Groups Wanting Meher Mount for Their Own Use - Keeping It for Meher Baba
Sam L. Ervin
Agnes Baron (1907-1994) was a co-founder and lifetime caretaker of Meher Mount. At one point soon after Meher Mount’s founding in 1946, Agnes wrote to Avatar Meher Baba saying she would keep Meher Mount for Him through “hell, fire and damnation.” She went through many trials in keeping Meher Mount, including keeping the property from others who wanted it for their own use.
By Sam L. Ervin
All through Agnes Baron’s time at Meher Mount, various groups wanted to use Meher Mount for their own purposes.
For instance, there’s this short note from Agnes to me in 1983:
“Sam, heard of Gustav Ridley? His friend in Ojai contacted me; sounds like weirdo; wants to set up pyramid of copper and metals and broadcast spiritual waves to the world!! They’ll be asking to build up here I’m sure!!! – A”
Not all those Agnes encountered were as short-lived or as easy to dismiss.
A Desire to Help Young People on Drugs Has Unintended Consequences
It was fall 1968. Agnes had read in the Ventura County Star about a drug treatment program that was being evicted from a property not far away. She wanted to be of help.
It was her practice to look for people and programs that needed help and to visit to offer support. She had no money to give, but would try to link them with services, programs, or politicians she knew to help. She saw this as what Meher Baba would want.
“GOD IN A PILL” was published in 1966 in response to Meher Baba’s statement about keeping young people off drugs.
Agnes had recently been hearing and reading of Meher Baba telling His lovers to work to get young people off drugs to avoid a whole generation of leadership being lost.
She felt that helping a drug treatment program aimed at supporting sobriety for young adults who had been addicted or seriously affected would be pleasing to Meher Baba.
Agnes met with Jack, the program director, and some of the young people who lived there. She was impressed with Jack, a lean, clean cut, darkhaired man of about 35.
He had an intense gaze and seemed passionate about helping these young people straighten out their lives.
Agnes herself was passionate in her commitment to “serve God in others” and she took Meher Baba’s statements about the importance of drug work as a personal order.
So, she initially accepted Jack’s assertions at face value. Agnes told Jack that if things worked out maybe she could set aside five acres for their program. Meher Mount had 173 acres, and a program like this could fit its mission.
A few days later, Jack and 12 people in treatment arrived and moved into the “white house,” a former army carpenter’s shed that had been moved onto Meher Mount and renovated for Baba’s mandali to live in during His nine-day planned stay at Meher Mount in 1952.
All 13 people lived in the house. They moved some of their possessions, including several five-foot-tall metal file cabinets into sheds across the road.
THE “WHITE HOUSE” — an old carpenter’s shed that was brought on the property to house Meher Baba’s mandali (close disciples) when they visited in 1952. The building was destroyed in the 1985 New Life Fire. (Photo: Archives)
I was living in Santa Barbara at that time and was in the habit of visiting Meher Mount and Agnes about every other weekend, along with my girlfriend, Martha Markolf (now Aubin) and other Baba people. We would usually cut firewood, pull weeds, or do other work around the place, and hang out with Agnes who would tell stories of Baba. We occasionally saw some of the people who lived below at the white house, but I had no occasion to interact with them.
On one of these visits, Agnes asked me to go down to the white house and talk with Jack. She wanted me to find out what I could and share my impressions of him and the “program.” She said she was having serious second thoughts about having invited them to live there and wanted another opinion.
She said she liked the young people in the program but had qualms about Jack’s role and some of the behavior she had observed, including how Jack sometimes treated the people. She said Jack had some of them get jobs in the surrounding area and would collect all their pay.
He had some of them — maybe they couldn’t find employment — make candles, paint paintings, and make other things that could possibly be sold. He basically directed all the details of their daily lives.
SAM ERVIN and Agnes Baron at Meher Mount. (Photo: Martha Markolf Aubin, 1970s)
I felt completely inadequate to evaluate Jack or his program, but I could not refuse Agnes.
A bit nervous, I walked down the well road to the white house. Jack saw me coming and invited me in. The living room smelled heavily of incense, which was infused into the large reddish-brown candles they made by the dozens, some of which were now burning in the room.
Jack, barefoot and wearing only shorts, sat at one end of the couch in a half-lotus position. I sat at the other end. After a brief introduction, he told me that he was on a “yogic mission” to rehabilitate addicts and those who had become unbalanced due to drugs.
He seemed to feel that he was their spiritual leader and guide as well as the director of all aspects of their lives. On reflection, I felt it was no accident that he had 12 “followers.”
I shared all this with Agnes, and she clearly was having misgivings about having invited them to live there.
A few weeks later, Jack showed up at the door to Agnes’ screen porch where she basically lived most of the time. She was alone, reading a book and making her customary margin notes in shorthand.
AGNES BARON on the screened-in porch of the house she lived in at Meher Mount before the 1985 New Life Fire destroyed all the buildings. (Photo: Sam Ervin, 1970s)
She invited Jack in. He stood in that narrow space on the flagstones between various chairs and side tables, mostly covered with books and magazines lying open to the latest page she had read.
Jack said, “Agnes, you promised to give me five acres of Meher Mount. I have had the papers drawn up for the transfer of the property. Here they are. You need to sign them now, because I’m on my way to take them to Ventura for filing.”
Agnes said, “I did not promise you land. I said there was a possibility if the program worked out here. Besides, I would not sign anything without having my attorney look at it.”
Jack glared at her. He said, “You need to sign these now!”
Agnes said, “You can leave them here for me to look at if you want, but I’m not signing anything. You need to leave now.”
Jack continued to look at her with intense anger for long moments. Then he picked up a wooden chair by its back, lifted it above his head, and smashed it to pieces on the flagstone floor right in front of her. Agnes afterward said it was like looking into the eyes of a mad dog that was ready to attack. She held her eyes steady. Finally, he turned and leaving, slammed the door.
Agnes did not feel completely safe as long as Jack continued to live on Meher Mount. She soon informed Jack and the others that they all needed to leave Meher Mount. All the others, who generally liked and respected Agnes, left within a week or two. Jack remained. He refused to leave.
Agnes called the sheriff’s office and an officer who was a long-time acquaintance of Agnes came up but informed her that the police had no authority to evict Jack. She said the two of them were looking down toward the white house and discussing it, while Jack was sitting atop his car in front of the white house staring up at them, angry and defiant.
After several more weeks, Jack left, never to return to Meher Mount. All who knew and loved Agnes breathed a sigh of relief when it was clear he was gone. Some of us helped clean up some of the messes they left, which included many foul-smelling candles and the metal file cabinets, which they did not bother removing.
We threw the contents in the trash and were not totally amazed to find that many were eviction notices from previous properties and failure to pay notices for utilities and other services, going back years.
This experience did not deter Agnes from taking her Master Meher Baba’s words about drugs as a personal responsibility.
Shortly after this group was gone and their leavings cleaned up, she began studying drug programs, found a model that looked promising, and with funding from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, started and ran the Drug Abuse Reorientation and Training (DART) program to counsel teenagers who had been arrested for drug offenses.
Professors who evaluated the program found it effective, and through it, Agnes brought a Baba-inspired touch to the lives of many young people and their families.
New Life Fire Clean-Up Draws Another Group to Meher Mount
ONE OF MANY PILES OF RUBBLE that needed to be cleaned up after the 1985 New Life Fire. (Photo: Sam Ervin, October 1985)
Just after the 1985 New Life Fire, a different group came to meet with Agnes about using some of the property for their purposes.
The Sufi Order of the West, affiliated with Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (son of Inayat Khan and not to be confused with Sufism Reoriented), was interested in having acreage at Meher Mount set aside for their group.
To demonstrate their sincerity and earnestness, they offered to clean-up all the debris from the fire. This in the winter of 1986 – and there was still debris everywhere from the fire. Fire destroys, but it does not burn everything.
The group of about 40 people showed up two weekends in a row to clean up Meher Mount. They ordered five of the largest dumpsters available, brought tools, food, and worked hard for four days, much of it in the rain. There were a few of us Baba Lovers in the mix, but it was mostly the Sufi group who did the heavy lifting.
During one of those clean-up days, one of the leaders pulled me aside to show me an advance copy of their periodical, The Message. On page 18 was a full-page photo of Meher Baba, and then an article “Help to Others” by Meher Baba on pages 19-22, reprinted from Listen Humanity, by Don Stevens.
They wanted to show a connection between the Sufi Order and Meher Baba and their respect for Him.
Around the same time, the group prepared an 11-page, single-spaced typewritten proposal, with Appendices A-E, entitled “Review and Analysis of Possible Use of a Portion of Meher Mount in Ojai Valley for a Retreat Center.”
The group wanted use of 68 acres of Meher Mount (above Sulphur Mountain Road) for a Sufi retreat.
The proposal included zoning regulations, related ordinances, strategies with the county and neighbors, and several clauses indemnifying them and holding Agnes Baron responsible if the process did not proceed as they had planned.
“Any obligation on the part of the Sufi Order to Agnes Baron should be contingent on our obtaining what we consider to be the essential permits. If we invest in buildings and then lose a permit or fail to get one for reasons which can attributed to her – e.g., poor relations with neighbors, other activities which she allows on the land – we must be indemnified.
“We need a long lease (e.g., 50 years) with few escape clauses to protect against any investment in buildings. The lease must run with the land, so that our rights are unaffected by change of ownership. It should protect the Sufi Order against inconsistent uses of the land and perhaps designate a specific area for Sufi Order use.”
After the cleanup, the leaders of the Sufi Group returned to meet with Agnes about coming to agreement on their proposal. Several of us were there, too. We were not encouraging to the Sufis about their proposal, and we urged Agnes not to accept it. In the end, she declined, but blamed some of us for driving the Sufis away.
I always thought it was Meher Baba’s way of sending help to clean up after the fire. Without their help, it’s not clear when or how the place would have been cleared of all the fire debris.
A BURNED OUT REFRIGERATOR was part of the debris that the was cleaned up after the 1985 New Life Fire. (Photo: Sam Ervin, October 1985)