A Friendly Letter, The Blog.

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Weather Forecast: Fabulous
Park by the courthouse two blocks east - Google Map Link Here.

Don’t miss it, for God’s sake!

Cherubs of the Day:

In keeping with its theme, this year’s FGC Gathering will feature a very welcome free “Gift of the Spirit,”namely:

A long overdue END to the practice of a forced “sabbath” midway through the week.

And it’s about dam time!

The 2010 FGC Gathering theme

The Gathering is organized, in proper Quaker fashion, by committees. Committee members are volunteers, and mostly quite dedicated.

For some, however, dedication over time begins to morph into a sense of stewardship, and even take on a certain proprietary flavor. We know how you can get the most out of the week. And before one quite realizes it, dedication has become oppression.

Thus it was a number of years ago, that some experienced and wise committee members saw that many Friends were swept up in the many activities and intense fellowship that often occur at these events; and by mid-week, it was noted, many get tired out. Indeed, many such, it was observed, by Wednesday (hump day), could use a nap.

The 2010 FGC Gathering logo image

Yes, went the discussion, motivated solely by tender care, Friends by Wednesday not only could use a nap, they needed a nap. And from there it was but a small step to a decision that they shall have a Wednesday nap, or at least would be institutionally prodded to do so, by removing all visible hindrances thereto.

Thus was born the Wednesday sabbath. It was to be enforced by the withdrawal of all institutional opportunities and services: no informal meetings could be scheduled or announced; support services such as golf carts for elderly and disabled attenders were suspended. The staff was gone, or at least out of sight.

It was, the committee concluded, lovely; a patch of quiet amid the hubbub, a chance to calm the tendency among many to fall into overbusiness and a frenetic pace that could, the wise ones knew, take the less-centered away from the still silent center which, the wise ones understood, was at the heart of Quaker spirituality.

And so it was written, and so it was to be done.

I will not euphemize here: I thought it was a terrible idea, from Day One. For small children, imposed regular naptimes are one thing. For adults, my naps are my business, thank you very much.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m no antinomian. There are Gathering rules, and mostly I’m fine with them: no drugs, no booze, no smoking, no guns, etc. Not a problem. But no nothing on Wednesday afternoons?

Err, just a minute — could we go over that one again, please?

Furthermore, the withdrawal of services felt like a ripoff: Gatherings are expensive; they eat up big chunks of precious vacation time; many travel long distances to be there. And if we want to spend the limited afternoon times in open, unashamed, semi-organized fellowship with others we only get to see once a year — then dammit, who is some committee to snatch a key chunk of that time away from us, especially without a corresponding discount for services un-rendered??

It was the same feeling as when I picked up the 16 ounce can of beans and discovered, after paying, that it had suddenly shrunk to 13 ounces, but with no reduction in price.

Not to mention the fact that, for liberal Friends especially, the notion of imposed rituals — and this quasi-sabbath was indeed a ritual enforced with religious zeal — is anathema. If we want a by-the-book ordering of our religious life together, there are many other sects waiting to greet us; yet most of us had turned away from such approaches as we found our way to Friends. This was regress, not progress.

So from the start the sabbath faced an undercurrent of resistance and resentment. Each year there was seditious talk of civil disobedience. (The idea I liked was a Wednesday afternoon rogue meeting for healing: “Tell me, Is It Lawful To Heal On The Sabbath?”

“Sorry, buddy, no dice. It’s Wednesday afternoon.
You know the rules.”

That never happened; but one that did was the Gathering ritual of filling out evaluation sheets; and I know I set some of those fairly afire with yowls of outrage. Evidently others did too.

But a Quaker committee, once set on a course, can be hard of hearing and slow to react. So it took years of objecting, nagging, and pleading to get their attention. Especially when the wise ones on the committee were sure they had acted out of only the most tender loving care for the rest of us.

Yes. But ahem. Maybe a bit too much care, Friends?? Few of us adults need a nanny committee to micromanage our time to that extent. And those who do — well, maybe the Gathering is not the best setting for them. It may be the largest Quaker assembly, but I know lots of people who don’t like it: too big, too noisy, too whatever. And they exercise their judgment by being somewhere else that week. Fine. Different strokes.

I think it’s been ten years since this oppressive rule was imposed. And finally, this past year, somehow the complaints began to register. And when the Advance program for the 2010 Gathering arrived in the mail this past week (one of the liberal Quaker signs of spring), one noticed a certain lacuna in the traditional daily schedule diagram: there was no greyed out patch over Wednesday afternoon, bearing the cheery instruction to “Take a Nap!”

This is how Quaker committees typically backtrack: with as little admission of error as possible. Perhaps no one will notice, and everyone will go take a nap anyway.

But one notices. A quick email exchange with the relevant officials confirmed that it was not a misprint.

Yet the Sabbath, one was told, had not been given up; it had been merely, er, modified. It also elicited the following by way of elucidation, which I believe is something of an “official” advice:

On Wednesday afternoon we take a break from the busy-ness of the Gathering to focus on rest and reflection. Everyone is invited to an afternoon of spaciousness. This may be a time for solitude, for simple togetherness with a friend or family member, or for worship. After this sabbath pause, we trust that we will be more present to each other and to Spirit during our last two days together.

Advice for scheduling Wednesday afternoon events: We ask Friends to carefully discern whether an activity is in the spirit of sabbath before scheduling it for Wednesday afternoon.

The last bit is the nitty-gritty: as elliptically as possible it allows that starting this summer we can once again actually plan and schedule things on the sacred day; one was also advised that the golf carts will operate, so that the mobility-challenged might no longer be confined to one spot.

And I for one have already carefully discerned that there should be a party, a spaciousness party on Wednesday afternoon. No champagne, of course, but some bubbly Martinelli’s cider will serve for a toast — a toast to a Gathering that is freer at last, freer at last, thank God a’mighty, it will be freer at last.

But of course, others may choose to take a nap.

Priceless

Welcome Home Banner…

By Photos By Chuck F…

Book Preview

For several years I’ve frequently visited Camp Lejeune, a large Marine base two hours east of where I live, on the North Carolina coast.

I go because they have a brig — a jail — and several of the GIs I have worked with as resisters to war have served time in it.

Here’s a photo of the gate there from which prisoners are released; the man just about to emerge is Clifford Cornell, a GI resister who was released in January.

Early on in these visits I noticed homemade banners hanging on a fence along the public highway to the base. They were made by families to welcome Marines back from combat deployment in Iraq.

Many of the banners were very simple: “Welcome home Corporal x, we missed you.”

But many were more than that: funny, touching, naughty, and catch-in-the-throat.

They were also ephemeral: hanging on the fence, ripped by wind and weather, til they fell off or someone took them down to put up new ones.

Soon enough, I started taking pictures of the most striking ones, to document this remarkable form of military “folk art.” That was in 2004.

Five years later, the wars are still going on, and the combat deployments for Marines have piled up. And as a result, I have dozens of these photographs.

I believe they give a very special glimpse into the impact of the wars on the American families who bear their brunt. And these expressions, at once both intimate and public, deserve a wider audience.

So I’ve made a one hundred-page book: Priceless: Welcome Home Banners For US Troops Returning From War

It’s now available at the print-on-demand site, blurb.com. The link above will take you to a sample of what’s in it; you can also see some of the banners at the Quaker House website here.

BTW there’s no “political” commentary in the book. I want to let the pictures do the communicating, and leave readers to their own reactions. For me, the banners are full of silent eloquence.

March 10 — how could I forget? How dare I fail to remember.

Four years and four months ago, John Stephens and I began a blog site called freethecaptivesnow.org , as both a personal vigil and a community service, compiling and posting nightly updates of reports — or mostly the lack of reports — about the fate of four… peaceworkers kidnapped in Iraq. They had been taken in Baghdad, and one of them, Tom Fox, was a Quaker and a friend of both John and me.

Tom Fox, in his red Christian Peacemaker Teams ball cap, in Palestine between tours in Iraq.

After those long weeks of uncertainty, it was this day, March 10, 2006 when we learned the worst: that Tom Fox had been murdered, his body found dumped in a vacant lot in that war-torn city.

About two weeks later, the other three: James Loney of Canada, Harmeet Sooden of New Zealand, and Norman Kember from England, were freed by British commandos. John and I then laid down our nightly vigil.

A collection of photos and tributes is still online here.

“Every night of those thirteen weeks, either John or I would scan dozens of wire service reports for news of Tom and the others, and post what we
found: with only a few exceptions, the news was “no news.”

The exceptions were when the gloomy videos of the four – and then, on March 7, 2006 the three, minus Tom – were released.

An ad placed in Arabic newspapers, appealing for the captives’ release.

Here, to mark this occasion, is an excerpt from the Introduction I wrote to a short book of remembrance, “Tom Fox Was My Friend. Yours, Too.” It speculates on why he was killed:

On March 10 came the dispatch we dreaded most: confirmation of Tom’s murder. (Early reports that he had been tortured were not confirmed by a
later autopsy.) The only relief from this loss appeared on March 23, when the other three captives were freed.

Who killed Tom? And why? Few other than the ones who pulled the trigger know the truth, and one wonders how much even they understand.

Speculation abounds, of course, with many of my more left-leaning friends imagining a CIA-sponsored conspiracy to silence these noisy pacifist dissenters.

Yet from the reading and interviews I have done, however, the most likely guess seems much more mundanely sordid: it was all about money.

The videos showing Tom and the others were issued by a previously unknown group, “the Swords of Righteousness Brigades.” This name is very likely a fake, a cover for a criminal gang, which simply kidnaped them for ransom. There is, as John and I learned while keeping our vigil, a sizeable kidnaping industry in Iraq. Many Iraqis have been thus abducted for profit, as well as citizens of numerous other countries.

The four CPT captives; Tom Fox is second from right.

James Loney felt the ransom was wanted to help finance the guerilla insurgency. Many other observers feel that while the kidnapers are Muslims, and many have likely suffered from the invasion and occupation, these crimes appear to be only loosely connected to religious or political grievances. Rather, they are more a specimen of organized crime in a devastated and lawless society.

From this “profit-seeking” perspective, taking CPT team members was not a particularly good “investment”: the group has pledged not to pay, and not to ask anyone else to. Moreover, none of the four had a personal fortune to plunder. But the gang likely figured that regardless of such brave declarations, given enough pressure, someone would eventually cave in and pay. (Harmeet Sooden later told a New Zealand press conference that he suspected a ransom had been paid for
him and the other survivors, despite vehement government denials.)

But if the kidnapers were after money, why kill Tom? There are a number of hypotheses:

One, to show the friends and supporters of the other three that the kidnapers meant business. Some other hostage killings – for instance, that of longtime relief worker Margaret Hassan, an Iraqi citizen originally from Ireland – were evidently staged to show recalcitrant governments that ransom demands were life and death matters.

Or two: because Tom was an American, and as a veteran had a US military ID card, he was a certified “enemy,” and one for whom the US government would not pay. That made him worth less and disposable.

Or three: if the kidnapers couldn’t get ransom from Tom’s family or government, maybe they recouped something by selling Tom to another Iraqi insurgent gang, one willing to pay for the privilege of shooting a military-identified American. (It is all-too easy to imagine their derision at his protests that he was a musician, not a fighter.)

Again, no one knows, but these are plausible explanations for the inexplicable. . . .”

All the quotes below are from sources that Tom was familiar with:

George Fox:

“Be patterns, be examples in every country, place, or nation that you
visit, so that your bearing and life might communicate with all
people. Then you’ll walk cheerfully across the earth answering that
of God in everyone. So that you will be seen as a blessing in their
eyes and you will receive a blessing from that of God within them.”

From the Epistle to the Hebrews, 13:3:
“Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with
them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were
being tortured.”

From the Qur’an, 11:20:
“And all that We relate to you of the news of the Messengers is in
order that We may make strong and firm your heart thereby.

12:111:
Indeed in their stories there is a lesson for men and women of
understanding.”

From the Tao Te Ching:

“Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water, yet nothing can better
overcome the hard and strong, for they can neither control nor do
away with it. The soft overcomes the hard, the yielding overcomes the
strong. Everyone knows this, but who can practice it?”

What’s All the Buzz About??

Basic Quaker Theology For Younger Friends

Recently a young Friend told me about a church which is near her home. She has high school friends who go there, and they’ve invited her to visit.

They’ve also been asking her about what Quakers believe, and how that might differ from what they believe there, or in other churches.

These are reasonable questions, but this young Friend had trouble answering.

The thing is, she hasn’t really been taught much about either of these topics: the basics of Quaker beliefs, or the basics of what more “orthodox” Christian churches believe.

I’ve heard of similar incidents, where younger (and some older) Friends were left feeling puzzled or embarrassed when asked such questions. And in our highly churched society, such questions come up a lot.

I looked around for a book to help her cope with these questions. Something short and focused, and meant for younger Quakers.

Didn’t find anything.

So I wrote this 40-page booklet, What’s The Password For Jesus? Quaker FAQs for Younger Friends.

It covers 24 FAQs, including:

Q. What About The Bible?
Q. What About Jesus?
Q. What Does “The Son of God” Mean?
Q. What About “Sin”?
Q. What’s A “Personal Relationship With Jesus”? Do I Need One?
Q. What About Hell?
Q. How Are Liberal Quaker Beliefs Different?
Q. How Do I Know If I’m Really A Quaker?

The answers are concise, contemporary, and of course, non-creedal. They offer a beginning in learning about Quaker beliefs, the Bible, and Jesus. My hope is they can help younger Friends (maybe some older ones, too) think about and handle such questions better. At the end there’s a short list of more books for followup.

Seems to me “What’s The Password For Jesus?” could be of use in high school RE work, at least I hope so.

Copies are available from Kimo Press for $3.95 plus $2.00 shipping. Five or more copies are $3.00 each, plus $1.00 each shipping. The address is: Kimo Press, P.O. Box 1344, Fayetteville NC 28302. (Bookstores, inquire about trade discounts.)

There’s this older gay man, I’ll call him Algernon. He’s not a Friend but has recently been attending Quaker meeting in an eastern state.

Early last year he and his longtime partner parted, and Algernon wanted to find some new companionship. So he went onto the net.

Soon he was in touch with a man we’ll call Moncrieff, who said he was a UN peacekeeper stationed near Baghdad. This appealed to Algernon. While he was once in the military, he’s since developed a strong concern for peace issues; I think that’s what helped draw him toward Friends.

The conversation burgeoned and soon became intimate. Algernon says that Moncrieff was very articulate, expressive, and appealing. Before long, Algernon was in love, and even asked Moncrieff to come to the US and live with him. Moncrieff answered yes, he was ready to leave the onerous work of Iraq peacekeeping, and said he would put Algernon in touch with his lawyer, to begin arrangements.

Shortly thereafter I saw Algernon, and with a broad grin, he told me he was “engaged,” and mentioned the basics of this story.

I admit: this suspicious old Quake’s antennae started vibrating as soon as I heard what was up. “This,” one thought, “is a case for a friendly but no-nonsense clearness committee, if there ever was one.” I wrestled with approaching him about the idea, hesitated, then thought: next time I see him, I’ll mention it.

When that time came, before I could speak, Algernon volunteered that his “engagement” had, in his words, “crashed and burned.”

Turned out that Moncrieff’s attorney wanted copies of Algernon’s birth certificate, passport and driver’s license. This made Algernon nervous (Let the church say, “Identity Theft!”) So he did some googling about the attorney, and discovered that his “office” in London was informally known as “Scam Central.” That and a few other clues made plain what road Algernon had (almost) been on.

Algernon was disappointed, but seemed less than devastated; his sense of personal loss was doubtless soothed considerably by awareness of the bigger bullets he had barely dodged.

Many folks know about the “Nigerian 419” family of scams, ( http://www.snopes.com/fraud/advancefee/nigeria.asp ) and routinely delete those endless emails purportedly from the widow of a west African potentate, or some such, who wants to send you millions, for a small handling fee. But such trolling goes on in many other variations and venues, such as “respectable” dating sites.

And according to an independent list of active UN peacekeeping missions, there isn’t one in Iraq.

Word to the wise. And the lonely.

So.

The registration info for the 2010 Young adult Friends (YAF) Conference in Wichita is now online.

As a preliminary, there’s a two-page statements of “expectations” and rules. The complete text is below. But some particular items deserve special attention, and I wonder what others think of them.

I won’t be shy about my reactions. Some sections are no big problem, e.g.:

<< Our minds and hearts will be entirely open to God’s work . . .>>
Okay; a boilerplate bromide, but sure, whatever.

<< We will show love and support in ways that are comfortable to those around us. >>
Of course. Live & let live; do unto others . . . .

But a lot of the rest of it is problematic. Very problematic.

If this were a group of minors, high-schoolers, sure. In such situations, and I’ve been there often, you definitely need specific rules, with enforcement; you have to steer clear of the liability hazards. And those responsible need to keep the lid on. Got it.

But these folks are all allegedly “adults,” as old as 35. And while the statement says << these guidelines don’t come from a place of legalism >> I’m sorry: a dress code (!?) that specifically forbids speedos sounds legalistic to me. It’s also hardly “balanced,” when it makes no mention of crosses, or WWJD tees.

And what is this? << We will not let sexuality disrupt, distract or divide us. >>

Oh, yeah? I am reliably informed that at the 2008 conference this meant that all discussion of LGBTQ issues was “off the table,” period. Well, that’s sure distracting to me, not to mention divisive. I mean oppressive. And legalistic as hell (Oops, my bad: << We will use respectful language, avoiding profanity. )>>
Fager: FAIL. (Do I get three strikes?)

And for the next one, the italics are in the original:
<< We will abstain from sexual activity, including within committed relationships. >>

In public, sure. Even us liberal Quakes are pretty hard-core about that.

But behind closed doors, between committed adult partners?

Forgive me, but what is up with that?

And just how is this ban to be monitored and enforced? I gather that last time, the committed couples were broken up for the nonce. However the monitoring is to be done this time, they’re not kidding, because the statement makes clear that << If you are unable to function within the specific guidelines in italics below, you will be asked to leave the conference . . . >>

Boundaries are one thing; we all deal with those. But a no-sex-and-no-speedos list for adults — disclaimers aside, that is way over the legalistic top for me.

And there’s more: << We will speak to each other in a way that glorifies God. >>

Am I the only one that sees the unacknowledged theological bias and baggage bulging from practically every syllable of this?

Ditto for << We will remember that our actions . . . reflect on us as young people, as Friends, and as members of the Body of Christ.>>

Hmmmm. That sentence jangles when I look back to read that << Our goal is that this conference will be a welcoming place for all Friends. >> (Bold in the original.)

I’ll skip the wisecracks about those who can’t live without their tank tops (thee knows who thee are.) But what of the Friends who don’t consider themselves part of “the body of Christ”? And what about those who are dubious or definitely apart from the “God” part?

How welcome are they supposed to feel? Or where do the theists fit in who are not sure whether they can “glorify” a God that has the checkered past of the One who messed with Job, allowed the Holocaust(s), and so many other seeming missteps?

Frankly, it seems obvious to me that large swathes of important discourse among Friends today, and significant segments of the Quaker constituency, are definitely and deliberately being LEFT OUT — no, forced out, made invisible, and suppressed by this model. (Do I have to smile when I say that?)

Yeah, overall the whole thing leaves me feeling a little queasy, and grateful that I’m too old to qualify for the event.

Instead, I think I’ll just stay home, and wrestle with God some (I’m especially miffed about that Haiti and Chile business if you really wanna know, and I may use more than a little profanity when we get to the part about the dead babies in the rubble). Then I’ll chat openly and affirmatively with my non-Christian and non-theist Friends; God doesn’t mind them, so why should I?

I’m also keen to talk about how US Christians, evangelicals especially, can help to bust up the plans for a kill-the-gays law in Uganda — but of course, in a non-distracting, non-disruptive, and non-divisive way. Well; that should be easy enough, right?. Somewhere along the line I might have some committed sex (okay, okay, in private); and since in late May it should be plenty warm, maybe I’ll even bare my chest a bit to chill out.

Perhaps I’ll also sit a spell on the porch, in this state of deshabille, and re-read Chapter One of my book, “Without Apology,” which describes another cross-branch Quaker conference in Wichita, in 1977, when many of us struggled to open things up, especially for those Friends who were non-heterosexual, and those who questioned conventional Christianity. Then, as I said, we labored to open things up; what I see here looks more like agreeing to close things down.

I wish I could say reading and reflecting on these “community expectations” for adult Friends in 2010 made me proud of those who put them together; but I can’t. To speak plainly, they appall me.

How bad is it? This bad: it makes me want to go buy a speedo.

Here’s the whole text, FYI:

2010 Young Adult Friends Gathering in Wichita
Bearing Witness to the Word Among Us: Witness, Testimony, and Transformation
Expectations for Community

As Friends we come from a tradition that has long emphasized that our entire lives are changed by our encounter with God. We now have different expectations as to what the out-ward signs of a changed life are, and this reality becomes evident when we are suddenly living together in close proximity with strangers from other branches of Friends. How can we create a safer space where young adult Friends can focus on worshipping the living God and learning from each other? How do we remove distractions to this experience? Our goal is that this conference will be a welcoming place for all Friends.

We’ll need clear boundaries, self-discipline, and accountability to each other. At the 2008 Young Adult Friends Conference in Richmond, Indiana, Friends followed a brief list of guidelines which are the basis for what we expect of each other at this gathering. We want to be sure that Friends understand that these guidelines don’t come from a place of legalism, but are meant to build a healthy community at the conference. The underlying goal of each guideline is shown below to clarify this.

Some young adult Friends may find these unusually restrictive, while others will wonder why we even have to spell them out. All of us will probably be taken a little out of our comfort zones during the conference, but that’s also part of building an inclusive and respectful gathering.

All of these commitments are in harmony with Friends’ traditional understanding of holy living and respect for others. Remember that there will be a Pastoral Care Team available for you to talk to about any concerns you have.

We do have to hold each other accountable. If you are unable to function within the specific guidelines in italics below, you will be asked to leave the conference at your own expense.
See next page for expectations for community>

Expectations for Community:
Our minds and hearts will be entirely open to God’s work within us.
We will abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants, wherever we are, for the duration of our time together.
We will not let sexuality disrupt, distract or divide us.
We will abstain from sexual activity, including within committed relationships.
We will dress modestly. This means not wearing tank tops, sleeveless or low cut dresses or tops, midriffs showing, skirts or shorts above mid thigh, bikinis, speedos, or bare chests.
We will speak to each other in a way that glorifies God.
We will use respectful language, avoiding profanity.
We will show love and support in ways that are comfortable to those around us.
We will avoid showing physical affection without asking. Every person has different levels of com- fort about touch.
We will be grateful and respectful of our hosts.
We will abide by the guidelines of Friends University.
We will remember that our actions towards Friends University, University Friends Meeting, and the people of Wichita reflect on us as young people, as Friends, and as members of the Body of Christ.

There was an amazing post yesterday on the pitfalls of “mysticism” and pop occultism, by the always enlightening human rights attorney Scott Horton. It’s on his always worthwhile “No Comment” blog at the Harpers magazine site.

It makes points that ought to give many Quaker aficionados of that “mystic” path pause, an occasion to take off their fog-tinted spectacles and see the phenomenon more plainly in the light of history and social context.

Scott Horton

Horton’s usual topic is torture and accountability. But he’s also done much legal work in central Asia, in the many former Soviet republics about which Americans (including me) know almost nothing.

Today’s post was about a new biography by British writer James Palmer, of a strangely remarkable (and abhorrent) Baltic nobleman-mystic by the name of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who led something of a “Lawrence-of-Arabia”-like struggle of the Mongolians against the Chinese at the time if the Russian Revolution.

Biographer James Palmer

Never mind the war and all that. Horton’s key exchange with author Palmer concern’s Ungern’s strange (but in many ways familiar) religious attitudes. Here it is:

Horton: You describe Ungern-Sternberg as a religious mystic who could be just as much at home in his native Lutheranism, in the Russian Orthodox church, or in Mongol-Tibetan Buddhism, but who was nonetheless a flaming anti-Semite. What produced these seemingly contradictory attitudes?

Palmer: Religious mysticism has never been incompatible with ethnic or religious hatred; the Byzantine eremites and stylites [desert hermit monks], for instance, would often spout the vilest anti-Semitic bilge from their caves and pillars. It’s a little like the Tom Lehrer lines from National Brotherhood Week–
“the Catholics hate the Protestants,
and the Protestants hate the Catholics,
and the Hindus hate the Muslims,
and everybody hates the Jews.”

There wasn’t, of course, any native tradition of anti-Semitism in the Asian religions that fascinated Ungern, but he saw them through the lens of the European occult heritage, which has a long and ugly streak of anti-Semitism in it; it’s all over Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley, for instance. This is partially the common-or-garden[variety] prejudice of Europe, at the time, and partially because of the obsession with conspiracies and secret powers, which lent itself well to anti-Jewish paranoia and fantasies of ritual murder, especially when you had material like the “Protocols” being produced. If you look at the popularity of The Da Vinci Code today, it’s the same phenomenon, only with Catholicism swapped out for Judaism (tapping on a very old and nasty legacy of fantasies about Catholicism in Protestant countries, but that’s another issue.)

The occult tradition also misappropriated several Jewish traditions, like qabala, and so, I think, there was some kind of need to discredit the people they’d stolen from. Then there’s that peculiar alliance between occultism and the right, because the right at the time was all about elitism, about the need for a small group that could control the wild masses, and that slotted in very well with occult thinking, which was all about special powers and secret groups of initiates. It’s not occult if everybody knows about it, after all. >>

Mysticism? For War?

Mysticism and ethnic/religious hatred? Mysticism and war? Mysticism anti-Semitism? Mysticism and an affinity for the authoritarian right?
But– but — how could this be connected in any way to our many fond memories of Jones & Brinton & Kelly & all the rest?

Well, when a closer, unsentimental look is taken, there’s lots to be learned here that will be as unsettling as some of the things US Quakers have recently had the chance to learn about the holes in our vaunted (mainly by us) “progressive” record on racial issues.

[Sigh.] Yes. It’s time, Friends, to wake up and smell the history.
Mysticism doesn’t have to be a ticket to the crazy right. But it’s no guarantee of anything forward-looking once the devotees emerge from their ecstasies.