Harrison Gray Dyar

Despite the scientific community’s respect for Dyar’s many achievements while employed by the Smithsonian Institute as a leading researcher in the study of insects, his personal behaviour got him into trouble. His infamy increased when a vehicle travelling on a public street in the vicinity of DuPont Circle fell into one of his tunnels. The authorities were appalled to discover his warren of tunnels running beneath the nation’s capital. All published accounts about him agree that Harrison Gray Dyar was eccentric - brilliant and multi-talented, but exceedingly eccentric. The son and heir of a wealthy family, Dyar had earned a degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate in entomology from Columbia University. Dyar’s second wife, Wellesca Pollock Allen, given the name Asiyeh by ‘Abdul-Baha, became a committed Baha'i in 1901 during the earliest years of the Faith in the West, and had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1907. When ‘Abdul-Baha visited Washington DC in 1912, He called on the Dyars. Even though Harrison Dyar could never give his whole-hearted allegiance to any group - wishing to remain a freethinker and free agent - he found the social teachings of ‘Abdu'l-Baha to be in line with his own ideas. He gave lectures on Baha’ topics for the Washington DC Bahai community. Involvement with 'Reality' provided an opportunity to liberally promote his own conceptions to a wider audience. He and Robinson were kindred spirits in their ideals and motives. And Dyar was willing to fund the journal. When he began his work as editor of 'Reality', Dyar’s greatest obstacle quickly became the Baha'i Administrative Order which had been established only months earlier. ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Will and Testament was being circulated and studied, the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada had been elected for the first time, and in larger cities such as Washington DC and New York, Local Spiritual Assemblies were being established. The Will of ‘Abdu’l-Baha demanded obedience to these nascent institutions as well as total fealty and obedience to Shoghi Effendi. To Dyar’s thinking, organization was a harmful perversion of the Baha'i Movement. He hated the word ‘obedience’. In his mind, Baha'i was not a religion, but a bundle of good ideas that if widely spread and implemented would transform the world into a better place. Organization, especially one demanding unequivocal compliance, was, to his mind, a hindrance that impeded the spread of the ideals which he believed Baha'i stood for. Dyar saw no reason why any governing board should define the Baha’i Faith, for it was his unwavering conviction that each individual attracted to the teachings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha had the right to define the Baha’i Movement for himself. Horace continued as a consulting editor even after Dyar became an owner of 'Reality', though most of his fellow Baha'is who had shared that role were replaced by others who were not Baha’is. But after seeing the August 1922 edition, Horace decided he had to withdraw his support.

(Infinite Horizons: The Life and Times of Horace Holley)