[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—Those whe were actually
in statu pupillari at Oxford in 1921 are perhaps the best judges of Mr. F. Buchman's pretence that Oxford was the centre of the religious movement launched by his groups in that year. As the editor of an undergraduate journal, the Free Oxford, with six numbers to its credit, I knew of every movement, religious, political or literary, fermenting in the University in 1921, commented on all and condemned most. But I never heard of the " Groups " until years later, when the American novelist, Mr. Sinclair Lewis, told me about a new form of revivalism in the United States called " Buchmanism."
A short time before Hitler came into power I was informed by the late Sanitatsrat Dr. Magnus Hirschfeldt, of the Institut fiir Sexual Wissenschaft in Berlin, that the German Secret Service sent members into Buchman's groups for the purpose of noting confessions that might in a future war be useful for the purpose of blackmailing or discrediting " Buchmanites " risen to responsible positions in England or America.—Yours
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