Max Freedom Long

Max Freedom Long (October 26, 1890 – September 23, 1971) was an American novelist and New Age author.

Max Freedom Long was born on October 26, 1890, in Sterling, Colorado to Toby Albert Long and his wife Jessie Diffendaffer. At the time of the 1910 census he was working as a photographer in his hometown, and was living with his grandfather's household with his parents. He attended Los Angeles State Normal School from September 1914 to June 1916, and graduated with an Associate of Arts (two-year) degree in General Education. After graduating, he worked briefly as an auto-mechanic in Los Angeles.

In 1917, Long moved to the island of Hawaii to teach in elementary schools around the big island. He moved to Honolulu in 1920 and lived there until 1932, where he worked in and later owned a photography store. In 1920, he married an English woman named Jane Jessie Rae, who was the proprietor of the Hotel Davenport in Honolulu. When he arrived in Hawaii, he claimed that some Native Hawaiians were practicing what he called magic. Long wrote that at first he was skeptical of this magic, but later became convinced that it worked. He devoted the rest of his life to creating theories about how the Native Hawaiians did what he claimed they did, and teaching those theories through the sale of books and newsletters.

In the mid-1930s, Long relocated to Orange County, California and began to focus on writing books inspired by his experiences in Hawaii. He married a second time while in California.

Long decided to call his compilation of teachings Huna, because one meaning of the word is "hidden secret." He wrote that he derived it from the word kahuna, who were priests and master craftsmen who ranked near the top of the social scale. Long published a series of books on Huna starting in 1936, and founded an organization called the Huna Fellowship in 1945.

There are no accepted Hawaiian sources - Malo, Kamakau, 'I'i,Kepelino - that refer to the word Huna as a tradition of esoteric learning.

Max Freedom Long wrote that he obtained many of his case studies and his ideas about what to look for in kahuna magic from the Director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, William Brigham. There is no credible evidence that the two men met. Even if they did, Brigham was not an expert on kahunas and did not document in his own writings any of the incidents Long ascribed to him, including walking on hot lava. In his letters and manuscripts, Brigham stated that Hawaiians were "an inferior race," and implied they were lazy. He referred to Queen Lili'uokalani as a "she devil," "squaw," and "nigger."

...
Wikipedia