Afterthoughts: November 2026

Tuesday, November 10, 2026

The Temple Menorah has long been the symbol of Judaism. Use of the symbol dates back 3000 years.

Early representation of the menorah on a Judea coin, 40–37 BC

The symbol associated with Judaism today is the Star of David. The Star of David gained prominence as a Jewish symbol in 14th-century Prague following the rise of Cabalistic Judaism and only became a widespread religious symbol in the 19th century, coinciding with the rise of Jewish Zionism. Today it is the symbol of the state of Israel.

So, how did the symbol of Israel wind up on Meher Baba's emblem? This is that story.

Meher Baba's emblem was not a project that Meher Baba initiated. It was from its inception the product of his followers, beginning with Dr. William Donkin. Dr. Donkin was both a doctor and a very good artist.

Dr. William Donkin & one of his paintings

Donkin traveled with Baba on his mast tours in the 1940s and wrote The Wayfarers chronicling these tours in 1948. He drew the emblem as a frontispiece for his book. A frontispiece is a decorative illustration found near the beginning of a book.

Below is his original frontispiece from The Wayfarers (1948).

The symbol became a common motif in Baba things. Below it appears on one of Baba's chair cushions used by him.

The Sufis, who edited and published God Speaks, must have liked the symbol as they included it on the cover and as its interior frontispiece when it came out in 1955.

The symbol remained the same in all four printings of the fist edition, 1955, 1967, 1968, & 1970.

But when the 2nd Revised Edition of God Speaks came out in 1973, the frontispiece and cover were different. The Jewish symbol had been added. What accounts for this?

First, some startling facts. Meher Baba designed his tomb when it was constructed in 1938. He had religious symbols carved for the top, one for each corner. They represented Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. They did not include any Jewish symbol.

Next, Meher Baba never used the word "Judaism." There are a few possible reasons for this. Ancient Judaism largely ended with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, afterward first merging into Christianity, and later the remainder merging into Islam in 600 AD. But more importantly, Judaism is not an Avataric religion. It respects no Avatar. While all six Avatars of this age that Baba spoke of are represented by the symbols atop his tomb: Zoroaster, Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammad (millions of Hindus today accept Gautama Buddha as the ninth avatar of Lord Vishnu). Baba also said that the Jews crucified Christ. "But these Parsis! I feel that when I was Jesus, the Parsis were Jews. The Jews were the cause of my crucifixion." (Lord Meher, 1986 print edition, p. 4675) For these reasons, adding the modern symbol of the Jewish Zionist state to his emblem seems a bit far fetched. Well then, who put it there?

In 1962, a Russian Jewish émigré to America, Vivian Agostini (whose birth name was Ida Losh), and who was living in New York, came and met Meher Baba. Impressed with him, she got the idea to cast a bronze medallion to give away at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. To her medallion she added the Jewish star.

Later, in 1973, the Sufis — apparently liking the inclusion by Agostini — changed the symbol in God Speaks to be in line with it. And still later the new symbol replaced Donkin's original image in The Wayfarers. Donkin had passed away in 1969 so had no say in this.

Therefore, today the symbol usually appears like this:

Meher Baba never referred to Judaism as a religion, but only to "Jews." We can only guess why. As for being inclusive of other faiths on the emblem, why Judaism? There are more Shintos and Sikhs than Jews in the world. Why exclude them? Why exclude Confucianism? Hundreds of millions of people in China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam practice Confucian ethics.

In what way is adding the Jewish symbol to Baba's emblem being inclusive, but not these?

__________________

To download a cleaned up original emblem go here.

Monday, November 9, 2026

Pseudo-scientific quasi-religious bilge

Michio Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson are popular science promoters on TV and the internet. I don't think people believe me when I say the images and concepts they promote are pseudo-scientific quasi-religious bilge. People don't know to question it because they were raised on it and conditioned to think it is advanced thinking they can't understand — and they think these men are brilliant experts.

Sunday, November 8, 2026

Mastery in Servitude emblem from 1940s

Original design by Dr. William Donkin 1940s for his authored book "The Wayfarers," incorporating Meher Baba's given motto "Mastery in Servitude" (Manzil-e-Meem, 1923).

Saturday, November 7, 2026

History of an Idea

First began to think this thought in a Physical Anthropology class in the second semester of my sophomore year at USC in January 1978.
Continued discussing my idea at Korty Films with Brad Jones in 1982 after being inspired by an article on evolution in the April 1982 issue of Life Magazine.
Was drawing images illustrating my concept of an inside-out evolution in 1991 in San Francisco.
Got inspired to write a book when I came to Fayetteville for good on March 13, 1997 when Megan was one year old.
Attended school in Little Rock in June 1997 to complete my bachelor’s degree. Worked on my idea at the library after class each day.
Spoke to my father about my studying philosophy and planning a book shortly before he died. He died April 25, 1998.
Took my first undergraduate summer school philosophy class in June 1998, less than two months after my father’s death.
Everything got clear by the start of my second semester of graduate school. January 1999.
1999 was the year I became intoxicated with philosophy.
Graduated in May 2001 with my M.A.
Completed writing The Evolution of Perception in May 2004. Published in June.
Published my second book, Evolution of Perception Re-Explained, in February 2021.

April 1982 Life Magazine, Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution?

The idea of an "inside-out" evolution is quite simple. It is what I now call "psychic emergence," where the force driving evolutionary change is an internal psychic one, a drive to gain consciousness, rather than external pressures from the environment that cull or promote random mutations. The reason the idea hit me in a Physical Anthropology college class when I was 18 is that I saw through the course that evolution was not actually occurring all the time in nature, but had once occurred and had ceased to occur after homo sapiens evolved, and that once a species evolved homeostasis set in. This was in perfect agreement with Baba's explanation of evolution in God Speaks.

The Life Magazine article I read in 1982 that got me excited titled "Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution?" said that what scientists had discovered in the 120 years since Charles Darwin originally published his book On the Origen of Species was that specimens in the fossil record did not show the variety that Darwin had predicted would be found. See my December 2021 blog post Evolution is no longer taking place on Earth.

It has taken me almost 50 years to communicate my idea. I'm as convinced of it now as I was then.

Gabriel Pascal

Difficult to find high resolution screenshot of Hungarian film producer and Baba lover Gabriel Pascal (1894-1854). He was slated to direct Meher Baba's movie in the 1930s before the project was abandoned. In his lifetime he most famously produced Pygmalion (1938), Major Barbara (1941), and Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

On the film set of Major Barbara. Vogue Magazine, 1939. Gabriel Pascal was a household name in his day.

Friday, November 6, 2026

What Jesus said about hell

Destiny Finn talks a bit too fast here, but she has a lot to say. What she says about the history of the concept of hell is true and she covers the subject well. For more on the subject spoken much slower I recommend listening to Bart Ehrman, professor at UNC Chapel Hill who focuses on the textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has a good video on this same subject here.