Homosexuality, Sodomy, Rape, Rape Culture & Pedophilia

The recent church policy change and its aftermath among the membership have caused me to think that it is high time I got into this topic, to finally expound it according to my understanding.  As is my way, I will unfold this thing explicitly, in perfect clarity, or as clearly as I can make it, so that no one has any reason to misunderstand.  To the young, or to those whose sensibilities are easily offended, please go somewhere else.  You are not going to want to read this.  To all the rest, “enjoy” the read.  😉

I will use the Topical Guide entry on Homosexual Behavior and its list of scriptures as my text and go from there.

Topical Guide: Homosexual Behavior

bring them out unto us, that we may know them: Gen. 19:5 .
Thou shalt not lie with mankind … it is abomination: Lev. 18:22 . ( Lev. 20:13 . )
There shall be no … sodomite of the sons of Israel: Deut. 23:17 .
declare their sin as Sodom: Isa. 3:9 . ( 2 Ne. 13:9 . )

men … burned in their lust one toward another: Rom. 1:27 .
nor abusers of themselves with mankind: 1 Cor. 6:9 .
them that defile themselves with mankind: 1 Tim. 1:10 .
as Sodom and Gomorrha … going after strange flesh: Jude 1:7 .

See also Gen. 13:13 ; Gen. 18:20 ; Ezek. 16:50 ; 2 Tim. 3:3 ; 2 Pet. 2:10 ; 2 Ne. 9:40

The men of Sodom were extremely wicked

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.  Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east; and they separated themselves the one from the other.  Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.  But the men of Sodom becoming sinners, and exceedingly wicked before the Lord, the Lord was angry with them.  ( JST Gen. 13:8-11)

But what were their sins?

Sodom and Gomorrah to be destroyed

And the Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre. And he sat in his tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw, he ran to meet them from his tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said;

My brethren, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away I pray you from thy servant.  Let a little water I pray you be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and ^acomfort ye your hearts; after that you shall pass on; for therefore are ye come to your servant.

[a OR sustain … ]

And they said,

So do, as thou hast said.

And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said,

Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead, and make cakes upon the hearth.

And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it unto a young man, and he hasted to dress it.  And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set them before them, and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.  (JST Gen. 18:1-7)

…

¶ And the angels rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.  And the angel of the Lord, said,

Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which the Lord will do for him; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?  For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him.

And the angel of the Lord said unto Abraham,

The Lord said unto us,

Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will destroy them.  And I will send you, and ye shall go down now, and see that their iniquities are rewarded unto them.  And ye shall have all things done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me.  And if ye do it not, it shall be upon your heads; for I will destroy them, and you shall know that I will do it, for it shall be before your eyes.

And the angels which were holy men, and were sent forth after the order of God, turned their faces from thence and went toward Sodom.  But Abraham stood yet before the Lord, remembering the things which had been told him.  (JST Gen. 18:16-24)

Notice that these angels were specifically ordered by the Lord to first make an assessment of the sins of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and then to destroy them according to their sins.  Also, they were warned that “if [they] do it not, it shall be upon [their] heads.”  These angels were likely translated men, and were every bit as holy as Abraham and Lot were, therefore the disposition to save, as opposed to destroy, was in them, as the text will reveal was in Abraham and Lot.  So, they were put under strict command that if they did not fulfill God’s command to destroy, Sodom and Gomorrah’s sins would be upon their own heads.  This certainly would make sure that they did not spare the city, if it warranted destruction, but the charge only applied to them, not to Abraham and Lot, who were free to continue to try to save the people.

¶ And Abraham drew near to Sodom, and said unto the Lord, calling upon his name, saying,

Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? Wilt thou not spare them?  Peradventure there may be fifty righteous within the city, wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that may be therein?  O may that be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked.  O God, may that be far from thee, for shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

And the Lord said unto Abraham,

If thou findest in Sodom, fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

And Abraham answered and said,

Behold, now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which is able to destroy the city, and lay all the people in dust and ashes; will the Lord spare them peradventure there lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt thou destroy all the city for their wickedness, if I find there forty and five righteous?

And he said,

I will not destroy, but spare them.

And he spake unto him again, and said,

Peradventure there should be forty found there?

And he said,

I will not destroy it for forty’s sake.

And he said again unto the Lord,

O, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak:

Peradventure there shall thirty be found there?

And he said,

I will not destroy them if thou shalt find thirty there.

And he said,

Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord; wilt thou destroy them if peradventure there shall twenty be found there?

And he said,

I will not destroy them for twenty’s sake.

And Abraham said unto the Lord,

O, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once, peradventure ten shall be found there?

And the Lord said,

I will not destroy them for ten’s sake.

And the Lord ceased speaking with Abraham.  And as soon as he had left communing with the Lord, Abraham went his way.  And it came to pass that Abraham returned unto his tent.  (JST Gen. 18:25-42)

Not even ten righteous souls

Despite all of Abraham’s attempts to get the Lord to spare these cities, he thinking that surely there must be ten righteous souls in them, the ploy didn’t work.  As we shall see later on, there turned out to be only one righteous soul in Sodom (and no righteous souls, at all, apparently, in Gomorrah,) and that one solitary soul was righteous Lot.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ^aensample unto those that after should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, ^bvexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked; (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, ^cvexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished; but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise ^dgovernment.

[a GR token, example.]

[b GR oppressed by the outrageous behavior of the lawless.]

[c GR oppressed, afflicted.]

[d GR constituted authority.]

Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.  (JST 2 Pet. 2:4-10)

The fact that Lot was righteous must be kept in mind in order to understand what comes next.

Righteous Lot does the same thing that righteous Abraham does

And it came to pass, that there came three ^aangels to Sodom in the evening; and Lot sat in the door of his house, in the city of Sodom.

[a HEB messengers.]

And Lot, seeing the angels, rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; and he said,

Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways.

And they said,

Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.  (JST Gen. 19:1-5)

Just as Abraham recognized the three men as angels, so did Lot.  Just as Abraham invited them in and prepared a feast for them, to give them rest and relaxation and so forth, so Lot does the same.  This tendency towards hospitality is a trademark of the house of Israel.

Why did the angels want to abide in the street all night?

The angels were instructed to go down and observe the iniquities and sins of the people, and then to reward them according to what they observed.  Staying in the street all night, then, was their way of accomplishing the first part of this task.  Lot, though, tried to circumvent this process by inviting them into his house.  As long as they are inside his house, then they can’t make an assessment of the wickedness of the people, and thus perhaps they won’t have cause to destroy the city.  This is why he invited them in.  He wasn’t trying to protect the angels from wicked Sodom, for the angels needed no such protection.  They could protect themselves just fine.  No, Lot was trying to spare Sodom, just as Abraham was trying to spare it through his pleadings with the Lord.  Both men, being righteous, were attempting to avoid the impending catastrophe.

¶ But before they lay down to rest, the men of the city of Sodom compassed the house round, even men which were both old and young, even the people from every quarter; and they called unto Lot, and said unto him,

Where are the men which came in unto thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may ^aknow them.  (JST Gen. 19:6-7)

[a “Know” is used in both Hebrew and English in this kind of context as a euphemism in place of a sexual word.]

Okay, so here is where we get our first glimpse as to what kind of sins these men of Sodom were guilty of.  In essence, they had said to Lot, “Bring the men which came in unto thee this night out unto us, that we may have sex with them.”  These old and young men, then, were practicing homosexuals.

The angels were likely young, or at least young-looking

The angels were not just newcomers in town, but they were very likely young-looking newcomers.  Homosexual behavior is obsessed with youth culture.  In other words, they like to look, dress and act young (who doesn’t, right?) and they like to be with the young sexually, in man-boy pairings (here is where they deviate from society), the older man teaching the younger boy, training him in all the ways of homosexual deviancy.  When the boy eventually becomes a man himself, he will in turn seek out boys to turn into homosexuals, thus perpetuating the perversion.  These man-boy (pederast-catamite) pairings continue until the man is finally dead, after having corrupted hundreds, if not thousands of innocent boys.  This is what Oscar Wilde called “the love that dare not speak its name.”

Charles Gill (prosecuting): What is “the love that dare not speak its name”?

Wilde: “The love that dare not speak its name” in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as “the love that dare not speak its name,” and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.  (Wikipedia entry on Oscar Wilde)

Okay, so I will come back to this man-boy pairing thing later on in the post, but just understand that they likely wanted the angels because they looked very young and handsome.  In fact, so apparently handsome and young were the angels, that all the men from every quarter of Sodom flocked around Lot’s house and wanted to pair-up with them.  So, the angels made quite a stir and impact on these men.  They became, essentially, the prize or trophy boys, in the eyes of the men of Sodom.

Lot was old

Later on in the chapter, we read that Lot’s eldest daughter says, “Our father has become old.”  Lot, then, was an old, undesirable man to the men of Sodom.  They didn’t want to be with him sexually.  They only craved young, beautiful flesh, according to the man-boy pairings, which is part and parcel to the devil-inspired doctrine of homosexual deviancy.  Thus, they didn’t try anything sexual on righteous Lot.

Lot again attempts to stop the angels’ assessment

And Lot went out of the door, unto them, and shut the door after him  (JST Gen. 19:8)

Lot had a real problem on his hands.  Here he was trying to save the lives of these wicked men, for he knew that the men in his house were angels, and he either knew or suspected that they were there to destroy the city, (i.e., that they were destroying angels,) and so his plan of hiding them away in his house so that they could not make their assessment of the people’s wickedness was going up in smoke, because now all these wicked fools were coming to him!  Okay, so quick-thinking Lot tried to continue to keep the angels separated from these men and he went outside, making sure that the house door was closed.  If the angels go outside now that the whole freaking city(!) has surrounded his house they will surely see their abominations.  So the front door had to remain closed while he spoke to them, to keep the angels from assessing the wickedness of the people.  Perhaps he could get these morally bankrupt men to go away without a scene, and thus save their lives.  These, possibly, were righteous Lot’s thoughts.  But as valiant as his actions were, they would prove fruitless, for the men of Sodom were hell bent on being destroyed, apparently.

Judge not, that ye be not judged

And Lot went out of the door, unto them, and shut the door after him, and said,

I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.  (JST Gen. 19:8)

Now that wasn’t very tolerant of Lot to call homosexual behavior wickedness, was it?  Didn’t the Savior say to the Jews in Jerusalem during His ministry to: “Judge not, that ye be not judged?”  And didn’t He give this very same, word-for-word instruction to the Nephites?  Yes, of course He did.  And so doesn’t that mean that no one is supposed to judge what is or is not sin, and certainly not ever to tell someone that they are engaging in sin, or going to be sinning if they do something?  Um, no.  That is not what these sayings mean.  Unfortunately, there are a great many people who read the Bible and/or the Book of Mormon and come to the conclusion that it is intolerant and wrong to call sinful behavior a sin, or a person engaging in sinful behavior a sinner.  So, I suppose here is as good a place, and now is as good a time, as any other, to unfold this saying.

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.  (Matt. 7:1-2)

Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people.

Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment.  For with what judgment ye shall judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  (JST Matt. 7:1–2)

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again, saying:

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.  (3 Ne. 14:1-2)

Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again.  For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again, and be restored; therefore, the word restoration more fully condemneth the sinner, and justifieth him not at all.  (Alma 41:14-15)

And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.  (D&C 11:12)

Wherefore, I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ, and that have obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.

And now my brethren, I judge these things of you because of your peaceable walk with the children of men.

…

Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.  For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.  For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.  (Moro. 7:3-4,14-16)

Anyway, I am not going to list all the scriptures explaining this principle.  Suffice it to say that “judge not, that ye be not judged” is merely an opening statement giving the general principle of the law of reciprocity and restoration, while “for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” is the specific principle of the same law.  Thus, the general principle and statement was never given by the Savior with the intention that it be taken at face value, as an instruction that we are not ever to judge anything or anyone.

Nevertheless, there is an application for even the general principle, summed up by Moroni:

And he that saith:

Show unto me, or ye shall be smitten

—let him beware lest he commandeth that which is forbidden of the Lord.  For behold, the same that judgeth rashly shall be judged rashly again; for according to his works shall his wages be; therefore, he that smiteth shall be smitten again, of the Lord.  Behold what the scripture says—

man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mine,

saith the Lord,

and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay.  (Morm. 8:16-20)

Final judgment, then, is in the hands of the Lord.  In a former post I said that I have been able to discern (or judge) one’s spirit sufficiently to tell which kingdom of glory it would inherit should he or she die that instant, but that doesn’t mean that the very next instant the person isn’t going to repent, or sin, etc.  Final judgment is generally withheld from us, but even here, sometimes the Lord will so fully empower the gift of the discerning of spirits, that even final judgment is revealed to man, so that he can make a righteous judgment call:

And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma:

How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

But Alma said unto him:

The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.  (Alma 14:10-11)

For the most part, then, for those who possess the gift of the discerning of spirits, the most we can do, as far as final judgments go, is suppose:

And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers.  (Hel. 5:8)

But I have digressed enough. Back to Lot, a saintly man who, like all saints, could not shut his mouth at wickedness.  (And he was also a courageous man, like Lachoneus, and thus was not frightened by this city-wide mob wicked men, even though they had him and his house entirely surrounded!)

Now behold, this Lachoneus, the governor, was a just man, and could not be frightened by the demands and the threatenings of a robber…  (3 Ne. 3:12)

Lot made a righteous judgment call, calling the intended actions of the men of Sodom wickedness.  (After all, the only real way to avoid the destruction of Sodom was to get the men of the city to stop sinning, and that can’t happen unless they are first called out on their sins—for no one can repent if they do not recognize that they are sinning, and no one who does not recognize they are sinning can repent unless they are first told that what they are doing is sin.)  As one might expect, this made them livid.  Especially as homosexual sex was the norm in Sodom.  There was no law against it.  It was perfectly legal and respectable.  How dare he judge their customs, right?

Retaliation simply for calling a spade a spade

And they said unto him,

Stand back.

And they were angry with him.  And they said among themselves,

This one man came in to sojourn among us, and he will needs now make himself to be a judge; now we will deal worse with him than with them.

Wherefore they said unto the man,

We will have the men, and thy daughters also; and we will do with them as seemeth us good.

Now this was after the wickedness of Sodom.  (JST Gen. 19:9-12)

There is not even a pretense of consensual sex going on in this text.  They aimed to rape both the men, and now also Lot’s two virginal daughters.  Just because he dared to say that what they were doing was a sin.  Btw, as I’ve now mentioned rape, let’s have a song to commemorate the topic, interpreted by that famous homosexual actor-turned-singer, Peter Wyngarde, shall we?

I’ll come back to the specific topic of rape in a moment.

The JST states that the things that these men were doing was wickedness.  That means that regardless of what our official KJV Bible says, Joseph Smith, Jun., our founding seer, believed that all of this stuff found in this JST chapter was wickedness.  And there were a lot of things potentially going on: adult male homosexual sex and rape (consensual & non-consensual), man-to-boy (for the angels likely looked young) homosexual sex and rape, male homosexual group sex and rape, the raping and deflowering of virginal girls, both by individuals and by the group, as well as the sodomizing of the girls.  And this wasn’t just a few men seeking to get in on this group action, this was the entire freaking city gathered.  They were aiming at sexually destroying these five people for their pleasure.

Ritual sex had nothing to do with it

(Heterosexual) whoredoms are often associated with idolatry in the scriptures, as in the fertility rites (with shrine prostitutes.)  But the homosexuality practiced by the men of Sodom was not of a ritual nature.  In other words, it wasn’t bad because they were performing some kind of ritual to some idols.  No, these guys just liked to have a lot of unclean sex.  They got off on the feeling of power it gave them, for even consensual anal sex feels like you are raping the person sodomized.  This is because of the nature of the beast, even the anatomy of our bodies, which I will expound upon below.  So, homosexual sex is evil intrinsically, whether it is done as a ritual to an idol or not.

An assessment is made

And Lot said,

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you; and ye shall not do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes; for God will not justify his servant in this thing; wherefore, let me plead with my brethren, this once only, that unto these men ye do nothing, that they may have peace in my house; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

And they were angry with Lot and came near to break the door, but the angels of God, which were holy men, put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house unto them, and shut the door.  And they smote the men with blindness, both small and great, that they could not come at the door.  And they were angry, so that they wearied themselves to find the door, and could not find it.  (JST Gen. 13-17)

This shows that these angels could easily protect themselves.  It also shows that they had completed their assessment and had already begun to reward the men of Sodom according to their sins.  Blindness didn’t just make it impossible to find Lot’s door, it also made it impossible to escape the bounds of Sodom.  These tares had been officially bound up.  The very next day they would be burned.

Down to four righteous souls

¶ And these holy men said unto Lot,

Hast thou any here besides thy sons-in-law, and thy son’s sons and thy daughters?

And they commanded Lot, saying,

Whatsoever thou hast in the city, thou shalt bring out of this place, for we will destroy this place; because the cry of them is waxen great, and their abominations have come up before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.

And Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and said,

Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.

But he seemed as one that mocked, unto his sons-in-law.  (JST Gen. 18-22)

So Lot’s married daughters, their husbands, and the grandsons were all toast, leaving only Lot, his wife and his two remaining, unmarried, virginal daughters.  Four souls total.

Lot at least gets Zoar spared

¶ And when the morning came, the angels hastened Lot, saying,

Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

And while he lingered the angels laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto them; and they brought them forth, and set them down without the city.

¶ And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad that they said unto them,

Escape for your lives; look not behind you, neither stay you in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest you be consumed.

And Lot said unto one of them,

Oh, not so my Lord! behold now, thy servant has found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil overtake me, and I die.  Behold now, here is another city, and this is near to flee unto and it is a little one; oh, let me escape thither, and may the Lord not destroy it, and my soul shall live.

And the angel said unto him,

See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken; haste thee, escape thither, for I cannot do anything until thou be come thither.

And the name of the city was called ^aZoar.

[a IE Little (thing).]

Therefore the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.  (JST Gen. 23-29)

This shows that Abraham and also Lot were entirely concerned with saving souls, with giving them every opportunity to repent of their sins, for, like the sons of Mosiah, they could not bear the thought that any soul should perish.

Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.  (Mosiah 28:3)

Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed

¶ And the Lord did not destroy Sodom until Lot had entered into Zoar.  And then, when Lot had entered into Zoar, the Lord rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrah; for the angels called upon the name of the Lord for ^abrimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.  And thus they overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.  (JST Gen. 19:30-32)

[a HEB combustible materials (especially sulphur and pitch).]

I suppose the fire of this destruction was caused by interplanetary thunderbolts in fiery glow mode (enormous plasma discharges.)  Note that both Sodom and Gomorrah, their wickedness and abominations, the angels being sent to pluck out the righteous, the escape of the righteous, and the way these cities were instantly turned into ashes, is the pattern for the destruction of the wicked at the end of the world.

¶ And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them, and said,

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say,

Lo, here!

or,

Lo, there!

For, behold, the kingdom of God has already come unto you.

And he said unto his disciples,

The days will come, when they will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and they shall not see it.  And if they shall say to you,

See here!

or,

See there!

Go not after them, nor follow them.  For as the light of the morning, that shineth out of the one part under heaven, and lighteneth to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of Man be in his day.  But first he must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.  And as it was in the days of Noe; so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.  They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.  Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.  Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.  In that day, the disciple who shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away; and he who is in the field, let him likewise not return back.  Remember Lot’s wife.  (JST Luke 17:20-32)

Down to three righteous souls

¶ But it came to pass, when Lot fled, his wife looked back from behind him, and became a pillar of salt.  (JST Gen. 19:33)

There is a lesson to be learned here, but I won’t teach it, ’cause all the ladies will get on my case.  Besides, what Jesus said above is sufficient.

Only one righteous soul: Lot

¶ And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord; and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and behold, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

¶ And it came to pass, when God had destroyed the cities of the plain, that God spake unto Abraham, saying,

I have remembered Lot, and sent him out of the midst of the overthrow, that thy brother might not be destroyed, when I overthrew the city in the which thy brother Lot dwelt.

And Abraham was comforted.

¶ And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar. And he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.  And the firstborn dealt wickedly, and said unto the younger,

Our father has become old, and we have not a man on the earth to come in unto us, to live with us after the manner of all that live on the earth; therefore come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they did wickedly, and made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.  And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger,

Behold, I lay yesternight with my father; let us make him drink wine this night also, and go thou in and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger arose, and lay with him, and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.  Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.  And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab; the father of the Moabites, the same which are unto this day.  And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; the father of the children which are Ammonites; the same which are unto this day.  (JST Gen. 19:34-44)

Apparently merely taking the people out of the slums (Sodom) doesn’t take the slums (Sodom) out of the people.  Lot moved his family into Sodom, and they all grew up there.  Living in Sodom obviously had an adverse effect upon the entire family, all except for righteous Lot, who remained unaffected by the environment.  The family members who decided to stay in the doomed city weren’t the only ones that were grasped by its hellish grip.  The fleeing mother and daughters also couldn’t resist its pull, even after it was destroyed, the mother looking back to those sinful ways, and the daughters later raping their grieving father—for he surely grieved for the loss of his wife, his married daughters, his sons-in-law, his grandson, and the people of Sodom—by first getting him drunk with wine, which was surely under the pretense of “easing his grief,” and when their father was fully asleep, they sodomized him with oral sex in order to get him hard—he likely dreaming in his sleep that he was merely having a wet dream of conjugal relations with his dead wife—and then they each raped him on consecutive nights, committing incestuous whoredom with him. And oh, yes, sodomy is what these girls performed:

sodomy : anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex; also :  copulation with an animal

So the practices of Sodom were perpetuated, even immediately after its destruction, down to this very day.  It is ironic that righteous Lot did all he could to keep the wicked men of Sodom from sodomizing and deflowering and raping his precious and lovely daughters, and then these same girls ended up sodomizing and raping him, and deflowering themselves upon him, stealing his seed from him.  Aren’t the practices of Sodom lovely?

The Leviticus scriptures

And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God; I am the Lord.  ^aThou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination.

[a OR With the male you shall not lie as one lies with the woman.]

Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto; it is confusion.  Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you; and the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.  (JST Lev. 18:21-25)

If a man ^aalso lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

[a HEB lies with a male.]

And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is ^awickedness; they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.

[a OR lewdness or an evil device.]

And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast.  And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.  (JST Lev. 20:13-16)

In this post I am giving the ancient practice of homosexuality, which was a free-for-all sexual feast, of both men, women, children and animals—and which, according the doctrine of the restoration of all things, must come back in full force; for all things, both good and evil, must and will be restored, that the abomination prophecies be fulfilled, both those which speak of there being all manner of abominations in the last days, and also those that speak of these same abominations being completely and finally destroyed.

Now, all of this sexual behavior—except for penile-vaginal sexual relations—constitutes sodomy, according to the dictionary definition above, which is what the men of Sodom practiced.  Homosexuality, and also bestiality, are condemned in these scriptures, and homosexual behavior is itself categorized as abomination.

Those who seek to downplay the sinfulness of homosexuality will usually point out that these Leviticus scriptures are part of the law of Moses, and thus not part of the law of the gospel of Christ.  In other words, that under the law of Moses it was considered abomination, but under the law of the gospel it was not, and is not, considered such.  But this is not correct, as I will show.

Sin, wickedness, iniquities and abomination

And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand; and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.  Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations; but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.  As I live,

saith the Lord God,

Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.  Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.  And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away, ^aas I saw good.  (JST Ezekiel 16:46-50)

[a HEB when I saw it.]

Everyone seeking to defend homosexual practices cites this scripture, conveniently leaving out the part about abominations, choosing to say that Sodom was destroyed because of their pride, idleness and their treatment of the poor.  But that was only half of the equation, and that only regarded their iniquities.  Sodom also committed abomination, which consisted of all the sexual practices of sodomy.  You see, there is sin, there is wickedness, there is iniquity, and then there is abomination.  What is the difference, you say?

Sin is anything unrighteous, which is done, but which should not be done; or anything righteous, which should be done, but which is not done.  Thus, sin falls into two categories: sins of commission and sins of omission.  Sin deals, then, mainly with acts.

Wickedness, on the other hand, covers both acts, thoughts, feelings, desires, and intentions.  Thus, committing adultery in the heart is not technically a sin, for you haven’t actually committed it, yet, but it does constitute wickedness, the heart itself being wicked.  We will be judged at the last day by our actions—what we do (commissions) and don’t do (omissions)—but also by our thoughts, words, feelings, desires and intentions.

Iniquities are inequities, or unequal treatment.  When Ezekiel in chapter 18 and 33 of his prophecy speaks of the ways of the people not being equal, he is talking of iniquities:

¶ Yet ye say,

The way of the Lord is not ^aequal.

[a HEB right or just.]

Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?  When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.  Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.  Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.  Yet saith the house of Israel,

The way of the Lord is not ^aequal.

[a HEB right or just.]

O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?  Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways,

saith the Lord God.

Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.  (JST Ezekiel 18:25-30)

Yet the children of thy people say,

The way of the Lord is not ^aequal;

but as for them, their way is not equal.

[a HEB right or just.]

When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby.  But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.  Yet ye say,

The way of the Lord is not equal.

O ye house of Israel, I will judge you everyone after his ways.  (JST Ezekiel 33:17-20)

Grinding upon the faces of the poor, treating them as dross, simply because they are poor, is iniquity.  The people of Sodom practiced such iniquities.  But they also did one worse and went into abomination territory, committing “a grosser crime” (Jacob 2:22.)

Here is the definition of abomination:

ABOMINA’TION, n.

1. Extreme hatred; detestation.

2. The object of detestation, a common signification in scripture.

The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. Prov. xv.

3. Hence, defilement, pollution, in a physical sense, or evil doctrines and practices, which are moral defilements, idols and idolatry, are called abominations. The Jews were an abomination to the Egyptians; and the sacred animals of the Egyptians were an abomination to the Jews. The Roman army is called the abomination of desolation. Mat. 24:13. In short, whatever is an object of extreme hatred, is called an abomination.

Abomination is anything that the Lord really hates.  Now, the Lord hates all sin, for all sin leads to death.  But some sins are so very bad, because of the corruption they cause both to the person committing them, and to the victim, that they must be classified as abominations.

Sin causes the death of the spirit

To give a proper understanding as to the badness of abominations, it must be understood that our spirit bodies are made up of individual bits of spirit, like deformable bubbles that shine, and these bubbles of spirit encompass the non-deformable hard balls of stuff that is elemental matter, which is by nature black in color.  Nevertheless, because the spirit bubbles shine or glow with light, the spirit body appears white.  Depending upon the brightness of the glow, it might shine a little, a lot, or a whole lot.

When we came out of the Nothing, we were bathed in that lake of fire and brimstone that is found at the perimeter of this Universe.  That fire caused our spirits to ignite, so that our spirits began to shine.  When we were put together, or organized, as a spirit body, each individual bit of spirit matter, each individual bubble, shined individually, creating an aggregate glow or shine for the entire body.

When we come down to earth, we receive physical bodies and, at some point, are capable of sinning.  The instantaneous result of sin is that it causes a death in our spirit, meaning that some portion of the individual spirit bit bubbles that make up our spirit bodies goes dark.  Forever.  These bubbles cease to shine and glow.  They die.  This allows the blackness of the elemental bit of matter within to be seen, so that now our garments (spirit bodies) become unclean, filthy, even “spotted with [or by] the flesh [elemental matter].”

And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.  (Jude 1:23)

Crying repentance, saying:

Save yourselves from this untoward generation, and come forth out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted with the flesh.  (D&C 36:6)

Now, even if one bubble goes dark, this effects the surrounding bubbles, causing them to get dimmer, or mourn, for the loss of the brother spirit.  This mourning continues until they get dimmer yet again.  And so on continues the mourning, until the surrounding bubbles finally cease shining altogether, and thus they die themselves.  Now there are more bubbles that are dead, not just one, and these other dead bubbles now start to infect the bubbles that surround them, causing these others to mourn and grow dimmer.

This is why all sin leads to the eventual death of the entire spirit body.  Even one single, solitary death of a spirit bit will eventually cause the death of the entire organism, and there is no way to stop it.  Hope has been lost, light has gone dark, and all that is left to do is mourn.

Think of it like having a hand that has gotten gangrene and the flesh has died (necrosis.)  The doctor must cut the thing off.  You can’t leave the dead, rotten flesh attached to the living flesh, otherwise you will end up with the entire organism dying.  Well, a spirit body that has any part of it dead, through the commission of sin, cannot eject the dead spirit matter.  It is stuck there and it will eventually cause everything else to die, also.

The remedy, of course, is the atonement, faith, and the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, which baptism of fire re-ignites, through faith, the dead spirit bits, restoring the spirit body to completeness again.

Now, some sins cause the death of a small portion of the spirit body, while other sins cause the death of a large number of spirit bubbles.  These latter sins are so corruptive and deadly to the organism that they must be called, and are classified as, abominations.

Homosexual behavior is so corrupting, so perverse, and so desensitizing, that just doing it once is often enough to destroy, spiritually, the individual.  When a large portion of your spirit goes dead, you lose spiritual sensation.  There are two remedies: you can repent and get that baptism of fire, to re-ignite the spirit, or you can do the same sin again, or an even worse sin, so as to feel something, at least physically.  This latter practice is the lime in the coconut principle:

This is why sin is so addictive.  But each time you do the sin, you destroy more spirit bubbles, causing your spirit to become even more desensitized, hastening your eventual spiritual death.  So you must up the ante and perform increasingly more wicked practices, in order to feeling something, anything, to replace the growing empty feeling you now have inside of you, which is your spirit dying.

Homosexual practices are entirely corrupting

A man that engages in homosexual behavior not only destroys his own spirit, but also the spirit of the person with whom he does the act.  It is entirely corrupting for both, because the act goes against the divine design function of the body.  (In other words, it is fully perverse, meaning totally opposite to the laws of God.)  This is why it is called “the sin against nature.”  In fact, if you look up sodomy in the 1828 dictionary, it gives a definition of “a crime against nature.”

A whoredom, although an abomination, does not go against the design function of the body.  A penis is designed to go into a vagina, not a mouth nor the anal cavity.  The cavity of the vagina is specifically designed to properly admit a penis.  It has the right chemistry, pH balance, grip and so forth.  It is a perfect fit without any danger to the woman or the man during lovemaking.  The action of penile-vaginal penetration, assuming that the man and woman are both intact and fully functional, create the ideal environment for both maximum pleasure and mutual orgasm.  This creates the “one flesh” harmonic between the two spirits, uniting them in spiritual love.  In other words, their spirits vibrate together, through mutual orgasm, and can achieve mutual resonance.  The ejaculation of semen into the vaginal cavity is useful to the woman, even if it does not create life.  Those fluids are absorbed there and used by her body.  The area, also, is relatively clean, the vaginal fluids typically not being odorous, etc.  It can be accomplished without preparation and so on.  Thus, penile-vaginal penetration is what the scriptures call ‘the natural use of the woman.”

A mouth, on the other hand, although it can receive a penis, is not designed to do so.  There are things in the mouth that can injure a penis, such as teeth.  There is also not enough room to take in the entire organ, but if forced in (deep throated) the penis’ size and girth can cause injury to the throat of the one receiving it.  Although one can put it there, no one can argue that a mouth is designed for a penis.  Nevertheless, there are some health benefits associated with swallowing semen (from a healthy man) by women, because of the regulatory nature of sperm on the female.  But if either the woman or the man is unhealthy, the transmission of disease can go from penis to mouth, or from mouth to penis, and even brushing or flossing one’s teeth before oral sex (creating micro-abrasions or cuts in the mouth and gums) can prove disastrous to the man’s health.  Pleasure and orgasm can only be received by the inserted penis, with no corresponding pleasure and orgasm had by the one providing the mouth.  Thus, mutual pleasure and orgasm is impossible with oral sex.  This makes it impossible to receive the “one flesh” harmonic of penile-vaginal sex.

The anal cavity is also not designed for a penis.  Let’s call the anus and rectum exactly what it is, shall we?  The anal cavity is a bag to hold poop: a veritable poop-bag.  Even emptied and cleaned as much as possible, fecal residues still might remain.  Insertion of a penis into the anus, then, is insertion into a poop-bag, which may or may not be partly filled.  This makes all anal sex (ritually and literally) unclean.  Also anal sex might cause great damage to the receiver, rupturing the anal cavity, etc.  It can correctly be called “unsafe sex.”  The action of anal sex is likewise off, both for giver and receiver.  The vagina hugs the penis, in just the right spots, allowing the sensitive foreskin to pull back and forth correctly, according to its function.  Anal sex, though, only has the sphincter muscle grasping the penis at its base, which is not a sensitive area.  In other words, there is often not enough “gripping” in this bag of poop to create proper sensations of pleasure for the giver, so the receiver must often position himself in a manner that creates such tension, causing him potential discomfort or worse.

No orgasm for the anal sex receiver

Additionally, it is impossible for the one receiving the anal sex to achieve orgasm.  There is a pleasure center associated with anal sex, but there also may be a good deal of discomfort (and perhaps also pain.)  This pleasure has no release, or orgasm.   This is why those who engage in anal sex, both men and women, on the receiving end, almost always end up masturbating while engaged in it, in order to achieve an orgasm.  Thus, the abomination of homosexual relations is almost always accompanied by the unholy practice of masturbation.  You get two sins for the price of one.

Thus, the “one flesh” harmonic cannot be achieved through anal sex, either.  Two male homosexuals, then, must “do each other” in turns.  “First I get my orgasm through anal sex, then you get yours.”  In other words, it is entirely self-centered.  The one uses and abuses the other to “get off,” and then they change positions, so that the first gets used and abused for the pleasure of the other.  In the case of man-boy pairings, though, this change in positions does not always occur.  Instead, you just get the man using and abusing the boy, and the boy just has to take it.  He never gets the privilege of dishing it out.

Unsafe sex

Additionally, homosexual sex adds other things, such as various instruments and toys, which only increase the danger to one or both men.  They do these things in order to feel something—anything, at all.  In other words, these men become so desperate to fill up the growing void inside them, that they eventually resort to extreme sensory experiences. These practices taken together make homosexual sex typically very unsafe.

Total disrespect to God

The seed of man is the life-giving fluid of humanity, the testicles producing the stuff, and the penis being the instrument of delivery.  This phallus, then, can be considered a divine instrument, for all life proceeds from God.  In other words, the human penis, is, in very real sense, a sacred object.  We don’t worship it, yet it is the divine instrument that God uses to further His purposes.

When you take that sacred object and stick it into a bag of poop, what kind of message are you sending to God?  It is defilement, desecration, polluting of the divine, like polluting God’s holy temple.  It is an act of utmost disrespect.  Like putting up your middle finger towards God.

Sodomy for men and women prohibited

God provides regulations for the penis precisely because it is a divine and sacred instrument, something that He uses to create life.  His directives are that it be used sexually only with a woman, and only in cleanness (i.e, in the vagina.)  This fulfills His divine purposes, while keeping the purification aspects (cleanness) of the ordinance intact.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; who love not the truth, but remain in unrighteousness, after that which may be known of God is manifest to them.  For God hath revealed unto them the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, which are clearly seen; things which are not seen being understood by the things that are made, through his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful, but became ^avain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

[a GR corrupt in their reasonings, deliberations.]

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.  And changed the glory of the ^auncorruptible God into an image made like to ^bcorruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

[a GR incorruptible, immortal.]

[b GR (also) perishable.]

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts; to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God ^agave them up unto ^bvile affections; for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

[a GR abandoned, delivered.]

[b GR sufferings, passions of dishonor.]

And even as they did not like to ^aretain God according to some knowledge, God gave them over to a ^breprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, ^cdebate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, ^dbackbiters, haters of God, ^edespiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; and some who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, are inexcusable, not only do the same, but ^fhave pleasure in them that do them.  (JST Rom. 1:18-32)

[a GR discern, choose.]

[b GR worthless, unable to stand test.]

[c GR strife, discord.]

[d GR Slanderers.]

[e GR violent, overbearing.]

[f GR approve of them, sympathize with them.]

The “women changing the natural use into that which is against nature” does not refer to lesbianism, but to women having non-penile-vaginal sex.  From the Righteous Warriors website:

Historical Interpretation of Romans 1:26

The mistaken view that Romans 1:26 refers to female-female sexual relations remains widespread, but it is an interpretation that runs counter to the understanding of the early church leaders of the first four centuries. They understood Romans 1:26 to refer to non-procreative, male-female sexual acts.

Clement of Alexandria (150-215 A.D.) interpreted Romans 1:26 to refer to common heterosexual practices, especially anal intercourse. After quoting Romans 1:26-27, Clement comments: “Yet nature has not caused even the most lewd beasts to have intercourse [mount] in the excrement passageway” and then goes on to condemn “male penetration, barren seed-sowing, anal intercourse [literally “rear bedding”] and unsuitable androgynous coming together” (Paed 2.10.86-87, translated by Miller 1997b; cf. Brooten 320-338).

Anastasios, another early Christian writer, cited in a marginal note to Clement, agrees with Clement that Romans 1:26 does not speak of female-female relations: “Clearly they [the females of Romans 1:26] do not go into one another [fem.] but rather offer themselves to men” (Brooten 1996:337-38; Miller 1997b). Even Augustine (354-430 A.D.) understood Romans 1:26 to refer to certain male-female practices (probably anal intercourse to prevent conception) as “unnatural” (Brooten 353; Miller 1995; 1997ab).

The cases of Clement and Augustine are especially remarkable, since both are clearly on record as opposing female-female eroticism. Yet they did not allow their conviction to distort their interpretation of Romans 1:26, as commonly happens with modern interpreters. The important point to make here is that both early believers and informed modern scholars interpret Romans 1:26 as referring to unnatural male-female practices. Given the complete Scriptural silence on female-female relations throughout Israel’s entire history (not a word in the Torah’s 613 commands against them), an unprecedented and unique condemnation of all female-female relations cannot be elicited from Paul’s sermon illustration.

Oral sex falls under sodomy

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.  (Prov. 30:20)

Oral sex between two men, or between a man and a woman, whether the man and woman are married to each other or not, is still part of the definition of sodomy.  To read more about what the scriptures say about oral sex, and what they don’t say about it, read this page from the Righteous Warriors website.

There is to be no male sodomite in Israel

There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a ^asodomite of the sons of Israel.   Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow; for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.  (JST Deut. 23:17-18)

[a HEB a professional male or female prostitute or cultist.]

But what’s a sodomite?  Although it is tempting to take the alternate translation from the HEBREW and just say it is a professional male or female prostitute, or a professional male or female cultist, (in other words, a shrine prostitute,) it must be noted that the JST doesn’t make any alteration, keeping “sodomite.”  From the 1826 dictionary, here is the definition of “sodomite”:

SOD’OMITE, n.

1. An inhabitant of Sodom.

2. One guilty of sodomy.

So, this scripture prohibits males who are guilty of sodomy, which, according to the same dictionary, are crimes against nature.  That prohibits homosexual behavior, but this is, of course, from the law of Moses.  However, there are scriptures found in the New Testament which condemn homosexual behavior, such as the Romans scripture I cited above.  The others are:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither ^afornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor ^beffeminate, nor ^cabusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.  (1 Cor. 9-10)

[a GR sexually immoral persons, male prostitutes.]

[b GR catamites.]

[c GR male homosexuals.]

But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.  (1 Tim. 1:8-11)

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.  Likewise also these ^afilthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.  (Jude 1:7-8)

[a The Greek text omits “filthy.”]

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked; (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished; but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.  (JST 2 Pet. 2:4-10)

These scriptures are part of the law of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and cannot be readily dismissed.

On to the topic of rape

Now that I’ve gone through most of the scriptures found in the Topical Guide entry for Homosexual Behavior, let’s talk about rape.

Un-rape-able

The perineal muscles of the female, the ones that allow a female to close her vagina—and don’t ask me, because I don’t know what the name or names of these specific muscles are—are strong enough to prohibit the erect and hardened penis from entering.  This means that if a female is conscious and in control of these muscles, and they are working properly, and she doesn’t want you to penetrate her, you ain’t gettin’ in.  This makes the female of the species, essentially, un-rape-able.

Now all rapists know this, which is why they either knock the female out and rape her while she is unconscious, through violence or by drugging her, so that the muscles are relaxed; or they get her drunk or otherwise drugged, so that she has lost control of these muscles; or they use violence or the threat of violence, harm or death, to her or to someone or something she loves, in order to get her to voluntarily “let the rapist in.”

The vagina can, of course, be forcefully penetrated by a hard object, harder than an erect penis, such as a wooden stick or metal shaft, etc., but this would physically harm the female’s vagina and create quite a bloody mess, which is possibly not something the average rapist would find appealing.

To all the married men who doubt the strength of the female vaginal “door” muscles, perform this experiment with your wives.  Ask them to “close up the shop” and then try to get in with your erect penis.  You will see that it is very much impossible.

Rape-able

The back door and its muscles, which are the external and internal anal sphincters, are very much rape-able.  These muscles are not strong enough to stop forcible entry by an erect penis.  Friction, of course, can put a stop to entry, but if a penis is lubricated sufficiently, it will slide right in, despite all attempts to squeeze the external anal sphincter closed.  Thus, no one needs to drug, threaten with violence or death, or knock a person unconscious in order to anally rape them.  You just need to be lubricated and stronger than the other person, so that you can overpower them.

Rape culture

The rape-able-ness of anal sex creates an ideal environment for rape culture.  To see a real rape culture in action, we need to just visit a local prison.  The men of a prison may not start out homosexual, but when the urge to have sex hits them, and they get no release, using and abusing a man who is less stronger than you are starts to look appealing.  You end up with men who become the raping “man” and men who become their raped “bitches.”  There is not much that can be done about the situation.  If a guy is stronger than you, there is no way to stop him from entering in through the back door.  The sphincter muscles are much too weak.

Another place to look at rape culture is among the militaries of the world, where raping is used as a form of psychological warfare, and also as a form of sexual release.  Bestiality also has existed among the military.  (In fact, as of January 1, 2012, both sodomy and bestiality are now legal in the U.S. military.)

The Taliban is also a culture of rape.  In this case, it is boys that are frequently used as sex slaves.  Why?  Well they are weaker than the men who abuse them, and they are easily raped.  This is not considered as a “homosexual” practice, just as a historic one that lots of men participate in.  (There are many articles that speak of this, but I’ll point the reader to one: Boys of the Taliban.)

Although the feminists have co-opted the term “rape culture” and sought to apply it to Western heterosexual society, anyone who has looked at the actual numbers knows that this is at best a distortion and at worst an outright lie, and that among heterosexuals there is no culture of rape.  Heterosexual societal norms are that rape is morally wrong and evil.  Also, there are enforced laws against it.  To find, then, the root of rape culture, one must look to homosexual behavior, not heterosexual society.

Anal sex, male sex with boys, homosexuality, bestiality, rape and rape culture: all these things are linked together, or have ties to each other, like branches of the same doctrine.  And what is that doctrine, or where did it originate?  In Sodom.

No strings attached

God commands men to be only with women, in penile-vaginal sexual relationships, in the bonds of holy matrimony, and to love their wives with all their hearts.  All this stuff goes totally contrary to the doctrine of Sodom.  The men of Sodom participated in a sexual free-for-all, consisting of every conceivable type of sexual relation, (and so they weren’t against having sex with women: consider Lot’s daughters that they wanted to use.)  But women often come with baggage, as in emotional baggage, and with strings attached, and they also play games (the BS women do.)

Women want to feel loved and bonded.  The men of Sodom just wanted to have sex, without having to have an emotional conection with the person being used or abused.  If there was an emotional connection, it wasn’t a bond, meaning that they were free to have as many emotional connections, with as many people as they wanted, or with animals or whatever.  The ancient doctrine, then, was anything goes but what God commands.

Women also want fidelity.  That, dear reader, is a big no-no in homosexual culture.  It is okay to have a “partner” with whom you live and appear to the masses as a “married couple,” all normalized and “legitimate” and proper, but every night, or whenever you want, each partner can go out seeking sexual adventures with anyone or anything they want.  There are to be no strings attached to the homosexual lifestyle.

Women play games.  Heterosexual men have to deal with female BS all of the time.  The homosexual man, though, would rather pass on such games.  It is simply a lot easier and less stressful to deal with other men, who do not play such BS games.

Women like to put constraints and restrictions on relationships they have with a man.  This flies completely in the face of the doctrine of Sodom, which is all about no constraints and no restrictions, whatsoever.  For these reasons, homosexuals pass on women, not because they don’t like having sex with them, but because it compromises their principles.

The manliest of men

The heterosexual looks upon the homosexual lifestyle and thinks, “That’s not manly.”  But to a homosexual, they don’t see themselves as unmanly, but as the manliest of men, because they are literally taking charge of their entire life and dictating all the terms, including the sexual terms.  The heterosexual man typically gets dictated to, by women, his sexual terms.  Not the homosexual.  These men are supermen when it comes to their sexual appetite and adventures.  The most promiscuous of heterosexual males pales into insignificance when compared to the most promiscuous of homosexual men.  And all of them are ultra-promiscuous, for this is the doctrine they subscribe to, to sexually feast on everything around them, whereas only some heterosexual males are very promiscuous.  In case you still don’t get my drift, the ultra-promiscuous heterosexual male will have hundreds of conquests, whereas the ultra-promiscuous homosexual male will have thousands.  They are literally sexual, predatory animals, and when they go out to get laid, they get laid.  Each and every time.

This is because the homosexual doesn’t have to deal with female BS.  With a female, you’ve got to finesse her first.  But the homosexual man just needs to see another homosexual male, and give the “signal,” which means, “Let’s have sex.”  And off they go to have sex.  They can be complete strangers.  It doesn’t matter.  And afterward, if they still have the energy that night, they do it again and again and again, with other complete strangers.  It is literally a sexual feast and the focus is on the sex, not on any relationship or emotional connection.

Not having an emotional connection with anyone, or having an “emotional” connection without strings (i.e., just an infatuation) creates an emptiness in these men.  This emptiness needs to be filled, which they attempt through sex.  Thus, the homosexual man has a sexual appetite that is orders of magnitude greater than the heterosexual man, who, if he finds himself in a relationship with a woman, may feel a true connection to her, and thus feel satisfied.  But the homosexual is never satisfied, and thus remains forever on the prowl for more sexual adventures, in his insatiable state.

No conquests, only adventures

Because homosexual men don’t have sex with women, they don’t get to experience one of the satisfying pleasures of heterosexuality: the conquest or seduction of women.  Women are, by nature, resistant, and this makes for the need to seduce her before bedding her.  A bedded woman, then, is a conquered and sexually submissive woman.  The man wins the prize and feels more manly for the accomplishment.  This conquest gives, in and of itself, a feeling of satisfaction to a man.  Thus a heterosexual man is satiable and doesn’t have or feel a need to bed every woman he sees.

The homosexual man, though, never gets to feel this conquest or seduction feeling, because, dealing with only men, there is only sex involved.  Homosexual men do not seduce each other.  They skip that part and only use each other.  The missing feeling of conquest, then, must be filled in some other way.  That’s where the catamites come in.  It is through the domination, use and abuse of catamites by the pederast that the homosexual man gets to experience some sort of feeling of sexual conquest.  Perverse, isn’t it?

Lust not love

The word of God gets it right, as usual, calling what homosexual men feel, lust and not love.  The homosexuals, of course, paint it as love.  But just as you can’t put lipstick on a pig and have it look any better, and just as you can’t polish a turd, so you can’t take the burning lust that homosexuals feel for each other and call it love.  Oscar Wilde was simply wrong.

Patterned after Satan

Satan is the model of masculinity after which homosexuality is patterned, whereas Christ is the masculine pattern for heterosexuality.  God says, “Don’t touch those things and don’t eat that.”  So what is Satan’s response?  “I’ll touch that when I want, as many times as I want, for as long as I want.  In fact, I’m going to touch that, and only that.  And I’m going to eat that, and only that, as many times as I want or even continuously, as I damn well please!  ‘Cause I’m in charge here, not you!”  Homosexuality is, then, a state of utter rebellion, a totally opposite state to that ordered by God.

Heterosexuality, on the other hand, follows God’s prescribed orders and pattern, just as Christ submitted to the Father, though heterosexuals still often violate the precise commands from time to time.  Nevertheless, it is not a total violation, as homosexuality is.

Gay pride and its parades

The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.  (Isa. 3:9)

The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and doth declare their sin to be even as Sodom, and they cannot hide it. Wo unto their souls, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves!  (2 Ne. 13:9)

A parade is “a pompous show :  exhibition.”  It used to be that homosexual behavior was performed in dark alleys and other secret, obscure places, or in the seedy parts of the neighborhood.  This was when homosexuality was considered both illegal and against societal norms, (in other words, as both deviant and criminal behavior.)  But now it has been, essentially, legalized, and its perversion and deviancy normalized and legitimatized.  It is now declared openly.  In fact, so openly, that it is annually paraded in front of the heterosexual population in various places across this nation.  There is no longer any need or desire to hide it, except for those still living under some kind of stigma, such as a religious or family disapproval.  Surely, this scripture of Isaiah is being fulfilled before our very eyes.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.  And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away, as I saw good.  (JST Ezekiel 16:49-50)

The men of Sodom were prideful, but they were also haughty.  What is the difference?  It is my understanding that the first description, of pride, is referring to the sin of pride, which was part of their iniquity.  But the second description, of haughtiness, refers to how they presented their abomination (homosexuality.)  In other words, they took pride in their homosexuality.  They practiced it openly, not in secret or ashamedly.  They declared it, just as Isaiah prophesied, as a badge of honor, just as the homosexuals of today do.

Also, the men of Sodom “not only [did] the same [abominations], but [had] pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:32), just as the homosexuals of today do.  This is because the homosexual way is considered a sexual celebration, a grand party in which all feast at the same table of sex, and everyone is invited to partake of these forbidden pleasures.  Everyone can lift up their heads in wickedness, for God does not exist, and even if He does exist, it will still be well with them, or so they tell themselves.

And thus he did preach unto them, leading away the hearts of many, causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness, yea, leading away many women, and also men, to commit whoredoms—telling them that when a man was dead, that was the end thereof.  (Alma 30:18)

Yea, and there shall be many which shall say:

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us.

And there shall also be many which shall say:

Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.  (2 Ne. 28:7-8)

Imitating the doctrine of Sodom among heterosexuals

Henry Makow has written about how Hugh Heffner’s magazine, Playboy, took the homosexual practice of endless promiscuity and no family responsibilities (singleness) and applied it to heterosexuality.  He was correct.  The heterosexual “playboy” is merely a heterosexual man acting like a homosexual man, except towards women and not men.

Another imitation of the homosexual practices is pornography.  All pornographic performers disassociate themselves emotionally from the sexual acts they perform in front of the camera.  In other words, they feel no emotional connection or bond between any of the various performers involved.  One guy described his experience as a performer as, “merely masturbating in her [vagina].’  Masturbation is a solitary act, showing that although he performed with people, it was as if he was completely alone.  The performances, then, are just stripped down to sex, nothing but sex, without emotion, without feeling, without connection, without bond, without love.  Just sex.  But not even sex with someone else.   Masturbatory sex.  This is an imitation of the homosexual practices, which likewise strip everything down to sex and the use of others as sex objects, in order to get off.

The lesbian death bed

In this post I am focusing almost entirely on the homosexual man because the homosexual woman is not really homosexual.  She is, essentially, bisexual with a preference for women.  Homosexual men do not seek out women (because they don’t want to deal with female BS), so homosexual men can be considered truly homosexual.  But not so among lesbians.  When two lesbians come together, being women, they are by nature passive.  The want to be loved, whereas a man wants to love.  One is active (the male) and the other is passive (the female.)  Even though all homosexual couples take on gender roles—the man role being filled by “manly” men and butch dikes, and the woman role being filled by flaming homosexuals and feminine lesbians—they can’t get by their masculine and feminine natures.  So, even the butch dikes do not take an active role in sexual relations, desiring for their female partners to initiate.  In other words, both lesbians in a couple want to be loved, thus no one ends up doing the loving.  So, nothing sexual ends up happening.  This is why they call it the “lesbian death bed.”

Two lesbians will live together, argue together, complain to each other, and generally be miserable together as their female hormones make them offended at every word.  They will put up a loving demeanor in public (and sometimes they won’t even do that) in order to present the façade of a happy relationship, but in private they can’t stand the fact that they ain’t gettin’ any.  Eventually, all lesbians seek out a male, to be bedded by them, and they will do this from time to time, whenever the lack of sex becomes unbearable.  This is a known fact.

So, the lesbian has little to no sex.  Even if she goes out seeking another female lover, and ends up getting some loving, it only will be at the start of the relationship, because of its newness, and then it dwindles down to nothing.  Also, because lesbians are every bit as female as heterosexual women, they desire relationships and connection, which is what they end up having, just without any sex.  Their heterosexual counterparts get connection with a man plus sex, becoming more fulfilled.  Lesbians, then, are miserable creatures.  That is not to say that homosexual men are any happier, for although they get lots of sex, they don’t get any lasting connections, only fleeting ones, and their “relationships” are of “partners” (lifetime roommates.)  So they are almost as equally unfilled and miserable as the lesbians. Nevertheless, all these people put up the façade of living the “gay” (happy) life.  Their celebration, though, is a big fat lie.  (The heterosexuals also are miserable, but that’s a topic for another post.)

The lesbian, then, is hardly worth a mention, therefore I will continue my focus on the homosexual man.

2 percent of the population

Homosexuals currently make up about 2 percent of the population, but this is because of legal and societal constraints, and also the commandments of God.  Take away these constraints—and that is exactly the homosexual agenda: to remove all restraints to the doctrine of Sodom—and you end up with what was seen in ancient Sodom: the whole city homo-sexualized!  In other words, homosexuality is a contagion, like all sin.  Homosexuals are not born, they are made through recruitment and confusion and deceit and lies and experimentation with the sin, all of which creates an addiction that possibly can last a lifetime.  The ancients never thought of homosexuality as a “born” kind of thing.  The idea of being born a homosexual, genetically, or epi-gentically, is a modern construct, invented to give legitimacy to the perversion.  There is, of course, no such genetic or epi-genetic links.  Those in the know understand that homosexuals must be recruited from the youth population, hence the push for schools to incorporate homosexual lifestyles into their sex education classes.

Legal constraints are already being eroded and altogether removed.  Societal opinion is also shifting in favor of legitimizing the homosexual, deviant lifestyle.  So these latter restraints are also being eliminated, even among church people.  There is only one thing that still says, “No,” to homosexuality: the commandments of God.  When there are no more legal and societal restraints, and there are only saints who obey the commandments of God and who, like Lot, say to the homosexuals, “Do not do so wickedly,”  you are going to see the saints die at the hands of these men, for they will not have their lifestyles condemned and judged, nor curtailed in any way.  This will fulfill the scriptures concerning the great and abominable church fighting against Zion in the last days, for they will seek to kill all the saints.

The population would not die out if everyone were a homosexual

Here is what would happen—and what perhaps happened in Sodom—as the homosexual population begins to explode: women would be used as breeders; the female children would continue to be used as breeders, servants and slaves, while the male children would become catamites, to be trained and raised as the next generation of homosexuals.  Animal husbandry would take on a new purpose, too, as animals would be raised so that men could have sex with them.  (It is already happening, for example, with animal brothels in Germany.)

Breeding women may sound far-fetched to some, but Nazi Germany already did such deeds.  Although we say that that was merely a Nazi program, it was possibly just a Sodom program, re-revealed by the evil spirit, for the doctrine of Sodom was not a man-made philosophy, but a bona-fide doctrine of the devil.  Its sole intention is to break the Lord’s law of chastity, even to do everything sexual, except comply with the requirements God has laid down.

Inevitably, it is the children that become the target

Homosexual recruitment occurs among the young, for Satan always targets these pure souls.  They are alive in Christ, after all, therefore they are types of Christ.  So, they are to be corrupted and abused and used to further his purposes.  This means that pedophilia must become both legalized and acceptable socially, in order for the man-boy (pederast-catamite) pairings to go forth, so that Sodom can be rebuilt and reborn as the New Sodom.

Homosexuality and pedophilia are, in point of fact, linked

Don’t believe me?  Read the following articles:

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse

Child Molestation & the Homosexual Movement

Report: Pedophilia more common among ‘gays’

Good luck to anyone that tries to refute them…

Pedophilia is the new civil rights battle

It is the logical next step in the agenda.  There are lots of articles and videos documenting this new civil rights area.  Do a search and read or watch a couple.

The great and abominable church

This future church, (for there are people who believe that it already exists, but it doesn’t), will be called the mother of harlots, the mother of abominations, the whore of all the earth, and the great and abominable church.  To it will all abominable practices be gathered, under one roof, so-to-speak.  Sure, there will be whoredoms, for those are abominations, too.  And there will be child sacrifices to dumb idols and the passing of children into the fires of Molech, etc.  All these things are abominations, so they will be there, too.  And every other iniquitous and sinful and wicked thing that ever existed from the days of Adam, as well as new horrors invented for our day.  But there will also be the modern men of New Sodom, for the revived Sodom and its practices will have safe haven in this church.  All this so that God may finally stamp out these abominations once and for all.

This church will be burned

We know this, according to the prophecies, so there is going to be a repeat scenario, as the New Sodom and its men get destroyed by God.  Therefore, there is only one message we saints should be giving to the homosexuals: repent before it is too late for you.

Latter-day saints, and everyone else who believes in the word of God, need to wake up to the deceptions being put out about homosexuality, sodomy, rape, rape culture and pedophilia.  These are clear and present dangers to the kingdom of God, which kingdom has been given to the saints.  All these sins actively fight against the commandments of God.  Later, the men who commit these abominations will actively fight and seek to kill all those who keep the commandments of God.  And lastly, these same men, if they do not repent in time, will themselves be killed and lose their souls.  So, let’s not be so tolerant of their behavior that we shut our mouths and just watch them die at the Lord’s appearance.  Instead, let’s be like righteous Lot and Abraham, and do all in our power to stop the flood of evil practices from continuing to go forth, and let’s be willing to call a spade a spade, even when surrounded by an entire city of wicked men—(truly Lot had a BIG SET, if you know what I mean)—and let’s try to save their souls while there is still time, okay?

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LOUD LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER-DAY SAINTS

Initiates of the endowment ceremony which takes place in LDS temples accept 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”

This charge is to be accepted by covenant “as it has been explained to you” but in reality it is never fully explained. It is assumed that we know what we are promising when we foreswear these things, but few ever bother to raise any questions as to what constitutes unholy and impure practices. Beside the fact that these oaths are to be made between a man and his maker, there have been more or less official interpretations put forth by LDS leadership in regards to taking God’s name in vain, and of course, evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed. But, although I am sure I am not the only one whom is struck a little strangely by the phrase “loud laughter,” rarely if ever have I heard any type of commentary offered by the clergy or the laity as far as what “loud laughter” entails and why it ought to be avoided.

For many it may seem a very straightforward phrase and spark neither uncertainty nor curiosity. Laughter is what people do when they think something is funny, and loud laughter is simply doing it at a volume of high decibels. But if that is the case then there can be no louder laughter than that of the crowd. The throng transforms the softest revelry issued as reverently and politely as possible into the loudest collective roar. The loudest laughter peals out like the laugh track that follows every one of Thomas S. Monson’s silly jokes, or like the obligatory laughter which Crown Prince Frederick Hoepnick queues from his court in the 1965 comedy The Great Race.

I am sure that the guys at Comedy Sportz in Provo, Utah aim to evoke the loudest laughter possible from their paying customers. Are they guilty of promoting covenant-breaking among the college students at B.Y.U.? If you are sure that you are complying with your oath to avoid loud laughter then I would ask you: what is laughter really? Can you explain it, or tell us why it happens?

LAUGHTER IS LANGUAGE

Laughter is a part of our native language, not the languages which we learn and inherit from our parents, but the native language of raw emotion which all humans speak fluently at birth, and which unfortunately gets suppressed and all but forgotten in favor of the limited language of the oppressor. What do I mean by “language of the oppressor”? It has been discussed in detail elsewhere on this blog, and bears repeating, that the priesthood of God is a language. Prior to the point where we are beseeched to avoid loud laughter, the temple drama introduces us to the rebellious character of the Devil in the form of a man wearing an apron. Adam as representative of mankind asks in his innocence and ignorance, what the meaning of that apron is and is told that it is an emblem of the Devil’s power and his priesthoods/languages. The Languages of Lucifer get placed over the holy garments of the endowment we receive from Heaven. Throughout the ceremony we are sure to always place the Devil’s Apron on top.

In life we do the same, insisting proudly on outward expression through the means of so much psychobabble in one or another of the many mixed up languages/priesthoods in use since the confounding and corrupting of man’s relationship to his fellow man in the days of Babel. That the Devil’s A-Pron representing his many languages/priesthoods takes A-Priori precedence in our symbolic, or spiritual manner of dress, can be clearly seen in the way we address one another. Laughter, though it certainly may stem from deep in our pre-conscious, is not randomly scattered throughout speech. For example, a speaker may say “What is that?…ha-ha,” but rarely, “What is…ha-ha…that?” For the most part, our laughter seldom interrupts the sentence structure of our speech. Rather it punctuates speech. Curiously we only laugh during pauses when we might typically cough or breathe. The occurrence of speaker laughter at the end of phrases suggests that a neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter in speech, and that different brain regions are involved in the expression of cognitively oriented speech and the more emotion-laden vocalization of laughter.

During conversation, speech tends to trump, and inhibit laughter. This is evidence of “the punctuation effect” – the tendency to laugh almost exclusively at phrase breaks in speech. This pattern indicates that worldly speech has priority over laughter which is a manifestation of the tongue of angels. Laughter is an unexpected resurfacing eruption of emotion, our first language. So laughter is in a sense a “speaking in tongues” in which we’re moved not by religious fervor but by a spiritual pre-conscious response to social and linguistic cues. Stripped of its variation and nuance, laughter is a regular series of short vowel-like syllables usually transcribed as “ha-ha,” “ho-ho” or “hee-hee.” These syllables are part of the universal human vocabulary, produced and recognized by all God’s people, the House of Israel, no matter where we find ourselves scattered across the diaspora of the world’s many cultures.

If emotion is the native language of little angels freshly arrived from Heaven and born into bondage where they must quickly adapt by adopting the language of their oppressors, then anyone with a genuine interest in establishing Heaven on Earth, or Zion as it is called, should be equally interested in the revival of the almost dead language of emotion. Note that as chaotic, unorganized, and broken as their attempts may be, still the meetings in which the gift of tongues most often manifests are called revivals. Dying languages among many indigenous tribes and cultures around the world today are a grave concern. But it is absolutely shameful, totally unacceptable, that all mankind become totally ignorant of and non-conversant in our first language – the language of the new-born – which connects us all as family. Feeling should not only come at the beckon call of words, our words should come as an answer to our feelings so that the two may share an egalitarian relationship. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. If we let our native language of raw emotion die then we will be “past feeling”. The Book of Mormon warns against this and makes a direct correlation between spoken language and feeling.

“…and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words.” – 1 Nephi 17:45

It is not that languages like English, Chinese, Tagalog, or Arabic are inherently evil or serve no purpose in helping us to effectively reform and revolt till the world and its people are able to achieve Zion. However, to push certain communication skills over and onto the native language of human emotion is to enforce a backwards stereotype of superiority when it comes to the invader, and inflict a false burden of inferiority upon those meek ones whose birthright it is to inherit the earth. What we consider language may be a tool which is extremely effective, but without emotion it is not affective. Affective means – relating to moods, feelings, and attitudes. We cannot deliberately activate the brain’s mechanisms for affective expression. Try laughing on command, it is nearly impossible. To produce any authentic emotion on demand does not come naturally. Crying and laughing are usually considered opposites and thus are closely related, both audibly and emotionally. Mosiah 18:9 gives us the idea that we need to be “willing to mourn with those that mourn,” and other scriptures give the impression that we should also be willing to rejoice with those who rejoice in righteousness.

“Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.”  – Luke 6:21,25

Obviously Jesus is letting us know that laughter can be good or evil. There exists what we could call living laughter and there is also lying laughter. Laughter is a part of our native language, not the languages which we learn and inherit from our parents, but the native language of raw emotion which all humans speak fluently at birth, and which unfortunately gets suppressed and all but forgotten in favor of the limited language of the oppressor. True laughter is not a learned group reaction but an instinctive behavior we carry intact with us from Heaven for the preservation of the Heavenly Family during our sojourn here on Earth. Most people think of laughter as a simple response to comedy, or a cathartic mood-lifter. After more than 10 years of research on this little-studied topic, Robert Provine, PhD. concluded that laughter is primarily a social vocalization that binds people together. It does this bonding through the pre-learned heavenly order of humor and sacred play. True and pure laughter is an energetic ripple that runs through and cleanses the DNA strands. Were they to remain filthy the very links of our own DNA would pull us down to hell like the chain which the Devil is seen holding in Moses 7:26.

“…and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced.”

‘Cachinnation’ is a word that long ago fell out of use. It means “loud laughter”. It comes from Latin ‘cachinnationem’ – “violent laughter, excessive laughter,” a noun of action from the past participle stem of ‘cachinnare’ – “to laugh immoderately or loudly.” The word is of imitative origin, meaning it is a type of onomonaepia, a word which imitates the sound of the thing it describes. Its oldest root is in the Sanskrit word for ‘laughs’ –  ‘kakhati,’ from where the English word ‘cackle’ as well as the modern “ha, ha, ha!” ultimately derives. People often laugh using words like “Ha!” or “Hee hee!” Long ago, followers of geloscopy as a divinatory art believed the word you used to laugh revealed part of your personality. People who said “Ha!” when they laughed were considered to be honest but undependable, while people who said “Hee!” were considered to be sad or simpleminded, while people who said “Huu!” were supposed to be untrustworthy. People who said “Ho!” were thought of as brave and generous. That is why “Ho, ho, ho!” is the slogan of Santa Claus and the Jolly Green Giant – both products of the false prophets of a propaganda machine whose intent it is to coax mankind into giving life to the evil spirit of consumerism till it has consumed everything in its path. Remember to watch other people carefully when they laugh. Researchers have found that if a person is really laughing, he will close his eyes for a moment. If a person laughs without closing his eyes, he’s faking it!

Fake or disingenuous laughter is about the worst sound I can think of, yet it is all too common in today’s society. Having been subject to it from the earliest days of our childhood, on T.V. and in person, we are very susceptible to falsehoods. False laughter has the opposite effect of pure laughter. It will firm up the grasp that Satan has on us via that chain of our biological and fallen natures. Whether our laughter enforces or corrects the false traditions of our fathers comes as a revelation as to what we find funny. What we find funny is a revelation as to who is holding onto the other end of that long line of linkage that is our DNA make-up. Whether it is God or Satan in whom we place our trust and honor, either way, laughter can strengthen those bonds. Both Plato and Aristotle were concerned with the power of laughter to undermine authority, however – in the case of defying the general claim of authority that Satan lays to this world – this could be a very useful tactic. Diabolical laughter has the effect of paralyzing which is a type of binding spell. But on the other hand, righteous laughter invites to bind together freely, willfully, in love and cooperation. And this makes laughter by far the best banishing spell one can use when threatened, taunted, or tempted by the devil. So apparently laughter is a two-edged sword, and we will have to view it in the same way that C.S. Lewis, a Pentecostal, explains the phenomenon of glossolalia (the gift of tongues) – as something natural, in some instances pathological, at other times an organ of the Holy Ghost.

LAUGHTER IS LIGHT 

If laughter is language, then laughter is light. On the day of Pentecost, not only is the gift of tongues manifest but also tongues of flame above the affected participants in that group gathering. The two major Semitic languages, Arabic and Hebrew, are both said to have been born of flame. John explains the link between language and light when as a special witness he says that “The Word” was with God in the beginning and was God – then goes on to say that “The Word” contained life, and “The Life” he contained was “The Light” in men. This light, we are told, shines in darkness, but the darkness “comprehended it not” (John 1:1-5). The verb ‘comprehend’ comes from the Latin words, ‘com’ – meaning “together, with” and ‘prehendere’ – meaning “to catch hold of, to ignite.”  Thus, to comprehend means literally to catch fire, or to light together with a counterpart. This, the darkness failed to do, at least so far. But as an all-loving, all-wise father, God has his ways to cause capitulation to occur. He may preside above all creation, but he is not above tickling his children till they double up in laughter and confess that they are at his mercy. It is said that the laughter of little ones lights a home. This textual imagery may be more literal than we think.

A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye from any external source. The word ‘phosphene’ comes from the Greek words ‘phos’ (light) and ‘phainein’ (to show). Phosphenes are flashes of light, induced by movement or sound. These are what we see when we say we are “seeing stars”. Deep in our darkest moments the tickling movements of the Hand of God may provoke sudden sounds of laughter from us, which release in turn shows us the light we had stored inside us all along. Such light shows are divine displays that may be enhanced and more fully comprehended through consecrated use of psychedelics in concert with meditative practices and other reverent, but pro-active work within our temporal temples. Laughter can be a very healthy way of releasing the light within us. Giggles possess the power and potential of gigawatts if harnessed properly. Perhaps it is the proper mode of harnessing the latent and sacred spiritual voltage in laughter to which the officiator at the temple altar is referring when he tells LDS patrons to avoid loud laughter. “Loud laughter” in terms of volume would translate to “bright light”. Could it be that we are to avoid the flashy lights of this world, and turn our life’s focus toward true enlightenment, like Carl Jung said, by “making the darkness conscious”? If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:23, 3 Nephi 13:23) We live in a jail called “Liberty”. The life of a prisoner can wear the spirit down, so to keep our minds sharp and clear, we should do as Joseph wrote to us from the confines of Liberty Jail, in Missouri. If our souls are going to get worn down while on this Prison Planet, let our lives at least not be a waste. Instead of drowning in misery, “we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven.” (D&C 123:13)

Laughter can light up our life. Used appropriately it can make us more aware of our surroundings. Used inappropriately it can actually leave us more delirious than ever, unconscious of the truth of our dire situation. Laughter as light may seem a ridiculous concept at first glance. But looking at the science we will see that laughter is much more visual than we Foolish Virgins tend to be aware of. As anyone who has ever laughed at the sight of someone doubled over can attest, laughter is contagious. Since our laughter is under minimal conscious control, it is spontaneous and relatively uncensored. Contagious laughter is a compelling display of homo sapiens, and we are a social mammal. Laughter strips away our veneer of culture ie. the false traditions/creeds of the fathers which have been riveted upon the hearts of the children (D&C 123:7) and challenges the hypothesis that we are in full control of our behavior.

From these synchronized vocal outbursts come flashes of insight into the neurological roots of human social behavior and speech. And from the same area of origin of humankind’s mitochondrial matriarch comes some possible insight into the revolutionary roots of the real Zion movement, and how we might cause it to spread like a contagion of hope from Ethiopia’s outstretched hands to the ends of the earth. Consider the extraordinary 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in a girls’ boarding school in Tanzania. The first symptoms appeared on January 30, when three girls got the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. The symptoms quickly spread to 95 students, forcing the school to close on March 18. The girls sent home from the school were vectors for the further spread of the epidemic. Related outbreaks occurred in other schools in Central Africa and spread like wildfire, ceasing two-and-a-half years later and afflicting nearly 1,000 people.

The irresistibility of others’ laughter has its roots in the neurological mechanism of laugh detection. The fact that laughter is contagious raises the intriguing possibility that humans have a neural circuit in the brain that responds exclusively to laughter. Scientists speculate that it may be triggered by auditory means, (similar to the way they think contagious yawning may involve a process in the visual domain), but I feel that there may be more than meets the physical eye in the case of laughter, (and possibly more meets the ear in the case of yawning). Spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see aside, what is clear is that once triggered, the laugh detector activates a laugh generator, a neural circuit that causes us in turn to produce laughter.

But how do we harness the power of the gigglewatt? How do we direct the laughter-laser so that it might work for the good of Zion? The awkwardly obvious answer presents itself in the form of our neighbors, our fellow beings. After all, Dr. Robert Provine’s research concluded that laughter is primarily a social vocalization that binds people together. And his work is corroborated by the findings of Dr. Robin Dunbar, another investigator in the field of geloscopy (the science of laughter). He suggests that social laughter, relaxed and contagious, is like “grooming at a distance,” an activity that fosters closeness in a group the way one-on-one grooming, patting and delousing promote and maintain bonds between individual primates of all sorts. In other words: it is a ritual that cleans our spirit bodies and promotes unity. God’s goals for Zion are achieved through this kind of laughter, not the tyrant’s cackle or the “polite titter” of awkward conversation. When we laugh, we’re often communicating playful intent. So laughter has a bonding function within individuals in a group. It’s often positive, but as we have seen, it can be negatively used as well. There’s a difference between “laughing with” and “laughing at.” People who laugh at others may be trying to force them to conform or casting them out of the group. Zion is Heaven on Earth, Zion is inclusive, not exclusive. If we want to establish Zion, one thing is for sure: we need each other.

For the Word to be made flesh it is necessary for the Light and the Dark to comprehend, or activate and discharge in harmony with, one another. Light made material manifests in many hues. Hue-manity is just that – the many hues of mankind in the flesh. For Mormons, the gathering of the 12 Tribes of Israel is a necessary precursor to the establishment of Zion and the return of Christ. In color theory there is a family of only 12 Original Hues, the purest and brightest, which form the basis for all the Many Colors which decorate the Coats of Man. White is not one of them, and neither is black. But there is no such thing as a truly black person or a truly white person. These are only general expressions which do not come close to describing the endlessly nuanced beauty and variety within the Hue-Man race.

Hue is a physically perceptible product of the dominant wavelength of light as it “shineth in darkness.” White Light can only be produced by combining all twelve tribes in spirit. What does the combining or gathering of the Twelve Tribes look like on a literal level? Black is the Color resulting on a physical level from an equal combination of all the 12 Tribes. The concept of one perfect pigmentation is a lie, and those who view themselves and others in terms of a gradient of glory somehow determined by pigment wallow in a pig–mentality. To admire one look above another is to add mire to the trough of racist thought which causes God’s black and white pearls alike to go unnoticed and unappreciated by swine and by their very selves. The only thing that will finally end this war between tints and shades is a mixing of the Twelve Tribes, which does not make an end of either side but simply ‘tones’ down the tension by adding both black and white.

When only white paint is added to a mixture it produces what we call pastel colors. ‘Pastel’ is derived from Italian ‘pastello’ – a word that means “material reduced to a paste” and is a diminutive form of the word ‘pasta’. A person who has a very light skin tone may be described as “pasty” and likely comes from multiple gene-rations of people who have subsisted off of a grain-based diet. (In Cain & Abel, Die-It & Diet, I cover the connections between the Mark of Cain and the grain-based diet) So-called white people live in a culture which in modern times has developed a serious addiction to sweetness. They pride themselves on their knowledge of good and evil obtained from years of rigorous scientific taste-testing of that forbidden fruit while seeking for a way to isolate and separate the bitter from the sweet.  Their “pasty” European forefathers advanced the art of “pastry” with their nutrient-low, bleached flour that tries to pass itself off as “enriched,” aristocratic, and enlightened even. Glazed over in icing, their collective voice clearly and coldly says: “Let them eat cake!” And masses of modern mankind are born sugar addicts under this white supremacy. The sugar, they claim, is “refined”. Granulated or Powdered, Crack or pure Cocaine; it has the same physiological affects, only on a much more subtle and devilishly delicious level.

The elements of art and design provide us with an excellent likeness of our cultural identity. Art can therefore help us dissect our own heads and heart to analyze and hopefully overcome the faulty phrenology of our schizoid social constructs and our relish for pseudo-sciences that segregate rather than integrate the spirit with the flesh, man with his fellow man, and mankind with their God. Within the context of art, we see the fraternal feeling makes itself known with bold strokes that strew the surreal landscape of a soft sororal sentiment with quasi pornographic classical Greek torsos and bloody foot prints leading away from abandoned pedestals where lesbian ladies of liberties once stood. It may not be a pretty picture, but seeing the canvas dripping with our true hues – blood red, washed out whites, and deep delta blues; allows us to come to terms with this Guernica of a dying Age of the Gentiles. Look upon it!

24 And when that day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations;

25 But they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

26 And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth.

27 And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity (inequity) shall abound.

28 And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fullness of my gospel;

29 But they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men.

30 And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

31 And there shall be men standing in that generation, that shall not pass until they shall see an overflowing scourge; for a desolating sickness shall cover the land.

32 But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved; but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die.

33 And there shall be earthquakes also in divers places, and many desolations; yet men will harden their hearts against me, and they will take up the sword, one against another, and they will kill one another.

D&C 45:24-33

The Devil is laughing loudly indeed as the Time of the Gentiles nears its inglorious end, but most do not seem to hear him. They are too busy laughing loudly themselves, mocking others from within that great and spacious building which has been condemned and is slated for destruction. Their laughter is Lucifer’s laughter. Among those who do hear it, many find themselves petrified with fear. They fail to realize that, just as in the movies, if the villain is “monologuing” it only means that he has not yet done what he says he will do. As the enemy gloats over his successes to this point, the real heroes always take the opportunity to act and change their fate at the last minute. We can overcome the Evil One and be Saviors on Mount Zion if we will but pull ourselves together – first individually, then collectively. To this end, we have at our disposal the underrated but valuable bonding agent of pure laughter. Long has laughter been used as a weapon in the hands of the wicked. And no doubt we will be laughed to scorn like the Sons of Mosiah should we seriously propose unification as those brave souls sought with their dark-skinned Lamanite brethren despite the ridicule of their fair-skinned Nephite brethren at Zarahemla (Alma 26:23). But, as promised by Jesus, we will surely have the last laugh.

HUE-MOORING HUE-MANITY

All these scattered points of light need not be lost to the New World Order. We shall use the pure laughter of children as hue-moorings with which the 12 Hues of Israel in the House of Israel may draw themselves in from the ocean of emotion and anchor themselves to the land. It may sound like some corny line from a Care Bear cartoon, but truly, laughter links us together by building rainbow bridges. We have to be hue-moored with this rainbow-rigging – spirit bodies to mortal bodies, and one to another in a Zion network. Rainbows show up frequently in folk traditions from Yoruban to Celtic, from Taiwanese to Nordic, as the bridge we must pass to reach together with our ancestors the perfect world of the New Earth. We need no more rearranged orders of this world, always doing “that which has been done in other worlds.” We want the New Heaven and New Earth that the New World could never give us. The “rainbow connection” between body and soul, ka and ba, is welded tight with an arc of light. Luminous laughter can send an electrical connection surging up through our kabod.  The medium, by which the gap is bridged between dense darkened bodies of dirt and dazzling bodies of light, is water from the emotional body. That is the way of the ancients whereby the perishable will clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality as per 1 Corinthians 15:53. Through mystical mists of emotion a person’s aura can be seen to adorn him or her like a “coat of many colors”. But it takes both sunshine and rain to make a rainbow. The rain is our emotion, the sunshine our eternal spirit.

The appropriately named Japanese energy scholar, Dr. Emoto showed through his experiments how human emotion has an effect on the molecular structure of water. His work specifically illustrates the energetic link between light and sound through language, and the role that water plays as a resonance retainer for any energy emoted at it. It should be understood that E-motion is nothing more or less than energy in motion. Laughter, being essentially erratic displacement of air, can bubble or burst through the watery current of emotion and affect its flow and direction. It can let the world in, or it can let Zion out. The fluidity of emotion makes it a difficult thing to map but that has not stopped many from trying. Theorists have come up with both somatic and mental models for attempting to locate the causation of emotion. But emotion washes over both body and mind and does not originate nor meet an end with either side. It is not easily managed by either side, neither is it unidirectional. E-motion is simply energy in motion and it is meant to flow like water. Positive and negative energy waves push and tug at the body, upwards of 70% of which is composed of water.

Like any body of water, the emotive body can become polluted with debris lodged in it. These emotional contaminants block energy from flowing smoothly and are felt as concomitants accompanying unpleasant emotion. In reality the movement of energy is neither good nor bad, but changes in bodily sensations can greatly alter our initial perception and experienced intensity of E-motion. Biofeedback between the brain and the rest of the body is all that can be tracked or explained by neuroscientists, but the cortex is only a middle-man (Dr. of chemistry Francoise Tibika likens it to a traffic cop) that can either function as a dam or an open gate for the constant tide of energy-motion forever flooding to and from mind and matter. In the case of laughter, which is generally associated with positive energy flow, the mind can unfortunately play the role of a party-pooper, or an outright tyrant. Mindful cherubim may see themselves as honorable life-guards along Life’s Beach who keep vigilant watch and prevent us from drowning in emotion, when in fact they are blocking the pearly gates and barring entrance into the Kingdom just like Jesus accused the Scribes and Pharisees, religious leaders in his day of doing. Sometimes we have to do as Brigham Young taught in his quote which is still repeated today at the veil in LDS temples. That is, we must slip past the “angels who stand as sentinels there” and dive in with joy and laughter. You will recall that the research reveals we only laugh during pauses when we might typically cough or breathe. Is it the laughter which threatens to drown us, or the stifling, and choking back of emotion that poses the real danger to our souls?

In the LDS temple endowment session we are admonished to avoid “lightmindedness” lest we judge lightly the things of the Lord. But that directive in no way ought to interfere with Christ’s command to “be of good cheer”. Lightheartedness should never be prohibited, for it is according to our hearts that we are judged at the pleading bar, as depicted on ancient temple walls. Those whose hearts are as light as a feather are granted entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven, those who’s hearts exceed that weight are judged too heavy for the Land of the Light. Laughs are like gasps for fresh air – the spirit of freedom – which fill our lungs and our heart with love and light that then shoots out to surrounding brothers and sisters like so many delightful sparks.

From a purely physical standpoint, hue-man laughter evolved from the panting behavior of our ancient primate ancestors. Apes laugh with a panting sound in the same conditions in which human laughter is produced, like tickle, rough and tumble play, and chasing games. From a spiritual standpoint, the laughter of hue-mans is capable of lighting the sky like fire-works. Light laughter is like a safety flare that can attract good spirits to our aid and ward off evil spirits. Remember I said laughter was an excellent banishing spell, and laughter coupled with colorful light is even better. Many are familiar with Holi, the Hindu springtime festival also known as festival of colors, but not many may be familiar with its origins. Holi celebrations start with a Holika bonfire on the night before Holi where people gather, sing and dance. The next morning is a free-for-all carnival of colors,where everyone chases and plays with each other, throwing brightly colored powder and colored water. One of the chief scriptural bases for this ancient celebration comes from a story in the Bhavishyottara Purana.

The legend says that there once was a good king named Raghu who was endowed with all good qualities, a kind speaker, and deep read in the Vedas. He treated his subjects as if they were his own children and during his reign there was neither famine, nor sickness, nor any iniquity, nor departure from the precepts of religion. So the man was a perfect picture of the LDS temple initiate who strives to live up to every covenant made within those hallowed walls, supposing he knows what it is to truly be of a regal caste. But despite his exceeding righteousness, one day a female demon appeared and started terrorizing the people, especially the little children of his kingdom. The demon could not be driven out by charmed bracelets, or magic garments; not even with water, olive oil, or by holy home teachers skilful in exorcisms. When the report came from the people to King Raghu, he consulted the Muni Narada. Narada replied:

“I will tell you by what means the fiend is to be destroyed. This day is the fifteenth of the light fortnight of Phalguna; the cold season has departed, the warm weather will commence with dawn. Let the people, freed from terror, laugh and sport; let the children go forth rejoicing, like soldiers delighted to go to battle, equipped with wooden swords. Let also a pile of dry wood and stones be prepared, and let it be lighted according to rule, while incantations are recited destructive of wicked fiends. Then let the people, fearless, thrice circumambulate the fire, exclaiming, ‘Kila, kila!’ (Flame, flame!) and clapping their hands. And let them sing and laugh, and let every one utter, without fear, whatever comes into his mind. In various ways and in their own speech, let them freely indulge their tongues, and sing and sing again a thousand times, whatever songs they will. Appalled by those vociferations, by the oblation to fire, and by the attahasa (loud laughter) of the children, that wicked Rakshasi shall be destroyed, and thenceforth the festival of the Holika shall be renowned among mankind.”

In Sanskrit ‘hasa’ means laughter, ‘atta’ means loud…‘attatta’ means very loud. So perhaps only ‘attattahasa’ – very loud laughter – was to be avoided in ancient times. Or perhaps more likely the moral of the story is that: even loud laughter has its appropriate time and place. Superstition and false traditions will over time attract and even create devastating demons which can be difficult to root out using the same religious dogma and social order that attributed to their being in the first place. The Church would have us guard against every unholy and impure practice. But while we are attending to all the do’s and don’ts, administering in complete righteousness like King Raghu, and avoiding the appearance of evil, then evil itself will sneak in and reek havoc – particularly among our poor children. I include this story, not only because of the striking use of the word ‘attahasa’ meaning “loud laughter,” plus various other more subtle parallels to Mormon culture, but to call attention to the observance of and credence given superstitions in the broader context of our cherished Christ-Shun cult-sure.

Attahasa is somewhat commonly used in India as a boy’s name as it is another name for Lord Shiva in Hindu religion. But of course, a good Christian must assume that Lord Shiva is the name of a pagan god, and possibly even one of the many titles of the Devil himself. There was a group of religious fanatics circulating a rumor recently on the internet; that when one types the letters ‘L-O-L’ they are really typing “Lucifer Our Lord” and thus unconsciously evoking the Lord of Darkness. Most people of course considered the idea humorous and took it and ran with it as a joke. I do not think that usage of this common communication trend is tantamount to summoning Satan. But like many things in the drama of life, while the practice may not be insidious, there is a comedic side, as well as a tragic side to it.

NO LAUGHING MATTER

The acronym LOL stands for “Laughing Out Loud” and is used online or in text messages to express the feeling or at least the idea of amusement. While thousands of people are prone to use this internet slang item multiple times weekly or even daily, of the countless occasions where one might type ‘LOL’ only a small number of those occasions are likely to actually involve any real laughter escaping the vocal cords. The initialism has crept into even our face to face speech in this spiritually dull digital age which is chock full of meaningless exchange. Is feeling going to become completely taken over by banality? If the Christian fanatics were right, then the irony for LDS would be that Lucifer actually helped them to stay true to their temple covenant not only to avoid loud laughter but to virtually avoid laughter altogether. LOL! Even though Jesus in the Book of Mormon explicitly states that anything more or less than his simple doctrine of believing on his name, repenting, and being baptized, comes of evil, still, going above and beyond is what Latter-Day Stains excel at as members of the broader scheme of Christ-Shun culture. Laughing in silence is just another extreme, every bit as unholy and unhealthy as laughing too loudly.

While these matters of silly superstition are surely to be laughed at with lighthearted laughter, I would hope we might simultaneously take the opportunity to reflect with a sober mind on the deterioration in the quality of feeling among men in today’s world. This deteri-oration is a detour-oration, an onslaught of empty speech steering us away from our hearts and our emotions. The coldest, longest emotional winter is setting in upon us with each passing year. It may be felt more harshly in some places than others but it is, on the spiritual plane, a bona fide ice age that calls for the ritual igniting of bonfires, bond-fires to ensure the survival of the huddling hue-man race. These cold days upon us have been prophesied for many centuries now. In Christian scripture it is known by the general title of the Last Days. Mormon scripture more specifically calls it the End of the Time of the Gentiles. And Old Norse prophecy gives it the name of Ragnarok – Final Fate of the Gods of the Nordic Peoples. All of these speak of the love of man “waxing cold.” In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá goes into gory detail and tells us that:

“Brothers will fight and kill each other, sisters’ children will defile kinship. It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife – an axe age, a sword age – shields are riven – a wind age, a wolf age – before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another.”

Stanza 46 of the same Scandinavian scripture states that the “Sons of Mím” are “at play” while “fate burns”. Though no further information about these “sons” has survived we can understand the reference to mean those mortals whose personalities correspond to the symbolic attributes of that god. Mímir is Old Norse for the “The Rememberer”. Mimir’s head is stuffed with knowledge, for which he is renowned and sought after. But, he ends up loosing his head, literally, in a battle; after which Odin carries it around with him and it recites secret knowledge to him whenever he seeks counsel. When the individual becomes enamored with the knowledge he amasses and the intellect he dispenses, then the head can easily become severed from the rest of the body. The “Sons of Mím” are the intelligentsia of our day. Whether they are the college educated fools, the YouTubeversity graduates, or the intelligence gathering NSA, and CIA agents on the other end – The Book of Mormon slams them all saying:

“When they are learned they think they are wise…their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.” (2 Nephi 9:28)

Nephi’s doomsday prophecy often goes overlooked as simply hyperbole by the Mormon “Sons of Mím” who function in life as headless bodies, and who serve as bodyless heads in various Church and State positions. When Nephi tells them that “it profiteth them not” they know very well that he is not speaking of profit in the sense of money. But their heads are so immersed in the world of business, and so anxiously engaged, gainfully employed in the world of business that there there develops a detri-mental disconnect between so-called religious life and so-called real life. Neither realm is real in this derangement. For most Mímirs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints either their dismembered body is “at play” while the head is “at work” or their haughty heads are play while their bodies slave away. Nephi continues in verses 29 and 30…

“To be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. But wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world.”

Some may think it is unfair and even inaccurate to make a particular case for these things against the LDS people, however there is undeniable corollary. When Nephi says: “Wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us” (2 Nephi 9:27), when Nephi says: “Wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world” he is specifically addressing the LDS who are rich as to things of the world, not anyone else. If God arranges for your voice to cry from the dust through the words of a book entitled with the name of Mormon, then it is because your message is especially for Mormons. Mormons have for many years been numbered among the rich and today they are even to be found in no small representation among the elite ranks of the super-rich. And, contrary to Zeezrom Daft Benson’s eleventh point in his 14 Fun-dumb-mentals for Following the Profit, we’re not talking about ex-mormons or even inactive members here. The rich and super-rich LDS are our very own Snake Presidents and Area Fauxthorities. 3 Nephi 6:12 further establishes the connection between the learned and the rich. It says that:

“The people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches.”

So a societal portrait of the false god Mím begins to emerge with the working class as his body and the educated elite as the talking head. This specifically applies to Mormondom because from Brigham Young to Gordon B. Hinckley the Mormon people have placed a very high value on receiving a college education. Hinckley expressed it most succinctly when he said:

“The world will in large measure pay you what it thinks you are worth, and your worth will increase as you gain education and proficiency in your chosen field.”

Hinckley knew that we the people are classified by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning, just like the Nephites were only a few chapters before the pending destructions, and he honored that dishonest social order. He established the Perpetual Education Fund and in so doing, he put the money where the mouth is, where the hungry head and the mouth of Mím is. Hinckley’s Perpetual Debt-U-Cation Fund is undeniably poised to feed the rich while offering better training to the poor as their servants. In 1964 the Church established the Benemerito school in Mexico. In 1999 Church News referred to it as the “BYU of Mexico”. But by 2013, just over a decade after the PEF had been founded, the Church decided to discontinue the education of all the students of Benemerito to convert the facility into what the Church Office had determined to be the more lucrative venture of another missionary training center. What Hinckley meant when he said:

“You belong to a church that teaches the importance of education.”

was more explicitly expounded by J. Craig McIlroy as president of the BYU Alumni Association in his commencement address given to graduates on April 26, 2007. He prefaced the main body of his remarks with these words:

“Might I suggest that you consider wealth creation as a commodity made up of financial, human, and intellectual capital. Business people know that they must spend 70 to 80 percent of their time growing assets. In families, growing the human and intellectual assets is often overlooked. The members in the family are the human capital.”

Then McIlroy referenced the founder of the secret combination known as the Illuminati:

“Mayer Amschel Rothschild understood that two important elements of a family’s wealth are its human and intellectual capital. He saw to it that all family members were well educated and that they worked. He also provided specialized mentorship opportunities as his sons entered the workforce.

Like the Rothschild children, you have been given a figurative loan, if you will, in the form of a financial subsidy of your tuition by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You represent the human and intellectual capital of your own families and, in a broader sense, of the Church.”

Hinckley himself was in attendance when these words were spoken, along with Vice President Dick Cheney. The presence of the Profit of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at that commencement ceremony, his actions while there, as also his inaction, speak volumes, and voluminously. In short it said:

“You BELONG to a CHURCH that teaches the impotence of education.”

It is all a big joke. It’s okay to laugh. They are certainly laughing at you, and LOUDLY!

All of this ties in strongly with Ragnarok – The Final Fate of the Gods of the Nordic Peoples in many ways. Firstly, the Gods of the Nordic Peoples are just that, they are the Gods of Nordic people. They could be land and riches, or whatever else people of Nordic descent idolize. They could be the various names of the Old Norse pantheon, Odin, or Thor, or Mím (who we have discussed in detail here). But most importantly, they are the Nordic people themselves. We all have our heavenly counterparts dwelling in dimensions high above us. Something similar to the basic plot for the 2012 film, Upside Down – they live an existence of relative luxury while we struggle to survive here below in the lone and dreary physical world. For now we, like the characters in that movie who were inhabitants of “Down Below”, scavenge for bits of “inverted matter” from that better world overhead to warm our furnaces during the dead of winter.

The Bible foretells the day when Heaven and Earth will be rolled together as a scroll. It says that the stars will fall as they are shook from the sky. Literally this will come about as a result of a reversal of the Earth’s poles. Inter-dimensionally and spiritually speaking, this means that the hosts of Heaven will have to come down from their high places. If there are spiritual powers of wickedness in high places as Paul warned, and we do not struggle against them, then those forces will take us over as they fold into us, their mortal counterparts here below. I’ve written of the Lorentzian Manifold in What Makes the Book of Mormon a L.I.T.M.U.S. Test? pt. 2, and in We Are The Weather about the pole shift set to occur for this planet. Eurocentric interpretations of verses describing the Lost Tribes of Israel as returning from the “Countries of the North” will be shook. Even those few LDS who hold that Inner Earth beings resembling Nordic Gods will come to the rescue may want to do as Isaiah says and consider that which they have not heard (Isaiah 52:15). They can start with considering what ancient Norse prophecies like the tale of Ragnarok have to say about these matters.

The world tree Yggdrasil shudders and groans. The gnomes groan by the stone doors which are entrances to their inner earth dwellings. Rocky cliffs open and the Jötunn women sink. All this may seem like very strange and foreign imagery, but a side by side comparison between the legend of Ragnarok and Christian/Mormon scripture and even modern American news documents should serve to clarify. First of all, Yggdrasil is the World Tree of Norse mythology. In What Makes the Book of Mormon a L.I.T.M.U.S. Test? pt. 2, I make mention of the simple and universal concept of the Axis Mundi, and I endeavor to emphasize that this fractal fact applies not only to the planet but to individual people too. When the Old Norse legends tell us that the World Tree will shudder and groan, they are testifying to the same truth that the apostle Paul spoke upon in Romans 8. For, said he:

“I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

For we know that the Earth and all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Crying and Laughing are parts of that vibratory language which can not be uttered with words. These actions cause our sides to shake and our personal axis to align with the Spiritual North. This allows for smooth assimilation of the spirit body which is, esoterically speaking, the Nordic Man. Until perfect alignment is achieved, there is an unequal distribution of power between the world of the Fathers and that of the Children. The prophet Elijah was sent to remedy this injustice, and set things straight. Perhaps you will recall that the prophet Elijah laughed loudly in the faces of those priests of Baal when, in a showdown against the God of Israel, they failed to produce fire with which to light the sacrificial altar. We have apparently forgotten the power of the One God, and have subscribed to dumb idols who deny us that heavenly flame we all need. Under these present circumstances, as it says in D&C 123:7…

“The whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.”

Gnomes are also heard to groan at the onset of Ragnarok. There are good and bad gnomes. Gnomes are creatures which hide treasures deep in the Earth, either by placing them there, or by preventing those treasures naturally contained within Her from surfacing to see the light of day. They work in huge underground halls, away from the eyes of the world, but very much affecting events upon the face of the earth on a geological plus geopolitical scale. Many major cities have underground catacombs and some of these are very extensive and elaborate. There is a subterranean network of halls and rooms known to exist underneath the streets of Salt Lake City. It is also no secret that the Church has immense cavernous vaults in the mountains where they hide many treasures.

And speaking of mountainous country, according to the Norse eschatology, rocky cliffs are to open and the Jötunn (pronounced Yotun) women will sink. The Jötnar are a race of frosty, gluttonous, man-eating giants who live in Jötunheim. But why would their women specifically take such a hard fall during this apocalyptic scene? I believe that one reason has to do with the schemes of the Evil One in these last days which are specifically targeted at young women. The strange sounding name of the World Tree in Norse Mythology – Yggdrasil – may hold the answer to the mystery. Though its etymology is disputed, its pronunciation is indubitably known to be – ɪɡdrəsɪl. Without removing or adding any letters to the word, and by reversing the sequence of the first two letters, then flipping the third and fourth around, we get – ɡɪrdəsɪl – nearly an exact phonetic match for “Gardasil”, the Merck manufactured vaccine against HPV, the cancer-causing human papilloma virus. Gardasil received FDA approval in the summer of 2006, and by 2008 had been accepted in 41 states of the U.S. The vaccine garnered a great deal of controversy from the start. It was thought to be the cause of many cases of illness and several deaths even when it was first released and marketed for females ages 9 to 26. Since that time it has been shown to damage young girls’ ovaries to the point of being rendered useless, and causing premature menopause.

Within the first two years after the vaccine was introduced, the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, run by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, collected 8,000 reports of problems after Gardasil shots, including paralysis, seizures and miscarriages. Earlier this month, national talk show host Katie Couric featured a woman on daytime TV who was the mother of the first girl whose life was claimed by this vile vaccine. Jessica Ericzon, 17, collapsed dead in her bathroom on Feb. 22, 2008. On the advice of her family doctor, Jessie had taken a series of three Gardasil shots. Seeing such uncanny parallels between Yggdrasil and Gardasil, it is chilling to note that the blond-haired, blue-eyed honors student bore the most famous and common Scandinavian surname of all time. And even more eerie is the fact that she died on Feb. 22^nd, the last day of the feast of Jolablot, the third of a series of tri-annual feasts celebrated by the Vikings. This is also the date when experts in Norse mythology estimate that Ragnarok will begin. The first two feasts of the Viking calendar – Sigrblot and Vetrarblot – happen to coincide with the summer season and harvest time. Jessica Ericzon got the first injection in July 2007 followed by her second shot in September.  Her mother, Lisa, said she complained of a pain in the back of her head which would subside after some time, but grew progressively worse with each injection.

In Utah, the controversy over Gardasil takes on very Mormon moralistic overtones which aren’t always distinctly addressed by members of the medical establishment poised to make decisions related to the issue. Utah’s Southwest Health Department says Gardasil is too expensive and questions its effectiveness while the Utah Scientific Immunization Advisory Committee pushes for its implementation state-wide. However, the generally conservative public does not particularly like the idea of issuing a vaccine designed to counter sexually transmitted disease to girls so young. They fear that it might reflect poorly on their morals. But this defense does not truly have the young women of Utah’s best interest in mind or at heart, nor does it truly provide for their safety and well-being. The LDS people are very open to the idea of vaccines as they are led by men who laud the so-called modern miracle of western medicine. As soon as the cunning doctors of death can find a presentation for their poison more in keeping with the people’s Victorian ideals, they will administer it and the Utahn/Jötunn women of the land in the mountains will fall.

Descendants of Scandinavians settled in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. There are about 2 million Americans of Danish descent. Like other groups of Americans of Scandinavian descent, many of them are Lutherans. However, they contrast with Norwegian and Swedish Americans in that a large percentage of them are Mormon converts who settled in Utah and southeastern Idaho. Early Mormon missionaries were particularly successful in Denmark, but there are also many families in Utah with Swedish ancestry. Nordic blood runs through the veins of many Utahns. What might be the effects when the blood of the slain Norse gods runs through their vain brains in the form of false traditions passed down from their fathers? Shall all of their “work for their dead” in Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, amount to nothing more than “dead works” in defiled temples when their false gods finally die?

In 2010, former member of the 3^rd Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Hans Mattsson and his wife Birgitta made news when they came forward and expressed serious doubts and dismay about the history of the Church and how it has handled faithful and honest members who have questions. Many Swedish Mormons including a stake president then also opened up about their feelings and formed a group to discuss the faith crisis they were facing. This group seriously alarmed Salt Lake and a special “emergency” fireside was held for local leaders. Church historian Elder Marlin Jensen and his assistant Elder Richard Turley were sent from Salt Lake to Stockholm to attend the meeting and deal with the “problem”. It can not be denied that major stirrings are awakening many of the Scandinavian people. Whether they are stirred up to anger or to spiritual strength and liberty remains to be seen.

Vikings believed that as a prelude to the Ragnarok apocalypse, three freezing winters would follow each other with no summers in between. In The Thermodynamics and Eternodynamics of Desire – Continued, I touch on the elementary connection between temperature and time. In We Are The Weather pts. 1 & 2, I try to explain the spiritual, multigenerational and multidimensional facets of weather phenomena. Time cycles and weather patterns mirror each other, and can offer clues to those who know what to look for. Last year Utah experienced its coldest winter temperatures since 1978. Now as winter sets in again official statements from Salt Lake echo that time when the Church altered its policy on priesthood regarding non Caucasian males. Of course the Saltican city is only trying to keep in step with the Vatican city as they vie for publi-city. Their statements do not represent repentance in the present and therefore have no effect on the past. As for the future, the forecast looks grim.

What bitter winds blow from Angel Moroni’s horn? And do they portend a similar fate for European emigrants as that signaled by the blowing of the mythical Gjallerhorn said to herald the approach of Ragnarok? Solar activity as recorded by astronomers has entered a period of freefall, always a precursor to a cooling cycle, and scientists say 2014 could be the harbinger of a mini or even a full-scale ice age. Europe’s Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that took place between 1550 and 1850 AD. It brought about catastrophic consequences for peoples all across the European continent but was most drastic for the Vikings who suffered much death and total loss of their holdings in Greenland. Today people may not think that they are as susceptible to death and disease due to changes in the weather, but despite our modern lifestyle, the environment still has a way of adversely affecting our health by stealth.

In some accounts of Ragnarok it is foretold that: the soil and the sky will be stained with poison. As the spirits of deceased warriors gather on the ethereal battlefield, we see the militaristic and industrial forces of mortal men take to the sky in planes spilling mass amounts of poison which affects and infects not only the air quality but also the soil. Swedish parliamentarian Pernilla Hagberg has stood up and voiced growing concern over chemtrails on behalf of her constituents. She personally vows to do all she can to put a stop to the spraying of tiny particles of aluminum and barium chaff in the skies over Sweden. The U.S. military admits that “cloud seeding” as they call it has been going on since the late 90s. The expanding program was launched with the purpose of creating “clouds of microscopic computer particle all communicating with each other to form an intelligent fog that could be used for various purposes” according to a research paper produced for the U.S. Air Force. As chemtrails rapidly grow ever more prevalent in the skies over Utah, the Mormon people below would do well to review their scriptures and read in Mosiah 7:30 where the Lord says:

“If my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the chaff thereof in the whirlwind; and the effect thereof is poison.”

Norse legend and Chrisian lore both tell us that an angel in heaven shall sound the trump. The sons of Odin are called to the battlefield, the whole of earth and creation anxiously awaits the manifestation of the sons of God. Apocalypse simply means revelation, and that which is to be revealed is our own future form. John 3:1-2 reminds us….

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

After the gloom and doom comes light and life! After the death of the Norse gods, after the Time of the Gentiles is finished, then a new and glorious earth will emerge.

THE SIDE (SPLITTING) EFFECTS OF LAUGHTER

Yes, Zion will E-merge, but before the new Heaven-N-Earth energy merge is possible, the world will be submerged in cataclysm, and all worldly creatures will be divided by multiple schisms. Mankind will be split into various opposing sides. Laughter plays a significant role in this societal side-splitting. This should be no surprise after examining its dual nature as a tool for simultaneous connectivity and corrosiveness. The charge to avoid loud laughter should make us aware of the powerful electromagnetic charge inherent in laughter. And with a basic understanding of electromagnetic principles we ought to recognize its potential for repelling as well as attracting, energizing as well as zapping. If we would tap into laughter’s healing properties and potential we have to be aware of the delicate nature of this spiritual technique.

Laughter is an energetic activity that raises our heart rate and blood pressure, but these physiological effects are incompletely documented and their medicinal benefits are even less certain. Lennart Levi, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, reported that comedy activates the body’s “fight or flight” system, increasing catecholamine levels in urine, a measure of activation and stress. Lee Berk, DHSc, of the Loma Linda School of Medicine, countered with a widely cited study that reported that laughter reduced catecholamines and other hormonal measures of sympathetic activation. This reduction in stress and associated hormones is the mechanism through which laughter is presumed to enhance immune function. Unfortunately, Berk’s studies show at best a biological response to comedy. His reports included only five experimental subjects, never stated whether those subjects actually laughed, and were presented in only three brief abstracts. Does a sense of humor or a lighthearted personality add years to your life? Not necessarily.

A large-scale study by Howard Friedman, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, found optimism and sense of humor in childhood to be inversely related to longevity. This may be because people with untempered optimism indulge in risk-taking, not so much believing, but thinking that the system of slavery we live under in this present physical reality will somehow not affect them adversely. And ultimately, not loving and valuing their souls enough because of long-term abuse, they do not care if their brash rebellious reaction does effectively free them or not. Of course the parable of the talents, if anything, teaches us that risk taking is crucial. But to indulge in untempored emotion is not in line with the scriptures which warn us to bridle our passions so that that they can be to us, tempered tools with which to build Zion. The warning against defiling one’s garments with “untempored mortar” was very prevalent in freemasonic teachings during the early part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and this provides a very accurate analogy and important lesson in regards to “loud laughter”. It is not good for building, and certainly not fit for building the type of familial bonds necessary to sustain Zion.

Pain reduction is one of laughter’s promising applications. Rosemary Cogan, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Texas Tech University, found that subjects who laughed at a Lily Tomlin video or underwent a relaxation procedure tolerated more discomfort than other subjects. Humor may help temper intense pain. James Rotton, Ph.D., of Florida International University, reported that orthopedic surgery patients who watched comedic videos requested fewer aspirin and tranquilizers than the group that viewed dramas. Humor may also help us cope with stress. In a study by Michelle Newman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State University, subjects viewed a film about three grisly accidents and had to narrate it either in a humorous or serious style. Those who used the humorous tone had the lowest negative affect and tension. A problem with these studies is that none of them separate the effects of laughter from those of humor. None allow for the possibility that presumed effects of laughter or humor may come from the playful settings associated with these behaviors. And none evaluate the uniqueness of laughter by contrasting it with other vocalizations like shouting.

Loud laughter, similar to copious amounts of alcohol, might drown out pain entirely, in which case we are sure to miss the pricking effects of the Holy Spirit upon our soul. Loud Laughter could well be classified as laughter which solidifies a lie, rather than gently helping us cope with reality while we work to change it for the better. Laughter was developed in our species as it was adopted from heavenly helpers for beneficial bonding between brothers and sisters. It is not to be used as a drug. Yet this has become its primary usage in today’s society. The larger the group gathering these days, the louder the laughter – and we are not speaking in terms of mere volume. The more recreational our bouts of laughter, the less reconciliatory it becomes in its effects. A purely wreck-creation-all approach to laughter, like most of modern medicine, often ignores the side(splitting)effects. It only re-creates a false atmosphere of comradery by forcibly inducing mass release of endorphins. If we use comedy as a pill to mask the symptoms of social ills, then, like an anti-depressant with a 99% success rate, 1% of the time the built-up depression will suddenly erupt from the unconscious mind in violent fits as we have seen with the alarming, and growing frequency of infanticide and suicide in the U.S. lately, where a very high percentage of cases involve some kind of anti-depressant medication.

Mass media promotes laughter as medicine, and it certainly is. But today’s decadent culture does not promote responsible use of powerful medicine. Print and broadcast reporters produce upbeat, often frothy stories like “A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.” A best-selling Norman Cousins book and a popular Robin Williams film Patch Adams amplified this feel-good message. But left unsaid in such reports is a jarring truth: Laughter did not evolve to make us feel good or improve to our health. Certainly, laughter unites people, and social support has been shown in studies to improve mental and physical health. But the presumed health benefits of laughter may be coincidental consequences of its primary goal: bringing people together. Bringing people together as family must be our focus. Without this focus, laughter is improperly used, and sorely abused to keep people from feeling sorrow for the sins of the world. Since laughter was intended to hold the human race together then any other use can eventually lead to condemnation in the spirit. This condemnation is hastened in our day by a new trend: Laughter as a carelessly administered vaccine or drug.

Laughter, in many ways, can be observed to behave similarly to a virus. A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of other organisms. Laughter can be highly contagious. In a study conducted by Dr. Robert Provine and associates, 1,200 people were observed laughing spontaneously in their natural environments. The results of their study surprised them because they suggested that the critical stimulus for laughter is not a joke, but the presence of another person. While we usually think of laughter as coming from an audience after a wisecrack from a single speaker, contrary to expectation, the speakers observed laughed almost 50% more than their audiences. The study also showed that laughter mostly follows comments which are not particularly clever or comical. Only 15% of laughter followed anything joke-like. Excluded from the study were all vicarious social effects of media (television, radio, books, etc.). The direct social nature of laughter was striking: Laughter was almost 50 times more frequent in social than solitary situations. In fact, a person laughing alone is sometimes judged to be mentally unstable. We’re much more likely to talk to ourselves or even smile when alone than to laugh. However happy we may feel, laughter is a signal we send to others and it virtually disappears when we lack an audience. Like a virus, the ripples of laughter can only ripple-cate themselves in other living organisms.

Just as live viruses are used in many vaccines, laughter is used similarly in modern social media. Earlier I mentioned that laughter has the potential to let the world in, as well as bring Zion out of us. In appropriate doses one’s external environment should be let in for purposes of building a spiritual immunity, but always through the filter of laughter, never taking in quantities that would prove lethal. For this reason we are told to avoid loud laughter and be prudent in our use of this potent practice. Most people these days do not go to God for their laughs. They go to mass media, and here laughter is isolated and mass produced like the active ingredients in most modern medicine. Technologically triggered mini-epidemics are produced by television laugh tracks. Laugh tracks have accompanied most television sitcoms since September 9, 1950. At 7:00 that evening, “The Hank McCune Show” used the first laugh track to compensate for being filmed without a live audience.

Canned laughter may sound artificial, but it coaxes TV viewers to laugh as if they were part of a live audience. Lying laughter promotes disconnection from our fellow man. Not only have live audiences become extremely rare, but viewing of live performances, up-close and in person, have become largely a thing of the past in today’s virtual world. We can see this same trend leading away from life-promoting laughter towards increasingly dead forms of social interaction in the area of LDS ritual. Live temple sessions are extremely rare, and dead works are rampant. Of course we may say that laughter seems completely inappropriate to us in such a sacred setting. I admit that laughter has been conspicuously absent from any temple session I have ever attended, but I am not entirely certain that this is as it should be, or as it was intended. God’s people are always infamous for missing the point of God’s teachings.

Joseph Smith’s sense of humor comes out very strongly in the lines of the original temple drama which has been slowly but significantly edited over the years. Joseph’s sense of humor reflected his sense of humanity. Here, through the symbolism of the Adam and Eve story, Joseph addresses the spiritual and physical beginnings of humans. Comical characters like the Preacher play along side the Lucifer character that constantly spews forth wickedly witty lines. We sit in complete silence, many of the audience members, from the geriatric to the youthful; experience acute drowsiness in the darkness of the theatre while watching the viral program which is projected on the video screen many times a day in temples throughout the world. Up till recently the Church had two temple “vids” catering to a corrupted race dominated by males who are in turn dominated by “visual” stimulation. Initiates basking in the soft glow of the video screen, illuminated by illusion, were offered the options of blonde or brunette to appeal to their vain and false sense of individuality. So-called individuals have been reduced to Indy-Visuals who are not independent, nor are they capable of seeing truth.

One truth that the temple drama was originally intended to convey was that humanity, as in physical mankind, can become separated by our minds from the spirit of humanity. Or in other words, humanity as a heavenly attribute may be either attained and expressed or suppressed and lost through cultural practices. The temple drama, like life was meant to rotate with the Prayer Circle of Life, not remain rote and mechanical. Once upon a time in humanity’s distant past, all the performers, including the witness couple, formed one interactive whole with the audience members. The whole point of RITUAL is to en-RICH-YOU-ALL! In the beginning, the ancient temple drama was infused with LIGHT and LIFE! Call and response chants, and raw animated acts kept the participants from simply “acting” as we see the practically emotionless figures do in the previously used LDS temple movies, or in the pretend emotion portrayed by the actors of the new temple film. I don’t know which is worse, but I know there is a more excellent way, and so do you.

When dealing with laughter our minds must remain sober if our hearts are to be freed. We need to always retain a remembrance of laughter’s sacred purpose – to connect human beings to one another. In his post, Connecting With Pixels, Justin explains that pornography addiction is so prevalent in this age, especially in places like the U.S., and it reaches its highest rates in the Mormon state of Utah. Justin says that pornography’s prevalence in latter-day culture is a question of technology making it so readily accessible and even pushed. And he identifies pornography addiction as a symptom of larger underlying social problems – namely: “poor socialization by parents on sexuality, unaddressed childhood abuse, an addictive personality, or feelings of insecurity.” LDS men may acknowledge pornography as a plague, they may even take measures to restrict online access and guard against such images, but sadly, for the most part it is their pre-dis-position to remain locked into and tied down by various aspects of the bigger pornographic picture projected by Satan onto humankind as they sit like a captive audience in Plato’s Cave. Sports, military service, and even manual labor are highly addictive hero-porn for the body. Schooling, political debate, and even reading can all be forms of intellectual porn for the mind. Church and temple attendance is religious porn for the spirit. Porn in all of its forms channels real energy into fake settings, encourages complacency, and replaces authentic human exchange of energy with holographic projections – hollow graphics dancing provocatively across the walls of our private porn prison cell.

Porn, like anything else, can be imp–properly used to prop up imp–personal personas. Our persons are poisons, and should be used with a certain degree of precaution. But the point is not to imagine that we may cast them off permanently, or cover ourcellves and our sins with pretentious priesthood garments of our own make. They may be more holy for a time, but over time they also may become more holey, moth bitten, and vain than the Emperor’s New Clothes – vain because of vanity, and vain in their ridiculously failed attempt to cover our nakedness. Holy and protective layers of being “may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover” up…then we are not sealed as Heaven’s own but are left to ourselves (D&C 121:37). Why do we revel in a con-sealing when we could strip down to the bare-naked truth of all things as revealed by the see-through robes of the Holy Ghost? True success is never achieved by outward means, and herein lies the real power to protect and strengthen. Focus on outward appearances will only bring us suck-cess, and will forever be susceptible to spiritual and physical sickness. King Benjamin tells the people:

“And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.” – Mosiah 4:29

But through shifting our awareness into the all-encompassing true order based on the first-born flow of the inward being, we are able to not only justify, but purify and eventually sanctify every action, and everything around us.

Ancient life-affirming ways have been hacked by a wedge shaped virus that is perverting sacred r-i-t-u-a-l into v-i-r-t-u-a-l reality. Virtue is lost in the present virtual reality, and the people are not even aware. Mankind and males in particular are spoken of as predominantly unaware beings in the Doctrine & Covenants section 121 in the succinct lecture on the rights of the priesthood that falls between verses 36-40. Why is man not aware when it comes to his inimical, enemy stance towards God? Man is not aware because he is not man enough to be. The simple and eternal truth is hidden from us behind the etymology of the word ‘man’ and the word ‘virus’. Although not “aware” in literal terms, literary examples from Anglo-Saxon writers in the 5^th to 12^th century show us that, in Old English, a ‘man’ was a ‘wer’. ‘Wer’ meant man, and from this word we get the modern English word werewolf (literally man-wolf). From the Old Norse – verr, through the Caucasian Mountains to the Ossetian – ир (ir), and Latin – vir, on back to its Proto-Indo-European root – wiHrós, and all the way back to the original Sanskrit cognate – वीर (vīrá); earlier linguistic roots all held the same simple meaning. And this ancient root word for man or male can be found today in the word ‘virility’, meaning manhood, or masculinity. It can not be ignored that it is also part of the word ‘virus’. The Latin word ‘virus’ means poison, venom, or slime. Its more ancient roots lie in the Sanskrit – विषम् (víṣam), which means “anything active” but has the connotation of “anything actively pernicious” such as poison, venom, or bane. विषम् (víṣam) is only a masculine a-stem declension of विष (víṣa), meaning ‘servant’.

Following a similar trail as the linguistics from the Indian subcontinent to the Mediterranean culture of ancient Palestine, Jesus, the greatest/least Master/Servant Teacher of all, brought us wisdom and presented us with the concept that:

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” (Matt. 6:24)

If a man is aware, Christ is awareness. Awareness is a virus. A virus spreads. It can spread in one direction or another. If a virus is aware of its self as awareness it knows it has the power to save or it can ravish, but it can not do both simultaneously. It can not serve God (All) and Mammon (Some/$um). Complete companionship with the Christ means at-one-ment, true enlightenment, or lightening the load rather than weighing one’s self down with more and more of “that which doth canker”. The difference between a lifestyle driven by the principle of seeking the Kingdom of Heaven first and a deathstyle driven by the habit of taking care of bu$ine$$ before tending to things of the spirit, is the same as the subtle yet decisive difference between all, and most. All/Most knowing God does not count. Mankind can either identify its self with God or it is an enemy to God. We are either fully aware or else we are at least partially unaware of the extent of our actions. From moment to moment in time we are either being human or we are acting as  poison. There are of course varying degrees in either direction, but generally speaking, when we are acting as poison we are acting prideful and we tend to Euro-neously call Original Hue-manity slime and despise it when we “see” it. The truth is we can’t see humanity for what we are while in the service of Mammon. Only while in the service of our fellow man are we in service to our God, like King Benjamin taught in Mosiah 2:17. PathoGen-tiles who remain unrepentant have a deadly effect on the Blood of Abraham, and they act as a scourge upon the House of Israel wherever they are found throughout the Earth. The extreme damage that an unaware man is capable of is truly devastating.

“Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.” – D&C 121:38

“Kicking against the pricks” paints the picture of a person whose awareness has become numbed to the point of not feeling the pain caused by his actions in either direction. Unwittingly fighting against one’s own creator and the sustainer of all life is a sign of a very pathogenic pathos. Unaware human beings are virulent in their emotional illiteracy. Father may forgive them, for they know not what they do. But when there is willful ignorance and a conscious acceptance of falsehood over real emotion, then those germs will be utterly eradicated in their physical form by the Mother’s immune system.

The modern phrase “going viral” has no greater consummation than the Biblical prophesy of Christ’s ultimate sovereignty, that: “Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess.” In fact this scripture (Romans 14:11) is an expression of the viral nature of Truth. Like an unstoppable live Virus of Veritas, the Lord sayeth:

“As I live, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

And the preceding verse talks of the futility in resisting the Virus of Veritas, the True and Living Church of the Firstborn. In it Paul asks:

“why do you judge your brother? Why do you regard your brother with contempt?”

When one stops seeking his life, he then finds it (Luke 17:33). As soon as he succumbs to the Christ, the Virus of God, he instantly recognizes that there is no difference between his brother and his self. Through Christ we become aware that self does not end where our skin begins. When we awaken we abandon our destructive vices. We join as part of King Benjamin’s greater audience. His audience was surely wrought upon by a spiritually viral epidemic of conversion. Envision it; a whole huge crowd spontaneously crying out with one voice, and suddenly feeling “no more disposition to do evil” (Mosiah 5:2). We will no longer behave like vicious virions for we are at one with our environs. The Love of God exceeds even the speed of light and it completely takes us over as it explodes from our hearts and assimilates all creation. But until that moment when one feels and understands his unique position in the universe, then he is literally dis-positioned towards unrighteous dominion and all manner of evil. This is the unfortunate state of almost all men in the world as a study of D&C 121 will tell you. The study of viruses is known as virology and it has revealed to us that viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most abundant type of biological entity.If man’s nature tends toward that of a vile, havoc-wreaking virus how then are we to be redeemed from our toxic attitude? What could possibly reconcile a man’s violently torn soul? Well, another hallmark of those who are found possessed of the Love of Christ in these latter days is recorded in Doctrine & Covenants 84:71, also known as the Oath & Covenant of the Priesthood.

“If any man (vir) shall administer poison (vir) unto them it shall not hurt them”

The Bible also testifies to the divine protection and immunity experienced by God’s servants. Harriet Tubman, who not only led over a thousand slaves to freedom at great personal peril, but also administered to Civil War soldiers who lay sick and dying with dysentery and small pox, was unafraid of death in any of its forms because she was on the errand of the Lord and stayed busy about her Father’s work. She acquired quite a reputation for her skill in curing dysentery with a medicine she prepared from roots which grew near the waters that gave the disease. She never once suffered even the slightest symptom of the diseases she was treating and it was said of her that the Lord was with her. The Hevajna Tantra contains several verses referring to men and their relationship with poison. On page 93 we read:

“With the very poison, a little of which would kill any other being, a man who understands poison would dispel another poison.”

Then on page 107 it says:

“If he drinks strong poison, the simple man who does not understand it, falls senseless. But he who is free from delusion with his mind intent on the truth destroys it altogether”

One more reference on page 117 delivers what it calls, “the profoundest secret of the beauteous purifier of existence”….

“Useless is a gem uncut, but once cut, it gives forth its brilliance. Likewise this gem of the saṃsāra (continuous flow), possessed of the properties of the five desires (five carnal senses), becomes like poison in its unpurified state, but when purified it becomes ambrosia (food or drink of the gods).”

The profound truth in all these scriptures, LDS, Christian, and Buddhist, is that a man of god may partake of the same things which an impure man does, but the effect will not be the same. One of the great mysteries of God is how holy men and women arrive at consecration and subsist by purifying themselves, by purifying poison. Transmutation is the key.

It may sound weird to hear the Word of God-to-Man articulated in terms of the Virus. But think of it; a virus is an active strain of DNA-altering particles and “As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become”. Even if Lorenzo Snow, who coined that phrase, and was in many ways a prideful product of his gene-ration, never considered it; the fact remains that at some point the agent that offers to take him from manhood to godhood is going to require some altering of those prideful genes. On April 6, 1844, Joseph Smith preached to a congregation of 20,000 saying:

“Here then is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God the same as all Gods have done before you” (JOD 6:4; TPJS p.346)

Of those who have gone before us, few ever thought to attain to godhood, and of those few even fewer obtained it. I believe this is because, like the Founding Fathers, they too died holding firmly to a freemasonic belief in the “pursuit of happiness” which is perhaps the main lie underlying all of the Devil’s false doctrine. God suffers us to conduct experiments with life and liberty, hoping and trusting that we will one day tire of experimenting and desire now to enter his presence. From the Colonial English of the U.S. Constitution to the Latin of the Magna Carta, we should remember that in Old English ‘Wer’ meant ‘Man’, and “We the People” being a vir-us, must remember that our ancestors were-us and we are them. This is the real meaning of priesthood lineage.

Until we succeed in bringing past and future gene-rations into alignment the present will remain a perpetual prison to us. That is the curse with which the earth is to be smitten if not for the Spirit of Elijah. Only a turning/tuning of the heart signals of the Fathers to the heart signals of the Children and visa versa will result in the meeting in the middle which is necessary to eliminate the phase effect of sometimes constructive and other times destructive interference that varies with frequency, giving a series of peaks and troughs in the frequency response of the god-man system which in general do not occur in a harmonic series. Such are the uneven and troubled waves of spirit produced by the dis-positioning of all-most-all-most-all men, or the patronizing pattern-all pattern lamented in D&C 121:39 where it speaks about the patriarchal passing of priesthood. But there is hope. For, as verse 33 says:

“How long can rolling waters remain impure?”

Whether surface water waves, sound, or light; the ripples of laughter can be grasped to displace air waves which essentially help us begin to freely ripple-cate ourselves as children of the Divine rather than children of the Matrix. There is a way for us to dial in our hearts, and sync the radio receiver of mind. A way to shift our physical body to resonate in harmony with the high and low pitches of the Yahweh frequency as it goes, “^EEAA_OOAA^EEAA_OOAA^EEAA_OOAA^EEAA_OOAA^EE.” In audio engineering the technique is known as flanging. Flanging is done by taking the original signal and adding a uniform time-delayed copy of itself, which results in an output signal with peaks and troughs which are in a harmonic series. The flange effect was developed in the days of tape reels at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio. And it was first featured in the recording of the symbolically titled Beatles track, Tomorrow Never Knows from the album Revolver, which was recorded on April 6, 1966. This is symbolic of what Joseph Smith had proclaimed precisely 122 years prior to the date. He said that we have got to learn how to be Gods ourselves, and to be kings and priests to God the same as all Gods before us. He said that eternal life is here, now. It requires direct action in the present, or else you will be forever stuck in the revolving doors. As the Beatles sing; “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

THE LAST LAUGH

If tomorrow never knows then certainly the past is equally ignorant. The present is the true point of origin and the ultimate destination of all beings. The first shall be last and the last shall be first, and he who laughs last laughs best. We are all the same, age means nothing. Life’s pilgrim-age is cyclical like the Haj of the Muslims who come from far and wide to Mecca only to run in circles around a big black cube with a piece of meteorite in it.   This metaphor extends to (or from) the center of the galaxy. The galactic center is a dark void from our perspective. Around it spin stars and star systems, billions like (or unlike) our own. All of life, in this way, is a-void-dance – a dance around a void. But within the dark abyss is God. Light within dark, surrounded by swirling light enshrouded in more darkness, and so on and so forth, this is the fractal nature of reality. This cosmic dance around the throne of God is repeated throughout the Universe, and is addressed in the book of Job.

Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold the height of the stars, how high they are!

And thou sayest, How doth God know? Can he judge through the dark cloud?

Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.

Job 22:12-14

This was the laughable reasoning of earlier empires upon the face of the earth in the time of Noah. They laughed at Noah for counseling with an inner voice. But that global network of civilizations was cut off right at its peak. It was not the first time this had happened and would not be the last, but as far as the Earth’s cycles go, we are told that: As it was in the time of Noah, so shall it be in the end (Matt 24:37). Today we hear the loud laughter of the wicked, but who will have the last laugh?

Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?

Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:

Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?

Yet he filled their houses with good things: but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

The righteous see it, and are glad: and the innocent laugh them to scorn.

Job 22:15-19

Our persons are our people self-replicated over time. Those fathers farthest removed from the present into our past are those most closely acquainted with our future. Our people are the peep-hole through which per-ception filters as per the con-ception of each individual being, who in turn subjects his or herself to new and everlasting in-ception of old ideas and revolving IDs which have been changed to protect The Innocent children; perSONS and perDAUGHTERS of the G.O.D.s in the whirl-P-O-O-L of consciousness which is one big L-O-O-P-whole of eternity and reality. We could liken it to a donut with a jelly-filled center of plasma discharging simultaneously in arc and dark mode. It is to that center that we must go if we wish to comprehend the whole configuration. Joseph Smith once likened it to a ring. Said he:

“I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man-the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man.”

Being only a fraction of divine mind, the psyche of man sometimes suffers a fraction in its perception of the eternal round. To help us stay centered we can do as the Book of Mormon advises:

Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.

Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.

Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.

Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.

Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.

Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.

But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.

Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.

Alma 34:20-27

Laughter is intimately linked with crying. Of course the verb crying is used in these passages to mean vocalize out loud and not necessarily to cry as in shed tears. Still, the point is to pray with emotion and out loud whenever and wherever possible. The last verse above deals with what we should do when it is not possible to cry out and it is a perfect description of Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhist Thích Nhất Hạnh says:

“The moment of awakening may be marked by an outburst of laughter, but this is not the laughter of someone who has won the lottery or some kind of victory. It is the laughter of one who, after searching for something for a long time, suddenly finds it in the pocket of their coat.”

The reason why the wicked, whether in times past or times to come think that God is ignorant of their evil deeds, is because they themselves are not present to the fact that God exists in the midst of everyone and everything. They never think to look inside. They are convinced that there is nothing there in the dark pockets of life. Well, not exactly convinced, but the fear of the unknown keeps them from penetrating that cloud under which they go about in circles like the Israelites in the desert region around Sinai, afraid of their own God and unable to enter the Promised Land. Moses beckoned them, but they preferred to keep God at bay, and opted to obey Ten Commandments written on their stone hard hearts instead. Until we jump into the thick dark clouds mentioned in Job 22 and connect with God, our obedience is abeyance. We avoid the void and thereby keep God in a state of suspension, in a state of dormancy, in a state of uncertainty, up in the air. It is a classic case of the childish notion that: If I can’t see him he must not be able to see me. Oh, but he CAN judge through the thick dark cloud! It is only we who fool ourselves as we walk round and round in the circuit of heaven.

To testify of Christ is to be a prophet (Rev. 19:10). When we speak as prophets we have to understand that in many or most instances along this big spinning people-WHEEL one functions simply as a SPOKES-person for and in behalf of the ante-sensors (ancestors) as well as the un-born. I can’t expect people to always listen or even understand what I am saying until they actually disregard “me” altogether and look/listen past me, beyond the messenger to get the message its self. Alma 26:23 tells us that the Sons of Mosiah were laughed to scorn by their brethren back home. So, to all those who are or have desires to be traveling teachers of the gospel, I say: Be of good cheer. Learn to love and laugh at yourself, and when you have learned that all is self, you will laugh and love your way through life. Job 5:22 makes this grand promise:

“At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.”

I’m sure you have heard it said that God has a sense of humor. The figure of the Laughing Buddha is fairly well known. The Laughing Christ portrayed so often in the Gnostic Gospels, which were never admitted into our censored and perverted bibles, may be less well known; nevertheless we must come to know this laughing Christ. The name Isaac means ‘laughter’ and his character and back story in the bible reveal much about the Love/Laugh of God. Upon first hearing of foretelling of Isaac’s birth, both his parents’ first reaction is to laugh. Surely the idea of begetting a son in their extreme old age tickled their souls. Genesis 17:17 says that:

“Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?”

In the book Arcana Coelestia, Emanuel Swedenborg – a Swedish philosopher, theologian, chemist, anatomist, and visionary whose writings had a profound influence on the mind of Joseph Smith Jr. – wrote the following commentary on this bible verse.

“[…and laughed] That this signifies the affection of truth, may be seen from the origin and essence of laughter, for its origin is nothing but the affection of truth, or else the affection of what is false, from which come the gladness and merriment that in laughter display themselves in the face, which shows that the essence of laughter is nothing else. Laughter is indeed an external thing that belongs to the body because to the face; but in the Word interior things are expressed and signified by exterior things; just as all the interior affections of the mind are expressed and signified by means of the face, interior hearing and obedience being signified by the ear, interior sight or understanding by the eye, power and strength by the hand and arm, and so on, and in the same way the affection of truth by laughter.”

Swedenborg, who influenced Joseph Smith, was himself influenced by Ibn Sina aka Avicenna, author of Canonica Medica and The Book of Healing, to whom I make extensive reference in my Making SENSE of it All series. Each of these men did not rely solely upon the words or his predecessor for an understanding of these heavenly secrets, but were inspired by one another’s works to “experiment upon the word” in a direct, and personal, spiritually scientific manner as Alma advises and as all true men and women of God do. Remember we are talking about the curious and wonderful relationship between spiritual and physical, immaterial and material, being and form, and so these things are very literally a matter of life and death. In the previous section we looked at life and death on a microbial level and determined how spiritual intent begins to manifest on the physical plane at that microscopic level. It is wisdom to know the essentially viral nature of all things so that we may be conscious and choose either to operate for good or evil, to be one with God or an enemy to Him. Avicenna illustrates this in his Treatise on Love:

 “Every being which is determined by a design strives by nature toward its perfection, ie., that goodness of reality which ultimately flows from the reality of the Pure Good, and by nature it shies away from its specific defect which is the evil in it, ie., materiality and non-being. Therefore, it is obvious that all beings determined by a design possess a natural desire and an inborn love, and it follows of necessity that in such beings love is the cause of their existence. For everything that can be signified as existing belongs into one of these three categories” (i) either it has arrived at the specific perfection, (ii) or it has reached the maximum of defect, (iii) or it vacillates between these two states with the result that it is essentially in an intermediate position between two things….Beings in the real sense, then, are either such as are prepared for the maximum of perfection or such as are in a position intermediate between a defect occurring by reason of some cause and a perfection existing in the  nature itself. Therefore, no being is ever free from some connection with a perfection, and this connection with it is accompanied by an innate love and desire for that which may unite it with its perfection.

This becomes clear also from another aspect, that of causality and the “why”; since (i) no being which is determined by a design is devoid of a perfection specific to it; since (ii) such a being is not in itself sufficient cause for the existence of its perfection, because the perfections of the beings determined by a design emanate from the per se Perfect; and since (iii) one must not imagine that this Principle from which perfection emanates intends to cause a loss to any one of the particular beings….”

I want to interject here and demonstrate how Avicenna’s treatise is in alignment with the teachings of Father Lehi. I also intend to show how Lehi’s words borrow from the Asian tradition with which the Lord had brought him into contact along the way to the Americas, and how that ancient wisdom corroborates the new discoveries we have made here in our study of laughter as a poison which must be administered expertly – neither too much nor to little will do. Avicenna is firm on the point that all real beings must be determined by a design. Lehi reiterates this fact as he attempts to explain his Grand Theory of Unified Opposition in All Things. He says:

“Wherefore, the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given, unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed, which punishment that is affixed is in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed, to answer the ends of the at-one-ment— For it must needs be [so], that there is [be] an opposition in all things. If not so….righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.” – 2 Nephi 2:10-12

When Avicenna defines real beings as: “such as are prepared for the maximum of perfection or such as are in a position intermediate between a defect occurring by reason of some cause and a perfection existing in the nature itself,” the “cause” to which he alludes and ascribes blame for the intermediate position, or “opposition” as Lehi calls it, between Per-Fect and De-Fect, is in fact poison and more specifically its mode of administration. We could identify it as “forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter” for so does Lehi a little later in verse 15 of 2 Nephi chapter 2. We might suppose that the ‘bitter one’ is the forbidden fruit and comes from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we could suppose that the ‘sweet one’ is the Love of God and comes from an entirely different tree – the Tree of Life. However these things are supposed to have played out in physical reality, the lesson is ONE, one of deadly poison and its anecdote. The “only way” we really have of discerning between the two is by noting the key difference between hurting and healing.

Thus we come to know the “Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings” that is referred to in Malachi 4:2. And we may see that the rendering of this bible verse with the word “Sun” not “Son” purposely points back to the trunk of the Tree of Theology, the religion of ancient Egypt based on a firm understanding of the “Aten” sometimes called the Winged Sun Disc. Ancient Egyptian religion having stemmed from a deeper, Sub-Saharan root system of sacred regard for the interaction between the bright Sun and the dark Soil, it is vital to The Restoration of the health of hue-manity that we continue digging and reaching where the Prophet Joseph left off when his life was taken at Carthage. As Latter-Day Saints we take upon ourselves a vow more sacred than the Hippocratic Oath, to do no harm, but to build up Zion. Let us no longer mock God with hypocritical oaths. Let us compare the latter-day scripture of the Doctrine & Covenants side-by-side with the ancient teachings of Afrika, India, China, Scandinavia, Ancient America, etc. to discover just how long these devils have been doctoring covenants with malfeasance and priest craft.

Avicenna continues his treatise with these words:

“It is a necessary outcome of His wisdom and the excellence of His governance to plant into everything the general principle of love. The effect is that He thus indirectly preserves the perfection which He gave by emanation, and that He thus expresses His desire to bring them into being when they are absent, the purpose being that the administration [of the universe] should run according to a wise order. The never-ceasing existence of this love in all beings determined by a design is, therefore, a necessity. If this were not so, another love would be necessary to preserve this general love in its existence, to guard against its non-being and to retrieve it when it has lapsed, anxious lest it might disappear. But one of these two loves would be superfluous, and the existence of something superfluous in nature – which is divinely established – is impossible. Therefore, there is no principle of love other than this absolute and general love. And we can conclude that the existence of every being determined by a design is invariably accompanied by inborn love.”

Laughter and love are much more closely related than we may typically think, even at the basest of levels. Studies found that in cross-gender conversations, females laughed 126% more than their male counterparts, meaning that women tend to do the most laughing while males tend to do the most laugh-getting. Men seem to be the main instigators of humor across cultures, and this usually begins in early childhood. Think back to your high school class clown – most likely he was a male. Typically, women seek men who make them laugh, and men are eager to comply with this request. In 3,745 ads placed on April 28, 1996 in eight papers from the Baltimore Sun to the San Diego Union-Tribune, females were 62% more likely to mention laughter in their ads, and women were more likely to seek out a “sense of humor” while men were more likely to offer it. When Karl Grammar and Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt studied spontaneous conversations between mixed-sex pairs of young German adults meeting for the first time, they noted that the more a woman laughed aloud during these encounters, the greater her self-reported interest in the man she was talking to. In the same vein, men were more interested in women who laughed heartily in their presence.

We may not always know why we laugh. Certainly there is a deep mysterious quality to the way in which our facial and abdominal muscles react to the unification of outward and inward stimuli from this world and the spirit world. But if we are in tune with the love of God then our laughter will have an uplifting effect. Laughter, like orgasm, should not be faked or forced. It should not be used to elicit self effacing techniques; rather it should come from a free heart shared in love. Laughter is a pressure valve and can let things in or out. When we laugh we are made vulnerable to higher powers and impregnable to seeds of faith. At the same time, some part of us is energized and empowered by the forceful release of raw emotion which pours out of us almost uncontrollably. Some knowing and confident presence deep inside us consoles and comforts us when we confront fear with faith. It is hard not to laugh when we feel our power, which is the power of love and goodness God has planted in our hearts. It is hard not to laugh when we realize the stupidity of society and its dictatorial die-wreck-tors. As it says in Psalms 37:13….

“The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.”

May those who find themselves in a situation similar to Job – who complained that “Children despise me and laugh when they see me” – find comfort in knowing that after these Gentile brat oppressors which Isaiah spoke of have all died from off the face of the Earth, then will the laughter of children born to you during the glorious millennial reign of Christ fill your ears. From God the Father embedded like a seed of light within clouds of darkness, followed by the starry whirlpool of the Milky Way, then pro-seeded by more ominous darkness, etc. – the pattern is a playful one, and energy moves along best through the lovely vehicle of holy laughter.

“The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General
at the expense of the Particular, quoth Frater
Perdurabo, and laughed.
But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the
Universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.
Below these certain disciples wept,
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
Others next laughed.
Next others wept.
Next others laughed.
Last came those that wept because they could not
see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they
should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought
it safe to act like Frater Perdurabo.
But though Frater Perdurabo laughed
openly, He also at the same time wept secretly;
and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
Nor did He mean what He said.”

― Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

“Because it hardens the heart.”

Note: I have been working on some theological research and did not think to post on this blog again until it was finished, but in the meantime I wrote this out and found that these thoughts pleased me, so I figured that I would share them before the other stuff gets published.

Perversion is the name of the devilish game

An angel showed Nephi a body of Gentile worshipers that would exist in the latter days—which he called a great and abominable church, even the most abominable of all other bodies of worshipers (churches)—who would take away many plain and precious parts, and also many covenants of the Lord, from the gospel of the Lamb. (See 1 Ne. 13:26.) The angel then explained why these people would do this:

And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men. (1 Ne. 13:27)

The right ways of the Lord are that the mind see (not be blind) by always looking at the light of the world, which is Jesus Christ upon the cross, and that the heart be soft and broken (not be hard), by receiving the Holy Ghost. The two-fold process (three, really, when you count praying continually to the Father without fainting) is designed to transform men and women into Christs (Anointed Ones). We look to Jesus as the standard we are seeking to emulate and then we put up no resistance, whatsoever to the influence of the Holy Spirit, so that we become a completely malleable lump of clay in the Lord’s hands, one that can be easily manipulated by Him and made to exactly conform to the standard we are looking to. A broken heart, then, is a heart that has completely submitted itself to the transforming power of the Holy Ghost, putting up no resistance to becoming like Christ.

The word emulate means “to strive to equal or excel (another); to imitate, with a view to equal or outdo; to vie with; to rival; as, to emulate the good and the great.” Jesus taught,

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” (John 14:12)

Thus, the gospel is that we “strive to equal or excel” Christ, doing even greater works than He did, which is one of the reasons why it is called the more excellent way of Christ. In other words, the doctrine of Christ really is a doctrine of emulation. Emulation, or the “ambition or endeavor to equal or excel; rivalry”, gives glory to God because through the atonement of His Son, God does the impossible, taking nothings (us) and making us somethings greater than even “the greatest of all” (D&C 19:18.) This miracle shows forth God’s matchless power and marvelous ways, causing all things to “shut their mouths” in dumbfounderment and give glory to Him. But the impossible can only be made possible through the right ways of the Lord. Otherwise, this transformation into a new creature remains an impossibility.

The word perverse comes from the French perver, which comes from the Latin perversus, which means “turned the wrong way, not right.” Thus, any deviation to the right or to the left from the straight course of the Lord is a perversion. However, the particular body of worshipers of which the angel spoke is considered the most abominable because their perversion consists of a 180 degree change in direction. So, if the Lord says to go right, they seek that men go left, or that they do the exact opposite of what He says and wills. In other words, they seek to change the polarity of the brains of men, from negative to positive and from positive to negative.

Through mass media

The prophesied modus operandi of the Gentile mother of harlots (the great and abominable church) would be the systematic perversion of media, meaning mass media. Mass media is the plural form of mass medium, which is “a medium of communication (as newspapers, radio or television) that is designed to reach the mass of the people.”

This criminal pattern of operation began by taking “a record of the Jews” that was intended and “designed [by God] to reach the mass of the people,” and then editing out many of the more plain and precious parts and covenants originally found therein. Afterward, this now perverted media was sent out to the mass of Gentile nations, causing “an exceedingly great many” of the Gentiles to stumble and become subject to Satan’s power.

But the wicked body of worshipers would not stop there. They would continue their work of destruction and captivity by taking control of every conceivable form of mass media, and doing the same thing they did to that ancient record of the Jews, taking all wholesome media and removing the spiritual value it may have once contained.

Media: wholesome, distraction or poison to the mind

Any form of media, be it a television show, a motion picture, a video game, a novel or other literature, a theatrical performance (a play), a speech, a radio talk show or even a song or music video, must fall into one of three categories in its effect on the mind:

1. things that point our minds to Christ (wholesome),

2. things that point our minds to the things of men (distracting), or

3. things that point our minds directly to the devil (poisonous.)

Mind-healing (wholesome) media

Wholesome media points men to Christ. This category follows the pattern given by Mormon:

But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. (Moroni 7:13,16)

There are two questions, then, to ask oneself about any media to determine whether it is wholesome: 1) does it invite to do good and 2) does it persuade to believe in Christ? You must be able to answer, “yes,” to both questions for a media program to be wholesome. This category of media may still present sinful behavior to its audience, but it does so in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ, always speaking of the sinful behavior as sinful and inviting the audience to do good and not evil and to believe in Christ.

A program that presents sinful behavior as wrong and abnormal (perversion) but that fails to invite the audience to do good and fails to persuade men to believe in Christ does not qualify as wholesome. Wholesome media heals the minds of men by pointing them to Christ. Everything else is either a distraction or a poison to man’s mind, the effect of which causes spiritual blindness.

Media strategies of distraction and darkness

Anything that falls into categories two and three, then, is unwholesome. All media that passes through the mother of harlots is either dimmed, darkened or left in the same category it was originally in, depending on how it started out, the readiness and circumstances of the people, and the design of the whore of all the earth. Her ultimate goal is to have only dark media, but she sometimes will settle for dimmed media. Dimmed media is anything that showcases the works of men, while leaving out the works of God and of the devil. This type of media can be useful to transition a population subtly into total darkness, which is the desire of these perverts. Essentially, the abominable church uses dimmed media as a strategy of distraction.

Media that passes through the great and abominable church is never enlightened by her. Thus, this church will never take poisonous material and remove all of its poisonous elements, bringing it into a merely dim state. It may remove some of them, if it thinks the public will not consume it in its present state, but it will never edit dark media to make it dim, nor edit dim material to make it wholesome and enlightened by Christ. Instead, the trend is to take wholesome material and edit it so that it is transformed into either a dimmed distraction or poisonous darkness. Or, it will take material that is already a dimmed distraction and either leave it as it is or add some poison to it. For material that is already poisonous darkness, it will either leave it in its condition, add more poison to it, or remove some (but not all) of its poison, so that the public more easily and readily consumes it.

The great and abominable church, although employing strategies of distraction, are noted for their attempts to get everyone looking 180 degrees in the opposite direction of Christ, so that they view the works of the devil, which are works of darkness. By constantly viewing works of darkness, the human mind becomes conditioned to darkness. Eventually the human mind comes to accept the works of the devil as normal, human conditions, and not as devilish perversions.

A key to determine whether something is a work of man or a work of the devil is whether sinful behavior is present in what is viewed (or listened to.) For example, if you are watching a television show that is about fishing, a common pastime of humans, and there is no sinful behavior presented to the audience, meaning nobody lies, nobody cheats, steals, murders, fornicates, exhibits pride, boasts, etc., on the show, the fishing show can be said to be merely distractive: a showcase of the works of men. But, if the fishing show routinely presents sinful behavior in front of the eyes of the audience, and more especially if the behavior is presented as normal or “not that bad,” the show is a propaganda piece to point the minds of men to the devil, to condition them to his dark works.

Media can either soften or harden the heart

Unlike the mind, there are only two effects media has on the heart. On the one hand there is media that softens the heart. For example, this could be media that cause one to feel sorrow for sin, both for one’s own sins as well as the sins of the world.

And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.

O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility. (Alma 42:29-30)

Any media, therefore, that causes you to feel sorrow for sin, individually and generally speaking, has a heart-softening, humbling and heart-breaking effect. Such media is wholesome (heart-healing.) Another example would be media that causes one to rejoice in the marvelous works of the Lord, inspiring one towards emulation of the Son of God. Sometimes media can possess both such effects on the heart of man, such as what king Mosiah read to his people:

And now, when Mosiah had made an end of reading the records, his people who tarried in the land were struck with wonder and amazement. For they knew not what to think; for when they beheld those that had been delivered out of bondage they were filled with exceedingly great joy.

And again, when they thought of their brethren who had been slain by the Lamanites they were filled with sorrow, and even shed many tears of sorrow.

And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God.

And again, when they thought upon the Lamanites, who were their brethren, of their sinful and polluted state, they were filled with pain and anguish for the welfare of their souls. (Mosiah 25:7-11)

On the other hand, every other type of media hardens the heart by degrees, depending upon whether the media has a distractive or poisonous effect on the mind.

Desensitization equals hard-heartedness

Whenever we view media that presents sin to us as normal behavior, meaning without labeling and condemning it as perversion, there is a slight desensitization that occurs in our hearts. If we repeatedly are shown sinful behavior outside of the context of the gospel, which categorically condemns such sins as devilish perversions, the heart can quite quickly become completely desensitized so that it no longer can discern (feel) why such behavior is morally wrong.

Only in the context of the gospel can sinful behavior be viewed with soul-saving benefit, meaning that the viewing of sinful behavior in a gospel context actually causes us to sorrow for sin, which enables us to repent and come to Christ. Outside of this context, sinful behavior, even pretended sinful behavior, such as the acting done in movies and television shows, desensitizes our hearts, making them harder or more resistant to the power of the Holy Ghost and less disposed to sorrow over sin.

Devilish strategies

The great and abominable church uses media to flood the minds and hearts of men with specific images and sounds that cause spiritual blindness and hard hearts, all under the guise of entertainment or education. The strategy used, as far as the heart is concerned, is to continuously present all manner of sinful behavior to the public, in all forms of media, without ever inviting the audience to do good, nor ever persuading them to believe in Christ. This constant stream of perversion completely shuts down the sensitivity of the heart organ.

Once the heart is desensitized and the mind blinded, the man is in a condition ready to be controlled by demonic forces. The devil cannot perform his deeds in light (meaning minds that see, or that aren’t under spiritual blindness) nor with softened hearts. His are methods of control and he cannot take control of enlightened minds and soft, broken hearts. He needs, first, to darken the mind and harden the heart. Once that happens, the mind and heart of man becomes highly suggestible and he can then lead them where he will, down to their destruction.

The nature of man is to resist all control systems, but it only manifests insofar as the mind and heart of man are in their proper polarities. Once the polarities are switched, the opposite effect occurs, namely that man’s (now perverse) nature submits to the devil’s control systems, freely giving up its agency to him so that he can destroy it.

The great and abominable church, that body of perverse worshipers, has a two-fold purpose in seeking to reverse the polarities of the two brain hemispheres in man: first, to cause the man to give up agency to the devil through deceit, darkness, desensitization and ultimately the man’s own sins, and secondly, to create a very thick veil of unbelief so that the man becomes completely desensitized to the wonders and marvels of God.

Why the heart must be sensitive

The Lord made the heart sensitive as a protection to us. A sensitive heart can very easily perceive the evilness that comes from the devil. It has a natural, moral compass that tells the man that the things of the devil are destructive and dark, whereas the things of God are good and marvelous. It is designed to spurn the works of the devil and to thrive on the works of the Father, even to delight in them, which in turn are designed to greatly affect the highly sensitive hearts of men. In this way, both parties are edified, both the man and his God. (See D&C 50.) When the brain polarities are switched, this natural process is highjacked. Now, when God shows forth His marvels, the desensitized heart of man feels nothing and his blind mind thinks nothing of them, “esteem[ing] them as things of naught” (2 Nephi 33:2). He no longer marvels and this, in turn, causes God’s anger to rise, for neither are edified:

And it came to pass that thus passed away the ninety and fifth year also, and the people began to forget those signs and wonders which they had heard, and began to be less and less astonished at a sign or a wonder from heaven, insomuch that they began to be hard in their hearts, and blind in their minds, and began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen—imagining up some vain thing in their hearts, that it was wrought by men and by the power of the devil, to lead away and deceive the hearts of the people; and thus did Satan get possession of the hearts of the people again, insomuch that he did blind their eyes and lead them away to believe that the doctrine of Christ was a foolish and a vain thing. (3 Nephi 2:1-2)

…and thus were the people in a state of many afflictions; and the sword of destruction did hang over them, insomuch that they were about to be smitten down by it, and this because of their iniquity. (3 Nephi 2:19)

What sin and righteousness really are

Sin is anything, at all, that hardens the heart (reducing sorrow for sin, estimation or favorable opinion of God, desire to become like Christ and submissiveness to the Holy Spirit), and darkens the mind, of man, while righteousness is the exact opposite: anything, at all, that softens the heart (increasing sorrow for sin, estimation of God, etc.), and enlightens the mind, of man. This is why King Benjamin said:

And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. (Mosiah 4:29)

There are innumerable ways and means that the devil uses to harden the heart. When we participate in, or observe, any activity which causes our hearts to become hardened, we sin, even if we are unaware that we are sinning. Luckily, the Savior atones for sins committed in ignorance:

For behold, and also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned. (Mosiah 3:11)

However, once we have knowledge of the key, which is whether something hardens, or softens, the heart, then any activity or perception that we willfully engage in, either personally or through purposeful media exposure, that causes our hearts to harden, will condemn us before the Lord:

Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, for it had been taught unto them; therefore they did wilfully rebel against God. (3 Nephi 6:18)

It is this will of God concerning man, even the right ways of the Lord (which are forever righteous), which has designed that man’s heart is to function in a heart-softening and heart-breaking environment. If we willfully rebel against that will and feed our hearts perversions that harden it, we run the risk of spiritual and temporal captivity and destruction.

Two ways to feel

Heart desensitization makes it harder to feel anything, both good and bad. A hard heart cannot feel the good words of God, because that requires heart sensitivity. Said Nephi to Laman and Lemuel:

Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder. (1 Nephi 17:45)

A hard heart also loses the ability to feel bad things, or things that come from the devil. In order for a hard-hearted man to feel something, he must do one of two things: either he must repent of his sins, gaining heart sensitivity once again, or he must engage in even greater sin excursions.

The latter choice will initially allow the man to feel something once again, but because sin has a heart-hardening effect, he will yet again be left numb and desensitized, requiring an even greater amount and darker type of sensory stimulation. This cycle must repeat until the man is left completely senseless, numb and cold-hearted, unfeeling towards everything, and filled with anger at all the universe because of his condition. Such men become “vessels of wrath” (D&C 76:33) and all “the heavens weep [over them], seeing these shall suffer” (Moses 7:37.)

Using a heart-hardness test

The angel prophesied that the most abominable church would have dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues and people. It can be expected, therefore, that we are going to be absolutely swamped with propaganda coming from that quarter, and every last bit of media will become infected with their perversions. The desensitization that comes from this group’s media output is a real and present danger to the souls of men.

We routinely test our water for hardness and our pipes for scale, but surely the state of our hearts is even more important. Using the heart as a gauge, all things that are presented to us can be filtered, so that only heart-softening media surrounds us and heart-hardening media is removed. It may be wise to systematically go through all the media we routinely pay attention to, to determine whether it hardens or softens our heart.

People aren’t used to viewing sin in terms of its heart-hardening effect, so you may be questioned by your spouse, your children, your neighbors or even by other Mormons and Christians as to why you are removing this or that media from your life. The answer to such questions can be quite simple:

“Because it hardens the heart.”

Using a heart-hardening gauge allows a person to much more easily see (and explain to others) what is and is not sin-promoting material.

An example of perverse media: pornography

For example, if we filter pornography through a heart-hardening gauge, we can plainly see that pornography hardens the heart rather quickly and thoroughly. This is because of its extreme perversity. In Justin’s Connecting with Pixels post, he mentioned a web site that openly talks about the effects of pornography. That site says:

First of all, there is clear evidence that long-term pornography use sets people up for feeling more depressed and empty than those who do not use. One big reason for this is that the pleasure center in the brain gets so worn out by constant artificial stimulation that it simply stops being able to respond to more natural kinds of pleasure.

Basically, you slowly start to become numb or desensitized to everyday activities. (What are the effects of porn anyway?)

Artificial stimulation is the correct terminology, for pornography presents a perverse form of sexuality to the viewer as if it were normal, natural, human behavior. The list of pornographic perversions is exceedingly long.

According to the right ways of the Lord, sexual relations between an intact husband and his intact wife (no genital mutilations for either one) is ideal, right, proper and edifying. This is the pattern to which all other sexual relations must be compared. Everything outside of a husband and wife having sex is perversion of the pattern given by God. So, let’s see just how perverse pornography is.

Righteous, marital sex involves no money.

The pornographic perversion of sex, on the other hand, does involves money, the actors being paid to have sex, making them all prostitutes.

Righteous, marital sex is between two people who know and have a vested interest in each other.

The pornographic perversion of sex often involves complete strangers with no attachments, whatsoever.

Righteous, marital sex is between people who love each other.

In the pornographic perversion of sex, the performers feel and express no genuine love for one another.

Righteous, marital sex deepens the love that the matrimony has for one another, giving them greater intimacy with each other and softening their hearts one towards the other.

The pornographic perversion of sex treats sex as a mechanical process, a series of movements that they must act out in front of the camera and crew with no intimacy, love or requirement or need to feel anything, whatsoever, towards the other person they are working with. In fact, the way performers actually are able to get through their “work day” on the set is through detachment. This has a heart-hardening effect upon both the actors, crew and viewers, who are all aware, and accepting, of this perverse condition.

As adults are designed by God to have sex, the genitals of a man and his wife, in their natural state, are hairy, which are signs of adulthood.

The pornographic perversion of sex has performers shave their pubic hairs, so that they look like large children having sex.

Righteous, marital relations typically begin with foreplay.

The pornographic perversion of sex often completely skips it, diving right away into sexual intercourse.

Sweet talking and kissing, including declarations of love, typically accompany marital relations.

Such things are often either eliminated altogether or cut down to a bare minimum in pornography.

Strong, permanent connections are demonstrated in marital relationships, in which the man and his wife feel strongly attached and attracted to each other and this feeling is demonstrated both before, during and after sexual relations.

As noted above, in pornography, detachment is the norm, with actors showing their willingness to have multiple, temporary flings, with no apparent feeling of attachment, whatsoever, towards the sexual partner(s).

Sexual relations in a marriage are spontaneous and largely undirected. If there is any direction, it comes from the participants only, each one taking cues from his or her spouse.

Not so in the pornographic perversion. The performers are told what to do, and when to do it, by the director. They are given the location, the mode of dress, the positions, the actions, the timing, the angles, the words to say or not say, etc. The whole thing is externally directed. In fact, although it is “technically” sex, there is not much relating between the actors that goes on, as each one is following the director’s instructions, so it can hardly be called sexual relations. Although what the director and crew says is typically not recorded, every viewer watches with this understanding of external direction in mind, therefore, the atmosphere is one of direction, nonetheless.

Righteous, marital sex comes with the choice of sexual form and position, according to what they feel like doing in the moment.

The pornographic perversion of sex removes that choice. The performers must do what the director tells them to do, going through a set number of sexual forms and positions, whether they like it or not, or they risk not getting paid or getting blacklisted and not getting any more work.

Righteous, marital sex comes with enjoyment. In other words, they engage in sexual relations because they enjoy sexual relations with each other.

The pornographic perversion of sex cares little about enjoyment. Often the performers are obviously not having a good time (and this is desirable to many directors), yet they must perform nonetheless, because a contract or money is involved. Such feeling is communicated into the camera and this hardens the heart of the viewers and actors involved.

An intact man with his intact wife will penetrate deeply and stay deep, rocking back and forth. In such a position, you can’t see their genitals, because they are stuck to each other, as if they were literally one flesh.

Pornography perverts this natural position by making the performers assume an unnatural position (leaning back and away from the camera) and thrusting hard, so that the genitals can be clearly illuminated by lighting and filmed and so that the male member can be seen going in and out. The mechanical movements of this unnatural position is what pornography seeks to exploit as normal, everyday sex, which, of course, it isn’t.

Righteous, marital sex is designed so that the man ejaculates into the woman’s vagina. Even if she doesn’t get pregnant by this, the deposited semen seems to have some kind of healthful regulation upon her body.

This natural process is aborted in pornography and substituted with a perversion. The male performer must exit the female performer and masturbate until he ejaculates on her externally. This is called the “money shot.”

Righteous, marital sex is safe sex, in the sense of social security, each one feeling secure with each other. This grounds both the man and his wife, creating a feeling of social foundation, safety and security.

The pornographic perversion of sex takes insecure performers, and more especially insecure women, who have typically gone through some kind of sexual abuse at some point in their lives, who have left their families and other sources of security and who, being on their own, are looking for something secure, and then it incorporates them into the “family of X.” But instead of giving them a sense of social security, it plays upon their insecurities, giving them an insecure and predatory business environment, meaning that they are under the express understanding that they must perform as told and expected to under threat of being being fired and blacklisted. Some family, indeed.

Righteous, marital sex is physically safe sex, as it protects from STD’s transmitted from strange, temporary partners.

The pornographic perversion of sex is physically unsafe sex, as it promotes unprotected sex with multiple strangers. The illusion of routine medical testing it presents to the public is just that: an illusion, for many times these are just faked anyway to get the performers to feel better about doing dangerous work.

Righteous, marital sex does not require any drug preparations to “get in the mood.”

The pornographic perversion of sex routinely makes sure that copious amounts of alcohol and drugs are at hand for the performers, so that they are more apt to perform such strong perversions, with their minds already clouded and their hearts already desensitized by the effects of the narcotics and alcohol.

These and many other perversions essentially make pornography a sexual middle finger pointed directly at the Lord, as if the devil were looking up and saying, “Look at how I’ve confounded the sexuality of man!” All who participate in it, as performer, crew, distributor or consumer, whether they know it or not, are having their hearts turned rock hard, because of the enormous strength of its perversion.

Once the heart is sexually hardened, it cannot feel what a normal, sensitive heart can feel, yet it has the same or greater desires to feel. Therefore, if repentance isn’t relied upon and resorted to, which will soften the heart so it can feel again, the viewer of pornography must viewer “harder core” pornography to be able to feel something. But as I said above, this just numbs the heart further, resulting in a need for even harder, hardcore pornography.

Other types of perverse media

I don’t want to make this post a book (too late, I know), so I will just briefly mention a few others that have a rapid, heart-hardening effect on mankind.

Violent media

The heart is supposed to feel sorrow when it witnesses violence (or any other sin.) If we watch a program on television or in the movies in which there is a violent act and it doesn’t cause our heart to sorrow for the sins of the world, it is an indication that our hearts have been hardened by what we are watching. Once a heart is hardened by violence, more explicit violence is needed to get the same sensory rush. There is a reason why all the crime shows nowadays are almost always about murder. The non-violent crimes of theft, etc. no longer give television’s desensitized audience a sufficient sensory rush to cause them to buy the products shown during the commercials. So, murder is now the top topic, even for news shows. After all, they have sponsors, too.

Prideful media

Listening to the prideful lyrics of a song or watching any prideful behavior or boasting in one’s own strength without immediately recognizing the sin and feeling sorrow for it hardens one’s heart rather quickly. Music has a powerful influence over the heart and if certain types of prideful, boasting music is listened to on a daily or consistent basis, the heart will harden and imitate the behavior. In fact, anything that hardens the heart will end up influencing the (now hardened) heart to imitate the bad behavior that caused it to harden. So, the sinful material serves a dual purpose in the hands of the devil. He first uses it to harden the heart, then he uses it to to control the people.

Lying media

How many times in soap operas and other types of television shows, movies, etc., do we see lies presented as “little?” Ah, but if the liars are pretty, then it’s okay, right? Isn’t it interesting that lies are works of darkness, yet are often described as “white?” All of this is conditioning propaganda to get the heart in a hardened state.

Witchcraft and sorcery media

Have you noticed the trend among the population concerning witchcraft and sorcery, how it is no longer considered an abomination, but is now fashionable and in vogue? Isn’t it interesting that sorcery was a widespread feature among the landscape of the Nephites at the end of their civilization?

And it came to pass that there were sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the face of the land, even unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi, and also Samuel the Lamanite. (Mormon 1:19)

Satanic rituals are now routinely performed in front of our eyes during mass media events. The general populace may not know that they are witnessing rituals of sorcery, but they are becoming accustomed to it and eventually will be made to fully embrace it, for all sorcery and witchcraft hardens the heart, preparing the heart for demonic possession and control. Like all sin, that is its purpose.

A poisonous mix or concoction

We can expect the great and abominable church to combine the various perversions into a great, magical, heart-hardening and mind-blinding potion. This is what they currently feed to all those who pertain to the secret combinations of the world and this jet black media will, eventually, be fed undiluted to the general public. So, violence and pride and sexual perversion and lies and all manner of wickedness will be combined together into some form of horrific snuff media, which the masses will consume all day, all the time. We are not there, yet, but it will come, for that is the plan.

It may seem to you that such abominations in media surely will not be accepted by the public, or perhaps you think that you would never be one of those who will accept them, but remember the words of Nephi concerning the “flaxen cords” of the devil:

And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever. (2 Nephi 26:22)

It all starts out with a flaxen cord of dimmed (distracting) media, until we are accustomed to it, then we are introduced ever so subtly to stronger cords of darkened (poisoned) media, until we are accustomed to that. Finally, he binds us down with very strong cords of murder (snuff) and works of darkness, which we will swallow whole without any ability to resist. Yes, it can happen to you and to me, if we do not cut the devil’s cords which he has upon us now, even if they are presently only “flaxen cords.”

Is your heart desensitized?

Heart desensitizing media is found everywhere, even in supposedly innocent places. The truly softened heart feels sorrow for the littlest sin and the enlightened mind perceives it immediately, whereas a hard heart can’t feel it, at all, nor can a dark mind see it.

For example, the other day I was watching a Wiggles show with my son and one of the characters asked a second character if he had done something. He denied it, even though everyone saw him do it. This happened three times. I didn’t catch it until the third time, after which I did a double take and said, “The guy lied three times!” The whole group was laughing about it the entire time and my mind just thought of it as a joke, as kidding around, but when it happened the third time, I finally saw that this was no joke, that this guy was outright lying, attempting to deceive the first character, but the other characters were just playing along like it was funny. I thought, “Teaching children that lying is funny is not a message they ought to get.” But I was more embarrassed by the realization that my mind was so much darkened and my heart so much hardened that I didn’t catch the lie until the third time!

Sin has become so commonplace in mass media, so normalized, that we often can’t perceive the “tiny” ones anymore. In reality, since the Lord said:

I, the Lord, cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance (D&C 1:31)

there is no such creature as a “tiny” sin. The idea of sin being classified as small or great comes from a hard heart, which considers “small sins” as not that bad. In truth, all sin is bad, but sin only varies in its heart-hardening effects. Some sins harden the heart faster and more completely than other sins. Nevertheless, all sins, even ones that only slightly harden the heart, and which do so slowly, cut us off from the Lord, and therefore, have death as their wages. Thus, it is vital that we be able to perceive what is and is not sin. Luckily, the Lord has given us the keys to discernment, even a mind that sees and a heart that feels. He has also given us the way to see and feel, if we have been blinded and desensitized by the great and abominable church: repentance.

Therefore, I suggest that we all put our water hardness tests down and perform instead a heart hardness test. Go ahead and test yourself. If you find that you can’t see certain sins in mass media anymore, or that you don’t feel sorrow when you perceive sinful behavior, it may be an indication that there are perverse influences in your life which you have accepted as normal. Perhaps it is time to do a systematic house-cleaning of all such heart-hardening influences.

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Connecting with Pixels

By way of full disclosure, I volunteered to write this post because I have personal experience with the topic.  I’ve viewed online pornographic movies both before and since I joined the church.  I felt no guilt associated with viewing it before joining the church (which was also before I was married), but when I began to view it after joining (which was also after I had been married), I desired to repent and have since studied the topic to better understand it.

Pornography:

When I use “pornography” in this post, I will be referring to video or photographs of adults engaging in sexual relations.  Currently, there are more than 300 million pages of pornographic material on the internet, an increase of 1800% over the last five years.  More than 70% of American men, ages 18 – 34, visit a pornographic website in a typical month.  Further, in 2006, the pornography industry netted just short of $100 billion – more revenue than that of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, and Netflix combined.  The state that contributes the most to those profits – Utah.

The inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Porneia is rendered “fornication” all 26 times it is used in the New Testament.  It is from the word used to designate the temple prostitutes the Gentiles used for fertility worship.

Dehumanizing:

The popularity of pornography relies on dehumanizing the subject, which is typically a woman.  The characters in pornography are not depicted as children of God with intellects and personalities – but as a collection of anatomical features that can be used to induce a physiological response.  Ask a man who watches pornography if he would want his wife or daughter to be in videos like the ones he watches – and 68.2689492137% will say, “No.”  (Note:  this figure was edited from 100% per comments below)  They want somebody else’s wife or daughter.  They prefer to do unto others’ daughters what they would not want done to their own.

The sexual climax is intended to be the sequel of the unification of two real persons.  The fact that the pleasure associated with the discharge can be produced in solitude demonstrates that the feelings are designed to conclude the sexual act – and are not a part of the unifying aspect of sex.  This is what I find most troubling about pornography use.  The release that ends sexual unification is designed to bind a person to the other person he or she is having relations with.  What are pornography users binding themselves to – a computer screen, pixels?  Humans are meant to make real connections with real people.

Hiding:

Recent discussion indicates that Satan introduced the concept of shame for nudity.  It is the same with sexuality.  Satan either covers up sexuality, teaching that it is too private to discuss openly, or he teaches only the physical biology of it, leaving out the spiritual connection that takes place.  He motivates sinners to hide from God and from others.  On the other hand, God sees all things, and thus He motivates sinners to be open, in full-fellowship and intimacy with Him and with others.

Sites like FightTheNewDrug promote addressing pornography by letting it into the light to be seen for what it really is – much like the “Truth” ads did for changing the discussion on cigarette smoking.  Having progressed, we can now look back on old cigarette ads as a deceptive venture to make an unhealthy practice popular for the sake of making money.  FightTheNewDrug focuses on addressing pornography by reducing demand – not supply.  When something is banned – rather by states, religions, etc. – without addressing the underlying motivations, the behavior is just pushed underground, becoming darker in the process.  When people learn that, for example, the reason for pornography actors shave their pubic hair is to make them look more like large children – people can choose to turn away from such perversions.  Instead of demonizing sexual expression or victimizing “porn addicts”, the rhetoric should focus on re-humanizing the people involved with pornography and re-emphasizing the sexiness of humans connecting with humans.

Intimacy is the opposite of what Satan suggested Adam and Eve do when they discovered their nakedness in the garden.  Before he found them, they were naked and were not ashamed.  Adam was fully exposed to Eve – and Eve to Adam.  This is the light that pornography should be seen in.  Humans are not meant to experience sexuality in front of computer screens, alone, feeling cycles of shame and guilt.

Confessing:

Boyd Packer told members during the most recent General Conference that:

The priesthood holds consummate power. It can protect you from the plague of pornography—and it is a plague—if you are succumbing to its influence. If one is obedient, the priesthood can show how to break a habit and even erase an addiction. Holders of the priesthood have that authority and should employ it to combat evil influences.

I think the evidence on this site should make it clear that you do not have to do anything with your bishop if you have viewed pornography.  A person that has viewed pornography has most likely committed adultery in his heart – if he were married, then confession to a spouse would be warranted.  But whether or not a person chooses to talk to his or her bishop is a personal decision – and it should be made in light of what will be the most helpful to the person.  When confession to a bishop is not expedient – as it would be in cases of unrepentant sin brought to the authorities by witnesses – then confession should be treated only as a tool to help the person.  One should weigh the risk of opening up grounds for a witch-hunt from an unprepared or unrighteous priesthood leader with the comfort that being completely open with a trusted and capable bishop can bring.  For example, I spoke with my bishop in the past when I had fell into a habit of viewing pornography – because I knew him to be a man of integrity and Godly love.  I received no formal or informal disciplines.  It was hard to speak openly about it with my wife, and I used my time with him to get many things off my chest.  I, unlike Packer, would not recommend confession to a bishop to everyone.  Many bishops are unprepared for dealing with such a nuanced situation and have been conditioned to use extreme measures with pornography because of inflated rhetoric about the subject.  So tread carefully.

Moving on:

I don’t mean to say porn can’t be a problem for some people.  However, it is more often the symptom of a different problem – e.g. poor socialization by parents on sexuality, unaddressed childhood abuse, an addictive personality, or feelings of insecurity.  The visual depiction of a man and women engaging in sexual relations is not, in and of itself, sinful – not any more than shopping is, or spending too much time on the computer.  The current state of pornography is a complicated issue and calling it evil or a plague doesn’t help anybody.  All you do is demonize something that, unless you have some dependence on it, isn’t bad for you.  Proclaiming some moral absolute on a mental health issue is just harmful to those involved.

We should take comfort in the fact that, for our generation, pornography is largely a problem of technology.  Just 30 years ago, to obtain pornography, a man would don a trench coat and sunglasses and go to the back of a dimly lit store to secretly purchase a VHS tape, hoping no one would see him walking back to his car – then he’d have to keep the tapes hidden at home, hoping kids or spouse didn’t find them.  However, today, I can type in a URL in the privacy of my home or office, instantly steam hours of free videos, and then delete my browsing history.  That’s it.  The reason this is a good thing for anyone who finds themselves habitually viewing pornography – if technology is the reason it is so available to you, then use technology to make it less available.  Effective webfilters are as readily available as free porn sites.  Humans should choose to connect with people — not pixels.

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