d compelling
significance in the candidature of aspirants to political office. A world,
which had assumed that with the collapse of the Berlin Wall an age of
international peace had dawned, is warned that it is in the grip of a war
of civilizations whose defining character is irreconcilable religious
antipathies. Bookstores, magazine stands, Web sites and libraries struggle
to satisfy an apparently inexhaustible public appetite for information on
religious and spiritual subjects. Perhaps the most insistent factor in
producing the change is reluctant recognition that there is no credible
replacement for religious belief as a force capable of generating
self-discipline and restoring commitment to moral behaviour.

Beyond the attention that religion, as formally conceived, has begun to
command is a widespread revival of spiritual search. Expressed most
commonly as an urge to discover a personal identity that transcends the
merely physical, the development encourages a multitude of pursuits, both
positive and negative in character. On the one hand, the search for
justice and the promotion of the cause of international peace tend to have
the effect of also arousing new perceptions of the individual's role in
society. Similarly, although focused on the mobilization of support for
changes in social decision-making, movements like environmentalism and
feminism induce a re-examination of people's sense of themselves and of
their purpose in life. A reorientation occurring in all the major
religious communities is the accelerating migration of believers from
traditional branches of the parent faiths to sects that attach primary
importance to the spiritual search and personal experiences of their
members. At the opposite pole, extraterrestrial sightings,
"self-discovery" regimens, wilderness retreats, charismatic exaltation,
various New Age enthusiasms, and the consciousness-raising efficacy
attributed to narcotics and hallucinogens attract followings far larger
and more diverse than anything enjoyed by spiritualism or theosophy at a
similar historical turning point a century ago. For a Baha'i, the
proliferation even of cults and practices that may arouse aversion in the
minds of many serves primarily as a reminder of the insight embodied in
the ancient tale of Majnun, who sifted the dust in his search for the
beloved Layli, although aware that she was pure spirit: "I seek her
everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her."(1)