By Ken B. (based, in
part, on research by Dick B.)
© 2015 Anonymous. All
rights reserved
1. Dave Hunt. In his article titled “God
as You Conceive Him/Her/It,” Hunt claims:
. . . A.A. with its
higher-power-as-you-understand-it opens the door to occultism. The official
A.A. biography of Wilson reveals that for years after A.A's founding, regular
seances were still being held in the Wilsons' home, and other occult activities
were being pursued:
. . .
[A]s he started to write [the
A.A. manual], he asked for guidance....The words began tumbling out with
astonishing speed....(23)[1],[2],[3]
2. Martin and Deidre Bobgan. In their
article titled “AA: Christian or Occult Roots?”, the Bobgan’s claim:
. . . Wilson combined the Oxford
Group practice of guidance with spiritism or channeling, and this appears to be
the process he used when writing the Twelve Steps:
As he started to write, he asked
for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing
speed.10[4]
3. John Lanagan. In his article titled “Seances,
Spirits, and 12 Steps,” Lanagan claims:
According to PASS IT ON, Bill
Wilson considered that “spiritistic matters were no mere parlor game. . . . [T]here
are references to séances and other psychic events in the letters Bill wrote to
[wife] Lois during that first Akron summer with the Smiths, in
1935.”[12]
. . .
. . . [H]ere is how PASS IT ON
describes Bill Wilson and the arrival of the 12 Steps. “As he started to write,
he asked for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with
astonishing speed. He completed the first draft in about half an hour, then
kept on writing until he felt he should stop and review what he had
written.”[13]
According to PASS IT
ON, Wilson asked for “guidance” as he began writing. But guidance
from what? The unsaved Wilson was eager to receive messages and
leadings from the spirit world.
. . .
T.A. McMahon, Editor of the Berean
Call, writes, “A.A.’s official biography indicates Bill Wilson received the
details of the 12 Steps through spirit dictation. Does anyone see a simple,
idolatrous problem here?”[14][5]
So is it an “open-and-shut case,” as Lanagan’s source T.A.
McMahon implies, that “Bill Wilson received the details of the 12 Steps through
spirit dictation”? To answer that question, let’s look at some of “the rest of
the story” of A.A. history that Hunt, the Bobgan’s, and Lanagan—all of whom
mention Dick B.—either don’t present, misrepresent, or downplay.
To begin to get at “the rest of the story” about how Bill
wrote and/or “got” the Twelve Steps, let’s include the paragraph in the A.A.
General Service Conference-approved book ‘PASS
IT ON’ that appears just before the brief portion of text Lanagan quotes.
And let’s add the full paragraph from which Lanagan took his quote:
Bill wrote the Twelve Steps, he
said, while lying in bed at 182 Clinton Street with pencil in hand and a pad of
yellow scratch paper on his knee. He wrote them in bed, said Lois, not because
he was really sick, but he wasn't felling well, and if he could lie down, he
did: “He got into bed, that being the best place to think.”
As he started to write, he asked
for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing
speed. He completed the first draft in about half an hour, then kept on writing
until he felt he should stop and review what he had written. Numbering the new
steps, he found that they added up to twelve—a symbolic number; he thought of
the Twelve Apostles, and soon became convinced that the Society should have
twelve steps.[6]
Now let’s talk about how to do historical research. As
Lanagan’s source T.A. McMahon notes, the book ‘PASS IT ON’ is a biography.[7]
Note the words “he asked for guidance” in the quotes above. Such third person
descriptive language is usually the mark of a biography rather than an
autobiography. And the biography ‘PASS IT
ON’ was not published until 1984, about 15 years after Bill W. had died on
January 24, 1971.[8] Bill
W. discussed in his own words how he wrote or “got” the Twelve Steps in at
least three places, all written more than 25 years before ‘PASS IT ON’ was written. So
we will start with autobiographical material.
Here is Bill’s description of how he wrote the Twelve Steps
in an article he penned for the July 1953 issue of the A.A. Grapevine titled “A Fragment of History: Origin of the Twelve
Steps”:
I well remember the evening on
which the Twelve Steps were written. I was lying in bed quite dejected and
suffering from one of my imaginary ulcer attacks. Four chapters of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, had been roughed
out and read in meetings at Akron and New York. . . .
Having arrived at Chapter Five, it
seemed high time to state what our program really was. I remember running over
in my mind the world-of-mouth phrases then in current use. Jotting these down,
they added up to the six named above. . . .
At length I began to write on a
cheap yellow tablet. I split the word-of-mouth program up into smaller pieces,
meanwhile enlarging its scope considerably. Uninspired as I felt, I was
surprised that in a short time, perhaps half an hour, I had set down certain
principles which, on being counted, turned out to be twelve in number. And for
some unaccountable reason, I had moved the idea of God into the Second Step,
right up front. Besides, I had named God very liberally throughout the other
Steps. In one of the Steps, I had even suggested that the newcomer get down on
his knees.[9]
Notice the absence of any reference to the word, or concept
of, “guidance” in this account Bill wrote—more than 30 years before ‘PASS IT ON’ appeared—of the night he penned
the Twelve Steps. And yet Hunt, the Bobgan’s, and Lanagan all hang their “Bill
Wilson received the details of the 12 Steps through spirit dictation” argument
on the use of the word “guidance” in the biography ‘PASS IT ON.’ Notice also Bill’s comment in his “A Fragment of
History” article in the A.A. Grapevine
quoted immediately above—absent from the snippets Hunt, the Bobgan’s, and
Lanagan excerpted from the ‘PASS IT ON’ biography—in
which he states:
. . . I had moved the idea of God
into the Second Step, right up front. Besides, I had named God very liberally
throughout the other Steps. In one of the Steps, I had even suggested that the
newcomer get down on his knees.[10]
Many readers may not know the following four facts about the
wording of the Twelve Steps as Bill W. originally wrote them around early
December 1938[11]:
1. The
phrase “a Power greater than ourselves,” as seen today in Step Two in Alcoholics Anonymous,[12] was not present. Bill W. stated that he
had consistently used the word "God" in the original draft of the 12 Steps.[13]
2. The
phrase “as we understood Him,” following
and modifying the word “God, as seen today in Step Three in Alcoholics Anonymous, was not present.[14]
Bill W. stated that he had consistently used the word "God" in the original draft of the 12 Steps.[15]
3. The
phrase “as we understood Him,”
following and modifying the word “God,” as seen today in Step Eleven in Alcoholics Anonymous, was not present.[16]
Bill W. stated that he had consistently used the word "God" in the original draft of the 12 Steps.[17]
4. According
to ‘PASS IT ON,’ Step Seven—as Bill
W. originally wrote it—probably read: “Humbly on our knees asked Him to remove
these shortcomings—holding nothing back.”[18]
The facts set forth in items 1-3 immediately above—at least
with respect to the Twelve Steps themselves—do not support Hunt’s claim quoted
earlier about: “A.A. with its higher-power-as-you-understand-it opens the door to
occultism.” Bill W., according to his own words, had in “the original draft” of
the Twelve Steps “consistently used the word ‘God,’ . . .”[19]
As I noted in the footnotes in this article, ‘PASS IT ON’ states concerning the earliest version(s) of the
Twelve Steps:
“The very first draft of the Twelve
Steps, as Bill wrote them that night, has been lost. This is an approximate
reconstruction of the way he first set them down: . . .
‘2. Came to believe that God could
restore us to sanity.’
‘3. Made a decision to turn our
wills and our lives over to the care and direction of God.’
. . .
‘11. Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His
will for us and the power to carry that out.’” [See 'PASS IT ON,' 198.]
Now let’s look at more autobiographical material from Bill
W. 30 years before ‘PASS IT ON’ was
published, Bill gave a talk at the Texas State A.A. Convention in June 1954.
Here is what he said in his speech about the night he wrote the Twelve Steps:
So then came that night when we
were up around about Chapter 5. As you know, I'd gone on about myself, which
was natural after all. And then the little introductory chapter and we dealt
with the agnostic and we described alcoholism, but boy, we finally got up to
the point where we really had to say what the book was all about and how this
deal works. As I told you, this was a six-step program then. On this particular
evening, I was lying in bed on Clinton Street wondering what the deuce this
next chapter would be about. The idea came to me, well, we need a definite
statement of concrete principles that these drunks can't wiggle out of. Can't
be any wiggling out of this deal at all. And this six-step program had two big
gaps in-between they'll wiggle out of. Moreover, if this book goes out to
distant readers, they have got to have an absolutely explicit program by which
to go. This was while I was thinking these thoughts, while my imaginary ulcer
was paining me and while I was mad as hell at these drunks because the money
was coming in too slow. Some had the stock and weren't paying up, A couple of
guys came in and they gave me a big argument and we yelled and shouted and I
finally went down and laid on the bed with my ulcer and I said, “Poor me.”
There was a pad of paper by the bed
and I reached for that and said, “You've got to break this program up into
small pieces so they can't wiggle out.” So I started writing, trying to bust it
up into little pieces. And when I got the pieces set down on that piece of
yellow paper, I put numbers on them and was rather agreeably surprised when it
came out to 12. I said, “That's a good significant figure in Christianity and
mystic lore.” Then I noticed that instead of leaving the God idea to last, I'd
got it up front, but I didn't pay much attention to that; it looked pretty
good. Well, the next meeting comes along. . . .[20]
Notice again the absence in Bill’s speech of any reference
to the word, or concept of, “guidance.” So this talk offers no support for the
arguments made by Hunt, the Bobgan’s, and Lanagan; which again were:
·
That “other occult activities [i.e., other than
seances] were being pursued” and were involved in Bill’s writing of the Twelve
Steps. [Hunt’s claim];
·
That Bill’s (claimed) combination of “the Oxford
Group practice of guidance with spiritism or channeling . . . [appeared] to be
the process he used when writing the Twelve Steps.” [The Bobgan’s claim]; and
·
That Bill W. “. . . was eager to receive
messages and leadings from the spirit world.” And that he had “‘. . . received
the details of the 12 Steps through spirit dictation.’” [Lanagan’s claim]
The A.A. General Service Conference-approved book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age presents
more autobiographical material by Bill W. concerning how he wrote the Twelve
Steps. Bill presented the following description of the background of, and his
process of writing, the Twelve Steps in a talk he gave at A.A.’s twentieth
anniversary celebration in St. Louis in 1955, nearly 30 years before ‘PASS IT ON’ was published in 1984. And
here is what the author of the Twelve Steps himself had to say:
So the job [of writing the drafts
of the chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous]
went until we reached the famous Chapter 5.[21]
. . .
. . . The hassling over the four
chapters already finished had really been terrific. I was exhausted. On many a
day I felt like throwing the book out the window.
I was in this
anything-but-spiritual mood on the night when the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous were written. I was sore and tired clear through. I lay in bed at 182
Clinton Street with pencil in hand and with a tablet of scratch paper on my
knee. I could not get my mind on the job, much less put my heart in it. But
here was one of those things that had to be done. Slowly my mind came into some
kind of focus.
. . .
This particular evening, . . . it
seemed to me that the program was still not definite enough. It might be a long
time before readers of the book in distant places and lands could be personally
contacted. Therefore our literature would have to be as clear and comprehensive
as possible. Our steps would have to be more explicit. There must not be a
single loophole through which the rationalizing alcoholic could wiggle out.
Maybe our six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces. Thus we
could better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the same time we
might be able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of our whole
presentation. So far as I can remember this was all I had in mind when the
writing began.
Finally I started to write. I set
out to draft more than six steps; how many more I did not know. I relaxed and
asked for guidance. With a speed that was astonishing, considering my jangling
emotions, I completed the first draft. It took perhaps half an hour. The words
kept right on coming. When I reached a stopping point, I numbered the new
steps. They added up to twelve. Somehow this number seemed significant. Without
any special rhyme or reason I connected them with the twelve apostles. Feeling
greatly relieved now, I commenced to reread the draft. At this moment a couple
of late callers arrived. One of them was my boon companion of those days,
Howard A. With him was a newcomer, dry barely three months. I was greatly
pleased with what I had written, and I read them the new version of the program,
now the “Twelve Steps.”[22]
So here, in a talk Bill W. gave at A.A.’s St. Louis convention in 1955 (for which a transcript was provided in the A.A. General Service Conference-approved book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age published in 1957), Bill used the word “guidance.” He said, “I relaxed and asked for guidance.” So does Bill W.’s own use of the word “guidance” in his talk in St. Louis in 1955 prove the claims made by Hunt, the Bobgan’s, and Lanagan?
So far, we have seen that neither the three autobiographical reports by Bill W. himself as to how he wrote the Twelve Steps--all of which predated the publishing of 'PASS IT ON' in 1984 by about 30 years, nor the biographical material in 'PASS IT ON,' state or clearly imply that Bill ". . . received the details of the 12 Steps through spirit dictation" (as Lanagan claimed using the words of T. A. McMahon). Consequently, the most Lanagan can come up with in an effort to prove his claim is to pose a question: “. . . [G]uidance from what?”[23]
The word “guidance” is used only once on pages 1-164 (i.e.,
in chapters 1-11) of the current, fourth edition of “the basic text for” the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous,
the Big Book.[24] Here
is that occurrence: “To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right
ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the
strength to do the right thing.”[25]
So the Big Book speaks of the need to “earnestly pray . . . for guidance . . .”
Again, no mention here of seeking or receiving information from an evil spirit.
If you would like to see what “guidance” really was about
before early December 1938 when Bill W. wrote the Twelve Steps, I suggest you
check out the following resources:
·
Dick B., “A.A.'s Meditation Roots: Article
13: A Look at ‘Meditation’ in Early
A.A.: http://www.dickb.com/articles/meditation_roots_dsb.shtml
(for background relating to the word “guidance.”)
·
Dick B., The
Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: http://www.dickb.com/TheOxfordGroup&AlcoholicsAnonymous.shtml;
·
Dick B., Good
Morning!: Quiet Time, Morning Watch, Meditation, and Early A.A. : http://www.dickb.com/goodmorn.shtml.
Gloria
Deo
[2] “The
official A.A. biography of Wilson” to which Hunt refers here is ‘PASS IT ON’: The Story of Bill Wilson and
How the A.A. Message Reached the World (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics
Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1984), as can be seen in his footnotes 17, and
22-24. However, he wrongly attributes the A.A. General Service
Conference-approved book to Ernest Kurtz, as can be seen clearly in his
footnote 17: “Kurtz, Pass It On; The Story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message
reached the world (Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, Inc., 1984), 102.” His
footnote 22 states: “Kurtz, 276-79,” even though the quote in the text of the
article and the page numbers in the footnote refer to the A.A. book ‘PASS IT ON.” And footnotes 23 and 24,
both say “Ibid. . . .” referring back to footnote 22 which listed Kurtz as the
author of the A.A. book ‘PASS IT ON.’ (“Ibid.” is Latin. It is a shortened form of “ibidem” and means
“in the same place.” It is a term “used to provide an endnote
or footnote citation or reference for a source that was cited in the preceding
endnote or footnote.” See the entry for “ibid.”
in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibid.;
accessed 9/13/2015.)
Frequent
sloppiness in citing sources is common with Hunt. Another example: In footnote 28, Hunt
mentions Dick B.’s title Anne Smith’s
Spiritual Workbook—an early edition of what is today known as Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939—but
fails to put a comma after “Dick B.”; fails to underline or put in italics the
book’s title; and fails to provide the place of publication for the book—all of
which are standard requirements in providing publication data for a book, as
can be seen, for example, in the Chicago
Manual of Style.
[3]
Hunt’s insertion in brackets of the words “the A.A. manual” is misleading. A
look at pages 196-99, the section of ‘PASS
IT ON’ from which Hunt’s quote is taken, make clear that ‘PASS IT ON’ is discussing specifically
in that section, not the whole “A.A. manual,” but rather Bill’s writing of the
actual Twelve Steps, which appear early in chapter five of Alcoholics Anonymous.
[4]
The excerpt I have quoted here is found in a section of the article titled
“Occult Guidance.” See [Martin and Deidre Bobgan], “AA: Christian or Occult
Roots?” on the “PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries” website belonging to Martin
and Deidre Bobgan: http://mcaf.ee/gyp3ck;
accessed 9/13/2015.
[5]
John Lanagan, “Seances, Spirits, and 12 Steps”: http://mcaf.ee/i3cqjy;
accessed 9/13/2015. Lanagan’s footnote
12 reads: “PASS IT ON, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., pg. 275.” His
footnote 13 reads: “PASS IT ON, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., pg.
198.” And his footnote 14 reads: “T.A. McMahon, The Berean Call Newsletter,
March 1, 2002.”
[6] ‘PASS IT ON,’ 197-98.
[7]
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary
gives the following definition for the word biography:
“the story of a real person's life written by someone other than that person.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biography;
accessed 9/13/2015.
[9]
Bill W., “A Fragment of History: Origin of the Twelve Steps,” in the A.A. Grapevine, July 1953, 200-01.
[10] Bill
W., “A Fragment of History,” 201.
[11] A Narrative Timeline of AA History,
accumulated and ed. by Arthur S., Version 2014-03-10, page 30 of 134: http://hindsfoot.org/aatimeline.pdf:
accessed 9/16/2015.
[12]
In the current (2001) edition of Alcoholics
Anonymous (affectionately known within A.A. as “the Big Book”), Step Two
reads: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.” See: Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th
ed. (New York City: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), 59.
[13]
See Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (New
York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957, 1985), 166. On that
page, Bill W. states: “All this time I had refused to budge on these steps. I
would not change a word of the original draft, in which, you will remember, I
had consistently used the word ‘God,’ and in one place the expression ‘on our
knees’ was used.” ‘PASS IT ON,’ states:
“The very first draft of the Twelve Steps, as Bill wrote them that night has
been lost. This is an approximate reconstruction of the way he first set them
down: . . . ‘2. Came to believe that God could restore us to sanity.’” ‘PASS IT ON,’ 198.
[14] In
the current (2001) edition of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Step Three reads: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understood
Him.” See: Alcoholics Anonymous,
4th ed., 59.
[15] See
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age,
166. On that page, Bill W. states: “All this time I had refused to budge on
these steps. I would not change a word of the original draft, in which, you
will remember, I had consistently used the word ‘God,’ and in one place the
expression ‘on our knees’ was used.” ‘PASS
IT ON,’ states: “The very first draft of the Twelve Steps, as Bill wrote
them that night, has been lost. This is an approximate reconstruction of the
way he first set them down: . . . ‘3. Made a decision to turn our wills and our
lives over to the care and direction of God.’” ‘PASS IT ON,’ 198.
[16] In
the current (2001) edition of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Step Eleven reads: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood
Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” See: Alcoholics Anonymous,
4th ed., 59.
[17] See
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age,
166. On that page, Bill W. states: “All this time I had refused to budge on
these steps. I would not change a word of the original draft, in which, you
will remember, I had consistently used the word ‘God,’ and in one place the
expression ‘on our knees’ was used.” ‘PASS
IT ON,’ states: “The very first draft of the Twelve Steps, as Bill wrote
them that night, has been lost. This is an approximate reconstruction of the
way he first set them down: . . . ‘11. Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and
the power to carry that out.’” ‘PASS IT
ON,’ 198.
By the time what Bill called
variously “a prepublication copy of the text and some of the stories,”
“mimeograph copies of the book,” “[e]ach mimeograph,” “the mimeograph issue
‘Alcoholics Anonymous,” and “mimeographs”—better known more recently as “the
Multilith Edition” and “the Original Manuscript”—had been produced and
circulated, the phrase “a Power greater than ourselves” had already replaced
the word “God” in Step Two, and the modifying phrase “as we understood Him” had already been added following the word
“God” in Step Three. That was not, however, the case with Step Eleven. In the
so-called “Original Manuscript,” Step Eleven read: “Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His
will for us and the power to carry that out.” See: “Chapter Five: HOW IT WORKS”
in The Original Manuscript of ALCOHOLICS
ANONYMOUS: http://www.silkworth.net/originalmanuscript/chapter5.html;
accessed 9/16/2015. The addition of the modifying phrase “as we understood Him” was not made until the very last moments
before the publication of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous in April 1939, when what Bill W. called “the
printer’s copy of the book” was produced from “one of the mimeographs, and in
Henry’s [Bill W.’s business partner and first “successful” New York “sponsee,”
Henry P.] clear handwriting all the corrections were transferred to it.” See Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 169.
The older wording of Step Eleven—with no modifying phrase “as we understood Him” following the word “God”—may be seen in The Book That Started It All: The Original
Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, Minn.: Hazelden,
2010), ____.
[18] PASS IT ON,’ 198.
[19] Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 166.
[20] “Bill
W. Speech, Texas State Convention, June 1954,” excerpted in the April 2014
issue of [the A.A.] Grapevine Magazine: http://www.aagrapevine.org/feature/35758;
accessed 9/16/2015.
[21]
Chapter Five is titled “How It Works.” It is the chapter in which the Twelve
Steps are listed. They are found on pages 59-60 of the current (fourth, 2001)
edition of Alcoholics Anonymous.
[22] I
have retained enough of the context of Bill W.’s eyewitness report on how he
wrote the Twelve Steps to allow the reader to understand properly what Bill was
saying about the “mechanics” of how he wrote them. For the full text of what
Bill said, found on pages 159-62 of the A.A. General Service
Conference-approved book Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age, see: Bill [W.,] “How the Twelve Steps Were Born,”
September 1962 (The AA Grapevine): http://silkworth.net/pdfBillW/How-The-Twelve-Steps-Were-Born-Sep-1962.pdf;
accessed 9/10/2015.
[24]
“. . . [T]his book [Alcoholics Anonymous]
has become the basic text for our Society . . .” See Preface in Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th
ed., xi.
[25] Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th
ed., 70.