Brendan Cook, a teacher, an author, an artist, an intellectual and a Baha’i critic was born in 1970s in a Baha’i family in western Canada in Saskatchewan State. He got his master in English History and Literature from Canada’s Toronto University. Brendan Cook is familiar with six Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian and English (modern, middle and Victorian) languages.
After criticizing the performance and narrow-minded viewpoint of the Baha’i organization toward the Baha’is, he was systematically pressured by the organization and the advisor and member of the deputy board in the protection branch. In 2010-2011, he preferred to move from Canada to California to escape the problems that the propaganda of the Baha’i Organization of Toronto had created against him. He is currently living in Tampa, California, and is teaching English literature at the university.
He is about 50 years old and in addition to studying, he devotes his free time to farming and taking care of flowers and plants. Brendan Cook is currently a believer in God with a traditional Christian orientation, unaffiliated with the church, and has the rational thinking of an educated person. His wife is a Hindu and they have a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. In the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, Cook, like other Baha’is who are intellectuals and critics of the establishment, sympathizes with the Palestinians.
Brendan Cook was born into a Baha’i family. Therefore, he got familiar with Baha’i Faith since childhood and was attracted to Baha’i teachings and slogans as a teenager. For about 30 years, believing in Baha’i, he was a member of the Baha’i Community of Canada and was present in Baha’i study groups and circles. In all these years, he tried to research his beliefs and not accept any issue simply. When at the age of 15, the Baha’i organization asked him to sign a membership card in the Baha’i Community of Canada, he refused to sign the enrollment (tasjil) form and stated that believing in a religion does not require formalities and completing an administrative form. Moreover, no one asks for a membership card when attending the Baha’i banquet program. As a teenager, he did not know that it is necessary to sign a special enrollment form to become a member and accept the Baha’i religion.
Brendan Cook is a skilled storyteller. He is interested in writing creative humorous and allegorical stories. He presents his criticisms with humor and metaphor to better stay in the reader’s mind. His style in satirical writing is similar to that of George Orwell in the book “Animal Castle”, which criticized communism in his book with the language of metaphor and humor. or similar to writers such as Erasmus, Thomas More, Jonathan Swift, and Voltaire. With the same creative style of humor, Cook has criticized the Baha’i administrative order and the dictatorial behavior of House of Justice in the stories of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Strange Story of Max the Infallible Donkey”.
About his writing style, he writes: “I have found in my studies that humor and parables are the best tools for dialogue and encountering the material, and Baha’i sacred subjects are also of this kind.” (quoted from the article “Travel to Puchistan”).
Despite being a member of the Baha’i community and attending and participating in its meetings and programs, Cook had many questions and uncertainties in his mind. In this regard, he himself says: “I remember at the age of seventeen, I protested to the House of Justice for spending heavy expenses to build temples and theatrical administrative buildings in Haifa.” (quoted from the writer’s interview with Cook in December 2021) “Also, I always asked my parents whether they could accept the decree of rejecting Baha’ism and stay away from a group of people accused of being so-called violators and covenant-breakers and not have any greetings or words with them?”
