p14, p39 Naw Ruz Eve Thoughts, from 16 Years Ago

Thoughts on Naw Ruz Eve; 20 March, 2004

I started this fast easy, even for a time laughing contemptuously at healthy people who complain how tough it is, "Just try it with the sword of a migraine hanging by a thin thread over your head, me hearties," Thought I, "Arrr!" I only missed the first day to a migraine. I was not much bothered since. Not by that, not that, only by a fast that weighs down a little more each day.

Not eating at first seems like the pain of nostalgia, the loss you feel when you visit an old school after years of absence. You attended this institution ... it was your whole life and all your friends were there and now you are gone and they are gone and every face is new and strange and unknown but walking the same footsteps with the same vain hopes, thoughts, illusions and fears as so long before. You hated every minute you were there but now it is gone and missing it is worse than having it ever was. You hate it all the more for doing this to you now, more now than ever then. And you try oh so hard not to but you have to wonder: what became of the personalities who tread these halls with you? Are they even more the aliens now than they were then? What becomes of old acquaintanceship, is there a heaven or hell for nodding knowledge, a sewer for likes and loves as for other effluent? They all seemed so alive and unique, as did you, and now they are dried out like my gut and even the memory is faded to ghostly incoherence, like the memory of your last meal.

Then it gets worse. Day by day the drought exacerbates until a wilderness is spread all over your world, a desert that makes your pure blue planet into a dead, brown wasteland. I feel it, ill in my skin, washing, excoriating, red throbbing rash whose dried out ouch lays every nerve exposed to the raw caress of unfeeling events. 

A long sere night of soullessness almost over with. There is no consolation in this ... strangulation grips your throat without touching you, dry retching of heart -- dry retching is when your body orders you to vomit and does not care that your stomach is long empty -- only this is a retching you cannot put your finger on, it is spiritual. Mental. You try to think a thought and there is no content or meaning to the thoughts but you must think them nonetheless. Mental retching.

My long unwholesome fast days drag on without content, discontented, wintering, disemboweled, lackluster, they lack not so much stomach content as guts ... the gumption to stumble on to the next step, the moxie to molt my "my," an emptiness that goes beyond body to all being, body, mind, soul. I stand, a sun-dried John. My entire nineteen months are dried tomatoes, all that fructified in the other eighteen are laid without juices in one span of nineteen.

"Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder? Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me." (Job 6:5-7, WEB)

I wander the streets in the afternoon like a zombie eating out its own brain, a cannibalistic ice cream cone without a single scoop of wholeness in it ... and you think, surely people will see the emptiness behind my eyes. But they overlook even the outside, the drying face, and care not what is within.

"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." (Matt 6:16-18)

I don't know about washing the face, but this fast I have tried turning up the dental hygiene. When I brush, floss and swish around this special fluoride mouthwash my dentist recommended I take first thing in the morning, I find that I enter the fast day with a special lift that lasts about -- I don't know -- five minutes until that too is browned, dry and lifeless.

And now dawns the nineteenth day, Naw Ruz eve. Happy New Year's everybody! Let me wish you the open reward of our Father which art in heaven. In Him are spring and its green gardens with streams flowing underneath.

p30, p06 Oligarchy's Squeeze Play

Oligarchy's Squeeze Play

by John Taylor, 2020 Mar 08

In 2011 economist Paul Krugman pointed out that calling the wealthy the "one percent" is quite inaccurate. They should be called the one in a thousand. Where does the money of this tiny elite come from? What do the powerful oligarchs do for a living? In view of how events over the past nine years have played out, Krugman's list is prescient.

"Who is in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they are corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we are talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth." (Oligarchy, American Style, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 3, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html?_r=3&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212)

Sound familiar? This one in a thousand are executives, lawyers and real estate tycoons. Worse, at the very top of this pyramid sit the heirs to even vaster fortunes who own it all, and who never had to earn money in the first place.

When so few rule, they have to know their job, because the one who satisfies the other members of the elite will surely rise above all others. This is done by keeping other oligarchs busy, and offering them hope of even greater fortunes. The one at the summit must provide the skilled and ambitious oligarchs just below with gainful employ and easy money.

Is it any wonder that Donald Trump rose above all others?

Counter-intuitively, his notoriety and incompetence gave him a decisive advantage over other, more placid heirs to mega-fortunes. It attracted Russian money to bail him out and compromise him, then, after his rise to power, laws designed to protect privilege from their rightful due, and bountiful government funding, protect him. Trump precariously surfs the wave of an ever toppling real estate empire perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy, eating up huge loans from the powerful financial sector. His criminal transgressions, even now, provide lucrative employment to an army of influential lawyers -- members in good standing of the oligarchy -- busy fending off lawsuits initiated by victims and opponents.

Why do other oligarchs tolerate him? Stupid question. Free tax cuts permanently transfer ever more money to the top of the heap, into the avid hands of inherited drones and corporate leaches.
And how do the keep the schmucks, the 999 out of a thousand, in line, especially in an age when communication technology displays their shenanigans on everyone's palm? The oldest play in the book, divide and conquer. Keep them scrabbling, stir up outrage about anything and everything; pump up the volume, remove their ability to think straight, delude them until even love and truth fail to move. The ancient Hindu book, the Panchatantra, expresses our vulnerability poetically.

 Until a mortal's belly pot is full,
 He does not care a jot
 For love or music, wit or shame,
 For body's care or scholar's name,
 For virtue or for social charm,
 For lightness or release from harm,
 For godlike wisdom, youthful beauty,
 For purity or anxious duty.
 (Panchatantra, p. 401)

p19 Beyond the veils

Beyond the Veils

by John Taylor, 20 February, 2020  

For the past week I've been slowly reading through the the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld, which cut through the pretence that we think is our virtue like a cold shower on a cold winter's morning. Here is an example,

"We sometimes think we hate flattery, but what we hate is merely the way it is done." (Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes)

These are powerful witticisms that, if you are not careful, will make you suspect your every virtuous thought to be nothing more than vanity hiding behind a veil of vain illusions behind yet more veils of delusions and self indulgence. Behind the veil, the heart shrivels and dies.

At the same time, over the same week, I coincidentally watched two movies starring the British actress Kiera Knightly. The first, Official Secrets, was based on a true story about a young woman working for British intelligence who breached the Official Secrets Act in order to expose the illegal actions, initiated by US President Bush, that manufactured the excuse for the invasion of Iraq. US President Bush had asked the Brits to back up his war-provoking lie about Saddam Hussein's non-existent nuclear munitions. Everyone in her MI6 office got the memo and realised right away the injustice of blackmailing other members of the UN security council to agree to backing up America's aggression, but they were bound by their contract to keep the skulduggery secret. She broke the law and leaked the news to a boot-licking press, who reluctantly printed it. Fortunately for her, though, in order to prosecute her, the British government would have had to admit to complicity in that war crime, so the crown dropped the charges, eventually.

I firmly believe that one day official secrets and confidentiality agreements will themselves be illegal, for the same reason that selling yourself into slavery is now outlawed. In Ancient Athens, that law against selling yourself into slavery, by the way, was the main reform of Solon, one of the founders of what we now call democracy. Democracy could never have come into existence as long as the freedom of citizens was up for sale. In the same way, our free speech is a right that people died for, and it cannot be compromised by any contract, voluntary or not. Free speech is the foundation of the rule of law, which in turn is a pillar of justice.

The second Kiera Knightly movie I saw was an earlier role in her career, as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, a movie that I had seen long before but we watched it again for the benefit of our guest, Kornelius. Conditioned by the previous Knightly movie, I saw for the first time why Jane Austin's masterpiece has the unique potency that it does. How rare it is that a rich man can thread the needle while riding the camel of power and influence! But Mr. Darcy does so in the story, and at the same time -- for love of her -- saves Elizabeth's two sisters from becoming fallen or jilted women. He does not have a high bar, admittedly, his main ideal and virtue being his loyalty to his friends. However, I accept that even that feat is rarely achieved by members of the ownership class, a group once laughingly called the "nobility" but who now are known by the more clinical, statistical nomenclature of "the one percent."

Pride and Prejudice is the story of a man with all the power and money who wins the heroine by going a little out of his way to establish justice for her and her sisters. How can love not follow from that? In the BBC mini-series, Elizabeth rather baldly admits that it was her walk through Mr. Darcy's vast, sumptuous estate that changed her heart towards him, but not in the Kiera Knightly version. I guess what I am trying to get at is that the story behind Pride and Prejudice has such an extraordinary effect, even after centuries, because it touches upon the junction between love and justice. Just acts, pure acts of equity and fairness, rare as they are -- at least among the privileged -- are what create love and make this life in this miserable world tolerable.

I believe it was in the first, or almost the first, talk of Abdu'l-Baha in England, where he paraphrases the second Arabic Hidden Word, saying that God loves justice more than anything in all the world. That has heavy implications. Whereas the God of the Gospel of John was love, the God of Baha'u'llah is love, yes, but love of justice above all. Austin's Pride and Prejudice is such a beloved fairy tale romance because it describes how sharp the sword of equity is in cutting through the many layers of amour propre, self flattery, vanity and pride that shut out the heart from pure deeds, justice and love.

p08, Internacia Lingvo; Parolado de Abdu’l-Baha al Edinburgh Esperanto Socio, Skotlando, Jan 17, 1913

p08, Internacia Lingvo

Parolado de Abdu’l-Baha al Edinburgh Esperanto Socio, Skotlando,

Jan 17, 1913

Eldonite en magazino Star of the West, Vol. 11, No. 17, Jan 19, 1921,

“La personon de Abdu’l-Baha kaj lian laboron, ni tre alte estimas: mi vidas en li unu el la plej grandaj bonfarantoj de la homaro.” – L. L. Zamenhof

Ĉiu movado en la mondo de la homaro kiu portas kun si unuecon kaj konkordon estas bona; kaj ĉiu afero, kiu kreas malkontenton kaj malharmonion, estas malbona. Ĉi tiu jarcento estas hela jarcento. Ĝiaj eltrovaĵoj estas multaj; ĝiaj elpensitaĵoj estas grandaj; ĝiaj entreprenoj estas multmultaj. Pro tio ĉi tiu jarcento superas ĉiujn aliajn jarcentojn. Sed la plej granda entrepreno estas la unuiĝo de lingvo; ĉar tio estas pli bonefika kaj plezurdona ol iu alia entrepreno de la epoko. La unuiĝo de lingvo efektivigas grandan kunecon inter koroj. La unuigo de lingvo estas kaŭzo de konkordo. Ĝi forbalaas ilian malkomprenon inter la popoloj; ĝi starigas konkordon en la homidaro. Ĝi donas pli vastan konceptpovon kaj pli grandan vidpovon al la homa intelekto.

Hodiaŭ la plej grava laboro en la mondo de la homaro estas, kompreni kaj komprenigi. Ĉiu individua membro de la komunumo, pro la disvastigo de helpa internacia lingvo, povos sciigi pri okazantaĵoj kaj rilatiĝi kun etikaj kaj sciencaj eltrovaĵoj de la epoko. Helpa universala lingvo donos al ni la ŝlosilon -- la ĉefŝlosilon -- por la komprenigo de la sekretoj de pasintaj tempoj. Per internacia lingvo ĉiu nacio en la estonteco povos elserĉi tre facile kaj senpene siajn sciencajn eltrovaĵojn.

Estas bone sciate inter vi, ke Orientanoj, junuloj venantaj al la Okcidento, penegantaj studadi la eltrovitajojn de la Okcidento, devas dediĉi jarojn el sia vivo, por laborege akiri la lingvon de la lando al kiu ili iras, kaj nur poste ili povas sin turni al la studado de la speciala scienca fako, pri kiu ili interesiĝas. Ekzemple, ni supozu, ke junulo, el Hindujo aŭ Persujo aŭ Turkestano aŭ Arabujo, deziranta studadi la medicinon, venas al ĉi tiu lando. Li devas lernadi dum kvar jaroj la anglan lingvon, kaj nenion alian; kaj poste li povas komenci la studadon pri medicino. Sed, se ĉi tiu internacia helpa lingvo estus parto de la programo de instruo en ĉiuj lernejoj, dum sia infaneco li lernus tiun lingvon en la propra lando; kaj poste, en kiu ajn lando, al kiu li dezirus iri, li povus studadi sian specialan fakon de scienco tre facile, ne perdinte jarojn de sia vivo.

Hodiaŭ, eĉ se ĉiuj el ni lernus lingvojn, tamen, se iu deziras vojaĝi alilanden, tiu povus esti grave malhelpata pro tio, ke li ne scias la specialan lingvon de unu lando. Mi tre profunde studadis orientajn lingvojn, kaj scias la araban lingvon pli bone la Araboj mem, kaj studadis la turkan, kaj la persan en mia propra nasklando; kaj tamen, sciante ankaŭ aliajn lingvojn de la Oriento, kiam mi vojaĝis okcidenten, mi devis venigi kun mi tradukiston, kvazaŭ mi scius neniun lingvon. Nu, se ekzistus internacia lingvo ĝenerale parolata, la persa lingvo kaj la internacia sufiĉus por mi en ĉiuj landoj de la mondo. Pensu, kiel la internacia lingvo faciligos interkomunikadon inter ĉiuj nacioj de la mondo! Duono de niaj vivoj eluziĝas en la akiro de lingvoj, ĉar en ĉi tiu epoko de klereco ĉiu homo devas lerni lingvojn, por ke, se li esperas vojaĝi en Azio kaj Afriko kaj Europo, li povu interparoli kun la popolo; sed tuj, kiam li akiris unu lingvon, jen alia estas bezonata. La tuta vivo do forpasas en la akirado de tiuj lingvoj, kiuj estas malhelpo al internacia komunikado. Ĉi tiu internacia lingvo liberigos la homaron el ĉiuj ĉi tiuj problemoj.

Mallonge, por kompreni kaj sin komprenigi, devas esti internacia ilo. La instruisto kaj la stundento devas scii la lingvon unu de la alia, por ke la instruisto povu transdoni sian scion kaj la studento povu akiri tiun scion. En la mondo de la homaro estas nenia pli granda afero, ol vin komprenigi al viaj kunhomoj; ĉar la civilizeco mem, la progresado de la civilizacio, dependas de tiu ĉi procedo. Por akiri artojn kaj sciencojn, oni devas scii paroli, sin komprenigi, kaj kompreni samtempe. De ĉi tiu interkompreno dependas la akiro de sciencoj, kaj ĝi igos ĉiujn homojn kompreni pri ĉiuj aferoj de la vivo; kaj ĉi tiu procedo de kompreno kaj komprenigo dependas de la lingvo. Se, do, ĉi tiu helpa lingvo stariĝos, ĉiuj membroj de la homaro ricevos la eblon kompreni unu la alian.

Dum mi parolas, venas en mian cerbon epizodo, kiu okazis en Bagdad. Estis tie du amikoj, kiuj ne sciis la lingvon unu de la alia. Unu malsaniĝis; la alia vizitis lin, sed ne povis parole esprimi sian simpation, kaj do faris geston, volante diri: "Kiel vi fartas?" Per alia signo la malsanulo respondis: "Mi estas tuj mortonta"; kaj la vizitanto, kredante ke li diris ke li ekresaniĝas, diris: "Dank' al Dio!" El tiaj ilustraĵoj vi konstatos, ke la plej bona afero en la mondo estas povi vin komprenigi al viaj amikoj kaj ankaŭ ilin kompreni; kaj ke ne estas io pli malbona en la mondo, ol ne povi komuniki viajn pensojn al aliaj. Sed, se estus helpa lingvo, ĉiuj tiuj malfacilaĵoj estus forigitaj.

Nu, laŭdo estu al Dio! ĉi tiu lingvo Esperanto elpensiĝis. Tio estas unu el la specialaj donacoj de ĉi tiu brilega jarcento: unu el la plej grandaj entreprenoj de ĉi tiu granda epoko. Antaŭe la homaro rnalsukcesis efektivigi tian elpensaĵon. Ĉi tiu unuigo de lingvoj preskaŭ neniam prezentis sin al la pensuloj de pasintaj epokoj; kaj vere ĝi estis neeblaĵo en tiuj tempoj, ĉar tiam ne ekzistis libereco iri kaj reiri, kaj nenia intervojagado nek intertraktado inter la diversaj landoj. Jam nun, kiam la rimedoj por interkomunikado kaj transportado multe pligrandiĝis, estas nepre necese, kaj estas fareble, efektivigi la uzadon de internacia lingvo.

Lia Sankta Moŝto Baha’u’llah antaŭ rnultaj jaroj verkis libron, nomatan "La Plej Sankta Libro," kaj en tiu libro unu el la fundamentaj principloj estas, ke devas esti elpensiĝo de helpa lingvo; kaj li klarigas la bonon kaj profiton, kiuj venos per tia ilo. Nu, ni danku la Sinjoron pro tio, ke ĉi tiu lingvo Esperanto estas kreita. Ni do ordonis al ĉiuj Bahaanoj en la Oriento, studadi ci tiun lingvon tre zorge, kaj post ne longe gi disvastiĝos tra la tuta Oriento. Mi petas ankau al vi, Esperantistoj kaj ne-Esperantistoj, energie klopodadi por la disvastigado kaj propagandado de ci tiu lingvo; ĉar ĝi akcelos la alvenon de tiu tago, tiu miljara tago, kiun antaŭdiras profetoj kaj viduloj, tiu tago en kiu, estas dirite, « la lupo kaj la ŝafido trinkos el la sama fonto, la leono kaj la cervo sin paŝtos sur la sama herbejo. » La signifo de ĉi tiu sankta Skribo estas, ke la batalantaj rasoj, militantaj nacioj, malamikaj religioj, alproksimiĝos unu al la alia en la spirito de amo, kaj kunligiĝos unu kun alia.

Kiel ni jam diris, plej grava afero en ĉi tiu mondo estas la efektivigo de helpa internacia lingvo. La unuigo de lingvo aliformigos la homaron en unu mondon; forigos la malkomprenon inter la religioj; kaj kunigos la Orienton kaj la Okcidenton per la spirito de frateco kaj amo. La unuigo de lingvo ŝanĝos ĉi tiun mondon el multaj familioj en unu familion. Tiu ĉi helpa internacia lingvo kolektos la naciojn sub unu kovrilon, kvazaŭ la kvin kontinentoj de la mondo fariĝus unu kontinento; ĉar tiam ili povos interkomuniki siajn pensojn unu al la alia. La internacia helpa lingvo forigos nescion kaj superstiĉon, pro tio, ke ĉiu infano, el kiu ajn raso au nacio, povos sekvi siajn studaĵojn pri la scienco kaj la arto, ĉar tiam li bezonos lerni nur du lingvojn -- unu, lia nacia lingvo, kaj la alia la internacia helpa lingvo. Ni esperu ankaŭ al tiu tago, kiam eĉ la limoj de la naciaj lingvoj foriĝos, kaj la tuta mondo ĝuos unu lingvon.

Kia pli granda donaco povus esti, ol tio? Kia pli malavara bonfaro povus esti, ol tio?

Tiam la mondo de la homaro fariĝos rava paradizo, ĝuste kiel estas dirite, ke en la ĉielo estas unu lingvo. La materia mondo fariĝos la esprimado de la interna mondo. Tiam eltrovaĵoj malkaŝigos; elpensaĵoj multobliĝos: la sciencoj antaŭeniros per saltoj; la scienca terkulturado disvolviĝos laŭ pli vasta grado; ĉar tiutempe la nacioj povos rapide asimili la pensojn esprimatajn, kaj ĉar ĉiuj tiuj pensoj esprimiĝos per la universala lingvo. Se ĉi tiu internacia lingvo estas faktoro por la estonteco, ĉiuj landoj en la Oriento povos rapide akiri la sciencojn de la Okcidento, ĉar iliaj loĝantoj povos legi la librojn kaj kompreni ilian signifon; kaj la Okcidentaj nacioj povos akiri la pensojn kaj ideojn de la Oriento: kaj per tio ambaŭ povos plibonigi sian staton. Mallonge, pro la starigo de ĉi tiu internacia lingvo, la mondo de la homaro fariĝos alia mondo, kaj eksterordinara estos ĝia progreso. Ekzemple, pripensu pri familio, kies diversaj membroj parolas diversajn lingvojn; kiel malfacile estas por ili komuniki siajn pensojn unu al alia, kaj kiel mirinde estas, kiam ili povas facile kompreni reciproke siajn pensojn. Ĉar, se ili scias ĉiu la lingvojn de la aliaj, ili progresos rapide. Do estas nia espero, ke la lingvo Esperanto disvastiĝos post ne longe tra la tuta mondo, por ke ĉiuj popoloj povu vivi kune en la spirito de amikeco kaj amo.

p39bab Why The Bab?

Why did Ali Muhammad of Shiraz take on the title, "The Bab"? I will attempt an answer and I would ask that you punch any holes in it that you can find.

The short answer is that in Shiih Islam the term "Bab" or gate was used to refer to the hidden Imam, who had eschatological significance. But surely there is a reason for that, why call the promised one the Gate? Here is my suggestion.

In Genesis 28:10–17 it tells of how Jacob went to Haran where he sleeps on a stone pillow. Then he dreams of a ladder or stairway with angels of God going up and down from heaven. God promises him several promises in a thing we call the covenant. Jacob makes a pillar out of the pillow and calls the place Bethel, or house of God. Doing so, he is filled with fear, and declares, ""How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

Later, the descendant of Jacob, Jesus, ties the ladder to ethics, specifically the Golden Rule, in Matt 7:12-13, ESV,

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many."

The Golden Rule in some form is in every religious tradition, but only a handful of them phrase it positively. That is, most say not to do unto others what you don't like. This says to do more, actually to do unto others what you like, and that is what religion is all about, "the law and the prophets." The use of "gate" is to identify the Golden Rule with a narrow passage, a difficult transition demanding sacrifice -- in one translation, "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there be that find it..."

 The Greek word for "door" also meant "gate" according to Strong's Bible Concordance, which points out that "Gates" in antiquity generally represent authority or power. So, in John,

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. (John 10:1-4, NIV)



The Qur'an uses gate in several senses, including what is evidently an idiom in Semitic languages, that when the "gates of heaven" are opened, it means that it is raining. Water, the source of all life, would then be a symbol of the bounty of God to be derived from adherence to the reciprocity taught by the Golden Rule. Heaven, and hell, are depicted as having seven gates, and interestingly, there is a literal gate to the Bab's hometown of Shiraz called the Qur'an Gate. For centuries a pair of copies of the Quran were kept overhead to bless the journey of those who passed underfoot through the gate. I wonder if Mullah Husayn passed through that gate in search of the Bab?

We are all blessed in this Faith to pass through the narrow gate of the Bab's teachings into a holy new Bethel, or house of God.





Contra: In Twelver Shiah Islam, the Bab is not the Hidden Imam. Rather, a Bab is one of four successive intermediaries between the Hidden Imam and the faithful.

So, He has been demoted? I would think that any who read more than a page of His Writings would get the idea that He is a bit higher than that. Saiedi deals with this in the first part of Gate of the Heart...

Contra: He is the Primal Point, exalted beyond our abilities to understand.
Be that as it may, in Twelver theology the Babs were intermediaries between the Hidden Imam and the faithful. In initially claiming a title associated with these intermediaries, He lasted a bit longer than just having everyone refer to Him as Imam Mahdi, at the get go.

JET: I wrote the above to demonstrate that the term Gate has central significance in the covenant, both moral and eschatological. The term "gate" pervades all Abrahamic religions. The idea that the Bab was one of the deputies mentioned during the "occultation" is a mere prelude, not a part of the symphony, like when the musicians are tuning up their instruments before the composition starts.

Contra: Please fix your short answer which mistakenly asserts that in Shia Islam “Bab” is another term for the Hidden Imam. Actual Twelver Muslims say Bahá’ís misrepresent their faith. Your statements are making them right.

JET: They should probably brush up on their own beliefs:

"Central to the beliefs of Twelver Shia is the story of the hidden imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, or simply the “mahdi,” meaning “divinely guided one.” In 874 A.D., the six-year-old son of the eleventh imam went into hiding to protect himself from the persecution of the reigning Abbasid empire. The Shia believe that he hid himself in a cave below a mosque in Samarra; this cave is blocked by a gate that the Shia call “Bab-al Ghayba,” or the “Gate of Occultation.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/who-are-the-shia-hidden-imam/1731/

I note that "gate of occultation" is more or less the mirror reverse of a gate to the one God will make manifest, or clear.

Coincidentally, I was just reading in T.K. Cheyne's Reconciliation of Races and Religions that both the forerunners of the Bab considered themselves, though they did not necessarily openly proclaim, that they were "babs" or gates to the hidden Imam.

"Shaykh Ahmad of Ahsa in the province of Bahrain... knew full well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that through him access to the hidden twelfth Imam Mahdi was reopened." (p. 8)

"Seyyid Kazim of Resht... himself a Gate, he discerned the successor by whom he was to be overshadowed... " (p.9) Cheyne wonders how long Ali Muhammad was a student of Kazim. "It was long enough to make him a Sheykhite and to justify Ali Muhammad in his own eyes for raising Sheykh Ahmad and the Seyyid Kazim to the dignity of Bab." (p. 10)

Cheyne's scholarship is not the latest, but he was familiar with the original languages involved and he used this term "bab", which makes me think that when we say they were "forerunners," the word being translated is "bab." Haters gonna hate and liars gonna lie, but the Shiihs, as a bigwig hater and liar recently put it, "should just get over it." Some things are lost in translation when speaking English, and bab slash forerunner is one of them.

Abdu'l-Baha, in Traveller's Narrative:

"In the year one thousand two hundred and sixty [A.H.], when He was in His twenty-fifth year, certain signs became apparent in His conduct, behavior, manners, and demeanor whereby it became evident in Shiraz that He had some conflict in His mind and some other flight beneath His wing. He began to speak and to declare the rank of Bab-hood.* Now what He intended by the term Bab [Gate] was this, that He was the channel of grace from some great Person still behind the veil of glory, Who was the possessor of countless and boundless perfections, by Whose will He moved, and to the bond of Whose love He clung. And in the first book which He wrote in explanation of the Surih of Joseph,* He addressed Himself in all passages to that Person unseen from Whom He received help and grace, sought for aid in the arrangement of His preliminaries, and craved the sacrifice of life in the way of His love." (Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 3, www.bahai.org/r/112826117)

In the same book the Master talks about how early in His Mission, the Bab's "gatehood" became evident after a talk in a Mosque, that being the start of the real suppression and persecution:

"One day they summoned Him to the mosque urging and constraining Him to recant, but He discoursed from the pulpit in such wise as to silence and subdue those present and to stablish and strengthen His followers. It was then supposed that He claimed to be the medium of grace from His Highness the Lord of the Age (upon Him be peace); but afterwards it became known and evident that His meaning was the Gatehood [Bábíyyat] of another city and the mediumship of the graces of another Person Whose qualities and attributes were contained in His books and treatises." (Abdu'l-Baha, Traveller's Narrative, www.bahai.org/r/061184147)


The Bab on his station:

AS to those who deny Him Who is the Sublime Gate of God, for them We have prepared, as justly decreed by God, a sore torment. And He, God, is the Mighty, the Wise. (The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 44)

O peoples of the world! Whatsoever ye have offered up in the way of the One True God, ye shall indeed find preserved by God, the Preserver, intact at God's Holy Gate. O peoples of the earth! Bear ye allegiance unto this resplendent light wherewith God hath graciously invested Me through the power of infallible Truth, (The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 48)

O PEOPLE of the earth! By the righteousness of the One true God, I am the Maid of Heaven begotten by the Spirit of Baha, abiding within the Mansion hewn out of a mass of ruby, tender and vibrant; ...Glorified be God, His Creator, the Lord of everlasting sovereignty. Verily He is none other but the servant of God, the Gate of the Remnant of God your Lord, the Sovereign Truth. (The Bab, Selections. 53 - 55)

Selections from the biography of Sir William Ostler, father of modern medicine

William Ostler, A Life in Medicine



Sir William Ostler was, some say, the greatest doctor ever. He was one of the three or four founders of modern medicine. I read his biography because he used to live near us, in Dundas, ON. Here are some of the best parts.

Reference:
William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1999
https://badiblog.blogspot.com/search?q=ostler&zx=5fd7f9b5a581d43f
https://utorontopress.com/ca/william-osler-2

Here are the three essays I wrote about this biography when I read it in 2006.

Saturday, July 29, 2006
Metademocracy; This is Not a Cause
John Taylor; 2006 July 29
https://badiblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/metademocracy.html

 re Ostler's father:
"I am reading a fat biography of William Ostler right now, by most accounts the greatest physician in history. It is so long a book that I have not even got to his life yet, just his father's, who had an interesting life too. As an Anglican clergyman, it is startling to read how the elder Ostler also promoted massive memorization of scripture among the backwoodsmen of Canada's frontier in the 1840's and 50's -- amusingly, the place now swallowed by Toronto's sprawl, Newmarket, south of Barrie. Ostler had plowmen turning away from driving their teams and spinsters from their spinning to study selected passages from the Bible for memorization. Ostler handed out large numbers of scriptural knowledge prizes at the Church's annual picnic. His own saintly character rubbed off on his son -- curing people seems to be as much a spiritual as a scientific talent. Though not trained as a doctor he saved enough lives by observation and common sense that it became the practice among his parishioners to come to him before following doctor's orders."

Sunday, August 13, 2006
Ostler, Skulls and Autopsy
John Taylor; 2006 August 13
https://badiblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/ostler-skulls-and-autopsy.html?zx=f377b040e7b57f39

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Superbrain; Curing and Teaching Around the Round Table
John Taylor; 2006 September 26
https://badiblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/superbrain.html





Selections from the biography

"Edith Gittings Reid, a writer, observed Ostler closely when Harry was sick with typhoid, when their children were ill, and during her own sicknesses."

"To have been a patient of Sir William Ostler's was to have obtained an almost impossible idea of what a physician could be.. It was not necessary for him to be sensitive to a social atmosphere, because he always made his own atmosphere. In a room full of discordant elements he entered and saw only his patient and only his patient's greatest need, and instantly the atmosphere was charged with kindly vitality, everyone felt that the situation under control, and all were attention. No circumlocution, no meandering. The moment Sir William gave you was yours. It was hardly ever more than a moment but there was curiously no abrupt beginning or end to it. With the easy sweep of a great artist's line, beginning in your necessity and ending in your necessity, the precious moment was yours, becoming wholly and entirely a part of the fabric of your life.

With his patients he recognized at once the thing or characteristic that concerned him and them; and for the rest, whatever was uncongenial or unattractive he put from his mind and prevented any expression of it. A pose or an attempt at serious chatter about unessentials was intolerable to him. But he was as merciful as he was masterful, and from the very poor and the genuinely afflicted he would even have borne being bored.

Such telling love, such perfect confidence were given him that he could do what he liked without causing offence. Three times in my life I have seen him, when in consultation, smash the attending physician's diagnosis and turn the entire sick room the other way about; but he left the room with his arm about the corrected physician's neck, and they seemed to be having a delightful time. The reason for this was perfectly evident: every physician felt himself safe in Sir William's hands; he knew that he could by no possibility have a better friend in the profession; that if, with the tip of his finger, Sir William gaily knocked down his house of cards, he would see to it that the foundation was left solid." (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, pp. 263-264)

"A moderate health reformer in those years, Ostler today would have eschewed the extremes of modern food and exercise faddism, though he surely would have stopped smoking. He would certainly have endorsed devotion to good health as an almost religious pursuit. The very origin of his profession had been in the cult of Aesculapius, the worship of health. `In the old Greek there was deeply ingrained the idea of the moral and spiritual profit of bodily health. It was too bad, Ostler wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, that the `beauty and majesty of this old therapeutic worship had degenerated into the sordid superstitions of Lourdes and other shrines to modern faith healers." (Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 275)

Ostler's mastery of the uses of optimism, humor, and good cheer, what he
sometimes called his 'general cheer-up prescription' or the doctor's `transfusion of the spirits', could have an extraordinarily potent effect.
(William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 264)

"His presidential address dwelt on physicians' need for fellowship as a corrective to the effect of daily practice in creating 'an egoism of a most intense kind. Ten years of successful work tends to make a man touchy, dogmatic, intolerant of correction and abominably self-centred.'" (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 248)

Ostler's mastery of the uses of optimism, humor, and good cheer, what he
sometimes called his 'general cheer-up prescription' or the doctor's `transfusion of the spirits', could have an extraordinarily potent effect.
(William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 264)

Bliss: To have understood the self-limiting nature of disease was a great step forward by the medical profession. If only the laity would follow that!

Ostler: A desire to take medicine is, perhaps, the great feature which distinguishes man from other animals. Why this appetite should have developed, how it could have grown to its present dimensions, what it will ultimately reach, are interesting problems in psychology. Of one thing I must complain, that when we of the profession have gradually emancipated ourselves from a routine administration of nauseous mixtures on every possible occasion, and when we are able to say, without fear of dismissal, that a little more exercise, a little less food, and a little less tobacco and alcohol, may possibly meet the indications of the case - I say it is a just cause of complaint that when we, the priests, have left off the worship of Baal, and have deserted the groves and high places, and have sworn allegiance to the true god of science, that you, the people, should wander off after all manner of idols, and delight more and more in patent medicines and delight more than ever at the hands of advertising quacks. But for a time it must be so. This is yet the childhood of the world, and a supine credulity is still the most charming characteristic of man. (Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 189)

And Clarence B. Farrer, a former student who became one of Canada’s leading psychiatrists, wrote that `Ostlers very presence brought healing. It was immediate unplanned psychotherapy There was healing in his voice.

"He usually tried to cushion a grim outlook, a habit some thought he took to a fault in later years. 'The careful physician has but one end in view not to depress his patient in any way whatever,' he wrote while reflecting on the humor of Rabelais. He cautioned students against saying anything in the hearing of a patient that would increase anxiety. If a man's terror at knowing his chest pains were angina would itself worsen them, Ostler told him he had 'a neuralgia of the pneumo-gastric nerve.' On the other hand, he advised telling tuberculous patients the truth about their condition right away. It was 'really not often necessary, since Nature usually does it quietly in good time, to tell a patient he was past all hope, Ostler maintained, he added, 'and yet, put in the right way to an intelligent man it is not always cruel.'" (Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 265)

In a 1910 secular sermon called Mans Redemption of Man to 2,500 listeners at University of Edinburgh Ostler says that thanks to the new socialism of science,

"The outlook for the world as represented by Mary and John and Jennie and Tom has never been so hopeful. There is no place for despondency or despair. As for the dour dyspeptics in mind and morals who sit croaking like ravens let them come into the arena, let them wrestle for their flesh and blood against the principalities and powers represented by bad air and worse houses, by drink and disease, by needless pain, and by the loss annually to the state of thousands of valuable lives let them fight for the day when a man's life shall be more precious than gold. Now, alas! The cheapness of life is every days tragedy." (Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 393-394)

"With the introduction of light beer there is not only less intemperance, but we see much less of the serious organic disease of heart, liver and stomach caused by alcohol, and less of the early general degeneration ... How few cases, comparatively, of alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver one sees. I wish that I could say the same of intemperance in eating ... We physicians are beginning to recognize that the early degenerations, particularly of the arteries and of the kidneys, which we formerly attributed in great part to alcohol, is due to too much food. The clinkers kill, and we all, I fear, habitually have clinkers and ashes in our machines which clog the workings, rust the bearings, and lead to premature break-down ... (Ostler, quoted in, Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 274)

If public health measures could stave off infectious disease, good personal habits were called for to avoid or minimize bouts of heart pain. In his metaphoric way, Ostler had always advised young men against worship at the shrines of Venus, Bacchus, and Vulcan. Now he varied false-gods image with advice not to overstrain the human mechanism. In the early twentieth century his favorite image of the body was as a machine. Like transatlantic steamers Ostler and his well-to-do patients so often took, doubt using the crossing to rest and reflect on their health, the body would give out if the engines were overstoked, driven too long under high pressure, negligently maintained. During actual malfunction, you worked desperately to get things going again. Otherwise, for signs of overexertion, ranging from chest pains to nervous exhaustion, the prescription was often to reduce speed. Ostler found himself telling patient after patient (for his angina consultations continued to increase) to eat less, drink less, smoke less, work less, worry less. Look after the machine. Cut back from twenty-five to fifteen knots: 'Go slowly and attend to your work, live a life, and avoid mining shares ... I doubt if quinine could have very much influence.'

Such advice shaded into general maxims for healthy living. These fitted with and reinforced Ostler's dislike of unnecessary drugging as well as his personal temperance. To the Johns Hopkins graduating class of 1900 and at the Historical Club in 1901 he preached lay sermons about how the progress of the past century had culminated in 'a new school of medicine,' based on a return to natural methods for both the treatment and the prevention of disease. Hydrotherapy and massage were important in treating disease. Diet and exercise, he argued with a touch of hyperbolic fever, were crucial in preventing it:

Some one said he cared not who made the laws, so that he could write the songs of a nation, which I would paraphrase by saying, I care not who physics the people, provided that I could train their cooks. From the kitchen must come one of the great needed reforms in medicine. The besetting malady of this country is dyspepsia ... From it about one half of the income of doctors is derived, and at least two thirds of that of the patent medicine vendors ... If the women of the country whose energies are at present engaged in the problems of temperance, the suffrage, missions and millinery, would take a year off and spend it in the kitchen something might be done ... (Michael Bliss, William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, 272-273)

"Ostler condemned the chauvinistic spirit that built barriers between parishes, provinces, countries: `Nationalism has been the great curse of humanity. In no other shape has the Demon of ignorance assumed more hideous proportions; to no other obsession do we yield ourselves more readily.' Parochialism was running riot in North America, he warned, as state and provincial licensing boards put outrageous barriers in the way of medical mobility. Parochialism led to inbred medical schools and laboratories closed to outsiders.
The antidotes to chauvinism were openness, travel, liberal culture, and a sense of international fellowship. With `widened sympathies and heightened ideals' medical men might develop `something perhaps of a Weltculture which will remain through life as the best protection against the vice of nationalism.'" (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 298)

`To us as a profession belongs the chief glory of the century. The gradual growth of a deep sense of the brotherhood of man, such an abiding sense as pervades our own profession in its relation to the suffering, which recognizes the one blood of all the nations, may perhaps do it. In some development of socialism, something that will widen patriotism beyond the bounds of nationalism, may rest the desire of the race in this matter; but the evil is rooted and grounded in the abyss of human passion, and war with all its horrors is likely long to burden the earth." (Ostler to AMA, qi: William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 250)

"Another reason for his pessimism, I suspect, was his having lost any
belief in aging as a progress towards a heavenly reward after bodily death. For Ostler, age was a time of physical and mental decline towards nothingness, death as end-all. Professionally, he preached the virtues of turning away from age and the aged, an attitude that would later be crudely but accurately labeled 'ageism.' Personally, while accepting his limits and going into retirement, really a form of early retirement, he could not look forward in his own old age to many developments other than gradual decline, death, and nothingness. No wonder he never celebrated birthdays. The prophet of medical progress, the Ingersoll lecturer on science and immortality, must have realized that his and his generation's life expectancy was infinitely less than that of his parents." (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 328)

Ostler thought he saw the prospect of a new era in the triumphs of metabolic therapy. He speculated to his audience in Toronto (more presciently than he could ever have dreamed) that 'as our knowledge of the pancreatic function and carbo-hydrate metabolism becomes more accurate we shall probably be able to place the treatment of diabetes on a sure foundation. In the meantime, he warned against false and misleading therapies, whether peddled through the old-fashioned faith in polypharmacy or through the
new products and pamphlets of the pharmaceutical houses. Far too large a
section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science, Ostler warned in 1909." (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 361)

More likely, Ostler was thinking of his own experience when he came to write about continence for his textbook in 1892: 'There are other altars than those of Venus upon which a young man may light fires hard work of body and hard work of mind. Idleness is the mother of lechery; and a young man will find that absorption in any pursuit will do much to cool passions, which, though natural and proper, cannot in the exigencies of our civilization always obtain natural and proper gratification.'
Ostler almost never gossiped about weak medical brethren, as students
or practitioners. His dislike of malicious personal gossip was pronounced. If
you began to criticize someone in his presence, he would immediately
change the subject -- not always to the liking of his less saintly wife. He had
strong dislikes, to be sure, and on at least two occasions spoke out openly
in medical meetings against second-raters being allowed to stay on in first-
rate positions. Privately he knew there were a lot of 'damned fools' in the
world and in the medical profession, but publicly the worst the world
contained was 'sons of Belial.' To talk behind a person's back seemed to Ostler both professionally and personally unethical." (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 229)

"His presidential address dwelt on physicians' need for fellowship as a corrective to the effect of daily practice in creating 'an egoism of a most intense kind. Ten years of successful work tends to make a man touchy, dogmatic, intolerant of correction and abominably self-centred.'" (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 248)

p15 Ostler on Death

Most of his lecture was a demonstration of the irrelevance of belief in life after death. In the real world, the vast majority of people are indifferent to the issue, he argued: 'Immortality, and all that it may mean, is a dead issue in the great movements of the world... A living faith in a future existence has not the slightest influence in the settlement of the grave social and national problems which confront the race to-day ... over our fathers immortality brooded like the day; we have consciously thrust it out of lives so full and busy that we have no time to make an enduring covenant with the dead.' For the most part, science had made up its mind.

The battle to put man at the center of the universe had been won; the 'mental cataclysm' of the past forty years had seen a revolution 'from the days when faith was diversified with doubt, to the present days, when doubt is diversified with faith.' Psychology had dispensed with the soul. The scientific search for the spirit had been futile. As a physician, 'whose work lies on the confines of the shadow-land,
Ostler could only contribute the observations they had made at Hopkins.
Were people terrified of the transition?

"Popular belief is erroneous. As a rule, man dies as he has lived, uninfluenced practically by the thought of a future life ...I have careful records of about five hundred death beds ... Ninety suffered bodily pain or distress of one sort or another, eleven showed mental apprehension, two positive terror, one expressed spiritual exaltation, one bitter remorse. The great majority gave no sign one way or the other; like their birth, their death was a sleep and a forgetting. The Preacher was right: in this matter man hath no preeminence over the beast, - 'as the one dieth so dieth the other.' (William Ostler, A Life in Medicine, p. 291-292)