Ivor Catt,

121 Westfields,

St. Albans AL3 4JR

13jan97

Dear Peter Wassell,

re your letter in THE FRIEND that you are researching into conflict within the Society of Friends.

To repeat part of my first letter to you;

Thank you for your letter dated 10jan97. First for your questions;

a) I have only held trivial local office. Recently I was demoted from Full Member of St. Albans PM catering committee, to Reserve Member.

b) It is simplest to say I have no allies nationally. However, that might be inaccurate. There is no communication clearing house within a dissident group. Also, mainstream communication (e.g. via THE FRIEND) is blocked. You could construct an incipient organisation from my files - those with whom I have corresponded. However, many (including perhaps Su Hall Jones {and her father}) give up in despair and go away from the Society. Also, the rump at the centre is primarily a delaying rump, rather than ideologically opposed. That is, what I and such as me say usually becomes orthodox Quaker Party Line six or seven years later. (For instance, my suppressed information on AIDS will be nonchalantly trotted out by those same mainstream Quaker Kowledge Brokers five years from now, and 10,000 deaths on from now.) There was a Gang of Six including Janet Arthur, Stuart Woodhouse, Lois Jenkin, who may have excluded me for being too aggressive. However, bear in mind that an unfunded fringe reform group lacks cohesion. For one thing, individuals in the fringe group tend to be subsumed into the mainstream from time to time. Also, others give up in despair.

As to locally, I would say that my meeting is largely of my point of view after my having been marginalised for perhaps fifteen years in the first instance. There is no coherent opposition to what I am saying within my main theses, only sogginess and suppression. It is generally accepted locally that suppression is rife in the Society of Friends.

c) I got hold of the Dandelion thesis from Friends House after a delay of six months, and read it. I did not want to falsely claim credit for the idea that Quakers shoot the messenger in order to prevent the growth of a priesthood on the back of new information, and make doubly sure by suppressing his message. I have not read his more recently published book. (6.6.97 Recently BPD told me it was much like his thesis.) I may have over-credited him with the idea, which may be mine. Please establish this directly with him. He is at Woodbrooke, and could answer you.

I can pick you up at Stevenage station when en route from Edinburgh to London. That is some 15 miles away. If you drive, I am close to the M1/M25 junction.

I did not read about your thinking of resigning, or else I did not link the two letters in THE FRIEND.

Do not assume that dissidents are united across all subjects. I am only united with a dissident when he is suppressed over his subject. My concern is the suppression of new, relevant, important, objective information on all subjects within the Society of Friends. I then prove the blockage in one subject after another. This is a self-disproving thesis in the long term. That is, those who keep the tourniquet tight to block information flow, will gradually release it as the money runs out (and their mortgage payments etc. {or chairmanship of key committees}become insecure even if pluralism is allowed in the Society). Further, as my thesis becomes known and believed, Knowledge Brokers (e.g. editor of THE FRIEND or committee controlling the Yearly meeting Agenda) will relax the tourniquet a little in order to prove me wrong. This makes the Patricia Morgan thesis about the development of a new warrior class important. In my opinion Knowledge Brokers are so frightened of that information that they will continue to block it even if it further proves my main the*sis. Like the Orkney story, it will be known by the general public before it is known by Friends.

Yours sincerely, Ivor Catt