PART TWO
Reminiscences of the City of Lost Angels
By Filis Frederick
It is July, 1956.
PART TWO
In 1964, I had made an odd contact with Gene Stanlee, "Mr. America," champion wrestler, health faddist and yoga teacher. He invited me to give a talk at a two-day New Age gathering at an old spiritualist camp in Escondido (it had once been an Indian campground) in the hills. The hot-pink flyer was amazing; it featured both Gene's muscles and Baba's lovely face! I was shy about talking, so I had brought a Baba film. Promptly the projector didn't work, and George McCuen stepped forth to help. That’s how he and Adele Wolkin met. She had joined me at Baba’s direction, after a nursing stint in India. Actually, to show how fragile Baba linkups can be: in 1962 I went, of course, to the East/West Gathering. I asked a Baba lover from the East Coast, Jim Bryan, who worked in Palm Springs, if he were going too. No, he was going to open a Baba bookstore instead, which he did, for about 3 weeks only — at the corner of Manchester and Sepulveda. It was in an old theatre building, with neon lights. George McCuen saw the lights, wondered what they were, and stumbled onto this little bookstore and Baba! Jim said he was the only one interested in Baba and gave me his name on my return. I wrote George, but never heard from him for months until one midnight he knocked on my door. He wouldn't give his name — just wanted to hear of Baba! Gene was his roommate. Both were into extreme diets. In fact, Gene was a "breatharian" and would fast "on air only" for 30 days. But he always seemed to love the refreshments at my Sunday meetings! When I saw the program for the Escondito gathering, I found Jean Adriel’s name on it; she was to play "cosmic music" on the autoharp. She walked out during the Baba film. Adele and I spoke to her (she had a book table for Soaring Sunward, her autobiography). She asked us to send her love to Meher Baba. I promptly wrote Him and He sent her a loving cable saying He would be with her "till the very end." At this time she had been separating herself from the Baba world and no one knew her whereabouts, so it was good fortune to find her. She didn't want to contact any of us: the exception was Evelyn Blackshaw, as they both loved to meditate and gossip on occult matters. PART ONE THROUGH PART FIVE THE WHOLE STORY