December, 1960

Hawaiian Healers & American Indians

 

First off, may I wish you A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! with the pleasures of the festive season and the serene knowledge that “the Stars are Still There” — the loved and loving members of the Great Company of Aumakuas, and above them the still higher ranges of Beings united more and more closely until they eventually form the completely united ONE which we postulate in all religions as the ULTIMATE and the SOURCE.

My greeting will be late for you, if you live far away where mails arrive only after weeks of slow travel by rail and by ship. For those nearer by, my greeting will be much too early. Let’s join the groups in which time is considered unreal, and give our greetings the benefit of being timeless as well as warm and heartfelt.

ONLY BY CHANCE was I set to thinking early about Christmas this year. On September 29th, starting on our return from the vacation days spent at Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, we stopped to have a few minutes visit with one of the most remarkable men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He is “Shine” Smith, who for years has been giving all his life and strength to the task of helping the Red Indians of the vast desert area which was assigned to them as “reservation” land. He came to be known as “Shine” after being given that name by the Navajos because he came to help them in their greatest times of trouble, always smiling and bringing cheer, “like the sun.” Because he has loved so much through the long years of service and shared  hardships, he has come to be loved in return. Unlike most of those who work as missionaries, Shine has not demanded that the gods and Great Spirit of the Indians be given up so that the dogmas of Christianity can replace them. He seems to have found from the first that a belief in Jesus and the salvation of love could be added to the religion of awe and beauty of the Indians without loss to either set of beliefs. For many years he has driven, ridden and walked through the almost roadless wilderness to reach those who were ill or in great trouble. To them went anything and everything he could get by various means. Betimes he would find time to get out to visit people and lodges and churches, also writers and editors, anyone or any organization. Always he told of the plight of the Indians and asked for help in money, food, clothing, medicines and bedding. Soon he was planning a great Christmas party each year. It came at a time when the Indians were coldest and most beset with hunger and trouble. All were invited, and they came for miles and miles to receive such gifts as he had managed to collect. It was not a time for preaching. It was a time to demonstrate in the most practical way possible the value of a way of life based on brotherly love. They started home, often going a hundred miles of difficult travel, with warm clothing on their backs, as much food as each member of the family could hold, and often carrying a share of the food which had remained to be divided.

Shine speaks the language of three different tribes, and I imagine that the Indians love to see and talk with him as much as they love the “party,” about which they can talk endlessly when home at the hogan and huddled around meager fires where they make ready their “fried bread” like large and flat griddle cakes, and boil their coffee and sugar, if they have them to boil. The days to remember are those when they also have some mutton to boil. ……… I stood feeling very small and lacking before Shine when we visited him. The efforts he has made, the hardships he has endlessly endured, and loving service he has given …… together with a simple and unfaltering faith and with what the man himself is, ……. so greatly overshadow the little efforts made from a comfortable armchair surrounded with books.

Shine Smith was already well along with his plans and collections for the Christmas party this year. But no sooner is one party over than he begins to work and to collect for another. At any time of the year a gift and a message of love and encouragement may be sent. The address is, Shine Smith, Cameron, Arizona. He may not come in for his mail at once, but eventually he will arrive: a big, ruddy and smiling man with thin hair white, and with a heart as big as all outdoors.

IT IS MOST INTERESTING TO FIND that the Indians of America and the early Buddhists of Asia, held many religious beliefs which are so similar that one must conclude that they came from a common source. Frank Waters, in his book, MASKED GODS, makes many comparisons. The same idea of the four-sided earth is found, with four elements, four directions, and four gods or powers presiding over the sides. Each side has its own color, also. Then there are the four elements corresponding to the sides: earth and sky (air); water and fire (light). The square and symbols giving significance to its sides may be seen in the Navajo sand paintings or in the basic drawing of the first mandala in Buddhism and Yoga.

THE POLYNESIANS may have been the source of the basic ideas which later were elaborated and mixed with beliefs already current or beliefs of much later growth. In the legends of the Huna people we find the Earth Mother being impregnated by the Sky Father at the beginning of creation. Light and water were there and played their parts. The great god, Maui, used a giant hook to fish up the solid earth from beneath the waters. He also tried to capture the sun with a rope noose to make it go more slowly across the sky and dry his mother’s bark cloth. Always, the initiate can read in these legends the mana of the water symbol and the light or Aumakua symbol of the sun. In the Indian and Asiatic lore there are four levels under the earth, and working up through these evolve the early people, until at last they come to the surface and stand fully aware of the Light.

The Polynesians had similar lower regions, and legends tell of the ones who descended into them to rescue relatives and friends despite the trouble getting past the many dangers which symbolized fixations and obsessional influences. Time and admixtures of ideas have made the original beliefs harder to identify, as in the case of the Aumakua which became a totem animal spirit guardian in many places, although we learn from the writer, Mary Austin, that the Wahanda of the Paiutes, which she learned to contact just as she did the “I, Mary” of her childhood, equates nicely with the Aumakua of Huna. Wherever we look, we find the “Man God” standing ready to act as the intercessor between man and the higher gods.

NEWS OF THE HAWAIIAN HEALER WHO HEALED MANY INDIANS has been received. It will be remembered that mention was made in the Huna Vistas a few issues back of a report that a Hawaiian healer using the methods of kahunas had visited Indians of the West and healed many. Mention was also made of a gentleman named Craig, who is half Cherokee (if I am rightly informed), who has been trying to help the Indians in some of their legal efforts to get back lands. I first thought these Indians were of a tribe living in southern Arizona and who were trying to get back water rights. I had seen a television program covering this battle, and later read a news item which said the Indians were laying claim to the whole of the U.S.A. I made a joking remark about this in the H.V. and was told that I was quite wrong. I took it for granted that Craig was trying to help these people, possibly the Pimas living south of Phoenix. I spoke of the injustices heaped upon the Indians and suggested that help could be given by sending money to Craig, who then had a Los Angeles address. Some money was sent, and he wrote soon from a new address to express his thanks. (Now: Craig, Care Essenes of Kosmon, Rt. 2, Box 83, Montrose, Colo.)

CRAIG KNEW ALL ABOUT THE HAWAIIAN HEALER, it turned out, and wrote me a long letter filled with information on the Indian difficulties and covering several matters. Craig says that he is an active Oahspean. He uses the offset printing machinery of the center and moved with the center when it was taken by Wing Anderson from Los Angeles to the large Montrose center. Perhaps I should say that the presses were moved, as there was no actual center in Los Angeles except in so much as Mr. Anderson, head of the organization in U.S.A. lived here on the West Coast. He now plans to live at the Montrose center, and is building himself a home there. Craig prints literature and sends it out to those who may help with the Indian problems. I am sure he will not object if parts of his letter are passed on here. I now quote:

“When Messengers are called by Spirit Instruction and guided by Spirit Influence to the Hopi, for instance, from such widely scattered areas as Hawaii and South Africa, one begins to realize the extent of the Power of that ‘something.’ You, yourself, have been led by ‘something’ to do more than any other man to broaden the understanding of former mammonists so they can comprehend and use Indian religion. Huna and Indian ‘Medicine’ are basically the same thing: Kahunas and Medicine Men can, and sometimes DO, work together as a team. A very sacred chant used in the Islands is practically identical to a very sacred one used in the Hopi kivas. And that is not the only unity between ancient tribal Miracle People everywhere. The migration histories dovetail perfectly. The prophesies of the future dovetail perfectly. If you have waded through these four pages you deserve a treat.

“I was with the kahuna, about whom you asked, most of the time. I escorted him here and there, slept with him, and escorted him back to the Pacific Coast. I know he has a ‘direct wire’ to Pele, Goddess of Fire (in Hawaii). I saw him heal 70 people in one day, and 56 on the next. I saw him stop the rain clouds which some 40 Hopi snake dancers were calling in to ‘baptize’ the people and corn and crops. On the following day I saw him shield himself from getting uncomfortably cold in the falling rain called down by 7 old time snake dancers in another Hopi village. Just imagine a crowd of some 400 people walking away from a village after a ceremony is finished and everybody soaked to the skin except one bareheaded and umbrella-less man, a Hawaiian kahuna.

“Actually, he isn’t a kahuna. He does not go through the chants and rituals and discipline of a kahuna. But his power is kahuna power because he has over 13 working for him. (Spirits or human, not specified. Ed.) He just asks and they do the work for him. They are glad to do this because he is the authentic King of Hawaii, and he has a duty to uphold Hawaiian Land and Life, and so the people uphold him. His Hawaiian duty is, therefore, similar to our Indian Duty and so we keep in touch with each other and ‘work’ together.

“He can even bring people back from the dead. This I have not seen, but I can believe it: one man had been dead for 17 hours and was frozen stiff in the morgue; another was ‘brought back’ with, I think, seven machine-worshiping, scientifically  trained, very modern and very sanitary doctors watching him.

“His power even made us invisible when we left the Hopi meeting of Indian brothers, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police and the State Police of Arizona and New Mexico were trying to stop us and arrest us. For some reason they seem to be afraid of me, and that makes me laugh because I am nothing. There were three cars of us and we heard complete descriptions of us and our cars given over the police radio. The police DID look diligently for us. We saw them scurrying all around looking for us. They followed us, passed us and escorted us, but never saw us. This happened on September 4, 1959.

“A young materialistic instructor of the Riverside branch of the University of California has a doctor’s degree and a sharp ear and tongue. He heard of the Miracle Powers and scoffed. Finally we would simply avoid him when we wanted to talk ‘Indian talk’ with our brothers from coast to coast. Then, when he heard of the many miracle healings, he jumped on me in anger because I didn’t invite him to witness these things when other white people were seeing them and he was also a guest. The Hawaiian said, ‘O.K. Come on.’ After seeing only two healings the young doctor got up and left the room. He never came back and never said a word about what he had seen. Frankly, I think he had to dismiss the whole thing from his consciousness because what he saw was a complete contradiction of what he had sacrificed his whole life to learn and worship — the modern materialism which makes one a doctor, a big shot, a man to kow tow to, a maker of big machines, a leader in super science and all that kind of stuff which people of different understanding aren’t much impressed with.

“By the way, he (the healer) isn’t allowed to heal everybody and I saw two people in those days whom he was not allowed to help. One was a strong Christian who secretly mocked his pagan Hawaiian power. The other was a man who secretly had mocked, as I later heard from his own lips. I saw people far worse off healed in less than 20 minutes. One old woman had been paralyzed and sitting upright in a chair for five years, arms, hands and neck frozen solid with arthritis, ankles swollen to the size of thighs because of dropsey. He had her loosened up and supple and walking around and laughing and singing in less than half an hour. Her neck was still slightly stiff but he said it had a good start and would finish healing in time. Another woman had suffered a stroke five months before and was paralyzed on her right side, face, arm and leg. She was in a bed, of course, but ended up walking around, smiling and apparently completely healed. A religious leader had a stomach pain and a shoulder pain which had caused suffering for years. These were taken away and have never returned. Another religious leader, one of two spokesmen appointed by the Hopi chiefs years ago, a well known man who can’t  speak a word of English, had blindness and droopy eyelids which he couldn’t control, a stiff and painful hip caused by a fall from stone steps in a kiva some years before – he is over 80 – and two stiff handicapping knees. He was cured of all his troubles. As I write this, a spirit person comes and stands on my left to see what I have been doing, and to tell me that this is enough. So I will close this portion by telling you that I cannot tell you the name or address or telephone number of this king of Hawaii who is the most powerful Miracle Worker I know. I can’t tell you because he will reveal himself to you, if he has not already, when he thinks it is appropriate. You already know him by correspondence. He knows you and your work and this is as far as I know. He has been watching you for many years.

“Another man who has been watching you and your work for many years is a kahuna and the main chanter in the Islands. You probably know him personally, but, on second thought, he may have been experimenting with Mormanism at the time you were living there, and not chanting for the King and the People as he does now. Anyhow, this man is also known for his powers and I remember the time when we were coming back from another Hopiland meeting to which he had been called by Spirit — Pele, he said — to meet with those ‘Little People’ again and also to meet for the first time the Ute Leaders and the Army General. In the wooded hills south of Flagstaff, as we headed for Phoenix (Arizona) and Los Angeles, the falling snow finally got so deep and the road so slick that we could go no farther.

“All other traffic had already stopped except for a pickup truck with chains, but even it was having a bad time. It was nearly dark and it looked like the storm would continue all night. The General and the Chanter were a bit disturbed, and so was I. I knew that country and had slept out in snow storms before, but such measures are tough even on young men and very serious for older ones. I said,’I think this is the last steep hill before the road goes over the top and down into the warm low country of Oak Creek Canyon. If we could only make this hill, we could probably get to Los Angeles without trouble.’ The Chanter kahuna said in a low voice, ‘You aren’t going to make me get out and push in this strange and slippery white stuff are you? I don’t like this cold.’ I thought he was mumbling to me, but it turned out that he was talking to an unseen Friend. He started to chant. The chills ran up and down my spine. The General started to twitch and jerk as I have seen him do many times when Great Powers are close, and the car started to move slowly up the hill. The General finally put the car in gear and started to spin the wheels a bit — just for formality’s sake because it was obvious that it was not helping a darned bit and hadn’t helped in all the times we tried it before. The car just kept going up the hill, going around the other cars which were stalled. And that is how we got home.

“The storm turned out to be a bad one. It lasted two days. No telling how long we would have stayed on that slippery hill if the Friend of the Chanter hadn’t decided that the old man didn’t deserve the discipline of freezing and slipping around and falling down in that very un-Hawalian  like ‘white stuff.’

“These two kahunas know you and will reveal themselves to you whenever they think the time is right. They tell me their system is ‘a little different’ from the one you describe in your Secret Science, but you are close enough. You have done wonderful work and have the warm gratitude of many besides myself. Please don’t quit. I hope you tell your people again and again ‘Not to Hurt, and ‘To give until it really HELPS — UNTIL THE VICTORY’S WON.'”

MY COMMENT: A few years ago one of the HRAs of that period told me of a healer of full or part Hawaiian blood who lived in the San Francisco region and who had told him that he had made trips to Hawaii at the command of Spirits, to meet a group which was working there with kahuna-type magic to bring about the restoration of the rulership of the Islands to the Hawaiians. I remember being put off by the statement that someone connected with the efforts was called “King of Hawaii.” I have forgotten whether I had, at that time, a message from the Hawaiian healer or a letter, but in any event I was not sufficiently impressed to follow up the lead.

Last year, David Bray called on me, and among other things we discussed the group above mentioned. He said he had heard that there was such a group, but that he knew nothing of it or its aims except distantly. Mr. Bray is the official Chanter of Hawaii and is part Hawaiian. He makes little claim to healing ability. If the second man mentioned by Craig is someone I have known, I cannot identify him. I have had a few letters from Hawaiians who live here in California, but do not recall that any of the writers fits the description of either healer mentioned.

The story of the calling in of spirit power and the pushing of the car through the snow and over the hill is amazing in these days when powerful mediums have almost vanished. A century ago there were many of them at the time Spiritualism and Psychic Science was being born. A grand piano, weighted down by three men seated on its top, one of them Abraham Lincoln, was lifted into the air by spirits. at a seance held at the White House. D. D. Home was lifted and carried out of an open window, to be returned through the window of an adjoining room. The large stone house was repeatedly shaken as if by an earthquake. That there is power of a psychic nature which can be used by spirits, there is little doubt. In the matter of instant or almost instant healing, the proof from past records is beyond question. It is not a question of what has been or can be done, but a question of HOW. In our long study of the lore of kahunas and the phenomena of Psychic Science, we have found many things connected with healing besides the help of spirits. The fixations and obsessional influences cannot be overlooked, and we may guess that Craig’s healer was stopped by something in this category in cases where healing failed.

Healing with the aid of spirits is still attempted, and such practices are being introduced into orthodox circles and tried in churches. Healers vary in their ability to call in spirit aid and so in getting results. The mediums seem best when they are naturally gifted and when spirits of the right level and grade of development elect to use them. Methods of developing mediumship are far from perfect. There may be something connected with chants and rituals still to be divulged by those who know the exact steps to be taken in training.

I have written to Craig to ask if he can tell me just what it is that the Hawaiian healer holds as the price of such information as he may be able to give. I have asked, for instance, whether he thinks I could do something to qualify for instruction, or whether he thinks the “King” wants followers or what. While the fear is always present that we again face the ancient obstacle of a cult of secrecy which is always a prime obstacle. To far I have refused to accept any information with a promise not to divulge it. I believe that the time has come to allow all who can use it, full access to knowledge in the psycho-religious field, and, so far as I know, I have as yet missed nothing of importance. Usually those who offer secret information with a pledge of secrecy, give no more than the rehash of “courses” and cults.

OUR RESEARCH PROJECT

Testing of the Thomson Jay Hudson method of healing others through the use of a form of sleep  administered suggestion, is progressing in a most encouraging way. Preliminary reports are being sent in, and many of the HRAs write to say they have picked a patient and are starting work for his healing. Some have already run into obstacles, and are reporting these while asking my opinion, for what it is worth. I will take up these different angles in turn.

HAL STYLES, D. D., founder and pastor of The Church of the Good Neighbor, at Reseda, near Los Angeles, has long been a friend of Huna. Some years ago he phoned to ask me to come to meet and give an opinion on a Hawaiian who claimed certain magic powers and who was to appear on Hal’s radio program. I am sorry to say I cannot recall the name of this Hawaiian gentleman, and that my conclusion was that he knew no Huna and was mainly after a bit of free publicity. (Wouldn’t it be odd if this had been the very healer Craig writes about as having been in contact with me?) Dr. Styles wrote:

“I enjoyed every page of Huna Vistas (No. 15). I particularly enjoyed your new research project and I heartily concur in Dr. Hudson’s findings. This Is virtually all I do or have ever done, except that I am consciously aware during astral travel, and it can be summed up in the words, ‘spirit with spirit, meets.’ Each night between the hours of midnight and 2 a. m. — longer if necessary — I make intercessory prayer in behalf of those who write to me from all over the country and most of them, of course, I never see. However, I have enjoyed a large number of total successes. (He has long been a good hypnotist, and so understands and can use the suggestion element with ease. In addition to his church work he is at present putting out a series of good lessons in mimeo form dealing with health, and hinging on the part played by “mind” in its low and middle levels.)(I further note that these lessons are called “Unfoldment Lessons,” and have run through No. 17. A dollar should bring a sample or two.)

DR. W. J. GABB, HRA, of Durban, South Africa, has written that he accomplished results through the mental-spiritual healing methods, working for friends at a distance by asking that he be allowed to take over their ills and troubles. While he does not say so, the idea is similar to the thought that in taking over the sufferings of the world, caused and to be caused by sin, Jesus was able, on the cross, to bear a burden for the many and in this way offer salvation.

In Theosophical circles it would be helping others bear the burden of suffering to strike a balance with bad Karma. HRA Gabb relates how he did, indeed, suffer greatly the type of ills besetting his friends, and how they were helped. Incidentally, he recovered from physical ills or economic social tangles in no long time after asking to share them to lighten the load of the others. This is the first time such methods have been reported to me, and the method may be important, although just why, I cannot say in terms of Huna as I know it. On the other hand, this type of healing, as well as simple “laying on hands”, has often caused the healer to take on the pains of the patient. Some healers, and often kahunas of old, cleansed themselves ceremonially after a healing effort. Modern healers often wash hands and arms carefully in running water, and this would, in the eyes of a kahuna, furnish the very valuable physical stimulus to cause the Aunihipili to accept the Auhane suggestion that none of the ills of the ones treated be allowed by the Aunihipili to act as a suggestion so that they appear in the healer.

HUDSON STATED EMPHATICALLY that no harm had come to him or his friends in using the method. On the contrary he said the health of the healer also improved. This seems important. Kahunas did not take on the ills of those they treated, and to do so would be to negate the whole theory of healing.

THE HUNA FOUND IN CODE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT throws light on a number of misunderstandings. Take the matter of Jesus bearing the cross, and suffering for the sins of humanity. The Hawaiian word for “bear” is koo (there are three other words which may be used, but this is the one we need to examine) and it has seven meanings listed In the dictionary. It means “to hold up” (as in bearing the cross), “to help or assist, to loosen, to make vacant, to uncoil or unwind as a rope or string,” etc.

THE WORD KEA, for “cross,” stresses the root, ke, which means “to force or compel” and also (not counting some other meanings), “to obstruct one as he goes along.” The full word, kea, also means “to hinder, obstruct and object.” The wooden cross of kahunas was an “X” cross, and it was placed on the paths leading to a sacred place as a sign of taboo — to hinder or stop one from going ahead on that path. Now recall the symbols of Huna which we have so often considered: A cross was something that blocked one’s growth or progress along the “path” of life. It could be the force exerted by “eating companion” spirits to force evil impulses on one. It could be the fixed guilts and fears and “shock” complexes lodged in the Aunihipili and preventing normal activities or normal enjoyment of mental or physical health.

If Jesus, in the great drama of his crucifixion, could not get loosened, as from the aka cords binding him to the evil and obsessing spirits, or get free from his fixations, there was no other way open to him except death and suffering. It was not, in the inner or secret meaning of the drama, the exoteric offer of vicarious salvation for all men, then or still to come. It was the salvation offered through knowledge. It taught men to become hurtless and helpful so that the evil spirits would leave them, and to live hurtlessly so that the major guilt fixations could be removed or be “loosened.”

There is the tradition of the man who helped Jesus bear his too heavy cross. This man is the kahuna, the healer, the friend who understands and who will help the afflicted one to understand if possible. He carried the cross for Jesus, but, in the drama, could not free him of the obstacles blocking his path. He did not mount the cross and die for him. Nor does this coded secret information suggest that we need to die for those we try to assist. Or, even to suffer in their stead more than a man of strength might suffer in carrying a heavy cross for a distance up a hill. Jesus repeatedly commanded his followers and listeners, if we can accept the story as a fact, to “take up your cross” and “follow me.” Where did he lead? To the condition in which the hurtless and kindly life was attained and the evil spirits caused to leave to hunt for those of their own kind: the equally evil. The guilt fixations would be removed as physical acts of helpfulness convinced the Aunihipili that its guilts were removed. Other fixations not involving guilt were not so important, especially since complexed fears or loves may not cause hurt to be done to others, the cardinal sin being THE HURTING OF OTHERS. Karma, as understood in Theosophy, was unknown to kahunas. To them the animal world of the Aunihipili was subject to the accidents such as befall all physical life from plant to insect, and if the man could change his character, he could escape the results of past deeds. Some say that this is far from justice, but what do we really know of justice under Natural Law which commands the “survival of the fittest”? Character, however, may well be the mark of progress on the path of growth, and it may come with the selves when they reincarnate, as may talents. Jesus expressed the Huna point of view when he said, “As a man thinks in his heart (the Aunihipili of kahunas), so is he.” This statement could also apply to all illness coming under the modern classification of “Psychosomatic.” It may also apply to the fixations or obsessions which make a person “accident prone,” or cause him to act in strange and illogical ways. It is to be doubted that the teaching, “As you sow, so shall you reap,” applies to more than the present life, unless the sowing results in character changes which we bring back with us in the next incarnation and have to face for good or ill. (From the code we learn that to “sow” is to plant seeds, and the secondary meaning indicates that the seeds are thought-forms and that they are planted by transfer to the Aumakua, who, acting as under some Law, is forced to grow the seeds or materialize them in our lives, thus, “The thing I feared has come upon.me.”  Kahunas ordered those whom they healed NOT to think of the illness or trouble which had been removed. They would have cheered for the modern New Thought assertion that if we “think right” we will “be right.”

THIS BRINGS US TO SOMETHING SAID IN A LETTER recently by one of the HRAs who is a teacher and who heads her own group. She said that her mother had been a very successful Christian Science practitioner, and that she had learned early in her ministry that she must NOT think about or visualize or treat the unwanted condition of illness or trouble. She learned to think of the spirit of the person and to treat it for perfection regardless of other matters. We have just noted Dr. Hal Style’s statement that the treating he did at night by astral travel was primarily through the meeting of his spirit and that of the patient, and that prayer was a part of the effort.

“Ask, believing that you have already received,” fits perfectly if we agree that what we send to the Aumakua as the “seed” or thought-forms of the prayer, (together with the water or mana to be used to make the “seeds” grow), these thoughts used in composing the prayer must NOT be picturings of the very things we wish to have dematerialized so that the wanted things can be materialized. If it helps us to feel that we are “seeing” the spirit of the patient, and it [is] perfect, that is all well and good. One will be treating “spirit” instead of the flesh, and, indirectly, the flesh will be healed when the spirit is helped to throw off the things of belief that hold it back from healing the supporting body and the circumstances surrounding its life.

IN USING THE HUDSON METHOD, Dr. Hudson advised that the selected patient not be told of the healing effort for fear he might counteract the good by his own thoughts. While in some cases we cannot avoid telling the patient, as in my own tests where two of the four I am treating have requested that I try the method for them, I think the idea of saying nothing is a good one. However, if the patient knows, remind him of the fact that it is well not to keep thinking of the trouble. Best think of the desired condition as if already present. Jesus followed Huna in saying to those he had healed, “Go, and tell no man.” Kahunas knew that by discussing the healing with skeptical friends their suggestions of doubt could cause the Aunihipili to bring back the ills just healed.

DOES THE AUNIHIPILI CONTROL BODILY FUNCTIONS?

This question was asked by one of the HRAs who talks via automatic writing to a group of seemingly advanced spirits. They replied that, “Our physical mechanics, such as the digestion, heart beat, chemical reaction, growth etc., is taken care of by a higher source.” She adds that this higher source does not seem to be the Aumakua. It has long been postulated that apprentice selves arriving at the Aumakua level are given the work of overlooking and directing the physical and instinctive processes of lower forms of life, beginning with the lowest and working up to directing the Aunihipili and its body. In Theosophy these are called “Nature Spirits.” Kahunas had no very definite beliefs on the subject, so far as I have been able to learn, but they recognized entities of many levels working behind the scenes to help visible nature forms. It was to the spirits of the Aumakua level that they prayed when asking for changes of wind and weather, but the Aumakua was asked for healing. My thought is that if there are Nature Spirits who overlook men as the directing “Group Souls,” we can depend upon Aumakuas to do what is necessary in their fields when healing is required. As this point is uncertain, suggestion given in waking periods or telepathically (or by astral travel) during sleep to a Aunihipili to cause it to bring about bodily changes, might require something of which it is incapable of doing. This is why we would seem to need to add prayer for Aumakua help to the Hudson method. However, he got results and did not advise the use of prayer. Perhaps much hinges on visualizing the patient as a perfect being and suggesting this perfection with the knowledge that the Aumakua will materialize into fact the “seed” thought-pictures thus provided. The suggestion, on the other hand, that the patient give up hates and fears, and other emotional reactions which cause bodily ills, seems to be good. Our testing falls into a field where complications are many.

THE BAD SPIRIT INFLUENCES around one may or may not be removed by suggestion or prayer. An HRA writes that she suffered from what could be mana lack because the spirits stole her life forces. She was tired and her mind foggy. The doctors could find no reason for the condition. She learned from “eating companion” discussions in my writings that such entities might be causing her trouble. She found in Oahspe (86-3 and 783-3 and on) descriptions of similar entities there called “fetals.” She writes, “…I simply talked to my Aunihipili and my Aumakua as you have taught us to do and I asked that these uninvited guests be removed. For several nights I actually had dreams of engaging in real battles with them. Something must have taken place because I became delightfully strong, wide awake, and the foggy feeling I had left my mind so that it worked much faster and with much more lucidity. Unfortunately I can’t seem to maintain this permanently. How could one remove these intruders permanently?” I answered that I did not know, but that the Huna idea seemed to be to use shock charges of mana carrying suggestion on the entities. One asks constantly for Aumakua protection and one refuses to respond to any intruding evil thought or impulse coming from such spirits. Later she wrote that things had gone suddenly very bad with her and her household. I replied that often when the bad old future begins to break up in response to our prayer requests, things become worse than at the beginning. But if one sits tight and keeps praying, the bad passes and the good new future begins to appear.

THE NEWS OF MEADE LAYNE, FORMER ROUND ROBIN EDITOR, is that he is very ill in a San Diego rest home after a stroke. Riley Crabb, the new editor, carries on well and the Christmas issue is artistic and good in content, as usual. MFL