction of the pituitary gland,—not to mention the migraine headaches that beset both sexes when sexual routines are upset.
But most of these maladies occur only after the sex habits have been in existence for a while. So that the penalties are delayed for the child and young adolescent. So that if you continue to live as a child, there is found a combination to the door.
Nature definitely leaves a door open for Spiritual direction. The Spiritual quest, however, passes through the door not smoothly, but with great risk. The escapee must be well disciplined, alert and fearless. And he must possess an intuition equal to his courage.
Going back to the paradox which resulted from the statements I made about preventing births for the meat-grinder, and a manifest inability to oppose a game that is apparently fixed, we have now a solution to the paradox.
In that there has been found a door of escape, and in that there may in fact be a Nature-code to protect our detachment from Nature,—there is a hint of solution to the paradox. But there is more to this problem of escaping. People generally escape to monasteries or convents. This is good. There is an Ashram or monastery principle which insures for the individual protection, an atmosphere conducive to serious thinking, and a clearinghouse for ideas among colleagues. But, on the other hand, we find most monastic centers to be counter-productive. They generally seem to be dominated by dogmatists rather than seekers; they become populated by dharma-bums rather than dynamic pioneers; and they fall into a discipline which is necessary in any institution where large numbers of people must share the same space, but which promotes robotism, passivity and forgetfulness of intended purposes and a loss of personal introspection.
And once more the door seems to close. But there is another method, another way of life. Its description is also paradoxical. (Perhaps the only solution to a paradox is another paradox). The human spiritual quest must become a vector, with all of that human's energy behind that vector. And the shortest distance between aim and objective is supposed to be a straight line. But success in a spiritual venture requires the ability to run between the raindrops, which may appear to be a zig-zag course, which may include dynamic feints and matched states of high indifference.
Writers, knowledgeable to the difficulties and hazards of a spiritual path have outlined ways or systems which they believed would take a person a certain distance. There is the Way of Service, (often called Bhakti Yoga), the Way of the Monk, the Way of the Raj Yogi, and DeRopp adds another, the Way of the Warrior. Some of these "Ways" are well defined, and finely detailed.
I have written a paper about still another Way, which is too detailed, and dependent upon all of its details for proper understanding for it to be inserted here. However this new Way evolved from a lifetime of perseverance ending in a final experience.
At this point I do not wish to get too deeply into "Ways," until we carefully cover the stumbling blocks on the path which too many seekers falsely identify certain steps as being true steps.
We cannot start at the top. If we are hooked on thinking that a spiritual system should be peaceful and serene we may be disappointed. So I will try to outline some of these directions or pseudo-steps, in the hope that some readers may recognize which steps are comfortable resting places, but are not steps that lift the party to clearer realizations.
Our original question here was: do we react to unanswered questions about death (and life) only through fear? If not how do we react to the fear of death, and how do we react to our knowledge of our own lack of knowledge?
There are some statistics available, at least in regard to mankind's spiritual directions which are indications of mass beliefs or popular choices. Those statistics would be found in the number of people (in relation to world population) who belong to the Christian, Mohammedan, Tibetan, Hinduistic religions whose members accept the doctrines of heaven and hell. While we can presume that most of these movements may have employed fear to sell their wares, the merchandisers of those wares would not have been successful if the followers were not motivated by a fear of death, or a fear of post-mortem pitfalls or hazards.
It would be extremely difficult to come up with exact figures of that which people believe. People change their minds. Good Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindus may be drifting toward atheism and agnosticism with the help of Communism. And we cannot be sure of that which the individuals,—for instance, who have been caught in Communistic take-overs,—really believe.
To know that which people really believe about subjective matters, it is necessary to talk to people individually. Such a talk cannot be limited to a standardized set of questions. Each individual will have special meanings for words and terms, and may not be sure of that which he really believes, or, may be reluctant to admit that he might have fear as a motive.
And of course we are not interested as much in the motive for believing, as much as we are in the excuses for not acting in face of the knowledge of our lack of well-defined knowledge of that which will happen to us after death.
From my childhood I have been interested in the subject of immortality, and do not doubt that it originated in fear. But I tried to do something about that interest and fear. I began by talking to anyone who showed an interest in religion or esotericism. It was not an easy task. Most professional people recoil when asked about their religious beliefs, or even a simple questioning about their beliefs about life after death.
When I was in the seminary, (age twelve to seventeen) I was slapped in the face, because my questions indicated that I did not accept that which I should believe. I began to look upon priests as ardent members of a union or gang, who felt threatened at the prospects of having a potential member being a non-believer of the party line.
In later years I went to work in different research laboratories, and questioned some of the scientists with whom I worked. I found that most of them were men with technological skills, and their mental abilities prompted scientific egos. Most of them were agnostics, and they believed that any wisdom about life after death would only come from superior scientists like Einstein, and that other scientists such as biochemists and mathematicians should work for the infinite prolongation of life.
There were several exceptions. A man who was a genius in the heat-transfer work related to the atomic fueling of submarines, was also a sincere Christian Scientist. His name was Kooistra. I have forgotten his first name. I was young at the time, and I found it amazing that a man whom I respected as one of the greater scientific minds, could devote an equal amount of energy to an unproven belief system. Christian Science is called a science, but in the stricter understanding of the word science, the two requirements of predictability and proof are lacking.
I became a sort of gadfly to Kooistra, arguing with him about proofs for the existence of God, and about faith in the light of faith possibly being merely wishful thinking. I had been on a few occasions up to Cleveland, and once had stopped to listen to the street-orators in the public square. A Christian Scientist on a podium (the step before a statue) was being confronted by an agnostic. The agnostic told the speaker, that he knew a man who had been a Christian Scientist, had gotten seriously ill, yet had refused to go to a doctor.
"You know what happened," warned the agnostic, "The guy died."
But the Christian Scientist responded, "If your friend wants to think he is dead, let him think he's dead."
At the time, I thought this encounter eloquently indicated the limitations of Christian Science. And of course, I uncharitably used it to test Kooistra's faith... or patience.
But Kooistra was a very solid person, and a person of great intuition. In fact he invented a procedure which the other scientists scoffed at, saying that it could not work. The procedure involved floating an armature in liquid metal, K-Na.
It was this same intuition which prompted the man to see the possibility of mind being superior to flesh, which I believed as possible at that time. I could not prove it then, nor can I prove it now. And I still think that anyone who believes in this mental ability should be very careful of testing the theory in a very serious illness. Perhaps there will come a day when we can replace a limb that is destroyed, or return the dead to life, but not yet.
I have mentioned elsewhere that my life has been a continuous search. The first thirty years were spent in looking for the correct answer, or for the final mental state in which all things would be understood. The remainder of my life I have spent looking for symbols to express my findings, and looking for people as companions on the path... and for fellow-translators of intuitional language and non-dimensional language into words for four-dimensional minds.
I spent some time with theologians. Long after I left the seminary, I continued to meet with priests and ministers when I found that they showed some genuine sincerity. I have met some clerics that candidly admitted that they were running a business. Others were faithfully producing arguments to maintain the Church-Militant. They do not make good companions on the path.
I gravitated toward metaphysical groups. I think that this group of investigators is in reality a pool of frontiersmen in the search for real answers to phenomena, as well as answers to questions about ultimate essence, and ultimate purposes for us.
Like the theists, I found them to be blocked in their various stages of searching. I think it is of a great value to us in understanding them, and to them in possibly seeing their blocks. Of course, if they see their blocks, that in itself is not a major accomplishment, if there is not a concurrent discovery of some technique to help them understand other important points of view. Many people rebel against a religion or a parental belief, but down the line they become frozen into an alternate spiritual venture or obsession with a particular adventure into the world of phenomena. The mere fact that one breaks away from that which one considers to be useless, should indicate that the new obsession may later be proven to be only a step, a phase, or even a device unconsciously used by the rebellious mind, to distract that mind from doing any real work.
The Passive Person
I recently received a letter from a lady who had read several of my books. She told of years of searching, and years of hardship. I gathered that she recognized the searching as the cause for the hardship. She had set out to find the meaning for her existence. Suffering and hardship resulted. She has now taken the passive path to inner peace and harmony.
The warrior comes back scarred and weary. It does no good to guess now about mistakes made in the battle, or the quality of intelligence used in making decisions. The warrior rests in the shade and is overwhelmed by the seeming peacefulness of nature. In this interlude he may have a spiritual experience... may in fact be visited by Cosmic Consciousness. In any event, the warrior is experiencing a spiritual plateau, a resting place between two upward battles or periods of growth. The plateau can be recognized by its accompanying bliss. There is no bliss in the final realization. The final realization is the understanding of everything and nothingness. There is no pain nor bliss there, because there is no polarity.
But, how do we talk with this type of person? What is our point in trying to communicate with dissembled minds? Of course our point (for communicating) is the response to the unwritten law, that a person must give in order to get; and another law that you can only help certain people, not everyone; and still another resolution that we are most likely to find people who will understand our language, in some group whose efforts and evolution might be similar to our own. Such a group is often a sanghat, or a brotherhood, or an unnamed circle of respected friends.
Generally, with the person addicted to passivity, there is little that can be done or said. If the friend is resting upon a spiritual plateau, nothing should be done. It is not for us to judge the duration of that dwelling on the plateau. Confrontation may drive him into depression, not illumination. We can confront action more safely, because most actions spring from a polarizing purpose, in that our actions generally are reactions to neutralize some other direction.
The person whose real mental state is one of laziness, (not recuperation), on the other hand, should be confronted. However, all confrontation should be in the mood of friendship, and not with the attitude of a pedant or critic.
We must always remember that, in this bipolar world, bliss will be best defined by agony. Peace and serenity, which are lesser levels, will be preceded or followed by conflict and trauma. Such transitions are difficult to predict. When the daylight is upon us we can easily predict the night... but for a person who stands alternately in light and darkness, it is extremely difficult to predict a day that never ends.
Instinctive and Emotional People
It is a waste of time to argue with instinctive people. The instinctive person reacts with anger at the prospects of being a victim without an ability to fight back. He usually believes in oblivion after death. He is totally digested by his predator. He is eaten by the lion which should have been his slave.
The emotional person babbles about love. In some cases he wishes to make love (have intercourse) with his cause (which he humanizes). He (or she) has a unique approach to the lion or spiritual predator. He makes love to it. And the lion eats his head off first, because the head criticizes the heart.
We should be patient with people whose admonitions for love follow on the heels of suffering from a past habit of hate. On the other hand, there are fundamentalists in many religions who believe that their love for their prophet, saviour or guru justifies murder for that personage or cause. Here the lion becomes flesh, often disguised as a lamb.
We have a tide of people running about the earth preaching social love. The politicians have conveniently taken up the cry and encourage little organizations to spring up by the hundreds to the point that they have become a pestilence. We have "big brothers" and "big sisters," street patrols called "Angels," Mad mothers, Hotline volunteers, Hug-your-neighbor sessions. Save the Indians movement. Save endangered predators. Volunteers to pester the elderly. Brotherhood-ostriches with their heads in the sands of a vicious environment.
Beware of people crusading for love. Some of them are politicians and prelates trying to create a zeitgeist of their own to further their own games. A large segment of the population are at work softening up the larger segment for purposes of domination.
The Logical Man
Most logic is vanity. However, we must approach problems in a sensible manner. In spiritual or esoteric fields, logic finds loose footing, whether it be used to qualify beliefs, conceptions or projections.
Logic requires a point of reference. In esoteric philosophy even if our point of reference is the planet earth, that point becomes unstable in the face of inter-galactic comparisons, but becomes even more unstable when we observe it in regard to its ultimate reality in relation to the subtle dimensions of the mind or spirit. Some physicists are leaping ahead of the mystics, in promoting the concept of the Hologram-Mind. In this theory, the human mind may be a tiny sensor in a formidable brain or mind, in which all of the universe is contained... possibly as visions.
I do not know how many mathematical formulae they have employed to give body to this concept, but it certainly says little more than the Indians advised for over a thousand years. To the Indian mystic all that we view with our limited senses is Maya, and theory is expressed in other terms by some Spiritualists who speak of a mental plane which is superior to this dimension.
When the persistent searcher reaches a state, or a state of mind, which is known as Sahaji Nirvakalpa Samadhi, he views the concept of the Hologram-Mind as being a concept that comes close to the experiences of Yogis in the final Samadhi. Yet, no amount of formulation or logic will express the true nature of that region which makes this region look like a nightmare.
I have said elsewhere, that our logical system employs the wrong point of reference when it attempts to deal with the inner spatial phenomena. The mind should be the point of reference. And of course that point of reference will be a moving faculty, depending upon the angle of its view or observation. If the mind looks at this dimension it will see the brain. If it looks within itself, it will see or become an infinite frontier.
Let us take a look now at another type of mind. This is the intuitive mind. The intuitive man is the new pioneer. Where the former man was conceptual (fabricating) and gestaltic, the new man intuitively perfected, will view the memory of man at a glance, and from that storehouse of countless factors or memories, will instantly know and experience everything. The monumental task will be that of individuation... bringing to non-intuitive minds with temporal words the knowledge of timelessness, and mental totality. How does the ocean explain to a falling raindrop that the latter will lose its apparent shape, but never its form, or being.
The intuitive man sees the need for using every tool available to the mind of man to discover the purpose of man's life—and possibly, all life. In the beginning he is not so vain as to presume to answer as to the reasons for the existence of everything. He knows he will be lucky if he can understand the purpose of his own life and the limits of that life.
He sees the need for emotional behavior toward his fellowman, because the assault upon total ignorance requires maximum help. He must have fellow-technicians, an association of observers and experimenters, if need be. His friendship for his fellow-seeker cannot be a pretence. He equates their survival with his own.
The intuitive man cannot be placid or passive. His passivity dares not extend beyond being honest and humble about his ignorance, about his physical disintegration, and his present helplessness. This honesty should not automatically accept helplessness.
He must use his own instinctive pool of physical power for energy and determination to fight back against annihilation, against fatigue, mental and physical.
He must use all the energies of his body to the fullest capacity.
He must use anger against procrastination and rationalization, against dalliance or failure... against any entity, human or noumenal.
If need be, his body must become a laboratory wherein might be found forces to improve his abstract calculations—or intuitions.
Intuition must be his modus operandi.
[Illustration: Statue and Temple of Rameses III]
Omm Sety Of Abydos, Egypt
by Deborah Rosen
How did Dorothy Eady know so much about an Egyptian Pharaoh who lived 3,300 years ago?
"RAMESES IS SUCH A NAUGHTY CHILD," Omm Sety told her visitors, as if the long-dead Pharaoh had just performed some mischievous act. Dorothy Eady claimed she knew Rameses and his father Sety I when she lived in Abydos, Egypt 3,300 years ago.
The story began in 1907 at the top of a flight of stairs in London. Three-year-old Dorothy Eady stood there. Then, losing her balance, she fell down the long flight. Her parents heard the thud and, shocked, discovered Dorothy lifeless and still. They summoned the doctor. He examined the tiny form carefully to catch a sign of life. "She's dead," he said finally. The doctor left to get a death certificate and a nurse to lay out the body. But when he got back to the Eady home "the body" was bouncing on the bed.
Seventy years later, sitting in her mudbrick house not far from Sety's great temple in Abydos, Dorothy Eady, now known as Omm Sety, eagerly explained to her visitors what happened next.
"My dreams began—dreams of a beautiful building. Every time I awoke, I begged my parents to let me go home. They told me I was speaking nonsense—that I was at home but they could not convince me. I knew I was not."
Her lively blue eyes sparkling, Dorothy Eady would describe her first visit to the British Museum in London. "I was four. None of the exhibits interested me until I got to the Egyptian wing. When I saw the mummies I went wild, kissing their feet and chanting, "These are my people, leave me here." Her parents were stunned.
And the surprises continued. She found a picture of Sety I's temple in Abydos. "I remember when I showed it to my parents I said, 'Here is my home that I dream about, but where are the gardens and why is it in ruins?"'
She wanted answers but school didn't provide them. Playing hooky, she spent her days with the mummies at the British Museum. Finally, Sir Ernest Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian Galleries, Took pity on her and taught her to read hieroglyphs.
Emam Abd El-Meguid, a young Egyptian teacher, visited England on a mission. He met Dorothy Eady at the House of Commons where both had gone on business. She fascinated him. After he returned to Egypt he wrote asking her to marry him. In love with Egypt and seeking her past, Dorothy Eady sailed for Cairo. "My dream," she told visitors, "was to work, live, die and be buried in Abydos."
Dorothy Eady had a son. She named him Sety after her beloved Pharaoh, making her Omm Sety, mother of Sety. "I was an awful cook and a terrible housekeeper," she readily admitted. "All I cared about was ancient Egypt. After two years my poor husband lost patience. He divorced me and married his cousin who liked to cook and couldn't stand monuments.
In 1956 Omm Sety got a job working on the restoration of Sety's temple. She told archeologists she had lived at the temple when it was new. She believed the temple adopted her after her parents—a soldier and a vegetable dealer died. "I told the guards there was a garden by the southwest wall. You're crazy, they said to me, but then one old guard said wait a minute and showed the others that the guard house had been built over the roots." Excavations revealed the remains of trees, plants and water canals.
Omm Sety's colleagues tried a test. They blindfolded her and told her to find certain wall carvings in the temple. Each time she was right.
A bizarre experience of Omm Sety's suggests the temple still hides treasures. Omm Sety went to the temple every day to pray to the ancient gods. One time she unlocked the temple door, then locked it behind her, placing the key on a pedestal. Suddenly she heard a grinding noise and found herself falling down steps leading to a room filled with furniture. She couldn't see but felt the shape of different objects including canopic jars which hold the entrails of a mummified body. She searched for a way out. The next thing she remembered was light. Custodians found her dazed and covered with cobwebs outside the temple. They were surprised to find her outside because the temple door was still locked from the inside and the key resting on the pedestal.
Omm Sety was subject to blackouts. Did she dream or actually experience the incident? The grinding noise may have been the sound of a stone slab moving. Omm Sety died before she had a chance to solve the mystery.
Like her Pharaoh, Omm Sety built for the future. She prepared her own sarcophagus in a corner of her small walled garden. She had shared the past with Sety I and wanted to share the future. She even predicted her own death, based on ancient Egyptian astrological texts. Her fervent wish—never to spend one night away from her temple, was fulfilled in the spring of 1981. At her death, English relatives tried to bring her remains "home" to England, but Omm Sety was "home" and she is buried in Abydos, the sacred town of ancient Egypt.
[Photographs of Natuzza Evolo taken by the author, showing "thorn" stigmata on her forehead, and stigmata on her wrists. She also has deep wounds on her ankles.]
The Case Investigation Of Natuzza Evolo
by Michael J. Nanko
I. Introduction
AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE INVESTIGATION has long been warranted into the voluminous anomalies and claims of the paranormal which characterize Natuzza Evolo, the renowned Italian medium, healer, bilocator and stigmatic. Associated with Natuzza's stigmata is also the phenomenon of hemography. In light of the facts that such claims expand over nearly five decades, attested to by many reputable professionals, that Natuzza accepts no remuneration for her consulting, nor has she ever been observed in any fraudulent behaviors, the Board of Directors of the Southern California Society for Psychical Research determined that this case deserved inquiry. The purpose of this article is to present the preliminary findings of a case investigation of Natuzza Evolo conducted by the SCSPR during September of 1984.
The SCSPR was first introduced to Natuzza Evolo (hereafter referred to only as "Natuzza") via an unpublished Italian manuscript by Valerio Marinelli. Marinelli, a professor of engineering at the University of Calabria, in southern Italy, had conducted interviews with Natuzza and obtained testimony from scores of individuals purported to have had paranormal experiences with Natuzza. Professor Marinelli is one of only three persons provided the opportunity to interview Natuzza in some depth.
We were advised early in our investigation that SCSPR researchers would not be afforded the opportunity of conducting a thorough parapsychological case investigation; virtually all correspondence with parties in Italy (Marinelli, Satriani, religious leaders, witnesses, physicians, etc.) reminded the SCSPR that people would not cooperate with Americans conducting any type of inquiry into Natuzza. Consequently, the SCSPR decided to modify its objectives of achieving a thorough scientific investigation work with Natuzza, and focused instead on attainment of basic information and data which might corroborate or discount previous documentation of Natuzza's alleged paranormal "Powers." (See Marinelli 1983, Satriani 1982, and Mesiano 1974).
It was toward this end that Elizabeth McAdams and I went to the south of Italy, accompanied by an Italian interpreter, to achieve the following objectives:
II. Brief Background on Culture and Area
Natuzza was born and has lived her entire life in the village of Paravati, in the Province of Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy. It is a mountainous region lying between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas with flatland comprising less than 10 percent of the 800 km of mountainous coastline. The region is predominantly devoted to agriculture, and the villagers subsist on a frugal, but dignified family income. To the visitor from an industrial society, entering Paravati feels like a step backward in time, the culture and ideologies of the people strikingly distinct from the more cosmopolitan north. Oxen-carts and corner shrines are common sights here, where men and women socialize in segregated groupings outside their stone-facade homes. (Custom dictates that widowed women sit facing inside their homes and away from the street.)
Professor Piero Cassoli, President of the Center for Parapsychology Studies in Bologna describes the region in which Natuzza lives as the "profound south," "a magical milieu..." (Note 1). It is an area spattered with beliefs in sorcery, witchcraft, charms and spells.
III. Brief Background on Natuzza Evolo
NATUZZA DEI MORTI (Natuzza of the Dead)
Natuzza is a 60-year-old woman, born at Paravati, where she has lived her life in poverty. She is short-statured, moderately obese with the characteristic appearance of a Calabrese country woman. It is reported that Natuzza received early religious instruction commensurate with her contemporaries, but she never attended primary school. She is completely illiterate. Friends and relatives must help her to answer the hundreds of letters she receives from many parts of the world. At the age of 14, Natuzza was taken into domestic service in the home of the attorney Silvio Colloca and his wife, where she came to live. On leaving the Colloca home years later, she married Pasquale Nicolace, a fellow countryman and carpenter, with whom she had five children.
Although there are several sketchy accounts of earlier paranormal phenomena, it was here at the Colloca house where Natuzza's asserted paranormal abilities first manifested and drew attention. The first occasion occurred while Mrs. Colloca was walking in the country with Natuzza, when Mrs. Alba noticed the appearance of foamy blood on Natuzza's foot, with no evidence of any wound present. At the request of the Collocas, Drs. Domenico and Giuseppe Naccari examined Natuzza and reported that it was a "perspiration of blood" and that Natuzza appeared to be perfectly healthy. This incident proved to be the precursor of what would be scores of other perspirations of blood which surfaced over the years from her feet, hands, face, breast, shoulders, and back.
Mrs. Alba relates having overheard and observed Natuzza on many occasions purportedly in conversation with the Saints, with Jesus, Mary, and other "defunct" souls. Frequently during her adolescence, Natuzza would enter a trance or epileptic-like state while "communicating" with the dead or with the angels. It is from these discarnate entities that Natuzza claims to receive psychic information. By the age of 15, Natuzza was considered a medium within the local communities.
Related to this phenomenon of blood perspiration, and even more remarkable, is the production of hemography. This consists of the spontaneous, independent rearrangement of particles of blood to form designs, inscriptions and symbols (always of religious character) upon handkerchiefs or cloths which come in contact with wounds or profusions on Natuzza's body. The first manifestations of this phenomenon occurred when Natuzza was 16 years old, in the Cathedral of Mileto, upon receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. After receiving the Sacrament, Natuzza discovered, after feeling her shoulder to be wet, the image of a cross (of about 5 cm) formed in blood on her undershirt. The garment was sent by the monsignor to the bishop of the Diocese of Mileto and forwarded to officials at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan; however, no conclusions were drawn.
In the following years, the hemographies increased in number, becoming more elaborate. Claims were also being made by townsfolk of Natuzza visiting them in bilocation, as well as beliefs in her ability to diagnose medical conditions even unbeknownst to the individual. People report healings after invoking Natuzza's assistance. She also provides "psychic" help in other matters i.e., locating lost objects, missing persons, etc.
It was around the age of 30 that Natuzza first became impressed with the stigmata, developing wounds corresponding to those traditionally depicted as those which were suffered by Christ. Natuzza herself insists that these phenomena occur completely independent of her will, completely uninfluenced by her own volition. She ascribes her remarkable abilities to the angels, Jesus, the Madonna, and the Saints. Although Natuzza is commonly regarded as something of a living saint, it would appear that her ardent Catholicism embodies interpretations peculiar to herself. Father Salvatore Sangeniti, (past pastor of the Paravati Catholic Church, and now head of the seminary in Mileto), described Natuzza's belief system to me as being often naive, which may contradict or confuse interpretations and teachings of the Catholic Faith. "Natuzza often mixes up the stories that are in the Bible and will advise differently than the Church would." He is, however, quite supportive of Natuzza. "She does not want fanaticism or to be a substitute for the Church. She is not hurting anyone because she is not a fraud or taking money. There is nothing for the Church to worry about. In fact, she has stimulated interest in the Church... Natuzza believes in Christ to the fullest." (Note 2).
IV. Visits With Natuzza
For nearly 40 years, four days a week, Natuzza has received the hundreds of people who seek her counsel. Most are there to ask for news of their deceased loved ones, others with questions concerning their own health or that of their relatives. The SCSPR research team met with Natuzza on two occasions. This necessitated arriving at her home before 7:00 A.M. to gain admittance when her door opened at 8:00 A.M. The crowd enters into an anteroom, beyond which is a small chapel and past that, a garden. To the immediate right is a small room in which Natuzza receives visitors, in which after waiting for hours, most will spend only up to ten minutes with Natuzza. Once inside the house, some of the pilgrims will pray before the altar, some find seating; others wait adjacent to the receiving door awaiting their turn for an audience. Group songs or prayers may break out spontaneously in the crowd. Even so, an implicit waiting system appears in operation. A few patrons with more pressing needs will plead their way closer to the front, but for the most part, visitors are received in the order in which they arrived.
With me at our first visit with Natuzza were Elizabeth McAdams, our interpreter, Ana Leva, and Mrs. Leticia Rotella, a life-long resident of Mileto, who with her husband, Mr. Fortunato, owned the pension in which we stayed in Mileto. On this morning, after waiting at Natuzza's home for several hours, we were befriended by a woman there who offered to arrange an appointment for us with Natuzza later that afternoon so that we might have a longer audience with her. Upon our return there were still over one hundred people waiting to see her. Natuzza informed us that she would not grant an interview "because there are too many who need my help." She told us that she could only talk with us for a short time. We were able to present a few questions; however, for probing questions we were referred to Professor Marinelli.
On a more personal level, I presented Natuzza with a photograph of a male relative. I stated that this individual had been missing for "some time" and could she comment on his situation. Natuzza replied, "He is dead and in Paradise." This target person had in fact died in 1973. Next, each individual in the room questioned Natuzza about their own health. However, she responded in only general terms.
The second meeting with Natuzza occurred 8 days later. For this meeting I was accompanied by Ana Leva, Vernon Miller, G.M. and L.R.S. (Note 3). Aside from some general (nonveridical) information Natuzza also offered some ostensible psi information. As planned, Ana asked Natuzza to provide information about two of her relatives. Natuzza correctly informed Ana that the younger of the two was dead and the older one was alive. More interestingly, Natuzza elaborated on the unique and troublesome nature of the relationship between the two relatives. I followed by asking Natuzza to tell me the whereabouts of my father whom I stated I had not seen in years. Natuzza said, "He is dead and in Purgatory - pray for him." The fact is that he died almost 11 years ago.
Vernon Miller, who served as photographer for part of the Natuzza investigation and who was the official photographer for the international team that studied the Shroud of Turin (1977) asked Natuzza a line of questions related to the Shroud. She responded with, "It is the burial cloth of Jesus, it is genuine, but science can never prove it."
Natuzza next provided some provocative responses to questions of health. I first asked Natuzza to provide a prognosis on my mother whom I presented as critically ill. Natuzza insisted that my mother was "in good health and does not suffer." This was a deceptive question and my mother was in good health. Natuzza went on next to tell Ana that LRS has a " serious bone sickness and that she needs to trust doctors." Ana was instructed by Natuzza to wait until a more opportune time to discuss this comment with LRS. When confronted with this comment, LRS reluctantly disclosed that she does suffer from a rare bone disease, osteomyelitis, but with iatrogenic etiology. Furthermore, Natuzza told Ana "You have a bleeding and you're thinking that the cause of it is a cyst - that is not true. You have a 'fibroma' in the uterus. You need an operation, so don't waste time." Not sure what she told Ana, Natuzza asks "What is a fibroma?" Natuzza's "psychic" diagnosis of Ana's condition was disturbingly accurate. Just two days previous Ana had not been feeling well and just one day earlier she began to have abnormal bleeding.
As soon as she was able, Ana returned to Florence (Italy) to undergo a thorough medical examination. Two weeks later we heard from Ana. In her own words: "I have been to the doctor and he told me there is something strange in my uterus - it seems I had a lot of fibromata, but now I only have the wounds of it. He also said it is a miracle. So my situation is fair and I have to visit the doctor every few months because it was a cancer. Anyways, I have a lot of pain and will have to take medication for 2 or 3 years - but this is OK because I thought I had to have an operation." (Note 4).
Natuzza would not submit to any systematic questioning or to any obvious testing of her abilities. She asserted that the illnesses and injuries she "perceives" in others only happen when the angels are present. Natuzza disclaimed that she is responsible for any "healings" that occur in her presence or subsequent to an audience with her. It may be of interest to note that faith healers or the like are outlawed in Italy and some "healers" have been prosecuted.
[Illustration: Hemography created by Natuzza.]
V. Bilocation and Hemography
As previously mentioned, the SCSPR team met with several witnesses to Natuzza's purported bilocations and hemographies. Some historical accounts of bilocation appear to be well-researched in the canonization proceedings of the Catholic Saints by Prospero Lambertini, including the more contemporary investigation done on Padre Pio. Bilocative phenomena are equally known in Hindu, Buddhist, and Tantric literature of the great swamis and yogis. In parapsychology proper, Osis and Haraldsson (1976) have provided some documentation of ostensible bilocation. Psi researchers of the OOBE also project that their work may eventually shed some light on the understanding of this phenomenon.
Marinelli (1978/83) has been able to document some fifty-five cases of Natuzza's bilocation, which he believes represent only a fraction of the actual incidences. In over twenty cases he reports Natuzza's apparition is seen by witnesses. In several cases apparitions of the dead are seen with Natuzza. In others, Natuzza's voice is heard, but no apparition is seen. In thirteen incidents, Natuzza's bilocating self was reported to perform physical behaviors such as opening and closing doors, knocking over objects, flicking lights, pulling hair, etc. In ten cases the apparition left behind bloodstains or hemographies at the reported site of the bilocation.
Hemography, the paranormal patterning of bloodstains on cloth, is directly related to the stigmata in Natuzza's situation. The blood which flows from Natuzza's wounds and sweating pores during Holy Week (the week preceding Easter) has been reported to spontaneously rearrange to form sacred symbols which are always associated with the Christian Faith. Emblems or figures such as crosses, hosts, monstrances, chalices, rosaries, bleeding hearts, crowns of thorns, praying figures, angels, the face of Jesus, and the Madonna, have all been documented to appear in hemography. In fewer cases the blood composes phrases of religious content, and in a variety of languages (e.g. Italian, French, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and English).
Marinelli claims to have reviewed over one hundred of these hemographies. I had the opportunity to examine more than twenty-five individual articles of hemography purportedly produced by Natuzza.
Various combinations of Natuzza's bilocations and hemographies have been reported by individuals interviewed by Marinelli and me. Other testimonies have reported bilocation or hemography occurring alone. These testimonies are numerous and detailed. In consideration of space, the accounts of two interviewees are presented here in summarized form. Both experiments report having witnessed a combination of Natuzza's phenomena on several occasions:
These experiences of Mrs. Fratini and the Mantellis are only a few of the many accounts given us by individuals we interviewed.
VI. Synopsis
Basically, when we investigate a proclaimed psychic, our main objective is to ascertain whether they possess genuine ability or whether the individual is a charlatan. In this limited investigation conducted on Natuzza, we found no evidence of fraud nor any accusations of fraud. This is remarkable when one considers the large numbers and diversity of those with whom she has had contact for the past fifty years or more. Moreover, we must reiterate that Natuzza does not take credit or any remuneration for what she does (unlike most mediums or psychics). She also works to discourage the fanaticism that has followed her all these years. As far as mediums are concerned, Natuzza is in a class by herself.
Natuzza may be one of those "magical" individuals who seem to facilitate a psi field around them. For example, many people claim to have been "healed" merely by her presence, and hundreds have had paranormal experiences during or subsequent to a visit with Natuzza. She definitely has a strong influence on the religious, social-psychological, and emotional expectations of those with whom she comes into contact. For our investigation, Natuzza was found to be more than an ample "guesser" with regard to our questions about health and the status of our relatives (alive/deceased). However, we must note that Natuzza would not submit to any formal or systematic experimentation. It has been suggested by one Italian writer, a psychiatrist, (Puca, 1949) that the phenomenon that surrounds Natuzza is due to her "hysterical" personality. It is possible Natuzza may possess histrionic qualities or delusional symptomatology with regard to the onset and maintenance of the stigmata, and her contact with the dead, Saints and angels. However, the phenomena associated with Natuzza cannot be explained away by clinical labels and processes. In fact, there is no evidence for the psychiatric explanation.
The physical evidence of hemographies may be one of the most likely avenues to further document and investigate Natuzza's ostensible psi abilities. The claims of the loci, processes, and outcomes of the hemographies are so fantastic that this investigator cannot yet speculate as to how they are produced in plain sight of witnesses.
Are the witnesses hypnotized, credulous and gullible? Is it slight of hand or malobservation? Is there mass illusion, mass conspiracy or contagion involved? Is there a psychokinesis influence on the part of Natuzza, or on the part of the observer (or a combination thereof)? Or, as the followers of Natuzza and the researchers who are pro-survival theorists would have it: is there a supernatural involvement?
Although case studies in and of themselves cannot provide "proofs," they can yield suggestions. They can suggest about the process of psi and provide insights into psi phenomena not supplied by the laboratory or generated from armchair theory-building. Much was learned in this first exploratory documentation of the case of Natuzza. It is clear there is a need for more research. Systematic or process-oriented research is necessary, albeit highly improbable or impossible. Independent exploration by other parapsychologists, impartial medical specialists, and magicians sensitive to cultural differences would certainly help generate some clarification or conclusions. The phenomenon of hemography needs to be witnessed first-hand by such observers, and filmed. For now, Natuzza remains an enigma to the field of psychical research.
Notes
References
Celtic Philosophy—The Gift Of The Druids
by Gail Gray
"The dream is more real than life, life itself is a dream and the dream is life."
—J. Markale
"Celtic Civilization"
SOUND OBSCURE? IT'S MEANT TO BE. But on closer observation everyone can recall times when this statement seems true. For some it rings true more often than for others. For the Celtic mind it was a sublime and constant truth.
To twentieth century man, mired in red tape and society-ordained schedules, such a view often sounds unrealistic and confusing. Only the visionaries occasionally glimpse the essence of such a belief.
Yet, if some Celtic warlord stood now, feet planted firmly on Albion, the gold torgue of nobility encircling his neck, he would smile and say that it is as it should be. He would find it fitting that the Celtic legacy is steeped in mystery. For above all, the Celts were a race of mystics and dreamers and story-tellers. Through their intricately entwined art and their equally contrived literature, they expressed an esoteric ideology that inspires one to dream and to strive for goals which seem beyond the natural physical boundaries.
Much of the enigmatic philosophy of the Celts has been lost. But research into historical, classical and mythological texts, as well as archaeological evidence, suggests that they were not so much concerned with building structures as they were in constructing images and imagery. They viewed the imagined world and the real world as two separate facets of the whole. In Celtic mythology, we find that the heroes of the Otherworld and the miracles and disasters caused by supernatural entities were as real as the herding of cattle in the lush lowlands of Britain or the raids into the harsh highlands of Scotland.
As the true purpose of Alchemy is the transformation of the soul, rather than the transmutation of base metal into gold, so too it is in Celtic thought, where the pursuit of the ideal is through the quest for universal or metaphysical knowledge. The attempt to control natural phenomena through ritual and magic, the effort to ascertain the future through the reading of omens and a primitive astrological system were all means to an end - the act of mortal reaching for the divine - a seeking for spiritual resurrection into another life.
The loosely knit and constantly warring Celtic race would not have had a unified philosophy if it weren't for the Celtic priests, the Druids. As the keepers of mystical knowledge and the teachers of historical fact, the Druids built a system which was based on a respect of unearthly as well as earthly forces.
Even though each of the scattered Celtic tribes had different characteristics... the artistic Belgae, the proud Brigantes, the fierce Ordovices, the civilized Caruvellauni... the Druids were able to instill in them the same religious values. This was because all who were called to the Druidic priesthood were trained in a common center of learning.
In "The Story of Taliesin," an ancient Welsh manuscript attributed to the bard Taliesin but actually written by many poets, the location of the Druidic college is mentioned:
"There will come men to Mon
to be initiated into the ways of the wizards."
Other sources such as classical texts by Julius Caesar and Tacitus note that the center of Druidism was located on the Island of Mona (or Angelesey as it is now known). The initiate into the priesthood was required to master his (or her) calling by studying for a period of nineteen years. It was a prerequisite that the applicant be intellectual as well as intuitive since most of the learning was accomplished by memorizing the Triads, the oral three-versed poetry which contained the Celtic traditions and laws. Little of the Druidic material was committed to writing, even though the Druids were versed in Latin and Greek. Fear of the mystical knowledge falling into the hands of the uninitiated prompted the Druids to commit their doctrine to memory.
[Illustration: A Druidic funeral.]
Oftentimes the Druids were the lawmakers, having more power than the local tribal kings. Since the Druids were the religious leaders and officiated between the human and his gods, they wielded incredible power. They were viewed as magicians, sorcerers and shape-shifters (those able to assume various bird and animal forms in order to accomplish their magical goals), and were feared and respected by every member of the tribe. The Druids would even be called upon to designate the new king, either by reading omens or by interpreting dreams. If the Druids of the tribe had a dream of a white bull in connection with one of the warriors it would be considered a divine revelation and would signify that the warrior was to be the next ruler.
The word Druid is believed to originate from the root word, "dru-wid-es" which means the "all-seeing," the very wise, since the Druids were endowed with the gift of prophecy and were considered to be all-knowing. Other etymologists have felt that Druid was derived from the Greek word "drus" meaning oak because the Celtic priests conducted their ceremonies in sacred oak groves or near sacred wells.
The Druids always considered their temples to be an extension of nature and chose oak groves because they believed the mistletoe, which grew on rare species of oak, to be sacred. The healing properties and magical powers assigned to the plant are what led the Druids to the groves.
Contrary to popular belief, the Celts did not build Stonehenge. They may have used it on occasion but archaeological excavations at the site have unearthed little from the Celtic era. While Celtic artifacts or religious offerings of precious metals, pottery, weapons, animal and human skeletons have been found in wells and ritual shafts throughout the rest of the British Isles and Europe. Actually, the megalithic circle on Salisbury Plain is estimated to have been built at least one thousand years before the Celtic arrival in Britain in the fifth century B.C.
Although facts about the Celtic religion are sketchy, we are able to discern, through their art and literature much about the unique outlook of the Celtic mind. These arts, like intricate tapestries, are shot with the gold thread of imagery and symbolism which highlights the metaphorical reasoning of the race.
Almost every animal, tree, flower, hill, river had two meanings, one in the world of reality and one symbolic. One almost has to know the "code" to understand much of Celtic literature since, as Anne Ross, one the leading Celtic scholars states in Man, Myth and Magic:
"The Celts have always tended to express things in an oblique fashion, abhorring direct statement, and this can be seen to operate very strongly in their religious idiom. They preferred the subtle allusion, the hint, the symbol. "
Celtic poetry, such as that found in the "Tales of The Maginogion," "The Story of Taliesin" and the "Iolo Manuscripts" is wildly strange and infused with a desperate romanticism. It flows like magical incantations with a lyrical beauty all its own. It served as an inspiration for such writers as Shakespeare who used many of the Celtic themes in MacBeth, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Mallory and Tennyson drew upon the Celtic writings extensively, even reviving the ancient heroes and villains in characters such as Arthur, Merlin and Morgan-le-Fay, to name a few.
The phantasmagorical renderings in brass of twisted, entwined animals always held a mystical significance and were believed to be endowed with magical protective power. For example: the dragon represented hidden secrets; waterbirds were solar symbols with healing aspects; the swan was the epitome of good and beauty, especially in connection with lovers, while the crane and the raven represented all that was evil and sinister. Even the highly stylized patterns were not just the creation of some Celtic artisan's imaginative mind but held metaphysical meaning. The triskele, a figure consisting of three lines radiating from a common center, came to represent the "Secret Fire" in Alchemy, and the spiral found near numerous burial mounds throughout Britain represents the return to the beginning of the maze of life.
It leads one to wonder whether these ancient people may have held a cosmic overview much like that of our age. The Celtic mind was constantly aware of the reality which lay beyond the limits of reason, beyond the boundaries of the physical and mundane. Their adventurous spirit always sought change, constantly looking onward and outward to the future and to the metaphysical realm of the Otherworld. Believing in the intangibles which could not be perceived by the five senses, they seemed to reach past those limits - a talent which we are only now redeveloping.
Bibliography
Enjoyable reading on the Celts:
HISTORICAL NOVELS
[Illustration: Woden]
Rune Song
by Albert Burger
Part I
AMONG THE TEUTONS exists a continuous tradition that reaches to their tribal ancestors - the people of antiquity who called themselves: Ri-ar, "those-who-plough" (the ancient Aryans). Teutonic lore was transmitted by means of Runes, Skaldic poems, the Eddas, and the Sagas, but the early records, the traditions, the songs and the stories, were obliterated by priests of Christianity who felt a bitter hatred for the paganism they had come to destroy. It is remarkable how clean a sweep they were able to make. The keepers of traditional knowledge were the ErilaR, initiates who believed their kind was taught by the ancestral mother when she instructed her children in the lore and learning of the past. These songsmiths were named after their mothers and reckoned their descent through a female line of wise-women - the deep-minded, who kept poetry and magic together since times of yore. The first wise woman in this tradition is the mythical Volva who alone had knowledge of the prophesied doom of the worlds, and Woden (the greatest of ancient Teutonic heroes) himself was instructed by her. The ErilaR saw a chain of women linking the future with the past. They knew that the way the world is seen is through the mothers' eyes. What is learned from the fathers comes later and is of a different sort. They were what their mothers were from original instructions that began when the newborn was passed around the circle of women - a circle only rarely entered by a man.
Each of them was once with the Mother; every society was once inside the Great Mother. In ancient time women played a dominant role, and women will again predominate. She who was revered for her power of divination - to see the unseen - will once again be the pivot about whom civilization, as of old, will revolve. Their sayings are preserved by unique wordcraft: Skaldic poems known as Drapas as they were performed by bards and poets and skalds; prose renditions of the Sagas with their roots in primeval tradition; the Eddas - which preserve the core of Teutonic mythology, reach back to antiquity, having been transmitted from mother to daughter, father to son, since the beginning of time.
The first Ri-ar tradition has a symbology that begins with a circular white plane surrounded by blackness. It shows that the manifestations in the circle is the only knowledge attainable. At the center is the point of differentiation that appears when we can say: Here is this, there is other. When the point is extended into a horizontal line within the circle, it represents the universe within the immenseness of existence. A vertical line bisecting it - still within the circle - is the worldly cross of humanity; without the circle, the cross represents people's fall into materiality. The svastika is between these, and means well-being. T in the circle is Thor's hammer (the Tao, fate, destiny - at once the beginning of all things and the way in which they follow their course, but however described is never such). The number four represents the spatial, the physical-irrational, the square, the four directions, the four elements, the Earth, materiality. The number three represents the temporal (past, present, future), the intellectual-rational, the triangle, the divine trinity. Four plus three equals the Seven. The number two is for the spiritual-essential, the duality of existence, the circle-inside, outside. Four plus three plus two is the Nine.
Nine creatures' abodes,
nine in the tree
of fate-measured fame
before earth was below.
—Eddukvedi, "Voluspa"
These tenets were based on the knowledge of the accumulated wisdom and secret teaching concealed within the rituals, allegories, and mysteries of the ages. Central to it was the one homogenous substance-principle. Universe its temporary manifestation: ever-changing life cycles from one-day moth to sun. All is conscious of itself.
Time is a function of cosmic events - a recognition of cycles, from polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field that occur about every million years, activity of spots in the Sun and lunations, to a single rotation of the Earth. Worldly time is a means of reckoning provided by each setting Sun, and from moon to moon, season to season, as the flaming orb moves across the stars to return nearly from whence it started. For the Sun has another path of travel which is called the backtracking of evenmetes. This movement gives our astrological Ages which resolve in the completion of the great solar cycle about every 25,800 orbits of the Earth.
Twelvemonth is a year:
Icemoon has the Spring Evenmete, the first Sun following see;
Ostera - the Dawn, brings out fools at carnival, and the first breeze of gentle Summer on Thorsday before the middle of her Moon. Eat eggs to honor that power, and think on the hare's fertility;
In Merrymoon - Three Milkings, from the cow's digestion of the fresh grass of Spring - eat Beltane cake, light fires by sacred trees, and burning brands in fields. Decorate the houses with green boughs and dance around the pole. In the New Moon dawn, bathe in dew;
Sun is the time of Summer Sunstead, great to rejoice the regaining of full power and virility. Dreams of a Midsummer's Eve are true, work on a Midsummer Day must be shared. It is a time for swimming and nudity, and flowers over the doors and in the homes. The man with the horse's head speaks true, as "from the horse's mouth";
Haying - while the Sun shines;
Harvest is for thanksgiving in a festival of bread, and for fruit offerings, horse races, wildberry cake, bonfires in circles of stones, marriages;
At Bloodmoon's Fall Evenmete eat roast goose when gathered at the feast of mourning for the dying Sun;
Hunting is for killing. The Saterday before the middle of its Moon (or at the Full Moon) is the first day of wind-cold Winter. On the Hallowed Eve sing by the communal bonfire, bring new fire to the hearth, have a small wake and think of the dead and dying; Fogmoon has the fresh thought of early Winter;
Yule. The Winter Sunstead. May the Sun return from its darkest moment. Decorate the tall pine with hangings;
Wolfmoon is to survive;
In Stormmoon bring candles into the houses to banish the dark with fire and illumine plans, predictions, visions, and prophecies.
The customs of the Teutons are recalled in the names of the days which continue to make us think of their manner.
Tuesday: Teiwaz - the poets said nothing more. The rootword is as in Greek theos and Latin deus, from the Sanskrit dyaus the true meaning of which is the transcendent light and the inward love;
Wodensday, for one of the thirty-five sages, whose name means prophet;
Thorsday, whose might is expressed by his mallet in violent thunderstorms;
Frigsday, (beloved) wife of Woden;
Saterday, fire of Loki (primeval Satyr);
Sunday, Fire of Life;
Moonday. Ruler of cycles - every woman's friend.
In The Beginning
According to the Eddas, there was once no Heaven above nor Earth beneath but only the bottomless deep - Ginungagap, and a world of mist - Niflheim, in which sprang the river of the stormy waves - Elivagar, the Milky Way. Twelve streams came from Elivagar, and when they had flowed far from their source they froze to ice. One layer of ice froze onto the last until the great deep was filled. Southward from the world of mist was the world of light, Muspelheim. Warm winds blew from there that melted the ice. Vapors rose from the great deep, billowed in the air, and formed great clouds. From the clouds sprang Ymir, the rime-cold giant who was evil and all his kind. From the clouds also came the cow Audhumbla whose milk the giant drank for nourishment. The cow every day licked the hoarfrost and the salt from the ice for food. While she was one day licking the salt stones, there appeared the head of a being. On the second day his head showed. On the third day, his entire body was free of the ice showing its beauty and power. This new being was Bori. From him and his wife - a daughter of the giant race, came Bor, father of Woden, Villi, and Ve. These are the first of the Aesir, that some call gods. They are of asu: Life. Woden, Villi, and Ve slew the giant Ymir, and out of his body formed the Earth. Of his blood the seas, of his bones the mountains, of his hair the trees, of his skull the heavens, and of his brain clouds charged with hail and snow. Of Ymir's eyebrows they built a fence around Midgard - the midmost place, middenerd, middle-earth, the home of the people. Woden set the Sun and the Moon and the stars in their places in the heavens. As soon as the Sun began to shed its rays, things started to bud and sprout and the Earth blossomed out. Though the Aesir made the visible world, they did not create it nor the people but only their form. They took an ashen spar and made a man out of it. Woman they made of an elm branch. The Teutons call the man Ask, the woman Embla. Woden, who is spirit, gave them life and soul; Villi, who is will, offered reason and motion; Ve, who is holiness, bestowed upon them senses, expressive features, and speech. Midgard was given as their residence, and there they begat four children who were each a different color: black, red, white, yellow, and the children's children - who only knew their mothers - ranged the world to find their destined homelands.
People must ever speculate on all earthly destiny, so they meditated and prophesied which enabled them to see the lofty and the earthly.
The quest to form meaning boiled in their minds and they were astonished that the earth and beasts and birds existed together as if they had found their origins in the same fate and yet had such differing experiences. This shared origin is evident for when the earth is dug on a high mountain-peak water springs up, and it needs no deeper digging to bring forth water as in low-lying dales; just so is it with animals and birds, that the blood is as deep in the head as in the foot. Another characteristic of the earth is that each year its fecundity causes grass and flowers to grow, but in the same year they wither completely and die; thus also animals and birds grow hair and feathers that fall from them every year. A third characteristic of the earth is that when opened and dug up, its soil grows grass sprung direct from the earth's labor. Rock and stones seem to fortify and help this birth.
From this they surmised that the earth had been created and possessed life with certain customs, and they learned that she had been fashioned long ago and was of ancient and powerful origin. She brought forth everything living, and she possessed all that died. For this reason they gave her a name and reckoned their descent from her.
From their ancestors they traced tales that were hundreds of winters old, which said that the procession of the earth, sun, moon, and stars were unequal; some had longer, others shorter journeys. From these conditions they suspected that a certain hand had ordered the stars, and saw in the shapes of their arrangement a powerful will. They expected that if the principle elements were so ordered, that this will had existed before the forming of the stars. They saw that if the course of the stars had been so ordered, the shining sun, the heavenly dew, and earthly growth were also guided, from which it followed therefore that such befitted also the winds aloft, and the stormy seas. They did not know what power this was, but they believed that it ordered all destiny in earth and sky, heavens and stars, seas and weather.
In order to be able to relate this and to assist the learning of it, they gave names to all that was ordained, and these beliefs acted upon many natures to surmise that events had led all peoples from the same cosmic base-ground. Fate demanded the earthlings be separated and disbanded, therefore they were not given spiritual insight. Thus were they certain that all existence was wholly material (SnorraEdda, "Prologus").
The human offspring who bore the white color found Riarana, the first of the good lands, where they lived in peace and harmony for six-thousand years. This was told in the Avesta, the book of knowledge and wisdom given in the hands of the prophet Zarathustra, the complete text of which covered twelve-thousand cow hides. According to tradition it had twenty-one books or Nasks, only one of which remained to later generations: the Vendidad.
Thereupon came he who is all death, and created by witchcraft the serpent in the river and winter. Ten months of winter were there, two months of summer, and those were cold for the waters, cold for the Earth, cold for the trees. Winter fell there, with the worst of its plagues.
The people called themselves: Ri-ar - that is, "those-who-plough," or peasants. Winter forced them to leave their settlements, homesteads, and farms. Some of the tribes traveled south, others went west into Europe: Kelt, Ital, Heleni, Balt, Slav, and Teuton who were Ingvaoni, Irminoni, Istvaoni. They carried with them the knowledge of their old household and agricultural peasant society. They had wheat, barley, oats, and rye; flax, hemp, peas, beans, turnips, beets, onions; cattle, sheep, hogs, goats, horses, oxen, chickens, geese, ducks, dogs. The Teutons had no temples, priests, nor images, for they did not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine them within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. Woods and groves were consecrated, and the names of deities applied to the abstractions which are discovered only in spiritual contemplation and worship.
Who rejoices the Earth with greatest joy is who cultivates most grain, grass, and fruit, who waters ground that is too dry, or dries ground that is too wet.
Unhappy is the land that has long lain unsown with the seed of the sower and wants a good husbandman, like a well-shaped maiden who has long gone childless and wants a good husband.
Who would till the Earth, unto him will she bring forth plenty, like a loving bride on her bed, to her beloved; the bride will bring forth children, the Earth will bring forth plenty of fruit.
To who would till her, this says the Earth: "O you! who tills me, here shall people ever come and beg for bread, here shall I ever go on bearing, bringing forth all manner of food, bringing forth profusion of crops."
To who does not till her, thus says the Earth: "O you! who does not till me, ever shall you stand at the door of a stranger, among those who beg for bread; ever shall you wait there for the refuse that is brought out to you, brought by those who have a profusion of wealth."
"How is the law fulfilled," asked Zarathustra, and was answered: "It is sowing again and again! Who sows, sows holiness and makes the law grow higher and higher, makes the law fat as with a hundred acts of adoration, a thousand oblations, ten-thousand sacrifices."
—Vendidad, Fargard III
Historical Background
The warlike times of the short iron sword made people everywhere build hill-forts great and small, when who dug the soil was thought of the lowest rank by those who prided themselves on idleness and lived by pillage and plunder, and aristocrats grew there brooding for a king as they sat drinking the Heleni's wine.
The Teutons were never subdued in their independence. The people lived parted by marshes, lakes, and forests, and they were fond of such separations. Each tribe apart was free and independent, each individual to be tried by the established custom of his own nation. The country was common, the government peculiar; the territory the same, the nations different. The spirit of personal law prevailed among the people. In those days the Teutons were a medley of independent tribes occupying Europe between the Rhine and the Vistula, the Danube and the North and Baltic seas: Ubii, Batavi, Treveri, Bastarnae, Tungrians, Langobard, Gauta, Eburones, Chauci, Vandals, Menapii, Angrivari, Lugians, Nervii, Turoni, Reudigni, Buri, Harudi, Suevi, Sudeni, Osi, Heruli, Naristi, Lazygi, Quadi, Jute, Cheruski, Cotini, Thuringi, Sugambri, Dacti, Burgundi, Alani, Allemanni, Chatti, Heidini, Helveconi, Frank, Mattiaci, Rugi, Kaninefati, Nemetri, Gepidae, Semnoni, Dancioni, Triboli, Gutene, Herminduri, Leniovi, Frisi, Venedi, Marcomanni, Amsivariani, Lemovici, Chamavi, Aesti, Angles, Teucteri, Usipiti, Cimbri, Warnawi, Charud, Bructri, Teutoni, Saxoni, Eudosi, Tubanti, Wangiones, Germani, Teneteri, Marsi. About minor matters their chiefs deliberated, about the more important the whole tribe. Their freedom had this disadvantage, that they did not meet simultaneously or as they were bidden, but two or three days were required in the delays of assembling. Then the chief, according to age, birth, distinction, or eloquence, was heard more because he had influence to persuade than because he had power to command. If his sentiments displeased them, they rejected them with murmurs; if they were satisfied, they brandished their spears. This was the Weapontake, the Witan, the council of the wise by which alone a chief might be acclaimed. Many centuries later, in the Middle Ages, kings were still elected by this ancient tradition (Hugh Capet of France, and John of England). In these same councils they also elected the chief magistrates who administered law in the cantons and towns. The common council was the supreme court interpreting the body of law according to the rules of custom as held in the minds of the living generation - for the law was the dynamic rule of the tribe as arising from the people, not as enacted in single rules by authority of a few. Within the tribes, the kindred or clan was responsible for the acts of all their living generation, shifting with deaths as to blood relationships. The feud righted murder, injury, and insult, by just revenge or by wergild: payment of compensation. The social order was based almost wholly on the family and the clan in a spirit balanced by hospitality and bravery, the hard life and climate lightened by music and song and loyal friendship. The Teutons maintained their greatness by righteous dealings. Without ambition, without lawless violence, they lived peaceful and secluded, never provoking war or injuring others by rapine or robbery. The crowning proof of their valor and strength was that they kept up their superiority without harm to others. Yet all had weapons in readiness, and an army if necessary, with a multitude of men and horses, and even while at peace they had the same renown of valor.
Then came the time of the Folk-Wandering. The climate cooled, coastal areas flooded, and the women were more fertile than the fields. Cold and hunger became constant companions. The adventurous, determined, and the desperate were forced into a great migration of seven centuries. They rolled south and west in covered wagons and a million fighting men, with their women, children, and animals. They were so blonde that terror-stricken Itals described the children as having the white hair of old men. Fierce blue eyes, huge frames, and red hair, were other distinguishing physical characteristics. From the south (leaving deserts in its wake), concentrated power - in the form of imperial economic manipulation, aided by priests bent on cultural genocide - compromised the lives of free Teutons. Life became increasingly dependent upon the rule (or misrule) of various royal governments as kings battled each other over thrones and territory, imposing on the people their wars and their crimes. Yet north of the river Elbe they remained free of the royal prerogatives and later of feudal subjection. The last stand of Teutonic tradition in Europe - before its northward retreat - was twelve-hundred years ago in the war of thirty years against Frankish emperor Karl the (so-called) Great. By cruel efforts to spread the gospel of a Hebrew messiah, he gave the Saxons a choice between baptism and death and had forty-five-hundred beheaded in one day. Through the centuries, hundreds and thousands died for persisting in the old traditions. They were dragged from their homes and hacked to death with seven blows of a rusty sword, put to torture, hands and feet burned to the bone, tongue cut out, and suspended over a fire and slowly roasted. A millennium of a thousand unjust imperial and religious wars wrought carnage and desolation. Armies fed by appropriating the grains and fruits and cattle of the fields, quartered in the homes of the people, and plundered, and killed, and raped. Fertile land was left untilled for lack of men, draft animals, or seed, or because peasants had no assurance they would live to reap where they had sown. Those who survived were reduced to eating dogs, cats, rats, acorns, grass. Men and women competed with ravens and dogs for the flesh of dead horses. Offenders were taken from the gallows to be devoured. Exhumed bodies were sold for food.
[Illustration: The Summons to Vahalla.]
The mythological lore and the traditions were carried ever northward, and Iceland became the final refuge of this profound liberty. It led - by the creation of the allthing, the united parliament, to the establishment of the first free republic in the European world. The free Teutons moved to the peace by the northern sea's and ocean's islands to keep "holy freedom's laws," and to be free of the authority of "kings and criminals." They met with Inugsuk in Greenland, battled Skraelingi of Vinland, met Algonki on the Great North Bay's strand. All remained in their northern lands isolated and conservative, wanting nothing so much as to be left alone. The seas of Europe were sailed by Vikings who ruled terror. And it grew colder again. For centuries the glaciers advanced upon a retreating treeline. Oceans were crossed by others too to spawn Teutonic cultures in almost all parts of the world - cultures poisoned with the greed of those who abrogated the power of the people unto themselves, ever aided by the priests with their mission of cultural destruction. But always the ErilaR awaited the day to again raise the ancient traditions that demand freedom: Personal liberty and self-rule. The ErilaR were the champions of the freedom of the Teutons against fate. Fate which has power only over material things. They knew the body cannot be preserved from destruction, but they could preserve an undefeated spirit if the will were strong enough. Yielding made them less as a people, so they resisted to the end and won satisfaction from fate in being master of their lives while they had it. Their courage rose higher, their spiritual energies grew more concentrated, as the opposing forces were stronger. They might win the struggle or they might know it was hopeless, but it was better to die resisting than to live basely. The Aesir knew they would in the end be overwhelmed but they were prepared to resist to the last. "The problem of life," said the ErilaR, "lies in the struggle for freedom - against the pains of the body and the fear of death, against fate itself. It is not enough to be merely courageous." They understood the purpose of their courage. They had a very definite conception of the evil of life, and they had the courage to face it. They had a creed of no compromise with anything that gave them shame or made them less human. Their Law was to act with justice: first, impartially; second, with benevolence which demands that in all actions the interests of all beings must be considered; third, in the spirit of liberty which holds that one ought not to interfere in the chosen course of any rational being.
Runes of Magic and Mystery
Three centuries ago people were burned because Runes were found in their possession. Thirteen-hundred years before that, when Wulfila translated Hebrew books he rendered "the mystery of god" as "runa goths," for the root-meaning of Rune is hidden lore and mystery.
"Certain is that which is sought from Runes," said the ErilaR sages who believed all that could be known by them was contained within the glyphs. The runic script originated in Stone Age scratchings connected with mystery and magic, and in them were found reason and riddle by which to read the mystery and they offered counsel, foretelling in ancient prophecies the remedy by which the people might govern their affairs. Through the Runes the ErilaR experienced the kinship of language in the name by which the Teutons referred to themselves, a self-appellation that means simply: the People. Its etymology is from ancient Indo-European and is similar among all the nations: Old High German, diot; Old Frisian, thiade; Old Swedish, thiod; Gothic, thiuda; Old English, theod; Old Norse, thjoth; Old Irish, tuath; Cornish, tus; Old Celtic, teuts; Lithuanian, tauta; Welsh, thud... Without need for understanding complicated old tongues as Greek and Latin, Zend and Sanskrit, and the ever more difficult maze of case endings, declensions, and conjugations of the original Ri-ar tongue, the Runes provided ancient mythological and historical lore the origin of which was lost forever. Like fighters in training, the ErilaR contemplated and renunciated in meditation and mental culture. They watched the breath in motionless posture to still the self and counted inhalations and exhalations to reach a state of mindfulness where the breath is watched with the mind's eye only. It is a mystic state that is mind-created, mind-produced, and -conditioned. It has nothing to do with Reality. Through mindfulness, awareness, attention, concentration, the ErilaR focused on the intuition.
Intuition, in its broadest sense, means immediate apprehension. Knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science, illumination. The means of the first are the senses. The second provides proper knowledge by understanding through representation of it as it is. The third is direct knowledge by intuition - that noble power of the soul that grasps the pure essence of eternal mystery - knowledge that can only be of what is true. The existence of a speck of dust is miraculous, but the first and last mystery is the ocean of time and space in which it exists - no mystery is greater. The unknowable unknown is a presence. The knowing of that presence the only revelation. Through the vast sweep of interpretation, explanation, creed and dogma, faith and moral law, tradition, philosophy, and theology, the ErilaR learned the necessity to reject these to allow the unknown to operate directly in the mind. They found the knowledge the Runes imparted not a formulation but a cosmic energy - a mysterious power that pervades all nature. The ability to contemplate is what defines the human species. For eight thousand years and three hundred generations, the ErilaR maintained a tradition that helped the Teutons gain insight into perceived and ultimate Reality. Ultimate Reality: absolute, eternal, spontaneous, nameless and beyond description. In spirit, humanity is part of it as a pre-cosmic principle. So say Teutonic traditions in ancient interpretation. There are those who worship gods, those who worship the visible nature. The ErilaR seek the wisdom which can release the human spirit, forced to descend from the higher sphere to be born into the material universe - that vast prison which has the world as its innermost dungeon where fate and destiny rule by the law of nature to enslave the People.
What makes us free is the knowledge who we were, what we have become;
Where we were, wherein we have been thrown;
Whereto we speed.
Wherefrom we are redeemed;
What is birth and what rebirth.—Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto
In order to win the magic Runes, Woden hanged himself on the great tree, wounded himself with his own spear, and hung there for nine full nights - as it says in the Words of the High One:
Certain am I, that I hung
on the windy trunk
during nine nights,
the spear wound
given to Woden,
my own free self to me myself,—
upon that tree,
which no-one knows,
however its roots run.
In that shelter of great fortune,
without drinking horn;
remained I in shame,
took I up runes,
upward took,
fell I after thence.
Nine monstrous lights
took I from the accomplished famed son
of Bolthorn, my mothers father,
and I drank of riddles
in the animal mead,
of inspiration.
Then took I intuition
and wisdom came
and grew and was possessed of well-being,
a word to me in speech
sought the tale,
the work to me in labor
searched for deeds.
Runes shall discover
holy counsel,
deep profundity,
mighty miracles,
which colored by monstrous suffering
created great power
and raised Woden's strength.
Know, how't be cut?
Know, how't be read?
Know, how't be colored?
Know, how't be tested?
Know, how't be asked?
Know, how to sacrifice?
Know, how to send?
Know, how to offer?
Better it's unasked
than to over-sacrifice,
and always arrange the guild's gift;
better it's unsent
than to see it overdone.
Thus Woden also cut
before people were fated,
there he rose up,
and after came again.
Spells I yet know,
unknown to the nations' women
in all human kind.
Help is called forth,
and help they must
whether sought in care
or in sorrow covenanted.
That other I know,
needed wherever exist,
those who intend to live as healers.
That I know thirdly:
if my need is worthy and great
in conflict with my enemy,
urge I dullness
upon my adversaries,
bites not their weapon nor wile.
A fourth working I know:
if opponents bear me
fettered hand and foot,
I scream so,
as I am able,
to split the shackles off my feet,
and from my hands keep.
A fifth working I know:
if I see a flying missile
thrown toward the fighters,
strikes not its target,
is stayed by power not mine,
when I gaze on it.
A sixth working I know:
if I've wounds received
by cutting of woody roots,
and death is near,
he that roused my anger
is consummated rather than me.
A seventh working I know:
if I see a roaring fire
in the chamber where the throng is gathered,
burns not this blaze,
when I call on stony strength not mine;
because I know magic to invoke.
An eighth working I know,
for all who
not united stand:
when destroyed is the kinship bond
of heroes' sons,
there I am able to make quick amends.
A ninth working I know:
if I'm needful
when the fleet is driven to the reefs
I quiet the wind.
and waves
and subdue all the sea.
A tenth working I know:
if I see magic beings
play in the sky,
I work so,
that they stray in their ride
from their home direction,
their home sense.
An eleventh working I know:
if I must go to war
leading bosom friends,
a protection I will wail,
and with this power they ride
hale to battle,
hale from battle,
hale will they return from anywhere.
A twelfth working I know:
if I see on a gallows tree
a hanging corpse,
thus I cut
runes so fine,
that man comes down
to tell me his tale.
A thirteenth working I know:
if a servant's youngster I
anoint with water,
he shall not fall,
though he enter the war,
this hero will not sink for any sword.
A fourteenth working I know:
if I come before the people
to recite those shining ones,
of life and elfs
I know all there is;
the ignorant know little of this.
A fifteenth working I know,
which was bellowed by the ancestor
of dwarfs before dawns door:
strength he screamed to life,
and advanced elfs,
understanding to Woden.
A sixteenth working I know:
if I desire to have lady-like women
have great cravings for pleasure,
I turn a thought
on the white-armed women,
that turns them all submissive.
A seventeenth working I know,
that slowly comes from long ago
to work the young maidens' love.
These spells must you, Great Sage,
long be lacking;
though you may see god, if you could,
there are benefits to be taken,
needs to be fulfilled.
An eighteenth task I know,
but this knowledge
maid nor man should know,
- better by far,
if one only knows;
the quality of the last spell,—
it is taken only,
when in my wife's embrace
or else for my sister to see.
Now of the High-one's sayings
from the High-one's halls,
the first sons are in great need,
the giants' sons have no need;
prosperity is, where spoken,
good luck, where known,
gains, where taken,
happiness, where needed.
—Eddukvedi, "Havamal" (Runatal)
Sigurd asked the valkyrie her knowledge to speak as she knows stories of all the worlds. In answer she declared:
Victory runes must know,
if victory you wish,
carved on the sword's hilt,
some on haft,
some on shaft,
twice name Tir.
Ale runes must know,
if you will others wives
betrayal get in trust, if you believe;
on the drinking horn write
and on the back of hands
and mark Nediz on the nails.
Evil signs there be
and good fortune see
inlaid by runes in law;
thereby I know,
that nevermore be
grief blended with the mead.
Birth runes must know,
if you want to sire
and loosen the child from the woman;
in the palms shall write
and clasp hands
and beg the war-norns' aid.
Wave runes must write,
if you will steady
in the straits the sail-horse have;
on the stem shall write
and on starboard
and set fire in season;
however high the breakers
nor so black the deep,
still you come safely through.
Branch runes must know,
if you wish to minister
and know the sight of wounds;
on bark shall they be writ
and on woody trees,
from those that bow their limbs eastward.
Speech runes must know,
if you will, to no person
grief bestow;
there to wind,
there to wrap,
where all together
initiates meet,
thus shall nations
full-counseled fare.
Though runes must know,
if you will ever be
an intellectual leader of men;
they are for counsel,
they are for writing.
These be runes to make amends,
these be birth runes
and all ale runes
and able mighty runes,
wherefrom do not stray
and unspoiled
keep the holy omens;
use them, take them,
until the hard fall of the rulers.
—Eddukvedi, "Sigurdrifumal"
The futhark (so named from the first six characters) is divided with the help of dots into three sets of eight known as aetir. Each aetir is named after the first glyph of the set. So: Fehs-aet, Hagals-aet, Teis-aet.
| Rune | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
 |
Fehu | cattle, wealth (fee) |
| Uruz | aurochs, primeval wild ox | |
| THurisaz | giant, ogre, demon, (cause of insanity) | |
| Ansuz | life, aesir (asu) | |
| Reido | ride, journey, way | |
| Kenoz | torch, fire | |
| Gebo | gift | |
| Wunjo | joy | |
| Hagalaz | hail | |
| Nediz | need, distress | |
| Isa | ice | |
| Jera | year | |
| EIwaz | yew, (egg?) | |
| Pirth | divination, (dance?) | |
| algiZ | defense, protection, negation | |
| Sowelu | sun | |
| Teiwaz | the shining, the transcendent light and the inward love | |
| Birkana | birch (twig) | |
| Ewaz | horse | |
| Manaz | person, human | |
| Laguz | lake, water | |
| iNGuz | fertility | |
| Degaz | day | |
| Othila | land, possession, property |
[Illustration: Siegfried Slain by Hagen]
Part II
About Ragnarok
"What tidings are there to relate about Ragnarok - ruler's battle?"
High-one, Just-as-high, and Third answer:
"Great and many are the tidings that relate of this. First the winter comes, it is called monstrous. Snowy blizzards drive from all directions. Great frost is there and sharp winds. By no means can benefit be derived from the sun. This winter is three together without summer between. Before that there are three other winters when all the world is in great war. Then brothers strike each other for the sake of greed, and no one shows mercy to father or son in manslaughter or incest. Thus it says in Voluspa.
"It is fitting then, that these seem mighty tales, of the wolf-bitch who swallows the sun, which appears to the people a great disaster. Another wolf-bitch snatches the mooncolors, and feeds that great harm. Multitudes of stars vanish from heaven. Further tidings there are, that the whole earth trembles so that hills and forests are torn up, and mountains fall in ruins, and all shackles and bonds break and snap. It comes to pass then that Damnation-wolf is loosed. The sea gushes on land, because the serpent of the midmost place charges up on shore. Then it happens that Nail-fare sails, the ship that is so named because it is built from the nails of dead people, and therefore, be warned, if a person dies with unshorn nails it will greatly increase the material for Nailfare, which gods and humans hope is slow in building. It is in these tidal waves of wildly moving seas that Nailfare is launched.
"The giant that steers Nailfare is called Ancient-ice-one. Damnation-wolf comes with gaping mouth, the lower jaw on earth, the upper in heaven. He would gape more still, if there was space. Fire burns in the eyes and nostrils of Earth-serpent as it blows poison, sprinkles it high over everything - this is most terrible to see. This is on the other side of the wolf-bitch.
"With a roar heaven is rent, and down slide the children of light. Fire rides first and before and after everything burns with a luster brighter than the sun. That sword has great might. Shimmering-way breaks then, as was told before.
"The children of light seek out the field names for fighting. The wolf and the serpent come. The Flame comes and the Ancient-one with all his frost giants. And Flame follows all death's sons. The children of light keep their own company, and make a very bright host. That battleground is a hundred journeys in every direction.
"And there are these tidings, that Home-hider blows earnestly on the bellowing horn and wakes all the gods, and has them meet together. Then Odin rides to Mimir's spring and takes counsel from Mimir for himself and his kind. The ashtree Ygdrasil shakes, and no one is without a feeling of dread either in heaven or earth. Life itself puts armor on single plunderers and presses on toward that field. Odin rides first with golden helmet and beautiful coat of mail and his spear, which is named Foremost-guard. He advances upon Damnation-wolf, and Thor is on his other side, who lends his assistance by catching hold to do battle with Earthworm. Noble-one fights against Fire, and it is a sharp conflict, until the lordly one falls. The cause of his death is that he is without the fine sword to which he gave its Baptismal.
"Then also it takes place that the hound Garmur is loose, who was bound in front of death's entrance. That is monstrous. It goes against Ty, and both come to harm. Thor wrings the death-cry from Earthworm, and staggers back nine paces. Then he falls dead to the earth from the poison that the serpent blew on him. The wolf swallows Odin. It happens that he dies. Immediately Far-runner sets his foot on the lower jaw of the wolf. On this foot he has a shoe, which has been in the making since the beginning of time. It is made from the leather that people cut from shoes at the heels and toes. Therefore people must throw away that leather, if they will so believe, to become Life's followers. With his hand he takes the wolf's upper jaw, and rips apart his mouth. That is the wolf's death. Flame battles on with Homehider, and each dies of the other. So fire is flung to blaze over the earth and burn all regions. Thus it says in Voluspa.
"Up rises the earth from the foaming seas, and is green and fair. Unsowed fields grow. Wood and Field live, unwounded as fire's flame has not diminished them, and settle into the fertile soil, as before it was Life's-place. And there are the sons of Thor, Exhaustion and Might, and they have the Lightning-crasher. There come the Glorious-one and the Hooded-one from death. They all sit together and speak to be minded of the hidden lore which counsels ancient prophecies, of the First Rule, about Earthworm and about Damnation-wolf. Then they find in the grassy field the golden game table, where Life spent itself. So it says.
[Illustration: Odin's Last Voyage]
"In a place called Hodmimi's-woodland, two humans are concealed, who are thus named: Life, and Leave-for-death-reluctantly, and they have morning dew for food. From these people come mighty stock, to inhabit all regions. So it is here said.
"It seems wondrous to the mind, that the sun gets a daughter who is not less beautiful than she was, and travels the path of her mother. So it is here said.
"And now if you would inquire more, I don't know where the questions come from, for I have never heard a longer tale of this everlasting journey of existence. Take it as you will."
—SnorraEdda, "Gylfaginning" (Um Ragnarokkur)
Great store of lore,
distant futures I see
concerning Rulers-battle
and the shining victory.
Brothers shall fight
and kill each other,
cousins shall
commit incest;
hard when the homes
are filled with whoring,
axe-age, sword-age,
divided and split,
storm-age, wolf-age,
before the world falls in ruin,
shall no person
show respect to anything lofty.
Mimir's sons play,
the ancestral dispenser of fate
bellows in the present
on the blaring horn.
Loudly blows Homehider,
horn up in the air,
when Woden speaks with
Mimir's head.
The World-tree
stands trembling,
aged tree groans vengeance,
giants are loosed.
Fearsome to all
who fare death's road,
before Fire
swallows all about.
How is it with Aesir?
How is it with elfs?
All giantland is in a din,
Aesir are in meeting,
dwarves groan
before their stone doorways,
rock walls are bared.
Would you know further—or what?
Now Garmur hollers mightily
in front of the caves of death,
fetters shall break,
and the wolf run,
great store of lore,
distant futures I see
concerning Ruler's-battle
and the shining victory.
Frost drives from the east,
raised shield before,
the earth serpent
in giant fury
beats the waves.
The eagle screams,
his kin tear the hostile pale,
and Nailfare is launched.
From the south attacks
the bane of switches,
fire shines the sword
with the sun's transcendent light.
The stone crag crashes,
the troll falls,
death's hide-away is trod,
and heaven cleaves.
Then comes forward
another sorrow,
when Woden moves
to fight the wolf,
and the giant slayer
is bright as fire;
then shall the famed one,
the beloved, fall.
Now Garmur hollers mightily
in front of the caves of death,
fetters shall break,
and the wolf run.
There comes the mighty
relative of the father of defeat,
the Woodsman, who fights
the carrion beast.
He wields his strength over the monster
and with his hand thrusts
the sword into its heart,
thus to avenge his father.
A gaping mouth rises above
the shields of the earth.
The sea parts
as the serpent rises.
Woden's son must
deal poison
to kill the wolf
with hatred.
Then comes the famous
relative of the laughing hairy battler,
Woden's son goes
to fight the worm,
of exhaustion falls
the earth's protector,—
the hero who
vouchsafes all homesteads;—
back nine steps goes
the child who got life from
Earth's-own-mouth
and dies by the serpent
yet is his fury unstayed.
The sun grows dark,
the earth sinks in the sea,
torn out of the heavens
are the bright stars.
Smoke rages
over earth's ancient loins,
flames leap high
to heaven itself.
Now Garmur hollers mightily
in front of the caves of death,
fetters shall break,
and the wolf run.
I see arise
a higher host
and the earth from the sea
made green.
By the waterfall
flies again the eagle,
who on the mountain
catches fish.
The Aesir find
that field of labor
and in the mouldy earth
sit to judge
and mentally recall
the power to proclaim
the monstrous sights
and ancient mysteries.
There shall be later
the wondrous
golden tables
in the grass discovered,
there for all time
to remain.
Shall unsowed
acres grow,
grief shall all be healed,
the Glorious-one shall come,
the Hooded-one and the
Glorious-one
shall recall the defeat
of the Smasher.
They will welcome the fallen lords.
Would you know more-or what?
Then can This-one
cast lots to choose
those born to settle
in the double brothers'
windy home.
Would you know more-or what?
In my soul I see
standing more beautiful
than the sun,
the golden appearance
of Gimle.
There shall trustworthy
people dwell for all time
taking pleasure in their work.
Then come in power
and authority
non-humans from above,
to govern all.
Comes in dimness
the dragon flying,
the serpent, from below
the hated mountains;
in his winged talons,—
as he flies over the plain,—
he brings the Hostile-striker near.
Now must he sink.
—Eddukvedi, "Voluspa"
Was one born
ever greater,
to augment
the earth's powers;
with a word is ordered
destiny's course,
in the intimate affinity
of the legions that compose the grounds
Then came another
even more charged with ability;
though I dare not
pronounce the name.
—Eddukvedi, "Voluspa in skamma"
Spirit and Power
Ancient days found one who Free,
Power prest (1) relentless.
Nidhog (2) gnawings flake-like Midgard (3) falling.
Mirkwood (4) guarded Teuton Mark, (5)
Beneath boots blacked by power pains.
Countless feet encased implore the Worlds (6)
The unbent neck. To tame the Free!
Raven two (7) from Woden's Hall (8), truth carry thee.
[Illustration: The Teutones Passing from Italy into Gaul.]
John E. Davis II
July 12, 1933 - February 24, 1984
Like everybody, I have my struggles, but I now also have my joys; and the fire from those struggles—from the pain and the loss—burns away the dross from, and purifies the gold of life, and the gold of the soul. And so for several years now I have been trying to save what I can of that gold, so that when I die men and women will come to know how much I too have loved, and cherished life; how I have touched the earth, and gazed upon these hills—West Virginia—and dreamed at night of the many-billowed sea. So that they may know that I was not a stone or a beast, but a man, with a warm heart, and a soul honored and proud to be a part of the Family of Man.
February 23, 1984
The Resurrection Of John Davis
by Louis Khourey
"CITY LAWYER JOHN DAVIS DIES AT 50" said the small headline on the obituary page of the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette on February 25, 1984, noting the death from acute kidney infection the previous day of a spiritual giant. So great was the achievement of John E. Davis II in a realm where results are rarely palpable, and so dramatic were the conditions of his enlightenment, that even his hometown newspaper included an outline of his astonishing history:
In 1964, an auto accident left Davis with brain damage that led to his being suspended from practice... in 1977. He began a program to restore his health and resume his practice and once said the beginning of his recovery came at a cemetery where he had been sleeping. He was readmitted to practice in 1980.
Davis's life was a powerful re-creation, in modern dress, of the spiritual struggle of the "hero with a thousand faces," which Davis came to recognize in himself. He did not live the life of a monk or hermit, but of a warrior on a contemporary battlefield, who reached heights of worldly success, was almost destroyed physically and mentally, and found, deep within himself, the spark of divinity which he kindled into a roaring fire that purified the dross of his damaged brain.
The value of John Davis's story is its verifiability, for the facts about his life are known, his remarkable medical history is documented, and his personality and charisma were witnessed by many. Combined with his own accounts in interviews and in his poetry, the depth of his experience is evident. It has all of the hallmarks described by Richard M. Bucke in his classic analysis of the mystical life, Cosmic Consciousness:
The intellectual brilliance and ambition of John Davis manifested early in his life. From the poor coalfields of Buffalo Creek in southern West Virginia, he made his way to eastern prep schools, then to West Virginia University for college and law school.
He quickly demonstrated great talent not only as a lawyer but as a political theorist and strategist, and had an instrumental role in John F. Kennedy's victory over Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 West Virginia primary election, often credited as the pivotal campaign of Kennedy's successful drive for the presidency. Before he was 30, Davis was forming a law partnership with former governor W.W. Barron and had already become wealthy.
An emblem of his wealth became an instrument of his destruction when he wrecked his Jaguar automobile in January 1964. Brain damage was quickly confirmed by EEG and the impairment was diagnosed as progressive. John Davis continued to practice law despite increasingly frequent seizures and deteriorating mental function. Even in 1968, he was asked to work in Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. But as he told Steve LeVine, an A.P. writer who interviewed him in 1983, by 1969 he could not function at all.
By that time his career had effectively ended. He fought disbarment, even while his faculties continued to decline. His wife divorced him and he finally suffered an indefinite suspension of his license to practice on his birthday in 1977, July 12.
In 1976 Davis literally became a homeless derelict, spending nights in hospital waiting rooms, under highway bridges, and in graveyards. The severity of his impairment was summarized in a report dated December 13, 1976 by Donald C. Carter, M.D. of the School of Medicine of West Virginia University:
This man's cognitive functions are grossly impaired... The overwhelming evidence from my examination is that of cognitive deficit, unregulated emotional control and severe memory and judgment impairment.
The long, agonizing descent into hell of John Davis ended suddenly on the day in 1977 when his doctor and friend, Edward Lewis, told him that he had less than one year to live. He walked into the Spring Hill cemetery in Charleston where he often slept, carrying his styrofoam "bed." It was there that he had his deep spiritual experience that was to be so dramatically validated. As he told Steve LeVine:
I didn't see lights, didn't hear voices echoing from the mountaintop, didn't have any mission sent upon me, except being a human being... I felt my whole brain reorganize. I learned more things that night than I'll ever be able to explain.
[Illustration: The monument in Spring Hill cemetery next to which John Davis had his transcendent experience.]
He described the experience as a "sense of kinship, a oneship with the universe."
Davis never had another seizure. He immediately began a rigorous program of exercise, reading and - most importantly - concentration. He discovered pranayama, the Hindu art of breath control, and kundalini yoga, and employed them as techniques to retrain his mind and body. He had virtually lost his faculty of speech, once one of his brightest jewels, and practiced speaking in front of a mirror with his mouth full of marbles.
An EEG performed on July 29, 1979 was completely normal. Dr. Carter, who in 1976 considered him to be permanently and totally disabled, reported on April 11, 1980: "Mr. Davis was found to be healed of his cognitive, emotional and attitudinal problems ...the healing process has very adequately compensated and remedied these defects to a remarkable degree, not previously thought possible."
On May 31, 1979, his longtime personal physician, Dr. Lewis wrote:
When Mr. Davis in the summer of 1977 undertook to rehabilitate himself, his physical health, alone, was perilous, perilous in the extreme. But it has been my clinical experience that for a few highly motivated patients, a trauma or ordeal such as Mr. Davis experienced of losing the right to practice their profession, their livelihood and even their home, sometimes is a catalyst to cause them to be able, under close medical supervision, to arrest their progressively worsening condition and reach a sort of equilibrium where minimal functioning can be maintained. This is not infrequently reported in our journals, and even occasionally observed in our clinical experience. But for a person to be able to self-motivate themselves and so mobilize their physical and psychic energies so as to make the simply astonishing complete physical, emotional and mental recovery, as to become as fully functioning as has Mr. Davis, is unique in my clinical experience. It just is not found in our medical books!
In 1976, John Davis's score on the WAIS Performance IQ test was 112, only a little above average and far below what would be expected from someone of outstanding educational and professional achievement. In 1980, his score on the same test was 156. Dr. Carter's colleague, Dr. Quarrick, said:
This score is outstandingly high and is in sharp contrast to the mediocre one obtained previously. Neither the psychometrician nor myself have ever seen such a high Performance IQ. In fact, it is 8 points shy of the highest score that can be statistically generated by this test.
So John Davis was restored to his license to practice law, with the help of attorney Rudolph DiTrapano who had employed him as a law clerk during his recovery. And he was re-married to his former wife, Ruth. But he was somehow more than what he had been before. Although he spoke with some apparent strain and effort, his eloquence was somehow greater, and his persuasiveness somehow more compelling, both in the courtroom and out. In their introduction to his privately printed collection of poems, Adeeb McCarus and Ruby J. Miller explained:
All this unique personal magnetism, this growing ability to mesmerize, this charisma, dates from the experience in the graveyard. While he was always considered an amiable and affable person, a warm if somewhat distant personality, there was no "magic" about him. He was a young man in a hurry, but it was his intellect that shone forth and won him the honors. It is from the graveyard experience that the new man begins to emerge.
John Davis struggled mightily to convey the message that he brought back from the graveyard. And if his poems do not always reach the highest level of art, they never fail to convey the passionate intensity of a man who knew, beyond doubt, what is, and what reality awaits every struggling soul, sooner or later. Perhaps he sensed the inadequacy of his words alone, for when he read his poems aloud it was in a dramatic voice, now shouting, now whispering, trying to move his listener to really understand.
There was real magic in the life of John Davis, lawyer, of Charleston, West Virginia, won at great price. Sadly for all who knew him, the magic of his return to his faculties and his powers was short-lived. But for John Davis, the greatest victory had been won. He had conquered himself, he had, by force of will and a divine inspiration, overcome a damaged brain and body and restored them to that of man-as-he-should-be.
Selected Poems
by John E. Davis II
November 22, 1963*
Light rain against the window.
Dark shadows on the wall.
A wind of scented autumn.
A shot, and that is all.
An earth of haggard yellow.
A sky of bleary red.
A moon of soggy silence.
A hope that now is dead.
* Day they shot John F. Kennedy.
Le Service Del Graal
He, who would read my works, know me entire.
Are you beyond guilt, regret and desire?
Resolved to do whate'er God may require?
He, who is near to me, is near the fire.
Pursuing true Self, higher and higher.
Your life to stand as Truth's indemnifier.
To be the People's great simplifier.
He, who is near to me, is near the fire.
Being your own judge and crucifier.
Endless, inner trial by that judge of ire.
Pain for mortal things, your purifier.
He, who is near to me, is near the fire.
No charted ways, no rest, no time to tire.
Alone, always alone, your Quest transpire.
Your death alone, your life's sanctifier.
He, who is near to me, is near the fire.
Agnosto Deo*
I am the Voice of the Symbol!
Listen, all you who would know.
"Parsifal, Merlin and Wotan,
Wandering Jew and Negro."
Of the old king who is suff'ring,
Wounded, but powerless to die.
Of the stone grave where the heroes,
Meet to plan ventures on high.
Aged old Child of the Mother.
Cleft spring where madmen must drink.
Lo! Heed the Voice of the Symbol.
Listen, don't ask, and don't think!
Now ends the Age of the Fishes,
Darkness, at war with the Light!
Pegasus brings Water Bearer,
Ridd'n by El Khidr, the Black Knight!
Khidr, the loner, the stranger.
Gog and Magog, he'll defeat!
There on the plains, Armaggon,
Comforter, Self, you will meet.
Conscious redeemed by Unconscious.
Left side of brain by the right.
Secret of the Golden Flower.
Marriage of Day with the Night.
War not for me in a Vietnam!
Damn not another man's sin!
Seek not for me in the Heavens!
I'm the still, small voice within!
* "The Unknown God": St. Paul
The Lower Depths
I would not go where I have been,
Though earth's foundations fled.
The lower depths of guilt and sin,
The land of the living dead.
There is a darkness not called night,
In the land of lost content.
There is a stillness not called rest,
Where the perished people went.
The Hawk, intrepid, from his nest,
On the dark, imperishable hill.
Implacable eyes, starless skies,
Stares down on the World of Will.
Don't ask why, that you and I,
Must to Hell, and then come back.
God decrees just as He pleases.
Make or break! Play the Man! Act.
Elegy to Elysium
"Cor Cordium" *
Oh, Bobby, brother Bobby! You are dead and I am not!
The stars have left their courses,
And the land we loved is not.
Aeschylus, Alexander: and ten thousand years to go!
And you waltz with the roses,
And I trod on in the snow.
Past Hell and its foundations! Past meekness, guilt, and regret.
What drove us then, drives me now.
Forgive, If I love you yet.
This earth's just one to live on. But Bobby, it's where we're from!
Can we deny, forget it?
After what we've said and done?
You do not have to answer; now, you've measured to the score.
But I must face the morrow,
Must do what's been done before!
* "The heart of hearts"; epitaph inscribed on Shelley's tomb.
Man's Fate
While walking along the River Styx,
He was accosted by a young beguiling harlot
Who suddenly burst into tears,
When he pushed her aside unceremoniously.
"You fool!" she cried.
"You have restored my faith in humanity."
Western Civilization
"Tat Tvam Asi" *
Can you hear the Roman Legions?
Can you hear great Roland's horn?
Can you hear from the Cross, Christ saving the lost?
In days before you were born?
For we now face Mother Russia.
Next comes China and Her Wall.
How do we choose, do we win or do we lose?
Do we rise, or do we fall?
* Sanskrit: "That art Thou."
The Everlasting Wrong
"Most of the survivors remained on or near Buffalo Creek,
but they were a very long way from home." *
O, I sit on Davis Mountain.
And I study long and long.
On the Buffalo below me.
And the Everlasting Wrong!
At the mouth of Proctor Hollow,
On the banks of Buffalo.
I was born and bred and happy,
In a way you'll never know.
Life was young and life was easy.
Families close and friendship true.
And the highest helped the lowest.
Like one family: "we made do."
For six days we'd work the coal mines.
Then God gave us Sat'rday night!
Sunday morning, church and conscience.
Thus, we learned the wrong from right.
From the Celtic Fringe of Britain,
Through the Appalachian Way.
We're a people stern to duty,
Bound to pay and to re-pay.
God put coal inside our mountains.
But old Satan put in slate!
If you served the wrong master,
In the mines you'd meet your fate!
Coal's black gold, but slate's a sinner,
It's no good for man or God.
So we hauled it out and dumped it.
Safe from where our loved ones trod.
Trouble when it visits mountains.
The coal miner feels it first.
Fortune when it bless' the country.
Miners feel it last and worst.
He thanks God—the leg that's broken—
Both's not broken in the wreck.
He thanks God—when both are broken—
That he didn't break his neck!
Do not think that we are diff'rent,
"People from the Buffalo."
We are just like everybody,
Only very much more so.
So the years of youth danced by me.
Like my trippling Buffalo.
This was Home, the place you go to,
When there's no place else to go.
Then they came and sold the coal mines,
To a landlord rich and strong.
Who brought Northern greed and coldness,
And the Everlasting Wrong!
God, when he finished creating,
"Scorpion", "Vampire" and "snake",
"Scab" and "landlord" and "slag dam",
God left Satan these to make.
Landlords went and built a slag dam,
That let loose the Buffalo!
Who can dam the mother's heart's grief?
When it snows, and north winds blow?
Now there is no Home to go to.
Yet, I feel I must return.
In my heart, for "Home" and "landlord",
Guilt and hate no longer burn.
All that's left is this strange yearning,
In redemption to belong.
To redeem both Self and Landlord,
And the Everlasting Wrong.
So I sit on Davis Mountain.
In a world that is no more!
God, I beg you, tell me what are
Appalachian people for?
* Kai T. Erikson, Everything In Its Path. About the Buffalo Creek disaster, where a slag dam burst, killing scores upon scores and destroying an entire community: Author's birthplace and childhood home.
After the Fall
Marx and Nietzsche, what will you say to them?
The people, in the end.
Marx, the German, voice of the Slav.
Nietzsche, the Slav, voice of the Germanies.
What will you say to them in the end?
Marx, who wrote the terrible book, proving
The strong exploit the weak.
Nietzsche, who sang of the death of God,
Because he could not be God.
The first, confusing freedom with liberty.
The second, confusing liberty with freedom.
What will you say to them?
After believing in you; with you:
The God is dead!
That there is no justice!
That the rich rob the poor!
That all men have rights; not duties!
That there is nothing beyond the grave and the stars!
What will you say to them?
To these soldiers of your great crusade?
Your humanitarian Armageddon?
Of the poor against the rich?
The meek against the proud?
The weak against the strong?
What will you say to them?
After they are defeated!
Hero With a Thousand Faces
"By my love and hope, I conjure thee,
cast not away the hero in thy soul!"
Behold! Behold! Gilgamesh!
I've found you now at last.
O, man of joy and sorrow,
Speak to me from the past.
You've peered through all life's secrets.
Taking toil and distress.
You've underwent all, known all.
Never mindful of rest.
Ishtar you've boldly thwarted.
Escaped her love and blood.
You've seen Shamash-napistim.
He, who survived the Flood.
And first with strength, then kindness,
You've conquered Engidu.
Of all heroes of times' past,
I wish that I were you!
"Behold! Behold! John Davis.
O, man of common clay!
Heed to this charge I give thee:
'Be thou twice-born today' "
Of joy and of life's sorrows,
Thou, too, has had thy fill.
Put on, and wear my body.
The form that death can't kill.
The day after tomorrow,
Belongs to you, nev'r fear!
So come, my child, and now live,
As though that day were here!
For thou art me, and I thee!
Thou hast twice advantage.
For, I, the great Gilgamesh,
Am thy very image!
Metanoia
I did not mean to love you.
I did not mean to care.
But I had deep, dark troubles,
And you had auburn hair.
And now it all is over.
That should have not begun.
My troubles now have ended.
Now, who's the lonely one?
She
With you a part of me is young again,
That yesterday was old and out of use.
No more the World's proud passions stirred my flesh,
And all the glories of the earth now spent.
I stood before, encircled in my gloom,
And watching not, nor listening for life.
So old before my time, before my turn,
And full of cold perditions darkly doom.
But then, today, you touched me and I knew
At once the pity and the shame were mine,
For hiding in, while love was still outside.
Not learn to live for God, and die for Man.
So to my soul, my fate, world without end,
Mock not, this heart, for she has smiled at him.
The Gift of Love
I did not mean to stop you as you passed.
Nor turn your head and ask you for a smile.
Who, in the wayward reaches of life.
Had earned not yours nor anyone's grace.
Had suffered much from self, but none for love.
And had resigned my searching self to death.
Despised by many and by none beloved.
Beyond repentance's rage or human hope.
And so, upon my fated path I groaned.
Crucifying myself unto myself.
Despair before me, vanity behind.
When suddenly I looked and saw your face.
I could not help but sigh, your greatness awed.
And you heard me and stopped, and I thank God.
Rondeau for Clare*
A bride must love. A widow cry.
A woman live, nor question why.
That earth's her taskmaster of old!
And life its secrets ne'er unfold!
And men alone life glorify?
But is this so? Whose truth? Whose lie?
Life at such cost she's forced to buy?
Is this the price her love was sold?
A bride must love?
Pray, Buyer! Seller! Testify.
Who gave you Her to crucify?
Not this one man let all be told!
And if I did, O death be bold!
Make me deny before I die.
A bride must love!
* Hon. Clare Boothe Luce: "The most complete woman the twentieth century has yet produced."
Where Pity Dwells
Where pity dwells, dwells there the peace of God.
This truth, your truth, a truth I could not find.
Although my will had taught me I'm no clod
Of common clay, but am besparked by mind.
As the translucent lamp that knows it shines.
But knows not how or why it breaks the night
Of darkly fear that should not be mankind's.
Knows it brings the light, but is not the Light.
And then you showed me that between the brain
Of Intellect and liver of the Will,
There mediates the Heart in sovereign reign.
And only there can love and life fulfill.
So now I know where ere the World I trod.
Where pity dwells, dwells there the peace of God.
Cancer to Pisces
"Dans le veritable amour c'est l'ame
qui enveloppe le corps" *
In the forest, in the forest.
By the lake within the forest.
By still waters, she is waiting.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
For the man who moves the mountains.
And for the love he holds inside.
Dear to him as stars and rubies.
Coming, coming, coming.
Ruby lips, and no tomorrow.
Ruby lips, and no more sorrow.
She is waiting, he is coming.
Loving, loving, loving.
* In true love, it's the soul that envelopes the body.
The Tears of Truth
Ah, yesteryear there would have been a time,
My love, to squire you to the peopled town.
O haste away to woods and quiet sound.
Of cicadas, your breast pressed against mine.
With words, or best with tender ways of care.
To give and ask for nothing in return.
Nor troubled teach, but from your soul to learn.
To touch, listen, show that I know you're there.
These are the ways of love, I don't deny.
And never doubt that you deserve it so.
Or strike out in blind pain, or silent ruth.
And judge these hurt-heart, hapless words, a lie.
Trust to the heart, that once you brief did know.
A man of joy and sorrow and of truth.
Muhammad Ibn Abdullah
"Of the Koreish Tribe"
When life's final fight is finished.
And the formless faces fade.
My last thoughts will be "Muhammad",
And the difference he made.
I, a man best born for battle.
Who, for years fell into fear.
Will those final, fleeting seconds.
Think of him, cast love's last tear.
In the days not mine for making.
When I stood and was alone.
At my very point of breaking.
He brought me into his home.
Gave me faith to find my courage.
Gave me bread, and not a stone.
Until I was strong and standing.
By myself, but not alone.
Oh, the thousand gifts I'd give him.
If the world's wild worth he cared.
But to be the man he made me.
Is the only gift I dared.
Oh, there'll never be another.
And I'll never be afraid.
For my thoughts always "Muhammad",
And the difference he made.
The People of the Book
Ah, "Jesus" is a dice of "Will",
And "Christ" of "Metaphor"!
I AM THAT I AM throws the dice,
And Satan keeps the score!
Lines Composed in Charleston Graveyard on His Birthday
This undeserted hillside.
Its lilacs now in bloom.
I pace amid the tombstones.
And think upon the tomb.
That all my life is over,
That I could call my own.
The man of flesh is ready,
To meet the man of bone.
An old man now past forty.
Who was old at twenty-four.
At thirty came the darkness,
To last for fourteen more.
But though God, mighty, smote me!
He, mighty, raised me up!
And bade me, I've no right to
Turn down life's empty cup.
For, I'm the first He sentenced
To Hell! And then brought back!
I feel His mighty Purpose.
I know He bids me act!
To come down from these mountains.
To leave these hills behind.
To go unto the heartland.
And destiny, there, to find.
Yes, destiny's my duty.
And death's not yet my fate.
To teach the truths He taught me.
Before it is too late.
The truths of faith and duty.
The courage He'll endower.
From us, only the effort.
From Him, the enabling power.
That matter is maternal.
And is to spirit, kin.
That for tomorrow's hero.
The battle's fought within.
They're wars for soul and seeker.
As for booty and pelf.
Lesser war with an army.
Greater war with oneself.
By deed, then word, to show all.
That each of us have worth!
Union under God will save,
The last, best hope on earth.
And so, God's soldier, be I!
The leader and the led.
And cause some good for mankind.
Before I count me dead.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
I know the Ice Age came before.
I know that it will come again.
But now, in between
Are the times that mean.
When man makes his loss or gain.
The Reign of One
"After Ragnarok" *
Bring out the Elder Edda!
Ragnarok, read anew!
That Day of Doom for Heaven,
For Earth, the Brave, the True.
When Odin leads Valhalla.
Their final, fatal fight.
When force of evil darkness,
Prevails o'er Good and Light.
Read well, the Elder Edda!
Find there, that Prophecy.
That's One with Revelations.
That's Hope for you and me.
The sun turns dead with darkness.
Earth sinks in seas of hate.
Hot stars fall fell from all skies.
Hell's fires leap Heaven's Gate.
But then, a new Creation.
New Heaven, Earth, new Sun.
Beyond the reach of Evil.
Then comes the Reign of One!
A world of wondrous beauty.
All dwellings roofed with gold.
Unsowed fields bear ripened fruit.
Happiness, then unfold.
Read well, the ancient augury.
Beyond all Odin's done!
Beyond all Good and Evil.
Then comes the Reign of One.
A greater than all Beings,
Whose Name I dare not call.
For there are few who can see,
Beyond great Odin's fall!
* "Ragnarok," the great Teutonic race's Day of Doom, when Odin leads the forces of Good against those of Evil in fated defeat. There is one, sole prophecy, singularly like the Book of Revelations, that after the defeat of the Gods would come a new earth and Heaven, and the Reign of One.
Le Cri De Merlin*
The poets put on their armour,
That they wore in days before.
They are done with peace with honor.
They let loose the dogs of war!
For Camelot redeems its glory.
And Sir Lancelot lives again.
And the truth of all this story,
Lies in men that now remain.
Now, the days are come for dying.
All old promises are dead!
There shall be no further lying.
The terrible words are said:
"O, what you looked for, you shall find!
What you feared, shall share your grave!
And all the true times out of mind,
Now, are lost if you can't save."
"Now is the time to test you.
Will you fight, or will you fly?"
"What men can do, can you do?
Can you live before you die?"
* "The Cry of Merlin," so the legend runs, after he, Arthur and Camelot had vanished from the earth, men can still hear his cries in the forest, but they cannot understand or interpret them.
Coming Home
I am coming, Father, coming.
Though the night falls fast around.
I have kept the pledge I made you.
And I, now, am homeward bound.
Oh, you born me and you bred me,
And you bid me greatness seek.
And you cast me unto darkness,
Far below the mountain peak.
Half a lifetime did I struggle,
With dark instruments below.
With my eye upon the eagle,
And the place I had to go.
Till, at last, I left the valley.
Climbed the mountain all alone.
Where the air grows cold and thinner.
Where you make it on your own.
To the peak, and reach for Heaven!
Which is just beyond our grasp.
Then, like Moses, look beyond there!
See the Promised Land at last.
And descend unto heartland.
There are others who need more.
Help my sister, and my brother,
Reach that far, far distant shore.
Then return unto the homeplace.
And let others, glory find.
I am coming, Father, coming.
I have helped, a bit, mankind.
The Prize
In the dim and darkly bedroom,
Lay then dying,
Great Laplace.
Friends, admirers, from all nations
Stood around him,
All en masse.
He, who searched the sky and heavens,
Knew the heights of
Mortal Fame.
Listened to their praise and honor
Of the greatness
Of his name.
Then rebuked them and their values,
They were nothing,
He replied.
With the last, long breath within him,
Smiled, and uttered:
"Love" and died.
Hymn to Almighty God
"In Charleston graveyard upon Release"
Hail moon! Hail sun!
Hail sacred tree.
The center now shall hold!
Almighty God, who healeth me.
All praise to Thee!
For Thou art One!
I know! I know!
As Thou art There above.
But Many in us Here below.
O yes, I know!
I know it's so!
I'll give my best,
I'll give my all.
In Faith, I am assured.
That from this World we cannot fall.
No! Not at all.
We cannot fall!
So let me live.
So let me die.
A moth unto Thy Flame.
Light unto Light! To Thee I fly.
Nor question why.
To Thee I fly.
My burden great.
My spirit free.
A goal I dimly see.
Almighty God, who healeth me.
All praise to Thee!
All praise to Thee!
A man named Porto dreamed of his father at least once a week. His father, Dr. Porto, had been dead for years, but in the dreams he conversed with his son and gave him detailed advice which the son tested and found very useful,— and at times,— accurate.
And Porto became an authority on dreams, and counseled many hundreds of people to practice dreaming. Porto became very famous because thousands of people found that they had no trouble dreaming. And Porto and all his followers were convinced that they had found a secret bridge across the chasm of death.
And Porto died and went to that which he thought was heaven. And he met that which he thought was his father. To test to determine if this was really his father, he asked Dr. Porto to corroborate some of the advice that Porto had received in his dreams.
And Dr. Porto replied that the only contact that he had with those be left behind were dreams, some vague, and some so real that he was convinced that he was communicating with children still on earth. But neither had any memory of the dreams which the other experienced.
In frustration Porto said to his father, "Are not all people in heaven capable of knowing that which goes on, on earth?"
And his father replied, "There are people here who believed that they lived before... but others do not believe that this place exists."
—Richard Rose
Books Recommended by the TAT Foundation
The TAT Foundation is an educational foundation dedicated to the philosophic and psychological elements of man's life and welfare. We have been fortunate since the beginning of TAT to have on our staff as many as ten psychologists, as well as eminent doctors, and courageous scientists such as the late Wilbur Franklin, researcher on psychokinetic phenomena.
We regret that we do not have copies of all the works which we researched, but we will try to keep in stock those which are available.
Our research leads us away from trends set by B.F. Skinner, Fritz Perls and the wave of psychologists and psychiatrists whose materialism was an escape from the need (as scientists) to define such terms as thought, mind, and soul. This in turn gave them no answer to phenomena such as thought transference (considered only to be guessing), to déjà vu or prophecy phenomena (which were considered to be second guessing) and immortality (which a dualistic element called "mind" might possess after the other element, "body," ceased to be.)
If you think our efforts are worthwhile, ride with us a ways. If you find a book that has truths or revelations for you, get a copy also for a friend that is looking for truths.
We also sell books by authors with which we are not in agreement because such a policy will enable everyone to do his own research.
We recommend the following titles:
Published 1985. For thirteen years the author lectured at Universities in order to attempt to convey directly his insights into mental states and levels of spiritual capacity such as Kevala and Sahaja Samadhi. This large volume is a compilation of some outstanding lectures and radio and TV interviews. $10.00 HB, $8.00 PB.
A shattering expose of social, psychological and spiritual illusions. The aim of this book is to approach reality. It is an intense catalyst for those looking for a profound manual on the path of self-knowledge and realization. $8.00 HB, $6.00 PB.
This is a priceless, smaller book. In it is a formula for mundane man to reach the maximum mental-spiritual experience. Such a book can save an individual a lifetime of hit-and-miss searching. Paperback only, $6.00.
"The music from this carillon is like none you have ever heard because the player at the keyboard is a genius of the human spirit. If you listen closely, and more than once, the seeming dissonance will resolve into a rich harmony of the mind." - L. K. Paperback only, $6.00.
A unique, but sensible approach to meditation - a system that advises looking for traumatic instances of the past to bring about an understanding of the Self. It answers the same questions asked by sages such as Ramana Maharshi and Gurdjieff, not to mention the same questions asked by all honest psychologists. (booklet) $2.00.
This is a Paper whose title speaks for its substance. It was originally written only for those who found a direction in his lectures and books, and who had consequently decided to devote more time to spiritual goals. (Currently available in original first edition, 8 x 11 paperback only - less than fifty copies left.) $6.00.
The TAT Book Service takes pride in presenting this classic work on "the science of finite and infinite life." This book is more than it appears to be. It is one of the great books of all time, dedicated to Truth rather than popularity. $6.00 PB.
The best instructions to be found on how to hypnotize; this book also contains a complete theory of the power of thought and psychosomatic healing. A rare classic that really teaches hypnosis and explains the happening of the hypnotic state. $6.00 PB.
Prices on all of the above titles will go up one dollar [with the exception of Meditation and Visualization] on January 1, 1987 due to rapidly increasing manufacturing costs.
Neely himself writes about his book, "This book arose in me as the result of the terrible differences that have come between the sexes in recent years. These differences have been tearing our families, our very social fabric apart. It is therefore quintessentially a book about healing and the inevitable, the forgotten antidote of love." There can be no better comment about the value of this book. Hardback only, $12.00.
This book is valuable for the exhaustive research which the author has done in bringing to us an enormous amount of data that establishes for mankind a fair claim that there is evidence that there may be other entities in our environment which may be influencing our peace of mind if not our sanity. Oesterreich would like to have us keep in mind that there are other explanations for these happenings (possessions). He fails to note that the eminent scientist William Crookes actually photographed the entity "Katie King." Oesterreich realizes that the acceptance of entities as being real, contributes greatly to the hope for proof of an after-death life. Hardback only, $12.50.
Important books which we recommend, but which are of limited quantity:
The author gives a concise view of reality, and of man's projection of a possibly unreal world. The first author to elaborate on the Absolute. $2.00 PB.
Man's history is a space-time event. $2.50 PB.
This sixteenth century Spanish mystic is among the most widely read and quoted writers in the field of Christian spirituality, and is viewed as a link between Eastern and Western thought. $14.95 HB. 774 pp.
The miracle of the mind - Prostaglandins and its predominance in men. This paper demonstrates the method of conserving this vital neurotransmitter-effector. $1.50 paper.
These volumes were the author's first major literary effort including such topics as Comparative Buddhism and Christianity, Kabala, Psychic Phenomena, Cycles in Nature, Ancient Mysteries. Her writings have been esotericists' handbooks for over 100 years. $20.00 PB (2 vol. set).
The aim of this masterwork is to present a balanced view of the occult side of Nature in its relation to the Science of modern civilization and "to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe." Considered the most comprehensive sourcebook of authentic theosophy today. $20.00 PB (2 vol. set).
A thorough review of mind traps and trappers. Some of the trappers are famous people. $10.00 HB.
The TAT Book Service catalog contains one of the finest selections of new and used esoteric books, as well as complete listings of books on astrology, the occult, psychology, phenomena, eastern philosophy, etc. Catalogs may be obtained by sending $1.00 to TAT BOOK SERVICE, ________. If you wish, your name will be placed on our catalog mailing list. An order form is provided on page 73 which provides information on postage and discounts.
© 1986 TAT Foundation. All rights reserved.
