ONCE MORE. GREETINGS.
This Newsletter may reach you a little on the early side as I am mailing it to get ahead of the jump of 50¢ in postage rates on this type of mail, which is to take place August 1st.
(Cigbo, who came in from the pasture to set up business in a very small new cigar box to help me get out the Newsletters to taper off the Bulletin gift indebtedness which he incurred, wishes me to present the following explanation for him: “in five of my Scotch incarcerations, out of the last several past terms of nine lives each I inhairited because I am a kitty, I learned how to pinch pennies. You get put into the cat calabooseo, however, for pinching things, so I was careful to ask Boss about could I safely pinch these stamp pennies on Uncle Sam and his P. Office. The ansker was affirmative, so I am pinching as hard as I can and at the same time chewing Boss in the hind leg to make him hurry up and think of something and then cut it on a stencil to run on the mummygraft – which isn’t working very good on the margins spreading ink, in case you wunner where the last words went from the end of lines. Anyway, love still from your very own Cigbo, who used to be H.R.A. junior grade, when there was a senior grade left.”)
HUNA GETS PUBLICITY, now and again
Recently a small newsletter type of release was started by Jeanne S. Bagby, 521 East 87th St., New York 28, N.Y. She plans to reach people who are interested in arts, metaphysics and the like, publishing letters from readers and various articles. She has kindly given mention of the work done to recover Huna in working form, and may from time to time boil down passages from my letters to her answering questions or making comments from the Huna and my personal point of view. The release is titled “SPAN”, and will be supported by the gifts sent by readers. Items of news will also appear when there is news of interest in the selected field. My opinion was asked on the matter of the Flying Saucer controversy, also on the new religious teacher from Java, Pak Subuh, who has come to teach and demonstrate a set of teachings and practices growing out of Buddhism and in many ways resembling Zen, the difference being largely a matter of forgoing the long preparatory period in which the Zen student gradually works up toward the inner opening state called “realization”. With Pak Subuh, (I learn from a friend who has been instrumental in getting him to America) one does not pause to purify oneself or make a slow approach as is done through the koan system of Zen. One makes a direct attack upon the gates of heaven, so to speak, sitting with the teacher in silent meditation, with very little preliminary instruction other than the advice to expect enlightenment and contact with the “Light” in due time. No complex or guilt fixation is to be recognized or removed from the person before the enlightenment comes. Each student may expect the inner unfoldment to come in a way peculiar to himself, and almost anything may happen on the mental or physical level in the process. The promise that healing may come with or soon after the enlightenment, attracts a great many, of course, and this is as it should be.
CONTINUING WITH “SUBUD”, it must be explained that the man is called “Subuh”, but the system he teaches is “Subud”. My friend who is responsible for the very little I know of the man and the system, had sat with the master perhaps twenty times when I talked to him. He reported feeling inward movements of a vague “spiritual” kind, and said that the feelings were very definite, even if one could not describe them. This is identical with the “realization” state as met in Zen. There is a physical sensing of light and color and out-of-the-body-ness, or there may be the emotional surges of sudden joy or wonder, love or devotion, or static ecstasy. The change seems to be one involving the low self much more than the middle self. New ideas come, if at all, very poorly formed, but one has the sense of suddenly grasping great new vistas of truth-of-being in some strange way. This might be called, “Salvation without tears”. One need not give up smoking or bother about a meat and drink diet. The teaching is that when the enlightenment comes, one will automatically stop doing anything which one should stop.
A SIMILAR EASY SALVATION appears, on the surface, to be offered in Christianity. Jesus, as a “master”, however, went a step farther than Pak Subuh, saying, “Your sins be forgiven you”, or using some similar formula to cleanse and make the candidate for healing-enlightenment-salvation ready for the reception of the mysterious force which would bring about the new and desirable condition, usually with healing of the body as the first stage. But it is evident that some personal effort to remain changed for the better was expected from the one healed and opened to the Light. The formula used by Jesus was often, “Go, and sin no more.” Like the kahunas, of which he was one, he also often admonished the recipient of the “enlightenment and healing THROUGH GRACE” to “Tell no man. When he cast out the devils or obsessing entities and healed, he taught that unless there was a change of heart and a giving up of the thoughts and deeds which had attracted the devils to come as “eating companions” (I use the kahuna terms), they would come back to the cleansed house and bring their friends. The house, once cleansed, must not be left empty. One may well ask, “Then, with what should it be filled?” The answer seems to have been, “With love and the good deeds of love.”
In Judaism and Brahmanism, as well as in early Yoga, this easy salvation of the “vicarious atonement” and “enlightenment through GRACE” had no part. One worked out his own salvation under the rule of “an eye for an eye” and of a karmic retribution exact to the last pang. The cleansing of the low self was stressed in the Yoga works by which the complete control of desires and emotions was gained by slow degrees while the hurtless and desireless state was won bit by bit, if at all. Later on, in India, certain masters put their students through long courses of training and purification to help them to get enlightenment of the general Zen order and learn to escape the necessity of continuing reincarnation. They often used what might be considered a telepathic method of exchange on the plan of the three selves to help the student to the sudden break-through to sense the Light. Buddhism offered no salvation through grace. It laid down the “Noble Eight-Fold Path” of right thought and action as a way leading eventually to the goal of Nirvana or, as the word means in Huna symbology, freedom from fixations and obsessive influences — the “wild and thorny tangle of vegetation”.
THE TRADITION OF “SALVATION THROUGH GRACE” is a very old and favored one in Christian circles. At the eleventh hour one can repent, “call upon the name of Jesus” and be saved from eternal damnation. Both the promise of this type of “salvation without works” and the threat of a “damnation” out of keeping with the “God Is Love” dictum, have all the earmarks of childishly made and accepted dogmatism. Jesus said, “By their works ye shall know them.” Gautama offered in Buddhism no substitute for living in accordance with the principals of the “Eight-Fold Path,” although his later followers, like the Christians of the third and following centuries, manufactured almost from whole cloth a dogma of salvation through grace. They called it “The Heart Doctrine” and taught that one had but to rely on the loving heart of a deified Lord Gautama to save one and do all the work of getting one through to the hoped-for Nirvanic state, karma or no karma, and reincarnation or no reincarnation.
The loss of the Huna knowledge of fixations in the low self and of obsessional spirit influences gave rise, in part at least, to the Salvation by Grace doctrines. The kahunas of Polynesia, like Jesus, were able to “forgive” guilt complexes, but they demanded that amends for hurts to others be made to right wrongs and to impress both low and middle selves in the one treated that the sin had been invalidated. The obsession-prone spirits, which are the “devils” of Huna Christianity, and which need to be driven away, form the second of two main “blocks” in the path of contact with one’s High Self. It seems both possible and probable that the High Selves can, upon being asked and upon being furnished with sufficient mana to act on the physical-mental level, drive away evil spirit “eating companions” and also do away with fixed ideas held by the low self. This would, indeed, be “Salvation through Grace”, but such cleansing was useless so long as the one cleansed did not change his whole way of thought, action and life. A fixed idea in the low self can be “re-stimulated” or rebuilt with dangerous ease. The same greeds and angers that once attracted evil spirits to one can be called back with reinforcements.
Sitting for enlightenment and healing with a master”, therefore would seem but one of the two ways to gain salvation. One may think of the placing of the horse before the cart in the first way — making amends and working to become cleansed as a proper preparation. Or, one may think of the matter as “placing the cart before the horse”, and getting cleansing and enlightenment first, through the help of an advanced individual and the “grace” of the High Selves — to be followed by the necessary work of teaching the low self new and hurtless ways of life and by becoming hurtless and helpful as a middle self. In either case the two selves of the man must be brought into a state of agreement with the same shared drive toward hurtless living and toward keeping constantly able to make contact with the High Self so that it can have its share in the job of living and guide and help the lower selves. On the face of it the method in which one has the help of a “master” seems easiest. But the problem of finding an enlightened individual actually able to give such help is not simple. If you happen to be able to sit with Pak Subuh and get results, do let me know. Also, please remember to tell me a year later what “works” you did as a follow-up, and how permanent the results may have been. Or, if you chance to find Salvation without the need of works, amaze me with that news.
Re-printed in 2014
In passing, let me recall E-THERAPY, the system evolved by A.L. Kitselman and several times discussed in the HRA Bulletin. Mr. Kitselman is deep in Buddhism. In fact, he may well be considered an “authority” on the origin and scripts of this religion. In his E-THERAPY system, he let “E” stand for one’s Idea of the High Self without defining it, and advanced the theory that men and women could sit together, pairing off with one acting as the director while the other relaxed and followed the director’s instructions slightly after the manner of hypnotic suggestions, the object being to listen to the “E” and learn to sense its presence, its nature and its guidance. By way of learning to let the High Self “E” take temporary charge even of the body, the relaxed individual was told to speak what came to mind. Later, all members, breaking the pairs, would sit in a form of group or “circle” and invite their souls — await the promptings of their “E” selves, and do what was given them to do. This might be an inner prompting to say a certain thing that might be helpful to a member of the group or to someone at a distance who was being “treated” by the group for help or healing via the method. Often a physical movement or a series of them might seem to be requested by the “E”, and it was thought that random jerkings and other movements, even meaningless sounds might have a purpose in working off some form of blocking. The reported results ran the gamut from poor to surprisingly excellent, much seeming to depend on the quality of group leadership and upon what was brought into the activity. One so often takes away little more than one brings in such matters. The system seems to me to have had greater merit than credited. Today the little textbook is almost out of print, only six copies being left, and only a few groups still use the methods outlined. I would like some day to write a little book wording the method and theory after the Huna line. It was a most representative effort which was made at a time when Dianetics caused a stir and many were retracing the old steps taken traditionally to get help and healing through such “grace” as a second person might be able to call down.
COL. ARTHUR E. POWELL was responsible for the second bit of Huna publicity, reviewing in a most understanding and heartening manner, in PATE magazine for August, my book, “SELF- SUGGESTION and the New Huna Theory of Mesmerism and Hypnosis.” HRA Powell’s approval is, in itself, a thing of which to be proud. He ranks with the best in learned circles in which philosophy and the various religions are grist for the mill. Col. Powell’s mill is one which does indeed “grind very fine”. In his most recent of a long list of distinguished books, “THE NATURE OF MAN” (Vantage Press 120 West 31st St., New York 1, N.Y. Price $3.95)) there has been collected and presented a body of information covering about everything one could name when considering man and what makes him a human being. The script was finished before Huna came to notice, so does not cover it directly. However, it is inclusive of the main points in everything else that matters and is an education in itself. It also includes a very well worked out method of helping oneself in the matter of living on the mental as well as the subconscious and physical level. He boils down the creeds and commandments of all philosophies and religions to a delightful, “BEHAVE THYSELF”, which, in my opinion is so inclusive and so much the last of all “last words” as to leave nothing to be desired. His prescribed actions aimed at “stretching the mental muscles” are based on his own exceptionally wide experiences and are of great value.
IN THE “PSYCHIC OBSERVER MAGAZINE, of June 10th is more notice of Huna. It is in a review of Alex Erskine’s book, A HYPNOTIST’S CASE BOOK (Wilshire Book Co., 8721 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood 46, Calif. 124 pages. Price $1.00), and, again, the reviewer is our Col. Powell. He gives four columns of review on this important book written by a widely experienced hypnotist, and in mentioning the cases one after another in which something important was accomplished or learned, HRA Powell tells in detail of the man whom Erskine found standing completely hypnotized before a four-foot snake in a cabin in the Canadian woods. The man did not respond when shouted at, and was in a state of trance as he stood facing the snake, its head reared and its tongue darting in and out.
Erskine killed the snake, and at once the friend came out of the trance although he could not be convinced that there had been a snake present until its dead body was displayed. (This checks very well with the experience of one of the women HRAs who forced herself to try to overcome her fear of snakes by going into a zoo and staring eye to eye at a large snake — only to fall into a mesmeric trance and be picked up unconscious from the floor. (As I remarked in my book, “SELF-SUGGESTION”, snakes were the first of the world’s mesmerists.)
Col. Powell does Huna a great service in his review by writing about the Huna theory covering hypnosis. I take the liberty of quoting the pertinent passage:
“I have presented, fairly I hope, the author’s (Erskine’s) theory regarding the sub-conscious mind. Personally, I do not accept the theory that the sub-conscious mind is the real ‘soul’ or ‘ego’ of a person. I think that the Huna theory makes far more sense in stating that the sub-conscious mind is that of a separate and distinct entity, known in Huna as the ‘Low Self.’ This difference of opinion on the precise nature of the sub-conscious, however, does not detract from the value or significance of the particular cases of hypnosis that I have cited.
“No matter which theory you hold, you still have to get into touch with the sub-conscious, and then persuade, induce or command it to carry out the instructions it is given. I hope soon to write more fully on the general Huna position, which at present seems to me to be more efficacious, upon which to base one’s technique, than any other theory I know of, regarding the sub-conscious mind.”
More and more Huna is becoming known and its values recognized. Thanks, Col. Powell, on behalf of all of us. Given time, Huna will, I think, take its place at the materialistic end of the long list of religions and metaphysical systems. It will be materialistic in its rejection of most of the “revealed” dogmas. It has no adepts or masters. It has no men who have been or become god or gods. The nearest it comes to the unprovable is its acceptance of the super conscious or High Self of man. What gods stand above this level it cannot and does not say, merely pointing out the reasonableness of supposing that the evolutionary climb of units of conscious being does not stop with man. Huna will stand in regard to the science of Psychology, however, as at the metaphysical level instead of the materialistic. It will be all a matter of from what point of view Huna is looked upon. It is, of course, a psycho-religious system.
“AKU-AKU” is the title of a new book by Thor Heyerdahl, whom we all remember for his famous exploit of drifting on a balsa raft with his party all the way from South America to the eastern most islands of Polynesia. His goal, Easter Island, had been missed at that time, but, after selling over a million copies of his book, “THE KON-TIKI EXPEDITION” and writing a book, “AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC”, he organized a party, including American archeologists, and procured a small ship to go to Easter Island to make a study of its peoples and history.
Two friends in Canada delighted me by sending along their copy of the English edition of the new book, “AKU-AKU”. It is a fine book generously illustrated with natural color pictures of places, people and things. Undoubtedly a similar American edition will by now be off the press and in the hands of book dealers as well as on the shelves of the better libraries. It is most entertaining reading for the general reader, being filled with adventure and the charm of far places and mystery. For the student of Huna it is even more fascinating because it throws considerable light on some of the mysteries of the Polynesian island which failed to be like the rest of the islands.
Heyerdahl has always contended that the Inca or pre-Inca peoples of South America had followed the drift of ocean currents and discovered the Polynesian islands farthest to the east. The standard belief had been that all these islands had been peopled exclusively by Polynesians from the western islands. The strange statues on Easter Island as well as (especially) the glyph writings on oval “paddle” boards, however, were not common to the rest of Polynesia and even when the glyphs were supposedly translated by Easter Islanders in the Polynesian tongue, there was still much questioning and doubt.
Heyerdahl and his expedition found that there had been a dual movement of people into Easter Island. The “Long Ears” who had made the statues and introduced the glyph writings came from the shores of South America. They cut building blocks in the same careful way as did the Indians whom the Incas replaced, and the stone images and reed boats closely resemble those found around Lake Titicaca. The identical type of reed still growing at Lake Titicaca and elsewhere had been brought to Easter Island and still grows there in the swampy craters of one or two dead volcanoes.
The “Short Ears” or Polynesians had arrived from the west, and after being dominated by the Long Ears for a long time, managed to overcome and kill all but one of the later day Long Ears. The one allowed to live fathered a line still to be recognized on Easter Island by red hair and slightly different features. The Polynesian dialect took the place of what other language there may have been in use. While the surviving Polynesian dialect now in use shows itself in Heyerdahl’s use of its words only a usual variation common to the changes in the several Pacific dialects, I find no evidence of foreign words such as might have been absorbed from long contact with a different people speaking a quite different language. This strongly suggests that the Long Ear or pre-Inca peoples were of the same blood as the Polynesians and that much the same language was used. If this is true, we then have the picture of an ancient world in which there must have been a center of sorts where the Huna-Polynesian culture evolved and from which there was a forced migration in at least two directions, East and West Streams, we might call them. The race may have originated in Amazon River country when climatic conditions were different, or in some other part of South or Central America. The Amazon country still has rivers and places whose names appear to be pure Polynesian and which can be translated easily into English.
Heyerdahl found other evidence of the contact with the South American tribes when he broke through the barrier of secrecy and superstition still strong on Easter Island and managed to get from secret caves a large number of small stone images, many of which took a form or design common to the pre-Inca people. Some of these images reproduce three heads or have three holes in the top of a stone head. While it would be too easy to guess that every use of three items in the cutting of the stones referred symbolically to the three selves of Huna, caution must be used. Three sails on a stone image of a large reed ship could have an entirely different meaning, although this motif is the usual one. The animals with human faces, reminding one of the famous Egyptian Sphinx, do not necessarily have to represent the middle self resident in the animal body owned by the low self. But so many things which fit neatly into the secret Huna symbolism are to be noted that one may postulate a definite connection. The spirits of man, especially the High Self, have been represented in Huna by the word for “bird” and by the bird as a symbol. The Sphinx, like similar images in Babylonia, has wings folded at the sides of the animal body, these representing the “bird” or High Self part of the symbol. On Easter Island, the “bird man” image is frequently found, the man being shown with the head of a bird, much as some of the gods of Egypt were shown. The belief that one is connected by an aka cord to one’s High Self and perhaps to one’s ancestors, was a common one in many parts of older Polynesia. Its symbol was the umbilical cord and the navel, the latter shown in great enlargement on the stone images found in Easter Island and as far away as Papua.
“AKU-AKU” means “spirit” according to Heyerdahl, and spirits were thought by the natives of Easter Island to be guarding the secret caves and to be partly resident in the stone images. They also haunted many places on the island. He had so much trouble getting past the taboos of the natives relating to the spirits, that he gave that title to his book. He claimed to have a most powerful personal spirit himself and inherited mana from an old Polynesian chief who had adopted him earlier as a son on another Island. However, despite the use of the superstitions and whatever truths they might have covered, he scoffs at all such things in his books and completely ignores valid studies of the early religion which played so large a part in Easter Island and the making of its images and great statues. In discussing the finding of a book of the glyph writing with some glyphs translated into the native tongue, he makes no mention of the very significant and convincing work of Werner Wolff who shows in his book, ISLAND OF DEATH, (1948) the similarity of the Easter Island glyph writing and that of early Egypt. He mentions many other sources of information, and certainly could not have been ignorant of the work of Wolff, but, of course, had he gone into all the angles of the evidence given or suggested by the material, he would have had to write volumes. It just might be that he plans volumes to follow.
“THE PULSE TEST”, by Arthur F. Coca, M.D. Published by Lyle Stuart, New York (no address given), price $4.95. While off the Huna line, seems to me of such great importance that we should all know about it. It has helped many very much, especially the sister of one of the good HRA friends who sent me the book as a gift. Instructions are given in the book so that one may learn by noting the changes in the pulse rate what foods may be causing allergy troubles. Many grave conditions are caused by allergies, and slighter ills. Suspect any symptom which comes and goes or any condition which runs better and worse. Certain foods may cause changes, and these can be identified and avoided. Your doctor, if up to date should know of this new approach to good basic health.
“THE LOST YEARS OF JESUS REVEALED”, by Rev. Dr. Charles F. Potter, a Gold Medal Book, price 50¢ on news stands, is about THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, and in it its author comes directly out with the implications which orthodox Christianity has sought hastily to cover up or deny.
Orthodox Christians are supposed to believe that God descended to incarnate in Jesus, who thus ceased to be a man. It followed that God, as Jesus, invented and gave to the world a complete new set of teachings and a brand new system by which salvation was to be obtained. Now we find through the Dead Sea scrolls that almost all the teachings of Jesus were extant long before his birth and that there is every reason to believe that he lived with the Essenes and learned from them most of the doctrines he later went out to teach.
In the Scrolls, mention is made of books of the Bible tossed out by the later Christian leaders who were adding dogma after dogma to their new cult beliefs. These must now be brought back and examined. All the old writings must be considered and the sources of the teachings of Jesus found so that the spurious dogmas may be shown for what they are — the inventions of men busy building an absurd structure on the simple and honest original structure of teachings. Little wonder that the Orthodox Church heads give battle directly and with such craft as they can muster to keep from their flocks the truths which are bound to come out since the Dead Sea Manuscripts have come to light and since translations are being made and released.
Huna, as the secret or mystery teaching of Jesus and some of the earlier prophets of the Old Testament (to say nothing of the Gnostic literature), is bound to obtain recognition, at least in a small circle of students, in time. Everything is moving rapidly in that direction, and at any time we may be ready to break the old taboos of Orthodoxy and get down to the work of examination of ALL the evidence. We badly need to have our HRA work of digging out the coded Huna in the words of Jesus enlarged and given to the world in the form of a book. Perhaps this can be accomplished. Since the printing of the new Hawaiian-English dictionary in Hawaii, the lack of such a dictionary can no longer stand as an excuse for refusing to examine the evidence provided by the symbols and double-meanings built into the Polynesian tongue and originally used by Jesus and others in giving out, while still concealing, the hidden lore. MFL
