THE STATES: Oklahoma's Governor

Monday, Dec. 05, 1927

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Representative Kight and colleagues represented themselves as desiring merely to "protect" Governor Johnston from Mrs. Hammonds. But the Johnston regime has been attended by something besides the anti-Hammonds talk. Governor Johnston has been accused of being a Rosicrucian.* He has been suspected of trafficking in the supernal with Mrs. Hammonds' uncle, one James R. Armstrong, who is said to study the Yogi philosophy. Oklahomans embellish their stories about Governor Johnston with sarcastic references to gnomes, nymphs, sylphs, salamanders, crystal-gazing, mystic numbers. Newsgatherers relate how Governor Johnston once said he would sign a certain bill at a certain time "because the signs of the Zodiac will be favorable then." Was he joking? Or was he serious?

Governor Johnston has denied being a Rosicrucian or "taking stock" in spiritualism. He explained his election-time dealings with a woman spiritualist in Oklahoma City. "She is from my home town,"† he said. "She predicted my nomination and election. I just jollied with her. . . ."

Rosicrucian or spiritist or whatnot, Governor Johnston had to deal this week with the petition of Representative Kight and colleagues to investigate himself.

^{*The Society of Rosicrucians (Rosenkreuzer) dates from early
in the 13th Century, when it was more a class of isolated individuals
than an organized cult. The members were Europeans, mostly Germans.
During the Reformation they favored Lutheranism as opposed to Roman
Catholicism. The "society" was popularly supposed to take
its name from one Christian Rosenkreuz, who was supposed to have
discovered Oriental secrets on a pilgrimage. Writers, such as Poet
Pope in The Rape of the Lock and Poet Adamson in The Muses' Threnodie
used Rosicrucian paraphernalia—supernatural beings, alchemic formulae,
astrological signs—to embody moral teachings. The ritual of
Rosicrucianism today is guarded from uninitiates. There is in the U. S.
a "Rosicrucian Fellowship" whose president, a Mrs. Max
Heindel of Oceanside, Calif., lately declared Governor Johnston was no
Rosicrucian. If he were, and should reach the sixth or
"Adept" degree, he could build a new body for himself and
live many a century, according to the doctrine. Five Brothers of the
order live entirely without bodies, in the Temple, which is an
"inner" world.
†Perry, Okla.}