Who has issued this warning? It was issued by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Where is this warning to be found? It is found as a preface to Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet Of The Holy Mariner that appears in the older Bahá’í Prayer books.

What is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asking us to perceive? He enjoins us to study the Tablet of the Holy Mariner that we may "know the truth and consider that the Blessed Beauty hath fully foretold future events."

When would these events take place? These events were clearly predicted to take place in the future for He has stated: "the Blessed Beauty hath fully foretold future events"

Where would these events take place? The Tablet states that these events would take place in "the land of exile."

Who would be involved in these events? These events would involve believers who had "desired to ascend unto that state which the Lord hath ordained to be above their stations" and from whom "were found not from these idle claimants the breeze of Faithfulness–obviously believers who will have demonstrated a lack of faithfulness to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and the divinely conceived Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Did the believers throughout the world perceive at the time of their occurrence that these events so seriously affecting the future of the Faith were those predicted by Bahá’u’lláh? No, because they were perpetrated by those believers who had been but recently elevated to the rank of Hands of the Cause and whom they would have expected to be the most exemplary of all the believers in their fidelity to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and its sacred Offspring–the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

When did these events take place? They occurred in a matter of days following the unexpected passing of Shoghi Effendi in London England on 4 November 1957, and the pernicious and diabolical effect they have had othe Faith persists until the present day. Even though he had forewarned the believers indirectly in a message he had issued some six years earlier on 23 November 1951 that his passing was destined to place sometime during the Ten Year Global Crusade scheduled to commence at Ridván 1953, obviously, neither the Hands of the Cause or the believers at large, had ever perceived the tragic implications of that message.

What is the ultimate predicted fate of these "idle claimants" residing in the "land of exile" from whom the "breeze of Faithfulness" is no longer found and who will have aspired to a station that is "above their stations?" The "guardian angels" * are enjoined to "Return them to their abode in the world below" and their ultimate doom is sealed as "the burning meteor [shall] cast them out from them that abide in the Kingdom of His Presence."

While much of the Tablet of the Holy Mariner is mystical, and when Shoghi Effendi was queried about this Tablet he stated that it referred in part to the events that had afflicted Bahá’ulláh when He was in Adrianople, he obviously could not have alluded to these tragic events that were destined to have their inception at the very World Center of the Faith and almost destroy the Most Great Order of Bahá’u’lláh, even if he had forseen them. If one carefully considers the cited passages above, it will be perceived that they clearly predict the events that were destined to take place following the passing of Shoghi Effendi in 1957 when twenty-six of the Hands of the Cause, (one being absent) who had been designated by him in his last message to the Bahá’í World in October 1957 as the "Chief Stewards of Bahá’u’lláh’s embryonic World Commonwealth," met together shortly after his passing in a conclave in ‘Akká. Having at the outset undertaken a fruitless search for a will and testament left by Shoghi Effendi and not finding one, which they would have anticipated had they reviewed again the terms of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and with a single notable exception, on the part of one of them, hastily came to the fateful conclusion that Shoghi Effendi had died without being able to appoint a successor In so doing, they displayed a woeful loss of faith in the indestructibility of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and the immortality of its sacred "Child" — the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the immutable provisions of which require the Guardian of the Faith to appoint his successor "in his own life-time" and thus assure a continuous unbroken line of Guardians down through the ages to come of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. These Hands, convinced as they now were that the Guardianship of the Faith had ended, and acting outside the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, appointed nine Hands of their own number to a body which they designated as "Chief Stewards of the Bahá’í World Faith," (a designation with a significantly and subtly different connotation from the one used by Shoghi Effendi, cited above). The seat of this body was established in the Holy Land — "the land of exile" — and the Hands stated in their proclamation, issued to the Bahá’í World on 25 November 1957, that this body would exercise "all such functions, rights and powers in succession to the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith," thus assigning to this body the illicit role of a collegiate Guardianship of the Faith, and endowing it with and an illegitimate authority unsupported by the terms of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will. It was now obvious that the Hands had deluded themselves into believing that they had conferred on this illicitly established body of nine Hands a station with which only the Guardian of the Faith is endowed under the terms of that sacred Document and they, and those whom they had appointed to this body, were guilty of claiming stations clearly "above their stations," thus fulfilling the prophetic words of Bahá’u’lláh. These erring Hands then further decided that this self-styled "supreme body in the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh" also designated by them as:"Custodians of the Bahá’í World Faith" and "Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land" would remain this so-called supreme body for a period of less than six years, and end its brief illegitimate reign at Ridván 1963, when it would be replaced by an equally illegitimate body — a so-called Universal House of Justice — minus its "sacred head" — the Guardian of the Faith — that would be elected by the National Assemblies of the world and which would then take over from the "Custodians" the future direction of the affairs of the Faith. These former "Custodians" and "Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land" — this previously designated "supreme body in the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh" — would thus lose its supeme status overnight, as it were, and be no more, having magically transferred its authority and functions to this newly designated "Supreme body." (although, in fact, these former "Custodians" still continued to reside in the Holy Land).

In the unwarranted acts of the Hands, outlined above, they had blindly ignored the fact that Shoghi Effendi had already established the embryonic Universal House of Justice, with its appointed embryonic head under the provisional name of International Bahá’í Council as early as January 1951, and had proclaimed it to be "the most significant milestone in the evolution of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha’u’llah." Moreover, in December of that same year he had appointed the first contingent of the living Hands of the Cause and had accordingly with the final establishment of these institutions in the closing years of his ministry had been able to announce in his message of 30 June 1952 that "At the World Center of the Faith. . . at long last the machinery of its highest institutions has been erected . . .and the supreme organs of its unfolding Order are in their embryonic form unfolding." And, moreover and most importantly, he had clearly envisaged in his message of 23 November 1951 that the International Bahá’í Council, referred to in this message as "the Central Body" would be "directing" the National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the world in their "widely ramified operations" incident to the prosecution of the goals of the Ten Year Global Crusade beginning at Ridván 1953. It was this "Central Body, " — the International Bahá’í Council — which Shoghi Effendi had retained in a inactive state during his ministry that the Hands of the Cause prevented from assuming its rightful role and functions, upon his passing, and, without any authority to do so, not only substituted a body of their own making that usurped its role and functions but called for the election of an equally illegitimate body in 1963 as discussed above.

Is it not now understandable that the tragic events that took place in the Holy Land, following the passing of Shoghi Effendi, in which the Hands of the Cause played such an ignoble and nefarious role in their abandonment of the Guardianship and in shamelessly reducing to naught the crowning achievement of Shoghi Effendi’s long labors to establish the Institutions of the Faith, as delineated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will, should be seen as a betrayal of such magnitude as to cause the Celestial Concourse to "shriek and tremble?"

Certainly, it was in the light of His foreknowledge of these future tragic events, foretold by Bahá'u'lláh in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, that were destined to befall the Cause of God in the Holy Land, that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had urged the believers to study this Tablet so that, having been sufficiently forewarned of the nature of these future events, they would acquire the spiritual perception to recognize them when they would occur and not be led astray from the Covenant. For, the great test that was destined to face the believers would be that, notwithstanding their expectation that the Hands of the Cause would be the staunchest and most faithful supporters of the indestructible Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, these Hands, upon the passing of the first Guardian of the Faith, would become guilty, of manifestly violating this mighty Covenant in their faithless abandonment of the institution of the Guardianship and in their establishment of a man-made and corrupted Administrative Order which they would foist upon the Bahá’í World in its place–bring about a massive violation of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh that would engulf the entire Bahá’í World and threaten to destroy the very future existence of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh , Little wonder therefore that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had concluded His preface in this Tablet with the stirring words: "Let those who perceive take warning!"