The Religious Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous
and the Twelve Steps
Chapter 22: Partying in a Fairy-Tale Castle
After World War II, several wealthy Swiss citizens decided that Frank Buchman and his Moral Re-Armament
needed a better headquarters than
the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.
They also liked the idea of Buchman having a European headquarters in Switzerland,
so they raised a lot of money and
bought a large unused resort hotel at Caux, Switzerland, complete with three hotel buildings,
and had it refurbished, using a lot of volunteer MRA labor.
"Mountain House", the main building of the MRA center at Caux, Switzerland
In July 1946, the first World Assembly for Moral Re-Armament to be held in Europe
after the war was staged at "Mountain House" in Caux, Switzerland.
It was attended by 2,500 people from twenty-six nations.
After that, Assemblies were held there yearly, growing in size and scope for a while,
with the anti-Communist note being sounded more strongly year after year.
Peter Howard arrives at Caux after World War II, 28 July 1946
Peter Howard is the tallest, left-most, man in the picture.
Frank Buchman is in the background to the right, behind the flagstaff.
The participants at the first MRA World Assembly at Caux, 1946
Interior of "Mountain House" (The Grand Hotel), Caux, Switzerland
In the Grand Hotel, there were two dining rooms, the large dining room for everybody in general,
and "the small dining room", which was for Frank Buchman and a few
hand-picked, favored, table guests.
The best food always went to "Frank's table".
The best jam in the kitchen was labeled "For Frank's table".
Interior of "Mountain House" (The Grand Hotel), Caux, Switzerland
"Bunny" Austin, the former tennis player and Frank Buchman's
true-believer convert, described Buchman's treatment of his kitchen
staff like this:
To Frank a man's love of God and his fellow man should be reflected in
the perfection of all he did; and he used the facilities of Globin's chalet
to train the women in the preparation, cooking and serving of meals.
If everything was not done perfectly, Frank set out to discover the reason.
One day the soup was burned. Investigation revealed that one cook had been
jealous of another.
One day a woman came to tea. The tea was served luke warm. Frank gathered
together those responsible for serving the tea. Tea less than piping hot
was never served again.
The meals were hand-served by the women. This had to be done with efficiency,
speed and grace. No plates were allowed to be stacked. Frank Buchman As I Knew Him, H. W. 'Bunny' Austin, page 83.
This staged photograph of the kitchen staff at the Caux, Switzerland headquarters
of MRA shows a more cheerful scene than that which Bunny Austin described.
has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations
of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his
or her expectations
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
... They often usurp special privileges and extra resources that they
believe they deserve because they are so special.
DSM-IV-TR == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision;
Published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC. 2000;
pages 658-661.
And we could add,
"Narcissists feel entitled to a first-class lifestyle, always getting
the best of everything, getting nothing less than perfect food and perfect service..."
But Buchman, now as always, was unpredictable.
He shook with rage one day
because a cook had once again produced tough meat... On the Tail of a Comet: The Life of Frank Buchman, Garth Lean, pages 294-295.
The theater inside "Mountain House" (The Grand Hotel), Caux, Switzerland
Geoffrey Williamson concluded his study of Frank Buchman
and his organization by writing:
The façade which Buchmanism now presents to the world is undeniably
impressive. But I cannot help comparing it with that of Valle Crucis Abbey,
in North Wales. There is it possible for a visitor to approach from one
angle and to find himself confronted by a towering edifice. He rings the
bell, bolts are drawn, a small door opens — and he steps through into space!
Behind the noble façade lies nothing but a tangle of long grass and a
few scattered ruins.
So it is with Buchmanism. The façade of the World Assembly is tremendously
impressive; but behind it one finds glorified YMCA meetings and juvenile
amateur theatricals putting over the uplift. Born in college close and
cultivated on the campus, Buchmanism has never quite grown up. An aura
of adolescence pervades many of its activities. One gets the impression that,
for all their sincerity, the Buchmanites are playing at evangelism and dabbling
in world politics.
[The World Assembly at] Caux [Switzerland] is held up as a microcosm of what life could be if
everybody changed. But it seems to me fallacious. Carried to a logical
conclusion the system would be unworkable. If everyone threw up his normal
occupation, feeling an urge to live life as it is lived at Mountain House,
there would be chaos.
Who, then, is to decide which citizens shall keep on working in the mines,
in industry, or on the high seas?
In a microcosm it can be made to appear very attractive. Little to do but
feast, dash about in big cars, or sit back and be entertained by choirs —
except for taking a turn at washing up or some other chore. It is a bubble
that glistens brightly so long as enough good-hearted and generous people
are willing to finance it all.
But suppose, by some miracle, it could be carried to this logical
conclusion, with all grades of workers agreeing to keep on at their jobs
and to pool the fruits of their labors and to live on a share-and-share-alike
basis. Doesn't that sound like Communism? Even if everyone agrees to call
it "inspired democracy," it is hard to see where democracy comes
in when there is no such thing as membership. No one belongs to anything.
It is "only an organism." So no one has any choice. No one, that
is, save a few men at the top.
Clever?
Too clever. Inside Buchmanism; an independent inquiry into the
Oxford Group Movement and Moral Re-Armament,
Geoffrey Williamson, Philosophical Library, New York, c1954, pages 167-168.
Frank Buchman posing with "leading European industrialists" at Caux, Switzerland
Geoffrey Williamson concluded:
...there is another side to the "guidance" question. God,
I am sure, never intended us to shuffle off all personal responsibility
for our actions or to abandon personal effort. It may be very comfortable
if you can convince yourself that there is no need to worry about anything
any more — that God will guide and provide. But I can't accept such an
easy way out. I don't believe that God will do anything for us that we are
capable of doing for ourselves. It is when we are in extremity and powerless
that He sometimes steps in.
* * *
This brings me to a second point in Buchmanite lore which I cannot
accept. I do not like their policy where young people are concerned.
I am opposed to the regimentation of youth in any form, but religious
regimentation seems to me to be most detestable of all. Of all the
freedoms, freedom of worship is the most vital. Nothing but evil, I feel,
can come from striving to foist ready-made ideas on young people before
they are able to reason for themselves. Buchmanites may protest that they
only seek to teach their young subjects to be virtuous and to respect the
four absolute moral standards; but I am unmoved.
...
On their own evidence it is all too clear that some adults as well as
children have, as a result of these teachings, developed something akin
to religious mania. This is revealed in a completely false notion of
"God-control" which leads them to cite examples of "guidance"
which are palpably absurd.
In a few generations the effect of such influences on susceptible people would
be to produce a race of beings quite incapable of independent thought or of
doing anything on their own initiative.
On this count alone I reject Buchmanism as a softening influence.
It is calculated to lead impressionable youngsters and weak-minded adults
to
abandon all self-reliance
and to accept no responsibility for their
actions. At best the habit of seeking daily "guidance" in everything
can only induce a smug complacency in the practitioner who in time
must shake off all sense of personal obligations and be content to
"leave everything to God." Inside Buchmanism; an independent inquiry into the
Oxford Group Movement and Moral Re-Armament,
Geoffrey Williamson, Philosophical Library, New York, c1954, pages 220-221.
Alcoholics Anonymous still teaches the same theology today:
Tom Driberg ended his book on Moral Re-Armament with these conclusions:
For — to sum up the main criticisms — MRA is irrational in its mystique
and authoritarian in its methods; it rejects free discussion; it practises
with insufficient discrimination
the dangerous, and often deadly,
doctrine that the end justifies the means; and, by seeming to proclaim
the possibility of instant perfection, it raises hopes that cannot be
fulfilled. In short, it is essentially non-Christian and anti-democratic. The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament; A Study of Frank Buchman and His
Movement, Tom Driberg, 1965, pages 304-305.
