(All images provided by the Drifter)
Is there a hell?
I generally don’t believe in hell until I think of someone like J. Edgar Hoover and what he did to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Perhaps one of the most egregious things he did was send King a letter right before Martin was scheduled to leave for Norway to accept his Nobel Peace Prize.
It was an anonymous letter.
It started by stating that the letter-writer would not address King by the titles of Mr., Dr., Reverend, or any other honorary title because Dr. King didn’t deserve the respect.
J. Edgar pretended to be a black man who was writing the letter.
And in the letter he projected on Dr. King a whole host of perversions and sexual excesses that are clearly the fantasies of none other than J. Edgar Hoover himself, having absolutely nothing to do with what King himself had ever done.
The letter repeatedly calls King “a beast,” which is not a term a black man would likely have used to describe another black man, even if he hated him.
Hoover also sent the letter to King’s wife.
When Coretta opened the letter (which was of course accusing Martin of adultery of various kinds) in front of Martin then handed it to him, Martin looked at it and immediately said, “This is from Hoover.”
The letter also threatened to expose Dr. King to the world for being a sexual pervert even though King hadn’t done any of the things he was accused of doing in the letter.
Martin outsmarted Hoover at almost every turn, which was probably one of the many reasons Hoover hated King so much.
But the pressure got to Martin.
Being followed around, being wiretapped all the time, and now being sent this hideous composition from the madman could not have helped but make Martin feel paranoid, pursued, unjustly accused (of course), hated (for no reason), hounded by the devil. By the devil himself.
Hoover was a repressed, hateful and hate-filled man who also worked hard to kick Charlie Chaplin out of the USA, and finally succeeded in getting Charlie kicked out of the country.
Hoover justified all these horrors to himself by claiming that he was protecting the United States from ne’er-do-wells, radicals, revolutionaries.
He was not protecting the United States. He was helping to damage and ruin it in some ways like no one had ever done before.
He clung to power for 48 years.
Once Martin started to try to end the war and bring all poor people together in solidarity no matter the color of their skin, Hoover and all the others like him had had enough.
Last time I checked, the King family did not believe that James Earl Ray acted alone.
I do not believe it either.
(Neither did James Earl Ray himself, who repeatedly stated that he did not act alone.)
If there is a hell (and I’m not necessarily saying there is one), J. Edgar Hoover is in it.
…
John Meacham, the brilliant historian and biographer, recently told Charlie Rose in an interview that the reason Abraham Lincoln was great was because, at the critical moments, old Honest Abe always chose to do the right thing. Even when it was at great cost to himself.
Martin Luther King, Jr., did not choose greatness. He had it thrust upon him at the young age of 25. No one else could do what he did, because no one else had his talents to do it.
He had greatness thrust upon him.
But he always answered the call.
…
In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo on December 11, 1964, Dr. King said: “Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. It seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors, and brutality in the destroyers.”
He also said, at another time, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
He also said, “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
…
I guess I don’t believe in hell, or definitely not the kind of hell where God officially sentences you to be burned alive forever, tortured in flames for the rest of all eternity. If I believed that kind of thing, I would probably spend even more time than I already do having various kinds of panic attacks.
But I’m not so sure there isn’t a hell where He makes you SEE, finally see, really see, just what it was you did and were doing during your tenure here on Planet Earth.
Maybe He makes you see and finally care.
(A Rather Demonic Drifter!)
The Drifter
Saragun Springs 
Hello Drifter
Everyone who gains power will become corrupt. It is not necessarily a moral failing (though it might have been with Hoover), I see there’s something about power that effects us that way, whether it be in gov’t, church or managing a porn store; something wrong about the set up.
I heard Hoover used to dress up in ladies’ clothes. Recent developments make poking fun at that “wrong”–but I dare anyone to imagine J. Edgar in a teddy and wearing a Viking bra not to make a face of some kind. Some people do not mix well with any society.
I cannot, will not accept an eternal hell for mistakes, nor for people who lived and died prior to religion. That is taxing the dead. Hell, for me, is a state of mind forced on you by conditions you have no control over. Mainly poverty, addiction and ignorance. Two of whom cling to the Ghost of Christmas Present for reasons never fully explained to my understanding.
Great post. Thoughtful. King was a fine human like Lincoln, but I worry about Sanctifying people. It sets them for a fall and it makes what was good about them feel out of common reach, when everyone should be as they were.
Leila
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Hi Leila!
For me it’s like the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A man is attacked by thieves, robbed, left for dead on the side of the road.
An esteemed leader of religion is passing by and he sees that the hurt man lying there is alive but he keeps on going because he’s afraid.
Another man, a business leader, passes by on the road and also leaves the injured man lying there because he has somewhere he “has to get to.”
Then the Samaritan comes along. (He would be like an illegal immigrant in our own time).
The illegal immigrant immediately rushes over to help the injured man. He takes care of him, puts him on his own donkey, takes him into the town, and pays for his medical care and lodging out of his own pocket. And he tells everyone that he’ll come back to check on the man again, too.
Some people are like the religious leader, some are like the business leader (reacting out of fear and/or greed) and some are like the Samaritan, acting out of generosity of spirit.
It’s also fairly clear that Hoover was in large part a sadistic man. And he was definitely a racist man: racist to the core, rabidly so. His sadism and his racism were, I believe, surely made worse by having all that power, just as you say.
And you’re absolutely right, we shouldn’t shy away from the depth of humanity in people like King, John Lennon, Lincoln, etc.
For me their foibles, “sins,” failings, shortcomings, the fact that they smoked and drank (in the cases of King and Lennon) are some of the most interesting things about them! (Lincoln didn’t smoke or drink but he was addicted to “blue mass,” or mercury, pills, kind of like speed.)
The D
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Hi Dale
Thank you. Didn’t know that even Abe had a jones. A great man not an angel. And I wholeheartedly agree that Hoover was a strange Fish, he sort of looked like one. Been struggling against stating Hoover Sucks, but I guess I was never letting that hook pass!
Leila
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Hi Leila
I never liked Hoover because of the way he treated both Charlie Chaplin and Hemingway. But then I recently read the letter he sent to Dr. King right before Martin left for Norway. It truly is an appalling document, disgusting and perverted in its own right. I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a Freudian assessment: Hoover had the hots for Dr. King. And Hoover, the Repressed, let that feeling get the better of him in more ways than one. The letter is so sexualized, so repetitive (“beast,” etc.), so racist (everyone was racist then but not quite so rabidly in all cases), and so full of lies that it really is “evil” (if anything in this world is evil). I’m “conservative” in many ways and “liberal” in many other ways, but for me guys like Hoover can generally be tossed into the category that includes Stalin and Hitler (even though he wasn’t as bad, as extreme, as they were, probably because he was American where there were/are more checks and balances). I recently discovered the letter he sent to King and it really sickened me (starting at the very beginning where he says, “You don’t deserve to be called Mr. much less Dr. or Reverend”).
D
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PS LA
Regarding Honest Abe and his jones factor, I discovered his addiction to blue mass pills (mercury pills) a few years ago. And he was indeed hooked on the things, to the point of taking too many at once, struggling to quit, quitting and starting again, etc. etc. (all the many signs of at least psychological addiction). Blue mass pills (mercury) were of course HORRIBLE for one’s health. Other historical accounts mention his mood/s changing after he consumed the pills, like his anger and hypomanic behavior/s would ratchet up, his humor would go out of control, his energy levels would go through the roof, etc. It seems that one thing he used them for was to combat the lows of “melancholia,” or depression. Honest Abe was a Self Medicator! Don’t remember exactly how long he used them, but it was decades.
The Drifter, a Locally Famous Self Medicator
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Interesting post. I don’t believe in the fiery pit of hell. I don’t even think it is something that waits until you are dead. There are many instances of ‘living hell’, aren’t there and many instances where maybe those who should be brought to book for their deeds sail along untouched and even if there is a boiling cauldron I don’t think it would bring justice to people hurt by the evil doers, that smacks a little of postponed revenge and what a useless thing that is. It’s religion again trying to control with fear in my opinion. What a coil of despair we seem to be living in sometimes just now. dd
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Hi Diane!
The only thing is that I don’t believe people who live “evil” lives (like Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini or many billionaires now) actually do get a free pass. I believe their humanity is destroyed within them and therefore they are living worse lives than most poor people: at the core. The utter frustration in seeing them apparently get away with it keeps me up many a night. But then I remember they aren’t getting away with it: they live horrible lives (internally), and their lives are mostly horrible because no one loves them and they don’t love anyone. In a life without love (like the President of the USA’s) you’re in a kind of hell already. And that makes them take it out on the rest of us, but then we get to prove our love in the challenge of it all. I do believe the arc of the universe bends toward justice like Dr. King said (but we have to make it do that). Thanks for your always-thoughtful commentary today and all days!
Dale
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Dale,
Hell is quite an appealing idea, if you’re committed to justice. But I’m sort of attached to the transmigration of souls. Wouldn’t you like to think that Hoover is now a garden slug, doomed to leave a trail of slime behind him wherever he goes? And that busy, bold wren bouncing about my backyard could be the next generation’s great Shakespearean actress. bw mick
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Hi Mick
I never rule anything out, especially when it comes to Eastern wisdom!
I think entertaining all the possibilities is the best option.
Everyone thought Faust would be sentenced to Hell because he sold his soul to the devil; but then Goethe let him enter Heaven because he never stopped trying (and what he was trying for wasn’t Heaven).
Also interesting to ponder what Milton’s Satan said: “I’d rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
Dale
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Wise words, Dale. Though belief in transmigration isn’t solely eastern. I used to live next door to a follower of Rudolf Steiner. His Christian anthroposophists do great work in their communities for mentally handicapped children and adults: they believe that the souls of those children and adults have chosen, with a particular purpose, to be born into those handicapped bodies.
Your posts always get me thinking. Thanks, mick
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Thank you, Mick.
Since I can’t help thinking that Steiner (in his wild-eyed way) knew more than me, I’m going to accept his interpretation of such as what you mentioned (and thanks for sharing!). Native Americans also believed (and believe) something similar. (When my mother had dementia, it always seemed to me that something else was up as well besides just a mental deficiency.)
It’s interesting to think about Steiner on Nietzsche as well.
Nietzsche is considered by most to be an atheist (for pretty good reasons) and yet Steiner, who was anything but an atheist, also thought Nietzsche was one of the wisest people who ever lived.
And actually we misname Nietzsche when we call him an atheist, since he also believed, and propagated and preached, what he called the doctrine of eternal recurrence.
Socrates had wise words on this (as on all else). “I believe in the heavenly afterlife. If there isn’t one, I won’t know it, and in the meantime, it makes me feel one hell of a lot better. Now hand me the cup of hemlock if you must!”
D
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The sheer clarity & acuity of the Drifter’s reflections always sharpen one’s own view on matters great & small. I used to have a volume of King’s sermons – & always recall his extolling a “tough mind & a tender heart” – or as the Nazarene put it, “Be you as wise as serpents & harmless as doves.” Didn’t someone once describe J. Edgar as having a face that looked like “a sledgehammer in search of an anvil”? His face in fact was a feature of my childhood, as my father always kept one particular issue of Time magazine (I think it was) – & Hoover’s stony face adorned the cover. As for Hell, I’ve always thought Dostoevsky’s staretz, the Elder Zossima, had it horribly right when he described it as the “suffering of no longer being able to love”. And if I remember rightly, he goes on to say that for that a mere moment is enough.
And that painting: who is the artist? If it’s you, Drifter, it’s one superfine piece. If it’s not you, Drifter, it’s one superfine piece.
Geraint
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Dear Geraint
The old saw about brilliant minds thinking alike must be true because I’d already written to Diane about my thoughts on not being able to love being hell before I had a chance to peruse your generous commentary (just going in chronological order). And I have no doubt that the person I learned this from (or one of them) is definitely Dostoevsky (and his characters).
I always find Swedenborg’s conception of Hell fascinating. He believed people do go there, but absolutely no one is sentenced there by God or anyone else. They go there because they choose to go there. And they choose to go there because they want to be with the ones like them who are already there. By that measure, the good will be separated from the bad and everyone gets to choose their own path, even in death.
Also interesting to consider Dante’s take on things. Everyone took his Hell literally at the time (and some still do) when it’s clear from the historical record that he himself took it metaphorically, symbolically, spiritually, literarily (not literally). He never corrected them overtly because he didn’t want to undercut the power of his literary art.
Thank you!
Dale
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Hi Dale
I consider hell from time to time. I’d like to say there’s not one, but I don’t know. I’d like the world and afterlife to be a certain way. I don’t make the rules. God has own way. Every knee will bow.
Hoover was a strange power hungry character. He did a lot for centralizing federal law enforcement and modernizing it.
Hoover had the goods on about everyone. They couldn’t get rid of him. Blackmail and leverage is what this country really runs on, greased by money.
I once had an instructor who said he rode in a car with MLK. A brush with greatness was the gist of his remembrance.
MLK’s passive resistance was very effective, like how Gandhi applied it against the British Empire.
Excellent essay!
CJA
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Hi Ananias!
When it comes to worldly judgements about folks like Hoover, sometimes I listen to people who were smarter than me, like Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer or Hunter S. Thompson. If their righteous hatred of the man was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. On one level, Hoover was a visionary in a not-so-good-way because he perfected the culture of surveillance and mind-control-intimidation that Orwell also wrote about in 1984. But anyone who’s read the letter he sent to Dr. King right before King left for Norway will be appalled (if they have a moral bone anywhere in their body). Hoover also hounded and harassed Hemingway, mistaking Hem’s sympathy with the poor as potential communist leanings. Shame on you, J. Edgar! (say I).
Some folks say Satan was God’s best friend (or at least his number one angel) before Satan became “Satan” and started trying to outdo God (totally impossible, of course).
One thing I do feel pretty sure of is that this place is a proving ground.
It’s supposed to hurt, and it isn’t supposed to be easy.
If it was pain-free and easy as pie, would it really be worth anything?
MLK was also a huge fan of Henry David Thoreau, whose essay “Civil Disobedience” did so much to inspire Gandhi. MLK was a great reader and writer, among many other things. His love for the Christ went beyond anything (as he himself always said).
We need CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE and spiritual resistance just as much now as we ever did, and writing the truth is more a part of that than anything else today (actual physical protest is only part of the story and not for everyone for a lot of reasons).
Your hard-hitting, truth-telling, non-dogmatic, non-ideological, subtle, nuanced, realistic, elusive, character-based, symbolic short stories are a great example of what I mean!
D
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Hi DWB
One thing about Hoover compared to the current FBI Director, Hoover wasn’t the President’s lackey.
Hoover would have had everything under the sun on Trump before he ever thought about running for office. In a strange way Hoover was another check to power on the executive branch–right or wrong.
He had far too much power. I hear what you are saying about his surveillance and gathering tactics on regular Americans. Right now I wish there was a Hoover to stop Trump. Then again the rule of law has been dramatically reduced. The Supreme Court should have banned him on the Insurrection act alone. Then they widened presumptive pardons for the president. Basically weakening their own check on power.
I’m sure these writers you mention know more than I do. I theorize. I’m left-handed lol.
“The Conversation,” with ,Gene Hackman, is really good movie on surveillance.
Thanks for your comments on my writing!
CJA
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THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR GREAT COMMENTARY AND ROUSING DIALOGUE/s!!!!!
The Drifter
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Regarding heaven (on earth) (instead of hell), I want to add on to this column that who we love needn’t be among the living, nor need we ever have met that person in person.
And there’s also that thing called universal love, i.e. love of everyone (even if you hate them, too, like Bukowski and Warren Zevon), achieved by few now, but maybe instinctual for 99.999% of humanity…etc etc
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I suspect the thing that bothered white racists most about King was his rumored (I believe true) sex with white women. Hoover lived with a man most of his life. You could check me on that.
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In the end Hoover was a sleaze, not because of his sexual preferance, but because he was a racist who saw pinkos in the people who defied him and he also gloated over comprimising nudie photographs he used to control people.
Sad thing is nobody can assure anyone that there aren’t still people like him in high places. I would be stunned if there aren’t. (Forget the Lame Duck tail, talking people with real power. Clarence Thomas comes to mind.)
Leila
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Lame ducktail. Love it. I’ve gone feral here at Sunset City. May not get more hairs cut.
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Could make that nick name stick.
Very noisy right now up here, The Seahswks just won a trip to the Super Bowl. Fireworks, screaming drunks. I am sure the homeless trying to endure sub freezing temps appreciate it.
Leila
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