###### Letters & Epistles #### Dr. Leland Jensen ## **Letter to Joel Marangella** ##### January 12, 1994 > [!example]- Details >- **Pages:** 2 pages, 3 pages with end note, original pagination. >- **Dated:** 12 January 1994. >- **Addressee:** Joel Bray Marangella claimed that Charles Mason Remey had appointed him to be the third guardian following his passing. >- **About:** Dr. Jensen reaches out to an old friend made before the Violation. Gives him a quick overview of succession criteria. Subtlety informs him he was a part of a test set up by Charles Mason Remey, and does not fulfill the criteria to be the guardian. Asks him to engage in a correspondence. >- **Note**: This letter has been lightly edited for clarity and typographic consistency, and formatted for web readability. No changes have been made to paragraph structure or phrasing. Edits may include corrections to spelling and grammar, updated citations, and verification of quotation accuracy. >- **More:** Two *Editor's Notes* were added to endnote 1. Inline editor's notes have been added in square brackets where clarification was necessary. The quoted material was corrected and citations were added. >- **Version:** Draft Edit; Posted August 1, 2025. *** Dear Joel, It has been forty years since I met you in Paris on my way to Reunion Island. I visited you in your home and met your lovely wife and family. I believe I also attended a Feast or some gathering at the Center. I didn't get much out of it because I didn't understand French. I always admired you, as you were so firm in the faith. When I heard that you were the first to recognize Mason Remey, and led a number of people to come under his guardianship, this firmness in the Covenant was most admirable and made me think very highly of you. Now I am sending you this packet to have you come again under the provisions of the Covenant. This is for your safety and salvation. The catastrophe is upon us. There is so much more about the Plan of God that you don't know anything about. I am not condemning you in anyway, but trying to share with you some of the most important things in this world. I know why you split with Mason Remey. It was to save the faith, but isn't this what Ruhiyyih Khanum and the "Hands" did? These are all tests. We don't break the Covenant to save the faith. When I was with Mason Remey in Washington D.C. he told the group that I was with, including Count Harvey, Pearl Harvey, and Mary Harvey, (this was part of Donald Harvey's family that was very, very close to me) that we had passed the first test. From then on and into the future, we would never believe that the guardianship had come to an end. He said the next test was that we would know that there was a guardian, but we wouldn't know who he was. Then he started naming a number of different believers to be his successor guardian. This test was to see if we were going to go by the *Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha* to make this determination. In the *Will* it is very simple. There is a dual criteria to determine the guardianship. He Must be a son "branch" and he must be appointed by the living guardian during his lifetime. This is where the myth of a spiritual son arose, and corrupted many followers. Mason was legally adopted by 'Abdu'l-Baha. This adoption was in accordance with the laws of the Ottoman Empire, the laws of Palestine, and the laws of the present Israeli State. Mason Remey legally adopted Joseph Pepe Remey to be his son and appointed him to be his successor. No matter what you may think of Pepe, he is the only one that could possibly be the succeeding guardian. Personally, I would rather have you to be the guardian, but this is the test. One of the things that you may not already know is that Baha'u'llah in His Proclamation claimed to rule on the throne of David. That is, Baha'u'llah was a male sperm descendant of King David. His father sat on the throne of David, his grandfather sat on the throne of David, his great grandfather sat on the throne of David in an unbroken father to son descendancy from King David. If Baha'u'llah wasn't seated on the throne of David He couldn't be the second coming of Christ, for the word "Christ" means an anointed male sperm descendent of David. The very first verse of the New Testament gives Jesus' genealogy back to King David: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Then it continues from Abraham down to David (Matthew 1:6) and then down to Joseph (Matthew 1:16). If Jesus was not the sperm descendent of David through his father Joseph he could not be the Christ. Paul wrote: "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed \[from the Greek word sperma] of David according to the flesh…" (Romans 1:3). The difference between Jesus' genealogy and Baha'u'llah's is that none of Jesus' ancestors (except David himself) sat on the throne of David. Jesus descended from Nathan, a son of David, and the brother to King Solomon (Luke 3:23–31). While Jesus was hanging on the cross in Jerusalem, there was a descendent of David, (exilarch) seated on the throne of David, in Babylonia. This throne was moved to the area of pure lineage and then to Nur (Mazindaran). The genealogy from David, seated on the throne of David, all the way through to Baha'u'llah is to exist forever: >My covenant will I \[God] not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. >Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. >His seed shall endure for ever, >and his throne as the sun before me. >It shall be established for ever as the moon, >and as a faithful witness in heaven. >(Psalm 89:34–37) The Davidic Kingship is of the tribe of Judah only until Shiloh comes: >The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet \[legs], until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Genesis 49:10) The Kingship passed from the tribe of Judah when 'Abdu'l-Baha adopted\[1] Mason Remey, and he gave to Shoghi Effendi — to give to Mason Remey — a token of his inheritance: a packet containing drops of coagulated blood and a lock of hair from Baha'u'llah. The blood symbolizes the blood line of David and the hair the headship of the IBC/UHJ. Mason Remey passed this hair and blood on to Pepe. Enclosed find a shortened version of the genealogy of Baha'u'llah from David to Pepe. Joel, I have nothing against you personally. Your problem is between you and God. Everyone will be judged by what he has done (Revelation 22:12–13). This is the year of that Judgement. In fact it is only several months away. Joel, there is so much to go over with you that it is almost imperative for you to come and stay here for at least several weeks. If this is impossible then it would be better for you to write us your questions, so that we could send you the epistles or booklets to the point of question. I want you to know that we are prepared to put you up and for you to be our guest, and of course there is no charge. Please correspond with me. Leland Jensen (All Biblical quotes are from the King James version.) *** **Endnotes** **1.** Adoption: When 'Abdu'l-Baha adopted Mason Remey to succeed him to the throne of David as his son, this was legal and binding. According to the laws of the Ottoman Empire of the Middle East that ruled over Palestine before it became the State of Israel, the adoption law was that when a man called another person his son, this was a legal adoption. Then the British mandate that succeeded the Ottoman Empire retained the adoption laws of the Ottoman Empire as legal and binding under their rule. Then for the Israeli government the law for adoption has remained the same. If a man calls another his son and leaves him a token to show inheritance (whether it be a stick or a stone or something), then the adoption is legal and binding. When 'Abdul-Baha proclaimed that Mason was his son (privately, publicly and in letters published in *Star of the West* magazine), these were not "vague terms of affection but expressed the precise legal relationship which had been created between them." Here is cited the law of adoption in the Middle East (from Ottoman times to the present) upheld in the Israeli Supreme Court on June 22, 1960, long after 'Abdu'l-Baha adopted Mason to be his son. >"This idea of equating adopted children with natural children in matters of succession is well expressed in a responsum of Rabbi Jacob Emden which the learned judge cited in another decision, *In re Succession of the late Yoseph Blum deceased* (4) (at p. 161), as follows: 'If he rears the child for the **glory of God**, the child is certainly to be regarded as his child and not only in lineage, but even where the child has parents and is being brought up by a stranger as a meritorious act, if the latter has no children \['Abdu'l-Baha had no living natural sons] and is bringing the child up to be his son to succeed him and they address each other as father and son' (Responsa of Yavetz, Part I, section 168). So also with the deceased in the present case: he reared the child as his daughter to succeed him, and she called him 'Father' and he called her 'Daughter.' **These were not vague terms of affection but expressed the** **precise legal relationship which had been created between them** — at any rate with respect to the matter of succession. >… >"*Judgment given on June 22, 1960.*" > >\[Editors note: (This quote is from the judgement in Koren and Hammer v. Koren and Another, in _Selected Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel_, vol. 3, 1958–1960, ed. Asher Felix Landau (New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1968), 426–427, 432.) *Emphasis added.*] This was usually confirmed by some token such as a stick or a stone, or something, to make it definite that it was meant that it was a legal adoption. This is called institutive evidence. >"Institutive evidence is that which is created or adopted as a memorial of a fact and for the purpose of being evidence of the fact. The stone set up for a boundary; the giving and receiving of a clod of earth or a twig in livery of seizin as evidence or the transfer of the title \[etc.] … \[Editors note: (Joseph Evans Sagebeer, _The Bible in Court_ (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1892), p. 104.).] The master gave Mr. Remey what no one else ever received — relics of the Blood and Hair of Baha'u'llah; in the East this act symbolizes Mr. Remey's adoption as a son by 'Abdu'l-Baha and his becoming a member of the Holy Family. Shoghi Effendi recognized 'Abdu'l-Baha's adoption of Mason as true and legal. Immediately after the death of 'Abdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi sent Mason Remey a "package of 'Abdu'l-Baha's most sacred possession," which was left to Shoghi to give to Mason Remey as his inheritance: "locks of Baha'u'llah's hair" (which represents the headship of the IBC/UHJ) and "drops of his coagulated blood" (which represents the bloodline of David and Baha'u'llah). On the outside of the package Shoghi Effendi addressed it to 'Abdu'l-Baha's **"dear son"** whom he later appointed to the headship of the IBC/UHJ. The hair and blood are the tokens of inheritance. 'Abdu'l-Baha's most prized possession shows the evidence of the "legal adoption passed on from father to son" — 'Abdu'l-Baha to Mason. This type of direct evidence of a token is called "institutive evidence." *** `Draft posted: 1 August 2025`