Not too long ago I came across a post from the Upward Thought blog called, The Seals of the Book of Revelation Do Not Represent Each 1000 Years, and, to be honest, I just skimmed through it at the time, but I caught that it put forth the idea that the seals mentioned by John the Revelator were still future events and that D&C 77 wasn’t reliable information. I discounted the latter idea (about D&C 77) but decided to review the book of Revelation later concerning the seals. I then forgot all about it.
Then I published the last post (The definition of eternal) and I found myself quoting from section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants, so I thought maybe I ought not to put off looking at the book of Revelation and D&C 77 and also other prophetic timelines. The new scriptural search I did took my old beliefs concerning these things and tossed them right out the window. I now have a new understanding, which I will share right now.
I will use today’s date [Monday, March 21, 2016] and insert it into each of these prophetic timelines to show where we are.
John’s apocalyptic book of Revelation
Past
JST Rev. 4:1After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened into heaven; and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said,
Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.
Present
[Monday, March 21, 2016]
Future
Revelation 4:2 and on.
Explanation: Everything John saw, whether it was in the extreme future—(for example: JST Rev. 4:6“And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal” and D&C 77:1“Q. What is the sea of glass spoken of by John, 4th chapter, and 6th verse of the Revelation? A. It is the earth, in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state.)—or in the extreme past (for example: JST Rev. 12:6“And there was war in heaven;”) were to signify “things which must be hereafter,” meaning after the time of John’s vision.
The Revelation of John is the revelation of the seven seals and the events that take place once these seals are opened:
D&C 77:6Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?
A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?
A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.
The first seal, then, is a revelation of the “will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the first thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.” The second seal is a revelation of the “will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the second thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.” And so on until the seventh.
After each seal is opened, or after each revelation is unfolded in the eyes of the people, John saw events happen on earth. These events were future to him.
When are the earthly events associated with the opening of these seals supposed to happen? The Book of Mormon gives us the answer:
Ether 4:13Come unto me, O ye Gentiles, and I will show unto you the greater things, the knowledge which is hid up because of unbelief.
14Come unto me, O ye house of Israel, and it shall be made manifest unto you how great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation of the world; and it hath not come unto you, because of unbelief.
15Behold, when ye shall rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, then shall the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the world from you—yea, when ye shall call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then shall ye know that the Father hath remembered the covenant which he made unto your fathers, O house of Israel.
16And then shall my revelations which I have caused to be written by my servant John be unfolded in the eyes of all the people. Remember, when ye see these things, ye shall know that the time is at hand that they shall be made manifest in very deed.
So, first the Book of Mormon has to come forth (and remember, this hasn’t happened, yet.) Then, the Lord’s people must rend the veil of unbelief. Once that happens, the seals will begin to be opened and the revelations of each of the thousand years will be given to the saints, and the accompanying earth events associated with these revelations will go forth.
Again, when do these seals get opened?
D&C 77:10Q. What time are the things spoken of in this [7th] chapter to be accomplished?
A. They are to be accomplished in the sixth thousand years, or the opening of the sixth seal.
12Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?
A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years—the preparing of the way before the time of his coming.
13Q. When are the things to be accomplished, which are written in the 9th chapter of Revelation?
A. They are to be accomplished after the opening of the seventh seal, before the coming of Christ.
So the events associated with the opening of the first six seals take place during the sixth thousand years, while the events associated with the opening of the seventh seal take place “in the beginning of the seventh thousand years.”
Given that none of these things have occurred yet, we can assume that the “meridian of time” in which Jesus came is an uncounted portion of these thousands of years. As there were 4,000 years before the birth of Christ, this means that the fifth thousand years began in AD 33 and the sixth thousand years began in AD 1033 and will end in 2033. So, between now [March 21, 2016] and April 6th, 2033, the events associated with the opening of the first six seals must take place, and the events associated with the opening of the seventh seal will take place after April 6th, 2033.
In other words, not a single thing from the book of Revelations has happened, yet. What we—and all the Christians and others who look at the book of Revelation and then say, “Prophecy is happening before our very eyes!”—are seeing are merely types and shadows.
Now, going back to the Upward Thought blog and actually reading it this time, it seems that the idea for the seals being events future to John actually comes from Joseph Smith himself. So, I guess I’m in good company on this. Quoting from that blog post:
It turns out we do have teachings from Joseph Smith on the Book of Revelation outside of D&C 77. This comes from “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”:
There is a grand difference and distinction between the visions and figures spoken of by the ancient prophets, and those spoken of in the revelations of John. The things which John saw had no allusion to the scenes of the days of Adam, Enoch, Abraham or Jesus, only so far as is plainly represented by John, and clearly set forth by him. John saw that only which was lying in futurity and which was shortly subject: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John: who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of his prophecy and keep those things that are written therein: for the time is at hand.” Also Rev. 4:1. “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.”….Now, I make this declaration, that those things which John saw in heaven had no allusion to anything that had been on the earth previous to that time, because they were the representation of “things which must shortly come to pass,” and not of what has already transpired. John saw beasts that had to do with things on the earth, but not in past ages. The beasts which John saw had to devour the inhabitants of the earth in days to come. ….The revelations do not give us to understand anything of the past in relation to the kingdom of God. What John saw and speaks of were things which he saw in heaven; those which Daniel saw were on and pertaining to the earth.
Nephi’s apocalyptic vision
Past
1 Ne. 13:1And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me, saying:
Look!
And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms. 2And the angel said unto me:
What beholdest thou?
And I said:
I behold many nations and kingdoms.
3And he said unto me:
These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles.
Present
[Monday, March 21, 2016]
Future
4And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church. 5And the angel said unto me:
Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.
There certainly are, and have been, many nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles, but there has been no formation of the great and abominable church among the nations of the Gentiles, as yet. This church’s formation is the first sign of the apocalypse and last days events. Notice, though, that there are already saints of God on the scene when this church is formed, for the church begins to torture and kill and imprison them. The fact that there are latter-day saints on the earth today among the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles means that all is in prophetic readiness. We are just awaiting the formation of this quite literal church.
People are free to apply the portion of the vision found in 1 Ne. 13:4 through 1 Ne. 14 to the events of today, but it is my understanding that these are just types and shadows. Now, let’s fast-forward to:
1 Ne. 14:15And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the earth. 16And as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the angel spake unto me, saying:
Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold, thou seest all these things—17and when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel.
Then Nephi is shown John, who the angel says will write the rest of the apocalyptic vision. And what is the rest of the vision? The opening of the seals.
Nephi’s end times prophecy
In 2 Ne. 25 Nephi gives an end time prophecy which he finishes in 2 Ne. 30. “I give unto you a prophecy, according to the spirit which is in me” (2 Ne. 25:4), “I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness” (2 Ne. 25:7), “And now, my beloved brethren, I make an end of my sayings” (2 Ne. 30:18), and “And now I, Nephi, make an end of my prophesying unto you, my beloved brethren” (2 Ne. 31:1). Where do we fit into the timeline of this prophecy? Here:
Past
2 Ne. 26:14But behold, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days; concerning the days when the Lord God shall bring these things forth unto the children of men. 15After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief,
Present
[Monday, March 21, 2016]
Future
15and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten.
The Gentiles have not yet brought the remnant so low in the dust that they are not. They’ve come close, but it’s not a perfect fulfillment, so what happened previously was yet another shadow fulfillment. This means that most of chapter 26 and all of chapters 27-30 are still future events.
Daniel’s apocalyptic visions
Daniel’s end time visions, found in Daniel chapters 7 to 12, largely deal with kingdoms and kings. John’s vision also dealt with kingdoms and kings. Although our times [Monday, March 21, 2016] have some kingdoms among a bunch of nations, most of these kingdoms are constitutional monarchies, with essentially powerless kings. The future, as I understand it, will mark a return to the absolute monarchy. This is why both Daniel and John speak at great length about these things, which are largely absent today. Daniel, then, saw things that are still future to us.
Some loose ends and final thoughts
Nephi prophesied:
1 Ne. 22:7And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered.
This mighty nation is typically interpreted by latter-day saints as being The United States of America under the United States Constitution, but that might be just a shadow fulfillment. It may, instead, be The United States of America under the New Articles of Confederation (NAC). I prophesied that the Josephite restorer will use his faith to bring us into a new set of perfected articles of confederation, and this event would certainly qualify as fulfilling Nephi’s prophecy that “the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles.” In other words, God Himself, using His miraculous power, will create a new nation in a day, through His appointed miracle-working seer. Such an event shows God directly raising up the nation Himself, explicitly fulfilling the prophecy. There would be no need to “try and make current events fit” into the prophecy, like is done with the Revolutionary War. They would simply fit, altogether perfectly.
If, then, the NAC is the document that the Josephite is going to cause to be installed, by his faith, then its installation must precede the scattering and smiting of the remnant. But what about the great and abominable church? Does it precede or follow the NAC’s installation?
An interesting thing about the NAC is its strong language against kings and secret combinations. I think, then, that the formation of the great and abominable church may be a sort of knee-jerk reaction against the Josephite and the new set of articles of confederation that he puts in place. So I give it as my opinion that first comes the Josephite and the NAC (or something like it) and a slew of miracles from this guy, and then we get the rapid formation of the abominable church, in order for the wicked to try to deal with and stop him.
I say this because not only are saints on the scene when the abominable church is formed, but also miracles also appear to be on the scene:
1 Ne. 26:20And the Gentiles are lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and have stumbled, because of the greatness of their stumbling block, that they have built up many churches; nevertheless, they put down the power and miracles of God, and preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain and grind upon the face of the poor.
Now, most latter-day saints would interpret that as meaning that they will simply say that there are no more miracles done any more, but that is not how I read this text. I read it as that there are miracles occurring among the saints, or at least through this Josephite, and these miracles are causing a whole lot of problems for the various Christian and other churches and denominations out there. After all, if you’ve got a guy saying that the Mormon church (LDS church) is God’s only true church and fold, and he’s emptying out hospitals of the sick and afflicted, and doing all sorts of other miracles, people are going to start flocking to his church (the LDS church.) How do you deal with this onslaught of miracles, from a pastor’s perspective? Well, one way, perhaps, is to unite the various churches into a single church conglomerate, a sort of great church, united against this man and his Mormon church.
So, it seems to me that the Josephite, the NAC and the Josephite’s never-ending mighty miracles, must precede the formation of the great and abominable church. He, then, is the initial sign that gets everything prophetically moving, but how do we know when he is active on the scene?
I’ve already written that I believe now that that California earthquake I prophesied about, and the Josephite, are prophetically linked. So, he is going to cause the earthquake. This means it won’t be naturally occurring, but a miraculous event. I now also believe that this “earthquake” might not even be a singular earthquake, at all, but a series of earthquakes, unleashed on the same day, in increasing magnitude over time, in a manner that cannot be explained as naturally occurring. In other words, it seems to me that he is going to make it unmistakably clear that we are witnessing a mighty miracle, so that the entire nation and the whole entire world suddenly turn their attention to him. This can only cause a full and complete combination of the wicked, to face this new threat to their power, hence the formation of the great and abominable church.
One last thing, and then I’ll end this post: The angel that John saw having the seal of the living God, appears to me now as being the Josephite:
JST Rev. 7:1And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. 2And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God; and I heard him cry with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3saying,
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
D&C 77:9Q. What are we to understand by the angel ascending from the east, Revelation 7th chapter and 2nd verse?
A. We are to understand that the angel ascending from the east is he to whom is given the seal of the living God over the twelve tribes of Israel; wherefore, he crieth unto the four angels having the everlasting gospel, saying: Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And, if you will receive it, this is Elias which was to come to gather together the tribes of Israel and restore all things.
So, maybe what I’ve written above (if believed) will allow people to sleep a little more restfully. The presidential elections will not mark the end of American civilization, nor is it, as yet, the end of the world. We are not even yet in the end or last times. It is still very much just the latter days and despite the doom and gloom crowd, we can expect a work of miracles to be forthcoming, before any of the “bad” signs happen, since it is also my understanding that the Josephite is already among us somewhere in this church.
Also, Sam’s wife, who was a daughter of Ishmael, and Nephi’s wife, who was also a daughter of Ishmael, were identical twin sisters.
As identical twin brothers, Sam and Nephi’s genetic code was the same. And as identical twin sisters, their wives’ genetic code was likewise the same. This made the children of Sam and the children of Nephi “like unto” each other, as if the entire group of children came from only two people, and not four. Additionally, Nephi and Sam were also spiritually similar:
Nephi…and Sam…were just and holy men. (Alma 3:6)
Thus, Lehi’s blessing of sameness between the two brotherly lines takes on a bit more meaning:
blessed art thou and thy seed
for thou shalt inherit the land like unto thy brother nephi
and thy seed shall be numbered with his seed
and thou shalt be even like unto thy brother and thy seed like unto his seed
and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days (2 Ne. 4:11)
Separate tribal numbering, in such a situation, is useless, because the posterity from one line is indistinguishable from the other line. (The use of -ites among the Book of Mormon people was for distinguishing one line from another. See the post, Book of Mormon surnames: the meaning of the -ites and “people of”. ) Everyone in Sam’s line, then, was numbered in Nephi’s line. And this is why there are no “Samites” in the Book of Mormon.
At least, this is the thought that popped into my head last Thursday as I was reading the scriptures.
Disclaimer: This thought is not my understanding or belief, since there is no way to arrive at this conclusion definitively from the scriptures and I did not get any corresponding manifestation of the Holy Ghost when the thought came upon me, letting me know of its truth. Nevertheless, I put it up here on the blog because it makes quite a bit of sense to me and I found it to be quite an interesting and novel thought. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it turns out to be true.
Any time the Book of Mormon text uses the suffix “-ite” or “-ites” or calls a group “the people of” (so-and-so), it means that that designated name is part of the surname of that person or persons.
Lehi had six sons, and their full names (given name plus surname) were:
Laman Lehi
Lemuel Lehi
Sam Lehi
Nephi Lehi
Jacob Lehi
Joseph Lehi
Zoram and the family of Ishmael was also added to the group, making two more genealogical lines:
Zoram
the sons of Ishmael
The descendants of these 8 genealogical lines were called*, as their surnames:
Laman-Lehi, or just Laman, known as Lamanites
Laman-Lemuel-Lehi, or just Laman-Lemuel, known as Lamanites and also as Lemuelites
Laman-Ishmael, known as Lamanites and also as Ishmaelites
Nephi-Lehi, known as Nephites and including both Sam’s (2 Ne. 4:11) and Nephi’s lines
Nephi-Jacob-Lehi, known as Nephites and also as Jacobites
Nephi-Joseph-Lehi, known as Nephites and also as Josephites
Nephi-Zoram, known as Nephites and also as Zoramites
Thus, the Jacobites, Josephites, and Zoramites were also called Nephites or the people of Nephi, because they actually had the name of Nephi as part of their surname. And the Lemuelites and Ishmaelites were also called Lamanites for the same reason.
This custom of incorporating the name of the person whose path you followed into your surname was done throughout the entire Book of Mormon history. Only when a name was incorporated into the surname does the text use -ite or “people of.” Thus, those who believed in the teachings of Nehor are never called Nehorites or “the people of” Nehor. It is merely stated that they were of the order of Nehor, or of the order of the Nehors. This is because the name Nehor was not part of their surname. On the other hand, the Amlicites/Amalekites had incorporated Amlici’s name into their surname. The Amalickiahites did the same thing with the name of Amalickiah, and so did the Zoramites with the name of Zoram, and the Ammonihahites with the name of Ammonihah, and the Amulonites with the name of Amulon. In like fashion, the people of Morianton had Morianton’s name in their surname, and the people of Zarahemla had Zarahemla in their surname. Likewise also the Jaredites or people of Jared, and also the people of Nephihah.
However, there is no mention of Mulekites in the Book of Mormon. And why is that? Because the people of Zarahemla had Zarahemla in their surname, not Mulek. We ignorant Gentiles, not understanding the use of -ites and “people of,” routinely and erroneously call Zarahemla’s people “Mulekites.”
Now, the city of Lehi-Nephi was called Lehi-Nephi because it was founded by two men (instead of the usual singular man): a guy named Lehi and his son Nephi. Another city, called Ani-Anti, was also founded by two men: a guy named Ani and another guy named Anti. The founders got the privilege of having their names incorporated into the surnames of their descendants, who were the people that occupied the land or city.
When the Lamanite converts wanted a name to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Lamanite population, they consulted with Aaron, and came up with Anti-Nephi-Lehi. This took the surname of the descendants of Nephi and Sam (Nephi-Lehi) and incorporated the name of the founder or the leader (or the king) of their group, whose name was Anti, into it. The new leader (the king’s son), was called after his father, Anti, and bore the new surname, Nephi-Lehi. All who followed the king’s son, then, took his name as their surname, being called Anti-Nephi-Lehies. This, of course, made the surrounding Lamanites quite upset, since this was a decidedly Nephite designation. These “Lamanites” had lost their “Lamanitish-ness,” yet they were still residing in Lamanite territory. They had not only given up Lamanite ways, but had given up the Laman-Lehi, Laman-Lemuel-Lehi and Laman-Ishmael designations (Alma 23:17)! To the surrounding Lamanites, this appeared to be a Nephite invasion under the guise of preaching a religion.
The Anti-Nephi-Lehies, after they moved into Nephite territory, were called by the Nephites, Ammon-Nephi-Lehi, not Anti-Nephi-Lehi. This is why the text says they were called (by the Nephites), Ammonites, or the people of Ammon. The curse was lifted from these people (Alma 23:18), so their sons no longer had the dark skin and they fully identified as Nephites (Alma 53:16).
Dissenters from the Nephites always removed the name of Nephi from their surnames, replacing it with the name of a new man they followed. Zoram and the Zoramites (Alma 30:59 & 31:1-8) are a prime example of this. The removal of Nephi’s name from the surname was part of a curse put on Nephi’s enemies by God (Alma 3:17). Conversely, the addition of Nephi’s name to one’s surname allowed the Lord to bless that person as if he or she were Nephi’s people (Alma 3:17).
The information in this post may be important for a couple of reasons. First, anyone who wants to lay hold of the promises of the Lord to Nephi concerning those who are called by his name, need to do as the converted Lamanites did, and change their surname from whatever it currently is to one of the four Nephite designations: Nephi-Lehi, Nephi-Jacob-Lehi, Nephi-Joseph-Lehi or Nephi-Zoram. Or, at the very least, the name Nephi needs to be added to one’s surname, such as Nephi-Smith, Nephi-Cowdery, etc. Secondly, the appearance of the Josephite restorer may be a little easier to perceive if the man’s surname must be: Nephi-Joseph-Lehi.
Now, concerning that Josephite restorer, you will notice that Lehi said the following:
and his name shall be called after me
and it shall be after the name of his father (2 Ne. 3:15)
Now, the surname Nephi-Joseph-Lehi has both the names of Joseph and Lehi in it, so regardless of whether the above text is interpreted as Lehi quoting Joseph, or Lehi issuing his own prophecy, the surname fits, for Nephi-Joseph-Lehi is called both after Joseph and also after Lehi. One more thing—and I will use myself as an example—people are assigned two names: at least one given name and also a surname. My given name is the same name as the given name of my biological father. Our surnames are also the same. So, let’s say that my given name is Philip and so is his. If I were to change my last name to Nephi-Joseph-Lehi, then this prophecy might apply to me, for then my surname (Nephi-Joseph-Lehi) would be called after both Joseph and Lehi, fulfilling the first part of the prophecy, and the second part, which says,
and it [his name, meaning his surname] shall be after the name of his father (2 Ne. 3:15)
also is fulfilled because my (new) surname, Nephi-Joseph-Lehi, is now after the name of my father, for now my name is Philip Nephi-Joseph-Lehi, and Philip is the name of my father. A bit of clever word work, I admit, but it still makes the prophecy fit, which means that our usual interpretation of this passage, that it is always referring to a given name and not to a surname, may be incorrect. This is because in the Nephite tradition, being called after someone else could refer to either being given the same given name as that person (Helaman 5:6—Nephi & Lehi), or having that person’s given name incorporated into one’s surname (Helaman 5:6—Nephi Nephi-Lehi & Lehi Nephi-Lehi).
This opens up the possibility that the Josephite restorer may have any given name whatsoever, such as Richard, Harold, Stephen, etc. The only important thing is that his father also have the same given name and that his surname be Nephi-Joseph-Lehi, or, at the very least, Joseph-Lehi.
Now, having written all of this, everyone can now start the process of legally changing their surnames so that the prophecy of there being Nephites again in the land (2 Ne. 29:13) can begin to be fulfilled. 😉
The scattering of Israel has been the gospel topic du jour in my mind lately. I thought about the prophecy about the state of Israel ceasing to exist and its inhabitants being scattered and then my mind turned to the seed of Lehi on the reservations and I asked myself, “Can the Indians truly be considered in a scattered state if they are gathered onto reservations?” I then wondered if they, too, would be further scattered off of the reservations. My curiosity piqued, I then took up the scriptures to find out if there was any prophetic indications that the scattering of this land’s remnant (Lehi’s seed) was not yet over. Here’s what I found and how I ended up reading (interpreting) the text:
1 Nephi 22:7
Nephi, expounding Isaiah 49:22-23 to his brothers Laman and Lemuel, said:
And it meaneth that the time cometh that AFTER all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered.
Now, notice the timeline of Nephi’s prophecy.
First, “all the house of Israel” will be scattered and confounded. That includes the current State of Israel. So, this prophecy is still future to us.
Second, only AFTER “all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded,” the Lord will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles. I have always been taught that we Americans, the citizens of the United States of America, are that mighty nation that scattered the Indians, but according to this new reading of the text, we are just a shadow fulfillment. After Israel ceases to exist as a State, I suppose we do, too. Then there will be another Gentile nation afterward upon this land, “a mighty” one, which the Lord God will raise up.
Third, it is this other Gentile nation, raised up by the Lord God on this land, after the USA has come and gone, that kicks the seed of Lehi off the reservations. The U.S. Federal government oversees the Indian reservations, so if there is no more federal government, there is no more federal protection for the Indians, and their land is, essentially, up for grabs. No one today dares take the reservation land from the Indians because it is essentially federal government land, and doing so would pit one against the feds, which is a no-win situation. But without the feds, the Indians, which truly are weak these days, are easy prey.
Helaman 15:12
Samuel the Lamanite prophesied the following to the Nephites:
Yea, I say unto you, that in the latter times the promises of the Lord have been extended to our brethren, the Lamanites; and notwithstanding the many afflictions which they shall have, and notwithstanding they shall be driven to and fro upon the face of the earth, and be hunted, and shall be smitten and scattered abroad, having no place for refuge, the Lord shall be merciful unto them.
Although it is true that the Indians have been moved off of their traditional lands, and thus scattered from these lands, the reservations can still be considered places of refuge. Only if they are kicked off of the reservations, and the reservation lands are occupied and inherited by the Gentiles (so that there are no more “reservations”), and the Indians are scattered among the Gentiles, only then can this prophecy of them “having no place for refuge” be literally fulfilled. This interpretation shows, yet again, that the scattering of Israel is not yet complete.
Mormon 5:9
And also that a knowledge of these things must come unto the remnant of these people, and also unto the Gentiles, who the Lord hath said should scatter this people, and this people should be counted as naught among them—therefore I write a small abridgment, daring not to give a full account of the things which I have seen, because of the commandment which I have received, and also that ye might not have too great sorrow because of the wickedness of this people. (Mormon 5:9)
There are two things about this prophecy: first, that the Indians will be counted (by the Gentiles) as nothing, and second, that the Indians will be counted among the Gentiles. In other words, they will be scattered off of their lands and assimilated into the Gentile populations. So, there will be no more Indian lands, no more Indian tribes, no more “Indian” anything. They will completely lose their identity and will incorporate into the Gentiles, yet the Gentiles will not view them as full persons. This reminds me of the 3/5 person accounting of slaves for direct tax apportionment, as written in the U.S. Constitution. If I had to venture a prophetic guess, I would say that the seed of Lehi, at this future point, will enter the Gentile population as slaves, which is why Mormon uses the term “naught” to describe how the Gentiles will count them.
Now, taking this further—for I will treat this interpretation as a prophetic mood, at this point, and see where it leads—if indeed they will enter bona fide slavery among the Gentile population of the new, mighty nation raised up by the Lord God upon this land, then the prophecies of the Book of Mormon which speak of them being brought down into captivity and being brought out of captivity will be fulfilled literally. So, although legal slavery has been abolished in this Gentile nation, the next Gentile nation to appear on this land will bring it back.
Three groups of captives; three divine deliveries
The Book of Mormon prophesies of three groups of people that will be brought down into captivity and then delivered by the power of God: a group of Gentiles, the saints of God and the remnant of this land. Here is an example concerning the Gentile group:
And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.
…
And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations. (1 Nephi 13:13,19)
And these scriptures show the captivity and deliverance of the saints and remnant:
And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity. (1 Nephi 13:5)
Wherefore, Joseph truly saw our day. And he obtained a promise of the Lord, that out of the fruit of his loins the Lord God would raise up a righteous branch unto the house of Israel; not the Messiah, but a branch which was to be broken off, nevertheless, to be remembered in the covenants of the Lord that the Messiah should be made manifest unto them in the latter days, in the spirit of power, unto the bringing of them out of darkness unto light—yea, out of hidden darkness and out of captivity unto freedom. (2 Nephi 3:5)
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory. (1 Nephi 14:14)
Now, by way of explanation, this righteous branch that Lehi spoke of is the remnant of his seed in the latter days*. Jacob prophesied the following:
And behold how great the covenants of the Lord, and how great his condescensions unto the children of men; and because of his greatness, and his grace and mercy, he has promised unto us that our seed shall not utterly be destroyed, according to the flesh, but that he would preserve them; and in future generations they shall become a righteous branch unto the house of Israel. (2 Nephi 9:53)
It would appear then, according to these scriptures (and others that I will not get into), that prior to the final scattering of the remnant upon this land and their entrance into captivity (slavery), a great and abominable church must be in existence, one which brings the saints into captivity (slavery) and which, perhaps, is also responsible for the captivity of the aforementioned Gentiles (who go out of captivity) and the subsequent captivity of the remnant. The appearance of that great and abominable church is a prophetic marker, which indicates the final phase of the scattering. It should be fairly easy to identify the church when it is formed, since slavery (and other abominations) will be one of its tenets.
Mormon 5:20
Finally, Mormon also wrote this, concerning the scattering of the remnant of this land:
But behold, it shall come to pass that they shall be driven and scattered by the Gentiles; and AFTER they have been driven and scattered by the Gentiles, behold, THEN will the Lord remember the covenant which he made unto Abraham and unto all the house of Israel. (Mormon 5:20)
This means that the scattering of Israel begins with all the other tribes of Israel (they are the first to be scattered) and ends with the seed of Lehi (they are the last to be scattered.) And only after the seed of Lehi is finally and fully scattered, then and only then will the Lord remember the covenant that He made to all the tribes of Israel, to bring them out of captivity, gather them, restore them to their lands and to the knowledge of their fathers, etc. Then the last tribal branch that was scattered (the seed of Lehi) will be the first tribal branch that will begin to be gathered, and so on and so forth (first to last and last to first.)
*And when they repent and come to Christ, they shall take upon themselves the name of Nephi, calling themselves Nephites, which is a topic I might fully unfold in a future post. In the meantime, see here and here.
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 sicknessshall 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 planetbut 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. 22nd, 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 3rd 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 5th to 12th 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, “EEAAOOAAEEAAOOAAEEAAOOAAEEAAOOAAEE.” 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 fathersfarthest 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 everlastingin-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, orelse 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 nopurpose 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.”
RETURN TO OZ – RETURN TO US – RETURN OF THE LAND OF ZION
Have we come full circle, across the rainbow and back again to Kansas, without even recognizing the shift? Not to worry, such has been the case with many a traveler. We have learned much concerning the far-reaching links between
1. Space(s)–especially centers, heartlands, or heart-stars–the multidimensional Kansas
2. Time(s)–past or future only as extensions from the present–multigenerational Kansas
3. Season(s)–the passage of time through spiritual/physical topographies-current Kansas
The name Kansas itself is connected with the idea of “wind”. The Kansa tribe was known as “the people of the south wind” (In the original Oz books, Glinda was the Good Witch of the South). Wind is a current and weather can be seen as a spiritual connective flow circulating throughout all creation. The state of Kansas that we know is only one meaty chunk toward the tip of a penetrating Kolob Kabob. Revolutions toward the top base of the downward pointing skewer are spinning in a much wider compass. As those same motions swirl lower and lower, the cosmic funnel cloud eventually touches down, like a tightly wound tornado on the temporal plane of this central plain. Great stirrings seem to be going on in current-day Iran (seasonal), where medieval Muslim mystics once wrote in visionary travel-logs (temporal) of the “emerald cities” – Jabarsa and Jabalqa, which are said to exist respectively in the oriental and occidental regions of that interworld isthmus of Na-koja-abad (spatial). But peeking beyond the physical veil covering this globe of dirt, might we uncover some dirt on these globalists running the show from Tehran to Topeka? What exactly is behind the Arab Spring, is it a synthetic season we are witnessing in the middle-east? What exactly is behind the recent outbreak of tornadic activity during late spring of this year in the American mid-west, was it manufactured meteorological madness? Both boisterous occurrences are boastfully broadcast via modern weapons of mass distraction in the media. But remember, poet/prophet Gil Scott-Heron told us, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!”
A reverent long-time student of the Afrikan divination tradition known as Ifá writes:
“Those who try to control Nature are inviting a disruptive encounter with Esu the Divine Trickster. I have seen my teachers alter the weather. They were not making a demand, they were making a request. There’s a difference.” – Falokun Fatunmbi
Oh how vitally important it is for us to learn to recognize the real gods from the fake ones, to distinguish clearly between the proper usage of power and the abuse of it. We must stop dividing the universe into two forces, one of good and another evil and admit that it is all one power; so that man and his gods, the hearts of the children and the hearts of the fathers may finally be reconciled and so that peace can again reign. Only by confronting and deconstructing the false gods we have fashioned and empowered can we ever hope to bring again the real city of Zion. When we bring Her on down it will simultaneously “bring down” the Wicked Witch of the West. On that glorious day, when we activate the wind-power of our inner Door-o-Thee Gale, we, along with Glinda the Good Witch of the North Countries (Lost Tribes), can say: “Be gone with you, before someone drops a (Zion) house on you!”
The synchronous symbolism linking Mormon teachings regarding Zion and the story of the Wizard of Oz is copious and very particular but at times not so obvious to the eyes of the world. I would like to point out a few interesting coinciding instances (coincidences) running through Salt Lake and Hollywood. Hollywood’s most recent work based off of L. Frank Baum’s Oz book series is a 2013 Disney production called Oz the Great and Powerful. The movie focuses on Oscar “Oz” Diggs, a womanizing con artist, stage magician, and barnstormer who is part of a traveling circus in the midwest. Even when Oscar gets whisked away to the magical land of Oz, where to his surprise his arrival is seen by the inhabitants as the fulfillment of prophecy and he is heralded as a great wizard, still he is eventually accused of being intimately involved with multiple witches at the same time. In this regard, the movie’s main character is meant to reflect Joseph Smith.
The first person Oscar meets after running for his life and somehow ending up in this strange new world, is Theodora, the naïve witch of the west who eventually turns into the most wicked of all. Theodora is a type and shadow of the naïve group which was entrusted with a theology that was once restorative, collective, all-inclusive, liberating and ever developing in the light of truth; but who’s intellectual, emotional, spiritual sloth and ever growing pride has condemned the group to lie under a lost legacy/labor of love. Jesus is commanded by the Father to speak plainly unto the Nephites and by way of them unto the Latter-Day Gentiles in 3 Nephi 16:10.
“And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you: At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them.”
The words He speaks in this verse aptly apply to American gentiles in general, but it must be remembered that the Savior’s words recorded in the Book of Mormon are most specifically speaking to and of the Mormons. As this prophecy fulfills itself we see the Church deteriorate. Those who inherit Joseph’s role as religious leader have openly admitted that they have never matched his ability as a prophet. They have not received their callingfrom theDivine, and this, more than anything, because they fail to remember that a life calling like that of Joseph, is initiated by callingon theDivine in faith, “nothing wavering”. And though the issue is more complicated than one might suppose at first glance, it is clear that the Church Presidents have, on various levels, been shams, not only in the eyes of critics but in the eyes of the Lord.
It matters not at all what the world thinks, because the Lord is no respecter of persons. But it does matter what God’s children think of themselves, because their thoughts will either make or break the relationship they have with their Heavenly Father. In Oz the Great and Powerful, Oscar Diggs has a self image that is anything but great and powerful. In the opening scenes he expresses to a love interest, his desire to do great things. She has more faith in his ability to be a great man than he does in himself. This is the real conflict of the plot and what the magician/trickster has to overcome to finally release the greatness from his heart and through his mind. In this regard, the movie’s main character is meant to reflect Gordon B. Hinckley.
Art is never accidental; it is always on purpose, even and especially when that purpose does not originate in the conscious mind but is rooted in the preconscious. The film is said to take place in the same time period in which Gordon Bitner Hinckley was born, but the plot of course crosses over boundaries of time and space once Oscar Diggs finds himself over the rainbow. Oscar reflects Hinckley in many subtle and yet succinct ways. The two are interested in magic and can be seen waving their iconic white hankies in front of the people. As men with a deep and enduring belief that is sadly besieged by secrets both Oscar and Gordon feel and know that in many ways they are being frauds. They nonetheless have a mission which involves many other people yet can only be performed by them. At first, Finley the Flying Monkey is the only one who knows Oz’s secret. Oz confides in Finley that he is not a real wizard, but of course reality is mostly a matter of perception and that can change with a little faith.
Finley the fantastical character in this movie is a representation of Thomas J. Finley from the Talbot School of Theology. In 2002 Finley wrote a highly critical article entitled, “Does the Book of Mormon Reflect an Ancient Near Eastern Background?” in a publication called The New Mormon Challenge. This article was used in many other books and pieces attacking the authenticity of the LDS Church’s claims. Gordon, had always been a masterful P.R.iest and P.R.eacher, but those holding master’s degrees in the field of theology felt jealous and threatened by the advances the Mormon President had made with his P.R. skills and sought to pull the rug out from underneath him. Hinckley knew that the concept of public relations is only more powerful than theology because it a step closer to the true source of power – i.e. the public or the people themselves. No one can use theology to control the masses unless they can first succeed in getting the masses to accept, embrace and embody that theology. Gordon B. responded to the The New Mormon Challenge with his own Book of Mormon Challenge for the LDS Church members. Latter-Day Saints world-wide, both of the wheat and tare caliber, engaged in a sort of scriptural chug-a-lug contest, trying to down the entire Book of Mormon within a period of 5 months. The grand majority of members, who qualify as the Drunkards of Ephraim foretold by Isaiah, drank condemnation down “straight” like high-school scripture “chasers” in LDS Seminary. There were those of us who may not have completed the leader’s challenge exactly as it was put to us, but who nonetheless made wise use of the intake of strong “spirits” to strengthen our own spirits. In the end, mistakes do not matter once the purifying power of the Holy Spirit is applied.
HINCKLEY MAKES A SPRINKLEY
Speaking of Hinckley and the subconscious symbolism linking his life to the main character in the 2013 prequel to the Wizard of Oz series, there is a word which that character uses repeatedly throughout the film – “Prestidigitation!” Prestidigitation means sleight of hand, which is what Oz uses in his tricks. President Hinckley was known for his frequent and deliberate hand gestures when performing before large crowds. But how about conjuring up large clouds? Is there something to be said for the connection between sleight of hand and weather manipulation besides the fact that the words prestidigitation and precipitation sound vaguely similar? Well, towards the climax of the movie Oz puts his tricks to good use in defense of the oppressed people of the land by creating a big cloud upon which he projects a hologram of his face to scare the wicked witches into retreat. But all of that was only special effects.
On the 26th of April, 1999, President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed an audience of 57,500 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Santiago, Chile. This was roughly 10% of the country’s total LDS population. The event still holds the record as the Church’s largest-ever gathering of members in one place at one time. His remarks were rather brief but the entire occasion was heavy with water symbolism. The attendees came from other outlying areas as well, but local Santiago residents and travelers alike found the skies to be heavy with rain clouds on the morning of the President’s arrival. This was significant since the area had been suffering a pretty severe drought. As one full-time missionary in attendance noted, “Usually a rainy day means low attendance levels at the wards and branches around here, but in this case everyone was so excited to see the prophet.” That electric excitement filled the air and a light drizzle started to fall. When the meeting officially commenced the light drizzle ceased and the entire throng listened intently as their guest of honor spoke.
Gordon expressed his love for the Chilean people and reminisced about a visit to Chile he had made 30 years earlier almost to the date. Back in 1969 there had been a drought even more severe than this one. President Hinckley said: “There had been no rainfall for a very long time, and I was here to dedicate a chapel in La Cisterna. [Cisterna is Spanish for Cistern which is a large receptacle for catching and storing rainwater.] During the prayer of dedication I prayed and pleaded with the Lord for moisture.” President Hinckley quoted the words of Robert Burton, who was serving as a mission president in Chile in 1969: “The day after Elder Hinckley’s visit, the rain began to fall in southern Chile. Gradually the rain clouds moved north, bringing welcome moisture to the entire country.” President Hinckley then continued: “That was not my doing. That was the work of God our Eternal Father in behalf of the people of this land. I believe that it was an answer to the faith and the prayers of the Latter-day Saints, then few in number, whose very presence and whose very faith came to bless the entire nation.”
Upon closing his remarks in the name of Jesus Christ, the multitude uttered the typical “Amen” and then Hinckley suddenly turned back to the pulpit and leaning towards the microphone, he said, “Let it rain!” The translator, taken off guard, hurried back into place to provide the Spanish translation for Hinckley’s tag-on declaration and the multitude then sang a closing hymn, followed by a benediction after which the clouds overhead burst. Happy faces could be seen everywhere as faithful Latter-Day Saint families scurried under the downpour back into the busses, cars and metro trains that had brought them to Santiago’s National Stadium that day to hear a man who they considered a mouthpiece for the Lord.
Those witnesses to this amazing event spoke of it for weeks to come. But I would say that they did not really think about what had happened. I write of it now to review the circumstances and reveal a few of the “magician’s tricks”. First of all, through his reference to past events in a 30 year time cycle (tiempo in Spanish means both time and weather), Gordon B. Hinckley was careful to point out in the words of his talk, that he alone was not responsible for the rainfall. He could perhaps take humble credit as a facilitator of faith. But it was God ultimately who did it, and God works by faith.
A precedent for this type of thing was set in this era by Church President Lorenzo Snow. The appositely named apostle, Snow, brought forth desperately needed rainfall for the drought stricken people and land of Utah around the turn of the century. How did he do it? Simple, he aligned a physical action (giving tithing) with the spoken word (a conference talk wherein he made a prophetic promise to the people) and linked the two with a specific desire (rainfall). Desire is itself a combination of the eternal elements of thought and feeling. God has thoughts and feelings, man has thoughts and feelings. It is the mixing of mudras with mantras, gestures with spoken word, which serve to align the thoughts and feelings of man with those of the gods.
Notice who Hinckley was addressing when he said, “Let it rain!” – the faithful people who filled that stadium. And it was they who were most responsible for the cloudburst. The water was trapped up there in heaven, ready to fall, and awaited only action on the part of the people on earth. Even the greatest magi of all times, Jesus of Nazareth, was quick to remind those to whom he extended His healing hands of the details of the process by which the individual’s faith brought forth the blessing. In multitudes of thousands or much smaller settings, the process between giver and receiver is instantaneously personal and collective. God is the giver and God is the gift, however if God is not perceived as the receiver too, then the flow of faith can be somewhat limited.
WEATHER HAPPENS WHETHER OR NOT WE CHOOSE TO BE MIRACLE MAKERS
So, if faith is such a powerful tool why is it not used to do greater things on a consistent basis to correct the awful situation of the violent and cruel world of today? The answer is simple but terrifying to most and therefore largely ignored. As alluded to in previous sections, the faith of the people is what makes the world go ‘round. And, every 24 hours of that world-go-round, faith is actively used, mostly for evil. Channeled through ideology and idolatrous institutions, the faith of individuals gets sucked dry daily in order to “make it rain” for false gods atop Mount Olympus. The devil tries to tell people he does not exist, but alas, we do not believe him when he speaks this profound dark truth, only when he tells us flattering light charged lies. He is, after all, an apparition of the vain imaginings of men.
This is the reason why the same colossus arena that hosted Hinkley’s Sprinkley was the site of mass murders under conservative leader, Augusto Pinochet. And it is a well documented fact that the phenomenal growth of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since those years has a direct correlation to the violence instigated by the state against the humble people of Chile who President Hinckley tearfully thanked for their devotion. So, while the coffers of the Church fill with tithing funds, the neighborhood of La Cisterna (The Cistern) in Santiago, where Elder Hinckley prayed for rain so many decades ago, remains a poor run down ghetto full of hard-working people making a meager living and dying in squalor, in vain. While the coffins of “The Brethren” are watered by the tears of adoring church-goers, unnoticed fall the tears of TheSistren, as the Rastas would call them – strong and stoic sisters of the darker races of this earth who stand in stark contrast to the rich white males who run the religious/political institutions of the world.
Dead men tell no tales. A portion of the spirit identified by millions as Gordon B. Hinckley wants to now, posthumously release his inner wizard. Mingling with gods, he and Joseph, and countless heavenly hosts of others desire all to receive it – the key of power. The key comes not a second to soon, as, in the words of clueless Church Authority, Lance B. Wickman, or at least the words of his writers, “we are swept along in great events that we can neither fully understand nor control.” That’s a convenient cop-out for people like Elder Wickman and Elder Robert Oaks who have spent their entire lives taking their marching orders from both the Imperial Armed Forces and the Unholy Church. They appeared alongside Elder Voyd K. Packer and others in a 2008 video which shared the title of Packer’s 1991 book reissued in 2010, and twisted Jesus’ message of “Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled” into one of perverted peace, or Pax Romana.
Perhaps the weather patterns in which we are “swept along,” according to Wickman, would not be so impossible to “fully comprehend [or] control” if we would simply acknowledge that the G.P.O. (Great and Powerful Oz) works with the same writers as the G.O.P. (Grand Old Party). They are all false prophets and fakirs, proponents of the false Oz, a fake Zion. Recently, weather patterns in the Mammon controlled mass media shifted when Cumulus Media, the second biggest broad/forecaster in the country, announced it is planning to drop talking heads Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh from its stations at the end of the year. Taking his lead from the LDS Church, Hannity, told his listeners: “Business has never been better thanks to all of you out there. Let not your heart be troubled. There are forces at work here that I will explain in due course, I promise. I just can’t really explain it now. I’m not trying to be mysterious here but it’s something that is unfolding and I am frankly excited about it all and we’ll keep you up to speed as soon as I can, I promise.” This at least sounds like much more of a promising message than the hollow and helpless rhetoric of Elder Wickman. Hannity continued, “We have about 540 radio station affiliates on the Sean Hannity show. And there’s a report out this morning that a group that has 40 of them may drop Hannity and Limbaugh, Limbaugh and Hannity… blasphemy. And, I can only tell you, that there are many options in many markets, are there not?… The point is that, you know, if that’s what somebody chooses to do then that’s their choice. Everyone has free will, free choices in life, but I can very confidently tell the audience that I am confident… let their hearts not be troubled.”
Dropping code words like “business” and “blasphemy,” the false prophets of this age seek to lead away the hearts of the people. And in order to do this it is crucial for them that we let not our hearts be troubled to the point of waking up and investing our trust in the True and Living God by exercising our “free will” against the “forces at work” in this wicked world. This LNYHBT mantra is used several times in the Book of John. Sean hi-jacked it and has been using it on air since 2008 – the same year that the Church released a video by the same title. The two sides of supposedly separate institutional platforms are mirroring each other closely. Between conference talks by Quentin L. Crook of the Quorum of the 12 Apostates and U.N. addresses by pushers of Agenda 21, we hear the exact same talking points. As Moses wished, God’s true people should all be metaphysical meteorologists, prophets and prognosticators, and should all be watching the word magic of the secret combination of Church & State very alertly.
In The Thermo Dynamics & Eternodynamics of Desire – Continued, I made brief mention of a literary and oral technique employed by the forked tongue elite priest class who once ran ancient pre-Colombian societies, literally, into the ground. Difrasismo is a term derived from Spanish that is used in the study of certain Mesoamerican languages, to describe a particular grammatical construction in which two separate words are paired together to form a single metaphoric unit which may carry a meaning completely separate from either of the words when used independently. It is therefore fitting that the term difrasismo, while referring to a dichotomy of phrases, also happens to resemble the Spanish word for disguise – disfraz. An example of this linguistic disguising of meaning is found in the Nahuatl expression “cuitlapilli ahtlapalli” or “in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli”, literally “the tail, the wing”, used in a metaphoric sense to mean “the people” or “the common folk”. Another example would be “tēmōxtli, ehecatl”, that literally means “dust, wind” but appearing together would take on the secret meaning of “sickness”.
We find this strange grouping of the ideas of dust, wind, and sickness in the Book of Mormon. In Mosiah 7: 30, King Limhi addresses his people.
And again, he [the Lord] saith: If my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the chaff thereof in the whirlwind; and the effect thereof is poison.
I always read this scripture and found it quite odd since, in our language, we don’t typically relate the idea of a whirlwind with poison. But upon making the correlation with the common practice of difrasismo in ancient American writings, it makes more sense. When this thing was first made known to me, I was struck by two startling revelations. It was sort of an A+B=C, difrasismo effect stemming from the very discovery of the Nahuatl phrase: “tēmōxtli, ehecatl”. When I found out that the words “dust” and “wind” coupled together meant “sickness”, I instantly had the horrifying thought of airborne disease. From there my mind was led to discover further links between these ideas in the scripture and modern day prophecy of the calamities that await those who sow filthiness upon this American continent. The modern day revelation I speak of is not limited to sources of truth thought to be monopolized and distributed by dutiful LDS service(s). It deals with atmospheric pressures as they flow through inter-dimensional wind tunnels and move over multi-generational Mosiahs.
The third mystery veiled by our unwillingness to recognize the relationship between two supposedly separate things – like the Church & State, Mesoamerican tradition and Book of Mormon verses, between dust and wind, or airborne toxins and Latter-Day Gentiles – can be unveiled by the spiritual identification of import inside these secret-combinations of outwardly different things. We had once foolishly supposed “opposition in all things” to mean some sort of necessary eternal conflict (except of course in cases of Church sustainings when no one with a “clean” heart ought to oppose, right?). We vainly hoped to lock ourselves into the “Lord’s side”, never realizing in our pride that these opposing forces were naturally engaged in a creative relationship, creating and spreading evil unhindered all across the face of the land (the troposphere). But now, as metaphysical meteorologists with spiritually opened eyes we see the potential for good and evil in all things. Will we accept, with spiritually open arms, our personal responsibility not only as weather reporters, but real weathermen and weatherwomen? Or, will we shun shamanism and cling to carnal security like some scared-stupid suckers in Satan’s sick and twisted cyclone of death and destruction?
Since many labor under the false impression that membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provides them with some kind of virtuous brownie points in the eyes of the Lord, it is necessary that I write a bit more before giving the plain, simple truths which are at once spiritual as well as temporal in their relevance to us. Because these white guys in ties, LDS propped-up puppets are not always so reliable as prophets, we should not make the mistake of thinking they are the quorum of 12 apostles called by the Lord to be His special witnesses in any given time period. There are not so much as 2 true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ among that prideful bunch. But from Jesus Christ Himself by way of the record keeping of Mormon and Moroni, and also through the receptive mind of Joseph Smith, we receive the reality. It is a reality that spells doom for the Gentiles’ time of authority in general, a reality which only leaves the possibility of escape for those true disciples, be they proven and purified remnant or genuinely repentant Gentile.
And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
And there shall be men standing in that generation, that shall not pass until they shall see an overflowing scourge; for a desolating sicknessshall cover the land.
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.
D&C 45:30-32
Well may we ask ourselves: “Where are the Lord’s true apostles? Where are the Lord’s true disciples? And, where are the Lord’s true holy places?” The ultimate answers to all these questions and more can only be true if they are all found in one place…YOU!
The name/word môšiac (pronounced moe-shee-ah and transliterated as Mosiah) is a word peculiar to Hebrew, a “word invariably implying a champion of justice in a situation of controversy, battle or oppression” according to John Sawyer in an article from the Old Testament journal Vetus Testamentum published in 1965. A BYU Maxwell Institute article fleshes out the details of this Hebrew word:
“Apparently the form of the word Mosiah is a “hiphil participle” in Hebrew. It occurs in the Hebrew in Deuteronomy 22:27; 28:29; Judges 12:3; Psalms 18:41; and Isaiah 5:29—texts that in all probability were on the Plates of Brass. This word, however, was not transliterated into the English by the King James translators, and thus the Hebrew would not have been known to Joseph Smith. It was, however, known and used as a personal name in the Book of Mormon, as well as by people in the Jewish colony at Elephantine in the fifth century B.C.”
Sawyer’s exhaustive studies led him to conclude that the term applied to a particular kind of person or role and was sometimes a title designating “a definite office or position.” Typical of this office are the following traits:
1. The môšiac is a victorious hero appointed by God.
2. He liberates a chosen people from oppression, controversy, and injustice after they cry out for help.
3. Their deliverance is usually accomplished by means of a nonviolent escape or negotiation.
4. The immediate result of the coming of a môšiac was “escape from injustice, and a return to a state of justice where each man possesses his rightful property.”
5. On a larger scale, “final victory means the coming of môšicim [plural, pronounced moe-shee-eem] to rule like Judges over Israel.”
The Book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon is then aptly titled as it is an account of many living examples of God’s greatness in the form of men who accepted the role of deliverer for their people. Like Hinckley before him, LDSAnarchist has speculated about the divine attributes inherent in the name/term Mormon. While Mormon may very well mean “More Good”, as Mormon was indeed a man who gathered and embodied the “more righteous” parts of his people, still, God is bigger than Mormon. God is not LDS. God has foreordained and will continue to call Moshim among all people in all times and all places.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was one such man, a Moshiah among Moshim. Born the 17th of August, 1887 in Jamaica, Marcus Garvey was a prophet with a message of empowerment for what, in many ways, is the most downtrodden people on the planet in this dispensation. 3 Ne. 29:8 admonishes us to:
“not any longer hiss, nor spurn, nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the house of Israel”
In this century, propaganda has induced the killing of many cultural Jews, and propaganda has hyped up the suffering of European Jews under the 3rd Reich for the purposeful blinding of the world to the more intense and ongoing suffering of billions in Asia and Afrika and America. Holywood Jews fund periodic propaganda films to supposedly remind the world not to repeat the cruel history of “The” Holocaust, meanwhile genocide and holocausts are in turn funded through support of the U.N. created state of counterfeit Israel.
The Afrikan Diaspora is scripturally a closer match than most groups who publicly proclaim to be the literal blood of Israel scattered far and wide upon the face of the earth today. Who else so literally fulfills scripture by being forcibly “removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt”? (Jer.24:9) The Diaspora of Scots-Irish from the 1820s till the mid 1940s, and the current immigration of Hispanic people, particularly Mexicans, into all parts of the world could be said to have been to their hurt. Certainly they’ve endured their fair share of taunts and have been called “Dirty Micks” or “Dirty Spics”. However, these people left their poverty-stricken homelands to pursue job opportunities they were not “removed”. What other group more fully fits this scriptural description of a “reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse”? Years of colonization in their own motherland has caused many Afrikans to view their dark skin as a curse to be remedied with the use of chemical bleaching. Who other than black people have more visibly and valiantly fulfilled that role of a people to be “afflicted, and to be slain (lynchings from as far back as the 1800s to as recent as the 1980s), and to be cast out from among them, (segregation) and to become hated by them (violent and silent forms of racism), and to become a hiss and a byword (the infamous N-word) among them in all places” (from South Carolina to South Africa), all exactly as stated in 3Nephi 16:9?
Did you happen to see George W. Bush wiping his hand off on Bill Clinton’s neatly pressed shirt after clamoring Haitian youths had reached out and touched it? The very fact that those afflicted young people of Haiti (the poor man’s Afrika in more ways than one) responded so enthusiastically to the visit of Gringo Gadiantons, neglecting to see the greatness in their own bright black spirits – which in times past were responsible for the first seeds and fruits of the freedom revolution in the Americas – is a symptom of their acute amnesia. A god-like people who have forgotten their identity, Deut. 28:37 describes them as “an astonishment”. Indeed it is nothing short of astonishing to see the Spirit of God Almighty descend so low into Forgetfulness (Menasseh), to take on the image of man (human form), as per the words of Abinadi who stated clearly in Mosiah 7:27-28 that “it should be the image after which (hue)man was created in the beginning (ab-original)” long before the younger brother Ephraim (Was Fruitful). In some West Afrikan dialects, including Yoruba, Abi is an extremely common prefix used in names and it means “to be born”. Ironically, in some Native American dialects from the Southeast, including Chickasaw and Choctaw, Abi means “to kill” or “to abort”. Abinadi’s name is assumed to be of Hebrew origin and thus would translate to something along the lines of: “My Father is Present with You”. Is it not astonishing, or at very least ironic, that the SonofMan would be “despised and rejected (aborted or ejected) ofmen,” as Abinadi quoting Isaiah reminds us later on in Mosiah 14:3?
Marcus Garvey spoke to that matter of esteem and knew that it started with self, since one can neither love God nor neighbor if he loves not himself. Marcus said: “Christ the crucified, Christ the despised, we appeal to you for help, for leadership… Why should we be discouraged if somebody laughs at us today? Did they not laugh at Christ, Moses, Muhammad?… Then why not see good and perfection in ourselves?” In several verses in the Old Testament the despised and scattered House of Israel is referred to as “a proverb”. The image of Afrikan people standing in chains on auction blocks, being whipped and bloodied on plantations in the New World is the most explicit and urgent “proverb” that the entire human race needs to hearken to and comprehend. They are a proverb that tells us that mankind is in bondage, that humans have become slaves to devilish entities and now is the time for us to get off our knees and rise to remembrance of our glory as children of the gods.
Garvey sparked a movement specifically aimed at inspiring those of Afrikan ancestry to “redeem” Afrika. His was and is an aggressive preparation for revolutionary and real redemption of the dead, true temple work. Afrika and Afrikans represent the roots of humankind, the original people on the planet, and the first we find in the early history and pre-history of any place on the globe – including the promised land of the Americas. Long before Lehi & Co. arrived this land was inhabited by black skinned people. That’s why the first time that the Book of Mormon mentions the so-called “curse” on those people who were branded with the general term Lamanites, it describes it with the phrase “a skin of blackness” (2 Nephi 5:21), but later in the record the skins of Laman and Lemuel’s mixed posterity are described simply as “dark” (Alma 3:6). From at least as far north as the Mississippi River Valley down at least as far south as Brazil, there is archeological evidence in the form of skeletal remains which testifies to the widespread presence of Negroid races. The civilizations appear to have spread out from a point in-between those two latitudes, from the eastern shores of Central America, where the young Marcus felt led to travel between the years of 1910 and 1912.
As a black man, Garvey was a servant of the Lord pushing for one more, last-ditch effort to save all the trees of the Vineyard by preserving the original roots of the original tree. In the Jacob 5 analogy, well-known to Mormons, it becomes apparent to the Lord and His Servant that, in order to save the trees of the Vineyard, it will be necessary to disencumber them from the lofty branches which are taking all the strength unto themselves and rejecting the roots. The lofty branches represent the most recent development in the upward growth of the tree, but the Lord has decreed that they will have to be pruned and burned. The message of the Messiah as well as that of His Mosiah does not sit well with the G.O.P. (Grumpy Old Pretenders) who lead the Church. Thus, you will not hear any talk of the “overflowing scourge” among them, as they choose to keep the focus of the flock on things that make themselves look good. Dead Presidents speak louder than Living Profits in this bizarre masquerade. I don’t think there is much truth to be gleaned from Pres. Woodruff’s suspect claims of having been spoken to by past presidents of the United States. But like the true Lion in Zion, Prophet Robert N. Marley told the world, there is a “natural mystic floating through the air”. If you listen carefully now you will hear dead Church president, George Albert Smith, leaking deadly secrets like a G.A.S. To continue quoting from Marley’s song: “This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last…Many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die. Don’t ask me why.”
It should be painfully obvious by this point that the time of the Gentiles is coming to a quick close. The how, what, where and why, as well as the who of the massive destruction of this Gentile empire can be revealed clearly to those who read the scriptures with a broken heart and contrite spirit. The scriptures give us many consistent clues. How will it come? – “Speedily!” What will it look like? – “A whirlwind!” (D&C 112:24) And that is just the beginning, we are told. Where will it start? – “Upon my House” (D&C 112:25) Why will it happen? – “The kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains.” (2 Nephi 28:19) Who will bring this mass destruction about? Well it is typically assumed that it is the Lord who will do it, but what exactly does that mean to a people who know not the Lord? The Lord works in this realm via willing servants. Remember in Mosiah 7: 30, the Lord, via Limhi, said:
“If my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the chaff thereof in the whirlwind; and the effect thereof is poison.”
Marcus Mosiah Garvey showed himself to be a worthy and willing servant of the Lord when he said:
“If death hath power then count on me to be the real Marcus Garvey I would like to be. If I may come in an earthquake, or a plague, or a pestilence, or as God would have me, then be assured that I shall never desert you and let your enemies triumph over you.”
The Lord certainly inspired his servant when he said:
“Look for me in the whirlwind or a storm, look for me all around you, for with God’s grace I shall come back with countless millions of black men and women who have died in America, those who have died in the West Indies and those who have died in Africa to aid you in the fight for liberty, freedom and life.”
“And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder.”
2 Nephi 26:5
“Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them.”
Alma 26:6
“And now, whoso readeth, let him understand; he that hath the scriptures, let him search them, and see and behold if all these deaths and destruction by fire, and by smoke, and by tempests, and by whirlwinds, and by the opening of the earth to receive them, and all these things are not unto the fulfilling of the prophecies of many of the holy prophets.”
3 Nephi 10:14
The first prophecy of the Book of Mormon scriptures listed above was recorded by founding father, Nephi, circa 559–545 B.C. And although it greatly pained Nephi to behold the loss of life among his people in the distant future, he exclaimed that God was “fair” in his dealings with the “fair ones”. The second prophecy was uttered by Ammon around 90–77 B.C. Ammon was rejoicing in the righteousness of recent converts to the Lord who were assumingly dead and long gone by the time that Nephi, son of Nephi and grandson of Helaman, records the terrible calamities that took place about A.D. 34–35. What “storm at the last day” is Ammon claiming these souls have avoided if the long foretold destruction did not come about till over a century later when we would suppose that those people Ammon was speaking of would have been unaffected by the storms described by Nephi at the virtual end of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations?
Of course the divisive classification of Nephites and Lamanites would only take a brief hiatus of 200-240 years before resuming. And the eyes of some will see that the Nephite survivors were never in fact willing to fully take upon them the name of Christ to the divestment of the name of Nephi. Instead they chose to repeat the pride cycle. In their minds they were insistent that the name Nephi meant “good” and by default, Laman had to be “bad”. This is not the godly and productive “opposition in all things” which Father Lehi tried to explain to his contentious sons. The name Nephi was derived from the Egyptian word nFr which as an adjective means “good, or “goodly” and as a noun denotes “goodness.” But if Nephi was such “good” guy, acquainted with the “goodness” and the mysteries of God, maybe he ought to have listened more to his “goodly” parents, who desired good things and unity for all their posterity, and not to have perpetuated a national story which painted himself, Sam and Jacob as favored saints while casting Laman and Lemuel as cursed heathens.
There is nothing wrong with seeing goodness or even perfection in one’s self, just as Marcus Garvey encouraged, but how real is that goodness, yea how great is that darkness if your supposed light is not even bright enough to let you see the same good in others? Are we guilty of doing the same thing with the name of Mormon? No, this would be a continuation and therefore aggrandizement of the pride of the fallen self-righteous Nephite culture. We are not making the same mistake, but rather are doing it the way everything is done in America, “bigger and better”! Nephi means “good”…Mormon means “more good”…I sense a storm brewing. In 3 Nephi 5:20 Mormon identifies himself as a “pure descendent of Lehi”. As the forces of evil attempt to whip up a race war, it will be key for anyone who identifies on any level with the name Mormon, to notice that what Mormon seems to touting as something special are the promises through Lehi not necessarily limited to Nephi. Let us not be guilty of ignoring or neglecting God’s prophets as the Nephites, even the “more righteous” Nephites, did with Samuel. And because the Lord told Mormon that the “greater things” which He personally taught to a select group of ancient American inhabitants would be withheld from those who read the Book of Mormon without an eye of faith, it is then most important to realize that the crucial part of that phrase, “pure descendent of Lehi” is the word “pure”. Racial purity does not equate to spiritual purity.
Now, to bring my comments back around to the topic of weather, that subject to which humanity seems to turn as an international default in casual conversation. I believe that weather is a constant expression of eternity, and like Clarence “13X” Smith, I believe that it results from and reflects mankind’s use or misuse of the raw emotion and will power which GOD has granted us. Whether the weather is “good” or “bad” is not only a matter of perspective but a matter of how we choose to grapple with, glide through, or gripe about the weather. I know that weather is closely related to the passage of time, and that by observing it, we may identify many cycles from which we are meant to learn. I firmly believe that the development of time does not just follow a straight linear path. Therefore I see these time cycles as spiraling out from a central point or eye, in a similar pattern to that which we see tropical storms take.
From founding father Nephi’s prognostication of foreboding weather to the tumultuous events in the days of 3rd Nephi was a cycle of roughly 500-600 years. The eye of that slow building, spiritual-to-physical storm could theoretically be located at around 250-300 years into the cyclone from its periphery. That periphery penetrates through the outer edge of another coming cycle as these storms spiral out in almost a Mandelbrot style, making exact time calculation according to man’s reckoning almost a complete waste of time. Focusing inward has always been the secret message of the prophets, because in this way one becomes Christ Centered and able to endure life’s storms. This is literally shown to be sure if we will measure the approximately 250 year span of time from the beginning stages of the Nephite/Lamanite storm system to its opposite outer edge and find ourselves smack dab in the calm eye of the next stage in this raging storm. This proverbial “calm before the storm” is centered around Christ’s actual visit, and that number 250 pops up again as the approximate time frame for perceived peace after Christ’s visit to that people.
One of the key elements that is most often missed by observers of these time-storms is the multi-gene-rational theme. It is as if the passing of DNA spirals sends our heads spinning in a spiritual swirl when, in reality, it could just as easily be the other way around – the upper vortex perpetuating the lower “through all gene-rations of time, and throughout all eternity.” There is really no need for any upheaval unless it is to correct unequal distribution of energy from the upper and lower vortices of our Merkabah Chariots. But we can find our peace to be short lived when Satan has “great power, unto the stirringup of the people to do all manner of iniquity (inequality), and to the puffingthem up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the world,” as was the case when the tempests and tremors preceding Christ’s visit in the Americas were rapidly approaching (3 Nephi 6:15). Only 13 short years after the Nephites had supposedly fixed all their governmental problems, the church was broken up into classes in all the land “save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for they were firm, and steadfast, and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord,” (3 Nephi 6:14). Hmm…sounds like the same Lamanites of whom Ammon had said: “Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them,” (Alma 26:6). This could not be the same group of Lamanites in the flesh unless the group to whom Ammon was referring were all newborn babies at that moment and set to all live to a minimum age of 120 to be able to witness, let alone survive, the storm at that last day. 120 years is ironically the maximum age limit supposedly placed on man by the God of the Old Testament.
Ammon must have been speaking multi-gene-rationally, but what then is the role that past gene-rations play in current day weather patterns, and what is “their place” in which it is said they “shall be gathered together….that the storm cannot penetrate to them”? Where are the Lord’s true disciples? And, where are the Lord’s true holy places?” The ultimate answers to these questions and more can only be true if they are found to be gathered together in one place. And that place is YOU! You alone can serve as the Temple of the Lord, a pivotal palace wherein Heaven and Earth combine, hopefully in harmony. When this is the case then there is balance in the external and internal worlds. Inequality is inequity which breaks up Christ’s Church in the way that Christ’s Church, New Zealand has been consistently broken up by earthquake after earthquake on a certain curious time cycle. Equality must start with balance between the individual and his or her ancestors. This is why only the Spirit of Elijah bonds the Fathers to the Children via their Kolob Heart-Stars. And this bond with our ancestors alone prevents the whole Earth from being smitten with a curse and utterly wasted. Well did Marcus Mosiah Garvey say:
“Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality… to let us hold together under all climes and in every country…”
And throughout all gene-rations of time, we might add. The type of multi-gene-rational power that is needed in the world is not to be found in paperwork from the LDS Family History programmes and it can not be found in any dead works or “work for the dead” as LDS like to call their self-important temple rites. The symbols are there, and in a million other cultural/religious practices scattered across the globe. But symbols must be charged with sufficient spirit if they are to work their multi-gene-rational magic.
Symbols become stifled if not connected to that which they signify. And symbols seen as specific to a certain sub-set of humans must eventually lead to the more ample and richer repertories of symbols from other cultures with which they are naturally linked. That is what Marcus meant when he said we must “know no clime, boundary, or nationality”. A man who was very familiar with symbolism’s spiritual power was the beloved LDS Church President, David Oman McKay. While viewing possible plots for an LDS Temple in New Zealand, Pres. McKay vetoed them all. Searching the countryside further with his executives, David came across a piece of land which spiritually spoke to him. His executives said that they had also considered that area but that it was sacred land of the Maori Elders and they were unwilling to sell or grant rights to build there. President McKay told his executives to take him there early in the morning hours, just before sunrise. David climbed the hill and at the hour of sunrise he instinctively raised his arms to the square (Earth) and to the sky (Heaven) and supplicated the One God. When he had finished the ritual he came down the hill and to the hut of one of the main Maori Elders. The Elder was waiting for him with others. They said they had known of his coming in a dream and when they saw him use that particular mudra (arms raised to the square and to the sky) they knew he was in tune with the traditions of their ancestors who also used to employ those exact gestures in spiritual practice. The practice has lost much of its spiritual power and is only known among the younger gene-rations of the Maori as a mere dance move called the “Haka”.
Lingering in this magical area of the planet for yet a while longer, we find a New Zealand based company called Inertialess Drive Technologies Ltd. Their invention known as the inertialess drive rotor is a single piece gyroscopic rotor that dual-rotates in two planes at 90 degrees to each other. The Earth and Her spiritual plane are rotating at 90 degrees difference to one another. This gives more meaning to the squared arm symbolism common to many priesthoods the world over, and also explains the alternating alignment between current pole positions and areas along the present-day equator. It may very well be that most of humanity are operating with their physical bodies in a plane at 90 degrees to their spirit-body – the latter generally waking and “getting up” when the former is sleeping or “laying down”, and visa-versa. Certainly this special relationship of 90 degrees can be easily visualized when thinking of Kolob rotating in one plane with each of our hearts rotating at exact right angles to that sphere, set as they are at the ends of straight rays which emanate out like plumb-lines from there. Earlier we took a look at D&C 93:29-30 where it says that: “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also.” Now note the continuation of this idea… “Otherwise, there is no existence.” This does not mean that there is no such “thing” as “nothingness”, or that there are no actual circumstances that currently allow for the “co-existence” of existence and “no-existence” – just the opposite in fact. The one is not without the other.
Modern Mormons are taught and teach that the Spirit World is split into two territories – Paradise & Spirit Prison. Spirit Prison as it is called in Mormon tradition, or The Abyss as it is known in other circles, has been described by those with more Knowledge as a sort of whirlpool. This whirlpool is said to spin in two directions simultaneously, toward its center, and toward its periphery. So, perhaps it is best visualized as this dual mirroring cyclone configuration we have been describing. Or perhaps it is more easily seen as a sphere within a sphere. Either way, the lost substance of fragmented souls is only seemingly sequestered there, or guiltless spirits, whole and holy, kept there awaiting resurrection day by the only means that can ever limit creations of an Almighty God – that of self perception. If conscious energy there sees its self as connected to everything else in creation it will tend to spiral inwardly, tightening the sense of connection. If it feels hopelessly cut off from God and fellow conscious beings throughout the cosmos, the result is an outward spiral nearing the very edge of being and eventually passing into total unconsciousness, non existence, no-thing-ness.
LDS Church founder Joseph Smith gave the world the Book of Mormon, from which LDS Church members have taken the phrase, “It must needs be, that there be opposition in all things” out of context. In his post, Deep Waters: Lehi’s Model of the Universe, LDSA has beautifully cleared up the confusion resulting from reading this passage as if there were no comma in it. With the comma, we are invited to look to the bigger picture being described by Lehi, and make the connection between two “opposing” states. For Father Lehi’s Grand Theory of Unified Opposition in All Things 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 atonement—for it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” (2 Ne. 2:10-11)
And LDSA explains the happiness half of this divine set-up thusly:
“…the innermost location of the light sphere, the most holy place or the holy of holies, where God resides in the midst of his creations (the created universe.) It is the central location of the light sphere, being opposite in all ways to the outermost location, (the ends and outer darkness.)”
Do we see how the Mormon concept of the Spirit World, with its happy place and its place of suffering, is really just a fractal model of all worlds in this universe and beyond? So in the 1830s Joseph Smith gave the world the Book of Mormon, a collection of ancient wisdom to hopefully enlighten our understanding of the uni-versal, bi-directional whirlpool we find ourselves in. And in the 1930s Dion Fortune offered the world additional insights with her book, The Cosmic Doctrine, which explained things in terms of a creative, a destructive and a binding ring. But in order to fully appreciate the spinning vortex of a ride that is God/Love, I have to be as it says in the 1940s classic, That Old Black Magic – “Loving that spin I’m in,” and loving that spin/opposition that is in me, in all things. Existence and nonexistence are everywhere meeting in sexual union. Boundaries are bonds of life and death that bend as well as blend in love.
In all ancient Hebrew writings intimacy is equated with know-ledge. Daath means “Knowledge“. In early Kabbalah, Daath was a symbol of the intimate union of Wisdom (Chokhmah) and Understanding (Binah). The book of Proverbs is a rich mine of material on the nature of these three qualities. For example, Proverbs 3:13 tells us:
“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding….She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he founded the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew”
The preceding verse takes Lehi and LDSA’s explanations of happiness to a poetic place that would be considered borderline pornographic by prudish Christ-Shuns if they “knew” what was really being laid out. Of course if they “knew” God then they would not mind at all, but would revel in joy, the type of joy that men and women are meant to have, the type of joy that produces Christ caliber children. If only they “knew” God (Mother+Father, Chokmah+Binah) and the Son who they have sent, Jesu, who has been called the Joy of Man’s Desiring. Why, then, that verse would be music to their ears.
As pornographic as they may seem to some, I personally prefer the poetics to this political and punitive God who everyone rushes to blame when weather becomes violent. This irresponsible and incorrect view of the God of Nature is nothing new. There was the recent tornado outbreak that made international news when the largest tornado in recorded history ravished the town of Moore, Oklahoma, In the aftermath, I watched as many Mormons – who had previously been discussing and deconstructing the idea of a violent and vengeful God in Sunstone forums – turned on their heels and expressed various levels of faithlessness. To be fair, what they were expressing came from fear, sadness, and a falling back onto traditional hollow cries of “signs of the times!” Of course it is a sign of the times. The times & seasons are what we commonly call weather. These saints had only just begun to deconstruct their false tradition/false god when that gruesome god lashed out with fear and destruction, in fear of destruction/deconstruction at the hands and in the minds of those who had created him and continued his existence and reign in this world from gene-ration to gene-ration.
It may be unreasonable to expect that the LDS people, who claim to be members of the only True & Living church, as stubborn and prideful as they are, would develop their faith in the True & Living God into a “perfect knowledge” as counseled to do in their favorite chapter in the book of Alma. Oh no! That would require watering and nourishing the seed of faith which God planted in their hearts, and such activities would detract and distract from “Church Activity”. Alma 32:32 cuts straight to the chase and tells the Mormons that: “If a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.” As the Bible says,“MY PEOPLE PERISH for LACK of KNOWLEDGE.” To my fellow Mormon brothers and sisters I say, “NOW is the TIME to OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE!”, if not a perfect knowledge then something that will at minimum get your faith rooted enough to survive the windstorm which rapidly approaches.
Watch yourselves, and your thought-forms, and your affirmations, and your physical actions. O man, remember, and perish not! (Mosiah 4:30) Remember that time/weather is cyclical. The Oklahoma tornado outbreak of May 8–20, 2013 followed along on the same cycle as the May 2–8, 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. Also in 1999, on Aug. 11th, a very unexpected tornado ripped through downtown Salt Lake. Killing and injuring people at the Outdoor Expo held at the city’s commercial center and making a b-line for the construction site of the newly begun Church Conference Center. And here we are again, in Aug. of 2013. Please take a look, with discerning eye, at the documented events of an August long ago in the year 1638. John Taylor – no not the LDS Church President – an adventurer, propagandist, Royalist, and sometime overseer of the Company of Watermen in London, published the following:
New and Strange News from St. Christophers, of a tempestuous Spirit, which is called by the Indians a Hurry Cano, which happeneth in many of those Islands of America, or the West-Indies, as it did in August last the 5. 1638. Blowing downe houses, tearing up trees by the rootes, and it did puffe men up from the earth, as they had beene Feathers, killing divers men.
Note Taylor’s language in depicting a tempestuous Spirit which does puffe men up. Sounds an awful lot like the depiction of the Spirit of Satan as it is found puffing men up with pride in 3 Nephi 6:15. Taylor considered hurricanes a form of divine punishment intended not just to punish sinners but to bring heathens and the barbarous to a state of “Civility and Christian Liberty.” The true Spirit of God however, speaks to us in our heart of hearts and tells us that such is not God’s Nature. But in our spiritual immaturity, our falseness and our fear, we prefer to enlist natural phenomena in moral, religious, and political agendas, even today.
In a very real way, these forces have been used for religious/political agendas by false gods and us, their false worshipers, accomplice creators of terror. Hinckley may have been a false prophet in certain moments and certain ways, but he was also a true prophet on other occasions and at heart. He was very specific and tricky with his words. We should expect the same of ourselves in these days and times. We have been exhorted to be peaceful as doves but wise as serpents. And we would be wise to review Hinckley’s words carefully, not necessarily in the same type of careful spirit that they were originally delivered but in the Spirit of the Holy One of Is-Ra-El, so that we may glean deeper understanding from them. Shortly after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Hinckley was sure to publicly specify the recent catastrophic event as other than the work of God. Only through a caring heart and curious mind would anyone who heard that public statement expend the necessary energy to follow its reasoning and link to the deeper implications. If the almighty being inhabiting the imaginations of the vast majority of Hinckley’s audience had nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina, according to the message of the chosen mouthpiece, then what indeed happened?
There was the T.V. docudrama, Oil Storm, which aired in early June of 2005 and accurately anticipated the domino effect of “real-world” events shortly to come to pass starting with Katrina. And there is the fact that the storm had officially reduced to only a category 3 by the time it actually made land-fall. Aside from these evidences, there is the very revealing fact that the landed gentry of New Orleans tried to make it illegal for any returning so-called refugees to move back into their old neighborhoods. They attempted to pass legislation that said only those whose families owned land titles in the area could move back in. The Lower Ninth Ward is almost 100% comprised of black people and not a single one of them or their families own titles to the land. Such blatant gentrification is just one of many forms of separation that is prominent in the false zions which blotch the land today. To be sure, there is a true type of separation which is based on mutual respect for choices of varying groups and plays out through dimensional barriers. But forced separation between rich and poor is part and parcel with the false unity that gets promoted in the false church’s which cover the land like a cancer.
God tells us that such a faulty foundation will be shook and broken up to liberate captive mind’s and bodies, and to prepare the way of the Lord of Hosts. All prophets, whether more true or more false, actually corroborate the shaping of these storms. Whether we reap the positive or negative effects of the coming whirlwind is up to us. The famous Double-Slit Experiment showed to quantum physicists and the whole world, that on the quantum level, the form that something takes is defined by the observer. When we admire the beauty of the sky, our attention becomes a catalyst for Sky’s awareness of itself, which in turn, sparks our own self-awareness. Nature is waiting for us to wake up to this, and the beings of Nature are calling us to draw closer to them through our hearts and attention. The spirited, sacred potential of weather is responsive in its nature. Weather manifests its particular forms in response to how it is called down, which is key to any active relationship with weather. We can make that relationship conscious or we can remain in various levels of spiritual death unable or unwilling to speak to the spirits of “the dead”. When a storm approaches, who do we address, and how do we speak? If Mormons will allow themselves to become mystics, or women and “men inspired of heaven” as it says in the Book of Mormon, then we will open up a fuller communication – not only with recent pioneer ancestors who came across the plains like a listless, weak wind – but to that ancient ancestral wisdom of all humanity which reminds us that; everything in Nature is alive and has consciousness and is therefore capable of observing and participating in the creation of ordinary reality.
May we grasp on an intellectual level the scientific works of Dan Winter, Stan Tenen, Doc Childre, and others who attempt to convey to our minds the importance of “embedding in the tornado” a harmonic heart resonance which is capable of cohering with our brothers and sisters around the world. And may we grasp on an emotional level the work we are called to do as Saviors on Mount Zion, so that Mormon Mystics may be grafted in with the ancient ordinance officiators of humanity’s past. I call upon my true Latter-Day Saint brothers and sisters to come and contribute their balanced emotion and intelligence to consecrated efforts of pre-stood power on behalf of both the “living” and the “dead”. It is my earnest prayer that we may endure the storm, that we be “gathered together in [our] place, that the storm cannot penetrate to [us]” in the words of Ammon. And in the name of Jesus Christ, I say: So let it be, Amen.
Convection creates flow of blessings for those with strong conviction, not about the institutions of this world, but strong conviction in eternodynamic principles. This is done through interplay of hot and cold principles in the house of spirit as well as in this temporal realm. In the post, Lukewarm=Good for Nothing, Justin touches on the symbolic and scientific significance of hot and cold water. He points out that:
“Hot water” would have been the kind of underground spring waters heated by geothermal radiation, and were used for medicinal purposes. Because geothermal-heated water can hold more dissolved solids, “hot water” was prized for its high mineral content and the temperature was therapeutic for soaking aches and pains.
So how exactly are hot springs formed? As rain falls on mountain peaks, it percolates into the porous sedimentary rocks. As it descends through the rock, it picks up a variety of materials, everything from radium to sulphur. Also, as it moves further beneath the surface, it heats up from the primal heat of the Earth. Eventually it encounters a large crack or thrust fault. As water descends behind it, it forces the now heated water to ascend along the fault-line to surface as a hot or warm spring.
Now it is important to understand the connection between hot springs and offspring. The connection between geothermal and eternal principles is seen in the physical phenomenon of heat and its spiritual antecedent, desire. As mentioned earlier, offspring in any stage are eternally in need of guidance from the Father. It is true that the off-spring of the Father (spermatozoa) will reach a point where, filled with the fire of desire, they begin to move of their own volition. This is a good thing. It means they are becoming aware of the agency or free will which is in them. But without conscious guidance from the Father, that energy which might build up and spring-off will never succeed in creating a new life or making us a new creature in Christ.
Just as rain falls from the symbolic heaven above our heads onto mountain tops and percolates through layer upon layer deep into the subterranean levels then creeps back up, so it goes with the procreative powers in man. The Jewish Sages taught that, “a drop exudes from the brain and develops into semen.” (Kehillas Yaakov by Erech Holada) Modern critics may say that although the pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, does emit a hormone which signals and regulates the production of semen, still, that hormone does not actually become semen itself.
In my opinion, this is merely a case of semantics. Scriptural vernacular may not always be as exact as science would prefer it to be, but science can be very ignorant of the workings of the spirit. Information obtained through the Spirit can never be expressed fully with the limitations of human language, but scientific facts can be expressed with some degree of exactness. This is only because while science is severely limited to speaking only of one thing in one particular context, the words of spiritual revelation are eternal. Thus they speak of endlessly vast concepts wrapped in endless layers of meaning unable to be extracted accept by reading while open to the same Spirit in which the revelation was originally transmitted, received and recorded.
One such additional layer of meaning in regards to the Jewish Sages’ commentary on sperm production having a beginning in the brain, would be the fact that, during early stages of embryonic ontogenesis, the cells that become the substrate for testicular tissue begin their journey in the mostly undifferentiated embryonic mass from a location that later differentiates into brain tissue. These brain-region cells migrate through the embryonic mass, much like salmon make their way through a river, until they finally localize in what will develop into testicular tissue.
Ontogenesis
And this is only one begending of an ongoing begetting process of the Creator, the downward fall in a cycle observable from rainclouds and rivers, mountaintops and hot springs to brains and testes, adults and fetuses. Speaking of the upward part of that same cycle, Indian scholar, M. N. Dvivedi, says:
“It is a well-known physiological law that the semen has great connection with the intellect, and we might add the spirituality of man….in the many commentaries on yoga the purpose and process are veiled in quasi-scientific mythology. The ‘power’ is said to creep silently like a serpent from the lowest chakram to the highest: that is, from the testes to the brain.”
This evaporation and condensation is a map of the cyclic journey of Christ, the anointed, “He that ascended up on high, as also He descended below all things, in that he
comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth,” as stated in D&C 88:6. If Christ is in and through all things, it stands to reason that, in and through the prostate secretions, He would protect and nourish the sperm. Similarly to the warm waters of natural springs, the fluid from the prostate is endowed with a rich supply of minerals and chemicals like calcium, zinc, citric acid and albumin and these give the semen its milky appearance. Pre-ejaculate, also called Jism, prepares the way for the Chrism of prostate fluid and prostate specific antigens as Jesus set the stage for the second coming of Christ. The consecrated oil used on occasion by LDS men for the anointing of the sick and afflicted is another form of chrism through which the Light of Christ may manifest. It is often carried on the person in chrismatories aptly attached to key chains in a man’s pocket or worn about the belt.
But surely only one labeled as an “apostate” could see Christ in his prostate. This author also sees Christ in the Only Begotten who, out of many millions of sperm cells, is the One who fertilizes the egg. Geneticists also see the Light of Christ in the spermatozoa, although they might not recognize what they are looking at as Christ’s presence. Under the microscope they observe halos around the head of the sperm cells.
Sperm Halos
Healthy spermatozoa show larger halo around the spermhead while DNA fragmented spermatozoa have smaller halo or no halo around them.
A latter-day gentile with his competitive way of viewing life is likely to perceive the mass production of sperm cells in male humans as an evolutionary imperative due to sperm competition. Perhaps modern man, whether gentile or of the scattered House of Israel is so scattered in his own soul that his “little guys” are competing, even amongst themselves. The war in Heaven rages on as long as sibling considers sibling a rival against whom they must come with a viral and contentious attack of viciously jealous little expulsory Egyptian charioteers. In the end, all competitors will all be washed away and drowned in the depths.
Competition/contention is of the Devil. This type of mentality and behavior is common among insects, spiders, and reptilians, but the spiritually evolved man who fully plays a part in the gathering of the tribes on a spiritual, physiological, and literal level as per article #10 in the 13 Articles of the LDS Faith, will adopt a more Zion-like attitude of oneness with his brethren. Then unto him will be made known the greater mysteries of God – for example that unfathomably profound mystery of partible paternity, a mystery at least partially grasped by many Amazonian societies such as the Araweté, Mehinaku, Tapirapé, Xoceleng, and Wari’. There is much more to making a baby than meets the eye – especially the lustful eye of flesh.
In outer nature hot springs represent the inner nature principle of desire directed by will through love. The middle ground between these spiritual and physical processes is the union of man and woman according to God’s will and pleasure. Both processes support an abundance of life even long before they reach the “surface”. Anaerobic bacteria living deep beneath the Earth’s crust account for the “rotten egg” smell at many hotsprings. Our desires, be they more carnal or more spiritual, are also fostering life on a microscopic level, whether we know it or not. Once the springs or desires surface, they create a mini ecosystem with a micro-climate which is significantly warmer than surrounding areas. The warm water allows an abundance of bacteria and algae, amphibians and reptiles, plants and even tropical fish to flourish in what would otherwise be a cold and harsh mountainous environment. Nothing cannurtureour outernaturelike the proper cultivation of internal desire through the joyful joining of man and woman. Scientific experiments carried out by Cleve Baxter, Marcel Vogel and others in modern times have only confirmed what was anciently demonstrated by Krishna and his consort Radha in a bower or grove which did suddenly spring up around them whilst they made love as related in the Gita Govinda. When the Elohim tell Adam and Eve to “multiply and replenish the earth,” and to “dress this garden, take good care of it, be happy and have joy therein,” they are not so much speaking of separate tasks but of one eternal commandment whereby the gods link man, woman and “all manner of fruits, flowers, and vegetation” in an energetically balanced Eden.
An Illustration from the Gita Govinda- Krishna and Radha in a Bower or Grove which suddenly springs up around them as they make love.
It is interesting to note that the governments of this world seem to have a keen interest in snatching up land with hot springs. Once a consecrated land for the free enjoyment of all God’s children, Canada’s first national park was coveted and confiscated for its geothermal qualities as was the very first national park in the world, Yellowstone. The much sought after yellow stone – sulfur, or we could say soul-fire – features in many governmental land-grabs, and it is also present in what people have interpreted as hell. Hot water that comes in contact with sulfur and then experiences a rather rapid ascent with no time or space for oxidation will result in that pungent rotten egg odor common at many natural spring sites. While we may find this unpleasant, most would call soaking in the soothing waters of a hot spring a healthy and not a hellish experience.
How do we define Hell? Is it not a place of damnation? Damned water must be quick to find an outlet and continue its flow or become stagnant. This is why when God makes good on his promise to spew the lukewarm out of his mouth; it is not a rejection but a rescue from their stagnant state. Like the mighty geyser in Yellowstone Park, Old Faithful, God is converting the ‘not so faithful’ into a powerful force for good; whether by plunging to the depths, or rising to the heights. Movement is the key. The Almighty is, just that, almighty. He rules the rollercoaster of highs and lows, brings our souls intact through heavens and hells, and baptizes them by water and by fire.
BEING IN HOT WATER – GETTING COLD FEET
Being in “hot water” with God is nothing to fear. When flame and flood coincide it is, after all, the prelude to rebirth. Between Jesus and his crazy cousin John, we get the idea that we are to be baptized by water and by fire. Many debate whether this is one and the same baptism or can only be accomplished separately. The answer, as usual, is simply and boldly – both. That which appears to be done separately is in truth stemming from a place where it is all simultaneously combined; only our stubbornly rebellious mind’s fail to see this. Thermodynamically, mixing of such dissimilar conditions seems impossible but nothing is impossible in the eternodynamics of God’s master plan. Even a close examination of physical reality can reveal the inner workings of things to any observer who simply chooses to be aware of and open to the Holy Spirit. But what must we do in order to feel, have and maintain that Holy Spirit? We can not remain idle with a case of “cold feet” rather we must let the cold spur us to motion. In the Father’s fool-proof plan,
it is only a man’s fear of living in sin that is counted against him as in-sin-cerity. Sincere desire transforms weaknesses into strengths, but trying to avoid the appearance of evil on our exterior or resisting what we think of as evil, only sends us running from our own shadows like groundhogs that prolong their winter of suffering. If we would embrace the shadow as the nourishing substance of our cocoon we would find ourselves that much quicker breaking into the bright springtime of Zion and a thousand years of peace.
There is only one way to learn, and there is only one thing to learn – that there is only one thing, not this thing and that thing. Too much heat will consume us and too much cold will render us frozen, both forms of damnation. But interestingly we will find that the two combine for cool and collected everlasting burnings in which our spirit-bodies along with their resurrected counterparts are perfectly suited to dwell and thrive. (see King Follet Discourse) It is possible to train our physical bodies so that they may join our spirits as one in paradise. This was part of the idea behind the Native American sweat lodges where men would sweat out toxins and then immerse themselves in cold streams immediately afterwards. We must engage our desire/passion constantly with a combination of love and will, hot and cold. We are expected to always keep it moving through a subtle but firm series of covenantal course corrections. Classic lyrics from the artist formerly known as Prince give us a vivid description of how imbalance can cause the Dove of the Holy Spirit to be grieved.
Dream if you can a courtyard
An ocean of violets in bloom
Animals strike curious poses
They feel the heat
The heat between me and you
How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that’s so cold? (So cold)
Maybe I’m just too demanding
Maybe I’m just like my father too bold
Maybe you’re just like my mother
She’s never satisfied (She’s never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince – When Doves Cry
Alma provides us with some steadfast pointers for harnessing the Holy Spirit.
Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness. – Alma 38:12
Speaking of bridling and not idling the passions, in Walter Charleton’s Natural History of the Passions (1674) we read:
“Nothing can divorce me from the common opinion which holds that she [the rational or divine soul as distinguished from the corporeal soul] is created immediately by God, and infused into the body of human embryon, as soon as that is organized, formed and prepared to receive her….These motions or acts being thus traduced from the superior to the inferior soul and thence derived first to the brain and imagination, then to the heart, produce therein and so in the blood, the various motions that constitute such passions as we observe in ourselves, when we are most ardently urged to acts of devotion and piety, toward the supreme Being. Whence it is doubtless that Divine Love, detestation of sin, repentance, hope of salvation, fear of increasing Divine Justice and most if not all other acts or passions of devotion are commonly ascribed to the heart.” (p.78)
Charleton’s unwavering belief regarding the perfect placement of God’s will into the minds and hearts of men (in that particular order) is corroborated and further expounded by section 8 verse 2 of D&C, wherein the Lord says:
“Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.”
Again and again in the Book of Mormon we find this same correlation between desires, mind and the heart. Not only this, but we are also told that, beyond this initial outpouring of the Lord’s spirit at the moment of conception, it is possible to be periodically renewed and experience a mighty change of heart. In the Book of Mormon we are shown how the relationship between the heart and mind of God and of man are extended, through desire, into the realm of personal and collective experience with reality. Throughout the record, things so small and so simple as righteous desires of the heart are even fundamentally fused to grand occurrences like angelic visitations.
“And it came to pass that when Ammon arose he also administered unto them, and also did all the servants of Lamoni; and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil.
And behold, many did declare unto the people that they had seen angels and had conversed with them; and thus they had told them things of God, and of his righteousness.”
Alma 19:33-34
Mormon temple ritual is rife with Kabalistic principles dressed in Christian fashion. It instructs initiates in a way that is so plain it seems simultaneously cryptic. Many of the ceremonies deal with angelic visitations and are not meant to be confusing but rather to open our understanding of this topic. True understanding of the physical can grant us understanding of the spiritual and visa versa. The state of a person’s soul determines what they can access and what they are able to perceive. An individual’s awareness can either expand or limit their ability to connect with particular energies.
The human intellect likes to rely on “mechanisms” to extend perceptual limits, check impulsive imaginations, and reveal nature’s causal structure within the myriad of “forms.” There was even a slight obsession with ‘tools’ and ‘instruments’ on the part of Joseph Smith and others during the founding years of the Church. Magic tools like the Urim and Thummin and seer stones have been downplayed and in some cases almost completely covered up or overlooked till recent times. Oliver Cowdery was apparently in possession of a rod which he used for purposes of divination. It is referenced in original versions of the Doctrine and Covenants and was even said to be used in attempting translation and for receiving revelation. For all the Church’s following along with societal norms toward trends which harness the powers of belief to serve the ends of civilization but not so much the purposes of the Lord, it did not stop them from utilizing a growing number of replacement technologies to the point where the LDS Church is lauded as one of the most tech-savvy churches today.
Satan’s subtle shift has damn near stripped natural objects of all their mysterious god-given properties. Bedazzled by the devil-opment of unnatural devices, the masses have fallen out of love with their Creator, and as Hegel predicted, the intellect has succeeded in cognizing “what is intuited as a mere thing, reducing the sacred grove to mere timber.” But what is sadder still is that the natural rod or shepherd’s staff of the Governing Meridian starting at a person’s upper lip and running over the head and down the spinal cord has been hugely ignored or dismissed, not accepted as the priceless tool that God intended it to be for not only Moses or Aaron, but all of God’s people.
Governing Vessel or Meridian – The Shepherd’s Crook or Staff
We shouldn’t attribute the Original Power Source to hand-held devices any more so than to the hands which hold them. But if we understand them as symbols they can then become for us, vessels of the Lord, extensions of something far greater.For this reason the Mormon Temple Endowment dialogue focuses the mind on angelic visitations and conversing with Higher Powers while the nonverbal aspects of the ritual focus the participants on physical body awareness. The storyline and the words of the officiators carry the body of saints through the session, but the movement and flow of the thing truly turns on the axis of voluntary involvement on the part of the flesh.
BY WATER AND BY FIRE ARE HEAVEN AND EARTH BROUGHT INTO HARMONY
Charleton said that the Ruach Qodesh/Holy Spirit is “infused into the body of human embryon, as soon as that is organized, formed and prepared to receive her.” The Good News of the Gospel proclaims that the Condescension of God is not just a one-time process. Why would we want to regulate the eternal works of God to a beginning, middle, and end? Returning to the personal revelations of Walter Charleton which he doposited in Natural History of the Passions, we read:
“When in the Genital matter, swarms of active, and spiritous, chiefly sulphurous particles, predisposed to animation, have met with a less number of saline particles in a convenient focus, being as it were kindled, sometimes by another soul (as in all viviparous animals), viz., of the generant, sometimes by their own rapid motion they conceive life, or break forth into a kind of flame, which thenceforth continues to burn so long as it is constantly fed with sulphureous fewel from within, and nitrous from without….The corporeal soul, while as a flame burning within her organical body she on every side difuseth heat and light, is herself, subject to serious tremblings, noddings, eclipses, inequalities and disorderly commotions, as all flame is observed to be”
The prophet Joseph had been on a personal quest to try and reign in those inconsistencies associated with the Holy Flame of the Gods in the shaky hands of mortal man ever since that pivotal moment when the words of James 1:6 powerfully entered his heart.
“Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with thewindand tossed.”
Kabbalah provides a clean and systematic context for grasping this delicate balance between the fiery aspects of faith and the no less emotional but more compassionate or conforming watery properties of a complete faith. In Kabbalah, Aleph (א) represents Air – the breath of life – and it plays a role in tenderly and majestically leading both of these other two sides of faith. But if God’s powerful windpipes so much as whisper they will provoke powerful reactions. When the Air of Spirit meets with a body dominated by the Spiritual Waters there will be some choppy seas for the individual pilot of that soul. No need to fear, since the disciple is always welcome to awake the sleeping Jesus on-board and calm the waves. Kabbalah teaches that all the archetypes are in the vital body, the superior part of the physical body. However the Higher Powers often lie dormant in the hull of one’s ship.
The founder of Mormonism was inspired of God to conceptualize, for a target audience of latter-day gentiles, this kabbalistic concept of Creator endowing His creation, His children, with the same powers He possesses. The Man Adam in the Telestial World receives all the mysteries, all the archetypes of the Word of God in potentiality. After the Fall, Adam desires to reconnect, so he constructs and altar and with arms raised utters the phrase “Pay Lay Ale” (Hebrew פה לאל – Mouth to God). In Kabbalah, A-D-A-M (Aleph- Daleth-Aleph-Mem) receives the desired divine assistance through the letter Daleth (ד) in the middle of his name. This is done via the central column of the Tree of Life diagram and is echoed in form by the mouth on the head of the speaker situated between right and left arms which reach high and then pull down in imitation of Adam at the altar of an LDS Temple.
Full System-Kabbalah-Chakra-Sacramentscopy
That central column is marked on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life by the letter Shin (ש) which represents the Spirit of God like a fire burning. In his shincere supplication, Adam also takes in heavenly influence through the right column marked by Aleph (א), the Spirit of God like a rushing wind, and through the left column marked with Mem (מ), signifying the Spirit of God like many mighty waters. These three are called the three mother letters: Aleph, Shin, and Mem, which are related with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or Air, Fire, and Water. The condescension of God pro-seeds from formless to ever denser forms, finally settling in Malkuth (The Kingdom of God encompassing Earth). In the Christian tradition we see the same principles at work kick-starting the apostles’ ministry on the day of Pentecost with the sound of a rushing wind, the appearance of cloven tongues of fire, and all of this followed by baptismal waters for the believers.
The principles in Kabbalah have been in no way monopolized by Jewish mysticism. Nor are they unique to Mormonism. God speaks to all men in their own tongue. The Lamanite tradition, though every bit as subject to perversion over the centuries as any other tradition, preserved a deep understanding of the principles we are examining here. Water and Fire were known to them as Atl and Tlachinolli. Atl-Tlachinolli could be translated as ‘burning water’. But when written or spoken together these words took on a whole new metaphorical meaning according to a phenomenon within many Mesoamerican languages known as difrasismo. Atl-Tlachinolli
Atl-Tlachinolli – by Water and by Fire
meant ‘Sacred War’ which when comprehended from a mystical standpoint means the struggle for harmony within and amongst God’s children. It signified the blood and eventually came to be used by the Aztec elites to conquer neighboring tribes and control the masses through perpetual warfare.
This knowledge did not come merely by way of Nephite dissenters, the priests of Amulon and others who were, during particular periods, placed as teachers among certain segments of the Lamanite population. The word ‘Atl’ itself indicates a much more ancient origin for this wisdom purveyed by a civilization brought by the hand of God away from Atlantis in boats at the time of the Great Cataclysm. Laman and Lemuel were not in the habit of inquiring to know the mind of the Lord and so they did not receive or value what knowledge was had among their original people. Despising their brother Nephi for what seemed to them a “know-it-all” mentality, and unwilling to even ask the Lord to make such things known to them personally, they joined and mixed their seed with pre-existing cultures who they found living here when they arrived in the promised land.
These people were dark-skinned (hence the perceived curse as documented by prejudiced Nephite scribes), and the center of their previously established and rapidly spreading culture was located where their forefathers had landed – on the thick neck of land known today as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That thick neck of land is mirrored by the narrow neck of land in the area where the Nephites were inspired to finally settle. Both of these now fallen empires clashed in the Mississippi River Valley.
As is the case around the globe, sacred eternal truths still stare at us through the stone ruins of fallen societies and testify to the deadly consequences suffered by past nations who rebelliously sought to stir up a spiritual evil far deeper than civil war, by severing the naturally reflecting forms of the physical and spiritual regions of God’s Kingdom. Artifacts examined in the Spirit (as the Golden Plates were and the Book of Mormon may be) will reveal that, when we speak of “fallen” empires we must realize that the “falling apart” which occurred was only the result of a rift between Spiriphysico Principles of Unified Opposition in all things – things like Light and Truth, Fire and Water, Hot and Cold. These truths were known by the founders of the Lehi-Nephi colony as well as the Olmec and Mexica groups later classified by the compilers of the Book of Mormon as simply, “The Lamanites.”
I look at my environment
And wonder where the fire went
What happened to everything we used to be?
I hear so many cry for help
Searching outside of themselves
Now I know that his strength is within me
And deep in my heart
The answer, it was in me
And I made up my
To define my own destiny
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
TEMPERATURE AND ENTROPY – ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
As the earth and her people raise their spiritual vibration to a feverish pitch, the enemies of Zion struggle to maintain a stranglehold on Christ’s followers. They are taking measures to combat what they label “global warming” or “climate change” and demand that we do the same. But the prophets among us understand that these things are part of Earth’s glorious destiny. A sound understanding of eternodynamics allows us to see that destiny, like destination is already and always present. The true followers of Christ and the global elite class which ridicules them from within their great and spacious buildings – both groups know that this is the place.
The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and our beautiful and faithful planet is destined to rise in glory. It is a matter of eternity. Postponing the fulfillment of prophesy for people positioned and trained to never roam beyond the plantation of the third dimension is the most that the wicked can manage. If they can keep us stuck in the vicious cycle set in motion by the fore-bitten fruit, they can prevent us from re-discovering our divine nature. But that is only for the time-being. An eternal being enjoys a much different relationship with reality, free from the vicious karmic cycle.
That cycle is one based entirely on the con-cept of time. In the day that Adam and Eve eat of the fruit they will surely die. Was God proved a liar, or at best extremely exaggerative in His warning to our first parents just because they did not drop dead within 24 hours of partaking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? No, it was just a matter of time. This is why I say that states of perfection are naturally occurring as a matter of eternity, while dis-ease, death and the devil are all a matter of time.
Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from the eternal – Dante Alighieri.
Temperature is a word that comes from similar roots as words like tempo or temporal. In many languages the word for weather and time are the same. This illustrates the connection that exists between thermodynamics and eternodynamics by pointing out a relationship between temperature and the phenomenon of time. It has been said that there is no such thing as dark, only a lack of light. Technology has not given us flashdarks which can cast a shadow shaft into a lighted area the way a flashlight casts a beam of light into darkness. It is therefore assumed that only light is real as it alone can disperse darkness and not the other way around. It has been said that to speak of cold as an energy is not correct, that it should be seen in terms of extremely low levels of heat. But since it is measured in terms of negative degrees the connection between heat and cold can be confusing.
The same is true of the false dichotomy between good and evil. However, no one working within the false dichotomy of religion and science will dare admit this. We feel more comfortable with constants, but whether scientific or theological, the only thing that seems consistent is the periodic challenges to our thinking which require us to change our so called ‘constants’. Could it be that spirit is that constant which we seek? We will never have it if we insist on splitting everything in two, labeling one side superior or at least more real than the other. Joseph Smith described spirit as matter that is merely more refined. That would make matter spirit, just less refined.
Commenting on the nature of heat, observing its effect on something like boiling water, Sir Francis Bacon wrote in The New Organon (1620):
“Heat is a motion; expansive, restrained, and acting in its strife upon the smaller particles of bodies. But the expansion is thus modified; while it expands all ways, it has at the same time an inclination upward. And the struggle in the particles is modified also; it is not sluggish, but hurried and with violence.”
Elsewhere he wrote:
“As in nature, things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm.” – Of Great Place (1561-1626) – Francis Bacon
One is reminded of the heated debate known as the War in Heaven. Lucifer is the ambitious one, desiring to exalt himself above the other stars of the heaven and even above the throne of The Most High. Lucifer is also the violent one while God the Father and Jesus Christ are more calm and collected. Both Jesus and Lucifer and their respective teams – Christ and Satan – could be accurately described as beings of spirit, beings of light even, and if spirit and light then certainly heat was a part of their beings as well.
Can heat be harmful as well as helpful? Of course it can, then why not cold? Where is this locus of evil so that we may draw it out and separate it forever more from the forces of good? According to the Judeo-Christian narrative, that is precisely what we are attempting to do during this War in Heaven by casting Lucifer and the angels that followed him out. But if war is violence and violence is bad then how can Heaven be a place of perfection or completion? The Mormon variation of the narrative provides some essential details but also raises more questions about the nature of Earth-life and earth as an element for constructing physical bodies for enjoying what is called the second estate.
But before reaching this earthly estate there is light and heat and presumably air, for light as form or flame burns at its outside in contact with air, and there is no combustion within the flame which is not mixed with air. And prior to making land-fall our physical forms must take a maiden voyage through water. Sounds like a good method for cooling down hot heads which have recently been engaged in a gaseous conflict of whirling hot air. But throughout all these stages of the soul’s transformation there is heat.
Heat can be a catalyst and an aid in evolution, or it can be a mechanism for tight luciferian control. The super-organism of a honeybee hive maintains an average temperature of around 32-35°C (90-95°F), a few degrees lower than that of a human being. Until recently “heater bees”, bees whose specialized behavior serves to regulate hive temperature, were thought to be fanning and spreading heat generated from young pupae incubating in cells near the hive’s center.
But a few years ago scientists discovered that the heater bees were responsible for generating the heat themselves by decoupling their wings so that the muscles that are normally used to move the wings run at full power, enabling their bodies to reach temperatures much higher than other bees in the hive. These heater bees not only manage to not cook themselves while regulating the overall temperature of the hive but by varying the temperature of developing pupae within a particular section of cells, they are able to actually determine what kind of role those pupae will later fulfill in the hive. The adult heater bees are like university professors in Masonic caps and gowns literally administering “degrees” to the future generations and thereby overseeing the division of labor. Those kept at 35°C turn into the intelligent forager bees that leave the nest in search of nectar and pollen. Those kept at 34°C emerge as “house keeper” bees, conducting chores such as feeding the larvae and cleaning the nest.
To heat is to eat. With the linguistic curiosity of h-prothesis, where speakers of Irish or Jamaican dialects of English tend to add an ‘h’ sound to words beginning with a vowel – “eat” would be pronounced identically to “heat”. The word Ramadan describes an Islamic time of fasting from sunrise till sunset and it comes from the Arabic root ramida or ar-ramad, which means scorching heat or dryness. The Hebrew noun (lehem), meaning bread, features at the end of the town of New Testament fame – Bethlehem (House of Bread). But lehem has a much broader sense of food in general and is used in the Bible to describe sources of sustenance ranging from the mysterious manna to honey.
This is the same word that is used in a more figurative sense in a phrase like “the bread of wickedness” (Proverbs 4:17), or when Jesus refers to himself as the “Bread of Life” (John 6:35). It is even used to denote the target of a conquest (Numbers 14:9), and this makes perfect sense when we realize that it comes from the verb (laham) – to eat, to devour, to use as food. As a verb root (laham) can mean to do battle, to fight. This is why we see it pop up in the noun (milhama) – battle, war – used to describe YHWH as a man of war. Continuing the correlation between feasting and battle, Psalm 23:5 says: You prepare a banquet for me while my enemies watch. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Sir Francis Bacon seemed to be on to something when he associated heat with violence. And bacon from the slaughterhouse to the frying pan aside, even a raw vegan diet breaks lehem (food) down via the action of laham (eating). Speaking of “breaking down”, the semitic triliteral root, (LHM – laham) literally breaks down to (the preposition that usually translates into the English words – to, at), and (heat), which is the name given to one of Noah’s supposedly cursed sons. So, ‘To Heat’ is literally ‘To Eat’.
We can use heat either wisely or foolishly, for nurturing or for destruction. You can have cold air, icy water and frozen tundra, but you can not have a frigid fire. When a human life-form chooses to repeatedly misuse the eternal flame of love/life, it will die the spiritual death. Its spirit body looses the privilege of Prometheus’ Fire and its physical body is eventually left completely cold.
The physical body is composed of cells which are counted less guilty as they were only children not properly loved by the spirit steward who was placed as their parent. Thus these cells decompose at a slower rate, gradually relinquishing their portion of spirit as they are mercifully returned to Mother Earth or are quickly caught up in purifying flames after the Master Intelligence has revoked the tainted soul’s right to his or her Second Estate. This process is accepted as natural and indeed it is a natural consequence of every Icarus who, detesting the blessing of the flesh, flies foolishly and haughtily at the hot Sun only to scorch his brash wings and fall.
The Sanskrit word – निर्वाण nirvana, literally means “extinction, blowing out“. What does one do upon reaching Nirvana (The Highest Degree within the Celestial Kingdom)? Well, according to Buddha himself, when one has ascended the ladder of enlightenment to the highest Nirvana, he does so only to look back down on mankind below and, upon beholding their suffering, immediately descend again to help his brethren. This may sound crazy, this up and down, but it is more than likely just our selfishness through which we view it that is crazy.
Maybe Mormons do not necessarily understand this concept but Mormon scripture states that Jesus ascended up on high, and also descended below all things. All things are created from energy and energy moves in waves which form both peaks and troughs. When one finds oneself at a peak, the thrill continues on the big dip of the roller-coaster called life. If one should find one’s self stalling and wallowing on the low end, eating with swine from the trough then it is time to come home, like the prodigal son. It is time to turn up the temperature and rise up the thermometer like Mercury with healing in His wings.
Entropy means turning inward (En Trope). It’s just what happens when expending and expanding energy feels restricted, says, “enough is enough”, then decides to turn itself around and take a huge inhalation for the benefit of all. Just as the exhalation of the Gods put the breath of life into man in his beginning, the inhalation of the Gods can really knock the wind out of man. When they inhale we exhale. Remember, Nirvana literally means “blowing out”. If we are not in harmony with God that exhalation could be our last breath unto extinction, hence the imperative notion of becoming one with the Father as Jesus emphasized. If we are all “hot air” the consequences of our “puffed up” haughtiness may be much more literal than we care to admit.
Scripture tells us in fairly descriptive terms that the Holy Spirit withdraws when offended. When a man is offended he typically starts a fight with the offender. But when the Holy Spirit is offended it does not engage, but rather steps back, takes a deep breath, and disengagesfrom the beautiful strifeof life. To strive does not merely mean to aspire but also to lock into a struggle. Worldly aspirationand out of sync respirationlead to expirationon our parts if we think we can prevail without a real wrestle with the Lord as Jacob did. Mormon canon repeatedly reminds us that the Spirit of the Lord will not always “strive with man” (2Nephi 26:11, Gen 6:3, Moses 8:17, D&C 1:33, Ether 2:15) Anyone who has witnessed a dying or dead corpse knows that when the Holy Spirit feels that it’s warm breath is being wasted on a cold heart it leaves the entire body to that coldness, taking its primordial heat home to the hearth in the bosom or heart of God.
Life is meant to be a house warming party that goes on and on for many days. Genesis 6:3 and Moses 8:17 say that house/body warming party can go on for up to 120 days, so why are we ending the party so early these days? Who has set these house rules and ordinances over our heads which supposedly obligate us to chase the Spirit out of the Temple by a certain hour? Who says the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight? Have our Holy Temples of the Lord been perverted into B.Y.U. dorms and housing? An enemy hath done this. Alien forces may scare us into asthmatic attacks which threaten our peace to destroy. But we can look to the touching climatic scenes of M. Knight Shyamalan’s masterpiece, Signs, and see a Father who holds the Son in His arms while telling Him:
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll slow this down together. Feel my chest. Feel it moving in and out. Breathe like me. Breathe like me. Come on. Stay with me. I know it hurts. Be strong baby. It’ll pass. It’ll pass. The fear is feeding him. Don’t be afraid of what’s happening. Believe it’s going to pass. Believe it. Just wait. Don’t be afraid. The air is coming. Believe. We don’t have to be afraid. It’s about to pass. Here it comes. Don’t be afraid. Here comes the air. Don’t be afraid. Feel my chest. Breathe with me. Together. The air is going in our lungs. Together. We’re the same. We’re the same.”
Individuals, tribes, nations, and empires are all equally susceptible to entropy. But the self-same air currents that threaten to sweep us off the face of the earth (Ether 2) if we refuse to repent will save us from ourselves with a breath of fresh air if we accept it with new lungs.
Just because the law of entropy may be applied to an object does not mean that object should be discarded as unworthy of our desire. Just because the law of entropy can be applied to an object does not mean that it must be applied, at least not in the way that our feeble grasp of thermodynamics and even more limited understanding of eternodynamics dictates. The point of existence is always to not get stuck but to remain free – free to enjoy EVERYTHING. There is no existence without enjoyment; there is no en-joy-ment without en-join-ment, and there can be no enjoinment without desire.
We should certainly avoid getting hung up on the flesh and other forms which are subject to entropy. And we should certainly let our desire be towards formless attributes of God such as love, joy and peace. But if those formless attributes are real and can be said to exist, even though they can not be fully explained or experienced empirically, if these are indeed the essence of God, then we should pause and think – how is it that we know or sense this? Is it not because the formless itself has eternally burning desire towards the form, far beyond that which we developing life-forms can muster?
1. Residue; that which is left after the separation, removal or destruction of a part.
2. A small remaining quantity of something.
The recent post, 1 Nephi 13&14 and its commentary generated much inspiration about the ‘Remnant’. Who is this group known as the ‘Remnant’? What are they a remnant of and where are they to be found? 3 Nephi 5:24 answers some of these questions.
“And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth.”
So we are talking about a remaining part of the seed of Jacob and we find them here, there and everywhere – spread across the globe in a diverse diaspora. When I was young my father explained that America was a ‘melting pot’. The idea fascinated me. I have, since those days, lived in the East, West, Midwest as well as a couple countries in Latin America. I have become acquainted with a variety of people. I’ve been blessed to know people from practically every nation of the earth. There are certain groups who seem to be more widely distributed, like Filipinos and Mexicans. This is due mostly to economic conditions. Poor people feel obligated to leave their homelands and endure the spurn of others, all for the purpose of making a little money – very little money. These days it is the “Dirty Spics” in the past it was the “Dirty Micks”. Others were plucked from the land of their ancestors and brought forcefully to this land in chains. Any way you choose to look at it, all of these groups along with the groups they are removed from are remainders. This paternal splitting reveals a pattern-in-all.
THE CURSE OF ‘CHRISTIANITY’
But in 1 Nephi 13 the Lord specifies one particular portion of the remnant inhabiting the Americas when He interjects “—and this remnant of whom I speak is the seed of thy father— ” in verse 34. Earlier in the chapter Nephi records:
“And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.”
God’s wrath is mentioned and nowhere at this point is there any mention of the advent of Christianity in the Americas as any kind of blessing – not even in disguise. It should be clear to us that what follows then, is not to be misinterpreted or misrepresented as a blessing but a curse. Nephi looks and beholds a man among the gentiles who was separated from the seed of his [Nephi’s] brethren by the many waters. Even though we are told that the spirit of God comes down and works upon the man before he crosses the many waters to the Promised Land, we need to understand that the man was never moved upon to perform a mission of mercy. Therefore, the spirit is still one of wrath.
In The Devil In The Dust, I asked, “Does the blood of Christ cleanse, condemn or both?” I also spoke about the roles that trace metals and blood play in the devil’s trance-humanist scheme to thoroughly possess the bodies created for Adam and Eve. Eve specifically bears witness to the curse of bloodshed. Under the Iron Fist of tyranny, we see a wrathful element to the element of iron as it combines with oxygen in hemo-goblins to torment Eve and her children with a perpetual cycle of bloodlust and red rust. To many this may not sound like sound science or spirituality but to those with ears to hear they will detect both. Eyes to see will not perceive postulation on my part but will see beneath the pustulation from smallpox on the skin of millions of native inhabitants of this land. Deeper reasons than guns, steel or even germs reveal themselves when the facts are viewed through the microscopic lens of the Holy Spirit. POx (premature oxidation) poisoned the wine of a once pure sacrament. Spanish Conquistadors and Anglo-Catholics drank to their damnation. Drunk with the blood of European Saints, they proceeded to pour the bitter cup of affliction out upon the American Indians.
Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Itallian mariner-for-hire commissioned by the king of France in 1523 to discover whether one could reach Asia by rounding the Americas to the north, wrote the earliest description of the east coast of North America. Sailing north from the Carolinas, he observed that the coastline everywhere was “densely populated,” smoky with Indian bonfires; he could sometimes smell the burning hundreds of miles offshore.
But in the decades between Columbus’ “discovery” of America and the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, the most devastating plague in human history raced up the East Coast of America. Just two years before the pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, smallpox wiped out about 96 percent of the Indians in Massachusetts. Within just a few generations, the continents of the Americas were virtually emptied of their native inhabitants. Some academics estimate that approximately 20 million people may have died in the years following the European invasion – up to 95% of the population of the Americas.
Far from the pious pilgrim we are taught to commemorate every thanksgiving, my direct ancestor, William Bradford, who led the celebrated Mayflower group to Plymouth, wrote in his journal: “The good hand of God favored our beginnings by sweeping away great multitudes of the natives … that he might make room for us.” Bradford’s use of the word ‘sweeping’ reminds us of the divine decree, repeated several times in Ether 2, that inhabitants of this land should serve God or be ‘swept off’ the face of it.Especially in the case of the areas known today as Canada and the U.S.A., there was no need for military occupation. Unfortunate souls who found themselves British colonists in the Americas were actually British or at least European, whereas colonies in India, China and Africa remained populated with the original inhabitants. But frequent and failed attempts at colonization by various expeditions of bewildered European explorers along the Eastern Seaboard ended with far more than mere frustration for the once bustling indigenous population.
Things played out very differently here than in Mexico and South America. The work was literally done for them by the time that Europeans started to arrive en masse to the East Coast of most of North America. Taking a more truthful look at the mysteriously poor timing and utter lack of preparation for the landing of the Mayflower group; evidence points to a scenario where, as the plague spread among the Indians, word must have spread among these first opportunistic pillaging pilgrims. In later written records from early colonial times, you constantly come across “settlers” being shocked at how convenient the American wilderness made things for them. The pilgrims couldn’t believe their luck when they found that American forests just naturally contained “an ecological kaleidoscope of garden plots, blackberry rambles, pine barrens and spacious groves of chestnut, hickory and oak.” The puzzlingly obedient wilderness didn’t stop in New England. Frontiersmen who “settled” what is today Ohio were psyched to find that the forest there naturally grew in a way that “resembled English parks.” You could drive carriages through the untamed frontier without burning a single calorie clearing rocks, trees and shrubbery.
Returning to the text of 1 Nephi 13, we find it testifies to the true American history that was left out of school books. Verse 33 plainly states:
“Wherefore saith the Lamb of God: I will be merciful unto the Gentiles, unto the visitingof the remnant of the house of Israel in great judgment.”
This is why the “stumbling” that the Gentiles are excused for does not include any atrocities committed against the “savage” survivors of God’s wrath. The “plain and precious parts” of the gospel which were left out of the Bible by that “abominable church” never justified murder. The Bible carried forth by those pre-restoration Christ-Shuns was sufficiently clear, with its Ten Commandments. And the conscience of any honest Gentile falling into the category of those fleeing captivity and seeking religious freedom, would not allow for aggression against anyone who was not violent towards them. In fact, we would do well to remember that, the although the word ‘gospel’ can and has been hijacked to mean whatever greedy men want it to, the gospel of Jesus Christ is Truth itself. Indeed we stumble today due to the great and abominable public school system of Babylon holding back many “plain and precious parts” of our history. Many so-called Pilgrims and Puritans are the worst offenders. Remember, that whether colonizers or CEOs, they are not agents of the Lord but false shepherds. As agents of the Church of the Devil they have blinded many to the truth since the inception of European Gentile society in this choice land.
The truth is, defection to join native society was so common that it became a major issue for colonial leaders. Ben Franklin, who never lost the empathy for the Iroquois, with whom he developed his reputation as a diplomat, noted that,
“No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.”
Franklin wasn’t pointing this out as a critique of those who defected — he believed that Indian societies provided greater opportunities for happiness than European cultures – and he wasn’t the only Founding Father who thought Europeans could learn a thing or two from their Red Brothers. They didn’t dress up like Indians at the Boston Tea Party ironically. That was common protesting gear during the American revolutions. According to Loewen, “Europeans were always trying to stop the outflow. Hernando De Soto had to post guards to keep his men and women from defecting to Native societies.” Pilgrims were so scared of Indian influence that they outlawed the wearing of long hair. Long hair didn’t fully come back into style until a couple hundred years later when Hippy and Native youth started to catch a bit of Zion Fever once again. (Ironically, even the U.S. Military, during the Viet Nam War, allowed certain Native Americans, who they had recruited specifically for their extraordinary tracking skills, to keep their hair long when it was discovered that their spiritual sensitivity/extra sensory perception suffered greatly if required to get a customary military haircut) These chapters in the Book of 1 Nehpi that we are looking at pronounce great blessings on those who “seek to bring forth Zion” and “publish peace upon the mountains”. But sadly peace treaties as early as colonial times were consistently broken by shameless Gentiles. And the not so beautiful feet of greedy men trampling the Appalachian Mountains left them stained from massacres. Benjamin Franklin wrote of the massacres:
“The Wickedness cannot be Covered, the Guilt will lie on the Whole Land, till Justice is done on the Murderers. THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT WILL CRY TO HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE!”
Not only were several of the Founding Fathers but also many colonial soldiers were directly inspired by the freedom of the Remnant peoples. Of course neither side was perfect but the ideas to form a “More Perfect Union” were very much based on the tribal ways of the more righteous remaining segments of a languishing Lamanite civilization. Historians think the Iroquois Confederacy had a direct influence on the U.S. Constitution, and the Senate even passed a resolution acknowledging that “the confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one republic was influenced … by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.” So compliance to the revealed principles of The Doctrine & Covenants, Sections 98: 5-7 and 101: 77-80, in which the Lord justifies us, in “befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land” – “the laws and constitution of the people, which [God] suffered to be established….for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles” has always and always will be contingent upon peaceful and cooperative relationship with the Remnant and the Land itself.
The land itself bears witness to the fact that a huge sprawling civilization once flourished here. Environmental scientists speculate that they must have cleared mass amounts of trees. Geologists and anthropologist can tell you what evidence they have uncovered from Cahokia, a massive Native American city that was located in modern day East St. Louis. In 1250, it was bigger than London, and featured a sophisticated society with an urban center, satellite villages and thatched-roof houses lining the central plazas. It also featured a gigantic man-made mound larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza. It was constructed with more than 2.16 billion pounds of dirt and brightly decorated with soil of various colors brought from hundreds of miles away. Wile the city was abandoned by the time Europeans reached the area, the evidence they left behind suggests a complex economy with trade routes from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The picture that emerges from the lost civilization of the ancient American mound builder societies meshes with descriptions of Nephite culture in the Book of Mormon and from Joseph Smith’s personal insights from visions.
The truth is that the United States was not really founded on Christian principles at all. Though it could be and is argued by many that this is or at least was at some point, a Christian nation; that is simply not the case. If you want to, you may call it Christian. To me, it is Christ-Shun. What has passed for Christianity here was already so perverted by the time it reached America’s shores that it was a curse to everyone it touched. The Nephite nation was one that was more justly founded on Christian principles but it too fell into devastating cycles of corruption. Approximately 400 miles due west of the ancient site of the aforementioned Cahokia is the place where, presumably, The New Jerusalem will be built in these latter days. And so, it is possibly in that vicinity, where the Resurrected Jesus appeared to the survivors of a much earlier wave of destruction that swept over that same land. The Living Christ has, over all, been rejected more than accepted on this continent. Here we worship the Dead Christ. It brings to mind the words of English trader Thomas Morton upon surveying the scene in the New England woods.
“And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle that it seemed a new found Golgotha”
Eא–D I G-E אØÇ – G E א–אØ-Ç I D E
Genocide is a term invented by Raphael Lemkin in order to put a name to the horrible specter of mass murder that is perpetrated on a scale so huge that it tends to be overlooked, dismissed or disbelieved by the vast majority of humanity. It seems to monstrous to even deal with psychologically. But by putting a name on the demon, we gain power over it, like in the story of ‘Rumplestiltskin’. In sincerely seeking the Lord’s inspiration to come up with a word that would capture the essence of the sin and impress the seriousness of it on the minds of men, Lemkin succeeded, if only subconsciously, in literally capturing the spirit of the evil one himself. The new name, which Lemkin divined through ponderous prayer, revealed the underlying designs of the menace and contains a code that is only decipherable to the wise. If we are wise as serpents and harmless as doves we will discern and apply this knowledge to the service of the Lord. But if after having been shown, we to deny or downplay this truth – be warned – arrogance is not ignorance and neither arrogance nor ignorance is innocence. The separate syllables and the same sounds, which compose the word ‘genocide’ can be rearranged to closely match the phonetics of the word ‘indigenous’
Indigenous is a word we inherit from Latin ‘indigena’ meaning “sprung from the land,”
Aboriginal – from ab origine, literally, “from the beginning.”
Tribal societies in all four quarters of the earth are targeted by genocidal maniacs, possessed of Satan, simply because as residues of the original way, members of the tribes of the earth embody and maintain much of the potency rejected by the larger group. And this power has the potential to be manifested in more miraculous ways due to the compact purity that has come about due to millennia of pressure. They represent the remnant because no matter how small the residue of literal blood of Abraham, according to our definition, that may or may not flow through their veins, they hold true to the Original Spirit of humanity. Even when it comes to detectable DNA, the coveted Cohen Marker which they claim as a sure sign of priestly heritage is typically more prevalent in East Afrikans than in any Khazar or Ashkenaz group of Eastern Europe. If blood is thicker than water, then spirit is vastly more pure and therefore more powerful than both. God is less concerned with Semitism and more involved with sentiment. God is not checking you against some scale of ‘Coheness’ or ‘Choseness’. He has chosen to call everyone to the great work and it is up to us to accept that calling and choose Him in every moment. God does not allow Himself to be tied down by cult-sure and those who obsess over such things usually end up torturing most viciously, themselves in thought and the saints of God in both mind and body.
The etymological pairing of the Greek prefix –Geno– and Latin suffix –Cide– for a literal meaning of “killing a tribe” invokes a chilling perversion of the LDS Article of Faith #10, which states:
“We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.”
Do we believe in the annihilation of the Tribes of Israel? We would deny such a notion. But if we do not wish to support the killing of the tribes then why do we stand aside, look the other way and in some cases act as a willing party to such crimes? Perhaps we do not know how to recognize genocide. The devil has used man’s fear of confronting demons to narrowly define the word genocide in our minds and thereby distract them. Parading Hitler’s Holocaust is advantageous to Satan since one unfamiliar word will establish unfamiliarity with the other. Genocide and Holocaust are practically synonymous terms in our heads. How many give any thought to the fact that the word Holocaust means “Burnt Offering”? How can we say “Never again” if we don’t know what happened? Oh that’s right the battle cry is no longer “Never again” but “Never forget!” so the feeling, thought and strange fruit of genocide may continue indefinitely.
Genocide is – “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”
This seems quite straight forward. However, as mentioned earlier, the human tendency to do whatever possible to avoid the issue made it necessary to spell it out in greater detail. Legally defined, it is:
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
As LDS and as Americans, as members of modern society wherever we live, we have been guilty of every single one of these items listed in the official definition of genocide. The methods by which we have soiled our garments are sundry and were I to just rattle off a few or dive into the task of detailing the diverse ways we take part in these atrocities, neither approach would do much good. He who searches his soul will recognize that sincerity begins with sin and will reconcile with God.
Although God suffers genocide, God does not condone it. Does God’s intervention, somewhere before the point of total destruction is reached, save the victims and perpetrators of genocide alike? Yes, for He is perfect in both mercy and justice. But what does He save each party from respectively? The victimized group is obviously saved from their oppressors. What then are the aggressors are saved from? Is this process a simple dichotomy with justice served on one side and mercy on the other? The Book of Mormon tells us that mercy can not rob justice. (Alma 42:25) If this is true then the converse is also. So both parties will receive equal parts mercy and justice. Now, what does mercy for the disinherited look like? What form will it take when delivered to the wicked? And as far as justice goes – “What man among you, having twelve sons…. saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:26) Why does the Lord commence this parable in the context of 12 Sons (Tribes of Israel), then proceed to mention only 2 (Ephraim & Manasseh), before finally following it up with an admonition to be 1? “If ye are not one ye are not mine.” (D&C 38:27)
To be one is to be complete and whole. Whetherin whole or in part – genocide is genocide. Just as reward for righteousness is not withheld when we fall short in our performance, retribution for evil will not be stayed simply because we stop short of some imaginary line in the sand. Thank God, we are not judged for our actions any more than we are for our appearance. Actions are only appearances after all – the appearance or emergence of that which lay beneath the surface. Jesus said “by their fruits shall ye know them” and we often take this to mean that we are safe judging another by their actions or inaction. But Jesus wants us to look deeper than protocol so as to not be fooled by false fruit. He was speaking of the fruits of the spirit. The spirit in which a thing is done, not the action itself must be our indicator. This may seem a foreign concept to many. But herein hides the reason for all of our sin in the first place. Action is not the first place. Jesus tells us that thought precedes all action and this makes us guilty of the sin inwardly before and regardless of whether we ever commit it outwardly. Thought is no more the first place than is action. Feeling precedes thought. Feeling is a vague term to our minds and is still far from the throne of God. But the word feeling is close enough to the source for our purposes, because if we honestly seek to follow the word of the Lord and bridle our passions (Alma38:12) then we will eventually, through experimentation; (Alma34:4) position our selves properly so as to watch (Mosiah4:30) not only our words and thoughts but our feelings. No one who feels good and desires that good reign in his life will ever participate in genocide from any angle, plain and simple.
Adolph Hitler did not feel good inside. He was not a man who bridled his passions. He did venture inside himself but he did not think himself able to change his feeling from bad to good. So he remained an open portal for evil. As a whole, those who were forced into concentration camps did not feel and find good in their selves. Or if they did, they did not hold those good feelings sacred enough to honor above all else. They thought that holiness came as a result of monitoring action alone. They were observing ritual and not thought; much less feeling. Too ‘modest’ to approach the shiningThrone of God situated high up on the mountain, they could feel zeal but not much else. Their moderation was not in all things, rather it was a mutation of modesty that left all revealing to a dead Moses while it reveled in the self righteousness of a limited view from within the shadow of the valley of death. The English word ‘martyr’, comes to us from Late Latin – martyros. Martyr literally means “witness,” probably related to mermera “care, trouble,” from mermairein “be anxious or thoughtful,” Modesty makes martyrs. Martyrs make mortar mixed with blood for the building up of the Kingdom of the Devil and the establishment of Traditional Thought. Adolph aligned himself with the swollen thought and deep feelings of millions and Nazis and Jews together hummed the same hymn of human sacrifice:
I prefer peace
Wouldn’t have to have one worldly possession
But essentially I’m an animal
So just what do I do with all the aggression?
Well I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
But it’s crossed my mind
Life is a one-way street, aint it? and if you could paint it
I’d draw myself going in the right direction
So I go all the way – like I really really know
But the truth is I’m only guessin’
And I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
Ooh but it’s crossed my mind
Just a thought
It’s even dark in the daytime
It’s not just good – it’s Great Depression
When I was lost I even found myself
Looking in the gun’s direction
And so I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
But yes – it’s crossed my mind
On June 17th, 2008, Anthony E. Larson uploaded a post to this blog called, The Great and Abominable Church. A couple of weeks later a visitor called CTC claimed that 1 Nephi 13 & 14 spoke of a literal great and abominable church that had yet to make its appearance and that much of both of these chapters was yet to be fulfilled. He said he got this information from someone who he believed was a bona fide prophet of God. CTC did not use a chronological approach to Nephi’s prophecy. This made it easy for him to get around certain parts which posed problems to him as a future fulfillment. But I’m not going to take that approach. I’m going to read it chronologically and literally, and see where it takes me.
I’m doing this because it interests me, not because I subscribe to this view, so please don’t take this as my interpretation of this chapter. As I’ve said before, my understanding of prophecy is that it is plain and speaks of real things, and also that it often has shadows or types. When CTC first posted his comments, I did not respond, because I hadn’t taken the time to really look at 1 Nephi 13, to see if the fulfillment that we normally assign to it could be a mere shadow. So, I remained silent and let others respond to him. However, recently I have found myself mentioning time and time again about a coming future captivity of the saints, which brought to my mind what Nephi had stated in 1 Nephi 13, which then brought to my mind what CTC had written in his comments.
All of which leads me to this post, in which I look at these chapters and attempt to interpret them as if their literal fulfillment was still future. So, let’s begin.
Chapter Thirteen of First Nephi
I will quote a part of the chapter, then give what is commonly assumed as its fulfillment, but as a shadow, and then I will give its literal future fulfillment. I will try to convincingly show why the shadow fulfillment does not satisfy the prophecy, meaning why the prophecy is not fulfilled every whit by the shadow, necessitating a future, literal fulfillment. I am using this as my Book of Mormon text.
The times of the Gentiles
and it came to pass | that the angel spake unto me | saying |
look |
and i looked | and beheld many nations and kingdoms | and the angel said unto me |
what beholdest thou |
and i said |
i behold many nations and kingdoms |
and he said unto me |
these are the nations and kingdoms of the gentiles |
This is obviously talking about the times of the Gentiles. But which times? The times of the primitive church with the twelve apostles, the times right after the death of the apostles, the times of Joseph Smith, the current times, or a future time of the Gentiles? Nephi isn’t clear on this point, but I will interpret this as a future time.
The formation of a church
and it came to pass | that i saw | among the nations of the gentiles | the formation of a great church | and the angel said unto me |
behold | the formation of a church | which is most abominable | above all other churches | which slayeth the saints of god | yea | and tortureth them | and bindeth them down | and yoketh them with a yoke of iron | and bringeth them down into captivity |
Shadow past fulfillment: Some have stated that this is the Roman Catholic Church, a literal church, which would put its formation after the death of the apostles. Others have stated that this is the “church” of science, a metaphorical church, which would put its formation after the Roman Catholic Church. Others believe this is speaking metaphorically about all churches that are not the true saints of God, per the later verse of 1 Ne. 14:10, giving it a metaphorical “formation” and a metaphorical “captivity.” These must all be shadows because they do not fulfill the prophecy every whit.
Literal future fulfillment: This a real church, not a figurative or metaphorical church. And it exists among other, real churches. It literally kills and tortures real saints—or sanctified people who have entered into a covenant with God, witnessed by baptism—and literally binds them, puts real iron yokes upon them and brings them down into literal (not metaphorical) captivity.
To literally fulfill this prophecy every whit, living saints of God must be present during, or after, the formation of this church, and they must be killed, tortured, bound, yoked with iron, and brought into captivity. Also, there must be other, real churches present, which do not pertain to the abominable church.
This has not occurred, yet, for although there were people tortured, killed, put into iron yokes and brought into captivity, by various religious organizations in the past, these tortured souls were not saints of God, for the church of God was already non-existent by then and the saints and apostles were already dead. Therefore, this prophecy must pertain to the future.
Devil, materialism, worldy praise
and it came to pass | that i beheld this great and abominable church |
and i saw the devil | that he was the founder of it |
and i also saw gold | and silver | and silks | and scarlets | and fine-twined linen | and all manner of precious clothing |
and i saw many harlots | and the angel spake unto me | saying |
behold | the gold | and the silver | and the silks | and the scarlets | and the fine-twined linen | and the precious clothing | and the harlots | are the desires of this great and abominable church |
and also | for the praise of the world do they destroy the saints of god | and bring them down into captivity |
The previous commentary applies to this section, as well, for if the church of God is not present, in order for this abominable church to bring God’s saints down into captivity and destroy them, it cannot be fulfilled literally.
Many waters
and it came to pass | that i looked | and beheld many waters | and they divided the gentiles from the seed of my brethren |
Shadow past fulfillment: The Gentiles of Europe are divided (separated) from the American Indians (Lamanites) by the Atlantic Ocean.
Literal future fulfillment: The Gentiles of Asia are divided (separated) from the American Indians (Lamanites) by “many waters.” The term “many waters” refers to that body of water called by the Nephites, Irreantum, which is the Pacific Ocean.
And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters. (1 Ne. 17:5)
The Spirit of God upon a man
and it came to pass | that the angel said unto me |
behold | the wrath of god is upon the seed of thy brethren |
and i looked | and beheld a man | among the gentiles | who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters |
and i beheld the spirit of god | that it came down | and wrought upon the man | and he went forth upon the many waters | even unto the seed of my brethren | who were in the promised land |
Literal future fulfillment: A man among the Asian Gentiles (not necessarily a Gentile man, nor Asian) will have the Spirit of God come down and work upon him. This man will be a holy prophet of God and will travel from Asia to North America, upon the Irreantum or Pacific Ocean, until he reaches the Lamanite remnant.
The Spirit of God upon captive Gentiles
and it came to pass | that i beheld the spirit of god | that it wrought upon other gentiles | and they went forth out of captivity upon the many waters |
Shadow past fulfillment: European Gentiles (Puritans) leave Europe and their religious “captivity” for America to partake of religious freedom. (Never mind that Europe was one of the freest places on the planet at the time.) They travel over the Atlantic Ocean.
Literal future fulfillment: Asian Gentiles are wrought upon by the Spirit of God, becoming saints of God, and leave Asian captivity, meaning that they leave the captivity of the tyrannical Chinese, North Korean and other communist regimes and dictatorships, which bind the people down in literal captivity. They travel over the Irreantum (Pacific Ocean.)
The scattering of the Lamanites
and it came to pass | that i beheld many multitudes of the gentiles upon the land of promise |
and i beheld the wrath of god | that it was upon the seed of my brethren | and they were scattered before the gentiles | and were smitten |
and i beheld the spirit of the lord | that it was upon the gentiles | and they did prosper | and obtain the land for their inheritance |
and i beheld | that they were white | and exceedingly fair and beautiful | like unto my people before they were slain |
Shadow past fulfillment: Lots of European Gentiles are in America. The European Gentiles partially scatter the American Indians and gather them into reservations. The European Gentiles take possession of Indian and American land. Some prosper, some do not. The European Gentiles are white, fair and beautiful.
Literal future fulfillment: Lots of different Gentiles are in America. An unnamed group of (European?) Gentiles fully scatter the American Indians, off of the reservations, and smite them, so that the Lamanites are completely landless. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a righteous group of (Asian?) Gentiles (saints) and they prosper and inherit the land. This righteous group of Gentiles is white, fair and beautiful.
Former captors wage war against former captives; God saves former captives
and it came to pass | that i nephi beheld | that the gentiles | who had gone forth out of captivity | did humble themselves before the lord | and the power of the lord was with them |
and i beheld | that their mother gentiles were gathered together upon the waters | and upon the land | also | to battle against them |
and i beheld | that the power of god was with them | and also | that the wrath of god was upon all those | that were gathered together against them to battle |
and i | nephi | beheld | that the gentiles | that had gone out of captivity | were delivered by the power of god out of the hands of all other nations |
Shadow past fulfillment: Many European Gentiles (in the American British colonies) are either deists or believe in God, Christianity and the Bible. The American Revolutionary War ensues. Despite hardships, lack of supplies, training, etc., the American Continental Army defeats the British.
Literal future fulfillment: The Asian Gentiles (who are converted saints of God)—who left their Asian communist countries, who traveled over the Irreantum (Pacific Ocean), who are now living upon the land of America—humble themselves before the Lord and obtain the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost. Their mother countries (China, Russia and the rest) send warships upon the waters to battle them and gather together upon the water and also gather together upon the land. Divine intervention (miracles of God) takes place and the armies of the mother Gentile nations, as well as the armies of all those nations who were gathered with them to battle the former Asian Gentile captives, are defeated by the power of God, and not by any power of man.
A book, the record of the Jews
and it came to pass | that i | nephi | beheld | that they did prosper in the land |
and i beheld a book | and it was carried forth among them | and the angel said unto me |
knowest thou the meaning of the book |
and i said unto him |
i know not |
and he said |
behold | it proceedeth out of the mouth of a jew |
and i | nephi | beheld it | and he said unto me |
the book | that thou beholdest | is a record of the jews | which contains the covenants of the lord | which he hath made unto the house of israel |
and it also containeth many of the prophecies of the holy prophets |
and it is a record like unto the engravings | which are upon the plates of brass | save there are not so many | nevertheless | they contain the covenants of the lord | which he hath made unto the house of israel | wherefore | they are of great worth unto the gentiles |
and the angel of the lord said unto me |
thou hast beheld | that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a jew |
and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a jew | it contained the fulness of the gospel of the lord | of whom the twelve apostles bear record | and they bear record | according to the truth which is in the lamb of god | wherefore | these things go forth from the jews in purity unto the gentiles | according to the truth which is in god |
and after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the lamb from the jews unto the gentiles | thou seest the formation of a great and abominable church | which is most abominable | above all other churches |
for behold | they have taken away from the gospel of the lamb many parts | which are plain and most precious |
and also | many covenants of the lord have they taken away |
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 | wherefore | thou seest | that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church | that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book | which is the book of the lamb of god |
and after these plain and precious things were taken away | it goeth forth unto all the nations of the gentiles |
and after it goeth forth unto all the nations of the gentiles | yea | even across the many waters | which thou hast seen with the gentiles | which have gone forth out of captivity | thou seest | because of the many plain and precious things | which have been taken out of the book | which were plain unto the understanding of the children of men | according to the plainness which is in the lamb of god | because of these things | which are taken away out of the gospel of the lamb | an exceedingly great many do stumble | yea | insomuch that satan hath great power over them | nevertheless | thou beholdest | that the gentiles | who have gone forth out of captivity | and have been lifted up by the power of god | above all other nations upon the face of the land | which is choice | above all other lands | which is the land | that the lord god hath covenanted with thy father | that his seed should have for the land of their inheritance | wherefore | thou seest | that the lord god will not suffer | that the gentiles will utterly destroy the mixture of thy seed | which are among thy brethren | neither will he suffer | that the gentiles shall destroy the seed of thy brethren | neither will the lord god suffer | that the gentiles shall forever remain in that awful state of blindness | which thou beholdest | they are in | because of the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the lamb | which have been kept back by that abominable church | whose formation thou hast seen |
wherefore |
saith the lamb of god |
i will be merciful unto the gentiles | unto the visiting of the remnant of the house of israel in great judgment |
Shadow past fulfillment: The European Gentiles (now called American citizens) have a Bible—written by multiple authors, not a single Jew—which has been corrupted by that great and abominable church, you know, the Roman Catholic Church, or the science non-church, or the vast assembly of non-saint churches “church.” That church. Anyway, that church/non-church takes some plain and precious parts away from the Bible and then sends it out to all the European Gentiles, which then makes its way to America, since the European Gentiles have traveled there over the Atlantic Ocean. And because of this faulty Bible, many of the European Gentiles stumble and sin. But hope is not lost, for the Lord has a plan.
Literal future fulfillment: The Asian Gentiles saints living in America have a book, written by a singular Jew, which contains a record of the Jews, the covenants of the Lord and many of the prophecies of the prophets. This book is like the plates of brass, except it doesn’t contain as much information as the plates of brass. It contains the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the testimony of all twelve apostles of the Lord.
When the book first appears, written by the singular Jew, it will go to the Gentiles, presumably to the Asian Gentiles who were in captivity, since they will be carrying the book. After it goes to the Gentiles, the great and abominable church will be formed. That church apparently will get a copy of the book and make drastic changes to it, taking out plain and precious parts. Then they will publish the book far and wide, so that it ends up in every Gentile nation, including in America.
There will be, then, two editions of the book. One which is pure, carried by the Asian Gentile saints living in America, and the other which is corrupted, carried by the other Gentiles (living in America and elsewhere). Because of the corrupted version, many Gentiles stumble and sin. But hope is not lost, for the Lord has a plan.
Another book, the record of the Nephites
and it came to pass | that the angel of the lord spake unto me | saying |
behold |
saith the lamb of god |
after i have visited the remnant of the house of israel |
and this remnant | of whom i speak | is the seed of thy father |
wherefore | after i have visited them in judgment | and smitten them by the hand of the gentiles | and after the gentiles do stumble exceedingly | because of the most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the lamb | which have been kept back by that abominable church | which is the mother of harlots |
saith the lamb |
i will be merciful unto the gentiles in that day | insomuch that i will bring forth unto them in mine own power much of my gospel | which shall be plain and precious |
saith the lamb |
for behold |
saith the lamb |
i will manifest myself unto thy seed | that they shall write many things | which i shall minister unto them | which shall be plain and precious | and after thy seed shall be destroyed | and dwindle in unbelief | and also the seed of thy brethren |
behold | these things shall be hid up |
to come forth unto the gentiles by the gift and power of the lamb |
and in them shall be written my gospel |
saith the lamb |
and my rock | and my salvation |
and blessed are they | who shall seek to bring forth my zion at that day | for they shall have the gift and the power of the holy ghost |
and if they endure unto the end | they shall be lifted up at the last day | and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the lamb |
and whoso shall publish peace | yea | tidings of great joy | how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be |
Shadow past fulfillment: The Book of Mormon, an abridged record of the Nephites, was written, and came forth to the Gentiles that were stumbling, by the gift and power of God, and in it is God’s rock, salvation and gospel, and it contains the many plain and precious parts that have been taken out of the Bible, as well as an abridgment of the ministry of the Savior to the Nephites. Those during the time of Joseph Smith were blessed with the gift and power of the Holy Ghost as they sought to establish Zion.
Future literal fulfillment: An unabridged Nephite record (not the Book of Mormon) will be written, to come forth to the Gentiles that stumble, by the gift and power of God, and in it will be God’s rock, salvation and gospel, and it will contain the many plain and precious parts that have been taken out of the book that is carried by the Asian Gentile saints. In the Nephite record will be “many things” that the Savior personally ministered to the Nephites. In other words, it will be an unabridged account of that ministry. Those during the time of the appearance of this unabridged Nephite record will be blessed with the gift and power of the Holy Ghost as they seek to establish Zion.
Two records established in one
and it came to pass | that i beheld the remnant of the seed of my brethren | and also the book of the lamb of god | which had proceeded forth from the mouth of the jew | that it came forth from the gentiles unto the remnant of the seed of my brethren |
and after it had come forth unto them | i beheld other books | which came forth by the power of the lamb from the gentiles unto them | unto the convincing of the gentiles | and the remnant of the seed of my brethren | and also | the jews | who were scattered upon all the face of the earth | that the records of the prophets | and of the twelve apostles of the lamb | are true | and the angel spake unto me | saying |
these last records | which thou hast seen among the gentiles | shall establish the truth of the first | which are of the twelve apostles of the lamb |
and shall make known the plain and precious things | which have been taken away from them |
and shall make known to all kindreds | tongues | and people | that the lamb of god is the son of the eternal father | and the savior of the world | and that all men must come unto him | or they cannot be saved | and they must come according to the words | which shall be established by the mouth of the lamb |
and the words of the lamb shall be made known in the records of thy seed | as well as in the records of the twelve apostles of the lamb | wherefore | they both shall be established in one | for there is one god | and one shepherd over all the earth |
and the time cometh | that he shall manifest himself unto all nations | both unto the jews | and also unto the gentiles |
and after he has manifested himself unto the jews | and also unto the gentiles | then he shall manifest himself unto the gentiles | and also unto the jews |
and the last shall be first | and the first shall be last |
Shadow past fulfillment: The Bible written by multiple Jews went to the Lamanites. Later, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price went to the Lamanites, and these last records established the truth of the Bible (as far as it is translated correctly), which is a record of the four apostles of the Lord, and made known the plain and precious parts missing in it. Both volumes of scripture were established in one, by being bound up as a quadruple combination.
Literal future fulfillment: The unchanged book carried by the Asian Gentile saints, written by a singular Jew, will go to the Lamanites. Later, the unabridged Nephite record (as well as other records) will go to the Lamanites and will establish the truth of the unadulterated book that is carried about by the Asian Gentile saints, which is a record of all twelve apostles of the Lord, and will make known the plain and precious parts that are missing in the perverted edition of that record. Both volumes of scripture will be established in one.
Chapter Fourteen of First Nephi
The whole of 1 Nephi 14 is still future, according to my understanding, but since I’m using CTC’s view to interpret the prophecy, I will try to bring up anything that may coincide with what I wrote about chapter thirteen.
Numbering
and it shall come to pass | that if the gentiles shall hearken unto the lamb of god | in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word | and also in power | in very deed | unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks | and harden not their hearts against the lamb of god | they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father | yea | they shall be numbered among the house of israel |
and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever |
they shall be no more brought down into captivity |
and the house of israel shall no more be confounded |
and that great pit | which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable church | which was founded by the devil and his children | that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell | yea | that great pit | which hath been digged for the destruction of men | shall be filled by those who digged it | unto their utter destruction |
saith the lamb of god |
not the destruction of the soul | save it be the casting of it into that hell | which hath no end |
for behold | this is according to the captivity of the devil | and also according to the justice of god upon all those | who will work wickedness and abomination before him |
Shadow past/present fulfillment: I suppose latter-day saints could interpret numbering among the house of Israel as fulfilled by getting their patriarchal blessings, which tell them what tribe they have been assigned to.
Literal future fulfillment: Numbering is a tribal function. I’ve already gone over this on this blog before, so I’m not going to elaborate on this topic again. Let it suffice that my understanding is that this pertains to the future and has not yet been fulfilled in any part, whatsoever.
The great and marvelous work
and it came to pass | that the angel spake unto me | nephi | saying |
thou hast beheld | that if the gentiles repent | it shall be well with them |
and thou also knowest | concerning the covenants of the lord unto the house of israel |
and thou also hast heard | that whoso repenteth not | must perish | therefore | wo be unto the gentiles | if it so be | that they harden their hearts against the lamb of god |
for the time cometh |
saith the lamb of god |
that i will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men | a work which shall be everlasting | either on the one hand | or on the other | either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal | or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts | and the blindness of their minds | unto their being brought down into captivity | and also into destruction | both temporally and spiritually |
according to the captivity of the devil | of which i have spoken |
Shadow past fulfillment: The times of Joseph Smith in which he restored many lost truths and layed the foundation of the kingdom is often thought as the great and marvelous work.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and marvel work takes places after the numbering of the Gentiles among the house of Israel, therefore, it is still a future event.
The covenants of the Father to the house of Israel
and it came to pass | that when the angel had spoken these words | he said unto me |
rememberest thou the covenants of the father unto the house of israel |
i said unto him |
yea |
I don’t really need to comment on this.
Two churches only
and it came to pass | that he said unto me |
look | and behold that great and abominable church | which is the mother of abominations | whose founder is the devil |
and he said unto me |
behold | there are save two churches only |
the one is the church of the lamb of god | and the other is the church of the devil | wherefore | whoso belongeth not to the church of the lamb of god | belongeth to that great church | which is the mother of abominations | and she is the whore of all the earth |
Shadow past fulfillment: Some use this scripture retroactively, to apply to the thirteenth chapter of First Nephi. So, they define the great and abominable church as everything that isn’t the LDS church.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and marvelous work, which is still future, will cause a division among the people, so that there are no longer a multiplicity of churches on earth. Everything will either align itself with the great and abominable church, being absorbed by her, or join the saints of God in the now-called church of the Lamb of God. The church of the Lamb of God will be using, if you remember, the Book of the Lamb of God. In other words, that unchanged book written by a singular Jew, carried by the Asian Gentile saints, which contains the writings of the twelve (not four) apostles of the Lamb. Just as Mormons are called Mormons because of the book they carry and use and believe, so the Lamb of God church will be called by the name of their main book.
Headquarters in the midst of Irreantum
and it came to pass | that i looked | and beheld the whore of all the earth | and she sat upon many waters | and she had dominion over all the earth | among all nations | kindreds | tongues | and people |
Shadow past fulfillment: Bad (non-LDS) churches are all over the planet.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and abominable church will be headquartered somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and will have global reach.
The church of the Lamb of God
and it came to pass | that i beheld the church of the lamb of god | and its numbers were few | because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore | who sat upon many waters | nevertheless | i beheld | that the church of the lamb | who were the saints of god | were also upon all the face of the earth | and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small | because of the wickedness of the great whore | whom i saw |
Shadow past fulfillment: Good (LDS) churches are all over the planet.
Literal future fulfillment: The church of the Lamb of God will have global reach, but small membership, due to the other church’s wickedness.
Gathering of the whore to fight the Lamb
and it came to pass | that i beheld | that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth among all the nations of the gentiles to fight against the lamb of god |
I ain’t gonna interpret this.
Power of God upon the saints and covenant people
and it came to pass | that i | nephi | beheld the power of the lamb of god | that it descended upon the saints of the church of the lamb | and upon the covenant people of the lord | who were scattered upon all the face of the earth | and they were armed with righteousness | and with the power of god in great glory |
Nor will I interpret this. But do notice that at this point in the prophetic timeline, the covenant people of the Lord are still in their scattered state.
Worldwide wars
and it came to pass | that i beheld | that the wrath of god was poured out upon that great and abominable church | insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the earth | and as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations | which belonged to the mother of abominations | the angel spake unto me | saying |
behold | the wrath of god is upon the mother of harlots |
and behold | thou seest all these things | and when the day cometh | that the wrath of god is poured out upon the mother of harlots | which is the great and abominable church of all the earth | whose founder is the devil | then at that day the work of the father shall commence in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants | which he hath made to his people | who are of the house of israel |
Nor will I interpret this. But do notice that only now, after there are wars and rumors of war everywhere, after the numbering, after the unabridged Nephite record and the record of the twelve apostles of the Lamb come forth, etc., only after all these things happen does the work of the Father commence in preparing the way for the fulfilling of His covenants with Israel!
The apostle John
and it came to pass | that the angel spake unto me | saying |
look |
and i looked | and beheld a man | and he was dressed in a white robe | and the angel said unto me |
behold | one of the twelve apostles of the lamb |
behold | he shall see and write the remainder of these things | yea | and also many things which have been | and he shall also write concerning the end of the world | wherefore | the things | which he shall write | are just and true |
and behold | they are written in the book | which thou beheld proceeding out of the mouth of the jew | and at the time they proceeded out of the mouth of the jew | or at the time the book proceeded out of the mouth of the jew | the things | which were written | were plain | and pure | and most precious | and easy to the understanding of all men |
and behold | the things | which this apostle of the lamb shall write | are many things | which thou hast seen |
and behold | the remainder shalt thou see | but the things | which thou shalt see hereafter | thou shalt not write | for the lord god hath ordained the apostle of the lamb of god | that he should write them | and also others | who have been | to them hath he shown all things | and they have written them | and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity | according to the truth which is in the lamb | in the own due time of the lord | unto the house of israel |
and i | nephi | heard | and bear record | that the name of the apostle of the lamb was john | according to the word of the angel |
and behold | i | nephi | am forbidden | that i should write the remainder of the things | which i saw and heard | wherefore | the things | which i have written | sufficeth me | and i have written but a small part of the things | which i saw |
and i bear record | that i saw the things | which my father saw | and the angel of the lord did make them known unto me |
Shadow past fulfillment: John the apostle wrote the Book of Revelation, which contains some of the things that Nephi saw and the Book of Revelation is found in the Bible, which was written by multiple Jews.
Literal future fulfillment: John the apostle will appear in the future, with a mission to gather the tribes of Israel, as a Jewish Elias, meaning an Elias of the tribe of Judah, and he will come and restore all things pertaining to the Jews.
Q. What are we to understand by the little book which was eaten by John, as mentioned in the 10th chapter of Revelation?
A. We are to understand that it was a mission, and an ordinance, for him to gather the tribes of Israel; behold, this is Elias, who, as it is written, must come and restore all things. (D&C 77:14)
As part of his commission, John will prophesy among many nations, kings, tongues and people.
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was at it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire; and he had in his hand a little book open; and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth; and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
Those things are sealed up which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said,
God and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
And I went unto the angel, and said unto him,
Give me the little book.
And he said unto me,
Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
It was for this reason that John was translated, that he might perform this latter-day work.
And the Lord said unto me:
John, my beloved, what desirest thou? For if you shall ask what you will, it shall be granted unto you.
And I said unto him:
Lord, give unto me power over death, that I may live and bring souls unto thee.
And the Lord said unto me:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, because thou desirest this thou shalt tarry until I come in my glory, and shalt prophesy before nations, kindreds, tongues and people.
And for this cause the Lord said unto Peter:
If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? For he desired of me that he might bring souls unto me, but thou desiredst that thou mightest speedily come unto me in my kingdom. I say unto thee, Peter, this was a good desire; but my beloved has desired that he might do more, or a greater work yet among men than what he has before done. Yea, he has undertaken a greater work; therefore I will make him as flaming fire and a ministering angel; he shall minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation who dwell on the earth. And I will make thee to minister for him and for thy brother James; and unto you three I will give this power and the keys of this ministry until I come. Verily I say unto you, ye shall both have according to your desires, for ye both joy in that which ye have desired. (D&C 7)
John, then, is the Jew, out of whose mouth the book, which Nephi saw in vision, would proceed. He is the “hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” which will write this book. Through John will proceed the record and testimony of all twelve apostles of the Lamb, and all the things which Nephi saw will be written by John, “and also many things which have been,” meaning that John will write things which preceded Nephi. The writings of John in the Bible do not cover all the things that the angel told Nephi John would write, which would be written in the book that proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, which is called “the Book of the Lamb of God.”
And this is the very reason why the angel prohibited Nephi from writing the rest of his vision. The Book of Revelation does not contain the vision that Nephi saw. If anything, it only contains a part of the vision, or an abridgement. Nephi could not write what he saw because it was not the proper time for that information to come forth. When John re-appears on the scene, he will dictate the book that Nephi saw the Asian Gentile saints carrying, which will contain the full vision of Nephi, as well as the covenants of the Lord, many of the prophecies of the prophets, the testimony of all twelve apostles, a record of the Jews and “many things which have been.” Yet, despite all that, it will still be less material than what the plates of brass contain.
John may, in fact, be the man who is wrought upon by the Spirit of God, who goes forth upon the many waters (Irreantum) to the promised land, who is followed by the Asian Gentile saints. John may be that man among the Asian Gentiles, who preaches to them and gives them the book that he will write, which they will carry with them to the promised land. John may be the very one who frees them from captivity, allowing them to leave their countries and come over the Irreantum to America.
Wrapping this up
Is any of this true? Could our standard interpretation of these two chapters be mere shadows? I will leave it up to the reader to figure that out for him or herself. One thing is for sure, if 1 Nephi 13 has yet to be literally fulfilled, we know what the very first thing mentioned is: the formation of a great and abominable church and the death, torture and captivity of the saints. Let us hope that none of the things I wrote above have any basis in prophetic reality.
Note: Due to recent anti-American voices, which seem to have reached a fever pitch, and I feel constrained, yet again, to write about gun rights infringement.
To all American gun rights advocates
I am addressing my words to everyone who is a gun rights advocate, not just to the latter-day saints (Mormons), so the intended audience is much wider than usual. Use any of these ideas as you see fit, in your fight to protect American rights.
Use the proper terms
Gun control is a misnomer, so never use it. Instead, begin a conversation with the term, so-called “gun control,” and then label it correctly as gun rights infringement. Continue to use the proper term for the rest of the conversation. Remember, so-called “gun control” is not about controlling guns, but about controlling people by infringing on their right to keep and bear arms.
Gun control advocate is another misnomer. When someone says they are a gun control advocate, call them instead a gun rights infringer. (It does not matter that the word infringer is not in the dictionary, everyone will understand its meaning. Sometimes creating a new word is the best option. Shakespeare did it many times, so can you. Besides, used enough times, you can be sure it will eventually make it into the dictionary.)
When someone says that he or she is an American in favor of gun control, refer to him or her ever afterward as an anti-American in favor of gun rights infringement, or just as an anti-American gun rights infringer. The term anti-American fits, for only anti-Americans attack or seek to weaken the constitutional protections of the rights of American citizens.
When referring to behavior that undermines the Bill of Rights protections, call it un-American. That is, after all, what it is.
These terms: gun rights infringement, gun rights infringer, anti-American, and un-American, make people immediately think of criminals and communists seeking to undermine or subvert the American system and way of life. Because they themselves make the connection between infringement and crime and anti/un-American and communist, these terms have a more powerful effect upon the minds of the people hearing them. Never, ever, label someone a criminal or communist or socialist or whatever, for if you do, people’s doubt will come into play and they will not believe the rest of what you say.
Use the terms undermining and subversion liberally in a conversation when describing actions that promote gun rights infringement. No one wants their rights undermined, nor does anyone want the Constitution subverted. These are descriptive terms that paint an immediate picture in one’s mind of spies trying to overthrow the government.
Use the term subversive as a label for anyone who promotes gun rights infringement. When a person calls someone else a subversive and describes their actions as subversive behavior, those that listen to the conversation immediately think of cloak and dagger stuff, such as an enemy trying to destroy the American way of life.
These terms are effective because they are based upon word associations. The words criminal, communist, spy and enemy, all pop up in people’s mind automatically, as soon as you start using these terms. Because they themselves do the associations, or because they themselves make the connections, or think of the associated words themselves, they believe them. Now, everything you say about the person you have just labeled will be more receptive to the audience listening in, for they now will view the gun rights infringer with suspicion.
Use “no infringement” as the standard
Never call so-called “gun control laws,” gun control laws. They must always be called, gun rights infringement laws. Everything must be brought back to the central issue: the infringement of unalienable rights.
Every gun rights infringement law on the books must be regarded and labeled as illegal. Never, ever refer to them as legal. They are all illegal, unconstitutional laws, and always refer to them as such. As long as people think of these illegal gun rights infringement laws as legal, they will be accepting of so-called “legal” gun rights infringement. People need to be presented with contradictory information, before they wake up out of their sleep. They must be presented with two, opposing “realities,” one side saying, “gun control laws are legal” and the other side saying, “gun rights infringement laws are illegal.” They must understand that there is no such thing as “legal” gun rights infringement.
“No infringement” must be the standard. Partial infringement is unacceptable. A full infringement of one’s right to life would be immediate execution. A partial infringement of that same right might consist of poison administered over time so as to shorten one’s life. Full infringement of the right to property would be taking it all, partial infringement might consist of taking only half. The right to liberty could be partially infringed upon by requiring that you be confined three days out of every week. Partial infringement of the right to free speech might be that your mouth be taped shut every Monday and Tuesday. If this all sounds absurd, it is because it is. Infringement is infringement, whether it is partial or full, and it is all unacceptable, tyrannical behavior. This same principle applies to the right to keep and bear arms.
Needs have nothing to do with rights
If a person wanted to administer poison to you, to shorten your life span from 75 to 65 years old, while telling you, “Oh, but you don’t need those last ten years of life!” would you let him? Does your right to life have anything to do with your needs? Are not your years yours, to do with as you want? Does the argument that you don’t need 50% of your property, or you don’t need seven days of freedom because four days is enough, or you don’t need to speak your mind on Mondays and Tuesdays, make it alright to infringe upon these rights? Of course not! So, in like manner, no one has the right to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms because a person doesn’t “need” another gun, or more ammo, or a bigger and more powerful weapon. His or her needs have nothing to do with the matter.
So, toss the needs argument right into the trash from the get-go and keep the conversation eternally focused on the rights of man.
Get yourself some weapons and keep them
Get enough firearms and ammunition for every able bodied person of age in your family. Get the weapons you feel are appropriate, including so-called assault weapons. (Notice I used “so-called.”) Make sure your family is trained in their proper use and safety.
Bear your weapons
Rights that are not asserted will inevitably be encroached upon and eventually taken away. Firearms must, of necessity, be borne. In other words, when you go around town to do your daily business, go packing heat. Now, there may be an illegal law against that in your area. If so, then another strategy must be taken. But if there is no illegal law against that, start doing it, and keep doing it.
Educate your neighbors on gun rights
The best means to do that is the following document:
Just print it out as a hard copy and hand it out or snail mail it, email it, or share it online using its 120+ share functions. The video, Innocents Betrayed: The True Story of Gun Control World Wide, is also an excellent teaching tool to use.
Meet with other gun rights advocates
Your local gun and ammo supply store may be able to hook you up with other local gun right advocates. This is an important step to take in order to begin the formation of citizen militias.
Begin to form and regulate a local citizen militia
In conjunction with other local gun rights advocates, begin to form a local citizen militia. It is necessary that citizen militias be “well-regulated.” That of course means that everyone needs to possess weapons, perhaps of a specific kind, and also sufficient ammo, but it may also mean that everyone should have the means to communicate with each other, perhaps through ham radio or whatnot. Each militia will decide how best to regulate itself.
When meeting together as a militia, to conduct business, bring your weapons with you. Bearing arms is the key to gun rights (and all other rights) protection.
Do not keep it local. In other words, seek to establish other “chapters” of citizen militias in the regions round about, and work to have each local militia capable of communicating and working with other militias. This is all part of being “well-regulated.”
Citizen militias are for both local and common defense, so they need to be able to co-ordinate efforts with other militias.
Let the Bill of Rights be the common thread that unites all the citizens in the various militias, so that race, color, creed, customs, dress and all other differences are set aside. The only requirement to unite with a citizen militia ought to be that one be law-abiding. Law-abiding should simply mean that a person supports a “no infringement” stance on the Bill of Rights.
Expect infiltration. G-men get antsy about the prospect of an armed citizenry, and especially about organized, citizen militias, so expect that some undercover agents may be joining your group, to spy on it or even to sabotage it or create false flags.
There is safety in numbers and weapons
When these militias grow in sufficiently large numbers, they ought to meet out in the public, packing heat, in peaceful assembly, exercising two of their rights simultaneously: bearing arms and peacefully assembling. In fact, at every public protest or peaceful assembly, of whatever group, the armed citizen militia ought to be there as a show of force, in support of the people’s rights to protest and assemble.
In areas where there are illegal laws on the books, prohibiting or restricting the right to bear arms in public, several local militias could organize peaceful assemblies using this principle*, with thousands or tens of thousands of armed militia men in attendance, as a public demonstration that illegal laws that prohibit or infringe upon the bearing of arms should not be obeyed. This ought to be done quite frequently and only in large numbers, until the police decide not to enforce the illegal laws and they are removed from the books.
*Btw, in case this comes up in the comments, yes, I am fully aware that Ghandi, who was a supporter of this principle, wrote in Chapter XXVII, “The Recruiting Campaign,” in his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth:
“I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: ‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.’ The Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could.”
Solutions for statists
These ideas of mine will appeal to those who do not look to the government to solve gun rights infringement, but for any statists who read this blog, who want to change the government via legislation, you may wish to use the Gun Owners of America lobby group as a tool. By becoming a member and giving them money, they will lobby Congress for zero infringement of gun rights. If enough people join them, and if they get enough money, perhaps they will make a difference. Here is their web site:
I suggest the GOA and not the NRA, because the NRA does not appear to have a strict, zero infringement policy. They are as likely to lobby for partial infringement, as for no infringement, which would be a waste of money.
The other thing you can do is contact your representatives and senators and tell them that if they support any infringement on gun rights, you will not vote for them. Personally, such tactics seem useless to me, but perhaps they are worth a try.
To latter-day saints
Now I would like to turn my attention to the latter-day saints who might read this blog.
The Lord has given us a charge to befriend the Bill of Rights, therefore, any LDS in a governmental position of authority cannot justifiably violate the rights of any law-abiding citizen while performing government duties. This means that latter-day saint police officers, FBI agents, CIA officials, military personnel, border patrol and any other position of government authority, takes second seat to the Bill of Rights. Should you confiscate a law-abiding citizen’s weapons (and the definition of a law-abiding citizen is one who does not infringe upon the Bill of Rights) by command of a superior, you have broken your covenant with God to obey His commandments, which includes His words about befriending these Constitutional protections.
Righteous LDS are prohibited, then, from infringing on a law-abiding citizen’s rights, by God’s laws. They still have their agency, of course, and can choose to sin, but in order to remain justified before the Lord, they must obey this instruction.
However, the Lord has also said that we are to be subject to the powers that be until He reigns. The question must be asked, then, what are the powers that be?
The applicable gospel principle is the voice of the people, as taught by the seer Mosiah:
It is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.
The voice of the people are the powers that be that the Lord referred to. We are to be subject to the voice of the people, we are to observe the voice of the people, and we are to make the voice of the people our law, to do all our business by that voice. This commandment is an actual law of the Lord and must be obeyed for justification before the Lord.
This means that latter-day saints are only justified insofar as they submit to the voice of the people. If that voice is for the government, then latter-day saints must submit to the government. If the voice ever turns against the government, then latter-day saints must submit to the people and stand with the people against their government. Those who do not submit to the powers that be according to this pattern and principle must remain unjustified before the Lord.
Mosiah also said:
And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.
Therefore, if the time ever comes that the voice of the people chooses iniquity by turning against the Bill of Rights, then destruction will come upon the people, from the Lord. But as long as the voice of the people is in support of the Bill of Rights, latter-day saints can only remain free by aligning themselves with that voice. And by extension, all latter-day saints who oppose the just voice of the people will find themselves brought down into captivity.
Therefore, based on these principles, it is possible for latter-day saints to engage in every idea listed above while remaining justified before the Lord, if the voice of the people is with them. Nevertheless, even if the voice of the people has not spoken, no latter-day saint is justified in violating anyone’s rights, whether acting under government or citizen authority.
Citizen militias in Nephite times
To more fully explain why the Bill of Rights is justifiable before the Lord, it is necessary to look to the Book of Mormon. The Bill of Rights was inspired by the Spirit of freedom (see Talking to myself), meaning that it embodies principles that align with laws that the Lord Himself had given to His people who lived on this land anciently.
The Nephites were organized, from the beginning, as citizen militias. Thus, we find Nephi using the sword of Laban to create weapons of war for his people, so that everyone was armed. In the case of the Nephites, they had both a right and a duty to keep and bear arms. Nevertheless, they did not have a standing army. Whenever the Lamanites would invade their lands, the Nephites would stop their daily pursuits, take up their arms, and wage war. When the war was over, they would go back to their normal endeavors. (See The Strength of the Lord.)
The Nephites had no police force, only citizen militias. So, when Korihor was going around telling lies, which was a punishable crime in Nephite law, he was arrested by citizens. It was the citizens, not a police force, that was responsible for making sure that no one’s rights were infringed upon.
Mormon dissed the Nephites of Zarahemla because when Korihor first began spreading his lies there, the citizens did not arrest him, as was their duty. Instead, they left him free to roam about and deceive the people and he was able to cause many souls to sin. Later, he entered the land of Jershon, but the Lamanites who lived there arrested him because, according to Mormon, “they were more wise than many of the Nephites.” Later he went over to the land of Gideon and was again arrested by citizens (this time by Nephites.) Finally, he was arrested yet again and brought back to Zarahemla for trial and judgment.
No pacifism among the Nephites
The Nephites were operating under commandments of God, from the beginning, from the time of Lehi and Nephi, in which they were commanded to keep and bear arms. That they both kept and bore arms as a routine is shown by the fight between Nehor and Gideon, which began as two men talking religion and ended up with each one reaching for his sword, ending in Gideon’s death. Now, Gideon was a man of God, even a teacher in the church of God, yet he was armed, as were all the Nephites.
The law of the Lord, as given to the Nephites, is the same law that has been given to the latter-day saints, as recorded in D&C 98, which was given as the pattern for all Gentile nations to follow. (See D&C 98:38.) That section starts out by talking about justification before the Lord and befriending the Bill of Rights, which, as we know, includes the right to keep and bear arms. It then ends with a “fourth offense” warfare doctrine, giving latter-day saints warfare laws by which they might remain justified before the Lord. Thus, there is no pacifism in the section, nor was there any pacifism manifested among the Nephites.
The only so-called “pacifism” manifested in the Book of Mormon comes from the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, who took an oath not to take up arms against their brethren (the other Lamanites). This was an exception because they had not previously entered into the same covenant the Nephites had entered into, in regard to the laws given to the Nephites, which included warfare instructions. In other words, the Nephites had to take up arms in defense of their country, according to the covenant they made, otherwise they would be guilty of breaking their covenant and sinning.
The Lamanites, though, did not have such restrictions, so after they had entered into their covenant to take up no arms against their Lamanite brethren, and had joined the Nephites, they could not break their first oath without sinning, so exception was made for them and they were excused from the typical covenant that every Nephite had to make as a citizen, according to the laws given to the Nephites, as revealed to them by the Lord.
That pacifism was not considered a so-called “higher law” by these Lamanites is evidenced by what they taught their children, for they did not teach their children to enter into the same oath that they did, but they taught them to take the Nephite oath and covenant. Thus, the children of these Lamanites, even the 2000+ stripling warriors, were not taught to be pacifists by their fathers, but were taught the same laws given in D&C 98.
Additionally, the Lamanite Anti-Nephi-Lehies, who had taken this oath, voluntarily supported the war efforts of the Nephites with their sons, with their money and with supplies, including retreating inward towards the center of the land so that the Nephite armies could battle the Lamanites, their brethren. At one point, in fact, the Lamanites became so concerned with how the war was going, and the destruction of their new Nephite brethren, that they considered breaking their oath and covenant and taking up arms to defend the Nephite nation against the Lamanites. None of this behavior can be labelled as pacifism. So, why did they lay down their weapons and never take them again? It was because of the oath they took, not because of the philosophy we call pacifism.
This shows that the Anti-Nephi-Lehies were an exception to the rule, manifested under a different set of circumstances and conditions, and to a different group of people, and was never meant to be taken as a pattern for the Gentiles. They were held up by Mormon as a standard of keeping one’s oath and covenant even unto death, and of brotherly love, but not as a standard or pattern for Gentile pacifism.
The Gentiles must obey the instructions given to them by the Lord, which are the same ones given to the Nephites, otherwise they will incur the displeasure of God upon them. Mormons, then, cannot justifiably be pacifists, in the sense of refusing to bear arms in defense of their country, like the king-men did. They may choose not to bear arms for individual or family circumstances, as explained in D&C 98, but when their people is threatened by any nation, tongue or people, if, after the third time of offering peace, the offering is not accepted by the invaders, they cannot justifiably refuse to take up arms. They must defend the nation, just as the Nephites had to.
Modern pacifism, then, is a philosophy of men, and is not of God. All Mormons who claim to be pacifists, and who claim that the scriptures justify pacifism for the Gentiles, or who lift it up as the standard for the Gentiles, or who denounce the law of God as written in D&C 98, denying gun rights, self defense and our duty toward common defense, is either in error, having not understood the scriptures, or is intentionally trying to deceive people.
Befriend the Bill of Rights
I bring all of this up to show latter-say saints that they can justifiably befriend the Bill of Rights. They can justifiably keep and bear and use arms. They can justifiably engage in warfare, self defense and common defense. They can justifiably form themselves into citizen militias. And so on and so forth. It is not sin to do these things, but righteousness, for this is all according to the word of the Lord, as given in the scriptures.
1 Nephi 13 & 14 commentary, using CTC’s view
On June 17th, 2008, Anthony E. Larson uploaded a post to this blog called, The Great and Abominable Church. A couple of weeks later a visitor called CTC claimed that 1 Nephi 13 & 14 spoke of a literal great and abominable church that had yet to make its appearance and that much of both of these chapters was yet to be fulfilled. He said he got this information from someone who he believed was a bona fide prophet of God. CTC did not use a chronological approach to Nephi’s prophecy. This made it easy for him to get around certain parts which posed problems to him as a future fulfillment. But I’m not going to take that approach. I’m going to read it chronologically and literally, and see where it takes me.
I’m doing this because it interests me, not because I subscribe to this view, so please don’t take this as my interpretation of this chapter. As I’ve said before, my understanding of prophecy is that it is plain and speaks of real things, and also that it often has shadows or types. When CTC first posted his comments, I did not respond, because I hadn’t taken the time to really look at 1 Nephi 13, to see if the fulfillment that we normally assign to it could be a mere shadow. So, I remained silent and let others respond to him. However, recently I have found myself mentioning time and time again about a coming future captivity of the saints, which brought to my mind what Nephi had stated in 1 Nephi 13, which then brought to my mind what CTC had written in his comments.
All of which leads me to this post, in which I look at these chapters and attempt to interpret them as if their literal fulfillment was still future. So, let’s begin.
Chapter Thirteen of First Nephi
I will quote a part of the chapter, then give what is commonly assumed as its fulfillment, but as a shadow, and then I will give its literal future fulfillment. I will try to convincingly show why the shadow fulfillment does not satisfy the prophecy, meaning why the prophecy is not fulfilled every whit by the shadow, necessitating a future, literal fulfillment. I am using this as my Book of Mormon text.
The times of the Gentiles
This is obviously talking about the times of the Gentiles. But which times? The times of the primitive church with the twelve apostles, the times right after the death of the apostles, the times of Joseph Smith, the current times, or a future time of the Gentiles? Nephi isn’t clear on this point, but I will interpret this as a future time.
The formation of a church
Shadow past fulfillment: Some have stated that this is the Roman Catholic Church, a literal church, which would put its formation after the death of the apostles. Others have stated that this is the “church” of science, a metaphorical church, which would put its formation after the Roman Catholic Church. Others believe this is speaking metaphorically about all churches that are not the true saints of God, per the later verse of 1 Ne. 14:10, giving it a metaphorical “formation” and a metaphorical “captivity.” These must all be shadows because they do not fulfill the prophecy every whit.
Literal future fulfillment: This a real church, not a figurative or metaphorical church. And it exists among other, real churches. It literally kills and tortures real saints—or sanctified people who have entered into a covenant with God, witnessed by baptism—and literally binds them, puts real iron yokes upon them and brings them down into literal (not metaphorical) captivity.
To literally fulfill this prophecy every whit, living saints of God must be present during, or after, the formation of this church, and they must be killed, tortured, bound, yoked with iron, and brought into captivity. Also, there must be other, real churches present, which do not pertain to the abominable church.
This has not occurred, yet, for although there were people tortured, killed, put into iron yokes and brought into captivity, by various religious organizations in the past, these tortured souls were not saints of God, for the church of God was already non-existent by then and the saints and apostles were already dead. Therefore, this prophecy must pertain to the future.
Devil, materialism, worldy praise
The previous commentary applies to this section, as well, for if the church of God is not present, in order for this abominable church to bring God’s saints down into captivity and destroy them, it cannot be fulfilled literally.
Many waters
Shadow past fulfillment: The Gentiles of Europe are divided (separated) from the American Indians (Lamanites) by the Atlantic Ocean.
Literal future fulfillment: The Gentiles of Asia are divided (separated) from the American Indians (Lamanites) by “many waters.” The term “many waters” refers to that body of water called by the Nephites, Irreantum, which is the Pacific Ocean.
The Spirit of God upon a man
Shadow past fulfillment: The European Gentile, Christopher Columbus, “believed himself chosen by God to find [a new] land and deliver the light of Christianity to the natives there.” He sailed upon the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, all the way to the Lamanite remnant.
Literal future fulfillment: A man among the Asian Gentiles (not necessarily a Gentile man, nor Asian) will have the Spirit of God come down and work upon him. This man will be a holy prophet of God and will travel from Asia to North America, upon the Irreantum or Pacific Ocean, until he reaches the Lamanite remnant.
The Spirit of God upon captive Gentiles
Shadow past fulfillment: European Gentiles (Puritans) leave Europe and their religious “captivity” for America to partake of religious freedom. (Never mind that Europe was one of the freest places on the planet at the time.) They travel over the Atlantic Ocean.
Literal future fulfillment: Asian Gentiles are wrought upon by the Spirit of God, becoming saints of God, and leave Asian captivity, meaning that they leave the captivity of the tyrannical Chinese, North Korean and other communist regimes and dictatorships, which bind the people down in literal captivity. They travel over the Irreantum (Pacific Ocean.)
The scattering of the Lamanites
Shadow past fulfillment: Lots of European Gentiles are in America. The European Gentiles partially scatter the American Indians and gather them into reservations. The European Gentiles take possession of Indian and American land. Some prosper, some do not. The European Gentiles are white, fair and beautiful.
Literal future fulfillment: Lots of different Gentiles are in America. An unnamed group of (European?) Gentiles fully scatter the American Indians, off of the reservations, and smite them, so that the Lamanites are completely landless. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a righteous group of (Asian?) Gentiles (saints) and they prosper and inherit the land. This righteous group of Gentiles is white, fair and beautiful.
Former captors wage war against former captives; God saves former captives
Shadow past fulfillment: Many European Gentiles (in the American British colonies) are either deists or believe in God, Christianity and the Bible. The American Revolutionary War ensues. Despite hardships, lack of supplies, training, etc., the American Continental Army defeats the British.
Literal future fulfillment: The Asian Gentiles (who are converted saints of God)—who left their Asian communist countries, who traveled over the Irreantum (Pacific Ocean), who are now living upon the land of America—humble themselves before the Lord and obtain the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost. Their mother countries (China, Russia and the rest) send warships upon the waters to battle them and gather together upon the water and also gather together upon the land. Divine intervention (miracles of God) takes place and the armies of the mother Gentile nations, as well as the armies of all those nations who were gathered with them to battle the former Asian Gentile captives, are defeated by the power of God, and not by any power of man.
A book, the record of the Jews
Shadow past fulfillment: The European Gentiles (now called American citizens) have a Bible—written by multiple authors, not a single Jew—which has been corrupted by that great and abominable church, you know, the Roman Catholic Church, or the science non-church, or the vast assembly of non-saint churches “church.” That church. Anyway, that church/non-church takes some plain and precious parts away from the Bible and then sends it out to all the European Gentiles, which then makes its way to America, since the European Gentiles have traveled there over the Atlantic Ocean. And because of this faulty Bible, many of the European Gentiles stumble and sin. But hope is not lost, for the Lord has a plan.
Literal future fulfillment: The Asian Gentiles saints living in America have a book, written by a singular Jew, which contains a record of the Jews, the covenants of the Lord and many of the prophecies of the prophets. This book is like the plates of brass, except it doesn’t contain as much information as the plates of brass. It contains the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the testimony of all twelve apostles of the Lord.
When the book first appears, written by the singular Jew, it will go to the Gentiles, presumably to the Asian Gentiles who were in captivity, since they will be carrying the book. After it goes to the Gentiles, the great and abominable church will be formed. That church apparently will get a copy of the book and make drastic changes to it, taking out plain and precious parts. Then they will publish the book far and wide, so that it ends up in every Gentile nation, including in America.
There will be, then, two editions of the book. One which is pure, carried by the Asian Gentile saints living in America, and the other which is corrupted, carried by the other Gentiles (living in America and elsewhere). Because of the corrupted version, many Gentiles stumble and sin. But hope is not lost, for the Lord has a plan.
Another book, the record of the Nephites
Shadow past fulfillment: The Book of Mormon, an abridged record of the Nephites, was written, and came forth to the Gentiles that were stumbling, by the gift and power of God, and in it is God’s rock, salvation and gospel, and it contains the many plain and precious parts that have been taken out of the Bible, as well as an abridgment of the ministry of the Savior to the Nephites. Those during the time of Joseph Smith were blessed with the gift and power of the Holy Ghost as they sought to establish Zion.
Future literal fulfillment: An unabridged Nephite record (not the Book of Mormon) will be written, to come forth to the Gentiles that stumble, by the gift and power of God, and in it will be God’s rock, salvation and gospel, and it will contain the many plain and precious parts that have been taken out of the book that is carried by the Asian Gentile saints. In the Nephite record will be “many things” that the Savior personally ministered to the Nephites. In other words, it will be an unabridged account of that ministry. Those during the time of the appearance of this unabridged Nephite record will be blessed with the gift and power of the Holy Ghost as they seek to establish Zion.
Two records established in one
Shadow past fulfillment: The Bible written by multiple Jews went to the Lamanites. Later, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price went to the Lamanites, and these last records established the truth of the Bible (as far as it is translated correctly), which is a record of the four apostles of the Lord, and made known the plain and precious parts missing in it. Both volumes of scripture were established in one, by being bound up as a quadruple combination.
Literal future fulfillment: The unchanged book carried by the Asian Gentile saints, written by a singular Jew, will go to the Lamanites. Later, the unabridged Nephite record (as well as other records) will go to the Lamanites and will establish the truth of the unadulterated book that is carried about by the Asian Gentile saints, which is a record of all twelve apostles of the Lord, and will make known the plain and precious parts that are missing in the perverted edition of that record. Both volumes of scripture will be established in one.
Chapter Fourteen of First Nephi
The whole of 1 Nephi 14 is still future, according to my understanding, but since I’m using CTC’s view to interpret the prophecy, I will try to bring up anything that may coincide with what I wrote about chapter thirteen.
Numbering
Shadow past/present fulfillment: I suppose latter-day saints could interpret numbering among the house of Israel as fulfilled by getting their patriarchal blessings, which tell them what tribe they have been assigned to.
Literal future fulfillment: Numbering is a tribal function. I’ve already gone over this on this blog before, so I’m not going to elaborate on this topic again. Let it suffice that my understanding is that this pertains to the future and has not yet been fulfilled in any part, whatsoever.
The great and marvelous work
Shadow past fulfillment: The times of Joseph Smith in which he restored many lost truths and layed the foundation of the kingdom is often thought as the great and marvelous work.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and marvel work takes places after the numbering of the Gentiles among the house of Israel, therefore, it is still a future event.
The covenants of the Father to the house of Israel
I don’t really need to comment on this.
Two churches only
Shadow past fulfillment: Some use this scripture retroactively, to apply to the thirteenth chapter of First Nephi. So, they define the great and abominable church as everything that isn’t the LDS church.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and marvelous work, which is still future, will cause a division among the people, so that there are no longer a multiplicity of churches on earth. Everything will either align itself with the great and abominable church, being absorbed by her, or join the saints of God in the now-called church of the Lamb of God. The church of the Lamb of God will be using, if you remember, the Book of the Lamb of God. In other words, that unchanged book written by a singular Jew, carried by the Asian Gentile saints, which contains the writings of the twelve (not four) apostles of the Lamb. Just as Mormons are called Mormons because of the book they carry and use and believe, so the Lamb of God church will be called by the name of their main book.
Headquarters in the midst of Irreantum
Shadow past fulfillment: Bad (non-LDS) churches are all over the planet.
Literal future fulfillment: The great and abominable church will be headquartered somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and will have global reach.
The church of the Lamb of God
Shadow past fulfillment: Good (LDS) churches are all over the planet.
Literal future fulfillment: The church of the Lamb of God will have global reach, but small membership, due to the other church’s wickedness.
Gathering of the whore to fight the Lamb
I ain’t gonna interpret this.
Power of God upon the saints and covenant people
Nor will I interpret this. But do notice that at this point in the prophetic timeline, the covenant people of the Lord are still in their scattered state.
Worldwide wars
Nor will I interpret this. But do notice that only now, after there are wars and rumors of war everywhere, after the numbering, after the unabridged Nephite record and the record of the twelve apostles of the Lamb come forth, etc., only after all these things happen does the work of the Father commence in preparing the way for the fulfilling of His covenants with Israel!
The apostle John
Shadow past fulfillment: John the apostle wrote the Book of Revelation, which contains some of the things that Nephi saw and the Book of Revelation is found in the Bible, which was written by multiple Jews.
Literal future fulfillment: John the apostle will appear in the future, with a mission to gather the tribes of Israel, as a Jewish Elias, meaning an Elias of the tribe of Judah, and he will come and restore all things pertaining to the Jews.
It was for this reason that John was translated, that he might perform this latter-day work.
John, then, is the Jew, out of whose mouth the book, which Nephi saw in vision, would proceed. He is the “hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” which will write this book. Through John will proceed the record and testimony of all twelve apostles of the Lamb, and all the things which Nephi saw will be written by John, “and also many things which have been,” meaning that John will write things which preceded Nephi. The writings of John in the Bible do not cover all the things that the angel told Nephi John would write, which would be written in the book that proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, which is called “the Book of the Lamb of God.”
And this is the very reason why the angel prohibited Nephi from writing the rest of his vision. The Book of Revelation does not contain the vision that Nephi saw. If anything, it only contains a part of the vision, or an abridgement. Nephi could not write what he saw because it was not the proper time for that information to come forth. When John re-appears on the scene, he will dictate the book that Nephi saw the Asian Gentile saints carrying, which will contain the full vision of Nephi, as well as the covenants of the Lord, many of the prophecies of the prophets, the testimony of all twelve apostles, a record of the Jews and “many things which have been.” Yet, despite all that, it will still be less material than what the plates of brass contain.
John may, in fact, be the man who is wrought upon by the Spirit of God, who goes forth upon the many waters (Irreantum) to the promised land, who is followed by the Asian Gentile saints. John may be that man among the Asian Gentiles, who preaches to them and gives them the book that he will write, which they will carry with them to the promised land. John may be the very one who frees them from captivity, allowing them to leave their countries and come over the Irreantum to America.
Wrapping this up
Is any of this true? Could our standard interpretation of these two chapters be mere shadows? I will leave it up to the reader to figure that out for him or herself. One thing is for sure, if 1 Nephi 13 has yet to be literally fulfilled, we know what the very first thing mentioned is: the formation of a great and abominable church and the death, torture and captivity of the saints. Let us hope that none of the things I wrote above have any basis in prophetic reality.
Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist
December 29, 2012
Categories: Babylon, Gift of the Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, LDS, Patriarchal Blessings, Power of the Holy Ghost, Preaching the Gospel, Prophecy, Prophets, Repentance, Sanctification, Scriptural Expositions, Secret Combinations, Symbolism, Tribalism, Zion . Tags: America, American Indians, Asia, Atlantic Ocean, Baptism, Book of Mormon, Book of the Lamb of God, captivity, Christopher Columbus, Church, Church of the Devil, Church of the Lamb of God, covenants, Death, destruction, devil, Elias, Europe, Gathering, Gentiles, Great and Abominable Church, Great and Marvelous Work, history, House of Israel, Irreantum, Jesus Christ, Jew, Jews, John, John the Apostle, John the Beloved, Lamanites, Land of Promise, Last Days, Latter-days, Nephi, Nephites, Pacific Ocean, Prophecy, Prophecy Interpretation, Remnant of Jacob, saints, Saints of God, Scattering, Scriptural Commentary, Scriptures, Spirit of God, Torture, Tribes of Israel, War, Warfare . Author: LDS Anarchist . Comments: 58 Comments