The Faiths Men Live By
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Charles Francis Potter, The Faiths Men Live By, bahai-library.com.
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THE FAITHS MEN
LIVE BY                                                                                                      -á'

by

Charles Francis Potter            . .                      ... .

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THE \VORLD'S WORI< (1913) LTD
KINGS WOOD
...
••                                      SURREY
Contents
II
FIRST PUBLISHED   1955                                                    ••
PREFACE                        Vll

•
INTRODUCTION                   Xl

I   HINDUISM                            I

JAINISM
SIKHISM

2   JUDAISM

3   ZOROASTRIANISM                 26

4    BUDDHISM                       35

5    CONFUCIANISM                   ~1
.)

6    TAOISM                         61
.
7   SHINTO

8    ISLAM

9    CHRISTIANITY

I0    THE Ro MAN CATHOLICS           97

PRINTED I~ GRE.-\T BRITAIN        I I   THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH   I 14
AT THE "\VINDZ..!ILL PRESS
KINGS\VOOD, SURREY
12    THE LUTHERANS                 124
THE FAITHS MEN LIVE BY                                            OTHER. CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS               27 l
she went to Madras, India, and established her society there. When        prophet. After years in prison, where he wrote several books he
she died, in 1á891, she had one hundred thousand followers. Her           died in 1892 and was succeeded by his son, Sir Abdul Baha Bahai,
disciples, now divided into two international societies, still com-       who, before his dea~h in 1921,appointed his grandson Shogi Effendi
memorate the day of her death, May 8, as 'White Lotus Day'.               as the next Guardian of the Bahai Cause.
'
It wa~ u.nder th~ latter's able leadership that the Bahai
There are three divisions of American Rosicrucians, all teaching       Assemblies in America were organised into a National Spiritual
mainly theosophical doctrines. The Societas Rosicruciana has an           As.sembly and a larc?e and beautiful Bahai Temple built at
office in New York City, the Fraternitas Rosre Crucis has one in          W1lmett~, Ill., :iear Chicago. This Temple of Peace is a nonagon in
Quakertown, Pa., and the Ancient Mystical Order Rosre Crucis              s~ape~ .~1th n1n.e .great Rillars of white quartz to symbolise the
(AMORC) one in San Jose, Cal.                                             nine 11;1ng rel1g1o~s of the world. Like Theosophy, Bahai
Rosicrucians belong to secret fraternities and have mystic            emphasises the teaching of Comparative Religion. It also proclaims
symbols, like the pyramid, the swastika, and the rosy cross. áThe         that the foundation of all religions is one, and teaches world
last is sometimes represented by a cross within a circle, but the        peace, universal education, and the equality of the sexes. It
AMORC has a red rose on a golden cross. The name Rosicrucian             advocates an international auxiliary language.
has been traced to the symbol, but it has also been derived from            There are said to be 700,000 Bahais in Persia, but there are
the name of a German scholar and noble, Christian Rosenkreuz,            only about fiv~ thousand ~n the United States. A recent interesting
said to have founded the brotherhood in 1420, after long travel          development is the creation of the New á History Society of N e\v
and study in Damascus, Egypt, and Spain. It is asserted that the         York, a Bahai group, of an international Caravan of East and
early Rosicrucians were alchemists, hypnotists, almoners, and            w.est, a youth COrr.espondence peace Society With I ,300 chapters in
healers of the sick.                                                     thirty-seven countries and a membership of one hundred thousand.
Brothers of this order are found today in all parts of the British
Commonwealth as well as in America; and some of them are still               Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was one of the most
interested in such unconventional means for the relief and cure of        amazingly versatile geniuses who ever lived, a veritable Swedish
disease as hypnotism, vegetable drugs, and coloured lights. They          Leonardo da Vinci. For the first half of his long life, he was a
teach a sort of pantheism, believing that the Creator is still in         scholar, inventor, engineer, and an advanced scientist in the fields
every tree, plant, and rock, for the whole universe is instinct with      of physics, anatomy, physiology, economics, astronomy, paleonlife, according to the supreme design of the Master Mind.                 tology, geology, and metallurgy. He anticipated several recent
developments and predicted others. Kant and Laplace have been
Bahaism, like Theosophy, has its roots in Gnosticism and Neo-           credited with being the first to adduce the nebular hypothesis
platonism, especially in the Persian and Zor_oastrian strains of those    theory to account for the formation of the sun and planets, but
types of east _Mediterranean mysticism. It also has elements of           Swedenborg had published that theory in one of his books in r734,
Sufism, the Moslem mysticism of contemplation which developed             twenty yearsá before Kant and sixty before Laplace.
in Persia in the 11th century. But its immediate origin was in              In 1747, he suddenly resigned his government position as
Babism, a nineteenth-centt1ry mysticism, both Persian and                Assessor of the Royal College of Mines which he had held for
Moslem, when Mirza Ali Mohammed took the title of Bab ed-Din             thirty years a.nd devoted himself to theological and spiritual
(Gate of Faith). and announced himself the successor .of Moses,          matters, declaring that heaven had been opened to him. First, he
Christ, and Mohammed. His teaching of a combination of                   had been instructed in dreams, then had seen visions and hear(l
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Parseeism, plus Gnostic elements .     voices. In his full illumination or theophany, after visiting heaven
aroused opposition, and he was imprisoned and finally shot, in           and .hell an~ talking with angels and spirits, the Lord gave him
1850. Babism went underground, but reappeared, in 1868, as               full instructions as to the symbolic meaning and interpretation of
Bahaism with Baba Ullah as the Bab's successor and the next              the Scriptures.
-- The Faiths Men Live By (Used by permission of the curator)