Statements by Meher Baba about his movie, and interpretation

Meher Baba in Hollywood, 1932

The following are common misunderstandings about the film project Meher Baba began and worked on before abandoning in the 1930s.

Misunderstanding 1: Baba wrote a screenplay for a Hollywood movie on his theme of Reincarnation in the 30s. In reality what people are calling a script or screenplay was only an outline of possible movie scenes worked up by him in an hour while sitting down with screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta at her home in Harmon on the Hudson in New York.

Many other stories and even whole scripts were written as well by others as potential candidates for this movie project. Writers included Hy Kraft, Karl Vollmoeller, and Alexander Markey. None of these scenarios and scripts were ever approved by Baba for production. 

These facts are recorded in the book Early Messages to the West written by the Avatar Meher Baba Trust and published by Sheriar Foundation in 2009.

Misunderstanding 2: The outline by Baba and Acosta was meant by Baba to be taken as a blueprint for a film.

The reality is that Baba was only demonstrating how simple his basic idea was. It described five characters who we follow over several lifetimes as they progress spiritually. Eventually one achieves God-realization and his companions become his disciples. The title and details of the scenario were arbitrary, not to be followed literally. It was the theme he was trying to get across, not the story.

Baba later even said he was actually preparing the ground for a future trend in films, a medium that has evolved significantly since then.

Someday the themes we are discussing now will form the basis of an entirely new trend in motion pictures. (Lord Meher, 1986 print ed. p. 2215)

Misunderstanding 2: The movie Baba was talking about had to be a movie. Sound movies only began in 1929. In 1932, the year Baba began working on the project, the average Hollywood movie was black and white, screened in nearly square format, filmed entirely in a studio, and was about 81 to 90 minutes. By the 1950s movies were color, shot in wide-screen technicolor, and frequently ran over three hours. By the 2000s movies were watched at home on flat screens in home theaters, streamed by platforms like Netflix. Breaking Bad and Firefly were some of the first viral series. The Netflix series became the trend and the idea of binge-watching came to be popular. In the early 2010s broad open-world games like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption became sensations with players becoming immersed in games for hundreds of hours. 

The future still remains open as story entertainment continues to evolve.

Misunderstanding 3: Baba had in mind for people to make a movie about him, or that included him. There is zero evidence of this in anything Baba ever said about such  movie(s). Baba clearly was emphasizing the power of the medium of motion pictures -- under which we today would include the forms mentioned above and others to come -- to convey ideas to the masses.

I do not need to tell you who are engaged in the production and distribution of motion pictures what a power you hold in your hands, nor do I doubt that you are fully alive to the responsibilities which the wielding of that power involves. He who stimulates the imagination of the masses can move them in any direction he chooses, and there is no more powerful an instrument for stimulating their imagination than motion pictures. . . Both the press and the radio influence thought, but both lack the power of visible example, which is the greatest stimulant to action, and which the motion picture offers better now than any other medium. (Meher Baba's message to Hollywood, delivered at Pickfair in June 1932)

Gabriel Pascal, 1945

Misunderstanding 4: Baba abandoned the project or it "fell through." 

Baba stopped actively working on the film in 1934, but continued to discuss its future production with producer Gabriel Pascal as late as the 1950s (The Disciple and His Devil, Valerie Pascal, 1970).

And Baba once said the film had to be made one day.

Below is a chart Baba had made to explain the theme of Creation in the movie. 

It is my personal opinion that the themes Baba described in the 1930s will eventually be expressed as a video game franchise about reincarnation and karma as well as the ultimate purpose of life.

An Analysis of Why Meher Baba's Followers Don't Understand Him

The Western metaphysical paradigm is called reductive materialism. We grow up educated in this paradigm. Let me explain it. 

We are taught that things are fundamentally made of smaller things -- all the way down as they say. Things you see with your eyes and feel with your hands are made of molecules. Molecules are groups of two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds. These in turn are made of atoms. Atoms are made of sub-atomic particles, etc. All of these are things. So things are explained by more things.

So when a Westerner picks up a book like God Speaks, every noun is assumed to name a thing and is pictured as a thing.

Therefore, when Baba mentions "souls" we equate these with astral bodies (ghosts). When he mentions planes we equate these with places. When he mentions sanskaras we equate these with chromosomes. When he mentions "God" we equate this with our idea of Yahweh, a late Bronze Age deity adopted by certain henotheist tribes in the Levant as their national god. When he mentions evolution of consciousness we picture Charles Darwin's natural selection.

With such misunderstanding of what Baba is talking about you could read his book God Speaks ten times and still not know what he taught. I could not have understood Berkeley without my thesis advisor explaining the language, nor Kant without my Kant professor explaining what he meant by intuitions. Reading isn't always enough.

For this reason, I feel that one day the Baba community needs teachers and courses. I'm not the administrative type, so could never help with that. 

Gods, ghosts, places, and chromosomes are things. Animal species are things. Baba is not talking about things in God Speaks. He is trying to introduce the reader to a concept of psychic emergence. 

See my paper The Vocabulary and Meaning of the Psychic Emergent Universe.

Philosophy’s modern image of itself as a bulwark against disruptive inquiry

 

What Locke said in the 18th century in England still holds a lot of sway in philosophy today, I think. 

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1609) the English philosopher John Locke wrote of the role of philosophy as serving as the under-laborer to the master-builder that is science. He meant that because science is so great, the only role left for philosophers was to clear the rubbish that kept people from believing in what scientists claim.

What he effectively implied was that philosophy was meant to be a bulwark against innovative philosophical contemplation or critique of the assumptions of science.

The problem with this view is that science has no actual view of reality. The scientists he idealized as “master-builders” could only tease out laws from their observations. They were helpless to see how those laws fit into a larger picture. 

The logical positivists furthered this idea by Locke, and the linguistic philosophers who followed them (led initially by Ludwig Wittgenstein) literally saw the role of philosophy as a kind of therapy for the ‘disorder’ of questioning metaphysical assumptions. See Ernest Gellner's Words and Things: An Examination of, and an Attack on, Linguistic Philosophy (1959).

So my philosopher colleagues were trained to see their role as preventing ideas like EOP (that integrates the achievements of science into a larger vision) from coming to the fore. This will not last, for people will eventually see it.

CIA and Academia

Why RD2 is still the best

Esalen Institute

Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, is often romanticized as a countercultural hub of the human potential movement, but critics and skeptics often "debunk" its mystical claims as expensive, pseudoscientific self-help wrapped in a corporate shell.

Timothy Leary Lying About What Meher Baba Said About Drugs

An excerpt from "Nema Aviona Za Zagreb." For the full film go here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7BhnI81P8w&t=2s

Filmed by Jan de Bont (pictured above). The footage of Meher Baba was shot in Meherazad, India on 20 September 1967. The Timothy Leary footage was shot in the same year at Milbrooke.

Uncaptured Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran

How ChatGPT depicts me

I asked ChatGPT to create an image of Philosopher Christopher Jonathan Ott, who wrote "The Evolution of Perception" and this is what I got.

Compare to the actual me.

Max Blumenthal – Brilliant Rebuttal

Lies and False Rumors of Lies

There is a belief that is trending among a large minority of people. Demographically I can't describe who they are. But I know there are many who ascribe to it because I read it all the time online, and have heard people refer to it.

It is the line that "Everything they taught you in school was a lie."

There are some lies told to us in school, but they weren't made up by school teachers or even text-book writers. Rather they come down from past centuries and are known by real historians to be untrue. These scholars even regret that teachers have not gotten the memo.

The irony is that these false stories known to be untrue are not the ones these conspiracists are calling lies. They actually believe the ones known to be lies.

I am specifically speaking of:

• The false belief that Atlantis was a real place.
• The false belief that Oswald didn't act alone.
• The false belief that mischief went on at the 1st Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
• The false belief that Christopher Columbus argued with the scholars of his day that the world was round.
• The false belief that reincarnation was removed from the teachings of Christianity.

So, as I said, the irony is that these false ideas are believed in by the very people who say that everything you learned in school was a lie. One can easily discover the truth about these false assumptions by reading modern scholarship about them. But another irony is that people who believe there is an academic conspiracy to lie to them won't read these books. This is like putting a veil over your own head so you cannot see.

I have never seen any remedy for the circular form of thinking these people have. I once told two engineers, so seemingly smart people, that the scholars at the time of Columbus knew the world was round, and they denied it ardently. I told them they could look it up on Wikipedia. Their reply was sarcastic. "Who wrote the Wikipedia article, you?" Ha ha ha. You can't correct these people. As Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians writes, scholars and historians have been unsuccessfully trying to correct this historical misconception since the 1920s. Incidentally, the idea was invented in the early 1800s.

While I have studied epistemology and written many papers on the topic, it seems to me that far beyond lack of knowledge of the methods of scientific reasoning and logical principles, the greater culprit in man's ignorance is his own prejudices.  

Baba Vs. Human Addictions

The message on this white board would apply to Meher Baba as much as Jesus.

I live with the Baba followers. It was my fate. I was born into it. But if I were younger I would move away. They have this trope. They say all the time, "They're going to make it a religion." I wrote a blog post about this phrase. But it is the people who say this that are creating one, one Baba would not recognize.

Virtually all my posts that have to do with Meher Baba's teaching are attempts to address and correct ideas that his followers have made up to replace what he really wrote in his books. I even did a recent post showing how easy it is for us to examine his actual teachings, as opposed to the followers of past religions who essentially have to do forensic research now to discover it.

I have tried to analyze why people feel the need to replace what their master said with their own primitive assumptions from the past -- very often the very ideas that master came to help people see past and overcome. I believe it is that the needs and desires of ordinary people aren't met by these teachings. Instead of a new way of looking at things, they want their cultural addictions affirmed. 

I'll give some examples. Baba's early Western followers were already attached to and convinced by occult books of the 19th and early 20th century, including things like Theosophy. They were always looking to syncretize whatever he said to those teachings, even though he said those teachings were mostly false and silly. Then Baba's hippy followers came in the 60s and 70s. They interpreted every teaching by Baba through New Age and the Human Potential Movement (HPM) worldviews. 

Of course my writing does no good. Quoting Baba where he fully contradicts these past philosophical trends doesn't reach people. It passes in one ear and out the other, even though they can easily look up what Baba said, and I usually give the exact source to make it easy. That's why I call this an 'addiction.' You can hardly help a person get sober simply by telling them the dangers of intoxication and the benefits of sobriety. No matter how rational you are, the addiction is far, far stronger than reason.

The real Baba doesn't scratch the itch they have, the need for experiences, dreams, secret doctrines, and self-importance. They are chasing a feeling they once had in their youth, a feeling Baba does not help them relive. And I can't see anything anyone can do about that. As they say, 'It is what it is.'

So when I see that white board, it saddens me. For the ones complaining some mysterious 'they' are going to come along and ruin Baba by making him a religion are the very ones doing so before our eyes.

A Brief Talk About the Books We Have By and About Meher Baba

Meher Baba signing front pages of his principal book
"God Speaks" on 18th March 1955 in Satara, India. 

The provenance of written materials we have on Meher Baba's life and teaching bears little resemblance to that of the scant direct evidence we have about the life and teachings of Jesus.

The gospels of Jesus that we have were based on oral tradition and not written down until at least 35 – 40 years after his crucifixion. 

In contrast we have many contemporaneous publications about Baba's life and teaching. These include three biographies of Baba that were actually written during his own lifetime and approved by him. These were The Perfect Master: the life of Shri Meher Baba by Charles Purdom (1937), Avatar by Jean Adriel (1947), and The God-Man by Charles Purdom (1964). In addition, Lord Meher: The Biography of the Avatar Meher Baba, the most exhaustive biography of Baba's life comprising 20 volumes was begun by Baba's close disciple Bhau Kalchuri almost immediately after Baba's passing. Kalchuri began the project by gathering and compiling stories of Baba's life from witnesses all over India, a task that took him over two years. From these notes he began composing the massive biography, and, by working continually was done in the Summer of 1972, just 2 1/2 years after Baba's passing. The entire 20 volume biography was serially published from 1986 – 2001.

Of Baba's teaching, the major books of his teachings were written, copyrighted, and published in his lifetime and by his own management. He even signed them. These include:

God Speaks: The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, published by Dodd, Mead in 1955. Baba signed 498 copies.

God to Man and Man to God : the discourses of Meher Baba / edited by C.B. Purdom. — London : Gollancz, 1955.

Discourses (numerous editions from 1938 – 1987)

The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Beams from Meher Baba on the spiritual panorama (1958)

Listen, Humanity (Dodd, Mead, 1957)

Life At Its Best (1957)

Baba filmed while giving a discourse on drugs in 1967

So what is the relevance of this difference between what we have of Christ's life and teaching and what we have of Baba's? In the past it has been a chore for scholars to determine what early Christianity was like, and what parts of it could be attributed to Jesus. 

Recently these kinds of uncertainties have become so great that many have begun to doubt Jesus ever even lived, or if he did if he said any of the things attributed to him in the Bible.

These will not be legitimate concerns for people in the future wondering about what Baba did or said. His is one of the most thoroughly documented lives of a religious leader in history.

In the past, textual scholars were needed to determine what parts of the Bible were truly in the original texts, and of what there was theologians were needed to interpret its meaning. None of this is true with Baba. All that is required for Baba to have the impact he meant to have is for people to read what he left behind and to think about it carefully.

You don't need a textual scholar or a priest to do that for you. It's a much more democratic time. 

Seeking to Understand History from People I Trust

Lately, I have been linking to many debunking videos. I like such videos for what I learned from them. But I am not just interested in watching videos that debunk pseudo-science and pseudo-history. I also enjoy learning about true history. Two of the sources I have enjoyed immensely in recent years are the online discussions by Bart Ehrman and Paul Freedman.

Bart Ehrman is a textual scholar and Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His specialty is the New Testament. View Here.

Paul Freedman is a professor of history at Yale University who specializes in the Middle Ages. View here.

What I like about listening to Dr. Ehrman is that I learn a great deal about the history of the Bible, a field that attracts numerous silly conspiracy theories, but which has long interested me. To my great relief I learned that many of the teachings Christians accept today about their faith do not have their source in Jesus.

What I liked about Dr. Freedman is that I finally learned the facts about the early Middle Ages, a topic missing from most of our educations, and one that has intrigued me ever since I read Francis Brabazon's book Stay With God in which Brabazon writes, "The Dark Ages were the ages of light: the Renaissance was the twilight of our present black night of materialism," which began the process of my waking from old assumptions about history that many of us were taught.

It saddens me that at a time when people can freely listen in on courses once reserved for the Ivy League, most continue to be tantalized by old absurd tropes. One of those tropes is that historians are either part of a conspiracy to deceive humanity, or are too stupid to question what they read. I have found that real historical scholars question what they hear, admit when they are wrong, and honestly want to know and teach what is true.

60 Videos Debunking Nonsense

How to lose friends. Debunk those things people want to believe.

Click image to open playlist. Many people will be offended within a few minutes. That's how popular conspiracies have become.

Debunking Jiang Xueqin

The Chinese Nostrodamus

Supernatural Claims: In interviews, Jiang openly admits that his lecture process does not involve reading historical documentation or conducting traditional archival research. He has stated that his analysis is entirely "speculative" and that he generates his ideas by channeling a higher force. He has even claimed to have been visited by angels to receive insights.

 

44 geopolitical analysts I follow

1. Col. Larry Wilkerson, 

2. Andrei Martanov, 

3. Stanislav Krapivnik, 

4. Sebastian Sas, 

5. Rachel Blevins, 

6. Lena Petrova, 

7. Max Blumenthal, 

8. Scott Ritter, 

9. Glenn Diesen, 

10. Jeffrey Sachs, 

11. Richard Wolff, 

12. Patrick Henningsen, 

13. Caleb Maupin, 

14. Carl Zha, Ben Norton, 

15. Sean Foo, 

16. Mohammad Marandi, 

17. Alastair Crooke, 

18. Laith Marouf, 

19. Michael Hudson, 

20. Warwick Powell, 

21. KJ Noh, 

22. Victor Gao, 

23. Li Jingjing, 

24. Sabby Sabs, 

25. Jamarl Thomas, 

26. Alex Krainer, 

27. Nima R. Alkhorshid, 

28. Danny Haiphong, 

29. Dr. Pascal Lottaz, 

30. Garland Nixon, 

31. Larry Johnson, 

32. Alex Christoforou, 

33. Alexander Mercouris, 

34. Judge Napolitano, 

35. Ray McGovern, 

36. Pepe Escobar, 

37. Col. Douglas Macgregor

38. Chris Hedges,

39. Ted Postol

40. Col. Daniel Davis

41. Rifat Jawaid

42. Robert Barnes

43. Mark Sleboda

44. Chas Freeman

Not everyone in this world is bad.

Dancing on Glass - Shaman

The great song "Dancing on Glass" was written by Maxim Fadeev in 1997 and given a new life by Shaman with his amazing interpretation. The original video got almost 44 million views

Growing Up in the Baba Community

In this video of a talk I gave at the Circle Center in Myrtle Beach on May 14, 2022 I correct some errors about our family history. Filmed by Judy Mangold. The rude man in the back who interrupts is Dennis Wolterding. My talks regularly have hecklers. 

Also see this paper on the same topic.

Gira con Me

Amira Willighagen

"This is My Dream" concert. Filmed August 22, 2020 at the Atterbury Theatre, Pretoria, South Africa. Streamed by OPTOG! September 11-14, 2020

"Gira con Me" (also known as "Gira Con Me Questa Notte") was written by David Foster, Walter Afanasieff, and Lucio Quarantotto. The song was popularized by baritone singer Josh Groban on his self-titled 2001 debut album.

The American Invasion

The Russian young people were so excited to be invaded by Western culture in 1991. They had no way to know it was a Trojan Horse and that NATO would expand Eastward by adding 17 nations right up to the Russian border. And aid and train the Bandarites in Ukraine to launch a coup and kill Russians, and even give them CIA help to target Moscow civilian businesses and oil refineries. And generally try to destroy their nation.

32 years later, in 2023, a whole new generation of Russians, none of whom were even alive at the time of the Metallica concert in 1991, throw their own concert. Shaman is now on the stage and the song is "I am Russian!" The opening line is "I breath this air." I think the Russians learned how to make a concert, but replaced the message from self-loathing and a feeling of inferiority to the West to a joyful youthful national pride mixed with their own ancient brand of spirituality and brotherhood.

 

English translation:

I breathe this air

The sun in the sky is looking at me

A free wind is blowing over me

He’s the same as I

And I just want to love and breathe

And I don’t need anything else

That’s the way it is, and you can’t break me

And all because

I’m Russian, I never give up

I am Russian, my blood is from my father

I am Russian, and I am lucky

I am Russian, in spite the whole world

I am Russian

This song flies into the sky

And it calls me with it

And my heart is burning in me

Lighting the way home

Where I just want to love and breathe

And I don’t need anything else

That’s the way I am and you can’t break me

And all of this because

I’m Russian, I never give up

I am Russian, my blood is from my father

I am Russian, and I am lucky

I am Russian, in spite of the whole world

Stop Zionizing us!

Buy Me a Coffee

You don't really need to buy me a coffee. I just wanted to show off my new Fund Raiser Link!

New Series No. 8

EOP Cover Photo by Alison Fowler

Photo of me at 44 by my then-girlfriend Alison Fowler, taken in August 2003 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Used with Alison's permission for the cover of my book The Evolution of Perception (published June 2004).

Available to download here.

On CAT station Ozark Live with Maureen Mullen in 2005. On my YouTube channel 2026.

"Beads on One String"

There seems to be some confusion about what Baba was referring to by his expression "Beads on One String."

The phrase originated when Baba was discussing his mission to revitalize the great religions of the world without establishing a new creed. It was famously recorded in his 1932 Paramount Newsreel interview in London, where he stated:

"My object in coming to the West is not with the intention of establishing new creeds or spiritual societies and organizations. I see the structure of all the great religions of the world toppling... I intend to bring together all religions and cults like beads on one string and revitalize them for individual and collective needs."

These "great religions of the world" that he refers to are represented by four figurines on the top of his tomb today. The tomb was entirely designed by Baba. The four figurines depict a Muslim mosque, a Hindu temple, the Zoroastrian fire urn, and the Christian cross.

I read where a man equates these beads Baba spoke of with fairy seership, witchcraft, sorcery, magic, theurgy, mythology, divination, and healing practices. I don't think this is what Baba meant. Source. 

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

"Sixty years after I drop my body"

In 1955 Meher Baba said. 

Sixty years after I drop my body, you will find what wonderful changes take place in the world . . . (LM 1986 print edition p. 4777)

Meher Baba in his tomb in 1955

Meher Baba dropped his body at noon on January 31, 1969. 

Donald J. Trump's presidential term will officially end at noon on January 20, 2029, 11 days shy of exactly 60 years after Baba dropped his body. 

One possibility is that within days of a new US president assuming office, an agreement will be signed of some importance that effectively ends American hegemony and ushers in a new multi-polar world - one more aligned with Baba's expression "beads on one string."

History may compare Trump's term with Caligula's four year rule of Rome (37 AD – 41 AD). Caligula ascended the imperial throne as the young darling of the Romans — and ended his four-year reign with a reputation as an insanely cruel tyrant.

Jesus died in 33 AD, four years before Caligula's reign.

The Odyssey : 95% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But these millennials didn't like it.

And this one did:

New Series No. 7

Greatest video game of all time: The case for Red Dead Redemption 2 | Dan Houser and Lex Fridman

Meher Baba on Life on Other Planets

Many people don't know where to find what Meher Baba said about other planets. Here is where the material first came out and where you can find more:

In 1933 a 112 page book by Ramjoo Abdulla titled Shri Meher Baba, His philosophy and teachings; compiled from His own dictations, was published in India. The teachings were said to be given by Baba on the alphabet board from 1927 to 1933. This book is long out of print and exceedingly rare. Fortunately, the book's contents on the subject of planets was duplicated serially from 1954 to 1955 in a periodical The Awakener Magazine. The magazine published an even more cleaned up version in 1974 under the title How It All Happened. I combined this latter publication into one PDF file that can be downloaded here. 

Besides this source, in 2014 I compiled a list of quotes by Baba on other planets titled Baba on Intelligent Life on other planets, which you can link to here.

You can also read what Baba said about flying saucers in the 1950s here.

Vision of Death & Ascension

Watercolor on Paper by Phyllis Ott

9.5" X 12" 

January 30, 1969

Painted at around midnight on January 30, 1969 in her upstairs studio in Myrtle Beach while the family was asleep, Phyllis Ott did this watercolor. The following day, on hearing that Meher Baba had passed away the previous day at noon India time, she believed she had painted this at the very moment that Baba was passing away. Additionally, she later heard that Eruch turned blue giving Baba mouth-to-mouth recitation trying to revive him. The pale horse (death?) appears to be waiting for Baba.

Early the next morning, while still not knowing that Baba had passed away the night before, Phyllis painted a second watercolor. The second o
ne depicts an angel carrying Baba upward into the sky. Not knowing why she painted it, she later felt it reflected Christian ideas of the ascension. For this reason she later named the series of two watercolors, "Vision of Death & Ascension."

People have said the watercolors are too personal to interest anyone outside the family. Therefore I'm giving them to my daughter and grandson. The paintings shed light on Phyllis as an intuitive painter and I have always felt they are of great value. Phyllis felt this way too, considering the came she took in framing and preserving them.

A Story about Meher Baba and the Imam Shrine in Iran

Tomb of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran in 1936

In June 1931, having been given unprecedented permission, Meher Baba spent three nights meditating in complete seclusion inside the tomb of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran. The Imam Shrine is where the eighth Imam, Imam Reza, was interred in 818 AD. 

Today, the shrine over the tomb of Imam Reza in Mashhad is considered the holiest religious site in Iran. Between 20 and 30 million pilgrims and travelers visit the shrine each year. 

In 1943 Meher Baba said, "The tree of my Divine Manifestation is to be planted at Mashhad, where it will grow and spread, ultimately covering the whole world."

Below, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, performs a ritual cleaning of the inside of the tomb.

On February 28, 2026, Ali Khamenei was assassinated with a missile strike by the United States, killing him along with his daughter, son-in-law, and two-year-old granddaughter.

The funeral procession, that lasted a week in July 2026, drew 45 million mourners in the largest gathering of its kind in human history. The procession culminated with the interment of Ali Khamenei in the Reza shrine on July 9, 2026.

The week-long funeral procession of Ali Khamenei ending in Mashhad. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

In 1954, in his Final Declaration, Baba wrote, "With the growth of consciousness, manyness also went on increasing, until now it is about to overlap the limit. Like the wave that reaches its crest, this height of manyness will dissolve itself and bring about the beginning of oneness in illusion."

In November 1955 Meher Baba said, "Sixty years after I drop my body, you will find what wonderful changes take place in the world and how many people will take my name. There will be thousands who will sacrifice their very life in my name. But how fortunate you are that I am in your midst, that you are sitting before me and I am telling you to take my name when about to pass away! There will be no one to tell them to take my name after 60 years." (LM, 1986 print edition p. 4777)

The time he foretold corresponds with January 2029. This post was written on 'Silence Day' 2026, the day after the Ayatollah's interment.

New Series No. 6

How RDR2 Leaves Players Feeling

Game reactor LuminEska narrates over the end credits of Red Dead Redemption 2 and does a beautiful job describing her feelings.

The Evolution of Perception

The Evolution of Perception & The Cosmology of Substance: A Simpler Theory of Everything – June 24, 2004.

Chris Ott considers our current philosophical problems to be the tragic result of psychological fallacies as old as Plato. He offers a new explanation for the universe that relies simply on an evolution of perception. His theory succeeds at accounting for the physical as well as the psychological--including mathematics, natural law, concrete objects, language, thought, and culture. A spellbinding journey to the roots of our assumptions. 

Download for Free

A nice photo of me taken by my girlfriend at the time, Alison Fowler, right about the time I started writing The Evolution of Perception in 2003. Alison also took the photo on the book's cover.

Alison was not very supportive of my occupation with philosophy and we broke up shortly after. She did, however, graciously give me permission to use the photo for the cover.

Composite song

 

Composite of Joan Osborne singing One of Us and Mason Jennings singing I Love You And Buddha Too, both recorded around the year my daughter was born in 1995.

New Series No. 5

John Marston avenges the death of Arthur Morgan

Jolene

Arthur's Confession to Nun | Red Dead Redemption 2

One of the most famous scenes near the end of Red Dead Redemption II and one of the best turning-point scenes ever made. It is the point in the game where the story earns its title -- often only seen after a year or more of playing when players are most immersed. Many people have said playing Red Dead Redemption II changed the way they live their lives. 

Eralia

Hi, I'm Eralia! 🌸

I keep everything on one channel! I am a creative spirit at heart; I always have a lot of ideas and energy to send out into the world. You might find gaming, movies, TV, music, my podcast (The Eralia Show), my own music and/or art someday here... the possibilities are endless, and don't forget, you are limitless!

– Eralia

Original site

New Series No. 4

Full Series

New Series No. 3

Full Series

Wim Wenders on Yasujiro Ozu

Wim Wenders considers Yasujirō Ozu "a sacred treasure of cinema" and his greatest master. He has frequently described Ozu's films as representing a "lost paradise" of pure cinema, noting that no filmmaker has ever shown more tenderness, love for their subjects, and love for life.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us

Cello Music

A Hendyamps Studios Production

With Aimee Norris

“Beginning to End” Act II

New Series No. 2

I talk about the history of the tradition of mystic schools and how they undergird the religions. And I talk about EOP in this light. Shot on June 19, 2026.

Full Series

Angelina Jordan - I Have Nothing

Angelina Jordan at llsang på Grensen (Sing at the Border) event in Halden, Norway on July 22, 2022. She was 16 years old.

Adele - Someone Like You

Gesu Bambino - Amira Willighagen

In February 2023, on a trip to Europe, Amira Willighagen, along with her father Gerrit and her boyfriend DJ entered a church. Her father sat at the organ as DJ filmed Amira sing this spontaneous rendition of the Italian Christian carol Gesu Bambino on his cell phone.

A few months later, I had the privilege of meeting Amira in a small cafe in Rutledge, Georgia. The cafe was called Tomorrow Cafe. There I shot this two minute clip of her conversing with some people there about an upcoming performance as we waited for our food. She was 19 years old. She definitely had a vibe about her.

And here is Amira with her boyfriend at the time, DJ, who took the video of her singing in the church. She has a new boyfriend now.

Always Remember Us This Way ('A Star is Born')

K-Pop : LE SERAPHIM

THE SERAPHIMS

March 17, 2025

Visual Creative Team Leader : Yoon Cho

Content Production : Yurok Jang, Haerin An, Jiwon Choi, Seoyoon Lee

Style Directing : Soo Lee, Jay Kim, Hye Lin Im

Brand Experience Design : Yoovin Baek, Hyemin Yoo, Myungryol Shin

A&R : Kyu Kim, Jerry Kim, Ann Park, Jennie Lee

Choreography : Soyeon Park, Yunji Park

Performance Director : Soyeon Park

Assistant Director : Yunji Park, Yejin Lee

Director : GEEEEMBO, Yurok Jang

Assistant Director : Jiwon Choi

Producer : Hong Youngpyo (Sometimes Lucky)

Line Producer : Lee Kwanhyung, Ahn Yuha

Production Assistants : Park Mingyu, Lim Chaehoon, Yang Jeongryeol, Kim Junsu, Jo

Geonyul, Choi Jiyoung

Director of Photography : Seo Giung (Line of Sight)

Focus Puller : Lee Seungjong

2nd AC : Yang Hyukjae

DIT : Jun Juhwan

3rd AC : Cha Junsung

Gaffer : Yoon Seungnam

Lighting Assistants : Hong Inkuk, Kim Taeyoung, Kim Minjoon, Seong Woojin, Kim Siyoung,

Son Juyong, Kim Jaeyeon, Park Sangwoo

Electrician : Hwang Inman

Jimmy Jib Operator : Kim Kitae

Jimmy Jib Assistants : Bing Junghyun, Lee Jaesung, Kim Hyungmi

Art Departments : RE.KINDLE, ABR

Art Director : Jeon Minkyu

Art Team Leaders : Kang Minwoo, Lee Subin

Art Team : Kim Hantae, Eom Yejin, Park Hyunbin, Lee Jinseo, Ji Sunghee, Park Inbeom

Colorist : Jeon Hwadong (LUCID COLOUR)

DI Assistant : Lee Minkyung

Beauty Compositing : Go Moonyoung (Emotion Creative)

Production : Sometimes Lucky

Seraph, Seraphim (plural) : an angelic being, regarded in traditional Christian angelology as belonging to the highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy, associated with light, ardor, and purity.

New Series No. 1

A Tribute to Dr. Richard Lee

Dr. Richard N. Lee was my thesis director for my master's in philosophy in 2000 and 2001. He suggested the title for my thesis, "Refutations of Idealism," which you can download here. Dr. Lee had his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

My thesis was largely on George Berkeley and G. E. Moore. Lee had written a paper prior on Berkeley titled "What Berkeley’s Notions Are," published in Volume 20, Issue 1 of Idealistic Studies in 1990. So I felt confident he was well-suited for the material I wanted to focus on. I cited his article in my paper.

This photograph of me was taken about that time by my friend Carla Gray outside Carlson Terrace. I was 42 at the time. Looking back, those were stressful but happy times.

Since that time I have written six books and a myriad of papers on the subject of idealism, and developed my own theory which I call the evolution of perception. None of it would have been possible without the help of my many professors, especially Richard Lee.

EOP Trilogy : The three original books on the evolution of perception concept

Chris Ott with a proof copy of EOP Trilogy

Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 26, 2025
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8308474951
386 pages  Available on Amazon

EOP Trilogy is a collector's edition of the original three books by Christopher Ott on the concept of an evolution of perception. Included in this collection are The Evolution of Perception and the Cosmology of Substance (2004), Evolution of Perception Re-Explained (2021), and Further Reflections (2024). The idea of an evolution of perception succeeds at accounting for the physical as well as the psychological--including mathematics, natural law, concrete objects, language, thought, and culture.