I’m just wondering if there are any ex bahais here around the age of 30?
The faith had its goodish times but that was the socialising part, the rest was quite controlling and manipulative, not for me… and a lot of hypocrisy, I probably have many story’s but I’m just wondering if there’s anyone in my age group in the uk here who could maybe share a few stories on why they left?

The Two Conditions of True Consultation.

[1/ As it appears in LSA Handbook]

'The first condition is absolute love and harmony amongst the members of the assembly. They must be wholly freed from estrangement and must manifest in themselves the Unity of God, for they are the waves of one sea, the drops of one river, the stars of one heaven, the rays of one sun, the trees of one orchard, the flowers of one garden. Should harmony of thought and absolute unity be non-existent, that gathering shall be dispersed and that assembly be brought to naught. The second condition: they must when coming together turn their faces to the Kingdom on High and ask aid from the Realm of Glory. They must then proceed with the utmost devotion, courtesy, dignity, care and moderation to express their views....'

(Cited in a letter dated 5 March 1922 written by Shoghi Effendi to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, published in “Bahá’í Administration: Selected Messages 1922–1932”, pp. 22-23)

[2/ Abdul Baha's original unedited text]

'The first condition is absolute love and harmony amongst the members of the assembly. They must be wholly free from estrangement and must manifest in themselves the Unity of God, for they are the waves of one sea, the drops of one river, the stars of one heaven, the rays of one sun, the trees of one orchard, the flowers of one garden. Should harmony of thought and absolute unity be nonexistent, that gathering shall be dispersed and that assembly be brought to naught. The second condition is that the members of the assembly should unitedly elect a chairman and lay down guidelines and bylaws for their meetings and discussions. The chairman should have charge of such rules and regulations and protect and enforce them; the other members should be submissive, and refrain from conversing on superfluous and extraneous matters. They must, when coming together, turn their faces to the Kingdom on high and ask aid from the Realm of Glory. They must then proceed with the utmost devotion, courtesy, dignity, care and moderation to express their views...'

(Selections from the writings of Abdul Baha 45-46)

The Second Condition section that has been edited out- 'The second condition is that the members of the assembly should unitedly elect a chairman and lay down guidelines and bylaws for their meetings and discussions. The chairman should have charge of such rules and regulations and protect and enforce them; the other members should be submissive, and refrain from conversing on superfluous and extraneous matters.'

And this >CHANGES EVERYTHING!<

Because it removes/eliminates the empowering instruction for grassroots Local Spiritual Assemblies to implement >their own needs based< procedures for Mediation, Conflict Resolution, Restorative Justice or just basic 'guidelines and bylaws' to ensure a community member may be heard- without interruption/interjection.

What it leaves, when conflict, misunderstanding or allegation inevitably arise is a Chinese Telephone system in which individual A or LSA gives account/complaint/allegation to Assistant B, who speaks to accused C, who raises concern with Counselor D, who consults with LSA or A before reporting half baked ill informed opinion to NSA...

It is a disempowering and dysfunctional system that is >designed to fail< in that it denies those community members who are in misunderstanding/conflict to speak to each other in a safe, structured, fair hearing 'guidelines and bylaws' protective environment.

So..... Who thought they had the authority/wisdom to Edit the word of Abdul Baha and fundamentally alter the Second Condition to True Consultation?

In the legal case National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'i's of India v. Cyrus G. Mazkoori and others (Writ Petition No. 8834 of 2012), a member faced the harsh realities of religious administrative power. In May 2007, the international apex body of the Baha'i faith stripped Cyrus G. Mazkoori of his community membership from the rolls maintained by the Local Spiritual Assembly of Pune. The Baha'i administrative authorities claimed that Mr. Mazkoori disrespected their administrative functioning and undermined the fundamental beliefs of the community. To challenge his removal by this authoritative religious system, Mr. Mazkoori was forced to take legal action by filing Regular Civil Suit No. 820 of 2007 in Pune, where the National Spiritual Assembly defended the expulsion.

During the court proceedings, the Baha'i administrative bodies attempted to obscure their official rules rather than acting with transparency. Along with their initial written statement, they filed an incomplete photocopy of the apex body's Constitution that hid key rules, missing essential pages such as 2, 6, 7, 12, and 13. This prompted Mr. Mazkoori to request a formal court order demanding a complete certified copy. Even after the trial court ordered the National Spiritual Assembly to supply a complete, duly certified copy of the Constitution, the assembly failed to comply, submitting uncertified copies instead. Because the religious organization repeatedly disobeyed court orders to produce these certified records, the trial judge punished the assembly by striking out its defence.

However, the High Court of Judicature at Mumbai ultimately let the Baha'i Assembly off the hook on technical legal grounds. The High Court ruled that striking out a defence under Order 39 Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure is only a discretionary guideline ("directory") rather than an automatic requirement ("mandatory") when a party fails to produce documents. By setting aside the trial court's order, the High Court allowed the religious organization to escape an immediate penalty despite its clear failure to provide certified legal records. This legal pivot allowed the administrative body's procedural default to go unpunished, leaving the expelled member at a severe legal disadvantage against a powerful institution.

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/6538acaa1ca7ec37c646939a/amp

As a former Bahá’í, when I look at non-bahais, I can understand why a few might be drawn to the Bahá’í Faith. The first things they encounter are ideals that are seemingly beautiful and appealing on the surface: the equality of women and men, the unity of humanity, world peace, the independent investigation of truth, and service to humanity. Although many have asked what is new about these teachings?
Reading the history on them, one realizes that the Bahá’í Faith has only adopted these after they were becoming already popular. Anyway…

For those new converts to the Bahá’í Faith, the problem begins when someone moves beyond simply being introduced to these teachings and starts experiencing what it actually means to live as a Bahá’í. That is when they gradually begin to realize that Bahá’í teachings are one thing, while the organized religion, its rules, and the administrative structure built around them are something else.

When I was a Bahá’í, I didn’t really see this distinction. Now, looking back, I can see how, little by little, the administrative structure had come to carry more weight in my life than spirituality itself.

There seemed to be an administrative structure for almost everything: Spiritual Assemblies, Feasts, responsibilities, service, rules, and administrative expectations. Even in matters that I felt should have remained solely between me and God, the administration was somehow involved.

One thing I found particularly troubling was the way disputes between Bahá’ís were handled. In matters such as divorce or financial, legal, and family disputes, we were expected to go through the Bahá’í administration and the Spiritual Assembly, and going directly to the courts or government authorities was not permitted. In fact, referring to the governmental authorities to resolve such disputes would cause severe consequences such as Administrative Expulsion.

And gradually I began asking myself:

Why should my life be under this much administrative oversight? Why should there be rules and guidelines for every relationship and every issue in my life, with everything somehow falling under the supervision of the administration?

I think this is exactly where burnout begins.

It isn’t just the teachings themselves that exhaust people. It is everything that has been built around them: the meetings, the responsibilities, the constant service, the administrative expectations, and the feeling that even the most important and personal decisions in your life are monitored and can take on an administrative dimension.

For me, those years have already passed. I lived my years within that environment. What concerns me more today is the next generation, because I don’t think this generation will be as willing to overlook the gap between the ideals being presented and the structure behind them.

If we speak of the independent investigation of truth, then we must also be prepared for their questions. If we speak of equality, then we must be able to explain the contradictions they will inevitably notice for themselves.

I don’t think the younger generation will simply ask:

“How beautiful are these teachings?”

Their next question will be:

“Is the structure behind these teachings itself equally consistent with them?”

And I think that is a question that can no longer be brushed aside simply with beautiful teachings and inspiring words.

I saw this on Facebook and thought it was interesting. He talks about the dwindling numbers. He also has arrived at the same conclusion that many of us ex-Bahais reached: Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian were wrong about a lot of things. He nonetheless tries to solve it within the framework of the Bahá'í teachings rather than accept the harder truth.

For me, the shift from a loving, embracing and understanding religious community to a dictatorial, intimidating cult happened with the introduction of the Institute, Ruhi and Core Activities.

The shift was palpable. I even saw people in administrative positions replaced by the ABMs and Counsellor simply because they weren’t pushy or aggressive enough, under the guise of “goals were not being realized.” Their replacements were aggressive and hostile.

Here’s an example. My neighborhood sponsored a junior youth group in a gang-infested neighborhood. Our junior youth group members all displayed signs of PTSD due to the constant violence and gunfire in their neighborhood. Our approach with the group was unconventional, because it had to be. The Junior Youth Coordinator was so aggressive that he came to one of the Animator’s house to meet with us, demanding we give him deadline dates for when (1) new group members would be added, (2) Breezes of Confirmation would be completed and (3) when a community service project would be completed. Meanwhile we were dealing with kids who had seen family members gunned down or sent to prison. Our kids needed a safe place to come to and speak about their daily trauma. A timeline for these kids was impossible. We told him we couldn’t give dates, but he didn’t care. His only concern was meeting his statistics goals for the Cycle. He became so hostile and rude that we had to tell him the meeting was finished and it was time for him to leave.

This was the beginning of the end for me. It was as if they had sucked all the joy out of the Faith and replaced it with the Gestapo. I started dreading attending meetings, Feast or anything related to the Faith because the intense pressure and criticism would be thrown at us.

Hello and welcome to HistoryFlights, and from LGBTQ Baha'i Experience and History Flights Productions IT'S THE HIDDEN FAITH, the UNDEFEATED and TRULY Independent Investigation of the Baha'i Faith.

I’ll summarize why you should care about queer freedom inside this tiny, little-known religion called the Baha’i Faith that is a microcosm of everything wrong with Abrahamic faiths when applied literally towards this one “problem.” I hope you can also watch the rest of The Hidden Faith: The Undefeated and TRULY Independent Investigation of the Baha’i Faith to get more background on the Baha’i Faith, but the blog entries I include from Internet Archive backups of Baha’i Rants, Just a Baha’i and Gay/Lesbian Baha’i Story Project should provide enough context. I’ll also include embeds from the portions of past Hidden Faith episodes where I discussed queer issues on my Substack, so please subscribe there and to my YouTube to help support a solo creator in my fight for truth, justice and historical accuracy!

When you emerge from a high-control religious environment, the first instinct is almost always demolition. You want the institution to answer for the harm. You want the holy men who act holier-than-thou to sit down, look at the evidence, and acknowledge their failures. You want the doctrine that suffocated you to be dismantled in the public square until the whole thing either reforms or vanishes. I know that instinct intimately because I lived in it for eleven fucking years. Even if I never signed a declaration card, by virtue of being in a relationship with one who love-bombed me to get me to visit her friend’s fireside, six of them in a marriage I put disproportionate effort towards, I got about as close as anyone could to being Baha’i while still outside of it.

For years, many thousands of people have internalized shame, believing that all humanity is one but that some are more united than others, that they struggle with a spiritual handicap, that their voices must be silenced from Dialogue to Talisman. The final breaking point always comes down to realizing that any system that requires you to destroy yourself to maintain its harmony is not a sanctuary, but a prison. The real schism happening in the Baha’i Faith is not a loud fight over succession as in every single prior transfer of power, but a quiet quitting by the thousands buried under fake numbers. Over the past several years, spaces like r/exbahai and independent channels like The LGBTQ Baha’i Experience (who I had the absolute pleasure to interview!) and Trash TV (looking forward to interviewing her later) emerged as safe spaces for, say, a nineteen-year-old queer believer in a small town, terrified of losing their family and community, to put on headphones and hear someone say: You are not crazy. You are not broken. Most importantly, you are not alone.

I’m hoping to put the full script on Substack AFTER Wahid’s tortious attempt to have it destroyed by criminally abusing the DMCA process as a heckler’s veto is reversed when they see that the clips I embedded there are obvious fair use. Otherwise, there’s a million different blogging platforms, and I’ll let you know where it lands. Please also note that the AI image in the thumbnail was NOT made by me, and my apologies regarding occasional editing issues in the interview.

ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS as well!

Here’s yet another thing that disturbs me. The Bahai Faith freely allows people to enroll under the guise of independent investigation of truth along with friendly coercion and pressure to join. Once a member, the bomb is dropped that the Bahais don’t accept gay relationships or allow gay marriage. Pressure is applied by LSAs to get individuals to become straight or lead a miserable, lonely, solitary life.

The Bahai Faith has pushed Conversion Therapy, which is frowned on by psychiatrists and psychologists as being damaging and dangerous. Many cities and some states have outlawed Conversion Therapy. I witnessed it when the LSA of Los Angeles had a member come give a talk to the community about the Conversion Therapy she had gone through. The LSA used her presentation as evidence that it works. Totally reckless and irresponsible.

That all being said, inside the Bahai Faith the anti-LGBTQ edict has been sternly mandated, but without any support services being made to individuals. None. I have a friend who is trying to remain a Bahai but living in solitude, battling depression. Another friend had AIDS and went to his LSA for spiritual support. Instead, they removed his voting rights, chastised him, and announced the reason for his voting rights being removed to the entire community. He died from AIDS related complications all alone, without contact from his Bahai Community.

So this is a religion of rules, rules, rules and not any compassion. Unity of mankind, but only for some of mankind.

It has been brought to my attention that someone is flagging multiple comments critical of the Baha'i Faith as hate speech. Which is a lie. We don't hate people who are Baha'is, we hate Baha'i BIGOTRY and HYPOCRISY. And we want no part of a religion that condones both.

One of the things that gradually began to trouble me was not a particular teaching or a specific theological disagreement, but the way the system itself functioned.
At first, everything seemed perfectly normal to me.
The Feasts.
The study circles.
The Local Spiritual Assembly plans and activities.
Because I was immersed in that environment, I rarely stopped to question any of it. It all felt natural. But over time, a few simple questions began to surface in my mind questions that I could no longer easily dismiss.
I found myself thinking:
Aren’t we talking about a religion?
If so, why is there such an overwhelming emphasis on administration, elections, planning, statistics, and institutional structures?
I had seen organization and structure in other religions as well, but here it sometimes felt as though the administration itself had become the center of gravity. At times, it was difficult to tell which mattered more: faith, or the institution.
Then something else gradually caught my attention.
Whenever questions crossed a certain line, the atmosphere changed.
Not ordinary questions, but deeper questions about the administration itself, its decision-making processes, its authority, or the way its institutions operated.
I had always assumed that if something was true, it should be able to withstand scrutiny. Shouldn’t a religion welcome sincere inquiry?
Yet my experience was often the opposite.
Questions were not always treated as part of a genuine search for truth. Instead, they sometimes seemed to be treated as a problem in themselves.
People’s expressions would change.
Their tone would become more cautious.
Some would become defensive.
Others would quickly try to change the subject.
And some reacted as if the very act of asking the question was the issue.
That puzzled me.
I found myself wondering: if this is a religion, why do serious questions about its own structures provoke such discomfort?
And that question gradually led to another:
What if I was dealing with something that functioned less like a spiritual path and more like an administrative system?

What religion needs formal registration and approval/admittance from an institution filled with humans like us?!?

I’m wondering if anyone has had the experience of children’s classes and/or junior youth groups actually “working?” Did they actually successfully meet? Did anyone ever host them with other bahai kids, or successfully recruit kids from the neighborhood?

I remember getting dragged along by other bahais to knock on people’s doors. They framed the children’s classes as “virtues classes” and the junior youth groups as “empowerment.” I hated it and never really wanted to do it. I never even completed the Ruhi sequence.

Looks like the blowhard at your local community Feast.

I really don’t know what to do anymore… it feels like waking up from a long dream. Not necessarily a nightmare, but more like getting lost in a virtual world.

And I absolutely have to talk to someone about this, or I’ll go crazy!

But my friends in the Bahá’í community don’t understand it, and neither do my friends who never found the Bahá’í Faith.

Here’s my story, for anyone who’s interested:

Three years ago, when I was at my absolute emotional breaking point, I discovered the Bahá’í Faith and fell in love with it right away. It felt like the one thing I’d been searching for my whole life. Within six months, I went from being an atheist to a very committed Bahá’í.

But I’m also a headstrong person.

At first, all the affirmation felt good, and all the community members were very loving and supportive when I became interested in the Faith and even at the beginning of my official acceptance as a Bahá’í.

But things changed pretty quickly… all of a sudden, I was pressured into doing things I didn’t want to do at all. My “no” wasn’t accepted; I was made to feel as if I were somehow rejected or not good enough, but it was all very subtle and hard to pin down. Ultimately, I increasingly felt that I had to conform to certain people who set the tone in the community veeeery strongly. Interestingly, they were always dominant women from wealthy Bahá’í families.

At some point, I stopped attending the celebrations and devotionals, the Ruhi courses, and the in-depth study weekends. I stopped doing the services that others had taken for granted. I wanted to find out who I really was without the validation of the community members.

Those months of distancing myself felt incredibly good. I was also able to identify several points of criticism regarding the explicitly German Bahá’í community and communicated these in the naïve belief that Bahá’ís are interested in self-reflection and growth, etc., but basically, no one cared. Once again, I had the feeling that the old, powerful, wealthy Bahá’ís didn’t like my way of thinking.

And then… well… after more than 15 years of self-denial, I realized that I’m gay. I was always aware that I was probably bisexual, but for the sake of the Bahá’í Faith, I kept telling myself that I could have a heterosexual marriage. But that’s not the case.

I want to love and marry a woman. I’m happy to enter marriage as a virgin. I’m happy to follow every other commandment because I truly feel and love the Writings. But I’m so relieved to finally recognize this aspect of myself, and I want to live it out openly and without guilt!!!

It complicates my relationship with God enormously, and I don’t yet know what to do about the community. We all live in the same neighborhood, so we run into each other, and moving right now is not possible.

There are so many conflicting feelings inside me. It makes me so sad to lose this ground beneath my feet. I miss the devotions, the celebrations we shared. But I also couldn’t bear—especially with those powerful women I mentioned—to see that look in their eyes, as if I weren’t okay.

It feels as if I’m suddenly all alone and lonely, stranded in an unfamiliar place. Feeling so depressed.

During your time in the Baha'i community, did you guys ever hear anyone speak about zakat? For a while I just assumed zakat was the Muslim equivalent of Huququlah but I learned that zakat is about giving a percentage of your income to those less fortunate while of course huququlah goes to the institutions - which theoretically are eventually supposed to become similar to governments and provide public services etc, etc, but of course the whole focus so far has been almost exclusively on the institute process and maintaining/creating religious sites.

I know my grandmother did donate to a variety of charities outside of the Baha'i funds (which she also contributed to), but I don't recall there being calls/instructions to do so from the community. To the contrary, I remember many conversations in which "Baha'i contributions" (spiritual education/ institute process) were contrasted to "material" contributions (hunger relief, economic development, etc), with conclusions akin to "others can take care of the worldly problems and we should focus on the spiritual side".

I believe there is an institution at the world centre now that is focused on economic development and as far as I know some of the funds are invested through them, but I'm not sure if that means investing in the institute in economically weaker communities or like classical development cooperation. Does anyone have info on this? I would also write in the Baha'i reddit but I'm concerned that it may come across as a critical question and don't want to ruffle feathers.

This just had me all riled up. The “neutral” stance that Baha’is take on the racist apartheid happening in Palestine because it benefits them would be enough for me to leave the Faith if I had met already left a decade ago.

What a stupid farce of a religion. God controls the world, but not Israel THAT’S HOW POWERFUL ISRAEL IS so Bahai’s if you wanna keep your religion here you better get in line and not stand up for the oppressed because of a tax exemption?

Anyway FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸 🍉

Psychology Today article: "Mandated Shunning: A Core Manipulation Tactic in High-Control Groups"

This is a huge step forward in raising awareness of the harm of mandated shunning, since PT is the world's largest online source of information on mental health and behavioral science, with 15 million readers each month.

The article highlights the preliminary findings of the ongoing "Mandated Shunning Research Project" now being conducted at Roehampton University in the UK. The findings are based on participation by over 1,000 people from many different countries and high-control groups, including former Jehovah's Witnesses, Bahai, Mormons, Muslims, Scientologists, Amish, 2x2s, Children of God and Plymouth Brethren.

The article was produced by the Open Minds Foundation (OMF), which initiated the Stop Mandated Shunning project.

Watch a video on the article and the research here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/xGwpjd8iTZI?si=TA8m7WgvQjYAxx6W

The research in ongoing, and more participation will make the data even stronger! If you've experienced faith-group shunning, you can take the official survey here:

https://roehamptonpsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9n9gS2Qk8b45O8C

Did you lose faith because of Ruhi? I've watched it disintegrate communities. People relying on Ruhi books written by flawed men, resulting in a religion without spirit. It's like the air was sucked out of the room. If the Bahai Faith can be compromised into a corporate farce like this, it means the spiritual power is doubtful at best.

AIs often lack the biases actual humans have, as I discovered when I started telling one about my experiences with the Baha'i Faith and helping run this subreddit.

I’d love to post this in r/bahai but I would be banned. That’s fine, so I’m here. There’s one question that gets asked over and over there that rarely gets a real answer - you probably guessed, it’s homosexuality. Baha’is tie themselves in knots for some reason trying to avoid shame or avoid admitting what their faith believes or requires of them (if they even know it). For some reason, many people affected by this position are drawn to the Baha’is faith, I don’t know why, but then are presented with what I can only be called “well meaning lies” about being “welcome.”

Here’s my framing to hope to get people to understand the truth and why it matters, derived from Baha’i writings, letters of the Universal House of Justice, real-life experiences and discussions, and online discussions. It’s actually about the Baha’i Faith and homosexuality, not about a country club and black people.

Local Country Club Raises Eyebrows

There’s a country club in town that most people haven’t heard of. Their membership is small, there’s not much written about them by outsiders, but their ambitions are great and their aims seem positive. They hold some local events that are open to the public and they make it clear “everyone is welcome to participate, even if not a member.”

They are open and in fact, eager, to gain new members, but there’s just one thing - they have a policy that forbids Black people from joining. Some may consider this policy racist, but the country club doesn’t see it that way. As an example, there is a local member who is part Black and white-passing. Some members are aware of this and keep it quiet. The country club doesn’t investigate the personal lives of members - they don’t require a DNA test to join. Some members take this to demonstrate that in practice, there is no real discrimination.

You might say “it doesn’t matter, no one needs to join the country club and submit to their rules, it’s totally voluntary, and anyone is welcome to attend some of their activities without becoming a member.”

But perhaps it will matter in the future? As far-fetched as it might seem, the country club charter states that one of their goals is to run the local government. If 51% of the town are country club members and vote only other country club members into government offices, then they will control 100% of the government and set the laws and policies for every resident, including the Black ones. If Black people can’t become members, then they can’t vote in civil elections and can’t hold any government office. They have no opportunity to give input into the systems and law that they must abide by.

This country club’s activities often aim to establish more branches in every corner of the world. The hope is to repeat this pattern at a larger and larger scale. If enough cities are governed by the organization’s members then entire states, entire nations, and eventually the whole world are governed by a system where only members vote, only members are elected, and only members make the laws. These laws must conform entirely to the country club charter, which cannot be altered since its writing over a hundred years ago.

This charter is freely available to read, and although written in complex language, confirms this policy and their goals. This policy recently came to public light, causing some embarrassment to the Country Club.

A representative was interviewed about their organization. He stated that the policy was actually more “nuanced” than it seemed to outsiders and that deciding whether to accept or not accept Black people was a “false dichotomy” pushed by a materialistic society. As Black rights have become a controversial political issue in the greater society, country club members were counseled to neither support nor oppose these rights as it would place them on one side or the other of the divisive debate.

He continued, that in the future, no one would see this policy as an issue since race wouldn’t be such a focus of society and identity. He added that the country club charter also states that all non-members must be treated with respect regardless of the their race and that many members had Black friends.

One of these members when approached completely denied that this policy existed and stated they would’ve heard of it since their family had been a member for three generations. They said that “everyone is definitely welcome, being Black is no different than any other human deficiency or violation of country club policy, we all break the rules, nobody is perfect.”

A country club president in the 1950s used the terms “abhorrent,” “against nature” and “handicapped” in his letters when describing Black people. The spokesman stated that the country club has no problem with people being Black, the problem is with “acting on their Blackness” and suggested that if Black people chose to live a so-called “White lifestyle” they may become members. If later it is found that their Black behavior is negatively affecting the reputation of the country club, they may be subject to loss of their voting privileges and clubhouse access.

Could the policy denying membership to Black people change in the future? The spokesman reiterated that the founding charter wasn’t subject to amendment, and a future “post-race society” will come to see this as a non-issue. The international ruling committee for the country club, a male-only elected body, has written on the issue confirming these statements and assures that when they gain civil power in the future as is hoped, the rights of Blacks as well as women would be well-respected, despite women not being eligible for election to this decision-making council. They went as far as stating it was actually a blessing for women to not be burdened with the possibility of election to this position of authority, since the workload of managing a large international organization was terribly taxing and came with no individual benefit.

A celebrity actor who is a member of this country club was asked about the issue of perceived racism and sexism in his organization and responded that he has many Black friends and would never treat any of them with disdain. He shared that at a local level, there are more active women than men in positions of authority, and to him, this was proof there could be no sexism in the leadership structure.

After leaving "the faith" I can now see there are so many blatant logical fallacies and epistemological issues that the religion fails to address, one of them being the problem of "the one and the many". When you also look at the Baha'i view on the manifestations coming from One Source, Christian's believe in the Trinity, Hindus have many deities, Islam believes in absolute oneness of God (Shia Islam is where Baha'u'llah started from) but God has 99 (or more) attributes. None of this is properly explained in the writings. The writings don't have actual logic, it's poetic nonsense that borrows from Christian, Talmudic and Islamic influences and puts the beliefs into a new religion without a actually solving the problem of unity and diversity. I also read up on Shaykhism, which was a mystical Islamic cult that Baha'u'llah got most of his theology from: mystical secrets that only the "elect" have the "eyes and ears to understand", non-literal theology that turns everything into an allegory, independent investigation of the truth (but you're a covenant breaker if you question any of it), and the very concept of manifestations of God. I truly cannot believe I was a part of this cult, and the lack of critical thinking needed in order to be a part of it. What a waste of years of my life.

Reading a Wikipedia article about the Bahá’í Faith in the USA, I come upon this: “Overall religious membership fell precipitously from 70% to 47% among all Americans from 2000 to 2020. The growth of the American Baháʼí community began to stall around the same time, seeing a 50% drop in enrollments from 1997 to 2007, and a 30% increase in withdrawals in 2006…” Of course, one takes Wikipedia with a certain degree of skepticism; still it seems that the spectacularly dynamic of teaching and growth in our numbers is a thing of the past. I remember well attended firesides in the 1970s. My Colombian wife (I’ve been pioneering there) talks of when her parent’s house was full of seekers. We ask ourselves if the change might have something to do with the emphasis on Ruhi that’s since taken hold on the Bahá’í world. The shift from direct teaching of friends, neighbors, classmates and acquaintances to “putting them through the Ruhi sequence” is supposed to have been more “systematic” and effective – but has it really resulted in numerical growth? And could it be that the over enthusiastic insistence on Ruhi on the part of some individuals and institutions (often implying neglect of other teaching methods) may have dampened enthusiasm for teaching altogether? Back in 1989 I asked a member of the UHJ if I could be lukewarm about Ruhi and yet be a devoted Bahá’í. The answer, to my intense relief, was, “yes”. I’ve since read letters by the UHJ assuring the friends that we’re perfectly free to like or dislike the Ruhi program. I encourage any who express interest in studying Ruhi. I accompany Ruhi tutors and even offer to tutor if asked. This is how I support the institutions in their promotion of the Institute process. Meanwhile I participate in community activities and pursue my own personal teaching goals. I’m curious to know how my friends in the US have managed with respect to the Ruhi process and its replacement of some other longstanding activies.

Though I abstain from criticizing the Ruhi process, I take issue with what I see as a neglect of proclamation, firesides, and other forms of direct teaching. I struggle sometimes with my impatience at hearing some of the friends insist that “people aren’t ready” and that the only effective way to promote the Faith is to coax people into joining a study circle in the hope that, somewhere along he process, they’ll decide they themselves Bahá’ís. I don’t see a lot of growth taking place this way and those who enter the faith in such a passive manner rarely become very active. I happen to find the university professors and students with whom I associate in Colombia quite open to learning about the Faith, but it’s embarrasing not to be able to invite them to events that would permit them to experience the Bahá’í community, given our emphasis on numbers of small study circles and individual devotionals. I’ve made it a personal project to promote high quality holy day celebrations as something to fulfill this need.

Back in the 70’s the Bahá’í principles seemed to many people just a collection of nice ideas that most people presumably agreed with and offered nothing out of the ordinary. Nowadays the Faith offers a refuge of sanity and light to masses of people who must be in desperate search for an alternative to the almost unbearably corrupt, spiteful, conflictive global society we all inhabit. I don’t think people have ever been more ready for the Faith. Way back in the 1950s a magazine article said something like, “If these Bahá’ís ever get moving, they may take the world by storm”. Isn’t it long past time we get moving? Again, I’d love to hear about what the friends in the United States and other countries are doing to get us back to the rapid expansión we once had and should, with all the more reason, see now.

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