'JOHN ESSLEMONT WOULD BE PLEASED'

A REVIEW OF JOHN DAVIDSON'S PATHWAYS TO TRANSFORMATION

Part 1:

I have been using a new Baha’i book for the last dozen years and, given its practicality to Baha’is and interested seekers, I thought I’d say a few things about it. Hopefully others will benefit from its use as I have done in these recent years of this third millennium. If readers here do not know about this book, hopefully the following words will provide a helpful introduction.

For years, at least in the last two decades of the twentieth century, I had been looking for a replacement for Esslemont's Baha'u'llah and the New Era, a book which is still in circulation. John Esslemont(1857-1925) was named posthumously as a Hand of the Cause by Shoghi Effendi. Esslemont was the first Hand of the Cause Shoghi Effendi appointed, and one of the Disciples of `Abdu'l-Bahá. Esslemont was also an accomplished medical Doctor and linguist becoming proficient in western and eastern languages.

Part 2:

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, in the first two decades I was associated with the Baha’i Faith in Canada, Esslemont’s book was the one I and many others gave to people who wanted to have a comprehensive picture of the Baha'i Faith between two covers. By the 1970s and 1980s Esslemont was still useful, but getting a little tired---at least for my purposes. Newer editions, like the 5th edition in 1980, were still somewhat dated. Esselmont's Baha'u'llah and the New Era was originally published in 1923 and has been translated into numerous languages. It remains a key introduction to the Bahá'í religion. More than ninety years later, it remains a frequently cited Baha'i book. But other introductory books were needed, especially as the new Baha’i culture of learning and growth, the new Baha’i paradigm, became the focus of Baha’i community building by the 21st century.

There were a host of other books appearing in the Baha'i literary marketplace in the 1980s and 1990s but, in most cases, they had some narrow focus: children, teaching, history, administration, poetry, psychology, among an amazing variety of other topics. By the 1990s

there were so many books that the average Baha'i was getting lost in a sea of new literature and usually could not afford to buy all the books available, as previous generations of Baha’is had been able to do. This mass of literature was useful, though; indeed you could tailor a book for a seeker with a high degree of specificity after some good literary digging even if the process of digging took some effort. It was not and is not now, an easy process of selecting reading matter for seekers among our contemporaries.

If one goes to a book shop, one of the many dotting the retail landscape in towns and cities, one can find a plethora of books on Buddhism but, generally, not on the Baha'i Faith, though there are a few exceptions. Christian bookshops service a Christian clientele, and Baha'i bookshops service the Baha'i community with their wealth of literature.Part 3:

With the arrival of the new millennium a new book appeared, as comprehensive as Esslemont, but much more up-to-date. It was as easy to read, at least I found it so, as one of the many slim introductory works on the Cause that began to flood the market, the Baha’i book shops, by the 1980s and 1990s. It was as meaty and persuasive as, say, Huddleston's The Earth is But One Country. It was as based in quotations from Baha’i primary sources as the invaluable Lights of Guidance in its first or second editions. It was as much a practical guide as any of the many 'how-to' books which have appeared in Baha'i book shops since the beginning of the great book burgeoning in the last three decades. Finally, Davidson’s book was as beautifully put together and presented, with a fresh, bright feel about it, as many of the glossier books you will find in the emerging and blossoming Baha'i library for modern man.

Am I overstating the case. Perhaps. But justifiably so because for me, at least, this book is about teaching, about information, about relevant quotations on a wide range of Baha’i subjects: useful for the novitiate and the veteran believer, useful for the seeker among my contemporaries. I used it on my radio programs more than any other book when it first came out and when I was a program-presenter in the Baha’i community in northern Tasmania. I used a wide range of books on my program, but if I wanted a quotation on some Baha’i subject on the spot without my computer compilations handy--then Davidson came to the rescue. I used his new book every week for my radio audience.

You might not want to use it as your first book for a seeker or for someone who has just become a Baha’i. Every Baha’i has their literary

preferences, their book preferences, in their teaching work and their personal deepening. But for my money, I’d put this book in the running, in many of the races that I’m engaged in, for relevance. It’s made to measure for a market, for an individual who just wants to read a few pages at a time, who needs a mini-encyclopaedia for day-to-day reference. The writings of the Central Figures of the Cause and the institution which is Their trustee, the Universal House of Justice, are found on page after page laid out for readers in an up-to-date and handy compendium. But, as in all situations of teaching, you must make your own personal assessment. To each their own may be, perhaps, the ultimate rule, the final guideline.

Part 3:

What sort of book do you give to people who want to know something about the Cause? One that’s not too heavy, not too light, not to simple, not too complex. The Baha’i community has got lots of books now that you can float by serious seekers for their initial investigation. You might like to consider this one. There are many little booklets currently available which don’t say enough; others say too much and give the reader indigestion. Some oversimplify, although they often have their place. Here’s a book right down the middle, a kind of Baha’i encyclopaedia without the weight, without the endless divisions of an encyclopaedia; a book with quotations weaved together to make a quilt of the Baha’i teachings, a quilt you can put on when you want a theme, a quote, a thread to keep you warm for a time.

John Esslemont would have been pleased. In a letter dated August 5th 1941 Esslemont wrote about the "most delicate matter" of teaching. In this delicate exercise John Davidson has put together for our use in the teaching process--and for our deepening--this invaluable resource manual for: personal and community development, history, social issues, the Baha'i administrative order, the lesser peace, the list is long. As Esslemont stressed, though, the matter of the selection of a book and of teaching in general is subtle and delicate. Anyone who has been around the traps is well aware of this delicacy. Davidson has been around the traps for decades and has attended more meetings than many a veteran believer in the last half century of his membership in this world religion which claims to have a significant role to play in the future of humankind.

Davidson writes well, although there is little of his own words in this compilation. You find his outline of the text in his introduction. Here he summarizes the contents of this book in some six pages. He quotes the

Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology Carl Jung((1875-1961) with what is a very helpful perspective on the whole transformation process which this book is about in its explication of the Baha'i journey. Jung wrote:

"the greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating mechanism. They can never be solved, but only outgrown."

This outgrowing, Jung continues, consists of a new level of consciousness, a wider horizon. Davidson presents to us some of the story of this wider horizon and the emergence of a Baha'i consciousness in the global culture especially since 1969 when he put together an earlier work entitled Baha'i Life, and especially in the last 15 years since the new Baha’i culture of learning and growth, the new Baha’i paradigm.

Part 4:

With the help of several Baha'i institutions, friends and family, as he indicates in his acknowledgements, Davidson presents the Baha'i Faith centre-stage on what for me is a solid, a comprehensive, foundation. That foundation is the writings of the Central Figures of the Cause and those who are the trustees of the global undertaking set in motion over one hundred years ago.

John Davidson has been putting many things together for the Baha'i community and other communities since he became a Baha'i in the 1960s. He served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia Inc. for over three decades and at the University of Tasmania in its Department of Psychology for four decades before his recent retirement.

His book Pathways to Transformation: The Baha’i Journey---Selections from the Baha’i Writings has been out of the publishing blocks for a decade: 2001-2011. It has been found to be user-friendly by many whom I have talked to in those ten years. I recommend this blue and white covered book, getting a little tattered now on my shelves; I recommend it highly to Baha'is the world over for its practical usefulness as a resource in their teaching work and in their personal deepening. I thank Dr John Davidson for the time and effort he gave in putting it together.

Ron Price

Note: This commentary and review was originally placed on the internet on 22 November 2004. It has been revised here on several occasions from 13 December 2011 as part of the celebration of John’s 70th birthday on: 28/1/’12 to as recently as 6 April 2014.