at one of the Bosch talisman mysticism conferences (late 1990s?) where Terry Culhane talked about the divine feminine, there was also a group of SED practitioners holding meetings about the early implementation of Ruhi. I overheard a conversation between some people that had been very involved in SED work that was “parasitized” to form part of the basis of Ruhi. they were going on and on and on about how the BWC wasn't “really” limiting what kinds of “community building” were “allowed”, Ruhi was just the “preferred” path out of various “diverse” possibilities. These people were obviously the working visionaries doing the dirty work, whose real accomplishments were never recognized by the inept bureaucrats that took all the credit.

The SED practitioners seemed to be resigned to the fact that bahai administration,like all dysfunctional bureaucracies, rarely “does the right thing”, rather, it operates out of a broken incentive system that primarily serves to perpetuate the bureaucracy, rather than actually accomplish the lofty goals used to “sucker in” converts.

I can't confirm it on a factual basis, but there is a long pattern of bureaucratic reinvention in bahai administration that strongly predicts it.

What that means is that one unreasonable top-down plan is born, is hyped, eventually is noticed to have accomplishes little, is “deemphasized” (along with huge lies/distortions about the extent of accomplishments), then another plan is announced, and the cycle continues.

There is little or no “real” accountability, or soul-searching, as to why the bureaucrats accomplish little or nothing with their plans (or other forms of top-down groupthink).

Jurgen Habermas (postmodern philosopher) refers to this as “colonization of lifeworld by systems”. Bureaucracy = systems.

Colonization of course is not “spiritual” in the usual sense because it violates ethical frameworks in the modern world that prohibit exclusion, oppression, enslavement, etc. (where such prohibition enacts enlightenment, compassion and altruism at a new “level” of social evolution).

Ultimately the pattern of bureaucratic lies deepens and turns to disillusion, and then the people that dare to state the truth are attacked for being “non-conformists”, or “dissidents”, or “critics”. (they become scapegoats in a “shadow dance” of psychological projection/transference.)

Eventually the whole mess becomes deeply dehumanizing, which of course doesn't phase the true bureaucrat-to-the-bitter-end (who most likely has sociopathic tendencies) in the least.

The need to “convert” people plays a specific role by perpetuating the myth that something is being accomplished (transformation).

There is a vast absence of “authenticity” to the phenomena, it is psychologically and spiritually “empty” (devoid of the usual, natural human tenency to self-organize in small groups to create “meaning”).

As Bernie Neville (Latrobe Univ.) says, Hermes was both the god of transformation, and the god of lies and deception.

Its ironic that the greek “pagan” philosophers 3,000 years ago could so clearly see things about human nature that “infallible” bahai bureaucrats can not see now.

adios muchacho!

This article is logically interesting however, and I hope you post this comment about it, I would like to suggest that ultimately there is a certain degree of “academic” going on here. At least in terms of the United States, the Faith itself is rapidly aging and will, in 15 to 20 years, be pretty much extinct due to a severe lack of Baha’i youth or even young adults. I myself am 36 and I see this every day in the Kansas City Community and in all fairness, the only thing that has come along in a very long time which seems able to inject new blood and younger into this Beloved Faith is the Ruhi Institute. After 2 decades of effective non-growth – I say again, 20 years of no growth – we finally have new numbers coming into the Faith who are also young enough to actually be serving still in 10 to 15 years. This fact alone makes me believe that there is something fundamentally good about the Ruhi courses. “By their fruits shall ye know them…”

All I can say is without the Ruhi Institute the Kansas City Missouri Bahai’ Community would be half it’s present size within 15 years due to simple aging and death; another 15 years past that and it would effectively be gone. Now, at least there is hope. To further clarify, we have added new believers before but all have been almost or fully senior citizens, not a young adult to be found. I hope you see and understand this perspective. Getting all the senior citizen age new believers you can makes you grow but in 15 years you are, well, dead. That is not sustainable.