58 Harriet St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
[likely March 1964]
American Friends of the Middle East
323 Geary St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
Dear Friends:
In view of two separate articles in today’s paper certain views are recorded that they may be sent on to the home office without prejudice.
The first of these is a report that Nasser is arming with the ultimate view of warring against Israel. Other factors aside the danger here is that it may terminate the existing UN organization unless something is done. And with the peculiar experience of always being able to communicate with UN officials and unable to do so with Americans involved, I feel now at any cost to put some pointers on the table.
Religion and Peace. I was at one time connected with the defunct Carnegie Group, “World Peace through Religion” and whatever the approach may have been, it was exemplified by the meeting between Christians and Muslims some years back in Beirut. In a vague way also it was instituted by the late Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles, at the UN conferences here in San Francisco in 1955.
The idea of having Hebrews, Christians and Muslims sit down together or pray together, or “come let us reason, together with the Lord may or may not be feasible. There is now be instituted a scientific group for the study of religion. This might involve theology and mysticism but one is more concerned whether it might become a modus operandi to place cards on the table and promote, at least indirectly some form of brotherhood and understanding. At the present time Judaism and Christianity are taught objectively and Asian faiths subjectively in the United States—a situation which is paralleled by the statement above that one can actually communicate with Israelis, and Arabs (though separately) and UN officials, but not usually with the bodies who tend to regard all Asians as things rather that human beings, unconsciously.
Water. I certainly cannot ask AFME to express any opinion on my private philosophy that the solution of California’s water problems will establish a precedent for the solution of water problems elsewhere. But there is in today’s paper a proposal, “How to Irrigate The Continent.”
SE Asia. This point is introduced because during the long turmoil in SE Asia and especially in Vietnam, no attention has been paid to the real religions of the real people in this area. The Chinese are able to infiltrate and say we have come to destroy the native and national religions and we either ignore the charge and respond by producing names and books by people who have never worshipped with the nationals.
This is motioned because yesterday at the World Affairs Council luncheon, the speaker, a highly place Pentagon officer who has been stationed in Saigon affirmed that one of our great weaknesses is our hauteur toward the local faiths. And it is no answer to anything to have “famous” Englishmen and Canadians lecture on “Islam” or book writers lecture on “Buddhism.” We have refused to accept hints that Asian nationals are very sensitive on this point.
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. The A.A.A.S., the chief scientific organization in this country has announced the recent formation of such a body. It is very strange that the United States which formulated a program at the Columbia Exposition in 1893 of having each religion of the world presented by its own devotees, after establishing this formula, has gone in entirely different directions. And whatever moral or political arguments are presented, actually it has lead to our own undoing in one Asian land after another that we do not give credence to the actual beliefs or superstitions of these people, we do not take them seriously.
I must also call to you attention that the Ford Foundation, which works on the premise of the reality of the religions of Asia, is doing more for human rehabilitation, for peaceful coexistence between Asia and the United States, and even for some form of individualistic capitalistic society that any other group.
My own personal premises based on the life of Sir Richard Burton have been of great advantage to me personally; so far they have been of no use to my country. In military strategy when one tactic fails another is tried; but in diplomatic circles the methods re too often been retarded as more important than the goal itself.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St.,
San Francisco 3, Calif.
January 5, 1965
My Dear Admiral Felt:
a. Following the letter written recently I have also now written to Edward Lansdale, copy enclosed. It gives some aspects of a life dedicated to “God and country” but on bases not usually followed. One can only say that what has been done has been done, and efforts have, almost without exception been approved in Asia and by Asians here.
b. After years and years of effort, and rejection, on radio station (KPFA) has expressed its willingness for me to submit a paper on “The Buddhism of Vietnam” or papers on a larger cycle covering the religions either of the Far East, or of entire Asia. This will be done gladly.
They were rather surprised with credentials. These credentials have already been accepted at Claremont College, but have been invariable rejected by all those American institutions which have relied on Europeans or Englishmen for data on “Asia.”
c. Attention is also called to “Living Buddhism in Asia” translation of a conference of Japanese. Whatever else be said this represents the actual views of actual Orientals during this age. We may like or not like what they have said and written. But this and not the metaphysical speculations which have crowded the air and book stalls misrepresenting Oriental views should be made known to the American public.
In this no apology for these Buddhism’s are needed nor any criticism. In scientific research and in true military intelligence efforts it is requisite to charter out the territory involved and not personal feelings about that territory. Unfortunately politics and diplomacy are prone to accept personal interpretations of facts rather than the facts themselves.
d. Beginning January 29 some plays will be presented at the Buddha Universal Church, 720 Washington St. this city, involving “Amitabba” and thus facets of real “Mahayana” Buddhism of which the American public has been kept in ignorance by those in control of channels of publicity and communication. I hope it may be possible for you to attend such sessions or performances and also to make a tour of the building. This church has a lot of basic Chinese manuscripts not always available in English and also the charms and amulets sent from the Vietnam “Roshi” met in Thailand.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
March 7, 1965
American Friends of the Middle East
323 Geary St.
San Francisco 2, Calif.
Dear Admiral and Friends
This letter is being sent in duplicate for your sharing with Terry Duce, the Washington office or anybody else. The immediate impetus is the radio announcement that Ben Bella is proposing a conference between Israel and the Arab States. Now I wish to call you attention to a few items:
1. My peace plan for Southeast Asia is being published in Thailand. I knew it would get no hearing here. It is impossible. Anything can pass as religion in the United States, including the beatnik church in North Beach, the Elijah Mohammedanites, etc. And abroad the communists have used even Christian missionary movements as their centers—names, dates, facts, persons; not conjectures.
The result is that here we have a lot of so-called “Buddhist: movements, 90% of whose members never studied an Buddhist literature at all. The Korean Master, See, will return shortly from Columbia University where he has been trying to correct the joyful acceptance by Americans of all kinds of charlatans and pretenders as conveyers of Asian cultures.
As we are dedicated to Aristotelian and Hegelian dualism, let me say that my peace proposal has no relation whatever and whatsoever to any group in the United States which thinks that peace means the withdrawal against them, etc. It is like finding a center of gravity on a straight line instead of in a three or four dimensional space. It leaves us the choice of death war and graveyard peace. It leaves us the Buddhist proposals are nothing like either. Besides I have found that the way to make peace with Chinese is not like the Quaker-Jain method of non-resistance. All the God-men of India fought wars and fought them successfully and some day we shall study Mohammed, inshallah.
2. As I told you before I had a peace plan for Palestine accepted by the UN officials, by the Israelis I met, by Arabs of UAR and Saudi Arabia, but unanimously rejected by the State Department, the Carnegie “Peace” Movement, etc., etc., in which we shall not go here.
My contact and talks with Hashim Nashim have let me into a lot of real history which has never been news, and which, if it got into the hands of your colleagues would enable them to work discretely, honestly and most objectively on the problems of the Near East. I mentioned the Southwest Asia imbroglio to indicate objective contacts with persons, events, etc. rejected always a priori by the State Department and press, but not by Army Intelligence, who at least grant interviews.
Now there are three tremendous things which Hashim is trying to take up, only the first of which I have had time to try to work on:
a. A sane overall Nile Development program, like a “Missouri-Valley” modification of a “Colorado River” plan applied to that part of the world. The minor would be on the future of the water resources of UAR, especially because of the potential withdrawal of the West Germans.
Our terrible dialectical press has over evaluated the work of the Russians and far under evaluated the work of the Germans in UAR and, in effect some of our so-called most “reactionary” press has been thus dealing out real communist propagandas. Outside of the space-physics and military research Russia is far, far behind a very large number of nations, into which we need not go.
What is needed is more pro-American approaches here and below.
b. A completely objective picture of both the Arabians and Jewish cultures, all levels, all divisions, inside and outside of both religions and politics, to point out the machinations as well as the achievements of each side. My own “peace plan” here is based on salt water conversion, but with the Ben Bella and Hashim, there are many other ways to bring about better understanding.
However I feel positive that any meetings at any level must be with spiritual consideration each of the other; a much more sober evaluation of religion than is possible to get from the Foreign Office or press; and from the pragmatic standpoint the inclusive of enough representatives of petroleum and engineering firms. There is no need for the pragmatic business forces and the spiritual people not to cooperate fully.
c. The natural resources of African which can be developed through and with protected investments. This is very vital at the moment because Hashim has already been engaged in getting Gold where white people would not readily have access. The sober, proper consideration of this might mean the solution of many problems in one organization. These are things I may also probe through the Chambers of Commerce and industrial forces.
I am still convinced that we can only have peace and understanding through (a) love and mutual consideration; (b) commerce in all its aspects. Political philosophies mean nothing to me and I confess a weakness in abhorring them all.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
P.S. This may be fragmentary and sketchy, but I hope it will lead to your meeting Hashim, etc. with or without my presence.
772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
June 27, 1967
American Friends of the Middle East, Inc.
1607 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, D.C.
Dear Friends:
I have your Special Issue No. 1, 1967 before me and have also written to my own Congressman, Phillip Burton, copy enclosed.
Ever since the world adopted that hollow, noisy, “peace with justice” we have had to face more and more political warfare, in which commitments are made to words, not to people. And so long
As we have the verbal and not the human commitments I see no way out of the present complexes.
Ever since meeting the late Dr. Henry Atkinson in 1928 I have worked on peace both for the world and for the Near East in particular. And it is only recently that His Holiness, Pope Paul, has come out for exactly the same program submitted by me personally in 1930 from which I have had no reason to move.
We live simultaneously in two worlds, one of hard facts and the other of abstracted opinions and these opinions are evaluated according to the personality who originates them. If there is any question of sight or foresight I am having Ellen who is your local secretary copy two epic poems written by me respectively in 1941 and 1942, one from the Jewish point of view and another from the Christian point of view covering both the territory involved and proposed “solutions.” These poems were rejected, respectively by the Synagogue and Church which does not mar their validity one bit. Later there came a larger epic from the Islamic point of view. But anybody who knows all these three points of view—suggested previously by Sir Richard Burton and others, finds himself in an unenviable position.
I have details which might solve each and every problem of the area and I am willing at any time to submit to you both the program originally given to the World Church Peace Union and the one on which I worked while abroad. In general Asian peoples accepted it, and so did and do UN officials. But with Americans it seems to depend entirely on the two cultures—the fact people being in entire accord; the opinion people being divided and largely either unconcerned or disconcerned.
As written before I have inherited, in a sense, a mental legacy from the late Terry Duce to work on desert reclamation as a means of harmonizing Israelis and Arabs, but I also have the background—not inconsiderable in the respective religions. At least Mrs. Hollister of the “Temple of Understanding” and her colleagues investigated and found them not wanting. Generally they are not investigated and found wanting. This is our “realism.”
I have found Ambassador either an extremely uninformed person or an uninforming one. The world is today divided between the less equal and more equal and it just happens that the less equal have more votes in the UN.
I am in entirely accord with your views as I think I have always been. But it is time to get away from palliatives and establish some sort of program. I was sent on a peace feeler mission from Pakistan to India and was utterly berated by our foreign offices. India and Pakistan called in Kosygin.
I met so many UN officials and with them one could confer and talk and be equal. This is not yet possible between an American citizen and his foreign office.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco, Calif. 94110
October 24, 1968
American Friends of the Middle East,
1605 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
My dear Friends:
?????? Starting ?????? Over in the Mid East ?????
I am today enclosing what is to me a measly fifteen dollars as dues. I can afford more, and I can’t. I can’t because the average American, joining a “big” organization is a phantom to sign checks, otherwise he does not exist.
The Hebrew Bible ends: “and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” But rather than accept the existence of a real Living, Loving, Compassionate God, we prefer the curse and we are getting the curse and we shall continue to get the curse because the fathers will not children do not like it one bit.
In 1930 my plan for bringing about peace through religion was accepted by the World Church Peace Union under the late Dr. Henry Atkinson was one of the most promising. At his request I studied all the real religions of the real world and have spoken from the platforms of each of the real religions of the real world and, of course, worshipped with the devotees of even more sects, schools and cults. This country prefers an out and out atheist, even if he be a communist. Read the papers. “Blessed are the Peace Maker” ends in the pulpit.
One can count on the fingers of one had the number of clerics that have been willing even to listen to reports of accomplishments in this field. Of fine—that is all of our beautiful clerics that would even listen, three are Quakers (Friends) and one an outcast. The rest almost unanimously believe in a “Golden Rule”—one way street. My original plan accepted the historicity of the great Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Padisha Akbar of the Moguls, names we have to by-pass (along with the communists) because their very existence upsets certain power structures which the young now flee. Facts of the world are not important if they interfere with conclusions, programs and crusades.
I am not going into past history but on one point—being sent on a peace feeler between Pakistan and India, one got nothing but rebuffs from Americans. The Pakistanis and Indians called in Kosygin and they are going to call in more Kosygins until we get out of our ivory towers “realisms” to accept facts and humanity.
Fortunately there is not only a God, both in Heaven and on Earth, there is a splendid American tradition which may be coupled with the names of Emerson and others, totally apart from all the dualistic, subjective Hegelianism’s which the power structures of both this land and its enemies accept..
Fortunately the “truths” of the Bible are not abrogated by power structures. Jesus Christ has said, “In the hour ye think least of the Son of Man cometh.” There is a European legend that he came as a Goose girl and there is the hard American fact that now the Divine Blessings comes to an American housewife connected with no power structure of the purely subjective “left,” “center,” and “right” (which belongs to an outworn space matrix). It is Mrs. Dickermann Hollister whose “The Temple of Understanding” is attracting worldwide attention (outside the American Press which has plenty of space for Negro and other gangsters).
Mrs. Hollister and her colleagues presenting to the world in no uncertain fashion: My house shall be a house of prayers for all peoples, has accepted the hard research of this person and the historicity of Emperors Suleiman and Akbar.
My own program has been and will be: “Eat, pray and dance with everybody.” The only trouble is that this program works.
Having lived with real Dervishes in the real (and thus anti-realistic) world, I began showing these dances, repeating the Name of God. Very gradually the number of people, mostly young of course, joining increases. But the real Living God Who loves all humanity and thus all religions, has inspired this spiritual one of the late Miss Ruth St. Denis with prayers and rituals of all faiths and the young. God bless them, accept this. These dances are dedicated in a sense of Mrs. Hollister ant the late Mahatma Gandhi.
These dervish dances are based on actual dances and actual ceremonies of existents schools of Sufis, most not recognized by the “only in America” professors of Islamics. They are also “innovations.” So to recite Allah in other than traditional methods puts one outside the pales—man’s pales.
When the Hebrew Chassid, Rabbi Schlomo came here, he rushed to this unrecognized Sufi and we embraced. But his dance, through alluring, has not yet been too effective and it has, of course, brought down the thunder from the synagogue pulpits. These people, like all clergy must have their separatisms in a day when the young want to join with each other in brotherhood beyond caste, creed and sex, and all divisions which their elders insist on upholding.
As Sufism is based on Love and that “God is Love” in effective practice, not in theoretical theological terms—we are now able to bring the young together using the Names of God, first in the Islamic Dervish style and then in the real Yogi and other styles. So we have the terrible situation of refugees from Palestine coming to a Sufi teacher and joining. They join in repeating ALLAH which is nothing but a variation of the Name of God found in the Hebrew Testament and many times, and also with a slight, very slight change of vowel pronunciation the Name of God in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ who, did not succeed in getting the “Christian” world to pronounce the Name referred to in Hallowed Be Thy Name.
This person has long given up trying to reach “realists” with their selective subjective dialectics (anti Marxist, of course but still dialectics) and found it is so easy and simple to bring the young together in effective Love and in the acceptance of a God Who is Life and quite untouched by institutions human or quasi divine, which remain institutions of separations and separativeness.
And today one finds a number of former Zionist enthusiasts, some of whom have lived in Palestine; and a large number of young of mixed Jewish ancestry finding a home and solace in repeating the Names of God in Joy and Love and in all the attributes with which each religion endows the Deity while denying the other faiths do.
I used to say sarcastically that we needed some Jewish Othellos and Islamic Shylocks. Now I have from pretty good sources that many formerly most enthusiastic Zionists are beginning to realize they have been cat’s paws of power structures.
As a person I am no longer trying to reach organizations and institutions; and as a person I am reaching the young, teaching them spiritual ways to Joy and Love without drugs and beyond drugs; drawing together those of former different faiths and presenting them a God quite outside of establishments of any kind.
One looks in vain for any acknowledgements from those seeking funds (money seems more powerful than “Allah”) and all one wants is human recognition and two way streets. Free speech means more than demanding one be heard while being unwilling to listen.
Of course as the writer holds that Mohammed was Khatimal Mursaleen he can be accused of bias. I believe in all faiths, in all religions. I believe that Mohammed completed the work of the founders of all faiths and that he was a Buddha who lived in the midst of humanity and carried on all very human affairs without forgetting God (Allah) one minute. I did not impose this but you may be surprised, my friends, that the “outcast” young are accepting it more and more. They are finding what they sought in Dancing for God (Allah) as the psalmists say, but few do.
Despite the strong terms here, one wishes you all success in real efforts toward real peace in the real world. All this one has ever sought, and almost never gotten, was a verbal recognition that he too might be working toward the same goal. The easiest way to open up the check book would be the common recognition of hearts.
God bless you,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco
July 7, 1969
American Friends of the Middle East
1605 New Hampshire Ave.,
Washington, D.C. 20009
Dear Friends:
I am finding that there is one program on which nearly all contending groups in this country agree, that is that not only is one’s own particular program superior to all other particular programs, but that success must come through certain individuals and that if it does not come through a particular group of individuals, it either will not come or should not come.
This particularly American psychology appears in Hawthorne’s “The Great Stone Face” and is very evident in California above all where there has been a constant parade of “Great Stone Face” movements with the same psychology constantly reappearing.
I see nothing gained that when a program is proffered, the success of that program must come from the efforts of certain individuals, else it must not come at all. And the possibilities of either religion or psychology being based on the experience of God rather than on any theologies or doctrines has not been too welcomed. But now it is being welcomed and especially among the young. An when the acceptance of the living God, as against a series of beliefs which are often contending ones, becomes factual it is called “generation gap” and made into any series of confusion divisions. Whereas the “gap” comes simply between those who have doctrines or theories and those who have experiences.
When an unknown (but “only in America”) succeeds in getting Israelis and Christians and Muslims to dance together, he is automatically dangerous to all Americans who persist in “The Great Stone Face” tradition. The fact that this is done in the halls of a Christian Theological Seminary is going to make it really, real historical. And some day, my friends, I hope you will recognize that “in the hour ye think least, the Son of Man cometh.”
I believe you are sincere in wishing to bring peace and understanding in the Near East. I believe your ideals and programs are excellent but all over this country one finds a man’s financial contributions are welcomed, but little else—this is almost characteristic excepting among scientific circles.
I can easily send you pictures, already published, of the young people dancing phases of “Dances of Universal Peace,” both with my own person and without my person. But it seems now that some of my disciples have been most successful in teaching these dances to others and now an effort is being made, and before God-Allah it will succeed, in bringing these “Dances of Universal Peace” to the East Coast.
Yes there is a generation gap. It is a gap also between the young who accept a God-reality and their elders who have various dogmas, doctrines, religions (with considerable sprinklings of self-praise).
My own financial affairs are improving and I would like to join with others who are working toward the same or similar goals. But I am doing and others are theorizing. The United Nations (which I admire) is not God. God is God, and when even Jews join in the La Illaha El Il Allah and when this is join in the halls of a Christian Theological Seminary, it is a new age, and the generation gap is between those who join each other in prayer, in dancing and in eating, and those who keep separate and cry because problems are not solved.
I hope you will give this some consideration.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
410 Precita Ave.,
San Francisco, Calif.
July 14, 1969
Helen D. Bruner,
Director of Public Relations
A.F.M.E.,
1605 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.
Dear Friend:
I agree with you thoroughly. “A” pat on the back” for a job well done is nice to receive….” I agree with you thoroughly.
While you are asking for new attitudes, new approaches, etc. and never acknowledging letters of any kind, this person has, via the use of Dervish dances, had Israeli Jews, American non-Israeli Jews, Christians or part-Jewish blood, Muslims and Hindus join with many others in a Christian Seminary doing these and other dances.
We would like an occasional “pat on the back.” It might even loosen our checkbook. There is, so far as I know, no one way streets in God. I enjoy your work, but never once during the years of membership has one received even the slightest “pat on the back.”
Now the Israelis and their neighbors are more than patting each other on the back, and I am going now to teach Christian mysticism at a Seminary; then return to teach here on Sufism; and then in the morning to meet a great Swami; and in the afternoon to teach Sufi poetry to Hippies.
God-Allah may appreciate this. When human beings can I shall certainly show this with money. One could equally petition you to send funds here but we depend on God alone. We are glad to share our dollars; we should occasionally like just a teeny-wheeny “pat on the back.”
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
P.S. Contribution will be put aside. Where the heart is there is the treasure also.
410 Precita Ave.,
Sept. 22, 1969
Erich W. Bethmann
Director of Research
American Friends of the Middle East, Inc.
1605 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.
Washington D.C. 20009
My dear Mr. Bethmann:
I have before me your letter of Sept. 18. To show my good will I am enclosing a check for $25. I can assure you that I am quite capable of sending more, but we live in a nation so ensconced in aphorisms we cannot see realities. In fact this morning I wrote a letter to Mr. Finley Dunne Jr. (Peter) of the Temple of Understanding, which is being enclosed. Anti-theism is no cure for atheism. The “God” who is one of a million of thoughts which pass through our ego-minds may have some reality, but is certainly more than emasculated. Loving quotations we repeat ad nauseum, “Peace on Earth thru Men of Good Will” meaning peace on earth thru men of importance. If they are not important we won’t listen to them.
In my letter to Mr. Dunne I refer to the World Church Peace Union. My plan was one of 16 accepted by them in 1929. The other 15 were from important persons. Instead of listening or even considering as a nation in the non-sciences we look to name and form, and in the sciences we look to experience, knowledge, and ability. So we have as Lord Snow says two cultures. In order to reach the moon, we used honesty, integrity, knowledge and skill, but in public affairs and in foreign affairs we look merely to fame, or very occasionally to the prestige of money—not to knowledge, integrity, experience, and skill.
While I was in Egypt I worked out a program by which the Arabs and I mean the Arabs and not some editorial so-labeled, conceded they would recognize Israel on these terms. Then I ran into a blank wall of our own foreign office, and the important peace societies. I was sent to India on a peace-feeler mission from Pakistan and was soundly berated by our foreign office for even attempting it, so in the end Pakistan called in Kosygin. And today we are still afraid that the Arabs and Israelis might call in Kosygin. And our foreign policy in the Near East is motivated by this one motive—we must not let them call Kosygin.
Why does the President of the United States have to turn to the UN? Plenty of Americans have lived in Vietnam and elsewhere in South East Asia (including myself).The state department never answers our letters. My program for the Near East included the vast desert reclamation project which would have absorbed all our unemployment and all those released from military duty. At least the late Perry Duce considered it feasible, but I am not an important person. There are doubtless many unimportant persons in this world. It is the young, not the old, who will accept the scriptures, “In the hour ye think least the son of man cometh.” And we repeat ad nauseum, “Blessed are the peace makers” but we will have none of them.
This is the only nation in the world that is called upon and recognized non-American non-Muslims as “experts” on Islam. Why we had here in San Francisco a Zionist, the late Dr. Michael Zarchin, as on of the chief lecturers on Islamics, and compared to several very famous non-Americans non-Muslim professors he was the soul of honesty and integrity. But I have never seen any protest against non-American non-Muslims teaching Islamics, and I have met innumerable retired Peace Corps Volunteers who were horrified between the difference of classroom instructions and examinations and what they found to be actually true.
September 1969
M. P. Evenson
32 Cove Road,
Belvedere 94920
My dear Admiral:
I have tried to get you by phone and no answer. The life is very full and one feels rested after a compulsory vacation. We visited much of northwestern United States which, to me, stands up with any part of the world.
I have written a very strong letter to AFME. They wanted, and perhaps deserve contributions, but they have failed, until the last instance, ever to answer or recognize either communications or suggestions. They write editorials but try to do what the editorials say! I am, and they have until this instance, never recognized it, so instead of sending a hundred dollars which I felt I could afford, twenty-five ($25.00) was sent.
Perhaps this is better for this money will now be used for a trip by my secretary, Mansur Otis Johnson and myself to Istanbul next spring. This will be to attend the conference of the Temple of Understanding, and one will now go in person instead of sending delegates.
One has been prepared by a long life to meet with representatives of the world’s living faiths, some of whom are good friends, others acquaintances; and having worshiped with all but the Zoroastrians, one has a certain strong background and I am not going to permit anymore any, and I mean any, non-American, non-Asian “expert” to stand in my way and my light.
AFME has sent a courteous letter without recognizing what I am specifically doing. An even stronger letter to the Muslim Students Association brought back a surprisingly favorable reply. I am interested in “Allah.” I am not interested in the internal or external politics of Eritrea, Chad and unknown lands where Muslims are presumingly “persecuted.” Mohammed said to oppose oppression whether to or by Muslims. As the Muslims ignore the oppressions they do, the whole thing becomes a farce. I am happy to say my criticism met the approval of the majority of delegates.
My meeting last night was again a success: to have Israelis, anti-Israeli and part Jewish Jews, Christian, Muslims and Hindu or Dharma-worshipping people dance together in a Christian seminary is an accomplishment. I doubt if anybody else has succeeded in doing that. But no, only “important” people may make suggestions, even if they are frivolous or fail. An I am enough of a Pragmatist and absolutely and anti-Dialectician, to flinch one inch in this regard.
Just before my vacation my God-daughter put on Pakistani fashion show and I lead at least one hundred and fifty young Americans in dervish-dances. And tomorrow I am to go both to a grammar school and college to present, according to the age and mentality, the Dervish dances and Sufi philosophy.
My secretary, Otis Johnson, is a close friend of Professor Huston Smith of M.I.T. He also works closely with the Temple of Understanding.
Having had at least two miserable experiences—one in the Mideast and one in Pakistan-India where ideas were turned down because the person proposing them was unimportant, I am ready to make a lot of noise. A Nation which has geniuses to reach the moon does not need to turn elsewhere for “solutions” to international problems. Or as one leading diplomat has said: “How can you trust a Nation which does not trust its own citizens.”
I have been very, very successful in campaigns to introduce Asian-Asian and American-American philosophies into our university curricula and will continue. I have a great love for the Oriental sages and a parallel love for our New England Transcendentalists and a number geniuses connected at some time or other with Columbia University, including some now there whom you know.
My audiences are growing both in number of meetings and attendance. The world can not continue half free, half dialectic.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
My work in the instruction of Dervish Dances is not one of a number of projects. It is an active operation. It is attracting more and more people of diverse backgrounds, and we are not making stupid hypocrisy of “love ye one another.” It is an actuality. But it is also based on the sublime truth that Allah Is, and although we are probably in agreement about not wanting to indulge in theological differences, we ought to be willing to face the fact that the synagogue does not use the name of God offered by Moses, etcetera; or for that matter the sublime teachings of much of Jewish literature. Or that Jesus himself must have said Allah or something pretty close to that in sound. So when we use Allah we are on safe as well as sublime ground.
I have never felt very good since the editorial sometime back of calling for a clean slate and doing nothing more. I believe, along with Mohammed, act as if in the presence of Allah, and remember, if you do not see Him, verily He sees you. With all our protests, with all our vast appropriations we are more afraid of the possibility of an all loving, all wise God than we are of the dialectical subjectivisms of the various schools of Marxists. And it is a great mistake to assume that the young in revolt are, excepting for very small numbers, connected with any new left or any kind of communist party.
The powers that be hush-hush at every opportunity any mention of the American-American Emerson, or Whitman, or Thoreau. 90% of the protesting people I have met including not only all the young but some of the mature, want Emerson and Whitman and Thoreau, etc.,etc.,etc. Pseudo wars occupy all our attention and consume much of our money. Nothing is easier than teaching Christian mysticism to the young, or even lecturing on Oriental Philosophy to the young. But about the only paper that admits of this actuality is one controlled by my own disciples.
The last words of the old Testament, the concluding paragraphs of the book of the Prophet Malachi offer one of several keynotes.
I believe I shall be permitted to speak when the Temple of Understanding has its next convocations. I shall mention the careers and accomplishments of Emperors Suleiman the Magnificent and Padisha Akbar. I know enough of the leaders of the objective world to be able to accomplish this end. The world cannot remain half free half dialectic. We need more reality and less “realism,” I have complete agreement and utmost faith with the purposes of American Friends of the Middle East. But I am also an American-American imbued with pragmatic philosophies and accomplishments, and believe that words, slogans, aphorisms, etc., are empty void and useless, or as the neglected American poet Edna St Vincent Millay said: “The world stands out on every side, No wider than the heart is wide.”
Faithfully and Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
910 Railroad Ave.,
Novato, Calif.
November 14, 1969
M. P. Evenson
32 Cove Road,
Belvedere, Calif. 94920
My dear Admiral Evenson:
I am reversing a usual procedure by writing to you and sending copy to AFME. Several attempts to reach you by phone have resulted in no answer. Besides events, and perhaps a train of rather successful events would make a telephonic conversation either too long or too inconclusive.
The other day when I read that the Rabbis of the Reformed Jewish synagogues were protesting the war in Vietnam I said, “Now is the time to get the World Buddhist Federation to protest against the wars in the Near East.” This is not sarcasm at all and the way my affairs are progression it might well be that this will be done and perhaps aid in terminating an enormous amount of unconscious hypocrisy both on our own parts and that of others.
So far as Vietnam is concerned I am waiting for the manuscript or publication of my friend, General Edward Lansdale. Also for my own private meeting to listen to my Vietnamese friends—they exist, you know—to tell us something of their country and what they want. Besides we have already discussed this subject.
But so far as peace in the Near East is concerned I feel it is part of my life’s purpose. I was once sent on a peace feeler mission from Pakistan to India and was excoriated by our foreign office. So these countries called in Kosygin and they met in Tashkent. I still believe this is possible. Our very ignorant experts, advisers and commentators ignore that Russia was the very first power to recognize Israel in line with the real Marxist Lenin teachings, or rather the teachings of Karl Marx and N. Lenin. Also that real communist exists on a large scale in Israel. Our misleaders want it both ways.
The other night the impossible happened. The impossible is always happening: a group of Jewish Chassid’s and disciples in Islamic Sufism met and sang together and showed every sign of love for each other. Not only that, we plan to meet again. And this sort of “inconceivable” “unthinkable” and “impossible” event is going to be repeated and on a much larger scale soon, inshallah.
While all the war mongers and the know everything commentators are offering their subjective “realisms” as factual, there is a growing “love ye on another,” not only among the American youth, Hippies and non-Hippies, but within the halls of ivy. You know 300 young, not all students, caused world news, cause world news with some property damage is incited, and 5000 students chanting is not mentioned at all. And today we have the most wonderful classes both from the University of California and San Francisco State, in subject matter, response and effectiveness, and, of course, not news. I don’t know where the Vice President stands on this, but us “peasants” have no chance at all with know it alls like Alsop & Co. There is no use even trying.
The classes lead by Sra. Becker-Colonna on the two campuses are planning a joint meeting later on, and the chief speaker will be a man from Mecca, whose family has long been there. We shall at least be permitted to offer Sufi (Dervish) dances and chants. And the young will respect and accept what their elders do not, and sometimes cannot, objectively.
When I told my friend, Rudolph Schaeffer who head a famous art school of this, he showed me what they are doing there with Iranian Art. Human beings who do not accept commentators are getting closer together and will, inshallah.
The Dervish dances and the whole program of “Dances of Universal Peace” are making great headway. At the moment I am also compelled to teach others how to teach. My own place is packed and while there have been exhibitions (rather successful) there is not the full communication when the number of participants is large. In any case the doors are open for an ever growing acceptance of this aspect of Peach through the Arts.
The immediate denouement is a conference of the World’s religion scheduled for Istanbul, Turkey, next spring. I am no longer prevented by lack of funds. Besides my God-daughter from Pakistan has proffered any financial help if necessary. We are not going around begging, we are doing.
I am waiting for information from The Temple of Understanding to determine the dates of going to the East Coast, to New York or Washington or both.
The meetings with the Chassid Rabbi Schlomo have been duplicated by meetings with spiritual leaders of other faiths, totally out of line with the subjective conclusions of non-devotee writers and agitators. My whole program is full, teaching and learning. And our next crusade will be “Jesus Christ, yes! Santa Claus, no!” And we are going to do, rather than agitate.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
Nov. 16, 1969
American Friends of the Middle East
1607 New Hampshire Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20009
Dear friends:
The events of the past week prompt this letter. Most details will be found in the enclosures herewith. We shall continue to work for peace with understanding, in or out of politics.
I do not know whether to agree with Vice President Agnew or not anent commentators. But there is no question to find a horrible species of utterly self-centered, self-appointed authorities on all subjects given so many opportunities in press and radio to inform occasionally and misinform more than occasionally concerning events and lands they do not visit.
I have in mind in particular the horrible editorials of Mr. Joseph Alsop, but this sort of thing has become horribly typical of a large section of American Culture.
We are here planning a Christmas “Jesus Christ not Santa Claus” and a joint Hanukah celebration With the local Chassid’s.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Jan. 19, 1970
American Friends of the Middle East
1605 New Hampshire Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20009
My dear friends:
I am enclosing a copy of a letter written to one the most important men of this region, who incidentally had at one time been an employer. I am today in a position to do things, not because of knowledge or virtue, but simply because my financial situation is constantly improving.
It may not be a virtue that one is heard simply because he is independent financially. But one certainly can use this independence to impel a more real—not a more realistic—picture of the world as it is in order to affect a better world for the morrow. I am not going into the past here, but will perpetually protest one of your former editorials which verbalized a new approach which might affect peace in the Near East, and left it there, verbalized.
It is remarkable how so many organizations in this country make grand emotional appeals, sometimes quite justified, but still we remain in the world of hazy emotions, and slight effectiveness.
Tomorrow morning I am breakfasting with a Palestinian Arab who is a citizen of Israel. He has some plans for real peace in the real Near East, affecting the real people thereof, and I am going to listen to him, and do more. I certainly protest against the common custom of all groups in this land, no matter what their presumable political and social philosophy, of listening only to those views which are palatable to them and ignoring facts and ignoring the humanity involved unless some special interest promoted. We have had no peace there from and I don’t think we will ever get any peace there from; but until we learn to listen to human beings we can and must expect more Biafras.
At the present time there are certainly rival or parallel organizations in the same general field, and I am at a loss where to place either my loyalties or money. But I am not at a loss as to my future policy, that I am going to get out of every one-way-street of groups which appeal for money from others, and do not readily accept ideas, while failing to achieve the goals which are in virtual form, but often only in verbal form, their stated objectives. I should much rather work with some organizations, and I hope you are willing to accept the report which I may be sending in on conversations with this newly arrived Israeli Arab.
If you want to know more of my views, you have them on file. I may be in Washington this spring, in connection with the affairs of the Temple of Understanding.
I am particularly annoyed by the fact that not a single organization has accepted the idea of having Arabic culture presented in our universities thru Arabs, Islamic culture thru Muslims.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
P.S. I am keeping Admiral Evenson informed.
910 Railroad Ave.
Novato, Calif. 94947
January 21, 1970
M.P. Evenson
32 Cove Road
Belvedere 94920
My Dear Admiral Evenson:
Although I spoke to Mrs. Evenson yesterday, I think it would be practicable to make a complete report on the events of the day. At times I feel like a resurrected Charlie Brown. It is over 40 years since the late Henry Atkinson of the World Church Peace Union said to me in San Francisco, “Mr. Lewis, I have been around the world three times, I have seen every king, prime minister and diplomat, and you are the first person to have brought me what I wanted.” I then largely at his behest studied all the religions of the world, have prayed with people of all faiths, and have met human beings of many levels into which I do not intend to go now. I have even had Arabs of many lands, Israelis, and every single U.N. official I have ever met approve of my approach. The late James Terry Duce was well aware of what I was doing and also approved of it. As you know, I had to resign from the World Affairs Council, the World Federalists, and every other group interested in world affairs, because I found that as soon as one became a member, one was denied the floor’ if you were a non-member and came from a long distance, you could speak.
But this is a different age, and the doors of the universities are opening a little more rapidly than I can adjust to the new and very favorable circumstances. I find that practically all politicians and sociologists live in a dualistic world of only partial reality which they call “realism,” and they are motivated far more by fear than facts and sometimes by hatred. In every part of the world there is the dictum, “Old men argue while the young men die.”
My original idea was to bring peace between the Israelis and Arabs so that the communists could not infilter. But today I see terrible pressures even by editors like Hearst supporting a form of communism far more revolutionary than that introduced in Russia. This is one of the reasons I cannot fathom the minds of so-called social scientists.
One of my closest friends, Mr. Shamcher B. Beorse, of Keyport, Washington, is publishing a book in which he gives “Samuel L. Lewis” nearly a whole chapter. Mr. Beorse has had by far the most adventurous life of anybody I know; has been very close to several Secretary Generals of the U.N. and has had access to Presidents of the United States and Prime Ministers of diverse lands. The appearance of his book on the market may cause some eyes to flicker: who is this Samuel L. Lewis or rather “Sam as he calls me?
For years, I have proposed bringing together the spiritual leaders of the Jews and Muslims. Without exception this idea was looked upon favorably, but practically every single Jew, Israelis or not, has said, “But I have never met any spiritual leader of the Arabs or Muslims;” while every Arab I have met has said: “I have never met any spiritual leader of the Jews, but I would like to.”
But how the heck can you do anything about this in a country whose “experts” on Asia have been for the most part Englishmen or Europeans, not Americans or Asians? The friends of Lord Gibb at Harvard, Professor Schnider and Professor Von Breunbaum at Southern California, the Professors at the University of Hawaii etc. etc. have seen to it that both Arabs and Sufis are excluded from conferences on religions of the world etc. etc. etc. The only exceptions have been at the Center for Religious Studies at Harvard where a Dr. Nasr, a Persian not an Arab, has been a guest, and at one or two institutions where Persians not Arabs have been invited to speak on Sufism and Islamic culture. In fact almost the only honest representative of Islamic culture until recently was the late Dr. Zarchin of San Francisco, who was the Islamic representative.
As you know, I have long worked on such problems as those of water resources, desert reclamation etc etc. I have been in touch with Sen. H. Baker of Tennessee and others etc etc etc. With all this and other approaches based on the hard facts of actual research and human experience, my meeting with Azam, the Arab Sufi, who is a citizen of Israel, was instantaneous and automatic. No shilly-shally or diplomatic niceties—instant recognition on both sides.
Azam has gone to Texas to complete his semester there. He will return in June, and his enrollment at San Francisco City College for the fall semester has already been accepted. I have therefore written to Dr. Lloyd Luckman, who has been chief dean of this institution and who has been interested in international affairs and sometimes interested in the solution of problems. Dr. Luckman himself is very close to at least one of two rabbis more adept at accepting peace awards than in granting interviews or doing anything.
Still it is possible and I have vague hopes that some rabbi or ex-rabbi, inshallah, will grant some kind of an interview with some kind of a person offering some sort of an integrative outlook.
But before anyone has any idea that this is primarily an anti-Israel communication, one must say that many members and leaders of Islamic communities are even worse. They are operating under the impression that if they only hate hard enough they will get some kind of victory. And Azam has concluded, having lived with many real Arabs, with many real Muslims, with many real Jews, with many real Israelis, that the present position of the anti-Israeli intransigence is even worse than that of the bigots of Israel.
There are too many unnecessary obstacles. One is the absolutely diabolical phrase, “Peace with justice.” Even Hitler accepted those words. I have gone through the agonies of the horrible Kellogg-Briand pact, and the international newspaper campaign, “Peace with justice.” These insidious slogans end in Biafra’s, and unless we do something more than coin misleading phrases, we may well have a Biafra in Palestine, and then weep hypocritical tears afterward.
I have used the work ‘integral’ above. My use of this term and words of the same sorts came originally from mathematical studies with Leibniz and Newton, and the continuation of such studies in calculus and mathematical philosophy and NOT from any racial or sociological approaches. I do no wish to denigrate the latter, but I=find in practice the use of a common word does not mean a common philosophy. In mathematics as in revelation, there are not high nor low, nor jew nor barbarian nor greek.
Azam has proposed a meeting in June. He wishes to call together several Arabs who are not anti-Israel, and a few other persons, the first of whom would be you, and this could include anyone who has views similar to your own and the late Terry Duce. I am also sending a copy of this to AFME, in case they have a representative either living in or near this region who could be present at the time.
I am disturbed with AFME for two quite opposite reasons. In the first place there seem to be today several rival or parallel organizations. They all seem to agree in their emotional appeals and in rejecting ideas.
But a reconciliation with my brother may, inshallah, place me into what to me is an awkward but to nearly everybody would be a delightful position of having far more money than I need or could ordinarily use. I certainly am not going to start another organization. The only outlet I can think of at the moment is that of the Department of Near East Languages at Berkeley; or, if I had to travel to either Pittsburgh or Columbia Universities or even (?) to certain groups at Harvard University, not under the thumbs of non-Americans non-Muslims.
The effort to spread the Sufi teachings locally through music dance and otherwise are now uniformly successful and moving at a slow but very steady rate bringing more and more young people into my sphere; and with this an almost equally steady infiltration into universities and classrooms. These universities and classrooms, almost without exception, rely on facts and human experiences, and not the prowess of named personalities and their opinions. In other words, young America, not the press, not even certain leading political forces today presents an amalgamation of New England transcendentalism and University of Columbia pragmatism. This is far more anti-Marxist and anti-Hegelian than the philosophies emanating from the noise-makers and literary leaders. No doubt this is very ‘dangerous’ to such groups, but I think in the end we can have a very sound American American approach.
Saturday I am attending the celebration of Indian Independence Day. The young students behind this affair have already published a letter in which my theme was presented: That Europeans never believed a nation of slave owners with irreconcilable Protestants and Catholics could ever be successfully established. The philistines were wrong then, and I believe they are wrong now.
I am very hopeful and optimistic. I cannot enforce on you or anybody either a belief in the existence of a God or in a living deity who is, as Mohammed proclaimed, as Compassion, All Mercy, All Power, All Wisdom.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
Feb. 17, 1970
American Friends of the Middle East
1605 New Hampshire
Washington, D.C.
Dear Friends:
I have been sometimes working on the idea of bringing together certain Arabs who have lived in Israel or are still citizens of Israel: certain disaffected Israelis’ perhaps some non-Zionist Jews and some people who are not diabolically intoxicated by the word “justice” and who also believe that Christians should have a say in the future of Palestine. In other words, I have the temerity and audacity to stand for a program perhaps originally offered to the world by Boccaccio and then beautifully dramatized by Lessing in his “Nathan the Wise.”
I am not going into the stupid past wherein people were delighted to be misled by beguiling words such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Roerich Museum Pact, and still to me more damnable “peace with justice” which even a Hitler could approve.
Evidently “God” is not entirely opposed to such an approach. For the other day I found a new neighbor who is also another Arab citizen of Israel. And on the same day a full page article in the local newspaper showing how a salt water conversion plant in Mexico was being utilized in desert reclamation, the same being almost in detail what I have been working on for years and in which your late Terry Duce was most interested.
I am not going over the stupid past when people sitting behind desks would refuse interviews. You will find enclosed a letter to the Temple of Understanding in which Dr. Richard Alpert, now functioning as Baba Ram Dass, is mentioned. When we turn away from “The Great God Brown” meaning the meta-encyclopedical commentators whose words are regarded as revelations and meet the humanity it is very different.
No doubt many Hippies come from the “middle class” whatever that means or does not mean. It is certain that they and their parents have ample funds for all kinds of enterprises, and they are beginning to use these funds constructively. Although I am very skeptical about tear-jerking pressure salesmen, I do not believe God created a humanity to be rejected by Him either in the herenow or hereafter. I not only believe that all Gods chillin got wings, but they also have brains, heart, and money.
I am still an unorganized person with an increasingly large following of young people who trust this person. I have preserved all my diaries over a number of years and have collected material covering desert reclamation and the potential reconciliation of hostile groups, but not by diplomacy or dialectics, both of which are in vogue, both of which fail, and both of which are regarded as semi-divine even by those who are most enimical to each other otherwise.
I have never asked for anything but consideration. I have appreciated your efforts, though I am disturbed by appeals from competitive groups. Many times you have asked for new ideas and new approaches. I am no longer going to ask you to change your attitudes, but I must ask you to accept reports on accomplishments. I am hoping to go to Geneva and then later to Washington after a conference with the directors of the Temple of Understanding.
Faithfully,
Samuel Lewis
P.S. Admiral Evenson has been informed about the above; he approves.
March 13,1970
American Friends of the Middle East, Inc.
1605 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 2009
Dear Friends:
A few brochures have just arrived and I am going to comment on them. At the present time I am passing thru a series of transitions, all of which may improve my financial and social positions. It is most unfortunate that prestige alone is important today, and so long as prestige remains important we are going to have more wars. France selling planes to Libya was wrong, our providing Jordan with munitions was not wrong. In the absence of standards we can only expect confusion and anarchy, and we are going to have continued confusion and anarchy, so long as prestige is regarded in practice as superior to moral principles.
I am interested in the report from Cairo, UAR. But I cannot continue and I will not continue to one-way-street communication. And it is very strange that elsewhere, other than in AFME, there has been serious consideration of the proposal that we need more Arabic culture from Arabs in this land; and occasionally Islamic culture from Muslims.
I am read now to go to a peace conference of the religions of the world at Geneva. It is high time that we get rid of oratory and resolutions and prestige. If we continue to be attached to these three very doubtful methods, we may as well look fort the worst. Fortunately this small voice is going to be heard there. This small voice may not carry out whatever is proposed here, but at least it will be heard. We can only look for misery in the world that pretends to be religious and absolutely will not permit valleys to be exalted, hills to be laid low, or crooked places straightened. And regardless of any politics involved, so long as this country does not permit in actuality, freedom for Arabic and other Asian cultures, we might as well be reconciled to “A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court” wars.
I not only reject, I resent, the address of Secretary Rogers, which you have sent out. It is dishonest to the extreme. Early in the last century when Greece and Turkey were involved, the great nations sent their fleets, and at least a cessation of hostilities occurred. The pious sentiments of people in power, whether it be a Secretary General U Thant or a Secretary Rogers, show how far off our leaders are from understanding the nature of peace.
Fortunately today, youth not only thinks otherwise, youth is expressing itself. On my return from Geneva, I hope to arrange a meeting between young people, Israelis and Palestinian Arabs who are on good terms with each other. But I also hope to have present at such a meeting at least on representative of at least one important Christian group. I deplore, I more than deplore, the failure of AFME to consider any serious proposals from any person without prestige, and I am no longer fooling. Rabbis and Imams, and politicos in high office simply will not meet with each other, and the young, God bless them, will meet with each other. The parents damn such meetings, such rapprochements, and I feel you are on the side of the parents rather than being on the side of the young.
The young, not the old guffers who control the world, know all about Boccaccio’s story of The Rings. The young, and not the old guffers, know all about Lessing’s Nathan the Wise. The young, and not the old guffers, want to associate with each other, and although perhaps without power, today they have Voice.
Years ago I proposed plans for Palestine so there could be understanding between the various races and religions there. I felt this would prevent the Russians from getting a foothold. Alas, no prestige. In our scientific culture knowledge prevails; in the non-scientific part of society, prestige avails. And while one may not agree with the Vice President, I feel the most dangerous force in the land is the power given to scoundrels, operating as commentators on matters of which they have hardly the slightest knowledge. All they can do is stir up trouble, and that is exactly what they are doing. It is going to take a counter force to stop them. But I believe and I mean believe, in an omnipotent, omniscient God of righteousness, not words but actualities. And before a conference of the leading ecclesiasts and holy men of the world, I am going to present a case which will be heard, inshallah, for real recognition of human beings by human beings, and no more crap, and I call it crap, from men in high places with very unpious sentiments, increasing confusion.
Being a Dervish—which I regret you have never accepted—I am not wed to the accumulation of monies, and at this writing am being faced with the bizarre possibilities of incomes coming from several sources at a time when I have a good income. I am therefore seriously considering doing everything possible for the department of Near East Studies at the University of California, where they are practicing, some of the principles and deals of which I approve. It proves to me that what is true, that what is noble, that what is right, is not a monopoly, but is in the atmosphere, and will commend itself to an persons who are motivated by high ideals and not by power or prestige.
On March 21, I am demonstrating “Dances of Universal Peace.” It is partly open to the public, where they will see people of Jewish birth and ancestry, even of Israeli backgrounds, people who are part Jewish, people of entire Christian backgrounds, joining in Islamic praise to Allah. This is the first step. This is a step which almost anybody, unlike a Secretary Rogers, unlike an Alsop, can understand. The Dervish Dances will be followed by those inspire by Indian teachings. In the fall I hope to resuscitate spiritual Christian dances. Youths of various backgrounds will join together while the prestige symbol people will keep on arguing that it cannot be done. Before God, before Allah, before Brahm, it is being done.
We have no choice today but to practice religion or destroy it. There are no alternatives. But even I expect to demonstrate rather than argue, in love, devotion and humility before the assembled ecclesiastical leaders of the world.
Theodore Roosevelt, whom I consider a magnificent president stood out against hyphenism and was also successful in terminating the Russo-Japanese war. I have no right to demand that others venerate him, but I think it is high time to get out of the tyranny of words, and into the world of useful accomplishments. I have no right to demand that the world accept the Boccaccio, Lessing outlook, but I am willing to die for it, and I mean just that. God Bless you.
Samuel L. Lewis
May 1, 1970
Mid-East Magazine
Middle East House
1605 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
Dear Friends;
I have just received your excellent April issue. It is very fine, it is very wonderful, but with a tremendous “but.”
I have just returned from a gathering of all the real religions of the real world about which their will be some remarks below. The sad, tremendous, and diabolic fact is that as a nation we worship the great God UP-AP. We make claims to be devotees of God-Jehovah-Allah, but it is simply not true. We worship UP-AP. We do not agree with Christ concerning the scribes and pharisees, a lot of actually agree with the pharisees and scribes concerning Christ.
Well I have lived in Egypt, I was interest in soil and water and peace. I gathered then and have now, a lot of objective facts. But were they received? It is a tragedy, but it is not a dire tragedy, because the young today believe in honesty and objectivity and sincerity. Their elders simply do not. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Capitalism versus Communism. It has to do with subjectivism realism versus objective reality. Here we in general are on the Communist side today. We want subjective realism instead of objective reality.
Our press and the important people have long looked upon Aswan as a fait accompli. Great accomplishments by American engineers abroad are by-passed by UP-AP and company. Potential achievements of the Communists are inflated and made far more newsworthy than they should be, whether factual or not.
When I was in Egypt the whole problem of water was place before me. Nasser’s government had been astute enough not to throw all their eggs in on basket. The Qattara Depression project and the American achievements were not considered newsworthy by the great God Brown UP-AP. Woe unto the simple peasant who thought otherwise. He did not have a chance. But now at least Qattara is being mentioned and I hope someday we shall have much better public records of the actual achievements of our American engineers on all fronts and in all countries, UP-AP or no UP-AP. You have taken some very great steps forward as evince by this April issue.
Now I have returned from Geneva where my secretary Mansur and I were the only ones capable of communication with the actual representatives of the real religions of the real world. We could and did sit down with all of them. We could and did offer and receive good will from all of them, from those who a not on speaking terms with each other. Fourteen different prayers were given in the great cathedral of Geneva, home of Calvinism!
In the committee meetings one of the Lebanese asked that the Communists be invited to further gatherings. If the Communists were invited you can be sure the great God Brown UP-AP would have been there with scads of reporters and cameramen. Yes there were reporters and cameramen—from the European press.
Shortly after our arrival at the Intercontinental Hotel, Father Masson, the personal emissary of His Holiness Pop Paul, entered. We not only greeted him, but presented our plan for Palestine, which he cordially received. Later on we presented the same to various other representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. We were also embraced by the Metropolitan of Orthodox Church. But the next two days were marked by the most profound and I believe sincere apologies, from the various delegations believing in the Judeo-Christian ethic whatever that means. Rabbis and Protestant ministers simply do not acknowledge mail, although just before leaving here we did receive an apology from the local Episcopalian Bishop.
Toward the end of the conference one went around proclaiming himself as an incarnation of Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.” One has been functioning and one will continue to function before God-Jehovah-Allah regardless of all the scribes and pharisees, whomsoever, whatsoever. And at the end of the conference one received nothing but good will from Jews and Protestants, as well as from the Roman Catholics. One became quite indifferent whether any establishments accepted the personality or not.
Immediately after the conference one went to London. There was a cable awaiting, that one’s brother had died, and this will leave one in a most enviable financial position continuing in the work of bringing together representatives of different faiths. Now there is not need whatsoever to ask even for recognition from prominent persons and organizations.
We are planning locally, gatherings where displace Palestinians, Arabs who are citizens of Israel, former Israelis, some who are still Israelis, non-Israeli Jews, half Jews, and representatives of both the Catholic and Protestant aspects of Christianity. We are planning such meetings and programs with benefit from anybody accepting real humanity. The open for us to arrange for us to have human beings meet with human beings without any more emotional nonsense from the press or any foreign office.
You can be assured that this approach well received at Geneva has been most enthusiastically received by the young wherever we have met the young. I tell you my friends that religion will either have to accept religion or go. It is time to recognize the possibility of the Diving truth that, “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill laid low.”
I am next about to establish a Palestinian Peace Scholarship for the Department of Near East Languages at the University of California. I am now beholden to nobody nor do I feel ashamed either. The young people who have no voice in the press today—a small fringe of ultra-radicals yes, but the mass no. The young today want peace and brotherhood and they really want them. And I believe before the living God-Allah-Jehovah that we are going to have better understanding really.
The great blights are neither communism nor oratory from establishments. The great blights are the extreme emotional nonsense which began with the Kellogg-Briand Pact and has continued with the horrible non-entity as Secretary General of the UN saying, “What the world needs is a moral and spiritual revolution.” What he seems to mean is the peasant and youth reforms and also supply the funds for the same nonsense; and we are not gong to have it.
What we need today is to rise above the blight and confusion of words. What we need today is to get people to meet, whether at inns or dance halls or religious structures. I am exceedingly thankful that it has been Americans who called together the convocation at Geneva. I am exceedingly thankful that the young of this country and many whom I have met abroad believe that there should be amity between the religions of the world. I believe human beings can meet with human beings at all levels.
As I have said many times I believe that AFME has undertaken excellent projects. But I also believe there are others on God’s earth who are working toward the same or similar goals. And I thank God that I am now free socially and economically to devote myself toward such ends. My dance of Universal peace, are being acclaimed by the young everywhere. Efforts to reconcile religious differences are being accepted by the young everywhere. There is a school summer school awaiting me where once can present the spiritual aspects of all religions and impel if not compel greater mutual understanding and respect to rise above artificial or real differences and perhaps achieve greatly desired goals. This is come to me from others. From the young who are longing for peace and understanding and are dissatisfied with the emotional emptiness of their elders by age. I hope you can understand these endeavors. I believe love and understanding can easily stop the destruction of our government and society, and I am willing to cooperate to this end with all those who evince respect and brotherhood on any and all levels.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
410 Precita Ave.
San Francisco, Ca.
July 8, 1970
Mrs. Helen D. Bruner
Director of Public Relations
AFME
1605 New Hampshire Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20009
My dear Mrs. Bruner:
After an absence of some weeks I have come upon your letter requesting payment to support AFME. “The beginning of the year I was struck by the words from Handel’s “Messiah,” “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill laid low.” I do not believe, before Lord God Almighty, I do not believe, that peace and good will can be achieved only thru important persons. I have, thank God, received a number of apologies from person in high, sometimes very high places, who accept the “Judaea-Christian ethic” which includes never answering letters which have annoying information, no matter how important that information may be.
Current issue of Coronet has remarks by 10 political leaders on how to prevent another Vietnam. Nonsense! We do not prevent crime by ignoring all eye witnesses, and selecting a dozen great people to act as jurors. We depend on eye witnesses, but not so in international matters. There only “experts” prevail, and if you are not somebody then you are nobody, and we compensate by over abuse of the word democracy.
My whole life has been concerned with peace in the Near East. I worked almost 40 years gratis for the World Church Peace Union, and after Dr. Henry Atkinson died they thru out those reports. But I enabled just the same to go to Geneva to a conference of leaders of all living faiths, and when, in the last days, I jokingly said I was an incarnation of Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, nobody dared to laugh.
I have never wished to work alone. By a series of rather dramatic facts I have now a very ample income for a bachelor. I am expecting to set aside a thousand dollars ($1000) before the end of the year for a peace scholarship, department of Near East Languages, the University of California. I am not only very well acquainted with all the religions involved, but have either studied desert reclamation, water problems, history, etc., or I know professors and departments of my alma mater, the University of California, who have this requisite knowledge. Therefore, before the Almighty God of Truth and Justice, and having no heirs, I intend to work with the University. And although at this writing I may not be able to have too definite a pledge, I can assure you there are a number of people, some quite well to do, who may support these efforts, and the signs are at this writing that the amount of contribution to the University may be inshallah, considerable great than any sum I alone might be able to proffer.
Yesterday, before looking at my files, I phoned Admiral Evenson saying that the usual policy of most groups in the international fields was to cry for money but never never never accept any accomplishments or knowledge from “peasants.” We prefer Vietnams. And at this writing there is a possibility of my autobiography being published which must reveal the shams of so many in international affairs.
While you may deride—and there is no sign that this may not continue—my semi-humorous claims to be an incarnation of Nathan the Wise, in the last 48 hours I have listened to, indeed I have had to listen to, the atrocities perpetrated on peoples of “Jewish” ancestry who do not accept 100% the militarism which has been substituted for freedom and humanity in the so-called Holy Land.
I am no longer asking for courtesy or consideration from any powerful or even not-so-powerful group. I now have among my friends several Rabbis of and from Jerusalem. But I am not interested in power structures. I wish to help humanity and work for peace—not my leadership believe me, but accomplishment. When a person’s bank account is recognized and he is not, there is nothing noble in one’s crusades.
I do not want any apologies. I may be coming to Washington within a period of months. I may even be speaking from the pulpit of top level organizations. A number of years ago I worked out a peace plan for the near East which was accepted by the UN (especially) and by representatives of Israel, UAR, and Saudi Arabia, but not a single American organization official or unofficial. And now I have to listen to the sad tales of both Jewish and Islamic refugees whose sin is that they do not hate each other that they even wish to fulfill the prophecies of the book of Malachi. It is for them I hope to work and also with Universities and groups that show universal respect.
Now if you wish to treat me as a human being, my membership will be renewed but not otherwise.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
July 21, 1970
(Garden of Inayat)
My dear Admiral:
You will excuse me if I am a little tired. Great events both in San Francisco and elsewhere involve me, events which may become part of history which certainly do not appear in the newspapers. And it is very hard for me to suppress either my temper or lack of emotional balance.
Years ago there was a rabbi in San Francisco who was removed because he had the wrong political outlooks. Personally I believe that the rabbi should have taught religion but he told me he could not have retained his position at all if he had done that. Indeed the present state of some religions makes the contents of Upton Sinclair’s “The Profits of Religion” look like a description of ideals. And it is a question whether war, murder, race hatred, etc., etc. does not entirely dominate the policies of some groups.
I went to the bank today. In the bank I could talk. No newspaper has accepted anything from me and it is so long since the State Department answered any letter! But it looks as if I may be entering Washington from the top down! That is what happened to my friend, Robert Clifton. After trying in vain to tell people about Vietnam it was discovered that he was a third cousin of a noted Senator. All the doors opened. Instead of then informing the elite, he gave up his United States citizenship on the spot and died a broken hearted man, and it is costing us billions of dollars. We like it that way, or do we?
Forced with a choice of devoting my knowledge and resources to peace in SE Asia or peace in the Near East, partly on account of General Lansdale and others, I have now put all my eggs in one basket and it is going to be a race because a more than Zola-like “J’Accuse,” and just somebody opening doors for me. But they will—in Washington! The cards are now stacked—in my favor.
After all terrible scolding I got for attempting to make peace between Pakistan and India resulted in the Tashkent Conference, and our absolute refusal to have cultural exchange with any Asian nations excepting Israel, and so far as it my be concerned Russia (of all lands), in Asia, it shows we are mad.
But there is a God of justice and I don’t care for all the Hearst’s and Alsop’s or wire pullers. Once I broke up a meeting on Vietnam by circulating a picture of Her Serene Highness, Princess Poon Diskul, and his Holiness, Pop Paul. Now we are getting ready first to have a picture of a beautiful Arab girl from Algeria and a beautiful ex-Israeli girl, and that is only the beginning! And if this is not accepted locally—which would be amazing, we have a publisher! And we have plans, for peace actual peace and not a farce noise sound peace which is a total travesty.
Last week I had to attend a meeting at the House of Love and Prayer on Arguelle Boulevard. Absolutely packed, by young “fanatics” who really believe there is a God, and go on from there showing that God has marvelous qualities just as the prayer books hold. It was marvelous and I laughingly said, “I never saw so many goyim in one place!”
The next morning I ran into the same thing in my first lecture to a group, young of course, on Christian mysticism. All these “fanatics” really believe there is a God. We prefer Marx whom we can understand—and attack.
Then my last week’s dance classes were the largest I have ever had and I have to start more. The press and State Department, of course, just want anti-communists. We will not study the Oriental philosophy of Orientals. And contrast my welcome at the Royal Asiatic Society to the unwelcomes offered in San Francisco.
But this is not a sad story, not at all. It is a Zola-esque story. What is holding up my personal appropriation of a thousand dollars for a peace scholarship at U.C. is not the lack of money, but the opportunities at my door which may make it possible to raise far more without bellyaching, alligator crying before the public. The young want peace and understanding and the powerful want to sic them on each other. This leaves only the communists to try to bring the “workers and students” together, a very easy task which we simply will not touch!
I was the only outsider when Papa Tara Singh and Prime Minister Nehru met and the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were all over the place embracing each other. Not a paper in the world showed that!
Believe me, I have a history which all the young people thoroughly enjoy, base on facts, knowledge and contacts and it looks as if it my be published within a year. The aftermath of Geneva is marvelous in my private life. But after all the opinions of the big man who was not there are far more important than the eye witnessing of the little people who were. Or maybe it will be the other way around.
All other factors considered, I still believe our system of jurisprudence vastly superior to most. Why can’t we adopt it in other aspects of life? I an no longer worried. I have not been a mouse trap inventor; but at least 200 young people sought me in the midst of the woods when I was in New Mexico. And now! I don’t know whether it will be a grand melodrama or a ridiculous farce comedy. But my next content, for once, is local—Bishop Myers. I already have the Catholics in tow, but the Jews and Protestants! One no longer cares, and one no longer pleas and one feels that if God is with him nothing else matters.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
27 West 71st St.,
New York, N.Y.
c/o Lonnie Less
October 11, 1970
My dear Admiral Evenson:
This letter is not written with much joy although these is not a single negative note. It illustrates much of what is called (or miscalled) “the generation gap.” In my language it marks the differentiation between “realism” and Reality.
The effortists of all dominate powers to judge people by their relations to what some Frenchmen thought or sat after their Revolution is to me both stupid and misleading. And I have found, and in particular at Columbia University (where I have already talked) both professors and students against this totally subjective classification—but this dominates the country . . .yet.
I am really writing to AFME but they seem to be in accord with the “Judeo-Christian” ethic of not answering letters unless they come from “important” persons. It is ironical that since our appearance as unknowns at the Temple of Understanding conference in Geneva both my former secretary, Mansur Otis Johnson (friend of Huston Smith) have had series of successes in all our undertakings. And in some strange ways these two undertakings have crisscrossed here in New York.
He is particularly concerned with the films and recordings of spiritual ceremonies, dance and personalities, and chiefly of those of the Sufis whose very existence is practically denied in our culture. There are far, far more disciples in Sufism than there are Jews, however defined, and now also there are people of Jewish birth who are disciples of Sufism, who are taking the lead in both the projects of real Asian-American cultural exchange and real efforts to bring real peace in the Holy Land through Human beings, rather than through ideologies and subjective “realisms.”
When the secretary of the Near East Studies came to work the other day she was amazed to find former Ambassador Badeau and this person just concluding a most cordial session. Indeed my colleagues in California have already gone ahead and made considerable progress along the lines proposed by him. This may delay a re-meeting because so many things are going on and quite favorable.
I cannot compel people to accept God-Allah but He seems to be looking with favor on our efforts. The success at Geneva was followed immediately by my brother’s death and a goodly income which can be and is devoted to world peace. But the responses of the young in various sectors are promoting this. Older people may shun “Dances of Universal Peace” but they are attracting the young and especially those working for good-will among human beings.
One has had a nice letter from the secretary of Gunnar Jarring but follows this up slowly. One has seen in turn our old friend, Mohammed Mehni, an important Rabbi and an important Jesuit leader and speaks at a Methodist church Tuesday night. So much for that.
The rival efforts of several “universal,” “world” and “integrative” groups, all claiming to unite humanity, all ignoring the others and all champions at exclusions has cause some other Hindus and Americans (who are apparently well healed) to start a real effort toward universal spirituality and they have invited this Sufi leader. But it happens that the leaders at Columbia University to promote meetings between Israelis and Arabs are also Hindus and this has been of considerable help in launching.
The news from California is marvelous. The Oakland Tribune and American Broadcasting Co. are behind the efforts of my young friends and their “Hallelujah of the Three Rings.” I can assure you that the Jesuit, Rabbi and Arab referred to above have always taken seriously my “Nathan the Wise” efforts and this Boccaccio-Lessing tradition is now going ahead. It was all right when Jews were being persecuted, and the young think it is still alright.
I therefore hope to call on certain magazines and publications although at the moment time is short. We have to go to Boston this week but will return later in the month.
We would have been glad to work with AFME or any of its rival or parallel groups. But they do not answer letters, They have not joined their religious affiliates in apologizing and so we have now our own fund raising campaigns and so far they have been surprisingly successful praise to Allah and God.
One is so busy we have little time to go to New York’s unparalleled restaurants save on rare occasions. I do not wish to interfere with Republican politics but they once had a President who not only won many battles but who is even better known for his motto: “Let Us Have Peace”
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti
P.S. I have already started my own “Peace Scholarship” at the Department of Near East Languages on the Berkeley Campus and hope it can be augmented.