June, 1964

A Pendulum Review of the Bible

 

LAST MONTH’S REVIEW of  He Walked the Americas, created more interest than I had anticipated. One HRA wrote to give the guess that the author of the book had drawn on the information which has been gathered by the Morman Church in the hope of finding proof that there were good reasons to believe in the validity of the engraved plates found by Joseph Smith and translated by him to produce the Book of Mormon. No one happened to know whether or not L. Taylor Hansen, the author, is a man or woman. Another HRA wrote, “This business of reviewing a book with a pendulum sounds about as crazy as they come, but if you think it has value, I’ll go along, at least for a certain distance. However, I’d like a little more on the subject. Do you read the book first and make up your mind about it before you ask your Aunihipili to make a pendulum reading – and if so, wouldn’t your reading just be a reflection of your Aunihipili’s opinion? Give.”

BOOK REVIEW BY PENDULUM – on the face of it, does seem to resemble the fine old method of “Trial by Fire” so popular a few yesterdays ago in Holy Church – the idea being that if guilty, the accused would burn up but if not guilty, Heaven would protect him. Looking back at my own pendulum tests, I cannot recall making a reading without first having a look inside. If the reading was one in which the Aunihipili was asked to become a literary expert and a reviewer, the whole thing would be preposterous, as we know the mental and logical limitations of our wonderful younger brother selves. After due consideration, I see that a correction is in order. I do not really review the book. What I do is to use it as I would a signature and in that way reach out to find and read the author. In considering this mechanism, I recalled the fact that we can read a photo printed in a paper or magazine even when we do not know the identity of the person so pictured. An instance of such a reading occurred a couple of years ago when one of the good but questioning HRAs sent me the picture of Nicola Tesla without the name to go with it and without telling me who it was he wanted me to read. I read happily and reported a man who was very evidently obsessed, but whose obsessing spirit seemed to be good instead of bad, and who had a far higher degree reading than the man, the latter being in the heart of the degree range where the best mediums and psychics are found. As it turned out, the evidence accumulated to prove the reading correct. Tesla was trained as an electrical engineer and apparently was used by a spirit genius to give the world very valuable information leading to the famous inventions such as the use of alternating current electricity to make it possible to carry power for long distances with little loss. Tesla spoke of one wonderful invention which was in the works, but which did not get through for some unknown reason. Let me review another book for you by this pendulum method.

PENDULUM REVIEW of the old book FOUNDATION LETTERS and TEACHINGS, by “The Brother, XII”. Sun Publishing Co., Akron, Ohio, copyright 1927 by E. A. Wilson. This small book was sent to me recently by one of the HRAs who remembered my interest in the writings and letters of Will Levington Comfort. It has an introduction by him which I had not seen. I knew that Comfort had been fooled by the claims made by the mysterious “Brother XII” who claimed to be the messenger and mouthpiece for a “Master” of the kind recognized by Theosophists but who lapsed into strange and lasting silence after the days of Mme. Helena Blavatsky and her close friends. Comfort practically offered to swing the entire membership of the “Letters” organization over to this man who later was found to be unable to substantiate his claims. My pendulum reading of Comfort, taken from the introduction, gave the “will” at 1:15 o’clock and the slightly wavering “personality” circle was normal in size and constructively clockwise, the degree standing at 367, which is about right. Turning to the middle of the book, I took a reading of the writer in the same way, and got a “V” will pattern with a counterclockwise circle flattened on the axis in this manner  341. The will swing had a strange twisting motion of the pendulum. The diagnosis was obsession. I read for the obsessing spirit and got  331 degrees, showing the spirit less intelligent than the living man he used to present his mixture of Theosophy and false claims. The man was partly evil and, on the other hand, must have thought that he was doing good, even when pretending that the messages were not given mediumistically in the way that so often brings discredit. The loving and kind “Master” started out in a friendly set of messages to show the mistakes of the Theosophists of the post-Blavatsky days, but when he was called upon to defend his position, he resorted to unfriendly criticism. Unfortunately, I cannot give the end of the story, not having followed through on it, but I do recall a letter or article from Comfort at a later time speaking of his disillusionment and rejecting “XII” rather bitterly.

A FABULOUS AND FANTASTIC IDEA has just come to me as I write! How would you who can use a pendulum like to join me in trying for a P.A. pendulum review of three parts of the Bible? I will pause now for the afternoon TMHG prayer sitting, then have coffee and run to the mail and the market and then, I’ll see what I can get – if anything – from The Book of Genesis, The Book of Isaiah, (perhaps separate readings from the first and last parts which may have been authored by different writers) and from the Four Gospels, perhaps with John read separately. I’ll perhaps use three different Bibles to have the benefit of the different translations. I do hope that I can get back to original writers and not have to settle for all the ones who have copied or translated. At the very best, I might get hold of kahunas who inserted the code in the various parts. Make your tests before you read on to see what I get, and if you capture anything of interest, of course, DO let me know.

24 HOURS LATER. Making a pendulum review of the Bible turned out to be more of a task than I had anticipated. It took much longer than I had expected and I was not satisfied until I had rested the night and run some checks in the morning. In the midst of the tests I became so intrigued by what I was getting that I couldn’t resist asking questions to try to get pendulum answers, much as I have come to do about the “eating companion” spirits I find in ordinary readings. In the [midst] of my reading, an amusing thing happened. I was called to take a long distance phone call from a stranger in Los Angeles who said she had been reading what I had written of the use of the pendulum, and who had a very important question to ask. It turned out to be, “To what extent can you depend upon the accuracy of what you get in making readings with the pendulum?” I had to confess that one cannot depend upon the accuracy, but I did not go on to say that I was, right at the time, working my hardest to get a long list of answers, not one of which had the slightest chance of being checked. So, please bear in mind as you read, that what I report is to be taken “for what it may be worth”, and not considered proven fact. Also keep well in mind that almost everything I got in my readings agrees with my personal guesses concerning probabilities. I shall not blame any of you if you decide that Max and his Aunihipili have become “slightly touched!”.

FOR YOU WHO ARE EASILY  BORED by the details of the P.A. readings, let me give a condensed account of my conclusions. You can then, as you wish, either study the details or skip them. First let me say that I found no difference in readings of the same items in different Bible translations, although I ran tests from five of them. The overall picture which I drew was that at a very early time the several versions of the Creation Story, current in the Near East, were written down, and that their present form in Genesis was the work of a man who had been initiated into the Huna lore and who rewrote an existing account in such a way that Huna code words could be inserted here and there for age long safe keeping. His reading showed that he was a man of good intentions and of 309 degree intelligence, which was above the average. He may have made his rewrite of the material at about the same time that the Book of Isaiah was being recorded and the code built into it experimentally.

If the information I gathered should be correct, by and large, what happened was that some kahuna of the blood of the later Polynesians, and having come from Egypt, became associated with some of the Israelites and initiated a few of them into Huna. At that time there was the old taboo on writing down anything having to do with Huna secrets, but because the major part of the kahuna tribes were already departing for new homes in other parts of the world, and because it was feared that they would be lost and that Huna knowledge would also be lost, it was decided that the Huna code should be invented and inserted into certain parts of Jewish sacred writings where they would have a good chance of being preserved. It was hoped that initiates would keep a Huna order alive in the Near East, and that, in the far future, should the lore be threatened by loss, the remaining kahunas, even if much of the hidden knowledge had been lost, might be able to reconstruct it from the coded parts of the sacred writings.

Much of the Book of Isaiah was written by an initiate kahuna, and if he was not a full initiate, he had the help of a full initiate in working over the material. At this time it was decided that an effort should be made to write a story with a background of history, more or less, but fictional. In this story, the code could be used more fully. There was to be a simple outer religious teaching to cover the inner or Huna teachings which were valued so highly. The beginnings of the story of the life and ministry of a man later named “Jesus” were made. At first only “The Sayings” were produced, but gradually the story took form. From the supposed time of Isaiah to the supposed birth date of Jesus, about 700 years elapsed. The Jesus story was growing in that interval, but did not take full form until the current Huna initiates were mostly men of Hebrew blood who lived in Alexandria and who spoke and wrote the Greek language which had by then become official in that part of the world. The great library was being formed at Alexandria in this period, and the sacred writings of the Jews were, for the first time, being translated into a foreign language, this being Greek.

These Huna initiates varied in the perfection of their Greek, and as each had a try at creating a fictional account of the life of Jesus, some used better Greek than others, the author of The Book of John being the most learned. As they were not planning to insert this story into the Jewish scriptures, they used Greek-ized names for the characters such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. “Jesus” seems to have been very seldom used by Jews. (Later the Jews rejected the story as impossible on these grounds.) They appear to have been little acquainted with the geography of the place in which they made Jesus live and labor. (This also gave the Jews much upon which to base objections.)

The plan was to produce a story to be used in the several degrees of initiation by which new candidates were to be instructed, much as had been done in Egypt before that time. The many “Mystery” rites were also current or still to be formulated, and in some of these the Jesus story was later included in part to give body and flavor as well as a hint of historicity. (The Pistis Sophia is a fine example of this.) At the time there was no intention of trying to pass off the new ritual as anything but fiction. But as time passed and the rite escaped from the hands of the initiates, it became accepted by a few as actual history, and in their enthusiasm or in an effort to gain advantages for themselves as leaders of a new religion, they presented it as factual.

The Jews, once more, objected that there had been no such character as Jesus in the parts of the country which they knew so well, but as time passed, efforts were made to try to modify the Gospels to make Jesus of the royal line of David and to connect him and his life with the prophesies, especially those in Isaiah. The “Acts” and other supposed letters from Paul and the surviving Disciples were largely forged accounts aimed at strengthening the historicity of the new religion. By now the Huna initiates had faded from the picture. The great center of culture at Alexandria was falling apart and in the new religion of Christianity, which flourished more and more outside of Jewish circles, the meaning of the Huna code in the initiatory ritual was completely lost. The Acts and Epistles were written after the code had been lost from sight, and contain almost nothing except garbled quotations to remind one of the original Huna of the Gospels.

There may have been two Huna lodges, or there may have been an early and a late period in the initiations which took place, possibly in Alexandria. Matthew, Mark and Luke seem to belong to the first effort to write a well coded ritual, and John and Revelations may have been written and used at a later period and may have been from the same author (as is suggested by the similarity of the P.A. reading for both John and Revelations.)

The readings give nothing after the turning of the ritual story into a new religion, supposedly based on a real life and set accurately in time and place. Later it may be possible to run readings from the surviving writings of the early “Church Fathers” and from men like Basilides who had things to say about the Gnostic rituals of the same period which saw the rise of Christianity.

NOW FOR THE TECHNICAL PART OF THE READINGS

Please note that in all of the readings where I give only the P.A. degree of the author or compiler, the “will” and “personality” readings are clockwise and normal and good from a constructive point of view. If there is a counterclockwise or evil indication, it will be noted with the degree. As readings did not differ from one Bible translation to the next, I will not specify which ones were used. Pendulum Q & A findings will be given as notes with the readings.

GENESIS: 303 degrees. Very slow to come as a reading and a catch felt in the pit of my stomach three times in succession, as if my Aunihipili had gone very far back to make contact. Nothing definite in the Q &A line except that the Creation Story was a mixture of ancient traditions and might have been compiled later than is supposed, and the code inserts made by an initiate into Huna lore. The degree level is interesting in that it comes on the point at which there is a transition from lower materialistic thoughts to the more abstract. But at 303 the abstractions have to be very slight and a material God would be the thing to expect to be evolved. The Hebrews had lived in Egypt when the idea of Ra, the Sun, was developed as the one and only God to take precedence over the current totem  animal gods. Akhnaton was able to establish the monotheistic worship of the Sun, time about 1,500 BC. Abraham was the leader at about this time or earlier, and the Exodus followed, with Moses adopting the Kenite “Jahweh” as the One God of his people, showing in his teachings the Egyptian and Mesopotamian beliefs, the Creation Story from the latter source as it does not appear in the Egyptian in that form.

ISAIAH: Time from 760 to 700 B. C. Chapter 9 gave a surprising 442 and Q & A said the writer was an initiate kahuna of the blood of the later Polynesians, probably from Egypt but attached to the Hebrews. Read as an Aumakua, the reading changed to that typical of an Aumakua but kept the 442 degree level. Q & A said firmly that the author had “graduated” by “Grace” and “perfection” to the Aumakua level, but admitted that when the writing was done and the code inserted, the reading would have been lower. It was requested and given as 316 degrees. Over Chapter 8:21-23 the same 316 degree(?) and normal good reading was given, and for the writer after his “graduation”, the Aumakua reading and 439 degrees. A reading on 53:1-6 gave the degree as 350 and Q & A said a different Hebrew initiate was at work there inserting the Huna code. He “graduated” with a degree reading of 443.

NEW TESTAMENT – MATTHEW: 2:1-8. Reading gave 329 degrees, bringing the writer up to the level of the average New Thought Student of today. Q & A said he was an initiate kahuna and worked in the code parts, later “graduated” and had a reading of 452 degrees, also showing a rise in level.

MARY: 3:21-35 read 297 degrees. Q & A explained that he was not as advanced and said he had inserted some coded Huna into his version, but had later failed to be able to “graduate”. The inserting of the code was later perfected by one with a reading of 319, possibly the writer of Luke.

LUKE: 7:1-37 read 317. Q & A said insert was written by one with a reading of 346, who later “graduated” with a reading of 439 degrees, which it was noted was the degree given for the initiate responsible for the latter section of Isaiah when he “graduated!” Q & A thought it possible that this man inserted the best code into Isaiah in copying it at the time Luke was being written and reworked.

JOHN: 5:8-26 gave the reading of 351 degrees and a “graduated” degree of 439. For 19:14-23, in a different translation, the same readings were obtained with 347 and 447 degrees, which was close enough.

Q & A said this writer was a Hebrew with other initiate kahunas when the Old Testament was being translated into Greek by the 60 learned Jews who had been brought to Alexandria in Egypt (about 285 B.C.) by Ptolemy II, Philadelphus. (This contact with the Greek thought may account for the Hellenism noted in John.) (Note: The name, “Jesus” is said to be the Greek version of “Joshua”, and to mean – Acts 7:45 – “Jehovah-Savior”. The name “Jesus” does not appear to have been used in the Old Testament, but in the non-cannonical “Eccleaseasticus” time, about 180 B.C., the writer of that scroll was given as “Jesus Sirachides”. Q & A insists that there never was an historical “Jesus” but that the story was made up with its Huna Code contents to be used as a mystery or initiatory play when candidates were given various degrees before becoming full kahunas.)

GOSPEL OF THOMAS: This was a collection of “sayings” of Jesus. It was translated from Greek into an Egyptian dialect, and copies were used in Coptic monasteries. Some of these have been recovered and translated. The Huna code was inserted and the union of the male and female to make a “graduated” Aumakua is very clear. The reading for the Translation was 347, and again an initiate of the Polynesian blood line was indicated in the Q & A session. The supposed date of the old scripts has been placed at around 270 A.D., but Q & A places the original writing of the “Sayings” well before the writing of the Gospels.

ACTS, CORINTHIANS and EPHESIANS all gave readings of 301 degrees, and the will pattern was counterclockwise, while the personality circle was counterclockwise, this indicating evil men at work and suggesting fiction instead of fact, with men attempting to forge proof that the Jesus Story was factual. REVELATIONS gave the same reading and Q & A said the same writer had written it. Paul was said to have been a fictitious character.

SO THERE YOU HAVE MY TESTS. Make your own and compare the results. But take it easy. I exhausted myself by too much reading at a time and it is quite possible that in going so far back along such old aka threads to find the early writers, more mana is used by far than when reading for a person in the flesh. For those of you who may believe that Jesus was a real man or man god, I wish to say something – I am unable to decide just what, except that I feel no end sorry if what I have come to believe causes distress or arouses indignation. I am sure that all of you who give careful thought to the matter will agree that in our work together to try to learn more about things connected with the ancient Huna system, we must be completely frank and honest with each other and try to be as tolerant of the other fellow’s beliefs or views as possible. I happen to have the platform, editing the Huna Vistas as I do, but that is no reason why the rest of you cannot rise up to object or correct or offer alternate guesses. My contention is that it is not enough for the thoughtful individual to accept without question the claims of others. The “Big Lie” technique was not developed for the first time by Hitler’s ambitious rascals. It is as old as Craft and Priesthood and Fanatics. Our only protection is to be found in applying the tests of reason and probability to the claims of those who come to convert us to their beliefs or to their pretended beliefs. We can well ask ourselves, in the case of Christianity, how reasonable or probable it is that God came away from His Universe for the sake of one little Earth, to spend 30 years in the body of a man then see to it that the man was tortured and killed to satisfy His desire for a blood sacrifice before allowing men in general to have a frail chance to be saved from His vindictive curse of Adam on all human kind. To my way of thinking, if we accept the Gospels and Isaiah as ritual material made up to conceal secret meanings by means of a language code, the endless contradictions can be avoided and the reason for teaching in riddles made clear. My Jesus is an Aumakua which is in close contact at most times with the lower man made up of an Aunihipili and Auhane. In the ritual, Jesus speaks often as the Aumakua, and often as the lesser man of the flesh. He speaks in simple teachings to the people of less intelligence who are slowly growing through several incarnations, and in coded Huna to those who are almost finished with the School of Life and are nearing the point at which they can understand abstractions and come eventually to ask for Help to “graduate” from the present conditions to the ones next above – a step up to the next level by each of the three selves of the man involved.

I am increasingly of the opinion that humanity, as a top level crust, has made a fine evolutionary growth since the 309 degree men wrote the Old Testament, and the 347 degree men wrote John in the New Testament. Almost 20 centuries have passed, and the HRAs range in degree from 340 to 384, which is a long upward step in terms of schooling evolutionary growth. Some of us may be caught in this incarnation in the toils of blind acceptance of the unproven claims of the many “blind leaders of the blind”, but I feel that the majority of us are well past the level in which the ranting evangelist can appeal to our emotions and hates and fears and so cause us to accept his cult dogmas without questioning their source or their value or validity. Week after week I receive letters thanking me warmly for my part in bringing Huna to the writer and so helping him or her to become disentangled with the mass of false beliefs and ready to begin to see clearly what is reasonable and useful in Psychology and Religion. As you know, I am now engaged in the effort to follow what I hope fervently has been Guidance from my Aumakua, and to make a book in which the initiatory drama of the life of Jesus is placed in its correct light through a knowledge of the Huna code. To me this seems to be of great importance and to offer a gateway to knowledge which has been lacking for all the long years since the early Christians began burning and murdering all who would not or could not accept the dogmas as they dictated them on the supposed authority of the Bible.

With better communication around the world and with education within the reach of almost anyone who is able to take it, the numbers of thoughtful and logical men and women increase constantly. The tendency is to reject all religious dogmas even if forced to give lip service to some by the powerful men who have managed to grasp authority and control the means of making a living. These are the ones whom I have in mind in trying to assemble the present book on Religions and the Huna Code. These are the searchers and they greatly need to be able to find Huna and the values and sanities which it offers. If the searchers find nothing which will bear close inspection, they tend to go over to the side of cynicism, and from that to an inner hopelessness and a damning lack of a goal toward which they can shape their lives and efforts.

Let me quote a little from Susan K. Langer’s book, Philosophy in a New Key, (Her P.A. reading constructive and normal at 363 – one of our kind. Pelican Books, paperback $3.50 at news stands.) Ending her book on page 239: “The continual pursuit of meanings – wider, clearer, more negotiable, more articulate meanings, is philosophy. It permeates all mental life: sometimes in the conscious form of metaphysical thought, sometimes in the free, confident manipulation of established ideas to derive more precise, detailed implications, and sometimes in the greatest creative periods in the form of passionate mythical, ritual, and devotional expression. In primitive society such expression meets with little or no obstacle; for the first dawn of mentality has nothing to regret. Only as one culture supersedes another, every new insight is bought with the life of an older certainty (my underline mfl). The confusion of form and content which characterizes our worship of life symbols works to the frustration of well ordered discursive reason, men act inappropriately, blindly, viciously; but what they are thus wildly and mistakenly trying to do is human, intellectual and necessary. Freedom of thought cannot be reborn without throes; language, art, morality, and science have all given us pain as well as power. For, as Professor Whitehead has frankly and humbly declared, ‘Error is the price we pay for progress.”‘ Earlier in her book, Dr. Langer points out the fact that the hungry mind of a seeker who has discarded myths, lies and fraud needs, above all things, something rational and sufficiently explanitory to fill it so that it can resume its march. To me, Huna offers the very best food for thought which we have found. It is reasonable, it is far more inclusive than Psychology or current Religion, and it does not insult either Science or History.

ABOUT THE WRITING OF THE GOSPELS, Dr. Martin A. Larson (in his book so often recommended in the H.V. as the best by far source book for studies of the New Testament and Christianity, The Religion of the Occident, writes, page 313 in a summary: “Several facts may therefore be regarded as established. Mark was written about 60-67, the author relying upon Peter and general tradition for his information. All parallel passages in Luke and Matthew were copied from it more or less verbatim. The Greek Matthew exhibits many similarities, absent from Mark and Luke, to an original Jewish gospel, as we shall note further in the proper place. We know also that both Luke and Matthew included substantial portions from the then current “SAYINGS OF JESUS”. At an early date, the genealogies were added to make Jesus a Judaic Messiah; and later the totally contradictory pagan material concerning the Virgin Birth was incorporated after contact with the Hellenic world. The Gospel of John, which presents a divergent chronology and locale for the ministry of Jesus, came about fifty years later: it was written to retain Christian converts on an entirely new basis; to transform a Jewish revolutionary (Jesus) into a Greek mystery soter (savior); to make a God out of Jesus, a concept totally foreign to the Synoptics; and to proclaim the Logos doctrine, which was borrowed from the Stoics and which was, in time, to develop into the doctrine of the Trinity. The fast moving scenes (in the Gospel story), occurring as they do without transition, have all the earmarks of a scenario (or initiatory ritual? mfl) to be used for a drama or a pageant, such as had been enacted at the Osirian or Eleusinian mysteries for thousands of years. We conclude, then, that the Fourth Gospel was simply a propaganda document; that the narratives concerning the birth, genealogy, and the resurrection of Jesus were invented solely for their dogmatic and theological value; and that the Synoptic rendition of the life and teachings of Jesus reflect an authentic tradition, constitute an idealization of historical reality, and contain a solid kernel of fact.”

DR. LARSON has generously given me permission to quote from his invaluable book, and for fear you will not take the time to look up the passages for yourself and read them, I am going to take things out of context (which is very sinful) to pass on to you for your second reading – taking it for granted that you have not, like myself, made several readings. In Chapter XII, headed “Hellenic Gnosticism: Marcion”, and with the subhead of “Background”, we find things which bear on the possible addition of the code or other things, to the Bible, and also things which may bear out the conclusion that there was much forgery and adding and taking away.  The Church Father, Tertullian, gives us much insight in his “Against Marcion”, Marcion being classed as the leader of a group outside the fold. He taught in Rome 140-150 and had a church there, but spread his version of the Christian beliefs over the empire.

Page 520: “Of all the ancient heresies, Greek Gnosticism seems to us the most intriguing; its principal protagonist was Marcion …… The Gnostics considered themselves superior, since their doctrine was anchored in gnosis, or science, which meant simply knowledge and revelation.  The dualism, predestinarianism and Christology of Paul, his repudiation of the Parousia and of chiliasm (the belief that Christ would come again, establish a kingdom and reign for a thousand years), his doctrine concerning the flesh and the resurrection, his indifference to the Sabbath, his rejection of penal eschatology (judgment and punishment after death), are all Gnostic.”

Page 521, item 4.  “CORRUPTION OF THE SCRIPTURE”: “In the Clementines, Simon Magnus delivers such an overwhelming indictment of the Old Testament and its God that Peter can justify the Jewish scriptures only by the rather startling admission that quite a number of its chapters have been interpolated by the devil. And by drawing ‘him into a strait.’ Only later would he explain the evil chapters in private to the faithful …… (Pg. 522) “…… we find the basic doctrines of Marcion, who, according to Irenaeus, altered Luke by ‘removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord’…… also the passages from the prophetical writings which announced His coming ‘beforehand.’  (Pg. 555.) Augustine wrote: “…. Faustus declared that the Bible is filled with contradictions and forgeries. ‘But,’ he exclaimed, ‘what escape from this difficulty can there be for you ……. your predecessors have made many interpolations in the words of our Lord, which thus appear under His name, while they disagree with His doctrine.  Besides, ….. the writings are not the production of Christ and His apostles, but a compilation of rumors and beliefs, made long after their departure, by some obscure semi-Jews, not in harmony even with one another, and published by them under the name of the apostles, so as to give the appearance of apostolic authority to all these blunders and falsehoods.'”

Page 563, item 5. “Reaction against Heresy.  The heresies were unacceptable attempts to render the Christian faith consistent or comprehensible: and every clause in the official (Catholic Church) creeds was a weapon to outlaw some heresy. The necessities of the Church were inexorable: A Savior, a God, a redemptive machinery had to be erected which would be not merely effective but which would be popular with the masses and which would make the hierarchy supreme.  To meet these requirements, a doctrine totally repugnant to reason became imperative at every turn.”

Dr. Larson, starting on page 304, discusses the historicity of Jesus, lists the objections and presents the supporting evidence, concluding that there was a Jesus, but that the story of this life and work became so overlaid with fiction that the small and original amount of truth is difficult to identify. He notes, page 312, that none of the Gospels were written by eye witnesses, and that, “all were composed in Greek; and none, except that of Mark, who was an assistant to Peter, could have been written by the purported author.  They were not composed until the Church had become Gentile.  The Gospel of John could not have been earlier than 120.”

Read the arguments for yourself once more and if you have made your own P.A. reading of the parts of the Bible, check and compare. No reading is final.

OLIVE STEVENS, our first HRA in Australia, has written a thoughtful letter, part of which will be of general interest.  “I think the Christian churches are fighting a losing battle against science and advanced thinking but since I now think that creeds of any kind do not matter, I feel that it is the Spirit that maketh alive, and that Spirit is everywhere present.  I don’t feel inclined to fight, but pitch in and lend a hand to keep any light burning that asserts spiritual truths over materialism. (She has found a local Presbyterian church which she enjoys.)

“Lately I have been doing a [great] deal of searching in the Bulletins as to what Huna members and sympathizers think about your work …… I have felt for a long time that there is something wrong with the presentation of Huna, but I wouldn’t presume to try to say just what.  But here are a few ideas, rather vague I’m afraid.

“There might be a block somewhere on the line – in your own psychology – or maybe the effort to make a living and pay the Huna Vistas expenses at the same time has been a bit too much.  (She sent Cigbo a fine gift with her letter.)  Have you possibly missed a few points in the chain?  For example, you have always stressed the idea of a secret that COULD be imparted and without which Huna researchers were at loss.  Yet in your first book you told how Dr. Brigham gave the Hawaiians to understand that he was a kahuna himself, and how he was put on the spot by the case of a boy being prayed to death.  When the old man came and politely suggested that Dr. Brigham, as a great kahuna, should turn back the death prayer, his bluff was called, and according to your own account, Dr. Brigham went ahead and did it, saving the boy and literally killed the kahuna with his own spirits. (He was a good hypnotist and as low self spirits are controlled by suggestion, he could handle them.)

“Now this was clearly an exercise of mental power, and no secret method was imparted to Dr. Brigham by anyone. He worked it all out himself.  There, I think, is your real Secret.  To this add that the Hawaiians themselves and their kahunas were living in a time and place where they were close to nature, unspoiled Nature and they were not educating their minds, or even civilizing themselves, so it was easy for them to get direct links with the secrets of Nature and their own unconscious.  But it is part of mans’ spiritual evolution that he should go ahead and develop his middle self, Auhane.  Through education and science many of the old doors have closed to us, but others are opening.  I don’t think you can recapture the old presentation of the knowledge, and I don’t think I have ever heard you mention the fact that the kahunas themselves, by misuse of their powers, brought about the downfall of the Magic.  That Kahuna whom Dr. Brigham prayed might have his death wish rebound on him, was certainly motivated by revenge and a selfish desire to keep away the white men ….. Later on (events) surely showed that ‘God is not mocked’ and that powers misused bring downfall.

“I wish that before you die you would write one more short book in which you state the purely spiritual truth about Huna without any effort to try to prove anything. You have always dragged in so many side issues to uphold Huna ideas: Psychical Research, ghosts, table tipping, even such proof of fire-walking as you could find. Why not approach Huna from within, instead of from outside?  It seems to me that your chief work has been to declare the three selves and their functions, and also to give the key to words and meaning and roots (words used by the kahunas).

“I know people keep sending you books to read, and recommending books, but I am going to mention one now and literally go on my bended knees and BEG you to get and read it. It is Memories, Dreams and Reflections, by C.G. Jung, recorded and edited by Anelia Jaffe. (I must hunt up my copy and try to see what I overlooked. I corresponded with the lady editor and sent her my first two books to try to get Dr. Jung to read them, but he was not interested, she was sorry to say.)

“Jung was most definitely possessed of psychic powers, and he mentions instances of them, but he went further – he saw great UNITY behind all diversity, he actually believed that psychic phenomena and visions were real. He tells of a visit to Ravenna in Italy when he went to visit the tomb of Galla Placidia – twice in the space of twenty years – and there he saw four great mosaic frescoes of incredible beauty. He had a female companion with him, and they both spent a long time studying the frescoes which he described in detail. They spent 20 minutes looking at one of them. Later a friend discovered (in trying to get pictures for Dr. Jung) that the mosaics did not exist, yet two people together had seen and studied them.

“Why not state Huna just as it is, where you found it, what you think about it, but don’t try to prove it by the Bible or anything else? Let it go down to posterity on its own merits to be integrated into future revelations. You know when I had the instant healing years ago from the bowl (an old prayer bowl from Near East ruins, in a museum), you were interested in hearing the outward details, but you have never questioned me about how I thought or felt then or later. (Perhaps she will tell us now?) After all I DID have a direct approach to Huna. I have given the matter my deep consideration ever since and compared notes with others who have been healed, and had a few realizations of what happened.

“(Jung set out to write an introduction to a translation of the “I Ching”, but stopped to try out the use of the throwing sticks and texts for himself.) The reply he got was wonderful. Do read his foreword to Vol. I (I will read it again), and see how he was warned of the abyss and of falling into the pit. How he was advised to attempt small things only – so he did – just writing an account of how he consulted it and let it speak for itself, and how it further told him what the pit was: really a well of living water that only needed cleaning out to be ready for human needs.

“Do forgive any sense of criticism in the above, for it is not meant that way. But you see, you cannot prove to human reason the things you want to say. Don’t try. The leap over the abyss cannot be made by the mind and reason.”

I COMMENT: I have been thinking much of the part of the letter advising me to change my way of trying to give proofs and to present Huna ideas without their natural background or a frame taken from modern thought. If I could isolate the element of “Spiritual” and inner vision from that of the material, I think I could do such a book as is suggested. Perhaps I am not nearly “spiritual” enough and so am not fitted to bring down into prose or even verse the things sensed in the tenuous airs of Aumakuas by the mystics of various ages. My mental world is one that closes me in to a degree, not being psychic, and to me it is a necessity that I give each of my three selves as equal a share as possible of attention. There is the temptation to throw in with the Yoga sages of yesterday and to toss the poor Aunihipili out on its ear while denying the validity and value of myself, the Aunihipili, thus giving all time and energy to the steady and ever wondering gaze upward at the Aumakua, which cannot be seen or felt except in terms of Aunihipilis.

No, I am not up to the “Spiritual” and “inward” approach. I have too long been in the habit of going out daily to enjoy with my Aunihipili the delightful things of its level of being. (A few days ago we found a baby opossum staggering around on pink feet near the wood pile, and brought it to show the rest of the family – a very delightful experience and one that left my Aunihipili glowing.) My Aunihipili is consciously given the mental food which it will accept and which Fate places before us. At the TMHG times and often between, the full attention is given to the “Spiritual” in the form of my Aumakua, and the “Great Company of Aumakuas”. A good life for me. MFL