Huna's positive thinkers gather in Cape

Huna teaches its followers that the first three steps they must take to change their lives are:

1. Identify where you are. 2. Decide you don't want to be there. 3. Decide where you want to be.

This weekend, about 110 people from all over the world decided they wanted to be in Cape Girardeau at the 2004 Huna World Convention. Florence Petheram of Auburn, Wash., said that decision and her decision to learn more about the ancient Hawaiian technique of positive thinking 12 years ago have changed her life for the better.

"I was pushed by my higher self to be here," said Petheram, 73.

Petheram felt impelled from within and from forces without to make her first-ever trip to this convention, where she knew no one who would be in attendance. After hours of waiting in airports with standby tickets, she was the second to last person let on a crowded plane flying from Seattle to Houston and the very last one on a flight from there to St. Louis. When the shuttle dropped her off at the Plaza Conference Center minutes before the opening ceremony on Wednesday, she knew that she was supposed to be here.

Also in attendance was Dr. E. Otha Wingo, a retired professor of foreign languages at Southeast Missouri State University. In 1973, a man named Max Freedom Long asked Wingo to take over his work studying and teaching Huna. Long wrote extensively about Huna and is credited with re-discovering the discipline's code that had been buried in the Hawaiian language for centuries. At that time, Wingo became the executive director of the Huna Research Inc., based in Cape Girardeau, which became the world hub for Huna. That's why this convention has been held here annually since 1975.

"Huna is about consciously directing life energy for a specific purpose," Wingo said. "It's useful, practical information for life."

The discipline has thousands of followers all over the world. Many of them have come to this annual convention, some from as far away as Poland and Switzerland, to learn more about Huna from expert speakers and trade Huna secrets -- the word "Huna" is Hawaiian for secret -- with fellow disciples.

"It's a support group for the beliefs," said Phyllis Corwin, a charter member of Huna Research Inc., who comes here regularly from her home in Pennsylvania.

Although Petheram came as a stranger to everyone else at the convention, by Friday she was talking with many of them as if they were life-long friends. She said it's that interpersonal respect that she loves about Huna the most.

"In Huna, the one sin is to hurt someone," Petheram said. "Through Huna, I've learned to make amends and heal myself."

trehagen@semissourian.com

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