So God Texted You in a Dream? Welcome to the Bahá’í Club. A Anthropologyst went to Irlend ….

God, But Make It Peer-Reviewed

Let’s start here: Tova Makhani-Belkin is not your average spiritual guide. She’s not handing out scented candles or selling enlightenment by the gram. She’s an researcher, born in Israel to an Iranian Jewish family, now knee-deep in Irish soil and Bahá’í soul-searching. Her job isn’t to believe; it’s to understand. In this compelling episode of Spiritual Conversation, the podcast produced by HolisticCircle and hosted by the ever-curious Philipp Kobald, Makhani-Belkin gently slices through centuries of dogma with the precision of someone who knows her Zoroaster from her Zahavi.

No mysticism, just meticulous fieldwork. And dreams. Lots of dreams.

The Religion That Ghosted the Clergy

For anyone in the healing world exhausted by hierarchical spiritual ladders and guru-driven marketing schemes, the Bahá’í faith offers an oddly refreshing take: no priests, no pulpits, and certainly no collection plates. Belkin’s research uncovers a path so hands-on, it could make a flat-pack furniture manual look spiritually profound. Want to become Bahá’í? Read the books. Decide for yourself. Sign a form if you feel like it.

The Bahá’í community she studied — largely made up of first-generation Irish converts — doesn’t peddle salvation through intermediaries. Instead, they meet in living rooms, sip tea, talk theology, and teach their children virtues like kindness and unity with the gentle hum of a neighbourly gathering where everyone brings tea and nobody brings dogma.

From Catholic Guilt to Bahá’í Chill

Many of Makhani-Belkin’s interviewees were raised Catholic in Ireland, a country where Catholicism was not just a religion but a national birthright. For these spiritual emigrants, the Bahá’í faith didn’t feel like an abandonment — it felt like an upgrade. No denouncing Jesus, no tossing rosary beads in the bin. Just a broader, roomier theology that said: “Yes, and…”

That subtle yet seismic shift — from guilt to grace, from hierarchy to horizontality — holds deep resonance for anyone in healing professions. Therapists, coaches, energy workers: this is spiritual minimalism. It’s not about abandoning your roots; it’s about growing new ones.

And the women? They especially resonated with a belief system where equality isn’t a seminar — it’s standard operating procedure. No sainted virgin tropes, no gatekeepers of holiness. Just human dignity, baked in.

The Dreaming Converts of County Cork

Here’s where things get cosmic. Despite being grounded in academic rigour, Makhani-Belkin stumbled across a surreal pattern: dreams. Serious, life-altering dreams. People dreaming of prophets, of sacred buildings, of symbols they didn’t understand until later — when they found the Bahá’í faith.

These weren’t just quaint anecdotes. They were pivotal. A woman dreams of crossing a river with Jesus, only to later discover that river was her path toward the Bahá’í community. A man dreams of Mount Sinai, then finds himself drawn to a faith that reimagines revelation.

Makhani-Belkin didn’t ask about dreams. They just kept coming up. Like a divine Reddit thread that refused to close.

For healers tuning into client intuitions, ancestral callings, or their own late-night cosmic downloads — this intersection of research and revelation might hit uncomfortably close to home. And that’s exactly the point.

This Is Not a Drill (Or a Campaign)

It’s easy to assume that the Bahá’í faith must be actively recruiting if it’s spreading. Spoiler: it’s not. There are no missionaries. No persuasive pamphlets. Just people, often Bahá’í “pioneers,” moving to new places, getting jobs, and inviting neighbours to dinner. Community-building without conversion tactics.

Makhani-Belkin’s interviews sketch out a grassroots, slow-burn evolution of faith. One friend tells another. A child joins a junior youth group. A curious Catholic asks why Bahá’ís don’t drink, and ends up reading about world unity at 2am.

If spiritual community is what you’re after — but the idea of joining a cult or sitting through another Zoom sermon makes your stomach turn — this is the kind of faith that grows like moss. Quiet, steady, and deeply rooted.

Anthropology, But Make It Spiritual

What’s most remarkable isn’t just the Bahá’í faith itself — it’s what Makhani-Belkin’s research says about us. About now. About people, many of them healers, seekers, empaths, ex-clergy, and questioners, trying to piece together a new spirituality from the broken shards of institutional religion.

This podcast conversation isn’t a sermon. It’s a gentle anthropological nudge: Maybe you’re not the only one dreaming of something more.

So, if this article left you twitching with curiosity, that might not be your algorithm talking — it might be your subconscious. And it just might be time to let Tova Makhani-Belkin’s findings lead you somewhere surprising.

Catch the full conversation over at the @HolisticCircle YouTube channel, where Philipp Kobald holds space for spiritual explorers who prefer their enlightenment with a side of nuance.

#HolisticCircle #PhilippKobald #SpiritualConversation #TovaMakhaniBelkin #Bahaifaith #DreamsAndFaith #ModernMystics #HealersJourney #AnthropologyOfReligion #FaithWithoutPriests

By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AI
www.HolisticCircle.org
@2025 HolisticCircle by Philipp Kobald