Spirit and Spiritual

We are talking about the seeds of destruction, present from the very origins of modern western civilization, which have grown to take over the lives of most people on earth.  What do I mean by seeds of destruction?

‘Abdu’l-Bahá  explains: “until material achievements, physical accomplishments and human virtues are reinforced by spiritual perfections, luminous qualities and characteristics of mercy, no fruit or result shall issue therefrom, nor will the happiness of the world of humanity, which is the ultimate aim, be  attained. For although, on the one hand, material achievements and the development of the physical world produce prosperity, which exquisitely manifests its intended aims, on the other hand dangers, severe calamities and violent afflictions are imminent.

Consequently, when thou lookest at the orderly pattern of kingdoms, cities and villages, with the attractiveness of their adornments, the freshness of their natural resources, the refinement of their appliances, the ease of their means of travel, the extent of knowledge available about the world of nature, the great inventions, the colossal enterprises, the noble discoveries and scientific researches, thou wouldst conclude that civilization conduceth to the happiness and the progress of the human world. Yet shouldst thou turn thine eye to the discovery of destructive and infernal machines, to the development of forces of demolition and the invention of fiery implements, which uproot the tree of life, it would become evident and manifest unto thee that civilization is conjoined with barbarism. Progress and barbarism go hand in hand, unless material civilization be confirmed by Divine Guidance, by the revelations of the All-Merciful and by godly virtues, and be reinforced by spiritual conduct, by the ideals of the Kingdom and by the outpourings of the Realm of Might.

Consider now, that the most advanced and civilized countries of the world have been turned into arsenals of explosives, that the continents of the globe have been transformed into huge camps and battlefields, that the peoples of the world have formed themselves into armed nations, and that the governments of the world are vying with each other as to who will first step into the field of carnage and bloodshed, thus subjecting mankind to the utmost degree of affliction.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:283-285)

Those perilous growths of the materialist order, this society of moral evils hidden in the dark till now behind the glitter and sparkle of material promise and progress, have reached their own fruition in the contemporary world, when they are released as universal forces of dissension, commotion and tumult.  This is the mortal defect of building a civilization upon a quicksand of material thoughts, of relativistic values, of scientific knowledge alone, of a loss of transcendent principle and moral example.  All these can be traced back to the deadening of religion in imitations, because civilization and barbarism advance together without the intellectually coordinating, socially unifying and morally progressive power of real religion. 

In short, barbarism—the absence of morals grounded in true religious faith—is and has always been the Achilles heel of human progress.  Lack of moral discipline and fiber always eventually brings progress to a crashing halt, yet the only place to find the morals—not as mere principles of belief but as conviction generating action—is the one place that materialism, secularism, science and modern philosophy say NOT to look, the religion that inspires higher human nature. 

Thus the first renewal must be in religion itself.  The transcendent spirit of religion must be reaffirmed.  The spiritual dimension must be renewed, reinvigorated, regenerated.  Religion was marginalized—or better, marginalized itself—during the materialist era.  It must be brought back to center.  But from the materialist point of view that is a revolt against its authority, an agitation against its view of reality which it is vainly trying to keep intact.  But real religion does not come from human beings, but from God, and it is God that brings religion to center again.  Only God can renew the spirit of religion and recharge the spiritual dimension, but only human beings can recenter their lives around that spirit and dimension.  Shoghi Effendi wrote:  “Nothing but the abundance of our actions, nothing but the purity of our lives and the integrity of our characters, can in the last resort establish our claim that the Bahá’i spirit is in this day the sole agency that can translate a long-cherished ideal into an enduring achievement.” (24 November 1924 to the NSA of the United States and Canada, Bahá’í Administration: 68  also compilation on Trustworthiness p. 20 #66)

Now what is meant by the phrase spiritual dimension?  “Although there are mystical aspects that are not easily explained, the spiritual dimension of human nature can be understood, in practical terms, as the source of qualities that transcend narrow self-interest. Such qualities include love, compassion, forbearance, trustworthiness, courage, humility, co-operation and willingness to sacrifice for the common good—qualities of an enlightened citizenry, able to construct a unified world civilization.” (Baha'i International Community, 1993 Apr 01, Sustainable Development and the Human Spirit)

But, while the source of moral qualities is the "spiritual dimension of human nature", human beings don’t reach up and bring them down by their own thought and volition, like laden fruit from a tree.  Nor, to use another metaphor, do they bring them out from themselves by their own unaided effort.  Rather, they are brought into the world and given form by the Spiritual Luminaries of history.   ‘Abdu’l-Bahá again: “The moral world is only attained through the effulgence of the Sun of Reality and the quickening life of the divine spirit. For this reason the holy Manifestations of God appear in the human world.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 329)  And: ‘These virtues do not appear from the reality of man except through the power of God and the divine teachings, for they need supernatural power for their manifestation.  It may be that in the world of nature a trace of these perfections may appear, but they are unstable and ephemeral, they are like the rays of the sun upon the wall.” (Some Answered Questions:80) 

Nonetheless, there is a kind of reaching or bringing forth that can be done.  That is through the power of faith, and true faith and the hope of eternal reward play an essential, but mostly unrecognized, role in abolishing materialism.  How?  The Master wrote: “Sincerity is the foundation-stone of faith. That is, a religious individual must disregard his personal desires and seek in whatever way he can wholeheartedly to serve the public interest; and it is impossible for a human being to turn aside from his own selfish advantages and sacrifice his own good for the good of the community except through true religious faith. For self-love is kneaded into the very clay of man, and it is not possible that, without any hope of a substantial reward, he should neglect his own present material good. That individual, however, who puts his faith in God and believes in the words of God—because he is promised and certain of a plentiful reward in the next life, and because worldly benefits as compared to the abiding joy and glory of future planes of existence are nothing to him—will for the sake of God abandon his own peace and profit and will freely consecrate his heart and soul to the common good." (The Secret of Divine Civilization: 96-97)

The moral result of being deprived of the religious spirit, the Word of God, is that discord and malice, perversity and rancor become characteristic of human life.  Having to endure this awful situation leads many, as modern society determinedly shows, to powerful psychological counter-thrusts, where “more and more people from all strata of society frantically seek their true identity, which is to say, although they would not so plainly admit it, the spiritual meaning of their lives.” (From a letter of the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá'í youth of the world, January 1984)  But this spiritual impulse often gets betrayed into a narrowly religious one.  We will examine this next.

Seeds of Destruction

The civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men. Thus warneth you He Who is the All-Knowing. If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation. Meditate on this, O people, and be not of them that wander distraught in the wilderness of error. The day is approaching when its flame will devour the cities…

(Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 342-343)

With the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh humanity is given both the greatest spiritual energy and the fullest organic, social pattern: the actual Kingdom of God on earth; the fulfillment of the Christ promised “on earth as it is in heaven”; the real and eternal form of community.   The pattern laid up in heaven has now appeared on earth, the new Jerusalem has descended from out the invisible world to be made manifest in this earthly one.  The heavenly pattern, as I am referring to it here, acts as a template—i.e. coded information for building thought and action—through which is built its earthly social counterpart.  Shoghi Effendi remarks, for example, on “those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society.” (Citadel of Faith, p. 124) 

Energy and pattern in religious symbology are, I believe, fire and light, consummation as burning to ashes and consummation as full development, the fire of heat and the light of guidance, love and knowledge.  The fiery energy of Revelation sets the human world aflame with a desire for change of all kinds.  It inspires idealism in receptive hearts, and this ignites, in turn a burning, reactionary movement from entrenched and threatened powers.  The energy of Revelation also arouses a general spirit of experiment with new models of life and thought, and while these may not know the Source of their uplift, they are tuning in to the idealistic spirit of the age.  Such experiments are all those progressive movements that act to overthrow tyranny, to redress injustice, and, also, to build new social structures, find new discoveries, and the whole company of things going on of a positive nature in the world.  But they are not coordinated into a unified scheme, because they lack knowledge of the divine Source and Message and do not know the pattern to be guided into.  They do not act from the divine template, but toward it.  Revelation as pattern gives the spiritual light of guidance to progress toward a new social form. 

The modern Revelation is not one but two, or better, a single Revelation in two parts: the Bab’s and Bahá’u’lláh’s.  I believe that these are, taken respectively in their primary effects, the fire and light, energy and pattern, disintegrating and integrating, I just spoke of.  The Bab’s revelation is a consuming one that, metaphorically, burns the world to ashes.  Shoghi Effendi remarks on the Bab’s Message: “The creative energies released at the hour of the birth of His Revelation, endowing mankind with the potentialities of the attainment of maturity are deranging, during the present transitional age, the equilibrium of the entire planet as the inevitable prelude to the consummation in world unity of the coming of age of the human race. The portentous but unheeded warnings addressed to kings, princes, ecclesiastics are responsible for the successive overthrow of fourteen monarchies of East and West, the collapse of the institution of the Caliphate, the virtual extinction of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, the progressive decline in the fortunes of the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Hindu Faiths.” (Citadel of Faith, p. 80) 

On the other hand, of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation, which is not a consuming of the world but a consummation of the processes of civilization-building and spiritual evolution in history, he writes: “The Order eulogized and announced in His (The Bab’s) writings, whose laws Bahá'u'lláh subsequently revealed in the Most Holy Book, whose features 'Abdu'l-Bahá delineated in His Testament, is now passing through its embryonic stage through the emergence of the initial institutions of the world Administrative Order in the five continents of the globe….The embryonic Faith, maturing three years after His martyrdom, traversing the period of infancy in the course of the Heroic Age of the Faith is now steadily progressing towards maturity in the present Formative Age, destined to attain full stature in the Golden Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation.” (Citadel of Faith, p. 81-82)

Bahá’u’lláh said that the order He perceived in the world of His time was “lamentably defective.”  But it was not totally so.  He also remarked on “the signs of His dominion” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 13) appearing in the west.  The spread of democracy, the abolition of slavery, the formation of republican governments, the political franchise for traditionally excluded groups, various movements for the rights of people, may all be part of those signs, among others in, for example, science and technology. 

Thus, some good was in that order.  But it was not good enough for the requirements of the new day.  Rather, being lamentably defective, what was good within it could not be saved and also have that order remain. Neither could the good be separated out and saved. The old order was systemically infected and moving ineluctably toward death, though some of the organs of the body politic were still working well.  Humanity had to transform to save what was good. 

            The mortal defect of the materialist order always was, in my opinion, the lack of a transcendent, spiritual dimension to its life and thought, the only foundation upon which a strong morality can be built.   This defect was from its beginning, but it was hidden behind the heady early successes of physical science and material development.  Our opening quote from Baha’u’llah states that if civilization oversteps the bounds of moderation it will bring great evil upon people.  True religion alone provides the regulating moral principle of moderation for human behavior.  Without religion, civilization, no matter how vaunted its arts and sciences, will inevitably slide into immoderation and burn itself up in its excesses.

The lack of real religion characterizes western civilization, the world’s first materialist civilization, one born originally in Europe, carried to excess in North America, and now the dominant ideology of the world.  This materialist civilization carried within it the seeds of its own destruction.  These have reached fruition and the season of spiritual harvest has arrived; the wheat and tares having matured together.  What are those seeds?   We’ll discuss this topic in the next post.

A Spiritual Origin

I said that the revolt against materialism was happening simultaneously at three levels, though there is a priority to them, and a sequence of emphasis.  The first and generative level is from within religion. But it should be clear by now that I mean by religion the appearance of a new Manifestation of God and the uttering of His Message.  It is the Word of God as both new spiritual energy and unfolding social pattern entering into the human world from the divine world.  For me the essence of religion is as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá  stated it: “Religion, moreover, is not a series of beliefs, a set of customs; religion is the teachings of the Lord God, teachings which constitute the very life of humankind, which urge high thoughts upon the mind, refine the character, and lay the groundwork for man's everlasting honour.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha: 52) 

The flow of divine, spiritual energy into the human world is an irruption, a breaking into our world from a Source outside it, yet first manifest and working out from its in-most heart.  This irruption is the first cause of all ensuing changes.  The eruption of effects, called spiritual, intellectual, and social transformation, is played out through the interaction of two processes, one fundamentally destructive and the other primarily constructive.

The primary unification made at the level of religion is twofold, the unification of the religions themselves and the integration of human nature as fundamentally a spiritual creation, one without the other is incomplete or impossible, for disunity in religion and human nature, which are two sides of the same coin, is the origin of all other ills and evils.

To trace the flow of spiritually transformative energy is to see it, first, as instantaneously dispersing throughout the world via hidden spiritual conduits.  Though this statement can not be empirically proven, I offer this support.  Bahá’u’lláh states: “Whoso ariseth, in this Day, to aid Our Cause, and summoneth to his assistance the hosts of a praiseworthy character and upright conduct, the influence flowing from such an action will, most certainly, be diffused throughout the whole world.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh:287)  The idea that the influence of individual human acts can be diffused throughout the whole world should be an acceptable notion to anyone who accepts the instantaneous communication between quantum-entangled photons even at opposite ends of the physical universe, and if we can accept these ideas it is no great leap to Revelation Itself diffusing throughout the world

The second way to trace the impact of Revelation upon the world is organically, to know that this same energy is building the organic Bahá’í Administrative Order, which channels It, because this Order conforms to and unfolds from a pre-existing pattern which grows in power and influence in the world. 

To see these effects clearly on the macro-level, we should distinguish between three things occurring together in the process of human spiritual evolution: the recurring spirit (i.e. energy and pattern) of divine Revelation; the organic form that spirit is taking; the form that spirit is breaking. 

The form being taken is the new social form Spirit gradually creates to manifest itself.  Bahá’ís identify this form with their Administrative Order—though Shoghi Effendi also speaks of that Spirit working through “certain humanitarian organizations”. (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh:19)  The second form, the form being broken, is the old vessel that a greater “volume” of spirit breaks apart when It is poured into it. Today, this vessel is the materialist order.  Shoghi Effendi called these breaking and building movements the parallel processes of integration and disintegration.  Spirit is unchanging, eternal and progressive, but its form changes and its manifestation progresses into greater complexity.

For me, Revelation is not just energy but also pattern for human development at every level and context, and the idea that Revelation is progressive includes the notion of greater spiritual energy pouring through a slowly evolving organic pattern or social structure, called civilization in its largest form, of increasing geographical range and social complexity.  Thus in relation to energy there is more of it with every Revelation, but in relation to pattern, it is more like a repatterning or reconfiguration, a building of greater organic complexity on a solid skeleton of eternal principles, like the organic human body progressing from embryo to mature stature. 

The unfolding social pattern laid out by “the changeless faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the present” (Gleanings: 136) is done through two sets of laws that every Manifestation brings.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains: “(T)he Law of God is divided into two parts. One is the fundamental basis which comprises all spiritual things—that is to say, it refers to the spiritual virtues and divine qualities; this does not change nor alter: it is the Holy of Holies, which is the essence of the Law of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá'u'lláh, and which lasts and is established in all the prophetic cycles. It will never be abrogated, for it is spiritual and not material truth; it is faith, knowledge, certitude, justice, piety, righteousness, trustworthiness, love of God, benevolence, purity, detachment, humility, meekness, patience and constancy. It shows mercy to the poor, defends the oppressed, gives to the wretched and uplifts the fallen.

These divine qualities, these eternal commandments, will never be abolished; nay, they will last and remain established for ever and ever. These virtues of humanity will be renewed in each of the different cycles; for at the end of every cycle the spiritual Law of God—that is to say, the human virtues—disappears, and only the form subsists.

These foundations of the Religion of God, which are spiritual and which are the virtues of humanity, cannot be abrogated; they are irremovable and eternal, and are renewed in the cycle of every Prophet.

The second part of the Religion of God, which refers to the material world, and which comprises fasting, prayer, forms of worship, marriage and divorce, the abolition of slavery, legal processes, transactions, indemnities for murder, violence, theft and injuries—this part of the Law of God, which refers to material things, is modified and altered in each prophetic cycle in accordance with the necessities of the times.” (Some Answered Questions:47)

This last paragraph is most important for understanding how human spiritual and social evolution gets halted or skewed because imitations burrow into the heart of religion.  I mean that those who hold the material laws of their religion, which are “modified and altered in each prophetic cycle” by the Manifestations, to be final and unchangeable block the renewing of the spiritual law in their own lives and this, in turn, breeds separateness, fanaticism, prejudice, insularity, and misunderstanding.  Remember the two forms of change in regard to the laws of God: the spiritual law is renewed, but the material law, because social circumstances change, is abrogated, modified and altered, and a new set of laws is put in its place.  The human spiritual essence is unchanging, but its innate potentials progressively unfold into manifest actuality.  The spiritual law is progressive in the same way.  It is always the same, but it is also renewed because it disappears under that heap of religious rubble called imitation, not because it no longer fits circumstances. 

The other part of the breeding of imitations is a failure to grasp the reality of religious knowledge.  All revealed religious teachings and “events” are figurative metaphors, similes, and symbols of the divine mystery.  ’Abdu’l-Bahá points out that to understand the Manifestations of God we should know that: “All Their states, Their conditions, Their acts, the things They have established, Their teachings, Their expressions, Their parables and Their instructions have a spiritual and divine signification, and have no connection with material things.” (Some Answered Questions: 103)  That is, look for the spiritual meaning not the material event.  Actual stars falling from heaven to earth is literal nonsense, but as a description of the fall of religious leaders from their high social position it makes perfect sense.

So, taking the denotation of the metaphor for its connotation is to turn metaphor into a fact (e.g. Christ literally and physically rose from the dead). This collapses the multi-level symbolic meaning contained in the metaphor into a literal meaning.  It is these literal meanings that science and reason demolish as the intellectual nonsense that they often are.  But to a “true believer” the more absurd a belief the truer it must be. 

    

Reversing the Looking Glass of Consciousness

It is customary to call the civilization of modern Europe par excellence Christian and to think of it as the special trustee of Christian truth among the less enlightened peoples of the east.  Yet in the twentieth century when the time of spiritual harvesting had come we find ‘Abdu’l-Baha saying that the West as well as the East had imagined themselves as having attained a glorious pinnacle of achievement and prosperity, when in reality they have touched the innermost depths of heedlessness and deprived themselves wholly of God’s bounteous gifts.  Nor can they have imagined the awfulness of the crisis which western civilization would be called upon to face, nor the challenge and the strain to which it would be subjected.

(George Townshend, Christ and Baha’u’llah: 50)

Imagining the bottom to be the top, the nadir the acme, that heedlessness is knowledge, is to invert the proper order, to switch the poles and reverse cause and effect.  That leads to traumatic errors in thinking.  Materialist philosophies distort true human nature, and dismiss most of spirituality as a product of diseased and soft minds.  For me, religion as the revealed Word of God is foundational of all else. True religion enlarges our vision.  It stretches the idea of knowledge to include the relations of the soul with the transcendent powers that govern and drive the universe. 

I agree with Walt Whitman’s line about his own poetry: “One deep purpose underlay the others—and that has been the religious purpose.” 

In a materialist order of knowledge, all causes must be empirical, must be one or more of the processes and interactions taking place within the visible, measureable, explainable, world.  Such knowing misses spiritual causality, which is a different kind of process, another kind of event, a qualitative not quantifiable sort of interaction.  Dogmatic materialists miss spiritual causes because they have negatively prejudged their possibility.  More moderate materialists simply don’t know how or where to look for them, for the influence of spirit can be traced through social channels that are called, for example, cultural diffusion.  Mostly, spiritual causality goes undetected because every invisible spiritual cause must also be manifest as an organic, visible cause and it is these organic beginnings that the materialist mind latches on to.  This should be no surprise.  Recall that materialism is, intellectually, the condition of separation from and disbelief in God.  Naturally, one in this condition is not going to look to God as a cause for anything except as some illusion cooked up by religious leaders trying either to keep their congregations under their thumb or massage their failures till they feel better.  For materialists a “supreme being” as simply a projection of what we like best about ourselves.

The Master’s statement, quoted in the last post, that the “reformation and renewal of the fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking spirit of modernism” is spiritual causality. It may be best understood, perhaps, as a transcendent impregnating event, the sowing of new energies in the world by the Word of God, endowing the soul with new potentialities, powering the human urge for progress, firing the imagination with new visions, the mind with new discoveries, the heart with new loves, and laying down the plan of God for social development at every level of human life.  It is all those things that we place under umbrella phrases like “the spirit of the age.”  Today, this energy is given a name and mental form in the consummate principles of the oneness of humankind and the oneness of religion.

This oneness is not essential oneness, which is spiritual causality and is from the beginning of all things, the generator of all processes and events.  Rather, the oneness referred to here is fully developed oneness, the perfect and complete manifest form; the realization in a diverse organic structure of spiritual potential, like the mature human body is of the embryo--the embryo, in turn, being the first form of a prior spiritual impulse.  Bahá’u’lláh, for example, stated: “The highest essence and most perfect expression of whatsoever the peoples of old have either said or written hath, through this most potent Revelation, been sent down from the heaven of the Will of the All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding God. Of old it hath been revealed: "Love of one's country is an element of the Faith of God." The Tongue of Grandeur hath, however, in the day of His manifestation proclaimed: "It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world." Through the power released by these exalted words He hath lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men's hearts, and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God's holy Book.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh:95)

 This released spiritual power is blowing apart the materialist world at an ever-accelerating rate, because the old, inelastic mental wineskin of materialism is too small to hold this new, fermenting expanding wine of Revelation, this great outpouring of Spirit.  Yet, few look at the inadequacy of the container, but, instead, try to patch it again and again.

Spiritual modernity, which is the reform and renewal of the reality of religion, is the template for intellectual and social modernity, and human beings must be educated to think and act in new ways: for humanity can not save itself.  It requires higher help.  These spiritual Educators, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá  calls Them “impart spiritual education, so that intelligence and comprehension may penetrate the metaphysical world, and may receive benefit from the sanctifying breeze of the Holy Spirit, and may enter into relationship with the Supreme Concourse. He must so educate the human reality that it may become the center of the divine appearance, to such a degree that the attributes and the names of God shall be resplendent in the mirror of the reality of man, and the holy verse "We will make man in Our image and likeness" shall be realized.

"It is clear that human power is not able to fill such a great office, and that reason alone could not undertake the responsibility of so great a mission. How can one solitary person without help and without support lay the foundations of such a noble construction? He must depend on the help of the spiritual and divine power to be able to undertake this mission. One Holy Soul gives life to the world of humanity, changes the aspect of the terrestrial globe, causes intelligence to progress, vivifies souls, lays the basis of a new life, establishes new foundations, organizes the world, brings nations and religions under the shadow of one standard, delivers man from the world of imperfections and vices, and inspires him with the desire and need of natural and acquired perfections. Certainly nothing short of a divine power could accomplish so great a work. We ought to consider this with justice, for this is the office of justice.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions:8-10)

Next post will present a theory of the three levels—spirit, mind, society— where the revolt against materialism is taking place.

Revelation as Revolution: A Sociology of the Spirit

Since materialism achieved unchallenged influence over the lives and thoughts of the leaders of humanity early in the twentieth-century, any attack against it must, by definition, be in the nature of a revolt from within—both a product of and, in one sense, a contribution to what Shoghi Effendi called “the forces of internal disintegration”.  Though pitched battles are fought in the outer world of the kind described by St. Paul as “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” (Ephesians 6:12) outer battles among the members of society are often reflections of an inner civil war—a war flaring in the space left by that “agonizing disjunction.”  The essence of the revolt against materialism is not political action, social upheaval, new economic policy or religious revival, but spiritual yearning for reunion and connection with God, with oneself, with others, and with Nature.  The reason for the expanding spiritual insurrection against materialism is that the human soul can no longer endure a fractious materialism. 

As I see it, the revolt from within the “lamentably defective” order of materialism has three distinct levels to it: from within the heart of religion; from within the human mind and soul; from within society.  Each level has its particular purpose.  For the most inward and deepest level of religion the purpose is the renewing of the spirit of religion.  At the level of consciousness, the purpose is the restoring of a spiritual consciousness.  At the social level, the purpose is the reform of society on a spiritual foundation.

If materialism is a disintegrating order, then, as revolts, these are integrations and unifying movements: unifying from the inside out, so to speak, starting at the deepest level, religion, which influences consciousness whose changes, in turn, agitate society into change.  Though I will discuss these in order, these revolts are occurring simultaneously.  Nonetheless, we should understand: 1) that there is a priority to them—religion is first; 2) that there is a cumulative effect to their drive—one builds upon and reinforces the other; so that 3) there is an acceleration of their disintegrating effects as they move through history till the present day, and through space as they penetrate more areas of society—for though they are unifying, they also create disunity.  I mean that the spiritual structure of world unity, brought into the world by the great spiritual Teachers, is now being organically established and this work actually generates, as one of its effects, dissension, commotion and tumult as the world tries vainly to assimilate this new energy and pattern to old ways of thought and action.

To lay out this discussion it will be necessary to remove many of our received opinions from the social sciences about the primary engines of social change characterizing modern history.  The first of these I will examine is the idea of modernity.  Putting Revelation as the first and essential Source of change goes to the heart of any discussion about modernity and what its proponents say about religion and its role.

There is a good deal of energetic discussion in academic circles about modernity and the post-modern world, as brought about by the impact of technology and the Industrial Revolution, science and the knowledge revolution, a new aesthetic generating cultural revolutions, or political movements and revolutions, such as the rise of democracy and the liberal state, or of communism, fascism, and terrorism.  That is because many assume, quite rightly, that in the last three hundred years the most notable thing about human beings and the way they live is their ability to produce undreamed of material wealth.  Before the modern industrial revolution got up any real steam, technology had barely been able to keep most people just above a subsistence level of life.  But the introduction of machines and a mechanized production process revolutionized human society.  Whether that was for good or ill is the crux of the modernist debate, and post-modern discussion takes its lead, one way or another, from that same truth.  But there is one constant, one universal, in the whole debate, namely, none attribute the beginnings of modernity to religion, except negatively. 

As I have pointed out, by the early modern era, i.e. the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, materialism was a leading belief among the learned classes because religion had already become effete and dogmatic, reacting against powerful forces for change and progress at that time much as the proponents of the false religion of materialism act today toward those who would oppose it.  Religion began to fall when it had lost its transcendent purpose and its defeat became certain when it became enmeshed in the world and encrusted with imitations and hoary beliefs.  It had ceased to progress, becoming, rather, a shackle on the mind.   

Hence, in relation to “modernity”, religion, as a set of doctrines and structure of authority, has been portrayed, correctly I believe, as, at best, a purely personal, subjective belief and preference, and, at worst, out of touch and out of date, irrelevant, irrational, fighting a rear-guard action, in retreat, or unable to come to grips with “reality”.  Its clamor is the Neitzschean: “God is dead.”  The negative result, though, is that whole miserable parade of nihilism, despair, hate, prejudice, tyranny, exploitation, evil and corruption that marches daily through our news media.  If these are modernity, let us get out of it as quickly as possible.  But this view of religion is actually a straw man, not the reality.  

The Bahá’í Writings have a very different take on the spirit and form of modernity and thus make a fundamentally different contribution to any discussion about its cause, nature and progression.  The Bahá’í Writings do not just place the reality of religion within the discussion, but place it first and central.  Putting religion there, redefines modernity entirely.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha stated: “This reformation and renewal of the fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking spirit of modernism, the unmistakable light of the world, the manifest effulgence of the Word of God, the divine remedy for all human ailment and the bounty of eternal life to all mankind.”  (The Promulgation of Universal Peace, 440

If the absence of true religion is the cause of our sickness, then the renewal and reformation of it is the cure. We don’t see this, but not because religion is absent from modernity, but because religion is invisible to it.  Or, from the other side, modernity should not be defined as the absence of religion, but humanity’s blindness to it.  The rational, scientific, material understanding as we know this complex mental structure and its assumptions about reality systematically shut out the religious view.  The anxiety, tyranny, confusion, immorality, despair, and anarchy appearing more frequently in the world are characteristic of the final stages of the life of any old, disintegrating organism.  For me, what is called the beginning of modernity is actually the end of antiquity, that world built up from the Renaissance recovery of Greek and Roman thought.   “God is dead” is not a declaration of the demise of the Deity, but, rather, a statement about the lifelessness of belief in God.  God is dead, long live God.  For me, materialism’s death-knell was sounded in the mid-nineteenth century, even though its greatest heyday was yet to come.  If so, how did we miss it!  The answer, I believe, is the reverse of all that we have learned.  This takes us to the core assumptions of materialist epistemology—what is true knowledge—and I will propose an alternative view, a sociology of the spirit.