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My latest YouTube video centres on a 2019 letter on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, which says that sometimes the letters of secretaries have been confused with those written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, and gives one criterion for telling which is which. The letter is online here...

The link works for me - it's not about Noel Coward. Oscar Wilde is pictured as he is the author of the quote, " ‘A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.’" The article is about a research publication, "The Cynical Genius Illusion: Exploring and Debunking Lay...

Reason applied to rubbish produces rubbish - GIGO. How do you know what is good evidence? - by reason. For example, the authoritative evidence of Bahai teachings is the life and works of Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi (with nuances omitted), but then we use reason to see that a...

The true Bahai teachings are found -- progressively and continually -- by each person by turning to the sources of doctrine: the person of Baha'u'llah, so far as we "know" that, his writings, etc... (as explained previously). There is no guarantee of unity of doctrine, at any given moment...

No evidence will alter an opinion composed of suspicions rather than evidence. Abdu'l-Baha explained why the name "house of justice" was changed: When Abdu'l-Baha says that the Assemblies/houses of justice will not "at any time ... interfere with governmental affairs," you or anyone else is...

You make my point for me. The "consensus of the faithful," in both Christianity and Islam, is in effect the imposition of hegemonic views on the faithful. It sounds like a guarantee of the agency of the ordinary believer, but works the other way since only the dominant school among the religious...

No, Shoghi Effendi did not mention a Bahai theocracy. That's a misunderstanding that arose from publishing a few words out of their context. David Hofman used the term "theocracy" in his commentary on the Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha, (he believed in a future Bahai theocracy), and what he...

I am not thinking of an intermediate situation. I am looking back to what Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi thought and taught, and I have quoted them. The claim that Bahais have a secret long-term agenda that is different to what is in the writings is just propaganda. If it's not...

For the kings and rulers, to educate and advise them. And to reprove them too.

The non-establishment principle in the USA has worked there -- at the Federal level only, at first. The extent to which non-establishment achieves the separation of church and state has varied, and there are countries, such as England, which have an established church but still achieve the...

The local fire brigade, police, courts etc must be controlled by a civil government, obviously. The Bahai assemblies / houses of justice are not a government, and as Shoghi Effendi said, the Bahais will never allow this machinery of Bahai community administration to supersede the civil...

I know of nothing in the Bahai writings that supports the idea that the Houses would be responsible for anything but the affairs of the Bahai community. "Justice" in the sense of crime & punishment, and national security, are the sphere of government. The Bahai religious institutions may not...

Well "most of" the Gospel is precisely the problem. The secretaries' letters say that when we find something quoted by Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha, we know it must be "absolutely authentic." That is a means of finding at least a few "authentic" pieces, but it does not mean that the rest is not...

This is a great video and discussion, copied to Youtube from a presentation for the Corinne True Centre by JoAnn Borovicka : “What Can We Assume When Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith Cite Ancient Traditions?" Link: This presentation effectively debunks the idea that because Baha'u'llah, or...

It appears that the Universal House of justice may be recognizing the separation of church and state as part of Baha’u’llah’s world order. I’m reading the signs on this from two sections in a video by Glenford Mitchell on the Youtube channel Bahai Perspective. See Glenford Mitchell’s talk at the...

This video starts with the question, whether Abdu'l-Baha's letter on the "seven candles of unity" describes successive stages (the answer is no). It points to a relationship between the "seven candles" and a section of Abdu'l-Baha's book, "The Secret of Divine Civilization," and to four more...

I made a short video about a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi which has been misunderstood, because an editor quoted part of it out of context, in "Directives from the Guardian," and because readers and authors quoted the cut version. It's the letter that says, "... the Bahai...

This video shows that Shoghi Effendi read H.G. Well's utopian work "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933, filmed 1936), and quotes from it in his 1936 letter "The Unfoldment of World Civilization," which is one of the "World Order" letters. Could it be that the futurist letter "The Unfoldment of...

Shoghi Effendi tended to see twin things everywhere: twin cities, twin pillars, twin Manifestations, two simultaneous process, and so on. Abdu'l-Baha wrote a book that is all about the two great forces in society, government and religion. This video explores twoness, in the religion of the three...