After highlighting Max Freedom Long’s genesis of Huna, we feel it would be remiss of us to neglect the other side: “Huna is not Hawaiian.”

Teaching universal oneness, positive thinking, and the law of attraction, Huna has inspired generations of seekers to use its techniques to achieve health, wealth, happiness, and peace of mind. Many people claim Huna works. As wonderful as it may be to them, Huna is not Hawaiian […] Hawaiian spirituality is a complex belief system based on many principles that are the opposite of Huna. Hawaiians may choose to share their beliefs with others, but have no obligation to educate Huna followers on what is Hawaiian.

With additional commentary of interest: “Kake – The Secrets of the Kahuna” and “Kaona, the Real Huna”

What are your thoughts? Is Huna a valid interpretation of Polynesian beliefs? Is it a legitimate unveiling of long missing secrets? Or is it simple cultural appropriation by “plastic shaman”, a misrepresentation of traditional Hawaiian spirituality by outsiders?

Image: Photograph by coconut wireless, “Kamehameha Statue Decorating” (June 12, 2009) ?

In the early days of the Borderland Sciences Research Associates, Meade Layne worked closely with a scholar of Polynesian mysticism (and BSRA co-founder) Max Freedom Long, dedicating extensive coverage to Long’s pamphlets and articles on Huna in the Round Robin. One of the first featured pamphlets, reproduced in an abridged format across four or five issues in 1946, was called “Huna – The Workable Psycho-Religious System of the Polynesians”, and it offers a simple introduction to the studies of Max Long and his colleagues, “explain[ing] in fairly general terms a part of the basic theory [of Huna] and its methods of application.” In the pamphlet (and in later books), Long claimed to have uncovered the ancient knowledge of the na kahuna, clues to which had “come largely through a study of the meanings of the roots of the Hawaiian words”, and proposed that by using the knowledge, he could now link the kahuna’s powers of fire-walking, healing by touch, and other sacred wisdoms to the psycho-spiritual model of the day — “Huna worked for na kahuna. It should work for us.”

• “Huna – The Workable Psycho-Religious System of the Polynesians” (1946)
• The Secret Science Behind Miracles (1948)
• Self-Suggestion and the New Huna Theory of Mesmerism and Hypnosis (1958)

(Anyone interested in a more reading on Huna and Max Freedom Long will definitely want to browse MaxFreedomLong.com. Alternately, if you’re just looking for old Polynesian beats and tiki jams, we’ll gladly recommend you explore Mia Huna Moku.)

Image: T.J. Takahashi (US Geological Survey HVO), “Glow of lava is reflected in steam plume at water’s edge east of Kupapa‘u Point” (Feb. 10, 1988)

notestotheexecutive links us into The Atom Smashing Power of the Mind:

“The next great achievement of science will be the understanding of the mental and spiritual abilities latent in man through which to develop and release these tremendous electrons, protons, and neutrons secreted in the trillions of cells in the physical organism […] When we awake to the fact that every breath we draw is releasing this all-potent electronic energy and it is shaping our lives for good or ill, according to our faith, then we shall begin to search for the law that will guide us aright in the use of power.”