WEARETHEWEATHER


WHO IS THE RAIN MAKER?

We have looked at the intimate link between space and time and the deep connection between time and weather in, Introduction to the Thermodynamics and Eternodynamics of Desirepts.1 and 2 respectively. A review of those posts might be helpful to anyone wishing to gain insight from this post.

In the blockbuster sci-fi movie Looper, main character Joe and his future self combine their efforts on an action-packed adventure through time and space, trying to track down a mysterious killer called the Rainmaker who, if not stopped, is/will be responsible for the murder of the love of Joe’s life. It is an absorbing plot that mixes the element of weather control with the more cliché elements of time travel and crime underworlds for a surprisingly deep story of multi-generational cooperation and healing.

The movie takes place primarily in the vicinity of Kansas City, where Joe lives and works as a time traveling hit-man. When Joe finally does track down the Rainmaker on the outskirts of town, he finds that he is presently a child, but not just any ordinary child. This child is telekinetic to an extraordinary degree and can effect drastic changes in atmospheric pressure with his emotions. A part from being capable of affecting changes in the weather, the young boy can cause blood to rain out of the heart of a person who provokes him to anger. Joe recognizes however, that if the troubled youth were to be raised in a loving home with a tender mother and guiding father, he could avoid turning into a cruel killer.

Looper was rated R, and did not follow your typical feel-good formula for promoting family values. It will therefore not be likely to be seen by many mainstream LDS. And its message will unfortunately be missed by those Mormons who do view it. Nevertheless there are many messages contained in the film that directly concern not just modern-day man in general, but which could be specifically relevant to Latter-Day Gentiles. Satan has succeeded in diverting the gaze of many and those who do look to not look with eyes to see. But let us examine a few of the ideas which are more or less subtly presented in this movie, and put them into context for the real Latter-Day Saints of God out there, regardless of religious or non-religious affiliation.

HOME ON THE RANGE – WHERE THE SKIES ARE NOT CLOUDY ALL DAY?

First of all, the film’s setting of Kansas City, smack dab on the Kansas/Missouri border is something that should not escape anyone who has studied Mormon prophecy. The LDS movement in all of its numerous groups of course has extensive and ongoing history in the “Show Me State”. Jackson County, MO is the site of various holdings of the LDS Church and the RLDS Church and the area continues to attract many fundamentalist, as well as mainstream and even inactive members of the various Churches with some type of connection to the Restoration Movement. This, despite the fact that the western part of that state in particular is mentioned in famous prophecies via Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Orson Pratt which have been handed down among the Mormon people and which reference great destruction which will leave the land “swept clean” of its inhabitants (JD, 9:270, Prophetic Sayings of Heber C. Kimball to Amanda H. Wilcox. DEN, 8:265, October 2,1875).

Now I don’t know what all these many religious residents of Jackson County believe in regards to these prophesies. I know that I do not believe that things will play out quite the way that Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball envisioned them happening. Still, it might be foolish to dismiss them entirely. And it might be especially dangerous to not take them into account along with various other forms of subconscious-to-conscious imaging by way of Hollywood prophets/profits. Apart from Looper’s subtle correlation between this general geographic location and extreme weather patterns, there is also the far less subtle targeting in The Day After – a graphic, disturbing TV movie originally aired in 1983, about the effects of a devastating nuclear holocaust on small-town residents of eastern Kansas/western Missouri. The Book of Eli, starred Denzel Washington as an obvious type for Moroni as a lone wanderer and bearer of a sacred record in the post-apocalyptic wake of a fallen civilization. The main character also draws some pretty clear parallels to Joseph Smith, since Eli purports to have been led by the voice of the Spirit to discover the book under a pile of rubble. And the stark – yet not as apparent to the less enlightened Ephraimite –  symbolism relating to Elijah Abel in the obvious links of name, skin tone, and Eli’s willingness to kill to protect the prophetic message of the book. The conflict and climax of this movie’s storyline take place midway along Eli’s journey from the east coast to the west coast – indicating the same Midwest area in question. And of course who could forget the Wizard of Oz, which firmly and forever highlighted the inter-dimensional aspects of the American drama – a historical vying for dominance by all manner of false zionists – in our subconscious with the line, “We’re not in Kansas anymore!”

Kansas City has also become the center of attention in a real-life debate surrounding plans for a NAFTA Superhighway which would link from Mexico to Canada, cutting straight through the U.S. and creating a special international inland container “port” in Kansas City, right on the eastern Kansas/western Missouri border. While modern-day Capt. Moronis like Alex Jones and fellow Texan taxpayers vehemently opposed construction of the portion known as the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC), Latter-Day Secret Combination (LDSC) members like Greg West were anxiously engaged in promoting the project. While admitting upfront that locating an international inland port in K.C. would provide terrorists with a conveniently located hub for smuggling and detonating a nuclear device, he went on to site words on the topic of Zion from early Church leaders and the silence of today’s Church authorities as support for his sly misleading. Of course the brotherhood of Zion felt across the continents will be the result of the Holy Spirit of God shedding itself abroad in the hearts of brave men and women, and not a building project undertaken by underhanded builders of Babylon. The only “superhighway” that will play a role in the establishing of Zion is that highway that will be miraculously “cast up in the midst of the great deep” as prophesied in Doctrine and Covenants 133:27.

Now don’t think that all this has nothing or little to do with weather. The casting up of this highway in the midst of the great deep is heralded in conjunction with immense changes in weather patterns upon the face of the land. The verses immediately preceding and proceeding verse 27’s reference to the highway speak of “barren deserts” and “parched ground” being suddenly quenched with “pools of living water”. They even mention flowing ice and trembling hills accompanying the arrival of the lost tribes from the “north countries”. For all of these things to occur together it is very apparent that a pole shift must take place. The pole shift being described here literally “turns on its head” the entire “body of evidence” collected in favor of the Eurocentric interpretations of these verses concerning the lost tribes typically applied by most Mormons. 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). Isaiah says that many nations will be “startled” by this pole shift, but that is just one way of putting it. In the majority of Bible translations including the KJV it is not rendered as “startle many nations” but it is actually written that the Lord’s actions will “sprinkle many nations”. This is in perfect keeping with the thundering theme of this ancient weather forecast for the last days.

GETTING AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Long ago, thousands of years before Brigham & Co. spoke of a sweeping destruction along the western border of Missouri, Isaiah had already forecasted a “great forsaking in the midst of the land”. The word “midst” literally means “middle-est”, in otherwords, the most central point. If you take the U.S.A. to be the latter-day Egypt of which Isaiah is prophesying (with such undeniable correlations such as the same national bird flying over red, white, and blue symbolic colors of the civil union of one-time divided northern and southern kingdoms), and if you measure from the eastern most seashore to the other shining sea on the west coast, and from the northern border to the southern most regions; you really can not get any more dead center than Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. As far as precise prognostications go, the word of the Lord to Isaiah, the prophet’s prophet, is reiterated throughout the Bible, Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants with the greatest confidence. The first section of the D&C invites us to: “Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled.”

To locate something in the midst of a specified space is not the same as identifying its presence as being merely among a collective group or mass. Using the word “among”, connotes a much more vague relation in comparison with the superlative word “amidst”.  So when Joseph, the latter-day scribe pens an echo to the resounding ideas of Isaiah 34, we can ascertain key truths if we will remember the specific function of the word – “midst”.

And the Lord, even the Savior, shall stand in the midst of his people, and shall reign over all flesh. (D&C 133:25)

And also the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst, and shall come down in judgment upon Idumea, or the world. (D&C 1:36)

”Reign (rain) over all flesh”….“Have power over his saints” – why is it worded that way? The footnotes that follow the echo back to Isaiah are even more specific. Notice that the following verse uses the words “thee” and “thou” to refer to a singular “inhabitant” of Zion.

Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. (Isaiah 12:6)

The created universe is based on fractals. When the scriptures speak to our souls of momentous events in a place like the heartland of the United States of America, we would be wise to remember that first and foremost, they are speaking to us of the centrality of our own hearts within our spirit and physical bodies. The spinning sphere of the heart chakra, together with its physical component, literally play the central role in our bodies. As one unit they are responsible for harnessing the energies of our Telestial and Terrestrial Bodies. These two energetic bodies spiral out in vortices from the center-stake of our heart with the Terrestrial Vortex spiraling like an upright funnel cloud and the Telestial Vortex mirroring it below like an inverted cyclone. Inversion between the two can cause for some very stormy weather. But when energy flows more easily back and forth between the two layers they can merge together, forming what is known as the Merkabah Chariot, a kind of conical Star of David.

What do stars and hearts have to do with weather patterns and the fulfillment of prophecy through time? The answer becomes surprisingly clear upon examining latter-day scripture, though not largely appreciated or accepted by Latter-Day Saints. Sadly, one of Joseph Smith’s revelations most overlooked and ridiculed by LDS and non-LDS alike is that of the partially interpreted Theban Hypocephalus better known as Facsimile No. 2 in the seriously misunderstood, disputed, and derided Book of Abraham. fac2Yet the concept of a governing star/planet called Kolob mentioned in the facsimile, has captivated the imagination of writers who have included it in hymns, television series, and novels. The word Kolob has very old roots similar to the Arabic triliteral root KLB which is pronounced like “Qalb” and means “heart” or alternately “star”. For the ancient Egyptians the concept of a centrally located, universal, heart-star was associated with the measurement of time as well as distance or depth and was represented by drawing a human heart as the bob on a cosmic plumb-line. But notwithstanding this extremely ancient precedence, from beer breweries to Broadway musicals, the idea of a shining star by the name of Kolob has been “made light of”. Those who make a serious study of Kolob as an astronomical reality have sometimes stumbled upon their own seriousness and faltered equally along with those who esteem Kolob lightly. Both camps are imbalanced and, for the most part, totally miss the literal and intellectually enlightening rays of this bright star. The light that Kolob liberally offers all men can only be fully received through an understanding of Kolob as a cosmic heart of the universe.

the-plumb-line
One of those serious (Sirius?) scholars, Hugh Nibley, has written on ancient Khemetic ideas about the “hypocephalus as a preserver and transmitter of light and heat between the worlds”. Indeed this strange and wondrous artifact which comes to us from the Egyptian Book of Breathings is a type of resurrection talisman that was commonly known as a “head warmer”. But alas, most people’s heads will not accept the reality that light and heat and by extension weather, are simultaneously physical and spiritual manifestations of the endless intercourse between chronological and spatial principles. And because, as the Yoruban proverb says: “Spirit cannot give what head won’t receive”, this Pearl of Great Price has been cast before smart but selfish swine. A head stuffed with worldly knowledge must be occasionally submitted to Kolob’s purging emanations, so as to refine that knowledge into wisdom. Even Nibley has much to learn from beyond the grave because his accumulation of knowledge was so wrapped up in apologetics on behalf of a pride-ridden institution, that his mind was veiled from learning the “greater things”. But mingling with gods Nibley can finally take a break from nibbling incessantly at the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of this and that. He is now free to focus on the Oneness.

Another of those so-called serious scholars was W. Cleon Skousen. Straddling, as he had his whole life, the line between God and Mammon, Church and State, science and fiction, his split loyalty left Cleon floating somewhere between Clingon and Peon. But his heart was good. The heart of man is technically the first physical structure to begin formation during his embryonic gestation – the brain following closely as a tiny bundle of nerve endings beyond the already forming heart. This falls in line with Joseph’s interpretation of the Kolob hieroglyph as “signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God” and being “First in government”, but “Last pertaining to the measurement of time”. In similar fashion, Smith was purported to have said, and Skousen supported the theory, that Kolob was in fact the birthplace of our planet Earth. The idea that the earth was formed elsewhere and then migrated to her current orbit is not so difficult to accept if one looks to the fractal nature of the created universe and realizes that the planet is equipped with its own inner-sun and in many ways may not be so developmentally separate from the Sun we see so relatively close to us in outer-space. The fractality continues when, reflecting on certain anomalies of the precession of the equinox, we consider that the Sun may very well be in a binary relationship with a second sun hurling through deep space.

The Kolobian concept validates this progressive heart to heart connection perfectly. In the Book of Abraham’s explanation of Facsimile 2 there are many stars/planets listed as receiving and passing on light originating from Kolob. The whole immense and intricate light-sharing process is performed via revolutions. Pulsars in space are rapidly spinning neutron stars. Our hearts do not merely pump blood; they put a spin on it. They say money makes the world go ‘round but emblematic sounds pulsing from the City of Brotherly Love during the 70s set the spinning record straight with the Stylistics classic – People Make The World Go ‘Round. While the daily revolutions and yearly course of our planet may be more set by the Kolob of this solar system acting as a portal for the power of other Grand Governing Creations leading back to the Kolob closest to the Throne of God, we should be very clear that the Times and Seasons of what happens in this world, as well as how, and when it happens is completely a matter of the personal revolutions of our mini kolobs/hearts. The Kolobian concept invites us to discover the loving bond between astronomy and anatomy, and to put it to good use. Meteorological phenomena reflect the cooperative or non-cooperative interaction between humans and their gods. If we are unhappy with the current conditions we need to focus on the revolving our hearts. Turning our hearts back to the Lord is crucial at this time if we are to reach out beyond the false gods that writhe and churn like deadly gases in the atmosphere, raining blood and terror down upon our heads.

EARTH MOTIONS = ENERGY MOTIONS = E-MOTIONS

Remember the young boy in the movie Looper who could in some tentative future become the vengeful killer known only as The Rainmaker? He was able to manipulate the weather using only his raw emotion. Weather control is essentially a question of emotion control. Whoever controls the emotions controls the weather. Don’t believe me? Then why do you believe that Jesus was able to so calmly command the wind and waves in the storm while his companions were so emotionally out of control? Did he really not care if his disciples perished? The calm that existed in the heart of Jesus and the calm that He was able to manifest on the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a raging storm have a direct correlation to one another.

Humanity has placed itself in great peril by allowing religion to disregard the true lessons of the Master Teacher. Devious doctrines appeal to our hardened hearts and put the sayings and doings of Jesus outside our vain, restricted realm of accepted ability or responsibility. We don’t have the nerve to brave the billowing waves. We don’t have the nerve to abandon Babylon in favor of acting on the deepest desires of our hearts. But somehow we have the nerve to fault God for not seeming to care enough to be moved by the suffering of innocents in the world we have created. And we have the nerve to quickly ascribe the destructive effects of our schizophrenic society upon the earth to some punitive god who apparently (judging from S.E. Asia Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Haiti Mega-quake) does not like poor and humble people. Well, honestly, what do we expect, when all of our worship is entirely based around the concept of a poor humble man dying so that the world might live on? But this kind of utterly misguided worship/warship has run amok for so long now that the words “Jesus Christ” have come to be synonymous with the words “Status Quo”. We need to start remembering and reviving the Status Quo Ante Bellum – the state in which things were before the war. For, as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.

People like to talk about the signs of the times but no one wants to point to the fact that time moves through space and the friction between the two generates the very stirrings they see as signs being sequentially checked off of some mystery god’s grand agenda. The less you concentrate on trying to figure out that mystery god, the more the mysteries of the True and Living God unfold to you. As we divest our worship out and away from the god of this world we come to know and have faith in the God of not only Heaven, but Heaven and Earth together. If you ever find yourself wondering why god doesn’t move to bring about solutions to the suffering in the world, you should stop and wonder why you worship the wrong god – a god who is not in alignment with the righteous desires of your heart. If God is the one who situated our hearts in space, dangling as it were from divine plumb-lines, then we need only follow our hearts for direct encounter with God. The problems which plague us are completely atmospheric. Low lying cloud cover created from eons of distracted thinking makes for blockages which interfere with and scatter both incoming and outgoing signals to and from the beating pulsars and quasars of heart-star systems.

I do not want to give the false impression that meteorology is only a metaphor for emotion or visa-versa. When we mentally break up reality into so many unrelated arenas we have a REAL problem. I stand in solidarity with inspired restorationists of long suppressed truths, like Joseph Smith and Clarence Smith. Both of these men were inspired of Heaven to take valuable knowledge and revelation to those whom such things had typically been denied. Two experiences, from each of their lives respectively, show the importance of continuing these great men’s missions of delivering this message to the poor and working class, to the youth and to the disinherited.

Joseph Smith, opened this dispensation by disclosing many secrets from Free-Masonry, Kabbalah and Gnostic Christianity, and adding to them “new” wisdom extracted personally from the eternal mind of God. Neither the established religious cults nor the state governments liked his maverick spirit and he was eventually assassinated. During his life, he once led a group of men known as Zion’s Camp in an attempt to recover stolen lands in the aforementioned area of Jackson County, Missouri. When mobs of misinformed men came, intent on annihilating Zion’s Camp, a flash storm suddenly rolled in on a big black thunder cloud and blew rain and hail upon them till they had to retreat. The would-be attackers were unable to even cross the Missouri river as it rose approximately 40 feet in a matter of hours. When a black woman had first come and notified the camp that many white men in the area meant to do them harm, some members of the camp wanted to take up their guns and fight. But, Joseph told them, “Stand still and see the salvation of God”, and later he let them know “God is in this storm.”

Most people do not know the exact details of Clarence Smith’s official excommunication from the Nation of Islam where he had studied under Malcolm X, who in later years would also become disillusioned with the religion. In any case, Clarence Smith took the things he had learned from this American branch of Islam, Kabbalah and Free-Masonry and built upon them with additional revelation and insights. Before taking his lively message to the streets, he was a quickly advancing priest in the ranks of an inflexible organization. But like the young Jesus, Clarence agitated the religious heads of that institution while teaching at Temple #7 in Harlem, New York. He was teaching a class of young men from one of the Nation’s 120 lessons – the specific lesson which deals with a religio-scientific break-down of such forces of nature as rain, hail, snow, and earthquakes. Clarence was teaching outside of the manuals and approved lesson materials and he bore witness to those youth that all of these things were caused by man. A visiting authority by the ironic title of Capt. Joseph sat in on the class and did not like what he heard. Like Joseph Smith, Clarence Smith was eventually assassinated for his controversial message. But before FBI agents could kill him, he succeeded in teaching many youth, from New York to Chicago; that men could become gods. His message lives on today in underground Hip Hop music and culture. But, despite the noble efforts of Hip Hop’s poor righteous teachers who adhere to Clarence’s teachings, and in spite of government surveillance, this neglected reality of man’s involvement with the weather patterns on the planet stands in need of more attention and deeper comprehension.

Governments around the world have always been interested in managing what we think and how we feel. Oppressive regimes have always known that there are incredible amounts of power in the energy that comes through the hearts and minds of the people, and throughout history they have been careful to provide safety valves and complex canal systems for conducting this energy into programs which produce the outcomes they want. In recent years we have reached a place in the cycle of time where we have given over such complete control to Church and State that they have found ways to reliably rile up specific weather conditions. We say that God controls the weather but today we have been taught to forsake the God of Nature, and we have neglected to comprehend that God can only work “his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men” (D&C 46:15). So, if the preponderance of our thoughts, feelings and actions from hour to hour, day to day, are conditioned by circumstances set up for us by Church and State, then who is this god who we say controls weather conditions? It ought to be painfully obvious at this point in time exactly who is behind these unnatural disasters in diverse places.

The U.S. Government-run military arm known as SOUTHCOM was running a planned exercise based on the scenario of a catastrophic event in the capital of Haiti the day before the 7.0 earthquake struck Port Au Prince on Jan. 12, 2010. This is suspiciously reminiscent of the FEMA and NORAD drills so conveniently scheduled for Sep. 10, 2001, the day before 9/11. But ironically the group known as Scholars for 9/11 Truth proved themselves unable to handle or at least uninterested in the truth of what is really happening in the world today. The group, which had formerly championed BYU professor, Steven E. Jones in his valiant exposition of scientific truth, calling for a questioning of the causes behind the collapse of the Twin Towers, now joined the “Lord’s University” in distancing their selves from him and turning their back on him in disdain. Brother Jones had gone too far in pursuit and publishing of truth by illustrating how technology developed back in 1898 by inventor and futurist Nikola Tesla could be used to trigger earthquakes. Prof. Jones also brought forth evidence which indicated that the U.S. Government might be testing and perfecting this technology at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lost lives and destroyed homes.

simulacro

The Mexican Government was “kind” enough to put out a flyer beforehand notifying residents of the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas of their plans for an “Earthquake Simulation” to take place on March 20, 2012 at precisely 12 o’clock noon. The fact that they avoided loss of life to their human live-stock does not make the Mexican Government any less damnable. The evidence provided by their public announcement is very damning in that it reveals not only their intentions but the accuracy with which they are able to achieve tremors within .5 units of the projected magnitude. U.S. President Obama happened to be in Mexico at the time attending the G-20 summit along with other heads of state that are implicit in this murderous secret combination that reigns with terror across the globe. The Walmart Corporation showed itself to be in league with the pantheon of false gods looking down on humanity and laughing devilishly at our suffering. Within minutes of the violent quaking, Walmart.com.mx sent out a message on twitter that read: “Now we got the other stores shaking in fear of our prices.” Bob Marley’s paraphrasing of Proverbs 10:15 speaks powerfully to the evil feats of these gods of Babylon.

”Destruction of the poor is poverty. Destruction of the soul is vanity.” – Wisdom by Bob Marley

In the same song Marley says that those who have eyes to see will see. Tesla told us:

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena; it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

You can not study non-physical phenomena without possessing spiritually open eyes to see. But lamentably, it seems that the ones who serve spiritual wickedness in high places have taken Tesla’s advice more seriously than those who claim to be Christian Soldiers engaged in spiritual warfare against dark forces. Even without spiritual eyes or ears we now have information being proclaimed from the rooftops that is leaving everyone from evangelicals to agnostics without excuse. H.A.A.R.P. stands for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, and has become the catch-all term for those technological advancements which are being blamed for inhuman deeds from earthquakes and hurricanes to mind-control. There is a certain type of angel that plays this H.A.A.R.P., and it is not the kind that works with Father to serve mankind. Although it is shrouded in speculation, what is clear is that it is a research project funded by both the U.S. Air force and Navy whose purpose is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the physical processes that occur when a targeted region of the ionosphere has been excited.

LESS FEARS – MORE SPHERES

The ionosphere is a region of the upper atmosphere, from about 53 to 370 miles altitude, and includes the thermosphere (where UV radiation and auroras occur) as well as parts of the mesosphere (roughly 28 to 53 miles altitude) and exosphere (beginning somewhere around 310 miles above the earth’s surface and extending to interplanetary zones). It is distinguished because it is ionized specifically by solar radiation. It plays an important part in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere (outermost regions of Earth’s magnetic field). Underneath all of these, we find what is called the troposphere (the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere where the majority of day-to-day weather occurs).
layers-of-the-atmosphere

A secular, scientific view offers us a schema of concentric spheres encircling the planet. What could our spiritual eyes show us when looking at all of these spheres? The Doctrine & Covenants speak on the topic of spheres of influence and tell us:

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. (D&C 93:30)

Yes, we’re independent to act for ourselves, but notice that these selves of ours, though expressed in plurality, also form, in their independence, what we would call individual bodies. There are selves and there are cellves. The latter is alluded to in D&C 93:30 with the word “truth” and the former correspond to the word “intelligence” as used there. Truth would be analogous with the flesh and intelligence could be used interchangeably with the word light. Justin explains these two as, “Earth [my life here as a physical collection of atoms bumping into other collections of atoms according to the laws of physics] with Heaven [my innate desire for meaning, purpose, value, and order that emerges from and endures beyond what I’m doing here as a collection of particles moving around in space and time]”. That explanation renders the mystery of the self very self-evident. We all know that we are composed of elements that are subject to decomposition. But, we are also aware of something much more. According to scripture, these two parts of our life may be independent; however, nowhere is it implicit that they are completely separate or unaffected by each other.

Paul tells us that there are celestial bodies as well as bodies terrestrial (1 Cor.15:40). He says that the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another. From there he proceeds to compare them to the Sun and stars respectively. It should be realized and remembered that the Sun is a star and the stars are the same as Suns, only appearing to vary so drastically from this, our limited vantage – or should we say disadvantage – point. But then, a third is suggested as an intermediary glory comparable to the Moon. Joseph Smith Jr. recognized the importance of this triune, and since a name for the intermediary glory was conspicuously missing from the New Testament, he shifted the title “terrestrial” over to that middle ground and invented the term “telestial” to designate that state which is most distant from the celestial. This additional commentary on the idea of degrees of glory on the part of Joseph, has been chided by a few and understood by even fewer, but it is at least consistent with the Old Testament in that it does not make the mistake of conflating this “lone and dreary world” with the true earth.

The true earth, wherein the Lord God is truly exalted is a physical place that is in harmony with true spiritual precepts. When these precise conditions occur there is a full fusion of truth with intelligence, flesh with spirit, the natural with the supernatural. In What, on Earth, are you doing, for Heaven’s sake? Justin starts off with another excellent break down by offering a non-traditional translation of Matt. 6:10. Here the Savior is teaching the people how to properly pray, and he says we should use the words:

may your will be done
in the earth
as it is in the sky

We are brought back again to a closer observation of earth and sky. And since we are commissioned with the combining of both earthly and heavenly regions, our focus must necessarily settle on that place where the two meet – the troposphere. The word troposphere derives from the Greek: tropos for “change”. It is a layer where friction with the Earth’s surface influences air flow. Atmospheric flow is good and a thing to be desired, cherished, and maintained. However, a fearful, fretful moving about, here and there, busily doing, is death. To be is to live and it is necessary from time to time to be still and “know that I am god” as per the instructions of the well known line in Psalms 46. But, in addition to that first half, there is a lot of meaning that is missed in that verse. Verse 10 continues and concludes the idea by proclaiming: “I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth.” This is no conqueror’s song as some who feel so chosen based on worldly evidence might suppose. This is a mutual choosing between the God of all the Earth and the meek and lowly earthlings who have been judged as heathens but who know the God of Heaven much better than those who find a false sense of security in their riches and their religion

Now, Jesus’ main message to the weak things of this world was repeated over and over again: FEAR NOT! Meekness has the ability to transmute weakness into strength, but an abundance of inner-fears only inter-feres with this process. Dangers do not create fear. Fear creates dangers. The less fears one has, the greater access one has to more spheres. Jesus admonishes us to “fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28). And Paul tells us in his letters to the Ephesians that “we struggle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Those high places which should be most guarded are our own heads atop our fortresses of flesh and blood. But where are the high places from whence emanate these attacks against which we should guard or even struggle? Certainly it is not a political power struggle or even a protest against world leaders, since such would fall under the category of struggling against flesh and blood. But what’s up with those high places, like the mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere?  Can someone please explain why it is that in nearly every other translation of the Bible verse in question, minus the King James Version, it is not translated as “high places” but as “heavenly places”, “heavenly realms”, or simply “heaven(s)”? That puts a slightly different spin on the atmospheric flow, doesn’t it? If we will look, we can easily see a stark difference between the Kingdom advocated by the Lord’s Prayer (Thy Kingdom Come), and the power behind the throne of a man like King James.

WHO’S RAISING WHO HERE?

In order to be effective against principalities, against the authorities, even general authorities, against the so-called “powers that be”, it is necessary to virtually ignore the meat puppets dangling before us and follow the spiritual strings upwards, so we may directly target the cosmic powers of darkness presently presiding over our world. This is a significant game-changer because we have been led to think of these “higher spheres” as completely and unquestionably benevolent, and the beings which inhabit them as perfect. Certainly the “goodie goodie” son who lingered above in his father’s celestial mansion way on high, believed himself superior in terms of worthiness to his prodigal brother who, having hit rock bottom, labored under no such illusions of grandeur. They may be “perfect” alright, but some beings in those royal realms are perfectly evil at this point. If it were otherwise, then there would be no evil down here in this sphere. The axiom, “as above, so below” is perfectly scalable to this imperfect power structure, right down to personal relationships between parents and children. Home can be a Heaven on Earth, but if there is a War in Heaven then what does this do for our home? Right here, at the sacred and sacral level of home, is where the real heart of the struggle is.

To struggle with someone or something is to provide the other party with energy. In truth it is a loving act. Just like when Jacob struggled with God and prevailed, the purpose of struggle is always to see ourselves more clearly in the light of love. To resist not evil means to not provide energy to it, but rather to focus on the good and nurture it with love. We do this until the evil outgrows that stage and, turning towards our love, eventually turns into love itself, like a child learning to do better. Evil is simply love that does not know itself. So we let our lights so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven (Matt. 5:16).

Do we think it was sheer coincidence that Jesus went directly to those souls that were in the darkness of spirit prison, plus made a detour to see Mary, all before going to His Father? Do we think that His resurrection was a gift from the Father (to whom He had not yet ascended) in order for the Son to bring light to those who were trapped in the dark abyss? Isn’t it obvious that His work there in the abyss was what resulted in His resurrection, which was a two-way gift exchange originating from the Son Himself, extending to the lost substance of fragmented souls sequestered in prison, and returning the favor from grateful captives, swirling out of the control of dark energies, now liberated into light? We hear the Son say, “Glory be to the Father,” only because, until He had been to the Father, His body could not complete that glory. But Jesus obviously knew where it was at – the troposphere – where the precipitation of mourning Mary made climate change possible. God in Heaven gets the glory, but as we strive to climb through the climes do we stop and consider where He gets it from?

Any well-meaning and wise man or woman will look to the younger generation which is in their care, and wonder, “Who is raising who here?” – even and especially in those poignant moments when the little ones are behaving, as grandma might say, like “little devils,” rebellious and spirited. Only fallen angels really get the gospel. Fallen angels are earth angels. In the 1950’s classic, Earth Angel, the lyrics tell a touching tale of love:

I fell for you, and I knew the vision of your love, loveliness. I hope and I pray that someday I’ll be the vision of your hap, happiness.”

“Happy” and “Happen” have the same root. Happiness comes from knowing how we can make good things happen. Down here on the ground is the most happening place there is.

As fallen angels, we are given the all-important task of waking up the gods and keeping them awake to reality. In D&C 132, verses 16 and 17, it speaks of the marriage of heaven and earth and describes this glory in terms of a “far more…eternal weight” Through us they are enlarged and exalted. In a detached state, floating singly around in the heavens as a mere idea, they can become just as lonely as one here in the lone and dreary world. The gods have two choices before them. They can tell Luciferian lies to their selves and remain there afraid of falling from great heights. Or they can take the leap of faith and allow themselves to dive deep into a much fuller love and joy. The first option is motivated by fear. It is a lie and they know it.

Anything that remains stubbornly in the mind of god without coming into action down here will eventually be cast down for its own good. But as the saying goes, the harder they come the harder they fall. The more difficulty one has in taking the fall of faith, the more difficulty one has in waking up from the concussion incurred from such a hard-headed and hard-hearted impact. Learning how to ascend and descend consciously as angels in the body of Christ is best accomplished with humility, and it is best not to be compelled to be humble. Alma the Younger is clear on this point when speaking to the poor and despised among the Zoramite people in Alma, chapter 32. But he is also quick to recognize that the down-to-earth people he is addressing were likely not all of them compelled to be humble but rather would choose humility regardless of their circumstances. As the gap between the rich and the poor grows wider in this modern-day Zoramite culture, the Great American Hero hiding timidly within each of us will have to learn the ironic life lesson that; flying is always easier than landing. The earth is spoken of in scripture as the Lord’s footstool, something that one must set foot upon if they desire to elevate themselves. This makes the earth the launching pad from which gods can be made real, but they have to get over their inverted vertigo if they are ever to master the art of a smooth landing.

and behold
the angels of god ascend and descend upon it

Genesis 28:12

 

you will see the sky open
and the angels of god ascending and descending

John 1:51

 

Notice the order always starts off with ascending, then descending. Jacob’s ladder is set upon the earth, and from here is how we get to heaven, not so much by jumping or reaching but by simply starting at the bottom. Kids “know” less and therefore have more faith than their adult counterparts. Lofty branches, with their high ideals, get cut off. They cut themselves off by separating themselves into caste systems with “gods” up top and workers down below. Celestial beings that remain in this state never learn. The ancient Aryan race set things up in this way on the Indian subcontinent during the Vedic Age (roughly between 1700 and 500 BC). And then, thousands of years later, the haughty “gods” of the Aryan people proved they had not learned humility at all, and were in fact irrationally inflated by the time the Nazis of WWII Era Germany sought to awaken those warring gods for purposes of world conquest via a supposed “master race”. All the while, the purer, truer aspects of the original Aryan race lived on in the down-trodden Hindus and Roma Gypsies of brown and olive complexion as they patiently worked towards the completion of a great work and a glory.

I feel to echo the sentiments of Austin Osman Spare, who said: “Myself, I have not yet seen a man who is not God already.” And I would add to them Justin’s words which provide some helpful specifics. In the aforementioned What, on Earth, are you doing, for Heaven’s sake?, Justin said: “God” is to be found in being under the most, serving the most, and being connected to the most [instead of the other way around].” By this standard the indigenous Zapatista freedom fighters who populate the very area targeted by the Mexican federal government’s 7.4 “Earthquake Simulation” are more godly than any blue-blood or contented Christ-Shun church-goer. The man whose name they are known by, Emiliano Zapata, was just as much of a Christ as Jesus. The two men are on the same team, and as team captain, Jesus has never been a ball-hogging, show-off player. Zapata Christ said that until every last person in Mexico was free, then there was no freedom in Mexico. By recognizing that this is a universal struggle, the way that true Christians like the Zapatistas do, one connects to all humanity. If these indigenous peoples along with their adoptive gentile brothers and sisters can carry that awareness of connections between beings over to the flora and fauna sectors of God’s Kingdom, they will find some major allies in the universal service they perform. And if this sense of alliance and selfless service can cross into the plant and animal Kingdoms, then why not into the elemental realm of mountain moving and the so-called non-contact forces of nature? One good thing to come from the Aryan race is a Vedic scripture that says: God sleeps in stone, breathes in plants, dreams in animals, and awakes in man.

The great gods of Babylon may seem “high and mighty” but they are only high-maintenance. Those destructive deities remained in constant contact with their earthly servant, Adolph Hitler and the highest ranking Nazi leadership. The so-called Illuminati have always served these lofty beings, so they become lofty branches themselves. They are infamous for rejecting the root in favor of worshipping impressive beings of light – beings of light that are imp-pressive only in that they are imps that press. But when you know what’s real, you aint so easily fooled. In the immortal words of Bob Marley on his smash hit, Get Up, Stand Up: ”Most people think great god will come from the sky…But if you know what life is worth you will look for yours on earth…So, now you see the light, you better stand up for your right!”

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW – BETWEEN JOY&PAIN, SUNSHINE&RAIN

Speaking of seeing the light, Carl Gustav Jung is quoted as saying:

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

In the above quote Jung was using the word “imagining” in the way it has come to be used typically in the modern westernized world; to mean believing in something untrue or unreal. At best, this verb is usually used to describe the forming of a mere mental image for pleasurable or practical purposes which limit themselves to either the realm of fancy or figuring. But Jung, like Lennon, knew that true imagination is actually an underdeveloped and atrophied organ in the spirit-body of man. The imagination is a powerful faculty which the Nazis of Jung’s time and place and the Capitalists of Lennon’s lifetime were determined to control, monopolize, and maim in others. Men and women, free-thinkers of these modern times would find themselves more in line with the beliefs of the prophetic and persecuted Sufis before and during the dark times of the Middle Ages. Avicena, Suhrawardi and other men inspired of heaven wrote about the imagination as the culmination of all spiritual senses which pre-seed and are above the 5 senses of the natural man, and are therefore supernatural and able to perceive/conceive supernatural things.

Henri Corbin coined the phrase imaginal, as opposed to imaginary, to denote the original imaginative faculty of the Spirit. Corbin hypothesized that the proper and true meaning of the term imagination would, “of necessity be lost and leave room only for the imaginary if something like a secularization of the imaginal into the imaginary were not required for the fantastic, the horrible, the monstrous, the macabre, the miserable, and the absurd to triumph.” Well that would certainly explain a lot of what is happening in today’s world, wouldn’t it? Psychology generally fails to acknowledge the value of communication with Spirit and considers the manifestation of this phenomenon to be a projection of the “imagination”. In my experience pure imagination can be used as a bridge between selfishly generated images and real messages from Spirit. And it appears that this bridge is a rainbow bridge, which shouldn’t be surprising since the imagination as we typically speak of it, deals primarily with visual images and colors.

Rainbows show up frequently in folk traditions from Yoruban to Celtic, from Taiwanese to Nordic, as the bridge we must pass to reach the perfect world of the ancestors, the pure land of Buddhism, or the earth in its paradisiacal glory imagined in Mormonism. Rainbows serve as a heavenly path leading to the greatest treasure of all. Two things are needed to make rainbows – sunlight and water. The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere. As a far more “exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (D&C 63:66, 132:16), the troposphere contains approximately 80% of the atmosphere’s mass and 99% of its water vapour. It is deeper in the tropics, up to 20 km (12 mi), and shallower near the polar regions at 7 km (4.3 mi). In the tropical areas of the Earth we find high concentrations of “poor” people with generally “warm” hearts. What would happen if the good people along Earth’s equator were to cast off the yoke of the non-egalitarian regimes which currently weigh them down, suddenly and unexpectedly switching places with their frigid but nonetheless feisty and freedom-loving brothers in the north countries? What type of weather patterns is that type of total inversion likely to whip up? What magnificent rainbows of promise would we see shining down on Inuit and Icelander? And what splendid aurora borealis would we behold breaking forth from the newly relocated continent of Afrika? Can you imagine it?!

When Paul was at Thessalonica, he and his comrades were joined by many god-fearing pagan Greeks and others who Latter-Day Stains would classify as non-members. They were however accused by the local True Blue Jew church membership of being instigators of treason against the state, and decried as “these that have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Indeed, if it were true that the one holy God entered humbly into the world in the person of Jesus, then Paul was boldly broadcasting the utter upending of the commonly held worldview and the whole hierarchical world order. If God became human so that he might confer divinity upon the creature, then it follows that the last must be first, that the poor are blessed. Now imagine, once the full import of these glad tidings sink into the hearts and minds of the oppressed masses, what is to stop the spiritual pole shift from transitioning into physical reality?

Drawing from the oldest spiritual traditions known to man born out of central Afrika, we can know that pure imagination is truly a “rainbow connection” capable of uniting man’s physical self with his spiritual self. The medium by which the gap is bridged between dense dark bodies of dirt (ara) and dazzling bodies of light (iponri) is water from the emotional body (egbe). Through mystical mists a person’s aura can be seen like a “coat of many colors” adorning them. This most plain and precious wisdom from sub-Saharan Afrika migrated to Egypt then met with further complication from the stubborn Hebrews; who were, for the most part, unable to penetrate the Kabod of the very God that led them  because they were unwilling to penetrate their own KaBodies or Spirit Bodies, as Latter-Day Saint Sunday School classes would call them. The Semitic triliteral root of KBD can be translated as glory, importance, honor, or even as interior, entrails, liver, but its most literal meaning is to “be heavy“. So when we see the word Kabod used, we should not relegate our thoughts to ethereal images of light, but also remember the “far more…eternal weight” mentioned in D&C 132, verses 16 and 17, where it speaks of the marriage of heaven and earth, spirit-body and flesh-body.  Justin points out that there is a “disconnect between the rule and order of our Heavenly Parents’ kingdom in the sky — and the rule and order of humankind on this planet.” Ancient Afrikan wisdom teaches that alignment with our Heavenly Parents is only possible if there is alignment between the physical, emotional, and spiritual self.

Just as water and sunlight come together to reveal rainbows, so the baptism of water and of fire reveal the way for us to realign Heaven and Earth. Emotions, like tidal waters, run high on both sides.

and the gods also said

let there be an expanse
in the midst of the waters
and it shall divide the waters
from the waters

and the gods ordered the expanse
so that it divided the waters which were under the expanse
from the waters which were above the expanse
and it was so
even as they ordered

Abraham 4:6-7

So we have waters below and waters above. If the troposphere contains 99% of the water in the air, then this means that the expanse spoken into existence by the gods must be very close at hand – nestled somewhere between the earth’s solid surface awash in seas, lakes and rivers, and the low lying layer of the troposphere. That mystery sphere is here. It’s us! Think about it. If all truth is independent as all intelligence also in that sphere in which God has placed it – If the celestial heaven is one sphere and the earth or telestial kingdom with all of its inequality and inconsistencies is another – then from where is God doing the placing? This can not be classified as merely a top-down operation. That type of explanation will only get us so far, and tends to let humanity and their gods off the hook for so much wickedness. Where is this place of balance and perfection if it is neither to be found in the highest nor the lowest of these two war-torn spheres. The answer is that it is NO-Where. It is not technically a place, but is a placing. It can not be situated on our maps but is situational.

Long before Joseph Smith ever spoke of infinite intelligence, spirit bodies, angelic visitations, or distinct degrees of glory, Persian visionaries were in the midst of restoring and revealing many great and wondrous things, like jism mithali – the “resurrection body,” and the “eighth climate,” also known as na-koja-abad – the “land of nowhere.” They spoke of things corroborated by the experiences of Isaiah, Paul and Mohammed before them. The ramp-up to the latter-day restoration of some of these truths had practically nothing to do with characters like Martin Luther or Wycliffe, and more to do with occultists like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, and scientist/mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, who never started religious movements but definitely paved the way for that of the LDS. And it was no thanks to the stiff-necked British and Scandinavian Victorian era converts that rushed into Sydney’s (Oops! I mean Joseph’s) new church; only to cut the short-lived restoration movement off at its base and be led by Brigham into a spiritual and topographical wasteland some 166 years ago (Happy late July 24th, Pioneer Day to all you Utahns). The point is, we ought to do as Joseph and study out of the best of books. But we would do well to remember that no amount of book-smarts and theology can ever substitute for direct and personal experience with the spiritual phenomena discussed in those books.

If the scriptures do not inspire and activate your imaginative faculty, arousing it to experiment upon the word, then the words on the pages spell death to your soul. All “people of the book” before us have condemned themselves in large numbers, because, as our Book of Mormon warns, “the law hath become dead unto us” (2 Nephi 25:25) Pure imagination is crucial because, in the “eighth climate” – from whence the light of the law shines in powerful beams – in that realm consciousness and its object are ontologically inseparable. So if we are following the light beams of law out to their dead ends we are headed, deeper and deeper, straight for outer darkness. Instead of following the laws, we ought to look to their source. For, for this end was the law given (2 Nephi 25:25), to guide us to our heavenly home where they always leave the light on for us.

The active imagination is the organ by means of which that migration occurs – the return with honor from the exterior to the interior. It is not by the senses of the natural man nor is it by means of the pure intellect but it is that intermediate power which functions as the preeminent mediator. The spiritual imagination is the organ that permits the transmutation of internal spiritual states into external states, into vision-events symbolizing with those internal states. Henri Corbin poses the following question:

“If we are no longer capable of speaking about the imagination except as “fantasy,” if we cannot utilize it or tolerate it except as such, it is perhaps because we have forgotten the norms and the rules and the “axial ordination” that are responsible for the cognitive function of the imaginative power.” – Mundus Imaginalis

Moroni puts it to us in a similar but more sobering tone:

“Has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time [weather] shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof [troposphere] to be saved? Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain.”  – Moroni 7:35-37

INTRODUCTION TO THE THERMODYNAMICS & ETERNODYNAMICS OF DESIRE


MASTER TEACHERS vs. MASTER TEASERS

The question of desire is an interesting one. We have, in what is commonly presented as Christianity and Buddhism, two religions representing opposite ends of the spectrum, at least on the surface. The former tends in practice to focus on the directing of desire, while the latter aims more towards an elimination of desire.  But we can not gain a true under-standing from examining the surface of a thing. We see the plant that springs forth but we have no understanding unless we dig, delve to the roots. Even sticking to the words of the founders of these movements can only get us so far, because scriptures are at best the stalk of the plant or trunk of the tree. Usually they come to us via second-hand, third-hand, hundredth-hand sources. In both traditions we find master teachers. What distinguishes a master teacher from others who are called teachers? It is that the master teacher recognizes his or herself to be a student. All master teachers are students of the source. They remain always aware of their relationship to the divine source. They are not ashamed to be seen as “Teacher’s Pet”. These master teacher/students make it clear that all may enjoy the same relationship, but regardless of whether or not other students embrace this truth, the master teacher constantly and consciously cultivates a natural and intense desire towards God. Those who experience a thing directly are in fact the only students who learn anything. Those who never visit but only glean knowledge of the kingdom remotely, through reading what students-turned-teachers have written about it, will only think they know something.

So we are repeatedly invited by the master teachers to visit and know for ourselves the realms of which they have become representatives. There are at least 7 heavens about which humanity has collectively speculated and to which some individuals have been. The Buddhic realm is only one of the degrees of glory. It is like a white room a place to rest entirely from all, and I do mean all, the cares of this world. It is indeed high up on the ladder and a wonderful, even essential place to visit. But all of the heavens described by ascended masters are more like vacation S-P-O-T-S not permanent S-T-O-P-S. When any one of the Many Mansions in Our Father’s House is mistaken for a permanent stop, it becomes a prison and starts to bring about damnation.

Often there is a flaccid admittance of the need to keep moving, but it is only used as a carrot on a stick. In religion we hear a lot of talk about doing good deeds and earning our way into heaven. In politics the same rhetoric can be heard expressed in terms of forward thinking and progressive action. But when you step back and look at it, we are just subjecting ourselves to busywork. Rulers rarely see the need to labor in the same way they require their subjects to. Still, regardless of position in the pyramid, zombies everywhere feel the need to “look alive”. But the paid performers that we are, it is all an act with us. The reality of our situation is a rapid onset of rigor mortis from all the religious and intellectual rigor of our modern-day deathstyles. Whether sitting statically on our thrones or tirelessly laboring away on our treadmills, none of us are actually going anywhere.

In his book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, marketing genius Seth Godin (whose last name is a subliminal reference to the God-in-man) says:

“The largest enemy of change and leadership isn’t a “no.” It’s a “not yet.” “Not yet” is the safest, easiest way to forestall change. “Not yet” gives the status quo a chance to regroup and put off the inevitable for a little while longer. Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.”

Branding life eternal as a goal to chase rather than the momentum of the moment that it really is, only postpones the return of Christ. And master teachers from Christ Jesus to Christ Krishna have taught that the teachers of religion fearfully keep Zion at bay through their dogma which is more teasing than teaching. If anyone doubts that Christ Jesus knew what He was talking about when He echoed Christ Isaiah and proclaimed woe to the teachers of the law, let him consider the walking contradiction that is organized religion.

In the last General Conference of the LDS Church, Dieter F. Uchtdorf said:

“Sometimes in life we become so focused on the finish line that we fail to find joy in the journey… Doesn’t it seem foolish to spoil sweet and joyful experiences because we are constantly anticipating the moment when they will end?”

It is a valid question – does anyone stop to smell the roses these days? But here is an equally valid question – if a group of people are truly on the path of happiness, why would they have to be told or reminded to be happy while on that path? One immediate benefit from taking sufficient time to smell the roses on the path of life is development of the spiritual olfactory. A strong sense of spirit smell does wonders for the Christian who is serious about developing that all-important gift of discernment spoken of in Christian scripture. When you nose, you knows. You can not only smell the roses, but also the bullsh*t. On the proverbial path of life there is a fine line between travel and travail. Sure, there is something eternal about sadness and pain just as there is about happiness and pleasure, but the key to these experiences is you and the key to you is awareness. This awareness is in-finite and that means it is the eternal spirit which is wont to reside in(the)finite.

We can become so fixed upon some distant destination that our sense of destiny turns to frustration and damnation, keeping us from fully ingesting, enjoying and learning the vital lessons of the here and now. When a belief system points always to, not merely “the future” but an elusive “afterlife” as the appropriate time and place for experiencing a fullness of joy, it is propagating a doctrine of damnation. False ideas of afterlife can be a fatal lie. If your religious tradition claims to offer eternal happiness, eternal marriage or any other aspect of eternal life but fails to produce results here and now, then there is nothing eternal about it. It will eventually fall and many along with it. Heaven is not obtainable in the afterlife because upon reaching that promised point on the horizon, what was sold to us as eternal marriage is revealed to be an eternal mirage. Alma 34:34 says: “That same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.” We can only ever affect change from in the moment. That is good news for eternal souls, but perceived as bad news by troublesome spirits who flee from us when we realize eternal life is happening today.

When “that day” comes it is suddenly transformed into “this day”. As soon as “one(1)day” becomes “to(2)day” as it inevitably does, leaders and followers alike are confounded and insulted. So a person or people who are always relegating the fulfillment of prophecy to some future date rather than letting it be true for them in their sphere of influence already, are always taken unawares, as by a thief in the night. They will find themselves unable to abide the day since they are wholly unaccustomed to experiencing eternity now and much less serenity now. Apocalypse Now is described in scripture as the “Great & Terrible Day”. Not many derive wisdom from this title which indicates that the usually unconsidered choice to unify these two polar opposites (Great and Terrible) is the key to the kingdom. Most prefer to have the choices made for them by a set of time honored traditions parading as eternal law. They vainly imagine that they may completely escape the sorrow while others perish. But remember, it was the “more righteous part” of the Nephites and Lamanites who were left “lamenting and howling” in the darkness for three consecutive days. The vain live and die by religious rules which advertise guarantees but only ever amount to a guarantease. But that’s what happens when you put your faith in the master teasers indstead of master teachers.

ETERNODYNAMICS

So we can see that the master teasers are too afraid and too conceited to make progress themselves or even allow others to do so. And I think we can all sense the importance of learning to operate from the present with faith enough to move. Forget about moving mountains at this point, we just need faith enough to get ourselves moving. We can only find Christ in the present moment; hence it is important not to “look beyond the mark.” But if standing our ground in the here and now is crucial to an unwavering demonstration of faith, then how does this vital movement come about out of seeming stillness?

Just as the present must be our base of operations, being in fact the only real time, location serves as a pivotal crux for simple spatial transportation and advanced teleportation. We never actually reach the future we instead pull it to us by incorporating ideas into the present. ‘Then’ always becomes ‘Now’ sooner or later. And ‘There’ can just as easily become ‘Here’, as we have demonstrated to ourselves various times in our lives by getting into a vehicle and, while essentially sitting in one place, driving our bodies from point A to point B. The writers of the timeless 80’s classic movie, Back to the Future, were giving an example of eternodynamic self-propulsion. When Marty dictates a note for the past version of his dad to read to the past version of his mom, the note contains a rather poetic description of how desire can propel us forward in faith along our chosen path. It says: “My destiny has brought me to you,” but the overly scientific Martin McFly Sr. reads it as: “My density has popped me to you.” Either expression is correct, we are simply speaking of the same phenomenon of motion in terms of spiritual and physical manifestation.

There is no place we can go without us being there. As they say, “Wherever you go, there you are.” It sounds silly, but it is in fact the most eloquent explanation of omnipresence. We laugh only because we doubt and doubt is inimical to faith. With the passage of time, and as a result of the perceived loss of childhood which Gertrude Stein experienced in Oakland California, she said of that place, “There is no there there.” This also sounds funny to our ears, but the same could be said of anywhere but ‘here’. In many ways we are all seeking the “there, there” of the comforter, to reconnect to beloved parents who we thought were lost to us since the Fall. This desire can either swelter in feelings of abandonment or it can activate swellings within the chest cavity (Alma 32:28) which end up unlocking to us the secrets of repentance, reconnection, time travel and ultimately resurrection. Stein’s writings were sometimes referred to as “stream of consciousness”. Since we and everything around us is created from a constant “stream of consciousness,” this term is helpful in making sense of what we might call eternodynamics.

Here + Now is a scientific formula that has been studied by Albert Einstein and many other famous scientists. Their experiments show us that Time + Space are connected and for their “discoveries,” they are looked upon as geniuses. But it should never be assumed that what is “discovered” in this time was never known in times past. Holy Scripture surely testifies to the forgetfulness of mankind. In other timespaces, such as pre-columbian meso-america, an innate understanding of this concept imbued the language with a reflection of the faithful relationship between time and space. Many words that we would classify as prepositions, adjectives or adverbs were united by one word which served to express both a spatial and temporal sense. So, for example, phrases that translate as “in front of” or “in the beginning” would be expressed by the same short phrase and often condensed into one simple word – similar to the English word, ‘before’. But whereas in times before, ‘before’ was regularly used to imply locality, these days we frequently hear the word when rushing to complete our business “before the deadline”. No one says, “Stand before me,” unless of course you are “The Law,” in which case you carefully use your language to address startled and confused citizens, commanding them to “appear before the court.” And in our backwards state, no one has the courage or common sense to realize that:

1) Nothing appears in this physical realm before it is conceived of on the emotional and mental planes.

2) Standing before a thing locates the causal power with you, not the thing, since ‘before’ stands at the beginning of time and dictates the end result.

The pre-fixed order of the universe can be seen at work in English prefixes ‘ante’ and ‘anti’. Even though they carry seemingly separate meanings, both trace their roots back to one common source – a Greek word meaning ‘before’ or ‘against’. Absolutely everyone is “anti-government” in some particular way or another. Republicans are against government doing certain things and Democrats are against it doing others. Neither party realizes that pushing against something only furthers it along. Each “opposing” side provides the potential energy the other needs in order to go kinetic. This is what makes the whole game of politricks so frenetic. So-called anarchists who struggle against the entire system, ignorantly perpetuate it with their own energy. To perturb something is to stimulate it, awaken it and give it the energy to grow. Only those who proclaim themselves ante-government pose a serious deterrent to the madness.

If we think about what we are doing and saying, we will note how fragmented our view of time and space has become. Looking to linguistics again, we will notice that older versions of English tended to demonstrate this principle more so than how it is spoken today. Reading ‘Biblical’/‘Shakespearean’ text we hear the phrase “at hand” being used to speak of temporal and/or spatial relationships. But even then, we do not consider the idea as a simultaneous expression of two intertwined aspects of one reality. In speaking of “non-tangible matters” we still use it in this way. But for some reason we feel the need to make a slight moderation/modernization and say ‘On hand’ when talking about “material things”. Deep in our subconscious we do recognize the eternal and unbreakable attachment that links time to space but for some reason we cannot seem to consciously acknowledge that; whether matter of the heart or physical matter, it is all matter and it all matters.

There is a quote that is attributed to graphic artist Katherine Gerardi which explains the dynamics between time and space very simply and very well.

“At first, I learned that the key word was, ‘Now’. And after embracing that, I feel that the key word is ‘Flow’, since if ‘Now’ is the only true place, then flow is the only true action – to be present and in harmony with Change.”

Flow is the perfect word to illustrate the movement which we seek. Time is flowing through us and infinite awareness funneled into our bodies creates operational spaces in accordance with our will power. Or, as Jay Kay, lead singer of Jamiroquai shrewdly sings out on the title track of one of the band’s chart-topping albums – “I know what we’re doin’ is travelin’ without movin’.

So, what does desire have to do with all this? Well, the only thing that can overcome damnation is movement and the only thing that can spur true movement and ensure its continuation in this realm is desire. Desire is sometimes dissected into two principles of love and will in order to better understand the mechanics at work. We could use either ‘love’ or ‘will’ interchangeably to accurately describe the concept of ‘desire’ because at any given time and place both love and will are working together and manifesting as desire. Desire, then would sometimes seem to be synonymous with form, and other times with intangible qualities. The reason for this versatility is because, like the Son is a perfect blend of the Mother and the Father, pure desire is such a natural result of the combination of love and will, that it may move simultaneously in the direction of form and formlessness, thereby solidifying the bond between stern Father Time, who seems to wait for no man, and firm but malleable Mother Space who expands and contracts allowing passage to any and all brave souls. But remember that the Son of God was already present as a guiding magnetic force in the First Place. To employ the Back to the Future analogy once again; young Marty Jr. exists as the reason for Marty Sr. and Lorraine coming together prior to his physical birth.

Eternodynamics DiagramWORKING WITH DESIRE

Now, just because desire forms a permanent connection between love and will does not mean that it is never subject to imbalance in its embodiment of these two principles. Alma’s monologue cautions:

“I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.” (Alma 29:4)

Alma is talking metaphysics in these verses. He knows that feelings of discontentment with the here and now only freeze up our capabilities to perform great things. So he shifts from a wishful mindset to glorying in “that which the Lord hath commanded” him. He does not let his desire dwell too long on the future. Nor does he find fault with his desire as it switches course, passing right over the present and swinging in the direction of the past before finally regaining balance in the center. His desire sways from excessive expectation – “Oh that I were and angel!” (verse 1) to respectful remembrance – “I also remember the captivity of my fathers” (verse 11). But it eventually settles like a pendulum in the middle. Is it Alma’s will that harnesses his desire or his love that calms his desire in this instance? Or is it a case of his desire straddling the two extremes, bringing them together and planting his feet firmly? However we choose to explain it, there can be no doubt that his feisty yet focalized desire now gives Alma a sense of empowerment. He ends the chapter with a strong positive affirmation – “And may God grant that it may be done according to my words, even as I have spoken. Amen.” Yes, from traveling preacher to trumpet blowing angel, Alma the Younger was and is a true master metaphysician.

Alma obtained the desire of his heart and you and I may do the same. But most do not care enough to develop a conscious relationship with their Heavenly Parents so that the desires within them can take form. It requires patience and submissiveness. Alma the Elder was patient and did not try to force his son to repent of his wicked ways. Alma the Younger after seeing the angel was humbled and concentrated on the mission God set before him. All of this time and faith paid off, and now, Alma the Angel bursts forth – fully formed and ready for action!

When we find ourselves in dark or even restricting corners do we despair or do we trust the Holy Mother? We are only in her womb. We needn’t see it as a tomb. Kicking and pushing against the dark walls will not do anything but cause our desire to grow. The increase of desire alone is of no help to us, for a premature birth could mean a premature demise. We should be taking this vital time in the dark confines of the womb to allow this cocoon of love to nourish and strengthen our will for the day of our deliverance which is nigh. We don’t have to be mathematicians or know anything about square matrixes of numbers whose combined products can be interpreted as an absolute value representing an area, volume or limit that boxes us into a matrix within the matrix to comprehend that there is a fine line between determent and determinant.

This is where desire gets tricky – where it can get sticky – like semen building up and occasionally spilling out but only from an automatic, lazy and even rebellious overflow. Off-spring in any stage are eternally in need of guidance from the Father. It is true that the off-spring of the Father will reach a point where, filled with desire, they begin to move of their own volition. This is a good thing. It means they are ready. But without conscious guidance from the Father, that energy which builds up and springs-off will come to naught in wet ‘pipe dreams’ or even worse, grow languid and feeble. It is not necessarily a sin in the eyes of the Creator to masturbate, but failure to master fate through masterfully bated breath of life results in a less than immaculate ejaculate and can create problems. There is no such thing as a problem child since even a child who is problematic presents an opportunity for the Father to be glorified in perfection. As creators in training, it is not masturbation but misturbation that is a misuse of our desire. Desire that is misdirected or neglected never succeeds in creating a new life for us. If forced or underappreciated, desire will de-Sire bastard brain-children, aborted dreams or soulless apparitions which haunt their maker till they are at last reabsorbed by we who must bear responsibility for their fragmented phantasmal forms.

PROPER TOOLS FOR HANDLING DESIRE

When working with the highly volatile substance of desire it helps to use the right tools. Tools in the mundane mammon of Idumea are prized for their current value which fluctuates with the ups and downs of the market. But as a clever commercial campaign for a well known financial institution reminds us, we need to “Chase what matters.” From the perspective of eternodynamics there are things in both the spiritual and physical realms which are also cherished for their current value. But here the word ‘current’ refers not only to an up-to-date point in a time-line, but also and more especially to a thing’s ability to conduct current – as in flow of eternal energies. Such things as arms and legs, for example hold great current value for mankind and have for millennia now. This is why they charge us an arm and a leg to keep upgraded with the latest trick-nology – “tricked out” as those versed in modern slang might say. Indeed, but “tricked out” of what? – our birthright of free inner-g.  It’s really just a “new lamps for old” scam. When we come to understand the immense potential of our own limbs and appendages; even braided locks of hair as antennae, we begin to see how silly our psychological attachment to man-made gadgets and gizmos is. Truly it is Virtual Insanity that we are living in. As the lyrics of another Jamiroquai song testify, we “always seem to be governed by this love we have for useless twisting of our new technology.” The bible says we “worship the work of [our] own hands, that which [our] own fingers have made.” (Isaiah 2:8)

For many years scientists were puzzled by the fact that more heat could be generated from the Sun's corona than from His surface, until finally they realized that the Son braids his locks and it is this braiding that combines for flares of spectacular Sampson-like strength and energy.

For many years scientists were puzzled by the fact that more heat could be generated from the Sun’s corona than from His surface, until finally they realized that the Son braids his locks and it is this braiding that combines for flares of spectacular Sampson-like strength and energy.

I-pods and I-phones are the I-Dols of our day. There is a trance-humanist agenda that is subtly but swiftly sweeping over the sleeping masses. “Accept no imitations,” we are told by the sons of Cain, travailing salesmen who employ double-speak as they sell us imitations. Trick-nology will never equal the majesty and grace of the human body. But if ‘I’ can be convinced that these gadgets and gizmos are-me, then I inadvertently give rise to an army of I-Robots designed to replace the human race. That is the grave danger of our precious I-Dolls. This is what we can expect if we forsake the Great I-Am which is a part of all of us, accepting instead these individually wrapped futures. The only way to avoid such a dark fate is to unwrap ourselves from the Individual Pods they have placed us in and connect with one another via true spiritual inner-g. Some people think that their undue trust in technology does not qualify as putting their trust in the arm of flesh, which is expressly forbidden in scripture. When Jeremiah and Nephi say “cursed is he who maketh flesh his arm” they are not condemning the use of the arm as a channel for divine energies. It is he who neglects this practice and resorts to so-called technological enhancement and brute force on whom the curse falls. It is not that your arm of flesh is not special; on the contrary you must begin to realize just how special it is as a vessel for the life-stream of the spirit so you can commune daily with the divine inner-g that The Creator offers to all liberally.

In today’s world there is much F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real) and this can make it extremely tempting to focus on man-made forms for protection of ourselves and our loved ones. The enemy would much rather have us focused on political petitions which cleverly steer our “right to bear arms” away from bearing the Spirit of God like a burning fire through our God-given arms towards a frivolous and futile franticness about “firearms”, which are only a lesser power devised by man for use of force upon the earth in periods where faith in God has dwindled to a frightening degree. Men of God need to be more about the former (Power which stood before the foundations of the world let alone this great nation) than the latter (Latter-Day So-called Liberty movements). The Japanese word, “kara-te” literally means “empty hand, bare hand.” As we shift our attention from militias of men to the lessons of the Lord we will gain the confidence of the martial artist and find ourselves not merely in body but also in soul, holy and whollymarshaled and disciplined for war” as per D&C 87:4.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

In light of the tendency we mortals have to focus on the physical laws by which we are bound, it is useful for us to take up a study of those laws, but only insomuch as we remain clear on the truth that, such physical facts are only reflections and refractions of spiritual principles. Just as the Ten Commandments were only fractioned bits of the whole and higher law that originally came down from the mountain top, only to be dashed to pieces because the people would not abide it; so is the divine law of love broken down into lesser laws, which when amassed by men, whether to a total of ten or forty-two, could never equal the emergent majesty of the universal code of life – pure, whole love. Thermodynamics is just a physical manifestation of eternodynamics. In the same way that thermodynamics concerns itself with measuring and predicting macroscopic energy displays from microscopic movements within systems, eternodynamics looks at the spiritual part of the process which pre-seeds even the quantity known as internal energy postulated in the first law of thermodynamics. In fact, the first law of thermodynamics is itself reliant upon what Ralph H. Fowler and co-author Edward A. Guggenheim coined as a “zeroeth law of thermodynamics” – stating that a kind of egalitarian Euclidian relationship between systems must exist.

If A and C are each in thermal equilibrium with B, A is also in equilibrium with C.

So, for example, as long as the members of the Godhead are understood to be three distinct thermodynamic systems, then reflexivity and symmetry are perfectly maintained among the group due to a common link of heat/desire which preserves a state unchanged through time. Eternodynamics, then, could be called the study of pre-existence, upon which all the physical sciences depend – starting with thermodynamics. They are two ends of one begending, as explained by the Lord in D&C 29:30-33.

30 But remember that all my judgments are not given unto men; (God is telling us that there is more than meets the eye and even more than can be detected by microscopes) and as the words have gone forth out of my mouth even so shall they be fulfilled, that the first shall be last, and that the last shall be first in all things whatsoever I have created by the word of my power, which is the power of my Spirit.

31 For by the power of my Spirit created I them; yea, all things both spiritual and temporal

32 First spiritual, secondly temporal, which is the beginning of my work; and again, first temporal, and secondly spiritual, which is the last of my work— (The science of thermodynamics follows a similar pattern from unseen to seen processes and also distinguishes transfers between closed systems as ‘work’)

33 Speaking unto you that you may naturally understand; but unto myself my works have no end, neither beginning; but it is given unto you that ye may understand, because ye have asked it of me and are agreed (Being “agreed” as it says here could also be expressed similarly to being in “equilibrium” as stated in the zeroeth law of thermodynamics).

So when we come across terms like hot or cold describing temperature of temporal things according to the second law of thermodynamics in our books of science, we would do well to remember that we are still speaking of the same eternal things we hear described with similar terms in religious records.

15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth

Revelation 3:15-16

Justin has given an excellent breakdown of these verses in his post Lukewarm=Good for Nothing.  He explains that both hot and cold serve valuable purposes in the eyes of the Lord. God is not saying that he wants an either or situation, but that His desires are that men and women everywhere learn to make their desires manifest in both hot and cold demonstrations, thereby becoming versatile servants in our common cause – Life Eternal – rather than jealous slaves in a common curse – Spiritual and Physical Death. Justin is careful to reference this scripture as coming from the Revelation or Apocalypse of Saint John. This calls to attention a subconscious correlation between the often quoted, seldom understood standard set forth here in Chapter 3 verses 15 through 16, and the same truth in the same chapter and verses but in the Gospel of John.

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:15-16

For a firmer grasp on the commonality between these two expressions from writings under the name of John it might be helpful to take in the bookend verses for a little more context. Verse 14 in the third chapter of the Apocalypse of John addresses the subsequent verses to “the angel of the church of the Laodiceans” and references a higher spiritual authority for the claims of knowledge which follow. For more information on this higher spiritual authority listed simply as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God,” one may consult An Anarchical View of the Keys pt. 1, posted here, or dig deeper into ancient Egyptian gospels. But for expediency in our learning of thermodynamics as an extension of higher law from a spiritual plane of existence, it need only be duly noted that any temporal realities John is recounting are inextricably connected with the highest authority of Heaven. The connection is made possible through angelic beings possessing varying degrees of will-desire-love power, who ascend and descend along the ladder of Jacob’s dream. These angels of light are alternately seen as angles of light on the physical plane. Jacob’s Ladder has its physiological materialization in our DNA which coils like the serpent. This is why we find appropriate correspondence between verses 14 in chapter 3 of both the Apocalypse and the Gospel of John; where Jesus relates to Nicodemus the connection between the lifting up of Moses’ “serpent in the wilderness,” and the “Son of man”.

After establishing the connection between things temporal and things spiritual in the preceding verses, we can skip to the encapsulating information encrypted in verse 17 of each scripture set respectively.

Apocalypse of John:

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Gospel of John:
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Both warn against the failure to understand the linkage between divine beings and their imperfect counterparts. These verses speak to the grave misunderstanding on the part of the world with regards to God’s divine mission as Jesus in the flesh. Seeing things with only the carnal eyes we are led to think that worldly riches buy us security and that the Son of man buys our souls from the Devil. But it is man alone, or his idea of man, alone and without a constant attachment to his maker, which creates the illusion of separateness. Your own spirit did not come to condemn your body any more than Jesus came to condemn the world. Both, Jesus and your inner Christ came to express love and bless with Eternal Life. Oscillation between the supposed extremes of hot and cold, up and down, left and right, as proposed by the Lord, can have the effect of a realized unity in the minds of His servants.

Even the First Epistle of John contains additional comparisons within verses 14-17 of its third chapter. And here we are given further insight into how the eternodynamics of will-desire-love power plays out in the sustenance of that which we call physical life. Just like in the other passages, these words start off with a declaration of knowledge obtained from the highest possible authority.

14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death (Amenta).

Verse 14 clearly illustrates that to love is to live. It also defines death in a way that we do not typically think of it. We say that death is only in effect once the spirit is utterly separated from the body, but we fail to recognize the spiritual, emotional and mental death or separation of body from spirit, earth from heaven, which we inflict almost everyday, every moment for years leading up to a disastrous result. A result which, seeking to excuse ourselves in sin, we say is inevitable. Is it, or could it be as mankind was once taught by Adam, Eve, Seth, Enoch and others in ancient times? Could it be that Joseph Smith Jr.’s mind was inspired with a restored version of ancient temple rites to communicate, if nothing else, one important message to we who sit in darkness? We are the dead and we will dwell in various levels of Amenta till we admit our self-hate which places a mental and physical block between us and Elohim and infects every aspect of our death cult-sure society. Remember the zeroeth law of thermodynamics posits that if A and C are each in thermal equilibrium with B, A is also in equilibrium with C. In other words, if you love God and your neighbor loves God then you must also love one another. If such is not the case, then you are scientifically proven to be out of thermal equilibrium with God.

15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

The trickle-down effect of the widely misunderstood condescension of God is here presented in terms of either love accepted and passed on or love rejected and passed up, also known as hate. Love is life, pure and simple, but at dangerously low levels we have not the courage to call it what it is. Our lifestyles are deathstyles. We are numbered among those who “love and make a lie,” (Rev. 22:15) meaning we devote the life-force with which God blesses us to a monstrous falsehood that requires endless and pointless labor to sustain even as it drains the people and the earth of all that is good.

Verse 17 of the third chapter of the First Epistle of John fits right in with verse 17 in the corresponding chapters of the Gospel as well as the Apocalypse of John. It is another blast in the face of the market mentality which keeps people from seeing, loving, knowing their brother and also from seeing, loving, knowing the Elder Brother of humanity and the Father who has sent Him.

17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

The Love of God shed forth in the hearts of man and through all creation is what makes us alive. Love is the mysterious Heavenly Mother, about whom those living in these last days wonder and the same Mother about whom those dying in these latter-days have forgotten.  She is the Mother of All Living. In the seen world she is our Mother/Matter. She surrounds us with her supportive embrace and is with us from womb to tomb. At the unseen levels of existence, or those not visible to the naked eye, She is the Electron, which is feminine and has a negative charge—not in the sense of being bad, or evil—but in the sense that it is a subatomic particle that is highly receptive to the kinetic energy with which it is inseminated by a Proton. Protons are subatomic particles with a positive, masculine charge, representative of the Heavenly Father. They project energy, especially during intercourse with Electrons to conceive the Neutron that binds them together. The Neutron is of course simultaneously symbolic of and symbolized by the Son of God. Sharing and in fact constituting a symbiotic relationship between the Holy Mother and Father, a Neutron is that desire which we spoke of as playing the central role in eternodynamics. In this way, eternodynamics and thermodynamics are one and the same thing, viewed from two different coexistent planes in the Plan.

When electrons have sexual intercourse with protons then it is more than possible for hard, dense, matter to transubstantiate into energy, which is simply matter in a highly aroused state. The natural catalyst behind the passionate fusing and acceleration of protons and electrons is love. Of course there are man-made technologies, such as the large hadron collider in Switzerland, that can artificially replicate this fusing process, but it’s just not the same as the real thing. This is because the natural law of cause and effect dictates that different causes bring forth different effects, even if the process of transformation proceeding from these different causes seem, at first glance, to be mirror reflections of one another.

In Moroni’s scathing indictment of modern LDS culture (Mormon 8:38) he accuses us of selling ourselves for “that which will canker”. Canker is really just an alternate spelling of cancer. We may be able to defend and justify the current state of the Church as “not fully ripened in iniquity quite yet” but Cancer rates are less open to theoretical conjecture. Do we fail to see the connection between our beliefs and our blights?  The Lord has not asked us to stand around waiting and debating about and until the precise moment of death of the Church or the society around us. That is the job of a coroner, which is a royal office of the state that originally entailed protecting the property of the crown but by the 17th century had narrowed to the duty of determining the cause of death in cases not obviously natural. Institutional cancer is nothing new and biological cancer may be common at this time in history but neither is natural. Cancer cells proliferate throughout the body when the preconscious mind denies the reality of love. The cell governor overcompensates for this deficit within the soul by ordering cells to rapidly replicate—a process of multiplication that is motivated by love under natural circumstances. But because the reassuring influence of love is not present in this scenario, the cell governor is motivated by fear, which if left unaddressed, will ultimately lead to the forced decomposition of the human body. Passion without purpose is paralyzing, but a life lived without passion is fatal. Love and passion or desire—which is usually confused with hyper emotionalism—are the lost keys to an impeccable legacy.

ARE MORMONS READY FOR THE RISE OF THE PRIESTESSES?


Are Mormons ready for the Rise of the Priestesses? No. Of course they are not. That is not the question. The question is, are you and I ready as individuals? There has been a lot of commotion lately surrounding the issue of women as they are viewed in the Church. To be perfectly clear, it is not my intention to detract from the discussion within that context. Nor do I desire to discourage my sisters from acting on the spirit of equality that is stirring in the hearts of many these days. Any action taken to further the understanding of women and men as equals is valid and important in my eyes. What I want to do with my words here is to broaden the context to include not only the furthest reaches of prophecy but to take in the vital first steps of inner change that alone can ensure true and everlasting progress beyond the shifty, political moves that are presented to us as game-changers, when in truth they only perpetuate the boys vs. girls game of petty power struggle. The point I want to make is that men are wallowing in such a low and wretched state, spiritually speaking, that issue of equality between the sexes must, by definition start with an equal boosting of both men and women, together. So let me cut to the chase.

I read a post a while back at Feminist Mormon Housewives, written by a male guest author, Jared P., that was entitled A Kingdom of Priests. It is not so much my intention to critique it but to use its momentum to catapult some ideas to those Mormon priests and priestesses who are ready for real and royal Pre-Stood Power or at least an honest discussion on priesthood politics in the Church. The post does a good job of correcting the common conflation between “the full measure of our creation” and titles and offices. But the hopes and wishes expressed in this post for the actual fulfillment of the measure of our creation sound every bit as hollow, muffled and distant as the lightly lilting but Monsonotonous speeches of Thomas S. They ring with a little less conviction than the sexist sayings of Elder Voyd K. If one can not Pack half the punch that Packer does, then don’t count on much ever changing in your lifetime. To be fair I do not think for one minute that this was the author’s intention (to see positive change or real strides towards the fulfilling of humanity’s divine potential) but rather, he sought and succeeded in doing a little lip-service to ideals such as equality and peace. And that is fine. Let every man and woman go at his or her own chosen pace in accordance with the divine plan.

Jared most certainly speaks for the majority of his brothers and sisters and accurately communicates their affinity for warm fuzzy feelings – fluff-filling over fulfillment. Indeed D&C 121 states plainly that “almost all men” cling to safety cushions which are stuffed by a staff of stiff pretend priests who place pillows with carefully crocheted clichés over the faces of their sleeping wives to stifle and suffocate them. Their so-called “priesthood position” stems directly from their “dis-position” as unrighteous dominant partners who think they can domineer the Pre-Stood Power and hog the fallsecurity blankets of a defiled marriage-bed. The bedspread or counterpane is described as a fantasy land by the poet Robert Louis Stevenson in his children’s classic, The Land of Counterpane. Here the overgrown, sick child imagines himself a giant among men, sending “ships in fleets…among the sheets” and sprawling “houses out…cities all about.” – such masculine and Masonic imagery. Stevenson’s other well known children’s poem, The Land of Nod is also a subtle nod to the vanity of this League of Just Men who leave women outside their inner prayer circle. It is the vain dream of the Church of (Cain) the Firstborn who goes about building the first City-State and naming it after his own firstborn, Enoch. This is the anti-zion or ante-zion, a false illusion that appears before the real City of Enoch and sets itself against that which the Lord blesses because it wrongly sees itself as having emerged first like Esau. But it was his mother who knew and understood that Jacob was to preside. Nephi and Joseph of Egypt were not the firstborn in their families. Even Adam, in his confusion, wrongfully assumed superiority over Eve, thinking that seniority if only by moments should always reign. But what does Adam know about that which pre-seeded his self? Being that he does not remember clearly anything that happened before his physical creation and seeing as how he was asleep during the physical formation of Eve, he can not be a credible witness. Why then do we unquestionably accept his authority as near absolute?

Are we satisfied to poo-poo and postpone indefinitely Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother’s deepest desire for us as Their Sons and Daughters? Even though the words of Paul to the Corinthians are quoted in the Feminist Mormon Housewives piece, there is no eagerness here to “put away childish things”. We can not preserve the Child-like/Christ-like qualities which Jesus told us were necessary to inherit the Kingdom of God, without putting away child-ish things. In modern American English the ending “ish” is frequently used to describe something that approximates or even copies a certain characteristic but nevertheless is not an authentic or full embodiment of that characteristic. If we need to become as little children to enter the Kingdom, does “child-ish” suffice? “Ish” is also used these days in many circles as a euphemism for “$#!+”. We know were falling short and even digressing away from our child-like natures when we resist change and assume the role of self-ish brats who should have been potty-trained long ago, but instead insist that our Heavenly Mom and Dad bear the responsibility for changing us out of the squishy ish-filled diapers we so proudly wear. Somehow I don’t think that “Wear Diapers to Church Day” can even be justified as the baby-steps that would be appropriate for “Infants on Thrones” as Joseph Smith described us in the King Follet Discourse. In many parts of the Afrikan bush the children are diaper-free and fully potty-trained by a much earlier age than babies in modernized areas of the world. This is just a temporal example of a much deeper spiritual concept. By babying our spirits we do ourselves a great disservice.

We bask in the vainglorious flattery of the “Brethren” and the Relief Society Presidency as they remind us of the specialness of our generation. Like spoiled royal brats we throw temple tantrums and let Christ, our whipping boy, receive the lashes which in a just and fair society would go to us. Engl-ish culture has us fascinated by nannies with Brit-ish accents who claim to know precisely what it takes to raise up a righteous generation. But we’re no Angels, only Angel-ish. We do not live as the Angels in Heaven do, but make a mockery with our vain ideas of perfection. If we must turn to English literature in an attempt to understand angels, we can do no better than the writings of William Blake.

“It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.”

Anglos are not angels and through all phases of our society from Victorian to today, we will hold to our place in this man’s world by cleverly putting the woman up on a pedestal which is nothing more than a glorified auction block.

In an address from last year’s October Conference Melvin Ballard Jr. speaks of being anxiously engaged (presumably in a good cause). But the title of his talk is more in line with the neural linguistic programming within its main body than with LDS Scripture and would be more accurately titled “Bee Anxiously Engaged.” In it Ballard compares “good church members” to honeybees. White men who imagine themselves on the top of the Pyramid or Hive are like bees.

Did you know that bees communicate with one another through a special dance? It is true. But what do those busy bees talk about with one another? Why, work of course. Like the majority of males living in any one of the many white male dominated nations of the earth, conversation is intrinsically centered around bzzzyness. Modern man is all abuzz with making cold contacts consisting of questions like “So, what do you do?” and “How much honey does that make?” In nature bees are constantly exchanging info about where to find more nectar. Karl Von Frisch conducted an experiment wherein a hive (Church or Government) was placed at the foot of a radio tower with an abundant food source atop (Heaven). 10 bees were “taken up” to the top and shown the food source like holy men who get a glimpse of the Order of Heaven. These bees were then sent off to tell the rest of the hive about their find. The message was conveyed via their non-verbal language which consists of a fixed set of signals for communicating location. The problem is; bees’ fixed signals all relate to horizontal distance only. They can not manipulate their system of communication to create a ‘new’ message indicating vertical distance. Von Frisch watched as the bees flew frustrated in all directions but were unable to locate the heavenly supply. Obsessed with accumulating more and more wealth and conceptualizing their souls to be solely de-fined by their finery, the swarms of working class, Christ-shun, Caucasian men who make the “world” go round are so completely convinced that they are the “Bees Knees”. Never pausing to bend the knee and confess their nothingness, with the tongue of angels.  Taking their capital and industry as evidence that they must be the representatives of the summit of society, they have no real concept of “up” and sadly; can not seem to devise one.

Very few W.A.S.P.s (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) ever transcend the worker-drone mentality of the Beehive and achieve the level of angels among us. If a white man grows his hair and beard out and adopts in his heart, the crazy idea of Jesus that Love Is All We Need, he will unfailingly be mocked by the “Big Boys” in General Conference no less. It took a year or two of frequent repetition from his faithful companion Yoko Ono, but once the truth finally sunk in, John Lennon put it succinctly and directly, plainly and preciously, as Nephi would say, into a song: Woman is the Ni**er of the World.

The so-called progressive mind-set that is gaining popularity these days within the religious realm can not be defended as truly progressing us towards a brighter future if it refuses to pull out our dark past and examine it in the light. In many deep-seated ways, the concepts of “priesthood” as well as “eternal progression” have been de-spiritualized since the early days of Mormonism. I contend that this is a major problem because, even though most will undoubtedly say that priesthood is not the issue, they grossly misunderstand not only me, but also the role that theology plays as an entry point for ideas that shape our world. Most Mormons wouldn’t recognize true Priesthood Power if it stepped up and slapped them across the face, which it wouldn’t because it operates on the principle of non-cohersion. But still, when they are dished a back-handed perversion of the priesthood, to the point of a spiritual (or even in some cases physical) slap across the face they rarely question the overall institution behind that force. Now before you say in your mind again that the question of priesthood is not even a real issue when it comes to the objectives of the women’s equality movement within the LDS Church today, remember to speak for yourself. And in as much as you feel more or less qualified to speak for your sisters remember that, while the problem may not be that most Mormons do not know what priesthood is, the lack of gender equality present is a direct result of mistakenly thinking that we do know what priesthood means.

So whether you see it as a women’s rights issue, more political in nature or just a case of making a few aesthetic corrections, plastic surgery to improve the Church’s image, that is all very well. But any of us who identify that a problem, or even just a need for change no matter how big or small exists, will have to be willing to connect the dots between the state of things today and the past roots. It’s either that, or we admit that we are phonies who have no serious goals for effecting positive adjustments into the future. Bandying about with band-aids and polite banter never changes policy, let alone hearts and minds. Changing hearts and minds has been given over to the jurisdiction of religion in countless ways. We may say that this is a personal domain between a person and God in an attempt to steer clear of sticky theological discussion. Then why even talk about it with others, what is the point of religion at all? I know many women and men who take an interest in this topic may honestly feel that it is wrong for them to pronounce judgment on another’s heart or mind. Regardless of the truthfulness of that principle, we do it all the time to varying degrees and like it or not, the teachers of religion in the very forum where we are seeing inequality to be an issue, are themselves, the worst offenders. So in the spirit of keeping ourselves honest, let’s explore, at least briefly, the roots of the problem.

We will start with some quotes from a past president of the Church. Not because I think the majority of people who read this are ready for such a revolutionary act as scrutinizing the main Church leadership. I for one, do not even believe that the real solutions require us to waste much time looking at anyone other than ourselves. But for those who are more interested in changing the Church to their comfort than in listening to the discontent inside themselves and hearing that pre-stood power that creates worlds without number speak to them about how they can transform their own world – I say, your solution should be simple and straightforward. From a legal perspective and although unseen, a spiritual standpoint, Thomas S. Monson is the one you want to talk to. If you think this would be unnecessary or even beside the point, I would tend to agree. But at least take a look at what you and your leaders have inherited. Or alternately admit the lack of true conviction behind your words and the pointlessness of the actions you take to supposedly establish some semblance of equality between men and women in the context of the LDS Church. Without further ado, here is the promised presidential prattle.

“It is much more difficult for wives to learn than it is for husbands, because women have not the degree of light and knowledge that their husbands have; they have not the power over their passions that their husbands have; therefore they have to suffer one for another until they get power over themselves like unto those that have advanced more fully in the knowledge of our God.” President Lorenzo Snow, (The Blessings and Privleges of the Saints—Obedience to Council Volume 5, pg 315)

Another gem from sweet old Lorenzo Snow given in the same talk in 1857:

“You very seldom find that husbands and wives are perfect; but perhaps it is very well that the husband is not perfect, because, if he was, he would be placed at a great distance from his wives. It requires a great exertion on the parts of wives to keep pace with their husbands.”

Oh but this is not the mood or attitude anymore, right? This type of thing is no longer a problem. Yeah, like racism is no longer a problem since Obama took office. While the problem of inequality by definition manifests itself in a variety of ways, this is not evidence that the morphed fruit is in no way connected to the lofty branches. I am of course applying the analogy of the wild fruit given in Jacob 5. If the roots are worth saving then we must disencumber the tree of the lofty branches. The very fact that these quotes have been tucked away is evidence that we have never even begun to deal with these issues. If I believe God wants me to be a racist I have no reason to examine racists behavior. If I believe God condemns homosexuals, I have no reason to examine my homophobia. If I believe God made men superior to women, I have no reason to examine my sexism. Once we take the opinions of man as God’s Will, life seems very simple. The problem is that God knows and deep inside we know we are embracing a lie. The more the lie becomes manifest in the world, the more frequently God will send the Father of Lies to shake up the faulty foundations upon which so-called Master Builders construct. The Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 28:19, makes it clear that this shaking is necessary so that growth and progress might continue. Whether you see yourself as working for fair and equal treatment of women within the Church or you are actually seeking to exercise those latent, God-given powers within you, I think it is safe to say that some shaking will be necessary for all of us at one point or another.

I would like to dive in a bit deeper to examine the essence of Pre-Stood Power vs. man’s ideas on priesthood for the benefit of all my brothers and sisters, whether merely curious or truly desirous to more faithfully fulfill their life’s calling. I find it more helpful to use the term Pre-Stood as a reminder that the Powers of Heaven stood before and will stand long after the foundation and passing of the Earth. It is in essence, the essence, the Love, that which was before and that which remains, according to Jesus, Paul, Alma, Joseph and countless other teachers. The word Pre-Stood helps us to understand that all conferral of said power is not just an ordination but a re-ordination. All men and women have already been fore-ordained. If that is too much for some so-called priesthood holders to accept we can slightly adjust the wording to say that everyone ordained to the priesthood in this life received a pre-ordination. If you do not feel this to be true, then I would suggest that it is a personal problem and maybe you need a PPI (Personal Priesthood Interview) with God to determine whether perhaps there has been some mistake in issuing that which is sacred to you who through unworthiness can no longer sense the pre-ordination of the Great Ones which Father Abraham witnessed. The LDS acronym PPI is one that should be familiar to many Mormon men and women as well. It is an operation of what Dallin Oaks, J.D. referred to as the “priesthood line” of authority in a 2010 address. Oaks condescendingly cautioned against the perils of the “personal line” and placed it firmly under the jurisdiction of Church leaders. I wonder how many other Mormon men were left scratching their heads at this de-lineation and de-liberation of a supposedly continuous line of authority of which Christ Jesus freely gave and commanded us to freely give (Matt. 10:8). This obsessing over lines or lineage is nothing new. But confusion is compounded when one stops to consider that it is persons who hold the priesthood, hence the term Personal Priesthood Interview. So isn’t all priesthood personal? Indeed we may say, along with the apostle Paul, that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:4), but in practice we betray this trust He has placed in us by respecting priesthoodlums and their policy over eternal principle.

While it may very well be foolishness to seek Heavenly power from worldly men, it is arrogance to assume that you hold and magnify the pre-stood power if you are found mocking a movement for equality within the institutional church. All men who assume themselves worthy pre-stood holders and are not diligent in encouraging their own wives and even any misguided but honest LDS women who feel the Holy Spirit of change blowing through the rafters of a condemned Church and as thermal currents in their own hearts to magnify their female pre-stood power more fully; those men are not magnifying their own pre-stood but are letting it dwindle. If you can not see the differences between a movement for equal treatment of the feminine gender in the LDS Church and the ancient prophecies regarding the establishment of Zion then you are deeply confused about and unfamiliar with the order and powers of Heaven. Latter-Day Saints should prepare in their own hearts, minds and families for the Millennial Reign of Christ, for the Restoration of All Things and for the Rise of the Priestesses.

AN ANARCHICAL VIEW OF THE KEYS pt. 1


PRE-STOOD POWER IN ALL ITS FORMS

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

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

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

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

IN HIS HANDS

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

In His Hands

When Moses spoke with his God He said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

GIVE ME FIVE BROTHER!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

meru model

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

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

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

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

Joseph Smith History 1:38-39

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

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

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

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

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

The Key is in Your Hands

The Key is in Your Hands

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

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

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

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

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

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

Zomarah – Understanding Priesthood Keys

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

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

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

Network Model for Working with God

Network Model for Working with God

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

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

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

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

– Joseph Smith History 1: 25

THE WAY  TO OBTAIN KEYS

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

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

The Liahona showed them the 'Tao', the way.

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

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

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

Lao Tzu taught:

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and I’m a Mormon


Maggie asked me:

“I believe in a similar fashion and lately I have been unable to call myself a Mormon because of it.  Is one a “true” Mormon if they do not take everything in the rigid literal?  I started to feel I couldn’t be much like I can’t call myself a vegetarian if I eat meat.  But now I’m not so sure.  Isn’t this what Mormonism is at its core, its base?”

I’ve also read similar sentiments – e.g.

“I [have x-y-z different opinion on this-or-that facet of Mormonism, yet still identify in some degree as “Mormon”].  As a result, when I speak to others [and] I say, “I am a Mormon.”  Am I being deceptive if I don’t reveal what that phrase means to me upfront?

This represents my ~4500 word response to that.

The religious experience of the gospel of Jesus Christ — at its core, its base — is the subjective and transcendent experience of God:

I was once told in conversation that:

“Mormons just don’t drink alcohol – that is the least that is expected of them.”

And I thought – really, that’s the least that’s being LDS means – abstaining from alcoholic drinks?  I’m sure if we are talking about LDS youth, then that person would probably say that the “least” is something related to body modesty or not having sex.  But again – that’s our least?

For a religion proclaiming Jesus Christ – the “least” ought to be pretty straightforward.  Jesus called people to consider themselves the servants of all – and act accordingly.  Having the same mind in you that was in Him:  who did empty himself and take the form of a servant [Philippians 2:5-8].  That’s it.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is fluid.  It’s meant to be lived by every human who’s ever lived on the whole earth.  As such, it is flexible, adaptable to the variety of conditions that exist among people.  What makes nature so beautiful and awe-inspiring is its diversity.  Even though nature follows certain patterns, it is ever-new and always creating – never boring or monotonous.  [see, Going from Concrete to Flowers]

However, a “hardened” religious tradition cannot tolerate subjectivity and diversity.  So, when one’s mind is informed by such a belief system, God ceases to be the experience of the Supreme Being – and becomes instead This-Thing who sits Up-There in the sky ruling over nature and who must be related to according to in That-Way [see, Making an Image out of God].

The fundamental aspect of the gospel is people having a transcendent experience of God – one that experiences God as a continuous happening that we are all a part of.  It’s that experience of Joy that all our myths, stories, and rituals are telling about and pointing to – so that we may come to that same place where we too relate to God with an I-Thou relationship framed in terms of family and covenant [see, Taking our Myths Literally].

That relative experience is expressed outwardly in a material sense in various ways:

Now – the gospel does manifest itself outwardly as a physical space-and-time institution according to the doctrine of expediency.  Suiting itself to the conditions found among the people at that time and place [see, There are no “higher” or “lower” laws; there are only expedient laws and D&C 46:15].

But the base-layer, the common experience is always about coming to relate to the Power of the created universe in terms that break-down the left-brain sense of separateness and open-up the right-brain sense of complete continuousness and connectivity.

There may be behavioral or moral implications of a covenant with God – but it is not the jurisdiction of the gospel to lay down specific “hither thou shalt come and no further” fence-posts for human behavior that have a universal application across space-and-time.

So, within Mormonism, there is a wide range of possibility for diversity in belief and practice that can be characterized by having different people fill in the following blanks:

  • A Mormon is known for at least always ___________.
  • A Mormon is known for at least never ____________.

We should not be ashamed to display a bit of a bell-curve variability with respect to what a Mormon looks like, especially considering the subjective morality and the generally ambiguous nature of the standard works [see, Methods of Scriptural Interpretation].

But institutions patterned after the doctrines and commandments of men [such as corporations] generally dislike such variation — seeking instead to streamline and control naturally variable situations.  So, in Mormonism we see things like correlation, the CHI, etc.  But that’s a different matter entirely.

Specific manifestations of a common subjective experience express natural diversity:

The point is – [to go back to Maggie’s vegetarian who eats meat example] is there nuance within vegetarianism?  Certainly.

Is it animal meat only?  What about organs, or fish, or mollusks, or crustaceans, or dairy, or eggs – or is it all animal products altogether?  Is it only about the eating, or is it also about using them too?  Or is it really about a protest against the industrialized rearing conditions of the modern food system?  Or is it about choosing to only eat plants?  I’ve known vegetarians who could go a whole day and not eat a single vegetable – what with soy burgers, breaded tofu nuggets, and pizza.

There’s variation among a community that is informed by a common impulse – i.e. something is wrong with our current way of relating to the Life that we eat.

Fundamentally, all that matters is if you experience the miraculous works of the Father or not:

Being of this-or-that religion, practicing this-or-that model of worship, conforming to this-or-that belief system – none of that gives any indication about whether a person has experienced Jesus or not.  And therefore doesn’t matter.  The only standard for determining that a person is a true believer in Christ is the presence of the miraculous works of the Father, or signs that follow them that believe [D&C 84:64-72], in their life.  Anything else is not a righteous judgment [John 7:24] – but is a judgment based on the outward appearance or the works of men.

Telling me you read the scriptures, participate in the rituals, are active in the church, etc. – tells me nothing about the experiences you’ve had with Jesus.  Those things are just the retelling or reenactment of someone else’s story.  It is all pointless and vain unless it is pursuant to you having the same experience — seeing eye-to-eye with the seers who have laid down those stories before you.  Their stories will not save you.  Reenacting events from their stories as a ritual will not generate Joy in you.  Such things are meant to motivate you to get on the same pathway, to receive a similar connection with God, and to see eye-to-eye with them [see, The role of angels in Nephite preaching and How to receive what you ask for].

I don’t want to hear anything about what system of stories a person believes in their brain to be “true”.  Whether those stories “happened” or not is completely irrelevant to me – because what matters is what “happens”, right now – in you.  I don’t care if you believe in the stories about Adam or Abraham or Moses or Lehi or Joseph Smith having real experiences with the Father – I care if you’ve had them.

The only thing that discerns a good thing from a bad thing is its relationship to the thing that Alma termed the ever-good seed [Alma 32:28]:

the Son of God
that he will come to redeem his people
and that he shall suffer
and die to atone for their sins
and that he shall rise again from the dead
which shall bring to pass the resurrection
that all men shall stand before him
to be judged at the last and judgment day
according to their works.

Anything that persuades you to believe in and plant this ever-good seed into your right-brain-heart is itself a good seed.  While anything that persuades you not to believe and plant this ever-good seed is not a good seed.

Nothing in the gospel is based on the merits and works of men.  Righteous judgment has nothing to do with having mainstream LDS beliefs.  All things are judged to be good or evil with respect to how they measure up to the ever-good seed and whether they point people towards, or away from, it [Moroni 7:13-19].

Everything in the gospel is based on the merits of Christ and whether we harden or soften our hearts in response to the experience of His love.

The presence of miraculous works should be our only concern:

What should characterize LDS and be our over-riding passion is the experience and the celebration of the stories of people who’ve experienced faith as a principle of power, instead of action [see, The seeds of the powers of godliness] – which are the examples of the miraculous works of the Father being manifested.

The scriptures are our collective stories of such events.  But we should be celebrating the experience [nothing more, nothing less] – and with an emphasis on the newest miraculous experiences.  Because a proper celebration of the spiritual works of God invites others to receive the same experiences for themselves – so there would be no need to hold on to the stories of a by-gone generation.  Every country, culture, and local group needs to have their own body of miraculous works of the Father among themselves to celebrate.

It is dangerous to celebrate non-miraculous works [the works of men] and call that “faith.” All it does is encourage drudgery, or the non-miraculous works of men.  There are plenty of people of all religions who sacrifice for their beliefs and religions, but who have no works of the Father in their lives.

I’ve met people who receive multiple visions or prophecies, who’ve spoken in unknown tongues on demand, and who’ve been ministered to by angels.  On the other hand, I’ve also met people who’ve never received a revelation in their entire life.  In either case, every one of those people professed to believe in Jesus and came from different churches and belief systems.  The only substantial difference between the two groups is that the former manifested the works of the Father – while the latter manifested the works of men.

Someone who has denied their Self, experienced the transcendent joy of the Supreme Being, and received Christ will be totally obsessed with Jesus.  And only the truly obsessed have faith – and only those with faith demonstrate the manifestations of the fruits of the Spirit in their life.

Being a “good Mormon” or Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan – or any “faithful” [add-Religion-here] only tells me whether a person adheres to the creeds of their respective belief system.  That says nothing about whether they have faith in Christ or not.

We should only be concerned with having faith in Christ and experiencing the miraculous works of the Father.  Unless one has communed with God, been ministered to by angels, seen visions, received prophecies and revelations, etc. – all incessant talk that professes belief in Christ is just mental masturbation, feeling good but not producing any fruit.

The all-important, saving faith in Jesus Christ that we should be obsessed with is centered in Jesus only

With sufficient faith, a believer can come to know the truth of all things [Moroni 10:5].  But faith in this-or-that true doctrine does not blossom into experiencing the miraculous works of the Father.  If faith is ever transferred from Christ to true things about Christ – then even though what’s spoken may be true, there is no faith there.

Mormons have much truth – but they have essentially transferred all faith to the truths, and thus none of it is on Jesus.

The vast majority of our conversations at church are centered on prophets and apostles, obedience to leaders and commandments, blessings of paying tithing, attending church and the temple, and every other conceivable topic that has nothing, whatsoever, to do with Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection and judgment upon all mankind.

In fact – a good test is to ask how much of our religious conversations are devoted to the relative, periphery matters and how much is devoted to the experience of God’s love.  How comfortable are we in talking about this-or-that issue of the day in light of Mormonism – and how comfortable are we talking about our spiritual contacts with Jesus Christ.  With the latter, I’ve found we stumble, are vague, express doubt, and likely just say nothing at all because most people have nothing to say.

Any church not based on the miraculous work of the Father may potentially be a true church, but will be a dead and blind church:

We may have true stories and properly authorized rituals – but they are not enlivened with the Spirit of God because none of them are experienced eye-to-eye as shared experiences.  Our standard for judgment is informed by outward appearances instead of by the light of righteous judgments informed by the fruits of the Spirit. [see, What does the phrase “only true and living church” mean?]

This has made the LDS successful in being exactly like the rest of Christianity.  There may be true doctrines, disciplines, and rituals – but such things have been made into absolutes and pedestalized as ends unto themselves – instead of being the means to an end – which is obtaining the experience of the miraculous works of the Father.

To convert a bona-fide revelatory experience with God into a prescribed system of creeds and approved practices dodges the real issue.  It’s easier to tell ourselves that the important thing is keeping certain rules and believing certain doctrines – instead of turning ourselves over to the transcendent idea that the fundamental nature of Reality [God] reaches into human history to covenant with humans and gather them into a family.

The basic purpose of what we call “the church” is to take unrelated believers in Christ and knit them together by covenant into a single body or family:

When people see a problem with their group worship dynamic – the temptation is always to get together with some like-minded and “do church” more scripturally.  However, this often will just create a slightly smaller, less-controlled replication of the same dynamic they were trying to get away from.

The problem lies in the fundamental way we feel towards God, towards the earth, and towards ourselves.  It is a model based on the underlying concept of separateness [see, Split-Brain Model of the Gospel: The Fall of Man]:

  • God as the male-figure seated on a throne exerting control over nature,
  • relating only to a certain in-group by virtue of their religious behavior towards Him,
  • living as separate islands of skin-encapsulated centers of will that are plopped onto a earth of otherwise disorganized, inherently-flawed stuff.

The very ideas that are informing our relationship with the world and with other people has to change – the pattern or model of a hierarchy of religious rulers and approved ways of thinking is [itself] broken.

Putting different people in power can’t change a problem that exists because there are people in power.  Power must instead be pulled down [Alma 60:36].

You can’t have meetings with an instituted body of the like-minded become “more scriptural” – when the gospel is tribal in nature and meant to be experienced by a group of kin who naturally meets.

One can use religion to serve their Self or to serve God.  If you believe that only your collection of stories is the One, True Way of experiencing God – then you are using it to serve your Self.  This is the hardened or atrophied religare that creates feelings of superiority and maintains a sense of separation and conflict with others.

On the other hand, when in the service of God, a fluid religare is just the stories left behind by men and women who have had miraculous experiences with the governing Power of the universe that direct the community to receiving that experience for their selves, eye-to-eye.

Effectively, what we call the “Great Apostasy” represented a hedge that had been built up around an individual person and the experience of God.  The whole essence of a religious life was reduced to a commodity that needed to be brokered by a male-dominated priestly class.  And the “Restoration” was about taking scattered and disconnected people and gathering them – not by virtue of what they believe in the mind or confess with the mouth – but by covenant into a family.

But instead of having a passion for this tribal notion of a separate people-group bound by covenants, gathered out from their scattered state among the tribes of the earth – leadership patterned after the works of men care more about uniformity of thought than about making actual tribal connections between individuals.

Focusing on these outward appearances [which include prescribing behavioral standards and acceptable doctrines] is a manifestation of the current state of the church being guided by the doctrines and commandments of men.  While the gospel could be said to prescribe a certain approach to human problems and decisions – any ethical component is but a consequence of a person’s genuine relationship with God – not the basis for receiving one.

The mission of the church of God is to be the ministerial support for individual members becoming Kings and Priests, Queens and Priestesses in their own right – to teach them the word of God, explain and offer the covenants of the gospel, and then allow them to organize themselves accordingly as their local circumstances dictate – helping them as they go from an unrelated body of like-minded and knit them together into a bona-fide family.

As long as a part remains in the body – it is the body:

Most LDS speak about and relate to “the church” as this entity that exists outside of them or separate from their selves.  But there is no such thing as a group without the context of the individual people.  You cannot have a body without all the components that make it up all together.  A group is the sum-total of the individual units that make up that group.  The whole is the parts as they are arranged.

Thus, each person is the church.  You are the church – and so long as you remain in the church, your views are representative of what the church believes.  You are Mormonism — as it is lived out or as it is taken literally by you.  The only time that ceases to be true is when you cease to identify as a member of the church.

That’s why I would never advocate someone leaving the church.  The group is [hands-down] always better served if everyone who’s ever left over this-or-that doctrinal/history/etc. issue didn’t leave – but rather stayed and lived out their own story in the community.

By most estimates, there are at least as many, if not more, of them than there are of the toe-the-line, mainstream Mormons.  So, at this point, if they’d all stayed — they could potentially outnumber the rest, and we’d have an entirely different dynamic in the church.

You represent you – and that is representative of what it means to be Mormon – if it happens to be that you are Mormon.

Now, the Church [as it is organized currently as a corporate entity] is something altogether different.  None of us are their representative for what that group is or believes.  For that purpose, the Church has official Church spokesmen.  You can identify them by the corporate logo they wear on their name-tags.  If we all were official representatives of that corporate entity and what it says, then there would be no need to have a group of specially-called official representatives, now would there?

But when people tell me that they no longer find any value in the Mormon experience and want to leave – I get it.  I see in many respects how the church is laden with the doctrines and commandments of men, leader-worship, female repression, etc.  I truly empathize with people who feel disaffected with church because they’ve increasingly found the three-hour Sunday block [and all that comes with active participation] to be more of an obstacle, instead of a vehicle, for them experiencing the Lord.

I get why they don’t speak up to church leaders in an attempt to change things too.  There is no real platform for open and honest discussion among members without getting the:  “Well this is the way that the brethren have approved — so like it or leave it”-rhetoric.  I wouldn’t expect open and honest disclosure from people who feel put-out [even though I admit it would be better if they all did speak-up].

The environment provided by leaders at church leaves them with no voice and no room to have non-mainstream opinions [at least in some open and honest capacity] – so many don’t see how speaking-up matters.  They’ll just be told:

“Look here, if you do not want to subscribe to our form of worship of the Savior, then there are many other Churches to try out until one finds the one that provides that appropriate outlet or none may suffice.”

So they throw-up their hands and leave.  I get that.

Imagine a marriage relationship in which every time the wife brings up a certain issue she has with her husband, he gets defensive, he belittles her and yells, etc. — and nothing ever changes.

Now, the husband is doing that particular behavior one day and the wife has that look that women get when you know something’s wrong — she’s obviously bothered.  So he asks, “Honey, what’s wrong?”  And if you’re married, then you know her answer is, “Nothing.

Now — it’s not nothing, it’s most definitely something.  Why does she say “nothing”?

  • Because she’s a liar who doesn’t care about getting the marital issue resolved.
  • Because of her experience with her husband, she knows that bringing the issue up will only result in a fight and nothing will be resolved.

Are their marital problems her fault because she won’t be forthcoming about what’s wrong when asked?  Or are they his fault because he has failed to provide an environment where his wife feels comfortable talking about her issues in emotional-safety?

The key for me is that the church doesn’t belong to such people.  It belongs to Jesus – and He says you have a place in it:

To make that distinction further – each member was baptized into the church of God, not the Church.  None of us are listed on the corporate charter of that agency, and are therefore not their agent.  The scriptures only describe us as agents “unto ourselves”.  As believers in Christ – we ought to also consider ourselves to be agents “unto Him” – and act accordingly.

But our fundamental allegiance is to Christ and to the word of God – thus there is very little concern for whether this-or-that aspect is considered contrary to “general Church-approved practices”, the “long-standing traditions”, etc.

The assumed state of things in the church is to trust no one until you know them well enough to open-up and share your story with them:

Now, I’ve acknowledged that the leaders do not provide a platform for open and honest discussion among members – and there’s no outlet for the disaffected to express their nuance of opinion or their concerns about certain issues.  As such, church leaders cannot reasonably expect open and honest disclosure from people who are feeling on the outs.

In fact, in my experience, leaders are often witch-hunters [taking the “judge in Israel” thing to the extreme], always looking for someone to judge as unfaithful, apostate, etc.  The only valid reason, in their minds, for “contrary” points-of-view or “unapproved” behavior is worthiness issues.  And so although the scriptural law is innocent until proven guilty – according to my experience, when leaders see dissension, they take a guilty until proven innocent stance.

Which is why I’ve taken Alma’s admonition to “trust no one…” [Mosiah 23:14] to be my marching orders and usually keep my mouth shut.  I’ve seen that those who implicitly trust the leadership [not living Alma’s admonition to “trust no one” unless you know beyond a reasonable doubt that they are men of God], will often say more than is expedient to say and quickly get into trouble.

I’ve been protected by a revelation I received some years ago that the word of the day for me is, “Shhh” — or that it is always best to be silent, to say nothing, to openly answer no questions to church leadership — sticking with “Yea” for yea and “Nay” for nay if I am ever asked.

But whether you choose to remain in the church and identify yourself as “Mormon” has nothing to do with what the approved practices and long-standing policies of the corporation that runs the church:

“Mormon” is a lot like the term “Christian” — it is more about what the person professes to believe.  It is not a term that can be brokered by a particular class of rulers “in charge” of the word.

For example, LDS insist that we are Christian just like everybody else, based on our professed belief in Christ.  Others would claim that our more nuanced understanding of Christ, the Godhead, etc. are beyond the leeway allowed for by orthodoxy.  But since we profess to believe in Christ – we generally call ourselves “Christian”.

Likewise, the Church has a hard time with professed Mormons who practice polygamy – thinking the term “Mormon” belongs to the corporation.  However, polygamist Mormons are Mormons.  The Community of Christ are Mormons.  Everyone has a professed belief in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.  We may have more nuanced approaches to certain things [polygamy being the key example], but [like “Christian”] the term is general and correctly identifies all of us [in a general sense].

A person that hears me identify as “Mormon” starts viewing my actions and words as representative of the church.  This is why the Church – as a corporate entity – is big on the members considering themselves walking “advertisements” for the Corporation, carefully monitoring the public image that the members “sell”, etc.

But I am not their spokesperson.  I am not a broker for their religious product.  I am Me.

People do not exist as Platonic Ideas — pure representations of terms or concepts.  Being Me means that I represent the unique symphony that is the arrangement of my Life.  I can’t pour the entirety of Me into your brain all at once.  Each human being is a storytale that has to be shared in order to be known.

We come to know people as we interact with each other.  The “whole truth” doesn’t come by “telling” – but by coming to know the real You through experiencing.  It cannot be shown all at once – but people do come to see it.

So I’d say, “I’m Mormon” is generally not a bad start for me.  Granted, my family does understand certain things differently and holds a bit more of a nuanced opinion on things like what church authority means, what the role of the church with respect to our family is, the priesthood keys and common consent, marriage and family relations, etc.  But those views aren’t applicable to every relationship we have with every other church member — just like my entire set of views on things like politics, diet, marijuana, vaccination, homeschooling, etc. don’t need to be put all out on the table every time I meet someone new.

Should the particulars come up, I don’t hide or obscure them — but I don’t hand them out like business cards either.

We should treat our religious identification like we would any other interpersonal interaction – we start basic and progress towards the more specific/personal as [or if] the relationship goes that way.  To attempt to disclose the whole picture of the entirety of the specific nuances and peculiarities all at once at a first meeting or in casual interactions is both impractical and unhelpful.

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Spicing up your church experience


Combating Cultural Mormonism with a Little Anarchy

In my estimation, there seems to be a growing number of LDS that are starting to recognize the difference between doctrinal Mormonism and cultural Mormonism, with a discontent concerning the latter.

I, personally, worry that cultural Mormonism is killing too many of these good people with boredom.  So, if there are any out in Cyberspace who are tired of the Utah culture being exported to every part of the globe, here are some suggestions from your friendly, neighborhood LDS Anarchist to spice up your church experience and bring a little leavening to the doughy masses.

Feel free to run with any of them and to encourage your LDS and, depending on the suggestion, non-LDS friends to do the same.  With enough people doing the following small things, the church will quickly be de-culturalized, leaving only doctrinal Mormonism left.  But even if only a very few people do these things, it will still cause a tremendous shift of attitude among the saints and bring about significant cultural change.  Lastly, if it is only you working, and you are not having any effect, at all, upon the Cult of Conformity, at least you will have de-culturalized yourself and removed much of the boredom you might have been going through.

Bring back the visual cues of manhood

  • Men and boys, grow your beards out.

This is a very easy thing to do, as there is nothing that needs to be done.  It is a passive act.  You simply allow the facial hair to grow out.  This will save you time, energy, electricity (for electric shavers), damage to the skin (no more nicks and cuts) and money (no more shaving equipment needed.)

Many men desire to grow a beard but use the excuse that it grows out in patches and ends up looking horrible, so they cut it.  The truth of the matter is that if you just let the hair grow, even the patches start to sprout hair and eventually everything looks even and full, but sometimes it may take six months for a very patchy man to have a full beard.  A little patience is all it takes.

Teenage boys of 15 and 16, when they start to notice that their peach fuzz is turning into terminal hairs, will immediately start shaving it off.  This is a mistake, as the facial hair is a visual cue that manhood is now upon them.

Young men, aren’t you tired of people treating you like a child?  Grow your facial hair out and watch how quickly people begin treating you as a more mature individual.  Watch the reaction of your parents, male peers, school teachers and the young women of your age.  A beard is a very strong visual cue of manhood and everyone will start to treat you as an adult, especially when your voice deepens.  Remember, things should match.  A deep voice goes with a full beard.  A high pitched voice goes with a clean-shaven (boyish) face.  These visual and audible cues were given to us by God on purpose.

Men, unless you are in a profession that requires you to be clean-shaven, let the hair grow out into a full, bushy beard.  Ditch the fads and trends of trimming into this or that beard style.  You don’t need a goatee, you need a full beard.  You were created in the image of God.  He’s got a full beard.  You’re supposed to have one, too.  Be like God in heart and look like God in image. Don’t trim his image.  If the mustache gives you trouble when you eat, or if you find that the beard becomes a “flavor saver” (because food gets stuck in it), just exercise the patience of the saints and let it grow until it is long enough to no longer get in the way.

Now, I say grow a full, bushy, untrimmed beard because that is the most manly of beards. Short beards, even when full, indicate young men, whose beards have not yet attained the length of a fully grown man.

Women, compliment your husbands and sons on the fine beards they are growing.  You are hard-wired to find beards attractive.  Why?  Because beards are manly, and women love manliness.  So, dump all the (beardless) Roman and (beardless) homosexual propaganda that has filled your head and embrace the real image of Christ. You don’t want a beardless Roman, now do you?  Remember, the beardless Romans killed the bearded Christ.  You want a Christ-like man, right?  So, encourage the growing of the beard, ladies.  Besides, you know that women constantly complain of how grown, adult men act like immature 12-year olds, right?  Well, have you ever considered that they act like 12-year olds because they still look like 12-year olds?  Can you really expect your men to grow up and be adults if they just look like bigger versions of beardless kids?

Men, women and children should consider the functions of the full beard and respect them.  Here are some examples:

  • Beards come in quite handy during intimacy.  (I ain’t gonna elaborate on this one.)
  • Beards help to develop the manual dexterity of infants and toddlers, who, as they are held by their fathers, grasp the beard, which fully develops the hand and fingers of the child.
  • Beards help to distinguish the father from the mother in the eyes of the child, causing them to view the sexes as very, very different.  (“Viva la difference!” as the French say.)  This causes young girls to develop into very feminine women and young boys to develop into very masculine men.
  • Bearded men (full, bushy beards, mind you, not the sissy trimmed beards) elicit an involuntary reaction upon all who see them.  Beards emit power and virility and evoke instant respect.  Big, clean-shaven men with tattoos all over the place, piercings, etc., who look for confrontations, involuntarily avoid bearded men because they don’t feel manly in the presence of bearded men.  In point of fact, bearded men look upon beardless men as less manly.
  • When two bearded men enter an area and spot each other, they are naturally drawn to each other, involuntarily complimenting the other for their fine facial hair.  (This is significant, as men normally do not give compliments of appearance to one another.)  A bearded man talking to another bearded man feels like he is talking to a man. A bearded man talking to a beardless man feels like he is talking to a boy. All beardless men know this, or feel this inferiority of manliness when in the presence of fully bearded men.  There is no worse feeling to a man than to feel less than manly.
  • Conversely, there is no greater feeling to a woman than to feel feminine, but femininity must be contrasted with masculinity to get its greatest effect.  A fully bearded man gives the highest contrast of manliness to a woman, which is why women who have experienced fully bearded men don’t want them to ever cut the beard off.  They feel supremely feminine in the presence of such a manly man.  (Of course, cultural conditioning can take away this natural affinity that women have towards manly beards.)
  • Fully bearded men have an air of authority around them that children and women (and beardless men) respond to.  There is something in our psyche that still remembers Heavenly Father and that responds to His bearded image.
  • There may be many other reasons to grow a beard, but I’ll end with this one: if the Lord ever wants to send you out among the people to prophesy like one of His prophets of old, shouldn’t you look the part?

Worldly trends to eliminate beards Can you imagine a homosexual male with a full beard?  Kind of hard to picture, isn’t it?  Ever wonder why adult, homosexual males are almost always clean shaven, or have a minimum of facial hair?  Every wonder why the “playboy” image, started by Hugh Hefner, is clean-shaven (kind of like the homosexuals?)  Homosexual males don’t have children because they don’t get into long-term, committed relationships with females (otherwise known as “marriage.”)  “Playboys” (or nowadays the term is “players”) don’t get into long term, committed relationships with females, either.  (No marriage.)  You think the parallels between homosexual males and players is mere coincidence?

How about the sex performers and industry?  The only hair on their bodies (male or female) is found on their heads (and sometimes not even that for the men.)  Ever wonder why all this shaving of armpit hair, pubic hair and facial hair?  All of the visual cues of adulthood (for men and women) are snipped off by this industry, by the homosexuals and often by the playboys.  But think about it, if you take away this hair, what does an adult look like?  Answer: A large child.

None of this is coincidence.  Just as the hair that develops during puberty is designed by God to be a visual cue that the body is becoming an adult and getting ready for its sexual function between ADULTS, the world would remove all this hair so that it looks like CHILDREN are performing these sacred acts.  Thoughts to consider.

(After writing the above, which is based upon my own, personal observations, I did some Internet surfing and came across the following web site that confirmed what I had perceived about beards.)

All About Beards (beards.org)

Pay your tithing in silver

Stop writing checks or paying in cash.  Take whatever cash amount you would spend on tithing and convert it into silver coins, specifically, this silver.  Package and mail the coins off to your bishop, along with a tithing slip inside.  Make sure the slip is filled out so that you are anonymous.

Leave boring sacrament meetings after partaking of the sacrament

If you are tired of banal, boring, lame sacrament meeting talks and seriously consider going inactive, don’t.  Just go to church, partake of the sacrament, and as soon as the priests and deacons are dismissed to sit with their families, walk out and go home. You can return later to attend the Gospel Doctrine class, Relief Society or Priesthood Meetings, if you want or need to.  If Gospel Doctrine is lame, skip that, too. (However, to remain in good standing, priesthood holders must attend their priesthood meetings, even if they are boring.)

Doing this will allow you to keep your sanity for a few more years.  Also, if enough people in your ward participate in collective ditching, the bishopric may get the message that boredom is not a generally accepted principle of the gospel and may make needed improvements to the sacrament meeting.  But don’t hold your breath on that one.

Ditch the necktie and white shirt

Last I checked, you can’t be ex’d for that, or even disfellowshipped.  But some anally retentive bishops may decide that you are no longer worthy to bless or pass the sacrament, give talks, teach classes or perform ordinances of church record, so, if you are looking for a breather from a heavy church load, conveniently make sure that every Sunday your white shirts and ties are too dirty to wear and dress in nice, comfortable, casual clothes, instead.  And if you are called to give a priesthood blessing to some sick person in the ward, don’t be anally retentive yourself and rush home to get dressed in a white shirt and tie.  Just go as you are and bless them.

Grow your hair long

Jesus did it.  Samson did it.  Who is more manly than those two?  Long hair and a full, bushy beard complement each other.  If you have the Roman hair (short cut) and the Israelite beard (full and bushy), it will almost look hypocritical, like having one foot in Babylon and one foot in Zion.  Put both feet in Zion and grow the hair out.  You’ll look a whole lot more handsome and manly if you do.  Plus, you’ll save on all the barber shop money you spend.  (Or, to appease a wife that is unaccustomed to long hair, tell her that you are going to the barber, but instead come back with chocolates and roses…and uncut hair.  She’ll soon look forward to your “barber shop” excursions and will end up being the one insisting you never cut your hair.)  If anyone asks you why you are not cutting the hair, say you are trying to be like Jesus, or that you have taken a Nazarene vow, or that you’ve noticed that your strength increases the longer your hair is, and you’ve decided to enter a strongman contest.

Call everyone brother and sister so-and-so

And I do mean everyone.  Bishops, presidents, missionaries, apostles, prophets and all General Authorities.  Everyone.  And make it part of every sentence, too, when you are called out on the practice.  So, for example: “Hello, Brother Brown.’  “Uh, I’m the bishop, Brother Green.”  “Yes, I know, Brother Brown.”  “Well, it is customary to call one’s bishop by the title bishop and not brother.”  “I was aware of that, Brother Brown.  But thanks for the information, anyway.”  You get my drift, right?  If anyone asks why you are doing this, just get all emotional and, if you are able to, shed a few tears while giving him (not her) a big hug and saying that you love him as your own brother.  Fairly quickly, no one will ask you again about it.

Print out your own set of scriptures

Include whatever canon you want.  Let it contain the four standard works (any version of the Bible you want, or multiple versions, or the red-letter version, etc.), the Apocrypha, the Inspired Version, etc.  Use a desk-top publishing program and a good printer and take it to a binding shop to get it professionally bound.  Remember, the saints set the canon.  You are a saint, so set your own canon.

Reverse the order of prayer

Instead of ending “in the name of Jesus Christ,” make it a habit of starting with “Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, …” and then end with a simple “Amen.”

Reverse the order of priesthood blessings

Instead of saying, “John Smith, by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, we lay our hands on you…etc.” and then ending with, “…and we leave this blessing with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” just begin with, “John Smith, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of…” and end with, “amen.”  Sure, you”ll undoubtedly get elders telling you afterward that you screwed up the blessing and must do it again because the order was reversed, but stick to your guns and teach them a thing or two, namely, that stating the authority is what is required, not the order in which the authority is stated.

Drop all the archaic expressions of prayer

Don’t worry, you won’t tick God off by calling him “you” instead of “thee.”  Lol.  That is a Mormon cultural artifact, nothing more.  Use plain, modern English when talking to God and drop all the thees, thous, wilts, etc.  Do this in private and in public, after all, it’s going to take practice to get out of this habit.  But it’ll be well worth the effort both to witness the expressions of horror by the LDS around you after you’ve said your prayer, as well as seeing how more accepting Christians are of you when you’ve said a prayer without archaic, “holier-than-thou” expressions.

De-McConkie-ize the church: stop ending talks with “In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

This practice was started by Bruce R. McConkie.  The early saints just said, “Amen.” to end a talk, or just ended it however they wanted to end it and then sat down.  Surely you don’t think your entire talk speaks for Jesus, now do you?  So, leave off speaking in His name except for ORDINANCES which require speaking in His name and for those times when you are filled with the Spirit and are prophesying in the name of God.  (Now how many times has that happened, huh?)

Build an altar in your home

Purchase bottles of vodka and leave them out to be seen

Use the vodka to wash your bodies, as directed by the Word of Wisdom.  Make sure they are conspicuously displayed and then invite some church members over for dinner.  Have fun with the discussions that ensue.

Other ideas

Obviously, these are just ideas to get you started.  Cultural Mormons will probably call you a sinner for doing these things.  But then, they also see anarchy as evil, which it isn’t.  Just smile and do them anyway.  Eventually, the tide of Mormon cultural crap will turn.  If you have any other ideas to offer, or if you are already doing some of these or other things, feel free to leave a comment and inform us all of your experience.

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Damnation


I recently (Sept. 17) had the opportunity to participate in a discussion on The Millennial Star blog.  The topic was on the meaning of the word “damned” in D&C 132: 4-6.  I stopped participating when I realized that I needed more room than a comments section to explain my understanding of damnation.  So, I thought I’d take the topic up in earnest on this blog.

Bible Dictionary definition of damnation

BIBLE DICTIONARY
Damnation
As used in the KJV this word has a wider meaning than is at once apparent from modern usage. Damnation is the opposite of salvation, and exists in varying degrees. All who do not obtain the fulness of celestial exaltation will to some degree be limited in their progress and privileges, and hence be damned to that extent. See Matt. 23: 14, 33; Mark 3: 29; Mark 16: 16; John 5: 29; Rom. 13: 2; 1 Cor. 11: 29; 2 Ne. 9: 24; 3 Ne. 18: 28-29; D&C 58: 26-29; D&C 84: 74; D&C 112: 29; D&C 132: 4, 6, 27.

This is the definition that the modern Mormons have accepted, and which they routinely teach.  According to this interpretation, there are four degrees of damnation:

  • Sons of perdition. These are people who are cast into outer darkness, who inherit the kingdom of the devil.   They receive the full measure of damnation, being fully limited in their progress and privileges.  They are damned in that they do not partake of either the Telestial, Terrestrial or Celestial kingdoms of glory and the happiness which is found therein.  The kingdom of the devil is not a kingdom of glory, but a hell, and all who inherit it are miserable forever.
  • Telestials. These are people who inherit the Telestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein.  They escape the misery of outer darkness, but partake of the misery in knowing that they will eternally miss out on the glories of the Terrestrial and Celestial kingdoms.  Although this kingdom of glory is termed a heaven (see the section heading of D&C 76), because of the damnation of these individuals in what they might have received, but did not, they feel regret and longing and are miserable forever.  And thus their kingdom of glory is also a hell.
  • Terrestrials. These are people who inherit the Terrestrial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein.  They escape the misery of outer darkness and the misery of the Telestial kingdom, but partake of the misery in knowing that they will eternally miss out on the glory of the Celestial kingdom.  Although this kingdom of glory is termed a heaven, because of the damnation of these individuals in what they might have received, but did not, they feel regret and longing and are miserable forever.  And thus their kingdom of glory is also a hell.
  • Celestial angels. These are people who inherit the Celestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein.  They escape the misery of outer darkness and the misery of the Telestial and Terrestrial kingdoms, but partake of the misery in knowing that they will eternally miss out on the glory of the exalted, those who are gods in the Celestial kingdom.  Although this kingdom of glory is termed a heaven, because of the damnation of these individuals in what they might have received, but did not, they feel regret and longing and are miserable forever.  And thus their kingdom of glory is also a hell.

Under this model, there is only one type of person that is not damned:

  • Celestial gods. These are people who inherit the Celestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein, and who are exalted.  They escape the misery of outer darkness and the misery of the Telestial and Terrestrial kingdoms, as well as the misery of Celestial angels.  This kingdom of glory is termed a heaven, and it verily is to these individuals, because they have no regrets and long for nothing, for they possess all things and thus are not miserable, but have a fulness of joy and happiness.

Salvation, who gets it and who doesn’t

As the Bible Dictionary mentions salvation in its definition of damnation, it might be helpful to give the Mormon understanding of who gets saved.  Specifically, we know of four types of people who receive salvation:

  • Celestial gods. These are people who inherit the Celestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein, and who are exalted.  They dwell in the presence of God and Christ and receive that salvation known as eternal life (exaltation), becoming like God.
  • Celestial angels. These are people who inherit the Celestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein, but who are not exalted.  They are servants to God and Christ and dwell in their presence, but are not exactly like them.  They are in a saved condition, like gods, but without exaltation.
  • Terrestrials. These are people who inherit the Terrestrial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein.  They do not dwell in the presence of God, but receive of “the ministration of the celestial.”  Like the Celestials, these people are saved.
  • Telestials. These are people who inherit the Telestial kingdom of glory and the happiness found therein.  They do not dwell in the presence of God, nor receive of the fulness of Christ, but receive of the Holy Spirit through “the ministration of the terrestrial.”  These people are also “heirs of salvation.”

There is only one type of person that is not saved:

  • Sons of perdition. These are people who are cast into outer darkness, who inherit the kingdom of the devil, a kingdom which is not of glory.

Damned and saved at the same time?

The Bible Dictionary model creates a conflict in which it is possible to be damned and saved at the same time, to be eternally happy and eternally miserable at the same time. Despite damnation being “the opposite of salvation,” according to the Bible Dictionary these two opposite conditions will exist in Celestial angels, Terrestrials and Telestials.  This thought goes contrary to the principle of like things cleaving unto like things:

For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.  (D&C 88: 40)

The way around this quandary is to redefine the word damnation (or damned) to mean something other than what it traditionally means.  The Bible Dictionary would have us believe that damnation means “to be limited in one’s progress and privileges” in certain passages of the scriptures, in other words, that “this word has a wider meaning than is at once apparent from modern usage.”

Acceptance of this theory creates an internal conflict of regret and longing, and a judgmental attitude, with comparisons of those “above us” and “below us,” and ultimately will and does lead to depression.  In other words, according to this model, happiness comes from knowing you got more than someone else and unhappiness comes from knowing you didn’t get as much as others.  This is what LDS look forward to in the eternities, having accepted this doctrinal theory, and this is what they routinely display in their mortal lives.

Correcting an error

The redefining of the words damnation and damned to fit certain passages of the scripture, assigning them a meaning of “a limiting of one’s progress and privileges,” has become systemic throughout the church.  Every LDS I know believes the Bible Dictionary assertion.  I do not know how or when it crept into the church, but I am a convert member of some decades and I have never heard another model other than this one since my baptism, so I know it’s been around a long time.

It is a bit embarrassing to admit that I not only accepted it myself from the beginning without question, but also preached it as a missionary to others. It wasn’t until September 17, 2009, that I actually got around to checking to see if the model held up to scriptural scrutiny.  It was then that I discovered that the standard LDS damnation model (of being saved and damned at the same time) is incorrect.  Many thanks go out to JA Benson and his/her Friday Forum post at The Millennium Star blog, as well as the comments of others on that post, for providing me the excuse and impetus to investigate this subject.

Although I don’t know the origins of this particular doctrinal theory, it seems apparent that it was the result of not understanding the scriptures.  So, to correct it, I will attempt to lay out the scriptures to the understanding of the reader and expound the real meaning of the words damned and damnation.  Perhaps with a proper understanding of these words, LDS won’t be such chronically depressed people.

Number of scriptural uses of damned and damnation

Damn In the scriptures, there are ZERO uses of the word damn.

Damning In the Doctrine and Covenants there is but ONE use of the word damning. (See D&C 123: 7Damning in this verse means detestable and so it doesn’t need to be addressed.)

Damned In the New Testament there are THREE uses of the word damned. (See Mark 16: 16; Rom. 14: 23; and 2 Thes. 2: 12.)  In the Book of Mormon there are EIGHT uses of the word damned. (See 2 Ne. 9: 24; Alma 14: 21; Alma 36: 16; 3 Ne. 11: 34; Morm. 2: 13; Morm. 9: 4, 23; and Ether 4: 18.)  In the Doctrine and Covenants there are TEN uses of the word damned. (See D&C 42: 60; 49: 5; 58: 29; 68: 9; 84: 74; 112: 29; and 132: 4, 6, 27.)  And in the Pearl of Great Price there is but ONE use of the word damned. (See Moses 5: 15.)  The total number of scriptural uses, then, of the word damned, comes to 21.

Damnation In the New Testament there are ELEVEN uses of the word damnation. (See Matt. 23: 14, 33; Mark 3: 29; 12: 40; Luke 20: 47; John 5: 29; Rom. 3: 8; 13: 2; 1 Cor. 11: 29; 1 Tim. 5: 12; and 2 Pet. 2: 3.)  In the Book of Mormon there are NINE uses of the word damnation. (See Mosiah 2: 33; 3: 18, 25; 16: 11; Alma 9: 28; Hel. 12: 26; 3 Ne. 18: 29; 26: 5; and Morm. 8: 33.)  In the Doctrine and Covenants there are THREE uses of the word damnation. (See D&C 19: 7; 29: 44; and 121: 23.)  The total number of scriptural uses, then, of the word damnation, comes to 23.

So, there are only 44 verses in the English Standard Works that mention damn or damnation.  It shouldn’t be too hard for us to figure this all out.

1828 Webster’s Dictionary definition of damned and damnation

First let’s establish what people understood these words to mean during the time of Joseph Smith:

DAM’NED, pp.

1. Sentenced to everlasting punishment in a future state; condemned.

2. a. Hateful; detestable; abominable;

A word chiefly used in profaneness by persons of vulgar manners.

(Taken from the damned entry of the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.)

DAMNA’TION, n.

1. Sentence or condemnation to everlasting punishment in the future state; or the state of eternal torments.

How can ye escape the damnation of hell. Matt. xxiii

2. Condemnation.

(Taken from the damnation entry of the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.)

From the same dictionary, here are the definitions of the words condemned and condemnation:

CONDEMNED, pp. Censured; pronounced to be wrong, guilty, worthless or forfeited; adjudged or sentenced to punishment.

(Taken from the condemned entry of the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.)

CONDEMNATION, n.

1. The act of condemning; the judicial act of declaring one guilty, and dooming him to punishment.

For the judgment was by one to condemnation. Romans 5.

2. The state of being condemned.

Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation. Luke 23.

3. The cause or reason of a sentence of condemnation.  John 3.

(Taken from the condemnation entry of the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.)

Okay, so the words damned, damnation, condemned and condemnation all deal with a judicial act of declaring one guilty (no mercy applied) and dooming him to punishment.  In the case of the words damned and damnation, this can refer to either eternal (everlasting) punishment or temporal punishment (condemnation).  Condemned and condemnation usually refer to temporal punishment unless the scriptural text is speaking specifically of the last day (day of judgment) and eternal punishment.  Regardless of which word you use, though, the meaning always is that a judgment has taken place, you have been found guilty because no mercy has been applied and you are to receive a punishment.

To condemn means to damn

In the scriptures, the verb to damn is never used.  Instead, the verb to condemn is used.  This makes sense from an etymological standpoint:

Etymology of condemn: Middle English, from Anglo-French condempner, from Latin condemnare, from com- + damnare to condemn

See that damnare? Damnare means damn, or to damn. So, the verb to condemn is really just the verb to damn with the prefix con- attached to it.

Damned and damnation in Spanish

Remember those 44 total verses listed above?  If you look them up in Spanish, you will find that in 40 of them the word damned is translated as condenado and the word damnation is translated as condenación.  The Spanish word condenado means condemned and condenación means condemnation.  Also, regardless of whether the word in English is damned or condemned, the Spanish word is almost always condenado (condemned). In the same manner, regardless of whether the word in English is damnation or condemnation, the Spanish word is almost always condenación (condemnation). So, in Spanish there is no distinction made between damnation and condemnation and the Spanish speaking population merely allows the context to indicate whether we are talking of temporal or eternal condemnation (judgment, verdict of guilty and punishment).

The other four verses are translated as follows:

Matt. 23: 33 reads in English, “damnation of hell,” but in Spanish it reads, “juicio del infierno” (judgment of hell).

Mark 3: 29 reads in English, “eternal damnation,” but in Spanish it reads, “juicio eterno” (eternal judgment).

1 Cor. 11: 29 reads in English, “damnation,” but in Spanish it reads, “juicio” (judgment).

2 Pet. 2: 3 reads in English, “judgment” and “damnation,” but in Spanish it reads, “condenación” (condemnation) and “perdición” (perdition).

All of this shows that in the scriptures, whenever it speaks of damnation (or condemnation), it is always talking about a judgment being passed, no mercy has been applied, a guilty verdict is the result and punishment is inflicted.  Always.

Abinadi’s definition of damnation

Even this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption shall put on incorruption, and shall be brought to stand before the bar of God, to be judged of him according to their works whether they be good or whether they be evil—if they be good, to the resurrection of endless life and happiness; and if they be evil, to the resurrection of endless damnation, being delivered up to the devil, who hath subjected them, which is damnation—having gone according to their own carnal wills and desires; having never called upon the Lord while the arms of mercy were extended towards them; for the arms of mercy were extended towards them, and they would not; they being warned of their iniquities and yet they would not depart from them; and they were commanded to repent and yet they would not repent.  (Mosiah 16: 10-12)

According to Abinadi’s definition, damnation consists of “being delivered up to the devil.”  Those who are damned are subject to the devil. Notice that Abinadi says that there is an endless damnation. There is also a damnation that ends.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption, saith the Lord God.  (D&C 132: 26)

So, we see from this verse that it is possible to be delivered up to the devil for a time, and then be redeemed when repentance occurs.

Two types of damnation

This shows that there are two types of damnation: eternal damnation (that damnation that comes after the resurrection) and temporal damnation (that damnation that comes prior to the resurrection and which has an end prior to the resurrection.)  This is why the scriptures speak of two time frames of forgiveness: this world and the world to come.

But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come. (D&C 84: 41)

And now, behold, I speak unto the church. Thou shalt not kill; and he that kills shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come. (D&C 42: 18)

And we saw a vision of the sufferings of those with whom he made war and overcame, for thus came the voice of the Lord unto us: Thus saith the Lord concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power—they are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born; for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come—having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame.  (D&C 76: 30-35)

Those who do not have forgiveness in this world, but who receive forgiveness in the world to come are those who are temporally damned, meaning that they are delivered unto the buffetings of Satan until the day of their redemption.  They are subject to the devil in the mortal world or in the spirit world, being delivered up to him until the day that they finally have faith in Jesus and repent of their sins.  At that point, they are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb and are no longer damned.  In other words, at that point they no longer have a judgment with a guilty verdict and a punishment hanging over them, because mercy and forgiveness is extended to them and they become heirs of salvation.  This applies to all mankind who inherit any of the three glories.  None of these people will be among the “filthy still” because they will have accepted Christ and mercy will be applied to them.

Those who do not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come are those who are eternally damned, meaning that they are delivered up to the devil, are in subjection to him and remain subjected to him, having no deliverance.  These are the sons of perdition.  (Remember the 2 Pet. 2: 3 Spanish scripture above, where condemnation was translated as perdition?)  These are the people who are cast into outer darkness, who inherit the kingdom of the devil.

Greater damnation, lesser damnation

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. (Matt. 23: 14)

Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation. (Mark 12: 40)

Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation. (Luke 20: 47)

What is the greater damnation?  It is eternal damnation. What is the lesser damnation?  It is temporal damnation.

It is impossible to be saved and damned at the same time

Remember that I wrote above that condemnation requires that no mercy is applied?  It is a judgment of guilty with punishment executed upon the party.  Well, consider Jacob’s words:

Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.  (2 Ne. 9: 25)

By the same token, where there is mercy, there is no condemnation and where there is no condemnation, there is no punishment.  Speaking of the day of judgment (the last day), there is only one punishment or penalty affixed to the law: death.  The spiritual death that is the second death means dying as to things pertaining to righteousness, meaning that those who receive it are banished from the kingdom of God and cast into outer darkness, where the devil will eternally subject them (Abinadi’s definition of damnation).

None of the inhabitants of the three degrees of glory receive this punishment.  In fact, it is impossible for them to receive it because Satan will be cast out into outer darkness.  Once out of the kingdom of God, he cannot subject anyone in the kingdom of God to himself.  Only those cast out with him (the filthy still) can be subject to him.  So, the inhabitants of the three kingdoms will be free forever from the power and influence of Satan.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  (John 3: 16-18)

The above scripture shows that you are either saved or condemned (damned) based upon your acceptance of Christ.  It is one or the other, not both. If you do not accept Him now, you are condemned (damned) already (temporal damnation).  But once there is acceptance of Christ, there is salvation not damnation. This is why the inhabitants of the three glories are only spoken of as being saved.  There is not a single scripture that indicates that these people are eternally damned.  They may be temporally damned (for a time) but eventually they, too, will be redeemed and be heirs of salvation.

Mormonism is so much more excellent and merciful than apostate Christianity because the people they say are damned to hell, we say are saved in a kingdom of glory.  Unfortunately, we go awry of the pure doctrine of Christ by adopting the man-made precept found in the Bible Dictionary theory of damnation.

The misunderstood scripture

I believe the reason why people generally accept the Bible Dictionary model of damnation is due to a misunderstanding of D&C 132: 4-6.  Here are those verses, along with the comments I gave on them over at The Millenial Star blog:

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.  For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.  And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.  (D&C 132: 4-6)

And now my comments:

The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary definitions, which gave how these words were used in Joseph Smith’s time, are consistent with the usage of the word damned in the above quotes.

I will break it down for you:

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

The key word here is “abide.” To “abide…that covenant” means “to endure or sustain” or “to bear or endure; to bear patiently” the covenant. You cannot abide a covenant without first entering the covenant, so the use of the word damned here refers to people who have entered the covenant and have not abided it, or, as the Lord states later in the same sentence, to people who have entered the covenant and then “reject” it. These people are damned. The verse does not refer to people who never enter the covenant.

Next, the following verse:

And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

The key here to understanding the verse are the words “he that receiveth a fulness thereof.” The Lord doesn’t say “he who would receive a fulness thereof,” but refers to people who already received a fulness thereof. These people must and shall abide the law or they shall be damned. In this particular verse, the damned people we are talking about have already entered the covenant and have received a fulness of the Lord’s glory, who then do not abide (or, in other words, they reject) the law. However, we are assured by the Lord that such people “shall abide the law,” so there is no danger of such being damned, because they will not reject it after receiving such a fulness.

However, those who enter the covenant and who have not yet received of this spoken fulness, who reject the covenant, are damned.

These verses, then, are explicitly referring to one type of damnation: that received by the sons of perdition (see verse 27) and not to merely not receiving exaltation (a stopping of progression.)

27 The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death, after ye have received my new and everlasting covenant, saith the Lord God; and he that abideth not this law can in nowise enter into my glory, but shall be damned, saith the Lord.

My comments were meant to show that there is no need to invent another shade of meaning of the word damned to fit into these particular verses, as the normal shades of damned work just fine.  When the above scriptures are misunderstood to mean that “if you don’t enter the covenant, at all, you will miss out on the opportunity for exaltation,” then you must invent a new shade of meaning of the word damned, giving it the meaning of a “stopping or limiting of progress and privileges,” which is what LDS appear to have done.

Apparently, I am not the only one to come to this conclusion.  Another person commented on the same Millennial Star post, one Rob Osborn, and he essentially said the same thing:

As for defining “damnation”, in Joseph Smiths day he grew up with a protestant background and upbringing. In their day they used the word “damned” to mean “condemnation to hell”. I have done a lot of research on this noting how Joseph himself used the word outside of scriptural text. In every account I have run accross, Joseph uses it in the traditional protestant sense of condemnation to hell. To this day, that definition is what other Christian religions use. It is only our LDS religion that uses the word out of context. This is almost entirely due to a misunderstanding of the scriptural text. As has already been discusssed, section 132’s usage of the word “damned” literaly is used in the context of “condemantion to hell”. Verse 26 speaks of those who enter into the fulness and then perhaps sin in the new and everlasting covenant. It says they will be destroyed in the flesh and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan (in hell). This is the usage of “damned” in verses 4-6.

The three glories are not punishments; they are rewards

Only those who go into outer darkness receive punishment after the resurrection.

Wherefore, he saves all except them—they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment—  (D&C 76: 44)

So, if everyone else gets saved and receives a fulness of joy and endless happiness, why is everyone put into one of three glories?  Why not have one glory, instead of three?  Why do all the Telestials eventually receive a fulness of the Telestial glory, the Terrestrials a fulness of the Terrestrial glory and the Celestials a fulness of the Celestial glory, without being able “to go up a glory?”  If the assignment to a kingdom of glory is not a punishment for wicked deeds, but a reward, upon what principle is the reward based?

I will simply say that these questions and their answers have to do with the doctrine of the resurrection.  They could be explained with a review of D&C 76, D&C 88 and Alma 41, but I am done with expounding scripture for today.  This post is long enough already and I want to keep it on the topic of damnation and not delve into the mysteries of the resurrection.  However, I will say that assignments to one of the three glories has nothing to do with dishing out punishments.  None of the saved people long for something they could have had, but are eternally blissful, content, happy and joyful in their saved condition.  Assigning them to a kingdom of glory does not, and cannot, damn them.  I hope this post is sufficient to get that point across.  If there is still confusion, I will open it up further in the comments section.

I have listed above and hyper-linked all of the scriptures that mention damned and damnation. I invite everyone to read those verses again, with the information in this post fresh in your mind, and see if the scriptures are not more plainly unfolded to your view.

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

D&C 87, expounded


This is my understanding of this section.

The section heading

Revelation and prophecy on war, given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, December 25, 1832. HC 1: 301–302. This section was received at a time when the brethren were reflecting and reasoning upon African slavery on the American continent and the slavery of the children of men throughout the world.

D&C 87, as currently written

1. Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls;

2. And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place.

3. For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations.

4. And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.

5. And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation.

6. And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations;

7. That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.

8. Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen.  (D&C 87)

In order to expound this prophecy, I will render a plainer translation.

TAV D&C 87; (TAV=The Anarchist Version)

Truly, this is what the Lord says concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many soulsand the time will come that war will be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States), beginning at South Carolina, for see, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other non-Israelite tribes (States), even the non-Israelite tribe (State) of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other non-Israelite tribes (States), in order to defend themselves against other non-Israelite tribes (States); and then war shall be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States)—and it shall come to pass, after many days, those who are ruled shall violently overthrow their rulers, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.

And it shall also come to pass that the Israelite remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the non-Israelite tribes (in tribal anarchies) with a sore vexation.

And in this way, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and also the fierce and vivid lightning, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed has made a full end of all non-Israelite tribes;  that the cry of the set-apart ones, and of the blood of the set-apart ones, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Armies, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.

Wherefore, stand, all of you, in set-apart places, and do not allow yourselves to be moved, until the day of the Lord come; for see, it comes quickly, says the Lord. Amen.  (TAV D&C 87, changes in italics)

TAV D&C 87, in verses

1. Truly, this is what the Lord says concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls

2. and the time will come that war will be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States), beginning at South Carolina, for see, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other non-Israelite tribes (States), even the non-Israelite tribe (State) of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other non-Israelite tribes (States), in order to defend themselves against other non-Israelite tribes (States); and then war shall be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States)

3. and it shall come to pass, after many days, those who are ruled shall violently overthrow their rulers, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.

4. And it shall also come to pass that the Israelite remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the non-Israelite tribes (in tribal anarchies) with a sore vexation.

5. And in this way, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and also the fierce and vivid lightning, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed has made a full end of all non-Israelite tribes;  that the cry of the set-apart ones, and of the blood of the set-apart ones, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Armies, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.

6. Wherefore, stand, all of you, in set-apart places, and do not allow yourselves to be moved, until the day of the Lord come; for see, it comes quickly, says the Lord. Amen.  (TAV D&C 87, changes in italics)

D&C 87: 1 and TAV D&C 87: 1—The War Between The States

1. Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls;  (D&C 87: 1)

1. Truly, this is what the Lord says concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls (TAV D&C 87: 1)

This seems to me to be fairly self-explanatory, but taking this single verse alone might confuse the matter.  D&C 87: 1-4 (which is paragraph 1 of TAV D&C 87 or, if you prefer, TAV D&C 87: 1-3) is a complete prophetic thought. Although verse 1 is mentioning The War Between The States (known to Northerners as The Civil War and to some Southerners as The War of Northern Aggression), the whole prophetic message is that The War Between The States is the beginning of the end of all States.  The War Between The States was fought over the rights of man, and more specifically over the right of secession, but only started the struggle that would ultimately end in tribal anarchy (freedom) for humanity in D&C 87: 4. (See Abraham Lincoln for more information about The War Between The States.)

D&C 87: 2 and TAV D&C 87: 2 — The War Between The States Begins

2. And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place. (D&C 87: 2)

2. and the time will come that war will be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States), beginning at South Carolina, (TAV D&C 87: 2)

“nations” — The words “nations” and “Gentiles” are synonymous to the prophetic mind.  Originally, the word “Gentiles” simply meant “nations,” regardless of which one, but later it referred only to non-Israelite nations.  To the ancients, though, a “nation” wasn’t the modern State we think of.  Nations were tribes.  The prophets of all ages, who have prophesied of the Gentiles, have always referred to non-Israelite tribes.  Joseph, however, being both a true prophet of God who understood the ancient use of the terms, and a citizen of a modern State who understood the modern use of the terms, choose his words carefully, when using “nation” and “Gentile” in this prophecy, to key us in as to what this prophecy was talking about.  “Nations,” therefore, in this verse is referring to non-Israelite tribes that are established (or tied to the land) under (or by) State governments.

“this place” — The place being referred to is the place mentioned in verse 1, namely, South Carolina.  The Prophet is associating South Carolina with the nations that would have war poured out upon them, because, to the prophetic mind, South Carolina is a nation. In other words, the State of South Carolina is really a non-Israelite tribe established (meaning they are land-owners, or tied to the land, which is why they are also known as a place) as a State government.  The Prophet could have worded it as follows and it would have retained the same meaning:

“and the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at the nation of South Carolina

D&C 87: 3 and TAV D&C 87: 2—The War Between The States Morphs into World Wars Between The States

3. For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations. (D&C 87: 3)

2. for see, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other non-Israelite tribes (States), even the non-Israelite tribe (State) of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other non-Israelite tribes (States), in order to defend themselves against other non-Israelite tribes (States); and then war shall be poured out upon all non-Israelite tribes (States) (TAV D&C 87: 2)

“nations” — Like the previous verse, all uses of the word “nation” or “nations” here are referring to State governments, meaning non-Israelite tribes established (as landowners) under State governments.

“war shall be poured out upon all nations” — Eventually, all these State governments will be fighting amongst themselves.  In other words, this is World War but still among the States.  To be clearer still, all of this is but an extension of The War Between The States, as the World Wars will still be Wars Between States.

D&C 87: 4 and TAV D&C 87: 3—The End of the States and Beginning of Tribal Anarchy

4. And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war. (D&C 87: 4)

3. and it shall come to pass, after many days, those who are ruled shall violently overthrow their rulers, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war. (TAV D&C 87: 3)

“slaves” — This refers to those who are ruled in the States.

“rise up against” — Although the prophecy only states that the slaves will openly oppose the masters, as in armed conflict, my understanding is that the slaves, which vastly outnumber the masters, will defeat them, therefore I have rendered this saying as “violently overthrow,” to indicate the result of this revolution.

“masters” — This refers to those who rule the States.

“who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war” — The armies of the States will be overcome by the people themselves and these many (oppressive) State governments and military dictatorships will topple, bringing about a new world order of tribal anarchies.

D&C 87: 5 and TAV D&C 87: 4—The Indians Get Their Revenge

5. And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation. (D&C 87: 5)

4. And it shall also come to pass that the Israelite remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the non-Israelite tribes (in tribal anarchies) with a sore vexation.  (TAV D&C 87: 4)

“remnants” — This refers to the descendants of the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.

“shall become exceedingly angry” — The Gentiles, now living in tribal anarchy, are going to do something so exceedingly bad to the Indians, that the Indians will be fairly berserk with anger towards them.

“shall vex” — Once the non-Israelite tribes destroy the States which held them captive, they will no longer have the protection afforded them by the military might of the State.   As a result, when the Indians decide to repay them for the wrongs done to them by the white man, wrongs committed both in the present and the past, the Gentiles will fall before them.  This verse speaks of the same event recorded in 3 Nephi 21:  12-13.

“the Gentiles” — The phrase “the Gentiles” is synonymous with “the nations,” but Joseph used Gentiles here instead of “nations” to indicate that the Gentiles would be in tribal anarchies when this part of the prophecy was fulfilled.  Joseph walked a fine line between what the modern man understood and what the ancient man understood by the terms “Gentiles” and “nations” and the wording is, I believe, sufficiently clear, but I’ve rendered it plainer still.

D&C 87: 6 and TAV D&C 87: 5—The End of the Gentile Tribes

6. And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations; (D&C 87: 6)

5. And in this way, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and also the fierce and vivid lightning, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed has made a full end of all non-Israelite tribes;  (TAV D&C 87: 5)

“sword…bloodshed” — Although there will be bloodshed on both sides, Gentiles killing Israelites, Israelites killing Gentiles, the lion’s share of bloodshed will be Gentiles killing Gentiles.  These wicked tribes will kill each other off.  This will be one of the ways that the Lord will use to protect his people from destruction.

“famine” — There will be famine caused by man, and also famine caused by God (the hailstorms.)

“plague” — There will be plague caused by man, and also plague (the scourge) caused by God.

“earthquake…thunder…lightning” — With plasma discharges, both planetary and interplanetary, the Lord will first chasten the Gentiles, to perhaps cause some to repent, and then destroy them off the face of the earth.

“wrath” — The Lord’s wrath will be kindled against the wicked, unrepentant Gentiles because they fight against and seek the destruction of his people.

“indignation” — The Lord will be indignant because the Gentiles will refuse to repent and accept the sacrifice of God’s Only Begotten Son, making a mockery of God’s plan to save them.  Despite the mighty words of God brought forth to the Gentiles in the new records, the wicked Gentiles will reject them.

“chastening” — In spite of their obstinancy, the Lord will do all things he can to get them to repent, until he can no longer stay his hand and must return to Earth at the appointed time, meaning that those who are not in the proper (safe) places, and in the proper spiritual state, will be burnt up at the brightness of his coming.

“consumption decreed” — This is talking about the Second Coming, which will consume many people.

“nations” — This refers to the non-Israelite tribes who refuse to repent and gather to Zion.  Those that repent will be numbered with the tribes of Israel.  You could substitute the word “Gentiles” here so that it reads, “a full end of all Gentiles.”  It means the same thing.  Joseph probably chose the word “nations” instead of Gentiles because it sounds pretty harsh that the Gentiles will be consumed.  But, the meaning is not that the Gentiles will be destroyed, but that all unrepentant people will be destroyed, while all repentant people will live.  The unrepentant are not numbered with the house of Israel, and in fact, they fight the house of Israel and Zion, therefore these people are Gentiles; while the repentant people become Israelites and thus cease to be Gentiles.

Again, it sounds harsh, this repent or die doctrine, but that is only because we do not, yet, have the full Nephite record, which will cause a great division among the people.  When that record is revealed, no man will be left without excuse.  They will either reject the Lord openly, calling the Sun at noonday darkness, or accept Him with full purpose of heart.  There will be no middle ground.  It will polarize everyone.

D&C 87: 7 and TAV D&C 87: 5—The Reason the Gentiles will be Destroyed

7. That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. (D&C 87: 7)

5. that the cry of the set-apart ones, and of the blood of the set-apart ones, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Armies, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.  (TAV D&C 87: 5)

“saint” — The term “saint” signifies one who is set apart for a sacred purpose.  The term “holy” also means the same thing.

“cry…blood” — The Gentiles, living in tribal anarchy after the end of their State governments, and after the Nephite record is revealed, who reject the message, shall fight against the people of the Lord, spilling their blood and causing the people to call upon the Lord for vengeance.  This is the reason why they are destroyed.  Had they merely left Zion alone, the Lord would have left them alone.  But as the Nephite record will be polarizing in its effect, those who reject it will desire and seek the destruction of those who accept it, necessitating the intervention of the Lord of Armies.

“Lord of Sabaoth” — This is a title of Jehovah that means Lord of Hosts, hosts meaning armies, as in both the armies of Israel and the angelic armies of heaven.  The Lord, acting as the Lord of Armies, will utilize both the mortal Israelite armies to afflict the unrepentant Gentiles, as well as the angelic armies of heaven, in the last days.  (See 3 Nephi 20: 16-17 for the work the angelic armies will do.)

D&C 87: 8 and TAV D&C 87: 6—Establishment of Zion and Her Stakes is Our Only Hope

8. Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen. (D&C 87: 8)

6. Wherefore, stand, all of you, in set-apart places, and do not allow yourselves to be moved, until the day of the Lord come; for see, it comes quickly, says the Lord. Amen.  (TAV D&C 87: 6)

“holy places” — This is referring to Zion and her stakes, which are places set apart for sacred purposes.  Temples also fall into this category, as temples are at the heart of any stake of Zion.

“be not moved” — This is the same as saying, “become established” or “fixed.”  It is referring to land ownership.  It is referring to the gathering of Israel and the restoration of them to the lands of their inheritance.

Okay, I think that I’ve expounded enough for today.

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Slim pickings is not the problem with the single adult program: FAT women are


At least, that was the opinion of a single adult male I polled a few months back.

Last year, an issue of the Ensign (Aug. 2008 ) had several articles addressing how to cope with being a young single adult in the church. On the cover was a lovely lady, who appeared to be fit as a fiddle. When I had the opportunity to talk to a single adult male friend of mine who has been in that program for, I believe, over a decade now, I mentioned these Ensign articles to him. His first response was that the young lady on the front was quite the looker. He had not had the opportunity to read what the articles inside said, so I gave him my synopsis, as I had read them: coping skills for extended singleness.

I then asked him what his assessment of the problems of the single adult program was. I didn’t expect the answers I got. His first response was “un-Christlike men” behaving badly. Apparently, there are a lot of doggish men out there mistreating the women and taking advantage of them. However, his next listed item was FAT WOMEN.

Now, I’ve been out of the single scene for years now, and I never was a part of the single adult program, nor did I do much with the young single adults. I attended only occasional young single adult activities, which, although the women were young and often fit and pretty, I found them mostly immature and the conversations inane and shallow. So, I would sometimes crash the older singles, the single adult activities, just for some interesting conversations. Here I found the women to be much more mature, and also quite fat.

[Side note: I didn’t meet my wife through either of these programs, thank the Lord, in case you were wondering.]

These experiences left an impression upon me, so much so that whenever my friend would tell me of a new date he went on, my first question wasn’t, “What was she like?” but, “How fat was she?” And as he related the thick and thin of it to me, it seemed that every subsequent date was more of a woman (as in poundage) than the previous one.

It had been a long while since we had talked about his dating experiences. I’ve been really occupied with my married life, with my wife and children and he’s been busy doing his things, too. So, his mentioning of the fatness of the single adult women brought all those old impressions back, and all the old images of those single adult women I had met those years ago, images of chubbiness that I’d like to forget, but which came back into my mind to occupy my thoughts like so many puffy marshmallows stuffed in and pushing everything else out.

Luckily, at least, I have forgotten all the code words I used to know, all of which meant various grades of obesity. You know, like if my friend said his date was a “sweet spirit,” it meant she was obese, etc.

So now I wonder and ask you, dear reader, especially the single adult visitor, is my friend correct in his assessment? Do the single adult women of the church predominantly consist of fat women, from chunky, to “pleasantly plump” to grotesquely fat and obese? And are the single adult men of the church mostly perverts just looking to grope any female that will let him, whether a two-ton Tessy or not?

Again, I’m no longer part of the single scene, so my information is limited, but I’m curious to know if we have a fat women/perverted men epidemic among the single adult members of the church. Your thoughts and experiences in this area? Any solutions to these problems (assuming my friend’s assessment is correct)?

Note: this post was written months ago and left unpublished, as I decided it was too offensive.  However, reading it again today I have changed my mind.  There is a lot of controversial stuff on this blog, so is one more really going to make that big of a difference?  (No pun intended.)  Besides, February doesn’t have a post, yet, and is the month of love, etc., so I think it only appropriate to talk of the single adults of the church.

Previous Relationships article: To LDS women: beware of kissing

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3 Nephi 21, expounded


This is my understanding of this chapter, expounded verse by verse, beginning with the chapter heading.

The chapter heading

The chapter heading reads as follows:

Israel shall be gathered when the Book of Mormon comes forth—The Gentiles shall be established as a free people in America—They shall be saved if they believe and obey; otherwise they shall be cut off and destroyed—Israel shall build the New Jerusalem, and the lost tribes shall return. [A.D. 34]

For the most part, whoever wrote this heading got it right.  However, the first statement is incorrect.  Israel shall not be gathered when the Book of Mormon comes forth.  The Book of Mormon came forth (or was published) in 1830.  That was about 179 years ago.  Now, ask yourself, during the past 179 years, was/is Israel gathered?  (The answer is no.)  How about the church?  Is the church in a gathered or scattered state presently?  (The answer is scattered.)  So, this heading is obviously incorrect.

Verse 1 – A sign unto the remnant of Jacob

And verily I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place—that I shall gather in, from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion;

“these things” — The Lord here is talking about the gathering, in which Israel is restored to the lands of their inheritance and Zion is established among them.  The sign will show to the remnant of Jacob that the gathering of Israel and the establishment of Zion is about to take place. In other words, the sign occurs first, the gathering of Israel and establishment of Zion occurs second. (The Lord began talking about this gathering in 3 Nephi 20.)  Note: the description of the sign takes up seven verses (3 Nephi 21: 1-7.)

Verse 2 – The unabridged record of the Savior’s Nephite ministry

And behold, this is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign—for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father, shall be made known unto the Gentiles that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them;

“these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father” — The “these things” referred to by the Savior is not the abridgment of the Savior’s Nephite ministry which we have in the Book of Mormon, which apparently was the assumption made by whoever wrote the chapter heading, but the unabridged record found on the Large Plates of Nephi.

“shall be made known unto the Gentiles” — The unabridged record of the Savior’s ministry among the Nephites is to first go to the Gentiles.

Verse 3 – Unabridged record goes first to Gentiles

Verily, verily, I say unto you, when these things shall be made known unto them of the Father, and shall come forth of the Father, from them unto you;

“from them unto you” — The unabridged record is to first come forth and be shown to the Gentiles and then the Gentiles will bring it to the remnant of Jacob.

Verse 4 – Anarchy must reign among Gentiles

For it is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things might come forth from them unto a remnant of your seed, that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel;

“established in this land” — At some point the Gentiles would come into the land and become established here.  This has already occurred.

“be set up as a free people by the power of the Father” — The government of the Gentiles would be broken up at some point and they would be brought into tribal anarchy.  This is still a future event. Some have assumed that this event referred to the establishment of the Constitution of the United States and the independence of Americans from Great Britain.  However, the Lord here is talking about the Second Act (the Strange Act), not the First Act.

“that these things might come forth” — Tribal anarchy must first come to the Gentiles because their system of government and their man-made laws are incompatible with the laws of the Savior given in the unabridged record of his Nephite ministry.  The Lord’s people would not be able to live the laws in that record while under the Gentile governmental system because that system would prohibit them from doing so.  So, the order of the prophecy is that first the Gentiles come here and establish themselves (erecting their own forms of government), then their governments are broken up and they enter into the freedom of tribal anarchy, and finally the unabridged record comes forth.

“a free people” — Here are some other prophecies that speak of the same time and event when the Gentiles shall become a free people:

“And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.”  (D&C 87: 4)

“Wherefore, hear my voice and follow me, and you shall be a free people, and ye shall have no laws but my laws when I come, for I am your lawgiver, and what can stay my hand?”  (D&C 38: 22)

Verse 5 – Unabridged record taken by Gentiles to remnant of Jacob

Therefore, when these works and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter shall come forth from the Gentiles, unto your seed which shall dwindle in unbelief because of iniquity;

“these works and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter” — This refers to the unabridged record.

Verse 6 – Gentiles given a last chance to repent

For thus it behooveth the Father that it should come forth from the Gentiles, that he may show forth his power unto the Gentiles, for this cause that the Gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent and come unto me and be baptized in my name and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel;

“that they may be numbered among my people” — This is the final chance of the Gentiles to peacefully repent, prior to the gathering of Israel.  If they believe the unabridged record and repent, they become Israelites and are gathered with the remnant.  If they do not believe the record, they are to be bound into bundles and burned.  Everything hinges upon the reaction to the unabridged record.  Nephi had view of this last, unabridged record coming forth when he wrote:

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.  (1 Nephi 14: 7)

When Nephi wrote the following, he had view of the numbering of Israel in that day when the unabridged record (and other records which will come forth) would be shown to the Gentiles and Jews:

For behold, I say unto you that as many of the Gentiles as will repent are the covenant people of the Lord; and as many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off; for the Lord covenanteth with none save it be with them that repent and believe in his Son, who is the Holy One of Israel.  (2 Nephi 30: 2)

Verse 7 – When remnant receives unabridged record, it will be a sign to them

And when these things come to pass that thy seed shall begin to know these things—it shall be a sign unto them, that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel.

Verse 8 – The reaction of kings

And when that day shall come, it shall come to pass that kings shall shut their mouths; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

“when that day shall come” — The day referred to here is the day that the remnant of Israel receives the unabridged record, which is the day that the sign is manifest.

“it shall come to pass” — This is after the sign is manifest.

“kings shall shut their mouths” — The Savior here is paraphrasing Isaiah 52: 15, which says:

So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

The reason why the kings will be so awed into silence is because they will witness the gathering of Israel, which must come by the miraculous power of the Father.

Verse 9 – The marvelous work occurs during this time period, not before

For in that day, for my sake shall the Father work a work, which shall be a great and a marvelous work among them; and there shall be among them those who will not believe it, although a man shall declare it unto them.

“in that day” — The day referred to here is the day that the unabridged record comes forth.  The Lord here is referring to the Second Act (the Strange Act).  The First Act is when the Book of Mormon comes forth, which is a preparatory (D&C 133: 58 ) record.  It is the Strange Second Act which is known as the great and marvelous work, or the marvelous work and a wonder, etc., not the First Act.

“and there shall be among them those who will not believe it” — Despite the convincing power of the unabridged record (see 1 Nephi 14: 7) and the many signs and manifestations of the power of God, as well as the testimony of prophets, leaving them without excuse, there will be many who will disbelieve the record.

“although a man shall declare it unto them” — Prophets will again be in the land.

Verse 10 – Angels and messengers of heaven will be sent

But behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt him, although he shall be marred because of them. Yet I will heal him, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.

“my servant” — The Savior is here expounding upon Isaiah 52: 13-14.  Although the noun is singular, it encompasses every Elias that will participate in gathering Israel and restoring all things, including the Elias who heads up this dispensation.  Isaiah 52: 7, although singular, is read the same way:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

Verse 11 – Already expounded here

Verses 12 and 13 -Unrepentant Gentiles shall be vexed by remnant of Jacob

And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.  Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off.

This will happen after the Gentiles reject the words of Christ found in the unabridged record.  This is to stir them up to repentance.  The Lord has used the Lamanites in this manner before.  (See 2 Nephi 5: 25.)  Another prophecy that talks of the same event is found here:

And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation.  (D&C 87: 5)

(Not all Gentiles, though, will reject the words of Christ.  The above will only happen to those Gentiles who are unrepentant and reject the Lord’s words.  The other Gentiles, who repent, become numbered with Israel and gathered.)

Verses 14 to 21 – Utter destruction upon the still unrepentant Gentiles

Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots; and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds; and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers; thy graven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands; and I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities.

And it shall come to pass that all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away.

For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that day whosoever will not repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel; and I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

“wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent — After the vexation, which will be to stir the Gentiles up to repentance, which will be their very last chance to turn from their evil ways, the Gentiles who still remain unrepentant will be destroyed.

“whosoever will not repent” — This destruction will come upon the unrepentant among both the Jews and Gentiles.  It will be even according to Nephi’s words in 2 Nephi 30: 2.

Verse 22 – Establishment of church and covenant people of the Lord

But if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance;

“establish my church among them” — The repentant Gentiles, for this verse is speaking of the Gentiles, who believe the unabridged record will become the church of the Lamb of God spoken of by Nephi (see 1 Nephi 14) and will be numbered with with Israel and become part of the covenant (to be gathered) that the Father made with Israel.  This land (America) will be their land of gathering.

Verse 23 – The repentant Gentiles will assist the remnant of Jacob in building the New Jerusalem, not the other way around

And they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob, and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city, which shall be called the New Jerusalem.

“they shall assist my people” — It is commonly thought among LDS that it will be the Lamanites who assist the Gentile LDS to build the New Jerusalem, despite what the Savior says here.  In other words, that the LDS will be the chief builders of the New Jerusalem while the Lamanites will be their helpers.  This is because interpreters of this scripture cannot see that conditions will change among men and that this scripture will be literally fulfilled, as it is written.  The converted Lamanites and others of the house of Israel (by lineage) will be the chief builders of the New Jerusalem, while the Gentile converts (Israelites by adoption) will be their assistants.

“that they may build a city” — The New Jerusalem will be built prior to the Lord’s Second Coming, not after as many LDS believe.  It must and will be built first, before the Israelites are gathered in under the Lord’s wings, as a place of refuge and defense from the storms that will usher in the Lord’s Second Coming.

Verse 24 -The Gentiles will assist the remnant of Jacob in gathering those scattered

And then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem.

This work of gathering happens after the New Jerusalem is built, not before.  All of these events occur prior to the Lord’s Second Coming.

Verse 25 -The saints will be endowed with power and enter into presence of the Lord

And then shall the power of heaven come down among them; and I also will be in the midst.

This is when the following scripture will be fulfilled:

And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God; and the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.

And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy.

For when the Lord shall appear he shall be terrible unto them, that fear may seize upon them, and they shall stand afar off and tremble.

And all nations shall be afraid because of the terror of the Lord, and the power of his might. Even so. Amen.  (D&C 45: 66-71, 74-75)

Verse 26 – Back to the sign, the lost tribes of Israel

And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem.

“at that day” — The Lord here is coming back to the sign.  The day He is indicating is the day that the unabridged record goes to the remnant of Jacob.

“among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost” — The Lost Ten Tribes must return with their prophets and their scriptures before the Lord’s Second Coming.  Nephi spoke of this in 2 Nephi 29.  The gathering of Israel, all of Israel, will occur prior to the Lord’s advent.

Verse 27 – First, Israel to be restored to Christ

Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people, with the Father to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name.

“all the dispersed of my people” — This is Israel in its scattered state, prior to the gathering.

“with the Father to prepare the way” — The Book of Mormon and events of the First act are part of that preparation.

“whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name” — The records that go forth to the scattered Israelites will convert them to Christ.

Verse 28 – Second, converted Israelites to be restored (gathered) to lands of inheritance

Yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father among all nations in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance.

The gathering does not occur until Israel is converted to Christ.  Only after their conversion does the Father covenant to gather them, not before. (See 2 Nephi 30: 2.)  Once they are in the covenant, and have accepted the new records, they will be gathered.

“with the Father among all nations in preparing the way” — Again, the First Act is a preparatory act, but there will be a further preparation during the Second Act.

Verse 29 – The Gathering

And they shall go out from all nations; and they shall not go out in haste, nor go by flight, for I will go before them, saith the Father, and I will be their rearward.

I think that verse is fairly plain.  No exposition needed, except maybe to say that the gathering will not occur by car or plane (“not go out in haste, nor go by flight.”)

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