FCRP: A Perspective
Eleanor Perry
1983 marked the 40th Anniversary of the first Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology. Members celebrated at a Tea on Sunday, May 29, during the annual sessions at Haverford College. Conference veterans were seated around a table in the Sunken Lounge of the Dining Center, while attenders listened to them reminiscing as they enjoyed the lovely anniversary cake provided by the College.
Pleasure was expressed over the presence of Douglas Steere, who had been one of the speakers at the first conference. He spoke of his appreciation of the Conference for bringing many people of such variety into the Quaker orbit, saying, “You have so enriched the society (of Friends) by the breadth of it all that we feel deeply grateful to you.” This was very gratifying and attenders were sorrowful that Elined Kotschnig could not be present to hear him say so. She, more than any other person, was responsible for the vision and the energy to create the organization with its annual conferences which was being celebrated.
Elined is remembered for many things, for her keen mind, her great fund of information, her sensitivity, her wisdom, her humor which was delightful, her gift for gathering people around her and her talent for organizing them. Able to share her own vulnerability, as for example her struggle to come to terms with the tragic death of her son, she was always present to others with her understanding and encouragement.
When Helen Stark found she would not be able to attend the celebration, she wrote, “I am grateful…for the time I was privileged to work with Elined. I have re-read many times her essay, Creative Conflict, and am moved by her capacity to deal with harsh realities…yet to respect and to cherish the humanity in each of us. Her insightful letters overflowed into the margins as though her generosity and caring were unbounded. She led me, oh, so gently to value my rejected, or at least undervalued, feminine (self). That I still struggle to reach a better accommodation is a tribute to the insights she provided in a great outpouring.”
In looking back, it seems inevitable that Elined Kotschnig’s participation in the study group of Geneva Friends Meeting and her work with her analyst, Dr. Tina Keller, should have led her to the preparation of a paper on the similarities between mysticism and psychology. Elsewhere in this issue, in an interview with Elined shortly before her death, Lucille Eddinger writes of this experience and of the early years in America.
Elined shared this interest with Friends in New England as well as her concern for the psychological understanding of emotional and spiritual needs of meeting members. Although Northampton Monthly Meeting, and the loosely knit Connecticut Valley Association of which it became a part, and later New England Yearly Meeting, eventually expressed an interest in these matters, they declined responsibility for developing such work in any way as a Meeting concern. This was a great disappointment.
One day, while sitting at her desk working on the family accounts, it came to Elined that there were other Friends with whom she could work. There was Martha Jaeger, a Friend with whom she had worked for the YWCA in Romania and a Jungian analyst in New York City. In the Philadelphia area there were friends whom she had known at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Study Center; and there was Irene Pickard, a Friend whom she had known in Geneva. She visited with them and shared her concerns. It was Irene who put her in touch with three Quaker discussion groups who were eager to hear about her ideas. They responded with the enthusiasm and support she needed to plan a study conference on The Nature and Laws of our Spiritual Life. In due course a “Manifesto,” prepared as a preamble to an undated call to Friends, was approved by the Connecticut Valley Association, and permission was granted to send it out under their name. Agnes Myers remembers Elined saying later that she “gently shook the tree and down came such a deluge of ripe fruit.” The time had come for organizing.
The first conference took place in the Haddonfield Meeting House over the 1943 Easter weekend. Conference attenders over the years came to see the annual spring gatherings as a time of re-birth. Seward Hiltner of the Federal Council of Churches, Howard Brinton, Co-director of Pendle Hill, and Douglas Steere, Professor of Philosophy at Haverford College, with a panel of other Friends, led the sessions of the weekend designed to cover four areas of concern:
— the inner life of the individual
— the spiritual development of the group
— the pastoral care of Meeting members
— the relationship of religion and psychology
Expecting perhaps 20 to 25 Friends, they drew more than 50 participants. A poll taken afterwards revealed that the last topic listed, which had created the greatest anxiety among Friends, was by far the most popular. A continuation committee was appointed. A report of the conference appeared in the publication Inward Light, which was later to become the Conference organ. A letter was sent to attenders requesting “significant follow-up activity.” The Conference was under way.
A glance down the 40 year list of speakers (Appendix)* provides interesting information about the Conference. The number of distinguished speakers who were acknowledged leaders in their respective fields was quite extraordinary. Considering the size and influence of the little group who were trying to get the new organization off the ground, one is amazed at the number of professors of philosophy, religion, and sociology, ministers, physicians, and theologians who were recognized authors, psychiatrists and other workers in the field of mental health, who spoke to this little band of impecunious pioneers. Sometimes there was one, sometimes as many as three of them on a single weekend. One can only conjecture that the field was new and intriguing and that the founders in their zeal were releasing a good bit of missionary energy. Perhaps they were hoping that Friends would see the caliber of people speaking to a concern about which they themselves were so anxious.
There has been a perennial debate as to whether to invite a famous speaker or to have Conference leaders share their own perceptions and insights. Teresina Havens, one of those who have been involved from the beginning, has written, “Our own people know better than most outside resource people what the Conference wants and needs … outsiders don’t understand the nature of the Conference.” It is that continuing interplay of information and shared experience throughout the weekend which is, in part at least, what Terry has referred to as “the distinctive character of our Movement.”
Perhaps it should be said that although the Conference was concerned with the two fields of psychology and religion, there was if anything, in the beginning, more of an emphasis on the religious approach to the understanding of the spiritual life. Prayer, meditation, and the Meeting for Worship were especially evident as subjects for conference sessions, and filled the pages of Inward Light, as did plans for retreats and reports about them, including several in England. There was a special retreat for men in Civilian Public Service who had participated in the annual conference. Executive Committee minutes reiterate a concern for the need of a retreat center. “Training for the Life of the Spirit”1 and “Twelve Steps of Spiritual Exercise”2 became Conference bywords. There was strong encouragement to learn the techniques necessary for these experiences and developing skill in their use. One might speculate that this emphasis on the religious approach to spiritual growth was, perhaps, less threatening not only for the majority of participants, but also for those whose interest the Conference hoped to attract. Certainly it was easier to proceed on familiar ground. The combined approach was new, and there were few people such as Elined Kotschnig who were knowledgeable and comfortable in the areas of both Quakerism and analytical psychology.
Anton Boisen of the Chicago Theological Seminary, and a former mental patient, was something of an exception. He spoke on Religion and Crises Experiences, sharing a deep concern that mental illness be recognized as a spiritual crisis. For this reason he felt it was extremely important to listen to what patients had to say, something which present day members would have taken for granted.
Analysts appeared early and often on the list of speakers. Many of the topics on which they spoke dealt with the tension between opposites, such as Freedom and Limitation, In Darkness and in Light, and Male and Female. One recalls Jung’s response to the question as to whether there would be an atomic war, saying it would depend on how many people could stand the tension of opposites within themselves.
The interest in pastoral counseling per se, which was seen as such an important concern originally and which had drawn to the Conference many conscientious objectors working in mental hospitals, seems to have waned rather quickly. Occasionally an article in Inward Light reminds us of this concern. One wonders whether the almost total lack of response from Committees on Ministry and Counsel had discouraged the Conference leadership from going in this direction. Very likely the need to understand one’s own inner difficulties began to take precedence over the troubles of others. And there was an increasing interest in the psychological causes of social unrest.
Leon Saul, the Quaker psychoanalyst, speaking on The Roots and Fruits of Hostility, spoke of the hostility which is expressed in the destructive behavior involved in crime, prejudice and war, as well as in difficult personal relationships. He pointed out that this stems from parents who neglect or reject their children, or have unreasonably high expectations for their achievement. This was a highly disturbing experience, repeating that of the early conference on Prayer when members acknowledged individual responsibility for outward events.
James Whitney’s Psychological Aspects of the Negro-White Revolution, in a lengthy discussion of the shadow and its projections, was disturbing in a different way. Rachel Davis DuBois, who at that time was working out of Atlanta with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, had brought with her a number of Black and White activists. Those who were working for political change became impatient with Conference members who were seeking psychological understanding of racial prejudice – of necessity a rather slow process. Doubtless both sides gained insights from the highly charged encounters between proponents of the inner and the outer way. One member recalls hearing a young Black woman speaking in an excited voice over a pay phone. “A whole room full of white people! … Yes! … The whole weekend!”
Martha Jaeger made three or four major contributions to the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology. The first was her early professional recognition of the relationship between mystical Quakerism and psychology as perceived by Elined. Martha was a source of continuing support and encouragement remaining involved in the Conference for most of her life. She was so wise, and understanding, and warm, and so great was her generosity of spirit, that she came to epitomize the nurturing mother to many members. After her death, Ethel Walsh, faithful Conference secretary, wrote: “As she tenderly cared for her plants, so she tended, sheltered, encouraged and supported the creative evolving factors in those who made up her large circle of friends.”3
Thus it was that Martha, realizing that Rachel DuBois would be an invaluable asset to the Conference, brought the two together. At that time Rachel was deeply involved with parents of school children in the culturally mixed neighborhoods of New York City’s public school system. She and Mew Soong Li were training leaders in “group conversation,” the technique they developed to break down cultural barriers. This method of helping diverse individuals recognize common values and meaning became a highly prized tool of small group leaders.
Again, it was Martha who brought Laurens van der Post, author of Dark Eye in Africa,4to one of Rachel’s workshops on Cultural Democracy. Because of the increasing interest in understanding the emotional components of racism at that time, actually preceding the conference with James Whitney, members of the Executive Committee attended workshops with van der Post. These were held in New York City and at Pendle Hill to explore this problem from the Jungian point of view. Out of these experiences, in 1957, came the pamphlet, Race Prejudice as Self-Rejection, published by the Workshop.5
Several years later, at a Pendle Hill lecture, van der Post described his journey in search of the elusive bands of Bushmen who were the last remaining first people of the earth. Charming his audience as he simulated the clicking consonants of Bushman conversation between Mantis, Rock Rabbit, Porcupine and other mythical characters of Bushman folk tales, he shared their stories of the first spirit, of ongoing creation and the coming of consciousness. Constantly on the move, and with almost no possessions, the little Bushmen were seen to live a life incredibly rich in meaning. The audience was enthralled with van der Post’s description of a Bushman mother holding her baby toward the night time sky, asking the stars to give him the heart of a hunter. His heartbreaking tale of The Lady of the Sky who vanished into the sunset, when she found her husband could not see the gifts of the spirit she had brought to their marriage, was an experience which no one who heard it will ever forget.
The visit of van der Post to this country, timed to coincide with the publication of his books, prevented him from actually speaking to an annual conference. Nevertheless he was to exert a far reaching influence on its members. Phrases such as “making a journey,” reflecting both van der Post’s search for the Bushman he believed to be the soul of his African homeland, and his parallel inner journey for self-understanding, came into common Conference usage. For years Ruth Conrow’s nightly nature walks about the Haverford College campus were called “Listening to the Stars.” Synchronicity became a reality after hearing Martha Jaeger describe the discovery of a praying mantis on a bowl of fruit in her New York City apartment on the day Laurens van der Post was arriving in town. His stories were shared at many subsequent conferences. Executive Committee members who participated in these events acquired from this sensitive, caring man a new understanding and perspective which permeated their leadership and were woven into the fabric of the Conference.
Interest in psychic phenomena was expressed as early as the second conference, and was referred to occasionally through the years. That it surfaced after the death of Dora Willson was certainly not surprising. As Ann Morris, former Conference Clerk, has written: “Her stately, lithe and friendly presence gave assurance that her belief in the value of a deep and searching study of the Synoptic Gospels and an understanding of Jungian psychology would, could, and often did bring transformation in one’s deepest self. Her sense of humor, her intellectual integrity, her courage in facing a terminal illness left an unforgettable impression on those in the Conference whose lives she touched.”
When Dora died in 1953, the Conference was aware of a very great loss. One of the founders of FCRP and its chairman for three years, she was greatly loved by all who knew her. Elined wrote, “One of the earliest reverberations of Dora’s continuing life with us was the choice of Intimations of Immortality as the theme of our following spring conference. We felt a deep need, out of our sense of loss, to come to grips with this perennial problem of mankind.”6 Calvin Keene spoke on Personal Immortality in the Light of Theology and Psychical Research. Daisetz Suzuki spoke on Living in the Light of Eternity in which “each moment of living is the meeting of finite and infinite.”7
Following this experience, members were encouraged to develop their interest in the field of psychic research and parapsychology. Probably its most dramatic expression was felt in 1961 and ’62, the years when Harmon Bro, “with a uniquely religious approach,” spoke on The Paradoxes of Life and Death, and later on The Paradoxes of Rebirth. He was able to lift the taboo on an open discussion of death, and to demonstrate the reality of death in life, and life in death, bringing about a new level of creative interaction between speaker and participants. As Fern Stowe recalled at the Anniversary Tea, a rare peak of conference experience occurred on Sunday morning when the last plenary session was to be followed by the traditional Quaker Meeting for Worship. The quality of sharing, exquisitely geared to the common focus and coming from the deepest center, flowed without a break, and for many without conscious awareness, into the Living Presence. It became a true meeting of spirit and Spirit such as few persons are privileged to experience.
The interest in psychic experience and parapsychology, survival after death and re-incarnation, grew steadily. When the pressure to speak to this concern could no longer be put aside, a series of post-conference conferences were set up on Sunday afternoons after the close of the conference proper. This seemed an appropriate way of dealing with a subject which otherwise might divert the Conference from its main concerns. The meetings were chaired by William Coates and supported by Joseph Myers, Elined Kotschnig and many others.
One unusual event involved the unexpected visit of a Philadelphia Black family who were living in the former home of a deceased Quaker physician. A mother and several lovely teenage daughters had seen the doctor’s ghost repeatedly going downstairs in his pajamas. They had come seeking advice on how to make him leave them alone. Everyone there remembers Elined’s effective advice. “Tell him to go away and not come back!” she said. “Tell him you don’t want him in your house!” When interest waned, the meetings were discontinued with the feeling that there were other groups which were particularly focused in this direction and might be better able to carry on this work.
As would be expected, consideration of masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche have been an integral part of every conference. On several occasions they have provided the main theme, as for example, Sexual Difference in the Light of Wholeness, Male and Female — Journey to Self Through Meeting, Myth and Dream, and The Essence of Manhood and Womanhood. Elined Kotschnig’s talks on the latter occasion entitled, “Womanhood in Myth and Life,” were reprinted in pamphlet form. Both the talks and the pamphlet greatly stimulated referrals to the Goddess in all her various guises in the thinking and conversation of Conference members.
The most recent effort dealing with this, of course, were the sessions on Engaging the Feminine with Herta Joslin and Silvio Fittipaldi. They provided a puzzling and deeply challenging attempt to get at the feminine essence beyond language, while still being forced to employ it. Members recognize that the concern to identify and assist the return of the feminine to consciousness in men as well as women, reflects an outer movement toward the liberation of women (and men) in the wider community, which has sometimes been abrasive and troublesome. The parallel inner movement toward the less divisive and more integrating approach so necessary for fundamental and permanent change has brought with it a great sense of strength and satisfaction. The Conference is sensitive to the need for this approach to understanding many of the world’s difficulties.
The phrase, “This was the best one yet!” has been heard repeatedly at the end of countless conferences. Many things have helped to bring about that happy condition. One could point to Elined Kotchnig’s wisdom, which was ever apparent as she rose to comment or enlarge on the contributions of others. Martha Jaeger urged the development of skill in the use of creative activities as effective tools in the work of self-discovery. Both Elined and Martha were able to throw light on the principles at work in spiritual growth, broadening the perspectives of conference leaders and attenders alike.
There was also the special effort of Executive Committee members and small group leaders to prevent conferences from going off on a tangent. They strove to effect a balance in each conference and from one conference to another. Following the conference on the Psychological Roots of Prejudice, for instance, during which opposing factions engaged in vociferous encounter, a strong need was expressed to explore the feeling side. The plan for a conference on Creative Encounter was developed for the following year in which the major focus was placed on interest groups. The leaders for these were to come from a variety of racial and cultural backgrounds.
Unfortunately the Committee was not always as effective in this way as they could have wished. If on occasion it appeared that the two approaches of psychology and religion ran parallel courses toward a single goal, rather than a single course with light from several sources, it was not for want of trying. There were several conferences with a strong religious focus which were singularly limited in their approach. One is remembered for the sharply differing views expressed by the two speakers. The lectures of both were authoritative and thought provoking, and the topic seemed appropriate for plenary sessions. But in an Inward Light editorial reporting on this conference, Elined Kotschnig felt obliged to ask, “How can we make these … remote concepts real and visible to ourselves, and so form our own judgment of their truth? When philosophic and theological interpretations threaten to further blind and bedazzle our dim sight, can we (not) call upon personal experiences to help us understand?”8
More recently a similar difficulty arose when the presentations were a blend of religion and psychology. The speaker, who was an analyst speaking out of a Jewish background, was able to bring “ancient religious and modern psychological insight into unity, skillfully relating the language of the two to each other in a way that illuminated both.”9 Many listeners expressed gratitude for the opportunity of hearing these lectures. But the Committee was distressed. From the point of view of Conference expectation, the presentation was almost totally lacking in personal experiences, which the Committee, from its earliest days, had felt was essential.
Many conferences were a happy blend of the two approaches. The warmth and humor of Thomas Hora, when he described the power of intercessory prayer as “a quality of presence,” was special. Douglas Hitchings, beloved former Conference Chairman, was deeply moving as he described how the hurt children, who were his patients, spoke to his own suffering Child Within. The conference at which Douglas Heath spoke on Survival in a Mad Society was distressing to many because of a session in which participants were asked to dance the daemonic within themselves, and in which many refused to participate. But the weekend was “gathered” by Douglas’ assessment of the attitudes which contributed to the condition in which society was finding itself, and by his convincing affirmation of Quakerism as a symbol of wholeness with a potential for integration and healing.
There were, however, certain conferences which were seen by nearly everyone as outstanding. When Harmon Bro spoke on the Paradoxes of Life and Death, mentioned earlier, it was such an occasion. The same was true when members of the Executive Committee heard Laurens van der Post at several workshops. Attenders who listened to Fritz Kunkel speak on Religion, Psychology and Education remember him with great affection as a leader who was at once warm, humorous and down to earth. Speaking out of his own personal experience, he also spoke with the authority and the tender, loving concern which came from years of experience in helping others. He was deeply religious and no one doubted it. It was part of his system of belief, his way as a person, and all that he had to say about psychological matters. Emma Conroy has reminded us of his delightful Saturday night benediction, when with a gentle smile he sent everyone off to bed, saying, “Have a good crisis tonight!”
When Bernard Phillips spoke on The Search Will Make You Free he made a deep and lasting impression. He told the conference that in relation to living truth there are no means, and that the truth we seek is not to be separated from the seeking itself. He said anything that can be explained is not of the spirit, and that “only in…opening to the eternally unknown and unknowable and ungraspable essence of life is there any growth.”10 Again Ethel Walsh has written, “Bernard Phillips had spent years of his life in the Ultimate Search. He had traveled to many parts of the world and talked with great spiritual leaders of many persuasions. Out of this search he had distilled a simple, yet profound answer.… If I had heard only…(his) message, the Conference would have been of lasting significance to me.” His pamphlet, originally printed by the Conference some twenty years ago, continues to have a steady sale.
Ira Progoff, perhaps as much as any other leader, was able to demonstrate the similarity between the two approaches of psychology and religion. Speaking on The Cloud of Unknowing,11he said, “The great historical texts dealing with techniques of spiritual growth and development have utilized in their way many of the same processes that medical psychology has uncovered.” What the author of The Cloud refers to as the latent seed of the divine present from the beginning in the nature of man, Progoff described psychologically as a basic image in man “which represents the fullest potentiality of his nature.” The necessity of freeing oneself from personal attachment to traditional observances and beliefs was seen by both as essential to achieving a spiritual experience which is from the core of one’s being.12 This was an extraordinarily moving weekend, meeting conference hopes and expectations at every level. In reporting on this in Inward Light, Elined wrote that Dr. Progoff’s lectures, including the question periods, were “profoundly appreciated.”13
After that experience the Planning Committee felt the need for a better understanding of the peculiar nature of worship among Friends. Howard Brinton was invited to speak on The Authority of the Spirit. He said that worship consists in “waiting” and “watching” which leads to a “sense of intense awareness,” and that the “union of heart and will is possible with Him who is both beyond mankind and within.”14 Of this conference Elined wrote that it was one of the happiest they had had. It should be pointed out, however, that while the lectures on these two latter occasions combined elements of both psychology and religion, neither included personal sharing. Why, then, were they so powerfully affecting when several of the aforementioned conferences were not?
Many factors have contributed to the success of a given weekend in addition to the content. Not the least of these has been the particular mix of speakers, leaders and participants who were gathered at that time. The speakers at successful FCRP conferences have been well integrated individuals without emotional need to press one point of view or another. They have been at home in both the fields of religion and psychology—whatever happened to be their own field of expertise. They understood and supported the overall purpose of the conference and the function of its panels and small groups. They were comfortable with the Conference process and contributed to it.
Indeed the shape of the organization itself, the process by which it undertook and carried through a particular weekend, and most especially in the development and skill of its leaders, all contributed in immeasurable ways toward a conference which took wing. The Executive Committee members, including the conference planners, clerks of plenary sessions and many small group leaders had developed great sensitivity in perceiving what was needed, and in understanding what could (and could not) be effectively experienced in the conference setting. That each could speak from the personal experience of his or her own inner journey was certainly seen to be highly desirable.
Equally important have been the participants, including a number of former members of the Executive Committee. A conference which has worked well has had attenders who functioned as responsible participants. They have fully appreciated the need to share their feelings without using more than their share of time and without theorizing. They have given full attention to the sharing of others and when possible have identified with it. One simply cannot deny the value of a self-selected group of people, two thirds of whom are repeaters who have come with definite expectations which they are eager to fulfill. Nearly everyone is engaged in the proces.
Since the life of spirit is an essential aspect of analytical psychology, it is difficult to imagine a “Friends Conference” where religion would not have made a contribution. In this connection one might ask just how important is the particularly Quaker aspect of the Conference. Douglas Steere has shared with us the perception that it has been valuable to the Society of Friends, which after all was the original intent. In a recent Pendle Hill pamphlet, John Yungblut has expressed his concern that the Conference make more of an effort than it has in recent years to bring about an “integration of depth psychology and mystical religion.”15
Obviously the Quaker influence has affected the life and development of the Conference in a great many ways. The question must be asked, whether such influence has made any significant contribution to the successful outcome of Conference weekends. Certainly the Conference pattern including Meeting for Worship, silence before sessions, and decisions by consensus have provided a built in opportunity and incentive to spiritual experience. Furthermore, the nature of the Quaker so-called “Silent Meeting” in which speaking from transcendent or immanent Spirit rather than from personal need, has the effect of adding the religious dimension without any particular planning that it would take place. Non-Friends, as well as some Friends, who have not fully learned the self discipline implied in this method of worship, sometimes prevented a “Gathered Meeting.” However, short talks on the nature of Quaker worship by Ann Morris and others, preceding worship sessions, have been helpful in this regard.
There is also, perhaps, a more subtle advantage to be found in the rather large number of participants with a Quaker connection. Because of long experience in committee meetings and Meetings for Business in which decisions are made in an attitude of Worship, many participants have developed skill in creating a safe environment conducive to the sharing which leads to growth. This includes respecting the stages along one another’s inner journey and the importance of affirmation and positive suggestions rather than the critical value judgments so prevalent in society around us. Quaker participants know the power of silence and are practiced in its use. They have acquired the ability to wait for the gift of insight. Many have the conviction that they live in the love of God, some believe that “visitation” is possible, a few have experienced it. Such attitudes and expectations modeled in sufficient quality and numbers can affect a gathering, large or small, if allowed to do so. It has, on occasion, transformed a weekend.
Thus there are a great many factors contributing to the success of a weekend, not the least of which is the functioning of the organization itself. Supporting energy for the original formation of the Friends Conference came from participants in small Meeting study groups. Continuing guidance for the planning and development of the life of the Conference came out of its Executive Committee whose nature was that of an intimate, sharing, support group. Very early on the leaders recognized the importance to participants of working between conferences with like minded people on subjects related to conference topics. For several years there was a proliferation of such groups, occasionally in the Monthly Meetings of members and as far afield as Evanston, Ill., Washington, D.C. and New York City. For the use of these groups the Committee prepared extensive, carefully prepared reading lists for which books had been read and annotated by its members. There were workshops dealing with special concerns, weekends of an experimental nature for research, retreats at Pendle Hill and at least one joint meeting of the Executive Committee with the Family Relations Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting at the Kirkridge conference center in Bangor, Pa. Executive Committee Meetings have become so crowded with important decisions to be made that it is hard to imagine time set aside for a lecture or a “retreat,” which was a much valued aspect of those early meetings. Especially remembered was a talk given by Bernard Phillips about his family’s experiences in a Sufi community in Algeria.
If it sometimes seems as though the early conferences were heavily loaded with lectures, it is significant that as early as the second conference, the planning committee set up “Discussion Commissions” designed to focus on each of the four areas of concern. In 1949 there began a pattern which was to last. For the conference on The Child Within, Dora Willson organized three areas of discussion under the heading “Self Discovery Through Writing, Dreams and Neurosis.” This was time set aside for participants, with one another’s support, to relate the exciting material they had been hearing in plenary sessions, to their own personal experiences and begin the work of integrating it.
It is not surprising to learn that participants complained about “a lack of bodily acitivity.” In 1952 appears the first indication of the trend toward movement groups. Ruth Hart led a group on Breathing Therapy as one of the activities listed under “Creative Use of Freedom and Imagination.” These also included Creative Prayer, Writing, Dish Gardens, Group Conversation, Painting and Clay. These took place on Saturday afternoon and provided a change of pace (and place) and later came to be known collectively as “Creative Activities.” Other groups such as Meditation, Yoga, Dance, Music Listening, Music Making, Mask Making, Role Playing and Journaling were added through the years as leaders with the necessary skills appeared on the scene.
Effective speakers use stories to illustrate points they are making. Conference speakers and small group leaders use stories for evocative symbols and imagery. This was dramatically demonstrated one year when three leaders from The Guild for Psychological Studies, Sheila Moon, Elizabeth Howes and Louella Sibbald, shared a Navajo myth, passages from the Gospels and several Fairy Tales. In small groups, by identifying and sharing from their personal experiences, participants learned to perceive the meaning and function of the story in Jungian understanding. For many this was a new and fruitful path in the work of individuation, presaged perhaps by the early conference on Symbols as Tools of Spiritual Growth with Martha Jaeger, James Forsythe and Werner Heide, and leading so many years later to Elined’s talks on Womanhood in Myth and Life, and the fascinating weekend of slides with Joseph Campbell on Exploring the Myths We Live By.
For some time the discussion groups and the Saturday afternoon “creative activities” proceeded apace. But one year, Teresina Havens recalls she found herself leading both a small discussion group and a separate creative activity. This, she felt, was absurd. The ensuing discussion in the Executive Committee led to a merging of the two. After that there were two, three and more recently four meetings of each interest group during a weekend. Participants are now required to remain with whatever group they have chosen for the weekend. A delicate process of interrelationship is created whereby participants may safely make discoveries about themselves and share their insights with one another. This experience is so precious and can be so rewarding that nearly everyone is unwilling to allow it to be damaged by the coming and going of a few individuals.
When seventy-five people turned up for Dorothy Davison’s group on Psychodrama, she turned no one away. That was a powerful group in which there was at least one breakthrough. But after that, small group leaders began to limit the number of participants they would accept. Allowing time for the sharing of even the most reticent participant was found to require a limit of perhaps ten to twelve people.
Much thought and planning have gone into the development of the small groups, including the training of small group leaders. The Conference owes a debt of gratitude to two former Clerks, Ann Morris and Virginia Davis, who put a great deal into this work. Ann Morris began a process of special day-long training workshops before conferences. For several years there were separate spring weekends for this purpose, which involved upcoming speakers. The latter presented a summary of the ideas he or she expected to present to the conference and, together with small group leaders, developed the questions and activities which might prove most helpful to participants in relating the material to their own experience. When the resistance to spending the amount of time required to do this work became too great, the practice was discontinued. A portion of the January Executive Committee Meeting is now set aside for this work, and it is hoped that speakers for each conference can be persuaded to attend. In addition to great care in constituting groups, Virginia Davis developed an excellent guide for small group leaders.
Clearly there has been an explosion of creative expression into all aspects of the weekend program. There is Tai Chi before breakfast, drawing paper and coloring materials available for all during plenary sessions with a projector for sharing what has been produced at its conclusion. Spare time tends to be invaded by “special” interest groups such as men’s groups, personal slide shows, and once an improvised drama with masks on the lawn outside the Dining Center. There are evening diversions with exhibits of creative work from interest groups in the Sunken Lounge, folk dancing and rock music until the Center closes at midnight. The closing ritual, which takes place at the end of each conference, consists of a formal goodbye chant and bow to each of the other participants and an exuberant snake dance expressing appreciation and joy.
It would be difficult for an outsider to realize how important books have been in the life of the Conference. From the beginning they have been seen as tools for raising the level of conference participation. Recommended reading was always a part of conference announcements. Extensive annotated reading lists were prepared for the use of study groups at work between conferences. Since participants were continually being reminded to share feelings rather than theories, fiction and sometimes biography have been recommended for evoking the memory of personal experiences and images from the unconscious.
In 1954 Elizabeth Kirkwood agreed to receive books “anyone cared to contribute!” Four years later she had 50 books in a circulating library. After the death of Dora, Robert Willson gave those of her books relating to Conference concerns to the FCRP, and thereafter the library was referred to as The Dora Willson Collection. Helen Stark and Ruth Conrow each separately provided a home for the books over a period of years and gave them their loving attention. Once the entire collection was listed in the centerfold of Inward Light.
One year, when the circulation of library books dropped to 12, arrangements were made to place it on deposit in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Library (of the Religious Society of Friends). This provided the books with professional care and far greater opportunities for borrowing over the counter and by mail. Funds for the purchase of new books and for their servicing have been regularly appropriated by the Committee. A grant from the William Penn Foundation provided for cataloging and classification of the original collection. Two editions of the cumulative booklist have been printed and it is now being “computerized.” But this is by no means all.
Each year two adjoining rooms at Haverford are set aside for the library exhibit of some 400 to 500 books. Some of these are related to the current conference topic and all of them are available for borrowing for periods of one month. There is also the Book Exchange. “Bring one, take one!” is a message which has appeared on countless conference announcements. If sometimes these offerings are less exciting than others, it is nevertheless an opportunity which is well worth checking during the course of a weekend.
The great delight, of course, is the long row of tables, set along one wall of the dining center lobby, on which the Pendle Hill Bookstore displays its extensive offerings. Here the newest of the new books on analytical psychology are laid out to tempt the passers-by as they wait in line for meals. Worse, by far, than a hole in the pocket, it provides vacation reading, and material for those long winter evenings. Agnes Myers recalls, from years past, that friendly question which still makes one prick up one’s ears today, “Have you read…?”
Tapes of all plenary sessions are made each year. Homer Hansen was the first to undertake this work which was later taken up by William Newlin. Now Louis Del Giudice of the Haverford College staff reproduces them, and they may be purchased from Charles Perry or borrowed from the Dora Willson Collection. With the Book Sale, the Conference Library, Recommended Reading lists, and the continual references to books, authors and particular quotations, as well as the tapes, every effort has been made to enrich the experience of members between annual gatherings.
It is appropriate at this point to mention the Meeting for Worship which has been an integral part of every conference. All plenary sessions begin with silence. Meeting on “First Day” is a full hour, as is the worship on Monday of the Memorial Day weekend, preceding the closing ritual and festivities. A few members, perhaps more than we realize, miss an eagerness, a zestful intensity of spirit, that was apparent some years ago. It is difficult to imagine anyone not attending Meeting for Worship in those days—though some must not have done so. The Meeting room was packed and expectations ran high. Nowadays seeing the number of people lingering over breakfast, sitting on steps and benches, walking in twos and threes up and down the lovely campus paths, it is quite evident that a goodly proportion of any conference is using the worship time for sharing and building precious relationships, for inner work, or even preparing for an early departure. A choice is being made, perhaps consciously, perhaps not. The question arises as to the possibility of scheduling leisure, not for recreation but uncluttered time, time which is needed for integration.
At one point requests for unscheduled time and for a quiet place for meditation led to the establishment of a Meditation Room. A good bit of energy and enthusiasm on the part of Betty Lewis and Eleanor Perry went into creating a space in the basement of Comfort Hall. Large and small plants were brought for two enclosed gardens, rocks and simple flower arrangements helped to create an Eastern atmosphere, as did several sculptures including a beautiful old and valuable Buddha and several hangings on loan from a museum. Cushions were placed around the floor, with chairs for those who needed them. A caretaker kept the room open around the clock. William Schlecht, a Buddhist scholar, came with a gong to lead a scheduled session of meditation. Those who experienced this place of incredible peace and beauty were ecstatic. After several years, when the total attendance in the Meditation Room for the entire weekend had dwindled to six, it was no longer in the program. Everyone loved the idea but almost no one used it. A simple room with no effects and nearer the center of activity might have been more appropriate.
The journey of the FCRP from 1943 to 1983 was long and occasionally frustrating. A great deal of energy and an incredible number of hours have been expended to establish, foster and guide this small and vital organization. Why were so many busy and effective people so deeply involved? Few of the original founders and continuing committee members are still around. But perhaps the recollections of “old timers” at the 40th Anniversary Tea gave some indication of the richness of this experience.
Teresina Havens has described the Executive Committee gatherings as a support system. “From time to time,” she wrote, “some high school or university student asks to interview me… I have found myself almost every time speaking of how much the FCRP Executive (Committee) Meetings meant in my unfolding. The…Jungians provided role models of older women who were still growing spiritually and psychologically. The sharings of our journeys…were precious beyond telling!” Everyone privileged to participate in this experience would agree. The trust and the closeness, the urgent common purpose to understand and grow, and to share this with others, provided a marvelous base for a working committee. Open to new ideas, they were strong enough to welcome the possibility of change and to experiment with it. The insight, the support and the love among its members freed creative energy with which to meet their many challenges.
This Committee, with the approval of the larger body, established a formal organization which has changed very little over the years. Membership consisted of three panels of four members each, a chairperson and secretary-treasurer whose responsibilities were later greatly divided as the work load grew heavier. The Committee has usually met three times a year, and in the early years attended workshops and retreats as well. They charged dues over and above conference fees, once raised a little money for operating expenses, and worried about travel expenses for speakers and Committee members. They sent Elined and Walter Kotschnig as ambassadors to the first mini-conference in California soon after it got underway. When Inward Light ran into financial difficulties on several occasions over the years, they transferred substantial funds to its account. After some hesitation the cumbersome name was changed to Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology.
Housing was increasingly a problem until an arrangement was worked out with Haverford College in 1958 for the use of their facilities after graduation. Changing and varying food services at the College ranging from the posh to the meager have caused lively discussions in the Committee until the last two years, during which most attenders seem to have felt nourished without being satiated. In order to provide for attenders who could not afford to pay the full cost, and especially in an effort to draw young people, the Committee established a limited Simple Living arrangement in the local Friends School. This self-help sleeping and cooking has been under the guidance of experienced participants and has worked well. Indeed it has even attracted well-heeled interlopers who are now requested to pay the full fee so that those who cannot, may use their space in the dormitory.
The Committee developed a descriptive flyer for use in answering the inquiries and for distribution at Quaker gatherings. They worked to establish relationships with other organizations which had similar goals in one respect or another. For several years they conducted “round table” discussions at Friends General Conference. They worried about how large the annual conference could be allowed to grow without altering its character, and how they might sensitively screen misfits and those needing to clear with their therapists. For a number of years they puzzled over how long the conference should last. They considered adding four or five days to the weekend for participants who might like to stay over and finally settled into the Memorial Day weekend format.
The most important decisions have involved questions of what will we talk about next year, and who will we have for a speaker? Such matters have sometimes been quickly settled, and sometimes fraught with complications. One thing is certain, whatever kind of a conference is decided upon, nearly everyone has a wonderful time. If participants don’t like what the speaker says, there are the panelists. And if they don’t like either of those, there is a fantastic collection of small interest groups from which to choose. And there is always the sense of coming home, of meeting friends with whom one has shared intimately, those who are supportive when one has experienced an emotional breakthrough, people with whom one has shared pain or joy or an intense awareness of the Presence.
Then there are the personalities: those wonderful people who have chaired the Conference, people who are wise and witty and tender. There are the hardworking record keepers, secretaries, treasurers, registrars and conference coordinators who hold their own with the impersonal institution. There are the small group leaders and their coordinators, the “listeners” and the “sustainers,” and the many hardworking, caring and considerate people without whom the Conference could not function, those “quiet people” whom it would be so easy to forget.
From a perspective of 40 years, what of the future? Having achieved a working Conference of 300 or more members, and 200 attenders annually, with four self-sustaining mini-conferences effectively widening our circle of influence, and a periodical to help us keep in touch with one another, it could be a good time to take stock. In the manner of Friends could we consider a few queries?
Are we satisfied with things as they are?
What might we change?
How could we better understand “the nature and laws of our spiritual life?”
What response should we make to John Yungblut’s plea that we concentrate on the work of integrating depth psychology and mystical religion?
Should we try to understand the feminist challenge to Jungian psychology?
Could we develop an ecology of the human psyche to correspond to the ecology of nature? Where would we begin?
Generally speaking, is our understanding of analytical psychology adequate to our needs? Be specific.
Are there aspects of the Quaker experience not now being used by the Conference which could enrich the Conference and its individual members?
Would you sign up for an interest group on meditation or “silent worship?”
Would you actually use a meditation room?
Would groups for study or research between conferences, so strongly recommended by our founders, actually enrich the Haverford gatherings now?
Could you use an intimate support group to encourage your own inner growth?
Are more mini-conferences needed? Where?
What could we – or the conference as a body – be doing to encourage one or all of these extra-conference activities?
What, oh, what do we want? Will you take time to consider these questions thoughtfully? And will you share your thoughts and feelings in appropriate ways? If so the future is wide open. Just about anything is possible. Our future just might turn out to be as exciting as our past!
1 Heard, Gerald, Training for the Life of the Spirit, N.Y. Harper, 1941-42.
2 Conference adaptation of Hornell Hart’s 1945 title.
3 Inward Light, Vol XXVII, No. 66, Summer-Fall, 1964, p. 46.
4 van der Post, Laurens, Dark Eye in Africa, N.Y. Morrow, 1955.
5 van der Post, Laurens, Race Prejudice as Self Rejection, N.Y. Workshop for Cultural Democracy, 1957.
6 Kotschnig, Elined, “Dora Willson,” Inward Light, No. 47-48, Easter, 1955, p. 19.
7 Jaeger, Martha, “Living in the Light of Eternity,” Inward Light, No. 47-48, Easter, 1955, p. 77.
8 Inward Light, Vol XXIV, No. 61, Spring, 1961, p.2.
9 Inward Light, Vol XLIV, No. 97, Fall/Winter, 1981-82, p.6.
10 Phillips, Bernard, “The Search Will Make You Free,” Philadelphia Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology, (Friends Bookstore, 156 N. 15th St., Philadelphia, PA 19102), 1964, pp. 29-41.
11. The Cloud of Unknowing; rendered into modern English with a psychological commentary by Ira Progoff, Julian Press, N.Y., 1957.
12 Progoff, Ira, “History and Spiritual Working,” Inward Light, Vol XXII, No. 56, Fall-Winter, 1958-1959, pp. 16-20.
13 Kotschnig, Elined, Conference Report, Inward Light, Vol XXII, No. 56, Fall-Winter, 1958-1959, p.38.
14 Brinton, Howard H.,“The Authority of the Inward Light in Quakerism,” Inward Light, Vol XXII, No. 57, Summer, 1959, pp. 8,14.
15 Yungblut, John, “Speaking as one Friend to another on the mystical way forward,” pamphlet #249, Wallingford, PA. Pendle Hill Publications, 1983.
*[Appendix omitted]