William Garlington was born in 1947 in the United States. He started high school in 1964. He graduated from Florida State University in 1981 and joined New State College to continue education in religious studies.
Garlington, who became a Baha’i in the 1960s, moved to Australia in the 1980s, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on the topic of the widespread Baha’i propaganda in Malwa, India, and returned to the United States.
It was after these studies that he decided to separate from Bahaism, and in late 1980s, he resigned from membership of the Baha’i community. The main reason for this reversal and abandonment goes back to his doubt in correctness of the ideological arguments and the heavenly nature of the Bahaism, and the issue of the infallibility of the organizational institutions, namely the World House of Justice and national assemblies.
Garlington has taught religious studies in Australia and the United States for over 25 years. In 2005, Garlington published the book “The Baha’i Faith in America”. While respecting the views of the Baha’is about himself and others, he reminds readers the issues and problems that may exist here and there and possibly in other cultures. The most important of these issues and problems are: The Bahaism’s specific perception of the continuance of revelation and inspiration, the existence of gender discrimination, the complete rejection of scientific findings, and that freedom of thought is not a commodity that can be given to the Baha’i officials and leaders.
The spiritual and personal transition of William Garlington, in his book “The Baha’i Faith in America”, into a religious tradition that was fundamentally considered for his culture and country as foreign, and then his departure from this religious culture, a kind of interpretive and historical hermeneutic research, with a positive view and at the same time critical to the subject of study, is a classic feature of the study of religion. His view of the mystical dimensions and teachings of the Bahaism is similar. Garlington intends to speak of the Baha’i mysticism like a devout follower who talks about religious enlightenment truths which is a contemporary research tradition.
In other words, William Garlington is a “comparative mystic,” in a way that he examines the comparative ideas and perceptions taken from the study of the Baha’i history with a critical mind, endowed with modern theory and a profound and empathetic strategy toward that religion, influenced by decades of beliefs and behaviors according to it. In this context, very similar to the Baha’i writers, if not exactly in their words, he thinks, writes, and lives, and watches mystical contradictory features, introverted and inflexible prejudices, and dangerous dogmatic beliefs, which is in fact racial and religious fantasies.
Currently, Garlington lives in American Florida.
