My Response to a Recent Inquiry
By Dick B.
© 2011 Anonymous. All rights reserved
Dear JC:
I make every effort to reply to any courteous email that comes to me at DickB@DickB.com. However, some people try to send me messages by clicking on the “Reply” button when they receive one of my “Dick B. FYI Message” newsletters. Such “replies” have been going to a different email address (dickb.lists@gmail.com) that is associated with the program we use for sending out the “Dick B. FYI Message” newsletters. Those “replies” have not been going directly to me. In fact, most never reached me until today, when my son Ken discovered this “secret cache” of backlogged responses and forwarded them to me in a large batch. Sadly, I do not have the time to sift through them all for happy birthday cards vs. genuine questions.
One other point about how people identify themselves when they contact me. When someone writes me—through any medium—and just uses initials like “J.C.” or “Jim C.,” I really don’t care to reply until and unless they identify themselves by using a fuller form of their name and by including their regular (“snail mail”) address. You have no idea how many “Jim’s,” “Jim C.’s,” “JC’s,” and even “James’s” and others—not including spammers—cross my path.
Now to your question and many claims about Swedenborg and the influence of his church on Alcoholics Anonymous. I took the time to review your material. I noted that the only source for your information concerning A.A. was a short Web page about Bill and Lois Wilson found on the Oak Arbor Church and School (Rochester, Michigan) Web site. The only “documentation” provided for the claims about A.A. history made on that Web page are: (1) a single reference to Lois Wilson's autobiography, Lois Remembers, without specific page numbers; and (2) a single reference to Alcoholics Anonymous (the “Big Book”), again without specific page numbers. I can’t tell who you are quoting as authority for your sweeping claims and conclusions.
Yes, there is evidence provided in A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature that both Bill W. and Dr. Bob were involved with spiritualism. Spiritualism is evil. Period.
There is more information available as well. “The rest of the story” that the Christian A.A. bashers (e.g., Dave Hunt, the Bobgans, John Lanagan) are not telling. The part of the story that the people coming from a different perspective (e.g., Agent Orange) are also not telling.
Here's “Part One” of “the rest of the story” from the A.A. General Service Conference-approved book, DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 198), 312:
“A lot of us believed in the spiritual thing,” said Clarence S. “We'd go to Roland's [i.e., the house of Roland J. in Toledo, Ohio—about 139 miles from Akron on today's highways] on a Sunday night. He'd call in the spirits. It got spooky after a while—beyond what we should be monkeying with. Doc backed off, too.”
Smitty agreed. “They got away from Roland J.—when they started to get bad vibrations,” he said. “They felt it might be dangerous.”
There was a similar feeling among Akron A.A.'s “They were all against this spiritualist thing,” said Sue. “Dad got to feel he was being criticized, and he was. They didn't approve.” [emphasis added]
Notice that statement: “Doc backed off, too”? Notice the comment about the “Akron A.A.'s”: “They were all against this spiritualist thing,” [emphasis added]. The critics of A.A. have not been stressing or sharing those points. But it was in Akron where most of early A.A.'s great successes happened prior to the publication of the Big Book on April 10, 1939.
Here's “Part Two” of “the rest of the story”—again from A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature:
Paul S. . . . said of Dr. Bob, “At this time [i.e., in early 1933], he began his conscious search for truth through a concentrated study of the Bible over two and one-half years before his meeting with Bill.” [DR. BOB, 306]
And look at Dr. Bob's own statement about his study of the Bible long before 1933 in another piece of A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature, The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches: Their Last Major Talks (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975):
I had refreshed my memory of the Good Book, and I had had excellent training in that as a youngster. [The Co-Founders, 11-12. And please see our title, Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book As a Youngster in Vermont (http://dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml) for details.]
Dr. Bob had what he called “excellent training” in the Bible as a youth on which to lay his “concentrated study of the Bible over two and one-half years” leading up to his meeting with Bill W. in May 1935.
Dr. Bob's son, “Smitty,” said about Dr. Bob:
He read the Bible from cover to cover three times and could quote favorite passages verbatim. [DR. BOB, 310]
No wonder we read the following statement in Dr. BOB and the Good Oldtimers:
(Dr. Bob was always positive about his faith, Clarence said. If someone asked him a question about the program, his usual response was: “What does it say in the Good Book?” [DR. BOB, 144]
And one more to close out “Part Two” of “the rest of the story” for the moment:
Prayer, of course, was an important part of Dr. Bob's faith. According to Paul S., “Dr. Bob's morning devotion consisted of a short prayer, a 20-minute study of a familiar verse from the Bible, and a quiet period of waiting for direction as to where he, that day, should find use for his talent. Having heard, he would religiously go about his Father's business, as he put it.” [DR. BOB, 314]
I regret that people have chosen to use Bill’s many shortcomings—most of which are well known, and most of which have only a remote and speculative relationship, if any, to A.A.—as a means for lambasting Bill, lambasting A.A., or creating some new mythical A.A. that consists of adultery, LSD, psychic experiments, spiritualism, greed, and all the rest. [I mention these in my title, The Conversion of Bill W. More on the Creator’s Role in Early A.A. (http://dickb.com/conversion.shtml).]
Normally, I would not take the time even to reply to such tangential material. First of all, it is well-known and even published in official A.A. literature. Second, it is very likely to involve speculative and undocumented opinions. Third, it is rarely based on historical fact. Fourth, it has nothing to do with what I believe, or do, or research, or write about concerning A.A. As you probably know, for 21 years, my mission has been to find out whether and precisely how much A.A. was influenced by the Bible—not Bill’s shortcomings. And I have now published 42 titles and over 560 articles which lay out the facts. As you probably also know, 20 years ago, few if any knew anything about the Christian upbringing that both Bill and Bob had as youngsters in Vermont; and few if any realized that A.A. did not emerge from the Oxford Group until Bill wrote his Big Book. Prior to that, A.A. was—particularly in Akron—as A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob said, “a Christian fellowship.” It required belief in God and coming to Him through Jesus Christ. It required Bible study, prayer meetings, a “Quiet Time,” Christian fellowship, Christian literature, and recommended attendance at religious services. [See DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, p. 131; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (the “Big Book”), p. 191; and Dick B., When Early AAs Were Cured and Why.]
Inquirers need to get up to speed on: (1) the difference between the Christian influences of the 1850’s and later influences; (2) the Christian beliefs of Bob and Bill as youngsters; (3) the Akron “Christian fellowship” (which is what Dr. Bob called it—DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, p. 118); and the Oxford Group/Shoemaker life-changing program that Bill wrote into the Big Book four years after the founding of A.A. in June of 1935. Unless they do, they won’t have a clue about the role that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in the Christian Recovery Movement, in the lives of the founders of A.A., in the original Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship,” and in its successes. And can play today!!!
Now let me make a suggestion to you in view of your courteous and thoughtful letter, and also in view of your commendable sobriety date. I would suggest, at a minimum, that you obtain certain of my books and other materials, and study them. Specifically:
1. The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible by Dick B. www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml;
2. Our “Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery” class by Dick B. and Ken B. on 4 DVD's www.dickb.com/IFCR-Class.shtml;
3. The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 3rd ed., by Dick B. and Ken B. (2010) www.dickb.com/ChristianRecov-Guide.shtml.
When you have done that, I predict you will: (1) have some thoroughly-documented facts to pass along; (2) have facts that bear a real relationship to both the Akron and the Big Book programs (and they are vastly different); and (3) realize that all the Bill-bashing makes good reading for a few obsessed Christian critics, but detracts monstrously from all the needs and hunger of Christians in recovery—both those in and out of A.A.
What matters to me is that those Christians in A.A. who want the truth and who insist on serving in our Fellowship—whatever its warts and strange influences—are armed with knowing and rejecting the damaging effect of the attacks on Christians in A.A.
I have taken the time to write in extenso because you may be one of those questing souls who can really help others get up and going on relevant history that will help drunks who want God’s help.
Incidentally, to make the facts more brief, more simple, and more widely available, I have established the Dick B. Channel on YouTube.com—“dickbchannel”—an ongoing and comprehensive effort on to give those questing for truth another avenue in this information age for learning more about God, His Son Jesus Christ, the Bible, and—yes—A.A.
Gloria Deo
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