The Wilmette Institute is pleased to announce that, on Sunday, August 28, 2016, Dr. Julio Savi will be speaking on “The Dawning of the Bahá’í Faith on the European Continent. The talk will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (11 a.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Western European Time). In the late 1990s Dr. Savi was often a faculty member for the teaching module of the Wilmette Institute’s original residential program “Spiritual Foundations for a Global Civilization.” Dr. Savi’s Web Talk is set against the background of the Paris of the
fin de siècle (end of the 19th century) and of the
Belle Époque (the Beautiful Era, 1871–1914), with its magnificent intellectual and artistic efflorescence. In this milieu a young American woman, May Ellis (later May Ellis Maxwell of Montreal, Canada, and mother of Mary Maxwell, who married Shoghi Effendi and was given the name Ruhiyyih Khánum) became the catalyst for the spiritual awakening of a group of early God-intoxicated believers: Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, Mary Martha Bolles, May Bolles, Laura Clifford Barney, Edith Sanderson, Charlotte Dixon, Juliet Pearson, Lua Getsinger, Brenetta Herrman, Ann Apperson. The Web Talk emphasizes their human characters and the mysterious ways through which they, lovingly steered by a subtle, omnipresent, and all-guiding Will, came to recognize the dawn of the new era on the European continent and on the whole world. Dr. Savi, a retired gynecologist, has served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Italy for some forty years. He is interested in scripture, theology, interfaith dialogue, poetry, and music. His many publications include
The Eternal Quest for God: An Introduction to the Divine Philosophy of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá;
For the Sake of One God: Notes on Philosophy of Religion;
Remoteness: Selected Poems;
A Nest on the Highest Branch: Reflections on Human Success, Prosperity and Happiness;
Towards the Summit of Reality: An Introduction to the Study of Bahá’u’lláh’s Seven Valleys and Four Valleys;
Unsheathing the Sword of Wisdom: Reflections on Human Rights and Terrorism. He frequently contributed poems to
World Order. To sign up for Dr. Savi’s talk on “The Dawning of the Bahá’í Faith on the European Continent,”
click here.
