"Concerning your question as to the status of those individuals
whom the Local Assembly or the N.S.A. have considered
it necessary to deprive of the voting right and to suspend from
local meetings and gatherings; such action which Local and
National Assemblies have been empowered to take against such
recalcitrant members, however justified and no matter how
severe, should under no circumstances be considered as implying
the complete expulsion of the individuals affected from the
Cause. The suspension of voting and other administrative
rights of an individual, always conditional and therefore temporary,
can never have such far reaching implications, since it
constitutes merely an administrative sanction; whereas his
expulsion or ex-communication from the Faith, which can be
effected by the Guardian alone in his capacity as the supreme
spiritual head of the community, has far-reaching spiritual
implications affecting the very soul of that believer. The
former, as already stated, is an administrative sanction, whereas
the latter is essentially spiritual, involving not only the
particular relationship of a believer to his local or National
Assembly, but his very spiritual existence in the Cause. It
follows, therefore, that a believer can continue calling himself a