Bahá’í was probably the last “world religion” to be founded, and has about 6 million followers. It began in 1844 in Persia (modern-day Iran), where most people were Muslims of the Shiite school, but there were also Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews. A 25-year old man named Mírzá Alí Muhammad declared that God had elected him to the position of Báb (“Gate” in Persian), which made him greater even than Muhammad. He said that he was the forerunner of the divine reality that was soon to appear, and that a Promised One would appear to bring it about. The Islamic Persian government naturally deemed this a heresy, and began to persecute the Báb and his followers. The persecution intensified after the Báb declared that he was also the Mahdi, the Messiah-figure whose coming was foretold by Islam. The Báb wrote prolifically, and his following grew rapidly. At the age of 31, the Báb was martyred by being executed by gunfire from a group of soldiers.
However, martyrdom often fuels a religion, rather than impedes it. (“The blood of martyrs is seed for the Church,” the Church Father Tertullian said.) When the Báb made his original declaration, a 27-year old man named Mírzá Husayn Alí declared himself a follower, and was frequently imprisoned for his beliefs. After the Báb’s death, Alí assumed the title of Bahá’u’lláh (which means “Glory of God” in Arabic), and declared himself to be the successor prophet that the Bab had predicted. Thus, Bahá’u’lláh’s followers became known as Bahá’í (“of glory” in Persian). Persecution continued and Bahá’u’lláh was frequently imprisoned for long periods of time. Finally, he was released from prison, and was able to spend his last years overseeing his hundreds of thousands of followers in peace. He died at age 75, after writing a will that left control of the religion in the hands of his eldest son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (“The Slave of Baha”), born Abbás Effendi. Bahá’u’lláh left behind a large number of writings, including prophecies that his followers feel prove his divine inspiration. Both ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi (‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s grandson) left a number of writings, but as they were not considered “Manifestations” of God at the same level as the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, these have less authority.
The primary goal of Bahá’í is to unify all mankind under one religion. Believing in “progressive revelation” from God, they are not troubled with apparent surface contradictions between religions, since what was appropriate for Moses in his time was not necessarily appropriate for Zoroaster; the teachings of Jesus were correct for their time, but they were later supplanted by Muhammad, who has now himself been supplanted by Bahá’u’lláh—Bahá’í is the latest (and presumably final) version of the one true religion. They forbid monasticism, and have no professional priesthood (although full-time teachers are allowed to accept contributions for their own support), and all Bahá’ís are expected to share the work of teaching and participation in religious services. Followers must recite one of three approved prayers daily, and to attend religious services every 19 days (based on the 19-day, 19-month Bahá’i calendar) and on special holidays. They emphatically support religious tolerance, and encourage believers of other faiths to attend services of other religions, and not merely their own.
They teach that the universe did not have a “beginning” in time, and believe in the complete harmony of “true science and true religion”; they accept the theory of evolution wholeheartedly, and reject the notion of a literal Adam and Eve. They feel that God’s nature is beyond human comprehension, and thus they discourage theological speculations about the nature of God. They are generally apolitical, although they support the notion of an international organization (such as the United Nations) to maintain international peace. They call for social reform as well as charitable giving to lessen the gap between the rich and the poor. Among their followers, begging is prohibited, and all are to be engaged in productive work. They support interracial marriage, and advocate complete equality of the sexes. They forbid alcohol, and strongly state that one should refrain from finding fault with others. All in all, a very tolerant and reasonable religion (in part due to its recent origin, no doubt).
With regard to an afterlife, they reject the notion of a physical resurrection of the body, using the term “resurrection” to refer to the spiritual awakening of those in ignorance. The “Day of Judgment” is one’s acceptance or rejection of the Bahá’i revelation. Hell is not a place of fiery torment, but is simply the loss of the knowledge of God, and deprivation of the joys of the Kingdom of God. However, they teach strongly that we do live after death, and in the afterlife our progress toward perfection has no bounds, until it attains the presence of God. (Clearly, then, Bahá’i is of considerable interest to me in my Quest.)
* * *
So basically, that’s what I’ve learned as far as “major world religions” are concerned. (And of course, there are a variety of indigenous religions in countries such as Africa that I am not considering, since they aren’t really formally organized into “religions” with beliefs that can be studied by an “outsider” like myself.) But there seems to be no end to the list of religions in the world, as there are an amazing number of smaller (often more localized) religions. Let me return to Asia, beginning with Japan:
Tenrikyo was founded by a woman known as Oyasama in the 19th century based on a supposed revelation that declared her to be the ‘Shrine of God.’ They do have a belief in reincarnation. They also teach the unity of us all under God our ‘parent,’ and that we should strive to return to our true and original state.
The Seicho-No-Le or “Truth of Life” Movement was founded in Japan by Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi in 1930 as a non-denominational religious movement. It has much in common with western “New Thought” traditions, and teaches that we can reach spiritual fulfillment by realizing the God-consciousness within us all. This is accomplished through a practice called Shinsokan (“the art of prayerful meditation”). Miraculous healings are reported to take place.
Another new Japanese religion is PL Kyodan (“Perfect Liberty Religion, “ also called the “Church of Perfect Liberty”) which was founded in Japan in 1946 by Miki Tokuchika. Its motto and First Precept is “Life is Art,” meaning that you can achieve complete mental freedom—Perfect Liberty—through prayer (particularly reciting the term “Oyashikiri” or “breath of God”) and other human effort. It has its 21 Precepts rather than a holy scripture, but practitioners feel these Precepts were revealed by divine inspiration. It teaches that “Man is a manifestation of God” (3rd Precept), and—although it teaches that since our souls come from God, we return to God when we die—its members are focused on the “here and now,” rather than thoughts of an afterlife.
There are also a number of other Japanese “New Religions,” such as Zenrinkai, Ennokyo, Oomotokyo (“Teaching of the Great Source”), Sekai Kyuseikyo (“Church of World Messianity”), Ho No Hana Sanpagyo (“Flowers of Buddhist Teaching”), as well as the infamous AUM Shinrikyo (“AUM Supreme Truth,” now called Aleph) responsible for the poison gas attack in Tokyo in 1995; it’s difficult for an American to find much information about these, however.
Korea has long had Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist influences—not to mention Christian—but in the last hundred years or so has also had a number of “new religions” arise, beginning with Ch’ondogyo (“Religion of the Heavenly Way”), a syncretistic religion founded in 1860. Ch’ondogyo synthesizes many diverse influences (particularly Confucianism and Taoism), and teaches that human beings are Heaven and thus “man is God”—which implies that we should treat everyone equally, and with respect and dignity, since they are also God. A short statement that summarizes their religion is, “I serve God within me.” There is no “God” in the sense of a transcendent, personal being in Ch’ondogyo, however; similar to pantheism, Ch’ondogyo thinks of “God” simply as the totality of all things. It has a nationalistic, anti-authoritarian and revolutionary attitude politically, and has been associated with several revolutionary movements in Korea. The immortality of t
he individual soul is denied, though “personhood” lives on in the totality of all things. “Salvation” is achieved by self-perfection through self-effort.
Another new religion is Wonbulgyo or “Won Buddhism” (“Won” is “circle” in Korean), where the circle represents the one source of all beings. Somewhat of a “reform” movement in Buddhism, they refuse to venerate external images such as statues, and want to modernize Buddhist teachings for the modern world. They believe that all religions share the same goal and should be open to each other, and that all humans should live cooperatively as brothers and sisters. They also wish to establish a worldwide religious organization, comparable to the United Nations as a political organization.
During the communist dominance of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (i.e., North Korea), most religions have been suppressed, in favor of the government-sponsored Juche (“self-reliance” in Korean), which is probably more of a Marxist ideology than a “religion,” but it promotes near-worship of late Korean President Kim Il Sung and current President Kim Jong Il, in a manner similar to Japanese State Shinto prior to the ending of World War II.
A new religion centered in Vietnam is Cao Dai (“high abode”). In 1920, Ngo Van Chieu, who was the Governor of an island in the Gulf of Thailand, stated that he received a direct revelation of God, who used “Cao Dai” as a symbolic name, and was to be represented as a single Divine Eye. Its central idea is that all religions are one (and it acknowledges its affinity with other religions such as Bahá’í and Theosophy in this regard), and that we should seek union with Cao Dai through meditation and spiritual practice.
Finally, there are also recent innovations such as L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, which claims to be “fastest-growing religious movement on earth,” as well as “the only religion invented in America in the 20th century” (both claims of which seem questionable to me). Hubbard’s Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is a long-time bestseller, with its goal of reaching the state of being a “Clear,” and thus free of engrams (images stored by our “Reactive Mind” in states of reduced consciousness, and which are the cause of all psychoses), and many of Hubbard’s science fiction books are still in print (one of which, Battlefield Earth, was even made into a major motion picture, starring prominent Scientologist John Travolta). Moreover, it is difficult to avoid people at booths in shopping malls wanting to sell copies of Dianetics, as well as give you a “Free Stress Test,” or tell you about Hubbard’s “Principles of Communication,” “The Dynamics of Life,” or his “Purification Rundown” techniques, and so on. Although I was vaguely aware (mostly through famous actors and musicians who were advocates of Scientology, but also through magazine and newspaper articles about their conflicts with the IRS and similar authorities in other countries such as England, and their bitter criticisms of the psychiatric establishment) of a “Church of Scientology” behind all of this, I hadn’t realized that there is actually a complex set of religious beliefs that underlie it all, wherein we are thetans, or spiritual beings, seeking to rise (by utilizing Scientology’s “spiritual technology”) through various levels of “Operating Thetan” (OT), and ultimately to survival through identification with the Supreme Being/Infinity.
I’m not sure that I’m going to investigate Scientology very much (I’d probably be more impressed if they had more famous philosophers and scientists, and fewer musicians and actors, endorsing them). Nor, for that matter, groups like Eckankar (“The Ancient Science of Soul Travel,” where the goal is for our soul to reach the level where SUGMAD [God] is), or the Urantia Foundation (whose Urantia Book—Urantia being the book’s name for Earth—contains metaphysical stories supposedly revealed by extraterrestrials about universes, the Earth, Jesus’ life, etc.). Sophia certainly had nothing to do with any of these groups, and thus it is unlikely that pursuing them will enable me to be reunited with Sophia after death. (Besides, there’s just not enough time to get into every group!)
Another recent development is the revival of Wicca as well as other Neo-Pagan (i.e., nature worship) rituals, as well as Goddess worship (often associated with certain branches of the Women’s Movement)—with major practitioners such as Starhawk (her book Spiral Dance) and Zsuzsanna Budapest (The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries). It’s difficult to get a firm handle on this movement, because although it claims great antiquity, so much of this tradition was transmitted orally rather than written—at least, until recently—that it’s difficult to trace this movement back very far historically (although Ronald Hutton seemed to do a good job in The Triumph of the Moon, as did Margot Adler in Drawing Down the Moon) beyond a few generations, much less show that Stonehenge, Druids, and Medieval witchcraft are somehow related to a contemporary circle of women chanting in a park under the moon. In fact, quite a bit of the modern trends seem to derive (1) from Margaret Murray, who wrote in the 1920s that the Pagan religions of the ancient world were all derived from the original religion of the Goddess, and more specifically (2) from Gerald Gardner—who wrote his first book in 1954—a friend of earlier occultist and supposed “Satanist” Aleister Crowley (who liked to call himself “The Beast 666”).
Of course, in addition to the “newer” groups, there are also the secretive groups that claim origins of great antiquity, such as the Freemasons (originally a trade guild of stonemasons) and the Rosicrucians (whose name is taken from their symbol, the “Rose Cross,” as well as the name of their perhaps mythical founder Christian Rosenkreutz). The Rosicrucians, for example, claim influences from ancient Egypt, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Quabala (Kabbalah), etc. However, both groups claim that they are simply fraternal orders and not “religions” (they proclaim proudly that “we have members from all faiths and religious traditions”), so I’m inclined to take them at their word. Although frankly, Max Heindel’s Rosicrucian Fellowship certainly seems to have a “religious” focus, and the larger AMORC group uses concepts such as “Cosmic Consciousness” that certainly seem analogous to similar concepts in world religions. (At any rate, trying to progress up the various “degrees” of Freemasonry seems unlikely to aid me in being reunited with Sophia after death.)
Of very great interest to me, however, is the whole field of Psychical Research and Spiritualism, the modern form of which arose in the 19th century. Although like everyone else, I’d heard of ESP, telekinesis, ghosts, spirit mediums, and the like, I’d never realized that in 1882 there was founded in England the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) whose aim was “to examine without prejudice or prepossession and in a scientific spirit those faculties of man, real or supposed, which appear to be inexplicable in terms of generally recognized hypotheses.” A particular concern of theirs appears to have been finding evidence of personal survival after death. (Two of their most famous publications are Phantasms of the Living, edited by F.W.H. Myers, Frank Podmore, and Edmund Gurney; and Myers’ Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.) But the most interesting fact is that they weren’t just a bunch of kooks and cranks—many of them were highly respected scientists, or other professionals (including a Prime Minister of England). The following individuals served as President of the SPR at one time or another:
Arthur J. Balfour (Prime Minister of England, philosopher)
William James (psychologist and philosopher)
Oliver Lodge (Physicist)
William Crookes (physicist and chemist)
William F. Barrett (physicist)
Charles Richet (physiologist and Nobel Laureate)
Camille Flammarion (astronomer)
Alister Hardy (zoologist)
Hans Dreisch (Biologist and philosopher)
William McDougall (psychologist)
Frederic W. H. Meyers (psychologist)
Henri Bergson (philosopher)
Henry Sidgwick (philosopher)
C.D. Broad (philosopher)
F.C.S. Schiller (philosopher)
/> J.B. Rhine (parapsychologist) Gilbert Murray (classicist)
Another very prominent member was Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the “Sherlock Holmes” novels, as well as a close friend of magician and escape artist Harry Houdini. There is also an American version of this Society; William James became its first President.
This area will need a great deal of my attention (I must admit that it would be very convenient if life after death could be proved scientifically; it would save me a great deal of research!), as will experiments in parapsychology by people such as
J.B. Rhine (who began the “scientific” study of parapsychology at Duke University in the 1930s) as well as later researchers such as Gardner Murphy, Robert Thouless, Thelma Moss, and Charles Tart.
All in all, the field the am studying is an incredibly vast one, but an extremely engrossing one. At the very least I am profoundly encouraged that there are so many religious traditions (and such a diverse group of them!) which do teach belief in some form of life after death. It gives me considerable hope that my Quest is not a vain one.
So now, it is a simple matter of finding out which religion gives me the greatest likelihood of reunion with my beloved Sophia. Because she is my only reason for living…
5
A FAMILY AFFAIR
There was a sharp knock at the door. Jobran looked up from the table at which he was sitting reading, and got up, and went over to the door.
Looking through the peephole, he sees that it is his older sister, Sandra. With a slight sigh, he unlocks the door, and lets her in, turning around to head back to the table, before she has even entered.
“Long time no see, little brother,” she said, crossing the threshold, and adding, “So what’s new with you since Christmas?” He made no reply. Looking around curiously at the messy state of the house, she said with pretended courtesy, “Hope you don’t mind me intruding like this.”
Beyond Heaven and Earth Page 17
