Sacred Mythology and the Baha'i Faith
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: William P. Collins, Sacred Mythology and the Baha'i Faith, bahai-library.com.
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Published in the Journal of Bahá’í Studies Vol. 2, number 4 (1990)
© Association for Bahá’í Studies 1990

Sacred Mythology and the Bahá’í Faith
William P. Collins

Abstract
Myths are metaphors that convey truth about the indescribable through powerful images and experiences. The
mythological models synthesized by Joseph Campbell, such as the monomyth with its attendant metaphysical.
cosmological, sociological, and psychological purposes, underscore the fundamental unity of human spiritual
experience. The Bahá’í Faith employs three significant spiritual verities to fulfil the purposes of myth and to open
for all Bahá’í the full depth and range of the world’s mythologies: The unknowable nature of the Ultimate Mystery;
the relativity of religious/mythological truth; and the necessity of science and investigation of reality. The Bahá’í
Faith also possesses a sacred drama—history as myth—from which the Bahá’í community takes its signposts for
individual and collective development. All of these aspects of Bahá’í mythology are the basis for a coherent
mythological landscape through which each human being must travel. The mythological universe created by
Bahá’u’lláh frees the soul to experience and understand all mythologies, to explore and be awed by the physical
universe understood by science and reason, and to undertake the universal adventure through which all may become
fully human.

Résumé
Les mythes sont des métaphores qui véhiculent des vérités au sujet de “l’indescriptible” par le moyen d’images et
d’expériences fortes. Les modéles mythologiques synthétisés par Joseph Campbell, tel le monomythe avec ses buts
métaphysiques, cosmologiques, sociologiques et psychologiques, soulignent l’unité fondamentale de l’expérience
spirituelle humaine. La foi bahá’íe emploie trois vérités spirituelles importantes pour rendre compte du mythe et
ouvrir à tous les bahá’ís l’éventail et la profondeur des mythologies du monde: la nature inconnaissable du Mystère
Ultime; la relativité de la verité religieuse ou mythologique; la nécessité de la science et de la recherche de la réalité.
La foi bahá’íe possède aussi un drame sacré—l’histoire comme mythe—d’où la communauté bahá’íe tire ses points
de repère pour le développement individuel et collectif. Tous ces aspects de la mythologie bahá’íe constituent la
base d’un paysage mythologique cohérent que chaque être humain doit traverser. L’univers mythologique créé par
Bahá’u’lláh libère l’âme et lui permet de vivre et de comprendre toutes les mythologies, d’explorer et d’admirer
l’univers physique tel qu’expliqué par la science et la raison, et d’entreprendre l’aventure universelle par laquelle
tous peuvent devenir pleinement humains.

Resumen
Los mitos son metáforas que acarrean verdades acerca de lo indescriptible mediante imágenes y experiencias
poderosas. Los modelos mitológicos sintetizados por Joseph Campbell, tales como el monomito con sus
acompañantes propósitos metafísicos, cosmológicos, sociológicos, y psicológicos subrayan la unidad fundamental
de la experiencia espirituel humana. La Fe Bahá’í se vale de tres verdades espirituales para realizar los propósitos
del mito y para dar a conocer a todos los bahá’ís la entera profundidad y alcance de las mitologías del mundo: El
carácter inconocible de aquel Ultimo Misterio; la relatividad de la verdad religiosa/mitólogica; y la necesidad de la
ciencia y la investigación de la realidad. La Fe Bahá’í tambien posee un drama sagrado—la historia como mito—
desde el cual la comunidad bahá’í consigue su norte para el desarrollo individual y colectivo. Todos estos aspectos
de la mitología bahá’í forman la base de un panorama mitológico coherente por el cual todo ser humano debe de
atraversar. El universo mitológico creado por Bahá’u’lláh libra el alma para experimentar y comprender todas las
mitologías, explorar y sentir admiración reverente por el universo físico comprendido por la ciencia y la razón, y
llevar a cabo la aventura universal mediante la cual todos puedan hacerse completamente humanos.

M    ythology is something all of us know, although we may only dimly perceive that we have such knowledge. In
this essay we will go on a quest. What we will find on the journey may be taken by some as merely one
model, among other models, by which we can systematize our knowledge of human social and cultural
development; or the quest may result in some new appreciation of the varieties of spiritual expression; or it may
invest some of us with a profound sense of the wondrous nature of life and with the awareness that the revelation of
Bahá’u’lláh is a part of a magnificent unfoldment of humanity’s capacities that stretches back into the dim reaches
of human evolution, ahead into the future, outward toward the infinite macrocosm of the universe, and inward to the
infinite microcosm of the human heart.
Humanity’s cultural and spiritual history exhibits a striking unity at the level of its recurring motifs: fire,
theft, flood, virgin birth, angels, demons, and resurrected heroes. These themes have a worldwide distribution,
appealing in modified form in accordance with the sociocultural context, while remaining always variations on a few
major elements. Such elemental myths may be told for entertainment, in a spirit of play, but with an underlying
serious educative and psychological purpose (cf. Bettelheim). They may also become manifest “in religious
contexts, where they are accepted not only as factually true, but even as revelations of the verities to which the
whole culture is a living witness” (Campbell, Primitive 3). Men and women have continually lived and clung to
these motifs in mysticism, liturgy, poetry, art, philosophy, music, song, and ecstatic experience (Campbell, Primitive
3–4).

What is Mythology?
Myths are metaphors that convey truth by making such truth a vivid image and living experience which can be
incorporated into traditional personal and social behavior or that may transform or even overthrow the existing order
through the power (if not the shock) of the image. Why are metaphors necessary to the conveyance of truth, rather
than the simple statement that such-and-such is so? To experience life fully, to understand one’s place in the
universe, it is necessary to have some grasp of the reality of the ultimate mysteries of the universe (one among
which we may call God, or Brahman, or simply the Uncreated, or even “the void”). This mystery is not describable
in direct language: in Aquinas’s words “for then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that He is far above
all that man can possibly think of God” (Summa contra Gentiles 1:5). ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that outward forms and
symbols must be used to convey intellectual conceptions. He says that there are two kinds of knowledge: “...the
knowledge of things perceptible to the senses” and “knowledge [that] is intellectual [which]...has no outward form
and no place and is not perceptible to the senses” (Some Answered Questions 83). For the intellectual, spiritual,
metaphorical reality to be made clear, we must use material things and sense perception to convey inner
significance.
Before proceeding further, there are two caveats to issue. First, there is a distinction between myth and
human fancy. Mythology and its associated rites “supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in
cointeraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high
incidence” of emotional problems in our societies “follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual
aid” (Campbell, Hero 11). The enduring myths, with their attendant symbols and emotions, are capable of effecting
personal transformation and obtaining group cohesion, rather than stranding the individual in a personal quagmire
and leaving society with the care of damaged psyches. Second, the mythological point of view—that is, the way to
obtain truth from the myth—requires that we not confuse the vehicle with the message. In the Kitáb-i-Íqán,
Bahá’u’lláh provides humankind with a perspective from which to understand mythological ideas from previous
sacred scriptures. All believers, of whatever religion, tend to read their own myths as facts. Bahá’u’lláh cautions us
frequently about this tendency that Campbell calls the “positivistic...represented, on the one hand, by religious
experiences of the literal sort, where the impact of the daemon,1 rising to the plane of consciousness from its place of
birth on the level of the sentiments, is taken to be objectively real, and on the other, by science and political
economy, for which only measurable facts are objectively real...[W]henever a myth has been taken literally its sense
has been perverted...[and] whenever it has been dismissed as a mere priestly fraud or sign of inferior intelligence,
truth has slipped out the other door” (Oriental 27).
Whence come our myths? Human beings are, in a very real sense, physical bodies in a material universe.
Yet human beings are also endowed with minds that grasp concepts and make connections between things and what
those things signify: John Hatcher has dealt at length in two works (“Metaphorical,” Purpose) with physical creation
as a vehicle for conveying truths beyond those physical things themselves. I would also include among the realities
that are metaphorical, the relationships among people (especially family members), and the emotions that we feel.
Carl Jung spoke of “archetypal images” that are ingrained on human experience through the mind’s need to resolve
the individual’s place in the family, in society, in the universe, and within the self.

Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the
same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in dream, the forms are quirked by the peculiar
troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problems and solutions shown are directly valid for all
mankind. (Campbell, Hero 19)

There appears to be some support for this in the Bahá’í writings, where Bahá’u’lláh discusses the sleeping state as
“the most mysterious of the signs of God amongst men...” and writes that the world of dream “hath neither begin-
ning nor end,” is “within thy proper self and is wrapped up within thee” and yet may also be “hidden in the
innermost reality of this world” (Gleanings 152). We may also say that the myths and fables of the world are the
product of revelation, as the majority of such metaphors are enshrined in the sacred literature of all the world’s
tribal, national, and universal religions. Without stretching the point too far, we may even ask whether the process of
revelation itself is not a form of dream while awake, and dream itself a form of revelation while asleep.

Mythological Models
Joseph Campbell brilliantly synthesized a number of models in his works on comparative mythology and in his
examination of personal transformation. These frameworks are of particular interest in studying Bahá’í sacred
mythology.
Humanity developed through two major early stages in mythological thinking, associated with the two
primary ways in which people obtained their livelihood. The first, the “forest” mythology, was the mythology of the
hunter and gatherer, who operated within a very small social group and who functioned primarily as an individual
facing the mystery of the natural world. In this mythology, the mythological symbols were the animals and natural
forces, power over which ensured food, clothing, and safe shelter in the yearly migratory cycle. The “village”
mythology related to the universe perceived by the cultivator, where the seasonal cycles and fructification of the
earth became the center of ritual, and in which the individual had a place in a larger society in which the individual’s
wilder impulses had to be subjected to the needs of the group.
Both of these types of mythology had four main purposes: first, to “reconcile waking consciousness to the
mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is”—a mystical and metaphysical prospect; second, to give
an overall view of this universal mystery in a cosmological scheme; third, to enforce moral order by molding the
individual to the requirements of his or her social, temporal, and geographical conditions—the sociological prospect;
and fourth, but most crucial, the psychological prospect, wherein is nurtured the “centering and unfolding of the
individual, in integrity, in accord with...himself (the microcosm), ... his culture (the mesocosm),... the universe (the
macrocosm), and...that awesome ultimate mystery which is both beyond and within himself and all things”
(Campbell, Creative 4–6, 609–24).
How mythology fulfilled these purposes lay in the formulation of ritual and cyclical reenactment of
mythological events, and in the telling and retelling of inspiring stories that acted as signposts along the road of
inner development. It is no accident that we find repetition of such themes as the god or heavenly messenger who is
killed, then planted or eaten, and then resurrected or returned whole in a new form: the Greek legend of Dionysos,
god of bread and wine, twice-born son of God (first prematurely from his mother so that he might be preserved from
the wrath of jealous Hera, and then again from the side of great Zeus himself), who was symbolically killed and
eaten at harvest time, descended into Hades, and was resurrected in the spring; or the Ojibway legend of the origin
of maize, when the boy Wunzh, seeking his spirit vision, wrestled a heavenly messenger who then instructed Wunzh
to kill him and plant his body, out of which the corn grew; or the Christian story of Jesus, Son of God, who shared—
metaphorically—his body (bread) and blood (wine), was killed, descended into hell, and rose on the third day, in
springtime, from the dead. The cycle of life—the mystery of death and rebirth and of triumph over death—is, in its
mythical richness, the enlivener of our experience of the universe.
Beyond the ritual observance of myth, however, is this “centering and unfolding of the individual” of
which Campbell writes. This is where we come to the heart of inner life, to the hero quest, and to a model that
Campbell calls the “monomyth”—that is, the model or single myth of which all hero myths and inward quests are
simply the multiple forms. In the fairy tale of the frog prince, a king had several beautiful daughters, of whom the
youngest was dazzling. The princess used to play near a spring in the dark forest near the castle. She would toss her
favorite plaything—a golden ball—into the air, but one day it bounced into the spring and sank to the bottom. As
she cried over her lost toy, she heard a voice ask her what was the matter. When she looked up, the princess saw a
frog holding its ugly head out of the water. Once the princess bad explained her dilemma, the frog offered his
assistance; but with a catch: he wanted the princess to agree to care for him and be his companion. The princess,
thinking that a frog would never really have any interest in a human being, agreed. The frog gleefully retrieved the
ball, whereupon the heedless princess scampered away while the frog croaked loudly after her. I need not remind
yon that the story does not end there, and the princess finds herself in a dilemma when the frog arrives at the palace
door. Likewise, recall Bahá'u'lláh’s recounting in The Seven Valleys (13–14) of the “lover who had sighed for long
years in separation from his beloved,” who so despaired of ever reaching the goal of his beloved that he decided that
he could no longer live and made for the marketplace where he would end his life. By chance he was espied by a
watchman who followed after him, and when the lover began to run, other watchmen appeared to bar the way, until,
in a last desperate attempt to escape, the lover leapt over a wall and found himself in the garden of his beloved.
These are typical examples of how a quest in the direction of the inner self begins: a blunder, the merest seeming
chance, brings us face to face with forces not rightly understood, and off we go. But this is not mere accident; it is
the operation of those deepest spiritual and psychological forces that represent the perennial working out of our
destinies. This is “the Call,” the beginning of the hero quest that is our way toward fulfillment of our potential as
fully spiritual human beings. The Call is followed by supernatural assistance from “the Helper” or “the Guide,” who
offers some protection or direction toward the “Threshold of adventure,” at which there may occur battles with
dragons or an evil brother or an alter-ego, dismemberment, crucifixion, abduction, sea journeys, night journeys, or
descent into the belly of a great fish. The passing of this threshold, for those who make it, is followed by “tests” that
must be passed before the winning of the prize. Psyche, in her search for lost Cupid, was forced by Venus to
perform several impossible tasks, which Psyche managed to perform with the aid of lowly helpers; and Heracles had
to perform twelve labors to be allowed to return to his home. The hero or heroine who has managed to pass the tests
finally reaches “the Goal,” at which he/she enters a sacred marriage, attains atonement, undergoes apotheosis
(becomes divine), or steals elixir for humankind. The hero then undergoes “the Flight” back across the Threshold of
adventure, either by resurrection, rescue, return, or further battles. Returned to the daylight conscious world, the
hero/heroine brings some boon, some contribution, to humankind, as did Prometheus with the fire he stole from the
gods (Campbell, Hero 245).

Bahá’í Myth
How does this apply to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh? I mentioned earlier that mythology has four main purposes—
mystical/metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and psychological. It is a revealing exercise to ponder the
mythological, rather than the doctrinal or administrative, significance of the Bahá’í texts, and there are some
fascinating, though tentative, conclusions.

The Ultimate Mystery Unknowable
The Ultimate Mystery of the universe—the Divine Reality—however we name It, is neither describable nor
knowable. What we see in the material universe, the moment it exists, enters the world of names and becomes
multiple rather than unitary, The fundamental mystic quest of all religions, including the Bahá’í Faith, is to become
aware of and to experience the unitary nondual reality behind the mask of the physical universe, as well as of the
way that Ultimate Reality manifests Itself and acts in the world of perceptible forms. The purpose is to reach that
stage at which the “true believer...refuseth to allow any notion of multiplicity to becloud his conception of the
singleness of God, who will regard the Divine Being as One Who, by His very nature, transcendeth the limitations
of numbers” (Gleanings 166–67), to know that Reality to be exalted above words and attributes and not subject to
the kingdom of names. No direct intercourse is possible with this Divine Reality, which describes Itself as both
manifest and hidden, and which our minds cannot encompass because of essential human limitations. I stress the
unknowability of God as the fundamental mythological principle of the Bahá’í approach to mysticism and
cosmology for three reasons. First, this is the first time that any Manifestation has, to my knowledge, boldly stated
this as a key concept, and as with all such radical departures from past tendency, it stands out and must have vast
significance for how we see things. The second reason is that the very fundamental realization that God is not
knowable directly frees everyone from the tyranny of a single myth about God. One of the most pernicious problems
in religious history has been the tendency of religions, when coming face to face with each other or confronting new
problems, to try to make new truths and discoveries fit the Procrustean bed of some ancient and localized God-myth.
Myths, being vehicles, ought not to be confused with the truth they are intended to convey; there is nothing more
damaging, nor more desirable to be freed from, than a myth—religious, social, or personal—too literally and too
solidly believed. The third reason is that an Unknowable Ultimate Reality can still be experienced by people from
any mythological tradition and indeed inspire that mystic awe which is the engenderer of true humility.

Relativity of Religious/Mythological Truth
Though the inability to know God directly now frees humanity from subjection to a single myth, this occurs in
concert with a seemingly contradictory principle: that the Ultimate Reality periodically and progressively manifests
Itself through a divine Hero-Figure and a new myth, of necessity appearing in history and within a cultural context.
Bahá’u’lláh qualifies God’s unknowability by noting that God does not therefore leave humankind in a state of
spiritual and mythological anarchy or conflict. He sends his Manifestations—perfect beings who both convey and
embody divine teachings for the time in which they appear. To know these divine beings, these sacred heroes, is to
know the Unknowable Reality by its attributes, provided we recognize the Manifestation for our own time. Not to
recognize the theophany of our time is not really to understand the earlier theophanies and the larger schema of
which they are a part. By extension, not to enter into the sacred myth in its current expression is to find oneself
divorced from the full intent of the sacred mythologies of the past. This process of revelation of the Divine Mystery
is viewed in Bahá’í thought as progressive both in time and in metaphorical complexity and sophistication. Each
appearance is composed of (1) an eternal, mythologically relevant portion, and (2) everyday social practices and
customs geared to the requirements of the time. The former is not itself static but is subject to humanity’s growing
ability to understand relative meaning and analogical structure. Likewise, the latter is not merely a culturally—and
temporally—determined package of customs but rather a set of pointers back toward the mythological prospects, the
metaphorical meanings, of the system.
Therefore, the second revolutionary and mythologically significant wellspring of the Bahá’í Faith is the
idea that “religious truth is not absolute but relative...” (Shoghi Effendi, World Order 58). The importance of the
idea of relativism is covered at length in Moojan Momen’s excellent essay on the subject (“Relativism,” Studies
185–217). The major point that can be made, with considerable support from the Bahá’í writings, is that monism
(where no difference is seen between the human self and the Absolute) and dualism (where the Absolute is totally
different, separate, and other than humans) are not mutually contradictory, but represent two legitimate ways of
seeing a reality that transcends both. We are told that to know ourselves is to know God. This is not because we are
God, but rather because our essence—the human heart—is a mirror to the attributes of the Ultimate Reality. The
mirror and the things it reflects are and are not identical. As in Bahá’u’lláh’s analogy of the sun and the mirror, to
say that the sun and the mirror are identical does not encompass the reality of the system. Yet it is also incorrect to
say that the sun is not in the mirror, inasmuch as we clearly see it reflected there. Another analogy, still more
pointed in its paradoxical nature, can be derived from physics. Light has been found to exhibit attributes both of
particles and of waves. The reality of light is that light is above and beyond these constructs, whereas the study and
measurement of light requires the choice of one or the other of these two states at the given moment when human
scientific observation occurs. When we see the light with our own eyes, however, we know its reality by its
attributes and effects, separately from any consideration of whether it is particle or wave. Thus, while Bahá’u’lláh
writes of God as being so exalted that no direct intercourse is possible, He also states in The Hidden Words, “Turn
thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting” (7). To
explain either of these statements using Aristotelian logic is likely to do a disservice to the mystic profundity of
Bahá’u’lláh’s writings.

Science and the Investigation of Reality
A third linchpin in the Bahá’í mythological system is the independent investigation of reality and the relationship of
religion to science. If you search the Bahá’í writings (particularly the expositions by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá), you will find
that the study of reality is enjoined upon every mind. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá extols the power of the human mind to
understand the laws of nature, whereby humanity is able to make use of those laws; he calls this power
“supernatural” (Promulgation 50). If the human species is endowed with such powers of penetration into physical
reality, then religion (and therefore the cosmological prospect of mythology) must be in accord with this
supernatural endowment’s discoveries. “Every religion which is not in accordance with established science is
superstition,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says (63); and Shoghi Effendi writes that “we are a religion and not qualified to pass on
scientific matters...” (30 Sept. 1950, Selections from Writings on Health). These statements about the relation
between religion and science mean that the investigation of physical reality is not to be made subordinate to
mythological images that have been taken literally; the specific topics of study and the theories consequent on
scientific study of the nature of the physical universe are not the appropriate sphere into which religion may be
permitted to introduce questions of heresy.2 In some sense, every mythological system of the past has been in accord
with the science of its time. One reason that we have seen this debilitating conflict between science and religion
during recent centuries is that we have—for example, in the case of Judaeo-Christian myths about creation—the
“science” of more than four millennia ago conflicting with the science of today. We know human evolution to have
taken place, not because it is confirmed in the Bahá’í writings, but because it has been shown by careful scientific
investigation over many years, much of it before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá actually voiced the Bahá’í confirmation. Nor is it
because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained the meaning of the myth of Jesus Christ’s resurrection that we understand that it
did not take place literally; our minds already understood that such an occurrence was not in accord with long-
observed scientific fact. What the Bahá'í formulation teaches us is the meaning of the fact of evolution and the
significance of the resurrection story. Scientific knowledge has not lessened the need for spiritual frameworks in
life, nor has it robbed us of a cosmology that inspires awe and reverence.
...as far as the HERE and NOW is concerned (and, my friends, we are still here), the first function of a
mythology—to waken a sense of awe, humility and respect. before that ultimate mystery, transcending
names and forms “from which...words turn back”—has been capitally served by everyone of these sciences
of the second function: the rendition of a cosmology, an image of this universe of wonder, whether
regarded in its temporal, physical, or biological aspect. (Campbell. Creative 620)

I would therefore suggest that, while the Bahá’í Faith does have a spiritual cosmology that serves a metaphorical
function, Bahá’u’lláh has freed humanity from slavery to myth as a literal scientific explanation of the universe’s
operation and has opened the door to unimagined progress on the material plane and to wonder at its strange and
magnificent beauty. When scientists speak of the creation of all the elements within the hearts of the stars; when
they say our planet and we who live here are composed of “star stuff” making us “children of the stars”; when they
discuss the peculiar possibilities of black holes in which enormous quantities of matter are squeezed so infinitely
small that they no longer occupy space, yet exert gravitational force of enormous magnitude; or when they discover
that all space, time, and matter were enfolded within an infinitely small point some fifteen billion years ago—it
becomes clear to what an extent all scientific investigation, now and into the future, will stimulate, awe, and inspire
us with a cosmology that is still mythological precisely because we have submitted ourselves to the majestic
metaphor that is the reality of the universe itself.

History as Myth
Many people from Judaeo-Christian-Islamic backgrounds, upon entering the Bahá’í Faith, are confused by its sacred
texts because the Writings do not operate on the same level of myth as do the Bible and Qur’án, where we are
inspired by a panoply of stories, quests, miracles, and the like. History in a spiritual context needs to have the power
to move people to action. When I first read The Dawn-Breakers, it became clear to me that our sacred drama was
played out similarly to that of the Jewish kings and prophets, of Jesus and his disciples, or of Muhammad and his
companions; but rather than being incorporated into sacred texts, The Dawn-Breakers was written as a separate
nonscriptural narrative. The historical facts, for Bahá’ís, as for early Christians and Muslims, took on archetypal
significances and an aura that can only be called mythological. This is obvious from the moment that we open to the
first page of Nabíl’s narrative and read: “At a time when the shining reality of the Faith of Muhammad had been
obscured by the ignorance, the fanaticism, and perversity of the contending sects into which it had fallen, there
appeared above the horizon of the East that luminous Star of Divine guidance, Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá’í” (The
Dawn-Breakers 1). We know from the symbolism that there is mythological adventure lurking in this volume, not
merely a statement of cold fact.
The Dawn-Breakers is a setting for mythological themes that I have already mentioned. The most important
is the hero quest, where Mullá Husayn, for instance, is unexpectedly and suddenly entrusted by Siyyid Kázim with
the mission of delivering a message to the foremost ecclesiastical leader in Mashhad, whereupon the adventure
begins. Mullá Husayn undertakes a fast of forty days, is helped by the Báb’s servant, enters the home of the Báb
where, during an entire night, he undergoes tests that lead to his obtaining the prize of knowing the Promised One.
He returns to the world, forbidden to speak the Promised One’s name, set to endure the trials necessary on the
crossing back into the conscious world where the boon of faith is to be delivered. Mullá Husayn’s battles are many
against the forces of darkness, but the power of truth makes it possible for him to triumph over them all, as most
graphically and mythologically depicted in his ability, with one swipe of his sword, to cut in two a tree, a musket,
and a man.
A second element of history as myth is the acting out of sacred drama. We are dealing here, not with
ordinary human situations about which we can consult and make decisions. We are witnessing, rather, the living
intervention of archetypal realities in the realm of human action. For the Letters of the Living and others of the
Báb’s disciples, the main actors in this drama were not Mullá Husayn, Quddús, and Táhirih. The Báb created a
mythological hierarchy in which those mid-nineteenth century Iranians were the incarnation of figures once present
on the stage of early Islamic and Shi‘ih sacred history. The Letters of the Living were the return of the Shi‘ih
pleroma—the Prophet, Fátimih, the twelve Imams, and the four Gates: Quddús was Muhammad, Táhirih was
Fátimih (MacEoin, “Hierarchy” 106, 108).
When we understand a history such as The Dawn-Breakers in its mythological context, then its social and
psychological value as a guideline to our own life’s quests and our participation in a sacred drama become evident.
It is clear why Shoghi Effendi placed such stress on the study of The Dawn-Breakers and went so far as to define
our modern status as “spiritual descendants of the dawn-breakers” (Advent 7). There is an ancient myth regarding
the importance of knowing the name of something: it becomes possible to partake of the power and the qualities of
that named thing. By knowing the dawn-breakers’ stories and by being called their descendants, we partake of their
power, their qualities, their drama.

Poetic Imagery and the Mythological Landscape
In searching for a sacred mythology in the Bahá’í Faith, I sifted through the images in the corpus of Bahá'í literature
and looked for patterns. What I found confirms that Bahá’ís have a coherent poetic myth—one that goes about the
process of educating Bahá’ís in a profoundly new and full way. The central images of the Bahá’í experience are
scattered, seemingly haphazardly, throughout the sacred texts, yet they coalesce in a profound wholeness and
complete spiritual geography.
The Bahá’í myth is a universe, with constantly varying topography that extends into the past and future of
eternity, out into the macrocosm of the physical universe and into the microcosm of that most spiritual of all
universes—our own hearts and minds. This universe has its origin in the First Will, the primal “Be!” that created all
things—a creation always in existence yet created from nothing (Tablets 140). When that creative syllable was
uttered, the idea of language and the Word took potential shape, just as the Qur’án is enfolded within the first súra,
and that súra enfolded within the “bismi’lláh,” and that formula enclosed within the “bá” at its beginning, and that
“bá” contained in the point beneath it. Humankind evolved as one species from a common origin, physically through
evolution and spiritually in the dynamic locale of “that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed
surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-
glorious paradise” where “awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends!
Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless
hearts...“ (Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words 27–28).
From that metaphorical place, that mythological locale, we have entered a world of deserts (of search,
oneness, nothingness, and separation) where winds (of doubt, certitude, the will of God, and despair) blow; in which
we tread roads leading unto God (or the other way) and paths (that are straight, of perfection, justice, holiness,
knowledge, or of perdition, dissension, oppression). These parallel or cross rivers (of mercy, immortality,
everlasting life, life-giving waters), and streams (of fellowship, grace, and mystic holiness). These rivers and
streams empty into seas and oceans (of renunciation, and of God’s utterance, of his presence, words, unity,
knowledge, bounty, revelation, good-pleasure); and into the Most Great Ocean whose waters refresh, and along
which are shores (of true understanding, of God’s grace, nearness, eternity, presence, and transcendent mercy).
Round about is a countryside where hills (of faithfulness) and mountains (sacred, immovable, or even iniquitous)
tower above valleys (of arrogance and pride, of corrupt desires, of self and of the shadow; or seven or four valleys
that are themselves a separate and solitary journey within the wider pastoral milieu). In these heights are mines (of
humankind, of their own selves, of true understanding, and of all knowledge). We enter gardens in which doves (of
truth, of eternity, of longing), nightingales (of holiness, of affection, of desire), and phoenixes (of the realm above
and of the undying fire) sing their melodies, die, and are reborn, while ravens and crows croak nearby. Fountains (of
living waters, of wisdom, of God’s laws, of fairmindedness, and of camphor) burble amid forests and their trees (of
being, of life, of justice, of affirmation and denial, of humility and divine revelation), blossoms (of knowledge and
certitude), and incorruptible mystic flowers.
Through this countryside we make our pilgrimage to the city (of God and his justice, wisdom, presence,
nearness and names; of certitude, immortality and of human hearts), in which are paths leading through gates (barred
and unbarred, of truth and of piety, and of the heart’s citadel) into courts (of God’s bounteousness, mercy, presence,
singleness, glory, grace, and everlasting fellowship). This world is peopled with the angelic hosts of the supreme
concourse, maids of heaven (one of whom was herself the vehicle of revelation to Bahá’u’lláh), and holy souls who
constitute the “animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest” (Gleanings
157). Into the future human spiritual progress shall continue, into a golden age and on into a cycle of half a million
years where the City of God is ever renewed through the creative life and holy myth emanating from the
Mouthpieces of an Unknowable Being and Universal Mystery.
Into this geography of archetypal qualities embodied in natural entities (the “forest” mythology) and
civilized images (the “village” mythology) Bahá’u’lláh inserts symbols and stories from the mythological
background that his listeners knew: Sinai and the Burning Bush, the Kaaba and its rites, stories of Jesus, Moses, and
Joseph. He ornamented this background with the verse of Háfiz, Sa‘dí, and Attár. What emerges from this vast
landscape is a sense that it is a world for voyages and discovery in which every human being is perforce located.
Bahá’u’lláh, by placing in this world selected mythological tableaux from Abrahamic, Mosaic, Zoroastrian,
Christian, and Islamic sources, is hinting that the Bahá’í mythology encompasses an infinite horizon in which we
will come to recognize that all mythologies are true and available to us for finding the signposts on our journey and
for experiencing amazement at its endless variety and tutorial possibilities. We are not now the children of one
localized mythology, but of all mythologies, which are one at the level of metaphorical meaning. With the
quotations from poets, Bahá’u’lláh frees the artist to praise, sing, paint, sculpt, and dramatize personal experience of
mythological life in response to the surrounding dramatic physical world and to the shared yet individual visionary
world within.
The worlds through which we travel here are not places of comfortable sedentary contemplation and the
avoidance of painful contradictions. The vision inspired by Bahá’u’lláh is a progression of images that is intended to
heighten the experience of the paradoxical in a succession of contrasting yet related imageries, provoke a crisis of
understanding, inspire the leap to new knowledge and to that fruit of mature experience which is the
acknowledgement of one’s own powerlessness, ignorance, and poverty. With that acknowledgement, the power,
knowledge, and riches of the Reality behind the universe’s mask becomes instantly and irrevocably ours (cf.
Nakhjavani).

Spiritual/Mythological Unity
Across the millennia, despite the primitiveness of humanity at some stages of its development, no culture has been
able to maintain complete isolation from the rest of the world. As we enter our own time, however, the barriers
between cultures and their attendant mythologies have fallen ever faster before the wholesale interpenetration of
worldviews and the onslaught of science. Shoghi Effendi has written of the divine impulses tearing down all such
barriers and bringing us to a united world. Joseph Campbell, after finishing his series entitled The Masks of God,
wrote:

I find that its main result for me has been its confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully
entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history, which has
everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed,
reasserted, and, today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some
kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge. And I can see no reason why
anyone should suppose that in the future the same motifs already heard will not be sounding still-in new
relationships indeed, but ever the same motifs. (Creative xx)

Conclusion
Mythology is about the freedom to experience the full impact of. life and to unfold our full potential—in harmony
with the Unknowable Essence that we, for the sake of convenience, call God; with the reality of the universe; with
our culture and fellow human beings; and with ourselves. It is also about submission to the reality of the universe as
it is. In the Bahá’í mythological architecture, the myth of the Unknowable God removes the authority of god-myths
from the local group and moves them to the farthest reaches of mythological space, while the recognition of this
God in his contemporary Manifestation and the relativity of religious truth universalizes all mythologies, thus
freeing all the world’s sacred myths to be donned or cast off as necessary in our collective and individual spiritual
development. The cosmology arising from independent investigation of reality and the harmony of religion with
established science permits us to find sacred awe in the face of the universe that is discovered by the faculties of
reason and investigation; and it frees the spirit from the shackles of literal interpretation, permitting once again the
discovery of mythological truth in those too literally held myths whose purveyors thought them to be scientific and
historical fact. The inner landscape of the heart is open to all mythology (including the inspired actors in our own
most recent sacred drama) and to every form of artistic expression-a fertile scene for hunting, gathering, planting,
and harvesting; for creating, planning, and building; a place of births, deaths, rebirths, and resurrections; and an
arena of adventure for the hero and heroine, where “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our
exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time” (Eliot, Collected 222).

Notes
1. DAEMON: in Greek mythology, a lesser deity intermediate between gods and humans. Campbell here is referring
to the inner spiritual experience of a metaphorical reality.
2. Ethics is another matter; it is obvious that religion has legitimate concerns with moral questions.
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-- Sacred Mythology and the Baha'i Faith (Used by permission of the curator)