Water, War-gold, Survival
Welcome to another issue of The Shamcher Bulletin, this time featuring excerpts from Shamcher’s 1970’s correspondence, and his book, Every Willing Hand.
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Waters of the Sea
A symbol is an ocean in a drop. Shamcher’s book, “Every Willing Hand”, isn’t only about community, economics and full employment. He also includes the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan on the meaning of symbols such as the waters of the sea.
Life was pictured as the waters of a sea in the ancient traditions of philosophy and religion, particularly in the Middle East.
When the storms and waves of the sea of life overpowered you so you couldn't stay with it, you were said to drown.
When you barely made it, you were said to swim.
When your philosophical and loving attitude completely mastered the difficulties and challenges of life, you were said to walk upon the waters.
To calm and harmonize the minds and emotions of oneself or others was called to still the storm.
To improve the taste of the ordinary life of hard knocks and blows by a loving and compassionate attitude was called to turn the water of life into wine.
I Accept Nothing That Isn’t Already in Me
(from correspondence)
I am the bad boy of the Sufi effort to some, and the good boy to others, because I accept nothing that isn’t already in me. I see that stagewise [stage by stage] gradual development through an accepted “teacher” can be all right for some cases, and also can lead the aspirant to stand pat and never go forward or even backward. Anyway, it is not MY way, neither as a “pupil” or a “teacher”. The only thing I can do is to live and act myself all the time, and those who like it, fine, and those who don’t, equally fine. For who am I (or anyone else??) to judge whether a seeker shall have only a nickel or a whole dollar or all of yourself? The least you can give is all of yourself, at once and forever. And he or she who feels like a pupil today, why should he (she) not switch to a teacher, away from his once-upon-a-time teacher the next second? Indeed, he ought to.
Spy? Secret Russian Gold
Shamcher often spoke of his adventure in seeking post-war gold that had been hidden in Russia. In his book, “Every Willing Hand”, he contexted some of that experience within the geopolitical climate of those times. He was to enter Russia via China, but wasn’t able to continue due to the Chinese Revolution, and was luckily airlifted out in one of the last planes to leave the Mainland.
From Every Willing Hand
The Korean war, predictable to the wary, came as an unpleasant surprise to those American leaders who had sent Phillip Jessup, a distinguished Johns Hopkins scholar, to East Asia, ostensibly on a "fact-finding” mission. Equally distinguished foreign service officers had collected facts for centuries in those same areas, so nobody swallowed this version of the mission. I happened to be on a lower level, partly self-inflicted mission in the same area at this same time and the pretensions of Jessup's mission so galled me that I deposited with a friend in the Embassy of Tokyo, a less than scholarly treatise on the subject of FACTS, postulating that in international relations, particularly, facts are not "found" but made. Dr. Jessup is rumoured to have chuckled over it.
So, we waited for the real purpose of Jessup's visit to be revealed. It was. In the first spot of his landing, and thereafter in every following place, he said, with variations, that Asia must not expect from the United States a participation or an aid program in any way comparable to our European commitments. This was Dr. Jessup's mission: Not to find a fact but to produce one. What he produced was the Korean war. This may not have been his explicit purpose, nor the purpose of those who sent him. But our distinguished North Korean, Chinese and Russian counterparts interpreted to the best of their ability these statements, then staged the invasion of South Korea on the apparently well-founded belief that the United States would not interfere.
My own appearance in Japan at Christmas 1949 was not solely to take part in General MacArthur's perennial New Year Party at the Imperial Hotel … I had been commissioned by a friend to retrieve about a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold dust deposited by a fugitive from the Bolsheviks near Blagovaschensk on the river Amur. My friend had also involved U.S. intelligence. This project held no treasure hunt charm for me; for if I survived at all there would be nothing left for me after the Russians had taken their share and my friend what he considered his. But it was as good an excuse as any for going in and seeing what the Russkies were up to . . . a fact-finding mission after all?
How far up the MacArthur hierarchy my plan was supported I do not know, but with the ranks it was a shoe-in. All information that could be obtained was badly needed. But the local representative of the State Department said no, and so probably saved my life, though was it worth saving?
So the Korean war came along without my assistance. It took thousands of American and Korean lives to prove that America, as a whole, did not share the sentiments of those appointed officials who sent Dr. Jessup on his fact-producing mission. The United States, a giant rider straddling Europe and Asia, can never ignore the plight of either.
My Tokyo friends told me that while I could not enter the Soviet Union from Japan, there was no objection to my entering from any other point. So, I had the most cordial encounter with Ivanshenko in Hong Kong, officially Russian Trade Commissioner, actually one of the eminences behind the vast and secret Russian gold. He told me a hundred thousand dollars worth was like a grain of sand compared to Russia's actual. holdings. But this grain of sand, I countered, might nevertheless become of some interest to certain Russians and Americans? Seeing Ivanshenko's cold stare, I quickly emptied my glass of vodka and sank deeply into the armchair trying to become invisible.
I made a daring thrust as far as Chungking, China's ancient capital, where I happened to see Chiang Kai-Shek, long since rumored to be in Taiwan, standing very erect in a luxurious overcoat, backslapping and well-wishing his associates, then emplaning for Taiwan; an insouciant, unworried target for Red snipers. Whatever his politics, the old man displayed regal courage.
Further penetration became impossible. Reluctantly I had to backtrack, using the last exiting missionary plane, the St. Paul, outrageously overloaded, a pile of furniture and trunks in the middle of the floor upon which the children played mountaineers, yelling their WHOOPEES while the missionaries prayed earnestly that the plane would lift, which it did, obligingly, knocking two telephone poles in the noble effort.
I Am Your Survival Agent
In the late 1970s, Shamcher was a speaker at a New Age event. For many years he had been fully dedicated to promoting safe forms of energy, to replace dependence on oil, coal or nuclear. From correspondence:
At New Dimensions (conference) all were shouting about consciousness. I was on the panel last. I said: “Whoever has the patent on consciousness, would you please restrain the un-authorized shouters so we can get time to act? I am your survival agent. Is it worth while to survive? For humanity I mean? I think so. I think humanity is promising. In a million years we may really be humans. At the moment we are dangerously dumb. Even you here, some of the best of humans, know no better than spending a whole day yapping about consciousness. While what we need is energy systems. And we have 10 of them, ready to go, cheap and fast. And we don't go. We just yap about consciousness and let the idiots kill us all with nuke monsters. Get up!! Act!!!"
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The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill, whose newsletter, “Personal Papers”, is HERE.
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