Have You Toiled Enough for Your Answered Prayers?

August 15, 1949

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.

FIRE-WALKING FROM THE INSIDE

FIRE-WALKING FROM THE INSIDE by Arii-Peu Tama-Iti (our own HRA Charles W. Kenn) came through with flying colors, thanks to the fine rush of last minute response for advance payment for previous orders, and your copy, if you sent in for one, should now be in your hands. Extra copies are available at the price of $1.10 post paid, ($1.13 in California. In fact the 3-1/2% tax has been paid through our HRA printer on the edition because delivery was taken in Los Angeles), The stiff backs will cost about 65¢ additional, and will be announced later for those wishing to give copies to libraries.

We can well be proud of this first printed publication under HRA auspices.

It is beautifully printed and its illustrations tell their story well. The subject matter is of outstanding importance. Mr. Kenn is indeed to be congratulated on his splendid work and on his fearlessness in presenting his findings without thought of the reactionary scientists who always look down their noses at the slightest hint of opinions which they have not advanced.

THE ROUND ROBIN issue of August (No. 5 of Vol. V) was released at the same time that the fire-walking booklets went into the mail, and it carries a long article from my pen on the significance of the entire matter of fire-immunity and temperature control, all the way from fire-walking to the cold winds that sometimes blow in the seance rooms when physical phenomena are being produced. With the booklet and the two copies of ROUND ROBIN (No. 4 and No. 5, of Vol V), one will have all that is of general importance in this part of the field. These copies of RR may be ordered at 50¢ each if you do not have them already. And, by the way, the August RR is delightful reading for all who are interested in our lines of thought. There are two pages of latest news on the “flying saucers,” and a fine assortment of articles, comments and notes. (Address: 3524 Adams Ave., San Diego 4, Calif.)

CIGBO, HRA kitty, has put on his small specs and totted up his figures on the fire-walking booklet business – this being his project.

He reports that $259.61 was sent in to pay for booklets. $299.50 was spent, and some extras are to be given him when the printer has time. Cigbo, with the generous help of some of his HRA friends, was able to play banker and advance the difference from his cigar box. He did this on promise of having the advance loan returned with a pound of flesh as interest – and sincerely hopes that it is a one pound tin of salmon. (He might compromise on a can of sardines, or, at worst, a bit of catnip. He also reminds us that the stamps to mail the booklets were lifted from his box, and that HIS envelopes were used. Also that he furnished a lot of penny post cards some time ago for the orders to be sent in on. These he is willing to forgive us, but ONLY if the can of salmon is eventually forthcoming.) HRA Charles W. Kenn, has been sent 21 copies of the booklet in lieu of author’s royalty for the present. (An airmail letter has just come back after the first copy was received by him by air. He was delighted with Cigbo’s effort as edition-producer and sub-editor.)

CIGBO FURTHER REPORTS on 1/4 HRAs: Several of our busy HRAs have found that too many things were on the experimental schedule for their limited time, and have decided that the Quarterly Report on what was being done would suit their needs best. Also, on the latest application blank which is sent to prospective members, there is a mention of the Quarterly Report for those who wish mainly to keep in touch and see what happens in our Huna exploration. Many, however, (to Cigbo’s dismay) check[ed] off all the items on the list and, in addition, the HRA membership. To make Cigbo still more behind the “eight ball,” a number of his Aunties and Uncles have written to say they want the Quarterly Reports in case they might miss a single small but important word concerning our efforts to beat the atom bombs around the clock and win back the ancient True Light of Huna.

Considering this dilemma and the fact that it seems to be a very good idea to pause for a few pages of review of our work once in each three months, the Quarterly will be incorporated in a regular bulletin when it is time for it to appear.

A SUGGESTION ABOUT THE BULLETINS has just been made. It is that we go back to the once-a-month bulletin schedule as before and give more time to personal correspondence, also give more time for the study of the bulletin materials. I would appreciate having some opinions and comments on this point. One advantage of fewer bulletins would be that Cigbo would have to scratch less furiously to dig up the extra stamps and envelopes, paper, stencils and ink. The disadvantage would be that interest would lag with such long spaces between bulletins. As to the letters, they get answered after a fashion and without too long a delay.

THE HRA WITH THE CLOCK 3 MINUTES FAST has not definitely been identified, but three found clocks fast and we will run tests to see what can be learned. The odd thing is that since the mention of the extra tingle of mana in the last bulletin, the indication has ceased, and only the regular and expected tingles and “cobweb” feeling on the face comes on the hour when Telepathic Mutual Healing Group work begins.

MY VACATION plan mentioned in the last bulletin did not materialize. Too many letters to answer and the whole matter of the fire-walking booklet, with proofs and final sending out to take the time. But I still have hopes, and so has Cigbo, who says he wants badly to go to the mountains and catch a desert rat, a pack rat and a kangaroo rat. He also is very anxious to find a pine tree with cones on it, and see if a pine cone is as good to eat as the kind of cones they have up at the corner drug store. And if they are free for the picking, Cigbo plans to have a “simply wunnerful time,” (as he has by now written to some of you when saying his thanks for help with his box).

THOSE WHO DISLIKE CIGBO are asked to bear with me in the matter. I feel that a touch of fun is needed in the serious work we are doing. The majority of the HRAs find the pretense amusing, and the study rocks with laughter almost daily as the cleverest kinds of notes written to Cigbo come in. Notes also arrive from the kitties and dogs of HRAs. Sometime I think I must make up a collection of these notes and put them into a special bulletin. The children of several HRAs have come to consider Cigbo almost as real as the Cow that Jumped Over the Moon. (Amazing how youngsters pick up telepathy and work the boxes successfully almost on the first try. Worth developing.)

THE ASSIGNMENT FOR EXPERIMENTAL WORK with the pendulum, given in the last bulletin, was to try the pendulum as a means of asking one’s Aunihipili about what it might have hidden in its mind, not mentioning the word “complex,” but really searching for evidences of small and not too deeply hidden guilt or other hindering complexes.

Only one report has come in so far on the experiment, and this is that nothing very definite has been found, but that the experiment convinces this HRA that there are some guilts hidden and that they are not easy to get out into the open.

The Aunihipili is usually ashamed of these things or, when they are not shared by the Auhane, the Aunihipili may become secretive and refuse to let the Auhane know what they are. (Let’s get used to the words as used by the Hawaiian kahunas. Once we do, we will avoid any difficulties derived from associative words such as “low.”) [Hopefully, we’ve already gotten used to the Hawaiian words as we’ve been using them since Bulletin #1 even though MFL did not.]

A most interesting experiment along the line of getting really on open and free working terms with our Aunihipilis would be to use the pendulum to get a report on what our Aunihipili might discover if it could be coaxed to try to hold telepathic conversations with animals. A dog or cat would be useful in this experiment.

Not long ago there appeared magazine articles telling of the ability of a boy to talk to horses. He seemed to be able to converse with them and learn what they thought of the outcome of the races of the day. In another article I recall the many amusing thoughts read in answer to silent questions directed to zoo animals. Some would talk; some would not. The operator knew what was fretting the tiger, how the ape felt, what the elephant was turning over in his mind. The larger animals, he found, thought much more slowly than the smaller ones.

H.R.A. William G. Bullock, who is doing splendid experimental work and who lives in California, reported recently that he could instruct his Aunihipili to call his dog to him, and that it could and did do so with certainty and ease. More about his experimental later.

A seagoing friend demonstrated a similar use of his Aunihipili to the early experimental groups formed in Los Angeles a few years ago. He would ask his Aunihipili to talk with that of another person, and to tell him what it said. He had found that this seemed rather simple and was convinced that the conversation actually took place.

He sat down beside me and held converse with my Aunihipili, asking among other things, what it thought of the progress of the Huna experimental work and my personal efforts with the group. The reply was surprisingly accurate as a prediction, and seems to show that his Aunihipili had been in touch with the future via the Aumakua and so knew the outcome.

The reply handed on to me was to the effect that the work then being done would come to little and the group work stop, but that in about six months a new start on a new angle would be made, and that good progress would be made from that time on. As it turned out, the groups broke up in about six months. But it was over a year after that before progress once more was begun with the writing of SSBM and its publication – followed by our organization of HRA work.

HRA William G. Bullock is an old hand with the pendulum, having used it in searching for minerals and for various other purposes. He is at present working on a special pendulum to hang from a tripod and move in an artificial magnetic field. (He will report later on the outcome of this venture.)

He has, like so many of us, taken numerous “courses” and has read many books on the materials of the psycho-religious field. For this reason Huna was right down his alley and he set to work with a will to begin his tests. I have before me a series of letters from him which tell a progressive story of one particular line of experimentation aimed at making contact with the Aumakua and learning to work with it.

First came what seemed to be an unusually vivid dream. In it he saw a beautiful blond woman and a dark man who stood less than average height. The dream repeated and he became impressed that he was being shown the physical bodies used by his Aumakua pair when on this level of life and before graduating to the Aumakua stage.

A letter came recently which will tell the outcome better than I could, and which will also give information as to other parts of his program. I quote:

“Yes, again I must say that I am certain that I was shown my Aumakua. The progress in this line has gradually changed. At first I seemed to see as through an arch. Then I would be through it and on a path. Now the path itself has disappeared and there is a stream of pure white light that strikes me in midsection. This last change came to me a few evenings ago while reading SSBM, the part about the elevator man. First came a light-headed feeling, then a terrific tingling all over my body. If anyone could have seen me, I surely would have been shaking all over visibly.

“You asked about the nature of my procedure on the successful wind and rain tests I have been making. It is very simple. I talk to my George as to a brother and ask him to contact the spirits in charge of the wind and weather. Recently I asked him to ask to have a nice cool breeze blow next day. In the morning I reminded him of my request, and by 9:00 A.M. a nice cool breeze was blowing. The rain request was made in the same manner but four days in advance. I always ask George to send vital force with any request being made. The rains, so far, have come right on time.

“To put it mildly I am very happy to have had these tests fulfilled. It gives me greater confidence and encourages me to try all the harder to do greater things. My present training is an hourly period for George to send vital force to my Aumakua to help make a stronger and more certain contact. Our breeze is blowing every day and makes our weather very pleasant. I will keep you posted on my progress.”

(In an earlier letter) “Daily I am putting George to doing something for me. I’ve started him on very small things, and as time goes on, his job will be to do greater things. A sample of a simple thing is that he will fetch my dog at any time I desire.”

It will be remembered that in SSBM, in the case of the girl who changed personality every four years, there was what seemed to be an Aumakua speaking through her in the guise of a wise old man. It is of greatest interest and importance, therefore, to see in our work the appearance in vision, dream or symbol anything that may indicate an Aumakua making itself known to us. We need to cultivate these experiences and make the best of them when they come.

HRA E.M. wrote of an experience along this line. It is much to the point and shows how we may be shown things to our advantage. I quote:

“About eight years ago I was ill, and being a student of Unity, I thought each week I surely would be better. After six weeks when I was no better, in desperation I said to God, ‘I read in the book this statement: We in our ignorance of God become sick. If I could understand my relationship to You, I would be healed.’

“Two minutes later, about six feet from me on the rug appeared a rose bush about a foot high. I knew that it was a symbol, but that was all. Then the rose bush started to grow right before my eyes. A long branch came out of it and instantly leaves appeared. More branches and more leaves until the bush was three feet high. On top there opened a gorgeous pink rose.

“Of course, I was speechless. Finally I said to God, ‘What does this symbol mean?’ God replied, ‘I am the bush; you are the rose. I give life to the rose, beauty to the rose, color and fragrance to the rose. You and I are one, not two.’

“At first I did not comprehend, then it dawned on me that the rose is attached to the bush, so was one with it. Instantly health began to pour in at my feet and up into my body until it reached the crown of my head. I was healed, and in about sixty seconds – the same time that it took the rose bush to grow.

“Now there is one thing that puzzles me. Why can we not always touch that ‘Something’? We do at times, and then again we cannot.”

A recent letter from an HRA in one of the California deserts, reports the fact that sometimes the contact with the Aumakua is made easily and quickly and the mana surcharge is strong and ready at hand to share.

But, for no reason that can be understood, there are days when the effort results in a flat failure on both counts.

This takes us back to the Huna explanation – which seems to be the only one that will hold water at this time – that mana has to be collected by the Aunihipili and contact with the Aumakua made through this same agency. When we understand that the Aunihipili may, for reasons not sensed by the Auhane, refuse to respond to our requests, we have at least an explanation which is broad enough and logical enough to give us the general answer. The details of the answer lie in the part played by fixations, and perhaps in the simple fact that the Aunihipili has a mind and will of its own and at certain times just does not feel like obeying orders. There is also the faint possibility that the Aumakua may have times when it is engaged and not on call except in grave emergencies – which it would have foreseen, etc., etc. Perhaps pendulum questions asked of and through the Aunihipili may help us to better understanding.

PARTS OF A LETTER TO AN HRA

Dear HRA and friend H. McG,

You are, as I see it, caught in the usual tangle of modern metaphysical “teachings.” I have been through this same tangle, and am still striving to get out of the jungle into a clearing where the sunshine of common sense can reach me.

I agree that it sounds logical to say that God has everything, and that He can, therefore give us anything – without reserve. But, long ago I took a look behind this statement and found that it was based on conjecture and not on what we observe about us in life.

You are discouraged because you have been working on your map for two months and nothing has materialized – no fine house with servants, none of the cars, gardens, yachts, love, health, wisdom or joy. Putting aside all the “teachings,” look at the matter in a practical light. You have spent about ten minutes a day for sixty days making your prayer-actions for the desired new conditions. BUT, to give you the house and cars – just to take up one pair of items – demands that many thousands of man-hours of labor on the parts of your fellow men must be spent in providing the materials for the house and cars and in building them. No matter whether the houses and cars were given to you by a rich friend, they still have cost the same expenditure of toil.

Can you pray to your Aumakua and honestly say that you feel that you have toiled enough to balance the account if given what you ask? I fear I could not. Do I have a “poverty complex?” Perhaps, in a way. The point that I wish to make is that we need very straight thinking at this point, not the misleading slogans of the blind leaders of the blind.

Perhaps we need to divide the good things of life into two classes, the goods made with toil and the goods of the spirit which can be given as a free-from-toil gift. Health, joy, harmony, perhaps even love, may fall into the second class. I would say, by all means, ask for these without hesitation.

As for the goods produced by human labor, I would incline to the opinion that one needs to be convinced – as an Aunihipili and Auhane self combined man – that he deserves what he asks. Some may feel so self-important that they convince themselves that they deserve to have a thousand men work a thousand days to serve their need, but these cannot be considered helpful members of any community.

There is always the fact to be pointed out that all around us we see men and women, even children, who have inherited wealth. Take the man who owned a farm under whose acres, oil was found. He passed on the resulting wealth to his children. None of them toiled to get or to merit this good fortune. However, other men toiled endlessly to get the oil from the ground and market it. He became rich through an accident of ownership. It is such things as these accidents of ownership or accidents of birth that bring inheritances that show that no EXACT law of recompense for our efforts is ruling us.

I suggest that you change your map to cover only the health and happiness class of things, and try to settle on some way in which you might get the worldly goods of toil through the “accident” channel – that is, in a way which you can feel is free from the element of “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” you being the “Paul” in this case.

Of one thing we can be fairly sure, and that is that the Aumakuas are not going to act to give you the house and cars if this entails taking them away from others or forcing others to work without reward so that you may benefit. The kahunas believed the Aumakuas to be “Utterly Trustworthy,” and we have no reason to believe that they would be, in any way, less trustworthy than we feel that we must be on our level of living.

It seems to me that we should all strive to strike a happy medium in our maps. Some of the HRAs try to win in contests, and some have done so with surprising success after putting Huna to work. Where a “lucky break” is all that is needed, it seems quite right to ask for one or a series of them. All that seems, on the other hand, to be necessary is that there be no fixed belief in the Aunihipili that it is sinful to take chances. If you bet on the horses, be very certain that you have no anti-gambling fixations.

It may be well to remember the Aunihipili lives in the world where the farmer has to carry water from the stream to water his garden. In terms of the physical alone, that is the “law” – one labor-unit for each bucket of water for the garden. The Auhane functions on the mental level and is represented by the farmer when he builds a water wheel and can then see the greater reward obtained through the use of inductive reason. It is hard to carry this illustration on to include the part played by the farmer’s third self or Aumakua, but we might suppose that the farmer or his wife became ill and asked for healing and got it, or for help in obtaining harmony or happiness – even for help in finding Service and the Joy of Service.

It may sound to you like going all around Robin Hood’s barn, or splitting hairs, but of one thing I am very sure, and that is the utter necessity of being able to convince ourselves – as both Auhane and Aunihipili – that what we ask is justified in every way, shape and form. If there is the taint of doubt the size of the proverbial “mustard seed” of faith, it will be as potent to keep the mountain from being removed as faith is said to be in removing the mountain.

One other thing must be kept carefully in mind in arranging your map, once it is such that you can feel, absolutely, that it is right and just and kind and honorable to work for and to enjoy. This other thing is “dat o’l debil” HABIT OF THOUGHT. The easiest thing in the world is to slip back into a mental rut after we have climbed out of it.

I am thinking of all the hidden things in your Aunihipili that we think we have brought to light and rationalized to the point of complete elimination. Were you taught when young that the ideal thing to do was to “Sell all and give to the poor, then come and follow me?” I was, and I have a grave suspicion that my Aunihipili still mutters in its beard at the thought of bending every effort to getting rich and giving the poor the customary alms – to say nothing of making no slightest sacrifice to try to follow the leadership of the men who called to the bright banner of Selfless Service.

These are my slants on the matter, but think things through and arrive at your own conclusions. We are experimenting in our thinking as well as in our acting. Best aloha much Light, (Signed) MFL

Book Review

FIRE-WALKING FROM THE INSIDE By Charles Kenn ($1.10 post paid to HRAs)

In his illustrated booklet report on the four fire-walking tests conducted in Honolulu in early 1949, Charles W. Kenn tells step-by-step the things done and thought and said to make walking on very hot stones possible – with bare feet, of course. The observances and the ritual prayers are all set down before us for our study and consideration. The dry facts of surface temperatures of the stones are given without comment, as is the fact that out of over five hundred who tried the fire-walk, a dozen were more or less severely burned.

HRA Kenn became an initiate fire-walker. He has told us all that there was to be told – all that he learned, and all that he concluded after his experiences.

The reader is left to arrive at his conclusions in turn.

One cannot but stand a little amazed at the seeming lack of expected elements of “magic” in the ritual steps, the training of the fire-walkers or, especially, the actual wording of the prayers. The prayers have a strange Mother Goose flavor in the repetitions. The “gods” invoked are never clearly seen. The whole matter is veiled and illogical in all points – from the point of view of the reasoning Auhane.

One reads the booklet, looks at the pictures of the men and women of all races and faiths who are walking under some strange protection and one reacts in strange ways. Some decide that there still must be a hitch someplace in the observations. Some become baffled and impatient when confronted by phenomena which they cannot explain in terms of their accepted knowledge of physics or psychology. Some fail to see the significance of the verified facts of fire-immunity – and toss the report aside, saying impatiently “SO WHAT?”

For the few who realize the significance, the answer to the “SO WHAT?” is a real and deep need. A hunger for knowledge is aroused that demands substantial food for mind and its probing logic.

The sober mind begins to turn slowly on the facts. It is plain to see that there is a conscious entity or unit of conscious something that responds to the ritual and invocations. One is shocked into the task of trying to find a new attitude of mind to face this “Something” which we see more and more clearly to be beyond the level of our minds and as difficult to understand as to see or sense in its invisible state of being.

We turn to Huna to ask why the twelve were burned. It was not slow walking or pausing on the stones. Some who walked fastest were badly burned. The answer returns us to the equally invisible and difficult to understand Aunihipili in men. We must conclude that, as the Auhane attempted the fire-walk in confidence, either the Aunihipili had reservations and caused the failure of the strange protection, or the “Something” saw fit to keep protection from those burned.

MFL