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)