Fire-Walking and Faith
October 15, 1951
For Huna Research Associates
Covering the experimental approach to the use of Huna in HUNA
and related religious and psychological fields.
From Max Freedom Long
P.O. Box 2867, Hollywood Station, Los Angeles 28, California, U.S.
THE QUARTERLY HRA REPORT
The quarterly report to the dozen or so HRAs needs to cover the findings of HRA Verne Cameron and their significance. All through the quarter, new information has been presented by way of the Bulletin. ROUND ROBIN and BSRA have carried additional accounts and Editor-Director, N. Meade Layne, (MA, FHF and HRA) has added the considerable weight of his opinion to the probable validity and great importance of the series of tests and measurements. With an instrument which I have called a horizontal-swing pendulum and which has also been called a water compass because it was invented to use in locating sites for wells, HRA Verne Cameron of Elsinore, California has been able to measure the radiations which come from objects, people, thought-forms and signatures – to mention only a part of the objects.
IN ADDITION, the QUARTER has seen a steady flow of new ideas throwing more light on Huna. (Any HRA interested in the details can be supplied with back Bulletins if interest and time for reading allows.)
WHAT PRICE FIRE-WALKING, MEASURING AKAS, ETC?
Charles W. Kenn, HRA and FHF, our good friend who is rapidly becoming the recognized authority on the Hawaii of yesterday, and who gave us the book reporting on the Honolulu fire-walking tests some months ago, questions the experimental work of the summer. He writes, as of October 3rd, from Honolulu, “Your last Bulletin was interesting. But I still believe that it is not important that we find some logical reason to explain why things happen as they do in Huna. The very fact that they do happen is all that is necessary to know. The Polynesians tell the story of Maui, culture hero, who succeeded in accomplishing six deeds for the benefit of man, but with the seventh, in trying to find the secret of indefinite earthly life, he perished. This gives us a deep insight into the ways of thinking of these people, as well as the suggestion that they, too, realized that it is folly to inquire into the why of spiritual things. The Huna concept of immortality lies in the idea of ancestor worship, hoo`mana kupuna, that a descendant is only a continuation of ancestors, a germ of that spark within him was taken from all ancestors down the line, and the ceremony of oki piko – cutting the umbilical cord of the first born starting a new clan, lahui, is for the purpose of perpetuating that new line indefinitely through descendants in a straight line. The idea of measuring this or that so-called aka body seems rather far-fetched from where I sit. I presume that every man has his own ideas about certain things which appear to govern his actions more than what really is or is not basic Huna philosophy. Remember the story of the boy who took his father’s watch apart to see what made it tick, but found that the ticking had stopped and that he could not get the watch together again? Maui, in search of the secret of immortality (his seventh deed), entered the open mouth of the sleeping monster (moo) and went on into its insides to examine its heart. On his way out, having learned the secret, the moo awakened and closed its jaws, crushing Maui to death.”
THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN…
HRA Kenn is on firm ground when he objects that the measuring of aka bodies of men and thoughts are not a part of basic Huna. In self-defense, I must make my position clear. Years ago, when I was trying to learn what na kahuna of many kinds and classes knew or had known, believed or had believed, and did or had done, I found myself up to the ears in the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle – mighty few of whose parts matched. While I learned after a fashion what rites were observed and what things were attempted and what were accomplished, I was not at all satisfied. I wanted to know WHY. I still want to know WHY. I am made that way. And, by the same token, I affirm that UNTIL one knows the hows and whys of any action of body or mind or energy, one is working more or less in the dark.
That was where I came in. I’m irresistibly urged to go on down and have a look at the heart to see what makes it tick – to get at the Secret. When and if I come up with that Secret, and if the jaws close on me, I will at least have followed the paths dictated by my particular cast of mind. I am not content at all to know the exact ritual and precise facts of the rite of cutting the umbilical cord of the first born. I want to know how those ancestors of ours got to be Aumakuas and WHY they should be worshiped. At this point in my long search – after thirty years – I still have not learned exactly how I should construct a thought-form cluster to make my prayer, or exactly how to generate and use the mana, which I am convinced that na kahuna used. If an instrument, be it a pendulum, a Biometer or HRA Cameron’s invention, will measure the size and shape of a thought-form cluster I make, and tell me how long it endures or where it goes or how to make it radiate more strongly – even if that isn’t basic Huna – I’m all for it. After all these years of sniffing around in the facts, beliefs and all-pervading superstitions of other men – most of whom have been dead for a very long time – I now want a few simple things which will WORK.
I know that this seems very much like the seventh deed of Maui, and I admit that some of the matters touched upon in our HRA studies are indeed far-fetched in their relation to what we accept as “basic Hunan – the Huna of almost no “whys” at all … nevertheless …
“I DO BELIEVE … HELP THOU MY UNBELIEF”
This quotation from Mark 9:24 describes the state of mental confusion of most of us. We accept some set of rites and beliefs, affirm our complete faith in their verity and in the fact that if we believe completely, we can get our prayers answered. But, even as the hopeful but fearful father in the New Testament story, we affirm and beg for help to confirm our belief – all in the same breath.
CHILDHOOD FAITH AND BELIEF IN DOCTRINES
Faith has been derived for most of us from early Church training, teaching, contacts and personal observation and experience. As children, we have been encouraged to believe and to pray. Most of us learned very early in life that our prayers were seldom answered. We may have felt a great sadness because of this – or because we observed the prayers of our elders go unanswered. In any event, our forming minds received deep impressions of doubt which lasted down the years.
What renews and strengthens our greatly weakened belief?
Evidence? Is “seeing believing?” Yes to both, provided there has not been an emotional reaction in childhood or later to the lack of answers to our most earnest prayers – a response amounting to an emotional storm which left in its wake a series of fixed hurts and doubts, to say nothing of almost inevitable resentments. To get rid of these fixations or to hurdle them, requires far more than a single convincing piece of evidence showing that God is in His heaven and that He or His angels hear and answer prayer. Where a strong set of fixations exist, no amount of pounding with evidence will cause the slightest change. Ancient Huna and modern Psychology teach us this. Then how to ” … help thou my unbelief?” Will some Savior do it for us? Improbable at this late date. The only way we know to get rid of fixations is (1) to find them, and (2) to rationalize their cause and thus drain them off.
For a number of years I have advocated this method of approach…
I still advocate it. I am still busy using it myself. I have gone back into my early days to search for the origin of my personal fixed doubts. When I find such a source, it always is accompanied by the damning rationalization and complete and irrefutable proof that I first prayed, and that, as a result, secondly, I got no resultant answer. The instant I touch such a sore spot – unhealed for all the years – I am slapped in the face and across the heart by that old logic which is the blind behind which the emotional content of the fixation lurks. That is why, some years ago, I saw that, at least in the majority of cases, it was necessary to make a fresh start, to find the best possible set of beliefs, to accept them logically and emotionally, and to begin the slow work of rebuilding the crushed belief in a Higher Power, and faith in the possibility of an answer to prayer.
Armor against fresh frustration and the danger of awakening and strengthening the old fixed doubts lies, at least for me, in having in hand and ready for use at all times, a LOGICAL EXCUSE OR REASON by which to explain to myself WHY I made a prayer-action and WHY I got no results. Huna has been a godsend to me. It tells me (1) what I have to do, and do correctly, to make a successful prayer-action. It tells me the conditions that will or will not permit the proper action on my part – the limitations under which I must be willing to work. I must not hurt another. I must not have a guilt sense to prevent the Aunihipili from making the contact with the Aumakua and sending the mana, the carefully readied thought-structure of the condition desired, etc. (2) I must keep doubts from entering in as I make my picture of the desired conditions lest the structure contain the things I desire to avoid. I must water my prayer-plant in the Aumakua garden each day with the water of mana. I must not change my picture – pull up my plant to see if it is taking root. I must hold the faith unfalteringly, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, and, if the game is worth the candle, year by year. (3) I must make certain that I do not mention my prayer-action and the follow-up to someone who will curse the entire project with a sneer of scorn or word of doubt. This is to be avoided at all costs. Mental attitudes rub off of one of us on to another like soot and black contagion. The slightest whisper of doubt will hit us with trip hammer force, as powerful suggestion because old doubt fixations are so easy to revive. The need to “go into your closet to pray” is a very great need indeed. Nothing is so fragile as the thought-picture of the prayer, so easily shattered – or so brilliant with the light of Faith and that Love whose overshadowing we must come to know as Real beyond reality.
To the simple mind of an islander, a kahuna of yesterday, there was, I grant you, less need for the elaborate rationalization and complete understanding which are an utter necessity for me. He had not been treated to such large doses of a religion which had retained outer form but had lost its workable knowledge of both low and high magic. Perhaps, as a child, he had seen the prayer-actions made, the rituals gone through, careful step by careful step, and had seen the gods respond and the fire-walk made possible. Contrast such a proof – such a powerful physical stimulus – with the vague or even contradictory answers to prayer in Christian circles. Even a simple belief must be based on something, but a belief complexed by fixations resulting from repeated failures in demonstration cannot be rebuilt except on new and massive foundations of proof and repeated proof. I would that each of us could perform the rites and be given the proofs of fire-immunity before every major effort of prayer.
Lacking an ever-ready fire-walk for proof, to help my unbelief, I grasp at all straws.
My need is immediate, not a matter of tomorrow or something to talk to death or fritter away in speculation. I sit twice, or more often at times, each day in the TMHG ritual, and I have the burden on my heart and the uplift under my spirit, of the needs of those who work with me. Some of my friends are ill; a few are blind. Many are in trouble of one kind or another. Anything that will bolster up my faith and help my unbelief is priceless. If Verne Cameron can let me make a thought-picture of a vase on a shelf, then find it with his gadget and measure its size and outline its shape, tell me how long it remains there as a real structure, that helps me to know that Huna is right – my accepted belief – and that I can and do make forms by thinking, actual and substantial forms, even if of matter too fine to be seen by the eyes or felt by the hands. The same can be said of every bit [of] corroborative proof that there are thought-form-structures, that things do radiate a form of energy, that there is mana, that invisible cords do connect people, things and man with his Aumakua. Heaven knows that I have one answer to prayer after another and that hardly a day passes without the arrival of letters telling me that my HRA friends are getting definite answers to their prayers and to their TMHG prayers in which we work together as a “congregation” through telepathic aka thread contact. These proofs would be far more than sufficient for a simple and unhampered mind which remained a stranger to the doubt fixations I have known, but for me, such proofs need to be renewed as the offices on the altar – daily, yes, almost hourly. No, not basic Huna – but for me, basic necessity.
“I’ve known of the ‘WINGS’ for a good few years,” writes HRA Dorothea Frood of Ojai, California who has used her brand of metaphysical healing for years with much success – as is attested by the many letters of thanks in her possession. To her, the “wings” found by HRA Verne Cameron are not far-fetched. Nor, if I remember rightly, are they to a number of French students who have described clairvoyant sight of them. The etheric figures over the head of a living person have also been described by the French, one writer giving in his book several photographic reproductions of those or similar figures.
Ectoplasmic “rods” of many sizes and either visible or invisible, have been found by many investigators in the field of Psychic Science. These rods have been described as moving or flowing. Dr. Crawford was made famous in SPR circles for his findings in this respect. The rods or “rays” found by Mr. Cameron to extend from people, upward through the center hole in the over-the-head “doughnut” aka-aura-halo, may well be of aka or ectoplasm charged with mana, and the mana in movement, the thick tubes of similar nature which were found to extend from blessed objects – artificial ikons – and to lie in horizontal planes or later turn and go straight upward. A hot iron gives off “rays” which provide a similar energy tube extending straight out from a flat surface, as that of the bottom of a laundry iron. [One of these] “rays” was traced to the point where it fell on a plastered wall, and the spot traced with pencil to make a circle. Going to the other side of the wall, V.C. picked up the same ray, and traced the spot on that side of the wall where it emerged and went on its direct way. Later it was found by line measurements that both of the traced spots on the opposite sides of the wall were one exactly over the other. It is evident that there is a form of energy radiation still unknown to standard physics – the “dielectric” of Dr. Brunler’s hypothesis, perhaps. Eeman, in London, found a similar force in the human body and proved conclusively that it could be conducted either on copper wires or silk cords. HRA Dr. Westlake, also of England ,verified the tests.
THE RADIATIONS of the aka-aura-mana structures have been found by Mr. Cameron to come from objects in a variety of ray forms or shapes such as cones, cylinders, fans and the like as well as condensing at one or two points and giving off the typical cord which we can suppose connects the object with the ones who have made it into a form of ikon and who have a connection of aka cord established with it and perhaps with their Aumakua. (Often the cord goes straight upward as far as can be reached to trace its path.)
HRA Sherman G. Peticolas, P.E., profound student gifted with psychic ability, has been running tests for us in the matter of creating an ikon out of an oil painting or the radiations from his brain as seen by a psychic who is also an artist. The picture hangs on his wall and he has been laying on his hands, blessing and otherwise building it into a transformer center of the mana which flows from the Aunihipili to the Aumakuas and return. From day to day, he tested the strength of the radiations from the picture, using the ZNO pendulum instrument made by HRA George Wallace (described not long ago in a Bulletin). He held the ZNO perpendicular and found that it was decidedly drawn toward the painting, swinging back and forth in its direction as long as it was in the range of the radiation aura. This aura increased in size and strength steadily from day to day. In a letter dated October 2nd, he reports that the aura has assumed an ovoid shape extending 150 feet in one direction and 90 feet in the other. As nearly as can be learned, the aura extends upward and downward in much the same way. It follows that thoughts are things and that mana is a thing. To act as a medium of a kind needed to contain both, aka substance or the invisible ectoplasm of Psychic Science is a necessary postulate.
“VITIC” energy, the theory of which is known to all old readers of ROUND ROBIN articles on the strange effect of holding a carbon stick in one hand and a strong magnet in the other, has also been subject to HRA Peticolas’ recent studies and experiments. He writes, as of October 4th, “With an Arnica Permanent Magnet in the left hand and a carbon rod in the right hand, I sat in a chair for an hour tonight in subdued light. I was able to see, clairvoyantly, streams or beams of what appeared as light or flames emanating from each finger of each hand. The streams were a little larger than the finger in diameter, and streamed up to the ceiling of my room. The color was brownish. The effect for me was beneficial, seeming to add to my strength and well-being. No nervousness (such as follow the experiment when made by the young son of Mr. Cameron). I did not need the ZNO to measure the streams of life and light as they were plainly visible. I was in a normal condition, no trance or subjective condition. The Vitic had a very beneficial and pleasing effect on my eyes, seeming to cool them. I shall continue the treatment as it makes me feel so well. I report this for what it may be worth.”
Comment: This report and the experiment is worth a great deal. If you will turn to page 127 of your Fodor ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE, under the heading “Emanations” you will see that two meters was given by Ochorowitz as the length of extension of the “rays” given off from the fingers of Stanislawa Tomczyk, powerful psychic, without the use of carbon or magnet. This may be taken as the limit under normal conditions. With the use of carbon rod and magnet, the rays reached the ceiling, showing at least a third or more increase in length. The color observed may also be peculiar to Vitic. Maxwell, (see page 126 of Dr. Fodor’s article), found that the emanation from moving and opposed finger tips, observed in darkness with success by over 300 people, appeared 9 out of ten times to be gray with red, yellow and blue seen but rarely. (Correction: the observations were made in daylight but against a background of black velvet.)
HRA Lewis C. Cornell of Poland Ind., R.R. 1, backs up the contention that thoughts do “rub off” on others. He writes as of October 3rd: “How is this for a case of instantaneous healing? The case was one of tonsillitis. An old woman whom I had relieved of arthritis about a year ago was standing by and gave a testimonial as to my having relieved her, and her talk acted better than any suggestion I could have made. I worked about five minutes, and in three hours the tonsillitis was gone. This experience indicates to me that if the healer is surrounded by actual believers, instantaneous healing is possible. It also indicates that the subconscious mind reaches out and picks up the thoughts of others and acts on them. It also proves that the conscious thoughts are THINGS whether voiced or not. Hence the belief and unbelief that we have to contend with in healing. A healer cannot relieve pain or effect a healing without the belief of the patient.”
How large can the aka cord or a radiation “ray” become?
HRA Cameron writes: (Of a visit to one time Catholic friends) “They brought out some things to be tested. One was a green scapular, worn to guard and to give protection and power, also to heal. Over it I found a great cone of force extending on about a 30 degree angle from it and flaring toward the ceiling. I then tested a rosary which P’s mother had used much of her life. It had a monster cylinder extending upward from it to the ceiling (perhaps much farther) and it measured a full 18 feet in diameter. Another rosary used for probably 50 years, was placed on the table. A vertical cylinder, starting from a hollow cone with its edges resting on the floor and its peak touching the rosary, extended straight up to the ceiling, possibly to Heaven, for all I know, and it was 26 feet across!”
Comment: Braided cord of aka threads reaching to the many Angels? To saints prayed to? To Jesus, Mary and God? To the Po`e Aumakua?
POSTSCRIPT ON “VITIC”
Since cutting the stencil on the “Vitic” experiment of HRA Feticolas, a card has come telling of still later findings. “Further experiments in subdued electric light with rod of carbon and magnet, hands outlined in yellow light which glowed, each individual finger sending out light and flame streamers of every color of the spectrum. Strong smell of ozone during the experiments. Strong stimulation of entire nervous system, believed to have healing and curative value. No nervousness resulting. I am sending Cigbo a finger light fire flame FUR to make his hair stand up. Me’oow! S.G.P.”
Comment: The smell of ozone is something often reported from the seance room when materialization or other physical phenomena appear or ectoplasm is being produced. It might, in this case, indicate a high tension mana or even electromagnetic energy being generated, discharged or set in motion. With the increase in the matter of light and color, it seems probable that either “George” learns by degrees to handle Vitic, or that the results of its use are something which build up in some way from day to day.
PHOTOGRAPHING THOUGHTS AND SCENES CONNECTED WITH THE PAST
This has been reported in England by George de la Warr, a civil engineer who has been working with five other Oxford researchers on wave-like emanations from the human organism. In the August issue of THE HARBINGER OF LIGHT (HRA Rev. J.T. Huston, N.D., editor, $1.75 a year to USA, Box 64 A G.P.O. Adelaide, South Australia) there is an article on the subject from PREDICTION. I quote in part: “To photograph a scene in the past it was necessary to have measured the exact wave-length of the person concerned. This precludes for the present the possibility of photographing people who have died before the method of measuring their wave-lengths, which remain constant throughout life, was discovered. Mr. de la Warr last year projected on a screen, for the distinguished members of the Psychosomatic Research Association, who include a number of experts in radar, a photograph of his own wedding, which took place in 1928. The experts agreed that the plate on which it was taken was of a type known in that year, and that the photo could not possibly have been a copy of an earlier one. Mr. de la Warr further claims that it will be possible for his apparatus to photograph thoughts, and he is collaborating with Dr. Arnold Taylor, President of the Association, in this research.”
Comment: About fifty years ago Dr. Baraduc, in France, made the first tentative photographs of thoughts or images formed by the energy of thinking. At that time – and this seems still to hold true – there a psychic ingredient needed in all such photographic work. Dr. Ruth Drown, here in Hollywood, is another maker of “radionic” type instruments used for diagnosis and treatment in something after the Abrams method. Recently she showed me a box very like a small suitcase, in which was a simple radionics power tube which was lighted up for a few seconds and then shut off. This is supposed to supply energy which remains in the box for use. A drop
of blood, to make the connection with the patient is placed on a blotter and a photographic film in a holder is introduced into the side of the box. After a time, the film is developed, and on it may appear images closely resembling x-ray pictures of the organs of the person whose blood was used for the contact (aka thread?).
It would seem that the operator must in some way control, with his or her thoughts, the selection of the scene or part or organ to be photographed in such ways. The nature of the radiations given off by the body, mind, blood or even a signature, is yet to be agreed upon by those who know most about it. When we remember that images have formed in gazing crystals and have been successfully seen by several people at the same time, also have been photographed, it is not too much out of the way to guess that with mechanical help in the form of radionics instead of the crystal ball – but with the psychic ingredient present, as of prime importance – similar scenes can be photographed by a direct contact with the plate and not via the image-lens route of ordinary photography. I suspect “George” of being a very good hand at recalling past scenes or at looking into an organ, then making a proper aka thought-picture of what is seen or remembered – so that the plate may be impressed with whatever form of energy is being used. What is your guess, if any?
LATE NEWS OF GREGG
Last week he made the most lucid replies to questions up to this time. He is slowly and steadily improving. That he is psychic, and that this may have been the cause of his trouble in the first place, is admitted. I have before me a letter from his mother in which she tells me that a close neighbor had a new piano and had been running scales during the time the food to be taken to Gregg was being assembled. When she arrived at the institution many miles away, and met Gregg, almost the first thing he said was, “Running scales….” As he had no way of knowing about the piano, telepathy must be the answer. HRA, his mother, asks me to extend her warmest thanks again to all who are working for Gregg through the TMHG and by direct telepathic treatment. Gregg, on his part should be able to pick up telepathically all thoughts of healing sent in his direction.
Aumakuas are very kind. Sometimes I wonder if they can be kinder, more faithful and more loving than earth mothers – they are supposed to be all of that and more. Utterly trustworthy. No wonder it is difficult for a cramped, selfish, tight little Aunihipili-Auhane man on this level to open himself to the splendor of such a concept – such Light and such Radiance of Love. The road ahead seems almost too long and hard in such blinding light and when we consider how short a way we have come by now, however, each day we can take one little step ahead – and try not to slip back two – by Serving a little more, loving a little more unselfishly, by being more honest and trustworthy in our inner thoughts and outer actions. If the path seems long and hard, we have but to open the door to that Help that is always there for us if we but ask for it and remain willing to accept it, even if the terms are such that at the same time we must give up having things done for us in some certain way. I have found Aumakuas so much wiser and far-seeing than I am. The step from the brink of disaster into a seeming void, has always turned out to be a step away from danger into safety. “I shall fear no evil.”
“THE FUTURE OF AMERICA”
HRA Irys Vorel of New York, (who invented the predictive card and chart set based on the Tarot and astrology mentioned some months ago in the Bulletin) has an article in CURRENT ASTROLOGY issue for October-November, assembling indications from the stars and elsewhere, to show what the immediate future of America and the world may hold. The period covered is until 1955. Whether her conclusions are right or wrong or partly both, remains to be seen, but to me it is the best article of its kind to come to my attention for years. Another article, this one in AMERICAN ASTROLOGY, was called to my attention. It argues that an atom bomb blasted the Tower of Babel.(!)
MFL
