NEW YORK: How the Money Came In

Handsome, fiftyish James B. (“The Messenger”) Schafer has a simple rule of thumb: “When you serve people you create obligations. Then the money comes in.”

Twenty years ago Schafer was broke. Then he organized the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians, whose aim was “the joyous work of helping others to help themselves.” Two years ago, backed by contributions from faithful followers, he was able to buy the $2,500,000 110-room William K. Vanderbilt mansion at Oakdale, Long Island, which he renamed “Peace Haven” and turned into a retreat for what he called metaphysicians.

There, in Vanderbiltian splendor, the members of the R. F. of M. M. (mostly middle-aged women) forgathered to live on a vegetable diet and listen to Mr. Schafer’s inspiring talk. One of The Messenger’s tenets was that one could become immortal if one had no bad thoughts. To prove his belief, or to show it off, he adopted five-month-old Baby Jean Gauntt, installed her in the mansion with a nurse, and put her on a meatless diet surrounded by nothing but “good.” Immortality for Baby Jean was in the bag, said he. For some strange reason the tabloids took him up on it.

Last week, Baby Jean’s immortality had become just another intimation. The Messenger had other things on his metaphysical mind. The R. F. of M. M. dumped Baby Jean back into her waitress mother’s un-Vanderbiltian quarters in a Manhattan rooming house. The Messenger, nattily attired in a grey, pin-striped suit with a platinum-and-diamond dove in the lapel, received reporters in his Manhattan office, lamented that he was the victim of a whispering campaign, and recited from Kipling’s If!: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. . .”

Mr. Schafer needed a good quotation. That very day Mrs. Anna Weber, of Queens, was getting a judgment against him for $2,500 she said she had lent him and which he had never repaid. Next day a line of ladies began to march into the Attorney General’s office with circumstantial stories of how “the money comes in.”

According to investigators, money came & came. Upwards of $200,000 in “fellowship certificates” to Peace Haven were sold at $100 apiece. No contribution was despised, no matter how minute. For those who could not plunk down $100, a deferred-payment plan was provided: $10 down, installments of 5¢. Incidental “love offerings” of $5 to $6 were gratefully received. Boys & girls belonged to “Cosmic Network, Inc.,” contributed 1¢ stamps. Into “Secret Givers, Inc.” (for men only; emblem: a stork carrying a baby) members paid from 50¢ to $1 a month.

According to the Attorney General’s office, Mrs. Ann Tomlinson, formerly of Monte Carlo, testified that she had contributed three truckloads of antique furniture, $10,000, and $7.50 a day for a private room at Peace Haven during the summer. (Dormitory accommodations: $2 a day). Investigators said they learned that one woman had lost two rings valued at $5,000 at the retreat, and when she told Mr. Schafer about it he replied: “Nothing is lost in the infinite. You can think them back in your experience.”

Another witness suggested another way The Messenger gave service. She testified that she had seen some of the women members kissing and hugging handsome, urbane Mr. Schafer. When non-kissing, non-hugging members protested that this hugger-mugger had no part in such an abstract philosophy as the R. F. of M. M.’s, Mr. Schafer was said to have replied: “I can’t deprive them of that. It’s their aspirin.”