HOUSEKEEPING

Hello All!

I appreciate the vigorous debate and discussion. And I don't want to interfer with any of that. And I try not to censor the discussion by cutting things out.

But, discussions of Masonry should be on the posts regarding Masonry;

http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2008/03/did-temple-ordinances-come-from-masons.html

http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2008/02/mustirra-master-mason-clang.html

http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2007/10/templar-papers-to-be-released.html

http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2007/08/mormon-masonic-clang.html

http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2007/08/masons-friends-of-foes.html

And of course: http://mormonmysticism.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-i-apostatized.html

And I will be cutting out name calling, or disrespectful comments of LDS church leaders, like referring to the Prophet Joseph as "old Joe." You can disagree all you want, but on this blog, we will not be disparaging the prophets, whether or not you agree they are prophets.

Thank you, and let the debate resume 8-)

Angels Who Stand As Sentinels

President Brigham Young taught us that the temple is where we learn about eternity, and where we prepare to pass certain angels that are standing gard. What we don’t always get is that they are guarding against us, not for us. When The Father had a flaming sword (& Cherubim) placed in the Garden of Eden it was to stop Adam from returning unchecked. Symbolically is was teaching that all of mankind (ha-adam) can only pass when we are ready (sanctified). We often think of angels guarding us, but in this process they are guarding the way back, so we don’t attempt to enter glories what are not yet ready to inherit.

"Your endowment is to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." (Brigham Young, J. D. 2:31.)

The Zohar is preoccupied with idea of gates we enter when we are ready, and at each gate is an armed guard. Egyptian initiation imagery is also loaded with example of stations (like rungs of a ladder) that the deceased must pass through to gain his full inheritance. Truth and fidelity are the initiates defenses against these destroying angels.

In Egyptian imagery, those who have not had fidelity to their covenants (“key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood”) in the mortal world, are slashed, cut, or otherwise destroyed if they try to pass. Perhaps this is the origin of the Tyler of Masonry?

Prof. Hugh Nibley discussed the Book of Breathings, and the Book of the Dead.

Here is an excerpt:

“it is permitted to wonder whether khrw-paw (faces-of-fire) with its Hebrew plural ending -im might be the source of the mysterious word Cherubim of the Bible. Or is the root the Egyptian Cherep, "to have control over," as in the long Book of Breathings: "Thrice welcome! say the Cherebneset-priests," i.e., "those who are in charge of the throne," they being the guardians of the gate (T 32, I, 22, O.M.R.O., 31:56)? Apophis is confronted by the Keepers of the Pylons standing with swords in their hands before a gate from which flames shoot forth, and is repelled by both sword and flame (Bremner-Rhind, 30:11-15). No one else can enter the place as yet either, excepting Re, since to enter it is to breathe the air of eternal life (Gr. Tb., 48-49), and man is not yet ready to live forever in his sins. The Jewish doctors, at least, made such a discrimination, telling us that when Adam was driven out of the place of delights, "the Watchers were placed there so that none could enter unless they had been first purified by the hand of the Cherubim" (B. Gorion, Sagen d. Juden, I, 118). From the earliest times, then, fire and the sword or the flaming sword prevent the serpent from returning to the garden. The serpent must remain in outer darkness (L. Kakosy, ZA, 97:104-105), being himself the mystery of non-being, the negation of all that is (E. Hornung, Ein.u. Viel., pp. 171-72). The Pistis Sophia gives the same explanation for the flaming sword: The time will come, it says, when the sword will be removed for Adam and he may reach forth his hand and partake of the fruit of the tree of life. But the serpent may never do so; in the end the flaming sword was for his benefit.” [Prof. Hugh Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, Part IV, The Garden Story]

Ancient temple initiations contained feathers of truth (Ma’at), swords of judgement, and angels guarding the way. Today we have an abbreviated version of what was Adam's ascension, which is our inheritance (endowment). Traces of a longer version, a deeper teaching, and fuller laws, give us hints of the path back. This is why the endowment can only truly be understood by revelation. The profane waste their time trying to understand it, only by revelation can we “get it.”

 “Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.” [D&C 84:20]

“If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.” [D&C 42:60

Gnosticism

No study of mysticism can be complete without a mention of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the mother of modern, so called, Mystery Schools or Mystery Religions . While all of them may not be direct descendants, they are at least stepchildren, receiving nourishment from the many philosophies spun-off from Gnosticism.

First century Christians understood that the life of the church depended upon the existence of apostles. [1] This dependence is due to the keys that the apostles held. [2] Among the keys, that if lost, would signal the end of the church, were the keys to the mysteries or ordinances. Even a modern day bishop, who has some keys, can only rightly exercise those keys under the eventual direction of an apostle (an apostle holds all the keys).

Before leaving the first century church, Jesus gave Peter the authority to bind the mysteries or ordinances on earth, which shall be binding in heaven:

“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19)

When the Prophet Joseph was given those same keys in this dispensation, the associated instructions tied the keys to the mysteries:

“And I have given unto him the keys of the mystery of those things which have been sealed , even things which were from the foundation of the world” (D&C 35:18)

When the apostasy of the original church began, and there were no longer apostle available, there was no one to correct the doctrines of men, and administer the mysteries.

The mysteries are the center of the church. The true church is built upon the mysteries. When the first original church fell:

“… a horde of deceivers ‘who up until then had been lurking in dark corners,’ as soon as they saw that there were no more apostles left to call them to account, came boldly forth, each claiming that he alone had the gnosis which the Lord had secretly imparted to the apostles after the resurrection.” [3]

The reason for this claim of the gnosis, hidden knowledge, or ordinances; is because the authorized (keys) holder of the true gnosis is the prophet of God on earth, and the leader of God’s church. [4]

The false prophets lured membership by a claim that they had the gnosis. To convince onlookers a whole arsenal of tricks were employed. They put on airs with pomp and circumstance, wearing robes, fancy hats, ringing the bells, making smoke, and burning incense. All of which were hollow gestures because they had no authority and only a corrupted version of ordinances.

These would be usurpers divided into groups, and come down to us today as the Mystery Schools .

Since the beginning of the apostasy, even until today they have fed off of each other by integrating each other’s claims into their own philosophy. They have become a hybrid of hidden and occult practice, a great “esoteric sponge.”

Gnostics, Rosicrucians, Theosophist and others initiate their members into what fragments of the gnosis they can find, mingled with the philosophies of men, and the doctrines of devils.

The watered down versions of these Gnostic views are the modern esoteric and New Age movements.

The well-grounded, mature saint can study Gnosticism and find truth, and all truth is beneficial. But, a steady diet of Gnosticism, without a daily good portion of a gospel meal, tends to sicken the soul.
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[1] Ephesians 2:20
[2] Matthew 16:19, Revelation 1:18, Doctrine and Covenants 13:1, 27:6, 9, 12, 13, 42:69, 65:2, 81:2, 90:2 and so on.
[3] Hugh Nibley, Todd M. Compton, Stephen D. Ricks, Mormonism and Early Christianity, Deseret Book, Chapter 5.
[4] Apostles are prophets, seers, and revelators. Each one holds all the keys necessary to maintain the church on earth. If there is more than one apostle on earth, the senior (by setting apart date) is the leader of the church.

Did The Temple Ordinances Come From The Masons?

For you Masonry student, there is a good post over at “Temple Study” that you should take a look at. Here is the link: Did The Temple Ordinances Come From The Masons?.

Of course I did have a good discussion with Joe Swick on this topic over: here, which I think is a pretty good overview of the topic.

Mustirra - Master Mason - Clang

In a prior post title “Mormon-Masonic Clang” I discussed how people sometime make connections between words that have simular or even rhyming sounds, when they really have no etymological relation ("Mormon," “Mahan,” “Mason,” “Mayhem,” “Man,” ”Ham,” OK, even “Sam I am.”).

I specificly mentioned the old anti-Mormon chestnut “Master Mahan.” I discussed how it was clear that neither Joseph Smith or faithfull, early, Latter-Day Saint leaders thought they were entering into a pact with Satan when they joined Masonry.

Prof. Hugh Nibley gave us some direction on the etymology of the phrase “Master Mahan.” It has nothing actually to do with the English word “Master” but is an approximation of the sound of the word “Mustirra.” Which has to do with secrets. And the root of Mahan is clearly connected to the English understanding of “great.” Hence, the "great secret keeper."

“This is a very interesting etymology here. The word secret is sirra in Arabic; the eighth form of the verb, mustirra, means "to hold a secret, to keep a secret." It's the same as the Greek word sathra for secret. The Egyptian word is seshet; meseshet is "to hold a secret." Sether is the Hebrew word for keeping a secret (the master of the secret). So this word master may not be our word master at all, but master means "keeper of secret," and Mahan means "great." In any language maha means "great." In Arabic, English, Greek, Sanscrit, or anything maha means "great." Words like magnus, mighty, might, many, maharaja; anything that's big is ma. So this could mean Master Mahan, the "great secret keeper." ...This was the secret: converting life into property.” (Prof. Hugh Nibley, Ancient Documents and the Pearl of Great Price, Adam and Eve, Lecture 19)

Which fits exactly into the context in which it was used, and not into the contrived link to Masonry.

Notaricon - Emet - Truth

One of the Hebrew literary tools that exist is "Notaricon." It is sometimes used to form, or understand words, the letters in a word work as an acronym.

The word in Hebrew for truth is אמת (Reading from right to left) which is known as “emet .” “Emet“ is written with three letters, the first א (Aleph), and middle מ (Mem) , and last ת (Tav) in the Hebrew alphabetical order. "The Rabbinical tradition is that these letters refer to the concept of past, present, and future.” [1] In other words, the word “truth” is made up of the letters placed at the beginning of the Hebrew alphabet, the middle of the alphabet, and the end of the alphabet. The placement of the letters in the alphabet represents the letters' meanings of past, present and future, which aligns nicely with Doctrine and Covenants 93:24:

"And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come…”

The Greek letters Alpha (first letter of the alphabet), and Omega (last letter of the alphabet), is a name for Christ (the beginning and the end), or truth. Two posts back we discussed the Tetragrammaton, which has a meaning deciphered through Notaricon.[2]

Those who are familiar with the “learning of the Jews,” as was Nephi, see a lot going on in scriptural text. You can read a sentence and understand it’s meaning, on one level, then learn gospel principles from the words themselves on another level. Certainly there are hidden treasures of knowledge for us here.

“In notarikon letters of words are interpreted as abbreviations of whole sentences, and letters are varied or interchanged according to certain systematic rules” [3]

Here is what Wikipedia says about Notaricon: [LINK]

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[1] Joe Sampson, Written by the Finger of God, Wellspring, pg. #29.
[2] “…I [Jesus] am the Spirit of truth…” Doctrine and Covenants 93:26 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. … I Jesus…” Revelation 22:13-16.
[3] John M. Lundquist, Stephen D. Ricks, By Study and Also by Faith, vol. 1, #18 Deseret Book.

Tragedy and Hope

This site is dedicated to spiritual topics. But I am going to make an exception here. Well, maybe it’s not really an exception because this book helped me form my theological/political views of the last days.

I am talking about the book “Tragedy and Hope” by the late Professor Carroll Quigley, of Georgetown University.

It was hard to find and expensive. But, here it is in an html format (great for searching).

If you want to know what’s really going on in the world you need to read this book.

Here is the link: Tragedy and Hope.

And if you just can’t read such a monsterous sized book, read the light version: The Anglo-American Establishment.

Note: I do not share Quigly's values and I interpret the data differently than he does, he only explained what is happening, and defined who the real enemy is. Do you want to know who the members of the "secret combinations" are? They are not Masonry. Ether said, speaking to us:

"Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get apower and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be. Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this asecret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up." [link]

Here is your chance to understand these verses.
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UPDATE: Here are some current links for those two books:

http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/tragedy-and-hope-pdf.html

http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/anglo-american-establishment-pdf.html

The Templar Papers to be Released.

My friend Nancy brought this link to my attention: Knights Templar Papers.

The Knights Templars were a military order of the Roman Catholic Church that is surrounded in intrigue and was recently made popular by the book and movie The Da Vinci Code.

The Masonry buffs will certainly want to read these.

Mormon-Masonic Clang

Detractors of the church have often raised the point of “clanging” words in an attempt to disprove the Book of Mormon or the Book of Moses.

A “clang” word is a word that sounds like another word, that may or may not have an associated meaning. The argument is that liars in an attempt to create use similar sounding words, which is done out of sloppiness or an attempt to confuse. If you look-up “Clanging” it will be found in the psychological disorder sections of reference material (regarding people who associate words that have simular sounds but are not related).

One of the foremost claims of clanging is “Master Mahan” [1] being a clang of “Master Mason.” This idea causes a lot of discontentment with some, not being able to quite put their minds around the whole situation.


An etymology study of the word Mahan could be an interesting and even fun exercise, clanging words together to imply associations like "Mormon," “Mahan,” “Mason,” “Mayhem,” “Man,” ”Ham,” OK, even “Sam I am.”

So, I pose this question; does anyone really believe that Joseph Smith thought, in his mind, that the Book of Moses was talking about Masonry when it mentioned Master Mahan?

For the non-believers, if Joseph Smith meant Mahan as an association clang, why would he associate their own fraternity with the enemy of the church?

The Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses clearly spell-out that “Mahan” is associated with the “Secret Combinations.” And what this meant.

Did Joseph and the early brethren think they were entering the “Secret Combinations” when they entered the Masonic Lodge? Of course not.

It seem that the early brethren were clear on the meanings of Mahan and Mason. But, latter-day detractors appear to suffer from a “Clang Disorder.”

- Brethern & Sisters, adieu.

[1] Moses 5:31-49

Masons, Friends of Foes?

If we accept that “Mysticism” is the study of ordinances you can’t avoid discussing “Masonry.” [Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, Deseret Book, pg. 28.]

Hugh Nibley said: “Latter-day Saints believe that their temple ordinances are as old as the human race and represent a primordial revealed religion that has passed through alternate phases of apostasy and restoration which have left the world littered with the scattered fragments of the original structure, some more and some less recognizable, but all badly damaged and out of proper context.” (Hugh Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, Deseret Book, pg 369).

I suspect Nibley had Masonry foremost in mind when he gave the above quote, but where does that put Masonry in a modern setting? More importantly, what should we think of Joseph Smith, and the early brethrens involvement with Masonry? These questions have sent some Mormons packing, some screaming, but most just settle into a cognitive dissonance.

I see Masonry as the fragmented remains of earlier dispensations. These remains were the intellectual frameworks that provided (or assisted) Joseph Smith with understanding of how to structure modern temple worship, with ordinances being provided against a theatrical backdrop. The same could be said of Joseph Smiths life that was set in a protestant society where he learned the bible. In an English speaking America the intellectual frameworks existed to read the bible, study history, and use logic. These all made Joseph as sharper tool in the Lord’s hand.

Ultimately, the real question is did Joseph Smith restore the ascension rites under the direction of God, or did he borrow it from Masonry – and it is just dead quaint philosophy? If we answer that, the questions of did he use this from Masonry, and that from the Baptist becomes irrelevant.

I participated in a discussion about Masonry and Mormons at TheBackYardProfessor.com that I think discussed these issues pretty well; Masonry Discussion.

I vote friend.