April 9,1976
Joseph Pepe Remey
Via Malenchini 6
Florence, Italy
Dear Guardian,
Your letter of March 19 arrived before I was able to mail you my letter of March 1, which is enclosed herewith. I delayed mailing this to you for I was diligently working on the second edition of 'The Beast', enlarging and revising it for it to be more comprehensive and a better teaching aid, and then having it printed and included along with my letter of March 1. This has just come off the press so I'm sending along with this letter both 'The Beast' and my letter of March 1.
It is imperative that I write this letter to you because there are some issues that must be dealt with and really cannot be put off any longer. I will list them here, but possibly not in the order in which I will deal with them:
You have been writing to the friends telling them to stop calling you Guardian.
To stop sending you contributions in the name of the Guardian.
You propose many Guardians.
You propose sincerity as to be the cause of unity.
You put forth the criteria for solving problems 'to do nothing.'
You defend Donald in his attack upon us in publishing Baha'i material.
The reason that getting into these areas are so important is that if the friends followed your recommendations, they would be going against the Covenant and we are all commanded to be firm and steadfast in the Covenant. Many times you have written that it isn't the person of the Guardian but the Guardianship that we need to be firm in, but for Heaven's sake, Pepe, everyone realizes that we cannot be firm in the Covenant without being firm in accepting the one who is the Guardian, and there is just one Guardian at a time not many of them not matter how many Mason. Remey put on any particular list. It is only possible to be firm in the Guardian by being under the one who is the Guardian, and there is no other way, with all rhetoric aside. When the friends find the one who is that Guardian, they have no other alternative but to call him Guardian and send him contributions, whether he accepts his station or not. You see, Pepe, if we disregard being firm in the Covenant our spiritual assistance is cut off, so please don't try to persuade the friends here any longer from being firm in this Covenant of God by any ambiguities or anything else.
You talk about spiritual unity coming about by being united in sincerity and again, for Heaven's sake, this isn't the criteria that God gave us for world unity
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but His Covenant and nothing else. Down through the ages the Christians became divided up into numerous senseless sects and divisions, each being very sincere in their beliefs. God didn't wish for this to continue any longer. Therefore, with His Most Great Pen He entered into a Covenant with the believers to turn unto 'Abdu'l-Baha after His passing, and Abdu'l-Baha in his Will and Testament set up the Twin Institutions of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice and commanded all of the believers to turn thereunto and to nothing else.
I was hoping in my letters to you and by the letters of many of the friends here to you we would be able to induce the Guardianship of the Faith to become a more responsible institution--the one that God had intended it to be--to diligently deal with the problems of the Faith with proper solutions so that the friends may live together with the utmost of love and unity, one for the other. But you, Pepe, and again, for Heaven's sake, have adopted an almost unbelievable criteria for the solution of the problems--when you don't know what to do, do nothing. Mason used this defective criteria with many disastrous results:
1. Right after the passing of the First Guardian, when the Hands broke the Covenant by rejecting the Guardianship by rejecting the Second Guardian of the Faith, Mason did nothing until they had completely brainwashed the entire Baha'i world community with their poison of Covenant-breaking, until that entire diseased body now has been cut surgically, completely out of the healthy body of the Baha'i Faith.
2. When Rex King started taking over the Bahai Faith in 1963 and it became clear and evident to Mason that this was the case, Mason employed this criteria of his and did nothing until Rex was able to again poison those that were under the Guardianship and again split the Faith wide open.
3. Then again when I made my proclamation to Mason in 1971 he did nothing, bringing the administration of the prison and all of those that would have supported the Faith down on me as if I was some poor deluded old man.
Because Mason had a faulty criteria and brought much harm to the Faith, there is no need for you to adopt this faulty criteria and to compound the harm by so doing. If Mason was not sure that I was the one that I claimed to be, and he had become too debilitated for him to come here and confront me, he could have, through correspondence with my wife gotten the information that would have been necessary in order to make a decision or he could have sent you here to talk with me. In fact, there was a number of people that he had appointed as Hands, such as Charley Murphy, that could have come and interviewed me. Pepe, if you are in doubt in the least concerning my claim, certainly the means are available to you to receive all of the information essential for each and every point to become completely clarified. Certainly I don't intend for anybody to make a decision if they have grave doubts in their mind. You can be sure that if the conditions were reversed and you had made the claim to be the Promised One of God and had offered such an overabundance of proof and explanations as I have given you, and I was still in doubt and couldn't get the information that was necessary, you can be sure that I would be on the next plane for Florence.
Now concerning your Guardianship, the way that you have written to me and the friends here shows that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the Third Guardian. And you in your letter to Brent stating that you have been acting
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cowardly and being ambiguous about it brings me to the point of imploring upon you to become more responsible in your position of Guardian. This Cause has suffered for so long and so severely that here in Montana I had to start from scratch. The Cause was at such a low ebb that if God hadn't purposed the Promised Joshua to change the fortunes of the Faith there would be no life left upon this planet. Singly and alone except for the other Knight, locked in a cell in prison, barred from public discourse with all communications being censored, I commenced and now have raised up a whole new body of believers that are trying their best to live the life, to teach the Cause of God, and above all to be firm in the Covenant of God. Therefore I don't want anyone, including the Guardian, even in the slightest way putting this movement down.
You wrote in your letter to Brent defending Donald's attack upon me and the friends here for publishing the Baha'i material by comparing what we were doing to what that NSA was doing back in 1963 in trying to prevent the Covenant-breaking Baha'is from publishing the Bahai material, and there is all the difference in the world between these two instances. When I was with Mason in 1961, he told me not only was he going to prevent them from publishing the Baha'i material but he was going to sue the NSA in court and take the Temple. When I asked him what he was going to do with the Temple, he said 'sell it, of course'; he said 'the faith needs the money'. What that NSA was doing was not contrary to Mason's lead, but both taking the Temple away from them and trying to prevent them from publishing the Baha'i material is like twisting the lion's tail. The Covenant-breakers have millions at their disposal, they have a battery of lawyers and legal experts and were backed by world opinion--it was like twisting the lion's tail. Any court would be reluctant to render true justice in that type of situation. But what we are doing is something entirely different. It seems that Donald doesn't seem to have sensed the difference. What we are doing is to bring to the people the Word of God that has been given to us by God for that particular purpose. Baha'u'llah never intended that the Word of God be withheld. The only reason for the publishing rights in the first place is so that some enemy of the Cause might not gain copyrights to the Baha'i material and then prevent the Baha'is from using them. Certainly if the Covenant-breakers tried to prevent us from publishing this material, especially with it being done and distributed free of any charge or renumeration, here in this situation we would not be institutirg a suit but would be defendants and the sympathy of the courts would be on the side of the underdog, especially as we would be able to prove that we are under the Provisions of the Covenant and they are not and that the Guardianship has the final say in the copyrights. Also, you can be almost absolutely sure that the Covenantbreakers would not institute legal action against us on these grounds for we not only would be sure of winning but the publicity that would be engendered by it getting in the communication media would bring our message to their deluded followers--and this is the last thing that they would want. Right now we are not a threat to them, so they will leave well enough alone. But should we have the great projection as I predict--as we shall have, if the Guardian supports the great projection as we are imploring him to do--then they might come down on us. But then also we will have a multitude of supporters of our own, and some of these will be public figures, government officials, and men in high places, as Shoghi Effendi predicted, to defend our rights.
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Many times you have alluded as the reasons for putting the Guardianship aside at the present, and you state in your last letter to me "if this is not a workable solution, then it must all be put off until one can be found but as things stand, Donald cannot be put aside for surely there was a spiritual motivation for all that has transpired." Also, in other letters you have stated that you have decided to do nothing as you didn't want to cause a split in the Faith. It seems to me that you are trying to protect Donald and as a result the Guardianship becomes irresponsible. You state that you and Donald are together spiritually. If this is as you state, and I have no reason to doubt it, then how in the world could Donald cause a split in the Faith by not going along with you. If you two are as one, there's no difficulty. You know Mason never intended Donald to be the Guardian. He thought he would outlive him, therefore he appointed him to satisfy you and also the rest of the Baha'is as he thought Donald was acceptable to them. But before he passed, he took the medallion from around his neck and placed it around yours--and no matter what you do with that medallion, whether you give it to Donald or anyone else, you are the Guardian of the Baha'i World Faith until you pass on and we can accept no one else. When you protect Donald as you are, you are doing him a great injustice for he has a high station as an Elder of the Faith. When one says that he believes, God immediately sets aside a high station for that individual for him to earn, win, and possess. This is an eternal station that one possesses and can never be taken away from him. This is won by the exercise of freedom of choice, which is the Pearl of Great Price. Only in this life do we have the freedom of choice. Therefore, only in this life can we win the Pearl of Great Price. In the next life we all advance towards God, each one in his own station, but the station cannot be won in the next life. The hell in the next life is that when one used their franchise in this life, of the freedom of choice, they failed to use it on the side of God and the eternal loss of their station is their hell eternally. For instance, Peter will always be Peter and Judas will always be Judas. Jesus said 'iniquities must come but woe betide them by whom they come.' God has set aside a great station for Donald--that of Elder--but by him masquerading as the Guardian, he is being deprived of his franchise of freedom of choice to attain it. Should he pass in this confused state in the next life he will find that he had lost the Pearl of Great Price and he will look down on you as the one who deprived him of it. We cannot save anyone; we can only point the way. When Shoghi Effendi appointed Mason to be his successor, he turned to his wife, Ruhyyih Khanum, and told her that he couldn't save her, that her salvation was in her own hands. He didn't try to protect her by preventing her from exercising her franchise of freedom of choice, but left the situation to be a test to the entire world. You see, Pepe, that there is so much for Donald to do before he passes, as an Elder of the Faith--and by all means he must be given the opportunity of choosing to go along with the Divinely-appointed institution of the Guardianship by your presenting to him all the facts of your Guardianship. He has already failed by his masquerading as Guardian to recognizing the Promised Joshua by denying him with the same missile that was hurtled against 'Abdu'l-Baha by the arch Covenant-breakers. The sooner that each and everyone recognizes the reality of things the way they are, the better, then
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they can make their decision from a sense of clarity. For instance, by Mason Remey remaining silent concerning the Covenant-breaking of the former Hands for several years, these hands and the Bahai world made their decision from the standpoint of confusion, and Mason stated that they were confused--but it was too late for him to de-confuse them.
Dear Guardian, I hope you understand that I am not dictating to you in any way whatsoever, but am pouring out my soul to you for what I think is for the good of the Cause, leaving you the franchise to make up your own mind. The sooner that we get together, the better. The best way to do this is for you to go down to the air office and get yourself a ticket and be with us here the 25th.
Dr. Opal and the friends here join me in sending you our very deepest love and best wishes in your Guardianship.
Faithfully in El Abha,
Dr. Leland Jensen
Source: Dave Cornell, http://web.archive.org/web/20030525160915/www.lelandjensen.net/html/doc/760409pepe.htm