Sacred Prophecy From Mount Carmel and the Destiny of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, the Pacific, and Beyond
On April 8, 1916, from the sacredness of Mount Carmel, in the garden of the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, where prophets once walked and divine voices were heard, Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Bahá’u’lláh, revealed a prophecy so bold, so radiant, so utterly contrary to the beliefs of the dominant Western world at that time, that any who would heard it would have regarded it as foolish, laughable, and impossible.
On April 8, 1916, ʻAbdu’l-Bahá prophecied:
“Attach great importance to the indigenous population of America, for these souls may be likened unto the ancient inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, who, before the Mission of Muḥammad, were like unto savages. When the light of Muḥammad shone forth in their midst, however, they became so radiant as to illumine the world. Likewise, these Indians, should they be educated and guided, there can be no doubt that they will become so illumined as to enlighten the whole world.”
Let us reflect on the backdrop against which these words were spoken.
From Mount Carmel: A Prophecy in the Shadow of Catastrophe
At that moment, the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and our relatives in the Pacific, Africa, and beyond were enduring what may be called the spiritual and cultural midnight of our histories.
From an estimated 100 million Indigenous souls in the Americas before 1492, only about 20 million remained across the Western Hemisphere. Colonial wars, slavery, genocide, pandemics, starvation, and systematic campaigns of extermination had annihilated the rest.
Sixty million buffalo had been reduced to 1000. Languages had been outlawed. Sacred ceremonies were criminalized. Children were taken from families and placed into residential and boarding schools designed to destroy their identity, including systemic sexual abuse and cultural genocide. Lands were stolen, rivers dammed, and burial grounds, as well as sacred places, desecrated.
In such a context of 1916, ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s prophecy that these very peoples, so grievously wounded, would one day enlighten the world would have been deemed utterly unrealistic and delusional by those blinded by colonial arrogance and material supremacy.
But from the higher perspective of Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka, the Great Mystery, from the vantage point of spiritual cycles and sacred renewal, this prophecy was not only true, it was inevitable.
Arabia Before the Light: A Mirror of Misjudgment
The parallel drawn by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá was no accident. Before the rise of the Prophet Muḥammad, the Arab tribes were seen by their neighbors as backward, disunited, and culturally impoverished. The mighty empires of Persia and Byzantium scoffed at the desert peoples of the Hijaz.
But in less than a century following the Revelation of Muḥammad, these same people, once dismissed as illiterate nomads, became the vanguard of a planetary, intellectual, and spiritual renaissance.
The House of Wisdom in Baghdad, established by Caliph Al-Ma'mun in 830 CE, became one of the most advanced centers of learning the world had seen since the Library of Alexandria. Arab and Persian scholars translated the great works of Aristotle, Galen, and Euclid into Arabic—sometimes first from Greek into Aramaic, then into Arabic. They preserved Indian mathematics and astronomy, refined Persian governance, and built upon Syriac, Coptic, and even Chinese knowledge.
These scholars did more than preserve—they transformed. They synthesized and innovated. Algebra, chemistry, hospitals, optics, navigation, jurisprudence, and ethics were systematized in Arabic, and in doing so, they transmitted the fire of wisdom to Europe, paving the way for the Renaissance.
The transformation of Arabia from tribal fragmentation to global illumination is one of the most astonishing metamorphoses in human history. It was catalyzed not by force but by spiritual revelation, sacred unity, and a thirst for knowledge.
Just as the Arab world did not imitate the empires around it but integrated their wisdom while remaining rooted in their revelation, so too are the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island returning not to mimic the colonial world, but to restore sacred balance through our visions, languages, sacred ways, and the Ancient of Days,
The Light of the Prophecy: A Fire Not Yet Seen
The light of Indigenous nations is not a recent spark. It is an ancient fire carried through our sacred bundles, oral traditions, and ceremonies. Colonization sought to bury it. But fire, even buried, continues to burn.
We carried that flame in silence, in exile, in dreams, and the trembling songs of our grandmothers. We passed it from hand to hand, heart to heart, until it emerged in the light of day.
And now it rises.
We are amidst a spiritual renaissance no less profound than that in 9th-century Baghdad. From Standing Rock to the Amazon, from the Andes to the Arctic, Indigenous Peoples are reclaiming not only our lands and languages but also our sacred responsibilities to guide, protect, and enlighten.
Why the European World Could Not Understand
For centuries, the European mind, conditioned by conquest, could not recognize wisdom that did not come in books, cathedrals, or guns. It could not see the sacred in the drumbeat or the buffalo robe. It could not understand that our laws were written not on paper but in the flight of birds, the bend of rivers, and the wind's breath.
The same blindness once caused Europe to ignore the genius of Arab civilization until it needed that knowledge to awaken from its dark age.
So too, today, the world turns to Indigenous Peoples:
For climate solutions rooted in relationships rather than control.
For governance that seeks consensus rather than coercion.
For medicine that heals the soul, not just the body;
And for prophecies that unify, not divide.
Let this be declared to all nations:
The prophecy spoken on Mount Carmel was not a poetic dream.
It was a spiritual declaration forged in truth and sanctified by time, and it is now being fulfilled.
We, the Indigenous Peoples of Abja Yala, stand not as victims or relics but as torchbearers of a new Planetary Civilization founded on Justice, the next age of human awakening. Like the Arabs before us, we shall help guide the world out of separation, not through conquest but through remembrance, not through domination but through balance, not through erasure but through unity in diversity.
The Sacred Hoop is being mended. The Condor, Hummingbird, Quetzal, and Eagle are flying together again. And from this sacred convergence, a new dawn rises.
Let those who once doubted see. Let those who scoffed now listen. Let all nations remember:
The light that was dismissed will soon illumine the world.
The “foolish prophecy” shall be known as sacred truth.
And the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, rooted in ceremony, guided by vision, and awakened by prophecy, shall fulfill their sacred trust to enlighten all humankind.
With humility, with strength, and with ancestral love, we walk forward in the footsteps of our Ancestors, guided by Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka, in fulfillment of all things foretold.
I.. Two Revelations on the Same Mountain
Mount Carmel is no ordinary mountain. It is a Mountain of Fire, a Mountain of Decision, where heaven and earth meet and Divine Authority manifests with power. It is the site where:
Elijah called the people of Israel back to worship the One True God, tearing down Baal's altars, confronting corruption, and invoking a fire that consumed even water and stone.
ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, centuries later, declared to the world a prophecy about the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas—peoples whom the world had cast aside, yet who were destined to rise and illumine the world.
Both moments, though different in form, are ceremonial turning points in humanity's journey—moments where Truth breaks through illusion and the spirit of prophecy renews itself in fire and voice.
II. Elijah’s Confrontation and Indigenous Resilience
When Elijah stood alone before the 450 prophets of Baal, drenched the altar, and called down fire from heaven, he was one man holding the line between truth and illusion, sacred covenant and idolatrous power. He was surrounded by torn people, unsure whether to follow the gods of empire or return to the ways of their ancestors.
So too, at the turn of the 20th century, the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas had been made a laughingstock in the eyes of colonizing nations. Stripped of land, outlawed from prayer, labeled as primitive, they were seen as relics of a forgotten age. And yet—ʻAbdu’l-Bahá declared, from that same mountain, that these very peoples would rise again in spiritual fire to enlighten the world.
Like Elijah standing alone against an empire’s gods, Indigenous nations kept alive the sacred flame—in sweat lodges, in vision quests, in sun dances, and pipe ceremonies whispered through prison bars and boarding schools. And now, the world begins to see that our fire never went out. It was covered but not extinguished. It was scattered but not broken.
III. The Fire on the Altar and the Light of Turtle Island
Elijah’s altar—rebuilt with twelve stones, each representing the twelve tribes of Israel—signifies the restoration of spiritual unity. His drenching of the altar in twelve water pitchers reflects faith in divine power beyond human manipulation. When the fire came, it consumed even the water and stones, leaving no doubt that it was not by sorcery or deception but by the hand of the Creator.
Similarly, the revival of Indigenous nations, many of whom descend from spiritual confederacies of twelve, four, or seven nations, such as the Haudenosaunee and other sacred alliances, reveals a sacred unity long hidden beneath colonial narratives.
Just as the fire on Elijah’s altar fell during the afternoon prayer, in the time of most profound vulnerability, so too has the Indigenous renaissance emerged not in a time of strength but in the hour of greatest need: the hour of climate collapse, spiritual disconnection, and systemic breakdown. In this sacred moment, the fire of our spiritual inheritance is rising once again—from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Standing Rock to Bolivia.
IV. The Death of False Prophets and the Fall of Empire
When Elijah seized the prophets of Baal and led the people to the Kishon brook, it marked the symbolic death of false religion—those who twisted spirituality into a tool of empire, control, and indulgence.
Today, we see the crumbling of systems built upon false gods: wealth as salvation, conquest as progress, control as wisdom. The gods of colonization—like the Baals of Elijah’s day are being exposed for what they are, illusions.
The sacred is not found in domination but in the right relationship. And the Indigenous Peoples, once cast as savages, are now recognized as carriers of spiritual insight capable of restoring planetary balance.
Just as the Baal prophets were swept away after Elijah's confrontation, so too are the failing doctrines of extraction, racism, and supremacy being pulled down by the prayers and movements of Indigenous youth, elders, and visionaries.
V. Rain After Fire: The Return of Life
After the fire came down, Elijah returned to the mountain and prayed for rain. In time, a small cloud appeared—a sign of life returning to the land. The rain that followed was not merely physical but spiritual nourishment for a land long gripped by drought and hunger.
So too, the prophetic rain of ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s words, once a tiny cloud in a dry sky, has grown. It nourishes the Indigenous nations reclaiming land, language, and sacred purpose. It brings healing to the wounded, vision to the lost, and hope to those who thought their nations would never rise again.
The rain fulfills prophecy, and the fire is the proof. The altar, rebuilt from broken stones, symbolizes our unity, rooted in our covenants with the Creator.
VI. A Sacred Declaration from One Fire to Another
Let it be known:
As Elijah restored the altar of the Creator with stones of the twelve tribes, so do the Indigenous nations restore the sacred hoop, broken by colonization but mended by spirit.
As Elijah stood alone against falsehood, so have Indigenous Peoples stood through centuries of silence, exile, and denial, preserving a truth that is now being heard worldwide.
As fire came from heaven and rain returned to the land, so too does the prophecy of ʻAbdu’l-Bahá declare: that the Indigenous Peoples, long persecuted, will become so illumined as to enlighten the whole world.
This is not a metaphor. It is a living prophecy unfolding before us in ceremony, resistance, and renewal.
VII. A Final Word from the Mountain
Just as Elijah’s prayer ended with the people crying out:
“The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”
So too shall the peoples of the world one day cry out in reverence:
“The Spirit of the Earth speaks again! The Sacred Tree lives! The voice of the Ancestors has returned in truth!”
The same mountain that bore witness to Elijah’s fire now bears witness to the rising light of the Indigenous nations of the Americas. The same divine breath that called down fire now calls us to restore balance, revere creation, and fulfill our sacred responsibilities.
We, the descendants of Turtle Island, of the Condor, the Hummingbird, the Quetzal, the Eagle, the Pacific, and beyond, rise again not in vengeance, but in vision, not in bitterness, but in sacred clarity. Not to replace the world, but to renew it.
Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ. All Our Relations.
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Šúŋkmanu-Čhąnúpa Sápa,
Hinhan Wíčhašta, Pizi, and Deloria Tióšpayes
Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ Oyáte and Chickasaw Nations
