Media Maverick: Guma’s Writing Explores Alternatives

“After almost two months and endless hours of teleconference debate, Pacifica’s national board had reached a decision. It seemed impossible, but the “old white guy” from Vermont was being offered the dream job from hell. The catch was that I had ten days to decide. And two weeks to get to Berkeley.” — from Managing Chaos

…a skilled writer who has immersed himself in Vermont life and politics for decades.  — Sasha Abramsky

…the first executive in Pacifica who has been willing, and able, to share his experiences…. They ought to be required reading for all PNB and LSB members.  —  Nalini Lasiewicz

By Eugene M. Scribner

BURLINGTON, VT — Managing Chaos: Adventures in Alternative Media is Greg Guma’s intimate look back at his experiences over 60 years as a journalist, activist, editor and progressive manager — of newspapers and magazines, social change organizations and Pacifica Radio, the country’s original listener-supported network. 

Photos: Left, by Kat Farnham/Bennington; Center, Anne Winther/Burlington; Right, Jesse Guma/Rochester

His 15th book — in a career that formally began in 1968 with reporting and taking photos for the Bennington Banner, a southern Vermont daily, Managing Chaos discusses the evolution of radio and television, the impacts of concentrated media ownership, the rise of the alternative press, and his own work — before and during the progressive revolution that changed Vermont’s power structure.  

Weaving together a lively, granular account of what he saw as Pacifica Radio’s “post-revolutionary” CEO for two years and episodes from his earlier life as a stressed out student, rookie reporter, and radical organizer, Guma also explores the challenges of maintaining democratic institutions in a culture of distrust and polarization — striking the balance between truth and advocacy, observing and participating, the personal and political — and of managing conflicts with persuasion instead of force. 

He calls Managing Chaos “a media saga, a personal story, and a cautionary tale.” The 317-page, illustrated paperback edition will be published by Maverick Books and available for online orders July 25, 2o24. For review copies or interviews, email Mavmediavt@gmail.com.

From 1978 to 1990, Guma edited and wrote for The Vermont Vanguard Press, a groundbreaking alternative weekly, and syndicated feature articles and columns internationally for decades. He also started and managed three bookstores, including Maverick Media in Burlington and Revolution in Santa Monica. Beginning in 1986, he began editing a progressive global affairs publication, Toward Freedom, continuing for more than 12 years. In 2004, he co-founded another weekly, Vermont Guardian, with Shay Totten. He became Pacifica’s Executive Director in 2006.

From Politics to the Paranormal

In 1989, Guma wrote The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, an eye-witness account of how the state went from being loyally Republican to culturally and politically progressive. At the time former Governor Phil Hoff called it “the most complete, knowledgeable and fairest description” of Bernie Sanders’ mayoral years. More than 25 years later, Guma and the widely-praised book became primary sources for leading journalists covering Sanders’ two presidential campaigns.

Working with UVM’s Center for Research on Vermont, he recently followed up with Restless Spirits & Popular Movements: A Vermont History (2021), which revisits the state’s past through memorable events and people, “reclaiming stories sometimes lost or forgotten along the way.” Vermont History lauded it for drawing from “decades of reporting to offer insights into some of the major political actors and movements from the late 1960s to the present.”

One of the early stories that captured Guma’s eye concerned the Eddys, a family of alleged mediums in central Vermont during the 1870s, and the remarkable people who converged on the family’s farm and “circle room.” After writing about this for several publications, including Fate Magazine, he developed an historical novel based on what he had learned, one that dramatizes the events and characters surrounding the fateful meeting of investigator Henry Olcott and Helena Blavatsky, the remarkable occultist who created the Theosophical movement. 

A romantic mystery of the paranormal, Spirits of Desire (2004) has been compared to E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. According to Joe Citro, it’s a well-told, remarkable story playing out “against a tapestry of social, intellectual, religious, political and scientistic forces.” 

More recently, Guma revisited the same period with Into the Mystic (2023), which digs into the actual events dramatized in the novel, and explains spiritualist and theosophical beliefs, as well as subjects like karma, reincarnation, and astral projection. Spirits of Desire was the inspiration for Woman of Another World, a film adaptation currently being developed by Nora Jacobson. 

Guma has co-authored books with world citizen pioneer Garry Davis and Kentucky civil rights leader Georgia Powers. Working with Robin Lloyd and Green Valley Media, he’s written scripts and narrated documentaries about Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam and the legendary Bread & Puppet theater troupe. Here’s an example: Journey Home. He also edited the colorful photo book, Bread &. Puppet: Stories of Struggle and Faith from Central America (1985). 

Davis and Guma worked together on two books, the first a recap of Davis’ decades as leader of the world citizen movement. In addition, their Passport to Freedom: A Guide for World Citizens (1992) explains how to use the World Passport and other documents Davis created and distributed to defend human rights around the world. They followed up with A Global Odyssey (2000), which covers Davis’ later exploits challenging borders and spreading world citizenship in Japan.

Powers asked Guma to work with her to dramatize the life of a beloved ancestor in 2002. The result was Celia’s Land (2004), which combines history with informed, sympathetic speculation. It reveals how Powers’ aunt, Celia Mudd, who was born into slavery before the Civil War, became owner of the Lancaster family’s farm in Kentucky, and defended her rights in an extraordinary 1903 trial.

In 2003, Guma completed Inquisitions (and Other Un-American Activities), a play dramatizing the struggle for workers rights and civil liberties, especially Chicago’s 1886 Haymarket riot and show trial. It uses the interrogation of activist Lucy Parsons during the 1919 Palmer raids to explore timely themes and recreate the movement for an eight-hour workday, the Haymarket bombing, and hanging of four activists.  Since initial performances at Burlington City Hall, it has been distributed as an audio drama, airing on hundreds of radio stations and available as a podcast series.

Guma’s other books include Uneasy Empire (2003), about the struggle over globalization and post- 9/11 repression; Big Lies (2011), looking at how corporations, politicians and media can warp reality and undermine democracy; Progressive Eclipse (2012), a follow up to The People’s Republic; Dons of Time (2013), a novel Kirkus calls “well-constructed, action-flooded sci-fi set in a realistic historical world”; Fake News (2018), on journalism in the “age of deceptions”; Planet Pacifica (2021), a short introduction to the network’s problems; and Prisoners of the Real (2023), an intellectual journey about the price of hyper-rationalism and control that opens the door to a new vision of freedom and cooperation.

Eugene M. Scribner is a retired social critic discussed in Managing Chaos. His writing ran in Vermont publications from 1973 to 1999.

Bread & Puppet (editor) * The People’s Republic * Passport to Freedom Uneasy Empire * Reign of Error (editor) * Celia’s Land * Inquisitions * Spirits of Desire * Dons of Time *  Progressive Eclipse * Big Lies 

Fake News * Planet Pacifica * Restless Spirits & Popular Movements 

Into the Mystic * Prisoners of the Real * Managing Chaos

— From New England Press, Seven Locks, Toward Freedom, University of Vermont and White River Press, Fomite, Maverick Books 

MAVERICK MEDIA — From Politics to the Parnormal

2024 CATALOGUE

Coming later this year… 

Managing Chaos is about alternative media, and also about the pitfalls of holding on to democracy when a culture is polarized, trust is eroded, and governance is flawed. 

Does this sound familiar?

Mixing a compelling personal story with key moments in Pacifica Radio’s rich history and the challenges of practicing democracy, it’s the saga of America’s original listener-supported network — and a fast-moving cautionary tale. 

“The deeper I looked the more convoluted and intractable the problems appeared: Charges and counter-charges of secrecy, waste, racism, sexism, harassment and violence, turf battles over local fiefdoms, manipulation, and alleged fraud. A fratricidal war with no end in sight.”

— from Chapter 1

Praise from early Pacifica community readers…

Greg Guma's journalistic eye precisely captures the essence of contemporary Pacifica as it struggles with its own contradictions and the proliferation of competing media alternatives to re-establish a relevancy and significance. — Terry Goodman

… he is the first executive in Pacifica who has been willing, and able, to share his experiences. — Nalini Lasiewicz

While serving on the Pacifica Radio National Board I not only developed a real respect for Greg Guma and his leadership of the network and Foundation as executive director, but I worked in a faction of the Board at that time which tried to consolidate more responsibilities in that office. — Don White

Excerpt: Mergers and Mind Games

From Media Consolidation to Digital Indoctrination

Released in 2023

Also by Greg Guma (1970-2023)

Click title for purchase, viewing and listening options

Fiction

Spirits of Desire

Inquisitions (and Other Un-American Activities) — audio drama

Dons of Time

Non-fiction

The People’s Republic:

Vermont and the Sanders Revolution

Restless Spirits & Popular Movements:

 A Vermont History

Progressive Eclipse: 

Bernie, Burlington and the Movement That Changed Vermont*

Bread & Puppet: 

Stories of Struggle and Faith (editor, photo book)

Into the Mystic: 

From Spiritualism to Theosophy in the Gilded Age

Uneasy Empire: 

Repression, Globalization, and What We Can Do

Big Lies: 

Warping Reality and Undermining Democracy*

Prisoners of the Real: 

World Disorder, Rational Management, and Dionysian Leadership

Passport to Freedom: 

A Guide for World Citizens (with Garry Davis)

Fake News: 

Journalism in the Age of Deceptions

Planet Pacifica: 

Progressive Media’s Fragile Democracy

*digital only

Film

If It Makes You Want to Learn (1970)

Journey Home: Accompaniment in Guatemala (script & narration)

Fragile Paradise (2021)

In Development: Woman of Another World

From Spirits to Divine Magic: Birth of the New Age

An excerpt from Into the Mystic, the amazing true story of how Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott brought ancient Eastern wisdom to the West and created the foundation for the modern New Age Movement

By Greg Guma

NEW: Spirits and Mystics and Ghosts, Oh My!

Blavatsky and Theosophy with Greg Guma

OpedNews

Interview with Meryl Ann Butler

The spirits of the dead rarely return to Earth, she explained. 

Instead, such materializations are “usually the astral body or double of the medium or someone present.”

In her first 43 years Helena Blavatsky had been around the world, often on her own, and had studied the ancient spiritual traditions of Egypt, India and Tibet. She left Russia in 1848, at age 17, in a bold escape from marriage to a 40-year-old husband. 

Order here

            She became a student of Tibetan adepts, she said, who subsequently sent her telepathic messages. The path had taken a decade. She viewed her destiny as the bringing of the “secret doctrine,” a body of knowledge she also called occultism, Brahma Vidya, wisdom religion and Divine Magic, to a materialistic yet psychically fertile western world.

After serving in Garibaldi’s army in the Battle of Mentana, where she was wounded and left for dead, plus a brief second marriage in Russia, she left her homeland for good. Eventually landing in New York in 1873, at the instruction of her spiritual “masters,” she spent a year drawing together a circle of admirers and following the progress of the spiritualist craze until she read one of Henry Olcott’s news accounts about the Chittenden mediums, It was karma, she thought.  Olcott was to be her partner in the “great work.” Interest in these phenomena could be used to lead people to the esoteric teachings beyond them.

It all sounded a bit melodramatic. But when HPB, or Jack as she was sometimes called, arrived in Vermont the materializations took an unexpected turn. 

On October 14, 1874, with Helena in the Circle Room, the phenomena now included a Russian boy who spoke a Georgian dialect and played a Circassian dance on his guitar, a merchant from Tiflis, a Kurdish warrior who had once been her bodyguard, an old Russian woman, and Helena’s own uncle. Where the Eddys or anyone else might have obtained the elaborate costumes no one will ever know.

The spirits of the dead rarely return to Earth, she explained years later. Instead, such materializations are “usually the astral body or double of the medium or someone present.” The medium is usually a passive participant whose terrestrial mind is attracted by the “astral light” while the physical body is in a trance.

Sitting down to develop contacts with the dead “only opens the door to a swarm of ‘spooks,’ good, bad, and indifferent, to which the medium becomes a slave for life,” she warned. Whether conscious or unconscious, such experiments amount to necromancy, and might even interfere with the evolution of souls into higher states.

“While some of the so-called ‘spirits’ do not know what they are talking about, repeating merely — like poll-parrots — what they find in the medium’s and other people’s brains, others are most dangerous, and can only lead one to evil,” she wrote in The Key to Theosophy. 

In Chittenden, Blavatsky declined to explain much of what had happened. She was determined, instead, to defend spiritualism against attacks by materialistic scientists 

Within a year of her Chittenden visit Blavatsky and Olcott had founded the Theosophical Society, which developed chapters worldwide over the next quarter century and deeply influenced spiritual leaders like Annie Besant and Jiddi Krishmamurti; philosopher Rudolf Steiner; poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens; inventor Thomas Edison; transformative leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Augusto Sandino; and artists Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. 

She gradually initiated Olcott into the secret doctrine, as her two-volume masterwork was titled. After a tumultuous and controversial career she died in London in 1891. She was also the first Russian (actually born in Ukraine) ever to become a naturalized American citizen.

She once described what had happened this way: “I was sent to America on purpose. There I found Olcott in love with spirits, as he became in love with the Masters later on. I was ordered to let him know that spiritual phenomena without the philosophy of occultism were dangerous and misleading. I proved to him that all that mediums could do through spirits, others could do without any spirits at all.” 

Henry led the Theosophical Society after Helena’s death, and was succeeded in 1907 by Annie Besant, a British socialist, activist and writer who had advocated for birth control. In 1891, to the consternation of friends like George Bernard Shaw, she became a Theosophist. For the rest of her life she translated sacred texts, started schools, crusaded for Indian independence, and even served as president of the Indian National Congress.

Theosophy had at least 45,000 members worldwide by the 1920s, and about 7,000 in the US. But its influence was greater than the numbers suggest. Books, periodicals, and lectures by foreign celebrities all spread the word. Theosophical beliefs influenced related movements like Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society and Waldorf School. 

        Over time it drew less public attention, navigating quietly through the New Age movement. But Theosophy survived, through its society, local lodges and study groups like the Krotona School, as well as Quest Books, which preserved its founders’ works and created new ones.  

As Philip Goldberg explains in American Veda: How Indian Spirituality Changed the West, “If nothing else, its place in history is secured by its formative impact on the New Thought movement, which is still going strong, and by its influence on two Indian superstars whose influence on the West has been immeasurable.”

He is talking about Mahatma Gandhi, the young Indian barrister who met two Theosophists while living in London in 1889. As an Indian, they asked him to guide them through the Sanskrit of the Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi was embarrassed to admit that he had never read the classic — in any language. But he suggested that they read it together.

He also means Krishnamurti, the handsome 13-year-old discovered by Theosophists on a South Indian beach. His fame peaked in the 1960s, when thousands attended his annual talks in Ojai, California. As Christopher Chapple put it, he asked people “to examine their presuppositions and take responsibility for the social constructs they agree to participate in.” 

Krishnamurti’s enthralling dialogues with biologist Rupert Sheldrake and quantum physicist David Bohm became prime examples of East-West synthesis. Influenced by Indian philosophy, Western Theosophists had succeeded in launching a brilliant young Indian who became an independent thinker. His theosophy-influenced merging of Vedanta and Western philosophy in time also found common ground with system and quantum theories.