Aa history Lovers 2006 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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Sorry if this info is way off the track. Best, Bob W. ----- Original Message ----- From: Art Boudreault To: AA History Lovers Cc: tomwhite@cableone.net Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:41 AM Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] My first forty years Dear Tom, I am interested in learning about and obtaining this book. I was unaware of the book "My First 40 Years" by Lois. It is not mentioned in "Lois Remembers" or "First Steps, Al-Anon ... Thirty Five Years of Beginnings", both sold by Al-Anon's World Service Office. I did a search on Hazelden's book section and on http://used.addall.com/, a used
book site, for this book. It is amazing how many titles there are with those words, but none about Lois. Can you let me know how to find such a book?
by Al-Anon's World Service Office. According to the person hired by Al-Anon to ghost-write the book for Lois, she wasn't allowed to write it for Lois. AA World Services paid for and hired the ghost writer. Sincerely, Art Boudreault artb@netwiz.net > 2b. Re: Page 118 - " As Bill Sees It" > Posted by: "Tom White" tomwhite@cableone.net > Date: Mon Jul 3, 2006 1:41 pm (PDT) > > I may be repeating myself, but my conclusion, after some searching, > is that the original of that quote from Huxley appeared in Robert > Thomsen's "Bill W., the first bio of Bill. Subsequent users cite it. > Bob T. , I believe, quite consciously associated closely with Bill in > the middle and late 60s with the idea of a book in mind, and his > text gives plenty of evidence of drawing on conversations with Bill > for source. It would have helped if RT had included some notes on his > sources, but he was writing a "popular" rather than scholarly book so > he evidently ruled that out. In the middle 60s practically the only > ones really big on AA history were Bill himself, Nell Wing, and I'd > say Lois, since I have always supposed she released the text of "My > First 40 Years" to Hazelden, perhaps out of frustration that AAWS had > not exactly rushed to press with it. Take all this lightly; just my > impressions. Tom W.
From: t . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/5/2006 1:16:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Info off the Library of Congress website: LC Control No.: 99087571 Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.) Personal Name: W., Bill. Main Title: Bill W : my first 40 years. Variant Title: My first forty years Published/Created: Center City, Minn. : Hazelden, 2000. Description: xi, 219 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN: 1568383738 Notes: Transcribed from an audiotape made by Bill W. Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: W., Bill. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics--Biography. LC Classification: HV5032.W19 A3 2000 Dewey Class No.: 362.292/86/092 B 21 Quality Code: pcc CALL NUMBER: HV5032.W19 A3 2000 Copy 1 -- Request in: Jefferson or Adams Bldg General or Area Studies Reading Rms -- Status: Not Charged CALL NUMBER: HV5032.W19 A3 2000 FT MEADE Copy 2 -- Request in: Main or Science/Business Reading Rms - STORED OFFSITE -- Status: Not Charged --- This book is still available from the publisher, Hazelden, in softcover at: http://www.hazelden.org/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?a=banditem=8898 also from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568383738/sr=8-1/qid=1152114402/ref=sr_1_1 /103\
--- This was one of FOUR biographies of Bill W published in the year 2000: My Search for Bill W. (by Mel B.) Bill W. (by Francis Hartigan) Bill W. and Mr. Wilson (by Matthew J. Raphael a pseudonym) Bill W., My First 40 Years, an Autobiography by the Co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
In checking group messages from that time, Nancy O remarked that this book is based
on "autobiographical tapes Bill recorded in the 1950s" [msg#325 from
AAHistoryBuffs archive] ... --- the Amazon site included the following review: Editorial Reviews From Library Journal "[I]n a hotel then known as Wilson House I was born, perhaps rightly, in a room just
back of the old bar," writes Wilson (1895-1970), cofounder and organizer of Alcoholics Anonymous, in this first published edition of an autobiography he began in
1954. Telling one's story is an important AA tradition. Bill W., as Wilson was
known in AA circles, had a reputation for being a good storyteller and had previously recounted much of his life in the Big Book (also titled Alcoholics Anonymous) and
other writings. Here, Wilson tells of his childhood, military service, marriage, attempts to stop drinking, and spiritual conversion in 1934 but stops short of his historic meeting with cofounder Dr. Bob. The publisher has added articles, appendixes, and recollections of friends, family, and colleagues to flesh out Wilson's fragmented account. In contrast to Francis Hartigan's recent conventional but comprehensive biography, Bill W. (LJ 2/1/00), Bill W. and Mr. Wilson offers an
Wilson's own three-part formula ("what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now"),
Raphael, an AA member writing under a pseudonym, observes that "what [Bill W.] used to be like scarcely exists outside...the account he first gave in Alcoholics Anonymous and then repeated often." Raphael seeks to distinguish Bill W.,
cofounder of AA and the Twelve Steps, from Bill Wilson, who "closely guarded his private life
during his public career, even as he seemed to bare his soul at AA meetings." Throughout his life, Wilson battled depression, smoked heavily, and had a reputation as a womanizer. Later in life, he participated in LSD research and promoted alternative therapies for alcoholism. As Raphael describes Wilson's life, he traces parallels in the evolution of AA from its origins in the Oxford Group, a religious lay movement, to a worldwide self-help organization of alcoholics helping alcoholics. Both books, while important contributions to the growing literature on Bill W., are
supplementary purchases for collections on drug and alcohol abuse. General collections should acquire Hartigan's Bill W. -DLucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., CA
This is the story of AA co-founder Bill Wilson's first forty years of life set forth
in his own words recorded at the Hotel Bedford during September, 1954. He is assisted
by Ed Bierstadt. The book is a wonderful compilation of anecdotes told in Bill's
own words in an effort to shed light upon how his experiences led to his personality development which contributed to his fall into alcoholism. It is refreshing and free
of controversial arguments found in some of the more recent biographies. The description of his spiritual experience once again by the man himself is very uplifting. The afterword and appendices nicely flesh out this historical account of this truly special man to whom so many owe their lives. --- It now is apparent why I haven't seen mention of this book in our other readings
... just a matter of it not being published till the year 2000. Then it was released at the same time as three other books about Bill and his life. Combine that with the
choice to end before meeting Dr Bob and the start of AA and it just loses its
appeal to too much of the AA audience. I wonder about the delay in publishing ... 46 years after recording the tape/s?
Was it just another example of Bill trying to be humble, having it published 30 years after his death? Or did Bill get flashbacks to the days he was trying to sell the membership on the Traditions ... seeing too many letters inviting him to come tell about the white
light experience and what's happened since but ... Did he just decide the members and groups would not be all that interested in an analysis of his childhood history
and drunkalogs with nothing on his life after meeting Dr Bob? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3546. . . . . . . . . . . . Contempt Prior to Investigation From: John Keller . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/5/2006 3:04:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Regarding the quote attributed to Herbert Spencer in the Big Book, I've come across some research on this quote by Michael St. George: http://www.geocities.com/fitquotation/). In what looks to be a very thorough investigation, St. George concludes that the quote comes from William Paley rather than Spencer.
From: Emmanuel . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/5/2006 6:39:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From the research that I did some time back, If I recall correctly, Herbert Spencer used the term in a Newspaper interveiw, of which he himself did not recall until reminded, I'm sure that he could have been quoting someone else when he said it, but it apparently does not appear in any of his writings Peace and Happy Days Emmanuel
> > Regarding the quote attributed to Herbert Spencer in the Big Book, I've > come across some research on this quote by Michael St. George: > http://www.geocities.com/fitquotation/). In what looks to be a very > thorough investigation, St. George concludes that the quote comes from > William Paley rather than Spencer. > > John K. > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > >
Peace and Happy Days Emmanuel S. John [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3548. . . . . . . . . . . . Huxley Quote From: Joe Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/6/2006 4:14:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII re: "the greatest social architect of the 20th century"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white45.html#ref is "Bill W." by Robert Thomsen (Harper and Row, New York, 1975) page 340.
Bill's involvement at Trabuco College, that it is a quote attributed to him but NOT from one of Huxley's books is not beyond the pale. While it may annoy later historians, I often say nice things about my friends. Sometimes to their face, sometimes behind their backs, sometimes after they are gone, sometimes in print. :o) -------- A closed mouth gathers no feet. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3549. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: My first forty years From: ArtSheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/5/2006 5:31:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I mean no disrespect, but the term "autobiography" has a specific meaning in literature. It signifies that the biographical subject of the work had an active role in its development. There is no "apparently" about it. The book "Bill W My First 40 Years" originally was a series of tape
recordings that began in September 1954 (by Bill W and Ed Bierstadt). The Foreword and first chapter of the book describe both the intent and time span for Bill's dictations. The material is a first-person testimonial by Bill that covers the time-span from Bill's childhood up to his leaving Towns Hospital for the last time and actively engaging in the Oxford Group in NYC. The contemporary Afterword and appendices of the book are a good read in their own right and contain some remarkable historical material as well as references to a number of historian authors who today actively engage in the AAHistoryLovers special interest group. The Foreword of "Bill W My First 40 Years" describes it as being the
"backbone of the biography written by Robert Thomsen" titled "Bill W"
which was first published in 1975. Thomsen's biography enjoys a distinction in that it was actively sold and circulated within AA by the GSO in NY until 1976 when the General Service Conference asked that the practice cease. If anyone knows, I'm curious to find out who the authority was that "authorized" the latest biography of Lois Wilson. I don't have a copy of it as yet but plan to get one. I too have not been able to find a written source for Huxley's "social architect" citation other than Thomsen's book. If anyone knows the written source it would be a very interesting find.
Arthur
-----Original Message----- From: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bob Wilson Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 4:35 PM To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [AAHistoryLovers] My first forty years Art, Amazon has this one -- which I was not aware of till I looked. It's apparently by Bill. Bill W. : My First 40 Years - An Autobiography ISBN 1568383738 Here's another one I didn't know anything about, an "authorized biography": http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/amazon/books/alcohol-abuse/the-lois-wils on-story-when-love-is-not-enough-the-authori-1592853285.html Sorry if this info is way off the track. Best, Bob W. ----- Original Message ----- From: Art Boudreault To: AA History Lovers Cc: tomwhite@cableone.net Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 11:41 AM Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] My first forty years Dear Tom, I am interested in learning about and obtaining this book. I was unaware of the book "My First 40 Years" by Lois. It is not mentioned in "Lois
Remembers" or "First Steps, Al-Anon ... Thirty Five Years of Beginnings", both sold by Al-Anon's World Service Office. I did a search on Hazelden's book section and on http://used.addall.com/, a used book site, for this
book. It is amazing how many titles there are with those words, but none
about Lois. Can you let me know how to find such a book? I believe that Lois' memoirs were printed in "Lois Remembers" sold by Al-Anon's World Service Office. According to the person hired by Al-Anon to ghost-write the book for Lois, she wasn't allowed to write it for Lois. AA World Services paid for and hired the ghost writer. Sincerely, Art Boudreault artb@netwiz.net > 2b. Re: Page 118 - " As Bill Sees It" > Posted by: "Tom White" tomwhite@cableone.net > Date: Mon Jul 3, 2006 1:41 pm (PDT) > > I may be repeating myself, but my conclusion, after some searching, > is that the original of that quote from Huxley appeared in Robert > Thomsen's "Bill W., the first bio of Bill. Subsequent users cite it.
> Bob T. , I believe, quite consciously associated closely with Bill in > the middle and late 60s with the idea of a book in mind, and his > text gives plenty of evidence of drawing on conversations with Bill
> for source. It would have helped if RT had included some notes on his
> sources, but he was writing a "popular" rather than scholarly book
so > he evidently ruled that out. In the middle 60s practically the only > ones really big on AA history were Bill himself, Nell Wing, and I'd > say Lois, since I have always supposed she released the text of "My > First 40 Years" to Hazelden, perhaps out of frustration that AAWS had > not exactly rushed to press with it. Take all this lightly; just my > impressions. Tom W. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. See the new email design.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TISQkA/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/219olB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~- >
From: george brown . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/5/2006 10:25:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII the 5th tradition says that each group "has a primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." what is the meaning of "its" message? it sems that that term can imply that there is a message other than the one explained in tyher first half of the big book that each group can "carry'. --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
From: trixiebellaa . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/6/2006 3:25:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hi history lovers. Can anyone help us with the following query?
have any relationship to the early Christian "gnostic" movements?
before writing the Big Book chapter entitled "We Agnostics." tracy big book study england. ______________________________ From Glenn Chesnut: Tracy, The words gnostic and agnostic look a lot alike, but they refer to totally different things. ______________________________
in ancient Greek, putting "a" in front of a word meant "not." So an agnostic is someone who "does not know" whether there is a God or not.
people who are SURE that God does not exist. "Agnostics" on the other hand are people who are simply caught in doubt and confusion and skepticism about the whole issue: "Well
it is possible that there could be a God, but I'm sure. Maybe God exists, maybe
God doesn't exist. I just don't know one way or the other." Bill W. says at the beginning of that chapter that about half of their original
AA fellowship were either atheists or agnostics. That is, they were either convinced that God did not exist, or were very skeptical about whether any kind of God existed. ______________________________ Modern scholars invented the word "gnostic" to refer to a variety of weird
little religious cults that flourished in the Roman empire in the second and third centuries A.D. These cults mixed a little bit of Christian stuff in with a lot of mythological stuff. Gnostic systems always had at least two gods (a supreme Good God and a supreme Evil God), but most of them had additional gods
and divine beings (dozens of them) in their mythological systems. The ancient
gnostics believed that this physical universe (which is filled with pain and evil) was not created by the supreme Good God, but was created by a lesser god or goddess who was either evil or disobedient. In a lot of their systems, the physical universe (with all its pain and suffering and evil) was believed to have been created by an evil goddess named Sophia or Achamoth.
who
were pathologically obsessed with the problem of evil and suffering, and tried
to solve that problem by having one or more evil gods and goddesses in their mythological systems in addition to the supreme good God. Since the physical universe was evil, anything connected with the human body or the material world was evil. Sex was evil, eating and enjoying food was evil. The forces of astrology (which were the work of the seven evil gods called the Seven Planetary Archons) determined everything that happened in the material world. These cults were very antisemitic, and regarded the Jewish God (the God of the
Old Testament) as evil and malicious. Jews were therefore servants of the Powers of Evil, who were trying to keep all human beings imprisoned in this evil material world. These gnostic cults were also sometimes very antifeminist. The gnostic Gospel
of Thomas, for example, worries about whether the Blessed Virgin Mary can obtain
salvation, and finally says that maybe she can, but that women can only be saved
if they become like men. In a lot of these gnostic cults, a divine figure called "Jesus" or "Christ" was sent here to earth by the supreme Good God (who was called the Unknown Father)
to bring human beings the secret saving gnosis. But since anything material was
evil, this kind of gnostic Jesus was a bodiless phantom, who only appeared to be
born of Mary, and only appeared to eat and drink and sleep (so as not to alarm
people), and only appeared to die on the cross. The Manichaeans (the biggest and most influential ancient gnostic cult) referred to this bodiless divine spirit as the Luminous Jesus.
claimed to have some kind of secret "knowledge" that was not found in religious texts available to the general public (like the Old and New Testaments). If you joined the cult
and learned their secret "knowledge," they told you that you would be freed from the forces of astrology and fate, and would be able to go to heaven when you died, instead of having to be reincarnated in another body here on earth, where you would have to go through yet another lifetime of pain and suffering. ______________________________ But nobody knew much about these gnostic systems in the 1930's, at the time when
AA was being developed and the Big Book was being written. They were a curiosity known only to a very few scholars of ancient religions. Bill W. would not even have known what the word "gnostic" meant. The psychiatrist Carl Jung developed an interest in gnosticism at one point in his life, but this was AFTER he had worked with Rowland Hazard, so it had no effect on what he told Rowland or his theories about alcoholism at the only time
that seriously mattered in early AA history. For Jung, the negativistic gnostic
ideas which he discovered later on seemed to help make sense of a strange dream
he had when he was a young man, when he saw God up in the heavens shitting on a
church. Jung believed strongly that God had evil and destructive components within his being. ______________________________
during
the 1960's, when a number of ancient gnostic documents (like the Gospel of Thomas) were dug up in Egypt at a place called Nag Hammadi. The Gospel of Judas, which got everybody all excited a month or two ago, was another of these
gnostic religious documents. Part of the "secret knowledge" which the author of that work claimed to have, was that Judas Iscariot had been a good guy instead
of a villain. There was another little gnostic sect, called the Ophites, which
claimed that the Talking Snake in the story of Adam and Eve was the good guy who
was trying to bring them the secret saving gnosis, while the God of the Old Testament was an evil God who only wanted to hold Adam and Eve prisoner in his wicked clutches. ______________________________ And in recent years, there have been folks in California have tried to revive
the ancient gnostic religion, but the modern California variety really isn't the
same thing as the ancient stuff. Most of the modern California "gnostics," for example, regard the goddess Sophia (or Achamoth) as a good deity. I have also
never heard of any of the California gnostics saying that nobody can be saved
who engages in sexual relations :-) ______________________________ But again, nobody in early AA knew anything about ancient gnosticism. It was NOT an influence on early AA in any kind of way. And the topic in the chapter of the Big Book called "We Agnostics" was people who came into the AA program who were either atheists who were sure that God did
not exist, or agnostics who were skeptical about whether God existed and could
not bring themselves to have any really strong faith in God and the power of God's grace. Glenn Chesnut, Moderator AAHistoryLovers IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3552. . . . . . . . . . . . The longshoreman and the moon rocket From: trixiebellaa . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/6/2006 3:26:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hi history lovers. Can anyone help us with the following queries? Are there any pointers as to why the "longshoreman" was singled out in the chapter in the Big Book on "We Agnostics"?
if there was any special significance as to why the longshoreman would so readily agree to a rocket being landed on the moon. any ideas anyone tracy big book study england. ______________________________
proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will say, 'I bet they do it -- maybe not so long either.'" ______________________________ From the moderator: Tracy, A longshoreman was a man who worked at the docks in New York City, loading and
unloading cargo ships. Bill W. chose a longshoreman for his example, because a longshoreman did unskilled physical labor, and presumably would not be some kind of high powered intellectual, but a man of simple common sense. And a longshoreman would also be assumed to be a rough and tough "man's man," and not some kind of person given to poetic fantasies. A lot of the major U.S. newspapers in those days had what was called a Sunday
supplement in their Sunday morning editions. The rest of the newspaper (in those days) was printed in black and white. The Sunday supplement (which was stuck into the middle of the folded black and white newspaper) was printed and
folded like a magazine, and was printed in full color instead of just black and
white. When I was a child in Texas, my father was the art director of the Sunday supplement for the San Antonio Express newspaper. The Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper had its own Sunday supplement, and so did the Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans, and so on. The New York Times newspaper had the biggest Sunday supplement of them all. During the latter part of the twentieth century a lot of big American newspapers shifted to using Parade magazine as their Sunday supplement, instead of printing
their own local Sunday supplement, so a lot of our American members may not be fully aware of what they were. Modern rockets were born when a man named Robert Goddard received a grant from
the Smithsonian Institution, and launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket
on March 16, 1926. From 1930 to 1935 he launched rockets that attained speeds of up to 550 miles an hour.
Earth to the Moon" in 1865, and H. G. Wells had written "First Men in the Moon" in 1901. The world's first science fiction movie was "Le Voyage dans la Lune" (A Trip to the Moon), which was produced in France in 1902.
people
speculating in popular literature about the possibility of human beings sending
a rocket to the moon. People had already become aware that new technology could
in theory allow human beings to do something that had never been done before.
agnostic was that, a lot of people had been skeptical about whether human beings could fly through the air at all, but then the Wright brothers built the first airplane, and now airplanes were flying all over the world. Modern human beings
had begun to realize that you could not say that something was impossible simply
because it had never been done before. But you had to have faith. The Wright brothers had to spend years of work, believing simply on faith that they could one day solve the secret of flight. There were people in 1939 who now had faith that rockets could be sent to the moon. It is interesting that Bill W. used that example, because here in 2006 we know that this too was not an ignorant or stupid faith. We were in fact eventually able to build rockets powerful enough to fly from the earth to the
moon. I can remember seeing the first human beings landing on the moon on television while it was happening. Bill W.'s point was that "having faith" was NOT unscientific or superstitious or ignorant. On the contrary, all scientific advances began as acts of faith. The
kind of faith which scientists had was an "informed faith," not a blind faith. But AA was not asking anyone to accept its program on the basis of a blind faith. Already by 1939, the AA program had had enough successes (hard objective scientific evidence) to show that its program could stop alcoholics from drinking.
asking
you to have faith in a higher power, but this is an informed faith, a scientific faith, based upon the evidence of all the stories in the Big Book which are case
histories demonstrating that there is in fact a higher power which can and will
save alcoholics from incarceration and death." But if you don't have faith enough even to TRY the program for yourself, then
you as an alcoholic are certainly doomed. Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana) IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3553. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: tradition 5 From: Charlene C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/6/2006 3:18:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From Charlene C., John Wilkelius, doclandis, and Shakey Mike: What does "its
message" mean in the Fifth Tradition? From: "Charlene C." (ccp28para4 at yahoo.com) Being that this is the 5th tradition of AA, "its" message would be the message of AA. Any other message would make that group cease to be an AA group. ______________________________ From: "John Wikelius" (nov85_gr at graceba.net) STEP 12 HAVING HAD A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING, WE TRIED TO CARRY THIS MESSAGE ______________________________ From: doclandis@aol.com (doclandis at aol.com) My job is to continue to carry THE message of hope, and recovery, by living it, and by sharing my own personal experience. ______________________________
(Shakey1aa at aol.com) The fifth tradition explains -- "better to do one thing supremely well," "just as firmly bound by obligation are the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who have demonstrated that they can help the problem drinker as others seldom can." The tradition is very clear. "The only thing that matters is that he is an alcoholic who has found a key to sobriety." It furthered qualifies by saying "it is not strange that our society has concluded that it has but one high mission -- to carry the A. A. message to those who don't know there's a way out." It says the A. A. message not the B. B. message which is not the A. A. message.
Shakey Mike Gwirtz ______________________________
yahoo.com) The 5th tradition says that "Each group has but one primary purpose -- to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers."
term can imply that there is a message other than the one explained in the first half of the Big Book that each group can "carry." IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3554. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Gnostics and agnostics From: Arkie Koehl . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/8/2006 2:29:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII According to the word's coiner, Darwin's pal T. H. Huxley, it does indeed have that relationship. Click here. Arkie ______________________________ From the moderator: Arkie, your "click here" internet reference did not come through, but it is true that a lot of people regard T. H. Huxley as the person who first coined the word
agnostic to describe people who are skeptical about God's existence. See for example http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm The many internet references say that: "The expressions 'agnostic' and 'agnosticism' were applied by T. H. Huxley to sum up his deductions from (on that time) contemporary developments of metaphysics about the 'unconditioned' (Hamilton) and the 'unknowable' (Herbert Spencer). It is important, therefore, to discover Huxley's own views on the matter. Though Huxley began to use the term 'agnostic' in 1869, his opinions had
taken shape some time before that date." And Huxley is quoted as saying at one point: "I invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic.' It came
into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who
professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took." ______________________________ Arkie, This actually supports the point I was trying to make. Bill Wilson in the 1930's would either have read or known about famous modern agnostics like Charles Darwin, Thomas H. Huxley, and Robert G. Ingersoll. It is clear from the
chapter to the agnostic that he knew all the standard arguments against the existence of God which had been developed by these modern atheists and agnostics.
all
he would have learned from that passage is that there were people back at some
point in Church history called gnostics "who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant." And that Huxley had coined the new word, because if a gnostic was someone who "knows" then an agnostic is someone who "does not know."
about
the detailed doctrines of ancient gnosticism. The question that was asked was, can we learn anything about Bill W.'s chapter
to the agnostics by studying those weird ancient second and third century gnostic cults, and the answer to that is no. Likewise, we cannot learn anything about the chapter to the agnostics (as it appeared in the Big Book in 1939) from reading web sites posted by California "gnostics" from the 1990's and afterwards. If people want to know more about the historical background of the chapter to the agnostic in the Big Book, they should read about modern thinkers like Charles Darwin, Thomas H. Huxley, and Robert G. Ingersoll who were working very
hard to destroy any kind of faith in the God of the Bible in the western world
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Those were the people
whom Bill W. was attacking and arguing against. It was the biggest spiritual issue of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Everybody in the U.S. was affected by this debate. Does God exist or is he simply a superstitious myth from the ignorant past? Is the Bible true or is the Bible nothing but another pack of myths? Just about everybody in the U.S. was involved in these debates at some level during the 1920's and 1930's,
and had strong opinions on the subject. Think of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial
which was held in 1925, only ten years before Bill W. met Dr. Bob for the first
time, a kind of media circus which pitted the Protestant Christian fundamentalists against the biologists (who were regarded as atheists and agnostics) and their belief that human beings were descended from apes.
agnostic. It is not only useless to start reading about ancient second and third century
gnostic cults in the attempt to understand Bill W.'s chapter to the agnostic, it will hopelessly confuse you.
the
1930's), start with the obvious. Sitting here in my study in South Bend, Indiana, if I hear hoof beats thundering past my window, I suppose I could say, "Here come the zebras." And I could
argue for hours that it was POSSIBLE that this had been the sound of zebras galloping through my yard. But the obvious place to begin is to start by seeing whether it was horses, cattle, or even deer running through my yard (because wild deer do sometimes get confused and come up the St. Joe river bottom and get
lost in town for a while before they can find their way back out). But start with the obvious. Don't start looking for zebras until you've first
investigated the simplest and most likely explanation. Glenn C. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3555. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Contempt Prior to Investigation From: ArtSheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/7/2006 3:05:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII It would be helpful to use the search feature available at Yahoo.com to peruse the archive of past postings. Please refer to message 2824 at url http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/. You can also simply do a search on the string "Spencer" to review past postings (there are quite a few).
and a remarkable academic tour de force by Michael StGeorge. His paper was published in March 2005 and concludes (authoritatively in my judgment) that the "contempt prior to investigation" quotation should be attributed to William Paley and not Herbert Spencer. A little background on how the erroneous attribution found its way into the Big Book: The member who introduced the attribution to the Big Book was Ray C. His Big Book story is "An Artist's Concept" and he began his story using a quotation that he mistakenly believed came from Herbert Spencer. The quotation said: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
alcoholics when the subject of religion, as a cure, is first brought to their attention. He said "It is only when a man has tried everything else, when in utter desperation and terrific need he turns to something bigger than himself, that he gets a glimpse of the way out. It is then that contempt is replaced by hope and hope by fulfillment" (re brief biography of Ray C by Nancy O for more detail).
1st edition Big Book. He submitted various designs for consideration including one in an Art Deco style. The dust jacket chosen for the 1st edition was red and yellow with the words "Alcoholics Anonymous" printed across the top in large white script. It became known as the "circus color" dust jacket because of its loud colors. The unused Art Deco dust jacket is in the Stepping Stones Foundation archives. Ray C's story was not included in the 2nd edition Big Book. However, the quotation, erroneously attributed to Herbert Spencer, was added to Appendix II "Spiritual Experience" in the 1st printing of the 2nd edition Big Book in 1955. The background for the quotation appearing in the appendix is also interesting.
of the 1st edition Big Book. The term "spiritual experience" was changed to "spiritual awakening" and the term "as the result of these
steps" was changed to "as the result of those steps." Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" was added to the 1st edition Big
Book in its 2nd printing. This was done because many members thought they had to have a sudden and spectacular spiritual experience similar to the one Bill had in Towns Hospital. The appendix emphasized that most spiritual experiences were of the type that the psychologist William James called the "educational variety" (note: this is yet another attribution that cannot be verified by a written work where James actually used the specific term "educational variety").
the
publication of the 2nd edition Big Book in 1955. It is not an accurate attribution. No written work by Spencer contains the quote. Current research attributes the quote to the English clergyman, author and college lecturer by the name of William Paley who lived from 1743 to 1805. Paley trained for the Anglican priesthood and was appointed a fellow and tutor of his college in 1766 and rose through the ranks of the Anglican Church.
extremely influential. His 1794 book "A View of the Evidence of Christianity" was required reading at Cambridge University until the 20th century. Herbert Spencer (who lived from 1820 to 1903) was a great rival of his fellow Englishman Charles Darwin who is credited with the theory of evolution. It was Spencer, not Darwin, who popularized the term "evolution" and it was also Spencer who coined the term, "survival of the fittest." Spencer, however, did not author the quotation attributed to him in the Big Book.
Arthur
++++Message 3556. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Contempt Prior to Investigation From: edgarc@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/6/2006 12:32:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Re the Herbert Spencer quote, it is also thought by some that he, ironically, died of alcohol-related causes.... Edgar C, Sarasota, Fla.
From: Marsha Finley . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/9/2005 8:37:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hi Tanya! I found that line ["one's too many and a thousand's not enough"] used in an old Ray Milland film ... "The Lost Weekend" so I may have to watch that movie!
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