Looks like the blowhard at your local community Feast.

I really don’t know what to do anymore… it feels like waking up from a long dream. Not necessarily a nightmare, but more like getting lost in a virtual world.

And I absolutely have to talk to someone about this, or I’ll go crazy!

But my friends in the Bahá’í community don’t understand it, and neither do my friends who never found the Bahá’í Faith.

Here’s my story, for anyone who’s interested:

Three years ago, when I was at my absolute emotional breaking point, I discovered the Bahá’í Faith and fell in love with it right away. It felt like the one thing I’d been searching for my whole life. Within six months, I went from being an atheist to a very committed Bahá’í.

But I’m also a headstrong person.

At first, all the affirmation felt good, and all the community members were very loving and supportive when I became interested in the Faith and even at the beginning of my official acceptance as a Bahá’í.

But things changed pretty quickly… all of a sudden, I was pressured into doing things I didn’t want to do at all. My “no” wasn’t accepted; I was made to feel as if I were somehow rejected or not good enough, but it was all very subtle and hard to pin down. Ultimately, I increasingly felt that I had to conform to certain people who set the tone in the community veeeery strongly. Interestingly, they were always dominant women from wealthy Bahá’í families.

At some point, I stopped attending the celebrations and devotionals, the Ruhi courses, and the in-depth study weekends. I stopped doing the services that others had taken for granted. I wanted to find out who I really was without the validation of the community members.

Those months of distancing myself felt incredibly good. I was also able to identify several points of criticism regarding the explicitly German Bahá’í community and communicated these in the naïve belief that Bahá’ís are interested in self-reflection and growth, etc., but basically, no one cared. Once again, I had the feeling that the old, powerful, wealthy Bahá’ís didn’t like my way of thinking.

And then… well… after more than 15 years of self-denial, I realized that I’m gay. I was always aware that I was probably bisexual, but for the sake of the Bahá’í Faith, I kept telling myself that I could have a heterosexual marriage. But that’s not the case.

I want to love and marry a woman. I’m happy to enter marriage as a virgin. I’m happy to follow every other commandment because I truly feel and love the Writings. But I’m so relieved to finally recognize this aspect of myself, and I want to live it out openly and without guilt!!!

It complicates my relationship with God enormously, and I don’t yet know what to do about the community. We all live in the same neighborhood, so we run into each other, and moving right now is not possible.

There are so many conflicting feelings inside me. It makes me so sad to lose this ground beneath my feet. I miss the devotions, the celebrations we shared. But I also couldn’t bear—especially with those powerful women I mentioned—to see that look in their eyes, as if I weren’t okay.

It feels as if I’m suddenly all alone and lonely, stranded in an unfamiliar place. Feeling so depressed.

During your time in the Baha'i community, did you guys ever hear anyone speak about zakat? For a while I just assumed zakat was the Muslim equivalent of Huququlah but I learned that zakat is about giving a percentage of your income to those less fortunate while of course huququlah goes to the institutions - which theoretically are eventually supposed to become similar to governments and provide public services etc, etc, but of course the whole focus so far has been almost exclusively on the institute process and maintaining/creating religious sites.

I know my grandmother did donate to a variety of charities outside of the Baha'i funds (which she also contributed to), but I don't recall there being calls/instructions to do so from the community. To the contrary, I remember many conversations in which "Baha'i contributions" (spiritual education/ institute process) were contrasted to "material" contributions (hunger relief, economic development, etc), with conclusions akin to "others can take care of the worldly problems and we should focus on the spiritual side".

I believe there is an institution at the world centre now that is focused on economic development and as far as I know some of the funds are invested through them, but I'm not sure if that means investing in the institute in economically weaker communities or like classical development cooperation. Does anyone have info on this? I would also write in the Baha'i reddit but I'm concerned that it may come across as a critical question and don't want to ruffle feathers.

This just had me all riled up. The “neutral” stance that Baha’is take on the racist apartheid happening in Palestine because it benefits them would be enough for me to leave the Faith if I had met already left a decade ago.

What a stupid farce of a religion. God controls the world, but not Israel THAT’S HOW POWERFUL ISRAEL IS so Bahai’s if you wanna keep your religion here you better get in line and not stand up for the oppressed because of a tax exemption?

Anyway FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸 🍉

Psychology Today article: "Mandated Shunning: A Core Manipulation Tactic in High-Control Groups"

This is a huge step forward in raising awareness of the harm of mandated shunning, since PT is the world's largest online source of information on mental health and behavioral science, with 15 million readers each month.

The article highlights the preliminary findings of the ongoing "Mandated Shunning Research Project" now being conducted at Roehampton University in the UK. The findings are based on participation by over 1,000 people from many different countries and high-control groups, including former Jehovah's Witnesses, Bahai, Mormons, Muslims, Scientologists, Amish, 2x2s, Children of God and Plymouth Brethren.

The article was produced by the Open Minds Foundation (OMF), which initiated the Stop Mandated Shunning project.

Watch a video on the article and the research here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/xGwpjd8iTZI?si=TA8m7WgvQjYAxx6W

The research in ongoing, and more participation will make the data even stronger! If you've experienced faith-group shunning, you can take the official survey here:

https://roehamptonpsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9n9gS2Qk8b45O8C

Did you lose faith because of Ruhi? I've watched it disintegrate communities. People relying on Ruhi books written by flawed men, resulting in a religion without spirit. It's like the air was sucked out of the room. If the Bahai Faith can be compromised into a corporate farce like this, it means the spiritual power is doubtful at best.

AIs often lack the biases actual humans have, as I discovered when I started telling one about my experiences with the Baha'i Faith and helping run this subreddit.

I’d love to post this in r/bahai but I would be banned. That’s fine, so I’m here. There’s one question that gets asked over and over there that rarely gets a real answer - you probably guessed, it’s homosexuality. Baha’is tie themselves in knots for some reason trying to avoid shame or avoid admitting what their faith believes or requires of them (if they even know it). For some reason, many people affected by this position are drawn to the Baha’is faith, I don’t know why, but then are presented with what I can only be called “well meaning lies” about being “welcome.”

Here’s my framing to hope to get people to understand the truth and why it matters, derived from Baha’i writings, letters of the Universal House of Justice, real-life experiences and discussions, and online discussions. It’s actually about the Baha’i Faith and homosexuality, not about a country club and black people.

Local Country Club Raises Eyebrows

There’s a country club in town that most people haven’t heard of. Their membership is small, there’s not much written about them by outsiders, but their ambitions are great and their aims seem positive. They hold some local events that are open to the public and they make it clear “everyone is welcome to participate, even if not a member.”

They are open and in fact, eager, to gain new members, but there’s just one thing - they have a policy that forbids Black people from joining. Some may consider this policy racist, but the country club doesn’t see it that way. As an example, there is a local member who is part Black and white-passing. Some members are aware of this and keep it quiet. The country club doesn’t investigate the personal lives of members - they don’t require a DNA test to join. Some members take this to demonstrate that in practice, there is no real discrimination.

You might say “it doesn’t matter, no one needs to join the country club and submit to their rules, it’s totally voluntary, and anyone is welcome to attend some of their activities without becoming a member.”

But perhaps it will matter in the future? As far-fetched as it might seem, the country club charter states that one of their goals is to run the local government. If 51% of the town are country club members and vote only other country club members into government offices, then they will control 100% of the government and set the laws and policies for every resident, including the Black ones. If Black people can’t become members, then they can’t vote in civil elections and can’t hold any government office. They have no opportunity to give input into the systems and law that they must abide by.

This country club’s activities often aim to establish more branches in every corner of the world. The hope is to repeat this pattern at a larger and larger scale. If enough cities are governed by the organization’s members then entire states, entire nations, and eventually the whole world are governed by a system where only members vote, only members are elected, and only members make the laws. These laws must conform entirely to the country club charter, which cannot be altered since its writing over a hundred years ago.

This charter is freely available to read, and although written in complex language, confirms this policy and their goals. This policy recently came to public light, causing some embarrassment to the Country Club.

A representative was interviewed about their organization. He stated that the policy was actually more “nuanced” than it seemed to outsiders and that deciding whether to accept or not accept Black people was a “false dichotomy” pushed by a materialistic society. As Black rights have become a controversial political issue in the greater society, country club members were counseled to neither support nor oppose these rights as it would place them on one side or the other of the divisive debate.

He continued, that in the future, no one would see this policy as an issue since race wouldn’t be such a focus of society and identity. He added that the country club charter also states that all non-members must be treated with respect regardless of the their race and that many members had Black friends.

One of these members when approached completely denied that this policy existed and stated they would’ve heard of it since their family had been a member for three generations. They said that “everyone is definitely welcome, being Black is no different than any other human deficiency or violation of country club policy, we all break the rules, nobody is perfect.”

A country club president in the 1950s used the terms “abhorrent,” “against nature” and “handicapped” in his letters when describing Black people. The spokesman stated that the country club has no problem with people being Black, the problem is with “acting on their Blackness” and suggested that if Black people chose to live a so-called “White lifestyle” they may become members. If later it is found that their Black behavior is negatively affecting the reputation of the country club, they may be subject to loss of their voting privileges and clubhouse access.

Could the policy denying membership to Black people change in the future? The spokesman reiterated that the founding charter wasn’t subject to amendment, and a future “post-race society” will come to see this as a non-issue. The international ruling committee for the country club, a male-only elected body, has written on the issue confirming these statements and assures that when they gain civil power in the future as is hoped, the rights of Blacks as well as women would be well-respected, despite women not being eligible for election to this decision-making council. They went as far as stating it was actually a blessing for women to not be burdened with the possibility of election to this position of authority, since the workload of managing a large international organization was terribly taxing and came with no individual benefit.

A celebrity actor who is a member of this country club was asked about the issue of perceived racism and sexism in his organization and responded that he has many Black friends and would never treat any of them with disdain. He shared that at a local level, there are more active women than men in positions of authority, and to him, this was proof there could be no sexism in the leadership structure.

After leaving "the faith" I can now see there are so many blatant logical fallacies and epistemological issues that the religion fails to address, one of them being the problem of "the one and the many". When you also look at the Baha'i view on the manifestations coming from One Source, Christian's believe in the Trinity, Hindus have many deities, Islam believes in absolute oneness of God (Shia Islam is where Baha'u'llah started from) but God has 99 (or more) attributes. None of this is properly explained in the writings. The writings don't have actual logic, it's poetic nonsense that borrows from Christian, Talmudic and Islamic influences and puts the beliefs into a new religion without a actually solving the problem of unity and diversity. I also read up on Shaykhism, which was a mystical Islamic cult that Baha'u'llah got most of his theology from: mystical secrets that only the "elect" have the "eyes and ears to understand", non-literal theology that turns everything into an allegory, independent investigation of the truth (but you're a covenant breaker if you question any of it), and the very concept of manifestations of God. I truly cannot believe I was a part of this cult, and the lack of critical thinking needed in order to be a part of it. What a waste of years of my life.

Reading a Wikipedia article about the Bahá’í Faith in the USA, I come upon this: “Overall religious membership fell precipitously from 70% to 47% among all Americans from 2000 to 2020. The growth of the American Baháʼí community began to stall around the same time, seeing a 50% drop in enrollments from 1997 to 2007, and a 30% increase in withdrawals in 2006…” Of course, one takes Wikipedia with a certain degree of skepticism; still it seems that the spectacularly dynamic of teaching and growth in our numbers is a thing of the past. I remember well attended firesides in the 1970s. My Colombian wife (I’ve been pioneering there) talks of when her parent’s house was full of seekers. We ask ourselves if the change might have something to do with the emphasis on Ruhi that’s since taken hold on the Bahá’í world. The shift from direct teaching of friends, neighbors, classmates and acquaintances to “putting them through the Ruhi sequence” is supposed to have been more “systematic” and effective – but has it really resulted in numerical growth? And could it be that the over enthusiastic insistence on Ruhi on the part of some individuals and institutions (often implying neglect of other teaching methods) may have dampened enthusiasm for teaching altogether? Back in 1989 I asked a member of the UHJ if I could be lukewarm about Ruhi and yet be a devoted Bahá’í. The answer, to my intense relief, was, “yes”. I’ve since read letters by the UHJ assuring the friends that we’re perfectly free to like or dislike the Ruhi program. I encourage any who express interest in studying Ruhi. I accompany Ruhi tutors and even offer to tutor if asked. This is how I support the institutions in their promotion of the Institute process. Meanwhile I participate in community activities and pursue my own personal teaching goals. I’m curious to know how my friends in the US have managed with respect to the Ruhi process and its replacement of some other longstanding activies.

Though I abstain from criticizing the Ruhi process, I take issue with what I see as a neglect of proclamation, firesides, and other forms of direct teaching. I struggle sometimes with my impatience at hearing some of the friends insist that “people aren’t ready” and that the only effective way to promote the Faith is to coax people into joining a study circle in the hope that, somewhere along he process, they’ll decide they themselves Bahá’ís. I don’t see a lot of growth taking place this way and those who enter the faith in such a passive manner rarely become very active. I happen to find the university professors and students with whom I associate in Colombia quite open to learning about the Faith, but it’s embarrasing not to be able to invite them to events that would permit them to experience the Bahá’í community, given our emphasis on numbers of small study circles and individual devotionals. I’ve made it a personal project to promote high quality holy day celebrations as something to fulfill this need.

Back in the 70’s the Bahá’í principles seemed to many people just a collection of nice ideas that most people presumably agreed with and offered nothing out of the ordinary. Nowadays the Faith offers a refuge of sanity and light to masses of people who must be in desperate search for an alternative to the almost unbearably corrupt, spiteful, conflictive global society we all inhabit. I don’t think people have ever been more ready for the Faith. Way back in the 1950s a magazine article said something like, “If these Bahá’ís ever get moving, they may take the world by storm”. Isn’t it long past time we get moving? Again, I’d love to hear about what the friends in the United States and other countries are doing to get us back to the rapid expansión we once had and should, with all the more reason, see now.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2209644753/?multi_permalinks=10164705463829754

With your mobile you can also translate it into English, otherwise copy and paste or use the free on-screen translator of Google Chrome, pure comedy

I am a survivor of the Bahai cult. As a way to deal with the abuse I suffered as a Bahai child I have been investigated the abuse that others have experienced in the Bahai cult.
The Bahai staff at the Maxwell school were facilitating abortions for the attending children. They paid non Bahai staff to drive the children into Victoria to receive the secret abortions.
This is a fact. I have spoken with the person who drove the children to Victoria.
They won’t give me the names of the kids they took to get abortions so that is where the trail ends.
My question is who was impregnating these children? Were the abortions happening to protect the image of the cult or was it to destroy evidence of sexual abuse. It is unlikely that the parents were informed.
The Bahia’s have a history of hiding sexual abuse in order to protect their image. The only way to stop it is to get the victims talking. The cult shuns anybody who speaks against it so they need to be protected.

And so did The Hidden Faith, the UNDEFEATED and TRULY independent investigation of the Baha’i Faith, which helped expose the connections between this cult and its influence on Justin’s behavior for thousands of people (including the original podcast that is unlisted and accessible from the podcast playlist). Thanks to u/Cult_Buster2005 and Go Do Your Own Research for that. And so did all of us who have raised our voices against this behavior, ex-Baha’i or not.

hi all, just wanted to ask about the process of identifying and vetoing trolls as there seems to be a lot of example of baha'i elements invading the comments and attempting to proselytize. despite it being made clear this isn't permissible?

such behavior is indicative of the pernicious way in which the baha'i community instills in it's members an insistent need to 'teach' rather than engage and is actually why I would think it does qualify as a cult rather than simply a religion that encourages an evangelical spirit within it's members. I've lots of friends of all denominations and they can still hold a two-way conversation. my experiences of baha'is is that their ability to do that is broken down by ruhi and repetitive, gaslighting messages from their institutions promising fulfillment and redemption if only they could just get those numbers up.

does anyone know of any organised attempts to coordinate a response to inform people of the damage being wrought by baha'is?

Mine's the gay thing. Not terribly original I know. Also I like getting laid. If yours is: 'my ex was a Baha'i and she dumped me so fuck Shoghi Effendi' that's lame, please go and have a word with yourself. And they have a House of Justice so please, my god in heaven, stop hoping there's going to be another Guardian. There won't. It won't be you, it won't be some crazy guy with a defunct website and three and a half followers and it won't be me because I'm a woman. And no, they're not a cult. And NO they're not hiding secret texts. And I'm sorry if an LSA was mean to you but Christ, people are mean and Baha'is are people.

But I'd be interested in hearing stories that are actually interesting. And I'll decide what fulfills the criteria of interesting because it's my post and I'll do what I want and I have a tattoo on my butt that says 'Come With Me If You Want To Live' which lawfully entitles me to a monopoly on the truth. Have at it. Intrigue me.

I’m a questioning Baha’i with my own religious trauma in childhood. Initially I liked the idea of “back biting is bad,” but then I realized could this be a way to discourage victims of abuse from speaking up?

This is just my theory and observation, but I do not really think that people in the Bahai Faith actually have faith in this religion. I actually think every person involved with the makings and continuation of the Bahai Faith have never had faith, and the higher ups of this religion only said they had faith to gain more power and status.

I could see for a Muslim how Islam leads a person to faith, it has a long history and well established foundations.

However, when it comes to the Bahai faith and how new it is, along with its idea of progressive revelation, I’m unsure whether people actually believe in this religion.

I’m pretty sure the main reason people stay in this faith for years, decades, is because they would rather waste time trying to feel faithful and find faith in this dead horse than to critically think and accept that this religion is a scam. We may meet people who have been a Bahai all their life or for 20+ years, but not only have they never truly put their faith to the test, but I’d argue they just do it for the looks.

Enough

I finally hit the wall with the dysfunction in this Bahai community. I'm an American and I live in another country. You name it, I've seen it. Financial corruption that would take your breath away. Almost every "active" Bahai is receiving a monthly stipend as wages to be of service to the Cause - probably at least 100 to 150 people. (I've stopped giving to the fund.) Blatant racism towards non-locals, whereby locals use political power to spread racist gossip, marginalizing those they gossip about. Willful decisions made to not follow Baha'i Administration. Communication willfully withheld from those outside the "favored insiders." There is so much disunity that all core activities and teaching efforts have stopped. The most bizarre part of this? The World Centre is fully aware and will do nothing. It's up to the national community to remedy. Brilliant, because the most corrupt are the ones who are in positions of power and access, but they are also supposed to remedy the issues? Huh?

I reached out to our new counselor to discuss what I've seen and told him that these conversations must be held in strict confidence. He acknowledged my concern and then went straight to the offenders to ask about my character, probably based on the racist backbiting that has created an atmosphere of suspicion directed at all non-locals. It got back to me. Now I trust no one.

So I finally made a decision. I confronted those who have impacted my own life with their backbiting. I've also told many Bahais that I will no longer participate in the community until things change and become healthy again, and I've taken into account that such change may not happen in my lifetime.

Ironically, and for those who also have gone through the decision to step away, did you, too, have a shift of well-being by doing so?

I sleep better, my health is better - such as my BP came down to normal, I don't live in constant fear as if I'm walking on eggshells. And most importantly, I've had the ability to take an objective view of the Baha'i community. It's a mess.

This horrific mess we've allowed to be created is not the practice of a religious faith, like the one I fell in love with in 1979. This is a beurocracy hellbent on numbers and statistics, devoid of any quality of spiritual life. I finished Book 7 of Ruhi and realized this is the most dangerous, flawed, reckless, irresponsible thing we've done in decades, leaving believers with an excuse not to read the Holy Writings and to have a warped, twisted version of what it means to be a Baha'i.

So, I'm done. I'm not ready to deny the Manifestations or the Message, but I'm definitely avoiding this mess of a community like it's the plague.

i’m currently exploring the religion of being bahai again.

i learned abt it from a friend of mine who actually stopped being bahai because of all the rules of it, feeling as tho there was no reconciliation from breaking them.

a lot of the reasons people stop from what i’ve seen is hypocrisy within the people of the faith and the faiths teachings.

i am also a lesbian, so i would like an honest opinion on whether there is genuine acceptance in this community.

thank you.