| 
The birth of Bahá'u'lláh's revelation has released tremendous
spiritual and creative energies throughout the world. Like the rays of the
sun, this spiritual energy inspires each of us, whether or not we know of
the source.
The following is certainly not presented as any kind of a proof of Bahá'u'lláh's
mission, however, it is interesting from a historical viewpoint to see the
effect this creative energy has on humankind.
Something happened around the year 1844, what could it have been? The
short section below is from "I Shall Come Again," by Hushidar Motlagh. The
book is available at Global
Perspective
The history of civilization shows that for thousands of years humans moved
at an extremely slow pace along the path of progress until the end of the
18th century when there occurred a sudden and dramatic acceleration of knowledge.
It is believed that the changes brought about in the last two centuries
far exceed all those recorded in the entire previous history of civilization.
An example of this dramatic change has occurred in the mode and speed of
travel. Alvin Toffler in Future Shock portrays the phenomenal increase
in the speed of travel since the mid-19th century:
... in 6000 B.C. the fastest transportation available to man over long
distances was the camel caravan, averaging eight miles an hour...when
the first mail coach began operating in England in 1784, it averaged a
mere ten mph. The first steam locomotive, introduced in 1825, could muster
a top speed of only thirteen mph, and the great sailing ships of the time
labored along at less than half that speed. It was probably not until
the 1880's that man, with the help of a more advanced locomotive, managed
to reach a speed of one hundred mph. It took the human race millions of
years to attain that record.
Less than a century later (1960's) men in space capsules were circling
the earth at 18,000 mph.
Toffler then goes on to explain:
Whether we examine distances traveled, altitudes reached, minerals mined,
or explosive power harnessed, the same accelerative trend is obvious.
The pattern, here and in a thousand other statistical series, is absolutely
clear and unmistakable. Millennia or centuries go by, and then, in our
own times, a sudden bursting of the limits, a fantastic spurt forward.
From 6000 years before the advent of Christ up to eighteen and a half centuries
after His advent (a total of 78 centuries), the speed of traveling remained
quite constant.
Why, then, did the change happen around the time of 1844? |
