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Cultivating Consciousness; an East-West Journey, by Roney-Dougal, Serena M.
The Journal of Parapsychology
Vol. 78, No. 2
Fall 2014
COPYRIGHT 2014 Parapsychology Press
Copyright 2014 Gale, Cengage Learning.

1965 / Ramakrishna Rao
1978 / Ramakrishna Rao
1990 / Ramakrishna Rao


-- History of the Parapsychological Association Presidency, by parapsych.org


Various techniques of meditation of Indian and Tibetan origin are getting increasingly popular in the practice of clinical psychology in the past few decades. Also, there is burgeoning literature on clinical and neuropsychological research on the practice of meditation. Before examining the outcomes of this research we first examine what meditation...

-- Meditation and Applied Yoga, by K. Ramakrishna Rao, Anand C. Paranjpe, Sept. 2016


Cultivating Consciousness; An East-West Journey, by K. Ramakrishna Rao et al. Visakhapatnam, India: GITAM University Press, 2014. Pp. viii + 380. $40 (hardback). ISBN 13-978-81-246-0717-6.

This is a complex and informative book and it is impossible to do it justice in just a few pages. Suffice to say it is worth reading by anyone who is interested in exploring consciousness, if only for the final four chapters by Ramakrishna Rao who outlines the Yogic, Vedic and Buddhist viewpoints and then summarises the East-West correspondences and differences.

This is of great importance because in the West we often muddle our use of the terms mind and consciousness and make a divide between mind and matter. In the East mind is a different concept from consciousness and in some philosophies mind is material. This leads to a completely different approach to consciousness. For example, in the West the term unconscious can sometimes mean a complete lack of consciousness and sometimes mean mental information of which one is not aware. In the East the unconscious is one aspect of consciousness, with differing meanings depending on the philosophy.

This book is a revised and expanded edition of the original which was published in 1992. The expanded part is the Eastern perspective written by Rao as Part II of the book, and which are revised versions of chapters from his book Consciousness Studies, which was published in 2002, and the final chapter is a revised version of a paper published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. The chapters in Part I are from a conference on "Cultivating Consciousness," held in Durham, NC, in 1991, where the various articles were first presented. Thus we need to be aware that these papers were written more than 20 years ago and so the concepts and information are no longer quite so new! This, of course, is especially pertinent for the bibliography.

The introduction is by Ramakrishna Rao, in which he outlines the work by Louisa Rhine and emphasizes how any study of consciousness has to incorporate findings from parapsychology and spontaneous psychic experiences.


Part I: Western Models

Western Philosophical Models


Amongst others, the Institute of Noetic Science provided a grant for this conference, and Willis Harman contributes the first chapter, discussing the need for a reassessment of the metaphysical foundations of Western science. He considers these foundations to be objectivism, positivism, and reductionism, which are the underlying assumptions of logical empiricism and are based on the assumption of separateness. He considers this needs to be rectified by a more holistic science, which he calls a "Wholeness Science," with interdependence as its foundation.

Stephen Braude responds to Harman's talk.




He considers that Harman fails to identify the most serious errors of mechanism. Instead of "wholism" Braude advocates a scientific pluralism, which recognizes that different scientific disciplines require different methodologies and perspectives, not one single theory to cover everything, but a "community of equals" (p. 42).

Thomas Hurley continues the theme of the metaphysical foundations of modern science and the problems, such as reductionism, associated with them. He then identifies several themes that he considers to be emerging and that may help shift our worldview. These include the study of complex systems, purpose and self-determination, holistic concepts, and qualitative approaches.

David Griffin is the first to specifically address the western philosophical view of consciousness and the problems surrounding these western concepts. The first problem he identifies is that some Western philosophers even question the existence of consciousness!! Their reasoning results from the familiar Western mind-body problem stemming from Descartes. Griffin takes Whitehead's definition "that consciousness is the subjective form of an intellectual feeling, which arises, if at all, only in the late phase of a moment of experience" (p. 57). Next he discusses the Western difficulty in ascribing downward causation or any power to consciousness, and he brings the concept of pan-experientialism as the philosophy that enables this. Throughout all of this he conflates mind with consciousness and states that consciousness is a "virtually non-efficacious by-product of the mind" (p.66). For Griffin, mind is the most extensive, and his definition of consciousness is that of awareness, since he considers the unconscious to be nonconscious. This is diametrically opposed to the Eastern perspective.

Jean Burns brings parapsychology more specifically into focus, though it has been mentioned in previous chapters. She discusses characteristics associated with the mind-brain interface that incorporate psi into the theorizing, and models of consciousness in which psi is discussed. Many of these incorporate quantum mechanics in some form or other into their hypotheses, whilst her model is a thermodynamic one.

Neil Rossman defines consciousness as varieties of awareness that are displayed by various creatures in a developmental manner that expands as consciousness becomes reflective self-consciousness, and humans develop a sense of self.

Western Psychological Models

Eugene Taylor addresses the problems that Western physical concepts of consciousness have with altered and psychic states of consciousness and with Eastern spiritual concepts of consciousness. He discusses various states of awareness experienced whilst in a sensory deprivation chamber, and suggests that the split between Western and Eastern concepts is due to the West always dealing with the external world whilst the East is more concerned with inner states.

The next chapter is by Ramakrishna Rao, who looks at conceptual and methodological issues. His definition of consciousness is that it is both a state of awareness as well as awareness of something. Added to this are varying levels of subliminality vs. liminality and explicit vs. implicit. He then mentions various Western philosophers and their concepts of consciousness.

Beverley Rubik discusses consciousness in relation to "subtle realms," such as bioelectromagnetics, and argues for greater gender balance in future research, a softer yin-based approach.

Robert Jahn introduces the idea of the complementarity of consciousness, as in Neils Bohr's concept of complementarity, a sort of both/and dimension of consciousness.

Charles Tart explicates his model for transpersonal psychology based on computer generated virtual reality. Dreams are our normal every night virtual reality, and he suggests that our everyday experience is a virtual reality.

Some Research Topics

Rather than talking about consciousness per se, Brenda Dunne gives us a brief insight into some of the PEAR REG work and from this suggests support for a complementarity principle in consciousness previously outlined by Jahn.

In the context of the role of wholistic healing within western philosophy, Michael Grosso considers the power of imagination in healing, such as cultural psychosomatic disease and healing forms of consciousness.

Alfred Alschuler considers the experience of inner voices in people, such as saints, political leaders, clairvoyants, and the role they have played in human culture. Commonly they are transcendent experiences that people relate to union with the divine or an inner teacher.

The chapter by Srinivasan presents the first Eastern perspective on the topic and discusses the nature of reality from the worldview of an ever-changing universe that is coexistent with a background of unchanging reality. In this model evolution proceeds from the changeless to everything, including mind, in the present time-space material universe. Some Indian philosophers equate the unchanging reality background with pure Consciousness.

The final chapter in Part I is by United States Senator Claiborne Pell. He makes a plea for more research into survival of bodily death.

As can be seen from these extremely brief reviews of highly complex topics, the Western views of mind and consciousness span a huge range with no two people addressing either the same issues or having the same understanding of mind and consciousness.

Part II: Eastern Perspectives

In Part II, which comprises one third of the book, Ramakrishna Rao first presents the Yogic philosophy of consciousness. Although a Yogic scholar may well find his brief explanation inadequate, for me, as a Westerner who is unfamiliar with the finer details of this philosophy, I found it very clearly written and a most interesting view contrasting with the various Western concepts discussed in Part 1. Yoga philosophy is linked with the Samkhya philosophy, considered to be the oldest philosophy in India. It essentially espouses two basic principles in the universe, prakrti (matter) and purusa (pure consciousness, which is the foundation for awareness and is different from mind, although there are no direct translations of the Sanskrit words). Both are primary and irreducible principles, all- pervading and ubiquitous. Evolution is the actualization of these potential principles. When the two become entangled, then the conscious mind is formed. Mind is the interface partaking in consciousness and in the material world. Yogic philosophy distinguishes three aspects of mind. The central processor (manas) aspect of mind assimilates the sense perceptions, which are then related to the ego (ahamkara). This is the aspect of mind being researched by neuroscience. This is then transformed into awareness by the psyche (buddhi), which enables consciousness of the object by virtue of its association with purusa. The consciousness of purusa is reflected on buddhi. When this final stage does not occur, we have unconscious cognitive states (samskaras). This philosophy enables psi to have an essential place within the worldview. "Time and space are categories created by the mind to organize and understand sensory information. Buddhi itself exists beyond the constraints of space and time" (p. 243). Thus, awareness is of two sorts --transcendental (mystical, intuitive) and phenomenal (the material world), which enables eight different states of consciousness, one of which (the anomalous) is related to psi awareness.

Even more interesting is the next chapter, in which Rao compares and contrasts the Yogic philosophy with that of Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of Shankara. This philosophy brings in the concept of Atman, or pure consciousness, which is self-manifesting and self-illuminating, contentless, formless, non intentional, not limited by time and space, both subject and object, undifferentiated, knowledge itself, and "rests in no other" (p. 261). Atman becomes the personal consciousness in the form of jiva which is consciousness limited by the mind and body. As in Yogic philosophy, mind is considered to be the subtlest form of matter, bridging consciousness and matter. Within personal consciousness there are four cognitive states: waking, dream, deep sleep, and samadhi. Rao discusses the ramifications of this philosophy and starts to build a much bigger picture of the sophistication and understanding of the Eastern traditions. It is commonplace to state that in the West we have explored outer knowledge whilst in the East they have explored inner space, and this is brought out clearly in this chapter. Reading these Indian philosophies makes me feel that we Westerners really are in nursery school insofar as the concept of consciousness is concerned.

Rao then brings Buddhist philosophy into the pot. He explains consciousness from the viewpoint of Theravadan Buddhism, which has a complex phenomenological psychology of consciousness, very different from the Tibetan traditions with which I am more familiar. In Buddhism, the mind is composed of momentary states of consciousness that are constantly arising and dissolving, much as a flame or a river is constantly changing in a ceaseless becoming of dependent origination. Theravadan Buddhism is more of a psychology than a philosophy, aiming at an understanding of the nature of consciousness, which is a relationship between subject and object. From these relationships, Buddhism has identified 89 states of consciousness, such as the sense domain, the domain of thinking, reflection, concentration, and the transpersonal plane. Our consciousness is a dynamic process with both subliminal and supraliminal components; the subliminal component is called bhavanga and is a key concept, similar in many ways to buddhi in Yogic philosophy. Further, consciousness is considered to contain 52 basic elements, such as feeling, volition, perception, attention, which combine to create variations in consciousness. Our perceptions are coloured by our conditioning and occur as a process involving six steps, which can vary, thus leading to changes in our experience. Rao then briefly mentions the later Buddhist Mahayana philosophies and compares Buddhist philosophy with Vedanta and Yoga.

And finally Rao compares Western and Eastern concepts in his summing-up chapter. He notes the wide variety of concepts covered by the Western authors and suggests that the one commonality is that all conceive of consciousness in some way connected with awareness. He then gives a brief review of the history of Western philosophy and psychology of consciousness, and a review of the Indian philosophies. He concludes by describing the two approaches as complementary, the West emphasizing the phenomenal and the East the transcendental. Both are important.


I do not necessarily think that in the West we should adopt any of the Eastern philosophies, but I think it is really useful to understand their perspectives, because I think that it helps to clarify the dreadful muddle we have in the West and, from this clarity, perhaps advances can be made in our understanding of consciousness.

SERENA M. RONEY-DOUGAL
Psi Research Centre
14 Selwood Rd., Glastonbury, Somerset BA68HN, UK
serenardl@yahoo.co.uk

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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xx

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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Fosco Maraini
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/29/20

Image
Fosco Maraini
Fosco Maraini (on the left)
Born: 15 November 1912, Florence, Italy
Died: 8 June 2004 (aged 91), Florence, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Known for Metasemantic poetry

Metasemantic poetry (from the Greek μετά "after" and σημαντικός "significant") is a literary technique theorized and used by Fosco Maraini in his collection of poems "Gnòsi delle fànfole" of 1978.

While semantics is that part of linguistics that studies the meaning of words (lexical semantics), of the sets of words, of phrases (phrasal semantics), and of texts, metasemantics, in the sense given by the Maraini, goes beyond the meaning of words and consists of the use, within the text, of words without meaning, but having a familiar sound to the language to which the text itself belongs, and which must still follow the syntactical and grammatical rules (in the case of Fosco Maraini, the Italian language). One can attribute more or less arbitrary meanings to these words by their sound and their position within the text.

A language similar to this technique, mostly defined as nonsense, was also used by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky published in 1871.

Other examples of proto-metasemantic expressions in the English language date back to the beginning of 16th century with the onomatopoeic sounds typical of gibberish.

The most famous example of metasemantic poetry, in the original meaning of the term as given by Maraini, is his poem Il Lonfo, also known for the recitation made by Gigi Proietti in 2005 (in the transmission of Renzo Arbore Speciale per me - meno siamo meglio stiamo / Special for me - the less we are, the better we are), as well as for its recitation in the episode on February 7, 2007 the program Parla con me (Talk to Me), conducted on Rai 3 by Serena Dandin

-- Metasemantic poetry, by Wikipedia

Spouse(s): Topazia Alliata (m. 1935; div. 1970); Mieko Namiki (m. 1970; his death 2004)
Children: Dacia Maraini; Toni Maraini; Yuki Maraini
Scientific career
Fields: Ethnology of Tibet and Japan
Influences: Giuseppe Tucci

Fosco Maraini (Italian: [ˈfosko maraˈiːni; ˈfɔs-]; 15 November 1912 – 8 June 2004) was an Italian photographer, anthropologist, ethnologist, writer, mountaineer and academic.

Biography

He was born in Florence from the Italian sculptor Antonio Maraini (1886-1963) and Cornelia Edith "Yoï" Crosse also known as Yoï Crosse-Pawlowska (1877-1944), a model and writer of English and Polish descent who was born in Tállya, Hungary. As a photographer, Fosco Maraini is perhaps best known for his work in Tibet and Japan. The visual record Maraini captured in images of Tibet and on the Ainu people of Hokkaidō has gained significance as historical documentation of two disappearing cultures. His work was recognized with a 2002 award from the Photographic Society of Japan, citing his fine-art photos—and especially his impressions of Hokkaido's Ainu. The society also acknowledged his efforts to strengthen ties between Japan and Italy over 60 years. Maraini also photographed extensively in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges of Central Asia, in Southeast Asia and in the southern regions of his native Italy.

Image
Members of the Italian Gasherbrum IV expedition 1958, Maraini is standing, second from right

As an anthropologist and ethnographer, he is known especially for his published observations and accounts of his travels with Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci during two expeditions to Tibet, first in 1937 and again in 1948.[1]

It was not just the ideologists and theoreticians of national socialism who were closely concerned with Tibet, but also high-ranking intellectuals and scholars closely linked to Italian fascism. First of all, Giuseppe Tucci, who attempted to combine Eastern and fascist ideas with one another, must be mentioned (Benavides 1995).

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi


In 1933 he promoted the foundation the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East [it] - IsMEO (Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente), based in Rome. The IsMEO was established as a "Moral body directly depending on Mussolini"...

Tucci officially visited Japan for the first time in November 1936, and remained there for over two months until January 1937, when he attended at the opening of the Italian-Japanese Institute (Istituto Italo-nipponico) in Tokyo. Tucci traveled all over Japan giving lectures on Tibet and "racial purity"....

Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism and Benito Mussolini. His activity under Il Duce started with Giovanni Gentile, at the time Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Rome and already close friend and collaborator of Mussolini, when Tucci was studying at the university of Rome, and went on until the Gentile killing, and the compulsory administration of IsMEO for over two years until 1947.

Gentile became a member of the Fascist Grand Council in 1925, and remained loyal to Mussolini even after the fall of the Fascist government in 1943. He supported Mussolini's establishment of the "Republic of Salò", a puppet state of Nazi Germany, despite having criticized its anti-Jewish laws, and accepted an appointment in its government. Gentile was the last president of the Royal Academy of Italy (1943–1944).

In 1944 a group of anti-fascist partisans, led by Bruno Fanciullacci, murdered the "philosopher of Fascism" as he returned from the prefecture in Florence, where he had been arguing for the release of anti-fascist intellectuals. Gentile was buried in the church of Santa Croce in Florence.

-- Giovanni Gentile, by Wikipedia


In November 1936 - January 1937 he was the representative of Mussolini in Japan, where he was sent to improve the diplomatic relations between Italy and Japan and to make Fascist propaganda. On 27 April 1937 he gave a speech on the radio in Japanese on Mussolini's behalf. In this country his strong and tireless action paved the way to the inclusion of Italy to the Anti-Comintern Pact (6 November 1937). He wrote popular articles for the Italian state that decried the rationalism of industrialized 1930s-1940s Europe and yearned for an authentic existence in touch with nature, that he claimed could be found in Asia. According to Tibetologist Donald S. Lopez, "For Tucci, Tibet was an ecological paradise and timeless utopia into which industrialized Europe figuratively could escape and find peace, a cure for western ills, and from which Europe could find its own pristine past to which to return."


-- Giuseppe Tucci, by Wikipedia


As a mountaineer, he is perhaps best known for the 1959 ascent of Saraghrar[2] and for his published accounts of this and other Himalayan climbs.[3] As a climber in the Himalayas, he was moved to describe it as "the greatest museum of shape and form on earth."[4]

From 1938 to 1943, Maraini's academic career progressed in Japan, teaching first in Hokkaido (1938–1941) and then in Kyoto (1941–1943); but what he himself observed and learned during those years may be more important than what he may have taught. Dacia, his eldest daughter, would decades later recall that "the first trip I took was on the sea from Brindisi to Kobe."[5] Two of his three daughters were born in Japan: Yuki (registered as Luisa in Italy) was born in Sapporo in 1939, Antonella (Toni) in Tokyo in 1941. After the Italians signed an armistice with the allies in World War II, the Japanese authorities asked Maraini and his wife Topazia Alliata to sign an act of allegiance to Mussolini's puppet Republic of Salò. They were both asked separately and separately they refused, and were interned with their three daughters of six, four and two years old in a concentration camp at Nagoya for two years.[6] Those memories of 1943 through 1946 evolved into some chapters of the book "Meeting with Japan" by Fosco Maraini. Dacia Maraini's collection of poetry drawn from those difficult years, Mangiami pure, was published in 1978.[7]

Image
Fosco Maraini, his wife Mieko Namiki and Kurt Diemberger

The Maraini family retreated to Italy after the Allies occupied Japan. This period became the core of another book by Dacia Maraini who remembers that they left Asia "without either money or possessions, stripped bare, with nothing on our backs except the clothes handed out by the American military."[8] The years in Italy are described in the book, Bagheria, named after the Sicilian town not far from Palermo where the family lived.[8]

In time, Maraini did return to his "adopted homeland" of Japan; and in 1955, this journey of rediscovery became the basis for his book, Meeting with Japan.[9]

In an interview, one of his daughters explained that one of her earliest memories of her father speaking is when he claimed:

Remember that races don't exist, cultures exist.[5]


The head of the Tuscany regional government publicly explained that Maraini had "honored Florence and the Tuscany by teaching us to be tolerant of other cultures."[10]

Fosco Maraini was, with Giuliana Stramigioli among others, a founding member of the AISTUGIA – the Italian Association for the Japanese Studies.

The 1963 film Violated Paradise, directed by Marion Gering was based on Maraini's work L' Isola Delle Pescatrici (1960).[11] A few images shot by Maraini's crew were used in the production.[12]

Selected works

Maraini has had numerous photographic exhibitions in Europe and Japan; and he wrote over twenty books, many of which have been translated into several languages.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Books

• Secret Tibet (1952)
• Ore Giapponesi (1959)
• G4-Karakorum (1959)
• Meeting with Japan (1960)
• L'Isola delle Pescatrici (1960)
• Paropàmiso (1963). English version: Where Four Worlds Meet: Hindu Kush 1959 (1964)
• Tokyo (1976), Photography by Harald Sund; The Great Cities Time Life Books Amsterdam.[13]
• The Island of the Fisherwomen (1962)
• Jerusalem: Rock of Ages (1969), Photography by Alfred Bernheim and Ricarda Schwerin; Translated by Judith Landry; New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
• Patterns of Continuity (1971)
• Gnosi delle Fànfole (1994)
• Nuvolario (1995)
• Case, amori, universi (2000)

Articles

• "Tradition and Innovation in Japanese Films," Geographical Magazine. Oct. 1954: 294–305.

Honors

• Photographic Society of Japan, International Award—2002.[14]
• Japan Foundation Award—1986,[15]
• Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class—1982.[16]
• International Society to Save Kyoto's Historic Environment, (ISSK) – First Honorary President.

See also

• Saraghrar
• Topazia Alliata
• Dacia Maraini
• Marilyn Silverstone

Notes:

1. Maraini, Fosco. (1994). "Tibet in 1937 and 1948," Archived 13 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine Government of Tibet in Exile web site.
2. Carlo Pinelli, fellow climber in 1959. Mountain Wilderness web site.
3. Karakorum, K-2 climb Archived 17 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
4. trekker web page Archived 13 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, just one example of the oft-repeated Maraini quote.
5. Centovalli, Benedetta. (2005). "Interview, Dacia Maraini", Words without Borders web site.
6. Maraini bio note. Life in Legacy web site.
7. Dacia Maraini (1936), bio. Italia Donna web site (in Italian).
8. Marcus, James. " Broken Promises," New York Times. 9 April 1995.
9. "From Sukiyaki to Storippu," Time. 4 January 1960.
10. "Il gonfalone della Toscana a Dacia Maraini in memoria del padre scomparso," Servizi radiofonici Regione Toscana. 8 June 2004.
11. Goble, Alan (1999). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. p. 306. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3.
12. "l isola delle pescatrici" [The Island of the Fisherwomen] (in Italian). Asiatica Film Mediale. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
13. Maraini, Fosco. (1976). "The Great Cities: Tokyo" Time-Life: The Great Cities.
14. PhotoHistory 2002.
15. Japan Foundation Awards (1986) Archived 11 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
16. Rogala, Jozef. A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English: A Select List of Over 2500 Titles with Subject Index, p. 144.

References

• Lane, John Francis. Obituary, "Fosco Maraini, Italian Explorer and Travel Writer Who Brought His Understanding of the East to the West," The Guardian (Manchester). 15 June 2004.
• Obituary, "Fosco Maraini, Writer and Traveller Who Photographed 'Secret Tibet'," The Independent (London). 19 June 2004.
• Obituary, "Fosco Maraini: Dauntless Italian travel writer who devoted himself to exploring Asian civilisations, and once lopped off a finger to prove his courage," Times (London). 29 June 2004.
• Rogala, Jozef. (2001). A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English: A Select List of Over 2500 Titles with Subject Index. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-873410-80-8

External links

• Official website
• Dacia Mariani website (in Italian)
o Dacia Maraini's bio (in Italian)—referencing father
o Dacia Maraini's bio (in English)—referencing father
• Toni Maraini's bio (in Italian)—daughter's bio, referencing father
• Marilyn Silverstone—photographer influenced by Maraini
• Japan Mint: 2004 International Coin Design Competition – see competitor design, "Homage to Fosco Maraini, famous Italian anthropologist, orientalist, writer and photographer"... also see "Excellent Work" plaster model, Maurizio Sacchetti (designer)

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:29 am
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Holy Island, Firth of Clyde
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/30/20

In earlier pages it was demonstrated that in November 1939 U-33 undertook a circuitous route from Tory Island (known historical fact) to Carradale Bay where it landed men (historical fact uncovered). From there U-33 travelled northeast to the Cloch-Dunoon defence boom and passed briefly and audaciously into the heavily populated Clyde Anchorage in the light of a three-quarter moon.

Twelve weeks later between the 8th and 10th of February, U-37 landed Abwehr spy Ernst Weber-Drohl and an unknown accomplice at Killala Bay in Donegal. On the 10th U-33 was in Scottish waters approaching the Mull of Kintyre. Recalling the covert aspects of U-33's activities identified in this present work and the relative proximity of the two submarines, the likelihood that the operational objectives of U-37 and U-33 shared common purpose must be seriously addressed.

Buddhist monks first established a retreat in Scotland in late 1961. The Venerable Kyabje Namgyal Rinpoche Anandabodhi (Canadian Leslie George Dawson 1931-2003) founded at Eskdalemuir in Dumfriesshire the Johnstone House Contemplative Community of the Theravadin branch of Buddhism (literally, the "Ancient Teaching," the oldest surviving Buddhist school).

Interestingly, before embracing Buddhism Dawson, a friend of Anna Freud, Julian Huxley and R.D. Laing, envisaged a life in socialist politics. Disillusioned after addressing an international youth conference in Moscow, Dawson moved from the USA to London in 1956 and embraced the esoteric teachings of Rosicrucianism and, later, the works of renowned Russian mystic and founder of Theosophy Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

It was not long before Anandabodhi's Theravada community dwindled. In 1965 he transferred ownership of the Eskdalemuir site to two Tibetan refugees (Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche) who renamed it Samye Ling. Anandabodhi returned to Canada where with the help of his senior students he established the Centennial Lodge of the Theosophical Society.

Today Samye Ling is a monastery and international centre of Buddhist training, renowned for the authenticity of its teachings and tradition. It offers instruction in Buddhist philosophy and meditation within the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

It is evident that the excellent reputation of Samye Ling went before it because in 1990 the then owners of Holy Island, James and Catherine Morris, offered it to Lama Yeshe because they believed its future would be best taken care of by "the Buddhists from Samye Ling." The 1 million pound asking price was eventually dropped to 350,000 pounds, which Lama Yeshe managed to raise by April 1992. The Holy Island project was then established, broadening Tibetan Buddhism's community of faith in Scotland. Interestingly, the ownership of Arran resided with the ducal Hamilton family for about five hundred years up into the twentieth century.

In past times Arran was called Emain Ablach, which translates literally as "the place of apples." Another translation of Arran is "the sleeping lord." Many readers will recognise in these two descriptions unmistakeable references to the legend of Arthur who today resides in timeless slumber upon the Enchanted Isle of Avalon (Isle of Apples), awaiting re-awakenment in Britain's darkest house.

Medieval language scholar and Grailseeker Otto Rahn, visitor to Scotland (Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh) both in 1936 and, it is speculated, in late 1939-early 1940 in U-33 (months after Rahn's reported suicide), wrote extensively about Arthurian imagery, drawing on Rosicrucian and other skeins of philosophical symbolism in support of his brilliant insights into European history and its metaphysical traditions. (Rahn also used to practise Tibetan exercises in telepathy in Berlin's busy streets with his friend Gabriele Dechend.


Otto Rahn, likewise a member of the SS, who in the 30s attempted to render the myth of the holy grail and the Cathar movement fruitful for the national socialist vision and the SS as some kind of “warrior monks”, assumed that the Cathars had been influenced by Tibetan Buddhism “One of the Cathari symbols of the spirit that is god which was taken over from Buddhism was the mani, a glowing jewel that lit up the world and allowed all earthly wishes to be forgotten. The mani is the emblem of the Buddhist law that drives out the night of misconception. In Nepal and Tibet it is considered the symbol of the Dyanibodhisattva Avalokiteshvara or Padmapani, charity” (Rahn, 1989, pp. 185, 107).

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi


Standartenvuhrer-SS Dr. Ernest Schafer, leader of SS expeditions to Tibet made on behalf of Reichsfuhrer-

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encompasses an area associated with pagan worship.

Johnstone is the home of Saint John's Parish Church. Saint John is an important saint for both Freemasons and the Knights Templar. Johnstone lies on almost exactly the same latitude of Roslin, home of Rosslyn Chapel. Roslin lies at 55 51.15 and Johnstone, significantly, is located at the sacred number 55 50. The line between these two latitudes was known as the "serpent rouge" or Roseline, an ancient meridian once used for telling the time.

Paisley Abbey also lies on this sacred latitude and Hugo de Pavinan appears as a witness in the abbey's foundation charter. Notably, Tibetan Tantric Buddhists today declare that Rosslyn Chapel, a Christian edifice known as the Grail in Stone and an important node in a powerful pan-global earth energy grid system, is a centre for world peace.

In Hellboy the choice of location in Scotland for the Nazis' occult activities is determined largely by the confluence of a network of powerful ley lines. Hellboy is the creation of writer-artist Mike Mignola. The comics started appearing in 1993 and it was not until 2004 that Director Guillermo del Toro's first highly successful film adaption appeared.

The story begins in the final months of World War II. A party of fanatical Nazis come to the ruins of fictional ‘Trondhem Abbey’ on the equally fictional Tarmagant Island.

The U-boat that surely brought the part of Nazi occultists to the island is neither seen nor referred to but, then again, neither did the official eyeglass of history observe U-33 landing men at the Isle of Islay and at Carradale.

The Nazi personnel have come to Trondhem Abbey to conduct a black magic ceremony to wake the Gods of Chaos and win the war. A U.S. army contingent raids the proceedings but not before a demon, subsequently nicknamed Hellboy by paranormal expert Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm (Dr. Broom), comes into this world through an open portal to Hell.

Dr. Broom recognizes amongst the sorcerers the fearsome figure of arch-Nazi, Karl Rupert Kronen, SS officer, fictional head of the Thule occult society and Hitler’s number one assassin. Kronen is directing operations. The date in 9 October 1944, time 01:00 hours.

It is evident that those who developed the film’s storyline had a detailed knowledge of astrological symbology because at this precise hour and date there had just been a partial eclipse of the moon. The Sun, Mercury and Mars were all in the sign of Libra, an auspicious time for rituals, particularly those involving time manipulation. The moon is in its exalted position in Cancer, corresponding to the 16th degree. The imagery in the astrological Sabian Symbols3 for the sixteenth degree is a man studying a mandala with the help of a very ancient book, which is precisely the sight that greets the army team when they burst into the Abbey grounds.

There before them is the terrifying figure of Grigori Rasputin, dead since 1916 but impossibly alive, clutching the Des Vermis Mysteriis, a Black Magic Grimoire. He is uttering powerful incantations, which are keeping open a gateway to Hell for access to the sleeping Seven Gods of Chaos (strong echoes of Dagger Magic in this imagery). The portal is represented as a mandala-like swirling pattern of electrical energy.

A pitched battle ensues in which Rasputin is propelled headlong into the portal and the Nazis are overcome. Kronen makes his escape (to make his next appearance in Hellboy III).

While making his way to the Abbey Dr. Broom had told the American soldiers that the location was an intersection of a number of ley lines. It is evident that this explicit mention of the island’s powerful geomantic properties is designed to indicate to film viewers that Rasputin’s magical ceremony is at least being partly assisted by the violent flux of earth energies active in and around the Abbey ruins.

-- The Mystery of U-33: Hitler's Secret Envoy, by Nigel Graddon


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Holy Island
Gaelic name An t-Eilean Àrd or Eilean MoLaise
Meaning of name: "the high island" or "Laisren's island" in Gaelic.
Holy Island from Lamlash
Location
Image
Holy Island shown within North Ayrshire
OS grid reference NS063297
Coordinates 55.53°N 5.07°W
Physical geography
Island group Firth of Clyde
Area 253 ha (1 sq mi)
Area rank 95 [1]
Highest elevation Mullach Mòr, 1,030 ft (314 m) – a Marilyn
Administration
Sovereign state: United Kingdom
Country: Scotland
Council area: North Ayrshire
Demographics
Population: 31[2]
Population rank: 58 [1]
Population density: 12/km2 (31/sq mi)[2][3]
Lymphad
References [3][4] [5]

Holy Isle Outer Lighthouse
Pillar Rock Point
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Holy Isle Outer Lighthouse
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Scotland
Image
Location Holy Island
Isle of Arran
North Ayrshire
Scotland
United Kingdom
Coordinates 55.517299°N 5.060764°W
Year first constructed 1905
Automated 1977[6]
Construction masonry tower
Tower shape quadrangular tower with balcony and lantern
Markings / pattern white tower, black lanter, ochre trim
Tower height 23 metres (75 ft)
Focal height 38 metres (125 ft)
Light source solar power
Range 25 nautical miles (46 km; 29 mi)[7]
Characteristic Fl (2) W 20s.
Admiralty number A4330
NGA number 4320
ARLHS number SCO-100
Managing agent: Samyé Ling Buddhist Community [8]
Image
Holy Isle Inner Lighthouse

The Holy Island or Holy Isle (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean MoLaise) is an island in the Firth of Clyde, off the west coast of central Scotland, inside Lamlash Bay on the larger Isle of Arran. The island is around 3 kilometres (1 7⁄8 mi) long and around 1 kilometre (5⁄8 mi) wide. Its highest point is the hill Mullach Mòr.

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Firth of Clyde


History

The island has a long history as a sacred site, with a spring or holy well held to have healing properties, the hermit cave of 6th century monk St Molaise, and evidence of a 13th-century monastery. An old Gaelic name for the island was Eilean MoLaise, Molaise's Island; this is the origin (via Elmolaise and Limolas) of "Lamlash", the name of the village on Arran that faces Holy Island.

Saint Molaise of Leighlin, also Laisrén or Laserian (died ca. 639), was an early Irish saint and abbot of Lethglenn or Leithglenn, now Old Leighlin in Co. Carlow, who is supposed to have lived in the 6th and 7th centuries.

Born in Ireland and raised in Scotland as a young man, he lived the life of a hermit on Holy Isle (off the Isle of Arran). He later visited Rome as a pilgrim and was subsequently said to have been ordained a bishop there. He later entered the monastery at Old Leighlin in Ireland where he became abbot and possibly bishop. He adapted Church discipline in accordance with the practices of Rome. He is credited with introducing or advocating the Roman method of dating the celebration of Easter.

According to Kuno Meyer, he is the Laisrén who is depicted in the Old Irish prose narrative The Vision of Laisrén, one of the earliest vernacular pieces of vision literature in Christian tradition. The extant fragment shows him leaving the monastery of Clúain (possibly Clonmacnois or Cloyne) to 'purify' the church of Clúain Cháin (unidentified) in Connaught. After a three nights' fast, his soul is taken up by two angels, who escort him to Hell to show him the horrors that await unredeemed sinners. The angels explain to one devil eager to take Laisrén from them that their guest is granted the vision in order that "he will give warning before us to his friends."

Molaise probably died circa 639. His feast day is celebrated on 18 April. In a note added to the Félire Óengusso, Molaise is said to have pulled out a hair from St Sillán's eyebrow which had the special property that anyone who saw it in the morning died instantly. Having thereby saved others, Molaise died. Because of the fiery connection between sunrise and Molaise's name, from lasair "flame", the anecdote has been interpreted as relating to solar mythology. His monastery thrived and gave its name to the diocese established in 1111 at the Synod of Ráith Bressail.

-- Molaise of Leighlin, by Wikipedia


Some runic writing is to be found on the roof of St Molaise's cave and a Viking fleet sheltered between Arran and Holy Isle before the Battle of Largs.

In 1549, Dean Monro wrote of the "little ile callit the yle of Molass, quherin there was foundit by Johne, Lord of the iles, ane monastry of friars, which is decayit."[10]

Present day

In 1992, the island was in the possession of Kay Morris, a devout Catholic who reportedly had a dream in which the Virgin Mary instructed her to give ownership of the island to the Samyé Ling Buddhist Community, who belong to the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.[11] The settlements on the island include the Centre for World Peace and Health, founded by Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, on the north of the island. This is an environmentally designed residential centre for courses and retreats which extends the former farm house. It has solar water heating and a reed-bed sewage treatment system. The approach from the ferry jetty is decorated with Tibetan flags and stupas. On the southern end of the island lives a community of nuns who are undertaking three year retreats.

The remainder of the island is treated as a nature reserve with wild Eriskay ponies, Saanen goats, Soay sheep and the replanting of native trees. The rare Rock Whitebeam tree is found on the island, an essential link in the evolution of the Arran Whitebeam species, Sorbus arranensis, Sorbus pseudofennica and Sorbus pseudomeinichii. These are indigenous and unique to Arran.

There is a regular ferry service from Lamlash, and the island is popular with holiday makers staying on Arran. The usually resident population was recorded as 31 in 2011,[2] an increase from 13 in 2001.[12]

Gallery

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The Centre for World Peace and Health, with Tibetan flags and stupas

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One of the Saanen goats

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One of the wild Eriskay ponies

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Map of the island

See also

• List of lighthouses in Scotland
• List of Northern Lighthouse Board lighthouses

References

1. Area and population ranks: there are c. 300islands over 20 ha in extent and 93 permanently inhabited islands were listed in the 2011 census.
2. National Records of Scotland (15 August 2013) (pdf) Statistical Bulletin: 2011 Census: First Results on Population and Household Estimates for Scotland - Release 1C (Part Two). "Appendix 2: Population and households on Scotland’s inhabited islands". Retrieved 17 August 2013.
3. Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
4. Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 69 Isle of Arran (Map). Ordnance Survey. 2014. ISBN 9780319229644.
5. Mac an Tàilleir, Iain (2003) Ainmean-àite/Placenames. (pdf) Pàrlamaid na h-Alba. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
6. Lighthouses holyisland.org
7. Holy Island Outer Light Lighthouse Explorer
8. Holy Isle Outer (Pillar Rock) The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 15 May 2016
9. Holy Isle Inner (Lamlash) The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 15 May 2016
10. Monro (1549) "Molass" no. 5
11. Holy Isle Buddhists fight power plant by Martin McLaughlin The Scotsman 29 July 2019
12. General Register Office for Scotland (28 November 2003) Scotland's Census 2001 – Occasional Paper No 10: Statistics for Inhabited Islands. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
• Monro, Sir Donald (1549) Description of the Western Isles of Scotland. William Auld. Edinburgh - 1774 edition.

External links

• Holy Island travel guide from Wikivoyage
• The Holy Island Project web site
• Movie of images taken on the island
• Photo Tour of a hike across the Holy Isle

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:39 pm
by admin
Part 1 of 2

Percival Chubb and the Founding of the Fabian Society
by Norman MacKenzie
Victorian Studies Vol. 23, No. 1
Autumn 1979

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Percival Chubb was a minor star in the Fabian Galaxy, yet he was actually the first and the last of the early Fabians. He survived the octogenarians Sidney and Beatrice Webb and the nonagenerians Bernard Shaw and Edward Pease, dying in 1959 when he was only a year short of his hundredth birthday. It was Chubb who initiated the series of meetings which led to the founding of the Fabian Society on 4 January 1884 and to the complementary foundation of the Fellowship of the New Life. It was also Chubb who served as the link to the wandering philosopher Thomas Davidson, whose eclectic but enthusiastic idealism was nominally the inspiration of both groups. Chubb's part in these events has never been clear, partly because be dropped out of Fabian affairs when he emigrated to the United States in June 1889 and partly because the origins of the Fabian Society itself have never been fully explained. The four most cited historians of the society (Shaw, Pease, Margaret Cole, and A. M. McBriar) did not see the Davidson Collection in Yale University Library, which contains a large number of letters from Chubb and others from William Clarke, Havelock Ellis, and Frank Podmore, and Chubb's own papers have not hitherto been available outside his family.1 Such neglect has done Chubb himself some injustice. More importantly, it has left significant gaps in the record, for Chubb's letters and other papers contain the only detailed account of his relationship with Davidson, of his efforts over several years to promote a practising community of like-minded enthusiasts, and of the complicated discussion which preceded the emergence of the Fabian Society.

Chubb was born on 17 June 1860 in St. Aubyn Street, Devonport. His parents, James and Adelaide Chubb, were Anglicans with an Evangelical bias, and Percival was brought up to strict observance; years of service as a choirboy left him with a habit of hymn singing and a craving for spiritual comfort which persisted long after the faith of his youth had failed him.2 In 1873, James Chubb's modest business failed, and all the family except Percival went off to make a fresh start in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Adelaide Chubb, a woman of somewhat higher social status than her husband, was keen for her eldest son to better himself, and she persuaded her brother, a London printer and bookseller named E. T. Olver, to take the boy into his home and to secure a place for him in the school run by the Stationer's Guild. This was a good foundation; it offered the grammar school curriculum of Greek and Latin, English, history, and geography, with a smattering of science. Chubb did well, winning a prize in each of the three years he spent at the school. At the age of sixteen, he went out to work as a clerk in an import and shipping agency, whose business stimulated his daydreams of emigrating to the New World. He kept up his studies, however, and within twp years he passed the entrance examination for the civil service and became a second-division clerk in the legal department of the Local Government Board.

The post involved much routine drudgery, but the hours of work were relatively short, and there were good holidays besides, Like Sidney Webb, who made a similar move from a colonial broker's office into the Board of Inland Revenue at almost the same time. Chubb disliked the materialism of the commercial world and prized the additional leisure for study that he found in the public service. The salary of £95 It rear, with annual increments of £15, was also an improvement, for Chubb was sorely in need of a few sovereigns to subsidise his family -- his father was a kind but ineffective man who was always struggling on the verge of financial failure -- and to help his growing brothers to some schooling, It was years before Chubb was free of this drain upon his limited income, and it meant that a coveted book had to be bought at the price of a meal, and that the cheapest ticket for a concert was a much calculated extravagance. As Bernard Shaw was discovering as he wandered about London with scarcely a penny to spare, the genteel and clever poor had to search out free entertainment, listening to bands in the park, walking the picture galleries and museum corridors, and going from one meeting to another. These intellectual proletarians, as Shaw called himself and his associates, formed a ready and circulating audience for cranks, reformers, and enthusiasts of all kinds; the tea shop was their club, the British Museum was their library, and the public lecture was their university.

Chubb was an earnest young man who took life seriously and worried at the moral problems it presented. While he lodged with his uncle in Stoke Newington, he attended the local Anglican church of St. Mary's, but soon after he went out to work he had begun the reaction against conventional Christianity that was to carry him through years of agonising doubt to a settled and distinguished place in the Ethical Church movement. As the time for his confirmation approached, he wrote to his mother to say that he could not be confirmed at the hands of an orthodox cleric. "I must have someone of broad views to direct me - if anyone," he wrote, and he suggested that Stopford Brooke, the celebrated minister of the Bedford Chapel who was then about to secede from the Anglican Church, would satisfy his scruples. The general run of clergymen, he insisted, were "at enmity with science, philosophy and, indeed, reason itself .... I repudiate all dogma, and adhere to the maxim that each individual is the best guardian of his own soul"3 These opinions were fostered by the unorthodox preachers he heard when he went sermon-tasting on Sundays, particularly by Stopford Brooke at the Bedford Chapel and the humanist Moncure Conway at South Place, and during the week he pursued other means to self-improvement. From 1879, he went regularly to the meetings of the Aristotelian Society (and, possibly, to the Zetetical Society, where he would have met both Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb).4 On Wednesday nights he studied Greek and German at the Birkbeck Institute to fit himself to read Plato and Kant in the original, and on Fridays he exercised at a gymnasium. By the end of 1879, his skepticism about conventional religion had reached a point where he felt unable to go with his parents to the midnight service on New Year's Eve, and as an alternative, the family decided to hold an impromptu domestic ceremony which included the reading of elevating texts.5 The change in style exactly exemplified Chubb's shift from faith to spiritual consciousness. "I fail to see a reason for praying," he noted in his diary at the beginning of 1880, "and I was determined to try and make my life one long prayer, prayer in work instead of the formality of prayer as I had been accustomed to it from my earliest years." All the same, Chubb found it depressingly difficult to achieve this ideal condition, and his diary and his letters were punctuated by spasms of self-castigation. "I am unable to realize sufficiently the amount of truth which I feel I possess," he wrote in March 1880. "I cannot embody in my living that which the light which is in me tells me that I ought to ... my enthusiasm runs wastefully over too large and too ill-defined areas."

In this doubtful state of mind, Chubb was understandably eager to find friends with a similar desire for intellectual intimacy as a defence against loneliness, and at the Local Government Board he met several other clerks who shared his taste for philosophy and ethics. One of them was Rowland Estcourt, whom Chubb admired for his flights of utopian fantasy and for his ability to perceive symbolic meanings; another was Hamilton Pullen, a pessimistic agnostic who nevertheless kept up religious appearances to avoid upsetting his family.6 Chubb also had two close friends whom he saw when he visited his family in Newcastle. Ernest Rees (who later changed his name to Rhys and became the editor of the successful Everyman's Library) was then assistant to the manager of a Durham colliery, and Will Dircks, a disciple of Auguste Comte who ardently sought to convert Chubb to Positivism, was to hold a senior post in the Walter Scott publishing company.

In the summer of 1880, with Rees, Dircks, and a couple of other acquaintances who were settled at a distance, Chubb formed the Manuscript Club -- a round robin system of circulating essays and lending books.7 According to the printed card which served as a prospectus, the MS Club was "to design and promote an unconstrained literary fellowship among its scattered members, with the aim of giving some impetus to the pursuit of intellectual culture." It was a modest venture with very grand aims. "Our ultimate object is, I suppose, the construction of a moral ideal, individual and social," Will Dircks wrote on 23 December 1881 in a note reviewing the club's activities during its first year. "It will be allowed that the material of a social reconstruction, is presented in a way that hitherto has not been the case and the problem of arranging the material. the process of reconstruction, is now the question for philosophy, poetic as well as scientific, to undertake."8 In these periphrastic sentences, Dircks stated the two related notions - moral improvement and social reconstruction - which three years later Chubb put before the discussion group which developed into the Fabian Society. Even after Chubb had become an active member of the Fabian Society and of the Fellowship of the New Life, he still felt that there was a place for the kind of dialogue begun in the MS Club, not least because of its context of fraternity. In 1885, in fact, Chubb and the other members made an effort to extend the MS Club into a larger organisation called the Pioneer Club, whose own magazine hoped to appeal to "a rapidly growing minority of young men interested in, and anxious to promote, the free yet serious discussion of literary, philosophical, and social questions generally; young men of fair intellectual equipment, who are living for the most part in isolation from others, of tendencies and tastes similar to their own."9

I

The aspirations of the MS Club. which stressed ethical improvement. a wider culture, and a sense of fellowship, were remarkably close to those of the Progressive Association, founded in 1881 by the Radical publisher John C. Foulger. The Progressive Association was yet another of the crop of new organisations catering to genteel reformers which later led Edward Pease to remark that in the early 1880s London was "full of half-digested ideas." Parlour philosophies were so popular, Pease added, that it seemed "that we should arise one morning and see the old heaven looking down on a new earth."10 The opening words of the first printed circular of the Progressive Association certainly reflected that state of mind. "The Progressive Association," it declared, "is neither theological or anti-theological, but is founded on what is conceived to be the widest workable basis, namely that Man may by his honest efforts promote the highest good and happiness of the human rare on earth."' Foulger was the moving spirit of the association; the journal called Modern Thought, which he published from his City office at 14 Paternoster Row, was intended to serve the same humanist purposes.11 But he had recruited a number of able sympathisers, who used the "Cyprus" tearoom overlooking Cheapside as a weekday meeting place. This group included Havelock Ellis, who was then a medical student at St. Thomas's Hospital and who shared the secretaryship of the association with Foulger; Frank Podmore, a well-educated upper-division clerk in the Post Office who had a sceptical interest in spiritualism and who, in 1882, became one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research; and Rowland Estcourt, who seems to have introduced Chubb to the association. Chubb soon became an active member, organising the musical entertainments for the Sunday night meetings at a hall in Islington and later helping Ellis to prepare an edition of Hymns for Progress. In 1884, he became a member of the association's executive and took the place of Ellis as joint secretary.

There is a strong family resemblance, a likeness that suggests direct inheritance, between the aims and means of the association and the original purposes of the Fabian Society, which was formed just over two years later. At least ten members of the association were present at one or more of the informal talks which preceded its formation - Rev. George Alien, Dr. Burns-Gibson, Henry Hyde Champion, Chubb, Ellis, Estcourt, Foulger, Miss Haddon, Mrs. James Hinton, and Podmore. The aims looked for social progress based upon "honesty and sympathy and mutual trust," and the means for achieving this improved state of affairs were divided into five categories. There were to be lectures and meetings "devoted largely to questions of human conduct, and the advancement of man's condition and ideal." There were to be campaigns for improved housing and other sanitary measures and for "advances in Physical, Mental and Moral Education, including an extended knowledge of the Laws of Life, Temperance, the opening of Free Art Exhibitions, Reading Rooms and Libraries." The association also proposed to prepare and distribute pamphlets, to support parliamentary measures which it approved and to oppose those it disliked, and to "run classes of an attractive kind" for young people "to teach such views of life as will make them worthy citizens of their own, and fit parents of the next generation." With such lofty aims and means, the association was a congenial meeting place for those who, like Chubb, believed that people must be moralised before they would be capable of building the Ideal City.12

In any event, however, the association became little more than a very mixed set of Sunday-go-to-meeting people who came to sing humanist hymns, listen to uplifting poetry and prose, and applaud a comparably mixed set of lecturers. In the course of 1882, the list included Henry Crompton on "Buddhism and Positivism," E. Belfort Bax on "Karl Marx," Henry Hyde Champion on "Poets of the Revolution," William Morris on "Art and Democracy," two talks apiece by H. M. Hyndman and Thomas Davidson, Helen Taylor (the stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill who had assisted Henry George on his 1882 visit to Britain ) on "Land Nalionalisation," J. L. Joynes on "Adventures in Ireland" (where he and George had recently been arrested in an incident which gave George and his Progress and Poverty a sudden notoriety), and a scattering of other speakers on the woman question, workhouses, food reform, and sundry literary topics.

The neophyte Marxists from the Democratic Federation, especially Bax, Morris, Hyndman, and Joynes, clearly made an impact on the association, for its annual report for 1882-83 - the winter when the socialist revival was beginning to gather momentum - shows that "some members" wanted the association '"to take up a more defined attitude towards questions of Social Reform," and a motion to that effect was put at one of the semiformal meetings which were a regular part of the Sunday gatherings. This lengthy text, pressing the socialist case while carefully making concessions to the sensibilities of moral force reformers, seems to reveal the hand of Champion. always a busy draftsman, always a nimble tactician, and always willing to concede a theoretical point to placate an ally.

While believing in the necessity for social reconstruction, the Progressive Association considers that such reconstruction, to be either permanent or beneficial, must proceed by only such revolutionary means as are consistent with the natural development of the community, and that social development can only advance side by side with individual development. The Association looks for a more equable distribution of labour and wealth, thus placing within the reach of all classes (and doing injustice to no class) the attainment of the full development of individual activities. It will therefore be prepared to support measures for bringing the means of production within the control of the community, and for the organization of labour, both by the State and in the form of Co-operation. As a preparation for these Social changes the Association will support compulsory education, moral, physical and intellectual (including technical education) and seeks by voluntary efforts to spread information regarding all Social subjects.


The resolution, which was not actually put in order "to give further opportunities for the consideration and discussion of Social questions," remains an intriguing fusion of ideas which were later to be sharply differentiated - a point made by Hubert Bland in his contribution to Fabian Essays. "When I first called myself a Socialist," he wrote, "I had all sorts of hopes and aspirations. I seemed to think [it] a widely inclusive term which embraced anything I particularly wanted. And what was true of myself, I noted, was true of others."13 At the end of 1882, the new socialist movement was still so conceptually confused that these few sentences could be equally supported by such future luminaries of the Social Democratic Federation as Champion, R. P. B. Frost, Joynes, and Helen Taylor, by a thoroughgoing Radical like Foulger, by an old Chartist and freethinker like George Holyoake, and by earnest young moralists like Chubb, Estcourt, and ElIis.14 The debate on the issues raised by that resolution rail on all through 1883, apparently without rancour and also without much theoretical finesse, for in the early autumn of 1883, Chubb felt no hesitation in inviting several of "the fellows" who were in Hyndman's camp (Bax, Champion, Frost, and Joynes) to discuss his scheme for founding an ethical brotherhood.

Chubb was an enthusiastic and somewhat indiscriminate joiner; all through 1883 he vacillated between the urge to withdraw from a stressful and corrupt world into a "spiritual" community and the attractions of the "worldly" socialist movement. "I can scarcely say what predominates in me," he wrote on 1 April 1883, "the passion for self-perfection, the desire to attain true manhood, to get a sure hold on life, or the humanitarian ardour ... to aid in the realisation of the social Utopia."15 He was clearly an impressionable youth, eager but unsure of himself, and given to deferring to stronger personalities. What he needed was a mentor, someone who would be a spring of affection, intellectual stimulation, and moral guidance as he sought to find a settled identity among the confusions of late adolescence. In the autumn of 1881 at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society at which he was giving his first public talk (on "The Ethics of Plato"), Chubb met such a man in the person of Thomas Davidson.16

II

This free-lance scholar, the illegitimate son of a Scottish shepherd, was then 43, and in the years after his graduation from King's College, Aberdeen, where he discovered a brilliant gift for languages and philosophy, Davidson had found a settled life so distasteful to his independent nature that he had wandered irresolutely between the New World and the Old. The transcendentalists of Massachusetts had contributed as much as the Greek and Roman philosophers to his eclectic idealism, and he eventually established his own rural retreat at Glenmore, in the Adirondacks. William James, who knew him well when he lived in Boston, considered him an attractive man with "a genius for friendship," who was "ready to give his soul to aspiring young men as if he had nothing else to do with it ."17 This Hellenic trait made an immediate appeal, not least because Davidson was a wonderful and ideologically seductive talker. Havelock Ellis, recalling his first meeting with Davidson, said that he was a "really remarkable man ... be was alive, intensely and warmly alive, as even his complexion and colouring seemed to show; here was the perfervid Scottish temperament carried almost or quite to the point of genius."18 Yet there was another and less attractive side to Davidson. He was dominating and contumacious, convinced that whatever opinion he currently held was the truth, and he denounced error in others with all the zeal of his Presbyterian youth. When William James tried to secure him an appointment at Harvard. for instance, he wrecked his chances by savagely and gratuitously attacking the teaching methods of the Greek department in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly. His apparent confidence, James concluded, was a mask for fits of "motiveless nervous dread," his flow of noble rhetoric dried into peevishness when he was piqued, and he was jealous and possessive. Although Chubb was proud of his brilliant friend and extolled Davidson's virtues to his acquaintances, he found the relationship of master and acolyte a continuing source of anxiety; their correspondence was punctuated by Davidson's demands for loyalty and Chubb's nervous apologies for his shortcomings, and on several occasions. Chubb was embarrassed by Davidson's haughty attitude to other people.

In 1881 Davidson was preaching a narcissistic faith in personal perfectibility, to be achieved in the context of a fellowship, or a secular monastic order. This doctrine of a spiritual elite owed something to Comte - though Davidson was always scornful of Positivists - and something to the metaphysics of St. Thomas. but it was more directly inspired by the teachings of an early nineteenth-century Catholic philosopher named Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, who had held a post in the Vatican before his developing ideas brought him under charges of heresy. A Rosiminian community, the Institute of Charity, had in fact survived at Domodossola, in the foothills of the Alps near Lake Como, and Davidson stayed there several times to study and translate the writings of its founder. As soon as Chubb heard of the Rosiminian doctrine of the Vita Nuova - the idea that a man might apprehend and exemplify the divine within himself - he was much taken by its resemblance to his own intense but unsophisticated commitment to self-perfection; it seemed, indeed, to be a metaphysical restatement of the Evangelical doctrine of the open, unselfish life as the means to spiritual sensibility. After Davidson had gone back to Domodossola at the end of 1881, Chubb sent him a series of letters which served as a release for his moods of "discontent with the meagreness and falsity of life" as a poor clerk in London and gave him a chance to confess his aspirations to an older sympathiser.19

In the early months of this friendship, Chubb wrote a good deal about his own troubles and about his friends Rees and Dircks. The three young men had already toyed with the notion of establishing a literary colony in the Lake District - a scheme which seems to have owed much to their interest in William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey. "We were to work our way into the literary world," Chubb told Davidson on 25 May 1882, "and when able to earn enough to support ourselves, to retire into seclusion for culture and the founding of a revolutionary organisation such as we hope our little Club recently started may develop into. There, we said, should be the centre of a general regenerating movement . . . our proposal did not compass the larger and, as I now think, more effective scheme for the formation of a Utopian State. We had seen the Brook Farm failure, and that perhaps checked our thoughts in this direction." A small band of friends, so prone to utopianism as to have such daydreams about their literary colony and their MS Club, were unlikely to balk at Davidson's even grander vision of converting the world "from evil to good, from darkness to light, from misery to blessedness."

In the summer of 1882, Chubb went out to stay with Davidson at Domodossola, and on this first and exciting visit to Europe - demanding the utmost economy because his father was once again in financial trouble and the family had turned to the eldest son for help - mentor and acolyte talked optimistically of a plan to transplant the New Life from the sunny Italian hillside to what Chubb called the dirt, din, and disorder of London. Soon after Chubb returned home, Davidson followed him, Slopping in the metropolis for a few days on his way to see his mother in Scotland. Chubb had already spoken hopefully to his friends about Davidson's arrival. Havelock Ellis, who often shared a "slight lunch at a pastrycook's" with Chubb. recalled the day when Chubb invited him to meet this "great ethical leader who sought to renew the life of society on a loftier plane" ( Ellis. p. 159). Chubb also introduced Davidson to Estcourt and Pullen, and to William Clarke, a talented hut misanthropic journalist who was a fellow member of the Aristotelian Society.20 At the Progressive Association. where Chubb may have arranged the invitation for Davidson to speak on "The Methods of Progress" on 9 September, Davidson apparently met Foulger, Champion, Podmore, Burns-Gibson, Allen. and a transcendentally minded Congregational minister named W. J. Jupp. who lived in the suburban village of Thornton Heath, near Croydon.21

Chubb wished to follow up these casual encounters with a more formal meeting at which Davidson would expound his concept of the New Life, and Davidson was overtly encouraging. "What a delightful thing it would be for me if we could have the first meeting of the Eutopians on my birthday, which is next Wednesday," he wrote to Chubb from Scotland on 19 October 1882. "I should feel I was really beginning a New Life." In fact, Davidson felt that Chubb was forcing the pace and that several of the men he had met in London were unsympathetic or actually opposed to his metaphysical system; he therefore made a guarded offer of little more than his patronage.22 "I wish from my heart," he told Chubb, "that I could remain in England for a year or two in order to cooperate with you and your friends in laying the basis for a New Life Edifice." Four days later, he wrote to tell Chubb to cancel the proposed meeting and to do nothing "about our scheme" until everything was settled. "The fait accompli has considerable effect. And then we cannot begin with determinists or pessimists. We must have free men and optimists of the first water -- men without caution, men full of faith, hope, love and enthusiasm. Quality not quantity at first."

What Davidson called "our scheme," first discussed when Chubb went to Domodossola, was extremely vague. This may be another reason for his reluctance to confront possible recruits, for as late as 7 October, when Chubb was planning his meeting of "Eutopians," he had nothing more to send Davidson than some scrappy headings. These notes may have been worked up into something more substantial before Davidson left London in November, but Chubb certainly continued to work at an outline of the scheme, for on 27 December he reported to Davidson that he was working on the New Life programme during his Christmas holidays. The subsequent correspondence with Davidson shows that all through 1883, Chubb was working without an agreed text to show to interested parties.23 In his letter of 27 December, for instance, Chubb reported a talk with Belfort Bax after a meeting of the Aristotelian Society in which Bax treated the Chubb-Davidson plan "rather as an interesting experiment than as something which affords scope for latent longings and pent-up aspirations." Chubb, a victim to Weltschmerz and much given to romantic phrases, was no man to translate Davidson's abstract thought into a practical scheme which would impress such a recently converted Marxist as Bax; he found it more congenial to work hard at German, Greek, Italian, and philosophy than at the worldly task of organisation.

Chubb had a number of personal perplexities to distract him during the spring and summer of 1883. He reported to Davidson that a married woman had made him an offer of financial help in exchange for an emotional union and that he had unsuccessfully wrestled with this temptation. He also consulted Davidson about his future - whether he should attempt to enter Aberdeen University or emigrate to St. Louis with Davidson, who was talking of going to America later in the year. Such uncertainties were one reason why he did so little to promote the fellowship plan for several months; another reason, as he confessed to Davidson on 10 March 1883, was the difficulty of keeping his mind on the lofty goals of the New Life when there were so many voices around him talking of a new social order. "Les maladies du siecle press heavily upon me," he wrote, "and the struggle of the hour, the spectacle of the peoples awakening to the consciousness of higher things, are strangely moving. How Europe begins to vibrate with the onward march of her oppressed and aroused children. It is indeed hard to remain quiet; but I shall restrain myself."

Like many of his associates, Chubb had been affected by the visit of Henry George to England in 1882, and during his Christmas visit to his family he had gone down into the Durham coalfield at the invitation of Rees to speak on Progress and Poverty to a group of miners. By the beginning of May 1883, he was aware that some socialists and Georgeites of his acquaintance were planning a new organisation. "There is much going on here on the way of reformatory movement to keep me on the alert," he told Davidson on 2 May. "Something must be done, some new step taken; and I myself am itching to be doing something, I know that you counsel patience and waiting, and no doubt success is impossible without these. But if you were moving amidst this scene of degradation and misery, and with the full consciousness that next to nothing is being done to remedy it, your soul would ache, and you would be chafed into rebellion," One way of creating a new way of life, Chubb suggested, would be to establish communities of craftsmen, basing themselves on Ruskin's statement of principle to the St. George's Guild, but he was aware of the weakness of a notion widely canvassed by ethical socialists. Where would he and his like, raised by an artificial civilisation to be town- dwelling clerks, acquire the necessary skills to make and mend and to reap and sow? It might be better, he told Davidson, to search for a way of combining ethical and political purposes, and on 24 May, reporting the formation of the Land Reform Union and the launching of the Christian Socialist, he said that the new paper was "the child of a group of young men who are ardent disciples of George, Marx, and the revolutionary luminaries, and are trying to enforce their ideas by claiming that they receive teh sanction of Jesus and the primitive Christians."24 He was himself so affected by this new mood that he was "deep in Political Economy, Socialism, Land Reform, and so on."

Davidson. now staying in Capri after a winter in Home, reacted sharply. He had already told Chubb on 31 March that "a lingering fondness for the Christian myth" was the great obstacle to the new ethical movement he wished to promote, and the claims of the Christian Socialist annoyed him; he clearly feared that Chubb was backsliding into social activism (and his anxieties in this respect were undoubtedly increased when William Clarke wrote on 8 June 1883 to confirm that Chubb was now "a strong socialist"). "If Socialism is right," Davidson replied to Chubb, "it ought to do the manly thing and stand on its own feet and not crouch under the cross of an ancient miracle-monger .... Let us stick to our own little programme, and work it out slowly ... leave watchwords for those who wish for ephemeral success." Thus reproved, Chubb said little more about his political interests, and his letters throughout the summer dealt mainly with his personal problems and his plans for a walking holiday in Normandy. There was only a passing reference to "the possibility of a select conference in the autumn" in a letter written on 21 July.

It was Davidson's return to London in September that revived Chubb's interest, for it gave him another chance to bring a group of his friends together to discuss the New Life project. But this was not easy, partly because Davidson insisted on his own metaphysical system and partly because he was condescendingly intolerant of those who had different opinions. On 2 October, at one of the informal meetings which Chubb arranged to introduce Davidson to possible sympathisers, Davidson found himself at odds with Havelock Ellis, and on the following day he sent Ellis a letter to summarise his philosophy. "The fact is that there can never be any positive basis (in our little programme) but a metaphysical one, for the simple reason that all abiding reality is metaphysical; that is to say lies behind the physical or sensuously phenomenal," The discussion on the previous evening, Davidson added, "at once confirmed me in the need for community, and showed clearly some of the most formidable difficulties in the way of such a thing; the want of a spiritual light; the childish prejudice against metaphysics" (Knight, p. 38). Chubb certainly assumed that the New Life scheme implied the founding of a community of some kind. While he took a simple view of Davidson's complex intellectual system - in a letter written on 17 November he made the revealing admission that some of his friends "exhibit a kind of discomfort" whenever Davidson's metaphysics were mentioned - he clearly thought Davidson a prestigious sponsor whose teachings would give the tone of a higher culture to his utopian project for a fraternity. Despite the signs of disagreement, he therefore hopefully pressed on with his plans and persuaded Edward Pease (whom Podmore had brought to the meeting on 2 October) to be the host to an invited company which would meet at his comfortable lodgings in 17 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, on the evening of Wednesday, 24 October 1883.

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Part 2 of 2

III

The preliminary meetings had done little to dispel Davidson's doubts about the quality of Chubb's contacts, and a remark by Chubb shows that Davidson feared the meeting would be a failure. Either from characteristic restlessness or because he did not wish to be associated with a fiasco. Davidson left for Home on the day before the meeting, and the disappointed Chubb had to handle things alone. In any event, ten men and six women attended "the first general meeting of persons interested in the movement" for the New Life.25 Chubb came with his friends Maurice Adams and Hamilton Pullen. Havelock Ellis came with Mrs. James Hinton, the widow of the eccentric medical reformer, and her sister Caroline Haddon; he had, apparently, introduced both ladies to Davidson during his London visit. Champion was accompanied by James Joynes and R.P.B. Frost. There was also a little cluster of people who had met through the Society for Psychical Research and had been linked to the Chubb venture by Frank Podmore. Apart from Podmore and Pease (who were colleagues on the council of the S.P.R. and shared vigils in haunted houses), there were the Ford sisters - cousins of Pease who had taken him to the seance where he first met Podmore - and an architect named Robins with his wife and daughter. Even in this small group, there were at least four discernible factions: Chubb and his ethically minded colleagues, Ellis and his friends from the Progressive Association. Champion and his lieutenants from the Land Reform Union and the Democratic Federation, and the Podmore-Pease set from the Society for Psychical Research.

"On arriving," Chubb wrote to Davidson the next day, "I found that no one had any clear notion of what should be done ... there was a sort of general awkwardness." Davidson's impulsive departure had removed the immediate reasons for the meeting, and there was more confusion because some of those present had been at the meeting on 2 October while some were newcomers. Eventually, Chubb presented the paper "The New Life," which Davidson had read on that earlier occasion, and a desultory discussion followed. The minutes note that after some talk "of founding a communistic society whose members should lead the new higher life," it was agreed that "the idea of founding a community abroad was generally discredited." Chubb's detailed report to Davidson was more revealing. It was Champion who attacked the idea of a utopian colony and ridiculed the idea of "a self-supporting, self-contained community." The group then talked at length of "the possibility of a common life here amidst this selfishly private one, of an establishment where people, pursuing their avocations in the outer world and continuing their reformatory propagandism in it, could live together on a high plane, setting a high example, getting strength and help of all sorts by association."26 This was a fair summary of what Chubb had in mind when he organised the meeting, but the prosperous Robins (whom Chubb sarcastically called "a child of our time" ) argued that Chubb had set his sights far too high for most of those present. The meeting then turned to an even more modest proposal which anticipated the familial style of Fabian meetings and is a measure of the loneliness that made such seemingly dull occasions seem attractive - to form "a sort of club, with the view of affording a means for the people getting to know each other well, and creating a centre and a place of meeting for discussions, lectures, social gatherings, and so on." The only merit that Chubb could see in this "rather dangerous" suggestion was that it might distinguish the "half-hearted" (who would remain in a state of "mere clubbism") from the "tried and true'" pioneers of the New Life. The evident lack of commitment at the meeting had already made him fear "a drop in tone, a narrowing of the aim, a want of ideality," and he told Davidson that he had been almost alone on that occasion in stressing '"the higher vision and finer ecstasy that are possible to us." He said that he had sat close to Joynes and "rather felt his chill," while "Champion seemed to side with Ellis, saying the less metaphysics the better."

The meeting on 24 October had ended with an agreement to meet again a fortnight later; meanwhile, all those present were invited to submit short statements "as to what should hereafter be done." To this end, a small group consisting of Adams, Chubb, Ellis, and Jupp met at Jupp's house to draft a constitution for the new society. They agreed, Chubb informed Davidson on 6 November, that unless the proposed fellowship embodied "a religious, spiritual, ideal impulse," there was no point in launching it; they therefore concluded that its aims must be pitched high from the start, "shaming the timid and half-hearted," and they accepted the substance of a statement of principles which had been drawn up by Ellis and partly amended by Chubb. This was to be ready for the general meeting on 7 November.

This time there were seventeen persons present. Champion, Frost, Joynes, Hinton, the Pease cousins, and Robins all stayed away; the newcomers were Taylor, a Miss Gladstone, Jupp, Hubert Bland (who had written to ask if evening dress was en regle for the meeting!), and four other men who played no significant role - a well-to-do man named J. C. Stapleton, Howard Swan (whose father was the curator of Ruskin's museum near Sheffield). F. S. Hughes. and Barker Smith. This substantial turnover in attendance was one reason why, despite the careful preparations, Chubb felt that the meeting "did not really amount to anything." When he read the draft constitution to the meeting, he told Davidson on 13 November, some of the newcomers "were for taking the matter up ab initio." Then there was a wrangle about procedure which ended when Pease, as the host, was made chairman - a decision which Chubb lamented as a "misfortune" since Pease "does not appreciate our design." His misgivings were justified. Despite a strong speech from Jupp, who attacked formalism in the proceedings and insisted on the need "to be led by the spirit," Pease, Podmore, and Bland rallied a majority "in favour of getting resolutions passed, constituting the society and defining its aims." They also ignored the draft drawn up by Ellis and Chubb and passed a simple resolution in its place: "That an association be formed whose ultimate aim shall be the reconstruction of Society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities." When Chubb and some others suggested that a second resolution might set out "the distinctive war in which the Society should try to effect this," there was so much disagreement that the matter was referred to a drafting committee of Champion (or, failing him, Pease), Ellis, Jupp, and Podmore, with Chubb as secretary. Jupp, who wrote a disappointed note to Chubb after the meeting, deplored "such a medley of unmixable elements.... Three fourths of those present could have no idea of the aim of those who were the prime movers in the matter," and he objected to the establishment of a committee - "the very name is instinct with the habits and manners of that old bad life from which we long to escape." When Chubb reported this comment to Davidson, he added that Jupp "will be invaluable to us in keeping up our tone and in keeping us to the Ideal; but evidently some of the more hard-headed of us must give shape and articulation to our project.... The task is to merge the Ideal and indispensably practical."

The drafting committee met on 16 November at the Modern Press office, and both Champion and Pease were present. Once again Chubb was disappointed. It was agreed that the association should be called "The Fellowship of the New Life" (Champion objected to this "bumptious" title, but nothing better could be agreed on) and that its meetings should be held fortnightly on Fridays - an arrangement that lasted long into the future of the Fabian Society. But Chubb, writing to Davidson on the following day, complained that there was too little passion for the ideal, and too much concern for "the merely economical aspect." This difference of outlook, so fundamental that within two months it had led to the formation of two societies rather than one, was exemplified by two draft resolutions. The first, proposed by Chubb with Jupp's support, was not accepted. It read: "We, recognizing the evils and wrongs that must beset men so long as our social life is based upon selfishness, rivalry and ignorance, and desiring above all other things to supplant it by a life based upon unselfishness, love and wisdom, unite for the purpose of realizing the higher life among ourselves, and of inducing and enabling others to do the same." The desire of Champion, Pease, and Podmore to push the new association in a more explicitly socialist direction inspired the second resolution (which was amended) and sharpened the resolution passed at the previous meeting. It read: "That the members of the Fellowship recognize that the competitive system has broken down, and that society must be reconstructed in accordance with the highest moral possibilities."

Chubb understandably felt that the venture was rapidly slipping away from the original conception. "I shall break off if the aims and tone arc lowered," he told Davidson, and he planned to make a fresh start "with only the absorbed and passionate apostles." Before he posted the letter, however, he bad second thoughts, "It is true that my tendency is to grow impatient at what seems to be an undue regard for the merely socialistic and worldly side of our project," he wrote in a long and apologetic supplement, "yet I cannot help feeling that fellows like Pease and Podmore are not of the right fibre for such a movement as ours ... good fellows, quite earnest, most kind-hearted, but without depth." What worried Chubb most was the tendency of the meetings to move "downwards rather than upwards. towards the level upon which ordinary reforming societies move.... This of course won't do. Our project must needs be recognised as a quite extraordinary one; as one whose issues can be more momentous than those of any other movement on foot."

Thirty people turned up on 23 November for the next gathering in Pease's rooms. Chubb had worked hard to rally the New Lifers (Adams, Allen, Burns-Gibson. William Clarke, whom Chubb had consulted a good deal during these weeks, Estcourt, Jupp, and Pullen); there were some other new faces - notably Frederick Keddell, a commercial clerk who was a friend of Bland and was to become the first secretary of the Fabian Society, and Foulger.27

When Champion introduced the proposals prepared by the drafting committee on 16 November, there was some argument about the present state of "the Competitive System," some of those present (including, Chubb noted, the prosperous Robins) wishing merely to say that it was "inadequate" rather than that it had "broken down." Keddell then proposed and carried an alternative motion which asserted that "the Competitive System assures the happiness and comfort of the few, at the expense of the suffering of the many, and that Society must be reconstructed in such a manner as to secure the general welfare and happiness," This motion left out any reference to "higher moral possibilities," and, when Jupp complained, Keddell and Bland conjured up another resolution to define the conditions of membership. "That the Society consist of those alone who are willing to devote themselves to the best of their abilities to the amelioration of the condition of Man, and who will work together for mutual benefit and help towards the eradication of selfishness and the introduction of the New Life." Even this motion, Chubb wrote to Davidson on 8 December, "did not quite hit off what some of us at least had in mind," and Burns-Gibson therefore put up an amendment which declared "the spirit of brotherly love, of justice and of quality" to be "the only and sufficient ground ... of any social reconstruction." When this attempt to reassert the Davidsonian ideals was opposed, Jupp moved yet another amendment, proposing that the members should invite "to sustain in each other the Ideal Life which they desire to see existing among men." At this point, Champion testily remarked "that he was for 'doing something', that his mind had been quite made up on important questions, and that he had no time for talking" a comment which provoked the retort (probably from Jupp ) that "there was too much anxiety for 'doing'; our first aim was to 'be' something ourselves." With the meeting thus divided, the three motions having been put to a straw vote and receiving thirteen (Keddell), six (Bums-Gibson), and ten (Jupp) votes, respectively, all three were referred back to yet another drafting committee, this one consisting of Burns-Gibson, Keddell, and Jupp. There was almost as much indecision about the proposed name, Champion, Pease, and Podmore again attacking it as "over-pretentious and high-sounding," but none of the other possible titles - "The Better Life," "The True Life," and "The Higher Life" -- commanded more support, and sixteen persons voted for "The Fellowship of the New Life."

Although Chubb thought a little progress had now been made and was somewhat relieved when Ellis told him that Champion was "dissatisfied" and intended to drop out of the fellowship, he and his friends still "leaned rather to severance" from people "evidently not in hearty sympathy with our intention." When he sent Davidson a belated account on 21 December, he began by reporting a caucus meeting attended by Adams, Burns-Gibson, Ellis, Estcourt, Jupp, Pullen, and himself - it was almost a full muster of the Davidsonian group, and though Allen and Clarke were absent, they sent their support. The group decided that the next meeting must settle things one way or the other and drew up a series of articles as their nonnegotiable terms for continuing with the proposed fellowship. These articles, which Burns-Gibson was to move at the next meeting, went back to the original ideas which Chubb had been canvassing for the past year. The object was simple: "The cultivation of a perfect character in each and all." So was the principle: the subordination of material things to spiritual things." The document went on to state that "the sole essential condition of fellowship shall be a singleminded, sincere, and strenuous devotion to the Object and Principle." Beyond the immediate intention of "frequent gatherings for intimate social intercourse," it looked to four means of achieving the object -- the supplanting of the spirit of competition and self-seeking by that of unselfish regard for the general good. simplicity of living, the highest and completest education of the young, and the introduction, so far as possible, of manual labour in conjunction with intellectual pursuits. The New Lifers had at last drawn up a clear summary of what they wanted.

This statement and the tactics for the next meeting had already been agreed on when Burns-Gibson and Chubb met Keddell on 30 November to prepare a composite resolution, Jupp having left before Keddell arrived. Burns-Gibson explained that the resolutions so far carried "did not go far enough and did not express the original intentions of the founders of the movement," but he agreed formally to support Keddell in moving the motion on conditions of membership which had been put at the previous meeting; he could then move the Davidsonian statement of principle as an amendment.

The attendance at the next meeting on 7 December was much reduced, only fourteen being present, and Chubb blamed this falling-off on "the interminable discussions and small results of former meetings."28 After Keddell had put his motion on membership, Burns-Gibson moved his amendment and made it clear that it was all or nothing for the nine signatories. It could have been passed, for the Davidsonians seem to have been in a majority on this occasion, but in view of the small numbers present and to be fair to the absentees, they agreed to put off a definite decision until Friday, 4 January 1884,

It was clear that there was going to be a split: "Better to have a severance at first than, smoothing over differences, to have fatal dissension at a later stage," Chubb concluded. "Several of the people -- headed apparently by Podmore and the Robins - have come to the conclusion that they cannot accept our 'basis', and they propose to form a second society on more general lines - not in any way antagonistic to our Fellowship but complementary .... This is a good solution of the difficulty. There is plenty of room for the two societies and they can be mutually beneficial. Several of us will no doubt become members of the two bodies." Chubb's comment was a paraphrase of a circular sent round by Podmore on 16 December in which he also suggested that there was no need for further discussion and that a separation could be amicably agreed on -- the name of the fellowship being relinquished to the Davidsonian group.29

After the 7 December meeting, the Davidsonians held two informal meetings to prepare for the impending separation. Chubb was on holiday in Newcastle and missed the second of these meetings, which was attended by Mrs. Adams, Burns-Gibson, Ellis, Jupp and his wife, Pullen, Swan, and a newcomer, the dramatic critic William Archer. On Jupp's initiative, it was agreed that after the split, the fellowship should do nothing but hold monthly meetings, these to consist of a devotional reading and the discussion of a paper on some ethical theme; the idea of "being" rather than "doing," as Jupp put it, was a congenial relief of ten weeks of argument about matters of organisation and policy. By the time the fellowship held its first formal meeting on 31 January 1884 (in an office in Lombard Street rented by Burns-Gibson), its members had settled back into the style of an elevating discussion group. "There in the centre of our Babylon, the very centre of the Old Life, where throngs of money-getters congregate," Chubb wrote to Davidson on 4 February 1884, "there in an office, met in high communion a small band bent on the realization of a New Life." Those present at this inaugural meeting were Adams, Allen, Burns-Gibson, Chubb, Ellis, Estcourt, Jupp, Pullen, and Swan.

Meanwhile, the meeting to confirm the prearranged separation of the fellowship from Podmore's group had gone smoothly. There were only sixteen persons present in Pease's lodgings when Bland opened the meeting at 8:10 p.m., and only four of them - Burns-Gibson, Chubb, Estcourt, and Swan - represented the fellowship interest. The others were Bland, two Miss Haddons, Hughes, Keddell, Pease, Stapleton, Robins and his daughter, and J. Hunter Watts, a member of the Social Democratic Federation, who had turned up for the first time. The business was simple. Burns-Gibson introduced the New Life statement which had been submitted at the December meeting, Podmore then moved a set of amendments, which were carried in principle by ten votes to four and then considered separately. The first, in which Podmore gave the new society its name by his half-jesting reference to the patience of Fabius Cunctator, was agreed by nine votes to two. The second was more significant, for it referred back to the resolution passed by the meeting on 23 November (the amended "Champion" motion which declared that "the competitive system ... must be reconstructed for the general welfare") and made acceptance of this motion the only "basis" of membership for the Fabian Society. This proposal, accepted unanimously, explicitly linked the Fabians to the series of informal meetings held during the previous autumn and thus legitimised the Podmore faction rather than the fellowship severants - a position symbolised by Podmore's retention of the minute book The third motion endorsed (subject to the insertion of the bracketed words "to help on" ) the resolution passed on 7 November which proclaimed the formation of an association "whose ultimate aim shall be (to help on) the reconstruction of society in accordance with the highest moral principles." The preservation of this motion undoubtedly helped to keep some of the fellowship enthusiasts, such as Chubb and Estcourt, as members of the Fabian Society. The fourth motion merely summarised methods, not greatly different from those the fellowship had in mind, by which the Fabians would immediately promote that "ultimate aim." They would hold meetings to discuss papers, to hear reports from members who had attended meetings organised by other bodies interested in social questions, and to consider ways in which the society could "obtain information on all contemporary social movements and social needs." At the end of the meeting there was a collection amounting to 13s. 6d. to cover past expenses and to enable the Fabian Society to make a fresh start.

IV

The history of the Fabian Society thereafter has been reasonably well documented, although there is unpublished material on its early meetings in letters to Davidson from Bland, Chubb, Clarke, Ellis, Keddell, and Podmore. Chubb was at first reasonably pleased with the Fabians, telling Davidson on 4 February 1884 that it was "very vigorous, and evidently intends to get through some work," but he wondered whether the members "appreciate what a revolutionary attitude they are adopting .. . in several quarters socialism (of as extreme a type as you will ) is becoming a fashion, a new sensation." In the course of 1884, he made several similar comments. "Socialism is still making way." he told Davidson on 21 April, "Aveling, Bax, Scheu, Shaw and others representing the merely materialist, atheistic, aggressive Socialism of Continental stamp are ... doing the movement much harm ... . The Fabian is tending I know not quite whither." While he busied himself with the Progressive Association and the fellowship - already drifting towards the Simple Life concerns with manual labour, market gardening, beekeeping, vegetarianism, temperance, and other exemplifications of an ethical culture - he became more critical of the socialists. "People are talking themselves out of temper and reason here," he wrote to Davidson on 11 May; "declamation and anathema, threats of revolution, protests and recommendation abound; but a resort to the simple expedient of living out, or attempting to live out what is preached or believed in, is not contemplated; in fact the idea is scouted by the advanced socialists." By 17 July, his interest in the Fabians had dwindled almost to indifference, "The 'Fabian' is in a state of suspended animation during the summer," he informed Davidson, "I contemplate sending in my resignation, ... I don't think the 'Fabian' amounts, or will amount to much, I don't think either that it comprises any even incipient Vitanuovians."

Chubb in fact retained his membership and found himself more in sympathy with the Fabians as the years passed and Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb led them away from flirtations with Marxism and anarchism to the characteristic Fabian policy of gradualism. He did a stint as a Fabian lecturer in 1887, and long after he emigrated to the United States, he regarded himself as something of a Fabian missionary in the New World.30 Yet he played no significant role in the early years of the worldly Fabian Society which had emerged, inadvertently, from his attempt to found a spiritual community. On the contrary, his correspondence shows that in the summer of 1884, he felt depressed and frustrated that all the efforts of the past year had come to so little and that he was again daydreaming of a utopian community in America. That crisis passed, with Jupp's help and spiritual encouragement, and he found sufficient outlet for his political impulses and ethical aspirations in the Progressive Association, the attempt to float the Pioneer Club, the continuing though modest activities of the fellowship - which was run from Jupp's house in Thornton Heath after Chubb moved there in 1885 - and in a local adult education class in English literature which Jupp had promoted. All these concerns flowed into the last of Chubb's schemes before, on Davidson's invitation, he finally left for the United States to begin a new career as a teacher: a "Plan for the Establishment of a Settlement in the Neighbourhood of London" and "Proposals for the Establishment of a School," the last of these bearing a close resemblance to the claims of the Ethical Culture school in New York, founded by Felix Adler, with which Chubb was later associated. To the end of his life, he retained his youthful conviction, enshrined in the "ultimate aim" of the Fabian Society, that society must be reconstructed "in accordance with the highest moral possibilities."

As Percival Chubb's papers become more fully available, it will be possible to trace even more clearly the role of ethical philosophy among young intellectuals in the 1880s, when doubting or lapsed Christians, such as Chubb and his associates, were seeking a spiritual alternative to an individualist society dominated by commercial values. Yet the material quoted in this article throws new light on the ethical sources of Fabian socialism as well as on the circumstances in which the Fabian Society itself was established. It is clear from these letters and other documents that Chubb did not set out to found a political club; he was not even well versed in political economy or political history. He had simply brought together an assortment of enthusiasts for what Pease so aptly called the "half-digested" philosophical ideas of the reform movement of the early eighties. Even in this small group, as Chubb reported to Davidson in the summer of 1883, there were Marxists, Georgeites, and Christian Socialists, as well as followers of Ruskin, Morris, and Emerson, spiritualists, psychic researchers, secularists, vegetarians, temperance advocates, and a variety of ethically minded utopians. Davidson was only one among many prophets crying new worlds for old among the intellectual proletarians - the class whom Shaw always extolled as the true enemies of the acquisitive society - and once Chubb had brought his oddly mixed group of acquaintances together. others seized the opportunity he had created. His record of the meetings, indeed, brings out very clearly the muddle of motives among these genteel radicals and the abstract level on which they conducted their discussions. It also reveals how the founding resolutions of the Fabian Society may be traced hack to the compromises of the preliminary meetings, which led to the society's curious blend of moral and material motives for socialism; how its style of personal tolerance, which was one of the secrets of its survival, was formed in the making of those compromises; and how much it in fact owed to the earlier experience of the Progressive Association and the part some of its leading members played in the Chubb meetings. Above all, Chubb's letters show that those who attended these meetings were drawn from a very small constituency in London and that the majority of them, far from being a casual collection of strangers, had been at least nodding acquaintances for a year or more.

When it was founded, the Fabian Society seemed to be no more than yet another of the clubs formed to discuss parlour philosophies or to promote eccentric causes, and its membership was appropriately eclectic. Chubb's own propensity to join an organisation on impulse was typical of the time. Yet from such an uncompromising beginning -- vague statement of aims, nine members, and 13s. 6d. -- it survived and then prospered. It stemmed from Chubb's initiative. It survived when Podmore, Pease, and Bland provided a rallying point for the rump that was left when Hyndmanites fell away on one side and the Davidsonians seceded on the other. After Shaw had decided that it offered a suitable stage for the display of his extraordinary talents, it attracted Sydney Olivier, Sidney Webb, and Graham Wallas and became a unique and formidable force in British politics.

University of Sussex
_______________

Notes:

1. G. Bernard Shaw, The Fabian Society: What it has Done and How it has Done It, Fabian Tract No. 41 (London, 1896); E.R. Pease, The History of the Fabian Society (London: Fabian Society, 1916); Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (London: Heinemann, 1961); and A.M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics, 1884-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Three more recent works make use of letters in the Davidson Collection in the Beinecke Library at Yale University: Stanley Pierson, Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1973), Willard Wolfe, From Radicalism to Socialism (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1975), and Norman MacKenzie and Jeanne MacKenzie, The First Fabians (London: Weidenfelt, 1977). This article draws extensively on material supplied by the late R. Walston Chubb of St. Louis, Missouri, who generously gave permission for its use when his failing health prevented him from completing his work on his father's papers. These papers are not catalogued or publicly available, and all quotations from them are © the Estate of R. Walston Chubb, executor Elliott Chubb, 23 Spoede Woods, Creve Coeur, Missouri 63141, USA.

2. Among the early Fabians, there were several sons of Evangelical clergy, notablyk Sydney Olivier, Frank Podmore, and Graham Wallas, who had gone through an adolescent crisis of faith intensified by the theories of Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler. Others, including Pease wo was a Quaker, came from homes of strong Evangelical temper.

3. Percival Chubb to Adelaide Chubb, ca. 1878, Chubb Papers.

4. An intriguing diary entry for 21 April 1879 reads: "Went to Webb's to spend evening" (Chubb Papers).

5. All through his life, Chubb continued secularized observances, such as hymn singing and readings, on great festivals like Christmas, New Year and Easter.

6. Rowland Estcourt (1855-1933) qualified as a barrister and became a district auditor for the Local Government Board before emigrating to the United States in 1912. He remained active in the Fabian Society until he left for America.

7. Chubb circulated a four-page list of books which other members might borrow. It included works by Plato, Swift, Goethe, the Lake poets, Emerson, and Carlyle as well as some articles on evolutionary theory. There was a vogue for such corresponding societies. Two years earlier, for instance, the eighteen-year-old Sidney Webb had formed the Pro and Con Club with a few friends. A surviving volume in the Passfield Papers at the London School of Economics contains Webb's earliest surviving article; the subject, characteristically, was the London School Board.

8. The prospectus and the comment by Will Dircks are in the Chubb Papers, which also contain many letters from Dircks, Rees, and Ellis.

9. The magazine led a very shaky existence for a few years, but attempts to form discussion groups and local branches came to nothing; there was too much competition from organisations with more definite aims and more competent promoters. There are copies of the magazine in the Chubb Papers.

10. Edward Reynolds Pease, "Recollecitons for My Sons." This memoir and the supplementary "Notes on My Life" are unpublished manuscripts in the possession of Nicolas Pease, Oast Cottage, Limpsfield, Oxted, Surrey, England.

11. There is a copy of the Progressive Association Circular and other material relating to the association and to J.C. Foulger in the Chubb Papers. Foulger took Henry Hyde Champion into partnership when Champion resigned his army commission in 1882 and invested £2,000 into the radical publishing business of the Modern Press. The firm also published To-day, a monthly controlled by the group which formed the Land Reform Union in 1883; it had a tolerant editorial policy and contained articles from Fabians, Marxists, Simple Lifers, and other contributors on the bohemian fringe of politics.

12. William Clarke, in his contribution to Fabian Essays (London: Fabian Society, 1889), put the original Fabian view of social change quite clearly: "Instead, therefore, of attempting to undo the work which capitalists are unconsciously doing for the people, the real reformer will rather prepare the people, educated as a true industrial democracy, to take up the threads when they fall from the weak hands of a useless possessing class" (p. 101). This combination of a simplified Marxist interpretation with moral education was complemented in early Fabian writings by the sense of outrage against suffering and squalor -- the middle-class compunction which made Hubert Bland write in his contribution to the volume that he suffered from "a deep discontent, a spiritual unrest" at the "constant presence of a vast mass of human misery" (p. 219).

13. Pease, the longtime secretary of the Fabian Society and an ethical socialist who was strongly opposed to Marxism and the revolutionary posture of the Social Democratic Federation, joined the Federation in 1883 and still held a membership card in 1889.

14. Almost all those involved in launching the Fellowship of the New Life and the Fabian Society were young people. Chubb, at age 23, was the youngest; Ellis, Champion, and Frost were 24, Podmore and Pease were 26, Bland 27, Estcourt 28, Joynes and Clarke 30.

15. P. Chubb to Thomas Davidson, 1 April 1883, Davidson Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

16. William Knight, Memorials of Thomas Davidson (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907).

17. William James, "A Knight-Errant of the Intellectual Life," McClure's Magazine, 25 (May 1875). The substance of the article is reprinted in Knight, pp. 107-119. Davidson's brother, J. Morison Davidson, was known to Chubb as a Radical journalist and orator who belonged to the Progressive Association.

18. Havelock Ellis, My Life (London: Heinemann, 1940), p. 159.

19. The Chubb letters for 1882083 in the Davidson Collection appear to be an unbroken sequence.

20. Clarke became a member of the Fabian Society executive but resigned from the society before his early death in 1901. His letters to Davidson are in the Davidson Collection. See H. Burrows and J.A. Jobson, eds., William Clarke (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1908).

21. W.J. Jupp, Wayfarings (London: Headley, 1918).

22. After a discouragement about Davidson's metaphysics, Ellis sharply reproved him for his "unfairness" in controversy and for "a storm of unconsidered abuse." See the letters from Ellis dated 4 November 1883 and 6 January 1884 in the Davidson Collection. The Davidson letters of 19 October 1883 and 23 October 1883 are in the Chubb Papers.

23. As Davidson and Chubb did not date their drafts, it is difficult to be sure what versions were discussed at what times. There is no doubt that Davidson wrote a paper on the New Life which he read in London in October 1883. He also wrote a longer preamble and constitution (see Knight, pp. 21-25) which seems to have been drafted sometime in 1992, for it contains this sentence: "The Society shall date from January 1, 1883, but shall not be organized until a meeting of members shall take place." But from Chubb's letters, it appears, that even if Chubb himself had seen Davidson's document, it was not available to the discussants at the meetings from which the Fellowship of the New Life emerged. They seem to have produced their successive drafts from nothing but Chubb's account of the principles of the New Life and the general paper read by Davidson that autumn. See also Davidson's prospectus for an American version of the fellowship in Knight, pp. 48-53.

24. H. H. Champion and R.P.B. Frost were the officers of the Land Reform Union, and J.L. Joynes, an Eton school master who had been forced to resign because of his association with George, was the first editor of the Christian Socialist. Shaw was an active member (recruiting Sidney Webb in August 1883), and so were Sydney Olivier and Hubert Bland.

25. There are three sources which describe the ensuing meetings. Pease gave a truncated account in his history of the Fabian Society; the minute book, kept for the first four meetings by Chubb, served the same purpose for the early Fabian meetings, and it is part of the Fabian Papers at Nuffield College, Oxford; the letters from Chubb to Davidson, written after each meeting, supplement the minutes and include much material not otherwise known. The dates of the quoted Chubb letters are given in the text.

26. Chubb kept coming back to this point, and it was included in his early draft for a New Life manifesto. He later jointed Adams, Clarke, Estcourt, and Jupp in an informal community at Thornton Heath; some time afterwards, Ellis and other members of the Fellowship of the New Life set up a commune at 29 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury.

27. Foulger published Cashel Byron's Profession, and in a letter to Hubert Bland on 16 July 1892, Shaw gratefully, but somewhat inaccurately, called him "the genuine original Fabian." See Dan H. Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, 1874-1897, 2 vols. (London: Max Reinhardt, 1965), II, 351.

28. Bland was in the chair. Pease later added a note at the side of the minutes: "The historical sense unerringly detects in the chairman appointed at this meeting the materialistic cuckoo who was to effect the dispersal of the Davidsonian brood of spiritual singing birds" (Fabian Society minute book, Nuffield College, Oxford).

29. Podmore, writing a friendly letter to Davidson on 31 December to explain his motives and to invite him to join the Fabians as well as the fellowship, said that he was not ready to commit himself to the Davidsonian scheme of a community, that he was opposed to "increasing the amount of manual labour among the thinking classes," and that he could only "half-feel, and half-believe" the spiritual aspirations which the fellowship set out to express (Davidson Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale).

30. A letter from Frederick Keddell to Chubb on 18 March 1884 asks him to monitor reports from the Local Government Board and a weekly newspaper in Newcastle; it also shows the current interest in Marxism, for Keddell states that he is translating a pamphlet by Engels and that H.M. Hyndman's gloss on Marxism in The HIstorical Basis of Socialism in England (London: Kegan Paul, 1883) should "afford good matter for a report" (Chubb Papers).

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

PostPosted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 3:17 am
by admin
Part 1 of 5

The Story of Happy Valley [Ojai Valley School, Upper Campus] [The Ojai Foundation] [Besant Hill School of Happy Valley]
Compiled and Narrated by Radha Rajagopal Sloss
The Happy Valley Foundation, Ojai, California
2nd Edition Copyright © 2006 Radha Rajagopal Sloss
Original Edition Copyright © 1998 Radha Rajagopal Sloss
Chapters XI and XII Copyright © 2016
The Happy Valley Foundation, P.O. Box 804, Ojai, California 93024-0804

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Osel [Rangdrol Mukpo/Sakyong Mipham] was in boarding school in Ojai, California. We thought that an intense residential situation might help overcome his difficulties learning to read and write in English...

The day of his enthronement [1976], Gesar and I were driven by members of the Dorje Kasung to the dharmadhatu in Berkeley... Osel was also there to witness the enthronement. He was in boarding school at the Ojai Valley School near Santa Barbara at this time, a school founded on, the teachings of Krishnamurti and Rudolf Steiner. He was maturing into a much more confident and outgoing young man [14 yrs. old].


-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


Image

Image
Annie Besant, 1927

In loving memory of my mother Rosalind Rajagopal

Image
Robert Logan, c. 1927

The Happy Valley

There lies a valley in the West,
Between the ocean and the stars,
Surrounded by a magic crest
Of mountains seamed with scars.

There stolidly the cactus clings,
His thorns with fairy flowers crowned,
While the more daring yucca springs
Impatient from the ground.

The boisterous torrents which assail
The echoing boulders of the steep
Grow drowsy as they reach the vale
And on its meadows sleep.

Citrus and almonds and the tang
Of eucalyptus scent the breeze
And fruit and flower together hang
On dark leaved orange trees.

And there the gopher guards his home
And there the lark protects her nest
While hillside flanks of purple loam
Are by the plow caressed.
And there the sower as he throws
His golden handfuls to the air
Beholds in visions as he shows

A mightier Sower there
Whose seeds of wisdom, love and power
Shall in that valley find increase
Until the human race shall flower
in brotherhood and peace.

-- Robert R. Logan, 1928


Acknowledgements

Sources of information for this book include: seventy-five years of The Happy Valley Foundation minutes and relevant correspondence, as well as the first twenty years of The Happy Valley School Board minutes. Of great value was the fortuitous discovery of Frank Gerard’s diary.

The author is indebted to The Happy Valley Foundation trustees for valuable insights, corrections, and anecdotes.

Photographs are from the archives of the The Happy Valley Foundation, The Happy Valley School, and the private collections of Rosalind and D. Rajagopal, Erma Williams Zalk, Beatrice Wood, Mabel Zimmers, Austin Bee, Jorge Uribe, and Radha Sloss.

Contents

• frontispiece
• “The Happy Valley”
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• I Annie Besant
• II High Ideals and the Realities of Real Estate
• III Holding on in the Great Depression
• IV Onward Through the War Years
• V The Greening of Happy Valley
• VI Nuts, Bolts, and Principles
• VII The Time Has Come
• VIII Losses and Changes
• IX Through the Looking Glass
• X The Vision Revisited
• XI Down the Rabbit Hole
• XII Wonderland
• Endnotes
• Appendix A: “The Guest Lecturer”
• Appendix B: “Aun Aprendo”
• Appendix C: “Qualifications of Trustees”
• Appendix D: Frank Gerard’s Map
• Appendix E: Happy Valley Foundation Study Map
• Appendix F: List of Happy Valley Trustees
• Appendix G: Happy Valley Cultural Center Events 2001 – 2005
• Appendix H: M:OME Renditions
• Index

Illustrations

• Annie Besant 1927
• Robert Logan c. 1927
• Gathering at Arya Vihara c. 1927
• Annie Besant and Krishnamurti, Ojai, 1927
• Krishnamurti c. 1927
• Annie Besant c. 1895
• D. Rajagopal c. 1927
• Happy Valley 1927
• Grace and George Hall
• Star camp cafeteria c. 1927
• Sara and Robert Logan, Ojai, c. 1930
• Louis Zalk as a young man
• Robert Logan 1927
• Robert Logan and Rosalind Rajagopal c. 1940
• Rosalind Rajagopal c. 1943
• Gathering at the old barn, Happy Valley, 1946
• The old barn 1997
• Tucker’s farm house 1997
• Louis Zalk, Ojai, c. 1950
• Gathering at Adobe House 1948
• Adobe House 1997
• Rajagopal, Louis Zalk, Robert Logan c. 1945
• Rajagopal, Krishnamurti, Maria and Aldous Huxley c. 1947
• Happy Valley School early 1950s
• Krishnamurti, Arya Vihara, 1946
• Aldous Huxley c. 1950
• Happy Valley School performance, Twelfth Night, 1947
• Happy Valley School folk dance exhibition 1950s
• Lili Kraus 1954
• Dr. Ferrando with students early 1950s
• Rosalind with students mid-1950s
• Jorge A.Uribe c. 1978
• Meeting on Happy Valley 1968
• Franklin Lacey c. 1958
• Austin Bee c. 1955
• Happy Valley School 1997
• Saro Vihara c. 1930
• Beatrice Wood (Beato) and James Sloss, Ojai, 1967
• Logan and Wood Houses 1997
• Beato and Rosalind c. 1982
• Sean Wellesly-Miller at Bio-shelter foundation c. 1979
• Joan Halifax, Virginia Coyle, and Radha Sloss, Happy Valley, 1988
• Happy Valley Foundation meeting 1988
• Trustees at lunch, Logan House, 1988
• Rosalind with Molly, Happy Valley, c. 1988
• Dennis Rice 1997
• Director’s House 1997
• Arrow House 1997
• Jorge Uribe, Happy Valley School commencement talk, 1988
• Austin Bee, after his Happy Valley School commencement talk, 1982
• Yurt 1997
• Happy Valley School dormitory fire 1990
• James Sloss with Sindhu at the Happy Valley School gazebo 1988
• Helen Bee and John Gorsuch
• Logan House c. 1988
• Walnut trees gone 1995
• James Sloss, as Chairman
• Assembly/Theater foundation, December 1997
• Happy Valley School dormitories 1997
• Beato 1985
• David Anderson, Interim Director 2004-2006
• Matt Storey and Family
• Kevin Wallace, Curator of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts
• Paul Amadio, Head of Happy Valley School 2006
• Besant Hill School and Center for the Arts Sign
• Happy Valley as Annie saw it
• Randy Bertin, 2015 Besant Hill School Graduation
• Aerial Photo, school campus
• Snow on Topa Topa
• Gladys & Franklin Lacey
• Beato Atelier
• Lili Kraus’ Steinway
• Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts Permanent Collection
• Children’s Art Workshop
• Heidi Lehwalder with the Harp Designed by Carlos Salzedo
• Heidi Lehwalder, Artistic Director of Chamber On The Mountain
• Sunset on Topa Topa

Preface

One of the beauty spots of the world is the Ojai Valley in California. Mountains ring it round; it has remained secluded till recent times, and is still but sparsely inhabited. In winter snow lies on the high mountain-tops, but does not touch the Valley. The climate is superb; orange-trees laden with golden fruit grow in parts of it, apricots and other fruit-trees in other parts. The sun shines out from behind a sky of deepest blues and, as it sets behind the mountain peaks, it paints the mountainsides in various purples and violets, and, when clouds float in the clear air and stream across the blue, it paints them in deepest crimson and glowing orange, and through the gaps we see lakes and rivulets of greenish blue, a panorama of gorgeous splendor, that I have only seen rivaled in Egypt or, in the rainy season, in India.

The Valley itself has stretches of flat land broken by curving mounds and hillocks of considerable height, with the great mountains, barren and rugged, holding within their protecting arms the smiling Vale from end to end. Such is the setting for the cradle of the New Civilization in America.

-- Annie Besant, Ojai, 19271


This is the story of how that vision became a reality. It all began with a visit to Ojai valley. The vision was based on the conviction of Annie Besant and those who believed with her that certain spiritual ideals can bring about practical and effective social changes, alleviating misery and human violence. Though her vision may not be completely fulfilled, it is an ongoing process presently being realized through the Happy Valley School and the community slowly forming on the land.

Considering the seventy years that have passed since her description, remarkably little desecration has marred the Ojai valley and virtually none in Happy Valley itself. Growth is inevitable, some ugly, some tolerable. Sometimes sheer economic restriction does more to protect scenic beauty than the best of organized efforts. In the case of Happy Valley there has been time for careful and deliberate development. As we are about to complete the high school campus, it seems appropriate to look back at our origins, to reiterate and contemplate the visions and efforts of the original guardians of this land.

I. Annie Besant

Unquestionably Happy Valley began with Annie Besant and her vision. Annie Besant had been involved in various progressive movements of the nineteenth century before she joined the Theosophical Society in 1889. As an atheist she had worked through a wide range of social reforms including birth control, women’s suffrage and trade unions. She had been a Fabian Socialist. She had achieved fame in reform circles for organizing one of the first union strikes for the London “match girls.”

Along the way she came to realize that the worldwide improvements of the human condition, for which she and her fellow workers strove so arduously, needed a much deeper revolution, a basic change in human nature; otherwise there could be no lasting social transformation. Her early experiences with orthodox Christianity precluded her turning back in that direction. She discovered instead the Secret Doctrine, an evolutionary system of human spiritual development through which human salvation could be achieved. Written by H.P. Blavatsky, the co-founder of The Theosophical Society, the Secret Doctrine combined Hindu/Buddhist doctrines of reincarnation and karma into an elaborately laid out divine plan. The plan was thought to be guided by a brotherhood of adepts, (masters or superhuman agents) dedicated to helping humanity and preparing for the world teacher who would lead humanity to a new civilization. Throughout the ages it had been the work of this brotherhood to bring to the human world, at regular intervals, the guidance of a spiritual teacher such as the Buddha and Jesus Christ had given in their times.

The somewhat confusing concept of “root races” was woven throughout the doctrine whereby humanity, over long periods of time evolved through a series of mother or root races (each including seven subraces), the word race, referring to different human qualities or potentials. According to Blavatsky, in this present age, humanity is largely made up of the fifth root race with an emphasis on the mental and technological aspects of the human mind. The sixth subrace, already being born, would have a greatly developed intuitive and spiritual potential, enabling it to recognize a common oneness of all life.

This sixth subrace would comprise the “seed” people who would herald and provide for the coming sixth root race. California was looked upon as a probable location for this new development. Seismic activity in the Pacific rim conjured up associations with Atlantis, the lost continent, as the ultimate home of the sixth root race. A new continent would arise over eons in the Pacific ocean. Rumors of exceptional children being born in Southern California bolstered these imaginative speculations. Energy would soon gather like clouds of welcome rain over the pristine Ojai Valley.


Indigo children, according to a pseudoscientific New Age concept, are children who are believed to possess special, unusual, and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities. The idea is based on concepts developed in the 1970s by Nancy Ann Tappe and further developed by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. The concept of indigo children gained popular interest with the publication of a series of books in the late 1990s and the release of several films in the following decade. A variety of books, conferences and related materials have been created surrounding belief in the idea of indigo children and their nature and abilities. The interpretations of these beliefs range from their being the next stage in human evolution, in some cases possessing paranormal abilities such as telepathy, to the belief that they are more empathetic and creative than their peers.

No scientific studies give credibility to the existence of indigo children or their traits. Some parents choose to label their children who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities as an indigo child to alternatively diagnose them. Critics view this as a way for parents to avoid considering pediatric treatment or a psychiatric diagnosis. Some lists of traits used to describe indigo children have also been criticized for being vague enough to be applied to most people, a form of the Forer effect.

-- Indigo children, by Wikipedia


***

Annie Besant was an activist and not one to set her sights on another millennium. The purchase of what she would name the Happy Valley and the establishment of the Happy Valley Foundation would be her final achievement in a long life of extraordinary achievements.

Early on as a Fabian Socialist she had recognized that education was the essential element of progressive reform. And now her goal was to establish a nucleus of those committed to the universal brotherhood of man, “without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color” (a remarkably radical statement for the late nineteenth century). Among her selection for foundation members were those particularly committed to this principle. Coming, as Theosophists, from widely different geographic and cultural traditions, among others, the brahmanical teacher, rabbinical Judaism and the Quakers’ faith in “gentle persuasion,” they joined in a common goal at Happy Valley.

The year of 1926 would prove to be a landmark in the complex relationships around Annie Besant. She was traveling westward with an entourage including her protégé, the probable World Teacher J. Krishnamurti, D. Rajagopal, his future wife Rosalind Williams, and Fritz Kunz a dedicated and highly placed member of the Theosophical Society. Her arrival in Ojai was awaited with unsuppressed joy by numerous members of the local Theosophical headquarters at Krotona, already well-established in Ojai.

Krishnamurti, familiar with the valley for the past four years, hoped to establish a center here where he could hold talks and discussions. Fritz Kunz had been asked to scout for land for this purpose.

Annie had a parallel purpose. An experiment in living in which the concepts of brotherhood, nonviolence, and what Albert Schweitzer would much later call a “reverence for life,” had been foremost in Annie Besant’s mind for some years. She recognized the efficacy of starting with well directed small groups, drawn together in work and study, by a greater purpose. She realized that the results could not be forced. There must develop within each individual those ideals that would create a better society at large. She had not yet focused on a specific site for such a pilot community. But awaiting her in Ojai was a vast acreage of virgin land, said to be sacred to the Chumash.

***

The seeds of Happy Valley’s future had been planted two years before Annie Besant arrived in Ojai for the first time on October 1, 1926. The idea of a school was forming in the mind of a young Theosophist, Frank Gerard. Frank had been involved in trade in India in 1923, where he had known Annie Besant and other eminent members of the Society and he had been a devotee of Krishnamurti since 1915.

Frank first came to Ojai in February of 1924, with his wife Mary and infant daughter, for a weekend visit at the home of the well-to-do Theosophist Mary Gray. He hoped also to call on Krishnamurti (or Krishna, as he was familiarly called) and his ailing brother Nitya, who were in residence next door at Arya Vihara, the redwood ranch house recently purchased for them by some well-to-do Theosophists. Frank was attempting to establish himself as a businessman in Los Angeles but to his great distress, he was finding that

L.A. was just about as rotten a place to conduct business as it would be possible to find anywhere in the world….

All the way from Ventura to the Ojai I was conscious of a growing sense of future importance and as soon as I came in to the Valley I knew that my future would be in some way connected with the place.2


Frank investigated various real estate possibilities in the area. He also became convinced of the advantages to the society in procuring the local newspaper to better prepare the way for the coming of the World Teacher in that community. He was concerned that because the present owners of the newspaper were Catholics in the process of building a large boys school near the Theosophical headquarters of Krotona, there might develop some opposition to these Theosophical goals. Meanwhile, economic necessity compelled him to take a teaching job at Thacher School, a well-established boarding school for boys.

This job further convinced Frank that there should be a Theosophical school in Ojai. While he enjoyed teaching, he found there was “not much scope for individuality on the part of members of the staff,” at Thacher School nor any accommodation for vegetarians. Just as well that he was told he would not be needed there the following year. He had his hands full preparing Arya Vihara for the return of the “brothers.” Nitya was reportedly in dire ill health.

Fritz Kunz was already staying at Arya Vihara when in that summer of 1925, the party arrived from Australia consisting of Krishna, Nitya and Rosalind Williams, who had been caring for Nitya during his last recurrence of tuberculosis.

Only a few days elapsed before Frank and Fritz talked to Krishna about buying the local newspaper the Ojai. They gained his approval and raised the $11,000 necessary from private sources. By August 1, Frank was running the paper and the attached printing business, encountering only minor suspicion from the local residents who were aware that he was a Theosophist.

At Nitya’s request, his friend D. Rajagopal, having just completed his L.L.D. degree from Cambridge University, returned to Ojai during the summer to help Rosalind with Nitya’s care and, as it turned out, to be prepared by Nitya to shoulder responsibility in the burgeoning activity around the World Teacher. (Rajagopal, like Krishnamurti, had been a young protégé of Annie Besant and would remain involved, officially and unofficially with Happy Valley.)

There was also the problem of sufficient water at Arya Vihara for domestic needs, which was only temporarily solved by drawing on Mary Gray’s well next door. Frank took Krishna and Rajagopal down to the bottom of McAndrew Road to consider buying fifteen acres west of the Marengo farm, where he believed a well could provide water for Arya Vihara.3 Subsequently Fritz was able to raise funds from the Star Trust, which had been established for the World Teacher, for a down payment on the Marengo acreage and the development of the well.

Although Nitya was far from recovered, Krishna, Rosalind, and Rajagopal were summoned by Annie Besant to attend the Theosophical Golden Jubilee in Adyar, India. Krishna was convinced that nothing could happen to his brother as the masters had assured him (via the authorized occult communicator Bishop Leadbeater) that Nitya was essential to the work. When news came of Nitya’s death, as their ship passed through the Suez Canal, Krishna was shocked to the core. He would never again rely on the masters for guidance and would eventually doubt their very existence. This new perspective would have a profound future effect on his relationship to Happy Valley.

Meanwhile Frank, being a practical-minded man was, with Fritz’s help, busily developing the new well for Arya Vihara. Water had to be pumped one mile up hill. Eventually pipes and pump were installed and a good flow of water established. In the course of this project, Fritz and Frank had explored the seventy-acre Sarzotti Mesa, accessible by a rough dirt track from the foot of McAndrew Road.

Both men felt it would be the perfect site for a future school. The views of the valley and upper Ojai were spectacular. Gently rolling terrain, studded with oaks and eucalyptus, overlooked Tucker’s walnut orchards to the south.

There was one major drawback, aside from that of no decent right of way from the north. “The oil rights are in the hands of other parties but we hope to get these in time,” Frank wrote optimistically in his diary. He could not have guessed at the ups and downs, disputes and worries that would intermittently surround this oil rights issue and remain, to present times, not entirely resolved. Undeterred by any discouraging premonitions, Fritz and Frank struggled with options, bargaining with Sarzotti to obtain land sufficient for the possible future school and community that they both felt to be a necessary component in the grand scheme. Fritz was so convinced about the future purpose that he optioned, on his own account, another eighty acres to the east of Sarzotti Mesa. Frank attempted to track down the owners of the oil rights on the Sarzotti parcel but found only confused records of one of the owners and that the other had died, whereupon he abandoned the matter for the time being.

They were also concerned about a clear right of way and recognized the importance of obtaining a private road but again were reluctant to lose the Sarzotti deal and so proceeded with the down payments. Later Fritz would find it difficult to explain why they proceeded without first clearing up these two issues, and the resulting sense of criticism he felt in later days might have had something to do with his discouragement and ultimate withdrawal from the whole enterprise.

Finally in the summer of 1926, word came that Annie Besant and her entourage could be expected in Ojai in October, after attending the Theosophical Society Convention in Chicago. Upon Nitya’s death, Rajagopal had been appointed the General Secretary/Treasurer of the Order of the Star, an organization founded with enthusiasm, in the face of some criticism from other Theosophists, by Annie Besant and Leadbeater to prepare the way for the World Teacher. The charismatic Krishnamurti as the candidate for this role had galvanized public interest far beyond the reaches of Theosophists. Frank urged Fritz to attend the Chicago convention in case discussion came up regarding a California center. It is unlikely however, that this was an opportune moment to get serious attention from any of the “top bananas” as they had jokingly been dubbed by Rajagopal. Annie Besant had to deal with a burdensome amount of publicity, some fair, some humorous, and some unpleasant. Headlines ranged from “the Messiah in Tennis shoes” to “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” (referring to Rosalind as a member of the party). Rosalind was sent home to her family in Ojai and Annie embarked on a strenuous lecture tour. (In Everett, Washington, she met a boy of twelve, Austin Bee, who would one day play a vital part in the development of Happy Valley, and who would be for many years a trustee as well as Chairman of the Happy Valley Foundation.) The “top bananas” were all re-united at Arya Vihara on October 1.

II. High Ideals and the Realities of Real Estate

Annie Besant was accustomed to coping with the whirlwinds which she herself generated wherever she went. While Ojai must have appeared to her as a haven of tranquility, for Frank, Fritz, and the other Theosophists involved in arranging for her arrival, life in Ojai was anything but tranquil. There were lectures attended by such celebrities as the dancer, Isadora Duncan. Local Theosophists had already discovered that they were an attraction for the nearby world of Hollywood and soon the arrival of the World Teacher would intensify this magnetism.

In this euphoric atmosphere most people were carried away by the presence of Annie and Krishna. She speaking of the objectives of the Society and he of his love for the valley. After nine days the whole party departed to continue their tour of America and then to return to India. Evidently Frank had not found an opportunity to discuss with any of them his ideas for a school or to show them again the land that he and Fritz were now so convinced was the perfect location for that enterprise.

Frank and his family moved in as caretakers of Arya Vihara, only to receive notice a few days later that Annie and Krishna had decided not to go to India that winter but would return instead to Ojai. The Gerards considered it an honor to have stayed in a place “which will some day be of historical fame” and cheerfully packed up and moved out.

Fritz, overworked by organizational problems, had become ill with pneumonia and had taken off for Mexicali without a chance to speak to Annie on her return. This left Frank alone to press on with ideas for the land acquisitions, the school, and a center for the World Teacher. After several conferences with Krishna and Rajagopal he felt he was not getting the hoped for response.

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Gathering at Arya Vihara, c. 1927. Fritz and Dora Kunz, Max Wardall, Judge Holland, Beatrice Wood, Reginald Pole, Mary Gerard and child, A. P. Warrington

There are a great many different sets of opinions and the whole matter is very much complicated by ‘snap judgments’ on the part of those who have not been closely in touch with the situation. 4


But this slight setback was allayed by the presence of Annie who

is most wonderfully charming and genial. Words cannot describe the perfection of her life. She radiates love and happiness and wisdom. Her talks are full of life and hope and encouragement. 5


Frank still did not know that Krishna, both spiritually and psychologically, was moving away from the Theosophical view of the masters and was seeking another base from which to launch “the teachings.” In private, Krishna was tentatively describing his consciousness as merging with the Buddha, a concept that was puzzling to Annie, but with her characteristic loyalty she left him free to find his own path. That this path would eventually lead him across the valley – away from Happy Valley and onto his own turf was as yet unforeseen.

She never fully resigned herself to his “blending of consciousness” theory. But at the same time, she gave him her unflinching public support and did her utmost to reconcile the two views. 6


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Annie Besant and Krishnamurti, Ojai, 1927

At eighty years of age, Annie Besant still retained the pilgrim spirit that had guided her whole life and she would not deny this freedom to another, no matter what the consequences to her own dream. George Bernard Shaw wrote that:

Annie Besant is a woman of swift decisions. She sampled many movements and societies before she finally found herself; and her transitions were not gradual; she always came into a movement with a bound, and was preaching the new faith before the old one was shaken….One day I was speaking to…the editor of the Star I glanced at the proofs…one of them headed “Why I became a Theosophist.” I immediately looked…for the signature, and saw that it was Annie Besant. Staggered by this unprepared blow, which meant to me the loss of a powerful colleague and of a friendship that had become part of my daily life, I rushed to her office in Fleet Street and there delivered myself of an unbounded denunciation of Theosophy in general, of female inconstancy, and in particular of H.P.Blavatsky, one of whose books – I forget whether it was The Secret Doctrine or Isis Unveiled – had done all the mischief. The worst of it was that I had given her this book myself as one that she might like to review… She listened to me with complete kindness and genuine amusement, and then said that she had become a vegetarian (as I was) and that perhaps it had enfeebled her mind. In short, she was for the first time able to play with me; she was no longer in the grip of her pride; she had after many explorations found her path and come to see the universe and herself in their real perspective.


Meanwhile Fritz had been discussing plans with Krishna and Rajagopal for the development of a center for the World Teacher’s work. Frank persuaded Krishna to appoint a committee for this purpose.

Where the center was to be was as yet undetermined. George Hall, an active realtor as well as a Theosophist, was pushing for a tract of land adjacent to Krotona at the west end of the valley. At that point Krishna was unimpressed with the property. He persuaded Annie and the whole entourage from Arya Vihara, including Sara and Robert Logan, two prominent Philadelphia Theosophists, to go and see the land over which Frank and Fritz had “sweated so much blood.”

One can imagine, given the issues and personalities involved, that this whole process of selecting a site for such momentous happenings was not entirely smooth.

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Krishnamurti, c. 1927

On the one hand George Hall and most of the leading Theosophists were bent on having the new center adjacent to Krotona. But Fritz and Frank had become convinced over the past months, and for reasons more esoteric and aesthetic than practical, that the site should be at the other end of the valley. Rajagopal with his characteristic caution was preeminently deterred by the lack of oil and access rights. Fritz was somewhat at odds with Rajagopal over their relative managerial posts and may have felt that the younger man had been placed over him as General Secretary/Treasurer of the Order of the Star, while he, Fritz, had labored hard to carry out what he believed to have been Krishna’s wishes. Ever since the previous fall Fritz had been discouraged by the lack of headway made on the plans he had thought so promising, before the “top bananas” came to town. It appears also that there was even some confusion as to what the “center” should be. Fritz found he could accomplish more when the “top-bananas” weren’t around, so when he heard they were returning after only a few weeks’ absence and feeling discouraged by the prospect of more conflicting opinions, he had retired to the desert. Frank had wired him in December to return, believing Fritz to be the prime mover in their plans and that nothing at all was likely to be accomplished in his absence. In spite of his continuing bad health, Fritz had complied.

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Annie Besant, c. 1895, wearing H.P. Blavatsky’s ring, as G.B. Shaw remembered her

On that morning of January 3, 1927, exceptionally fair after some days of rain, the party started off in two cars, down McAndrew Road to the Marengo well site and up the dirt track toward Sarzotti Mesa. This happy expedition was soon stalled in the mud. Fritz’s car was rescued by mules, gathered from the neighboring farm. But Frank’s was so deeply mired that he had to abandon it to a crane from the Ojai garage. Fritz backed down his car with Annie, Krishna, Rajagopal, Rosalind and Sara Logan inside (the Logans would eventually be eminently instrumental in future Happy Valley development). They went around by the Dennison grade through Tucker’s farm while Frank and fellow Theosophist Max Wardall walked up the mesa to meet them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountain, Annie had insisted on walking to the top where she could look out over the entire valley. Sitting for a few quiet moments alone with Rosalind, she had a strong vision which she related only later, that this land would be a center for the new race of humans just beginning to emerge. At that point she cast the World Teacher as the prophet for this new civilization. It was a vision far beyond the wildest imaginings of Frank or Fritz, but it took an immediate and powerful hold upon her mind and her resolve. She listened carefully to the account of the land deals already initiated – the seventy-acre Sarzotti Mesa and the additional eighty acres privately optioned by Fritz.

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D. Rajagopal, c. 1927

As the party left the hill and crossed through the Tucker farm to the south, they ran into Tucker himself, and Annie stopped and asked him for an option. He quoted her a figure of $120,000 for his whole 300 acres which was considerably less than he had offered George Hall a few weeks before. This California farmer, who knew nothing of her philosophy, may well have been awed by the elderly but vital woman with piercing blue eyes. He may also have felt astonished by the whole entourage – the two handsome young Indians, a lovely blonde girl and the indomitable Sara Logan with her no-nonsense mien of the aristocratic Philadelphia Quaker.

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Happy Valley, 1927, as Annie first saw it and possibly the tree under which she sat

The next day, January 4, while Annie was forming a committee for the new land, Fritz, Frank, and George Hall returned to Tucker’s farm to complete the purchase preliminaries. With George Hall doing most of the talking, the deal with Tucker was verbally closed on the terms stated the day before. The Sarzotti Mesa and the adjacent eighty acres, on which down payments had been made, were already approved by Krishna. At this point Fritz decided to resign as national representative of the Star. The land struggle over the past months had taken a toll on his health. There were hints over the years of other issues between him and Krishna that had led to this decision but neither of them ever disclosed what these might be.

Frank fully expected January 8, 1927, to be a momentous day as the first meeting of the land committee was to take place. On being presented by Annie with the situation to date, three members of the committee, none of whom had been present on the initial trip to the land, took an adamant stand against proceeding without the oil rights. Annie and Krishna saw the force of this argument. Meanwhile Tucker and his attorney were standing outside expecting momentarily to be invited in to sign the final documents. When they were presented instead with an option, while negotiations for the oil rights continued, Tucker was not at all pleased. After some wrangling it developed that the western 160 acres of Tucker’s farm, owned by his son, had clear oil rights and a separate deal could be made for those while the remaining 140 acres would be investigated. The whole group decided to adjourn to the upper Ojai for another inspection of the land and to allow the three opposing members a chance to see it and, it was hoped, to glean some of the enthusiasm that had fueled Fritz and Frank for the past months.

Unfortunately that expedition had just the opposite effect. The doctor, the lawyer, and the businessman (Ingelman, Holland, and Hotchener) came away absolutely opposed to the Sarzotti land, in spite of Krishna’s initial approval of the $3,700 already used for a down payment. While Hotchener insisted it would be throwing good money after bad to proceed with the purchase, Holland was increasingly concerned with how Annie was going to raise the large sum for this entire venture. However, she assured him in her quietly confident way that he need not worry about that end of it.

Much to Frank’s dismay, the conclusion of the meeting was that the Sarzotti land should be thrown up and Hall should make every effort to recover what had been paid down and apply that to the 160 acres of Tucker land that could be proven to have clear oil rights instead of to any portion of Sarzotti land. Frank’s words, written that same evening, poignantly convey his disappointment.

It has been a bad day for us who have for two years yearned and struggled over the 70 acre deal. It is quite impossible for us who live here, and who have walked on the hills in the quiet of the evenings, to translate what we know inside into terms of business considerations pure and simple. I personally feel that these oil right difficulties are insignificant when compared to the tremendous occult value which I feel sure this land has. After all, oil has only a comparatively short time to go as the chief fuel of the world. The time cannot be far off when electric energy in some form will supplant the clumsy and ill-smelling oil as the motor power on which we all have to depend. I feel that a hundred years hence people will wonder what in the world made us worry so about the possibility of oil being discovered on the land where we want a community and school. It seems to me that if the site is the right one we have to take a certain amount of chance, having faith that we shall be supported from Inside. The land will be there for centuries to come, while oil is not likely to be an issue for many years more. I believe that intuition is worth more than business foresight and acumen in some cases.7


Frank had yet to learn how quickly the winds can change in a spiritual climate. Back at Krotona, while Frank was helping Fritz to wash his car, Hotchener drove up and announced that at an informal meeting that morning at Arya Vihara, it had been agreed to go ahead with the 70 Sarzotti acres as well as the 160 acres of the Tucker ranch. They had all awakened feeling that the oil rights issue must not be allowed to stand in the way of Annie Besant’s vision!

Annie wasted no time in moving forward. On Sunday, January 9, she called a special meeting of the new committee to read the announcement and the accompanying appeal for funds for the new venture. Two hundred thousand dollars was needed immediately for the land; she intended to reach beyond the Theosophical community for contributors. Prudently, all efforts would be confined to raising money to acquire the land. No attempt would be made as yet to encourage settlers. Annie decided to raise the funds in her own name and have checks payable to her. She set up an account in the Security Trust Bank in Hollywood to hold all funds on which she, Annie Besant, Holland and Ingelman would sign. On January 11, she announced the members of her new organizing committee in The Ojai.8

The committee was to be separate from the Star committee which would continue to be responsible for Star activities such as the camp, the headquarters and The Ojai press and paper. Annie stated that Krishna would not be on this new committee to hold the land as “she thinks it better to relieve him of any responsibility of that kind.”9 This would prove to be a fortunate decision.

Finally came the question of a name.

The President agreed that ‘Community’ was a poor name as it had a bad association just now, besides as she pointed out, if you called it a Community, you could hardly talk about a communist, whereas if you called it a Colony, you could use the old word colonist. Here Krishnaji spoke up and objected. He disliked colonist very much.10


Quite naturally! So Annie suggested they sleep on it and a name would come. Within a few days, to everyone’s satisfaction, she choose “Happy Valley,” for this had special meaning to her in view of Krishna’s present theme, the Kingdom of Happiness. In her mind there was still a relationship between the work to be done on Happy Valley and the wider work of the World Teacher. She envisioned the eventual settlers on Happy Valley working out the teachings of the World Teacher as a model for the new civilization.

The land negotiations had been complex enough without allowance for Krishna’s continuing withdrawal in spirit and in fact from Annie’s vision for Happy Valley. In this venture she felt herself to be guided directly by her own master, when she had often relied on an intermediary for this form of communication in the person of Charles Leadbeater. But Annie had always defended individual freedom of belief and had never claimed spiritual authority for herself through communion with the masters. Krishnamurti was saying that the teachings – not the teacher – should be the focus, that this was an individual process and that instant enlightenment could occur without reference to past lives or occult practices. Eventually he found a way to carry on his teaching without enveloping himself in the cloak of world teacher.

If Krishna’s growing independence from his Theosophical origins was disturbing to Annie, she did not allow it to cloud her present mission. She left no ambiguous loose ends to confuse future generations. In this spirit she wrote a check to Krishna to cover all funds raised by the Order of the Star for the amounts paid down on Happy Valley land. She thereby freed him to go his own way, at the same time delineating her goals for Happy Valley by insisting on collecting funds in her own name, and making a clear separation for it from any other organization, group or personality.

Through the next decades and perhaps into the future as well, the Happy Valley Foundation would need to reiterate and re-enforce the independence with which it had been founded.

But there were still hitches in the land deal. George Hall did not want to close on the 160 acres until there was a direct access to the 70-acre Sarzotti Mesa. So he proposed to buy the 70 acres (B on the map, Appendix D) and the 80 acres (C on the map, Appendix D) in spite of no oil rights clear on either. The 160 acres of the Tucker ranch appeared to be clear of oil claims but as this had no common boundary with the first two parcels it was necessary to buy 30 acres of the 154 acres without oil rights along the north fence in order to gain access to the mesa (E on the map, Appendix D). They all piled into cars to have another look at the land, driving as far as possible through the Tucker land, from where they had a glorious view over the valley.

On returning to Arya Vihara, Annie presented Hall with a check for the down payment and – unknown then to Frank – instructions to buy the whole 154 acres (E on the map, Appendix D). This meant buying all of the available land under consideration. However, that same afternoon of January 14, Hall discovered that the oil rights on the 160 acres which they had thought were clear, were, like all the rest, still under a cloud.

Frank, as editor/printer of The Ojai, was constantly having to revise the announcements that Annie wanted released to the world. Late on January 18, he got a final message from her that the deal on all the land was closed and under purchase. By this time exhaustion seems to have outrun his enthusiasm.

No oil rights go with the land so here we are with 465 acres of land under purchase and not one acre clear of oil rights, after all the fuss and fury and excitement of the last two weeks!

Notwithstanding all the hectic comings and goings, conferences, debates and legal investigations, the final result is exactly the same as was proposed a month ago by Fritz and me, to buy the 70 and the 80 acre pieces and get an option on the Tucker farm.

It does not seem to have occurred to any of the “top bananas” that after living in the Valley and thinking and planning and debating over things for a couple of years, Fritz and I might have acquired a little inside dope not picked up in a moment by visitors.11


Presiding over a Happy Valley committee meeting the following month, Annie Besant reported that money was coming in steadily and that she felt “no apprehension about being able to meet the payments as they came due.” She still did not favor spending any money for anything whatsoever until the land payment was assured.

To Frank’s dismay, before Annie left for Europe in April, she appointed George Hall her representative in all matters in Ojai. This included The Ojai newspaper, as well as Happy Valley. Frank had thought of the paper as his special enterprise. Its acquisition had been his idea and he had been the successful editor through all the months of heady announcements regarding the Happy Valley purchase. He had also hoped to develop a modest realty business, selling parcels to the anticipated pre-settlers for Happy Valley and those at liberty to pull up roots and bask in the radiant message of the apparently manifested World Teacher.

There are a great many enquiries coming in regarding the Happy Valley and apparently there are plenty of T.S. people who would like to come here to settle. I think that, by being in the real estate business I can help many of them to find suitable places besides making a living myself. However very few of the enquirers seem to have any money so there is not much danger of growing fat!12


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Grace and George Hall

Unfortunately for Frank, George Hall was also aware of the profit potential in Theosophical settlers. Hall, having been put in charge of all the key activities by Annie Besant, was in a much better position to make the most of his real estate ventures. He planned a subdivision at the east end of the village called Siete Robles, in which he expected to interest most of the would-be settlers. Frank candidly expressed his displeasure.

It may be well to record that I am not especially happy over Hall’s being in charge of everything, especially the paper. He is a queer bird and while I recognize many admirable qualities in him I must confess that I do not like him. He is a strange combination of spirituality (in spots) and a hard business attitude that almost approaches foxiness. He is given to standing around listening in on conversations that he thinks may be useful to him… Through his T.S. connections he is getting agents through-out the section so it looks as if there will be a great competition for the incoming Theosophists!… I dislike intensely the idea of competition between us for the few T.S. people who may be in the market for land in the Ojai.13


Preparations for Krishnamurti’s first Ojai Star camp were progressing under George Hall’s direct supervision, with the overall guidance of Louis Zalk, the official manager of the camp. Three bath houses and a cafeteria were under construction and land was prepared to set up tents.

Frank was not a part of all this although he did express his opinion:

I still do not like the location as I think the land on the north side is too low. It is my belief that in the course of time the main activities after K has gone will center in the Happy Valley… After the camp and chiefly because Dr Besant had not come back to continue her Happy Valley plans everyone began to change their mind… It was simply a case of an emotional interest in the Ojai on the part of our members over the Happy Valley idea and the camp. When it came to practical things most people realized the impossibility of living in the Ojai unless one had money. I feel quite definitely that my work here is finished. Furthermore I have myself undergone a considerable change of attitude towards the “work” and the “movements”. I have been fully persuaded by Krishnaji’s words that I have been on the wrong tack heretofore. I believe that the conception that there is such a thing as the “Master’s Work” to be done is a mistake. This idea tends to make one look outside oneself for inspiration and guidance… we allow ourselves to lean on the Masters and to substitute Their ideas for our own… Therefore I have set aside all my previous notions as to my relationship to the Masters and Their (so-called) “work”… The question of Krishnaji’s teachings is raising quite a furor in the T.S. The old regulars are loudly proclaiming that there is nothing in what he says that contraverts in any way the T.S. teachings. As far as most of them are concerned he might be just another theosophical lecturer. I believe quite differently. I believe that he is doing far more than merely presenting us with a new set of ideas… As a result of my new viewpoint, I find it quite simple to drop all my ideas regarding the Masters and Their work… My first intention is to get away from Ojai and to find my place in the commercial world again.14


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Star camp cafeteria, c. 1927, later the Happy Valley School

Frank left Ojai in the winter of 1928 and, as he had hoped, eventually found his place in the commercial world. He represented General Motors in India and his branch survived the crash of ’29. He saw Annie Besant for the last time on her final return to India. Her memory had failed and she scarcely knew him. At the end of this diary (1931) Frank acknowledged the importance for Krishna of the years of Theosophical backing and he also recognized the difficult position of many Theosophists due to Krishna’s defection.

They must either repudiate him or else face the task of tearing down much that they have built up on the basis of Teachers and doctrines based on authority. It is doubtful if their position will be clear during this generation. My own feeling is that we have definitely reached the end of an era… I have found great relief in having broken away from the idea of helping the world through spiritual organizations.15


Fortunately for the Happy Valley, most of the founding board members appointed by Annie Besant were able to reconcile the new message of Krishnamurti with their commitment to her vision. Two members in particular were to shoulder the financial responsibility for safeguarding the land. A heavy enough task without the withdrawal of many Theosophists whose interpretation of Krishna’s words somehow absolved them from honoring their pledges.

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Part 2 of 5

III. Holding on in the Great Depression

Annie Besant in the final years of her life had, in her own words, risked her fortune and her reputation on this California land venture. Had her vision been less compelling to her and to those around her at that moment, her projections for the future of Happy Valley might well have crumbled, along with countless other ventures of those decades.

Leaving very few restrictive guidelines, Annie suggested a range of possibilities from agricultural enterprises, to schools and communities, to film-making, all to be in the interest of strengthening the forces of peace and the spiritual as well as physical, artistic, and intellectual progress of mankind. There was no pressure of time imposed on her trustees for she told them they had “centuries in which to work.” However this latitude did not address the problem of meeting the annual mortgage payments on the $90,000 mortgage still outstanding.

Annie Besant left Ojai that spring of 1927 never to return. But she had left her vision in good hands. Robert Logan and Louis Zalk, as those best able to afford it, shouldered the burden of carrying the mortgage in the face of unfulfilled pledges and the crash of 1929. Although they personally lost in the crash, they did not lose everything and managed to keep the land afloat. They followed Annie’s lead in discouraging settlers until the debt could be paid off, but this in itself was a constant challenge.

Robert Logan’s direct ancestor, James Logan was largely responsible for establishing what would become the state of Pennsylvania, left in charge by William Penn, who remained for the most part in England, often in prison. James Logan, a devout but also practical-minded Quaker, had made his fortune in the fur trade. In three major American wars (starting with the Revolution) the Logan family maintained its pacifistic precept. With Robert’s father, Sydney Algernon Logan, another precept was added, that of anti-vivisection and the establishment of the still extant Anti- Vivisection Society. Sydney indulged in the shooting of birds, but never mammals. The latter, he believed, was tantamount to murder. In his turn, Robert furthered the cause of non-violence toward all creatures by his strict vegetarianism and refusal to wear, as well as eat, animal products. Neither did he draw a line in this to exclude birds, fish or even insects.

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Sara and Robert Logan, Ojai, c. 1930

In Theosophy, Robert found an international community sympathetic, in varying degrees, to his views. In his wife Sara, he found a soul-mate who shared them precisely. Sara Wetherill Logan was descended from an equally distinguished family, which was at least as conscious as the Logans of its social status. Both Sara and Robert eagerly left behind the vanities of high society, first for the vagaries of a variety of bohemian friends whom they sheltered for years, and then for the ethically compatible companionship of Theosophists. Their large estate near Philadelphia was available to the ever traveling members of the Theosophical Society and later for the summer gatherings of Krishnamurti.

The occult aspects of Theosophy had never appealed to Robert. He was a poet and a scholar with a law degree from Harvard, but his erudition had not led to arrogance and he was fond of the saying, “You can always tell a Harvard man but you cannot tell him much.” He was essentially a man of reason. Therefore it was natural for him to sympathize with those ideas of Krishnamurti that caused many others so much confusion. The essentially Buddhist aspects of Theosophy that he embraced – including the brotherhood of man, a wholesome and sane way of living in which one endeavored to do as little harm as possible and extend the limits of human knowledge – did not conflict with Krishna’s recent utterances. At the same time, Robert and Sara shared an unwavering devotion to Annie Besant and to her vision for Happy Valley. Robert appreciated that her published and private statements had left future generations free, within certain very broad outlines, to create a community or communities of people who would help to move mankind beyond the present age of violence and materialism.

***

Image
Louis Zalk as a young man

Louis Zalk, a businessman from Duluth, Minnesota, came from vastly different origins than the Logans and yet their paths converged into a partnership and friendship based on the ideals and activities that bound them together for the rest of their lives. A key link was their joint esteem for education as the best alleviation for society’s ills, especially in the eyes of those committed to nonviolence. Annie Besant had followed this path through the Fabian Socialists of the late nineteenth century. Louis was descended from a rabbinical family that, much like the Brahmin families of Krishnamurti and Rajagopal, sought spiritual as well as sociological strength through learning. There was then a natural convergence on Happy Valley of like-minded interests. In addition Louis had, some years back, lost his first born child and had found in Theosophy as well as Krishnamurti’s teachings a solace for which he would remain perpetually grateful. He was already, by 1927, a man of wealth with heavy business responsibilities and yet he found no irony in being asked to manage the first Krishnamurti camp which included the duty of night watchman. Indeed the leveling factor of Theosophy and the early Krishnamurti gatherings was in some ways as successful as that of the US Marine Corps.

Robert and Sara had habitually driven back and forth across country every fall and spring. They purchased a guest house behind Arya Vihara that had been built by the ubiquitous George Hall and was soon considered a white elephant by Krishna and Rajagopal. It is probable that the Logans were being charitably helpful in this purchase but it would have a consequence upon Happy Valley forty years later.

In May 1930, The Happy Valley Foundation was formed as a corporation under the seal of the State of California. Through representatives Annie Besant transferred to the corporation her deed and entire interest in Happy Valley real property. A corporate form of musical chairs ensued: Talbot resigned as trustee, Besant was nominated to fill that vacancy. Grace Hall resigned as trustee, Logan was nominated to fill that vacancy. Carey resigned as trustee, C.F Holland was nominated to fill that vacancy. Louis Zalk resigned as president, Annie Besant was nominated president. S.W. Williams resigned as vice-president, Louis Zalk was nominated as vice president. Sara Logan and Max Wardall were nominated as members of the original committee. This was enough to confound even a lawyer like Robert Logan.

October 1930

Dear Louis,

Of course I will help you out as you request but really I do not quite understand what the situation will be, to whom payments will be made and by whom records kept and receipts sent.

Enlighten me a little in words of one syllable….I remember we had a meeting at which everybody was elected trustee and then immediately resigned and was replaced by everybody else.

…believe me, with all good wishes,

Faithfully, Robert


For the next twenty-five years Robert and Louis would continue a running correspondence about their joint responsibility which had begun in Robert’s usual wry tone. But the tone of informality should not belie the competence and dedication of these two men in their efforts to effect the fruition of Annie Besant’s vision. Had they not believed so firmly in that, they would have found the task too trying.

The only source of income on the land was a walnut grove which sometimes helped to pay the taxes and mortgage and which was still managed by the original owner, Tucker. It would be more than twenty years before the status of a nonprofit foundation was granted. Their initial years of stewardship of Happy Valley had convinced Louis and Robert that a school would be the most suitable “industry” upon which to base a community. There was a steady stream of people, mostly Theosophists, who hoped to be a part of the new root race or at least be there ready to welcome it. Fielding these inquiries was a duty that fell to Robert.

June 22nd, 1935

Dear Louis,

I quite agree with your letter about continuing Tucker for the present and about not considering any colonizing plans until we can hold a real meeting of the trustees.

As I have had to answer a good many criticisms and inquiries lately I enclose copies of some of my answers for your comments.

[Dear Kahuna,]

… As for starting colonization, there is certainly no “no Theosophist need apply” attitude on the part of the trustees; there is only a lease to Tucker and a desire to be very sure of not making some wrong venture when the land is still under a substantial mortgage. A failure now would make it almost impossible ever to get the mortgage paid off or reduced to safe proportions. Meanwhile it could do no harm to submit to Louis Zalk some practical plans and suggestions toward first steps in colonization.

[Dear Mrs. S.]

You are quite at liberty to change your pledge or cancel it altogether. As for the colonization of Happy Valley, the trustees have no other thought in mind and would certainly not have made all the efforts they have had to make for seven years to reduce the heavy mortgage from $90,000 to $43,000 if they had not been dedicated to the ultimate accomplishment of Dr. Besant’s intentions.

T.S. members are sometimes too ready to criticize each other’s efforts without a clear understanding of the facts and I hope when you hear further criticism of the Happy Valley Foundation you will ask the critics to send in some helpful suggestions instead.


***

Annie Besant died on September 20, 1933 in Adyar India. She had not been able to return to her Happy Valley but had maintained her position on the board. Even without a World Teacher, her millennial vision would leave its mark on a new era, reaching far beyond Happy Valley to the New Age movements.16 But first the world and all humanity would be shaken to its roots by another war.

Max Wardall had died the same year leaving another vacancy on the board. These were now filled by two Theosophists, both in the military, Captain George Ragan and Captain Devereaux Myers of the Air Force. Before long both would be majors.

Against all recommendations, Annie Besant had opposed selling The Ojai as she remained convinced that it would be of use to Happy Valley. However, the newspaper had been a losing enterprise since Frank Gerard had left, although the reason may have been better attributed to the great Depression. Her will left her independent California property to the Theosophical Society but her executors resigned all claims to the newspaper and recommended that it be sold in order to salvage any benefits for the Happy Valley Foundation. The sale to Frank Kilbourne was accomplished over the next four years.

That decade brought still more losses and replacements. C.F. Holland died in 1938 and his vacancy on the board was filled by William Mayes, a local Theosophist. Sara Logan died in 1939 and was replaced by Erma Williams, long time assistant of Louis Zalk and Rosalind Rajagopal’s sister.

Major Myers was killed in 1940 when the plane he was solo piloting crashed near Hamilton Air Force base. He had been fond of circling the valley three times before he landed his small plane on the local airstrip: he and the sound of his plane were missed. It would be three years before his vacancy on the Happy Valley Board was filled.17

IV. Onward Through the War Years

By 1941, the Happy Valley situation was basically unchanged; the land was still intact, but the mortgage had been reduced. There was no shortage of suggestions as to what the land should be used for and who should do the using, both from within the foundation and on the outskirts. On April 3, 1941, Robert answered Louis’s request for yet more money:

Dear Louis,

Yes I will put up $300 to clear the Happy Valley situation for the present.

In regard to getting rid of Tucker, however, I do not know how to answer, for it seems to me the whole thing hinges upon whom we put in his place. A dishonest, incompetent or lazy representative of the trustees, or any farmer merely hired by us, would not only not pay us but might seriously injure the farm and run us into debt besides. Have you anyone in mind who could possibly fill the bill – a T.S. member, poor enough to be free to undertake such a job yet not one of those “promising” members who is poor because he is, will be, and always has been a failure? Or do you know of someone not a member of the T.S. but in general accord with our ideas who could be put on the farm? Remember, when we farm it ourselves, no chickens, calves, hogs, or other animals for the market!

I cannot help feeling that our first development will not be the farm but a school and teachers and others living there who would not have their livelihood dependent on the land.


Yet there was no one in sight to found a school. So the land and the vision sat fallow, except for the continuing walnut operation managed by Tucker. There was to be an unending concern over mineral rights. The questionable custom, in some states, of selling off mineral rights from under the land which was owned by another party would be a continuing threat to the development of Happy Valley. Annie Besant had overridden all these potential difficulties with her own determined faith in her vision; even the realistic business acumen of Louis Zalk deferred to this faith.

June 19, 1942

Dear Robert,

. . .I have had a rather interesting talk today with a Mr. Comer with whom I was more impressed than I expected to be.

Mr. Comer is so sure that we have the mineral rights that he is ready to entertain a proposition for the outright purchase of any or a portion of the land. This is surely a case where we must consult together, and I am writing seriously, only because Mr. Comer has impressed me to be a sincere and honest man.

If we have the mineral rights, then Dr. Besant was justified in following her intuition against the advice of Judge Holland and others. If so, what a curious way for this thing to develop…

November 14, 1942

Dear Robert,

Had several interviews with the man who wanted the mineral rights but I have not heard from him since. I have the solemn satisfaction that the minerals are there, they will not be moved away by elementals [in theosophical terminology, simple nonmaterial forms], even red headed ones. However, I would advise against mentioning the mineral rights in the Appeal. Considering the breaking up of the whole “old order” of things – which Dr. Besant seemed to have seen so clearly, perhaps this land will still be a haven for some group who can start things going.

As ever, Louis


A claim (later proved to be unfounded) was brought by a Theosophical member, against Happy Valley that she be allowed to start a school in return for an alleged past loan, on which Robert comments:

September 12, 1943

Dear Louis,

If Miss S. should depart for Shamballa before the time comes either to found a school or repay the money, there would probably be no controversy at all. It all seems to rest on Dr. Besant’s two letters and the minutes of the Happy Valley.

To my mind it is not so much a question whether or not we are trustees of the $12,400 for the purposes of a school as whether we can avoid having Miss S. at Happy Valley in any capacity. I am not very clear as to what a Sixth Sub-race person should be but I feel very sure he must be of quite a different type from Miss S. or any other rigid educationalist.

This it seems to me, will become a very serious issue if and when we get our mortgage paid off and try to start a school under our own auspices.

I have no suggestion to make but I wanted you to see which way the wind was blowing.

Faithfully, Robert,

PS. We might turn it all over to Miss S. and merely amend our charter to read THE UNHAPPY VALLEY FOUNDATION.


Image
Robert Logan, 1927

Robert politely but firmly maintained the trustees’ intentions to steer clear of the occult and rigid aspects of Theosophy, which Annie Besant herself had not stressed in her concept of Happy Valley’s future. He suggested that meanwhile it might be wise to establish new projects off the Happy Valley land to give a testing period before getting too well rooted on Happy Valley. Since Krishna was no longer interested in holding the large Star gatherings, there was no longer a use for the cafeteria building and two bath houses in Meiner’s Oaks. The Krishnamurti Writings Inc. that had been formed to replace the Order of the Star could now benefit by the sale of the old Star land, and Robert and Louis believed that Happy Valley might one day benefit by acquiring it. The Happy Valley Foundation was certainly not in a financial position to make this purchase, so Robert and Louis joined in ownership with the intention of eventually using it for the foundation.

***

In Annie Besant’s 1927 appeals for support of the Happy Valley venture, she had, then in her 80s, sometimes reverted to the radical and prophetic statements of her Fabian Socialist era.

The United States are leading the way in the industrial world to a peaceful solution of the long struggle between capital and labor by such devices as: the buying up a business by Trade Unions and the financing of them by Trade Union Banks; by the periodic payment by employers to employees of dividend-bearing shares instead of cash….Such instances show tendencies towards a fairer industrial system.

But much more is needed to gain universal success and that is the feeling of true Brotherhood in social living; this can best be done by evoking and training this feeling by association in selected areas – “colonies” in which families, or groups of families, should associate together…fostering thus the communal, the family spirit while not forcing it unduly. The sense of moral obligation developed from the family to the village, from the village to the tribe, from the tribe to the Nation – has stopped with the Nation.

Another danger is that Science, which should be the handmaid of Happiness, has bent its energies to the discovery of hidden powers in Nature which can be liberated and used for the swifter and more wholesale destruction of human life than those already in human hands. The torture of animals by vivisectors has long been practised, and now vivisectors have discovered that the reaction on animals and humans of food and drugs is different. These developments of science foment the growth of the social conscience and are the marks of a civilisation doomed to destruction…unless it turns to a more righteous path.


She concluded by describing the type of education most appropriate to make “good citizens in a Co-operative Commonwealth.”

Education will be fourfold, embracing the health, growth and evolution of the physical body, the emotions and the mind, and the unfolding of the Spirit as Will, Wisdom and Creative Activity. The Foundation will include a school – later, I hope a College – which will…include Literature, Science, Art and Manual Occupations. The Trades admitted must not include any which are connected directly and later we hope indirectly, with the killing of animals….Beauty is the result to be aimed at in all human, as it is the characteristic of all non-human Nature’s works….There will be spaces set aside for play-grounds for adults as well as children.

Agriculture, orchards of fruit trees – orange, lemon, peach, apricot, grapes, walnuts, almonds – bee keeping will be the principle avocations open to settlers. Carpenters, plumbers, masons, etc. will also be needed.

Such is a rough sketch of the beginning of the life in the Happy Valley; as it opens up and grows, it will be richer and fuller, for we shall need writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, actors, all who make life beautiful, to create with us a cherished Home.18


The specificity of Annie’s educational and agricultural projections, in combination with the one firm prohibition regarding the killing or exploitation of animals is in interesting contrast to the more general and non-restrictive philosophic precepts. If one sets aside the occult terminology, we are left with guidelines that have attracted a broad range of idealistic as well as practical-minded thinkers, and this occurred throughout a war that Annie might well have intuitively sensed in the offing but did not live to witness.

Much of the Ojai community experienced that war through the attitudes of an unusual coalition of idealists which included Krishnamurti, the Rajagopals, Robert Logan, Aldous Huxley, many of the Checkov acting group like Iris Tree – all strongly pacifist, as were some Jewish families like the Vigevenos, recent refugees from Holland who were to lose dozens of relatives to the Nazis. (James Vigeveno would be a Happy Valley Board member in a later decade.)

Perhaps the least eloquent but most impassioned pacifist was Rosalind Rajagopal, descended from a grandfather who had endured pelting on the streets of Buffalo while he denounced the Civil War. Though pacifism was not a unanimous tenet among Theosophists, nor even on the Happy Valley Board, differing positions on this issue somehow left unscathed the broader vision of tolerance and nonviolence that the trustees had been working toward for the past decade.

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Robert Logan and Rosalind Rajagopal, c. 1940

Wartime propaganda can tarnish the terminology of any language. Thomas Mann once said that he could no longer write in his native tongue after the Nazis had given their usage to so many German words. Even though the intended meaning was completely different, some Theosophical terms and symbols suffered the same fate. Hitler took the Buddhist wheel and reversed it into his swastika. (According to one elderly Theosophist, that reversal was the ultimate reason for his downfall.)

In the Tibetan ritual system both forms of swastika [left-turned and right-turned] are common.

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi


Nevertheless, the term “super race” came too close for comfort to the root races of Blavatsky.

According to H. L. Mencken, Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, "swore like a second mate, and smoked incessantly." [5] A gifted psychic, she claimed to be in touch with two Indian mahatmas, Master Morya and Master Koot Hoomi. These adepts communicated spiritual knowledge to her, much of it from the Bhagawad Gita. Madame Blavatsky and Col. Henry Olcott founded the Theosophical Society in New York City on September 13, 1875. For its logo they adopted the swastika or "sun wheel," an ancient Sanskrit rune denoting vitality, creativity, fertility, and regeneration. Acting as a channel for her "Superiors," Blavatsky wrote Isis Unveiled in 1877 and The Secret Doctrine in 1888, which gave a fantastic account of the Seven Root Races. The Self-Born, a race of spirits perished when their realm sank into the ocean. The Hyperboreans who inhabited the North Pole suffered a similar fate. The Lemurians, who lived on a prehistoric continent in the Pacific Ocean had denser bodies with sex organs. They eventually fell afoul the Superiors by breeding with lower races. As Christopher Hale recounts:

"Lemuria, too, sank beneath the waves. 850,000 years ago, the Fourth Race appeared on an island continent in the Atlantic Ocean ... the fabled lost continent of Atlantis ... Over time (Atlantean giants) became immoral and misused their great size and skills. The Atlantic began to rise, submerging their kingdom. And so Atlantis joined the other lost continents on the now rather crowded ocean floor. .. ." [6]


One legendary account held that Thevetat, a low caste sorcerer, hastened Atlantis's demise through black magic. A few refugees from Atlantis made their way to the Gobi desert, where their descendants eventually generated a new elite.

So how did the "lesser races" come into being? According to Blavatsky, God delegated the task of creation to demiurges -- semi-divine beings of varying degrees of intelligence and morality. The more highly-evolved demiurges molded supermen such as the Hyperboreans and Atlanteans, while demonic spirits created "nefilim" and "untouchables." A Divine Plan called for the evolution of all races, however certain beings lacked capacity for improvement. In The Secret Doctrine Helena Blavatsky wrote:

"The Semites ... are ... degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality. To these belong the Jews and Arabs. The former are a tribe descended from the Chandals of India, the outcasts, many of them ex-Brahmins, who sought refuge in Chaldea, Scinde, and Iran, and were truly born from their father Abraham (no Brahmin.) [7]


This sheds light on an otherwise incomprehensible recurring theme within Nazi literature, as, for example, "The Earth-Centered Jew Lacks a Soul," by one of the chief architects of Nazi dogma, Alfred Rosenberg, who held that whereas other people believe in a Hereafter and in immortality, the Jew affirms the world and will not allow it to perish. The Gnostic secret is that the spirit is trapped in matter, and to free it, the world must be rejected. Thus, in his total lack of world-denial, the Jew is snuffing out the inner light, and preventing the millennium:

"Where the idea of the immortal dwells, the longing for the journey or the withdrawal from temporality must always emerge again; hence, a denial of the world will always reappear. And this is the meaning of the non-Jewish peoples: they are the custodians of world-negation, of the idea of the Hereafter, even if they maintain it in the poorest way. Hence, one or another of them can quietly go under, but what really matters lives on in their descendants. If, however, the Jewish people were to perish, no nation would be left which would hold world-affirmation in high esteem -- the end of all time would be here.

... the Jew, the only consistent and consequently the only viable yea-sayer to the world, must be found wherever other men bear in themselves ... a compulsion to overcome the world.... On the other hand, if the Jew were continually to stifle us, we would never be able to fulfill our mission, which is the salvation of the world, but would, to be frank, succumb to insanity, for pure world-affirmation, the unrestrained will for a vain existence, leads to no other goal. It would literally lead to a void, to the destruction not only of the illusory earthly world but also of the truly existent, the spiritual. Considered in himself the Jew represents nothing else but this blind will for destruction, the insanity of mankind. It is known that Jewish people are especially prone to mental disease. "Dominated by delusions," said Schopenhauer about the Jew.

... To strip the world of its soul, that and nothing else is what Judaism wants. This, however, would be tantamount to the world's destruction."


This remarkable statement, seemingly the rantings of a lunatic, expresses the Gnostic theme that the spirit of man, essentially divine, is imprisoned in an evil world. The way out of this world is through rejection of it. But the Jew alone stands in the way. Behind all the talk about "the earth-centered Jew" who "lacks a soul"; about the demonic Jew who will despoil the Aryan maiden; about the cabalistic work of the devil in Jewish finance; about the sinister revolutionary Jewish plot to take over the world and cause the decline of civilization, there is the shadow of ancient Gnosticism.

-- Gods & Beasts: The Nazis and the Occult, by Dusty Sklar


Her disciple William Quan Judge thought all variations among humans were due to "essential character," not environmental factors such as education, wealth, or social conditioning.

"Many savages have good actual brain capacity, but are still savage. This is because the Ego in that body is still ... undeveloped." [8]


Judge concluded that a soul could not realize its destiny in one incarnation. Souls reincarnated several times -- not necessarily always to earth -- as a part of their maturation process. Holy Hierarchies wrote primitive races off as hopeless, and would not deign to assist them spiritually.

"Savagery remains because there are still egos whose experience is so limited that they are still savage; they will come up into higher races when ready .... so we find the red Indian, the Hottentot, the Easter Islanders, and others as examples of races deserted by high egos ... " [9]


19th Century Theosophical writings were not politically correct by today's standards. since they advocated "paternalism," or the rendering of guardian care to "child-like races." However, Blavatsky, Olcott, and Judge all embraced Buddha's commandment, "you shall not harm any sentient being." One might adopt a condescending attitude toward New Guinea cannibals, but it was not permissible to murder them.

Blavatsky never identified Germans as Aryans.

The difference between the Aryan Hindu and the Aryan European faiths is very small ...
But one and all, with the exception of the latest Aryans, now become Europeans and Christians ...
The Western Aryans had, every nation and tribe, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race ...
Thus two peoples, the Hindus and the Europeans, placed at the two extremities of the world ...
The several branches of the Aryan Race, the Asiatic and the European, the Hindu and the Greek, did their best to conceal their true nature, if not their importance...
The Lord appears to Abraham, and while saying, "I am the Almighty God," yet adds, "I will establish my covenant to be a God unto thee" (Abraham), and unto his seed after him (Gen. xvii. 7) -- not unto Aryan Europeans....
No skeleton ever yet found is older than between 50, or 60,000 years, and man's size was reduced from 15 to 10 or 12 feet, ever since the third sub-race of the Aryan stock, which sub-race -- born and developed in Europe and Asia Minor under new climates and conditions -- had become European...

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky


She taught Universal Brotherhood, not Teutonic chauvinism. Although Theosophy held that the higher root races were evolving toward divinity, it did not assert that one advanced race should enslave primordial peoples. Lower races were to be loved and helped -- not abused, or exterminated.

Human crossing may have been a general rule from the time of the separation of sexes, and yet that other law may assert itself, viz., sterility between two human races, just as between two animal species of various kinds, in those rare cases when a European, condescending to see in a female of a savage tribe a mate, happens to choose a member of such mixed tribes. Darwin notes such a case in a Tasmanian tribe, whose women were suddenly struck with sterility, en masse, some time after the arrival among them of the European colonists. The great naturalist tried to explain this fact by change of diet, food, conditions, etc., but finally gave up the solution of the mystery. For the occultist it is a very evident one. "Crossing", as it is called, of Europeans with Tasmanian women -- i.e, the representatives of a race, whose progenitors were a "soulless" and mindless monster and a real human, though still as mindless a man -- brought on sterility. This, not alone as a consequence of a physiological law, but also as a decree of Karmic evolution in the question of further survival of the abnormal race...

It is a most suggestive fact -- to those concrete thinkers who demand a physical proof of Karma -- that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking place all over the globe, among those races, whose "time is up" -- among just those stocks, be it remarked, which esoteric philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties or abuses perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., etc., have done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all-sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. "Nothing", says even the materialist Lefevre, "can save those that have run their course .. It would be necessary to extend their destined cycle ... The peoples that have been spared ... Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion." (“Philosophy,” p. 508.)

True; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed of the operation of CYCLIC LAW difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the “destined cycle” and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their “appointed hour”? The answer that it is due to a “mental disproportion” between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden “checks to fertility” which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize with Occultists that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lefevre remarks, “the time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types” (before the Sixth Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the African negro — with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. — all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the “why.” The tide-wave of incarnating EGOS has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky


Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott opposed India's caste system.

The position was as follows: Up to the time of Buddha, the Brahmins of India had jealously reserved occult knowledge as the appanage of their own caste. Exceptions were occasionally made in favor of Tshatryas, but the rule was exclusive in a very high degree. This rule Buddha broke down, admitting all castes equally to the path of adeptship. The change may have been perfectly right in principle, but it paved the way for a great deal of trouble, and as the Brahmins conceived for the degradation of occult knowledge itself, that is to say, its transfer to unworthy hands, — not unworthy merely because of caste inferiority, but because of the moral inferiority which they conceived to be introduced into the occult fraternity, together with brothers of low birth. The Brahmin contention would not by any means be that because a man should be a Brahmin it followed that he was necessarily virtuous and trustworthy; but the argument would be: It is supremely necessary to keep out all but the virtuous and trustworthy from the secrete and powers of initiation. To that end it is necessary not only to set up all the ordeals, probations, and tests we can think of, but also to take no candidates except from the class which, on the whole, by reason of its hereditary advantages, is likely to be the best nursery of fit candidates.

Later experience is held on all hands now to have gone far towards vindicating the Brahmin apprehension...

-- Esoteric Buddhism, by A.P. Sinnett, President of the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society


The Theosophical Society three chief objectives were:

"(1) To form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood without distinction of race, creed, sex, (or) caste.

(2) To study ancient and modern religions, philosophy, and science,

(3) To investigate unexplained laws of nature and latent psychic powers." [10]


The Theosophical Society pledged to

"aid in the institution of a brotherhood of humanity, wherein all good and pure men of every race shall receive each other as the equal effects of the Uncreated, Universal, Infinite, and Everlasting Cause." [11]


Ariosophists such as Guido von List and Adolf Josef Lanz [Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels] perverted Theosophical tenets by claiming that Germans belonged to the superior Aryan race and had a divine right to rule sub-men such as Slavs, Negroes, Semites, etc. Lanz's Ostara magazine preached that Germany's master race must never intermarry with "fallen anthropoids." To do so would be to arrest Spiritual Evolution, and repeat the error of prehistoric Lemurians, whose civilization died out as a result of miscegenation.

[T]he astral prototypes of the lower beings of the animal kingdom of the Fourth Round, which preceded (the chhayas of) Men, were the consolidated, though still very ethereal sheaths of the still more ethereal forms or models produced at the close of the Third Round on Globe D. [215] “Produced from the residue of the substance matter; from dead bodies of men and (other extinct) animals of the wheel before,” or the previous Third Round — as Stanza 24 tells us. Hence, while the nondescript “animals” that preceded the astral man at the beginning of this life-cycle on our Earth were still, so to speak, the progeny of the man of the Third Round, the mammalians of this Round owe their existence, in a great measure, to man again. Moreover, the “ancestor” of the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the direct production of the yet mindless Man, who desecrated his human dignity by putting himself physically on the level of an animal….

Ay, but that “primeval man” was man only in external form. He was mindless and soulless at the time he begot, with a female animal monster, the forefather of a series of apes….

Perchance in these specimens, Haeckelians might recognize, not the Homo primigenius, but some of the lower tribes, such as some tribes of the Australian savages. Nevertheless, even these are not descended from the anthropoid apes, but from human fathers and semi-human mothers, or, to speak more correctly, from human monsters — those “failures” mentioned in the first Commentary. The real anthropoids, Haeckel’s Catarrhini and Platyrrhini, came far later, in the closing times of Atlantis. The orang-outang, the gorilla, the chimpanzee and cynocephalus are the latest and purely physical evolutions from lower anthropoid mammalians. They have a spark of the purely human essence in them; man on the other hand, has not one drop of pithecoid blood in his veins.….

These “Men” of the Third Race — the ancestors of the Atlanteans — were just such ape-like, intellectually senseless giants as were those beings, who, during the Third Round, represented Humanity. Morally irresponsible, it was these third Race “men” who, through promiscuous connection with animal species lower than themselves, created that missing link which became ages later (in the tertiary period only) the remote ancestor of the real ape as we find it now in the pithecoid family. [150]...

A naturalist suggests another difficulty. The human is the only species which, however unequal in its races, can breed together. “There is no question of selection between human races,” say the anti-Darwinists, and no evolutionist can deny the argument — one which very triumphantly proves specific unity. How then can Occultism insist that a portion of the Fourth Race humanity begot young ones from females of another, only semi-human, if not quite an animal, race, the hybrids resulting from which union not only bred freely but produced the ancestors of the modern anthropoid apes? Esoteric science replies to this that it was in the very beginnings of physical man. Since then, Nature has changed her ways, and sterility is the only result of the crime of man’s bestiality….

But this was when Africa had already been raised as a continent. We have meanwhile to follow, as closely as limited space will permit, the gradual evolution of the now truly human species. It is in the suddenly arrested evolution of certain sub-races, and their forced and violent diversion into the purely animal line by artificial cross-breeding, truly analogous to the hybridization, which we have now learned to utilize in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, that we have to look for the origin of the anthropoids. In these red-haired and hair-covered monsters, the fruit of the unnatural connection between men and animals, the “Lords of Wisdom” did not incarnate, as we see. Thus by a long series of transformations due to unnatural cross-breeding (unnatural “sexual selection”), originated in due course of time the lowest specimens of humanity; while further bestiality and the fruit of their first animal efforts of reproduction begat a species which developed into mammalian apes ages later....

For surely, it was not in or through the wickedness of the “mighty men” . . . . men of renown, among whom is placed Nimrod the “mighty hunter before the Lord,” that “god saw that the wickedness of man was great,” nor in the builders of Babel, for this was after the Deluge; but in the progeny of the giants who produced monstra quaedam de genere giganteo, monsters from whence sprang the lower races of men, now represented on earth by a few miserable dying-out tribes and the huge anthropoid apes….

The monsters bred in sin and shame by the Atlantean giants, “blurred copies” of their bestial sires, and hence of modern man (Huxley), now mislead and overwhelm with error the speculative Anthropologist of European Science…

[T]he bestiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters — the offspring of human and animal parents. As time rolled on, and the still semi-astral forms consolidated into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were modified by external conditions, until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower apes of the Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the “Mindless” — this time with full responsibility. The resultants of their crime were the species of apes now known as Anthropoid

On the data furnished by modern science, physiology, and natural selection, and without resorting to any miraculous creation, two negro human specimens of the lowest intelligence — say idiots born dumb — might by breeding produce a dumb Pastrana species, which would start a new modified race, and thus produce in the course of geological time the regular anthropoid ape….

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky




-- Hitler's Mentor: Dietrich Eckart, His Life, Times, & Milieu, by Joseph Howard Tyson


And possibly in our era “the brotherhood of man” will raise the hackles on many a feminist. Yet it is difficult to transmit visions into the future without some descriptive formulation. This has always been a problem for an institution like the Happy Valley Foundation (and later the School): not to be fettered by ideals, for too much formulation leads to rigidity and too little to a possible loss of the original sustaining vision and purpose.

Long before her death in 1938, it had been Sara Logan’s conviction, which she had shared with Robert, that Rosalind should be given the independence and opportunity to fulfill her own potential. In the Happy Valley Board meeting of May 1943, Robert proposed that Rosalind Rajagopal be elected trustee to fill Major Myers’ place. Rosalind was just forty at the time, much younger than any of the other trustees, and not a practicing Theosophist (although she had been given a life membership some twenty years before by her sister Erma). While most of the board went along with Robert’s wishes he met with strong opposition from George Hall on the grounds that Rosalind was not a Theosophist, nor could he perceive any other qualifications to recommend her. She was however, elected. She was already a member of the Ojai Valley School Board where she had come to know and admire the educationalist Edward Yeomans. This association would prove to be more fruitful to Happy Valley than any of the trustees could have yet imagined.

[color=#000080]
Ojai Valley School is a co-educational independent boarding school in the Ojai Valley near the city of Ojai, California, United States. The school was founded in 1911 and offers pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education.

The motto of the school is Integer Vitae. In English it means, "wholeness of life" or "symmetry of life".

Ojai Valley School was one of the first boarding schools in the Western United States to establish English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for all ability levels.

The school is located on two campuses in the Ojai Valley. The Lower Campus, located near downtown Ojai, enrolls day and resident students in grades pre-kindergarten to eight. The facilities include a performing arts center, cottage-style classrooms, dormitories, library, art studio, woodshop, technology center, athletic fields, a swimming pool, and stables for the equestrian program.

The Upper Campus, located seven miles (11 km) from downtown Ojai, is nestled amid orange groves and rolling hills in the east of the valley in Upper Ojai. The 195 acres (0.79 km2) campus enrolls day and resident students in grades nine to twelve. The campus is situated on a former cattle ranch and features dormitories, classrooms, athletic fields, climbing wall and ropes course, a swimming pool, as well as art and ceramics studios. [The Happy Valley School] The academic program on both campuses is challenging and well-rounded, encouraging students to explore their interests, know themselves, and develop a respect for others. Students participate in outdoor education, equestrian, fine and performing arts programs, as well as athletics and community service.

In the early part of the 20th century, an Eastern couple settled in the Ojai Valley and opened a small private school. Edward Yeomans, a Chicagoan educated at Phillips Academy and Princeton University, had written a series of articles in the Atlantic Monthly on the need for educational reform. The articles caught the eye of a wealthy businessman, Frank Frost, who persuaded Yeomans to move to Ojai and create a school that would embody his modern ideas.

At the core of Yeomans’ beliefs was the concept that children learn best through experience. Yeomans considered his own education to have been dull and stifling, and wanted to establish a school that would emphasize experiential learning and a love for the outdoors. He envisioned a place where music, art, and woodshop would be taught alongside math, history, and languages. Yeomans declared that “Integer Vitae” – meaning the wholeness of life, symmetry of life, and soundness of life would become the school’s motto and philosophy. The school has grown from a one-room classroom serving 12 pupils to a two-campus boarding and day school for more than 300 students in pre-kindergarten to 12th grades.

-- Ojai Valley School, by Wikipedia


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Rosalind Rajagopal, c. 1943

Rosalind had always had a strong will, as her family well knew, but during a period of close association with Annie Besant, she was given a rare opportunity to learn to have faith in her own vision and judgment. In 1925 as they traveled together through India, and shared a cabin on the return voyage to England, Rosalind observed firsthand the enormous courage of Annie Besant and how this characteristic enabled her to follow her instincts and convictions without being derailed by tedious reasoning. Annie Besant was renowned in her time for her ability to transcend the distinctions between intuition and reason and to deliver written or spoken arguments that could sway the English Parliament.

Rosalind, on the other hand, was never comfortable with words, though she was surrounded by some of the most eloquent people on earth. But she did not allow this drawback to hamper her. What others called logic she might call “specious reasoning” which she perceived as a string of excuses to drag feet and delay action. For the next forty years the Happy Valley Board would cope with this combination of vision, will and courage: qualities – combined in a very different personality – that had made possible the original acquisition of the land. Both Robert and Louis recognized a good mover and shaker, and they backed Rosalind with patience and tolerance for the rest of their lives. Later, they would often comment that once Rosalind came on the board things began to happen.

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Part 3 of 5

V. The Greening of Happy Valley

The first of these happenings was at the end of World War II when there came to Ojai an Englishman called Felix Greene, a member of the Vedantist circle in Los Angeles that included Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood and Gerald Heard. He came with his wife, the lovely Elena with her green eyes and long braids – who had been born in Mexico and would be the Spanish teacher at the future Happy Valley School. Felix contracted with the Happy Valley Foundation to build an Adobe House, the first dwelling on Happy Valley besides the old Tucker farm buildings. It was said that no one had ever lived on this land, that it had been sacred to the Chumash.

The precise reasons why Felix came to Happy Valley and why eventually he left are lost in the memories of the dead. Written records offer incomplete clues, although there may have been private, unrecorded conversations. Nonetheless, much is learned by reading the chronological sequence of events in the form of correspondence vis à vis the Greene affair.19 The ultimate demise of this project demonstrates the pitfalls of allowing high ideals and sympathies, no matter how eloquently expressed, to eclipse the importance of clearly stated and well understood contractual arrangements that will insure consensus in decision making on the board. The combining of these elements into a coherently formulated course of action takes a very fine hand indeed.

Since this project was, as usual, funded personally by Louis and Robert, the initial agreement with the Greenes was negotiated by them. There was tremendous enthusiasm on both sides, unhampered by cautionary intimations of future misunderstandings that would occur. Felix, possibly assuming an emphasis on the spiritual atmosphere of Happy Valley rather than the mundane practicalities of establishing a sound base for future negotiations, confined his initial correspondence to this vein. He was not, at that point, challenged by the board to clarify his specific intentions or projections of his vision for the project.

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Gathering at the old barn, Happy Valley, 1946, Byron Casselberry (with dog), Erma Williams, Rajagopal and Rosalind, Felix Greene, George Hall, Elena Greene, Robert Logan, Louis Zalk

In the summer of 1945, Felix and Elena set up camp on Happy Valley land and, with volunteer help from friends of Happy Valley, proceeded to make adobe bricks from the soil on site, as well as to design the structure. The Greenes were newlyweds and there was a strong aura of romance over this project, for they were a handsome and charismatic couple. Great hope surged in the hearts of some Happy Valley trustees and friends that at last a true community was on the horizon. There was a flurry of life and activity on this land that had lain undisturbed since time out of mind except for the occasional tractor work of Tucker and the annual harvesting of walnuts. And yet – always the setbacks and hurdles. The first hurdle was learning how to make the bricks.

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The old barn, 1997, which Sean Wellesly-Miller shared with a barn owl while he worked on the Bio-shelter, later a faculty apartment, until the county condemned it

Evidently Louis, who had a well developed practical side to his character, had asked Felix for some sort of progress report on the building. Felix promptly responded with a detailed account of the first step: that of making adobe bricks from the soil at hand. He described the meticulous following of written instructions by so-called experts, resulting in thousands of pieces of cracked bricks; binding the clay with barley straw – which didn’t work, then with wheat straw – which did; when to mix in the sand and when the emulsion (each brick contained 1 quart of oil in the emulsion, still a costly and scarce product in 1945); protection from the wind, enough sun but not too much, regulating the drying time. For the brick-making phase, in addition to the volunteers, Felix had hired a couple of men at $1 per hour or $20 per day for the two, which put a strain on the agreed upon budget of $4,000, for the completion of the house. By the end of summer, however, the brick-making was complete and construction ready to begin.

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Tucker’s farm house, 1997, now Happy Valley School faculty house

The Greenes had truly roughed it through the summer, with far from delicious water pumped up from the ranch well, the heat, the heavy labor and then another even more troublesome situation. From the start Felix had many visitors, some of whose interest was helpful and supportive but some with an aloof and silent watchfulness that Felix found perplexing if not unnerving. One of these was the tenant farmer Tucker who would drop by and then leave without comment, at one point dumping a pile of earth between his and the Greene’s “reservations.” Others were George Hall, and several Happy Valley trustees, as well as an assortment of individuals, officially and unofficially connected to Happy Valley.

After having refused, over the past two decades, so many zealous Theosophists the opportunity to start a community there was a question in the minds of some as to why an “outsider” like Felix Greene should be awarded this privilege. Louis did his best to smooth over this ripple before it became a tidal wave.

Oct. 4, 1945

My dear Felix and Elena,

You have by this time sensed the situation as to Happy Valley, insofar as it relates to the personalities making up the trustees. There is a tendency to lose sight of the fact that the trustees must not smother the Ideal. This piece of land was dedicated to an Ideal. I am afraid that two of our trustees are weighed down with a type of worldly caution which, at the best is out of place now. However, you have probably grasped by this time that kindly and firmly we must not let them obstruct the beginning we are making. I think we are all proceeding in a sane and safe manner…the reality is that we are in the process of turning a tenant farm, which is utterly meaningless to the people who gave so much, into a real beginning along the lines on which this whole thing was intended.

Sincerely, Louis Zalk


Felix had an evident talent for charming and reassuring his critics and by October of 1945, he was able to report that George Hall had dropped his reserve and had even brought up some surveying tools to help line up the house. Felix’s description of him as an aggrieved and suspicious character (not unlike the view expressed by Frank Gerard twenty years earlier) was now modified to portray a lonely but friendly man ready to put his shoulder to the stone.

Louis observed:

I am very glad that you had this talk with George Hall. I think the trouble in many cases springs from the fact that people have really had no business experience in any important enterprise which takes initiative and resourcefulness. The head of any successful business would tell you that its most cherished associates were those who do not stop to ask permission at every stage but opportunities are seized and things done which any reasonable Board of Directors who desired the good of the business would ratify and reward the doers…


Tucker’s odd behavior also melted away. Perhaps he had wondered at first if he, the tenant farmer, and also the former owner of this land, was being supplanted, which of course was the ultimate aim – for the Happy Valley Foundation to resume full operation of the land – but that was still off in the future and Tucker soon became a helpful and congenial neighbor to the Greenes, even a good buddy, discussing his family history and exchanging anecdotes with them at the end of a long, hot, laborious summer’s day. Felix attributed this change of heart to the atmosphere of Happy Valley but more likely it was due to the same charm and conviviality of the Greenes that had won over George Hall.

But then, a few weeks later, still more ripples. Felix complained of the increasing stream of people and suggestions coming his way. One can imagine that working all day in the heat of a late Ojai summer and then enduring the ideological tentacles of those who may or may not have official ties to Happy Valley, would challenge the patience of Job.

Again Louis tried to alleviate the tension in a late October letter to Felix.

I had heard from Erma of certain disturbances in the mental atmosphere surrounding our project.

I think we all know that criticism and gossip would be inevitable in such a project as ours – one that has such a background – one on which so many people have set their mind, especially people who justifiably think they are entitled to something, for one reason or another. Personally I feel not in the least bit sensitive to criticism at this stage. We are going forward sanely and slowly. We had all originally agreed to make no plan – no blue print – but to let the thing develop from the basis of the truly spiritual motive which was its original inspiration. Criticisms are inevitable. We will meet them tolerantly and kindly.

As ever, Louis Zalk


Simultaneously, perhaps defensively, Felix was forming his own views of those who should belong to this new undertaking and those who should not; and what should be the ideological basis for this experiment. Some of his statements bear a close parallel to Annie Besant’s in her description of the socio/industrial world. He recognized in the present era, the longing of many sensitive people for respite from conflict and competition. But he expressed doubts about the understanding and seriousness of the hopefuls now swarming about his adobe. He implied that he should be involved if not decisive in choosing the participants in the projected community. The very talk of a community was premature to the cautious steps advocated at this point by Louis and Robert and as such presented to their board. With hindsight one can sense the beginning of the rift that would develop. Louis was too bedeviled by the dissenting Happy Valley Board members to see it coming. On the same day he wrote to Erma

I think he (Felix) is being much disturbed… but I feel that with the support of Robert and you and Rosalind we will simply go forward regardless of these petty critical attitudes. We have done nothing whatsoever to cause any excitement. We have not taken over the management of the farm – we have made no employment contract with Felix – we have simply first permitted someone to camp on the grounds and later two of the trustees are putting up the money to build a little house… (which) provides the necessary basis for the smooth flow of taking over the property in a very orderly way by permitting Felix, or anyone else who might be in that house, to study the operation of the place before we take over… Two trustees were absent. I admit that there was a discourtesy in not advising them… One had to be there to understand that we had to act promptly especially when Robert and I agreed to underwrite Felix’s living expenses… And we put up our own money… the building of that house does not obligate Happy Valley or its trustees to do anything. If the trustees refuse to sanction the taking over of the farm…we will not take it over at all unless Felix proves to us all that he is ready and capable of managing it… We are not starting any community project when we take over the place. I do not feel like being swayed in all this by uninformed people regardless of whether they have contributed or not.


Louis continued to give Felix his support both morally and financially, always with the approval and involvement of Robert.

November 10th, 1945

Dear Louis,

I have your interesting letter of the 15th and it seems to me very important that the Greenes should be enabled to get their shelter before winter sets in. Perhaps we could contribute this $400 not as a loan to Happy Valley but as support for Felix and Elena.

I do feel encouraged about the present nutty outlook for Happy Valley (where the nuts will come from and go to) but I cannot help feeling that your super-optimism in this day of the Atomic bomb, must indicate a stage of liberation to which I shall never attain!

Faithfully, Robert

January 13th, 1946

Dear Louis,

…I enclose my check for $500 toward the building of the house for the Greenes. It seems to me that if the Happy Valley can pay for the house and the road it would be better policy to let it do so, but that if it should prove too great a burden, we should then make it a gift.

Affectionately, Robert

February 1, 1946

Dear Robert,

In my last conversation with Felix Greene, there came up the problem of personal expenses for him and Elena and he suggested that we give him a monthly allowance of $200. He told me that he and Elena had some minor obligations to take care of as part of their worldly burdens. I will arrange to give them $100 a month and hope you will also until the happy day we can have our own harvest take care of this.

With kindest regards, as ever, Louis


In May 1946, the clarification process began. The Happy Valley Board met with Felix and formally asked him if he would take charge of the walnut orchard. Felix declined, while admitting that he had only been entertaining such a plan for the past months as a step toward establishing a community. He made it clear that he had no expertise and very little interest in agriculture per se. He recognized the wisdom of having gone slow and sparingly on exact blueprints for the future of a Happy Valley community but now felt compelled to ask what kind of community it was to be. He enumerated many possibilities: seeking an alternative to an intolerable materialistic/competitive system, developing a right relationship to the soil, being free of personal possessiveness in a collective life style, a harmless life style, creating an artistic center, and an educational center – or, a combination of all of these. But above all he stressed that an inner and “primary purpose” must take precedence over everything. He doubted that the board shared his and Elena’s “primary” purpose and therefore offered to finish the house and put it at the board’s disposal, perhaps renting it for a short time before departing from Happy Valley.

No written documentation of Felix and Elena’s “primary purpose” has come to light. Since no references were made, by any correspondent, to possible verbal discussions of this subject, it appears that there was no further clarification.

The correspondence from then on for the next two and a half years, before Felix and Elena finally left for good, became increasingly formal.

May 18, 1946

Dear Felix:

This is an official letter authorized by the Trustees of the Happy Valley Foundation. Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of May 11th, giving a detailed report of the construction of an Adobe House on Happy Valley by you and under your direction.

We are fully aware of the construction difficulties prevailing at this time and therefore all the more appreciate the splendid work you and Elena have done. The total cost of $4947.10 is very modest under these circumstances and the difference of $947.10 above the $4000 already advanced by Mr. Logan and me will be refunded to you.

As evidence of the appreciation of your efforts by the Board of Trustees, I am authorized to offer you the use of this house as your dwelling for a period of a year free of all rental. You are to enjoy full freedom in this as your private home, including having guests.

However, since this is an official letter, which will become part of the records of the Happy Valley Foundation, it is understood that no other person excepting you and Elena have the status of residency on Happy Valley for the period of this occupancy without the consent of the Trustees.

Very truly yours,

Happy Valley Foundation, by Louis Zalk

September 5, 1946

Dear Felix,

…It might be well that you and Elena and I have a talk together about personal matters. I know that this carries along with it the risks of even further misunderstandings since words are almost always inadequate in places where we want them to be most revealing, but I believe it is worth-while trying…

Sincerely yours, Louis Zalk


By May of 1947, the Greenes still expressed no inclination to leave Happy Valley. Elena had been teaching Spanish in the new Happy Valley School. Louis was authorized by the board to offer another year’s lease subject to cancellation on ninety days notice and for $40 dollars a month as a nominal rent. Felix refused the offer as well as the rental, but still left the departure date indeterminate, or at least dependent upon finding another place to live. There was no further explanation of their reasons for severing their association with Happy Valley, although there was the implication that at some future date the reasons would be shared with friends in common.

Two months later, Felix decided to accept the rental terms offered, also emphasizing that, because of their commitment to the project, they had put in fruit trees and landscaping at their own expense and without caution or regard to their own security. The suggestion of paying rent appeared to have shocked them at first, but now they were prepared to pay whatever the board deemed fair. At the same time Felix made it clear that the questions of rent, departure dates, etc. were trivial and had nothing to do with the real problem which was the failure to have had a “candid and wholesome relationship.” There is pathos in this letter and in Felix’s equating the lack of harmony between him and the Happy Valley Board with worldly contentions and strifes, a poignant commentary in light of the latest conflagration from which the world was just beginning to recover. In other words did he mean, what hope is there for the world if a few peace loving idealists on a place called Happy Valley cannot settle their grievances and discords without such bitterness as he now felt? It would seem that this was more or less the meaning the board took.

August 11, 1947

Dear Felix,

Your letter of July 13th was read and discussed by the Trustees of the Happy Valley Foundation.

First of all we wish to tell you that we all deeply regret the attitude expressed in your letter of May 1, 1946, and which seems to continue to this moment. It revealed your lack of sympathy with our ideals and purpose. We, as Trustees, can be guided only by the ideals with which our project began. On various occasions you have expressed yourself as being out of harmony with the Trustees and their objectives, so it would seem that there is nothing to be done, but to part company as far as this project is concerned. However we hope that this will not detract from our friendship or mutual respect.

As to the matter connected with your work on the house, plus the material you have purchased after June 1, 1946 you state that you have no claims and that you did things because you felt a part of the enterprise. The Trustees are deeply sensitive to this generous spirit on your part. Under the circumstances, especially since you have now decided to look for another home, The Board wishes to give some further recognition of your contribution in addition to your rent free occupancy of Happy Valley and the financial help given to you personally from the beginning by Mr. Logan and me because of our interest in Happy Valley. As evidence of their appreciation, they have voted you the sum of $1000 and it is given you with their hearty good wishes.

By Louis Zalk, President, The Happy Valley Foundation

October 18, 1947

Dear Felix,

…In view of your present need due to the coming visit of your mother, we have decided to postpone the plans we made for the use of the house which you are now occupying and we are willing to grant you another six months occupancy from November 1, 1947 to May 1, 1948. Because of your generous attitude in the past the trustees have decided to charge you no rent from June 1 of this year until November 1 but thereafter the nominal rent of $25 per month.

Sincerely, Louis Zalk,

April 7, 1948

Dear Felix,

By unanimous agreement of the Trustees I am authorized to purchase the items listed in your letter at the prices you suggest to a total of $205.

However in reference to your request that you be permitted to move some of the trees and plants we sincerely regret that we have to disappoint you in this, but we will be glad to compensate you for the original cost of any of the trees which in your letter you propose to move. In coming to this decision, we are sure you will understand that we are not concerned with the commercial value of these trees, but that we are reluctant to disturb trees which have already taken root.

With kind regards to you and Elena

Sincerely, Louis Zalk,
President, The Happy Valley Foundation


The final communication from Felix was in August 1948 when he commented on the denial of his request to transplant the fruit trees. He went on to claim that since their departure from Happy Valley, the trees were dying and showed no signs of care. But the most disturbing part of this letter was his criticism of the divisive behavior of several members of the Happy Valley Board. A useful commentary follows. He suggested that: “in accepting a position on the Board of Trustees each member assumes responsibility for all that the Board does or fails to do and he remains responsible, both collectively and individually as long as he remains a member.” This excellent piece of advice was followed by a less pleasant admonition. Felix reminded the trustees of their duty to former contributors to the foundation and warned that should he feel it right to do so, he would share the body of correspondence between himself and the individual trustees, with such rightfully interested persons, that they may judge how well Dr. Besant’s purposes were being fulfilled.

George Ragan responded to Felix’s charges by visiting the site in person and reporting back to Louis.

August 19, 1948

Dear Louis,

This morning I took another trip up to the house and there sat Felix with a hose watering a tree and right behind came Sparks on the same mission.


[Sparks was the Happy Valley foreman, who had been hired to undertake Tucker’s former duties. Predictably this name gave rise to a stream of puns, between Louis and Robert such as: “let’s hope Sparks won’t fly.”]

Being of a nature direct, I had them both accompany me in checking the trees which had died – Sparks having told me the day before that the dead trees in question had died before Felix left the house, and Felix claiming they had not. Voila! It’s precisely like the Red Spy trials in Washington, one of them is off the beam, who can tell who is right.

I counted all the dead trees… none in the orchard had died and none will. Then Felix and I had an hour discussion while Sparks went on watering. He and Felix differ radically on how often the trees should be watered, in fact they differ hugely on everything. Sparks happens to have had a deal of experience with fruit trees – their habits – their need for water… Felix claims he knows even more so they are irreconcilable.

About every two minutes came the wonder to me what in the world was Felix doing up there anyhow, why this immense concern over the trees?… But I am convinced about one thing. The Board will have “a case” on its hands… by “a case” I do not mean a legal one I mean a “problem child” case.

As ever faithfully, George [Ragan]


And this outspoken reaction from good old George Hall – still the curmudgeon and with ill-concealed criticism of how the situation had been handled by Louis and Rosalind – yet ultimately displaying full support.

Aug. 19, 1948

Dear Louis,

…The threat Felix made in his letter and which he voiced to me privately when he called me to the house just before he vacated, convinces me that I do not understand him. When I first met him and his wife I fell in love with them both but this threatening the Trustees does not harmonize at all with my previous opinion of him.

The personal relationships that may or may not have existed between the Greenes and you and Rosalind were apparently wrong somewhere since they have resulted so disastrously, but the more the Board can avoid being involved in these misunderstandings, the better, as I see it. I have not told Felix what I think someone should have told him; namely that the lack of a definite understanding in writing of the arrangement under which he and Elena were to enter on H.V. property was just as much his own fault as it could have been the fault of the officers of H.V. That relationship was definitely & necessarily a business relationship and a definite and specific business agreement should have been made at the start. I hold myself equally responsible with all Trustees for this neglect. Perhaps I am the most to blame for relinquishing an unofficial position of management which I had held from the beginning until this Greene matter so unobtrusively and subtly slipped into the picture… I do not consider that it is any business of F.G. what goes on at H.V. He isn’t even a Theosophist and there has been plenty of complaining in the past about Tucker running the ranch because he was not a Theosophist. But in all our years with Tucker we never had the slightest misunderstanding or bad feeling and today he is our friend. And even if F.G. could devise a method of publishing the correspondence as threatened, it would reflect more discredit on him than on the Trustees. We have made honest mistakes but we have not violated all the principles of friendship and good fellowship so prominently advocated by the teachings of Theosophy.

Lastly we owe no apology to F.G. We can let all the trees die and leave the house empty without having to account for such action to him… I hope it may be the last of these painful contacts.

Yours as ever with my love, George [Hall]

August 24, 1948

Dear Felix,

This is in reply to your communication of August 16th addressed to the Trustees of the Happy Valley Foundation.

We welcome any criticisms and suggestions if they be friendly and constructive, but we are sorry to note that there is a decidedly unfriendly tone to your letter.

Speaking for the Trustees and with their approval, I must affirm that our business relationship with you connected with the Happy Valley Foundation was terminated some time ago by mutual consent, and therefore we cannot understand your continued preoccupation with affairs which are properly the business of the Trustees.

Sincerely

Louis Zalk, President Happy Valley Foundation


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Louis Zalk, Ojai, c. 1950

Louis had one final and memorable statement on this whole business – an admonition to his trustees and those of the future.

TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE HAPPY VALLEY FOUNDATION

In Felix Greene’s communication of August 16 there appeared the following paragraph:

“Invariably in the past after the President has written us a letter or the Board has come to a decision affecting our future on Happy Valley, individual members of the Board would come to us and say: ‘Really, I had nothing to do with this’… or ‘so and so deals with these matters, so I couldn’t say anything’… or ‘I am only a junior trustee and so leave it to the others’ ”

Unfortunately I have reason to think that to some extent at least this criticism is justified.

There is the important thing called “Trustee Loyalty”, which means that among ourselves we may have differences of opinions and discussions before we come to a conclusion. But surely it is most unwise to give outsiders any picture of a disunity of the Board – when in fact this has not been the case.

I ask those who may have been inadvertently responsible for the above criticism given by Felix Greene to go into a quiet session with themselves and see the rather undignified role they have played in such an attitude as well as the sorry picture they have presented of the Board.

Furthermore, I unhesitatingly say that if any Trustee feels that he has to apologise for the majority action of the Board, that in self-respect he should promote the election of new members and officers of the Board; or himself resign.

Louis Zalk,
President of the Happy Valley Foundation


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Gathering at Adobe House, 1948 (front) Rosalind Rajagopal, Robert Logan, Margot Morrow (Wilkie) Eleanor and George Ragan (back) Radha Rajagopal, David Weidemann, James Sloss

In the end, in spite of all the disappointment and the transparent bitterness in Felix’s heart, the Greenes left behind a unique and beautiful house that stands today, much as they had created it. It has housed a Happy Valley School director, foundation secretary/treasurers and been the repository of foundation files for nearly fifty years. In a sense, Adobe House was the embryo of a community that was not ready to be born. But there has been continual growth, as the need arises, ever since.

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Adobe House, 1997

VI. Nuts, Bolts, and Principles

Practical Dealings with the Spiritually Minded


By 1943 Tucker was still running the walnut ranch on a basis of an annual rent of twenty percent of the gross and a minimum $1000. Running the ranch involved more than picking walnuts. The well and pump had to be kept functioning and a drying and storage shed erected, as well as periodic new plantings. Two hundred and fifty new walnut trees were planted in 1944.

The primary goal of the trustees was to assume control of the ranch management which had been, though not clearly stated, the underlying reason for the whole Greene venture. The minutes of a special meeting on May 10, 1946 reflect a full discussion on this subject: “The Trustees unanimously decided that they could not delegate this responsibility, and that all developments be carried out under the supervision and control of the Board itself ”20. Felix’s May 1, 1946 letter had convinced the trustees that the Greene’s activities on Happy Valley should be limited to the completion of the house and a further year’s rent-free occupancy.

Willie Weidemann, brother-in-law of Rosalind and Rajagopal, was running the Arya Vihara orange ranch as well as Logan’s adjacent orchard and the Logan/Zalk joint venture, a 20-acre orange grove at the west end of Ojai Valley. So it was natural that Willie should be asked to take on management of the Happy Valley walnut orchard on behalf of the Board of Trustees. The termination of Tucker’s lease was negotiated amicably on both sides and the long standing relationship with Tucker was now ended. Under Willie’s competent management, revenues increased (a good year brought in as much as $30,000) averaging out well enough to pay running expenses and taxes.

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Rajagopal, Louis Zalk, Robert Logan, c. 1945 “practical dealings”

The camp buildings that Louis and Robert had bought from Krishnamurti Writings Inc. were still vacant and waiting for a good use. Rosalind suggested that one of the bath houses be converted to apartments as a source of income for the owners (Logan and Zalk) until a specific purpose for the former camp land might emerge.

December 17, 1945

Dear Louis,

I have your letter of December 11th and note instructions to Willie about bath houses 3 and 2… If anyone swims out of these bath houses with a clear mathematical picture of my two-thirds and one-half and your one-half and one-third, it will be Albert Einstein. No one else would have a chance!

Faithfully, Robert


Indeed the “specific purpose” was already emerging. For some years Rosalind had been a board member of the Ojai Valley School, which her daughter, Radha, had attended for the past five years. This school had originally been based on Edward Yeomans’ precepts of non-competitiveness in classroom and sports, tolerance and a free and open mind. These ideas, combined with many of Krishnamurti’s, would find resonance in the educational policies of Happy Valley.

In 1945, the war just over, there was a ninth grade class at the Ojai Valley School, wondering where they would go the following year. Wallace Burr, the headmaster of Ojai Valley School took Rosalind aside and suggested that in view of all the murmurings about a “someday” Happy Valley School, this would be a good time to get started. The murmurings soon developed into very solid discussions and by spring of 1946 definite plans had been formulated to open a new co-educational boarding high school, with grades ten through twelve, in the fall.


In 1943 Robert had expressed his feeling that a community would grow around a school rather than a farm, and in the midst of a second world war he felt more strongly than ever the role that education should play:

The Happy Valley must be a nursery for that true peace which can only come through understanding and government, through sympathy and not through domination… the opposite of the conception of mechanization and regimentation, which has been dominating the world of business and politics, and creating not only the war, but the war of daily life.


The bath house was converted as planned; but instead of Logan and Zalk being the beneficiaries of rental income they became once more financial underpinnings, this time for the school which would occupy their real estate. It would serve for the experiment that Robert Logan had so wisely suggested should take place off the Happy Valley land for a testing period. No one probably remembered that advice at this point. It was simply the only feasible way to get started as there were no funds and not enough time to make an all new beginning up at Happy Valley. Building materials were still in extremely short supply, as were many food products. This made the idea of setting up a new kitchen for a boarding school daunting to say the least. However the momentum for getting the school started by the fall of 1946, so as not to lose the ninth graders graduating from Ojai Valley School, greatly outstripped all these obstacles. There was no way a dormitory could be finished over the summer, yet enthusiasm for the project was unanimous on the Happy Valley Foundation Board.

Special Meeting, July 29, 1946

Such a school is in keeping with the original intent of Dr. Besant. It has always been the accepted idea of the Trustees that there is a moral obligation on their part to create such a school as soon as such a project became feasible.

It was generally agreed that a school, embodying Dr. Besant’s ideas in education, and the people who would inevitably gather around it, would help forward the community and cultural ideals for which the Foundation was originally created.

Resolved that:

The school is to be known as “The Happy Valley School”.

The Board of Trustees of The Happy Valley Foundation is to retain the legal ownership of this school and be completely responsible for it financially, but that the organization and management of the school shall be in charge of a School Board, one member of which shall always be one of the Trustees of the Happy Valley Foundation.

Mrs. Rosalind Rajagopal be elected a member of the School Board. Dr. Guido Ferrando be elected as Head of the School in charge of its educational and cultural activities.21


Guido Ferrando, a retired philosophy professor from Vassar College, had moved to Ojai Valley during the war. The Rajagopals had attended several series of his lectures on the American Transcendentalists and on the Divine Comedy. Dr. Ferrando had also entered into many discussions on education with Aldous Huxley, Krishnamurti, Rajagopal, and Rosalind, as well as several members of the Happy Valley Board. They had all come to agree on a Socratic method of teaching which advocated term papers rather than formal examinations, small classes arranged in a circle with questions and discussion rather than formal lecturing, a strong focus on the arts with full student participation, and a stress on learning to think. Huxley particularly emphasized that there be no barriers between different disciplines but an integration of subjects as well as cultures into a world view. An international student body was a basic goal from the onset.

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Rajagopal, Krishnamurti, Maria and Aldous Huxley, c. 1947 Puppies and principles

Not only must the educational structure of the school be established but the physical plant also had to be built. Various people among those who had been talking for years about a Happy Valley School were considered for both these tasks, among them Walter Hassall, who had been in the Theosophical center with Leadbeater in Australia in his youth. After serious talks however, Walter decided that he needed more substantial material benefits than Happy Valley could offer and he joined the public school system. Others of the same circle, like Byron Casselberry and Nell Ragan, were able to contribute administrative help but not the basic daily academic assistance that Dr. Ferrando needed. Finally Rosalind persuaded (Pete) Ogden Kellogg-Smith (who had been a popular teacher at Ojai Valley School but who had decided to return to the east coast), to come back to Ojai for at least six months. Pete, a graduate of St. John’s College known for its Great Books program, fitted in well with Happy Valley’s developing [b][size=130]educational philosophy.[/size][/b]

The aim is to prepare pupils for life and stress is to be placed on the harmonious development of the pupil. The purpose is to integrate knowledge in all fields and not give too much importance to dates and facts. Especially is it the purpose of the school to train students to use their minds and to think for themselves.22


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Happy Valley School, early 1950s former Star camp cafeteria

It looked as if there was hope that the old cafeteria building would be adequately converted to hold classes by October 1, the designated starting day, but what about a dormitory for the half dozen boarders who had been gleaned from every imaginable source? On September 22, just a week before the school would open, at a special meeting of the Happy Valley Foundation:

Mrs. Rosalind Rajagopal then announced that Mr. J. Krishnamurti and Mr. D. Rajagopal have generously offered the use of the main house at Arya Vihara, rent free, to be used as a dormitory for the first school year. It was then moved and seconded that the Trustees accept this kind offer, and that the Secretary be instructed to write a letter of thanks to Mr. J. Krishnamurti and Mr. D. Rajagopal for their cooperation with the school.23


Krishnamurti had planned to go abroad that year, otherwise, it is unlikely that this offer would have been made. But once made it was not feasible to withdraw it, even though he became gravely ill the day the first boarders arrived and was bedridden for the next six months. Rosalind, who had undertaken to run the kitchen and be a dorm mother, broke her ankle the next day (after Radha’s pet rooster, Hercules failed to recognize her and put his spur through her foot). Leg in a cast and on crutches, Rosalind had to nurse Krishnamurti, who would tolerate no other, as well as attend to the practicalities of running the boarding aspects of the school.

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Krishnamurti, Arya Vihara, 1946

Fortunately, in addition to Hercules, there were still hens, bees, a vegetable garden, and a cow at Arya Vihara left from the war years, so from the beginning, the quality of food was unusually high. The founders had decided that meat eaters should be accommodated, although the emphasis was naturally on a vegetarian diet. Rosalind, having studied nutrition, felt that an important part of young people’s education lay in developing a good dietary consciousness for health as well as an ethical outlook. A strictly vegetarian regime would discourage the attendance of non-vegetarians and thus deny many the opportunity for this exposure. So even in the strictly vegetarian home of Krishnamurti, meat was discreetly prepared in a separate kitchen.

The sense of community among the boarding students was enhanced by their participation in egg gathering, vegetable picking and carrying buckets of milk to be filtered and bottled. Breakfast and dinner were served at the dining table at Arya Vihara. This combination of participating in the production of and cleaning up after meals, and the formal sitting down to table and – after a moment of silence – sharing food and conversation was, to Rosalind’s surprise, a new experience to some of the students. It was soon recognized as an important element in the educational process.

Meanwhile a lease had been signed by Robert and Louis agreeing to rent their entire Meiners’ Oaks property to the Happy Valley Foundation “for $50.00 a month not to be paid so long as the school is not financially self-sustaining. [Also] the alterations agreed upon between Mr. Logan and Mrs. Rajagopal are to be completed at owner’s expense.” By 1948 this three-year lease was extended to ten years to “give stability to the school” and in October of 1949 Robert and Louis deeded over to the Happy Valley Foundation the buildings and grounds then comprising the Happy Valley School. (It may be noted how persuasively Rosalind’s nurturing of this embryonic school had taken place.) But aside from that, Logan and Zalk, those two great benefactors of Happy Valley, had, with considerable effort and the help and approval of the other Board members, won tax free status for the Happy Valley Foundation, retroactive to 1946. They were vigilant but non-interfering for the first growth years of the school in their support of the educational performance of those they had elected to run it. Having kept the land intact and solvent for over twenty years, the first vision of Annie Besant had materialized. Looking to the future Louis and Robert were constantly reminding each other of the crucial role they must play if the school were to survive.

Dear Robert,

. . . I note your fear as to my getting to heaven through the Happy Valley back door. The last time I went up through that back door, I collected enough brambles and foxtails to pay off the national debt. So far, my idea of heavenly developments on Happy Valley would be if we raised forty tons of walnuts this year and got about thirty cents per pound. But so far we are very short of rain indeed. There was an Indian chief who came to town the other day, and he caused a very minor sprinkle. I hope that he is still actively dancing around a spot in the ground and that Old Man Coyote will hear his invocations.

Now for spiritually minded people, it is a shame that the subject of money intrudes itself at every point. You know that together we owe $4000 on a mortgage on the second building. I am intending to clear up my share sometime this year since I do not like the smell of mortgages. I venture to say that you feel the same.


And a year later Louis wrote:

… May I suggest in the spirit of the deep friendship between us, that both of us, in our Wills, protect the future of the School, – just in case Karma uses the actor’s wooden hook and yanks us away from the stage before we meet?


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Aldous Huxley, c. 1950

After considerable discussion and soul-searching by members of the Happy Valley Foundation Board they felt confident that this was not to be “just another school along the lines of good progressive schools” but that Annie Besant’s description of the right type of education for Happy Valley had been honored.

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Happy Valley School performance, “Twelfth Night” 1947 Pamela Evans, Radha Rajagopal, Melvin Burckes

The school had opened on October 1, 1946 with ten students, three teachers and three dogs. George Ragan reported to Louis October 27:

The students are the happiest group I’ve ever seen – as likewise the dogs – from whose actions Robert renamed the school “The School of the Happy Dogs” when he visited.


The school board started with five members: Dr. Guido Ferrando, Wallace Burr, Aldous Huxley, Muriel Payne (from the Litchfield school in England) and Rosalind Rajagopal.

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Happy Valley School folk dance exhibition, 1950s

In the spring of that first year, both the teaching staff and the student body were increased. Elena Greene to teach Spanish, Alice Caldwell – a former concert pianist – music. Ronald Bennett, who was a member of the Checkov theater group that had settled in Ojai during the war and also a drama teacher at Ojai Valley School, joined part time and by June would produce scenes from Shakespeare that created a stir throughout the Ojai community, as Nell Ragan reported to Louis:

Had a large crowd down last night when the students put on their Shakespeare plays. They made a totally unexpected, startling and profound impression. Even I who see them every day was completely taken by surprise. The spontaneous applause nearly took the roof off… I know now that no sacrifice is too great for such a school which in one short year has produced right before our unsuspecting eyes such finished creative personalities as these… I noted that Rajagopal, Huxley and Krishnaji seemed just as taken unaware as the rest.


David Young joined as mathematics teacher but most important, he brought a level of folk dancing that would put the school in the forefront of this activity. Students made their own costumes for the various ethnic dances and participated in statewide exhibitions which brought acclaim to this new unknown school. Friday night folk dances also set a social pattern that linked the school to the community at large and precluded the desire for high school dating by drawing in young and old, teachers, parents, friends and students into a co-mingling of fun. The central room of the old cafeteria proved to be ideal for dancing, dramatics and music. A few years later, the renowned pianist Lili Kraus would declare the acoustics to be impeccable. Starting in 1952 as Guest Pianist at the Ojai Music Festival, Lili returned for many years to Ojai to give master classes and performances in that room. The level of inspiration that she brought through her music and her personality was inestimable. The overlapping circles that formed around the school provided a stream of visiting lecturers and performers, extracurricular activities which soon became a hallmark and a beacon (See: Appendices A and B).

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Lili Kraus, 1954

On the academic side, Dr. Ferrando provided an intellectual challenge, rarely offered high school students. Not everyone was able to follow the sometimes highflown discussions based on Plato or Ralph Waldo Emerson but no one escaped the challenge which was amply tempered by the gentle and tolerant manner of the professor. He was also a good sport, even when he was the victim of a boobytrapped darkroom, rigged with a bucket of water to keep out untimely intruders.

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Dr. Ferrando with students, early 1950s, David Christensen, Carol Bee, Jock van Dyke, Ann Kempe (Brand), Arthur Clemens, Kate Hughs

Work on the dormitory continued through the first school year and frantically through the following summer, bringing encouragement from Robert Logan.

August 1947

Dearest Rozzie [Rosalind],

Don’t work too hard nor worry too much… last year we had 12 pupils and no dormitory and this year we shall have 12 dormitories and no pupils which makes a perfect average…


***

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The second year opened with an increase in enrollment from the original ten to eighteen and the number of teachers to ten. Full time teachers received $2,500 per school year and part time teachers $3 per hour – three times what Felix had to pay his brick makers. In addition volunteer help would always be a strong tradition at Happy Valley. As school directors, Dr. Ferrando, followed by Rosalind, never accepted a salary and many other key persons such as Nell Ragan, the business manager, followed suit. The school would not have survived without this support from so many friends.

In June of 1948, due to ill health and an extended stay in Europe, Dr. Ferrando resigned from administrative responsibilities. The foundation appointed Nell Ragan, Rosalind, and David Young to an administrative committee. By November of 1949 a permanent director had not been found and Rosalind suggested that she search for someone to fill this position on her upcoming trip abroad. In her absence the school board appointed Howard Pattee, general secretary of the independent secondary school system of California, as general counselor to the school board. Mr. Pattee had already given invaluable practical advice over the past few years and would continue to do so.

By the spring of 1950 the much sought after school director had still not appeared.

It was unanimously agreed to appoint Mrs. Rosalind Rajagopal as “Acting Director” of the School for the school year 1950-51 with the understanding that there will be a Headmaster the following year.24


No director appeared the following year either. Eventually Rosalind would be appointed director and the “acting” would be dropped from her title. Rosalind was stepping into a role for which she had no specific training. But she had strong supporters in, among others, Louis and Robert who had no doubts about her capacities. The next decade would prove that they were right. The school flourished and before long was nationally and internationally recognized in educational circles. The emphasis which the Happy Valley School continued to place on creative activities had demonstrably enhanced rather than diminished its scholastic standards. There was a high percentage of National Merit Scholars alongside the drama productions and folk-dance exhibits. The school was turning out graduates who were all the founders had hoped for.

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Rosalind with students, mid-1950s, Mary Myers, Jodi Parry, Raymond Neutra, Fritz von Fleckenstein, Kim de Steiguer, Rodman Casselberry, Dennis Poplin, Nancy Ridenour

In spite of the evident success of the school, the Happy Valley Foundation still had to contend with a range of queries, criticisms and challenges on the basic curriculum of the school and proprietorship and proper uses of the Happy Valley land.

Some of these queries had come from Theosophical headquarters to which Louis Zalk gave candid replies based largely on Dr. Besant’s own words:

June 30, 1959

My Dear Friend,

I take this opportunity to sketch briefly the story of the Happy Valley Foundation since its organization approximately 30 years ago…

The original announcement by Dr. Besant under the date of January 11,1927 is very familiar to us, and the Happy Valley Foundation is devoted to carrying out her ideals and purposes in the most effective way possible, striving to avoid serious mistakes by determining a practical TIMING for each advance. In 1946… the Happy Valley School was started. This school seemed to us to come first. I quote from Dr. Besant’s pamphlet:

“For all this our Centre must have a school for the training of future members of the Centre, sowing into them gradually the ideals of the New Order with thoughtful care.” She very definitely recites the educational qualities necessary for our school. We have faithfully tried to follow these ideals in education with every modern educational technique which has since been developed. The ideals of the New Order do not need a denominational name. Being of intrinsic value in their own quality, they will attract the right people of all denominations. Dr. Besant stated in her announcement:

“Settlers need not belong to any special organization, but they must accept the following ideals which will be the bond of union between all the residents, to whatever Faith they may respectively belong. Such an ethical and profoundly religious bond is imperatively necessary for success.” I think the full significance of this paragraph should not be overlooked. We are far from being ready for settlers. This requires large outlays of capital and careful planning. We therefore started with our School. This School has been so far a very great success due to the ever-continuing devotion of many people who have given their time and utmost effort for its success (no member of the Board of Trustees has ever received any compensation whatever… The Trustees of this Foundation, remembering Dr. Besants’ incalculable services to the Theosophical Society, to the world and to them as individuals, are dedicated to justify the great risk she so gladly took and her good faith to those who contributed. But in an equal measure, the splendid ideals she set forth for a future and nobler civilization in themselves are a most worthy goal… without distinction of race, creed, caste, sex or color. Do not these objectives harmonize perfectly with the three essential purposes of the Theosophical Society itself?

Very sincerely yours,
Louis Zalk, President, The Happy Valley Foundation


Trustee George Hall added his validation to the above letter:

I was Dr. Besant’s agent in the purchase of the Tucker ranch and later in the organization of the California Corporation to which she transferred her title to the property and which assumed her debts in connection with said purchases, amounting originally to $90,000. Based upon personal knowledge of the entire history of this enterprise, it is my firm conviction that neither the Theosophical Society not any other organization or individual has any legal or moral right to the properties owned by the Happy Valley Foundation, which is a self-perpetuating California non-profit Corporation, governed by a Board of Trustees originally appointed by Dr. Besant herself.


Robert Logan died in 1956, leaving a third of his estate to Happy Valley. The loss of his presence, with his unobtrusive but esteemed wisdom was deeply felt.

By the early 1960s the board began to look toward the Happy Valley School graduates to perpetuate itself. Rosalind’s son-in-law James Sloss, who had attended the school in its first two years, joined the foundation in 1960. Jorge Uribe, a 1960 graduate of Happy Valley School and now a lawyer in Los Angeles, joined the foundation in 1968 and has remained to the present, sometimes as counsel, sometimes as trustee, and at this writing, as president. Jorge with his legal skills has dealt with the increasing number of complex issues and proposals set before the foundation as well as clarifying foundation policy on both practical and ideological levels.

Austin Bee, who had met Annie Besant as a twelve year old in 1926 and had been managing the Happy Valley ranch as well as serving as business manager for the school, was elected to the Happy Valley Board in 1974 and succeeded Rosalind as chairman in 1989.

Austin with his practical experience in the business of construction helped to materialize within realistic and achievable goals the dreams and hopes of the previous fifty years to establish the school on Happy Valley land. The pressure to move the school from Meiner’s Oaks intensified when the county condemned the lower school campus in order to build a freeway (which was never built). However, this proved to be a helpful nudge in the right direction. Bit by bit, the school would shift eastward onto Annie Besant’s promised land. It would arrive without seas parting, trumpets blaring, walls crumbling or a commandment fixed in stone (the latter case would lead to a paradoxical problem in itself).

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Jorge A.Uribe, c. 1978

In 1962 plans for a complete campus were being developed by the prestigious architectural firm of Welton Beckett, funded by some of the endowment left by Robert Logan. (The scope of these plans turned out to be far beyond the reach of Happy Valley resources, and eventually they had to be abandoned in their entirety). But before that happened, a discussion began at a Happy Valley Board meeting that was to escalate into a major policy issue. In order to raise funds from outsiders to construct the Welton Beckett plans, the board was seeking a unanimous agreement on a philosophical policy that could be presented coherently to a funder. Yet there was still mindfulness of avoiding the crystallization that this formulation could incur. Money had seldom been sought outside the Happy Valley community. Logan and Zalk had met crucial deficits for the past sixteen years. To compound the difficulty of this task, one of the trustees interjected a criticism that the name of Krishnamurti was not used with more regularity and more emphasis in the school. The nonsectarian nature of the school, without emphasis on any individual or ideology, had long been accepted as an inviolate principle. Krishnamurti’s ideas had been transmitted by osmosis rather than regurgitation, by the character and behavior of individuals to whom his ideas had significance. He had been actively present in the founding years of the Happy Valley School and had lent his approval to the teaching methods as well as to the subject matter and the staff, while claiming he wished no formal association with it. Following Aldous Huxley (See: Appendix B), the existentialist Douwe Stuurman, from the University of California, Alan Watts and numerous other guest lecturers and teachers whose backgrounds were not necessarily Theosophical or tied to Krishnamurti had been attracted to Happy Valley because of its nonsectarian nature.

Over the next decade, acting on increased interest of the Krishnamurti circle and others in establishing themselves on Happy Valley land, the board was prompted to draw up a general agreement that would apply to any group wishing to develop a project on Happy Valley land. The main points were that there be no disagreement with Dr. Besant’s statements regarding the purposes of the foundation. Several amendments were added to clarify and extend the Articles of Incorporation, including a restated policy on the husbandry of animals:

To do all and everything necessary, suitable or proper… or anything which the Board of Trustees may from time to time deem proper, except the growing or commercial exploitation of animals for purposes leading to their cruel use for experiments, or for their purposeful slaughter, is to be totally avoided.


A further development of policy was adopted by resolution which describes the foundation

as non-sectarian, and cautious against fixation to any one person or ideology. The object is to cause the Foundation to be flexible, to keep the Foundation relevant to “new generations”, able to look to the future in order to make contributions, consistent with its guiding spirit in a changing society….The work of the Foundation should be developed with great integrity and should be concerned with those aspects of human endeavor that help to alleviate suffering and bring hope for the future of mankind.25


The Krishnamurti group did not pursue their interest in Happy Valley. There were other groups, however that did approach from time to time, drawn by the exceptional beauty of the land and an assumed compatibility with the principles of the foundation.

Among these was the World Institute of Avasthology. This group appeared to be in harmony with Dr. Besant’s ideals and with Theosophical principles. But they had problems and delays in presenting a clear plan of exactly what they wanted to accomplish. After a few years of discussion and rather vague proposals a plan for a pyramidal structure was presented to the Happy Valley Board. The pyramid was to be 90 feet high and seat 2,000 people. It is difficult to imagine how the necessary one million cubic feet could accommodate this number without its base being close to an acre, unless this crowd was so enlightened that they could stack themselves in levitating tiers. Jorge Uribe expressed the foundation’s concerns in a letter to the W.I.A.:

…The Board of Trustees also has very serious reservations regarding the pyramid… The Board has not been persuaded that such a structure can be properly located on a suitable building area within the Foundation’s property in a manner which is consistent with the various considerations that the Foundation has adopted for the proper utilization of all of its land by all of the people that use it. But what is to the Board at this time far more troublesome is its knowledge, based upon many years of experience in dealing with local regulatory agencies, that the likelihood of gaining approval for the construction of such an edifice is at the very best remote.


Sometimes regulatory agencies serve a good purpose! No more was heard of pyramids or the World Institute of Avasthology.

***

Louis Zalk died in 1964, leaving Rosalind chair/president of the Happy Valley Foundation. Under Rosalind’s aegis there would never arise the type of divisiveness on the Happy Valley Board that had caused such confusion in the Felix Greene era. Devoting her full time to the foundation, Rosalind was able to establish a consensus before the board meetings through her discussion of issues with individual board members prior to each meeting. This had the advantage of reducing the meetings to a maximum of two or three hours in which the meeting itself served mainly to “implement Rosalind’s will.”26 If this administration was viewed by some as a “benevolent matriarchy,” it nevertheless steered the foundation and the school through some very bumpy times. In her doggedness combined with unwavering faith in her own good luck, Rosalind displayed certain similarities to George Washington crossing the Delaware. Neither ice nor high water would stop them.

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Meeting on Happy Valley, 1968, Franklin Lacey, Harriet Von Breton, Douwe Stuurman, Austin Bee, Joseph Margon, John Rupp, Rosalind Rajagopal, Joseph Lodge

Rosalind had never entirely given up hope of getting herself replaced as the school director, and coping with the duties of president of the foundation made that issue all the more pressing. New directors were found – and then lost – to be replaced, one by one. Some left valuable contributions and others a weakened structure that was miraculously shored up again. (Aldous Huxley once quipped that Rosalind rode a new director into battle like a cavalry general his horse until the poor creature dropped from exhaustion or was shot out from under her.)

On her tour of America in 1926, Annie Besant had met another boy of twelve in Wheaton, Illinois, Franklin Lacey in whom she had recognized a very special spark. Franklin joined the Happy Valley Board in 1959, two years after the opening of The Music Man, which he had coauthored with Meridith Wilson. In that decade, with the school in its darkest period, Franklin was persuaded to be the director and he forthwith attempted to keep afloat what was a very leaky craft indeed. Perhaps his own line from The Music Man served him well at this time. When Professor Hill had flim-flammed the whole town into buying costumes and instruments for the school band and the moment arrived to play, one voice cried out, “but we don’t know how.” The professor said, “FAKE IT” and it worked! Floating between two makeshift campuses, in serious deficit, down to seven students, the school continued, with very little substance, to project the impression of itself as a school.27

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Franklin Lacey, c. 1958

The 1960s and 1970s were challenging decades for all educational institutions in the re-evaluation and oftentimes rejection of old principles and theories. The Happy Valley School suffered from many of the difficulties of this era but the essence of its philosophy was to remain uncrystalized and open to the new; vigilant as well as prudent in looking for and welcoming change – and of course change there was.

***

Acquiring funds for the new campus now became a major concern. Before he left Felix Greene had built another adobe house – High Winds – in the upper valley on land east of Happy Valley, for Mary Clark. By 1953 Mrs. Clark had not found a use for the house and put it up for sale. Louis and Rajagopal, who was then the treasurer of the Happy Valley Foundation, urged the board to add this property, which included about seventy-five acres, to Happy Valley. A few years later Austin Bee, then a part-time realtor in Willie Weidemann’s office, noticed that an eightyacre parcel between High Winds and Happy Valley was for sale. Austin offered to drive Louis and Rajagopal up to see it. They approached by an old dirt track, much like the track on which Frank Gerard had first taken Krishna and Raja from the east side of the valley thirty years before. The board agreed that this parcel should be acquired as a valuable link between High Winds and Annie Besant’s original land. High Winds could be looked upon as a long term investment “for the future.”

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Austin Bee, c. 1955

Not too surprisingly “for the future” became “now” very suddenly when Rosalind perceived High Winds as a means to raise funds for the new campus. The terms of the sale, however, precluded acquiring funds for that purpose. A large down payment was forfeited in lieu of a high interest mortgage. This income helped to finance the operational expenses of the foundation for many years.

Oil rights had never ceased to be a concern and with the pending move onto the Happy Valley land and the building of a campus, it again became a hot issue in the mid-1960s.

After frustrating attempts by various board members to negotiate with Atlantic Richfield, owner of these rights, Rosalind one day impulsively phoned Mr. Bradshaw, the current president of Atlantic Richfield, and was able to announce at the next Board meeting:

The gift to the Foundation of the mineral and oil rights on the 270 acres of Happy Valley land by the Atlantic Richfield Company and that the deeds were in the process of being executed.28


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Happy Valley School, 1997

All these negotiations had failed to provide the funds needed to build the new campus. A relationship, however, still existed with Atlantic Richfield. Rosalind reported at a 1968 board meeting that in view of a freeway, rumored for construction in that area, the oil company was considering the sale of 2.6 acres of its upper valley land. This parcel included an office building, appropriate for classrooms until the campus on Happy Valley land could be funded. The property was being offered at $125,000, considerably below the appraised value (but a high price to the Foundation). Unfortunately the zoning was not suitable for school purposes. These obstacles were soon swept aside. Jorge Uribe pointed out the potential tax advantages to Atlantic Richfield of donating assets to the foundation as a means of reducing the purchase price. The board was assured that the zoning could be changed, and fortunately the freeway never materialized. In that same meeting a planning committee was formed to guide – if not propel – the board forward in plans to construct the new campus on Happy Valley land.

Within a few days of this meeting Jorge received in his law office a phone call from Rosalind announcing that they had an appointment with the regional head of Atlantic Richfield in Los Angeles the following day. She added that she would pick Jorge up and drive him to the meeting. They were unfortunately running late as they approached the underground parking ramp which also unfortunately said FULL. Undeterred by this trivial obstacle, Rosalind advised Jorge to hang on and proceeded full speed wrong way down the exit ramp to be greeted at the bottom by an outraged parking attendant. Quickly assuming her “innocent old lady” cloak, she said, “Oh dear,” and handing over the keys, she hustled Jorge up the elevator, while reminding him that it was his job to explain to Atlantic Richfield why they wanted to make a substantial gift to the Happy Valley Foundation.

At the next board meeting the successful negotiations were reported, culminating in a purchase price of $98,000 with $60,000 down.

During the twelve years that followed this acquisition, (it was sold in 1980 for more than four times the purchase price) real estate deals would take up a considerable portion of the board’s time and almost all of Rosalind’s. The Meiner’s Oaks campus was eventually sold, repossessed and sold again until little by little, through sales and donations and a rare inheritance, sufficient funds were gathered together to make the new campus possible.29

Unfortunately, the 270 acres that comprised the High Winds property, the adjacent tract spotted by Austin, and an eastern portion of the land originally bought by Annie, on which the oil rights had been granted, were not a part of the designated site for the new campus, which was still under an oil rights cloud. In true Happy Valley style, this did nothing to derail the plans. A discussion with a representative of ARCO was deemed sufficiently reassuring to allow the building project to proceed. Over the years, oil rights continued to be contributed by other holders such as the Lagomarsino family. Occasional oil prospectors came scouting about but so far, for better or worse, depending on whose rights are involved, nothing has come of it. Perhaps, ultimately, Frank Gerard’s words will hold true “the land will be there for centuries to come, while oil is not likely to be an issue for many years more” (See: Appendix E).

In 1972 Rosalind gave to the Happy Valley Foundation a piece of property left her by Robert Logan. (The house called Saro Vihara, built by George Hall as a guest house for Arya Vihara, which Robert and Sara had bought for their California residence.)

The sale of this property enabled the foundation to build a house at Happy Valley, designed by Paul Hoag, that would be for Rosalind’s lifetime use. It would also serve as the foundation headquarters for the three board meetings each year and other appropriate purposes. A large living room was designed with all this in mind.

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Saro Vihara, c. 1930, Ojai home of the Logans

Rosalind’s close friend Beatrice Wood, the noted ceramist, had lived across the street from Arya Vihara for over twenty years. Beatrice, a longtime admirer of Annie Besant and Krishnamurti, had followed the development of the school with great interest, and also taught ceramics there.

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Beatrice Wood (Beato) and James Sloss Ojai, 1967

Rosalind now suggested that Beatrice sell her McAndrew Road house and with those funds build a house to be for her lifetime use adjacent to the one for Rosalind. Beatrice later remarked that her trust in Rosalind was great enough to follow her to the North Pole had Rosalind recommended it. So Beatrice sold the house she had built and loved and without hesitation moved herself and her work to Happy Valley.

This would be another step toward developing a Happy Valley community, alongside the school, which was inching its way onto the land. It also fulfilled Annie Besant’s vision that there be artists in the Happy Valley community who would exemplify for young people an aesthetic regard for beauty. No one could have predicted that twenty-five years later, Beatrice’s inspiring presence would still be a force on the land in her 104th year.

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Logan and Wood Houses, 1997

Annie Besant had adamantly refused to be concerned about such issues as lack of water or other resources. When they are needed they will come, she asserted. The Casitas Water Project did just that, and while Happy Valley lost a few acres condemned by the water company around the old Logan well on McAndrew Road, it gained pipelines and accessibility from municipal water in exchange for easements. The same deal was struck with the gas company.

Rajagopal had once observed that the right people are the most valuable resource, and nothing could succeed without this human factor. With the generous support of its friends, old and new, the school campus was well established by the early 1980s. A faculty house was designed by Paul Hoag to be built behind the old adobe. Within a few years a school director’s house was built. The growth of a viable community was now afoot.

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Beato and Rosalind, c. 1982

***

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Sean Wellesly-Miller at Bio-shelter foundation, c. 1979

In 1974, a friend of the foundation and former art teacher, Liam O’Gallagher had been invited to chair the board’s planning committee as he was knowledgeable about so-called “new age” ideas and it was hoped he might find a compatible project for Happy Valley. Liam drafted a policy statement intended to present Dr. Besant’s basic goals in language that might appeal to those with scientific leanings as well as sharing the same humanitarian ideals.

Because Dr. Besant foresaw this period of crises in which man would reach both his greatest potential for creative change and its opposite, total destruction, she set aside this land known as Happy Valley to inspire and provide new models of community which would encourage and provide human beings at this evolutionary crossroads opportunities to identify with the evolution beyond the present human stage, a community based on the same priority of values, not based on Good and Evil, but on good and better.

To pursue such a policy entails the caring for life in all its forms in a responsible way, the development of an ecological architecture that would utilize, in our climate, the solar systems that produce power, water and food, provision of an education that starts with an awareness of the crises in consciousness; and the seeking of solutions that speak to us through the new physics, biology and psychology that do most to release the human potential, the Brotherhood of Man, to which Dr. Besant dedicated her life.

Liam O’ Gallagher
Chairman, Planning Committee
Happy Valley Foundation


Liam eventually found a group that came to be known as Human Dimensions West, a “non-profit organization exploring the interface between science and spirituality.” In 1975 the Happy Valley Foundation granted a lease for about forty acres for a token sum on which to develop their programs. An architect/inventor from M.I.T., Sean Wellesly-Miller, obtained a grant to build a structure that would be self-sufficient in its use of energy that presumably might be the model for a whole community. Unfortunately for various reasons including the usual personality malfunctions and financial shortfalls, this enterprise was abandoned and in 1979 Human Dimensions West invited Dr. Joan Halifax, an anthropologist, “to lead the organization (renamed the Ojai Foundation) in a new direction.” The Ojai Foundation established several successful programs and developed the land in a gentle and ecological manner, using yurts and solar energy. When Joan was succeeded by Jack Zimmerman, an educator and psychologist, the practice of “council” was emphasized and taught to a broad spectrum of adults and children. Even under changes in leadership, the two foundations have managed over the years to establish a relationship under which new leases and agreements, joint projects and planning, can be undertaken with sufficient clarity and trustee cohesiveness to avoid the misunderstandings that had beset the Greene project.

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Joan Halifax and Virginia Coyle of the Ojai Foundation, Happy Valley, 1988 Radha Sloss, center

The presence of the Ojai Foundation at Happy Valley has offered an interesting, sometimes challenging and for the most part successful experiment in the coordination and cooperation process of like-principled but separate communities.

***

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Happy Valley Foundation meeting, 1988, (front) Rosalind, Raymond Neutra, Helen Bee, Diana Dunningham, Emily Sellon, (back) John Gorsuch, John Rupp, Joy Mills, John Kern, Austin Bee, Jorge Uribe

The relationship between the Happy Valley Foundation and the school would, by 1980, undergo some drastic transformations and re-evaluations. The school had become a serious financial enterprise that in certain years, far from being a burden to the foundation, had actually added financial stability to the parent organization. Not always the case – and when the reverse happened usually Louis or Robert and after them Rosalind (who along with Happy Valley was Robert Logan’s beneficiary) would rescue the school from its budgetary shortfalls.

The composition of the Happy Valley Board was also changing gradually, perhaps at the time, imperceptibly. Rosalind no longer had the will or the energy to assume the amount of responsibility that her style of leadership had demanded of her. In the previous decade the school board had been abolished, and the school was run entirely from a foundation level. This had seemed the only feasible way to handle the extreme pressures of enforced relocation, insufficient funds to achieve this and a decreased enrollment, to say nothing of an alarming turn-over rate of directors.

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Trustees at lunch, Logan House, 1988 John Kern, Raymond Neutra, Radha Sloss, Jorge Uribe, John Rupp, Ken Tennen

Rosalind, since her sister Erma’s death in 1970, had reduced her living expenses to a bare minimum in order to use her inherited income to cover the school deficits. It took Jorge’s best persuasive powers, as well as her intrinsic trust in him to convince Rosalind that she must desist from this thirty- to forty-thousand dollar annual-bail of the past decade or she would ultimately destroy the school. Together with Helen Bee, (Austin Bee’s daughter), a Happy Valley School graduate who had joined the foundation in 1979, Jorge Uribe reconstituted the school board, established new bylaws and a governance committee which would give the foundation sufficient control over philosophical principles while allowing the school board to assume the function of running the school. In explaining this to Rosalind, Jorge equated the new set-up with the papal see, in which the pope was infallible when speaking “ex cathedra.”

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Rosalind with Molly, Happy Valley, c. 1988
 
It was the natural time to stop and redefine the original spirit of the school. It had come of age, and now it must have a new form of independence and also allow the foundation the independence to undertake other projects. From that point, the school began to grow again, to revitalize and extend the early concepts of its founders in seeking to be in the forefront of excellence in education.

***

Rosalind was in the habit of walking her dog around the campus every morning. Sometimes she would be joined by a young teacher, Dennis Rice-Leary, who was to become the next Happy Valley School Director.

Dennis chose a staff and school board who would support him in implementing the new policy. Equally important, thanks to Helen and Jorge, the school was finally forced onto a sound financial footing, upon which the tenure of the director’s employment would depend. Contributions to the school budget would be allowed only as clear annual contributions, to be used within that year so as not to cause instability. At the same time Helen should be credited with helping Dennis to re-establish a sound academic structure, adapted to a very different age from that in which the school had begun.

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Dennis Rice, 1997

In the late 1970s the school board had been charged by the foundation to:

1) get the school back on the philosophic track,

2) deal as effectively as possible with the financial management of the school so that it could be on a sound footing,

3) get the rest of the campus built.

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Director’s House, 1997

By 1989 these charges were considered accomplished and discussion proceeded to setting the goals for the next five to ten years:

(1) To maintain and enhance the fundamental philosophy of the school in all aspects of the school’s life, 2) to find all ways to recruit the very best faculty that we can possibly have, 3) to continue to enhance our financial stability by all possible means, 4) to pursue improved balance in our curriculum and 5) to move toward a greater sense of an actual community, not only an improvement in relations of all the constituents of the school (alumni, parents, board, faculty, etc.) but also to move to a community on this land that would include teachers, staff, trustees of the foundation… to create a school and foundation community which will enhance our interaction with one another in a shared way… this was exciting because it was so much in keeping with Mrs. Besant’s vision and goals.30


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Arrow House, 1997

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Jorge Uribe, Happy Valley School commencement talk, 1988

In 1987 the qualifications for prospective Happy Valley Foundation trustees was clarified. These include a willingness to accept as guideposts, those principles outlined in Appendix C.

***

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Austin Bee after his Happy Valley School commencement talk 1982

When in 1988 Rosalind resigned as chair/president, she was succeeded by Austin Bee as chairman and by Jorge Uribe as president, the office being split for the first time into two categories. Austin, as chairman, had the highly sensitive task of maintaining a board of consensus, while keeping in check the potential for divisiveness. This took enormous patience and the willingness and insistence to table issues that could not be agreed upon without lengthier consideration. Efficiency of time was sacrificed and board meetings started to last as much as nine hours, sometimes requiring two days in a row. But with the help of committees many projects could be carried out between meetings.

Rosalind had spent nearly fifty of her eightysix years working for Happy Valley. She had felt for some time that it was appropriate for her to resign entirely from the foundation. She now had confidence that a strong board was in place. At the end of a 1989 meeting, Rosalind left the board with a few parting remarks:

While I am still alive, I think I owe to the members of the Happy Valley Foundation some of the ideas I heard Dr. Besant express. Clearly she did not know what the future generation would think or want….The type of school she envisioned was one in which members would be held together by an ethical and profoundly spiritual bond, regardless of individual backgrounds and beliefs, free from rigid or authoritarian control, in which the physical, emotional, and intellectual development of each one would be fostered in all aspects of daily life. I think it very important we never become rigid or dogmatic, so hard for well meaning people to escape. Dr. Besant has even said that for some people it was important they make mistakes as that was the only way they learn. She also said it was good for people to pursue what attracts, otherwise, not using energy for experimentation, they become lifeless and dull. My own thinking is that so far we have tried, to the best of our ability, to follow these concepts and I think each one of you will carry on to the best of your ability. My thoughts and love and best wishes will always be with you.


***

In the late 1980s serious discussions on faculty housing were brought by the school to the Happy Valley Board in answer to the expressed hopes of many of the faculty to be able to live on the land. The concept of co-housing was investigated and under the initiative of Raymond Neutra, (another Happy Valley School graduate on the board) a class of architectural students at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo was invited to apply Happy Valley co-housing to a student competition. Many valuable ideas and concepts evolved from this endeavor but as always money was the determining factor and nowhere in sight were the millions that it would take to embark on such an ambitious project.

Although Paul Hoag’s original plan had included an assembly/theater, funds had not been sufficient for that structure. A yurt (a round Mongolian style tent) was set up for morning assembly – always a core activity of the school which, for want of a proper place to hold it, had been abandoned for the past few years in the move from the lower campus. While the yurt was perceived as a temporary stop-gap, the need for a proper assembly/theater was strongly felt.

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Yurt, 1997

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Happy Valley School dormitory fire, 1990

In 1990 a fire destroyed the dormitory. Rather than slowing the growth process, this disaster ignited and fueled the determination to complete the campus and provide all that was missing as soon as possible. It also united the foundation and the school in the necessity of rebuilding the dorm in record time. A school staff member, Mike Adams saved thousands of dollars by pitching in to reconstruct the septic system, and a graduate of the school and now a foundation board member, Ken Tennen, contributed valuable time and effort in dealing with the complex insurance and contractual issues involved.

When Rosalind retired from the foundation in 1989, James Sloss, now a professor of mathematics at UC Santa Barbara returned to the board after an absence of twenty-three years; and when Austin retired as chairman in 1993, James was elected to that office. Meanwhile, between 1992 and 1996 Jorge, as legal counsel to the Happy Valley Foundation, had been compelled for insurance reasons to resign as trustee. Therefore the office of chairman and president was again consolidated until Jorge was able to return as president in 1996. All these transitions did not cause serious ripples in the operations of the board. This was thanks in large part to the steadfast and long term presence of John Gorsuch who had been the secretary-treasurer of the board for nearly twenty years. He had lived for much of this time in Adobe House and had offered daily support and assistance to Rosalind throughout this tenure. The foundation suffered a loss when in 1994 John had to retire for family reasons, and moved to Colorado. This necessitated a search for his replacement in a job both complex and imprecisely defined. Stability was temporarily shaken but not destroyed. New residents were found for Adobe House, a couple with a small child, who provided a link between the foundation and the school – Wendy, a teacher, and John Morgando, a land manager for Happy Valley, finally full-filling the original purpose for which Adobe House was built. The new secretary/treasurer, Kate Mack, has had a long affiliation on the land, first with the Ojai Foundation and then with Rosalind.

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James Sloss with Sindhu, 1988, Happy Valley School gazebo

In the midst of these changes a major and emotionally wrought issue confronted the new chair/ president almost immediately. Since 1927 the walnut orchard had been an ongoing source of income and the sole foundation operation outside of the school. It gave beauty as well as nuts. Under Austin Bee’s ranch management a new grove had been planted and this was still thriving, but the old grove was unquestionably dying, slowly but surely, and the crops had fallen off.31

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Helen Bee and John Gorsuch Logan House, c. 1988

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Walnut trees gone, 1995

Because the growing of walnuts in the region had been all but abandoned, there no longer existed communal processing facilities for even a limited crop. The proliferation of ground squirrels had become a major problem. They were thriving on the walnuts, unharvested due to their poor quality. Killing animals, even pests, created a moral dilemma for the board but allowing the squirrels to multiply and enjoy a fulfilling life on Happy Valley land created strained relations with the farming neighbors and possible health hazards to the school.

Like a final gift to Happy Valley, burls had been discovered on many of the trees. Their value was great enough (far outweighing any other value the trees might have) to pay for the removal of the orchard – if undertaken in time. In order to optimize the value obtainable for the burls, James Sloss contacted Rolls Royce in England, Mercedes Benz and BMW in Germany, and Lexus in Japan, as well as burl users in the U.S. The whole process of the removal of the trees and the land preparation for new crops took the better part of a year under his intensive supervision.

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James Sloss, as Chairman

The demise of the old walnut orchard was mourned by the students, the faculty, residents of the land, and the community at large. Meanwhile the beautiful acreage lay fallow, waiting for a new approach to farming that would be consistent with the Happy Valley vision.

VII. The Time Has Come,

the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings


From time to time we should reassess our reasons for existence. To what extent are we still in harmonious pursuit of the aims and visions of our founders? We have been left remarkably free from generation to generation to follow our own interpretations and understanding of these visions. But surely we might pause and ask what Annie Besant and the early trustees would feel about our efforts so far.

The school has existed and (most often) flourished for over fifty years. The generosity of trustees and friends have enabled the school to grant scholarships every year and, through the generosity of the Kern Foundation, to establish a course in ethics and the Theosophical world view.

The campus completion project was formulated as a unit in which a classroom, a thirty-two-bed dormitory, and an assembly/theater were to be built. In the past, the financing for school buildings had been undertaken solely by the Happy Valley Foundation. This completion project, however, required resources beyond the scope of the foundation. Happy Valley School has never focused on a wealthy base of benefactors and is still too young to have inherited endowments from numerous alumni. A few have given large donations for the theater and many have given as generously as they were able. It soon became clear that if the completion project were to depend exclusively on donations, it would not be realized for many years, if at all. A delay of many years would not address the pressing need for all three of these buildings. An additional source of funds had to found.

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Assembly/Theater foundation, December, 1997

In a study made by Ken Tennen and Jorge Uribe it was determined that a disproportionate increase in students of high school age could continue for some years, creating a demographic bubble that was beginning to bulge. For years there had been a concern that the dorms in the ranch area were no longer suitable for students but could be remodeled for faculty. If a dormitory was built to house the dorm students plus an additional increase in student population, the increase could help finance the new dormitory. James Sloss devised a scheme for borrowing money from the Santa Barbara Bank and Trust whereby trustees and friends of the Happy Valley Foundation individually bought certificates of deposit to guarantee the loan.32

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Happy Valley School dormitories, 1997 

The classroom was completed in 1996 just in time to accommodate an exceptionally large student body. And the new dormitory was ready just in time to house the arriving students in the fall of 1997. The theater construction officially began October 13, 1997, although $221,000 from donations in plans and ground work had already been spent.

Thanks to the project manager, Rolf Eriksen, a long-time friend of Happy Valley, there is the strong likelihood that the project will remain on budget, a vital factor in the ultimate materialization of this cherished dream.

Dedication and selfless service have been hallmarks of our endeavors from Annie Besant’s moment of vision to the present. Much of the development could not have transpired without the force of this commitment on the part of so many.

The ancient walnut trees that contributed beauty as well as income for so many years will soon be replaced with new growth in the form of innovative and ecologically oriented farming practices, and interest is rapidly gathering momentum both for economic and educational projects in agriculture.

There is the germ of an artist’s center beautifully established by Beatrice Wood with a folk art collection and an art library as well as her private collection of ceramics.

As a self-perpetuating board the Happy Valley Foundation now has eight of its eleven members who are graduates of the Happy Valley School. This in itself is a significant sign that the school has fulfilled its primary purpose, that of inspiring in its students a commitment to substantiate and share the ideals for which it was founded.

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Beato, 1985

VIII. Losses and Changes

"The time to talk”, as the Walrus said, moved dreams and hopes along the path to reality. Sometimes one might wonder what forces propel events on Happy Valley.

Although the full funding for the theater had not been raised, an unexpected windfall had supported the groundbreaking. In November of 1995, we received a call from a Philadelphia bank, searching for the Happy Valley Foundation and Rosalind Rajagopal, regarding the estate of Deborah Logan, Robert Logan’s only child, who died in 1939. The story of Deborah’s marriage and untimely death is not relevant here except to note that she had left her trust income to her step-daughter and then the trust was to follow the path of Robert’s will, providing this stepdaughter, whose existence had long since faded from the memory even of Rosalind, died, as she had, without issue.

That meant that Rosalind and the foundation would each receive $144,000. On the advance of these funds, theater and new dormitory construction could begin and it was hoped that if costs remained within budget, the dormitory could still provide the payback.

Rosalind died January 24, 1996, leaving her house, as she always intended, to the foundation. She was 93 and had served Happy Valley in various capacities for over 50 years. The morning after she died her family looked down toward the school and watched students and teachers gather in a circle on the field where the walnut orchard had once stood. We were witnessing a blessing of the land by an old Native American friend. Even the most skeptical among us could not ignore the significance in the sequence of events over the past two months.

The Logan inheritance was instrumental in obtaining generous donations from several alumni, particularly from Louis Zalk’s family and as Louis had been the first President of the Happy Valley Foundation and had devoted to it nearly forty years of his life, it was appropriate that this most significant building be named Zalk Theater.

Yet, in spite of widespread and deep generosity from Happy Valley alumni and friends, by 1998, the theater construction budget was exceeded and funds had run dry. There was considerable gloom over the land. The suggested recourse was to lock up the theater and wait a year or two, while raising the necessary money to fulfill the county requirements for occupancy. There was no serious development strategy to implement such a plan. The foundation’s resources were strained to the limit and the school budget could not further support the building program.

On March 3 of that year, Beato celebrated her 105th birthday. It was whispered that she had been a role model for both the young Rose and particularly the older Rose, in James Cameron’s film, Titanic. A few days after her birthday, she entertained Cameron and his leading actress, in her home for lunch. It was to be Beato’s final performance, which she carried off with her usual grace, even gifting Cameron a ceramic boat that she had made some years before. Then, she went to bed, saying she loved her bed and would not be getting up again. She died March 12, 1998.

For the last twenty years of their lives, Rosalind and Beato had planned together that their adjacent houses would implement the intentions of the founders – to further the pursuit of creative activities and continual learning on Happy Valley.

In this spirit, Beato had left the preponderance of her estate to the foundation, including her ceramics, her folk art collection and a 1500 volume library of art books. She had not been involved in the exigencies of the theater in her last years, although she was excited by the potential it would create for the school and Happy Valley community. But the foundation was confident that nothing would have pleased her more than that the final resource to complete Zalk Theater without interruption, would come from her legacy.

The theater made possible new activities for the school as well as re-instating a program that had been basic in the school’s curriculum from the beginning. For many early students the distinguished guest speakers and performers were a strong source of inspiration throughout their lives. In support of this concept, the foundation established, in 2000, the Happy Valley Cultural Center that would strive to bring to the school these programs. The vision was thus stated:

The Happy Valley Cultural Center provides a venue for all the arts as well as for dialogues on social and scientific issues that will be of interest to the community at large and that will introduce the students of the Happy Valley School to diversity in both traditional and non-traditional spheres of human endeavor.


A council of forty friends lent their names and interest to the cultural center. And to give it a solid footing, two long-time friends of the foundation, Liam O’Gallagher and Robert Rheem donated a tea-set that Beato had made for them thirty years before.

In the first four years over twenty events, in the fields of drama, dance, music, and lectures were offered (See: Appendix G).

IX. Through the Looking Glass

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.”


The past thirty years have seen the school relocate, in several stages, from Meiner’s Oaks to the Upper Valley. Dormitories, classrooms, library, labs, dining hall and theater were completed. The governance of the school was organized and revitalized under policies established in 1988 by the Happy Valley Board. There was a well-spring of energy and cooperation that had made all of this possible.

The loss of Rosalind and Beato in the late ‘90s, even though for several years they had not been active in foundation or school affairs, nevertheless contributed to subtle changes in the Happy Valley ethos. In this same period the board lost Austin Bee, who died in July 2001 and Jorge Uribe who, after 32 years of devoted and valued service to the foundation, resigned in January 2000. Both Austin and Jorge were great contributors to keeping the school on course during its transition years to the Upper Valley.

Shortly afterwards, a temporary misconception formed in the school community. There were references to “two institutions” and “two boards” in a context that was contrary to the foundation by-laws. Despite the foundation board’s effort to clarify the proper interpretation of governance documents, the misconception led to further miscommunications and finally action on the part of a few members of the school community to attempt to incorporate the school as an entity independent of the foundation. The foundation board finally resolved the issue by establishing a closer governance structure between the foundation board and the school. This included replacing the existing school “board” with the School Governance Committee, as a committee of the foundation.

At the same time that the school governance restructuring was being considered, the trustees recognized that a process of board evaluation would be helpful and decided that an independent consultant, offering an objective evaluation would aid in the process. Therefore, in consultation with the Santa Barbara Non-Profit Center, a selection process was followed and a consultant chosen. The consultant conducted individual interviews with trustees and meetings with the board as a whole, which then led to extending the process to include staff and faculty of the school. The results of the consultant’s many findings were shared, on a no-name basis, with Foundation Board members and the school’s non-student constituency.

At or about the time that the consultant’s findings were shared with the Happy Valley community and the school governance restructuring was being considered, Dennis Rice, Happy Valley School Director for over twenty years, tendered his resignation. For some time, the board had recognized the need to identify a potential Interim Director in the event of a sudden departure of the Director of the School. Accordingly, David Anderson, a Happy Valley School teacher for the past seventeen years with previous head of school experience, was selected and agreed to act as Interim Director.

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David Anderson, Interim Director 2004-2006

Among the important tasks facing the Interim Director were the need to provide reassurance for the future and continuity of the school in line with its founding principles, and the need to achieve a balanced budget. David also exemplified the value of frugality as a way of life beyond budgetary considerations, that had made the existence of the Happy Valley School viable and that resonated with a commitment to care for the environment and the community.