Curious Case VI

And wouldn’t the insistent Summum Individuals have ridden their man in Utah to write his own book?

There’s more. Besides Corky’s requests for a suspension of disbelief regarding his story, there are the crimes against history.

The major crime concerns the love affair Corky and his disciples seem to have with Jesus in his Gnostic iteration. Example one. The web page “Summum and Freemasonry” contains this statement by an anonymous author: “The Seven Aphorisms . . . were also taught by Jesus . . . The aphorisms were the basis of Gnostic Christianity, and the teachings of Summum are the same as those of Gnostic Christianity.” Example two. On the page “Sexual Ecstasy from Ancient Wisdom,” we learn that Jesus Christ, in The Gospel of Thomas, said, “Anointed in the sacred wetness with the magical spell of Merh [a liquid used in massage], drinking the Nectars of Gods and giving your soul to my womb, all your fears vanish.”

The problems with the first example are that our knowledge of the historical Jesus—what he taught, who he thought he was—has been the subject of scholarly debate for centuries, even millennia, and that recent scholars can’t agree on what “Gnosticism” is. Not to speak of the fact that neither Corky nor his successors give evidence for their bold assertions.

The problem with the second example is that The Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical compendium of the purported sayings of Jesus of uncertain date and origin, has exactly nothing to say about either Merh or the Nectars of the Gods.

There is another gaffe. Corky himself is reported to have said before his death: “All religions have founders who had revelations.”

Well, no. Many did. Some didn’t. Hinduism and Daoism come to mind.

Finally, there’s the creative mathematics. According to Blackley, Corky claimed that during the two years of his night classes at the University of Utah, almost 20,000 people became members. Assuming, generously, that this period lasted 104 weeks, counting the summers, and that the room held 240 people, this would have amounted to a conversion rate of 80 percent per session. Corky must have been a charismatic speaker indeed.

In 2002, Corky was interviewed by Patty Henetz for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. She reported that he claimed that since 1975, 250,000 people had “received” the Summum teachings, though Summum didn’t keep membership rolls. Let’s see. In 27 years, that would be 9,260 per annum, or about 25 per diem. Of course, much depends on the meaning of the word “received.” The more important point: If there were no membership rolls, how could Corky have known the extent of his power of persuasion?

In that same interview, Corky also estimated that more than 250,000 bottles of his nectar had been given away to those who had “undergone a screening process that involves reading about Summum and learning how to meditate.” So for 23 years—from 1979, when the temple was finished, to 2002—10,870 bottles per annum, or about 30 per day, were given to those who had been screened. Giving this gift involved not only the cost and time of brewing the liquor; it required time to screen the applicants for their knowledge of Summum and their ability to meditate in the Corky way. Generosity, thy name must be Summum.

CNN, in 2009, interviewed Ron Temu, “a licensed funeral director and longtime Summum practitioner,” who reported that approximately 1,500 people had requested mummification. Yet only one, Corky himself, had been mummified. One can only wonder about the chances of this happening: out of a population of approximately 1,501, just one, and the founder at that, had become a mummy awaiting transference. Amazing.

Just like his miracles.

The Curious Case V

What are Corky Ra and his successors asking the world to believe?

First and foremost, Corky wants Summum members, potential converts, and maybe even skeptics, to believe that he experienced a series of revelations from Summa Individuals. The entire edifice of his life’s work—the pyramid, the nectars, the book—is built on his claim that he was motivated to act by those extraterrestrials who, he maintained, first appeared to him on that October day in 1975.

This is a hard sell for most sentient beings, including those who have other religious commitments, those who are bewildered by being faced with many claimants to their religious loyalties, and secularists who are skeptical of any such claims. A salesman named “Corky” who was reared in Southern California asks us to believe that, while relaxing on his girlfriend’s couch, he entered another dimension and met a bevy of beautiful, blue, hairless humanoids of both genders who told him to build a nice little temple with a winery, to sell mummification services at $67,000 a pop—not a misprint; see summum.us’s sister site, summum.org—and to “rewrite” an old book? Really.

Second, they want us to believe that Corky’s revelations were on a par with those of other founders of religions, and that he has every right to be added to a list that includes Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed. And not just on a par with them; superior to them, because the Summa Individuals told him about something none of them knew, the “Principal” of Creation.

Well, no. Jews would consider his claim the height of chutzpah. Buddhist monks and nuns might feel a kinship with his emphasis on meditation but would be as aghast as a Buddhist can be at the sexual slant of his gospel. Muslims would treat him as a false prophet. Nonbelievers would consider him a charlatan. Christians would pray for him.

Third, Corky and his brain trust try to convince us that his use of The Kybalion was not plagiarism.

But, we might be forgiven if we ask, Why didn’t Corky just write his own book from scratch?

Anu Aua’s story about Ron Temu seems to be an answer to this question. Recall that Temu, on reading The Kybalion, recognized that it “complemented and confirmed the information he [Temu] received at Corky’s presentations.” He then showed it to Corky, who found that it “re-affirmed the things he [Corky] had been initiated into during his divine encounters.” Therefore, Anu Aua goes on, “when Corky was preparing to write a book about the Summum philosophy, he decided to use The Kybalion as an outline since this is essentially what The Kybalion discussed.”

This apologia assumes that somehow Summum Bonum Amen “Corky” Ra’s disciple Summum Bonum Anu “Bernie” Aua knows that, in his own words, “Corky started teaching about the principles . . . after he was initiated into them by . . . the Summa Individuals.” How can Bernie be so certain about this? Was he there? Did he have a visit from those extraterrestrials, confirming Corky’s story? Is he flying by the seat of his faith? Or is he complicit in what might be a massive case of pilferage?

The Curious Case IV

It would seem that Corky Ra has been caught with a hand in the cookie jar of plagiarism. But the accused deserves his day in court.

Take the webpage entitled, “SUMMUM and The Kybalion,” which is attributed to Corky under his venerable honorific. Here we find what amounts to a case for his innocence: “Summum . . . rewrites the information found in The Kybalion in a manner more appropriate for our modern era. It also presents new material not found in The Kybalion, thus giving a complete and more indepth outline of an age old philosophy. The US Copyright Office considers Summum . . . a ‘derivative work,’ while from a broader perspective, it is a continuation of a neverending story.”

In addition to this defense, there is, on the webpage “The Pendulum of Pleasure and Pain,” a transcription of a tape of one of Corky’s informal talks. Among other things, he says that “in the Kybalion, there is a little comment, and you can see the guys that put it in there, they slipped in this little comment and it doesn’t belong in the book at all. It has been passed down for tens of thousands of years and these guys did their own interpretation of it . . . and in one paragraph they say something like, we cannot have any immorality in society like if you saw some frontal nudity on cable TV and stuff it would be the worst thing you could do, and to condone anything like that would be a person not on the path and stuff like that. I thought, ‘Jesus! These guys really got a lot of balls to put something like that in this kind of book!’ It came from no where and there are a lot of them in there, and they are personal opinions from the commentator, and you sort of have to look over them and look for the deep truth that is in the book that has been passed down for thousands of years.”

It appears, then, that Corky’s defense against the charge of plagiarism can be said to begin with his confession that he has “rewritten” what he and his brain trust—Su Menu, Bernie Aua, and Ron Temu—like to call “our little book,” then proceeds to offer a set of arguments:

(1) The truths of The Kybalion are nothing new, having been embraced by such ancients as Adam, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed, all of whom have been taught by “the angelic beings”;

(2) The earlier book lacks an account of the “Principle of Creation,” which SUMMUM supplies;

(3) The earlier book needed updating to a more contemporary style; and

(4) The Kybalion also contains mistakes consisting of The Three Initiates’ inclusion of their “personal opinions,” which needed to be excised from theSUMMUM edition.

The Curious Case, etc. III

Summum Bonum Amen Ra’s SUMMUM: Sealed Except to the Open Mind finally appeared in 1988, 13 years after his first meeting with the extraterrestrials. It sets forth the Summum philosophy in 18 chapters, an Introduction, and, in the e-book version, an Epilogue, all in just 126 pages. As of this writing, it’s available in hardcover, courtesy of Amazon, for $499.94 (used: $450). It can also be downloaded for $1.62; those who are neither believers nor rare book collectors can choose to read it on a Kindle, a computer screen, or an iPad.

Amen Ra begins with an acknowledgement of one Anu Aua’s aid in editing and structuring the book and in making the information online-ready. In the Introduction, he dedicates the book to the Summa Individuals, after which he advises the seeker that SUMMUM is “a master key which may open the many esoteric doors to Creation.” Continuing on, the reader learns that “Recorded history is replete with masters, Adam, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed having been taught by the angelic beings.” The Principles set forth in the book, he tells us, “are the basic underlying foundation of all existence.” Then comes a bold, even presumptuous, statement: “The student of comparative religion will be able to perceive the influence of the Eternal Principles in every known religion, whether it be a dead religion or a living one.”

In the first chapter, “The Summum Philosophy,” we come across such undocumented statements as: “All nations have borrowed from the inheritance of Egypt” (this explains, of course, the pyramid and the mummies) and “Even the teachings of the Gnostic and Early Christians drew their roots from the Summum Principles.”

What are these Summum Principles? They are the seven aphorisms, which are set forth in Chapter Three:

1. Psychokinesis: “SUMMUM is MIND; the universe is a mental creation.”

2. Correspondence: “As above, so below; as below, so above.”

3. Vibration: “Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.”

4. Opposition: “Everything is dual; everything has an opposing point. . . .”

5. Rhythm: “Everything flows out and in; everything has its season. . . .”

6. Cause and Effect: “Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause. . . .

7. Gender: “Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles. . . .”

Then there is the Epilogue. In this last part of the book, Corky Ra is referred to in the third person; on the last page we learn that the author of this end section is (Summum Bonum) Anu Aua—the same man who had helped Summum Bonum Amen Ra by editing and giving structure to the book. This Epilogue begins with a statement of the First Law of Thermodynamics (“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change from one form to another”), which is then tied to the concept of reincarnation, which in turn leads to a mention of Summum’s practice of Mummification and Transference—all in one short paragraph.

This is followed by a story about Ron Temu, a Southern California dockworker and Corky’s former college buddy who, starting in 1979, began making periodic pilgrimages to Salt Lake City to hear his old friend make presentations. “Around 1983,” the story goes, “Ron came across a book he found at the Bodhi Tree bookstore . . . in West Hollywood . . . called The Kybalion, by Three Initiates.” He bought it and read it that same day. “It complemented and confirmed the information he received at Corky’s presentations.” Naturally, Ron informed Corky, who, according to Anu Aua, “had never heard of the book,” though it “re-affirmed the things Corky had been initiated into during his divine encounters.”

A quick trip to Amazon Books shows that there are many editions of The Kybalion; it was first published in 1908 and has long been out of copyright. The e-book version can be downloaded for $1.25. Paperback copies are available for less than $10; there are no rare-book prices.

A casual comparison of The Kybalion with SUMMUM shows that the older book is not just a complement to Corky Ra’s. It is a close paraphrase—devilishly so—or, as someone skeptical of extraterrestrial visits and less polite might say, a crib.

The first thing a reader notices is the similarity of the chapter titles. SUMMUM has 18 chapters, not including the Introduction and the Epilogue. The Kybalion has 15, with an Introduction but no Epilogue. Of the titles of the 15 chapters, there is almost an exact accord. Some of the Kybalion chapters are merely modified (e.g., “Hermetic Philosophy” becomes “The Summum Philosophy”; “Seven Hermetic Principles” becomes “Seven Summum Principles”), while others are exactly the same (e.g., “The Mental Universe,” “The Divine Paradox” “Vibration”). Summum has three chapters not in the original: “Creation,” “Psychokinesis,” and “Meditation.”

The phraseology is also similar. Items:

Kybalion: They (the Initiates) reserve their pearls of wisdom for the few elect. . . .

SUMMUM: These pearls of wisdom are for the few. . . . 

Kybalion: The Hermetists have never sought to be martyrs.

SUMMUM: Contrary to popular opinion, these initiates have never sought to become martyrs.

Kybalion: So it was with the Hermetic Teachings of the Gnostics and Early Christians, which were lost at the time of Constantine, whose iron hand smothered philosophy with the blanket of theology. . . .

SUMMUM: Even the teachings of the Gnostic and Early Christians drew their roots from the Summum Principles. Unfortunately, these same teachings were lost at the time of Constantine whose iron hand smothered philosophy with its blanket of theology.

Kybalion: [T]he Hermetic Philosophy is the only Master Key which will open all the doors of the Occult Teachings!

SUMMUM: Yet the Summum Principles are the only master key which will open all doors to the knowledge of Creation!

Kybalion: From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion.

SUMMUM: From quark, squark, lepton, slepton, electron, atom, and molecule, to planets and universes, everything is in vibratory motion.

And on. And on. The seven Aphorisms of SUMMUM are almost carbon copies of the seven Principles of Truth set forth in The Kybalion, with a few tweaks, such as “The All” of The Three Initiates becoming Amen Ra’s “Summum.”