Playing God, The Lust for Power – Part 4

By: Dave Hunt; ©2003

The serpent in the Garden of Eden promised Adam and Eve they could be like God. Mormons are taught that they can BE gods. Is there a connection here that goes beyond the obvious?

Playing God, The Lust for Power—Part 4

Following the Serpent

The serpent’s promise of godhood to Eve is the foundation of occultism, paganism, Hinduism, and the New Age movement. The January 1931 edition of The Occult Digest: A Magazine for Everybody contained an article titled “Awakening the Divine Self.” Readers were assured, “Within you is every power of the universe—all love, all wisdom, all life.” The magazine referred to this power as “serpent power,” which indeed it is.

The same lie is a major theme running through much science fiction. Gene Roddenberry, the now-deceased creator of the Star Trek movies and TV series, was “brought up in a Baptist household… went to a Baptist young people’s Christian Association… [but] spoke negatively about all religions, especially Christian [ity].” Roddenberry was convinced “that the human race is an infant God… [and] that he was God.”^[1]

Nowhere is the serpent’s lie professed more openly or honored more highly than in Mormonism. From the pulpit of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on June 8, 1873, Mormon leader Brigham Young declared: “The devil told [Eve] the truth [about godhood]… I do not blame Mother Eve. I would not have had her miss eating the forbidden fruit for anything in the world….”^[2] In apparent agreement, psychologist Rollo May called Eve’s sin felix culpa, or “fortunate fall.”^[3]

Joseph Smith founded his cult upon the delusionary aspiration after godhood. Smith taught that matter and intelligence have always existed and the ascent to godhood has been pursued forever. There must, therefore, be an infinite number of gods in Mormonism, though Mormons claim they only deal with “the God of this world”—which, incidentally, is how the Bible refers to Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). The secret rituals in Mormon temples are the first step for Mormon males in following their gods on this long road to “exaltation.”

Recently deceased Mormon President Spencer W. Kimball said that Christ has given Mormons “a code of laws and commandments whereby we might attain perfection and, eventually, Godhood….”^[4] How long is “eventually”? Joseph Smith indicated it could take eons of time:

When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom and ascend step by step until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel; you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation [to godhood].

But it will be a great while after you have passed through the vail [of death] before you will have learned them all.^[5]

Mormonism had the approval of Norman Vincent Peale, who was the keynote speaker at President Kimball’s 85th birthday celebration in 1980. He called the Mormon leaders “men of God… [who] are doing God’s work… by their fruits ye shall know them….” Because Kimball was “so deeply spiritual,” Peale asked him, “Will you bless me?”^[6]

Perhaps Peale, who was a 33rd-degree Mason, favored Mormonism because it is so much like Masonry. Each state in the USA has a Supreme Grand Lodge of Freemasonry and most Grand Lodges publish a Monitor for the guidance of members in the official doctrines and practices. Consider the following from the Kentucky Monitor:

The three really great rituals of the human race are the Prajapati ritual of ancient Hinduism, the Mass of the Christian [Roman Catholic] Church, and the Third Degree of Masonry.

Together they testify to the profoundest insight of the human soul: that God becomes man that man may become God!^[7]

Power, Power, Who Has the Power?

Instead of the eons of effort and initiation which the Mormon expects to endure in order to reach godhood, yoga offers self-realization (the arousal of the Kundalini serpent power) in this life. Parapsychologists hope to demonstrate in the lab that the powers of godhood already reside within us all and only need to be released. World Goodwill is confident that “we can experience ourselves as we really are… our divine inner self… we must believe in the divinity of humanity.”^[8]

Experimental psychologist and parapsychologist Lawrence LeShan, after many years of careful research, concluded that psychic powers are demonstrable under laboratory condi­tions but that they are beyond scientific explanation. He wrote:

As we continue our exploration… of consciousness, we find that the methods of logic and of mathematics… cannot be used here. They simply do not apply.^[9]

Sir Arthur Eddington agreed. This “greatest of the British astronomers” said, “Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world…. All attempts to prove that these powers come from the human mind or psyche have failed.”^[10] Could that be because they do not originate from man but from another source?

It is comforting to believe that a God of love, justice, mercy, and infinite wisdom and power is in charge of the universe. It would be terrifying indeed if instead there were billions of self-centered gods, each with infinite power. The hope of realizing the alleged infinite human potential is exciting for oneself, but the thought that everyone else could have the same power turns the dream into a nightmare. Life would become a ghastly struggle of a world of sorcerers competing with each other.

Consider the terror that grips members of thoroughly shamanized primitive cultures. These exist not only in the Amazon jungles today but in “civilized” countries such as Haiti, where voodoo is an ever-present terror in spite of the claim that it is used only for benign purposes. What a frightful place this world would be if every Tom, Dick, and Harry, as well as every Jane and Joan, had infinite God-powers to use as each pleased!

Notes

1. ↑ Christian News, April 10, 1995, p. 24.
2. ↑ Deseret News, June 18, 1873.
3. ↑ Rollo May, The Courage to Create (Bantam Books, 1975).
4. ↑ Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness (Bookcraft, 1981), pp. 5-6.
5. ↑ Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 4.
6. ↑ Deseret News, February 9, 1980, Church Section, p. 11.
7. ↑ Kentucky Monitor, p. XX.
8. ↑ World Goodwill Newsletter, p. 5.
9. ↑ Lawrence LeShan, The Science of the Paranormal (The Aquarian Press, 1987), pp. 14-15, 70, etc.
10. ↑ A. S. Eddington, Science and the Unseen World (Macmillan, 1937), p. 53.

Read Part 5