So the two pieces of information contained
only in the final (highly suspect) Customs report are two of the most widely repeated accusations about the Finders. One, that members had passports apparently stamped for travel to Russia, North Korea & North Vietnam. And two, that the CIA shut down the investigation because it was an "internal matter."
Global travel throughout many countries was obviously part of Pettie's agenda from what I've read so far of Terrell's account, though not to those specifically forbidden places. So it's not exactly that far-fetched of an accusation; perhaps someone was just lying about which countries were actually marked as visited in the seized passports.
As for the second point, it seems more like something out of a movie script. But on the other hand, it is useful to remember that Pettie had numerous documented and self-avowed connections to the CIA. Boasting about your links to Air America doesn't exactly make me feel like you'd be my kind of leader or spiritual guide (or whatever.)
This Pettie interview is something worth revisiting:
Q: What do you make then of these stories that connect the Finders up to a pedophilia ring in the CIA?
A- The pedophiles and all that stuff..
Q: That's all smear?
A; I just kept open house to a lot of the counter-intelligence and intelligence people over the years. I have been reported to their security officers probably plenty of times for trying to find out what's going on in the world. I've tried all of my life to get behind the scenes in the CIA. I sent my wife in as a spy, to spy on the CIA for me. She was very happy about it, happy to tell me everything she found out. She was in a key place, you know with the records, and she could find out things for me. And my son worked for Air America which was a proprietary of the CIA. There are some connections, but not to me personally.
Q: But do you have any suspicions ... the Finders sounds like a real open group that attracts a lot different elements ... disinformation stories could be planted by certain elements to try to connect it to pedophilia...
A: The reason the CIA wouldn't hire me is that they wouldn't have the control factor over me. That's one of the things. They may have used me at some time without me knowing it. They have categories of unwitting agents. Maybe you two were sent here by them. But I'm pretty open about this kind of stuff, though. They wouldn't hire me as a contract employee because 1 wouldn't sign the papers. Anybody that's a contract employee must sign an agreement and then they pay you out the money. Well, I don't need the money, but I am trying to find out all about them. Basically, the one sentence about the CIA is that I have been studying them since before they were born, I was studying them back in the 30s. It was ONI back then [Office of Naval Intelligence], and then the Coordinator of Information comes on, and after that it turns into the OSS and OSS turns into the CIAU and the CIAU turns into the CIA. So I've been studying that all of my life. But I wasn't personally working for them.
Oh, none of that is suspicious sounding.
Here's a very interesting (and weirdly coincidental for me) excerpt from
The Gamecaller:
Our intellectual life is active in San Francisco and we make many new connections. Architect Christopher Alexander comes over for a visit to see our urban warehouse vision and we visit his beautiful Berkeley Hill house with its collection of oriental rugs. Diane develops a rapport with Margo St. James, former prostitute and founder of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics). We go to talks by social critic Theodore Roszak, World Earth Catalog editor Stewart Brand, Noetic scientist Willis Harman and visionary Buckminster Fuller. I’d read the accounts by John Steward Service of his visit to the encampment of Mao Tse Tung at the end of the long march and his efforts as an American Foreign Service officer for a less caricatured understanding of the Chinese leaders who created the People’s Republic. I thought that he would be a person worth serving in some way. So, I write a letter offering my services, but I’m turned away by his wife at the door. A valuable lesson about how fearful famous people are when approached by strangers.
“Fame, fortune and power are driving a pretty high percentage of the people in this country,” Pettie says when I tell him about hiking the Berkeley Hills to the Service house. “Almost nobody knows how dangerous it is to seek fame. It’s very hard to hold on to who you are once you become famous, but millions of people keep on going after it. The most dangerous thing is to gain fame, but not have a fortune to go with it. But being a servant to the rich and famous is actually better than being famous and will give you a unique perspective and a better position to seek your own true nature.”
“Who are the best ones to become servants to?” I ask.
“I suppose that the best would be somebody that you think is a hero, so you could get up close and discover their feet of clay,” he says. “But better than that might be serving people who are on the cutting edge of positive change before they become famous. You can find them, but it takes some research. To my way of thinking, the two activities in life that pay the biggest dividends are learning and serving. And when you’re learning, without trying to feather your own nest, you’re serving. Know everything and do nothing until your knowledge is called for by the people that you’re loyal to. Make what you know available to people with the highest vision that you can find. But don’t push it. Offer things once in a soft voice and if they pick up on it, fine. If not, keep on learning. Be ready when some persons come along and want what you’re offering.
“Until then just be the D.C.I.A, the Divine Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA is a good model for the way to handle information. It’s there and it’s available to the right people, but they have to go through the right channels to get it and they have to ask the right questions. The Jesuits are also good models. They were the intelligence agency for the Pope, at least in theory. The truth is that they usually knew more than he did.”
An Episcopal priest, Dick Young, who’s studying at the Pacific School of Religion, is fascinated with our communal way of life and has attached himself to me. He comes over every day and sits in our meetings. I feel inadequate and embarrassed when he treats me like a mentor. One night he stays over at the warehouse.
That night I have a dream: I’m visiting a beautiful castle. I’m led by a robed figure through room after room and up into the tower with a view of the countryside. The figure never turns in my direction, so I’m unable to see a face. Then we retreat to a basement stairway. My guide stands aside and points down the steps. I start to descend. As I get near the bottom, I can see an open stone door leading to the side. A light begins to glow from inside the door and becomes brighter and brighter. A loud voice says: “Are you ready to be filled with the spirit of Saint Ignatius Loyola?” I wake up shouting “No, no” and realize how puny my efforts at community are. That day I go to the library and read for hours about how Saint Ignatius was a mortally wounded soldier who took refuge in a cave in Spain and, near death, had a vision that inspired him to start the Jesuit Order.
Is "Divine CIA" supposed to be a positive reference, or to make good people want to be involved in whatever he's doing? I understand the thin line between con-man and guru, and so do not judge him negatively just for acting evasive and saying deceptive things. But to me, saying that kind of thing
while actually being connected to the CIA is another matter.
All I see from Pettie is a bunch of wishy-washy evasiveness so I guess it's only natural to assume something bad. Stuff like this doesn't tell me anything, really, and there's a lot more where this came from:
To my way of thinking, the two activities in life that pay the biggest dividends are learning and serving. And when you’re learning, without trying to feather your own nest, you’re serving. Know everything and do nothing until your knowledge is called for by the people that you’re loyal to. Make what you know available to people with the highest vision that you can find. But don’t push it. Offer things once in a soft voice and if they pick up on it, fine. If not, keep on learning. Be ready when some persons come along and want what you’re offering.
Sounds like the kind of talk you'd expect from evangelical Christians or something.
Who are the best ones to become servants to? is such a great question.
The new way of thinking is precisely delineated by what it is not.