Dear Ahimsa,
Based on the name, it sounds like “Jehovah” to me. Any comment from our JW friends? Just like Paarsurrey, I am also curious about this group.
I have vaguely heard of ‘The Source’, a famous counterculture restaurant from back in the day, but was not aware of a continuing group such as is depicted on the website. Their philosophies don’t appear too mysterious, however.
I’d say their main symbolic influence is from the Hermetic Qabalah as practiced by the famous occult order the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn (GD) developed a synthesis of classical western occultism combined with some eastern material imported by the Theosophical Society, and especially expressed in their understanding of the Tarot. The GD contained various theological factions, some plainly Christian and some plainly verging on the Neopagan.
The Tarot is, as most of you will know, a deck of symbolic cards used for divination and meditation. The form of the deck known these days was developed in the 18th and 19th century by occultists, and refined by the creators of the GD system. Nearly every current Tarot deck owes its form and symbolism to the work of the GD.
The Yahowah web-site lists as a major influence a fellow named Paul Foster Case. He was a late (early to mid-20th C) inheritor of the GD tradition, more inclined to an Anglo-Catholic approach than some of the more nearly neo-pagan members of the GD. I’d say it was from Case that ‘Father’ took his interest in the Four Letter Name and such Qabalistic mysticism.
The ‘yahowah’ in this group comes from the post-jewish qabalah of the GD rather than from the sort of sources that produced the JWs. Yod-he-vov-he is the name of god, related to the four elements - fire, water, air and earth, respectively. When one adds the hebrew letter shin one gets a version of the name yeheshua - joshua - jesus. In hebrew letter-mysticism shin means the presence of divine spirit, so adding the shin to the four-letter-name means spirit descending into matter - thus the incarnation.
Anyway, more daring readers might be interested in the writings of PF Case, if you want to know whence this sort of philosophy comes.
Ian