Proof that the Church Is True

Abstract: LDS temple tradition provides the strongest argument for the claim that Mormonism is the only true religion. Though we do not see it as such, our temple tradition has the virtue of providing physical evidence, empirically verifiable, that the church is a restoration of the ancient order, held sacred by all ancient cultures. Its existence in Mormon sacred tradition is long established, irrefutable fact, and its links to the past are becoming more verifiable every day, due to remarkable new research into ancient history, cosmology, comparative mythology and plasma physics. As such, it is the sole element in Mormonism that comes the closest to verifiable, demonstrable proof of Joseph Smith’s claims to divine revelation.

Revelation is the cornerstone of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to be a latter-day prophet of God. This claim of divine guidance thrust him into the 19th century limelight and continues today to energize the religion he founded, as well as providing fodder for attacks against it.

Our religion, popularly called Mormonism, purports to be a restoration, through the ministry of angelic and divine visitors to men, of the original church founded by Jesus Christ during his ministry. It is said to be the modern equivalent of that ‘primitive’ church, which was governed by apostles and prophets after Christ’s death and resurrection.

As verification of these bold claims, most Mormons point to internal ‘evidence.’ Some point to the Book of Mormon as evidence of Joseph Smith’s gift of translation via divine revelation. Some point to the restoration of the authentic priesthood by ministering angels at the inception of this dispensation. Still others point to the same organization in the modern church as that which existed in the primitive church, established by Christ himself.

For Mormons, our belief in these things comes from a personal verification by the Holy Spirit. We call it a “testimony.” We believe that all who seek it are entitled to this revelatory confirmation. It is, in our view, a more certain test than mere knowledge.

Nevertheless, in an effort to provide ‘evidence’ to support those claims to outsiders and to ourselves, many of us look for confirmation of our beliefs beyond that of a personal witness. We seek for corroboration, or as some would put it “proof,” in disciplines outside the church, in the scholarly and scientific world.

Hence, we see the interest among many Saints in the geography of the Book of Mormon, for example. Attempting to locate the present physical location of pre-Colombian Book of Mormon sites—external evidence—is a way of substantiating the claims that the book makes. Others among us look for documentary evidence that would support the church’s claims for the Egyptian papyri, which Joseph Smith also claimed to translate.

But anything approaching empirical truth is hard to come by when dealing with things metaphysical. These claims still rest almost wholly upon personal revelation. There is no empirical test for their validity. Belief cannot be verified with test tubes or telescopes. Things of the spirit that come via revelation simply do not lend themselves to physical investigation or empiricism.

It is at this point where our evidentiary efforts hit a dead end. It seems we are meant to accept these things on the strength of our faith, born of the personal witness we each acquire via revelation through our own diligent inquiry of God, rather than to any outside evidence.

Do not despair, however.

Ironically, there is an element, unique to Mormonism, which we overlook in our rush to assert to the world our authenticity as the one true church.

That overlooked element is the incorporation in our religion of temple use and practices, something other Christian denominations consider “pagan” and of little value. In fact, they see our use of temples as worthy of nothing except derision, ridicule and scorn. Yet it is in our temple tradition—in its purpose, its iconography and its ritual—that we find the best evidence for the validity of our claims.

How so, you ask? Let’s examine the potential for validation in this fascinating feature, exclusive to Mormonism.

From the outset, no other Christian denomination—from Catholicism to Protestantism, including the more recent Adventist and Millennialist movements—saw the need or value of a temple. Mormonism was and is still entirely unique to Christianity in that regard. To sectarians and religionists, Christianity had no need for a temple. In their eyes, temples—unlike chapels, synagogues and mosques—were solely a feature of pagan religions, certainly not a proper feature of Christ’s true church, established in the meridian of time.

In contrast, Joseph Smith established our temple tradition in Mormonism nearly 200 years ago, saying it was vital to the true religion. This point of departure is critical. Either he was right about temples and the rest of Christianity was wrong, or he was completely misguided and the orthodox view was the correct one.

Our temple use has changed little since then. Because the rites and rituals practiced within those sanctified walls are perceived to be sacrosanct, they’ve been kept inviolate, perfectly preserved word for word in their original state. While certain elements within our rites may have been eliminated, as some historians maintain, the basic rites themselves retain their original form. It cannot be argued, therefore, that discoveries of ancient beliefs and practices in recent times have influenced our temple rituals. They have not been significantly altered or added upon since their inception nearly two centuries ago.

Thus, it can be properly claimed that our temple tradition, as still practiced today, came solely through revelation to Joseph Smith, just as every other aspect of our religion, and not through modern discovery.

And mainstream Christianity is perfectly happy to allow that claim to stand, thinking it to their advantage. In their minds, our use of temples and our belief in odd doctrine gives them leverage to demonstrate to the world that Mormonism is a fraud, a “cult” rife with “pagan” practices perpetrated on foolish and gullible people by Joseph Smith and perpetuated up to the present day by designing men with questionable motives.

In order for Latter-day Saints to comprehend the full value of their temple tradition as a certain claim to divine revelation, they must first see temples for what they truly are: instructive institutions dedicated to rehearsing the past as well as the commonly acknowledged concept that they are sites for making sacred covenants. That is, most see LDS temple tradition as things revealed—hallowed knowledge and ritual having no connection to anything temporal or historical. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

It is this author’s claim that our temple rituals, what we call an endowment, find their origin in the same source as the sacred rites and rituals of all antique cultures: the ancient heavens—whether the ancient ritual takes the form of a dance around a bonfire by Native Americans, ceremonies in an Egyptian temple or pyramid, sacrificial rites on a Mayan pyramid, Inca rituals at Machu Picchu, strange Druidic or Celtic rituals in a henge, mysterious rites in a Hopi kiva, worship in a Buddhist or Hindu temple, ceremonies in a Hebrew, Babylonian, Greek or Roman temple or any other sacred practice in all reverenced precincts the world over.

Furthermore, our temple endowment rehearses the primary elements of all prophetic visions, what this author calls the “One Story.” That story tells of the ascension into heaven of the prophet or holy man via a stairway, path, road, ladder or mountain, which is based in cosmological imagery as well. As he progresses, the holy man encounters various “guardians” or “angels” to whom he must give certain secret signs and words in order to pass. Ultimately, the visionary reaches the celestial realms, where he sees God, the City of God or the Throne of God, elements that also have their origins in cosmological events. Thus, beginning to end, our temple endowment is a symbolic rehearsal of ancient cosmological events, the only exceptions being the sacred covenants or promises made in the endowment.

And there is much more. Antique temple ceremonies included rites of washing, anointing, coronation, resurrection and marriage, among many others—all elements also found in LDS temple rites.

In fact, upon close inspection, nearly every element of LDS temple ritual can be found in one form or another in ancient temple practices. As Dr. Hugh Nibley amply demonstrated with his many books, whole volumes could be dedicated to these similarities. (Detailed comparative analysis of cosmological events to ancient beliefs, traditions and practices and their relationship to LDS theology, scriptural interpretation and temple tradition is offered elsewhere in this author’s presentations. It will not be cited here and now. So voluminous, all encompassing and sweeping are these concepts that this forum is woefully inadequate for their proper delineation. Readers are encouraged to search out the information this author has provided, based in remarkable new research into ancient history, cosmology, comparative mythology, archeoastronomy, geology, archeology, anthropology and plasma physics, that has already been provided in his books, papers and occasional lectures, as well as forthcoming material to be made public as time and means permit.)

The vital element that Nibley failed to explore, and other LDS scholars presently fail to see, is the absolute connection between the temple traditions of all mankind and events in Earth’s ancient skies. When scholars do venture to connect temple practices to cosmology, their interpretation is restricted to explaining those traditions, rites and rituals in terms of the heavens we see overhead today, when in reality they actually relate to the “old heavens and the old earth,” as the ancients and modern revelation assert, of the Patriarchal Age, before and immediately after Noah’s Flood.

Such misplaced and misguided analysis on the part of modern LDS scholars leads to pronounced distortions of the scriptural, cultural and traditional record, leaving us with confusion and contradictions that cannot be reconciled, though many have attempted to do so.

In contrast, those contradictions and confusions vanish when looking at the evidence with this new, cosmological paradigm. Not only that, it throws open the door to discovery of the scriptures, prophetic and temple symbolism and metaphor in a way that anyone can understand. No advanced degrees are necessary—a development that every Latter-day Saint should applaud and embrace for their own edification, enlightenment and satisfaction.

Once those fabulous and magnificent sky pageants that played out in Earth’s heavens in the millennium from Adam to Abraham are properly understood, then the origin and meaning of temple rituals and tradition of all past cultures, as well as our own temple tradition, becomes crystal clear. It becomes obvious that ancient traditions and practices recall and celebrate astral elements unseen in modern skies.

When we acknowledge the astounding fact that LDS temple tradition reflects that same, ancient cosmological tradition, in all its principle elements and meanings, through rituals, furnishings and iconography, we discover that our temples are full of information from the past, powerful evidence that Joseph Smith tapped into the only source capable of relaying that information to him nearly two centuries ago: divine revelation. It therefore comes closer to providing proof of Mormonism’s claims than any other element of our religion.

It cannot be claimed that any of this knowledge was available anywhere else in the world. Least of all was it available to a young man living on the American frontier in the 19th century, since it is only now beginning to come to the fore as the result of research done by a few, avant guard scholars, researchers and scientists. Only now, with the formidable body of information coming to light in the last half century of research and discovery, can we begin to see the relevance of LDS temple tradition to the common roots of all ancient worship in past cosmological events.

That is not to say that cosmology is all there is to Mormonism or to its temple tradition. Not by any means. The same revelatory power that gave us a proper cosmological, temple tradition unique in modern Christianity also provided insights into the teachings of Jesus Christ that were either missing from the scriptural record or had been lost through apostasy. That is, the accuracy of our temple tradition lends great credibility to the rest of Mormonism’s claims. To put it another way, the conformity of the LDS temple tradition to its ancient counterparts comes closer to providing proof to the world of Mormonism’s validity than anything else we Latter-day Saints have to offer.

Joseph Smith’s was truly a dispensation of truth lost to the world until a prophet of God once more restored it in these latter days.

What Does Cosmology Have To Do With My Salvation?

When addressing Latter-day Saints, I often observe that cosmology — the study of planets and stars, suns and moons — and its attendant mythology was not just an affectation of Old Testament peoples. It was also an important, integral part of the gospel taught by Jesus Christ and embraced by the primitive church or early Christian religion. In his essay “Unrolling the Scrolls – Some Forgotten Witnesses,” Nibley, the preeminent LDS scholar for all things ancient wrote that “cosmism” was a “hallmark of early Christianity.” We know this because references to cosmological or astral elements — what Nibley calls cosmism — are found everywhere in early Christian and Jewish writings.

So, too, cosmology held an elevated status in the doctrine of the modern or restored church, though today’s Latter-day Saints are reluctant to acknowledge that fact, if they are aware of it at all. But there is no denying it. It’s everywhere in the hallmark elements of the modern church: in the Pearl of Great Price, in the Doctrine and Covenants, in the Book of Mormon as well as in our temple symbolism and ritual.

Because cosmological elements were part of Old Testament tradition as well as New Testament teachings and were fully reinstated by Joseph Smith in the Restoration, I also assert that knowledge of the ancient heavens, or cosmology, is vital to our salvation and exaltation.

I am not alone in this claim. In that same essay, Nibley also wrote that “somehow or other the physical cosmos is involved in the plan of salvation.”

Invariably, that claim leaves most Saints cold. Their rejoinder: “Now you’ve really gone over the top. What bearing can ancient cosmology and its handmaiden, mythology, possibly have on my salvation or exaltation?”

The history of planets, stars, moons, suns and their role in prophetic tradition are seldom considered useful in one’s attempt to understand the restored gospel sufficiently to obtain salvation and exaltation. Ask any Latter-day Saint what a study of the heavens has to do with being a proper church member or achieving perfection and he or she will likely say, “Nothing.”

But that answer could not be more wrong. In fact, the cosmology of the ancients has everything to do with our religion.

To that, you might say, “I don’t recall any discussion of planets, stars, moons or suns in any lesson I’ve ever heard on the plan of salvation. Why would Nibley make such a statement?”

To better understand, let’s read more of what he had to say on this subject.

As Christianity has been deeschatologized and demythologized in our own day, so in the fourth century it was thoroughly dematerialized, and ever since then anything smacking of “cosmism,” that is, tending to associate religion with the physical universe in any way, has been instantly condemned by Christian and Jewish clergy alike as paganism and blasphemy. Joseph Smith was taken to task for the crude literalism of his religion—not only talking with angels like regular people, but giving God the aspect attributed to him by the primitive prophets of Israel, and, strangest of all, unhesitatingly bringing other worlds and universes into the picture. Well, some of the early Christian and Jewish writers did the same thing; this weakness in them has been explained away as a Gnostic aberration, and yet today there is a marked tendency in all the churches to support the usual bloodless abstractions and stereotyped moral sermons with a touch of apocalyptic realism, which indeed now supplies the main appeal of some of the most sensationally successful evangelists. (Nibley, “Treasures in the Heavens,” p. 171.)

Just as Christian and Jewish clergy have distanced themselves from the cosmism, eschatology and mythology of the primitive church, modern Mormons have distanced themselves and their perception of their religion from those same elements reinstated in the modern church by Joseph Smith in the Restoration. In other words, we’ve repeated the same mistakes.

Because we don’t want to be condemned as pagans and our church as a cult, we emphasize our “Christianity” by distancing ourselves from cosmological elements, just as our Christian cousins have done. As a result, our discourse is little different from theirs. What Nibley says of other churches, I attribute to us as well: “…today there is a marked tendency in all the churches to support the usual bloodless abstractions and stereotyped moral sermons with a touch of apocalyptic realism …”

The marvel is that even though we don’t recognize those cosmological, eschatological and mythological components in our religion, they have been perfectly preserved in our revelations and our temples. The wonder is that we are nearly blind to them, making us ignorant of their utility in deciphering the teachings of the prophets and the message in our temples.

It is the very pervasiveness and utilitarian value of these cosmological components that compels me to make this admittedly radical claim, which I repeat: When trying to comprehend and apply the principles and teachings of the Restored Gospel, a thoroughgoing knowledge of ancient cosmology and its bearing upon Christ’s gospel and the message of the prophets is indispensable.

Clearly, the Lord thought it important enough to include cosmology in every aspect of the religion he restored through Joseph Smith. Without that understanding we cannot fully grasp the message of the Savior and the prophets, the essentials of salvation and exaltation. That’s why it was treasured and carefully preserved by Old Testament prophets, New Testament apostles and the first elder of this dispensation, Joseph Smith.

So, if you have to ask what all this ancient cosmology has to do with your salvation, as the title of this essay does, then you really haven’t internalized or fully understood the implications of this all important study. The value is apparent on the face of it. Our ignorance of these truths makes us vulnerable to misunderstanding and deception. Without it, we can easily misconstrue the message of the prophets; we can easily fall victims to the fraud that has engulfed the rest of Christianity.

With correct knowledge comes power, something Joseph emphasized time and again. Without the revelatory information and comprehension that come with the knowledge of ancient cosmology, we put our salvation and exaltation at risk.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009

More on the Electric Universe

Einstein got it wrong … and so did Newton, for that matter.

Electricity was an unknown item, except as a novelty, in Newton’s day. Hence, his speculations on gravity did not take electricity and it’s considerable power into account. Einstein knew of electricity and charge, but as a mathematician, he discounted them in his calculations.

Even today, given the practical application of electricity’s power in our everyday lives, we are largely ignorant of its nature, its properties and its role in the universe. We know that it can generate light and heat. We know that electricity creates magnetic fields, and those can be harnessed to turn motors. It is the backbone of our modern age, bringing us all the comforts, benefits and wonders of our computer-driven, technological world. Yet, we still don’t really know how it works.

While scientists and engineers have harnessed electricity’s awesome power to our benefit, they do not understand it. That is, the fundamental nature and properties of electricity are still matters of conjecture — as are its cousins: light, magnetism and gravity. Though we know that they are interrelated, we do not understand how. Like light, electricity is still pretty much a mystery to us.

But we stand on the threshold of a quantum leap forward in our understanding of the very nature of our universe and its primary mover and shaker: electricity. If a few, maverick scientists and scholars are correct, electricity not only lights the universe, as it does our streets and homes, it creates and organizes them. It powers the sun, giving light and heat to our world and all the planets. It determines the orbits and the rotation of the various planets. It sculpts the face every planet, moon, comet and asteroid. It powers the weather systems of the planets, including our own. And, it even gives us life — an unacknowledged fact that will revolutionize the field of medicine when it becomes accepted.

Thanks to the emerging field of plasma physics, we are beginning to see how electricity works in the universe. We now know that electricity is a million, billion, billion, billion times more powerful than gravity. It is a force to be reckoned with.

For Latter-day Saints, all this, of course, becomes vital to our study of the gospel, rooted as it is in the symbolism of the past. That is, in order to fully understand past, cosmological events, we simply must have a clear understanding of the role electrically energetic plasmas played. Only then can we fully grasp the enormity of ancient events, as recorded in scripture and all ancient texts.

Comparative mythology gave us the key to open the door. From it we learned that in the distant past, Saturn visually dominated a unique, polar configuration of planets, of which our world was a part. But it could not explain the science behind that concept. The laws of gravity simply would not allow such a situation or condition. Plasma physics and recognition of the dynamic roles of electricity and charge in that ancient configuration provide the missing pieces to our puzzle.

We may now have at hand the means to explain Newton’s law of gravity. We may also be able to see the flaws in Einstein's theories.

Equally valuable, we now have not only the eyewitness accounts of the ancients, but we have empirical evidence, based on an entirely new paradigm, to tell us what happened in Earth’s ancient heavens that gave rise to all the imagery of the ancients — the same imagery that we see on the walls of temples, tombs, monuments and in ancient texts, like the scriptures.

The pioneers in plasma physics tell us that what they see in electrified plasmas in their laboratories they also see in intergalactic space. What they see in microscopic experiments is virtually identical to pictures given us by the Hubble telescope. The term for that similarity between the tiny plasma configurations seen in the lab and the gigantic ones seen in space is “scalability.” That is, large, small or in between, these plasmas behave in identical and predictable ways.

This is a vital concept. If these energetic, electrified plasmas, similar to those seen in the laboratory and through the Hubble telescope, were once proximate to the Earth in solar system-sized scale, if they dominated our ancient skies with the same plasma figures, then it should be no surprise to learn they are identical to ancient symbols. Rock art, called petroglyphs, reflect these similarities, as do all the icons of the past and the language they inspired.

This is a fruitful field of inquiry for any Mormon who wishes to understand the language of his or her scriptures. Only through recognizing the true, electrical nature of God’s universe can we properly understand him and his creations. Only by seeing the past, present and the future through these “electric” lenses can we fully grasp what our Father has done and how he has done it. Furthermore, we must wear these lenses to see and appreciate what he and his prophets have given us in the scriptures and the restored gospel.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009

The Human Body in an Electric Universe

“From the smallest particle to the largest galactic formation, a web of electrical circuitry connects and unifies all of nature, organizing galaxies, energizing stars, giving birth to planets and, on our own world, controlling weather and animating biological organisms. There are no isolated islands in an electric universe.” David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill, Thunderbolts of the Gods

Plasma physics, a revolutionary new field of scientific endeavor born of the quest to harness the power of nuclear fusion, is transforming the space and planetary sciences. Not coincidentally, what plasma physics is showing us about the electrical nature of the universe has the potential to transform our lives in truly miraculous ways.

It may also revolutionize the way we treat degenerative disease and aging.

Medical practitioners and providers should pay close attention to this revolution because this emerging discipline could alter the entire field of medicine — say nothing of the upheaval it will cause in the planetary and astral sciences.

How will it change health and healing practices? Well, to answer that question we must step back to take a look at outer space, where the most plasma is found.

The early idea of an ‘ether’ filling space was replaced by the notion that space is a vacuum — nothing. Plasma physics reverses that thinking. Space is filled — tenuously, perhaps, but filled nonetheless — with ionized particles. Collectively, those ionized particles are called plasmas.

They are all around us, not just in space. Fire is plasma; its dancing, life-like flame mesmerizes. Lightning is plasma, flashing in the sky and shaking the ground with its thunder. We enjoy plasma television sets and plasma lights: those long, tube-shaped fluorescent or neon lights, which are filled with so-called ‘noble’ gasses and which become glowing plasmas when electric current is applied, illuminating our lives.

The unique thing about plasmas is that their ionized state makes them react dramatically to electrical influences, behaving at times as though they were alive, as novelty plasma balls demonstrate. Hence, the term “plasma” was borrowed from the life sciences to describe matter in this fundamental state.

Along with gases, liquids and solids, plasmas are now acknowledged as the fourth state of matter. Some say as much as 99% of all matter in the universe is in a plasma state. That’s important because plasma physicists insist that plasmas in space carry electrical current, making this an electric universe. Plasmas are so efficient at transmitting electrical current they are considered superconductors.

These electric currents in plasma are called “Birkeland currents,” after the Norwegian physicist, Kristian Birkeland, who discovered them. Like galactic power lines, these massive, paired and braided plasma conduits carry electricity throughout the galaxies. When they are strong enough, these currents “pinch” matter together to form rotating stars and galaxies, and the plasma begins to glow brightly in an arc discharge much like an electric arc welder or arc lights. So, stars are strung along these plasma power lines like lights on a Christmas tree.

The electromotive force that electric currents generate is a thousand, billion, billion, billion times more powerful than gravity. Even a small magnet overwhelms the weak force of gravity. So, these electrical currents in space not only light the sun and spin the planets, they generate prodigious magnetic fields. This is the ‘glue’ that holds star systems and galaxies together. At the same time, these electromotive forces can repel, something gravity alone cannot do. In this way, electricity maintains the ordered, well-lit universe we see through our telescopes.

All this tells us that we live in an electric universe; and we, therefore, are electric creatures.

Another stunning conclusion that we reach is that our Sun is not a thermonuclear engine, as orthodox science insists; it is, instead, an electromagnetic engine — balled lightning in space, if you will. Powered by electrical energy from the galaxy, which arrives in prodigious dark currents, the sun’s heat and light are created in an arc discharge event horizon hundreds of miles above its surface known as the corona.

More importantly for life, the sun works like a transformer on a power line, stepping down the galactic voltage to safe levels for life on nearby planets — including our Earth — which receive a charge of their own through what astronomers call the “solar wind” that energizes all life upon them.

Too long, orthodox medical science has ignored the role of electricity in life, choosing instead to see the body as a chemically based machine. But, if the proponents of the electric universe concept are right, all life is fundamentally organized and energized by electric charge.

Enter Dr. Robert O. Becker and his thesis that the body is, at its most fundamental, electrical in nature. He sees orthodox medicine’s view of the body as bankrupt, and rightly so. He affirms that the subtle electrical fields in and around the Earth exert a profound influence on our bodies, which is true. But Becker does not realize that we live in an electrically driven universe, one where all life is governed by electricity and the magnetic fields it generates. This is the key to the mysteries of life.

Our ancestors believed that nebulous, unseen forces controlled our lives — a concept that’s often scoffed at by orthodoxy. Much like the idea of an ether filling space, these unseen forces or energies were thought to everywhere govern and control all life. Many attributed those forces to the stars, which gave rise to the practice of astrology. One of these energies was thought of as an animating “life force,” that could be used or manipulated to heal disease or improve one’s quality of life and well being.

From the electric universe standpoint, those notions weren’t all that far off the mark. By their very nature, electromagnetic fields permeate everything. It turns out that magnetic fields in nature exert a profound effect upon humans in a world universally governed by electricity and charge. It is the electromagnetic environment of our Earth that invigorates and energizes our bodies at the cellular level by governing the energy output of our mitochondria, the “engines” that power our bodies. This environment also determines the efficiency of a similar process in plants, called photosynthesis.

So, as it turns out, the ancients were more right than we knew. It would seem that they understood far more than we give them credit for. Subtle but profoundly powerful electromagnetic energy governs all life in ways that have been heretofore unknown and are, as yet, poorly understood.

There are so many avenues of inquiry and investigation opened up by this novel worldview that whole books could be written about them. But, perhaps one of the most intriguing ideas — one that should capture the interest of health practitioners everywhere — comes from the work of plasma physicist Anthony Peratt of Los Alamos National Laboratories. Like several of his colleagues, he believes that in the distant past, the Earth and its inhabitants enjoyed a very different electromagnetic environment than the one we have today.

Calling it “an enhanced auroral effect,” Peratt maintains that the ancients saw and experienced plasma displays in Earth’s skies that were many orders of magnitude more pronounced than those we see today. He speaks of light and sound shows generated at the north and south poles of the Earth, just as in present-day auroras, only far more prodigious, which would have lit the sky day and night. The ancients saw in these plasma displays figures they took to be sacred images, seemingly imbued with extraordinary, mystical power and significance. They recorded these figures in their sacred illustrations and writings, providing a permanent record of what they had seen in the skies.

Peratt affirms that electrical experiments performed in the laboratory produce a consistent set of images within those plasmas that are duplicated in the sacred art of all ancient cultures. That is, the petroglyphs and art created by the ancients, which are found on temples, tombs, monuments and rocks, are direct replicas of the figures he has seen in his laboratory while doing plasma research.

More significantly still for today’s health practitioners, these superior electrical and magnetic displays also provided considerable energy for the renewing and maintenance of the human body — all life, as a matter of fact. The net effect was probably a vastly healthier environment than that which we experience today.

A survey of myth, legend and tradition from ancient cultures the world over unequivocally reports that in the very earliest epoch, life was far more comfortable and healthful. There was no night and day; there was little weather, if any. There were no extremes of cold or heat. Plants and animals proliferated in the hothouse environment created by the enhanced electromagnetic surroundings. The flora and fauna then were far heartier than they are today. Ancient records from the earliest civilizations, including the Bible, collectively report that the human lifespan was many times longer than it is now, and that there was little or no disease. In summary, the entire world was a Garden of Eden.

The cultural myths, legends and traditions of a “fountain of youth” probably hearken back to that early epoch when mankind was sustained by energies that have largely dissipated in our day and age, leaving us with only a dim, mythical recollection of what was once a life-giving element of everyday life.

All this suggests that Becker was on the right path, but his conclusions lacked the information this wider view offers. Perceiving the electrical nature of the human body in a wholly electric universe opens up grand, new possibilities Becker never considered. Rather than looking to the present electromagnetic environment, which is probably nearly sterile when compared to the greatly enhanced electromagnetic environment our ancestors reported, researchers should focus on how enhanced auroral activity around the Earth would have provided a much more salubrious environment.

This is where plasma physics and the medical arts converge. Replicating the forces in play in mankind’s earliest history would revolutionize the present medical arts … and every other human endeavor. Understanding the subtle nature of electricity as a control mechanism for healing and health maintenance in the body, as outlined by Becker, and the ancient electrical and magnetic nature of our world, a whole new chapter can now be written in the book of life.

© Anthony E. Larson, November, 2006

It's Not Easy Being Green

At the risk of being ridiculed or scoffed at for being too open, let me briefly pull back the author/researcher curtain to let you see the inner mulling and musing of the mind behind all these “peculiar” notions.

To put it simply, I’m at the end of my rope. And I have been for some time.

Kermit the Frog sings a woeful little tune that best characterizes my predicament. “It’s not easy being green,” he chants, plaintively. I know how that feels when your fellow church members perceive you as the purveyor of odd knowledge, someone saying something different than what they’re accustomed to hearing.

Like the Whos in Whoville, I cry out, “I am here. I am here! I am here!!” But, no one hears. No one sees.

You see, to the majority of church members, I’m invisible … and so is my research. I believe I have stumbled across a most valuable truth, one that was once fairly common knowledge among early church members, one that was taught by Joseph Smith and preserved in our temples. That’s what I work to share with my fellow Saints. But, therein lies the rub. Very few care to hear it.

Actually, I feel more like Horton than the Whos. I know what I know to be true. But most Mormons don’t believe me because of their preconceptions. They prefer to reject me and my “strange notions,” dismissing me as a kook or a fraud rather than examining the issues more closely. Strangely, others see me as a threat, worthy only of their disdain and reprehension. They seek to suppress my ideas.

Just so you know, here’s my song. It’s a little longer than Kermit’s, but it rhymes just about as well. It sounds like this …

About 30 years ago, I came across a book that changed my whole view of the Restored Gospel. The concepts presented in that book set me on a path that led me first to the comprehension of past planetary catastrophes, then to prophecy, to the language of the prophets, to obscure statements by Joseph Smith, to a completely revised understanding of ancient planetary history, to an interpretation of religious symbolism worldwide and finally to a thoroughgoing grasp of latter-day temple symbolism and ritual (not necessarily in that order).

If that sounds to you like a lot of ground to cover, it is. It took me into heady intellectual country — Hugh Nibley kind of stuff — a place I never dreamed I might venture. But true to my quest, I soldiered on, invigorated by the soul-expanding concepts that periodically washed over my mind and heart like emotional and intellectual tidal waves.

It took years of study, research and a willingness to follow the clues—no matter how unlikely or unpopular they seemed to be. But, it was worth every moment because this study, which began with a burning desire to understand the scriptures, has opened doors to knowledge and understanding that I never expected find, least of all to open. Just when I think this line of inquiry has yielded all there is to learn, it inevitably shows me more.

As a result, my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restored Gospel has expanded beyond anything I thought humanly possible. My understanding of gospel principles is more profound, by many orders of magnitude, than I had ever imagined. And perhaps most importantly, I can ‘read’ the temple experience as though it were a book or a familiar and treasured story.

What about you? When you read prophecy, is the imagery and message crystal clear? Or is it confusing and bewildering? When you contrast present scientific views with the scriptural record, do you start scratching your head? When you attend the temple, is the intent and the meaning of each ritual and all its symbolism as plain as a child’s primer? When you try to make sense of these things, does your head start to hurt and your brain begin to reel? As I did at first, do you simply avoid contemplating all these things because it all seems too much like an exercise in futility?

Given those nagging misgivings and because most of these things are a mystery to most Saints, you’d think that they’d be anxious to get a few pointers. But, just the opposite is true. In my experience, any effort to draw attention to these gospel blind spots is met with suspicion and disbelief. Rather than ask questions, they begin to avoid me, ignore me, criticize me or pretend I’m not even in the same church.

So, it’s not easy being seen. In fact, it’s a lot of hard work. I’ve labored for over 30 years in an effort to gain a foothold on the LDS imagination. I’ve written books, prepared and given daylong lectures with a slideshow, produced a documentary, several video clips with 3D animation, created a web page advertising my ideas and a blog that contains the results of years of research and study. None of that was easy. It cost me precious personal time and considerable resources. Yet after all that, I don’t seem to be getting significant traction among my fellow Saints.

So, here’s the question at the heart of the matter: How does an average Latter-day Saint like myself with a vital message make his voice heard in the church? Since I’m not a General Authority, how do I make an impression on others? What can I do to make enough of an impression that most Mormons will inquire further? After trying every initiative I can think of to put this information in front of church members, what more can I do that I’ve not already tried? I’m flat out of initiatives.

So, that’s my sad song. Like Kermit, it’s not easy being green.

So, what do you think? How can I put this message before the membership? What approach can I take that I have not taken already? Which among you cares to lend a supportive hand? Who can point me down the path to access? Any ideas?

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009

The Circle of Meaning and Comprehension

There is a great body of ancient texts that scholars like Hugh Nibley classify as ascension literature. It’s called that because each of the various authors, who are implicitly prophets, ascend to heaven to see a marvelous vision. The best examples in modern revelation are the books of Moses, Abraham and Enoch in the Pearl of Great Price.

The ascensions were very real, and they were marvelously impressive, judging by all the accounts. Most report begin transported to a “high mountain.” Others are compelled to “climb up” a brilliantly illuminated ladder, set of steps or a “strait and narrow” path. Each passes through several levels or spheres as he ascends. Some encounter sentinels at the gates to each level or at the very topmost level, and each of these sentries requires the proper password or response from the visionary in order to pass. Once at the top, they see what they report as heaven, paradise or the celestial kingdom. Some converse with God; others do not.

By design, the temple experience, whether ancient or modern, replicates the actual visionary ascension experience. Thus, the temple was and is a virtual reality, a replica of the real thing. Anciently, initiates were ushered through a series of locations within the temple where they experienced various rites and rituals, each meant to duplicate part of the ascension experience.

While earthly temples, ancient or modern, can never duplicate the magnificence of the actual visions they are meant to imitate, every effort was made to give the temple architecturally impressive, if not overwhelming, splendor and majesty. The very best of everything that a culture could muster went into that sacred edifice, whether it was a Greek temple, an Egyptian pyramid/temple, a Native American kiva, a Babylonian ziggurat, a Celtic henge, an Israelite temple, a Mayan pyramid/temple or the Nauvoo and Salt Lake temples. They were the highest examples of what any culture could muster in terms of luxury and architectural grandeur.

Most temples were festooned with icons that represented some part of the visionary archetype, things we take to be mere decorations: stars, moons, suns, pillars, mythic or real beasts and a most sacred enclosure or holy of holies partitioned by a curtain, veil or doorway.

Most Latter-day Saints who attend the temple are unaware of this intimate and ancient connection to our modern temples, but it is very real and very telling. It puts the modern temple experience in good and venerable company, making it authentic and true to the originals in every way. This, in and of itself, is also a powerful witness to the claims of divine revelation by Joseph Smith.

Because temple rituals are re-enactments of the archetypal ascension vision, which I believe was given to all the prophets (it wouldn’t do to have several versions, would it?), when reading ancient accounts, it’s often hard to tell whether we’re reading about an actual ascension or just an earthly version, administered in a temple — something we would call an endowment.

Where you and I might differ is in our interpretation of what the prophets saw. It would probably be your position, as it is with most Saints, that the prophets were shown things truly celestial in nature, and therefore completely foreign to anything in Earth’s past or present. To that mindset I would respond by asking, why, then, does nearly every ancient culture share the same perspective, imagery and symbolism as we do in modern temple rites? In spite of being thoroughgoing pagans, did they all have prophets to enlighten them? How is it that our temple rituals have nearly everything in common with those of ancient, pagan cultures?

So where did all this common ascension/temple tradition come from? I would contend that all religions share the same pool of archetypes because the ancients, pagan or not, had a shared set of cosmological experiences – not visions or revelations but real life actualities that played out across earthly skies at the dawn of time. They were eyewitnesses to spectacular displays of light and sound that left and indelible impression on their cultural and religious traditions and practices. That’s why all ancient cultures display a multitude of astral symbols in their sacred precincts. It’s the same reason Joseph Smith and Brigham Young put astral symbols all over the outside of modern temples.

I would further contend that what the prophets saw in vision, as recorded in ascension texts, was a rehearsal of those ancient cosmological events presented to them in vision, which they subsequently related in the very symbolic terms preserved by their various cultures. As a result, the more any prophet’s culture preserved of these astral or cosmological archetypes and narratives, the more relevant imagery any one prophet’s ascension account could include.

Since such data has been completely expunged from our cultural record, we Latter-day Saints completely fail to grasp the express meaning of our temple rituals. Because our version of the traditional temple ascension is only a faint echo of the original, it’s hard for modern Saints to make the intended connection. And because our culture teaches us that the original cosmological events, the genesis of sacred imagery, never happened, we completely fail to see the meaning in such accounts and their cosmological origins.

Another vital conclusion we can draw from all this is: What we see illustrated on the exterior architecture of LDS temples is what the rituals within are all about as well. Most church members regard the symbols on the outside of the Salt Lake Temple, the quintessential exemplar of temple tradition in our time, to have nothing at all to do with what happens inside. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Both inside and out, it rehearses and recalls the ancient heavens. That bit of perspective comes only from a corrected view of the past.

And that leads us to a startling conclusion that most Saints have never imagined. The formula for what I call the Circle of Meaning and Comprehension looks like this:


Notice the progression in the Circle of Meaning and Comprehension. One can start anywhere in the series and move in either direction. But as the proper connections are made, moving from one concept to the next, one returns to the place where one started. By repeating this circular process, one’s grasp of the Restored Gospel grows and grows.

Additionally, this process provides a new, intellectually invigorating and spiritually augmenting perspective on life and the world we live in, a new point of view on everything around us. It truly and accurately tells us about “things as the are, as they were and as they are to come.”

Our temple rituals, in my opinion, are given to educate us and point the way to enlightenment. Perhaps more importantly, they are a type and a kind, meant to prepare us for the real thing, if we become worthy. We have the opportunity to have the same visions as the prophets. But, as long as we fail to comprehend the meaning and origins of what we see in our temples today, we may never be given that sacred privilege.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009

What The Prophets Saw

It’s this author’s contention that all the prophets saw the same vision: Ezekiel, Daniel, John, Lehi, Nephi, Moses, Abraham and even Joseph Smith. It’s the “One Vision” given to all who qualify, as near as I can determine.

We mistakenly assume they each had a different revelation because each account seems unique. Not so. They saw the same things, but described them in different terms or focused on specific elements of the greater vision to the exclusion of the remainder.

Prophets created a narrative to explain what they saw in terms that their contemporaries could understand. The variations in their accounts are a function of the cultural traditions of the society and era in which they lived. They had to use imagery common to the culture they lived in so that their message would be better understood.

We fail to see the commonality of prophetic accounts because those traditions have been wholly expunged from our culture. We know virtually nothing of the cosmological events that dominated the imagination of ancient cultures the world over, nor do we have any comprehension of the metaphors and icons those events spawned.

Yet, someone from ancient times, in whatever culture, would have easily understood those common elements. They all shared them in one form or another. It’s we, living in modern times, stripped of any knowledge of what actually happened in Earth’s ancient skies, who are ignorant of these things. The imagery entirely escapes us.

It’s like the “One Story” told by nearly every ancient culture the world over. In fact, that universal story is derived from many ancient sources because no single culture’s tradition tells the whole story. Only by assembling elements from various traditions can we see the whole story, a task easily accomplished using comparative mythology and an alternate view of ancient cosmology.

The prophets, upon seeing this remarkable vision, quickly realized that they were witnessing the genesis of all ancient lore, the archetype from which sprang all cultural religious tradition. They were overwhelmed by its magnificence, splendor and majesty.

And what was that vision? Well, while no one illustration or even animation can approach what the prophets saw standing in Earth’s ancient heavens, this animated video clip may give you some idea.

This vision was a presentation of the planetary history of our Earth in a “grand constellation of worlds,” as Orson Hyde put it (See “A Knowledge of the Stars.”), when our planet was thought of as God’s “footstool” (Doctrine and Covenants 38: 17.) and the greatest of these proximate planets was called the “throne of God,” as Pres. Brigham Young put it, and “Kolob” by Abraham. Its reality was accurately and tellingly illustrated by Joseph Smith when he made this drawing for Philo Dibble.


What does this mean to you? It means that this message is central to understanding the imagery and metaphor of the scriptures. It means that without it, no Latter-day Saint can fully appreciate the gospel message. It means that this concept is central to our temple experience, which is a reenactment of the prophets’ vision. This was Joseph Smith’s message to those Saints who were willing to accept it.

Where do you stand?

© Anthony E. Larson, 2009