You would do well to heed the warning revealed in Bahá’u’lláh’s highly prophetic "Tablet of the Holy Mariner," as enjoined by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the following foreword penned by Him, as this highly significant Tablet not only unmistakably foretells the tragic events centered in "the land of exile" that were destined to take place, and have since transpired following the passing of Shoghi Effendi, but foretells the terrible retributive fate that is now soon to befall those "idle claimants" to a station that is above theirs to claim and from whom "the breeze of Faithfulness" has not been found.

"Study the Tablet of the Holy Mariner that ye may know the truth, and consider that the Blessed Beauty hath fully foretold future events. Let them who perceive, take warning."

What were these "future events" that Bahá’u’lláh "fully foretold" and which the Master has stated should cause those who are truly perceptive to "take warning"—events and that would so seriously affect the Faith as to cause the Celestial Concourse to "shriek and tremble"? It is obvious that you have not recognized these predicted events in which you have played such a conspicuous part and have even forgotten these dire predictions that concern you so directly were ever made.

Could anything be more tragic in the development of the Cause of God than for the Administrative Order—the very "Child of the Covenant" and "the body" of the Cause—to be so grossly dismembered and reduced to such a shambles that, as the Tablet has predicted, it has "fallen upon the dust"?

Have you so readily forgotten that Shoghi Effendi, quoted this significant statement from the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh: "The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order" or that the following passage appears in the "Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh" of which he was the inspired author:?

Is it not clear from the foregoing quoted passage why Shoghi Effendi has referred to this sacred Document as "their Will and Testament"? How is it possible, therefore, for anyone professing fidelity to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh to now believe and declare that the major provisions of this jointly authored sacred and immutable Will and Testament, has become null and void, since the passing of Shoghi Effendi and thirty-six years since the inception of the Administrative Order delineated therein? Has not the Administrative Order which "the master-hand of its perfect Architect has fashioned" been shamelessly corrupted and, His divinely-conceived Testament repudiated—a Document that Shoghi Effendi has equated in its sacredness, immortality and immutability with Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Holy Book and described as a part of the explicit Holy Text whose laws and provisions are destined to endure unchanged for at least a full thousand years?

Moreover, what could be more disloyal to the Guardianship and contemptible than to openly declare on the one hand continued fidelity to Shoghi Effendi, and on the other, to completely ignore, disregard and relegate to unimportance and insignificance, as did the Hands of the Cause, following his passing, the one and only Proclamation issued by him during his ministry on 9 January 1951 in which he proclaimed and extolled in unprecedented terms his establishment of the International Bahá’í Council as an "historic decision marking the most significant milestone in the evolution of the Administrative Order" since the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and declared that history would acclaim "at long last the constitution of the International Council as the greatest event shedding lustre upon the second epoch of the Formative Age"?

What could be more ignominious than to fail to ignore and further blindly overlook the significance in his subsequent confirming message to the Baha’i World of 30 June 1952 in which he announced, as a result of the appointment of the first contingent of the Hands of the Cause and his prior establishment of the International Council (this "Nascent Institution"), the culmination of his long labors to erect the institutions of the Administrative Order with the following significant statement: "the machinery of its highest institutions has been erected, and around whose holy shrines the supreme organs of its unfolding Order, are, in their embryonic form, unfolding:..."?

Is it not crystal clear that the highest institutions and the supreme organs erected by Shoghi Effendi, to which he referred in the above quoted cablegram, undeniably included the Universal House of Justice, which, although named by him in its embryonic form as the International Council, was, in fact, a complete organism from its inception for "the embryo possesses from the first all perfections... in one word, all the powers—but they are not visible and become so only by degrees" as stated by the Master? Should it not have been perceived, therefore, that this embryonic Universal House of Justice had unquestionably been created by Shoghi Effendi in 1951 and that by appointing and announcing its irreplaceable embryonic head (its President) in his cable of 2 March 1951, he had appointed the embryonic Guardian-to-be, as Guardianship and Presidency of the Universal House of Justice are synonymous terms?

Should it not have been perceived, for reasons which should have, at least, become obvious after his passing, that this embryonic Universal House of Justice had been carefully retained in its inactive embryonic state during the remaining years of Shoghi Effendi’s ministry, as he assigned tasks only to individual members and thus insured its inactive embryonic state as a functioning body by even appointing (as announced in his cablegram of 8 March 1952) a liaison between himself and this "Nascent Institution" (in the person of Rúhíyyih Khánum), thereby precluding any semblance of the activation of this body and the assumption of the presidency of the Council himself, an action which would have deposed the President—his successor—whom he had already appointed?

And is it not true that this International Council was not permitted by the then Hands of the Cause, following the passing of Shoghi Effendi, to emerge into active life and assume its fully functioning active role under the Presidency of the second Guardian of the Faith—its "sacred head"—as the supreme administrative institution of the Faith and, as such, exercise administrative jurisdiction over the then existing "nine vigorously functioning national administrative institutions throughout the Bahá’í World" whose "adequate maturity" had induced Shoghi Effendi, as he had stated in his Proclamation, "to arrive at this historic decision"? Nor was the Council ever permitted to evolve into its second stage as the International Bahá’í Court which Shoghi Effendi had stated (in his cablegram of 25 April 1951) was an "essential prelude"(and one to be accomplished by the end of the Ten Year Global Crusade in 1963) prior to its evolution into successive stages of development and final efflorescence as the Universal House of Justice? And was not this institution created by Shoghi Effendi replaced upon his passing in 1957 by an illicitly formed body of nine Hands of the Cause acting as a collegial head of the Faith, pending your own premature election in 1963—both bodies being completely outside the provisions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá?

Can, therefore, the abolition of these "highest institutions" of the Administrative Order—the Guardianship, the Hands of the Cause and the Universal House of Justice with the Guardian as its "sacred head"—erected by the beloved first Guardian of the Faith in faithful and complete compliance with the provisions of the Will and Testament during his ministry and the shameful substitution of man-made institutions be considered in any other light than a flagrant violation of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh? And should it not be glaringly obvious that by your setting yourselves up in your prematurely established man-made so-called Universal House of Justice, without the living Guardian presiding as its irreplaceable and indispensable "sacred head" as called for in the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, you have created nothing more than a fallible, deformed and incomplete organization clearly outside the provisions of the Will and Testament? More than this, have you not, as a result of your failure to recognize that Shoghi Effendi appointed his successor and your fallacious contention that the Guardianship is forever ended, usurped the role of the Guardianship by making yourselves the "Center of the Cause" and arrogating to yourselves, thereby, the authority, functions and prerogatives that can be exercised only by the living Guardian of the Faith under the terms of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? And, in doing this, have you not perverted the meaning of loyalty to the Covenant, as previously defined, and are you not now equating such loyalty with loyalty to your illicitly formed headless body?

Have you not, then, in the nefarious actions outlined above, fulfilled the prophetic events foretold in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner, and do you not now stand fully exposed and condemned in this Tablet as those who have "desired to ascend unto that state which the Lord hath ordained to be above their stations"?

How much longer do you think God will respite you for your repudiation of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the destruction of the highest embryonic Institutions of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh reared so laboriously and faithfully by Shoghi Effendi and the substitution in their place, of your sans-Guardian and humanly-conceived, deformed and illicit organization? The inexorable fate that awaits you is fast approaching as a result of this greatest violation of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh in the history of our precious Faith and is certain to overtake you as promised in the following passages of the prophetic Tablet of the Holy Mariner:

"Whereupon the burning meteor cast them out from them that abide in the Kingdom of His Presence."

"O guardian angels! Return them to their abode in the world below."

Shoghi Effendi has stated in "The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh":

"The bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded is God’s immutable Purpose for mankind in this day."

You have obviously repudiated this significant statement made by Shoghi Effendi. Your fate is therefore sealed and inevitable as promised in the following Words revealed by both the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh:

"Naught can resist Thy will, nor frustrate what Thou hast purposed by Thy power."

– Bahá’u’lláh

"Whatever God hath willed hath been, and that which He hath not willed shall not be."

– Báb

God’s "immutable Purpose"for mankind, as stressed by Shoghi Effendi, was certainly not changed by God with his passing, as insidiously claimed by the then Persian Hands of the Cause, and Shoghi Effendi, ever faithful to the Divine Mandates of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, did not fail to bequeath to succeeding generations an intact God-given Administrative Order in all of its divinely-conceived perfection and glory.

Joel Bray Marangella

Note: Emphasis of certain words and passages throughout has been deemed necessary.