While such accounts as the reported experiences in
Garabandal and Fátima could be interesting and provoke one's curiosity, we have
no way of checking the veracity of such experiences. Shoghi Effendi has advised
in his letters to the friends who asked him about psychic powers that we do not
understand the nature of such phenomena, that we have no way of being sure of
what is true and what is false, that very little is known about the mind and
its workings, and that we should endeavour to avoid giving undue consideration
to such matters. God undoubtedly has many and various methods of awakening
mankind to the significance of this day, but Bahá'ís, having recognized
Bahá'u'll'áh, should work in the full light of His Revelation and not divert
their energies into fruitless speculations concerning such phenomena as those
of Garabandal.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 3 July 1984 written on behalf of the
Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; compilation: ‘African
religions; miracles; strange phenomena’, prepared by the Research Department of
the Universal House of Justice, 6 August 1996)
