Re: The Guardian Paradox

I am going to change/interpolate Susan Maniac's post. See how it
sounds to you and what kind of mentality we're dealing with here:

-

The legal authority for setting up a CEO comes straight from the
Constitution and Bylaws.

-
Which is exactly the opposite of what the shareholders did. Rather
than arrogate power over [of] the Company into their own hands, they
instead
handed it over to a democratically elected body. But you seem to have
a problem with that.
-

blah blah blah - rest pencil pushing bureaucratic dribble of a
tortured fascist mind snipped

-

BTW as an enantiodromiac exercise, take a look at Susan Maniac siding
with the Pharisiac legalism of the Sanhedrin (i.e. the christ killer
lackies of the Herodian Roman puppet regime). Below is an
autobiographical narrative of Susan Maniac's descendent to the
darkside:

http://bahaistudies.net/susanmaneck/pharisaic.html


The Pharisaic Phenomenon and the Dynamics of Denial


Susan Stiles Maneck

When I was growing up in a Christian home, my understanding of the
Gospel story went something like this: God had expressed Himself
through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, a simple man, whose
sympathies lay with the common folk. He was opposed by the stuffy,
legalistic Pharisees who sought to destroy Him for not abiding by
their minutiae of rules. The battle between Jesus and the Pharisees
was the battle between spirit and law, between common folk and the
elite, between simple truth and hypocrisy. These were the demarcation
lines that separated good from evil in my young mind, and having been
raised in one of the more liberal wings of the church, it was easy for
me to imagine that the demarcation line ran between conservative and
liberal as well. I remember my pastor at the time proudly asserting
that while Judaism had some seven hundred and some odd laws, Jesus had
reduced them to essentials such as, "Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you." When I discovered the Baha'i Faith in my early
teens and declared at the age of fifteen I developed a new
appreciation for religious law, which was quite different from the
attitudes with which I had been raised, but it wasn't until I started
college that I came to realize what the Pharisees actually stood for
and that, far from representing the exact opposite of Christianity,
the Pharisees' teachings were closest to Jesus, as opposed to the
Sadducees who were the most literal-minded and conservative faction
among the Jews. The Pharisaic school, with its synthesis of the best
of Jewish thought with perhaps a sprinkling of Zoroastrian concepts,
represented the finest fruit of the two most profound religious
traditions of Jesus' age. How is it then that Jesus is said to have
addressed them in such harsh words as these?

"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widow's houses, and
make for a pretense long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the
greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is
made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves. . . . Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow
a camel. Woe unto you, scribes an Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make
clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are
full of extortion and excess. . . . Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's
bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. . . . Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you
prophets and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and
crucify: some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and
persecute them from city to city. That upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth . . . " (Matt. 23:13-35)

It has usually the case that those who oppose a new message from God
will invariably be the ones who, to outward seeming ought to be
closest to it. Hence the Pharisaic school rejects Jesus, the Jews of
Medina (the only people of with much knowledge of prophethood) oppose
Muhammad, the Shi'ite Muslims prove the most intolerant of Baha'is.

What I would like to do here is examine very carefully what the
dynamics of that denial in hopes that we can understand what is it
that causes those, who one might expect to be the first to embrace a
new message from God, are instead its most vigorous opponents. I will
attempt to draw out a number of interrelated aspects to this; the
tendency human beings have to want to control, systematize and contain
revelation in manageable categories usually by taking a part for the
whole in religion, the role played by the imagination in rejection,
the tendency to confuse rigidity with firmness, the specific type of
learning which tends to be encouraged within a religious context, the
role played by pride and arrogance, the particular temptation of power
and leadership, and finally the manner in which religion so often
becomes a mask for the genuinely evil and hypocritical.

There is a story about a child who was busily occupied drawing a
picture. Her mother asked her what she was doing "I'm drawing God,"
she answered. The mother said, "But honey, no one knows what God looks
like." Unperturbed the child answered, "I will when I'm finished."
This child obviously had a big imagination. Many places in the
Writings, do not seem to look too kindly on the imagination.
Imaginings tend to be paired with adjectives like "vain," "corrupt,"
and "idle." As an adolescent who daydreamed a lot these references
used to bother me a great deal. This, of course, was not what
Baha'u'llah was talking about rather He was speaking about those who
allow their own wishes in regards to what ought to be stand in the way
of recognizing what God reveals of His Will. Baha'u'llah asserts that
people, "deprive themselves of the inner reality and by clinging to
vain imaginings they are kept back from the Dayspring of heavenly
signs. God grant you may be graciously aided under all conditions to
shatter the idols of superstition and to tear the away the veils of
the imaginations of men." It is when our images stand between us and
reality when we have a problem.

Let's take the example of our little girl. Right now she is guilty of
nothing worse than naivete. She, like all of us, is continually in the
process of creating an image of God. The problem, if it arise, comes
in after she thinks she has completed her picture and now "knows" what
God looks like. And even here this may not be such a big problem
unless she becomes so attached to the image she has thus created that
when God presents Himself, either in the form of the Manifestation or
in some more subtle form, she fails to recognize Him.

The imagination is a large part of what makes us human. It is what
makes rational thought and creativity possible. But within the
Abrahamic religions the imagination is also considered it is also the
root of all evil! As Genesis 8:21 puts it "For the imagination of a
man is evil from his youth." Martin Buber wrote an interesting essay
on the topic of the problematic nature of imagination in his book Good
and Evil. He says: "Imagery, 'the depictions of the heart' (Psalm
73:7), is play with possibility, play as self- temptation, from
whichever and again violence springs. It too, like the deed of the
first humans, does not proceed from a decision; but the place of the
real perceived fruit has been taken by a possible, devised, fabricated
one which, however, can be made, could be made--is made into the real
one.

This imagery of the possible, and in this its nature, is called evil.
Good is not devised; the former is evil because it distracts from
divine reality. . . . imagination is not entirely evil, it is evil and
good, for in the midst of it and from out of it decision can arouse
the heart's willing direction toward Him, master the vortex of
possibility and realize the human figure purposed in the
creation. . ." (p.91) In other words the imagination, insofar as it
can imagine that which is other than God's will, is the root of all
evil. Yet from it alone arises the free will which is able to submit
to God, to answer affirmatively the question "Am I not your Lord?" and
become all we are intended to be. If imagination remained as the "play
of possibility" it's harm would likely be limited. If guided by
revelation the imagination can be a most powerful source for good.
Unfortunately what often happens is our imaginations, if they do not
out right reject revelation quite often attempt to control it.

There is a story that was once told to me by an Orthodox Jew. It seems
that a group of Jews had gathered together and was arguing about a
passage in the Talmud. As tempers and voices rose there was suddenly
heard the voice of God from heaven saying, "Thus and such is the
truth." The Jews present protested, "You have already given us the
Torah. It is for us to decide now what it means, You have no right to
interfere." Now the Jew who told me this tale said it with pride and
it could not quite understand my discomfort with it, but it seems to
me it touches the very heart of the problem. The Qur'an says, "The
Jews say that the Hand of God is tied up. Tied up are their own hands
for what they have said. But the Hands of God are outstretched. (5:67)

Now there is nothing at all unusually or especially perverse about the
attitude of some Jews in this regard, beyond the perversity which
seems to exist in all men. One of the greatest Muslim philosophers of
the twentieth century, Muhammad Iqbal, sometimes regarded as the
father of Pakistan, insisted on the Muslim doctrine of the Finality of
Prophethood on the basis that man; having now reached the level of
maturity, had no need for anymore divine interference! Having
contained revelation, having mastered it and placed it under our
control, having squeezed it neatly into our categories, the last thing
we want is to having it burst forth unpredictably once again. Thus the
pattern repeats itself again and again. "And Joseph came to you
aforetime with clear tokens, but ye ceased not to doubt of the message
with which He came to you, until, when He died, ye said, 'God will be
no means raise up a Messenger after Him." (Qur'an 40:36).

Besides the need to control, there is no small amount of arrogance
involved here. 'We can handle it now, God, we don't need you
anymore.'and that is where the pride comes in. Humility, after all, is
acknowledging, in the deepest way, our need for God. But there is
another part of it. Pride sets in when the need to be right takes
precedence over determining the truth. Baha'u'llah notes that leaders
of religion did not simply lack knowledge and understanding, they were
unwilling to seek it out if it would upset their presuppositions (KI
p. 17).

Control and pride are typically to be found together. As often as not,
the kind of education encouraged among the Pharisees, as later tended
to predominate within Christendom, as well as among the 'ulama of
Islam was aimed, not at the investigation and discovery of truth, but
rather the mastery of a certain predetermined body of knowledge. Among
the Shi'ites, for instance, on becoming a mujtahid one was given a
diploma (ijazeh) which stipulated precisely what books one had read.
Innovation, far from being something encouraged, was a byword for
heresy. For this reason the religious leaders in every age insisted
that the Promised One Who comes "must needs promulgate and fulfil" the
laws of the previous dispensation. (KI p. 18.) But the Promised One
who comes is never the One expected and Revelation overturns all of
our preconceived categories. Hence Baha'u'llah insists: "Were He to
decree as lawful the thing which from time immemorial had been
forbidden, and forbid that which had, at all times, been regarded as
lawful, to none is given the right to question His authority. Whoso
will hesitate, though it be for less than a moment should be regarded
as a transgressor. Whoso hath not recognized this sublime and
fundamental verity, and hath failed to attain this most exalted
station, the winds of doubt will agitate him, and the sayings of the
infidels will distract his soul. . . . Such is the teaching which God
bestoweth on you, a teaching that will deliver you from all manner of
doubt and perplexity, and enable you to attain unto salvation in both
this world and the next." (KA 166-67) And likewise: "Whenever My laws
appear like the sun in the heaven of Mine utterance, they must be
faithfully obeyed by all, though My decree be such as to cause the
heaven of every religion to be cleft asunnder." (KA 7)

It is to the leaders of religion that Baha'u'llah explicitly conveys
these words: "Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and
sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the
unerring balance established among men. In this most perfect balance
whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be
weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to
its own standard, did ye but know it." (KA 100). The leaders who
oppose a new revelation may not, in and of themselves, be any more
perverse than other people. But the degree to which a person is going
to be invested in a particular position is likely to be directly
proportioned to the extent of their personal stake. One whose
livelihood, whose position, whose total life commitments are
challenged by a new revelation is going to find it the most difficult
to accept. But scholars and religious leaders certainly have no
monopoly on pride. We all, after all, have to choose fidelity to truth
over the need to be right, over self- justification. But pride in
religious leaders and scholars, by the nature of the subject matter
they deal with, can have catastrophic consequences. For instance, if
I'm an architect and am too prideful to admit a design of mine might
be flawed the worst consequence will likely be that my building will
collapse and some people may be killed. On the other hand, arrogance
in a religious leader can result in a million souls being led astray.
In most cases those religious leaders who reject the Manifestations of
God are quite likely to regard themselves as something analogous to
what we Baha'is refer to as "firm in the Covenant." Indeed, they would
argue that it is their commitment to the explicit text of Revelation
that compels them to reject and oppose this new message that would
completely overturn it. In general, however, they are clinging very
tightly to their understanding of specific parts of scripture, a canon
within the canon as it were, instead of seeing each passage within
context of the whole. This, of course, is the manner in which sects
are formed. As the Qur'an describes these people as "those who have
split their religion, and have become sects, where every party
rejoices in what is their own." (Qur'an 30: 31).

The Bab, in the Kitab-i Panj Sha'n, alludes to this problem as well
describing it as a failing of the heart not to consider all things
within their own context, and that no position should be rejected out
of hand (pp. 400-01). The Bab points to the numerous factions within
both Christianity and Islam and insists that had they remained united
by cleaving to the entirety of the scriptures they would have been
able to recognize the new revelation. But since each one regarded
themselves as the sole possessors of truth, they were quick to reject
any new perspective. Thus, in clinging tenaciously to a single point,
antagonisms arise among scholars which will eventually be directed
against the next Manifestation and cause His followers to be
persecuted.

The Bab goes as far as to say that it is better to remain ignorant
than to create this kind of disunity. But note that it is not the
learning itself which causes such problems, rather it is the inability
of the scholars to work together in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance,
resolve their differences and to humbly consider one another's views.
(My thanks to Dr. Ahang Rabbani for bringing this text to my attention
and for his commentary on it.)

It is all too easy to mistake rigidity for firmness, to imagine one is
being firm by clinging to a particular aspect of revelation while
rendering it false by failing to place it within the context of the
whole. This is largely what happened to Charles Mason Remey. Remey
always saw himself as a champion of the Covenant. During World War I
when the believers in the West were cut off from access to 'Abdu'l-
Baha, Remey zealously headed the Committee of Investigation which
declared the founders of the Chicago Reading Room to be Covenant-
breakers. After the death of the Guardain, because both the Will and
Testament and Shoghi Effendi's writings had described the Universal
House of Justice functioning alongside a living Guardian, it was
inconceivable to his understanding that the line of Guardians should
be brought to an end. Indeed if we think about it for a minute we
realize that most of those who violated the Covenant have done so
because they opposed many of the innovations which the authorized
leadership was putting in place.

A very objective history of the Faith was written in the form of a
doctoral dissertation by a non-Baha'i entitled "An Historical Analysis
of Critical Transformations in the Evolution of the Baha'i World
Faith." The author Vernon Johnson noted perceptively that major
transformations were undergone by the Baha'i community each time
leadership changed hands. Those who subsequently broke the Covenant
were typically those who wished to hold the Faith back in the form
they conceived it. As Johnson asserts "against each effort to innovate
were segments of the faith's adherents who objected to the new
developments and who saw themselves as loyal to the previous leader or
system of the religion." (p. 393). The Babis insisted that the Bab's
revelation would endure for 1,511 or 2,001 years. 'Abdu'l-Baha's
opponents accused Him of overstepping His authority and claiming a
station equivalent to a Manifestation of God. The opponents of Shoghi
Effendi accused him of having killed the liberal and universal spirit
of 'Abdu'l-Baha and constructing the Administrative Order into the
narrow, sectarian mode of other organized religions.

When strong winds blow, the trees without any roots will be the first
to blow over. But if the storm proves strong enough, even the mighty
oak will be uprooted. It is the willow, which besides having strong
roots, is flexible and can bend which best survive the most violent
tempest. The greatest dangers in religion have come from those who
were surest they understood God's Covenant most completely. This was
true of those clerics who, in every age, have rejected God's
Messengers and it has been true of some of the most infamous Covenant
Breakers as well.

Now some may object here and say "Isn't this glossing over the real
character of these people." Would Muhammad Ali have been so quick to
oppose 'Abdu'l-Baha were he not next in the line of the succession if
'Abdu'l-Baha was removed? Was not Ruth White and Ahmad Sohrab's
opposition to Shoghi Effendi rooted in their desire to have a religion
in which they could "do their own thing"? Was Mason Remey's spurious
claim to Guardianship not grounded in his own desire for leadership?
Almost certainly, yes. The fact of the matter is we tend to take the
most rigid stance on those issues which coincide with our own self-
interests. For this reason the Bab, emphasizes in the Kitab-i Panj
Sha'n, that faith must always be grounded in one's willingness to
attain the good- pleasure of God rather than because it coincides with
one's own desires. Yet in many cases our need to be right so overcomes
our dedication to truth that we can no longer distinguish between our
own desires and the Will of God. We become blind to just how self-
serving our own ideas can be.

Usually Baha'is insist that Covenant Breaking involves the most
serious kind of sin because it is committed against the Cause of God
by people who know full well what they are doing. For instance Abib
Taherzadeh distinguishes between an enemy of the Faith and a Covenant-
breaker in these terms "The former attack the Cause of God mainly
through ignorance, and perhaps they will be forgiven by God. The
latter, however, know where the Source of Truth is, but are unable to
turn to it; instead, for their own selfish reasons, they knowingly
rise up against it." (The Covenant of Baha'u'llah, pp. 253-54). Yet
'Abdu'l-Baha writes in the Will and Testament that the Covenant-
breakers "know not what they do. They discern not good from evil,
neither do they distinguish right from wrong, nor justice from
injustice." (W&T p. 28.)

So which is it? Do they know or don't they know? I submit that both
things are true. On some level they know what they are doing is wrong.
On the other hand, it is impossible that they could continue to do so,
unless they somehow manage to persuade themselves that what they are
doing is not wrong. The more radical the self-deception involved the
more radical the evil produced. As the Qur'an says: "And be ye not
like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget
their own selves. Such men are the evil doers." (Qur'an 59:19).
Radical evil is measured, not so much by the extent of one's sin, but
by one's refusal to acknowledge it. One loses all capacity to take
responsibility for one's actions.

Such people are what the psychiatrist Scott Peck terms the "People of
the Lie." They usually appear quite ordinary. But as Scott Peck notes:
"Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their own
righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about
betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the . . .
self righteous who think they are without sin because they are
unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-
examination." (People of the Lie, p. 72). Such persons according to
Scott Peck commonly use scapegoating in order to deflect blame from
themselves, sacrificing "others to preserve their self-image of
perfection." Peck goes on to say: "Scapegoating works through a
mechanism psychiatrists call projection. Since the evil, deep down,
feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are
in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict
as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they
must perceive others as bad." (pp. 73-74) We can see many of these
elements operating in the case of Mason Remey. His rigid understanding
of the Covenant persuades him that there has to be a second Guardian.
This is inextricably intertwined with his own desire to be appointed
as such. Remey finally concludes that he has been appointed and that
the Hands of the Cause are perverse for not recognizing him. Yet he
knows full well that no such appointment took place. He finally has no
choice but to blame the one who "failed" to appoint him, Shoghi
Effendi! Eventually he describes the Guardian as a "sick and
disorganized soul" and unabashedly speaks of "violations of the Faith
that were made unwittingly by Shoghi Effendi." (Johnson: 370) This
from someone who accused the Hands of having discarded the Will and
Testament! If the world confronts us with our shortcomings, how much
more does Revelation! For this reason the Day of the appearance of
Revelation is regarded as the Day of Judgement in the Baha'i Faith. As
the Qur'an says "It is to those who believe a guide and a medicine;
but as to those who believe not, there is a thickness in their ears,
and to them it is a blindness." (41:44). Peck, at one point, defines
evil "as the exercise of political power-- that is, the imposition of
one's will upon others by overt or covert coercion--in order to
avoid . . . spiritual growth.(p. 74) It is the opposite then of
submission and it is no accident that such persons will often seek out
positions of leadership in order to achieve this end. Peck goes on to
say, "Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's need to
grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgment, we have no option except
to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection." Erich From
called this kind of pathological state "malignant narcissism." As Peck
describes it, "Malignant narcissism is characterized by an unsubmitted
will. All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or
another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or
love or some ideal. . . . Not so the evil, however. In the conflict
between their guilt and their will, it is the guilt which must go and
the will that must win." (p.78) In short, the radically evil must
conceal their sinfulness from themselves. Yet if they had no
cognizance of it whatsoever, such mental gymnastics would be
unnecessary. As Scott Peck notes: "We lie only when we are attempting
to cover up something we know to be illicit. Some rudimentary form of
conscience must precede the act of lying. There is no need to hide
unless we first feel that something needs to be hidden." (pp. 75-76)
Each time God's Revelation confronts such people with the truth, they
become all the more fixed and hardened in their rejection. Thus the
Bible says "And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh." (Exodus 9:12)
It is for this reason that such persons are described as hating the
light and the Gospels describes them as having committed the
unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit (Matt.12: 31- 32).'Abdu'l-
Baha comments: "This detestation of the light has no remedy, and
cannot be forgiven; that is to say, it is impossible for him to come
near unto God . . . . if a soul has an aversion for the light of the
lamp, he is, as it were, blind, and cannot comprehend the light; and
the blindness is the cause of everlasting banishment from God." While
Covenant-breakers may be the best expression of this kind of evil to
us as Baha'is, it is by no means limited to this. Every religion has
its fair share of these kinds of people, in fact religions in general
have more than their fair share, and religious leaders more so than
any. Since radical evil is, by its very nature a cover-up, religious
hypocrisy and false piety provide one of the best means to achieve
this end. But perhaps, in another sense all persons who engage in this
kind of behavior are covenant- breakers, for our commitment to the
Covenant consists in our affirmative response to that perennial
questions, "Am I not your Lord?" And ultimately as Peck points out,
"There are only two states of being: submission to God and goodness or
the refusal to submit to anything beyond one's own will."


.

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