nised this infinite universe in
the most perfect form, and its innumerable inhabitants with
absolute system, strength, and perfection....

Therefore this story of Adam and Eve who ate from the tree, and
their expulsion from Paradise, must be thought of simply as a
symbol. It contains divine mysteries and universal meanings, and
it is capable of marvellous explanations.--Some Answered Questions,
p. 140

Body and Soul

The Baha'i teachings with regard to body and soul, and the life after
death, are quite in harmony with the results of psychical research. They
teach, as we have seen, that death is but a new birth--the escape from the
prison of the body into a larger life, and that progress in the afterlife
is limitless.

A large body of scientific evidence has gradually been accumulating which
in the opinion of impartial but highly critical investigators is amply
sufficient to establish beyond all question the fact of a life after
death--of the continued life and activity of the conscious "soul" after the
dissolution of the material body. As F. W. H. Myers says in his Human
Personality, a work which summarizes many of the investigations of the
Psychical Research Society:--

Observation, experiment, inference, have led many inquirers, of
whom I am one, to a belief in direct or telepathic
intercommunication, not between the minds of men still on earth
only, but between minds or spirits still on earth and spirits
departed. Such a discovery opens the doors also to revelation....

We have shown that amid much deception and self-deception, fraud
and illusion, veritable manifestations do reach us from beyond the
grave. ...

By discovery and by revelation certain theses have been
provisionally established with regard to such departed souls as we
have been able to encounter. First and chiefly, I, at least, see
ground to believe that their state is one of endless evolution in
wisdom and in love. Their loves of earth persist, and most of all,
those highest loves which find their outlet in adoration and
worship. ... Evil to them seems less a terrible than a slavish
thing. It is embodied in no mighty Potentate; rather it forms as
isolating madness from which higher spirits strive to free the
distorted soul. There needs no chastisement of fire;
self-knowledge is man's punishment and his reward; self-knowledge