BUB the SPACE DOG

The treasures and artifacts not only existed in the Library at Williams College, but they were scattered throughout the Grand House.  The plastic flying saucer models, when not in use to guide the way of the saucers spinning about the universe while the space men were looking for a friendly place to make contact, would be installed in a line in a top cupboard shelf, and you'd have to pull a small ladder to get one down or stand on your tip toes if you were taller.

But in the drawer in the kitchen, the old wooden utensil drawer with a turned glass knob, was an envelope.  Dr. Hopkins and I had been talking to someone, and they had mentioned something about a dog.  And I asked, "Dr Hopkins has a dog?" because I'd never seen one in his house.  But it turned he had a dog that was in the kitchen utensil drawer.  And I said to Dr. Hopkins, "You have a dog here?"  And he nodded, and said "Bub."  (Bub?  I wondered?)  And Dr. Hopkins lead me into the kitchen and showed me where Bub lived.  Which was a kitchen drawer.  Well, this was interesting to me, because the dog was in an envelope, and Dr Hopkins slid out a little card holding a piece of black fur glued to it.  And he held it up to me and said "Bub."  Then he put it away.  Well, it took me awhile, but I did discover that Bub was a REAL DOG ONCE and HAD GONE INTO FLYING SAUCERS with his owner, who was a contactee, as well.  That guy whose name I forget now used to lecture about his trip into flying saucers somewhere far in the South and sell a little piece of fur from his dog Bub to the onlookers for a small bit of change.  And Dr. Hopkins had one of those, and THAT has been lost now to history because he'd been foreclosed upon and had to get rid of all his personal possessions, or maybe Larry Leon found it and threw it out for the garbage men after the estate sale.  But he's one of the contactees who was a visitor on the estate when Dr Hopkins held his flying saucer conventions as part of the Understanding Movement at the Claremont Hotel. 

When BUB made his trip into space, it was years before Laika actually went up, so we were still ahead of the Russians back then in space research in conceptual terms even though everything had a carnival atmosphere wrapped around it.   

Understanding Volume 6 Number 9
September 1961
VISTA unit #4: John W. Hopkins of Williams College lectured to this unit during July, on "The Music of the Spheres."

(all issues of Understanding newsletters scanned and posted by Sean at Danielfry.com)

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company: Visitors 1968-1969

Realtors trying to sell Williams College or what is called John Hopkins Spring Mansion or just "The Spring Mansion" these days are challenged in the current housing market, and the current owners have reduced the asking price from something like $6.5 million.

The realtors confide publicly to the press that "there were a lot of wild parties there in the sixties." Maybe there were. Dr. Schoenfeld mentioned to me he'd hosted some large parties at Farley Hall, but I don't think that's the kind of party the realtors are winking at. And certainly the occasional campfire sit-a-round where we barbecued corn on the cob to celebrate a birthday wouldn't qualify as winkable, not in anybody's book. Nor would those late Sunday afternoons the residents spent at a small line of weber cookers on the great patio. Could basting and turning or even admiring the stately Washingtonia palms ever really be regarded as winkable in any way?

I suspect when merchants are signaling to the press about "wild parties there in the sixties", in an attempt to spice up a property description, such historic gossip might actually be a cultural memory handed down to posterity about the times when the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company rehearsed at Williams College.

That makes sense, because theater troupes and dance groups all knew of Williams College as a place in Berkeley that offered rehearsal and dance space.

This theater troupe, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because of sheer numbers really needed a large performance space. The company attracted a multitude of members, maybe 20 or 30 or even more if counting the musicians, all of whom drifted on and off the estate, joining together for an evening of long rehearsal that went on far into the night. There was dancing, and music. So I guess that could qualify as a party.

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, under the helm of Daniel Moore, began creating what he called a poetic sacred folk theater. From 1966 to 1969, the troupe alternated presentation of two plays: "The Walls Are Running Blood" and "Bliss Apocalypse". In each, there was a lot of pageantry and ritual, costumes and masks and painted bodies, flags, props, planetary imagery, prayer scrolls, thunder, lightning, gongs, horns, cymbals, more combinations than can be outlined in a single sentence. The performances were powered by music, and, according to Moore, "the music cut through to the other world, domain of all possibility."

"The intention underlying both of the productions was the transformation of evil and dark energies, such as were driving the Vietnam War, into positive and light energies, through a cathartic initiation, which the central hero had to undergo."

"The impetus and inspiration for the theater company was manifold: Zen Buddhism, which Moore and others of the company were studying at the time, primarily with Zen Master Shrunryu Suzuki in San Francisco, the very vivid and public poetry of the time, by such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, and its application to open-air ritual theater, as theorized by Antonin Artaud, the music and dance of folk theater, such as Balinese Gamelan rituals, Tibetan monastery rituals of evocation and exorcism, Kathakali of India, etc. and the general wild imagination of the era. Initial poetic "scripts" were written by Moore, with changes, inclusions or deletions, as the members of the Opera Company began rehearsing, trying different things in the kaleidoscope of states we were in at the time,though the final arbiter of changes (usually negotiable) was always left to Moore."

The plays, with singing and chanting, shouting and undulating, like ancient drama went on for hours. At one of their first performances at Live Oak Park in Berkeley, the whole event was closed down by the parks director.

"Just before the 10 p.m. crack down Sunday, the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company completed its ceremony-drama, the 'Quest for the Inner Eye of Truth'. Costumes, gestures, music and words woven by the Floating Lotus led a procession of spectators into a spontaneous dance."

Because one of the residents of the estate shared that she had been drafted to dance on a picnic table at a park with the troupe, one can guess the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company had rehearsed at Williams College at least from September 1968 until sometime in June 1969.

Dr. Hopkins liked the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company and he attended some of their performances at nearby Hinkle Amphitheater.

When the troupe rehearsed at Williams College, afterwards many of the actors and dancers availed themselves of the shower in the rental home that used to house the peacocks. The man living there was pleasant enough about it, and didn't seem to mind the comings and goings.

On the other hand, the neighbors, or to be more precise one neighbor, seemed to mind the comings and goings of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company. Under the aegis of the San Antonio Road Neighborhood Association, a barrage of complaints were launched to the city containing reports of noise, parking issues, great numbers of people swarming about the estate, blue jeans caught drying in the sun on a balustrade, and, what seemed the greatest cause of alarm, one which caused the highest level of outrage, an automobile. As it turned out, this vehicle was not owned and operated by any of the tenants on the estate but rather by one of the visiting actors. The automobile was noticed as it was driven up San Antonio Road and then as it had been parked on the estate premises for many hours while the actor was in prolonged rehearsal. The automobile which excited the inexplicable high state of offense and outrage was a large out of date convertible, something like an early '60s Pontiac, as big as a whale, and covered entirely in feathers.

As it turned out, there was no one left to possibly complain about and have evicted. The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company were already in the process of leaving the estate because they'd been offered living and rehearsal space at an abandoned lumber camp near Santa Rosa and the group moved out of Berkeley entirely.

But as a result of the neighborhood association's noted complaints, the city thus beckoned to duty by upstanding citizens responded, and city building inspectors were assigned to visit and examine all the rental structures, inquire about numbers living in each dwelling, count electrical outlets in each building, advise tenants against the use of extension cords, and so on. So the residents of Williams College had to continue dealing for a time with the administrative aftermath that had erupted as one person's response to feathers glued to a convertible.

So the moral of this story is, if you weren't there, at least try to be accurate about it when recounting history, even if you're trying to make a sale in hard economic times. In the meantime, read the entire "Bliss Apocalypse" and use all the powers of your imagination and pretend you were there.


http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2010/08/05/bignsturdy_cement_palace_in_berkeley_now_15m_less.php
Retrieved 7.26.11


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Lotus_Magic_Opera_Company
Retrieved 7.26.11

http://www.danielmoorepoetry.com/theaterNote.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

September 28-29, 1968 Live Oak Park, Berkeley
"Love and Peace Fest Bummed by Fuzz"
From the Berkeley Barb, Issue 163
http://berkeleyfolk.blogspot.com/2010/12/love-and-peace-weekend-part-ii.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

I believe Dr. Hopkins had a number of models he'd periodically rotate on table display. I remembered the one above on the table when I stopped up once to the manor house, as I had made note of the strange hieroglyphs. There was a little man inside the cockpit, but the plastic bubble covering the cockpit was a bit opaque and hazy. This was likely the original model from 1954, manufactured by the Lindburgh Company.

Usually, the illuminated model was in steady use in the John Hopkins Spring mansion, and the saucer was lit up every evening it was there.

(Image courtesy Kimberly A. King, of Altamont, TN, Amazon Customer)

The Beacon

Beginning in 1966, the first year I first began visiting the estate on an infrequent and irregular basis, I was made aware that Dr. John W. Hopkins had installed a small beacon in the manor house.

This beacon was visible, through the windows of a great room that looked out towards the porte cochier. Resting on the top of a mahogany occasional table was a small plastic model of a flying saucer. Though always in view, the saucer was more noticable at night at night when it was plugged in and lit.


Dr. Hopkins never explained to any I know why he put the model there nor why he lit it at night when he was on the grounds. I thought it was a unique personal touch, and I was always strangely reassured by seeing the saucer illuminated at night when I walked past the great house on my way home. Just seeing that little bright saucer made me feel like a wayfayer seeing the porchlight welcoming me home, and that was all was well with the world.

The saucer may not have been exactly the same as the image above, which is the Adamski model. I recall Dr. Hopkins's model being a solid white plastic, which when glowed from within when lit like a nightlight and which had a small red bulb atop encased in a plastic bubble.

Here is a link to download the complete book by George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships.

http://www.universe-people.com/english/svetelna_knihovna/htm/en/en_kniha_inside_the_space_ships.htm
Retrieved: 7.25.11

Inside the model kit:
http://obskuristan.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/adamkitinside.jpg
Retrieved: 7.25.11

History of flying saucer model kits:
http://www.strangemag.com/scalemodelenigmas.html

Physician Takes a Lease on Farley Hall 1966-1971

In 1966, Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld saw a newspaper ad for a place to rent in a Berkeley newspaper, dialed the phone number for his initial inquiry, and eventually rented Farley Hall on the campus of Williams College. Farley Hall was a building once used to house the English department at Williams College, and Gene remained in residence there from 1966-1971. Dr. John W. Hopkins was Gene Schoenfeld's landlord during that period.

Dr. Schoenfeld is an iconic figure from the sixties who continues his work and publishes to this day. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Schoenfeld early in his career worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Gabon, Africa in 1960, served as a Ship's Surgeon for the American Lines in 1964, after which he settled in the Bay Area to continue his practice. He remains a highly respected and much beloved figure certainly for Bay Area residents.

Dr. Schoenfeld's column on health matters was first published in the Berkeley Barb c.1967, and his Dr. HIP Pocrates column soon appeared regularly in the San Francisco Chronicle, before being nationally syndicated. Schoenfeld's column remained in print steadily from 1967-1973 and was revitalized 1978-1979.

As an early claim to radio fame, Dr. Schoenfeld appeared first on the hip underground radio station KMPX (Jive-95) founded by Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue c. 1967. Dr. Schoenfeld was one of the first, if not the first, doctors to answer call-in questions live on the air. Gene continued with his broadcasts when the radio station moved up the dial to become KSAN, and soon he was broadcasting weekly (1971-1972). Everyone, but everyone, in the Bay Area and beyond knew Gene Schoenfeld as "Dr. Hip".

(Eugene Schoenfeld, M.D. Resume
http://www.eugeneschoenfeld.com/resume.html
Retrieved: 7.15.11

On March 7, 1969, Dr. Hip was featured in Time magazine in which he outlined his concerns:

"Why does he write his ill-paying column? Someone, he feels, should minister to the barricade brigade's medical ignorance, and "the best approach to any serious problem must be education." Now Grove Press has published a collection of his columns called Dear Doctor HIPpocrates — Advice Your Family Doctor Never Gave You. Yet Schoenfeld, at 33, has no desire to rise above the underground, 'where I don't have to censor my material.' Instead, from his ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley hills, he continues his public-health work and the column for the sense of fulfillment it brings."

(Note to Time: Farley Hall was hardly a "ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley Hills", but I guess that's how you preferred to write about anything to do with "hippies" or "the underground" at the time.)

(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839789,00.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Here is a recent online television interview, where Gene talks about the golden years of the '60s and working with Dr. Schweitzer at his famed leper hospital in Lambaréné.

I remember that Dr. Schoenfeld always had a large photograph of Albert Schweitzer, obviously clipped from a newspaper, tacked on his bulletin board at Farley Hall.

The memory of Albert Schweitzer continues to inspire and be held dear, as this one statement about him best shows: "Schweitzer, however, considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his Hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just 'my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné.'" 1]

1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
Retrieved: 7.24.11

http://www.archive.org/details/JonHammondDr.Hippocrates_EugeneSchoenfeld_akaDr.HiponHammondCastKYOURADIO
Retrieved: 7.24.11


(Photo of Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld by Alvan Meyerowitz, 2009)
(Photo of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa, 1960 by Marilyn Silverstone)
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Marilyn-Silverstone/1960/GABON-Dr-Albert-SCHWEITZER-NN132056.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Dr. John W. Hopkins and Cal Tech

College Pres Speaks Saucer

Dr. John Hopkins, Ph.D., a college president and a leading researcher on flying saucers, unidentified flying objects and life on other planets, will give a lecture on the subjects in Pasadena Thursday evening, January 14. The lecture is open to the public.

President of Williams College, founded in Berkeley, Calif., in 1918, Hopkins will speak on "Exploration Research Into Interplanetary Understanding," at 8 p.m. in Odd Fellows Hall, 175 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena.

The result of data gathered from all corners of the globe, the lecture will deal particularly with the educational and religious aspects of the flying saucer field.

Dr. Hopkins is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, honorary scholastic fraternity, and Phi Sigma Iota, honorary romance language fraternity. He also is Northern California Vice-President of Understanding, an international organization devoted to better understanding between people of this earth and those who are not of this earth.

Additional offices held by the speaker include the managership of Rocklyn Farms and the posts of vice-president and secretary of Hopkins Properties.

Dr. Hopkins became interested in flying saucers in 1953 and since that time has studied the field intensely. His college at Berkeley, while still a four-year liberal arts institution, has of late entered the field of metaphysical teachings, offering instruction in many of the advanced concepts of the flying saucer and occult fields.

(Article appeared in the The California Cal Tech, the newspaper of the Associated Students of the California Institute for Technology, Pasadena, California, Vol XLI, no. 13, January 14, 1960, pg 3. Over 1,000 copies of this special Student's Day issue were to be handed out the following Saturday to high school science students and science teachers visiting Cal Tech that day).

(retrieved 7.20.11 caltechcampuspubs.library.caltech.edu/550/1/1960_01_14_61_13.pdf

Leviathan

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company were in the process of moving out from the estate.

I would miss seeing Leviathan, the bus they'd used.

I was a poor, struggling student at UC Berkeley in 1969. I was working my way through school wiping spilled beer off the tables in a tough blues club. I was so lucky to land a job. I was lucky to even find a place to lay my head at night, as in Berkeley rentals were hard to come by with only a 1% turnover in vacancies. And if you found a place, the rent would be steep. So I was lucky to find a little place to rent.

Don't think so? Take a look at this show of the John Hopkins Spring Mansion.


See that skylight at the top of the thirty foot high atrium?


That's where the saucers first descended for Dr. Hopkins.

Charles, the Handyman

John Lithgow's old enough now to play Charles effectively. Do you think we can get him?

Dr Emiliano Lizardo and Williams College: John Lithgow Visits the Estate

Most of the "parties" I went to were more like "happenings" and those were the parties I enjoyed most. I admit I have been invited to a few, very few what I would call "Hollywood" parties and by friends who were well intentioned and thought I could fit in, but I never felt comfortable at "celebrity events". I could tell you about those few, and how I tip-toed around trying to avoid looking at or talking to anyone I might happen to recognize as a "famous person". If I were to sing songs, or engage in pleasantries, or try to be amusing, I would just embarrass myself. I simply cringe and shrink in such circumstances, and if the room is full of more than three people as it usually is at such gatherings I become tongue tied and just want to disappear into the wallpaper. So even if I had an invitation, which I did albeit very few, I usually wouldn't go to these things.

I'm just used to being around a different kind of person. The absolute most fun I had at a gathering where someone was going to become famous was in the Berkeley hills, where I was living at the time, and it was around Halloween in 1969. It had to have been Halloween, because some costumes were involved. I'd been enticed into walking up the hill to the party because someone had just returned from England, and I thought it might be an actor I knew. But it turned out to be a completely different actor just back from England. He seemed quite proper, you see. Dressed in a harris tweed sport coat and white Van Heusen shirt.

And he, a brother of someone on an extended visit there, was quite well educated I'd heard, from an unnamed Eastern school (as no one would admit to going to Harvard in Berkeley then, not after Timothy Leary and few would admit to Yale after those weird Milgram experiments had been published and written about again recently). So he'd attended some unidentified yet prestigious institution of higher learning, but I figured it was one of those two.

And one guy, who might have been part of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because the party was in their old rehearsal area, showed up with some real deer antlers roped to his belt and he was in conversation with this very proper brother of one of the people visiting there.

My lasting image, shot by the video camera of my memory, is this: The two men standing there, with drinks in their hands: one with antlers roped to his belt as a belt buckle of some kind and the other dressed in a Harris tweed sportscoat casually standing and chatting to him. And sometimes the guy with antlers leaned a little close, to speak over the music, and the guy in the sportscoat would put his hand on the antlers just to protect his abdomen. Once for a prolonged moment he actually held a small prong between his fingers as if to better anticipate a sudden move.

And then the music got a little better and everybody began dancing, including the guy with antlers on his belt and the guy in the sportcoat pranced a bit with someone else on the floor. So others of us start making antlers with our fingers to our heads and spinning.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Now that was a fun party, you see. No pretensions and everyone had fun.

Only later did I learn the guy in the sportscoat was becoming a famous actor on Broadway, and only years later did I finally see him in a film in which he played Dr. Emiliano Lizardo. And that was just beyond perfect, you see, given the location at the time I first met John Lithgow, which had a landlord who communed regularly with space beings by going into a trance and singing to them.

That was the strangest place I'd ever lived anywhere 'til then. Every one and every thing nearly every day was always a bit strange there. But that strangeness soon became an everyday thing. I think I'll concentrate on a wonderful movie yet to be made about the estate. John Lithgow can play Charles, the handyman found somewhere in the Arizona desert, who also communed with space beings between fixing plumbing problems on the estate, who would as he wrapped a pipe with teflon tape tell how he'd invented a carburetor for automobiles that reduced gasoline consumption to nil but that invention was stolen away from him by some secret government agency in collusion with an insidious industry. (The same one that controls the timing on traffic lights to make us use more petrol when we drive about? I would ask. He tilted his head absorbing what I had said, and I suspected he thought so.) And that movie, every single bit of it, would be drawn from real life.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_lithgow
Retrieved 7.1.11

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across Eight Dimensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckaroo_Banzai
Retrieved 7.1.11

At the estate, Mr. Hopkins, the land lord, made every important decision by consulting a mustard seed. I would see him in his office, holding a chain containing the glass ball that held his mustard seed high up, over the important documents he was considering. A contract. A bill that was asking for money. A letter from someone.

He made his decision on how to act by the directions the mustard seed gave him. Sometimes it made a cross. Sometimes it revolved in a big circle all on its own going left, other times right. Sometimes just back and forth. But he always knew what the oracle was saying to him and made his decisions accordingly.

Unexplained and Unusual Happenings

Sometimes, the mustard seed pendant just spun wildly on the chain seemingly of its own accord. In these instances, there would be no movement of the crystal from side to side. There would be no movement at all at first. The chain was straight and the crystal unmoving, just a quick refraction of a beam of light caught from the drawing room window, then the crystal began vibrating a bit as if having been given a nudge, then rotating slightly all the way to the left soon spinning around and around and around, going faster and faster, picking up speed as it went, twisting the chain into itself, then the chain unraveled as the crystal began revolving in the other direction. And many times it took awhile for the crystal to completely stop all movement which meant the question had really been answered and for the crystal to be tucked away in a pocket with a small "Ummm" uttered or sometimes merely a silent nod of understanding, but always done with a willingness to accept the oracle's directions. Sometimes the "ummm" had the slightest upswing at the beginning of the sound, to denote pleasure like the oracle's pronouncement had promised a really good outcome.

The first time I saw this happen, Charles was perched on the edge of a velvety wingchair in the office as Mr. Hopkins held the chain aloft. Sometimes, because of the manner in which Mr. Hopkins made decisions, it took a long time for him to make a decision to act and spectators or those awaiting a simple order could grow weary. When the crystal paused as if poised immobile for a moment, as if making up its cosmic mind, then began revolving in the opposite direction, Charles shot me a quick glance as if to say, "I told you so" or "I was right about that", as if the crystal was giving us all understandable verification of that cosmic truth that he also knew how to read and he seemed to assume that I might even know what the question was that had been asked: Charles should go repair that faucet now or Mr. Hopkins was free, let's say, to proceed on his errand to town.

Personally, I came to have experiences with other even stranger occurrences at the estate.

One early morning, I was walking quickly up the hills through the estate to make my way to the small private road at the top for a quick stroll among the eucalyptus so I might better invigorate myself for the coming day. I had rounded a corner at the mansion and paused momentarily to regain my breath. I glanced towards the coach house, which was in a direct line of sight through the drive that was covered by the porte-cochier.

There was a large rock in front of the coach house doors. This is the truth, now. The rock was larger than Mr. Hopkins's old black Cadillac that he parked next to another car for every day use in the old coach house. The rock, actually, was larger than those two vehicles as it nearly covered the entire span of the coach house doors. Well, I didn't know about that, you see. I was fairly certain I hadn't seen it there the previous sunset, or I would have easily noticed it then. How did it get there? What was its purpose? What's the meaning of this apparition?

I wanted to find out about this, and I approached the small side door to the mansion which led into the kitchen. I had just stepped up onto the doorstep and was prepared to knock and I was thinking of what I would say to Mr. Hopkins about this ("Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins. Say ... there's a big boulder in front of the garage door") when Mr. Hopkins himself pulled the door open. He was wearing his striped bathrobe over his trousers and shoes, and already was wearing a white shirt and I could see the top edge of a knotted tie. His sudden appearance surprised me. I actually said, "Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins" and then the words just froze in my throat and I just inexplicably stopped. He just looked at me for what seemed a long strange moment and did not say a word. I did not say a word. Then he pulled himself back inside and closed the door. I stared at the door for a moment.

What? I said to myself. After I finished staring at the door, my eye followed the bell rope up to the top as if were throwing my eyes to the heavens and begging for an answer of some kind. At that time on the estate, there was still a bell and rope next to the kitchen door, a remainder from an older era when housemaids might need to be summoned from the massive expanse of the interior to greet a deliveryman. Who needs it, I said to myself.

And I went back to the edge of the drive to where I had first seen the boulder through the porte cochier, and looking through again, I even bent a bit to gain a clearer line on the edge of the outlines, and, yes, the boulder was still there. So I was wondering about these events, and put my hands in my pocket, and walked back and forth a bit kicking small clumps of grass at the edge of the drive, deep in contemplation. I admit I felt a bit nervous about this event.

When I saw the small door open again and who should step out but Mr. Hopkins himself, who was now wearing his suit jacket. In an event of this magnitude, and everything about this seemed momentous, I was certain Mr. Hopkins would have summoned Charles to assist in some way, but I was quite wrong.

Mr. Hopkins walked straight out from the small door and veered to the right and took two long strides. As he walked, and the object came into his full view, he raised his arms slightly to his sides as struck by disbelief.

Mr. Hopkins was a slightly rotund man who stretched the fabric of his suitcoat; even the back of his jacket was a bit taut, but held small imperfect wrinkles as if he'd sat in the seat of the Cadillac too long on one of those many drives into the far away desert. He stood there staring at the bolder with his own eyes. His arms were still lifted slightly at his side. He shook his own head in disbelief, or in small annoyance at what to him may have been a small harmless prank, I couldn't tell. Then he gave his head another more vigorous shake as if he were ridding the back of his neck of some small drop of water that had remained on his nape hair from the morning shower. He dropped his arms to his side and began walking towards the coach house, this time his was a more casual stride like, "you little devils". Then he stopped and stood stock still for the longest time.

Well, I was frankly tired of watching this display because I'd watched him with the mustard seed and knew it sometimes could be tedious, taking Mr. Hopkins a long time to make a decision and then to act, and I was going to be late for the bus that carried me to school.

So I left, and went to classes for a few hours and returned home into the hills on the old number 7 bus that propelled itself up through the steep grades of the Berkeley Hills, after making a harrowing spin at the round about traffic circle. I hopped off the bus slightly north of the estate at the bus stop as I always did, and made my way back to the stairs for the entrance which on Arlington was still marked with a brass placquard announcing entry to Williams College. I had been gone four, maybe five hours counting the bus trip.

I walked again up the hills in the estate, with a purposeful stride, determined to find out the truth of the matter. When I encountered my friend coming down the hill who always parked her small volkswagen at the edge of the drive where I had been located when I saw the bolder that morning. And I was sure she must have seen it, so I picked up my conversation with her nearly where I had left off with Mr. Hopkins earlier in the day, "Say ... what do you make of that boulder in front of the coach house?"

And she said, "What boulder?"

What the .... ? Was she kidding me?

What boulder, I nearly laughed in derision. We'll see what boulder.

"Well, we'll just have to ask Mr. Hopkins or Charles about this when we see them," I tried not to be snide. "Let's go!" "Come on, it's just a little walk," I tried to be encouraging though I was getting a little miffed when I remembered what she'd just said, 'What boulder?' What boulder indeed, and I would walk a little faster and more determinedly.

We made our way back up the hill, and I was not about to explain an iota about the morning's activities. She tried to make idle chit chat as we journeyed up the hill and I grew impatient and just ignored her. I let her conversation turn into a monologue. She was prattling on and I paid no attention whatsoever to what she was saying. I was going to let her see for herself, and with luck hear for herself what Mr. Hopkins had to say about it all.

When we reached the top, looking down the drive again to the coach house through the port-cochier, things were back almost to as they had once been. The boulder, the immense boulder that would have taken a crane and a flatbed truck to remove, was gone. But not only was the boulder gone. The doors to the coach house were open, and both the Cadillac and the every-day automobile were missing, which meant likely so were Mr. Hopkins and Charles and likely for days. But even this was unusual, as Charles always closed and locked the coach house doors. It was obvious they were gone, and that they had left in a hurry.

And my friend said, "I guess they left."

Now I had a new question, "Where'd they go?"

Dr. John W. Hopkins Digs For Buried Treasure

Mr. Hopkins sometimes waited a while to make up his mind. He had the ability to wait patiently until the mustard seed informed him the universe was in agreement with a movement or an action he was considering.

At some point between 1966-1969, the lady with the volkswagen who rented a small cottage began experiencing plumbing problems and backups and had regularly reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord.

As a consequence, Charles, the estate's handyman, was often a visitor to the cottage during that period, as the plumbing difficulties seemed to have no solution nor was the cause easily discernible in any way.

Which is why I was not surprised one morning to discover Mr. Hopkins and Charles slowly wending their way down from the mansion with Mr. Hopkins holding his pendant with the mustard seed.

"Oh, they're on their way to fix that problem with the shower," I said to myself as I waved hello.

Nor was I at all surprised to eventually find a huge hole dug on the grounds between the mansion and the cottage, where I'd seen the landlord walking with his handy man.

Well, actually, I had been surprised to find that hole. Because previously, before the hole appeared (and again suddenly, within a day, as if by magic), one evening I had begun walking up the hill with the idea of looking at the panorama of city lights from a viewpoint.

The woods were strange that night, and there was a bit of wind kicking up, and I tried to push up along the small trail and ignore the strange sensations I was feeling (which if I were put into words would be, "Go back! Go back!").

I simply decided the weather had suddenly turned too inclement and the evening too dark to continue my simple walk up the hill and so I returned to my own place.

The next day, when I mentioned this event to the lady with the volkswagen, when we were beginning to talk in general about how strange the vibes had become around the estate over past the day or so, she sat up suddenly in her chair and said, "When? What? Mr. Hopkins said the saucers were visiting here last night!!!"

And, truthfully, I didn't know what to make of a statement like that.

So sometimes I'd give the mansion a funny look and tip toe far around the edges as I came down from where we were obliged to park at the edges of the road far above.

I would often arrive rather late at night, or actually very early in the morning. And I'd wind my way through the darkened grounds and usually could find my way even in the dark when it was clouded over because I had a small flashlight. But on this particular evening the batteries gave out so I'd put the flashlight away in my pocket to have two hands free to better grope my way through the dark. In the dark sometimes, even though I knew the paths, I could sometimes go astray and get a bit turned around. As I was indeed doing, that evening in 1969.

As I walked, I sometimes was forced into longer strides and gained unexpected momentum, propelled a bit too fast due to the incline. Because of a bit of a skid I had gone into and because I had bumped up against a tree trunk, I knew I was off the path and turned around.

I was pushing small branches apart and out of my way, stepping back and trying to peer through them to better see what I hoped would be the outlines of the path, when my gaze went towards the shadowy outline of a large hump of dirt, one that was newly appeared in the once familiar geography ... which in the dim light and because of my recent loss of balance and growing apprehension seemed to be escalating from unusual to weird if not slightly strange.

At nearly that precise moment, when my perception was shifting from "unusual" to "weird", I saw a flash of light coming from somewhere inside the mound. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, as time was nearly as frozen as I had been immobilized by wonder, there was another flash of light.

And I confess I couldn't help but think of all that flying saucer business, the orbs darted into my mind and flew about, and the outlines of the mound, which had once seemed merely an unusual silhouette in the dim light could now be regarded as the outlines of a crater of some kind.

So I crept forward slowly, inching my way step by step as it was dark and I didn't want to so much as brush a twig or make a noise in any way. Holding on to a small sapling to steady myself and gathering courage to move on in the dark, towards the blink! (long pause) blink! And my heart was nearly in my mouth when I peered over the edge and saw a construction horse with a blinker still going, which must have toppled into the hole when the edge had collapsed a bit.

I stared into the large hole, and said to myself, "So that's all it is." And I decided that Mr. Hopkins and Charles had begun work to fix the plumbing problem in the cottage and that's why they'd been walking with the mustard seed.

Days would elapse and I later encountered the lady who lived in the cottage, and I would say, "I guess they're fixing the plumbing" and mention the big hole, which was still there, though changing course day by day, as if they were trying to find a hidden sewer line.

She'd laugh and say, "Oh no. Mr. Hopkins said Charles is digging to find the hidden Filipino gold."

I would sit there stunned and my first response would be utter disblief: "That's ridiculous!" I'd think to myself, and then I'd wonder in spite of myself, "Where'd they get that crazy idea?"

And another day on the estate would continue.

I moved to Williams College (the large manor house was also known as Spring Mansion) on the No. 7 Arlington bus with my impedimentia, a large pullman suitcase and a tasteless small duffle bag. Later in the afternoon the move was completed with the assistance of a friend and his pickup truck to carry those heavier boxes filled with records and books. All accomplished on a warm summer's day in June of 1969. I made my entrance up the stairs directly from Arlington Avenue, the walkway and stairs separating into two near identical parts a tall stucco wall that could at casual glance because of the overgrowth of greenery appear to be contiguous and so the stairs between completely remain unnoticed, despite one wall bearing a brass plaque announcing the general location to be Williams College. Before I write so much as another line, I feel obliged to make two emphatic points here.

The first, that I believe when assembling the "missing years" of Williams College, those fuzzy around the edges and near indefinable years when the college found itself under the tutelage of Dr. John W. Hopkins, a history which must be filled out and completed because the official history thus far stops abruptly with Cora Williams as if not knowing what to say about any of this that followed and so leaves a huge blank for all those intervening decades until such time as 1975 arrives when a rich real estate mogul appears and buys the place and is fawned over as the new very wealthy owner, for the time that Dr. John W. Hopkins was in residence as President of Williams College, the responsible historian must and should rightly assume the respectful and highflown tone of Ms. Daniela Thompson, Berkeley historian, as she has here outlined the breathtaking history of the original immensely wealthy inhabitants, John Hopkins Spring and his wife, Celina, whose predilection for the opulent made the Spring Mansion physically what it is to this very day.

I will remind historians here of their duty to the future reader and with some firm but gentle insistence because the college as it functioned under the benign auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins, then President of Williams College, did continue to flourish despite all outward appearance in the genuine spirit and tradition of Miss Cora Williams herself. What came to be known as Williams College, founded shortly after her purchase of the estate in 1917, as you might know, was originally the Institute of Creative Development and was dedicated to the study of languages, poetry, music, and literature. In reality, this is the first college that devised a course of study and became dedicated to what has become known since as the New Age.

Dr. John W. Hopkins and his associates as devotees themselves often acknowledged that concept as the philosophical underpinning of their continued research and often employed the phrase "New Age" in their own writings.

When reading or researching any history of this time encompassed under the name Williams College, please feel free to allow your mind to wander and perhaps try to imagine what these times and people may have been like and feel free to make your own associations.

When I was there at Williams College, also assembled in cottages and living spaces scattered throughout the grounds of the estate having been selected or drawn to the college in some mysterious way and now residing there as a direct result of Dr. Hopkins's benevolence, were musicians, artists, dancers, theatrical troupes, respected men of science, scholars, devotees of physical regemines, and even a young person or two who by sheer accident of birth had themselves been descended from families of greater than usual inherited wealth. All brave, courageous, and sturdy types in their own ways and naturally possessing or acquiring as they grew into life the fiber and character required to assume the challenge of moving into a completely unknown and as yet unexplored New Age of being. And so, I argue here, the types of persons on the estate had essentially remain unchanged from the founding of the college by Miss Cora Williams and again in the time I am writing of, when Williams College was administered by Dr. John W. Hopkins.

The second point I need to remind the reader of is this: Williams College under the auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins glittered like a rare and occult gem, often unnoticed and unrecognized, tucked away as it was among other mansions in the Berkeley hills, much in the same way the metaphysical or paranormal sometimes is veiled from public view. As such, the Spirituality of the place, with its attendant occultism, or ethereal metaphysical, or downright paranormal, and most certainly the more common every day garden variety versions of the unique, startling, or strange were nearly diurnal in occurrence there, and that is true to this day for almost every person who resided there at that time in 1969, as the place appears in memory and dream to this day for those who resided there. Williams College also, importantly to me at least, was a place of what could be regarded as eerie coincidence, sometimes an immediate collision of events, and others with the beginning of the coincidence occuring far in the remote past and concluding at some point in time far in the distant future. But eerie coincidence.

Dr. John W. Hopkins, President of Williams College and Landlord

Dr. John W. Hopkins was President of Williams College and he, and his aged father (who I believe was John O. Hopkins) resided in the John Hopkins Spring Mansion. They were originally from Indiana, I have learned, where the elder Mr. Hopkins had made his fortune selling bicycles. In the time I am writing of, beginning with June 1969, Dr. John W. Hopkins had been in residence at and had likely been President of Williams College since the early 1950s, if not before. I base this on a conversation I had in 2001 with a former newspaperman and his wife, who had lived on the estate from 1945 to 1954, during which period they recalled that Mr. Hopkins was their landlord.

If I were an historian, I would call these entries, "The Spring Mansion: The Missing Years (which encompass those five decades the estate was known as Williams College to its residents)" but before it was purchased by a real estate speculator in 1975, but I can only account for the years 1969-1971, plus a suspected single blip during the period 1945 and 1954)"

In 1945, after his military service concluded at the end of the great war in Europe and VJ Day in the Pacific, and no longer a merchant marine on convoy duty, one Philip Small, a graduate of the University of Chicago whose career in journalism had been delayed by World War II, relocated to California with his young wife Audrey, who on a trip to America from her native Britain at the onset of the war was advised by her father to remain Stateside as her safe passage home could not be guaranteed, which she did do and matriculated with a degree in English from the University of Chicago. The young couple moved into a small rental cottage in the Berkeley Hills on the grounds of Williams College. He'd a new civilian job, reporting and writing for the Berkeley Daily Gazette newspaper, and Audrey worked at the U.C. Library. Phil passed his spare time with wood carving and Audrey passed hers writing poetry and making elaborate string figures such as the cat's cradle, a folk art which involves story-telling while fashioning the string figures. Audrey since has published several books of poetry and string figures. In 1954, the Smalls moved from the cottage because their family numbers were increasing and they needed a larger space for their children.


During the decade following the great war, during 1945-1954, the Smalls, residents then of a small rental college in the Berkeley Hills, experienced plumbing problems and reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord. Many years later, at various times between 1966-1969, my friend with the volkswagen rented that same cottage, and she, too, experienced plumbing problems and backups and had reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Dr. John W. Hopkins and "The Music of the Spheres", 1969

Dr. John W. Hopkins and "The Music of the Spheres", 1969.

This lecture was held at the beautiful and nearly brand new Hotel Miyako in San Francisco, which had just finished completion and was opened for business in 1968. The Hotel Miyako had been written about and advertised in Bay Area newspapers, one of their suggested rental possibilities advised availability of space for scientific conventions.


Dr. Hopkins called "The Music of the Spheres" the "Huisoc" and implied it was a ceremony. I am not certain of the spelling of "Huisoc" in English as this is a word delivered to Dr. Hopkins from the space beings in a language only he and they understood. But the name of the ceremony involving the "music of the spheres" was pronounced by Dr. Hopkins as "WHEE-sock" (with the first syllable "WHEE" emphasized, and the following syllable "sock" de-emphasized and somewhat swallowed as was the tradition of some spoken languages indigenous to Native American cultures. I am taking a liberty with linguistics by spelling the word "Huisoc" with the first syllable "Hui" pronounced as in "Huichol" (the metaphysical tribe in Mexico).

After a substantial catered dinner of sliced beef Au jus and tender squash in butter sauce served by pleasant waiters to all those seated at dining tables spread with brilliant well starched tablecloths, in a banquet room downstairs at the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco, the ceremony began. As I recall, large bouquets of flowers were placed about the room, and at least one fresh bouquet was set on every table. Altogether, there were no more than ten tables with no more than six people each at each table for this event.

First was an Invocation by Alice Bailey, which was printed out, and handouts, though few in number were passed around, so people shared the sheets of paper. These were mimeographed copies, the text displayed in purple ink. Mr. Hopkins in a deep voice recited the Invocation, while others read silently along. As I recall, Dr. Hopkins had selected his favored passages from the Invocation and I don't believe it was the entire Invocation as shown below, but I'm not certain which stanzas he may have excluded or included though I am tempted to say any stanza devoted to "light" was recited.

(The Invocation I should explain was The Great Invocation, a mantra given in 1937 to Bailey by Djwhal Khul)

THE GREAT INVOCATION
Through Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul

Let the Forces of Light bring illumination to mankind.
Let the Spirit of Peace be spread abroad.
May men of goodwill everywhere meet in a spirit of cooperation.
May forgiveness on the part of all men be the keynote at this time.
Let power attend the efforts of the Great Ones.
So let it be, and help us to do our part. Stanza One 1935

* * * * * * *

Let the Lords of Liberation issue forth.
Let Them bring succour to the sons of men.
Let the Rider from the Secret Place come forth,
And coming, save.
Come forth, O Mighty One.

Let the souls of men awaken to the Light,
And may they stand with massed intent.
Let the fiat of the Lord go forth:
The end of woe has come!
Come forth, O Mighty One.
The hour of service of the Saving Force has now arrived.
Let it be spread abroad, O Mighty One.

Let Light and Love and Power and Death
Fulfil the purpose of the Coming One
The WILL to save is here.
The LOVE to carry forth the work is widely spread abroad.
The ACTIVE AID of all who know the truth is also here.
Come forth, O Mighty One and blend these three.
Construct a great defending wall.
The rule of evil now must end. Stanza Two 1940

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let Light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

Stanza Three - 1945
Retrieved 7.14.11 http://www.greatdreams.com/invctn.htm

The traditional invocation was followed by a small inspirational talk by Dr. Hopkins, which was delivered with some warmth and intimacy to the audience. He was, after all, an effective public speaker. And the feeling generated throughout the room and generally felt by all was that a benign event was about to unfold from this atmosphere of kindliness, gentleness, and that Dr. Hopkins felt some real affection for the beings he was about to contact.

Dr. John W. Hopkins prepared himself at the podium and soon fell into a trance which allowed him to communicate with the space beings. With eyes closed, he began singing the "music of the spheres", which was sung in the language that only he and the space beings understood, and so I find difficult to describe. His singing (as this was melodious song and not repetitive or echoed or prolonged chant) continued for at least ten minutes, perhaps longer as I had neglected to keep track of chronological time in any way.

When his communion with the space beings had ended, at least for this point in time, Dr. Hopkins, with his eyes still shut, shook his head several times as if to clear his head from this dizzying experience, as if he were pulling himself back to earth after going into trance. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times as if to pull this plane of existence into better focus, and sweetly smiled at the audience and delivered a deep, satisfied "sigh" as if to say, "That was wonderful, wasn't it?"

Esther Dyson: Early Williams College Space Cadet (1963)

As I wrote earlier, Williams College for me was a place of eerie coincidence. What has been described as "the occult milieu" permeated the atmosphere daily, and I implied that these cosmic accidents or coincidences which originate at Williams College continue to unfold to this very moment in time. Dr. John W. Hopkins, deemed by nearly all who met him as "eccentric", was fascinated with the notions of flying saucers and space brothers, concepts which by definition imply some sort of contact or space travel but his interest was generated long before the advent of what has become known as the Space Race. Additionally, Dr. Hopkins maintained a genuine interest in what can only be described as metaphysical communication, from whence messages arrived and were delivered from the ether to recipients who always hoped to understand the meanings of such communiques.

As a small proof to show that the people attracted to Williams College under the administration of Dr. John W. Hopkins were (and likely still are) forward thinking individuals, here is a photograph I just found on Flicker, of none other than a young 13-yr old Esther Dyson and her brother photographed at Farley Hall on the grounds of Williams College in 1963. I am kindly allowed to use this photo under the guidelines of the Creative Commons, even on my humble blog entry.

This is the link to the original Flicker page proving this photo of Esther Dyson was snapped at Williams College in 1963 and with accompanying comments.

Who is Esther Dyson, you might not need to ask if you peruse the Wikipedia entry linked above.

Not only a member of the Cyber Elite, Esther Dyson is a space adventurer.

"Space Adventures Announces Esther Dyson as Back-Up Crew Member for Spring 2009 Spaceflight Mission". Space Adventures. 2008-10-07. http://www.spaceadventures.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.viewnews&newsid=639. Retrieved 2008-10-12.

"Esther Dyson, an investor in Space Adventures [..] will train as the back-up crew member alongside orbital spaceflight candidate Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., who is currently planning a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in spring 2009. [..] The price of the back-up crew member program is $3,000,000 (USD), which includes the required spaceflight training costs, along with accommodations in Star City"

Truthfully, if I were to gather more names of those who visited Williams College in the Sixties, I could easily develop a much longer post on people whose later careers touched upon space travel (real or imagined) and even space brothers. Esther Dyson certainly epitomizes the feckless spirit required for space adventure and more than qualifies to be honored and recognized as an Early Williams College Space Cadet and Outer Space Pioneer.

Dr. John W. Hopkins: Mentioned in lofty academic publications of sociological and historic natures

Dr. John W. Hopkins: Mentioned in lofty academic publications of sociological and historic natures

"Occult milieu" was a concept used to describe the atmosphere of Williams College by John Lofland, a sociologist who in 1966 published an account of a "cult", in his book titled "The Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith" (Prentice Hall, 1966). In that treatise, Lofland partly traced the early history of the Unification Church in the Bay Area and his path of inquiry led directly to the grounds of Williams College and Dr. John W. Hopkins himself c. 1961.

By way of explanation, the Unification Church was nearly unknown to any but their followers at the time of Lofland's publication, and only beginning in the early '70s with their growing financial success and swelling membership did the organization gain wider public notoriety as Rev. Moon's church, the followers being popularly designated as Moonies. The concept of "Doomsday Cult" was popularized by Lofland, who had familiarity with the East Bay geography as a teaching assistant and pre-doctoral fellow at UC Berkeley in the early '60s. (Lofland eventually was recalled to teaching and served as Professor Emeritus at UC Davis).

Lofland chose to veil "Williams College" by the pseudonym "Amhurst College" in his work for reasons of his own. Although any scholar familiar with the history of Amherst College (in Massachusetts) would catch on to the association as Amherst College was founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College (also in Massachusetts), and would also be aware that those colleges though established on similar tenets since that cleavage separated further and developed rivalries one with the other. Additionally, Lofland disguised Cora Williams as "Cora Amhurst". Educated people of the Bay Area of the time familiar with the local lore of the John Hopkins Spring Estate would have easily seen through this slight literary fabrication. Through his use of pseudonym, I assume that Lofland actively chose to separate Williams College, Berkeley, from the Unification Church.

For others who have followed since, Lofland's "Amhurst College" pseudonym has been revealed by Michael L. Mickler in "A History Of The Unification Church In America, 1959–74 - Emergence of a National Movement" (Publisher HSA-UWC). In this work, Mickler utilizes Lofland's early phrase "Occult Milieu"* as an actual sub-heading title. I should also explain as Moon's church has since gone through another name change that HSA-UWC was the original name for what became known as the Unification Church, the acronymn means The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.

This essentially is a side note to the activities of Williams College and Dr. John Hopkins, but as academic histories each of these scholarly works provide additional details now nearly lost to time.


* ("Although considerable research has been conducted on how people are recruited into cults, little or nothing is known about how they enter the occult milieu. However, persons may take up occult interests as a form of membership in a social network where such interests prevail. If so, then the occult can be characterized as a true subculture -- a distinctive set of cultural elements that flourish as the property of a distinctive social group. Or occult interests may reflect a much more superficial phenomenon. Participation in such interests could be more like being a member of a theater audience -- a transitory and relatively private amusement that is not supported by significant social relations. If the former is the case,then entry into the occult milieu is quite plausibly interpreted as a significant symptom of potential recruitment into a deviant religious group. If the latter, then consumption of occult teachings may be little more than a minor exercise in idiosyncratuc taste having little meaning for future religious actions." ("The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation", by Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, University of California Press, 1986, p. 322)

In 1969, Dr. John W. Hopkins advised me that "Miss Kim" had come "from the Orient."

In 1969, Dr. John W. Hopkins advised me that "Miss Kim" had come "from the Orient."





Young Oon Kim joined a new church and accepted its divine principles after meeting Rev. Moon in a private residence in Seoul, Korea in 1954.


"Miss Kim was the first Unification Church missionary to America and she, more than anyone else, shaped the character of its earliest community. In this sense, a history of the Unification Church in America begins with her story. The story of the Unification Church and its beginnings in the San Francisco Bay Area is not that of a single missionary venturing thousands of miles from her home. It is rather the story of a community of believers* transplanting themselves from rural Oregon several hundreds of miles down the coast to the urban environment of the Bay Area. The nature of this community, its struggle to survive, and its attempt to spread its message is the content of this story.

(Visa Problems)
In March, 1961, the three month extension Miss Kim won in December was ready to expire again. By this time, though, she had met Dr. John W. Hopkins, President of Williams College in Berkeley. 25 He had arranged to have Miss Kim give several lectures in conjunction with the "School of Metaphysical Inquiry" there, and on hearing of her visa situation, wrote a letter to the Immigration Office explaining that Miss Kim was lecturing at his school and couldn't leave. In this way, the second crisis was averted, and Miss Kim's visa was extended until July 31, 1961.

Miss Kim was pressured by the same problem in July but solved it in a markedly different way; on the 10th, she was ordained at the Universal Church of the Master.

As she put it,
Dr. Hopkins had explained the advantages of ordination in forming a religious organization in America. I had never intended to be ordained, even though I had been offered the opportunity to become a Methodist minister in Korea and was fully qualified . . . I wanted to be, rather, a dedicated layman. It was now necessary, however, for our group to be legally recognized. 26

Dr. Hopkins knew the Archers, who were ministers in the Universal Church of the Master, and requested that Miss Kim be ordained. They, in turn, contacted Dr. Fitzgerald, President of the church. Out of respect for Dr. Hopkins, he agreed to consider Miss Kim. After prayer, the issue was resolved to the satisfaction of Rev. Archer, and Miss Kim was ordained. Her visa was thereby extended until the following March.

Because her stay in America involved the constant strain of securing temporary visas, Miss Kim decided in December, 1961 to investigate procuring a permanent visa. She consulted Drs. Hopkins and Fitzgerald in January and went to the Immigration Office with her lawyer to inquire what was necessary for a permanent visa application. Essentials included academic records, ordination papers, and the charter of the corporation for which she was ministering.

(Friends and Foes)
(The Occult Milieu)

Dr John W Hopkins. President of Williams College in Berkeley and himself an occult enthusiast, Dr. Hopkins offered Miss Kim not a dramatic prophecy but a chance to speak. The following announcement from his school's monthly flyer of March, 1961, well illustrates the openness of the occult milieu to new revelations:

Wednesday, March 15, at 8:00 p.m., a lecture by Young Oon Kim, B.A., B.Th., B.D., of Korea on: The Divine Principles. Miss Kim is a teacher of the New Age, giving principles from Divine revelation as taught and verified by her from a Master teacher (whom she will reveal in her lecture). She will give a history of her Master teacher and show his direct revelations pertaining to the end of this civilization or the last days of it and the ushering in its place of the New Age . . . Miss Kim shows further, as is explained also by her book, "The Divine Principles," how her teacher reveals the Divine schedule of Cosmic restoration including fallen mankind . . . The New Age will bring one world, one religion, one language, and other unities as well as perfect harmony of spirit and of body. 31

Spreading the Word
The next public talk attempted by the group was Miss Kim's March, 1961, speech at Williams College's School of Metaphysical Inquiry. Given wide notice in the school's March flyer, fifty-two people attended. As a result, it was arranged for Miss Kim to teach a regular class, and the school's April flyer announced her lectures.

Unfortunately, this effort repeated the pattern of the Lions Club. John Lofland reported:
Those interested had . . . apparently heard enough the first time. Not a single person appeared for Lee's [i.e., Kim's] first class, and the rest of them were canceled. 55

Among the most important friends of the Unification Church movement during this period in the Bay Area were the loose associations of those involved in what has been termed the occult milieu. Describing themselves, according to one account, as "students of metaphysics . . . seeking enlightenment in the higher spiritual realms," this subculture included a broad cross section of American people, though with a preponderance of middle-aged and older women. 29


For description of Williams College, see Lofland Doomsday Cult (Amhurst College), pg. 69

(Directly quoted from A History Of The Unification Church In America, 1959–74 - Emergence of a National Movement
By Michael L. Mickler
Chapter Two
To The Bay Area: 1960-63
The Community
(Visa Problems, Friends and Foes, The Occult Milieu, Spreading the Word)