Quest Magazine

The Taliesin Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & the Taliesin Fellowship

Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman
NY: HarperCollins, 2006.Hardcover, $34.95, 704 pages.

Roger Friedland, a cultural sociologist, and Howard Zellman, an architect, have written a very good book about a strange and little known subject, the Taliesin Fellowship of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, himself, is certainly well-known through his buildings, his writings on architecture, his autobiography, and a number of other biographies. Oddly enough, however, until Friedland and Zellman published The Fellowship, little was known of the school that Wright set up in the depths of the Great Depression, ostensibly to train the cream of American youth to be "organic" architects.

Building had come to an abrupt stop across the country as America sank into the great economic depression of the1930s. There was no architectural work to be had anywhere by anyone, and to Wright, with his extravagant ways and adverse publicity and notoriety of his personal life, the Depression was an unmitigated disaster. But Wright had an answer, an answer perhaps born of desperation and unlikely coincidence, but a brilliant solution for all of that. Wright had toyed for several years with the idea of opening an architectural school at Taliesin, his estate in Wisconsin. After all, his spinster aunts had made a living from the old Hillside Home School on the Taliesin property. As it turned out, however, the "Fellowship," would not be an ordinary school, not even an architectural apprenticeship under his direction, as Wright had at first thought. It was to be indirectly, but inextricably, linked to the ideas of that other extraordinary man, G. I. Gurdjieff.

Gurdjieff seems to have been an incomprehensible mixture of self-appointed messiah, visionary genius and mystical seer. Acquainted from an early age with the magical beliefs and powers of the peasants among whom he was raised, he was absorbed in all aspects of the occult. There is little doubt that he possessed remarkable magical powers, which were carefully cultivated throughout his life. He was, in fact, a magus, or magician in the old sense of the word and he had a messianic message, simple in essence. We are all asleep, he taught, lost in the mechanical repetition of response patterns of behavior. Freedom is to be found in awakening, in becoming aware of who we are, and what we are. This may be achieved through "the Work," a system of constant mental and physical challenges whereby a student may be shaken into a state of higher awareness. An essential part of the Work was the performance of sacred dances that were designed to align the dancer with the mathematical laws of the cosmos. One of the students and dancers that had followed him on his long journey from Tiflis to Paris was Olgivanna Hinzenberg, who eventually became the third wife of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The authors point out that Wright and Gurdjieff had much in common, and there were "uncanny correspondences in their thinking." Both, for instance, used the term "organic": Gurdjieff to refer to a harmony with cosmic forces and Wright to his architecture. Both were also inspired by forms found in nature, and both were devoted to the beauty of Gothic art. Moreover, Wright was already aware of Gurdjieff and his ideas through Zona Gale, a Gurdjieff follower.

Wright was desperate for money to pay his debts, hold on to Taliesin, and continue to enjoy his lavish life-style. He capitalized on the beauty of his estate and his fame and reputation as an architect, by offering "apprenticeships" to those who would pay for the privilege of living at Taliesin and working under his direction. The students came and paid, and the scheme proved highly profitable. However, the school now called the Fellowship was not what many of them had been led to expect. For one thing, an apprenticeship implies the presence of a master with whom one works and learns, but Wright, at that time, had no work. Olgivanna, however, was eager to incorporate the ideas of Gurdjieff into the structure of the school. What resulted was a curious amalgam whereby the total reeducation of the students along lines established at the Priory somehow became the primary goal.

The great strength of the book lies in the way Friedland and Zellman build up a picture of life as it was lived in the ivory tower that the Fellowship became for both the Wrights and the apprentices. Through the stories of the apprentices as they reacted to Taliesin and interacted with the Wrights and through a careful description of the succession of events, both within the Fellowship, and in the outside world, that shaped and influenced life within the walls, we begin to sense what a strange place the Fellowship must have been. Most of the apprentices were young men and it seems that the women applicants were largely discouraged. Wright was similarly an outspoken anti-Semite, but depended upon Jewish clients and Jewish apprentices who deny ever experiencing discrimination at Taliesin. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wright urged the apprentices to resist the draft. Most of them did out of loyalty to Wright while an unquestioning acceptance of whatever he said or was even believed to think, became an absolute requirement for those who wished to remain at Taliesin.

Gurdjieff died in October, 1949, but nevertheless continued to be a force in the Fellowship through Olgivanna and her daughter Iovanna. As Wright's health declined in his last few years, Olgivana moved to take more and more control of the Fellowship. Immediately after her husband's death, she seized control of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, under which the Fellowship was organized. The Foundation, under Olgivanna, continued the architectural practice, but her chief interest was forwarding the ideas of her master, G. I. Gurdjieff. The death of her husband gave her the free hand that she always wanted to teach Gurdjieff's principles as she understood them, and the authority to shape the lives of those within the Fellowship as one who had received the light directly from the master.

The authors point out that the Fellowship—with all its faults and problems—and Wright—with the enormous ego that the Fellowship fed—were justified by the buildings designed and constructed in the last decades of his astonishing career. Friedman and Zellman cite Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Administration Building, and the Guggenheim Museum as great architectural icons that could not have come into being without the emotional and financial support of the Fellowship and the Gurdjieffian philosophy that influenced Wright through his wife Olgivanna.

Herbert Bangs

This reviewer is a retired architect and author of The Return of Sacred Architecture (Inner Traditions 2006). He also met Frank Lloyd Wright while visiting Taliesin during the heyday of the Fellowship.

Sophia Sutras: Introducing Mother Wisdom

By Carol E. Parrish-Harra
Tahlequah, OK: Sparrow Hawk Press, 2006. Paperback, 290 pages.

In April, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Carol Parrish, when she was lecturing in Asheville, North Carolina. Carol is a graceful and generous spiritual teacher, best known as Dean of the Sancta Sophia Seminary for the past thirty years. Her spiritual journey began with a near-death experience in 1958, the story of which she recounted in her autobiography, Messengers of Hope. She told me:

Carol Parrish-Harra: I knew from my near-death experience, which was fifty years ago next year, that I was related to the Divine Feminine and that was powerful in me, even though I had no feminist theology or thoughts. I didn't even know what that meant at the time.

JP: Over the years since, Carol has often written about the feminine side of God, perhaps most notably in The Aquarian Rosary, but she has turned sustained attention to the topic in the current volume.

CP: What I wanted to do with my book was to introduce people to Sophia the way I know her. I feel that she is with us always at the edge of our mind, that she moves with us and through us and moves us in all these ways that we never rationalize and we never understand. She just touches and prompts and pats and whispers, and then we say, "Oh! Yes, I have had that thought." I wanted to write with her own style. Each of us has our style. Knowing Sophia has a style…She slips into our lives and disappears. It is like a window opens for just a minute. It is an essence. The book took me three years-I collected little thoughts, ideas, bits and pieces. When I had time, I would connect them, allowing the prompting of that presence in my life put the book together.

JP: The book feels verymuch like a conversation between friends, with short chapters reflecting on topics from Creation to Darkness to Grace. The text is punctuated with illuminating quotes, carefully chosen illustrations, and instructions for meditation. It is not a systematic work, and is best encountered in short bits in connection with inner work. It can also be read as time allows, choosing a chapter at random.

CP: It isn't a rational book. So much of our life is not rational. If we were totally rational beings, we would never fall in love, certainly never have children, never start a business. These things cost too much. They take too much out of us. They are too risky, too demanding. They impede us in so many ways that we say we're not going to be bothered. And yet we fall in love, we start things, we do all this strange stuff that makes life wonderful and exciting. But most of it is not rational-it is the flavoring, the spice, all these other things. And I think that is the role Sophia brings to us.

JP: Carol has drawn from an enormous variety of sources:

CP: I think the overriding factor about myself is that I am very curious. I feel like we should use wisdom from anywhere.

JP: Nonetheless, any Theosophist will quickly recognize many connections to the traditions flowing from Blavatsky and the TS. Carol told me about a significant spiritual experience, early on her journey. In recounting this epiphany to a friend, he suggested she get in touch with the Theosophical Society:

CP: I asked, "What is the Theosophical Society?" He gave me the address of a library in St. Petersburg. I went to the library, very eager with questions I had been holding for five years, but the elderly librarians did not want to talk to me. One man told me I was too young, and that I should come back in twenty years. It was not a good start with Theosophy, but then I found Leadbeater’s book, TheMasters and the Path. I thought to myself, "Wow! Here it is!"

JP: I was pleased to hear that Carol continues writing, along with her work with the Light of Christ Community Church, Sparrow Hawk Village, and Sancta Sophia Seminary, sharing her wisdom and experience in many forms.

CP: Our world has had too many priests and teachers and leaders who have never had an experience, and that is part of what is wrong. We want to help them find that experience.
-JOHN PLUMMER

November/December 2007

American Shamans: Journeys with Traditional Healers

Jack Montgomery
Ithaca, NY: Busca, 2008. Paperback, $19.95, 265 pages.

In 1974, Jack Montgomery was an undergraduate student at the University of South Carolina, in search of an interesting topic for a religious studies paper. He decided to interview local practitioners of folk magic and traditional healing, representing traditions such as hoodoo and powwow. This project "became a quest for knowledge, heritage, and personal meaning" (xi) which has continued to the present. Today, Montgomery is an associate professor at Western Kentucky University, and American Shamans is the fruit of over thirty years of study of these home-grown spiritual traditions.

Montgomery focuses his attention on traditions native to his home state of South Carolina, from both the lowland and Piedmont regions. Unlike Louisianan voodoo, these South Carolina traditions do not cultivate an alternative practice of religious worship/ritual, but are most often practiced by people who see themselves as pious Christians, and understand their magical work as a gift from God. For example, here is an excerpt from Montgomery's interview with "Sarah Ramsey," an Appalachian granny-woman:

JM: Mrs. Ramsey, how do you feel about the life you've had?
SR: I'm happy. I don't have any regrets, I'm at peace with the Lord.
JM: What has all of your healing experience done for you?
SR: I don't know what you're asking.
JM: I'm sorry; it's just that you have healed people, delivered babies, even fought with evil. What does all that mean to you?
SR: That my Jesus is everywhere. No matter what happens, he is with me. He's loved me and blessed me through all my troubles. Now I look forward to going home to be with him one day soon. (241-2)

These sentiments come from a woman who had just recounted to Montgomery her way of dealing with a "witch ball" sent as a curse to her, and her conversations with spirits who instructed her that "what you think makes everything" (241).

A large part of the book is Montgomery's account of his time with Lee Raus Gandee, who began as a contact for his USC paper, but became Montgomery's spiritual mentor and teacher of powwow for several years. Gandee is a complex character, whose personality comes through clearly in the dialogues:

"How does one become a Hexenmeister?" I asked him at our first meeting.
"By being a Hex until you can manage it!" replied the elderly gentleman in the rocking chair, calmly smoking his pipe (72).

American Shamans is somewhere between an academic anthropological account and a personal memoir. Montgomery admits to some trepidation in discussing his own spiritual experiences, his views on magic and spirituality, and how his work as a powwow has impacted his life. Gandee tells the young Montgomery: "Either magic works or it doesn't. I don't worry too much about the theory" (109). While Montgomery gives us a bit of theory, he focuses on the work, especially as it takes form in his life. It is his courage in bringing himself into the story which lends this book its warmth and its spirit of humble authenticity.

John Plummer

The reviewer is a member of the Theosophical Society currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a freelance theologian, and the author of several books and articles on independent sacramental churches and esoteric Christianity.

Nagarjuna's Letter to a Friend

Translated by the Padamakara Translation Group with commentary by Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche
Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2005. Paperback, 208 pages. 

This is an English translation of the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit text called Suhrllekha, literally "Letter to a friend". The original letter was written in 123 four-line stanzas. Its translation and appended commentary are by the Rinpoche. For those able to read Tibetan, the original text, alternating with a running translation, is included as well as a lined index of the Tibetan text. The Sanskrit original has apparently been lost as is, unfortunately, the case with a number of other important Buddhist philosophical works. The book contains ninety-three footnotes to help the reader better understand some of the ideas. A photograph of the Tibetan translator, who died in 1975, is also included.

The friend in question was King Surabhibhadra (also known by several other names), one of several early rulers in the Andhra area of central India. And, of course, Nagarjuna was one of the most important Indian Buddhist philosophers, associated with the philosophic system known as Madhyamika ("The Middle Way"). He is credited with being the author of several other important philosophic works and a very good outline of his ideas may be found in T. R. V. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (1955). He is said to have lived in South India in either the first or the second centuries of the common era. He is also supposed to have later incarnated as the Mahatma known in theosophical literature as K. H. or Kuthumi (anglicized as Koot Hoomi), one of the principal inner founders of The Theosophical Society and author of most of the letters published as The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. As such, this book ought to be of interest to serious students of theosophy. But it is not for the casual reader.

I have read some of Nagarjuna's works both in translation and in Sanskrit-as well as his letters to Sinnett and find it difficult to believe he would have written this particular poetic work, especially the rather gruesome descriptions of various hells, which read more like some Christian descriptions rather than Buddhist or theosophical ones. Perhaps the author's purpose was to make the descriptions of hell overly dramatic in order to motivate the king to adopt a benevolent policy. Since that particular king is not generally mentioned by most writers on ancient India (e.g. A. L. Basham, The Wonder that Was India, 1954), we have no way of knowing whether Nagarjuna's advice was taken.

The book is very well done and has a handsome dust jacket. The translation and commentary are lovely and easy to follow. But the book is for the serious student, not for the occasional theosophical reader.

-RICHARD W. BROOKS

November/December 2007