Darvish Khan Writes

Sir Francis Bacon authored a  work called “The New Atlantis“, which was posthumously published in 1626. It is an utopian novel that describes an island where science and technocrats create a new world. The title refers to the myth of Atlantis as presented by Plato, which is the first historical reference to this ancient island-continent that sank itself through the abuse of energy some 10,000 years ago. In an account by Filis Fredrick, the final sinking of Atlantis was precipitated by a corrupt priestly class murdering the child-Avatar.

Bacon was referring to America as the new Atlantis. He was mad about the possibility of science, specifically the power of induction based on careful observation, to account for the laws of nature, and thereby create a new and ideal world. Bacon played a leading role in establishing the first English colonies in Virginia and the Carolinas.

America as a political experiment became devoted to exceptionally grand thinking about creating a completely new form of government in which sovereignty would lie with The People. In this quaint imagining, representative government referred exclusively to white male gentry who possessed the right to buy and sell Africans as slaves  and exterminate native Americans as soulless savages. Such was the beginning of the “New Atlantis”.

But according to Edgar Cayce, this was precisely the problem that brought about Atlantis’ demise:

“Cayce blamed the final destruction of Atlantis and the disintegration of their culture on greed and lust. According to Cayce, two rival parties fought for control of the Atlanteans in its final days. The Children of the Law of One wanted to return to a spiritual stewardship of the land based on natural laws. The other group, the Sons of Belial, wanted to exploit natural resources for material gain.”

“The chief focus of their conflict was a third class of dull, half-awake sub-humans used by the Sons of Belial for slave labor. The Children of the Law of One wanted to enlighten these sub–beings by raising their consciousness; the Sons of Belial wanted to keep them in ignorance and exploit them for their own gain.”

Essentially, the problem of Atlantis and the problem of America is the one and the same: the rise of a technocracy and ruling elites promoting empire in opposition to spiritual progressives over the disposition of a slave/ exploited worker class.

According to both Manly P. Hall and Edgar Cayce, the Americas were populated by Atlanteans in waves of emigration as a consequence of the protracted sinking of Atlantis. This refers to Native Americans, particularly certain tribal groupings, perhaps especially the Maya, Iroquois, Navajo and Hopi, the Sioux, the Cherokee and other tribes. Pharonic culture in ancient Egypt was also established by Atlanteans. Filis Fredrick states that she remembers a past life fleeing the final Atlantean catastrophe and arriving with other spiritual elites on the Carolina coast, near present day Myrtle Beach.

America is the New Atlantis, the New World promising both the possibility of democracy by the people and for the people on the basis of technological innovation, or the reprise of Atlantean misuse of energy, natural resources and the exploitation of a slave/ worker class and its ultimate destruction.

White evangelical Christians claim that God has appointed America a special destiny to rule the world in a Pax Americana that denies global warming and the problem of sustainability. They are fully supportive of Zionism which seeks to establish a white and Jewish settler colonialism through ethnic cleansing and genocide and to perpetuate endless war in the Middle East to secure the interests of empire.

Avatar Meher Baba has confirmed that America has a special destiny to guide the world spiritually- if it can overcome its longstanding abuse and misuse of energy. Baba has given the organization Sufism Reoriented a charter and mandate to represent love for God in his name- but only on the basis of absolute honesty on its part, which has already been called into question. 

Filis Fredrick has also stated that Akhenaten, the great spiritual iconoclast of ancient Egypt and a minor incarnation of the Avatar, was murdered by a rival high priest serving the status quo; she identified this high priest as the occult usurper of Sufism Reoriented, Jim Mackie.

What will be the destiny of the New Atlantis? How will the dark karmas that represent its past and inform its future play out? How will abusive technology and priestly lineages warp the divine destiny of America? Will the New Atlantis survive?

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Fascism, American style, means imploding corporatism and militarism. It is the fervent support of exceptionalism based on the subversion of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is a bipartisan project, enabled by corporate media, to completely sabotage the American experiment.

The three branches of government have been subverted by corporate greed, military hubris and Orwellian religious nationalism, all of which comes into its sharpest focus in a foreign policy that promotes empire, endless war and the denial of global warming as its most important agenda.

America has no greater enemy than it its own fascist exceptionalism which is defended vigorously by the Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court and Big Media.

Osama Bin Laden’s lasting victory has been to enshrine Islamophobia, on the one hand, and the pledge of eternal support for Zionism, on the other hand, as daggers in the heart of American democracy and world peace. American foreign policy has gone completely berserk in the raging against enemies largely contrived by its own actions, and in the support of murderous settler colonialism.

And this includes not just the War Machine, but the domestic Spy Machine. The collective defense and surveillance budget, including health care costs for veterans and separately budgeted projects such as the revival of the nuclear arms race is way, way more than a trillion dollars per annum. Most of this money goes directly into corporate pockets and investors’ bank accounts, i.e. into the pockets of the 1%, who rule America.

American fascism is the implosion of neoliberalism on the basis of trauma and fear, and has secured its death grip on American democracy by redefining freedom of speech and the separation of church and state as the right of corporatists to buy elections and the right of demagoguery to define anti Zionism as anti-Semitism and thereby indemnify Israel for institutionalized Apartheid and war crimes.

How did America ever come to buy this fascist swill?

America is itself a settler colonial project based on genocide and slavery, and we obviously have not had enough of rage, cruelty and violence. And so we have continued to rationalize that craven history in perpetuating racism and economic slavery on much of the world.

But we are so clever: we call it the War on Terror.

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Alan Cohen’s initial remarks suggested a response to Alisa Genovese’s recent address to the Circle of Friends on the subject of the Meher Baba Center of Northern California’s reprise in 2015 of the 1980 Bell Of Warning. Such was not the case. Alan had nothing to say about the mandali’s collective objection to Ivy Duce appointing Jim Macky (rhymes with quacky) as her “divinely sanctioned” successor.

Instead, Alan in superb avuncular rambling weaved a pastiche of inaccuracies about any number of subjects. Here is a list of some of them:

He adduces Jim Macky’s and Carol Conner’s endorsement of the Byramangala Baba Center as work significant to Meher Baba; Baba in fact shut down this project and disavowed it. Eruch Jessawala, as well, admonished the Bangalore group to not revive this project, which has been falsely marketed as a “Universal Baba Center”.

Alan gets confused about the distinction Baba himself made between direct and indirect paths and relationship to Meher Baba:

http://www.meherlegacy.org/uploads/2/4/9/3/24931365/1952.july.20-baba_discourse_to_sufis.pdf 

These two paths are not the same, and never will be! SR is an indirect path, that is it is mediated by an interlocutor; the direct path is based on only an unmediated and personal relationship with the Beloved.

Alan gets confused about Bhau confirming Carol Conner’s spiritual status: Bhau was never in a position to confirm Carol Conner’s spiritual status. Bhau himself became a guru in his last days to the consternation of many astute Baba lovers. (But not to his many sycophants.)

Alan gets confused about Adi K. Irani endorsing Jim Macky as a real murshid; Adi, in fact, thought Macky was as fragrant as kaka.

Alan gets confused about what Don Stevens has to say about Ivy Duce’s confused telling of what Baba promised her, etc. This is an especially glaring distortion of historical fact as Don Stevens was Ivy’s primary go-between with Baba on all matters pertaining to SR’s charter.

In fact, all the mandali alive in 1980 when the Bell of Warning was rung by Eruch J., thought Jim Macky was as fragrant as kaka.

All the gold medal philanthropy in the world can not save Sufism re-Reoriented from deviating from the path of absolute honesty and obedience to the Prophet of our time.

In fact, the path SR has taken is a path of power and self aggrandizement through  philanthropy and choral productions draped in religious garb for public acceptance. The image of St. Francis has been coopted for this purpose.  Alan in fact acknowledges this institutional modus operandi in referencing the difficultly SR had in obtaining the building permits to build a largely underground (out of sight) sanctuary in Walnut Creek, Ca: SR is in fact for tax purposes a church, the house Carol Conner lives in is a parsonage, Baba has become a “world teacher” and SR devotes huge amounts of time and resources to promote itself as engaged in Christian charity. All this is a power play for institutional acceptance.

There are obviously very few Baba lovers alive and willing to counter the lies and distortions perpetrated by spokespeople for Sufism re-Reoriented.  That the Circle of Friends has swallowed hook, line and sinker the narrative presented by this ersatz sufi order is amazing.

No one is questioning that reoriented sufis love Meher Baba. The problem is the lack of honesty in acknowledging the tragic history of this so called sufi Baba group. This is particularly the problem of leadership in this group which has guzzled the kool aid with gusto. And this includes Alan Cohen.

Even the Circle of Friends is not honest in its declared impartiality on the hosting of these events. They have removed video content and comments on this controversy and have blocked known and supposed critics from posting to its Facebook page. Most unfortunately, COF has abused the memory of the mandali in ringing the Bell of Warning.

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Nothing. The U.S. has a flatline learning curve about the Middle East. The U.S. can not register a pulse at all in Middle East politics and Islamic culture. It’s like the U.S. is a catatonic vampire salivating for the next barbarous and jingoistic meal.

U.S. Middle East policy runs on Islamophobia and slavish surrender to Zionist propaganda. Israel’s founding is based on the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians whose descendants live in the world’s largest open air prison- Gaza. Some 5 million Palestinians are stateless citizens- that means they have no political rights in the lands controlled by Israel. They are permanent political non entities.

And their ancestral lands, olive groves, and villages are subject to continual ethnic cleansing in the name of Israeli national security.

What does the U.S. know about Salafi fundamentalist Islam? Or rather, what does the U.S. publicly acknowledge about Saudi racism and terrorism? Nothing. Despite the fact that 9/11 was perpetrated by mostly Saudi nationals. Despite the fact that Salafi Islam is responsible for almost all terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam.

What can account for this  incredible stupidity?

This is not a partisan issue. This is not about taking sides in a contentious debate. The facts are not ambiguous- they are and have always been crystal clear: The U.S. in the interest of empire has always supported authoritarian and racist regimes.

U.S foreign policy in the Middle east is a continuation of historic domestic U.S. racism, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the interest of empire. It’s that simple.

America, please wake up.

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The problem of authoritarian religious/ racial nationalism has assumed pandemic proportions. In the case of Iran, it is based on theocracy, but is more commonly based on an implicit or explicit political alliance with religious authority and tradition, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, Russia, Britain, the U.S., Hungary, Myanmar, Serbia, and Turkey. China is a special instance as the atheistic state has assumed extraordinary fascist powers based on the historical usurpation of Confucianism. Apart from Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, what do all these countries have in common? They all derive support for their authoritarian religious nationalism from Islamophobia. Even Iran and Saudi Arabia derive part of their political rationalization on a sectarian form of Islamophobia- historical denial of either Sunni or Shia legitimacy.

I am not referring simply to racial or religious chauvinism- which has always been with us, but to authoritarian state policies that range from suppression of civil and religious liberty to prison camps, ethnic cleansing and genocide. And I am referring to state policies that have developed especially in the last twenty years. And I am referring to countries some of which are self avowed defenders of liberty and democracy, most notably the U.S. and Israel.

What is the role of Islamophobia in all this?

The trauma of 9/11 resulted in the U.S. falling into a permanent state of “Shock and Awe”: We have been in multiple wars and military projects ever since the symbolic crashing of capitalism in New York in 2001. We immediately invaded Afghanistan and have remained there ever since, making it the longest war in U.S. history, and yet we control at this time less than half the country. We destroyed Iraq on the basis of a lie that has never been politically accounted for: There was no congressional investigation of the single greatest war crime since the Holocaust. (We have Obama to thank for that.) We have invaded and helped destroy Syria and Libya, and we have aided Saudi Arabia to wage war crimes on a massive scale in Yemen. We are engaged in extra judicial drone assassinations in numerous countries not only in the Middle East but also in Africa. And we now threaten Iran on a daily basis with the transparent lie that they seek to develop nuclear weaponry. Virtually the entire world except for the U.S. and Israel know and declare this to be, like George Bush’s assertion of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a lie.

How could such a massive parade of viciousness and lies roll on and on, year after year, with nearly full congressional support?

The answer lies in U.S. dependency on Saudi oil and regional hegemony and support of Israel as a settler colonial state with a US lobby infamous for its power and ruthlessness. The U.S. government and corporate media are so completely pro Israel that it is literally impossible to have a sustained public debate of the facts of Zionist Apartheid without being accused of anti-Semitism. This tragic fact has become a massive black hole into which all sane discourse on the Middle East disappears. It is a masterstroke of utterly perverse propaganda that has highjacked U.S. foreign (and domestic) policy like no other single issue. (Russiagate, by comparison, is a trifle.) The bogeyman is, of course, the omnipresent Muslim terrorist who is allied with the dispossessed Palestinian ingrate.

And yet there is a complete taboo in government and corporate media of discussing, let alone acknowledging, that we are a failed Orwellian and Islamophobic  state. Our democracy has been flushed down a corporate Spy and War Machine and Zionist toilet to further the fossil fuel industry and settler colonialism.

But the story doesn’t end there. The absolutely tremendous dedication of the US to the Terror Wars and concomitant support of Israel and Saudi Arabia has so upended the Middle East that Islamophobia is raging like a super fire storm across the planet:

China has incarcerated up to two million Muslims in Xinjiang so as to render them non-Muslims; India is planning to expel up to two million Muslims as illegal immigrants; the Zionist lobby in Britain has successfully smeared Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party as anti-Semites because of support for Palestinian rights; 700,ooo Rohingya Muslims were ethnically cleansed from Myanmar and remain stateless; the recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Peter Handke, has denied Serbian atrocities against Bosnian Muslims; France, Britain, the U.S., Germany and roughly thirty other governments have adopted the position that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic; the U.S. has fully endorsed the most egregiously racist and criminal Israeli state policies and actions; the U.S. has fully endorsed and protected the murderer, MBS, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, as a pawn to promote U.S. hegemony, etc.

The U.S., champion of righteousness in defeating the Axis powers, has in the years since the end of the second World War metamorphosed into the world’s greatest rogue terrorist state and the greatest supporter of both the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia, world wide supporter of Salafi fundamentalism, and the fascist state of Zionist Apartheid. In fact both these countries only exist because of U.S. financial largesse and military support.

As I write, Israel is moving toward a final solution of the several million Palestinians whose land, villages, homes, olive trees, grazing lands and water have been systematically stolen by the fascist settler colonial state of Zionist Apartheid.

The U.S. has become a Death Star in its support for rabid religious/ racial nationalism.

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