For other Baha'i Writings and books from Early Reform Bahais from the 1920s and later, click here.
Order the books below through online booksellers.
Available worldwide. Check your favorite bookseller.
Links below.
The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith. Baha'u'llah & Abdul-Baha. Edited by Frederick Glaysher, with a new Introduction and the original 1912 Foreword. Reform Bahai Press, 2008. 148 pages. $12.99. Paperback: ISBN-13: 9780967042107 - ISBN-10: 0967042100. Amazon: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle. ePub (Nook).
The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith collects many of the early writings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha, published in the West, seeking to restore and preserve their vision of the oneness of God, humanity, and all religions.
In addition to all of the 1912 Universal Principles of the Bahai Movement, the book includes Baha'u'llah's Arabic Hidden Words, selections known as the Spirit of the Age, an address by Abdul-Baha at the Friends' Meeting House in London in 1913, and many Bahai prayers for community and individual worship and meditation.
Though beginning in 2004, the Reform Bahai Faith traces its origin to the early Bahais Ruth White, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, and Julie Chanler, who sought to preserve the teachings of Abdul-Baha after his passing in 1921. They and other early American Bahais understood the Bahai Faith was being turned into an oppressive organization, under what the British Museum document expert Dr. C. Ainsworth Mitchell judged to be a fraudulent will and testament, as discussed in the book Letters from the American Desert (ISBN-13: 978-0967042114). See below.
Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Bahai Faith, as interpreted by his son Abdul-Baha for the modern world, believed in and taught a moderate, universal religion, grounded in a separation of church and state, not a theocracy, and members of the Reform Bahai Faith seek to recover and renew that universal, pluralistic vision for all humanity.
The Universal Principles of the Reform Bahai Faith. Baha'u'llah & Abdul-Baha. Edited by Frederick Glaysher, with a new Introduction and the original 1912 Foreword. Reform Bahai Press, 2008. 148 pages. $21.99. 2nd printing now available.
Description above.
Hardcover: ISBN-13: 9780967042138 - ISBN-10: 0967042135. (Navy blue with gold lettering)
Ebook Edition 2010, Kindle
Paperback or Hardcover may be purchase through most online booksellers. USA: Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, BooksAMillion, BooneBridgeBooks, Ecampus, Powells, ReadingWarehouse, Tatteredcover, Target Australia: Booktopia, Leading Edge, BuyAustralian, SeekBooks Brazil: Precomania Canada: Amazon Cz: bookfayre Deutschland: Amazon, JPC Denmark: eLounge, Estonia: Krisostomus Finland: BookPlus, KirjaSana France: Amazon Italy: IBS, libreriauniversitaria, Webster Japan: Kinokuniya, Amazon Korea: Okenglish Mexico: Preciomania Netherlands: ABC, VanStockum Norway: Akademika, Bokklubben, Gnist, Sisbok, Sørbok, Studia New Zeeland: Fishpond Romania: Bizcar Scotland: Word Power Books, Sweden: AdLibris, Bokus Sg, Hk, Id, My, Th: AcmaMall Taiwan: KingStone UK: Amazon, AbeBooks, Alibris, Blackwell, Eruditor, PickABook, Waterstones, WHSmith, Tesco South Africa: Loot, Take2
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Available worldwide (softcover only)
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EBM U of Michigan. EBM in Australia. EBM in Canada. Etc.
Letters from the American Desert: Signposts of a Journey, A Vision.
Frederick Glaysher. ISBN: 9780967042114. 0967042119. Hardcover. Preface. Earthrise Press, 2008. 172 pages. $21.95. Available through the online booksellers above. Amazon: Hardcover, Kindle. Barnes & Noble
Twenty years in the making, in Letters from the American Desert, Glaysher reflects on the cultural, political, and religious history of Western and non-Western civilizations, pondering the dilemmas of postmodernity, in a compelling struggle for spiritual knowledge and truth. In what is a highly autobiographical work, fully cognizant of the relativism and nihilism of modern life, Glaysher finds a deeper meaning and purpose in a universal Vision. Confronting the antinomies of the soul, grounded in the dialectic, Glaysher charts a path beyond the postmodern desert.
Alluding extensively to Martin Luther and W. B. Yeats at All Souls Chapel, “metaphors for poetry,” from Yeats’s book A Vision, Glaysher considers the example of the global, universal message of the oneness of God, all religions, and humankind, holding out a new hope and peaceful Vision for a world in spiritual and global crisis.
Far from a theocracy, Glaysher envisions a modest separation of church and state, as the will of God, in an unorganized religion, a universal synthesis of all spiritual and wisdom traditions, in harmony and balance with universal peace, in a global age of permanent pluralism, where religious belief is a distinctive mark of the individual, not collective, communal identity.
Reviews
"A valuable contribution to understanding the real history of the Bahai Faith." –Yahoo! Reform Bahai Group
"Mr. Glaysher, in my view, is taking some positive steps to resolve some serious issues in the Baha'i community. ...The Faith needs a total overhaul. It has forgotten what the real Faith is." —Joel Bjorling, author of The Baha'i Faith: A Historical Bibliography. New York. Garland Publishing, 1985.
"Riveting! I was unable to put it down until completion in the wee hours. As the journey of the writer took many years to complete, it reminded me, too, of my Bahai journey.... Strangely, I had never remembered seeing Abdu'-Baha's 1912 Covenant, anywhere. Where was it hidden? Is there more such documented evidence being suppressed?"—Reform Bahai Faith Forum
Books may also be ordered through any bookstore, by title and ISBN numbers.
4-3-07
Reform Bahai Press - Seeks New Translations, Manuscripts
The Reform Bahai Faith announces the creation of a new Bahai publishing unit, the Reform Bahai Press.
The Reform Bahai Press seeks new translations of the Writings, especially the Prayers of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha, and other primary Writings and Tablets of the central figures.
It is also seeking information regarding the copyright status of the works of Ruth White, Julie Chanler, and Mirza Ahmad Sohrab and plans to publish many of their books and pamphlets in the years to come.
All publications will meet professional and scholarly standards, in academic as well as publishing terms, and most are anticipated to be published in hard cover copies with significant print runs.
The Reform Bahai Press is committed to maintaining and encouraging academic and individual freedom of conscience that strives for the bar set by Abdul-Baha when he wrote, "the conscience of man is sacred and to be respected" and "liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets of creation, and manifestation of the hidden verities of the contingent world."
The Reform Bahai Press is especially open to considering any manuscripts rejected by other Bahai publishing ventures.
Those interested in submitting works, or letters exploring submission, should use the "Contact" email address link on the Reform Bahai Faith website at www.ReformBahai.org
Please share this announcement on all Bahai newsletters, email lists, and other forums, preferrably in full text, where translators and scholars with ready manuscripts may participate.
Publisher, Editor
Reform Bahai Press
95 Theses - On Bahai Liberty
The Reform Bahai Faith
www.ReformBahai.org