"Born in 1896 in San Francisco, Lewis was disowned by his family in his late teens for an over-avid interest in religion. His father, a secular Jew and senior executive of the Levi Strauss Company had wanted to install him in business. Instead, Lewis had studied theosophy, Eastern religions and the mystical side of Judaism. It was through the latter pursuit that he met a California teacher of Kaballah, Rabia Ada Martin, who was also an early student of the Indian Sufi musician and teacher Inayat Khan (1886-1927), who had come to live in Europe in 1910. At the same time, Lewis was also studying with the legendary Zen master Nyogen Senzaki (co-author, with Paul Reps, another student of both Inayat Khan and Senzaki, of the book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, 2000). Lewis met Inayat Khan in 1923, during one of the latter's visits to San Francisco, and he intiated a meeting of Khan and Senzaki, which both mention in their autobiographical papers. According to Lewis, both the Sufi and Zen masters ignored efforts of their followers to make small talk: 'The two men sat down at a table, looked into each other's eyes and both immediately entered into that samadhi which so many lecturers tell us about but do not experience themselves' (Lewis, 1986,) . . . 'through love of sound, we come to God, through identity with sound, we become identical with God' [Lewis] . . . 'The Goose-Step involves a maximum of Yang to practically lthe complete exclusion of Yin. Metaphysically, the Goose-Step and War [sic] are one. The Goose-Step...makes use of force without stint or qualification. It involves destructive psychic as well as physical forces. To abolish war, we must abolish warlike movements' (Lewis, SD, p20) . . . Lewis was following the influence of Ruth St.Denis, who wrote in 1933: 'The dance of the future will no longer be concerned with meaningless dexterities of the body....Remembering that man is indeed the microcosm, the universe in miniature, the Divine Dance of the future should be able to convey with its slightest gestures some signficance of the universe.... As we rise higher in the understanding of ourselves, the national and racial dissonances will be forgotten in the universal rhythms of Truth and Love. We shall sense our unity with all peoples who are moving to that exalted rhythm' (Miller, 1997) . . . [Lewis] wrote the following in 1940: 'When mankind, terrorized by conflict and faced with the ruin of his civilization, when the power of wealth has dominated justice and the concept of fiction-money is leading to utter destruction; when the Holy Spirit, driven ever further away on its path of ascension has again reached zenith, to the undoing of so much near and dear to us-let us, in spite of what occurs before our eyes, invoke that same Divine Spirit through love and beauty, that we may restore order and balance to humanity. When doctrines divide and isms turn man against man, without speech, without silence, let us demonstrate. Let these demonstrations manifest everywhere. Not what we think or say but what we do shall avail. May we therefore bear the torch of holiness and make of our bodies temples of sacred worship. Now look with hearts and minds and eyes, on with the dance….' (Lewis, SD, p. 6) - Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz,"From Breath to Dance: Music and Movement as Languages of Experience in an American Sufi"
