What is the Crimson Book?

What is the Crimson Book? Part Two

By John Taylor; 29 December, 2005

The Qu'ran prophesies the end time as a shocking moment "...when the
heaven is rent asunder, and then becomes red like red hide," (Q55:37,
Shakir), or red like "red ointment," according to Yusuf Ali's
translation." This was quite literally fulfilled in 1883 with the huge
eruption of a volcano on Mount Krakatoa in the South Pacific, easily
among the most catastrophic geologic events in recorded history. One
might well call Krakatoa the "Most Great Outer Cataclysm," for it
spewed billions of tons of volcanic dust into the atmosphere, a single
act of air pollution without equal until, well, now. Only our present
cumulative activity of thousands of factories and coal burning power
generation facilities around the world can hold a candle to Krakatoa's
scale of damage. Krakatoa caused, among other things, spectacular
crimson sunsets around the world, continuing for a whole year
afterwards.

In the universe of prophesy, air that blocks out all but crimson light
is not without millennial significance. The Ark of Moses' covenant, a
box containing His divine Law written on tablets of stone, was
protected in the holy of holies behind a "vail of blue, and purple,
and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon." (2 Chr
3:14, KJV) The prophet Isaiah predicted the final redemption of
humanity in these terms, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith
the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isa
1:18, KJV) The prophet Jeremiah foresaw general revulsion for the
sinful, exploitative old order, a time when "every city shall be
forsaken" and,

"Though thou clothest thyself with crimson ... in vain shalt thou make
thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.
(Jer 4:30)

As we noted last time, crimson and a few other shades are the only
light that penetrates dense dirty air and clouds -- clouds are simply
water condensed around tiny floating dust particles. Clouds symbolize
in scripture the physical body of the Manifestation. This body is the
greatest spiritual test for other body owners, who expect God to
instantiate himself into something more exalted and ethereal. The
failure of their false expectations is punishment for spiritual
impurity; their vision is literally clouded over by the world
Redeemer. In the Tablet to Vafa Baha'u'llah wrote,

"Say, God is my witness! The Promised One Himself hath come down from
heaven, seated upon the crimson cloud with the hosts of revelation on
His right, and the angels of inspiration on His left, and the Decree
hath been fulfilled at the behest of God, the Omnipotent, the
Almighty." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 182)

Krakatoa was an outward mark of an appointed hour when the Promised
One, as prophesied by the Bab, would be illumined by a "fierce and
crimson Light that envelops (His) Revelation...," (Selections, 53).
This "fierce" crimson hue is a sort of signature color in
Baha'u'llah's Writings. This marks His Mission from the day He left
Ridvan and Baghdad mounted on a red roan stallion. In a work written
not long before Ridvan, in 1860-1, He wrote:

"Unto none is given to quaff even a dewdrop thereof unless he entereth
within this city, a city whose foundations rest upon mountains of
crimson-coloured ruby, whose walls are hewn of the chrysolite of
divine unity, whose gates are made of the diamonds of immortality, and
whose earth sheddeth the fragrance of divine bounty." (Baha'u'llah,
Gems of Divine Mysteries, 16)

A city built on a mountain of "crimson-colored ruby" and carved out of
that precious stone surely prefigures something more substantial than
some ethereal mystic insight, however profound. It seems to envision a
book, an institution, a fellowship, something that lasts through ages
and eras; surely that only would give it such ineluctable force and
crushing gravity. "Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting
place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God,
be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness. (2
Chronicles 6:41, KJV) At the same time, Baha'u'llah stresses that
entry is open and membership in this city is free to any and all who
appreciate its value and desire to enter it.

"Every receptive soul who hath in this Day inhaled the fragrance of
His garment and hath, with a pure heart, set his face towards the
all-glorious Horizon is reckoned among the people of Baha in the
Crimson Book. Grasp ye, in My Name, the chalice of My loving-kindness,
drink then your fill in My glorious and wondrous remembrance."
(Tablets, 220)

This seems to be the definition of a Baha'i, a soul who not only
wanders through this ruby city but whose name is permanently written
down "among the people of Baha in the Crimson Book." Which leads to
the question, what is the Crimson Book?

In the Tablet of the World, the Lawh-i-Dunya, (1891) written when He
had been living outside Akka for well over a decade, Baha'u'llah seems
to refer to either the Proclamation to the Kings (late 1860's) or to
the Kitab-i-Adqas (1873), or both, when He writes,

"Whilst in the Prison of 'Akka, We revealed in the Crimson Book that
which is conducive to the advancement of mankind and to the
reconstruction of the world. The utterances set forth therein by the
Pen of the Lord of creation include the following which constitute the
fundamental principles for the administration of the affairs of
men..." (Tablets, 90)

The five principles derived from the "Crimson Book" which follow this
passage in the Tablet of the World were the stimulus that prompted me
to wade into this little enquiry about the color crimson and the book
of crimson. I am grateful to Peter Calkins and Benoit Gerard, two
Quebec agricultural specialists who propose some practical
applications of these five Crimson Book principles to local farming
practices in their paper, "The Village Granary: Spiritual
Underpinnings and Applications to North America." (Journal of Baha'i
Studies, March-June, 1998, 1) This paper startled me, for I admit I
had passed over this passage in the Dunya and missed completely its
implications for the principles. For anyone like myself who is
interested in the provenance of the Baha'i principles, this is
earthshaking. Could it be that the Baha'i principles proclaimed by the
Master to the West are also somehow extracts from this mysterious
Crimson Book? I plan to go into the detail that these five principles
deserve later, but my object before that is to continue to survey some
of the many scriptural passages that outline and illuminate the
meaning of "Crimson Book."

Before finishing for today, let us use Krakatoa to get our bearings.
The year of crimson skies caused by Krakatoa mark the midpoint of
Baha'u'llah's Syrian period, specifically the years when He lived in
the mansions at Mazra'ih and Bahji. The year the volcano erupted,
1883, was the tenth anniversary of the revelation of Baha'u'llah's
Kitab-i-Aqdas, His Book of Laws. The Aqdas (1873, by best estimates)
came near the end of His confinement in the prison of Akka, as
mentioned in the quote above. The Akka period began in 1868 with the
public proclamation to the Kings, and culminated in the Aqdas, whose
concern was legal and internal rather than public.

About eight years after Krakatoa the most important phase of the
gradual revelation of this mystic "Crimson Book" was marked by His
last will and testament, a short document kept sealed and Sub Rosa
from everyone, including `Abdu'l-Baha it seems, until nine days after
His ascension. The exact date of revelation of this Will is still
unknown. About it, Shoghi Effendi wrote,

"The Kitab-i-Ahd is the document that started His covenant, which is
the most distinguishing feature of the Faith. Baha'u'llah Himself
called it the `Most Great Tablet,' His `Crimson Book,' the `Conclusive
Testimony, the Universal Balance, the Magnet of God's grace, the
Upraised Standard, the Irrefutable Testament...'" (God Passes By, 239)

Important as these latter periods of Baha'u'llah's writing no doubt
were, they were hardly the most prolific. By far the majority of
Baha'u'llah's Tablets were written in Europe, in Rumelia, from 1863 to
1867; unfortunately, almost none of this material has been translated.
It is therefore impossible to get a reliable sense of how new or
developed the symbolic term "Crimson Book" was when He entered the
Akka period. The references that we have in English to the Crimson
Book are largely in Tablets written in His last days, a three year
period just before His ascension on 29 May, 1892. They include the
Kitab-i-Ahd, that unique written will, so there is plenty of material
to digest. We will wade into it next time.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com