Daheshist Ideology: Spiritual Causality and Divine Justice Part 1

Spiritual causality and Divine Justice according to Daheshist concepts
As portrayed through “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” by Dr. Dahesh
Excerpts taken from an article published in Dahesh Voice magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1995.

By: Dr. Ghazi Brax

The four volumes of “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” by Dr. Dahesh contain 118 short stories full of exciting and amazing events with settings taking place on Earth or on distant planets; between human beings and jinn; in the worlds of devils; or in the vast, lofty, and happy worlds of the Lords. These stories may seem to the reader as fiction, however, the Spirit assured us that they are factual events that took place. The supernatural man whose miraculous activities amazed thousands of people and stirred up the Arab press for over half a century is also supernatural in all that he had written, because the source of his inspiration did not emanate from Earth. With his own hands he: removed the masks to expose the naked truths; lifted the veils on secrets; and solved the mysteries, thus allowing the reader to enter unknown regions that never crossed the mind and then to return from these regions with a wealth of knowledge, full of lessons, and with a deeper understanding of the events taking place. After journeying into the worlds of these stories, the reader realizes that there are many dimensions to these stories and would gain most by becoming aware of them. However, I will limit this article to the research into Spiritual Causality and Divine justice and in future articles I will discuss the reincarnation dimension of these unique, informative, and entertaining stories.

Spiritual causality

From the physical aspect, nothing happens without a cause. People can understand such a physical causality provided that it is subject to their senses and observations. We keep our hands away from fire because we know that we will get burned; we do not jump to solid ground from high altitudes because we know that we will get crushed; and we do not eat unsanitary food because we know that microbes will transfer to our bodies. However, Dr. Dahesh teaches us through his supernatural and inspired knowledge that behind the physical causality there is a Spiritual causality. The Spiritual essence is present in all aspects of existence—regardless of being in living creatures or inanimate objects—and according to Daheshist ideology, this essence is the Sayyals (Spiritual units possessing intellect, propensities, and dispositions and are made up of radiant energy that is impossible to view or detect due to its extreme frequency. These Sayyals are the fabric of the universe and existing in everything within it, and in the case of a human being, it is the source of his life as well as his thoughts, desires, talents, and propensities. Since the Sayyals are free in their choice, they must also take responsibility for whatever good or evil choices they make.

However, human beings cannot understand the Spiritual causality behind events taking place throughout their lives, but this lack of understanding does not mean that Spiritual causality does not exist. In “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” Dr. Dahesh writes about events that could not be explained without Spiritual causality, because the law of “you reap what you sow” applies to the Spiritual aspect as well as to the physical aspect. The founder of Daheshism explains this comprehensive Spiritual law in a story titled “A Horrible and Dreadful Dream,” Dr. Dahesh says: “From the [Summit] of the Mountain of Knowledge…I was viewing my Sayyals that are present in many worlds—some good and some miserable. I was amazed to see my Sayyals in the Lower Worlds, sending their rays to my other Sayyals in Lofty Worlds enticing them to commit forbidden acts in order to make them fall and lure them into their Infernal Worlds. I understood then that every thought of committing forbidden acts comes from within us, i.e., our Sayyal that resides in an Infernal World is the one that works hard to make us fall and either it succeeds or fails. No external Sayyal is capable of making us fall, for it is absolutely forbidden. If we fall, it would be because our own Sayyal seeking to avenge itself from our deeds that caused its fall to the Infernal Worlds and it does so by sending to the rest of our Sayyals its enticing rays in order to make them fall and this is where the great disaster lies. Our Spiritual elevation or degradation is directly proportional to our struggle and resistance or submission and surrender to the temptation of our degraded Sayyal. If we obey its wishes and implement its orders by committing forbidden things, we would certainly fall and descend to its Infernal World. However, if we do not obey its orders, we would elevate our Sayyal to a Lofty World. This is Divine Justice that recompenses each one of us according to his deed. Actually, it is us that recompense ourselves by elevating or degrading our Sayyals. "Surely, We [God] do not wrong people at all; but people wrong themselves." (Sura Hood:101)

I will present the reader with examples focusing around greed, infidelity, and oppression from “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” in order to illustrate the influence of human activities and propensities on the turn of events in a man’s life and the determination of his destiny:

Greed and Divine Justice

In “The Most Horrific Story and Frightening Destiny,” a man and his wife kidnap a 4-year old child named Jimmy for ransom to be demanded from the child’s father. However, fearing persecution by the authorities, they altered their plan and kept the child. When the kidnapped child reaches 24 years of age and while reading some old newspapers, he runs into a story about a kidnapped child that he soon realizes that the story is about him and that his alleged parents changed his name to Edmond. The real parents, as depicted in the story, are also greedy and the extent of their greed surpasses that of the kidnappers. What would be the fate of all these characters according to the scales of Divine Justice?

Since the Sayyals of individuals are themselves the cause of their own retribution and reward; and since greed that drives individuals to wealth at the expense of people’s anguish is no doubt a bad Sayyal—for it is an evil propensity that gives its bearer the thrill of subjugating people and causing them anguish through extortion and taking advantage of them—then Divine Justice would have to exact retribution from the greedy. It is through Divine Justice that the alleged father of the child is killed in a car accident and then after confronting his alleged mother with the truth, the mother dies suddenly while telling Edmund the details of his kidnapping. As to the real father, who is now advanced in age, owns a distinguished hotel and his greed drives him to kill his own son—without knowing that he is his son—upon his stay at the hotel in order to steal his jewelry and briefcase thinking it contains large sums of money. After he finds out the real identity of the victim from a hand tattoo and the realization that he had killed his own son, the shock drove him to insanity, so he stabs his wife and daughter to death with a knife and then he stabs himself and dies. Improper earnings remain improper no matter what their sources are, be they from illegal profits, stealing, or through greed, the individual cannot be certain of the moment these earnings will be lost in addition to the misery endured in the process.

In the story “An Accumulator of Wealth Leaves His Fortunes to Others,” Dr. Dahesh illustrates the story of a professional thief that initially entered prison at the age of 20 and then over a period of 45 years he would be released, commit a crime, and be imprisoned again on 15 separate occasions. In each occasion, he would face misery and suffering until finally he had a stroke and died leaving his improperly amassed fortune in a secret hiding place to be discovered by a lucky individual.

In the story of “She Married a Dead Man,” Dr. Dahesh tells the story of a beautiful woman who was obsessed with money to the point of marrying a wealthy man who is extremely thin and ugly in appearance. She could not feel any true passion towards him because her passion was for his fortune and jewelry. Her wish was for his early death so that she can marry a young man that she can truly love. However, the Sayyal of her intense greed punished her, for she soon realized that she had married a skeleton. Divine Justice miraculously allowed the skeleton to briefly return to life in order to punish a person obsessed with money. One night, she followed her husband to a cemetery thinking that he is using it as a meeting place with his mistress, however, she saw him lay down in his grave and his flesh vanished quickly leaving nothing but a scary skeleton. She saw this and died in horror.

In “A Millionaire Starves to Death,” Dr. Dahesh tells the story of a poor laborer who found a great gold treasure while tilling the land of his employer. Soon after, the laborer rented a room on a monthly basis and he buried the treasure in its floor. Will this poor man get the opportunity to enjoy this great fortune? This man is extremely stingy who used to “pickup cigarette butts from the streets, pull out whatever unburned tobacco there is from them, roll them again into joints, and then smoke them with pride…” The Sayyal of stinginess did not change its nature after he had found the treasure and he used to “starve himself due to his incredible stinginess and when he sleeps, he would lay down his mattress over the gold treasure and sleep over it.” Therefore his Sayyal of stinginess will prevent him from benefiting—even materially—from this treasure because it will punish him in accordance to an Order of Divine Justice. After the passing of two months from his renting the room, the landlord notified him that he must vacate the room because he had sold the property and that the new owner wants to live in it. He refused to vacate the room, so the police came with a court order and saw him digging through the floor of the room, so they continued with the digging until they found the rare treasure and the authorities confiscated it, while the stingy millionaire suffered a stroke and died.

Spiritual Justice and Improper Sexual Relations

In “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” the second point of focus that falls under Divine retribution is the improper sexual relations and regardless of them being acts of sexual assault, marital infidelities, the desecration of the Spiritual missions of the clergy by engaging in extramarital sexual relations or other sexual acts.

In the story “The Deadly Fires of Love,” tells the story of a gentleman Miradoff, who is forced to runaway with Katiosha, his beloved, in order to secretly get married because of the great social divide between his poor family and her prominent wealthy family. Miradoff asks Makaroff, his friend, for assistance in the matter and takes refuge in his remote home. However, envy drives Makaroff to kill his friend and to rape Katiosha and then to strangle her so that his action is not exposed. Alexandra, Makaroff’s evil sister, assisted him in committing this crime. How will these two criminals receive their Divine retribution? The founder of Daheshism says: “Makaroff, the devil, became disturbed and was overtaken by fear, so he went out to the garden assisted by his dissolute sister, Alexandra, and dug up a grave to bury Katiosha, the goddess of purity, who was 18 years of age—an age of a blossoming flower. However, the Seeing Eye of God was watching these criminals and the grave they dug up to bury the victim turned out to be a nest for scorpions who stung them fatally many times…”

Is it a coincidence that the place they dug up was a nest for scorpions? No! The founder of Daheshism affirms that there is no such a thing as a coincidence in life and that all events take place according to a Spiritual plan in order to serve Divine Justice. We shall see later on that Divine Justice did not exact full retribution from these two criminals and will do so in another life cycle.

In the story “Heroism of a Black Cat,” a lone woman is deceived into opening her door for a man as a humane gesture after he had knocked on the door calling for help during a stormy and thunderous night. However, this evil man pushes her to the bed attempting to sexually assault her. Will he succeed in sexually assaulting his victim of noble manners? Through a Divine plan, the bed falls apart due to its age and its inability to withstand the weight of two individuals and comes down crashing on top of a cat that was sleeping under it and tears apart its guts. However, the cat is somehow able to free itself and attacks the man by biting him with its sharp fangs in the throat. The evil man suffers a stroke from the unexpected fear and the acute pain from the bite.”

In the story “The Damned Devil Appears,” a wealthy man who is a lover of the arts reads in the newspaper a favorable review on the Danish artist Waterman, so he meets with the artist and buys several paintings from him. However, after the artist leaves, the wealthy man discovers a letter that appeared spontaneously under the picture of the alleged artist and in the letter he identifies himself as the devil reincarnate and tells him: “In your youth you sexually assaulted a virgin young woman and her tears begging for mercy did not dissuade you, so it was permitted for me to sexually assault your daughter and to take over your wealth. As to the three paintings you purchased from me and the painting of your daughter, on the sixth day they will turn blank.

“The wealthy father loses his sanity as his virgin daughter has after being assaulted by the devil and undergoing treatment in a mental institution. The father is admitted to the same mental institution so that he can continuously be reminded of his crime. “As to his daughter, Margaret, she gives birth to a weird looking child of harsh facial composition and with two small horns. When he cries, his voice would resemble thunder. After one week of his birth, his father appears and snatches him by carrying him on his shoulders. Margaret witnesses the snatching of her child from her hands. “As to why Margaret is inflicted with this great calamity, there is another story that tells the causes and circumstances and once they are known to the reader, he/she will realize that Divine Justice is unmatched by any justice, for the retribution for every individual is of the same genre as the committed action. For "Surely, We [God] do not wrong people at all; but people wrong themselves." (Sura Hood:101)

In the story “Conversation Between Two Snakes,” Divine Justice is clearly depicted in the case of marital infidelity. 'Aatika is lured by the wealth of Mahmoud (who is very naive), so she pretends that she loves him and he falls for it and asks her to marry him. However, her plan is to poison him after marriage so that she and her lover, Mustafa, would take over Mahmoud’s estate. Will Divine Justice allow this evil woman execute her plan? While 'Aatika is in the garden collecting a bouquet of roses, two snakes passing through the stems of a winding jasmine bush and one of them bites 'Aatika in her leg and she dies. Aren’t marital infidelity and betrayal a form of a venomous bite? In this manner, 'Aatika, the committer of marital infidelity and betrayal receives her just retribution—which is of the same genre as the committed action.

The retribution of a woman for her marital infidelity is also seen in the story “Woman’s Main Concern in Life is Love,” where a poor woman meets McMillan, a wealthy man and the employer of her father, the gardener. McMillan falls in love and marries her despite the great social differences between them. He showers her with jewelry, expensive clothing, gives her dominion over his palace, and asks her to accompany him throughout his travels. However, McMillan’s friend warns him about her, so he pretends to travel and then circulates news that he is killed in a train collision. After two weeks, his wife, Alexandra, seduces a friend of her husband who comes to pay his condolences and she agrees to make love to him on top of her husband’s tomb. As soon as she opens the door of the mausoleum and enters she sees her husband standing and she suffers a stroke and dies. She enters the tomb to desecrate it and ends up being buried in it.

In the story “Conversation Between a Donkey and a Female Donkey,” archbishop Answell while committing adultery with the wife of Lord Estamfort in the stables, one of the donkeys begins to bray in objection, so the adulterers attempt to calm him down so that their affair is not exposed, however, the honorable donkey bites fiercely the hand of the archbishop as soon as he touches his neck and loses two fingers. The archbishop dies in surgery due to an infection and the Lord divorces his adulteress wife after her affair is exposed. The retribution of the archbishop is not limited to his death, for the founder of Daheshism shows him in an infernal world with a devil lashing him. In the ending of the story the donkey approaches the she donkey and gently rub heads with her and says: “My beloved, we should raise our prayers to our Maker thanking Him deeply for creating us donkeys and not human beings, God forbid, for the word human is derived from the word evil [in Arabic evil is “sharr” and human is “besharr” meaning with evil].

Oppression and Divine Justice

Oppression is the third point of focus in “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales,” where we see it underlay many of the stories depicting greed and marital infidelity as well as see it accompany any unwarranted harm. Here I will only provide the reader with two stories where acts of oppression lead to horrible consequences for the oppressors:

In the story “She Married Ten Men,” we find an extremely beautiful young woman whose extreme beauty captures the hearts of all the young men in the Arab tribe of Schummar and drives them to compete against each other, thereby causing tens of them to die. The tribe elders are concerned about the situation, so they discuss the matter and agree to kill her in order to eliminate the danger caused by her extreme beauty on the general welfare of the tribe. However, ten young men from the tribe decide to abduct her from prison and force her to make love to them and they succeed in implementing their plan. What would be the consequences of this double oppression? The decision of the tribe elders to kill her for no reason other than being beautiful is an awful oppression that the entire tribe shares its burden because of their unanimous approval. Therefore Divine Justice punishes the entire tribe by having the ten men that abducted the young woman, Da'ad, to poison the well that provides drinking water to the tribe and they all die except for the ten men and Da'ad.

However, the oppression that the ten men inflicted on Da'ad by forcing her to make love to them is not lesser in magnitude than the oppression of the tribe elders, so their Divine retribution is warranted. However how will they be punished? Da'ad thought of getting rid of them by placing poison in their coffee that she had hid in her chest back when the tribe ordered her death and she was determined on committing suicide just prior to her execution. In this fashion, they all died. When Da'ad returned to the tribe and finds that her family had died with the rest of the tribe, she drinks the balance of the poison that she had stored in a small bottle and she dies. This causality of several links does not justify the infliction of harm on others to satisfy a whim, greed, or to exact revenge for a specific harm that took place. Divine Justice could have punished the oppressors from both parties in a different way, however, the author wanted to show that an act of oppression against a single individual can have severe consequences on an entire people.

In the story “Oppression of the Tribe of Giants,” tells the story of an extinct tribe that ruled many people with brutality and oppression and to the point that it made the eating of fruits or cultivating flowers forbidden. Flowers are an endowment for the giants and the owners of fruit trees are required to cultivate the fruits and give them to an overseer who in turn distributes them to members of the tribe of giants. Orders of death by execution came down on the violators to include Nahali, the daughter of Madi,, a wealthy man and her bridegroom. Their death drove the oppressed people to raise their prayers to the Maker beseeching Him to lift this great injustice from them and God answered their prayers.

The answer to their prayers came in the form of a Divine Miracle, for the people were awakened one morning by a very loud noise, so the giants carried their weapons and moved in a circular pattern thinking that they are about to be attacked by an enemy. Suddenly and in front of thousands of scared faces, these giants begin to shrink gradually until they reach the size of a large fly emitting a buzzing sound audible by the ears. Then they heard a Powerful Voice that filled the skies saying: “I have turned you into bees and I have permitted you to roam the fields, mountains, and prairies looking for all kinds of flowers to gather from them honey to be used as food for those who were oppressed by you. From that instant the bee came into existence—a creature not known prior to this incident on Earth. Each giant that had a weapon turned into a sting and from that instant groups of bees began roaming the forests and prairies searching for flowers to extract from them delicious honey. As to Nahali, after she died she was turned into a bee queen where the bees surround her, protect her with their lives, and provide her with royal food. She is larger in size than the rest and lives longer.” [The Sayyals (spiritual fluids) of the bees are transferred permanently to other bees and the Sayyals of the queen are transferred permanently to queens everywhere.]

This was a brief presentation on Spiritual Causality and direct Divine Justice as presented in “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales.” However, life is full of evil people, yet we do not see them receive their retribution! There are many criminals that sexually assault women and flee from justice! There are many greedy and oppressive individuals that live with comfort while those under their oppression moan! There are many evil individuals with life smiling upon them while frowning upon the righteous! Where is Divine Justice for the evil doers? The answer will be presented in the next segment and basing it on “Strange Stories and Wonderful Tales.”