Baha’i Rants

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My Notes:

This newsletter is the two year anniversary of the LA Classes! I just had my third birthday, so this is mighty apropos.

Within this newsletter it is obvious that there was now clear friction between the status quo and new ideas being thrown around. In other notes this was implicit if you read between the lines. But here, it is very evident.

Tony Lee presents an idea that can not be easily shot down: that the process of revelation is a dialogue, rather than a monologue. Although most Baha’is assume that individual believers had no role, except as subservient and passive believers that simply followed the Central Figure of their day, the actual historical evidence is surprising.

And although the writer of this newsletter, as always, pokes fun at the class as being “heretical”… the institutions were by now taking notice of the same thing. But they weren’t laughing.

If this is your first newsletter, you might also want to read the introduction to the LA study class, here.

On with the 70’s class . . .

[Ed. personal address]
“Hermosa Bench, love it or leave it.”
Vol. III No. 11

We celebrated the second anniversary of our study class with a verbal dustup over what special role - if any - individual Baha’is have in shaping the Abha Dispensation, Tony Lee got things off and running by re-stating a favorite theory of hi.s It is his thesis that the Baha’i Faith as we know it is the result of interaction between the Central Authorities of the Faith (be they the Bab, Baha’u'llah, Abdu’l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi or the Universal House of Justice) and individual Baha’is. Most Baha’is, however, behave as if the revelation as a monologue spoken from the prophet to the people. While a central figure provides authority and spiritual impetus for the body of the believers, Lee argued that it is an interaction between charismatic figure and the followers that creates the dynamic of growth and change.

He cited the conference at Badasht in which the Babis - on their own initiative - discarded Islam, deciding that the Babi Faith was a new revelation to which they owed their allegiance and that the laws fo Islam (the sharia) were dead. The Bab, the Author of that revelation, was in prison at the time and had no influence over the conference, although He later ratified its actions. The proclamation of the doctrine of the equality of men and women was launched by Tahirih at that same conference, again, on her own initiative and without the sanction of the Prophet. That stand was later affirmed and is a major Baha’i social tenet. A third and more contemporary example is the establishment of the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. A group of early American Baha’is learned of the construction of the temple in ‘Ishqabad and asked Abdu’l-Baha’s permission to erect one in the United States. Again, the original idea was that of the believers which the Central Authority later endorsed.

Lee said that he believes that this interchange [sic] is not only misunderstood and unappreciated by the modern Baha’i community, but that it has become significantly weakened over the past 20 or 30 years. The community lost the spark of intellectual foment because of a shift to emphasizing the expansion of the Faith. This policy of worldwide expansion has been successful, but the lack of intellectual activity that has resulted from it is catching up with us. As a result, Lee asserted, we now find ourselves lagging behind current concerns and have dropped from leadership (when in the 1920’s and 30’s our advocacy of interracial fellowship, global peace and world government were little short of revolutionary) down to irrelevance. (that is, now, in the 1970’s, our social positions fail to address the needs and problems of mankind.)

This point of view did not win universal acceptance among the members of the class. For example, Lisa Janti, currently the chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of Los Angeles, countered with a different view. She said that the reason the early Babis and Baha’is played such a fundamental role in shaping the Faith was because they had no access to the Writings of the Central Figures. However, as the Writings became more available, the need to ask questions (and help shape policy) dwindled. The task for believers then became one of digesting and understanding the Teachings. She rejected the notion that Baha’i social principles are passe, saying that they have not been implemented by the Baha’is, but that is another matter.

Mrs. Janti said that other movements tend to emphasize the negative when it comes to social principles She cited the example of the women’s movement saying much of its energy is focused on abortion rights, which are a minor issue in the equality of men and women. She also expressed concern about the tone of Lee’s position, saying that when the Baha’is would ask a Central Figure questions of interpretation, they did so in the spirit of loving obedience and sincere reverence. Mrs. Janti expressed the fear that class members were copying the jaded cynicism of non-Baha’i movements which preach only the doctrine of attack, and never offer any healing remedy for the problems plaguing mankind.

Dr. Amin Banani, in whose Santa Monica home we were meeting. also voiced concern with Tony’s thesis. He said that while everyone agrees that there is a need for new thought in the Faith, it would be a mistake to assign responsibility for developing fresh ideas to some self-styled intellectual elite, among the Baha’is. Baha’i thinkers qualify as no special class among the ranks of the believers and are not the custodians of progress in the Faith. He pointed out that intellectual haughtiness is a disease of the educated and warned class members against falling into that trap.

Other class members said that those points did not go to the heart of the argument being advanced. Shahin Carrigan of Santa Monica said a kind of Baha’i bureaucracy has grown up and individual Baha’is are relying more and more on their local Assemblies and, in the process abandoning their individual responsibility to think and innovate. It i true, that we have failed to apply the Baha’i principles, but that is because many Baha’is simply do not know how to think. Beyond that, she said, Baha’is are fearful of taking any initiative because they will be shot down by the institutions of the Faith. Mrs. Carrigan said that there is no satisfactory distinction between individual responsibilities and institutional authority.

David Langness of Santa Barbara offered the opinion that the lack of intellectual activity in the Faith is a direct reflection of the fewness of thinkers within its rank. Baha’is in who are intellectually inclined sometimes become inactive simply because there is little value placed on creativity within the Baha’i Community. Those who want to think for themselves find little place in the community and so are forced out.

Shoghi Effendi was an intellectual, in the finest sense of the term, Langness continued, but there are few Baha’is who have followed him. Perhaps the nub of the issue is that intellectual activity centers on debate and the clash of opinions. This is sometimes just the thing that Baha’is want to shy away from, because they regard it as disunity. Langness said it is difficult for intellectuals to enter the Faith and remain within its ranks. He added that more attention ought to be paid to reaching thinkers and those whose ideas have influenced others.

Mehrdad Amanat of Santa Monica pulled the class back to the subject by saying we cannot support the unspoken assumption among Baha’is that our religion became a static, complete package with the death of Shogbi Effendi in 1957. The truth of the matter is that Baba’is lack meaningful answers to the major issues of this decade: human rights, Marxism, economic probems, etc. Criticism of the Baha’i institutions is not treason. Rather, it is the duty of the individual believer to offer his criticism to the institutions. Holding classes in which the role and performance of the institutions is criticized is in order.

But Mrs. Janti expressed discomfort with that view. She responded that the Assemblies are made up of amateurs doing their best. For the administrative institutions to succeed, it is much more important that the body of the believers offer their loving support, rather then their criticisms. And, she wondered aloud about the real motives and intent of the class.

Amin Banani brought things to a head by challenging the entire notion of shared authority in the Faith. He supported the view that the revelation comes from the Prophet and is not expressed in the form, of co-authorship between the religious figure and the body of believers. He asked Mr. Lee to clarify exactly what he intended by his opening statements to the class.

Lee responded that he was not talking about shared authority or issuing any challenge on that score. Authority has only one source in the Baha’i Faith. But, he claimed that a co-authorship of Baha’i history does exist between the Center of the Faith and the believers, The progress of the Faith and the direction in which it has grown are the direct result of the influence of its followers, as well as its Fournders. Even the Baha’i Writings themselves are inconceivale without the participation of the believers themselves.

Beyond that, the Baha’is should not see themselves in a position of waiting for the Universal House of Justice to tell them what to do. Perhaps, they should tell the House of Justice what to do. It is the prerogative of the Supreme Institution to reject their ideas. But, on the other hand, they may accept and a whole new of Baha’i history may be opened because of the initiative of one believer. The point is that a two-way dynamic exists and, for the Faith to progress input from the believers is essential. Religious revelation is not a one-way street and, Lee said, the Faith is not a body of Writings whose contents need only be analyzed for Baha’is to know what their task is.

David Langness supported the activist stance, especially as it applied to interaction between believer end authority figure. He pointed out that had it not been for Laura Dreyfuss Barney “bugging Abdu’l-Baha to death” with her questions at the dinner table we would not now have the book Some Answered Questions which sets out the basics of how the Baha’i Faith views Christianity, among other topics. In view of that interaction which is the common thread of Baha’i history - it is appalling that Baha’is really believe the entire revelation was handed down, holy and pristine, for the believers to merely read and reflect on.

But, David Young disputed this view, arguing that Baha’is asking for guidance in the form of question does not amount to a “co-authorship” of the revelation. Furthermore, he said, it is not true, that the Baha’is lack answers to current social questions such as socialism and human rights. It may be true that Baha’is can be criticized for their failure to take action in these realms where there is material relating to them in the Writings, but such a failure is another matter.

The debate was never resolved. Ron Carrigan said that there are gaps in the revelation where such fundamental issues as economies are not addressed. While the world desperately needs a new theory of economics there is simply no such theory in the Writings of the Central Figures of the Faith. And, the catch phrase “spiritual solution to the economic problem” is so vague that it is both meaningless and useless.

Tony Lee responded that such a lack of economic theory in the Baha’i Writings is undeniably, but that this should not be regarded as a deficiency in the revelation. It simply means that Baha’i thinkers should be challenged to work out such a theory based on the few economic principles recommended in the Writings. The problem is that Baha’is do not see this as their role. Most Baha’is believe that everything of importance has already been covered in the Writings and so there is no need for any further thought. It is common talk at firesides that Baha’ullah brought a new economic system.

One of the ironic highlights of the evening was that the main presentation scheduled for the class, a ten-minute tape-recorded speech which member of the House of Justice Dr. David Rube gave at the University of Illinois in 1966, was not trotted out until late in the evening. In that speech, among other topics, Dr. Rube out lined what he termed “Baha’i higher culture”. After first defining “lower culture” as those human concerns with basic survival — food, shelter, sex, material possessions — Dr. Ruhe said that what is needed in every society is a “higher culture” - the arts and humanities. The Baha’i Faith bids to convert the whole of human society and so we must be concerned, not only with the basics of human life, but also with the “higher culture” of man. The future society ,ill be acre complex and lore demanding than anything we have known before. As Baha’is, Dr. Ruhe said, we must begin responding to those demands and assuming a leadership role in shaping our own culture. Including, our own higher culture.

Dr. Ruhe said that that Baha’is ought to learn a lesson from the Jewish Community which honors and credits its scholars, placing them in a special category in the community. He said that Baha’i artists must also be encouraged and supported financially. These higher activities are a necessary part of Baha’i community life.

RETROSPECTIVE

Now that we are all of two years old (and the betting was 6 to 5 that we would never make it this far), perhaps we aught to take stock. Class members and guests have presented papers on a wide variety of topics - everything from history to Baha’i theology. The class probably offers the only forum of its kind in Southern California, where Baha’is can discuss candidly and in depth - the issues and problems which face the Baha’i community at large. We now have between 70 and 75 people on our mailing list. Most of our subscribers support ($12 a year — that’s cheap, gang) comes from American Baha’is living in the United States. About a dozen Canadian Baha’is, for one foolish reason or another also subscribe to our newsletter. Several English Baha’is, in what we assume is a masochistic exercise read it as well. We also have subscribers in such unlikely places as the Central African Empire, Iran, Portugal, Chile, India, and even Zambia. Anytime you are in the area (to visit Disneyland, of course, Why else would anyone come to Southern California?) you are welcome to join in our mildly seditious sessions.

[END DOCUMENT]

Related Links:

The original scanned documents can be found here.

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My Notes:

This newsletter contains a summary of the presentation of Dr. Daniel Jordan on ANISA - a framework for education. Unfortunately, Dr. Jordan’s life was cut short by murder approximately four years from this LA class presentation; which left ANISA without a champion.

ANISA sounds very promising and it is most tragic that its founders’ life was so untimely cut. Who knows what it may have flowered into had it been given a chance? Searching on the internet, there are a few people (no doubt associates and partners of Dr. Jordan) who are continuing to work along similar lines. If you wish to learn more about Dr. Daniel C. Jordan, here is a biography written 10 years after his death.

It also bears highlighting that Dr. Jordan was inspired by Baha’i principles and values but that the framework that he developed was based not truly based on them. This is a limiting factor that I’ve seen in Baha’is of all fields - they automatically assume that the Baha’i Faith contains the answer for their field… be it agriculture, biology, commerce, etc…

The Faith is beautiful but it isn’t everything. Baha’i specialists may start with the Writings but to corral oneself inside them and insist that nothing else outside is of value is devastating. Sadly I’ve seen many Baha’is take this approach and their projects suffer for it. The Baha’i Faith can’t be wrangled and coerced to give answers to everything under the sun. Do you really think that God would make things as simple as that?

Or provide some sort of infallible oracle to which one can put all questions for the final answer?

Finally Dr. Jordan’s comment on Baha’i pioneers is interesting. His prediction hasn’t become reality but it is true that people are skeptical if all you offer is to preach. They’ve had enough of that. Especially in poverty stricken countries. What they need are real answers and solutions which are borne out of the seed of Faith that pioneers take with them.

If this is your first newsletter, you might also want to read the introduction to the LA study class, here.

On with the 70’s class . . .

[Ed. personal address]
Hermosa Beach, California 90254
October, 1978
Volume III, No. 9

Most of us went to school under an educational system that functioned as a kind of crude computer theory. Students, like machines, it was believed, could be programmed with knowledge by stuffing their heads full of facts — the multiplication tables, important dates in history, the parts of speech, etc. This approach to leaning is based on the notion that students are empty vessels, in school to be filled with a universe of knowledge. It has always found greater acceptance among educators than educatees.

But suppose that someone developed a theory of education that was less concerned with instilling some state-approved curriculum into the heads of pupils; but was more attuned to the development of the students’ inherent potential? In fact, such an event has already taken place and, at the September meeting of our study class, some 50 people crowded into the home of Sid and Karan Morrison to hear about it.

The speaker was Dr. Daniel Jordan, chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, discussing ANISA, a unique educational program he has developed over the last 18 years. In a lecture lasting more than two hours and representing “only the tip of the iceberg,” as Jordan termed it, he outlined what the program is and how it works. Here is a summary of his talk:

The ANISA project recently has moved to the West Coast and is now centered in Escondido, California, a city about 100 miles south of Los Angeles. ANISA was refined at the University of Massachusetts but, after a ten-year association with that institution, the program had to decamp. Its departure was occasioned partly because of a $700 million state budget deficit which threatened to end the project’s funding and partly because of a restructuring of the university’s academic hierarchy which forecast a limited future for the experimental model.

Jordan, the founder and program head, decided to take ANISA out of the public sector, and put it under the sponsorship of a private university — an educational institution he founded. The decision to end ANISA’s association with recognized educational establishments was not an easy one to make. When it became apparent that the program at U. Mass. faced diminishing odds, some 27 colleges and universities were sounded out about giving it a home. There was some interest, but as Jordan recalled, “Their first questions were not about the quality of the ideas but were on political issues and money.”

That was not the only problem. In a couple of cases, university officials showed interest in the ANISA program and called back to
U. Mass. for references. They were told that ANISA was a Baha’i front organization for religious proselytizing. Interest waned after such misinformation was given them, despite ANISA denials.

There is considerable confusion, especially in the minds of Baha’is, about the nature of the ANISA program. Although ANISA draws some of its inspiration from the Baha’i Writings (and less than many Baha’is believe), it is not a “Baha’i educational system”. However, Anisa is an Arabic term meaning “the tree of life” and, in a Baha’i context, has been identified by Abdu’l-Baha as symbolizing the Baha’i Covenant. In the early days of the program, the word ANISA was used as an acronym for “American National Institute for Social Advancement”. This usage seems to have been discarded now.) In the Baha’i Writings, a great emphasis is place on education, the purpose of which is to develop latent human potentials, according to Baha’u'llah. However, Baha’u'llah never specified what would constitute a proper education and Shoghi Effendi wrote that future scholars would have to figure out what such an education would entail.

When ANISA was moved to the West Coast, Jordan took over a financially ailing institution called California American University and started a Master of Science program in education at the new school. It is here that the experiment resumes.

ANISA came into being during the early 1960’ s when Jordan began wondering why the educational system all but ignored the exploration of how humans develop and learn. While new discoveries generally take about three years to penetrate the scientific community, in education, 50 years can pass before any innovative thinking makes its influence felt in the classroom. Learning in America and elsewhere has concentrated on the development of curriculum, excluding much consideration about the person to be educated. There is no fundamental statement about the nature of man [and] the direction of his development through education.

ANISA is one approach to such a system, and one that attempts to create an educational system based on spiritual, and scientific values. The initial work for creating such a system began with a survey of the Baha’ i Writings regarding learning, but that was not satisfactory, for there still was not enough there on which to base an educational system. The groundwork made progress when a survey of the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, and English philosopher, turned up his observation that the success of any unified system requires a basic principle around which everything else is organized. That discovery led ANISA researchers to ask themselves what the first principle of education is. Queries to professors of education did not help much, for none of them knew what such a first principle might be and a few dismissed the importance of even having such a basic statement.

The search for a first principle led to a survey of the educational literature of the twentieth century and a tabulation of statements about the nature of man. But the search kept returning to Whitehead’s writings and his musings on the nature of the Universe. Whitehead observed that when one sees the universe, what one sees is change. Change is process and it presupposes potentiality. Translating potential into actuality is creativity, the philosopher wrote. Based on this notion, the ANISA founders decided that the purpose of their system would be to translate a child’s potential into actuality. That became the organizing principle.

Ironically, for a system that is designed to develop a child’s potential, ANISA has never commanded enough money to run its own school. It has, for the most part, concentrated on training teachers. As Jordan explained it, what a teacher believes about a child influence how the teacher will instruct and the child will learn. “If you think that kids are mean little monsters, then you will relate to them in that way and on that basis, and help create a self-fulfilling prophecy Therefore, ANISA programs have concentrated on teaching teachers not reduce the ability of students to absorb education by patronizing or humiliating the children.

Over the eighteen years of its existence. ANISA has refined a philosophical statement that is expressed through its theory of development. Since development is the realization of inner potential, ANISA programs, in part, focus on problems of development. It was discovered, for example, that development was brought about through interaction with the environment. Therefore, from the ANISA point of view, teaching means arranging the environment so as to foster the development of the child’s potential. Two factors were revealed to come into play here: biological and psychological.

After examining the matter, ANISA researchers came to the conclusion that the basis of biological development is nutrition. As Jordan put it “A significant percentage of the world’s children are mentally deficient — simply because of inadequate diet.” ANISA spent $1.5 million in grant funds on this aspect of education alone, field testing the nutrition theory over a five-year period and proving a link between proper diet and the ability to pay attention to what the teacher is saying. “Poor nutrition leads to limited attention and limited learning,” Jordan said, adding, “We find a large number of kids with learning deficiencies that are nutritionally related. Under the ANISA system, even teachers have to understand the importance of proper diet for themselves. “Being with kids is stressful, in case you haven’ t noticed,” Jordan quipped.

Tuning to the psychological aspects of development potential, the ANISA model divides these into five categories: psychomotor, perceptual, cognitive. affective and volition.

PSYCHOMOTOR development was defined as the capacity to differentiate between body muscles and control them. The point here is that gaining psychomotor control of one’s body increases one’s potential and leads to success in other learning areas. A child who is not confident about using his body will shy away from new learning environments out of fear and will limit his own growth.

PERCEPTION relates to the ability to take in visual information and make sense out of it. This ability varies from child to child and must be developed for the student to gain better advantage of the learning process.

COGNITIVE development has to do with thinking, which everyone agrees is important, but no one can define with precision. ANISA has a cognitive competence curriculum that focuses on teaching a child how to think. Most schools concentrate on teaching children what to think but not necessarily how to think or use critical judgment.

AFFECTIVE deals with learning and organizing emotion, one of the most powerful and least understood influences on human behavior. Jordan noted that people are seldom in charge of their emotions, and it is feeling, more than abstract thinking, that influence human behavior. Under the ANISA model, emotions are placed in two categories: those which relate to hope and enhance development and those that have their basis in fear and impair development.

VOLITION (Will): relates how to pay attention, a subject that is never taught in schools. Young students are required to hold their minds on a particular subject, but never taught how to do so. Volition training centers on the ability to set goals and create steps to accomplish those goals.

During the question period, Jordan was asked whether ANISA had ever attempted to prove its theories through field experience. He responded that ANISA had been field tested, for five years, but that, there had never been enough money to found an ANISA school to verify the system’s fundamental ideas. One overall test was conducted in Springfield Mass. school system where an ANISA program was temporarily installed. Jordan said that data collected found reading scores were significantly higher for the ANISA-trained students than a non-ANISA control group. He also appeared to reject the notion of strict scientific proof, at least in part. The rigid and narrow criteria demanded for accurate field testing have only limited meaning in proving our ANISA, he said, because such variables as personal belief simply defy measurement. Even the ANISA modal rests on the recognition that a child has some control over his own development. There is no way one can predict with 100% accuracy what humans will do; they are just too complex to be measured with reliable accuracy.

Along the way, Dr. Jordan mode one interesting digression in which he touched on the future of Baha’ i pioneering. The influence of the Faith is not spreading through its assimilation in the American population. He noted, for example, that the birthrate in the United States is about 10,000 babies born every day “and our enrollment isn’t even close to that.” But, bypassing American society, the Baha’i Faith could make significant inroads in the world’s social agencies, a more important target group. This could come to pass by training Baha’is in any of a variety of occupational skills, such as agronomy, land reclamation, and the like. These are skills essential to developing nations. As the world’s political situation hardens, it is less and less likely that Baha’is will gain admission to Third World countries if their approach is purely as religious missionaries. But, if they can offer the technical skills that match their religious dedication, they can have a potent influence on the course of events in such nations.

Dr. Jordan was asked about the likelihood of having the ANISA model adopted by some major school district. He said that he hoped that would happen, but that the ANISA program would not compromise its principles for the sake of being so adopted. He related his presentation of ANISA to the chiefs of the Navaho Reservation. Some of the traditional old men asked if a child, having gone through the ANISA system would still participate in rain dances with his tribe. Jordan replied carefully that the ANISA child might dance for reasons of social solidarity, but would not believe that the dance would bring rain. The chiefs were not happy with his answer.

One class member remarked that if ANISA intends to socialize children into a full, new cosmology, it is unlikely that it will find acceptance by any society, since they will quite naturally want to protect, their own cultural values.

POSTSCRIPT DEPARTMENT…

Betty Conow of Hacienda Heights sent us a letter to clear up some points Which she feels were incorrectly summarized in the previous newsletter and not presented in the way she would have done. Regarding the newsletter report on Wittgenstein’s paradox, she wrote that the view presented in the notes was not what she presented in the class: “Your view is from his ‘Tractatus’ a philosophical stand he completely reversed later.” {Actually, the newsletter summary of “Wittgenstein’s paradox” was culled from notes taken when a college philosophy instructor was contacted for an explanation of the term.} To resume from her letter: “His paradox is quite of a different order. In his first view, he distinguished between mind and matter (objects in the world) and said language merely labels object, etc., in the manner of the logical positivists. This view still admits to the reality of both subjective and objective principles. Later, in “Philosophical Investigations” and his lectures, he essentially denies that mind and matter exist at all, except as words we invent to give order to things. He says that language creates reality God, Mind, etc. are all part of our language games. If enough people agree on what a word means and agree as to how the word should be used, then order is created. That is the Wittgenstein dilemma — all philosophy, religion, mysticism, then are simply games we play within a context we all agree to abide by
the rules. I am not an expert on Wittgenstein; I am only interested in creating a framework of intelligibility that destroys his paradox. His own argument is of course, based upon just another language game itself.”

Continuing she wrote, “I’m not say that ‘God exists within the cosmos as a Creative Force’ to imply that God apportioned a part of Himself as a Force with discernible properties. What I talked about was the important distinction between creation as emanation rather than as manifestation and is the crucial point of argument between Baha’i and those religions which are pantheistic. I remember speaking to that point extensively.

“I never did explain the smaller separate chart that appeared on the handout. It should have been framed or blocked to show that it was not a part of the larger chart. However, it portrays as a symbol what the other chart portrays in words. ‘Reality of realities’ signifies all that is fundamental or all that which underlies all reality. Sometimes Abdu’l-baha uses this phrase to mean this and sometimes He uses it to mean God. There is no cut and dried definition for it — if there were any further meditation upon this idea would effectively be cut off.

“The smaller chart shows Reality as One, portrayed by a Sphere. In the material world of relativities we all look at Reality and see it, not as One but as separate ‘points,’ dissimilar aspects of one thing. The popular Sufi fable of the blind men feeling the elephant, all touching different parts of it, and so all supposing only ‘his’ sensory experience is correctly describing the elephant, and getting into endless arguments about it. That is what the smaller chart was supposed to convey, although no one even asked me what it meant…

“It is right that I didn’t want to use the intellectual tools that most of us apply to solve all problems. To do so means we have not escaped Wittgenstein’s paradox — that we will only end up talking about definitions of words and not best to use them. It was the very problem I set out to answer a different way, using different tools…”

NEXT CLASS:

The next class will be held on October 29th on a Sunday afternoon at 3:00 P.M. at the home Mehrdad Amanat. His address is [Ed. personal address follows]. At this class Tony Lee will present his resent trip to England where he attended a Seminar on Baha’i Studies held at Cambridge University. He will speak on some of the issues that were raised at that seminar and some of the controversies which were left unresolved. You all be there, y’heah!

[END DOCUMENT]

Related Links:

The original scanned documents can be found here.