Editorial
Three of the great religions in our world today posit One Personal God and enjoin His Worship. All sprang from Semitic peoples in that borderland of East and West which we conveniently name the Near East. Two have spread so far afield as to become world religions, while the third, as a parent of both, lives a worldwide life in them. These three monotheistic religions form the main topic of the present issue, as the Oriental religions were the topic of our No. 44. As a bridge between that number and this, we are privileged to publish an item by C. G. Jung on the relation between the psyche of the East and the psyche of the West.
In this country we sometimes feel that “Judaism we know and Christianity we know,” being surrounded by fellow citizens in both kinds; but how much we are imbued with clichés and governed by partisan viewpoints we shall learn with astonishment as we read James Parkes’ searching and sympathetic comparison of the two religions.
Islam, on the other hand, we feel to be fairly remote. Geographically it is away in the Orient, and we are not, like our British cousins, historically and politically bound in one Commonwealth with millions of its adherents. Nor do we feel moved and excited by its art and philosophy as we increasingly are by those of Hinduism and Buddhism, especially in the forms of Vedanta. and Zen. The mystical side of Mohammedanism has been least of all familiar to us, and al-Ghazzali, the saint and seer to whom Olive Greene introduces us, will come as a delight and surprise to many and as a very kindred soul to some.
It may further surprise us to realize that a religious movement which is more at home among us than any of Far Eastern origin, is actually a child of Islam. The Baha’i faith took its rise in Persia, but, its genius has been in the direction of a universal religion, and as such it took root in America early in this century. It occurred to us that there was no better way of bringing the remote closer and making it intimate and comprehensible, than to ask an old friend of Inward Light for a personal testimony. Robert Willson, who cooperated with us so generously over our last issue, devoted as it was to Dora Willson, has with equal generosity shared with us now his experience of Baha’i.
It has always been our aim to keep our material thus allied to experience. In the article entitled Buber and Jung, Dr. Clark has led us right into the crossfire of a debate between those two great writers concerning man’s knowledge of God. It cannot fail to raise searching questions in us all. Theology and Mystical Psychology represents one individual’s effort to meet the fundamental paradox which underlies that controversy and is as old as mankind.
This has been set as the topic for the next Friends’ Conference on Religion and Psychology. “Sexual Differences in Relation to Wholeness” will be studied, under the chairmanship of Prof. Calvin Keene, who succeeds Dr. Miriam Brailey. Irene Pickard (English Friend long resident in Geneva and well known to American Friends) will be one of the speakers.
The conference will be held, as usual, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, at the end of April or beginning of May. Inquiries can be addressed to 20 South 12th St., Philadelphia, Pa.