Sacred Mythology and the Bahá’í Faith

Abstract

Myths are metaphors that convey truth about the indescribable through powerful images and experiences. The mythological models synthesized by Joseph Campbell, such as the monomyth with its attendant metaphysical. cosmological, sociological, and psychological purposes, underscore the fundamental unity of human spiritual experience. The Bahá’í Faith employs three significant spiritual verities to fulfil the purposes of myth and to open for all Bahá’í the full depth and range of the world’s mythologies: The unknowable nature of the Ultimate Mystery; the relativity of religious/mythological truth; and the necessity of science and investigation of reality. The Bahá’í Faith also possesses a sacred drama—history as myth—from which the Bahá’í community takes its signposts for individual and collective development. All of these aspects of Bahá’í mythology are the basis for a coherent mythological landscape through which each human being must travel. The mythological universe created by Bahá’u’lláh frees the soul to experience and understand all mythologies, to explore and be awed by the physical universe understood by science and reason, and to undertake the universal adventure through which all may become
fully human.