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Nonactuarial Pursuits of Casualty Actuaries
Teacher, Logger, Mystic, Actuary
by Marty AdlerThis issue's "mystery Fellow" originally chose a career in physics, and was a tenured associate professor when he realized that he felt dissatisfied in his work. One disillusioning incident involved a discouraging performance by his students on a final exam he designed. The exam tested understanding of the material through logical thinking rather than mere formula memorization. (I believe CAS students would meet such a challenge.) Feeling their pain, he decided to give them a second crack at a more traditional exam.
He spent his first summer after leaving the university working as a lumberjack, then worked for seven years as an electrician in the Bay Area. When he finally stumbled across the actuarial profession, he says, he was happy to have "inside work for the winter."
But his passion is Sufism, a mystic belief and practice with its origins in Islam, in which people seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. Although Sufism is generally thought of as an esoteric branch of Islam, some versions are not limited to Muslims. One such is the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society, which is concentrated on the West Coast but has worldwide presence.
His present wife introduced Sufism to our subject, and eventually they were married at a Sufi camp nine years ago. (Contrary to false rumor, there was no nudity at the wedding.) Although he does not regard himself as a Muslim, he subscribes to the essence of the Five Pillars of Islam: profession of faith, ritual prayer, alms for the poor, fasting, and pilgrimage. In his spare time he teaches in his Sufi school. He characterizes his teaching as partly psychological training of a sort. There is no credo; they respect all forms of religion. The focus is on the search for the inner truth that all religions share. The schools are not brick and mortar; they exist where people gather. They are organized around the techniques used rather than specific beliefs. At one time he taught weekly. Now it is less frequent but longer in duration, with weekend or even weeklong sessions.
This Fellow is also a follower of the greatest mystical poet in the Persian language, Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi ("Rumi"). He tells me that Rumi is the best selling poet in the U.S. today. In his honor, Rumi's son, Sultan Veled, founded the Mevlevi Dervish order over 700 years ago. They practice a precise, sacred whirling dance, a combination of ecstasy and misery. Our subject studied "turning" with the son of the former Sheikh of Konya, Turkey, who introduced the practice to North America. During the reformation of Turkey by Kemal Ataturk in 1922, the government curtailed the public operations of all the Sufi orders. However, the country has found the turning useful as a tourist attraction. (Rumor has it that the secret police watched to make sure that nobody was actually praying while they turned.) In 1994 he and his wife were in the first American group to turn at Mevlana's (Rumi's) tomb, and the first group to turn both men and women in 450 years. It was an exhilarating experience for Rodney Kreps.
If you wish a more detailed, passionate exposition on Sufism and whirling, speak to Rodney at a CAS meeting. He should not be hard to spot—he's six feet, seven inches tall.