[bahaicultfaq.blogspot.com]

1. Baha'i Faith
[www.sourcewatch.org]


2. Baha'i Internet Agency
[www.sourcewatch.org]

3. An Episcopalian view of Baha'ism [www.episcopalcafe.com]

&
Baha’i The New World Religion of The NWO
[merahza.wordpress.com]

&

Carroll Quigley THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT
[www.scribd.com]


4. Then see,
SECTS OF BAHAIS: A Taxonomy of Baha'i Sects, [www.sectsofbahais.com]


&


5. Documentary film by independent Israeli film maker Naama Pyritz:

BAHA'IS IN MY BACKYARD
[video.google.com]



6. LAWSUIT

Comment: Larger Haifan Baha'i organization sues smaller Orthodox Baha'i faith for trademark infringement on the name Baha'i and loses.

US NSA vs OBF (Orthodox Baha'i Faith)
Regarding the court victory by the Orthodox Baha'is, and the suit brought by the Haifan Bahai organization against them:

[trueseeker.typepad.com]


Judge's decision
[www.truebahai.info]

OBF/BUPC appeals victory Haifan organization loss
[www.ca7.uscourts.gov]

-
7. BAHAI Tactics & Techniques
[www.fglaysher.com]

"Slanderous Vilification" = The Baha'i Technique - Ad Hominem, Libel, Slander, Demonize, Scapegoat, Ostracize, Shun, Banish, Backbite, Defame, Vilify, Discredit, Smear, Revile, Suppress, Attack, Bully, Intimidate, Threaten, Malign, Blackball, Deceive, Coerce, Silence, Harass... etc., etc.... CAUTION NON-BAHAIS


1. As far as possible they hold back from responding
2. Then they claim no knowledge of the given issue by feigning ignorance
3. After the exposer has exposed they will try to divert to secondary and totally peripheral and irrelevent side-issues
4. The exposer is then painted as someone with an axe to grind, biased, deluded (while they, the bahaim, still have not responded to the main issue exposed)
5. Next they relate mental instability and insanity to the exposer, i.e. shoot the messenger
6. Then, the last tactic, is to wheel out several dubious personas on the scene who claim to be neutral non-bahai observers who then begin attacking the exposer as well as the issue exposed while supporting the bahais and their issues as so-called non-bahais

Quote

[www.fglaysher.com]
Professor Juan Cole, University of Michigan, June 12, 1998:

"Let me ask you why in the world you think that I would risk my professional reputation by publicly stating falsehoods? ...The very technique of the more glaze-eyed among these people is to unbearably bully a Baha'i whom they don't like, use unjustified threats of declaring him or her a CB [Covenant Breaker (heretic)] to silence the individual, and if the person will not be silenced, then to depend upon the gullibility of the Baha'is in refusing to listen to any victim's story because, of course, the Baha'i institutions are infallible and divinely guided and could never do anything wrong. It is a perfect racket. Of course, this technique of making liberals go away has been enormously successful, and ex-Baha'i liberals have no credibility with the remaining Baha'is nor do most of them have any energy to continue to make a case, either to the Baha'is or the outside world, for the incredible abuses that go on inside this organization ostensibly committed to tolerance!"
[www.fglaysher.com]

Professor Juan Cole, February 23, 1999:
"There is nothing to be puzzled by. Right wing Baha'is only like to hear the sound of their own voices (which are the only voices they will admit to being "Baha'i" at all). Obviously, the world is so constructed that they cannot in fact only hear their own voices. They are forced to hear other voices that differ from theirs. This most disturbs them when the voices come from enrolled Baha'is or when the voices speak of the Baha'i faith. The way they sometimes deal with the enrolled Baha'is is to summon them to a heresy inquiry and threaten them with being shunned if they do not fall silent. With non-Baha'is or with ex-Baha'is, they deal with their speech about the faith by backbiting, slandering and libelling the speaker. You will note that since I've been on this list I have been accused of long-term heresy, of "claiming authority," of out and out lying (though that was retracted, twice), of misrepresentation, of 'playing fast and loose with the facts,' and even of being 'delusional.' I have been accused of all these falsehoods by *Baha'is*, by prominent Baha'is. I have been backbitten by them. This shows that all the talk about the danger a sharp tongue can do, all the talk about the need for harmony, for returning poison with honey, for a sin-covering eye, is just *talk* among right wing Baha'is. No one fights dirtier than they when they discover a voice they cannot silence and cannot refute....
[www.fglaysher.com]


BAHAI TACTICS according to Henry Tad
[groups.google.com.au]


8: THEORY OF BAHA’I LYING & EQUIVOCATION


See Susan Stiles Maneck,
[bahai-library.com]
WISDOM AND DISSIMULATION IN THE BAHA’I WRITINGS: The Use and meaning of Hikmat in the Baha’i Writings


QUOTE

"In many cases hikmat calls for the apparent suspension of a Bahá'í principle in order to ensure the protection of the Faith."

Comment: In other words Baha'is may lie under any circumstance to ensure the protection of their organizational cohesiveness.


See as well,

Haifan Baha'is lied about the late Ayatollah Montazeri's 2008 fatwa
[montazerifatwabahai.blogspot.com]

-

9: BAHA'I ADMINISTRATIVE STALINISM

See Critique of Baha'i Administration (defunct as of 2006)
[bahaiadmin.blogspot.com]


QUOTE

"We don't want to be like those people who want to see God with their own eyes, or hear His melody with their own ears, because we have been given the gift of being able to see through the eyes of the House of Justice and listen through the ears of the House of Justice." - Bahai Counselor Rebeque Murphy

To hear this section of her talk go to:
[media1.bahai.us]...
(Link now defunct)

[bahai-library.com]
THE INSTITUTION OF THE COUNSELLORS
A Document Prepared by the Universal House of Justice
January 29 2001


Quote

Protection of the Cause (pp. 15-16)

Although deepening the friends' understanding of the Covenant and increasing their love and loyalty to it are of paramount importance, the duties of the Auxiliary Board members for Protection do not end here. The Board members must remain ever vigilant, monitoring the actions of those who, driven by the promptings of ego, seek to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of the friends and undermine the Faith. In general, whenever believers become aware of such problems, they should immediately contact whatever institution they feel moved to turn to, whether it be a Counsellor, an Auxiliary Board member, the National Spiritual Assembly or their own Local Assembly. It then becomes the duty of that institution to ensure that the report is fed into the correct channels and that all the other institutions affected are promptly informed. Not infrequently, the responsibility will fall on an Auxiliary Board member, in coordination with the Assembly concerned, to take some form of action in response to the situation. This involvement will include counselling the believer in question; warning him, if necessary, of the consequences of his actions; and bringing to the attention of the Counsellors the gravity of the situation, which may call for their intervention. Naturally, the Board member has to exert every effort to counteract the schemes and arrest the spread of the influence of those few who, despite attempts to guide them, eventually break the Covenant.

The need to protect the Faith from the attacks of its enemies may not be generally appreciated by the friends, particularly in places where attacks have been infrequent. However, it is certain that such opposition will increase, become concerted, and eventually universal. The writings clearly foreshadow not only an intensification of the machinations of internal enemies, but a rise in the hostility and opposition of its external enemies, whether religious or secular, as the Cause pursues its onward march towards ultimate victory. Therefore, in the light of the warnings of the Guardian, the Auxiliary Boards for Protection should keep "constantly" a "watchful eye" on those "who are known to be enemies, or to have been put out of the Faith", discreetly investigate their activities, alert intelligently the friends to the opposition inevitably to come, explain how each crisis in God's Faith has always proved to be a blessing in disguise, and prepare them for the "dire contest which is destined to range the Army of Light against the forces of darkness".

--

Letter of US NSA to Dann May & Phyllis Bernard and their response (2006)
[usnsadannmayresponse.blogspot.com]
--

10: BAHA’I CONTROL ON THEIR ELECTORAL SYSTEM – EXPOSED (Structural features of Bahai Stalinism) (2009)
[groups.google.com.au]

Part 2 (2010)
[groups.google.com.au]

-


11: BAHAI NOTIONS of FREEDOM of CONSCIENCE according to EX-UHJ member DOUGLAS MARTIN -- Monday, September 23, 2001

[www.fglaysher.com]


Quote

"We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha'i belief. In the end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is supreme is equivalent to "taking partners with God" which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith."
[www.bahai-library.org]

-
12: NOTE especially, S.G. Wilson,
BAHAISM AND RELIGIOUS ASSASSINATION The Muslim World vol. 4, issue 4, 1914.

&

BAHAISM AND RELIGIOUS DECEPTION The Muslim World, Volume 5, Issue 2,1914-1915.
at,
[wahidazal66.googlepages.com]


-
13: BAHA'I SCAM-ARTISTRY & FRAUD IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: A Multi-Milliard Rial Scam By A Baha’i Company in Dubai
[groups.google.com.au]# (2009)


14: FBI raids office of Baha’i at Univ. Florida (2009)
[groups.google.com.au]

15: BAHAI BUSINESS PRACTICES IN THE USA (2004)
[groups.google.com.au]#

16: BAHAI INCEST CASE IN PERU (2003-2004)
[gaybahai.yuku.com]

&

BAHAI INCEST CASE IN IRAN (2009)
[in.reuters.com]



17: BAHAI SPY RING IN INDIA BUSTED
[bahaispyringnusted.blogspot.com]

Also see,
NEW Era, Panchgani
-

Note
18: Baha'u'llah (the Baha'i founder) On the Critics of the Cause


In
Ma'idih-i-Asmani, vol. 4, page 355
[reference.bahai.org]


Translation by Wahid Azal (Jan. 7, 2009)


QUOTE



Chapter 11


The Critics of the Cause of God (munkirin-i-amru'llah)


The Ancient Beauty in the Tablet of Habib from Maragha, which begins with "H B hear the call of God from the direction of the throne by the protective signs/verses (bi-ayati muhayyimin)..etc." they [i.e. Husayn 'Ali Nuri] enunciate the command (mi-farmayand) [i.e. state],


By God, the Truth, whomsoever criticizes it [i.e. Baha'ism], [which is] possessed of the manifest, the brilliant, the high and the perspicuous excellence, it behoveth him to ask his mother [yanbaghi lahu bi-an yas'al min ummihi] about his origins [or 'state', i.e.'hal', meaning he should inquire his mother about his legitimate conception – trans.], for he shall return to the nethermost hell [asfal al-jahim]"…


In Promulgation of Universal Peace p. 322 the following is quoted by 'Abbas Effendi from a prayer by his father, cf. THE BAHA'I FAITH AND ISLAM (ed.) Heshmat Moayyad (The Association for Baha'i Studies: Ottawa, 1990), p.23

Quote


O God! Whomsoever violates My Covenant, O God, humiliate him. Verily whosoever violates My Covenant, erase and efface him.

-

19: Note Dr Sa'eed Khan on the Baha'is he knew

From Mission Problems in New Persia, 1926, p. 83, 87 & 89 quoted by William McElwee Miller in The Baha'i Faith: It's History and Teachings, 1973, p. 289.

Quote

"...There is no conscience with them [ i.e. the Baha'is], they keep to no principle, they tell you what is untrue, ignoring or denying undoubted historical facts, and this is the character of both the leader and the led...As to morality and honesty, the whole system has proved disappointing...I have been in contact with many Baha'is, and have had dealings with many and have tested many, and unfortunately I have met not a single one who could be called honest or faithful in the full sense of these words..."


Dr Sa'eed Khan [was] a highly-respected physician...who had as a doctor treated the second widow of the Bab, and had for a lifetime known intimately both Babis [i.e. Bayanis] and Baha'is in Tehran and Hamadan.
-

20: BAHAISM AND THE BRITISH Government

[bahaisandbritannia.googlepages.com]

1. (Top Secret) British Government Foreign Countries Report (no.56)
16th November 1921


2. APPRECIATION OF THE ATTACHED EASTERN REPORT NO. LXX (May 1918)


Then see,


HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI by Robert Dreyfuss (New Benjamin Franklin House:
New York, 1980) pp.117-118 (Pdf pages 73-74)


[www.wlym.com]


&


[www.archive.org]


...Today the Bahai cult is hated in Iran, and is considered correctly to be an arm of the British Crown. During the destabilization of the Shah in 1978, it was widely reported that in several instances the Bahai cult secretly funded the Khomeini Shi’ite movement. In part, the money would have flowed through the cult’s links to the same international ‘human rights’ organizations, such as Amnesty International, that originally sponsored the anti-Shah movement in Iran. These movements also derive from the “one world” currents associated with the Bahais since the early 1900s. (If any Iranians have been misled on the question of the Bahais by the supposed antipathy of Khomeini’s clique to the Bahais, it should be noted that the Bahai cultists often deliberately encouraged anti-Bahai activities as camouflage)...


Also see pp. 115-116 (Pdf page 72)


Note as well,
[books.google.com]...


Reference:
PALESTINE


EDITED BY : HARRY CHARLES LUKE, B.Lr1r., M.A.


ASSISTANT GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM AND EDWARD KEITH-ROACH ASSISTANT CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF PALESTINE


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
The Right Hon. SIR HERBERT SAMUEL, P.C., G.B.E.
HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR PALESTINE


Issued under the Authority of the Government of Palestine


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1922

Quote


"...Sir 'Abbas Effendi 'Abdu'l Baha had travelled extensively in Europe and America to expound his doctrines, and on the 4th December, 1919, was created by King George V. a K.B.E. for valuable services rendered to the British Government in the early days of the Occupation....."

See,
Wellesley Tudor Pole
[en.wikipedia.org]

&

[gothicimage.co.uk]

-

21: Online Books to look at

William McElwee Miller THE BAHA'I FAITH: It's History and Teachings
[www.fglaysher.com]


Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, BROKEN SILENCE
[www.fglaysher.com]


Vance Salisbury, AN EXAMINATION OF SUPPRESSION AND DISTORTION IN 20th-CENTURY BAHA'I LITERATURE
[bahai-library.org]


-

22: Washington based US Baha'i Lobbyists

From Government's end: why Washington stopped working by Jonathan Rauch, 1999, pg 41-42.


Quote

"A sign of the times was the opening of the Baha'i religion's Washington lobbying office in July 1987, complete with a staff of four and a budget of $400,000 - a telling moment, because the Baha'i faith requires its members to abstain from politics. When I peaked through the Baha'is window one day, the only remarkable feature of their Washington office was that it looked exactly like every other Washington office."

[groups.google.com]


-

23: THE TAHERI FILES
[taherifiles.blogspot.com]


-

24: Naser Emtesali's SCRIBD controversial Baha'i documents page [www.scribd.com]

&

[bahaism.blogspot.com]

-

25: Interesting conversation with a Muslim convert regarding Bahaism (early 2010)

[groups.google.com.au]#
-

26: The Haifan Baha'i Agenda for Iran spelled out
[haifanbahaiagendairan.blogspot.com]
-

27: Draconian Ugandan Law supported by Fundamentalist Christians, Fundamentalist Muslims and BAHA'IS (2009)
[www.guardian.co.uk]
&
[www.iranian.com]
-
28: The Tahirih (in)Justice Center

"Female Circumcision & the Tahirih Justice Center" - by Mike Barker
[www.swans.com]

&

TAHIRIH JUSTICE EXPOSED (TJC): Shocking new details of the IRS complaint
[www.online-dating-rights.com]


See especially, IMBRA and Tahirih Justice Center
[www.online-dating-rights.com]

-

29: ALLBELIEFS site controlled by the BAHAI INTERNET AGENCY: BEWARE!
[bahaism.blogspot.com]


-
30: Bayanic.Com
[www.bayanic.com] [CLICK tab BAHAISM]

& [theprimalpoint.com] (mirror site)

This was posted concerning a B group in Haifa.

[bahaimirage.wordpress.com]

Quote

Is the Baha’i Faith a cult? Baha’i leaders as well as rank-and-file Baha’is vigorously deny the charge. My own view, from reading the stories of many ex-Baha’is and talking Groups in the website is that the Haifa-based Baha’i Faith organization falls into a gray area on the borderline of cult status.It has many telltale characteristics of the controlling religious organizations known popularly as “cults,” but it is not as bad as the worst of them. In fact, some Baha’is can exist comfortably in the Baha’i Faith for a long time before they realize their religion is anything other than the slick Baha’i rhetoric says it is. Perhaps this is because Baha’i leadership does not use extreme pressure to force Baha’is to be much more involved than they want to be.

But spend enough time and become involved enough in the Baha’i Faith, and most believers will eventually realize they were deceived when they joined and have been deceived ever since by an authoritarian hierarchy that hides behind pleasant-sounding rhetoric of peace, love and unity, and uses subtle tactics of manipulation to keep people in, active and obedient.

The underlying problem is that Baha’is are required to believe the Baha’i administrative order is infallibly guided by God in all its decisions.

This means that questioning or ignoring even the smallest statement of a Baha’i institution is tantamount to disobeying God Himself, and can bring accusations of “weakness in the Covenant” which is a harsh spritual judgment and veiled threat of discipline.Any Baha’i who openly criticizes any plan or policy of the administrative order (especially a “Plan” published by the UHJ) is regarded as a dangerous influence on “the Friends” and will be pressured by leadership to conform and remain silent, even if his or her ideas make sense. Slander and backbiting will often follow if the critic persists, followed by official discipline and sometimes culminating in expulsion or excommunication.

Quote

Steven Scholl says :

I received a letter from a Baha’i Continental Counsellor indicating that I was under threat of being declared a Covenant-breaker, the impact on me personally was less than on my family. My wife is a Baha’i as are many of her family members, . . . The very real threat of being declared a Covenant breaker meant my wife had to face the decision of joining me as a heretic or divorcing me so that she could maintain her relationships with her family and other lifelong friends. Since [my wife] had no intention of divorcing me, the choices then extended out to her family. Her sister would not refuse to socialize with us so she would automatically be declared a covenant breaker along with her husband and children. Many of my close Baha’i friends would also be faced with the decision of maintaining friendships or joining me as a heretic. The whole thing is absurd and quite medieval. But it does raise the issue which you point out so well; how anyone would want to belong to a group which is willing to act this way and be so cruel is beyond me. That is why I voluntarily left the religion. Not in order to escape punishment but because the Baha’i community had become such an unhealthy place spiritually. I was terribly saddened that my spiritual home of 25 years had turned into a prison and nightmare

And from the comments section


Reply
Dan Dandy said
September 9, 2010 at 10:13 am
There’s a Baha’i place of worship near where I live. Not once has a person on that property ever smiled or said hello as I walk my dog. What they do is glare. And when they have a service or meeting of some sort, your jaw will drop when you see the cars in the parking lot: all of them new and expensive models, clean as a whistle. There is not one single flaw to any of their cars. They strike me as mean, presumptuous, and materialistic.

Reply

Greg said
July 17, 2011 at 8:31 pm

I was raised in the Bahai Failth and I knew it was not good when I was about 9 years old, so I just kept my mouth shut and did what I was told until I was grown enough to leave the house. I enlisted in the USMC and never looked back. I was rescued from the Bahai Faith by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in 1996! The Bahai Faith is a Cult pure and simple. STAY AWAY from it.

The Tahirih documents are very interesting and show the byzantine connections by which such groups are funded and supported and who in the end benefits from their activities.

I am looking forward to reading the docs on the British Empire finangling, 400 years of diplomacy in the imperial economic interest produced some very slick operators.

I think that 'arm of the British Crown' might be a bit of a misnomer. The British were adept at funding and using various disgruntled parties to destabilise a particular regime for strategic purposes, but were equally adept at dropping their pawns once their usefulness was exhausted. The economic interests of Empire always came first.

[en.wikipedia.org]

A similar situation is that of T E Lawrence, a military intelligence officer who was instrumental in fomenting the Arab revolt against the Ottomans in Palestine--with the promised goal of an independent Arab state. The revolt was successful but the establishment of an independent state was overruled in the interests of retaining power in the region.

Tudor Pole, a more religiously inclined person, was similarly involved in the same project:

[en.wikipedia.org]

'During World War I, Tudor Pole served in the Directorate of Military Intelligence in the Middle East and was directly involved in addressing the concerns raised by the Ottoman threats against `Abdu'l-Bahá which ultimately required General Allenby altering his plans for the prosecution of the war in the Palestine theatre'

I very much doubt that Allenby's plans were much influenced by the tribulations of the Baha'i--his aim was territorial power and the overthrow of the Ottoman grip on the area, not the rescue of a tiny splinter sect, although that sect might have proved useful to him in furthering his long-range goals.
There is not much room for sentiment in strategic planning.


I don't doubt though that the Baha'i learned a trick or two from their involvement with the British realpolitik of the time, their adherents are reputed to be intelligent and well-informed people.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2011 04:39PM by Stoic.

This is valuable context. What Stoic is describing is one of very many 'Great Games'--diplomatic chess in which those used as pawns are not told they are pawns.

Its as old as empire and the US and Russia, whether Tsarist, Soviet, or ruled by Putin, do the same.

And this kind of background information-the historical/political context-- is something that potential converts need to include in their fact checking.

Which is hard to do since conversion is often so much a matter of emotion as in the early stages of a love afffair--it feels obscene to imagine running a fact check or bothering to learn about the background historical and political context of the sect you're being wooed to join.

But if a convert fails to learn the history of his or her sect, including how it was seen and used by secular Great Powers during ages of empire---that convert and his or her family and descendants risk being used as pawns in empire building of other kinds--fiscal, social and political.

And that's not spirituality. That's the realm of ego.

One can be told 'Oh, stay out of politics and concentrate on your prayers and good deeds.'

The Orthodox monks of Russia did that and ended being killed or forced into exile when the Revolution they ignored came and tore their doors down.

And as indicated by sources above, it appears that if one begins to disagree with how the sect is run, one risks being shunned and losing all ones family and friendship connections--a kind of death in life.

Former Mormons can tell you how painful this process is.

Hi,

I am glad I recently found this board while searching for info on the Baha’i Faith.
Point No.7 as listed above is probably what best describes what happened in a Baha’i group in Australia (I am not sure I am allowed to say in which town). And yes, I did write to the Australian representatives, but of course they didn’t reply. I had written to them because I had read a sad story about some of their members abusing a disabled person and telling her she should be "put down". Apart from telling her she should be put down, they told her she is not worthy of love or anything, they mocked her disability, and even told her that her mother was right in abusing her. They seem to have destroyed her self-esteem and to have caused great emotional damage (I have talked to her a couple of times via email, although I don’t want to put her under pressure, particularly now just before Christmas, which she said is the most difficult period of the year for her).

Apparently one of the offenders was actually better in the beginning, but their brainwashing had probably its toll on him. He said for example that he has to do everything his wife says and that he cannot contradict her because these are the Baha’i laws/rules concerning marriage. (His wife is also a Baha’i.) Now I don’t know of course if he misinterpreted something, but his blind obedience speaks for itself (they instil fear into members if they do something wrong). He also used to fast himself to death during certain periods of the year because these were the rules, and she said that during such periods he became particularly irritable, so what is the use of telling people to fast if it makes them worse instead of better anyway? Apparently at some stage he had also confessed to the Assembly (not sure what it is) his wrong behaviour towards the disabled person, but less than a week later he became even worse. They (his family) also refused to have their own brother in their house just before he died because they said he was an old man in a wheelchair and stank. And then they preach that we are One World. Anyway, this is not an attack against the Baha’i Faith per se or all of its members, maybe they are just "bad apples", but their failure to properly handle this case is certainly to their discredit.

As I said above, the victim seems to have suffered great emotional damage, in particular because she really believed in one of them (the one who initially was better), but they are not doing anything at all, although they know (no remorse, no responsibility, let alone help or having a chat, nothing at all), probably because she is not a Baha’i.
Years ago I lost a very important person in my life to a sect, so I feel involved. Unfortunately I am visiting people overseas over the Christmas period and I am leaving in less than 10 days, so there is not much more I can do right now to help (I am already making arrangements because I will be away for a few weeks), but when I come back I hope I can give her more practical advice. Thanks for reading.

Mark

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

Quote

One little example: a beloved Counselor came to our home and (presumably projecting because her husband was not being ideal to her) lectured me about being nice to my wife! I won’t make a list of complaints, but many of our Bahai friends have, at some point, repeated an interesting theme: “if they had treated me the way they have treated you, I would have quit!”

Entire article here on a blog entitled 9 Guys in Haifa

Quote

Why did they call Bahá’u’lláh “the Father of the Poor”?15 Sep Okay, the easy answer is that, being immensely wealthy, He went around his vast land holdings doing Agrarian Reform – giving land away to the people who were working it. From this period is the story about Abdu’l-Baha, who went on one of these trips in representation of his Father, and ended up giving his Father’s sheep to the shepherds!

Just as the Báb set us an interesting business precedent when, as a merchant, he gave the owner more than He had sold the fellow’s cloth for, because at one point the price went that high (when a Bahai tells you “business is business”, send him or her back to study this lesson!) Bahá’u’lláh sets us an example: He must have known that all His possessions would be taken away from Him, and this may have intensified His generosity. Well, won’t all our stuff go to someone else as soon as we depart from this world, too?

Anyway, Bahá’u’lláh definitively redistributed wealth, giving working-class people ownership of their means of livelihood. Abdul-Baha, in prison, also partnered with a lot of people who didn’t have much hope of getting ahead, setting them up for their small businesses.

We are now witnessing a worldwide push to turn the croplands of the world back into haciendas – the big plantations owned and bossed by rich owners and tended to by de facto slaves. The authorities are happy to encourage this re-concentration of ownership of land and the water rights to make it produce – after all, the rich agribusiness companies are more likely to reciprocate significantly for this giving away of public land, watered by projects that dispossess the small farmers who have always fed us all. The term is “land grabbing” and it goes hand in hand with “water grabbing”.

The scholars observing this process of disenfranchisement have pointed out that there are several levels / echelons at which this disempowerment takes place:

(1) the seizure of water and other resources per se; (2) influencing the contents of rules and rights; (3) conflict over who has legitimate authority to manage and govern water; and (4) the capacity to dominate discourse to defend particular water systems and policies. (‘Echelons of Rights Analysis’, also see Boelens and Zwarteveen 2005; Boelens 2009)

So, to paraphrase: (1) stealing, (2) claiming it’s okay to steal, (3) saying that’s okay because “I say so”, and (4) changing the way we define “stealing” so we now call it “improving”.

What – you may well ask – does that have to do with the theme of this blog?

I would suggest that we are witnessing these four levels of chicanery in the reallocation of power, influence, authority, and freedom within the Bahai Faith.

The numbers will make my argument easy to follow:

(1) Our numerous authorities are continually assuming the right to say “this is right / this is wrong”.

(2) They then point out that this is the way it should be, because it’s their role to make these decisions for the rest of us.

(3) This assertion leads to desertion: the supposedly unerring source messed up, I’m outahere!

(4) The whole question of whether one can discuss this issue is proscribed!

Let’s look a little closer at each:

I. Why do I say “numerous authorities”? A Christian has, say, the Old and New Testament, the Pope or whoever heads their denomination, and their priest or minister. Other religions have the equivalent hierarchy. In my religion, which we go around claiming has no priesthood, has a pile of authorities:

all the other religions, since we believe in them all.
what the Báb said, did and wrote, though our information may be limited.
what Bahá’u’lláh said, did and wrote – in my blog post on “oppression” I have already expressed the wish that we had more information there.
Abdu’l-Baha’s sayings, deeds and writings.
those of Shoghi Effendi.
The correspondence and published communications from the 9 Guys in Haifa.
The regular publications they sponsor (Ruhi workbooks with excerpts, blurbs and someone’s interpretations / summaries, “Bahai International Community” booklets that are also some nameless group of people doing what they are told to do).
our non-clergy: Counselors, Auxiliary Board members, and assistants.
the rest of our non-clergy: National Spiritual Assemblies and their members, the Regional Councils we have just invented and their members, and Local Spiritual Assemblies and their members.
Different Bahais will stop at different points on their way down this list. For example, I take all the religion-Founders’ Teachings in their context rather than literally, and obviously this blog is because I don’t slavishly obey ANY of the rest of it – and I think most of them would do well to pull up their socks a little on most of what they are saying, doing and writing!

So, here is the first level of push-and-shove between my right to believe and act, and different levels of imposition: a Bible- / Bayán- / Aqdas- / etc.-thumper, or just the opinion of our beloved leaders. (It is now fashionable, in our country anyway, not to mention our non-clergy without saying “beloved” first!).

II. “But you’re supposed to believe without questioning!” – here we have the beginning of this infallibility issue. A “good Bahai” (oops! I just counted myself out!) is supposed to take all of the above unquestioningly! Even the ones that are not supposedly “infallible” are to be given the benefit of the doubt, and we follow the decision whether we like it or not to see what will happen.

But that’s not the scariest part. My friends who are good Bahais are now repeating a phrase that is being drilled into them through study activities and publications: “obedience to the institutions”. If you could listen to all the conversations and log phrases referring to praiseworthy virtues, I’m sure that this would come out as the one most-mentioned, our number one Bahai virtue!

They did a study some years ago, correlating a culture’s tendency to obey orders, and their aviation accident records. They asked the person on the street: “what would you do if your superior ordered you to do something you thought was wrong?” and they scored their answers on a continuum between “I would obey, of course” and “I would object, of course”. Obedience correlates with death: the more obedient a culture, the more airplanes they crash – for obvious reasons! (Two heads are better than one, no one is always right, even if they are the boss, etc.)

III. Now we get to the worst part of the infallibility bog-down: the circular reasoning that we must believe and obey the beloved whoever, because they say we must! You hear an argument bandied around a lot, by supposedly educated people, comparing one’s religious beliefs with choosing a doctor: you find one you like, then you do what he or she prescribes.

Great! – let’s explore the analogy: if I happen to know, for example, a lot more about nutrition than my doctor does, do I still have to follow the doctor’s dietary recommendations unquestioningly? If the doctor has saved my life dozens of times, does that mean I relinquish my right to ever wonder what the next prescription is for? Once I choose one doctor, can I never ask any other doctors, and never do any research on my own?

In other words, is choosing a doctor necessarily the equivalent of giving up on ever asking any questions? In the case of the Bahai Faith, I pray to Bahá’u'lláh every day – does this mean I can’t question anything?

Or even understand things more than one way?

One little example: Bahá’u’lláh said a number of nice things about kingship (although He also said power had been seized from kings). I personally think human society must free ourselves of royalty everywhere. This is like one of Abdu’l-Baha’s “Candles of Unity” for me – I think society will actually have come of age when the last country sends its royalty out to find a real job.

Having “accepted Bahá’u’lláh”, does this mean I have to change my mind about royal parasitism, triviality and excesses? Or can’t I assume that He was being polite about the kings there have been, and we can soon mature to the point where “king / queen” is a concept, but no longer an oversizedbudget item. (By the way, people go around saying “I accepted Bahá’u’lláh” – I think it’s the other way round: He accepted me.)

IV. Let me repeat again: even if my resistance to swallowing other people’s version of my religion made me a “covenant-breaker”, it would be okay for a good Bahai to read this. The 9 Guys in Haifa have written at least two published letters saying it is all right for Bahais to read what CBs have written. But how many people know that?

This brings us to the shunning business, which effectively says that if anyone should veer slightly away from the party line, they must be left out: change the subject, remonstrate with them about “obedience to the institutions”, leave and report them to the non-clergy…

I think the mainstream organization of my religion is too square. The numerous authorities pick on anyone with an opinion and, in too many cases, if the people with different ways of thinking don’t self-select and move on to more tolerant company, they are ousted, excommunicated, and ostracized. I am officially a Bahai in good standing, and have had to put up with a lot.

One little example: a beloved Counselor came to our home and (presumably projecting because her husband was not being ideal to her) lectured me about being nice to my wife! I won’t make a list of complaints, but many of our Bahai friends have, at some point, repeated an interesting theme: “if they had treated me the way they have treated you, I would have quit!”

Nope, they’ll have to throw me out.

Or … they’ll have to:

1. Stop laying down a highly questionable single party line, in over a dozen different areas.

2. Acknowledge that rules and beliefs are going to evolve anyway, and that they will not be modified only by central ukase.

3. Participate politely in that evolution, whereby those “governed” may have a hand in the governance, rather than imagine an unbroken line of straight-from-God authority, and

4. Enable freedom of expression, simple as that.

Again, Bahá’u'lláh bore chains to free us of ours – He was the Father of the Poor! And he defines “oppression” as keeping people from learning and growing.

We have a Bahai friend who claims he must have been the first Sabean to become a Bahai. What’s a Sabean? You will have seen it on lists some Bahais like to print (Shoghi Effendi said almost 100 years ago that this was incorrect) showing “The Bahai Faith is the Ninth Great World Religion”. To get nine, these lists resurrect Sabeanism (rather than the Jains, Taoists, or whatever).

Anyway, if you ask him what Sabeanism teaches, he will tell you “nobody knows, it’s too old” – but they have some legends about water. For example, in the future, rivers will flow to the mountain rather than the other way round. (He takes this to be a prophecy about Mount Carmel!)

Water is important. Jesus used the symbol of bread rather than the more liquid and watery symbol of wine / blood for His Teachings, but the way we enable people to water their crops – including the flower gardens in their hearts and minds – will make a difference, and we have to work on getting it right!

Share this:TwitterFacebook
Like this:LikeBe the first to like this.
Tags: Bahai Teachings, human-rights, infallibility, religion, religious leadership, shun, shunning, Unitarian Bahai

Comments 4 Comments Categories Baha'i, Bahai, Bahá'í

Reply (name omitted)September 19, 2012 at 11:56 am #
My spouse and I stumbled more than right here different site and believed I must check things out.

Reply
amadodedios September 20, 2012 at 8:15 pm #
Good! One time when Abdul-Baha was listing his Father’s special new Teachings, he started with Unity. Next, he mentioned “independent investigation of truth” (as you say, “checking things out”!) and added that, although he listed it second, it is really the most important principle of all!

Reply lån penge online September 30, 2012 at 3:03 am #
Useful info. Lucky me I discovered your web site by chance, and I am stunned why this coincidence did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.

Baha'is are the most aggressive proselytizers I've ever encountered. I haven't noticed them doing so in the US, but they do everything they can to gain entrance into other countries. The Baha'is sent Alaska Natives to Siberia after the USSR crashed, and very aggressively proselytized Baha'i among Native people wherever they could gain entrance. They will conceal the fact that they're Baha'i in order to get included in travel groups or cultural exchanges going to exotic locales, then as soon as they reach their destination, out comes all the literature, and the lecturing begins.

The Baha'is I've known tended to be very Messianic in nature, interpreting various natural cataclysms (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) as "signs" of various sorts. Concealing their affiliation with Baha'i, they infiltrate organizations of a wide variety among any ethnicity they can develop contacts with, and begin pushing a Baha'i agenda from within. I wouldn't say at all that this is a benign or harmless organization. They can be very insidious.

Quote

When Baha'i scriptures support scholarship, conservative administrators were quite mistrustful of what has been called "the culture of critical discourse" of these young intellectuals. There had been a few clashes between the two, even before the rise of cyberspace.

In the late '70s, some of them formed a study group in the Los Angeles area, putting out a small, local newsletter. This newsletter was effectively silenced when the National Spiritual Assembly insisted that it be subject to "prepublication review" -- a requirement for all publications by Baha'i writers when they address Baha'i subjects, even when the material is being sent to non-Baha'i publishers.

This review process, which Baha'i officials insist is not censorship, is resented by many Baha'i writers and intellectuals. The effect on the community at large is that before the popularity of the Internet in the '90s, few Baha'is had ever heard anything but "official" views concerning Baha'i issues.

Another attempt at getting unofficial views published in the community was the magazine Dialogue, which was published briefly in the mid-1980s. Although the editors and staff cooperated with the often cumbersome review process, the magazine was viewed with great suspicion by the National Spiritual Assembly.

At the 1988 National Convention, when delegates from around the country gathered to elect the next year's Assembly, External Affairs Secretary Firuz Kazemzadeh denounced a particular article slated for publication called A Modest Proposal and described those involved with the magazine as "dissidents". Faced with such hostility, and with their reputation thus ruined in the eyes of the community, the editors stopped publication. Several of those involved in the L.A. study group and Dialogue magazine were later active participants on the Talisman forum..
.

For the rest of this article, read here:

[www.angelfire.com]

Additional Google citations here:

[www.google.com]

Shunning

[www.google.com]

Former Baha'i

Material from former Baha'i

[www.google.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2015 10:01PM by corboy.

I think some groups do worship Baha'uallah - I went to one of their group meetings - not in a temple but in someone's home and a lady was singing a song to or about Baha'uallah - it was very pretty although I didn't understand all the lyrics. They also gave me a book written by Baha'ullah. Very peaceful group, very nice people.