Surf N Turf
Photo from mentalfloss.com
The
table tilted to one side, lifting two legs off the floor, then began to slide across the
kitchen on the other two. Never did all
four legs come off the floor, but not for lack of trying. The scraping along the
tile floor sent vibrations up the legs and into my hands resting on the table
top. My mother had taken me over to
visit Judy, an old friend of hers that she hadn’t seen for some time. I spent time with Judy’s son Maxim while our
mothers were catching up. At one point I overheard Judy scolding my mother for having failed to introduce me to raising tables.
Judy took us into the kitchen
where she positioned herself, my mother and me around a table and issued
instructions, “Place both hands lightly on the table top making contact with
just your fingertips. Don’t push down, just
maintain contact with your fingertips like they were sitting on the keys of a piano.”
I
asked, “Eyes open or closed?”
Judy
said, “Either way’s fine; what matters most is we have to really concentrate
and repeat the words: lift table, lift.”
Judy
demonstrated how to rest our hands on the table and the three of us placed our
finger tips on the surface of the table and began to quietly chant, “Lift
table, lift; Lift table, lift; Lift table, lift; Lift table, lift.”
I
think I was 8 years old at the time. I
had no idea what Judy was up to but I was certainly interested to see where we
were headed. After a minute or so the
table jerked a little and I opened my eyes. Judy
excitedly said, “There we go! Keep it up, lift table, lift.”
After
several more small moves the table tilted up on one side. Judy
was pretty intense now, “Okay now we need to get the other end off the
floor. Lift table, lift, Lift table,
lift, Lift table, lift.”
That’s
when the table began to slowly skid across the kitchen floor and after it had moved 3
or 4 feet, Judy let go of the table, “Well we almost got her up. That was great. Phillip, I knew you’d be good at this.”
I
had observed all of this in a neutral frame of mind without even a hint of
doubt or skepticism. Unlike an adult, I didn't need to challenge what I had seen nor did it require a judgement of real or fake. It was entertaining and interesting and that was more than enough. When we were done in the kitchen I did examine the table but not because
I was at all suspicious, I was simply curious.
Judy and my mother were so matter of fact about all of this that I attached no significance to it and never spoke to either of them about it after that day. I rarely even thought about it but now in hindsight, and with an adult dose of cynicism, it’s clear that Judy and my mother were having a little fun with me. Nothing sinister mind you, I’m sure these games were part of their youth.
Judy and my mother were so matter of fact about all of this that I attached no significance to it and never spoke to either of them about it after that day. I rarely even thought about it but now in hindsight, and with an adult dose of cynicism, it’s clear that Judy and my mother were having a little fun with me. Nothing sinister mind you, I’m sure these games were part of their youth.
Above is the back side of Elijah Bond's headstone. Bond was issued a patent for a ouija board in 1891 and later introduced a Nirvana Board which was manufactured and sold by the Swastika Novelty Company in Charleston, South Carolina. Photo by Robert Murch.
My
mother was born in 1913 and grew up when home entertainment consisted of parlor
games and the radio. The ouija board became
popular toward the latter part of the 1800s and the early 1900s when the
occult, esotericism and psychic phenomena became all the rage. Traditional religion began to look out of
place when contrasted with the ever increasing role science played in peoples’ lives. Religious faith waned and in its absence many, that you would think should have known better, sought meaning elsewhere. The members of London ’s
Society for Psychical Research in 1882 included the Prime Minister of England , Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sigmund Freud and
Alfred Wallace (worked with Darwin
Photo from letsgetfreestuff.com
It
was an opportune time for anyone who had unlocked the secrets of the universe to
step forward and the most prominent to do so were Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and Georges Gurdjieff. They all
insisted they were in possession of mystical truths gained from their extensive
travels in the Middle East and Central Asia, each offered their own cosmic philosophies, founded international organizations that drew in tens of thousands, and succeeded in extracting millions of dollars from American and European followers.
Helena Petrova Blavatsky was born into a Russian aristocratic family in 1831. Her family travels throughout Russia during her youth are a matter of record but visits to Tibet she claimed as an adult appear to have been dreamed up. She first drew attention to herself as a spirit medium in Europe channeling the personage of a John King. Arriving in New York in 1875, Helena Petrova Blavatsky established the religion of Theosophy which combined Hinduism and spiritualism. She was widely characterized as a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed alcoholic; revered by followers as a spirit guru while detractors dismissed her as a fraud out to scam the public. In 1877 she published Isis Unveiled, the first of several works containing ancient knowledge combing religion, science and philosophy. She claimed she had received this information verbally from reincarnated Mahatmas she encountered while in Tibet. Blavastsky insisted that she could channel the thoughts of these Mahatmas which included Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and others.
Years after her death in 1891, Blavatsky's Theosophy and other forms of spiritualism continued to be taken quite seriously. During WWI, Britain's Lt. Colonel Percy Fawcett consulted a ouija board to make tactical decisions for the artillery and the 700 men he commanded. In 1925, Fawcett at age 58 with his 22-year-old son Jack and one other companion, entered the Amazon jungle in search of El Dorado (the lost city of gold). They were never heard from again nor has any trace of them been found. Prior to the expedition Fawcett consulted with spiritualists who assured him there was a such a city with vast treasures to be had.
Fawcett (right) and son Jack as last seen at Bakairi Post before entering the jungle.
Photo from Royal Geographical Society
Photo from aleistercrowleyfoundation.net
In 1920 he founded the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily that grew into a commune for Crowley and many of his followers. The English press berated him for his lifestyle labeling him as both a satanist and "the wickedest man in the world", while his own mother referred to him as "the beast." He was evicted by the Italian Government in 1923 and spent the remainder of his years in England, France and Germany promoting Thelema. Toward the latter part of his life Crowley corresponded frequently with Jack Parsons in the 1930s who was busy terrorizing the Caltech campus and Arroyo Seco residents in Pasadena experimenting with homemade rockets and explosives. Parsons soon invented and sold a solid rocket propellant to the military and then founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) along with several other Caltech pyrotechnic enthusiasts.
Parsons used a portion of the money from his defense contract to purchase and convert a mansion in Pasadena into living quarters for a group of characters including a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. The group became an official lodge of Crowley's organization, carrying out loud and naked evening rituals that became a nightmare for neighbors. Parsons after years of study and contributions to Crowley rose to the highest level recognized within Thelema - the Ordo Tempi Orientis.
It is rather obvious that Hubbard took good notes as there are a great many things in Thelema that are mirrored in Scientology. In both dogmas an apprenticeship involves a series of steps one must progress through, each of which costs money and requires a ritual. In 1952 Jack Parsons died at the age of 37 in a laboratory explosion at his home.
Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1872-1949) asserted that there was a hidden truth that has gone undetected by science or religion. He proposed that humans go through life asleep and require a discipline to elevate them to higher states of consciousness. The discipline being Gurdjieff's method he referred to as "the work." Gurdjieff claimed to have acquired insights from descendants of the Essenes who disappeared in the 3rd century but whose teachings he discovered in a Sarmoung Brotherhood monastery in northern Afghanistan. Academics such as Mark Sedgewick, a historian specializing in Islam and Sufi Mysticism, consider Gurdjieff's claims as "entirely imaginary."
Gurdjieff had no shortage of tall tales that he included in many of his speeches and books. I particularly enjoyed his accounts of various feats performed to support the hundred-odd followers that traveled with him through Central Asia. Two I recall are dyeing thrushes he had trapped yellow so he could sell them as canaries and crossing lethal stretches of desert by acclimating sheep (the group's food source) to subsist on a diet of sand. On his visits to America to raise funds he had a ready explanation for his aggressive and demanding behavior that alienated so many. He insisted it was a Malamatiyya technique of the Sufis where one achieves humility by deliberately attracting disapproval. Gurdjieff's biographer described his speech as devoid of specifics or clear statements. Gurdjieff wrote a trilogy entitled All and Everything that was critiqued harshly as deliberately convoluted and obscure. He explained that this was intentional causing the reader to work to find the meaning. Today's Gurdjieff Foundation of California has offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Jack Parsons with DIY explosive device. Photo from sequart.org
Parsons (right) with members of the agape lodge.
Photo from pinterest.com
It is rather obvious that Hubbard took good notes as there are a great many things in Thelema that are mirrored in Scientology. In both dogmas an apprenticeship involves a series of steps one must progress through, each of which costs money and requires a ritual. In 1952 Jack Parsons died at the age of 37 in a laboratory explosion at his home.
Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1872-1949) asserted that there was a hidden truth that has gone undetected by science or religion. He proposed that humans go through life asleep and require a discipline to elevate them to higher states of consciousness. The discipline being Gurdjieff's method he referred to as "the work." Gurdjieff claimed to have acquired insights from descendants of the Essenes who disappeared in the 3rd century but whose teachings he discovered in a Sarmoung Brotherhood monastery in northern Afghanistan. Academics such as Mark Sedgewick, a historian specializing in Islam and Sufi Mysticism, consider Gurdjieff's claims as "entirely imaginary."
Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. Photo from ramdass.org
Gurdjieff's enneagram. Image from thegodguy.wordpress.com
The image above includes a geometric line diagram on Gurdjieff's forehead that has become popular in recent years as a koan used by students of the Gurdjieff tradition. It was introduced by Gurdjieff with no explanation and its origin is known only to Gurdjieff.
I am just as puzzled by the followers of mainstream religion as I am by those that are pulled in by characters such as Blavatsky, Crowley and Gurdjieff. It strikes me in the same way as surf n turf and those combination plates that restaurants offer to patrons that can't pick an entree for fear they'll miss something. I don't understand why so many people feel that they need to look beyond their own consciousness.