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Gary wrote: "There is a dimension to this that hasn't been brought up. If the
Guardian were to nominate a successor in a Will, and this choice were then rejected by
the Hands, there would be no opportunity for the deceased Guardian to nominate any other
candidate... It was essential that the Guardian appoint the successor in his life-time in
order to allow for a second choice."
My personal reading of this, is that the Guardian would have followed the
pattern of his predecessors, and named his successor Guardian in his last will
and testament. The heart of Baha'u'llah's Will is His appointment of
Abdu'l-Baha as His successor. The heart of Abdu'l-Baha's will is His
appointment of His twin successors, the House of Justice and the Guardianship.
The heart of Shoghi Effendi's will would have been the same -- designation of
his successor Guardian. Since there were no candidates, he wrote no will. How
could he write a will giving away his paltry possessions? The will of the Head
of the Faith is not an ordinary will.
He would have, during his lifetime, named his successor in his will. He would have
called together the nine hands, and presented to them his will. This would avoid, after
his death, any issue about the authenticity of his will, such as Ruth White raised after
the passing of Abdu'l-Baha. Shoghi Effendi would also have designated his successor, and
after his passing, the nine hands would present the will and say, "This is the will
that Shoghi Effendi showed to us. And in that will he named so-and-so as his successor
Guardian, and we voted on this, and we assented to this selection during Shoghi Effendi's
lifetime. And now that Shoghi Effendi has ascended to the next world, we, the nine Hands
who worked most closely with him, we certify that this was his will, and we certify that
this is the person whom he chose as his successor, and we are the first people to turn to
and accept the new Guardian. We now present the new Guardian to you."
I think all of these provisions in the Will were to remove all doubt, so the
succession would move smoothly, and no one would question whether this was
Shoghi Effendi's will, whether this was his successor, etc.
So, the fact that Shoghi Effendi was to designate his successor during his lifetime, means that scenario to me.
The false claim that Mason Remey made 50 years ago, and that his followers make
today, is that Shoghi Effendi appointed Remey as his successor, hidden in one
of his messages he sent out to the Baha'i world during his lifetime. They say
that the function of the Hands was to search the messages of Shoghi Effendi and
look for hints and suggestions. And this is what Remey based his claim on --
hints and suggestions and innuendo. However, that's not how the Covenant
works. Baha'u'llah designated Abdu'l-Baha *by name*. Abdu'l-Baha wrote Shoghi
Effendi's *name*, and said to turn to him. There is *nothing* in Shoghi
Effendi's writings that says to turn to Remey, nothing that says Remey will be
his successor Guardian -- which is pretty obvious, because Remey wasn't a
member of the Holy Family.
Remey had himself repeatedly stated in writing that Shoghi Effendi named no Guardian, that he named no successor, that he could not name a successor because there were no men in Baha'u'llah's family who were candidates. Two years later he changed his tune, when he decided to try to claim the Guardianship.
I have written on these subjects in detail on my blog
http://bahai-covenant.blogspot.com look on the right for the links about Mason
Remey, and the Hands, and Shoghi Effendi not having written a will.
Best regards
Brent
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