Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
M. A student in Religions and Mysticism, University of Tehran, Farabi Faculties, Tehran, Iran
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Islam and Spirituality Studies, Research Center for Ethics and Spirituality, Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy, Qom, Iran.
Abstract
"Ackankar" is a spiritual movement that was founded in the postmodern era and while it has not celebrated its 60th anniversary yet, one of the claims of " Twitchell", the American founder of this movement and his followers, is that Rumi, Shams, Hafez and Ferdowsi are among the previous leaders of this Pseudo-religion, and not only all of them were part of the ancient Ackankar system, but they also got all their power from this system. Twitchell mentions the names of these elders in his books and claims that the followers of Ackankar (ECKists) did not have any written instructions until the 13th century AD, Mawlānā Jalaluddin, a Persian mystic poet, in his immortal work, compiled their worldview as "ECK" for the first time. What he means is the book of Masnavi al-Manavi, which is a collection of pure mystical beliefs. This study aims to compare Rumi's view on the goal of Soluk (conduct) with the desired goal of the Ackankar movement, which is the result of the experiences of the founder and also the followers of this movement, with the criterion of including three topics from the written works of each of these two thoughts, and then discuss some of its similarities and differences. This research is subject-oriented and descriptive, and through a comparative approach, it deals with the function of religion in the ontology and metaphysical goal thinking of man from the approach of the experimental effect of religion on the soul of "the perfect mystic from the perspective of Rumi" and "the most sublime ECKist from the perspective of Twitchell". The finding of the study suggests that, contrary to his claim regarding accepting Masnavi as his epistemological worldview, neither in the general stages of his conduct, nor in its end, he adhered to the worldview of Rumi.
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