Yesterday and Tomorrow

THE INTRUSION OF flying saucers and Venusians into Dr Rampa's Weltanschauung serves to remind one that the catalogue of ideas employed by cultists of all persuasions is a relatively limited one, and it is hard not to keep returning to analogies with science fiction. The immense staying power of the myths of Atlantis and Lemuria is another example of this apparently unquenchable human appetite for fairy stories dressed up as fact, and true to expectations they feature in a number of quasi-religious settings. In fact in this concluding chapter we will take a brief look at the power of the myth within this context, and put forward the suggestion that the most recent wave of the occult revival appears to be drawing upon such myths for its raw material.

Up to the present point we have seen that the focal areas for cultish interest are largely concerned with significant modern concepts or technology - science fiction, psychoanalysis, space travel, electronics and mysterious gadgetry of one kind and another. Often one finds a curious mixture occurring, as when flying saucer believers use spiritualist-like mediums to gather information about life on other planets, or when a yogi recommends the use of an electro-encephalograph as an aid to meditation. Radionics devices have also been used to test the efficacy of blessing plants or animals, and really multi-purpose characters like Lobsang Rampa seem to be able to turn their hand to anything within the very broad spectrum of the mystical world. In the quest for enlightenment via the numerous Eastern religions, the tendency to incorporate `modern' notions and attitudes is also strong, the prime example, one feels, being given in the work and philosophy of Gurdjieff, whose position seems to be that of a genuine halfway house between the East and the West. Subud too, offers a tempting amalgam of the ancient traditions of Buddhist thought and important elements of the West's great contribution, psychoanalysis.

But where will things go from here? While Scientology and the various other cults mentioned have had strong expansionist phases, and may grow yet bigger as Christianity's hold on twentieth-century mind continues to weaken, there is a definite tendency for adherents to work their way through and out of these movements' limited set of ideas. In Scientology even Clears defect, and larger numbers fall by the wayside at earlier stages. If this is due to the fact that the repertoire of good ideas which most modern cults contain is easily exhausted, then any really successful systems to replace the old religions must either offer more ideas (which could be asking a bit too much) or alternatively offer ideas which are richer, deeper or more enigmatic. The key here may lie in the word enigma, for the great religions of the past have always thrived on their mysteries and have weakened once they become pressurized, or feel obliged to unravel them. As an aside one might mention how curious it is that the Church of England, for example, seems so cluelessly unaware of this simple fact, and devotes its energies to such self-defeating tasks as the new translation of the Bible which has succeeded in robbing the work of its vast and potent imagery. True mystery, however, still remains in some of the great myths of mankind, and there is growing evidence that it is towards these myths that many spiritually disenchanted young people are turning. The immense staying power of these myths suggests that they touch deep chords in the human psyche, as Jung was constantly observing, and while it is not the purpose of this book to try to explain their power, it is interesting to relate it to some of the fringes of religious belief. The lost continent of Atlantis, long sunk beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean (at about the time of the great biblical flood as some historians would have it) is one of the most enticing current sources of myths. People with archaeological inclinations even spend a certain amount of time hunting around under the sea for traces of sunken land, now and again bringing up the odd bit of broken pot to wave around in triumph. Even without any pretensions to archaeology one can actually communicate with some of the most important inhabitants of Atlantis, now flourishing in the spirit world after their unfortunate drowning incident. The group which seems to be the most successful at establishing this contact (there are many people at the game) are the appropriately styled Atlanteans, a slightly more than minor religious cult who meet regularly in London, with a few branches in other parts of England. Keystone of the cult a beautiful red-haired former actress, Jacqueline Murray, who was prone to pop into a trance from time to time to find herself under the control of a High Priestess of Atlantis, one Helio-Arconaphus.

The Society, which was formed in April 1957, believes that spirits from the planet Venus were once incarnated into the bodies of primitive earth people of the caveman type in order to give them a kind of evolutionary prod. The outcome was the great culture of Atlantis which they hold to be the forerunner of all modern civilizations. The Society swiftly achieved a remarkable following, its nightly meetings in Earls Court being packed to capacity. The bulk of its audience incidentally was made up of actors and actresses (some famous and successful, some just `resting', and others directly involved in the stage such as managers and agents. This glamorous following, presumably sponsored by Miss Murray's own background on the stage, together with the theatrical profession's own traditional obsession with superstition and the exotic fringes of the occult, itself engendered public and press interest in the cult and for a week or two the Atlanteans and their beautiful leader became nationally known figures. Famous stars such as the great sex symbol of British movies in the thirties, Chili Bouchier, testified to the deep spiritual comfort derived from Helio-Arcanophus's trance addresses, while lesser figures, fresh from brief appearances on television soap opera serials or the latest detergent commercial, waxed enthusiastic over the benefits achieved from Atlantean spiritual healing. Branches of the group sprang up in Croydon, Bristol, Bromley, Brighton and even Cheltenham. A monthly magazine The Atlantean appeared, initially built around transcriptions of Helio-Arcanophus's latest messages, but gradually adding articles on astrology, yoga, health foods, flying saucers, palmistry, the end of the world and other topics dear to the heart of today's occultist. The ethos of the magazine as a whole is curiously academic. The authors of the articles tend to sport letters after their name and deliver their pieces, whether they be on `Red Indians - their cults and their beliefs' or `Radiation - the psychic ramifications', in a totally deadpan fashion. Helio-Arcanophus's own messages seem generally good-natured and harmless, though they tackle very profound subjects indeed such as the population explosion (`Is there an occult answer?') or Power Centres of the Psyche (`From whence and whom do they originate?'). There is even a kind of psychic agony column conducted with almost contemptuous ease by `Merlin', who tackles problems which would send Mary Grant, Suzie Knickerbocker and others of their ilk into spiralling nervous breakdowns. Faced with such questions as `Will spacemen landing on the moon go mad?' (Answer: They won't, but might get `euphoric'), `Why do you call the planet next to the sun, Orpheus, when everyone else calls it Vulcan?' (Answer: Everyone else doesn't call it Vulcan), or `What astrological sign rules Switzerland?' (Answer: Virgo), Merlin passes with flying colours. Only when faced with `When will Christ come again?' does he admit that `This is indeed the 64,000 dollar question' and opts out lamely by saying that such plans are `well guarded by the hierarchy'.

Another enduring myth of the West concerns the legend of the Holy Grail, a mysterious chalice which features strongly in Celtic and early Christian legend. The vessel is sometimes said to have been the one used by Joseph to gather the blood from Christ's wounds at his crucifixion, or more frequently that held by Jesus in the Last Supper when the powerful ritual of the Mass was first set in motion. Legends in various countries claim that the Grail was in due course abducted from the Holy Land, and the British version holds that it ended up in England where it was entrusted to the care of one or other mystical society. The Arthurian legend connected with the Grail is well known and we will not retell it here, but merely remark that at the time of writing this book, the chalice is featuring increasingly as a cult object amongst many young people. The vague associations of Arthur with Glastonbury Tor, the fabulously sited mountain in the West Country, and the so-called Chalice Well in the valley between the Tor and the smaller hill beside it have even made the place a kind of modern pilgrimage centre, and in 1971 tens of thousands gathered for a magical weekend featuring a mixture of rock music and incantations of the Hare Krishna variety. There were also, as the newspapers swiftly noted, a lot of pretty girls without any clothes on. Glastonbury, as we mentioned in Part II, has recently also acquired a reputation as being an important marker beacon for flying saucers, and the myth is compounded and muddled by another discovery - that the Tor is the centre of a vast zodiac, surrounded by ancient astrological signs marked out in the ground for miles around. These are easily spotted from a flying saucer, and may even be seen - assuming one has the right kind of eyesight - from a high flying aircraft.

Another interesting and on the whole youthful audience for mythology of one kind or another could be found amongst the readers of the magazine Gandalf's Garden. This appears to have folded, along with the Chelsea coffee bar and hippy commune from which it was published, quite recently but it is worth referring to as a good example of present cultish trends. It is also a particularly suitable point at which to end the book, for the good-natured outlook of the new wave of occultists, as exemplified by the readers of publications like Gandalf's Garden, is one of the more hopeful messages that we can find to spell out.

There can be few readers, incidentally, who fail to recognize the allusion in the magazine's title to the tedious wizard in J. R. R. Tolkien's saga The Lord of the Rings. This immense work, three volumes stuffed with the adventures of a group of semi-human hoofed creatures known as Hobbits who between them manage to save the world from the evil hegemony of a magician-dictator, has become one of the publishing bonanzas of the century. The travels of the Hobbits, who have names like Bilbo, Frodo, etc., across an imaginary land known as Middle Earth, and their encounters with trolls, werewolves and giant spiders, are recounted in immense detail, and stacked with cross-references, glossaries, maps, notes on dialect, genealogical tables of the reigning dwarf monarchs, regional folk songs, poetry, etc. The author, a distinguished academic and historian, tells his tale with panache, though racked with whimsy, and it is not hard to see its appeal to the schizophrenic latent within us all. This is the quirk that leads small boys to document train numbers and adults to collect stamps, butterflies or plot the tramway system of Amsterdam. No doubt Professor Tolkien had a shrewd idea of what a powerful obsessive spring his saga would tap in the minds of his readers, but it is doubtful if he could have foreseen the speed with which his entirely legendary figures would acquire a strange kind of reality, a weird sort of living presence which leads people to write `Bilbo Baggins is a queer' or `Frodo is alive and well and living in Argentina' on lavatory walls, and which gained for the wizard Gandalf a substantial number of write-in votes in the 1968 American presidential election. At one level such anthropomorphisms are funny, and at another they are sad, for it is surely an acrid comment on the world of the late twentieth century that so many of its inhabitants yearn for a universe populated by Hobbits, elves and gnomes in preference to that run by their fellow men. But perhaps what the world really does need is a bit of mystical shake-up, and electing a genuine wizard to the White House might sort things out in double-quick time. The readers of Gandalf's Garden would be the first to agree on this point, for their magazine described itself as `the cry of the Now Generation seeking an Alternative to the destructive forces of today's world'. It was the `magical garden of our inner worlds, overgrowing into the world of manifestation...a wellspring of love and anguish that those with searching thirsts may drink thereof'. The publication, as the above extracts imply, was written in a simple-minded, good-natured flowery style, and packed with articles allegedly reflecting the Mystical Scene. These included the obligatory features on Buddhism, the Swedenborg Society, Subud and (a particular favourite) Atlantis. There were also pieces on the allegorical significance of Tolkien's trilogy, an apologia for the failed black magician Aleister Crowley, and even a do-it-yourself brain surgery article in which the author gave handy tips on how to open the third eye (a la Lobsang Rampa) by physically trepanning a hole in one's cranium. This latter was counted as a bit much even by the broad-minded editors of the magazine who added a footnote to the piece sternly warning: `We do not advise anyone to try trepanning themselves, since even a fractional miscalculation could cause death or insanity.' Readers were advised to try yoga instead for a less drastic permanent high.

The strongly pacifist tone, the open-minded interest in eroticism, the search for alternative socially acceptable drugs to alcohol and the moralistic trend towards vegetarianism were striking features of Gandalf's Garden and for this reason its social importance should not be underrated. Admittedly the explicitly underground publications such as It, Oz and Ink exhibit some of the above trends, but whereas the latter seem always to be viewing the world through clenched teeth, the Garden exuded an aura of tolerance and compassion which, even if naive, is both credible and commendable. Furthermore where Gandalf's Garden - significantly it called itself the `Free Press of the Overground' - and equivalent specialist publications, from Cosmic Voice to The Atlantean differs from the Underground publications, is in its over-riding emphasis on mysticism, the occult and the spiritual nature of Man. The Underground, both in its press and in the philosophy of its followers, is essentially pessimistic. Its anti-establishment views are based on the assumption that organized society and with it no doubt the whole world, is doomed to destruction. In its heart of hearts the Underground is nihilistic, believing that when the system collapses there can be nothing really to fill the void.

The message of Gandalf's Garden, and of virtually all the cults we have discussed in this book, is almost the opposite. Man, they proclaim, does have a future, and a future far better, far clearer than the one predicted by orthodox politicians, clergymen and technocrats. For some it is a future where the secrets of life energy - orgone - are harnessed and utilized in the general interests of mankind and the total orgiastic experience; for others it may lie in the coming of Christ anew (in a spaceship) attended by a host of saint-scientists to sort out our desperate problems; for others the future path lies through the evolution of the mind via such systems as Scientology and its various imitations; or perhaps it lies in the tapping of psychic power through partly understood technologies such as radionics. Yet again, it could be that the key to the future will come to us from the past, from those wise priests and sages who sank with Atlantis and whose wisdom yet can be passed on by a chosen few. The list is a long one, and only partly tackled in this book. Hopefully, however, the tackling has been comprehensive enough to make the point that the cults, while revealing themselves as insubstantial and occasionally eccentric to the point of being purely funny, nevertheless do their level best to fill a serious vacuum - a vacuum which man has created by his own diligence and scientific curiosity. The truth is that we have been too clever for our own good, and have let our technical mastery of science move far, far ahead of our philosophical and social expertise. With contemptuous ease Man has kicked away from under his feet the bases of his age-old truce with the unknown - the multiple belief systems which we know of as religion. Now that the truce has been broken, the glowing uncertainties of the Universe and the enigma of Man's existence and purpose are revealed only too clearly. It is little wonder that millions of uncertain souls, appalled by this, have striven to make peace again. Many have succeeded, but the terms of the truce have of course been changed. And that is what this book has been about.

 

Divers Holy Monks