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Dr. Dahesh |
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Dr. Dahesh: His Life
Dr. Dahesh is a Lebanese author and the founder of a spiritual doctrine—known as Daheshism. His name by birth is Salim Moussa El-Ashi (a phonetic corruption of the word Elisha, in reference to Elisha, the biblical prophet). His parents left Mesopotamia, their country of origin, and went to the Holy land in Palestine where they lived first in Bethlehem, then moved to Al-Quds (Jerusalem) where Salim was born on June 1, 1909.
In 1911, they decided to return to Mesopotamia, but overriding circumstances compelled them to stay in Beirut. The father got a job in the American University printing Press and in 1918 was conscripted into the army by the Turks in a compulsory recruitment drive but was dismissed for health reasons. Suffering from tuberculosis, he was sent to the Hemlin health resort in Shabanya, Lebanon, where he died on January 25, 1920.
In 1921, the boy Salim and his youngest sister Antoinette were sent first to an orphanage in Khazir (Lebanon), then to Miah and Miah, another orphanage, and finally into a school in Ayn Karin (near Al-Quds); but his stay in all of these schools did not exceed one year and was the only formal education he received.
In 1921, his mother acquired the Lebanese citizenship and so did he on March 7, 1923, about two years later.
A retrospective view of his early childhood till old age reveals five striking personal qualities:
First, a hungry desire for knowledge. Though being deprived of school education, he never stopped from self education, immersing himself in the study of the cultures of people, their literature, history and psychology. At first, he used to borrow books from public libraries and pore over them day and night. But later he began to buy books, becoming a bibliophihe himself, an owner of one of the largest private libraries in Lebanon.
Second, a creative literary talent. He started committing to paper his ideas and feelings in 1927 and by mid 1933, he finished writing his first book The Mysteries of gods (2 Vols). By the end of that same year, he finished his second book The Lyre of gods (2vols), as well as his third book The Repose of Death. He continued writing profusely producing 150 books covering different genres like the lyric, novel, short story, autobiography, epigrams, travel and religious literature.
Third, His passion early in life for art, especially painting and sculpture. There is more than one anecdote in his early youth about his infatuation with art. Accompanying his mother on a visit to Jerusalem one day, he saw a painting in a window shop and lingered behind for a while contemplating it. When his mother realized he was no longer by her side, she turned back looking for him and found him standing there his eyes staring with a fixed gaze at the painting; she reprimanded him, dragging him away by the hand. In another reported anecdote, he admired once a picture of a painting he found in a magazine and cutting it out, he kept it with him for twenty years, after which he sent it to its original painter to draw it for him again, which he did. In 1930 he started collecting paintings and by 1976, he owned a collection of more than 2000 works of art.
Fourth, unusual spiritual phenomena manifesting themselves at his hands since early childhood that he himself did not know at first their source. Eyewitnesses offered different interpretations: some attributed this power to magic, others to hypnotism—a popular subject at that time—still others to a spiritual agency of transcendent nature. He was called Dahesh (that is, wonderful) a name evocative of these spiritual phenomena; since the Sage Institute in Paris awarded him, in May 22, 1930,a diploma of graduation in psychic studies, he was subsequently referred to as Dr. Dahesh. Also, a number of people attracted to spiritual matters gathered round him.
Fifth, A life of successive travels. In the thirties, he made many journeys to the West and to Arab |
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