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ASMÁ (Arabic, asmá' for names), an acronym for Applied Studies in Mythic Analysis™, is the framework for ASMÁ Learning Communities™2. Here, mythic refers to sacred stories and is not used as a deprecation. Furthermore, ASMÁ is a deconstruction and construction, a Bahá'í deepening process, a study circle3 proposal, a nonacademic application of The Structurization Paradigm™4, and a narrative 
spirituality™5. It is inspired by postliberal or Yale school, postcritical, postliberation, 
and emergent6 theologies (or hierologies). 

ASMÁ  favors a conversation on texts, contexts, and subtexts, while avoiding the supposed propositional pretexts for immutable verities, and it centers on the nominalist concept of the absolute sovereignty of God. According to divine command theory, God's decree is good only because He wills it. Since there is, in the eyes of God, no virtue apart from His omnipotent Will or Teleology, good and evil function, not as fixed eternal essences or ideal forms, but as names for the commands, the Cause of God, resulting from His Will.

As God has a free Will, so each person has, absent whatever 
limitations God may elect to impose and accounting for any 
circumscription by preexisting sociocultural constraints, a free will 
agency, as well. The individual's prerogative is whether to conform 
to a personal nominalism, the supremacy of the human will posited by Max 
Stirner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, and Aleister Crowley, or 
to the divine nominalisms promoted in certain texts of the so-called 
Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the 
Bahá'í Faith. In the latter case, although one 
continues to acknowledge one's own will, without attempting to 
suppress it, one deliberately chooses a path of surrender to the Will 
of God.

Language Games

If it were God's Will, the entire recorded Revelation of 
Bahá'u'lláh, or any portions thereof, could be 
discarded, much as He Himself was reported to have destroyed certain 
of His Writings. It is God and His Will, not His relative 
constructions of reality or revelational language games, which 
should command our loyalty. Revelation, the Logos, is dependent on 
the Will of God; and His Will, or Covenant, takes precedence over His 
Word, or Revelation, and His Cause, or Commission.


It is evident that the changes brought about in every Dispensation 
constitute the dark clouds that intervene between the eye of man's 
understanding and the divine Luminary which shineth forth from the 
dayspring of the divine Essence.  Consider how men for generations 
have been blindly imitating their fathers, and have been trained 
according to such ways and manners as have been laid down by the 
dictates of their Faith.  Were these men, therefore, to discover 
suddenly that a Man, Who hath been living in their midst, Who, with 
respect to every human limitation, hath been their equal, had risen 
to abolish every established principle imposed by their Faith - 
principles by which for centuries they have been disciplined, and 
every opposer and denier of which they have come to regard as 
infidel, profligate and wicked, - they would of a certainty be veiled 
and hindered from acknowledging His truth.

-- Bahá'u'lláh, The 
Kitáb-i-Íqán, pages 73-74

There is no direct correspondence between words and realities. 
Even the divine Word, the Logos, constitutes an epistemically 
contingent transmission of God's Will to His servants. All 
descriptions of worlds or kingdoms, and of the content and ordering 
of spiritual conditions and substances, are discoursive symbol 
pictures. 

Numerous approaches to scriptural hermeneutics have been devised. 
The revealed Word, the transmission of the knowledge of God, might be 
compared with a driver; historicism, the Prophetic ecology of the dialectical  
God-Man and His Revelation situated in their original cultural, 
historical, bodily, and linguistic contexts, to the vehicle; and 
religous ecology (or cultural 
syncretism), the recontextualizations of the revealed Word into 
multiple normative constructions, to the destination.

A distinction can, therefore, be drawn between religion as divine 
construction (Revelation) and religion as social construction. The 
first, Prophetic ecology, is the proclamation of the Word of God, the 
Logos, or the Teachings of an embodied Messenger to a peculiarized 
cultural, historical, and physical audience. The second, designated 
as religious ecology, is a fundamentally human phenomenon.

From the standpoint of religious ecology, revealed religions do not 
operate in a vacuum. Rather, as the extraordinary charisma of the Prophet 
is routinized, or institutionalized, in diverse cultural settings, a 
dynamic interplay occurs between the original Revelation and the social 
structures of the individuals and groups which receive it. One may then 
speak of multiple Judaisms, Buddhisms, Christianities, Islams, 
Bahá'í faiths, etc. 

Ergo, the Bahá'í faith in Iran is not precisely the 
Bahá'í faith in 
the United States. In the latter, the Bahá'í Faith has 
been commingled, among diverse persons and groups, with elements of 
Protestantism, the New Age Movement, New Thought, the Enlightenment 
project, and other systems of thought. While this religious ecology 
is inevitable, as Bahá'ís refashion their 
understandings of their literature and as their social situations 
change, their Bahá'í faiths will also presumably undergo 
modification.


Acknowledging that narratives are inexact and perspectival (as 
with the Jain doctrine of anakanta), allowing for diverse, 
even contradictory, divine and human reality constructions, one 
should simultaneously recognize, even advocate and celebrate, a 
radical multidoxy or polydoxy of variegated Bahá'í faiths, 
consisting of groups of Bahá'ís who accept the 
authority of the the Bahá'í primary sources but differ 
in some of their relative understandings or approaches, and a 
similarly radical orthopraxy of covenantal obedience. 

Indeed, heresy (Greek, hairesis) is presented throughout 
the Christian New Testament, not as the benign presence of 
alternative beliefs, but as the self-willed promotion of malignant 
division. It may even be said that common views of heresy as 
heterodoxy, serving as they do to divide believers on the basis of 
doctrinal distinctives, are themselves isomorphic with New Testament 
usages of hairesis!

Moreover, since language, à la différance, expresses 
only an accidental or intentional relationship with particulars and their 
categories or connections, a linguistic contradiction is indeed a contradiction. Likewise, the 
frameworks and taxonomies narrated in each omnibus Revelation ought to 
be approached as contextual and constructed realities, historically 
relative treatments of relationships between the attributes of 
particulars, and language games, not as concrete metaphysical systems. 
Thus, the inevitable contradictions between, often within, certain 
faith-based scriptures can only be resolved, if ever, in the linguistic 
texts of religiously authorized interpreters.

In The Seven Valleys, we are presented 
with one such language game. With it, we will begin at the end, in 
the condition of faná 
(self-annihilation), translated by Marzieh Gail as The Valley of True Poverty and Absolute 
Nothingness. The evanescence of self-will is the culmination 
of other spiritual attributes, or valleys, mentioned in this Tablet, 
including search, love, knowledge, and contentment.

Marian C. Lippitt7 and Henry 
A. Weil, have described, to their own understandings, additional language 
games found in the Bahá'í texts. Since many of their 
assumptions were grounded in essentialism, Aristotelian realism, or 
Platonic idealism, ASMÁ, 
as a nominalist perspective, has relativized both their models. Indeed, 
one of its principal engagements is, as respecting Lippitt and Weil, with 
a radical destructurization™ 
(deconstruction) of the Platonic and Aristotelian foundationalisms in their 
understandings of Bahá'í wisdom teachings. 

There is, in other words, no attempt at being faithful to any 
previous schemata, including those developed by Weil and Lippitt8. All such systems, rather than 
approached as fixed ontologies (reality frameworks) or kosmologies 
(Ken Wilber's term), are treated here as language games, rubrics, and 
categories. Likewise, created 
reality is considered a name for God's volitionally relative 
constructions, not a perennial hierarchy of existence or an idealized 
ordering of timeless first principles. Divine discourse or meaning (the 
Word) is produced, relative to a particular Dispensation, through the 
exercise of power by a Prophet.


Now, formation is of three kinds and of three kinds only:  
accidental, necessary and voluntary. The coming together of the 
various constituent elements of beings cannot be accidental, for 
unto every effect there must be a cause.  It cannot be compulsory, 
for then the formation must be an inherent property of the 
constituent parts and the inherent property of a thing can in no wise 
be dissociated from it, such as light that is the revealer of things, 
heat that causeth the expansion of elements and the solar rays which 
are the essential property of the sun.  Thus under such circumstances 
the decomposition of any formation is impossible, for the inherent 
properties of a thing cannot be separated from it.  The third 
formation remaineth and that is the voluntary one, that is, an unseen 
force described as the Ancient Power, causeth these elements to come 
together, every formation giving rise to a distinct being. 
--`Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to 
August Forel, pages 16-17

ASMÁ Theism: A Categorical 
Framework

H. Emogene 
Hoagg was an erudite Bahá'í who had studied under 
Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani and other prominent Persian 
Bahá'í scholars both in the Middle East and in the 
United States. During 1900, 1913, 1914, and 1920, Hoagg lived and 
served, sometimes for months at a time, in the household of `
Abdu'l-Bahá. Following `Abdu'l-Bahá's passing in 1921, 
she returned to Haifa to assist the new Guardian of the 
Bahá'í Faith, Shoghi Effendi.

In the later years of her life, Hoagg produced an outline, 
containing but a modicum of personal commentary, in which she 
organized citations of the Bahá'í literature within 
three existential categories:


Know that the conditions of existence are limited to the conditions of 
servitude, of prophethood and of Deity, but the divine and the 
contingent perfections are unlimited.

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered 
Questions, page 230

Hoagg published her outline in 1937 as Three Worlds, revised it the 
following year as Conditions of 
Existence: Servitude, Prophethood, Deity, and, over those same 
two years, conducted classes on it in various venues, including the 
Green Acre Bahá'í School in Eliot, Maine, and the 
Louhelen Bahá'í School in Davison, Michigan. Then, in 
1943, spanning an approximately five-month period, she personally 
instructed Marian C. Lippitt on her conditions of existence outline.


Lippitt subsequently, in the course of her decades long indexing 
project of Bahá'í sources, and her other work, 
developed Hoagg's model into an original ontology, ontotheology, and 
systematic theology, namely, The Science 
of Reality. As will be addressed in this portion of the paper, the 
objective of ASMÁ Theism is, by deconstructing 
Lippitt's theology, to reorient the work initiated by 
Hoagg in a new, more nominalist, direction.

Regrettably, it has been common for certain of Lippitt's 
proponents to argue that the indexing system she developed, which 
she later implemented with her coworkers, was simply the Writings and not the product of 
individual deepening and personal interpretation:  


A clear distinction is made in our Faith between authoritative 
interpretation and the interpretation or understanding that each 
individual arrives at for himself from his study of its teachings.  
While the former is confined to the Guardian, the latter, according 
to the guidance given to us by the Guardian himself, should by no 
means be suppressed.  In fact such individual interpretation is 
considered the fruit of man's rational power and conducive to a 
better understanding of the teachings, provided that no disputes or 
arguments arise among the friends and the individual himself 
understands and makes it clear that his views are merely his own. 
Individual interpretations continually change as one grows in 
comprehension of the teachings.


-- From a letter of the Universal House of Justice to an individual 
Bahá'í, May 27, 1966, and cited: Lights of Guidance, pages 312-313


Fortunately, there is an appreciation, among most academic 
religious scholars and theologians, for the considerable 
hierographological, or textual, problems associated with utilizing 
translated materials as the basis for a scriptural indexing system, 
especially one lacking sufficient regard for issues of social and 
historical contextualization. Unfortunately, however, Lippitt's 
literalist hermeneutic and methodology, a species of linguistic 
realism in which she instructed her volunteers, required that 
Bahá'í and other writings should be indexed, word by 
word, following their verbatim English-language renderings.

Lippitt's model consolidates, in part, a three-tiered Reality Chart, illustrating the 
three physical dimensions of outward appearances, a fourth dimension 
of rationality and time, and a fifth dimension of purposeful power or spirit 
underlying outward appearances; a Neo-Platonic reification of the teachings of the Prophets; and 
a propositional Science of 
Reality. These metanarratives detract from her otherwise 
substantial and pioneering constructions of the worlds of God and her 
general insights into personal development.
Additionally, some of Lippitt's ideas were incorporated by her 
close friend, the late Professor Daniel C. Jordan of the University 
of Massachusetts, and his colleagues into the Anisa educational 
project. Lying squarely within the human potential movement of the 1960s 
and 1970s and formulated, primarily, around Alfred North Whitehead's 
process philosophy and, 
secondarily, around Carl Rogers' and Abraham H. Maslow's humanistic 
psychologies and Charles Sanders Peirce's realist pragmatism9, Anisa integrated Lippitt's 
proposition of purpose or potentiality as a universally manifested 
ontological essence.

In contrast, as framed here, human spirits, as names for the God-given 
capacities associated with particular individuals, may permit one to 
conform to God's multiple Purposes for man, but those Purposes refer to 
God's Will or Intentionality. They do not constitute, as presumed by 
Lippitt and Jordan, an innately coactive essence of all human spirits. 
Moreover, since the purpose of man,   
distinguished from the divine Will and Purpose, is no more than a 
nominal universal of the free wills of persons, these spirits are 
powers only, not powers concatenated with God's Purposes for man. 


Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, 
through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, 
chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know 
Him and to love Him -- a capacity that must needs be regarded as the 
generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of 
creation.
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of 
Bahá'u'lláh, p.65

Although this passage is sometimes cited by those arguing for 
ontological realism or essentialism, no such concept is mentioned. 
Rather, each human soul has a particularized, or individualized, 
capacity to know and to love its Creator; and, in the great workshop 
of spiritual development and immortal preparation which characterizes 
this world, God has fashioned and empowered all things for His primary, His most important, 
purpose of facilitating this dual human capacity.

Therefore, the worlds of God, considered apart from 
the presuppositional matrix Lippitt incorporated into her indexing 
system, might be delineated as existential classifications, as 
constructions, or as names for beings and entities with similar 
attributes, not as eternal essences or ideal forms. 

The nominal relativity of these worlds may be implied in the 
following passage:


"Although the divine worlds be never ending, yet some refer to them 
as four: The world of time (zamán), which is the one that hath 
both a beginning and an end; the world of duration (dahr), which hath 
a beginning, but whose end is not revealed; the world of perpetuity 
(sarmad), whose beginning is not to be seen but which is known to 
have an end; and the world of eternity (azal), neither a beginning 
nor an end of which is visible. Although there are many differing 
statements as to these points, to recount them in detail would result 
in weariness.  Thus, some have said that the world of perpetuity hath 
neither beginning nor end, and have named the world of eternity as 
the invisible, impregnable Empyrean. Others have called these the 
worlds of the Heavenly Court (Lahút), of the Empyrean Heaven 
(Jabarút), of the Kingdom of the Angels (Malakút), and 
of the mortal world (Nasút). 
-- Bahá'u'lláh, The 
Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, page 25

In this connection, Lippitt's Map of the 
Worlds of God has, over several decades, been reformulated by 
this writer as the categorical framework of ASMÁ 
Theism™10. 
Whereas Lippitt and Jordan premised their models on holistic 
principles, ASMÁ 
Theism takes a reductionist approach. It constitutes a 
construction11, not a science, 
of reality. Consequently, an outline, not Lippitt's realist map, 
will better serve to illustrate this framework:

Deity (unknowable Essence/Quiddity of God, divine Oneness, Most Great Spirit, 
'álam-i-haqq/world of the True One, hahút/He-ness/divine Haecceity, 
and the Exnihilator or Creator out of nothing)

Prophethood ('álam-i-amr/world of Command)

Station of Prophetic Unity (Greater World, God manifested, 
láhút/divinity, or the Unity in the Prophets' Unity in 
diversity)

Station of Prophetic Distinction 
(jabarút/omnipotence/sovereignty or the diversity in the Prophets' Unity in 
diversity): includes at least four names or categories, viz.,

Spirit of God (rúh'u'lláh; also Holy 
Spirit/rúh'u'l-qudus or divine Power)

Will of God (insh'alláh; also 
Covenant/ahd, love/muhabbat, and 
al-mashiyyáh al-awwal/Primal Will, i.e., divine purpose or 
intentionality)


Cause of God (amr'u'lláh; also translated as 
Command/Commission, i.e., the authority of a Prophet, based on the 
divine Will, to perform His Mission; 
seal/khátam)


Word of God (kalimát'u'lláh; also Revelation/wahy, i.e.,
knowledge communication; divine teachings; the one religion of God, 
including Christianity, Islám, the Bahá'í Faith, 
etc.)
 
World of Creation ('álam-i-khalq or 
'ubúdíyah/Servitude): includes numerous categories and 
subcategories, viz.,

Next World (after death or 
malakút/heaven/kingdom beyond)

 
Human Kingdom (lesser world/"should be regarded as" greater 
world, this world/before death, reflections of next world, or 
nasút/humanity; animated by human spirits; includes Prophets 
on earth)

Human Spirituality ('álam al-mithal/imaginal 
realm/mundus imaginalis; ideal forms as symbolic terms/names; virtuousness;
human acceptance of divine Revelation/religions/teachings of the 
Prophets, i.e., faith/faiths/religions as the conscious knowledge
of God's Will; including The Seven 
Valleys and The Four Valleys;  
and containing the revealed Word from the Word as Revelator; animated by 
spirits of faith)


Human Affairs (social constructions of reality, including the World 
Order of Bahá'u'lláh and the "old world order"; the 
institutionalizations of the Revelations/religions/teachings of 
God's Prophets; multiple Christianities, Isláms, 
Bahá'í faiths, etc.)


Human Imperfection (absence of virtuousness)


Human Rationality (logic, reason, time, accomplishment, and 
reflections on concrete physicality and on physical metaphors)


Physicality (materiality, energy, magnetism, and gravity; the 
kingdom of names/al-malakút al-asmá’, i.e., 
analogically designating, or naming, particulars, by their 
attributes, and placing them into nominal categories)

Animal Kingdom (defined as sensation; animated by animal spirits)


Vegetable Kingdom (defined as growth; animated by vegetable spirits)


Mineral Kingdom (defined as elemental cohesion; animated by mineral 
spirits; a mineral spirit is defined by the presence of cohesion)
From one standpoint, Neo-Platonic ideal forms, essences, or 
realities are, in the Bahá'í scriptures, analogous to 
John Locke's nominal essences, frequently revisioned as relative and 
contingent linguistic categories or names, as divine constructions of 
reality, as literary narratives, and as typological and comparative 
classification schemes founded on the observed attributes of single 
entities:


The essence of Bahá'u'lláh's Teaching is all-embracing 
love, for love includeth every excellence of humankind. It causeth 
every soul to go forward. It bestoweth on each one, for a heritage, 
immortal life. Erelong shalt thou bear witness that His celestial 
Teachings, the very glory of reality itself, shall light up the skies 
of the world.
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 66


Among these teachings was the independent investigation of reality 
so that the world of humanity may be saved from the darkness of 
imitation and attain to the truth; may tear off and cast away this 
ragged and outgrown garment of a thousand years ago and may put on 
the robe woven in the utmost purity and holiness in the loom of 
reality. As reality is one and cannot admit of multiplicity, 
therefore different opinions must ultimately become fused into one.

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 298


... men of faith behold the reality of religion manifestly revealed 
in these heavenly teachings, and clearly and conclusively prove 
them to be the real and true remedy for the ills and infirmities of 
all mankind.
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to 
August Forel, page 26


The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds; he 
whose words exceed his deeds, know verily his death is better than 
his life.
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets 
of Bahá'u'lláh, 
page 155

In other contexts, ideal forms, essences, or realities are, 
reminiscent of Locke's real essences, the unknowable quiddities of 
spiritual and material particulars:


The rain itself hath no geometry, no limits, no form, but it taketh 
on one form or another, according to the restrictions of its vessel. 
In the same way, the Holy Essence of the Lord God is boundless,
immeasurable, but His graces and splendours become finite in the
creatures, because of their limitations, wherefore the prayers of 
given persons will receive favourable answers in certain cases.
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 161


When, however, thou dost contemplate the innermost essence of all 
things, and the individuality of each, thou wilt behold the signs of 
thy Lord's mercy in every created thing, and see the spreading rays 
of His Names and Attributes throughout all the realm of being, with 
evidences which none will deny save the froward and the unaware. 
Then wilt thou observe that the universe is a scroll that discloseth 
His hidden secrets, which are preserved in the well-guarded Tablet.

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 41


Physical bodies are transferred past one barrier after another, from 
one life to another, and all things are subject to transformation 
and change, save only the essence of existence itself -- since it is 
constant and immutable, and upon it is founded the life of every 
species and kind, of every contingent reality throughout the whole 
of creation.
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 156


It may be said, for instance, that this lamplight is last night's 
come back again, or that last year's rose hath returned to the 
garden this year. Here the reference is not to the individual 
reality, the fixed identity, the specialized being of that other 
rose, rather doth it mean that the qualities, the distinctive 
characteristics of that other light, that other flower, are present 
now, in these.
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections 
from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, page 183

Briefly, therefore, the objective idealism in Lippitt's Science of 
Reality, reflecting a perfunctory approach to the (deconstructed) 
Neoplatonic concepts found in certain Bahá'í texts, is, in 
ASMÁ Theism, reconceptualized in nominalist terms. Lippitt's 
idealism is superseded by a particularist voluntarism (to coin a term, a 
post-neoplatonism).

Neoplatonism, including the views of Plato and Aristotle, is the 
literary framework, the vehicle, of Baha'i mysticism. Indeed, it might 
be said that superficially, at least, Bahá'u'lláh and 
`Abdu'l-Bahá were presenting a Neoplatonic religious 
model. However, an analogy might be found in Jean-François 
Lyotard, who took Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of language games and 
used it to deconstruct metanarratives or totalizing schemes. Here, 
the metanarrative is Neoplatonism.

Before all else, divine reality or truth (haqíqat) is God, 
the Real or True One (al-haqq). It may then be construed, though 
secondarily and dependently, as encompassing all that which the 
divine Essence wills to construct and create. ASMÁ Theism, a single 
attempt at understanding certain of those divine constructions and 
creations, is not presumed to depict the only, or even the most 
accurate, model of existence. 

ASMÁ Theism is a weak theism. That is to say, while it 
establishes God's Will as sovereign, it also separates the sciences 
and humanities from religious authority. As such, it agrees with 
William of Ockham that secular, academic pursuits should not be 
governed by religious scripture.

ASMÁ Spirit: A Second 
Categorical Framework

Weil's construct of powers of the soul12 will here be named the human spirit (a.k.a. the innate 
character, rational faculty, rational soul, or 
common faculty/hiss-i-mushtarak). The spirits of 
particular souls, observed in various tropes or attributes, can be 
understood according to at least five names or categories. By 
reflecting on `Abdu'l-Bahá's example, such capacities enable 
the development of a soul's acquired characteristics and attributes 
(or spiritual virtues), inter alia, love, mercy, fairness, and 
trustworthiness. 


Every other word of Bahá'u'lláh's and 
'Abdu'l-Bahá's writings is a preachment on moral and ethical 
conduct; all else is the form, the chalice, into which the pure 
spirit must be poured; without the spirit and the action which must 
demonstrate it, it is a lifeless form. 
-- From a letter dated October 25, 1949, written on behalf of Shoghi  
Effendi to an individual Bahá'í and cited: Living the Life, page 20

The human spirit, or rational soul, appears to have been used by 
`Abdu'l-Bahá as a category, a rubric, for those areas of 
functioning which distinguish humans from animals. What now follows 
is an attempt to descrbe the capacities (powers), and categories of 
capacities, named the human spirit. 
I have, over the years, made extensive modifications to Weil's 
framework. The resulting model is designated ASMÁ Spirit™.




mental faculties: the 
intellect (aql) or intellectual capacities of the human spirit, 
including imagination, thought, understanding, and memory
  
"Man has also spiritual powers: imagination, which conceives things; 
thought, which reflects upon realities; comprehension, which 
comprehends realities; memory, which retains whatever man imagines, 
thinks and comprehends. The intermediary between the five outward 
powers and the inward powers is the sense which they possess in 
common - that is to say, the sense which acts between the outer and 
inner powers, conveys to the inward powers whatever the outer powers 
discern.  It is termed the common faculty, because it communicates 
between the outward and inward powers and thus is common to the 
outward and inward powers." 
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some 
Answered Questions, page 210
  
"Now concerning mental faculties, they are in truth of the inherent 
properties of the soul, even as the radiation of light is the 
essential property of the sun.  The rays of the sun are renewed but 
the sun itself is ever the same and unchanged. Consider how the human 
intellect develops and weakens, and may at times come to naught, 
whereas the soul changeth not. For the mind to manifest itself, the 
human body must be whole; and a sound mind cannot be but in a sound 
body, whereas the soul dependeth not upon the body. It is through the 
power of the soul that the mind comprehendeth, imagineth and exerteth 
its influence, whilst the soul is a power that is free. The mind 
comprehendeth the abstract by the aid of the concrete, but the soul 
hath limitless manifestations of its own. The mind is circumscribed, 
the soul limitless. It is by the aid of such senses as those of 
sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, that the mind comprehendeth, 
whereas the soul is free from all agencies." 
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to 
August Forel, page 8
  
"Now regarding the question whether the faculties of the mind and the 
human soul are one and the same. These faculties are but the inherent 
properties of the soul, such as the power of imagination, of thought, 
of understanding; powers that are the essential requisites of the 
reality of man, even as the solar ray is the inherent property of the 
sun. The temple of man is like unto a mirror, his soul is as the sun, 
and his mental faculties even as the rays that emanate from that 
source of light. The ray may cease to fall upon the mirror, but it 
can in no wise be dissociated from the sun." 
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to 
August Forel, pages 24-25


the spirit of faith: the 
magnet of faith and service or power and capacity of faith in the 
Prophet to transform the human conscience or free will; results in 
the acquisition of virtues, such as love (biologically experienced as 
spiritual joy or happiness), kindness, mercy, truthfulness, service, 
etc.
  
"Faith is the magnet which draws the confirmation of the Merciful One. 
Service is the magnet which attracts the heavenly strength. I hope 
thou wilt attain both."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 
'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbás, volume 1, page 62
  
"Happiness consists of two kinds; physical and spiritual. The 
physical happiness is limited; its utmost duration is one day, one 
month, one year. It hath no result. Spiritual happiness is eternal 
and unfathomable. This kind of happiness appeareth in one's soul with 
the love of God and suffereth one to attain to the virtues and 
perfections of the world of humanity. Therefore, endeavor as much as 
thou art able in order to illuminate the lamp of thy heart by the 
light of love."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 
'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbás, volume 3, page 673
  
"From the exalted source, and out of the essence of His favor and 
bounty He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His 
knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share 
in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this 
knowledge.  This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of 
creation.  The greater the effort exerted for the refinement of this 
sublime and noble mirror, the more faithfully will it be made to 
reflect the glory of the names and attributes of God, and reveal the 
wonders of His signs and knowledge.  Every created thing will be 
enabled (so great is this reflecting power) to reveal the 
potentialities of its pre-ordained station, will recognize its 
capacity and limitations, and will testify to the truth that 'He, 
verily, is God; there is none other God besides Him.'... 
  
"There can be no doubt whatever that, in consequence of the efforts 
which every man may consciously exert and as a result of the exertion 
of his own spiritual faculties, this mirror can be so cleansed from 
the dross of earthly defilements and purged from satanic fancies as 
to be able to draw nigh unto the meads of eternal holiness and attain 
the courts of everlasting fellowship."
-- Bahá'u'lláh:, Gleanings from the Writings of 
Bahá'u'lláh, page 262
  
"Then know, O thou virtuous soul, that as soon as thou becomest 
separated from aught else save God and dost cut thyself from the 
worldly things, thy heart will shine with lights of divinity and with 
the effulgence of the Sun of Truth from the horizon of the Realm of 
Might, and then thou wilt be filed by the spirit of power from God 
and become capable of doing that which thou desirest. This is the 
confirmed truth."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 
'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbás, volume 3, page 709
  
"The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal is the 
rational soul, and these two names - the human spirit and the 
rational soul - designate one thing. This spirit, which in the 
terminology of the philosophers is the rational soul, embraces all 
beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities 
of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, 
and of the qualities and properties of beings. But the human spirit, 
unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted 
with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a 
mirror which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need 
of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover 
the heavenly secrets."
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some 
Answered Questions, pages 208-209 
  
"Service is the magnet which draws the divine confirmations. Thus, 
when a person is active, they are blessed by the Holy Spirit. When 
they are inactive, the Holy Spirit cannot find a repository in their 
being, and thus they are deprived of its healing and quickening 
rays."
 
-- From a letter dated July 12, 1952, written on behalf of Shoghi 
Effendi to an individual Bahá'í and cited: Living the Life, page 18
  
"In serving a Cause for which your mother sacrificed so much you will 
no doubt come to find the very purpose of your life, and the true 
secret of happiness in this, as well as in the next world." 

-- From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi in Arohanui: Letters to New Zealand, 
page 42
  
"But the Spirit of Faith which is of the Kingdom (of God) consists of 
the all-comprehending Grace and the perfect attainment (or salvation, 
fruition, achievement) and the power of sanctity and the divine 
effulgence from the Sun of Truth on luminous light-seeking essences 
from the presence of the divine Unity. And by this Spirit is the life 
of the spirit of man, when it is fortified thereby, as Christ saith: 
'That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.' And this Spirit hath 
both restitution and return, inasmuch as it consists of the Light of 
God and the unconditioned Grace."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá 
Abbás, volume 1, page 115
  
"The maid-servants of the Merciful should love each other with heart 
and soul; for though there be many bodies, the spirit of faith is 
one13 and the outpouring of 
the Holy Spirit is universal. There is one Light but many lamps; 
there is one Wine but the glasses differ."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 
'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbás, volume 3, page 505
  
"Do thou ponder these momentous happenings in thy heart, so that thou 
mayest apprehend the greatness of this Revelation, and perceive its 
stupendous glory. Then shall the spirit of faith, through the grace of 
the Merciful, be breathed into thy being, and thou shalt be 
established and abide upon the seat of certitude."

-- Bahá'u'lláh, The 
Kitáb-i-Íqán, page 236
  
"The fourth degree of spirit is the heavenly spirit; it is the spirit 
of faith and the bounty of God; it comes from the breath of the Holy 
Spirit, and by the divine power it becomes the cause of eternal life. 
It is the power which makes the earthly man heavenly, and the 
imperfect man perfect. It makes the impure to be pure, the silent 
eloquent; it purifies and sanctifies those made captive by carnal 
desires; it makes the ignorant wise."

-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá,  Some 
Answered Questions, page 144


inner vision:  
capacity for insight; experienced as spiritual knowledge 
  
"God grant that, with a penetrating vision and radiant heart, thou 
mayest observe the things that have come to pass and are now 
happening, and, pondering them in thine heart, mayest recognize that 
which most men have, in this Day, failed to perceive."
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of 
Bahá'u'lláh, page 58  
"In the mirror of their minds the forms of transcendent realities are 
reflected, and the lamp of their inner vision derives its light from 
the sun of universal knowledge."
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Secret of 
Divine Civilization, page 21
  
"If, then, the spirit were the same as the body, it would be 
necessary that the power of the inner sight should also be in the 
same proportion.  Therefore, it is evident that this spirit is 
different from the body, and that the bird is different from the 
cage, and that the power and penetration of the spirit is stronger 
without the intermediary of the body."
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered 
Questions, page 228

free will: the conscience,  
will power, mirror of moral choices, or power of volitional 
accomplishment
  
"Man's physical existence on this earth is a period during which the 
moral exercise of his free will is tried and tested in order to 
prepare his soul for the other worlds of God, and we must welcome 
affliction and tribulations as opportunities for improvement in our 
eternal selves."

-- From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice 
to an individual Bahá'í, July 16, 1980, and cited: 
Lights of Guidance, page 368
  
"Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence 
of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how ... thy will and 
purpose ... proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same 
faculty."
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of 
Bahá'u'lláh, page 164
  
"... though the choice of good and evil belongs to man, under all 
circumstances he is dependent upon the sustaining help of life, which 
comes from the Omnipotent. The Kingdom of God is very great, and all 
are captives in the grasp of His Power.  The servant cannot do 
anything by his own will; God is powerful, omnipotent, and the Helper 
of all beings."
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered 
Questions, page 250 
  
"... conscience is never to be coerced, whether by other individuals or institutions.
  
"Conscience, however, is not an unchangeable absolute. One dictionary definition, although not covering all the usages of the term, presents the common understanding of the word 'conscience' as 'the sense of right and wrong as regards things for which one is responsible; the faculty or principle which pronounces upon the moral quality of one's actions or motives, approving the right and condemning the wrong'.
   
"The functioning of one's conscience, then, depends upon one's understanding of right and wrong; the conscience of one person may be established upon a disinterested striving after truth and justice, while that of another may rest on an unthinking predisposition to act in accordance with that pattern of standards, principles and prohibitions which is a product of his social environment. Conscience, therefore, can serve either as a bulwark of an upright character or can represent an accumulation of prejudices learned from one's forebears or absorbed from a limited social code.
  
"A Bahá'í recognizes that one aspect of his spiritual and intellectual growth is to foster the development of his conscience in the light of divine Revelation ...."

-- From a letter dated February 8, 1998, written on behalf of the 
Universal House of Justice to Dr. Susan Maneck.


bodily 
agency: coordination of bodily functions  
"As the body is sustained by the spirit, it is in relation to the 
spirit an essential phenomenon.  The spirit is independent of the 
body, and in relation to it the spirit is an essential preexistence.  
Though the rays are always inseparable from the sun, nevertheless, 
the sun is preexistent and the rays are phenomenal, for the existence 
of the rays depends upon that of the sun." 
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, page 280
  
"... the various organs and members, the parts and elements, that 
constitute the body of man, though at variance, are yet all connected 
one with the other by that all-unifying agency known as the human 
soul, that causeth them to function in perfect harmony and with 
absolute regularity, thus making the continuation of life possible. 
The human body, however, is utterly unconscious of that all-unifying 
agency, and yet acteth with regularity and dischargeth its functions 
according to its will."
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to August Forel, page 13
  
"The mind which is in man, the existence of which is recognized - 
where is it in him? If you examine the body with the eye, the ear or 
the other senses, you will not find it; nevertheless, it exists. 
Therefore, the mind has no place, but it is connected with the 
brain."  
-- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, page 242

Weil also believed that individuality, with what he saw as 
its twin potentials for accomplishment and inner change, and immortality were "powers of the 
soul." My own suggestion, however, is that individuality is merely a 
name for the uniqueness, particularity, or this-ness of each soul, 
distinguished from St. Thomas Aquinas' more essentialist view of the 
rational soul (human nature), 
while its potentials are the powers or capacities of the mind's 
mental faculties and free will, of inner vision, and of the spirit 
of faith; and that immortality is an affirmation of each soul's 
simplicity and indestructibility. Both individuality and 
immortality are nominal descriptions of souls, not the 
instrumentalities of human spirits.

ASMÁ Praxis: A Surrender 
to God's Will

Parallels can be drawn between ASMÁ Praxis™, the liberative 
social service dimension of ASMÁ, and certain 
concepts in various religious communties. Only four will be mentioned.

As expressed in some of the Judaisms, the translation of the 
Hebrew, and Lurianic Kabbalistic, term, tikkun olam, is repairing the world. Through its  
reinterpretation by the Jewish Renewal Movement, it has 
become a clarion call for environmental custodianship, peace, and 
social justice for the poor.

The word jihád is 
Arabic for struggle, not for 
holy war. Many Islámic moderates have situated its 
significance in the wrestling with one's nafs (Arabic cognate of the Hebrew 
nefesh), the multiple planes 
of the lower nature or ego, 
and in an exertion for human equity, peace, and the the rights of the 
poor. From their standpoint, only jiháds which are purposefully 
defensive, of one's own or another religious community, should be 
sanctioned on the battlefield.

With respect to Christianity, a myriad of liberals and 
postliberals, including those identifying with Every Church a Peace Church 
or Sojourners, promote inclusiveness, peace, and 
social justice among both Christians and those of other faiths. In the 
United States, the United Church of Christ and the 
Disciples of Christ are two of the 
more open and progressive denominations.

However, conservative evangelicals, constituting one of the more 
influential categories of American Christendom, are among the most 
passionate advocates for corporate capitalism, considered by some to 
be oppressive of the poor, and among the most dedicated opponents of 
economic socialism. Yet, these positions would be difficult to 
support from the New Testament literature:


All who believed were together and held everything in common, and 
they began selling their property and possessions and distributing 
the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need. Every day they 
continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, 
breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and 
humble hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the 
people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who 
were being saved.
-- Acts 2:44-47 (from NET 
Bible)

Jesus also appears to have believed, in contradiction to 
prevailing evangelical conceptions of salvation without works, that 
the worthiness of individuals to inherit the Kingdom of God will be 
judged on evidence of their benevolence toward the poor. This 
text provides the locus classicus for his position.:

   
When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, 
then he will sit on his glorious throne.
   
All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate 
people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the 
goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
   
Then the king will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are 
blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was 
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you 
invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and 
you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."
   
Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry 
and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we 
see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When 
did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?
"   
And the king will answer them, "I tell you the truth, just as you did 
it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did 
it for me."
    
"Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you 
accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil 
and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I 
was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.
   
I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and 
you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."
   
Then they too will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or 
thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not 
give you whatever you needed?"
   
Then he will answer them, "I tell you the truth, just as you did not 
do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me. And 
these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into 
eternal life."

-- Matthew 25:31-46 (from NET 
Bible)

Christ clearly expected His followers to serve the poor, and He 
assessed their qualification for eternal life, in the Kingdom of His 
Father, on the basis of their philanthropy. "And whoever does not 
take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me," (Matthew 10:38, 
NET Bible), He is quoted as 
saying. 

In a similar vein, the Apostle James asserted that "... faith 
without works is dead" (James 2:26, NET Bible). While not inconsistent 
with Paul's condemnation of faithless works as indicative of 
self-righteousness, James would seem to have considered a workless 
faith to be a contradiction in terms. 

Finally, from a Bahá'í standpoint, faith and works, 
or conforming oneself to God's Will, are inseparable and, for all 
intents and purposes, identical. Faith implies works, and, according to 
Shoghi Effendi:


Is not faith but another word for implicit obedience, whole-hearted 
allegiance, uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the 
revealed and express will of God, however perplexing it might first 
appear, however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent 
doctrines, the crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable 
conceptions of a transient and troublous age?

-- Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'í Administration, 
page 62

Regarding the poor, Bahá'u'lláh wrote:


O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH!
The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not 
intent only on your own ease.

-- Bahá'u'lláh, The 
Persian Hidden Words, number 54

And the Universal House of Justice sharply criticized the 
ideology supporting corporate capitalism for tending:


... to callously abandon starving millions to the operations of a 
market system that all too clearly is aggravating the plight of the 
majority of mankind, while enabling small sections to live in a 
condition of affluence scarcely dreamed of by our forebears.
-- The Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace
 
Briefly, among the categories of service which might be utilized 
in Bahá'í service projects for ASMÁ are those  
involving an active participation in social and economic development. 
Opportunities for volunteerism could run the gambit from assisting 
non-profit agencies with low-income families and individuals to, 
perhaps more ambitiously, designing programs for aiding displaced 
victims, especially the poor, of natural and man-made disasters or 
planning and building intentional communities for the poor and 
disenfranchised. The last two of these projects are likely better 
suited to regional, rather than strictly local, operation.

Dialogical and Conversational Applications


The approach being proposed is a primary-source-based, or scriptural, study circle, one akin
to the "radical traditions" approach within the postcritical theologies. 
Simply put, postcritical theologies turn to a particular set of religious 
scriptures, a canon perhaps, 
and engage in a dialogue or 
conversation about its relevancies 
to the issues and problems faced within an emerging community.

Postcritical theologies are also postliberal. Rather than looking for
answers exclusively in an Enlightenment ideal of reason, or liberalism, 
almost in spite of the texts, these theologies advocate returning to the
texts, not individually, but communally. Academic textual criticism is
embraced, but it is a criticism which does not discount the
commonsense theologizings by 
average believers.

Briefly, an ideal study circle methodology would, perhaps, be one which 
would allow the participants to dialogically engage with one another, with 
Bahá'í primary sources, and with the thinking of academic 
Bahá'í scholars. The focus would be on discovering
narratives which could be applied to accomplishing the Plans published by 
the Universal House of Justice.

The objective is not to conduct a "free-for-all" discussion, as when the 
facilitator has each participant share her own understanding of a passage. 
Rather, texts would be carefully studied in their cultural, historical, and, 
if possible, linguistic contexts, including by introducing the views of 
persons who have studied these issues in some depth.

The Bahá'í Faith appears to advocate a prima scriptura (the written text first), 
more than a sola scriptura (only the 
written text), scriptural hermeneutic. Thus, Martin Luther's view of sola 
scriptura would establish the sovereignty of individual exegesis over the 
authority of Rome. He objected, not to tradition per se or to using 
interpretive tools external to the Bible, but to the sola ecclesia (only the church) approach to 
texts in the Roman Catholic Church.

Bahá'ís are not sola scriptura, in the manner of Luther or the 
Protestant Reformation, in that we accept the authority of the Guardian to 
interpret and the authority of the Universal House of Justice to legislatively 
elucidate. We have a living canon. On the other hand, given the right to 
personal interpretations or understanding of Sacred Texts in the
Bahá'í community, we have nothing quite like the traditional sola
ecclesia approach of Roman Catholicism either.

Instead, it appears that Bahá'ís utilize a prima scriptura method, 
one which affirms the preeminent place of the Bahá'í scriptures 
(including the writings of the Bab, Bahá'u'llah, and `Abdu'l-Bahá) 
but which also accepts the authority, under the Bahá'í Covenant, 
of the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice and, moreover, allows for 
individual interpretation, whether according to the views of academics or others.

More substantively, spiritual transformation, the higher alchemy (al-kímiyá), might be   
contextualized within the divine philosophy (hikmat-i-iláhí),  
theosophia, or wisdom teachings of the Bahá'í 
Revelation. To wit, that which is hakím, or wise, is relative 
to the divine Will (insh'alláh) revealed by a 
particular Prophet. Aside from God and His Manifestations, or 
Prophets, there is no eternal essence or ideal form of wisdom.

This higher alchemy is constructed, in mystical relationship with 
God through His Prophet, as a process beginning with the exercise of 
free will -- prayer, meditation, deepening, and service (order varies 
in the Bahá'í primary sources) -- attracting the 
assistance of the spirit of faith (the magnet of faith and service), 
which, in turn, enhances one's inner vision (insight) and illumines 
one's mental faculties, thereby allowing one's body to be coordinated 
in service to God's Will. The end result is the development of 
virtues (spiritual attributes).

The object is, over one's life course, to painstakingly replace 
one's human imperfections, the absence of virtuousness, with an  
attainment of spiritual qualities. Gradually, as the spirit of faith 
and faculty of inner vision, both capacities of the human spirit, are 
developed, one's conscience, or will, is uplifted, virtue by virtue, 
from the world of human imperfection to the world of human 
spirituality. Then, through an increased comprehension of the 
language games, or divine constructions (constructions), included 
in the Bahá'í Revelation, and an application of one's 
understandings, one may progressively submit to the Will of God. 

The methodology involves the radical destructurizaton of the old 
mind, including its socially scripted patterns of reactions. Given 
that many individuals habitually react to situations from their human 
imperfections, if a person desires to escape these socialized, 
reactive constructions of the mind, she must, each time, fall into 
the habit of pausing, reflecting, and making a spiritually informed, 
salutary decision. Through this means, and by associating with a community 
of like-minded souls, her reactive constructions can, reaction by 
reaction, be progressivelly conquered and replaced with the 
spiritually proactive constructions of a new mind.

Clearly, not all scripts can, or must, be avoided. The continuity, 
and effective functioning, of communities, societies, and 
organizations demands a degree of conformity to certain socialized 
roles. 

Nonetheless, scripted behaviors must be countenanced and 
deliberate, and the individual, not the script, needs to exercise the 
final veto. It is she who is required not to forfeit her perquisite  
to redact, where indicated by her wisdom, any socially constructed 
scripts, whereas the scripts themselves should never be privileged to 
dominate her decision-making processes.

Suggestions for scripting ASMÁ include:

engaging in prayer, meditation (such as the Bahá'í 
dhikr of 
'Alláh'u'Abhá 
ninety-five-times per day), study of the Bahá'í 
scriptures, and service to the Cause of God (amr'u'lláh)
voluntarily surrendering one's personal will to the Will of God 
(insh'alláh), the Covenant 
(ahd), including conforming one's 
behavior to the directives of the Head of the Faith (the Universal House 
of Justice)
respecting, without condemnation or judgement, divese constructions 
of reality and knowledge, whether by Bahá'ís or others, and 
recognizing that all truth constructions are subject to a tiered 
relativism™ of divine and human wills
willfully and positively constructing one's life and experiences  
(renaming or socially reconstructing reality), focusing on (thinking about 
and loving) solution-based 
constructions rather than problematic ones, and proceeding to modify 
one's actions accordingly
Additionally, a section of ASMÁ will provide a 
rudimentary introduction to Arabic and Persian and to the history and 
culture of the Lebenswelten
(lifeworlds) of  Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, and 
`Abdu'l-Bahá. The objective will be to prepare the participant for 
subsequent contextualized studies of the linguistic and historical 
constructions of the Bahá'í texts. Branch courses can 
address dimensions of these topics in greater depth.

Furthermore, another section of this program will, taking a 
postanarchist standpoint epistemology, consider the 
destructurization™, or deconstruction, of the contemporary global 
discourse and its embedded power, including the nation-state system and 
its dysfunctional subtext of national sovereignty. Then, abandoning 
postanarchism, it will consider whether various processes of 
restructurization™, or reconstruction, might produce nonoppressive, 
or minimally oppressive, systems of discoursive power based, not on a new 
metanarrative, but on sets of voluntary relationships.

The transformational spirituality surveyed in this paper, ASMÁ with its pedagogy of 
ASMÁ♦Training™, is not 
intended as a program for the masses. It is, rather, designed for such 
intellectually oriented individuals with a keen interest in its subject 
matter. By surveying the participatory elements of spiritual and social 
construction (construction), various content delivery systems,
including seminars and workshops14, will, over time, be developed, and 
persons will be qualified as ASMÁ  
Trainers™.


1ASMÁ is lovingly 
dedicated to my spiritual mother and mentor, the late Elizabeth Thomas of 
Manhasset, Long Island. Elizabeth, having introduced me to Marian Lippitt 
and Henry Weil and to their respective work, always encouraged me to 
conduct original Bahá'í deepening projects, to make personal 
compilations of the Bahá'í literature, to devise innovative 
terminologies, and to arrive at my own interpretations of 
Bahá'í subject matter and not simply to rely on her own, on 
Marian's, or on Henry's views. Were it not for my friendship with Elizabeth, 
my Bahá'í life might have taken a significantly different 
and considerably less interesting turn.
2The Structurization Institute 
is an agency of The MarkFoster.NETwork™. It is 
not a Bahá'í institute.
3ASMÁ has no 
relation to Ruhi, nor is it being 
suggested that ASMÁ 
should be incorporated into, or become a branch course of, the Ruhi curriculum.
4S♦Paradigm™
5My term, 
narrative spirituality, is  adapted from narrative theology.
6Emergent theology has  
originated within the post-evangelical emerging church. Although a bit 
simplistic, while neoliberal theology came out of liberal theology, emergent, 
or emerging, theology developed out of evangelicalism. Both narrative 
theologies appear to be meeting in a postmodern, poststructural center.
It is from the emerging church 
movement, that I developed the concept of an emergent community. D.A. 
Carson explains the emergent church in this way:


At the heart of the Emergent Church movement - or as some of its leaders 
prefer to call it, the "conversation" - lies the conviction that changes 
in the culture signal that a new church is "emerging." Christian leaders 
must therefore adapt to this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are 
blind to the cultural accretions that hide the gospel behind forms of 
thought and modes of expression that no longer communicate with the new 
generation, the emerging generation.



7For other perspectives on 
Lippitt's work, visit the official website of The Foundation for the 
Investigation of Reality. I am a former member of the Foundation, a 
former member of its Board of Trustees (1996-2001), and, at one time, 
its Academic Director 
(1994-2003). I also continue to maintain the Foundation's previous official website. 
Useful historical context can be obtained by reading this selection from  
some of Lippitt's written materials:
Map of the Worlds of God  
What the Science of Reality is
What Reality Does this Science Cover? 
Communications 
Quotations from the Worlds of God Compilation on God 
Primary Categories of Existence 
An Integrative Framework for a World Educational 
Curriculum
Additional 
Materials (PDF)
Reality and the Worlds of God (PDF) 
Are We Facing Reality?

What is this Knowledge that the 
Science of Reality is Setting Forth?
Reality, Soul, and the Worlds of  
God
50 Postulates 
of the Science of Reality
Professionals and 
the Relationship to 5th Dimensional Realities
Additional 
Materials (PDF)
8The criticisms directed 
against certain of the assumptions made by Lippitt and Weil are 
entirely didactic and heuristic and should not be seen to detract 
from the enormous respect I have for each of them as individuals and 
for their personal researches.
9In order to avoid 
confusion with William James' nominalist 
pragmatism, Peirce subsequently renamed his approach pragmaticism.
10It is a type of weak theism. That is to say, it 
does not attempt to impose theology on the sciences.
11Here is a simplified 
version:

God (Source and Most Great Spirit)


Prophets of God (Messengers of the Source)

Unity of Prophets


Diversity of Prophets

Divine Spirit, Power, and Holy Spirit


Divine Will, Purpose, and Love


Divine Cause, Authority, and Command


Divine Word, Teachings, and Message
 

Creation (Servitude)

Next World (after death)

 
Human Kingdom (before death; animated by human spirits)

Human Spirituality (virtues; animated by spirits of faith) 


Human Affairs (social constructions of reality)


Human Imperfection (absence of virtuousness)


Human Rationality (logic, reason, and time)


Physicality ("names," materiality, energy, magnetism, and gravity)

Animal Kingdom (sensation; animated by animal spirits)


Vegetable Kingdom (growth; animated by vegetable spirits)


Mineral Kingdom (cohesion; animated by mineral spirits)

Or, for non-Bahá'í audiences:

God (Source)

Divine Teachers

Divine Spirit, Power, and Holy Spirit


Divine Will, Purpose, and Love


Divine Cause, Authority, and Command


Divine Word, Teachings, and Message


Creation

Next World (after death)

 
Human Kingdom (before death)

Human Spirituality (virtues) 


Social Constructions of Reality


Human Imperfection (absence of virtues)


Human Rationality (logic, reason, and time)


Physicality ("names," materiality, energy, magnetism, and gravity)

Animal Kingdom (sensation)


Vegetable Kingdom (growth)


Mineral Kingdom (cohesion)

12Here is Weil's listing 
of the seven powers of the soul:
The Coordinator of Bodily Functions
The Mental Faculties of the Soul
The Faculty of Inner Vision
Individuality
The Mirrored Reflection of Your Moral Choices
Spiritual Happiness
Immortality
Weil, Henry A. Closer Than Your 
Life Vein: An Insight Into the Wonders of Spiritual 
Fulfillment. Anchorage: National Spiritual Assembly of the 
Bahá'ís of Alaska. 1978.
Weil, Henry A. Closer Than Your 
Life Vein: An Insight Into the Wonders of Spiritual 
Fulfillment. New Delhi: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. 
1991.
13The oneness of the spirit 
of faith may refer to unity in diversity, one soul in many bodies, 
etc.

14
The seminars and workshops will cover various subjects, such as  listening prayer.






Copyright © 2005-2008 Mark A. Foster, Ph.D., M.A., A.B.J., A.A.  All rights reserved.
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