Making a God & The Power of Icons

February 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.

CIGBO TAKES A BOW

He sends his very best meow of thanks to all of you who have written to thank him for his “brithday presink” or to express appreciation. And to those who also sent him a gift to celebrate his third “brithday,” he offers in addition his very “estra best purrrrrrs and rubs.”

THE RESPONSE TO THE PICTURES was most satisfactory. Many HRAs could find much additional symbology and meaning in the one of the Chinese Temple, such as “Fire being called down from Heaven,” to match ancient holy writ, and many other things over which I am pondering. A request came for the address of a possible place to get a reproduction of the wistful little stone goddess with the “J” shaped nose – and so far as I know, the chance of getting such a reproduction is indeed small. It is privately owned and there is no telling where it may be at the moment. (If any of the HRAs in Sydney can check at the museum, it might be learned whether or not the image is still on exhibition.) I suppose that one of our talented artist HRAs could, if time allowed, make a fair reproduction from the picture and model it in a clay that could be fired, perhaps in a way to make it look a bit like the original, carved with such care from rough gray stone.

“MAKE A PATRON SAINT of little Kii Pohaku,” suggests one HRA. “I am sure she’d love being recognized and loved by HRAs, and if having her picture in our possession brings good luck, as it well might, we could adopt her as a mascot.”

(If possession of her picture should bring the opposite kind of luck, Cigbo says anxiously from his shelf, his name might soon be mud and he might be consigned to the dog house – which, heaven forbid.)

MAKING A GOD

“Making a God” was part of the profession of some of the many grades of the kahunas in Polynesia a scant two centuries ago. There was a ritual to be followed as the tree was selected and felled, or the stone selected and made ready. The carving progressed with more ritual observances, and, in the end, the finished image was completed and was dedicated.

LITTLE IS KNOWN of the original and uncontaminated philosophy behind this practice, in so far as pure Huna is concerned. It is evident that there was a basic truth behind image making and use in the very early days. In ancient temples there were often images of the gods – to say nothing of the devils. In Christian churches the images still find a place except in Protestantism. In “darkest Africa” the little images are always to be found, and they are infinite in form, name and use.

IN HAWAII there was the significant practice of carving holes in the backs of the images so that feathers could be stored in them to absorb some form of mana. A new god was given the very breath of life by having feathers from an older and proven god placed in the opening in its back. And each native temple had many images – as Captain Cook recorded in his Voyages.

THE GODS IN ANCIENT EGYPT show signs of becoming decadent even at the dawn of recorded history. Change has always meant decadence in every land and every age. A god or image originally was a symbol of some real or fancied spirit-god. It was part of an altar piece which combined several parts to tell a great secret fact. Turn to your copy of SSBM and look at the illustrations which Cigbo sent as a “brithday presink” last year. Hunt up No. 3 and look at the reproduction of an early Hawaiian temple interior. The two human-type figures may have represented gods from Hawaiian legends, but it is evident that they stood for something connected with a larger general TRUTH. They are standing on either side of the stone phallus which represents the greatest creative power or mana. To make certain that this point is not missed, the arching tree trunks are added, with the manas as zig-zag lines running up and down from high to low – from Aumakua to Aunihipili. The manas are positive and negative or male and female, as are the human images.

COMPARE THIS ALTAR SET with the sets found in modern Catholic churches. Again we have the human figures in Mary and Joseph, one on either side of the centrally placed cross which still can be recognized as the phallic symbol of creative force, the use of which is the center around which the entire mechanism of Christian magic revolved, half hidden, half revealed. The posts upholding the altar at right and left are found carved with spirals instead of zigzags, almost without exception in older structures. (Also check this similarity in non-Christian altar structures in India and elsewhere.)

THE TOWER OF BABEL has come down to us in picture form as it once stood in Babylonia. It was a tower whose upward-aspiring mana was represented in the spiral – which in this case served also as a ramp for the ascending of the tower to the “Place of the Most High” where the worshiper symbolically reached the level of the Aumakua. At this level, all communication is telepathic. Throats of flesh are not used on that level of life and consciousness. Words become useless and meaningless as mental pictures become the telepathic medium of exchange. The “Confusion of Tongues” was the symbol, preserved in legendary form, of one of the great primary facts of the original Huna – the fact that telepathy is the basic means of communication between the Aunihipili and Auhane and the Aumakua. For he who has “eyes to see and ears to hear,” because he knows the ancient lore of the SECRET, there lies on every side the evidences of the facts assembled in some far past age to make HUNA the science of sciences.

MODERN THOUGHT AND SCIENCE

Modern thought and science has not only failed as yet to assemble the facts of Huna and make of them a simple, logical and rounded system, but there is still an abysmal failure even to recognize those facts when the veil has been torn aside and the nature of the Secret disclosed. We who are HRAs – at least the part of us who recognize Huna for what it still is – are now the “CHOSEN PEOPLE,” just as were the Huna initiates in Egypt, Palestine or Polynesia. In Hawaii the word koho meant “to choose,” but it also had the meaning of “to interpret, as a riddle or parable.” This gives us the real meaning hidden behind the “chosen people” tradition. A person who was of the “chosen” was no particular favorite of the gods. He was a kahuna who interpreted the great riddle of life – could interpret it in terms of Huna. No other tradition is better preserved than that of the existence of a GREAT SECRET LORE. Every secret order stems from the idea, even if the original Secret is known to none in these late days. The Sphinx in Egypt is the classical center of the tradition, and we all know that the great command laid on one aspiring to solve the riddle of life was, “Man, know thyself.” Such knowledge cannot be found outside of Huna – not even today. Modern religion lacks the simplest knowledge of psychology, knowing neither the subconscious nor the complex, for example. On the other hand, the semi-science of psychology lacks any knowledge of the Superconscious or Aumakua – of any form of consciousness above that of the conscious mind. Neither religion nor psychology have more than a slight inkling of the “Science of Man After Death” – psychic science. AND, in not one of these is to be found a clear and simple understanding of the three selves, the three manas or the three aka bodies.

HUNA IS STILL ONLY PARTLY RECOVERED. We must never forget that for even a moment. That is our job – to complete the recovery of the ancient system if we possibly can. Just as an example of what we still lack in understanding, consider just one of the many remaining dark corners. We have been discussing images, little stone “gods” and symbolic things found on the altars of the ages.

ICONS

Now consider the icon. It is, basically, something which has been constructed or pressed into use to act as a physical point of contact between living man and spirits of a higher order. It may be a real or pretended relic whose origin is traced to some great teacher or particularly holy shrine. In Africa, it may be found in the form of a charm – the latter ranging from a skull to a bag containing a jumble of small objects.

THE PRAYER BOWL in Australia, which has aroused so much HRA interest because of its strange value as an instrument good for making Aumakua contact, is of the icon class. It is something made by men – made with the definite purpose of constructing a thing which will serve as a point of contact – a means of making contact. It is to be guessed that if contact was easy and simple for all to make, no icon would be needed. It is a crutch for the ones still unable to walk erect in the presence of the gods – the Aumakuas. It is a thing which is without rhyme or reason in terms of any modern religion or system of psychology. And, all that Huna can now tell us of the matter is that it has connected to it an aka thread which connects the icon permanently with the Aumakua to which it has become tied up.

WE DO NOT KNOW HOW this thread has been stretched in this enduring fashion between a veritable “lesser god” and such a thing as a clay bowl inside of which prayers are imprinted.

THE ICON, THE CHARM, THE RABBIT FOOT and the lucky piece, all may be traced back to some dim past. In each case the purpose of use is the same – that of making contact with something more powerful and wiser so that help from it may be obtained. The making of a Polynesian “god” involved the transfer of mana from an established contact object-center to a new one. Ordination is ritually performed for the identical purpose. A priest who has not been ordained by another priest already so tied to the particular Deity of that religion, is not a priest. It may be that this is a valid belief based on fact. It may be that man can only be “introduced” to “gods,” other than his own Aumakua, by having the introduction (ordination) made by one already in contact via an aka thread with the Higher Being. In India there is a garbled lore which revolves around the custom of wearing a “sacred thread” – which possibly had its origin in the aka thread of connection of which we speak. The dust of time lies inches deep in this dark corner.

AN ICON OF STRANGE POWER was recently brought to my attention in a letter from an English student whose occult experiences are as interesting as they are unusual. (He is already “HRA G.S. of Tonga.”)

Here are bits from two letters:

“About 1938 I became deeply dissatisfied with my way of life and started to learn a form of Yoga I developed telepathically and could communicate with one of my friends when she was in Norway, Rhodesia and Palestine while I was in Yorkshire. At the same time I was attacked at night by hostile psychic forces which evidently objected to this development …

“The war came in 1939. I was sent to Kenya and into Italian Somaliland. From there I went with our East African native forces into Ethiopia, where I spent nearly two years. … While in Harar, I made friends with an Ethiopian artist and, through him, was given an icon – a Coptic carving of the Crucifixion that originally came from Gandar, and which may or may not be centuries old.

“On the first night after it was given to me, strange things began to happen and I discovered that it talked to me, giving me instructions ‘inside my head.’ Whatever it said turned out to be right, and since then it has been the guiding force in my life.

“While in New Zealand last August I asked it, ‘Who or what are you?’ The answer was: ‘I am your past. Part of yourself. … You are your pasts more completely than you are in possession of your flesh and blood. Always know that your troubles occur because you are utterly lost without her knowledge and power. She is your own share of the past, always on your side, to help you on your journey along a rocky or stony path all alone.’ (There follows some discussion which ends with the guess that the entity of the icon may be his superconscious self in the female form although he sees her psychically in a body of flesh.) The Entity shows herself to my inner eye as an Ethiopian woman wearing a golden dress. When the icon came to me, it was carefully wrapped in a woman’s pleated silk dress of golden color. I was certain that he (the artist) gave it to me as the result of a dream. The icon was insistent that I must go to Tonga, even when I was back in England.

“I entertained a lady in my home in North Umberland, and handed her the icon wrapped up in paper as a parcel. Almost at once she collapsed into a sort of trance state – a most extraordinary state for her. After this we were much closer in touch through telepathy – (contact after that being much more perfect.)”

(In a letter replying to my first, some of the strange things which happened due to the icon were told. He promises to try to learn from “her” how such an icon is constructed, if possible.)

NOTE THE PART PLAYED BY TELEPATHY in this matter of the icon from Ethiopia. First, new HRA G.S. learned to use telepathy (he spoke of three people with whom he practiced, and of messages sent back and forth during extended travels). Having learned the gentle art of quieting his mind to receive telepathic impressions, it was a simple step to receiving similar mental impressions from the entity which uses the icon as a center of aka thread attachment. One of the curious incidents related also needs for its explanation the mechanism of telepathy or of direct visit by the entity behind the icon. A friend of G.S., in England, was shown the icon. At that time she was having a private chapel built and had asked an artist in stained glass to work up designs for the windows – designs with a madonna theme. The artist was a Czechoslovakian, but, to the amazement of all concerned, when his designs arrived, the madonna were all Ethiopian! It gradually becomes clear, as we progress in the HRA investigation and experimental work, that we need to learn to use telepathy to a greater or lesser extent, depending on our ability as individuals.

HOWEVER, WE MUST BE ON GUARD and view with a suspicious eye the things which we pick up when sitting to receive telepathic message material from a friend or from the Aumakua. Our Aunihipili is a willing but unpredictable helper whose natural ability in handling the aka thread, the mana and the thought-forms, must be relied upon because the Auhane has no such abilities, having given them up, apparently, in trade for the supreme gift of reason. I recently had a most scholarly discussion in a letter from an HRA in Washington state, pointing out the difficulty which must be met when the Utterly Trustworthy Parental Spirit – the Aumakua – is approached through the medium of the Aunihipili who might be termed the “utterly unreliable child spirit.” As the Auhane, each of us is the elder brother of the Aunihipili and is responsible for its training. It is a responsibility which most of us take too lightly. In standard “church” religions the need of such training is not even dimly suspected. In modern psychology it is slightly understood, but its significance is lost in the vast jumble of speculative material where the SUBCONSCIOUS is a New World which is lost and rediscovered by a new Columbus with each decade. And each new discoverer gives this “lost continent” of the human SELF a new name. L. Ron Hubbard, in Dianetics renames it the “Reactive Mind.” Harold Waldwin Percival, in his thousand page book setting forth what he supposes to be the utter truth of things as received by direct telepathic conversation with pure “Consciousness” – THINKING AND DESTINY – renames our good old “George” the “doer.”

The “Behaviorists” still loudly assert that “there ain’t any such animal.” Some day the Huna name, Aunihipili, will undoubtedly become standard when exactness in naming is desirable. The roots of this word tell the several characteristics of the Aunihipili with splendid accuracy, as you will see by checking pages 391 and 392 of SSBM where the root meanings are given.

WHY DO I KEEP STRESSING HUNA as the one system which gives us the correct and most complete information in the psycho-religious field? The answer is simple. Letters that come to me daily show that many HRAs – especially the later arrivals – miss this point. In HUNA we have “the pearl of great price,” but in this day and age there are so many voices “crying from the wilderness” that if our HRA voice is not also raised, it will be lost in the constant and restless shift from one “teaching” to the next.

BOOK REVIEW

THINKING AND DESTINY, Harold Waldwin Percival. 1,014 pages. $10. Word Publishing Co., 33 West 42nd St., New York 18, N.Y.

Having mentioned the author of this book, and his renaming of most of the recognized units that have been said to go into the making of men, the universe and gods, this may be the time to say a few words about the book. Three HRAs have called my attention to it in letters and to the fact that in many points it agrees with Huna. It was suggested that in the bulk of it we might find some information which would help in understanding Huna better. I was eager to see the book for this reason and hastened to borrow a copy. However, in searching through the many pages, I have still to find anything of value to add to what we know of Huna.

The trouble with books of this kind is that they present a mass of material which is impossible to prove. The “revealed” literature is all on this order and so there is left one, and one only, way of judging it. This is by taking any part of it that may be proved or disproved fairly well in the light or experience or reason and, if the simple things make sense, go on to consider the rest of the system as speculative material of possible value. If no sense is made by the simple parts, it is a fair guess that the rest of it will make less than sense.

The book in question is advertised as NOT a revealed book in any way, shape or form. But immediately we are told that the author discovered that he could make some form of contact with something which he found impersonal and without a body – a something he named “Consciousness.” Disclaiming the possibility that he used clairvoyance of any form or that he was conversing with a “spirit,” we are told that by becoming conscious of Consciousness, the information was in some way made available. This is the explanation as this reviewer understands it.

At first glance I had the hope that at last I had found a modern student who had chanced upon a method of making direct contact with the Superconscious and getting it to answer questions in some way which he could translate into English and place on paper. After many more glances, I was forced to come to the sad conclusion that parallels the one reached by the disillusioned little girl who said, “There isn’t any Santa Claus – it’s only Daddy using Gramp’s face and Uncle Charlie’s stomach.”

What seems to have happened is that the venerable and longtime editor of THE WORD magazine, spent years absorbing all forms of religious philosophy, but for some reason discarded such things as the theory of the subconscious or the complex in modern psychological thought. Eventually, he took to sitting down, doing what he thought was making a contact with “Consciousness” and putting into words the thoughts that came to mind. Faithful friends took down what he said, and the book gradually was produced.

Anyone who has been a student of what we call “the occult” will recognize the materials as they are brought with a flourish from “Consciousness,” are given new names, are mixed together and again named, or are embellished with small inventions and explained in the more familiar terms of the “metaphysical.” Basically, the philosophies of India are to be noted. “Reincarnation” 1.4 — renamed “re-existence” but remains little changed. The theory that all is “maya” changes to one of self-hypnosis which causes the individual to live in a dream and not in real flesh. The dream is repeated over and over, and finally is brought to a Nirvanic type of end by a system of right thinking. The Bhagavad Gita and the more popular of the Upanishads come in for discussion and explanation in terms of the author’s happily worked out system.

As something to try to live by, I much prefer some philosophy that does not begin by stating that we do not live but just think we do. In over a thousand pages I came across only two giving attention to healing. There may be more, but I failed to find them. At the risk of violating copyright, but claiming the immunity of a reviewer, I will quote a line or two from the book to give a glimpse of its contents – or should I say, a bit of its flavor.

(Page 646) “Time is ever devouring itself. It consumes itself and arises anew out of itself … The end is as much the beginning as the beginning is the end, but to humans they are opposites.”

If one likes such writing, then that is well and good. If not, then one may turn a deaf ear to the dicta of “Consciousness.”

OAHSPE STUDENTS, it has been suggested, might give us a hand by noting and sending in items on correspondences in Oahspe and Huna. If some student could go right through Oahspe watching for such points, we might have material for a little book, or at least for a special report. The last bulletin contained a striking passage covering the strengthening of the Guardian Angels with force (mana) drawn from their living charges when the latter were endangered.

CONTACT WITH THE AUMAKUA often gives some sensation which we get through the Aunihipili. HRA L. DeV. tells me that he has found that when he sends mana to the Aumakua and pictures the return flow of High Mana as Light which comes down through the top of his head, he often sees behind his closed eyelids a blaze of the whitest light. He finds that Huna works amazingly well in all his business activities. (His letters in other bulletins tell of his experiments in healing and of his success.)

A second sense-evidence is beautifully described in a letter from HRA G. deL.C., who writes, “Yes, yes, the ‘sudden joy’ of which you speak, on contacting the Aumakua – I know it very well – is rewarding, is real and is wonderful. For a moment one is with the Gods, the whole being suffused with joy, with love, and with devotion for the great privilege that is ours for that blessed time.”

FUTURE DREAMING PROJECT

Another dream for our “Future Dreaming” project came to me. I had a check from a man known long ago – one who went broke in the last Depression through playing the stock market. It had been turned back to me three times and now was going in again as I entered my bank. I was surprised to find my bank changed and with more windows open, all paying out, none to accept deposits. I presented the check and was paid, having to take half the amount of $40 in paper money, but being allowed the rest in silver – of which great stacks stood behind the clerks. As a special favor, I was allowed to take a dollar’s worth of value out in the form of a few nails – the clerk remarking, “At least you can buy something with them.” I sensed the dream as unusual and of the future, but could not see a calendar on the desks giving the date. Awakening, I asked “George” to explain and he flashed the thought to me that this bore on the growth of inflation to the point of return to metal currency.

THE “WALL OF PROTECTION” PROJECT

The ‘Wall of Protection’ Project is progressing. Several HRAs have written to send in the names of loved ones now needing such protection, or soon to be needing it. The plan is to have at least one HRA acting as a prayer-action center each hour of the day, as I act in the TMHG at 3 and 7 P.M. California time. Special instruction sheets are being made ready to send to those taking part. The names of those acting as center for various hours will be given and they may be asked for their signature on a card or letter to use as the aka thread contact medium. The “Wall” work will be placed in the usual TMHG ritual immediately after the sending of the prayer for world peace. All who take part in TMHG are requested to visualize the na Guardian Aumakua shedding a light of white power down on our endangered loved ones and all in the active service zones – to make the WALL OF PROTECTION. This should add a minute to the ritual and extend it to nine minutes in length instead of the present eight. At the end of the nine minute period, we continue as before to hold separate ones and their needs to the Light as before. This period may continue as long as wished and as a part of it, the ones to be protected by the WALL will be taken up for special prayer-actions.

APPROVAL OF THE PROJECT comes from all sides. Here are two letters from HRAs who are in full accord with ideas already presented.

HRA S.G.P. writes, “Re: the ‘Wall of Protection’ for the soldiers and their kin: Your arguments on pages 2 and 3 of Bulletin 47 are the most logical and sensible answer to the ancient ‘nonresistance’ dogma on the physical plane I have ever read. It answers the old, old debate and teaching in all religions in regard to ‘No War, No Resistance,’ especially to the teachings of Oahspe. I agree emphatically with your opinion as stated on pages 2, 3 and 4, and think and believe that you have the only true, sane, sensible and spiritual answer to the question I have ever seen – and it is only in the ‘Light of Huna’ that the solution could have been worked out. After over 40 years of occult study and investigation, I am more than ever impressed with the Truth and Reality of the Huna teaching and doctrines. It answers all the questions, which no other religion, doctrine or teaching ever has. Count me in on the ‘Wall of Protection’ work as in the TMHG and send information when ready.”

HRA C.T.H. writes, ‘The Wall of Protection’ has already been demonstrated. Marshall Joffre, avowed atheist, joined two other great generals who humbled themselves in prayer the night before the Germans were to attack Paris in the first World War. He agreed to pray, although an atheist, because he said no human power could possibly stop the enemy. The ‘Wall of Protection’ fully appeared.

Brown Landone was one of the personal witnesses who saw the ‘hosts in the sky’ when the Germans were defeated and prevented from capturing France at that time. It is a matter of military record that they confessed a great fright over the mysterious power which ‘froze’ them – showing that there was a wall of protection.

A British regiment, taught by its commander to repeat the 91st Psalm, never lost a man in battle – another ‘wall.’ A British military society, the ‘White Brotherhood,’ has kept written records of the many ‘miracles’ in the way of the wall of protection.

IN A NUTSHELL

We need, actually, to know but three things for Wall building.

1. That the Aumakuas have no dogmatic limitations and have what to us is unlimited power to help us under all conditions if only we will
2. open the door to help by asking, and
3. furnish the supply of low mana needed for Aumakua work.