CONTENTS

For June, 1978

 

 

MOVING THE WORLD   ..................................................................................................             2

MEXICO'S BAFFLING OLMECS   .................................................................................             3

SCIENTISTS LOOK AT ESP   ........................................................................................             5

book reviews   ............................................................................................................             8

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING   ....................................................................................             9

Bulletin board   ........................................................................................................             10

CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT   .......................................................................................             11

 

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THE STAFF

 

EDITOR ........................................................................................... Dr. DANIEL W. FRY

asst. editor ...........................................................................   kerttu campbell

circulation manager ...........................................................  edna basmajian

staff artist ...................................................................................  gus tanasale

 

 

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UNDERSTANDING

VOLUME XV                               JUNE, 1970                                                NUMBER 5

Dedicated to the propagation of a better understanding among all the peoples of the earth, and of those who are not of earth.

 

MOVING THE WORLD

There are many of the simple truths of life which require periodic restatement and explanation if they are to serve their purpose. We attempt to bring, at least the more important of these to the attention of our readers at least once in each decade.

Most of the members of those organizations which are devoted to the improvement of Man's lot, and to the uplifting of his consciousness, occasionally experience a rather depressing sense of futility and in-adequacy. it seems that their plans and their work are all to no avail in achieving their goals. They become convinced that the apathy and the inertia of the world is so tremendous that no individual or group can bring about any change or have any effect upon its thinking.

I have often wondered how many of these people have ever watched a pair of tug boats tow a giant ocean liner out of the harbor. When the tiny tugs come chugging up to the mammoth bulk of the liner, they appear almost as two flies approaching an elephant. It seems very conceited of the two tugs to think that they could ever move such a tremendous mass.

When the towing lines have been drawn into place, foam begins to spurt from the stern of each of the tugs as their tiny propellers churn

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the water. The observer watches the ship for what seems a long time, and nothing happens. Just as he is coming to the conclusion that the effort is hopeless however, his eyes detect a minute and almost indistinguishable motion. The great ship is actually beginning to move! As the tug's engines continue to labor, the ship, slowly but surely, gathers speed and is eventually escorted out of the harbor to the open sea, where its own giant engines may safely be put to work and the ship is soon moving safely and rapidly toward its distant port.

The task of Understanding is much the same. The impatient re-former who is determined to change the world at a single stroke, comes charging headlong against the inertia and apathy of that world, and receives only a bruised head in payment for his efforts. The more impatient and emotional of today's youth could well take a lesson from the tug boat, for it is not the impact of violence, but rather the patient, but constant and unyielding tug which will move the world and mould the destiny of man.

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MEXICO'S BAFFLING OLMECS

Mexico's shadowy archeological past holds many perplexing and un-solved mysteries. Ancient civilizations, Toltec, Mixtec, Aztec and Maya, have all left monumental and tangible evidence of their history and glory.

Scattered throughout the Republic are the colossal remnants of their vast and complex empires. At Tula, huge stone monoliths, reminiscent of Babylonian sculpture, stand in mute splendor. In Yucatan and the highlands of central Mexico, huge pyramids, some partially restored, dot the landscape.

Much is known of these sometimes savage Indians - their customs, laws and convoluted religious ceremonies. Archeologists, working patiently, have given remarkably complete histories of the rise of the Middle American nations, with but one exception.

In the murky depths of Mexico's rich history a civilization of extra-ordinary talent has left tantalizing reminders of its existence.

The Olmecs, Mexico's giants of the pre-classic age, are an enigma. Flourishing and expanding throughout Eastern and Central Mexico, these fantastic hewers of stone were contemporary with Rames II, the conquests of Alexander the Great and the birth of Christ.

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Their artifacts, skillfully rendered in hard stone, have shaken the conventional archeological theory of simultaneous development. Briefly stated, it is this: Given time and similar environmental climates, widely separated peoples will evolve similar art, religious and architectural forms without concourse with their neighbors. The classic cited ex-ample of this is the pyramid. Found in many parts of the world, and most spectacularly in Egypt and Mexico, the pyramid is the simplest way to build a tall structure. A large solid base, tapering to a point, is a basic primitive engineering concept.

This theory, long the keystone of archeological tenant, stands on somewhat shaky ground. The Olmecs, their origin unknown, have un-leashed an archeological earthquake.

The Olmecs may have been in direct contact with Africa.

This heretical theory, long suspected and privately discussed, has gained serious support. Olmec art is strikingly African in appearance. The giant stone heads of La Venta, Vera Cruz, have marked Negroid characteristics. The Mezcala sculpture of the Mixtla region has counterparts that are being produced to this day in Ghana and the Republic of the Congo.

Simultaneous development or the first glimmer of what archeologists have long suspected? The Middle Americas may have been the crossroads of the Ancient World.

The magnificent Inca remains of Machu Picchu, Peru, have given almost indisputable evidence of trade between the Orient and South America.

Middle American legends of a bearded white god whose promised return had been predicted by Aztec astrologers, led to the downfall of that warlike nation. Through one of the ironies of fate the predicted year of return was 1519.

A bearded white man, certainly less than god-like, arrived in 1519. It was Hernan Cortez. In an excess of religious zeal, monks who followed Cortez burned the great Mayan library of Mani, and in so doing, ended whatever hope scholars may have had of tracing the origin of the Middle American races. With the burned bark codices have gone the answer as to the origins of the puzzling Olmecs.

Speculation that the Olmecs may have been a colony of the far roving Phoenicians has yet to be proved. Disputed Phoenician artifacts.

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have been found throughout the western hemisphere, with perhaps the strangest found in the most unlikely place - New Mexico! Archeologists have, over the years, found more and more evidence that peoples of the ancient world were not the isolated and unknowing creatures that they were once believed to be. Regular concourse between the advanced civilizations of Asia, Europe and Africa seems to have been an established, and flourishing, fact.

Perhaps the most enlightening and encouraging aspect of this problematical interchange is the fact that no epic struggles with "outsiders" a. o found in middle American legend.

The Mexican government, fully cognizant of its rich historical past, is making every effort to untangle the knotted threads of early development. The profusion of archeological ruins makes a thorough study a laborious and time consuming effort.

Until such time as their efforts uncover the secrets of the Olmecs, we are left to speculate. Just as the pyramids were built, patient stone on patient stone, so the story of these mysterious peoples comes to light.            ` It is hoped that it will prove that the interchanges of the ancient world were done amicably. Even more hopefully, these cultural swaps may have been done with the most important element in the forefront. They may have been done with understanding.

-Bill Mack

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SCIENTISTS LOOK AT ESP

FOR YEARS scientists and others have been debating on the merits of ESP. The debate isn't conclusive. Perception has not been deter-mined. Tests have been ephemeral and mystifying as ever. No one is ashamed to say they believe such a thing exists.

This observation comes from an authority on the poser. In other words, Dr. Thelma S. Moss, assistant professor of medical psychology, USCA school of medicine. She was responsible recently for gathering scientists and schools to participate in a weekend symposium on ESP, sponsored by USCA's Extension Division.

Specialists in parapsychology, psychiatry and related areas posed this fascinating question: Is telepathy evident in dreams? Can a person predict a specific event? Can thought influence the growth of plants and the healing of wounds?

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More than 600 persons in the audience, the majority of whom admitted (by a show of hands) having experienced some form of ESP learned that science is dealing seriously with the subject of haunted houses, clairvoyance, telepathy and psychokinesis and is attempting to harness the unconscious mind.

One of the stumbling blocks is that in order for ESP to be brought to a level of practical application, it must be laboratory-controlled and must fall into an ordered, accepted system of predictable performance.

In a series of experiments on the biological effects of the "laying on of hands" in plants and animals, Dr. Bernard Grad, a professor at McGill University in Canada, has determined that emotional states can influence the materials you handle.

"If you think about it," he reflects, "this sort of thing puts a tremendous responsibility on all of us on the handling of children, on therapists in the handling of patients and even on the housewife who thinks in anger of her husband while she is fixing his meals; she might leave him with ulcers," he added in effect.

A report by Dr. Jule Eisenbud of the University of Colorado de-scribed a transatlantic experiment with Gerald Croiset, the Dutch clairvoyant. He related that Croiset was able to describe on January 6, 1969, the physical attributes and trivial happenings in the lives of two subjects who were chosen at random from an audience of 100 persons at an experiment in Denver on Jan. 23, 1969. He brought out a number of unknown facts.

Could Croiset have prophesied the presence of those persons at the meeting? Could they have been drawn to the meeting by some inexplicable force?

Dr. Thelma Moss, whose background includes a career in acting and playwriting, described in detail six laboratory-controlled experiments she conducted in ESP. One of her findings, contrary to most recorded case histories, is that there's no difference between closely related and nonrelated persons in successful thought transmissions and receptions.

She admits "this may be only a peculiarity of my experimental design."

Dr. Moss compares experimenting and studying ESP to studying volcanoes. First you find a volcano like the geyser Old Faithful which

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gushes away at regular intervals. But, then, there are very few Old Faithfuls in psychical research."

During a conference recess, Dr. Moss was asked what makes humans more receptive or gifted to ESP. The symposium chairman said "This is where all the research is now, but we still don't have all the answers."

Is ESP inherited? Dr. Moss does not have a specific answer but admits it does seem to run in families who have been known to be receptive to thought transference.

Age has no bearing. Children very often experience ESP. Women like to talk more about ESP phenomena than men, but men make equally good transmitters and receivers. Rapport could be ESP.

Spiritual healing is one aspect of ESP which Dr. Moss feels goes beyond the realm of mystical experience, of being in touch with the universal energy source.

Is there any relevancy in the claim that some people see visions of saints or happenings.

"I think it is very relevant," said Dr. Moss. "I think it had to do with the type of thing persons like Croiset experience. They see what-ever information they are getting in their own symbology. Over a period of time and through repetition of this symbology they are able to decode this."

Can one equate the gifts of ESP with the sixth sense-intuition more or less? "No. I think it's more like the seventh, eighth or ninth sense. Probably everyone has it but it's like playing the piano. Most everyone can play "chopsticks" but you have to work at it to play a symphony," she maintains at length.

Are there any scientific applications of ESP? "Absolutely not," she said. ESP is at the stage that electricity was when Michael Faraday was experimenting idly with coils and electro-magnetic bars. People were forever asking him what he was doing and he didn't know offhand.

One accepted fact is that thought knows no barriers-it can transcend time, space and personality-and its manifestations are being studied throughout the world.

Dr. Moss is of the undivided opinion that the best over-all center of study in the United States today is the University of Virginia's Division of Parapsychology. It is headed by Dr. Ian Stevenson, whose chief area of study is reincarnation and associated studies.

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animals communicate. But we are learning fast and discovering much that is fascinating about the way nonhuman ears report to their owners.

There are, in fact, many languages of animals, often within a single species. Not all lions or jungle fowl or warthogs roar or cackle or grunt exactly alike. There are differences in rendering, in pitch, and in style that correspond closely to the difference in various languages and dialects among human beings.

For instance, wild crows and herring gulls attract, warn, threaten, or pass the time of day with their own kind by sounds that correspond to a simple language. Yet such sounds are understood only by birds reared in the same area.

We know for certain so far that the brain of any animal heeds only a narrow selection of the sounds its ears pick up. Yet whether these sounds have any meaning depends on both inborn, instinctive reactions and on the creature's experience of the world.

Formerly, it was thought that animals talked only by instinct. Now we know they learn a lot of their particular language much as human babies pick up words and sentences by listening to their parents. And that opens up whole new realms of research, impossible to imagine without accepting the animal language theory.

 

Computer Horoscopes?

Daily Courier, Grants Pass, Ore., May 5, 1970

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI)-Some enterprising businessmen have marked the age of Aquarius to the electronic era and are getting rich casting horoscopes on computers.

Computerized horoscope companies-with names like Astroflash, Zodiatronics and Time Pattners Research-have appeared in a dozen major U. S. cities.

Astrology's mass of figures, computations and formulae are perfectly suited for the meticulous logic of the computer.

"Astrology is based on solid scientific facts-astronomical and mathematical data," explains Jean-Pierre Bacarat, a former San Francisco computer consultant cashing in on the boom with his own astrology service.

"Man has been studying the heavens for 3,000 years. So today we have a wealth of data to work with," he said in an interview. "With scientific tools such as computers it's easier to calculate data."

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A skilled astrologer must often spend days in detailed work to cast a single accurate horoscope. But Bacarat's leased IBM 360-50 and Stromberg-Carlson graphics computer turn out more than 100 each week and are capable of handling many times that number.

——— ♦ ———

book reviews

Revelation for the New Age

(Revelation for the New Age, Anthony- Brooke, Regency Press, 43 New Oxford St., London W. C. 1 ; $2.00)

Anthony Brooke of England, the author, is a world traveler and lecturer who has wide contacts with religious, secular and political leaders, with scientists, educators and specialists of various kinds, as well as with the "ordinary man." While in Switzerland in 1951 he experienced a spiritual illumination which underlies his dedication to and vision of man's future. Revelation for the New Age, by popular request, is a compilation of seven lectures and papers which present the philosophy that a "dramatic breakthrough of spiritual values will sweep us all into a world-wide cooperative community, and (that) these higher values, through the changed consciousness of man, will rule the world" of the future.

If you have not had the privilege of hearing this inspiring, enlightening speaker, here is your opportunity to learn of Anthony Brooke's thesis of the nuclear, evolutionary spiritual breakthrough which is already heralding the coming New Age. If you have heard his lectures, here is your opportunity for an in-depth review and study of the rev-elations for the future given through psychical and spiritual research, both scriptural and modern.

You will be introduced to personalities who already serve, in various

 

J U N E, 1970                              17

parts of the world, as beacons of light for the New Age: Dr. Sun Myung Moon of Korea; Pierre Feilhard de Chardin (The Phenoniena of Man); Sri Aurobindo (The Ideal of Humanity) : and many others. You will , learn of the efforts of organizations such as the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, Society for Psychical Research, the Commonwealth of World Citizens, the Universal Link Foundation, to list but a few, which work towards unity, and the understanding of man in his total essence.

Interested in the Second Coming of Christ Jesus, in the inner and outer manifests ion? In psychic surgery, in UFOs as relation to this spiritual breakthrough? In the "translation" of Annalee Skarin and its significance? All these subjects are covered, including the story of our own Dr. Daniel W. Fry. In many instances names and addresses for further contact are given.

The 92 pages of this volume will take time and thought to fully appreciate and assimilate. But, as you read and study the revelations offered by Anthony Brooke, you may become convinced of the need for your own transformation, and agree that "There is no doubt that humanity will triumph. For ourselves, as individual human beings, the question is whether and in what degree we find ourselves receptive to the cosmic flow of power-the cosmic evolution-that is upon us, and whether and to what degree we concern ourselves with preparation for the transformation. Nothing else matters."

——— ♦ ———

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

(From a Palm Sunday Service, Unitarian. Universalist Church, Binghamton, New York)

"We can rejoice I We can find cause for hope if we put our ear to the ground; if we listen to the message of our youth who say to us: get down to fundamentals; there must be CHANGE, fundamental change.

Margaret Mead, in the Saturday Review, points out why we must learn from youth.

"Today, the dissident young discover very rapidly that the old solutions are no longer possible.. . These young dissidents realize the critical need for immediate world action on problems that effect the

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whole world. What they want is, in some way to begin all over again. They are ready to make way for something new by a kind of social bulldozing. . . Awareness of the reality of the crisis and the sense the young have that their elders do not understand the modern world, be-cause they do not understand their children, has produced a kind of rebellion in which planned reformation of the present system is almost inconceivable.

"Nevertheless, those who have no power also have no routes to power except through those against whom they are rebelling. In the end, it was men who gave the vote to women; and it will be the House of Lords that votes to abolish the House of Lords-as also, in the final analysis, nations will act to limit national sovereignty. Effective, rapid evolutionary change, in which no one is guillotined or forced into exile, depends on the cooperation of a large number of those in power with the dispossed who are seeking power.

"It is the adults, who still believe that there is a safe and socially approved road to a kind of life they have not experienced, who react with the greatest anger and bitterness to the discovery that what they had hoped for no longer exists for their children. . .

"Here we can take a cue from the young who seem to want instant utopias. They say the future is now. This seems unreasonable and impetuous, and in some of the demands they make it is unrealizable in concrete detail; but here again I think, they give us the way to reshape our thinking."

For those of you who tremble, fear not, for the wheels of change grind slowly in fact, even when the masses of youth are pounding on the gates. Be grateful for their cries, for they may force us to listen and to take off our blinkers for a real look at what we and our fore-fathers have wrought. This is our hope; this is our salvation; to ex-amine each problem in its most fundamental essence; to start over from the beginning. This is the philosophy which underlies all the clothes-taking off, all the long, unkempt hair, the ragged clothes, the bare feet-all that revolts those of us who take two showers a day and never let our heels get run down. Don't let us be thrown by the surface manifestations of the message. You need not grow a beard nor come to church barefoot to understand you need only be willing to realize that real solutions don't result from surface reform; lasting solutions begin at bedrock.

-Helen Vukasin

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Bulletin board

Closed On Fridays

Lack of attendance, unfortunately, makes it advisable to close the Merlin Understanding Library for the present on Friday evenings. The Library will continue to be open to the public on Tuesday evenings, 7 to 9 and on Saturdays 10 A.M. to 2 P.M.

We encourage those in the area to come browse through our large and varied selection of books, both orthodox and New Age.

An Error

A reader writes us: "I note that your book reviewer has referred to the author of BREAKTHROUGH TO CREATIVITY as a man. Dr. Shafica Karagula is a woman, a quite remarkable woman!" Our apologies to Dr. Karagulia, and our thanks to our reader for noting the error.

Recent Lectures

Some interesting programs  have recently been offered by our Under-standing Units.

In April, at the new International Cultural Center of Understanding, Merlin Unit 1 offered a program on Hatha Yoga. A young couple, Jim and Pam Fernandez, gave a talk and demonstration, with audience participation in the Yoga exercises.

In May the Merlin Unit featured Mrs. Robert Portus, a Graphanalyst, in a talk (with guidelines) on Hand Writing Analysis. Emphasis was placed on our ability to change ourselves by concentrated exercise to change our handwriting

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The San Francisco Unit 11 in April presented Daniel Bleise, D.D. in a lecture on "Parapsychology in Scripture," followed by a Question and Answer period.  

Offered at the April meeting of Unit 15 of Inglewood, Calif., was discussion of the URANTIA BOOK by Miss Georgia Gecht. The lecture was entitled: "Cosmography, Cosmology and Cosmogeny."

If you are not already on the mailing list of these Units, write to Merlin and we shall arrange for you to receive lecture notices.

International Director Arrives in Merlin

We are pleased to announce that on April 18th, Bishop Imeh Emmanuel, our International Director from Nigeria, arrived in Merlin. The Bishop is a soft-spoken young man of the Ibibio tribe of Biafra, who heads two churches in Lagos, Nigeria. As he speaks fluent English we enjoyed our visits with him for the two weeks he spent in Merlin before going to California and Arizona. Bishop Emmanuel will return to Merlin to participate in the June Dedication and Convention.

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