AN ANARCHICAL VIEW OF THE KEYS pt. 2

NETWORK MODELS

When we want to obtain something from Heaven’s hand we have to first connect to the mind of the Lord and let His thoughts filter into our own consciousness, otherwise there is a high likelihood that the things received are not of God. The Latin word ‘data’ is a past participle of the verb ‘dare’ and translates as “Things given.” If we want to make sure that what we are getting is in fact coming from the Source of all good, it can be extremely helpful to have some type of network model. Man has devised many different types of network

Network Model for Working with God

models but all of them are characterized by the following components: a set of nodes, and connections between nodes. The nodes receive inputs, and process them to obtain an output. The connections determine the information flow between nodes. They can be unidirectional, when the information flows only one way, and bidirectional, when the information flows either way. The interactions of nodes through the connections lead to a global behavior of the network, which cannot always be observed in the elements of the network. This global behavior is said to be emergent. This means that the abilities of the network supersede those of its elements alone, making networks very powerful tools.

Network Models

One very popular class of networks is an artificial neural network or ANN. This is a mathematical model inspired by biological neural networks in our body’s own anatomy. These artificial neural networks are used to model complex relationships between inputs and outputs or to find patterns in data. Artificial Neural Networks, especially those that are more closely based on the Central Nervous System’s Neural Pathways of the Lord, can help us to “make His pathways straight” as we are admonished to do by both Isaiah and John the Baptist (Matt. 3:3,Isaiah 40:3, Luke 3:4). Anyone who studies network systems will be familiar with mathematical equations where  signifies some predefined activation function. Anyone who studies the Holy Scriptures will know that a pre-stood ey is a similar concept. Enthusiasts in the field of computers will know that   is sometimes used to show that a data processor has an unlocked multiplier, meaning it can be easily over-locked to much higher frequencies. But do those same enthusiasts think to apply that practical knowledge in their Elder’s Quorums to enthuse themselves and their brethren with the Spirit of God and over-lock to the Most High frequency? We could look at network models in cognitive psychology, theoretical neuroscience, or even artificial intelligence, but ANNs and even the CNS will only get us so far in understanding spiritual matters. The ancient Jews had their network model known as abbalah with its Tree of Life Diagram for explaining the “Condescension of God” and bestowing Keys. The Masons borrow heavily from the ancient Jews and we borrow heavily from the Masons.  But sadly, the Church Inc. has become better at storing than restoring. Great truths are locked away in mountain vaults and if ever they are brought out to see the light of day and benefit the general membership of the Church, the “Brethren” react with excommunications.

THEIR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD

There have been of late some increasingly heavy-handed and under-handed practices employed by Church leadership. The same secret cabals embedded in secular society have been even more openly brutal in their exercise of unrighteous dominion. Even when the worst they manage to do is to manage an army of potentially powerful servants of the Lord through spiritless management meetings, the outcomes are embarrassing to enraging for serious servants of the Lord like Alan Rock Waterman and his anonymous Bishop friend who exposed Saltican City’s latest training video for the vainglorious affront to God that it is. (see Pure Mormonism blog post Training Day) The die-rectors of the video were sure to coach L. Tom Perry and his little crew of actors to mention the word “Keys” as many times as possible. The editors of this P.R.iesthood Training/ Power Draining tutorial were sure to leave exactly 33 mentions of the word “Keys”. 33 is the degree of a Master Mason. 33 is the precise number of minutes that the lights went out at this year’s Super Bowl Mass Ritual. It is a literal and spiritual power failure that the secret combinations wish to perpetuate on us.

https://www.lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/priesthood-keys?lang=eng

If we desire to be men of God, our spiritual actions had better pack a punch. The earliest usage of the word ‘punch’ meant to puncture, so it carried that cleaving quality common to all keys. But by the late 16^th century – right around the time that Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was socially pressured into retracting some of his harder-hitting work in a similar manner to what Joseph Smith Jr. would do over two centuries later – this key-word, “punch” as a verb and its accompanying sign, “punch” as a physical action were somewhat corrupted. ‘Punch’ as a noun now signified “a blow with the fist.”  It still managed to retain a figurative sense of “forceful, vigorous quality” down through the centuries of the so-called Enlightenment. But unfortunately when we hear the word “punch” these days the first thing to enter or “puncture” our mind is typically a picture of brute force and secondly the vigor which is a quality which can only be imparted by the spirit. Thus evil magicians were able to triumph over good magicians.

How does such a terrible thing happen? It happens subtly. The second definition of the word ‘punch’ as a noun provides us with a key to understanding how our keys are effectively disabled by tricksters, traitors and tyrants. ‘Punch’ can also mean “a mixed drink”. This definition actually traces back to the most ancient Proto-Indo-European roots of the word. It is derived from Sanskrit ‘panchan-s’ through Hindi ‘panch’ meaning “five,” in reference to the number of original ingredients (spirits, water, lemon juice, sugar, spice). If we think about it there is a more subconscious reference going on here as well, because “five” is also the number of fingers on a man’s hand. It is funny to think how in current-day Christ-Shun culture we use the phrase “spike the punch” meaning “to add alcohol to a fruit drink.” The original recipe for true punch invariably held to by our ancestors until relatively recently already and always included alcoholic spirits. The five original ingredients of punch and the five fingers of the hand have symbolic reference to the five elements of water, fire, earth, air and lastly but most importantly, spirit which circulates throughout all the rest. At all Church functions the vital ingredient of spirit has been removed and more often than not even the fruit is reduced to a few thin citrus slices floating atop an artificially flavored concoction of kill-aid served up in a cauldron at cult-sure-all activities. Mormon style magicians love to substitute spirit with gobs of ice cream.

You might say it is my intention to restore some of the veil piercing power by spiking the punch bowl and getting this millennial paradisiacal party started. Let’s add some much needed, finely distilled spirits of such great men as Smith, Swedenborg, Agrippa, Wovoka, Tenskwatawa, Drew-Ali, Turner, Elijah, David, Moses, Alma, Moroni, etc. The Doctrine & Covenants, Section 121 verse 35, clearly affirms that our keys, through which the powers of heaven are meant to flow have been severely lessened only because we have listened to the vain teachings of this world and we fail to learn this “one lesson.” And what might that one lesson be? It is that we are the noble and great ones who Father Abraham witnessed gathered in council before this world ever was. WE ARE THEM AND THEY ARE US. We sojourn here below with only one thing standing between the mortal frame and its maker. That one thing is our individual portion of Holy Spirit taught in Sunday School as the Spirit Body being composed of the Light of Christ in all men and women. It is given freely but even so, it is up to us to maintain and cherish as the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

This is the Grand Truth behind the formula that follows in verses 36 and 37 of Section 121. – “The rights (keys) of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven.” Note it says “power[s]” (plural) and “heaven” (singular) because we are talking about many forms emanating out of one spirit. And when the scripture says that, “the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor hand-led only upon the principles of righteousness,” it is saying that we must see ourselves as they are if we want to be a conduit for inheriting their attributes. Continuing, we read that these attributes may be conferred upon us but that whenever we “exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls (unions of spiritual+physical bodies) of the children of men (including our own)….behold, the heavens withdraw themselves (this time it is expressed in plural form as heaven[s] since the very Hosts of Heaven are made up of the same substance as Heaven itself ); the Spirit of the Lord is grieved (this refers to the substance of spirit itself, which is one single source); and when it is withdrawn (that is, when it contracts or retracts from one particular space into another area for expression of itself), Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”

CAN I GET AN AMEN?!

“Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”

This phrase at the ending of Section 121 verse 37 is very interesting. Talk about packing a punch as well as a bunch of meaning! First it must be noted that these words do not appear as their own sentence within the text but rather they follow a comma stringing them onto the line of ideas laid out above. Why then is the word Amen written with a capital ‘A’? You may say that this is standard use of the word in the English language and you would be correct. But why? It is because Amen represents a name. Originally conceived of as the head of a trinity of gods in ancient Egypt, Amen or Amun was closely associated with the wind, but soon began to be identified with all other Egyptian deities. The organic ensuing virtual monotheism did not sit well with Pharoah Amen-hotep IV who changed his name to Akhen-aten and attempted to force everyone to worship the Aten (Sun Disk) for a period.

This historical scenario is essentially an earthly reenactment of the heavenly drama wherein Lucifer (Light Bearer) tries to overthrow God the Father and establish himself as supreme. God the Father is the Most High example of Pre-Stood Power in righteousness. If we think of Him as Amun, God of the Wind, we can see how the element of Air has a unifying effect upon all other elements. They all benefit from his perfect parenting approach. Air can cause the solid Earth to be enlivened by the softest caress or whip it into shape through the means of strong blasts. Air gently stirs the Waters in the ocean and in the firmament to keep them from stagnating and sometimes works them up into a frenzy granting them permission and power to crash and flood the stubborn land and its inhabitants. Air embodies spirit so effortlessly that it can fan a small flickering flame into a raging Fire or extinguish it if it so chooses. It is understandable that a fiery devil like Lucifer would feel himself superior to the more conforming elements of Earth and Water. To him they would seem so subservient. Not seeing the divine spark in all creation around him and feeling more than a little threatened at the fact that in spite of their humble subservient natures, both Water and Earth could easily snuff him out if so directed, it must have seemed logical to Lucifer’s archetypal male instinct to assert his personality fiercely. The narcissist made good on his threat to collude with metallic minions, especially gold and silver, in whose shiny surfaces he could see his twinkling self image reflected. And he bought up armies to oppress the land and navies to oppress the seas. For a time the wild child thought he had triumphed over the elements of Water and Earth as made specifically clear when his heart leaps like a flame and we hear him say, “Now is the great day of my power. I reign from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” After all, being a Prince of the Air was he not the Rightful Heir to the throne of all creation?

But if the Light Bearer pictured himself like in the distinct artwork of the Egyptian Amarna Period during Akhen-aten’s reign, with the Sun’s rays shooting straight and unbending, he was soon forced to admit that even in the purest form he could take he was still subject to bending when presented with a large heavenly body or even refraction when simply attempting to cut through water. Akhen-aten called himself the Son of the Sun and has been called “The First Individual” by bedazzled historians. Individualism has its proper place within the bounds the Lord has set, but sooner or later the Lucifer in all of us has to acknowledge his interdependence with every one of his brothers and sisters. With a realization of the equality of all things and our oneness with them comes great power. And so, Fathair chose the Spirit of Christ, the 5^th Element as the One who could not only best glorify Himself, but also play a redeeming role for all the other three elements, feisty Fire included. We sometimes call spirit the 5^th Element because it seems so beyond the realm of our understanding, but in truth Spirit is “The First” who Father said He would send. Father recognized that Spirit even pre-seeded Himself. So it wasn’t just that God the Father saw Himself in Jesus. He wisely saw Jesus in Himself. In the Millennium the entire Family can sit calm and enjoy the sitcom of life when they realize that Lucifer exists only as the comical prankster and flashy star of the show. Good old Lucile Ball may cause drama but she keeps things entertaining and she is such a sweetheart that in the end you gotta Love Lucy with the pure love of Christ. The Fresh Prince of Bell Aire can be a trouble maker but when viewed with love we see how he values the unity of the family as much as anyone, perhaps a little more than most since he and his counterpart Jazzy Jeff have experienced being cast out on numerous occasions.

The Pre-Stood promotes unity and peace not discord and destruction. For this reason, Lucifer is thrust out of heaven only to be sent early to Earth, that precise spot where all the “Good Sons of God” were waiting to receive an inheritance. The harmonic balance of proper Pre-Stood practices explain why Satan is cast to the sides of the bottomless pit and his dangerous nature bound for a million years only to be released again for a season. Why in God’s Name would YHWH do such a thing? Doesn’t He know how horribly and unworthily the Prodigal Son of the Morning has been behaving? The Tetragramaton knows exactly what He is doing as He proceeds through the eternal sequence of:

Yod    =    Foundation

Hei     =    Breath

Vav    =    Nail

Hei     =    Breath

Yod    =    Foundation

Hei      =   Breath

Vav     =   Nail

Hei      =   Breath

Connecting inhalation with exhalation, foundational building materials with thrusts of the nail, Amen, the God of the Wind and Architect of the Universe turns His invisible blew-prints into solid structures that can stand for eternity. That breath and spirit are in the similitude of one another as God the Father to God the Son should not be a big surprise since we all know that the cessation of breathing causes the spirit to withdraw from a body. But at Church there are many who call themselves teachers who do not comprehend these things and consider them interesting perhaps, but not pertinent to their salvation. If Jesus tries to tell them about Earthly things, they won’t believe it. So how can He possibly tell them about Heavenly things? And yet we go to Church every week and listen to them teach about the Kingdom and doctrines of salvation? Tell me; where is the righteousness in that? The scriptures say that “if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.” (D&C 42:14) We could say that unless you are alive in the awareness of the infinite possibilities available through a simple connection between Spirit and breath, then you should keep your mouth shut and not counsel your brother and sister. Your careless verbiage and spiritually bad breath does serious damage. Maybe its time every man start learning directly from the Master instead of the sympathetic but cowardly Nicodemus types in the Church and in the Bloggernacle.

Jesus:  The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus:  How can these things be?

Jesus:  Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
- John 3:8-10

I am not writing to or for Priesthood Pretenders. For those tempted to not take the truths I am sharing here to heart just because they are not coming from a world/church authority or credentialed expert of any kind – for those tempted to write this off as a long-winded and useless tangent about aerodynamics, may I suggest you read an Uchtdorf talk.

“Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”

Such a fascinating phrase, and we’ve only just begun to discover the richness in this one little word – Amen! It turns out that Amen is itself a Key-Word of the Pre-Stood. Notice how it can be used to lock or to open, to seal or to separate. On the one hand we can and ought to use it to condemn unrighteous dominion; on the other hand we can use it to express agreement, as it is commonly used at the end of prayers. Pre-Stood Power is eternal and can not be destroyed or cease to exist. So, the “Amen” in this phrase does not refer to “the priesthood” in the slightest. Nor does it refer precisely to “the authority” since pre-stood authority is represented by keys which are to the powers inseparably connected, co-existing as eternal companions. Authority is digital in nature it can shut on and off but it never actually vanishes. In this scripture Priesthood = Spirit or Life-Energy which is shared collectively by all forms in the universe; ie. Yin, and Authority = Keys or Rights to use that energy which are held personally; ie. Yang. The “Amen” here only refers directly to “that man” who abuses his rights to the pre-stood.

LDSA identified this scripture as an exception to the norm in that it seems to conflate power with authority. But even though power and authority together really do form one pre-stood, the Holy Scriptures are linguistically designed to dissect and then reassemble concepts for the enlightenment of our minds. This scripture stays true to that teaching technique. So the “or” can be seen as equating priesthood with authority but simultaneously and more specifically its function is to lay down the law for “that man” who transgresses. Either his keys get disabled till he repents “or” if he persists with his wickedness through this life and on through the next and so on and so forth, the very form of his spirit-body begins to fragment to the point of absorption back into the native nothingness also known as outer darkness. That’s why those who slumber and wait for the resurrection to roll around are waiting in vain, waiting in vanity for Jesus to play not the central role He accepted but to take over the individual’s own personal role in God’s plan. In essence they are waiting for Jesus to become Lucifer. They will eventually wake up and come around but the scriptures say that it will take a longer time than in the case of the just who rise in the morning of the first resurrection.

When one who actually possesses the Key of Amen utters the phrase “Amen, to the priesthood of that man” directed with real intent towards another individual, the effect is actually one of loving kindness because it softens some of the more immediately destructive consequences of the abuser’s actions and neutralizes negative vibes for any of the innocent victims that the Key Master is able to take into his protective scope. Why should it be that such a sharp phrase, when uttered by a speaker who possesses a fluent command of the god-language of pre-stood, would have a positive effect even on the target? Because defense is the righteous use of the sword and the sword of defense, being a key itself, is always double-edged. Look up the verb defend and you will see it defined with a double meaning as it can be used to describe “protecting from an attack on” and or “speaking or writing in favor of.” The dual purpose of keys is shown as our minds easily see these two ideas to be one action in truth. As a true defender you must not think that you are simply defending a victim and deafeating the victimizer. This narrow view only allows for a narrow get away at best never a full resolution. Remember the line spoken by Jacopo to the Count of Monte Cristo:

“I swore an oath, and I will protect you. Even if it means I must protect you from yourself.”

We too have an Oath & Covenant to uphold, do we not? (D&C 84) If you have the mindset of inflicting wounds rather than performing spiritual surgery then your slices will lack the swiftness of godly justice and they will not go clean through. This can cause further harm and infection to all involved including your self. Truly hating the sin of unrighteous dominion requires a true love for that man found exercising it. Your goal is to exorcize it from the person detangling them from its cancerous evil if possible. And if necessary even unto the cleaving of body from spirit. Obiwan Kanobi told Luke that a light saber is a weapon of elegance and can not be used the same as a clumsy blaster. Jedi Master Jesus taught us to “resist not evil.” To Joseph he recommended:

43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

44 That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

- D&C 121:43-44

This and other (s)wordplay techniques are displayed beautifully by Ammon, who spared the life of the King after he promised to grant Ammon’s brethren and his own son their freedom. In An Alternate View of the Keys LDSA wrote:

“Unrighteous dominion is dominion without the consent of the governed….the priesthood cannot be used without the consent of those it is intended to serve. It is their agency that authorizes the priesthood”

See, when a man is attempting to exercise more power than he has been authorized to handle, the effects are destructive, first to himself then to others. We are serving through severing. By loping off that portion of power which is in excess to the keys granted that man via the agency of others, we prevent the man from choking. But the loosed chunk of power doesn’t simply float out into space; it gets assimilated into the one who is acting as defender of the faith. Like Nephi, we will have to be prepared to take on the energy, even the negative energy, of that man and transmute it into energy that can serve the purposes of the Lord. If you lash out in hate then hate will flow into you from the one you wound. The pre-stood power belongs to all men and women and so, inseparably connected keys are had by each as well. This is why according to the workings of the Lord, “the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld” unless or until, as per D&C 70, verse 14, we are equal in temporal things, “and this not grudgingly.” Temporal things include administrative functions. So no more of this saying that LDS women are already so special they do not need the type of training that males require and therefore do not need the administrative keys of the priesthood. Funny how most wards would not function even in the mundane practices with which they busy themselves if it were not for the adept administration of the Relief Society.

The Prophet of the Restoration revealed the collective holding of pre-stood power through evenly distributed key-sets among the whole Family of God. Everyone has a right to the power of pre-stood. The Armenians, who demonstrate a high concentration of the blood of Israel in the traditions they observe as well as their spirit, have a word ամեն pronounced aːmˈɛn that means “every“. Additionally it is used in the same form at the conclusion of prayers, much as in English. Another word which hints at the need for sharing the rights to the powers of Heaven among all men comes from a much more ancient source via latter-day revelation. This one also alludes to the significance of the heavy breath sound of the ‘H’ added to Abram’s name when God made him FatHer of the Nations by blessing him with seed through Hagar and SaraH. Joseph Smith said it was revealed to him that the Adamic language word for God was AHMAN, that the name for Christ was SON AHMAN and the name for mankind was SONS AHMAN. When once we as spirit children of God (Sons Ahman) took on physical form (Adam) in the Terrestrial World we still enjoyed direct contact with God so the Earth at that time was known as ADAM ONDI AHMAN (Adam in the presence of God). If we say, “Ahman to the pre-stood of that man” we are essentially saying, “The pre-stood belongs to All Men/Ahman….so don’t you be a Lucifer and try to dominate it.” A man who would step on another’s RTC (Right to Choose) needs to remember he is only acting as a man. If he would act in the name of AHMAN he needs to receive the ‘H’ (Holy Breath of Life) in the middle of his self important name after the manner of AbraHam. Only when a bullying boy grows a healthy respect for the oneness of All Men can God make A Man into A-H-Man.

Amen is key in our service to the Lord because from man’s perspective, where one thing ends another begins. And Amen is key in the work God does for us as a consistent connector because He tells us that, for Him, there is no beginning and no end to His works. (D&C 29:33) Heavenly Father and Mother are simply breathing and birthing. We can see how Amen corresponds to the Wind, Breath of Life and the Spirit in its special relationship with all things. We know that God can create things out of thin air, but have we ever stopped to realize how we do the same thing with ideas and words? We use a primordial form of the Amen Key – ‘Aum’. We pause and think a while and we fill the supposedly dead space with “Ummmm.” Then, magically the vibration helps us to pull the ideas out of thin air and push that air through our voice box for projection in the more dense form of word. Progressively denser forms can result from thoughts to words to action. Look at us! Aren’t we some little creators?

It is this ‘Aum’ or ‘Om’ with which Jesus often leads his sayings. We find them translated into English as “Verily” or sometimes “Verily,Verily” These initial Amens are unparalleled in Hebrew literature, because they do not refer to the words of a previous speaker but instead introduce a new thought. In the Old Testament there are three different modes of usage for the Amen, but it is always used either in response to the words of another or as a final subscript to a story or psalm. Jesus’ uses of the Amen Key in the Gospels break the rules of traditional Hebrew because whereas the Jewish idiom was only ever used with a backward reference to an earlier speaker or statement, Jesus used the word to affirm his own utterances, not those of another person. This unique usage of the initial amen, single or double in form, to introduce solemn statements of Jesus in the Gospels had no parallel in Jewish practice and most likely indicates that Jesus received this Key during His travels in India.

This key is very good for extracting things from the Aether or Akasha as it was called by the Hindus. Akasha is the spirit substance similar to air but inheriting qualities from each of the elements and able to manifest as any one of them. This is the two in one identity that Jesus tries to explain to Phillip and to the rest of us when He says “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” (John 14:11) I encourage the reader to take the time to study that chapter. Jesus proceeds to give another Key for working with Akasha. And here is the punch-line….Akasha is one of the pancha mahabhuta or “five great elements.”  There is that number again.

PROTECTION AGAINST PRIESTHOODLUMS

The cuckolds who are running the CoJCoLDS (into the ground) maintain that:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of the original Church established by Jesus Christ.”
(James E. Faust in General Conference – April, 2006)

But where do we get this idea that Jesus ever even founded a church after the manner of men? This is a Catholic crud of a creed that the Protestants never saw any need to protest. While it had become painfully obvious that the Vatican councils were not qualified to lead men to Christ, they unfortunately did not consider that perhaps Peter was no more meant for the task than the Pope. European Reformers never paused to think about the proper role of prophets and apostles any more than the apostate Christians and Jews before them. It was a scramble to collect the scattered keys from Saint Peter’s broken chain. Whoever could collect them all would win. Even Joseph got a bit carried away with his Modern-Day Mohammedean feat of fusing the best of Judaism and Christianity while refuting the more corrupt parts. The obsession with keys has continued and grown since the early days of the Restoration Movement; to the point where even the president of a low-lying branch on the Mormon Tree can feel lofty enough to come to a branch member’s doorstep and reprimand him for following the Lord directly without going through the proper channels of Priesthoodlum Leadership.

If this is the case with a branch president, what might we expect to find in the upper echelons? More often than not the wicked priest will not even dare come to you in your home, at least not at first. He wants to get you in his office because it is by virtue of his office that he maintains power and influence. This is his typical tactic and it reveals him to be in direct opposition to the will of the Lord regarding pre-stood practices put forth in D&C 121: 41. Always remember when someone seeks to exercise authority over you or your family by “virtue of the priesthood” you can turn off his office with a flip of the switch or flip of the bird. Keys are digital, locking and unlocking. Digitus means finger. The middle finger (according to the esoteric system discussed in part 1) contains the Compass (V) symbol of the Holy Pre-Stood. The Square (L) is located in the pinky finger on the left hand. And many of us will remember being told that some General Authority somewhere once said that a deacon holding the Aaronic Priesthood has more power and authority in his little finger than the Pope has in his whole body. I’m confident that most tyrannical Stake Presidents probably approximate a similar power level to that of the Catholic Cardinals. So when they try to make you “kiss the ring” you know what to do.

To “that man” who comes to your door, talking about the keys that he holds over you, I would ask if he has the keys to Your House? When he responds that he of course does not and is not speaking of literal but rather spiritual keys, then, pointing to Your Heart, ask “Do you hold the keys to this sir?” Borrow a line from Old Joshua who said, “As for me and my house; we will serve the LORD.” Watch as the “Big Man” shrinks before your very eyes. Gird up your loins man, fresh courage take. Look his goliath ego straight between the eyes and, if you love your brother, launch a smooth stone at the “place of the skull”. You must hit Goliath in his Golgotha to evoke the Authority of Christ. The stone must be smooth so as to be aerodynamic. And you must bring no more, no less than Five stones to the showdown. God has endowed a man with all he needs to defend himself and the best defense is Four Fingers and a Thumb – not clenched in a fist but palm forward, flat, smooth, the fingers close together, and the thumb extended.

Fear not repercussions from the upper echelons of the ecclesia. Echelon is the Latin letter ‘e’ and an uppercase ‘E’ is still nothing more than the Fifth letter. So it is only his ‘5’ against yours. And if you use your ‘5’ as a humble vessel for a power higher than the Saltican City, then you will surely triumph with a perfect ‘10’. They can only extract 10 percent at maximum. These imposters, dressed in the robes of the false priesthood, are often unable to even muster a full five. So they yell “Four!” as they take mocking shots at the visage of the poor righteous teacher. They prefer the elite status of country club members swinging for Devil and Country in the secret game of G.O.L.F. (an acronym for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.) Remember these are not pre-stood wielders only priesthood holders. Understand that the Boy’s Club has had its proficiency in pre-stood power severely weakened from years of service as squires, armor bearers for King Saul, whose armor young David declined to don. Their spirit bodies have atrophied from the meaningless, rubber-stamp gesture of constantly raising their arm to the square only to sustain squalid, squealing swine who revel in their slop, unlike the prodigal son who despised the shame of it and resolved to return to his Father’s House. If you and I wish to strengthen our spiritual sinews so that we may serve the Lord with all our might, we can not afford to squander our inheritance. The enemy wants you to raise your hand, he needs you to bow your head and say “yes.” Your enemy hopes you will become “yes men” as so many of your “brethren” have done, because in this way, when we concur, he can conquer.

Keys like golf clubs are only symbols of the divine mascu-linear energy which, as we have seen, is only ½ the Pre-Stood. Phallic phalanges grip their clubs and keys fruitlessly without putting holes and locks nearby. Even if the wives of the General Authorities are unaware, the Master Masons who direct the affairs of the Church are keenly aware that the power of the male is cut in half and will wither without the presence of a female companion by his side. Thus there is a strict policy among them to never remain unmarried for long even after the death of a spouse. To ask a woman for her hand in marriage is literally to ask her to lend a hand to the Great Work. Men who do not acknowledge that the female possesses pre-stood power independently from males will never fully magnify their own pre-stood potential. Little boys like to play with themselves. A man who mistakenly thinks he received his pre-stood power or authorization from the hands of other men will never fully activate the power within himself.

Locks and Keys Always Have and Always Will Go Together. One is Not Without the Other.

It is the mother who passes pre-stood power along to male offspring in the form of the cross (X) chromosome. The father plays an administrative role and passes along the ke(Y) chromosome which designates the child as another ‘key’ bearer. The boy will learn from both but will one day have to leave the mother and the father and cleave unto a wife if he is ever to learn how the lock (potential power) and key (latent authority) operate to release and reseal in Heaven and on Earth. In the case of female offspring, a double dosage of pre-stood power is deposited. The Xtra dose from the father is that which assigns her gender determining the placement of her power. Therefore, it is from the father that she receives her pre-stood power. But the young woman will not experience full unlocking of her divine potential until she joins herself to a young man. The woman is a gate through which all enter this world. The man holds the key to that gate. Both embody spiritual DNA from the Father as well as the Mother and so both may bestow pre-stood power. But it is the Father who decides in what capacity each new life will serve, whether as a priest or priestess. He is not, as many like to think, the sole dispenser of the pre-stood power; unless we are to see the work of the Father as hit and miss. Since when did an X signify a miss?  The world may address a divine daughter of God with the title ‘Ms.’ but she is no miss.

All this confusion and craze over keys in the latter days is so much male chauvinism. Pre-stood is explained as consisting of two parts – power and authority – but truly it is one thing. Power and authority are not separate things because one aspect serves no purpose without the other. Priesthood really is all things in one and out of it all things are able to manifest as distinct but interconnected forms. Love is the power of which all creation is made, and will is the authority by which all creation is made. Keys are essentially solidified will, so there are as many keys as there are creations or solid forms in God’s Kingdom. They are all protruding from “key spots” in the “all-in-one compound” which father Lehi attempts to describe in 2 Nephi 2: 5-14 and which we commonly call “nothing.” While inserted firmly into the “nothingness” a key reveals the potential locked deep within the dark. But if the will should come to see the “nothingness” as inferior or undesirable and cease to cleave to her, the sustaining embrace is broken. The form goes limp, the darkness, still trying to cleave together, cleaves itself shut and neither side’s potential is fulfilled in that area. This is what happens when men calling themselves “brethren” claim seniority and superiority over each other instead of living up to Jesus’ command to give as freely as they are given.

There is no point in trying to overstate that which was, is and ever will be pre-stood as separate concepts of power and authority unless your motive is to keep others under “lock and key.” It all fits and all belongs together. After the mental deconstruct which is necessary to comprehend the workings of the Lord, should one persist in keeping asunder what God puts together, then he is not worthy to use keys, not to latch or unlatch. If your church leader is not talking on the topic of the possibility for fluid interconnectedness of  “your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds” like King Benjamin did with his congregation it is probably because he himself stands in need of re-minding. Forgetfulness of these metaphysical principles is rampant in today’s world. But so is the re-awakening of millions around the globe. There is no good reason we should not be hearing and talking about it at Church.

We all suffer from fragmented psyches at some level. Re-membering means putting ourselves back together mentally. Failure to do so results in a furtherance of fragmentation from the realm of thoughts, to that of words, and finally in-deed. Unfortunately, the higher you go, the more you find that the leader is “No King Benjamin”. There are some sinister elements who seek to occult this knowledge of truth from the rest of us. To those elements functioning within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I issue an invitation to repent now before it is too late. You know that it is possible to divide Churches but you also know that you will have to divide so-called individuals to accomplish your devilish designs. You hope through diabolical doctrine to create a division in and among people. You know that the division you create will eventually yield a Division of Robots of the False Priesthood. But you know you can’t win them all. Have you paused to consider the remnant you cast aside? Your unrighteous dominion has made us grow strong as you steadily weaken. For he who seeks to divide the indivisible will suffer dissolution of his self. But channeling the immortal spirit of King Benjamin crying from the dust, “this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, re-member, and perish not.” (Mosiah 4:30)

I agree with LDSA that keys can be categorized as either active or suspended. However I do not agree that the President of the Church has all the keys activated. If they were activated he would act differently. Rather, I take Jesus at His word and can authoritatively paraphrase Him by stating that the First Presidency and other so-called priesthood leaders do not enter the Kingdom and have forgotten how to properly use their keys so they jealously keep others from going in. (Matt. 23:13) I agree with LDSA that keys can be misused to temporarily impede the work of the Lord. But I do not agree that serious magnifiers of the pre-stood power need be affected by the actions or inaction of “presiding authorities.” In fact I believe that for me to defer development of real pre-stood initiative upon the earth to a group of men who are obviously deferring to their own egos and by default to the kings of a culture of corruption would be in direct opposition to the cause of righteousness. Scripture is the progeny of Premonition plus Reason and she testifies plainly against the teachers of religion while telling of “men inspired of heaven” who will defy the power structure of those priesthoodlums who would hold the pre-stood power hostage.

This is of course a personal decision, as is everything in life. And we must be careful not to discourage anyone else in whatever path they may have chosen. But it is my understanding that many LDS men have not chosen but rather vacillate between the type of heavenly justification, which is prerequisite for pre-stood power activation and the worldly justification that plays into the Enemy’s plans. As LDS men who claim to believe in modern revelation and restoration era scripture we must be aware of the day to day decisions that place us personally in one of the two camps described in the very prophesies we are discussing. If we choose to postpone the carrying out of personally revealed directives from the Heavenly Headquarters the signal is likely to get jammed by interference from Radio Salticana. Standing orders are for standing armies and standing armies are for Evil Empires.

OVERcoming the NATURAL man means unleashing the SUPERNATURAL power of the pre-stood through our own bodies. MY DEAR BRETHREN, NOW IS THE TIME TO REACH OUT IN RIGHTEOUS ACTION WITH THE PRE-STOOD!

AN ANARCHICAL VIEW OF THE KEYS pt. 1

PRE-STOOD POWER IN ALL ITS FORMS

In An Alternate View of the Keys, LDSA sets the record straight about the difference between priesthood power and priesthood keys. He points out that even though the current common understanding within the LDS Church is that Priesthood = Authority, and that Keys = Power, according to their own definition priesthood is not increased with the reception of keys, so in reality Priesthood = Power, and Keys = Authority to use that power in a particular setting or for a particular function. I wish to say the same thing in other words that will expound upon our expanding view of priesthood.

From this point forward in this text I will use the words pre-stood or pre-stood power to distinguish the eternal and pure power of GOD – without beginning or end – from the various groups which have come and gone throughout world history, organizing themselves and claiming ultimate authority over others. There is only one pre-stood power but it takes many forms, commencing with masculine and feminine and from thence giving rise to infinite form and variety. But if there is one thing we can learn from the accounts of the prophet Joseph’s First Vision it is that having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. These forms of godliness serve specific purposes in performing timespace rituals and it is hoped that they maintain awareness of their connectivity to the pre-stood and therefore with one another. But as any one form falls out of congruence with the pre-stood power it starts to fade. If the form remains incongruent for long it dissolves and eventually disappears from this realm being absorbed back into that which stood prior to the foundations of the world, that which is pre-stood.

The forms can help us understand the pre-stood power but no single form can adequately define it. For example, in Mormonism we conceptualize the pre-stood in terms of keys. But oddly enough we never speak of pre-stood locks. Of course keys are pointless without locks and locks are a hopeless concept without keys. So, while it can be helpful to talk of the pre-stood in different forms, we must remember that its all one thing. The Sanskrit word Kilak illustrates this point perfectly. Representing a key to unlock the power inherent in a particular mantra it resonates all the way through to our modern English with an ancient understanding of the inseparability of Ki (Key) & Lak (Lock). Any and all forms of pre-stood can be valid provided we understand how the lock and key work together to seal or loose. Without this crucial knowledge the Devil and his agents keep us under lock and key.

One form that people everywhere are awakening to is the linguistic form. Many are coming to the realization that pre-stood is a language. We are finding that this is not new knowledge. There is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9) But it is exciting as people in, but more so outside of the LDS Church, are also reviewing the language/priesthood of the ancients in a “new” light. Their hearts are turned to ours and as we the children attune our hearts to theirs, we begin to understand why the fathers associated priesthood so closely with the idea of seed. The fathers ‘handed down’ language. We inherit pre-stood not so much at their hands as through them. We are their seed. For them, we are their only way of realigning and continuing with the pre-stood power. This is why I said that the purpose of the variety of forms is to perform specific functions in timespace rituals. We can think of it like a tool box shared between father and son for teaching, learning and repairing rifts across the fabric of timespace, throughout all gene-rations.

IN HIS HANDS

This post’s primary focus will be on certain forms of godliness like limbs, phalanges, keys and other phallic extensions of pre-stood. In this post I will address these appendages of the pre-stood within a mostly masculine and Mormon context. However it should be understood that these share an overlapping relationship with all other forms of the pre-stood and would be incomplete without those counterparts which are especially feminine and ‘Non LDS’. Men and women of any or no religion alike may find something useful in what I write here. Because LDS males make the bold claim to have a monopoly on God’s power and authority, I would like to direct my comments to them particularly. It is impressively arrogant to say you are the only people who “hold” the priesthood when you are obviously not the only ones with hands.  Latter-day man is inclined to defile and dismiss the god-given physical body as nothing special since everyone’s got one. Still, the Grand Truth stands and was always pre-stood; that where we see a hand it signifies authority. If you have hands you have authority. Whether you use it or not, the power is in your hands.

When Moses spoke with his God He said:

“Behold, thou art my son; wherefore look, and I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands; but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.” (Moses 1:4)

If we wish to comprehend the language of pre-stood power it will do us no good to remain adrift in the sea of endless words emanating from it. We need to travel upstream like salmon on a pilgrimage to the headspring and witness where the original body splits itself in two tributaries – one of spoken word and the other of silent gestures. The latter demonstrates the need for balance. It is not enough to be running off at the mouth. The river of power must flow out through our arms, hands, fingers and opposable thumbs as well. An example of holy union, where spoken language (mantra) and sign language (mudra) meet, is to be found in the written word. Stan Tenen and the Meru Foundation’s research into ancient Hebrew illustrate this concept with detail and depth. It is as if scripture were the child of this mudra/mantra marriage. So it should be no surprise that the Son bears engravings in his hands.

Our hands are formed by God’s hands; the power can come through them, hence the importance of the laying on of hands. But Mormon men are highly mistaken in their assumption that pre-stood power can only be valid if passed down from the hands of another. Even their religious leaders have acknowledged that titles conferred in this manner do not ensure activation of the power. Of course they only say this as a way to keep bishops and pawns in their places in a craftily constructed priesthood pyramid. Their P®iesthood comes complete with an obstruction manual wherein we are told that:

“There is a difference between being ordained to an office in the priesthood and receiving keys of the priesthood….In their fullness, the keys are held by only one person at a time, the prophet and president of the Church. He may delegate any portion of this power to another, in which case that person holds the keys of that particular labor.”                    – LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Manual

Man-u-als are dangerous collections of the philosophies of this man or that man dictated in a one size fits “u-all” manner that discourages actual activation of power and displeases the Lord greatly. As an adjective, the word ‘manual’ has been used since c.1400 and comes from Latin ‘manualis,’ meaning “of or belonging to the hand; able to be thrown by hand.” Since the early 15^th century they have been “throwing the book” at us with the Latin word ‘manualis’ coming to mean a “service book used by a priest,” through the Old French word, ‘manuel’ – “handbook”. The CHI (Church Handbook of Instruction) is nothing more than instruction on the obstruction of Chi (Life-force/Pre-stood). A defiant hand lifted against God. In this way a manual is the established antithesis to Emmanuel, a Hebrew word meaning “God is with us”.

It is this false and vain idea of handling priesthood that keeps Mormon Helping Hands tied as to operations of the Spirit yet ever at the beckon call of government agencies and agendas across the globe. Moroni tells these “do-gooders” quite plainly that none of them actually do good. (Moroni 10:25) Do we need more men like these Mormons? We do not. By imagining that the powers of Heaven may be handled on anything less than the conditions of Justification, Sanctification and Purification, they manage to allow power to fall into the wrong hands. Do LDS men hold the Holy Pre-stood after the Order of the Son of God? Certainly – The question is why are we holding it back?

GIVE ME FIVE BROTHER!

I would now like to give a Key to all the true brethren out there. Well, that is the way Joseph Smith Jr. would have put it. But perhaps it is more accurate to say that I wish to point out to you a key which is already in your possession so that through awareness of it and its great value you may begin to make more effective use of it.

As you may have already guessed, that Key has something to do with the human hand. It is an amazing tool through which we may bless many and I think that a more in depth review of it is necessary since the precepts of men have caused us to forget just how much a spiritual man can do through his bare hands. I do not mean to trivialize or oversimplify the power nor the authority of pre-stood. I endeavor only to bring up the importance of a physiological connection to the powers of Heaven so as to dispel some of the mists of darkness that have kept man cut off from his maker.

We have been con-vinced to channel our belief mentally and emotionally into this group or that group to the neglect or our own souls. The enemy has succeeded to an unacceptable degree in cleverly divesting us of our great endowment. It is the belief of an individual that opens him up as a channel for the Lord. This is why, despite the imagined Mormon Monopoly on power and authority, Scientologists have managed to pool belief and build up the minds of its adherents till confidence creates a spiritual flow through the members of many of its church members. The tactics are very similar to what has been done in modern Mormonism as far as believing themselves to be special and set apart from everyone else. This is why we hear Tom Cruise saying:

“Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anyone else, it’s, you drive past, you know you have to do something about it. You know you are the only one who can really help.” – Tom Cruise on Scientology

To be sure, being set apart from the world is a necessary step. The scriptures refer to it as sanctification. But the idea that sanctification hinges upon membership in any type of religious institution does more harm than good in the world. And believing the vicious lie, that your sanctification process somehow places you above your brothers and sisters at a soul level and therefore at the material level, is the root of iniquity and corruption in this world. I’m not saying that LDS men must necessarily remove themselves from the company of the Church, much less get involved with Scientology. But if you are an ordained Elder in the LDS Church and have never experienced even the slightest healing of another person through your humble hands and fingertips like John Travolta when he assisted the healing of Marlon Brando’s leg, then you owe it to yourself to remove some of the mental blocks that unfortunately come with any religion so that you can better magnify your pre-stood. If you have felt and witnessed the power of God working through you to bless others then you should desire that all may receive it.

Sanctification is one of five factors identified by LDSA as being needed for positive and full working of pre-stood keys. Justification and purification are two more which could be seen as pre requisite steps. Plus the more functional requirements of Mantra and Mudra (vocally pronounced affirmations and non verbal signs usually made with the hands). To be sure it is not an easy task to achieve and maintain all of these factors but neither is it impossible. The point is it entails much more than simply a title bestowed by a licensed authority. This worldly idea that priesthood is controlled by man like some sort of Levitical L-I-C-E-N-S-E is what causes the deafening S-I-L-E-N-C-E of Spirit plaguing so many across the face of the earth.

Our heads have been hacked and filled with all sorts of false ideas about ourselves and the result is that our religious leaders now have some of the biggest heads of all. Jack and Jill went up the Hill of the Lord to fetch a pail of Living Water from the well mentioned by Jesus. When Jesus’ head was pierced with a crown of thorns vinegar was then applied. Jack fell down and broke his crown, so the first step is to patch up our heads with some herb-infused vinegar and brown paper. I invite you to come wrap your head around some forgotten, browning papers from the past which have been kept from the eyes and minds of the masses. Then, like Alma has said, “if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words” you can begin to familiarize yourself with the supernatural spirit power that flows through and around the natural, highly conducive forms of things like branches and leaves, arms and spiritually clean hands.

Although we distinguish between parts of the whole we are not likely to forget the connection and deem the hand an entity apart from the arm. Yet, we seem to have forgotten that the physical body is not a separate entity but intimately connected with the spirit and visa versa. What can we do if we wish to experience the two as one again? We need a key. A key is an instrument that can be used to seal together or to loose two things from one another. Ironically it is the same thing that loosens our bodies from our spirits that has the power to lock them into one another again. In this sense, a key is a tool used to cleave, either apart, like a knife, or together, like a nail. This why the Latin word for key is ‘clavis’ and ‘clavus’ is Latin for nail. A key always takes the form of a line and this is true throughout all planes of reality, making it perfect for aligning things for the purpose of connecting or dividing them. The Chinese word ‘Qi’ is pronounced sort of similarly to the English word ‘Key’ and it means “Life Energy”. Qigong means “Life Energy Cultivation” and is the practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation. Much of modern society may not be accustomed to thinking of keys in terms of energy and body parts. And yet, even the Germanic roots of our English word ‘key’ trace back to ‘kaig-jo’ meaning “pin with a twisted end,” which seems strictly material until you realize that it lines up very well with more esoteric and scientific studies of the energetic origins of creation, like the aforementioned research of the Meru Foundation, which have come up with a model that resembles a pin with a twisted end and corresponds directly to the human hand.

In keeping with the dual functions of clavis and clavus (key and nail), we have the ultimate of the Grand Key-Words and Signs of the Pre-Stood as expressed within esoteric Mormonism in the Sure Sign of the Nail. This is an alternate name for the Second Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Another name by which it is known is the Patriarchal Grip. So not only is this in keeping with the cleaving symbolism of keys and nails but it also represents the trans-generational timespace rituals which I touched upon in the first section. This two-way covenant between living and dead is all-important for the continued existence of life on this earth according to the word of the Lord in Malachi 4:6.  Unfortunately I am unable to give the matter the amount of attention it warrants in this particular post. But as I said before, we can think of these pre-stood ordinances like a tool box shared between forefathers and their sons for teaching, learning and repairing rifts across the fabric of timespace, throughout all gene-rations. What is it that needs to be bound together? – Heart, mind, time, space, fathers and children. And what is it that must be loosed? – Faulty connections, false traditions that bind us to false gods and negative neurological pathways that lead to depression, oppression, captivity and death.

No believing Mormon should have any reason to doubt that this reciprocal relationship between us and our ancestors, commonly known in LDS circles as the Spirit of Elijah, is the central purpose of the pre-stood. The Church’s founder himself took note of the fact when reflecting upon the exact wording of the message he received from the angel Moroni. Said Joseph:

And again, he quoted the fifth verse [of Malachi 4] thus: “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”

He also quoted the next verse differently: “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.”

Joseph Smith History 1:38-39

Later, when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the visit of Elijah during a vision in the Kirtland temple, Elijah told them.

“Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.  – D&C 110:16

Ancestral promises can bridge past and present, interdimensional doors can be opened, but only with the corresponding keys. And it all has much more to do with hearts and hands than one might be led to think.

Hold your hands out in front of you palms up. If you if you label the left thumb A and the right thumb Z, then starting with the top joint or knuckle of the left pointer finger and working down you get B C D. Then up to the top of the middle finger on the left hand and down the knuckles you get E F G.  Starting back at the left thumb or A we can alternately assign numbers to these key points so that, from the left thumb to the base of the middle finger you have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. The middle finger on the left hand then represents ‘G’ which can stand for God, Gnosis, or Grand as in “Grand Architect,” “Grand Master” or “Grand Truth”. The middle finger on the left hand can also said to represent the numerical value of 7, which is a holy number representing God and Spirituality in many traditions around the world.

We have reached the highest point on the left hand, and so we now resume numbering or lettering the knuckles, but this time working backwards (654321) starting at the one towards the top of the ring finger on our left hand and ending up at the base of the pinky finger. At this halfway point we can see that ‘M’ figures right in the middle of the English alphabet. Jumping from the pinky on the left hand to the pinky on the right hand and employing the same system we find that here the middle finger includes the letter ‘T’. The ‘T’ is a sacred symbol in Free Masonry and one of the earliest forms of the cross had in many civilizations. Since this system corresponds specifically to the English alphabet we could also say that ‘T’ stands for “Truth”. Thus the symbolism of the two middle fingers hold a “Grand Truth”.  All 26 letters can be perfectly listed on our left and right hands.

The Key is in Your Hands

On the chart above we see how the letters K-E-Y correspond to numerals 3-5-2 which add up to 10, the total number of fingers. Applying the 3-5-2 code to corresponding points on the right hand may help to explain the similarities as well as the differences between the aforementioned Patriarchal Grip in Mormon ritual and its Masonic equivalent, the Real Grip of a Master Mason. In both instances the hand grips are used in conjunction with what is known as the Five Points of Fellowship. The correlation between the Five Points and ancestral communion was already lost among Masons by Joseph Smith’s time. Some scholars have refuted Smith’s claim that the Mormon temple ritual was closer to antediluvian temple rites than Freemasonry, which he described as degenerate priesthood. But the focus on vicarious work for the dead is the smoking gun. Of course the true implications and applications of these rituals have remained rather obscure and mostly veiled in Mormonism too. Despite incantations invoking trans-generational staying power and abundance of symbolism relating to the body, most folks think they are basically completing paperwork for those who have passed on. The Five Points though not emphasized as much in modern Mormon ritual are nonetheless interesting to note in their association with the veil between worlds and in light of this recurring theme of 5 which we will see more of later on.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Zomarah has attempted to enlighten the average Latter-Day Saint’s understanding of keys. In a post written late last October, approaching that time of year when our predecessors used to honor and commune with their predecessors, Zomarah felt impressed to write about two topics which are often considered taboo in the Church. Those two topics were Joseph Smith’s practice of Magick then Masonry and the LDS Temple Rituals. He makes the connection to influential writings like those of 15^th century German occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and then points out that, judging from Smith’s understanding, a Key possesses three attributes.

“The first attribute is physical. A key must possess some physical manifestation such as a hand grip, hand gesture, or something written.

The second attribute is something spoken. A key must possess a spoken manifestation. But this is not simply saying a word. It is speaking something with complete conviction, as if your entire being is that word.

The third attribute is the Spiritual power or attribute that is accessed by the previous two elements.”

Zomarah – Understanding Priesthood Keys

Zomarah does a good job of treating these sacred subjects delicately. I, on the other hand may be seen as not so gentle or subtle. Nevertheless, I am driven by the same motivation as my brethren (LDSA and Zomarah) – to clarify the current misunderstanding of pre-stood keys which keeps the world in darkness by holding the latent power of the pre-stood hostage and to seal in the minds of God’s true servants the physiological links between the powers of heaven and the rights/rites of the pre-stood.

I hope that everyone will read Zomarah’s post linked above as it can be the means to unlocking many dormant Kilaks lost to the Latter-Day Saints since the Kirtland era. He identifies three attributes of Pre-stood Keys – first physical, then vocal – the third is the actual power or blessing sought. I would like to point out that the particular order in which Zomarah lists these components may add to our mechanical understanding of Pre-Stood Kilakas. I assume that Zomarah’s ordering here was neither intended as a precise road map nor was it necessarily random. Subconsciously I detect that he is spelling out a very important part in the Lord’s method for communication with us, but which part is being described here – the first or the last of it? I think it is the latter half of the formula since physical action is mentioned first, but of course if that which we sought were already apparent in the physical we would have no need of petitioning God for the keys. All that would be left to do is to thank Him.

The Master says He stands at the door and knocks. It is from our side that we must work with the locks. If these are looked at as steps – physical action, spoken word, and obtainment – to open a D-O-O-R hitherto locked, we should be specific about the O-R-D-O by which we set about unlocking it. There is a Holy Order after the Son of God. If I may offer an observation; this order (Physical toVerbal) is perfect for returning praise to God for things already received in the world of physical form. But the praise process can not end at the verbal world, or else the Lord may rightly say that we draw near unto Him with our lips, but that our hearts remain far from Him as He has said in Matt. 15:8, Isaiah 29:13 and of course in Joseph Smith’s First Vision. It is apparent that we must reach higher than the world of words if we want to truly offer our hearts in gratitude. If our heart reaches God’s heart then the connection triggers a reversal and intensification of our small effort that will in turn elicit a continued flow of blessings. However, there appears to be a missing step in this list, one which is nonetheless strongly implied later in Zomarah’s post. The missing step is thought.

Network Model for Working with God

We of course think a lot – practically incessantly during the course of a typical day. But the vast majority of our thoughts originate from some type of external stimulation – “I gotta get to work” “I’m hungry” “There’s a car over there.” While in this type of mundane mind-state we can be sure that our thoughts are not His thoughts, as it says in the Bible. (Isaiah 55:8-9) We mortals are counseled to take no thought for the morrow (Matt. 6:34, 3 Nephi 13:34), but we do it anyway. At the same time Jesus also reprimands us for taking no thought save it be to ask (D&C 9:7). It seems to me that the crucial thing about thought is its direction and its directive power. Thoughts should be directed at the Lord through the medium of the moment. This is called “turning to the Lord” and only through this type of meditative state can one be in a position to open spiriphysico doors.

Picture in your mind a little toddler who desires to go through a door. Her parents have left it slightly ajar and she is free to pass through if she so desires. Her curiosity propels her forward and scooting straight up to the door she is pleased to discover that, just as expected, her little hand is capable of giving a little push which will cause the door to swing open for a sufficient space of time in which she may get herself to the other side. This is the way mankind behaves. Having faith (expectation) in the work our hands can produce through pushing at the world around us, we take advantage of the openhanded and generous nature of our Heavenly Parents. We are welcome to live this way, but what happens when the door swings shut behind us? The little baby in our example feels she has conquered the door but after her curiosity is satisfied she wants to be able to return again to the security of the room where she left her parents sitting. Dealing with that same door she must now figure out how to swing it inwardly, toward herself. This is a more complicated matter for a toddler as it requires more than the feed-forward thinking that comes so naturally to her developing mind.

To us it seems counter-intuitive to back up even slightly from the goal we see before us. But it is actually right in line with our intuition however counter to our logic. Acting on intuition requires greater faith and it is absolutely necessary if we desire to enter the presence of the Lord. At the present we feel shut out from paradise but won’t we feel silly when we discover we have been pushing on a ‘pull’ door. This is what the mystics are saying when they tell us to “go within”. Take a step back from your self. When it comes to the veil there is no pushing or pulling necessary. Even analogous terms such as locks and keys can be a bit deceptive about the true nature of Heaven and Earth and their accessibility to and from one another. They are eternally connected through no doing of our own. But by adhering to the Pre-Stood Order we may send and receive messages and eventually travel freely between the two. Heaven and Earth are connected by the simultaneous first and final step which is so automatic, so passive yet pervasive that we usually don’t consider it a step at all. We call it feeling or emotion in its mixed states. But in its purest form spiritual sensation and physical feelings are one. This is pre-stood essence. It has been around for eternity and its not going anywhere except wherever you let it. When all is in Order there is an electrifying and undeniable current felt.

“I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it”

- Joseph Smith History 1: 25

THE WAY  TO OBTAIN KEYS

Lao Tzu is the honorific title given to a mystic philosopher of ancient China, who lived in the 6^th century BC. He is credited with having written the Tao Te Ching and is considered the founder of a philosophy called Taoism which is popular among many Libertarians and Anarchists today. Tao means “The Way”. The 6^th century BC is right around the time of Lehi’s Trek to China and North America, and coincidentally Lao Tzu’s birth name was Li Er, which sounds a lot like Lehi.

Even though it is not commonly known or widely accepted among Mormons, the Book of Mormon itself supports the idea that Lehi and company passed through China. As they made their way across China to the seashore they undoubtedly had

The Liahona showed them the ‘Tao’, the way.

interaction with and most likely were joined by many Chinese who, like Lao Tzu himself, saw too much corruption in the society around them. To be influenced by the gentle wisdom and deep spiritual insight of Lau Tzu, who legend says left the kingdom to travel and teac

h “The Way,” and to then hear this traveling group of expatriates from Jerusalem speak of a promised land must have had a great effect on at least a fair number of souls. Whatever connections might have been made, there is no doubt that Taoism found its way into early Nephite culture. Since even a superficial comparison of the Tao Te Ching with the writings of Lehi, Jacob, King Benjamin and others will yield striking similarities. Through “The Way” they were able to receive the visitation of angels, have prophetic dreams and even command the trees and the waves of the sea. (Jacob 4:6)

Lao Tzu taught:

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

The Book of Mormon contains the caution to watch our thoughts and our words and our deeds, in that particular order. (Mosiah 4:30) This is the correct order for manifestation of a blessing but even a petition, though it may originate with physical need, it too must be sent up through the appropriate guided vacuum of thought if it is to reach the right department. We can think of it like sending an urgent message or payment through one of those devices commonly used at your local bank branch drive-thru for which the proper name is Pneumatic Tube Transport or PTT. In the case of proper prayer petitions PTT stands for Physical Talking Thinking. The pre-stood channels are set up for the express purpose of eternal giving and receiving back and forth between Heaven and Earth. This is not a worldly bank. It is the data bank of Heaven, the seed bank of Abraham. Whether depositing or withdrawing, there is no need to feel prideful or ashamed.  The temple patron’s donation, the widow’s mite, and the beggar’s petition are roles we will all fill at various times in our lives. God is no respecter of persons and His true apostles never charge money to let you hold real keys like we are charged to hold a temple recommend. They instead say to those who think they can purchase priesthood, “Thy money perish with thee!” (Acts 8:20) We must remember Christ because the whole thing functions as a memory bank, not a key bank.

The whole secret to keys is unlocking the mind of the Lord first by showing that we have at least become aware of keys in our possession and desire now to learn from Him how to properly use them. Each step in the process of learning keys and opening doors is vitally attached to the others in a loop. But since a loop is essentially a curved line, and because that curve is so long and gradual we feel as though we were just walking a straight line from point A to point B. The cyclical nature of eternity confuses most of us, most of the time. We can sometimes seem lost in the task of trying to find a starting place and indeed God Himself tells us that His “works have no end, neither beginning.” (D&C 29:33) However the Lord helps us out with a point of reference in verse 32. “First spiritual, secondly temporal….and again, first temporal, and secondly spiritual,” He says.

Now before we get all excited about having been provided a starting point, we should keep in mind that it is still a circuit the Lord is describing here. That information will be useful to us later on if we truly want to accomplish His purposes. We are to seek first the Kingdom. If Melchizedek Pre-Stood holders were earnestly seeking the Kingdom of God they might finally notice and admit to themselves and God that the Church is not that Kingdom. We could learn much from a simple quote from Theodore Parker about how our own theology blocks the door to the millennium and keeps us parking when we should be moving forward toward Zion.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Its that type of faith and honesty alone that can bring clarity of conscience. Without obtaining clarity of conscience we will remain stuck in con-science of our own invention. For, while thought is an important step, it is not always those thoughts that we deem rational that come from God.

THE DEVIL IN THE DUST

ARMIES & NAVIES

Should members of modern society follow the example of the Anti-Nehpi-Lehies, and if so, how?  Does it require gun owners to give up those guns or even increasingly tighter government control of guns and by extension their owners and the general populace? Are weapons used rarely and only for purposes of protection able to be correctly termed “weapons of war” or is this only a gross error and ploy being pushed in the media today? For any unfamiliar with the Book of Mormon story, let me clarify that the word ‘Anti’ in this context does not mean against. It refers to the Reformed Egyptian reflex of an ancient Khemetian (Egyptian) word ‘N-T-Y’ which is used grammatically to connect a relative clause to an undetermined antecedent. It would translate as “One With”, “One Of” or “One who” depending on the relative clause which followed. Note that they did not take on the name Anti-Laman-Ishmael-Jacob-Zoram-Nehphi-Lehies, aligning themselves as a friend to all the various groups and subgroups of the area. So after but not in consequence of their conversion, they essentially took sides in a war. The story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies or at least the people who later choose to be designated by that title is presented in a deeply moving way. What did they do first? Well, they were converted in their hearts and mightily at that. Okay so assuming one or even a group of individuals among us today have experienced a similarly mighty change of heart. What would the naturally ensuing fruits be which would identify them as truly repentant?

The converted Lamanites buried their weapons of war. How can you and I do that? Do you or I have access to the weapons of war? If the answer is no, does this mean we don’t have anything to do as an outward token of our repentance? Even the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, as they later came to be called, were protected by a standing army of large in stature Nephites – a standing army sometimes supplemented by their own stripling sons. How convenient! Don’t you just love modern sin systems? I guess we were never personally guilty in the first place, eh? Wow how wonderful. So basically I can shed a tear over the dead children in the so-called Middle East and other parts of Africa and Asia and I’m good? I like that. Surely God will understand when I continue, business as usual, with my way of “life” which is not a lifestyle at all but rather a deathstyle, but HEY, what can I do about that? I take the sacrament every Sunday. Along with my fellow ‘Drunkards of Ephraim’ First we eat (Wonderbread) then we drink (Tapwater) and next we are “merry” (mingling in the foyer), for tomorrow, we die (physically that is, since today we have already died as to things of the spirit). We engage in these ongoing “dead works” so that I may take up the weapons of war and oppression again and again -That we may always have “the poor” to be with us. Amen!

But are our hands truly clean? If so, great! If not….how does one truly rid his or her garments of the Latter-Day Stains from the blood of this generation? It turns out it is not that complicated. We determine what has been our role in the sins of our day, which is more often than not a simple carrying on of false traditions of our fathers, and we STOP DOING IT. Oh but the momentum created by our time-honored sin cycles is too great. Surely JESUS, the PEACE-maker would not expect us to do something so simple yet drastic as withdrawing financial support from monetized murder. He said “render unto Caesar” didn’t He? So that’s what I’m doing.

Take a look at the coin that Jesus referred to when they tried to corner him on this “tax issue”. If it was indeed the Denaruis of Tiberius, as many scholars have suggested, then there are a couple details that are very noteworthy. On one side there was a picture of Caesar with an inscription that claimed Caesar was divine. On the other was the image of a female depiction of Pax (Peace). So I guess we CAN promote peace by paying taxes. Sure we can – Peace “as the world giveth”. But Jesus was not interested in the Nobel Peace Prize, nor any other type of Medal or Metal. Whether the Tribute Penny was the Denarius of Tiberius, the Antiochan Tetradrachm, the Denarius of Augustus or any other of the various possible coinage which was used as a visual aide by the Master Teacher in his example…. The most important detail to consider, so obvious it might be overlooked, is the material of which this coin was made. SILVER or if we are to read the Gospel of Thomas then the coin in question is described as being of GOLD. Either way, those of us who have been offered the light of truth more clearly than any people since the post-resurrection Nephites ought to see a connection appearing in crisp clarity before our eyes.

But make no mistake about it, what we have been offered and what we have received are two very different things, and so the plain and precious things that Jesus said unto the Nephites in person remain mostly unwritten, and this for a reason -damage control. We have already condemned ourselves sufficiently. If and as the fullness of the Gospel as taught to the mixture of Nehpites and Lamanites commonly referred to as ‘The Nephites’ during Christ’s visit to what is now known as the Americas, is revealed as prophesied, by “men inspired of Heaven” it will only serve the purpose of condemning more fully the majority of gentiles who choose to reject the fullness, vainly pretending to already possess it. Kind of hard to prove possession based upon written records alone anyway, since it has to be written on our HEARTS for us to be “found possessed of it in the last day” (in which case we are numbered among the remnant and it will be well with us) but its even harder to prove when our own Book of Mormon is so undeniably, blatently, purposefully, and stoically silent as to the juicy details of what Jesus spoke unto the multitude that instructed them on how to live PEACEFULLY. They were specifically commanded not to write them. And they happen to mention that GREATER THINGS STILL were spoken to them by the mouth of the babes. Will records containing specifics on how to build a Zion be “brought forth” to us? The real questions are:  Have they already? Are they out there or in here? And most importantly when we come across them what do we do, accept or reject? I guess that is why Jesus in speaking to the ancient inhabitants of “this land” about us in “this time” called it the strange work or act of The Father.

DUST DEVILS

This is the strange act of the same Father who stood not in conflict but in conversation with Lucifer. Notice even in the super-sacred-secret, copyrighted, intellectual property of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Corporation Sole) video production of the Temple Drama, how cool and collect Elohim is in his correspondence with Lucifer. Lucifer ap-PARENT-ly sees his own PARENT as an enemy. But, God The Father appears to not be distressed in the slightest. Lucifer says “If you do that then I’ll do this!”  God responds with a “Works for me” tone. Everything and everyone, including, yes, The Devil, works for Elohim. God is ALL knowing. God is ALL powerful. God is ALL there is. Beside (Elo)Him, there is no one. At least that is what a scribe once said to Jesus. “And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.” (Mark 12:34) It is discrete because the Truth that was known by Jesus and that scribe was communicated between them and for all the world to discover but between the lines. There is a photograph of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed founder of the Islamic Restoration Movement in Latter-Day America. The photo was taken in the early 60s and also features the famous boxer Ali Mohammed and activist Malcolm X. The photographer was obviously more concerned with capturing the image of these three iconic figures in one shot but to me the slightly blurry background holds more interest. There was a sign posted at this speaking engagement which read “There Is No God But Allah.” But in this image the sign, not being the focal point, was cut off by an audience member’s head. So it contained an interesting message for those with “eyes to see”. THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALL. God is THE Creator and as such is in everyone and everything.

So if God is almighty then who is this guy Lucifer who considers himself an opponent of God. And who are we to side with him. It most certainly seems that Lucifer delivered on his threats. And if we are honest we will admit that we have all fallen into this plot in one way or another. But HOW is his scheme working on us? Remember it all ends up working for GOD working for GOOD. So who is this guy anyhow? I thought he rebelled and lost his first estate so what kind of state is he in to be talking to The Father like that? Abraham 3:28 says that Lucifer was “angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him.” It is helpful to think of this word ‘estate’ in terms of states of matter (gas, liquid, solid). That ‘First Estate’ was a SPIRIT BODY. Joseph Smith explains that Spirit is Matter, only more refined. So it stands that the matter we call flesh is spirit, just less refined, fallen. The ancient gospel tradition which has managed to survive through the Lamanites, if nothing else can teach us that EVERYTHING has spirit. And this alone is a mighty important thing to know and live by. The Lord tells us this in the D&C as well, just in case we are wont to ignore His voice speaking through the Lamanites, like the Nephites dismissed Samuel – Just in case we are tempted to disregard the collective voice of the Book of Mormon prophets speaking to us “from the DUST.” The dust too has spirit and is in fact what composes our FLESH. Now we find Lucifer, cursed worse than all the beasts of the field, or we could say made lower than all the forms manifesting on the universal grid of existence. The serpent is representative of a low frequency wave form as it goes along, upon its belly, eating DUST.

Dust is about the worst form of existence for infinite intelligence to inhabit, at least when viewed from the mentality of being stuck. Certainly one who subscribes to scientific materialism or the idea that only visible matter really matters, does not feel that he may meet the measure of a man from within this very “particular” state of affairs. Dust particles do not rank high in terms of visibility. In order to get noticed they must make mortals sneeze. But the sneeze itself and the almost automatic “Blessing” which follows it in most cultures, ensures a strong defense and immunity to the wiles of any would-be trouble makers at this level of life. From this limited view-point, a soul is molested by monstrous mites as one mourns what might have been, like Dicken’s chain laden “Ghost of Jacob Marley”. But this would be especially true of any soul who retains memory of former glory. Even sand is a step up from the perspective of one who is fallen in the dust. Sand grains, although small and shifty, array themselves in splendid spreads reminiscent of the stars in the Milky Way. Both noble gases and gritty glasses nobly represent parts of the great, innumerable Seed of Abraham. But dust, dust is loose, lowly and lonely.

Despite this demotion the Devil still strives to be worshipped. If there is anything we can say to advocate the adversary, it is that he at least seems to understand the idea of “dusting” yourself off and trying again. His methods are desperate and futile. However there is a Redemptive Plan put into motion simultaneously with The Fall. So we find him saying “If you do this to me” and delivering his infamous threats which we have already seen him make “good” on. But take a close look at the logical order this back n’ forth between Elohim and Satan follows. The Devil says: “I will take the spirit(s) that follow(s) me and [they shall] possess the bodies thou createst for Adam and Eve.” Elsewhere in the dialogue Elohim Himself verifies that those bodies are made of the dust of the earth, to which realm the rebellious one was previously cast. So how does Satan eventually succeed in getting the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to love him more than God as we read in Moses 5:13? It is the old natural man trick. It is important to understand that the “Natural Man” that Alma speaks of in Alma 42:10 is “carnal” so were speaking of the flesh which brings us back to dust (literally).

ENMITY – EYBAH & EYAH

Continuing with the dialogue between Elohim and Lucifer in the LDS Endowment Ceremony, we see that after Lucifer’s threat to possess the bodies created for Adam and Eve, Elohim counters by placing “enmity” between Lucifer and the woman; between his seed and her seed. The Hebrew word translated in the Bible as “enmity” is “eybah” (pronounced ay-bawh). An LDS seminary teacher in Montana made the honest mistake of confusing the word “eybah” with “eyah” – a Hebrew word which translates as “I am”. I am grateful for the seminary teacher’s error, because it gives us deep truth to ponder when considering God’s strategic placement of enmity between daughter and devil.

‘Eyah’ is in fact the word that GOD speaks to Moses when He utters the famous “Eyah aser Eyah” – “I AM that I AM.” But when we use the phrase “I am” we typically mean something very different. Man’s individualistic use of these words speaks as well to the feeling one has for another who he considers his or her enemy. Enmity is the “firewall” which we put up against everything and everyone who we consider to be “other” as we fall further from our Heavenly Home and child-like natures, typically within the first few months of mortal life when self-cognizance kicks in and we begin disassociating ourselves from so much. When the effects of this fall first start to set in, a baby will often cry intensely when the mother or father leaves the room whereas before this time they barely noticed any difference, feeling his or her ‘self’ in every way a part of the parents. Once we go from feeling a part of to feeling apart from our Heavenly Parents then all Hell can break lose in our minds during even the shortest temporary absence of one or both of The Parents. This is evident from the drama that develops when Father exits with a promise to return momentarily and Up Jumps the Devil.

We all learn that “I AM” myself and “YOU ARE” yourself. “This” is “MY body” and “That” is “my environment” We view this as a normal healthy development, however, Jesus tells us: “This is my body which is given for you”. We hear Jesus saying we have to become as little children if we want to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. So just how close to Heaven do we want to get? In Ephesians 2:14-15, Jesus is spoken of as the one “who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace.” Eventually the baby grows accustomed to the ‘difference‘ and as he advances into adulthood he is actually digressing towards ‘indifference‘; thus the need for rebirth and being made new in Christ. We seem to be caught in a silly tug-o-war that reduces warriors to worriers. Either we are worrying excessively over what to eat, what to wear, what others think of us or we are justifying a selfish expansion of what we see as our personal empire; rolling over people and consuming things in our lust for power. This all equates to nothing more than a faulty view of our surroundings. Any power we think we gain while in acting on these hallucinations is nothing more than a hopeless attempt to compensate for a lack of spiritual power. It is the Spirit that suffers the most from a near total diversion of our attention to all things physical. Speaking on Scientific Materialism, Quantum Activist Amit Goswami has said:

“This is a very exclusive world view because it excludes all the other things that we experience like mind, vital energies, feelings, intuition, and only holds on to that one thing, sensory experience, matter. So this, of course, creates a denigration, denigration of values, denigration of meaning. Because it is mind that gives meaning and the supramental that gives us values. If you ignore those compartments of experience, obviously it will become oriented towards separateness. In this view we are separate beings. We are just the physical body. The more we come to believe in scientific materialism, the more we give up values like love, beauty, justice, truth and goodness.”

The Prophet’s journal for November 6, 1835, records:

“I was this morning introduced to a man from the east. After hearing my name, he remarked that I was nothing but a man, indicating by this expression, that he had supposed that a person to whom the Lord should see fit to reveal His will, must be something more than a man. He seemed to have forgotten the saying that fell from the lips of St. James, that [Elijah] was a man subject to like passions as we are, yet he had such power with God, that He, in answer to his prayers, shut the heavens that they gave no rain for the space of three years and six months; and again, in answer to his prayer, the heavens gave forth rain, and the earth gave forth fruit [see James 5:17–18]. Indeed, such is the darkness and ignorance of this generation, that they look upon it as incredible that a man should have any [dealings] with his Maker.”

What is the subtle but essential difference between “Eyah” and “Eybah” that prevent us from having any dealings with our Maker? What is it that makes it so easy for us to slip from an all inclusive spiritual view to a physical focus that turns our back on God and pits us against our own flesh and blood, literally; starting with our own bodies and spreading like an infection to our brothers and sisters?

Hebrew is a language layered with meaning starting with each of the 22 letters of the alphabet. Breaking down the two words and analyze the meaning letter by letter we get:

EYAH =  ע – to arc י – to manifest א – to begin ח – to define
EYBAH =  ע – to arc י – to manifest ב – *amid* א – to begin ח  – to define

Obviously they are practically identical in phonetics and this equates to very similar embedded meanings. But there is one difference inserted smack dab in the middle, halving the Great‘I AM’ as it were; dividing Man and Maker in a duel of duality. The marker between the two halves is fittingly represented by the Hebrew letter ב (pronounced beyt) an ancient pictogram representing the concept of inside/outside. If we end where our skin begins then why is so little of our daily attention focused inwardly. Are we really that disinterested in our inner selves? And if the truth of the matter which Jesus tried to share with us, shows us that we do not end where our skin begins but extend well beyond connected with other life forms around us through the Holy Spirit; why the animosity towards our outer selves? Are we afraid of a little dirt? Do we feel threatened by the elements? We’re all just earth, air, water and fire after all.

“I have intended my remarks for all, both rich and poor, bond and free, great and small. I have no enmity against any man. I love you all” – Joseph Smith Jr.

GOLD & SILVER – PRECIOUS METALS vs. PREC[AR]IOUS METALS

What is Old Lucifer going to do now? He announces menacingly: “with that enmity I will take the treasures of the earth, and with gold and silver I will buy up armies and navies, false priests who oppress and tyrants who destroy, and reign with blood and horror on the earth!” But can we trace the current state of violence in the world to trace metals? Metals are no more responsible for the violence in this world than are the weapons forged with them. Things are things, they are neutral. It is the intentions of man which direct power to or through these things. This is why God’s teaching should clarify “things” for us. Seek – ye – first – the kingdom of God – and all these things – shall be – added unto you. It is not then the metals but the concept behind medals of honor which is capable of pulling men’s honor away from the kingdom of God, which resides inside them and attaching it to external things.This is why soldiers are given medals made of shiny metals for their commendable (command-able) performance, their bloody human sacrifice. Demons are all so easily commanded. What is more limited to following commands generated from outside influence than a computer? As we enjoy our man made machines. Daemons are downloaded and they too enjoy seeing man made machine. To overcome artificial intelligence, we need only act from our eternal intelligence. The time is coming when we will need to call upon our eternal intelligence and rescue those who have watched too many terminator movies from perishing in fear while real-life robo-cops patrol the street apprehending people; persecuting and prosecuting the saints for thought crimes. For, the Devil’s end-game is not in this threat to “take the treasures of the earth and with gold and silver buy up armies and navies”. It’s not in his “false priests who oppress”, nor his “tyrants who destroy, and reign with blood and horror”. The precious metals, the blood, they’re all just cogs in his trance-humanist scheme to do what he threatened at the outset-To thoroughly possess the bodies created for Adam and Eve.

Here we have the whole plan of the Evil One laid bare before us. There is no justification for being bought off. Even with all the riches in the world, we could not afford to ignore our divine calling. Gold and silver were Lucifer’s elements of choice due to their special Solar and Lunar qualities. They are elemental representations of the Universal Pre-Stood Power’s Masculine and Feminine aspects, respectively. If he did not first trick mankind into externalizing the innate powers inherited through the spiritual genes from a Heavenly Father and Mother, the Trickster would not have got very far. Blood was another necessary element to Lucifer’s design. Islamic lore maintains that trace levels of demonic blood flow through the veins of all the races of the human family. Mormon theology asserts that blood is not a component of resurrected and perfected bodies. This “lone and dreary world” where man sojourns and Lucifer is Lord is aptly titled. The descriptive word “dreary” comes from the Old English dreorig meaning “bloody, blood-stained” from dreor “gore, blood”. The blood of the saints cries out to the Lord from the dust. Blood and dust seem to share a mysterious relationship throughout scripture.

“What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?” – Psalms 30:9

Well we certainly see the profit for the leaders of this misled world when they spill the blood of innocents in their endless wars. But is it possible that there is another side to the story that we do not see. Does the blood of Christ cleanse, condemn or both? Is the Dust of the Earth redeemable? We had better hope it is.

“And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men.” – Mosiah 4:2

Evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother: Let me pull the mote out of thine eye—and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. — Jesus Christ

In the Doctrine and Covenants, we read:

The teacher’s duty is to watch over the church always, and be with and strengthen them; and see that there is no iniquity in the church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking; and see that the church meet together often, and also see that all the members do their duty. (D&C 20:53-55)

Cease to contend one with another; cease to speak evil one of another. (D&C 136:23)

Thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbor, nor do him any harm. (D&C 42:27)

And in the temple of the Lord, we are put under covenant:

We are required to give unto you the law of the gospel as contained in the Book of Mormon and the Bible; to give unto you, also, a charge to avoid all lightmindedness, loud laughter, evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed, the taking of the name of God in vain, and every other unholy and impure practice; and to cause you to receive these by covenant.

Latter-day saints have taken this charge to avoid evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed and perverted it. Here is what evil speaking actually means, from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary:

EVILSPE’AKING, n. [evil and speak.] Slander; defamation; calumny; censoriousness. 1 Pet.2:1 (“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings”.)

SLA’NDER, n.

1. A false tale or report maliciously uttered. and tending to injure the reputation of another by lessening him in the esteem of his fellow citizens, by exposing min to impeachment and punishment, or by impairing his means of lining; defamation.

Slander, that worst of poisons, ever finds an easy entrance to ignoble minds.

2 Disgrace; reproach; disreputation; ill name.

DEFAMATION, n. The uttering of slanderous words with a view to injure another’s reputation; the malicious uttering of falsehood respecting another which tends to destroy or impair his good name, character or occupation; slander; calumny. To constitute defamation in law, the words must be false and spoken maliciously. Defamatory words written and published are called a libel.

CALUMNY, n. Slander; false accusation of a crime or offense, knowingly or maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; false representation of facts reproachful to another, made by design, and with knowledge of its falsehood; sometimes followed by on.

Neglected calumny soon expires.

CENSORIOUSNESS, n.

1. Disposition to blame and condemn; the habit of censuring or reproaching.

2. The quality of being censorious.

Evil speaking, then, in the scriptures, is the malicious use of a lie (in the form of a false report, false tale, false accusation or other falsehood) in order to harm the reputation, work or livelihood of another. Not only are such deeds against the law of God, but they are also against the laws of men.

How the LDS pervert this principle

The LDS have twisted the commandment and covenant against “evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed” into any spoken saying or written word published that brings the leadership of the church into disrepute, regardless of the truthfulness of the saying or writing. (Since I’m quoting definitions, disrepute is a “lack or decline of good reputation : a state of being held in low esteem.”) Thus the LDS have changed the meaning of both “evil speaking” as well as “the Lord’s anointed.”

To speak the truth about someone is not evil speaking. If such must be labeled, it can only be called good speaking. The saints of God are commanded to always tell the truth and never tell a lie, therefore, they must call a sinner a sinner, even if that sinner is a hypocritical leader, garbed in the priesthood and presiding over them. To understand why saints must do this, we first must review who is authorized to call people to repentance.

Who can make the call to repent

There are two groups of people who need repentance: those who belong to the church of Christ, but aren’t yet sanctified, and those who do not belong to the church of Christ.

External Preaching

In the case of those who do not belong, it appears that all saints are under commandment “to persuade all men to repentance” (2 Ne. 26:27.) Also, all saints who possess the priesthood (except teachers and deacons) are under commandment to preach the gospel to those who do not have it, which includes telling them to repent of their sins.

Internal Regulation

In the case of those who belong to the church, who have not yet been sanctified, it belongs to the high priests of the church to regulate the church, calling them to repentance. But high priests can only do this if they themselves are sanctified, as they are supposed to be. (See Alma 13:12.)

It takes a saint

Only saints, meaning sanctified people, are authorized to call people to repentance. The reason is that sanctified people cannot look upon sin except with abhorrence. In other words, when they see sin, any sin, they shrink with horror, disgust or dislike of it. This means, first, that saints can recognize what is and what is not sin, by this recoiling, shuddering, excessively repugnant reaction they have to it, and secondly, that they will not shut their mouths at the sight of it, but will naturally seek to eradicate it. Saints are like the Lord: they cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.

A non-sanctified person is unable to recognize every sin. Some “very great” (as they suppose) sins may cause non-sanctified people to shiver and bristle at their appearance, but not so with all the so-called smaller sins. They may witness such sins and not experience any extreme detestation to it or they may not even know that what they are witnessing is sin. Or, if they do observe a sin and are able to recognize it as sin, they are capable of just saying, “That is just a minor thing. I will let it slide and leave them to themselves without opening my mouth.” Another thing these people will do is charge someone with transgression when they have not transgressed. This comes from not being able to recognize sin from righteousness, so that the two become confused, righteousness being called sin, and vice versa.

For these reasons, non-sanctified people are useless to the Lord when it comes to calling people to repentance. Only sanctified, purified, justified people (saints) will do for this particular labor.

The general authorities and leaders of the church

Many people are afraid of speaking out against any hypocrisy they see among the general authorities and leaders of the church because of the following scripture:

Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them. But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.

And those who swear falsely against my servants, that they might bring them into bondage and death—wo unto them; because they have offended my little ones they shall be severed from the ordinances of mine house. Their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them. They shall not have right to the priesthood, nor their posterity after them from generation to generation. It had been better for them that a millstone had been hanged about their necks, and they drowned in the depth of the sea.

Wo unto all those that discomfort my people, and drive, and murder, and testify against them, saith the Lord of Hosts; a generation of vipers shall not escape the damnation of hell.

Behold, mine eyes see and know all their works, and I have in reserve a swift judgment in the season thereof, for them all; for there is a time appointed for every man, according as his works shall be. (D&C 121:16-25)

We are taught by our leaders that speaking evil against the Lord’s anointed is a very grievous sin and that members that do this are in apostasy. Thus, because of this false interpretation of “evil speaking,” even if hypocrisy is perceived in the leadership, the LDS will shut their mouths and leave the matter in the Lord’s hands.

And so the leadership of the church, and more specifically, the general authorities, are given free sway to pretty much do what they want and say what they will, all of it being ascribed as speaking and working by the power of the Holy Ghost, all by virtue of their office and calling as general authorities and the second anointing which they receive in the temple.

Of course, such an interpretation wrests these scriptures, for the Lord was not speaking of any earthly anointing. When the Lord says, “Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed,” and also, “Wo unto them; because they have offended my little ones”, and also, “Wo unto all those that discomfort my people, and drive, and murder, and testify against them,” His anointed and His little ones and His people are all the same group of people, even those who are sanctified, justified and purified, known to us as saints and little children.

In this scripture, the Lord uses the same wording that he used in His warning against offending little children: “It had been better for them that a millstone had been hanged about their necks, and they drowned in the depth of the sea.” The reason the warning is the same is because a saint (a fallen man who has become sanctified) and a little child (who is alive in Christ and thus already sanctified) are both innocent before God. As long as they endure in their sinless, sanctified, and purified state, they will inherit eternal life.

Little children are not anointed in any earthly ordinance, yet these scriptures equally apply to them as much as they apply to adult saints. So, when the Lord says, “mine anointed,” He is not talking about an earthly ordinance, but of a heavenly ordinance, such as the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, which Jesus alone performs. All earthly ordinances must be approved and confirmed by a heavenly manifestation (ordinance) performed by the Father, the Son or the Holy Ghost. So, when we have priesthood conferred upon us, all we get are the rights to the priesthood. The actual priesthood is only bestowed by God Himself, and the same goes with every other ordinance of the gospel, all things requiring a ratification or confirmatory heavenly ordinance to make it eternally binding.

So, mine anointed and my little ones and my people and little children and saints are terms that speak of people who are sinless (guiltless), purified and sanctified, whether from the beginning of their lives or after having received a remission of their sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost. In no way, shape or form did the Lord ever mean to say that no one had a right to call hypocrisy when they saw it in someone ordained to His priesthood.

The gospel rule is to assume hypocrisy unless demonstrated otherwise, for all adult men have received the fallen nature:

Trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. (Mosiah 23:14)

Again, the rule is to trust no one. The exception to that general rule is not “except he be ordained to the priesthood,” as many believe. Instead, the exception is, “except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments.” Priesthood ordination and calling have nothing to do with it.

Discerning teachers and ministers of God

The assumption that everyone makes about the general authorities is that they are holy men of God, already sanctified, justified and purified. This is assumed because they hold these high and holy callings. The logic goes something like this: “God would not allow men who were not sanctified to hold such callings and offices, therefore, they must be holy men.” But such thinking denies the history of the people of God upon the earth, and all the many times that corruption entered into the very priesthood God had organized on earth. God obviously allowed this corruption to occur, so then it must follow that in our day, corrupt or un-sanctified priests and teachers would also be allowed to rule over us.

The Lord has set up His kingdom with signs whereby one saint can know another. These signs are heavenly manifestations given by God alone. They allow saints and sinners to see where the Lord’s people are, so that they can listen to them, heed the word of God preached by them and gather with them. A preacher or teacher who does not manifest any of the various signs is simply not approved by God.

The prophet Mormon answered the questions, “How do we know if a man is of God, walking in His ways and keeping His commandments? How do we know that he speaks the truth to us and is sent by God?” when he wrote:

And now it came to pass that according to our record, and we know our record to be true, for behold, it was a just man who did keep the record—for he truly did many miracles in the name of Jesus; and there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every whit from his iniquity— (3 Ne. 8:1)

So this is how we know. If the members of the first presidency, the quorum of 12 apostles and the quorums of seventy (as well as the members of any other leadership quorum), are going around doing all manner of miracles in the name of Jesus among the people, then we know that they are just men of God, even saints. But if they aren’t performing a work of miracles in the name of Jesus among the people, then they are still un-sanctified hypocrites (actors) and are not to be trusted.

Sanctified people point people to Christ

“Priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world,” wrote Nephi. Priestcraft is the Pharisaical way, the doctrine of privilege and prestige and taking offense. It says, “Do as I say, not as I do, for you are not authorized to do what I do.” Or, “Look unto us as the Lord’s righteous servants. Follow us. We are obedient and holy. We know better than you. We have the office, calling, power and authority. We enter first, we partake first, we get the best seats. All must rise when we enter. We are the Lord’s anointed, occupying Moses’ seat. No one gets to God except through us.” This is all, of course, hogwash. (I’d use a stronger word but the blog is rated PG.) It doesn’t matter what earthly anointing you have received, if it hasn’t been confirmed by the Lord or His angel, there is no witness (evidence) that you have exercised any faith, whatsoever, and thus that your anointing has been accepted by the Lord and that you are authorized to call anyone to repentance.

The saintly way is different. Although saints are bold, they care not for prestige, honor or privileges. They spurn such things. They do not say, “Follow us,” but, “Follow Christ.” They are completely Christ-centered in both thought, word and deed, pointing all to Jesus. They care not what you call them, whether you use a title or not, nor whether you acknowledge their calling and office.  They abase themselves at every opportunity, for they know and believe the word of Jesus that those who abase themselves will be exalted. They are wise and fun and cheerful and knowledgeable, yet they mourn when they see sin. There is nothing stuffy about a saint. They take no offense at people who reject them, their message or their priesthood, and consider it a privilege to suffer persecution for Jesus’ sake like the prophets of old.

If it walks and talks like a hypocrite, but has the priesthood, it’s…not a hypocrite?

The gospel of Christ is a gospel of truth, for Jesus is full of grace and truth. When the Lord put all those who went to the temple under covenant to not speak evil of His anointed, He was not saying that we had to turn a blind eye to hypocrisy in the leadership and obey them regardless of their hypocrisy. That is not what it means to refrain from “speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed.” The phrase only means that we are not to falsely call someone who is sanctified (a saint) a sinner.

All saints have a duty to God to do right, to heed truth, to expose and to forsake and to fight evil and falsehood and hypocrisy, and to speak the truth at all times. The saints are the bulwarks against Pharisaical tyranny, for saints don’t shut their mouths at sin. They call a duck a duck and a hypocrite a hypocrite, when they see one. They are like the Lorax, who speaks for the trees, except that they speak for the Lord. You simply can’t shut them up when they see sin and error.

No one breaks their covenant of not speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed by pointing out the hypocrisy manifested among the LDS church general and local leadership. If the Lord has not shown His approval of any of these men by His divine miracles and manifestations, no one, not a single person, is bound to follow their sayings, counsels or commandments. In fact, it becomes our duty to God to both speak out against hypocrisy and to ignore its directives. It is through the miracles of God alone that we may know whether a man is approved of God. Ordination is not the appointed sign, nor are the words or actions of that man, for hypocrites are, by nature, actors, acting the part of a righteous person. As we cannot know what truly resides in the heart of any person, the Lord in His mercy has provided the signs for His believers, the saints, that we might recognize who really is one of His people. This is because no one can act the part of a miracle worker, being out of the scope of man-made power.

The saints will judge who is, and who is not, an apostle, prophet or bishop

Behold, I, the Lord, have made my church in these last days like unto a judge sitting on a hill, or in a high place, to judge the nations. For it shall come to pass that the inhabitants of Zion shall judge all things pertaining to Zion. And liars and hypocrites shall be proved by them, and they who are not apostles and prophets shall be known. And even the bishop, who is a judge, and his counselors, if they are not faithful in their stewardships shall be condemned, and others shall be planted in their stead. (D&C 64:37-40)

The inhabitants of Zion are the saints of God, for no one will inhabit Zion who is not sanctified. This church that the Lord mentions in these verses is the mystical church of God made flesh, who have repented of their sins and come to Christ, receiving the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. Judgment is committed into their hands because they are the only ones qualified to judge between sin and righteousness. Those hypocrites who make claim to priesthood titles alone will be judged by these title-less saints and be uprooted and their names blotted out. The truth of the matter is that all leaders must pass through the judgment of the saints, the Lord’s little ones, before they can get to God, not the other way around. Not even those whose listed priesthood duty is to judge, such as the bishop, will be exempt from the examination made by these alive-in-Christ children and adult saints.

For these reasons, no one has any authority to silence a saint. The authority of a saint supersedes the authority of any priesthood office. And if a saint speaks out against your hypocrisy, Amen to your priesthood. And if anyone speaks out (evilly) against a saint (the Lord’s anointed), they’d be better off drowning themselves in the depth of the sea. Nothing pisses off the Lord more than people who bother His saints.

Now, before I end this post, let me address one more point.

Test them, says Lucifer

In the temple, we hear the following conversation:

PREACHER: Shall we ever have any apostles or prophets?

LUCIFER: No. However, there may be some who will profess revelation or apostleship. If so, just test them by asking that they perform a great miracle, such as cutting off an arm or some other member of the body and restoring it, so that the people may know that they have come with power.

Later on, the conversation goes:

PREACHER: [To Peter.] Do you profess to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ?

PETER: We do.

PREACHER: This man told me that we should never have any revelation or apostles, but if any should come professing to be apostles, I was to ask them to cut off an arm or some other member of the body and then restore it, so that the people might know that they came with power.

PETER: We do not satisfy men’s curiosity in that manner. It is a wicked and an adulterous generation that seeks for a sign.

There are two extremes of thought, both of them false. On the one hand, claimed credentials (“we profess to be apostles, bearing the priesthood, with valid ordination”) are rejected and a demonstration of power is demanded, otherwise no one will believe. On the other hand, demonstrations of power (“we perform all manner of miracles”) are rejected and a proper priesthood ordination is demanded, otherwise no one will believe.

The first scenario is represented by the temple conversation, which temple patrons are taught to avoid. Unfortunately, they then leave the temple and adopt the second, also extreme way of thinking.

The saints who judge do not require that a professed apostle or servant sent from the Lord perform a miracle in their presence. Nor do they require that all their priesthood papers are in order. They only require that the apostle carries the appointed witness that comes after the trial of one’s faith. All saints have received this witness and so when presented with another saint, bearing the same witness, they can recognize a brother or sister. The witness itself is a miracle, but one that is born record of verbally, for the word is to be first heard, not seen, in order that faith is engendered. These witnesses are like the tokens or signs spoken of in the temple, by which one knows a true messenger from God.

In conclusion

The commandment to refrain from speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed is a true principle, but only encompasses spreading lies about the saints of God. (Although we are also commanded to not speak evil of anyone else, which encompasses the whole human race.) However, this commandment does not muzzle the saints, who are not prohibited from saying the truth about someone who is acting hypocritically, even if they are leaders of the Lord’s church. Thus, the Lord’s admonition to first take the beam out of our eyes before we go around telling people that they have a mote in their own eyes does not apply to saints, because they have neither beams nor motes in their eyes.

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

Making SENSE of It All – Pt. 2

HIGHER-ARCHY, LOWER-ARCHY – IT’S ALL THE SAME

Continuing down, or should we say up Avicenna’s list of inner senses, we see that there are three types of imaginative faculties. These have the responsibility of relaying information back and forth from the deeper or higher realms, depending on how you choose to describe it. In the Mormon Temple ceremony these are represented by the personages of Peter, James & John. Avicenna says they teach animals and humans what they should avoid and what they should seek in their environment. And this is indeed the same function we find Peter, James & John performing for Adam & Eve in the Telestial World. One of those things that they charge us with avoiding is “evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed.” In our fallen and fragmented psyches we will unfortunately be led to believe that this refers to respecting some hierarchy of leaders. Spiritual blindness keeps us from noticing that all who pass through the temple, not just symbolically but literally, as in every person who is born into this world has been anointed. You and I fall into the category of the Lord’s anointed. And if you speak evil of yourself you will most certainly pay the consequences. See, it is OUR WORDS that shape OUR WORLDS. So, if we “speak evil” of ourselves, putting ourselves down with negative ideas about ourselves then we have only ourselves to blame for the ‘real world’ results of not avoiding that which the heavenly messengers told us to. Remember thought is most powerful. If our thoughts are amiss we may hear a hiss. But no need for alarm, we may simply charm the S-E-R-P-E-N-T and watch as it R-E-P-E-N-T-S. It is all a matter of putting things in their proper order. To re-pent means to re-think and we need to re-think this whole false idea of hierarchy.

“There isn’t a King organ, in charge of your whole body — but you are an organ-ism — a symphony of interacting parts, working in unity. You can’t quite tell if you’re a brain who has a stomach to get food for it — or if you’re a stomach who has a brain to find food for it to eat. And your brain [the one most people think of as "in charge"] isn’t run by a King neuron, directing the trillions of its neuron-underlings — but the brain is strong because of the connections between neurons, and the number of connections you have.”

- Justin Jay in the Commentary On The Revelation of God in Jesus Christ

“If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

– 1 Corinthians 12:17

Until we can learn to esteem all flesh as one, we will reap imbalance. Zion starts with our individual cells and body parts then spreads to loved ones, near and far, overtaking everything in our path with love. WE MUST STOP THE PRACTICE OF PLACING ONE THING UPON A PEDESTAL AS IF IT WERE MORE IMPORTANT AND SETTING ANOTHER ASIDE AS UNIMPORTANT.  The Fathers will surely come to rescue the children but the inverse is also true. So in order to really receive the Spirit of Elijah both the living and those currently dead must be seen as equals. Neither male nor female, spirit nor body can be set over the other but must work together for the best results. We exist to serve God and God exists to serve us.

We must believe in all things. This is essential if we desire to unlock our spiritual senses. The temporal senses, in spite of any boastful attitudes they might have ignorantly adopted towards the spirits, are not to be considered inferior so much as put in proper perspective. The mystics teach that enlightenment can be obtained through a mix of sensory stimulation and deprivation. Any and all paths are valid and open to us. In either their physical or spiritual manifestations, we have made the mistake of arranging our sensory powers in vainly imagined pyramids. For example, the precious foundational sense of smell has been given special attention in this writing to balance the gross negligence our modern culture has traditionally had toward it. Over e-o-n-s, the  n-o-s-e have become so fine tuned in its detection capabilities that the mudra of placing one’s finger to one’s nose has come to signify accuracy. But, in this age, we mask reality from our revealing, highly reliable human olfactory with false fragrances.  One obvious targeting of the sense of smell, can be found in the recent run of advertisements for Procter&Gamble’s Febreeze (Fib-Breeze) air fresheners. They feature subjects recruited off the street for what they were told was a scent experiment and guided into stinky settings like dingy abandoned buildings or shabby wieght-lifting gyms with no windows. In every case, the blindfolded described pleasant-smelling environments nothing like what surrounded them in reality. At the end of the commercial we hear a voice-over boast, “Victory over odors for good, both here and in your home.” Through ignoring the spiritual roots of all things we have come to label many natural odors as ‘stinks’ and it has cut us off from our ‘in-stinks’ We have gone on playing ‘sour grapes’ to deny outright that we humans are supposed to have instincts just as the animals do.

A*N*I*M*A*L – ALL IN MAN

We do not merely possess a human version of instincts. We share the self same instincts of our animal cousins. Subconsciously, we are well aware of this. We do not say that one is as cunning as a lawyer but that the lawyer is as cunning as a snake. According to the Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, the Creator was addressing all of creation, bidding each creature to contribute a portion of its characteristics to the human being when He said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.” The beasts of the field obey their Creator’s law in the instinct which governs them. Of all the creatures that God has made upon the earth, man alone is rebellious. The [fall]ing out we experienced with our animal cousins that occurred when we lost sight of paradise has made it so we sometimes seem only capable of bringing out our animal natures in the most disgusting and vile of ways. Suppressing those parts of ourselves for so long makes it difficult to access them except in extreme circumstances. Man is a microcosm for the whole universe. And as such, God grants him the privilege of being the repository for all its powers.

Ancient Vedic Scripture says that God sleeps in stone, breathes in plants, dreams in animals and awakes in man. But those beautiful sentiments were recorded in a different time and different world. These days it would seem that M.A.N. is an acronym for Misuse of Animal Nature. We have set the tone of this dog-eat-dog world. If humanity is to awaken from its coma we will need to inhale deeply the smelling salts of the earth. To do so, we should tap into that good old olfactory that is so keen and reliable among many animals but underdeveloped for the most part in modern man. One distinct clue that the spiritual side to this particular sense is all but completely dormant is the rarity with which it occurs that we smell or even taste things in our dreams. Survey your friends, family and acquaintances and see how rare an occurrence it is. Smell being so closely linked with memory, it is no wonder we have trouble remembering our dreams most of the time.

Animals teach us about ourselves. A human fetus passes through every major category of animal forms, ranging from ‘fish in the sea’ to ‘creeping thing’ to ‘fowl of the air’ to ‘beasts of the field’ during the nine month gestational period; not to mention the worm like sperm cell that moves through the primordial waters. The human brain can be divided into seven general sectors, each corresponding to a different species.

1. Reptilian – Lower brain stem activity – Fight or flight response
2. Insect  – Medulla – Group effort – No emotional bonding  – Hive Mentality – Busywork – Ants for example are under obligation to obey the rules or suffer beheading as a penalty
3. Avian – Cerebellum -  Cerebellum means Little Brain but it’s no ‘Bird Brain’ – Birds are capable of complex cognitive processes and behaviors such as using tools and even self recognition – But recognizing one’s reflection is no replacement for Knowledge of Self -  Herein lies the Intellect – But also the Ego
4. Mammalian – Occipital – Emotions – The capacity to truly know kinesthetically what is happening anywhere in the world – where we can actually begin to access manhood, womanhood, kingship and queenship, godhood.
5. Pure intuition –  Man – The capability to perceive past present and future simultaneously- Compartmentalization due to the severe abuse, cultural conditioning has retarded this ability in us.
6. Temporal lobe –  Enlightened man – The ability to hear and see etc into other dimensions ESP
7. Frontal lobe – Immortal god – Utilizing the entire electromagnetic spectrum

In a culminating scene from the movie Zookeeper, the main character, Griff is getting a pep talk from his animal friends. The lion says, “You haven’t changed. You don’t know how to trust your instincts. You listen to us and we’ll turn you into an alpha male.” To which the lioness adds, “You’re a good man. You just need some help.” Then the monkey tells our hero, “And who better than us to help you?”

SPIDEY SENSE – OUT OF TIME

You may like the idea of summoning your totem of power animals and unlocking your animal powers. But you are probably thinking, “I don’t have time for this.” No time? You’re right. You have no time to waste. Like Noah, you and I are tasked with assembling an ark. As arc-welders we need to connect the appropriate neural pathways which create buoyant brains. Your personal ark contains what Avicenna calls the “two storehouses” of the memorative and formative faculties (Right & Left Brain). These are symbolized by Noah and his wife who, in conjunction with Shem, Ham and Japeth plus their wives harness the cooperative energy of the afore-mentioned ‘Eight’ to draw in the positive animal attributes. If you build it, the animals will come to you. The ark construction is your act of faith. So before you download one more app for your i-phone, take the time to download an animal spirit. If you are too worried about the time restraints of your busy Babylonian routine, your faith and effectiveness will be lessened. So, might I suggest that you start with something small and quick? Literally.

The spider can help us with our time troubles. In addition to its {8} legs, the spider’s basic body shape is that of a figure-eight or an hour-glass. If you stop the sands of time by laying that hour-glass on its side {∞} head and abdomen form the symbol for infinity. Time is not an issue, but rather a tissue to this skillful silk weaver. Like you she has much to do. Speedy Spidey’s secret is that she operates outside of time so she is never “out of time.” But is it really the outer rim– nigh to Kolobian star systems –where we should be searching for the end of time? NASA may scope the furthest reaches of space and never find it. Meanwhile, the secretive spider spins spirit into a web with a form which is so soundly based on the dynamics of the universal grid, it draws from the inner rim. This non-place is the nun-palace, housing the i-n-t-e-r-i-m, rearranged into i-n-r-t-i-m-e, that no man has ever seen, but the Black Widow occupies it. What is ‘it’? Why, the interval of time between one event, process, or period and another – counted as nothing by man but nonetheless constituting the bulk of the universe. So the next time you have to kill a poisonous or possibly deadly arachnid to preserve the safety of your family members and pets, do it with gratitude and purpose, in the spirit of the Lord. You will discover, like Nephi after slaying Laban, that the qualities of the slain will be yours to use in fulfilling the commandments of the Lord.

What does the spirit of the spider feel like? The best example I can think of is in an experience had by a young LDS father from the Seattle area. While playing a game of basketball this man had an experience that he describes in the following words:

“I had the ball, I jumped right by the hoop and a defending player jumped as well. Time slowed when I was in the air bumping next to the other guy. What lasted less than 2 seconds to everyone else, lasted 10 seconds to me. Look at a clock and compare those two times. That is a major difference. Actually there really wasn’t any time, I was just doing things without time. I realize that now. I could move, it was slow and precise, my senses were super heightened. I could move my arms and shoulders around and manipulate my movement and his movements. I was able to move around his arm and body to get a clear shot. I physically was able to move and twist and jump higher and with more power than ever before. Once it ended, the trainer told me, “good body control.” I have no idea how it happened. It’s not important that it happened to me, it happens to people all over. Movies try to show it, but it’s not the same because the whole being is functioning, not just what a camera can show.

When I was jumping with the basketball, the smallest things were important. I was cognizant of every part of me and what it did and could do and I used them. But time didn’t exist for me. I did everything I wanted. My senses were truly magnified and functioned properly (a la The Initiatory). The way I reacted to the other player’s body in that moment, it was different. It was like a dance. I didn’t force him, he followed my lead. I don’t think it was him mentally, but his body responded to me, harmoniously. It was very fluid.

You know when you bump in to someone by accident, you can’t recall specifically what hit, just a general area. Well, when our bodies were in contact, every patch of flesh and muscle, I was aware of and felt. It’s like they were all alive. I was very conscious of each body connection; my shoulder to my elbow and how they worked together, even though I didn’t concentrate or focus on it. My subconscious and conscious minds were one. So I could manipulate my body and move it very specifically. This also affected the other guy because I moved across his body in exact ways.

Also, my power felt whole. Not that I was super powered or super strong, just very solid, whole. I did what I wanted and it’s not like he resisted, even though to everyone else, he was throwing his body weight into me and mine was being thrown into his ~ definitely a power layup as it is called. But it wasn’t a struggle between us, more of a dance and I was the lead.”

In the aptly titled “Time Must Have a Stop” Aldous Huxley writes: “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. ~ So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterwards, when you’ve worked on your own corner.” This is the dance we are supposed to engage in. That others respond to the rhythm of our will does not constitute compulsion. It is an agreeable synchronization of spirits and that means it is happening on a higher, heavenly order than our typical earthly dealings with one another.

 ROYALTY IN REALITY – THE SECOND COMING TO OUR SENSES

There was a time when I described my‘self’ as “not really an animal person.” I considered myself better than the animals. As a self proclaimed “good person,” I of course believed that animals fell into our collective stewardship. My former self could almost be heard to say, with the voice of a posh British personality, that “Naturally, animals should be cared for, to an extent.” But as a “city slicker,” I didn’t “personally care too much for them,” both literally and figuratively. I always thought of myself as more of a “people person.” and still do to a great degree. But much of what the world today calls “people skills” are very over-rated when one takes in the bigger picture of our Father’s Plan. I can not bask in the false sense of pride I once did. I have now felt the real and royal sense of pride. That is to say, I am rapidly becoming aware of ‘pride’ in the sense that the mighty lion experiences it; as community.

That spirit of the rightful ruler inside me wishes to roar nothing save it be repentance unto this gene-ration. I issue a cautionary call and wild warning to anyone, my ‘self’ included, who would treat these things lightly. There are those who would misinterpret the humble pride of the lion of Judah, taking the King’s kindness for weakness. At this time they sit comfortably and secure, or so they suppose. But soon their townhouses will cease to provide them comfort and their gated complexes will fail to protect them from the young lions, who will go through and tear them into pieces. Not only is it foolishness to disregard the role that animals play in our lives, but it is also folly to work through  M.A.N.-Made political vehicles for the rights of animals. Never will men who place their faith in poli-tricks be able to be true advocates for the humane treatment of animals. Until they shed the so called ‘grassroots campaigns’ and feel the true grassroots echoed in the growth of their own manly manes, piercing the reality around their heads at a hundred receptive points to realize that, just as self-righteous vegetarians eat vegetables –humanitarians eat humans. If only they would be proud of their animal heritage and not prideful in their preaching of political process which profanes the symbol of the sacred eagle and prolongs suffering.

Please don’t turn up your noses at my raising a stink unless it is to catch the spiritual scent of truth. The modern gentile is indeed a self-endangering species. Any paleontologist will tell you how the larger olfactory bulbs and temporal lobes of human beings made a lot of sense for our healthier ancestors as these things contributed to kinship recognition, enhanced family relations, group cohesion and tribal learning. Ungratefully, we spend millions on plastic surgery and complain that no one even ‘nose’ their neighbors these days. The more a people reject the tribal wisdom of their past, the closer they draw to complete ex-stinktion.

We find ourselves at a critical juncture. For decades now we have been conditioned by “Diet, injections, and injunctions” just as ‘false’ prophet Bertrand Russell foretold in 1953. But we were forewarned by the Lord way back in 1833. Spiders weave webs. Men are free to use that for good or evil. Ten years after CON-SPIRIT-ors expressed the desire to make spiritual sensation “psychologically impossible,” they too, tapped into the Crazy Eight energy. They cleverly pulled us into a game of reverse psychology to see who could divest himself of all his God-given cards first for a false feeling of wining. They released Fr∞t L∞ps ™,a false fruit poison introduced by a fake foul (Toucan Sam) to a target audience of young children. It is suspicious that Toucan Sam spoke to us with a Brittish accent when this product never has been sold in England accept for a limited time in 2012. And yet, the term “fruit loop” has commonly been used in the UK to refer to a person who is mentally ill.

These evil designs, which the Word of Wisdom warns us of, were intentional and laid the groundwork for what is happening right now. Sons and daughters of the 70s to 80s are often unable to distinguish between god food and bad. And even those who try to reach back and resurrect the spirit of the 60s through protest of Genetically Modified Organisms, do err in many instances because they are led by the precepts of men, which tell them that demonocracy and political activism will or can save them from downfall. With their lips they say, “Nature knows best,” but their hearts are far from Her. For, while they may identify some advancements of the Enemy through diet and injections, a veil of vanity blocks from their view the third pillar of ‘injunction’. They are tricked into playing the central role in the plan of the Evil One by engaging with it. They may avoid artificial sweeteners but they are suckers for the sweet talk of bogus Zionists. They might be able to tell the difference between Fruit and Froot but they are unable to distinguish between Truth and Error. They consistently mistake tactics for solutions. Will they ever acknowledge that all everlasting solutions;

1. Require a change of heart and lifestyle

2. Are not dependant upon money

3. Are illegal

Animals and tribal humans alike, have an inner sense that tells them when danger is approaching. The sense of smell and many others have been better preserved in the so called lower life-forms and primitive peoples. The God of Nature is ready to restore them to us if we will but humble ourselves. If the Second Coming of Christ is to be survived by us it will have to be experienced in all its glory and power and that requires a Second Coming to our senses. But if upon feeling the senses of our souls surge to the surface, we run straight to the Doctor for a prescription to deaden the strange sensations so that we can function ‘normally’ in the ‘real’ work-a-day world — what does that say about our stance towards Christ?

Paul and the church at Judea

I was reading through the resurrection narratives in the four gospels, thinking about writing something about Mary Magdalene because of some comments I wrote on a Wheat & Tares post by Mormon Heretic [Smearing Mary Magdalene].

I was writing down the order of appearences made by Jesus after he resurrects from the grave, as given by each of the four witnesses that we have canonized currently.

The four gospel narratives:

Mark

• Mary Magdelene, out of whom Jesus had cast seven devils
• two of them as they walked and went into the country
• the eleven

Luke

• Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with him
• two of them on the road to a village called Emmaus
• Simon
• the eleven

Matthew

• Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
• the eleven

John

• Mary Magdalene
• the disciples
• Thomas

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

Though we think of Paul as coming later in chronology — in terms of historical dates for the written records — the authenticated letters of Paul are the earliest written Christian documents of the bible.  In other words, what got written down into [e.g.] Corinthian epistles was physically put to paper before the words that got written down as the Mark, Matthew, Luke, or John narratives.

1 Corinthians 15:5-8, then, gives what is the earliest [historically-speaking] written account of post-mortal appearances of Jesus, given as testimony that he did indeed resurrect from the grave.  Paul writes the appearances in this order:

• Cephas
• the twelve
• over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present but some are fallen asleep
• James
• all the apostles
• Paul himself

Of interest in Paul’s list is that the order is unlike anything seen in the four gospel narratives.  The risen Jesus is seen by Peter first — not Mary [she's not there at all].

Then he is seen by “the twelve” — not the “eleven” [implying Judas was not counted out of the number of the quorum].

Then there is a large event where over 500 men see him at one time.  This would have undoubtably been a miraculous account, if only our canon contained it.  Paul was obviously using that appearance to lend the most verifiable credibility to his own testimony — because he makes it a point to mention that many of those men are still alive today — as if to say to the readers, “You can go ask them if you doubt me, they’re still around.”

Then James is mentioned separate from “the twelve” — presumably because this is “James, the Lord’s brother“, rather than the apostle who was John’s brother.  Also it is interesting to note that Peter, the twelve, and James are all mentioned as separate from “all the apostles.”  This suggests that what Paul considered an “apostle” is different from the Quorum of twelve male key-holders that we currently think of when we use that word:

salute Andronicus
and Junia
my kin
and my fellowprisoners
who are noteworthy apostles
who also were in christ before me

[Romans 16:7]

Paul’s bound-less concept of the gospel:

I was thinking of some reasons why this would be.  Paul seems to have thought about the church of Christ in terms that were broader in scope and more “bound-less” in understanding than did the brethren at Jerusalem.  It was his radical idea that if it is indeed true that every one is justified, sanctified, and purified by faith in the blood of Christ alone — then:

there is neither jew nor greek
there is neither bond nor free
there is neither male nor female
for ye are all one
in christ
Jesus

[Galatians 3:28]

… a message of a gospel of uncircumcision — egalitarian tribal anarchy — or complete liberty in Christ.

Paul, in fact, did not seem to quorum with the twelve at Jerusalem and Peter at all.  He makes it a point in his letter to the Galatian church to state that the gospel he delivered to them was given to him straight from the mouth of Jesus — and not from the oral tradition and records of the men at Jerusalem:

Paul
an apostle not of men, neither by man
but by Jesus christ, and god the father, who raised him from the dead
unto the churches of Galatia
I certify you
brethren
that the gospel which was preached of me
is not after man
for I neither received it of man
neither was I taught it
but it came by the revelation of Jesus christ

but when it pleased god
to reveal his son in me
that I might preach him among the gentiles
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood
neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me
after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter
and abode with him fifteen days
but I saw none of the other apostles
save James the Lord’s brother
I was unknown by face unto the churches of Christ in Judea

[Galatians 1]

Paul also describes how Peter acted with “stiffneckedness and unbelief” [3 Nephi 15:18]:

when the brethren at Jerusalem saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me
as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter
[...]
and when James, Cephas, and John
who seemed to be pillars
perceived the grace that was given unto me
they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship
that we should go unto the gentiles
and they unto the circumcision

but when Peter was come to Antioch
I withstood him to the face
because he was to be blamed
for [...] he did eat with the Gentiles
but when they were come [from Judea]
he withdrew and separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision

but when I saw that they walked not uprightly
according to the truth of the gospel
I said unto Peter before them all
if thou, being a jew, livest after the manner of gentiles [...] why compellest thou the gentiles to live as do the jews?
[...]
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law
but by the faith of Jesus christ
even we have believed in Jesus christ
that we might be justified by the faith of christ
and not by the works of the law
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified

[Galatians 2]

In fact, the undisputedly authentic letters of Paul [Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians] are never addressed to:

• “Bishop So-and-so, of the church at ______”

or to

• “The elders of the church at _______”

etc.

But are always addressed to just “the church”, as a leaderless body of equals who gather together for worship.  It’s not until the disputed letters of Paul [1 and 2 Timothy and Titus] that you start to see a leadership hierarchy being given direction that they are to pass on to the lay-members.

The church of Christ in Judea went through all three stages of the church of God:

It started in stage one, built on the miraculous works of the Father:

and when the day of pentecost was fully come
they were all with one accord in one place
and suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a rushing mighty wind
and it filled all the house where they were sitting
and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire
and it sat upon each of them
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
and began to speak with other tongues
as the Spirit gave them utterance

[Acts 2:1-4]

The church of Christ multiplied greatly, the word of God was preached with authority and power, the community of believers lived as Zion, etc.

By the time we get to the time at which Paul begins writing his letters [~40-50's AD], the church of Christ has entered the stage two, built on the works of men.

The church in Judea governs according to their Judean culture, instead of the purity of the truth of the gospel alone.  The “stiffneckedness and unbelief” that Jesus mentioned to the Nephite church began to exert itself until manifestations of power began leaving the church.

The church of Christ begins to solidify into a hierarchy of religious brokers — who see themselves as having the jurisdiction over who experiences Jesus and how.

In the gospel of Mary Magdelene, it reads:

When Mary had [told the twelve what Jesus taught to her], she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her.

But Andrew answered and said to the brethren:  ”Say what you wish to say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.”

Peter answered and spoke concerning the same things.  He questioned them about the Savior, saying:  ”Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us?  Are we to turn about and all listen to her?  Did He prefer her to us?”

Then Mary wept and said to Peter: “My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior?”

Levi answered and said to Peter:  ”Peter you have always been hot tempered.  Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries.  But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her?  Surely the Savior knows her very well.”

Finally the history of the church of Christ passes through stage three [built on the works of the devil] — where at some point, it is wholly rejected by the Lord and ceased to have any power or authority.

Next Article by Justin: Intimacy as the Opposite of Sin

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What’s the recipe for healing?

Taking our Myths Literally

Myths are our Stories:

“Myth” is usually contrasted to “true” or “fact”, as in – “Oh, that’s just a myth.”  However, the “mythos” were ancient man’s stories about gods – they were their experiences with the governing powers of human nature, the earth, and the universe.  The myths were only declared “false” when the Christian religion conquered the nations who told the stories – and decreed that their way of relating to the natural world [their gods] were “false”.

They weren’t true-or-false or factual-or-inaccurate – in the way that we currently use those words.  The myths were just a different way for humans to speak about truth and about facts.  They were a metaphorical or poetic way of expressing true and factual things about life.  Myths would not have persisted as an integral piece of human culture if they failed to accord with reality and didn’t accurately describe the world.

Those who formulated the myths were not attempting to lay down historically-sound, verifiable, and literally-true presentations of what actually took place in a physical sense.  They were how people conveyed true facts about human nature and the natural world.  The myths are the poetic story-language by which those who’d had actual experiences with the governing powers of nature and of the universe [God] brought that transcendent experience back to the community.

Myths were how the community explained to its new members how the world in its present form came to be, how a human being ought to relate to the powers of the world, and what is expected of members of the community.

However, while myths may admittedly be stories – we cannot say that they are not true, real, or literal.  What’s missed [when “myth” gets labeled as “not real”] is that the stories were never meant to convey “history” with all the scientific rigor we’ve developed centuries after the stories were first told.  They were meant to convey the story of how this or that person experienced God – in a language that was metaphorical, poetic, or image-based – to bring that experience back for the community at large.

True Stories and False Stories:

All the ancient language gods were the magic gods as well [Mercury, Odin, etc.] because language shapes our whole consciousness and how we put ideas together [how we tell stories] – and that’s magical.  Casting a spell is really nothing more than spelling – or changing reality through the manipulation of symbols, forms, and images.

All such “magic” is drawn from our imaginations – the right-brain-heart [the spring of living waters inside each of us] – which is patterned after the eternal right-brain-imagination of God, from which the universe has been created [by the will of His left-brain-mind].

However, the mind of God is immeasurably greater than our own – which means there isn’t anything that we can think of that He hasn’t already thought of.  So what we do is take things that He’s imagined, represented, and given purpose [creating it by bringing it from His infinite imagination into the sphere of the created universe] – and run these through our right-brains to imagine, create, and give purpose to them anew [in our own life].

Some of the representations of things in play here on earth have a counterpart that will endure beyond death [a true/real image] – and some representations are empty [vain] and carry only an image of reality [a false image].

And that’s the probation [the test] of mortality – to see, when presented with various images, forms, and representations of things – if we will live out the ones that are of an enduring nature [e.g., power by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, and meekness] and shun the ones that carry only the image, but no reality [e.g., power by compulsory means, coercion, or force].

God desires to inspire people by sending the Holy Spirit into their right-brain-hearts with images for them to create with.  Satan’s desire is that people be inspired with images that lack any enduring reality behind them.  God desires the Holy Spirit to be what’s found in our right-brain-hearts, from which our left-brain-minds draw inspiration from to create things in our world with – instead of us using the doctrines of devils or the commandments of men to create with.

Discerning True Stories from False Stories:

It all starts with someone’s story.  A man or woman experiences a manifestation of God.  By the power of the Holy Ghost:  they have obtained faith unto repentance by having a broken heart and contrite spirit, have wallowed in the fear of being cast-off from God forever, have trembled under a full-on awareness of their own guilt – and what they’ve sown in tears, they’ve reaped in Joy.  Experiencing the complete redemption of their soul from hell and forgiveness of their sins.

This person is now free from the power and captivity of the devil, is free from the separate-Self consciousness that sin causes, has denied their Self and identified with Christ, and has experienced God as a continuous aspect of their own being.

Now this seer [person who has seen] comes back to his or her community with the desire that everyone else experience this same thing.  They no longer perceive separateness among others the way that a mind still ensnared in sin does.  So once free from sin, the seer now fears and trembles for others.  She suffers for the sins of others.  He desires for all others to have the same privilege to be born of God, free from sin.

But it’s an experience, or a happening – it’s like a dance or a song.  To only come back to the community with a “telling” wouldn’t help anyone else see eye-to-eye with them.  They need to be able to sing the Song – so that other people will hear it – and will sing It along with them.

I may be able to break a dance apart into its rhythm, steps, and movements around the floor – I may be able to describe a song in terms of its meter, key, rhythm, tempo, notes, scale, and harmony – but that’s just putting a grid onto something wiggly so it can be perceived and described.  It’s just a “telling”.

The only way to have someone really know the dance or the song – is to dance it or sing it.  Then they’ll know.

Adam knew Eve
and she conceived

[Moses 5:16]

The scriptural euphemism for husbands and wives coming together is “knowing” for this same reason.  Eternal life is to “know” God – because unless something is experienced [is known] – then the people will not see eye-to-eye, but will see instead through a glass, darkly.  They will only know about the experience in part, not fully [see 1 Cor. 13:12].

Musical notation [the myths, the story] has its place in telling people about a song – but one should not hand a person a sheet with musical notes on strings of lines when they really desire the Song.

This is what a false priest [not a seer] does.  A false priest simply re-tells the stories of a previous time.  He only administers in the images of an experience with God who was there before he came along — just putting on a show up on his stage every week.

A false priest is handed-down [by tradition] something that was originally experiential and relative — and because he has no first-hand relationship with this story, it get’s turned into something dogmatic and absolute.  He takes someone who was a preacher — and turns them into the preached.  Making a message out of a messenger by pedestalizing those who’ve had genuine experiences and who tried to tell others about it [so they could have it too].

This is why false priesthoods are obsessed with tracing the lines of authority:

Satan
we command you to depart

by what authority?

and

and it came to pass
that on one of those days
as he taught the people in the temple
and preached the gospel
the chief priests and the scribes
came upon him
with the elders
and spake unto him
saying

tell us, by what authority doest thou these things?
or who is he that gave thee this authority?

[Luke 20:1-2]

because their authority has no true basis in the reality of an actual experience – it’s based only on social convention and tradition – having the all the form but denying the reality.

On the other hand, the authority of a true and prophetic seer comes out of that person’s own experience.  He or she has been somewhere that I haven’t and comes to explain it to me.  Now, they may use ritual [right-brain gesture language] or use scripture [left-brain word-based language] to convey this inner experience in an outward form/image for me – but the key to discernment is that the true messenger speaks from his own experience and a false messenger speaks the stories of someone else.

I’ll Make Discernment Even Easier:

The scriptural standard is that if a person does not have the spirit of prophecy and revelation, then they “shall not teach” [D&C 42:14] — or in other words, they should keep silent.

So when anyone interprets the scriptures, presents a doctrine, or is in any other manner “teaching” — ask them:

• Are you a prophet?
• Do you have the spirit of prophecy and revelation?
• Are you a seer?
• Did you actually experience this manifestation for yourself?

If they say that it’s their own idea, their own guess, or they defer to some other authority, etc. — then stop listening.  You are free to just take it or leave it as you would if anyone else would have said something about any other subject. You can learn nothing extra-ordinary from such people.

If they say that they do have the spirit of prophecy and revelation or that they actually did experience a miraculous work, then listen closely to what they say — because now that means only one of two things:

• They are true prophets sent from God
• They are false prophets trying to deceive

A true prophet, when asked if they have the spirit of prophecy and revelation, will always answer in the affirmative.

A man giving his honest, but non-prophetic opinion ["inspired counsel"] will not claim to be a prophet or a seer – because he fears to speak a false prophecy and be called-out as an imposter.

However, a deceiver will also always say that he has the spirit of prophecy and revelation.

So once someone claims to be a prophet or a seer [comes out with a “Thus saith the Lord…", for example], now the burden is on me, to compare what the word of God says to what the professed prophet has said and do as the Spirit indicates.  If he is declaring a miraculous work, then:

ye shall ask of the father
in the name of Jesus
and if he give not unto you that spirit
then you may know that it is not of god

[D&C 50:31]

Ritual is the Enactment of a Story:

The performance of rituals is an integral part of all religions.  It is through the reenactment of a shared story [a common myth] that the mind of the community is focused towards the same end.  It provides an element of shared experience that facilitates bonding between community members.  The performance of a ritual connects the participants to the specific morphic field that’s associated with that ritual and then each initiate can share the collective memory that is stored there.

The LDS temple endowment follows in this same tradition.

Joseph’s first “endowment” was the experience of seeing two heavenly personages face-to-face.  He went on to behold various ministering spirits, resurrected angels, Jesus Christ, etc. — all personal appearances, face-to-face.

After the Kirtland temple was dedicated and the ordinances there were administered, Joseph wrote:

The Saviour made his appearance to some, while angels ministered unto others, and it was a pentacost and enduement indeed, long to be remembered for the sound shall go forth from this place into all the world, and the occurrences of this day shall be handed down upon the pages of sacred history to all generations, as the day of Pentecost.

Seeing the Lord and ministering angels face-to-face is the foremost purpose of the temple ritual.  Such an eye-to-eye experience was key to what was formulated as “the endowment”.  It’s why temple-goers are taught the order of prayer and prepared in all things to receive further instructions at the veil.  It was all given with the assumption that a real experience would follow the image [or enactment] of an experience.

and inasmuch as my people build a house
unto me
in the name of the lord
and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it
that it be not defiled
my glory shall rest upon it
yea
and my presence shall be there
for I will come into it
and all the pure in heart
that shall come into it
shall see god

[D&C 97:15-16]

and

therefore
sanctify yourselves
that your minds become single to god
and the days will come
that you shall see him
for he will unveil his face unto you
and it shall be in his own time
and in his own way
and according to his own will

[D&C 88:68]

Essentially — that was the endowment Joseph was trying to give the church of God [not special underwear and secret hand gestures] – but the same experience that was had by all the ancient prophets.  Bringing us eye-to-eye with them, connecting them to us by a common experience, a common morphic field.

That’s what all rituals do – establish a morphic field that anyone connects to when the ritual is done according to the same pattern.  That’s why the ordinances of the gospel are strictly described in terms of the manner and wording of the ritual.

Paul warned the Corinthian church that their failure to administer the ritual of the sacramental meal in the worthy/appropriate manner was the reason there were many sick and dying among them.  There is a healing effect associated with the sacrament ritual — but it must be reenacted according to the pattern given by the Lord in order for us to be connected to the proper morphic field.  The same is true for the other ordinances of the gospel and their respective effects as well.  [See, The Healing Gifts]

The reverse side of this is seen in the hidden symbols, catch-phrases, etc. that are put into movies, TV, pop music, advertising, bank notes, buildings, orchestrated world events, etc. – where satanic secret combinations are working to achieve the same end.  Just like there are wars over physical land here in the material world — the mental world likewise has its own battles for control over the common-space there.

The more people connect to a certain idea – myth, story, system, etc. – the more powerful it becomes.  Were enough people to connect to a single morphic field [were it to ever reach a sort of “critical mass”] it could end the world.  The historical “Zion” communities have done such a thing [Enoch, Melchizedek, Nephites, etc.].  The latter-day Zion will in fact bring a complete end to this world – a revelation sufficient enough to melt away our current systems, politics, economics, and ideas about the world – and usher in a new earth.

Having Images with no Reality:

I think that it’s common for LDS to take little instruction from the current temple ordinance.  It is my opinion that this is because we have reached the point where the meaning of the images have been lost long enough ago — that even the priesthood among us have no idea what to make of the thing and what it’s all about.

However, it is not the jurisdiction of the priestly-class to give form [or life] to the images of our stories.  Is it be reasonable to expect church leaders to initiate members of the community into the meaning of the images and display what it’s like when they’re brought to life — rather than just initiating them into the empty-images themselves alone?  Sure.  But that’s simply not the state of affairs we have right now, in a church of God informed by and operating under the doctrines and commandments of men.

All that means is that it’s on you [not them].  They administer the forms — but you must then go on to make that word flesh – you must bring the forms to life, give the image reality.  To just take the empty forms they administer and do nothing with them only perpetuates the whole problem.  Our calling is to take the images and create with them.

Bringing Them to Life:

Religion, myth, stories, ritual, etc. – it’s about the experience.  It all begins as an attempt to tell stories about a connection with God – of an experience of the transcendent level of being called Joy – the communion of a human being with The Supreme Being or Ultimate Doing.

In this form, it’s fluid – like poetry or metaphor.  Apostasy and false priesthoods come in as the story gets reduced to a creed, as the relative gets hardened into the absolute, as the poetry is taken as prose.  The reality behind the image, myth, or story is lost — and only thing that remains is the the empty shell what what’s left after meaning or purpose departs from something.

The religion itself, the actual stories, the stage show-like enactments of ritual – they are purely functionary.  When it has nothing to do with actually having the experience — if it becomes an empty-image, a form without life – then it’s as harmful as additions to processed food, pornography, or social media can be.

Religion is the religare – the connecting bonds of ligaments and tendons that knit us together.  When the ligaments remain fluid [the relative, right-brain, poetic form], then we relate to God as a continuous experience, as a state of Supreme Being.  We don’t prescribe ethical or moral codes – but act out of expediency and charity.

But when they atrophy [harden into the absolute, left-brain, creedal form] – instead of knitting us together, religion binds us down – God becomes the This-Thing that must be related to in That-Way, that you must now believe/do accordingly to get Him to respond to you.

Reading the scriptures, participating in the rituals, etc. – they are just the retelling or reenactment of someone else’s story.  It is in vain unless it is pursuant to you having the same experience – connecting to the same morphic field and seeing eye-to-eye with them.

We cannot look to another to give the ideas and forms of our religion life because that is our job.  The scriptures are just the stories of Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Lehi, Nephi, Abinadi, Jesus, Peter, Paul, Moroni, John, etc.  They are simply their stories about their experiences with God.

Their stories will not save you.  Reenacting events from their stories as rituals will not generate real Life or Joy in you.  Such things are meant to motivate you to get on the same pathway, to receive a similar connection with God, and to see eye-to-eye with them.

However, history has shown the Gentile church of God to be a hard-hearted and faithless bunch — content with having one person sit atop a hierarchal power-pyramid and habitually obey what he says.  They largely receive equal “experience quotient” from images and representations compared with the reality of what is being imaged and represented.  It’s why advertising works, it’s why industrial food is so widely consumed, it’s why people enjoy pornography so much, it’s why social-media is so popular.  But that’s receiving the image with no reality behind it.

When Life and Joy are about the happening — about human beings being about the same thing as the Supreme Being.

Next Article by Justin: … and I’m a Mormon

Previous Article by Justin:  Going from Concrete to Flowers

Going from Concrete to Flowers

Nothing is as delicate and brittle as thing-oriented group of people – so easily shattered by envy, covetousness, and strife once the pressure is put on.

ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; […] [do] lift yourselves up in the pride of your hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities;

and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.

For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches,

more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

Zion is not a pie-in-the-sky utopia that falls in our laps once we’ve occupied our time long enough — waiting around for Jesus to return to sort everything out.

It is a permeating culture or way of life.  Jesus showed the world what this utopian kingdom looks like by the miraculous works of the Father that He manifested – showing us how to end the reign of the four horsemen [statism, war, famine, and death] and establish the Reign of God.

Those works that He did are what bring about an apocalypse –

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass

but we [as free agents] must do those works for the image to become reality – revealing Jesus Christ in ourselves, being the Jesus Christ in our own situations — making the Word become flesh in us.

If not, it remains the idea of Zion — what we wait around for and sit around and talk about.

We can spend our Life searching for salvation, enlightenment, etc. “out-there” — when all the time, we carry it around in us:

behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

We must surrender [or die to] all our earthly attachments, our vain imaginations, our worldly ideas, and our petty emotions — they must all be nailed to the cross of Christ so we can change our minds [repent] and move on —

– on to that immortal aspect we have in each one of us, You as God [or God as You] — and that’s who Jesus Christ was — God as a human, or humans as God.

That’s what Jesus was showing us:

Here, in that gold-lit realm of Zion lies our true reality, where we are who we are in our right-brain-hearts – once all pretense and personas have been dropped.  Where we are the fully naked-Self that just is.

Unless that change has occurred:

• where we have the same mind in us which was in Christ Jesus,
• where we’ve stopped relating to God as the “out-there”, elderly man on the throne,
• where we no longer just tag”the name of Jesus Christ” onto the words and actions of our left-brain concept of Self,
• but have begun to identify ourselves with [or as] Christ in mind and in heart

we cannot expect a physical change in our environment to manifest.

Once we’ve denied [or disowned] our Self with the fear, trembling, sorrow, weeping, and broken heart brought about by the gospel of Jesus Christ preached in its purity [by the power of the Holy Ghost and in the spirit of prophecy and revelation], taken up our cross, and started doing the same works as Jesus — then may we begin to see eye-to-eye with those in Zion.

How beautiful upon the mountains have been the feet of the one

proclaiming good tidings,

sounding peace;

proclaiming good tidings,

sounding salvation;

saying to Zion, “Thy God has reigned!”

The voice of thy watchmen!

they have lifted up their voice, crying aloud together:

because, eye-to-eye, they see YHVH turning back to Zion.

Break forth into joy, sing together,

O waste places of Jerusalem:

for YHVH hath comforted his people,

he hath redeemed Jerusalem.

YHVH hath made his holy arm bare

in the eyes of all the nations;

and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Living out their story in our own life, seeing the things that they saw with our own eyes, making the word become flesh — comes as we stop working in our own names, and begin to connect as family [united order] through the bonds of covenant, which knit together strangers into joint-stewards:

And now, a commandment I give unto you concerning Zion, that you shall no longer be bound as a united order to your brethren of Zion, only on this wise— […]

they shall be organized in their own names; and they shall do their business in their own name.  And you shall do your business in your own name.

And this I have commanded to be done for your salvation, and also for their salvation, in consequence of that which is to come.

The covenants being broken through transgression, by covetousness and feigned words — Therefore, you are dissolved as a united order with your brethren, that you are not bound only up to this hour unto them,

And again, a commandment I give unto you concerning your stewardship which I have appointed unto you.  Behold, all these properties are mine, or else your faith is vain, and ye are found hypocrites, and the covenants which ye have made unto me are broken;

And if the properties are mine, then ye are stewards; otherwise ye are no stewards.  But, verily I say unto you, I have appointed unto you to be stewards over mine house.

And for this purpose I have commanded you to organize yourselves, […] For the purpose of building up my church and kingdom on the earth, and to prepare my people for the time when I shall dwell with them, which is nigh at hand.

In contrast to the current political/economic narrative of a selfish, depraved, calculating human –

Kinship governs who we are in ways current theories fail to account for:

In a world characterized by familial relationships, there is no such thing as “self-interest” [in a self-seeking, calculating sense].

For a time, humans gathered only according to their tribe and their land.  Familial ties are the natural form of human community.  “Advancement” has really just meant that we could begin “bonding” through other things like commerce or information – making communities out of largely unrelated persons.

The cost of this great advancement has been that few of us find joy in the work we do on this earth – few of us have time to cook healthy food and raise healthy families – and by the time most of us stop working the jobs we don’t really like, our health and family are so damaged that we’ll spend the remaining years alone, medicated in a nursing home.

When we are a thing-oriented society [instead of people-oriented] – we are all about the acquiring and the advancing.  Big concrete streets to accommodate big cars, to drive to big stores to buy big plastic-stuff – building the biggest house that’ll fit on the allotted property, having tiny backyards that are paved with concrete anyway, and then sitting inside in chairs to passively observe reality on pixelated screens – and that’s supposed to create joy?

That is so far detached from the Earth:

From the dirt that God gave us – that chaos from which we can create and nurture Life.  Truly living, as a people-oriented society is not about the acquiring – it’s about the connecting.  It’s not about the advancing – it’s about the enduring.  The struggle of human experience is to break through the barriers – and into connection, intimacy, and companionship.

This involves coming to know that – there is no value in things.  They are literally no-thing at all.

The only thing of enduring, true reality is the connections between human beings.  Connectivity is the key.

Humans are naturally social beings.  And the family is the charitable gift society that we are all born into – for the purpose of learning the only lesson we can learn that will save us – charity.  Those who learn charity will enter the charitable gift society that exists in heaven – the family of God.

For a gathered body of family is the only society that can be free and eternal – an everlasting Zion, worlds without end.

Nature [though it follows similar patterns] is ever-new and always creating:

Never boring.  Each new generation that comes along learns about the mystery of the Earth as it is – the world of nature, which was patterned after that eternal world where God resides.

One would think that stability and endurance in a society would breed utter boredom and monotony.  However, where we see utterly boring sameness is in our current skylines, TV shows, brand-names, and highways.  Where we see monotony is in our city-states, monetary systems, concepts of property, monogamy, monoculture, etc.  We are boxed-in with the whole world property-lined, zoned, speed-limited, paved, taxed, regulated, registered, addressed, and licensed.

But nobody left room for Life.

Life here on Earth is just a limited time in what is really a brief probationary situation.  It’s the same play acted out on the same stage for millennia.  The ancients faced the same trials and triumphs, had the same drives and desires that we do.

The props, the technology and fashions, etc. might get constantly replaced, but the plot always remains the same – to commune with God and with one another.

How many more different props and costume changes can a single play have?  How many more shiny things can I own?

It is we who take something like nature – which is amoral, impartial, and anarchic — come in and bring judgments and value-claims such as kindness and cruelty, meaning and order to the whole thing.  But nature itself, outside of a human left-brain-mind, is a blank canvas for our projection.

And humans have been working for millennia to make nature a safe, organized place:

But any attempt to control a single variable in a natural system will only result in more variables becoming chaotic.  This is because a natural system is at rest.  It is at equilibrium and can stay at equilibrium without any energy input indefinitely.

When force is applied to one part of the system, the other parts react proportionately in an attempt to restore that equilibrium point.

This is man’s fall [which is pride] — setting themselves up as Gods in their own right — trying to control the world with control, dominion, and compulsion – instead of just being spontaneously, naturally — as we suppose children or animals to be – and allowing our kingdom to flow unto us without compulsory means.

When Isaiah the prophet was told to prophesy to Israel, the Lord said:

Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot.  And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

God gave humans barefeet because He covered the Earth in dirt and grass.  But man thought he could do better than God and he covered the world in concrete.  So man had to invent shoes to walk on the concrete.

One thing we do begets the need to do another thing in response [so on and so forth], until we reach the point we are at currently, where we spend most of our energy fighting to control what our attempts at control have caused.

The structure. 

We’ve separated ourselves within our little families with the minimum amount of adults required, each having our own properties and our own possessions – to such an extent that we miss out on the richness of oneness with others – the simple salve of being freely connected to all our human brothers and sisters.

That safety in numbers that comes as we gather.  Our souls cry-out for this connection and free association – but like when the body is missing a necessary component or nutrient, we may be able to cope but can never truly be made whole without it.

This satisfying level of community comes as human-beings connect with other human-beings.  A husband, wife, and resulting children look exactly like how the scriptures define a paradisaical, Zion community — the kind of community believers in Christ are supposed to be building, making it “on earth“, as it is “in heaven“.

Such a body of believers in Christ [who are bound by both kinship and shared belief] should continue to grow itself along the same lines — as a family.

Families meet together naturally, they do not “have meetings”.  Going door-to-door, handing out religious tracts – that’s advertising.  That’s marketing religion and religious paraphernalia.

Church and missionary work are about being engaged in gathering the tribes of Israel – gathering people out from among the tribes of the earth.  Everyone who comes unto Christ, whether they are of the direct bloodline of Israel [Jacob] or not [a Gentile], is automatically numbered among the house of Israel when they are converted to the Lord.   The covenants that the church priesthood administers are what takes unrelated believers in Christ and binds them [knits them] together into bona-fide tribes of Israel – the Lord’s family.

The reason we are all “one in Christ” is that we all become His sons and daughters.  That rebirth is fundamentally conceived of and described along tribal lines:

• it is patterned after the image of being embraced by a bendoin sheik and being brought into his tent.
• it is the chain of eternal family sealings going back to Adam and Eve.
• it is the fathers’ hearts turning to children and the children’s hearts to the fathers.

It’s all tribal in nature.

When we take unrelated believers in Christ and knit them together by covenant into a family – we restore the tribal notion of Israel, a separate people-group, or nation of kings & priests and queens & priestesses.

Next Article by Justin: Taking our Myths Literally

Previous Article by Justin:  Falling to the Earth as a Sign of Conversion

Falling to the Earth as a Sign of Conversion

And now the astonishment of Alma was so great that he became dumb, that he could not open his mouth; yea, and he became weak, even that he could not move his hands; therefore he was taken by those that were with him, and carried helpless, even until he was laid before his father.

And they rehearsed unto his father all that had happened unto them; and his father rejoiced, for he knew that it was the power of God.  [Mosiah 27:19-20]

and

And it came to pass that they did call on the name of the Lord, in their might, even until they had all fallen to the earth, save it were one of the Lamanitish women, whose name was Abish, she having been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father — Thus, having been converted to the Lord, and never having made it known, therefore, when she saw that all the servants of Lamoni had fallen to the earth, and also her mistress, the queen, and the king, and Ammon lay prostrate upon the earth,

she knew that it was the power of God;  [Alma 19:16-17]

When Alma saw his son being carried home by his friends, rendered completely unconscious – his first reaction was to rejoice because he recognized that as a manifestation of the power of God working.

When Abish saw the Lamanite queen and king, all their servants, and Ammon laying prostrate on the ground, unconscious – her first reaction was that this obviously meant the power of God was working.

Falling to the earth in this manner is a sign that the power of God is rending the veil of unbelief and breaking the chains of hell that are on that person:

Alma and Abish share one thing in common that explains why their first thought after seeing someone fallen to the earth unconscious was that the power of God was at work – they both had first-hand experience with the miraculous works of the Father.

Alma had witnessed the word of God delivered by Abinadi in the spirit of prophecy and revelation:

…the Spirit of the Lord was upon [Abinadi]; and his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses’ did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.  And he spake with power and authority from God;  [Mosiah 13:5-6]

Alma went on to organize a church of believers gathered in the wilderness, himself and the church manifesting the miraculous works of the Father:

…both Alma and Helam were buried in the water; and they arose and came forth out of the water rejoicing, being filled with the Spirit…

…Alma, having authority from God…  [Mosiah 18:14, 18]

Abish had witnessed a miraculous vision that had been given to her father in the spirit of prophecy and revelation:

…she having been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father…  [Alma 19:16]

Falling to the earth is a result of the fear of the Lord coming upon that person:

And behold, he spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder, and the whole earth did tremble beneath our feet; and we all fell to the earth, for the fear of the Lord came upon us.  [Alma 36:7]

It accompanies true recognition of one’s unjustified state before God, which is received when the word of God is preached in its fullness — in the spirit of prophecy and revelation, by the power of the Holy Ghost:

And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord, that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them.

And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying:

“O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men.”  [Mosiah 4:1-2]

Once the fear of being cast off forever from the presence of the Lord sinks into the right-brain-hearts of believers, it works there to create this “fear” spoken of in the scriptures.  Trembling/shaking and weeping/shedding tears follow next – working to rend the veil of darkness and remove the chains of hell attached to the brain of all sinners, and to manifest a broken heart and contrite spirit.

But, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”  [Psalm 126:5]:

Meaning the Lord is quick to hear the cries of his people and answer their prayers [Alma 9:26].  The conversion pattern found in the Book of Mormon shows that once the fear of the Lord comes upon a person/people, they’ve been overcome and have fallen to the earth, and have shed tears of sorrow and anguish for their carnal and sinful state – joy follows:

And it came to pass that after [the people of King Benjamin] had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them.  [Mosiah 4:3]

and

And it came to pass that [Abish] went and took the[Lamanite] queen by the hand, … ; and as soon as she touched her hand she arose and stood upon her feet, and cried with a loud voice, saying:

“O blessed Jesus, who has saved me from an awful hell! O blessed God, havecmercy on this people!”

And when she had said this, she clasped her hands, being filled with joy, speaking many words which were not understood; and when she had done this, she took the king, Lamoni, by the hand, and behold he arose and stood upon his feet.

[…] And it came to pass that when Ammon arose he also administered unto them, and also did all the servants of Lamoni; and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil.  And behold, many did declare unto the people that they had seen angels and had conversed with them; and thus they had told them things of God, and of his righteousness.

And it came to pass that there were many that did believe in their words; and as many as did believe were baptized; and they became a righteous people, and they did establish a church among them.

And thus the work of the Lord did commence among the Lamanites; thus the Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his arm is extended to all people who will repent and believe on his name.  [Alma 19:29-36]

and

I [Alma] was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.  Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments… the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror.

[…] And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.

Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart:

“O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.”

And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.  And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!

Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

Yea, methought I saw, even as our father Lehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and praising their God; yea, and my soul did long to be there.  But behold, my limbs did receive their strength again, and I stood upon my feet, and did manifest unto the people that I had been born of God.  [Alma 36:12-23]

We must follow the example of the king of the Lamanites after he received the gospel from Aaron:

And it came to pass that after Aaron had expounded [the gospel] unto him, the king said:

“What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day?”

Behold, said he, “I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy.”

But Aaron said unto him:

“If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest.”

And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, saying:

“O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.”

And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead.

[…] Now when the queen saw … she also began to fear exceedingly, lest there should some evil come upon her.  And she commanded her servants that they should go and call the people, that they might slay Aaron and his brethren.

Now when Aaron saw the determination of the queen, he, also knowing the hardness of the hearts of the people, feared lest that a multitude should assemble themselves together, and there should be a great contention and a disturbance among them; therefore he put forth his hand and raised the king from the earth, and said unto him:  “Stand.” And he stood upon his feet, receiving his strength.

Now this was done in the presence of the queen and many of the servants. And when they saw it they greatly marveled, and began to fear. And the king stood forth, and began to minister unto them. And he did minister unto them, insomuch that his whole household were converted unto the Lord.  [Alma 22:15-13]

Next Article by Justin: Going from Concrete to Flowers

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The Baptism of Fire

The following is my current understanding of the baptism of fire.

One baptism in three parts

The gospel of Jesus Christ has one, tripartite baptism consisting of the baptism of water, the baptism of fire and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The purpose of baptism is to witness that there exists a covenant between God and the man being baptized. Unless all three witnesses have occurred, the covenant between him and God is not binding.

The doctrine of re-baptism applies equally to all three

Anyone who enters into an agreement with another is free to witness or affirm the fact of the agreement by attestation for as many times as desired. There is no law of man or God against this. In fact, under the law of God, we are to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” that we may be in, even until death. So, the principle of witnessing and re-witnessing is a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The manner in which man witnesses of his covenant to serve God is through water baptism. This means that in order to re-witness his covenant, he must be re-baptized. Therefore, he may receive the baptism of water whenever and as many times as he desires and must, per his covenant, be ever ready to be re-baptized at all times and in all places, to re-attest of the validity of his covenant. This is the doctrine or principle of re-baptism and it applies equally to both water, fire and Holy Ghost baptisms.

Order: fire and Spirit, then water, then fire and Spirit, etc.

Re-baptism being a principle of the gospel, the order in which these baptisms are received is not all that important. The only necessary thing is that each one is received, for these are really three parts of one baptism. Nevertheless, the scriptural, ideal order is first the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost (see D&C 20: 37), followed by the baptism of water, followed by another baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and thereafter, any part may be repeated multiple times throughout one’s life.

Another thing that the gospel states is that after a baptism of water, the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost is supposed to follow on its heels, either right after coming out of the water, or right after confirmation by the laying on of hands.

To demonstrate these principles, Joseph Smith received a baptism of fire during the First Vision, then a baptism of fire during each of Moroni’s visits and during the visit of John the Baptist, then a water baptism by the hand of Oliver Cowdery, followed by a baptism of the Holy Ghost after he came out of the water. Later he received other baptisms of fire with the visits of Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah, etc. He also received another water baptism after the church was legally organized, etc.

Simultaneity

A baptism of fire is always accompanied with a baptism of the Holy Ghost, but a person may be baptized with the Holy Ghost without an accompanying baptism of fire. This is why the baptism of fire is always called the baptism (singular) of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and not the baptisms (plural) of fire and of the Holy Ghost. These two parts of the tripartite baptism occur simultaneously as a single baptismal event whenever there is a baptism of fire.

Jesus alone performs the baptism of fire

Unlike the baptism of water, which can be performed by the hand of a mortal man under priesthood power and authority, the baptism of fire is reserved for Deity alone to accomplish and is based upon the state of a man’s heart and his faith in Him. (See 3 Ne. 12: 1-2; 3 Ne. 9: 20; Matt. 3: 11; Luke 3: 16; JST Mark 1: 6; JST John 1: 28.)

Confirmation is not the baptism of fire

The scriptures say that elders are “to confirm those who are baptized into the church, by the laying of of hands for the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost.” This is the ordinance of confirmation. Laying hands on someone’s head for the baptism of fire does not baptize anyone with fire. Only the Lord can do that.

When the scriptures say that this ordinance is “for” the baptism of fire, it is using that word “for” to mean “indicating the end with reference to which anything is, acts, serves or is done.” Specifically, the word “for” in that sentence means “as a preparation for” or “with the object of.” So, elders lay hands as a preparation for the baptism of fire, or they lay hands with the object of the baptism of fire.

The ordinance of confirmation, then, is a preparatory ordinance, which precedes an actual baptism of fire. This ordinance is called confirmation because it is intended to confirm the believers’ faith, both that of the one being confirmed and that of those doing the confirming. This is because true priesthood is “inseparably connected with the powers of heaven,” so when true priesthood is exercised as an ordinance of the gospel, there will be a corresponding manifestation of heavenly power. So, after the ordinance of confirmation, there is supposed to be a baptism of fire that occurs, showing that the covenant of the newly baptized person is accepted of God, as well as the priesthood of the one who is doing the confirming.

Binding and accepted covenants

The baptism of fire serves to witness to the new member, to the priesthood holder(s) confirming, and to the church that is present, that the covenant that the man has entered into with his God, witnessed by his water baptism, is accepted by God and is now in force. In other words, that it is binding, both upon the man and his God.

To put another way, water baptism is man’s way of witnessing to God that he has entered into a covenant to serve Him, whereas fire baptism is God’s way of witnessing to man that He has accepted that covenantal relationship.

(Jesus said, “Whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record (witness) of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost.” See 3 Ne. 11: 35.)

Plasma is the medium

To serve as a witness to all these people, the baptism of fire must be a visual sign. The medium used is not the fire of a gas stove or match, but discharging plasma in appearance as fire. Depending upon where one is located in relation to the plasma display, it may look like the flame of fire, like a palpable or living light, like lightning, or just as immense glory or brightness.

Specifically, the baptism of fire consists of twin plasma filaments, rapidly rotating around a central axis, creating a plasma tube or sheath, or plasma column, in other words, a cylindrical shape around the person being baptized. When viewed from the outside, it appears to be “a pillar of fire.” When viewed from within the tube, the fire aspects may or may not be discerned, but its bright light or glory is apparent. Thus we have the various accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, which was a baptism of fire, using the words “fire,” “flame,” “light,” “brightness” and “glory” to describe the discharging plasma he was witnessing.

Sometimes the twin filaments themselves can be discerned, and so we get a description of “cloven tongues of fire,” meaning twin tongues (or filaments) of plasma flame. Other descriptions are of fire “encircling” the persons being baptized, showing that the filaments rotate around the person.

All of these scriptural accounts are describing the same plasma manifestation observed from different spatial perspectives, and so accounts vary. But even with everything before a person, sometimes details can still be missed, as in 1 Ne. 15: 27.

Other aspects

Fire baptism is by complete, or cellular, immersion. Plasma both surrounds and enters the man, so that he becomes “filled with fire.” The fire can be seen and felt. To the one immersed in it, it initially feels like he is burning to death, in an incomprehensibly complete and rapid manner, as every part of the body seems to have caught on fire. Great fear instantly comes upon the man as he fully believes he is about to die. But in the next instant his mind realizes that death has not occurred, that there is no pain and that there is no apparent cellular damage or harm. The fear leaves just as suddenly as it comes, only to be replaced with a feeling of awe and gratitude as the mind realizes that this same destroying fire, which should have instantly atomized the body, is somehow keeping the body protected from its own destructive power.

The divine plasma has the effect of cleansing the heart of man, purifying it of all dross (sinful desires), so that he no longer desires to sin, but instead abhors it. In this swept clean condition, the Holy Ghost then unexpectedly and suddenly enters the man and causes the individual bits of his soul to shout for joy, because of the presence of Deity.

Fire baptism allows other heavenly manifestations to occur

The baptism of fire purifies a person’s heart and Jesus said that all the pure in heart shall see God. So, whenever a person receives a baptism of fire, chances are real good that they will also see either an angel, vision or God Himself. At the very least some revelation or prophecy will occur along with the baptism of fire, or some other manifestation of one of the gifts of the Spirit.

Fire remits sin

Whenever a person receives a baptism of fire, his sins are automatically remitted. In other words, he becomes justified, or guiltless, before the Lord. Nephi said, “For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.”

Fire brings forth a new tongue

Nephi also said that when a man receives the baptism of fire he then can speak with a new tongue, even the tongue of angels, and that “angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ.”

There are only two, definitive, scriptural examples

There are plenty of scriptural verses that mention the doctrine of baptism of fire, but there are only two accounts in our current standard works in which it is definitively stated that actual baptisms of fire occurred. Of those two accounts, only one applies to us in the latter days. They are:

Adam’s baptism of fire
After Adam was baptized by the Spirit of the Lord, as recorded in Moses 6: 64-68, he heard a voice saying, “Thou art baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost.” Nevertheless, there is no mention of any manifestation of fire in the account. Although quite interesting, this experience was, apparently, Adam specific and is not the template for the baptism of fire among the modern masses.

The Lamanites’ baptism of fire
When the Nephite missionaries Nephi and Lehi preached among the Lamanites and were imprisoned, about 300 souls received a baptism of fire, as recorded in Hel. 5: 20-49. This is the scriptural template of a baptism of fire for all mankind. We know this because the voice of Jesus Christ said so:

And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not. (3 Ne. 9: 20)

So, the Lord categorically states in the above scripture that the experience of the 300 souls was a baptism of fire. Additionally, He states that all baptisms of fire that He performs will be “even as the Lamanites… were baptized with fire.” The Lamanites’ baptism of fire, then, is the standard, the rule, and NOT the exception. It is the event that the Lord points to for us to determine whether a baptism of fire has occurred.

(The word “even” in the phrase “even as the Lamanites” means “in or to such (indicated) degree or kind.”)

What the baptism of fire consists of

Based upon the Lamanites’ experience, there are six characteristics of any baptism of fire. They are:

1. Fire encircling an individual, forming a cylindrical shape, such as a column or “pillar of fire” or plasma tube. This would be twin Birkeland currents (plasma cables or filaments) rotating rapidly around a central axis, in appearance like a fire tornado. This is the visual sign to all those witnessing the baptism.

2. The presence and ministration of angels.

3. Justification, meaning a remission of sins.

4. Purification, by fire entering the heart.

5. Sanctification, by becoming filled with (baptized in) the Holy Ghost.

6. Speaking with a new tongue (the tongue of angels, meaning speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost.)

Two more scriptural examples

Using the six characteristics above, we find two more scriptural examples of baptisms of fire which exactly match that of the Lamanites, although the text does not specifically say that they were fire baptisms. They are:

The Nephite little children’s baptism of fire
Jesus baptized little children with fire, as recorded in 3 Ne. 17: 21-25 and as witnessed by 2500 people. These children were encircled by fire, had angels minister to them and spoke in new tongues (see 3 Ne. 26: 14, 16.) Also, we know that they were justified, purified and sanctified, for they were little children and all little children are alive in Christ.

The 12 disciples’ baptism of fire
The fire baptism of these men is recorded in 3 Ne. 19: 11-15. They were encircled about by fire, filled with fire, had angels minister to them and prayed by the power of the Holy Ghost. From the text it is clear that they were justified, purified and sanctified.

Other intimated baptisms of fire

Joseph Smith’s baptisms of fire
As mentioned above, each of Joseph’s angelic ministrations was attended by a baptism of fire (plasma), including the First Vision.

For example, one First Vision account says, “A pillar of fire appeared above my head; which presently rested down upon me, and filled me with un-speakable joy. A personage appeared in the midst of this pillar of flame, which was spread all around and yet nothing consumed…I saw many angels in this vision.”

Another First Vision account says, “while in [the] attitude of calling upon the Lord [in the 16th* year of my age] a pillar of {fire} lightabove the brightness of the Sun at noon day come down fromabove and rested upon me and I was filld with the Spirit of God”. In this account Joseph couldn’t decide whether what he saw was fire or light. He finally decided on light and crossed out fire. The reason for his confusion was that he was witnessing discharging plasma.

I believe that it is reasonable to conclude that the plasma nature of the angel Moroni’s visit (see The plasma aspects of the First Vision and Moroni’s visit) was typical of all angelic ministrations to Joseph, and thus all such events in his life were likely baptisms of fire.

Moses’ vision of God
In Moses chapter 1 it says that “the glory of God was upon Moses.” That sounds to me like a plasma event and that he received a baptism of fire.

Lehi’s pillar of fire
1 Ne. 1: 6 mentions Lehi seeing a pillar of fire. It is obviously a super-duper abridgment of all that occurred, but it sounds like a baptism of fire.

Nephi’s visit from the Lord
Nephi mentions in 1 Ne. 2: 16 that he was visited by the Lord. He doesn’t elaborate but my guess is that this was Nephi’s first baptism of fire. Jesus states in 3 Ne. 11: 35 that when the Father visits people, He visits them with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

Cloven tongues on day of Pentecost
As recorded in Acts chapter 2, there appeared “cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.” They were filled with the Spirit, spoke other tongues and spoke by the power of the Holy Ghost. It’s not an exact match of the Lamanite experience (angels are missing), but pretty darn close.

Gentile cloven tongues
In Acts 11: 15 we read Peter’s words about how the Gentiles also received the Holy Ghost. He said, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.” That, to me, seems to be saying that the Holy Ghost fell on the Gentiles in the same way that the Holy Ghost fell on the Jews, namely, with accompanying manifestation of cloven tongues like as of fire. This could explain the astonishment of the Jews who witnessed the manifestation of tongues among the Gentiles. (See Acts 10: 44-47.)

Downgrading the baptism of fire

Now, when you compare the scriptural accounts of the baptism of fire to our modern, LDS definitions, it becomes obvious that we have downgraded the sudden, rapid changes effectuated by the marvelous, visual, power displays of the real deal to something gradual, drawn out, imperceptible and nondescript. For example:

While one definition of this expression (the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost) refers to a cleansing by the Holy Spirit as if by fire, still the scriptures and the writings of the prophets indicate there is something more.

The new convert who has accepted the gift of the Holy Ghost with the right spirit will experience not only a cleansing but a feeling that will give him a new heart and make of him a new person. Sometimes this is immediate, and sometimes it happens over a period of time.

…

The scriptures, and even our church history, record miraculous instances when visible flames encircled the humble followers of Christ—literal manifestations of fire and the Holy Ghost—but more often this fire works quietly and unseen in the hearts of those who have received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

…

The witness, the change, the cleansing that comes gradually is no less powerful to the person with the right heart, and he or she is impelled to action whether the experience was a sudden, miraculous manifestation or the quiet workings of the Spirit.

(Fire and the Holy Ghost, Loren C. Dunn, Ensign, June 1995)

We have taken away the majesty of the Father’s witness and replaced it with something that goes entirely against nature. Nature is cyclic, cycling between periods of rest and periods of activity. All things work on this principle, including spiritual things. Baptism (all three parts) are designed to be moments of spiritual intensity. You cannot perform a baptism of water over a period of time, or gradually, quietly and unseen. No, you are outside of the water (which can be visually discerned), then you are immersed, and then you come out of the water. There is nothing gradual about it. A single water baptism cannot be performed over days and years. In like manner, the baptism of fire is a punctuated, spiritually intense event.

No one’s spirituality is designed to grow gradually. Gradual spiritual growth is the same as no spiritual growth. There is no such animal as gradual spiritual growth. You either have intense spiritual experiences from time to time or you are spiritually dying. This is why we are commanded to come together often, to intensify the Spirit so as to be capable of growing spiritually.

Joseph Smith’s life was meant to be an example to us. He had multiple, very intense spiritual experiences. It began with a baptism of fire, it continued with more baptisms of fire and it ended in a volley of gun fire. John Taylor said that Joseph lived for glory, died for glory and glory is his eternal reward. Glory = plasma = the baptism of fire. Joseph did, indeed, live for those fire baptism experiences. He had a lot of them, he saw a lot of angels and who knows how many visions, and he wanted to have more of the same. And he tried ceaselessly to get the saints to experience what he was experiencing. So did Moses and all true prophets.

You are either immersed in plasma or you are not. You are either in an intensity phase or in a rest phase of the cycle. There is no such thing as non-cyclic gradualness. If you think you are growing spiritually for the past ten years without any intense spiritual experiences, you are kidding yourself. It means that you have been in a spiritual rest phase of the cycle during this time. No one can remain at spiritual rest for any extended period of time before spirituality begins to decay. It is an impossibility. So, the LDS concept of a gradual, life-long, imperceptible baptism of fire is patently false and leads to spiritual death.

Everyone will receive a baptism of fire

It is not a question of if, but when and how. If a man humbles himself before the Lord and enters into a covenant to serve Him, he’ll receive a baptism of fire in this life, one that will purify and justify him. But there are other baptisms of fire that can be received. For example, one is the baptism of fire that the earth and all those that do wickedly upon her will receive at the Second Coming. Another is the baptism of fire that occurs when the sons of perdition are immersed in the lake of fire and brimstone. One way or another, we are all eventually going to have to go through some type of baptismal fire.

And they knew it not

In closing, let me address one other thing. Jesus said that the Lamanites “were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.” Some have taken that to mean that the Lamanites experienced a change upon their hearts which they did not perceive, because it happened gradually, over time. In other words, that the Lord meant that there was no great manifestation during the Lamanites’ fire and Holy Ghost baptism. And also that the Lord was not referring to the 300 Lamanites who were in prison with Nephi and Lehi, but was referring instead to other Lamanite converts.

This is an incorrect interpretation.

The real meaning of the Lord’s words is that the Lamanites (the 300 souls in that prison) had a magnificent, visual baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, but did not know what it was. That is all that the Lord meant by what He said.

Any time someone experiences a baptism of fire without first being taught about it, they go through the experience without knowing what it is. Joseph’s First Vision fire baptism was performed on him while he was still a boy totally ignorant of such a thing as a baptism of fire. In my own life, I remember that the first time that I had a baptism of fire (prior to my water baptism) I was blown away and didn’t know what it was. The missionaries that had taught me the gospel had not explained this doctrine, so it came as a complete surprise to me and it was only years later, as I studied and learned more of the gospel on my own, that I was able to determine what the hell it was. Prior to that time, it was always an anomaly to me and when talking to others about the various spiritual experiences I had had over the years, I would always set it apart by saying something like, “The second time the Holy Ghost manifested itself to me was quite different than the other times. It was, well, a really big manifestation with a lot of power and I thought I was going to die, or I did die and came back to life. I’m not really sure what happened. All I know is I was consumed in fire but somehow survived unharmed.” Such were my ignorant descriptions. But of course it was a different manifestation than the others. It was a baptism of fire, for crying out loud! But I knew it not.

And in the same manner, neither did the Lamanites.

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