Mormonism's NDE Cult

[Res Ipsa]

I thought there was a little series of accounts from the 1980s called Beyond the Veil, or some such.

ETA: There were. It was a series put out by a LDS guy named Lee Nelson.

Yup. He owns Cedar Fort, which publishes LDS books. Besides his series, Cedar Fort has published several other books on NDEs.

[Kishkumen]

Yup. He owns Cedar Fort, which publishes LDS books. Besides his series, Cedar Fort has published several other books on NDEs.

I want to look further into Cedar Fort. It seems to be a clearinghouse for kookiness, but I doubt that this is a fair characterization of it as a whole.

[Kishkumen]

Mormonism seems to have inherited a lot of ideas from spiritualism, which is the at the root of NDE mythology. Mormonism has made its adaptions. Significantly, Mormonism differs from the occult section in the bookstore in that, yes, there are powers beyond the veil, but no, you aren't to initiate contact. If grandma comes to you in the Celestial room of the temple to deliver a message, fine, but to initiate contact in the other direction will end in a talk with the Bishop. At least I think -- I know nothing about the Rowe stuff and how far off the wall they're allowed to get before the Brethren smack it down. My mother's best childhood friend was married to a man who apparently found a seer stone and excommunication came shortly. This was In the 70s I believe.

Unlike many Christians who believe you die and bam, you're standing before the Lord and consigned to heaven or hell and that's the end of the story; Mormons have the spirit world, which roughly translates to the Ethereal plane in spiritualism. They do not have an astral plane equivalent. Like earth life and like the Ethereal plane (and other planes also), the spirit world is amoral, and so it's an adventure. And strangely, Mormon leadership keeps it adventurous -- I witnessed this first hand with Henry Eyring ~2018. Prepare yourselves as this is some weird logic.

The spirit world in Mormonism is the wild west -- there's all kinds of possibilities and the Brethren don't dare lock it down. It comes down to this. If the truth is revealed in the spirit world, then that gives people on earth an excuse to say they'll repent later. An excuse to not go on the senior's mission because what the hell, those people will just hear the gospel in the spirit world anyway. That's a risk to tithing revenues. And so the spirit world must be just as chaotic as earth life if not more so. The answers can't be any more clear there than here, in fact, there should be a penalty in ascertaining difficulty to encourage people to work it out here (and pay tithing). Like in Ritchie's NDE, he went to this big library with all the important records of the (universe?) -- clay tablets, scrolls (I don't think he said gold plates). But, that appeared to be its own kind of a dead end, not heaven and not a clear path to heaven.

An argument could be made that going to the temple to walk through a parted veil is an initiation of contact. A sanctioned one. It isn't generally thought of that way, I suppose. But you could look at the endowment as a magical ritual to part the veil.

Thanks for these insights. I agree that Mormonism is intertwined with Spiritualism historically and in terms of its concerns. As Sam Brown discussed in his book on Mormonism and the afterlife, the 19th century was a time of preoccupation with death, and Mormonism reflects that. Losing one's family members to death (Alvin?) is traumatic, and Smith, who was already trained to deal with spirits of treasure guardians and the like, decided to come up with rituals that would bind families together for eternity. The seance is more dramatic but arguably less powerful because it is mostly about making contact with the dead. It gives hope that the dead are not lost and that there is life after death, but it does not provide a lasting bond between the dead and the living.

[Res Ipsa]

Yup. He owns Cedar Fort, which publishes LDS books. Besides his series, Cedar Fort has published several other books on NDEs.

I want to look further into Cedar Fort. It seems to be a clearinghouse for kookiness, but I doubt that this is a fair characterization of it as a whole.

I had to double check, but it was Cedar Fort that published Visions of Glory.

I've caught glimpses of Lee Nelson as I roam among the intertubes, but I'm not sure what to think. He started several niche publishing companies, which were eventually purchased by Cedar Fort. One of the things his companies did was to publish books by LDS folks that Deseret Books would never publish.

[Res Ipsa]

Mormonism seems to have inherited a lot of ideas from spiritualism, which is the at the root of NDE mythology. Mormonism has made its adaptions. Significantly, Mormonism differs from the occult section in the bookstore in that, yes, there are powers beyond the veil, but no, you aren't to initiate contact. If grandma comes to you in the Celestial room of the temple to deliver a message, fine, but to initiate contact in the other direction will end in a talk with the Bishop. At least I think -- I know nothing about the Rowe stuff and how far off the wall they're allowed to get before the Brethren smack it down. My mother's best childhood friend was married to a man who apparently found a seer stone and excommunication came shortly. This was In the 70s I believe.

Unlike many Christians who believe you die and bam, you're standing before the Lord and consigned to heaven or hell and that's the end of the story; Mormons have the spirit world, which roughly translates to the Ethereal plane in spiritualism. They do not have an astral plane equivalent. Like earth life and like the Ethereal plane (and other planes also), the spirit world is amoral, and so it's an adventure. And strangely, Mormon leadership keeps it adventurous -- I witnessed this first hand with Henry Eyring ~2018. Prepare yourselves as this is some weird logic.

The spirit world in Mormonism is the wild west -- there's all kinds of possibilities and the Brethren don't dare lock it down. It comes down to this. If the truth is revealed in the spirit world, then that gives people on earth an excuse to say they'll repent later. An excuse to not go on the senior's mission because what the hell, those people will just hear the gospel in the spirit world anyway. That's a risk to tithing revenues. And so the spirit world must be just as chaotic as earth life if not more so. The answers can't be any more clear there than here, in fact, there should be a penalty in ascertaining difficulty to encourage people to work it out here (and pay tithing). Like in Ritchie's NDE, he went to this big library with all the important records of the (universe?) -- clay tablets, scrolls (I don't think he said gold plates). But, that appeared to be its own kind of a dead end, not heaven and not a clear path to heaven.

An argument could be made that going to the temple to walk through a parted veil is an initiation of contact. A sanctioned one. It isn't generally thought of that way, I suppose. But you could look at the endowment as a magical ritual to part the veil.

I think that's an interesting insight. It reminds me of hearing stories about temple workers or attendees seeing spirit people whose ordinance were being performed. Whether in metaphor, vision, or physical reality, the temples are a place of contact between this world and the next.

[Kishkumen]

I had to double check, but it was Cedar Fort that published Visions of Glory.

I've caught glimpses of Lee Nelson as I roam among the intertubes, but I'm not sure what to think. He started several niche publishing companies, which were eventually purchased by Cedar Fort. One of the things his companies did was to publish books by LDS folks that Deseret Books would never publish.

It's probably a profitable business. The LDS community has enough readers looking for stuff that Deseret would not have the guts or the low standards to publish, leaving plenty of room for other publishers to step in and make a tidy profit.

[Kishkumen]

I think that's an interesting insight. It reminds me of hearing stories about temple workers or attendees seeing spirit people whose ordinance were being performed. Whether in metaphor, vision, or physical reality, the temples are a place of contact between this world and the next.

Indeed they are! There are many stories of heavenly visitors to LDS temples.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I think that's an interesting insight. It reminds me of hearing stories about temple workers or attendees seeing spirit people whose ordinance were being performed. Whether in metaphor, vision, or physical reality, the temples are a place of contact between this world and the next.

Indeed they are! There are many stories of heavenly visitors to LDS temples.

And stories about not so heavenly visitors.

Joseph Fielding Smith's brother was serving as a mission president in Hawaii when he had his own encounter with Bigfoot a.k.a. Cain.

According to Matthew Bowman's article published in the Journal of Mormon History, "A Mormon Bigfoot: David Patten’s Cain and the Concept of Evil in LDS Folklore," the night before the Laie Hawaii Temple was dedicated in 1921, the brother of Prophet Joseph F. Smith experienced the following events:

"A man came through the door. He was tall enough to have to stoop to enter. His eyes were very protruding and rather wild looking, his fingernails were thick and long. He presented a rather unkempt appearance and wore no clothing at all. . . . There suddenly appeared in [Smith’s] right hand a light which had the size and appearance of a dagger. . . .He commanded the person in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to depart. . . . Immediately when the light appeared the person stopped and on being commanded to leave, he backed out the door" ("Experiences with Cain,” n.d., MSS 5273, Archives, Family and Church History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter LDS Church Archives).

Thoroughly disturbed by the encounter, E. Wesley wrote to his brother Joseph Fielding Smith, about his experience. According to Matthew Bowman's article, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote to his brother that the strange visitor was "Cain whose curse is to roam the earth seeking whom he may destroy.”

https://www.ldsliving.com/when-cain-app ... le/s/83424

A Close Approximation Of The Events On That Fateful Night In 1921:


posting.php?mode=edit&f=4&p=2823213

[Res Ipsa]

Both John Pontius and Doug Mendenhall had blogs, which are still accessible on the internet. The MS-HTC podcast briefly mentions an "unblogging" gathering, with no one on the panel knowing what it was. When Pontius was diagnosed with cancer and prognosis of six months to live, he started a blog called "Unblog my soul." Pontius believed he had visions, but he had kept what he described as his most sacred experiences private. He chose the name of his blog because it was his process of releasing those most sacred experiences that he had kept in his soul throughout his like and putting them in his blog. https://unblogmysoul.wordpress.com/abou ... logmysoul/

I think Pontius is an interesting figure. His first book, published in 1998, is part one of his Millennium Series, which is the story of a fictional family that begins in the present and continues on through the second coming and the millennium. It then goes back through their pre-mortal lives, where they learn why the events in their lives played out the way they did. Although the story is fictional, I think it is based on how he approached the problem of evil. Pontius believed that we each chose the specific circumstances of our life stories in the pre-existence. So, in a very real way, our mortal lives are not so much God testing us -- it's us testing ourselves. But he didn't approach it as blaming people for their circumstances; it was more like a comforting message that we chose our paths and we should have confidence in the pre-mortal self that chose the path.

In 2010, he wrote The Triumph of Zion: Our Personal Quest for the New Jerusalem. In his blog, he seems focussed on what he sees as a puzzle: if Christ cannot return until Zion is built, how do we make that happen? When I was growing up in the church in the 1970s, there was a definite belief that the building of Zion in Missouri was imminent -- that we needed to be prepared to drop everything at a moment's notice and set out on foot to Missouri. It was the era of Saturday's Warrior and all that. But it sounds like correlation put the brakes on that zeitgeist. Or a change in prophets. To Pontius, the institutional church wasn't communicating how Zion was to be rebuilt. I think The Triumph of Zion was his answer based on the way he talks about the issue in his blog.

He was active on the fireside circuit for years. In my bopping around the internet, I've not seen a comment or post critical of him. When he started blogging, a small community of LDS folks formed around his blog. Pontius comes across as compassionate, caring and humble. I don't think he saw himself as a leader of a movement, but as the host of a group of LDS folks that he liked and cared about.

I read a comment of his before he met "Spencer" in which he muses about writing one last book. He felt prompted to write something, but he didn't know what to write about. When he met Spencer, I think he saw publishing Spencer's story as the last important work of his life. In June of 2012, he posted that some folks had suggested an Unblog Family Reunion, where the members of this spiritual community could meet face to face. It grew into a day long conference held in the UVU ballroom. and Pontius made sure that enough copies of the unreleased Visions of Glory were available for everyone who attended. The recording that the MS-HTC podcast played was of Pontius interviewing Spencer at the Unblog Family Reunion. Dehlin alludes to this at some point in the podcast, saying the first small print run was the same as the number of people attending what he called a "fireside." Pontius's blog notes sometime after his death that the recording, which had been available on the blog's website, had been removed by request. I'm guessing Spencer's request.

Pontius died not too long after. It appears that Thom Harrison (Spencer) then began hitting the fireside circuit. That resulted in his being hauled in front of his stake president for discipline and the pseudo-retraction letter that was read on the podcast.

In contrast, Mendenhall seems to have gone off the deep end. Here's a typical entry from his blog:

Satan showed up this morning in the form of an accuser. It was declared to me that I am evil and of darkness. I have been told that we do Satanic worship here in my home and send out curses and such. I was accused of focusing only on evil and “what you focus on grows.” This has come up from others, that if you focus on evil you will become dark. I know I don’t focus on evil. Our entire focus has been on how to conquer spiritual evil, to destroy it, to keep it out of our lives and to turn to Jesus Christ. We even wrote a book about that called Conquering Spiritual Evil.

There was much more but that is sufficient to get an understanding of how evil I was told I have become. (Though I actually thought the saying was, “Energy flows where focus goes.”) Oh well.

I did as I have been instructed and “gave this junior Satan no heed.”

The day progressed and my sighted friend and I went to a home to finish clearing it of portals. Below is part of that family’s response to how their house felt/became afterward:

“About 3 years ago ________ saw ‘hooded beings’ in their room. There was some fasting done and praying done and she didn’t see anything like that again in their room. All of us would also have nightmares if we ever forgot to shield from thoughts, emotions, and desires of the adversary. Also _____ and _______ would not go upstairs without _______. I would also have a feeling of being watched. It’s gone now. And I mentioned that there was no bickering yesterday after we came home. You don’t fully realize how uncomfortable and heavy it is until it’s gone.”

We went to this home focused on the family and helping them. We didn’t focus on the evil there in the home. Though we did have to recognize where it was and then focus on destroying it, which was done. Praise our Lord Jesus Christ for helping this wonderful family!

Pontius and Mendenhall are like polar opposites. But both men were responsible for promoting the notion that NDE's can remove or tear the veil, resulting in supernatural abilities. And that led directly to Chad Daybell, Lori Vallow, Tim Ballard, and others. It is certainly possible that Pontius and or Harrison were aware of Doug and Denise Mendenhall before Visions of Glory was published, but I haven't found a direct reference.

[Res Ipsa]

Indeed they are! There are many stories of heavenly visitors to LDS temples.

And stories about not so heavenly visitors.

Joseph Fielding Smith's brother was serving as a mission president in Hawaii when he had his own encounter with Bigfoot a.k.a. Cain.

According to Matthew Bowman's article published in the Journal of Mormon History, "A Mormon Bigfoot: David Patten’s Cain and the Concept of Evil in LDS Folklore," the night before the Laie Hawaii Temple was dedicated in 1921, the brother of Prophet Joseph F. Smith experienced the following events:

"A man came through the door. He was tall enough to have to stoop to enter. His eyes were very protruding and rather wild looking, his fingernails were thick and long. He presented a rather unkempt appearance and wore no clothing at all. . . . There suddenly appeared in [Smith’s] right hand a light which had the size and appearance of a dagger. . . .He commanded the person in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to depart. . . . Immediately when the light appeared the person stopped and on being commanded to leave, he backed out the door" ("Experiences with Cain,” n.d., MSS 5273, Archives, Family and Church History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter LDS Church Archives).

Thoroughly disturbed by the encounter, E. Wesley wrote to his brother Joseph Fielding Smith, about his experience. According to Matthew Bowman's article, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote to his brother that the strange visitor was "Cain whose curse is to roam the earth seeking whom he may destroy.”

https://www.ldsliving.com/when-cain-app ... le/s/83424

A Close Approximation Of The Events On That Fateful Night In 1921:


posting.php?mode=edit&f=4&p=2823213

I remember hearing stories about Bigfoot being Cain, but I don't recall hearing Bowman's story. Thanks for posting it. Doug Mendenhall also says he learned to do battle using spiritual weapons.