Enoch in Masonry

[_Maksutov]

The Book of Mormon's liahona was derived from several different sources -- by a writer who understood that in Lehi's day and age, there were no magnetic mariners' compasses. But the liahona is more than just a mechanical direction-finder.

It is delivered to the sleeping Lehites in their camp, and is thus discovered as a miraculous divine gift -- to be shared by a wandering party of migrants, which has already broken into two opposing factions.

This scenario appears in Clavigerio's re-telling of the Aztec wanderings from Aztlan to the promised land in the Valley of Mexico. Montezuma supposedly related this episode to Cortez. The Aztec wanderers do not receive a liahona, but the story is so similar to the Book of Mormon narrative that at least one LDS apologist has tried to argue that the Aztecs preserved a distorted tradition of the divine gift of the liahona.

The murder of Laban certainly has parallels with the Enoch lore in Masonry, but it also shares parallels with stories in the Old Testament and its apocrypha. Whoever scripted the Laban murder, he was familiar with both Masonry and a wide range of biblical/classical lore.

Teancum's sneaking into the camp of the sleeping Lamanite enemy at night, to commit an assassination, shares story elements with Homer's epic and the with biblical King David narrative. But is is more clearly based upon an episode in one of the "Poems of Ossian," by James Macpherson. Since Ossian was fabricated ancient history, the Book of Mormon writer may have been implanting a subtle clue, as to the fictional nature of Teancum's stratagem. Solomon Spalding also copied his parallel fictional account from Macpherson. The Teancum episode probably also overlaps some arcane Masonic lore -- but I've not looked into that.

We see, from what I quoted from 1723 -- that the basic story of Enoch's hidden text, was already a part of the Masonic tradition, well before Royal Arch Masonry was concocted. So, a writer like Solomon Spalding (who stole from the Masonic lore for his own fictional discover of a hidden ancient text, in an underground repository) need not have known all the Royal Arch material regarding Enoch.

That legend was greatly elaborated and Christianized by the Royal Arch promoters -- but -- I think Spalding and the Book of Mormon writer(s) knew the later Enoch lore.

UD

Enoch and the Enochian language of angels were also a specialty of Doctor John Dee and Edward Kelley. I think Joseph Smith's fascination with Enoch was probably a major inspiration for his growing theology. The liahona has some resemblance to a scrying stone, which Dee was known to use. Joseph Smith's treasure-seeking scrying has never been fully explored in its sources and implications.

[_moksha]

Uncle Dale, I ran across this illustration of Freemason bean spiller William Morgan in the act of using the Urim and Thummin. It seems quite obvious that he is using them to see with spiritual eyes.



Care to comment?

[_Kishkumen]

Uncle Dale, I ran across this illustration of Freemason bean spiller William Morgan in the act of using the Urim and Thummin. It seems quite obvious that he is using them to see with spiritual eyes.

Care to comment?

All I can say is that it takes a truly spiritually advanced being to develop both his third and his fourth eye.

[Guest]

Next time an apologist tries to defend Joseph Smith by asking how Joseph Smith could have known all these things, ask the apologist how George Oliver knew all the same things even before Joseph Smith.

[_Kishkumen]

Nest time an apologist tries to defend Joseph Smith by asking how Joseph Smith could have known all these things, ask the apologist how George Oliver knew all the same things even before Joseph Smith.

Well, you just have to be wrong about it.

[_Uncle Dale]

Next time an apologist tries to defend Joseph Smith by asking how Joseph Smith could have known all these things, ask the apologist how George Oliver knew all the same things even before Joseph Smith.

Imagined 1826 conversation between Joseph Smith, jr.
and members of the neighboring Stafford family.

Young Joe: "Say there, Gad, what's that book yer readin'?"

Gadius Stafford: "Ah, it's just an old magickal almanac our
family got published, back when we lived in Rhode Island."

YJ: "Hmmm... I don't understand half of these here words."

Gad: "That's because it's a quote from John Dee. He lived
back when language was different."

YJ: "A lot here about abrac-cadabra. Ma likes that stuff."

Gad: "Johnny wants his Alcoran back, Joe."

YJ: "Well, you can tell John Stafford that I'll return it right
after hell freezes over! I'm still lookin' over the part about
a feller being allowed to have four wives."

John Stafford: "Did I hear my name mentioned?..."

YJ: "Er, uh... Just kiddin' I'll bring it over next week, when
we go a-treasure diggin'.

Gad: We won't be here. John and I are hitchin' a ride on
the Antisdale wagon -- goin' out to visit the Butts in Ohio.

YJ: If you see that Parson Rigdon out there, tell him that
Alvin passed away. Maybe he can say some prayers for
him, or something..."


(fade to black)

UD

[_Maksutov]

Next time an apologist tries to defend Joseph Smith by asking how Joseph Smith could have known all these things, ask the apologist how George Oliver knew all the same things even before Joseph Smith.

Imagined 1827 conversation between Joseph Smith, jr.
and members of the neighboring Stafford family.

Young Joe: "Say there, Gad, what's that book yer readin'?"

Gadius Stafford: "Ah, it's just an old magickal almanac our
family got published, back when we lived in Rhode Island."

YJ: "Hmmm... I don't understand half of these here words."

Gad: "That's because it's a quote from John Dee. He lived
back when language was different."

YJ: "A lot here about abrac-cadabra. Ma likes that stuff."

Gad: "Johnny wants his Alcoran back, Joe."

YJ: "Well, you can tell John Stafford that I'll return it right
after hell freezes over!"

John Stafford: "Did I hear my name mentioned?..."

(fade to black)

UD

Brilliant, Uncle Dale. You should do a Nightfall at Nauvoo type novel about the early church. Vardis Fisher fell a bit short in Children of God.

The Harmony area was formerly occupied by the Rappites and other German mystics who brought, not only Swedenborg, but their own seers. One favorite was the Seeress of Prevorst, a channeler and translator and producer of visions and strange scripts. Add this sort of stuff to the Cunning Folk traditions brought from the UK, plus the Bible, Freemasonry, Methodism, speculations about the origins of the indigenous people, and you have over 90% of the body of Mormon thought. Almost nothing has been produced in over a century and a half to compare with it. It was part of the weird cultural singularity that ultimately produced the Spiritualists, the Seventh Day Adventists and many secular reformers. That Big Bang also took place in the fertile brain of Joseph Smith. He was truly remarkable, but there have been many similar figures in history. They're worth studying, but they don't completely explain their followers.

[_Uncle Dale]

...there have been many similar figures in history. They're worth studying, but they don't completely explain their followers.

I've sometimes wondered why Joe Smith's sect succeeded, while
Jacob Cochran's very similar cult in New England dwindled into
oblivion. The same could be said for half a dozen other "One True
Churches" and "Restorations of Apostolic Religion." So many of
them just petered out -- some, even before the cult-leader died.

Smith had the advantage of being in the right place at the right
time, in order to have his innovation grow and spread. His neck
of the woods wasn't called the "Burned Over District" for nothing.

But, more than just that -- Smith exhibited a catchy, overwhelming
optimism. His church would rule the world, within his own lifetime.
The New Jerusalem would appear at any moment..... but converts
had to abandon all their worldly ties and rush off to Kirtland, or
to Missouri, or to Nauvoo.

Jacob Cochran's one successful transplant outside of New England
happened in western New York, roughly halfway between the spot
where Warren Cowdery, Lyman Wight, and other early Mormons
were first converted, and the town where Sidney Rigdon died later.
Fertile ground for a cult colony -- but Cochran distrusted his own
missionaries. They did not roam so far afield, and with the same
authority as did the Mormon-spreaders.

Smith had the advantage of seeing political anti-Masonry grow out
of practically nothing, to become a viable social movement. He saw
how newspapers worked to spread its teachings. It was by no
coincidence that Smith employed one of the most vocal editors of
anti-Masonic journalism, to head up his own propaganda effort in
western Missouri.

Smith seems to have known in advance that he would succeed --
that he need not fear a failure, even in Liberty Jail (or in Carthage
Jail, for that matter). But his optimism was often ill-founded. He
constantly over-reached in his efforts and under estimated the
power of his inevitable enemies.

At least the "Prophet" Jacob Cochran was not assassinated at the
pinnacle of a manic episode of newspaper-destroying and of
Gentile-provoking.

UD

[_moksha]

Nothing special about these Mason gestures. You see this exact thing in Priesthood meeting every Sunday!

[Philo Sofee]

Excellent thread! I had no idea this even existed! And Kishkumen, what a scholar you have been through the years! WOW!