Episode #195: The Doctrinal Canary In The Cole Mine W/Michael Ness

0:26 The. You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. Well, I'm a big guy. Just glad to be here. Dude, I love, I love these conversations we have together. I always end up learning something. This one is kind of unique, right? And I go back to that and I've quoted on the podcast several times, but I think it's worth repeating, especially here in the in the context of of the discussion we're going to have, which is every heresy begins with a misconception about who God is.

1:11 Sure. OK. And that's where it starts always. And so today we're going to talk about the Adam God Doctrine and more specifically about groups that ended up rejecting it and what happened to those groups. Because there does seem to be a pattern, right? I won't say it repeats 100% of the time, but boy, a good majority of them seem to to start to venture out from those waters that were revealed by Joseph and things quickly go off the rails. Sure. No, Brigham Young when he, he had actually been teaching it in a very subtle fashion for years.

1:55 But the famous statement is, you know, April 9th, 1852, here you will have into severe earth Jew, Gentile, St. and Sinner. Our father Adam Michael came to the Garden of Eden with a celestial body and one of his wives, right? And he says that this doctrine will prove the salvation or damnation of all we hear right. Right. That's that's a bold statement, a very bold statement. And there's other times where he talks later or like if 18601865 or so, the public rhetoric is, do I care that the Latter Day Saints believe what I said about Father Adam? No. You know, and probably because, you know, and we know he got pushed back from some people like Orson Pratt. And so maybe he wanted to walk back that strong stance from the pulpit.

2:46 But I don't think he's wrong. No. Yeah. And also, he can't change anyone's mind, you know, right? So how much can he care? I did. He did his job. Right right now that's that's a good point and to back up what Brigham says, the New Testament is pretty clear on this, right? It's in John where he says you know this is life eternal to know the the true and living God and Jesus Christ whom he. Sent. He always quoted that too. Did he really? Brigham whenever a lot of the time when you get went into an Adam God discourse he would use that scripture. And see, that's not just Brigham, that's the Savior himself, I believe. Well, it is, right? That's John 17, verse 3, right?

3:28 One through three. Yeah. And so he's the Savior's drawing the line here. This knowledge about who God is, my Father, your Father. This is of supreme importance. And the more I go along, the more I think it's true. And and as you and I came up with this idea to have this conversation about groups who've disavowed it and what happened to them, it gets pretty stark. It does. Before we get into the more recent history, I'll have to like to backtrack for sure to down the road a bit. The first Adam Theistic statement I'm aware of comes in June of 1835.

4:11 OK, this is 4 years before one of the more famous discourses Joseph Smith ever gave on Adam, which is the one we're usually aware of. It's 1839 before August 9th and he talks about how Adam holds the keys of the universe, you know, and he reveals the ordinances. You know, you're familiar with that. You call it any most of our people, especially if you've read the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It's around page 157 to 161. It's that sermon. So it's four years predating that. And it was published. So it's not a sermon. It's a it's a, it's a little excerpt from an article written by WW Phelps in the Messenger and Advocate, I believe.

4:53 Let me double check that real quick. Yeah, Messenger and Advocate. And so for those who don't know, WW Phelps was considered the ghost writer for Joseph Smith for many years. You know, just like Oliver Calgary would have been the mouthpiece, right? And Sidney rigged and right, But but Phelps was the the writer, right? So he's the one that's getting the the he's the sounding board for all Joseph's ideas early on, right. And he writes to in an editorial in a response to someone who has submitted a letter to the newspaper, he he writes back saying, I am truly glad that you have mentioned Michael, the Prince who I understand is our great Father Adam. New light is occasionally bursting into our minds of the sacred Scriptures, for which I am truly thankful. We shall by and by learn that we were with God in another world before the foundation of the world and had our agency that we came into this world and have our agency in order that we may prepare ourselves for a Kingdom of glory, become archangels, even the sons of God, where the man is neither without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord. A consummation of glory and happiness and perfection. So greatly to be wished that I would not miss of it for the fame of 10 worlds.

6:16 Wow. And so that's really interesting. It's obviously not saying guys Adam is God, but what it is saying is we get to become archangels, right? And that an Archangel in his definition is the sons of God, where neither the man is without the woman nor the woman is without the man. That is what smart people with degrees would call a hierogamous marriage. So not not polygamous, hierogamous, right, and not hypergamous. Right. I know hierogamous is the sacred marriage. Gotcha.

6:58 OK. And all the ancient cultures believed, you know, when you go back to like ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, there were certain ceremonial rites and things that would go on where the king and the queen would personify at the deities. And it was like celebrating the New Year, for example. And so the earth is. The. Earth. The earth is symbolically being renewed. It's after the fall and winter and spring is is there and the earth is being renewed. So they have a ritual reenactment of the gods fighting, dying. It's like Ragnarok with right, the worse, like the twilight of the gods. But then after the twilight of the gods, there's the resurrection and creation, right? And that culminates in a sacred marriage between the father God and the mother God.

7:44 Gotcha, right. And the king and the queen or the OR the priests and priestesses, they represent the the sacred right and initiates also played those roles. So the initiates played it at the same time the king and queen, you know, going through it. Things like that existed, so I'm not sure if it was always that way at all at once, but yes, interest. And so we have an allusion to a sacred marriage ceremony type format years before the Nabu temple and before sealing practices are being performed among the Saints. And it's tied directly to being an Archangel, which Adam is.

8:27 Right, right, because what? What was the definition of Archangel according? To the restoration so according to this, you know this isn't in the standard works or anything, but it's a it's a married man at this point. OK, right. You know this definition says that an Archangel is a married man. I don't know if there's a strong correlated definition for Archangel. Besides, if you go into the roots arc means head right rule and Allred said something along the lines of he's an Archangel because he bridges the celestial worlds and the mortal worlds. Gotcha, you know, and brings them together, transverses them too, which is interesting.

9:09 And we can come back to a point that might be tangential to that later inner. But I think that's a profound statement because it's years before all the priesthood stuff on Adam, and it's definitely years before sacred marriages ceremonies are revealed in novel. That was 1835. 1835 so they're subtler things too, because it's before the foundation of the world and even mentions that this glory is something I wouldn't miss for 10 worlds. So it's plurality of worlds is in the context of this, of this whole thing too. That shows that Joseph's thinking about these things and probably getting some sort of revelation totally a lot sooner than maybe any of us understand, right? I think there's a narrative out there that that things look remarkably Christian, right?

10:04 With with some additional scripture during Kirtland and then all of a sudden there's just an explosion in Nauvoo of things that would be uniquely Mormon. But these sorts of things are interesting because it definitely shows the a trajectory, right, that that he's, he's at least thinking about praying about these things a lot sooner than any of us know. Could be. I think so. Or he knew more, you know, than he was letting on. Yeah. But then again, records aren't nearly as good in that era. You know, especially you have the Saints are kind of divided. There's a lot of people in Missouri at the time that Joseph's in Kirtland and for example, Parley P Pratt was running a school of the profits in Independence before they were kicked out.

10:46 We have 0 record of anything. That went on. That I'm aware of. It would have been nice to have that. I bet you there were some really cool Adam on Diamond stuff mixed up in that. So that's super interesting that you bring that up because yeah, Joseph's talking about Adam on Diamond at least is I don't know when the first revelation on it in the DNC was. It's like Section 116 where it's revealed where it is, but he when you go into the Kirtland era and Joseph Smith is working on the book of Abraham and the Egyptian alphabet and grammar manuscripts, Adam on Diamond's in it. And so that's that's also around 1835. So that's interesting. 1816 about 116 excuse me, 116 or 117 I believe is the the section where Adam on Diamond is revealed to be Spring Hill, Missouri. 1838 May of 1838.

11:46 So according to the Egyptian Alpha and Grammar book, depending on when that was dated to, I think he started work on it in 35. It's also predating that revelation. Holy cow had him on Diana being an important place, right? Yeah, so he's really. It's just not been revealed where it was yet. So he's really thinking about these things and he's getting more information than he's willing to pass on at that time. Interesting. Not are all the people who apostatized in those days just left and right? They're the ones that heard it, you know, I don't know. Right. Well, that's a possibility too, right? I mean, people do tend to look at Joseph a lot and call him a blasphemer and and those sorts of things because of the revelations that he gets.

12:30 So I didn't surprise, wouldn't surprise me in the least. So, but when we do get to Nauvoo, we have at least one statement to the Council of 50 where Joseph says that he gives a definition for the word almond, which we find in Adam on Dialman. And he says almond is the first man and almond, Christ is the first man's son. Well, there's only one person ever in Scriptures who's called the first man, and it's the first man, Adam. Well, and here's the thing, right? And and this gets interesting and, and has strong ties and implications to a certain portion of the temple ceremony, right? Because there's no way, right?

13:11 So if, if and, and correct me if I'm wrong here, almond means first man. That's what Joseph said in 1844. OK and then son Almond is the first man's first born son. So he said so there's a revelation in 1830 where he says almond means is the name of God in the pure language. Son Almond is the name of Christ in the pure language. And then in the 1844 discourse, he doesn't say son Almond. He says Almond. Christ is the first man's son. OK, the first man's son? Not necessarily. Not Son Almond. Not that I don't think there's a difference there. He just uses a different name for Christ. Son Almond versus almond. Christ is the he said is the first man's son, but he said Son Almond was Jesus Christ. So it doesn't necessarily denote birth order of that son. I don't recall it saying that.

14:01 OK. All right. But either it's saying son, Almond is Jesus Christ in the pure Adamic language, or Almond Christ. You know how many Christs are there? Is the first man's son? Right. I don't think it said is the only begotten son, but it's the first Son. And so, yeah, I think that's, you know, I don't know Adamic so and I don't know what Joseph was trying to well. You won't push up. On I would, if I could, I would be, but it is interesting, you know, on this and we've talked about this a little bit in our when we did our Old Testament classes, the, the name almond seems to have linguistic cousins in our, in things we know about like in the Egyptian pantheon, we have almond raw, right, you know, but like even before that that that was really two gods combined. It was almond other than raw, but almond is almond, you know, other than what's the other one?

15:05 Ammon is like the Greek form of al moon God. And so it's really funny when Ammon, son of King Moziah, goes to minister of the Lamanites and he's chopping off a bunch of arms and King Lamoni gets really freaked out because he's like, are you the great spirit? Because that there might have been something left in their language where he knew now that like you have a very ominous name and you're acting in a way that like a no man can act. Right. OK, so then just not the name, but not just his actions, but the name is what's? Might have been and we're not we don't pick up on that, but that might have been part of King Lemoni's calculus. There mentally interest was, you know, because he and he admits to actually, maybe it maybe it's King Lemoni's father admits to Aaron.

15:54 He's like, I don't know what God is, you know, but I believe in a great spirit. So like they've degenerated at a certain level, but I really think, especially considering that Lehigh knew Egyptian and some of that have been carried over to that family. I I can't not, you know, think that it's reasonable that the Lamanites would have some sort of understanding, even if it's been bastardized and degenerate like that, that name would mean something to them, right. And so you got a guy with the name of the Great Spirit or a name for the Great Spirit or some other deity that's hacking people's arms off and seems like he's a God in human form that's manifest. Yeah, right.

16:35 And so it's really funny, actually. Yeah, 'cause he, he seems a little freaked out, right? I mean, King Lamona, he's like, OK, there's this dude out there that's got the name of God, of God, and he's out here lopping off arms like nobody's business. Yeah. And yeah, he's like, no, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm just a mortal man. But it's interesting, right? It's but. And so you have those linguistic connections. I was trying to think if there's another one might not be super important to get into. But even Amun RA in the Egyptian endowment that he, you know, the work that he Nipley did is fairly Adam theistic, at least the parallels he draws from it. And he he writes about this in his book, the the message of the the Joseph Smith papyri in the message of the the Egyptian endowment, I think is what it's called right? And he talks about how the Council of the Gods decided to go create the earth and they one of them volunteers to go and his name is Atom.

17:47 You know, ATUM which other scholars, some guy named Lefevre, actually some French guy was like, well, there's really no phylological reason why we shouldn't consider Adam and Atom to be the same person. You know, phylology being like the study of languages because you know, TS and DS sound alike. You know, if you've ever had kids, you know, my son, my son does this all the time. You know, TS and DS get mixed up and you know, especially considering English isn't a phonetic language. So each letter doesn't have a like a strict 1 sound, you know, and A's and OS make similar sound and A's and E's. And so you have Atom volunteers to go to down to the earth. And so RA and Pata and Atom go and Pata forms a body out of the clay of the earth, right out of the out of the red Egyptian desert, and breathes the breath of life. And that's actually Atom, the God that he's breathing life into.

18:55 But he also talks about how in the creation, they ascend and descend multiple times and that and that the sun is a figure that illustrates this because they're all really the same God, right? And so the setting sun and that we've all seen this when the sunsets to a certain level at certain times of the year for and under certain conditions of weather, the sun becomes red, right? Like a deep red. Right. As it's getting close to setting, that's the God coming down to the earth and yeah, immortal, yeah, partaking of the blood. Red me the red sunset being a symbolic. Of the blood and that sort of thing. And then and then it dies when it goes around the earth and it's night time and then it rises back into the heavens And at the at its height, you know, at the highest and when it's shining the brightest, that's raw. It is like it's, it's, it's gained, it's regained its glory after being on right.

20:00 But he, he really also likens it to returning and reporting. Interesting, you know, going down and reporting the it's the gods going down to the earth working and then going back to the divine council and reporting what they've been doing. Holy cow. You see, it's so it goes back so far, right? I mean, and then define this on the frontier of America in the 1830s is craziness. And so also in in your Eastern civilizations, you have a phrase that's equated to the royal figures, you know, the kings of those nations. They're they are actually called the image and the likeness of God, and they are worshipped as if they were God on earth. Well, you go to the Genesis account and when the gods make Adam, what do they say?

20:58 Let us go make a man after our image in our. Lives, and if I'm not mistaken there's some from some of our other conversations. There's some stuff in the Apocrypha that talks about the reason Satan was. Cast out was because he refused to worship out worship Adam. That's true. A lot of the early Christian apocrypha had to do with that. Interesting. And Islam, it's in the Quran interesting. Which again. Puts so much weight on Michael, you know, slash Adam for our purposes here, that he's not just simply a figure that you have to tell the story of.

21:41 There's something else going on with Adam. So I would, I called up Jacob Adrian earlier to ask him a few questions about the other groups that did Temple stuff. You know, you know, Joseph Smith dies and you got the Cutler rights, you got the people who followed Lyman White, you had William Smith, you had James J Strang. Like they all had prospective Temple projects. And he told me that we think that the lecture at the Veil was Brigham's thing, but there's evidence that Joseph Smith had a lecture at the veil. And what Joseph, what Brigham said about Joseph Smith's lecture at the veil was along the lines of Joseph taught that God made man out of the dust of the earth just the same way that we make our children out of the dust of the earth. Interesting.

22:33 So and so you, what is that that you have? You have that's procreation. It's procreation and Moses chapter 6 verse 59 says the same thing where it says out of dust, I I, I created and made a living soul, which was out of how did I was looking at this was this is huge to me. What was it in Moses? It's Moses 6 verse 59. I want to get that one right without paraphrasing it.

23:16 So in as much as ye were born into the world by water and blood and spirit, which I made, and so became of dust a living soul, so he's saying you were born out of water, blood in the spirit which is, and he which he defines as being made of dust. Interesting. So it's. He's telling you right so right there about his about out of about all of our divine. Parentage. So, yeah, you're born into the world through what? The water of the womb, right? That's the water. Blood. Yeah, obviously it's, it's in you, you know, and the Spirit which God puts into you, right.

24:00 Interesting. You know, people have often asked the question, if Adam, God is so important, why isn't it more pronounced in, in the, in the, in the Canon of Scripture there? My push back to that is always, well, these are the mysteries, right? The same books that advanced scholars are going to be using are the same ones that the guy who's just learning about Jesus is going to be using, right? It doesn't make sense that these would be popping forward. With that kind of clarity, right, because you risk hurting somebody before they ever get going. Well, a lot of the scriptures are written that way too. And it's not necessarily to obscure Adam God. It's to obscure a lot of things Christ taught in parables and a lot of the Isaiah taught in, you know, he was told to his ministry would be super difficult because he was going to have to preach things in a way that people couldn't see and understand.

25:06 And he was and he asks the Lord how long and he says till the cities be wasted without inhabitant, right. You know, and you're just going to preach them and they're not going to get it Interesting. They're not going to be able to hear it. They're not going to be able to see it. So yeah, the scriptures are written in a way to teach you something. Wherever you were at. Wherever, thank you, wherever you're at. And there's a, there's a cool little anecdote too, where, you know, apocryphal type stuff, where in the Gospel of Mark, you know, there's, there's allusions to something called the secret Gospel of Mark. And the way the story goes is, you know, Mark the evangelist.

25:49 You know, he was Peter's scribe. And when Peter died in Rome, Mark took Peter's notes and his own notes and he made two works with it. And he made the Gospel of Mark that we have. And he made a what they call a secret Gospel of Mark, which was, which was for those who have become perfected. And so around the 2nd century, you have people who, and they fascinate me and I love and hate the Gnostics. But the claim to the Gnostics were that, oh, we know the things that the apostles knew that they didn't teach, and therefore we'll give them to you. And so they were like, we have the secret gospel of Mark. And so you have 1 Bishop writing to one of the leaders of the church in Alexandria.

26:47 And he's, he asks, you know, is the secret gospel of Mark that they're talking about real? And the, the actually it's not, it's he's not writing a, a guy in Alexander. He's writing Clement for Rome. And Clement tells them, yes, it is real. And the true version is under lock and key in Alexandria. And the, what they have quoted, they have added to it and changed it. But I will quote to and we have this letter by the way. Wow, we have the letter. So we have the letter that where, where. Clement acknowledges that there's a secret gospel, and he says that they've changed it.

27:29 Let me quote to you 2 passages as it actually reads. And in one of them it gives the Lazarus story, which I mean, there's slight details changing, but that's only found in the Gospel of John, right? So, Mark, that we have doesn't talk about Lazarus at all. And so this account doesn't name Lazarus, but it says that Jesus went down to Bethany and that the brother of one of the women there had died, and that Christ went and rose him from the dead. But then that night Christ took Lazarus, although Lazarus isn't named, but he takes this man into an upper room and dresses him in linen.

28:12 And they spend all night discussing the mysteries. That sounds oddly familiar for upper room. Discussing the mysteries. Yeah. And there's one other that was one of the two passages that climbed quotes back to this guy. I don't recall what the other one was off top. Interesting. And so, yeah, there's a there's things that we just don't know, you know, in in the Book of Mormon, you know, how often was it that Nephi says, I was about to write more, but the spirit constraints. Yeah. Second Nephi 32 or 33, whatever, and then Moroni or Mormon, whoever the narrator is around. Third Nephi, Mormon, he said I was about to write more, but the Christ said not to.

28:56 For if they believe these things, they will believe the greater things also. And what was Christ doing? He was at the temple. I was about to write more, but he said if they will believe, you know, I will, I will test the faith of my people. If they believe these things that you write, they'll believe the greater things also. So that's in a temple context. In fact, that's an but hold on one second before you go there. That's an interesting qualifier. If they will believe these things, they will then believe the greater the greater thing. The implications of that are huge, right? Yeah. Saying you don't believe the Book of Mormon if you don't believe in the greater things. Right.

29:40 Who? That's fascinating, right? And, and I suppose this is where we should talk about this a little bit, right? And I think this is an important distinction to make, right? This is the Canon of scripture, OK? OK. What is a Canon? A Canon? Is the collection OK now? We read in the Doctrine and Covenants that it gives a definition. What is scripture? According to Doctrine and Covenants, all the the prophets for the servants of the Lord speak as moved upon by the Holy Ghost. K So would something like teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith be considered Canon? I'm not Canon, but scripture. I would consider it scripture. K but it's not canonized.

30:22 It's not canonized. So while it's not in the Canon, it's still scripture. My contention for these deeper mystery things is that you can definitely find allusions to them here, right? More specifically in the Doctrine and Covenants. My contention has been for a while now. And this isn't to negate the Old Testament, New Testament, or Brick of Mormon. That's not what I'm doing. But they are salvatic texts. They deal with salvation. It's not. There is some allusions to exaltation, but it doesn't come right out and say it like it does in the Doctrine and Covenants. Now, to get to the mysteries in the Restoration, I think you have to pay attention to Joseph's sermons, all of them, especially the Nabu period, because there he's going to start illuminating, I think, some of these mysteries, or at least tipping his hand that there's more there. So I want to talk about the word mysteries too. People get really bent out of chase. I just had a, my parents just came out to visit a little bit ago, for example.

31:31 And I don't know exactly how we got into it, but my sister or mother or someone said something along the lines of, oh, we don't need to know the mysteries. And I said, because the definition generally is oh, secret things or things that we can't really figure out, so why bother? That's not what mysteries are. No. And I I said hold on, we need to back up and redefine what that word. Did you educate them? I tried to and my my dad had a light bulb moment because he understands certain he's read other things that kind of made this work. And I said the mysteries are the temple rites and then it all fit because there's something else. Historically, have you ever heard of the Mithraic mysteries?

32:15 No. OK so Mithra was a Persian God and a like a Hindu Indo Aryan God as well. Explain. That term Indo Aryan. So that's like the crossover between India and Iran, right, That culture, but it comes West and it eventually becomes pretty popular in Rome. OK, and very popular in Rome. And Mithras is the Roman version. And it was a secret esoteric order, OK, The soldiers, the legionaries, OK. And you didn't have to be initiated to, you know, if you were in the legions.

33:02 But it it existed, in fact, it got all the way to Britain. There is Mithraeum, which are Mithraeum temples. Yeah, and Mithraic temples were operating long after Rome abandoned Britain. Well, I, I guess I, that kind of makes sense, right? Because if it's predominantly the centurions or the soldiers who are picking this up, they get dispatched everywhere, right? So right, they're going that's going to spread wherever Rome does. Right. And there's a lot of interesting things that are similar between Christ and Mithras. There's a miraculous birth. Is Mithras the bull? Mithras is the God that slays the bull. OK, thank you. I knew there was a connection there. Something. And that's a fascinating topic.

33:43 We will do another podcast on by the way or, or where that will play in That's the Astro theology. Oh. OK, which will be a few one down the road if I ever get my my act together. So Mithras is born of a miracle, right? You know, and it's, it's depicted different ways depending on the sources. And he's restoring cosmic order by slaying the bull, which represents chaotic forces. Right. Right. And the blood from the bull rejuvenates the the ground. So it's like that fertility. Kind of, right? Right. The newness of life being renewed, but the soldiers would go through.

34:30 I mean, that's what this they were called the those rites we're called Mithraic mysteries. My dad knows a few things about that because of other books that we both read. And so when I said no, the mysteries are the temple, it made sense because he's read things about Roman legionaries being initiated through, you know, the temple, you know the temple of Roman legionaries, you know this cult. Because he had that background, the idea. And he understood, oh, Mithraic mysteries, and we have our own mysteries. The mystery is progressing towards godhood because you personify the deity going through these things. What do we do when we go through the temple? We personify Adam and Eve, right? Right.

35:12 And the the 7th degree of the Mithraic mysteries, like the highest one is simply called Father Potter in Latin, right? Right. And that's it. That's the highest degree. You know, it's it's you talked about and you talked about this with the kings as well in the representation, the initiates putting themselves in the place of the king and the queen or Adam and Eve. That holds so much significance because if we look at how traditional Judaism practices things like Passover meal, you know, tabernacles, those sorts of things, they are literally putting themselves in the place of the ancestors.

36:08 So if I'm not mistaken, when when a Passover meal comes around, someone says, and this is what the Lord did for me. Well, they didn't really do it. He didn't really do that for you. He did that for your ancestors. And so in in some ways what we do in the temple follows that same pattern, right? We're going to put ourselves in the place of the ancestors, in this case the ultimate ancestors, but nonetheless, the patterns still hold. Right. Yep. Yes, Sir. So. So your dad puts this all together based off of those? Yeah, over other conversations we had had and, and things that we both had read together. You know, a lot of what I've ever read, you know, besides recent years because he was reading. Right.

36:57 Right. This is father, like son kind of a thing. Sure. Hey, Dad. What you reading? Oh, reading this. Oh, that sounds interesting. Can I borrow it after you? Whatever. You know, that was a lot of my childhood. Yeah. No. Makes sense. And he's a voracious reader. Right. Right. No, it makes sense. It's good. Give you guys something to talk about, too. Yeah. No. And so and so, Yeah. The parallels are obvious. So. Yeah, mysteries are. And there's there's Greek there. There's the the Lewisian mysteries and the Orphic mysteries are Greek mysteries and I think it's the Orphic ones where the initiates represent. And this is interesting too, because the genealogy of the gods are totally different and it's like a totally different cosmology than like normal media when we talked about, you know, in pop culture, like depictions of like Greek mythology is all based off of like Homer and Hesiod in their books.

37:52 But like when it gets into the temple stuff, it's completely different. And so for example, like Dion Dionysus is one of the gods, if not the God that you personify. And in this, in the, in the liturgy, in the myth, he is, you know, Zeus begets Dionysus and then Dionysus is devoured and torn apart by typhoon, which is he's the, he's the father of the giants and the oysters. And the whole play in that temple is about Dionysus getting resurrected. Interesting, you know, and becoming more exalted.

38:33 And I think he becomes like Apollo or something like that instead, you know, the God of the sun. Right. You know, yeah. It's all over the place. Yeah, No, those motifs are consistent. Consistent. Interesting. So, OK, so we've kind of established that this is a pattern stretching back for all of mankind's history. Yeah, the temples for sure is. Yeah, absolutely. Or get my notes back up here. OK, we're good. Where where do you want to go from here? Up to you.

39:14 So we talked about Joseph Smith, his lecture at the Veil, talking about how we, we create our children out of the dust of the earth the same way that God created Adam out of the dust of the earth, right? When Joseph dies, you have Lyman White, he goes down to Texas and he's the first person to build a temple West of the Mississippi, right? James J Strang, I don't know if he ever did temple ordinances outside of the temple, but he was building a temple. I don't think it ever got completed, but entirely sure about that. But he was building 1. William Smith, Joseph's brother, was doing temple stuff.

39:56 I want to say maybe with John C Bennett, I don't recall, or maybe independently. No, I think it was John C Bennett. Or maybe John C Bennett was with James String and his was overly Masonic and like he called it the highest order of the priest, like the Illuminati. Really. Yeah. And you can, you can read about that and shoot, I don't recall the source, but Hugh Nibley talks about it and one of I think it's a, it's an article I really love. It's called 1 Eternal Round, a hermetic view which is found in Temple in Cosmos. All right. A fantastic article and he he brings it up kind of illustrating like he like it seems like John C Bennett was really trying to up one up Joseph and the complexity and it was just a bunch of nonsense really.

40:50 You could see that from Bennett right there there if if you ever read Bennett, he is kind of pompous. Right. And so I kind of want to bring up also an evaluation of, you know, because Adam God is in the temple, What happens when you mistreat temple ordinances generally? I think it's also germane to the conversation. Alpheus Cutler is another one. And they did temple stuff outside of a temple, but they didn't build 1 until and they went all over the place. I think they were up in Wisconsin for a while. And then they went to Missouri and they were in Kansas, I want to say, for a little bit too. They did travel around a little bit. Yeah, and they have A to this day, you know, there's like 7 members left to their church, but they have a temple. Do they really?

41:36 And they do, they do baptisms for the dead and I think they do endowment still, but like they don't really. They don't proselyte and I don't think. So is. It you people can join them even maybe you could, but I don't know really you can't. No, he's not. I think one person, kind of I was reading something about the people I was in preparation for this. I was reading an article that Deseret News put out in 1988 and I think it said something along the lines of one guy went and joined their Yeah, one guy had joined the church and he's. It's listing all the crazy stuff that people who claimed one Mighty claimed to be 1 Mighty and Strong had done after like the laugh for the murders and is like. And contrary to how people claiming to be the one Mighty and Strong are normally advocates of polygamy, this guy wasn't.

42:27 And he left the LDS church because Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, went and joined the Cutlerites, and then claimed to be the one mighty and strong for them. And then they kicked him out. Which which again, I think is, is, you know, kind of like a public service announcement here if you're going to claim to be the one mighty and strong, you do not have a long career in front of. You. No. No, you don't. Unless you're really that guy, you're not that guy and you're you're your career is going to be short lived. So to my knowledge, we don't know anything about the Cutlerite endowment, but we do know they used to practice polygamy, but they stopped.

43:13 OK. And I've heard multiple reasons for why. But they don't do that anymore, and in fact, to this day they will deny that they ever did. Really. Yeah, like that. Hard of a turnabout on that one. Went full 80 and stuck. To it, right. And so like, OK, can you make when you start abandoning principles of the gospel, what happens? Well, they're nothing now at this point, they're seven members. Yeah, if that. Are they Adam God folks? Maybe. I doubt it, but you never know. Because we don't know. They won't tell any. They never. They don't write the ceremony down. It's all. All thy memory and oral tradition passing it on. It's spooky too. I mean, I know Brigham essentially had to do it that way, right?

43:56 Or at least part of it. I, I don't know, as as I read the history, I think that there was probably some stuff written down. Oh, sure. Because I had heard one temple president once back in my LDS days state that the Saints brought the, the endowment out that way. The only issue I, I take with that so, so it paints this picture and a false picture that, OK, this was all just knowledge people had. And we don't see temple work popped back up again until 1877 down in Saint George. Well, that's not true, right? Because we know they're doing endowments and temple ordinances without even an, an endowment house in Utah as they're building temples. And then we know they build an endowment house cropper before the temple.

44:50 So it's not like to, to me, the, the, the Brighamite lines show a very clear and consistent pattern that those ordinances never really go out of vogue, right? There's not much of A space of time that they're not practicing. Those no. So on the planes they would do, ceilings they would. They did a few second anointings, I believe, and they would consistently do prayer circle forum meetings and stuff like that where everyone would dress up in the temple garbs, you know, and you're on the planes. There's no temple. So at least that's being practiced, right? You know, the ceremony, the drama wasn't as far as I'm aware, ever done except for something along that line was done on Ensign Peak with Addison Pratt and one other guy before they were sent on their missions to Hawaii. Or, or was it some other island?

45:35 I don't recall, but then, yeah, immediately they built the council house, which was a 45 by 45, two-story building and they did endowments in the upper section, the second story of that until 1853 when the endowment house was built. And then that was built for the and that was the first time a progressive endowment where rooms were architecturally pre planned to illustrate what we see now because every other time it was veils realm. Right, interesting. You know, you and I talked about this a little bit beforehand, and I like what you said because I it changed.

46:20 It changed my mind a little bit here because I always thought, OK, maybe these deeper things aren't really floating around Kirtland, but the fact you said they put up veils in the Kirtland Temple makes me very curious. Right. And so we never got to see what the full extent of Kirtland could have been. And you said, well, it was to divide the priesthood quorums. And that's true. That's the way it was used in that context. But they could have also eventually used them for the same ceremonies we have today. Right. And that would have been interesting. So it was there. Yeah. You have any other thoughts?

47:00 Nope. OK. See, that's Cutler, and he gets rid of polygamy. Lyman White was pro polygamy, but it wasn't like, yeah, it wasn't like Utah Reformation pro polygamy. Right, right. Lyman White's stance was pretty much if you if you're sealed in what we call the higher, You know what smart people call a hierogamous marriage, right? A sacred marriage. You will get glory, but if you have more than one, it'll be more glory. Right. And their endowment, from what we know was significantly different, though I don't know if the drama was there and it seems the Masonic elements were gone. It pretty much amounted to a washing of the feet and of the body and anointing of the head, placing of the garments and sealing the spouses and anointing them, kings and Queens, priests and priestesses, and that was it. So they were kind of like almost merging the second anointing with so with with maybe or or maybe it's more of an initiatory thing.

48:22 So the speculation is Lyman White got a second anointing. I don't think we know 100% percent sure. I could be wrong on that, but I think we're not 100% sure that he got a second anointing. Isn't there a quote from Brigham Young? Something to the effect of, and I'm paraphrasing here, but Lyman should be here with us, but nonetheless, he's perfectly within his rights to do what he's doing in Texas. Yeah, that does under, under the considering that. That does lead me to believe that he probably did right, if you ever said that, considering other things Brigham Young said about the second annoying thing. But they changed their mind about that, right? Yeah, Brigham started saying come back, come back, come back, right. And, you know, he had changed his mind. And then Lyman was like pretty bitter against Brigham. But one of the accounts we have from a guy named Holly, he says he, well, he, he went through his first endowment in the LDS Church or no, sorry, in like in Lyman White's temple in Zodiac, Texas.

49:28 Then in like the 1860s, he went to Utah and joined the LDS church. But by the end of it, he by the end of his life, he had joined the RLDS church and he went and testified at the Temple walk case. Oh wow. In favor of the RLDS Church. But he started describing the ceremonies that he had been through and and comparing the Lyman White's endowment and Brigham Young's endowment. And he said something along the lines of Brigham Young had created a second endowment that prepared you for the resurrection that Lyman White did not have. Now, that doesn't mean Lyman White didn't perform second anointings.

50:14 It just technically, it just means Holly never received it and and didn't know about it. It could mean it could mean Lyman never performed second anointings, but it could also mean that Holly just didn't know and was not in the right. In and out, right, Right. No. And. Look, I don't know what Lyman's ache was on One man ISM or any of those other things, but the guys who were more concerned with One man ISM don't typical, aren't as typically as excited to pass those along to other people because it's problematic, right? In that you're going to make somebody your equal and that for power hungry individuals, I'm not saying Lyman was one of these guys, but for guys who are, it poses a problem.

51:07 And I I I just don't know what Lyman's position was on on a doctrine like one man ISM. They only had a temple operative for two years and they were a fairly small group of about 200 people or so, give or take, right? So maybe things would have changed over time and, you know, and he would have initiated those people that way to the highest degree. And he was just holding off because got to prove it. Got to prove you're worthy. I don't know. Right. Or or maybe he had forgotten. You know, talking to Jacob about this, he was saying it makes sense. For example, with the White Heights didn't have marks on their garments like we do because in the Nauvoo ceremony that Lyman White had been familiar with, the marks were cut in after the covenants were made after the ceremony, right?

52:00 And therefore Lyman remembered going through without having marks on his garment. Right, because it was done at the end. Yeah, because they were physically cut in instead of abetting be sewn in. Right. Beforehand right? Interrupting to think about. You know, and, and gosh, I don't know when they they folded shop officially, but they weren't around very long, right? Oh no, I mean, I think Lyman died in 1858. And that was pretty much the end. That was the end of it, yeah. And a lot of the people went to the RLDS. Were the RLDS folks during that time more amenable to plural marriage and that sort of thing? I don't think so.

52:48 That's interesting, right? Because it is something down there and you would think that the easier fit would be to go to Utah. I would think that. I would think that. Which tells me that Wyman probably talked a lot of crap about bringing me up. That's probably true and so, but the RLDS never did an endowment. Right, I knew that. And so look at the state of them today when we're comparing, you know, in this exercise, right, right. They've completely lost everything and fractured and have rebranded to the Community of Christ, and they're essentially just an evangelical Christian organization that just might not be Trinitarian.

53:31 There was another guy I was talking to here not too long ago, a name that you would recognize who, who doesn't have, let's just say he doesn't have our sensibilities in fighting for some of the the doctrines we fight for. And he said, can you even call the community of Christ Mormon at this point? No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Right. I mean, Hook of Mormon is, at best inspired fiction. Oh, my goodness. Right. Yeah. Doctrine and Covenants have have turned into, quite frankly, a liberal pile that just espouses everything that traditional Mormonism or orthodox Mormonism stood up against, right? And continues to you had they're selling everything, right? Like if, if you want to know what a garage sale looks like for a, for a church, I mean, they seem to be right there. And, and I want to say there's great people in there. I'm not saying there's not.

54:38 But we're seeing a pattern now start to emerge, right? One with Wyman White's group and now with the Community of Christ slash RLDS, right? So on a tangent to this, that article I was reading about from Deseret News in 1988, that one mighty and strong. There's another guy I think in the RLDS church claimed to be the one mighty and strong after he found out that the missionaries of the RLDS had started baptizing polygamists in India in their in their mission field. Such a double standard. Oh dude, it is so rough, you know?

55:19 I know and. Then the LDS church won't baptize polygamists. I know in America, you know, we had among people, you know, I served my mission in Minnesota and there's a among minority there. I know some exist in British Columbia and some exist in Montana and with a high school, some over in Missoula. And awesome people love it. Great food. By the way, I don't know if you've ever. Who are the monks? So they came from Indo Indochina area which is Vietnam, Laos. So they're, they're, they never had a nation state in modern history, you know, so they, they lived in China. So they're kind of like the Pyrenees, not not really a nation state of their own. Right. So they lived in China and the Han Chinese pushed them out, OK. And interestingly, they say they used to have blonde hair and blue eyes, but they look Asian.

56:02 You know, they went down to Laos and Vietnam, and then during the Vietnam War, they all came over here. OK, Well, a lot of them did. OK. All right. Minnesota has a ton. Montana had a few. I don't know. I mean, I knew my first exposure was 14 to 18 growing up in Montana. Gotcha. You know, and I think there's a lot in British Columbia as well, but OK. But there's a lot in Minnesota and they're polygamist. Interesting. And we had monk speaking elders. Whoa, so it was a focal? Point dedicated missionaries to learn that language. I knew elders who they were particularly all that at times for weeks, as often as they could, they were instructed by the mission president to go to the temple in Saint Paul and go through the temple in English, go home and write the endowment in month. Holy cow, because they had not gotten among investigators to go and to progress, they needed to go through the temple. But they did not have that language yet in the temple. And for some reason, the elders were not allowed to take pens and notepads into the endowment to write down. So they had to go through the sessions over and over and over. And I talked to those elders.

57:23 But what are you up to this week? Going back to the temple, You know, got to translate more into teams among. I'd have been all over that. No, it would have been cool. But they were kind of tired of it, I bet. It's, in my opinion, kind of silly. But it's interesting. They were having that pilot program and then elders my age we're translating the endowment into into mom, which makes it hard because they they've changed the ceremony twice since then. Right, right. At this point, at this point, if, if it was the same elders, they'd have carpal tunnel. I mean, the with with the speed at which that ordinance is changing. Right. But we couldn't baptize the polygamist once, right? Dude, it's fascinating. So I remember I listened to a talk and and look, this dude comes with issues. I don't want anyone to think that I'm totally on board with some of his ideas or whatnot, but he did do some pretty good history, and that was D Michael Quinn. Yes, yes, yes he did.

58:19 And one of the things that he had said during this little presentation, so it was after his excommunication and they asked if he'd ever go back to the church, said, oh, I'd love to, but just because of some moral issues, I can't. Now. My first thought, Michael D Michael Quinn came out of the closet, said that he was gay. And I thought it was going to be over that issue. When someone pressed him and said, what kind of moral issue? He said back in the 80s when the LDS Church could could start or late 70s, early 80s, could start baptizing or ordaining black men of the priesthood, the numbers started to rise for baptisms in Africa. But polygamy was, I won't say ubiquitous, but it was close, right?

59:15 I mean, there was a lot of polygamy going on in Africa, but the church had made men get rid of part of their families, right? And Quinn said I won't go back until that gets fixed, which I thought was interesting, especially coming from a guy like Quinn because he, again, he's got no dog in that fight now other than just being a decent human being. So his interest in history came from when he read Samuel Taylor's book on his father, John W Taylor, and he read that story that he wrote about John W Taylor's life and, you know, getting in his defense of polygamy after the manifesto, Right, Right. That was kind of what inspired Quinn's trajectory on those studies and. He's, when fundamentalists asked him like, you know, you know why, you know, he said, you know, or why you show it, share the stuff with us.

1:00:09 And, you know, he's not a polygamist, he's not a fundamentalist, but he's always kind of supported fundamentalists to a degree. And he said something along the lines of because I believe in good families and I believe that this promotes good families. That's fascinating. And again, not a guy that's definitely got a dog in that fight, right? Interesting. And yeah, so coming back to the Community of Christ, there's not much much left now, right? Oh, and it's interesting, I've heard from, I mean, there's different factions, I think, or some will say the endowment was all made-up Bergen Young.

1:00:50 But then there's other ones who are more honest, who are like, yeah, no, Joseph Smith did give the endowment. And ultimately we just, we don't trust how it ended up. And we know and we knew for a while that we needed to progress towards that, but we never did. And we don't know what it's supposed to look like. And see, they're a fascinating case because so I'm not mistaken, anything from the Nauru period was looked at with the side eye at least, if not outright rejected, right? And so it seems like they never even got off on the right foot, right? And so, yeah, now they're just down to, you know, I don't know how many members, but things aren't going great.

1:01:37 No, no. When you have fire sales every so often for sacred historical sites to just pay the pensions, it's not a good place to be. Yeah, no, I imagine their break off groups are going to do better. You know, the ones that stay true to the, you know, before ordaining women and all that stuff. You know, the restoration branches, you know the true RLDS people. You know there's one in Jackson County, like Eastern Jackson County back in the, it's more rural. I think someone did a like their profit, did a podcast or something I was watching a year or two ago where he said they had 200 acres that they were trying to do into a development for a united order.

1:02:20 Wow. It's a big step. It is a big step. Don't know how it's turning out, but they're doing something OK, better than their parent organization. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe back more to Adam, God, Adam God's confusion people, Right. I think that's where I want to go with this. What are the common objections you hear to Adam God? The ones I get is that it doesn't fit scripture, but I want to put a caveat on that. Back to my one of the things I started with. I think they're saying it doesn't fit the Canon, not. Scripture, right, the I think the what I get pushed back with the most is who is Jehovah then, right, Yep, Yep, that's a big one, right? Yep.

1:03:11 And so Jesus Christ is identified as Jehovah and then therefore with the presentation of certain things, it seems to show Jehovah is in a or that is it. Let's just say that Adam and is this is in this subordinate position to Jehovah, right, right. Therefore Christ is above Adam. So therefore, how could Christ be the father or how Adam be the Father exactly. Yep, there is some evidence, not a lot, but there's one affidavit from 1860 or so, I think one guy who left the church, his name was John Hyde. He says that he recalls in the Nauvoo and or not not Naboo Salt Lake Endowment House that there was in the portrayal in the drama, there was 4 characters, Elohim, Jehovah, Michael and Christ, right.

1:04:06 And you have statements that kind of could support that from Brigham Young and Heber C Kimball, where they talk about in those days of the 1850s and early 1860s, about how they were perfecting the ordinances, right? Which might be like, OK, they're playing with a few things, still changing a few things in order to systematize it, right? Because Joseph Smith gave Brigham Young that charge to systematize it, right? Right. So we don't see that. And I'm not saying that that's a problem, but it is an evidence that in the minds of the architects of the endowment, those personages were different, right? Potentially, right. Lorenzo Snow, it seems, had a conversation with a one of the presidents of the 70, I think his name was Edward Stephenson and he was Edward Stephenson was an early convert joining the church in Nauvoo like 1832 and went up through the church and as young as a young man was a prolific missionary his entire life and became a very big proponent of Adam Gob later in his life. And he writes in his journal after having a conversation with Lorenzo Snow, that Elohim comes first, then second Jehovah, then third, Michael Adam, then 4th Jesus Christ. And he says, Who is Jehovah, the only begotten son of Elohim on Jehovah's world?

1:05:32 Interesting, interesting. So they're making that those connections and those those pointing out the differences between the characters. They are, and I'm not sure if Joseph Musser was aware of this, that person and those statements, but his model of that of God was very similar to that delineation where Elohim is above Jehovah and Michael. And to disambiguate Jehovah and Christ, he would. He would say there's a Jehovah Christ and Jesus Christ the Son of Mary. OK. Right, And so his and Joseph Muster's framework, Michael the Archangel might have been a Co heir on a previous world with Jehovah who was the Savior, was the Christ, but it's not our Christ. And Jesus Christ is Father Adam, Michael's son, right on this world.

1:06:26 That tracks. That makes sense. That's the model I. Adhere to with with Adam. God, yeah. Me too. That's the model that makes sense. Right. So, but there's evidence for the predate Joseph Musser for that with Lorenzo Snow and Edward Stevenson and with that expose right for the four characters in the endowment right disambiguating Christ and Jehovah. Right. So let me ask you this. Why is it do you think that that why do you think so many people are so anxious to get rid of it? Is it just, is it that we're, we're, we're still dealing with the sectarian notions? I think for that, that there can be no higher authority than Jesus.

1:07:10 Well, I think that's part of the there's a trend in Mormonism that we want the Christians to accept us and like be part of the same team. Just stupid. Like we want, we want recognition and it is stupid. So there's that. The second thing is we've never gotten over saying Adam sinned. Yeah. Where I can go find in the words of Joseph Smith, where Joseph Smith says that he didn't? Right. You know, and his teaching that Nauvoo that there was no sin in Adam for taking of the fruit. And so, but with that being raised from primary into adulthood, Adam sinned. And then to hear that Adam is God, that does not, you can't, you can't reconcile it because God can't sin, right?

1:07:55 So there's that. That's part of it, I think. I have no doubt that people who want to call it the Jehovah Jesus theory, right, That they want that, that they, they cling to that I, I get it, right? I, I don't think it comes from a bad place. I think it comes from a place of wanting again, trying to deal with that cognitive dissonance, right? You've been raised forever with this idea and the to back it up further, it comes from our forbearers who were involved in sectarian Christianity that Christ has to be superior in all ways.

1:08:38 To add, problem is it doesn't fit with the ordinances and it doesn't fit with statements that Joseph made about Adam, right? Because in the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, there are several statements that's not just insinuate but scream that that Christ is in a subservient role to Adam, right? Every time Adam is revealed, according to Joseph Smith, every time that Jesus is revealed, who's he revealed by Adam's authority? Adam's authority when the ordinances are revealed who they revealed by. Adam and his authority. Adam and his authority.

1:09:19 OK. So I want to go to someplace where I think people get really hung up and that's in the account and doctrine and covenants of when Christ will come to Adam on diamond. Everyone gives their their their accounting of what they've done with with priesthood keys. And then it says Adam then gives the keys to Christ. People have said, see, well that means that that Christ is in the the the dominant role there. Right. Yes, they do. They do say that. I think we're reading that the wrong way. They. Are well, who's the one enthroned? It's it's Adam.

1:10:00 He's. The one sitting on the throne of the burning wheels where 10,000 angels are ministering. To them, I I've often put it kind of in this kind of similitude, which is OK. When my son comes to me when he's 16 years old and he's proven himself to be responsible enough, makes good decisions, I can trust him. Dad, can I drive the car and I give him the keys? Right. Does that mean that my son's now in a a chief role to me? No, No. That just means that he's got to the point to where I'm like, you've earned it yours. Yep, because Joseph says that Adam had the keys of the universe, right?

1:10:53 And then he gives the keys to Jesus, but retains his standing at the as the head of the human family. So he's the one enthroned in the imagery. Where do I? Want to go with that? It's a coronation. Yes, thank you. It this is King Benjamin giving Mosiah the Kingdom at the Temple. This is the same program that we're seeing. And King Mosiah ascends to his father's throne, that Christ is ascending to his father's throne. Right. That's what's happening in Adam and Allen. Absolutely, but people get hung up because the cursory reading and and I'll say this without going back to the teachings of Joseph Smith that's found outside the cannon.

1:11:41 I can see where you get all screwed up with that, right. It's real easy to I held that belief for a long time until I started to real really dig in and peel back the layers on this thing and it becomes readily apparent that Adam's role is simply more than just somebody to kick start the race. It it, it had he's he's far more central to the figure than anyone knows. Sure. So maybe let me read a quote too from Heber C Kimball when Speaking of the endowment, Heber said.

1:12:23 Quote. We have been taken, as it were, from the earth and have travelled until we have entered the Celestial Kingdom. And what is it for? It is to personify Adam and you discover that our God is like one of us, for He created us in his own image. Every man that ever came upon this earth or any other earth will take the course that we have taken. End Quote. So yeah, we have traveled from this world to the celestial Kingdom. Why? To personify Adam. Also, in the earliest Nabu temple rituals, there were no witness couple. Right. And so EV. And the major part of the program was to make sure that there was an equal number of males and females. You didn't have to be married, but there had to be an equal number of males and females so that they can be couples that could each portray Adam and Eve throughout the endowment and each couple would individually make the covenants at the altar instead of having a witness couple. Interesting.

1:13:27 So what is this teaching? It's putting us in Adam's shoe. Very much so putting you in Adam's shoes. And what did Adam just do? Come down from from heaven and create the earth and then come down to it and people it and people it. Yeah. And so really the endowment is telling the future, our future, our future, not the past. And we look at it being the past with the names associated in that context. OK, let's say Jesus is Jehovah because we're the Adam and the Michael, and our wives are Eve. Right. But then it also makes sense with what Lucifer tells Eve. Right. Here's this fruit.

1:14:08 I'm not allowed to eat that. Why not? This is how Father gained his knowledge, right? He puts Elohim in the. Position of an Adam? Absolutely, Absolutely. There are. And, and look, this has been my contention for a number of years. Why are there so many temple changes in the LDS church? They're still trying to get rid of the Adam God doctrine. So that was one of the points I wanted to get to as soon as they got rid of the Adam God doctrine. It's an uncontrollable spiral of changes. Well, and, and it's not hard to figure out, right? I mean, look, I do believe that there are there, there is kind of divinity in that, right? In that when you reject something of God, he's going to take back more than just what you're rejecting.

1:14:55 It's anything that's associated with that, But from a more more from a far more practical standpoint, the temple is a narrative. Right. Well, if you get rid of part of the story, you now are chasing that forever, right? You're now like, oh, well, now that we got rid of this, this part doesn't make any sense either. It's true. So we got to get rid of that, right? And it they, and from my earliest temple experience, my very first temple experience, I walked out of the Boise, ID temple going. That was awesome. Same. But it also felt disjointed. There's one moment there where Lucifer's talking to Peter, James and John, and he addresses a congregation that's not there anymore. There's that leftover part from where the preacher used to be. You know, how is this teaching received? Very well, except for This man does not believe, because it was supposed to portray that whole thing with a preacher and a congregation singing a hymn, and that they accepted the message. But Adam was defiant against receiving false messengers, right?

1:16:01 Yep, that was still in there when I went. Through me too in 2015 Yep, my understanding is it's gone now but that's why we're seeing so many changes to the endowment proper, right? Because they have made changes and to keep a constant narrative, they gotta go make more changes. Well, then they make those changes and Oh well, crap, look, it affects this down the line. So we got to go make some changes here. And so it's like a dog chasing its own tail. It's never going to catch it, but it's going to do some damage along the way. Yep. So you can't just start taking whole cloth things out whether you like them or not, right? And look, I get it, people struggle with this, especially the atom God dog, because it is upsetting deity as it has been described to you that is uncomfortable. I understand that right?

1:17:07 It, it really wasn't super uncomfortable for me because I did it once before, right? So it didn't spook me as bad this time around. Sure. But nonetheless, it is. It is jarring, is disconcerting, but then there's other questions that go into Adam God that people really struggle with, right? Like, well, does does that mean God had sex with one of his own daughters, right? I mean, how would you answer that? Yeah, no, that's not an easy pill to swallow. Right, right now, I've heard some pretty interesting things on that, right? Things that are quite frankly, speculation.

1:17:50 But nonetheless, if you go investigate those things, I think people will find good answers to them. Sure. However, when you just start getting rid of this stuff, and I know that it doesn't make sense on the surface, right? When I approached Adam, God, I tried hard. I tried to make it make sense here. First up up in my head, right in my brain. I tried to make sense of it and it didn't work. Yes, I remember that too, but nonetheless. It's hard for me to get around Brigham's words. And then when you dive into the women of Mormendom and you see Joseph talking about this to his wives, there's something here, right?

1:18:33 And so I remember I said, OK, you know what? Maybe it just won't make sense to me. Let's just take this to God, pray about it and find out, right? He's always answered me to this point on these kind of important details. I'm sure He'll answer me on these, on this. Well, I got up and there was no miraculous vision or anything else, but I definitely gained a testimony of it. OK. Now the interesting thing is, is that once I gained a testimony of it, then the knowledge that I wanted to make it all make sense started to just drop into place. Sure. My experience is kind of similar to that. I learned about it when I read the CES Letter as a 17 year old, and I was kind of blown away, you know, especially in light of being taught a prophet can never leave the church astray. How can Brigham, you know, teach something that's so different than what I grew up hearing in the LDS church? And I threw me.

1:19:33 Right, right. Now, to be honest, at that point I was looking to be thrown. Actually I was. I didn't really, but that actually blew my mind and I was like, it's in the hole. I can walk away. Right. And when I eventually came back to the gospel and wanted a testimony, I had to wrestle with Adam, God now, because I knew of it and I can never put it down. And I thought about it and thought about it, studied it from the Scriptures, and I never came to any conclusions on it from the Scriptures. But I saw it in the temple. And I remember seeing that. Once you know Adam, God and then you go to the temple, I would wager even today things are going to pop out there and scream at you.

1:20:21 And I remember thinking to myself, but it makes so much sense, you know, it makes so much sense, but I don't see how it can be true. And then I then I found that the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and I read page 157 through 161 more Adam, Adam, theistic type stuff, right? And that's gnawing at me. And it still, it seemed like there was a complete reconciliation, but then I got a testimony of it and I felt very similar. I don't logically understand this, but I will, I will strive to. And I believe that this is true and it has come into place over time.

1:21:05 Right. Right. Interestingly enough, though, Orson Heights said something along the lines of, you know, when teaching on this idea, he didn't. Anyway, he said if you don't believe God is the literal father or grandfather of your body as well as your spirit, it's because you have none of the blood of Christ in your veins. That's that's that's a pretty bold statement. It is. Wow, Holy cow. You know, the other thing that I hear a lot about the Adam God doctrine is, well, it just doesn't make sense, right? I can't wrap my mind around it. And it was like I just said, you and I were both there. However, just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's not true.

1:21:50 That's true. I agree with you. I know nothing about the laws of nuclear thermal dynamics. However, those two bombs we dropped on Japan, that tells me those are true principles. They're true whether I understand them or not. So there's another testimony too, from Benjamin F Johnson that's pretty slept on, I think, where he says in his he wrote a letter to the First Presidency right before he died. And he says Joseph Smith taught us that God was the father of all human procreation, and he was both the father of our spirits and our bodies. Right, right. There's just the evidence that Joseph taught this is overwhelming at this point.

1:22:33 And there's no way you can you can just get through it. And I have said if you want to, if you want to do away with Adam, God, you do kind of have to crawl over the the graves of some of the best blood the church had in those early days to get there. It's true. So when we look at other groups, right, like Harmstein's group, yes. Did he, did he mess with the Adam God doctrine at all? He he did, as far as I know, you know, I didn't have time to go into this particularly and, and, you know, really look at it today, but I remember hearing. So for those who don't know and those who do know, you already know the Harmstein believed in something called multiple.

1:23:16 Mortal probations explain what that is to those who won't be listening. So multiple mortal probations is the idea that after you, after this life, maybe you're glorified or maybe you're not, but to get more glory or to have another shot at it, you're going to come back down to an Earth, be born again mortally, and go through a probation and become more perfect, right? Right, get another crack at it. Get another crack at it. And so Harmsten, to my knowledge, believed he was the reincarnated Joseph Smith. Oh yeah, Jesus Christ and Adam. Yep, I had one of the last members of the TLC group on this podcast and he said that much that he'd claimed to be the the resurrected Joseph.

1:24:06 Smith, I think he also not. Resurrected but reincarnated. He also claimed, I think I read something from Christopher Layton's website or something along these lines where he where Harmstone had claimed also to be Joseph in Egypt because like his brothers are worshiping him in the dream that he has, right? And so like, how do you get around that when you're always supposed to worship God, right? Right. So yeah, this is so it's really wacky. And I don't think that this format of multiple mortal probations fits at all with the temple structure that Joseph Smith reveals. And you see that Joe, that Harmstein inserts that this elements into his group and it's completely self destructed. I mean, I don't know what else was going on there, right? I heard funny stories of several things. But I have too.

1:24:59 I have and and look was there, was there. Abuse going on in that one. I. I don't recall off the top of my head if there's any sexual abuse or things like that. I'm going to leave that one alone because I don't know for certain. I I think I know, but I don't want to say something that could despair somebody else without for sure knowledge. Gotcha. The one story I did here first hand was there was a woman who was seeking an audience with Christ a a whole like and and went and asked her leaders what do I need to do? And they basically said, well, you know that Scripture in the New Testament where give everything to the poor, follow me and you'll have eternal life?

1:25:48 Well, that's what you need to do. Only don't give it to the poor. Give it to me. I'll make sure it gets to the poor, meaning Harmstone. And then you'll see Christ. She does it. She does it. And they say, OK, your appointment's set. And it's terrible. He stands up and he goes here I am, right? So maybe not sexual abuse that I can, I would be willing to talk about right here, right now, but certainly abuse, right? No, no, no, that's crazy. So they started out as like a prayer circle type group, right? Study group, prayer circle and then turn into a, you know, a religion, a religion.

1:26:33 And they're not even really fundamentalist. I wouldn't even say I'm, I'm just going to say that I'll take responsibility for that, OK? Explain that because. Well, I think it's weird, fundamentalistic perhaps, but they don't come from the the milieu origins of Lorne Wooley with Lebaris. That's kind of where I would be fundamentalists. So technically speaking, and I don't know if like the Foster's coming through, Ogden, Ogden Kraut perhaps, but you have people that interact with us because we're all fans of polygamy or similar things, but they don't have the same origins or priest claims. And so like, are you really? Are we really the same on certain levels? Right.

1:27:17 I'm not trying to shoot shots, but at the same time like my scholarly brain wants to disambiguate. Right, right. You know. So Harmstein's aren't really fundamentalist in the true sense, they're fundamentalistic. There's some doctrines that are fundamentalist at Jason. Right. And that's even better because when you start inserting those things like multiple moral probations, that's not fundamentalist. That's not what Joseph taught, I don't think. I think he speculated on it. I could go off on that. You know, there's statements that have been recorded that allude to certain similar themes and that's where they get the ammo for it to support it, right? I think he was. I think Joseph was speculating a lot after dealing with like Jewish Kabbalah and stuff like Jewish mysticism.

1:28:01 And I have no problem with that. I love reading. Well, look, and I love looking at all that old stuff. There's an interesting book that I read about America once. It's fairly well known. It's called the spied de Tocqueville. What was de Tocqueville? The name of that book about America? Oh, I'm Briana Blank because it's going to drive me this anyway. Same one where he talks about what makes America great. And he, you know, he said he he does do says something that's very interesting. He says when you go to the Taverns in America, there's two things that are being talked about always politics and religion, right? And when we don't talk about those things enough anymore, right?

1:28:56 And so part of that tradition is theologizing, right? Talking about what could be, not necessarily what it absolutely is, but what it could be, right? I think a classic example of this from a Mormon standpoint is, well, there's probably men on the sun that are 7 feet tall that wear they're dressed like Quakers, right? Right. No, sure. Those are ideas now we laughed at today, but that's because we have a lot more worldly knowledge science back in the South. Right. But in the absence of that, people just threw ideas around and there was nothing wrong with that, right? I think, I think you got to give props where they're due, right? This whole thing is, this whole Mormon thing is based off of of that kind of speculation.

1:29:52 Yeah, there's, but there's also conflicting stuff too. I don't want to unless you want to go down that rabbit hole. But there's like opposing models for where the 10 tribes are, Right, Right. You have like the exoplanet model. Yep. And you have the inner Earth kettle bell, Right, Kettle, you know. Yeah. The kettle model where there's a hollow earth, Right. Right. And that the the 10 tribes are there and they'll be let out. Yeah. And people say Joseph Smith said that, but they all, they also say that Joseph Smith said that they were removed, like the city of Enoch and that they'll be joined back to the sphere. Right. And I was talking to Sean at one point years ago. Or shout out Sean Anderson.

1:30:32 Yeah, where you're talking about how and burdens on him for this one because I don't know if I ever found anything on this, but there's been scientific postulation on a kettlebell planet, which is like 2 you know, or a dumbbell planet, but is what I'm thinking where you have. Two halves and two. Yeah, like a dumbbell that you lift weights with, but you have the, you know, but it's the bridge between the ends of the weight is like the atmosphere or they're so close that they just kind of, you know, are locked in a, in a tide with each other. And if I'm misrepresenting him, I apologize, but that's what I seem to remember.

1:31:15 Sean, the burden of proof is on you now, big guy. So interesting stuff, right? Don't know. Like you say, I know nothing about thermonuclear physics. Right. I know nothing about any of that. I I like the more esoteric stuff. Right, right. No, it, it's so I, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with, hey, what about this idea, right? I think, I think that's a gift of Mormonism, right? I think there's really 2 tradition, 2 traditions that really encourage that. One is Judaism and the next is Mormonism, right? This idea of expanding your mind, letting it, letting it come through.

1:31:59 I think that that that's a gift we have. The the the trick is, is not to let ideas become doctrine. That's true. Right you people like to get like 1 doctrine and then like they they hobby horse it and then they start to do everything else. Through around it, yeah. And that's not a healthy way, right. The other thing I've said, there are things that I know and that I believe 100% Everything else is an idea. Yep. And why is that? Well because if you espouse something that's just an idea as part of your core makeup, and then it's later proven that that idea is wrong, you're no longer flexible. Right?

1:32:44 I don't look at someone changing their mind as waffling. I look at it as dude got new information and then postulated a new theory based off of that information. It's not wrong. That's being a human being. However, I do want to say this, when things have been proven to be historical in nature, doctrinally sound, I do think there's danger when you start tossing those things off to the side, sure, in favor of something else that feels better to you. So that was that was the TLC.

1:33:29 What about like the Crossfield group? That one is interesting. You know, I don't know what their thoughts on Adam. God, I didn't look into that. OK. Do you know anything? I don't. I do know. I think they did mess with the Godhead. Some got away from a more traditional Adam God model. What they went to I don't know, but. Yes, I do. I'm sorry, I was blank. Go ahead. They actually I'm not super against this like I could break bread with someone who thought about this on a certain like who believed this on a certain level. Their thing was see of Elohim, Jehovah and Michael. They're all gods and father Adam comes down and he is a resurrected being.

1:34:12 He takes Eve, one of his wives and he starts the human family. They think and believe that Jesus Christ Spirit is the first born son of Adam's family, but the physical father of Jesus Christ is Jehovah of the endowment. OK. But again, kind of messes. With it does mess with it. Because you're now ascribing something. And my contention is, is that. Well, I actually see why they went that way from a scriptural point of view, kind of. OK, go ahead, illuminate me on that. I don't want to steal. I don't want to steal your Thunder. But this is actually kind of like the closest approximation of a heretical view of the atom God doctrine, but it comes at a really close look of and like a tight look of like the scriptures and trying to reconcile with the scriptures.

1:35:12 The. Canon. Thank you. Reconcile with the Canon the the fact that you have scriptures verses in like Acts where Peter says that Jesus Christ was the Son of the Lord. Right. And we know that the Lord was Jehovah, right, as far as in the Hebrew language, right? And they take that very literally. So, you know, and, and what name does the, the Lord go by in the Old Testament? Jehovah. And then, but there's, there's a lot in New Testament too that is interesting. And we have people throw this back on us on the mission field because as LBS people, we assert Jesus as Jehovah. And when they learn about that, they're like, no, Jesus is the son of Jehovah, like Jehovah's Witnesses believed, right? Yep.

1:36:04 You know, there's actually quite a bit of evidence like Psalms, my Lord said to the, you know, sit down on my right hand, right? Because Jehovah says to Christ, sit on my right hand, not El or Elohim saying to Jehovah, you know, but as Jehovah saying yeah to his Son. Right, Right. So from a tight look at the Canon, I see where they want that. Explain. What you mean by a tight look at the Canon? Not being flexible with the name Jehovah because I read it and when I look at that like, yeah, it does say that, but I also know that.

1:36:45 Jehovah is a title. It's a name like Brigham Young said something in 1870 or so actually I think it was 65. He says God, let us start with the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is known by one name and one title today and another name and title by another people on another day and there he leaves it. And if I were to tell you all that I know you know regarding this you and you know just goes on. But when you hear Father Michael blow his trumpet and raise your bodies out of the graves, then you'll be satisfied that he can bless you with the blessings of eternal life.

1:37:27 You know, that's how he who. Who said that? That's Brigham. That's Brick. Yeah. And so he kind of leaves it there like that, Joho. And so linguistically I'm like, and historically I look at the fact that Hebrews existed for like 1000 years of before, you know, 1000 BC tops, right? And so, OK, God's existed a lot longer than that. So what do they call them before they called them Jehovah? Right. Yeah, so they wrote the scriptures down and they gave them the name Jehovah. Also the Documentary Hypothesis is interesting too because you have the idea that our Old Testament Canon is compiled from different documents. Like when the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria and the refugees go down to Judah.

1:38:10 And they have differing scriptures like let's let's pontificate and say maybe the brass plates that Nephi stole were the northern tribes version passed down through Joseph's family. Yep, on brass plates and and that's why God wanted them preserved. And some of our scholars have said that the Book of Mormon seems to use language that is more eloistic than than Yahuwistic because the the documents in the documentary hypothesis posit that Judah used the name Yahweh or Jehovah more, and the Northern Kingdoms like to use Elohim.

1:38:52 Interesting. And so you merge the narrative for the nation state that's been created to have a unified theological narrative. And then you go to Genesis chapter 2 and it's you get the contraction in our King James capital letters, Lord God, which is the contraction of Jehovah Elohim. But you go to Genesis 1 and it's just Elohim all the way. Through SO, maybe a more easy to use English translation would be Lord and God for Elohim and Jehovah. Yeah, or I mean, but they they're they're just using a contraction of the the epithets, right. But like, it seems like it's actually the combination of two traditions where they use different names for God. OK, interesting.

1:39:39 OK. And so when I look at it that way, that Jehovah is just a name, one tribe used for God and Elohim was a name for another tribe, but it's actually the same God, right? Right. It starts to take on a different year. I'm now very flexible. And then I say, well, how does that work? And I asked myself this, well, how does that work with the endowment that the endowments portraying Jehovah and Elohim differently? Can I say Joseph Smith learned Hebrew and he's trying to portray an idea and so he gloms on to the names he knows in Hebrew to personify a metaphysical structure to illustrate what reality is. And Jehovah and Elohim are way better than inserting other Hebrew names he would have used like El Shaddai, El Lion, El Olam, which is Eternal God.

1:40:27 El Shaddai is God Almighty. El Elion is the most high God. So anytime you see that in those phrases in the Scriptures, that's the Hebrew translation. It's all the same God with different names, right, Right. Joseph uses, it takes Jehovah and it takes Elohim, applies them to different characters to illustrate a framework that we need to understand, which is we are connected. We're because we're personifying Adam, we're connected to a genealogy of gods, right, a divine counsel of gods. And that looking at it as being a future tense instead of past tense, that OK, let's say Jesus is Jehovah, but we're the Adam and so he can occupy that mediation between us, right? But we're still the father of our posterity. We're still the God, and we will have to institute a program that redeems our children, and that will not be Jesus Christ. That will be the only begot from our Lloyds, right, Right. You know.

1:41:37 The other way I've heard it described and and I kind of like this model harshly because, well, I'm just not, not at your level as far as the research and that sort of stuff back into that stuff, but that they're offices. Yes, right. And I feel like that cleans it up a lot more, right. So in in the case of Jehovah, it's an office like Bishop, you know, if you're LDS or state president or something like that, to further differentiate you'd say Bishop Ness or state president Ness. Right. But it's talking about occupying an office, right? And so it's perfectly within in in keeping with the orthodoxy of the Adam God doctrine to make the assumption that yeah, Adam slash Michael would could be called by the title of Jehovah, right?

1:42:33 It is an office. I think that's what you know, I think when you go and read the Old Testament and God says to Moses, I am Jehovah, I think it is Adam, right? I do. Yeah, I do too. I. Yeah, that's just the, you know, because like Grigham said, he is known by one name on one day as the cultures progress and evolve. And I'll buy another name on another. And this is because Joseph Smith was saying you his name is Almond, right? But that's not in the endowment. Right, right. But nonetheless it shows it shows the pattern of the Adam God doctor, it does the pattern.

1:43:14 And so when we want to just cast these things off, we're doing great disservice to ourselves and our posterity. I think so. Because what's going to happen, right? We just went through a bunch of examples. Is there any that we missed? I'll let you take a look there. Yeah, there's the FLDS. I think we need to talk about that actually before we go there. Let's talk about that. Let's take a break real quick, yeah? Let's take a break. That's just fine with that. All right, So yeah, let's go the LDS, I mean the FLDS Church. So the FLDS seemed to adopt A very different framework from earlier fundamentalist Adam God teachings, right? We're pretty much indebted to Joseph Musser for the preservation of Adam, God and fundamentalism, it seems.

1:44:02 And we we discussed his model, right, that there's a exalted Jehovah that was potentially A savior for past a past world. And then there's our Savior, right, right. And he's using that title thing, right, right. You know, Jehovah Christ, Jesus Christ, and that's pretty clear from his sermons and stuff. But then you see, and I want to be careful how I do this, but what I have seen is what I've seen. So right, that's what I know. So maybe, and I know things can be changed in books and things like that. For example, I've heard that Brother Johnson Leroy Johnson's books have. I've heard from people that his sermons were changed by Ruling Jeff's and Warren. Would not surprise me.

1:44:44 You know, but I don't know if this was part of it or not, but what I've seen is that they started articulating what I kind of call a revolve, A revolving door Godhead thing where and the Holy Ghost doesn't factor into this so much. But the idea is, I think it's kind of interpreted based off of like ether, where Christ says to the brother of Jared, I am the father and the son. Right. And so Christ says, OK, I'm the Father and the Son. Well, how do I make that work? And Brother Johnson and then Brother Jeffs started teaching how in one world Adam would be the Father and Christ would be the Son. And then in the next World, Christ would be the Father and Adam would be the Son. And it was revolving.

1:45:29 Or, you know, and that that explains the mystery of godliness, which is I am the Father and the Son. And so they're looking through a little keyhole to that statement to reconcile it. And yeah, I don't know. The the thing about that and and I had on one of Warren's sons, Ammon, and he talked about this, this thing right? His his dad's different take on on the Godhead. And one of the things it's ended up leading to somewhere down the road was Warren essentially saying I've already been exalted. I'm here for you and every time you sin, it hurts me right? And so there, it led to some very, very dark things. So I heard rumors about that.

1:46:23 The ruling God thing. Yeah, he talked about that or call it, didn't call it that, but that that name, that title would I think kind of fit based off of what he said. So yeah, the idea is that like ruling Jeff's was Adam, right? And Warren was Jesus, and Joseph Smith was the Holy Ghost. Right. Yeah. And I'm not sure it was quite that in depth. We didn't go that in depth. And Ammon, if I get any of this wrong, hit me back up later and I'll do a interaction. But so and that at any rate, it it did go dark there, right, with getting rid of that doctrine rule. And I think it all had to do with supremacy, right? And that's the interesting thing I'm noticing is that as people want to distance themselves away from this doctrine, the question is it always comes down to a question of supremacy, right?

1:47:13 Yes. Who is the superior role? Now? I don't like that model that that Warren put forward for a lot of different reasons, but especially because in some ways that makes the gods kind of sadistic, right? If everyone's just going to keep taking turns on being the Savior, how many times does someone have to die and be scourged before? That's one thing I think about too. It it, it makes the gods into something that's sadistic, right? It is. That's. Be like Prometheus, having your the, you know, Zeus's eagle eating your liver. Create all eternity. Yes, into a rock. Yeah, right. I get the idea that a sacrifice has to be had, right? But I don't think those are meant to be endured by one person or two people.

1:47:58 If I was the God, and if I was the God or forced to, that would stop. Right, right. I mean, it's, it's brutal, right? So yeah, the the FLDS one is is fascinating, especially with the turn it took. Yeah, and you see the complete destruction of that people. Yeah. And and The thing is, and and I think it's a great cautionary tale because you unanchor yourself from that one thing. You get rid of the the identity of God. You now have Car Blanc to do whatever it is you want to do you. Do and so it's the Harmstons too, though, you know, in a similar fashion with the with the multiple probation, they're very similar, both the FLDS and the Harmstone model and both of those groups are completely extinct practically. Yeah, Yep, Yep.

1:48:45 And and that's, and then we go, like you were saying, into the Cutlerites, into the Strangites. Yeah, it's it's a constant pattern. This they weren't preserving the ordinances. I'll, I'll save that part to the end. OK. But but yeah, it's it's brutal. It gets rough. So anything else you want to talk about as far as the FLDS? Not the FLDS. Let's let's move to the LDS Church because we touched on a little bit, but I feel like this is our major case study, quite frankly, because they've had the, well, as far as I can see it, they, they have enough money, they can take the financial abuse that comes with changing some of these things for, for a lot longer.

1:49:29 But we'll see how it ends up and then and at the end. Right. But I do want to talk about that, right. You mentioned you had some stuff on that as we start seeing the changes happen. Well I the first change we know of is Temple. Sir. Is the Adam God being removed? We have the testimony from a patriarch named Arthur Horn who grew up in Saint George, right? Which by the way, my theory OK on Saint George. I swear I'm not a crackpot, but here this is my my esoteric. Language. You live in Saint George. What's not? Yeah, no, It's named after Michael the Archangel. What? Saint George is named after Michael the Ark game. OK, go, go for it.

1:50:11 I want to hear this. OK. So George and Michael are kind of far away, right? I mean, they are no Saint George in antiquity was, I think it was even a Praetorian guard in Rome that converted to Christianity. And he was one of the martyrs that he refused to reject his new faith. And he was killed in those days, right? And his legend gets adopted in medieval times and he becomes the patron St. of England. OK, and the in other places I think too. Actually, even before England he becomes a personified as a resurrected St. who does battle against a dragon who's terrorizing towns out in my Egypt.

1:50:55 Wow. And stuff like that and. Kind of metal. Yeah, super metal and the, the, the the dragon demands child sacrifices and stuff like that. And the people are just, they don't, they're being and they just give in and Saint George says stop doing that or we'll slay the dragon. And if you convert to Christianity, right, like except the gospel and audible slay the dragon. Well, the motif of a resurrected being kind of sort of and slaying the dragon, dude, that's Michael. That's Michael the Archangel. So I think Brigham Young, who close to his British roots was having, I think that there was something there because that whole thing, that whole you go back to the crests in England and stuff like right, St. George's cross and the dragon symbol and all that. I think that those two symbols, you know, looking at Saint George and Saint Michael, that's the same story, essentially. They're both dragon slayers.

1:51:57 Yeah. They're both fighting against the devil because the devil is the dragon. That's right. That's that's my view of what Saint George is. And then where does he? And then with the evidence of going and building a temple in Saint George and. The first one in the Utah period. The first one in the Utah period and making sure the lecture on the veil was Adam God centric. To me that all just fits. That does favor. Holy cow, that is fascinating. Yeah. So that was kind of Brigham low key flexion a little bit, I think so. I don't know. I can't prove it. I can't prove it. I was talking to someone in there. I thought it was named after George A Smith and like that's what Wikipedia says. But it also like, we're not sure, you know, but I'm kind of thinking it was, well, it was a it. Would kind of be out of theistic nod. It would kind of be weird to name it Saint George, right, because it's we don't even why not Georgetown, right, Because we don't even refer to Joseph Smith as St. Saint Joseph, right?

1:52:55 We don't we don't refer to Brigham as St. Brigham, right? So this one dude is going to get that moniker. This. One otherwise. Otherwise, Saint George is like it sounds like a Catholic name. It is does sound like a Catholic name. And to be honest, up until you just brought this up, I kind of wondered if it wasn't an old designation. Right. Like Escalante Canyon, Right. We know that those were named by by Catholic priests, if I'm not mistaken, when they were coming up. I didn't know. Yeah. And so we we look at that and yeah, you would think it would be Catholic in nature, but that's not necessarily the case. Now that's fascinating, Brigham.

1:53:37 Low key flexion. Yeah, he was. And so, yeah. So where was I going with that? The LDS Church, the. LDS church changes so Brigham's institutes and systematizes the endowment in 1877 with the with the full lecture at the veil where he declares that Adam is the father of Jesus Christ and that after and that he returned to heaven right right. Went to the world from where he came where he came from before that point. There was some debate in the quorum of the 12th regardless. Yeah with Orson and potentially Amis alignment. I'm not I've heard that he didn't get on board with the Adam God doctrine. I'm not entirely sure about that. Taylor might be the one to ask about that considering he's a descendant.

1:54:22 Maybe he's done research, I don't know. But there was a meetings where because Orson Pratt was also kind of, he had his own doctrinal ideas. What? Was his that Brigham Young didn't like. And so he was called on the carpet in 1860 to to discuss some of those. And one of them was the whole the Holy Spirit doctrine where Orson Pratt kind of took a springboard from lectures on faith and says, I don't really think the Holy Ghost is a person. OK. And he kind of used in his writings. Or if he was, you could illustrate this as being like, if you've killed a vessel, like a water bottle or a milk truck with water and you threw it in the ocean and it's made of the, the water in the vessel is the same substance as the substance around the vessel. And that the Holy Spirit was this substance that was diffused throughout the universe.

1:55:19 OK, That was kind of his view of what the Holy Ghost was. And so it was not personal necessarily, but it was a very, it was a diffused matter, finer matter, gotcha that would actuate and act upon us. OK. All right. And and Brigham Young's like don't publish that as church doctrine, right? But he published it in the Seer. And so Brigham's like, OK, well, you got to retract this. And you know, we this has not been voted upon by the church. And he's like Orson Pratt's for tortoise. Well, how about we have Adam, God voted upon by the by the church. And Brigham says I won't have it voted upon by the church, but I will submit to you that I will have it voted upon by elders who are endowed. Interesting, interesting.

1:56:12 And what year would that have been? 1860. So they haven't built the Saint George Temple yet? No, they're barely into Endowment House stuff at this. Point, you know, seven years of Max. OK. So most likely the elders that have been endowed are most likely the elders from Nabu, right? I'm not no, there's not necessarily that have been ordained and and or anointed and, and through this initiated through the ceremony in Utah. But it shows a level of confidence that Brigham had that those who have been through the mysteries of godliness would support it, and those who had not been through the mysteries of godliness would not have the authority to vote on it. Interesting, see?

1:56:57 And that's fascinating too, right it? Is that that fits with our conversation at the very beginning of the podcast? Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. And so they they X that though in 19 O 5 or so when you know, Arthur Horne goes on a mission before he goes on his mission, he goes to the Saint George Temple and he recalls going through a 19-O3. OK. And God is endowment and Adam, God was taught in the temple in 19 O3 in Saint George. He goes back after his mission in 19 O 5 and it's gone, Holy cow. And so that's the first instance of a change. Well, then within a few years you have the garment changes and other changes to the ceremony that did exist for the actual drama.

1:57:47 And then you have the removal of the penalties, right, and the Five Points Fellowship of the Veil. And then they've just been going crazy with with removing more liturgy aspects the last 10 years. You know, and I remember when I first went through the LDS church, and even though it felt disjointed, I still had no reason to believe that we didn't that that there was anything missing. Right. I had nothing to compare and contrast, but nonetheless, once you start understanding that one doctor more than anything else about the temple, you got a good handle on Adam God, and it really starts to make sense even in the LDS ceremony because the echoes. There's the stuff that I remember there used to be in there that's no longer in there was stuff like Elohim and Jehovah telling Adam you are Lord over the earth. Yes, they removed that.

1:58:57 Yep. They removed the part about Lucifer's apron. You know, the dialogue. What is that apron you're wearing? That's the symbol of my power and priesthood. That's all gone right now. I don't know all of what because I haven't been through the most recent changes so, but the ones I did see also was that Eve no longer covenants with Adam. Nope, that's gone. Yeah, that's gone. Oh, they don't pass. They don't do the tokens to every single. Participant now just represented and then at the veil. So there is a ton that has been removed, right? And it's an avalanche after removing Adam God. And it was slow at first, but it's really picking up speed now.

1:59:47 Which, which again is interesting. I keep coming back to Adam. God, I'll be honest, when I started this whole thing with with going into fundamentalism, I loved the Adam God doctor. That's what brought me in, right? Wasn't plugging me or United Order. I loved the Adam God Doctor. I loved the proximity it gave to me to deity. Me too, right? If I can fix Adam or God firmly in his seat and I know who he is and I know where he's at, I now have a basis to say, OK, I'm out, I'm here, God's here. That gives me the opportunity to approach God in a more real way.

2:00:29 But it is interesting that all these groups we have talked about now, that's the common denominator. I think so. You know, there's a tying the atom God doctrine, especially to the temple and not just abandoning atom God too, But you have, for example, I think potentially, I'm going to speculate here, the Lebaron movement hadn't progressed nearly as much because they didn't, they didn't focus on temple stuff, right? None of them have. Now. Most of those are fairly strong. I don't know what Joel thought about Adam God doctrine. Ross loved it.

2:01:16 But then they never made temple stuff really a priority. Then you have others who came later through the Tom Green route into Lebaron ISM who were Michael Stagg I think was his name. I met, I met that man once. And I got a big dossier of papers that a friend who had known him gave me, and he didn't like the Adam God. Doctor No, he was, he had, he, he termed his own the Jehovah God Doctor. And I can say that because I might even still have those papers floating around. I'll have to take a look. But you know, in my, in my years of searching, I talked to as many people as I could, right?

2:02:00 Because I'm like, once I found out that unlike the LDS Church fundament, fundamentalism isn't a monolith, right? Not even close. It it it required me to do some severe digging. And so I don't know what their status is. It's obviously not big at all. I don't know even know if Mike Stagg is alive. I think he did pass, yeah, I think he passed 5 or 6 years back if I'm not mistaken. But nonetheless, again, didn't catch, didn't catch, right. And I think in a very real way, we look at all of these different groups and organizations that have went by the wayside.

2:02:44 You see Adam God becoming the one thing that's gotten rid of. You can keep polygamy, you can keep temples or a version of the temple. You can have missionary programs, but you don't get the identity of God right. And it's all for naughty. It's just apostasy at that point. Great book I read when I was in high school that or college, my first year of college that said that that basically the, the the the premise of the book was this. Anytime you saw the Jews getting beat up, you can bet global instability is right behind. They were kind of the Canary in the coal mine.

2:03:26 Everyone's going to get theirs, but they're going to get theirs first, apparently. Likewise, I think we could kind of say you get rid of the Adam God doctrine. That's a Canary in the coal mine. That apostasy is right around the corner. Sure. And we see all this now. My question to you, Michael, is this what is so appealing about jettisoning that one doctrine? That's a good question. I'd have to really think outside myself to answer that, because to me it it is one of the most appealing doctrines in the gospel. I think it's a beautiful thing to see that we have the ability to go back to another world, create a paradise and provide the same plan of salvation for our spirit children that we have for ourselves.

2:04:19 And we get to be the literal father of their bodies as well. I remember when I told my brother about my thoughts on the Adam God doctrine, you know, I was just off my mission and the Spirit told me to teach my brother it. And I was like, no, thank you. He's not going to understand this. And so I had to approach this a really weird way. Maybe we were driving home from a sacrament meeting and the Spirit was just telling me, teach him, teach him, teach him. And I, I, I maybe tackled it along these lines like Daniel, you believe God has all power. Well, I suppose he does. He'd say to me, I said, do you think that God could become a mortal man again if you wanted to? Well, I suppose he could, but why would he want to? I said, well, Brigham Young taught the Father of Adam came as a resurrected being into the Garden of Eden, and that he was actually our Father in heaven.

2:05:17 And he just looked at me and thought and said it would make sense that the father of our spirits would want to be the Father of our bodies. Right. I mean, that is the most natural thing. And so that was super interesting because it clicked on a certain level immediately following that prompting and everything. And it was probably a really clumsy way of attacking it, but it was the moment. Right. I think that was a beautiful way because you appeal to his heart, right? And you know, I'll be honest, until I learn the Adam God doctrine, that was something that bugged me, right? OK, so I'm going to go on the other side of the veil with my wife. I'm going to have all these spirit children and then I got to select one of my other children to go down to become the father physically of my children. So yeah, it doesn't really fit one of my friends out here, you know, older guy named Thomas Williams. I love the way he puts it.

2:06:17 He says if you're going to go start a family, you're going to have someone else do it for you. Right. Yeah. No, no sense. No, no, no, that is that is the role of you and your your wife, right. I mean, holy cow, you know, you hit on something earlier that I think is a big push for this. And I think it was a big push from the beginning to get rid of this doctrine, right? I don't know what it is, dude. But Mormons, do we have a serious case of the hots for the term Christian? We do. Like I know like Christ said, we shouldn't lust after something, but I'm sorry, there are certain times I see Mormons lusting to be called Christian. Stop it.

2:07:08 Just stop. We're not the same. We're not the same. I know that everybody wants to be liked, I get it. But you know what? It's not Joseph's words. It's God's words when he tells Joseph they're all their creeds are an abomination before me. That's not none of them. That's. True. He didn't say they were wrong. He didn't say that they were slightly off base. He didn't go well. They got a different take than I do. He used some pretty strong language. He did. They're an abomination, but their creeds are an abomination.

2:07:49 He did say that, yeah. So why are you lusting after something that your own God called Obama? Their teachings, their creeds? You want to lust after that? You go ahead. I'll stick with the term Mormon. Wear that one proudly and you can have the Christian type. Yeah, I concur with that. That's probably what it boils down to is they they feel like Christ is slighted by Adam being God and somehow like it makes like it makes Christ a bastard. Probably like that's, you know, in their mental framework. Somehow it lessens Christ. Right.

2:08:34 And if you can get beyond that, I think that, for example, when I started to think when I was still in the mission field, it wasn't so much, oh, Adam is God so much as I started to think all the lines of God, my heavenly Father became Adam, my heavenly Father became the first man. And so I wasn't taking the preconception of what Adam was and saying that's what God is. I, I looked at what my, I had already viewed God as and said he became Adam. Does that make any sense? Yep, Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And God is perfect. He's not, you know, he didn't fall through moral sin, you know, And so I don't longer have that barrier.

2:09:18 No, And you know, I think that's something interesting that we should probably broach here real quick, this idea that that if if Adam is God, that means he's sent, right? No, he just prioritized commandments. And let me explain this as far as I know, and I'm willing to be wrong on this. Someone has a different example. I'm willing to to take that, but my estimation there's only one part and God's dealing with man from the Canon in which God gave man 2 competing commandments and they couldn't be kept simultaneously, right? Right. The commandment in the garden is to multiply and replenish the earth. The other commandment is don't eat of that tree. He's given a choice.

2:10:12 Eve is given a choice. Which one is it going to be? You're going to have children or you're going to not eat of that tree. And Adam was put in a place where Eve couldn't remain with him, and he had to choose to follow one commandment that was greater, right? Yes, yes. And so in that instance, God, Adam's God, puts him in a situation where he's going to have to make that choice. Right now, we can all hypothesize what could have happened, what should have happened. But the end of the day, it was given and Adam had to choose. And because he had to choose to follow a commandment at the expense of another commandment, I don't think you can call that sin.

2:10:59 I think that's transgression. Yeah. And so if you, if you can wrap your mind around that, I think that God's sinning problem, so to speak, kind of goes. Away. It's really interesting that Joseph Fielding Smith wasn't an atom God proponent, but he gave a really good defense for it when he said Adam only transgressed a chemical law the same way a chemist in a laboratory transgresses a law of physics or chemistry when he combines elements to create a new a thought bound. Interesting, interesting. Yeah, which is what you see when he partakes of the fruit and his body becomes mortal.

2:11:41 Yeah. And so it's the combining of elements into a new compound. When did? I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but when does the Adam God officially become jettisoned from the LDS church? Because it's my understanding that Brigham first says, you know what? Not Brigham, but Wilfred Woodruff says I'm done with this debate. Like yeah, and just kind of 18941897 or so. Just just keep yourself and use amongst these by yourself. But let's not make it a matter of discussion any. Yeah, but he also tells Brigham Young Junior, who writes in his journal, that Wilper would have said Adam is our father and our God, and it's no use to discuss it with the Josephites, which meant the RLDS people. Oh, OK.

2:12:25 Because that was their their big things against us was polygamy and Adam God in those days. Right. And so when we got rid of polygamy or saw protesting polygamy in 1890, they doubled down on we still believe in Adam God and Wilford's like don't even listen to them. Don't even talk to them about Adam God. But he's our father and he and he is our God. Don't even waste your time talking to the. Ghost fights. Interesting because he had a couple of public sermons where he said stop worrying about it, just think about this yourself, right? And I think it was because of the RLDS mission in in progress against Utah. I imagine it was. And what's interesting now too is so I think, I think Jesus the Christ is the book that seals the deal.

2:13:11 Yeah, so that was published in 1915, I want to say. And before that, you had some complaints from like Charles Penrose and others who are like, some people still believe in Adam, God, and they're teaching it. But then it wasn't after Jesus the Christ. It kind of died and went away silently until fundamentals started making a big deal of it. And then Spencer Wooly Kimball made his 1976 proclamation where he denounced it. Right. So we've talked about a lot here. We've dived into doctrine, we've talked how old historical sources and patterns.

2:13:53 Why is it, I'm just going to call it like I see it. Why is it? Do you think that getting rid of this one doctrine is always the signal for apostasy within a group or even an individual? Well, I think the it's a signal based off of what we talked about for sure. You know, it seems to prelude a lot of problems. It would assume one that you don't know who you are as well as you don't know who your Father in heaven is. And so it clouds your eternal progression because what else are we trying to be like? I mean, you can say I'm trying to be like Christ, which is good, which is good, but you and I aren't going to be Christ's. No, we're going to be atoms.

2:14:48 Right. Ideally, if we're faithful. Yep, I think there's something much more spiritual at play. Here. OK. There's a statement in the New Testament of Christ talking about demonic possession, actually, and I'm not saying that if you don't believe the Adam God doctrine that you're demonic. I think it's illustrates a principle, and I think that principle is pretty applicable here, and it's found in Matthew chapter 12, verses 43 through 45. Let's just go there and read this real quick. And I want to say this that I think that this verse especially has significance to people who've been taught this doctrine already and who once believed it. And it starts in, like I said in verse 43, just going to read this here.

2:16:05 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, and he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none, then he saith, I return into my house from whence I came out. And when he has come, he findeth the empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh himself up, taketh himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of the man is worse than the first. Even so it shall be also unto the wicked, this wicked generation. OK. It's basically saying if you've in this case, if you've been been pronounced clean from something or if you've been delivered for something and then you go back and you take up with the thing that you've been delivered from, your condition is worse that second time around than the first. People who've been taught this, they know it and they understand it, right?

2:17:19 I think that's maybe another reason we don't see a lot of nasty things that we see in the LDS church that we saw in the FLDS Church or the, or the Harmstein group or the cross fields or any of those others, because there's a ton of people who never knew that knowledge. But to those fundamentalists who went away from this, almost all of them went dark in one way or another, right? Best case scenario it becomes the cross fields and it's a sex cult or it's the I'm sorry I don't know how else to put. Oh, that's fine. Right. Or it's the Harmstein Group, which seems Jim Harmstein, which seems to have some graft and some grift there, right? Or worst case scenario, it's the FLDS church. Nonetheless, the pattern is pretty clear. If you deny who God is after knowing them, you can count on your mind being darkened again.

2:18:26 So I think to answer your question to why is this a sign of apostasy in spiritual darkness? Well, if we tie Adam God to the ordinances, which we have done, I think fairly well to argue that it is tied to the ordinances or what we call the mysteries of godliness. And then let's read this passage of Scripture, section 84. It says, and this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and hold with the keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof and the the power of godliness is manifest. So to reject that is essentially to reject the key of the knowledge of God, which is administered by the ordinances, right, you know, and by the high priesthood. So it is that is tied the key of the knowledge of God is tied to the high priesthood.

2:19:17 Yeah. And so it is an apostasy from the administration of the high priest at an ultimate level. And because of that, Moses and the and those who were ordained to the High Priestess were taken away from Israel. Right. And they were left with a lower law. Yep. Yeah. Preparatory gospel, which unfortunately is the lens that we have to view a lot of the scriptural Canon through which is the preparatory gospel. Absolutely, absolutely. And look, I'm not saying that anyone who believes something different than then the Adam God doctrine is a devil in waiting, right?

2:19:59 I'm not trying to say that. What I am trying to say is there is danger in only what was revealed. False. And make no doubt about it, the history is abundantly clear. Like at this point as I keep doing more research it starts getting into the realm of polygamy denier kind of ideas to get past it. Sure. Right. I think, I think the evidence is starting to become overwhelming when we start looking at did Joseph teach this? I think it's clear. Right.

2:20:41 With that in mind, I think you could bank on this pattern or repeating. So it's not so much a, hey, you're evil if you don't believe the Adam God doctrine, but more of typically this has been a sign of apostasy to come. Yep, this is the first step and it seems to be the most important step. The other thing I would say, you're going to want to be very careful in toying with this. Doctrine. Because now the Adam God doctrine is true. You come out, you say, no, that's not right. If you take Orson Heights perspective, Pratt, excuse me, take Orson Pratt's perspective.

2:21:32 If you take the LDS perspective, the Jehovah God doctrine perspective, and you're not 100% sure, you may have damaged your relationship between God and his children because now they don't approach him the same way. And how can you emulate something you don't know about? And you're telling me that the gods plan to get us to become as they are is so important that they left us no record on how to get there, which is what you're doing. If Adam's not God in the temple, you basically said, yeah, you can follow his example, but we really don't know what the Father did to become the Father.

2:22:28 That's a problem. That's you're you're essentially creating. You're essentially putting God back as an absentee father. And I don't, I think that that goes well. I know it wouldn't go well in my household. So I, I just think we need to be careful with those things. That's, that's all I got to say on this. You got anything else you want to go over? No, I'm good. All right, man. Thanks for stopping. Bye. We'll talk to you later. Bye everybody. You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast.