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February 10, 1975
To: The participants of The Stelle Group
From: Richard Kieninger
In response to rumors and
speculations about why I went away from Stelle last April 1st, I wish to
share with you the many reasons for my departure as well as why I have
returned
One of the most pressing
needs for Stelle over the past couple of years has been to establish a
well-functioning manufacturing organization and to find a chief executive
with the technical administrative know-how to run it. I am not a trained
business administrator, and all the directors of Stelle Industries were
pleading for more centralized direction because the corporation was beginning
to become a large and complex organization. I had been able to set up a sound
structure, but I did not have the time or the personal incentive to run the
business in light of the pressure of other duties. I have a deep-rooted
dislike of administering personnel and a reluctance to make rules; so I needed
someone to head Stelle Industries who is a good disciplinarian and who is
good at codifying procedures. Jim Howery had demonstrated the right talents;
and with the arrival. of other qualified people to support him, it was time
for me to turn the presidency of the Industries over to him. However, I find
it hard to convey that kind of responsibility without kibitzing, and my
presence would have tended to overshadow his authority in the eyes of members
of The Stelle Group. It was necessary for me to set up a situation for myself
by which I would be compelled to do what I might otherwise not have the
self-discipline to hold to. Therefore, I elected to depart from Stelle and
regularly provide whatever advice or history Mr. Howery would need by
telephone.
During this period of
transferring responsibility, I intended to investigate many inventions of
“free energy” motors in the country, and I did indeed do just that. I also
sought financing in several commercial centers of the country because my
efforts during the first quarter of 1974 had demonstrated that there was no
big money for Stelle in Illinois lending institutions. In this connection, it
also became necessary to demonstrate to banks that Stelle would survive and
thrive without me since Stelle is not a personality cult. One of our lenders
had demanded that I buy a quarter-million dollar insurance policy on my life
with his bank as beneficiary due to a period of overt antagonism against
Stelle from certain local farmers. The trustees, incidentally, refused to
agree to such demands.
During my planned absence
from Stelle, I expected to conduct research on the history of the Lemurian
Fellowship and to find Mrs. Stelle should she be alive. I succeeded in both
areas. I hoped to find time to write a book and to get a fresh perspective on
myself and this Work. I was especially concerned whether The Stelle Group
could pull together without having me to lean on and if the people could draw
upon their own resources to succeed. I needed to test the new leadership to see
if I could afford future absences of weeks or months to personally undertake
larger tasks in the future without my being bogged down with day-to-day
administrative detail. The timing of my absence from Stelle turned out to be
particularly appropriate because there was very little chance for much
activity in new ‘ventures or building due to the nation’s economic situation.
Our own financial situation made it obvious that consolidation rather then
innovation was to be Stelle’s task for 1974.
At the time I left, there
were other things stirring within me which were more of an emotional nature.
Primarily among these was my sense of isolation from the people of Stelle and
my realization that the social advantages I dreamed of for the members were
difficult for me to participate in myself. I had been informed while we were
still in Chicago that my presence at parties would, place a damper on the
proceedings, and that accounts in large measure for my not being invited to
social events other than official functions. But Jim Howery has since
analyzed my relationship to the membership with considerable clarity for me.
He sees five basic reactions the participants have toward me, and they are
based on fear: 1.) people dislike being seen-through and evaluated, and their
fear of being found unworthy of membership soon turns to hate and the
well-known “Richard crisis”; 2.) many members resent the implied political
power of my status with the Brotherhoods and fear the possibility of
despotism; 3.) persons who I placed in positions of responsibility and whose
expertise I sought to employ in advisory positions to me resented my
ineptness as an administrator and yet were reluctant to advise me frankly for
fear of reprisal against them; 4.) my authoritative position aroused anger in
those who opposed my views, or they became rebellious against me as a father
figure; 5.) some people pretend friendliness toward me out of fear that their
continuance in the group depends on their buttering me up or avoiding my
displeasure. These are problems which members have poured out to the other
trustees over the years, but almost no one dared confront me directly with
their feelings and anxieties except as a parting shot. The net result of all
these responses by the participants is that everyone was afraid to move, and
they were bound up inside from growing Egoically because of my presence in
the group. None of these reactions by the participants toward me were new. I
have viewed them sadly for a long time, and they had been discussed with me for
years by the trustees. Mr. Howery was the only person who cared enough to
delineate it for me clearly after I left; and as he has pointed out, my
presence in The Stelle Group has been essentially destructive. It would make
little difference what I say or how I behave toward people, for my
destructiveness seems to be inherent in my simply being who I am. The proof
of this was demonstrated to the trustees by the fact that Egoic development
of the participants began only after I left Stelle. Stelle Industries began
to prosper only after Jim got rid of the “incompetents” who allegedly held
their jobs by my favoritism, whereupon Jim could organize a real team instead
of having more-or-less autonomous managers. I hate to admit how naive I had
been in these matters before my eyes were opened. At any rate, at the end of
March the trustees conveyed to me their belief that my continued presence in
the group was preventing Stelle from prospering and growing. There was,
however, an additional consideration which precipitated the trustee’s removal
of their support from me at that time, and this centered around Gail’s
disclosure of my romantic involvement with other women in the group during
the past six years. My hope for effectively functioning with Stelle or with the
trustees was thereby brought to an end, and so I left Stelle a few months
earlier than I originally had planned.
A long list of
resentments between Gail and me had been boiling to a head, and it also
seemed in the best interests of The Stelle Group that I pull out and let her
rule the group in accordance with the different ideas she had been evolving
over the years. Moreover, it was time to stop my playing Akhnaton to her
Queen Nefertiti and to allow the more aggressive King David aspects of my
personality to come to the fore. Were I to have remained at Stelle, there
would have been a head-on collision between Gail and me as to the direction
in which Stelle is to go. Then was not the time to sort out that problem.
The divisiveness of our
separate functions in the group gradually widened the gap between us. The two
years during which I was working about eighty hours a week to start Stelle
Woodworking Gail managed the day-to-day affairs of The Stelle Group and the
Stelle School in accordance with my instructions and agreement. Although she
would consult with me at first on directions and policies, she tended to lean
more and more on the opinions and ideas of others who were more readily
available as the years went by. Soon Gail initiated her own methods, and she
worked with others in committees which undertook to modify the policies of
The Stelle Group and the budding Stelle Industries more in accordance with
their influences. Her continual contact with the personnel of the group and
her acting as a mediator between participants and me allowed her to subtly
implement her evolving views as opposed to mine, and she does not brook my
interference with her plans. Her eventual open challenging of my statements
and opinions made people apprehensive at the lack of coherence in direction.
Gail certainly has good administrative skills, and she disciplines personnel
quickly and decisively, and works with amazing endurance and devotion to
duty. Indeed, duty is the keynote of Gail’s philosophy; and her preoccupation
with it permitted no room for a personal life between us at the Chase Street
building. So to minimize overt show of conflict, I let Gail pursue her bent
more freely until I could find more time to devote to the running of The
Stelle Group.
My deep hunger to have a
real marriage now compels me to divorce Gail. I must love the woman I live
with, and live with whom I love. I left Stelle in April, and thereby provided
Gail with easy grounds for divorce. Not knowing how many years she would keep
me from Stelle until she decided to complete the divorce action made the
length of my stay from Stelle indefinite
Late in April, while in
Arizona, I was informed by my superiors that I must return to Stelle and that
I am still responsible for all the affairs and the conduct of The Stelle
Group. Also at that time I was relieved of my obligation to Gail presumably
because of her election to avoid the generally accepted sexual obligations of
a marriage contract. This is evidently a freewill choice on her part to
change from her original plans for this lifetime. On the
night of May 16 [,1974], I visited Stelle and spoke with Gail about my
intention to again become a director of Stelle Industries, and to help
develop some inventions at Stelle, and to hasten the divorce proceedings, and
to also inform the participants of Stelle of my intentions. The next day,
on May 17 [,1974], Jim Howery handed me a directive prohibiting me from “all
contact and interference in the environment of The Stelle Group and its
members” excepting Jim Howery and my family and Tom Valentine. The directive
also barred me from attending any function or meeting of The Stelle Group or
from functioning as an agent for The Stelle Group or Stelle Industries except
by prior approval of the Trustees. This directive has not been revoked, and
it was to seek its cancellation that I appeared unannounced at the September
28th General Meeting.
In early August I came to
Kankakee in hope of arranging to represent Stelle Industries in the obtaining
of loans for the apartment buildings through a contact I developed in Dallas.
I waited six days for an audience with Jim Howery and was denied permission
by letter without my having talked with any trustee. I have since learned
that the trustees at that time were informing some people that I was being
bugged by lower entities. Indeed, the posture that the trustees had taken was
that I was essentially an enemy of The Stelle Group and that the trustees
intended to defend the faith against me. At least one member was so appalled
by this attitude that he urged me to push for a face-to-face communication
with the trustees, but even his negotiations were turned down by the
trustees. He was informed that I was obviously sick and that the Trustees
would have to decide when I became well again (all decided without seeing or
talking with me.) Meanwhile, the trustees have snatched at any excuse for
justifying their stand. My superiors do not agree with that statement on the
basis of my real motives and actual conduct. The trustees impugn my motives
and instead assign to me lusts so base and sordid as to be almost
incomprehensible to me. I am not arrogant or blatant or a sexual adventurer.
That I do not feel guilty seems maddening to them; however, I have learned
that responding to someone’s dependency needs can be made complicated in this
society. The trustees ascribe to my actions the source of great pain and
suffering to others, and yet these other people deny this assertion by the
trustees. The trustees charge that my actions are inconsistent with their
understanding of my teachings; and my statement that I have not violated my
own integrity indicates to them that I need to be educated in their image. My
choices were simply the lesser of two evils. The human-heartedness of my
relations were positive, karmically permissible, and not in violation of
natural laws by careful predetermination. Neither am I fomenting a new
morality to be foisted upon the group to justify my behavior or qualify the
guidelines by which societies survive. I did not choose to succumb entirely
to the shriveling circumstances of my relation with Gail.
I stand accused of
consulting astrology to direct my life and of holding ideas counter to the philosophy I presented in The Ultimate Frontier. These
charges I categorically and specifically deny. The trustees seek to restrict
the teachings of The Stelle Group to the content of The Ultimate Frontier and to what has already been published in
my Observations. Jim Howery states
that all my claims of alleged contacts from my superiors subsequent to the
publication of The Ultimate Frontier
are “self-serving ‘bulls’ and that he cannot accept them; so he must
henceforth rely upon his own conscience in his leadership of The Stelle
Group.
I did not convey to Jim or
to Gail authority to reorganize and redirect the philosophy of Stelle. The Ultimate Frontier
is but the introduction to a great deal more information which I have yet to
convey to the group over future years. That it may disagree with Gail’s
Stelle I can well understand. Because of the motives and views ascribed to me
by the trustees, who for years have known me and must know my real self, I‘ve been tempted to suspect some treacherous motive for their
stance. Their accusations have exasperated me sorely; and they are so extreme,
I wonder if they are designed to provoke me. And yet I am forced to recognize more and more as they talk to
me that the trustees must be reflecting the feelings of the general
membership. After the meeting of the twelve representatives following the
general meeting of September 28th, some members urged Jim not to let me come
back. Upon my return on the first day of November, it was falsely reported to
Jim that I had chewed out a member about the appearance of some buildings on
the site. A few days later I attended a small party at Stelle, and two
members complained about my objectionable behavior. My telephone calls are
reported to Jim, and complaints are made to him about my every statement. The
immediate reporting to Jim of my every move and word is poisonous in its
expectation of turning up something negative when everything is turned in for
official analysis and dissection. That all record files are barred to me is
presumptive of my being an antagonist of the Brotherhoods’ Work. The
prohibition against my engaging participants in conversation about philosophy
is a very thin line to expect me to walk without being rude to people. That I
may not take part in Orientations and am prohibited from counseling people is
part of the trustees’ fear that I will corrupt the group with some unknown
schism. The rules imposed upon my return have become insufferable. Gail
picked my job assignment as a machine hand in the woodworking factory, and
Jim pointed out that there was to be no question in the members’ minds that I
was not returning to any position of authority in the group. Furthermore, the
trustees were not going to have me sit around writing all day in house 127.
My reassignment to the Membership Committee is but a front since Gail makes
the decisions on the basis of her own criteria, and I do not get to see the
six-month’s essays, or the job evaluations, or hear participants’ problems.
All these restrictions and conditions were ostensibly set up to protect the
group from me while Gail and I tried for a reconciliation. The imposition by
Gail of these restrictions precluded any pretense of her acceptance of me.
She has challenged me to examine whether my irritation with her and the
trustees is induced by mentalism and to report to her when I can confess I have
been susceptible to lower influences.
When, on December 27th, I
announced to Gail my intention to divorce her, the trustees responded by
immediately pressing the resignation of the woman who had encouraged me to try
to work my way back into Stelle so that I could continue to unfold the
philosophy and foreword the assignments given me by the Brotherhoods. After
this woman was removed from Stelle, I assisted her financially and provided
moral support during her adjustment since I felt responsible for her
predicament. The trustees responded to this by barring me on January 23rd
from my advisory capacity at trustee meetings since they decreed I was
violating the sanctity of my home and was not being morally responsible
especially since this woman was one of the five. I admit that I exhibit King
David’s fault of rebelling against punitive authority, and I have always
sought to operate justly even when it was in violation of someone’s
interpretation of the letter of the law. Men write laws covering men’s duty
to each other. God makes laws regarding men’s hearts. I, for one, love the
Law; for following it has served me well. But there seems to be different
levels of perception of reality, and I have been recently apprised by Jim
that I speak truth at one level while my audience may hear me at another
level and is thus deceived by me; therefore my communications can be
corrupting to the group by virtue of inescapable misunderstanding.
On January 27th the
trustees barred me from conducting “Open House” question and answer meetings
for the following reasons: “Due to the continuance of your attempts to lead
Stelle Group participants away from the basic philosophy of The Stelle Group
by your statements of esoteric conjecture; general speculation about the
universe; subtle rationalizations implying that your life style and behavior
is above the Philosophy; your general undermining of the teaching of The Ultimate Frontier, Dr. Stelle, and
the attempts of the Trustees to carry out their responsibilities in these
areas by your implication of new data which negates what we have read and
been told by you in the distant past; and your politically oriented behavior
toward the Trustees in which you have been putting Stelle Group participants
in the middle.” Such charges are imaginary and ridiculous. I think that
people who have attended my Open House meetings may have a hard time making
sense out of such negativity. Now because I’ve been removed from performing
the tasks assigned to me by the trustees, I’ve naturally been removed from
the payroll (Gail’s salary was paid in my name in December and January.) But
this is all in keeping with the trustees’ prejudgment expressed in their
letter to me of August 25th in which they stated that they have grave doubts
in their minds as to the positive contributions I can make at this time.
I have invested a lifetime
of creative energy and loving vision in Stelle and its destiny. Therefore it
has been hard for me to let go, especially in light of how much I care for
its people. My brief return has allowed me to see where Stelle and I both
stand and the impossibility of my prison-like stay here while trying to
maintain the illusion for the trustees that I have been reinstated in some of
the areas where I had served before I left. I wrote an open letter to the
membership in June stating precisely the reasons given to me why the
Emissaries have not arrived at Stelle to teach Citizenship Training; but this
was suppressed by the trustees. I see no effective way for me to be heard at
Stelle or to get around the censorship imposed on whatever I write.
I do not wish to imply in
this letter that my past and present behavior is either exemplar or
incorrect. I hoped only to discuss here the interplay and conflict between me
and Gail and the trustees so there is some understanding on the part of the
membership as to what has and is happening. There are dozens of pages of
correspondence between me and the trustees covering this matter, and I trust
this will be made available by them for future archives. It may take me time
to find a place to live nearby after my divorce; so I might be seen by some
participants from time to time. I am a director of Stelle Industries and have
responsibilities to carry out at Stelle in relation to those duties, and this
has to do also with my monitoring the activities for which I am held
responsible by my superiors. I have had no influence in the direction of
Stelle since November 1st; and in fact, the trustees have essentially
conducted no trustee business during the past three months other than
educating me as to errors of philosophy and faults of personality and
conduct.
The trustees found my
departure from Stelle in April to be frightening, stranding, and
inconsistent. At best it has been seen by them as dramatic. Nevertheless,
there is a thread of constant purpose in the lessons I have to convey and in
how I choose to nail them home. It was a hard decision for me to leave in
April because I knew that I would not be reinstated in the same positions and
therefore would be especially vulnerable to Gail’s authority. I do not feel
comfortable making decisions about other people’s lives nor do I choose to be
in high positions. I am content to leave that to those who enjoy control, for
such people wield it with more forthrightness and verve. I have returned to
Stelle because I was ordered to by Those who are totally aware of the
situation here. Where I will be able to serve next will eventually be shown
to me. For the immediate future I must be content to wait. The very personal
nature of this communication is such that I trust you to maintain the spirit
of its confidentiality. This is Stelle “family” business and not food for
outsiders to chatter about. I do not wish to burden you with problems but
rather to illuminate what has been a festering mystery to many. I hope that
this will help to get the wheels of progress moving again.
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