The THERMODYNAMICS & ETERNODYNAMICS of DESIRE – CONTINUED


HEATING UP – COOLING DOWN

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

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

Sperm Halos

Healthy spermatozoa show larger halo around the sperm head 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 can nurture our outer nature like 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.

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 stonesulfur, 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

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 the wind and 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

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

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 eternalDante 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 uphaughtiness 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 disengages from the beautiful strife of life. To strive does not merely mean to aspire but also to lock into a struggle. Worldly aspiration and out of sync respiration lead to expiration on 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?

We love, because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

The Written Records


Jesus didn’t write any scriptures.  The apostles didn’t write the gospels down as things were happening.  They didn’t sit in that upper room during Pentecost, making sure they got everything written down so they could go out and organize the church of Christ based on the authority of their scriptures.

The point with written scriptures is that they must be understood as the product of believers in Christ organized as his church – not what believers in Christ need to use to become organized as his church.  The written records are the trail that’s left behind – not the hand guiding us through.

The scriptures are just printed ink on processed wooden pulp.  Destroy every copy of the written word of God – and it wouldn’t do a thing.  Because a group of believers in Christ would just produce more scriptures.  Only dead congregations, who have no real connection with God through the spirit of prophecy and revelation, would be scrambling – because they lack the ability to produce anything new.  They can only re-tell the stories they’ve inherited from a by-gone generation.

It’s essentially idolatry [see, Making an Image out of God] – to look at the image that’s pointing and cling to and serve it, rather than to Look, Follow, and Live [see, …and the labor which they had to perform was to look…].

The church of Jesus Christ is not established on scriptures:

A book cannot authenticate itself.  It takes an outside authority to do that.  Written records become “scripture” when the church of Christ covenants to be bound to that written record by common consent.  That means that the 66 books that make up the King James canon have authority as “the Bible” by virtue of the Catholic Church’s word alone – not by virtue of them simply being “the Bible”.

Further, you accept the English word-choice of the King James translation by virtue of the word of the Church of England alone – God did not dictate the creation story to Moses, or the epistles to Paul using 1611 English words.

The reason the King James text is also known as “The Authorized Version” is because, prior to its commission – there were many attempts by English commoners [i.e., not clergy or royalty] to translate the Bible into English [the language of the unlearned common-folk].  This threatened the power of the elites – who believed that the translations of the commoners did not, “conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy.”

So, a new state-sanctioned English translation was commissioned that would render phrases in such a way as to justify and legitimize the hierarchical authority of the crown and of the church.  And it would be the only one “Authorized” by the state and the church for use.

Joseph Smith’s view of the bible:

  • It can be ambiguous,

“The teachers of religious understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.”

This ambiguity in the meaning of revelations happens when interpreters make false assumptions about the Bible and then just start guessing away at the correct interpretation.

They’ll assume the scriptures are cryptic [that they’ll say “A”, when they really mean “X”], are relevant [that all the narratives can be applied as personal lessons], and are perfect [that there are no contradictions, missing pieces, or extraneous material].  Their guessing either takes place horizontally [applying the past to the present] or vertically [applying the physical to the spiritual].

The meaning of the word of God should not be guessed at in this way.  Guessing is what Laman and Lemuel did.  Guessing is what Judeans did with Jesus’ parables.  Guessing is what the brethren at Jerusalem did [see, And they understood me not, for they supposed].  The meaning of scripture [in a gospel context] has only one signified attached to it.  And there is only one way to “figure out” what it means –to ask God what it signifies.

  • irrelevant,

The Bible contains revelations given at different times to different people under different circumstances.”

The blessings promised in the scriptures pertain to the people to whom they were spoken.  The laws outlined in the scriptures were tailored to the conditions under which they were given.

For example, at Wheat & Tares I commented on the definition that “hot drinks” in D&C 89 means “tea and coffee”.  The standard interpretation used by the church in regards to verse 9:

and again
hot drinks are not for the body
or belly

[D&C 89:9]

says that Joseph and Hyrum Smith all told members that “hot drinks” meant “tea and coffee”.  Sounds pretty straight-forward.

But – so what if Joseph or Hyrum in fact did say that “hot drinks” meant “tea and coffee” to this-or-that member back in the 1830’s?  That’s all well-and-good because that’s what the saints were in the habit of drinking hot at the time the revelation was given.  Brigham Young reasoned:

I have heard it argued that tea and coffee are not mentioned [in D&C 89]; that is very true; but what were the people in the habit of taking as hot drinks when that revelation was given? Tea and coffee. We were not in the habit of drinking water very hot, but tea and coffee — the beverages in common use.

Now – to follow his reasoning – if the saints ended-up falling out of the habit of drinking tea and coffee hot and started drinking other things hot or started drinking tea and coffee cold — then the revelation still calls us to be guided by the general concept of avoiding the habitual drinking of hot liquids [rather than be bound to the specific conceptions of tea and coffee per se].

The revelation meant “tea and coffee” for them [because that’s what they were in the habit of drinking hot] — but it does not necessarily mean that for us today [if we get in the habit of drinking other liquids hot or drinking tea and coffee cold].

When the Lord said “Don’t drink hot drinks,” Joseph/Hyrum rightly took a look at what the saints were in the habit of drinking hot at that time — and they concluded that it was tea and coffee — so the leaders rightly taught the people to not drink tea and coffee.  But the interpretation of “tea and coffee” pertains to them – given under conditions where the people were in the habit of drinking tea and coffee hot.

  • transmitted erroneously,

I believe the Bible as it came from the pens of the original writers.  Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, and designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.”

If our understanding of some particular point of doctrine is based on a scripture that is the translation of a translation of a translation – that was taken from a copy of a copy of a copy – and somewhere along the line [there are centuries between the original and what we have extant, in many cases] a rendering was screwed-up [whether accidentally or maliciously] – then it may well reveal how weak some of our beliefs could be.

Our centuries long history and traditions of scriptural interpretation, some of Joseph’s wording choices in the Book of Mormon, and much our the temple endowment ceremony are all based on the scriptural renderings common at the time [taken from the King James English text].

I’ve heard people say that:

You’ve got to believe that God created the universe in six 24-hour periods because it says it right there in Genesis, ‘And the evening and the morning were the ____ day.’  The Bible clearly says ‘day’.

When, in reality, the Bible clearly says “yohm”, as it was recorded in Hebrew.  That’s a word that could mean a variety of things in English.

And even getting back to the original Hebrew can be more complex than it might seem at first.  The Meru Foundation found that the origin of the Hebrew characters lie in a series of ritual hand-gestures — or sign language.

Also, the Chronicle Project has found an alternate system for how the written Hebrew characters work, and publishes alternate, “original meaning” renderings of the Hebrew scriptures.

  • and incomplete.

Much instruction has been given to man since the beginning that we do not now possess […] to say that God never said anything more to man would be claiming a new revelation – because such a thing is nowhere said in that volume by the mouth of God.”

In The Concept of Race, in the Gospel, I wrote:

The best thing to do is to take it as granted that the current scriptural record we have in the Bible is a pretty incomplete picture concerning the affairs of God throughout the whole human race.  The Bible is the book that’s come by way of the Jew and is their record — and so we find that it deals primarily with Arabians [go figure].

Until the scriptural record is more complete — until we receive the prophets of the other nations, tribes, and people, with their prophetic records that will come forth from Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands, etc. — we cannot speak with certainty of how God has dealt with the other races and if there are promises made to them that we know that of.

Now, I’m not trying to say that we can draw no good lessons from our historical translations and traditions.  I’m not saying all current Biblical teachings should be repudiated.  Rather – it’s that any explicit meaning we’re going to gather from them ought to be accepted with the understanding that it comes skewed.  That the scriptures come to us as time-and-space artifacts of a particular culture – given in their language and suited to their circumstances.

What we have is just what we have.  It’s better to be honest about what we’ve got with our scriptural record — rather than try to pedestalize it into something it’s not meant to be.

Religions become concerned with ethical behavior and doctrine, and using the scriptures as an all-encompassing moral rule-book – instead of being concerned with changing people’s minds/hearts and how they view/experience their world, using the scriptures as a collection of stories that motivate believers to go live-out their own stories.

The problem with approaching religion as though it were a method of relaying ethics and doctrines from “the Good Book” is that ethics only teach us how to live as though you were one with your neighbor.  You learn the modes of action that imply a compassionate relationship with another person.  It offers you incentive to act in a certain way – but it cannot generate the genuine feeling of it.

While there may be certain ethical implications of having made a covenant with the fundamental Reality of existence – such things neither add to or subtract from current pool of human ethical wisdom.  It is not the domain of religion to lay down specific “hither thou shalt come and no further” guidelines for human behavior that transcendent time, space, culture, and circumstance.

Rather, religion is about providing the environment for people to experience the miraculous works of God and manifestations of the spiritual gifts.  Because once the experience is had – the very way in which a person approaches and experiences human problems/decisions will be altered.

The gospel is about that transcendent experience of a direct connection with God — one that smashes a hardened, left-brain sensation of being separate and opens a person up the fluid, right-brain awareness that all creation is a continuous and connected event that we are all a part of .

Next Article by Justin: The Revelation of God in Jesus Christ

Previous Article by Justin:  The Concept of Race, in the Gospel

(What R. U. Scared Of ?)

A note from Stan Tenen


Note: The following is a private message that Stan Tenen sent to me on March 17th, 2010, via my Facebook account, concerning the post Bringing Stan Tenen and The Meru Foundation to the Attention of all LDS [alternate title: Doing what4anarchy’s Job] and its comment section.

While searching for something else, I ran into your LDS Anarchist website, and found the materials related to me and my work.

This is all very sad. It’s a sad commentary on the state of education, and on the emptiness of our society.

Instead of engaging a new idea, it just gets picked to death by children.

This is why I’ve pulled away from LDS (which previously was a strong supporter of my work from several quarters) and other religions. People involved in religion — with rare exception — are, as Marx and Freud taught, merely hiding from their own mortality. Intellectual honesty is not possible from people who are “scared to death of death”, and don’t even know it.

For people who don’t understand why I’m elucidating the fluid rabbinic form of the alphabet, all I can say is, you really haven’t a clue about how science is done. I follow the data.

I didn’t know that the letters at the beginning of Genesis would form a particular geometry. I didn’t know it would be a model hand. And I didn’t know it would be related to the alphabet, or any particular alphabet. I followed the data.

The letter-text led to a particular geometry.

I first took this geometry to represent a model light or flame.

Later, I realized that this was not functional, even though it generated shapes that matched all the Hebrew letters of a particular alphabet.

Later, during an exploration of the Jewish ritual of tefillin, I realized that what I had taken to be a flame was actually a model hand, and given the known properties of our hands, everything else then fell in place.

I didn’t choose the alphabet. I found the shapes that matched, and then identified them. I’m sorry if religious believers and scholars have become fascinated by many other alphabets. I didn’t have a choice. When you’re doing science, you don’t force-fit. You take what you find and try to make sense of it.

Anyone going to the trouble of actually checking out more than the headlines of what I’m proposing would know the audit trail from the Canaanite to the modern letters. (I’m proposing two separate lines of development.)

I’m no Newton, but I like his methods. Newton taught how gravity worked, but said he didn’t have a clue as to why it worked that way.

It’s for critics to explain how come one alphabet comes from hand gestures and the others don’t.

I found the alphabet in the letters of the first verse of Genesis. I found the letters matched a particular alphabet, and not other alphabets; and I provided a theory that makes sense of this — i.e., hand gestures are universal among all self-aware creatures. (All intelligent creatures know that when you point to something, you’re drawing attention to it — etc.)

Please feel free to post any or all of this if you’d like.

If there are any serious responses, please pass them on to me via email. I don’t do websites, and I don’t do blogs. (Life’s short.)

Have a happy LDS Passover/Easter. Whichever, whatever.

Be well,
Stan

Previous Stan Tenen article: Bringing Stan Tenen and The Meru Foundation to the Attention of all LDS [alternate title: Doing what4anarchy’s Job]

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

Bringing Stan Tenen and The Meru Foundation to the Attention of all LDS [alternate title: Doing what4anarchy’s Job]


Some Background Information

what4anarchy and I have a running joke—at least, I think it’s funny; he isn’t all that amused—where every time he mentions the name Stan Tenen, I can’t help but chuckle. The joke is that over the years he has mentioned Stan so many times in conversations—in fact, I’d say that in pretty much every conversation we have it is fairly guaranteed that he will mention Stan—that I kid him that Stan is his prophet, that he is engaging in Stan worship or prophet worship.

Now, although he has mentioned him to me for years, it still took what4anarchy awhile before he actually got a Stan Tenen video in front of me; and despite my teasing, I did watch it. But I think I was really tired from working and ended up falling asleep, not remembering everything/anything, etc.

Well, to his credit, what4anarchy kept after me and got another media production in front of me: a Meru Foundation dvd. This time I was awake. Although it was still the same tall, long-haired Jewish guy at a white board lecturing in a small classroom setting that I had seen earlier, I didn’t fall asleep. My kids did not appreciate that I was spending hours watching this guy talking about “weird” things. They wanted to see a “real movie,” an “entertaining movie,” not some “boring” movie.

It struck me that my young, inexperienced children were defining the word “boring” to mean anything that engages the mind to think deeply, whereas anything that disengages it so that they don’t have to think things through, but only receive visual and audio stimulation, is “exciting.” My own definition of those two words would be quite the opposite.

As I said, this time I was awake.

Afterward what4anarchy asked me what I thought and he wanted to know if I “got it.” Well, I got it. And here’s what I thought:

MY THOUGHTS

Now, before I begin, you need to understand that what4anarchy and myself part company when it comes to “striving with the masses.” (By “the masses” I’m referring to a strictly LDS audience.) He will continually strive with them, trying to open their minds. I will give them the time of day, but the instant I see a closed mind, I shut my mouth and say nothing more. But he will attempt to bait them again and again, hoping for a bite in which some more truth important to the gospel can be thrown in. In fact, he even uses Stan as bait. Stan. Before hearing Stan Tenen speak (without sleeping through it) that didn’t impress me. Now it does. You see, Stan Tenen is on a whole ‘nother level than your average church-going member.

Mental laziness

We LDS (in general) are mentally lazy, just as all of us Americans (in general) are mentally lazy. Stan cannot be watched and comprehended without engaging the mind. So, in my estimation, trying to open up Stan to a LDS is a futile effort. It is like trying to get young, inexperienced children to watch a guy at a white board talk about geometric shapes. They ain’t going to do it! Even if you force them to sit and watch, they will be thinking of other things and will learn absolutely nothing. There is no way children can do it. Adults can do it, but children can’t, unless they are above average in maturity.

And that’s basically what I told what4anarchy. “Yes, Stan and The Meru Foundation research is amazingly pertinent to a study of the restored gospel, despite he being a non-LDS Jew. You know it and now I know it. It will benefit us, but there is no way LDS can be shown this and they’d be interested. It doesn’t come from Salt Lake. It’s about the Hebrew language (not the English language in which the modern prophets of God speak, if you get my drift.) Stan’s a mathematician, not a theologian. This is scientific, not religious. They’ll never go for it.” Etc., etc.

So why am I doing it? Because I inadvertently mentioned Stan in a recent comment on this blog and since I’ve now let the cat out of the bag and since what4anarchy was really the man to talk about Stan but he’s too busy to do it, I guess I’ll do it just to do it and get it over with. But I don’t expect anyone at all to actually be interested in him.

Why Meru Foundation Research Is Important

Stan found a fundamental gesture language in Hebrew, which contains both the one and the infinite all locked together. Using the gesture language alone, he has been able to uncover secrets of the Universe and about God, things which only temple-attending LDS should know. When a temple-attending LDS (that doesn’t sleep through sessions) takes what Stan Tenen and The Meru Foundation have discovered and learned using this gesture language, and then super-imposes it upon the restored gospel knowledge base, suddenly new “mysteries of godliness” open up to view. To those LDS who never access Tenen’s work or who never study Hebrew in the way he has done, revealing the hidden “gesture language,” they will remain perpetually in the dark concerning these other mysteries.

Personally, I think that is as it should be. But in case there are some interested in learning more about Stan and his work, click any of the following video links to open up a new window and see some of the free video nuggets he has allowed out. Then, if you are still interested, go into his web site and dig deeper. Good luck!

The Videos

All of these are on Google video:

A Good Introductory Video

First Light: An Overview of Meru Foundation Research (30:36)

The “Extreme Kabbalah” Series

Hebrew, Ayin to Tav (1:31)

Geometric Metaphor in Torah (1:10)

Genesis is Woven (1:18 )

Genesis in Base-3 (1:31)

Framing Meru Research: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (1:35)

Finding Geometry in Genesis (4:07)

Bible Math: Wreaths, Baskets, Braids, and Knots (2:35 not currently available)

Bible Literalism (1:16)

Bible Codes (1:57)

Beyond Babel: The Gesture Alphabet of Genesis (1:14)

All Letters are from Yud (1:59)

Modeling Genesis (1:47)

Mind–Hand–World (1:31)

Logic and Hierarchy of Genesis (1:45)

Literal Meaning in the Bible (1:22)

Hebrew Flame Letters (1:18 )

Vortex Flame Letters: Separating Sense from Nonsense (1:25)

A Universal Mode of Life (3:58 )

Torah and Pi (2:05)

Torah: A Universal Constant (1:34)

Toku K’varo: The Hand Unifies Mind and World (2:29)

The Tree of Life (2:29)

The Meditation in Genesis (1:52)

The Letter-Text of Genesis as Creation (1:44)

The Letter Bet (1:21)

The Hand of Genesis (1:46)

The God of Abraham (3:58 )

The Genesis Torus (“Donut”) (1:18 )

The First Word of Genesis and the Bible Codes (1:53)

Solving Babel: Universal Gesture Language (1:24)

Self-Reference in Genesis and the Alphabet (1:20)

The Letters of Genesis: A Natural Unfurlment (1:31 on YouTube)

Hebrew, Greek, Arabic Letters from Genesis (1:11 on YouTube)

Introducing Hebrew Gesture Letters

Dance of the Hebrew Letters (34:34)

Next Stan Tenen article: A note from Stan Tenen

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

What did Jesus Christ look like?


For most people, the answer is, “No one knows.” Such an answer seems acceptable as there were no known portraits made of him in his lifetime and the photograph wasn’t invented, yet. Even for religious people, unless they’ve had a vision of Jesus (which does happen from time to time), most religionists just don’t know. Surely we’ll just have to wait until the Second Coming or Judgment day to find out, right?

Maybe not. Maybe we already have the image of Jesus Christ.

what4anarchy recently brought me a DVD entitled, The Fabric of Time. It was a documentary that presented the results of all the scientific studies done on the Shroud of Turin, a burial cloth that contains an image of a crucified man in the fibers of the cloth itself. No one knows how the image was created; it is not a painting. Despite intense scientific examination, scientists are still baffled. However, we do know the following:

  • It is not a painting
  • It is of an estimated 5′ 11″-6′ 2″ semitic man in his thirties, who weighed approximately 170 pounds
  • The man was crucified
  • The man was scourged in a manner exactly corresponding to Roman techniques
  • The man had long hair and a beard, part of which appears “plucked out”
  • There are head wounds consistent with the damage inflicted by a crown of thorns
  • There is a right side wound consistent with a spear thrust
  • Scrapes on the knees and shoulders are apparent
  • Bruises on the face are apparent
  • The wrists had wounds that are consistent with Roman crucifixion, i.e. as if nails had pierced them
  • The thumbs curled under, consistent with a wound inflicted by nail insertion at the wrists
  • Two coins were placed over the eyes, one on each eye and from their markings they can be traced to Jerusalem, being struck in 29 AD
  • The coins were of equal value to the widow’s mites
  • A plaque was placed over the neck in burial with four Hebrew letters written on it, which together mean, “Abba” or Father.
  • Images of flowers were also found on the cloth
  • The flowers were determined to be those found only in the Jerusalem area, only blooming during March and April, the time around the death of Christ
  • The cloth (the Shroud of Turin) is fourteen feet long, half covering the bottom of the body and the other half covering the top of the body
  • The image was transferred to both top and bottom parts of the cloth, so that half of the cloth shows the anterior of the body and the other half of the cloth shows the posterior
  • Both anterior and posterior images of the crucified man are perfect, meaning the image was impressed upon the cloth while the body was suspended in mid-air and while the cloth was pulled perfectly taut
  • 2-d photographic images taken of the cloth have recently been processed and converted into 3-d images, allowing the image of the man to be viewed in 3 dimensions
  • Testing is undergoing to determine whether the fibers of the cloth itself are actually holograms, which, if this proves true, will allow complete reconstruction of the entire image (parts of which were lost due to fire damage in the Middle Ages)
  • The few dissenting scientific opinions (concerning paint particles and Carbon-14 dating) have been scientifically disputed in peer-review journals, for very good reason
  • I’m still working my way through all the bonus features, but I could have sworn that expert, scientific testimony also stated that the body had no broken bones

All in all, the evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud of Turin contains an actual image of the full body and face of Jesus Christ, front and back, processed in some yet unknown way. The mystery of the anomalies of the cloth—for example, the apparent position of the body when the image was impressed upon the cloth (hovering or levitating over the stone slab, instead of resting upon it)—leads the more religious of the scientists to theorize that this image may have been created at the moment of Christ’s resurrection.

I invite other LDS to look into this for themselves. If you haven’t yet seen Jesus in vision, this may be the opportunity to do so. In addition to the above DVD documentary, you may want to visit The Shroud of Turin web site, which also contains the latest research.

Previous Jesus Christ article: How the atonement of Jesus Christ solves the “victim” problem

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