Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Miller, Henry

  I could almost see the Voice, so close, so impelling, so authoritative it was, and withal bearing such ecumenical import. At times it sounded like a lark, at other times like a nightingale, and sometimes—really eerie, this!—like that bird of Thoreau’s fancy which sings with the same luscious tones night and day.

  When I began the Interlude called “The Land of Fuck”—meaning “Cockaigne”—I couldn’t believe my ears. “What’s that?” I cried, never dreaming of what I was being led into. “Don’t ask me to put that down, please. You’re only creating more trouble for me.” But my pleas were ignored. Sentence by sentence I wrote it down, having not the slightest idea what was to come next. Reading copy the following day—it came in instalments—I would shake my head and mutter like a lost one. Either it was sheer drivel and hogwash or it was sublime. In any case, I was the one who had to sign his name to it. How could I possibly imagine then that some few years later a judicial triumvirate, eager to prove me a sinner, would accuse me of having written such passages “for gain.” Here I was begging the Muse not to get me into trouble with the powers that be, not to make me write out all those “filthy” words, all those scandalous, scabrous lines, pointing out in that deaf and dumb language which I employed when dealing with the Voice that soon, like Marco Polo, Cervantes, Bunyan et alii, I would have to write my books in jail or at the foot of the gallows … and these holy cows deep in clover, failing to recognize dross from gold, render a verdict of guilty, guilty of dreaming it up “to make money”!

  It takes courage to put one’s signature to a piece of pure ore which is handed you on a platter straight from the mint….

  And only yesterday—what a coincidence!—coming from a walk in the hills, a thin, transparent fog touching everything with quicksilver fingers, only yesterday, I say, coming in view of our grounds, I suddenly recognized it to be “the wild park” which I had described myself to be in this same Capricorn. There it was, swimming in an underwater light, the trees spaced just right, the willow in front bowing to the willow in back, the roses in full bloom, the pampas grass just beginning to don its plumes of gold, the hollyhocks standing out like starved sentinels with big, bright buttons, the birds darting from tree to tree, calling to one another imperiously, and Eve standing barefoot in her Garden of Eden with a grub hoe in her hand, while Dante Alighieri, pale as alabaster and with only his head showing above the rim, was making to slake his awesome thirst in the bird bath under the elm.

  7.

  Where was I? Oh yes, Jean Wharton and the little house on Partington Ridge. … At last a home of my own, with almost three acres of land surrounding it. As predicted, the francs came through in the nick of time; enough to pay for house and land outright.

  To begin with, Jean Wharton is the first and only person of my acquaintance who not only talked of “the abundance of the earth” but demonstrated it in her everyday life, in her relations with friends and neighbors.

  Back in the days of the Villa Seurat, when I first began to correspond with Dane Rudhyar, I learned that the Aquarian Age which we have just entered, or are about to enter, may be justly called “The Age of Plenitude.” Even at the threshold of this new era it has become evident to all that the resources of this planet are inexhaustible. I refer to physical resources. As for spiritual resources, has there ever been a deficiency? Only in man’s mind.

  The air is full of theories about the new order, the new dispensation. Marvelous pictures are painted of the period just around the bend, when we of this earth will see the end of making war, when atomic energy will be utilized for the benefit of all mankind. But no one acts as if this glorious age which is dawning were an imminent, wholly realizable, thoroughly practicable one, indeed the only viable one. It is a beautiful subject for discussion at cocktail hour, when all the current topics have been chewed to a frazzle. Usually a rider to the flying saucer business. Or to Swami So-and-So’s latest book.

  Jean Wharton, I repeat, is the only person I ever met who was in the new age with both feet. She was one of the first members of the community I met during my stay at Lynda Sargent’s log cabin. I can still see her coming through the door of the little post office at Big Sur, clad in a huge raincoat, her face almost buried under a fisherman’s hat. Her flashing eyes were tender, expressive and full of warm awareness. I felt at once the radiance which emanated from her and, on leaving the post office, questioned Lynda about her. I did not see her again for a number of weeks because, as I later learned, she was traveling back and forth over the continent in response to appeals from those who needed her aid.

  When I moved into Keith Evans’ cabin on Partington Ridge I often strolled about Jean Wharton’s newly built home and gazed upon it longingly. Everything was still raw, including the grounds. Now and then I peered through the windows, and always I found the same book lying on view, or so it seemed, though it had been left there unintentionally. The book was Science and Health.

  It was customary then for people to refer to Jean Wharton as a Christian Scientist, or “something of that sort,” but always with an intonation which hinted that she was “different.” I suspect that no one, at that time, had any inkling of the travail she was experiencing in her endeavor to clarify her position. What I mean to say is that, in developing and testing her own views of life, in following the path of Truth, she had made a breach with the past—and with those who thought they understood her—which sometimes placed her in an embarrassing light. I might put it another way and say that she no longer “belonged.” Even her intimate friends could no longer classify her. She voiced ideas now and then which to them seemed contradictory, or worse still, “heretical.” And sometimes absurd or utterly untenable. She had definitely moved on—that is the point. And if one moves fast enough the gap can become tremendous, painful too for those unable to follow. I doubt if anyone within her orbit quite understood what was going on. “Jean was changing.” That was the best they could put it.

  How I, with my background, ever got to share this woman’s inmost thoughts is something of a mystery even today. However, as our acquaintance progressed, became transformed into a deep friendship, one which permitted the freest exchange of ideas and opinions, I perceived more and more clearly why she could unburden herself to me who had traveled such a different path. It was not the past which was important, it was the now. For me, just as for her, the present had become the all. For me, desperately so. In conversing with her this desperation vanished. She was in it, of it, one with it.

  I must say here, at once, that Jean Wharton did not begin by airing her views. Not with me, at any rate. She began by being a kindly, helpful neighbor. Our dwellings were separated by only a few hundred yards, but we were hidden from one another’s sight. It was only very gradually, and in a wholly natural way, that I began to receive any direct language about her “spiritual leanings.” What I did get, right from the outset, was the beneficent effect of her clear, straight thinking. That she had very definite views about most everything I was quite aware of, and I found this refreshing; there was nothing insistent or combative in the way she presented her views.

  Though I had no need of a healer, or thought I hadn’t, I could not help but sense her possession of this power every time I found myself in her presence. And, perhaps for the first time in my life, I was discreet about prying into the origin and the nature of this gift. No matter how brief the conversation which passed between us, I always remarked to myself afterwards that I felt better, felt like a real human being, as we say. I am not referring to an improved physical condition, such as can be induced by an extra shot of vitamins, though that was noticeable too; I mean rather a state of spiritual well-being which, unlike the euphorias I had been subject to in the past, left me calm, poised, self-possessed, and, not only at one with the world but confirmed in my at-one-ness.

  Still I made no special effort to get to know her better. It was only after we had taken possession of her house, only after she had passed through a few inner crises and reached a
state of certitude which, for a less disciplined individual, would have been fraught with peril, that we began to have prolonged and involved exchanges of thought which were truly revelatory to me. As to the nature and substance of her views—her philosophy of life, if you like—I hesitate to attempt to expound them in a few words. She herself has performed this feat in a little book called Blueprints for Living.* In this book she has condensed her thoughts to a crystalline substance, leaving nothing vague or obscure, yet permitting the reader to fill in for himself. The effect produced by this method has been to heighten the controversy which the mere mention of her name almost always entails. Perhaps I should amplify. Jean Wharton is one of those individuals who, however clear they make themselves, are always in danger of being misunderstood. She can be crystal clear, in talk or in print, yet awaken doubt, ridicule and anxiety in those who read or listen to her. Perhaps this is the price one pays for being utterly lucid. There is a good reason, however, for this paradoxical dilemma in which she sometimes finds herself. It is that her message can only be given through example. It is something to be lived, not discussed. And it is just this fact which utterly fails to convince some. Ramakrishna expressed it thus:

  “Give thousands of lectures, you cannot do anything with worldly men. Can you drive a nail into a stone wall? The head will be broken without making any impression on the wall. Strike the back of an alligator with a sword, it will receive no impression. The mendicant’s bowl (of gourd-shell) may have been to the four great holy places of India but still be as bitter as ever….”*

  To those who know and accept her, who wrestle with themselves as she has wrestled with herself, Jean Wharton’s thoughts and intentions are clear and unmistakable. They are so even when there is an element of apparent contradiction. Even when, so to speak, she seems to create a “cloud of unknowing.” We know what has been made of the sayings of Jesus. Even of his behavior!

  I have not brought up Jean Wharton’s name, however, merely to eulogize her, though I think it altogether proper for me to do so since I am so very much in her debt and since I frequently go out of my way to pay tribute or homage to far inferior souls. No, I am compelled to speak of her because of an aspect of the singular struggle she has waged ever since she saw the light. I beg the reader to take it for granted that I am speaking of no ordinary person, no ordinary struggle. It is perhaps unfortunate, or misleading, that I suggested the name of Mary Baker Eddy in connection with hers. That Christian Science played a part in her life is undeniable; I would even venture to call it a very valuable part. But all that belongs to the past. Whoever takes the trouble to read her Blueprints for Living will discover that there are drastic differences between Jean Wharton’s present viewpoint and Mary Baker Eddy’s.

  It seems inevitable that anyone who possesses a unique point of view is bound to cause disturbance. One cannot have a definite, positive view concerning the meaning and purpose of life without its affecting one’s behavior, which in turn affects those about one. And, sad as the truth may be, it usually affects people unpleasantly. The great majority, that is. As for the few, the disciples so-called, all too often their behavior lends itself to caricature. The innovator is always alone, always subject to ridicule, idolatry and betrayal.

  In reading the lives of the great spiritual leaders of the past-Gautama, Milarepa, Jesus—or even figures like Lao-tse and Socrates—we profess to understand their tribulations. We understand with our minds, at least. But let a new figure appear in our midst, one armed with new vision, greater awareness, and the problem begins all over again. Men have an ingrained tendency to regard these irruptions of the spirit as closed dramas. Even the most enlightened men sometimes.

  Should the new spirit happen to be embodied in a woman the situation becomes even more complex. “It is not a woman’s role!” As if the realm of spirit were man’s alone.

  But it is not merely because she was a woman that Jean Wharton found herself involved, it was because she was a person, a very human person. I must confess, in passing, that it was with her own sex that she encountered the greatest difficulties. Which is not so strange perhaps, considering the efforts men have made over the centuries to warp women’s minds.

  But to get back to the heart of the matter…. The whole problem is heartrendingly set forth in the second volume of Wasserman’s trilogy, which begins with The Maurizius Case. In the English translation this second volume is called Dr. Kerkhoven. The man, Kerkhoven, is an extraordinary healer who happens to be an analyst instead of a spiritual healer. His very gift is his undoing. In saving others he crucifies himself. Not willingly and deliberately, but because being what he is, doing what he does (for others) involves him in a drama which is beyond his or any man’s powers to cope with. Kerkhoven had no intention of “saving the world.” He was a man of passion, of deep insight, of pure, unselfish motives. He became the victim of his own compassionate nature. One has to read the book to be convinced of his almost flawless character.

  In a way, the reading of this trilogy, together with my long and most fruitful talks with Renée Nell in Beverly Glen, prepared me for at least a partial, and certainly a most sympathetic, understanding of Jean Wharton’s own inner drama. As I interpreted the situation, she had reached a point where the futility and absurdity of helping others had become a flagrant reality. She had broken away from the Church, from any and every kind of organization, in fact, just as earlier in life she had parted from home and parents. Extremely sensitive to the sorrow and suffering of others, aware of the ignorance and the blindness which is the cause of all our ills, she was virtually compelled to accept the roles of mentor, comforter, healer. She fell into it naturally and unassumingly, more as an angelic being than as a doer of good deeds. In performing her duties she innocently believed that she was awakening the afflicted to the nature and existence of the true source of power and health, of peace and joy. But, like all who have made the experiment, she gradually came to perceive that people are not interested in the divine power which is theirs but only in finding an intermediary who will undo the havoc which they have wrought through stupidity or meanness of soul. She discovered what others know only too well in a cynical way, that people prefer to believe in and worship a god who is remote rather than live out the godlike nature which is their inherent being. She found that people prefer the easy path, the lazy, irresponsible path, of confession, repentance and sinning anew to the hard but direct path which leads, not to the Cross, but to life more abundant, life everlasting.

  “Old hat!” you say? But have you dismissed it with your intellect or from bitter personal experience? It makes a difference. No one elects to be a martyr, however much it may seem that way to those who are immune to heroic ordeals. And no one sets about saving the world unless he has first experienced the miracle of personal salvation. Even the ignorant are capable of distinguishing between a Lenin and a Francis of Assisi, between a Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Ramakrishna, or even a Gandhi. As for Jesus the Nazarene or Gautama the Buddha, who would even dream of comparing them to any historical figure?

  When she had demonstrated to her own satisfaction that she could cure people of their physical ills, when she discovered that it was not so much a doing as a seeing, she devoted her energies to the task of convincing others that she herself was but an instrument—“Not I but the Father!”—that this same healing power was within everyone’s reach, if one would but open his eyes. This honest endeavor only brought confusion and misunderstanding. And increasing alienation. Not that people ceased calling on her for aid (of every sort), but that the very ones she had made well again were the hardest to convert to her way of thinking. As for the outsiders, those who watched from the sidelines, it was all a foregone conclusion. They saw the ridiculous in the sublime. They saw ego where there was only self-effacement.

  In touching on these problems I used to urge her to employ greater detachment. It was easy for me to recognize how she fell into the same trap over and over, how she allowed herself, all unwit
tingly, to be used and exploited. How a simple question, which she thought to be sincere, could lead her into explanations which were exhausting. Sometimes in her compulsive behavior, in her eagerness to set things right, leave no stone unturned, I would accuse her (silently) of meddling. To even hint of such a contingency would have distressed her. She was totally unaware, or seemed to be, that she was perpetually hovering over others in readiness to be of service. Ever on the alert, she was like a sentinel fighting off fatigue. Her very nature decreed that it could not be otherwise. Her efforts to correct this attitude must, I know, meet with indifference in the minds of those who can readily close their eyes where the afflictions and misfortunes of others are concerned. But to those who are aware, supremely aware, the problem is not one of shutting the eyes or of keeping them open, it is one of refraining from intervention. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” goes the saying. Obviously, angels see farther and deeper than ordinary mortals; if angels give pause it is assuredly from no thought of self-protection.

  When should one lend oneself to action? What constitutes an act? And may it not be that not to act is sometimes a higher form of action? Jesus was silent before Pontius Pilate. The Buddha delivered his greatest sermon by holding a flower up to the multitude to behold.