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Fall 1979
World Order
- To Move the World:
- Louis Gregory and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
- Gayle Morrison
- Aesthetics and
- Spiritual Education
- Glen A. Eyford
- Coming to Terms
- With a Technological World
- Carlos Martin Pereira
World Order
A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY
- Editorial Board:
- FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
- BETTY J. FISHER
- HOWARD GAREY
- ROBERT HAYDEN
- GLENFORD E. MITCHELL
WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. Application to Mail at Second-class postage rates is pending at Wilmette, IL. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts should be typewritten and double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should keep a carbon copy. Return postage should be included.
Subscription rates: USA, 1 year, $6.00; 2 years, $11.00; single copies, $1.60. All other countries, 1 year, $7.00; 2 years, $13.00; single copes $1.60.
Copyright © 1980, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISSN 0043-8804
IN THIS ISSUE
- 2 The Lamp Is Not the Light
- Editorial
- 4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor
- 8 Louis G. Gregory, 1874-1951
- a poem by Roger White
- 11 To Move the World: Louis Gregory and
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, by Gayle Morrison
- 32 Aesthetics and Spiritual Education
- by Glen A. Eyford
- 51 Coming to Terms with a Technological World
- book review by Carlos Martin Pereira
- 56 Authors and Artists in This Issue
The Lamp Is Not the Light
THE DESTRUCTION of Bahá’í holy place in Írán, a sign of continuous
barbarism in the world, should not on that account be an occasion for
surprise. That the material manifestations of God’s message to man are
being savagely erased by regressive leaders who, unable to stand the light,
seek to smash the lamp, is nothing new in the history of man’s attempts
to become fully human. The fact to remember is that the battle continues:
the lamp is not the Light; the shrine is not the Manifestation of God; destruction
and travail are part and parcel of the process of growth. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
putting into perspective certain grievous tests to which the Bahá’ís
of ‘Akká and Haifa were subjected in the first decade of this century, wrote
words that seem as appropriate to our time as to the trials of that period:
- a great multitude of the lovers of God who followed this path have tasted the honey of martyrdom and they gave up everything—life, possessions, kindred—all they had. How many homes were reduced to rubble; how many dwellings were broken into and pillaged; how many a noble building went to the ground; how many a palace was battered into a tomb. And all this came about that humankind might be illumined, that ignorance might yield to knowledge, that men of earth might become men of heaven, that discord and dissension might be torn out by the roots, and the Kingdom of Peace become established over all the world. Strive ye now that this bounty become manifest, and this best-beloved of all hopes be realized in splendour throughout the community of man.
So it is that hardship and loss are seen as the achievements of our great goals: peace, harmony, and truth. And so it is, also, that those who seek peace seek it peacefully: hate, even of the enemy, and violent responses to violent deeds can only delay our cherished purpose.
- O army of God! Beware lest ye harm any soul, or make any heart to sorrow; lest ye wound any man with your words, be he known to you or a stranger, be he friend or foe. Pray ye for all; ask ye that all be blessed, all be forgiven. Beware, beware, lest any of you seek vengeance, even against one who is thirsting for your blood. Beware, beware, lest ye offend the feelings of another, even though he be an evil-doer, and he wish you ill. Look ye not upon the creatures, turn ye to their Creator. See ye not the never-yielding people, see but the Lord of Hosts. Gaze ye not down upon the dust, gaze upward at the shining sun, which hath caused every patch of darksome earth to glow with light.
Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR
FALL 1979. Time does creep apace. And
yet we move on. As this issue goes to press
we are well into our Winter 1979-80
issue and have our Spring and Summer
1980 issues mapped out. A peek at what
is in store is more than in order. Our
Winter issue will see the conclusion of
three extracts from Gayle Morrison’s
biography of Louis Gregory. By that time
she will be well on the way to completing
the entire book, which, of course, is much
longer than the extracts we were able to
print. We hope our selections have
whetted your appetite for more—the more
to be published in book form by the
Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Wilmette in
late 1980 or early 1981. The Winter
issue will also bring A. M. Ghadirian’s
“Violence on Television and Its Effects on
Children” and Julie Oeming Badiee’s “Entities
of a New Creation.”
Spring, Summer, and Fall 1980 bring additional bounties. Nosratollah Rassekh’s “Christianity” will be the first article in a trilogy, the second and third to be on Islám and the Bahá’í Faith. Each will discuss the religion one hundred years after its inception. By the end of Summer 1980 we hope to be back on schedule.
* * *
In 1944 Gunnar Myrdal, in his American
Dilemma: The Negro Problem and
Modern Democracy, wrote in a footnote
that the Bahá’í Faith was the “only white-dominated”
religious community “in which
there may be said to be absolutely no segregation
or discrimination.” Yet one cannot
help going back to 1912 when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
set Washington, D.C., protocol and
social practices on their ears by rearranging
the carefully ordered place settings at
a luncheon given by the chargé d’affaires
of the Persian Legation and placing the
uninvited Negro lawyer Louis Gregory in
the seat of honor.
Certainly, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was not satisfied then that the American Bahá’í community had solved the matter of racial prejudice. He and Shoghi Effendi, His appointed successor, spoke often of the need for all Bahá’ís to eradicate every trace of racial prejudice, the elimination of which Shoghi Effendi called America’s most challenging issue.
In view of the high standard, the high challenge, no Bahá’í can be satisfied with the achievements in 1912, or 1944, or 1979. Still, Myrdal’s observation does give one a perspective. In looking across America in 1944 he was impressed with what had been achieved: the Bahá’í community was fighting against prejudice and was demonstrating its achievements. However, the flowering of religious truths is gradual. One would not want to return to 1912, but one cannot bask in the achievements of 1944, for the challenge of the present hour is greater than the challenges of the past. Hence for Bahá’ís the most challenging issue is still just that: they must continue to demonstrate in even stronger terms that there is, in their community, no segregation, no discrimination.
To the Editor
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
. . . I would like to challenge the statements of Mr. Chouleur . . . [“The God of Buddha,” p. 15, Fall 1978]: “The birth was no more miraculous than are all births” (this referring to the birth of Jesus Christ). Shoghi Effendi . . . in Directives from the Guardian, p. 40, states “With regard to your question concerning the Virgin Birth of Jesus; on this point, as on several others, the Bahá’í teachings are in full agreement with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In the Kitab-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude), page 56, and in a few other Tablets still unpublished, Bahá’u’lláh confirms, however indirectly, the Catholic conception of the Virgin Birth. Also ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Some Answered Questions, Chap. 12, page 73, explicitly states that Christ found existence through the Spirit of God which statement necessarily implies, when reviewed in the light of the text, that Jesus was not the son of Joseph.” The Guardian goes on to point out that “We believe that Christ only was conceived immaculately. His brothers and sisters would have been born in the natural way and conceived naturally.”
In the light of these statements I feel it cannot be held that for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá “The birth was no more miraculous than are all births.” . .
- WILLIAM B. NAYLOR
- Cayenne, French Guiana
CONCERNING “THE TABLET OF WISDOM”
The article by Juan Ricardo Cole in the Spring 1979 issue of WORLD ORDER is, I feel, a significant contribution to Bahá’í scholarship insofar as it enables the Western reader unlearned in Arabic and Persian to appreciate and understand the cultural context in which Bahá’u’lláh’s impressive Tablet of Wisdom was written, much in the same way as, say, Marzieh Gail’s Introduction does for The Seven Valleys of Bahá’u’lláh. However, I find Cole’s solution to the so-called “problem of chronology” in the Tablet of Wisdom seriously defective in that it is marred by several internal contradictions. . . .
The “problem” discussed by Cole is that the English translation of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Wisdom affirms the contemporaneity of Empedocles and David, Pythagoras and Solomon, whereas the apparently most trustworthy modern datings contradict this possibility. In his footnote 49, p. 37, Cole quotes Shoghi Effendi’s clear statement that these affirmations of contemporaneity “must not” (emphasis mine) be taken too literally, and Cole himself acknowledges that Shoghi Effendi is “quite emphatic” on this point. However, in his conclusion (pp. 38-39), Cole states his belief that Bahá’u’lláh’s statements constitute factual error while being (in a sense which Cole tries to elucidate) theologically true. My first point is this: Bahá’u’lláh’s statements can be construed as factual error only if taken literally. But since Cole has already acknowledged that Shoghi Effendi’s interpretive statement excludes this, he is in direct contradiction with himself. He is taking literally a statement that must not be taken too literally according to Shoghi Effendi.
My second and last point concerns Cole’s
discussion on the top of page 37 in which he
presents his arguments against Shoghi Effendi’s
solution to the dilemma (i.e., that the phrase
“fí zaman” should not be taken literally). Cole
has previously shown that Bahá’u’lláh has drawn
from at least two distinct sources, namely Shahrastání
and Abu’l-Fidá’. From the former, Bahá’u’lláh
quotes (or paraphrases) to the effect that
Empedocles was a contemporary of David, while
dropping the further contention of Shahrastání
that Empedocles actually physically met David.
Regarding Pythagoras, Bahá’u’lláh says only that
he “acquired Wisdom from the treasury of
prophethood,” a statement that does not imply
a physical meeting. Cole concludes that, since
Bahá’u’lláh begins this section of His Tablet
with a statement that partially quotes (or
rather paraphrases) Shahrastání, and since
Shahrastání affirms that a physical meeting took
place, Bahá’u’lláh must have implicitly meant
the same thing. However, it seems to me rather
[Page 6] significant that Bahá’u’lláh quotes (or paraphrases)
only part of the Shahrastání text while
pointedly dropping the affirmation of a physical
meeting. It certainly seems more reasonable by
far to suppose that Bahá’u’lláh dropped this affirmation
because He knew it was mistaken
rather than concluding, as does Cole, that Bahá’u’lláh
meant to affirm a physical meeting but
somehow neglected to include explicit mention
of it. At the very least, Bahá’u’lláh’s exclusion of
this affirmation is strong evidence in favor of a
nonliteral interpretation rather than the opposite,
as Cole makes it out to be.
Of course, if we did not have the clear interpretive statement of the Guardian to guide us, it would not be so easy to see how to understand this section of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Wisdom. But knowing that the assertions of contemporaneity must not be taken too literally, we can now appreciate the delicate way that Bahá’u’lláh has drawn selectively on past sources so as to respect integrally all the truth they contained while carefully avoiding any errors or misstatements of fact embedded in them.
- WILLIAM S. HATCHER
- Quebec, Canada
A FRIENDLY NOTE
Although WORLD ORDER is in the midst of publishing difficulties, I still find it one of the most impressive and intellectually stimulating magazines I have ever read. It’s like getting a gift when we receive WORLD ORDER; we can, therefore, be patient.
- LINDA I. MCGINN-COMBS
- Morrow, Georgia
Louis G. Gregory
1874-1951
He is like pure gold; that it why he is acceptable in any
market, and is current in every country.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
- Across the angry decades that
- separate us from him
- may there still be found
- true and stainless words
- unwarped by the suppositions
- and suspicions of these hurtful times
- to honour this gentleman of colour?
- We need the lesson of this life;
- need know that the alchemy
- of service and obedience
- mints coin of purest gold.
- In his modesty he almost eludes us
- but we will know him yet.
- Travel, the Master said,
- I want them to see you;
- you are very dear to me.
- And dear to us, Louis,
- who see you now
- and love, as He,
- O Louis, love,
- even as the beauty of your dusk,
- your gleam.
—Roger White
Reprinted by permission of George Ronald from Another Song, Another
Season, © 1979 by Roger White.
To Move the World— Louis Gregory and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
BY GAYLE MORRISON
FOR MORE than forty years Louis Gregory
served as the chief spokesman for
racial unity in the American Bahá’í community.
His commitment resulted in part
from his experiences as a black child in the
South and from the activism of his early
years as a student and lawyer in Washington,
D.C. But his dedication to the principle of
the oneness of mankind was rooted primarily
in a close relationship with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the
Exemplar of the Bahá’í ideals. From the start
‘Abdu’l-Bahá had given Louis Gregory not
only the goal but the encouragement he
needed in order to achieve it.
Their acquaintance began in 1907, according to Mr. Gregory, with the first Bahá’í meeting he attended on a cold, winter night in Washington. The Bahá’ís he met that evening were imbued with a sense that an extraordinary Teacher lived in the world, a Man Who had the authoritative presence of a prophet yet claimed a station of servitude. The speaker was Lua Getsinger. She had been one of the first Westerners to accept the Bahá’í Faith and one of the first to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, where Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, had lived His last years in imprisonment and exile and where His eldest son and successor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, still remained a prisoner of the Ottoman government. Mrs. Getsinger had returned from that visit with an intense personal devotion to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, which she imparted to others.
Attracted to the Bahá’í teachings, Mr. Gregory began to study them with Joseph and Pauline Hannen, a white Southern couple who became his close friends. Through them he deepened his acquaintance with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. During this time the Hannens themselves visited the Holy Land and returned with stories of the Master, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has been called since He was so designated by His Father. Louis Gregory’s attraction to the Hannens, to their Faith, and to its leader, continued to grow. When he became a Bahá’í in June 1909, he instinctively sought personal contact with the Master, at first through correspondence and later by making a pilgrimage, as the Hannens had done.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá had only recently been freed, along with all the political and religious prisoners of the Ottoman Empire, by the Young Turk Revolution. To the Western Bahá’ís this meant (at least for a time) the end of worry over His safety and the beginning of an increased flow of pilgrims to the Holy Land. When Louis Gregory wrote early in 1910 for permission to make a pilgrimage, he received this reply: “It is at present not in accord with wisdom. Postpone this matter to another and more opportune time.” A few months later ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, exercising His new freedom, left the Holy Land for the first time in more than forty years to travel to Egypt. It was from Ramleh, near Alexandria, late in 1910, that He sent Louis Gregory an invitation to come “in the spring."[1]
[Page 12]
Mr. Gregory reserved passage on a ship
sailing from New York on 25 March 1911.
He was able to plan an extended trip that
included stops in Europe as well as in Egypt
and Palestine. Many fellow Bahá’ís in Washington,
well aware that he was the first
black American to have the privilege and
opportunity of pilgrimage at the express invitation
of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, shared his excitement.
On 22 March Mr. and Mrs. Andrew
J. Dyer’s regular Wednesday Bahá’í meeting
became a surprise farewell party, attended
by more than fifty Bahá’ís and guests. Even
though the Wednesday meetings were primarily
for blacks, who were still excluded,
by custom and in deference to accepted social
practice in Washington, from most Bahá’í
activities in the city, on this occasion a number
of white Bahá’ís participated. Joseph
Hannen wrote of the evening in the national
Bahá’í newsletter, Star of the West:
- Mr. Gregory was given the seat of honor, at the head of the long table, and his chair was surmounted by a horse-shoe of flowers. While refreshments were being served, speeches were made by a number, including Dr. W. B. Evans, Principal of the Armstrong Manual Training School; Judge Gibbs, former U. S. Consul to Madagascar; Professor W. H. H. Hart, of Howard University; Professor G. W. Cook, of Harvard University; Mr. Edward J. Braithwaite; Mr. Duffield; Miss Murrell, of the faculty of Armstrong Manual Training School; Miss Grace Robarts; Mrs. Claudia S. Coles; Mr. Charles Mason Remey; Professor Stanwood Cobb; Mr. and Mrs. Hannen. Mr. Gregory responded in a feeling manner to the good wishes expressed.[2]
The importance to Louis Gregory of his first overseas voyage cannot be exaggerated. Even as a pleasure trip, it would have been a milestone in his life. The descendant of slaves, he crossed as a free man the ocean that his forebears had traversed in chains. Moreover, he landed on the African continent with a new ethnic awareness. Having been recognized as an American on sight by fellow passengers from other countries, he concluded that blacks had made a unique adaptation to America precisely because their ties with Africa had been so ruthlessly cut, and “in fact no other American group . . . is more American.”[3] This realization, coupled with a vision of the future development of a cosmopolitan world order, pervaded his racial amity work in the years ahead. It helped him maintain his perspective and confidence during the discouraging years when a world war supposedly fought for democracy was followed in the United States by racial conflict, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and the rise of Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa movement. After his voyage Mr. Gregory never doubted that blacks belonged in America and that their rightful presence would eventually be recognized even by extremists of both races.
Added to the sociological insights that
the journey provided were religious inspiration
and instruction. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself
observed that Louis Gregory had been transformed,
had become “quite another Gregory.”[4]
In Palestine the pilgrims visited the
shrines of Bahá’u’lláh and of the Báb, His forerunner,
and came to know the places where
Bahá’u’lláh had lived from 1868 until His
death in 1892. In both Egypt and Palestine
Mr. Gregory met members and close associates
of Bahá’u’lláh’s family; he was especially
[Page 13] impressed with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s young
grandson, Shoghi Effendi, who was to become
in 1921 the Guardian of the Bahá’í
Faith. Other pilgrims also contributed much
to the experience. One in particular, an
Englishwoman named Louisa Mathew, who
was present during Mr. Gregory’s first meeting
with the Master, won “admiration” for
her “long range of accomplishments and
great devotion to the Faith.”[5]
But all the aspects of Louis Gregory’s journey, even those that were most significant in their own right, were overshadowed by the reality of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Mr. Gregory had seen many famous people in Washington, D.C. Nonetheless ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was unique: “Presidents and senators, cabinet members and ambassadors, justices and kings of commerce and trade, inventors, discoverers, monarchs of other lands, all either singly or together, seem to pale into insignificance when compared with this wonderful man who had spent about forty years in prison!”[6]
MR. GREGORY remembered in detail his first
impressions of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:
- When . . . I saw him for the first time he was about sixty-seven years of age, about the medium height, with a strong frame and symmetrical features. His face was deeply furrowed and his complexion about the shade of parchment. His carriage was erect and his form strikingly majestic and beautiful. His hands and nails were shapely and pure. His silver hair touched his shoulders. His beard was snow white, with eyes light blue and penetrating, his nose somewhat aquiline. His voice was powerful, but capable of infinite pathos, tenderness and sympathy. His dress was that of the Oriental gentleman of rank, simple and neat, yet very graceful. The color of his apparel was light, the outer robe being made of alpaca. On his head rested a light fez surrounded by a white turban. The meekness of the servant, the majesty of the king, were in that brow and form.[7]
During their interviews the Master removed whatever doubts may have lingered in Mr. Gregory’s mind concerning the urgent need for racial unity in America and his particular role in its advancement. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself raised the subject of race during their first meeting, when He asked in general terms, “‘What of the conflict between the white and colored races?’” Louis Gregory recalled that
- this question made me smile, for I at once felt that my Inquirer, although He had never in person visited America, yet knew more of conditions than I could ever know. I answered that there was much friction between the races. That those who accepted the Bahai teachings had hopes of an amicable settlement of racial differences, while others were despondent.[8]
Later ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked specifically, “‘Are the colored and white believers entirely united?’” Aware as he was of the divisions in the Washington, D.C., community, Mr. Gregory replied tactfully that among the Bahá’ís “there was not entire unity, but that there were earnest souls of both races who desired closer unity and hoped that He would point out to them the means of attaining it.” The Master’s answer suggested that differences over race among the American Bahá’ís were attributable to a superficial acceptance of the Faith and that among real believers would come real unity. He said that, in order to attain closer unity, “‘the best means is to accept this Cause. All differences must fade among believers. In the present antagonism there is great danger to both races.’”[9]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá also made it clear that the
races must become united in the literal sense
[Page 14]—through intermarriage. Intermarriage is
a good way to efface racial differences,’” He
told Mr. Gregory. “‘It produces strong, beautiful
offspring, clever and resourceful.’” He
returned to the subject of intermarriage another
day, after Mr. Gregory asked whether
“in view of the difficulties in the way of
inter-racial unity for all meetings, the colored
friends should organize separately to observe
the nineteen-day unity meetings.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
replied, “‘The colored people must
attend all the unity meetings. There must
be no distinctions. All are equal. If you have
any influence to get the races to intermarry,
it will be very valuable.’” The problem of
racial prejudice, even among the Bahá’ís in
America, had obviously troubled ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
His “expressive and beautiful face,”
which had “nearly always” seemed “joyful”
to Louis Gregory, changed, suddenly revealing
the sorrows of “Him who carries the
burden of the world.” The Master paced back
and forth in silence, then seated Himself, still
remaining silent, and finally retired, explaining
that He was “very weary.”[10]
After the party of pilgrims returned to Egypt from Haifa and ‘Akká, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stressed once again the importance of racial unity. In the presence of a roomful of followers, He dictated a letter regarding racial segregation to one of the outstanding white Bahá’ís in Washington:
- You have written that there were several meetings of joy and happiness, one for white [and] another for colored people. Praise be to God! As both races are under the protection of the All-Knowing God, therefore the lamps of unity must be lighted in such a manner in these meetings that no distinction be perceived between the white and colored. Colors are phenomenal; but the realities of men are Essence. When there exists unity of the Essence what power has the phenomenal? When the Light of Reality is shining what power has the darkness of the unreal? If it be possible, gather together these two races, black and white, into one assembly and put such love into their hearts that they shall not only unite but even intermarry. Be sure that the result of this will abolish differences and disputes between black and white. Moreover by the will of God, may it be so. This is a great service to the world of humanity.
“After dictating this Tablet,” Mr. Gregory recalled, “‘Abdu’l-Bahá took a vessel containing blackberries and gave some of them to each of the friends present.”[11]
Undoubtedly, Louis Gregory recognized that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was addressing not only the Bahá’ís in Washington but also those followers who were in His presence that day. Among the latter He then chose to reinforce His words about race by the symbolic sharing of the delicious, black-colored fruit. But, as Louis Gregory and his fellow pilgrim Louisa Mathew were to realize, the Master’s motives were more complicated still. He never explained why He had postponed Mr. Gregory’s arrival; but it soon became clear that, whether or not ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had deliberately brought Louis and Louisa together, He had henceforth envisioned for them “a great service to the world of humanity.” As a result of His loving encouragement, they soon were to marry, thus becoming the first of many Bahá’í interracial couples to demonstrate the principle of racial unity on the most fundamental level.
When Louis Gregory left Alexandria, however,
he had as yet no inkling of the marriage
that lay ahead. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had simply
restated the personal goal—“‘work for unity
and harmony between the races’”—that He
had given Mr. Gregory in the first months of
his Bahá’í life. During their final visit in
Ramleh the Master had suggested the means
to achieve this goal. “‘Go forth and speak of
[Page 15] the Cause of God,’” He had urged. “‘Visit
the friends. Gladden their hearts. You will
be the means of Guidance to many souls.’”
And, as Mr. Gregory was leaving, one of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s secretaries had brought a parting
message of encouragement: “‘This morning
‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke of you and told me
to say to you: “Keep your face turned to the
Kingdom and fear nothing!”’” For the
present no greater task seemed possible than
the task Louis Gregory had already been
given, nor could he have received more soul-stirring
encouragement.[12]
At ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s request Mr. Gregory visited Germany, Paris, and London on his way home to America. His visit to Germany was particularly significant. The German Bahá’í community had been established only a few years earlier. It had grown largely through the efforts of Miss Alma Knobloch (a sister of Pauline Hannen), who had settled in Stuttgart in 1907. Miss Knobloch assured his welcome in a land where non-European minorities were few and where, scarcely more than twenty years later, racialism, which Shoghi Effendi has termed one of the “chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind,” was to be enshrined by the Nazis in their political philosophy.[13]
In a letter to one of the German Bahá’ís, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself called attention to Louis Gregory’s color: “When he arrived at Stuttgart, although being of black color, yet he shone as a bright light in the meeting of the friends.”[14] Thus ‘Abdu’l-Bahá shared Louis Gregory, as He had shared the blackberries among His guests at Ramleh, making of them a symbol of racial equality. The German Bahá’ís, without mentioning color, echoed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s description of Mr. Gregory in the following report of his visit:
- In May, 1911, we had the privilege of entertaining Mr. Louis G. Gregory, of Washington, D. C., who came to us from the presence of Abdul-Baha, throbbing with new life and light. A reception in his honor was held at 24 Canzelei Str. To the home of the Stäbler family in Stuttgart; to Mrs. and Miss Kaslin in Esslingen, and to Mr. and Mrs. Schweizer in Zuffenhausen, near Stuttgart, our honored guest came and told the assembled friends much that was interesting.[15]
In His letters both to Germany and to America ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made absolutely clear the high regard in which He held Louis Gregory and the extent to which the pilgrimage had matured and strengthened him. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied to one of the Bahá’ís in Stuttgart, who had written about Mr. Gregory’s visit there: “Verily, he has much advanced in this journey. He received another life, and obtained another power. When he returned, Gregory was, quite another Gregory. He had become a new creation. . . . This man shall progress.”[16] To one of the Washington Bahá’ís the Master wrote:
- Mr. Gregory arrived with the utmost love and spirituality and returned with infinite happiness. He added to his faith and assurance and found firmness and steadfastness. Undoubtedly you shall see these things at the time of his arrival. It is my hope that he may become the cause of increasing the love of the friends.[17]
In still another letter ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggested
the kind of welcome the returning
[Page 16] pilgrim should receive in his homeland.
“‘Mr. Gregory is at present in great happiness. . . .
He will return to America very
soon, and you, the white people, should then
honor and welcome this shining colored man
in such a way that all the people will be astonished.’”[18]
Despite ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s words, Louis Gregory’s return to America seems to have been overshadowed by the arrival of a young Persian Bahá’í, the first young woman from her country to seek an education abroad, whom he had accompanied on the voyage from London to New York. In a general sense, however, the Bahá’ís did honor him with numerous requests for his services as lecturer and writer. Back in Washington, D.C., by early June, he was soon busy with Bahá’í activities. “He has delivered several public lectures since his return,” Joseph Hannen reported in Star of the West, “and will be more of a power than ever for the Cause. . . .”[19] That summer Mr. Gregory’s teaching efforts took him for the first time to Green Acre, a progressive conference center that had been established in 1894 in Eliot, Maine, by Sarah Farmer and had attracted such notable figures as John Greenleaf Whittier and Booker T. Washington. Louis Gregory’s visit proved to be the beginning of a long and fruitful association with Green Acre.
To his fellow Bahá’ís during the months following his pilgrimage, Louis Gregory often spoke and wrote of his experiences. His recollections of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were charged with the hope that the Master might travel from Egypt to America, as the American Bahá’ís had been longing for Him to do. Mr. Gregory concluded an account of his meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by writing:
- Thus the friends of the Cause may catch a glimpse of what is in store for them if he visits America. Nor should we spare any pains or hesitate at any sacrifices to ensure his coming. The Reality of Abdul-Baha, the supreme joy of the Kingdom, is found by promoting that which tends to unity and harmony among the friends of God and the whole human family.[20]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá had been invited to address the Universal Races Congress in London at the end of July 1911. For some time it seemed as if He might actually attend. In the end, however, He decided to travel to Europe later in the summer. He sent a message to the Congress and sailed for Marseilles in August. For the next four months He visited Switzerland, England, and France. Then He returned to Egypt to rest for the winter.
‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ’S trip to Europe excited
still further the hopes of the American
Bahá’ís. The dream of having ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
their midst seemed incredibly near realization.
They showered Him with invitations; they
raised money to cover His expenses, only to
have it returned. They urged Him to sail on
the maiden voyage of the Titanic; but in His
wisdom He chose the S.S. Cedric. The ship
sailed from Egypt on 25 March 1912, put in
at Naples, and finally arrived in New York
on 11 April. Traveling with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
were several Persians—secretaries, an attendant,
and a translator—and six Western
Bahá’ís, among whom was the Englishwoman
Louisa Mathew.[21]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s eight-month-long visit indelibly
marked the course of Bahá’í history in
America. “‘It is my purpose to set forth in
America,’” He was reported to have said on
the day of His arrival, “‘the fundamental
[Page 17] principles of the revelation and teachings of
BAHA ’ULLAH. It will then become the duty
of the Bahá’ís of this country to give these
principles unfoldment and application in the
minds, hearts and lives of the people.’”[22] In
statements to the general public and the
press He emphasized that He sought to
further the cause of peace and unity. Among
the Bahá’ís He stressed that His ultimate
purpose was to transform them spiritually, in
order that they might help to bring about
the oneness of mankind. He told a gathering
of Bahá’ís who came to greet Him on that
first day:
- As New York has made such progress in material civilization, I hope that it may also advance spiritually . . . so that the friends here may become the cause of the illumination of America; that this city may become the city of love and that the fragrances of God may be spread from this place to all parts of the world. I have come for this. I pray that you may be manifestations of the love of BAHA ’ULLAH; that each one of you may become like a clear lamp of crystal from which the rays of the bounties of the Blessed Perfection [Bahá’u’lláh] may shine forth to all nations and peoples. This is my highest aspiration.[23]
In this same talk He referred to the effort of the trip as having been both “necessary” and motivated by love: “This long voyage will prove how great is my love for you.”[24] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke often of unity during those first days in America, in New York and then in Washington, D.C., which He visited later in the month. But it was in the capital on 23 April, with Louis Gregory at His side, that He first confronted—both in public addresses and in a social context—the issue of racial unity. Indeed, the Washington Bee, a black newspaper, called attention to the relationship between ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Louis Gregory in an article it published concerning ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit:
- Abdul Baha Abbas, the leader of the Baha movement for the world-wide religious unity, has been in the city. Through the missionary work of Mrs. Christian D. Helmick (Mrs. A. C. Barney that was), quite a colony of colored Bahaists has been developed in Washington, and these earnest disciples gave their patron saint an especially warm reception. On Tuesday evening the venerable prophet addressed a large audience at Metropolitan A. M. E. Church, in connection with the Bethel Literary Society. At noon Tuesday, the Abdul spoke to the students of Howard University. The principal advocate of the Bahai faith in this city is Mr. Louis G. Gregory, a brilliant young lawyer and government official, whose zeal in the work was so absorbing that he made a comprehensive tour of Egypt and the Holy Land to study at first hand the history and philosophy of this remarkable cult. . . .[25]
Mr. Gregory undoubtedly had been instrumental
in arranging for these two major
speaking engagements, as he was an alumnus
of Howard University’s law school, had been
for years a leader in the Bethel Literary and
Historical Association, and had arranged a
number of Bahá’í meetings under its sponsorship.
In the Howard speech ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
stated unequivocally that color is of no importance
either before God or in any of the
kingdoms of existence—animal, vegetable, or
mineral—except as an “adornment,” a source
of “charm.” Only among human beings has
it become a cause of discord. He was happy,
He declared, to see whites and blacks together
in the meeting as a step toward unity,
“for the accomplishment of unity between
the colored and whites will be an assurance
[Page 18] of the world’s peace. Then racial prejudice,
national prejudice, limited patriotism and
religious bias will pass away and remain no
longer.”[26]
Before the Bethel Literary and Historical Association that evening at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church on M Street N.W., He likened the audience to “a beautiful bouquet of violets gathered together in varying colors, dark and light.” Then He went on to speak of science as “the most noble” of humanity’s many “virtues,” all of which should be utilized in “directing our efforts toward the unification of the human race.” The result of such efforts will be unity in diversity:
- Then will mankind be as one nation, one race and kind; as waves of one ocean. Although these waves may differ in form and shape, they are waves of the same sea. Flowers may be variegated in colors but they are all flowers of one garden. Trees differ though they grow in the same orchard. All are nourished and quickened into life by the bounty of the same rain; all grow and develop by the heat and light of the one sun; all are refreshed and exhilarated by the same breeze; that they may bring forth varied fruits. This is according to the creative wisdom. If all trees bore the same kind of fruit it would cease to be delicious. In their never-ending variety man finds enjoyment instead of monotony.[27]
Early on that afternoon of 23 April ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had sought to demonstrate His teachings on race by challenging the practice of social segregation. After His speech at Howard University, He had been invited by Ali-Kuli Khan, chargé d’affaires of the Persian Legation, and Madame Florence Breed Khan, both of whom were Bahá’ís, to attend a luncheon and a reception in His honor. About nineteen guests attended the luncheon. Some were “very prominent in the social and political life of Washington,” Mr. Gregory recalled, and others were Bahá’í friends of the Khans, individuals such as Agnes Parsons, a Washington socialite, and Juliet Thompson, a painter from New York, who were comfortable in such circles.[28]
About an hour before the luncheon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had sent word for Louis Gregory to come to the Khans’ for an interview. “Louis arrived at the appointed time, and the conference went on and on,” a good friend, Harlan Ober, has recounted. “‘Abdu’l-Bahá seemed to want to prolong it.” Finally luncheon was announced, and as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá led the invited guests to the dining room, Mr. Gregory waited for the chance to leave the house unobtrusively. “All were seated when suddenly,” Mr. Ober continued,
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stood up, looked all around and then said to Mírzá Khan, Where is Mr. Gregory? Bring Mr. Gregory! There was nothing for Mírzá Khan to do but find Mr. Gregory. . . . Finally Mr. Gregory came into the room with Mírzá Khan. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who was really the Host (as He was wherever He was), had by this time rearranged the place setting and made room for Mr. Gregory, giving him the seat of honor at His right. He stated He was very pleased to have Mr. Gregory there, and then, in the most natural way as if nothing unusual had happened, proceeded to give a talk on the oneness of mankind.[29]
Juliet Thompson’s account of the luncheon
testifies to the ease with which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
defied convention, as if it did not in fact
exist. She wrote simply that “a colored man,
Lewis [sic] Gregory, was present and the
Master gave a wonderful talk on race prejudice.”[30]
Mr. Gregory himself, although he
undoubtedly told the full story of the luncheon
to many friends, stated in his formal
reminiscences only that “‘Abdul Baha’ made
everyone feel perfectly at ease by his genial
[Page 19] humor, wisdom and outpouring of love. . . .
He mentioned his address at Howard University
which was made at noon that same day
and indicated guidance and progress in race
relations.”[31]
Gently yet unmistakably, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had assaulted the customs of a city that had been scandalized only a decade earlier by President Roosevelt’s dinner invitation to Booker T. Washington. Moreover, as a friend who helped Madame Khan with the luncheon recalled, the place setting that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had rearranged so casually had been made according to the strict demands of Washington protocol.[32] Thus, with one atroke ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had swept aside both segregation by race and categorization by social rank.
After the luncheon and the Khans’ reception, which was attended by such luminaries as Admiral Peary, Alexander Graham Bell, and Yúsuf Ḍíyá Páshá, the Turkish ambassador, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá proceeded to another reception at the home of Mrs. Parsons. Once again Juliet Thompson was there. She pictured ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who had been a prisoner and exile throughout most of His life, far removed even from the refinements of His early childhood in Iran, as being perfectly at ease among the trappings of wealth and prominence in Western society. Yet, rather than fitting in, He transcended them.
- Into this room of conventional elegance, packed with conventional people, imagine the Master striding with His free step, walking first to one of the many windows and, while He looked out into the light, talking with His matchless ease to the people. Turning from the window, striding back and forth with a step so vibrant it shook you.[33]
It was without doubt this commanding presence, this charisma, that enabled ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to do and say astonishing things without creating a storm of controversy.
The following evening He lent His support to the regular Wednesday night meeting, a gathering primarily for black Bahá’ís and their friends. He compared the racially mixed audience that night to “a beautiful cluster of precious jewels,—pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires.” He spoke on existence and nonexistence, life and death, finally likening fellowship to life and discord to death. “In the clustered jewels of the races, may the colored people be as sapphires and rubies, and the whites as diamonds and pearls. The composite beauty of humanity will be witnessed in their unity and blending.” And once again, as He had at Howard, He linked the unity of black and white in America to the cause of world peace. “When the racial elements of the American nation unite in actual fellowship and accord, the lights of the oneness of humanity will shine. . . .”[34]
In Chicago, the next city He visited, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá returned to the theme of racial unity in three major speeches given on 30 April. Addressing the public meeting that concluded the annual convention of Bahai Temple Unity, an organization created to oversee the construction of the first Bahá’í House of Worship in the West, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated that “the ages of darkness have passed away and the century of light has come. Ignorant prejudices are being dispelled and the light of unity is shining.”[35]
To a mixed audience of several hundred
at Jane Addams’ Hull House, He spoke of
points of agreement and points of difference
between the races in America, arguing that
“in physical bodies, in the law of growth,
sense endowment, intelligence, patriotism,
language, citizenship, civilization and religion
you are one and the same. A single point
of distinction exists; that of racial color.”
And He asked, “Shall this, the least of all
[Page 20] distinctions be allowed to separate you as
races and individuals?”[36]
Another important talk that day was addressed to the closing session of the Fourth Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In its journal, Crisis, W. E. B. DuBois, who was serving as editor, printed both his version of the text of the Master’s talk, which appears also to include passages from the Hull House talk, and a general account of the convention. DuBois mentioned “the calm sweet universalism of Abdul Baha” and the large audience at that session, when “a thousand disappointed people were unable to get even standing room in the hall.”[37]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s theme on that occasion was that the Old Testament teaching that God made man in His image gives us the standard by Which we are to be judged. This standard, He said, has nothing to do with wealth, fame, or color—qualities that are “accidental.” “Man is not to be pronounced man simply because of bodily attributes. Man is to be judged according to his intelligence and to his spirit.” The standard is thus the “Divine Virtues” within man: human spirit and human intelligence.[38]
LOUIS GREGORY had gone to Chicago for
the Bahá’í convention and was present at
these historic meetings. Like most Bahá’ís, he
would have gladly remained at the Master’s
side, had he been permitted or had the means
to do so. But Mr. Gregory returned to his
work in Washington, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to
New York. From there the Master traveled
in the months ahead throughout New England,
where He visited Green Acre and Mrs.
Parsons’ summer home in Dublin, New
Hampshire; to Montreal; then westward for
a month’s stay in California. On His return
to the East Coast, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stopped once
again in Washington, D.C.
One of the highlights of His second visit in the capital was a Bahá’í banquet held on 9 November at Rauscher’s Hall. A history submitted by the Washington Bahá’ís to the Historical Religious Survey of the Works Progress Administration singled out the event for special mention: “A large dinner and meeting, exclusively for Bahá’ís, was held at Rauscher’s on Connecticut Ave.—an interracial gathering of great spiritual and historic interest for it was the first time that the white and colored friends met together at such a function and in such a place.”[39] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said to the gathering:
- May you view mankind as the sheep of God and know for a certainty that he is the real shepherd. . . . Verily this shepherd makes no distinctions whatsoever; to all the sheep he is equally kind. Therefore we must follow the example of God and strive in pathways of good-will toward all humanity.[40]
The following day, His last in Washington, He spoke to a “beautiful” racially mixed audience in the home of the Hannens about Bahá’u’lláh’s black attendant, Isfandíyár. To ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the “Servant of Glory,” servitude was not demeaning; it was, rather, the best of human conditions. Of Isfandíyár He said, “Truly he was a point of light.” When Bahá’u’lláh was first imprisoned in 1852, Isfandíyár had refused to flee to safety. He had paid the debts of the Holy Family after all their possessions were confiscated. “If a perfect man could be found in the world,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asserted, “that man was Isfandyar.” In closing He referred again to the racial diversity of the audience, stressing the need for even greater diversity.
- I hope you will continue in unity and [Page 21]
fellowship. How beautiful to see colored and white together! I hope, God willing, the day may come when I shall see the red men, the Indians with you, also Japanese and others. Then there will be white roses, yellow roses, red roses and a very wonderful rose-garden will appear in the world.[41]
Louis Gregory listened carefully, as he always had, taking in not only ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s words but His rapport with the audience. “By studying the public addresses of Abdul Baha,” he wrote to Joseph Hannen (some years later), “one marvels at the Divine Wisdom and Insight—which knew the difficulties as well as hopes of each gathering He addressed.” From ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s example Mr. Gregory learned to become familiar with the goals and concerns of each audience he addressed, to find “the point of contact.”[42]
He also learned that to find the point of contact one did not have to tell an audience what it wanted to hear or to commiserate over its problems. Indeed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s addresses both to blacks and to Jews in America never dwelled on their misfortunes. He never explored the common ground of suffering at the hands of the unjust that He had come to know during more than half a century of imprisonment and exile. That He did not do so, despite His demonstrated concern and compassion in more personal and private situations, indicates a conscious motive.
That motive was to promote a particular psychological reorientation of the minority’s attitude toward the majority and toward itself. Rather than intensify a natural preoccupation with oppression, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sought to foster confidence in the power to effect change. For blacks, whose color He described with approbation, this meant, on the one hand, development of a sense of beauty and worth, and, on the other hand, reinforcement, by means of praise and appreciation, of the good qualities of whites. It also meant taking a larger view, broadening one’s perspectives both historically and internationally; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá noted in two of His speeches to largely black audiences that black Americans did not realize fully their good fortune in being Americans, in being free to strive toward “equal attainments with the white race,” even in being able to hold such interracial meetings. Nor, He implied, did they appreciate fully the international consequences of the struggles of whites in their behalf.[43]
From the vantage point of late-twentieth-century skepticism, such remarks might well be misunderstood. But they must be placed within the context of the times—of the hopes of black Americans and of the political and social position of blacks everywhere —and judged by the numerous examples of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s understanding of the gravity and complexity of America’s racial problems.
However difficult their lot, black Americans in the early 1900s were among the few nonwhite groups anywhere in the world to enjoy even rudimentary freedom under a democratic form of government. Most of the world’s people—regardless of color— were not free in any sense of the word. Most blacks at the time lived under colonial rule with little or no access to the kind of education that would pave the way toward equality. The status of black Americans was far more encouraging if seen in global rather than national terms. As Louis Gregory once put it:
- We have our problems to solve in this country, but let us not become despondent over them, realizing that today the whole world is having its problems and difficulties. There is no country in the world today that has not difficulties equaling, if not surpassing, our own. I do not say this with the suggestion that misery loves company, but in order that we may not be [Page 22]
despondent and think that these difficulties are hindrances.[44]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed Himself to the hopes of His black audiences, rather than to their fears. He knew that in general blacks still held to the American dream and to a faith that whites would share that dream with people of color. He was also well aware that pervasive injustice threatened to undermine both the optimism of blacks and the American dream itself. For if blacks were to lose the will to achieve equality and were to give in to hopelessness and anger, that dream would become a hollow shibboleth.[45] Indeed, if optimism were to die because of continued humiliation, exploitation, antagonism, and betrayal by whites, the result would be a widening nightmare of violence.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá repeatedly warned of the disastrous consequences of continued prejudice and injustice toward blacks. Early pilgrims to Haifa recalled His saying, “‘The blacks hate the whites and the whites distrust the blacks. You must overcome this by showing that you make no distinction. The end will be very unfortunate for both if the differences are not removed.’”[46] In 1912 He predicted, in a letter to a Chicago Bahá’í, that, if racial attitudes in America did not change, “enmity will be increased day by day and the final result will be hardship and may end in bloodshed.” Then violence would engulf blacks and whites alike, for “until these prejudices are entirely removed from the people of the world, the realm of humanity will not find rest. Nay, rather, discord and bloodshed will be increased day by day, and the foundation of the prosperity of the world of man will be destroyed.”[47] Several years later, in a letter to Roy Williams, one of the most active black Bahá’í teachers at the time, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá referred to racist attitudes as a “wound” and a “disease” and again warned that, if not checked, “the antagonism between the Coloured and the White, in America, will give rise to great calamities.”[48]
Moreover, in 1920 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reportedly told Dr. Zia Bagdadi, whom He had sent to help establish the Bahá’í Cause in America, that even the existence of America was at stake. According to Dr. Bagdadi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said:
- “When I was in America, I told the white and colored people that it was incumbent upon them to be united or else there would be shedding of blood. I did not say more than this so that they might not be saddened. But, indeed, there is a greater danger than only the shedding of blood. It is the destruction of America.”
And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá added: “‘Now is the time for the Americans to take up this matter and unite both the white and colored races. Otherwise, hasten ye towards destruction! Hasten ye toward devastation!’”[49]
The Master’s warnings also formed the
basis of one of Shoghi Effendi’s most powerful
[Page 23] statements on race in America. “No less
serious” than the Cold War and the buildup
of armaments by the superpowers, the Guardian
wrote in 1954,
- is the stress and strain imposed on the fabric of American society through the fundamental and persistent neglect, by the governed and governors alike, of the supreme, the inescapable and urgent duty—so repeatedly and graphically represented and stressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His arraignment of the basic weaknesses in the social fabric of the nation—of remedying, while there is yet time, through a revolutionary change in the concept and attitude of the average white American toward his Negro fellow citizen, a situation which, if allowed to drift, will, in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, cause the streets of American cities to run with blood. . . .[50]
But in His public talks in America ‘Abdu’l-Bahá never touched on this theme. He preferred, as He Himself explained, not to “sadden” His audiences. Instead He encouraged them, pointing out “the oases rather than the deserts of their environments,” as Louis Gregory once observed. Rather than dwell on the deficiencies of the present order, “‘Abdu’l-Bahá envisioned a new sociology for the world in general and America in particular.”[51]
His public themes did not spring, therefore, from unfamiliarity with or disregard for the terrible obstacles blacks faced in their efforts to achieve equality in America. Rather, He sought to nurture the positive attitudes among blacks that would stave off desperation, hopelessness, growing hatred, and the ultimate disaster of racial warfare so violent that it would “cause the streets of American cities to run with blood.”
Louis Gregory heard both the encouragement to constructive action in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s speeches and His private warnings. He readily understood the personal implications of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s assertion that brotherhood “is not possible without will and effort on the part of each” of the races.[52] For whites the quest for brotherhood entailed putting aside ingrained attitudes and habits of superiority. For blacks it demanded building a basis for trust. Mr. Gregory believed that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh had stripped away all traces of anger and hatred from his own heart. He knew that these emotions, however well justified, simply intensify oppression, whereas positive attitudes erode its foundations. As he once told an audience,
- It is only by co-operation, mutual appreciation, and good will that we can get anywhere in the solution of these problems that vex us. If this room were filled with darkness we could not remove that darkness by intensifying the darkness, nor can we remove discord from the face of the earth by increasing discord.[53]
Yet a hopeful attitude did not come easily even to Louis Gregory, although he turned invariably toward the standard set by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In 1919, for example, he wrote to his friend Joseph Hannen:
- The Bahai teacher must maintain a state of happiness if he is to do his work effectively. And this seems possible only by constant prayer and as far as one can, ceaseless activity. Otherwise, the well-authenticated reports of cruel injustices and crimes against defenceless peoples would entirely absorb the powers of concentration.
He added that he had to agree with a friend who had said, “‘If the devil aint [sic] loose now, he has a devil of a long rope!’”[54]
[Page 24]
If the world did at times seem hellish,
Louis Gregory clung nonetheless to a heavenly
vision. Not even hell could withstand
‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the regenerative power of
the divine will for humankind that He
proclaimed. “He is able to make all places
fruitful,” Mr. Gregory remarked. “His is a
wonderful culture of hearts and minds.”[55]
During ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to America, and particularly during the eventful last week in April, Louis Gregory witnessed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s concerted efforts to cultivate the soil of racial unity. At the same time Mr. Gregory received incomparable support for his own efforts to carry out the task the Master had given him, that of working “for unity and harmony between the races.” In both public and private meetings ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated clearly and repeatedly that color was simply incidental in nature, that it had absolutely no validity as a measure of the worth of any human being, and that it should be regarded as a source of attraction, just as a variety of colors within a flower garden is more interesting than a monotonous repetition of red or blue or white alone. In His own conduct, in His treatment of Louis Gregory and other black Bahá’ís, and in His obvious pleasure in interracial gatherings, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá demonstrated not only His beliefs but His freedom from social constraints.
To these proofs of the Bahá’í stand on race He added one final, unarguable testimony: He brought Louis Gregory and Louisa Mathew together in marriage. Their union served as a perpetual reminder of the Bahá’í position on the oneness of humankind.
AFTER HER PILGRIMAGE Louisa Mathew (or
Louise, as she was called by those close to
her) had returned to Europe, apparently intending
to follow the Master’s suggestion
that she travel to America. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Himself had soon arrived in France, giving
her a reason to linger there. Her own poor
health contributed to further delay. Finally,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá had offered her the opportunity
to travel to America with Him, and all obstacles
had disappeared. Teasing her about
her sudden enthusiasm for the trip, the Master
had said, “‘Just now you said it was too
far but as soon as you hear of my going it
gives you strength to go.’”[56]
Miss Mathew was not a young woman. Born in 1866 of wealthy parents in southern England, she had studied economics and languages at Cambridge University and voice both at Cambridge and in France, where she had become a Bahá’í. Despite her background and her considerable accomplishments, she was unassuming—“shy and modest,” as a friend described her.[57] Physically plain and preoccupied with her frailty, she hardly expected that with the trip to America she would begin a full new life. But the Master had plans for her and a larger purpose for her to serve. “My marriage as you know,” she wrote a friend some years later, “was entirely brought about by Abdul Baha. I had no thought of marriage when I came to this country.”[58] Her future husband was equally unsuspecting. Shortly before their marriage he wrote to Pauline Hannen, “Last year we visited Abdul Baha at Ramleh and the Holy Tomb at Akka and although greatly attracted to each other not even dimly realized its future bearing.”[59] Even if they had recognized the potential in their relationship from the start, without ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explicit encouragement they undoubtedly would have considered race too great an obstacle to overcome.
[Page 25]
During their pilgrimage, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
stated that black and white Bahá’ís
should not only be in unity but should intermarry,
He addressed the heart of American
racism, its sexual myths and fears. The result
of intermarriage, He emphasized, would be
to “abolish differences and disputes between
black and white.”[60] But to the Bahá’ís of
Washington, D.C.—many of whom hesitated
to hold interracial meetings, especially in
white homes, out of concern for what people
would say—intermarriage was virtually unthinkable.
In Western culture, theories of
racial inferiority and superiority and of the
harmful effects of racial admixture abounded.
Intermarriage in America thus defied not
only social convention but popular “scientific”
thought. Moreover, it was actually a criminal
offense in many states. Under the circumstances
even the mention of intermarriage
challenged preconceptions.
Controversy over intermarriage raged in the Washington Bahá’í community for years, despite ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s frequent public and private statements of the principle of oneness and His innumerable demonstrations of freedom from prejudice and conventionality. In 1914 Agnes Parsons, a wealthy society matron who was considered by many to be the “mother” of the Washington Bahá’í community, and who was also deeply devoted to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, wrote Alfred Lunt, a Boston lawyer and leading figure in the Bahá’í administrative order, for information on the legal aspects of intermarriage. Lunt’s long letter of reply reported the results of his research into the statutes of the various states. He discovered that, out of the forty-eight states and the District of Columbia, twenty-five governments prohibited or did not recognize interracial marriage; twenty-four allowed it. The twenty-five prohibiting states included all those in the Southern and border regions, all of the Southwest except New Mexico, and the Western states of California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. Lunt also shared with Mrs. Parsons his own views on the subject. His comments reveal much about the position of the American Bahá’ís with regard to race in those early years.
- I have felt that the marriage side of the question is in danger of over emphasis, and that the uncertainty and doubt regarding it has tended to dishearten the believers on the broad question of Oneness of the races, and the spiritual teachings of Unity. . . . But the heralding forth of the principle of the oneness of humanity, and the fundamental spiritual union of all races, “living in one land, and walking with the same feet etc” will scatter the present false basis of judgment on this question. The superstitious and limited biological ideas taught today will vanish before the flame of the Love of God, and the problem [intermarriage], simplified, will become merely what it should be, an individual problem of selection. But this cannot be unless we bravely and unfalteringly herald the Principle. In Washington, as you know, some of the souls are in an attitude of apology and distortion toward the great principle elucidated by Abdul Baha [the oneness of mankind]—seeking to please and attract the believers in superstition on this subject. Had the Manifestations Themselves adopted this policy of concealment and compromise, they might have preserved thereby their lives and possessions, but the Divine Civilization would never be realized. Baha’o’llah said that the Divine Laws are revealed strictly according to the capacity of the people at the time of Appearance. The unanswerable corollary must be that had the people of the world not been capable today of living according to the law of oneness it would not have been decreed.[61]
To those Bahá’ís—in Washington and
elsewhere—who eluded the principle of the
[Page 26] oneness of mankind with “an attitude of
apology and distortion,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá not
only announced the goal of intermarriage but
demonstrated it with a fait accompli: the
marriage of Louis and Louise Gregory. Aside
from race, they were as unremarkable a couple
as could be imagined. Both were well-educated
and cultured, both mature—indeed,
middle-aged. Their economic positions were
balanced; although she came from a wealthy
background, she lived on a modest income,
and he had risen from poverty into the professional
class. Yet because of race they constantly
faced disapproval and the threat of
violence. In a country where sexual relationships
between black men and white women
were grounds for lynching, her age, plain
appearance, and English nationality helped
to protect them from extremes of violent
hostility. Mr. Gregory once observed, in evident
amazement, “Louise and I have been in
a great many different places together . . .
but no one has ever molested us.”[62] Nonetheless,
their marriage was regarded as an
eccentricity at best by many, even within
the Bahá’í community. To strangers it was
an affront or, quite literally, a crime.
Considering the formidable obstacles to their union, their readiness to accept ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s encouragement of their relationship is astounding. They had no idea of flouting the mores of a prejudiced society. They did not see themselves as a cause, except insofar as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had made an example of them; and, happy as they were to give encouragement to the cause of racial unity, they did not relish the attention their marriage focused upon them. Beyond superficial differences of color and background, they saw themselves simply as fellow believers, as friends who had, through the good offices of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, become loving partners in life. On the Cedric in Naples, as Louise told the story in a letter to Agnes Parsons years later, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had asked her to join Him for a walk on deck, if she wished, with only his secretary Maḥmúd present.
- Then He turned round & said “I said what I did because I saw a seed in your heart.” Then almost immediately added “Now is the watering time.” I could not understand what He meant—I only thought it must be something of a spiritual nature. A moment later He turned round again & said “I saw one seed in your heart, I wish it to produce many seeds.”
- In this country Abdu’l-Bahá first revealed to me symbolically, through a white flower which He told me to give Mr. Gregory & by looking at me in a peculiar way conveyed His meaning to me, that He wished me to marry Mr. Gregory. Curiously enough after this love began to grow in my heart & the desire for the marriage whereas before I only liked Mr. Gregory as a friend. Later Abdul Baha said before Dr. Getsinger, Fareed & others in the train to Chicago to me “How are you & Mr. Gregory getting along?” Startled I answered “What do you mean, we are good friends?” To which He replied emphatically & with His face wreathed in mischievous smiles “You must be very good friends.”
- Before He left Chicago I asked Abdul Baha plainly one morning early if I had understood aright that He wished Mr. Gregory & myself to marry. He said “yes.” He did wish it. “I wish the white & the colored people to marry” He added.
- Then on my intimating that as a woman I could do nothing to bring it about He asked “Do you love him, would you marry him if he asked you?” & I replied “yes.” Then He said “if he loves you he will ask you.” Later in the morning as I learnt some time afterwards, He told Louis it would give Him much pleasure if he & I would marry, which came as an utter surprise to Louis who had no thoughts of marriage. Abdu’l-Bahá said “What is the matter? Don’t you love her?” [Page 27]
“Yes as a friend” Louis said. “Well think of it” said Abdul Baha, “& let me know; . . . marriage is not an ordinance & need not be obeyed, but it would give me much pleasure if you & Miss Mathew were to marry.”[63]
Within a few months they were married. A week before the ceremony Louis Gregory wrote to Pauline Hannen, “My marriage to Miss Mathew will occur at noon on Friday, Sept. 27, in the parsonage of an Episcopal Church, N. Y. C. But please do not mention this except with the utmost discretion, as we do not wish any sensational newspaper articles written at the time and are exerting ourselves to avoid such things.”[64] He was sorry the Hannens would not be there, he wrote; only a few people were being asked and no invitations sent.
Three days after the marriage he wrote Mrs. Hannen again, describing the ceremony in some detail:
- Some weeks ago, Abdul Baha, who has watched over Louise and me with the tender solicitude of a loving father, sent me a Message directing me to use the utmost judgment in order to avoid criticism in regard to our approaching Marriage. With me “the utmost judgment” was prayer for Divine Guidance, in which Louise heartily joined me. Our prayers have been heard and answered and we are very happy. Every matter connected with the event went off without friction, although some things were quite difficult.
- On last Friday at noon, at the residence of Rev. Everard W. Daniel, just nine persons were present, including the minister and his wife, the bride and groom. After the ceremony of the Church of England was completed, the groom said, “Verily we are content with the Will of God.” And the bride responded, “Verily we are satisfied with the Desire of God” [the Bahá’í marriage vows, as they were then translated]. Then Mr. MacNutt read the Tablet of Abdul Baha on marriage. Mr. Braithwaite followed, reading a Tablet revealed to the groom three years ago of which the following is an extract: “I hope that thou mayest become the herald of the Kingdom, become the means by which the white and colored people shall close their eyes to racial differences, and behold the reality of humanity.” Mrs. Botay closed with the Tablet of Baha’o’llah, Protection. Then the wedding party repaired to the wedding breakfast. In this small company were represented Christian and Jew, Bahais and non-Bahais, the white and colored races, England and America, and the three Bahai assemblies of New York, Philadelphia and Washington.
- During the ceremony there was a light rainfall. This, Mrs. Nourse says, was a Bahai sign, the Bounty of God. After the ceremony the skies cleared, the sun shone and everything and everybody seemed to be happy. The same afternoon we arrived here [in Atlantic City] on our honeymoon. We find ourselves very harmonious and very happy.[65]
Their honeymoon in Atlantic City not only served to give them time for each other but for Bahá’í activities as well. Louis Gregory wrote with evident appreciation of the community’s freedom from racial tension:
- There are some believers here in Atlantic City who are very much alive. Some years ago Mrs. [Elizabeth B.] Nourse lived in Washington and belonged to the wealthy and fashionable set there as she does here. It appears that she moved here about four years ago, and during her stay has done a most effective work in spreading the teachings. She is known for deeds of philanthropy and at the weekly Bahai meetings held in her home welcomes alike white and colored people, and is very much [Page 28]
loved. We shall have more than one meeting here this week, for the friends of Abdul Baha like to put each other to work for the Cause.[66]
One can well imagine that it was a happy time—to have been carrying out ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s wishes, knowing that He would soon be returning to the East Coast and enfolding them in the warmth of His acceptance.
Beyond both the initial difficulties and the unexpected happiness of the marriage there emerged in time a sense of its significance. Louise Gregory told Mrs. Parsons how she had eventually come to understand the Master’s words to her in Naples:
- Some two years after our marriage I suddenly realized what Abdul Baha had meant when He said “I saw a seed in your heart etc.” The seed I realized was the attraction between Louis & myself, the watering time the ripening of this feeling into love leading to marriage its fruit, the “one seed producing many seeds” the attraction of the hearts of the white & colored races to be produced by our love & marriage.
- Our marriage therefore is important as Abdul Baha has indicated. He said I heard later that the importance of our marriage was not understood at that time but would be understood later. It was the first interracial marriage between these two races among the Bahais you know & known to be brought about by Abdul Baha Himself thus encouraging inter-racial marriage & letting the Bahais know that He encouraged it. Since then I suppose you know there have been two of these marriages among Bahais neither of which I think would have taken place without the example of our marriage.[67]
The “seed” of their marriage thrived despite manifold obstacles. It was difficult for the Gregorys to travel together, difficult simply to find a place to live. Told of their problems, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reportedly “replied emphatically that at Haifa they would be received with open arms.”[68] But in America such acceptance was rare. With one exception, they were never together in the Southern region upon which Mr. Gregory concentrated so much effort as an itinerant racial amity worker. That exception was a summer spent together in Maryland, where intermarriage was considered, as he expressed it, “an infamous crime.” In Washington, D.C., their home for a number of years, the marriage was legal but ill-received. “The vile reproaches of people of both races descended upon me for a step which I have never regretted,” he recalled. Even for such an amiable person as Louis Gregory, friends were “none too many.” He never forgot those few friends or ceased to be grateful to them. Years later, for example, he told a friend that the Ali-Kuli Khans, whose own marriage bridged the gulf between East and West, had demonstrated “such real Baha’i love and understanding as I hope never to forget in time or eternity.”[69]
Outside the small circle of their friends,
the Gregorys’ actions were subjected continually
to scrutiny and criticism. Once, when
the Bahai Temple Unity moved to send Louis
on a teaching trip through the South, Agnes
Parsons worried so over the prospect of
Louise’s accompanying him that she wrote
to William H. Randall of the Temple Unity:
“Mr. Gregory has had much to meet in
Washington from members of his own race
because of his marriage and in the farther
south the marriage will be taken even more
seriously. I cannot see how he will reach
either white or colored there—if his wife
be with him.”[70] Mrs. Parsons was neither
malicious nor insincere, but her intervention
illustrates the extent to which speculation and
[Page 29] interference intruded upon their lives.
Yet when Louise, having been effectively prevented by circumstances and discretion from traveling with her husband, decided in the 1920s to follow her own independent course and teach the Bahá’í Faith in Europe, gossip and conjecture only intensified. Once she even contemplated returning ahead of schedule to the United States in order to attend a major Bahá’í event with Louis, “to set at rest the reports which are going around among the colored people, so Louis told me, that we had separated.” As she explained to Mrs. Parsons, with whom she eventually established a congenial relationship:
- This report about our separation bothered him somewhat & he was even ready to think we had made a mistake in my coming as he is very desirous of convincing the colored people that the Bahai Movement makes all things possible even interracial marriages & he knows Abdul Baha had said there was a special purpose in our marriage & he did not wish them to think I had gone to Europe because I found conditions in America on account of my marriage unbearable which is what the colored people had been expecting ever since our marriage & now they seemed ready to say to each other “I told you so.”[71]
The difficulties and frustrations the Gregorys experienced as an interracial couple were nonetheless easier to bear than their separations. They enjoyed each other’s company. Each found encouragement in the other’s accomplishments and in a sense of unity of purpose, even when their fields of endeavor were on separate continents. Mr. Gregory wrote in 1950 that his wife’s “fine cooperation in teaching service has been a tower of strength to me.”[72]
The Gregorys accepted frequent separation, like financial insecurity, as one of the consequences of lives devoted wholly to Bahá’í service. But the months and years they spent apart were indeed a sacrifice. In 1921, four years after Louis Gregory put himself at the disposal of the Temple Unity as a full-time itinerant teacher, Louise addressed a poignant request to Mrs. Parsons, seeking her help and influence in arranging a respite from his travels.
- For the first time in 2 years we have a place where we can live a real home life, have our meals together in our own home & I do not know when this will happen again as we have to give this up in April. . . . If Louis could be found work to do in & around Washington for a time while we have this flat with visits to not far distant cities it seems to me it would be well both for his sake & my sake & perhaps his future usefulness for the Cause as he is not strong enough to keep up that strain constantly year after year without longer & more frequent periods of rest & relaxation & our relations & their importance to the Cause would seem to me to make it necessary that we should be more together.[73]
Eventually the Gregorys established a routine, returning from their travels to spend most summers together in New England. But the long winters apart were difficult enough. “My wife is on a teaching trip in Europe and will not return until spring,” Mr. Gregory wrote a black friend in the 1930s. “She is meeting with success in giving the message. Tho’ I miss her greatly, the defense against lonliness [sic] is keeping busy.”[74] And on another occasion he confided, “It is our hope that our enforced separation along the line of service to the Divine Cause will mercifully bring to us eternal reunion in the worlds of God.”[75]
[Page 30]
Whether they faced the challenges of living
together as an interracial couple in a
deeply prejudiced society or of living apart
to fulfill their individual destinies, Louis and
Louise Gregory found constant strength in
their relationship with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He had
brought them together and, having done so,
never failed to assure them of His support.
“Continually do I remember you,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
once wrote them. “I beg of God that
through you good fellow-ship may be obtained
between the white and the black for
you are an introduction to the accomplishment.”[76]
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Gregory, in Louis G. Gregory, A Heavenly Vista: The Pilgrimage of Louis G. Gregory (Washington: n.p., n.d.), p. 29; Louis G. Gregory, “A Heavenly Vista: Some Impressions of Abdu’l Baha during a Pilgrimage to Ramleh and the Holy City in 1911,” TS, p. 5, Louis G. Gregory Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill. Louis Gregory thus became the first black American to be invited to make a pilgrimage to the Bahá’í holy places. The first black American pilgrim, Robert Turner, had been employed by Mrs. Phoebe Hearst and had traveled to ‘Akká with her party in 1898. Louis Gregory writes of the warm reception ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave Turner in “Robert Turner,” World Order, 12, No. 1 (Apr. 1946), 28-29.
- ↑ Joseph H. Hannen, “News from the Occident: Washington, D.C.,” Star of the West, 2, No. 3 (28 Apr. 1911), 9.
- ↑ Louis G. Gregory, “Racial Unity,” Chap. 4: “Why Love the Negro?” TS, n. pag., Louis G. Gregory Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Döring, trans. 15 Aug. 1911, Tablets of‘ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill. Also published with revisions in “Progress of the Cause in Germany,” Star of the West, 2, No. 17 (19 Jan. 1912), 6.
- ↑ Louis G. Gregory, “Some Recollections of the Early Days of the Bahai Faith in Washington, D.C.,” TS, p. 6, Louis G. Gregory Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ Gregory, “Racial Unity,” Chap. 18: “Reminiscent.”
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Gregory, Heavenly Vista, p. 10.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 12-13.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 13, 15.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to [Remey], in Gregory, Heavenly Vista, p. 31 (also excerpted with revisions in Star of the West, 12 [5 June 1921], 107); Gregory, “A Heavenly Vista,” p. 27.
- ↑ Gregory, “A Heavenly Vista,” p. 28.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come, 2d rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1980), p. 113. Shoghi Effendi states: “The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshiping.”
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Döring, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
- ↑ Frederich Schweizer, in “Progress of the Cause in Germany: News Notes,” Star of the West, 2, No. 17 (19 Jan. 1912), 8.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Döring, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Mary Ellen Hooper, trans. 15 July 1911, Tablets Of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
- ↑ Quoted in Harlan F. Ober, “Louis G. Gregory,” in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume XII, 1950-1954, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1956), p. 668.
- ↑ Joseph H. Hannen, “News Items: Washington, D.C.,” Star of the West, 2, Nos. 7 and 8 (1 Aug. 1911), 15.
- ↑ Louis G. Gregory, “Impressions of Abdul-Baha While at Ramleh,” Star of the West, 2, No. 10 (8 Sept. 1911), 6.
- ↑ H. M. Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh (London: George Ronald, 1971), pp. 171-72.
- ↑ Quoted in Howard MacNutt, Introd., The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Discourses by Abdul Baha during His Visit to the United States in 1912, by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, [rev. ed.] in 1 vol. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahai Publishing Committee, 1943), p. i.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, p. 1.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 2, 1.
- ↑ “Abdul Baha on Religious Unity,” Washington Bee, 27 Apr. 1912, p. 1, col. 5.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, pp. 41-43.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 46, 48-49.
- ↑ Gregory, “Some Recollections,” p. 8.
- ↑ Ober, “Louis G. Gregory,” p. 668.
- ↑ Diary of Juliet Thompson, “Abdul Baha in America,” TS, p. 18, entry for 7 May 1912.
- ↑ Gregory, “Some Recollections,” p. 8.
- ↑ Allan L. Ward, 239 Days: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey in America (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1979), pp. 40-41.
- ↑ Diary of Juliet Thompson, “Abdul Baha in America,” p. 19, entry for 7 May 1912, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, pp. 53-54.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 63.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 65.
- ↑ “The Fourth Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” Crisis, 4 (June 1912), 80.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 88. The version of this talk printed in The Promulgation of Universal Peace reads: “Man is not man simply because of bodily attributes. The standard of divine measure and judgment is his intelligence and spirit” (p. 67).
- ↑ “History of the Washington, D.C. Bahá’í Community, 1900-1933,” TS, p. 5, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, p. 415.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 422, 421, 423.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Joseph Hannen, 30 Sept. 1919, Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, pp. 42-43, 49.
- ↑ Louis G. Gregory, “Racial Amity,” in Bahá’í Year Book, Volume One, 1925-1926, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1926), p. 165.
- ↑ In 1956 Margaret Just Butcher, writing from notes left by Alain Locke, echoed this theme in The Negro in American Culture, rev. ed. (New York: New American Library, 1971), pp. 12-13: “The slow, consistently steady rise of the Negro’s status since emancipation in 1863 has served as a base-level fulcrum for new freedom and wider foundations for American democracy. The Negro’s progression from chattel to freedman, to legal citizenship, to increasing equality of rights and opportunities, to accepted neighbor and compatriot represents a dramatic testament to democracy’s positive and dynamic character.”
- ↑ Quoted in Louis G. Gregory, “Racial Amity in America: An Historical Review,” in The Bahá’í World: A Biennial International Record, Volume VII, 1936-1938, comp. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada (New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee, 1939), pp. 653-54.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Cone, published in “The Removal of Race Prejudice—Continued: A Compilation of the Words of ABDUL-BAHA,” Star of the West, 12 (24 June 1921), 121.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Williams, 2 Aug. 1921, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
- ↑ Quoted in Zia M. Bagdadi, “‘Now is the time for the Americans to unite both the white and colored races:’ Words of ABDUL-BAHA to Dr. Zia M. Bagdadi,” Star of the West, 12 (24 June 1921), 120-21.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America, 1947-1957 (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1965), p. 126.
- ↑ Gregory, “Racial Amity in America,” p. 653.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, p. 43.
- ↑ Gregory, “Racial Amity,” p. 167.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Joseph Hannen, 30 Sept. 1919, Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers.
- ↑ Gregory, “Racial Amity in America,” p. 653.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 18 Jan. 1921, Agnes S. Parsons Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ Joy Hill Earl, “Louisa Mathew Gregory, 1866-1956,” in The Bahá’í World: An International Record, Volume XIII, 1954-1963, comp. The Universal House of Justice (Haifa: The Universal House of Jusrice, 1970), p. 878.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 18 Jan. 1921, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Pauline Hannen, 19 Sept. 1912, Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to [Remey], in Gregory, Heavenly Vista, p. 31.
- ↑ Lunt to Parsons, 4 Apr. 1914, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Chapman, 20 Feb. 1935, Edith M. Chapman Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 18 Jan. 1921, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Pauline Hannen, 19 Sept. 1912, Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Pauline Hannen, 30 Sept. 1912, Hannen-Knobloch Family Papers.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 18 Jan. 1921, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Earl, “Louisa Mathew Gregory,” p. 876.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Chapman, 20 Feb. 1935, Chapman Papers.
- ↑ Parsons to Randall, 26 Sept. 1916, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 5 Feb. 1925, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Chapman, 9 May 1950, Chapman Papers.
- ↑ Louise Gregory to Parsons, 18 Jan. 1921, Parsons Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Chapman, 4 Nov. 1932, Chapman Papers.
- ↑ Louis Gregory to Chapman, 27 Sept. 1933, Chapman Papers.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Gregorys, trans. 14 Mar. 1914, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Aesthetics and Spiritual Education
BY GLEN A. EYFORD
THE APPRECIATION OF ART, or the aesthetic experience, has a quality
that invites comparison with the religious or spiritual experience. The
comparison revolves around the characteristics that art and religion have in
common. Both are attempts to give form and meaning to life, to create order
from apparent chaos, to reveal beauty and harmony in the world. Both explore
the unknown, producing new insights and new relations: art discovers
the forms and patterns of the sensuous world and brings together hitherto
unconnected perceptions; religion progressively unfolds aspects of a spiritual
reality. Both are attempts to put the infinite into the finite; both are essentially
metaphoric in nature, appealing through symbol and myth to the affective,
intuitive, spiritual side of our nature as well as to the rational and intellectual.
Both are capable of expanding man’s consciousness, of changing his view of
himself and his world, and of altering his perception of reality. Art has been
described as the concrete and sensuous manifestation of a spiritual reality;
similarly, religion has been depicted as the garment of mankind, the outer,
more tangible expression of that same spiritual reality. Susanne Langer defines
art as “a creation of perceptible forms expressive of human feeling”;
religion, in the person of a prophet or Manifestation of God demonstrates the
spiritual essence of man’s humanity.[1] Art can be seen as the educator of man’s
faculties and senses, whereas religion is the means by which his spiritual nature
is developed.
Throughout history art and religion have been intimately connected, interacting with each other in the common goal of human enlightenment. The artistic products of great civilizations owe their distinctive style and manner to the dominant religious ideas of the age. Toynbee has pointed out that the art and culture of Egypt, Rome, China, and India were shaped and nurtured by the vitality of their religious beliefs. The artists responded to these spiritual insights and ideals, giving them concrete form through architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, and drama. By stimulating the feelings of awe and wonder, art and religion, whether acting independently or in combination, remind man of his nonmaterial nature, prompting him to investigate new dimensions of his being and to develop his spiritual and aesthetic potential. Religion provides the basic metaphors, the major reorientation, the larger vision within which the arts flourish, creating their own symbols, images, and insights, which enhance and interpret the larger truths.
Because of the affinities that exist between art and religion, because of their
interrelatedness in the history of man, and because of their essentially metaphoric
nature, it would seem that any study of the aesthetic experience, particularly
[Page 33] the kind of learning it produces, would add to an understanding of
spiritual education. Therefore, I will consider the following questions: What
is the kind of learning that occurs through an aesthetic experience? What is
communicated? To what part of man’s nature is art addressed? How does art
“work” upon the perceiver? Or put more generally, how can the impact of
the arts upon society and upon the individual be explained?
A discussion of these questions leads inevitably to a consideration of the role of art today. Both art and religion occupy positions of peripheral importance in contemporary society. This could be attributed to the rise of materialism, to the quantifying bias of science, to the Western neglect of the intuitive, affective, spiritual side of man’s nature. Whatever the reason or reasons, any assessment of the influence of art and religion must include a recognition of their historical importance and, more particularly, a renewed appreciation of that mode of learning peculiar to the intuitive, affective, and imaginative side of man’s nature. As will be seen, philosophers and artists have consistently proclaimed that involvement with the arts is essential to a balanced development of society and of individuals. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to learn that most writers, painters, sculptors, and composers see their work as a powerful force in shaping sensibilities, changing perceptions, and stimulating awareness; in other words, they see it as a means of education.
Art and the Bahá’í Faith
THOUGH it is premature to speak of Bahá’í art, it is not too early to consider the role of the arts in a Bahá’í society. The arts are accorded a place of honor in the Bahá’í writings, and there are frequent references to their importance. Along with the sciences, philosophy, industry, and technology, the arts are considered “emanations of the human mind.”[2] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes all great works of art and science as a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit and art as a gift of that Spirit. He reminds us that “Bahá’u’lláh, in this glorious period has revealed in Holy Tablets that singing and music are the spiritual food of the hearts and souls.”[3]
Bahá’u’lláh depicts the arts as a natural and inevitable result of the outpouring of spiritual energy released by one of the Manifestations of God:
- Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame, if ye be of [Page 34]
them that comprehend this truth. All the wondrous works ye behold in this world have been manifested through the operation of His supreme and most exalted Will, His wondrous and inflexible Purpose. Through the mere revelation of the word “Fashioner,” issuing forth from His lips and proclaiming His attributes to mankind, such power is released as can generate, through successive ages, all the manifold arts which the hands of man can produce. This, verily, is a certain truth. No sooner is this resplendent word uttered, than its animating energies, stirring within all created things, give birth to the means and instruments whereby such arts can be produced and perfected. All the wondrous achievements ye now witness are the direct consequences of the Revelation of this Name.[4]
God is portrayed as the supreme artist, the “Fashioner,” creating not only the world of nature, but providing, through His word or Revelation, the potency and energy for all the works of man. The word is truth or reality; and man, in all his deeds, prospers or fails according to his grasp of that truth. The infinity and mystery of God find expression and tangible form through His Prophets and Messengers, who manifest all that man need know for his continued evolution:
- The light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its people. They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. Through them the clouds rain their bounty upon men, and the earth bringeth forth its fruits. All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue to provide, the supreme moving impulse in the world of being.[5]
True civilization, and the culture it produces, find their cause, their motive power, their animating principle in the Word of God for that day. The aberrations and perversions of art can be corrected only when the artist turns toward the true source of inspiration and guidance.
Philosophy and the Arts
THE IMPACT of the arts on the mind, soul, and heart of man, and on society in general, has long been a subject of philosophical speculation. Plato, for example, encouraged the young
- to visit beautiful forms; at first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only—out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish he would be not to recognize that beauty in every form is one and the same![6]
According to Plato, artists have a major responsibility in guiding the population
[Page 35] to worthy thoughts and noble intentions:
- We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of immoral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.[7]
With particular reference to the effects of music, Plato states:
- musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes, he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.[8]
Plato’s statements about the effect of the aesthetic experience on behavior and character have seldom been improved upon, and they remain the central tenet in the writings of aestheticians of our day, such as Sir Herbert Read, who promote aesthetic education as the central discipline for the development of the human being. Plato believed that the exposure to beauty, harmony, and grace would not only foster in the perceiver similar qualities but would create an appetite for those qualities in all aspects of one’s life. In fact, he would become noble and good “even before he is able to know the reason why,” so powerful would be the pervasive influence of beauty around him.
Aristotle’s views on art are best understood as elaborations and extensions
of the views of his master on the same subject. Like Plato, he was particularly
interested in the effects of the arts, especially poetry, drama, and music, upon
the receiver; and, like Plato, he described these effects as occurring in two
ways: first, the didactic, instructional mode, usually directed toward ethical,
religious, or moral ends; second, the aesthetic mode in which the import or
effect was accomplished by the structure, form, or essence of the work itself and
not necessarily related to any external message. Referring particularly to
music, Aristotle states that it should be studied “with a view to (1) education,
(2) purgation, (3) for intellectual enjoyment, for relaxation and for
recreation after exertion.”[9] Music, and art generally, had a practical purpose
[Page 36] for Aristotle. The special potency of the arts is derived from their ability
to imitate nature, not, however, in the sense of copying nature but in the
sense that imitation can be an attempt to reflect and recreate for human understanding
the essential nature of things, not merely their external form. Art, in
other words, can improve upon observed reality and can distill its essence in
concrete and sensuous form for the clearer appreciation of the viewer. Such
true imitation, then, links man to the order of the universe, utilizing, in
the process, his natural instinct for harmony, unity, rhythm, and beauty. Like
Plato, Aristotle believed that man will seek and recognize the true, the good,
and the beautiful, but not without expert guidance.
Plotinus, a follower of Plato, has a curiously modern view of self-improvement through the arts:
- Withdraw into yourself and look. If you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also; cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the God-like splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
- When you know you have become this perfect work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that only veritable light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form, not again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measures and more than all quality—when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become very vision, now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step—you need a guide no longer—strain, and see.[10]
Man must work on himself as he would upon a piece of art. His standards
and criteria will be a blend of the aesthetic and the moral as he strives to
achieve beauty, purity, virtue, goodness, unity, authenticity, and truth. According
to Croce, art gives us knowledge of the special realm called the
spiritual, the aesthetic, the ideal. Art is not a form of history, science, philosophy,
or mathematics but is best characterized by the term “intuition.” Art can
quicken the soul of man and assist him to contemplate the infinite, the universal,
and the absolute ideal; through art man can transcend the limitations of
everyday life and move toward ultimate spiritual reality. Croce asserts that
art “prepares the way and leads the mind towards idealism or absolute
spiritualism.”[11] Through its own unity, vitality, harmony—in a word, its
[Page 37] spirituality—art leads man to an appreciation of the essential unity of all
life, a single reality that other forces tend to break up into categories, and a
reality that other modes of knowing deal with in a necessarily fragmentary
fashion. Art approaches reality differently so that the final effect of aesthetic
experience is an enrichment and an ennobling that prompts man to seek
aesthetic elements in all aspects of his life. Eventually, art will “direct life
more vigorously towards a healthier and deeper morality. . . .”[12] Like Plotinus,
Aristotle, and Plato, Croce sees art as an aspect of the ideal and an instrument
of moral development.
Croce offers an illustration of the power of art in educating the emotions. He asks us to imagine a group of men and youths on the edge of mutually hostile passions, full of prejudice and mistrust:
- Suddenly somebody opens a book of poetry and begins to read: as the music flows on, as the images float before their eyes, something mysterious moves in their hearts, their souls incline to it, their imagination awakes. They follow the expressive rhythm in its theme, in its modulations, in its final harmony; and in these modulations and that harmony, they begin, with wonder and emotion, to remember something in themselves that was sleeping, cold, or buried—their common humanity. After that discovery, can they still look at one another as before? Can they any longer see themselves as utterly divided, as mortal enemies, when a bond has been forged between them, when all have had a momentary glimpse into the world of beauty and learn that in that world they are brothers?[13]
Dewey would place the aesthetic experience at the core of any educational system designed to foster the fullest development of the human being. He cites examples of older and primitive civilizations that were held together by communal arts. Dance, music, story-telling, poetry, and picture-making were all intimately connected with the daily life and experience of the primitive tribal society. Such a society had a form, a distinctive quality, and an integrity that present society seems to lack:
- Each of these communal modes of activity united the practical, the social, the educative in an integrated whole having aesthetic form. They introduced social values into experience in the way that was most impressive. They connected things that were overtly important and overtly done with the substantial life of the community. Art was in them, for these activities conformed to the needs and conditions of the most intense, most readily grasped and longest remembered experience.[14]
Because of the special capacity of art to communicate and to involve the perceiver in a distinct experience, it is an especially effective “teacher”:
Instruction in the arts of life is something other than conveying information about them; it is a matter of communication and participation in values of life by means of the imagination, and works of art are the most intimate [Page 38] and energetic means of aiding individuals to share in the arts of living. Civilization is uncivil because human beings are divided into non-communicating sects, races, nations, classes and cliques.[15]
Art does not talk about involvement and communication; it creates them. It rises about petty conflict and prejudice and invites participation “in the arts of living.” It civilizes because it reminds man of his higher nature, which is common to all humanity.
When Dewey discusses the special nature of the communicative function of art, he identifies that function with a special mode of instruction or teaching, quite different from what is normally regarded as education. He laments the inability to appreciate the kind of learning that can occur through aesthetic experiences and believes that this bias is at the root of popular misconceptions about the nature of learning:
- It is by way of communication that art becomes the incomparable organ of instruction, but the way is so remote from that usually associated with the idea of education, it is a way that lifts art so far above what we are accustomed to think of as instruction, that we are repelled by any suggestion of teaching and learning in connection with art. But our revolt is in fact a reflection upon education that proceeds by methods so literal as to exclude the imagination and one not touching the desires and emotions of men.[16]
According to Dewey, contemporary approaches to education exclude the imagination and the emotions of men and, in so doing, neglect the vitality of a fundamental human faculty. Rather, imagination should be seen as an instrument of moral good, and man should be inspired to beautiful, noble, and worthy deeds through an appeal to his imagination rather than to an exclusive appeal to his reason: “Barriers are dissolved, limiting prejudices melt away, when we enter into the spirit of negro or polynesian art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reason, because it enters directly into attitude.”[17] This special kind of knowing, this universal form of language, accomplishes the union of men through aesthetic rather than intellectual means.
Artists on Art
ARTISTS, too, have talked about the role of arts in shaping men and society. It would seem that, by and large, their utterances have been ignored by educators and by society in general. However, like the philosophers, artists, over a longer period of Western history, have drawn our attention repeatedly to the unique qualities of the aesthetic experience, appealing to society to provide for such experiences a more central position in the development of man. Again, as with the philosophers, these artists and their comments are too numerous to mention here, but several will serve to convey the spirit and intent of their remarks.
Shelley believed that if art were to effect any change, or to produce any new
[Page 39] insights or awareness, it must do so indirectly, not through propositions or
statements but by constructing something that would appeal to man’s emotional-aesthetic
faculties, or to man’s imagination. This does not mean that
art is fanciful and detached from the concerns of man and society. Quite the
opposite: it means that art goes to the heart of man’s sensibilities and stimulates
higher moral behavior. Poetry, unlike reason, which proceeds by analysis,
operates according to “the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those
forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself.”[18]
Shelley’s impassioned remarks represent a conviction characteristic of many artists whether they be painters, writers, or composers. Poetry appeals to the spiritual nature of man, goes to the very roots of his being, and, therefore, can exert a profound effect upon his perception of reality. It results in nothing less than the moral improvement of the race:
- The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their own nature all other thoughts and which form new intervals and interstices whose void forever craves fresh food. Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb.[19]
The poet’s defense of his art leads him to make far-reaching claims for poetry and for its role in society. Although his statements may be considered extravagant, they gain their strength as much from his analysis of the nature of art as from his own enthusiasm. The poet will lead mankind into the future by giving expression to hopes and visions that are often poorly articulated and little understood by most men. Poets serve as interpreters and prophets by giving definite shape to feeling, to thoughts only dimly perceived by others. They provide the images by which man moves into the future:
- Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing of battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves; poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.[20]
Tolstoy, like Plato, recognized the power of the arts to influence character
and behavior; and, like Plato, he was largely critical of the current state of
the arts, which, he argued, appealed to the baser instincts, glorified sensuality,
promoted narrow patriotism, hero worship, and superstitious fear. The reason
for this was that art was self-indulgent and stood for no moral ideal. Pleasure
had become the goal of art as well as of contemporary life. According to
Tolstoy, art should serve a new religious awakening, then only dimly perceived.
Tolstoy believed that humanity progressed best and most truly
[Page 40] through the guidance of religion and that a new religion, based on man’s
sonship to God and the brotherhood of man, was emerging. The role of art
then was to translate these ideals into feeling and immediate experience:
“The task for art to accomplish is to make that feeling of brotherhood and
love of one’s neighbor, now attained only by the best members of society, the
customary feeling and the instinct of all men.”[21] Art can transform vague
feelings and inchoate beliefs into clear perceptions. But art must serve a noble
ideal; otherwise, it will sink into sensationalism, pandering to current fads
and exacerbating the all too evident instinct for self-indulgence. For Tolstoy
“a true work of art is the revelation (by laws beyond our grasp) of a new
conception of life arising in the artist’s soul which, when expressed, lights up
the path along which humanity progresses.”[22]
The thoughts of Shelley and Tolstoy on the role of art are echoed by many other literary figures: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Browning, Carlyle, Pound, Joyce, Eliot. Such artists as Delacroix, Whistler, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Klee, and Picasso express the same beliefs about the nature and efficacy of art. When the remarks of artists are combined with the thoughts of philosophers on the same subject, one cannot escape the impression that something of vital importance is being said. The way in which society has perversely ignored these reasoned, eloquent, and impassioned statements about the nature of art and its relation to human development is astonishing. Indeed, if art can deliver only half of what its practitioners and champions promise, it merits our most serious attention.
The belief that art has a role in the spiritual awakening of man is contained in comments made by Shoghi Effendi about a particular dramatic presentation that depicted aspects of the Bahá’í Faith:
- It is through such presentations that we can arouse the interest of the greatest number of people in the Spirit of the Cause. That day will the Cause spread like wildfire when its spirit and teachings are presented on the stage or in art and literature as a whole. Art can better awaken such noble sentiments than cold rationalizing, especially among the mass of the people.
- We have to wait only a few years to see how the spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh will find expression in the work of artists. What you and some other Bahá’ís are attempting, are only faint rays that precede the effulgent light of a glorious morn. We cannot yet estimate the part the Cause is destined to play in the life of society. We have to give it time. The material the Spirit has to mould is too crude and too unworthy, but it will at last give way when the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh will reveal itself in its full splendor.[23]
Shoghi Effendi has shown the power of art to quicken the souls of men and
has indicated its place in presenting the spirit of the Cause in artistic form.
[Page 41] Gradually, this spirit will be diffused throughout the world, molding both man
and society toward the noblest ideal, in accordance with the qualities and
standards enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá also spoke of art as a means of attraction to the spiritual truths of the Faith, an outward expression of an inner reality:
- when the studying of art is with the intention of obeying the command of God this study will certainly be done easily and great progress will soon be made therein; and when others discover this fragrance of spirituality in the action itself, this same will cause their awakening. Likewise, managing art with propriety will become the means of sociability and affinity; and sociability and affinity themselves tend to guide others to the Truth.[24]
These statements of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, together with the previously cited remarks by philosophers and artists, emphasize the power of art to attract, to quicken, to excite, to connect, to create “affinities”—all terms that distinguish the mode of aesthetic communication from “cold rationalizing.” It is this mode of communication peculiar to the arts that we must now attempt to understand better.
Myth, Metaphor, and Symhol
THE ARTS appeal primarily to that part of our being that can be termed aesthetic, intuitive, imaginative, or spiritual. Though they are not devoid of rational and intellectual content, they are distinguished from science, logic, and philosophy by a special manner of communication. If it is true that the arts evoke responses from the heart, the soul, and the spirit of man, it would seem important to find out how this is done.
That art is an effective means of communication cannot be attributed to the
particular weight or quality of the concepts presented in a work of art. A
great painting, a great poem, a great novel, when reduced to its content
or “story line,” creates little excitement. Indeed, it is futile to attempt to
paraphrase a great work of art; rather, one should meet it on its own terms and
involve himself with all of its elements. Picasso’s Guernica may say that war
is hell; Browning’s The Ring and the Book may say that people are different
and, therefore, view things differently; T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland may say that
contemporary society is characterized by spiritual desolation. If the artist
simply wished to communicate an idea, he would hardly have struggled with
his particular medium. Instead, he would have written it “plain out.” But, as
Browning reminds us, “Art may tell a truth / Obliquely, do the thing shall
breed the thought.”[25] Art must capture the attention and the imagination of
the perceiver so that he completes the process of communication begun by
the artist. His involvement with the elements and ingredients of the work of
art is essential if he is to appreciate its full import. The manner of communication
is just as important as what is communicated; indeed, the total integration
of the message with the manner of its presentation makes for greatness
in art. We err if we think that art is primarily concerned with conveying ideas,
[Page 42] concepts, propositions, or particular truths. The old debate as to the relative
importance of form versus content has more or less been resolved by the
recognition that they are interrelated and indistinguishable, that what should
be communicated is a vibrant and vital entity operating largely beyond reason
and logic in the area of aesthetic sensibility.
Art is one of the most striking instances of the metaphoric nature of reality. Like science, philosophy, and mathematics, art employs its particular means to link man, however tenuously, to the ideal and to the absolute. Art is an attempt to put infinity into the finite, an attempt that must always fail, in the final analysis, but that, if inspired and guided, will frequently come close. Art is abstracted from experience and is presented in a form necessarily different from the experience that created the work of art. Thus Langer notes: “Anything about reality, that is to be expressed and conveyed, must be abstracted from reality. There is no sense in trying to convey reality pure and simple.”[26] This process of abstraction from reality requires that experience be translated into symbols, specific metaphors, and myths that present to the perceiver concrete instances, images, and “pictures” to which he can respond. Because of its dependence upon myth, metaphor, and symbol (or, as Langer would put it, the “nondiscursive”), art transcends the limitations of logic and reason. A nondiscursive symbol is one that cannot be presented in any other way but that in itself distills a plenitude of insight and reality. Art seeks unity, wholeness, and oneness and is not an instrument for analysis and dissection. It achieves changes in our basic orientation to ourselves and our universe and produces changes in perceptions rather than concepts. Art is considered radical because it frequently challenges traditional views and traditional truths. It deals in altered consciousness and expanded awareness, to achieve which it relies most heavily upon the devices of myth, metaphor, and symbol. Like religion, art provides new images; new insights, new visions, which, to the extent that they are rooted in one’s true spiritual being, are effective in changing one’s consciousness and one’s awareness and in opening new areas of development for individuals and for societies.
Myth, metaphor, and symbol have in common the fact that they must be
appreciated experientially through an effort of involvement and participation.
They invite and require an active effort on the part of the perceiver who
must allow the full implications of the myth, metaphor, or symbol to work
upon his consciousness—and his, subconsciousness. They are “nondiscutsive”;
they can never be fully grasped through rational and intellectual processes
alone but must be apprehended aesthetically or spiritually. These “devices”
of art help to connect man with his primal sources of energy through their
ability to present aspects Of reality in harmonious—and harmonizing—forms.
Man has always had what might be called an “ontological thirst” as well as a
“motive for metaphor,” which means that, instinctively, he has a craving to
make sense of his world, his thoughts, and his feelings and a desire to abstract
from his experience meaning and value in the form of myth, metaphor, and
symbol. Metaphor works because it speaks to a basic need in man for
identification with the world: metaphor makes connections; it makes the
[Page 43] strange familiar and makes the familiar strange. It aids man in his relatedness
to that which he finds around him and within him. Art does not offer specific
solutions to social problems but rather brings man back to a sense of balance
and perspective.
Myth, metaphor, and symbol also have in common the fact that they encourage a new mode of knowing. Abraham Maslow refers to this mode of knowing as “the primary process of cognition.”[27] He points out that for centuries man has repudiated the inner psychic and spiritual world in favor of the external world of common sense and sense data and, as a result, has cut himself off from deeper sources of vitality. It is in this inner psychic world that the primary process of cognition occurs; the so-called common sense approach to reality that makes use of sense data, logic, and intellectual processes is referred to by Maslow as “secondary process cognition.”[28] Because man is reluctant to consider the mysterious part of human nature, he fails to use it in his daily life; he tends to undervalue or ignore aesthetic sensitivity, playfulness, poetic feeling, and mysticism. He concludes that man must involve himself more fully with primary processes of cognition so that they can balance the necessary but over-valued secondary processes of cognition.
Carl Jung explains that symbols work, whether in dreams, religion, or art because they activate the collective unconscious, which is a kind of repository, not of specific myths or images, but of basic and eternal human hopes, experiences, fears, and anxieties. Jung calls them “archaic remnants” or “archetypes” or “primordial images” and describes them as instinctive trends or patterns common to all humanity. Symbols, for example, owe their effectiveness to the fact that they are “deposits representing accumulated experience of thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and existence.”[29] Art, with its various myths, metaphors, symbols, and images, delves into these hidden wellsprings of human consciousness and stimulates them to life again.
Perhaps these views of Langer, Maslow, and Jung will help one understand Bahá’u’lláh’s statement in The Kitáb-i-Íqán that the Founders of all great religions employed “symbolic terms and abstruse allusions” in order to “test and prove the peoples of the world; that thereby the earth of the pure and illuminated hearts may be known from the perishable and barren soil. From time immemorial such hath been the way of God amidst His creatures, and to this testify the records of the sacred books.”[30]
Much of The Kitáb-i-Íqán is a redefinition of the symbolic terms common to
Christian and Islamic scripture: sun, moon, clouds, life, return, resurrection,
judgment. Like the poet, the Prophet speaks in metaphors and images and
builds on existing myths or creates new myths to kindle the flame of faith
and belief in the souls of those who are receptive and responsive. Thus such
[Page 44] symbolic and metaphoric language is used as a touchstone to distinguish between
the spiritually alive and the spiritually dead. Only the pure in soul
and heart will respond to the Word of God. The soul is the sign of God
within, and when this inward sign is connected with the words of the
Manifestation of God, new life and new energy are imparted to the individual.
In one of His prayers Bahá’u’lláh says, “He maketh men alive by His signs,
and causeth them to die through His Wrath.”[31] This could be understood to
mean that man is given life through the Word of God and particularly through
man’s ability to understand and to respond to that Word, whether it be presented
in straightforward fashion or veiled with symbolic meaning and abstruse
allusions. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would seem to support this notion with his
statement, “For every thing, however, God has created a sign and symbol,
and established standards and tests by which it may be known.”[32] The mystery
of God is revealed to mankind, in appropriate degree, through His Manifestations
and through Their words. These words, these signs and symbols, connect
us with the reality of the universe and thereby give meaning and purpose
to our lives. Bahá’u’lláh describes this quickening process:
- Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of longing desire, of passionate devotion, of fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled within the seeker’s heart, and the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul, will the darkness of error be dispelled, the mists of doubts and misgivings be dissipated, and the lights of knowledge, and certitude envelop his being. At that hour will the mystic Herald bearing the joyful tidings of the Spirit, shine forth from the City of God, resplendent as the morn, and, through the trumpet-blast of knowledge, will awaken the heart, the soul, and the spirit from the slumber of negligence. Then will the manifold favours and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such new life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind. He will contemplate the manifest signs of the universe, and will penetrate the hidden mysteries of the soul. Gazing with the eye of God, he will perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discover in all things the mysteries of divine Revelation and the evidences of an everlasting manifestation.[33]
Here, in essentially symbolic language, Bahá’u’lláh conveys the mysterious
dynamics of spiritual awakening. The soul, which is the sign of God in man,
responds to the Divine Messenger; and man, making contact with the City
of God, sees himself and the world around him in a new light. Life takes on
fresh meaning, and the Spirit provides constant nourishment for the soul,
mind, and body of man. This process of enlightenment is facilitated, in large
part, by the symbols, metaphors, and myths enshrined in the vital Word of
God; veils of ignorance are torn apart and new perceptions crowd in upon
the consciousness; understanding comes suddenly and commands the complete
[Page 45] involvement of the individual. Thus the apprehension of religious truth is
like the appreciation of art: more affective than intellectual, total and immediate
rather than partial and gradual, perceptual rather than conceptual, experiential
and concrete rather than theoretical and abstract.
Two Approaches to Aesthetic Learning
1. Application of Certain Aesthetic Principles. To the extent that spiritual learning and aesthetic learning share the same domain in human development, they will employ similar principles and practices to achieve aesthetic, spiritual, intuitive, and imaginative learning, as distinct from cognitive, rational, and intellectual learning. Art appeals primarily to the affective rather than to the cognitive domain; to the primary processes of cognition rather than to the secondary processes of cognition; to the feelings; to the intuition; to the senses rather than to the thought processes; to the feminine rather than to the masculine side of one’s nature; to the right rather than to the left hemisphere of the brain. If one could understand more clearly the characteristics of this special kind of learning, this special mode of knowing, he might be able to make it happen more often; if these characteristics, elements, processes, and ingredients can be discovered, they can be applied more readily to similar learning experiences. The following elements must be present if aesthetic learning is to take place, or, put in another way, if an experience is to be termed aesthetic. (Since it appears that art and religion share some purposes, it may also be possible that they share methods.)
1. If learning is to occur, it must be valued for itself; it must be experienced while it resolves conflicts and creates integration and harmony.
2. Learning must be total, coherent, and complete, conveying a sense of form, unity, connectedness, and relationship. In a good work of art it is the total message that is communicated rather than any specific morality or proposition. Ideally, the work of art should be experienced as a revelation, as an overwhelming insight, as completely true, whole, and correct for that moment, as a piece of eternity.
3. The learning experience must make use of myth, metaphor, and symbol if significant and spiritually meaningful communication is to take place.
4. Experiencing a work of art must actively involve the learner, for his participation is essential to completing the process initiated or designed by the artist-teacher. The experience, moreover, must allow for a process of growth and personal development and must not merely provide information and knowledge to be imitated or copied. In addition, the experience must allow for the creative expression of the learner, and must involve him in a process of discovery rather than a process of instruction.
5. Learning must enhance the quality of the learner’s educational experience, enrich his life, and produce an impression of the suprarational, the spiritual, the mysterious—in a word, the sacred. Learning must then inspire the learner to repeat the experience, to enjoy again the mystery, delight, excitement, and awe. Learning must be seen as a “peak experience” that one seeks to have again.
6. The learning experience must convey percepts rather than concepts
and stimulate intuitive awareness rather than develop logical constructs. It
[Page 46] must appeal primarily to the imagination, to the feelings, to the intuition, to
the primary processes of cognition.
7. Learning through the arts must result in the creation, rather than the depletion, of energy and Vitality. It must cause an organization of the energies, a sharpening of the faculties, a strengthening of perception, and a general sense of well-being.
One may note at this point that other modes of knowing, rational modes used in mathematics or the sciences, are no less valuable, but they proceed along different lines, using different methods to accomplish different ends.
2. Application of the Monomyth. Joseph Campbell provides another approach
to aesthetic learning with his “monomyth,” which resulted from his
study of the mythologies of various cultures throughout the world. He began
with the assumption that these various mythologies expressed, each in its own
way, truths for a particular culture and society. He discovered that man has
invested his myths with his basic fears, hopes, aspirations, and desires, often
quite unaware as to why a myth took a particular form.
Though myth is popularly understood as synonymous with that which is untrue, fictitious, or fanciful, it will be employed here in its original sense referring to that which is true, that which is believed. It is helpful to remember that mythos means the word as decree or final pronouncement and is, therefore, distinguished from logos, which means the word whose validity must be demonstrated and argued. According to Toynbee, “Myths are the instruments through which the farthest flights of the Human Spirit are achieved.”[34] And why are myths created? “If the universe is a mystery, and if the key to this mystery is hidden, are not myths an indispensable means of expressing as much as we can express of the ineffable?”[35]
Myth is closely related in form and function to art and religion. All are essentially metaphoric in character, relying on symbols and images to explore the mysterious, to create, and to convey meaning. Each draws from the matrix or substratum that can be termed universal soul or the collective unconscious, the eternal verities, or the repository of primordial images.
Using the devices of art, myth can perform some of the functions of religion. It provides an explanation of how things are or have come to be. Like religion, myth provides models, standards, and ideals, which, because they are believed, can guide behavior. Myth, whether Indian, Grecian, Egyptian, or Norse, strives to be a complete system with elaborate explanations about the mysteries surrounding man: birth, death, creation, the seasons, war, success, failure, good, evil. Religion, however, is usually understood as meaning something more sophisticated than myth, because, though it uses myth, it does not hold that myth is equivalent to truth but is rather a story about the truth. Religion can be best understood as the highest form of myth (or metaphor) because it provides a comprehensive and constantly evolving model of reality and pattern for living.
[Page 47]
As Campbell discovered, the common themes, common sequences, common
events that he found in various mythologies could not be explained by mutual
influence but only by acknowledging that man universally experiences the
same needs and aspirations. Myths are created in response to these yearnings.
Based on his study of these mythologies, Campbell has constructed a single
myth containing those elements and events he found present in all of the
world’s great mythologies. He suggests that the monomyth can serve as a
standard against which the processes of human development in our society
can be measured. Accordingly, the effectiveness of any learning system is
enhanced by the degree to which its various events and sequences follow
the model of the monomyth. In other words, if this monomyth has any
universal validity as a model for human development, our educational practices
and institutions should provide sufficient opportunity for these apparently
essential sequences and events to be experienced. Can the monomyth, for
example, tell the individual anything about his search for spiritual truth?
Can it help him appreciate the value and significance of what he terms
“struggle,” “suffering,” “sacrifice,” and “tests”? Rather than believing such
experiences to be curses or afflictions, one should regard them as challenges and
opportunities through which he proves himself, tests his strengths, and
achieves a true identity. Without such experiences he remains wrapped in a
cocoon of self-indulgence and comfort until his powers atrophy and his spirit
declines. The elements of the monomyth remind him that he must go forth
into the world and engage in activity if his full human potential—spiritual,
mental, and physical—is to be realized.
- The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (test), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again—if the powers have remained unfriendly to him—his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the old transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir).[36]
[Page 48]
Through his participation in myth, as with art and religion, man cultivates
the spiritual side of his nature. Through myth man is reminded of his origins
and his basic humanity, and through myth he transcends the prison of self
and enters into a larger community to which he can contribute and from
which he can receive.
Conclusion
THE LAST CENTURY has witnessed radical changes in man’s view of himself and his world. Through the discoveries of science, through the acceptance of the scientific method, through technological innovations, through improved communication, through rigorous questioning of social and religious beliefs, man has freed himself from earlier taboos and outworn traditions. Spurred on by a sense of his own power, on the one hand, and troubled by a growing restlessness and anxiety, on the other, he has probed more deeply into his inner being and into his outer universe in a bold attempt to find better answers to eternal questions. Though this period of intense, unprecedented, revolutionary activity has, to date, destroyed more than it has built, it must be seen as a necessary step in reordering the world; and it can best be understood as a spiritual phenomenon rather than a series of incremental socioeconomic adjustments, political reforms, and scientific inventions.
The process of agonizing change is always identified with the advent of a Manifestation or messenger of God. Bahá’u’lláh explains: “The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System. . . .”[37] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written: “The Call of God, when raised, breathed a new life into the body of mankind, and infused a new spirit into the whole creation. It is for this reason that the world hath been moved to its depths, and the hearts and consciences of men been quickened. Erelong the evidences of this regeneration will be revealed, and the fast asleep will be awakened.”[38]
According to Shoghi Effendi, the revelation of God produces “a retributory calamity and an act of holy and supreme discipline. It is at once a visitation from God and the cleansing process for all mankind. Its fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component parts into one organic, indivisible, world-embracing community.”[39]
A dual process is initiated: disintegration and disequilibrium affect many traditional practices and ideas; synthesis and integration are created among new perceptions and ideas. Old bottles cannot contain the new wine; outworn and empty institutions and ideologies cannot withstand the potency of the new Spirit.
The Báb, the Forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, provides a distinctive interpretation
of this necessary transitional period of chaos and confusion: He says that
[Page 49] God has set all things free from each other in order that He alone may sustain
them. This may mean that in periods of rapid change, like our own, when
the breakdown of old values results in confusion, conflict, and insecurity, man
is compelled to reassess himself and his world. All elements and aspects of
our world are taken out of their customary context to be reexamined in the
new light. By setting all things free from one another, God has caused everything
to appear in its eternal form, depending upon Him alone and not upon
convention or social expedience. Then the Manifestation of God, the supreme
Artist, remakes the world according to His Divine plan and calls upon mankind,
for its own salvation, to take part in this creative process by connecting
itself with the revealed and vitalizing word of God. Man is challenged to
dedicate himself to “the emergence of a world community, the consciousness
of world citizenship, the founding of a world civilization and culture. . . .”[40]
Because he was made in God’s image, man constantly strives to create order
from chaos, to find meaning and purpose, to discover harmony, unity, and
beauty. The instinctive tendency operates in both the creation and the appreciation
of the arts, and, through intimate interaction with the creative
word of God it can be channeled to assist in the building of a new world order.
- ↑ Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Penguin, 1948), p. 80.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, trans. Marzieh Gail and Ali-Kuli Khan, 2d ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1970), p. 2.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Bahá'u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith: Selected Writings of Bahá'u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1976), p. 378.
- ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi, 2d rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1976), pp. 141-42.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 157.
- ↑ Plato, Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Random, 1937), I, 334, Section 210.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 665, Section 40.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Aristotle, Aristotle’s Politics, trans. B. Jowett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 314.
- ↑ Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. S. MacKenna (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), p. 63.
- ↑ Benedetto Croce, “Aesthetics,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., in A. Hofstadder and R. Kuhns, eds., Philosophies of Art and Beauty (New York: The Modern Library, 1946), p. 562.
- ↑ Benedetto Croce, Guide to Aesthetics, trans. P. Romanell ( New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 64.
- ↑ Benedetto Croce, The Defence of Poetry, trans. E. F. Carritt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), p. 30.
- ↑ John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Capricorn Books, 1934), p. 328.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 336.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 347.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 534.
- ↑ Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry,” in English Critical Essays: Nineteenth Century, ed. E. D. Jones (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1916), p. 120.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 132.
- ↑ Ibid., p.163.
- ↑ Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art? (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, A Hesperides Book, 1962), p. 236.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 61.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, quoted in “‘In Its Full Splendor,’” Bahá’í News, No. 73 (May 1933), p. 71.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 377.
- ↑ Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, XII, in The Complete Poetical Works of Browning, ed. H. E. Scudder (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1895), p. 601.
- ↑ Susanne K. Langer, Problems of Art (New York: Scribners, 1957), p. 93.
- ↑ A. H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 1971), p. 86.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ C. G. Jung, Psychological Reflections, ed. J. Jacobi (New York: Harper, 1961), p. 38.
- ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán: The Book of Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi, 3d ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974), p. 49.
- ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations, trans. Shoghi Effendi (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1938), p. 87.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 33.
- ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, pp. 195-96.
- ↑ Arnold Toynbee, An Historian’s Approach to Religion (New York: Oxford Univ. Press), p. 282.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1949), p. 246.
- ↑ Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, p. 137.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in Shoghi Bffendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Selected Letters, 2d rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974), p. 169.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1961), p. 2.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 163.
Coming to Terms With a Technological World
A REVIEW OF GUY MURCHIE’S The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science and Philosophy (BOSTON: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, 1978), XI + 659 PAGES, INDEX
BY CARLOS MARTIN PEREIRA
GUY MURCHIE is a former reporter for the
Chicago Tribune, pilot, and best-selling author
of Song of the Sky and Music of the
Spheres. His most recent work, The Seven
Mysteries of Life, is a significant book that
discusses science and technology in our society.
It is a book that gives laymen and
scientists alike a chance to recapture for a
few days the wonderment each of us felt as
a child on receiving a new mechanical toy—
a spinning top perhaps, or a bottle of soapy
liquid for blowing bubbles, or a “slinky” toy
that seemed to have a life of its own as it
marched unaided down the stairs. As children,
we were right to feel wonder, deeply
right, for hidden within these things lay the
mechanics of the stars.
But this is not the only aspect of Guy Murchie’s book that should be noted. To understand more of its significance one must pause for a moment to examine the role of technology in contemporary life. A major feature of present-day society, which is being felt more and more keenly, is the rapid pace of technological and scientific advance. Indeed, so great is the pace of this advance that at times it seems that we have entered the twenty-first century twenty years too soon. It is not solely the effect of individual technological changes that leads to difficulties. Rather it is the unforeseen interactions between various technologies, the interaction between technology and the environment, and the unanticipated rises in the cost of oil and other raw materials needed to support our technological society.
Makers of national policy often find that their training, which usually emphasizes political science and the law, has left them ill equipped to deal with rapid technological change. This seems to be at least one of the reasons the present energy crisis was not foreseen and dealt with a decade ago, when solutions would have been so much easier to find.
One result of the technological revolution is that the average man must not only try to cope with a broadening of his horizons from the national scene to the international scene but also has had to adjust—within a span of fifteen years—to the fact that man’s grasp has been extended to the moon, Mars, Venus, and even to the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Still more difficult to deal with is the fact that, because of the circumstances that surround oil fields halfway round the world, and because of the shortsightedness of his own leaders, his standard of living is severely threatened for the first time in a generation. Thus contemporary times present Congress and the Executive Branch wtih a crisis in the formulation of public policy and, simultaneously, the average citizen with a crisis in understanding and adjusting to the technological aspects of his society.
These twin crises form the scene within which Murchie’s exceptional book makes its appearance. The book, written in language laymen can understand, helps the reader to improve significantly his knowledge of science and his understanding of its impact on everyday life. It helps the nonscientist to come to terms with many of the scientific revolutions that are transforming his society.
Murchie has made a determined and largely
successful effort to place a variety of the
[Page 52] most fundamental scientific developments in
perspective against the backdrop formed by
mankind’s efforts to fashion an enlightened
and flourishing civilization. The most vexing
problems of the advanced technological societies
of the contemporary world can be
solved neither by a rigid defense of the environment
nor by a laissez-faire approach to
the utilization of our natural resources. What
is needed is an informed picture of the world,
a picture that has sufficient breadth and depth
to allow us to assign environmental needs
and energy needs to their appropriate places
in a larger context. Through a penetrating
discussion of the relationship of technology
to mankind and other living things, Murchie’s
book makes substantial progress toward fulfilling
this need, offering many insights that
might well be taken into account by those
charged with framing public policy.
THE THEORY of evolution serves as one of
the major unifying themes of The Seven
Mysteries of Life. Murchie describes the early
ancestors of man, the lemurs and the tarsiers,
giving substance to their story with a touching
illustration that invites the reader to put
himself in their place as a small animal fighting
for survival in the jungles and grasslands
of seventy million years ago. Because they
lived in the trees, man’s early ancestors
eventually evolved long arms with hands
capable of unusual dexterity. After millions
of years, man learned to use his hands to
hold tools. And these tools began to be used
not just now and again, as other animals
sometimes do, but regularly. Murchie places
special emphasis on the next step in man’s
development, the evolution of language,
“equipping his mind not only to recognize
but to store knowledge, . . . through which
the accomplishments of every generation
could be retained and extended by succeeding
ones.”
The next major event in man’s history was the advent of the herding of animals; this was followed, only about ten thousand years ago, by the beginning of farming. These two events allowed an explosive growth in population, for while hunting and gathering required about eight square miles for the support of a single human being, herding made it possible for the same area to support one hundred people. Farming made it possible to feed several hundred people off the same area of land. Coming into more recent times (from five thousand to two hundred years ago), the author describes the appearance of cities, the use of slavery, and the waging of wars. All these activities, the domestication of animals, the domestication of plants (that is, agriculture), the building of cities, and the use of war, and of slaves are examples of the early uses of technology.
A second major theme of The Seven Mysteries of Life is the interrelationship of man and the animals. For example, man is not the only animal to communicate with others of his species. Ants and bees also communicate with one another, particularly about the location of a distant source of food. Ant hills are like miniature cities. Millions of years ago ants had already domesticated many kinds of animals. Some species of ants plant and grow rice. Other species of ants make war. They attack other ants’ nests and carry off slaves. Since, as mentioned earlier in the discussion of man’s history, activities of this type are examples of technology, it might be said that these aspects of technology were not originally invented by man but by the ant. This illustrates a deeper truth. Some uses of technology are good. Other uses are bad. But technology itself cannot be viewed as being outside nature or as contrary to nature’s plan.
A discussion of sexual function in plants,
in animals, and in man is an important part
of biology and is included in one or two of
the chapters of the book. The treatment
Murchie gives seems to assume an adult
audience even though much of the book
could be extremely useful not only to adults
but also as a starting point for the superior
high school student preparing for a scientific
career. Hence, parents should read those sections
of the book on the biology of sex before
deciding whether to give the book to
[Page 53] their children of ages twelve through sixteen.
(The index at the end of the book can be
used to identify quickly the passages requiring
parental review.)
One of the more striking facts the layman finds in the book has to do With the incredible variety of animal and plant species. More than 9,000 species of birds, more than 10,000 species of sponges, more than 100,000 species of flies, and more than 280,000 species of beetles are known. The number of unknown species may still be greater than the number of known species.
The power and subtlety of evolutionary forces is also demonstrated by the evolutionary response to forest fires. Murchie points out that 95 percent of a tree above ground can burn without killing the tree. Moreover, some types of trees such as the jack pine have evolved in order to take advantage of a forest fire. To me this strongly suggests that nature is not now and never has been a worshiper of the status quo. There are few sudden changes in the world that have not taken place millions of times in the past. Because of this, species have evolved to take advantage of such changes. When a sudden change takes place, whether it be a forest fire, or perhaps even a volcano spewing large amounts of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, some species may be suppressed and become dormant, but other species will be waiting in the wings ready to take their place and, after a relatively short time, to thrive in the changed environment.
The book also describes the cell, which is the basic building block of plant and animal life. When viewed with a sufficiently powerful magnifying glass or microscope, cells look like tiny plastic bags full of a gelatin-like substance. When many cells are placed side by side they are often squeezed into a cubicle shape. There are a number of structures within the cell. One of them, the nucleus of the cell, is a small well-defined spherical region. The nucleus is often about a tenth the diameter of the cell, and under the proper lighting conditions it can usually be seen clearly within the cell.
Within the nucleus of every cell is a chemical compound called DNA. Murchie describes how DNA is formed by stringing together various combinations of four different chemical units into one molecule that may be many thousands of units long. In effect, each of these molecules of DNA contains a message, a message that is thousands of “words” long.
Consider, for example, the cells of the human body. The molecules of DNA in the nucleus of each of the cells contain the complete instructions that tell a single fertilized ovum how to grow step by step into a complete and unique baby and eventually into an adult human being. These instructions constitute the genetic memory, a memory of one’s ancestors that guarantees that a fertilized human egg will grow into a human being, fertilized frog’s egg into a frog, and so on.
Another aspect of the genetic memory can be seen in the functioning of the various tissue types of the body. Apparently each cell of an embryo has the potential to become any kind of tissue—for example, heart, lung, skin, or bone. However, for some reason not yet fully understood, cells destined to have different locations in the baby at birth develop differently. Each cell uses a particular portion of its genetic memory and suppresses the rest. Lung cells use only that part of the genetic memory that tells them how to act like lung tissue, heart cells only the portion that directs them to act like heart tissue, and so on. Once a cell has completed the development into a particular type of tissue, it remembers its purpose. Thus if some of the cells of an animal’s heart are removed and placed in a nutrient solution, they continue beating feebly but regularly. However, being separate, the cells do not beat in unison. Yet if several of these cells are allowed to touch one another they stick together and attempt to synchronize their beats, never forgetting their earlier and quite permanent decision to be part of a beating heart.
Murchie also brings up the recent theory
that memories of everyday events and of
[Page 54] abstract ideas and concepts may be stored in
the brain as specific chemical compounds
(specific proteins). If this should prove to
be the case, the abstract world of our ideas
will be found mirrored in the concrete chemical
world inside the cells of our brains.
The Seven Mysteries of Life also gives a chronicle of the evolutionary development of the human brain. Murchie notes that at birth the human brain is only one quarter of its final size, which allows the brain to be molded by the experiences of childhood. The advantages of the long period of learning from parents may explain why man takes so much longer to reach maturity than most other animals of the same size and weight.
The discussion on the vision of humans and animals is striking. Many of the bits of information it contains are quite delicious and should be thoroughly savored. Experiments with cats show that the brain must learn to see horizontal lines and that its development is conditioned by the experience of seeing such lines. Without that experience at an early stage of growth an important aspect of the brain’s development does not take place, and the cat is permanently blind to all but vertical lines.
Vision is not the only one of the senses that Murchie discusses, for there is also the sense of smell and the other senses. Unlike vision, which uses three primary colors, olfaction has seven primary odors based on seven different shapes, sizes, and electrical charges of the molecules of the substance being smelled. Then there are also the exotic, almost other-worldly senses of some of the strange animals of our planet, such as the ability of the chameleon to sense the color of its own skin.
Murchie traces the development of language from its early beginnings and clearly explains the crucial importance of language in the progress of mankind. The use of words provides an abstract description of the real events of the world. This allows new ideas, inventions in farming, in toolmaking, and so on to be passed from one person to another and from one generation to another.
Language thus acts as a spur first to the development of intelligence and later to the development of civilization.
In addition, Murchie describes the relationship between race, genetics, and the brotherhood of man with flair and humor. The effectiveness of the simple mathematics used in showing that all men are related to one another is indeed remarkable. The discussion certainly represents a valuable addition to the layman’s understanding of the subject.
The Seven Mysteries of Life has twenty-three chapters and more than six hundred pages. Consequently, the interesting index at the end of the book is valuable to the reader in helping to bring to the fore some of the many intriguing relationships between the various topics covered. Each reader, because of his own singular perspective, will find a different set of relationships that he may choose to emphasize.
TWO OR THREE of the last five chapters of
the book have to do with philosophical and
religious questions, questions that lie outside
science. Murchie’s discussion of the philosophical
questions of good and evil, success
and adversity, and free will and predestination
are certainly not without merit. Most
scientists will not be convinced by the mathematical
argument Murchie uses in attempting
to prove the existence of a creator of the
universe. Nevertheless many scientists will
find the statistical arguments he presents
thought provoking and worth reading as a
starting point for further analysis of such
questions. Here and there in the last half of
the book will be found brief but penetrating
comparisons of some of the ideas of various
philosophers—such as Leucippus and Democritus,
Bruno, and Bertrand Russell—and of
various religious scriptures including the
Bible, the Hindu scriptures, and the writings
of the Bahá’í Faith. Those whose main interest
is science will find the scattered philosophical
and religious comparisons always
[Page 55] unobtrusive and often quite congenial.
Murchie’s discussion usually keeps the reader on a high plateau of fascination and enlightenment, but the book does have some valleys. Thus in Chapter 15 entropy (or disorder) in the universe is described as continuing (rather than as continuing to increase), but the remaining discussion of entropy is correct. Again, the penetrating insights into various aspects of biology contrast sharply with the lack of perceptiveness in the analysis of some aspects of human behavior. For example, the discussion of the difference in the intellectual development of girl and boy babies fails to consider how much babies may learn from unconscious cues given by parents or from the type of toys given to them. Sometimes important opportunities are missed. The discussion of the question of whether identical twins have different physical identities fails to note that the twins soon develop somewhat different memories and thus presumably have chemically different memory proteins in their brains. Also, Murchie’s brief description of Einstein’s conception of space and time, a topic which fortunately is peripheral to the main themes of the book, is misleading and inadequate even when one takes into account that the discussion is aimed at the layman. Yet, in view of the range of topics covered in the book, it is surprising that the errors it contains are so few.
On the whole, then, The Seven Mysteries of Life is accurate and clear. The variety of scientific insights it provides is most impressive; and almost all of these insights are so artfully presented that the layman ignorant of the complex investigations that led to them suffers not the least feeling of discomfiture or puzzlement. Thus the book has the important virtue of being able to be read at many levels. The exposition abounds with instructive and penetrating analogies, only a few of them overdrawn or inappropriate. This is one reason so much of the book is fascinating, sometimes even gripping.
Murchie ends with a poetical summary of what has gone before. His poems on abstraction, interrelation, and omnipresence will delight and satisfy the poet, the scientist, and the layman alike.
Authors & Artists
GLEN A. EYFORD, who holds an M.A. in
English literature and a Ph.D. in educational
theory from the University of Toronto, is
director of the Division of Community Development
and Interdisciplinary Studies at
the University of Alberta. His interests include
theories of social change, community
and national development, adult education,
and the use of media in informal education.
Dr. Eyford makes a first appearance in
WORLD ORDER.
GAYLE MORRISON has done graduate work
in Southeast Asia studies and holds an M.A.
in social education from the University of
Massachusetts. Her “Education for Worldmindedness”
appeared in our Summer 1971
issue, “Art in Apocalypse” in Summer 1970,
and “A Look at Antifeminist Literature” in
Spring 1975. The first extract from her
forthcoming biography of Louis Gregory appeared
in our Summer 1979 issue.
CARLOS MARTIN PEREIRA is a theoretical
physicist, who received his B.A. and Ph.D.
from Case Western Reserve University. He
has published in scientific journals seven
articles on physics, astrophysics, and mathematics
and has also served as referee for several
journals. Dr. Pereira has lectured at a
number of physics seminars, including seminars
at Syracuse University, the University
of Maryland, and Princeton University.
ROGER WHITE is a writer, artist, and craftsman
of many talents. He has been a court
reporter, a justice of the peace, journalist,
interior designer, and assistant editor of
Hansard, the Canadian parliamentary record.
His “Mark Tobey: A Letter and Two Snapshots”
appeared in our Summer 1978 issue.
ART CREDITS: Cover, design by John
Solarz, photograph by David L. Trautmann;
p. 1, photograph by Lori Block; p. 3, photograph
by Delton Baerwolf; p. 7, photograph
by Delton Baerwolf; p. 9, photograph, courtesy
Bahá’í National Archives; p. 10, photograph,
courtesy Bahá’í National Archives; p.
31, photograph by Camille O’Reilly; p. 50,
photograph by Lesley Smith.