Swannanoa
Bill Riggs
This posting falls into the class of articles "What I did on
my Summer Vacation".
About 10 days ago, I found myself traveling through the Blue
Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where Interstate 64 crosses over the Blue Ridge
(and intersects with a two lane tourist road called "Skyline Drive",
which runs the Blue Ridge. At that point there are signs to a place called
"Swannanoa." I remember this place from the time in the sixties when my parents
and I had driven along Skyline Drive and stayed overnight at the Howard
Johnson's there. The HoJo has been replaced by Holiday Inn - but Swannanoa
is still there.
Swannanoa is about 100 years old, an mansion done up in Italian
Renaissance style. In the words of its visitor's brochure, Swannanoa
offers "a framework of poetic loveliness for the never-to-be-forgotten
breathtaking views of the beautiful Shenandoah and Rockfish Valleys below."
Swannanoa is a tourist trap with an agenda. The mansion is the
headquarters of the "University of Science and Philosophy" (formerly
known as the Walter Russell Foundation) - "where a historical Shrine
of Beauty has been founded...for the benefit of all mankind."
Now, a place with this kind of promise is sorta hard to pass up.
But, back in 1966, that is exactly what the Riggs family did that summer
morning - we debated whether to go up there, decided it was too much
of a delay to go on a sideshow, and drove off toward Washington via
Skyline Drive. But two weeks ago, I took the time to go up there, in spite
of my rushed weekend schedule. WHAT DID I FIND ?
Swannanoa is a shrine, all right. Back in 1966, a man named Dr. Walter
Russell and his wife Lao Russell were still alive, the proprieters of Swannanoa
since 1949, when they had moved down from New York and took over the
abandoned mansion. Now Russell appears to have been, at the very least, an
interesting man - the type of fellow who would probably be proliferating his
views on Usenet were he alive today. An artist by trade, he claims to have
known Mark Twain, to have been the personal sculptor for two US Presidents
(FDR and Theodore Roosevelt), and to have known George Gershwin. Swannanoa's
archives document Russell's writings on science and what he called "natural
philosophy", which would appear to form the core of the "University" of
Science and Philosophy's curriculum. Russell's ideas appear to have been based
in metaphysics. Like Telihard de Chardin, he latched onto the idea that
all matter is based on energy and convertable into energy, and engaged in a
series of "flame wars" with American physicists in the New York Times over
the nature of the universe in the New York Times, circa 1930.
There is a lot of interesting art work in Swannanoa, all done by
Russell and his wife. There are some modernistic "light paintings" which
supposedly illustrate Russell's view of the universe. There are photographs,
from newspapers documenting Russell's goings and comings. One very
interesting article shows Russell giving a "How to Succeed in Business"
pep talk to IBM executives in New York City in 1940.
But the real centerpiece of Swannanoa, its "shrine" if you will,
is the "Christ of the Blue Ridge". This large marble statue, the collaborative
work of Russell and his wife Lao, towers above the garden behind the mansion.
This Jesus looks up at the sky, rather than down at mankind. And whose
face is used as the face of Christ ? It is unmistakably the face of Walter
Russell.
What is the real message of Swannanoa, so cleverly placed to attract
the curious, the beauty-seekers, and the faithful. Here are some quotations
from "The Romance of Swannanoa: Shrine of Beauty on The Sacred Mountain"
by Walter and Lao Russell:
"Swannanoa is the symbol of the ultimate MAN, the consummate BEING
which all humans aspire to become...these teachings are transfroming thousands
by awakening in them of that spark of the divine Light, which is inherent in
all men."
"The essence of the Russells' teachings is to give men knowledge to
command their own destiny...their teachings are known as THE SCIENCE OF MAN,
which ...'is the most important, and least known of all the sciences.'"
"Most important of all is the fact that the Russells ARE what they
teach. Everything you wish to become they have already become (Note: this
is now a bit ironic, since Walter and Lao Russell are now both dead). This
is the great fact that will impress itself upon all who visit Swannanoa"
"Lao Russell is a cosmic messenger who bears new knowledge to mankind,
much needed by him in this dire hour of a falling civilzation which is
rapidly disintegrating because of man-greed, fear, and war. Her sole purpose in
life is to bring unity to the human race through man's understanding of man
which can be best summed up by both of the Russell's teachings as The Science
of Man.
Lao and Walter Russell were brought together for one mutual purpose
to unite mankind through new knowledge of the Science of Man...One day
Lao had a vision."
LAO RUSSELL'S VISION
"In her spiritual consciousness she saw the illumined Jesus looking
ecstatically upward into the night from a high pinnacle of God's Sacred
Mountain, as though in great compassion for suffering man who had brought
such agony on himself by not heeding, or even comprehending His Message of
Brotherly Love, and the unity of man with God. The invisible Light of the
Soul of Universal Man shone from his eyes, and from His head the whole spectrum
of The Light of the World extended into the night...
And then Lao realized that men of Earth have never knownwhatg Jesus
meant when He said "God is Light." She knew that the Light must again come
to illumine the owlrd with its full meaning - and a great spiritual awakening
must come to material man lest he destroy himself by hos own materiality. This
she knew because she, herself, is an illumined messenger of the Light, destined
from birth to interpret the Light for other men...She then unfolded her
message to me...'Come we must leave this city forever and find God's Sacred
Mountain. God will lead us to it...We must give forth our message from the
Sacred Mountain as God gave it to us."
"And so it was that even though Lao felt God's hand strongly leading
us toward the South we traversed the entire country and looked up into the
Rockies...we meditated long in the Garden of Gods but from none of these many
mountains of the West did Lao hear God's Voice say, "This is The Sacred
Mountain"...then as the summer waned Lao said: 'Come, we shall go to the
Blue Ridge Mountains of the South where I at first feelt do strongly the urge
to go.'
"Forthwith we obeyed the ever loudening Inner Voice and in due time
found ourselves on the ridge of Swannanoa's mountain. And as we looked out
over the two great North-South valleys...Lao reverently said, 'This is the
place God brought me to - this is the Sacred Mountain of my vision.' Then,
after a little while - we went into the palace."
FORTY YEARS LATER
"Forty years have now passed since our remarkable dedication. Much that
has been foretold has already come to pass in addition to the erection of
The Christ of the Blue Ridge in our gardens. Our books and our Home Study
Course have gone out to all the world in many countries and hundreds of
students have gathered here every August to meet each other and hear what
we have to tell them about the unfoldment of inner vision and creative
expression for themselves, and a better human relations for all mankind."
SO WHAT ?
What, indeed, has been the impact of this place Swannanoa, a place
not likely to enter either the history books or the ranks of academe ? What
difference did the Russells make, with their grandolient message and their
far fetched story ?
Swannanoa is perhaps the most magnificent monumnet that I have
ever seen to the vanity of mankind. Better than the Pyramids, better than
the ruins of Rome, Swannanoa, either consciuosly or unconsciously, exudes
the stench of humanism. It both defines the nature of New Age thinking and
draws on the cultural legacy of Western civilization, as seen through
peculiarly myopic American glasses (There is a painting called "Man throughout
the Ages" in Swannanoa with George Washington in the foreground and the
Brooklyn Bridge in the background - the very center of Walter Russell's
cosmology). It is both crassly commercial and ambitious in spirit. Ben
Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (whose home and philosophy both antedate and
parallel Russell's) would, I think, be proud of Russell's accomplishments.
By virtue of geography, I would suspect that the Russells guessed
well where to position their "shrine" for maximum effect - and dollar intake.
The place is a fraud, but apparently a successful one.
How many baby boom kids marched up with their parents in the 50s
and 60s to get their lessons at the "University of Science and Philosophy" ?
Did Shirly Maclain get her first lessons in intuitive reasoning up on
Swannanoa Mountain ? Did her brother Warren Beatty get his first lessons
in idealistic thinking while traveling on summer vacations down Skyline
Drive ?
Clearly, Swannanoa deserves some of the notoriety it has lacked over
the past 40 years. My suspicion is that the truth is just as interesting as
the silly tale the Russells spun to explain their presence in the mountains
of Virginia.
Bill R.
"My opinions do not represent those of my employer or any
government agency."
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Bill R.