The  Former  Sanctum

 

 

 

 

        INTRODUCTION

        This peculiar list, compiled and revised over several years, can finally make its appearance in the new edition of Bordering Lake Michigan, a long-established reference work.  With its implicit social and geographic data, the list belongs in such a publication.  All of its items pertain to what we know about a spectacular building in the state of Indiana.  The building was a house, occupied for several decades by the notable Besselink family.  Its use in recent years by other interests continues to raise questions.  The list gives rise to a discussion of critical studies by two men having expert knowledge of the building's history.  Two more of the entries deal with persons who'd had special on site experience.  And it gives narratives about two of the most memorable situations that occurred at the mansion.  Also included is the anonymous, rather cryptic text which has been loosely referred to as the Besselink Memo.  It was probably composed by someone in the family.  To most readers the discourse of the list may seem odd considered as geographic research.  Because of the region's extreme land use controversy, a personal dimension for the subject matter could not be avoided.  

        Some people identified here have contributed to this resource, knowingly or unknowingly.  Names of additional contributors can be gotten by a request which is directed to the history department at Nellis College.  As one appointed to speak on this matter for the board of directors at the college, I thank the people who have made this overview concise and useful. 

                                                                                         -  J o h n  G a r n s e y

 

        RYAN  CAUBLE

        Four statements concerning the landmark were solicited and received by Nellis College.  For each one the original text has been kept on file by the history department.  The statement by Cauble and the one by Kevin Stredwick have been placed online.  Written by someone whose father had married into the wealthy family, Cauble's remarks have points of interest that would be expected.  The starting point for Cauble is the sense of a watershed, the difference in degree of outreach that characterized Carl Besselink as compared with later family members.  This relates to the proverb, "Offspring will get less attention if the family fortune is divvied up."  There's been less outreach, and less attention for the offspring.  Since 2015 Cauble has shown he can hold his own at panel discussions that are open to the public.  His account written for the college emphasizes a process of company decline in the market, and he sees a correlation with financial declines in certain families.  It's what you'd expect, but Cauble adroitly blames it on a 'lesion in the social fabric.'  His paper tells about his own painful experience - a business partnership that collapsed when the necessary backing by the family didn't happen.  He's able to show how the frustration would come from the mindsets of individuals and the mishaps on specific days. 

        Compared to Tony Leevers the attorney, or Kevin Stredwick the professor, Cauble has spent much less time at the mansion.  Regarding his earliest visits there he covered some ground in his interview with Stredwick on September 4, 2017.  They spoke immediately after the conference that was held in Bloomington at Hensley Auditorium.

        He recalled, "My father had a definite pessimism about anyone's likelihood of retaining a fortune."   

        In the lengthy interview he tells about the family situation of his relative, Glenna Francis.  The woman's parents had suffered unfairly after the Besselink firm experienced a setback - a judicial ruling.  The daughter inherited, so to speak, problems that culminated with a drastic occurrence at the mansion in 1994.  The Cauble statement on file at Nellis has an oblique reference to Glenna's torment.   

 

        AFTER  THE  BESSELINKS  1975 - 1983

        We don't presume to judge this period of the mansion's history.  We don't say which it is : the building occupied by someone's philanthropic agency, or occupied instead by the government's hushed-up activities, or by a conspiracy of oligarchs.  The state of Indiana has its own commentary.  If you'd like to consult a relevant opinion, see the testimony of Beth Dawson, also on file at the history department of Nellis College.  Allegations by a mid-level member of the state's bureaucratic system can be consequential.  Dawson's evidence has been applied to cases about corruption relating to programs in public works.  The state and local records on this will remain confused.  We let it go at that.  

 

        ORDINATION  CLUB

        Legends, not always frivolous, have been based on the megamansion.  A remarkable interest group took possession of the building in 1983.  Its corporate identity only dated to the previous decade.  Members of the Ordination Club state that any specified allegiance will have its leaders ordained.  For this reason the Club has been described as a 'religious' group even if it has nothing to do with biblical theism.  Its plague of unwanted controversy has tapered off somewhat.  The Club secures tremendous fees from ideologues and cultists who like the building as a place in which to prepare their adherents for serious action.  Preparing sometimes means ordaining.

        Especially since the Club's advent, the building has fascinated those who dare discuss the uncanny.  Visitors told of situations they felt no one could explain.  For some reason the literature on this theme, where the mansion is concerned, has been sparse.  A few writers maintain that the ordination subculture has to involve the occult.  Senior management in the Ordination Club seems rather detached about the allegations.  It doesn't make them, doesn't deny them.    

 

        SADIE  KLEINBAUER

        Of the four solicited commentaries, one was by Kleinbauer.  She's respected for the administrative work she's done in Bloomington, but the reason she's relevant to the list is because she's acquainted with friends of the Besselink family.  Her contribution to the files in the history department haven't been made public, but that could change.  In addition to the requested statement, Kleinbauer gave the department chairman some opinions which haven't been kept secret.

        She declared, "Casual, uncelebrated friends of the aristocrats are known for a self-published literature that's tolerated by the nabobs.  This literature tends to be crassly opportunistic.  The current examples are no less phony than those produced in the Gilded Age.  Of course we can find some exceptions.  I've given you a list of the more impressive authors.  I've also read some unpublished memoirs that can be taken seriously.  Given permission by the writers, I'd be inclined to discuss their works with professional researchers.  It's up to them."

 

        THE  ACADEMIC  PERSPECTIVE

        Richmond Fry, one of the early presidents of Nellis College, made puzzling statements about a connection between the school and the Besselinks.  It turns out that one of Carl's two sons had a friendship with certain members of the faculty.  Their talks, rather sporadic, had to do with finances for large buildings, public as well as private.  It isn't known for sure what Carl thought of the family's prospects for keeping the house, but a younger generation was willing, or compelled, to let it go.  They had the idea that some organization would use the place for theatric performance or something else of high culture.  The site would be a definitive geographic center.  Only in recent years has it been revealed that a moderate financial donation for the college can be traced to the family.  This may not mean very much.  Anything like an ideological pro-Besselink faction on the campus is exaggerated.  But the school can claim to be an original source of good ideas about the revenues for construction projects.  What's harder to explain is the mass political venting of those ideas.  Fry's lasting influence is definite.  Enough so that the reaction could be predicted : his younger compatriots were banned, in effect, from administrative or teaching positions at the college.  Also predictable was the later vilification by leaders of the youth movement.  They thought his compatriots had been driven out by a mindset of poisonous fascism.  But even some of them eventually admitted what happened in the 'survey scandal.'  What happened was a ruse - misleading numeric data that were publicized, with the sociology department's aegis being claimed for the report.  Initially the scandal was ascribed to a group of teachers and students at Nellis.  In fact the affair was a provocation by outsiders, none of them academic professionals. 

        The survey scandal and the influence of Richmond Fry both led to the school requesting the statements that have been mentioned, including the fourth, made by a man named Bill Groven.  Admittedly the need for the statements' testimonies has a personal, not a legal, basis.  But it was three decades after the scandal before the critiques were solicited.  National politics figure into all of this.  Protestors' rallies on the campus always have their leaders meeting with school officials at undisclosed locations.  According to some rationale the protestors need to be updated on the information given by Stredwick, et al.                           

 

        TONY  LEEVERS

        From 1964 to his death in 2011, one man was known to be constantly working as attorney for the Besselinks.  He's remembered as the person who 'monitored' the family's late-era social flourishing at the grand residence.  He attended to the legal troubles.  Authentic ones were dealt with effectively, but Leevers failed to prevent the extravagance in the sensation having to do with 'progeny worship.'  The concept had been mentioned by Gerald, Carl's brother, as early as 1950.  But before 1972 the references had been very discrete.  When the practice became exposed, a number of events were imagined, with at least one fictional personality being blamed for the worst events.  Tony Leevers' attempts to counteract the publicity of this were not very effective.  Biographical data published recently tell us about a successful attorney's habit of encouraging a mania that afflicts the wealthy.  In Leevers' case the habit doesn't suggest anything sinister though the results are unfortunate.  Leevers couldn't have known.  Later he confessed his faulty judgment.  

        It's no wonder progeny worship has become increasingly deplored.  The person held in such esteem by the patriarch and by his children is believed to be one of the grandchildren or great-grandchildren.  A selected few people from outside the family can be allowed to join in worshiping, but the number of worshipers is limited until the time of the great leader's contemporaries or juniors.  What happened at the so-called sanctum was chaotic.  The lawyer was decieved by more than one person.     

        He also gained more publicity than was appropriate following the infamous Kent State shootings in 1970.  His dealings with student agitators were falsely described by various witnesses, but not by professional investigators.  His dealings were minimal - innocuous.  That they were falsely described seems due to the ties between the sanctum, Nellis College and politics.  In fact the lawyer was entertained by the allegations. 

        Beth Dawson spoke at the conference in Hensley Auditorium.

        "It's baffling," she stated.  "There was little if any serious reporting about Tony's visits to the sanctum in later years.  I mean in the years prior to the Ordination Club.  Tony had confrontations with two groups that claimed to be nonprofit, humanitarian.  It seems that in relation to the public he kept quiet for the most part, whether or not he was threatened.  I'd like to find someone who knows about it.  I'm not trying to sound as if I belong to an inner circle, but he told me some things that haven't been shared with other people, as far as I can tell.  Those are things that anyone would interpret as political."

        Dawson believes it was Leevers who first applied the phrase 'former sanctum' to the house.  In fact Leevers confounded those who tried to glamorize him with cliches about esoteric furniture and secret passageways, unrestrained parties - the usual nonsense.  Did his phrase have a special meaning?  Leevers seemed to think the place had turned into something obscenely celebrated. 

 

        SENTRY  SQUAD

        Left intact, the great house could have been a magnet for different social elements.  The more squalid possible result has been prevented by efficient crews of 24/7 security.  The same firm has had the watchman's assignment ever since the Besselinks turned over the property.  

        According to rumors one of the guards declared, "Outside of show business we don't call them zombies, we call them homeless people."  A few vagrants have approached and had to be turned away.  Other persons coming in close for a look-see would have beliefs extraneous to modern culture.  The Ordination Club's in house report on this problem is available to the public.  It describes a fascinating social variety.  

 

        STUDIOS

        It's notorious that at least three major film studios have been rebuffed in their attempts to gain use of the mansion for their productions.  Two of the films would have depicted slashers, and a third would be about an executive's nymphomania. 

        "They like the basement," Ryan Cauble said, on March 12, 2018.  This was a panel discussion held at Nellis College, and they spoke about the proposed film productions.  

        He elaborated, "Something about the contours of the place - it's just right for their kind of cinematography.  So I'm told, but I don't understand the architectural points they make.  It's also a question of psychology.  There's a film journal paper that talks about the effect a basement, the right kind of basement, has on the performers.  Well, if they say so."  

        Various decision makers in the film industry have kept their ambition to use the building.  They've conducted a sappy promotional campaign likening the place to Mount Rushmore.  Some immigrants who have gained status in Hollywood are fascinated by the mansion.  At least one expert has warned of a cultic obsession. 

        At a lower financial grade of cinema, the house is mentioned in several screenplays.  Most of these are not suspense films.  They could be described instead as an outpouring of romantic comedy fluff. 

 

        THE  BESSELINK  MEMO

        "What they call high society is bound to be self-contained, or else destroyed.  Most of this country's philanthropic efforts have a deceptive appearance, the idea that our class can be accessible to the outsiders.  The deception is inhumane.  In my experience there's a familiar type of self-styled 'businessmen' - the kind who seem artificial when claiming to work for the good of humanity.  Yes, they have a finely crafted complaint against arbitrary measures that are imposed by the upper class.  But I'd like to forget one creature especially.  There was something about his face, the scalp and shape of the skull.  His limbs had a disproportion I could never clearly describe.  In spite of a stunted personality he could keep his job, if you call it a job.  Is he the kind of person who works to increase the air time that TV and radio stations give to commercials?  In fact the most harmful influence comes from promoters instead of bureaucrats.  Our family hasn't always been able to ward such characters off.  Since we haven't gotten help from the judicial system, we've made a pact among ourselves, one that could cause trouble for plenty of outsiders." 

        According to Sadie Kleinbauer one of the unpublished memoirs claims to identify the person who wrote the memo.  It's known for certain, however, that a document said to be the original memo, 'typewritten before the turn of the millenium,' has become the property of Kevin Stredwick.      

     

        DILWORTH

        There have been two narratives, entertaining and perhaps incompatible with each other, about the small town which is nearest to the mansion.  One of these tells us that a Besselink sibling had taken an alias, purchased a small house in Dilworth and lived there for several years.  A second or a third family member might also have done this.  The other narrative depicts a group of hired snoops who make use of an office in the same town.  It's their base of operations for surveillance of the Besselinks.  Even though that name doesn't ring nearly as loudly as 'Vanderbilt,' you can find these accounts pleasingly fanciful.  And according to tradition, surveillance of Carl's family has continued long after they moved to other locations.  To this day Dilworth is a center - of something.  

        Conspiratorial beliefs relating to the town have been partially debunked by Dr. Stredwick, but more needs to be done.  The assertions about uncanny, perplexing events in Dilworth are bound to encourage fear among its residents.  The nation's publicity system is behind much of this maladjustment.  The exploitation seems to increase.  It centers on anecdotes that speak of mystery panhandlers and cursed, abandoned shops.  These, along with certain crimes, are said to involve conspiracy.  No doubt the presence of spies, if there have been some, was provoked by Carl's undeserved reputation as a misanthrope and strikebuster.    

        There's a debatable point that people care about : the town's value as an object lesson for studies of land use planning.  It's been said that the point had nothing to do with these other questions.  Recently, though, Stredwick's colleagues have shown that conspiratorial and mystical notions are strongly suggested by the facts of the geographic region.                            

              

        THE  ADORED  PROGENY

        The vague intimations about an idealized offspring have always referred to a male, not a female.  This might be a kind of candor even if it's a kind of idolatry.  All of Carl Besselink's great-grandchildren have survived into the 21st century.  These include a man and a woman who have lived at the son's enormous residence near Chicago.  Since the ultimate descendant has not been officially, publicly identified, none of the eleven great-grandsons can be dismissed from consideration, and most are living in houses that are less expensive.  It's been said that one such person made several visits to the former sanctum.  In the spring of 1981 a visit ocurred, with the purpose of establishing a working partnership with someone.  Who that someone at the building would be is even more nebulous.  Whatever you might say about this particular Besselink, he seems to be staying out of trouble.  He might always do that, given the insulation provided by his attorneys and the complex nature of the judicial system.   

        It's hard to know what his followers think he'll achieve.  Assuming there's more than a handful of such persons, and they have coherent beliefs, they could be something to reckon with.    

    

        KEVIN  STREDWICK

        The statement by Dr. Stredwick argues convincingly that there are some deep seated reasons for what becomes of the buildings we Americans call, not palaces, but megamansions.  The widely repeated anecdotes about changes in proprietorship come from his research.  He stands by his comments of 2012 despite calls for emendation if not apology.  He's been misrepresented by TV shows and social media, but his response has been sufficiently guarded.  Also, from his position at the university in Bloomington he's able to avoid the controversies at Nellis College.  His theory about the eventual takeover by the Ordination Club is plausible.  He uncovered scandalous details of involvement by the outstanding crime families.  His position is difficult, because he eschews the various governmental efforts at correcting the status quo.  His achievement is genuine but unlikely : he's published an eccentric view of history, yet he's taken the lead in relation to his colleagues.  Judging from the response in terms of email, Stredwick's beliefs are more offensive than Cauble's.  His identification with the 'toxic podium' has brought his philosophy to a wider audience.  Having been reviled by the governors of nine states, it seems clear that his papers managed to strike a nerve in the authoritarians' viscera.  Dr. Stredwick espouses a set of regulations that he believes would make such buildings available to more kinds of agencies.  

        Much of the paper he gave to Nellis takes issue with Beth Dawson's arguments.  His point of view is denounced for its elitism - apparently a kind as displeasing to the authoritarians as it is to the populists.  He has a controversial but brilliant reasoning when he suggests a natural progression from de facto palace to world class museum.  Of course natural doesn't mean universal.  He explains the other changes that can happen.  When a house turns into a serious academy, for example, this is because of demographics in the nearest metropolitan system.  His critique of regional planning is, among other things, a wariness about social problems in 'America's Heartland.'  He's paid a price for his ideas.  The amount of sniping against the professor is inexcusable.  

       Compared to the typical change in ownership, the sanctum's capture by the Ordination Club is a freak occurrence.  No one denies that the studies by Stredwick show a dark affinity between elite groups and organized crime.  But the problems at the building since 1983 have included some other things as well.  Much of what Dr. Stredwick has learned of these things can be learned at the place he often visited for that purpose.  Camp Shore Estate was fully installed on Long Island by the beginning of FDR's third term as president.  From the details of garden, library and other furnishings the scholar could see a pattern of history that was still being deliberately ignored.  The house at Camp Shore exemplified what some would consider anticlimax : the wonderful structure that was no longer a residence, but now maintained as an educational resource.                   

 

        BILL  GROVEN

        The other unpublished commentary left on file at the history department came from a man whose environmentalist complaint about the mansion was first voiced a couple of years before the Besselinks vacated.  By means of the activism that continued for the rest of his life, Groven saw to it that stewardship debates often centered on that family's property.  In all pertinence we'd have to say that his critique, as delivered to the history department, includes personal and cultural notes that go beyond the subject of natural environment.  This may have been unavoidable for the close neighbor.  Unfortunately, his adamant remarks about Dr. Stredwick have gotten the most attention.  

        We have to mention a comical performance.  Everyone's heard of Groven's daring stunt which happened at the expense of the sentries.  This was back in the early days of the Ordination Club.  The stunt's cleverness can be appreciated, though it proves nothing about climate change or the rape of Mother Nature.

        Subsequently his reputation was altered in certain ways.  He took part with a group who made a self-appointed study of the problems that experts have had in managing St. Joseph River.  The group's arguments were occasioned by an unpleasant find in the river - the corpse of an apparent murder victim.  Groven's people formulated a conspiracy theory that still entertains.  It's one more theory that blames environmental degradation on capitalism, in this case organized crime.  A dead animal in a stream is one thing, a dead human quite another.  The trouble is, their explanation was composed and published in haste, before the report of the autopsy.  The medical examiner's report called the death a suicide.

        As might be expected, Groven rebuked the progeny crowd, seeing their environmentalism as phony.

           

        NATIONAL  NEWS  AND  JOURNALISTIC  MEDIA

        The reputation problems of the Besselink family have been, with one exception, mild.  Even Carl's alleged right wing vibes never tormented many socialites or investigators.  His unconventional opinions were soft and frequently speculative.  Almost no one believed the great apocryphal story about Carl's brief speech at a company picnic where, supposedly, he told the audience that every drug addict should be lobotomized. 

        Two major documentaries have looked at the esoteric frenzy associated with the Besselinks.  These have portrayed the family as something like innocent bystanders who were made use of because they had resources.  This kind of reverse exploitation hasn't been unique in American history.  In retrospect, though, it seems clear that the documentaries failed to win widespread sympathy for Carl's children and grandchildren.  People tend to identify the sanctum as a breeding ground of cultic deviance.             

 

        RESPONSE  BY  UNDERGRADUATES

        "There's a lot more than they had time to mention," declared a student at Nellis College, after he took the class that discusses the megamansion.  Another student said, "If I judge by the prof's performance, they could have courses like this at every school.  The Besselink isn't the only place like that.  I think I'll see some others.  I didn't expect so much detail."

        Each year on several occasions the campus at Nellis College accommodates 'idealistic' rallies.  In speeches the former sanctum is a predictable reference.        

        The undergraduate course is reputed to be a prosaic, noncontroversial presentation.  Its equivalent is now being offered at four universities.

 

        YEAR  1958

        Why did Carl Besselink, a person thought of as having no use for academic discourse, agree to sponsor the Forum On Social Views, held at the mansion?  Among the invited guests were theologians and clergy, as well as atheists, marxists and a couple of so-called right wingers.  It's been suggested that he had formed friendships with some of these people in spite of their professions.  Another influence possibly came from his children, each of them having a much different outlook.  Everyone who attended the meeting said it was quite civil.  No one has claimed that the secular Besselink was frustrated by the outcome, even though the one famous remark from the event was, "I won't complain if God decides to give you eternal life."  A theologian made this promise to one of Carl's most highly regarded associates.  From this meeting there were definite ripples across the country. 

        Almost entirely, the repercussion has been a fact about the publicity system.  Authentic summaries do exist, but they seem understated compared to news reports and talk show commentaries.

        Related, but not a repercussion, are statements of opinion about this type of gathering.  Such opinions were expressed long before 1958.  They've also been expressed afterward, and what they've said about Besselink wouldn't be too surprising.  A familiar complaint is that no one converts anyone at these events.  Other problems : the arguments are shallow, the participants never see each other again, etc. 

        There's an oddity which has gotten attention from time to time.  The family bequeathed a set of elite furniture which, by stipulation, was to be contained in one room.  What they'd known as the activity center was later to be called the conference room.  The set has been retained by the Ordination Club.  It includes the big table with its unheard-of geometric design on top.  It includes five expensive paperweights, each one a different shape.  To complete this, each corner of the room has a metallic stand holding a granite figurine which is perceived as enigmatic.  Some people think there's a message in all this, others talk about a 'curse.'  The Ordination Club's interpretation of the furniture is well known and seems - in spite of other facts about the Club - harmless. 

        There's reason to believe the heirs have kept stating and restating to each other certain thoughts about the philosophical forum.  This disclosure comes from Sadie Kleinbauer, though not so much in her message to Nellis College.  Her published memoir summarizes the salient family recollections.  Kleinbauer's account gives the definite sense that the heirs have tenaciously maintained, without debating, the memory.        

 

        TREATMENT  IN  FICTION

        The huge house features in two subplots of the Mossyrock novels by Roxann Pullman.  TV adaptations have also been made, and are thinly disguised.  Pullman's work at its best has creative merit, and her characters bear no resemblance to the family that lived in the mansion.

        Pullman has written some essays about the potential of such literature.  She identifies the young writers that she thinks are most likely to achieve something worthy.

        There are some hostile critics, including Dinah Milgram, the big name feminist at Cornell.  She's best known for the slogan 'Rahab, not Ahab.'  She argues that the sanctum has kept its place as a symbol for the oppression of women.  She'll tell you that life in the real world belies the symbol.  Her essays depict some hypothetical, domineering mistress of the country estate.  In her view the mainstream talk about culture has always relegated this woman to nonexistence.  Though she's very well known as a critic, Milgram's working association with Nellis could almost be a tactical secret.  On the other hand it's been pointlessly claimed that hers was the fifth statement requested by the college.  There was no fifth statement.  But she says that she's frequently conferred with people at the college.     

        The genre might always be with us.  The group of writers who call themselves the Underground Resolve have announced a forthcoming 'series of novellas' based on the sanctum's earlier history.  Till now the Resolve's publications have been moralistic journalism - diatribe against the reigning standards.  This new series is fiction produced by several authors.  We're guaranteed to have what we might expect : a grinding of the ax about social conditions at midcentury.      

 

        COSPLAY

        Another adapted form that might be called fiction deserves a separate mention.  This comes from a group whose costumed actors appear at fan conventions and other events.  They call themselves the Manor Performers.  For a while they gave primitive dramatic presentations, and some of these got out of hand.  The worst example occurred in Buffalo.  With a more developed presentation they manage to avoid the banalities involving serial killers and vampires.  Their story line is constant.  There's a patriarch who establishes a fiendish cult by means of inexplicable mind control.  His relatives are victimized in a succession of treacherous deeds.  Then he's done away with by his grandson, who proves to be repugnant without being so far to the right. 

 

        THE  TAKEOVER

        From its early days the Ordination Club has been at the forefront of environmentalist polemic.  Its warriors have had their own embarrassments.  Almost a decade after Bill Groven's prank against the building's group of sentries, his compromising self-indulgence at a Club meeting was reported.  Not that this invalidated his philosophical reasoning.  Allegedly the building's location has a supreme significance for environmental concerns.  If that's true, and it's why the Club chose to acquire the place, what did they know that the rest of us didn't?  When was it first known by Ned Suri?  One falsehood is the idea that the Ordination Club's advent was predetermined by the 1958 forum.  It's too late to prevent this delusion.  Yes, it's been plausibly suggested that someone at the forum referred to progeny worship.  And it's true that such worship made a contribution to the takeover a quarter century later.  But this doesn't encourage the ongoing fanaticism.  Dr. Stredwick has made a sound argument for thinking the special progeny can never have his decisive grasp of power.  His distance from the grasp is even greater than it used to be.                      

     

        NED  SURI

        One man is amusingly termed a sectarian because, with his own exotic viewpoint he scathingly opposes progeny worship.  Ned Suri has paid the Ordination Club's fee several times and claims to have enjoyed use of the mansion before the Club gained possession.  He cannot have been there as early as the Besselinks' tenure.  It's well known that he'd repudiated the show business leanings of his early adulthood.  Nevertheless, he makes documentaries.  He's occupied the building twice for that purpose.  Other visits, including the infamous episode of 1994, stressed the training of his own personnel.  He explains by way of emails his reasons for using the place to train, but these notes are not convincing.  On the greatest problems faced by anyone who seeks a better life, he sets forth his arguments in a thin volume which is given to those who apply for the status of partnership in his nonprofit society.  He's more than just a businessman.  

        He tells us, "There's a way to prevail against the abandonment of serious values in modern culture.  But before we can have that victory we need to acknowledge the problem.  Society resembles a corpse.  Elected public leadership is fetid, having a rhetoric of delusion.  Who will join us in protesting?  You're missing the point if you describe our perspective as 'highbrow.'  Advanced formal education has its place, but a profoundly democratic approach is what's needed most of all.  The initial target has to be corporate finance."  

        Some reliable witnesses claim that Suri had a decisive encounter with one of the Besselinks.  This happened sometime before the Ordination Club acquired the mansion.  The encounter was a long talk, perhaps a scheduled interview.  There are good reasons for thinking this family member was not the adored one.  If the talk influenced Suri's career, it would be in keeping with a kind of legend among the Besselink watchers. 

        Ned Suri might be the least vulnerable man walking the earth when it comes to lawsuits.  His active detractors just don't get it.  The fact is you can only get so far by branding someone a socialist.  Even if the criticism by Suri is directed against the upper levels of American business, his philosophy is hard to relate to the Right or the Left.  He can claim to be somewhat original.  His teachings may be a greater challenge than Scientology.       

        When first using the mansion to train personnel, his group was infiltrated.  Two supposed acolytes, a man and a woman, were discerned in regard to their purpose of subversion.  Other people since then have continued the effort to disgrace the Suri brand of allegiance.  

          

        PARTY  POLITICS

        It's hard to justify the use of the former sanctum as a debating reference in public elections.  The remarks by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were certainly extravagant.  And it was hard for Sadie Kleinbauer to avoid being drawn into it.  She was an arbitrary choice made by the campaign operatives, and she did more or less what she had to.  Then Dr. Stredwick became involved, whether he liked it or not.  The megamansion stays attractive to those operatives.

        The most remarkable development has been the emergence of a third party, the much maligned Guidance Party.  This interest group cites the mansion as an example of how things are bound to get worse in a society having mindless tradition.  We're told that the usual forms, including capitalism and socialism, are misguided.  Understandably nor not, the Guidance Party's recommended ism has been derided as 'extreme centrism.'    

      

        YEAR  1994

        Immediately after moving into the former sanctum, The Ordination Club announced a policy of taking bids for temporary use of the place.  Dozens of special events were held at the facility after that time, and one has been received in memory as a fable.  Ned Suri's organization paid the extraordinary fee and occupied the building for one week in 1994, training or indoctrinating.  During that week a participant named Glenna Francis, cousin to Ryan Cauble, was found unconscious in her own room.  Later in the hospital she made cryptic assertions blaming her malady on the training regimen.  A clumsy but effective investigation brought to light a renegade in their midst.  A prosecutor was able to do something about it.  Ned Suri made conciliatory promises.  In the following years Glenna learned that some unsavory character attributes were being ascribed to her.  For all the official bother, any sense of scandal had emerged rather slowly.  Part of the embarrassment was caused by her being related to the mansion's previous owners.  When she was taken from the building by paramedics, two or three persons made suspicious comments, but these were ignored by law enforcement.  The Ordination Club released a public statement that was noncommittal and boring - not even defensive.

        Glenna told Sadie Kleinbauer - as recounted in Sadie's memoir - that though she had first believed her illness was caused by 'severe training,' she had finally been enlightened by physicians.  They made it clear that she had a longstanding, in fact genetic, health problem, but one that a person isn't likely to be tested for until the appearance of certain symptoms.  According to the memoir, Glenna thinks that if not for the medical energency at the meeting, she'd have become one of the clueless followers in a madman's coterie.

        She spoke at the Nellis College panel discussion on March 12, 2018.  She described some basic similarities between the film studios and Suri's organization.  According to her the common mindset is manipulative, though her statements did not imply that women are treated worse than men.  She's gained recognition as a film critic.  She criticized in detail some popular movies, and she followed this with an unfriendly opinion of Suri's training methods.             

        What's most interesting here is that Ned Suri delegated the overseeing of the 1994 conference to a subordinate.  Suri didn't arrive at the site.  What happened as part of the meeting was strange and unpleasant even by Ordination Club standards.  Glenna's always been troubled by thinking she was passively involved.  The part she remembers was bad enough.  Most of the persons in attendance were kept ignorant of the criminal activities.           

        For obvious reasons, Ned Suri made no further use of the building.  

 

        GREAT  HOUSES  REGISTER

        In the early 20th century North America had a social current that was harsh enough to be called a system of rapids.  Even in those days activists with patrician sympathies had to be cautious.  One group was downright surreptitious when it produced the Great Houses Register.  Some of their views are today considered extreme by anyone who claims to be at home with polite society.  They had a founding deliberative session in Boston.  Their beliefs and mutual commitments were announced in secret and promptly endorsed by all concerned.  Their main document was published four months later with little fanfare.  

        Consider a passage from Ned Suri's book on the application for partnership.  It's retrospective, purporting to explain something about the group's origin.  "The central proponent was motivated by desperation.  There was a belief that educated leadership was threatened by changes wracking the social classes.  The deeper and less obvious destructive results of the Great War had still to be recognized.  Immigrants were unenlightened.  The central proponent could maintain his control of the movement, utilizing terror and false witness.  He despised the extremists who receive much attention in the press.  Only someone with a genius for secrecy and a love of tradition could prevent the slaughter of the aristocrats.  Long after his death, research told of his desperation."               

        Disconcerting parallels between certain estates become obvious with continued study of the Register.  William Besselink, the man who first owned the megamansion, was known to have obsessed with residential monuments of the aristocrats.  It's clear that some design features in the sanctum were suggested by similar motifs in the older buildings.  We're supplied with compelling evidence of a wide-ranging esthetic.  These features continue with the new structures.  Almost half the buildings mentioned in the Register are described as former houses.  Now they serve other purposes.  Whatever their present status, they mean something that won't be ignored.  Covering the topic of architecture-as-doctrine, historians will ponder examples which include The Breakers in Rhode Island, and the Chateau Pensmore in Missouri.