Prosperos, The.
News Letter.
1959?--1965?
Monthly, irregular
El Monte, then Newport Beach, Hermosa Beach, etc., CA.
Language: English.
Succeeded by: Mentation (1963)
1/1, 1959-1965 (?)
32 typewritten pages (varies).

This was a somewhat irregularly issued news letter of The Prosperos, a self-help and self-development group said to have been started by Thane Walker (c.1890-1989) in the bar of the Harvard Club in New York City in 1956 after listening to lectures by Lewis Mumford. It was named after Prospero, the tyrannical magician in The Tempest, and in its formal announcements it claimed to be "devoted to research, study and education in the new frontiers of the heart, the mind and the spirit. It brings the spiritual heritage of the ages into a practical working hypothesis with the science of the Atomic-Space Age." Its goal was to bring the spiritual into daily, practical life by giving "man a new identity (actually show him how to recognize his only true identity) and to develop and channel this concept beyond his presently cognized equipment and resources." It merged in its "transformative spiritual education" modern psychology, astrology and sexual ideas, primarily homosexuality. Underneath the elevated language, Walker and his almost unknown co-founder, Phez Kahlil, were teaching students a variant of G.I. Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way" applied philosophy of movement and self-discovery as the path to awakening and personal transformation, "Releasing the Hidden Splendor." The details of Thane's history and background (the bar at the Harvard Club, his imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp for writing an article exposing Hitler's occultism, and his being a direct student of Gurdjieff's, for example) are unattested and seem unlikely -- a fact that would not be disconcerting to students familiar with the teaching techniques of Gurdjieff. The group is still active today. The journal, and its various companions like Mentation (for students of the High Watch, q.v.), Tangents, Trends, etc., were filled with the casual thoughts of Thane and organizational details and scheduling for the group.