A digital culture saturated with persuasion
Today’s digital culture is saturated with persuasion. It is filled with targeted ads, nudges, algorithmic biases, pathos, and constant calls to action. Confronted with this pressure, people become tired and wary, and they withdraw inward to protect themselves. In this environment, any religious post, no matter how well meant, can feel intrusive. This inclination to withdraw has even influenced the way people interact online; where long‑form discussion once flourished, many spaces now function more like notice boards than conversations.
Baha’u’llah lived in a very different world. It was an Islamic world, not a Western one. Everyone read scripture and was religiously literate. Metaphysics was assumed, not considered outdated by science. Spiritual conversation was normal, and the only means to communicate one’s religious experience — and so proofs and arguments were part of the cultural grammar. In that environment, explaining religious ideas was not considered intrusive but was viewed as normal.
Why imagery works in a secular world
This poses a challenge for anyone wanting to introduce Baha’u’llah’s ideas to a Western audience. However, the secular digital world offers a path that is native to it, and that is through imagery. The internet is filled with images, and people willingly spend hours viewing them in video and social media. Beyond marketing imagery, there is imagery that genuinely moves people. On platforms like Pinterest, spiritual themes and quote‑based images — including those from Rumi — are popular. Pinterest has indicated to me, for example, that “Spiritual awakening,” “Insightful quotes,” and “Unity in diversity” are attracting attention. Imagery works because it slips past defences. It doesn’t demand belief or assent. It simply offers itself, and people respond intuitively.
Imagery in Baha’u’llah’s writings and in dreams
Baha’u’llah’s writings themselves are a precedent for using imagery to convey difficult spiritual concepts. His task was to develop people’s awareness of realities they cannot apprehend with their senses. What did he do? He used imagery: “Quaff the stream of mystic holiness from My sugar-shedding lips.” (PHW33) His language is full of symbolic landscapes, sensory metaphors, and imaginal thresholds — all designed to open perception rather than argue a point.
There is also precedent in the phenomenon of dreams, which immerse the dreamer in a life‑like scene. Dreams are a tremendously powerful way to get a message across: placing people directly in situations that reflect their personal circumstances. They don’t argue or persuade. They don’t present doctrines or proofs. They bypass the rational mind and go straight to the place where recognition happens. A dream teaches by creating an experience. It is a symbolic encounter that opens perception from the inside.
Learning image literacy through my book summaries
These issues became clear to me when I was preparing chapter summaries of my book for my website. Each summary needed an image that captured the chapter’s emotional and conceptual centre. In searching for suitable images, I learned that image literacy was just as important as text literacy on online platforms. Images and text work together as an inseparable pair. Each chapter of my book introduces readers to a spiritual concept they have likely never thought of before. An appropriate image needed to do a lot of work: illustrate the parameters of the idea and set the altitude and temperature at which the concept can be experienced.
The Cathedral of Light: an atmosphere, not an illustration
For example, in Chapter 2, A Commanding Panoramic View, I introduce the cosmic nature of Baha’u’llah’s all‑encompassing view of creation and his narratives about events in paradise. But how to convey the vastness of that perspective? I wasn’t looking for an illustration. I was looking for an atmosphere that would let a reader feel their way into the chapter before they began reading. Finally, Midjourney produced what I needed: a sort of “shock and awe” that catapults the viewer out of their familiar world. The result was the Cathedral of Light image at the top of this post.
This image is commanding: vertical light architecture, immense scale, and a sense of revelation that feels both serene and overwhelming. It is a near‑perfect embodiment of Chapter 2’s temperature, which is panoramic, luminous, conceptual, awe‑oriented. The vertical descent of light gives the feeling of divine order unfolding, while the reflection on the water keeps it emotionally grounded enough to stay human. Looked at closely, it is doing three things at once:
- Spatially: It opens the book’s world upward — the first true vista.
- Emotionally: It replaces warmth with wonder, without losing gentleness.
- Conceptually: It visualises revelation as structure — light becoming architecture.
Imagery as a threshold to spiritual meaning
What these experiences have shown me is that imagery is not an accessory to meaning; it is one of its native forms. In a digital world, where attention is fragile and persuasion is everywhere, an image can still open a quiet space inside a person. It can shift their posture, widen their horizon, or prepare them to encounter an idea they have never considered before. It does this without pressure, without argument, and without demanding anything in return.
This is why I have come to rely on images when introducing Baha’u’llah’s ideas to a contemporary audience. They allow me to honor the duty to share Baha’u’llah’s message while also honoring the perceptual world people actually live in. They let me offer a threshold rather than a conclusion, an atmosphere rather than an argument. And in that threshold, something new can begin.