Amado, you are describing a typical youth attitude, at an age where we are specially attracted to whatever is forbidden. One of the May 1968 slogans was « it is forbidden to forbid ». We are speaking here of responsible adults, to whom a complete picture is offered through internet. I didn’t discover Baha’i Rants because I was warned against it, but by Googling for Ruhi materials! The UHJ offers no special guidance against reading questions and indeed encourages Baha’is to seek answers. This doesn’t mean that we are to overwhelm people for questions that have not arisen in people’s minds.

Back to my professional analogy, when a person seeks my advice, and before he gives consent for the treatment I am suggesting, I give him just that, mentioning possible alternatives and evaluating other techniques, without overwhelming him with exceptional outcomes or techniques. We have plenty of anti-science associations doing a wonderful job of terrifying the patients for us. There is a variance between the French and US requirements: we have to make sure the patient has understood before giving his consent; in the US they overwhelm patients with information and make him responsible to sort it out.

Back to your analogy, when a person is looking for art galleries, I don’t wipe out part of the map, but I recommend a list of addresses and the way to get there, without including the address of slums, unless I wish to warn him areas to avoid.

I do agree that at some point, a seeker should, one day or another, as Shoghi Effendi clearly recommends, be initiated to the implications of the Covenant he is entering into with God when he enrolls, so as not to waste time moving in and out of the community if he is not yet prepared for the implications and frustrations implied in community life. One of the purposes of what has become known as "Anna’s presentation" is to have a check-list to make sure that the fundamental teachings have been grasped enrolling, but this doesn’t mean that we should only restrict information to those fundamentals.

Dear Craig, forget your nightmares and come dream with me, beacuse believe it or not, with God's help, we can make dreams come true!

Craig, the present world is indeed still dominated by power issues. The Baha’is are to some extent contaminated by this. The « great reversal » promised in all the books of the past and announced by Tahirih at Badasht will in time abase the arrogant and raise the down-trodden ; I see the institute process as part of this, accelerating the move towards a generalised empowerment : from individual tutorship for a few privileged we are going to public schools, from chauffeurs and taxis for the rare aristocrat, we are moving to trains.

Craig, compared to the situation of Christianity in the year 165 AD, the situation of the Baha’i Faith is brilliant.
And why should the Baha’is be in the forefront of everything? Why see our position with humanity as one of domination and competition, and not one of selfless service, acting as pure channels that convey God's message to all? I remember at one time the Iranian pioneers were in the forefront in one country. The UHJ advised them to be as the breeze moving the flowers of a garden but at the same time remaining invisible. This is the new standard: the outstanding servant is one who has become a source of infinite progress for humanity, not the one who has used humanity as a footstool to his own fame and renown.

You are dreaming! The restrictions imposed on the publication of Baha'i literature will NEVER be abolished. NEVER! It is here to stay forever as the last stop example of the permanent mindset of another "Chief Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees" Abrahamaic religion from the authoritarian cultures of the Middle East.

The Administration of the cause IS a total completely synthetic substitute for the Faith of Baha'u'llah. SE's warning was not heeded. Ever. It is brain OCD chemistry and it can never be overcome on this planet. Mark my words. Restrictions of any kind will NEVER be lifted in the Baha'i Faith by the completely entrenched institutionalized brain chemistry "Administrative Order" for the next 500,000 years! These lifetime incumbent royalty are the Voice of God on Earth and they answer to no one in Heaven and Earth including Almighty God at any time! Why would ANYONE ever give THAT gig up? No individual will EVER be voted out of office in the Baha'i Faith for the next 500,000 years by the completely passive chloroformed sheep electorate! just smoke another Ruhi book and turn their soul off. No one will ever be held accountable for anything so who is going to countenance or enforce SE's warning in this system of complete organizational Orwellian irresponsibility? Who?

You always seem to imply the Baha'i Faith and it's entrenched lifetime incumbent leadership machine is "completely selfless". I am sure everyone likes to personally think they are as their own Simon pure platitude self image. But on a subconscious level any straightforward analysis of the entrenched professional leadership of the Baha'i Faith will show that it is absolutely ruthless. Even completely hysterical and utterly radical!

The Baha'i Faith is riddled with a quest for fame and renown. Read the personal breathless "theory-of-everything" lecture speeches of the people running the Faith. Everything is a fierce lecture upon the Baha'i rank and file of the world by completely egotistical theorists obsessed with themselves and their personal theories as lifetime incumbents who are not held accountable to anyone or anything in Heaven or Earth. These people to a man have shameful feet of clay. The sorry record speaks for itself.

So where do you get this "selfless" meme about the Faith that you seem to try to make an example about in your posts here over and over? I just don't understand where you are getting this? Quite to the contrary, the current top down version of the Baha'i Faith is one of the most desperately ego driven organizations on Earth. It is a classic "my way or the high way" leadership. Many long time Baha'is have left and will continue to leave in this current environment until there is free and open consultation at every level of the Baha'i Faith and not the fiat dictates of an election gamed moribund personal satrap professional theorist clergy. There will never be true selflessness in the Baha'i Faith until there are fiercely enforce term limits in place across the board at every level worldwide.

Fame and renown in their own megalomania personal fantasies of obsessed organizational service immortality is driving everything. EVERYTHING!

But in reality it is all endless disgrace in world history and means nothing at all.

Craig, compared to the situation of Christianity in the year 165 AD, the situation of the Baha’i Faith is brilliant.
And why should the Baha’is be in the forefront of everything? Why see our position with humanity as one of domination and competition, and not one of selfless service, acting as pure channels that convey God's message to all? I remember at one time the Iranian pioneers were in the forefront in one country. The UHJ advised them to be as the breeze moving the flowers of a garden but at the same time remaining invisible. This is the new standard: the outstanding servant is one who has become a source of infinite progress for humanity, not the one who has used humanity as a footstool to his own fame and renown.