LDS Mormonism is Occultism

[ArmenianJohn]

mmm twenty years ago and I wasn't living close to them, I don't want to name names without really knowing for sure.

Well, perhaps he was mistaken. Kids have very active imaginations.

 

[BigDaddy4]

Matt 17:9... Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.

Luke 8: 56 And her parents were astonished: but He [Christ] charged them that they should tell no man what was done.

In both these cases, Christ Himself is specifically commanding information to be withheld. Clearly such is not foreign to true Christianity.

Not necessarily. In Matt 17:9, Jesus gave the condition of not telling anyone "until the Son of man be risen again from the dead."

The same may be true for Luke 8:56, but we don't know. However, earlier in Luke chapter 8:38-39, when Jesus heals the demon possessed man he says

"The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

In Mark 1:41-45, he tells the man he healed of leprosy to not tell anyone. Why? See verse 45 "Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere."

Mobs of people wanting healing could hinder the message Jesus was trying to spread.

Regardless, these stories were meant to be told since they are included in Scripture. So you're claim about "true Christianity" is false, since they came from Christ himself through the inspiration of the writers by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Jane_Doe]

In both these cases, Christ is talking to specific individuals and not to the Church, not to Christians.

These people were Christians! Commanded by our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST!!!

This includes making it off limits to discuss certain things as being "too sacred" to discuss with just anyone - people must be "worthy" for those "sacred" things.

Then by your assessment, Christ was an occultist because of His words "don't cast your pearls before swine". Let alone the OT practices which God commanded.

For example, if a pastor or bishop told someone "Please don't tell the others in the congregation about the troubles that Jennifer is having..." that is not "occultism".

According to your OP it is. In fact, a priest's vow not to disclose things (such as during confession) is a systematic example of this done routinely. According to your thesis (keeping secrets = occult), that would make all Christian priests systematic occultists.

Personally I find such an outrageous accusation to offensive and laughably off base.

 

[Ironhold]

Supposedly

No "supposedly" about it.

Contrary to what critics of the church have been arguing, there's nothing to prove that he was convicted of anything in the pre-Missouri period. The one document that people kept holding up as proof of a conviction has since been debunked - Mormon/LDS Answers: Questions about LDS Prophets and the Mormons .

With Missouri, Governor Boggs was so embarrassed by the fact that the first trial against the church leadership ended in an acquittal that the order was given for the rest of the leaders to be summarily executed. A high-level official, possibly General Andrew Doniphan of the state militia, refused this order and allowed JS and the others to escape.

 

[Ironhold]

I do remember somewhere that JS was convicted of glass looking.

Nope.

Mormon/LDS Answers: Questions about LDS Prophets and the Mormons

The document that is constantly being held up as "proof" of the conviction and fine is in fact the bill for the pre-trial hearing.

 

[Ironhold]

I was invited to a Mormon church during the 1980's. They had a satellite dish on the roof of the church and had a message beamed to them from church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

The church leadership has, traditionally, made it a point to directly address the membership at least twice a year, and there are other instances where such addresses take place as well.

During the 1980s, the church used the then-newfangled technology that was satellite television to broadcast these addresses straight to the various church meetinghouses. Hence the big, huge satellite dishes, which were what civilians had access to at the time. Nowadays, the internet and digital television have rendered this effectively obsolete; the handful of people who don't have access to these addresses at home can simply go to a single designated area facility, which gets the address via the internet. The big dishes are gone.

There is a high concentration of Mormons in Utah and Idaho. I traveled through this area and was told they take care of their own poor. Some sort of farm was described where poor Mormons work in the fields and can stay there and be fed.

The church maintains its own internal welfare system, which includes a number of farms and ranches. The bulk of the people working there are either paid employees or volunteers, depending upon which farm you're talking about.

 

[BigDaddy4]

Nope.

Mormon/LDS Answers: Questions about LDS Prophets and the Mormons

The document that is constantly being held up as "proof" of the conviction and fine is in fact the bill for the pre-trial hearing.

Is that an "authoritative" or "official" source?

 

[Ironhold]

Is that an "authoritative" or "official" source?

The link is to a discussion about matters, which includes references to an actual academic paper which handles the matter nicely.

If you don't want to read it, please just say that you don't want to read it.

 

[withwonderingawe]

I know that I have read posts from various sides that I have taken the author as being prideful, then I remind myself that one can not see facial expression, nor hear their voice.

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View by , D. Michael Quinn is worth reading.

I do remember somewhere that JS was convicted of glass looking.
I think he only got a fine. Maybe, some one else has more information.

Quinn was excommunicated because he was gay and had an on going relationship. Much of what he writes are just hit jobs at the church. He will give tons of quotes with lots of documentation but when you go and actually look it up it's a miss quote. He claims the Smiths were into the occult and astrology simply because they read the Farmer's Almanac. After reading that I knew he was a phony. He claimed Joseph was gay by taking a quote completely out of context. Joseph was talking about lying down in the grave and on resurrection day seeing his loved ones and rejoicing.

When it comes to the conviction of glass looking if you read through the page Iron gave you you'll see there are a lot of problems with it. I looked at this many many years ago, I had to go to BYU to look at their archives to find some of the stuff because computers weren't around back then. I was looking at a trial record. I asked around a little and a friend of mine read through it and started to laugh. He said this has to be phony, it's a Justice of the Peace Court, there are no trial records at a Justice of the Peace Court. So I tossed it aside and chalked it up to just one more lie.

Then this court record which shows a Judge Neely writing down the amount charged the county for the hearing. I studied it for a while and then something jumped out at me. The dates are wrong! They needed the date of March 20th to match up with some other documentation. If you look at it that's what it says but the date above it says March 22 so it is out of sink. These judges made the rounds holding court in different areas. On March 22 this judge held three hearings, the last was Joseph's and it says misdemeanor . The next time he's in town for a hearing is Sept 2 and then Oct 3. I believe Wesley P. Walters needed March 20th to line up with one of the trials, he stole the record and with someone's help wrote in the date and the words the glass looker.

 

[ArmenianJohn]

These people were Christians! Commanded by our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST!!!

Actually, there were no Christians at that time - there were Jews. There was no Church yet. Christians came when the Church was established. And again, Christ's "commands" (not "commandments" - big difference) were to individuals about what to do or not do in a certain situation. He wasn't telling them to hide spiritual knowledge or theology from those who ask. Huge, huge difference from occultism.

Then by your assessment, Christ was an occultist because of His words "don't cast your pearls before swine". Let alone the OT practices which God commanded.

No, the verse saying to not give that which is holy to the dogs or to cast your pearls before swine is simply saying that you don't have to and shouldn't continue to spread the Gospel to those who have no serious intention of listening and only use it to mock. That's not hiding information, that's just avoiding a waste of time. If a Christian shares the Gospel and after a few times the person or people he is sharing it with does nothing but mock then he is wasting his time, casting pearls before swine. What it DOES NOT mean is to hide parts of what we are taught and divulge certain other parts. It does not mean "discuss this, but do not discuss these things because they are 'too sacred'". You'll never see in the Bible that anything is "too sacred" to discuss.

According to your OP it is. In fact, a priest's vow not to disclose things (such as during confession) is a systematic example of this done routinely. According to your thesis (keeping secrets = occult), that would make all Christian priests systematic occultists.

A person's confession to a priest is not theology or dogma. It is not scripture. It is not Church teaching. It is a private confession between one person and his priest. It's not "keeping secrets = occult" - it's it's keeping spiritual knowledge, such as dogma, theology, teaching, etc. secret which is occultic. Keeping personal information secret is not occultic. Occultism pertains to spirituality, not personal confidential information.

That's not the occult. That's like saying that doctors are occultists because they have to keep their patient's information hidden from others due to doctor-patient privilege. No, there are reasons for confidentiality when dealing with an individual's personal information.

Personally I find such an outrageous accusation to offensive and laughably off base.

Well I think it's because you misunderstood - you thought that I was saying ALL secrets or secret-keeping is occultism, but that's not what I said, and now I've explained it further, again, above. So no, it's not offensive or laughably off base because it's true. Mormonism is an occultic religion; ceremonies are kept hidden until someone is deemed worthy to have them revealed to them.

 

[Jane_Doe]

Actually, there were no Christians at that time - there were Jews.

Christian = disciples of Christ. They were Christian. Following commands DIRECTLY from the Lord.

No, the verse saying to not give that which is holy to the dogs or to cast your pearls before swine is simply saying that you don't have to and shouldn't continue to spread the Gospel to those who have no serious intention of listening and only use it to mock.

Exactly! Hence the reason sacred things are kept in sacred places/times.

You'll never see in the Bible that anything is "too sacred" to discuss.

That's exactly what Mother Mary did...
Not to mention large parts of the OT...

A person's confession to a priest is not theology or dogma. It is not scripture. It is not Church teaching. It is a private confession between one person and his priest. It's not "keeping secrets = occult" - it's it's keeping spiritual knowledge, such as dogma, theology, teaching, etc. secret which is occult.

If you would like to study temple theology, all you need to do is open up a set of scriptures.

That's not the occult. That's like saying that doctors are occultists because they have to keep their patient's information hidden from others due to doctor-patient privilege.

Yep, the OP thesis is is quite ridiculous.

 

[BigDaddy4]

The link is to a discussion about matters, which includes references to an actual academic paper which handles the matter nicely.

If you don't want to read it, please just say that you don't want to read it.

Why can't you just post the relevant information rather than making your readers click on an unofficial, non-authoritative source to dig for themselves? C'mon, you're in the "biz", you should know better, especially when you harp on others to do the same...

What if a non-lds posted a link to a document at the Tanner's website as a rebuttal? How much of an uproar would that be?

There's that word again...

 

[KevinSim]

I am considered by the mormon religion to be profane, not worthy. They consider some 80-90% of their own members to be profane.

Has the LDS Church ever actually used that word, profane?

They exclude their own members and all people from all other religions from their weddings, baptisms, etc. You won't see that at a Christian ritual. At a Christian wedding, guests can be other denominations, other religions like mormon, hindu, buddhist, muslim, jewish, etc. Nothing is hidden by Christians.

I remember the wedding of John J. Dunbar to Stands with a Fist in the movie "Dances with Wolves." All the tribe was gathered together for the ceremony, officiated over by the holy man Kicking Bird, and when Kicking Bird gets done he tells the two of them to go into a teepee right there where they're expected to consummate the marriage. Everybody watched as they went into the teepee.

Now that would be a little much for people raised in the United States of the 1800s. Consummating the marriage is considered a private thing, that shouldn't have all those observers. But that's just the thing. Different cultures have different traditions. For the Lakota tribe in the movie watching them go into the teepee was perfectly natural. For us today we want to be at the wedding but not necessarily at the hotel after the wedding. And for devout Latter-day Saints we want to limit wedding attendance to a much smaller group than we would invite to the reception. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[KevinSim]

They exclude their own members and all people from all other religions from their weddings, baptisms, etc.

By the way, that's absolutely not true. The LDS Church most definitely does not exclude people from baptisms. Anybody who wants to can come to a baptism.

 

[Ironhold]

Why can't you just post the relevant information

I did. The link takes you directly to the discussion.

What if a non-lds posted a link to a document at the Tanner's website as a rebuttal?

It's still a source citation, which is more than what I've been seeing in this thread.

 

[BigDaddy4]

I did. The link takes you directly to the discussion.



It's still a source citation, which is more than what I've been seeing in this thread.

Your double standards are laughable.

 

[Open Heart]

I posted this as part of a response in another thread but am creating a thread about Mormonism being the Occult so as not to derail that other thread.

When you don't share something, you are hiding it. When it is spiritual in nature, that is occultism. "Occult" means "hidden". Hidden spiritual knowledge is occultism.

The hidden knowledge of Mormonism is not at all similar to the hidden knowledge of the occult. Occult knowledge is enshrined in darkness, and must be sought from demonic forces. We are talking about Witchcraft, Spiritism, and Divination.

You don't find those things in Mormonism. What you find is certain doctrines that are withheld until you are already Mormon (of course these days you can find it out anyways). This is similar to the Early Christian practice of having those who were Catechumens (those studying for baptism) leave the church during communion, where the "mystery of faith" was revealed.

 

[Ironhold]

The hidden knowledge of Mormonism is not at all similar to the hidden knowledge of the occult. Occult knowledge is enshrined in darkness, and must be sought from demonic forces. We are talking about Witchcraft, Spiritism, and Divination.

You don't find those things in Mormonism. What you find is certain doctrines that are withheld until you are already Mormon (of course these days you can find it out anyways). This is similar to the Early Christian practice of having those who were Catechumens (those studying for baptism) leave the church during communion, where the "mystery of faith" was revealed.

Thank you.

 

[Rescued One]

The hidden knowledge of Mormonism is not at all similar to the hidden knowledge of the occult. Occult knowledge is enshrined in darkness, and must be sought from demonic forces. We are talking about Witchcraft, Spiritism, and Divination.

You don't find those things in Mormonism. What you find is certain doctrines that are withheld until you are already Mormon (of course these days you can find it out anyways).

They try to hide it from from other Mormons.

 

[stephen583]

It's because... "citing your evidence" is how things work.

It's called "protecting" your sources. I'm not going to identify any of my sources and expose them to harassment, or worse, some Mormon "blood atonement".

As for identifying me and tracking me down.. good luck with that one.