When I was about twenty-five years of age, I began to meet other men who were of the same mind as myself about the search for Truth. Since I do not have their permission, I will not identify them. Not that they would object to being known perhaps. But they have grown families and children and grandchildren who may feel that such divulgence would not be compatible with a particular game of life that they may be playing.

We were not many . . . the more faithful ones numbered six or eight. Then there were other contacts who knew of our interests, and these friends also supplied us with information and attended our meetings. We decided to prospect in separate environments for systems and for people who might know more than ourselves. In the early days of the search we were afflicted with the "Hunt the Guru Syndrome." We promised one another to learn all that we could, and then compare notes. Each of us joined different sects and became initiates of those sects which held initiation requisite to learning that which the sect claimed to be valuable, esoteric knowledge. Needless to say, on many occasions we were disappointed with the trivial offerings of most sects.

In this manner we learned, as a group, that which could not have been learned in three lifetimes by any of us alone. We became acquainted with the initiation rites of SRF and Radha Soami. We obtained heaps of Rosicrucian private lessons or mandami. One of our group was "opened" in the Subud movement. Two others attended latihan sessions.

We made lone trips to investigate materializations, spiritualistic phenomena of all sorts, and individuals who had particularly unique talents. We visited witch-doctors, priests, Protestant ministers, and fortune-tellers. One member took time out to help set up a scientific research group—the Mind-Science Foundation of San Antonio (endowed by Tom Slick). We worked with smaller "psychic research" groups whose investigations were along the lines of ESP, table tilting and hypnosis.

We subscribed to magazines that dealt with occult or transcendental matters and occasionally placed ads in them to contact people who might be sincere.

We had several things in common besides ignorance and the admission of it. We agreed that moneyed cults, power and glory cults, and movements with excessive secrecy were not worth the bother. Of course, we argued among ourselves over the relative worth of some movements;

I feel that the history of our search is secondary to our conclusions. The history of our diggings would include many movements and teachers not even discussed in this book. Some are not worth mentioning. Some were found to be created out of whole cloth. And a few of those mentioned in this book are not worth the following of one day, but they are examined here, nevertheless, to demonstrate the negative effect they have upon the minds of too many people.

By the same token, there are individuals who were instrumental in either encouraging me to continue my work or who were directly helpful, and who, beyond a doubt, held the rank of teacher, who will not be described here because their value was recognized only by their conversations and their manner of working. If any sort of bridge has been built by our collective labors, a picture of the bridge is more important than a portrait of ourselves.

And still, in this chapter devoted to observations of teachers and unique systems, I should admit that those who played possibly the most valuable role for the most of us were not the teachers of any cult or well-known system, but were individuals largely unseen by the general public . . . whose real value to us was forever unknown to their next door neighbors, employers and associates.

To give them justice would require a chapter or a book for each of them. And to write less would leave the reader with fragmentary evidence or would give only the human picture of mistakes made, and blind struggling. It might be interesting here to give a sort of summary conclusion of our group as regards the systems encountered.

I am sure that nearly all of us would agree that systems that aid in "becoming" rather than "learning" are endorsed. The real science, we concur, is knowing the self, which we somehow sense is the door to Reality. The observation of magic or the study and classification of phenomena is mostly an interesting divergence for the mind when it is too tired to do anything else. The study of phenomena and phenomenal men does us no good if we cannot relate that study to the better understanding of our self, or at least formulate laws of phenomena by studying them.

An example of one of the phenomenal men is Edgar Cayce. I made a trip to Virginia Beach to see his place and talk to some of the people who came there. I did it only as part of a family vacation. Edgar Cayce was dead and his son Hugh Lynn manifested none of his father's psychic ability. And Edgar Cayce, while living, gave reams of advice and perhaps issued some semblance of a philosophy, but he left behind no system nor explanation of his own peculiar powers answerable to scientific investigation.

Nor did he give a formula for a student who might like to be a psychic doctor or even finder of lost items. Cayce was a phenomenon, not a teacher. And now being gone, he is only a history of a phenomenon. It is good to read of him and to read his writings. It is not wise to make of him a religion or a solitary path to Truth.

Phenomenal men are more valuable contacts than are phenomena. The study of phenomena includes the wide range of flying saucers, Fortean research, spiritualistic phenomena, magical mantras, astrology, numerology and thaumaturgy. None of these deserves an all-out application of our life's energy, but they are more commendable pursuits than remaining inert on the soft bed of organized religion.

top of page