Joseph Smith Post-Revolutionary Pseudo-Prophet

                     Joseph the American Romantic Revolutionary

As stated in an earlier post, my captivation with Morgdoc centered in the theology. The idea that God revealed His intentions to Man was the crux of my interest in religion. From the moment in second-year Seminary the various forms of Revelation were presented, I embarked on the quest of ascertaining where and when and in what form they took place. To me it seemed that any man was certain to have foibles and follies, sufficient to preclude him in a man’s eyes from being worthy of divine communication. Consequently, I never stopped to investigate Joseph Smith until the very last. Although I doubted God to be of the nature and character he was purported to be by Christianity, I chose to give Him the benefit of doubt, believing He was honest and trustworthy, but men were not always. Looking for the evidence of divine manifestation became the central question I had in all matters of religion. The favorable stories I’d heard about Joseph and other church functionaries I accepted as plausible, while the reports of deception and fraud by his critics were themselves lies and deception—IF the matter of revelation could be proved.

My second year of CES seminary was taught by Max Pinegar, twin brother of Rex Pinegar who was elevated into the quorum of Seventy beginning in the mid 1970’s. Max taught us there were several different forms of divine revelation, the appearance of the Father and/or the Son, Angels, or inspiration by the Holy Ghost. There was a specific form, as defined by Joseph Smith, to the appearance of Heavenly Beings. Apparitions with no specific intelligence to convey were not of God, for God was not in to frivolous, meaningless appearances. Personages of Spirit were intangible and would not extend their hand to the recipient, since physical matter would pass through and no contact possible. To do so on the part of a Messenger was intent to deceive, and therefore not of God. The appearance of resurrected Beings however, required the recipient to be overshadowed by the power of God to survive death. Their Glory was intolerable to human flesh. Uh-huh, well I let that one slide, first looking for the evidence.

The only materials I had to work with until historical books about the Church founding began appearing in the bookstores were the Church’s own scriptures and the Journal of Discourses. The other early publications were only to be found through connections with people who had access to Church archives until it was all digitized and marketed as the LDS Collector’s Library by Infobases in the mid 1990’s. Thus began the laborious reading of hundreds of pages of history, looking for evidence of revelation subsequent to Joseph Smith’s. The only thing I found of significance was Brigham Young’s disclaimer about “open revelation”, the types that Joseph had. His position was that all the necessary revelation of that type was given to Joseph, and since then only the influence of the Holy Spirit was required. Convenient. Well I never found any historical evidence of divine appearances in the Church archives, until I heard about Lorenzo Snow’s story of Jesus appearing to him in the Salt Lake temple, just outside the president’s office. What that was about no one had any idea. Not even Lorenzo revealed what the appearance was about. Until Spencer Kimball announced a revelation on the Priesthood issue, I had not found a single instance of Angelic intervention in the Church since Joseph’s last proclamations in Nauvoo.

I waited with great anticipation for the written account of Spencer’s revelation. And waited. And waited. Even after the Church’s policy was changed there was still no account published. (I eventually did find an account by Bruce McConkie published by Deseret Book in an obscure booklet about ten years later.) To my knowledge, the change in policy concerning Blacks and the Priesthood was not even presented to the Church membership for ratifying acceptance, which is a procedure established by Joseph himself and covered in the Doctrine and Covenants. Spencer and his cohorts had failed to follow the Church’s own regulations. They had good reason not to, but that is another matter. By this time I knew that something serious was up in the Church, and that many of the changes taking place were quite suspect. My investigation into Church history continued and it was not until the latter 1990’s that I discovered Heber J. Grant discontinued the personal witness requirement of the Apostles as condition for acceptance into the Quorum of Twelve. Max had taught us that having the special witness of Jesus was a requirement to being ordained an Apostle. It was especially true for the succeeding president of the Church. But I never found evidence of it anywhere in public Church records. When I found Heber had made that change I finally understood why fundamentalist splinter groups were claiming the Church had fallen into apostasy during president Grant’s administration. It was at this time I secretly harbored the strong suspicion of the same. Doctrines were changing, albeit slowly. Church publications and teaching manuals were slowly renovating the Gospel principles I was taught by the CES in Seminary and Institute classes.

Still I clung to the notion that heavenly influence was present in the Church, even though the evidence began to mount that more and more high officials were acting on their own initiative. They constantly asserted what God’s Will was, but never once offered bonafide evidence of divine intervention. But I did find mounting evidence on the Infobases’ CD rom and publications by Church researchers to indicate no such revelation had ever taken place. Ultimately, after excommunicating the Church from my life, I did find evidence that all the apparitions Joseph laid claim to were extraordinarily convenient to particular circumstances involving mass exodus from his church.

There are those, no longer members, who consider Joseph a genius. I could not accept that conclusion. An accomplished mountebank did not have to be a genius, especially if he surrounded himself with people who had expertise in history, religion, and theology. Joseph had access to these resources in spades, and what made it possible for him to successfully impose on people’s credulity was the fact that it all took place during the frontier period. The best information available at the time was newspapers and hearsay public meetings. The vast majority of converts were uneducated by today’s standards. Written English had not yet been standardized.

In the early days of my excommunicating the Church, I had a brief discussion with a professor of history concerning Joseph Smith’s creative abilities. He opined that Joseph was a genius. My estimation of that word is it is one of the most misused and therefore abused words in the English language. There are six definitions of it in Webster, and all but two are obsolete. Of these, the most common is the sixth:

a) great mental capacity and inventive ability; esp., great and original creative ability in some art, science, etc.
b) a person having such capacity or ability
c) popularly, any person with a very high intelligence quotient.

Saul Bellow argued on the subject of novelists that “Genius is always, without strain, avant-garde. Its departure from tradition is not the result of caprice or of policy but of an inner necessity.” The concept of “avant-garde” here is the key: they are leaders at the forefront of new or unconventional movements according to Webster. The only “necessity” driving Joseph Smith was his documented, professed ambition to financially provide for his family. It began with stone peeping and treasure hunting, a form of hawking that he continually modified and embellished as necessity required to “keep the spice flowing.” At every historical vignette of Church history, we find him attaching some element of ideology from his associates, Rigdon, Cowdery, Pratt, Bennett, Seixas, the Occult of his father, the circuit preachers, contemporary religious oratories, and the extant methodology of social and political revolution inherent in Free Masonry. Taken as a whole we don’t see an over-arching creation of a new religion born of the “restoration” so favored by Rigdon, but a desperate amalgamation of ideas born of impending church dissolution. Apologists for the Church massage the whole of it to appear as a long sequence of revelations to sustain the restorative theme. But any person possessed of ordinary inquisitiveness finds far too many discrepancies, convenient alterations and additions to staunch the exodus every time his scheme was exposed. Before his death he boasted:

“In all these affidavits, indictments, it is all of the devil--all corruption. Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.” Sunday, May 26, 1844 History of the Church V6, Ch19, p408

It is clearly evident from this boast his lack of education and indisposition to read. His command of history is virtually nonexistent. As a product of the prevailing dogma, he does not realize he is perpetuating the Inquisition’s obsession with evil and the Devil. Paul started a corrupt church that filled the world with Inquisition. Peter, James, and John continued the community that Jesus taught, while by some accounts Jesus lived out his life in anonymous exile. Anyone in Nauvoo with a lick of sense could observe that the Campbellites kept the Church of Christ together without the turmoil Joseph, by his wanton disregard of the law, brought upon himself. The Quakers had been around for a century also without shakeouts.  Twelve days later William Law his eschewed first counselor, publishes the first exposé of Joseph’s misconduct. A month almost to the day of Joseph’s boasting the conniving, lying brothers were dead and Joseph’s precious church thrown into confusion, intrigue, conspiracy, and fragmentation. In the succession squabble to follow, designee heir to the church younger brother Samuel dies a month later precipitously and conveniently before Brigham returns with the other Apostles. Quinn makes a fairly good case for assassination by the Danites. Shortly thereafter William is made patriarch to take Hyrum’s place but succeeds in getting disfellowshipped over a triviality and eventually excommunicated. With that ends the Smith dynasty and control over Joseph’s Zionist machinations.

To say that Joseph Smith was a genius is to denature the creative works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Michelangelo, etc. He wasn't a man ahead of his time as these men were, he was a product of it—of that itching quarry of rabble craving a spiritual guide. He was an adept innovator and plagiarist in the style of Bonneville, Buonarotti, Nodier, Gébelin; innovators of the revolutionary spirit that arose in Strasburg, Germany. These are just a sampling of men who, working within and through the Masonic organization, attempted to foist a political and (when that fizzled out) social revolution in continental Europe during the same period. Freighted with conspiracy and secrecy at every level, with hubris oozing as sudoriferous glands they thought, each in his own manner, to change the landscape of their world. Joseph was precisely in this state of mind when John C. Bennett appeared in Nauvoo (1841-2), proposing Joseph take up Masonry with the obvious purpose of allying about himself a cabal of loyal people, willing to lay down their lives to prevent his extradition and prosecution. Here Joseph finds the exact mechanism to implement Rigdon’s Far West Salt Sermon ideology while avoiding personal culpability.  Since the anti-Masonic movement of his youth had subsided, Joseph had no qualms in frontier Illinois to resort to such revolutionary devices to strengthen his grip on his ever fluctuating cabal.

The element most missing from the history of the Church and Joseph in particular is the influence of Masonic ideology that suddenly appears in the Church in 1842. It is instructive for the historical student to examine the European revolutionary movements at this time, and its ripple effect throughout all of Masonry. While it is unlikely that Joseph had any direct contact with these groups, the ripple effects definitely were apparent in American society earlier than the Jacobins. What we see is just as the nations were transformed from the events leading up to World War I, so the nations were also ideologically transformed beginning with the French Revolution, sparked by the American. The American “revolution” was the beginning of a century of Western civilization revolution, producing the political crises of the 20th century. There was an equal fever and zeitgeist far broader than that which stormed over upper New York during Joseph’s youth.

The essential influence of Masonry manifesting in the Church can be recognized by summarizing the revolutionary characteristics Mr. Billington outlines in his book, Fire in the Minds of Men. Every one of them appear during the rise of Mormonism:

Late 18th century occult Masonic revolutionary elements:

•  Movements begin with a lust for a “new order” (all religions are false/apostate)
•  Observance of prime numbers in the organization (presidency of three, five sets of three apostles, seven presidents of seventies, etc.)
•  Idealized distant past of Christianity (Rigdon)
•  Communal—Utopian islands; gathering places and communitarian practices
•  Perpetuation of revolutionary Faith (aggressive missionary force)
•  Fundamentalism in elevating moral virtues
•  Secular revolution concurrent with religious evolution (United Order)
•  True Believing religious ideology within a moral meritocracy
•  Creation of a revolutionary (Zionist) vernacular
•  Employment of the press for the dissemination of ideology
•  Civic mobilization through militarization and political infiltration/domination (Nauvoo)
•  Censorship, denunciation, and surveillance (Nauvoo)
•  Appeal to rapture and emotional persuasion (testimony bearing and speaking incoherently)
•  Appearance of multiple radical splinter groups and the consolidation of power in a sequestered cabal
•  Creation of pseudo-egalitarian societies (priesthood hierarchies and Relief Society)
•  Global political pretensions and radical social change
•  Creation and preservation of oracular mystique (insistence of direct revelation without evidence)
•  Inner circles of fraternal orders (Aaronic and Melchizedek quorums)
•  Employment of ancient symbols, numerology, astrology, and music to establish links with ancient movements (temple, garments, organizational structure, pervasive Restoration themes)
•  Relegation of women to secondary status in the hierarchy (polygamy and female society)
•  Presence of messianic mission, hubris, and divine favoritism often accompanied by a measure of megalomanism (celebration of Joseph more than Jesus, etc.)
•  Adoption of kingship, kingdoms, elitism, and Millennialism with egalitarianism external to the movement’s core (only the Second Anointed gain status over the rabble membership)
•  Implementation of purges to prevent betrayal/exposure (usage of excommunication and slander)
•  Revolutionary movement modeled on Masonic (Illuminist ideology) structure
•  Ascension in the hierarchy conditional on loyalty, not oracular power or wisdom
•  Total confidence, obedience and veneration of the leader
•  Highest fraternal circle is sequestered from the common membership (Apostles & Seventies)
•  Progression of intelligence from lower to higher spheres (Plan of Salvation and priesthood pecking)
•  The sense of persecution and longing for liberty
•  The ultimate end of the revolutionary movement is a “deocracy” or theocratic Republic
•  Leadership always composed of journalistic intellectuals rather than politico-military figures

From this extensive list it is quite obvious that Joseph had no “revelation” concerning Masonic practices and its ideology. What Joseph had been doing was the very essence of it. The previous half-century of Masonic development was rife with revolutionary thought and energy. John Robison writes of it at great length; James Billington charts its origin from that same locale and ideology that precipitated the Inquisition. Alexis de Toqeville describes the rooting of it on American soil.

Billington ponders the reasons for the difference in revolutions between America and the several uproars across Europe. (The differences are outlined in Democracy in America.) He never quite gets the idea that the driving force of revolutions is the acute repression felt by the dispossessed. He does not realize that the United States did not really revolt. There was no ideological shift of the populace as there was across Europe. In the words of Franklin the motive was “to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers….” But of course we are told in grammar school it was all about Independence from English economic and political oppression. The “ideological” revolution in America took place over the preceding century as Europeans voted with their feet against the prevailing European powers, abandoning their homes and comforts for the arduous opportunity the new frontier afforded, removed from the bureaucracy, taxation, and constant warring among royal relatives. While Europe passed the nineteenth century in belligerent, ideological revolt against monarchy and then Imperialism, the United States was heralding the century of corruption and “the audacious confidence man”; the huckster and the sucker. Here everyone in business, politics, or religion was on the take—the obsession with materialism and property de Toqeuville discourses on. (Once again we see that Emma’s father Isaac Hale knew the score early on.) After the examples of Adams, Hamilton, and Washington bending the Federal government to their own apotheosis with covert Constitutional violations, the common citizen was onto the scam as much as the preachers who blazed across upstate New York in a fit of mock piety. In such an age and social movement, Joseph Smith found it his milieu.

It is common knowledge that a charismatic man is a romantic and idealist, both in his world view and his sexual relations. The magnetic personality as they called it back in Mesmer’s day (late 18th century) was essentially the hustler who had a talent for subtle pandering to vanity, of both their own and everyone else’s. How else could Joseph have been taken in by the Kinderhook plates? Free Masonry during Joseph’s impressionable years was wide-spread across America. It is now known and documented the Smith family (father and Hyrum) were immersed in it, particularly the Captain Morgan debacle, with Joseph applying his polygamist charm to Morgan’s widow Lucinda, just a decade later. Continental Europe’s Free Masonry, composed of its own form of Zionist Millennialism, along with the occult Mysticism transmogrified from Hermeticism, was every bit a part of American society. All the elements we see in Joseph’s “prophetic” career are plainly manifest in American culture of the period. There wasn’t a single aspect of his religion that was new. Every piece of it can be found in full fruition across American society of the era. From pumping his maid Fanny Alger in the barn, to scamming the investors in the Kirtland Safety Society, to his coronation as King over all Israel, he was doing exactly what so many of the elite were doing in political circles. His “inventiveness” was no more original than that of Charles Russell (Jehovah’s Witnesses), William Miller—James and Ellen White (Seventh-day Adventists), George Fox (Quakers), or Thomas and Alexander Campbell, whom Sidney Rigdon plagiarized, striving to do one up with his own version of the Campbell Bible. All these “inventors” of religion did was produce a variation on a theme, upping the ante of a predecessor.

That which is most ironical is that within the pages of The Book of Mormon we find all the proscribed behaviors therein being practiced by the very people who produced it! If there was any valid prophecy that Joseph uttered, it was his unwitting declaration about his own cabal:

“And they were kept up by the power of the devil to administer these oaths unto the people, to keep them in darkness, to help such as sought power to gain power, and to murder, and to plunder, and to lie, and to commit all manner of wickedness and whoredoms. And it was the daughter of Jared who put it into his heart to search up these things of old; and Jared put it into the heart of Akish; wherefore, Akish administered it unto his kindred and friends, leading them away by fair promises to do whatsoever thing he desired.

And it came to pass that they formed a secret combination, even as they of old; which combination is most abominable and wicked above all, in the sight of God; For the Lord worketh not in secret combinations, neither doth he will that man should shed blood, but in all things hath forbidden it, from the beginning of man. And now I, Moroni, do not write the manner of their oaths and combinations, for it hath been made known unto me that they are had among all people, and they are had among the Lamanites. And they have caused the destruction of this people of whom I am now speaking, and also the destruction of the people of Nephi.” Ether 8:16-21

One must remember Hannah Arendt’s exposition of the immoral nature of the central cabal. Mendacity is its modus-operandi. This is the religion and the "prophet" purporting to possess exclusive authority to save all of humanity, both the living and the dead! A true American revolutionary of the Masonic caste.

SethSmee


REFERENCES
James Billington Fire in the Minds of Men
John Robison Proofs of a Conspiracy
Eric Hoffer The True Believer, The Ordeal of Change
Milton Mayer They Thought They Were Free
Hannah Arendt  The Origin of Totalitarianism
Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, Orson Pratt Ether 8 Book of Mormon
De Toqueville Democracy in America Book 2 Chap 12; Chap 20

Vanick et al Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon
Gore Vidal The Essential Gore Vidal Essays
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/smithhis.htm

Saviors, Weakness of Soul

                                           

                                               The Messiah Complex

                           Tell the truth, and people will bash in your head
                                                                      —Hungarian Proverb


    It is one of the fundamental and oldest of ploys by government officials to stir up dissention and riot among the populace, and blame a scapegoat who they have created by propaganda as the villain of social unrest. The story is repeated in the Book of Mormon throughout the Gadianton period. It is present in the pogroms of the National Socialist and Bolshevik revolutions. It is so common in America’s foreign policy for the last century hardly anyone blinks an eye to it. It doesn’t take much investigation into the recent subversion of Libya, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so forth to see it glaring from the newsprint. Such was the case among the Jewish Sanhedrin when Jesus was made the scapegoat of insurrection. As yet I have to learn when in history such a tactic was first used. But it is clearly evident in the Gospels that the Jews (the Zionist leadership of that day) made good use of it, as they have been doing since, right up to this very day. It is a tactic used in our time to stir people up to war against our neighbors under a false flag of patriotism. Its been documented by journalists and politicians, priests and even a number of Jews, such as Benjamin Freedman.

What he was
When Jesus was arraigned before Pilate, he was accused of provoking political discord by claiming he had right to be King of the Jews. The passage is in John 18 and likely the most important part of the Gospels above any other passage. Here we learn what Jesus was really doing, and the Christians of the world have paid no attention to it.

Pilate enters the judgement hall and gets right to the point, suspecting that the Sanhedrin is trying to set him up, he asks Jesus straightway: Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus wants to know what Pilate’s position is and answers with his own question: Are you asking to know for your own information, or did somebody put you up to it? Pilate lets the cat out of the bag: What do I know of your kind? Your own people and the chief priests have put this debacle (insurrection and aspiring to the throne) in my lap. YOU tell ME, what have you been doing? Whether Pilate is aware of Jesus’ activities or not we cannot say (not without resorting to “spurious” texts). But he wants to be impartial and hear the matter from the accused.

Jesus spells it out so Pilate can make no error: My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my subjects would be fighting for my freedom from the Sanhedrin. My kingdom is not of the kind you and the Sanhedrin need worry about. Pilate rejoins to make sure there is no inferential subterfuge: Are you a king then? Here Jesus is quite clear about what his mission on earth is: I was born and came into the world for this purpose only; to bear witness of the truth. Every one that reveres and adheres to the truth cleaves to my elucidation of it.

It is also a ploy by those who desire distinction among men, to subvert a movement or popular trend from within, if it cannot be accomplished by direct confrontation, whether covertly or overtly. Thus did Saul of Tarsas to the followers of Jesus; as was done to the Bolsheviks as they had done to the populace; as Hitler to the National Socialist party; as the Communist party USA; as the Illuminati to the Freemasons; as the Zionist Jews to the world’s banking and business trusts, and non-democratic governments around the world.

Context
There is a Gospel story of Jesus entering into the house of a chief Pharisee on the Jewish Sabbath. Everyone’s eyes were upon him. A man suffering from edema was present and Jesus decides to put his detractors on the defensive by asking, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Getting no response he heals the man and sends him off, adding with the question put to them: Which of you fail to go attend one of your cattle that is in a bind on the Sabbath? Now having gotten everyone’s attention he proceeds to speak in parables to them. He attracts a crowd, at length the Publicans and street rabble come along to hear. The Jews love to hear their priests tell allegories. By this time the Pharisees are a bit miffed and murmur he’s not behaving like they do: Get lost, you sinners. We won’t be seen associating with you.  So Jesus changes the tack of his allegories to expose the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. This got them perturbed and they ridiculed him. Seeing he had them in their own noose, got more explicit and expounded on their fate. Seeking to justify themselves feeling convicted of their wickedness, they lean on Abraham. But Jesus declares that neither Abraham nor Moses, nor anyone coming back from death could persuade them to repent.

Then he turned to his disciples, who seem to be at his heals everywhere he goes, and admonishes them not to take offense like the Pharisees if they happen to be rebuked at some time for their faults. Interestingly, his apostles request him to increase their faith, and Jesus being a bit perturbed at this tells them if their faith was as little as a mustard seed they could get the flora to observe their command. And if they merely did what was commanded of them they would yet be unprofitable servants.

At this juncture he’s had enough of the folks who just can’t seem to get the object of the parables and makes his way downtown by way of Samaria and Galilee. One must presume if the story is contiguous, that the chief Pharisee he had dinner with lived in a swank subdivision at the outskirts of Jerusalem. Along the way he encounters some lepers who beg him to have mercy and heal them. Having compassion on those afflicted, he does so according to their own faith. But this really gets to the Pharisees who are a mite defensive, following him to find a way to use the law to shut him up. They demand he tell them when the kingdom of God should come, and he tells them explicitly: You ain’t going to see no kingdom come by looking for it. You ain’t going to see it come by people preaching in the streets, declaring its arrival (apparently a reference to John the Baptist among others). Just as plain as he can make it clear to the Pharisees and to his disciples he said: the kingdom of God is within a person’s heart. He tells his disciples the day will come when they will lament the time gone by when they had his company. He warns them by allusion that the Pharisees have crafted a plan to accuse him falsely of seeking to take over the kingdom of the Jews.

Jesus, a priest, a rabbi, a magi, a physician. A man of the craft. Throughout the Gospel stories we never read of him declaring of himself any other such agenda, nor that his intent was to build a church, for the Jews don’t attend churches to worship. (The use of the word “church” in Matthew 16 is an anachronism, and clear indication the passage is corrupt, the word first being derived from the Greek, and is interpolated hearsay by the translator.) They go to synagogues to learn. They go to the temples to buy off their offences to God. His Gospel is not new, it had been declared through the ages before him (The Essenes, among whom he first learned his craft, were the conservators of The Way of the ancients.). By lineage, he had a claim to the throne of the southern kingdom, but it was not as direct as others contemporary with him, being that such lineage goes through a bastard child of Tamar and Judah. Judah himself can only claim this royal prerogative through the fabled story of his progenitor Jacob buying off his brother’s birthright. So within the context of kingdoms and kings as had been practiced in Mesopotamia for several millennia, Jesus didn’t have a right to anything but a petty vasalship.

What he was not
So how did Jesus get mixed up in this plot? Well Andrew, Peter’s brother, was a follower of John the Baptist. After John declares Jesus to be the Lamb of God to Andrew and another, the two immediately tail Jesus and follow him home. The next day Andrew shags his brother Peter and tells him he and his bud have found the prophesied “Messias.” The thing snowballs as Jesus picks up Philip from the same suburb as Andrew and Peter. Philip goes off to find his bud Nathaniel and tells him they have found the Mosaic-law-and-prophets-prophesied coming of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. (Nathaniel is a skeptic, but flip-flops after Jesus tells him he saw Nathaniel before Philip shagged him. Huh?) Stop right there! Isn’t this declaration a bit opportunistic? In Matthew Jesus asks Peter who he thinks Jesus is and Peter tells him he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But the word Christ is Greek for “the anointed”, meaning the Messias. But it doesn’t have anything to do with also being the Son of God. Is Peter adept at Greek, or is this the Gospel author slipping in the Greek form? (By the way, Peter’s subsequent rebuke by Jesus as possessed of Satan is another anachronism, for Satan in Hebrew means “accuser,” while its Greek equivalent  diabolos from which diablo or devil is derived means “aggressor.” The first anachronism is "Jesus of Nazareth")

And where does it say in Deuteronomy or any of the Pentateuch books that “Jesus of Nazareth”, a son of Joseph, was the prophesied Messiah? The town of Nazareth is not even mentioned in available Jewish writings of the period, and only appears no earlier than 200 AD in the writings of Sextus Julius Africanus and Origen by the dubious variant Nazará.  The etymology of “Nazareth” is disputedly undecided by scholars as to whether it is a genuine variant of the Aramaic language of the time. To date, no one knows for sure if there truly was a town called Nazareth, although the purported location has an archeological history extending back to 2200 BCE. Nathaniel declares Jesus to be the Son of God, and the King of Israel. Here again we are confronted with anachronisms, products of a much later age by True Believers who are descendent scribes (by 200+ years) of the early sect. We know that Nathaniel would have to be ignorant of Israelite history, for the northern kingdom was known as Israel, while the southern kingdom was of Judah. If Jesus was a descendent of Judah, how then could he be the rightful king of Israel, while later at the Crucifixion he is labeled the king of the Jews? Whoever wrote the Gospels did not get their stories straight, as we see over and over throughout the narratives. Much has been investigated on this problem by able scholars such as Bart Ehrman, F. Scrivener, Vincent Taylor, etc. After these chroniclers got through with their fraudulent treatment of so-called eye-witness accounts, Constantine (who was raised in England as a Christian) directed St. Augustine and Eusebius to gather all these disagreeable contorted manuscripts and compile a single compendium and dogma according to his decrees. Whereupon Eusebius gathered them all up, saved those that conformed to the decrees, and directed the burning of those then labeled heretical at the Council of Nicea.

Salvation Obsession
The problem originates with the term Messias. The earliest form of this word in Hebrew is MSSH, a derivative of Messeh/Mûshûs referring in ancient Mesopotamia to the sacred crocodile. Those who by lineage had the right to rule in Egypt were anointed with the crocodile’s fat, by their consort, the Queen. This ritual was a part of the ring-lord culture which predates the Sumerian civilization, originating in the Balkans. The selling of the birthright by Esau to Jacob is likely a story fabricated by his descendents, for the birthright is a blood and firstborn prerogative. It cannot be sold or given away, only conferred upon next of kin with the death of the rightful heir if he has no posterity. This is the Sumerian legacy of kingly birthright, observed by the Pharaohs for centuries. Esau, who we learn very little of in the Old Testament, fathered the kings of Assyria and Babylonia, as well as the Hyksos kings of Egypt. The tiny wannabe kingdom of Israel is surrounded by their cousin rulers who have the most direct claim to kingship. So we can discern here that in the book of Isaiah, even if the author knew anything about the royal dynasty, was in error about a prophesied Messiah liberating the Jews at some distant time. But since the specific reference is another anachronistic bending of Isaiah (a self-fulfilling prophecy, found everywhere in the New Testament), we can set that also to rest. Jesus by lineage could never be a King of kings, because he was not a direct descendent of Esau! As for his anointing as the Messias, this is presumed to have happened when Mary Magdalene washed his feet with her tears and anointed his head with spikenard. (And now you know the rest of the story behind the Second Anointing ritual in the Morgdum temple. While the form is only partially there, the right of possession is a fraud and impossible for Caucasian Mormons. Without a direct pedigree to the Starfire council of nine—the Elohim, they have no claim to a kingdom of any kind under any aegis. The bestowal of full priesthood authority on the earth is a hoax, for kingship was never inclusive of priesthoods, even though the high priesthood was administered with spiked olive oil in ancient Israel.) In some scholarly circles it is asserted that Jesus did not receive of any priesthood until after anointing, at the end of his ministry. This priesthood was of Melchizedek descent, although its authenticity is quite dubious because of the intervening years and lack of records between the time of Melchizedek and the Nazarene community in Galilee.

Readers of the corrupted scriptures (and they are all corrupt, including those of the Essenes and the Ebionites, etc) assume that because those men Jesus chose to become his apostles were looking for a Messias (or “foundation stones” as the Essenes describe them), that he acknowledged being the Messias. If this be true, then he was lying to Pilate when he was asked if he was a king of the Jews, and he denied it. This is one of the most fundamental falsehoods perpetrated in the ancient texts, that Jesus declared himself to be the long awaited Messias to deliver Israel from bondage. Attend this passage from the Gospel of the Twelve:

“And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?
They answering said, John the Baptist; but some [say], Elias; and others [say], that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. And he straitly charged them, and commanded [them] to tell no man that thing;...”

Peter believes that Jesus is the Messias (Christ, in Greek, and another hearsay anachronism), but Jesus immediately demands that they say nothing to anyone about this. Why? Because it is too early in his ministry for the people to know? Does he want them to discover it on their own? Or is he trying to quell this assumption by his disciples without actually coming out and telling them he is not who they think he is? If he told them he was not the Messias, would they continue to learn his teachings? It is my view that Jesus did not disabuse anyone of their beliefs, but allowed them to discover for themselves the truth of his doctrines and his mission. It was not a question of deception. It was a condition of having eyes that saw, ears that heard, and a heart that garnered the truth when it was manifest. How often did Jesus remind his chosen disciples about seeing and hearing? This was ever the way of the Masters, for they never went about proselytizing to obtain acolytes. People who adore and cherish the truth are not interested in becoming an acolyte, and certainly not in participating in a cult (worship; reverence, devotion, admiration of the charismatic proselytizer). They see, hear, and understand truth when it is before them, and treasure it in their hearts. They’re not looking for someone to lead them, guide them, walk beside them, helping them find “The Way.”

It has ever been the method of personalities seeking acclaim, status, and influence to impose upon the credulity of others. Joseph Smith was exceptionally adept at this and Isaac Hale among many other contemporaries, saw right through it. Joseph was able to ferret out what people believed and reflect an image of it back to them, so they were gulled by their own credulity. By definition, a politician must do this. When he fails, he loses credibility and is replaced. Hitler did it, Stalin did it, George Washington did it, all religious founders did it. Saul of Tarsas did it. The vanguard of the Messias was John the B, but the vanguard of Christianity was Paul the Persecutor. How did they do this? By fomenting the beliefs of the people. Neither Jesus nor Paul, nor Peter created Christianity. The people who craved it did. The people who craved Germany’s national salvation are the ones who created National Socialism. Hitler just rode the wave. Everywhere one looks into the causes of WWI, you find historians describing a world that was economically and socially ripe for it. Tyrants don’t grasp the reigns of power, people give it to them. Cults are not created by the charismatic leader. People exalt him. Monk monasteries are not created by the teacher. The people create it. It is people looking for the means and personage to facilitate escape from accountability. The eminent psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, wrote:

“People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend on them.  Since they cannot do that people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorying in being victimized by them.  After their secular savior—their Robespierre or Stalin—is safely in his grave, then the people glory once more in denouncing him as a betrayer of their trust.  Then they repeat the cycle.... The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy—and, in our age, monomedicine.  The belief that there is only one right way to live—only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs—is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.”

This appellation of Messias in the Bible is nowhere to be found declared by Jesus of himself. It is contrary to his stated mission, and anywhere in a text that such appears to be the case there will be found a conflation of Christian salvation doctrines with it. The reader assumes it means what they are preconditioned in their minds to think it reads.  When John the B. inquired of Jesus if he was that awaited Messias, how did Jesus respond? He sent John’s messengers back with the declaration that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, etc., and let John decide for himself. Kind of a rude response if John the B. thought he was preparing the way for Israel’s political deliverer. John the B. was a Nazarene, as was Jesus, and his father Joseph. None of these Nazarenes, who were trained by the Essenes in The Way, knew what to think of Jesus as he went about fulfilling his mission.


Historical Background
Investigating the origin of the Nazarenes we find ourselves back at the time of the Babylonian captivity. The Israelite priests were introduced to Pythagoras. The irony is that much of the Greek religious pantheon derived from the Mosaic influence in Egypt. With the intervening years the Greeks morphed the Mosaic deities (not just one, in the beginning) into their own, adding embellishments and their own characteristics. The Levitical priests of the exile then inserted this Greek perspective into their rewrite of the Torah, which is the Deuteronomist version of the royal cult which Margaret Barker was trying to retrieve in her investigative works, The Older Testament and The Great Angel. This royal cult was none other than the Sumerian pantheon of gods. YHWH, the Judaen god, merged with the Israelite god Elohim, are respectively in Sumerian culture, Enki-Ea, and Enlil/NinLil. Without the Sumer tablets professor Barker was at a standstill in disassembling the confusion. (Joseph Smith didn’t stand a chance getting the distinction corrected. His “inspired” version of the Bible is worse than a joke.) The kings and queens of all the empires dating back to Sumer are all blood related originating in Ansar the heavenly father, and Kisar the earthly mother. Both these deities are heavily referenced by Jesus in his teaching recounted in the Essene Gospel of Peace. There Jesus does not refer to them as literal parents of the human race, but as archetypes of Nature which are bestowed human qualities. It was common to deify the kings and queens in ancient religious practice, who personify the Creators of heaven and earth.) The etymology of Nazari/Nazarene stems from Ansar. The Hebrew, a Phoenician script, with their blessed abandonment of vowels (!!!) wrote it as NSR (which allowed as many variants of pronunciation as one can conjure), becoming Nas Sar, Nasi Sar, both meaning “prince.” Thus Nasi Sar is the equivalent of “Prince of princes.” It is easy to see how a pissant wannabe nation would convert the concept of “Prince of princes” into “King of kings” as part of the national identity elevation over their rightful cousins and the self-fulfillment of their prophecies.

At the time of Jesus, anyone could consecrate themself to some particular objective for any amount of time, revocable by the father or mother over minors, and be referred to a Nazorean. The firstborn son was often consecrated to god (e.g. Sampson), which explains why Mary and Joseph, Nazari themselves, introduced Jesus to the order. This consecration was begun with the initiation into the Essene sect, for rights of purification and instruction. So now you know how Jesus as a youth could sit in the temple and confound the elders. He was trained in the ancient texts preserved by the Essene community. What does Jesus do at the conclusion of his personal preparations and sanctifying? Luke tells us he went into the temple and declared the prophecy of Isaiah 61 was fulfilled in their ears! Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was raised by devout True Believers. The “salvation” promised by the Lord in Isaiah is the recapture of their Golden Age of political supremacy, economical prowess over other nations, and the healing of the maimed both physically and spiritually. It is a restoration of all they had lost, ascribed to their wickedness and disobedience in serving other gods. As a Master Jesus did not see himself as a political deliverer of the captive, but a deliverer of those who were held captive by their suffering, their ignorance, their infirmities. He sought to teach them personal responsibility and accountability for their physical and spiritual health.

It is interesting to note here that in the Essene book of Moses, the higher law which Moses downgraded for the dim-witted was:

Thou shalt have no other Laws before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any image of the Law in heaven above or in the earth beneath. I am the invisible Law, without beginning and without end.
Thou shalt not make unto thee false laws, for I am the Law, and the whole Law of all laws. If thou forsake me, thou shalt be visited by disasters for generation upon generation.
If thou keepest my commandments, thou shalt enter the Infinite Garden where stands the Tree of Life in the midst of the Eternal Sea.
Thou shalt not violate the Law. The Law is thy God, who shall not hold thee guiltless.
Honor thy Earthly Mother, that thy days may be long upon the land, and honor thy Heavenly Father, that eternal life be thine in the heavens, for the earth and the heavens are given unto thee by the Law, which is thy God.
Thou shalt greet thy Earthly Mother on the morning of the Sabbath.
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Earth on the second morning.
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Life on the third morning.
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Joy on the fourth morning.
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Sun on the fifth morning.
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Water on the sixth morning,
Thou shalt greet the Angel of Air on the seventh morning-
All these Angels of the Earthly Mother shalt thou greet, and consecrate thyself to them, that thou
mayest enter the Infinite Garden where stands the Tree of Life.
Thou shalt worship thy Heavenly Father on the evening of the Sabbath.
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Eternal Life on the second evening.
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Work on the third evening.
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Peace on the fourth evening.
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Power on the fifth evening,
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Love on the sixth evening.
Thou shalt commune with the Angel of Wisdom on the seventh evening.
All these Angels of the Heavenly Father shalt thou commune with, that thy soul may bathe in the Fountain of Light, and enter into the Sea of Eternity.
The seventh day is the Sabbath: thou shalt remember it, keep it holy. The Sabbath is the day of the Light of the Law, thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, but search the Light, the Kingdom of thy God, and all things shall be given unto thee. For know ye that during six days thou shalt work with the Angels, but the seventh day shalt thou dwell in the Light of thy Lord, who is the holy Law.
Thou shalt not take the life from any living thing. Life comes only from God, who giveth it and taketh it away.
Thou shalt not debase Love. It is the sacred gift of thy Heavenly Father.
Thou Shalt not trade thy Soul, the priceless gift of the loving God, for the riches of the world, which are as seeds sown on stony ground, having no root in themselves, and so enduring but for a little while.
Thou shalt not be a false witness of the Law, to use it against thy brother: Only God knoweth the beginning and the ending of all things, for his eye is single, and he is the holy Law.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's possessions. The Law giveth unto thee much greater gifts, even the earth and the heavens, if thou keep the Commandments of the Lord thy God.

The loss of Israel ‘s political preeminence was through the curse they brought upon themselves by departure from the lesser Laws of Peace and Prosperity. The original code of Law was had among the people of this planet going back all the way to Horus, when the “Gods” came down among men and taught them how to live. It was the teachings of the Akhu that the Essenes were attempting to preserve. The problem was the Deuteronomists, the exiled Levtical priests in Babylon, who not only re-wrote the lesser Law in contemporary terms, but destroyed the references to the older Law which they were charged to preserve, by not perpetuating them as the Shemsu-Hor had been doing for thousands of years. In this they violated the first commandment of the Law: thou shalt not subvert it nor make any facsimile of it. (Technically, Moses did just that when he dumbed it down, rather than leave the people to their lusts.) The restoration they were looking for began at the time of Isaiah’s prophecies when he warned the king of Judah against foreign alliances (ca 739 BC). Disregarding these warnings Judah fell into Babylonian subjection. This is the origin of the “restoration” and “salvation” in Jewish beliefs, transmogrified into the Christian (Pauline) prophecy of the return of Jesus as King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Mormon doctrine of Apostasy and Restoration preparatory to his Millennial reign. Of course the entire house of embellished and corrupt prophetic cards collapse because Jesus’ mission was the restoration of the Jews to the original Law they had abandoned, who all were astonished at his understanding and wisdom. He just didn’t tell Pilate the whole story, because he knew if the people began keeping the Law as had been given them anciently the Roman subordination would collapse of its own weight, while the people would have internal peace by living justly with all men. Such a course would be construed as subversion by Roman authority. What is most important to observe in these historical accounts is that Jesus does NOT portray himself as a political liberator in the Gospel of Peace, whereas in the later Christian Gospels (including the Essene Gospel of the Twelve) it is a remnant of the Tolkien (Sumerian) Return of the King, the Solar Myth. This subversion of Pauline Christianity was implemented by the conspiracy of Constantine, Augustine, and Eusebius at Nicea. They incorporated the solar myth of pagan origin, as well as the fabrication of the miracle fables we read today, and the present abomination of blood Atonement by crucifixion. The Jews never considered Jesus a Messias because the orthodox among them were looking for a king with the power to break their occupation and economic servitude. It is for this reason he was mocked as the King of the Jews at the crucifixion, all the while the Sanhedrin leaders were scapegoating him with this propaganda in order to subvert his rising popularity among the people. He was seen as the political third party between the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Morgdumb is correct about the early Church apostasy. What they don’t realize, though Joseph Smith did have a small clue, was that the entire New (and Old) Testament was corrupt, not just translated incorrectly. The apostasy began with the Pauline churches that split off from the Essene driven Jerusalem “church.” This “church” fled Jerusalem with the advent of the Roman destruction in 64AD. The apostasy began with Paul arrogating to himself the status of Apostle of Jesus, with Peter tailing along for a short period. Peter was not the conservator of the church, for in the Essene Gospel of the Twelve Jesus explicitly tells Peter, he, Jesus, is the rock, the cornerstone, and the twelve form the foundation of the allegorical building of his “kingdom.” Peter never did find his conviction, for it was Jesus’ brother, James the Just who watched over the Jerusalem church until martyrdom. Peter fades into the background until he too is martyred. Saul of Tarsus, seeing that he could not obtain the Jewish daughter he wanted to wed, persecuted the Essenes until his so-called conversion, where upon he changed his tactic of persecution by Jewish law to subversion by phoney conversion and false self-effacement. Paul’s “conversion” stories are just as inconsistent as Joseph Smith’s, and he used the same con game that Joseph did to jump start his own religion.

Conclusion
When one reads the Gospel of the Essenes, the character of Jesus and his purported mission is consistent with his actions as a teacher and healer in the four Gospels. What is not consistent is all the Messianic and Divine hyperbole found in the New Testament and the self-fulfilling retroactive prophecies—the wresting of the Old Testament passages that ordinary Jews knew did not have anything to do with the Rabbi Jesus.

Jesus was who he said he was, and not what later acolytes of Paul’s preaching made him into. He was an ordinary man of extraordinary education and virtue—a man of the craft, born of a physical father Joseph, also a man of the craft, and a young virgin maiden, Mary. Taught by the Essenes in his youth and learned in the various skills of the craft in other countries, his stated mission was to bear witness of the truth, to heal the infirm. When he told the Nazari of his youth the truth of their own hypocrisy, they sought to “bash in his head” as the Hungarian proverb warns. And so it was with all those he confronted with their works of mischief, wickedness, and abandonment of accountability.

One cannot make the blind to see that does not know he is blind; nor the deaf to hear, that does not know he is deaf; nor heal those who do not feel ill; nor the arrogant to understand who do not know their ignorance.

Seth Smee

Addendum 9-28-14
U.G. Krishnamurti, pointing "to his heel and said that it was the only `sole', and that the other soul, if there was one, was fed to the point of indigestion by all those holy men and so-called messiahs.”

Bruce: “What if I need you?  What if I have questions?”
God:    “Ha ha ha.  That’s your problem Bruce—that’s everybody’s problem.  You keep looking up” [for your solutions]. Bruce Almighty




When a toddler is ready to walk on his/her own, (S)he lets go of the parent's fingers and begins the exploration of the world, solo. It is a rite of passage missing in transition to adulthood, in the individual, the family and Nations.



REFERENCES
John 18:33-37
Luke 14
Luke 4:16-30
Luke 9:18-21
Gospel of the 12, Lection IX
Gospel of the 12, Lection XIII
Gospel of the 12, Lection XVII
Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings, xiii, p155, Realm of the Ring Lords
The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies, Caesar's Messiah; http://www.thenazareneway.com/Caesar%27s%20Messiah%20Commentary.htm
The Golden Age Project, http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/genesis.php
Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason pp19-20
Thomas Szasz, The Untamed Tongue p155,160
Hannah Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism p458
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
“Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self.” p25

“It is the weak who strain their ears for a new word, clutch at every promise and rally around a savior and a redeemer.” p28

The True Believer
“When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives. Hence the embracing of a substitute will necessarily be passionate and extreme. We can have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the faith we have in our nation, religion, race or holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising. A substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget. We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it. This readiness to die is evidence to ourselves and others that what we had to take as a substitute for an irrevocably missed or spoiled first choice is indeed the best there ever was.” p16


Charles Moore, History of Western Civilization I, April 2003 Lara Lee Show
“...the head of the Jesuits, gathered together a bunch of Jesuits not long ago in Rome and explained to them the truth about Islam. And the truth about Islam is that it was created deliberately by the Catholic Church, on the advice of St Augustine, at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. And the reason behind this is rather startling. It turns out that Christianity was found not by Jesus, but by Constantine at the council of Nicea. That there was a Jesus, the last thing in the mind of that person was to have a Church, or any organization to follow him. He was too busy trying to share his life and insights with the people around him. His life is like that of Buddha, who also forbade any religion in his name. Now, all Masters do that; the true Masters don’t want religion following them, they simply want people to find out what they found out. Constantine founded Christianity, and the guy he got to the editing on the scriptures was named Eusebius. Eusebius was delivered by the bishops of the then up and running gatherings of so-called Christians.”