ONCE AND FOR ALL MANKIND

At age five, Ed’s parents divorce, and he lives with his mom, Linda, and older sister, Roia, in Fairfax, Virginia, for the next four years. His dad, Heidar, resides mainly in Iran, operating the construction company he founded and taking financial care of many relatives, throughout the uncertainty and chaos of the Iranian Revolution years. Ed is an intelligent and compassionate kid, excelling in academics, the arts, and sports, early on. After Linda’s boyfriend, an older Christian cult member who had started molesting Roia, dies in a fateful car accident, Linda moves the kids to Houston, Texas, where she impulsively marries a racist, sociopathic ex-cop and Marine Corps Vietnam vet named Bill. Bill promptly begins to abuse the children physically and psychologically, in the name of military-style discipline, while Linda looks the other way. Roia is able to escape after a year, to live in Heidar’s custody, mostly at boarding school. Linda and Bill then go underground, and Ed is hidden away from his family. The abuse worsens over the next two years, until he is able to get a letter to his uncle and is finally set free by the courts on his twelfth birthday. 

Already struggling with symptoms of depression and PTSD, Ed goes on to live a semi-nomadic life, in various places and schools throughout the United States, France, and Spain, always ending up back in La Jolla, California, with his crew of rebels and outcasts. Mostly on his own as a teenager, he seeks truth and wisdom from the outside world and the people he meets, and he experiences many walks of life. Ed learns to defend and fend for himself, speak other languages, hold his liquor and drugs, and fit in with the “cool kids” wherever he goes, and he often finds himself alone in harrowing situations.

High school in La Jolla in the late eighties is a continuous series of parties, surfing, “whomping” (bodysurfing the shore-break), love interests, fights, fast driving, criminal activity, and drug-fueled adventures. Ed is right in the middle of all that, struggling to find his own identity, and with the hypocrisy of religion, the societal paradigm, and other existential questions, when he goes to his first Grateful Dead show. His mind is blown open by the music, psychedelics, and collective consciousness he finds in that scene, and he is further propelled down a path into the unknown. Ed begins to hear voices and have visions channeling through his mind, as if it is a stage, which he is unable to control or turn off. His ego and notions of reality get broken down in many ways, as he is continuously tested. He is being initiated into other dimensional realms by his “spirit guides,” and grander and more ancient truths start to be revealed. Ed also recognizes that what he is experiencing could all just be his imagination gone rogue or a mental disorder, but he must dive down the rabbit hole to discover the truth of his own existence and find the love he knows is somewhere out there for him.

As he opens himself further to the music, his spirit guides, and the “universal mind,” he recognizes his fears and must face them each down, on the stage and in the light, no humiliation spared, until they have no more control over him. He realizes these are not just his own fears, but the fears, misconceptions, and potentials for good and evil that reside within each of us and the collective. 

Through his deep and often uncomfortable exploration of sexual-related fears and energies, he embraces the feminine within himself and realizes his “astral mate” and real-life friend, Connie, has been here with him, making love with their souls and sharing bodies, all along. The ongoing dialogues Ed is having with Connie’s soul and his other spirit friends become clearer as he learns to channel these beings and hear their messages. Ed and Connie’s love for one another is undeniable when they come together physically, but she and one of his best friends, Brian, have been together for years, and there is a lot of social drama and life events that push love onto the back burner.

Meanwhile, the drugs and crime around his day-to-day life ramp up. Ed becomes overwhelmed with the greed, fakeness, and depravity surrounding him and in the broader world, resulting in a nervous breakdown, which leaves him wailing from his soul for humanity, the Earth, and himself. His consciousness is suddenly transported to the moon, still weeping, at the foot of the throne of the light being known as Jesus. Ed makes a solemn vow to give everything he has to serve Love, and he returns to his body with a new faith and clear purpose. The initiation now kicking into hyperdrive, he gets to know several of his spirit guides, prophets, and saints, some currently without bodies of their own, in lucid dreams and through channeling them into his physical realm, and vice versa. The beautiful and expansive visions and understandings that replace the fears, all of which he is projecting to the world, fueled by the music of his many enlightened cohorts, are now attracting the attention of the masses to his spiritual stage, as well as the interest of one dark being, formerly known as Jim Morrison. 

Morrison initially presents himself to Ed as a guide, but it soon becomes clear that this other consciousness is trying to take over Ed’s mind, as well as the astral connections he has established with his mate and the sacred realms, for its own purposes. The battle of cunning, vision, and spiritual fortitude between Ed and Jim ensues over weeks on the “stage,” and Ed is often humiliated and tortured, losing the crowds and ever more internal ground to Jim, until the moment some greater truth and vision from Love flows through him and the darkness is revealed and pushed back. 

As Ed’s mind is vulnerable one evening due to drugs and lack of sleep, and his will to fight seems to be wearing down, Morrison brings in his full power and reveals himself to Ed, in the bathroom mirror. This is Satan himself, all of his names and manifestations being shown, and that original consciousness in this place right now. Ed also sees a glimpse of his own ancient soul, which has known this dark being since the beginning and is not afraid. This is the confrontation that has been foretold over the ages, the events meant to complete the foundations laid by all those that have come before in the name of Love. 

Unable to tempt Ed with the earthly powers he could possess by joining or becoming him, Morrison moves in for the kill, entering fully into Ed’s body, through the proverbial back door, in an attempt to usurp his connection to Connie and the divine feminine by force. But this apparent vulnerability has been an elaborate ruse, a rope-a-dope strategy. The bait (Connie) is not there, and Ed has come in to seal the door behind himself and Morrison. It is now the ultimate cage match. One body, two souls. Winner take all. The future of humanity hanging in the balance. Knowing that this may only be a temporary cage and their only chance to end this war, while Satan is attacking him from the inside, Ed reaches out to his guides one last time. 

Throughout his other-dimensional experiences, Ed’s logical mind has been able to keep various possible explanations open, including it all being in his individual mind; but this is his existential moment. He must decide what he truly believes and take action or be overcome. The message from his most trusted guide, “It’s time,” is loud and clear, and he instantly knows what must be done. He cannot allow for the possibility of it all being true, the mission—which many have laid their lives down for—failing, and Satan going free again, maybe using this mind and body as a tool to wreak new levels of destruction. Ed’s life is but small sacrifice, given the implications of this final battle and moment of singularity. An all-powerful force rises from within him, along with the mantra he now chants, “Once and for All Mankind,” as he carries out the final part of the plan, just being revealed, with full awareness and conviction—the self-destruct sequence…