My Back Story re. publishing Allan Y Cohen's 2014 Australian recordings

While living in Roma in South West Queensland in the mid 1990’s, I was intrigued to read about the Boston Baba Boys (Cohen, Dreyfus and Chapman) who bought Avatar Meher Baba’s anti-drug message to the West (Lord Meher: Vol 20).  Ten years later, while visiting the Meher Spiritual Center at Myrtle Beach SC, I enquired whether their library had any videos of talks which these fellows may have given there.  In no time I was sitting in front of a video of Dr Allan Cohen describing how he had participated in the consciousness-expanding LSD experimentation which his lecturing staff Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (aka Ram Das) had undertaken at Harvard University, Cambridge, a short distance from Boston, MA.  I had read a number of “hippy” books about this drug research and the spiritual exploration which acompanied it, and was thrilled to hear Allan’s personal account of the actual goings-on.  His stories had me in fits of laughter.  It wasn’t until library staff were tapping me on the shoulder and I took off my earphones, that I realised how much of a disturbance I was causing.

I was keen to obtain a copy of this video but was advised that copying talks filmed at the Center was restricted.  So I tried to track down vidoes of Allan speaking at other Baba Centers, such as New York, but failed.  Not even the Sufism Reoriented Bookshop could sell me a video of Allan speaking about these heady times.  I really wanted to meet these young westerns who loomed large in propagating Baba’s anti-drug message, so during successive round the world trips to the USA and India with the family, I tracked down the most conspicous ones.  Rick Chapman shouted our family of 8 morning coffee near his home at Rockridge. I had a game of tennis with Robert Dreyfus, and was introduced to Allan by a mutual friend, Washington DC photographer, Stan Barough.  Allan was then kind enough to arrange a lunchtime meeting with a very special person in my eyes, James McGrew, author of Avataric Advents, who was in India with the Peace Corp and met Baba 6 months before Rick Chapman who was there on a Fullbright Scholarship.  All four were at Harvard graduates as it turns out.  Captivated by Allan’s story telling prowess, and his great stories, on a successive trip to the USA accompanying our older girls Jaya and Radha to thier first Youth Sahavas at Myrtle Beach, I spent a week with Stan in DC and contacted Allan about the prospect of undertaking an oral history project similar to Wendell Brustman’s 7 disc “Witness Series” of Charmian Duce Knowles titled “My Life with Meher Baba”.  I met with Allan’s wife and in a short time was advised that he agreed on the condition that our schedules, priorities and resources would permit. 

Sadly they never did, and my dream of an oral history project, morphed into a hit movie about aong the lines of the Harvard Psychdelic Club, which Allan advised had already been written by notable San Francisco Religous Affairs journalist Don Latten.  So offers to write Rick Chapman’s biography and make films with Allan Cohen came to a depressing nothing.  A reflection on my character – well let’s not go there.

Ten years later, however, the perfect opportunity came my way.  Michael Le Page, having just completed 3 days of filming Allan Cohen as Guest Speaker at the 2014 Australian Spring Sahavas, was now faced at an even bigger backlog of editing, and decided to ask if I might be interested in this work.  “Absolutely”, I told him, and he handed over his tapes “no strings attached”, and the name of two possible editors.  So armed with the Sahavas Coordinator David Hobson’s schedule of Allan’s talks, 9 miniDV tapes filmed by Steve Hein using Michael’s camera, a disk drive with all of George Fricker’s video coverage, and a USB with an audio recording of Allan’s introductory talk which had not been filmed, couresty of Richard Cole; I approached my friend and film maker Geoff Cantor who was willing to take on the editing work.  His work was that of a true professional, making great use of Steve’s close up camera work, George’s wider angle footage, and terrifc sound from a lapel microphone managed by Jim Franino and Sam Saunders.

On completion of the editing work it was time to chose a photo for the 10 disc DVD Boxes we had ordered.   Cynthia Borg was delighted to allow us to use a colour photo taken by Gill Alston of Meher Baba sitting outside “Baba’s House” at Avatar’s Abode in 1958, the building inside which the 2014 Sahavas was held.  An special image which, according to Bernard Bruford, “Eruch subsequently said how pleased he was that these photos were taken that show Baba displaying such a serious mood because this was the Baba that his close ones so often experienced and was seldom captured.” (Flag Raising speech, 2015 Avatar’sAbode Annisvaersay)

The soon to be released 10 DVD Box Set of Allan Cohen talks contains many interesting snippets of Baba history which are not widely known, in Australia anyway.  For instance, how Allan, in August 1964, the day after completing his Psychedelic Guide Certification Test at the Millbrook Community, attended a public talk and film about an Indian holy man held at Woodstock, NY.  Darwin Shaw writes in his autobiography, “As Only God Can Love” that Baba had instructed him to speak at this public meeting arranged by the Otts, Rileys and Winterfelds.  Allan describes his and his friends reaction to the talk:

 “... friends looked, ‘Is he on acid?’ Because he was vibing ... there was something magnetic, and Leary went over and talked to him.  ... I picked up one of the books titled Sparks.  “Hey, what is this, this guy in a couple of paragraphs, is summing up all of our reading: Lantoon, Buddishm, Hinduism, everything ... Wow”.  So in the spirit of the day, I stole that book ... still paying for that one”. 

(If you want some more words, you can pick and chose from the extract below taken from my transcript of Allan’s Friday PM talk below.  If not, skip the italics text below, and go straight to where I continue my article).

Anyway I passed, I was up all night, I was stoned, and then Alpert said; “You know we have just been invited to Woodstock, New York to see films of an Indian holy man”.  And, they had been invited by the then inventors of Light Shows, very hip people.  So there was a hip invitation, so the community was invited, I was really tired and out of it, but I didn’t want to be alone again, so I said: “I’ll go, yeah”.  So we go to Woodstock New York.  We go and stay at a sort of refurbished stable.  And who is there?  Well, Lyn and Phyliss Ott, Fred and Ella Winterfeld, Darwin Shaw, Tom and Yvonne Riley - all these were staunch members of Meher Baba group.  And ah ... so it started with a brief introduction, and then they showed the film of the ‘62 darshan in India, and then Darwin Shaw got up to talk about it, Baba.  He was introduced to us as a Traffic Engineer from Skinetiky, New York, and one of the Senior Elders of his Protestant Church.  He was dressed in an actual coat and tie ... clad, you know, and we were saying; “Oh my God ... No ... painful” and all.   So, Darwin starts talking about Baba, and ... I’m not sure we listened very carefully, but it was very mysterious.  Ah ... friends looked “Is he on acid?”, because he was vibing, you know you could see, you could kind of feel the vibration, and ... though the content, ah ... at that point, I don’t think we really understood much of it, but his nature, was ... there was something magnetic, and Leary went over and talked to him.  Meanwhile, I kind of walked around, and I, and they had a book table with Baba materials, and I picked up one of the books, and it was called “Sparks”.  It’s a little booklet that takes snippets of Baba sayings.  And I looked through it and: “Hey!  What is this, what is this?  This guy, in a couple of paragraphs, is summing up all of our reading: Lantoon,  Buddishm, Hinduism, everything.  Who’s this, who’s this, the guy in the film?  Wow!” 

So in the spirit of the day I stole that book ... still paying for that one. And we went back, we went back, and eventually said; “Does anyone know about any other things this guy has written?”   And our Community Techie at that time said; “Yeah, I do”. “What!”.  Well it turns out that he was raised by a foster mother who was a Baba-lover, and gave him as a high school graduation gift, a full copy of the Discourses at that time.  He said; “I’ve never read it, but I kept it, you know”.  And so I got hold of the Discourses, and it is getting even better, it’s getting good.  But ... Meher Baba had to pass the test!  So, I took some LSD, took the Discourses with me in the summer, went up on a hill overlooking ... and started reading.  And what I got fixated on was a little piece called The Journey of the Soul to the Oversoul, which is a sort of Discourses version of a mini God Speaks, and when I got to the explanation of the 6^th plane of consciousness, I said; “That’s it!  I can see it, I can see it, I have hit the 6^th plane here, this experience, and this is fantastic”. 

Darwin Shaw later wrote: “Baba’s Divine Love came pouring through me and I felt transported in his love-light” (p537).  Allan goes on to describes how he obtained a copy Meher Baba’s “Discourses” from the Techie at Millbrook who had never read it, but had kept it, and how he started systematically searching for Baba’s “method”.  This eventually led to an exchange of letters and telegrams between Baba, Adi, Allan, Alpert, and others involved in promoting Baba’s anti-drug message.  Over the following decade Allan undertook thousands of media interviews, campus lectures and public talks, and it wasn’t until 1974 that he finally dealt with Meher Baba’s method, in the publication of his influtential book “The Mastery of Consciousness - An Introduction and Guide to Practical Mysticism and Methods of Spiritual Development – as given by Meher Baba”.

The Box Set of DVD’s has a number of disclaimers.  Firstly Allan’s, which he speaks dirctly to camera at beginning of the Saturday morning talk.  He says: “I love this quote; it’s from just a guy: ‘If we are conducting our lives in the usual fashion, each of us serves as a constant source of embarrassment to his or her future self’.  And I say to anybody who is seeing this video in the future, it represents work in progress, and I take no responsibility.”  Secondly, is mine, which is in response to genuine concerns held by some in the Baba world, and it is simply that Allan’s views are his own, and some are not shared by members of the audience.  Different views exist regarding aspects of Sufism Reoriented, of which Allan is a long time member. But as a selection of regular visitors to the Centres and the homes of members of Sufism Reoriented, my wife and children point out that the implication of these aspects is not well understood.

Allan’s talks canvass topics which will be of interest to all Baba-lovers, as you can see by persuing the list of talks below.  Of special interest during the Sahavas was a talk by Michael Le Page’s talk about Baron  ...........’s activites in Europe and Australia attempting to stimulate interest in the style of Sufism bought to the West by Inyat Khan, and then carried on by his successor Murshida Rabia Martin.  As we know Francis Brabazon was a serous student of the Baron and he paid for Francis to travel and study under tutaliage of Rabia Martin and her murids at their cetre in Halifax, CA.  It was with Murshida Duce that Francis met Meher Baba for the first time during his visit to Myrtle Beach in 1952.  Of equal interest was the following and last talk given by Allan titled Sufism Reoriented in the USA.  This bought the history of this linage of Sufism into a clearer focus, and provided commentary on the disciplic succession of Murshids before and after Meher Baba’s “reorientation” of it in 1954, and a description of current projects and practices.

8 of the DVDs are video recordings, 2 are audio tracks with still images and text which play as DVDs.  Disc 1 is Allan’s introductory talk.  Disc 10 we hope will be a 1 hour long radio interview which Allan did with ABC Radio National presenter Rachael Kohn for her popular program “The Spirit of Things”.  Both are wonderful listeneing and should not be missed.  Rachael is the foremost commentator on Spirituality in Australia, and has a keen interest in that period of history and enjoyed Don Lattin’s book about four promeinent people from that time.  We are hoping to be given approval to use the audio of this ABC interview.  Rachael told me I could use a transcript of it in my efforts to give “new life” to the insightful views on drugs which Allan offers, having 40 years experience in drug abuse prevention and intervention, as well as and policy development and evaluation for government agencies and organisations all over the world.

The proposed DVD titles and topics and running times are as follows:

1: An Informal Evening with Allan Cohen - How Allan was drawn into the Avatar’s orbit and those wild and wonderful times in the 1960’s - 1:00

2: Adventures of a Clueless Aspirant: Lessons Learned - Early stories of discovery, Baba-work and personal humiliation - 1:18

3: Drugs, Intoxication and Spiritual Implications - Meher Baba’s orientation towards medical and recreational use of psychoactive substances - 50

4: Meher Baba 101: Core Principals - Intrepreting Baba’s “theology”, current controversies, future challenges and 1 min version of God Speaks - 1:03

5: Implications of the New Humanity and Descendent Spirituality - Practical implications for Baba-lovers - 1:13

6: Meher Baba’s Practical Mysticism - 1:37 - Applying divine principles to everyday life, reducing the ego while functioning in the world.

7: Handling Psychological Challenges on Meher Baba’s Path - Personal and interpersonal conflicts, spiritual expereince and spiritual growth - 1:04

8: The Beginnings of Sufism in Australia - by Michael LePage - 1:12

9: Sufism Reoriented in USA - 1:24

10: ABC Radio National “The Spirit of Things” interview with Rachael Kohn - 1:00

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Allan has kindly given permission for Charmaine and I to distribute the videos of his 2014 talks in Australia and New Zealand only.  If you would like to obtain a copy, contact me at anthonyrfoley@gmail.com.  The project is not yet complete.  Box Sets should be ready to ship in the next month or two. 

POSTSCRIPT:  Reg Love bought a copy of Richard Alpert’s widely read book of the time, “Be Here Now”, which features images and quotes of Meher Baba, to the last day of the Sahavas.  I had read this book while I was studing at the Gatton Agricultural College, feeling hardly done by due to the fact that I was missing out on this hippy spiritual life I was so fascinated by.  Little did I know that the people who particpated in that history, would become part of my history.  And that the big poster of Avatar Meher Baba which I used to look at in my early teens in the Indian Import Shop at Mooloolaba where our holiday home was located, only 10 miles from Avatar’s Abode, was the same face I was be Iooking at in “Be Here Now”.  And was the same the person whose life and teachings I would become entralled with some decades later.  And to top it off, that the guy who ran the Indian Import shop in Mooloolaba in the early 1970’s is the guy who helped me a great deal with this project.  Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!!!