QUEST FOR MEANING
by Aubrey Cole Odhner|

 MUSEUM REPORT
(This report was given by Mrs. Odhner at the open meeting
of the Academy Corporation and Faculty on May 18, 1973.)

Bishop Pendleton, Members of the Board and Faculty, and other friends:

        The proper title of this address is "Museum Report," but the real title should probably be "Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread."

        As you know there was a sort of Golden Age in the beginning of the Academy Movement. All was not perfect peace by any means, but it was a time of high ideals, beautiful dreams, and a not too modest belief that a certain group of people were chosen by the Lord to help Him make all things new. This spirit of high idealism was not unique to. the founders of the Academy, but could be seen all over the world at that time. In the United States, 1876 marked the happy year of Centennial Celebrations. The post Civil War build up of business and industry created a lively climate of opportunity and prosperity. It was contagious. Baby sciences were just taking their first steps.

        In the Old World, lost cities were being uncovered with their fabulous treasures: food to stimulate anyone's imagination. It was in that very summer of '76 that the unprofessional German adventurer, Hein-rich Schliemann, uncovered one of the greatest archeological finds of all time, the gold of Mycenae. Only three years earlier this same amateur, scorned by professional ar-cheologists, had found King Priam's Troy.
 
        It was in this climate that the intellectual leaders of the Academy started working on a new educational system.  They enthusiastically reached out over the whole world for every best building blocks to arrange in a new order to make an external foundation worthy of, and therefore in correspondence with, the internal foundations of the new education.
 
        It has been said that nowhere in the history of the world since the Age of Pericles in the 5th century B.C. was such a statistically improbable group of men gathered together as that group whp which gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 to formulate the Declaration of Independence and later the constitution.  I propose that another such statistically improbable group of great men gathered together a century later to launch the Academy Movement. It was a rare group: One was a strong, brilliant, dynamic leader. One was canny, practical, made of common sense and kindness. Another was colorful, scholarly, and sometimes foolhardy. One was a statesman with dignity and vision. Another proposed the toast: "The New Church forever and everything else is bosh." It was a rare combination and their time can certainly be called the Golden Age of the Academy.

        It was only two years after the founding of the Academy that Bishop William Henry Benade set off on an extended trip to Europe. Judging from his letters, he seemed to be swooping around Europe like some sort of a powerful eagle, alighting in place after place to turn over every stone in case it might be useful in "our work." From Turin, Italy he wrote to Mr. John Pitcairn1 telling of his meeting with Professor 'Lan-zone, an enthusiastic collector of Arabic Manuscripts and Egyptian relics. Professor Lanzone is the author of the well known Dictionary of Mythology2 quoted extensively by Budge and Brusch. Bishop Benade arranged through Mr. Pitcairn for the purchase of 1,125 specimens, almost completely representing the Egyptian Pantheon. He also arranged at this time for the Academy to publish a very important Papyrus about the afterlife.3

        It was on this same trip that Bishop Benade collected a truly beautiful group of antique vases, some of them as early as the 8th century B.C. His search was for no mere cultural riches, but his was certainly the conviction that they could and would give their young people the right external ultimates to serve as a receptacle for truth at each stage of development, beginning with the red ball hanging over the baby's cradle. The future leaders of the New Church were going to have the very best education. In this spirit and for this use the first chapter of Museum history was written.

        In the two subsequent decades, before the final move to Bryn Athyn, there must have continued a lively interest in Correspondences, Ancient History and Mythology, judging from the spirited series of articles in the New Church Life by C. T. Odhner, Andrew Czerny, and others.

        One aged lady tells me of her thrill as a small girl in going up to the top floor of the church building in Philadelphia because in one room were all the Museum objects, and the other room contained all the Anatomy models. Note the extensive use of three dimensional visual aids. When I read these records and recall some of the later but still long ago projects like Bishop De Charms' Tabernacle Project and the great Pageants under Mr. Finkeldey in the Twenties and Thirties, I marvel that any critics can feel they are bringing news to the Academy about educational aids. But perhaps the critics are right that, in recent years, we haven't used concrete objects to further our own educational ends. Perhaps it has become less clear in our own minds how and to what end these things can best be used.

        Understandably some of our Clergy became wary of many so-called educational advances because so many projects seemed hopelessly intertwined with Deweyism. Here too, we were very much influenced by the world around us. Two great wars and the final takeover of Scientific materialism almost broke the tenuous thread by which the real understanding of the relationship of primes to ultimates was understood. Science moved in and said: "The things of this world are mine. You can't play with them any more. You stay in your imaginary theological world." We stepped back quickly. Some of us ridiculed the facts of science not just the theories. We were wrong. Science claimed the natural world and it was wrong.

        What has all this to do with a Museum report? Only this. Eighteen months ago I gave a talk to the General Faculty in which I expressed the feeling that it was time we got back to some real studies of Correspondences and the Ancient Church with some of the vigor our forefathers had put into it. Hopefully, this would be together with the strength and wisdom we have gained through caution and realism. The response that day and for weeks afterwards was thrilling. The response was not to anything I had said, but to one of the most beautiful truths of the New Church, the Doctrine of Correspondences. It is a doctrine that is at once recognized as new and, at the same time, a very old and a familiar part of each of us. It was heartwarming to know that our first love was still as breathtaking to General Church people as it had been in the beginning. Our people seemed to be ready to take a second and intelligent look at ancient mysteries, parapsychology and even the occult. A number of people brought books or quotes from articles showing recognition by scholars of such things as original Monotheism, indications that the early Egyptians did indeed know Jehovah, evidence of natural catastrophes all over the ancient world at the time the Ancient Church met its final end, and many other interesting topics. A Conference lady from Australia wrote expressing interest. Dr. Gutfeldt wrote, sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm.

        Many students came to borrow material. Several colleagues and other friends started talking about the need to organize our study. The feeling was that the field was so vast we couldn't afford to waste time repeating work that had already been done.   I could still hear Dean Glenn's response to my paper when he warned that he was going to start sounding like a broken record calling for distinctive New Church research. He challenged us with the question: Was this going to be just one more address calling us to do research that we could applaud and then file away and do nothing about?

        We accepted Dean Glenn's challenge, but wondered where to begin. Who would be our leader? The qualified people were all so busy.

        As ideas and articles figuratively whirled around in my head, I came to the profound conclusion that we must begin somewhere. A file--we must have a file of folders labeled Correspondences of trees, of animals, plants; the Ancient Word, the end of the Ancient Church. These should contain numbers from the Writings, sermons and New Church articles on the subjects, old church articles showing some evidence of these things. The file would be contributed to by anyone interested, and everyone could use it.

        I went to Mr. Fitzpatrick to see which school or department might pay for such a filing cabinet. He immediately cranked up the magic carpet and we were off. "The filing cabinet is no problem," said he, "but where do you intend to put it?" "In my office," said I. "You really ought to put it in the Library where everyone could use it." "Yes," I responded. "Maybe there's some little corner in one of the stacks where all the books on Ancient History, Archaeology, and Mythology could be gathered around it -- a real study center." Our magic carpet floated three feet up. "No, I have it," said he. "The Museum is really the logical place for it." That was it. The Museum: we found ourselves four stories up and recalling the Rev. Harold Cranch's inspiring talk to the Educational Council in which he envisioned a museum arranged according to the order of the Five Churches. He had pictured the visitor winding his way through from the beginning of man's spiritual history, represented by the earliest artifacts and backed with murals of pastoral scenes done by art classes, then through ancient cities, then through the Land of Canaan incorporating the Tabernacle model and so on through the Five Ages. Professor Charles Cole jumped on the magic carpet. Perhaps the Scientific Association would sponsor Mr. Cranch for a summer to set this up.

        The mention of the word Museum will invoke different images to everyone in this room. Some people here will recall the excitement of helping C. Th. Odhner unpack the Lanzone collection when it was placed in its present home when the Library building was just new; they say that he gave inspiring lectures as he unpacked. Some may recall what must have been a very exciting time when in 1912-13 Mr. Emil Stroh, the Librarian started ordering long lists of artifacts through the Rev. Andrew Czerny, then Pastor of the London-Colchester Society. Mr. Czerny was quite a student of Archeology and apparently had some contacts with people working in the British Museum. Quite a few interesting letters went back and forth between Mr. Czerny and Mr. Stroh and later Mr. Leonard Gyllenhaal, father of our present Treasurer. One amusing interchange took place when Mr. Stroh ordered a number of objects including the Rosetta Stone. Mr. Czerny wrote back very seriously and patiently: "I noticed amongst the objects you desire you have listed the Rosetta Stone. Well, you see, once an object is acquired by a museum it is no longer for sale." Mr. Stroh replied by return mail: "You must have been very amused at our ordering the Rosetta Stone. Our stenographer mistakenly omitted the words "copy of." Most of our black basalt casts of world famous objects were bought at this time. This is also the time when all the Greek busts which decorate the Library Reading Room were purchased.

        Other people in this room will no doubt recall what seems to be the period of the next big acquisition to the Museum. This was in 1928 when Dr. Brown arranged for the purchase of some fine Assyrian and Babylonian pieces including objects from the time of Abraham and from the area of Ur of the Chaldees. This was done through the cooperation and financial support of the Messrs. Raymond Theodore and Harold Pitcairn and Paul Synnestvedt.

        Those of you who were in the Elementary School in the Thirties will remember annual visits to the Museum while Dr. Brown was working over the African and Indian collections. Then when Dr. Brown died in 1938, there was a dead period until Miss Carswell joined the staff and opened the Museum for one afternoon a week and instituted some interesting lectures and programs. But then the Library became short-staffed, and she wasn't able to devote the time to it. The final disaster was the Benade Hall fire in 1948 which necessitated the use of the room for regular school. Everything was pushed back into corners, collections were separated, and the Museum became a storage attic. Heavy Medieval stone pieces were placed at random around the room, in-terspersed with World War I helmets, Zulu spears, Turkish pipes, irons from Pompeii, and paintings taken off of any newly renovated walls on the campus. Miss Carswell had tried valiantly to keep some interest alive through the subsequent, lean years, always graciously conducting tours by appointment and overseeing the constant flow of objects in and out to Glencairn or on loan to other Museums. But it was more than one lone woman could do when working full time in the Library.

        When I wrote to Mr. Pryke and told him of our wish to use the Museum as a center for Ancient Church Studies, and incidently to straighten it up, he responded warmly but cautiously. He recalled Mr. Cranch's talk fondly. He said he supposed what they had been waiting for was a Curator. I tried not to rush him. So I let about thirty seconds elapse and then said, most politely, that since we had waited for thirty-four years and no Curator had appeared, perhaps we could settle for a committee. He immediately appointed a wonderful committee: the Rev. Robert Junge, Misses Margaret Wilde and Mary Alice Carswell, Messrs. Carey Smith and Prescott Rogers, representing the Religion, History, and Art Departments and the Library, and including a wide variety of expertise, wisdom, experience and practical know how. Having named the members, you will realize that I was referring only to myself when I mentioned fools rushing in. This was not false modesty; this is a case of real inferiority. I've never had a course in Archeology or Museum Management or any management for that matter. I tried to learn the Greek alphabet while I was in Greece last March, but I gave up when they said the upside down L was a Gamma but pronounced Kh. Of course the Hebrew I had in the Second Grade has helped. But seriously, our ambitions were outrageous: physical renovation and management of a large collection; identifying, investigating the provenance, labeling, displaying; encouraging visits; planning special feature exhibits; lecture series on the correspondences of everything; slide shows on archeology, and travel, and history; card catalogues on all relevant books; files on all related doctrinal subjects, as well as business files containing photographs and data on all important objects; developing a philosophy and objectives to guide our steps; a news letter to the people all over the world who have shown an interest in these studies, together with a method of gathering and copying the work they have done. All this with a special effort to spark the littlest children with an affection for the subject and to provide a source center for older students.

        Outrageous as our dreams were, it has been incredible to see how far we have come, owing to the full scale cooperation and encouragement of everyone from the Administration of the Academy to the many individuals who see the dream and have volunteered help. There was the Bishop standing in the background smiling approval; on second thought maybe that smile meant that the fourth floor of the Library was the best place to keep witches out of mischief. Mr. Pryke spent many hours working with us on the project. It was exciting and fun. True, there was the time we nearly came to blows about how many keys to give out for the burglar alarm. The dispute lasted for three days but it was really all part of the fun, haggling over the age old problem of security vs. use.

        Not only have the administration, Faculty, and Board encouraged us, but we have had substantial encouragement from outside the walls.

        The Glencairn Foundation notified us that it would make available the proceeds from a Museum Fund contributed to the Foundation some years ago. With this gen erous gift we have been able to put the Museum in order and run it on a modest basis with a small surplus for possible fill ing out of our collection in areas we are missing. For example, the Indus Valley civil ization was unheard of back when others were building up the Museum. We have nothing Mycenaean or Minoan. Unlike Mr.  Stroh's secretary, we only expect copies in I most of these areas, not originals.

        Another special contribution came from the Cairncrest Foundation. This was a fund for books for the Library to be selected by the Ancient History and Mythology teachers.

        Mrs. Raymond Pitcairn, who together with her husband has always taken a keen  interest in the development of the Fine Arts in the Academy (many of our most important pieces in the Museum were gifts from them), arranged for us to have some top professional counsel. Mr. Thomas Miller, former Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of New York's Medieval Collection at the Cloisters, was coming over from time to time to help Mrs. Pitcairn with her collection at Glencairn. On several occasions we talked with him at Glencairn, and at other times he came over to the Museum. We are deeply indebted to him for his patience and his perceptive questions as he tried to help us clarify in our own minds what we were trying to do. I remember the day I took a deep breath and tried to tell him about the Science of Correspondences and the History of the Churches in one easy lesson. Then there was the embarrassing day when he arrived with Santi Nadal, microphone, tape recorder, and Miss Joyce Bellinger as stenographer, to do a tape tour which would tell us what we really had in the Museum. You see in those days, I for one, was not always sure which items were Babylonian or Assyrian, genuine articles or artful frauds. The perspiration was standing out on Mr. Miller's forehead as he sat down, saying, "It's no use. It's too confusing." I was ready to cry when I heard him say under his breath, "You don't need a committee, you need a dictator." He and his entourage left.

        Believe me that was the last day of democracy in Operation Museum, and when we stopped worrying about stepping on toes. After they left, some of us ladies started pushing tables and heavy stones around with the strength of the demented. In almost no time we had results. The Medieval things went to the Western corner, the Mesopotamian things to the East, the office in the North. That was the turning point. The next time Mr. Miller came, he beamed and praised what we had done. Needless to say, the tape tour was completed and from there on out we didn't have a moment of discouragement.

        Another time Mrs. Pitcairn arranged for Dr. Henry Fisher, the well-known Egyptologist to come over with Mr. Miller to give us some counsel. As these two tall, distinguished gentlemen strolled around the room, they seemed almost to whisper to each other. We tried to be polite and only eavesdrop, but the temptation was to be crass and ask, "Is that an important piece? How much is that worth?"

        We hope we picked up a little of their gentility. For example, I've noticed that we in the Museum business don't say, "That's a fraud." We very dispassionately say, "That is not genuine." It was such a pleasure just listening to Dr. Fisher pouring out his feelings about Egyptian art. You can imagine how we pricked up our ears one night as he was describing some hieroglyphic inscriptions: "Pharoah," he said, "could not have been talking about the battles in this world. There were no such battles at that time. His enemies that he refers to must have been enemies of an unseen world. These must have been battles with spirits." The words of the Psalmist referring to his "enemies" come back to us. Was Pharoah also talking in Correspondences?

        On the occasion that Mr. Miller returned to do his tape tour, we learned several things unexpectedly. He was sitting down to have a smoke and was paging through the Great Ages of Man Book Ancient Egypt. Suddenly he glanced up at our lion's head of Sekhmet on the high pedestal, and pointing to a picture of a temple in the book said, "That's where she came from." He went on browsing, and Joyce Bellinger and I were very quietly discussing C. T. Odh-ner's theory that Osiris represented the Lord as He would come in Human Form in this world. Again Mr. Miller broke in with, "That's exactly so.  I made quite a study of it, and am convinced that Osiris was some sort of Prototype or Preview of Jesus."

        That was the nature of the wise counsel and perspective from those men. Those days were followed by a bustling summer of organizing, painting, cleaning, putting in electrical outlets, setting up the file, interspersed with some quiet summer evenings of contemplation while a small group started a systematic study of the History of the Five Churches.

        We officially opened the doors of the Museum on a regular basis on the first day of school, September 12, 1972. We were most fortunate in obtaining the services of Mrs. Ridgway with her dedication, charm, and ingenuity to keep the Museum open for six daytime hours per week. Another stroke of fortune was the person of our scholarship help, Stephen Cole, whose perception of our aims and ravenous acquisition of knowledge has helped to keep us afloat many times when we were floundering. Mrs Henry Hallowell generously volunteered her expert help in covering pedestals with colorful burlap, thereby adding color and texture to the dominant stone and wood. We set up some short term goals. The first of these was to make the Museum presentable for the visiting committee of the Middle States Association. We felt that the Museum should be listed as an asset to the Academy, not a skeleton-filled attic to hide. Mr. Miller felt the same way and volunteered to make a special trip down from New York to explain the importance of the Collection to the visitors. I am afraid our plan almost backfired because the members of the Visiting Committee were so impressed that in their report they emphasized the shortcomings of the building that is housing this fine Collection!

        Our next objective was the Faculty Tea served in the Museum on October 18. This was a memorable and nostalgic occasion for the older members of the Faculty, and, we hope, was as inspirational to the younger members as it was to us. The warmth of the reception was a wonderful reward for any effort we might have put into it. This occasion was more completely written up by Dr. Robert Gladish in the November 1972 issue of the News from the Academy. Another such tea was held for the Faculty of the Elementary School to express the Committee's wishes to open the Museum up to whatever uses those teachers could envision for the children.

        We have been delighted to see that the Museum has been used at a steady pace all year. With the exception of a large upswing in October, the first full month of operation, there has been an even flow of people all year without any special promotional push. Twenty classes or groups have visited from theological school to second grade, and five hundred and sixty people have signed the book.

        Next year, with some of the managerial and operational responsibility taken by Miss Margaret Wilde, we hope to develop some interesting programs for the children along the lines of story telling of myths and legends right in the proper setting of Ancient Greece, Indian American, and Zu-luland, for instance. Then for the adults we dream of seminars on the Correspondences of Canaan, including perhaps the Tabernacle; Correspondences of musical instruments and the Psalms; or a series on trees and flowers of the Bible; a series on the Cathedral and the iconography of the Christian Church. Then there may be slide lectures on Archeology, Primitive Art, Travel in Ancient lands. The possibilities are without end.

        The Museum Committee has put in many hours working out guidelines: objectives and a philosophy. This has not been finalized nor is it our place to formulate a far-reaching policy of this department of the Academy. But to serve as a guide for our own use, we felt it necessary to clarify our own ends while we are working on the means.

        In general, we felt we should work from the theme of how man has seen and responded to his vision of the Lord in each succeeding age. In concrete terms this would appear in the trinity of love, wisdom and use, or, even more specifically, art, history, and function. We believe the concept of God and His relation to man throughout the ages can unify all our efforts. Each object in the Museum, then, should be viewed as to its ultimation of affection, its reflection of thought, and its confirmation of use. Because of the profound truth that power lies in ultimates, this should make ours a distinctively New Church and therefore living Museum.

        Except the Academy Museum have as its theme and core the concept of use on all levels, it will be nothing but dry bones and dusty relics. It must be useful to the littlest children where the signs say, "Please touch, please learn, please become inspired." And it must be useful to the most learned adult who wants to put aesthetic experiences to sometimes indefinable and intangible but nevertheless real use.

         We should be looking toward a scholarly relationship with other Museums and other students of Metaphysics, both for the mediate end of mutual knowledge and stimulation, and, in the last analysis, for the sake of the spread of the New Church. All of the Doctrines of the New Church have universal appeal, but I do not know of any Doctrine so immediately interesting to scholars as the Doctrines of Correspondences and Degrees. It is because the Science of Correspondences is the science of relationships that it has this universal appeal. It is for this reason, as well as that this doctrine is a unique treasure of this institution of higher learning that a real research program into that study might be the way of taking our first deliberate steps toward building what our Founders dreamed of -a New Church University.

        Let me close this report with two samples of what the learned of the world are saying about what we call "correspondences." These are the glimpses which restore to flagging spirits the conviction that the world is more than ready and eager to hear the Doctrines of the New Church. We become convinced that this work is worth doing.

        First is a quotation from Sefior Juan E. Cirlot, the philosophical leader of a Spanish School of art, now centered in Barcelona. He actually uses the term "law of correspondences":

". . . we can see clearly formulated the distinction between the historical and the symbolic. We can also see the ever present possibility of a bridge linking both forms of reality in a cosmic synthesis. ... In other words the world today lacks its own image, because this image can be formulated only by means of a universal synthesis of knowledge-a synthesis which since the Renaissance has daily become more difficult. . . . There is indeed over-eager acceptance of the belief that to allow a symbolic meaning must imply the rejection of the literal or historical meaning; such a view shows an ignorance of the law of correspondences. This law is the foundation of all symbolism and by virtue of it everything proceeding essentially from a metaphysical principle, which is the source of its reality, translates and expresses this principle in its own way and according to its own level of existence, so that all things are related and joined together in total, universal harmony which is, in its many guises, a reflection, as it were, of its own fundamental unity -- one result of this is the range of meaning contained. in every symbol: any one thing may, indeed, be regarded as an illustration, not only of metaphysical principles, but also of higher levels of reality."1

        Let me conclude with a quotation from the introduction to a recent popular book, Hamlet's Mill. In this book the author masterfully explores the panorama of interconnections of themes in ancient literature, and pursue his thesis that there was, in prehistoric times, a universal science of connections:

        "As we follow the clues -- stars, colors, plants, forms, verse, music, structure, -- a huge framework of connections is revealed at many levels. One is inside an echoing manifold where everything responds and everything has a place and a time assigned to it. This is a true edifice, something like a mathematical matrix, a World-Image that fits the many levels and all of it kept in order by strict measure.

        There might come once more some kind of 'Renaissance' out of the hopelessly condemned and trampled past, when certain ideas come to life again, and we should not deprive our grandchildren of a last chance at the heritage of the highest and farthest off times."2

Aubrey C. Odhner
Chairman, Museum Committee


1 Letter from Bishop Benade to Mr. John Pitcairn, Turin, October 26, 1878.
' Dizionario di Mitologia Egizea (Torino: Lito-Tratilli Doyen, 1881-1883), five volumes. "Le Domicile des Esprits," Paris 1879.