THE
ARCANE
ARCHIVE

a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.


TOP | RELIGION | BUDDHISM

Merwin Affair

To: soc.religion.eastern
From: Gary S. Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us)
Subj: Merwin Affair (Trungpa) (0000.trungpa.gst)
Date: unknown

Quoting: |wachniew@ftjibm.ftj.agh.edu.pl (Przemyslaw Wachniew) 

|Does anyone remember "the Merwin affair" ?
|Few years ago I became acquainted with Chogyam Trungpa's writings that 
|are stil very inspiring for me. Lately I've read about so called "the 
|Merwin affair" in which Trungpa took part. W. S. Merwin and Dana Naone 
|accused Trungpa of using violence against them during the drunken party.
|I was able to find only small pieces about that incident so I'd like to 
|know your opinions, if anybody still cares about it...

In the various followup articles I read here, I didn't find any that
really dealt with the first part of the question.  I would like to
refer anyone who is interested to an excellent feature-length article
in the February 1979 issue of _Harper's_ Magazine.  The seventeen-page
article, by Peter Marin, is entitled "Spiritual Obedience."  It goes
into great detail about what happened at the Naropa Institute in
Boulder, Colorado during the summer of 1977.  The author says that many
details of his story were taken from a manuscript of over one hundred
pages compiled at Naropa by the members of a class in investigative
poetry.  At the date of writing the article, that manuscript was
still on file at the Institute itself.

The account tells of the drunken party, and how two people, one male
and one female, were physically taken from a room where they had
retreated after the party staged by Chogyam Trungpa had grown too
wild for them and forced to return to the party, despite the man
having broken a bottle and used a shard of glass in self-defense to
injure several people who had been sent to the room to bring him and
the woman back.  When they got back down to the place where the
drunken party was being held, they were forcibly stripped of their
clothes.

The point of the exercise was ostensibly part of a lesson in forsaking
the ego.  The author of the article seems to find this idea to be a
rationalization for very questionable behavior.  The piece is very
thoughtful and well done, and I highly recommend it, particularly to
those who have written in support of Trungpa's brand of "crazy wisdom."

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts                {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,cdp}!gnosys!gst

The Arcane Archive is copyright by the authors cited.
Send comments to the Arcane Archivist: tyaginator@arcane-archive.org.

Did you like what you read here? Find it useful?
Then please click on the Paypal Secure Server logo and make a small
donation to the site maintainer for the creation and upkeep of this site.

The ARCANE ARCHIVE is a large domain,
organized into a number of sub-directories,
each dealing with a different branch of
religion, mysticism, occultism, or esoteric knowledge.
Here are the major ARCANE ARCHIVE directories you can visit:
interdisciplinary: geometry, natural proportion, ratio, archaeoastronomy
mysticism: enlightenment, self-realization, trance, meditation, consciousness
occultism: divination, hermeticism, amulets, sigils, magick, witchcraft, spells
religion: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, taoism, wicca, voodoo
societies and fraternal orders: freemasonry, golden dawn, rosicrucians, etc.

SEARCH THE ARCANE ARCHIVE

There are thousands of web pages at the ARCANE ARCHIVE. You can use ATOMZ.COM
to search for a single word (like witchcraft, hoodoo, pagan, or magic) or an
exact phrase (like Kwan Yin, golden ratio, or book of shadows):

Search For:
Match:  Any word All words Exact phrase

OTHER ESOTERIC AND OCCULT SITES OF INTEREST

Southern Spirits: 19th and 20th century accounts of hoodoo, including slave narratives & interviews
Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by cat yronwode: an introduction to African-American rootwork
Lucky W Amulet Archive by cat yronwode: an online museum of worldwide talismans and charms
Sacred Sex: essays and articles on tantra yoga, neo-tantra, karezza, sex magic, and sex worship
Sacred Landscape: essays and articles on archaeoastronomy, sacred architecture, and sacred geometry
Lucky Mojo Forum: practitioners answer queries on conjure; sponsored by the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.
Herb Magic: illustrated descriptions of magic herbs with free spells, recipes, and an ordering option
Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers: ethical diviners and hoodoo spell-casters
Freemasonry for Women by cat yronwode: a history of mixed-gender Freemasonic lodges
Missionary Independent Spiritual Church: spirit-led, inter-faith, the Smallest Church in the World
Satan Service Org: an archive presenting the theory, practice, and history of Satanism and Satanists
Gospel of Satan: the story of Jesus and the angels, from the perspective of the God of this World
Lucky Mojo Usenet FAQ Archive: FAQs and REFs for occult and magical usenet newsgroups
Candles and Curios: essays and articles on traditional African American conjure and folk magic
Aleister Crowley Text Archive: a multitude of texts by an early 20th century ceremonial occultist
Spiritual Spells: lessons in folk magic and spell casting from an eclectic Wiccan perspective
The Mystic Tea Room: divination by reading tea-leaves, with a museum of antique fortune telling cups
Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
Yronwode Home: personal pages of catherine yronwode and nagasiva yronwode, magical archivists
Lucky Mojo Magic Spells Archives: love spells, money spells, luck spells, protection spells, etc.
      Free Love Spell Archive: love spells, attraction spells, sex magick, romance spells, and lust spells
      Free Money Spell Archive: money spells, prosperity spells, and wealth spells for job and business
      Free Protection Spell Archive: protection spells against witchcraft, jinxes, hexes, and the evil eye
      Free Gambling Luck Spell Archive: lucky gambling spells for the lottery, casinos, and races