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Illuminati of Bavaria 1

Introduction

1 Mormonism

IntroductionIn this chapter we ask what are the origins of the Mor-

mon Church. This is not without significance even though it might not immediately impress the reader that the church had any role in the U.S. Civil War. In fact, the Mormon War was a very significant drain on the federal government at a crucial time which made the Civil War significantly more likely to succeed. The history of the Mormons also is an example of the extraordinary cleverness of the creature we are tracing. Most Mormons would not expect to learn that their religion is really the offspring of a secret society inspired by communist beliefs of Europe at the time as well as the racist claptrap of the time. This painful truth is part of history, and needs to be told.

And just because Mormons appear to be well-mean-ing and sincere people cannot be used to deflect attention from the historical genesis of their organization.

Masonry’s Embarrassment In The U.S.A. Required A New Shield

Rarely do historians of Mormonism ever put Mor-monism in an historical context. While Mormonism was founded in 1830, little mention is made of the politics of that day, and the likely sources for the beliefs and systems that Joseph Smith incorporated into Mormonism.

First, we need to remember that in 1828, the Anti-Masonic Party became the most powerful political party in America, next to the Democrats. It arose from the furor over the 1826 murder of William Morgan by Freemasons when he

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sought to publish an exposé. There was such a backlash that Freemasonry in America was virtually destroyed. To seem-ingly seal its fate, the New York legislature (where Joseph Smith lived) did a thorough exposure in 1829 that showed how Freemasons had subverted jury verdicts and got their members into public office secretly.

It was in this historical setting that in 1830, Joseph Smith founded his church, the Mormon Church. It was, how-ever, very similar to the then discredited sect of American Masonry. (I personally don’t believe Masonry deserved to be wholly discredited at this juncture. Yet, it is a fact that it was so discredited in the USA at that time.)

Mormonism was a means to carry on Freemasonry under the cover of a religion devised to provide that cover. A Mormon leader in 1934 sought to rebut the claim that the Mormons were simply the Freemasons masquerading as a religion to prevent persecution after the William Morgan affair. However, this leader, Ivins, in The Relationship of Mormonism and Freemasonry made several important con-cessions. Here they are:• Mormonism uses the symbols of Freemasonry. The masonic

Beehive appears on a medallion on the plate glass double doors to the main Temple in Salt Lake. And the All-Seeing Eye is carved in each of the central towers of the Temple. The masonic Clapped Hands symbol is also used by Mormons.

• Joseph Smith became a Freemason, and rose to Grand Master. Other Mormon leaders joined the Freemasons, such as Brigham Young.1 Freemasonry was evident in the church ritual and doc-trines from inception, but not as directly as after 1842. Joseph Smith’s brother and later Mormon leader, Hyrum Smith, was a Freemason when Joseph and he were growing up in Palmyra, New York.

1. Brigham Young was a Freemason long before becoming a leader of the Mormons. He was a member of Lodge Mihor no. 139, East of Victor (New York). See “Young, Brigham,” Ligou, Ed., Dictionnaire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Paris: 1987) at 1269.



• The Mormon bible discusses secret societies with a ring of modernity to them.2

Ivins also concedes that even though Joseph Smith claimed his revelation took place in 1820 — six years before Morgan’s murder — “it is true that during the period of trans-lation and publication of the Book of Mormon, Morgan dis-appeared.”3 In other words, Ivins concedes that the actual work on drafting the book of Mormon took place during the uproar over William Morgan, and hence it is entirely conceiv-able Mormonism was invented as a means of continuing the Freemasons under another name.

Actually, the dates are even more revealing. Joseph Smith says that the plates themselves that he translated were not provided to him until 1827 — one year after the Morgan abduction. And he did not finish the translation until 1829.

So why make it sound like the revelation took place several years prior to the Morgan abduction? For the very reason that the concoction of dates making it appear Smith’s revelations preceded Morgan’s abduction would deflect alle-gations that Mormonism was Freemasonry disguised to avoid persecution after the Morgan fiasco.

Other early links between Freemasonry and Mormon-ism are:

2. Anthony W. Ivins, The Relationship of Mormonism and Freemasonry (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1934) at 87, 88, 91-92, 177, 179. Secret societies are never discussed in the Hebrew Bible. How-ever, they have a prominent and modern appearance in the book of Mormon. See 3 Nep. 3:9 (“I am the governor of this, the secret society of Gadianton; which society... I know to be good; and they are of ancient date and they have been handed down unto us”); Eth 10:33 (“there began to be robbers in the land; and they adopted the old plans, and administered oaths after the manner of the ancients....”)

3. Anthony W. Ivins, The Relationship of Mormonism and Freemasonry (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1934) at 175.

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• Freemasonry, starting in 1842, was explicitly introduced inside of Mormonism. For example, in the early days, when a Mormon leader needed to be chastised (e.g., John C. Bennett), he con-fessed his wrongdoing before the local Freemason lodge.4

• The Mormon church in 1843 created its highest secret council of initiates — twelve men — called the Endowment Council or Endowment Quorum, then Holy Order, then Quorum of the Anointed, or simply the Quorum (of Twelve). Van Wagoner, a child of polygamous Mormon families, dispassionately dis-cusses it: “this secret organization’s... primary function was to introduce a select group of men and women to instruction that would help them obtain full salvation with God. A secondary function was to ‘test’ initiates’ ability to keep a secret prior to their introduction to plural marriage. The introduction of Masonry to Mormonism in 1842 also apparently served this purpose.”5

• Like Freemasonry, all non-Mormons are not allowed into any Mormon Temple. One must first pass through Mormon baptism and secret rites.

Mormons are familiar with other masonic traits in their movement, but are probably unaware of the origins: the temples have no windows that allow any outsider to look in

4. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 22, 227.5. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 227, 232. Prior to the Mor-

mons openly endorsing polygamy, it was a secret. Van Wagoner points out that “despite the prophet’s [Joseph Smith's] anti-polygamous teach-ings ‘from the stand,’ a small group of Smith’s inner circle, including John C. Bennett, was aware that polygamy was being practiced.” Id. at 20. Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith’s own brother — an opponent of the rumored approval of plural marriages by the leadership — was trying to ferret the truth out in 1843. He sat on the fence rails of the Masonic Hall lot with Brigham Young (a Freemason too). As Brigham Young records the conversation, Hyrum said: “you and the twelve know some things that I do not know. I can understand this by the motions, and talk, and doings of Joseph, and I know there is something or other, which I do not understand, that is revealed to the Twelve. Is this so?” Young answered carefully: “I do not know anything about what you know, but I know what I know.” Id. at 52-53.



during service; worship service is by invitation; the names of the twelve leaders of Mormons are usually secret; many cere-monies can only be observed by Mormons; entrance into the faith is more of a ritual oath ceremony than the Christian-style of baptism and public profession; and you are given a new name reminiscent of many secret societies, like the Illu-minati of Bavaria.

This weird emphasis on secret teachings in Mormon-ism is visible also in its bizarre portrayal of Jesus as a mystic. Jesus in the Book of Mormon tells his disciples to write what they have heard (which is similar to the New Testament), but then adds “save it be those which are forbidden.” (3 Nep. 27:23) This means that the Mormon-Christ forbade certain doctrines from being written down. This opens the door to Mormons teaching that Christ had secret doctrines that he handed down to a select elect.

Another example of such secret knowledge coming from the Mormon-Christ in the Book of Mormon is when Jesus once touches the disciples, and the Heavens open. Then the disciples allegedly “saw and heard unspeakable things. And it was forbidden them they should utter... the things which they saw and heard.” (3 Nep. 28:14.) This again sug-gests the Mormon-Jesus had some mystery teachings that were never written down, but handed down orally. And this specific event means the Mormon-Jesus’ followers had expe-rienced direct revelation which they kept as secrets. Theoso-phists today make similar claims about Jesus and themselves as channelers. Illuminist and New Age religions make Jesus into a shaman or mystic teacher, and they teach that every fol-lower can directly tap into a similar mystic experience as the master.

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The Shield of Religion is Used as Guise for Utopian Politics

Nothing pains me more to tell a Mormon his religion is a fraud from inception. Its current moral teachings may have a mix of good lessons, but Mormons should open their minds to hear the reality of the Mormon church’s beginnings and teachings.

Joseph Smith claimed that he was given magic glasses to read two golden tablets that were revealed under a tree. After translating them, the tablets were mysteriously taken away. These became the Mormon Bible, known as the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon has many internal proofs that it was written by a nineteenth-century man. And that man’s thinking was reminiscent of a French radical Jacobin of 1789. The writer was someone who fulminated against kings and inequality, and in its place wanted communal sharing of property. Also its writer shared the Jacobin hatred of the Catholic and Christian churches. The Book of Mormon is totally a book of its times although it claimed to have been written two thousand years ago and lost until Joseph Smith translated it.

Specific examples of these modernistic beliefs are all over the Book of Mormon. For example, it claims in America pre-Christ that the people of God had a freely chosen govern-ment but it was under assault by king-men. “[They] were called king-men, for they were desirous that the law should be altered in a manner to overthrow the free government and to establish a king over the land.” (Alma 51:5.) Moroni, God’s messenger, commanded his army to “go against the king-men, to pull down their pride and nobility and level them with the earth, or they should take up arms and support the cause of liberty.” (Alma 51:17.) Spoken like a true Jacobin!


The Shield of Religion is Used as Guise for Utopian Politics

While the Jewish Bible mentions periods that Israel was ruled by kings, priests, and then only judges, it never endorses any kind of human political system. Joseph Smith could not resist, it seems, adding a Jacobin temper to God that made him an opponent of all kings and the friend of democ-racy.

Another example is that the Book of Mormonism has a god who abolishes all inequality — “inequality should be no more in the land” (Mosiah 29:32.) This is due to a sin: “how great the inequality of man is because of sin.” (Alma 28:13.) What is the solution? Communism. The land has “smiled” on all of you, but some have “obtained more abundantly” than others. This is evil and sinful. The preaching follows:

And now, my brethren, do you suppose that God justifi-eth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you.

* * *

Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. (Jacob 2:13-17.)

Note carefully: the message is not to help the poor, but to wipe out any inequality. You must even give of your abundance to those who have sufficient resources but who are not equal to you. The Mormon-god commands communism. It is something the early Mormon church also practiced, and even led to accusations that they were communists, which we will discuss later.

Then the Mormon bible speaks of the Catholic Church. It does so by speaking about a predicted church which will be successful among the Gentiles. This church “is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God,... and I saw the devil was the founder of it.” (1 Nep. 13:4,6.) This is a Christian church because later it says this “great and abominable church... has taken away from the

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gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most pre-cious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they take away.” (1 Nep. 13:26.) Considering the Jacobinic and Masonic slant to Mormonism, we must see this as a slight on the Catholic Church. And while I am no supporter of Catholi-cism, this critique belongs to anti-Christian Jacobins, not Christian dissenters.

Another modernistic slant in the Book of Mormon is the blood libel on the Jews as evil murderers of God. “Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name6—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is no other nation on earth that would crucify their God.” (2 Nep. 10:3.) Masonic circles like Mormons perpetu-ate the lesson that the Jews are an evil race from inception. In this passage, the Mormon god relies upon the evil nature of Israel to be sure his Messiah would be killed. Such teaching denigrates the very foundation of Judeo-Christian peoples because if Jews are inherently evil, (a) then why did God choose them; and (b) how can any of their biblical records be taken seriously?

The Book of Mormon also, unlike the Hebrew Bible, denounces repeatedly what it calls “priestcraft.” Again like true Jacobins, the Mormon god intends to do away with all priestcraft — the desire to serve God as a priest for “gain and praise of the world.” (2 Nep. 10:5; 3 Nep. 21:19.)

Not surprisingly, the Mormons teach God will take away his Gospel from the Gentiles because of their being beguiled by priestcraft, and give it again to the “House of

6. The Book of Mormon has many ludicrous propositions, and this is the easiest to see. The word Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah—anointed one. It is not a name but a title, and it is Greek in origin. Why wasn’t God consistent, and use Messiah in the new world too for the predicted savior?


The True Origins of the Mormon System

Israel” (3 Nep. 16:10-12)—which really means the Church of the Latter Day Saints. This was a veiled hint at a key founda-tion of Mormonism: all Christian churches are fundamentally unsound and need to be closed down.

In sum, the Mormon bible stands for simplistic notions like:• communism• no more age of kings• no more inequality • no more Catholic church• no more Christian churches• no more Christian clergy

Where did this all begin for Joseph Smith?

The True Origins of the Mormon SystemGeorge Rapp, a social reformer from Germany, in

1814 told his followers that the angel Gabriel spoke to him. He took a flock of people to a city they called Harmony, Pennsylvania where Joseph Smith—the founder of Mormon-ism—lived intermittently from 1825 to 1827—the crucial period for formation of the Mormon church. The bulk of the Harmonists moved in 1824 to Indiana and founded New Har-mony.

Meanwhile, Robert Owen—the inventor of the term ‘socialism’ which he explained was premised on a ‘commu-nity of wives’—came to the U.S.A. in the 1820s. He founded communities based on common ownership and equality of work and profit. Owen purchased New Harmony from the Harmonists in 1825. He then established several other com-munist societies in Ohio — at Kendal and Yellow Springs. Sidney Rigdon, later a very early Mormon leader (and endorser of plural marriages within Mormonism) was a prominent Protestant minister who followed Alexander

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Campbell’s Disciples of Christ in Ohio at the time. In 1829, he attended a debate between Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell. Rigdon soon was endorsing Owen's “family com-monwealths,” and he tried to implement such a communal order within the Disciples of Christ.7 Campbell objected. Rigdon left and set up common stock companies—later a familiar mark within Mormonism — at Mentor and Kirtland. By late 1830, Rigdon had converted to Mormonism, and had over one hundred members of the “family.”8 Mormonism itself then only had 1,000 members.

Joseph Smith arrived in Ohio in February 1831, and met with Rigdon’s communal group. He did not try telling Rigdon to abandon the lessons of socialism and the commu-nity of women as preached by Robert Owen. Instead, he taught him to go one step further.

Smith said they should gradually replace the com-mon-stock principle, and instead —because “all things belong to the Lord” — have all his followers deed all their personal property to the bishop of the church. The bishop then would be made head of a household (not necessarily a traditional family), and whatever surplus there was (profits) was to be turned over to the church.9 This became known as the “Order of Enoch,” the “Lord’s Law,” and the “United Order.” As Van Wagoner says, the “Mormon principle of stewardship was intended as a pattern of social and economic reorganization of all mankind.... The Saints, as a group, divested of personal selfishness and greed, were to be pre-pared by this communal discipline to usher in the millennia reign of Christ.”10

7. Ephraim Edward Ericksen, The Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormon Group Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922) at 17.

8. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy–A History (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1986) at 2.

9. Van Wagoner, id. at 2-3.


Joseph Smith Seeks World Power & Dominion

As to plural marriages, it was not until 1843 that Joseph Smith openly endorsed it. Until then, it was a secret teaching—like a mystery teaching—that the elite in the church would be given. It was used even in a manner reminis-cent of the toughest secret societies: the men’s faith were tested by being required to give up their wives to Joseph Smith.

So we need to realize that at the very same time that leaders of secret societies in Europe — Filippo Buonarroti (1796) — were advocating a “community of women” and communism — the same doctrine turns up as a mystery teaching in a masonic quasi-religious sect (Mormons) in the USA. And Mormonism arises under the influence of Europe-ans like Owen who are trying to implement the plans of the secret societies of Europe in the U.S.A.

But the similarity does not end there. The secret soci-eties of Europe were not only advocating communism and a community of women but also were seeking world political power. Incredibly, the same can be said of the early Mor-mons.

Joseph Smith Seeks World Power & Dominion

Joseph Smith too was seeking world power and dominion through his tightly-formed secretive and ritualistic Mormon masonic “church”. On May 10, 1844, Joseph Smith gave a public speech in which he said:

10. Van Wagoner, id. at 3, citing Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1976) at 2-3.

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I calculate to be one of the instruments of set-ting up the kingdom of Daniel by the word of the Lord, and I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. It will not by sword or gun that this kingdom will roll on. The power of truth is such that all nations will be under necessity of obeying the Gospel.

Just prior to this speech, Smith (who now used the title “General”) had ordained and selected in “utmost secrecy,” says biographer Fawn Brodie, a council of fifty “princes” to form what one of them called the “highest court on earth.” Brodie says “few secrets in Mormon history have been better kept than the activities of this council, but it is clear that one of their first acts [in March 1844] was to ordain and crown Joseph [Smith] as King of the Kingdom of God.”11 In the same year, Joseph Smith began his campaign to be elected President of the United States.12

Ask yourself the following: what other sect believed in communism and a world government that based itself on masonry and taught followers they were the true Christians as a ploy? Mormonism, in its core, started an exact copy of the European sect of the Illuminati of Bavaria. And just like the Illuminati, the Mormons spent a great deal of reconstruction of their history to distort their true background.

11. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, The Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990) at 356-57.

12. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 227. The Mormons had previously erupted with politically violent speeches like this as early as 1833. In that year, Rigdon gave his famous “Salt Sermon” in Jackson County, Missouri. During this speech, he virtually challenged all of Missouri to do mortal battle with the “saints.” As a result, the Mor-mons were persecuted in Missouri. Also, to deflate this episode, the Mormons officially expelled Rigdon. (Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1976) at 153.) As we see, however, the founder himself had the same fire in his veins; the expul-sion was tactical, not ideological.


The Secret Teaching of Plural Marriages and Deception to Hide It

Let us now review carefully the Mormon mystery teaching about the community of women that was later openly endorsed. We learn a lot about the character of this group, and its use of the strategy of slick double-talk to deceive its members, just like the Illuminati society taught its followers in Europe to do with their less initiated members.


The book of Mormon first published in 1830 actually condemns plural marriages. (Jacob 1:15; 2:23-27.) Because Joseph Smith is creating a religion based on progressive rev-elation like a secret society, this caused him no trouble living and preaching secretly a different revelation. Joseph Smith had forty-nine wives. Their names and dates of marriage are listed in Fawn M. Brodie’s No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, The Mormon Prophet (1990) at 335-36. When the legal authorities of Missouri chased him, Smith tried denying his relationships, but they were recorded by Mormon priests. Smith shared the secret society practice of justifying lying to the “profane”—you and me. This deceitful trait even allowed him to lie to the less “enlightened” Mor-mon membership.

Smith’s close friend, Joseph Noble, claims that in 1830 Smith was convinced of the necessity of the polygamy principle when he and Rigdon (i.e., the Owenite-communist) were translating the Hebrew Bible, which later was published under the title The Inspired Version [of the Bible].13 In 1831, Phelps says Smith told Mormon married men to marry Indian women to turn them white as the Mormon bible pre-dicted for their salvation. In 1834, Smith told Phelps that plu-

13. Van Wagoner, supra, at 3.

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ral marriages was permitted.14 Noble, incidentally, is not attacking, but trying to show how this doctrine pre-dated the 1843 announcement of it to a large group of Mormon leaders.

Then in early 1832, according to Pratt (another Mor-mon leader), Joseph Smith said that “the principle of taking more wives than one is a true principle, but the time had not yet come for it to be practiced.”15

Smith, the prophet of the Mormons, never publicly advocated polygamy in a sermon to the general membership. Yet, in private, he clearly had numerous wives. Smith’s first wife was Emma. Emma Smith was disgusted with the idea initially, and balked. Then she tried to control the women who were living in her house. Emma Smith forced Joseph Smith to throw certain women out of the house. Emma relented and let other women live in the house as wives. But when one became pregnant, Emma became irate. Then Joseph Smith claimed a revelation that was written down that required Emma to forgive Joseph any indiscretions but to per-mit him to have multiple wives, up to two extra usually at a time. Emma did not buy it, and gave Joseph Smith a severe lecture. But Joseph Smith kept up his pattern of multiple wives—often with other men’s wives. Joseph and his friend Martin Harris once told Emma’s cousin, Hiel Lewis, that “adultery was no crime.” They often told the women who received the proposal of polygamy that “If you will take this step, it will insure your eternal salvation and exaltation.”16

14. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 3-4. The Mormon predic-tion of Indians becoming “white and delightsome people” is in 2 Nephi 30:6. Although “white” appears in the original manuscript, the printer’s copy, as well as the 1830 and 1837 editions of the book of Mormon, “white” in 1982 was changed to “pure.” No explanation was offered. See Van Wagoner, supra, at 224.

15. Journal of Discourses (26 vols.) (Liverpool: Latter Day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854-86) at 13:192 (letter of Pratt of October 7, 1869). This is a collection of speeches by LDS leaders.



In 1832, Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered in the community of Hiram, Ohio because Smith was suspected of having relations with Nancy Johnson. In 1833, Smith was caught in a sexual act with Ms. Hill, a servant in his house. Then Joseph Smith “sealed” onto himself Fanny Alger, a maidservant, around 1835. As a result, in 1835 the Mormon church acknowledged rumors of “fornication,” and seemingly advocated “one wife” but it sowed the seed for plural mar-riages by endorsing the concept of “eternal marriage.” Here was the beginning of double-speak from within Mormonism. One could be eternally married to more than one woman by love. A Mormon leader’s writings of the time sees “eternal marriage” as distinct from polygamy. Later, it would become “synonymous with plural marriages.”17

Detractors in the 1830s started spreading the news about the Mormon “community of wives” being hidden under the Mormon Law of Consecration. They added that if these people could share all their property, why not also their wives? It was still a mystery teaching only known to the elite of the Mormons. But the secret was leaking out. By 1837, Fanny Brewer, a Mormon, came visiting Kirtland, Ohio, and noted “much excitement against the Prophet [Joseph Smith]... [regarding] an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family and under his protec-tion.”18 In 1838, a faction of the Mormon church convinced authorities to arrest Joseph Smith as a fraud, but Smith—

16. Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984) at 64 (adul-tery no crime). See also Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 50-51 (how Emma Smith dealt with new wives of Joseph Smith; becoming his wife path to eternal salvation), 53 (July 12, 1843 revela-tion given to Emma that God approves plural marriages to try to con-vince her), 55-56 (Emma still resisted for a time; Smith offered Emma a wife swapping with Mr. Law but Mr. Law refused), 233 (incident of pregnant plural wife noted in October 19, 1843 journal of Clatyon).

17. Van Wagoner, supra, at 4-7. Wagoner is a child of polygamous Mor-mon marriages, and sets forth the record in a non-judgmental manner.

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given some notice—fled to Far West, Missouri. Smith pre-pared to excommunicate the rebellious faction’s leaders by claiming they were libeling him with sexual immorality. In the May 8, 1838 Elder’s Journal, Joseph says that Mormons do not “believe in having more wives than one” at “the same time.” Later, he wrote a letter to the church in 1838 that said dissenters have falsely charged him with adultery. The hypocrisy involved is monumental. For in 1899, following when the Mormon Church officially endorsed polygamy, the church recorded marriage certificates in 1899 of Joseph Smith with ten women who up to this time (1837) had secret affairs/marriages with Joseph Smith.19

In 1842, Martha Brotherton, a woman of Commerce, Ohio—renamed Nauvoo by Smith—was propositioned by Brigham Young to become his wife although he was already married. Young told her that Joseph Smith revealed a revela-tion that a man could have more than one wife. When she hesitated, Young left and came back ten minutes later with Joseph Smith himself. In the July 15, 1842 St. Louis Bulletin, Ms. Brotherton quoted Joseph Smith as saying, “just go ahead, and do as Brigham wants you to... I know that this is lawful and right before God.... I have the keys of the king-dom, and whatever I bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever I loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” Martha begged for time to consider his proposal, and then three months later reported the event to the Bulletin.20

Martha had already spread her story earlier, and the Mormon elders discussed it on April 7, 1842. Joseph Smith then replied that “no person that is acquainted with our prin-ciples... would believe such lies.”21 To discredit her, the Mor-

18. Max H. Parkin, “The Nature and Causes of Internal and External Con-flict of the Mormons in Ohio between 1830 and 1838,” Master’s The-sis (Brigham Young University, 1966) at 174, quoted in Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 10.

19. Van Wagoner, supra, at 12-13.20. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 18.



mon paper of Nauvoo, the Wasp, denounced Martha Brotherton as a “mean harlot.” Yet, years later in 1870 they mocked this women’s refusal by recording after her death that she was sealed by proxy to Brigham Young.22

These men thus hid from members their doctrine of a community of women, then lied to cover it up, and finally boldly slandered those who sought to expose it. In the end, all these men openly exposed their own earlier lying and virtu-ally admitted they deceived everyone all along.

It is astonishing to think any Mormon who examines this history could stay as a member of such an unscrupulous group. Yet, their leadership omits the details about this period so Mormon members have no idea what their founders were truly like.

Another example of hypocrisy over this doctrine involves John Bennett. In 1842, John C. Bennett was forced by Joseph Smith to go to a Masonic lodge (note: not a Mor-mon temple) and confess his polygamous relationships and resign from Mormonism to keep the truth of his polygamy quiet. Bennett had been the closest man to Smith. When Smith went back on his word further and in June 1842 pub-licly exposed Bennett’s polygamy, Bennett was extremely angry. He decided to expose Joseph Smith for the same wrongdoing. He wrote a book entitled The History of the Saints: Or an Expose of Joe Smith and the Mormons.

Bennett was on the secret inner council, and revealed Joseph Smith’s plural wives—women who the church would later acknowledge as Smith’s wives. He identified Joseph Noble as the officiator of one of these marriages. Noble admitted in 1880—after the Mormons in 1852 openly endorsed polygamy—to this fact. Noble said Smith in 1840 told him the Lord had just revealed the doctrine of plural mar-

21. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (6 vols.) (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), IV, at 585-86, cited in Van Wag-oner, Mormon Polygamy, at 230 n. 7.

22. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 230-31.

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riages to him, and Smith asked Noble to seal him to Ms. Lou-isa Beaman. This was proudly confirmed in 1883 by the husband of Beaman’s sister.23

In July 1842, Bennett wrote in a newspaper that Mrs. Sarah Pratt could confirm that Joseph Smith made polyan-drous proposals to her. Orson Pratt was a leader in the church. After the news broke, Orson Pratt, one of the members on the Quorum of Twelve, left Nauvoo, Ohio, apparently thrown out by Sarah Pratt for not being willing to come out against Joseph Smith. Meanwhile, Smith was hurling public insults at Sarah Pratt, claiming she was a “**** from her mother’s breast.” Joseph Smith hunted down Orson Pratt, and brought him back to help quell the scandal if Mr. Pratt sided with his wife. Meanwhile, Brigham Young recounts the meeting held by Smith with LDS leaders, including Pratt, to discuss the Bennett affair. Young mentions “Br Orson Pratt is in trubble in consequence of his wife, hir feelings are so rought up that he does not know whether his wife is wrong [about her claims] or whether Joseph’s testimony and others [denying the proposition of plural marriage] are wrong and due L[ie] and he [has been] deceived for 12 years or not.” Eventually, Orson Pratt had the courage of believing his wife. Brigham Young wrote that “Elder Orson Pratt, whose mind became so darkened by the influence and statements of his wife, that he came out in rebellion against Joseph, refusing to believe his [Smith's] testimony or obey his counsel.” Joseph then told Pratt that if he believed Sarah Pratt over the Prophet (Smith) that “he would go to hell.” Eventually, the Quorum of Twelve, after much labor to make Pratt change his position, expelled him as a member of the Quorum and the LDS church.24

23. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 23-24, 25.24. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 28-30, 233 n 4. See also

Elden Jay Watson, Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1801-1844. (Salt Lake City, 1968) at 120-21.



This episode reveals Smith was a crass, conniving despicable back-stabbing man of extraordinary proportions. And this is supposedly a prophet from the Creator of the Uni-verse? It is a repulsive thought.

News of more polygamy among Mormon leaders soon again came to the attention of the Mormon church’s “high council”—not its real secret inner ruling council (known as the Quorum), but a group that apparently thought it was in charge. On August 29, 1842 and September 4, 1842, Mary Clift submitted affidavits to this high council that she was pregnant with the child of a married leader, Gustavius Hill. Ms. Clift testified that Hill told her “the heads of the Church practiced such conduct and that the time would come when men would have more wives than one.”25 They chas-tised those accused, and the matter remained quiet.

Meanwhile, Bennett who exposed the polygamous practices of Smith in 1842, was now smeared in the Mormon press as engaging in deviant acts of “adultery, fornication, embryo infanticide and buggery [i.e., sex with boys].”26 All New Age cults—Mormonism being the most successful fore-runner—believe in this policy of destroying any former mem-ber who leaves and exposes their secrets.

But Joseph Smith continued his secret marriages. He was sealed on March 4, 1843 to Emily Partridge, then on March 15 to her sister, Eliza. Then the great denials in public came. In the March 15th, 1843 issues of Times and Seasons (the main Mormon newspaper), we read:

We are charged with advocating a plurality of wives, and common property. Now this is as false as the many other ridiculous charges which are brought against us. No sect has a greater reverence for the laws of matrimony or

25. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 24.26. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 34.

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the rights of property; and we do what others do not, we practice what we preach.”27

Note again how the public perceived the Mormons as communists and engaging in free love. And despite the denial at that time, the Mormon church later confessed the truth and included in official LDS records that Joseph Smith secretly took seven other wives by the end of that year.28

Van Wagoner in his dispassionate account of these developments provides us the Mormon position on these con-tradictions. It is enlightening, although he misses a subtle point.

The traditional Mormon explanation for the glaring differences between truth and reality in Joseph Smith's denials of polygamy is that he and others were actually using ‘code words’ or ‘code phrases’ for denying John C. Bennett’s [charge of] ‘spiritual wifery,’ but not plural mar-riage. This is, however, an incorrect assump-tion. Indeed, Joseph denounced not only ‘spiritual wifery,’ but ‘plurality of wives’ under any circumstances except when the first wife was deceased. His October 5, 1843 diary entry makes this clear.29

In other words, the traditional Mormon explanation is that Smith never denied plurality of wives, but Smith was instead denying coded-definitions of distinctly different unions. Mormons are told such double-speak was itself proper even though in truth it is synomous with lying and a cover-up.

27. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 35, 49 (testimony of women involved about how Smith approached them and their mar-riages).

28. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 35.29. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 237 n 16.



Even though this explanation was itself false, it reveals that Joseph Smith was familiar with coded speech.

Like those trained in European secret societies, Joseph Smith learned to talk in a coded way—sometimes backward and sometimes forward so that the uninitiated could never penetrate his real meaning. However, in these denials of plural marriages, Smith was simply too clear, and hence the traditional Mormon explanation of his denials does not wash.

Testing Other Church Leaders To Allow Adultery With Their Wives And Then Backing Off: A Tactic of Dissimulation

Then to the puzzlement of other church leaders, Smith began demanding that he sleep with their wives. John Taylor and Heber Kimball were tested in this manner. After long struggles, they turned over their wives to Smith. Then Joseph Smith said it was only a test.30 The purpose was also to make them believe this is the spirit in which he, Smith, proposed to Sarah Pratt. He wanted to be understood as only having tested the Pratt family too. Joseph Smith was diabolical in his inge-nious manner to deter suspicion of his true mystery teachings.

Yet, in 1842, the Mormon church published a spirited defense of polygamy entitled The Peacemaker. (Udney Jacob was the author.) It demanded a revival of God’s supposed commandment to have multiple marriages.31 The Peace-maker arrived just after the Bennett controversy emerged, creating an embarrassing coincidence. Joseph Smith had no choice but to lie: “[the book was published] without my knowledge [and] had I been apprised of it, I should not have printed it, not that I am opposed to any man enjoying his priv-

30..Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 37.31.The only time the Hebrew Bible endorses two wives at one time is

when one’s brother dies without issue, in which case the brother would marry his brother’s wife even if he himself were married. The Hebrew Bible never endorses the principle of plural wives as a standard per-missible practice.

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ileges, but I do not wish to have my name associated with the authors, in such an unmeaning rigmarole of nonsense, folly and trash.”32

Van Wagoner points out that it is virtually impossible for this book to have been typeset and published in the Times and Seasons office without Smith’s knowledge. Joseph was the editor of the paper, and his close associates, Taylor and Woodruff, worked in the office. And note the “code phrase” present here: Smith would allow a man to “enjoy his privi-leges,” thereby leaving open that he approves plural mar-riages.

In 1847, the Mormons began secretly teaching that all marriages by civil authorities or other clergy were no longer valid. The women could now leave their husbands, and remarry anyone they chose. (This was adultery in both the Christian religion and under civil laws, unless the spouse could legally be divorced.) Later, Mr. I. McGee and his wife Maria quoted the new sacred (and secret) Temple rites of marriage which declared “it is now the woman’s privilege to choose whom she sees fit; if she likes the one she had been living with, she can keep him; if not, she is at liberty to ship him and take another; and it is the man’s privilege to have one, two, four, ten or twenty, according to his standing in the church.”33 Mormons were totally into free love, just as pre-figured in the lessons of the European secret societies.

32..Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 47.33. I[ncrease] McGee and Maria Van Deusen McGee, A Dialogue

Between Adam and Eve, the Lord and the Devil, Called the Endowment (Albany, N.Y.: C. Killmer, 1847) at 16. This was also noted in a con-temporary letter. See Ellen Hardin Welworth, “The Mormon Theocracy in Illinois, 1840-45,” Journal of Illinois State Historical Society (1907) I at 12 (Hardin to Warren).


Communal Wives Became Foundation of Mormon Religion

Communal Wives Became Foundation of Mormon Religion

The practice of multiple wives became a Mormon commandment, not a dispensation for only a few, to reach perfection. Van Wagoner explains the importance of the 1843 revelation that was used to convince Emma Smith to allow Joseph multiple wives: “The prophet explained that God was an exalted man and that mortal existence was a testing ground for men to begin progress toward exalted godhood. Salvation became a family affair revolving around a husband whose plural wives and children were sealed to him for eternity under the `new and everlasting covenant.'”34

Here is a list of the incongruous behaviors between Mormon practice and teaching:

34.Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 54.

CONDEMN POLYGAMY APPROVE POLYGAMY1830 Book of Mormon 1831 church married men to

Indian women1832 Smith told Pratt of practice (oral evidence)1833 Smith caught in sexual acts with Hill (witness)1834 Smith told Phelps of practice (oral evidence)

1835 Church officially endorses one wife

1835 Smith is sealed to another woman (Mormon records revealed in 1899)1837 Smith has relations with an orphan girl

1838 Smith in Elders’ Journal claims defamed by accusations that he teaches polygamy1842 Smith says Brotherton is lying

1842 Smith to Mrs. Brotherton tells her polygamy is approved (oral evidence)

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The End of Polygamy in MormonismIn 1890, the United States government threatened to

confiscate all the property of the Mormon church if it per-sisted in polygamy. After the unsuccessful appeal by Mor-mons to the U.S. Supreme Court against these anti-polygamy laws, the Mormons gave up the practice. The Mormons’ pres-ident, Wilfrid Woodruff, officially abolished the practice of polygamy any further by followers of Mormonism. Only this intense pressure did away with this practice.

The Conversion Message of Mormonism: Occultic Even at the Outset

To investigate how Mormons recruit, in 1993 I went to a visitors’ center. I asked to know the precepts of Mormon-ism, and was introduced to a laser disk slide show, including several portraying the holy man of faith, Joseph Smith, the Lord’s latest prophet. The Mormon teacher with this slide-show then taught these lessons:

• God has flesh and bones, and is “mortal like us;”

• Jesus too was only “mortal like us;”35

1842 Smith forces Bennett to confess to polygamy and resign from church

1842 Clift affidavit says Church approves polygamous practice

1842 Smith claims official church publication endorsing polygamy was unauthorized

1842 Church officially endorses polygamy in publication but Smith claims published without his knowledge and disapproved

1843 Church denies teaching polygamy in Times and Seasons

1843 Smith takes more wives secretly1852 Mormon church finally openly endorses polygamy


The Conversion Message of Mormonism: Occultic Even at the Outset

• God and Jesus achieved godhood by a progressive opening to the holy spirit, and we too “can progress to immortality.”36 We all have eternal life already. The question is whether we receive “everlasting life” — a happy eternal life.

• We all existed prior to our birth here with God, and when we die we go back to him. Mormonism prepares us for the return to God. Thus, this is a sort of re-incarnation theory that denies there is any real death.

• Jesus came to Israel, and left behind 12 apostles to carry on his teachings. However, they were all killed and none handed on authority to anyone else. The so-called Christian church was corrupted to its core, and fell away in the Great Apostasy.

35.This derives from Joseph Smith’s sermons collected into another Mor-mon holy book called Doctrine and Covenants. In section 130:22, we read: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit.” (Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City, 1992) at 265.) Joseph Smith also taught that “God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man.” (The Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, at 3.) And elsewhere, “In the beginning, the head of the Council of gods called a council of the Gods and they came together and con-cocted a plan to create the world and people it.” (The Journal of Dis-courses, Vol. VI, Sermon by Prophet Joseph Smith quoted in Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, supra, at 178.) Here, Smith reveals himself as completely pantheistic.

Incidentally, this doctrine is completely consistent with Masonic teach-ings in the Egyptian rite contained in Hutchinson’s 1775 work The Spirit of Masonry. It taught that the God of the Jews was not the truly supreme god. It was never intended by the real God to give the breath of life to man. The Jewish god was the god Demiurgus, and he created man. Yet, this was contrary to what the true Head God wanted. The spirit of the Head God filled the serpent in the Garden of Eden to try to stop this creation of man. The Head God successfully brought death into the world. Jesus supposedly was trying to accelerate this reversal of Demiurgus’ creation of humanity. See William Hutchinson, The Spirit of Masonry (Aquarian Press, 1987) (reprint of 1775) at 58, 62-63.

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• Mormons are not just married on earth as in the Christian ritual which says we marry “until death do us part.” Instead, Mormons believe we marry now here and in heaven in a “celestial mar-riage.” (However, the true Jesus specifically said in the Chris-tian Bible that there is no marriage in heaven.)37

• Mormons worship each week at a church, but they have certain rituals that are performed in the Temple that are not open to the public (i.e., secret rituals).

• Mormons baptize the dead giving them an opportunity to make it to heaven.

I then tried to enter the Temple. The docent told me that the Temple was not open to the public. It is sacred, and certain “ordinances” go on there that outsiders cannot wit-ness. Examining the exterior, I found it identical to all masonic lodges: there is no window from the inside looking out and thus no one can look in. For all the talk about Christ by Mormons, their Temples have no exterior symbol of the Cross or anything relating to Christianity or Judaism. On top is a symbol always of Moroni holding a trumpet.

36.She correctly was repeating this occultic teaching. Brigham Young, the ‘infallible’ prophet after Joseph Smith, wrote: “Gods exist, and we had better strive to prepare to be one with them.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, at 351, quoted in Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, supra, at 178.)

Elsewhere, the Mormons prophetic teachers say: “Remember that God our Heavenly Father was perhaps once a child and mortal like we are and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advance-ment: has moved forward and overcome until he has arrived at the point where He now is.” (Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, at 123, quoted in Martin, Kingdom, supra, at 178.) And later Mormon philosophers explained: “Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the eternal father was once a mortal man who passed through the school of earth-life similar to that through which we are now passing. He became God — an exalted being, through obedience to the same eternal gospel truth that we are given opportunity today to obey.” (Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, Ch. 16, at 104, 105.)

37. This teaching is apparently kept to explain and justify past polyga-mous practices of Mormonism.


Anti-Christian and Anti-Monotheist Emphasis of Mormonism

There is one obvious thing about Mormonism that makes it serve the agenda of the European radicals: it attacks normative Christianity as totally corrupt. This is the message of the Illuminati, Nazis, New Agers, and the occult forces of Europe. And here we find it interwoven into the first intro-duction anyone receives at a Mormon visitor center in the 1990s! God is just a man. Even God, not just Jesus, is a mor-tal who perfected himself. He did not start out perfect or as the creator. The other teachings that the Mormon sister dis-cussed above also amount to occult teachings of the Illumi-nati of Bavaria’s leader — Weishaupt: let us simulate the Christian religion so we can root out eventually their faith in a real spiritual God; let us teach that reaching godhood is based on a progressive path to immortality (i.e., through occult mystical rites); let us teach reincarnation so that our spirit always pre-exists our birth and hence death has no real consequence but a return to that prior existence, etc.38

Thus, when you have studied the Illuminati of 1776-1790 carefully, and see first-hand the Mormon Temple, listen to their introductory message, and study their history, and dis-cover their use of Masonic rituals and symbols, you must conclude: the Mormons are just another Illuminati offshoot.

Anti-Christian and Anti-Monotheist Emphasis of Mormonism

In the Illuminist guise of religiosity, Mormonism attacks Christianity. Joseph Smith says that in 1820 he met, during prayer, two “personages” who Smith claims were the Father and Son. They told Smith they took a dim view of the Christian church. They told him to announce a restoration of true Christianity.39 Afterward, Joseph Smith declared that all

38.This deflates the serious importance of asking ourselves about God and our eternal resting place.

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Christian sects are “all wrong” and their creeds “abomina-tions.” He said all Christians are “corrupt... having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.”40

Smith claims that the Book of Mormon is a literal translation of plates that were written in reformed Egyptian. They tell history of two ancient civilizations located on the American continents. The first left the tower of Babel around 2,250 B.C. and crossed into Europe and emigrated to the east-ern coast of Central America.

The second stemmed from a group that left Jerusalem around 600 B.C. before the destruction of the city. That group crossed the Pacific Ocean, and landed on the continent of South America in what is now known as Peru. The two groups were known as the Jaredites and the Nephi (later divided between the Nephites and Lamanites–Indians). The Lamanites became cursed, and this took the form of their being given dark skins. Meanwhile, the Mormon Jesus alleg-edly appeared to the Nephites. He instituted baptism, com-munion service, the priesthood, and then taught mystical ceremonies. But then the Lamanites totally destroyed the Nephites in A.D. 428 at Palmyra, New York. All memory of Jesus in America was lost until Joseph Smith found the plates. The Holy Spirit, unlike in the Christian Bible, had no ability to keep Christianity alive—a subtle mocking of Chris-tianity if you are alert to the playfulness of this script.41

Mormonism’s antagonism with Christianity puts it at fundamental odds with Judaism as well: Mormonism clearly teaches plural gods. In the Mormon book of Abraham, it describes the creation of the universe: “And when the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down, and they, that is the gods, organized and formed the heaven and the earth.” (Abraham 4:1.)42

39.Joseph Smith, Pearl of Great Price, at 2, vv. 1-25.40. Writings of Joseph Smith 2:1-25, quoted in Martin, supra, at 171.41.Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, supra, at 157.


Occult Beliefs of Mormonism

Occult Beliefs of MormonismMormons believe that their priests can speak with the

dead.43 This is what Cagliostro, the Illuminatus, taught to dupe people. In the same vein, Mormons have taught since 1840 that one can baptize the dead, and thus give them salva-tion.44 This teaching is distinctly occultic, because essentially you are talking to dead spirits and offering them conversion. This mocks the dead as well as God by making personal faith a dispensable part of religion.

In fact, what Mormonism teaches is that church lead-ers have the power to seal onto the oneness with God anyone, living or dead. And for this reason, the church extensively studies genealogies. Peck in the Mormon-oriented journal Dialogue says that “genealogical work, indicating the power to seal the living to the dead, is regarded to be the key and central work of [Smith’s] dispensation. Joseph Smith [taught the necessity] of sealing of the living to the dead.” He quotes Smith as saying:

It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or the other — and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.... For it is neces-sary in the ushering of the dispensation of the fulness of times... that a whole and complete

42.The book of Abraham is now dropped out of the 1987 edition of the book of Mormon, without any explanation. Dr. Martin is the source of this quote at page 167 of his work.

43.Charles Penrose, Leaves from the Tree, at 38 (a catechism for young Mormons), cited by Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, supra, at 175.

44. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, supra, at 54.

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and perfect union, and welding together of dis-pensations [i.e. Jewish, Christian, and now Mormon], and keys.... (Doctrines and Cove-nants 128:18.)45

The rationalization of how Masonic occult practices were accepted by Mormon rank-and-file stems from the LDS’ understanding of who is God. Joseph Smith — the revered founder and Prophet of Mormonism — gave a ser-mon of August 1, 1844 to 1800 followers. This speech was excerpted by the Mormon paper he edited, Times and Sea-sons, and this is what Joseph Smith, the Prophet, said:

I am going to inquire after God.... I will go back before the beginning, before the world was, to show you what kind of being God is.

God was once as we are now, an exalted man.... I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form — like your-selves and al the person, image and very form of man.

I’m going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil so you may see.

.... He was once a man like us... God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on earth the same as Jesus Christ did.

... Here then is eternal life — to know the only wise and true God, and you have to learn how to be gods yourselves,... the same as all gods before you, namely by going from one small

45..David D. Peck, “Mormonism and Eastern Mysticism,” Dia-logue Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1988) at 113, 126.


Occult Beliefs of Mormonism

capacity to a great one,...until you attain to the resurrection of the dead and are able to dwell in the everlasting burnings, to sit in glory....46

Here again is the occultic teaching of many gods, which suggests the Demiurgus myth of Egyptian Freema-sonry is taught inside of Mormonism. However, also evident is that Mormonism teaches a progressive realization of god-hood. This is how Masonry was introduced to Mormon peo-ple: it was a format for progressive revelation of truth. The Mormons would not recognize they were being drawn into the occult. Instead, they think they are learning new things for which they need preparation. However, at each stage they must take oaths, and agree to keep the rituals secret. Smith’s sermon holds the seed of how Masonry was accepted unwit-tingly by Mormons into the very fabric of their religion.

This very fact was admitted in part by David D. Peck, in the Mormon journal Dialogue when he recently wrote —in his hope of Mormons accepting mystic teachings:

However, the similarities of Mormon doctrine with the central mystical teachings of a union with the Absolute, as well as direct spiritual enlightenment of knowledge from him, cause us to question the Topical Guide label of ‘False Doctrine.’47 No doubt the doctrine of mystics is incomplete in certain respects from a Mormon point of view, but the striking similarities should lead us to question how well- or ill-informed the compilers of the Topical Guide might have been in regard to mystical thought.48

46. Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, supra, at 179.47. Apparently, the editor had listed mysticism as a False Doctrine.48. David D. Peck, “Mormonism and Eastern Mysticism,” Dialogue Vol.

21, No. 2 (Summer 1988) at 113, 126.

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Mormon mysticism is coming out of the closet. Rather than claim mysticism is wrong, as taught in the Topi-cal Guide by listing mysticism under “false doctrine,” now the Mormon journals raise the fact the editors of the Topical Guide were adding incorrectly their own perception of “False Doctrine” to include mysticism.

Theosophical Racial Doctrines within Mormonism

Mormons also denied blacks the priesthood because of the curse appearing in the book of Mormon on their race (skin color). Mormons taught that no black could attain to exaltation (godhood) or celestial marriage.49

Again, this is clearly a doctrine that was produced from its time in pre-Civil War America. There were no blacks in the New World prior to the 1600s, so why would a revela-tion predating 1600 bother mentioning blacks? And this doc-trine is in conflict with the Hebrew Bible, which teaches all men are of one flesh. However, this racism within Mormon-ism put it in the position of the forerunner of Theosophical doctrines of Aryan superiority in Blavatsky’s The Secret Doc-trine of the 1880s.

Occultic Background of Joseph SmithThe founder of Mormonism was Joseph Smith. Smith

was a combination of Weishaupt — the ingenious master-mind of an occult phony religion–and Cagliostro — the magi-cian who could defraud people with crystal-ball gazing and other tricks.

49. Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, supra, 172 n. 14.


Occultic Background of Joseph Smith

Many personal biographical details point to the fact Smith was deeply into the occult prior to founding Mormon-ism, and the premise of Mormonism — the gold plates and the translation — are patently occultic imagery. Let us inves-tigate the question whether Joseph Smith was into the occult from the inception of Mormonism.

Thummim Stone

First, Joseph Smith claims that in 1830 he translated the gold plates with the assistance of two magic stones or crystals called the Urim and Thummim. The Hebrew Bible, Exodus 27:31 and Lev. 8:8, mentions a Urim and Thummim, but does not describe what they represent. They were to be worn on a breastplate. As such, they were ornamental, noth-ing else. However, the occult world has long given them a mysterious meaning. A masonic dictionary cites the Biblical passage as the source, and then says masonry implies a secret meaning, making Thummim the second word used in the rit-ual of the Grade of Master in the Scottish rite. And in the 24th degree of the Scottish rite, Thummim is regarded as a lost vir-tue of Solomon.50 Thus, Smith did not go far to find a myste-rious term in the Hebrew Bible that masons generally exploited to provide secondary definitions.51

50. “Thummim,” Dictionnaire de Franc-Maçonnerie (ed. Daniel Ligou) (Presses Universitaires de France, 1987) at 1176.

51. Incidentally, Mormon historian Karl Sandberg points out that no Mor-mon writing mentioned the Urim and Thummim as the device Smith used until 1833. Karl C. Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator,” Dialogue Vol. 22 No. 4 (Winter 1989) at 26 n. 4.

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Secrets in Reformed Egyptian

Second, Smith claimed that the plates were written in “reformed Egyptian.” Supposedly, the settlers of Jewish extraction from Israel to America brought their language which he claims, after captivity, was Egyptian.52 If you remember the occult lessons of Masonry and Cagliostro, they taught that the Egyptians held the real secrets of eternal truths, and Moses essentially distorted them in the Bible. Smith’s discovery of a biblical-type source written in reformed Egyptian is a pseudo-confirmation of Masonic doc-trine—we say pseudo because it is fabricated.

Occult Roots of the Book of Abraham

Joseph Smith in 1842 published his Book of Abraham. Mormon historian Karl Sandberg notes that “the Book of Abraham serves as a prime source for the doctrines of pre-mortal existence of human spirits and the plurality of Gods, [and] stands as a halfway house in the movement toward plu-ral marriage,...”53

Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abra-ham in 1835 from one of the papyri purchased by LDS church leaders from one Michael Chandler, who had brought Egyptian mummies and papyri during a visit to Kirtland, Ohio in 1835. Joseph Smith explained, “I began translation of some of the character or hieroglyphics [of these papyri], and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writ-ings of Abrahama, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt — a more full account of which will appear in its place, as I pro-ceed to examine or unfold them.”54

52. Smith claimed that the plates were Egyptian, with Chaldaic, Assyric, and Arabic characters. See Smith, The Pearl of Great Price, Ch. 2, vv. 62-64.

53.Karl C. Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator,” Dialogue Vol. 22 No. 4 (Winter 1989) at 30.


Occultic Background of Joseph Smith

Meanwhile, the original papyri resurfaced in 1967 and were translated by professionals egyptologists. Yet, their ver-dict was unfavorable. Mormon historian Karl Sandberg laments: “One fragment of papyrus was identified as the ostensible source of the Book of Abraham, but it bore no rela-tionship to the Book of Abraham either in content or subject matter.” Sandberg says that Mormon apologists have tried every which way to avoid the implication of fraud by Smith. The only explanation to avoid this is to satisfy oneself that Smith does not literally mean he ‘translated’ this papyrus. He necessarily had a different meaning.55 Yet, the truth remains: he lied by any ordinary meaning of words.

In fact, the source of the fraud is now known. Karl Sandberg identifies that the obvious source for Smith’s Book of Abraham was a cabalistic occult work. Pierre Bayle in 1697 wrote Dictionnaire historique et critique. While in Rot-terdam, Sandberg says Bayle apparently encountered the doc-trines of the Hebrew Cabala. In Bayle’s work, he said that Sarah was Abraham’s niece (not only his wife.) Also, Bayle said Abraham was an astronomer, well-educated, and opposed the idolatrous religions among which he was raised. Also, it claimed there was an ancient book about Abraham that contained his life and another account of creation. Sand-

54. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (7 vols.) (Salt Lake City, Deseret News, 1902) II, at 235-36.

55.Karl C. Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator,” Dialogue Vol. 22 No. 4 (Winter 1989) at 17, 30. For a discussion on the professional transla-tion not agreeing, see Grant S. Heward & Jerald Tanner, “The Source Book of the Book of Abraham Identified,” Dialogue Vol. 3 at 92, 93-98 (Summer 1968); Richard A. Parker, “The Book of Breathings (Fragment 1, the Sensen Text, with Restoration from Louvre Papyrus 3284,” Dialogue Vol. 3, at 98-99 (Summer 1968). Sandberg’s solution to the dilemma is to claim Joseph Smith’s definition of “translation” is not the same as our own. To Smith, “translation” meant a mystical interpretation from the divine that could be at variance with the docu-ment that he was examining or done completely in absence of a source document. See Karl C. Sandberg, supra, at 17 et seq.

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berg then acknowledges here “was information with a famil-iar ring” because “all of this information...was also found in the Book of Abraham (Joseph Smith’s rendition of ancient papyri begun in 1835 and published in 1842,....)”56 As we imagine the home of Joseph Smith, we oddly find magic crys-tals and occult books.

Mormonism Teaches There Are No Miracles & No Creation Event

Brigham Young, the successor as General of the Mor-mon order, said “My religion is natural philosophy.” (Journal of Discourses 4:202-03.)57 Young also said: “There is no such thing as a miracle, except to those who do not under-stand.” (JD 2:91.) And Young added:

[W]e differ from the Christian world.... [T]o assert that the Lord made something out of nothing is preposterous and impossible.... As for the Bible account of the creation... Moses obtained the history, and from these picked out what was considered necessary,... and we have got it, [yet] no matter whether it is correct or not, and whether the Lord found the earth empty and void,... will remain a matter of spec-ulation in the minds of men unless he give rev-elation on the subject. (JD 14:116.)

Contemporary Mormon scientists affirm the church does not believe in creation of the universe, nor could it accept that God knows all.58 Thus, the Mormon god is really not God; he is so redefined so as to be someone who is cer-

56.Karl C. Sandberg, `Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator,” Dialogue Vol. 22 No. 4 (Winter 1989) at 17.

57. The cites in this paragraph come from an article in the Mormon peri-odical, Dialogue Vol. 21, No. (Summer 1988), pp. 62 et seq. “Scien-tific Foundations of Mormon Theology,” by David Bailey.


Conclusion

tainly not God by normal definition. Regardless of the valid-ity of whether the universe was created or simply always existed, it is fact Mormonism early on claimed the universe was not created. Therefore, its view of who God represents is diametrically different from Judaism or Christianity, but totally consistent with the occult world.

ConclusionThus, Mormonism is more than a simple hoax. It is an

elaborate effort to neutralize Christianity. It makes a mockery of religiosity as it is a total fraud. Mormonism, when you grasp its occult character and how clearly it is a hoax, makes one wonder what abominable frauds people can devise. Par-ticularly deplorable, the Mormons co-opt and use Jesus Christ as a figure to bait the listener, just as Weishaupt said to do to win converts to Illuminism. Mormon leaders hijacked a truly sacred and respectable name, Jesus, and distorted and twisted Him into something else.

The common tactic among Mormons is the use of neologisms. As we discussed elsewher, occult groups use neologisms — redefinitions of a common term which are

58.The Mormon scientist, David Bailey, recently pointed out that “the God of traditional Christianity is considered... a being who created all natural laws and is beyond time and space.” By contrast, he says “the LDS [i.e., Latter Day Saints–Mormons] concept of God instead posits that God is a real, tangible being who co-exists with natural laws in the universe.” Bailey sees the tension this creates for the Mormon God. He cannot be omniscient–he cannot really be the definition of God as the term “God” has traditionally been defined. If he is a finite being, then he could only come into existence after the Big Bang. And his cranium could not be vast enough to hold all knowledge of the universe unless he was as big as the universe. “For if we presume that all information requires at least some material for storage, then God's mind would have to be of infinite physical extent and mass to contain infinite infor-mation.” See David Bailey, “Scientific Foundations of Mormon Theol-ogy,” Dialogue Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1988), at 72-73. The Mormon God, by its own teachings, is a man with finite knowledge and powers.

Mormonism


understood by the elite in an exactly opposite sense from what the normal audience assumes. The true nature of these neologisms are only taught to the initiated. This is exactly what the Mormons have done to the term “Jesus Christ.” The Mormons use his name, but deny any of the traits and nature of Jesus that an ordinary person would assume from even a vague familiarity with the Christian Bible. This has to rank as one of the most despicable frauds in human history.

Did I fail to mention, but the Mormons after Smith’s death appropriated the word “Illuminati” for the Halcyon Order and the Nauvoo Lodge? They knew their roots. The Halcyon Order was formed when Bennett in April 1841 received a revelation that he was to uphold the Kingdom of God on earth by forming a “Halcyon Order.”59 This was to exist within the Nauvoo Lodge. “Bennett knew a lot about the higher degrees” from Joseph Smith, and in 1846 he persuaded Jesse Strang to establish an “Order of the Illuminati” at this lodge which made Strang “the actual Lord and King on earth” supported by “a grand Council of Nobles of God’s king-dom.”60 Hence, what Joseph Smith was teaching all along leaked out in 1846, several years after his death.

59.John L. Brooke and the American Council of Learned Societies, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (Cam-bridge University Press, 1996) at 252.

60.Brooke, Refiner’s Fire, id., at 252.

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