Shamcher's Archives

New additions!

Hello dear hearts,

Thanks for still being here, and for your patience through the summer hiatus.

Since our last issue, Jelaluddin Gary Sill has kindly digitized many of the surviving cassette recordings of Shamcher. These are all somewhat longish and rambling but I’m sure they will be of interest to you. Shamcher is telling stories of his life in various interview situations, some with unidentified others, some with people we know well, such as Joe Miller, and some with Jelaluddin Boru.

My question is this:

Photo by mayte wisniewski on Unsplash

And speaking of tapes, here’s something from Shamcher’s correspondence - 14 March 1980

Thank you deeply for tape. I played it to a gathering of friends and some rose to sublime heights of enjoyment and thrill and some suffered hysterics and commanded me to stop before I had finished. Why? What magic is involved? Personally I cannot understand the pain and resistance that some felt. Can you? I felt nothing offensive, much of deep beauty. I was particularly attracted to the unique interdependence of the accompaniment with the singing — and this was exactly what frightened or repelled the furious critics. They said the accompaniment did not suit and was not harmonious with the singing and I thought that was just what it was — ingeniously, unconventionally suitable and harmonic. I may add that those who criticised and who thought there was not harmony were people of great tradition in what we call classical music — Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Grieg, Debussy, and that Finnish composer — what’s his name again? I would love to have your comment on this strange tale I have here reported.
I am sorry I cannot now respond with some more substantial remuneration for your noble effort. You may send a tape to my friend [name and address] and tell her a tear-dripping story about all the hard work and deep sacrifice you had preparing this special tape exclusively for her at the request of Shamcher, so that she may know how to remunerate you (I know her well and she has some cabbage). (But she is careful with her expenses and has to have appealing words to part with some). Maybe she will also be interested in your whole project. Who knows? She doesn’t speak much French, if any. But she has a world interest.
To you, all the little bit of love this universe has allowed me to contain and spend, love love love
Shamcher or Bryn or, really nothing 000 or agent X-5

---

On Teachers

In the Sufi line, in the Message line, you do not have to look up to any single person anywhere. But you can suffer and love and sympathize with all without rancor. Yes, you may even give your humble advice whether you are asked to or not, as I have done to all – all.

Also, there is no sin that is more forgiveable than fiddling with other teachers. For it is all in the process of the eagerness to learn. A mistake in the way of giving way to anger, passion, greed — all those are so much worse.

Everybody today worships concepts. But concepts are not holy or sacred. They can be suffered, ignored, laughed at and changed. The spirit, the message is beyond concepts, beyond logic, beyond any words. So what is there to worry about? You have only ONE teacher: Hidden inside your own heart.

---

I Must be Alone

Your dear letter is not only glowing with love, it is also more intuitive than any other message I have received lately. “Forgive me for not getting in touch sooner” you write. Do you know why? Because in your unusual unselfish love you, of all people, understand that I am going through a period when I must or should be alone. Also a trip to Egypt and Brazil is in the offing, and I prepare thunderoudly [sic] for the things we have to do on that trip. Other friends come dropping in and keep me away from my task for hours deep into the night. Even when I tell them in advance I really should not see any one, they still come, saying “But I have to see you, Shamcher” not paying any attention to what I have to do or see.

Photo by Linus Sandvide on Unsplash

---

Testimony Before the US D.O.E. Solar Energy Hearing

5 December,1978; Solar Energy Hearing

This is the third time I have the pleasure of testifying on Solar Energy. You, representatives of the Energy Department may have wondered with me, about the handling of these testimonies. Summaries and conclusions of the previous meetings had not a single word about our distinguished TRW company’s Robert Douglas testifying on June 15 that OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) could now, today, be built competitive with nuclear plants; not even a single reference to testimony the next day, June 16, that reputable New Orleans Shipyards offered to build OTEC plants for less than half of the cost of nuclear plants built today. Since the OTEC fuel is free and nuclear fuel cost rises every day, this would seem remarkable.

We were told that the testimonies would be screened and summarized by a private firm—The Franklin Institute. Aren’t you, Energy Department representatives, wondering with me what sort of instructions this firm received, and from whom?

In Canada there was recently a hearing about an oil pipeline—far less important than our present energy matter. Justice Berger, head of that Canadian hearing, travelled around the country and listened to everyone who had anything to say — experts, yes, but also to lone hunters and fishermen, Eskimo seal hunters — and all this was reported, fully, and published, with no in-between Franklin Institute to cut and scramble at their pleasure the carefully prepared testimonies from concerned citizens and large technological firms.

Assuming the Department of Energy will review its obligations to testifiers, I will now repeat my story with a new slant: For about a hundred years now a growing number of people have realized that our little globe is bubbling with renewable energy — much more than we will ever need. For the past fifty years engineers have built and tested plants: Windmills (a form of solar energy); Ocean currents; recently Wave machines; Tide utilization; and Ocean Thermal machines. Seven open cycle OTEC plants in small sizes and one closed-cycle plant have been built, tested, and found most promising. Two more closed cycle plants are currently being built in Hawaii. It is essential to understand that one who builds and tests a small plant gains an insight in its potential, its economics, that no one else can share. So we need demonstration plants — not to convince the men of experience but to convince the others. These others, however, in Government or elsewhere, often do not realize their handicap and write ponderous documents preventing progress. This is particularly unfortunate at this time when the most severe depression ever experienced is forecast by Presidential and other learned commissions. The only way to prevent this scenario is to build, in a crash program, solar plants now, particularly OTECs in which the storage problem is solved. Crash programs are, by the way, the most efficient programs here in the US.

Actually, we do not have to wait for a depression: Billions of people are starving, freezing today, and the governments responsible for these victims are near ruin — and will pull with them large US banks committed to un-repayable loans. Yet, only a brave resolve and a relatively small initial investment would turn that series of events around and make our nation the most beneficial ever to have graced this earth.
My humble advice on how to proceed is available.

Bryn Beorse
SeaWater Conversion Lab
Richmond Field Station, Richmond, Ca.

---

Photo by Boudhayan Bardhan on Unsplash

As we move ahead with the Shamcher Archives in the fall, I can’t help but wonder about this community of readers and subscribers to the Shamcher Bulletin. Is there more that you might wish to receive? Do you have letters or memories you’d like to share?

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.

Thanks for responding, sharing, and subscribing to these excerpts from the writings and archives of Shamcher Bryn Beorse. A few sections here were previously published in earlier issues.

• Feel free to reply to this email if you have Shamcher stories, photos or correspondence to share.

• The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill, whose newsletter, “Personal Papers”, is HERE.

If you like this post, please click the heart. And your comments are always welcome.