The spiritual practice of ASMÁ™2 (Arabic, or asmá’ for names), a conversation, is an acronym for Applied Studies in Mythic Analysis™. Please note that a myth refers, from a technical standpoint, to a sacred narrative and is not used, in any sense whatsoever, as a deprecation. The common definition of the term which associates myths with fairytales is entirely absent from academic discourse.

Furthermore, The Center for ASMÁ Emergence™ constitutes a strictly personal Bahá’í-focused publication. The views expressed here, reflecting the inevitably flawed perspectives and understandings of an individual Bahá’í, should not, under any circumstances, be regarded as authoritative accounts of Bahá’í teaching. For official information on the Bahá’í Faith and on the worldwide Bahá’í community, of which this writer is a part, you are strongly encouraged to visit the website of the Bahá’í International Community.

Through the implementation of a theology of liberation, one grounded in the transcendent subtexts of social emancipation and the individual's gradual freedom from the prison of a baser self (al-nafs al-ammára), ASMÁ becomes the axiological substructure for the new (or postmodern) critical theory from The Institute for Emancipatory Constructionism™. As a case in point, The Collective to Fight Neurelitism, grounded in the theory, derives its values of unity in neurodiversity™ and social and economic development from ASMÁ Praxis.

First and foremost, ASMÁ is situated within the emerging movement (or emergent movement). The academic term, emergent, as applied to The Center for ASMÁ Emergence, may be delineated as an intentional cultivation of new social structures, or sets of social norms (rules of behavioral conduct), which are simultaneously centered on an emancipatory teleology (purposefulness), actively constructed by moral agents, and historically grounded in a postmodern, poststructural cultural context.

Normatively, the theologically diverse Christian congregations which identify with the emerging movement run the doctrinal gamut from liberal to conservative and encompass Protestant (in the broad sense), Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox confessions. Nevertheless, ASMÁ has its strongest, and its principal, affinity for that movement's seminal Emergent Village, a network of local Christian groups which lies substantially on the progressive end of the hermeneutic, or interpretive, and ecclesiological spectra.

Even as the majority of the emerging movement, including Emergent Village, presents one or another variety of Christianity, similar postmodern approaches, whether intentionally derivative or only ostensibly so, can be witnessed within Judaism, Islám, ascension (a category of new-age thought), and the world peace movement. Consequently, the mere appropriation by ASMÁ of the emergent model and, by extension, a narrative (postliberal) approach to scripture is not, in itself, especially noteworthy.

Hosted on The Bahá’í Studies Web Server™, The Center for ASMÁ Emergence, fictionalized on the Personae Gratae website, is an activity of The MarkFoster.NETwork™. Substantively, the program consolidates my decades of reflections on the views of four departed Bahá’ís and my revisionings of their philosophies from a nominalist, or nonessentialist, perspective. It was initially designated Alethionomy, then The Reality Sciences, followed by Structurization Tech, and later Structurizing.

Of these four individuals, two of them, Marian Crist Lippitt of York, Maine, and Henry A. Weil of suburban St. Louis, Missouri, were, through a third, Elizabeth Thomas of Manhasset, New York (and later, Bermuda, St. Vincent, and Hawaii), known personally to me. The fourth, H. Emogene Hoagg (Henrietta Emogene Martin Hoagg from California), was deceased in December, 1945, eleven years and two months in advance of my birth.

My paper, ASMÁ™: A Narrative Spirituality, incorporates a respectful, poststructural deconstruction, or "denaming," but not an application or a subcategory, of Lippitt's Science of Reality™ (particularly her examinations of the worlds of God) and Weil's Closer Than Your Life Vein (especially his discussions of the powers of the soul). The metaphysical realism and Neoplatonic (objective) idealism, in both frameworks, are superseded here by a nominalist and constructionist relativism and a post-Neoplatonism. Meanwhile, systematic and constructive theologies become popular postcritical theologies, postliberal (narrative) theologies, and theologies of liberation.

As Bahá’u'lláh wrote3, "Open Thou, O my Lord, mine eyes and the eyes of all them that have sought Thee, that we may recognize Thee with Thine own eyes." By studying, as attempted here, the Creator's volitionally determined, and scripturally revealed, narratives, one can attempt to uncover the divine standpoint epistemologies, or God's-eye perspectives, on existence.

This site5 was expanded out of a continuation of the original version I maintained of the official website for The Foundation for the Investigation of Reality™ (FIR). Administered by an annually elected board of trustees, on which I once served, FIR is a registered not-for-profit and tax-exempt membership organization. It was formerly The Foundation for the Science of Reality (FSR).

One of the principal objectives of FIR is to preserve and enhance a Master Index of the English-language Writings of the Bahá’í Faith and other texts. That index was conceived by Lippitt and developed by her, until her 1984 passing, in concert with a staff of trained volunteers. Ensuant to initiating the the indexing process, the majority of them, it is reported, experienced a spiritual transformation.

In a letter dated January 27, 1992, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States addressed FIR:

I begin, however, with Thomas, my spiritual mother (i.e., the first Bahá’í I met), who formulated a novel approach to delivering workshops (earning her, by her own account, the nickname, the chart woman). Selectively combining her understandings with those of Lippitt and Weil, she examined "reality," the worlds of God, the powers of the soul, and Bible prophecy.

Regrettably, Thomas died in 1991, to my recollection, having never published her researches, and I have been unable to locate any of the few letters she sent me. Our exhaustive tête-à-têtes, often daily or several times a day over many years, were conducted almost entirely over the telephone. She would, in these conversations, patiently encourage me to cultivate original Bahá’í deepening activities without necessarily mirroring her own, Lippitt's, or Weil's conclusions. Needless to say, I remain, decades later, profoundly grateful to my dear friend, Elizabeth.

Furthermore, Thomas was, it appeared to me, an almost tirelessly generous person. Aside from putting up with my daily, sometimes hourly, phone calls, she paid for Marian Lippitt's graduate studies from California Pacific University (approved by the State of California but regionally unaccredited), and, during her lifetime, she never, in her humility, wanted this fact to be disclosed. Although Lippitt received the M.A., she unfortunately died shortly before she would have received her Ph.D. degree, and, consistent with university policies, it was never awarded posthumously.

I turn briefly to Hoagg (1869-1945), an erudite woman who served in the household of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Son of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’u'lláh. In 1938, she published an outline of Bahá’í sources, revised from the previous year, entitled Conditions of Existence: Servitude, Prophethood, Deity. Then, in 1943, just two years prior to her death, she taught the outline to Lippitt.

Inspired by Hoagg's work, Lippitt, in the course of creating the Master Index, believed she had arrived at a profound realization. A general model of reality was, she felt, progressively revealed by the Prophets of the past and brought into maturity through the Revelation of Bahá’u'lláh. Unfortunately, Lippitt's Science of Reality pseudoscientifically expressed nonscientific ideas, based on her Bahá’í understandings, in a mere pretense of scientific nomenclature.

Lippitt subsequently engineered her Science of Reality into an applied experiential program, still in operation, called Successful Self Direction® (SSD) and, with the assistance of a criminologist, tested it on juvenile offenders. She also served as "general consultant" for The Comprehensive Deepening Program and provided much of its original material.

Anecdotally, I met and chatted with Lippitt in Thomas' home and during a visit, with Thomas, to the Green Acre Bahá’í School. Lippitt and I also corresponded through the mail. I later began her indexing course but, preferring to continue building my own rather extensive Worlds of God compilation and encouraged on her intuition that I would pursue other avenues of service, did not proceed further.

Weil, for his part, wrote Closer Than Your Life Vein (studies in souls, spirits, and minds), Drops from the Ocean (practical explanations of various Bahá’í texts), and Wealth Without Gold (elaborations of Closer than Your Life Vein in a series of privately distributed booklets). In 1971, after having recently embraced the Bahá’í Faith (December 31, 1970), I attended a study class, facilitated by Thomas, on Wealth Without Gold.

Although, in our phone conversations, Weil and I differed on certain substantive questions, our disagreements were invariably cordial. For instance, as I recall, he considered that the human spirit was a temporary energizer which, during one's earthly life, was instrumental in the functionality of a soul's powers. I, on the other hand, identified the human spirit with the powers themselves.

On one or two occasions, I had encouraged Weil to consider a literary collaboration with Lippitt. Their respective approaches to Bahá’í studies impressed me for their wide-ranging concordances and palpable complementarity. While he agreed with me that such a partnership could be fruitful, they did not, to my knowledge, ever make contact.

Finally, as chairman of the Mississippi District Teaching Committee (early-to-mid 1980s), a body devoted to the propagation of the Bahá’í Faith, I successfully negotiated for Weil to be among the featured speakers at the statewide summer school. Since having met twice in Thomas' home, it was our first face-to-face encounter in about a decade and the final one before his death in 1984.

• Conditions of Existence: Servitude, Prophethood, Deity (HTML)
• Conditions of Existence (PDF of original manuscript minus one page)
• Letter to Grace Holley (excerpt)
• Letter to Nelly French

• Additional Materials (PDF)
• Are We Facing Reality?
• Communications
• 50 Postulates of the Science of Reality
• An Integrative Framework for a World Education Curriculum
• Map of the Worlds of God
• Primary Categories of Existence
• Quotations from the Worlds of God Compilation on God
• 
• Reality Chart (enlargement from above)
• Reality, Soul, and the Worlds of God
• Reality and the Worlds of God (PDF)
• Professionals and the Relationship to 5th Dimensional Realities
• Shall We Tell People Their Faults?
• What is this Knowledge that the Science of Reality is Setting Forth?
• What Reality Does this Science Cover?
• What the Science of Reality is

• Descriptions of the Powers of the Soul