Author: Alison Marshall

Human beings are remarkable creatures. They are infinitely complex for they have hidden dimensions that would astonish people if they knew about them. I will break the dimensions down into three. In the first place, a person occupies the physical world and interacts with the world using a physical body and that body’s many functions…

I am obsessessed with the war that Russia has forced on Ukraine. Why does it consume me? Because it is a perfect example of the situation Baha’u’llah referred to when he said that if one country attacks another, all should rise up to defeat the aggressor. I interpret that statement as constituting a personal spiritual…

Recently on Reddit, someone made accusatory statements about me with regard to the fact that I was disenrolled from the Baha’i community in 2000. For example, the person said: “By your own admissions, you are violating the express guidance of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha. You are claiming to know more and supplanting the judgements of Baha’u’llah,…

For much of my life, I felt a responsibility that burdened me beyond endurance, which was that somehow I had to save the world. I can’t say for sure, but I think that sense of responsibility came from reading Abdu’l-Baha. He emphasises how Baha’is must help others, must sacrifice themselves for others, must always be…

I listened to the interesting YouTube talk Reflections on the Long Healing Prayer, given by psychiatrist Dr John Woodall. Apparently, he has done a lot of work with people suffering from trauma and anxiety. He makes some interesting observations about the long healing prayer. One of these is that the three attributes that open each…

Inspired by what’s happening in Ukraine, I recently read the 1919 Tablet to The Hague. What does Abdu’l-Baha say about peace and how to get it? I was surprised at what I found. Below I give an outline of Abdu’l-Baha’s argument. When it is reduced to its basic structure, interesting ideas emerge. After complimenting his…

I continue with my commentary on Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of the Son. The entire commentary so far can be found here. Baha’u’llah begins quoting a letter he wrote to a Christian priest. From the translation, it is not clear when this quotation ends, but it must run on for some time, after which Baha’u’llah transitions seamlessly…

If you were browsing on Amazon and came across this book, you would find that it does not have a description. By looking ‘inside’ the book, you find a blurb on the back cover, which simply reads: “Mother of all Evil is an intimate account of an Iranian girl growing up in Tehran during the…

Many excellent resources to do with trauma are available on YouTube (this, from Gabor Mate), for example). Through them, I discovered what trauma is and how it affects the body and the brain and one’s behaviour. I learned that trauma is any experience a person has that overwhelms their ability to deal with it. Usually,…

Baha’u’llah defines detachment in a couple of places. The succinct version comes in Words of Wisdom: “The essence of detachment is for man to turn his face towards the courts of the Lord, to enter His Presence, behold His Countenance, and stand as witness before Him.” (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh) A longer explanation appears in Commentary…