BELOVED FELLOW HANDS:

The time approaches for the annual convention of Bahá'ís here in America and I hear that many are looking forward expectantly to meeting Rúhíyyih Khánum, Leroy Ioas and others of the Hands who will be there; while as for myself, nothing could please me more than does the prospect of these friends being at the convention.

I find that the friends in this country in general have many questions in their minds about the Guardianship of the Faith. I feel that much good will result from this visitation of these Hands from the Holy Land to America, for when they are there upon the ground, gathered at the Bahá'í Temple at Wilmette that is in the heart of America (that land that the Beloved Guardian called the Cradle of the Administration) that these visiting Hands from the Holy Land will then find themselves very close to the American believers enmasse, and will have the opportunity through this closeness of understanding the attitude of the American mind toward the Administration and the Guardianship that seems to be generally quite different in some respects from that of the mind of the Persian believers, particularly with regard to the continuation of the Guardianship. Thus while in America these visiting Hands from Haifa will be able to get an all-around-the-world picture of these conditions and with more clarity than can be had at the distance that separates Israel and America.

The real question that the American Bahá'ís hold is with regard to the Administration and what is to become of the Administration as it was given in the Will and Testament of the Master and founded and put into working order by the Beloved Guardian, and NOW??? This is the question in the American Bahá'í mind.

This question is in the mind of the American friends upon all sides. Although the people here are thinking of this all the time, and this shows and is clearly to be detected in their attitudes; however, they are obeying the orders from the Holy Land and not discussing it. But it just will crop out occasionally in moments of relaxation. I have seen this condition for some time and the reason of this letter to you is to warn you to tell you that in my opinion while here in America these Hands will in all probability come up against questions about the Guardianship and its future.

With this letter I am sending you Photostat copies of a letter that I received from Dr. Udo Schaefer of Germany, together with its accompanying enclosures – also a general letter from Louis Henuzet of Belgium, a copy of a telegram from Germany, addressed to the Second Conclave of the Hands, a copy of the letter of Eugene Schmidt of Germany to the Hands of the Faith, and a copy of that letter from Lucknow, written by a Bahá'í by the name of Gupta.

I take it for granted that you each and all have read and studied these documents, but they were received so long ago in Haifa that you may no longer remember the questions that they bring up.

So nearly as I can understand the mind of the American Bahá'ís, basically their questions are practically the same as those of these friends in Germany, Belgium and this believer Gupta of Lucknow who writes with such vision! The American mind may not be as clear and concise in its thinking as are these German, Belgian, and Indian minds, although on the whole and in the end, Americans are quite as thorough in sizing things up as are these Germans and others.

I send you this expression of Bahá'í thought coming from Europe and Asia because it is these same questions that they have that are in the American mind; thus to warn you of that which you will in all probability be confronted with while in America!

As for myself, I am well and mingling with the Bahá'í friends here where a very kindly and friendly spirit reigns in the meetings. There is not much spirit of life in the meetings but always a sweet but passive and kindly spirit. While with these believers I have ever in mind my promise to you before I left Haifa that I would in no way disclose nor divulge anything that transpired in the Conclaves nor conferences of the Hands in the Holy Land, and this attitude I will continue to adhere to most carefully. The Americans, you know, are by nature not a suspicious people, not until their suspicions are aroused, but when something causes them to mistrust, conjecture and surmise takes over and thus augur for uncertainty and loss of faith and trouble. I assure you that I will always do all in my power to guard and to promote the secrecy established by the Hands of the Faith as to all of their proceedings and considerations, despite the fact that, as you all know how I myself differ so absolutely with the present decisions and policies of the Hands regarding the Administration of the Faith; namely their discontinuation of the Guardianship. However, notwithstanding my stand against the united body of the Hands of the Faith, all of which I have spoken to you about in our Conclaves and in our other consultations, I know that the only thing for me to do under these present conditions is to try to build up and maintain the trust of the people in the Hands of the Faith, the while, at the same time, trusting and praying that you will become aware of the evils into which your present program for 1963 is plunging the Cause before it be too late; that is, before you lose the confidence of the people and you lose face before the Bahá'í World, for such to come to pass, you should never allow to happen. For the honor of the Cause, the Hands of the Faith must always maintain the confidence of the Bahá'í people of America, the Cradle of the Administration that is in reality the Guardianship.

Things are now at this critical point in America when a very slight jarring might result in the loss of prestige in which the believers hold the Hands of the Faith, and to guard against any such loss of face of the body of Hands is, at this moment, my chief concern as I view the approach of the coming convention, but despite such caution one must be faithful to the Teachings of the Cause.

I tell you frankly that the mass of the believers here think and feel exactly as Louis Henuzet did when he wrote this letter of which I enclose a Photostat. Please have someone translate this from the French, so that you can all read and study it. It is a most comprehensive statement made by a most thoughtful believer.

The believers in America don't realize that the overwhelming majority of the Hands don't want the Guardianship to continue. They in America still hope for a Guardian. In plain words, they are deceived as to the real intent of the majority of the Hands of the Faith, which is that the Hands intend that the Guardianship be forever closed!

Therefore, I look with approval upon the attendance of Rúhíyyih Khánum, Leroy Ioas, and others of the Hands at this coming convention that they may see for themselves the real condition of things here in the Cradle of the Administration. This is why, as I have already explained, I am writing you this letter. The Hands of the Faith have much to learn about the ways of and the conditions of the Bahá'í Faith, and at this moment I feel that they can learn these things better here in America than in the Holy Land.

I promise you that I will do all I can to buttress up and to maintain the prestige of the Hands of the Faith in the eyes of the people. It will be well if the common believers exert gentle and kindly pressures upon the Hands to awaken the Hands to these conditions of which they, the Hands, may not be aware. This is why I urge you to study and ponder over these enclosed letters from Germany, India, and Belgium; this, in order that you may understand how both the Indian, American and these European believers think and feel, and in their hearts, react to the dictums of the Hands.

Again, as a last word to you before the coming of the Hands of the Faith to this American National Convention, please be assured again of my most sincere efforts to support the dignity of the Faith – this means the dignity of the Hands of the Faith – before the people and in every way support you in your special right and spiritual province of the protection of the Faith, that includes not only its inner workings but its eminence and honor before the world.

To reiterate again, it is very evident to me from both what I hear said by friends here in America, as well as from what they don't say that they are well and strongly centered in the Administration and in the Guardianship, and it is also evident to me that these Hands who are coming to the convention from Haifa are intent upon reinforcing the stand of the majority of the Hands against the continuation of the Guardianship which propaganda that has been behind and under all of the moves of many of the Hands since the First Conclave at Bahjí (although, of course, this intention has been withheld from the people and has only gotten out occasionally through the carelessness of some of the Hands talking outside of your conferences) which propaganda you will surely eventually find impossible to continue putting over upon the American believers.

These believers in America are not going to make any trouble for the Hands such as openly revolting against the program that you are engaged upon for 1963; no, according to my thought they will do nothing like that, but they will, by their attitudes, if not by anything that they may say, get over to and into your heads and into your consciousness their underlying and basic faith in the Administration as given by the Master's Will and Testament, and thus make you realize the futility of your program for 1963, and all this will thus result because America is the "Cradle of the Administration", to which trust the Americans are faithful.

But, as I say, I hope that there will be no division amongst the believers upon this matter, and I don't think there will be for in the end the people, by their deep attachment to the Administration and the Guardianship, will follow the Hands, I trust, until the awakening of the Hands and their abandonment of the program for 1963.

Something is going to happen as a surprise to the Bahá'í world from another direction altogether that is going to compel the Hands to reacknowledge or to deny, the Guardianship and thus save the Faith and all this will then be accomplished in accordance with the Will and Testament of the Master, reinforcing the Administration and the Guardianship in the hearts of the Bahá'ís all over the world. Then and only then will the way be made open for all to realize the source of the infallible guidance necessary for the accomplishment of this World Crusade launched by our late Beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi. But in the meanwhile, before all these things are accomplished and the violation of the Will and Testament is overcome and cast out, the Hands of the Faith, for the most part, will have to take an awful thrashing; thus, in the end will they expatiate and atone for this condition in the Cause that they have brought upon themselves. This is inevitable.

But all this should be brought about among the Hands and from within their own body and for this reason, as well as for many other reasons, it is necessary that the Hands of the Faith have the support of the entire Bahá'í world in order to protect the unity of the Faith in these days of the interregnum; therefore, for this reason, I am giving all the support that I can to support and maintain before the world the prestige of the Hands of the Faith. At this stage of the interregnum, this unity is the most important thing to be maintained. But I know that you are upon the wrong track and that in the end your majority will be obliged to acknowledge your mistake.

Every night and every morning I pray in this same vein, concluding my prayer with an invocation to the Beloved Shoghi Effendi in the Abhá Realm that "He pray, supplicate and intercede before the Throne of God upon my behalf." With much Bahá'í love and affection and devotion to and my prayers for each of the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land.

Faithfully,

MASON R.

I send you the attached copies of communications from Europe and Asia in the most strict confidence, because these missives have to do with those subjects that the Hands of the Faith decided to hold in great secrecy; – that is, all that has transpired in the Conclave and conferences of the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land.

As for myself and my conduct of myself, I am most mindful and careful never to mention to any Bahá'í anything that has transpired in our private meetings of the Hands of the Faith.

Thus, you will see that of all the things discussed by the Hands of the Faith in private I have made mention only of those matters that they, the Hands, have officially told to the outside Bahá'í World in their messages to the Bahá'ís of the world.

This appeal to the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith I present here in a series of assertions treating of various aspects of my argument for the acceptance of the Guardianship of the Faith. There is no special order in arrangement – they were written down as they came to my mind at different times and while in different moods and with recapitulation so there is much repetition in this document. This repetition I make deliberately and with intention in order that by this reiteration, the basic Bahá’í principles of which I treat in this thesis are made to stand out so as not likely to be passed over or misunderstood by the Hands of the Faith.

The main arguments presented in this appeal I make in our second and third Conclaves at Bahjí but under the high emotional tension of those conferences I doubt if my thoughts got over clearly to many of the friends or even not at all to others. Therefore I have resorted to wordiness and reiteration of statement in this writing with the hope that this will be conducive to the understanding of the thought presented in this appeal to the Hands. Please read and study it carefully and prayerfully.

MASON REMEY

December 1959

For the most part written in Room #60, Hotel Berchielli,

Florence, Italy

HAIFA, ISRAEL

December 1958 to January 1959

Dearly Beloved Hands of the Bahá’í Faith:

You will remember the plea that I make before you one and all who were assembled in the Second Bahjí Conclave of the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith in November 1958 – my plea that for the safety and for the protection of our Faith that the office of the Guardianship of our Faith be wanted by us Hands of the Faith as much as possible – for the protection of our Faith.

This suggestion urged buy me and by me alone before that conclave was turned down unitedly by the twenty four of the twenty five of us present standing firmly against considering the suggestions that I urged.

Happily for all of us and for our Holy Cause there was not a trace of any personal antagonism manifest in these proceedings.

But rejected as my thoughts were then, nevertheless I feel that I must continue to urge this same stand for your reconsideration and present it again before our next or Third Bahjí Conclave of the Hands of our Faith. This conviction is so very strongly fused within my mind and very soul that I can take no other stand although I stand thus singly and alone with the body of Hands against me.

I insist bringing it up again and again until you accept it otherwise act upon it for I am convinced that without a continuance of the office of the Guardianship that our Holy Cause will fail and go high and dry upon the rocks.

I know that the Cause is not going to fail. It is bound to triumph in the world and this can only be if we have a Guardian here in the flesh to guide us, therefore I firmly believe that we have a Guardian and that the time will come when you one and all will realize this and that then the Second Guardian of our Faith will be wanted to command our Cause here upon earth.

I believe that conditions within and without out Faith will ere long make this need for a successor to Shoghi Effendi apparent to the Hands – it will be forced upon you to take this decision for the very life of the Faith, for when you one and all see that the conditions demand the protection of a Guardian to save the Cause from destruction, then you will each and all want to have a Guardian. But now that time is not yet come.

You hope to establish as a source of infallibility to supplant that of the Guardianship, a House of Justice of your own creation. This cannot be done unless there must be a Guardian in office to establish it, for you all know that there are to be two pillars of that supreme body. It cannot come into existence without first the Guardianship to create the House of Justice. The Guardian will himself direct this establishment – you cannot establish it.

The Hands are to do two services to the Faith – to propagate he Faith and to protect the Faith.

The Cause can have no protection al all without the Guardianship and that means a Guardian here upon earth to lead and to govern us – then we will have a protected Faith protected in the only way possible to protect it – then the propagation of the Faith will be a simple matter. The Beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, has laid out the campaign to establish the Faith in triumph upon earth – our Second Guardian will lead the Cause on from victory to victory the world around! Victory cannot be attained in any other way!

Now at this particular time I write this paragraph of this letter, 27 December 1958, there is nothing that you can do about the Guardianship save to await his appearance, But between now and our next conclave we can, if we will, be thinking and considering these matters between ourselves and thinking over this problem that is the most important of all problems before us to be solved.

Therefore, I am writing this letter putting forth upon paper the plea that I made when I spoke to this point at the last conclave. In other words, I make here in writing the points that I made when I addressed you last at Bahjí.

In this document I hope that I make myself as clear, if not more clear, than I did in speaking to you. Here it is my appeal again for your perusal. It is as clearly stated as I can make it in the following text.

Let us think over this problem between now and our next conclave. To facilitate this serious thought is my object in writing this letter.

Faithfully,

MASON REMEY

These observations consisting of a series of commentary annotations written at different times while in different moods and humours with much repetition and verbigeration in order that those to whom it is addressed may obtain as clear a mental picture as possible of this presentation of the problems now before the hands of the Bahá’í Faith that it now presents in this year 116 of the Bahá’í Era, this copy of which is being sent to the revered nobles of the Bahá’í Cause in the Holy Land that they may study and think over there matters before the next conclave of all the Hands of the Faith.

Although of some length, this communication contains but a portion of the material in my hands that relates directly and indirectly to the subject of the violation of the Guardianship of the Bahá’í Faith

Lest the matter in this writ be not sufficiently convincing to the Hands of the Faith, I will shortly send them a supplementary attestation of my memoranda upon this same subject h going into greater detail and better saying and revealing things that I personally would rather not go into, but that I have to share with you for the information in and the reasoning in this communication may be insufficient to awaken you to the great peril in which the inadequacy of the wisdom of the Hands of the Faith has placed our beloved cause.

NOTE: The Hands of the Bahá’í Faith will remember at the second Bahjí conclave of that body, I spoke calling the attention of the friends to the necessity that the Guardianship of the Faith be recognized and urging that you reconsider you wish to end it.

I stood alone in this matter. If my urgeance was considered, nothing was said by anyone. At times during this past year I have maintained in the meetings of the custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land that the united body of the vast majority of our body was entirely of off and away from the Guardianship. To be sure nothing can be done about the matter until all the hands meet again in the next conclave when I trust the fallacy of the proposed Universal House of Justice to be established by the Hands without a Guardian will be reconsidered and abandoned.

It is to bring to the minds of each individual Hand of the Faith the urgeance of this matter that I have prepared this compendium that is an argument for a change in the decision of the Hands made and proclaimed to the Bahá’í World that I offer my thoughts embodied in this document so at this date well in advance of the coming conclave in order that each Hand may restudy and think over these matters before we all come together when it will doubtless come up again and be discussed.

Dear Hands of the Faith:

Being as I am convinced that a great mistake is being made by the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith in their studied decision stand of silence upon the subject of the Guardianship of our Faith and in their much reiterated promises to the Bahá'í world for a Universal House of Justice in 1963, I take it upon myself as my sacred Bahá’í duty to write you this letter explaining to you at some length where and how at this late date, the Administration of our Faith can be gotten back again under the acknowledged Guardianship as was intended that it should function by The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

After failing both in the Second Bahjí Conclave and on several occasions in the conferences of the Custodian Hands to awaken you to the danger that our Faith is in without a continuation of the Guardianship, and the impossibility of its running along as it is now going, living as it were upon promises of a Universal House of Justice that the Hands of the Faith fallaciously promise to the people, I feel it is my duty to share with you the mental picture of our present great dilemma as it has been shown to me and to point out to you the way in which your mistakes can be remedied and the entire working of the Cause be gotten back again functioning as it should function.

In the following many pages of this communication, I have shown much verbiage and reiteration, written at sundry times and in diverse moods of thought, a fairly complete compendium of my thought upon this subject that I want to convey to you.

In my former attempts to explain myself to you, not one would listen to my thought, I was simply blankly turned down. Therefore I seek the means of this communication to reach you with the request that each one of you carefully read and prayerfully study this analysis of and the remedy for the present dilemma in which the Cause finds itself in this year 1959.

It will probably require some time, thought and prayer for enlightenment for you to get from this somewhat lengthy document – placing before you the ensemble picture of the dilemma and the cure for this dilemma that I am thus trying to point out to you. You should act ere conditions in the Faith become so bad, as I am convinced they will become, as to force you under pressures coming either from conditions of inharmony or inadequacy within your own body that you cannot handle yourselves or from conditions from without your body that you will have to face and to cure this condition in which the Faith now finds itself a flock without a shepherd – has precipitated upon the Cause.

Unless the Hands of the Faith turn soon and re-establish their faith in the Guardianship, I am convinced that the people of the faith, who are now sincerely looking toward you for guidance, will bring such pressures to bear from outside upon you that you will be obliged under this pressure to acknowledge the Guardianship.

Therefore my plea is that you do this now without further delay in order to carry on and succeed in accomplishing the Ten Year Crusade as planned and launched by the late Beloved Guardian of our Faith.

Faithfully yours,

In the Service of Bahá’u’lláh

MASON REMEY

In this appeal to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith in The Holy Land, I have repeated myself calculatedly in several paragraphs in order to emphasize my statement and increase the potency of my argument that you should want the continuation of the Guardianship that is now opposed by those of the Hands of the Faith who wish it abolished. As stated in the Manifesto, "A New Bahá'í Era" , written some time ago and put forth from Chicago, written and signed by several of the Hands of the Faith and endorsed by the members of the National Assembly of Bahá'ís of America, the Guardianship was ended. The substance of this Manifesto was formally acknowledged and approved by the majority of the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land but for reasons of expediency these friends objected to and stopped the circulation in print of this statement, This was a very clear and daring violation of the Administration of our Faith, evidently withdrawn from publication at that time because these Hands thought it too strong and explicit in statement for the believers to take at that time

When the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith go upon record in this way supporting the violation of The Master’s Will and Testament they are in a most dangerous and perilous state, for unless they change their attitudes such may well be their downfall and elimination from membership in the Bahá’í Faith for according to The Will and Testament, the Hands of the Cause can become Covenant Breakers and the wrath and vengeance of God may descend upon them.

It is in order to protect the Hands of the Faith from this programme for 1963 – that is in itself a most flagrant violation of the Faith – that I look with so much favor upon the attendance of Rúhíyyih Khánum and others of the Hands at this coming National Convention at Wilmette because I hope that while there mingling with the American friends in Wilmette that is the Center of our Faith in this land that is the Cradle of the Administration (that while here) these visiting Hands from The Holy Land will be shown the evils that they are bringing upon the Faith. My prayer is that they be protected from this violation themselves and that as a body, the Hands of the Faith will then protect the Cause from this violation.

But I am writing now and telling these things to the Hands. The Bahá’í world will never know anything about this letter from me. I am trying to warn you of this great peril that hangs over you.

In the message of the Hands to the Bahá’í world after the last conclave at Bahjí, twenty two of the Hands signed this document that in its content is nothing less than a proclamation of you violation of The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and of the Administration established by The Beloved Guardian – you are really going too far. Some day you will be very surprised when the Bahá’í world awakes up to what you are up to and are doing to the Cause by thus striking a blow at the very heart of the Faith.

In the telegram to the Bahá’í world dated November 5, 1959, the Hands in The Holy Land attributed my replacement on that body because I was "unable" to serve, whereas if you remember right I refused to serve because I would not join with you in your violation of the Guardianship – I would not sigh myself "In the Service of the Beloved Guardian," I holding that you should all be in the service of the Second Guardian of the Faith, as you would be doing now were the Cause functioning as it should be and will be some day.

I am struggling and making a great effort to conceal your violation from the believers hoping that before they realize this condition you will see it yourselves and make haste to repair the damage you are doing to the Cause for I dread to think of what would be your plight and what would be your condition were the believers to realize as I do that your actions are destroying The Bahá’í Faith.

But some of your are coming to the National Convention in Wilmette, Illinois and my hopes are now tuning towards the meeting and its effect upon the Hands of the Faith.

Every Bahá’í realizes and knows that had there not been a First Guardian of the Faith by now the Cause would have broken up into sects and cults and as a united Bahá’í Faith would now no longer exist. Every Bahá’í knows that Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship was the point of unity around which the Faith revolved, in other words that by virtue of his Guardianship he was the heart of the Faith in this world – that the Administration was the Guardianship and that the Guardianship was the Administration and that no line of separation could be drawn.

The individual Guardians of the Bahá'í Faith will live and die but the Guardianship of The Faith will live on as long as the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh endures upon this earth. It is the heart and the life center of the Faith.

I have more than once noted that the Hands do not seem to understand this province of the Guardianship as a functioning institution. One of the Hands (in support of the ending of the Guardianship with that of Shoghi Effendi) said to me "We no longer have any need for a Guardian. Shoghi Effendi, The Beloved Guardian has told us all that we need to know as to the carrying on of his World Crusade so now all we needs must do is to follow his injunctions, turn to him who is now in the Abhá Kingdom and if we love him sufficiently and obey that which he told us, he from his supreme station in the Abhá Kingdom will direct the Cause upon the plane of this world. We need no further Guardianship". (in thus quoting what that Hands said to me during the conference in Sydney, Australia, I am here putting the thought of that Hand into mine own words, that give the exact meaning of the statement.)

In some statements by the Hands of the Faith, I have detected the some thought that is basic in this statement made in Australia; namely, that if we are devoted enough to The Beloved Guardian that he will continue to guide us, this guidance coming from him in the Abhá Kingdom beyond – therefore taking the place of the guidance of a continuation of the Guardianship in the flesh here with us in this world.

To any believer, presuming of course that he knows something about the basic Bahá’í teachings, such superstition and nonsense as this is not only untenable but is as an axe at the root of the Faith and as a knife in the heart of the Administration of our Faith. Such is a most pernicious philosophy to be thus injected into Bahá’í teaching, for it is in violation of The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. How is it possible that you Hands of the Faith can be so ignorant of the basic principles of the Faith.

There was the flagrant case of violation of The Will and Testament by Ruth White in the very early days of Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship. Distressing as this was it soon came to naught as it attracted no followers, not so however was the defection of Mírzá Ahmed Sohrab that appeared sometime later than the White apostasy for this Sohrab schism attained some proportions from its start and until Bahá’í association with these followers was forbidden by The Beloved Guardian it was of great danger to the Cause for it took with it some Bahá’ís who became its firm supporters. Even to this day, the Sohrab heresy under the name of "The New History Society" is active although no longer the menace to the Bahá’í Faith that it was before the protection that The Beloved Guardian gave us by forbidding Bahá'í association with these people.

The spores or germs of the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament were latent for some time before they showed up again in any noticeable or collective activity. This was still during the days of the ministry of the Beloved Guardian when there was a general revolt against his pioneer teaching program in Europe, made by the Persian students in Geneva, Switzerland. That program had then been recently organized in the Scandinavian and Benelux countries and in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal by American pioneers under the direction of Shoghi Effendi working through the European Teaching Committee (The E.T.C. )

This student group of Persian Bahá'í students, numbering about thirty more or less, revolted openly against the Administrative program of teaching and in a conference gathering at Geneva, their spokesman arose and told the American Bahá’í pioneers and American members of the E.T.C. to go home, back to America with "their administration", holding that they from Persia were of as many as four or five generations of believers in the Faith in Persia – that they had the Book of Aqdas and were living in accordance with its laws and admonitions given by Bahá’u’lláh himself and that they had no need for this recently innovated teaching activity that they took to be an "Americanism" of recent origin in the Bahá’í Faith and that they wanted nothing of it, demanding that the Americans of the E.T.C. go home.

Edna True of the E.T.C. held the floor of the meeting against these Persian insurgents and when The Beloved Guardian heard of this trouble, he ordered that these student groups of Persian Bahá’ís should henceforth have no voting rights in the local Bahá’í matters in Switzerland and thus this defection was halted.

To be sure this trouble in Geneva did not develop into an open and maintained revolt against the Guardianship as a Bahá'í Institution as did the New History Society, but it was against one of the projects as instituted and directed by Shoghi Effendi; nevertheless. However it was a violation decidedly in opposition to the teaching program of the beloved Guardian and had he not stopped it, there is no telling what further defection it might have caused – but now that is all of the past and is almost forgotten by the friends.

Now again the Bahá’í Faith is threatened by violation of the Administration of the Faith, this time striking into the body of the Hands of the Faith that in these days of the present emergency of the Cause creates a Bahá’í problem of such import as to actually threaten the very existence of the Bahá’í Faith in all the world around!

Fortunately up until this present date (I am writing these lines today on November 22,1959) this present matter of violation is confined within the body of the twenty seven Hands where it is hoped that it will be solved before there be a leak of this problem to agitate the Bahá’ís at large the world around!

Many Bahá’ís in America and even abroad know of the Manifesto circulated from Chicago in the early days of this period of "Bahá’í Interregnum." It was issued and signed by the three Hands of the Faith then in America, Mrs. True, Horace Holley, and Paul Haney, in cahoots with the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the U.S.A.

In this document it was stated that the Guardianship of the Faith was definitely ended forever with the Guardianship of Shoghi Effendi and that after him there would never be another Guardian of the Faith!

Mrs True, because of her infirmities, was not in the first conclave, so it must have been through one of the other Hands of the Faith that this leak occurred and it became know to the National Spiritual Assembly of America that although there was no mention of the Guardianship in the Proclamation sent forth from Bahjí, that it was the unannounced intent of the majority of the Hands that the Guardianship be forever closed.

How and why the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. came into the picture of this Manifesto issued from Chicago was never explained but this Manifesto did reveal the fact, unmentioned in the Proclamation, that the Hands considered the Guardianship Bada.

In other words, from the first Bahjí Conclave on, the majority of the Hands have wanted the Guardianship ended but they have not considered it wise to tell this to the Bahá’í World, that is not yet awhile! ! Manifestly for reasons of expediency. However some of the American Bahá’ís are questioning, why nothing was said in the Proclamation about the Guardianship – their suspicions are aroused ! Why no mention of the all-important Guardianship around which revolved the meanings of The Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Bahá? Why all of this pussy-footing? They wanted to know and this Manifesto formulated in Chicago told them the exact truth of the sentiment of that first conclave; namely that in reality the Hands in conclave were decided that they – that is their ruling majority – wanted no more Guardianship.

That the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land concurred heartily with the abolition of the Guardianship as given in that Manifesto issued from Chicago entitled "A New Bahá’í Era" is testified to in a letter written to Horace Holley by the Hands in The Holy Land dated March 10, 1958 in which they wrote, "The statement was excellent and with the exception of a few points there was little in it to which we took exception."

At the urgeance of the Custodian Hands in Haifa that Chicago Manifesto was withdrawn from circulation not because they, that is the majority of these members, disagreed with what it contained for I remember in that meeting of the Custodians the majority agreed with the substance of the thought of the Manifesto, but what they didn’t like about it was that this all came out in this way as a public announcement, In other words, these Hands considered that the people throughout the world were not then as yet sufficiently conditioned to the doctrine of the Faith without a Guardian, so not ready to be told what was really in the Minds of these Hands of the Faith.

I have never heard any explanation of how it came about that the National Spiritual Assembly of America was called into co-operation with the three Hands of the Faith in America in the getting out of that Manifesto. The Custodian Hands in Haifa knew nothing about this document until just by chance a copy was received in Haifa from Germany. All of the consultations and deliberation of the Hands are supposed to be absolutely private and to be kept within the closed circle of the Hands! Why was the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. brought into this matter? This has yet to be explained.

In the conference of the Custodians when this matter was discussed their objection was that the document was being circulated. I remember very clearly the discussion in the meeting in which I took no part. In a moment of depression I was silent. There was not voiced any objection to the substance of that Manifesto.

In the Second Bahjí Conclave the subject of the Guardianship was sedulously avoided until I arose and urged its reconsideration. All listened to my plea but no one said anything to the point that I presented and the conclave closed., I being told that I was out of parliamentary order in bringing up a matter that had already been passed upon, therefore closed.

Something must have happened to make a change in the thoughts of some of the Hands. I don’t know what brought about the change of thought but when the third conclave convened, I found that I was given the first call upon the floor to speak and I spoke at some length to several of the points that I am bringing out in this writ but all to no avail. The conclave was adamant and I stood alone. I adamant against the adamantine unity of all of the others. It was only at the last day of our sessions when I refused to sign my name to the message to the Bahá’í world that I there arose again in the open upon the floor to hold to my stand.

Thus was this stand maintained by me, one individual Hand against the unity of all the other Hands upon this point of the Guardianship – and there is where it now stands and I am preparing this writ, the reading the study of which I trust will awaken the Hands to the imperative necessity that a Guardian for out Faith be wanted by them and accepted by them.

After this conclave was over I felt myself to have been thoroughly beaten but not one bit conquered in spirit. For I am sure that only the Guardian of the Faith can pull it out of this present mire and mud of violation in which we now find ourselves enmeshed so now my only course is to maintain my stand with the assurance that I have of eventual victory that will save the Faith.

But why, O why, are these Hands thus closing the doors of their minds towards the Guardianship? They act as if the Guardianship were actually repugnant to them – such is their condition that I see it to be.

In the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith we are constantly reminded that it is only through the operation of THE HOLY SPIRIT that the divine blessings of the Abhá Kingdom can give mankind spiritual life, In other words that the spiritual life of the Faith depends upon the out-pouring of The Holy Spirit as does the growth and the spread of the Faith. In other words, the very spiritual functioning of the religion of God in all of its appearances here upon earth down through the history of the many divine Dispensations of the past and as it always shall be throughout all those of time to come is through the intermediary of The Holy Spirit. This is the channel or the method of Almighty God through which His greatest blessing, that of the Life Eternal, works for the divinely spiritual uplift and will-being of mankind and woe be to those who cut themselves off from the flow of The Holy Spirit for to be cut off from its flow means spiritual death.

This is the one unforgivable sin, the blasphemy; against The Holy Ghost, of which Christ taught that was not forgiven in this world nor in the worlds to come through all eternity! This – the blasphemies against The Holy Ghost has throughout the centuries of Christendom been one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian Church until now in the elucidations of the teachings of Christ contained in the volume of Answered questions, The Master Abdu'l-Bahá has explained this clearly to all the world. Man may deny, blasphemy and commit any other sin against God and His Manifestation and be forgiven, but not so with the sin against The Holy Spirit.

Thus do we Bahá'ís know that when the Manifestation of God’s word appears in every age that he is the sole and only source or point of appearance of The Holy Spirit – that the Manifestation is the source of all spiritual life here upon earth – that all spiritual enlightenment comes only from Him – and that all else is human thought, imagination and superstition, This was what Christ meant when he declared that he, the Manifested Word of God, was the way and the only way of salvation. This was not the man Jesus speaking thus, but the voice of the Christ – The Manifested God.

Thus do all believers who study the revealed Word of the Bahá'í Faith understand that God in this infinitude is forever shut off from mankind save through his Manifestation and that it is through the Revealed Word – the Manifestation – that He reveals Himself to man. In this day of all days of Revelation, Bahá’u’lláh was the point of appearance of the Divine Word – the source of The Holy Spirit giving spiritual life to man.

After Baha’u’llah, His Beloved Son, the Center of His Covenant ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, became the channel through which The Holy Spirit, coming through from Bahá'u'lláh, was diffused to those who turned to Him (‘Abdu'l-Bahá) while those who turned against Him cut themselves off from the Abhá Holy Spirit to find themselves indeed in darkness.

In The Will and Testament of the Blessed Master Abdu’l-Bahá, He explicitly establishes the Guardianship as the Center upon this earth about which all should revolve, the Center of Guidance through and from which those of the Bahá’í Faith would be vouchsafed infallible guidance and the source and the only source to the world of Divine Guidance.

In other words, the Institution of the Guardianship is the channel and the only channel through which The Holy Spirit can reach the world throughout the centuries to come of this Bahá'í Dispensation. The working out of this Divine Guidance was demonstrated with great clarity in the mission of the first Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi. Of that the Hands of the Faith are amply aware.

But now??? In this interregnum between the first and a second Guardian of the Faith, the source of the light of the Faith is in eclipse and the Cause is without infallible direction. The Will and Testament of the Master with the Institution of the Guardianship being transgressed, or in other words, violated so with this conditions The Holy Spirit no longer can reach the Hands of the Faith who for the moment thus lead the Faith blindly the world around and in darkness. In our present state of confusion and dilemma of this departure from the Administration of The Will and Testament, they the Hands of the Faith, have set up a form of Bahá'í government quite different and foreign to anything in The Will and Testament, deceiving themselves and now they are frantically attempting to justify their actions in following this violation by promising to the Bahá’ís at large that they will form a Universal House of Justice in 1963 that will give them infallibility and thus replace any need for the function of the Guardianship, thus they are attempting the impossible and this attempt can only bring added confusion to that which we of the Faith are already suffering.

Such is the case under discussion. I am quite aware that the Hands of the Faith have no wish to do anything but serve the Bahá’í Faith fully, but by not being awake to the danger to the Faith of eliminating the Guardianship from the Administration as they are doing, they are laying the way to wreck the Cause that they want to preserve. They are sincere but sincerity is no protection from the disease of violation when violation gets started, But The Beloved Guardian in his infallible wisdom has planted me as President of the Bahá'í International Council to protect the Faith from being violated so now all Bahá'ís should look to me for guidance.

When I made my stand in the conclave of the Hands of the Faith against their united support of the violation of The Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the cry went up from several that my stand would create a division among the believers!

I am hoping that this division will soon appear for division between those who stand firmly for the Administration of The -Will and Testament and – those who are violating The Will and Testament will in the end preserve the true Faith. It is only by cutting off and cutting out of all violation from those who uphold The Will and Testament, that is of those who support this violation, that the Administration can possibly live and lead the Faith upon its triumphant growth and power throughout the world.

For those who are firm in their adherence to the Administration, which Administration is now other than the Guardianship of the Faith for them to capitulate and join forces with those who violate The Will and Testament would indeed wreck the Bahá'í Faith.

I, who have lived through periods of violation in the Faith in years past in England and in America, know of what I write. At present this spirit of violation that so dominates the Hands of the Faith as to put them (or at least all of them save me) in opposition to the carrying on of the Guardianship, can’t realize what they are doing because they don’t understand the danger of this violation that they are supporting.

Unity, Unity, has ever been the cry of the violators, when this unity that they cry out for is the very worst thing for the Faith for under these conditions, separating the faithful from the violators provides the only safety for the Faith.

I understand that not long before his death when Ahmad Sohrab made his visits to The Holy Bahá’í Shrines in Israel – that he also went to the Tomb of Subi Azal on Cyprus where he told the few Azali there assembled that he had a great project to build a gilded dome to make a shrine of the resting place of Subi Azal for it was his mission to bring together in one great world movement all Bahá’ís, Azalis, Nakazeen, and the Covenant breakers of the present time, bring all together in one great United Faith!

Thus, Unity, Unity, has been the cry of the violators to deceive the faithful believers! The Bahá'ís at this present time should understand this principle of the violation, Let them read the Tablets and the telegramme that the Beloved Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá hurled at the believers in America on the eve of His departure from this world in His last effort to protect the Faith from violation that has ever been as now the greatest of all dangers to the Cause.

The Custodian Hands of the Faith in Haifa would do well to talk with Dr. Lotfullah Hakim about the ways of violation, He was in London at the time of the Esphahani-Fareed-Sprague defection. Those who stood with these violators all left the Faith and these had been Bahá’ís up until this defection poisoned them. Lotfullah can tell you much about that violation in London in the summer of 1914 just before the beginning of World War I.

The Beloved Guardian remarked more than once in his talks to us at table that Haifa, the Center of the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith, was the most difficult place in all the world for a Bahá’í to live! I had not been there myself very long before I found this to be most true as each of the other American Bahá’ís there in our small community was finding it to be.

One day several of us Americans were at lunch together and one of the number, Leroy Ioas, summed up the situation saying, "Haifa is the hell hole of this world" and we all present endorsed his observation summing up this situation for we all felt that it was Hell to be there in Haifa. However, it was just one of those conditions that one gets into and from which there is no escape or way out of save by suicide and no one wants to resort to that, although one of the believers there, not an American, told me that on two occasions he had seriously considered it. No. It just had to be endured!

But the redeeming marvel of it all was that under these Hellish emotional conditions of indescribable frustration, oppression, and mental torment, the Cause, The Bahá’í Faith under The Beloved Guardian's command, prospered and expanded the world around Shoghi Effendi had a tremendous drive of willpower. He didn’t approach problems by the mental process of reason but by a terrific compulsion of will he drove the Cause through to the finish that he had in view. Thus the Faith prospered and goal after goal that he set to be attained was reached, but it all required fortitude and endurance on the parts of those who were there with him in his service.

From the free life that I had always lived before coming to live in Haifa, free that is from anything being imposed upon me other than those goals that I had established and set up for myself, that I worked and slaved and succeeded in reaching in mine own way, this life at Haifa was a way of life that I don’t believe I could ever have taken but for three outlets that made this possible for me. The first and most important of these supports was the memory of that flash vision that revealed to me things that were to come to pass. This gave me the courage I needed. The second one was that I get away from Haifa each summer for a trip to visit to America while Shoghi Effendi and Rúhíyyih Khánum made their annual travels and vacation in Europe for which they usually left Israel late in May not returning until late in November or thereabouts. And my third escape was my architecture.

During the winter and spring months when the Guardian was here in Haifa my first occupation was to accomplish whatever were the various tasks that he gave me. These were always my first consideration, then when done my time was mine own. Then there was opportunity for my other form of release from the high emotional tension of this Bahá’í life there. Then I shut myself up in my room and there in my own realm of thought worked at the completion of an architectural building problem that I had started and launched in America before I was called to Haifa and which I had been obliged to leave in its unfinished condition but which I could work at and gradually bring to completion from this distance from America. Thus little by little until now this architectural problem of mine is practically completed and with it are also completed and finished other responsibilities of my family and other things also in America so eventually I am now freed from responsibilities all of which though self imposed, nevertheless were works that with any peace of mind I could not drop or abandon. They had to be finished in order that I be able to be free for the Bahá’í activity that was ahead to be accomplished.

Thus did I live in my thoughts this triple life, as it were, one in the future, one in Haifa and one in America and I have been very contented and at peace within myself by so doing. I don't believe I could have taken the life in Haifa had I not had these outlets, the one balancing the others.

But now during these past two years and more without a Guardian in command, life in Haifa has changed greatly indeed. Now things here are quite the reverse of what they were under the First Guardianship. Now we are living there like children out from under the restraints of school with its teachers enjoying the freedom of a vacation and are we Bahá’ís there enjoying this new freedom? Just look around and about the place and see how free and at liberty we all are!

We don’t say anything about it, not even between ourselves, but every attitude upon the human plane of those of us living in Haifa testifies to their thorough enjoyment and appreciation of the freedom of this present condition of affairs without a Guardian commanding us. But as I say we don't talk about this. I am explaining in this writ some of the realities of things that no one mentions.

In the days of The Beloved Guardian, he insisted upon frugality. He kept the expenses of the community down to a minimum – he deplored the ease and comforts of life in America – these he considered to be actually detrimental to the spiritual way of life. He did not allow any expenditures but those expenditures for things that were actual necessities. He kept the expenses of the community down to a minimum.

Now let us look at the way of this day of freedom from the control of the Guardianship. The luxuries of the American way of life are being indulged in here at the expense of the Bahá’í Fund ! I dare not mention these in detail for fear of giving personal offence to friends. Were I to list here the many extravagances that are being indulged in now by the Hands of the Faith and others that the Beloved Guardian in his day would never have allowed, this would indeed hurt some of these friends. Hurt often comes to us to awaken us to rectify wrong but I don’t want to be the one to administer this hurt to anyone.

But what troubles me is that were these extravagances known abroad through the Bahá’í world, what would be the result? What effect would all this have upon the flow of funds coming to Haifa? Doubtless many poor Bahá’ís are contributing to this fund! How would they feel about this condition? "Noblesse oblige", is conspicuously lacking among the Bahá'ís who are now managing Bahá’í affairs here in The Holy Land.

The very fact that we Bahá’ís living in Haifa now enjoy so much freedom from restraints both in spending and in living that we will not have I assure you under the renewal of the Guardianship when this is re-established, is in itself, if anything may be a block in your way leading to the re-establishment of the Guardianship for in that advent the Second Guardian of the Faith might indeed change very much the present freedom and the do-as-you-please way in which life is now carried on in Haifa. Such changes may not please the Custodians.

In other words, the Hands of the Faith are now well and comfortably established now in Haifa, but there is no telling what restrictions another Guardian might make in the personnel here and in their way of life? Were he a married man with wife and family, his wife would automatically become the first lady of the Bahá'í Faith, how will that go? It will all mean a great sacrifice upon the part of the Hands of the Faith now in command and installed so comfortably and securely here at the center of the Faith!

Yes. With the resuming of the Guardianship, those now there installed so comfortably and securely, those who have been so greatly blessed will have to make a great sacrifice. Your blessings have been so far greater than those of any of the others among the followers of the Faith, therefore your personal sacrifices must perforce also be greater than those of others less favored than we.

At present the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land are in a position comparable to that of the clergy of any religion when a new Manifestation appears. From the human viewpoint, the clergy of the passing Dispensation doesn't want Him, but those of the clergy who accept the new Manifestation receive spiritual blessings proportionate to their great sacrifice. Such was the supreme sacrifice of the Moslem Mullahs who met martyrdom in the Days of the Báb! This same will be true now in the Bahá’í case in question, the greater the sacrifice the greater the blessing

This is indeed the judgement time of the Hands of the Faith. The Beloved Guardian blessed them above all believers in elevating us to this station of Handship in the Faith; therefore sacrifices in the Faith you must make in proportion to his bestowals upon you!

''What more can I say? What greater argument could I make for the re-establishment of the Guardianship? What greater bounty could the Hands of the Faith have or attain to them by sacrificing their ease and all that they have that the Guardianship of the Faith might be re-established?

Think about it well and thoroughly each Hand of the Faith! Are each of you ready to take this sacrifice for the preservation of the Faith against this present violation of the Guardianship that now threatens the Life of the Cause? Should the Hands fail in this test something will intervene to save the Cause for the Cause of God is surely going to survive and this means that in the end the Guardianship will survive because without the Guardianship, the Cause cannot be. Therefore let the Hands of the Faith lose no more time in assuming their responsibility that is that they should want the restoration of the Guardianship.

If the Hands make this volunteered sacrifice and willingly and sincerely wish re-establishment of the Guardianship, their blessings will indeed be great, but should they refuse they will be obliged to meet this test in another way that will be by compulsion, for come back into established power in the Cause must the Guardianship and this last resort may be most difficult for the Hands and for the Cause throughout the world.

THE FINANCES OF THE FAITH

It is with considerable apprehension that I view the financial problems of the Bahá’í Faith both of the past, the present, and with consideration of the future.

In the past my observations have been in America, I have been deeply touched by many cases there that I know personally, people of meagre means who make real sacrifices in contributing to the funds of the Cause and I've no doubt that there is a vast number of such cases that no one ever hears or knows anything about. Upon the other hand I personally know of cases where believers, having their expenses paid from Bahá’í Funds while serving the Cause, were luxuriating and indulging themselves in living in a far more costly way than they were ever accustomed to when they were providing their own expenses.

This has been bad for the Cause that we serve. The people are sure to find out in the end what is being done with their contributions and not like it. Some may take the high spiritual view of this, that the people should sacrifice for the good that sacrifices bring to ones self and to the Cause, but many more will think to themselves "Why should I sacrifice that another Bahá’í reap the benefits of giving?" One wants the Cause to reap the benefits of his gifts and not some individual. Therefore, when a Bahá’í is being supported by the finances of the Faith, he should so restrict his expenditures as to himself make a real sacrifice for the Cause

I don't mean that anyone should so deny himself as to reduce his practical usefulness of service to the Cause for such would be no economy but would probably be a burden instead of a help, were he to cut down so on his living as to become sick, unable to serve and be a burden instead of a help to the Faith. In other words, again "Noblesse oblige" should be our Bahá'í thought and action and of all places this should govern the actions of those of the friends serving the Faith in The Holy Land whereas I find that this is not the case there.

I am not the only one of the Hands of the Faith who is concerned about the expenses of the Cause in The Holy Land for occasionally I’ve heard suggestions that the funds of the Faith were being too freely dispensed there unnecessarily not only for our comfort but for expenses that border upon extravagance that would not have been indulged in by the believers in the days of The Beloved Guardian.

In Haifa we are a long way distant from those who support the finances expended there for the Faith. But things and conditions have a way of becoming known at long distance range of sight among Bahá'ís. Pilgrims are coming and going. They not only see much that goes on but they will talk about what goes on. Therefore, I think that if we expect a large inflow of funds to carry on the international activities and necessary expenses of the Faith in The Holy Land, that we will have to make sacrifices there in our way of life for these sacrifices on our part will not only be good for the Bahá’í Faith the world around but will in the end be to the spiritual growth and eternal welfare of us as individual Bahá'ís.

It may seem an uncomfortable thing to discuss this topic and even to mention it in this general way, but this should be discussed openly and frankly among the Hands in order that we can better serve the Faith.

Yes! There are many personal adjustments that always have to be made when a group of people such as we Bahá'ís in Haifa are thrown together intimately in a community isolated as in our community. Isolated in the sense that we are a religious group quite apart from all other groups religious and secular with binding ties between its members that form a communal life all of our own. Of course we have personal problems.

There is much yet to be attained that will improve the spirit and the functioning together of the members of our Bahá’ís in Haifa but this is all of so little importance compared with the all important matter of the Guardianship that is the subject of this writ. At this moment personal problems, although of import, should be passed over in favor of the one all important issue – the Guardianship.

As for my own relations with the Hands of the Faith as well as that of all of the other believers, all is most friendly and affectionate between us even though my stand is firmly against the stand together of the Hands against the Guardianship. Our kindly personal relations have not been ruptured by my stand with perhaps the exception of but one of the Hands with whom in the past I have been upon a most intimately friendly basis but now the past few times that I have met him has been most frigid in his manner although upon my insistence he has spoken to me and did not refuse to shake my hand. But this is just one of those things that one has to take and although difficult to take I see that beyond this present state of upset that eventually in the near future the Guardianship is to be restored and then such matters as this will cease to exist.

Curiously enough this one particular friend of whom I write was the Hand of the Faith who first called my attention to the circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that the Persian Hands of the Faith had covenanted between themselves at some time between the first get together meeting of the first conclave and the second meeting of the conclave on the following morning when this move to end the Guardianship was sprung upon the conclave and carried through by the insistence of the Persian Hands of the Faith!

During the two years that I was in Haifa as one of the Custodian Hands of the Faith I had ample opportunity to observe the mental workings and reactions of my fellow Custodians. In their daily parlance the word "Guardianship" was practically never mentioned. In other words, this subject of Guardianship was plainly avoided and was tabu. That is the Institution of the Guardianship as presented to the Bahá’ís in The Will and Testament of the Master. They talked all the time about The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, but the institution of the Guardianship and its continuance that is the theme of The Will and Testament was never mentioned by any of them and when I brought it up from time to time, the introduction of this subject into our consultation though not voiced, this mention was obviously resented. It’s very clear to me that the majority of these Custodian Hands of the Faith did not want that there should ever be another (Guardian of the Faith to be sitting there in Haifa directing and commanding them and their activities, attitudes speak louder than words and I have studied the attitudes of these Hands of the Faith.

The same was in the Conclaves of the body of Hands. When I admonished these Hands in general for not wanting another Guardian there were those who in defense hastened to say that of course indeed they wanted a Guardian but their various attitudes did not bear this out. For never in any of the Conclaves nor in any of the many, many long hours of the Custodians in conference has anyone other than I ever said anything suggestive that they wanted a Second Guardian of the Faith – no, but on the contrary When I brought up this subject it was as if blank walls of silent disapproval were rising upon all sides. The condition seemed utterly hopeless so steeped was the thought of these friends in support of the violation that was thus controlling them. It would seem as if nothing short of a terrible calamity of global magnitude would move them in their determination that the Guardianship be ended.

I dread to think of that which will be surely visited upon them unless their attitude changes.

Said one of the Hands (Rúhíyyih Khánum) one day in a meeting of the Custodians, "Were the Universal House of Justice to decide to appoint a Guardian I would quit Haifa and the Bahá'í world and seek sanctuary up in the mountain fastnesses of Tibet".

Those who speak without thinking invariably blurt forth what they really think so it is when a Hand of the Faith announced that the Guardianship is closed forever one may be sure that person doesn't want the Guardianship to be. It is upon such evidence as example such as these-that I mention that reveal motivating thoughts.

Why do the Hands of the Faith stand so solidly against the continuation of the Guardianship when the Administration of their Faith is built up around the Guardianship as its very heart and center? WHY?

The Beloved First Guardian of the Faith devoted his entire mission to building up the Administration of the Cause as directed by The Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Why are the vast majority of the Hands of the Faith now so intent on destroying that which Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian, built up? WHY?

There is a reason for this attitude of these friends, but what is their reason?

Study this thesis for the reasons why.

Let each individual Hand of the Faith look into his or her own heart and ask WHY they don't want the Guardianship to continue?

When it became known throughout the Bahá’í world from what the Proclamation of the Hands of the Faith did not mention about the Guardianship and that the Manifesto from Chicago entitled "A New Bahá’í Era" did proclaim the definite ending of the Guardianship much consternation and anguish of heart and spirits struck deeply into the hearts of certain of the believers, some of whom were so firmly attached to the Guardianship that it just didn't seem that they could give up hoping for and looking forward to the time when the Guardianship, would be restored to its original status as given in The Will and Testament, of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

I don't know how many there were of these cases but for example I will cite two of these cases, one in the orient and other in the occident. These two examples, because of the manner in which some of them were treated by their assemblies because of their faith in the Guardianship, will I believe in time to come, surely be considered as black blots on the history of these days of the Bahá'í Faith.

In Lucknow, India, a believer by the name of Gupta made a very strong plea in opposition to the abolition of the Guardianship that he sent to his National Assembly and a copy of which he sent to the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land. This plea comprised his statement of what the Guardianship of the Faith is and of what it meant to the Cause and to the world. To my own mind, this was quite the most comprehensive and powerful statement of the station of Guardianship written by a Bahá'í that I have as yet seen. It consisted of six paragraphs typed upon one sheet of paper a copy of which I attach as an addenda to this writ, in order that all of the Hands of the Faith may reread this or in case that they have not already read this statement, that they can read it now for the first time.

To be sure the writer makes his statement in terminology and words that may sound exaggerated to the occidental ear and mind but as for the writer's statement of the majesty and power of the Guardianship and of his own sincerity and steadfastness in The Will and Testament and of is reward for the Guardianship there can be no doubt.

That Bahá'í, Gupta, was of a legal turn of mind and evidently knew quite well the way in which his statement would be received by the Hands of the Faith for with his statement he tendered to his National Assembly his resignation from the Bahá'í Faith for the duration of the interregnum that is until the re-establishment of the Guardianship. Evidently he did this to save himself from the disgrace of having his voting rights as a Bahá'í taken from him and thus be debarred from participating as an accredited believer in the activities of the Faith.

I did not hear any mention of this matter in the meetings of the Custodian Hands but found this statement from Lucknow in the file of correspondence of the Custodians. Upon two occasions in our conferences I brought up this matter asking the Hands present if they had read this statement. I never learned whether or not this document had been either read or studied by the Custodians but on both the times that mentioned it, I was shortly told that the individual who wrote it was a stirrer-up of inharmony and that it was better that he be out of the Cause than in association with the friends. The why of all this I was not told.

The second case (the case in the occident) was that of Tony Fillon whom I met and knew some years ago in Chile. Tony didn't seem to be able to accept the dictum that the Guardianship was forever ended; therefore He was deprived of his voting rights and thus placed in disgrace by action of his National Assembly, the National Assembly of Central America at Panama, their grounds for this as stated in a letter to the Custodian Hands was that he refused to accept the "Institutions of the Bahá'í Faith", it being evident that this National Assembly of Central America considered the present set up of the Hands in the Holy Land and the ending of the Guardianship by the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land to be a canonical "Institution of the Faith." This is not the case at all.

When I read this report in the correspondence of this National Assembly of Central America to the Hands of the Cause in The Holy Land, I objected to the Custodians at the unjust and un-Bahá'í way that Tony had been treated by his National Assembly.

So far as I could find out from the correspondence in the files (there were no copies of letters from the Hands of the Faith on this case) so I inferred that the Custodian Hands approved of what the National Assembly of Central America had done. So until now this blessed believer, Tony Fillon, is out of the Faith in disgrace because he held to the hope of the continuation of Guardianship!

To my mind the way that both of these cases, one in India and one in Panama, were handled are blots on the records of the Bahá'í Faith. Surely in time these condemnations will be righted by The Second Guardian of the Faith.

Every believer has within himself the two natures, human and spiritual. So long as the spiritual nature is in command holding the human desires in abeyance, all is well and his spiritual progress in the Kingdom is assured. But when the human desires intervene and take command over that believer's spiritual life then comes the critical time when a sacrifice of the human desires must be made, otherwise one's spiritual life will suffer.

In other parts of this writ, I have mentioned the great personal sacrifices that the believers are called upon to make when they are dedicated in the service of the Guardian of the Faith. Theirs' is not an easy life – it is indeed the most difficult life in all this world – this life to which The Beloved Guardian has called the Hands of the Faith to lead – their blessings for successfully serving the Guardianship are very great indeed but these blessings are only in proportion to the sacrifices that they made.

I have also mentioned at some little length how much easier and more pleasant is the human life of the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land now in these days of no ruling Guardianship than it was when The Beloved Guardian was here with us and we at all times subject to his orders and his commands. Life for us was then not so easy and pleasant from the human standpoint as it is now during this interregnum, but in those days of greater sacrifice demanded of us than are now demanded, the Cause of the Faith progressed and was in a far better condition both at home and abroad than it is at present.

In other words, now upon the human plane of our lives all is happier that when we were under the Guardianship. Now you are free from many former controls and the Hands in general are enjoying these human liberties. It is a time of human relaxation. I like all the others, feel a freedom on the human plane that is humanly very pleasing. But what of the Cause ?

The Cause is not going at all as it should go and progress not at all under these present conditions. Were I thinking alone of my human desires, happiness and welfare, I would not care to have this present liberty and freedom taken from me, for when the Guardianship is again re-established, working and in running order, this present liberty will be no more and you will all be again IN HIS SERVICE and will be called upon to make many sacrifices IN HIS PATH that will be for the good progress and spread of the Faith and in the end for your own spiritual progress in this world preparing all for life in the worlds to come!

Little wonder that from the human viewpoint some may not want another Guardian for the Guardianship demands many sacrifices from each one of you, sacrifices that we are not called upon to make now, confused as is the Bahá'í world at this present moment, floundering about without the guidance that the Faith needs. Nevertheless let the Hands, as a body, arise to sacrifice their present lives of ease and freedom in order that the cause of the Bahá'í Faith can progress and grow in the world. In other words, give up these many pleasant human freedoms that are now enjoyed in Haifa that didn't exist in the days of Shoghi Effendi and let all want the continuation of the Guardianship for the sake of the progress of the Cause. Let all welcome the sacrifice that The Second Guardian of the Faith may impose and require – this all for the sake of the Cause that we love! It will be more, much more difficult for all than are the present conditions but in the end all will be better for all and for the Cause than it is now in these present days of liberty.

When the Hands of the Faith really want a Guardian to guide them their first step will have been taken to solve the dilemma in which our Faith now finds itself. Little can be done by the Hands themselves until they want the resuming of the Guardianship, in the meanwhile their problems will increase. Should they continue to not want the Guardianship, let them be prepared for the trouble that they are thus creating for themselves for resistance to the inevitable continuance of the Guardianship means that in the end conditions over which they will have no control will compel them to place themselves under the guidance of Guardianship. Now before the end, the wise course of action would be to meet and to solve this issue now and by choice rather than later by compulsion, for the Guardianship is destined to survive and lead the Faith on to its victory in the world fulfilling the prophecies of Christ and the Prophets and the hopes of their followers down through the ages.

It would be well for this present generation of Bahá'ís to study the words of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá that treat of violation of the Covenant and the spiritual destructiveness of such violation. The very last acts of the Master were the warnings that he sent to America to alert the people and to save them from the corruption of violation. "He who sits with leper, contracts leprosy", was the Master's last cablegram to the American Bahá'ís, sent through Roy Wilhelm in New York to Mrs. Parsons and to me in Washington.

After a long struggle in America, the Cause was finally cleared of violation of the Covenant so that when the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi entered upon his mission this country of America was free from violation. The believers in America received Shoghi Effendi and obeyed him without question because of their allegiance to the Covenant of which he, 'Abdul-Bahá , was the Center.

Thus America became the Cradle of the Administration and among the American Bahá'ís there was no questioning about the infallibility of the Guardianship. The questionings seemed to be right there in Haifa where the Covenant breakers were gathering their forces to combat the Guardianship. Our Beloved Guardian was many years in untangling his life from the violation in which he was enmeshed right there in his own family as well as in the surrounding community of Bahá'ís in The Holy Land. All of Shoghi Effendi's family violated the Master's Will and Testament and some of the community of Bahá'ís sided with them. In order to meet this exigency, The Beloved Guardian practically dispersed the local Bahá’í community of Haifa sending the people of the Bahá’í community to various parts of the earth, from Australia to North Africa, thus for some years Shoghi Effendi was almost alone in Haifa but for Rúhíyyih Khánum, her father and a very few others who remained firm.

After the passing of some years, the field of Bahá'í effort that centered in The Holy Land, the field was prepared and ready for a greater expansion and then about ten years or so ago, The Beloved Guardian began calling certain of the American Bahá'ís to The Holy Land to serve him there, then the Guardian opened his programme for the expansion of the Faith the world around.

In the days of The Center of the Covenant, the Master told the Believers – that they should protect themselves from violation by separating themselves and the group of believers from any trace of violation – such were the instructions of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the believers of his day, but when the Guardian Shoghi Effendi took over he himself designated who was a violator to be cast out from the Faith. This was no longer a prerogative of the believers themselves, but of the Guardianship – thus Ruth White, Ahmad Sohrab and others including certain of his own family because of their seditious actions he expelled from the Faith, by action of the Guardian himself.

According to the Will and Testament of the Master, the protection of the Faith is one of the two responsibilities of the Hands of the Faith, the Hands serving directed by the Guardian himself. Therefore, they should be particularly mindful of any violation of the Will and Testament, particularly in these crucial days of the interregnum when so much depends upon what the Hands do and upon what they don't do with regards in particular to the Administration the heart of which is the Guardianship.

I exhort the Hands of the Faith to loose no time in reading and studying those writings and tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá that treat of violation and its attending evils of destruction to the Cause.

As stated, this statement to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith is document in confidence to the Hands of the Faith and to the Hands of the Faith only and no Bahá’ís save the Hands of the Faith know of its existence.

I send forth this call to the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land in order that these friends may think over and pray over these matters before our next conclave.

Faithfully yours in Devoted Bahá'í Love,

MASON REMEY

Hand of the Bahá’í Faith

President of the Bahá’í International Council

Appointed by the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith

April 1960

Washington D.C., U.SA.

The assertions that I present in this last appeal to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith are of the same general nature and character as those of the first appeal so this last appeal may be considered as a continuation of the first appeal, added to which is emphasized the importance that the Hands of the Faith should give to preparing themselves to recognize and to accept the Second Guardian of the Faith when they realize that the Beloved Guardian actually made this appointment himself some time before his death in escrow, to take effect at his death. Thus the chair of the Guardianship has never been vacant but only hidden from the world to be recognized by the believers as some may or will do now at almost any time; then he will be known to the Bahá’í World! He, the successor of the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi – He, the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith!

MASON REMEY

President of the Bahá'í

International Council

Written in part in Room 60, Hotel Berchielli

Florence, Italy

December 1959

and in part in Apartment 2,

1310 New Hampshire Avenue Northwest

Washington 6, D.C.

U.S. of North America

During and throughout the entire mission of the Beloved Shoghi Effendi, as Guardian of the Faith, he at all times held the unique authority that only the Guardian of the Cause could hold as the sole and only commander of the Cause; he never shared with anyone. He guarded this most zealously. This was his sole prerogative.

When the Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Bahá'í International Council, he bestowed upon me a potential responsibility, the responsibility of that position.

As I have explained elsewhere in this writ, the Beloved Guardian never gave me any orders as to what I should do to put into action the International Council, so I did nothing; thus were the affairs of the Council up until the time of the death of Shoghi Effendi, at which time my responsibilities as President of the Council, that until then had been the Guardian's sole responsibility, then became my responsibilities – these were responsibilities coming to me when the Beloved Guardian was released by his death from all earthly responsibilities, responsibilities that had weighed so heavily upon him during the long and many years of his Guardianship.

Now since the departure from this world of Shoghi Effendi, the responsibilities of the International Council and everything connected with it are my responsibility – a responsibility such as no other Bahá'í carries or possesses. Mine is now the sole and the exclusive right to handle the affairs of the International Council. Such is the responsibility and call conferred upon me by our Beloved Guardian that went into effect at his death in November 1957 the year when I inherited this particular responsibility together with other responsibilities devolving upon me by Shoghi Effendi's death which I will speak of and explain to the believers at some other time. For the present, it is sufficient for me to explain but this – control of the Bahá'í International Council, its functioning and its other affairs. Therefore I hold that nothing be done by any one or by any ones other than I, myself, toward anything at all that concerns the Bahá'í International Council, and this means the Hands of the Faith are at all times to be under the direction and command of the Guardian of the Faith, and my authority to direct the affairs of the International Council, to direct them of myself, independent of and free from all authority, was conferred upon me by the Beloved Guardian; thus these powers became mine automatically at the death of the first Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

I now and here ordain upon this Day of Naw-Ruz 117 of the Bahá’í Era (the day upon which I am penning this writ) that there shall be nothing done about the Bahá'í International Council or about any of its activities. This is to be until I, President of the Council, order otherwise.

MASON REMEY

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

21 March 1960

In other words, in addition to what I have already here written in thus appointing me President of the International Council, the Beloved Guardian has bestowed upon me, I whom he chose from among all the Bahá'ís of the world, this power and authority that after him I now have to protect the Bahá'í Faith in which capacity and for which end I now stand before the Hands of the Faith and tell them that now, after the death of the first Guardian, I inherit and take over and now exercise the right and the full power that Shoghi Effendi gave me, and to me alone, after him to protect the Faith from this impending violation of the Bahá'í International Council.

Do you realize what this implies and means and to what position in the Faith the Beloved Guardian has appointed me, Mason Remey?

Dearly Beloved Hands of the Faith, please try and understand my position of command in the Faith to regulate the affairs of the International Council, when I tell you to desist in your attempts to control and to end the International Council preparatory to your program for 1963.

My position in Bahá'í affairs has been clearly given to me by the Beloved Guardian. Pray accept it and make your announcement to the world of your acceptance of the position of command thus bequeathed to me by Our Beloved Guardian, bequeathed to me in escrow only to become known to the world of the Cause after his death – the departure from amongst us all of Shoghi Effendi – he, who was the First Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

In your announcement to the Bahá'í World after the last conclave of 1959, you definitely stated that you intend taking over the International Council, that you the Custodian Hands will dictate the policies of the Council for two years, then put it out of existence to establish your House of Justice in 1963, which program was endorsed by twenty-two of the Hands so the entire Bahá'í World knows of your intentions!

Now I, President of the International Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, tell you to desist in your efforts to end the International Council, as you state is your intention to do, for you to give up your project for 1963. By ordering you to stop such proceedings I am using the authority and the power given me by the Beloved Guardian to protect and to guard the affairs of the International Council.

Yet! Beloved Hands of the Faith, why should one wonder at the mess of Bahá'í matters that the Hands of the Faith are making with their plans for 1963?

Hands of the Cause, you have no divine authority vested in you as Hands of the Faith. According to the commands in the Will and Testament you are to serve only under the direction of the Guardian of the Faith, the Guardian Himself being the infallible one to guide you. You should realize this, for when you do realize this your first and only step to be taken should be to find the Guardian who can guide you.

Instead of following this procedure, you have strayed from the true path of the Cause by wanting to eliminate forever the Guardianship. Some of you, the majority in fact, supported the "New Bahá'í Era" cult of SANS GUARDIANSHIP. Nothing could have been nor be in the present or the future more bewildering to the Bahá'í World than your attitude and all that it implies.

Arise Hands of the Faith! You should arise seeking to find your Guardian. The first step that you should have taken was to have sought for your Guardian. From your attitude of not wanting the Guardianship to be is the first indication of trouble for you and a stumbling block in your path! You have chosen to follow this violation. Awake and see that it is leading you away from truth and into error.

I have hinted at and alluded to in an around-about-way in various of my notes and writings to the prophetic vision that I had about a year and a half before the Beloved Guardian called me to Haifa, uprooted me from Washington and planted me there in the Holy Land, telling me that from that time on Israel was to be my home.

Until then I had tried to put that flash vision out of my mind, thinking that it was but a vagary of my imagination, or worse than that....some evil spirit of temptation to lead me astray, possibly to incite me to have personal aspirations of position in the Cause of which aspirations I wanted to have no party for when I first read the Will and Testament of the Master, the copy of which was given to me by Shoghi Effendi himself at the time he called me to Haifa in February 1921 – my first reaction was that to be one of the Hands of the Faith and have to live in Haifa was not only quite the last thing that I wanted, but actually the one thing that I did not want to have happen to me.

I had not been in Haifa as a Hand of the Faith for very long before I began to realize that that flash vision of things to come was beginning to work out as it had been revealed to me. I found myself not only appointed to be one of the Hands of the Faith but the President of the Bahá'í International Council. Furthermore the Guardian told me that upon formal occasions when he presided at the Feasts and gatherings of the believers at the Holy Shrines that I should walk next behind him, with the other believers following, and that when he was seated in his automobile, I was to sit at his left hand, and that such should always be my position seated next to him when in the gatherings of the believers. These commands usually were given to me by Rúhíyyih Khánum, who was my contact with Shoghi Effendi. I always addressed him through her, save when he himself spoke directly to me which was but rarely. In speaking to him, I would have addressed him in the third person, but this I never did because I felt I should carry out this Bahá'í protocol exactly as instructed to do without adding anything to it of mine own thought. In speaking of the Guardian to any non-Bahá'í in Israel I always alluded to him as "His Eminence", I following His instruction to do so.

While I never was conscious that the Guardian had any personal affection for me as an individual, I always was conscious that he, in a quiet but decided way, was placing me thus in a very special way before the Bahá'ís who surrounded him. At table I always sat at his left with Rúhíyyih Khánum at his right, except when there were special great pilgrims present, when they were accorded this place at his left.

In all of the Bahá'í gatherings held in the absence of the Guardian, I took my seat at the head of the table and always walked ahead with the others following me, and this order I always maintained in Haifa as one of the Custodian Hands there. I was as unobtrusive as I could be in my manner, and this has never, to my knowledge, been questioned by anyone nor has anyone ever taken any exception to this, my attitude, although this is as far as I have ever gone while living in the Holy Land. I always have preceded all other of the men believers in entering the Shrines for worship, when no women are present. When Rúhíyyih Khánum and other ladies are in the group, I stand aside until they have entered, then enter myself, followed by the men believers. This, as I note, has never been questioned to my knowledge or my observation.

Upon the only formal Israeli National occasion (the funeral of Dr. Wisemann, President of the Republic) at which the Guardian was present, I was his sole attendant, walking behind him, he leading all the other religious leaders of Israel; I following him with my arms firmly set akimbo to so protect the Guardian from being shoved aside or passed by the Mullahs, Bishops, Archbishops and other religious leaders who were pressing on behind me.

Upon various other ceremonial occasions where the Beloved Guardian wanted to be represented, these being in Jerusalem, he sent me thither to represent him, and this custom of my leading has continued to be observed I being in the lead – in those days of interregnum, during which we have no Guardian in office commanding us – the friends to which custom now established no one has made audible nor visible objection. It is just one of those things that everyone seems to accept without question.

But this precedent has only been followed upon formal occasions. When the Beloved Guardian wanted business to be done in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa or anywhere else, he usually sent Leroy Ioas to attend to it, and on occasion others of the Hands of the Faith, not me, and this procedure has of course been followed in these interregnum days.

The one great and outstanding appointment of me as President of the Bahá'í International Council with the authoritative power in the Faith and over the Faith, both of the Hands of the Faith and the believers, that this now gives me and is given to me alone and unique above all the believers in the world was in itself the ultimate realization to me of my flash vision. I frequently refer to this vision that was given me eleven or twelve years ago during which years the responsibility that was coming to me has weighed much upon my heart and soul and mind during these intervening years, and particularly so during these last two or three of which have been so very difficult for all of the believers the world around, Hands of the Faith and those who are looking toward the Hands of the Faith for guidance.

Now, at this date, the guidance of the Cause is off the track as it were. For it is not the province of the Hands of the Faith to guide the Faith. They are to serve the Guardian of the Faith and are to carry on and carry out his commands.

It is therefore, upon these grounds that I, President of the Bahá'í International Council, command them to desist from their attempts and cease their program of tampering with the International Council and give up their program for 1963 that is a violation of the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá as well as a violation of the Administration that the Beloved Guardian built up in accordance with the command of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

Whether or not the Beloved Guardian realized or knew of his approaching death, he left his Cause fully protected when he appointed me President of the Bahá'í International Council, for by so doing he vested in me, Mason Remey , the authority to guard the Faith against this violation of the Administration even though this violation be perpetrated by the Hands of the Faith as proposed in the report of the Conclave at Bahjí of 1959 that was signed by 22 of the 27 Hands of the Faith. Thus these friends have gone on record as upholding this violation. Therefore the only stand for me to take now is to forbid all the plans of the Hands for 1963.

Violation conscious or unconscious so poisons and distorts the spiritual vision of the one or ones infected that they are not able to help them selves to see the truth of the matter. Every concerted action of the Hands of the Faith since their stand was taken in the first Conclave at Bahjí, to put aside the administration of the Faith by making changes in its fabric or structure, has been to violate and to confuse the believers more and more by leading them farther and farther away from the way as established by the Beloved Guardian.

They started out by assuming command of the Faith shortly followed by their actual acceptance of the Chicago Manifesto "The New Bahá'í Era", but that they decided was too strongly put to give out to the people of the Faith at that time, so its publication was suppressed. But, as I have shown in other parts of this writ, they the Hands highly approved of by the letter that the Custodian Hands wrote to Horace Holley, approving highly of the Manifesto declaring SANS GUARDIANSHIP.

Now since that Manifesto has been withdrawn from circulation among the friends, the Custodian Hands have adopted a beating-down process, trying to beat down any hope that they may find bobbing up now and then among the believers, here and there, by discouraging all hopes that any may have of an other Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi. But as time goes on, these Hands now go so far as to insist that the Bahá'ís abandon all hopes, going so far as practically to forbid any discussion at all of the possibility of the Guardian, who awaits in occultation, and has waited in occultation since the death of Shoghi Effendi until the moment for him to come forth with the clear proofs to prove his Guardianship to the Bahá'í World.

The Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, whose presence upon earth is as yet unknown to any believers, save to himself, will ere long be obliged to come forth from his concealment ere the sufferings of the firm believers be too great for them to sustain these present conditions any longer – for they, these firm ones who cling to the Administration as established by the Beloved Guardian, must not be made to suffer too long and too much ere even their faith be put to too great a test. Christ prayed that these days be shortened for the sake of the very elect, lest even they, the elect, might fall .

This moment is indeed the eleventh hour in the judgement of the Hands of the Faith. Let them beware and understand this and turn from the way they have made for themselves in their program for 1963.

HANDS OF THE FAITH! Abandon your program. Awake! Desire that the Guardianship continue and diligently seek your Guardian so when he comes forth from his present occultation, he will find you desiring him, looking for him, and ready to follow him as he leads the Faith onto victory promised to the world by the Divine Manifestations, Christ and the Prophets since the creation of the world.

The Guardian of the Faith, who ere long will appear, is calling to you to make you ready for his coming. Awake, Hands of the Faith, and make yourselves ready to meet him, the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

The present stand of the Hands of the Faith against the continuation of the Guardianship beyond that of Shoghi Effendi is indeed a most clearly stated and defined violation of both the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and also a violation of the Administrative System of Bahá'í law and order that the Beloved Guardian constructed and built up upon the Will and Testament and was getting into running performance in all parts of the Bahá'í World when death interrupted his mission.

The normal and logical procedure of the Hands of the Faith under such conditions should have been to take up his work of carrying on Administration according to the plan and the Will and Testament, of assuming their own responsibility of protecting the Faith by seeking the Second Guardian to continue on where the services of Shoghi Effendi so-without-any-warning had come to such a sudden end. Such procedure would have been carrying out the intent of the Will and Testament.

But NO, an influential group of individuals within the body of the twenty-seven Hands of the Faith consulted together in private from the others, made a covenant between themselves and then proceeded to put this over the others (and with a certain success too) – that is to say they have up until the present time been able to hold up and hold back the carrying on of the Administration of the Faith as given in the Will and Testament, which Administrative principle centered about the infallibility of the Guardianship, perpetrated by fallaciously promising the people an infallible Universal House of Justice that they, the Hands, would form in 1963.

This is indeed a violation of the Will and Testament, a violation clear and distinct!

There is but one method of meeting violation, and that is to cut it out completely and cast it out from the Cause without any compromising whatsoever!

Some of the enlightened Bahá'ís in Germany in letters and by telegram called the attention of the Hands of the Faith to the fact that the Faith, according to the Revealed Word that the Hands should not abandon the Guardianship. Their missives were sent to the Conclave of Hands in Bahjí, but these were not read nor discussed in the conferences by the Hands, save that it was understood that when two German Hands returned to Frankfurt that they would explain to the friends of their National Spiritual Assembly that all of these matters would be taken up and settled by the infallible Universal House of Justice that they would establish in 1963.

As I view this situation of our Faith, I see it started to develop because the Hands did not distinguish the difference between violation and disunion or inharmony for violation and inharmony are two very different things and are not to be treated or handled in the same manner.

A simple case of inharmony between believers is to be treated by love and by one giving into the other and by following the opinion of the majority, but according to the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu’l-Bahá, violation is an entirely different matter from disunity and inharmony; one that has to be treated of in altogether different manner than inharmony; for violation must be cut out absolutely and not palliated at all.

I don't know what individual experience, if any, that the Hands of the Faith may have had with violation, but I doubt if any of the occidental Hands of the Faith have had any experience with violation, with but the exception of Mrs. True and myself. The Khirella violation and that of the Kirchners in Chicago, followed by that of Fareed, of the Ispahani family of Haifa, the Woodcock family of Montreal and others, were all so long ago in the rapidly moving history of our Faith as to be out of the present consciousness of those believers who have come into the Faith in the more recent times than these that I mention.

However, all of the Hands of the Faith know of the defection of Ahmad Sohrab because this is of so recent date as still to be an enemy movement that in its Various branches in different parts of the world is actively working against the Bahá'í Faith.

Now why is it that the Hands of the Faith cannot see that the stand that they are now united upon is one of violation? The Hands of the Bahá'í Faith claim to be following the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the interpretation and application of those teachings by the Beloved Guardian, but with no continuation of the Guardianship. Theirs is the same stand as that taken by Ahmad Sohrab!

Ahmad Sohrab announced in print that he accepted the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, but without the Guardianship. Why is it that the Hands of the Faith cannot see this point of my argument? When Ahmad Sohrab made his defection, we had the Beloved Shoghi Effendi here with us to lead us, but now the Guardian has not yet appeared to take the command of the situation before us. Only the Second Guardian of the Faith can pull the Cause out of its present dilemma.

While the Hands, as well as all other members of the Faith, were in deep sorrow at the death of Shoghi Effendi, there was never any expression of desire amongst the Hands of the Faith that they have another Guardian to take his place infallibly to direct the Cause. No, the majority of the Hands definitely in their attitude do not want a Second Guardian. When confronted blankly by me with this accusation, some of them hastened to affirm by spoken words that of course they would like to have another Guardian etc., etc. But surely their attitudes deny their words.

When the National Spiritual Assembly of Bahá'ís of Germany expressed the hope of having a Second Guardian of the Faith to the Second Bahjí Conclave, nothing was done about these messages save to commission the two German Hands of the Faith upon their return to Frankfurt to talk with the members of their Assembly and tell them that the Universal House of Justice, that they would establish in 1963 with the infallibility that they attributed to it, would decide about all Bahá'í procedures, including whether or not the Guardianship should be continued.

I've never heard how this fallacious teaching was received by the German National Assembly. Several of the Hands, knowing how I felt about the Guardianship, came to me and talked to the effect that the Universal House of Justice in 1963, being infallible, might re-establish the Guardianship, but as none of these friends in their attitudes and their speech appeared to me to want anything of me save for me to be quiet and cease agitating the subject of Guardianship. I saw plainly that they were trying to get my support of their violation to put over their House of Just ice in 1963 and that they were baiting the hook of their violation with this fallacious possibility of Guardianship, hoping that I would be satisfied with this ruse upon their part to carry their point, that from that first Bahjí Conclave and since then ever has been the abolition of Guardianship.

Inasmuch as some of the Hands of the Faith are going to such length to kill the Cause, I feel it is high time that this matter be brought to a head and cut out from the Cause before it becomes worse and more difficult to handle than it now is. Therefore I am putting into writing in this document an account of these things between us as I see them, in the hope that the Hands will reconsider their stand.

When the first Conclave of the Hands of the Faith assembled at Bahjí to learn that no will or testament of Shoghi Effendi could be found amongst his papers, prayers were chanted and read and the Conclave closed to convene on the following morning.

For the most part, if not all the American Hands returned to Haifa for the night, while for the most part, if not all the ten Hands who were Persian, were quartered for the night at Bahjí. When the Conclave went into session the following morning, one of the Persian Hands arose making the statement that since Shoghi Effendi left no son to inherit the Guardianship, and since no will and testament of his could be found among his papers, that the Guardianship of the Faith must be considered to be ended with the Beloved Guardian of the Faith Shoghi Effendi, there upon, all of the other Persian Hands quickly arose in support of this move, with the result that this move had the immediate support of the majority of the Hands.

Circumstantial evidence of the situation shows beyond a doubt that the Persian friends had consulted amongst themselves between these two meetings – the first on one day and second on the following day – and that they had come to an agreement between themselves that the Guardianship be abandoned. Thus in the confusion and heat of the moment the Guardianship was definitely abandoned by the majority of the conclave thus was violated the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu’l-Bahá.

Since that first conclave all of the proceedings of the Hands of the Faith in conclave and the objects and support by the Custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land have been based upon the assumption that the Guardianship is now closed forever, although this has not been said definitely to the Bahá'í World.

Thus at this present time, 1959 – 1960, stands this matter of the violation of the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá upon which as the foundation, the Beloved Guardian during the thirty-six years of his ministry built the present Bahá'í Administration that now is suffering from this violation.

As I remember in this first Conclave when the motion was made to end the Guardianship it was immediately supported by all of the Persian Hands. There was practically little or no discussion. They all stood together and each recited the same formula of why the Guardianship should be ended. The Guardian left no son to inherit the Guardianship and there was not found any will or testament from him; therefore the Institution was ended. It was the Will of God that there never be another Guardian – BADA.

That this was all a pre-planned move upon the part of these Persian Hands was most obvious. This circumstantial evidence could not be doubted. In court testimony it is a well recognized fact that when a body of witnesses all give exactly the same testimony, word by word, that such is proof of collusion.

In making this promise to the Bahá'í world the Hands of the Faith have not taken into consideration that the Beloved Guardian himself appointed the Bahá'í International Council. Do the Hands of the Faith think that they have the right to do anything further at all about this?

When the Hands of the Faith will in reality want a Guardian they will then be in line to receive and recognize the Second Guardian of the Faith when he appears. Then they will have an infallibility to direct them in all matters. In the meanwhile, I, the President of the Council, refuse to allow the Hands to do anything about the council. The council must rest inactive as it is until we have an acknowledged Guardian to inaugurate its activities.

What can I do to change their attitude? The only thing I can do about this, for the moment is to do nothing at all save hope and pray that matters will so shape themselves that the opportunity will come when I assured of support will be able to jump into the arena of Bahá'í thought and make clear myself to them.

But one little glimmer of light have I thus far had. It came to me after the close of the last session of this third Conclave. We were all leaving the Mansion of Bahjí, it was dark as we walked out to where the cars were parked to take us back to Haifa, and one of the Hands of the Faith slipped his arm through mine as we walked; and whispered in my ear "There will be other Guardians".

Without the Institution of the Guardianship there can be no Administration, the two are one and co-existent. The two divine verities, the Covenant and the Guardianship with the Administration, form the message that the Bahá'ís had for the world in the days of the Guardianship.

In other words the message of the Covenant as taught in the days of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá isolated from the Administration is now no longer the Bahá'í message for the world as it had formerly been before the Will and Testament was given to the Bahá'ís for with the inauguration of the Administration, this the Administration which is the Guardianship now became together with the Covenant the message that the Bahá'ís had for the world.

During this present interregnum of the past two years and more, the teachers of the Faith, the pioneers, have had no message for the world, for as things are now in the Faith, with no assurance of Guardianship, they are no longer able to teach the Will and Testament. In other words, the Faith is at a standstill, the dangers of which are so increasing daily that this is indeed a time of peril such as this Cause has never before faced in its entire history.

The "Dawn-Breakers" of the Cause faced the dangers of physical extermination by Fire and the Sword, but the danger that we now face is a far worse and more subtle menace than that which the Dawn-Breakers faced. They could see the enemy and meet him face to face whereas now the people of the Faith in this year, A.D. 1959, are at the mercy of a spiritually diseased state of the plague of violation of the Will and Testament, a condition that is not only unseen but not even inspected by twenty-six out of the total number of the twenty-seven Hands of the Faith. In other words, among the Hands I, alone, see this disease slowly creeping over and into Conclaves of the Hands of the Faith as well as permeating the activities of the Custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land, who between the Conclaves of all of the Hands, form the central body directing Bahá'í affairs throughout the world.

This condition of the affairs I have seen right along from the time that the Custodian Body of Hands in the Holy Land was formed, and I have repeatedly warned them of this condition of violation that has attached them and so blinded them in their deliberations as to cause them to seek constantly to give support to those actions and things that should not be, because all of their actions are confirmatory to the attitude of violation of the Will and Testament that has, so far, characterized everything carried on and executed by the Hands of the Faith. Note that I write "ALL" of their actions. I write the word ALL because of their defection, everything proceeding therefrom is perforce wrong, and by everything I mean everything, all because the Hands have lost confidence in the Administration that is the Guardianship.

Now in this time of confusion of thought in the Cause, I exhort you to cling fast to the Administration as established by the Beloved Guardian and withhold your judgement and condemnation of those such as our German friends of Frankfurt and our friends, Tony Fillon and Dr. Gupta of Lucknow, all of whom with many others, myself included, still hope that the Second Guardian of the Faith will soon come forth, speaking with the authority of the Beloved Guardian. Tony's faith was the same as mine own, that there must be a Second Guardian to follow the First Guardian of the Faith. But you, the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land, have countenanced his having his voting rights taken from him and he thus disgraced! I am astonished at the lengths to which this violation of the Master's Will and Testament have taken the Hands of the Faith, but such is the bewildering effects of violation of the Holy Teachings. You have become so spiritually sick that you are no longer responsible.

I, as the individual Bahá’í, Mason Remey, center my hope upon the presence of the Second Guardian of the Faith here amongst us. For in this world he now is. But as yet his presence is not yet revealed. I hold this belief as does Tony Fillon, but Tony doesn't know that I endorse his hopes – does not know it yet.

For the past year and more I've tried to use gentle and pacific reasons and argument in deference of the Guardianship against the united intention of the body of Hands that there shall never be another Guardian.

Now, seeing that this violation of the Master's Will and Testament is daily becoming stronger until it threatens to become the accepted way of life of the Cause, as a last resort I am obliged single-handedly to come out into the open and use my prerogatives as President of the International Council as appointed by our late Beloved Guardian, to force the Hands of the Faith to relinquish their united stand against the Guardianship.

I say force them to do this, for this is the only way left for me to do, since milder methods are powerless against this violation that so dominates the Hands.

My way of forcing this issue is simply by announcing to the Hands that in no way shall I countenance their right to do anything at all about or with the Bahá'í International Council. The Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Council, and in this capacity I am responsible to no one save the Guardian of the Faith. Therefore, I take the stand that there can be no functioning of the Council until there be a recognized and accepted Guardian of the Faith to institute it.

The Hands of the Faith have no right to command the election of an International Council; therefore I refuse to have anything at all to do with this matter that has been and is being promised by the Hands to the Bahá'í World.

In other words, I block their actions in this, and since the Beloved Guardian gave me this position as President of the Council and this is known the Bahá'í World around, the Hands can do nothing about the matter, as I hold the reins and will not allow them to carry out their plan inspired by this violation. My action for the present is merely a negative one. I will do nothing and by doing nothing, I control the Hands without trying further to put any positive pressure upon or against them.

The positive pressure that will compel them to abandon this movement of violation to control the Bahá'í Faith will come from the mass of the people of the Faith the world around. Those to whom the Hands of the Faith have been, for over two years past, inoculating with this fallacious propaganda of the Council in 1961, followed by the Universal House of Justice in 1963.

The only refuge and safety that there is for the Faith is the Second Guardian the Faith under whose guidance and protection this interregnum of confusion, fallaciousness and violation in the Hands of the Faith will be of the past and forgotten in the assuredness and the strength of the Faith that will follow the restitution of the Guardianship.

Years ago before my birth, my father was a passenger upon a small vessel going up our Atlantic seaboard coast. When off Cape Hatteras the ship struck a severe hurricane with its officers drinking with the Captain in delirium tremens, the crew at the point of mutiny, the passengers in panic, and the vessel in danger of going down with all on board. Something had to be done and done quickly. My father was but a passenger aboard; nevertheless, he was obliged by the circumstances to take command of the ship and get her into the next port of call for there was no one else on board who could do this but him; therefore, he had to take command the ship.

In the last Conclave of the Hands I saw very clearly that if I didn't arise again and take a stand for the continuance of the Guardianship that the Ark of the Bahá'í Covenant would surely be wrecked and the Faith lost to the world. Therefore I was obliged to take my stand as one Hand of the Faith against the united opinion and action of all the other Hands. As I said many times to the Hands, I did not want at all to take the stand, but the Cause of God had to be saved so I was obliged to take charge of the situation as I did and as I intend continuing to do until our Faith is again under the infallible guidance of the Second Guardian, who will then be acknowledged by all.

The Holy Spirit in this Dispensation only functions through the channel of the Guardianship. It does not function through the body of Hands independently from the Guardianship; therefore the body of Hands are helpless to serve the Cause, save under the direction of a Guardian in the flesh here to direct them.

As I have shown in other parts of this writ, the present promise is being made by the Hands of the Faith of the election for the functioning of an International Bahá'í Council and the Universal House of Justice to follow, are not for the Hands of the Faith to institute but for the Guardian of the Faith himself to create and inaugurate. So the quicker that this present program of the past two years and more that the Hands have been working upon and promising to the people is abandoned the better and easier it will be for the Cause, for these institutions can never be accomplished in this way.

In his wisdom, the Beloved Guardian appointed me Mason Remey, President of the Bahá'í International Council, and for reason explained at length elsewhere in this writ, I will not allow this present program of the Hands to go through. Without my co-operation with them as President of the International Council, it cannot be formed, and I intend to hold to this, my thesis, that I explain in this writ; namely that all things connected with the International Council are now frozen – and at a standstill not to be reopened until the Second Guardian is in visible and acknowledged command of the Cause. Then this, the functioning of the International Council as well as the formation of the Universal House of Justice will be directed by the Guardian of the Faith; if not by the Second Guardian, it will be by one of his successors.

When the Hands of the Faith, with time and thought, consider these matters they will see that I, Mason Remey, the one of the Hands designated by the Beloved Guardian as the President of the International Bahá'í Council, have the right and the power to not only call a halt in the present proceedings of the Hands of the Faith in their efforts to establish a functioning International Council; but that this power given me and to me alone among the twenty-seven Hands also controls the formation of any Universal House of Justice ; since the Universal House of Justice can only come into existence following the functioning of the Bahá’í International Council.

Therefore because I forbid the functioning of the Bahá’í International Council until the Guardianship be re-established, automatically this precludes the establishing of any Universal House of Justice, as has been planned and promised to the Bahá'ís by the body of the Hands of the Faith.

The Bahá'í World knows that the Beloved Guardian appointed the International Council, therefore the Hands of the Faith should know that no one or ones save a Guardian of the Faith has the right to alter and add to that which the First Guardian of the Faith instituted.

I, Mason Remey, President of the Council appointed by Shoghi Effendi, refuse to allow the Hands to make any change in this present status of quietude of the International Council which status was left by the Beloved Guardian as it now is inactive awaiting orders from the succeeding Guardianship of the Faith.

Should the Hands of the Faith attempt to do anything with the International Council or to attempt to elect and put into office another International Council, I, as President of the Council appointed to this office by our late Guardian, will be obliged to refuse to acknowledge the right of the Hands of the Faith to tamper with the affairs of the International Council.

Inasmuch as the first Guardian of the Faith appointed the Bahá'í International Council now, no one but a Guardian of the Faith can command that the next step be taken in defining and in inaugurating the functioning of that Council. Therefore, I as President of the Council can take no orders from the Hands of the Faith.

This period of interregnum darkness in the Bahá'í World, so lamented in the communications sent forth to the Bahá’í World by the Hands of the Faith, is the result of the violation of the Master's Will and Testament by the Hands of the Faith; for when they repudiated the Guardianship, they indeed placed themselves in darkness because the Guardianship is the only channel through which the Abhá guidance comes to the world, so by their refusing to consider the continuation of the Guardianship, they are thus, for the time being, imposing their darkness upon the entire Bahá'í World.

The spiritual activities of the Faith now await the forthcoming of the Second Guardian of the Faith into the arena of the active Bahá'í World which activities are now suffering this period of the delay – this interregnum between the first and the second Guardians of the Faith.

Thus the Second Guardian mercifully delays his advent into the active Bahá'í World in order to give these Hands a little more time that they may awake and be prepared to accept him when he proclaims himself; but the time is short. The Hands of the Faith should make haste to awake, lest the Second Guardian find them still slumbering. He may be forced to come out into the open Bahá'í World, disregarding the Hands in order to take over his command of the Cause.

It is to be noted that it is in democratic America where the Administration of the Faith has taken its most firm hold among the Bahá'ís, whose rule is that of the Guardianship invested with infallibility. That many of the Hands of the Faith now don't like the continuation of Bahá'í Administration under the infallible Guardianship and now would like to see the Institution of the Hands of the Faith disappear under the present suicidal-to-the-Cause Plan of the body of the Hands to eliminate the Guardianship that would mean also the elimination of the Hands of the Faith because the present twenty-seven Hands will, within a generation, die off and disappear.

In America however, peopled by the descendants of those early settlers who fled from the old world when they were oppressed by autocratic rule and entrenched aristocracies, these people built up the American democracy that is the very antithesis of all that was in Persia and in other Oriental countries, yet it is in democratic America where the Administration under the Guardianship is strong, so strong that the Beloved Guardian called America the Cradle of the Administration!

And now the Persian element in the body of the Hands was the first to start this condition of revolt against the Guardianship – this violation of the Administration of the Faith as given to us in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. This was started in the opening discussions of the First Bahjí Conclave as I describe in this writ.

This was spoken of many times by the Beloved Guardian who at the same time mentioned Persia as being the Cradle of the Faith. How clearly this has been demonstrated in the history of the Bahá'í Faith! The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh was announced in Baghdád and had its first support in Persia and in the establishing of this Faith there, thousands of lives of the martyrs were offered in Persia in the way of the Covenant. When the time came in the life of the Faith for the first steps to be taken for the organized spread of the Faith the world around, the Blessed Center of the Covenant, 'Abdul-Bahá, gave to the Bahá'ís in his Will and Testament the Administrative Plan for the propagation of the Faith, after which the Bahá'í Covenant together with the Administration of the Faith then became the message that the Cause had for the world, these two phases of the teaching – Covenant and Administration – merged into one teaching program, became the Bahá'í Message to mankind and in order to thoroughly drill the Bahá’ís in this message the Beloved Guardian exhorted all to study carefully the Will and Testament in which the Covenant and the Administration and the Guardianship are demonstrated to be one and the same reality. The Administration is the Guardianship and the Guardianship is the Administration – inseparable one from the other and together with the Covenant was the message that Shoghi Effendi taught and led us to give to the world.

But what has happened in these three Conclaves of the Hands of the Faith? In the first Conclave the Administration was violated when the Hands struck a blow aimed directly at the elimination of all Guardianship to follow that of Shoghi Effendi, and since then naught but the confusion of this violation has characterized the work of the body of the Hands of the Faith until now, 1960, the works of this body of Hands are at a stop point where they can no longer continue the fallacious program that they have decided themselves to build a Universal House of Justice to be preceded by an elected Bahá'í International Council that they proposed to form. This stop is because I, the President of the International Bahá'í Council, appointed to that office by the Beloved Guardian, refuse to countenance their interference with that Council – that Council which he, the Beloved Guardian himself, created naming me as its President.

In thus opposing the Conclave of the Hands of the Faith, I am not taking any other action against their unity, save than by simply to refuse to acknowledge their right to thus meddle with matters that only should be handled and inaugurated by the Guardianship of the Cause. This point will be found further dilated upon by me in other parts of this writ.

Thus the Hands of the Faith, when they read this statement, will see that my appointment as President of the Council enables me to refuse to allow their interference in this matter.

Should they go ahead with their present program as they have announced to the Bahá’í World, I’ll have plenty to say to the Hands. All that I am doing now for this moment is to refuse to recognize the right of the Hands to carry on this, their present world Bahá'í plans for clefting the Council, though at the present moment in 1960 their plans are being accepted without any audible objections that I know of in the Bahá’í World, but with the exception of that voice of one believer in Lucknow, India, from that of Tony Fillon in South America, and some murmurings of discontent from some of the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of Bahá'ís scattered here and there in Germany, and but a few others. There may be other murmurings too, and I dare say there are many of such that the Custodian Hands in Haifa may know nothing of.

This present condition of crisis in our Faith can but create much discontent that at any time may suddenly burst into an open rebellion of the believers. Therefore, the necessity that all this mess of matters be once and for all settled, if possible in camera (in secret by Conclave). After all the Hands are fallible; they talk and they can’t conceal in their attitudes that which is going on in their hearts and minds, so it is only a matter of a little time before the doings of the Hands in Conclave become known to the outside Bahá’í World.

This present intention of the majority of the Hands that there shall never be another Guardian (that I treat of in other parts of this writ as showing conclusively from attitudes of the majority of the Hands but which they do not mention now even between themselves as they did in the beginning shortly after the first Bahjí Conclave) will, in all probability, make but little stir amongst the believers of the Orient, for these friends of the Faith have never been as keen about the Administration as have been the Bahá'ís of America. But not so, however, among the Bahá'ís of the western world, particularly those in the Americas and those of Europe because America is the Cradle of the Administration or of the Guardianship, and because the Cause in Latin America and in the ten European lands of the successful crusade, accomplished there by the American Pioneers who would naturally plant there the spirit of the North American Bahá'í Pioneers that was one of the intense devotion to the Administration, to the Beloved Guardian and all that he stood for. For these reasons do I feel the America will be the place where the strongest support of the Guardianship will be manifest, in case that this ever becomes a controversial matter. Therefore I urge the Hands of the Faith to give particular thought and consideration to this fact that America is the Cradle of the Administration.

The cities of continental Europe are now the meeting points of the Pioneers of the Faith and I am anticipating that it is in these places that the argument for and against the Guardianship may probably break out. Already it is discussed there in the European lands, opened up by pioneers from America in Germany and in France. In all of these countries the people are by nature astute thinkers. Already in those countries there are now many Persian Pioneers who, it seems, openly talk about their approval of the stand against continuing the Guardianship. Therefore this is being talked about and is under discussion and argument by the people of Europe whom as I have explained, naturally tend to have the point of view of those Americans who planted the Faith amongst them, and now with this influx of Persian Pioneers in all these countries, as opposed to the popular American viewpoint, practically all of whom do not sympathize with and are in reality against the continuation of the Guardianship – there is sure to be forthcoming in the near future, clashes between those holding these two diametrically opposed points of view. So for the reasons that I give here, I caution the Hands of this condition that is surely to be forthcoming shortly in Europe and from there, spread to America where the great agitation will then be centered that is bound to come and split the Cause unless this be stopped. The only way to avoid this split in the Bahá'í World between the East and the West is for the Hands of the Faith to cling to the hope of the coming forth of the Second Guardian as promptly as possible before any split can occur along this plane of cleavage, not yet a split, between these differing viewpoints of the generality of the Persian and the American believers.

The danger of a split is more imminent in America than in Persia. Were the believers in America to know what is really being done now by the Hands of the Faith and what the real unspoken intention is of the body of the Hands, namely that of no more Guardianship, I verily believe that there would be an overnight revolution among the believers in condemnation of the violation of the Will and Testament.

Here lies the danger in which the Hands of the Faith now find themselves. Between themselves the majority of the Hands are firm in their intention that there shall never be another Guardian, but this they have not told the Bahá'í world. In other words the majority of the Hands of the Faith are deliberately withholding from the Bahá'í public their real intentions.

One might will ask why all the secrecy? It is because there is something to hide, and that which the majority of the Hands of the Faith are trying to hide from the people is that they have every intention of ending the Guardianship.

To have this all come out into the open can be avoided by the Hands by the prompt re-establisment of the hope of the believers in the Guardianship that one trusts would be received by the believers of the Orient without trouble, despite their present feelings as opposed to it.

When the Second Guardian comes forth and is in command, and the friends the world around with all working under him the power of the Faith to accomplish the world crusade instituted by the First Guardian of the Faith, then the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh, united and under the infallible guidance of the Administration established by Shoghi Effendi, will then take the Cause onward from victory to victory.

The longer that the chair of the Guardianship is vacant, the more trouble there will be accumulating that will eventually have to be solved. Let all the Hands prepare to welcome the Second Guardian!

Until this present time (1960) the Hands have shown their disapproval of the action that this statement urges. This is understandable that they should take it as they do, understandable to one who understands the workings of violation because they, the Hands, have been so completely immersed in the violation that they are following as not to be able to distinguish between firmness in the Master’s Will and Testament and violation thereof.

I am taking every possible precaution that this document be kept very secret and confidential between the Hands, for this matter of the Guardianship should be settled once and for all positively between the Hands before it gets talked of abroad , of which there is always danger. For if the American Bahá'ís, as a whole, should realize that the very existence of the Faith is now at stake, it would indeed create an agitation in the Cause because America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Faith and the strength of the Administration is firmly rooted in the consciousness that envelops them very strongly and in which they will cling.

The Hands should consider the danger of the position in which they might find themselves were the believers in America to discover some of the things that I treat of in this writ.

The initial thought of the Persian Hands who banded themselves together in the first Conclave against the continuance of the Guardianship has so enveloped and influenced the actions of the body of Hands that they, the Hands themselves, don't realize the difference in the way in which the Administration is received in America and on the way in which it is not received in Persia. Here one finds the diametrically forces working in opposite directions, and I can see that the only solution that will save a most serious condition of conflict between the Orient and Occident in the Cause of the world around will be for the Hands in the next Conclave to resume the hope of the people in the Guardianship as promptly and as quickly as possible.

Such prompt action in this emergency upon the part of the Hands will stop this conflict that is now coming out into the open in Europe, signs of which are now beginning to appear as I have shown in pioneer communities where the Persian and the Occident Pioneers talk and the western Bahá'ís are learning of and beginning to realize that the attitude of these Persian Bahá'ís is for no more Guardianship.

As I have written, the American people are, by their nature, unsuspicious. Up until the present time they have trusted in the guidance of the Hands, but when they realize that the Guardianship, the Administration of their Faith, is in jeopardy they indeed will be very much upset and will lose this trust.

When the Hands announce to the Bahá'í world the resuming of the Guardianship there will be no revolt among the friends in Persia for they are conditioned to obey authority, and this announcement will bring great confirmation in America because that land is the Cradle of the Administration that is the Guardianship.

The explosive element that is so dangerous in this statement is that if it should get out and away from the Hands and have circulation among the believers, it would create a revolution of division in the Cause and no one wants that, the Hands least of all.

When the Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Bahá'í International Council, he placed a certain responsibility upon me .and this responsibility I am taking and I don't intend to relinquish it upon any plea pressed upon me by the Hands of the Faith that I should, unmindful of this in order to be in unity and in harmony with them, for were I to choose to be in unity with the Hands in their violation of the Will and Testament, I would indeed be violating the trust that the Beloved Guardian placed in me when he appointed me President of the Bahá’í International Council. In this position a President of the Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, I am responsible to no one save to the Guardian of the Faith wherever he may be. Therefore, I am the only person in the world who has the Bahá'í authority to halt this program of the Hands to elect an International Council and without the Bahá’í International Council functioning, there can be no House of Justice.

This condition of a halt in your program for 1963 cannot be hidden from the Bahá'í world in the manner that the knowledge of many of the deliberation of the Hands are kept from them; therefore, when the Hands of the Faith realize their dilemma and of how they are to keep face with the mass of the believers, I anticipate that their alternatives will be to solve quickly their embarrassment by announcing their hopes for a Second Guardian of the Faith.

If I can bring this about, then I shall feel that for the moment I have successfully handled this trust the Beloved Guardian gave to me.

In my Bahá'í Reminiscences I have noted that for the past nine, ten or perhaps eleven years it may have been that I had been mentally confirmed in a dream or vision, holding the conviction that the Guardianship of the Bahá'í Faith would endure against all the opposition that the world might bring against it. In other words, every fibre of my being was assured of this, so sure was I that the very thought of a break in the Guardianship of the Faith had never even occurred to me.

Even on the morning of the convening of the First Conclave of the Hands of the Faith at Bahjí, after we had not been able to find any Will or Testament amongst the papers in the desk of the Beloved Guardian in Haifa, even after that when we entered into Conclave I had faith that something would come up in the Conclave that would in some way produce a Guardian for us. Thus so convinced was I that in the high emotional atmosphere of the Conclave (and the attending confusion of thought of the gathering that was produced by the presentation of the opposing thought insisted upon by the Persian Hands of the Faith) that there should never be another Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi, that was so quickly and promptly supported and urged and passed by the Conclave at the insistence of the ten Persian Hands, that I then found myself speechless in the face of the calamitous turn taken by the Conclave.

My feelings were torn. I felt that I should arise and condemn this turn as a violation of the years of the mission of the Beloved Guardian, but then I thought of myself and that in mine own estimation of myself, thinking and feeling that of all the two billion and more souls living upon the earth, that I myself considered myself to be the very last person of all to speak up and demand that the Hands of the Faith reverse their evident decision of no successor for Shoghi Effendi! Thus my human thoughts of my own self dominated me and I said nothing because I had it in my consciousness that this defense of the Guardianship should and ought to come from someone other that me! But no one arose to make this point. Thus without any opposition this move to violate the established Administration of the Faith dominated the Conclave.

During the year following the first Conclave in the conference of the Custodian Hands in the Holy Land, I spoke many times telling these friends of our great mistake of the First Conclave, telling them that everything that we were doing and planning to do was all upon the wrong basis and foundation, but nothing that I said was heeded...nothing! These friends’ attitude toward me was that of a kind and loving family indulgence and forbearing toward the babblings of an aged family member in his dotage! They were always kind to me and forbearing. When I thought of myself, all this was highly amusing; but when I thought of the Faith, the Bahá'í Religion, it was tragic and I was indignant at the stupidity of these friends. But then I realized that the evil effects of violation were such as I was there witnessing. This poison of violation, when once started, knows so moderation. It throws every firm one into reverse, as it were, The brilliant become stupid, the firm become wobbly and the strong weak!

Then came the Second Conclave of the Hands in 1958. I knew that the key to the carrying on of the World Crusade could only be successful under the leadership and command of a Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi and continue the work of him who had been the first Guardian of our Faith. But then again personal reticence kept me spellbound, the feeling that someone other than I should arise and take the stand for the restitution of the Guardianship that had been negated and violated. Thus the proceedings of this Conclave continued on.

It was the last day of the Conclave that, after a struggle, my good Bahá'í sense got the upper hand of my human, conventional thought and manners, and I arose and spoke as one Hand of the Faith speaking against the violation of the majority of our body.

While my stand shook the Conclave, there was no articulate response to my entreaty but the stand had been made by me in that Conclave. My mind and conscience was clear, and I continued to hold my stand in the meetings of the Custodians between this second and the third Conclaves at which third Conclave in 1959 I made it very clear to all that I intended to fight them all, fight single-handedly this struggle against this violation of the Guardianship of our Faith. I took this stand in order to save the Bahá'í Faith for the world, and I am confirmed in my consciousness of ultimate success. Someone had to make this stand and the only apology that I have to make to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith for my action is that since no other one of the Hands arose to make this stand, I was obliged not only to make it myself, as I am explaining here, but as I am explaining in other parts of this writ I find it necessary that I now go even further and assume command myself to combat this situation and crisis in the Bahá'í Faith by calling a halt in the preparations that the Hands are making for the establishment of a Universal House of Justice in 1963 preceded by the election and brief functioning for a few months of the Bahá'í International Council as a necessary prelude to the House of Justice all of which preparations and promises to the Bahá'í World are most fallacious and a flagrant violation of the Administration of the Faith that was established by the Beloved Guardian.

By virtue of the fact that Shoghi Effendi appointed me the President of the Bahá'í International Council, I am in a position to stop the Hands of the Faith in their plan to elect a new International Council and this I am now doing. When the Hands of the Faith read this writ they will see that I, the President of the Bahá'í International Council command this situation and that by standing solidly and refusing to recognize or to countenance the right of the Hands of the Faith to elect and establish a functioning Bahá'í International Council, I thus put to naught their entire plan for 1963 for the Hands have no authority to do this, or to attempt to create a Universal House of Justice. These and all other Bahá'í Institutions are for the Guardian to inaugurate and are not for the Hands to inaugurate.

The Hands of the Faith are to be directed by the Guardian and are to assist him and stand by and with him in his command of the Cause. The Hands of the Faith have but two fields where they are free to initiate and pursue their special services in the Faith, namely to propagate and to protect the Faith.

It may have to be the threat of trouble for them that will eventually awaken and force the body of Hands to abandon their present policy of no more Guardianship and to make a right about face and look for the Second Guardian of the Faith who, when he appears, will end this violation that is the root of all trouble and the Faith will again find itself under the protection of the Infallible Guardianship.

Just how this will all be brought about one cannot foretell. Should the body of Hands see the problem clearly and with alacrity arise to reinstate the hope of the appearance of the Second Guardian, all will be accomplished with dispatch and with ease for in his own good time, the Guardian will come. But if the Hands refuse to give the believers the hope of a Second Guardian of the Faith then there will indeed be much more trouble that in the end will mount up to such proportions that the Hands will eventually be forced by the condition of the mass of believers to revive the Faith in the Guardianship in order to save the Faith.

As I explained to the Hands in our last Conclave the judgement of the Hands, brought about by this violation, is at hand – the judgement will be precipitated by the mass of the believers when they begin to question, for then will come the danger of a split in the Faith.

This violation has gone along now for so long that many are becoming so conditioned to it that the problem is daily becoming more difficult. Nothing short of the advent of the Second Guardian will meet this emergency, for then both the Hands of the Cause and the believers will have the guidance that they need and must have or the Faith will die.

At and following our last Conclave a number of the Hands said that my refusing to endorse their united opinion was causing a division among the Hands that would be bad for the Faith. My reply to this was that this wasn’t a case of inharmony that required to be passed over and forgotten but that this was a case of violation which ought to be cut out and cast out and in no way harmonized with, no capitulation, no compromise whatsoever.

This answer will be mine to whatever argument may be brought up to combat my present attitude that is but a restatement of the attitude that I have always had and ever shall have with regard to violation.

Some time near or about the year 1950 I found myself travelling among the Bahá'í Assemblies in Europe with the plan in mind of continuing my travels south into Africa meeting the Bahá'ís in different lands, and from there on eastward over the Pacific back to my home in the city of Washington.

But while in Europe came a call from Shoghi Effendi for me to go to the Holy Land so thither I went expecting to make a pilgrimage but of a few days. Pleased as I was to go to the Beloved Guardian, I was astonished and made more pleased yet when not long after my arrival, He told me that from henceforth Haifa was to be my home. He had already appointed me Hand of the Cause and this was not long afterward followed by the Guardian’s appointment of the Bahá'í International Council of which He made me the President, thus began my duties at the Center of the Administration of The Bahá'í Faith.

I and the other members of the Council were individually each under the daily direction of the Guardian himself. He would tell us what he wanted done and we would do it, each knowing little or nothing of what the others were doing and never co-operating with them or consulting with one another, since we were each on our several jobs with no two on the same detail where consultation might have been necessary. The Guardian never assembled us in a meeting or for any gathering.

Chiefest among my duties was making for the Guardian sketches, studies and drawings for his building activities here in the Holy Land, including drawings for the Temple to be built on Mount Carmel, in Persia, in Kampala, Germany, and later Australia.

Shoghi Effendi had very decided ideas of exactly what he wanted in the way of the architecture of those Bahá'í Temples. All he wanted of me was that I put his ideas upon paper in the form of drawings from which building could be done. In his travels in Europe and particularly in England, Shoghi Effendi had acquired photographs of buildings, the decoration and the character of which he admired and wished to have incorporated in and to give the character that he wanted to these various temple structures. My job was to get his ideas from him and from such documents as he gave me and from these to put down upon paper making plans and elevations as best I could to suit him.

But as for organizing the Bahá'í International Council as a Council, the Guardian never mentioned this to me nor did I ever mention it to him for I was not long in finding out that Shoghi Effendi knew very well what he wanted and my job was to find out what he wanted and then to do it for him and in his way and not to interject any thoughts of mine own.

From time to time I was taken to task by one of the other members of the International Council who urged me to get busy and organize meetings of the Council. To do I don't know what? The Guardian hadn't given me instructions to organize anything or to do anything at all so my decision was to await orders from him, an attitude on my part that I’ve never had reason to regret although I am still under this mentioned criticism for doing nothing.

Thus yet so stands the affairs of the Bahá'í International Council. Until the Second Guardian of the Faith orders it, the friends should do nothing about the International Council.

All, save I, were worried about what will the Bahá'í World think and what will they say regarding my attitude? But this was not my worry. It was a worry of the others of the Hands. So that is where the matter stands so far as my stand and position are concerned.

I was surprised some days after the last Conclave closed when Marion Hofman, then staying in Haifa, said to me that she was so glad the Hands were going to keep me on as President of the Council, for that Rúhíyyih Khánum had assured her that they had no intention of replacing me in the election of the Council that they had decided upon holding. Marion evidently expected me to make some observation on being told this piece of Bahá'í news. All I could reply to her was that I didn't know what the Custodian Hands were planning to do since I was no longer a member of that body. Because of my promise to you of holding in secret with you all proceedings of the conferences of the Hands, I could not explain anything to her.

However, here now in this writ, I would again remind the Hands of the Faith that for the moment I do not intend to do anything at all myself about the Council. I do not countenance any measures taken by the Hands with regard to the International Council, for I consider as I have stated before, the present program of the Hands of the Faith for 1963 to be in violation of the Administration of the Faith as given in the Will and Testament and as explained and as elucidated to by the Beloved Guardian; and that so far as my attitude is concerned I await the Second Guardian of the Faith to direct as to what should be done about the Council.

For I, Mason Remey, am its President, appointed by the Guardian of the Faith, and I shall not countenance or allow the Hands of the Faith or any individual or any other group of individuals of the Faith to put aside and out of office those whom the Guardian of the Faith has appointed the members of this Council. No one has this power save a Guardian of the Faith, and as we are now in the time of interregnum between the First, and as the Second Guardian has not yet come forth from his occultation; therefore no change can be made in the personnel of the International Council until the Guardian be in office to order it.

Therefore I, President of the Bahá'í International Council, demand that the Hands of the Faith cease propagandizing the Bahá'í World with their promises of electing an International Council in order to open the way for themselves to direct the election of a Universal House of Justice of Bahá'í.

Thus has the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament led the body of Hands of the Faith on toward other violations such as usurping the unique power vested in the Guardianship to elect their own International Council, and next to be followed by their House of Justice in 1963.

Therefore, let the Hands of the Faith know that the President of the Bahá'í International Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, orders them to cease their activities to meddle in the affairs of this Council.

Therefore, let the Hands of the Faith quickly turn from their path of violation and make haste to await the advent of the Second Guardian of the Faith before the Bahá'í world becomes aware of this condition of their violation.

In this writing I have stated how and when in the first Bahjí Conclave was started the opposition to the continuation of the Guardianship; then in other parts of this writing of how this opposition gained the support of others of the Hands in addition to the Persian Hands who began it; then finally it received the support of all the Hands except myself. The last few to give their support were apparently mislead into accepting the plan that this opposition to the Guardianship offered to form a substitute infallibility to the infallibility of the Guardianship; namely the fallacious infallibility that they claimed that the House of Justice would have that they proposed establishing in 1963.

Now I, as President of the International Bahá'í Council, given this post by the Beloved Guardian, will not allow the Hands to tamper in any way with the present quiescent existence of the International Council ; thus have I the authority to block their program for 1963.

Now, therefore, the Hands of the Faith are at a stalemate out from which there is but one recourse, and that is for the Hands to delay and call off all action until the Second Guardian of the Faith gives to the Cause the protection possible for its continuance.

Why is it thus that the present Hands in the Holy Land don’t want a Second Guardian? Why is this so?

It looks to me as if they personally don't want their easy way of life disturbed by the presence amongst them of a Guardian who would command the Cause and very probably curtail their luxuries and prerequisites that they are enjoying during this interregnum, and that they never had in the days of the Beloved Guardian.

The Hands of the Faith have been greatly blessed and honored by having been elevated to their position by the Beloved Guardian, but along with this blessing is demanded sacrifices that are not demanded of those who have so far been less favored than these appointed Hands ; therefore much personal and individual sacrifice is definitely required of them. When the Hands of the Faith make the sacrifice of their will that there shall not be another Guardian, and when they really want in their hearts that there should be Guardianship for the Faith, then they will gladly want to put into this vacant chair the Second Guardian of the Faith.

In the meanwhile, I am the President of the Bahá'í International Council, appointed thereto by the Beloved Guardian, have the power to halt the fallacious program of the Hands to elect an International Council and a House of Justice.

It was the Guardian of the Faith who made me President of the International Council; therefore I am responsible for the protection of the Faith. I am not responsible to the Hands of the Faith. I await the command of the Second Guardian of the Faith to tell the Bahá'í World what his wishes are regarding the functioning of the International Council. I do not take orders from the Hands of the Faith.

Authority in the Administration of the Bahá'í Faith is vested in the Guardianship, the Hands of the Faith having been elevated to their position of Handship by the Guardianship are responsible to him whom they should stand next to and support in Bahá’í procedure and in obeyance to his orders. The only prerogative bestowed upon the Hands of the Faith in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá is that they propagate and that they protect the Faith.

As I have shown elsewhere in this writ, it is incumbent upon the Hands that they protect the Cause under all conditions from ass harm. The violation of the Guardianship and violation of the Administration are one and the same violation. This is the case now before the Cause. It is evident and beyond all doubt that it is the especial duty of the Hands now at all times to protect the Cause from this evil.

The Beloved Guardian appointed me, Mason Remey, President of the Bahá'í International Council, but while under his Guardianship, I had no authority to go ahead with this Council, organize it, and put it into functioning order, for this lay only in the province of the Guardianship to do. But my appointment as President of the Council does give me the power to halt the body of the Hands and insist that they leave this matter to the judgement and initiation of the Second Guardian of the Faith.

In other words, I have the authority to hold up this matter to be acted upon by the Guardianship which Guardianship now, for the moment, is hidden from people and in occultation left thus by our late Beloved Guardian his reasons for which will some day be known to the Bahá'í World. Therefore by my policy of doing nothing with a firm intention of continuing to stand pat and continue to do nothing, I block the entire fallacious program of the Hands to take control of the workings of the Bahá'í Faith with its International Council and Universal House of Justice which, if it all went through as the Hands have announced to the Bahá'í World, the violation the Will and Testament would indeed then be triumphant in the Bahá'í World and indeed spell the finish of the Bahá'í Cause.

But as the power to stop all this violation was given to me by the Beloved Guardian when he appointed me President of the International Council, so I am now exercising that power by not countenancing the authority of the Hands to elect an International Council. Therefore, I am blocking the Hands in their program to give a Universal House of Justice to the Cause in 1963.

When the people of the Bahá'í world begin to wake up to the fact that the Hands have thus been misleading them , and when these people realize the stand that I am taking to cast out from the Cause this violation that upholds this annihilation of the Guardianship, the body of the Hands will be up against a condition from which there is no escape for them whatsoever but to quickly announce to the Bahá'ís that the Second Guardian of the Faith when he comes forth with the reins of authority in his hand, will put all things right in the Bahá'í Faith.

I know well that the Hands of the Faith have the best intentions possible in this matter but as they don't understand this matter of violation, they are confused and are misled and are unable to see or comprehend the problem before them.

With Bahá'í affairs in their present state, I know of no other plan or means than this that I am thus outlining to you by which this violation can be cleaned out of the Faith and the way made for the reinstatement of the Guardianship.

I, and I alone am the only one in the world who can engineer this clean-up in the Cause, and intend to stand and accomplish this, my authority being that the Beloved Guardian gave me this mission to accomplish and the power over all to the other Hands of the Faith and of the people of the Cause to carry it through when he bestowed upon me the Presidency of the Bahá'í International Council. Therefore, it is my bond and duty to stand up and right this matter even though my method may seem drastic when I have to force this issue as I am doing.

When I made my stand in the last Conclave for the continuation of the Guardianship and I refused to sign my name endorsing the fallacies of the present program of the Hands of the Faith, the Hands as a body took the ground that I would cause a split in the Cause the world around, and again subsequently after the close of the Conclave, several of the Hands came to me individually urging and entreating me not to continue with my refusal to sign my name to the edicts issued by the body of the Hands, telling me of the evils of disunion and inharmony among Bahá'ís and that all should uphold and with all sincerity relinquish their own personal opinions and without question relinquish their own ideas and support the ideas of the majority.

In each of these cases I replied to them that this present problem in our Faith which I had precipitated was not a matter of inharmony and disunity, but one of violation that had to be treated of, not by coming together in union but by separating and casting out the violation and to isolate it so that it could no longer harm the cause that as an infection in the body the source or center of the infection had to be removed, cut out and cast out from the body, that to neglect to cast it out was to increase the sickness for when the infection goes beyond a certain point, it becomes gangrenous and the sick one dies.

This matter of violation, no one of these friends could understand. They had become so conditioned to the thought that the Guardianship be ended that they just couldn’t see that the Will and Testament was being violated, and at the same time with this violation of this Covenant that the Master left, His Will and Testament, that they were also violating by putting aside the structure of the Administration of the Faith that the Beloved Guardian had built and constructed upon the foundation given by the Master.

No one of the Hands but I saw this; therefore I had to arise alone and make this stand in order to save the Bahá'í Cause!

In most of the other cases of Violation that have had to be met in the history of the Bahá'í Faith, there has been a distinct center or nucleus of this gangrenous infection, as it were, a central point or figure such as Ahmad Sohrab or Ruth White in the days of the Beloved Guardian or as forced on the Cause by Krayru’llah in the days of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In these cases, by cutting out these centers of violation with their adherents, the Cause was saved from this spiritual poison. As a surgeon cuts out a cancerous growth, together with all of its tentacles where the growth had formed, in order that none of the infection remains, so in these mentioned cases of violation both the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá and the Beloved Guardian made a clean cut, root and branch, and a definite separation of those erring people from those who were firm in the Faith. 'Abdu'l-Bahá. and Shoghi Effendi did not bring them together in unity with the firm Bahá'ís – no, he cut them off absolutely and completely.

Now our present case in question differs somewhat from those examples that I mention, for as yet no definite line up has formed in the Bahá'í world for and against this violation of the Guardianship. This spiritual illness that we suffer at present is as an illness suffused and diffused throughout the body of the Hands, not yet at a point for any cutting off to be done, but at a stage where the violation should be cleared out from the consciousness of the Hands, for when this is accomplished and we find ourselves with the advent of the Second Guardian, again under the Infallible Guidance of the Guardianship, all will then be well with the Faith collectively, as it will be with us each individually.

The problem before us is a most serious spiritual sickness and needs to be healed without delay ere it reach proportions that will be more difficult to treat than at present.

If the Hands of the Faith follow my urgings, and at our next Conclave restore hope in the Guardianship, the Second Guardian of the Faith, on emerging from his occultation, will take the command held by the Beloved Guardian, and then all will be well and our present dilemma will soon be of the past and forgotten. But if this action of the Hands of the Faith be delayed, then (time passing rapidly) the outside Bahá'í World when they find out that the election of the Bahá'í International Council and the Universal House of Justice in 1963 Cannot be realized, then there will be trouble and a plenty of it. For the people will hold the Hands of the Faith responsible for this condition of having promised and planned a program that they cannot fulfill. Therefore to save the Faith I urge that the Hands of the Faith change their attitude toward the Second Guardian of the Faith and be prepared to welcome him.

I regret very much having to be so drastic and having thus to take a hold of the direction of Bahá'í affairs, but since the present plan of action of the Hands of the Faith, if continued, will wreck the Cause, I must take this action even though drastic as it be, in order to save the Faith that is so dear to all of us.

All that I treat of in the pages of this appeal to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith is addressed to them and to them only and all in absolute confidence, so I have had no reason for I having anything unsaid save those things that would personally wound these friends. I have attempted to word my statements without mentioning any names in such manner that in the reading of this writ those whose actions I criticise will know and understand my object in bringing up those matters Those pages have all been written during which time I have been with great affection conscious of my great Bahá'í love for each and every one herein mentioned, whether in praise or in criticism.

This stand for the Guardianship that started as a plea on my part to the Hands to free themselves from the bad and evil influences of the violation of the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá and also from this same bad and evil spirit of the violation of all the structure of Administration that the Beloved Guardian himself built up upon and around the Will and Testament. But alas! You were all so thoroughly imbued with and under the influence of this violation that no one gave heed to my warning; therefore I found it necessary to take command of this situation first to refuse to put my name to the Report of the Last Conclave to the Bahá'í World, and now to forbid the election of the Bahá'í International Council that you propose to create. Thus I make it impossible for you to take the next step that you plan namely the formation of the Universal House of Justice that you have promised to the Bahá'í World to be in 1963.

When you study carefully the points that I make and present in this writ, you will see that I do command this situation and that the only thing that you can do about it is to accept and follow the advice that I am giving you; namely at our next Conclave of the Hands to rescind your program for 1963, make a stand for the Guardianship, look for the appearance of the Second Guardian of the Faith, and work to bring to a happy conclusion and victory the present Bahá'í World Crusade so ardently advocated by our late Beloved Guardian.

At this present time, 1960, this rectification of the matter of the Guardianship can be accomplished by the Hands as I am here showing you without disturbing the Bahá'í World. To be sure, it will be a great surprise to the people of the Cause but rather than a source of upset, hope of the inevitable appearance of the Second Guardian of the Faith will be the source of power that will be of tremendous confirmation to the Cause that we all love and serve. Furthermore, this continued Guardianship will be the only safe refuge therein as their protection against any criticism that may be aimed at them by the believers of the Cause in either the Occident (in America) or in the Orient ( in Persia) for by this notion of the Hands of the Faith that I urged them to take, they will "Save Face" with the Bahá’í World around. In fact, things are now approaching to such a climax in the Cause that this procedure I wish the Hands to take is the only thing that they can now do to save face with the people of the Cause and with the world, for such action as I here wish to be taken will cause the people to forget about all this violation that has inspired the fallacious program of a Universal House of Justice for the Cause in 1963 that the Hands, as their last stand in favor of the violation have been promising to the people for these past two years.

There was a reason why the Beloved Guardian appointed me the President of the Bahá'í International Council that thus now gives me the power to call a halt upon the condition of violation of the Master’s Will and Testament and by blocking and putting to naught the error that is now being unitedly upheld by the body of the Hands of the Faith, all but me, and of all the Hands I, being the only one with the vision to see that the Guardianship must be maintained, supported and carried on.

There may be, to be sure, many individual believers who see this matter as I do, but I am the only one of the Hands (the Nobility of the Cause) who sees this, and I too am the only one of the Hands to whom the Beloved Guardian has given the power to confront all of the Hands and tell them that I will not allow them to carry out their as yet unannounced (formally) intention of abolishing the Guardianship that they are so persistently pushing that if they succeed will be the end and the finish of the Bahá'í Faith in this world.

As you don’t see this, it is therefore necessary that I should actually beat you all into line, as I am thus forced to do in order to save the Cause.

Try to consider this matter and try to see the reason why the Beloved Guardian himself placed the reins of power in my hands over the body of Hands and thus over the believers of all the world by my appointment as President of the Bahá'í International Council, for in this capacity it is I who is now in command of the Bahá'í Faith, so I am now ordering and compelling the Hands of the Faith to relinquish their way of violation and make themselves ready to welcome the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith to take over this command.

It is not necessary for me to suggest to the Hands who they should expect as successor to Shoghi Effendi in Guardianship! You should know this without being told by me, although I know and I have known for the past eleven or twelve years who the Second Guardian was to be. There is but one of the Hands of the Faith who is prepared to fill this office of the Second Guardian of the Faith, and by now you should all know who he is and knowing who he is, you should obey him without his having to tell you, because his appointment is clearly written in the appointment and the commands of the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi.

Inasmuch as no minutes or other records are ever taken of the proceedings of the Conclaves of the Hands of the Faith, and inasmuch as in the best of consultations and arguments that oft times border upon dispute together with the emotional strain that accompanies the presentation of thoughts and points of view that are often in opposition one to the other, and inasmuch as under such conditions of conflict of thought the minds of those participating in these Conclaves are often at a loss to remember just what was said and who said what, I take this means of putting down by written word the stand for the acceptance of the Guardianship that I have taken in the Bahjí Conclaves as well as the same in the conferences of the first two years of the Custodian Hands in the Holy Land. My stand is indeed opposed to the united stand of all of the other twenty-six Hands of the Faith and of the believers who trust them. Thus do I, President of the Bahá'í International Council, appointed by the First Guardian of the Faith ; thus do I stand singly and alone amongst all Bahá'ís of the world – I, Mason Remey.

The present condition of uncertainty in the minds of the believers the world around as to the future of the Guardianship and the Administration of the Bahá'í Faith, and the fact that the message as given in the days of the Beloved Guardian (when it was believed that the continuance of the Guardianship was an assured institution of the Faith, about which no one had any doubt) can now no longer be given has created a basic state of insecurity in the minds and in the spiritual assurance of the Bahá'ís throughout the world. In the minds of the pioneers and teachers in all places, there is the question of what is going to happen to the Cause without the Guardian to lead the believers to the spiritual victories promised in the Will and Testament of the Master, and as attested to by the Beloved Guardian himself. With such spiritually disquieting questions in their minds, how can the Bahá'ís assure and confirm others and bring them to the point of certainty in believing in our Faith?

Certainty and confirmation creates certainty and confirmation in the hearts of others. We cannot expect the Cause to spread so long as the believers are in this present state of uncertainty as to their Faith, for doubt in them can only breed doubt in others. The Bahá'í Faith cannot establish belief and convert the world until the believers the world around stand united and are themselves convinced of the truth of that which they are teaching.

The only way in which this Cause can oversweep the World and accomplish its mission to mankind is for the Hands of the Faith to forsake this fallacious program on which they are embarked, abandon it avowedly and completely, and by this move re-establish faith in the Guardianship. This is the only move that the Hands can now make that will give the believers the world around the conviction and the unity of direction necessary to accomplish the goal of the World Crusade upon which we are embarked.

Let the Custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land lose no time, if necessary call an emergency Conclave of all the Hands, that they can take this step now at once and then organize to study the Holy Writ, hoping and praying to be led to find the Guardian of the Faith who surely is with us but waiting to be wanted.

When I left Haifa in 1958 for the Intercontinental Conference of the Faith in Sidney, Australia, where I represented the Hands of the Faith, I was instructed by the Custodians in Haifa not to allow any discussion of the Guardianship to come up before the congregation. This instruction I carried out by evading the subject, and in my addresses to the gatherings there, taking my thought back to the days of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá when we only knew about the Covenant and knew nothing about the Administration under a Guardian. So upon the Covenant I spoke in Sidney; yet in my mind I knew perfectly well that now in this day of the Administration of the Faith that such a talk as I gave was not at all the message that the Beloved Guardian taught us to give because to that message of the Covenant of the days of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá had been added the message of the Will and Testament, which together with that of the Covenant, formed the message that was then on and from now on ought to be the Bahá'í message for the world, but which now the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land forbid mention or discussion of the Guardianship; therefore the believers no longer have the message to give to the world that the Beloved Guardian taught us to give. The elimination of the Guardianship eliminates the message, and if the believers hold to this doctrine, there is no hope that they can give the world.

Such confusion of thought and of purpose places uncertainties and doubts in the minds of the Bahá'í teachers. They don't know what to teach. Formerly they taught the Will and Testament; now that is out because of no Guardianship. It so effects their faith that the Holy Spirit cannot flow through these believers to enlighten those whom they wish to teach, with the result that they are not able to confirm new believers in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá because they themselves are confused by the contradictions in the present program of teaching brought about by the fact that the Hands of the Faith have violated the Will and Testament. Therefore, this confusion of thought that produces a lethargic spiritual sickness in the Cause is like a cancerous growth that must be removed and cut out before the body Bahá'í can again be strong and healthy.

Violation breeds violation. It can breed nothing else but its own kind.

When will the Hands of the Faith awaken to this condition that is killing the Cause, wounding and paralyzing the heart of the Cause? How can any Bahá'í fail to see that the body of the Cause cannot live unless it have the heart which is the Guardianship to give it life and force and strength to carry on and minister spiritually to the people of the world?

Some of the Hands of the Faith present at the Last Bahjí Conclave (in l959) may remember my urging for the continuance of the Guardianship that was met at one point in the proceedings by the question asked of me who did I propose to be the next Guardian? It was in reality more of a taunt than a serious question, but ignoring the taunt I answered seriously by saying I had no suggestions whatsoever to make to the Hands as to this question of who should be the Second Guardian, but nevertheless I knew the next Guardian was a reality in the world and that in his own good time would reveal himself to the Bahá’í World.

Under the pressure of your wish that all consultation between the Hands be held in camera, I gave you my word not to tell the believers about matters discussed in the Conclaves and consultations of the Hands.

It is most difficult for the Hands of the Faith to maintain in secrecy and in confidence their deliberations. In fact, for the most part it seems to be quite impossible for them or for any people to hide feelings and attitudes. Even when nothing is said by word of mouth, emotional attitudes reveal that which one would never tell in so many words.

I realize that at this stage the successful outcome of my stand alone against all of the other Hands of the Faith against this violation that I am fighting depends upon my silence before the Bahá'í world but within our body of Hands of the Faith, I reserve the right to say what I think of their actions, for it is my sacred Bahá'í duty, in as kind a way as possible, to say what is in my mind, and that is why I am so insistent in trying to show you how the Will and Testament of the Master has been violated and how you, under the spell of this violation, are nullifying the Administration, the fabric of which our Beloved Guardian labored so to erect upon the foundation of the Will and Testament.

So long as the Bahá’í World knows nothing of what is going on in the conferences of the Hands, you may think yourselves to be safe from their censure; but should, through one or more of the Hands, the argument that I make in this document get abroad amongst the believers in America – then the body of the Hands would indeed be in trouble with the believers-at-large – particularly with those in America, for Shoghi Effendi told us that America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Bahá'í Faith.

The ease and the sympathy with which the friends in Persia are taking the fiat of "no more Guardianship" will, I assure you, be met in the Americas with an opposing reaction, for America is the Cradle of the Administration (that is the Guardianship, nothing more or less) and, in my opinion, the American Bahá’ís are just not going to take this violation of the Will and Testament that you are trying to put over on the Bahá'í World! I feel that I should tell you this.

I know that you don’t see this at all, for such is the way and the manner of violation. It twists and puts everything into reverse. It causes people to do and to be just the opposite from what they should do and be. You can’t help your sick condition. I know this very well indeed; therefore, some force outside of yourselves is needed to get you out and away from this condition that, unless stopped, will kill the Cause.

I see trouble ahead for the body of the Hands. Their embarrassment before the world of the Faith when the people find that there can be no active Bahá'í International Council or no Universal House of Justice until the Guardianship be recognized by the believers the world around. Then the Hands of the Faith find themselves up against this condition in the Faith, then as a last resort, in order to save face and save the Faith – then as a last resort they will be obliged to seek refuge in the Guardianship.

When Mírzá Ahmad Sohrab set up his organization of Bahá'ís of "The New History Society", as he called it, his stand was that he accepted Bahá’u’lláh’s and 'Abdu'l-Bahá's teachings, but he refused to accept the Guardianship of the Faith as provided for in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. In other words, he accepted everything, believed and taught by the orthodox Bahá'ís, with the exception of the Guardianship, and in order to claim divine authority, he reverted to teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá but eliminating the Guardianship, as I have already explained.

This defection of Ahmad Sohrab is clearly seen by and understood by all of the Hands of the Faith, but they are blind to the fact that they themselves are defecting from the Will and Testament of the Master upon precisely the same point on which Sohrab defected; namely the Guardianship. The Hands of the Faith in their Proclamation to the Bahá'í World exhorted the friends just as Ahmad did, to uphold the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, but they are eliminating (as Sohrab had done before them) the Guardianship of the Faith. The difference between these two heresies being that Ahmad Sohrab came out point blank, denying the Guardianship; whereas the Hands of the Faith in their Proclamation have said nothing about their intention, – didn't even mention the word "Guardian" or "Guardianship", but concocted this present organization of the Faith with the nine Custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land for which there is no authority whatsoever in Bahá'í script or lore, urging the people to surge forward with the propagation of the Bahá'í Faith, just as did Sohrab – minus the Guardianship; in fact, going so far as to exhort the believers not to discuss the Guardianship – the heart of the Administration.

In the days of the Sohrab violation we had the Beloved Guardian with us to protect the Faith, but now with this present violation working in our midst, the protection that the Cause has is vested in me, the President of the International Council. Therefore I arise to take command of this situation that has been precipitated upon the Bahá'í world by the last Conclave message to all Bahá'ís, announcing the intention of the Hands to take over the control of the International Council and plans for l963, all of which are in open violation of the Administration of our Faith, and that I, as the President of the Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, cannot allow. Therefore, I must call a halt in these proceedings which I am authorized to do by the appointment of the Beloved Guardian, in whose appointments and orders we all have perfect confidence, and because of my appointment to this key position in the Faith, I control this situation and I do so in order to give the Faith the only protection possible against the violation that the Hands of the Faith now attempt to put over.

Therefore for the very life of the Bahá'í Faith, it is necessary for me to arise and take the stand against this violation, and since there was no one or ones other than I to take this stand, I myself alone have had to arise to meet this situation – alone, with all others against me, I am confirmed in the hope that now that I have made this stand, others of the Hands of the Faith will see and realize this condition and seek to rectify it. Of the eventual happy outcome of all these vital questions, there is no doubt whatever. I must take this stand of command of the Faith, for there upon depends the casting out of this violation and re-establishing the Administration according to the Will and Testament of the Center of the Covenant.. 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

The Bahá'í Faith is the long promised and anticipated Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. Its rulership is vested in the Guardianship of the Faith – its Nobility, the Hands of the Faith elevated to that estate by appointment by the Guardian, and lastly the followers, the mass of the believers throughout the world. Thus, this Kingdom upon earth has these three basic elements – the Ruler, those appointed Hands who surround him, and the great number of adherents who form the mass of the Faith.

The fallacy of the program so evidently foisted upon the Bahá'ís by the Hands of the Faith during these past two years and more is devoid of Guardianship and is now on the way within a generation to be without the Institution of the Hands of the Faith, for this present body of Hands will die off and be no more. With no possibility of renewal (because only the Guardian can create a Hand of the Faith), the Cause ere long will be but an indiscriminate mass of people, trying to rule and regulate themselves. Thus the present policy of the Hands of the Faith is to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth and put a political democracy in its place. Although until now I am the only one of the twenty-seven Hands who has arisen to reason thus, surely many believers in America and also in other parts of the world, such as the friends in Germany, will see at a glance that the Cause as a triumphant Kingdom cannot continue without the acceptance of the Guardianship, for which all hope and desire now seem to have been abandoned by the majority of the Hands of the Faith!

Since America is the Cradle of the Administration of the Faith, the American Bahá’ís will, I am sure, be the first to recognize the imperative necessity of the re-establishment of the Guardianship, and without doubt also the first to recognize the Second Guardian himself, when he appears.

In their fallacious planning for the Cause by the Hands of the Faith, one finds them eliminating the Guardianship. These Hands of the Faith propose that the mass of the Bahá'ís form an International Assembly which they claim will have the Infallibility necessary to guide the Faith without regard for the divinely inspired element necessary, that only the Guardian can provide.

It just doesn't make any sense at all, for it is the antithesis of the philosophy and teaching of the Will and Testament; namely these Hands plan the destruction of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Plan of the Administration of the Kingdom, to be replaced by a purely republican or democratic form that has none of the elements of the Kingdom of God necessary to make it a Kingdom. . .a King and his Nobility and his people.

To be sure, the body of Hands have not so far come out frankly and told the believers that they as a majority insist the Guardianship be ended; nevertheless, such seems to be their unvoiced intention though not yet definitely proclaimed. The truth of the matter is that the majority of the Hands personally do not want the Guardianship to continue, but this they are not mentioning in any of their statements to the Bahá’í World. This very attitude of their silence upon this matter is indicative of their intent. I will make further mention of this in this writ.

During this time of interregnum, that is one of confusion of thought and effort under which the Faith now labors, one fallacy makes the way, not only for another fallacy, but then demands fallacy after fallacy to sustain and justify the fallacy that these fallacies are attempting to sustain and to maintain.

Inasmuch as the Custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land, with the exception of myself, were united in agreement with the sentiment of the first Conclave that the Guardianship be ended in favor of the anticipated infallibility that they expected the Universal House of Justice to give, that they planned to create in l963, in the sending out of their letters of information and instructions to various Assemblies and individuals throughout the Bahá'í World, as well as to individual believers, it was decided by majority that all nine of us were to sign these letters under the words "In the Service of the Beloved Guardian of the Faith".

To me, this savoured of the violation of the Administration and of the Guardianship, for it was one of those fallacies invented to support and reinforce the fallacy previously made – that of no more Guardianship, advocating in its stead the very remote control of the affairs of the Cause by Shoghi Effendi in absentia from his eternal station in the Abhá Kingdom, thus ending and nullifying the need for Guardianship here upon earth.

In other words, when once violation starts, there is no stopping it. It is a devastating disease in the body of Bahá'í. In these conferences of the Custodian Hands, the Hands were violating by thus considering themselves to be still in the service of Shoghi Effendi by signing "In the name of the First Guardian of the Faith" (Shoghi Effendi dead and himself in the Abhá Realm of existence), whereas we of the Faith in this world, according to the Administration, should be now signing ourselves "In the Service of the Second Guardian", did we know our Guardian. I could only see the Guardianship and our service to the Guardian as being a function of this world and not of the future Abhá Kingdom. The dilemma of the present crisis of the Faith is that for this time being, the Faith is not in contact with the living Guardian because he is unknown to the Hands of the Faith and to the people of the Cause and is delaying his coming forth from his occultation in the hope that the Hands of the Cause will want to welcome him when he comes to them.

Therefore I refused to sign my name as still being in the service of Shoghi Effendi. Here I and the others of the Custodian Hands found ourselves at an impasse. Neither side would give in to the other. I explained at length my stand for the continuation of the Guardianship that they were united against, with the result that now I am no longer one of these nine Custodian Hands of the Faith residing in the Holy Land.

The problem of the Custodian Hands now is to keep all these doings and happenings a secret from all Bahá'ís outside of this body of the Hands, and we all know how difficult it is for the Bahá'ís to keep secrets. All that I myself now can do for the time being is to keep my stand, maintain my promise to the Custodian Hands that I would keep all this a secret from the outside Bahá'í World, and at the same time keep faith with the Hands of the Faith by expressing to them only exactly what I think about the solution of this Bahá'í problem – the Guardianship.

Today is my sixtieth anniversary in the Bahá'í Faith. In looking back over these anniversaries I remember them to have been happy times when I have often gathered together Bahá'í friends to mark the occasion. Today I am alone and on this ship with my thoughts going out to my Bahá'í friends the world around

I awakened this morning feeling indignant – thoroughly indignant – at the attitude of the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith toward the Guardianship of the Faith, that they don’t want the Guardianship to continue and that they don't intend that it continue beyond that of the First Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi. This indignation was one because of a principle of the Faith violated, no personal antagonism at all toward any of the Hands who are so unfortunate as to have been thus poisoned and confused by this violation – but on the contrary, deep sorrow in my heart for each one of them.

As I have noted in these writings in this statement, this violation of the Administration was started in the first Bahjí Conclave by the Persian Hands of the Faith and found sufficient support to carry the body of the Hands. Those very few who thought otherwise that the Guardianship should be supported and continued were overruled by the majority, and whatever may have been their objections in order to maintain unity in supporting the action of the majority of the Hands; thus this great violation took control of the body of the Hands of the Faith and is still through this body in control of the Faith throughout the world, although even the control is fallacious, since in the Holy Teachings of the Faith, the Hands of the Faith are given no authority to control anything.

So far, all that I myself have done to counteract this violation has been not to oppose the will of the body of the Hands in anything that I say to the world outside of the meetings of the Hands but to explain and to show the Hands of the Faith where they are wrong and that unless they change from their policy of violation and reinstate the Guardianship that they will kill the Cause. Such is my stand in talks with the Hands of the Faith – all secret and private between us – I, assuring them that I keep face before the Bahá'í World, united with them in the hope that they will see their violation, abandon it and themselves accept the Guardianship before this matter of the violation of the Master's Will and Testament gets out and be understood by the Bahá’í; World, for when the friends in America (The Cradle of the Administration) realize what the Hands are doing to this Administration, they are going to put such pressure upon the Hands of the Faith that their position of dignity and honor before the world will indeed be in jeopardy, if not lost completely, and this will be bad for the Hands and for the Cause too.

I am telling the Custodian Hands, as I told all of the Hands in the third Bahjí Conclave, that I would no longer affix my signature to their decrees of violation of the Administration and the Guardianship, and I intend to continue refusing to endorse such violation.

When I reach America, if any of the Bahá'ís ask me why my name does not appear in print, endorsing these fiats of the Hands, I shall say it was because I did not sign my name to this message and this is as far as I shall go for the present – ever hoping that the Hands will change their present policy that I assured the Hands on leaving Haifa that I would not openly oppose before the believers – this for the reason that I have given of not wanting to embarrass the Hands.

I am hoping that my refusal to endorse the plan of the Hands to put the Bahá'í International Council into operation will awaken the Hands to the fact that I, as President of the Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, am in command of that situation which command they, the Hands, have no right to question.

Now, for the present, I am trusting that this, my forbidding them to tamper with the International Council, will awaken them to the point that they will see their mistaken and fallacious propaganda of promising the Bahá'í World an elected and an active International Council and a Universal House of Justice in 1963.

I have the power to stop these works of the Hands of the Faith, and thus do I intend to use this power to guard the Faith.

Should the Hands of the Faith at the next Conclave of all of the Hands still persist in these violations of the Will and Testament and of the Administration and of all that the Beloved Guardian built up upon the admonitions of the Will and Testament, I may have to tell the Hands that I can no longer keep silent about their violation and that I will be obliged to place the entire matter before the Bahá'í World in a final attempt that the people of the Faith will then bring sufficient weight (pressure) upon the Hands necessary to change their cause of supporting violation to one back again to the Will and Testament with the Guardianship.

But, as I state – I trust this step will not be necessary for me to take and that rather than have these matters aired throughout the Bahá'í World, that the Hands will give in and give up their present policy.

In any event, the Faith must be saved from the present manner in which the Hands of the Faith are administering it, and I, as President of the Bahá'í International Council, am the only person in all this world who has the power (as the appointed President of that Council by the Beloved Guardian) to command a halt in the mischief that they (the Hands) are doing to the Faith; therefore I am exercising this command.

Therefore, come what may, I intend to stand firmly in order that the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh be saved to accomplish its mission in the world and all of this pothor is supported by a few of the Hands who don't want the Guardianship to continue because it will disturb their easy life in Haifa, enjoying the good things of this world when they should be making sacrifices for the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth for which Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, followed by the Beloved Guardian devoted their lives!

God knows and I know too that I have no desire at all to stand up thus and literally beat the Hands of the Faith, thus forcing them to abandon the fallacious program that they have been fathering for these past years and more – all of which is fallacious and is maiming and sickening and killing the Bahá'í Faith – but as I am stating to the Hands in this statement, I am the only one to do this job, so I am thus taking command of the situation and telling the Hands what they should do to save the Faith, thereby assuming a command tantamount to that of a Guardian of the Faith, to be obeyed by all.

On board the S.S. SATURNIA bound for Naples to New York. I awakened early this morning with the thought question in my mind, what is to be done to save the Bahá'í Faith if the body of Hands of the Faith continues to stand firmly upon their present ground of unity in their refusal to consider the continuation of the Guardianship?

I am hoping that when they receive my first written call or appeal to them, and after they have read and studied it they will see their danger and do something about it. If they remain firm in their violation of the Administration of the Will and Testament, I may then send out to each Hand of the Faith a copy of this, my statement, in which I demand that they hearken to my order to them – I as President of the Bahá'í International Council that they cease meddling with the International Council that, having been established by the Beloved Guardian, being under the Guardianship, can only be put into action by a Guardian of the Faith and that as now there is no Guardian as its President, hold that it remain quiescent until the Guardianship be recognized, established and accepted.

The program (fallacious as it is) upon which the Hands are working to establish their House of Justice in 1963 depends upon their first having an elected and working International Council. The stopping of their electing a council and getting it working, precludes and brings to an end their hopes for l963.

I trust that in their dilemma that they will then be facing that they will then capitulate and decide that they want a Guardian, and then the Faith will be on the way again of the Will and Testament – the Administration and all will be well. But if they refuse to obey me as President of the Council, they may turn upon me – expel me from their body – then what am I to do to save the Faith?

This is the thought question that I awakened with this morning.

To be sure this entire business of the nine Custodian Hands has no Bahá'í Sanction whatsoever. It was thought to be a necessity to bridge the interregnum between the First and Second Guardianships of the Bahá'í Faith – this interregnum being caused by there being no Will or Testament of Shoghi Effendi being found – a seemingly legitimate expediency in this emergency for the Hands of the Faith to take over temporarily until the next Guardian took over the affairs of the Cause, but not their province to alter and change the entire structure of the Administration as they are doing by starting out to eliminate forever the Guardianship that is the heart of the Administration of the Faith. While the Beloved Guardian appointed the twenty-seven Hands of the Faith, commissioning them in a general way to propagate and to protect the Faith – beyond this general commission, I, Mason Remey as President of the Bahá'í International Council, with Milly Collins as Vice-President and the other members of this Council, were the only ones whom the Beloved Guardian appointed to carry on any special works of the Bahá'í Faith, and in this one case, he merely appointed us and never went beyond that; therefore, the Council has always been a quiescent body the duties of which have never been assigned or designated so all that there is to do about the activities of the Council must await the instructions to be issued by the Second Guardian of the Faith.

I, therefore, as President of the International Council, am holding the affairs of the Council in status quo until we have a Guardian to openly direct these affairs.

My position, therefore, while it did not allow me to go ahead with the activities of the Council in the days of Shoghi Effendi, now gives me the authority not to do anything with or about the Council until so commanded by the Second Guardian of the Faith. Therefore, I have the right that I take now of ordering the Hands of the Faith to quit this interference and await the coming forth of the Second Guardian of the Faith, for when he is accepted by the Bahá'í World then he will command all things in the Faith – then all will be well.

I must avoid creating any movement in opposition to the body of Hands, but at the same time I must bring pressures upon that body in order to turn them from their present course in order to save the Faith.

In the appointment of the Hands, the elevation of certain of the twenty seven believers to this station of assistants to the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, laid a great responsibility upon them which responsibility is particularly great right now in this interregnum when there is no acknowledged Guardian to direct the Hands.

Did the Beloved Guardian by look, word, or deed ever indicate that any conditions would or could end the Guardianship with HIS Administration as Guardian of the Faith? Indeed, did he ever entertain such a thought? Upon the contrary, he had in mind the site further along on the curve of the walk beyond where he placed the Archives Building recently completed, where the Administration buildings of the Faith were to be placed amongst which would in the future be built the residence of the Guardians. This was not for Shoghi Effendi himself. He already had his home in which he lived, that formerly had been the house of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The residence upon Mount Carmel, whether or not he thought of living there himself, was planned for the future Guardians of the Faith.

But now I again ask why is it that the Hands are now so insistent that the Guardianship end with Shoghi Effendi? WHY? Let each of the Hands of the Faith who does not want the Guardianship to continue, look into his or her own mind and heart to find out why he or she does not want the Guardianship to continue?

As I have cited elsewhere in this writ, during the past two and more years of interregnum the Custodian Hands in the Holy Land have settled themselves down and are very comfortably installed in Haifa. The Second Guardian of the Faith, in taking command there, will surely alter very fundamentally The present set-up of life there, and this would indeed enjoin changes and many sacrifices among these present Custodians but can any such personal considerations, that may be unpleasant from the human viewpoint to contemplate, because a Hand of the Faith not to want the Guardianship to be? This is a time when we Hands must arise to make sacrifices, for it will be thereby only that the cause will flourish.

Let us think of this matter and consider the mass of the believers throughout the world who are looking toward the Hands for guidance. Only through the sacrifices of these Hands of the Faith at this moment can they save themselves from themselves. It is just as necessary that we Hands sacrifice ourselves in order to properly guide the mass of the believers, as it is that this mass of believers stand ready to follow and to support the Hands in this emergency, but the first move towards this relation between those who lead and those who are led should be that the leaders maintain the morale of this relationship. This is the meaning of "Noblesse Oblige". The position of the Hands demands that they make the sacrifices! Thus far since the death of Shoghi Effendi the majority of the Hands have not proved themselves to be faithful to the Guardianship.

In World War II a nephew of mine served in our Navy on the U.S.S. Yorktown. She worsted in battle on the high seas, her Captain commanded all to stand by, ready to abandon ship. My nephew in command of a company of eighteen sailors, found that there were but eighteen life preservers in his Company’s locker where there should have been nineteen. Whereupon he proceeded to distribute these eighteen to his eighteen men, and when the order came to abandon ship, he, without a life preserver himself, led off diving into the Pacific followed by his men, each in his life belt. Fortunately all were rescued after being in the water for more than an hour.

By such acts of those in command is the morale of the Navy sustained and maintained. This morale is very demanding upon the officers in command of men in battle, Had a naval officer, in such an example as I have cited, taken a life belt for himself and left one of his men without this protection, he would indeed have lost the confidence of his men, the confidence necessary to sustain and maintain naval morale in battle. So it is in the spiritual battle of the Bahá'í Faith!

How much more necessary is "Noblesse Oblige" required to those of us in the Bahá'í Faith to whom the mass of the believers the world around are looking for guidance in our present emergency? How dare the Hands violate the Will and Testament as they are doing?

At present the people of our Faith the world around are like an army of soldiers who suddenly finding themselves without a commander may soon begin to question and wonder what is going to happen to their Kingdom, for without a commander-in-chief, how can their army protect their Kingdom? Why don't the Hands of the Faith institute a search through the world for the Second Guardian who is somewhere waiting for the Hands to want him before he discloses himself.

The Guardianship on one side and the International Assembly upon the other side are the two supports of the Universal House of Justice as explained by the Beloved Guardian and accepted by all of the believers.

The Universal House of Justice can only function in its infallibility when it has these two supports – the International Assembly alone without the Guardianship cannot be the Universal House of Justice. In other words, the International Assembly that is the voice of the mass of the people of the Faith and is chosen by them is alone and by itself not endowed with infallibility!

This I have explained many times in the conferences of the Custodian Hands in Haifa as well as to the body of the Hands in both the second and third Conclaves, but apparently all to no effect. They, holding that the International Assembly chosen by the mass of the people of the Faith is in itself to be infallible without the Guardianship that they hold now to be non-existent.

How any one of normal mental capacity can reason thus is a mystery to me. At no time when I have discussed this with any of the Hands of the Faith did this reasoning of mine make any impression upon anyone of them. They all persisted in their assertion that without a Guardian the Hands had the right to call for the election of an International Assembly in 1963, and when convened this assembly would be the Universal House of Justice, the decision of which assembly would have infallibility.

This lack of logic and reasoning not only makes no sense, but is positively pernicious. Such is the result of this violation of the Administration of our Faith. It is like a disease that the body of the Hands brought upon themselves when they forsook the Guardianship at their first Conclave, since which their efforts have been concentrated on preaching and teaching this atrocious doctrine of their plans for 1963 to the believers in all parts of the world.

Personally I marvel that the Bahá'ís in the Occident have not arisen "en masse" to rebel against such leadership that is actually spreading violation, whereas the Hands of the Faith are commissioned to protect the Faith from violation!

When will the Hands of the Faith want and seek for the Second Guardian who alone can free them and the Cause from this spiritual disease that is spreading the spiritual blindness the world around? When?

Although I sat in the Conclave at the time, I don't remember how the idea started amongst the Hands that they were empowered to establish a Universal House of Justice. But inspired by the violation of the Will and Testament, when started, this fallacy immediately took the fancy of the great majority and was passed upon to be proclaimed through the Bahá'ís as the solution of the present Bahá'í problems that perplex the Bahá'í World.

To this matter my argument has been and is that the creating and organizing of the Universal House of Justice is a matter that only a Guardian of the Faith can accomplish, and therefore it does not fall within the province of the Hands to undertake. There are two major supports upon which the functioning of the Universal House of Justice rests; the Guardianship representing the divine infallibility of the Faith and the International Assembly to be elected democratically by the believers.

Under the present condition of the Faith, without a Guardian, the Universal House of Justice that the Hands propose inaugurating can in no manner create this infallible element of this first support of a Universal House of Justice. The formation of the second support since this has no element of infallibility and is a human democratic institution proclaiming the voice of the people; this second support will be very easy to be elected by the people themselves when the Guardian of the Faith will come forth and tell them so to do, but not before he commands it. Therefore the impossibility of having a Universal House of Justice until there first be a Guardian, for without a Guardian to act as its President, there can be no Universal House of Justice.

The intensive manner in which the Custodian Hands are reiterating in their messages to the Bahá'í World, promising them in all fallaciousness that their House of Justice in 1963 will have the infallibility necessary to guide the Bahá'í Faith to spiritual victories, is the greatest sign in the present time of the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament. Indeed so flagrant is this that I marvel that there has not yet been sporadic uprisings and demonstrations among the believers the world around against such nonsensical pap as is now being thus handed out to them. I see troubles in the offing that can only be met and avoided by a complete reversal of the entire modus operandi of the Hands of the Faith, since the convening of their first Conclave at Bahjí, where violation made its first appearance. The heart of the Administration, the Guardianship itself, has thus been violated.

The Hands of the Faith are working assiduously, making frantic efforts to justify themselves in all these matters lest they lose face before the Bahá'í World. They are indeed in great danger of losing face. It will be better for them to have to acknowledge to themselves in secret Conclave that they have been for these two years and more on the wrong track. Held within the four walls of the next Conclave, such recognition will be far less bitter and not so humiliating to the Cause as to have all this matter come out openly to be talked over and discussed and God knows what (?) by the Bahá'ís the World around!

Therefore, before matters become worse than they are now (and they are very bad now and daily becoming worse) let the Hands of the Faith in Conclave, convening as soon as possible, unitedly save the Faith by seeking the only protection that will save it; namely the Second Guardian to pull the Cause out of its present dilemma and solve all of our difficulties that all may surge ahead under the direction of a Guardian and at this late date complete the World Crusade started and urged by the First Guardian of the Faith, the Beloved Guardian. To seek for the Second Guardian is the action that the Hands should now take. Christ said: "Seek and ye shall find."

You, the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith, looked up to by all the Bahá'í World, have had obligations placed upon you, proportionate with this blessing bestowed upon you by the Beloved Guardian. Obligations of such a nature as yours require that you make sacrifices commensurable with the divine bounty that has been your portion, for such are the requirements, to prove yourselves worthy of the blessings that have been bestowed upon you.

The beginning of our present time of peril was in the First Bahjí Conclave when the stand was taken to violate the Will and Testament, eliminating the Guardianship of the Faith and concocting the plan of the majority that is now being preached to the Bahá'ís of the world to have a Guardian-less government; a Kingdom of God without a King, doing away with the very foundation of all the work of the Beloved Guardian that must needs end only in confusion and in other and further deviations from the basic principles of the Bahá'í Faith.

The peril to the Cause is such that the only thing for the Bahá'ís to do is to seek for the Second Guardian who is waiting to be wanted by the believers before coming forth to lead the believers. But alas! the Hands do not want him!

In other words, I am protecting the Hands of the Faith by thus shielding you in your violation against rejection by the believers of the Faith, should these believers find out, know, and realize your violation of the Administration. I cannot hold much longer this protection that I am thus giving you. All that I can hope for is to hold out this protection to the Hands long enough for you to change your attitude toward the Guardianship, renounce your program for 1963, and announce this to the Bahá’í World, assuring them that you uphold the Master’s Will and Testament that means that you still believe in the Guardianship but that you just don't know how it is to be continued.

When you do as I tell you to do, you will then be in the position of firmness in the Bahá'í Faith in which you will be protected from making those mistakes that now so becloud your vision and confuse your mind and bewilder and put to test the Bahá'ís the world around.

I assure you that I am doing everything I can to make it in the end as easy as possible for you.

I am the protector of the Faith, and my first concern at this time is the protection of the Hands of the Cause, to guard them from the possibility of any criticism past, present or future, visited upon them by the Bahá'í World. Therefore, Hands of the Faith, follow me and do as I tell you to do!

Were this hazard not uppermost in my mind, I might have been induced to remain silent and let this violation of the Will and Testament run along as it is going, trusting that in some way or another the Hands of the Faith would have this matter brought to a head when, like a gangrenous condition in an ill human body, would reach a crisis that would require a major surgical operation to remove.

I, President of the International Council, have the power to stop their formation of an elected council, and I intend to stop it by refusing to recognize their right to do this in order to save the Bahá'í Faith. Without an elected International Council functioning, as prelude to the House of Justice, there cannot be a House of Justice!

Therefore, in order to avoid such an acute crisis in Bahá'í affairs that would involve the entire Bahá'í World, I am adding this Second Statement Appeal to my First Statement Appeal to the Hands, hoping to awaken them to the danger of allowing the present condition to run along any longer.

Therefore, now I bring to bear the power that I have to force this issue and to compel the Hands to give up their present fallacious program of attempting to elect an International Council and a House of Justice.

I realize the jar and shake-up that this decision of mine will precipitate in the body of Hands, but better have it within that body where you can confine it among the Hands than have a split in the Cause the world around!

Therefore, the present necessity of keeping the contents of these "Statement Appeals" from me to you in absolute confidence, in order that you Hands of the Faith can quickly clear this violation out from the body of Hands before it attains further credence in the Bahá'í World and becomes more difficult to meet. But if the Hands delay and delay to urge the believers to prayerfully look for and await with hope a Guardian, matters will become worse and their problems more difficult. It is to save the Hands of the Faith from the criticism of the Bahá'í World that I urge them so fervently to seek to recognize the Second Guardian as quickly as possible and to save them from further trouble.

How dare the Hands of the Faith presume to violate the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá? Do away with the Administration that is the Guardianship?

The answer to this is that the spirit of violation enters quietly, but when once in possession of the body, it dares do anything to gain its end while the body, more and more controlled by the violation, is helpless.

So it is now with the body of the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith. They are controlled by this violation of the Will and Testament – the violation of the Administration of the Cause and the violation of the Guardianship – therefore, they are helpless to help themselves.

Salvation of the body of Hands and that of the Bahá'í Faith must come from without the body – of their present unity that supports this violation. No one, save the Second Guardian, can accomplish this.

The Beloved Guardian, in addition to having elevated me, Mason Remey, to Handship in the Faith, also made me the President of the Bahá'í International Council, thus placing in my hands the power to call a halt to the program of the body of Hands to create an International Council as their first step toward instituting a House of Justice that they declare will have infallible power over the Bahá'í Cause; thus they calculated to endorse their violation upon the entire Bahá'í Faith as it already controls them.

But here I step into the picture to block this violation by maintaining my position as President of the Bahá'í International Council, reminding them that the Beloved Guardian himself appointed me to this position of authority over them, and I am now telling them that I will maintain this authority and will not allow them to hold any election to form the International Council; thus is frustrated their plan for creating a House of Justice!

In other words, I, of all of the believers in the Bahá'í Faith, hold the key to this situation by having the power in my hands to bring the Hands of the Faith out from under their violation that controls them. I guard the Faith!

This is why I am taking this stand against the violation of the Guardianship, and this is why I am trying to cast out this evil spirit that is so dominating the body of the Hands of the Faith; for it is only by my taking this stand that the Faith of El Bahá can be saved.

Now at this juncture in this time of interregnum of no Guardianship, the next step is that the Hands of the Faith are to seek the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. This, as I have explained in this call, is not only within their province to do but is a "must" for them to do now at this time. They are commanded to protect the Faith and the only way in which they can accomplish this in this emergency is that they seek the protection of the Second Guardian of the Faith. I forbid any and all Bahá'ís to give support to the program of the Hands of the Faith for 1963.