First, I would like to convey my deepest appreciation and heartfelt thank you to the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador for their kind permission to reproduce this magnificent volume within the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Project.

The world must forever owe a debt of gratitude to Helen Bassett Hornby for the work she has put into “Lights of Guidance”, and also to those who so ably supported and encouraged her. It is a mammoth undertaking, the consequences of which must assuredly reverberate down through the years and assist in an increasing appreciation and understanding of the potentialities embedded and enshrined in the Cause of God as revealed through the Pen of the Most High, the Most Glorious. Without any doubt, its readers will herein find for themselves beginning points for their own further development, understanding and appreciation of this momentous Revelation.

A great debt also exists to the work done by all the dedicated people at Bahá’í Library Online whose outstanding effort in preparing, proof-reading and presenting their HTML version of “Lights of Guidance” proved an invaluable resource in the preparation of this HTML version. Without the work already done via the Bahá’í Library Online (which meant that the Subject and Section text could simply be copied and pasted), the labour for this version would have taken on gigantic, and perhaps prohibitive proportions, as the entire volume would have needed to be either scanned or typed in, and then minutely proof-read. As it is, it still took approximately nine months to carry out the formatting and get it to the stage of being made available. Excepting for the changes to structure, layout and formatting, the differences within the body of the text between the Bahá’í Library Online version and this one are small. Work has been based on the 2004 reprinting, and changes have been made only so far as they are reflected within that copy, to remain as true as possible (within the confines of the chosen medium and this authors’s own limited skill) to the layout, appearance and structure of that printing.

The hardcopy version does not, in itself, have a ‘Table of Contents’ page such as is carried at the start of this version. What has been done is to present the ‘Copyright’ page and insert below it a ‘Table of Contents’ that will allow the reader to directly access each section. The layout of this ‘Table of Contents’ follows the same functionality as that for the ‘Table of Contents’ for “The Kitáb-i-Aqdas”. The left hand column provides a listing and direct access to each of the sections of the hardcopy version in the same order in which they are found in the original. The links in the right hand column will take one to indices and other pages that are not part of the original.

Among these additions is an ‘Expanding Contents’, which can be used in place of the very lengthy ‘Contents’ pages duplicated from the original. It has been designed to provide far faster access to the ‘Contents’ page, and operates by allowing one to to access only those Subjects and Sections required/desired. Design considerations had a focus on a means to allow those without broadband relatively quick access to the material in the ‘Contents’ page, but with an equally strong view to reducing the need for any person to scroll for more than a small distance. Clicking on an arrow will expand or close a Subject according to context, while textual links allow access to either the entire Subject or directly to a numbered Section.

The ‘Subjects Index’ is a cut-down version of the ‘Contents’ page, in that all the numbered Sections have been omitted, and is similar to that found in the Bahá’í Library Online version. The textual links will take one to the top of the relevant Subject pages. Two versions of this index have been made available; one which links to pop-up windows and the other which opens the link in the same window - readers can choose whichever is most suitable to their own preferences and needs.

So far as I am aware, this is the only electronic version at this time which carries the complete volume, including the indices at the back of the book in fully functional form. The construction of this electronic version has focussed on dividing the material into its distinct Subjects, with an indexing system that permits quick and direct access to any Subject or Section.

As in the remainder of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Project, extensive use has been made of pop-ups to present the information and allow the reader to still retain their place in whichever of the indices chosen for use.

It will be noted that the ‘Bibliography’ is not yet available. This is being constructed and should be online with the next release of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Project. It was considered that the content was not vital to the usefulness and functionality of “Lights of Guidance” and should not be a reason to delay placing the contents of the volume online.

It must also be noted that this author has an intense personal aversion to all usage of acronyms and abbreviations. Regardless, wherever an acronym or abbreviation has been used within “Lights of Guidance” it has been left in place – it would be unfaithful to the concept and absolutely outside the scope, purpose, function and intent of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Project to replace these acronyms with their full form. However, should one hover their mouse cursor over the acronym, a small browser-generated pop-up will appear which will expand it to its full form.