# Baha'i Horizons in the 21st Century

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Coming home to America, and of course we've never really left, just had
>  another home for a few years, coming home I look and figure the American
>  Bahá'í Community should be 2 or 3 times the size it is...
> 
>         I want to talk a bit about our Prophetic Horizon, our Visible Horizon
>  and what is shaping the broad scale obligations of the U.S. to the Bahá'í
>  World...
> 
>         Abdu'l Baha talked about the coming of the Lesser Peace before the
>  end of the century, that is, before December 31, 2000. There will be
>  surprising events in the next 7 years, many to rival the collapse of
>  communism and the Soviet Union in the last few. I can suggest a few
>  scenarios. But when people wonder about the Lesser Peace, we wonder, Is it
>  going to be in a big conference with 175 countries all represented, and a big
>  parchment all are signing? Will it happen that way? It probably won't be
>  that way, in the form of a great conclave as the House of Justice suggested.
>  Will it be by a cataclysmic event? Probably not. My own presumption is that
>  there will be great crises we cannot anticipate. I suspect there will be no
>  official declaration, but something will happen that in the future will be
>  seen as the historical turning point, the start of the Great Peace for
>  mankind. As we look at the visible horizons, great forces are at work. Dark
>  forces are visible, but underneath are great forces of unity, energized by
>  great energy systems such as are energized by the Bahá'ís...
> 
>         You know, world-scale, world-encompassing science and ideology came
>  into being the second half of the last century. Some will say we had in
>  Bahá'u'lláh the spiritual Darwin, the Darwin of religious evolution, coming
>  at the same time as they did, but I think it will be more the reverse, in
>  how people will view Darwin's role with Bahá'u'lláh as the model. You know,
>  every breakthrough since that point has been an instrument to pull the world
>  together...
> 
>         Someday we'll be able to get on a rocket in Miami, and blooey, in less than
>  an hour we will land in Teheran for the first part of the Real Pilgrimage...
>  Transportation and energy systems are always changing, knitting us together
>  tighter and tighter...
> 
>         There's a word that's used alot by some theorists lately. They call it the
>  Noosphere, that is, the Mind of Man. You know, there is the lithosphere, and
>  the atmosphere, and now we have the Noosphere, which is not an envelope of
>  air but the envelope of the ideas, the Mind of Man that surrounds us and
>  interpenetrates all of us. These advances in information exchange, computer
>  networking, communication, all helps to bring us into a world science Mind,
>  a world business mind, all over.
> 
>         In current chaos theory - there's also complexity theory which is bigger
>  now, in chaos theory there is this idea of all these collisions, the
>  collisions of people and ideas, all help to fuse together to rise us into a
>  higher energy level. The systems guys talk alot about that, like Ervin
>  Lazlo, who has talked alot to us, I think he really is a crypto-Bahá'í you
>  know, he just doesn't want to sign anything or join anything, but he comes
>  to us and he says: The Bahá'ís have it. They are pushing society to a higher
>  level. We are with all this computer stuff (I want to get us a computer I
>  think but Meg is a little wary of them, and I understand that, because you
>  know, you can be aiming for Beijing one day with the computer and you hit
>  the wrong button, and bang you land in Timbuktu, so I understand her
>  concerns...But you know, with all of this we are building a Common Brain for
>  society, it is as if with all the computers connecting in networks, all
>  over, we are making the neurons and the axons, building the media of unity
>  for the Mind of Man...
> 
>         So what are the specific Bahá'í horizons we observe:
>  Friends, we are in for surprises, all of us in the mind sphere, the
>  noosphere. Lazlo says that when the Crash occurs, you will be able to pull
>  the whole system into your order of thinking. So just a few Bahá'ís can
>  really make the difference on society at large. Our numbers are deceiving.
>  Still I look at the Bahá'í community, and I see erratic and minimal growth
>  in the U.S. Erratic and minimal growth during these years. We really should
>  be doubling our numbers every 3 to 5 years. We must grow - monumentally.
>  Monumentally. And growth warnings are in the air. There are some recent
>  surprises.
> 
>         1) The Peace Message: there was a marvelous effort by many NSAs to deliver
>  the book to Presidents, leaders of thought, etc, that really took us out of
>  obscurity in ways we still don't understand. For many NSAs it was a very
>  brave thing, and the first time they tried to meet with their President or
>  Prime Minister. You know, only one President wrote back to the Bahá'í World
>  Center - the President of the Marshall Islands. He said: when the great
>  conclave assembles, we will be there. We will sign the parchment. He
>  followed through you know on those contacts. He really is another
>  crypto-Bahá'í. He saw: the Americans pulled out, leavng that atomic waste,
>  and the schools declined, and Kabua, the President, wrote asking the Bahá'ís
>  to take over the educational system. And we have, starting with 5 schools,
>  and the teacher training school. Expect much more like that. Such as in
>  Kiribati. It is only a matter of time until the majority of the population
>  is Bahá'í, and the same thing starts, the Catholics and the protestants,
>  will pull out, and the Bahá'ís will have to fill in the gap.
> 
>         2) The Centenary at Bahji: You know in Brazil our community there had just
>  finished changes suggested for the Brazilian constitution. In the Chamber of
>  Deputies, a leftist leader, of the communists in the chamber, called for a
>  solemn session in honor of the centenary of Bahá'u'lláh's passing. Bahá'ís
>  helped a number of the deputies with their speeches, but the leftist leader
>  wrote his own. How did it happen? Well, he had a secretary in his office who
>  was a Bahá'í, a young girl, an aide really. This deputy was the granson of
>  Okinawan slave labor in Brazil. He told us, because when we were in
>  Brasilia he asked to meet with us, he said Communism as a religion is dead.
>  Well the Bahá'í was an influence, but he himself saw that the Left had lost
>  its great paradigm, and indeed Communism - as a religion- was now dead. And
>  we have a great chance to swing these people over to us. What we will do
>  with them I don't know, but they will be very important...
> 
>         We have a great opportunity to co-opt the left. In Chile, at the Universidad
>  Bolivariana, which can perhaps be our 4th or 5th Bahá'í university,
>  Allende's old gang, the leftists and the ideologues are suddenly interested
>  in what the Bahá'ís are doing...
> 
>         3) The World Congress - well it left repercussions all over New York.
>  Somehow it seemed to calm even that tumultous city for a time. All the taxi
>  cab drivers remember the Bahá'ís, event though we were a drop in the big
>  ocean of New York...
> 
>         4) Legal changes: We have been influencing important legal changes. Many
>  governments are changing their constitution. Our national treasurer, Bill
>  Davis, is working with the Government of the Argentine to change their
>  constitution. In Germany, you know, the constitution was designed only for
>  a Christian framework, and we led a legal challenge to certain parts of the
>  German law which blocked our legal registration there, and the court found
>  in our favor, to the opposition of the Catholics and the Protestants, and
>  this is leading to a revision of the German constitution and our recognition
>  in Germany as a valid primary world religion. We are having a hand in
>  rewriting constitutions all over, the Argentine, the Cameroon. Many
>  governments will re-write theirs in the next ten years, and we have the
>  chance to write in Bahá'í elements and write out many negative things...
> 
>         5) The World Parliament of Religions. The centenary of it really was a
>  Bahá'í initiative, and even if many others were there, and we seemed to be
>  downplaying it, well, it came about because of Bahá'ís, and this is a
>  triumph of the power of the individual taking the initiative, even if the
>  authority is in the institutions.
> 
>         You know, the NSA is not going to do all the thinking for you. Use your
>  individual brains. However much you feel you must consult with the
>  administrative bodies, individuals must be the actioneers, and take the
>  initiative.
> 
>         It is important to incorporate character education and weave a moral society
>  into the curriculum. We are knee deep in trying to reach the leaders of
>  tomorrow through the schools...
> 
>         We have, oh, maybe 17 Bahá'í schools that are really of a calibre to take
>  off. There is also the College of Human Services, which we are trying to
>  help develop at the Rabbani school in Panchgani. All they need is $2.5
>  million, and we think it is sustainable because we have studied their
>  business plan, and agree that if they can just ratchet themselves up then
>  they can maintain it. There is the Universidad Rural in Colombia, Nur
>  University in Bolivia, and Universidad Bolivariana in Chile, which I
>  mentioned, named after the great Liberator, Simon Bolivar. Notice that none
>  of the schools I mention are here in North America.
> 
>         Oh we have the Maxwell school yes, but look where the action is.
> 
>         We have to make a challenge to the youth, excellence is our drive. Well my
>  time is up - Above all expect surprises in every field of endeavor...
> 
>         We have to be the complete and integral peace people, the peace experts to
>  all...
>
> — *Baha'i Horizons in the 21st Century (Used by permission of the curator)*