With a history going back to 1844 and even further back to various arguable dates into the 18th centur, one of which could be the birth of the first major precursor of this religion, Shaykh Ahmad, in 1743, the Baha'i Faith is far from being a 'New Religious Movement.' I wrote the following piece with thanks to Arnold Toynbee who wrote, in the early 1950s that the Baha'i Faith was one of the two religions of western civilization: 8)
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A TITANIC UPHEAVAL

British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that “When we see a creative spirit abandoning the traditional style of his society in any field of artistic activity and seizing upon some exotic style instead, we may suspect that the world on which he is turning his back is a ‘city of destruction’….or, in Platonic language, it is about to suffer the fate of foundering “in the fathomless gulf where all things are incommensurable.’1 Certainly in the arts in which I work, creatively and not-so-creatively, there is much that is, indeed, incommensurable. -Ron Price with appreciation to Plato, Politicus, quoted in Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Volume 4, Oxford UP, NY, 1939 (1962), p.27.

Creation, creativity, Arnold Toynbee goes on to say,1 “is a civilization’s raison d’etre. It has certainly become a good measure of my own raison d’etre. And as the foundering ship of my society has been quivering before her final plunge, I dive into the water of my own abilities and creativity and swim away with all my might. As “the most great convulsion” goes through its darkest hours, as the “blasts of His chastisement”1 beat upon humanity and as the driving power of some tempest sweeps across the face of the earth, I have seized upon many things in my life to bring me and my society alive and safe to our journey’s end. Early in my youth I became a strange passenger on a new, a subtle, a complex and untried craft, a new institutional matrix that had just been born as the tempest began to blow. Now, in the evening of my life, I have developed a style of writing which is not so much exotic as it is an amalgamation of styles in an effort to give expression to the wonderful and thrilling motion that had its inception in the earliest years of my life and is now permeating to all parts of the world. -Ron Price with thanks to 1ibid., p.79.

Long ago I broke out of my
hereditary social framework
in which I could not live and
have my being, in which my
creative powers simply could
not breath, dwell and survive
and I set myself into a new
framework in which my powers
insensibly found and were offered,
an outlet, a goal, a task, to help
bring into being a Wondrous Vision,
the brightest emanation of any man’s
mind and the fairest fruit of the fairest
civilization the world has yet seen.

The powerful operations of the
titanic upheaval of my time have
slowly become comprehensible
to the generations of the half-light.
They see its genesis, its direction,
its necessity, its mysterious processes
and they try to mitigate its fury
while anticipating with undimmed
vision the fears and hopes
it must necessarily engender.1

1 Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come, 2nd Indian Edition, 1976, p.2.

Ron Price
April 25th 2006.

But it's still considered to be a cult though, right?

Are you saying this is a cult?

I am not aware of your beliefs and am unsure if you are saying this is a cult movement.

Could you please be more specific in what you are saying, please?

What is the definition of a cult? We are naturally all seekers in this world as what it has to offer is unfulfilling.

There is more to life than our present form, from what I have seen here, there are many disillusioned people blaming 'cults' for their problems.

In reality, these people are to blame as they have no conviction and put the onus back on those who have tried to help them advance spiritually.

Would you consider that a fair comment?

Jessica :wink:

Jessica, a philosphical point here:just as people can find spiritual fulfilment through organized religion, perhaps there is also room for people to find fulfilment without needing someone to interpret God for them?
perhaps for some people the dissillusionment is part of the spiritual advancement of being able to find out for themselves what they believe?For some people, finding themselves requires letting go of other peoples interpretations ( which can be quite scary..)
Just another possible way of looking at things..
From your profile wondered if you have ?left the board but wanted to wish you happiness and fulfilment in whatever spiritual path works best for you.

Me too. I was reading this and i don't get the point. I've only met like one B'hai in my life, and he wanted me to visit something called a sipher or something.

As they do not have a leader, I do not think they are a cult. RRModerator can correct me if I am wrong.

However, they do have some tendencies that remind me of cults. I was invited to a fireside years ago, but the way my friend kept talking of "the Bab" and Baha'is scared me off.
[www.skepticfiles.org]

Quote

Baha'is often claim that
Baha'u'llah was imprisoned most of his
life. He was in exile and was not free
to leave Akka, but for the most of his
stay in Akka he was free to move about
and owned palaces and gardens that were
purchased with funds supplied by his
followers in Iran and other countries.
Baha'u'llah's claim to be God put
him under the difficult pressure of
having to play and live up to that role
during the twenty-six years of his life
that followed. Contrary to his previous
custom, in Akka he lived largely in
seclusion. No One was allowed to visit
him except by special permission.
One write of this time wrote:
"each visitor was carefully prepared
for his audience with the Manifestation
of God. He was told that what he saw
when he came into the Divine Presence
would depend on what he was himself-If
he was a material person he would see
only a man, but if he was a spiritual
being he would see God. When his
expectations had been sufficiently
aroused, the pilgrim was led into the
presence of Baha'u'llah as was permitted
to gaze a few moments upon the "Blessed
Perfection," care being taken that the
visitation should end before the spell
was broken...Baha'u'llah, however, did
not encourage the Bah'is in their desire
to visit him.. there was too great a
risk of their seeing and hearing things
in Akka which might weaken their faith.
There was a saying among the Baha'is of
Iran that 'whosoever went to Akka lost
his faith.'"

They also have a two branch set of government, the elected and the appointed. All adult Bahai can participate in elections. At least that is how I have seen it. I remember my friend having to leave a lunch date early one week so she could go to participate in the election.

The appointed, according to Wikipedia, do not have "temporal" leadership.

I think this also prevents them from being a cult.

[en.wikipedia.org]

I am just wondering, who gets to determine if a group is cult or not? What are some guide lines? I mean, Moonies wouldn't admit that they are cult... Who gets to officially "declare" this?

See [www.culteducation.com]

Let me post a series of items to establish the "non-cult status of the Baha'i Faith."-Ron Price, Tasmania
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The disastrous outcome of the events surrounding Waco, Texas, and the Branch Davidians in 1993 was both shocking and terrifying to the American nation. For many, the horror of this terrible event -- and others like it -- has fostered skepticism and fear of any new or unfamiliar religious group. Moreover, this fear is clearly not unwarranted. For, in contrast to the vast majority of nations, the United States is a highly fertile breeding ground for destructive cults. This is the case for four main reasons. First, since the 1960s, many Americans have abandoned traditional forms of religion. Second, there is a legal separation of church and state, and great religious freedom and diversity in the population. Third, there are vast amounts of open space in the United States where people can live in relative isolation. And fourth, the established institutions of the United States -- schools, governments, and families -- are "hard put to provide the emotional security and intimate social support and love sought by many people in our complex society." :arrow:

Various studies have established five defining characteristics of a destructive cult: 1.) a leader demanding total authority, 2.) the use of "controlling" techniques, 3.) social and physical isolation, 4.) extreme or fanatical behavior, and 5.) secrecy and deception. A critical examination of the Bahai Faith shows that it does not embody any of these characteristics. The Bahai Faith also does not exhibit the same growth pattern as that of destructive cults -- i.e. while cults almost invariably reached their height during the cult leader's life time and sharply declined or disappeared after his death, the Bahai Faith experienced tremendous growth in the absence of any single leader. Therefore, the Bahai Faith should be classified not as a destructive cult but rather as a non-destructive religious organization.

I will write more here, but first I will await the responses to these two posts.-Ron Price. :arrow: