Letters CCCLXXIV

By the way, that line uses the propaganda technique of lying with qualifiers: "has thoroughly followed our path."
If he doesn't get sober, then he didn't "thoroughly" follow our path.
If he did get sober, then he did thoroughly follow our path.
Nonsense.

Likewise, you used the same qualifier in your letter:

Programs, that when worked properly, bring people into lives they may never have found had they not found a God?

When worked properly? Please define "worked properly".

You are also assuming that people find God through A.A., which is also a groundless assumption. There is as much reason to believe that they find Santa Claus or Satan as their helper. Pray, "Oh Higher Power, please gimme, gimme, gimme!"

About:

I understand your program to be one of willpower, but does it also teach to denounce other methods as wrong?

There really isn't any "my program". I do not push any particular program, although I do recommend programs that teach self-control and rational thinking, like SMART, SOS, WFS, and Lifering. My personal way of staying sober is to just not ever put another drink in my mouth. (Or another cigarette. Or another hit of dope.)

Just don't take that first drink, not ever, no matter what.

That is the answer to all questions about drinking, or "just having one".

And yes, sometimes that does involve willpower, but more often it requires clear, realistic thinking, like, "Once you open that door, all Hell will break loose."

I wrote more about "my methods", or my personal way, here: How did you get to where you are?

I denounce those methods that are proven failures. Especially when they lie to sick people about how well their suggested cure works. That is really heartless treatment of sick people.

Anonymity used to be an issue, but it isn't any more. My birth name is Terrance Hodgins, and I live in rural Oregon, west of Portland. I continue to use the "Orange" pen name because I have used it for so many years that many people don't know me by any other name.

If you want to understand the definition of a cult, we can do far better than the short dictionary definition. Please read the Cult Test, both the questions and the answers:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-cult.html

But even the dictionary definitions of "cult" are applicable:

Cult (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, 1993.)
n.

• 1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
• 2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
• 3. the object of such devotion.
• 4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
• 5. Sociol. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
• 6. a religion or sect considered considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
• 7. the members of such a religion or sect.
• 8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

A.A. especially qualifies with definition 8, where A.A. claims to be the only way to treat alcoholism, and Bill Wilson just somehow magically came up with all the answers that had eluded everybody from Jesus Christ to contemporary doctors.

Cult (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, 1993.)
n

• 1: religious practice: WORSHIP
• 2: a system of beliefs and ritual connected with the worship of a deity, a spirit, or a group of deities or spirits
  <the ~ of Apollo>
  <the earth ~>
• 3:
  • a: the rites, ceremonies, and practices of a religion : the formal aspect of religious experience
    <dissent occurs in all three fields of expression of religious experience, in doctrine, in ~, and organization — Joachim Wach>
  • b: Roman Catholicism: reverence and ceremonial veneration paid to God or to the Virgin Mary or to saints or to objects that symbolize or otherwise represent them (as the crucifix or a statue) — called also cultus; compare DULIA, HYPERDULIA, LATRIA
• 4: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious
  <an exuberant growth of fantastic ~s>;
  also: a minority religious group holding beliefs regarded as unorthodox or spurious : SECT
  <provided a haven for persecuted ~s>
• 5: a system for the cure of disease based on the dogma, tenets, or principles set forth by its promulgator to the exclusion of scientific experience or demonstration
• 6:
  • a: a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing
    <the ~ of success>; esp: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad or fetish
    <the ~ of art-for-art's sake>
  • b: the object of such devotion
    <square dancing has developed into something of a ~ --R.L.Taylor>
  • c:
    • (1): a body of persons characterized by such devotion
      <America's growing ~ of home fixer uppers — Wall Street Jour.>
    • (2): a usu. small or narrow circle of persons united by devotion or allegiance to some artistic or intellectual program, tendency, or figure (as one of limited popular appeal)
      <the exclusive ~ of those that profess to admire his esoteric verse>

Again, A.A. matches several of those descriptions, and especially matches definition 5.

Yes, I'll be happy to have lines of communication open. We can talk again.

Yes indeed. See the file Twelve-Step Snake Oil for much more about that. Everything and anything is a "symptom of codependency", even caring too much and caring too little.

And the idea that you are "enabling" someone by being nice to him is downright evil. It reminds me of the Nazi philosophy more than anything else. "Treat the Untermenschen very harshly. It will improve their character. Besides, they deserve it."

The idea that the cure for caring about an addict is to do the practices of Dr. Frank Buchman's religion for the rest of your life is insane.

About the Berean research article that criticizes Celebrate Recovery (CA) as heretical:
http://www.thebereancall.org/content/way-which-seemeth-right

Yes, I have to agree with most all of it. There are just a few glaring errors that I have to comment on:

1. This paragraph contains several errors or misimpressions:

   To begin with, 12-Steps programs are not just a Saddleback Church issue. Increasing numbers of evangelical churches are sponsoring Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and Narcotics Anonymous (N.A.) meetings and/or creating their own self-help groups based upon A.A.'s 12-Steps principles. Bill Wilson, one of the founders of A.A., created the 12 Steps. Wilson was a habitual drunk who had two life-changing events that he claims helped him achieve sobriety: 1) he was (mis)informed by a doctor that his drinking habit was a disease and was therefore not his fault, and 2) he had an experience (which he viewed as spiritual enlightenment) that convinced him that only "a Power greater than" himself could keep him sober. Attempting to understand his mystical experience, he was led into spiritism, a form of divination condemned in the Scriptures. His official biography indicates that the content of the 12-Steps principles came to him "rapidly" through spirit communication. Certainly not from God.
   

   Last item first, Bill Wilson did not have a "mystical experience", he had a drug experience. In 1933 and 1934, Bill Wilson was detoxed in Charlie Towns' Hospital — four times in a little over a year — where he was given the quack "Belladonna Cure", which featured large doses of belladonna, which is a poisonous atropine alkaloid in the same family as Deadly Nightshade. How it works is: it basically poisons you until you have one foot in the grave, and you hallucinate your brains out. Belladonna is even more powerful than LSD for making people hallucinate. Belladonna had the handy side effect of completely immobilizing the patients. They were too busy talking to their ancestors or flying through the sky with weird animals to even think about leaving the hospital. After two or three days of being dosed with belladonna, Bill Wilson saw a white light which he interpreted as "the God of the preachers". (More details and descriptions of that are here.)

   There are some big problems with even that story (as there are with most of Bill Wilson's history of himself and A.A.). Bill Wilson bragged that he had a great spiritual experience where he felt like he was on a mountaintop, with a wind of spirit blowing through him. Wilson's biographer Robert Thomsen repeated Bill's story this way:

   His fingers relaxed a little on the footboard [of the bed], his arms slowly reached out and up. "I want," he said aloud. "I want..."
         Ever since infancy, they said, he'd been reaching out this way, arms up, fingers spread, and as far back as he could remember he'd been saying just that. But always before it had been an unfinished sentence. Now it had its ending. He wanted to live. He would do anything, anything, to be allowed to go on living.
         "Oh, God," he cried, and it was the sound not of a man, but of a trapped and crippled animal. "If there is a God, show me. Show me. Give me some sign."
         As he formed the words, in that very instant he was aware first of a light, a great white light that filled the room, then he suddenly seemed caught up in a kind of joy, an ecstasy such as he would never find words to describe. It was as though he were standing high on a mountaintop and a strong clear wind blew against him, around him, through him — but it seemed a wind not of air, but of spirit — and as this happened he had the feeling that he was stepping into another world, a new world of consciousness, and everywhere now there was a wondrous feeling of Presence which all his life he had been seeking. Nowhere had he ever felt so complete, so satisfied, so embraced.
   — Robert Thomsen, Bill W., 1975, pp. 222-223.
   (There is a longer quote and discussion of it here.)

   First off, Bill Wilson summoned up God the way that a sourcerer summons up a demon, and Bill Wilson did not even bother to say "please". Bill commanded God to appear, and God had no choice but to obey Bill Wilson and make an appearance. And "show me a sign" is Pharisiacal, which Jesus condemned in the Bible.

   And drug hallucinations are not necessarily mystical experiences, or spiritual experiences. Now some may be, I don't want to be too narrow-minded, I think spiritual experiences are wonderful no matter how you get them, but what really defines such a spiritual experience is what effect it has on your life in the following years. Someone who went from a "spiritual experience" to lying, thieving, sexual predation and philandering, and practicing necromancy and "spooking" does not inspire confidence in the validity of his "mystical experience".

   Then, the entire story seems to be stolen from Bill Wilson's own grandfather. In the biography of Bill that was written by Lois Wilson's personal secretary, Francis Hartigan, we learn that Bill's paternal grandfather, who was also named William Wilson, also had a bad drinking problem. In desperation, he climbed a mountain one Sunday morning and had a religious experience of a wind of Spirit blowing through him, and he never drank again:

   William Wilson may have preferred inn keeping to quarrying, but inn keeping is seldom the right occupation for a hard-drinking man. His attempts to control his drinking led him to try Temperance pledges and the services of revival-tent preachers. Then, in a desperate state one Sunday morning, he climbed to the top of Mount Aeolus. There, after beseeching God to help him, he saw a blinding light and felt the wind of the Spirit. It was a conversion experience that left him feeling so transformed that he practically ran down the mountain and into town.
         When he reached the East Dorset Congregation Church, which is across the street from the Wilson House, the Sunday service was in progress. Bill's grandfather stormed into the church and demanded that the minister get down from the pulpit. Then, taking his place, he proceeded to relate his experience to the shocked congregation. Wilson's grandfather never drank again. He was to live another eight years, sober.
   Bill W.; A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Bill Wilson, Francis Hartigan, page 11.

   What are the odds that both Bill's grandfather and Bill would have exactly the same dramatic religious experience, almost word-for-word identical,

   • both beseeching God for help,
   • both seeing a blinding White Light,
   • both feeling that they were on a mountaintop with a wind of Spirit blowing through them,
   • and both being so overwhelmed by the experience that they never drank again?

   Or did Bill Wilson just appropriate his grandfather's story to embellish his own detox experience?
   Did Bill Wilson just exaggerate his drug experience to get more "spiritual credentials" to be the leader of a cult religion?
   Did Bill's grand vision of God really happen at all?

   
   

2. Back to that first quote from Berean Research above, it contains this sentence:

   His official biography indicates that the content of the 12-Steps principles came to him "rapidly" through spirit communication. Certainly not from God.
   

   That is almost right, but wrong. It is true that Bill Wilson conducted séances and played with a Ouija Board and spirit rapping and channelling spirits, and Bill Wilson claimed that he got help with his second book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions from the spirit of Boniface the Christian missionary. But Bill Wilson got the 12 Steps straight from Dr. Frank Buchman's "Oxford Group" cult religion, and he said so. The 12 Steps are merely a rewrite of Frank Buchman's cult recruiting and indoctrination practices:

   "Early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and nowhere else." == William G. Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, page 39. Where did the early AAs find the material for the remaining ten Steps? Where did we learn about moral inventory, amends for harm done, turning our wills and lives over to God? Where did we learn about meditation and prayer and all the rest of it? The spiritual substance of our remaining ten Steps came straight from Dr. Bob's and my own earlier association with the Oxford Groups, as they were then led in America by that Episcopal rector, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker. == William G. Wilson, The Language of the Heart, page 298, published posthumously in 1988.

   Bill Wilson was of course being deceptive there. Bill Wilson gave the credit to Rev. Sam Shoemaker, who was the number two man in the Oxford Group, and Frank Buchman's right-hand man. Wilson was reluctant to mention the name of Frank Buchman then because Buchman was so hated by the American and British people for his support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

   So the material for the 12 Steps did not come from the Bible, or from talking to spirits. It came from the practices of the pro-Nazi Oxford Group cult religion.

   The 12 Steps are not spiritual practices or "spiritual principles", they are brainwashing practices. Dr. Robert Jay Lifton was one of the pioneering doctors who studied the American soldiers who came back from the Korean War brainwashed, and Dr. Lifton summarized the essential elements of an effective brainwashing program as eight characteristics (summarized here). The 12 Steps of A.A. contain all eight of them. So do the practices of Frank Buchman's Oxford Group and "Moral Re-Armament", which is what Buchman later renamed the Oxford Group to.

   Here is the interesting kicker: During the Korean War, a member of Moral Re-Armament was in the U.S. Army in Korea, and he got captured and was a prisoner of war who was subjected to the Red Chinese brainwashing program. The MRA member marvelled that Chinese brainwashing was just like an MRA meeting.

   Was that just a coincidence? No. Dr. Frank Buchman was a missionary to China in the late nineteen-tens and early nineteen-twenties, and he taught the Chinese his strange mind-damaging methods of religious conversion. The Chinese Communists merely recycled Frank Buchman's conversion techniques.

   
   

3. Further down, the Berean page says,

   In these foundational steps, Wilson is summarizing his beliefs based upon his experiences as a "recovering alcoholic." He felt "powerless" because he believed alcoholism was an incurable disease that consequently made his life "unmanageable." Since he couldn't "cure" himself (although millions do without 12-Step or other therapies!), he put his faith in "a power greater than ourselves," whom he called God, and "understood" Him by fabricating Him out of beliefs discovered in his study of different religions and religious experiences. That's more than "biblically vague." It's a false religion.
   

   That is sort of right, but also very wrong. Bill Wilson's Steps were not based on his alcohol abuse or recovery, or study of foreign religions. Again, this is a misunderstanding based on the Berean author's lack of knowledge about the Oxford Group roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps:

   • Frank Buchman taught that you are powerless over sin and have been defeated by it, and only surrender to God will save you.
   • Bill Wilson merely changed the word "sin" to "alcohol" and preached that you are powerless over alcohol and have been defeated by it, and only surrender to God will save you.

   That was not a Biblical teaching at all. Jesus never said that the ideal religious life was being a mindless "surrendered" slave of God (Step 3) who got his work orders through séances (Step 11).

   In both Buchmanism and A.A., the ideal believer could be a radio-controlled toy robot bought at Radio Shack. It just always immediately follows orders and mindlessly obeys commands from above. Dr. Frank Buchman even claimed that his follows were controlled by "powerful spiritual radiograms". So the Buchmanites marched around like so many little robots who were "guided by God". And they were always listening for what "God" told them to do next. And then they did whatever the voices in their heads told them to do.

   And yes, sometimes they also listened to "other spirits" for entertainment. (Look here.)

   Bill Wilson learned all of that while he was a member of the Oxford Group. And so did the other co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith and Clarence Snyder. All three of them were true believers in Frank Buchman's cult religion, and they continued to believe in it and teach it even after they left the group. And Alcoholics Anonymous is still teaching the same perverse religion today.

The rest of the Berean Research page is pretty correct. Rick Warren is making a huge mistake when he tries to adapt the 12-Step program and make it into a Christian program. He might as well adopt a Satan-worshipping church and try to make it compatible with Christianity.

Have a good day now.

Holy shit!

Heinrich Himmler joined Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion?

Heinrich Himmler was a Buchmanite?

Was "the author of the holocaust" actually a follower of Dr. Frank Buchman, who was also indirectly the founder (or grandfather) of Alcoholics Anonymous? Was the guy who exterminated 6 million Jews in the concentration camps, and also another 4 million gays, Gypsies, Poles, political dissidents, Leftists, Communists, intellectuals, and Catholic priests and Protestant ministers who opposed Naziism, actually a member of the Oxford Group?

How could almost all of the historians have missed such an important detail? Historically, this is significant.

And "from 1935 onwards" would mean that Bill Wilson, Dr. Robert Smith, Clarence Snyder, and Heinrich Himmler were all members of the Oxford Group at the same time. Then British Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain joined too. What a big happy family it was.

Previously, we knew that Heinrich Himmler was friends with some Oxford Group members:

Byron entered in his diary: 'Himmler apparently dotes on the Oxford Group and writes to its English members discussing their troubles with them.'⁶⁶

---

64. Robert Byron's diary, 6.9.1938; Spectator, 22.8.1987, pp. 22-3
...
66. Ibid., 11.9.1938; ibid.

---

Himmler, Reichsführer, Peter Padfield, pages 233 and 620.

But neither Byron nor Padfield said that Heinrich Himmler actually joined the Oxford Group cult religion, or was a convert.

I shall have to study this further. Maybe interlibrary loans (ILL) can get me the source book, which is in French. Alas, I don't speak much French. Maybe Bablefish or Google translator can help there.

By the way, I bought the SS book. $2. Special thanks to the guy who donated $25 the day before yesterday. The money is already being put to good use. (Who would have thought?)

Upwards and onwards. Have a good day now.

LATER: 2013.11.16:

I finally found the referenced book in Worldcat (the library's world catalog). Apparently, Gerald Reitlinger got the name of the book slightly wrong. It isn't Croix gammée ou caducée, it is Croix gammée contre caducée, by Francois Bayle. The first name translates to "the Swastika or the Caduceus", and the second one is "the Swastika against the Caduceus", or "the Swastika versus the Caduceus".

The full name of the book is: Croix gammée contre caducée — Les Experiences Humaines En Allemagne Pendant La Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale, by Francois Bayle. That is, "The Swastika versus the Caduceus — The Human Experiments In Germany During The Second World War". Published by Centre De L'Imprimerie Nationale a Neustadt (Palatinat), 1950. 8 volumes, 1521 pages.

Caduceus

Apparently, this book is an eight-volume chronicle of the Nuremberg War Crimes trials of Nazi doctors who tortured Jews and other prisoners with medical tests and experiments. So apparently, Karl Gebhardt testified in a trial that it was widely reported around 1935 that Heinrich Himmler had joined Dr. Frank Buchman's religious movement. And Heinrich Himmler's wife was a Buchmanite who managed to recruit him into the Oxford Group.

I put in an ILL request on it. I hope I don't have to go through all eight volumes to learn what I seek. I have the feeling that I may learn more French than I really wanted to.

We know that Frank Buchman and Heinrich Himmler met at the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi Party Day rally. The German aristocratic lady Moni von Cramon was a leading Buchmanite who worked for Heinrich Himmler as his secretary. (In the sanitized and white-washed MRA history, they claim that Himmler blackmailed her into working for him, and that she used her position to warn people who were about to be liquidated.) Moni invited Frank Buchman to the Nuremberg rally. There, Frank Buchman and Heinrich Himmler had lunch together where they discussed religion and politics. Then, in 1935, Buchman was again the personal guest of Himmler, and again they had lunch together and discussed religion and politics. Then in 1936, Frank Buchman was the personal guest of Heinrich Himmler at the Berlin Olympics.

But to hear that Heinrich Himmler "surrendered to God" and was "changed" by the Buchmanites is something new. And to hear that Heinrich Himmler's wife was a believer in Buchmanism who converted Heinrich Himmler is significant too.

So, after Heinrich Himmler was "changed by God", he went and murdered about 10 or 20 million innocent people? That isn't how religious conversion is usually supposed to work.

Nazi treatment of Poles

• 6 million Jews killed in the concentration camps and mass killings.
• 4 million others killed in the concentration camps — gays, Gypsies, foreigners, political dissidents, Leftists, Communists, intellectuals, and Catholic priests and Protestant ministers who opposed Naziism.
• 6 million Poles killed when the S.S. did "housecleaning" in Poland, killing everyone who could be a potential leader of resistance: political leaders, priests and ministers, intellectuals, university professors, doctors, labor union leaders... any and all leaders. Himmler wanted to reduce Poland to being a nation of subservient slave servants of Germany. Well, actually, Adolf Hitler wanted it, so he gave the orders to Heinrich Himmler, and Himmler gave the orders to the S.S., who did the "housecleaning":

  In 1939 he [Adolf Hitler] began liquidating what he termed the 'leading classes' in Poland — teachers, priests, intellectuals, entrepreneurs. About 70,000 Poles were killed in action, but by the end of the war about 6 million Poles were dead. Only half were Jewish.
  Hitler and Geli, Ronald Hayman, page 216.

• I don't know the numbers of people killed in the Ukraine, but it's millions. The S.S. rounded up and killed all of the Jews that they could get, and also anyone else who resisted German occupation. The total death toll in the Soviet Union, including deaths in combat, was 12 million.

  (You know you are dealing with mass murder when you just round off the death toll to the nearest million.)

Wow. With "servants of God" like that, who needs a Devil?

What I wonder about is, do you suppose Heinrich Himmler imagined that he was hearing the Voice of God during his morning "Quiet Times" as he "listened for Guidance"? Do you suppose Heinrich Himmler believed that he was carrying out the Will of God?

Quite possibly so. Hitler believed it:

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work.
    == Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

Did Himmler imagine that he was getting secret messages from Higher Powers? Quite possibly. Heinrich Himmler was crazy superstitious, and a real nut about "spiritual" matters. Peter Padfield notes that from late 1923 to early 1924, Heinrich Himmler's reading included books on spiritualism, second sight, astrology, telepathy, and the like. Heinrich Himmler fancied himself the reincarnation of an ancient Bavarian king, King Heinrich, returned to life to fulfill a grand destiny.

Note that Heinrich Himmler fancied himself the reincarnation of the Bavarian King Heinrich. But Heinrich Himmler was not decended from that king; Himmler was descended from one of King Heinrich's servants. In spite of Himmler's belief that "spirituality" and "folk" characteristics are transmitted genetically, through the blood line, in his mind Heinrich Himmler somehow managed to jump family lines and believe himself the reincarnation of a king from whom he was not descended.

Fascinated by tales of King Arthur and his knights, Himmler's "Camelot" for his own knightly Order was the castle of Wewelsberg near Paderborn in Westphalia. Having acquired it in 1934, Himmler had massive reconstruction work done (paid for by his company "The Society for the Protection and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments") — the labour came, of course, from the concentration camps.

The focal point of the castle was a huge round oak table with seating for twelve of his senior Gruppenführers:

"They sat in high-backed chairs made out of pigskin, on each of which was a silver disk on which the selected 'knight' had his name engraved. Here the chiefs of the SS were compelled to sit in the company of their Grand Master [Himmler] for hours of contemplation and meditation ... Each 'knight' had his own quarters in the castle..."[Graber]

Beneath this room was a crypt containing pedestals where should one of the "knights" die an urn containing his ashes [Graber] or his coat of arms [Padfield] would be burnt. Vents in the ceiling would allow those in the main hall to see the smoke rise or "the spirit ascend into a type of Valhalla". [Graber]

---

Graber, G.S., History of the SS, Robert Hale, 1978
Padfield, Peter, Himmler: Reichsführer SS, Macmillan, 1990

---

THE NAZI NECROMANCER? The Magical World of Heinrich Himmler, by Liam Rogers

Himmler declared that the S.S. was a holy order, who, like Teutonic Knights of Old, were on a Holy Mission to ennoble humanity by making the Aryan race pure and supreme everywhere. Both Hitler and Himmler even had portraits of themselves painted, showing them as knights dressed in shining suits of armor. They bandied about words like "honor", "nobility", "spirituality", and "purity", which may strike us as unbelievably hypocritical today, but they believed them at the time.

Lanzinger: Hitler the Standard Bearer

Dr. Seuss ridiculed portraits of Adolf Hitler as a knight in shining armor, Dec. 23, 1941. (Yes, it's really the same Dr. Seuss, the one who is famous for the children's stories like The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A little-known piece of historical trivia about Dr. Seuss is that he was a political cartoonist before and during World War II.)