December, 1959

New Books & Taro Cards

 

Greetings and A HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! My thanks to all of you who have added to the pleasure of my Christmas with your letters and cards. Cigbo sends his finest meows and purrrrs of thanks for the gifts sent for his cigar box. He reports himself solvent and adds that he has managed a new impression roller for his Mimeograph as well as repairs on the typewriter used to cut the stencils. (All the “e”s chopped out on the last four stencils for the November number.)

A KAHUNA HAS WRITTEN A BOOK!

He is David Bray, of Honolulu, long an entertainer, and in recent years in charge of the Throne Room of the old Palace in which the last of the Hawaiian royalty held court before the establishment of the Republic.

Mr. Bray, who is half Hawaiian, has been the accepted kahuna of official Hawaii for some years. He has been called upon to recite the old prayers and chants, to take the curse from ships and public works which were evidently suffering from “bad luck.” He has gone to bless the starts of new buildings, and has carried on his healing ministry with much confidence. In recent years he has spent much time on the Mainland and has lectured in full regalia, often with his son assisting and standing by to take over the high office of kahuna when needful.

In a visit several months ago with Mr. Bray, I found him a most earnest and charming gentleman. He does not agree with my findings concerning the beliefs and practices of kahunas of old except on a very few points. For instance, he will have none of the low self as the Aunihipili, and considers the High Self, or Aumakua, to be an ancestral spirit of a single sex who acts as a guardian of a family group and who frequently enters and lives in the body of tabooed animal, bird or fish, which must not be eaten by any member of the family group. I am not at all sure that he has ever read any of my books, but feel that if he has, he fails to understand my reasons for arriving at certain conclusions. That is quite all right. We had a very happy time visiting for an hour and kept entirely away from controversial points after he finished telling me how much he disagreed with my conclusions.

His 64-page booklet, THE KAHUNA RELIGION OF HAWAII, tells of his childhood and his contact with relatives who were deep in the kahuna lore. In a charmingly rambling series of small articles, he touches on many quaint, droll, sad, serious and inspiring things which he connects in one way or another to the life and lore of kahunas. He tells interesting tales of kahunas and of Pele, the goddess of the volcanoes. His book strongly reminds me of the many, many tales of kahunas and gods which confronted me years ago when I undertook to sort through them to find the needle of reasonable fact in the haystack.

Mr. Bray stands out forcefully from his pages as one fully convinced of the truth of what he has to tell, at least in so far as basic beliefs are concerned. He mixes Christianity with the old beliefs and presents simply and clearly a philosophy based on the necessity of combining the Spiritual and the Material to get a good combination for use in the task of living. In this inspired end product of his life and experience, we all must join with strong approval.

The book has a cover printed to imitate brown tapa cloth, and was seen into its present form by Mr. Douglas Low, lecturer and omnivorous student of ancient lore. The price is $2, plus sales tax in California only, postpaid. Order your copy from The INSTITUTE FOR EXTENDED STUDIES, 5859 Compton Ave., Los Angeles 1, Calif., U.S.A. (Add 10¢ for foreign orders.) Personally, I am greatly pleased to have someone besides myself, at last, write with approval of the majority of the things for which kahunas stood when at their best.

To give the flavor of this delightful little book, I take the reviewer’s privilege of quoting part of the account of the author’s foster mother. (Page 28.)

“A KAHUNA WITH THE GIFT OF SEEING”

“My own foster mother, Luika Kahalopuna, was a practicing kahuna priestess with the gift of seeing and hearing. Her name Kahalopunacame from the Moo gods who guard the fresh water springs and the food supply. Kahalopuna was the particular Moo who lived in Manoa Valley. She prayed directly to the Moo gods and asked them to intervene with her great god in the heavens, Kaonohi, the Blazing Eyeball of the Sun. Her Moo gods often sent the owl, Pueo, to her with messages and she could understand the language of the bird.

“Luika began her daily ceremony by placing a red square altar cloth on a clean mat in front of her. She surrounded the mat and the place where she sat with ti leaves. (To keep away evil influences.) She purified herself by sprinkling the mat and herself with olena water. Olena water was made by scraping a bit of olena root into pure spring water. Next she crossed four ti leaves on her altar and placed a bowl of awa upon it. Awa is a fermented drink which Hawaiians have always used as an offering to the gods. Then she seated herself within the circle of ti leaves and prayed for the gods to attend. She flicked a bit of awa into the air as an invitation to the gods.

“When she felt the gods were in attendance, she drank the awa and presented her problem to them. If the question was simple, Luika took a glass of water, asked the inquirer to drop something into it, and she would look into the water and see the answer ….. If the question was serious, Luika addressed her prayers to Jehovah and to her own gods as intermediary saints. Tolerance was her great principle. She believed everyone had a right to interpret God’s will in his own way.”

WANT TO CHECK YOUR P.A. READING ABILITY?

Want to check your P.A. Reading ability with the author of the book on the subject? If you do, then watch each issue of HUNA VISTAS for a reading of someone whose picture appears as a part of the news in TIME magazine (which has been chosen for the present as one most likely to be on your reading table.) In the TIME issue of December 21st, 1959, page 31, is a picture of Dr. Anna Aslan, whom we mentioned in Newsletter No. 5 in connection with the articles running in English papers on her use of procaine as a rejuvenator and possible aid in treating some of the ills of the old. My reading is clockwise leaning will pattern and good round personality circle of normal size, with a degree reading of 383.

WITH SUCH A P.A. READING (if I am right   please check and let me know what you get), we can better judge the reports favoring her treatment and those strongly suggesting that she is, as TIME puts it, perhaps “Dr. Faust in Skirts.” A columnist in the daily papers warned against confidence in her findings and went on to say that we had better watch out and not be fooled by claims made by those behind the Iron Curtain. (I take it that this does not include the poorly trained and unreliable men who spoof us into thinking their rockets and Sputniks can begin to compare with ours.) From her P.A., Dr. Aslan may be judged constructive, honest, of the best intentions. Her degree reading is about 10 degrees higher than the readings of the best doctors read in the Vista region. (In passing, may I say that a number of my friends have been trying the “H3” or procaine treatments and, so far, not one has reported results so poor that treatments have been discontinued. One doctor, who is past 80, reports much benefit for his arthritic condition.) Since the AMERICAN WEEKLY magazine of the Hurst papers ran the articles which first appeared in England, interest seems to grow to the extent that writers on medical subjects feel it their duty to repeat Cigbo’s warning in Newsletter 5, to “HOLD YOUR CHARLEY HORSES!” TIME thinks perhaps the benefits reported may be due entirely to “suggestion,” and it is to be agreed that getting the needle three times a week should make a really grand physical stimulus to augment the suggestion of healing offered in the approving articles and in the digests of these articles now available from the makers of Novocain and from the Brown people on the West Coast who now package procaine as “Fabcain” for the Aslan treatments. Literature is sent free to medical doctors if they request same. Praises be to Psychometric Analysis (Adv.). We can now, at the very least, make a reading and have a good chance to learn who is probably trying to swindle us and who is not.

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE by Dr. Nandor Fodor, which has been out of print for some time, is desired by some of the new HRAs who are going through the files of back Bulletins and are interested in quotations from the book. If you have a copy and will part with it, please write and set your postpaid price on it. Good copies, when available, were selling two years ago for $15.

THE LOST KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D., is a 64 page booklet selling for $.59 post paid. The address to use is, The Academy Press, 218 West Jersey St., Elizabeth 2, N.J. If you happen to be unfamiliar with the books of Dr. Kuhn, get this little one and you will find in it a condensation of the main points made in his several earlier books. In his scholarly writings he has carefully traced the pre-Christian beliefs of Egypt and other lands, showing that the basic doctrines of Christianity (as they have come down to us today) were part of much earlier systems. He is famous for his conclusion that in a lost secret code, the “living,” as we know them in the flesh, were called the “dead.” Behind this lay the belief that “souls” live and enjoy far superior mental (or other) powers in the heavenly levels of being. For some unknown reason, God commands the souls to descend to denser levels and incarnate in human bodies. They do this, and when in the body, are called “the dead.” If they conduct themselves rightly, they are allowed, at the death of the physical body, to return again to the vastly more “alive” and enjoyable state of non-material existence. If they become evil however, they may be cursed with the “second death” and be kept on the physical level. Life on earth in a body of flesh, Dr. Kuhn points out, was coded in the “mysteries” of certain schools of thought as life in Hell or the Egyptian Amenta or whatever place of punishment one might reach after physical death.

We have considered in the earlier Bulletins the very important problem of whether the “soul” comes down to incarnate for a lifetime in human animal bodies, coming down or reincarnating a few or a great many times. We have wondered WHY a soul, supposedly perfect and uncontaminated by “sin” should have to come into incarnation and be exposed to the evils of greed and other “sins” common to the animal man. Dr. Kuhn seems to make little use of the idea that the Aunihipili is also a “soul” but not as evolved AND, if the presence of an Aunihipili (as proposed in Huna) is admitted, then we cannot avoid including a form of evolutionary growth which will begin at the lowest levels of creation and work upward until the souls reach the exalted position from which the “Fall” theory forces them to descend.

This problem is so important to us in our efforts to understand how we got where we are, and how we must act to arrive at a final and happier destination, that we can ill afford to fail to make a careful study of all the arguments favoring the two conflicting theories. Dr. Kuhn’s writings furnish an excellent source of information for such studies as lean to the side of the “Fall” from above which he traces through ancient beliefs with great skill.  For the opposite side of the problem, we have Huna and its theory which fits right in to modern findings concerning evolution, carrying the theory on, of course, from the strictly physical or material into the realm of “selves,” souls or units of evolving consciousness.

In making the symbols of the Tarot Cards, the makers seem to have embodied the “Fall” theory in the card of THE FOOL, numbered zero. This looks much like laughter aimed at the “Fall” theory, for in the MAGICIAN we see what seems to be the drawing down from on high of the life forces and the planting of them in the earth. The WHEEL then gives us a good picture of the evolutionary process by which the life force comes into higher and higher states or stages of being. The HANGED MAN shows us the man imprisoned in the flesh, but becoming aware of higher levels. JUDGMENT symbolizes the need for reincarnations which will make possible the arrival at the evolved states pictured in THE SUN and in THE WORLD. (Check your illustrations of the cards laid out in the secret order.)

HRA LOIS ANONA ARNOLD has sent in for review the first three units, which she titles “FRAGMENTS,” of a mimeographed series of articles on the Taro Card so titled, “THE TAROT CARDS ARE ABOUT YOU.” The “Fragments” run about 8 pages in length, are nicely mimeographed and sell for $1.04 each. Order from I. P. I. C., 1811 3/4 North Western Ave., Los Angeles 27, Calif. The Bible and the Cabalistic background are used to draw meanings to fit the Tarot Cards. For those who favor the Cabala and Hebrew letter numbering of the cards, this is your meat, most decidedly. The writer does not argue her points. She “tells you.” No time or place is allowed the thoughtful HRA reader to indulge in the “suspicious inspection” of ideas which has been hopefully advocated by Ye Ed of H.V. The releases, however, offer the reader, in a swift procession, ideas and comparisons and proposed meanings of the most amazing and varied kind. Almost everything ever taught concerning Tarot meanings, sources and secret coded significances (other than our own Huna slants and the secret code by which the cards are laid out according to the number addition method) may eventually be given in the “Fragments” and, it would seem, much that has never been offered by anyone before. How many units will be released is not stated, but three are now ready. “I have enough material for a dozen Fragments,” writes Mrs. Arnold.

CHEERS FOR THE YOUNG IN HEART!

After some kindly but critical remarks in letters concerning the way the Lodge is conducted in the Taro studies (“Taro” means the Huna kind of cards) it is a joy to Ye Ed to have such a letter as,this:

“Dear Uncle Max, His Utmost, The Exalted High Card of the Mother-Father Lodge of the Ancient order of HRA Taro AND Door Keeper, Cigbo, definitely the ‘Low Man on the Totem Pole’ but with potentialities which should verily make The Adorable High Card look to his avocados … pardon, I mean laurels.’

“Oh! Uncle Max, what delightful nonsense you concoct! And I am all for your latest project relating the Ancient Taro to Huna teachings. And I just love the Lodge meetings. Never was there such a lodge ritual!  And heaven forbid that there should ever be a duplicate but for us SEEKERS INSPIRED BY EXALTED HIGH CARD. It is just purrrrr fect! (Signed) HRA M.J.

HYPNOSIS COMES SLOWLY INTO USE

TIME magazine for December 21st tells of the growing use of hypnosis by doctors in treating patients who suffer from the pains of the last stages of cancer. Patients are also being taught to hypnotize themselves when the pain becomes severe. This was discussed by a psychiatrist who remarked that if there was a psychological need for pain and suffering, hypnosis would be of no use because it would be rejected. To learn to use self suggestion is good insurance against future times of pain and trouble.

Another important milestone in the use of hypnosis is to be noted in a recent statement made by Dr. Aron A. Papermaster of Fargo, N.D., an instructor in surgery, before a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He said that in 14 years of testing he had found hypnosis of the greatest value in dentistry where the patients were often only three years old, and even as young as two and one half. It used to be thought that 5 years was the lowest age.

A NEW REPRINT OF THE WAITE TAROT CARDS and book has been made by someone and both cards and book are offered now by Mystic Arts Book Society, 101 West 31st St., New York 11 N.Y. This is a book club offering membership to all who will buy 4 books a year at slightly reduced prices. They offer the Cards in four colors (a great improvement on the ones we have had from FATE magazine and published by The de Laurence Go., Inc, 180 North Wabash Ave., Chicago Ill. who sell the cards alone for $2.50 and the book for the same price, both for $5.00. This less expensive set is in two colors and not so gay, but will do. (FATE has been very slow to fill orders, so de Laurence is a better bet if you wish the less expensive pack.) The Mystic Arts people offer the cards for $3.95 and the book for $4.95, both together for $7.50, postpaid, but this puts you under the obligation to buy four books on occult subjects each year. I get their ad letters and find that the books are good enough, but that I have read most of them long since. If interested, drop them a line and they will send you their offer and book list. Their cards are said to be exact reproductions of color and line of the original Waite pack, which Rider brought out in England, but which were not copyrighted in U.S.A., so are republished here by all and sundry. The reproductions in color in the ad sheet on my desk show the colors much brighter than in my old Rider pack, but although slightly gaudy, they are rather striking.

TARO CARD SYMBOLOGY – Initiatory Unit FOUR

ALTHOUGH THIS IS THE FOURTH UNIT, all lodge members took the Fourth Degree of A.O. of HRA Tarot in reading the last Huna Vistas. As a Christmas and New Year bonus, Cigbo now graciously confers on each of us the FIFTH DEGREE, after which he removes his Santa whiskers and puts on his Baby New Year costume so that he can confer what he insists is the 1960th degree of something or other. Someone remarks, “How silly can we get?” The Taro pack is taken from its box and placed on the central altar and the Lodge is abruptly declared OPEN.

SEVERAL SEATS IN THE LODGE ARE FOUND TO BE EMPTY, and the Lamp Lighter is missing. High Card looks greatly distressed as he sadly explains that in Fate magazine and in the Aberee last month there came out a full page ad announcing that in Las Vegas a “Council of Masters” stood ready to advise, teach and instruct in all matters of belief, health and living. The caption “MASTERSHIP ASSURED” was striking. As we all have always hoped that there actually were “Masters,” although none have been found since early Theosophical days, and as all have sometimes thought it would be nice to be a “master” of the sort described by Mme. Blavatsky and her friends, well, as is always the case when such announcements suddenly appear, several HRAs rush to scrape up the “$10 initial donation” to get them started. Old High Card further explained that he had asked two hopeful HRAs to please call on the Council of Masters when in Las Vegas, if the address behind the P.O. Box number could be obtained from the postmaster. So far no report has come back. Possibly the editors of ABEREE will have a glowing report to make in next issue.

One of the missing Lodge members comes in wearily. “You’ve no idea how hard it is to borrow ten dollars for an initial donation, just at Christmas time, and I did so want to become a master,” the member remarks sadly. Then with a slight flash of hope, looking sternly at old High Card, “What’s the matter with us and the Lodge? Can’t you produce a single, solitary master? Seems to me that at least someone might run the cards and be master enough to give us some guidance for living through what is going to happen in 1960.” Eyes turn to High Card. Cigbo rushes in with a paper cap in the form of a cone which he has just rolled from a discarded piece of Christmas paper found in the trash barrel. He places it on O.H.C.’s head and hops down from his shoulder to admire his handiwork. He decides that he has created a “master” of the finest, and begins making the rounds with his cigar box, hopeful of collecting an “initial donation” of ten dollars before the Taro forecast is made and members donate according to their estimate of the value of the prediction.

HIGH CARD still can’t shuffle cards because of the thumb he cut in November on a buzz saw. Cigbo hops to the top of the altar and obliges with a fast shuffle using all four paws. High Card begins to explain slowly…

TO TELL A FORTUNE MY WAY

After shuffling all 78 of the cards yourself, lay the deck on a flat place before you. If there is a customer seated opposite you, he can shuffle, spread out the full deck face down, and pick out five cards where the pack breaks when swept across the board to make a “smear” or “Spread.” If there is no customer, you can cross your own palm with anything that may be handy.

THIS IS THE RUN FOR THE PAST.

In our case we are asking for a glimpse into the future, so we will run for the past, and if it checks out, well, we will run for the present. If it also checks with facts, we will then try a run for the future. Cigbo spreads the cards and paws out five. High Card turns them face up before him and this is what he has: (Left to right.)

SEVEN OF CUPS (check on your illustration sheets) As we are reading for world conditions, and with the Free World and Red World as the two major divisions, we see in this card high hopes of good things to happen, but without much preliminary work or planning to bring the good things about. “Pie in the sky.”

THE FOOL is the only major deck card in this draw. It therefore is most important. It means the probability of a FALL because there has been so little use of the head, so little reasoned planning  just blind blundering forward. This could be the card of the world situation which developed in the near past with the threat of a war of atom bombs.

The TWO OF CUPS is a card which, in this world situation, would indicate in the past a move toward friendship and cooperation. This would fit the recent efforts to get together and talk things out in a friendly spirit. We might say that planning was still poor, but friendship was budding because of the need to heal world ills.

The TEN OF SWORDS may be read as the end of strife and in our world situation we recently arrived at a complete atom bomb war stalemate in which neither side dared longer to resort to even “limited war.”

The KNIGHT OF PENTACLES comes last in the draw. Our knight is still in armor but has given up his sword to fight with the sign of money — commercial “cold war” and financial strength.

This seems to fit the immediate past very well, so we will make a note of what cards we drew it this spread, and then gather up all the cards, have them shuffled, and make a second spread and draw of five cards for the immediate PRESENT. (Old High Card is making the spreads and draws on a table beside him as he writes. Cigbo stands by to shuffle and draw. He crossed O.H.C.’s palm with the silver of a dime, but soon managed to have it back in his cigar box. Always shut your hand over the silver when/if your palm gets crossed.)

THIS RUN IS FOR THE IMMEDIATE PRESENT.

Again the cards cut are listed reading left to right.

TEMPERANCE, one of the two majors in the draw and important. It shows the increase of the friendship and (under High Guidance) a strong wish to get together for exchange of friendship’s good offices. Both sides want peace and hope strongly for it. The next three minor cards are all of the wands or business suit. This might be called a return to “business as usual.”

The KING OF WANDS with the dragon on the back of the king’s throne, fits perfectly with the sudden emergence of Red China into the world picture. With war too dangerous to make, China offers one of the best markets for many things the West has to sell. The pressure of American Business to have China recognized so that we can share her market was noted in a news report which also mentioned the sudden flooding of our markets with goods made by the Chinese in Hong Kong.)

The SIX OF WANDS continues the story of business in the saddle and making happy progress.

The FOUR OF WANDS again extends the wand reading, suggesting that in business interchange there is a growing friendship of much importance. Visits are paid and are welcomed. With the easing of war fears, business gains confidence and plans for greater things can be made.

THE STAR is the last of the five cards in this draw. It is also a major and so is important. It is a card of wasted effort and lack of sound  planning. The water, or force of mana, is poured lavishly, but to no purpose. This is often a card of loss, theft, thoughtless waste and spoiling of good things. As it is in such a critical position at the point where we move from the end of the present into the arriving future, we need to know all we can of the implications of this card, SO WE SHUFFLE ALL THE CARDS EXCEPT THE FIVE OF OUR PRESENT DRAW AND DRAW OUT ANOTHER CARD TO GO WITH THE STAR. (This may be done with other cards in a draw if their meaning is not clear. The additional draws often clear up the confusion.)

FIRST alternate draw (after shuffle and spread of remaining cards of the full deck) gives another wand or business card, this time, the TWO OF WANDS, meaning that the waste motion of the STAR is connected with business expansion plan , which will go wrong. This is a little indefinite, so a second draw is made from the same spread (no fresh shuffling as all alternate draws are now made from the same spread, picking cards where the pack “breaks” or opens).

SECOND alternate draw is the FOUR OF SWORDS, with the meaning of a truce in war and a period of meditation and waiting, looking to better things to come. This fits the STAR and can be read as a slowing down of the war preparations. My reading is that the waste of the STAR card centers largely on the vast waste of military preparations for a war no nation now dares start. One more draw can be made to see what background of forces may lie behind the STAR.

THIRD alternate draw gives a major card, THE DEVIL. It can be read to indicate all the forces of greed in business, greed for power, and all the evil of too much hate and nationalism, all these as the background of the waste effort of the Star and the continuing plotting and arming.

THIS IS THE RUN FOR THE FUTURE.

A silent prayer is addressed to the Po`e Aumakua asking that a part of the crystallized future for the year ahead be revealed through the Taro symbols.

The complete deck is gathered and well shuffled. It is tapped out into a fan spread, showing several break points. The five cards are drawn from the breaks and placed in line, face up. All cards in the pack are placed right side up as no allowance at this time is being made for changed meanings because of reversed cards. High Card draws a long sigh of relief as he bends over the five cards before him on the altar top. The Lodge becomes silent and the tension of anticipation mounts. High Card lifts his head and smiles, saying, “All is well.”

The THREE OF WANDS is the first card and we see that in the year ahead the business world will once more lead the way, using trade agreements to open doors of friendship.

The TWO OF WANDS comes next, repeating the prediction of expanding trade on all sides and many new plans.

The KING OF CUPS is third and centers the line of five cards. He wears a coat of chain mail which is covered by his rich cloak. In his hand is the cup of friendship, not a sword. The reading is that the turn to friendly relations continues and comes to a high point.

The PAGE OF CUPS comes next, with the reading of friendly proposals in smaller matters. Perhaps we have the diplomats beginning to get together on a friendly basis to straighten out lesser matters. But they will be far behind the business men of the world who are making more practical plans in the months ahead and who are going to be the real diplomats and ambassadors who will break through barriers and begin beating swords into plowshares.

The ACE OF WANDS is the fifth card in the row. It is a card of new conceptions in business, new plans, and augurs great success unless plans go wrong. It calls for  a new beginning, perhaps a newer philosophy of business in which there is friendship and the desire, or at least willingness to make a fair exchange all around.

For an alternate to go with this card and give it more definite meaning, we make a single draw and get an alternate draw: NINE OF SWORDS. This card is described as picturing one who awakens from a nightmare to find that all the horrors are vanishing and that the present is safe and real. Perhaps no happier card could have been drawn for our alternate than this. It can stand for the world which has been in terror of war for long centuries awakening at last to a time when war is to be replaced by reason and understanding and a mutual desire for friendship and primary justice. For years we of the civilized part of the world have known enough to enable us to begin cooperating and thus avoiding the terrible cost in lives and substance of the use of the Law of Tooth and Fang. The Huna Law of Non-hurt and the Law of Love symbolized by the greatest of all kahunas (whether real or a symbol) gradually returns to aid a stricken world. No violent reactions of Mother Nature show in the prediction of the cards. The recent discovery of age old ridges in the ocean bottom laid down by the action of water along a set equatorial line discounts greatly the fear that the poles will change and the earth will be flooded or frozen or both. We seem to have at least a little time left in which to begin to use what we know and to make an earth nearer the ideal. Perhaps when Business gets the world slightly straightened out, we will begin to have time for the revamping of the dogmatism in the many religions of the world. The religious antagonisms are very great, we all admit, and true friendship is difficult between men who fear or dislike the dogmas of each other’s religion. Let us look forward to, and pray for, the time when all men can walk together in a common and greatly simplified religion whose basic command is “TO LOVE.”

THE LODGE MEMBERS CLAP POLITELY. High Card takes a bow. Cigbo grabs his box and starts rushing around to make the meeting legal. He is slapped down, given two green stamps to pacify him, and the floor is given to the HRA who demanded a “master,” or at least one who could tell a fortune. “Well, I suppose I will have to be satisfied. But how can you guarantee that what the cards are supposed to have predicted will come to pass? High Card doesn’t look like a Master to me, standing there with a dunce cap on his head. Why can’t we have someone who can look the part and perform some miracles right before our eyes to convince us that he IS a Master?”

Cigbo knows the answer. He speaks up loudly, “It’s because none of you give me enough $10 initial donations, and enough ten dollars following that every month to allow us HRAs to afford a real, and a honest to gunny Master. You can’t have a real Master like you want or a Council of Masters for green trading stamps. You just ask me. I know.”

High Card suddenly decides to close the Lodge for the present. He raises one hand and one foot. “The Lodge is Closed,” he intones.
MFL