The number one reason the Baha'i Faith functions exactly like a cult is the fact that its institutions are obsessed with rooting out "internal enemies" to expel and threaten. This obsession with pitting the Baha'is against their own is absolutely a control mechanism designed to deter people from asking questions and "independently investigating the truth". From the Faith's own scripture:
"The International Teaching Centre is invested with the mandate to watch over the security and ensure the protection of the Faith of God. It must investigate all cases of incipient Covenant-breaking—employing, as necessary, the services of the Continental Counsellors and their auxiliaries and evaluating their reports—and decide whether the offender should be expelled from the Cause, submitting the decision to the Universal House of Justice for its consideration. It follows a similar procedure for the reinstatement of a contrite Covenant-breaker. More broadly, it needs to be attentive to the spiritual health of the Bahá’í community, urging the Counsellors and their auxiliaries to strengthen the believers to resist the influence of both external and internal sources of opposition to the Cause, and to assist National and Local Spiritual Assemblies in resolving questions that could raise doubt about the integrity of the Faith and its Teachings."
"The need to protect the Faith from the attacks of its enemies may not be generally appreciated by the friends, particularly in places where attacks have been infrequent. However, it is certain that such opposition will increase, become concerted, and eventually universal. The writings clearly foreshadow not only an intensification of the machinations of internal enemies, but a rise in the hostility and opposition of its external enemies, whether religious or secular, as the Cause pursues its onward march towards ultimate victory. Therefore, in the light of the warnings of the Guardian, the Auxiliary Boards for Protection should keep “constantly” a “watchful eye” on those “who are known to be enemies, or to have been put out of the Faith”, discreetly investigate their activities, alert intelligently the friends to the opposition inevitably to come, explain how each crisis in God’s Faith has always proved to be a blessing in disguise, and prepare them for the “dire contest which is destined to range the Army of Light against the forces of darkness”."
https://www.bahai.org/documents/bwc/institution-counsellors
"To be attentive to the spiritual health of the Bahá’í community, strengthening the believers to resist the influence of both internal and external enemies and ensuring, to this end, that the Continental Counselors assist National and Local Spiritual Assemblies in dealing with questions that cast doubt on the integrity of the Faith and its teachings."
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19980610_001/1#954995191
"Spiritual health" is a euphemism for blind submission to the Baha'i clergies absolute hold over a Baha'is time and finances.
A particularly insightful message about the cult-like nature of the Faith is this one:
"The individual’s relation to society is explained by Shoghi Effendi in the statement that “The Bahá’í conception of social life is essentially based on the principle of the subordination of the individual will to that of society. It neither suppresses the individual nor does it exalt him to the point of making him an anti-social creature, a menace to society. As in everything, it follows the ‘golden mean.’”"
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19881229_001/1#940150263
"A Bahá’í will understand that an upright life is based upon observance of certain principles which stem from Divine Revelation and which he recognizes as essential for the well-being of both the individual and society. In order to uphold such principles, he knows that, in certain cases, the voluntary submission of the promptings of his own personal conscience to the decision of the majority is a conscientious requirement, as in wholeheartedly accepting the majority decision of an Assembly at the outcome of consultation."
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/compilations/issues-related-study-bahai-faith/12#024995601
Quite literally the Faith does not allow for individuality or freedom of speech by its very design. In response to accusations of restricting freedom of speech the Universal House of Justice has basically just said that restriction is good with an emotive appeal to imagery of hate speech borrowed from the partisan politics Baha'is pour so much derision onto:
"With regard to the accusation that to make such distinctions borders on restriction of the freedom of speech, one should accept that civil society has long recognized that utterance can metamorphose into behaviour, and has taken steps to protect itself and its citizens against such behaviour when it becomes socially destructive. Laws against sedition and hate-mongering are examples that come readily to mind."
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/compilations/issues-related-study-bahai-faith/12#280040721
In the same message we read:
"It will surely be clear to you from the above comments that the categories of “issues of doctrinal heresy which must therefore be suppressed” and “the imposition of orthodoxy on the Bahá’í community”, to which you refer, are concepts essentially drawn from the study of Christianity and are inapplicable to the far more complex interrelationships and principles established by the Bahá’í Faith."
There is no justification whatsoever offered to support the idea that religious suppression is only a Christian issue, alas as the Universal House of Justice must not be questioned on pain of excommunication the logical gaps in this conclusion must simply be swept under the rug by Baha'is.
Another defense of the modern day witch-hunting of the Faith is hilariously as follow:
"Typically, when misrepresentations of the kind described are challenged, the reaction of those behind the campaign has been to claim that their civil rights are being threatened, an assertion that is of course meaningless in the light of the purely voluntary nature of Bahá’í membership."
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/19990407_001/1#850909137
An extremely slippery tactic, actually utilizing the Faith's irrelevancy as a defense of its cult like attempt at absolute control over its followers. Considering the goal of the Faith is to establish an Absolute Theocracy with the Universal House of Justice as unchallengeable dictator this defense of the Faith's cult-like tendencies as being a "choice" is a very temporary one if one accepts the Faith ever has a chance of its goal of world domination.
Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/np341r/the_cultlike_obsession_with_internal_enemies/
