Tuesday, 17 June to Friday, 20 June 1986: Connecting with a New Age Community in Harare

Wednesday, June 25, 8:00AM, home of Verity & Pete Mundy, Lake McIlwaine, Zimbabwe & Monday, August 4, 1:45PM, Hillcrest Community, Halfway House, South Africa

In Harare, I’ve been staying with members of the Emissary Community.  This is an international new age group that I discovered in Johannesburg.  Their headquarters is at Sunrise Ranch near Loveland, Colorado.  Funny that I travelled halfway around the world to find them.  

Sunrise Ranch, the Emissary headquarters in Loveland, Colorado. 

Source:  https://www.centersnetwork.org/directory/sunrise-ranch/

 

Emissary has a small center in Harare (actually someone’s home).  The neighborhood was once an all-white suburb which has now become integrated with black professionals.  They frequently have travelers like me who come there to crash.  I stayed at the home four days before coming out here to Lake McIlwaine to stay with a community member, Verity Mundy, and her husband, Pete, who is the chief ornithologist for the Zimbabwe National Park Service.  

There are two adults and two kids living at the Emissary center:  Okie (pronounced Aw’ key), a tall, well-built, mid-40s, a building society (savings and loan) manager, who drives a Mercedes; Trish, attractive and mid-30s, who works for Okie; and Trish’s two young sons. 

I like Trish but found her rather prissy and old-fashioned.  Still, she has some good attitudes for a white Zimbabwean.  For example, she prefers that her boys play with the black children in the neighborhood, rather than white children.  She described the latter as obnoxious kids who use bad language.  She also had an interesting explanation for the bad policies and communist rhetoric of the current government in Zimbabwe:  “What do you expect from a baby government that is just reaching adolescence?”  she asked.  “People need to give them time to make mistakes and grow up.”  She felt that the government has the best interests of Zimbabweans at heart.  For the sake of her and her sons, I hope so. 

Actually, I had to control myself from laughing at some of Trish’s social attitudes.  Admittedly, it’s tough for a divorced mother to raise kids on her own.  But she said it was a father’s role to be the disciplinarian as it was unnatural for a mother to discipline.  She should have said it was unnatural for her, as all she did was nag, nag, nag.  I really bit my lip hard when she told one of her sons that “of course boys are stronger than girls.” (as if God had planned it that way)

Once again, even in the “new age” household, an old problem cropped up on me.  My notebook from 6/19 says, “I’m sick of being waited on.”  Sure, I did get to cook dinner one night, but even this “liberated” household has black servants who always seem to be in the way of my privacy and my desire to do things for myself and the way I want them done.  Shit, I couldn’t even do my own laundry.   

I went to Emissary programs in Johannesburg and Harare and found the evenings not all that stimulating since they were straight lecture.  I’m used to the good ol’ California-style “let’s break up into small groups and discuss our feelings” approach.  I discussed this with Trish, who said they do have workshops which are more discussion- and participation-oriented.  Nevertheless, it’s hard to get white people in this part of the world to let down their barriers.  Most are of English backgrounds and uptight about small group discussions that involve sharing feelings.  They do have a few Africans involved in the group, but I haven’t met them yet. 

I did like what the speakers had to say about spirituality, although I have had difficulty figuring out what the organization is all about.  Their literature is rather vague, and I suppose that’s because they’re quite eclectic.  I did get a somewhat better idea this past Sunday when I attended a “service” at the Harare center.  There were only three of us which worked out nicely since I got to ask questions and discuss spirituality with Okie and Rosalie.  Rosalie appears to be early 40s and an occupational therapist.  She leads some of their seminars.  

The service consisted of Okie reading a 15-minute talk by Martin Exeter, the Emissary spiritual leader who lives in British Columbia, Canada.  It was a somewhat abstract piece about the “creative processes”.  I found it hard to keep my attention on it since I wasn’t familiar with the concepts or lingo.  I can’t really remember specifics from the talk, but some of it struck a responsive chord in me.  It became clearer when we later discussed the piece.  I think that they were saying that the creative process has something to do with the spiritual force of the universe.  Although they quote the Bible now and then, they don’t believe in a personal God – the Father-in-the-sky routine.  They aren’t into believing, in general, but rather “knowing” the truth.  However, they aren’t naïve enough to think everyone should know the same truth.  So, the truth is an individual matter although it seems Emissary devotees know similar truths if they’ve been together for several years discussing these concepts.

Martin Exeter  Source:  https://primalspirituality.org/about/history/

 

We seemed to have compatible views on metaphysical questions and answers.  They agreed with me, for example, that most religions take a very naïve approach to spirituality because they assign human-like qualities to the spiritual force.  Each religion believes it has the correct form of worship and belief.  And they all sell the spiritual force short (I personally believe that they naively insult it) by simplifying it (you know, like the earth being only 6000 years old).  With the exception of Buddhists, most religions and religious adherents will not admit that the universal force is either beyond our human comprehension or that we don’t have enough information to understand it.  Anyway, that’s my philosophy regarding The Big Questions.  Try explaining something like this to a religious fundamentalist the next time you get accosted.  I’ve found it effective in getting rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon missionaries.