Shoghi Effendi said enrolled, enlisted under the banner of Bahá’u’lláh, embrace the Faith, converted.

And I have something else to say and that is for Pete's sake, it won't have any effect but I'm gonna say it anyway, stop saying declared. I cannot endure it any longer. I hate it with all my soul. Bahá’u’lláh declared himself in 1863 because He had something to say. And He made a statement that He was, you know, whatever it was. And Shoghi Effendi said we don't even know what He said. But the point is the Báb declared himself to Mullá Ḥusayn. And we do have pretty clear idea from Nabil's narrative what He said, it was a declaration. But this word of having declared, and declaration card is driving me mad. And sometimes I get so fed up with it that I say it's one of the main reasons I'd like to die, so I don't have to hear it anymore. It's awful. Go back to Shoghi Effendi, I put it all in The Priceless Pearl but nobody didn't go in... [Audience member: We didn't read it, another person: I did.] But nobody paid any attention to it.

Shoghi Effendi said enrolled, enlisted under the banner of Bahá’u’lláh, embrace the Faith, converted. The only place he ever said declared, was in the middle of a big paragraph in these original what we call Baháʼí administration letters. And it's buried in the middle of that, "for those who have declared their belief in Bahá’u’lláh" and he goes on to say something else. And this is the age of cliches and the Americans, God bless them, they got ahold of this word "declared" and they took it out and now declared, declared. "I declared, he declared, we declared, you declared, they declared." And just, you know, like a rubber stamp. Driving me mad. I fight against it tooth and nail, but it has very little effect so.

-Ruhiyyih Khanum (Talk with pioneers in Petionville, Haiti 15 May 1981)