[The writer clearly means the Declaration, not the Constitution.  Most of this "Proclamation" is in deep accord with many Pagan, Wiccan and Thelemic gnoings, eh?]

The American Constitution through a Zoroastrian perspective

 Proclamation

We hold these Truths to be absolute, though not self-evident, that all Men are created in the same image, and are endowed by their Creator with one and only one unalienable Right, the Right to Choose one’s responses and actions in any given situation and at any given moment.

We believe that the universe operates based on certain timeless, absolute, and immutable spiritual Laws, among these are the Laws of Truth, Love, and Justice. We believe that though not self-evident, the lie will ultimately self-destruct and Truth shall prevail. We believe that Love will transmute all things into goodness, and that Justice is the order of the Universe in which we live.

We believe that we are also endowed with certain privileges that are the byproducts and indirect outcomes of the way we live. Among these are the privileges of Life, Liberty and the Ensuing Happiness. We believe that Life is not a Right, but an outcome of the choices that we make. The privilege of being alive and being permeated with vitality is one that we need to consciously express in every choice that we make. That Liberty is not a Right bestowed upon us by our Creator, but a way of approaching our choices. We believe that we are endowed with the privilege of choosing freely, in spite of our external circumstances or outer pressures. And we believe that Happiness is what ensues as a result of the type of choices that we make, that when we choose to align ourselves with the Universal Laws and pursue the right and the good, then happiness will automatically be bestowed upon us.

We believe that no government and no individual has the Right, nor the Ability to determine what we believe and what we think. That no entity can limit or suppress our Divine Right to Choose. We believe that although our privileges are temporal and may change by circumstances outside of our own control, our one and only Right and Power cannot be revoked. That at any given moment we have the Right to express who we are, think what we will, and choose what we wish. It is self-evident that our choices have consequences, and that we may revoke one privilege for attaining another. But which to forego and which to express is entirely our choice.

We believe that at all times we have the right to believe what we will, including believing in this document, and at all times we have the right to choose to change our opinions, thoughts, and beliefs, without any prior notice or warning.

Ó Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver Canada
February 9, 1998

"Maybe I am Avatar of God or the Devil. So, once and for all, see within and find out if you are confused or fused."  -- Meher Baba

Before entering seclusion, Baba instructed Padri to cut a small piece of bamboo from the partition in the cage-room built originally for the mast Karim Baba, so that he could communicate on the alphabet board without being seen. His seclusion this time was to be much stricter than before. Baba entered seclusion in the cage-room on Meherabad Hill on Friday, August 1st, 1941, exactly a year to the day after his previous seclusion. At the time, no other mast except Chatti Baba was in Meherabad, and Baba continued working energetically with him, seeing no one else.

It was absolutely still. Pendu, Padri, Kalemama, Masaji, Chhagan, Vishnu and Baidul, while on watch, were most cautious and saw to it Baba was not in the least disturbed. They prevented the dogs from barking and would not even permit a bird to twitter. The women mandali on Meherabad Hill would also tread lightly and not let the slightest sound escape their lips. The graveyard silence led one to believe that the Hill was now uninhabited.  SOURCE

Before his enlightenment experience, in childhood, Meher Baba (Merwan Sheriar Irani) seems to have had a spiritualized connection to Iran:

"IN HIS YOUTH, Merwan was in the habit of gazing at the stars and moon – sometimes for hours late into the night. At times his friends would join him, but he would become so absorbed that he would seemingly lose himself – neither replying to their questions nor sharing in their conversation.

Late night and early morning were the best opportunities for Baily to be with Merwan since, as mentioned previously, Shireen did not like him. Baily would sit outside with Merwan and ask him what he saw in the sky. Merwan would sometimes reply, "I saw the court of Emperor Jamshed." Other times he answered, "I saw the peacock throne." Once he said, "I saw the formlessness of God in form!" After these comments he would laugh and Baily would be annoyed with his replies, thinking Merwan was not being entirely candid."  SOURCE

Meher Baba's June 1931 trip to Persia was also interesting, including unusual access to the shrine of Imam Reza (one of the most culturally significant sites in Iran--certainly unprecedented access for a Parsi!).    
 

The Swallow, the Serpent, and the Court of Justice
A SWALLOW, returning from abroad and especially fond of dwelling with men, built herself a nest in the wall of a Court of Justice and there hatched seven young birds. A Serpent gliding past the nest from its hole in the wall ate up the young unfledged nestlings. The Swallow, finding her nest empty, lamented greatly and exclaimed: "Woe to me a stranger! that in this place where all others' rights are protected, I alone should suffer wrong."


The Traveller and Fortuna
A Traveller, exhausted with fatigue after a long journey, sank down at the very brink of a deep well and presently fell asleep. He was within an ace of falling in, when Dame Fortune appeared to him and touched him on the shoulder, cautioning him to move further away. "Wake up, good sir, I pray you," she said; "had you fallen into the well, the blame would have been thrown not on your own folly but on me, Fortune."


The Boy Hunting Locusts
A BOY was hunting for locusts. He had caught a goodly number, when he saw a Scorpion, and mistaking him for a locust, reached out his hand to take him. The Scorpion, showing his sting, said: If you had but touched me, my friend, you would have lost me, and all your locusts too!"


The Old Man and Death
AN OLD MAN was employed in cutting wood in the forest, and, in carrying the faggots to the city for sale one day, became very wearied with his long journey. He sat down by the wayside, and throwing down his load, besought "Death" to come. "Death" immediately appeared in answer to his summons and asked for what reason he had called him. The Old Man hurriedly replied, "That, lifting up the load, you may place it again upon my shoulders."
 

Making a 'Sacred Zone' in Appalachia: 
It's not enough to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. The goal is to build a new Appalachia.

by Bob Kincaid

The picture to the right is Allen Ginsberg on May 1, 1965 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He's in front of the Hotel Merkur, assuming the throne of the May King at a celebration organized by the people in defiance of the communist state, which had forbidden (!) May Day celebrations for the previous 20 years.

Here's the poem that day inspired... you can hear him reading it here.

Kral Majales (I am the King of May)
Allen Ginsberg May 7, 1965

And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses and
lying policemen
and the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to the
Naked,
and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavy
and the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for
their own glamour
in the Future, in the Future,but now drink vodka and lament the Security Forces,
and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let the Indian brown
millions starve
and when Communist and Capitalist assholes tangle the Just man is arrested
or robbed or had his head cut off,
but noit like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the clouds in the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.
For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodni
street
once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent who
screamed out BOUZERANT,
once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,
and I was sent from Havana by plane by detectives in green uniform,
and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakian
business suits,
Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K's
room at more
also entered mine, and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,
and followed me night and morn from the houses of lovers to the cafes of
Centrum--
And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,
and I am the King of May, which is industry in eloquence and action in amour,
and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and the Beard of my own body
and I am the King of May, which is Kral Majales in the Czechoslovakian tongue,
and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people chose my name,
and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London Airport,
and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a Buddhist Jew
who worships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna the straight back of ram
the beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner which I have invented,
and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor,mine in the XX century despite space ships and the Time Machine, because I heard the voice of Blake
in a vision,
and repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagers laughing.
And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my
Kingdom with Honor, as of old,
To show the difference between Caesar's Kingdom and the Kingdom of the May of Man-
and I am the King of May, tho' paranoid, for the Kingdom of May is too
beautiful to last for more than a month-
and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my forhead
saluting
a luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said "one moment Mr. Ginsberg"
before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies-I was
going to England-
and I am the King of May, returning to see Bunhill Fields and walk on
Hampstead Heath,
and I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion's airfield
trembling in fear
as the plane roars to a landing on the grey concrete, shakes & expels air, and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven still
visible.
And tho' I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street, kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru Springtime Prague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom by airplane.
Thus I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven. 



On Manifold Oneness, I've posted Ginsberg's "Independence Day Manifesto," a 1959 rallying cry for a culture of spirit.  It ends with:

"When will we discover an America that will not deny its own God? Who takes up arms, money, police, and a million hands to murder the consciousness of God? Who spits in the beautiful face of poetry which sings of the glory of God and weeps in the dust of the world?"

 

Quote: More than 30 years since “Wake Up Everybody” became a No. 1 hit, Gamble found similar relevance in his decision to produce “I Am an American,” a song adopted by U.S. spiritual leader the late Father Divine and his International Peace Mission movement, with LaBelle’s vocals backed by the Temple University Symphony & Choirs. Gamble believes the unifying theme of “I Am An American,” that patriotism is not bound by color or political affiliation, is not unlike the messages of unity, love and brotherhood his Sound of Philadelphia has been bringing to “people all over the world” for nearly 40 years.

Full of huge orchestral crescendos, excerpts from important speeches in American history and original words, along with Ms. LaBelle’s powerful and soulful voice, “I Am An American” has all the making of becoming one of the great patriotic tunes of our time.


And he wasn't about theocracy.  Here's something I wrote last November about FD and politics.  (That post has some  good pictures of demonstrations, and I delight in the peculiar American mysticism of the image that includes the phrase "Recognize the Declaration of Independence within You").

I'm trying to figure out what kind of book I could possibly write about Father Divine.  There is no shortage of material, but my way into that material is very strange indeed.
 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/3/9038/46414

The Programme of the Workers Party
(by Karl Marx and Jules Guesde, 1880)

Preamble

Considering,

That the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race;

That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production ;

That there are only two forms under which the means of production can belong to them

1. The individual form which has never existed in a general state and which is increasingly eliminated by industrial progress;
2. The collective form the material and intellectual elements of which are constituted by the very development of capitalist society;

Considering,

That this collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat - organized in a distinct political party;

That a such an organization must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation;

The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections with the following immediate demands:

A. Political Section

1. Abolition of all laws over the press, meetings and associations and above all the law against the International Working Men's Association. Removal of the livret, that administrative control over the working class, and of all the articles of the Code establishing the inferiority of the worker in relation to the boss, and of woman in relation to man;
2. Removal of the budget of the religious orders and the return to the nation of the 'goods said to be mortmain, movable and immovable' (decree by the Commune of 2 April 1871), including all the industrial and commercial annexes of these corporations;
3. Suppression of the public debt;
4. Abolition of standing armies and the general arming of the people;
5. The Commune to be master of its administration and its police.

B. Economic Section

1. One rest day each week or legal ban on employers imposing work more than six days out of seven. - Legal reduction of the working day to eight hours for adults. - A ban on children under fourteen years working in private workshops; and, between fourteen and sixteen years, reduction of the working day from eight to six hours;
2. Protective supervision of apprentices by the workers' organizations;
3. Legal minimum wage, determined each year according to the local price of food, by a workers' statistical commission;
4. Legal prohibition of bosses employing foreign workers at a wage less than that of French workers;
5. Equal pay for equal work, for workers of both sexes;
6. Scientific and professional instruction of all children, with their maintenance the responsibility of society, represented by the state and the Commune;
7. Responsibility of society for the old and the disabled;
8. Prohibition of all interference by employers in the administration of workers' friendly societies, provident societies, etc., which are returned to the exclusive control of the workers;
9. Responsibility of the bosses in the matter of accidents, guaranteed by a security paid by the employer into the workers' funds, and in proportion to the number of workers employed and the danger that the industry presents;
10. Intervention by the workers in the special regulations of the various workshops; an end to the right usurped by the bosses to impose any penalty on their workers in the form of fines or withholding of wages (decree by the Commune of 27 April 1871);
11. Annulment of all the contracts that have alienated public property (banks, railways, mines, etc.), and the exploitation of all state-owned workshops to be entrusted to the workers who work there;
12. Abolition of all indirect taxes and transformation of all direct taxes into a progressive tax on incomes over 3,000 francs. Suppression of all inheritance on a collateral line and of all direct inheritance over 20,000 francs.

---

Dear Mister President

We are greatly honoured to join the millions around the globe congratulating you on taking office as the President of the United States of America. We believe that we are witnessing something truly historic not only in the political annals of your great nation, the United States of America, but of the world.

Your election to this high office has inspired people as few other events in recent times have done. Amidst all of the human progress made over the last century the world in which we live remains one of great divisions, conflict, inequality, poverty and injustice. Amongst many around the world a sense of hopelessness had set in as so many problems remain unresolved and seemingly incapable of being resolved. You, Mister President, have brought a new voice of hope that these problems can be addressed and that we can in fact change the world and make of it a better place.

We are in some ways reminded today of the excitement and enthusiasm in our own country at the time of our transition to democracy. People, not only in our country but around the world, were inspired to believe that through common human effort injustice can be overcome and that together a better life for all can be achieved.

Your Presidency brings hope of new beginnings in the relations between nations, that the challenges we all face, be they economic, the environment, or in combating poverty or the search for peace, will be addressed with a new spirit of openness and accommodation.
There is a special excitement on our continent today, Mister President, in the knowledge that you have such strong personal ties with Africa. We share in that excitement and pride.

We are aware that the expectations of what your Presidency will achieve are high and that the demands on you will be great. We therefore once more wish you and your family strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead.

You will always be in our affection as a young man who dared to dream and to pursue that dream.  We wish you well.

Sincerely,
N R Mandela (signed)

Source Here