Truth as Placebo

Placebo Truth and Good Friends

By John Taylor; 17 January, 2006

Truth as Placebo

I have been talking much of the past month about the "truth teller's
paradox," how it manifests itself physically in a strange phenomenon
known as the placebo effect. We think something will cure us, and it
does. The truth that makes its own reality seems rooted in the highest
things, in the nature of God Himself, as explained by the Bab almost
at the end of the Persian Bayan,

"The revelation of the Divine Reality hath everlastingly been
identical with its concealment and its concealment identical with its
revelation. That which is intended by 'Revelation of God' is the Tree
of divine Truth that betokeneth none but Him, and it is this divine
Tree that hath raised and will raise up Messengers, and hath revealed
and will ever reveal Scriptures. From eternity unto eternity this Tree
of divine Truth hath served and will ever serve as the throne of the
revelation and concealment of God among His creatures, and in every
age is made manifest through whomsoever He pleaseth." (Selections,
112)

Only this divine lote tree says something and by saying creates a
whole universe, an entire civilization born of believing it. In this
truth teller's paradox is a miracle of faith.

Now I shudder at the whole genre of the musical, but the plot of "The
Music Man" is an unavoidable example of placeboism. A con man comes
and persuades an entire small town that they are miserable because
they are idle and without a purpose; the key to their happiness, he
tells them, is to form a big marching band and stage a big parade.
They enter into it with such gusto that even after his swindle is
exposed everyone continues with the project and finds that unity in
music really does wipe out loneliness and misery. The con turns out
not to be a con, it is real, a pep talk with good effect; it is a
placebo that cures.

The idea of joy in coming together in unity seems increasingly foreign
to our ears. Bob Putnam has written in "Bowling Alone" of the gradual
disappearance of communal activities in the West. Bowling alleys used
to be packed with groups and leagues, now the few that do bowl, tend
to go alone. Computers, television, cell phones, everything we do is
solitary, even when it is communication. Not only marching bands but
knitting groups, card games, glee clubs, service organizations, all
are gradually fading into nothing. People do not have the habit of
coming together, the spark that allows new communal works
spontaneously to form.

Part of it, Putnam says, comes from transportation gridlock. He cites
one study that found that congestion related delay in traffic rose
from 16 hours a year in 1982 to 45 in 1997; those are hours sitting
alone doing nothing, without a peep of protest. Forget about all the
other lonely commuter hours when the car is actually moving! Another
is the design of our city space. High apartment buildings remove the
backyard fence over which local issues used to be discussed. Nobody
takes time to discuss anything deeper than the weather. In an article
called "Sinkhole of Democracy" (Toronto Star, December, 18, 2005) a
journalist with Putnam's observations in mind attempts to enter this
jungle of apartments and discuss politics casually with people she
meets, with mixed results. Imagine what it would be like trying to
discuss religion! No wonder in their recent communications that the
UHJ has been trying to reassure us that this endless dry period of
teaching, and teaching is making friends, seems to be ending at last!
Please God, let it be so.

Now let us turn back to the advice that Socrates gave for making
friends. Making a friend is not the same as forming a marching band,
it is an inherently ethical process, and as Aristotle correctly
judged, ethics is a branch of politics, not ontology. Only the placebo
effect comes from ontology.

Is it Possible for a Bad Man to Make Good Friends?

from Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates, Book II, Part VI

And did you imagine (replied Socrates) that it was possible for a bad
man to make good friends?

Cri. Why, yes, when I see some base orator fast friends with a great
leader of the people; or, again, some fellow incapable of generalship
a comrade to the greatest captains of his age."

Soc. But in reference to the point we were discussing, may I ask
whether you know of any one who can attach a useful friend to himself
without being of use in return? Can service ally in friendship with
disservice? Must there not be a reciprocity of service to make
friendship lasting?"

Cri. In good sooth no. But now, granted it is impossible for a base
man to be friends with the beautiful and noble, I am concerned at once
to discover if one who is himself of a beautiful and noble character
can, with a wave of the hand, as it were, attach himself in friendship
to every other beautiful and noble nature.

Soc. What perplexes and confounds you, Critobulus, is the fact that so
often men of noble conduct, with souls aloof from baseness, are not
friends but rather at strife and discord with one another, and deal
more harshly by one another than they would by the most
good-for-nothing of mankind.

Cri. Yes, and this holds true not of private persons only, but states,
the most eager to pursue a noble policy and to repudiate a base one,
are frequently in hostile relation to one another. As I reason on
these things my heart fails me, and the question, how friends are to
be acquired, fills me with despondency. The bad, as I see, cannot be
friends with one another. For how can such people, the ungrateful, or
reckless, or covetous, or faithless, or incontinent, adhere together
as friends? Without hesitation I set down the bad as born to be foes
not friends, and as bearing the birthmark of internecine hate. But
then again, as you suggest, no more can these same people harmonise in
friendship with the good. For how should they who do evil be friends
with those who hate all evil-doing? And if, last of all, they that
cultivate virtue are torn by party strife in their struggle for the
headship of the states, envying one another, hating one another, who
are left to be friends? where shall goodwill and faithfulness be found
among men?

Soc. The fact is there is some subtlety in the texture of these
things. [i.e. a cunning intertwining of the threads of warp and woof.]
Seeds of love are implanted in man by nature. Men have need of one
another, feel pity, help each other by united efforts, and in
recognition of the fact show mutual gratitude. But there are seeds of
war implanted also. The same objects being regarded as beautiful or
agreeable by all alike, they do battle for their possession; a spirit
of disunion enters, and the parties range themselves in adverse camps.
Discord and anger sound a note of war: the passion of more-having,
staunchless avarice threatens hostility; and envy is a hateful fiend.

But nevertheless, through all opposing barriers friendship steals her
way and binds together the true elite, the beautiful and good among
mankind. Such is their virtue that they would rather possess scant
means painlessly than wield an empire won by war. In spite of hunger
and thirst they will share their meat and drink without a pang. Not
bloom of lusty youth, nor love's delights can warp their self-control;
nor will they be tempted to cause pain where pain should be unknown.

It is theirs not merely to eschew all greed of riches, not merely to
make a just and lawful distribution of wealth, but to supply what is
lacking to the needs of one another. Theirs it is to compose strife
and discord not in painless oblivion simply, but to the general
advantage. Theirs also to hinder such extravagance of anger as shall
entail remorse hereafter. And as to envy they will make a clean sweep
and clearance of it: the good things which a man possesses shall be
also the property of his friends, and the goods which they possess are
to be looked upon as his. Where then is the improbability that the
beautiful and noble should be sharers in the honours and the offices
of the state not only without injury, but even to their mutual
advantage?

They indeed who covet and desire the honours and offices in a state
for the sake of the liberty thereby given them to embezzle the public
moneys, to deal violently by their fellow-creatures, and to batten in
luxury themselves, may well be regarded as unjust and villainous
persons incapable of harmony with one another. But if a man desire to
obtain these selfsame honours in order that, being himself secure
against wrong-doing, he may be able to assist his friends in what is
right, and, raised to a high position, may essay to confer some
blessing on the land of his fathers, what is there to hinder him from
working in harmony with some other of a like spirit?

Will he, with the "beautiful and noble" at his side, be less able to
aid his friends? or will his power to benefit the community be
shortened because the flower of that community are fellow-workers in
that work? Why, even in the contests of the games it is obvious that
if it were possible for the stoutest combatants to combine against the
weakest, the chosen band would come off victors in every bout, and
would carry off all the prizes. This indeed is against the rules of
the actual arena; but in the field of politics, where the beautiful
and good hold empery, and there is nought to hinder any from combining
with whomsoever a man may choose to benefit the state, it will be a
clear gain, will it not, for any one engaged in state affairs to make
the best men his friends, whereby he will find partners and
co-operators in his aims instead of rivals and antagonists?

And this at least is obvious: The best, though few, are better worth
your benefiting than the many base. In case of foreign war a man will
need allies, but all the more if in the ranks opposed to him should
stand the flower of the enemy, the beautiful and good. Moreover, those
who are willing to fight your battles must be kindly dealt with, that
goodwill may quicken to enthusiasm; and one good man is better worth
your benefiting than a dozen knaves, since a little kindness goes a
long way with the good, but with the base the more you give them the
more they ask for.

So keep a good heart, Critobulus; only try to become good yourself,
and when you have attained, set to your hand to capture the beautiful
and good. Perhaps I may be able to give you some help in this quest,
being myself an adept in Love's lore, an authority in matters of love.
No matter who it is for whom my heart is aflame; in an instant my
whole soul is eager to leap forth. With vehemence I speed to the mark.
I, who love, demand to be loved again; this desire in me must be met
by counter desire in him; this thirst for his society by thirst
reciprocal for mine.

And these will be your needs also, I foresee, whenever you are seized
with longing to contract a friendship. Do not hide from me, therefore,
whom you would choose as a friend, since, owing to the pains I take to
please him who pleases me, I am not altogether unversed, I fancy, in
the art of catching men.

Critobulus replied: Why, these are the very lessons of instruction,
Socrates, for which I have been long athirst, and the more
particularly if this same love's lore will enable me to capture those
who are good of soul and those who are beautiful of person.

Soc. Nay, now I warn you, Critobulus, it is not within the province of
my science to make the beautiful endure him who would lay hands upon
them. And that is why men fled from Scylla, I am persuaded, because
she laid hands upon them; but the Sirens were different--they laid
hands on nobody, but sat afar off and chanted their spells in the ears
of all; and therefore, it is said, all men endured to listen, and were
charmed.

Cri. I promise I will not lay violent hands on any; therefore, if you
have any good device for winning friends, instruct your pupil.

Soc. And if there is to be no laying on of the hands, there must be no
application either of the lips; is it agreed?

Cri. No, nor application of the lips to any one--not beautiful.

Soc. See now! you cannot open your mouth without some luckless
utterence. Beauty suffers no such liberty, however eagerly the ugly
may invite it, making believe some quality of soul must rank them with
the beautiful.

Cri. Be of good cheer then; let the compact stand thus: "Kisses for
the beautiful, and for the good a rain of kisses." So now teach us the
art of catching friends.

Soc. Well then, when you wish to win some one's affection, you will
allow me to lodge information against you to the effect that you
admire him and desire to be his friend?

Cri. Lodge the indictment, with all my heart. I never heard of any one
who hated his admirers.

Soc. And if I add to the indictment the further charge that through
your admiration you are kindly disposed towards him, you will not feel
I am taking away your character?

Cri. Why, no; for myself I know a kindly feeling springs up in my
heart towards any one whom I conceive to be kindly disposed to me.

Soc. All this I shall feel empowered to say about you to those whose
friendship you seek, and I can promise further help; only there is a
comprehensive "if" to be considered: if you will further authorise me
to say that you are devoted to your friends; that nothing gives you so
much joy as a good friend; that you pride yourself no less on the fine
deeds of those you love than on your own; and on their good things
equally with your own; that you never weary of plotting and planning
to procure them a rich harvest of the same; and lastly, that you have
discovered a man's virtue is to excel his friends in kindness and his
foes in hostility. If I am authorised thus to report of you, I think
you will find me a serviceable fellow-hunter in the quest of friends,
which is the conquest of the good.

Cri. Why this appeal to me?--as if you had not free permission to say
exactly what you like about me.

Soc. No; that I deny, on the authority of Aspasia. [daughter of
philosopher Axiochus] I have it from her own lips. "Good matchmakers,"
she said to me, "were clever hands at cementing alliances between
people, provided the good qualities they vouched for were truthfully
reported; but when it came to their telling lies, for her part she
could not compliment them. Their poor deluded dupes ended by hating
each other and the go-betweens as well." Now I myself am so fully
persuaded of the truth of this that I feel it is not in my power to
say aught in your praise which I cannot say with truth.

Cri. Really, Socrates, you are a wonderfully good friend to me--in so
far as I have any merit which will entitle me to win a friend, you
will lend me a helping hand, it seems; otherwise you would rather not
forge any petty fiction for my benefit.

Soc. But tell me, how shall I assist you best, think you? By praising
you falsely or by persuading you to try to be a good man? Or if it is
not plain to you thus, look at the matter by the light of some
examples. I wish to introduce you to a ship owner, or to make him your
friend: I begin by singing your praises to him falsely thus, "You will
find him a good pilot"; he catches at the phrase, and entrusts his
ship to you, who have no notion of guiding a vessel. What can you
expect but to make shipwreck of the craft and yourself together?

Or suppose by similar false assertions I can persuade the state at
large to entrust her destinies to you--"a man with a fine genius for
command," I say, "a practiced lawyer," "a politician born," and so
forth. The odds are, the state and you may come to grief through you.
Or to take an instance from everyday life. By my falsehoods I persuade
some private person to entrust his affairs to you as "a really careful
and business-like person with a head for economy." When put to the
test would not your administration prove ruinous, and the figure you
cut ridiculous? No, my dear friend, there is but one road, the
shortest, safest, best, and it is simply this: In whatsoever you
desire to be deemed good, endeavour to be good. For of all the virtues
namable among men, consider, and you will find there is not one but
may be increased by learning and practice. For my part then,
Critobulus, these are the principles on which we ought to go a-
hunting; but if you take a different view, I am all attention, please
instruct me.

Then Critobulus: Nay, Socrates, I should be ashamed to gainsay what
you have said; if I did, it would neither be a noble statement nor a
true.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Principles of Reconstruction

From the Crimson Book: Five Principles of Reconstruction

By John Taylor; 15 January, 2006

Back in October of 2005 the Baha'i International Community, our NGO at
the United Nations, submitted a set of proposals for the UN to help it
out in its current soul-searching initiative in a document entitled,
"The Search for Values in an age of Transition." Not long after this
document was released our Badi' list started examining this paper in
detail. Today let us pick up where we left off last fall.

The "Search for Values" document starts by saying that "... the
worldwide Baha'i community across 191 nations" are engaged in
realizing this general vision provided by the Guardian:

"(A world) ... in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and strife
will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity
will have been finally extinguished..." (WOB)

In view of present headlines, it is inspiring to reflect that a world
is possible where there is a complete extermination of fanaticism and
racism. How many stereotypes and mental blocks will have to be
dynamited from our path if we are ever to look upon everyone we meet
as Ali, Son-in-Law of Muhammad, suggested, "either as a brother in
religion or a brother in humanity," that is, to be united by faith or
by identity but be so aware and unprejudiced as to never allow one to
interfere with the other.

The BIC selects five spiritual principles to supplement the UN's
rather narrow and materialistic measures of development. They are.

One, unity in diversity
Two, equity and justice
Three, equality of the sexes
Four, trustworthiness and moral leadership
Five, freedom of conscience, thought, and religion

The BIC points out that all five of these positive spiritual
principles are dealt with in detail in earlier BIC publications; in
the notes to this document they offer the references. One could object
that all rights, even the narrow and materialistic ones of the UN,
were originally inspired by scripture. That is what the Master taught.
But what I suppose they are implying is that these are five spiritual
principles that Realpolitik singles out in particular for exclusion
and suppression. If the BIC are indeed saying that, there does seem to
be a certain persuasiveness to the idea now that I think of it.

The few living memoirs of former slaves that are extant describe the
techniques that slave masters used to keep their human cattle weak and
manageable. The pattern follows these five spiritual rights, except in
reverse, in order to suppress them.

Slave societies assiduously ignore the unity and brotherhood of man;
uniformity and conformity are the law. Among an idle elite a divorce
is established with manual labor; instead they use their energy in
intrigue and gossip. Thus verbal bullying enforces conformity beyond
the reach of law. So much for principle one.

As for spiritual principle two, equity and justice are for slave
owners only, while slaves are kept illiterate and powerless. Female
slaves, it was found, can be marginalized along with the systematic
destruction of family ties. Isolated, with no husbands or brothers to
protect them, they are prey to open rape by male slave owners; slave
owning women dislike this state of affairs too, but have no more say
than slaves. Suppression of women is thus part of slavish psychology.
Slaves were forced to work, which excludes morality and
trustworthiness. The story of the integrity and honesty of one slave,
the real-life model of the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was such a
contrast to the venality of his owners that it could be said that his
example dissolved the moral ground of chattel slavery in the South.

As for freedom of thought, an effective technique evolved to suck all
vigor and end any aspirations on the part of male slaves. They were
worked without respite year round, except once. They were given one
brief holiday at Christmas. Even then they were not allowed to pause
to reflect or plan escapes; instead they were plied with unlimited
booze. Owners sat back and laughed as the men drank themselves silly,
gambled, played frenetically at sports, and squabbled among
themselves. Allowing chattel to indulge themselves instead of sinking
roots into independent thought was all that was needed to keep males
down.

As for religious freedom, historians have noted that virtually all
discussion of slavery in the Anti-bellum United States was not
secular, it was framed completely in religious language. Who sinneth?
Is slavery a sin, like original sin? Unfortunately the language of
faith was emasculated and diffused, incapable of discussing principle,
half of which involves action questions like: what strengthens
freedom? What is common to all humans? How do we establish the
brotherhood of man? As long as the meaning of freedom is obscure and
undefined, nobody can be free.

Let there be no mistake. All five of these anti-freedom techniques
still apply today, albeit more subtle and sophisticated. There is no
collective addiction, from alcohol, drugs and gambling to militarism,
from patriarchy, to the obsession of masses of "free" men with sports,
lust and superficial pleasures, to television sitcoms and violent
video games, that is not a direct legacy, a bad habit learned in a
brutal, slave driving past.

The post-Civil War period of recovery from slavery in the United
States became known as "Reconstruction." This means building up anew
from the very foundations. Unfortunately, without first principles in
mind the reconstruction was incomplete; it allowed the evils of
enslavement to take viral form, escape America enter the vitals of the
entire world order.

The danger is to look at this situation, parlous as it is, in an
entirely negative light. However Baha'u'llah, writing around 1890
which was at the end of the period known as Reconstruction in the
States, used the word "reconstruction" in referring to His Writing
around the beginning of the Reconstruction period. "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." He then chooses five principles of reconstruction from
that "Crimson Book," that is, the Covenant. You can read the full text
in Tablets (89-90). I only extract them here as paraphrase:

One, to promote the Lesser Peace, which allows the reduction of our
exorbitant expenditure on weapons and the military, which in turn
cripples reconstruction financially before it even starts.

Two, a common language. Not coincidentally an issue of universal
concern ignored completely in English speaking lands, same as the
how's of manumission were ignored by Whites in the Antebellum South.

Three, "It behoveth man to adhere tenaciously unto that which will
promote fellowship, kindliness and unity." To see what an
unreconstructed world adheres to, switch on the television. Crime and
serial murders, movie stars and their breakups, who is to blame for
what, violence according to the slogan: "If it bleeds, it leads."

Four, universal, direct support from each wage earner for education.
Slaves were kept from learning to read, but the education of modern
citizens is firmly in the hands of those who know how to exclude and
manipulate the five principles of freedom mentioned above. Power
mongers form our minds for their ends. This has to end.

Five, agricultural reconstruction. Marx had it wrong, the basis of
human economy is not labor but sunlight. We get our energy and our
food from that and that only; liberty and true reconstruction must
start there, where we get our food and where the food chain of real
productivity begins.

Baha'u'llah, after enunciating these five ways to end slavery once and
for all, then addresses the inordinate complexity of this world order,
perhaps the most intimidating obstacle lumped before the lover of
freedom.

"Were men to strictly observe that which the Pen of the Most High hath
revealed in the Crimson Book, they could then well afford to dispense
with the regulations which prevail in the world."

And prevail it does. The number of rules accelerates and boundaries to
freedom mount. There is endless accumulation, oceans of red tape
infested by predatory lobbyists, lawyers and bureaucrats. This
complexity cannot be ignored as a barrier to freedom. To understand
how sharks ply these seas of regulation, I highly recommend an article
by scientific watchdog David Michaels called "Doubt is their Product,"
in Scientific American (June, 2005, p. 96). He cites an all-too-clever
cigarette industry advocate, who in a confidential memo barefacedly
declared,

"Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the
`body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public." (p. 96)

No, no longer do smirking "owners" sit idly and laugh at chattel as
they stumble drunkenly on a sports field, now the rules and
regulations of a perverted reconstruction bury us all, educated or
not, wealthy or not, free or not. Manufacturers of doubt work overtime
on all sides in their ideological factories of doubt, churning
systems, laws and regulations, complications and dubieties that few
can understand, much less name. Restrictions to freedom pile upon one
another; laws are prolific beyond control and only large players steer
it where they will. The few individuals with the gumption to rise
above the distractions and addictions laid before us in the name of
what is understood as "freedom" find out soon that any initiatives
they do start for reform are immediately buried under complex laws and
regulations.

This is why I cling for dear life to the set of clear principles laid
out with such precision and brilliance in the Crimson Book.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Obviously Story

Controls, Loopholeism and the Obviously Story

By John Taylor; 14 January, 2006

My friend, though nominally an Anglican, holds to anti-religious, New
Age style beliefs. He strongly believes in meditation and the power of
consciousness. I try to narrow him down as to what he means by
consciousness, but I cannot. Consciousness is everything and it is
nothing. Fine. This week he handed this new book from the Port
Colbourne library to me for my evaluation, "Power vs. Force" by Dr.
David Hawkins. Here is a capsule summary, taken from Hawkins' website,
of what this good doctor believes,

"All human endeavor has the common goal of understanding or
influencing human experience. To this end, man has developed numerous
descriptive and analytical disciplines: Morality, Philosophy,
Psychology, and so on....Regardless what branch of inquiry one starts
from - philosophy, political theory, theology-all avenues of
investigation eventually converge at a common meeting point: the quest
for an organized understanding of the nature of pure consciousness..."

Or perhaps more to the point, enquiry is a quest for understanding of
what these people mean by consciousness. Hawkins thesis in this book
is that you can reliably answer any "yes or no" question by performing
a simple experiment, a parlor trick that I remember playing in class
as a pupil in grade school. You ask the test subject to hold out an
arm; if the answer to the question is "yes," the arm will be strong,
stiff, immoveable. If no, the contiuum of consciousness will be
disturbed and the subject will be mysteriously weakened. To listen to
Hawkins the boldness and simplicity of this idea is a sign of genius.
Lest there be a shadow of doubt about this, he reassures the reader:

"To explain that which is simple can be difficult indeed. Much of this
book is devoted to the process of making the simple obvious. If we can
understand even one simple thing in depth, we will have greatly
expanded our capacity for comprehending the nature of the universe and
life itself."

This reminds me of Silvie's "Obviously Story," which she told to
Thomas and myself on the road to Niagara Falls a couple of weeks ago.
She has become story obsessed in recent weeks and whenever we wonder
where she is we know to look down in Grampa's basement apartment where
she will inevitably be composing another story on his computer. Her
Obvious Story, though annoying after a while and completely lacking a
middle, much less an end, is surely her most original work to date.
Here is how it went:

"One day there obviously was this obvious bluebird who obviously got
out of bed one morning and obviously looked outside at the sun and
said, "Obviously it is going to be an obviously sunny day today..."

The story went on and on without apparent letup until it seemed like
it was going to take us right up into the very spray of the falls. At
last I broke in and asked her if she knew what "obvious" means and she
answered, "Yes, obviously." What does it mean then? Her answer was,
shall we say, somewhat at variance with the dictionary definition. But
that did not at all take away from the value of Silvie's story.

Unfortunately, his not knowing or recognizing the definition of words
like "science" and "consciousness" does take away from the story told
by Hawkin -- not to be confused with Hawking, Stephen, who is a real
scientist who made real discoveries -- nor is Silvie raking in eight
hundred dollars for current seminars and five hundred dollars for
videos of past seminars plying her expertise. Not that I deny this
doctor's ability to heal spiritually, Baha'is accept that some people
have a gift of healing and, if you accept what Hawkin says about his
medical career, he has an amazing ability to cure even catatonics by
communing with their spirits. Unfortunately, experts, even experts in
less mysterious disciplines than faith healing, cannot reliably judge
where their own expertise loses viability. Hawkin is a rather extreme
example of this. Oh for a drop of humility!

According to Hawkin this simple and obvious straight-arm divination
technique will correctly answer any yes or no question in the world.
If that is so, why cannot someone with a few dollars to burn divine
the right stock or the right lottery number and become an instant
millionaire? There had to be a catch. Reading the prefaces and
introduction to the book superficially, no refutation sprang
immediately to mind. So I Googled his name and, no doubt by design,
only sympathetic material popped up. I got around that in seconds by
including the word "skeptical" in my keyword phrase. The Skeptical
Enquirer is a very useful scientific watchdog against this kind of
quackery, and more than enough material welled up from my browser and
spilled out of my monitor and onto the floor around my chair.

I will not bore you with the long history of dowsing and such
divination systems, or go into why they seem to work but do not. They
always mysteriously disappear as soon as you apply the Sine Qua Non of
the scientific method, the control, in this case the double blind
control. Hawkin's technique, suffice to say, is not new. A term
covering both dowsing and the "straight-arm" technique was devised by
William James way back in the 19th Century: "ideomotor based systems."
In this phenomenon peoples' nervous system somehow responds to subtle
cues from the unconscious. Unfortunately the direction pointed to by
this "consciousness" is not exactly reliable.

I found the following reflections on a personal encounter with the
psychology of these scientific poseurs both affecting and interesting,
though, and will quote some of them here. To get the whole story, go
to the "Quackwatch" website. Our story picks up just after double
blind test results utterly blew out of the water an attempt by two
chiropractors to demonstrate the "weak or strong straight arm"
ideomotor divination technique.

"When these results were announced, the head chiropractor turned to me
and said, "You see, that is why we never do double-blind testing
anymore. It never works!" At first I thought he was joking. It turned
it out he was quite serious. Since he "knew" that applied kinesiology
works, and the best scientific method shows that it does not work,
then -- in his mind -- there must be something wrong with the
scientific method. This is both a form of loopholism as well as an
illustration of what I call the plea for special dispensation. Many
pseudo- and fringe-scientists often react to the failure of science to
confirm their prized beliefs, not by gracefully accepting the
possibility that they were wrong, but by arguing that science is
defective.
"Another variation of this special dispensation was illustrated by the
reaction of a dowser that Barry Beyerstein and I tested on an edition
of the television program Scientific American Frontiers, hosted by
Alan Alda. The dowser had agreed in advance to a double-blind test
that he felt would prove his powers, but failed the test. Mr. Alda
felt some compassion for this dowser, and discussed the failure with
him. The dowser admitted he was disappointed but he felt that the
outcome simply revealed that science had not yet matured to the point
where it could cope with dowsing."
(http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html)

It is amazing that even with 12 years of primary and secondary
education concentrating on assiduous training in mathematics and
science that so many still delude themselves with superstitious
nonsense. The main criterion of science, the controled trial, is laid
out in the first book of Daniel. It is nothing new, nothing obscure.
The double blind control is far more simple and obvious to anyone
familiar with the basics of science than such expensive quasi-science
and non-evidence based medicine, yet we prefer to ignore it. So many
good minds, so much time so many billions of dollars wasted by wilful
ignorance. When I was young there was an excuse to live in denial
because refutations were hard to find. When I was 17 years old I was
deluded by Ayn Rand's quasi-scientific philosophy and I had to comb
through shelves of library books to find a convincing refutation. But
how long did it take me yesterday to find and read a detailed
refutation of Hawkin? About twenty minutes with the ubiquitous Google
search engine. There are no excuses anymore.

If science is in this bad state, what hope is there for religion? In
public education systems we are lucky to have one course on world
religions throughout our schooling. Is it any wonder that the basics
of faith are so poorly understood? Look at this poor dowser, he
clearly wants to believe, and both religion and science are failing
him as much as he is failing them. It is so important for us all to be
clear on what the criteria of evidence are for religion.

Religion and faith are by definition untestable by science and
objective reason but that does not mean there is no testing involved.
Some criteria for faith discoveries are good moral effects, words not
ending in words but in action, love for the general good, an
appreciation of holism, and the desire constantly to ask for more
evidence, to long for more questioning. Faith is the control of
controls, it prompts us to ask: What is the control for my faith
reflection? What is the double blind test for my faith? A good example
of such an evidence-based faith control is the Gayatri Mantra that we
looked at yesterday. Every male Hindu upon coming of age memorizes
this:

"Let us bring our minds to rest in the glory of the divine truth (or
sun). May truth inspire our reflection." (Introducing Hinduism, p. 13)

Turn your mind and your reflections to truth and you see truth work,
you both feel and act enlightened. And mostly, you long for more
enlightenment, you want to self criticize to better yourself. You love
light and turn to it incessantly. How does that help? Well, what
happens when it is dark, when there is no sun? We bang into each
other, or we get lost. When it is bright we find our way and learn to
unite. Hence the Master's faith criterion, unity.

"Therefore unity is the essential truth of religion and when so
understood embraces all the virtues of the human world." (Abdu'l-Baha,
Baha'i World Faith, 245)

Another criterion of evidence based faith is virtue. In ethics with
Alistaire McIntyre and so-called Virtue Theory there is a growing
understanding of the value of faith in forming virtue and the value of
virtue in forming society. If not for subjectivity, there would be no
sociology. The Master talked about this too.

"We must strive with energies of heart, soul and mind to develop and
manifest the perfections and virtues latent within the realities of
the phenomenal world, for the human reality may be compared to a seed.
If we sow the seed, a mighty tree appears from it. The virtues of the
seed are revealed in the tree; it puts forth branches, leaves,
blossoms, and produces fruits. All these virtues were hidden and
potential in the seed. Through the blessing and bounty of cultivation
these virtues became apparent. Similarly the merciful God our creator
has deposited within human realities certain virtues latent and
potential. Through education and culture, these virtues deposited by
the loving God will become apparent in the human reality even as the
unfoldment of the tree from within the germinating seed."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, 267)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Gazpacho Guy at Gayatri

Gazpacho Guy Looks at the Gayatri

By John Taylor; 13 January, 2006

The next on our list of Introducing books to come into my hot little
hands courtesy of the Hamilton Public Library is one of the newest in
the series, "Introducing Hinduism," by Vinay Lal. This is a world
religion about which I know next to nothing and I desperately need a
primer like this. I was very interested to learn of a morning prayer
known as the Gayatri Mantra, a brief verse from which every Hindu
"upperclassman" has to learn upon coming of age. My Britannica says,

"After a ritual bath the boy is dressed as an ascetic and brought
before his guru (personal spiritual guide), who invests him with a
deerskin to use as an upper garment, a staff, and the sacred thread
... (blah, blah, blu, blah) ... It identifies the wearer as dvija, or
twice-born, the second birth understood as having taken place with the
imparting by the guru to the student of the Gayatri mantra, a sacred
verse of the Rigveda."

Lal in his Introducing primer unfortunately misidentifies the chapter
number of the Gayatri in the Rig Veda. I searched endlessly for it in
Ocean, and stumbled across this, whose sense seemed similar the text
of the Gayatri given by Lal:

"This song Visvavasu shall sing us, meter of air's mid-realm celestial
Gandharva,

That we may know aright both truth and falsehood: may he inspire our
thoughts and help our praises." (Vedas, Rig Veda, Book 10, v5)

Turned out that that was not the Gayatri, but it is very interesting
nonetheless. A prayer to know true from false, a prayer for inspired
thought and assisted laudation to God. Like many Baha'i prayers,
notably the Long Oblig, this is a meta-prayer or prayer prayer, you
are praying to be able to pray aright. Say it and you do not ask for
good for self or even others, you beg to be able to praise God in a
worthy manner. Again, the truth teller's paradox, the only way to
speak truth is to be sucked into the Black Hole of paradox and hope
that the Supreme will pull you out alive.

I sought out the Gayatri and did not find it, at least not for an hour
or so. I learned that this mantra is a very important, ancient ritual,
predating much else in Hinduism. According to Lal, it is unknown
exactly why it was singled out from other verses of the Vedas. It has
become pretty much _the_ statement of faith or credo for this
religion, rather like Islam's Five Pillars, or for that matter an
advertising slogan for a multinational corporation. The Gayatri
formula is recited by some groups of adherents during a set of morning
rituals said at sunrise to the god of the sun. The Laws of Manu (93)
stipulate that a dawn devotion include the following:

"When he has risen, has relieved the necessities of nature and
carefully purified himself, let him stand during the morning twilight,
muttering for a long time (the Gayatri), and at the proper time (he
must similarly perform) the evening (devotion).

The Gayatri is a spirit, like the Holy Spirit is in Western faiths.
The Ramayana talks about the, "Holy Spirit of GAYATRI goddess of the
morning prayer." Saying it will grant desires, and save you from
desire itself. Some snippets from the vast body of Hindu scripture
seem to imply that the mantra can stand for the whole, huge body of
scriptures rather like in Christianity Jesus declared that the Golden
Rule is "the law and the prophets." The difference is that most Hindus
take it completely literally, they learn this verse and almost never
"interfere" with the rest of the scriptures by actually reading them.
If they did, they would come across this fascinating bit of symbolism:

"Man is sacrifice. His (first) twenty-four years are the
morning-libation. The Gayatri has twenty-four syllables, the
morning-libation is offered with Gayatri hymns. The Vasus are
connected with that part of the sacrifice. The Pranas (the five
senses) are the Vasus, for they make all this to abide (vasayanti)."
(Upanishads vol. 1, Khandogya-Upanishad Part 2, verse 1)

This numerology is reminiscent of the 24 "elders" of Baha'u'llah,
which we usually think of as coming from the Book of Revelation. The
first 19 of that number are the Letters of the Living, the Bab, plus
five Baha'is to be named in the future. Add five (for the five senses
or the five points of the pentacle, symbol of the Baha'i faith) to
nineteen and you get twenty four. For those who are into these things
this might have meaning. At any rate, there are twenty four syllables
in the Gayatri mantra and some castes learn it and "come of age" at
twenty four years old. Finally, I found the translation of the Guyatri
given in Ocean:

"May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the God: So May he
stimulate our prayers. With understanding, earnestly, of Savitar the
God we crave Our portion of prosperity." (Vedas, Rig Veda, Book 3,
62.10-11)

Does not make much sense, does it? Still, you can see the meta-prayer
aspect here. Lal offers two alternate translations of the verse that
look to my eyes a little more felicitous. The first seems to be the
more literal one.

Translation one: "Let us meditate on the wondrous splendor of the sun;
may it arouse our minds."
Translation two: "Let us bring our minds to rest in the glory of the
divine truth. May truth inspire our reflection." (Introducing
Hinduism, p. 13)

Striking here is the fact that among these translations are two of the
three most common translations of the Arabic word Baha, "glory" and
"splendor," the third being "light." Also, you cannot help but notice
how strikingly similar the image is to what we say after washing the
face in our medium obligatory meta-prayer: "I have turned my face unto
Thee, O Lord! Illumine it with the light of Thy countenance." An early
riser chanting this mantra at sunrise is just the image of the Master
in His talks of the seeker who turns to the "Sun of Truth," which
rises at different dawning points during the year, while imitators
just turn in the same direction. Imitators ignore the need to "turn
your mind" or "meditate" on the truth itself. If you were to read His
talks and did not know that Baha'i comes from Islam, you would think
that `Abdu'l-Baha was consciously invoking Hinduism. Indeed, now that
I think of it, He often spoke of His coming from the "East," and by
that He may well have been including India as well as Persia. Even the
idea of "confirmations of the Holy Spirit," so often spoken of by
Abdu'l-Baha, seems closer to Hinduism than most of what you come
across in Islam. Food for reflection.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

History Text

History Text and Friend Making Incantations

By John Taylor; 13 January, 2006

Lean On Me

I saw an inspiring teacher's film called "Lean on Me," yesterday,
about a real-life teacher in New Jersey who is appointed principal of
a hell-hole called Eastside Secondary School and turns it around. The
actor, Samuel L. Jackson, clearly believes in what the script has this
principal tell his boss in city hall at one point, that Blacks in the
United States are being turned into a permanent underclass and only
firm action, a huge effort combined with pride and self-respect will
turn them around. Race comes up more than once. In one characteristic
act, this reforming principal fires a White music teacher, perhaps the
most qualified teacher in the school, who is too intent on teaching
Mozart for an upcoming festival, and not intent enough on what will
help these students succeed in the real world. Then he has the White
kids in the school stand up at assembly and points out to the whole
school that they have to be here, if they had any option they would
already be long gone, so they are all in the same boat. In a memorable
speech he tweaks the pride of the students and persuades them to try
to succeed. After much dramatics the principal learns to moderate his
autocratic zeal a little while his students learn to see him as the
father that too many of them never knew. They all buckle down and
prove themselves by passing a required basic skills examination.

When I see a film like that I think about how education can improve.
This year in Ontario the curriculum has changed completely. A new
system was evidently brought in a few years ago and there was
criticism that First Nation peoples had been short changed. The
textbooks ignored them completely. So this year to my surprise, the
educational powers that be turned that around completely and put
Natives front and center in all textbooks. On superficial examination
of Silvie's Grade Six Social Studies textbook, this seemed ridiculous.
Students seemed to be learning more now about the names of certain
Indians who made good in certain walks of life, such as entering
parliament or becoming head of a corporation, than about major events
in world history, or even Sir John A. McDonald. This, I thought surely
means that what I know will not be of much help to Silvie and that
will broaden the generation gap.

Then I looked closer at her textbook and saw that _methodologically_
the text was, in fact, a huge improvement. I studied history
throughout school, including college, and I remember taking one course
in historiography that examined closely the difference between a
primary and a secondary text -- the same document I learned can be
primary for some purposes and secondary for others. This, thought I,
should be taught to everybody. It should be common knowledge, for not
knowing it trips us up constantly, especially in religion. As Baha'is
this is something that we have to learn fast, for we have good reason
to distinguish between scripture and not-scriptural sources. Of all
the history courses I took throughout my schooling, this one on
historiography was the most valuable by far.

And lo and behold, throughout this ostensibly aboriginal obsessed text
book of Silvie's I saw constant emphasis on what I learned way back in
that historiography course. It was constantly pushing kids to think of
the difference between a primary and secondary source. When I saw
that, and several other good features of this text book, I was
reassured. It is vastly better than the boring, dumb junk "social
studies" texts I had to stick my nose in during my primary school
years, silly books which turned me off history until I was saved for
history by becoming a Baha'i and reading the Guardian. I am now
reassured that with time teachers are learning something, they are
getting better at what they do, and their material is improving. This
educational system may even actually be worth the prodigious funds
spent on it.

Here is the next installment in our series on friendship as taught by Socrates.

Making friends by incantation
From Memorabilia, by Xenophon, Book II, Part VI

Cri. Good! and when we have discovered a man whose friendship is worth
having, how ought we to make him our friend?

Socrates. First we ought to ascertain the will of Heaven whether it be
advisable to make him our friend.

Cri. Well! and how are we to effect the capture of this friend of our
choice, whom the gods approve? will you tell me that?

Not, in good sooth (replied Socrates), by running him down like a
hare, nor by decoying him like a bird, or by force like a wild boar.
To capture a friend against his will is a toilsome business, and to
bind him in fetters like a slave by no means easy. Those who are so
treated are apt to become foes instead of friends. Hate rather than
friendship is the outcome of these methods.

Cri. But how convert them into friends?

Soc. There are certain incantations, we are told, which those who know
them have only to utter, and they can make friends of whom they list;
and there are certain philtres also which those who have the secret of
them may administer to whom they like and win their love.

Cri. From what source shall we learn them?

Soc. You need not go farther than Homer to learn that which the Sirens
sang to Odysseus, the first words of which run, I think, as follows:

Hither, come hither, thou famous man, Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans!

Cri. And did the magic words of this spell serve for all men alike?
Had the Sirens only to utter this one incantation, and was every
listener constrained to stay?

Soc. No; this was the incantation reserved for souls athirst for fame,
of virtue emulous.

Cri. Which is as much as to say, we must suit the incantation to the
listener, so that when he hears the words he shall not think that the
enchanter is laughing at him in his sleeve. I cannot certainly
conceive a method better calculated to excite hatred and repulsion
than to go to some one who knows that he is small and ugly and a
weakling, and to breathe in his ears the flattering tale that he is
beautiful and tall and stalwart. But do you know any other
love-charms, Socrates?

Soc. I cannot say that I do; but I have heard that Pericles was
skilled in not a few, which he poured into the ear of our city and won
her love.

Cri. And how did Themistocles win our city's love?

Soc. Ah, that was not by incantation at all. What he did was to
encircle our city with an amulet (or wall) of saving virtue.

Cri. You would imply, Socrates, would you not, that if we want to win
the love of any good man we need to be good ourselves in speech and
action?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Market of Friendship

Towards a Free Market of Friendship

By John Taylor; 11 January, 2006

In Athens, like all but the most recent societies throughout history,
human beings were sold on an ongoing basis in legal slave markets; the
serviceability of minions was constantly being evaluated by what we
now call market forces. Socrates in Zenophon's memoir suggests what
was verboten and unutterable in every slave owning society, that free
citizens be similarly evaluated, albeit not by others but by
themselves. (This may be one reason Socrates was later singled out for
persecution and eventual execution by the Athenian democracy) The only
way to do such a self-evaluation is to test yourself, to get your
hands dirty, to work to be of good to others and see how useful you
really are.

In fact, Socrates holds that work and service are more necessary for
the free than for slaves. A free upstanding citizen must by nature be
better at making himself useful to others than a base slave. The
characteristic of most slaves is that they dish out what they get,
they learn to be clever malingerers; they are notoriously unwilling,
sullen, angry workers who do what they must and nothing more. At the
slightest chance they screw up and laugh at the owner's consternation.
A free laborer is better than that, he cares about the work and loves
the person he serves. The higher the freedom, the more selfless the
love. To use the extreme example, think of what Baha'u'llah told the
Shah who exiled Him,

"They that surround thee love thee for their own sakes, whereas this
Youth loveth thee for thine own sake, and hath had no desire except to
draw thee nigh unto the seat of grace, and to turn thee toward the
right-hand of justice. Thy Lord beareth witness unto that which I
declare." (Baha'u'llah, Proclamation, 58)

Socrates' point is that if a slave is valuable and useful for brute
labor, a free man or woman must be infinitely more so for their
service, which is primarily done through friendship, unpaid service
done for love. Modern historical experience bore him out; as soon as
chattel slavery was abolished the labor of free workers proved more
efficient and productive than stables full of slaves. Free servants
are more valuable than slaves not so much for what they do as for how
they change the general attitude of society to the value of work. In
the labor market you get what you pay for and paying nothing for slave
labor is in the long run very expensive. Slavery and exploitation
makes everybody a slave, for to be truly free, paradoxically, you have
to serve to the fullest extent of your ability.

Socrates says that if we had our priorities straight we would value
ourselves as friends above all else and lend our most assiduous
efforts to cultivating other good friends. We would want to become
better friends ourselves and would do our best to get a realistic idea
of how useful we are. We would constantly ask: am I a good friend?
What makes me of value to others? How can I be of service to my
friends? This, Socrates teaches, is what being free is all about,
holding constantly in our heads a sort of invisible "friend market"
(as opposed to a slave market) and constantly evaluating there our own
service and utility as a friend.

In the following section Xenophon remembers what Socrates taught on
how to pick a friend who is most like a freeman and least slavish,
then he goes on to talk about how you can be sure he will be a good
friend to you. The answer is the same that Jesus gave when asked how
to judge a prophet, by their fruits you know them; thorn brush does
not sprout dates.

Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates; Book II, Part VI

Again, in reference to the test to be applied, if we would gauge the
qualifications of a friend worth the winning, the following remarks of
Socrates could not fail, I think, to prove instructive.

Tell me (said Socrates, addressing Critobulus), supposing we stood in
need of a good friend, how should we set about his discovery? We must,
in the first place, I suppose, seek out one who is master of his
appetites, not under the dominion, that is, of his belly, not addicted
to the wine-cup or to lechery or sleep or idleness, since no one
enslaved to such tyrants could hope to do his duty either by himself
or by his friends, could he?

Certainly not (Critobulus answered).

Soc. Do you agree, then, that we must hold aloof from every one so dominated?

Cri. Most assuredly.

Well then (proceeded Socrates), what shall we say of the spendthrift
who has lost his independence and is for ever begging of his
neighbors; if he gets anything out of them he cannot repay, but if he
fails to get anything, he hates you for not giving--do you not think
that this man too would prove but a disagreeable friend?

Cri. Certainly.

Soc. Then we must keep away from him too?

Cri. That we must.

Soc. Well! and what of the man whose strength lies in monetary
transactions? His one craving is to amass money; and for that reason
he is an adept at driving a hard bargain. The money-lender has a
passion for big money-bags and is hard in all his dealings. He is glad
enough to take in, but loath to pay out.

Cri. In my opinion he will prove even a worse fellow than the last.

Soc. Well! and what of that other whose passion for money-making is so
absorbing that he has no leisure for anything else, save how he may
add to his gains?

Cri. Hold aloof from him, say I, since there is no good to be got out
of him or his society.

Soc. Well! what of the partisan, the quarrelsome and factious person
whose main object is to saddle his friends with a host of enemies?

Cri. For God's sake let us avoid him also.

Soc. But now we will imagine a man exempt indeed from all the above
defects--a man who has no objection to receive kindnesses, but it
never enters into his head to do a kindness in return.

Cri. There will be no good in him either. But, Socrates, what kind of
man shall we endeavor to make our friend? what is he like?

Soc. I should say he must be just the converse of the above: he is a
man of his word, has control over the pleasures of the body, he is
kindly disposed, easy to deal with, upright in all his dealings, very
zealous is he not to be outdone in kindness by his benefactors, if
only his friends may derive some profit from his acquaintance.

Cri. But how are we to test these qualities, Socrates, before acquaintance?

Soc. How do we test the merits of a sculptor?--not by inferences drawn
from the talk of the artist merely. No, we look to what he has already
achieved. These former statues of his were nobly executed, and we
trust he will do equally well with the rest.

Cri. You mean that if we find a man whose kindness to older friends is
established, we may take it as proved that he will treat his newer
friends as amiably?

Soc. Why, certainly, if I see a man who has shown skill in the
handling of horses previously, I argue that he will handle others no
less skillfully again.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

What Price Friendship?

What Price Friendship?

By John Taylor (and Xenophon); 10 January, 2006

The following is from Book II, parts four to ten of Xenophon's
"Recollections of Socrates." I have expunged most of the translator's
boring notes and added some interesting ones of my own. I know that
this is rather long and I may have to break it up into several
installments but it is a crucial text that cries out to be better
known. I had no idea that so much of Socrates is to be found outside
of Plato, and how substantial and inspiring the material on him in
Zenophon's Memorabilia is; true, I read the book quickly in college
but going over this etext translation more carefully now it seems so
much more powerful than I remember it.

What Xenophon's Socrates has to say about friendship is especially
important for Baha'is in view of `Abdu'l-Baha's admonition to practice
what He called the "science of sociability" in teaching the Faith. I
am sure that once the practice of making and keeping friends really
does become a science -- rather than a lost art -- and the full force
of high technology comes to play to assist this worthy goal (instead
of hindering it, as video games, virtual space, MUDs and the withdrawn
"netizenry" do now), and people learn to include friends as integral
to their own life goals, that suicide will be eliminated, as well as
depression and most other ills that whittle away at happiness.

Much of the advice that Socrates gives here sounds like Dale
Carnegie's self-help advice. Carnegie's books, such as "How to Make
Friends and Influence People," made my father into a salesman and he
has recommended them to all comers as long as I can remember. The
difference is not just that Socrates precedes Carnegie by several
millennia, but that he gives this advice to think of and befriend
others with a high philosophical, even mystical purpose in mind.
Carnegie, valuable as his discoveries are, should be fit into a
sophist rather than a Socratic mold.

Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates

Book II, Part IV; What Price Friendship?

I have at another time heard him (Socrates) discourse on the kindred
theme of friendship in language well calculated, as it seemed to me,
to help a man to choose and also to use his friends aright.

He (Socrates) had often heard the remark made that of all possessions
there is none equal to that of a good and sincere friend; but, in
spite of this assertion, the mass of people, as far as he could see,
concerned themselves about nothing so little as the acquisition of
friends. Houses, and fields, and slaves, and cattle, and furniture of
all sorts (he said) they were at pains to acquire, and they strove
hard to keep what they had got; but to procure for themselves this
greatest of all blessings, as they admitted a friend to be, or to keep
the friends whom they already possessed, not one man in a hundred ever
gave himself a thought.

It was noticeable, in the case of a sickness befalling a man's friend
and one of his own household simultaneously, the promptness with which
the master would fetch the doctor to his domestic (slave) and take
every precaution necessary for his recovery, with much expenditure of
pains; but meanwhile little account would be taken of the friend in
like condition, and if both should die, he will show signs of deep
annoyance at the death of his domestic, which, as he reflects, is a
positive loss to him; but as regards his friend his position is in no
wise materially affected, and thus, though he would never dream of
leaving his other possessions disregarded and ill cared for,
friendship's mute appeal is met with flat indifference. [or: "the cry
of a friend for careful tending falls on deaf ears."]

Nor had he failed to observe another striking contrast. To take (said
he) a crowning instance: with regard to ordinary possessions, however
multifarious these may be, most people are at least acquainted with
their number, but if you ask a man to enumerate his friends, who are
not so very many after all perhaps, he cannot; or if, to oblige the
inquirer, he essays to make a list, he will presently retract the
names of some whom he had previously included, like a chess-player
recalling a move. Such is the amount of thought which people bestow
upon their friends.

And yet what thing else may a man call his own is comparable to this
one best possession! what rather will not serve by contrast to enhance
the value of an honest friend! Think of a horse or a yoke of oxen;
they have their worth; but who shall gauge the worth of a worthy
friend? Kindlier and more constant than the most faithful of slaves--
this is that possession best named all-serviceable: a vessel fit for
all work indeed is this friend.

Consider what the post is that he assigns himself! to meet and
supplement what is lacking to the welfare of his friends, to promote
their private and their public interests, is his concern. Is there
need of kindly action in any quarter? he will throw in the full weight
of his support. Does some terror confound? he is at hand to help and
defend by expenditure of money and of energy, [by dint of his
diplomacy], by appeals to reason or resort to force.

His the privilege alike to gladden the prosperous in the hour of
success and to sustain their footing who have well-nigh slipped. All
that the hands of a man may minister, all that the eyes of each are
swift to see, the ears to hear, and the feet to compass, he with his
helpful arts will not fall short of. Nay, not seldom that which a man
has failed to accomplish for himself, has missed seeing or hearing or
attaining, a friend acting in behalf of friend will achieve
vicariously. And yet, albeit to try and tend a tree for the sake of
its fruit is not uncommon, this copious mine of wealth--this friend--
attracts only a lazy and listless attention on the part of more than
half the world.

Book II, Part V; How Would My Friendship Be Valued in a Free Market?

I remember listening to another argument of his, the effect of which
would be to promote self-examination. The listener must needs be
brought to ask himself, "Of what worth am I to my friends?" It
happened thus. One of those who were with him was neglectful, as he
noted, of a friend who was at the pinch of poverty (Antisthenes).
Accordingly, in the presence of the negligent person and of several
others, he proceeded to question the sufferer.

Soc. What say you, Antisthenes?--have friends their values like
domestic slaves? One of these latter may be worth perhaps two minae,
another only half a mina, a third five, and a fourth as much as ten;
while they do say that Nicias, the son of Niceratus, paid a whole
talent for a superintendent of his silver mines. And so I propound the
question to myself as follows: "Have friends, like slaves, their
market values?"

Not a doubt of it (replied Antisthenes). At any rate, I know that I
would rather have such a one as my friend than be paid two minae, and
there is such another whose worth I would not estimate at half a mina,
and a third with whom I would not part for ten, and then again a
fourth whose friendship would be cheap if it cost me all the wealth
and pains in the world to purchase it.

Well then (continued Socrates), if that be so, would it not be well if
every one were to examine himself: "What after all may I chance to be
worth to my friends?" Should he not try to become as dear as possible,
so that his friends will not care to give him up?

How often do I hear the complaint: "My friend So-and-so has given me
up"; or "Such an one, whom I looked upon as a friend, has sacrificed
me for a mina." And every time I hear these remarks, the question
arises in my mind: If the vendor of a worthless slave is ready to part
with him to a purchaser for what he will fetch--is there not at least
a strong temptation to part with a base friend when you have a chance
of making something on the exchange? Good slaves, as far as I can see,
are not so knocked down to the hammer; no, nor good friends so lightly
parted with.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

White Queen and the Short Oblig

Alice, the White Queen and the Short Oblig

Truth Teller's Paradox Series, Part IX

By John Taylor; 9 January, 2006

I came across the following mention of breakfast while reading at my
breakfast table this morning. I knew then and there that I must start
today's essay with this precious passage from "Alice through the
Looking Glass":

'I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
'Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. 'Try again: draw a long
breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one CAN'T believe
impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was
your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

The smug old White Queen is quite right; you can believe impossible
things very easily. If it were not so easy to do fanatics and
fundamentalists, televangelists, dictators and democratic politicians
would all be out of a job, wouldn't they? But Alice is right too,
there is a part of us deep down that insists that it is quite
impossible to be certain of what the mind rejects. But at least the
Queen can see that contradiction is inevitable. She embraces the
paradox and admits it openly and you have to give her credit for that.
She sees what Alice may not, that contradiction is inevitable. This is
absolutely the case. Every statement is false on some level, every
statement may be a lie, intentional or not, or a paradox, intentional
or not. Consider these two sentences:

This sentence is true.
This sentence is false.

The first sentence is an implicit assertion of truth that logicians
tell us can be tacked onto the beginning of everything we say: "It is
the case that..." The second is an instance of the Liar's Paradox. How
can we judge whether either statement is true? Either one may be a
lie. The only way to have any clue is to look at the speaker, to ask,
"Who said that?," "Why did they say it?" Was it someone like Alice who
cares whether it is true or not, or is the speaker like the White
Queen, a barefaced liar? Is the speaker serious or speaking in jest?
Alice may be sincere, truthful, reliable, knowing, and above all
someone who hates contradictions. Or Alice may be just too
literal-minded not to realize how ineluctable paradox and falsity
really are. The White Queen may be the truth teller; the only way to
know is to meet and know the two personally, then judge the truth for
yourself. Only after such examination can we have certainty that a
statement, contradictory or not, in some way makes sense.

In this truth telling series so far we have seen how this Liar's
Paradox, so popular with pre-Socratic philosophers remains undefeated
today in the face of the most sophisticated onslaughts of modern
reasoning. It is discouraging to discover that reason is fatally
flawed, that language resolves into self-contradiction. This discovery
by ancient thinkers remains unassailable today in spite of all that
our vaunted super-computers and armies of academic logicians throw at
it. There is no golden path up Mount Olympus, no way whether we know
it or not to avoid believing at least six impossible things before
breakfast.

Last essay we saw how Socrates answered the Liar's Paradox in the only
adequate way possible, by accommodating it with a brilliance that
still illuminates today. He countered the immovable object with an
unstoppable force, humility. I am calling it the "Truth Teller's
Paradox." In spite of the inevitability of not knowing what you are
talking about, you can still speak the truth. If you are an honest
person, that is. His insight gave birth to philosophy as we know it
and also connected with the wisdom of the Jewish prophets who openly
taught that true piety begins in fearful recognition of how flawed our
reasoning powers are.

"The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge." (Prov 1:7, WEB)

Baha'is are repeatedly reminded of the truth teller's paradox in our
daily noonday prayer which has us stand before God and formally
testify that our purpose is to know and love God. Yet right after we
declare that we are too poor and powerless to do anything on our own.
How can a knower know without power, or a lover love without wealth?
Paradox and self-contradiction, then, are at the center not only of
our knowledge but our reason for being. The noonday prayer is terse
testimony that we ARE a paradox ontologically, epistemologically,
empirically and ethically. As God says, "I am thy Mystery and thou art
Mine." In this prayer we upload, as it were, the paradox to God
Himself. The statement "You created me to perform a contradiction" can
be a great lie or a great truth according to who we are. If we are
sincere, God will want to stand in and make the paradox make sense.
His Power of the Holy Spirit will affirm it as truth. Then it will be
the truth. This is the truth teller's paradox. He downloads our
assertion back to us in the form of our life, our Providence, our
tests for that day. As such this short statement can stand in place of
all further obligatory devotions on a given day.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Principle of Truth Seeking

Proposed UN Principle Planning Decade

Year One, The Principle of Truth Seeking

Part One, Overall Goals and Objects

The first year of the UN planning decade is dedicated to individual
reflection about truth, principle and the role that each person can
play during the upcoming years of the decade. At the UN itself a
schedule of goals and deadlines is agreed upon among governments and
NGO's for improving reflection. Why does refection come first? In two
paragraphs, here is why.

Meditation is the mother of all human rights. Leisure and a moderate
amount of time each day, week and year for reflection are defining
elements of both individuality and our common humanity. In religious
tradition this wisdom is enshrined in the Sabbath and sabbatical
years, and positive teachings such as: "Man does not live by bread
alone..." Philosophy is founded upon the motto of Socrates: "The
unexamined life is not worth living."

Conversely, it is our first duty to remove obstacles to reflection,
for large populations deprived of this Sine Qua Non of the human being
are soil in which thrive tyranny, totalitarianism and war. Whatever
threatens leisure and a reflective life must be promptly addressed,
according to the Latin dictum, "Principiis Obsta," "Resist the
beginnings (of evil)." This is fundamental to security and democracy
as well as prosperity and development. It must be the urgent concern
of all free persons and responsible institutions to ensure that every
owner of a human brain has full opportunity to use and improve it by
means of leisure, reflection and self-improvement.

Planning and Implementing the Truth Seeking Year

To work out high-level and local goals of this principle year
brainstorming meetings are sponsored throughout the year by the UN
among both expert and lay. Specially designed conferencing software
placed in strategic access points in every major region will help
explore ways and means of improving and universalizing recreation,
meditation and reflection. A set of public, standing documents and
discussion areas on the internet will invite the thoughts and artistic
contribution of every human being on earth. On the local level
libraries and museums already set up in most neighborhoods act as
hosts and conduits for this consultative process. Their displays and
access points will remain open for fresh input until the second
decade's year for truth seeking renews the cycle ten years later. The
best products and expressions of this first universal consultation of
all humanity on reflection will then enter into a permanent historical
archive and hall of fame.

Here are some possible specific goals for truth seeking that might
come out of all this.

First Goal; Reflection in Nature

General object: Improve access to nature

Experience has shown that the profoundest and most effective
reflection takes place when one has direct, regular contact with
nature. The prime goal, therefore, is to universalize access to nature
while improving the nature of the contact between humans and natural
areas. This may not necessarily mean more interaction but better
contact with natural areas, intercourse that benefits both human
beings and natural ecosystems. The financing of nature tourism is
regularized so that a percentage of every tourism dollar goes directly
to benefit wildlife, parks, and other natural areas. A formula is
devised to ensure that as broad a variety of people from all cultures,
ages, and walks of life are brought into natural surroundings in
non-intrusive ways.

Second Goal; Recreation and Work

General object: To guarantee a modicum of rest, recreation and
reflection in every career and work day

An overall goal of the first planning decade is to devise a universal
worker's bill of rights and obligations. This first year of the first
decade is dedicated to thinking about how to give everyone a chance to
find rest, recreation and self-improvement. The showpiece is the
bottom rung of the work hierarchy, the minimum wage job. How do we
bring those below this, workers without even this minimal level of
rights, such as part-time, migrant, domestics and so-called casual
laborers, up to this minimal level? How can we assure that all workers
have not only a minimum income but also basic rights, protections and,
mostly for now, leisure and access to relaxation? The answers to such
questions will inform the goals for the upcoming years of this
planning decade.

Third Goal; Integration of Leisure with Family

General object: To increase diversity of recreation.

Variety is the spice of life as well as recreation. A broad diversity
of activities recreate more effectively than frivolous, undirected
play. The most effective leisure therefore is not done in a vacuum for
its own sake -- though to a moderate degree this is morally acceptable
and indeed part of the very definition of the word "recreation."
Rather recreational time is most effective and meaningful when one is
involved in some kind of service beyond the demands of one's trade or
profession. The first priority for this is family. This institution
itself is inherently diversifying; by nature it broadens variety in
recreational activities by forcing entertainers, tour guides and
programmers to appeal to the widest possible variety of ages and
tastes.

Fourth Goal; Integration of Education and Faith into Leisure Programs

General Object: To see to it that education and faith organizations
have full opportunity to enrich the recreational interludes of as many
people as possible. Conversely, to see to it that as many people as
possible have the leisure and energy to contribute to goals of
education and the ideals and ethics of their faith.

Prime time for spare time is best spent supporting family, but after
that and part of that recreation is most effective guided, informed
and integrated into long term educational and faith based goals. This
means supporting educators and faith groups, which in turn support the
reflection of families. This first year of reflection will be
dedicated to reflecting upon and pounding out specific goals for
supporting and universalizing support for such education and faith
based recreation. To cite one specific example, tax exemption and
other public support and funding should be extended first to temples
and holy places that are open to the public. Exclusive privilege in
schools and religion should be more expensive than openness. This is
just the first step in further steps to take in future decades to
assure that family and public interest are best served by both
educators and people of faith.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Socrates' Paradox

Socrates' Paradox

Truth Telling Series, Part the Umpteenth

By John Taylor; 5 January, 2006

This series on truth telling began when I came across a startling fact
in the recent primer, "Introducing Logic." Here I learned how an
ancient paradox known as the Liar's Paradox has acted as a bombshell
blowing apart all attempts to form an entirely consistent logical
system. In some form or other it has successfully foiled all attempts
by logicians throughout history, from the ancient Pre-Socratics to
Leibniz to Frege to Russell, right down to system makers of the
present day. You can put this paradox in one sentence, easily
understood even by the meanest non-logician like myself. So without
further ado, here is Epimenides Paradox, otherwise known as the Liar's
Paradox:

"I am telling you a lie."

This is a self-immolating declaration, an intellectual Black Hole. It
cannot be true unless it is false or false unless it is true.
Pre-Socratic philosophers used this along with various other paradoxes
for pious ends, to demonstrate that reason is not a reliable stepping
stone to the gods. Cynics and skeptics use it for less pious ends, to
prove that nothing ain't worth nothing, even if it is free. I had no
idea that such a simple trick could be so devastating throughout the
ages. It is astonishing to think that language or logical systems are
like precarious houses of cards brought to the ground by admitting
even one such self contradictory assertion. Every logician tries to
kick it out the door but perforce they have to let it in, and that is
the beginning of the end.

Some denizens of the 20th Century speculated that the Liar's Paradox
may be so perplexingly self-contradictory because it is
self-referential. It flags itself, as it were, then hits itself in the
face with the flag. Computer scientist Richard Hofstedter, for
instance, held aphoristically that "self-reference is the soul of
paradox." If so, it would be a phenomenon of prime interest to
scholars of the Baha'i writings, since most of Baha'u'llah's Writings
are self referential. Indeed He confides at one point that if it were
up to Him He would write about nothing else but the greatness of His
station, He would extol that only to the end of time. This stands to
reason, the highest truth is about itself only; if anything can and
should be self-referential speech it would be the speech of the
Supreme Being. But in the last century logicians demonstrated that the
Liars Paradox need not be self referential. Consider these two
sentences:

1. Sentence two is a lie.
2. Sentence one is a lie.

Taken together, they constitute a form of the Liars Paradox, I am
told, even though neither sentence refers to itself. The same goes
with three sentences in the same pattern,

1. Sentence two is a lie.
2. Sentence three is a lie.

3. Sentence one is a lie.

You can imagine any number of sentences accusing one another of lying,
right up to infinity. Taken together, they constitute an instance of
the liars paradox, without self-reference. Which leads to the question
whether it is the act of accusation of falsity itself that is the soul
of paradox. Consider these sentences:

1. Sentence two is true.
2. Sentence three is true.
...
499. Sentence 500 is true.
500. Sentence one is a lie.

One accusation of lying, then, will make any number of dependent
assertions of truth into a collective Liar's Paradox. Could it be that
it is the act of contradiction itself that makes the Liar's Paradox
paradoxical? Every sentence is an implicit assertion of truth. In the
front of every sentence that you possibly name you can tack on this
phrase: "It is the case that..." If a sentence denies that implicit
prefix, it nullifies itself, it nullifies language, and it violates
the implicit contract that any speaker has with any listener that both
seek truth. Are disunity, denial and contention, then, the soul of
paradox? As soon as experts disagree over a given issue, they nullify
themselves and their authority. Their expertise is a Liar's Paradox.
This has been recognized since ancient times. Worse, as James
Surowiecki in "The Wisdom of Crowds" points out, individual experts do
not known when they are making a mistake, thus further limiting their
wisdom in the face of a group.

Be that as it may, it is possible to distill a paradox into two words,
known as an oxymoron; examples are "screaming silence," "military
intelligence," and "lonely crowd." About a century ago Bertrand
Russell and set theory were tripping up on the Barber's Paradox. The
Barber of Seville shaves all men who do not shave themselves. The
paradox comes when you ask whether he shaves himself or not. At around
the same time linguist Kurt Grelling noticed that paradox can be
distilled even smaller than an oxymoron, he squeezed it into a single
word, "heterology." This became known as the Grelling's Paradox, or
the paradox of heterologicality. Here is how "A Dictionary of
Philosophy" explains it:

"Some words have the same property as that which they name: for
example, short is a short word and polysyllabic has many syllables.
These words are called homological or autological. In contrast,
heterological words such as `useless' or `monosyllabic' are not
instances of the properties they name. The paradox arises when
considering the word `heterological' itself; if it is heterological,
then it does not instantiate its meaning -- but this is what
`heterological' means, therefore the word is homological. Conversely,
if `heterological' is autological, then it must have the
characteristic of applying to itself and therefore heterological is
heterological."

Grelling was not the first to distill paradox into a single word,
however. When the oracle declared that there was no man wiser than
Socrates, it in effect proved the paradoxical nature of the word
"wisdom." Socrates knew that he was not wise and set out to prove the
oracle wrong by examining those in the know. He discovered that every
expert he visited thought he knew things when he really did not. Plato
describes how Socrates summed up this discovery in his Apology,

"So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do
not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and
good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks
that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know."

Socrates knew that he did not know wisdom, and that made him wise. The
Wise Person's Paradox, as it were, or perhaps the Truth Teller's
Paradox. Anybody who knows how effective the liar's paradox demolishes
language would never venture to say, "This is true," for that in
itself would be an intentional lie. So Socrates dealt with the Liar's
Paradox by accepting the limits of reason. This did not make him
popular with those who professed to know, the worldly wise.

"This investigation has led to my having many enemies of the worst and
most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies,
and I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself
possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O
men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to
say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing; he is not speaking of
Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said,
He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is
in truth worth nothing."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Calculus of Al Shurah

The Calculus of Al Shurah's Assurance

By John Taylor; 4 January, 2006

It just came to my attention that Jeremy Bentham, founder of
utilitarianism, was a bit of an eccentric. He believed that we should
not bury the dead, we should have them stuffed and kept in display
cases. Every home should have dead family members displayed in
prominent locations. This is a fascinating idea worthy of several
Badi' essays on its own. How differently we would relate to our family
heritage if we had the perfectly preserved remains our forebears right
there looking over our every move! But that is not all. He kept a pet
pig that followed him around wherever he went. Bentham was so shy that
he could not bear the presence of more than one guest at a time. When
he died his body was dissected before friends and relations and then
preserved in a glass case, topped with a funny pillow head; it is
still displayed in the hallowed halls of Oxford University. His idea
of punishment for criminals also gets high marks for originality and
is similar to his own ultimate fate, albeit after death. Do not just
throw prisoners into jail and forget about them, put wrongdoers into
glass display cases where they can be spied upon twenty four seven.
Presumably the glass would be one way, so that the prisoner could not
see who was watching him. Being so shy, I suppose Bentham imagined
that this as the worst imaginable sanction. Certainly if people were
already used to seeing the stuffed remains of dead people being
displayed at every turn, the idea of being displayed while still alive
would have a certain repulsiveness even in those who otherwise might
not care one way or another.

Bentham's great contribution to ethics was what he called the
"felicific calculus." This you could call opinion polls with teeth.
You poll the population of the world to find out everything that they
like or dislike. You ask what makes them happy or unhappy on a scale
of one to ten, then punch the results into a spreadsheet and use that
information to inform policy making. In a certain way, this is exactly
what is being done today, on a scale that might have frightened
Bentham himself. No leader can afford to ignore the polled feelings or
opinions of his constituents.

What is more, as James Surowiecki describes in "The Wisdom of Crowds,"
when conditions are exactly right polling groups for their opinion or,
alternatively, setting up a stock market of people's bets about what
will happen can be a surprisingly effective way to extract the
collective wisdom from a crowd. Even the most trivial information is
accessible by averaging out the opinions of large numbers of people.
For example, the average guess of how many jelly beans is in a glass
jar beats the best guess virtually every time. Surowiecki routinely
tests his idea in very impressive ways; for example, once he walked
through Grand Central Station asking people at random how many books
they thought he kept in his office bookshelves. He did not know
himself, but it turned out that the average of their guesses was spot
on, far closer than his own guestimate.

So what if you combine the insights of Bentham's pure genius with the
practical discoveries of Surowiecki about collective wisdom? Policy
makers would then have virtual holographic displays of peoples'
felicific calculus in glass cases all down the hall as they walk into
their conference rooms.

Take a specific example. Should we tear out a city's last remaining
greenway in order to build a superhighway? I am thinking of Hamilton's
Red Hill expressway project here, an idea that sat in the planning and
debating stage for many decades. I remember my teachers in High School
working as activists against this possible construction project. What
if their ideas and opinions had been displayed in city hall, like the
dead would be displayed in a house designed by Jeremy Bentham?

What really happened was that the question was debated so long and
bitterly that eventually Mafiosi figured out a way to get their own
pawn mayor elected. He then ran metaphorical bulldozers through all
popular opposition and had the project approved. Now you can drive
through East Hamilton and watch physical bulldozers ripping to bits
the forest path where I used to hike regularly. That gives me a
sinking feeling -- a negative ten in Bentham's calculus. But then
again, I no longer live in Hamilton, so that destruction is not an
impressive problem anymore for me. Nor am I one of the animals or
trees that used to live there. They have no vote, no say in the
matter; nor do unborn generations of children and adults who might
have benefited from that green area. So I must say that as an
occasional driver in the area, I already find the present Lincoln
Alexander Expressway and no doubt will soon find the new Red Hill
Expressway very convenient indeed.

How are all these complex considerations to be given a fair say in a
world full of uncertainties and voices that have no say in the matter,
where money and profit speak so much louder than permanent, intangible
riches? Where those who should have a say do not and cannot say a
thing? After all, even Bentham could not poll unborn children or
woodland animals. It would help if there were an entire profession
designing fair and impressive displays of dead statistics for the
cases lining the hallway leading into the city hall conference
chamber. Preposterous as it seems at first, two of the world's largest
religions insist that the participants in a deliberation or meeting
are not alone if they gather in the right spirit. God is present, if
only in spirit or imagination. Jesus said,

"Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth
concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my
Father who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together
in my name, there I am in the midst of them." (Matt 18:19-20, WEB)

In a similar vein, the Qu'ran states:

"Seest thou not that God doth know (all) that is in the heavens and on
earth? There is not a secret consultation between three, but He makes
the fourth among them, - Nor between five but He makes the sixth,- nor
between fewer nor more, but He is in their midst, wheresoever they be:
In the end will He tell them the truth of their conduct, on the Day of
Judgment. For God has full knowledge of all things." (Q58:7, Yusuf
Ali)

Similarly, `Abdu'l-Baha promised Baha'is He will sit in on meetings
held in the proper spirit. Do we need a display? Probably not for
monotheists. Visual demonstrations of God, Jesus, or Abdu'l-Baha would
be blasphemous. But we are looking for images that are scientific, not
religious here. We need to see the silent majority and what they think
we should do. Would that be enough to scare away the Mafiosi,
lobbyists and other secret agents of special interests? Not likely,
admittedly.

What would? Perhaps we could change things by giving more attention to
consultation, what makes it succeed and what fails. Lately I did a
search on the word "consultation" in my newly bought DVD edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the word is given only oblique
references. There is no main entry; hard to believe that there would
be no article but it is so. We are so used to having questions like
whether to build the Red Hill expressway decided for us behind closed
doors that we do not even bother to think about how to decide things
better, or even look up the word "consultation" in an encyclopedia.

One thing that did turn up in my Encyclopedia search was a surprising
reference to a chapter in the 42nd chapter of the Qu'ran called, Al
Shura, Consultation. It is so named, I learned, because of this
passage:

"Those who avoid the greater crimes and shameful deeds, and, when they
are angry even then forgive; Those who hearken to their Lord, and
establish regular prayer; who (conduct) their affairs by mutual
Consultation; who spend out of what We bestow on them for Sustenance;
And those who, when an oppressive wrong is inflicted on them, (are not
cowed but) help and defend themselves." (Q42:37-39, Yusuf Ali)

In itself, this is nothing surprising for a Baha'i. We become veterans
of this six step process described here not long after entering the
Baha'i community; we know all about good actions, forgiveness, prayer,
consultation, proper spending and standing up for what is right; we
may not think of them as consistent steps in a single process, but we
are generally aware of each. What surprised me when I jumped to other
references in the Qu'ran to Shura was how seriously Muhammad took step
five, the almsgiving step of the consultation process. In fact He all
but required it of anyone entering into conference with Him:

"O ye who believe! When ye consult the Messenger in private, spend
something in charity before your private consultation. That will be
best for you, and most conducive to purity (of conduct). But if ye
find not (the wherewithal), Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. Is
it that ye are afraid of spending sums in charity before your private
consultation (with him)? If, then ye do not so, and Allah forgives
you, then (at least) establish regular prayer; practice regular
charity; and obey Allah and His Messenger: and Allah is
well-acquainted will all that ye do." (Qur'an 58:12, 13, Yusuf Ali)

How would this practice affect our hallway displays leading to the
Mayor's chambers? Perhaps each holographic image could have a coin
slot built in underneath where deliberators beforehand could offer
contributions to the charities involved. There might be a display of a
woodland scene, with a slot for contributions to the preservation of
their habitat; a giant baby display representing the stake of unborn
future generations might have a slot for charities that affect their
interests. That way no matter what is decided, if a deliberant has
given money for all sides, he or she may be spiritually absolved of
the bad consequences of the part he took in the process.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Reward and the Crimson Book

Reward and the Crimson Spot,

Crimson Book Series, Part Three

By John Taylor; 1 January, 2006

"For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto
him." (Luke 20:38)

Blood, they say, is thicker than water. Most people spout this saying
when one is in some sort of trouble and other family members come to
their aid. We are solicitous to family in a way that we would not
otherwise be, so we say "blood is thicker than water" spontaneously,
as a reflex, without thinking what it means. Actually blood does not
seem all that much more viscous when you pour it from a beaker over
your hands. I think the saying means that inside, within the veins it
normally is not any thicker than water but in an emergency it rapidly
thickens and forms a clot to stop up the loss of blood. The clot then
not only stanches outflow from the cut, it also initiates the first
healing steps in recovering from the injury.

In view of that, the Crimson Book is thicker than water in that unlike
any earlier religious system, the covenant of Baha'u'llah based upon
it allows complete self-recovery from attacks on its unity, either
from within or without. The original reading of Baha'u'llah's will,
the Kitab-i-Ahd, the document primarily but not exclusively described
by Baha'u'llah as the "Crimson Book," shows in the most dramatic way
just how crimson this book really was. Almost from the moment the
Kitab-i-Ahd was read most of the family of Baha'u'llah, starting with
the calculating, envious brothers of `Abdu'l-Baha, were disaffected
from the Heir, `Abdu'l-Baha, appointed as leader of Baha'u'llah's
Cause. The green eyed clan of betrayers began a vigorous smear
campaign against `Abdu'l-Baha, but eventually were caught up in the
very web that they had woven.

Strife is harmful to any movement but with one whose be all and end
all is unity? You would expect internal dissension to be utterly
fatal. It did not turn out that way because of the Crimson Book. The
word "crimson" describes nicely how the new covenant worked. Crimson
is not red but is a purplish shade of red. So with clotting blood,
when it responds to an inside cut -- internal bleeding is of course
known as bruising or contusions -- usually shows from outside as a
dark purple bruise. Drying blood, in or out, goes from red to black
but when light passes through several layers of fat and skin, clotted
blood appears a purplish crimson color. Like the reds of late sunset
or early dawn, crimson light penetrates when other shades are blocked
out.

Crimson is also the color of several species of bush that grow
abundantly in the holy land, including Napoleon's Hill and other
locations around `Akka and Haifa. Baha'u'llah, a nature lover, was
known to pitch His tent and spent day trips in such places for
seclusion, recreation, commemoration of Holy Days, or entertaining
guests. Hasan Balyuzi writes,

"There were several gardens in the vicinity of Mazra'ih and the
Mansion of Bahji, such as the Garden of Ridvan, the garden of Firdaws,
the gardens of Junaynih and Bustan-i-Kabir at Mazra'ih. He also
visited nearby villages, such as Yirkih and Abu-Sinan. At Yirkih, He
had His tent pitched on the top of a hill, spending the day in the
tent and the night in the village itself. Then there were hills nearer
to 'Akka, such as Tall-i-Fakhkhar, which is also known as Napoleon's
Hill, and is situated near the Garden of Ridvan; recent archeological
work has demonstrated that it is the site of the ancient
Phoenician/Canaanite city of 'Akka. And the hill named Samariyyih,
which overlooks Bahji, and where red flowers grew in abundance, was
called Buq'atu'l-Hamra' - the Crimson Spot; today it is occupied by
the army. In the springtime when the hill was verdant and covered with
red flowers such as poppies and anemones, Baha'u'llah would have His
tent pitched there. Many years later, when 'Abdu'l-Baha was again
incarcerated within the city walls of 'Akka, He would wistfully ask
those who had gone to visit the Shrine of His Father: 'Were red, red
flowers blooming on Buq'atu'l-Hamra'?'" (H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah -
The King of Glory, 363-364)

So if this hill overlooking the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, the Mecca or
point of adoration for all Baha'is, is called Buq'atu'l-Hamra, or
Crimson Spot, the color would seem to broadly signify wherever the
Manifestation happens to be. Similarly, the crimson bushes are also a
frequent metaphor for a prophet, one used by Jesus Himself: "For every
tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs,
nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." (Luke 6:44, KJV) Earlier we
highlighted this declaration of the Bab to a family member that uses
this color to symbolize the utter servitude of a Manifestation of God.

"This Tree of Holiness, dyed crimson with the oil of servitude, hath
verily sprung forth out of your own soil in the midst of the Burning
Bush, yet ye comprehend nothing whatever thereof..." (The Bab,
Selections, 52)

The Bab's imagery harks back to the Qu'ran's "red ointment," and to
Moses' burning bush from which came the voice of God Himself. A bush
soaked with lamp oil would be extremely volatile, ready to immolate at
the smallest spark. Crimson evidently was a color of the less refined
oils or animal fats used before modern refractory methods. The burning
of lamp oil was the sole means of illumination at night during the
centuries before electrification. Perhaps with that use in mind, in
Ancient Judea kings began their reign ceremonially annointed by oil,
in the expectation that they would bring enlightenment to their
thralls. Both Messiah and Christos mean "annointed."

Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book) carries forward this
persistent image of Moses and the burning bush,

"Advance, O people, with snow-white faces and radiant hearts, unto the
blest and crimson Spot, wherein the Sadratu'l-Muntaha is calling:
`Verily, there is none other God beside Me, the Omnipotent Protector,
the Self-Subsisting!'" (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, 56)

Notice that this is addressed to a people, not a soul alone. Those
called to stand at the crimson Spot are many purified and joyous
individuals congregating to form a new fellowship or collectivity.
Here they are told of a God with two featured attributes, one offering
all-powerful security (Omnipotent Protector) and the other independent
power for growth (Self-Subsisting). That is, direct confrontation with
God on the crimson spot changes the person in her group relations by
renewing the two fundamental human motivators, fear and desire. We
always act out of either fear or desire, always have and will, so the
only way to change is to change what we fear or what we desire. Hence
Isaiah's prophesy of a sea change in human aims for reward.

"Go through, go through the gates, clear ye the way of the people;
cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones; lift up an ensign
over the peoples. Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the
earth: say ye to the daughter of Zion: 'Behold, thy salvation cometh;
behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.' And
they shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD; and
thou shalt be called Sought out, a city not forsaken." (Isa 62:10-12)

The gain that we will learn to seek in our life's struggle will not be
divine knowledge alone, but personal friendship with God, in Isaiah's
words, "his reward is with him;" a direct family tie with God, blood
is thicker than water, is needless to say the greatest possession one
can ever desire. Since the recipient of this gain is not an individual
but a group or people, his "recompense (is) before Him," could mean
that the result will be a new social fact or body politic. Visiting
the Crimson Spot gives no vague feeling of esprit de corps but hardens
into an institution, an entity capable of planning and acting.
Institutions are consistent over time, immortal and not subject like a
person to decline and death.

The prophesy about reward cited above from Isaiah comes just before
the frightening prophesy we cited in our first essay, the
unforgettable image of a Lord of Hosts dripping wet with crimson
liquid, furious and fresh from treading wine vats brimming with the
blood of nations. This of course addresses the other of the two human
motivators, fear of punishment. Fear too is given due attention in the
passages in Baha'u'llah's Writings that He labels as derived from the
Crimson Book. We will examine some of these next time.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com