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On , Samuel Wagar <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On a different topic, was there any occult or mystical connections that > you > know of, with the Finnish colonies at Finn's Slough or Sointula Island? > Yes. Matti Kurrikka, the man that > was brought from the Australian Finnish exile movement by the Finnish coal > miners in Nanaimo to lead their utopian community at Sointula (near Alert > Bay, > on Malcolm Island at the north end of Vancouver Island in British > Columbia) was > a socialist, Theosophist and free love advocate. Sointula was established > in > 1901 and didn't have a Christian church until 1960. Kurrikka was kicked > out of > the leadership after a few years as the majority of the Sointula > colonists were > communists of a fairly standard Marxist type, and the colony became a > mainstay > of the Socialist and later Social Democratic then Communist Parties. Yes: I have met some of the politcised colonists, and their descendents. Earlier this one was injured on a boat running the Isreali naval blockade off Gaza. > His little colony at Finn's > Slough didn't last very long either and he ended up in the 'States > editing a > Finnish newspaper there. > > The Finnish community near > Thunder Bay in Ontario had the same political trajectory but preserved a > number > of folk magic ideas and techniques until the 1970s. National Museum of > Canada Publication in Folk Culture #3 (1973) "Roles of Magic and Healing: > The Tietaja in the Memorates and Legends of Canadian Finns" by Matt T. > Salo is a > neat little pamphlet dealing with them. > Again, it's been a while since > I've gone into those files (although this is a good prompt to get to it, > since > I'm giving a talk in about a month on BC's Occultist history). Is this a public lecture? > Another very interesting, and > more explicitly occultist, utopian experiment was the Theosophical messiah > claimant Brother XII, who set up near Nanaimo in the late 1920s. Two > books right > here are "The Devil of Decourcy Island" by Ron MacIsaac, Don Clark and > Charles > Lillard (Press Porcepic, 1989), and "Brother Twelve" by John > Oliphant(McClelland > and Stewart 1991). > And I've wandered off. There have > been many utopian experiments in BC. Another one is the Emissaries of > Divine > Light communities set up by an eccentric occultist / New Age British lord > near > 100 Mile House in the 1940s. The group expanded to communities in four or > five > locations but lost a large number of members when the lord's successor, > his grandson IIRC, decided in the 1990s he didn't want to be a guru. > About a > half left immediately looking for another guru, and the communities have > never > been the same. The Emissaries have a Retreat House in the Fraser Valley which is a good value rental for group retreats. Thank s MR