4 June 1997
Dear Bahá'í Friend:
... As to the authority of the Hands of the Cause to assume the direction of the Faith following Shoghi Effendi's passing, the following points should be noted.
The letter which you quote, written on behalf of the Guardian on 31 March 1949, some two years before the formal appointment of the Hands of the Cause, stated that "The Hands of the Cause will have executive authority in so far as they carry out the work of the Guardian." On 4 June 1957, some six years after the appointment of the first contingent of Hands of the Cause, and but four months before his passing, the Guardian referred to the "TWIN FUNCTIONS PROTECTING PROPAGATING FAITH BAHA'U'LLAH" invested in the Institution of the Hands of the Cause by "VIRTUE AUTHORITY CONFERRED TESTAMENT CENTRE COVENANT", and stated: "TO ITS NEWLY ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY ASSIST NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES BAHA'I WORLD SPECIFIC PURPOSE EFFECTIVELY PROSECUTING WORLD SPIRITUAL CRUSADE PRIMARY OBLIGATION WATCH OVER ENSURE PROTECTION BAHA'I WORLD COMMUNITY IN CLOSE COLLABORATION THESE SAME NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES NOW ADDED."
Although the authority to expel Covenant-breakers had been conferred upon the Hands of the Cause in the Will and Testament, the Guardian had reserved the exercise of this authority to himself during his lifetime. In his last message to the Bahá'í world in October 1957, when he appointed the last contingent of Hands, he characterized them as "the Chief Stewards of Bahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Commonwealth, who have been invested by the unerring Pen of the Centre of His Covenant with the dual function of guarding over the security, and of ensuring the propagation, of His Father's Faith." He referred further to "their sacred responsibility as protectors of the Faith", designating them "high-ranking officers of a fast evolving world Administrative Order" and members of "one of the cardinal and pivotal institutions" of the Faith.
Equipped with such powers, and having been elevated to such a high position, the Hands of the Cause concluded that, among all the then existing institutions of the Faith, it was upon them, as Chief Stewards, that the responsibility for directing the affairs of the Cause rested pending the election of the Universal House of Justice.
The body of the Hands of the Cause, at their first conclave, constituted a group of nine Hands to act as an executive nucleus and "conduct and protect the affairs of the Faith from its World Centre" [1] and "carry on from this Centre the provisions of the World Bahá'í Crusade". [2] These nine Hands were designated "The Custodians of the Bahá'í Faith" and, following legal advice, they immediately asked the twenty-six National Spiritual Assemblies operating at that time throughout the Bahá'í world to pass resolutions confirming their support of the Custodians, and to send letters to the World Centre pledging their allegiance. The text of the letters received are all published on pages 41 to 50 of "The Ministry of the Custodians."
It was on such a strong foundation of doctrinal and legal authority that the Hands of the Cause, and the nucleus of nine Custodians in the Holy Land, could bring the World Crusade of the beloved Guardian to its consummation, protect the Faith from the divisive effects of Mason Remey's unfounded claim to the Guardianship, and call for the election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963.
Another question concerns the authority of the Hands to expel Covenant-breakers at a time when there was no Guardian alive and, more particularly, to expel Mason Remey from among their own ranks. The House of Justice feels that the above survey of events which transpired after the passing of Shoghi Effendi will assist in clarifying the position in which the Hands found themselves at the time of Mason Remey's disclosure of his claim. Looking at the situation purely in terms of the wording of the Master's Will and Shoghi Effendi's messages, it is evident that the Will gives the Hands the authority to expel those who "oppose and protest" against the Guardian and, by implication, those who "disobey" him and "seek division". The Hands of the Cause concluded that the very advancing of a claim to the Guardianship in conflict with the spirit and letter of the terms of the Will was a repudiation of the terms of a sacred document, the very charter on which the institution of the Guardianship rested.
The objection raised by the Hand of the Cause Hasan Balyuzi, in his cable of 12 May 1960 and his letter of 15 May, should be read in its proper context. This objection was in response to the recommendation made by his fellow-Hand, Abu'l-Qasim Faizi, supported by Dr. Ugo Giachery, that the hands of the Cause in the Holy Land immediately expel three members of the National Assembly of France for supporting and disseminating Mason Remey's claim, at a time when Mason Remey himself had not yet been declared a Covenant-breaker, and when the Hands still hoped that his action was the result of a mental aberration. The view of Mr. Balyuzi was supported by Dr. Adelbert Muhlschlegel. During the months of April and May, messages were still being received from the National Spiritual Assemblies around the world, rejecting Remey's claim and reaffirming their support of the Hands of the Cause. Mason Remey for his part compounded his offence by continuing to circulate his claims to the Bahá'ís, calling upon them to withdraw their support from the Hands, whom he stigmatized as Covenant-breakers, and to cease pursuing the goals of the Ten Year Crusade. On 7 July 1960, by which time the full gravity of the matter had been clearly established, the Custodians wrote to their fellow-Hands throughout the world, outlining the situation, recalling the authority given to the Custodians by the Hands as a body to expel Covenant-breakers, commenting that at that time the possibility of Covenant-breaking by one of the Hands themselves had not been contemplated, and asking the Hands as a body to decide whether they supported the recommendation for the immediate expulsion of Remey, or wished this whole question to be postponed until the holding of the Conclave in October.
The response of the Hands was announced to the Bahá'í world in the cable of 26 July 1960: "ENTIRE BODY HANDS OBEDIENT PROVISIONS WILL TESTAMENT CENTRE COVENANT COMMUNICATIONS BELOVED GUARDIAN ENJOINING THEM PROTECT HOLY CAUSE ATTACKS ENEMIES WITHIN WITHOUT ANNOUNCE BAHA'I WORLD MASON REMEY COVENANT BREAKER EXPELLED FAITH . . . ."
The hesitation of the Hands to expel Mason Remey, and the objections to precipitate action raised by Mr. Balyuzi and Dr. Muhlschlegel, should not be taken as lack of confidence in the Hands' authority to expel Covenant-breakers, but as a further evidence of the continual care exercised by the Hands not to overstep the bounds of their authority in any individual instance.
Mason Remey's subsequent acts showed the extent to which he would go in challenging the actions of Shoghi Effendi. For example, in a general letter of 12 November 1966 published in December 1966 he announced:
The first Guardian of the Faith so construed the Master ‘Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament that he formed his Administration upon the Babi Faith and not upon the Bahá'í Faith.
This mistake has caused so much confusion and misunderstanding and trouble that the only thing for the second Guardian to do, to set matters aright, is to discard all which Shoghi Effendi did and to institute a New Faith which shall be the Orthodox Faith of Bahá'u'lláh under the Holy Name of ABHA in order to carry out the conditions that will lead to the establishment of the TRUE Bahá'í Faith (of Bahá'u'lláh) which Faith has not yet been established in the world.
In another general letter dated 31 January 1967 He referred to "violations of the Faith that were made unwittingly by Shoghi Effendi".
Subsequent developments are noted in a statement entitled "Mason Remey and those who followed him", of which we enclose a copy. . . .
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
for Department of the Secretariat
(Baha’i Library Online)
Mason Remey and those who followed him
(by the Universal House of Justice, 31 January 1997)
In addition to explaining the nature and dangers of
violation of the Covenant, Shoghi Effendi several times reviewed briefly the
fates of individuals and groups who had surrendered to this worst of human
failings. Reflection on the consequences to those who seek to undermine the
unity of the Cause helps believers, he said, to appreciate more deeply the
protecting power of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant. In the perspective of the three
decades that have passed since Charles Mason Remey's violation of the Covenant,
it is instructive to review the consequences to those who followed him down
this barren path.
What is Covenant-breaking? In a letter to an individual
dated 23 March 1975, the Universal House of Justice wrote: When a person
declares his acceptance of Bahá'u'lláh as a Manifestation of God he becomes a
party to the Covenant and accepts the totality of His Revelation. If he then
turns round and attacks Bahá'u'lláh or the Central Institution of the Faith he
violates the Covenant. If this happens every effort is made to help that person
to see the illogicality and error of his actions, but if he persists he must,
in accordance with the instructions of Bahá'u'lláh Himself, be shunned as a
Covenant-breaker.
The personal failings that lead people to violate the Covenant to which they know they have committed themselves have been described by the Guardian as "the blind hatred, the unbounded presumption, the incredible folly, the abject perfidy, the vaulting ambition" which, in varying degrees, afflict the persons concerned. While some of these may have been duped by others, 'Abdu'l-Bahá has said of them: These do not doubt the validity of the Covenant, but selfish motives have dragged them to this condition. It is not that they do not know what they do--they are perfectly aware and still they exhibit opposition.
A. The Danger It Poses
The Master has warned that, if unchecked, Covenant-breaking
would "utterly destroy the Cause of God, exterminate His Law and render of
no account all efforts exerted in the past". He sets this warning in the
context of the fact that the central purpose of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation is to
create unity: Were it not for the protecting power of the Covenant to guard the
impregnable fort of the Cause of God, there would arise among the Bahá'ís, in
one day, a thousand different sects as was the case in former ages.
Apart from the danger that Covenant-breaking poses to the development of the Cause, it represents a spiritual contagion threatening the well-being of the individual believer because of its subtle appeal to the human ego. 'Abdu'l-Bahá called for the complete exclusion from the Bahá'í community of anyone found to be infected with the virus of Covenant-breaking, and urged all believers to shun any contact whatever with the persons involved.
B. The Effect on Those Involved
In reviewing the development of the Faith, the Guardian
several times cited examples of how these "movements, sponsored by
deluded, self- seeking adventurers, find themselves, sooner or later, enmeshed
in the machinations of their authors, are buried in shame, and sink eventually
into complete oblivion". He adds: The extinction of the influence
precariously exerted by some of these enemies, the decline that has set in in
the fortunes of others, the sincere repentance expressed by still others and
their subsequent reinstatement and effectual participation in the teaching and
administrative activities of the Faith, constitute in themselves sufficient
evidence of the unconquerable power and invincible spirit which animate those
who stand identified with, and loyally carry out the provisions and injunctions
of, the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l- Baha.
C. A Cleansing Process
Regarding a group of Covenant-breakers in the United States
which was later to break up and disappear following the deaths of the two
individuals who had created it, Shoghi Effendi wrote: The schism which their
foolish leaders had contrived so sedulously to produce within the Faith, will
soon, to their utter amazement, come to be regarded as a process of
purification, a cleansing agency, which, far from decimating the ranks of its
followers, reinforces its indestructible unity, and proclaims anew to a world,
skeptical or indifferent, the cohesive strength of the institutions of that
Faith, the incorruptibility of its purposes and principles, and the
recuperative powers inherent in its community life.
II. Mason Remey's Defection
a. The Hands' Proclamation on the Guardianship
When news of the Guardian's passing was received at the
Bahá'í World Centre on the evening of 4 November 1957, Shoghi Effendi's
apartment was immediately locked and guarded so that no one could have access
until the Hands of the Cause of God would have time to gather in the Holy Land,
which they did shortly after the Guardian's funeral. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and
Testament is explicit in stating how the Guardian was to appoint his successor:
He [Shoghi Effendi] is the expounder of the words of God and after him will succeed the first-born of his lineal descendants.... O ye beloved of the Lord! It is incumbent upon the guardian of the Cause of God to appoint in his own life-time him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his passing. He that is appointed must manifest in himself detachment from all worldly things, must be the essence of purity, must show in himself the fear of God, knowledge, wisdom and learning. Thus, should the first- born of the guardian of the Cause of God not manifest in himself the truth of the words: "The child is a secret essence of its sire," that is, should he not inherit of the spiritual within him (the guardian of the Cause of God) and his glorious lineage not be matched with a goodly character, then must he, (the guardian of the Cause of God) choose another branch to succeed him. The Hands of the Cause of God must elect from their own number nine persons... The election of these nine must be carried either unanimously or by majority from the company of the Hands of the Cause of God and these, whether unanimously or by a majority vote, must give their assent to the choice of the one whom the guardian of the Cause of God hath chosen as his successor.
As soon as 26 of the 27 Hands of the Cause had gathered in the Holy Land (Mrs. Corinne True, whose advanced age and health had prevented her coming, subsequently signed affidavits declaring her support for the various actions her fellow Hands took), they designated nine of their number to enter the Guardian's apartment and search for any document he might have left behind. Following their report, all the Hands, including Charles Mason Remey, signed a document stating that Shoghi Effendi had passed away "without having appointed his successor...."
From the first conclave of the Hands, gathered in Bahji at
that time, a proclamation was issued "To the Bahá'ís of East and
West" announcing that, as "The Aghsan (branches) one and all are
either dead or have been declared violators of the Covenant by the
Guardian", it was apparent "that no successor to Shoghi Effendi could
have been appointed by him...." Calling on the believers to unite in
completing the Guardian's Ten Year Crusade, the Hands pointed out that, in due
course, the Bahá'í world would elect "the Universal House of Justice, that
Supreme Body upon which infallibility, as the Master's Testament assures us, is
divinely conferred": When that divinely ordained Body comes into
existence, all the conditions of the Faith can be examined anew and the
measures necessary for its future operation determined in consultation with the
Hands of the Cause. Mason Remey again joined his fellow Hands in signing this
second formal statement that there was no successor to Shoghi Effendi as
Guardian of the Cause of God.
b. Mason Remey Is Expelled
Despite his written affirmations in 1957 that Shoghi Effendi
had appointed no successor and could not have appointed one, Remey himself laid
claim to this station in a "Proclamation" of April 1960 declaring
that he was the "Second Guardian". He based this spurious claim on
the fact that he had been named president of the appointed International Bahá'í
Council. When he refused to renounce his attempt to thus seize control of the
Cause, the Hands of the Cause expelled him from the Faith as a violator of the
Covenant. Shortly thereafter a number of believers in Europe, the United
States, and elsewhere who had accepted his claim were likewise expelled from
the Faith, among them John Carré, Donald Harvey, Joel Marangella, Reginald
King, and Leland Jensen. All of these would later play major roles in provoking
the series of conflicts that were to hopelessly divide the remnant of Remey's
followers.
c. Mason Remey Dies
In April 1974 the Universal House of Justice advised the
Bahá'í world: Charles Mason Remey whose arrogant attempt usurp Guardianship
after passing Shoghi Effendi led to his expulsion from ranks faithful has died
in Florence Italy in hundredth year of his life buried without religious rites
abandoned by erstwhile followers. History this pitiable defection by one who
had received great honours from both Master and Guardian constitutes yet
another example futility all attempts undermine impregnable Covenant Cause
Bahá'u'lláh.
III. Divisions Among Remey's Followers
a. "National Spiritual Assembly under the Guardianship"
Basing themselves on Remey's defection, a group in the
United States calling themselves "Bahá'ís under the Guardianship"
came together in New Mexico in 1961-62 and, in April 1963, formed what they
called the "National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United
States under the Hereditary Guardianship". A similar body was created that
same month by a group in Pakistan, but soon broke up.
The New Mexico group incorporated itself in March 1964, and brought legal suit against the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States, claiming to be the rightful owners of the Wilmette Temple property as well as to represent the authorized voice of the Bahá'í Faith in the United States. The legitimate National Spiritual Assembly filed a counter-claim against this group for trademark infringement, and later secured an injunction prohibiting them from the use of established Bahá'í terminology or otherwise infringing the National Assembly's rights under civil law. As the New Mexico group was preparing for a second trial, Remey suddenly directed them to withdraw from the proceedings "regardless of the consequences". Shortly thereafter, Remey ordered the Santa Fe group's "National Assembly" to be dissolved. The legal challenge to the rights of the Cause in the United States came to an end at this point.
b. Remey's "Second International Bahá'í Council"
Remey now created (21 September 1964) what he called a
"Second International Bahá'í Council". He appointed to the presidency
of this body one Joel Marangella, an American believer living in France, who
had been an early supporter of Remey and had been expelled from the Faith by
the Hands of the Cause on 3 August 1960. Since Remey had sought to base his own
claim to the Guardianship on his position as president of the International
Bahá'í Council created by Shoghi Effendi, this action on his part appeared to
give Marangella the leading position among Remey's followers. That serious
conflicts were developing among the band of Covenant-breakers is apparent,
however, from the fact that, on 18 October 1966, Remey abruptly dissolved this
"Council" and ordered Marangella, as its former President, to
"turn over to me such records as you have of the second Council that no
longer exists". The apparent effect of this action, which deprived
Marangella of his leading role, was to increase rather than subdue the
differences of opinion that had appeared in the group. On 29 January 1967 Remey
complained that "Some friends have started the report that the Guardian is
loosing [sic] his mind and that someone is controlling him...."
c. The Appointment of Donald Harvey
On 15 May 1967, Remey formally appointed one of his
followers, Donald Harvey, to succeed him at his death as "third Guardian
of the Faith". Harvey, an American Bahá'í also resident in France at the
time of Remey's defection, had been among the first group of Covenant-breakers.
During the following year Remey appointed five of an intended "twenty-four
elders" who would "administer the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh" in
cooperation with Harvey. Subsequently, however, Remey dissolved the body of
elders, as he had the earlier organizations, without having completed the
promised appointments. Harvey, who remained Remey's appointed successor, took
no action either before or after Remey's death to exercise the powers thus
conferred on him. He died in 1991 without appointing a successor of his own.
His various letters disclaimed any interest in organization, saying that
religious faith was a matter purely for the individual.
d. The Claim of Joel Marangella
Suddenly, on 12 November 1969, Marangella announced that he
rather than Harvey should be regarded as Remey's legitimate successor.
According to Marangella, Remey had several years earlier (December 1961) sent
him a sealed letter with a covering note indicating that Marangella would
"know when to break the seal". Marangella said that shortly after his
appointment as President of the "Second International Bahá'í Council"
he had opened this envelope, to discover a brief note, signed by Remey,
instructing him to "tell the Bahá'í World that I appoint you to be the
third Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith". Marangella, however, had hitherto
taken no action on this instruction.
Marangella's excuse for ignoring Remey's formal appointment of Harvey as his successor was that Remey was exhibiting irrational behaviour. Remey had by this time begun attacking Shoghi Effendi, declaring that the Administrative Order represented only the organizing of "the Bahá'í Faith" and must be "dismantled", and that Remey now considered himself to be the "first" Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. Having made his announcement, Marangella went on to create what he called a "National Bureau of the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith". Thereafter, Harvey and Marangella, each claiming to be Remey's legitimate successor, largely ignored one another's existence.
e. The Role of John Carré
By this time other contenders for leadership were pressing
supposed rights of their own. John Carré, a prolific writer, had been one of
Remey's earliest supporters and had been expelled as a Covenant-breaker in
1961. [i.e. had originally promoted Remey's claims to the Guardianship by
sending a stream of letters to Bahá'ís whose addresses he had.] As the dispute
over the leadership of Remey's following broke into the open, however, Carré
suddenly emerged as a spokesman for the bizarre and entirely unrelated claims
of one Jamshid Ma'ani. The latter, an Iranian pioneer in Indonesia, had
announced himself to be "the One Who creates the Messengers at every
instant".
When Ma'ani began to show signs of mental illness, requiring his hospitalization in Tihran, Carré abandoned this interest, too, appearing later under the pseudonym "John Christofil" and writing as the alleged spokesman of various organizations, including "House of Light" and "House of Mankind". In this new capacity, Carré focused his attention increasingly on the subject of "catastrophic events" that would appear before the end of the century and would prepare the way for a "Third" Manifestation of God.
f. The Intervention of Reginald King
Meanwhile, in the United States, two more Covenant-breaking
factions had emerged and were bitterly denouncing one another. The first of
these was led by Reginald ("Rex") King, who had been elected
secretary of the short- lived New Mexico "National Assembly",
dissolved by Remey in 1964. Unhappy about Remey's resistance to his leadership
role in the United States, King eventually went to Italy where Remey was
living, and had an apparently acrimonious meeting with him. Following this encounter,
Remey issued a letter denouncing King: "his station to be ever and
eternally that of Satan for evermore" (13 September 1969). King switched
his allegiance to Marangella when the latter advanced his own claims two months
later. This relationship, however, also soon broke down. King decided that
Marangella had made "a number of faulty 'interpretations' of the
Writings", and declared that Marangella "had ceased to fulfill the
requirements of the office of guardian". He argued, indeed, that "neither
Mason Remey nor Joel Marangella had in truth ever been guardians... because of
the lack of lineal descendancy" (i.e. from Bahá'u'lláh). Harvey's position
in the enterprise was ignored. What Remey had actually been, King said, was
"a regent", and King came to the "realization" that he
himself "was in actuality the Second Regent...." Harvey and
Marangella paid no more attention to this claim than they had to those of one
another or of Carré, and King died on 1 April 1977, leaving whatever rights he
believed he had to a "Council" consisting of members of his own
family.
g. The Case of Leland Jensen
King's long struggle for leadership of Remey's followers in
the United States had, however, paralleled that of yet another claimant, Leland
Jensen. A dispute between the two men had broken out in 1963 when both of them
had been members of the New Mexico "National Assembly... under the
Hereditary Guardianship". Jensen had accused King of having "gained
control" of the United States group, and King had thereupon proposed to
set up a "Bahá'í court" to have Jensen "thrown out of the Bahá'í
Faith". It had been Remey's resistance to this latter manoeuvre that had
begun King's disaffection from him.
The emergence of Jensen marks a further deterioration in the moral character of the group following Remey. After taking up residence in Missoula, Montana in 1964 to avoid a disastrous flood predicted by Remey, Jensen was convicted in 1969 of "lewd and lascivious" behavior and was sentenced to Montana State Prison. There, Jensen had converted several fellow inmates to his claim that an angelic visitor had told him he was "Joshua". After serving his sentence, he began travelling throughout the United States in an effort to bring Remey's remaining American followers to his own peculiar interpretations of religious truth. (Jensen claimed, for example, to be not only "Joshua" and "the return of Jesus", but also the "embryonic" Universal House of Justice.) These activities suffered a severe setback in May 1980 when Jensen's widely predicted "end of the world" failed to materialize despite his changing the date of this event three different times (29 April, 7 May, 22-23 May 1980). Although some of his closer associates and family members continued their support of him, the majority of Jensen's followers abandoned him.
h. Attempts to Involve Giuseppe Pepe
Perhaps the strangest development in this long and confused
history was one centering on a person who was neither a member of the Faith nor
had taken any role in the activities of the various Covenant-breakers. On an
earlier visit to Florence, Italy, Remey had become acquainted with a young man
named Giuseppe Pepe, who later served as his secretary/companion when Remey
settled in Florence following his expulsion. Eventually, Pepe was legally
adopted by Remey. It was he who, through the kind assistance of the American
consulate in Florence, arranged for Remey's burial in 1974. To his surprise and
distress, Jensen seized upon this adoptive relationship to announce, in an open
letter, that he (Pepe) was "the Crown Prince", the legitimate
successor of Remey as "Fourth Guardian". What Pepe must do to secure
this station was to permit himself to "be coronated King of the Kingdom by
the High Priest...." The strong suggestion was that the said "High
Priest" was Jensen.
When his protests were ignored, and the Covenant-breakers continued to use his name in their broadsheets and correspondence, Pepe wrote to a Bahá'í institution whose address he had to set the record straight. The actions of the Covenant-breakers had been undertaken, he said, without his permission, and repeated requests on his part that they desist had been ignored.
i. The Current Situation
With none of the leaders of the defection able to
substantiate the conflicting claims they made, divisions continued to
proliferate over the years. Most represented idiosyncratic agendas conceived by
various individuals and largely unrelated to one another. Embroiled in charges
and countercharges, abandoned by most of those who had originally taken them
seriously, and entirely ignored by the Bahá'í community, the various Remey
factions today provide a graphic illustration of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's description of
Covenant-breaking over eighty years ago: These agitations of the violators are
no more than the foam of the ocean, which is one of its inseparable features;
but the ocean of the Covenant shall surge and shall cast ashore the bodies of
the dead, for it cannot retain them.
By 1991 the Remey following had largely disintegrated. Death had removed three of the principal figures: Mason Remey in 1974, Reginald King in 1977, and Remey's appointed successor, Donald Harvey, in 1991. John Carré had drifted off into esoteric religious pursuits of his own. Public disgrace and ridicule had reduced Leland Jensen's influence to that of a cult figure for two or three isolated groups in the American Midwest. Giuseppe Pepe had eventually extricated himself from further attempts to involve him in the Covenant-breakers' ambitions.
Joel Marangella alone continues to press his faded claim to the position that Remey had briefly bestowed on him and then withdrawn over thirty years ago. Occasionally, he places advertisements in newspapers purporting to represent the views of a group he calls "the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith". Lacking the energy and capacity to arouse interest among the public, this forlorn survivor of the Remey defection appears still to hope that he may somehow draw loyal members of the Bahá'í community under his influence. That reasonably intelligent men and women should be unable--after the passage of three decades--to free themselves from the relentless undertow of folly and ambition that has drowned every hope and scheme they ever cherished is a cautionary tale indeed. The fate of those who followed Charles Mason Remey is a case study in the nature and paralyzing effect of the virus of Covenant-breaking.
Notes
The Power of the Covenant, Part Two (Thornhill, Ontario: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Canada, 1987), pp. 7-8
Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams
Addressed to the Bahá'ís of North America, 1932-1946 (Wilmette: Bahá'í
Publishing Committee, 1947), p. 51 Star of the West, Vol. X, p. 246; as quoted
in The Power of the Covenant, Part Two, p. 11
Bahá'í World Faith (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1976), pp. 357-58
Messages to America, p. 49
Messages to America, p. 50
Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Wilmette: Bahá'í
Publishing Trust, 1971), pp. 11-12
The Ministry of the Custodians (Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre,
1992), p. 29
The Ministry of the Custodians, pp. 35-36, 37, 38
Bahá'í News [United States], April 1974, p. 3; as quoted in
The Power of the Covenant, Part Two, p. 27
Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa: Bahá'í
World Centre, 1982), p. 210
(Baha’i Library Online)