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An Introduction To Huna: The Discovery of Huna.

In the year 1917, Max Freedom Long, then a young man was in search of employment. He had recently graduated from what is now known as UCLA, it was then known as the Los Angeles Normal School. There was a program that provided teachers for the children of government employees sent to Hawaii. It also provided education to the native Hawaiians. As he was having difficulty finding a job, though his degree was in psychology, he was soon on his way to the then territory of Hawaii as a teacher. He discovered, much to his alarm, that magic was being practiced in the islands by the local priests. Spirits walked. Healings were being done. Weather was being controlled. There were practitioners who could call fish to the shore. Telepathic messages were being sent & received. The priests, called Kahunas, walked on lava flows just hardened enough to sustain their weight and still hot enough to cook meat. People were being prayed to death. Mr. Long, being a school teacher and scientifically educated, went to the head of the Bishop museum, Dr. William Tufts Brigham. Mr. Long requested that Dr. Brigham explain how these charlatans operated. First the head of the museum questioned Long about what he had studied, his reading and what he had observed about the Kahunas and their practices while in Hawaii. Then, much to his dismay, Dr. Brigham told him it was not trickery. When Mr. Long recovered from his shock, Dr. Brigham began his explanation. Dr. Brigham said he had been studying Hawaiian magic for forty years. He told him that it was true magic and that he, Brigham had participated in some of it; though he had never penetrated to the secret of what was really happening. He explained that Kahunas specialized like any profession in the Western world. Some Kahunas were specialists in canoe building. Some were specialists in navigating. Polynesians were probably the best navigators in the world prior to modern science. Certain Kahunas were specialists in spiritual matters and magic. There were the temple Kahunas, who did rituals for the people and the temple as well as magic. There were the fire walking Kahunas. Also there were the Ana Ana Kahunas who prayed people to death. There were healing Kahunas of varying specialties. Some used herbs. Some used manipulation and massage. Then there were also some relied more heavily on psychology. But they all used magic. Dr. Brigham told of a day when he had walked over a hot lava flow under the protection of three Kahunas. They watched the lava flow into an area and caused it to become a pool. Then they waited until it had cooled sufficiently so that it would hold the stones they threw upon it. When it was strong enough to hold a man's weight, they started their rituals. They did their chants and then placed the ritual ti leaves on their bare feet. The ti plant is native to Hawaii and often used in rituals. Dr. Brigham wrapped the ti

leaves over his hiking boots. The Kahunas informed him that the rituals and that chants only protected feet. They could not guarantee his shoes or socks. Finally they decided to offer his boots as a sacrifice. When it came Dr. Brigham's turn, he hesitated. They gave him a shove to get him started. He ran as fast as he could to avoid falling or burning. His boot soles burned off. His socks burned off. But his feet and the feet of the three Kahunas were totally unharmed. He told of his experiences with the Ana'Ana Kahunas. These were the ones who could pray people to death. The American's name for what they did was the death prayer. A much feared local Kahuna had sent the curse upon a Hawaiian employee of Dr. Brigham's. He had been able to turn a death prayer back upon the Ana'Ana Kahuna who had sent it. Dr. Brigham had discovered that what the Americans called the death prayer was something else. It was not a prayer. It was a form of spiritualism, coupled with mesmerism. A low self spirit was either inherited from an ancestor Kahuna or one he had trapped himself. It was sent to the victim to steal their vital forces and the victim died. Using his own natural powerful voice and persuasive abilities over some hours, he sent it back to the sender. He could do this because it was one type of Kahuna magic he had enough limited knowledge to thwart. He did not understand it thoroughly. Also if the Kahuna had not been so sure no one could stop his power and had neglected to protect himself, Brigham, would have been in trouble himself. The spirit sent to kill was called a Unihipili. The term will be explained later. He told story after story from his notes about the magic performed by the various Kahunas he had been able to study. There was an instance when a Hawaiian man attending a party had gotten intoxicated and twisted his ankle and fell into a ditch. The twist caused a compound fracture, with the bone protruding through the skin.A woman Kahuna attending the same party immediately covered the fracture with some ti leaves. She commenced her ritual. When she took away the ti leaves, the leg was whole and uninjured. When he finished, he told Mr. Long that he was growing old; and feared he would never penetrate the veil of secrecy that shroudedthe actuality of what was happening. He asked Max to take up the study, and started teaching him all he knew up to that point. He brought out all of his notes and case histories. Then he taught Mr. Long what to look for and what questions to ask, in his quest for the answers as to what was actually happening. Dr. Brigham taught Max Freedom Long that a study of magic must encompass:

1. The consciousness causing the magic. 2. The force involved in making the magic. 3. The medium or substance through which the force operates. We know there is a force involved; in Huna we call it mana. People have many explanations about what the consciousness is and some know something about the substances. A study of magic must include an understanding of the nature of Man. By this is meant the true psychology of Man, not the so-called study of Man that is totally mundane, totally materialistic. Man is a spiritual being, before anything else. But he is also an emotional, physical and material being. Science falls short on one side and religion on the other. Max Freedom Long worked with Dr. Brigham until his death and alone thereafter. After a total of sixteen years of trying to break the code of silence while living in the Hawaiian Islands, Max returned to the mainland. He continued to ponder the problem, until he finally had his insight. He realized that in order to pass on their lore, the priests had to use oral language, because the Hawaiians were not literate. The term illiterate is not correct as it implies a short coming. Preliterate is preferable. The Polynesians had not invented writing. Though they were a highly intelligent people, they were not literate. Hawaiian, like all Polynesian tongues, is made up of small root sounds, with each root sound having meaning. These roots are placed together to make words. Max remembered that all the Hawaiians knew the Kahunas taught that man had two souls or spirits. All the people who had come to Hawaii from the mainland were either Christians or having been born into Christian culture, had accepted the Christian idea of 1 soul or spirit per person. It was accepted on such a basic level that no one even thought to consider an alternative explanation. Also because the Hawaiians were of a spiritual and mental culture, the European and North American cultures considered them savage and not worth listening to or believing. They had never even entertained the possibility that the Hawaiians might know more than they did about the nature of mankind. This idea of the dominant culture assuming that dominance equated superiority, has lost us so much knowledge and wisdom down through history, that it would take an immense library to hold it. Perhaps it would take more than one huge library. So Mr. Long went to his Hawaiian-English Dictionary; and started checking out the root meanings for the Hawaiian words for different spirits. The first word checked was Unihipili. Unihipili, he soon discovered, was one of the three spirits of man, and when broken down revealed the subconscious mind. It had all the attributes of the scientifically

delineated subconscious, memory, emotions, the caretaker of the physical body, plus telepathy, praying and many others. For the history of Huna and the work of discovery which still goes on, we look to the three books by Max Freedom Long, "The Introduction to Huna", "The Secret Science Behind Miracles", and, "The Secret Science at Work". There are more, but these are the basic ones to start with. I will deal with what is the science of Huna as we go along. But I must relate what I found about Max's writings first. It is a proof of sorts also. Max related in the book, The Secret Science Behind Miracles, how in 1932 he had been trying to sell his camera store in Honolulu. He was having no success so went to consult a woman Kahuna of his acquaintance. She consulted her God-self (Aumakua) and advised him correctly how to go about selling his store to his only competitor. Then he asked her to check his future as to another desire of his. He wanted to write. The Kahuna told him he would write eight books. She said the first four would be difficult and take a long time to write; the next four would go faster and easier. She could see no further. Max wrote that at the time of writing the book I was reading it was 1947 and he had at that time written four books. There were four more to complete to achieve the eight seen in the vision. It was 1961 or 1962 when I was reading the prediction. I told my friend the book made sense to me. I said if it was true there were more books. We went to check books in print and sure enough there were more books. The prediction was valid. There are many things that could have prevented the writing of the full eight books. Max could have died, gotten ill or simply quit writing. This would have invalidated the prediction. The prediction was valid though. I purchased the books available and the others as he wrote them. Max Freedom Long had started a journal for those who were interested in enlarging our knowledge of Huna. The price was whatever we contributed; even stamps were acceptable. We studied and participated in experiments when possible. I wrote to Mr. Long irregularly and tried my best to keep abreast of things Huna. His journal was named "The Huna Vista." Max lived in Vista California. He was less formal in the journal than in the books. He was always humble and self depreciating, despite his obvious great wisdom. Max never claimed to be a great soul or a secret high initiate. Max never claimed his wisdom was handed down from a mountain top. He never claimed to be incarnated from advanced space people or anything outlandish. Mr. Long did not even claim to be ready for graduation to the Aumakua level, saying he felt he needed at least one or more incarnations first. He wrote in his bulletin that he hoped in his next incarnation there would be enough books about Huna around to help him in his spiritual growth. So in a sense this book is written for Max in whatever incarnation he has or will reenter this plane, as well as for other readers.

Mr. Long considered himself a student of advanced Huna lore who was passing things on as soon as he learned them. He never claimed the title Doctor, though since his death others seem to have conferred it on him. The truth is that the study and work he did during his lifetime would have easily won him one in any recognized field. The field of Metaphysics gains no recognition in the academic world. Two things about Mr. Long I admired the most were his modesty and honesty. He never claimed anything about himself that was not the truth. Max was always ready to kid himself and not take himself too seriously. Mr. Long never claimed he had been initiated by Kahunas into their lore. He never claimed to be anointed by the Gods to impart the wisdom he had discovered. He told the truth to the best of his ability. Then he stated the evidence that he had and suggest the readers should come to their own conclusions. It would have been so very easy for him to mislead people. He could easily have claimed his family came from a long line of Kahunas. Max could have claimed a secret initiation. Who would have known? After all Max spent many years in Hawaii. Mr. Long could have concocted almost any tale and have found people to believe him. Others have done it. The only thing that stopped him was his innate honesty and modesty. He seemed to feel that people who set themselves too high were in danger of letting their egotism get the best of them, standing in the way of their search for truth and wisdom. To Max Freedom Long, truth and wisdom were paramount. He felt he was obligated to probe for the truth as thoroughly as he possibly could and present it to the readers in the plainest way possible.

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