The Shamcher Bulletin brings you snippets from Shamcher’s writings that might help frame and context our experience of the world we live in today.
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April 26th and 29th
Mark your calendar, because April is Shamcher Month!
Shamcher Bryn Beorse was born April 26, 1896 and he passed away April 29, 1980.
Let’s each find our own way to remember him, think of his work, and be in touch in intuition. You can expect a few more frequent postings this month, just to be a little more in touch.
In case you missed it, we published a Remembrance issue two years ago that included many memories of Shamcher that may be of interest to you.
Meditation
(From An Interview with Shamcher Bryn Beorse)
….Well, I agree with you that when many go to a medium it is not always with a bad intention. But one thing that is going wrong in the first place is that they {people who go to mediums} are thinking of themselves as egos. Inayat Khan never did that, and neither do I. If you call it your ego, and mean something bad, then you have the problem of working against yourself.
I don’t think of myself as a despicable being. The Christians do that, unfortunately. They say, I am an awful sinner, there is nothing but sin in me, but Christ is up there and He’s all right. Far away, you see, on a pedestal. One needn’t do this. It isn’t necessary to go the road of thinking of oneself as such a sinner or as an “ego”. Rather, without any preconditioning keep your thoughts right. That is the thing, that is real meditation.
And you may sit in a beautiful position to do it if you want, and this is fine if it is comfortable, but you needn’t do any particular position. One time when I was with Musharaff and Mahboob Khan, two of Inayat’s brothers, I was trying rather desperately to get into the lotus position, and they said, “What are you trying to do, Shamcher?” And I answered, “Well, I’m trying to sit like you.” And they laughed and said, “All you have to do is get comfortable. The object is not to sit like us.”
The Stream of the Universe
(From An Interview with Shamcher Bryn Beorse)
Q: Didn’t a yogi once tell Pir Vilayat that the holy men in the Himalayas were a dying race because the way for us now is to stay in the world?
Shamcher: Yes. They are a dying race because the world is now ripe to take care of itself. It doesn’t need saints sitting back there keeping us in touch. And this is coming! You see young people everywhere, and many old people too, who have become aware of the need for balance in the spiritual realities, of the need for a balance that will make them much more than simply the heirs of religious traditions.
One time the Dalai Lama said that a certain Trappist monk was the only person from the West that he knew of that could meditate, but you see it coming among all the young people around us now, so there is a direct contact with what I would call the stream of the universe among them or at least some of them.
A Super-Spy
Coming soon: A Sufi Went to War. Over the past weeks I’ve been digitizing Shamcher’s manuscript for his book recounting his wartime exploits, including the plot to kidnap Hitler. Our main article in this issue an excerpt from the chapter, Spies are Beautiful
Karl Meyer, a decent, respectable German economist from Hanover, arrived in London on a passport manufactured by his Gestapo espionage school and sporting the name of an English soldier who had died from wounds in a secret Gestapo hideout.
The first thing Karl Meyer did when he came to London was to open an account with the Post Office Savings Bank at Charing Cross. After that he lay low, ate, slept and waited for instructions. A whole week went by with sightseeing and locating possible targets or victims. Then, at eight one evening there was a knock at the door. Karl opened the door himself and faced two young men who weren't smiling. They asked him politely to come along for questioning.
There weren't many questions asked. The British Security Police seemed to know everything about him already; his background, his espionage training.
Karl Meyer was not too perturbed. He knew from his espionage teachers that the British did not torture captured spies, not anymore. At most they were shot. Also, there was a good chance of some mutually profitable solutions, such as switching bosses. Karl Meyer had thought this through many times before he hopped over to London. He was a man of the world; was ready to serve a master other than German. But he feared the consequences if he were sent back to spy on his countryman. In Germany he risked not only death but very unpleasant treatment before death would relieve him.
First, however, he was beset by curiosity. "Why," he asked, "did you find out about me so quickly, even before anyone had contacted me?"
"Our first indication,” responded the security police, "was your opening of an account in the Post Office Savings Bank. Of course many open such accounts even though they are not spies. We investigate all of them. "
"But why? Why? Our Gestapo teacher told us to open such accounts as soon as possible after arrival. This, he told us, would be taken as a sign that we were solid British citizens acting as they would have done."
“Yes,” replied the security police, "because that Gestapo espionage teacher is our agent."
The policeman who made this statement was soon removed because of his indiscretion. In his defence he said he was so sure that Karl Meyer would be shot before dawn that he saw no danger in satisfying Karl’s curiosity. His superiors countered that it was his own sensationalism he satisfied rather than the other’s curiosity. Besides, Karl Mayer was not shot at dawn. He became a British agent. He was captured by the German security police and at once offered to switch back to become a German agent again. The Germans were not generous. They treated him in an unmentionable way, then shot the rest of him.
Karl Meyer became my dream hero in London, or rather my object of envy, that is, before I knew what finally happened to him in Germany. Why hadn't I thought of going to a German spy school before landing in England? I would have been so much more useful in the battle against Hitler – I mused – that is, if the English hadn't shot me at dawn before I had time to explain myself.
Two men changed all that in seconds by merely exercising their tonal chords. A Royal Air Force General said, “Come with us,” and sent me to the Western Front to a Royal Air Force Group Captain (now an Air Marshall) who sent me behind German lines. I did not have the protection of a mighty army, not even the less sure shield of an intelligence organization. I was, with my buddies, a tramp, a non-entity, open to all the tortures the Nazis could think of if they caught me. We, my buddies and I, felt great now, greater than the army or the Air Force; greater even than the regular spies, for we were farther out; out of bounds; out of all Geneva convention; all human or inhumane systems. We were on our own, as the Stone Age cavemen before us. Every time I made one of my forays into enemy territory either to find a lost pilot or to steal a bus or a coffee pot, I could pick any one of my company fellows. They all wanted to go, wanted to become part of our lawless gang. Yes, spies are beautiful but super-spies beyond all bonds and reasons are beautifuller.
I had expected that my occupation as a super-or-sub spy would cease at the end of World War II and that I would then reverse to a more respectable engineer and past-jackaroo. This was not to be. To the straining embarrassment of the CIA, the CIS, the SCI, all military intelligence units, the entire G-2, Colonel Carroll, E.F. Nelson, the Pentagon and even my humble self, I was taken for a member of any or all these various organizations or buildings wherever I popped up in the world.
In Japan this turned tragic, for there I really intended to practice the old art again. I stayed with loveable Colonel Nelson of G-2 and planned a trip to Blagovashenck to see what the Russies were doing while we all were waiting for that thrust across a certain border.
To stay with the Nelsons was a privilege I wouldn't have swapped for a king’s ransom so I was upset when one evening the Colonel barked, "Why did you tell Major Frye you were of the CIA?"
We went right over to see Major Frye together. He was an “operator”, a real beautiful spy in the field and though I would have been proud to really be of the CIA, I was greatly upset that such a fine specie should be misinformed about me. Major Frye put on his most winning smile and addressed himself to the Colonel, “No, no, Colonel; I never said Bryn had said he was of the CIA. He is highly discrete and would never have said such a thing. Our knowledge is from other sources.”
The Colonel gave up. When such rumours start, he said, the best you can do is shut up. The more you deny, the bigger become the rumours…
The local representative of the US State Department categorically refused to let me go on my mission to Blagoveshchensk, so carefully planned by the beautiful people. I had to try from another base. That is how I met Ivanshenko in Hong Kong, after the military attaché had obtained for me an extension of my stay permit by phoning the British passport office that I wished to stay on a bit longer “for personal reasons.” A private mission plane brought me to the heart of China and back…
Not even the biggest shots can fully appreciate a beautiful spy — the salt of the earth, the saviour of nations and the world.
An incident in the first World War shows what people in the know think a good spy is worth. Admiral Jellico, on the bridge of the British flagship in the battle of Jyllland, was approached via messenger who joyfully reported that the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst had been sunk. No survivors. The Admiral received this message with a drawn face, “Damn it, Scharnhorst's first mate was our best agent."
Not even a huge battle cruiser with thousands of able-bodied officers and sailors were comparable to one single beautiful spy.
Note: in this chapter Shamcher never says what he was doing on this trip to the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk, at the border with China
“We don’t know whether we will have a stable or an unstable future. We don’t know whether there will be a colossal evolution or even a nuclear war. But it is our damned duty to try to lead the evolution in a sensible way. That is all we can do.”
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The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill. Link here to my personal newsletter:
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How wonderful to be celebrating Shamcher's birthday together this month. Loved his very wry spy stories and look forward to reading more from the institute.
All of this material is so enriching for me. I found Brynn Jr.'s impressions of his dad very thought-provoking. But Shamcher's his own words are always refreshing and enlivening. Thanks so much for doing this carol.