Baha'is in the West
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Peter Smith, Baha'is in the West, Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2004, bahai-library.com.
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Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions

V<)l.111\11,14

Edited by Peter Smith, l'h.l>.
Copyright© 2004 by Kalimat Press
All Rights Reserved

First Edition

Manufactured in the United States of Am.erica

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baha'is in the West/ edited by Peter Smith.--lst ed.
p. cm. - (Studies in the Babi and Baha'i religions ; v. 14)

ISBN 1-890688-1 l-8 (pbk.)
l. Bahai Faith--History. I. Smith, Peter, 1947 Nov. 27- II. Series.
BP320.S78 vol. 14
[BP330]
297 .9 s-dc22
297.9/3/0918              2003023195

Kalimat Press
1600 Sawtelle Boulevard, Suite 310
Los Angeles, California 90025

www.kalimat.com
kalimatp@aol.com

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Contents
Foreword
Peter Smith
•
IX

Surveys
The Baha.~iFaith in the West A Survey
Peter Smith
Esslemont's Survey of the Baha'i World. 1919-1920
Moojan Mon1en

Episodes
•Abdu'I-Bahain Budapest
GyorgyLederer
10.2
'"'ABit of ExtraneousMatter'':
The 1910Bahai Temple Unity Convention
and the Downfall of Henry ClaytonThompson
Jackson Armstrong-[11grartl
1.22
The Plans of Unified Action
Lani Bramson
ill

Beginnings
Outpost of a WorldReligion:
The Baha'i Faith in Australia, 192()..1947
Graham Hassall
The Circle, the Brotherhood,and the EcclesiasticalBody:
The Baha'i Faith in Denmark, 1925-1987
Margit Warburg
The Baha'i Communityin E<finburgh,1946-1950
Jsn1aelValesco

Copyrighted material
Foreword
ALL RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS emerge within a particular socio-cultural
context. For the most part, they remain within the social environment
of their birth. They grow or decline in proportion to their success in ar-
ticulating the cultural concerns of the society in which they are situ-
ated and in creating and channeling the enthusiasm of their adherents.
Some religious movements, however, transcend their culture of origin,
attracting followers from a variety of cultural backgrounds and per-
haps eventually establishing ftrm roots in a number of societies. The
resulting diversity entails a double existence for the religion in ques-
tion. If it is truly multicultural, it exists in a number of distinct local
cultural forms. At the same time, insofar as it retains its unity, it re-
mains a single transcultural movement.
The Baha'i Faith illustrates this multiple existence. Originating
within the context of nineteenth-century Iranian Shi'is~ it has long
since succeeded in transcending its culture of origin. Not only has it
gained a worldwide following, but it has developed in culturally di-
verse forms. Thus, in the most general terms, we may refer to Baba 'f
expansion as having taken place in three cultural-historical ''worlds":
the predominantly Iranian Shi'i world of the religion's origin; the
Western world (the subject of the present volume); and the Baha'i
''Third World," from which most of its contemporary adherents are
drawn. Eacb of these three worlds has had its own distinctive forms
and chronologies of Baha'i expansion.

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x      Foreword

n
THERErsGOODREASONto see the multiform developmentof the Baha'i
Faith in the West as a single process. The West, here defined as Europe
and the culturally cognate territories of North America and the Pacific,
is an area of considerable cultural and historical unity. This is
grounded in part on the common inheritance of Judeo-Christian and
Greco-Roman culture and in part on more recent historical develop-
ments, such as European imperialism, industrial capitalism, and con-
sumer culture. Withinthis area, Baha'i expansionhas followed its own
distinctive pattern. Western Baha'i communities have come to share
many cultural characteristics with each other, both by dint of shared
patterns of Baha'i activity and by their common participation in the
Western-dominatedculture of modernity.

III

RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN an impressive development in the academic
study of the Babi and Baha'i religions.As much of this work has been
by Western Baha'is, academic study itself represents an important as-
pect of Western Baha'i development. Important though this work has
been, there is still evidently much to be done in relation to the West.
We now have several excellent studies of the early American Baha'i
community. Apart from these studies, the period of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
visits to the West, and some very specific topics-such as the cultural
aspects of recent Baha'i conversions in the southern United States,
there is very little materialon the history and culture of the Baha'i Faith
in America. There are now detailed studies of only five other coun-
tries: Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, and New Zealand.As with
the American studies, much of this work remains unpublished. There
is next to nothing written about any other Westerncountry. In addition
to general historical studies, there are a number of biographies of
prominent Western Baha'is, but only a few of these are scholarly in
tone, and only a few leading WesternBaha'is have received serious at-
tention.
One general tendency in much of the work that has been produced
so far has been a concentrationon Western Baha'i history and culture
in its own context. This leaves a double lacunae. First, there is as yet

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Foreword     xJ

little research on the relationship between the Baba' i movem.ent in the
West and its environing societies and cultures. Nor is there any sys-
tematic study comparing Baha'i formation with other religious devel-
opments in the West. Second~ the relationship between the Baha 'is in
the West and the Baha'i Faith as a whole bas yet to be adequately stud-
ied. Clearly, Western Baha'is have played a major role in the diffusion
of the Faith outside the West, in the development of Baha'i adminis-
tration, and in the formulation of frameworks of belief and practice,
but the details of this role have yet to be delineated.

IV

Gooo SCHOLARSlirP INVOLVES both individual effort and a collective
endeavor. The progress of any scholarly field depends upon these two
elements. We are fortunate, then1 that both within the Baha'i commu-
nity (through the activities of the Association of Baha'i Studies, origi-
nally the Canadian Association for Studies on the Baha'i Faith
[1974-1981]) and independently (through the work of those associated
with the Lancaster (1977-1980], Cambridge (1978-1979), and Los An-
geles [1983-1985] Baha'i Studies seminars and their successors), a
growing network of scholarly communication and debate has devel-
oped. The appearance of publications such as the Studies in the Babi
and Baha'{ Religio,is series reflects this growth. This present volume
is a further contribution to the ongoing process of communication and
debate.
As to the papers themselves, the first essay provides a general
survey of Western Baha'i history as a whole (Peter Smith), and the sec-
ond essay studiesthe Baha'i world from 1919-1920 (J.E. Esslemont's
survey, edited by Moojan Momen). Studies of particular episodes in
the history of the Baha'i Faith in the West follow: Gyorgy Lederer ex-
amines the newspaper reports of 'Abdu'l-Baha's visit to Budapest in
19J 3; Jackson Armstrong-Ingram looks at the Henry Clayton Thomp-
son episode of 19l O;and Loni Bramson studies the development of the
American "Plans of Unified Action." The final essays in the volume
investigate the beginnings of three national Baha'i communities: in
Denmark (Margit Warburg), in Australia (Graham Hassell), and in
Scotland (Ismael Valesco).

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xU     Foreword

V

THE GESTATIONPERIOD of this book has been unduly long. Most of the
essays in this book were prepared for publication in 1988, but the proj-
ect was delayed. A few editorial changes have been made to the origi-
nal essays, but they remain essentially unchanged. I hope that readers
will find them relevant even after this lengthy passage of time. I would
like to thank the authors for their patience and cooperation in the
preparation of th.is work. My thanks are also due to the organizers of
the Los Angeles Baha'i History Conferences, at which several of the
following papers were ftrSt presented, and to K.alimat Press for its hard
work on the production of this volume. My thanks to Anthony A. Lee
for all his encouragement and perseverance during these years of wait•
ing, and most particularly to Ismael Velasco for his help in preparing
the book for final publication.

PETER SMITH
Bangkok
January 2004

PETER SMITH,PH.D.     is chairman of the Social Science Division and former
Deputy-Director for Academic Affairs at Mahidol University International
College. He teaches courses in World History, Social Theory, and Anthropology.
His publications include: The Babi and Baha'i Religions: From Messianic
Shi 'ism to a World Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1987) and A Concise
Encyclopedia of the Baha'i Faith (Oneworld, 2000).
' '
'IS IN THE
n ground-breaking essays. eight scholars probe the early
I   history of the Baha'i Faith in the West. In each case. this
original research widens and changes our 11nderstandingof
tl1osecrucial early years of development.
Peter Smith, in his sociological survey of the con-
ten1porary Baha'i ,vorld, undertakes an analysis of Baha'i
growth and expansion in Western countries. Moojan Momen
uncovers a similar analysis of the spread of the Faith written
by John Esslemont in 1920. Together tl1e two surveys
den1onstra1e the astonishing development of the Baha'i
comn1unityin the twe11tiethcentury.
Uncovering important episodes in early Baha'i history,
Gy0rgy Lederer i11vestigates 'Abdu'I-Baha's visit to
Budapest ( 1913). Jackson Armstro11g-lngraintakes a second
look at '"extraneous'' events at an American 11ationalBal1a'i
convention ( 1910), and Loni Bra111sondiscusses tl1e first
plans of Unified Action undertaken in the Baha'i ,vorld
( 1926-1934).
The first acade111ictreatments of tl1e begi11ningsof the
Ba.ha'i Faith in three nations are also included: Graha,n
!·Iassail writes on Australia ( 1920-1947), Margit Warburg
researches the Denmark Baha' is ( I 925-1987), and lsn1ael
Valesco discusses the first Baha'i community in Scotland
( 1946-1950).
Together these scholarly investigations provide us witl1
new information and new visions to deepen our under-
standing of Baha'i history.

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-- Baha'is in the West (Used by permission of the curator)