THE ORANGE PAPERS
One Man's Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous
An Online Book
by "Orange"
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,
which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man
in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to
investigation."
HERBERT SPENCER
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The above famous misquote1
was put in the Big Book by William G. Wilson,
in Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience",
in the back of the second and third editions.
Bill Wilson was trying to imply that we should not dismiss his
"spiritual cure for alcoholism" without first trying it.
That is curious, because in 1864 Herbert Spencer was actually arguing against
fundamentalist religious beliefs and dogmatic blind faith,
and in favor of Charles Darwin's new theory of evolution.
Nevertheless, that quote sounds like good advice.
So let's really, honestly, investigate Alcoholics Anonymous,
without rejecting criticism of A.A. before investigation of
all of the facts...
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CONTENTS:
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An Alternate View On Recovery:
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- The Cult Test, and Alcoholics Anonymous as a Cult
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The Religious Roots of A.A. and the Twelve Steps
- Introduction and Table of Contents
- Bill Wilson Writes The Steps
- Frank Buchman
- The Religious Tenets and Doctrines of Buchmanism
- The Cult Characteristics of the Oxford Groups
- The "First Century Christian Fellowship" Campus Crusade in the 1920s
- Hobnobbing With The Nabobs
- My God How The Money Rolls In
- Partying with the Nazi Party
- The Oxford Group Morphs Into MRA
- The Years Before the War: Appeasing Hitler, and Apologizing for Hitler
- Invasion of Poland, WWII starts in Europe
- A Slogan a Day Keeps The Thinking Away
- Pearl Harbor, The USA Is In It Now; You (Not Me) Can Defend America
- Dodging the Draft
- Sam Shoemaker Quits
- What Is Fascism? How Fascist Was Frank Buchman?
- The War Years: On the Road Again
- Henry Ford and Anti-Semitism
- After The War, Trouble With The Catholics
- Frank Buchman, Anti-Communist, Union-Buster, Spiritual Strike-Breaker
- Homophobia and Gay-Bashing
- Partying in a Fairy-Tale Castle
- Death of a Salesman, Peter Howard Takes Over
- The Last Hurrah: Up With People
- Obscurity
- Bill Wilson Gets Religion (And Drugs) And Sees God
- Bill and Dr. Bob start A.A.
- William Birney's interview of Frank Buchman for the New York World Telegraph
- Reinhold Niebuhr's "Hitler and
Buchman" article
- Rev. Irongate's Sermon On Buchmanism
- Review of Garth Lean's book, On The Tail of a Comet
- Footnotes
- Bibliography
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Letters, We Get Lots of Mail...
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Auxillary and Supporting Documents
- Definitions of Some Commonly-Used A.A. Words
- The Stock Prospectus for the 100 Men Corporation
- Works Publishing Financial Statement, June 1940.
- Bill's 1941 Memo (PDF) about bringing more money into the A.A. headquarters.
- Cleveland, 1944: Clarence Snyder's objections
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Bill Wilson's Last Will and Testament, leaving ten percent of his estate
to his favorite mistress, Helen Wynn, and the other ninety percent
to his wife Lois.
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Lois Wilson's Last Will and Testament, where the royalty money
for all of Bill's books leaves the A.A. fellowship forever.
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Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 1.
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Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 2.
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Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 3.
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Bill Wilson's royalty agreement of 1963 with A.A.W.S., Inc.
- Henrietta Seiberling's letter
- A Cult Called AA by Paul Roasberry
- S.O.S. Europe's Description of a Cult
- Berkeley Revive's cult description
- Totalism in Today's Cults by Jan Groenvald
- H. A. Ironside: The Oxford Group Movement: Is It Scriptural?
- Dr. Arthur H. Cain: First Harper's and Saturday Evening Post articles critical of A.A.
- Bill Wilson's speech at Dr. Bob's Memorial Service
- Bill Wilson's testimony before the U.S. Senate, 1969.
- Tiebout: The Act of Surrender
in the Therapeutic Process
- Tiebout: Direct Treatment of a Symptom
- Tiebout: The Ego Factors
in Surrender in Alcoholism
- Tiebout: Surrender Versus
Compliance In Therapy with Special Reference to Alcoholism
- Judge John T.: The "We Are The Chosen
People" Idolatry
- Robert Warner's page, "How A.A. Steals Your Soul"
- Paul Diener on
A.A., the Oxford Group and the
British Fascists at Oxford in the 1930s.
- Paul Diener's
letters to the Addict-L mailing list.
- A pamphlet by A.A. members, criticizing the leadership
- More Humor: Do You Think Too Much?
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Latest Updates:
(in reverse order, most recent first)
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Now you can see what was
Censored by Yahoo!
This web site, all of these pages
and all of this information was suddenly totally erased
without prior warning or notice, or explanation,
on Sunday, April 20, 2003, by Geocities.Yahoo.Com,
whose friendly staff didn't seem to like something that I said.
They wouldn't say what it was that they were censoring.
Read the story here.
Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!
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The censors and the book-burners are at it again.
Now my email is
Blocked by AOL!
Wednesday morning, December 28, 2005, I answered an email
from somebody on AOL, and it immediately bounced back to me with a
big hairy error message.
I investigated and found that AOL had blocked my email
account and IP number because somebody complained about my
web site.
Read the story here.
And, if you are on AOL, you can help out by sending a letter
of protest to the postmaster@aol.com
It's fixed! AOL silently removed the blocks, without a word of explanation
or apology.
Thanks to all of the people who wrote in support
of this web site.
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Footnotes:
1)
Michael has done a lot of research on that quote, and he found that it actually came
from William Paley, not Herbert Spencer. See Michael's paper here:
http://www.geocities.com/fitquotation/
Last updated 2009-02-27
The most recent version of this file can be found at
http://www.orange-papers.org/menu1.html
Copyright © 2009, A. Orange
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