Daily Observations of the Baha’i Faith in the Holy Land by Charles Mason Remey Second Baha’i Guardian, Volume Two

 

DAILY

OBSERVATIONS

OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH

MADE TO

THE HANDS OF THE FAITH

IN THE HOLY LAND

BY

MASON REMEY

VOLUME TWO

THE FIRST VOLUME OF

THESE FOUR VOLUMES OF

DAILY OBSERVATIONS OF THE BAHA’I FAITH,

MADE TO THE THEN HANDS OF THE FAITH

IN THE HOLY LAND,

WAS SENT TO THEM AS A SECRET DOCUMENT

FROM MASON REMEY, WRITTEN BY HIM AS A HAND OF THE CAUSE AND

THE PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL,

BUT BEFORE HE ISSUED TO ALL THE BAHA’I WORLD

THE PROCLAMATION OF

HIS GUARDIANSHIP OF THE FAITH

AND BEFORE HE, AS GUARDIAN OF THE CAUSE,

BROKE WITH THE HANDS THE PACT OF

SECRECY THAT HAD EXISTED BETWEEN

THE CUSTODIAN HANDS SINCE THE

FIRST BEHJE CONCLAVE

THESE SECOND, THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES OF THESE OBSERVATIONS

WERE NEVER SENT TO THE

CUSTODIANS IN THE HOLY LAND AND ARE HERE GIVEN

FOR THE FIRST TIME TO THE BAHA’I WORLD

IN THE YEAR 117 OF THE BAHA’I ERA

1960 A.D.

DAILY OBSERVATIONS

OF

THE BAHA’I FAITH

MADE TO

THE HANDS OF THE FAITH

IN

THE HOLY LAND

BY

MASON REMEY

VOLUME II

IN THE YEARS

114-117

OF THE BAHA’I ERA

DAILY OBSERVATIONS

OF

THINGS AND CONDITIONS

IN

THE BAHA’I FAITH

MADE TO

THE HANDS OF THE FAITH

IN

THE HOLY LAND

VOLUME II

BY

MASON REMEY

PRESIDENT OF THE BAHA’I INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL

AND

A HAND OF THE FAITH

114 – 117

OF THE BAHA’I ERA

1960

OBSERVATIONS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

STARTED IN NOVEMBER 1957

Twenty six of the twenty seven Hands of the Faith assembled in conclave in the great pillared hall of the Mansion of Behje in the early afternoon, after the reading of prayers, read the report of those of us who had searched in the Guardian’s rooms, and found no will and testament among his papers – such in a few words was our report.  Upon Ruhiyyih Khanym’s insistence no minutes of written records were kept of the proceedings of the conclave.  To me this seemed to be unwise; I felt that a record should be kept of this most important meeting of the Hands of the Faith but as no one made any objection to this procedure and as I myself was quite conditioned through my years of residence in Haifa to accept and to follow without question everything that Ruhiyyih Khanum told us to do – I therefore refrained from saying anything about this subject.  No one objected to her insistence in this matter so no records were taken.  There followed, as I remember, some talk upon the parts of a number of our members about inconsequential things and then the meeting was adjourned until the following morning.

Several of us, including myself, returned to Haifa for the night while the rest consisting of all of the Persian Hands remained the night at Behje where we who had gone to Haifa for the night met with them on the following morning. 

Following prayers and some mention of the Guardianship to the effect that no will or testament had been found in the safe or in the desk of Shoghi Effendi, Dr. Muhajir, the youngest of the Persian Hands, sprang to his feet proposing that the Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l Baha be pronounced BADAH and that the Guardianship be ended forever and closed forever.  This was immediately seconded and carried enthusiastically and supported by all the Persian Hands who spoke to the point supporting the putting aside for a thousand years (until the coming of the next Manifestation) the institution of the Guardianship – allowing that this next coming Manifestation might then possibly see fit to reestablish the Guardianship if he thought best in a thousand years from this present date – but as far as this dispensation was concerned that there should be no more Guardianship.

Each of the Persian Hands spoke supporting this motion – each repeating practically verbatim the same arguement so one could understand at first thought that they had talked it up and decided it all before hand.  This entire matter was so quickly done and its passage pressed and accomplished so quickly that it was very apparent that at some time during those night hours these Persian Hands at Behje had consulted together and made a covenant amongst themselves and had made this arrangement to pronounce the Guardianship BADAH and thus railroad the matter through and carry the day.  Furthermore Ruhiyyih Khanum concurred with this majority so their point was carried by the majority.

Subsequently in this conclave without abandoning their intention of no more Guardianship, these Hands decided that it would not do at that time to announce to the world their abandonment of the Guardianship since there would be many believers to whom this would be a great shock and disappointment; therefore it was decided in their Proclamation to the world that no mention was to be made of the word “Guardianship” but that their program of these Hands to elect by a popular democratic vote of the proletariat of the Faith a Universal House of Justice in 1963 that the majority agreed would be infallible and therefore being infallible, the House would then have infallibility Sans Guardian – thus they reasoned – the vast majority – and still do they reason thus no declaring this to the world. 

During all these proceedings I sat quietly remembering the vision I had had a few years before in which I had seen myself to be the Second Guardian of the Faith – this I had been thinking of a great deal since Shoghi Effendi’s death but I felt that of all the hundreds of millions of people upon the face of the earth that I was the very last one who should put forward or stand up for such.  In fact I sat there in the conclave praying silently to myself that there be nothing of the kind for me in that vision; nevertheless I had a feeling that there was something in it, thus my feelings were in the balance, as it were.

It was a few days after the close of the conclave that Ugo Giachery asked me why I had not stood out against the abolition of the Guardianship when the matter was under discussion in the conclave?  I couldn’t remember why.  I don’t remember what reply I made to him or what excuse I had made to him for doing as I did – confused as was my conception of the entire problem, but I do remember quite well that at that moment after the conclave, Ugo was not in favor of denying all hope of eventual Guardianship.  It was Ugo Giachery who then called my attention to the fact that the Persian Hands of the Faith who had between the first two days of the first conclave evidently came together in their own secret meeting that night at Behje and had made a covenant between themselves to pronounce the entire Guardianship BADAH and thus end for this dispensation all hopes of any Guardianship.

The plot on the part of the Persian Hands of the Faith, Ugo saw and explained it all to me – thus giving me my first picture of what really took place behind the scenes at the first Behje Conclave.

It was one year after that Ugo told me of these things that I took my first step before the Hands against the violation of the Hands of the Faith against the continuation of the Guardianship.  Up until that stand, my mind had been more or less confused over the entire situation.  I had thought nothing out to any conclusion of mine own, least of all I wanted to in any way push myself into any prominence in the discussion.

Such was my stand taken at that time and in this matter I have never departed from that stand then taken for beginning with that time whenever I had the opportunity I told the Hands of the Faith that they were violating the Blessed Master’s Will and Testament and all that they were doing was wrong and against all that the Beloved Guardian stood for and followed in the building up of the Administration of the Faith the world around.

As I have stated, this stand of  mine to which I have never departed was first suggested to me by Ugo Giachery’s remarks to me about this violation that was started by the Persian Hands of the Faith and has now finally attained the united support without question as attested to by the Hands of the Faith in their letter to the Baha’i world following their last Behje Conclave of November 1959.

In these three volumes of my “Daily Observations” will be seen that I had not only no ideas to how the Faith was to get a Second Guardian, nevertheless at all times I stood for the continuation of the Guardianship.  On many of these pages of “Observations” I was then under the erroneous impression that the Hands of the Faith could elect a Guardian in order to protect the Faith.  In my confused thought while living in Haifa as one of the nine Custodian Hands of the Faith I record in many places my urgance that the Hands arise and elect a Guardian.  It was later that I realized that I had been all wrong in making this suggestion, nevertheless I have reproduced these observations – then confused as I was – yet standing for the Administration and for the Guardianship of the Faith.

Ruhiyyih Khanum went down to Kampala for the 1958 conference there as planned by the Guardian and there at one of the meetings she announced that the Guardianship was BADAH and ended.  Then later in a meeting of the Hands here in Haifa she explained herself saying that she spoke on the spur of the moment and without thought and should not have announced this.  This slip of the tongue proved to me her inner conviction and thought for those who speak without thinking always say what they really think.

Through Ruhiyyih Khanum’s slip of the tongue – and possibly and even probably that of others of the Hands of the Cause – the Hands in America – Horace Holley and Paul Haney met with the American N.S.A. in Chicago and they issued a Manifesto that was circulated to a certain extent announcing definitely that the Guardianship was ended for this Dispensation of Baha’u’llah.  A copy of this got to Germany in some way and from there a copy was sent to Haifa, together with the word that this was soon to be sent out in printed form from the N.S.A. of the U.S.A.  This was not sent here to us in Haifa.  This, to Ruhiyyih Khanum and others was an unwise move and was a great shock to them and a cablegram was sent immediately to Horace saying not to circulate this document (it was already being set up in type) – thus at this eleventh hour this was thus forestalled.  However, the cat was out of the bag for the believers in some places and countries were upset and protesting.  In our meeting here of the Hands it was even suggested that any people in opposition in their views to those of the Hands in Haifa be expelled from the Faith without ado, but on reconsideration it was decided to ignore these voices from abroad.  In one instance in Latin America some friends who questioned this matter had their voting rights taken from them because of this stand.

When I left Haifa for Australia, Ruhiyyih Khanum instructed me to avoid and to squelch any discussion of any controversial subject that might come up in the conference at Sidney.  Although she did not mention the Guardianship in this connection, I knew this was what she had in mind.  This I did, but I kept my ears open although evading and avoiding this subject.

After one of the meetings in Sidney, Agnes Alexander came to me saying “But we no longer have need at all for a Guardian.  We have the Beloved Guardian now in the Abha Realms and from there He is directing us here upon earth”.  To this I replied nothing at all.

I had already noticed traces of this pernicious doctrine in the thoughts of Ruhiyyih Khanum and some of our Persian Hands!  Now some one or ones had planted those thoughts in the minds of Agnes Alexander.  She is a very dear but a very mentally slow woman.  She has little or no imagination so could never have evolved such a theory on her own.

Agnes is a most devoted soul to the cause.  She got the teaching of the Covenant from May Bolls in 1900 in Paris and she has stuck to this all of these years through thick and thin and under all conditions has been a pillar of the cause and now?  Someone has planted this Sans Guardian thought in her mind that is an axe at the root of the Faith and as a dagger in the heart of the body of the cause – the heart being the Guardianship!

Well!  Seeing how things were among the believers and not wishing to break unity of the Hands in the stand they had taken, I decided to avoid the question.  But not knowing what to teach the people I gave up any attempt at teaching for this time being and until we had a Second Guardian to confirm me in the teaching of the Administration.

In Washington I didn’t meet with the Baha’is as a group but certain ones told me things that were going about in people’s minds.  It was generally known that in Haifa there was disunion among the Hands.  This couldn’t be hidden.  Stanwood Cobb told me that in Green Acre there were those who welcomed the “overthrow of the Guardianship and all this aristocracy of the Hands of the Faith” that now with the overthrow of the Guardianship would as the Hands die off eventually produce a true democracy of the rule of the people in the Baha’i cause – such and other kindred heretical teachings were in the air at Green Acre that now as of old is always a place of religious debate and contest.  It was reported to me in Washington that a Persian Baha’i had come to America and told friends that there was a split between the Persia and the Occidental Hands over the Guardianship.

I returned to the Holy Land for the Second Behje Conclave determined to do what I could to save this Baha’i situation.  But because of my flash vision of some years back wherein I saw I was to be the Second Guardian of the Faith, thus being thoroughly convinced of the continuation of the Guardianship I felt that I of all the more than two billions of souls upon the earth should be the very last soul to bring up this subject – such was my thought.

The sessions of the Second Conclave were given over to the discussion of plans and ways and means for spreading the Faith without even a thought or a mention of WHAT WE WERE TO TEACH.  The first day in session, several of the Hands of the Cause were called aside in private to consider two letters and a telegram from Germany bringing up the matter of the Guardianship.  (These letters came from Dr. Ugo Schaefer and Eugen Schmidt.  I have since then spread them throughout the Baha’i world in a compilation “The Questions of the Guardianship”.)  It was decided to do nothing at all about these communications – so nothing was done.  The matter of the Guardianship was avoided – not even mentioned in the letter to the Baha’is of the world to be sent out to all National Assemblies from this conclave.

I sat there praying that someone other than I would take a stand for the continuation of the Guardianship, but no one arose.  All were united in not mentioning this matter of the Guardianship in our report to the Baha’i committee of the world.

When I saw and realized that no one but I would broach this subject I arose.  There were twenty five of us Hands in all and I was in defiance – one against a united twenty four!  They didn’t want to listen to me but out of a certain respect for the oldest man present they gave me a hearing.  There was a moment of question about this, but thereupon Ruhiyyih Khanum broke in and spoke up in favor of hearing me.

I didn’t mince matters but gave arguements for the necessity of the continuation of the Guardianship for the protection of the Faith that I will not go into again here since the various points I made are given in the other parts of this present writing.  I warned them surely this declaration that they were sending out would create more questions in the minds of a believers than it would solve but all to no avail.  In the end I was stopped on a parliamentary technicality that they had already passed on their message to the Baha’i world and it would be out of order for its reconsideration.  Again in this session of the conclave as in that of a year ago, no recorded records were made of any of the proceedings.

My final plan or arguement for the Guardianship was upon the mystical arguement that The Holy Spirit in this Dispensation proceeding from the Manifestation, Baha’u’llah through the Center of the Covenant to the Guardian to the believers was cut off by the break caused by the abolition of the institution of the Guardianship – so how could we expect spiritual strength and the growth of the cause if this channel, the Guardianship, were severed?  To which there was no response.  I felt that the “Arc of the Covenant was bumping on the rocks” and warned them of the danger of its becoming stranded high and dry on the rocks but all with no response, so I ceased speaking.

Everyone was nice and sweet to me afterwards but feeling sorry for me because they thought I was afar off on my own tangent and so the conclave closed with me standing against all the others, alone and as decided as ever upon my course that the hope for a Guardian should be maintained – they united in their thought that if we and all the believers loved the Beloved Guardian sufficiently that his spirit would protect the cause and lead the Faith on to victory in the year 1963 when the House of Justice would then be formed and then there would be the infallible leadership to lead the cause – a Guardian would then not be needed.

I feel that another four years under these present conditions will so weaken the cause that it will not be able to hold together since without the Guardianship in action there will be but one of the two pillars that are necessary for the birth and the maintenance of the House of Justice.

November 25, 1958

We have no proof that the Beloved Guardian had any idea that death was so near to him.  In fact we have every reason to think that he was just suddenly taken without any warning or preparation on his part.  He thus left many things unfinished, buildings and other improvements on the Baha’i properties in and about Haifa and Acre, properties and moneys of the cause that were all in his own name but in reality that belonged to the cause and were for the cause and most important of all, the direction of the cause and the continuation of the institution of the Guardianship.

All of these important matters were unfinished by him and left undone by him.  Apparently the only preparation he had made for death and to solve the problem attendant thereto was his appointment of the twenty seven, the First Hands of the Cause, whose function was the propagation and the protection of the Faith, but without a Guardian to direct them.

The Hands of the Faith arose immediately and without any hesitation to safeguard the properties and the moneys that were in Shoghi Effendi’s name.  There was unity among all the Hands in this matter.  They did not say between themselves BADAH, because he made no will we have no right to meddle in these matters!  There was great danger that the covenant breakers step in and claim for themselves seven-eights of his estate which would have been their legal claim for themselves to his estate had it been tried under the Moslem Law of Persia of which Country Shoghi Effendi was a citizen and a national subject.  There was no mention here of BADAH and that they do nothing to take in hand what the Guardian had neglected or been unable to do and thus loose for the cause this wealth that the Beloved Guardian had in his name for the cause.

The Hands unitedly protected the money in Shoghi Effendi’s bank account by claiming this wealth for the cause – they succeeded in this – then they started in to complete other things that Shoghi Effendi had left unfinished until they came to the most important of all – What to do about the Guardianship?  Here the majority of the Hands of the Faith feel that nothing should know is the only power that can hold together and protect the cause from division, disorganization and confusion – just what our enemies want.  The Hands of the Cause are the hope of the Faith; therefore in order to preserve and protect the cause they must arise and find the Second Guardian for surely he must be somewhere. 

NOTE ADDED LATER – “For some peculiar reason there was never any mention made of the Baha’i International Council.  Apparently no one ever thought of this body that had been set up by Shoghi Effendi.  Personally it was not once in my thoughts”.

Nevertheless I felt strongly that the cry of the cause should be “The Guardian is dead – Long Live the Guardian”.  Shoghi Effendi – Guardian of the Faith – led us on from victory to victory – from now onward we must have a Second Guardian to continue this victorious march to conclude the ten year plan.  Without a Guardia the cause will surely be sunk.

I believe that the cause is destined to triumph; therefore I had confidence that something would happen to turn us onto the right track.  At one time I even wrongly thought the Hands of the Cause might find some authority to appoint a Second Guardian of the Baha’i Faith!

Evening at Behje, 30 December 1958

Although I stand singly and alone in my hope for a Guardian against all of the united stand of all of the other active Hands of the Faith who stand for the abolition of the Guardianship of the Faith, I am sure that in the end the Guardianship is going to carry through and in some way be perpetrated although at this time – since the final Behje Conference up until now – this hardly seems possible the way things are going.  Notwithstanding, I am convinced that I am correct in my stand.  In this I have never wavered the least bit!  But how is all this conviction of mine to work out in triumph against such strong odds?  I don’t know!  But surely something is going to happen to stem and to completely change and reverse the flow of this tide.  But where is the Guardian whom I seek?

I am helpless of myself to do anything at all directly about it.  All of the other active Hands other than I know my stand, yet they also know that I as a Hand of the Faith must perforce because of the rule of the majority to which I have agreed with them (to support their majority and of myself say absolutely nothing at all to any living soul among the believers save to them, the Hands of the Faith) of my own personal convictions.  There is nothing at all for me to do these days save to wait holding to my convictions and to pray for the guidance of the body of Hands and for mine own personal guidance in this matter and that I be protected by God from making any move that I ought not to make. 

I have urged Custodian Hands to allow me to leave Haifa until the next Conclave of Hands, but they say no stay here.  As I sit in our meetings and listen to their talk, bickering and disputes knowing that they are entirely off of the track and continuing to lead the cause astray, it seems to me at times that I must just defy these co-workers and walk out and quit Haifa until the next conclave!  But I don’t want to make this drastic step for as the Custodians tell me my leaving Haifa would create consternation among the Baha’is the world around, they say that this must not be, that it could not be hidden from that “Grundy women of the Faith” – these people that are always on the alert everywhere could be suspicious and that this suspicion would point to lack of unity among the Custodians in The Holy Land and that this would damage the prestige of the Custodians among the friends the world around – all of which arguments are true!  I have promised these friends that if I leave Haifa I will in no way communicate with any in the Baha’i world but with the Hands – but no, this does not meet with their approval.  Therefore, things must go on as they are going.  I am in most perfectly and peaceful and friendly relation with everyone here – that is not my trouble.  I suffer because I see the cause going on the rocks and there is nothing at all that I can do about it all but wait-wait-wait!

Haifa, Israel – 20 December 1958

            This afternoon at four o’clock, the Hands of the Faith met at the Shrine of the Bab with the two pilgrims from America, Katherine McLaughlin and Jack Armstrong, and Mr. Muhajir from Persia – where we had an hour of prayer, a very precious moment it was as we all knelt and prostrated ourselves united in our several supplications – first in the outer chamber of the Shrine of the Bab – then later in the outer chamber of the Shrine of Abdu’l-Baha.

In the former chamber as I raised my eyes, I found myself directly below the crystal chandelier that had formerly hung in my wife’s bed chamber in the house that I built on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington.  This chandelier I sent to the Beloved Guardian some time ago along with several other chandeliers and objects from the house at the time that I dismantled the premises that the house could be sold, when I was told by the Guardian to transfer my home from Washington to Haifa.

This antique chandelier of the period of the Louies, the Kings of France, has nine main branches upon the lower section with three branches upon the upper section making places for twelve candles in all.  This arrangement of nine made it particularly appropriate for a Baha’i  shrine.  I have no idea at all how it happened to have these nine principal lower branches.  In France I have seen many, many chandeliers or lusters of this style ranging from 4 to 6 to 8 and from 12 to 16 in the larger ones.  Hung with crystal leveliers this style of lighting fixture is particularly appropriate for salons and ballrooms because of the rich mellow and diffused light effect that is thus produced by this candlelight.  Originally designed to hold candles in my house, electric lights were added, placed within the shower of crystal leveliers to add light of that of the candles that were only lighted on special occasions when an entertainment was on and the chamber was in use.

The Beloved Guardian liked gay and rich and elaborate decoration and a great deal of light – the inner chamber of this shrine is lighted by more than one hundred incandescent electric bulbs.  As I looked up at this chandelier in its present place I thought of its former place in my home in the very room in which the great tragedy of my married life was perpetrated!

My mother once told me that when my grandfather for whom I was named had first looked at me, less than an hour after I was born, that with tears in his eyes he said, “Poor little boy, he doesn’t know what sufferings are ahead  of him in life”!

Tis well that we don’t know sufferings that are in store for us – but difficult as these troubles have been and are for me – especially right now at this time here in The Holy Land, life on this earth is one great and glorious experience that one should take as it comes, at all times assured that the best and the most important part of ones life is yet to come.  Despite my more than 84 years, I feel that the best, the most interesting and I trust the most fruitful part of my life is yet to come apart from whether it be under happy or painful conditions. 

I made my prayer for Gertrude as I always do daily.

XMAS EVE 1958 – HAIFA, ISRAEL

We as Baha’is do not celebrate the Christian feasts for exactly the same reason that Christians do not observe Jewish customs and Jewish rituals, although every Baha’i believes in both Jewish and Christian religious truths as do all authodax Christians recognize the Jewish religion from which Christianity came.

Yesterday arrived here in Haifa, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey and their young daughter of fifteen, pilgrims coming from Springfield, Missouri, U.S.A. Several of the Hands of the Cause, including myself, had dinner with them after which they posed the unanswerable question that is in the minds of more of the little often inarticulate and obscure Baha’is who seldom make any fuss in the world – What are we to teach now that there is no Guardian of the Faith?

Both Leroy and Furtan talked much to them about the ten year cruisade, etc, etc, and the plans of the Hands for this effort – but all without answering their direct question – What should be taught now that there is no Guardian.

I longed to enter into the conversation but did not dare to do so because Leroy and Furtan were trying to throw them off their subject by talking a lot of generalities about a House of Justice in 1963 and the necessity of all uniting in this work and urging that no controversial subjects be discussed and that we should unite without question – all aside of their simple and direct question, “What shall the Baha’is teach now that we have no Guardian?  How can we teach the Master’s Testament now?”

These pilgrims are rather simple and direct small town people who have been confused by the Proclamation sent out by the First Behje Conclave and the following up letter from the Hands in The Holy Land.  They had not yet read the last message sent out by the recent conclave at Behje.  None of the Hands suggested sharing a copy with them – they did what they could to steer them away from this subject on to other matters.

I dared not say anything myself for I knew if I spoke that I would not be able to agree with this policy of these Hands in dodging the issue.  The Hands know how I feel about all the Guardianship affairs and were I to engage in any of these questionings they would be accusing me of breaking into the unity as they call it of the vast majority of the conclave.  I did ask Mr. Harvey if there were others in Springfield who questioned “What to teach”.  He said that one believer had left the cause because of this no-longer-any-Guardian matter.

Everytime that I have broached the Hands in meeting with this question they have referred to the many letters coming in from the assemblies upholding them in their stand as made in the various general communications circulated.  They make a great effort at trying to feel that all is happy and that their action is accepted by all but a few trouble makers.  These pilgrims now here are not trouble makers – they are sincere Baha’is who are in trouble because the entire cause throughout the world is in trouble.  Whether individual Baha’is know it or not they are indeed all in trouble in this period of interregnum.

At the recent conclave I told the Hands that if they sent out the message that they did send out – that it would make a split in the cause throughout the friends in the six continents of the world – not from the muddle of ideas that was in the message but because of the questions in their minds that this message ignored.  The word Guardianship was not mentioned in the message.

John Ferraby leaves here early tomorrow morning for the coming conference of the European Hands and others at Brussels.  I was wondering if a storm – even a revolt among the friends may not follow this gathering.  Nothing but a series of such revolts will awaken the Hands of the Faith to do something about this matter.  By this I mean for the Hands to change their thoughts about ending the Guardianship now for this is their real attitude and this must be broken into and damaged for the salvation of the Faith.

Up until this point this writing was not done day by day now and then as it is from this point on.

The former pages were written up later from notes taken at the time, but when edited in this form many thoughts were added that were the fruit of thoughts of things that happened and that developed in the mind of the writer at times much later than the actual date noted here.

Notation – Haifa, December 21, 1959

In reality we Baha’is live a hell of a life here in Haifa!  There are fights in the meetings of the Custodian Hands as cats and dogs fight.  Personally as individuals I have love and affection for all, but our views and mental  fixations are so in opposition that life at times is anything but pleasant.  In fact of late, it has gotten to the point that I have wanted very much indeed to leave The Holy Land until the next conclave of all the Hands when something may be done to settle our difficulties.  On the surface and for most of the time an armistice is on and the lid is held down upon disturbing matters, but the while inner pressures are accumulating until eventually there is a blow up that is detonated by some trivial detail about some matter of quite secondary importance.

Ruhiyyih Khanum and the Persian Hands are of the fixed intention that the Guardianship is BADAH or was definitely ended for this dispensation of one thousand years with the death of Shoghi Effendi.  Of course they do not say this openly to the world, nevertheless this conviction constantly shows itself in things they say and advocate and things they do.  Leroy Ioas seems to feel at times that the Guardianship should not thus be scrapped but he stands firmly for the 1963 program.  Milly Collins and Paul Haney seem to be bewildered upon this point – they feel that it will come out somehow by the Grace of God, but which way and how they have no idea.

Yesterday morning there was such a scene that Leroy was so upset that he refused to be at the prayer meeting that afternoon at the Shrine.  Ruhiyyih Khanum, who was so near to Shoghi Effendi for so many years of their married life, takes command of all matters dictating to the others, assuming that she knows exactly what the Guardian would have done under circumstances such as these that confront us; therefore she in no uncertain terms lays down the law to us shaking her finger at us and often shouting at us giving emphasis to what she is saying by hammering the table before her with clenched fist (as yet she has not come to the point of shaking her fist at any of us).  Leroy rebels at this – the Persians all take it.  I don’t get what Paul thinks – I laugh up my sleeve, at the same time fearful of what may happen to Ruhiyyih Khanum should a Second Guardian appear upon this scene?

Ruhiyyih Khanum frequently threatens to commit suicide if she cant have her way.  I am afraid she may do so sometime in one of her tantrums but Milly says that there is no danger of her killing herself – that this is but a tantrum – but from my own experience in my own life such tantrums can end in dire tragedy.  Leroy thinks that Ruhiyyih May snap and have to be put in an asylum.  I feel that it is more likely that this condition may send him and not Ruhiyyih Khanum to the asylum.  The Hands of the Faith should not expect harmony in the Baha’i world at large until they – the 27 of us – are at harmony between ourselves. 

Personally I would like to get myself out of this inferno of conflict here in Haifa, so a fortnight ago I suggested this to the friends explaining the entire condition to them as I diagnose it.  With one accord they all said that I should stay on here, that my leaving Haifa now at this time would give away this entire situation here to the people of the cause the world around. In other words, our condition here should be hushed up – I assured them that I could keep such a Baha’i secret and that I  would keep my mouth absolutely shut about everything transpiring here but no, they said the people would just know that things were wrong and that that would not do at all.

I told them that our Guardian was dead, that there was no Guardian to turn to, that this body of nine Custodian Hands had no Baha’i authority whatsoever for its existence, not in the written teachings or in the institution of the Administration of the Faith as interpreted to us by our late Guardian who did have and was empowered to interpret to us the Master’s Will and Testament.  To this they all had to agree with me, so then they unitedly asked me to make a special prayer season for nine days repeating of the prayer THE REMOVER OF DIFFICULTIES seeking guidance for myself in this matter.

This I agreed to and for nine consecutive days I went up to the Shrine at the same hour and made this prayer at the conclusion of which in meeting I presented my report to them saying that I had complied with their request – that I had made this prayer for my personal guidance, adding to my supplication for myself a prayer for the spiritual guidance of them – the other eight members of this body of nine Hands in The Holy Land and that the result upon me of all these prayers was as before my prayers, that I was convinced that I had better leave Haifa.

This stand of mine caused a reaction indeed in the midst of which Paul Haney asked me to further reconsider before doing anything and this I accepted.  Things are still in the balance for me.  My bags are still unpacked since my arrival from America, now several weeks ago.

I agreed with them so now I am holding in abeyance my desire to get myself away from Haifa and these conditions here.  I feel that there is nothing at all that I can do for the cause by staying here under these present conditions that are literally tearing me to pieces emotionally, convinced as I am that the Guardianship must continue for the guidance and the protection of the Faith – surely were the Hands wanting a Guardian they would be searching for the Second Guardian!

Ever since I have lived here in Haifa I’ve been under this terrible strain of conflicting thought and spirit about me.  To be sure I’ve been away from Haifa at least one half of each of these years going annually to recuperate in America from the strains endured here.  Each of my return visits to America has been a time of recuperation emotionally and physically from the hell here.  Dr. Holtzman of Washington who has been my physician for some years understands my case and has each season pulled me back into shape to return here by pills, diet and other methods.  In the early summer of 1957, he definitely told me that I ought not to remain in Haifa for more than three months at a time and for not more than six months in all out of the year.  This I wrote to the Beloved Guardian in the late summer of 1957 after he had left Haifa and he agreed that I should spend the months of December, January, and February in Haifa with March in Europe and again April, May and June in Haifa and then July through November away from Haifa.  This was my program that Shoghi Effendi agreed to.  I had my return flight engaged to bring me to Haifa for December 1, 1957 when I heard of the Guardian’s death which took me to London immediately and from there on to Haifa as I have recorded in my notes – there I stayed throughout the winter leaving on February 28^th for Australia and from there on around the world getting myself back here in Haifa for the Second Behje Conclave in the latter part of November of this year 1958.

In writing to Shoghi Effendi in the summer of 1957 I did not specify just what the strains were in Haifa that were so difficult for me – I didn’t tell him that my life with him was then the difficult problem.  I doubt if he even thought of or considered this; however, I made it very plain that I was under a great conflict of basic emotion and that from this I absolutely needed a relief.  I have no reason at all to believe that Shoghi Effendi had any idea at all of the real reason for my mental sufferings in Haifa, which causes were centered around my direct relation with him in his capacity as Guardian of the Baha’i Faith.  I never even so much as breathed my reaction to the Guardian’s orders and commands to me.  I have a reasoning mind and when I was told to do a certain thing the wisdom of which I questioned I could not help but question.  I began my service to the Guardian here in Haifa by attempting to cooperate with him but I found that he would not have this.  He did not want any ideas from me.  He wanted me to carry out his ideas.  I finally got this into my head and after that I did not attempt to inject any thought of mine own into the things he told me to do, but simply to go at it, whatever his wish was – say nothing about my own ideas upon the subject but do as I was told thus pleasing him to the utmost of my ability and when I followed this procedure he was always pleased with me and praised me and I was happy to obey him thus although in many cases such as where building and architecture were concerned my ways were much better than his ways.  He seemed to want to get into messes that were unsatisfactory, nevertheless these messes never disturbed the Guardian.  He was always perfectly satisfied with his own solution and when his ideas didn’t work out, notwithstanding this he was always happy and satisfied.  With these results I knew that I was doing the right thing in not trying to make suggestions to him for these he did not want.  It was all one big mess most of the time.

An example of this was in the construction of the Archives Building.  While I was on a visit to Washington I went to the National Archives Department and there I got a lot of printed data regarding the care, arrangement and preservation of archival documents, etc, that involved air conditioning and other considerations.  At that time it had been remarked by several of the friends here that something should be done about the dampness that was causing mildew among the records of the cause and the many objects that have been stored for three years in chambers of the Shrine of the Bab.  I knowing of this condition when the Guardian told me to design for him the outside of the building only, leaving the interior to be done later, I spoke to him about the necessity of air conditioning the interior for the preservation of the documents, fabrics and other things and that this air conditioning required special arrangements for its installation in the structural parts of the buildings all of which should be planned and worked out before the construction was started.  But to this he said no, that such matters he would consider and work out later after the building was finished.  Then when I spoke of exhibit cases for the various object to be exposed he said no to this also, adding that he had in view a series of Chinese open wall and floor cabinets on and in which he wished to arrange this material so I said noting further upon this subject.  At that time Shoghi Effendi had already purchased in London several of these elaborately decorated and carved cabinets with open shelves that are not in the completed building.  Since his death Ruhiyyih Khanum has bought many more of this same sort of cabinets and shelves now in the building.  It will now indeed be a problem to drill and chisel out the necessary ducts in the concrete and steel floors of the building in order to install ventilation and other atmospheric conditioning in order to in the end preserve these archival exhibits.

This is but one single example out of many similar conditions that I’ve been up against so constantly in these years here in Haifa that despite my desire to please and to obey Shoghi Effendi (and the fact that I have always obeyed him) but because of this constant being beaten down – against all reasoning and ordinary common sense – there came a time with me of such conflict within myself that I simply had to have a release from life here in Haifa; therefore as I have already written, in the summer of 1957 I asked the Guardian for more time away from Haifa (not explaining myself) and this he granted to me as I have explained.

All through “My Confessions” (as I suppose I should call these notes that I am writing of my life with the Beloved Guardian) will be found other problems of this same nature – they all were along in parallel patterns.

Leroy Ioas and all the other friends who have been here in the household of the Guardian these past years are all suffering from this same trouble that I’ve bee up against but I doubt if they have even reasoned it out as I have done.  Leroy is an emotional wreck caused by this life here.  Milly Collins takes it joyfully like a martyr without a murmur – she believing that her troubles are all due to Ruhiyyih Khanum.  Milly has been conditioned and inurred to such treatment through many years of marred life to her “Tom Collins” who from all accounts, including her own, was on the verge of insanity.

My one and ever present release from all this turmoil has been my Remey Family records that I’ve been writing in these years and plans for the building of the Remeum.  This has been my balance – all of which is a secret that I don’t think anyone here in Haifa knows much about save possibly The Haneys who have recently joined us here in Haifa.

MORNING AT BEHJE, 30 DECEMBER 1958

This morning after breakfast while we were still at table, M. Djalai, a pilgrim from Morroco, told us about his studies of the prophesies of the Prophet Mohammed about the Latter Day Revelation of God to the world – that there would be The Bab, Baha’u’llah, Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, but that after Shoghi Effendi all was ended – there would be no other Guardians.

Thus he clearly stated this belief so popular among the Persian Hands of the end of the Guardianship – BADAH!  And all save I were pleased to hear him talk.  It was very evident that he was trying to curry favor with the Hands.

The Guardianship has hardly been a popular subject with the Persians.  This was demonstrated to us who were in Geneva some years ago when the twenty five or thirty of the Persian students there in that community combined against the other members and because of their majority in number attempted to run things at the Teaching Conference at Elsinore in Denmark.  Their plan was to seize control of the conference by turning it into a convention which they could because of their superior numbers of control.  This Edna True who had been sent by the Guardian from America there to conduct the conference refused to allow and with the help of the American friends and others, insisted that the meetings be a conference as planned and not a convention, thus it was with the pressure necessary to maintain this a conference.

It was some days or time later in Geneva that this body of Persian Baha’i students made another attack upon Edna and the other members of the European Teaching Committee telling them in a meeting “You Americans go home with your Administration organization of our Faith.  We don’t want you and your western methods”.  “We are believers of the third and fourth generation of Baha’is of Persia where the Faith has been established by Baha’u’llah himself.  We have been and are now living according to the Book of Laws of the Akdas and we have no need of and don’t want you Americans with your Administration”.

Edna True and other members of the E.T.C stood their ground that they were carrying out the instructions of the Guardian of the Faith.  This created a great scene and an upset that in the cause of a little time was reported to the Beloved Guardian who reprimanded these young Persians and then took steps to prevent further trouble with them by depriving them as temporary student residents in Geneva of having Baha’i voting rights in that community.  So thus this matter passed.

I mention this here to support my arguement that in Persia the friends have not been strong for the organization of the Administration of the Faith as they have been in America and in Europe.  It just is not in their make up as it is by nature of the Americans, therefore those Persian Baha’is attempted this revolt.  “For out of the mouths of children frequently come the indiscretions of their elders”.  These young people were guilty of youth’s chief weakness – indiscretion.  Their elders were more wise than they for when the cause had a Guardian in command of the Faith they said nothing but the Persian youth attempted carrying out the inner and unseen thoughts that they had inherited from their elders.  Now that their elders, as Hands of the Faith, are in majority and have power, Sans Guardian, in the cause they have come out flatly against the Guardianship, that is the central point and the very heart of the Administration of the Faith.

In other words, the Persian Baha’is do not want a Guardian to continue to rule the Faith.  Neither does Ruhiyyih Khanum want the Guardianship to continue for she would not like at all for herself to be second to another Guardian of the Faith, particularly if he should have a wife which if he had, his wife would be the First Lady of the Baha’i Administration with Ruhiyyih Khanum then as the Dowager Lady of the Faith.

One cannot help but feel that such problems as these would be a most powerful incentive in Ruhiyyih Khanum’s life to weigh against her wanting any continuance of the Guardianship for now she is the ruling power in the cause.  She dictates practically everything.  She has no intention of allowing the Guardianship to be continued and to suit her own wishes she insists that there never shall be another Guardian as she stated to me in a meeting of the Custodians, “That after her no one would ever live in the Guardian’s house in Haifa”.

HAIFA, 31 December 1958

            It was 60 years ago today in Paris that May Bolles gave me the message of The Revelation of Baha’u’llah and I believed!

            Yesterday afternoon the Hands in the Holy Land met with the visiting Pilgrims for prayers at The Shrine of Baha’u’llah after which we all had tea together, all save Ruhiyyih Khanum who refused point blank to even meet at tea herself with the men and women visiting pilgrims yet decreeing that all the other Custodian Hands save her ownself should meet this once with each group of pilgrims on their respective visits here.  This is for some reason of her own because she is the widow of the Guardian and is in a different category here than any of the rest of us.  As I note I do not understand her reasoning in this matter but Milly Collins tells me that she understands the why of this and I suppose the other Custodians do also though I’ve not heard them so express themselves.

            At tea Leroy and Paul spoke to the pilgrims telling them about the ten year program of the Beloved Guardian about which they had heard much during the past six years and more of its existence with still between three and four more years for it to run.

            The burden of their talk was to impress upon the minds of these visitors that the spirit of Shoghi Effendi was actively as ever directing the progress of this work and that we need no further direction than his directions given to us in His Divine Plan for the ten years to accomplish.

            Now in all of the arguements of these Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land I see their efforts to reinforce their stand against the continuation of the Guardianship by thus on all occasions stating and restating that the source of guidance now still comes to the believers from Shoghi Effendi in the Abha Realm and that no other guidance is needed, therefore the discontinuance of the Guardianship.

            At each of the meetings of the Custodians, letters are sent out to the Baha’i world abroad signed by all of us, “Faithfully yours in the service of the Beloved Guardian”.

            When I have objected to this statement that I am obliged because of the majority policy of the cause to place my signature (despite the fact that I am opposed to so doing) I am told that the Beloved Guardian planned out this ten year cruisade and that is that and we know from him all that it is necessary for us ever to know in order to carry on and to accomplish the cruisade without any further directions.  Such being in other words their contest that there is no further need of a living Guardian in the flesh with us here upon earth as given in the Master’s Will and Testament and attested to by the Beloved Guardian himself in everything that he did, said and wrote during the thirty-six and more years of his ministry amongst us.

            Shoghi Effendi was to the Baha’i Cause as a supreme commander waging a battle with all the world against him.  Such a commander would plan out his campaign of battle meticulously in every detail but were he suddenly himself called to a distant country “from which bourne there was no return” or could there be any communication from him – to carry on the battle, a successor in supreme command to take his place would have to be in order to carry on and continue the campaign to victory.  Otherwise if left without a commander on the field the enemy or enemies would surely route his army and the campaign would end in confusion and failure.  Such a condition faces the Baha’i Faith at this moment and among the Hands of the Faith I am the only one who sees this condition.  I urge that something be done and done quickly to remedy it.  But what can be done?  We have no Guardian?

EVENING OF THE 31^ST OF DECEMBER 1958, HAIFA

            I returned today from two days and two nights in Behje with a group of visiting pilgrims.  One evening there in talking with Salah’s brother Sohail, I made some inquiries about life among the younger and coming generation of Baha’is in Acre.  It seems that a group of Quakers from America are doing humanatarian work there – they maintain a library and reading room with entertainment, lectures, and talks of an interesting and a cultural trend, what we in America might call a “Settlement Center” such as we have in the slum portion of many of our American cities.  Such as Hull House in Chicago, the Barney Neighborhood House in Washington and others.  Furthermore this young man mentioned some similar but more feeble and less efficatious works among the Moslem, Christian, Arabs and Jewish groups of young people that were fostered by the several other religious congregations.

            Sohail informed me that there were about twenty or so Baha’i youths in their teens and very early twenties in Acre.   I remarked to him that I had thought that some work of a social and cultural nature would be well among these Baha’i youths in Acre.  He at once jumped at the idea asking with interest whether anything like this was contemplated by the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land?  I hastened to assure him that this was but a personal idea of mine own and that I was not alluding to any work held in view by these Baha’is, nevertheless he seemed interested in this as a prospect.

            I have often thought of the real need for a trained settlement worker to take ahold of such a work as the Quakers are doing in Acre but revolving about and encompassing the Baha’i youth of Acre and the vicinity.

            The condition of the Baha’i community in Acre is indeed a deplorable one.  When these members come to the celebrations of the Spiritual Feasts of the Faith that are held either at Behje or upon Mount Carmel at the shrine there, they are indeed a most down and miserable looking lot of people, young and old people as well.  There is a down and out look to the entire bunch and so far as I can gather in their collective life together as Baha’is, they are about as poor specimens in their ways of life as they appear outwardly to be.

            During the years of my life here in Israel I have heard many complaints about the delinquencies of the group.  They are in association with the rif-raff of society of various religions – Arab, Moslem and Christian – naturally since these Baha’is have no Baha’i social life they seek a social life with the youth of other Faiths.  Marriages have occurred between them and the other religions.  I hear it said in Haifa that some of the Baha’i young men are immoral.  I am not told of what form these immoralities take but I know that at least one young man was forbidden by the Beloved Guardian to attend the Baha’i feasts with the other Baha’is.  Worse that this, some of the Acre Baha’is have associated with covenant breakers and this has had a very bad effect upon them and upon the entire community as well.

            So far as I have been able to learn nothing has been done in a constructive way to keep these people of Acre in line, to educate their children and direct them in the Baha’i ways of life and conduct.  They have just been left to go their own ways in this mixed up community of Moslems, Jews and Christians.  What they need is a resident trained social betterment worker there with them to organize them into a Baha’i community with the settlement center.  Such a shepherd for this flock would probably have a very difficult time for awhile until the colony was in hand, but in the end this would bring results that would be good for the cause.

            There is every reason for people the world around to feel that the Baha’i community of Acre to be a model community of our Faith, but alas it is not so at all but the opposite.  It is not right that Baha’is should produce children and then turn them loose in the world without any shepherding or direction – left as they are to grow up as they will in association with all kinds of people.  They naturally just make the wrong sort of alliances and often with the enemies of the Baha’i Faith as was right in the Master’s own household and those of his relatives who all became covenant breakers a number of whom married out and out enemies of the Faith!  Children have to be taught, protected and shepherded and in youth steered into association of life of the Baha’i sort.  A trained social worker among the young, a Baha’i, by operating a center of Baha’i social interest and life for these young people at Acre could thus perform a much needed service in the Faith.

1 JANUARY 1957

            I don’t feel that the Hands of the Faith in their Proclamation and announcements to the Baha’i world have made their real intentions (that is the real heart intention) clearly understood by the believers.  It was evidently the intention of the N.S.A of the U.S.A. and the Hands in America to clarify the statements of the Hands that they got out and circulated to some extent that “New Baha’i Era” Manifesto the printing and further circulation of which was suppressed by order of the Custodian Hands here in The Holy Land.  In that document from the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. and the Hands in America who at that time were Paul Haney, Horace Holley and Mrs. True.  It was clearly stated that the Guardianship was closed forever.  Now while such was the real intention of the majority of the Hands of the Faith in their inner thoughts which they spoke out very freely in conclave, the majority did not deem it wise to inform the Baha’i world of their intent that was behind the action supported by their majority.

            But now from the facts that I am writing about in this document addressed it will be clearly seen by them that as things now stand as attested to by the action of the majority of the Hands at the Second Behje Conclave, that they extend no hope for the Guardianship and that in reality the Manifesto of “A New Baha’i Era” that the circulation of which Custodian Hands ordered to be suppressed was in truth a declaration of their actual intent.

            It is in the hope that in our next conclave we will be able to study and reconsider this matter and right it in harmony with the Will and Testament that I am writing these comments which if ever studied individually by each of the Hands may, I trust, give us a majority vote to turn to the Guardianship hoping to save the Baha’i Faith from disruption and disintegration.

3 JANUARY 1958, HAIFA, ISRAEL

            Eight of the Hands in the Holy Land met this afternoon in conference.  Came up for discussion the reply to a letter recently received from two members of the local spiritual assembly of Norfolk, Virginia, asking how they should reconcile the Teachings of the Beloved Guardian upon the subject of the Guardianship as an institution of the Faith with the decrees of the Hands of the Faith as given to the Baha’i world in their proclamation and message to the Baha'i world from the two Behje Conclaves?

            This was a very direct question that had to be answered in some way.  There was much discussion about the matter in which I did not take any part.  All present know what my thought was upon this subject and as I was but one against the united front of the other seven Hands present, so I thought best to keep my mouth shut rather than start my arguement all over again.  They were the vast majority so the only thing for me was to accept their solution.

            Their answer to this question was that we Custodian Hands had no answer to their question!  But that in 1963 when the infallible House of Justice is formed that all such questions of the Faith as theirs will be answered by the House of Justice.

            Today I spent over two hours reading over the minutes of the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. meetings and others of the past year or more.  There I found several similar questions that were being brought up here and there amongst the believers.  From these and other questions, particularly those coming from Germany, I sense that this solution of the problem of no Guardian is much more in the minds of the believers than the Hands of the Faith have any idea of for little by little the people are realizing that not only is there no Guardian now at the present time but that something is up in the minds of the Hands that they don’t understand.  That Manifesto issued from Chicago by the Hands in America and the U.S.A.  N.S.A. eventhough its printing and general circulation was halted at the last moment.  Nevertheless many had read it and many of these have talked about it and its positive statement (evidently composed by Horace Holley, because written in his style of expression) that the Guardianship was ended forever so far as this Prophetic Dispensation was concerned.  Thus this thought is working in the Baha'i mind at large and because no mention whatever has been made of Guardianship.  This is making the people suspicious that something is being withheld from the.  Because perforce now all the proceedings of the Hands are secret but in one way or another such secrets will get out.  It is impossible for Baha’is to keep secrets.

            The truth of this condition is that Ruhiyyih Khanum and so far as I sense it all of the Persian Hands are in their innermost thought dead opposed to the continuation of Guardianship.  They don’t come out an say so yet their reactions to the daily question that come up before us definitely reveal this to be their inner thought and conviction.

            To me they, without realizing it, are in reality enemies of the institution of the Guardianship as given to us in the Will of Abdu’l-Baha and as taught us by the Beloved Guardian himself, but of course they don’t see this condition that they are in and I am wondering how and when they are going to see it?  Little can be done to make this matter right until these friends do see it and rectify their mistaken stand.  And all the other Hands ave I myself are dominated by them and by their unseen but felt conviction of no more Guardianship.

            All this is of course never voiced or even suggested but it is all very clear to me.  These forces that are working against all that the Beloved Guardian built up over a period of more than a third of a century.  How can a House of Justice be formed without a Guardian to form it because he is one pillar – the House the other pillar of this Baha'i structure of the Faith upon earth?

            The Hands should in this emergency arise and seek to discover for the cause the only protection that will save it from destruction; namely a Guardian.  Such is the only solution to our problem.  Surely this will be brought about by some dire calamity that ere long will face us – then with the Second Guardian of the Faith in command, the victory of the ten year plan will be assured.  As things are running now I see nothing ahead but failure.

            Many letters from the assemblies have come in assuring the Custodian Hands of their full support in all matters.  This pleases all save me for I know that this is the role that these assemblies have been conditioned to accepting without question what they are told to do by the Hands.  Had these organized bodies of Baha’is studied the teachings and the life mission of the Beloved Guardian, using their intelligence in the way that the German N.S.A. have done, as shown in the writings of Dr. Schaefer, they would see the matter as it really is.  But they will see this.  I am sure for this cause is not going to be killed in this manner and by the Hands themselves!

            How subtle are the workings of the human mind!  This evil force that has so quietly taken ahold of the body of the Hands of the Faith is seeking in many ways to reinforce itself in the Baha'i world as it eminates from the accepted center of the Faith that now is the body of Hands who are now laboring under the spell that Shoghi Effendi in the Abha Realm is now directing them here upon earth, that he has told us just what we should do and teach and that or this reason we no longer need a Guardian in the flesh, that our love for Shoghi Effeni is all that will be necessary to hold us together in unity, that through our devotion to him we will conquer the world of religion thought, that any further Guardianship is not needed and for these and other reasons all of the letters sent out from Haifa by the Custodian Hands end with the words “In the service of the Beloved Guardian” followed by all our signatures. 

            According to the Divine Plan of the Administration of the Faith we should be signing ourselves, “In the service of the living Guardian of the Baha'i Faith” for the Guardianship is a divinely appointed office and not a personality.

            It would seem that the vast majority of the Hands are insisting that the power of his Guardianship dwelt in the personality of Shoghi Effendi rather than in his station of Guardianship – thus they are misleading themselves and consequently they themselves are misleading others.  I look upon this condition with much apprehension and concern wondering by what means, how and when these Hands and the people of the Faith are going to realize that they should be saying “the First Guardian of our Faith is dead – Long live the Second Guardian of the Faith”.

5 JANUARY 1959, HAIFA

            Last night I had a long talk with one of the Custodian Hands of the Faith wherein that Custodian Hand’s inner conviction that because Shoghi Effendi did not have a son and could not appoint a Second Guardian of the Faith that the Guardianship as an institution of the Faith was not only BADAH but that the Master’s Will and Testament with the entire plan outlined therein was also BADAH, that the cause was now to be led by the House of Justice that would be established at the centennial at Baghdad in 1963.  Then the Faith would again have the source upon earth of divine guidance and all would be well.

            But said I upon that theory, what about the guidance of the Faith between now (1959) and 1963? To which the reply was “The Beloved Guardian has left teaching with us to guide us.  If we love him and follow the program of the ten year cruisade all will be well until we have the Universal House of Justice”.

            I personally cannot see the cause hanging together and functioning in a manner possible these next three years and more without such a general confusion in our midst that will make the creation of a House of Justice impossible.

            In fact the authority of the Guardianship is our only refuge against this present confusion of beliefs that is daily becoming more evident to me, a confusion that will preclude our getting together a House of Justice because for the creation of the House of Justice a Guardian is needed.  Such is his job.  We Hands of the Faith cannot create a House of Justice.

            The only opposition to this is by those of the Hands who for personal and possibly other reasons do not want the continuation of the Guardianship.  These are the ones who unitedly but for one voice in the Second Behje Conclave controlled the action of this body by an overwhelming majority of twenty-four against one voice.

            Am I the only one of us Hands of the Faith who sees this condition and is forced against my desire for a pacific existence to thus bring this matter again and again to the notice of the Hands?  Isn’t there another one in our midst who can see for him or herself that the intent of the Will of the Master and that of the mission of the Beloved Guardian be carried out by us?

            When in court procedure there is a conflict of statement in the settlement of a Will and Testament, that is where contestants squabble and fight and no settlement can be made, under such conditions the court rules that THE INTENT of the Will and Testament be adhered to and carried out.

            There is nothing in the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha or in any of the writings or recorded teachings of Shoghi Effendi to indicate any intention other than that the Guardianship of the Faith should forever be continued.  On the contrary everything that we have in Baha'i Holy Writ upon this subject shows the intent that the Guardianship should be the source of the unity and the power of the Faith for the centuries to come of this Dispensation.

            It is for the Hands, particularly those who cry “BADAH”, “The Guardianship is ended!” to come to their senses and to solve this problem in the only way that it can be solved by hoping for and seeking the Second Guardian to protect us.

PM, 5 JANUARY 1959, HAIFA

            We had a terrible scene in the morning’s session of the Custodian Hands receiving the usual scolding from Ruhiyyih Khanum.  I won’t try to detail the subjects that came up before us for discussion and for some action.  These had to do with immoralities and things, accusations and defenses and differing opinions as how these problems should be met with.  All this is better not made record of.  Nevertheless the way and the manner in which we as Hands of the Faith comported ourselves is of much importance and this is the reason why I write and make this note.

            When one speaks verbally there are two messages to go forth, one is the actual words spoken that are directed either to convey what is in the mind of the speaker or upon the other hand to conceal what is in the speaker’s inner thoughts.  The other message that the speaker gives is conveyed through the tone of voice or the manner of expression of what he or she wishes to import or does not wish to import.  This is why the spoken word has a potency that is very difficult to put into the written or printed word as it stands alone.

            The sincerity or the insincerity of the spoken word is much more easy to detect by the amount and the equality of the emotion behind it than when it is announced only in words upon paper.  The manner in which the word is spoken or delivered reveals the intent of the speaker quite as much and often very much more than the actual words.

            I go into all this preamble as a background for the problem with Ruhiyyih Khahnum – namely her attitude toward everyone of the Hands and other members of the Baha'i resident community life or that of the individual that she does not pass upon making an excathedra pronouncement in so many words, but delivering it in such a tone of voice such as only a worn out and worn down cross woman could utter.  To be sure she is the widow of the Guardian and we are all in proper training so we show her the respect due her, but she goes far beyond this that this is a most serious problem here at the Center of the Baha'i Faith.

            As during the lifetime of Shoghi Effendi, she was the contact between each and all of us and the Guardian, so now she dictates to us all and her dictation is accepted by the majority.

            Ruhiyyih Khanum at all times and upon all matters dictates to us as if she were still the link or channel for contact between the Guardian and us, the Hands, actually shaking her finger at us and occasionally striking with her hand the table before her.  Occasionally Leroy Ioas flies off the handle and there is a great flare up but then this quiets down and in the end she dominates the situation despite the fact that she is but one Hand of the several Custodian Hands.  In other words, Ruhiyyih Khanum has assumed the direction of things and in a very scolding and an out-of-patience tone of voice that in itself is an indication that things are not the way they should be within her own psychology.

            All resolves itself down to the fact that the cause needs the institution of the Guardianship to carry it on and will suffer and go to pieces unless we have a Guardian and end this confused state of leadership that Ruhiyyih Khanum and the Persia Hands have thrust us into and so far have dominated the Hands with.  It makes me indignant when I see the way things are going and the mess that we are in.  I feel that the only hope of rectifying this matter lies in the opinions of the believers at large throughout the world for I believe that ere long they, the mass of the Baha’is, will be realizing and talking about this condition and then the Hands in conclave will be obliged in some way to at least try and want to get a Guardian to get us out of all this trouble.

JANUARY 8, 1958, HAIFA                           HAKOOK

            The American Baha’is have heard of some of the laws of the Akdas of Baha’u’llah and amongst these the tax called Hakook.  I understand that this is in force among the believers in Persia but not yet so in America although I have heard it said that a few of the friends are already conforming.

            One day about four or five years ago, the Beloved Guardian spoke to me privately about this Hakook telling me that it was the Law of Baha’u’llah that each Baha'i give Hakook to the Guardian of the Faith (I understand that the amount of this as written by Baha’u’llah is 19% - nineteen percent – of one’s capital) but to me the Beloved Guardian spoke of it as one-fifth part of all capital inherited or otherwise received by one or of capital that remained to one such as ones income that remained to one after his necessary expenses had been deducted.  In other words, not only inherited wealth and that is given to us should thus be taxed, but also Hakook should be paid to the Guardian of the Faith upon that capital that one ammasses from his income beyond his regular living expenses.  In other words, on all which could be considered as capital, 19% of this was by the Baha'i law to go to the Guardian as a prerogative of his Guardianship.  Such was all to be apart from any other taxes or fines to be levied upon the people.

            The Beloved Guardian said that the Hakook was a blessing upon the friends and he spoke of one of the well known Baha’is who had in addition to this 19% of capital had given everything he had to the Guardian.  Here Shoghi Effendi explained to me that while only the one-fifth part (as 19% was demanded by Baha'i law) that this did not mean that the believers should be limited to that amount of Hakook, for to give more than that would be better for the believer.

            Upon being told by Shoghi Effendi himself of the Law of Hakook I decided to make my Hakook to him and upon my next visit to America I did so, this coming out from my own personal estate that I inherited from my wife – this being my own personal capital.

            Furthermore the Beloved Guardian told me that in the settlement of a Baha'i estate that 19% should go by this law of the Faith as Hakook to the Guardian of the Faith.  Therefore in making my last Will and Testament I provided that 19% of my own personal estate should go to the next ensueing Guardian of the Baha'i Faith.

            Apart and above from this capital that is mine coming to me from my wife at her death, I have an income from the Remey Family Estate, the capital of which through family agreement goes back to Remey heirs at my death if there be any such heirs at that time.  Should I be the last of the Remey heirs to die, the entire Remey Family Estate would be mine and the 19% part of this according to my Last Will and Testament should be added to this Hakook to be given to the Guardian of the Faith.

            But now in this time since the death of Shoghi Effendi the time in which there is no Guardian of our Faith and the cause so precious to us is in such jeopardy without law or order that cannot be disputed and we don’t know where we are at now in these days, I for one am realizing that along with other institutions of the Faith, what is to become of Hakook?  That is unless the Guardianship of the Faith be reestablished in our midst?  By this abrogation of the Guardianship – unless it be merely a protem arrangement and another Guardian be forthcoming – Hakook will ere long be upon the rocks like other Baha'i institutions along with it.  Then what source of income will there be to sustain the financial responsibilities to be born by the Guardianship?

            Such and many others are the serious questions that each one of the Hands of the Faith should ask themselves, particularly those amongst the Hands who in their thoughts have definitely decided that the Guardianship is BADAH and that they at every turn arise to block the continuation of the Guardianship.  It is to such as hold to these notions that I make this appeal to their reason.  As for those of the Hands who are so swayed by those who wish the Guardianship ended that they are supporting the present untennable action of the Hands in spirit and in the letter to destroy the Guardianship!  Wake up and right this matter.  There should be some one amongst the Hands who sees these things other than I.  But perhaps not – perhaps I and I alone must arise to right this matter?

8 JANUARY 1959

            Today I have been considering The Holy Spirit as it flows from Baha’u’llah through the Center of His Covenant Abdu’l-Baha on down through the Guardianship and the promise given by the Master and Shoghi Effendi that this spirit of guidance and protection would continue to sustain the cause on through the many successive Guardians of the centuries to come and now???

            It is a mystery to me that now that the hereditary line of descent is ended, are the Hands of the Faith whose duty it is to protect the Faith, are they to sit discouraged and confused saying BADAH and allow all of this magnificant spiritual structure of the Administration of the Faith built by Abdu’l-Baha and the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi be discarded and cast aside?  If the Guardianship of the Faith be eliminated thus without a functioning heart, the body of the Faith in the world will surely die?

            The intent of the communications issued to the Baha'i world from the Hands of the Faith has been that of rejection of the divinely conceived Guardianship of our Faith as directed in the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha and elaborated upon and upheld at all times in the life and teachings of Shoghi Effendi.  In the letter that was sent out after our Second Behje Conclave no mention was made of the Guardianship.  Of the Beloved Guardian yes, but not about the continuance of the Guardianship.  By what this letter did not say, one may read between the lines to the effect that the majority of the Hands of the Faith are against there ever being another Guardian and that after all that Manifesto composed in Chicago by the Hands of the Faith in America with the American N.S.A. declaring the Guardianship definitely ended with circulation of which was stopped at the eleventh hour by order of the Custodian Hands in the Holy Land, is after all the real hidden and unspoken opinion of the Hands.  But this condition can be allayed and it will be wiped out completely when the Hands arise to seek the Second Guardian of the Faith that they surely should do sooner or later lest the cause of Baha’u’llah die.

LATE PM, 9 JANUARY 1959, HAIFA

            Tonight several of us Custodian Hands dined upon the mountain with a group of visiting pilgrims from Persia.  All gathered there, but I, apparently took it for granted following the Proclamation and messages of the Hands to the Baha'i world that the Guardianship was ended and that the spirit of Shoghi Effendi was all that the Baha'i world would ever need or require to lead the cause on to victory without the protection of a living Guardian here on earth amongst us for us to rally around.

            Milly Collins was with us tonight.  She was exultantly happy in the thought of BADAH and that our love and devotion to Shoghi Effendi would be the protective guidance of the Baha’is.  Personally I cannot understand how an intelligent person such as Milly who knows the Master’s Will and Testament and the teachings of the Beloved Guardian can entertain such non-Baha'i ideas and try to follow out such doctrines that if pursued will surely wreck the Administration that was built up so faithfully, laboriously and over so long a period of time by Shoghi Effendi.

            This popular but false dogma of the Faith held by almost all of the Baha’is save me, a few believers in Germany and in the Americas, seem to have swept through the Baha'i world.  I dread to think of what may happen to right this condition for righted it must be if the cause is to endure amongst mankind and I know the cause will succeed and that we are to have a Second Guardian of the Faith – just as I saw in that vision of the future that flashed through my brain over ten years ago.  I know that this cause will outlive this present popular notion that apparently prevails in the Baha'i world.

10 JANUARY 1959

            The American people of all people are by tradition and from the very nature of their freedom are aversed to the thought of sovernity or kingship.  Our forefathers left the countries of the older world because they wanted freedom from the restraints of the laws of sovereignity and they came to America where they could have freedom from the restraints of the older civilizations.

            Thus the American tradition of freedom is so ingrained in the American temperament and way of life that with us it has become lisence for we are indeed now a very lawless people.  Surely there is more crime in America and life is less safe there than in any other country.  Personally I feel more safety of person abroad than at home in the city of Washington where I have lived more than in any other city at home or abroad.

            I indulge in this preamble as a background for what I have to write about the growth of the Baha'i Faith in our United States and of the fact that our Beloved Guardian should have chosen from among the American believers those to trust and to depend upon more than those of any other nation in establishing Baha'i organization the world around.  We, the background of whose American way of life though it be the most superior of any other way of life upon earth, is at the same way the most dishonest from our government and politicians on the top to the underworld upon the bottom thus we are without doubt the most dishonest of all peoples on the face of the earth.  From this background did our Guardian choose his Lieutenants to start his world cruisade first in Latin America then in Europe and elsewhere.  In his cruisade against the vices of materialism he chose his assistants from the most material of the peoples of the world. 

            Thus among Americans appeared the first fruits of the Administration of the Baha'i Faith.  Furthermore in the Baha'i Faith in America are found believers who despite their democratic background of freedom from anything savoring of sovereignity or kingship, were those who arose to obey without question the Beloved Guardian’s commands.  These commands upon the foundation the obeyance of which Shoghi Effendi reared the Administration of the Faith have taken deep roots in the Faith and lives of the Baha’is in America and I am personally sure that the mass of the American Baha’is are not going to relenquish their belief in the continuation of the Guardianship of the Baha'i Faith – not at all – they may not be saying anything about this now at this time of depression in the Baha'i Faith at finding themselves without a Guardian.  They are all feeling this deeply I am sure but I am also sure that ere long questions will be arising that will with force bring to the attention of the Hands of the Faith the necessity for the Guardianship to be continued as the only safeguard to maintain the unity of our Faith and protect us from dividing into cults and sects as the former religions have gone because they did not have the divine plan for their solidarity that the Baha'i Faith has in the institution of the line of Guardians to maintain our unity.

            However inasmuch as the Hands are violating the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha by their violation they may well thus eliminate themselves completely from the authodox Baha'i Faith and thus become the enemies of the cause.

            This confusion that I foresee may not develop as soon as I fear it may, but if delayed it will be all the more virulent when it does break forth, or perhaps it may come just as a slow falling away of the believers because they lack heart and are at a loss without a Guardian?

            As for our friends in Frankfurt, Germany who telegraphed and wrote to the Second Conclave about these matters of which I write now at such length – the Hands made no special answer to their communications which were of such import that it was of the greatest importance that that which they touched upon ought to have been brought before the conclave.  There was no minutes or records kept of the proceedings of that conclave – these communications were not read before the assemblage and no immediate response thereto was made save the general Manifesto or message sent to the Baha'i world from that conclave – the two German Hands of the Faith being deputized to explain their plans for 1963 to these German friends on their return to their country.

            Now such a defense as this of the declaration of the Hands is not going to satisfy or to allay the attitude of these friends or of those who think as they do.  I for one outside of Germany fully appreciate their solicitude for the future of the cause the way it is being at present conducted by the Hands.  I know the German mind.  They think very clearly and directly to the point in question – that of Guardianship.  Unless they become poisoned by this violation madness, they are not going to be blinded by the vague and evasive way in which the Guardianship of the Faith has been treated in these messages of the Hands to the Baha'i world and I here and now prophesy that ere very long the Hands will be so beset by troubles thus centering in Germany that continuing as they surely will the point will be reached when the Hands of the Faith will be obliged to turn to the Guardianship, in order to save the Baha'i Faith from being split into waring groups of believers.

            I see that such a crisis is to come upon the Hands of the Faith.  This is inevitable.  It is but a matter of time when such an explosion will be and since we know from the teachings that the Faith of El Abha is not to fall and go under and as we know from the teachings that the Guardianship is the only thing that will protect the Faith from collapse and ruin.  But it is always possible that like the Azalis, the Nakazeen and the Covenant Breakers, these faithless Hands may cut themselves off completely in the end from the Faith.

14 JANUARY 1959

            Yesterday I read some minutes of the meetings of the National Spiritual Assembly of America where in several cases were noted individual believers who questioned and even objected to the contradictions in the message of the teachings that the Baha’is are now told to teach in the attempt to teach the Administration as presented in the teaching but now without any Guardianship.  These people wanted to know what they should now teach?  What reply was given them by the N.S.A. was not stated in this report however it was noted in the report that no objections to this problem had been made to them by any assembly or group of believers, only by certain individual believers.

            As this question comes up more and more with individual believers, ere long it will be under discussion in the assemblies and will eventually come before the body of Hands for solution.  At the recent conclave at Behje much time was given to developing a method of teaching the message the world around, but when I asked that body what our teachers are supposed to teach now under these present conditions, there was no direct answer.  In fact my real question was not answered at all.

            In various gatherings of Baha’is in which I have been asked to speak of late since we have no Guardian, I have gone back to the way of presenting the Faith as I did in the days of the Master Abdu’l-Baha before we had any Administration when we spoke of the covenant only.  Such was the burden of my talks at the Custodian’s Conference and upon my travels of the past year and more.  The people gave me a good response but I realized that I was only giving them a very partial picture of the Baha'i Faith and one that no one could really take ahold of and join with us in because I did not have a definite message of the Administration to give them.  This question of Administration I avoided and evaded for it would never do of course for a Hand of the Cause to be asked questions that he could not answer.  I could not have revealed to any inquirers the predicament that our Administration finds itself in now at this time.

20 JANUARY 1959, HAIFA

            This morning our four American pilgrims left for Jerusalem and further points.  They all expressed their great joy and happiness at having been here and we who live here appreciated the spirit of their exaltation, for we are one and all glad to be serving the Faith here at the administrative center, but this satisfaction at serving these friends does not mean that we too are enjoying life here because none of us are.  One of the pilgrims said that she felt as if she had been in heaven while here and dreaded leaving.  The feelings of some of us residents here are quite the opposite.  Even in the days of Shoghi Effendi here several of us spoke of Haifa as being the hell hole of this world!  And now in these days, matters continue along about the same, but we must keep up a face before the Baha'i world and not let those at a distance know how things are here behind the scenes as it were.

            In one of our Custodian Consultations recently, it was suggested that were the people, the Baha’is, at a distance to know of certain conditions here it would cause trouble, lack of support of the funds for the expenditures of the Faith – all of which is doubtless very true.  The terrible thing about it is all very true.  Recently in a meeting it was mentioned that Mme. Banani had remarked while here last fall that The Holy Land was a delightful place to visit for a short while but it was no place at which to make a stay.

            Now I am asking myself, why this is so?  and if it be right that it be so?  and things here are not this way because there is not something very wrong here in the ways things are administered?  I think that there are many things here that are very wrong indeed and that these hellish conditions, frustrations, resentments and an ever present fear that were these conditions known that it would shake the faith of the Baha’is in the way that the Administration was being carried on.  All these things prove to me that a general overhauling of the methods and management of the affairs of the Faith here in The Holy Land should be gone into and cleared up and cleared out and with this accomplished I can see a new and great growth of the world around and without this, I see failure stalking the spread of the Faith.

            The only way that I can see to accomplish this is that we have a Second Guardian of the Faith in command for such is the only way we have of getting any divine authority in our workings without which the cause is without protection.  I often think that the believers themselves make for more trouble than do our enemies for we can stand up against an enemy but one has to stand up against their friends in the cause!  The obedience to the Guardian is the refuge of the believers as given to us and as explained to us in both the Will and Testament of the Master as well as in all the elucidations, explanations and admonitions given to us by the Beloved Shoghi Effendi.  Problems mount upon all sides but for the most part they stem from the fact that the vast majority of the Hands have decided that the Guardianship is ended forever.  This is the root of our present dilemma.  We must have a Guardian!  But how?

            What greater deviation could there be from and against the Testament of Abdu’l-Baha than the abolishment of the Guardianship instituted by him?  It is the very center of the life of the Faith.  To my mind this violation of the Will and Testament as I told the Hands at the Second Behje Conclave is as an axe at the root of the Faith and as a dagger in the heart thereof!  Apparently my arguement means little or nothing to the Hands there assembled!  This poisonous attack upon the Guardianship of our Faith had so taken ahold of the twenty four whom I was addressing that one and all were insensible to and unaware of the danger of their stand against the continuation of the institution of Guardianship.  I am hoping and praying that before or at the next conclave of the Hands of the Faith, that all will realize the perilous conditions that the Faith is now in without the divine guidance of the Guardianship.  It is in the institution of the Guardianship wherein lies the guidance of the Faith and not in the personality of any one Guardian himself as a man.

            According to the Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Baha, one Guardian is to follow another and so on down through the history of the Faith on through the centuries.  These Guardians will all be different personalities.  It is in itself an institution and a function unchangeable and in this lies the guidance of the Faith for centuries to come, for only through this channel can The Holy Spirit (that in this age eminates to the world of humanity only through Baha’u’llah) reach mankind coming from the Manifestation through the center of his covenant on through the institution of the Guardianship to the people of the Faith.

            Such the Beloved Guardian explained to us at great length was the especial mission of his Guardianship.  That He, the First Guardian of the Faith, was to inaugurate this system of the Administration of the Faith.  Thus after about thirty or so years of his ministry he chose the Hands of the Faith thus elevating them from the ranks of the Faith by appointment to become the peerage of the aristocracy of the Faith which Faith as we all know is the Kingdom of God upon earth with the Guardian as the divine potentate of that Kingdom.

            The Guardian infallible, surrounded by his appointed aristocracy of Hands was to be the first pillar of the supreme institution of the Faith, the Universal House of Justice, the other pillar of which was yet to be erected (that is when he assemblies of the people of the cause, local and national, were sufficiently strong and functioning to form the second necessary pillar – the international organization of the people) which together functioning with the Guardian surrounded by his nobles (the Hands of the Faith) would form the House of Justice, the decrees of which would be infallible and would form the House of Justice, the decree of which would be infallible and would be the center of guidance for the cause throughout this Dispensation of Baha’u’llah.

            The first pillar, the infallible divinely instituted and appointed Guardians, the Second pillar of the Universal House of Justice to be of the people of the Faith and chosen by them from their ranks representing them who are the proletariat of the Kingdom of God on earth – thus the Faith will eventually be ruled by the institution resting upon these two pillars representing the Guardian of the Faith upon one side and upon the other side, the members of the House chosen by the people from amongst their own members.

            The Guardianship was the first foundation pillar of this Universal House of Justice and it was the function of the Guardianship to choose the Hands of the Faith and also to train and prepare and to organize the mass of the believers to form their assemblies, local and international.  But in the midst of the progress of this process, Shoghi Effendi was suddenly called from this world to the Abha Kingdom beyond.  Apparently he had no idea at all that his death was so near.  All of his personal work was at a sudden stop, but according to the divinely revealed Will and Testament of the Master, the Guardianship of the Faith was not to be interuppted by the death of Shoghi Effendi or of any succeeding Guardian of the Faith.  For the Guardianship in which infallibility rested was a continual institution to be carried on and on throughout this Baha'i Dispensation.  But Shoghi Effendi had no issue to succeed him as the Second Guardian of the Faith, therefore it became necessary that the Beloved Guardian should appoint another branch and up until now we do not know who he appointed?           

            The matter of the Guardianship came up for consultation among all of the Hands at the first Behje Conclave – came up upon the second day of that conclave where upon immediately it was proposed by one of the Persian Hands that the Guardianship be ended forever and pronounced BADAH!

            This motion was immediately supported by all of the Hands from Persia, supported with enthusiasm and in so concrete and forceful a manner that it was very evident to some others present that these Persian friends had between themselves discussed this matter and had made a covenant between themselves that the Guardianship should end and be no more.

            Here Ruhiyyih Khanum and others of the Hands fell in with and supported this move with the result that instead of rallying to support the Guardianship as an institution by there upon meeting this emergency, arising and seeking to find the appointed Guardian to carry on the institution of Guardianship, one move that would have conserved the framework of the Administrative structure of the Will and Testament so laboriously built up by the Beloved Guardian until the Second Guardian be found.  But it was decided to definitely and not put aside the administrative order of the Will and Testament as BADAH and to substitute in its place the present institution of the nine Custodian Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land, an institution wholly of their own making for which there was no sanction whatsoever in any of the Holy Baha'i Teachings.

            Furthermore, the Hands sought to shift their own responsibility of doing anything further than appointing these nine Custodians by announcing that the solution of all Baha'i problems would be handled by the House of Justice that they proposed to elect in 1963.  Thus these peers of the Faith would turn over to the proletariat of the Baha'i Faith the entire matter forsaking their responsibilities to maintain and protect the Faith – they the aristocracy of the Faith – thus plan to turn all over to the proletariat of the Faith, thus creating virtually a sort of a democratic-republican government in place of that of the Kingdom of the Baha'i Faith.

            By these maneuvers, the Hands are crawling out from under their responsibilities and evidently are trying to please everybody and with but no exception this seems to all the Hands in The Holy Land save me to be working satisfactorily, and I’ve no doubt all of the other Hands throughout the world feel the same way about it but I see naught but trouble ahead for the cause and a plenty of trouble too, for we are departing from the Master’s plan so radically that no good can possibly come to us.

            And all of this scrapping of all that the Beloved Guardian has been working to accomplish during the years of his ministry is opening the door to the enemies of the Faith, the most subtle and dangerous of which are people who may be most sincere believers, but in whose minds these human standards that we are following are taking the place of the true Baha'i standards of the Will and Testament.

            An instance of this potential trouble came to my notice while I was last in America when Stanwood Cobb told us of two well known and very prominent Baha’is who at Green Acre this past summer talked around saying that of course without anymore Guardians to appoint Hands, these present Hands would die off and that then the cause freed from all this “aristocracy” and would then be the true democratic institution as it ought to be.

            I don’t mention the names of these two Baha’is whom Stanwood are quoting because I don’t want to get him into any trouble, although he did not tell me this in confidence.  However I am sure he would tell the Hands of this talk going on around Green Acre for it was not at all against the Proclamation or other communications received from the Hands.  It quite concurred with all that the Hands have told the Baha'i world, but these two Baha’is have not seen what the result will be of the way the present action and sanction of the Hands is leading the cause.  They are in sympathy with it all and that is the danger.  The great danger to our Faith lies in the fact that the Hands as a vast majority have gone on record as endorsing just this thing that this faction at Green Acre want – no more aristocracy in the Faith.  It should be a democracy!  If such thought is not in violation of the Will and Testament of the Master and of all that the Beloved Guardian taught us, I don’t know the meaning of violation?

            The Hands have no authority or power to create a House of Justice, neither have national assemblies any authority or power to do the same.  The only authority or power to create the Universal House of Justice is vested within the Guardianship so without a living Guardian, nothing can be done to get the cause out of the condition in which it now finds itself.  Thus for the moment all is at a standstill.

            What is the matter with the mentalities of the Hands of the Faith that no one of us but I see this problem thus as it is?  Awake and behold the structure built up by the Beloved Guardian upon the firm foundation of the Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Baha and realize that this structure must be conserved and not repudiated as is now being done upon the part of the Hands of the Faith.  Let us put an end to this time of bewilderment and get the Administration of the Faith back again in running order and functioning and ready for the guidance of the Second Guardian of the Baha'i Faith.

            The mass of the believers throughout the world have not as yet had time to think over this problem in fact they are very much in the dark as to what is transpiring in the minds of the Hands of the Faith.  The Hands have thus far been able to keep them in the dark and from knowing their mental processes.  But very few of the believers have had the convictions and the courage to question the Hands, save in Germany, Latin America and here and there a very few in the United States.  No authoritative answers to these questionings have been given save the general announcements issued by the Hands none of which in reality answer these questions.  Therefore the problem still remains.  What are the people to teach now that it is slowly sinking into the Baha'i consciousness the world around that they can no longer teach the Administration, now that the Hands have decided that the Will and Testament with the Guardianship is no longer to be taught.

            The whole thing just has no sense and as the friends as individuals awake to this condition this present unity of the Faith cannot possibly be maintained, especially when the national assemblies begin to deprive one of his voting rights as a Baha'i who questions this abolition of the Guardianship which was the case of Tony Fillon in Central America being because Tony questioned “The Institution of the Baha'i Faith” implying that the disestablishment and the ending of the Guardianship was “An Institution of the Baha'i Faith”.

23 JANUARY 1959

            This afternoon I went up into the upper chamber where we Custodian Hands hold our conferences.  There alone I read over many of the messages to the Baha'i world from Shoghi Effendi (1950-1957) recently published and copies sent to us here from Chicago.

            Upon page 74 of the work is a statement by our late Guardian regarding the development of the housing of the several administrative branches or elements of the Baha'i Faith, upon Mount Carmel above the Monument Gardens, the first edifice of which is the Archive Building that has now been completed since his death.  The others mentioned in his message to the Baha'i world in order he gave them were to I – house the Guardian, II – the Hands of the Faith and III – the Universal House of Justice.

            One of the last acts of the Guardian was to develop the circular roadway on beyond the Archive Building where these other edifices are to be placed.  He often spoke to us of the International Baha'i Council about this architectural plan that he had in mind and was thus developing.  More than once he spoke of the house upon the mountain to be built in the classic style of the Archives Building which would be the residence of the Guardians to follow him on into the future, all as directed in the Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Baha.  Then the House of the Hands of the Cause and the building to house the Universal House of Justice that were all to be in this same classic style as the Archives Building.

            And now what is the Baha'i world faced with but that the majority of the Hands of the Faith have decided otherwise; namely that we are now in “A New Baha'i Era” with no more Guardians.  In other words that the framework of the Administration of the Faith as given by Abdu’l-Baha is scrapped and put aside forever!

            As for myself, personally I am confident that something or some condition or some other something will ere long descend upon the Hands of the Faith that will cause them to see the error of  their present decision and will cause them to arise and be ready for a Guardian to command the Faith for such action upon their part is the only manner in which the Faith can be protected by them during this interregnum.  Upon the Hands lies the responsibility of protecting the Faith under the direction of the Guardian.  Upon them and upon none others has been placed this responsibility and if the Cause is to live (and we all believe that it is destined to live and prosper), therefore the Hands must and will I hope do this.

            The question in my mind is O God How Long are things to be thus before this necessary revolution against this “New Baha'i Era” plan of no more Guardianship be overthrown and the cause be gotten back again on to the way that the Beloved Guardian planned and was leading us?

            I dread to think of what effect such a restitution may have upon Ruhiyyih Khanum because apparently she with her present attitude toward the Guardianship will have to make the greatest personal sacrifice of any of the others of us.  No one could be more faithfully devoted to the memory of Shoghi Effendi than she and this her very devotion to the person of Shoghi Effendi blinds her to the divinely spiritual function of the Guardianship that is not a personal reality but an impersonal divine station to which the First Guardian was appointed by the Master Abdu’l-Baha and according to the Will and Testament will continue on throughout this Baha'i Dispensation functioning through these personalities to follow in the footsteps of the First Guardian of the Faith of Shoghi Effendi.

            I myself have no idea at all of how this condition that so violates the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha can be straightened out.  When I began to worry over this matter, shortly after the First Behje Conclave, I thought that in all probability pressures would be brought upon the Hands from the people of the Faith the world around.  It seemed so clear to me that I thought beyond a doubt but that many others would see it too, but such doesn’t seem to be the case – at least not yet.  The German National Assembly sees it as do a very few other individuals who evidently are too much afraid of raising an objection that would throw them out from the cause, so they say nothing yet one can only imagine the state of mind that they are building up within themselves.  So far as I know to date, Tony Fillon is the only one who actually in words questions this act of the Hands and he is in disgrace, deprived of his membership as a registered believer!

            If there are any others who see this question aright, they are as yet to date not saying anything about it.

            But in our meeting of the Custodian Hands of yesterday I saw a new hope for the first time.  The hope that something might be working in the consciousness of the Hands themselves that in time might lead our number to discover for themselves this violation of the Will and Testament.  This is a most delicate and sensitive subject!  I have spoken out as clearly as I know how telling the other Hands in conclave at Behje and here also among the Custodians, but all to no avail.  I stand quite alone but this doesn’t perturb me in the least bit because I know I am right, but I as an individual Hand can do nothing about it save to hold to my convictions and trust that things will soon be righted.

            But to return to my discovery at our meeting of the Custodians yesterday.  For the first time I felt that Ruhiyyih Khanum and some others were themselves getting into a very much troubled and worried state of soul about the way in which the work of the cause was not progressing as it should.  In other words, they are getting to the end of their emotional composure and sureness.  This was the first time that I perceived this state of affairs that evidently from the pent up feelings that burst forth must have been coming along for some time without coming to the point that it came to this afternoon.

            So perhaps conditions may become so bad that in the end the Hands themselves will realize that in order to save the cause, the Guardianship must be reestablished!  Such is the only hope I see at this present time.  When the Hands go on record as wanting a Guardian – there will be some hope of their being given a Guardian.

24 JANUARY 1959

            Our late Guardian left no son to inherit the Guardianship and neither had he any relatives who qualified to inherit the Guardianship; therefore the Hands of the Faith wish to abolish the entire framework of the system of Baha'i government that the Beloved Guardian has worked for so many years to establish and has pointed out to us the way in which he was establishing it, and now because death called him from us before he had completed this establishment, the Hands then decide to scrap all that he had done preparing the continuation of the Guardianship to follow on.  Now the Hands would deprive the Baha'i world of the government as established by our First Guardian by replacing the Master’s plan with a plan of their own thus destroying the very structure and function of the government left us by our Dear First Guardian to carry on.

            The majority of the Hands not only wish to eliminate the Guardianship, but they think that they can get a Universal House of Justice by their own method which puts aside the procedures worked upon by Shoghi Effendi for the formation of that House of Justice.  He shows us in his texts that the House of Justice has to be set up and formed by the Guardian.  In other words, they would do away with this the system given in the Will and Testament and replace it by something of their own concoction.  What could be a greater violation of the Master’s Will than this?

            The Beloved Guardian must have completed the necessary work that he was told to do in the Will and Testament.  It is now the duty of the Hands to ascertain that which the Guardian accomplished toward appointing a Second Guardian of the Cause to succeed and carry on the work of the Faith.

            Why don’t the Hands of the Faith study the Master’s Testament and the writings and acts of Shoghi Effendi as our German friends and others are doing?  People are questioning the Hands, asking why.  The Hands cannot answer their queries because they have not gotten at the root of this matter – their thoughts are not clear.  God gave us brains to use, why not use them?

            When a reigning monarch dies, his nobles don’t wreck the systematic running and change their form of government from a monarchy with all of it built-up and firm prestige and substitute an entirely different form of rule completely destroying all their former government or do they back down and forsake the principles of their former ruler by abandoning all of his principles and turning their responsibilities over to the proletariat, the people of the Kingdom, telling them to abandon their (the nobles) responsibilities such as the Hands have announced to the Baha'i world that is their intention of doing by electing a House of Justice in 1963.

            No they do no such thing!  They take ahold of things and make every effort to find the heir to the vacant throne in order that their monarchial government continue on without change in its structure or its functions.

            We Hands of the Faith are the ones to arise now to meet our responsibilities and maintain the Baha'i government of the Faith by trying to maintain the continuation of the Guardianship but not end it.

24 JANUARY 1959, P.M.

            The accompanying letter from Mons. Louis Henuzet reproduced from the original in French and addressed to the Baha'is in the Benelux countries explains to these friends the loyal to the Baha'i covenant and to the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha of this friend who is a member of the auxiliary European Council of Baha’is.

            This letter is a clear statement of what the Baha’is of the world should expect to take place with the death of a Guardian of our Faith.  The entire plan and system of the spiritual mechanisms of the cause should continue along without any basic change in its structure and functioning.

            Shoghi Effendi being the first of the line of Guardians to be followed by the Second Guardian and so on just as the Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha provides for but with no suggestion that under any circumstances that with the death of Shoghi Effendi that the Guardianship of the Faith should then come to an abrupt end and finish for all times as the Hands now maintain the Guardianship be ended.

            I am wondering what the European Baha’is are going to think of the wisdom of the Hands when told that their majority do not in their hears want that there shall ever be another Guardian; even though they have not said so in so many plain words to the Baha’is of the world but have side-stepped the matter of offering the vain and impossible hope of a Universal House of Justice in 1963 that would then take over the matter, Sans Guardian – a false hope that can never be realized because there cannot be a House of Justice formed without first a Guardian to form it.

            Now considering the viewpoint of some of our most prominent European Baha’is who are upon the N.S.A. of Germany seated in Frankfurt.  These friends not only have the same viewpoint of the continuation of the Guardianship as have the Benelux countries who have officially published this Henuzot letter in their official Baha'i Bulletin of November 1957, but these German friends went so far as to practically to object to the Proclamation of the Hands issued in November 1957 by telegraphing and writing to the Second Behje Conclave and in a very kindly and a gentle way remonstrating with us and trying to awaken us to the dangers of our action of doing away with the Guardianship.  It seems that they had received from America even before we had it in Haifa (in fact this paper was first received in Haifa from Germany), a copy of that Manifesto “A New Baha'i Era” in which the real intent of the majority of the Hands was revealed so that with this Manifesto in hand together with the Proclamation of the Hands of the Faith from the first Behje Conclave, they (the Germans) saw and understood the direction in which the cause was being steered by the Hands, which was toward the abolishment of the Guardianship.

            With this writing I add the accompanying copy of a letter from Dr. Udo Schaefer regarding the present condition of the cause without hope of a continuation of the Guardianship.  This copy came to me shortly before the convening of the Second Behje Conclave.  Each of the other Custodian Hands received copies also.

            Shortly after this conclave opened, a telegram and a letter came to the conclave from the German N.S.A. (neither of which I have a copy to enclude here), the burden of each of these missives being of the same character as this Schaefer letter, the letter referring to this Schaefer protest.

            While the reception of these three documents was mentioned before the conclave, neither of the letters were read before that body or was any reply made to these questions save that the two returning Hands from Germany, Hermann Grosmann and Adelbert Mulalschlegel, were commissioned to talk with these questioning Baha’is and explain to them that the Hands were giving out no further statement, explanations, or arguements than already made in their Proclamation and other messages to the Baha'i world.

            Personally I hope for a pursuance of this matter by these German friends because if they or other Baha’is in other parts of the world thus call the attention of the Hands to their great mistake in their present attempt to put aside and entirely out of order the working of the administrative procedure established in the Will and Testament of the Master, that their objections may have some effect upon this decision of the Hands against which decision I myself was the only discenting voice in our recent conclave.  If the Hands themselves are not awake within their conclave to their violation of the Will and Testament, then their awakening must be forced upon them from some force outside of themselves, such as would be a strong enough revolt among the believers abroad to make us to see the destruction that we are bringing upon the

The Baha'i Faith throughout the entire world.

            I am sorry that it is necessary for me to entertain such sympathies against the opinions of my fellow Hands, but I must take this stand against them for the sake of the continuance of the true Baha'i Faith in this world.

26 JANUARY 1959

            From time to time of late, my fellow Hands here in Haifa have made a point of calling my attention to the many letters coming here from both individual Baha’is as well as collective groups assuring the Custodian Hands of their whole-hearted support of this Guardianship-less institution and of their happiness over the present state of the cause – the pursuance of the ten year cruisade, and of their looking forward to having the Universal House of Justice in 1963.  These missives do not mention the very few believers who have brought up questions regarding the hope of a Second Guardian of the Faith and for the moment these questioners are silent and apparently forgotten by the assemblies the world around in their enthusiasm in their support of this organization of the nine Custodians who are now directing the affairs of the cause.

            It is plain to me that the Hands here are all calling my attention to this apparent happiness of the believers the world around as a reproof to me of this stand that I have taken, and in which so far I stand quite alone with all the other Hands against me – that we should continue the Guardianship and not end it with Shoghi Effendi’s death depending now upon this Custodian group of nine Hands in the Holy Land to lead the cause calculating that a personal Guardian in the flesh is no longer needed because the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi from the Abha Kingdom above and beyond this world will continue to guide us upon this earth through these nine chosen Hands as he himself, Shoghi Effendi, did while he was here with us.

            Only yesterday Milly Collins chided me because I held to the Guardianship when all of the Hands in their stand were thus being reinforced in their stand by the support of Baha’is the world around.  I find it quite useless for me to discuss this problem with Milly although we do discuss it every time we get a moment together which is almost every day for at least a short talk.  She is the only one of the Hands with whom I do talk freely about anything in these present days.  They all know how I stand and they all stand together in opposition to the continuation of the Guardianship and so thus things stand, I telling Milly that I know that something is going to happen that will cause such consternation in the body of the twenty seven Hands that will cause them to sit up and realize that they must either have a Second Guardian to direct them or declare themselves openly to be violators of the Faith under the Guardianship.  For as every living body has to have a heart in order to function, so the living cause of God upon earth must needs have a heart in action else it will die. 

            Milly doubts this stand that I take, telling me that because now all is running along well with the cause the world around without the Guardianship that this is proof that I am wrong in not accepting that which the Hands are united upon.

            At present the Administration of the Baha'i Faith is like a man who is apparently in perfect health but has a disease of the heart of which he is quite conscious until suddenly he collapses – as for example did Shoghi Effendi – and upon examination into the cause of death it was found caused by a stoppage of his heart’s action.

            In today’s meeting of the Custodian Hands of the Faith there were but seven of us present.  There was a terrible inharmony and moments of fierce conflict, I sitting there looking on at the fray and knowing why this condition that I am seeing becomes more and more intensified each time that we come together that now I am seeing a hope here that may I trust bring these Hands to the realization that a Guardian is needed to keep us in order first of all before we can establish Baha'i law and order in the world.

            This confused state of the Hands of the Faith is to my mind due to their looking at the personality of Shoghi Effendi, the Beloved Guardian, instead of looking at his office and station of Guardianship, the person occupying that station will become the channel through whom will flow The Holy Spirit from Baha’u’llah and that this spiritual flow according to the Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Baha will guide the Faith – the guiding power not coming from the person who is Guardian but through his station of Guardianship.

            But such arguement is flatly opposed by others of the Hands.  In fact Ruhiyyih Khanum’s arguement that so far as I can see is accepted by all or if not accepted by some, these some say nothing in our conclaves but hold their peace, for says she, Shoghi Effendi could find no soul upon earth capable of succeeding him.  Therefore for this reason he could not appoint a successor because there was no one worthy of this successorship.  Therefore we are without a Guardian and furthermore questions she, who are we to presume to criticize the Beloved Guardian for not doing that which he could not accomplish?

            Such is Ruhiyyih Khanum’s reaction to my arguement.  So far as I know her testimony is her memory of what Shoghi Effendi said to her.  We have none of this over his signature.  All that I can reply to this is that we must follow the Will and Testament and all the works and teachings of Shoghi Effendi as best we Hands are able and that we will be led to serve the Faith through the Guardianship.  Ruhiyyih Khanum even suggests that by virtue of his infallibility Shoghi Effendi can put aside the Will and Testament and institute in its place anything that he may please to do. 

26 JANUARY 1959

            Had I not had that mental flash vision, now well over ten years ago, of things that were to come to pass – the death of Shoghi Effendi and the fact there following him I would be the Second Guardian, I in all probability would never have thus stood up alone against this move of the Hands of the Faith to abolish the Guardianship that is so almost universally accepted and welcomed most enthusiastically by the Baha'i world.

            Personally I don’t like to fight and rather than do so I usually am inclined to quietly accept a situation that I know to be wrong; that is to appear to accept it by simply not coming out and opposing it rather than start a quarrel or a fight.  For such has been my action, or I should say my lack of action on many occasions past that I must now acknowledge to myself was wrong and a thing that I now regret.

            However, now in this case of the violation of this institution of the Guardianship, I am moved to stand up and to fight against the entire body of the Hands of the Faith as I am here doing thus here putting forth my intention in this writing because I know that the very life of the Baha'i Cause in this world depends upon the continuance of the Guardianship.  How this fight is going to be won I have no idea although I am sure it is going to be won despite the present outlook.

Last night Ruhiyyih Khanum entertained all of us at dinner, we were thirteen at the table, after which she made an empassioned and a strong appeal to us in a speech.  Calling us and calling the entire Baha'i world to arise depending upon the love and the guidance of Shoghi Effendi to inspire and to lead us on to victory of the ten year cruisade now led by us Custodian Hands here in The Holy Land of whom six of us were present with seven other members of our local Baha'i household here in Haifa.  She urging us and all other Baha’is to arise to her call which would have been all right and all that was necessary had Ruhiyyih Khanum been making this appeal during the lifetime of Shoghi Effendi, but not right or sufficient now at this present time after Shoghi Effendi’s death and the cause without a Guardian.  For we ought now to have a Guardian and she addressing this appeal to us that we all should follow and be supporting the Second Guardian of the Faith for the Guardianship when established in our midst is the source of the continued leadership of the Faith now and for time to come.

            I saw there last night in that gathering not able to speak because had I spoken to the believers there assembled I would have been divulging the affairs of the Hands, all of which affairs must be kept secret amongst ourselves, but had we been only Hands alone I would have spoken to them just as I have been speaking to them for these past now almost fifteen months.  But as yet my talk has meant nothing to them save that apparently they look upon my thoughts with complaisance granting me a certain indulgence and latitude within our gatherings of Hands only present knowing and trusting me that I’ll say nothing outside of our meetings that are most confidential so because of this they do not fear any trouble from me.

            Were I to speak out my thoughts about the Guardianship, speak out to the Baha'i world I would expect to be cast out from all Baha'i association by the Hands.  If to be sure they have no right nor the power so to cast anyone out from the Faith for none but the Guardian has this right but like other things, they are now assuming such rights as they may wish.  So long as I keep my mouth shut to the Baha'i world, the Hands of the Faith cannot do anything about me and the stand that I take against them. 

            I am therefore awaiting that the Hands wake up to this condition of affairs and of themselves arise to want for and to seek the Guardianship.  I hope this will come from an awakening within the Hands themselves or by an awakening forced upon the body of Hands by pressure upon them from without, exhorted by an awakening Baha'i mass of believers such as might easily start.  For example in Germany or in France where amongst at least a few Baha'i

Thinkers or such might even start in America, but this to me doesn’t seem to be probable as in Europe because the European Baha'i mind in some respects seems to me to be more thoughtful and awake than the American Baha'i mind.

            Nevertheless come as it may, I am confident that something, somewhere, will be started by some body to so precipitate things that the body of Hands will be compelled to change their present stand about the Guardianship or else they themselves cast themselves out from the Faith.

            For the past almost fifteen months my morning and evening prayers and often made more frequently:

                        “O My God, unite and inspire the Hands of Thy Cause to want

                          The Guardianship of Thine Abha Faith and lead me to do that

                          Which I should do in this matter and protect me from doing

                          anything that I ought not to do toward this end”.

28 JANUARY 1959

            Last night I was thoroughly indignant.  Four of us Hands here in The Holy Land had dinner with a group of pilgrims from Persia at the Pilgrim House upon the mountain, after which we Hands were asked to speak.

            The talks of the three Hands other than me ran along upon the same lines of thought that was Ruhiyyih Khanum in her talk to the friends of the Baha'i colony here last night, that the Beloved Guardian from the Abha Realm was watching over us and directing our work here upon earth and if we just love him enough and follow out this program of the world cruisade that he gave us, we will ride on to spiritual victory through his continued guidance under the nine Custodian Hands, without any other guidance until the Universal House of Justice be founded.

            No mention of their wish to abolish the Guardianship was made, but it was clear to me that their talks like Ruhiyyih Khanum’s talk last night was all framed up in support of the abolishment; thus these visiting pilgrims as well as the members of the Baha'i community here are daily being indoctrinated into this notion of no more Guardianship.  They all stress this teaching that love for Shoghi Effendi will be the guide and our inspiration and that the Baha’is need no other guidance than the continued guidance of Shoghi Effendi from the Abha world.

            They are actually believing that love is the foundation of peace and harmony amongst us while we should know that law and order and justice applied is the only possible source of a lasting peace upon earth.

            Today is the time in the history of the world when the government of the world is to become the foundation of peace and the unity of mankind and then love and unity will be the result of this applied law and order.  The Guardianship is the heart of this law and order in the Baha'i Faith and surely when we abolish the Guardianship we will have destroyed the very source of the law and order of God’s Cause.

            I get exasperated when I hear the Hands of the Faith stand up and thus mislead the believers into accepting their abolition doctrine so subtly that these individual believers to whom they talk are by them, the Hands, actually being led away from the Administration of the Faith.  All this talk I have to listen to because it is now the teaching of the Hands that is upheld by the

Majority and were I to show my non-acceptance of these false doctrines I would be stirring up the Baha’is against the Hands and if I were to make a point of enlightening the people I would surely be thrown out of the Baha'i organized Faith and as an outcast classed as a violator. Notwithstanding this condition, I am still firm in my belief that in the end the Guardianship will stand.  Then we will have the guidance and the spiritual confirmations necessary to carry on and carry out this world cruisade program established by our Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi.

29 JANUARY 1959

            Yesterday morning we had one of our usual tempestuous meetings of consultations of the Custodian Hands of the Faith – so high and uncomfortable in temper that it was decided that we all go to the Shrine of Baha’u’llah at Behje to pray for our condition.  There we assembled for the better part of the hour in prayer, I being asked to read the Tablet of Visitation.  We had a very inspiring and tranquil spiritual time there all together, then got into two automobiles to drive back to Haifa thinking ourselves to be happy and unified.  But!  Hardly had we started when two of the Hands of the Cause of God burst forth one against the other in such a torrent of words quarreling and shouting one against the other – one threatening to jump out of the then rapidly moving car driven by the other contestant with such danger to life that the one driving halted the car that the other could get out in safety, then a third one joined the one on the ground for a conference between the two that ended after a few minutes by the two getting into the car and we continued on our return to Haifa.

            It was by that time dark and being the hour that many people were returning home from the days work, the highway was crowded with rapidly moving cars.  There came another explosion of angry words between the Hand who was driving and the opponent-Hand seated at the other end of the back seat from where I sat and the battle of angry epithets was again being hurled by one against the other.

            Thus seeing the danger that we were in at night upon the crowded highway, I jumped into the fray shouting at them both to sop, hammering with my fist on the back of the seat in front of me to give emphasis to my words, warning them at the top of my voice of our danger in being driven at full speed down the highway by one in such a temper as our driver.  I had to yell at them again and again before they subsided, whereupon another Hand of the Cause who until then remained silent, began to chant a poem to ease up the situation until we finally reached #7 Persian Street, Haifa, and as we left the car one of the friends was heard to remark in Arabic – El Ham Do L’Allah (Praise be to God) we are here in safety!

            And again at our next meeting late this afternoon, a little less than twenty-four hours later there was another very uncomfortable emotional storm again in the consultation of the Hands in the Holy Land with the question voiced as to what can be done to remedy this condition in our midst because this is the Cause of God that is suffering in this way.  Yes.  This is indeed the question.  The only remedy so far carried by these Hands is that if we love Shoghi Effendi sufficiently and with a sustained ardor that is great enough, we will overcome all these troubles.  I maintain that this condition exists amongst us because we have rejected the hope of the Guardianship.  Were we seeking the Second Guardian of the Cause to command the administrative affairs as directed in the Will and Testament as to want to do away with the Guardianship – the only source of their protection and their unity?

            These friends all know how I stand against them in this matter and whenever I voice my opinion they don’t like it at all although they are all pleasant enough to me personally as an individual amongst them.  Again what I cannot comprehend is why is it that they resent the thought of the Guardianship of the Faith.  THEY DON’T WANT A SECOND GUARDIAN TO LEAD THEM!  And if they can possibly help it, they are not going to have one.

            However, I am firm in my faith that something is going to happen or befall the Cause that will awaken the cause to this great danger and will shunt things from the present track on which they are running off into the right track as so clearly shown in the Will and Testament and in all the Beloved Guardian’s efforts and instructions to us.

FEBRUARY 1959

            In making my plea for the continuation of the Guardianship of the Faith before the Second Behje Conclave in November 1958, I thought I had a very particular personal reason for not wanting to have to bring this question up myself before the conclave – a reason known only to me – no other person upon earth shared this reason with me.  I myself wanted that the subject to be brought up by one other than I.  Therefore I waited until near the close of the conclave hoping that the Guardianship would be mentioned but as the time was running out and no prospect of anyone mentioning this matter that I knew to be the one safeguard to the unity of the Faith, so at the eleventh hour of the conclave I myself had to overcome my own personal objections and bring up the subject myself, but alas this matter of the Guardianship was not on the agenda.  It had been decided at the First Behje Conclave and I was out of order in bringing it up when I did; therefore it could not be there discussed.  I was out of all parliamentary order!

            Just the other day in a meeting of the Custodian Hands here in Haifa where I urged a discussion of that “Lucknow Protesting Letter” upon the “Guardianship” I was reminded by the Hands that this subject could not be gone into until another conclave of all the Hands, but that at our next conclave of all the Hands it could be put on the agenda for discussion.

            It is with this hope in mind that I am writing down my thoughts on this matter in this form for it is my intention to share with the Hands of the Faith a copy of this arguement that they may have time to consider and think about the matter individually before entering the next conclave.  The Custodian Hands in The Holy Land tell me that I should not write to any of the Hands abroad about the Guardianship as this might stir up the problem with uncomfortable results.  As the Custodians tell me not to write to the Hands abroad individually, I am thinking of writing at length this arguement addressing it to the body of Custodian Hands asking that the Guardianship be on the agenda to be brought up at the next conclave addressing a copy of the arguement to each of the Hands of the Faith – sending this copy to the Custodian body and asking this body to please consider the matter.  By this procedure I will be carrying out their ruling that I don’t address myself to the Hands abroad and at the same time entertaining the hope that they, Custodians as a body will reconsider the matter.

            As for myself as an individual, I would far rather just go on my own individual way and say nothing more about “Guardianship”  for I dislike intensely the stress and the strain of this controversy I am launching against the opinion and wishes of the entire body of Hands, but knowing as I do know that the very life of the Baha'i Faith depends upon the continuation of the Guardianship, I feel that I must take and make this stand.

4 FEBRUARY 1959

            The great danger that the Faith is now plunged is not only that we are not only without a Guardian but that the Hands of the Faith, by the well directed and determined policy that they have established and are adhering to, are gradually conditioning the believers the world around to the regieme that they have set up, Sans Guardian, that is in opposition to the order of the Administration as given in the Master’s Will and Testament, one very outstanding example of which deviation they have made with evident success too, for so far as I know it has been accepted by the world around.  Namely!

            According to the Will and Testament, the Hands should at all times be “in the service of the Guardian of the Faith” and about this there is no question at all because according to the Will and Testament, the Guardianship of the Faith is a living and constant presence amongst us here upon this earth, a sun as it were, that never sets – a living heart that never ceases to beat through which is given to the world the constant flow of life which is The Holy Spirit of God – a life flow that cannot come to the world through any source other than through the living presence amongst us of a Guardian, a living man – thus is the Guardianship as explained to us by the Master Abdu’l-Baha.  But what have the Hands done?  They have decided no more Guardians!  And now we sign all letters, “Yours in the Service of the Beloved Guardian” (by inference meaning of course Shoghi Effendi) which is all wrong because now Shoghi Effendi is dead and we are without a Guardian and at present we are in no one’s service save our own service, that of the Hands of the Faith, and the very bad feature of this present condition is that the believers the world around are being misled by the Hands and are already conditioning the people to this false teaching that is causing this trouble amongst us.  The fact that letters are coming in from all parts of the Baha'i world to the Custodian Hands here in The Holy Land signed “In the Service of the Beloved Guardian” (Shoghi Effendi) is a demonstration that this false teaching that we are upholding is already taking root in the Baha'i consciousness the world around.

            Almost every day here in Haifa, one or another of the Hands call to my attention the letters and dispatches now coming here to us from all parts of the world assuring us (Custodian Hands) of their loyalty and support in our decisions and actions all of which sincere testimony is only too arden, heartfelt and genuine.

            With the Guardianship reestablished upon earth we should then be signing ourselves “In the service of the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith” – whatever his name may be – for it is the office of the Guardianship to which we owe all obedience, difference and homage as the various Guardians come into their Guardianship and pass on out therefrom in the ages to come of the Dispensation of Baha’u’llah.

            For deceived as are these believers, they are daily being more and more conditioned to this heresy for in this matter we are actually violating the covenant (Will and Testament) left us by the Master Abdu’l-Baha.

4 FEBRUARY 1959

            In the Baha'i Faith as in the Christian Faith, intercessory prayers are made.  That is, one may ask a friend in this world to pray or to intercede for him or her.  Such is done daily by the friends here in Haifa for their friends in other parts who ask for prayers to be said at The Holy Shrines on their behalf and we may also petition one who has passed on into the next world, usually one whom we loved very much in this world or in whom we have had great confidence or trust – begging them to intercede for us before the Throne of God in the world beyond as explained in the following verse.

                                                Now while there’s time we should

                                                     prepare.

                                                For that which waits us

                                                     over there

                                                By serving all who need our

                                                      prayer.

Moreover we in mind should

     bear.

That they who’s passed

     can serve us there. 

Intercessing God

     in prayer

For whether here or

     whether there,

Union is the Glorious

     share

Of those at one

     with God in prayer.

(From an inscription in The Remeum at Pohick Church, Glebe Fairfax County, Virginia – composed by C.M. Remey)

            In these days in my personal daily prayers I supplicate before the Abha Kingdom that we Hands of the Faith in confirmed and united in the desire for the Guardianship of the Cause according to the Testament of the Master that was ever maintained by the Beloved First Guardian of our Faith and I end my prayer with “Oh, Shoghi Effendi in the Abha Realm above, intercede for me that my prayers reach the Abha Throne on High”!

            The great danger to the Faith in the world is not being propagated by those of the Hands who hold that now with our Beloved Guardian in heaven we no longer need a Guardian upon earth since he in the Abha Realm above will continue to lead and direct us from his present eternal station.  Such as this is to me a very false doctrine to be upholding because it precludes the need of the Guardianship upon earth – such is a very great false teaching of which every Baha'i should be aware for the Guardianship is definitely a function of this world and not one of the worlds beyond. 

            Therefore when I implore the intercessory prayers of Shoghi Effendi, I am addressing myself to him as the Beloved Shoghi Effendi and not as the Guardian of the Faith because now at this present time we have no declared Guardian of the Faith.

5 FEBRUARY 1959

            In this letter I am definitely trying to start a rebellion among the Hands of the Faith against the present plan and order of their Administration of the Faith without Guardianship.  For I have a hope that there be at least some one or ones beside me, myself, who may feel that a wrong stand is taken when the Guardianship is not wanted.

            To be sure the Hands have not definitely said in so many words before the public that they support that Chicago Manifesto, “A New Baha'i Era” in which was definitely stated that they had no hope of ever having another Guardian to follow the First Guardian of the Faith.  Such was never definitely stated – neither was this denied in our communications to the Baha'i world, wherein we have simply held a silence without any mention whatever or allusion to the Guardianship.  However within our own meetings of the Hands, all of which are private meetings, it is clear to see that the vast majority in the conclaves of all the Hands as well as in the meetings of the Hands in the Holy Land, it is tacitly understood and accepted by this majority that the Guardianship is now and forever ended.  This was attested to by the Custodians who in a letter to Horace Holley assured him that they fully concurred with him that there be no further Guardianship.

            Thus the Hands as yet are not telling the Baha'i world what is really behind and at the bottom of their attitude.  There is this “ARRIERRE PENSEE” that is activating all of their actions that we are withholding from the people by avoiding all mention of Guardianship and by telling the people that the Universal House of Justice that will be formed in 1963 will then set the standards of Baha'i leadership etc, etc.  These statements being so worded as to give hope of Guardianship to those of the people who want it, at the same time not only the hope but the fixed intent of the majority of the Hands that there shall never be another Guardian of our Faith.

            Some of you who read this writing may see as I see that the Hands are avoiding this issue now in all of our pronouncements in order to in the end destroy the hope of the believers for the Guardianship for the longer we operate as we are now doing, without the infallible guidance of the Guardianship, the more confused the people of the Faith will become upon this point and the less likely it will be that they question the wisdom of the Hands of the Faith.  Muddled mindedness and stupidity results from violation of the Revealed Word!

            This preoccupation of the Hands that the subject of Guardianship be not mentioned or talked about by the people of the Faith is a clear demonstration of the fact that the Hands are attempting to so condition the believers the world around to getting along without a Guardian that in the end they will no longer question the matter.

            It is directly in oppsotion to such tactics that savor so of political intrigue that I am rebelling against by bringing this matter in this writing to the Hands in the hope that if they ever read this arguement, they will see the point of my rebelling and objecting to this our present regieme of conducting the world Baha'i thoughts so away from the Guardianship that is in itself as an institution the very heart and soul of the Baha'i Faith for without the Guardianship, the Administration as given us in the Will and Testament cannot function.

            I know that the Hands of the Faith do not see this at all as I and some others see it.  I stand quite alone in this matter with all of the other Hands against me to whom this my arguement is addressed.

            Until the present time but very few of the believers, outside of the Hands, have questioned our action in our attitude toward the Guardianship and to these few we have given but little discussion if any in our conclaves or custodian meetings; nevertheless I urge that each of the Hands very carefully study the very few letters that I enclose in this letter from Mons. Henuzet and Dr. Schaefer both copies of which were sent to me personally.  There are others from the German National Assembly, etc.

END OF VOLUME II

ANNOUNCEMENT

            This volume is one of a series of treatises- - of nine or ten or more in all- -each of which is printed in a very small edition of but fifteen copies.  These writings are not intended for general circulation at this present time (1960 A.D.), but have been prepared especially to be placed in a few important libraries at home and abroad.  They consequently will be available to readers and will be preserved for future generations as a record of conditions that exist now and things that are at hand and taking place among the followers of the Baha’i World Faith- -the Universal World Religious Movement that of recent years has been spreading in many of the countries of the world but that now, at this time, is threatened by internal forces of disruption, the causes for which are shown and discussed in this series of theses.  This volume contains one of these several arguments and is written, arranged, and bound in this form personally by the present “Second Guardian” as Head of the Baha’i World Faith, and who, at present, is living in the city of Washington in America in voluntary and temporary exile from his home upon Mount Carmel in the Holy Land.

            The libraries at home and abroad where these volumes can shortly be found are registered upon the accompanying listing.  In order to facilitate their indexing in these several libraries, the Library catalogue cards are accompanying each volume now being sent forth by- -

Mason Remey,Guardian

                                                                                                            of the Baha’i Faith

From P.O. Box 418

Washington 4, D.C., U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

            The transportation of these volumes from Washington, D.C. to the foreign libraries listed has been gratuitously undertaken by the International Exchange Service of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C.  For this favor, the author and donor of these volumes here expresses his sincere appreciation.

The Libraries:

            Bibliothèque Royale   - - Bruxelles, Belgium

The Library of the

            Free University of Berlin - - Berlin-Dahlem, Germany

            Library of the British Museum  - -  London, England

            The Bodleian Library   - -  Oxford, England

            Bibliothèque Nationale  - -  Paris, France

            State Archives and Library   - -   Hakirya, Jerusalem

                                                             Israel

            Library of the United Nations   - -   Geneva, Switzerland

            Public Library of

New South Wales    - -   Sydney, Australia

In the United States of America these treatises will

be found in:

The Library of Congress   - -   Washington, D.C.

The New York City Public

Library at 42^nd Street and Fifth Avenue    - - New York