Frederic de Arechaga created the Sabaean Religious Order in Chicago, Illinois during the late 1960’s. His family is originally from Spain. Before becoming the head of this new religion, he lists as previous occupations that of a choreographer and a designer. His mother’s illness prompted Mr. De Arechaga to come to Chicago where he took over her occult supply store, El-Sabarum. (1) (2) (3)
In the 1970’s he changed his name to Odun (pronounced Ordun) Arechaga after he was initiation into Santeria. He specialized in studying a god named Obatala. (1)
The Sabaean Religious Order is located at 3221 Sheffield Street, Chicago, Illinois 60657--- phone (773) 868-6003. There were also small chapters located in Ohio, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Fort Lauderdale. (1) The news group alt.religion.sabaean was created for this group. (4) Many people believed that this newsgroup reflects the beliefs of the Mandaeans. A prime example of this is a web page (http://195.37.93.199/Hofheinz/UsenetIslamGroups.html) that list
One of those groups listed is alt.religion.sabaean which of course has nothing to do with the Sabians of the Qu’ran.
The Sabaean religious order also has an official website located at http://www.sabaean.org/ (5)
The religion he created is based on his conception of the Sabaean practices of antiquity, Egyptian Mythology, and Babylonian and Sumarian myth along with ancient African theologies and . (1) He supports the name Sabaean by using out dated data and misunderstood information. Much of the material he cites as being Sabaean is actually Harranian.
This religion certainly has nothing to do with the true Sabians, the Mandaeans. But what this religion does do is to once again place the term Sabaean in the context with the notion of pagan worship. This unfortunately then reflects onto the true Sabian, the Mandaeans, when people become confused especially with the news group alt.religion.sabaean. |
