Posted on 09/09/2012 8:00:06 PM PDT by NorthernCrunchyCon
This work was originally published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 27, No. 3, Fall 1994, pp. 117-194. The paper received considerable notice, and in 1995 the Mormon History Association recognized Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection with its annual award for the best article in Mormon studies. [snip]
The one thing about which we might all agree concerning Joseph Smith is that he was not the usual sort of person. He did not approach life itself--or his religious commitment--in a usual way. Yet the character of our historical investigation of Joseph Smith and his times has been primarily traditional, unimaginative, and lacking in any effort to find or create an epistemological methodology revolutionary enough to deal with the paradox of our movement. The irony of our position is that many of our methods and interpretations have become so traditional that they can only reinforce the fears of yesterday rather than nurture the seeds of tomorrow's dreams.1
More than two decades have passed since those words were penned, years marked by a veritable explosion in Mormon studies, and yet Edward's challenge "to find or create an epistemological methodology revolutionary enough to deal with the paradox" of Joseph Smith remains a summons largely unanswered. Revolutions are painful processes, in measure both destructive and creative. The imaginative revisioning of Joseph Smith's "unusual approach" to life and religion, demands a careful--though perhaps still difficult and destructive--hewing away of an hundred years of encrusting vilifications and thick layerings of iconographic pigments, masks ultimately false to his lively cast. Smith eschewed orthodoxy, and so eventually must his historians. To that end, there is considerable value in turning full attention to the revolutionary view of Joseph Smith provided by Harold Bloom in his critique of The American Religion.
(Excerpt) Read more at gnosis.org ...
Since this thread is turning political...
No, the current occupant of the White House is not a concern on FR, mainly because most Freepers have enough sense not to vote for him. In contrast, the GOP-e has spent millions trying to convince conservatives that Romney, despite a past record that differs very little from the current WH occupant, is in fact a conservative.
Similarly, most Freepers have enough sense to recognize that as a radical supporter of prenatal infanticide, Obama does not practice Christianity in any meaningful way. Many Republicans, however, are bending over background to try and convince themselves that Romney is Christian.
Fortunately, we have a lot of conservative Republicans running down ticket locally.
I’m guessing Mormo, who in Greek mythology as certain occult traditions was the consort of Hecate (goddess of witches) as well as the god of ghouls.
Well... Moroni wasn't an LDS angel. LDS hadn't been invented. Michael and Gabriel aren't Christian angels (in the 'sense' that you are using) either.
The only things I am absolutely sure about are the things that cannot be proven (at least until I'm dead).
In the sense that most all religions are a mixture of various other religions and mythologies, I guess it is possible, but it sure seems a stretch in the wrong direction.
By your prefix (I'm guessing) I would say you have no documentary evidence to support that.
It’s late and I’m about to nod off. Before I do I wanted to say Thank You for posting this article.
I like to learn more about various religions. I apologize for any threadjacking, if it appears that way to you. I think the recent peak from the DNC and RNC has politics burning through our brains and hard to avoid mentioning, especially since Mr. Romney is Mormon.
I have to say, though, If I only knew one thing about the candidates (THEIR RELIGION), I’d probably pick a Mormon as being the BEST in overall LEADERSHIP and MORALITY.
I think those two traits are very important for the role of President.
For those who criticize Mormons, I refer them to the Bible (Matthew 7:3) “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
FEW understand that verse and it’s true meaning, based on a lifetime of personal observation.
Joseph Smith came by his practice of the occult through his family, since his mother and father were deeply involved. The following is quoted in: The Salt Lake City Messenger, April 1999, #95, by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. “The evidence seems to show that Joseph Smith did make sacrifices to the demons. In an affidavit published in 1834, William Stafford, one of the neighbors of the Smith family, reported the following: ‘Joseph Smith, Sen., came to me one night, and told me that Joseph Smith Jr. had been looking in his glass, and had seen, not many rods from his house, two or three kegs of gold and silver… Joseph, Sen. first made a circle, twelve or fourteen feet in diameter. This circle, said he, contains the treasure. He then stuck in the ground a row of witch hazel sticks, around the said circle, for the purpose of keeping off the evil spirits. Within this circle he made another, of about eight or ten feet in diameter. He walked around three times on the periphery of this last circle, muttering to himself something which I could not understand. He next stuck a steel rod in the centre of the circles, and then enjoined profound silence upon us, lest we should arouse the evil spirit who had the charge of these treasures. After we had dug a trench about five feet in depth around the rod, the old man… went to the house to inquire of young Joseph the cause of our disappointment. He soon returned and said, that Joseph had remained all this time in the house, looking in his stone and watching the motions of the evil spirit –that h saw the spirit come up to the ring and as soon as it beheld the cone which we had formed around the rod, it caused the money to sink… another time, they devised a scheme, by which they might satiate their hunger, with the mutton of one of my sheep. They had seen in my flock a sheep, a large, fat, black weather. Old Joseph and one of the boys came to me one day, and said that Joseph Jr. had discovered some very remarkable and valuable treasures, which could be procured only in one way. That way, was as follows: –That a black sheep should be taken to the ground where the treasures were concealed –that after cutting its throat, it should be led around in a circle while bleeding. This being done, the wrath of the evil spirit would be appeased: the treasures could then be obtained, and my share of them was to be four fold. To gratify my curiosity, I let them have a large fat sheep. They afterwards informed me, that the sheep was killed pursuant to commandment; but as there was some mistake in the process, it did not have the desired effect. This, I believe, is the only time they ever made money-digging a profitable business.’ Mormonism Unvailed, 1834, pages 238-239; also reproduced in Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2, pp.59-6
Maybe it doesn't get you in, but being nice might get you IN FIRST.
THAT REFERENCE IS in the CHRISTIAN BIBLE, if you would like me to provide the quote.
You messed up, so you spit in the face of the moderator?
Cabala is nothing less than the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil from the garden of Eden.
I don’t know how many Mormons are Democrats but I know Harry Reed is both. He gets 89% of the Mormon vote.
Interesting entry on Mormo over at the Arcana Wiki:
http://arcana.wikidot.com/mormo
Mormo is a Spirit that bites bad children. This female figure from Greek and Roman Mythology is possibly a Vampire. She may be a companion or Avatar of Hecate, the Greek goddess of the moon and magic. Very little information about Mormo has survived from classical antiquity, where she appears to have been revered in part of a mystery cult.
As with Lilith, the identity of Mormo may have started as a more general term, which then became more personified over time. Mormo appears in a few plays of Aristophanes, who uses the name as if it were a synonym for “bogey man” or “monster”.
Hippolytus of Rome, in his Refutation of all Heresies (also known as the Philosophoumena), detailed a pyromantic form of Divination that invoked Mormo, Bombo, Gorgo, Hecate, and Luna. As described by Hippolytus, the divination was nothing more than a Hoax involving pyrotechnics and a cauldron with a fake bottom, a hoax he proceeded to debunk the way one might ruin the secret of a magic trick. Therefore, Mormo might have magic and powers connected to fire.
Note that phrases from the Philosophoumena are hard to clearly define and explain. When he says “Gorgo, and Mormo, and Luna, and of many shapes,” is that calling out to three, four, or just one entity? Is Mormo just another name for Hecate, and/or the Moon? Does Gorgo refer to a Gorgon? Hecate is a three-headed goddess, and there were three Gorgon Sisters in Greek Mythology, and three names are given in that line.
In The powers of evil in Western religion, magic and folk belief, Richard Cavendish says that Mormo was a “nursery bogy” that was a source of fear for Erinna of Telos, a poetess of Ancient Greece. In the very next sentence he opines that Gorgo indeed refers to Medusa, and says the face in the moon used to be called the “Gorgon’s Head”. The face of Medusa was a common protective device in ancient greece, known as the Gorgoneion.
In The Satanic Bible, Anton Levay flips the gender of Mormo, rendering him “King of the Ghouls, Consort of Hecate”.
“I don’t know how many Mormons are Democrats but I know Harry Reed is both. He gets 89% of the Mormon vote.”
Do you have a link to that? I have looked before and not been able to find anything. The only thing I could find was how 70% LDS Lincoln county voted—Reid got 22% of the vote, Angle got 67%.
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No doubt Joe Smith was as thoughtful a student of Kabbalah as he was of the Bible and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
I have read a lot about Mormonism for years, but nothing 'makes the case' like this link. In many ways it causes the thoughtful reader to not only to better understand the cult, but to understand it, and to even respect it!
In fact, as generations of military medics can tell you, a "nice dose" can be Hell ... and disqualification for The Good Conduct medal!!
Given that it has been hard to take Joe's scholarship altogether seriously, IMHO, the fact that he was "studying" these things at all is quite astounding.
And look at the bright side. There is at least another 150 years of Brigham Young doctoral dissertation material in this one link!
It also explains why it takes many years of study (and expense) to reach the higher levels of Mormon theology, which BTW, seems somewhat suspiciously congruent in some ways with Scientology!
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