June, 1962

The Power to Heal

 

A POSSIBLE CLUE TO INSTANT HEALING has turned up while I have been looking through the Huna material which is scattered through the books and bulletins which many of you of the HRA have helped me to produce.

WHILE MAKING MY DAILY PENDULUM CONTACT with my Aumakua to offer mana and love and to ask for Guidance, particularly in the matter of the handling of the HRA work and in the writing of the book covering the Huna in Bible and Gnostic literature, I was suddenly struck with an idea. It was that we have been neglecting the consideration of what kahunas called “SPEAKING FOR THE GOD”. With kahunas “the god” with whom they identified themselves and for whom they spoke in uttering the command, “BE HEALED”, was the Aumakua. In the Gospels we find Jesus using the formula, “Thy faith has made this possible. BE YOU HEALEDI” He explained to his inner circle of disciples, “Not 1, but the Father within; He doeth the works”. He added, “The Father and I are one.” It is apparent from our studies of the Huna coded and hidden in the New Testament, that Jesus spoke of himself in two ways. He was “The Son of Man” as a combined Aunihupili and Auhane, but as he spoke of himself as “The Son of God”, he was including his Aumakua and indicating the human trinity of selves.

WHAT WE NOW NEED TO KNOW IS just how one becomes “one with the Father/Mother Aumakua” and becomes privileged to speak the WORD of command to bring about healing. We know that the “path” must be opened and blocks cleared away for the patient, also that faith must be sufficient. We know that much mana is needed and must be used in making swift changes in physical matter, such as in the broken bone or diseased flesh where there is healing.

“THE WORD” has been spoken about as something mystical and creative down the centuries. We read in the veiled writings such things as, ‘In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” But that statement is very young, comparatively speaking. We need to try to go back to search for source materials. Early Egypt is indicated as a better place to continue the search. In my library I have Gerald Massey’s two volume book, Egypt, the Light of the World and we can turn to it for information. On page 192 of Vol. I there is in progress a discussion of the ritual angles of The Book of the Dead. Let me quote:

“Enough has now been cited to show the method of the Ritual and the mode of the eschatology (beliefs concerning life after death conditions) of the Egyptian religion, which was founded in the mould of pre-extant mythology. The Book of the Dead is the Egyptian book of life. It is the pre-Christian word of God. We learn this from the account which it gives of itself. It is attributed to Ra, as the inspiring Holy Spirit. Ra (light or sun) was the father in heaven, who has the title of Huhi, the eternal. (In Hawaiian hu is the rising and overflowing of life as symbolized by leaven. Hi is the reverse of the rising tide or leaven of life. It is “to flow away”. A cycle of incarnations seems to be indicated, and these under the direction of the Aumakua as the Light) from which we derive the Hebrew name of lhuh. The word was given by God the father to the ever coming son as manifestor for the father. This was Horus, who, as the coming son, is Iu-sa or lu-su, and as the prince of peace, Iu-emhetep. Horus, the son, is the Word in person. Hence the speaker in the character of Horus says, ‘I utter his words — the words of Ra —  to men of the present generation, and I repeat his words to him who is deprived of breath’. (We seem here to have an early concept of Jesus speaking for the Father, and raising the dead by the use of the Father’s word of command or power.) That is, as Horus, the sayer or logos, who utters the ‘words of Ra the father in heaven to the living on earth, and to the breathless Manes (spirits) in Amenta (mystical after death place) when he descends into Hades or the later hell to preach to the spirits in prison. The word or the sayings thus originated with Ra the father in heaven. They were uttered by Horus the son, and when written down in the hieroglyphics by the fingers of Taht-Aan for human guidance they supplied a basis for the Book of the Dead.

“It had been ordained by Ra. that his words, such as those that bring about ‘the resurrection and the glory’, should be written down by the divine scribe Taht-Aan, to make the word truth, and to effect the triumph of Osiris against his adversaries; and it is proclaimed in the opening chapter of the Ritual that this mandate had been obeyed by Taht. The Ritual purports to contain the gnosis (knowledge) of salvation from the second death, together with the ways and means of attaining eternal life, as these were acted in the drama of the Osirlan mysteries ….

“The object of the words of power, the magical invocations, the Ameral ceremonies, the purgatorial trials, is the resurrection of the mortal to the life everlasting. The opening chapter is described as the ‘words’ which bring about the resurrection on the Mount of Glory, and the closing chapters show the deceased upon the summit of attainment. He has joined the lords of eternity in ‘the circle of Osiris,’ and in the likeness of his own human self, the ‘very figure which he had on earth,’ but changed and glorified. The Word of god personified in Horus preceded the written word of God and when the words of power were written down by Taht and the scribe of truth, they were assigned to Horus as the logia. (words or sayings) of the Lord, and preserved as precious records of him who was the word in person; first the word of power as the founder, then the word in truth or made truth, as the fulfiller. The divine words, when written, constituted the scriptures, the earliest of which are those ascribed to Hermes, or Taht, the reputed author of all the sacred writings. The magical words of power when written down by Taht became the nucleus of the Ritual, which is late in comparison with the astronomical mythology and other forms of sign language, and belong mainly to the Osirian religion.

“The mystical word of power, from the first, was female. Apt at Ombos was worshiped as ‘the Living Word.’ The supreme type of this power borne upon the head of Shu is the hinder part of a lioness, her sign of sexual potency. Great magical words of power are ascribed to Isis, (Isis and Osiris were the parents of the son, Horus. They have the characteristics of the Father/Mother Aumakua with Horus representing the son made up of a Aunihipili and Auhane.) whose word of power in the human sphere was personified in Horus the child, her word which issued from silence. This is the word that was made flesh in a mortal likeness, the soul derived from the blood. Child Horus, however, manifests in divers phenomena as the Word of Power emaned by Isis, in the water, in vegetation, in food, and lastly in the virgin mother’s blood.”

I COMMENT: In the above we have the same tangle of outward teachings concerning the ancient beliefs, combined with the hidden inner teachings, that we meet in the later writings which make up much of the New Testament and the literature of the Gnosis where Jesus is also presented as a living man. Huna beliefs, coded and symbolized, appear constantly as one studies the early Egyptian and later Christian and Gnostic materials. But unless one knows Huna and the language used in the code, one becomes lost in a forest so thick that it cannot be seen because of the trees.

To understand the idea of “the word” as used when “speaking for the god”, we need to look carefully at the Huna words for speak and for word. The same root is used in both. It is le`lo. O`lelo is a word and is also to speak. The “0” may be translated “of”. Le, as seen in lele, is to rise upward. It is the symbol used by kahunas to indicate the rising of the mana and thought form prayer along the aka cord to the Aumakua. The root lo has the notation of “the fore part of the head”, or the “brain”. It may be the coded thought that the prayer is sent by the man as a conscious being. Another meaning may be found in the symbolic moving up and down of the tongue, the up being the rise of the mana and prayer, and the down the lower man as the source of the sending to the Aumakua. Another word for “speak” is i and this also means “to beget, as a father”. This is the creative aspect we must have in mind when we think of “speaking for the god” to create the new condition in which healing is complete. This root word “i”, is found in io, which has the meaning of “flesh” and also of “true, real, not imaginary”. Here the code may be giving us the basic idea of causing the word to become fIesh and at the same time to become  the truth or materialized and real thing brought about through the use of the mechanism of speaking the word with/for the Father/ Mother.

WE SEEM TO HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND the ancient Huna belief, and from the evidence of instant healing performed by the best of kahunas we need next to ask just how one goes about it to identify oneself with the Aumakua and speak for it successfully the command words, “be healed”. It would seem that this HOW has been the subject of much of the instruction contained in the outer meanings of Holy Writ from the days of The Book of the Dead to the time of the Gospels. In between these and perhaps a little after the latter, we have the Gnostic literature. In Yoga we may have instruction from a separate but slightly similar source belief.

One has but to try to make the union or full identification as a part of speaking the word for the Aumakua to stir up an immediate reaction on the part of the Aunihipili. All the “blocks” in the path suddenly rise mountain high. All the inferiority complexes are triggered. One becomes suddenly and completely abashed at the thought of one’s almost wicked temerity. One asks, “Who am I that I should try to play god?” But we finally bring ourselves to try. We accumulate mana, make the contact, and feel the tingle of the “fine rain” of returning mana. We feel about in our mind and senses to try to find some indication that we are so fully one with the Aumakua that we can speak the word for it. We sense nothing. We select a sick friend or bad condition and speak the word of healing or correction. Nothing happens. We ask ourselves why. We wonder whether or not the ingredient of faith has been lacking on the part of patient and healer.

IN FIRE WALKING WE HAVE THE NEXT CLUE. I have been going back over such material as I have on the rite, and in every account of the performance or demonstration of heat immunity except one, I have found that the fire walker or handler went through a special period of preparation. This might be one of purification, as in the Hindu performance so well studied and described by George Sandwith. (see Chapter 3 of his book, The Miracle, Hunters.) Or it might be a ritual observation of rules and the recital of certain prayers when the wood and stones for the fire walk were being selected, or the ti leaf or other green material for the wand or whisk used to brush the hot stones before the first step was taken. The one exception was found in the account of English experimenters who hired one Hassin, a professional, to demonstrate the fire walk. He failed to furnish protection for others and did a poor job of walking the red coals himself. The Englishmen, being certain that nothing more than courage and a firm step was needed, stepped out on the same fire, and one of them crossed with only a small blister, although, as I recall, another was burned and had to leave the coals after two steps. He did not report any special sensation of being in contact with any spirit or god speak of the successful Englishman.) On the other hand, the Polynesian fire walker reported by Charles Kenn in his book FIRE WALKING FROM THE INSIDE, said that his fire walking friend who initiated him, observed the ritual prayers and then, early in the morning before the fire was lighted under the stones, saw spirits of the gods dancing on the stones, and so was sure that they had heard the prayers and would be there when needed to prevent burns.

THE POWER BEHIND THE “WORD” MAGIC, WAS FEMININE, you will recall Massey saying in the passages just quoted from his books. This may be very significant. In the Polynesian invocations, the “Woman of the Sky” is addressed. She was Hina, the early moon goddess, whose light is cool, coming from the moon, in contrast to the hot rays from the sun over which her partner, Tane, presides. In his report, HRA George Sandwith wrote of his conversation ahead of the date of the fire walk, with one of the young Hindus in Fiji who would participate. I quote:

“With shining eyes full of feeling he spoke of the Goddess Kali who, as Mother of the World, radiates ineffable beauty, tenderness and compassion for all her earthly children whom she longs to draw into her arms. (It was to her that prayers were addressed for fire immunity.) His voice shook with emotion as he spoke of his love for a Glorious Being, seemingly as real to him as any beauty of flesh and blood … I asked him if it might be possible for a European to contact the Goddess in the same way as he had done. He replied, ‘Of course. The name is of no importance, so if you are a Christian you can think of the Virgin Mary as Queen of the Heavens, or if you are scientific, think of the Power that created the Universe. It is all the same.”‘

To the fire walker there may come a very strong sense of the presence of a god or goddess, just as many people have a “realization” or a “religious experience”. But although such experiences are deeply impressive, they are usually fleeting and subjective. One may see the white light, but perhaps only once or twice in a long lifetime. It would seem that the senses are made to sense things less rarefied than the aka bodies of Aumakuas or gods. But now that we have the pendulum test to evidence in the swings that the Aunihipili is reporting contact, we have something to help us greatly and to back up blind faith as it may never have been backed up before in all the centuries.

WHAT I AM DRIVING AT IS that perhaps the thing we have missed is that we must take all necessary steps to make ourselves ready, then make the contact, perhaps with the pendulum to assure us that it is complete, and then go ahead, believing that we have identified ourselves with the Aumakua, and utter the word of power, “‘Be ye healed!” This gets us directly to the point, but we must not over simplify the preliminary steps, about which all the mass of outer instructions revolve. We must unblock the path, make amends for hurts done to others so that we can be convinced on all levels that we are free from guilt and are ready to begin doing things to make us deserve the help of Aumakuas. We must live so that the evil spirits about us find in us no response to their urgings and go away. We must purify ourselves as we feel we should, and perhaps follow the old rules and rituals of a favored belief. We must practice making contact with the Aumakua and offering love and mana with the presentation of the “seed” or mental image of the condition which we wish to have materialized for us.

THE TIME ELEMENT MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN. There is the instant healing and the slow. Changes of conditions may demand that the old future which has been crystallized be torn down and we must brace ourselves as the pieces fall on our heads in a frightening way. Then there is the consideration of the chance that the manifesting of the desired new and good future will involve changes in the lives of others. We know that we have free will, and that we are not allowed to infringe on the rights of others to exert free will. Here Aumakuas of all concerned may need to be consulted by our own Aumakua, and ways and means agreed upon so that all involved may benefit when the new condition is brought about. The “seed” or plan may have to be revised until acceptable to all on the three levels of being.

THE GREAT DIFFICULTY OF UNBLOCKING THE PATH and of getting rid of defeating companion spirits who may be influencing our lives to our detriment, has been apparent since the beginning of our study of the Huna lore and of the methods used by kahunas of yesterday. Dianetics and Scientology were amateur efforts to shorten, and improve on, the methods of the psychiatrists. Promises and claims have awakened hopes and ended in disappointment for a great many.

HOWEVER, THERE IS FRESH HOPE. We have gone back to the point at which we started the Huna investigation to fire immunity. We have also gone back to the Huna hidden in Biblical and other writings, and here we find unmistakable evidence of the belief that the same use of the spoken word — spoken for the god —  can be the means of unblocking the path as the preliminary to healing and helping. It stands to reason that if the Aumakua can heal the body and cause changes in circumstances, it should also be able to make changes for us in the matter of fixations and spirit influence. A Gallup Poll report dated April 16th of this year, (sent to me by one of the observant HRAs) tells of the finding of one person in each five who has had a very definite “religious experience” of the kind that points directly to the opening of the path by the Aumakua or the removal of spirits bent on exerting an evil influence. The burdened and darkened come suddenly into the light. A great uplift is experienced. Often the whole way and pattern of life is changed. The sensations are mixed and hard to describe, but leave a very deep and lasting impression.

THE MOTHER HALF OF THE AUMAKUA, as the one to whom certain types of prayer should be addressed, presents a new problem in our search for workable information. Let us examine two versions of the invocation used by the Polynesian fire walking kahunas just before starting to go across the hot stones. The first is taken from page 507 of O’Brien’s book, Mystic Isles of the South Seas (The Century Co., 1921). He observed the fire walking rite in Tahiti and does not give the source of the invocation, but it seems to have been in translation and available at that time, as was a similar translation used by Charles W. Kenn, which we will also examine. O’Brien wrote that the kahuna had been in a hut in the forest clearing getting himself into the right frame of mind for the walk while others made ready the hot stones. “A deacon of the church went to him, and informed him that the umu (oven) was ready, and he came slowly toward us. He wore a white pare (short skirt) of the ancient tapa, and a white tiput , a poncho of the same beaten bark fabrics. His head was crowned with the ti leaves, and in his hand he had a wand of the same. He halted three steps from the fiery furnace, and chanted In Tahitian:

“Oh spirits who put fire in the oven, slack the firel
Oh worm of black earth,
Oh worm of bright earth, fresh water, sea water, heat of the oven, red of the oven, support the feet of the walkers, and fan away the fire!
Oh Cold Beings, let us pass over the middle of the oven!
Oh Great Woman, who puts the fire in the heavens, hold still the leaf that fans the fire!
Let thy children go on the oven for a little while!
Mother of the first footstep!
Mother of the second footstep!
Mother of the third footstep!
Mother of the fourth footstep!
Mother of the fifth footstep!
Mother of the sixth footstep!
Mother of the seventh footstep!
Mother of the eighth footstep!
Mother of the ninth footstep!
Mother of the tenth footstep!
Oh Great Woman, who puts the fire in the heavens, all is hidden!”

O’Brien then tells how the kahuna walked confidently down the fire pit and back. He invited the people of the audience to follow, and they walked after him with no injury except for one woman who slipped and fell and “had an injury that was weeks in curing.” (This is similar to the accidents Charles Kenn reported, three people being burned out of over 500 spectators who walked uninjured under the protection of the master fire walker.) O’Brien also relates the highlights of his earlier experience when he observed a similar performance in Honolulu by one Papa Ita, who had come from Tahiti, and who crossed the hot stones several times and even stood still in the center of the pit while photographs were made. He did not invite the members of his audience to walk under his protection.

In contrast, we have quite a different arrangement of the invocational material as obtained and presented by Charles W Kenn, (one time HRA who resigned because he objected strongly to my use of the roots of Hawaiian words to get at inner meanings).

Mr. Kenn, who is the ranking expert on things Hawaiian, tells in his book (long out of print) how different rites and invocations were used in various preparatory steps before the fire walking. The ti plant, whose leaves are used in many Huna rites, were selected in a special way with the following invocation recited upon approaching the selected two headed stalk.

“Holder of the first footstep (Etc. like the other prayer, down to:)
Holder of the tenth footstep
Oh  great woman  who set fire to the skies
All is covered!” (Instead of “all is hidden”.)

Before breaking off the ti plant, this invocation was given:

“Oh hosts of godsl Awake, arise!
You and I are going to the ti oven tomorrow!
Oh hosts of gods! Go tonight!
And tomorrow you and I shall go.”

The ti plant was placed for the night on the altar of a native temple, if one was available, or, as in the case of the rite Mr. Kenn observed, it was wrapped in cloth and placed in the room of the master fire walker, Tu`nui Arii`peu (one of a long line of initiate fire walkers, of which Mr. Kenn is the last by courtesy of adoption.) This invocation was given before leaving the area where the ti plant had been plucked.

“Arise! Awake, 0h hosts of gods!
Let your feet take you to the ti oven.
Fresh water and salt water come also.
Let the cool darkness and the cool light
Go to the oven;
Let the redness and the shades of the fire all go.
You will go, you will go
Tonight, and tomorrow it will be you and I;
We shall go to the Umu Ti.”

Mr. Kenn wrote, “The next day, after supervising the lighting of the (wood in) the fire pit (under the selected stones), the Chief kept to a temporary shelter on the grounds, meditating until time for the fire walking to begin. When the time came, he walked several paces from the fire pit toward the sea, and facing the sea, again recited the third invocation just given.

“After this he turned around and walked slowly and deliberately toward the pit, reciting the first invocation. Upon reaching the pit, he repeated the following invocation, at the end stepping down to stand on the first and cooler marginal stone in the pit while slapping or brushing the stones quickly with the ti leaf wand which he had all this time carried over his shoulder. He had more ti leaves draped about him on his head and around his waist.”

“Oh ye attendants of the fire pit!
Extinguish the flames!
Oh dark cool head. Oh light cool heat.
The fresh water!The sea water!

The heat of the fire pit!
The low flickering of the fire pit!
Hold up the footsteps of the common people advancing,
Fan away the heat of the atmosphere!
Oh cold beings
Let us lie down together in the fire pit.
Hold fast the fan, 0h Great Woman who lights the skies.
And let us go to the center of the fire  pit.”

Kenn: “At the end of the invocation, and again shouldering his ti leaf wand, the Chief walked slowly across the hot stones to the far end of the pit and stepped off to the ground. He continued to walk straight ahead for twenty paces, all the while not looking back. He paused and stood facing east while he recited the third invocation again. Meantime the people had been following him across.” This whole performance from brushing the hot stones with the ti leaf wand on, was repeated four times. Then the Chief warned that the protection was being withdrawn and left the grounds. Kenn writes, “One young man tried the walk later, despite the warning, and was severely burned.”

IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE EXACT WORDING OF THE PRAYERS may vary, and in a similar way there may be different gods invoked. But the basic mental or “seed” picture of the protection being given is the same. We can guess that the mana or power is always the same also. But whether the invocations are better addressed to a female god or the Mother half of the Aumakua, is difficult to ascertain.

THE GENERAL THEORY OF HUNA would indicate that the Father half of the Aumakua might play a fecundating part in creating the “seed” image of the heat being held under control. The Mother half would then exert her power to gestate the “seed” and cause it to manifest as a physical condition. We are forced to think, of course, in terms of the life level we know as Auhanes. To be able to understand how the Father/Mother work on their higher level is beyond us and enters the realm of complete abstractions in so far as we are concerned. We have to speak to ourselves in parables which hint at the greater meanings. At this point we may do well to look back at what appears to be Huna in early Egypt, and to ask if we can trace the idea of the joining of the male and female to make one god-like Being. Let me quote again from Massey’s   same book, but from page 182.

“There was no father god or divinized begetter among the seven primordial powers. They were a company of brothers. Ptah was the first type of a father individualized as the father who transforms into his own son (as the Father and Jesus), and also as a father and mother in one person. The elemental souls (the brothers just mentioned as powers) were blended with the human in the deity Ptah, and in Atum Ra, his successor (Ra or La for Light), the ancestral spirit was typified and divinized as a god in perfect human form, who became the typical father of the human race and of immortal souls proceeding from him as their creator, who is now to be distinguished from all previous gods which had reproduced by transformation and by reincorporation or incarnation of the elemental powers. All the super human powers previously extant were combined and blended in the final form of the all in one, the motherhood included. For in the trinity of Osiris, Horus, and Ra, which three are one, the first person is imaged in the likeness of both sexes. Osiris as male with female mammae is a figure of the nourisher and source of life, who had been from the beginning when the mother was the ‘only one’. The one god of the Egyptian theology culminated as the eternal power of evolution, reproduction, transformation, renewal, and rebirth from death to life, on the earth in food, and to a life of the soul that is perpetuated in the spirit …”

WHILE MASSEY DID NOT KNOW OF THE HUNA or secret teachings concerning the three selves of the man and the sex duality of the Aumakua, he presents much material into which we can peer and see the Huna meanings standing out rather clearly. The ancient Huna system of beliefs, whether right or wrong, seems still to be the most logical and to fit best with what we have come to know in modern times about the nature of man’s mind.

ONE CAN IMAGINE A FUTURE DAY in which a series of experiments could be carried out to let likely candidates practice at the art of healing. As I see it, we would have to have a place where the would be healers could assemble and could take in hand a few volunteer patients at a time. The use of Psychometric Analysis would show what patients were harboring “eating companion” spirits or what ones might be bothered by fixations or deep seated feelings of guilt. Instead of trying to use some system of mental therapy similar to that in vogue with the psychiatrists, the healer would turn to the baptismal or cleansing (kala: “to restore light”) ritual, even using water as a physical stimulus, and never forgetting to have the one to be freed by the cleansing rite make amends for past hurts done to others, and also perform good deeds to gain the conviction that cleansing and healing are deserved.

IDENTIFICATION WITH THE AUMAKUA and learning to “speak for the god’ or “utter the words of power”, would make the healer ready for practice. Then, in any cleansing rite or effort to call down instant or slower healing, the new method which we are just beginning to consider, would be used — the Aumakua in every case being invited to join with the lower man so that the three could work as a single unit. The healer would generate the mana and make the mental “seed” picture of the corrected condition, and there might be additional mana drawn from a circle or larger audience gathered to watch the proceedings.

FAITH WOULD BE THE KEYNOTE of the healing work. The healer would have to go through the proper preparatory actions or rituals and then accept on blind faith the fact that the contact and identification had been successful and that he could “speak for the god”  then go ahead and speak. If just a little success could be had, this would generate telling confidence which could  in turn become faith of the kind which has the strength to uphold healer and patient alike as they walk forward, unable to see or sense Aumakuas but knowing that they were there and ready to act the moment conditions are made right for the combined action. In the early attempts there would be certain to be failures, but if the whole process was well understood, and the reasons for failure were admitted, the efforts could continue and later successes would greatly quicken the progress.

UNTIL SUCH A TIME, perhaps we, as individuals, can practice identification with the Father/Mother and try to qualify ourselves to “speak the word” to bring healing or changes in circumstances. Now and then one ready to accept the Help might be selected by accident and, even at a distance, be cleansed, then healed or otherwise helped. Perhaps we can use the Hudson method in conjunction with such practice. A good beginning would be to do all possible to make oneself ready, then see what can be done about getting the Aumakua to clear away for us the blocks in the way of complete temporary union. We may not suspect the presence of such obstacles. Also, we may find our desire to make ourselves right for Service is too weak. The prayer of the man who needed healing for his daughter may then be remembered, “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” The Aunihipili is noted for its stubborn clinging to habits and vices, and may be hard to bring into line, but we can ask that help be given and go ahead using blind faith that the Help will be supplied if we as Auhanes continue to want it sincerely.

I have paused here to make a contact (with the pendulum to give the outer evidence of its completion) and have asked if what has been set down in this Huna Vista is pointing in the right general direction. I get a strong “Yes” in answer. By the way, the pendulum will swing more and more strongly on the 12 o’clock line as one accumulates mana and sends it in trying for contact. After about 45 seconds (for me) the swing slowly changes and moves to the left until it is swinging strongly on the 9 to 3 o’clock horizontal, making a cross of the two lines. One may feel the tingle at this point. The swing may change again and this time to a strong clockwise circle. One voluntarily stops the pendulum at this point and begins asking questions or relaxing and watching for ideas to come or for a visual “seeing” to come. I was looking recently at Frank L. Riley’s fine book of compiled quotations from the world holy books, and was interested to note in his introduction the statement that he had felt higher guidance in his work. He wrote, “This stupendous undertaking unfolded from simple beginnings as though some higher guiding power was directing the work. Indeed, it could only be under inspirational guidance that this composite Bible (Bible of Bibles) would have evolved to completion, for it began in simple marginal notations while I was reading the different Scriptures of the world.” I have felt that I was getting guidance in the matter of assembling the Huna in Bible material, and it may well be that the other fellow’s inspiration and conviction of guidance will seem silly to most of his friends, but even if na kind Aumakua see fit to prompt one to try to follow what seems to be encouragement to do something which seems desirable, while the project may be of little importance actually, still there is growth for the individual and some others may benefit. Joseph Smith felt that he was under guidance when he took the steps which resulted in the formation of the cult of the Latter Day Saints.

It would seem useless to ask for higher assistance and then refuse to act on what may seem to be guidance, even very dim guidance. The thing to be avoided, of course, is mistaking imagined guidance for the real, and the promptings of selfish desires, especially for praise or recognition, for genuine inspiration. Also, one may well be warned by the proliferation of spirit dictated books, that there is the danger that spirits may use one and pretend to give guidance of the first order, making claims of speaking for Supreme God, and producing masses of high sounding “teachings” which, upon close inspection, are found to be both useless and misleading, despite the insertion of many fine platitudes. We must tread “the razor’s edge” most circumspectly if we are to avoid falling to one side or the other. Meantime, Huna, as far as we have come to know it, works remarkably well for some of us and remains our great satisfaction in the matter of a set of beliefs upon which we can personally depend for Light and direction. Let me quote parts of a letter:

” … I know that the Aumakua is there and that his presence is all. All problems are solved and obstacles removed. Whatever the result of prayer, the result was the right result. I give prayers of gratitude and praise and love for the ceaseless ‘rain of blessings’ in my life, bringing health, perfect happiness and much abundance in every phase of living.” (I say Amen to this.) MFL