[Aztlan] Harold D. Emerson and The Mayan

[Hoopes, John W]

"I cannot leave the subject of the Maya priesthood without mention of a Maya cult and its high priest which flourished (?) from 1933 to 1941.  The high priest had the slightly un-Maya name of Harold D. Emerson, and his temple was located in the ceremonial center of Brooklyn, New York, hard by Ebbers Field.  Ahau Can Mai Harold edited for the Maya temple a periodical, The Mayan, Devoted to Spiritual Enlightenment and Scientific Religion.

"The Mayan, as I recollect, was a queer hodgepodge of astrology, divination with Maya day names, admonitions to eat spinach and do "Maya" setting-up exercises, and a section on the Maya calendar, not that used during the Classic period or any of those still current in remote villages of Guatemala but something sui generis, but there, Brooklyn has always followed its own line.  My memory of the divination section is hazy, so perhaps I am at fault in supposing that '4 Caban. Buy General Motors; unload Middle West Utilities' was the sort of advice the days had for us.

"Yet Brooklyn should be proud of Halac Uinic Emerson; with more than a touch of Concordian transcendentalism he made of the Maya religion a scientific one, rendering the incompatible compatible."

-- from J.E.S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion (1970)

I'd be most grateful for any additional information on Mr. Emerson of Brooklyn, including information on where copies of his obscure publication might be found.

Thanks,

John Hoopes