kirtland r.m. wrote: ↑September 13th, 2023, 9:13 pm
This is a subject which Protestant groups much of the time get right. Their pointing out of what at times "a familiar spirit" meant. However, as usual it is the whole ancient story which is important, not just a part of it. You will learn about practices of the ancient Middle East, and why Protestants are wrong, when criticizing the Book of Mormon as well as more information about Isaiah.
How Are the Words of the Book of Mormon Like “One That Hath a Familiar Spirit”?
https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/ ... iar-spirit
And this is outstanding. Out of the Dust: An Examination of Necromancy as a Literary Construct in the Book of Mormon
https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org ... ook-mormon
Usually I leave your threads alone, and choose not to engage debating with you, but the "Bridgette" thread really hit home with me, because of my negative encounters with the other side in dreams, and what may become my dear, TBM mother's eternal fate, when she had a sleep apnea/low oxygen episode, and those friendly "little people" [demons] were trying to coax her into following them...
But when her own mother died from brain cancer, it was very beautiful, she woke up from a 2 week coma, that was not supposed to happen according to her doctors, singing hymns, and telling everyone that Jesus was in the room to get her. But my grandmother was not LDS, she was one of those "hillbilly Christians."
My mother told me my grandfather found a copy of a Book of Mormon in an old barn. This was probably in the 1940s, for she was born in 1934, and my grandfather was born in 1906. He had a colorful past, a teenager hobo riding trains to migrate around looking for work during the Great Depression, a bootlegger during the Prohibition, to a sharecropper for most of my mother's childhood, lumber mill worker to a Pentecostal preacher, Angola prison guard, to a horse trader when I was growing up. My mother said he even preached sermons from the Book of Mormon, for it has much sound, Christian doctrine. It even supports the "Oneness" ontological view of the Godhead, for Pentecostals for the most part, reject the Trinitarian view point.
Both of these models of man fail, because it would be like a 2 dimensional stick person, who is living on a sheet of paper, trying to describe a ball. All they could see is a circle, and all their words would fail them. Jesus Christ can appear in rooms without going through the door after resurrecting. He was
at least occupying 6 dimensions to accomplish that feat. That is why 1 John 3:2 says,
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." We would have to occupy those same dimensional spaces to see Him as He is.
But I digress. My grandmother, however, would not read it, for she said it probably came from the devil. While I do not doubt the reality of the resurrected Christ visiting the Americas, there is also the reality of Masonic legends of a golden Bible having the Native American history engraved on them. Because the Book of Mormon was probably channeled, instead of translated, it comes preloaded with familiar spirits. For my mother joined the Church, she started having dreams about a Thomas Green, who sure enough, an individual with that name was found in our family history by my sister, who is plagued by dreams of what she calls "dead dusty people." They won't leave her alone until she gets their temple work done. Which is a confirmation of Ado's testimony of familiar spirits. They want to drive LDS members into going in the temples, to engage in doing works for the dead.
Fast forward to my mother being a grown up, married, raising her own children, traumatized as a teenager by her father's radical religious fanaticism when he had became a preacher for a brief stent, she was looking for a church to raise us children in. So she was a "golden convert" when the missionaries found her, and she bought the whole Joseph Smith story hook, line & sinker, and how he was the greatest prophet of the restoration, blah blah. So she justified his polygamy, adam-god theory, the kind of heretical doctrines that the Bible
and the Book of Mormon itself, condemns.
That is why it dangerous book, because it is the bait for Christians to accept Joseph Smith as being on par with the Biblical prophets, when he's not. "Praise to the Man" was not written about Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all prophets who really did commune with Jehovah, or the praise directed at even Jehovah Himself. It is about Joseph Smith, idolatrous man worship. That is the opposite of "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
Joseoh became a Master Mason/Master Mahon in Nauvoo in one day! So that means he was probably sold out to worshipping Lucifer instead of Jesus Christ over a long period of time-- becoming a Master Mason/Master Mahon was just the formal marriage & consummation of a long engagement. You can even see the difference between the architecture of Kirtland, Ohio temple, and the Nauvoo, IL temple. The Kirtland one was more church like, while Nauvoo was covered with occultic symbolism.
Joseph Smith's father was a Mason, and his brother, Hyrum, was also a Mason. The Masons knew about America way before Columbus had set sail. The Master Mason, Manly P. Hall, wrote about it in one of his books, called "America's Secret Destiny." The source materials is probably where Joseph got the Book of Ether from, just like the Book of Abraham. The Masons have vast collections of "sacred" texts in their libraries that the public are not privy to. And it seems that it is playing out just as they planned generations ago, for it looks like America will be destroyed/burned like the Phoenix, so a New World Order can rise from the ashes.
Necromancy is an abomination to the LORD God of the Bible, Deuteronomy 18:9-14 spells it out with plainess of words.
So don't imply the God of the Bible (the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ), condone sorcery, necromancy, witchcraft, etc. Maybe the God of the BoM does, if so, they are not the same God. That is what Romans 1 is talking about when it says,
1 "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things..."
So the ones having a familiar spirit, are the ones who are deceived. I didn't download the PDF to read it, because it is a moot point. That is like Eve carrying on a conversation with the serpent, who planted the evil thought in her mind with his question, "Hath God said....?"
Yes, He has said. Take Him at His word, or wrest them by questioning them, and nuancing them it to your own destruction. Familiar spirits are real, they only act friendly to the living because they have no real power in the realm of the living, unless the living give it to them.
That is why they act so seductive, it's to a snare they lay for the living. If one steps into their snare, then they will show their true character, because the person has crossed over into their realm. And then the tables will turn. The snare they have stepped in will be tripped when the person passes over the rubicon of death. The flaxen cord around one's neck tightens into a hangman's noose. Now the reality of needing a Savior kicks in, but will He hear that person now, when he/she had the opportunity to not be in their snare? Do you want to chance it, for it is said, often times 'hell is the reality realized too late.'
So the info about the source provided by our resident Christian is not reliable, because it's entertains the idea that familiar spirits being "friendly." That spirit was not being friendly, it was mocking. And it contradicts what Christ said about the dead being able transverse the great gulf in Luke 16 to communicate with the living. That is what NDEs are for. The prayer of the rich man has been answered, the dead are allowed to come back and warn the living of the torments of hell that are going on right now, but few listen.
Think about your own words, "This is a subject which Protestant groups much of the time get right. Their pointing out of what at times "a familiar spirit" meant." Ok. I agree. So this is what they have to say about it:
"Let us investigate further into what the Book of Mormon has to say about its origin. Second Nephi 26:15-16 tells us that "...the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard... For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit..." In his comments on this passage LeGrande Richards, who was an apostle in the L.D.S. church, links 2 Nephi 26 with Isaiah 29 and says on page 69 of A Marvelous Work And A Wonder:
"Now, obviously, the only way a dead people could speak `out of the ground' or `low out of the dust' would be by the written word, and this the people did through the Book of Mormon. Truly, it has a familiar spirit, for it contains the words of the prophets of the God of Israel. The Bible always refers to "familiar spirits as being evil, and never good. Old Testament law required that those that had a familiar spirit were to be stoned.
"A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:27)
"So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it;" (1Chronicles 10:13)
The Bible says that Manasseh, King of Israel, did evil in the sight of the Lord. (2 Chron. 33:2) In verse 6, the sins of Manesseh are listed and one of his sins was "dealing with a familiar spirit."
" And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger." (2 Chronicles 33:6)"
https://bible-truth.org/bkmormon.htm
And another Protestant resource on familiar spirits:
“Truly it [Book of Mormon] has a familiar spirit…” —LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, 1979, pp. 67-68
“A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit… shall surely be put to death…”—Leviticus 20:27
How do you know a “false spirit” didn’t answer your prayer when you prayed about the Book of Mormon?
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has also had its false spirits… it is not to be wondered at if there should be found among us false spirits.” —Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 213
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”—1 John 4:1
Can Our Hearts Be Trusted?
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” —Jeremiah 17:9
“When a man enquires of the Lord concerning a matter, if he is deceived by his own carnal desires, and is in error, he will receive an answer according to his erring heart, but it will not be a revelation from the Lord.” —David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, p. 31
https://www.4mormon.org/should-we-liste ... r-spirits/
The Book of Mormon is claiming to be infested with familiar spirits hissing from the dust, like a snake, so the reader of it may be opening themselves up to being visited, or harassed rather, by familiar spirits. And this is why many Christians will not accept a Book of Mormon in their home. It's presence can open spiritual doors that they wish to keep closed.
So were the "plain and precious truths" removed from the Bible, must have been about the goodness and righteousness of familiar spirits then.
Or maybe the parts about becoming gods in the afterlife and having eternal increase by having spirit children, or the Father having a body of flesh and bone. Those doctrines are not in the Book of Mormon either, but are D&C/TOTPJS things.
And the your other post about demons/familiar spirits not being able to read our thoughts, is true only if you have not opened a door for them. Open doors gives them "read & write" capabilities on the CD of your mind... They can read your thoughts, and implant evil thoughts, that is why we must wear the armor of God at all times.
Heck, even your cell phone can read your thoughts now, since Obama and DARPA got together with the "Brain Initiative" project. That is why you can think about something, and without saying anything aloud, A.I. will generate an ad for you for whatever you were thinking about. A.I. is Legion, it will be used to give life to the image of the beast, A.I. apps like ChatGPT, will give it it's voice.
The whole foundation of Mormonism is likely built on the shaky foundation of encounters with familiar spirits starting with Joseph's habit of necromancy, starting with his dead brother, Alvin. Angel Moroni is likely another example of a fallen angel, and he crowns the tops many LDS temples. It's more than ironic that "Mormo" is on the list of infernal names in Anton Lavey's "Satanic Bible" as king of the 'ghouls.'
Peeps wrote:Perhaps it's worth noting that "Mormo" is on the list of 'Infernal names' in Anton LaVey's "Satanic Bible."
The Infernal Names is a compiled list of adversarial or antihero figures from mythology intended for use in Satanic ritual. The following names are as listed in The Satanic Bible (1969), written by Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey.[1] When calling the names, all of them may be recited, or a given number of those most significant to the respective working may be chosen.[2] Not all were demons in their source culture; this list represents LaVey's interpretation of them and is presented below as they were written in the Satanic Bible, and therefore is prone to historical errors and personal misconceptions...
The Infernal Names:
- ...Midgard—son of Loki, depicted as a serpent
- Moloch—Phoenician and Canaanite devil
- Mormo—(Greek) King of the Ghouls, consort of Hecate...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_infernal_names
A "ghoul" is:
A ghoul is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid. The concept originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. Modern fiction often uses the term to label a certain kind of monster."
--Wikipedia
Yes, you can gain hidden knowledge by divination, but it will inevitably contain some falsehood because they hate us. The serpent didn't lie 100% to Eve, she did become wise, but now she was under the power of death, his realm, his power. There is something to astrology/horoscopes too, both are forms of divination, they are forbidden for a reason, for our protection.
Again, this is where the disembodied evil spirits/demons came from. Their fathers, the fallen Watchers, can take physical form. Lucifer can take physical form. This material world is easy peasy to manipulate to them, but God has set boundaries, they can only do what He allows them to.
1Enoch CHAPTER XV.
https://sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe018.htm
1. "And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice: 'Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice. 2. And go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: "You should intercede" for men, and not men for you: 3. Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? 4. And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those also do who die and perish. 5. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. 6. But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. 7. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling. 8. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. 9. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. 10. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling. 11. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them."
They got so bad, that Noah said a prayer against them:
This excerpt is from the Book of Jubilees, a second-century BCE Jewish work. Though this book was never considered canonical, some have called it "Little Genesis" because it retells many of the stories from Genesis, including interpretive commentary and additional details. The value of Jubilees is the insight into the ancient traditions the book preserves, giving us a window into certain Jewish beliefs before the New Testament was written. The following passage, which describes Noah interceding for his children, is remarkable because it contains several terms related to the unseen spiritual realm. In this single text, the author mentions demons, evil spirits, the watchers, the chief of spirits called Mastema, and Satan. How they are all related is unclear at times, but this extraordinary passage shows how ancient Jews perceived the world beyond our own earthly realm.
1 "In the third week of that jubilee the polluted demons began to lead astray the children of Noah’s sons and to lead them to folly and to destroy them. 2 And the sons of Noah came to Noah, their father, and they told him about the demons who were leading astray and blinding and killing his grandchildren. 3 And he prayed before the LORD his God and he said, “God of the spirits which are in all flesh, who has acted mercifully with me and saved me and my sons from the water of the Flood and did not let me perish as you did the children of perdition, because Great was your grace upon me, and great was your mercy upon my soul. Let your grace be lifted up upon my sons, and do not let the evil spirits rule over them, lest they destroy them from the earth. But bless me and my sons. And let us grow and increase and fill the earth. 5 And you know that which your Watchers (עִירִין; irin / Greek: ἐγρήγοροι; egregoroi), the fathers of these spirits, did in my days and also these spirits who are alive. Shut them up and take them to the place of judgment. And do not let them cause corruption among the sons of your servant, O my God, because they are cruel and were created to destroy. 6 And let them not rule over the spirits of the living because you alone know their judgment, and do not let them have power over the children of the righteous henceforth and forever.”
7 And the LORD our God spoke to us so that we might bind all of them. 8 And the chief of the spirits, Mastema (מַשְׂטֵמָה, mastemah, Hebrew for “hostility” or “persecution”), came and he said, “O Lord, Creator, leave some of them before me, and let them obey my voice. And let them do everything which I tell them, because if some of them are not left for me, I will not be able to exercise the authority of my will among the children of men because they are (intended) to corrupt and lead astray before my judgment because the evil of the sons of men is great.” 9 And he said, “Let a tenth of them remain before him, but let nine parts go down into the place of judgment.”
10 And he told one of us to teach Noah all of their healing because he knew that they would not walk uprightly and would not strive righteously. 11 And we acted in accord with all of his words. All of the evil ones, who were cruel, we bound in the place of judgment, but a tenth of them we let remain so that they might be subject toSatan (שָּׂטָן, satan: Hebrew for “accuser” or “adversary” / Greek: διάβολος; diabolos) upon the earth. 12 And the healing of all their illnesses together with their seductions we told Noah so that he might heal by means of herbs of the earth. 13 And Noah wrote everything in a book just as we taught him according to every kind of healing. And the evil spirits were restrained from following the sons of Noah. 14 And he gave everything which he wrote to Shem, his oldest son, because he loved him much more than all of his sons." (Jubilees 10:1-14, c. 2nd century BCE, Charlesworth translation.
https://weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/no ... nst-demons
That is where the familiar spirits came from, they were not part of the rebellious third of heaven, they were the "spirit children" of the fallen Watcher angels and the daughters of men, the disembodied spirits of the giants/Nephilim that drowned in the flood.
The Watchers are the "powers and principalities," that are at war with us, they can shape shift into human form since they are part of the "certain men who crept in unawares" they run the nations. They are in Psalm 82, in Daniel as the Prince (or principality rather) of Persia that withstood Gabriel from delivering a message until Michael came to help out. They can take physical form, or remain in spiritual form, the angels are multidimensional beings, this physical plane is easy to manipulate to them, like a video game is to us. But God keeps them in check, or they would destroy us. He uses them as a tool of judgement. That is what Paul is warning about in Ephesians 6: 12,
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
They are part those more powerful entities who hate us, and long for our destruction. They occupy the second heaven, (that's below the third heaven that Paul went to) but will be shaken out of their places as the "untimely figs," are shaken off their branches, at the same time the pit from below us in Revelation 9:11 happens. The inhabitants of the earth will be attacked from above and below, and why men's hearts will fail for looking after those things coming upon the earth.
But Jesus Christ has defeated them all. That was part of what He was doing when He was preaching to those disobedient spirits at the time of Noah. He was proclaiming His victory. Some of those spirits were of the Nephilim spirits, who are the demonic, and do not qualify for salvation. Those who He saves are the ones who love Him, who are humble, know they cannot do anything of themselves, and are not wanting to become a god to themselves, but recognized that He is God, and willingly bow their knee, and their tongues eagerly confess, with all praises, because He is worthy!
thank you, very interesting perspective.