There is a video recently uploaded to youtube that refers to Shoghi Effendi, the first Guardian of the Bahai Faith, as a seer and oracle because he apparently predicted the internet years before anyone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V28gQFnnFA
The video sets forth the famous quote of the first Guardian about the internet: "A mechanism of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvellous swiftness and perfect regularity." The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 203.
It appears the video was created by a heterodox Bahai (it is an ad for the Bahai Faith presently headquartered in Haifa and Wilmette that we call heterodox because they have strayed from the original teachings of the Faith). I don't know what is most remarkable. The fact that these Bahais continue to deify Shoghi Effendi by referring to him as a seer and an oracle, or the fact that a heterodox Bahai has actually read the World Order of Baha'u'llah. Of course, Shoghi Effendi was not a seer. He was the Guardian and he was giving his interpretation of the teachings of Baha'u'llah. The Guardian is an ordinary human being who holds a divine office, and therefore he is guided when performing his official functions in the Faith. The video makes it sound like Shoghi Effendi was the Prophet of the Bahai religion.
This did get me to thinking about the internet, and what a gift from God it is. Not only is it removing the national barriers and creating a global community, but it is such an arena of freedom that the heterodox Baha'is are unable to silence their critics. Not that they are not trying to do so. They will fail, however, as long as the internet is free "from national hindrances and restrictions."
