Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: How do you discern an angel from a demon, especially if that demon appears as an angel of light? 2nd Corinthians talks about how angels can appear or demons can appear as an angel of light, and that we should be aware of counterfeit angelic messages. And Latter Day Saints actually have a very unique test that most of the religions don't when it comes to discerning spirits. And this is found in doctrine and Covenants 129. But what is this revelation really trying to get at? How effective is this method of clasping hands? And could you tell if the angel Moroni was a demon? What if plural marriage was actually preached by a demon instead of an angel?
Welcome to Informed Saints. My name is Jasmine Rapley. We're joined in studio by Neil and Stephen. And today for our Halloween episode, we're departing from, from our normal fare a little bit to talk about a film and the topics covered in that film more specifically with Barrett Bergen. He's a filmmaker who produced a short film called the angel, which touches on a lot of these themes of discerning spirits, plural marriage. And so I thought it would be a great launching point to dive into the discerning of spirits for our Halloween episode here. So, Barrett, could you please give us a quick intro to who you are?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me.
So, like Jasmine mentioned, my name is Barrett Bergen, and with my wife Jessica Bergen, we co directed a short film called the angel, which is a folk horror film that pulls from this great kind of Latter Day Saint cosmology and folk traditions and doctrine and all of this stuff to tell a story about, just like you mentioned, about a supernatural entity and polygamy is in there and testing kind of ideas and, you know, who, who do you believe? And Jessica and I together own a production company called Burgundy Pictures, and we, we would like to do a feature length version of this same kind of story. But we were really, really humbled by the response within the, our Latter Day Saint community. Both Jessica and I are active, participating, believing Latter Day Saints and, and we weren't sure how it would be received within the community, but it sparked all kinds of conversations like the one that we're having tonight about kind of our cosmology and the uniqueness of the beliefs surrounding angels and demons and kind of whether horror is something that should even be explored at all as Latter Day Saints. So I'm really excited to dive in with you guys.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Awesome. Could you give us like a very concise synopsis of what the film covers Absolutely.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: So the film takes place in the late 19th century in southern Utah.
And it follows the story of a husband and two plural wives who are kind of trying to peck out a living in southern Utah all alone, just on the frontier.
And the first wife is not very happy with their circumstances, and the second wife is a little bit more acclimated. And the first wife has this crisis of faith, whereas the second wife is a little bit more okay with their lifestyle as plural wives.
And one day, the first wife goes to this cave where she fetches water and has this really intense kind of theophany, this supernatural experience, which she goes back and. And tells the second wife about and says, hey, like, you've got to come with me. I have to show you something.
The second wife is. Is currently pregnant in the story, and this family has had a hard time having children.
And so she says, it's about your child. Like, it's. It's really important.
And so the second wife follows her and they go to the cave and they wait there for a little while until this.
This personage shows up. All of a sudden, there's a bright light and this angel appears, and he talks to them. And. And the second wife is not sure what to make of this. And the first wife's like, yeah, no, just. Just listen what he has to say. And he tells them that plural marriage is not of God and that they are basically bound in this unholy covenant. And that the only way to be free of it is to spill the blood of their husband upon the ground. And if they don't do this, then the child that the second wife is pregnant with will surely die.
And the second wife doesn't know what to make of this message. This is. This is totally contrary to what she believes. And so she reaches out her hand to.
To. To, you know, clasp the hand of. Of this angel. And the angel reaches his hand back. And so they're about to. To touch hands. And as they do this, the first wife brings her there she is on the right, played by Tatum Langton. The first wife reaches up and pulls her hand back and does not allow her to shake hands with the angel. And so the angel disappears. And now they have this ethical dilemma to decide. Decide what to believe and what to do, because the first wife is like, no, like, don't mess with it. Don't, don't. Don't disrespect it. And so I. I don't want to spoil the ending. You can watch the angel on YouTube on altar, but that really kind of Gets us to the point of. Of this.
This conversation, which, you know, this story, this fable that we made up has been read very differently by a lot of different people, particularly Latter Day Saints, who.
Who are. Are conflicted because people have big feelings around plural marriage and big feelings about, you know, whether that was really from God or not. And so here's the angel telling them something that. That they might ultimately, on an. On an ethical or moral basis, agree with. But then also he leaves this. This interesting sacrifice, this challenge for them. So, anyway, hopefully that's not too wordy
[00:05:46] Speaker C: there, but no, let me go on the record of saying, if I may real quick.
I know that we're friends, Barrett, and so I'm a little bit biased when I say this, but I will stake. I will say here now for the public record to our YouTube audience, after Brigham City, or, like, since Brigham City. The angel is like, the best piece of Mormon cinema I think I've ever seen. And I. I cannot hype or glaze this movie enough for everybody. It's only like 20 something minutes, so you don't have to invest too much, you know, into it if you only have a little bit of time.
I don't know what it is. It scratches every little itch of mine. Every little cinematic itch, every little Mormon itch of mine. In terms of our history, esoteric itches.
Absolutely right. Guys. There are so many, like, deep cuts in this movie where it's like the Leo meme. Oh, oh, you know, pointing at the thing, you know, like, oh, I know what that is. Right. But it also does raise many excellent ethical and theological questions as well. So I can't praise this enough. I want a 24 to have this be the next big Mormon horror since, like, Heretic. You know what I mean? Like, so well done. I give my full recommendation, endorsement for the angel.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: I mean, I. I think this movie poster goes pretty hard. I mean, you see the angel, but, like, the dude looks super creepy instantly. You get bad vibes from him. But the whole point is that in the movie itself, like, he appears glorious, luminous, shining. And so there's a lot of ambiguity on, like, is this an angel from God or is this a counterfeit? So the question I want to kind of just like, start our discussion off with is, if an angel appeared to you guys tonight, what would actually convince you that it was from God? Would it be the way he looked? The message? Is it, like something else entirely? Like, what would it take to actually convince you that this is not a demon, but actually an angel?
[00:07:40] Speaker C: I mean, the answer is obvious, right, Jasmine? I got to shake his hand. That's the first thing I got to do.
It's in our scriptures. No, we, we could about DNC 129.
At some point we'll want to touch about it and see what that is. But.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Well, let's, let's get right into it. I mean, if that's really the answer, then yeah, let's. It's DNC129, I guess.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Well, and really quick before, before we get into 129, that, that's what we have canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants. But it's not limited to those three grand keys.
One of, one of the keys that Joseph Smith told a certain woman who had a very similar experience with a, an angel showing up and saying that her husband shouldn't go more than 100 miles away was that, you know, he was like, well, what color was its hair? And she's like, sandy colored hair. And he was like, that's, that's one of those keys sometimes, like what, what the angel is wearing. But also if it has contradicted a former revelation. These are, these are certain things that, that are part of this cosmology, this very interesting cosmology about, you know, discerning a messenger, which is, was pretty fascinating.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: So here, Sandy.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Sorry, go ahead.
[00:08:49] Speaker D: I was just going to say the sandy colored hair thing is actually kind of funny because I don't know if a lot of people know about Francis Gladden Bishop, but he was someone who came around. I think he was, I don't know if he was in Kirtland, but he came, you know, he was in Ohio and thereabouts. But this is after the churches Kirtland period. This is later. The church has moved on. The church is in Salt Lake.
Well, maybe it's while the church is in Nauvoo, but I don't remember my timeline with Francis Bishop very well. But he, he's someone who brings Martin Harris in. He, he, he manages to bring Martin Harris into his inner circle for a little while.
And so people like Don Bradley think he might be conveying some insider information from the Witness and repackaging some of it as if it's visions from the Witness being Martin Harris, he gets, he gets insider information about the plates and the other artifacts from Martin Harris and then he repackages it as these visions and things that he had. But he describes having, you know, seeing an angel with sandy hair. Right. And so, and I think I, I can't remember who it was But I feel like there was actually pretty recently there was one of these kind of people out there who are trying to present themselves as a prophetic successor of sorts of described having an encounter with a blonde or sandy haired angel recently. So it's still something that comes up.
I, I don't remember, I don't remember who it was, but it's something that still comes up in, in some accounts about angels, interestingly enough. I don't know what to make of that, but just something to, to be aware of.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: So still. Stephen, you've pulled up DNC129. Let's jump into that. This is kind of where we get our deep esoteric lore about this. I don't think any other religion has a criter discerning spirits the way we do that is so tangible and specific. In fact, most religions don't really have like a systematized way to do this. From what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, Evangelicals in general tend to just reject angelic and spiritual visitations altogether. Like if you've seen an angel, it probably was from the devil because you know, solo scriptura, that kind of stuff. Catholics, you know, they're more amenable and open to divine supernatural experiences, both demonic ones and angelic ones. But there doesn't seem to be like a systematic way that you discern them. It's kind of like, well, it's obvious one's glorious and one's, you know, the exorcist kind of stuff.
But Latter Day Saints have a very specific criteria. So DNC129, who wants to give the synopsis of this one?
[00:11:19] Speaker C: I can go ahead and do that real quick for us. You know, we don't need to read every verse, but basically the first 3:30 seconds of context. This is Joseph Smith having a conversation with William Clayton and Willard Richards was there. Polly P. Pratt was there. You can go on the Joseph Smith Papers website, get the background. This isn't the first time Joseph Smith gives keys for discerning false angels. You also get them in like DNC 46 I think 40 DNC 50. Joseph Smith gave several discourses on trying spirits, etc. This kind of culminates here in this, right? So first three verses you can see here, Joseph says there's basically two kinds of beings, heavenly beings. There are those who are resurrected that have bodies and those who are not, those who are just spirits. And one of the ways that you can know the difference is if they have a tangible kind of body and if you have a tangible kind of experience with them.
And then kind of the meat potatoes of it is starting in verses four through nine.
So you have three kinds of tests, you have three kinds of messengers. So resurrected angels, if you take the hand and you have physical contact, you know that's a legit embodied resurrected personage, right? Messenger like Moroni or something.
If it's a spirit of a righteous person who's not yet been resurrected, if you go to shake their hand, they won't take your hand. They'll just sit there, I guess. Right.
If it is a demon or the devil appearing as an angel of light, you go to shake their hand. And they will try to shake the hand, but there's no physical contact and you won't feel whatever you feel. The ether or whatever is like Harry Potter when he tries to touch his family at the end with the resurrection stone. I don't know. Right. But you, you won't feel anything tangible there. And that's how you can know. So what's great about this is, and this is what I love about what you kind of done with this, Barrett, somewhat with the angel is this leaves so much to the imagination of how does this actually work?
Because it's very kind of context dependent on stuff Joseph Smith is privately teaching to guys like William Clayton and William Richards and others that we just have kind of snapshots at. This allows our, our theological and sort of folklore imagination to go wild with this. Right on. How does this like actually work? But that's what we have in a nutshell in section 129 especially, because to
[00:13:33] Speaker A: my knowledge, we never really see this actually play out in church history with a major church leader. Correct me if I'm wrong, but like Joseph Smith's clearly teaching this, the implication is that he has had experiences with this. But it's not like we then see Brigham Young get up in general conference and say, I had to shake the hand of a devil and found out, like, we never see this actually play out. We don't have historical records of this. And so it really is left to the imagination of like, does this happen behind closed doors?
Has. Does anyone we know have had records of this life?
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Probably has a million stories of people podcast episode.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: His Angels and Seer stone episode on DNC129 specifically is totally worth listening to. It is super good. And he has, he's collected like folklore stories of individuals like members of the church who felt like they had experiences where they had to use this kind of knowledge and information.
But I'm not aware of Any, like, at a church leader level?
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Well, well, you know, we, we say that, but also, like, it. It's. It's hard not to think of how this shows up in, In a sort of kind of holy liturgical way with, with what we learn about, like, knowing whether a messenger is true or not from, From God. And Alon. Professor Alonzo Gaskill from, from BYU makes that case that he says, no, it's not about ethereal matter or like your. Your hand passing through an angel. It's all about, you know, like, like, because we know per. Per Latter Day Saint cosmology that like, like the devil can interact with us. And like, you have these crazy stories from early church history of like, dozens of people testifying to being thrown around and, and crazy stuff like, like out of a movie. And so, like, okay, well, where does the physic physical end and the, you know, finer matter is how Professor Gaskell puts it. And, and his interpretation is rather that. That it's. It's fundamentally linked to everything we learn all the time in terms of being instructed in the temple in, In. In discerning error from. From truth. And it's funny you bring up the blights because their podcast, Angels and Seer Stones, both, Both Christine and Chris, it. It fundamentally changed our cut in the angel, because at first we had the second wife, like, extending her hand to this angelic figure, and we never tested our movie on any Latter Day Saints or ex Mormons or anybody. It's too loaded. We wanted to see if it would work for a general audience. And nobody understood what was going on. They were like, why is she, like, wanting to shake his hand? Like, nice to meet you. And then we listened to the podcast and they, they said, fundamentally what you're testing is information. It's information. Can I believe what you're saying? Like, is what you're saying, Truth or error, which pairs really, really well with the temple. And all of a sudden we changed it in the cut and we put it at the end of the scene after he delivers his message, and suddenly it became intuitive. It didn't matter who the audience member was. They didn't really have a huge problem with it because it felt like, intuitive to, like, test the divine, you know, to reach out and be like, can I. Can I trust you? And I tend to kind of lean toward Gaskill in his interpretation of like. That pairs really well with, like, some of the stuff that otherwise, I don't know if, like, on a literal basis, but otherwise might be a little bit confusing. It's like, oh, okay. I see how this is all about testing, like deceit and like, you know, is this coming from God or is this coming from Satan?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: So here's, here's his paper he published in the Religious Educator. It also is published in a separate volume later. And he makes a very interesting argument. He basically goes through accounts of early Latter Day Saints encountering demonic possession, Satanic appearances, and talks about how physical those interactions often are. To your point that in DNC 137 it talks about how like all spirit is matter. And so there's some sense that even like someone who's just a spiritual being can somehow interact with this physical world in some limited settings. One example he uses, let's see, there's a bunch of them. Wilford Woodruff there's just so many good ones to pick from. But the NK Knight one is probably one of the early not nite. The Heber C. Kimball is probably one of the earliest ones where it's 1837. They're in on a mission to England. And so like it's Heber, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, Isaac Russell and I think Casey and Scott or no, just Casey on restoration revealed at Scripture Central. Like he did a video about this demonic experience where all these guys are serving mission in England. They're in an upstairs apartment and then all of a sudden Heber C. Kimball feels very afflicted with evil spirits. But all of a sudden they try to rebuke the devil. But in instead like their tongues are bound so they can't speak. And then there's trembling and then they like fall on the floor and like there's all of these very dramatic physical encounters and eventually they finally are able to rebuke the spirit. But it takes a long time and it's absolutely terrifying for them. And he even one of them, two day, two decades later, Elder Hyde recalled that everything that recurred at that seen is as fresh in my recollection at this moment as it was at it occurred. And so just giving this very visceral like this was a terrifying experience for them and it was indelible in their minds. Now I will say one thing that I think is interesting is you Talked about how DNC129 is not about like the physicalness as much as the imparting truth, like giving a specific sign or token, if you will. But I think there's room for both, like porque no los dos. There's the sense that yes, like demons, they don't have a body. We do know from in Latter Day Saint theology. In our worldview, they do not have bodies. And that's part of, like, their torment and punishment, all those things.
But they can interact in some limited ways with the physical world. So I, I think, like, maybe both happens. Maybe, you know, they tried. You try to extend their hand and they won't do it, or they try to do it, but they do it in a, in a perverted or twisted way and they don't get the sign right. Or maybe it is feeling the ether. I don't know. I do like what Stephen Harper said. So Stephen Harper is a church historian and he did some commentary on DNC129, and he said it is. This section is both euphemistic and esoteric. It is euphemistic because I'm not going to get the quote right. But it is just, it is just as much about shaking hands as kicking the bucket is about kicking buckets basically to mean that it's not about, like, the touching as much as it is what that handshake is communicating. For Latter Day Saints, we have specific signs and tokens that we receive in the temple and that you can use to discern messengers that are true versus false. So that's basically what Stephen Harper is trying to communicate. And basically Elder Alonzo Gaskell is trying to communicate as well, this idea that it's about imparting that temple knowledge. Now, how does that compare to the Scriptures themselves? If you go to our scriptures, DNC129 is dated to 1843. But you mentioned that this was not the first time he really taught that from what we understand, like this teaching can go back as early as 1839, maybe that he starts to discern and figure out that there's true messengers, false messengers. I mean, the reality is the first vision is Joseph Smith's first encounter with both the angelic and the demonic. And he's not handshaking in that scenario, but that's his first encounter to figure out that there's two forces at play and you've got to be wary of both.
And so I think, I mean, the fact that it's 1843 that we get this kind of like, cemented, I, I think is also an indication that it is temple oriented because he introduced the endowment in 1842. So this, it makes a lot of sense that this is a lot about temple knowledge to make sure that you can discern truth from error.
Other thoughts?
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Well, just. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Somebody else was about to jump in.
[00:21:23] Speaker D: No, no, you go ahead.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: All I was going to say is I, I like how you, you put it like kind of being both Jasmine. Because either way it begs that it like, like whether it's sort of physical or metaphorical or symbolic or whatnot, it, it has the same effect also in that like there's this idea that, that Satan is like bound by the rules of God. Because if, if Satan is like trying to deceive you and knows that you won't feel anything, then why would he extend his hand? Or on like, on the other hand, as like Gasco puts, like, if he can't provide the, the tokens or signs of the identifiers, like Alonzo Gasco makes the case, he's like literally barred from doing that. And we have an example of this again where like, if, if Satan is cast away in the name of Christ, he has to leave. Like, he has to, he has to comply to certain rules and laws of, of the universe. And I just find that really interesting that it becomes this sort of like you have God's power, then you have Satan sort of trying to replicate it or copy it or like what happens in Moses 1 like, and then he has to leave and he has to go and, and he can't completely, you know, deceive or, or convince even. Even if he tries to.
[00:22:40] Speaker D: What were you gonna say?
Well that, that's an interesting thought and I think it actually goes kind of along with what I was going to ask because we've talked about like, you know, has this ever actually happened or has any prophet ever actually had to do this?
But the question that actually came to my mind is, you know, we've had. There are a lot of people who, you know, at least from our perspective, are false prophets who have claimed to receive revelation to correct the church. Or you know, they create these breakoffs and they say, oh, the church is going to be destroyed and we're going to be the ones who save it. We're going to be the remnant, whatever. And they. A lot of them claim all kinds of spiritual experiences. But does anyone know, has any of them. Do any of them ever claimed to have like done the test of DNC 128 and.
Or DNC 129, excuse me. H. Have any of them ever like claimed to do that test and be like, yeah, and it, it totally worked and I shook their hand like, because I'm not aware of any. And I ask you think like, that's like really low hanging fruit for someone who's. If they're making this stuff up.
I don't know, like, like of course I'm going to claim that I did that, right? Like, so I don't know. I'm kind of curious to know. Maybe Chris Blythe is someone who would, who would know.
But that's just kind of, that just came into my head like, do any of them claim to have done this?
[00:23:55] Speaker B: I at least know of one.
If I'm remembering this right, I don't get this wrong, but because it's a crazy story. But I at least know of one who went out of his way to say he didn't do the test, which is super odd. Like it's the guy with the taste the chocolate shop, that, that and I cannot remember his name, but there's, there's a good so taste on University Avenue. Apparently the guy who owns it or owned it at some point said an angel appeared to him there and was like, you're the, actually you're the prophet. He's like, oh, okay. And, and, and like from what I understand, the guy went out of his way to say like I didn't do the test. Like I felt too scared or you know, I didn't want to do it or something. I was like, what?
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Well,
[00:24:35] Speaker C: so I just asked Chatgpt real quick, for whatever it's worth, it says I haven't found a documented instance of Joseph Smith or any subsequen president of the LDS Church actually performing the handshake test describing DNC 129. However, it does point to DNC 128, verse 20, when Joseph Smith says we heard the voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light. And that's one of those like four moments where it's like, what the heck does that mean? And I think Jeff Bradshaw and others have kind of fleshed this out a little bit that there might be something there related to that. It's kind of similar to, you know, Peter, James and John detecting Satan after the fall and the endowment ceremony, things like that. So there might be some. Something there. But no, according to the robot, we don't have a document instance. But I'm sure like, like what Chris Blythe said, there's probably plenty of folklore, I imagine.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: So this is what multiple people have pointed to as the context for DNC129. It's no coincidence that they come right one after the other. The verse 20 is also our, our favorite scripture when it comes to Book of Mormon geography. It says, and again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah Moroni, an angel from heaven declaring the fulfillment of the prophet's book to be revealed. So on the one hand we've got, you know, Moroni as an angel of light, presumably, though clearly our evangelical friends believe he's a demon. But then a voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county declaring three witnesses, the voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna detecting the devil when he appeared as the angel of light. So there's a lot going on in that verse and it's hard to understand like what's really going on. But some scholars have, have tried to parse out that okay, there was some kind of encounter here they were on the banks of the Susquehanna, they encountered Michael, but there also seemed to be some kind of demonic encounter where they had to discern. And then we get DNC129 where we're given the keys of discernment. So the kind of implication is that Joseph Smith did indeed have this kind of an interaction, at least in that particular instance in 1843 at September or September 1842 it would appear that happened.
[00:26:37] Speaker C: So describing very interesting stuff, 1829 or something like that.
Yeah, I, I just go back to the fact that we have as early as 1831 we have DNC 46 and 50 are addressing spiritual gifts and how to discern spirits.
And this is a recurring theme in Joseph Smith's teachings. I imagine it's kick started from the first vision where he has a demonic encounter as well as a divine encounter.
Yeah, 6-27-1839 is the early instructions he gives that Wilford Woodruff records on Shaken Angel's hand May of 1842 temple related teachings. Joseph giving keywords and signs to detect true and false messengers as part of the endowment. I, I would be remiss if I did not mention that there's of course a Masonic connection there as as Freemasons are taught grips and keywords to give to suss out real Masons from people pretending to be Masons. Right. So I imagine that also played a role in Joseph's understanding of how all this sort of works.
And then February 1843 is when DNC 129 is given. Those instructions are given. It's also interesting that it's not canonized until 1876. So it's Orson Pratt that canonizes this, that includes this in the 1876 Doctrine and Covenants. I wonder what's going on in or some Pratt's mind that he feels like this is necessary to include.
I'm just spitballing here, but maybe they got fed up with schismatic groups like the Godbyites and others claiming, you know, like these guys were spiritualists. Right? Fun fact, everybody. The Salt Lake Tribune was founded by a bunch of spiritualists, just in case you didn't know, who were doing seances and channeling the spirits of Hyrum Smith and other people. So I imagine if maybe the context of kind of the rise of spiritualism in the United States and other people maybe or schismatic breakoff groups had something to do with that. It's just kind of interesting.
[00:28:32] Speaker D: Well, I thought they were channeling the spirits of the prophets, but not.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: We were coming to them and saying, like, Brigham Young is totally a false prophet, guys, trust me.
[00:28:41] Speaker D: Well, I mean, is the real guy.
I mean, prophet as in P R O F I T. Right.
Because that's what they were all big mad about, right? Was Ben.
Sorry.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Sorry, Neil.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Well, I. Barry, you're talking about, like, there are certain laws that devils, demons are constrained by. And so Gaskell brings that up. He talks about how, you know, apparently there are some bounds that they're governed by. For example, they can't tempt little children until they become accountable, can't tempt translated beings and cannot come and come in the sign of the dove. And I believe there's also a Joseph Smith quote, quote somewhere about like how we can't come in the sign of the Son of God or something like that. But there's a lot of ambiguity. And again, it's very esoteric about like, well, what is the sign of the dove? What does that look like? But we got some Book of Abraham stuff there too.
Facsimile number two, figure seven, kind of. And Stephen's done a lot of work on like the Egyptian understanding of maybe these iconography of this iconography. But it. The. The thing Joseph Smith said was it represents God sitting on his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand keywords of the priesthood as also the sign of the Holy Ghost, the form of a dove. So, you know, is that this bird figure, is that this hand gesture? Unclear. Who's to say? But I will say that I. I find it interesting that one thing that a lot of Latter Day Saints are taught and you find this especially in missionary folklore, is that to cast out a demon or to cast out a satanic influence, you raise your arm to the square, it is a hand gesture that you use and you cast them out. Jesus Christ. Christ, yeah.
[00:30:21] Speaker C: Did it.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: You have a folklore story?
[00:30:23] Speaker C: I absolutely should for. For Halloween, boys And, girls, should I
[00:30:26] Speaker A: tell you, Is it your experience or is it something that happened, like, right before you got to your mission from someone else?
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Like, I. In the old mission, before the new mission president came in, there were all these guys.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: It is my firsthand experience. I can recall it now from memory. But I have recorded my journal. If you don't believe me, here's the story. It was in my second area on my mission in Bangor, Maine, appropriately, the hometown of Stephen King. And Stephen King's house is in Bangor, Maine, not too far from where we lived as missionaries. We had an investigator who knew a. Well, we. We had a member of the ward who knew a lady who was interested in the church. But the reason why she was interested in the church is. What's funny is interesting. She was interested in the church because she was convinced that a demon was possessing her house.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: House.
[00:31:14] Speaker C: Like, she was pretty convinced that, like, some kind of satanic influence was in. Literally in the attic of her house. So she went to her friend in our ward, who she knew was this religious guy, and she said, does your church believe in, like, exorcism and things like that? And he said, well, yes, we do. So he contacts us and he says, elders, do you want to come meet this lady? She can become an investigator, but you have to perform an exorcism. Basically, we're like, let's talk to our mission president. So we called our mission president, and he authorized us to do an exorcism on the house.
He gave us instructions on what to do, and that included, raise your right arm to the square, invoke the name of Jesus Christ and your priesthood, all that kind of stuff. And he said, make sure you teach her about the plan of salvation that very night before or after you do it. Okay? So we're like, okay. We go to the house, we meet her, we say, hi, we're the missionaries. I think we gave her the lesson before. We talked about the plan of salvation. And that's where we discussed, like, where demons come from. Basically the fallen host of heaven from the premortal world or whatever.
We go up. She says, okay, well, come up. Come up with me. We go up into her attic. Basically, she's too scared to go up there. She's like, I'm not going up there. You guys go up there. So she stays.
I should also mention at this point, she has roommates. They're all like, oh, this is so dumb. They're all skeptical. They all think this is pretty silly, right? We go up there. It's myself My companion and our guy from the ward. We each take turns raising our right arm to the square and casting out the evil spirits from the house in the name of Jesus Christ by the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood. And we do that, like, emphatically. We're like looking into the black room of the attic when this is happening. We did not turn on any lights, nothing like that. So we're like commanding. This is like some New Testament stuff, man. We're commanding the demons in the name of Jesus to leave the house. We all do it. We go downstairs, all the roommates are there. They're all like, around the table, like, what's going on here? They're all kind of into it now. It's really kind of funny, you know. They went from being kind of skeptical to like, oh my gosh. We tell them what we did, we explain it, we say bye. A week later, we follow up and she's like, I have never had better sleep in my entire time living in this house than I did after you guys came.
Fun. Here's the, here's the coda to all this. She becomes an investigator. We teach her some lessons. I later get, get transferred. At the very end of my mission before I go home, I get the mission newsletter where they announce baptisms in the mission. She was on the announcement list.
[00:33:46] Speaker D: Oh, nice.
[00:33:47] Speaker C: Did get baptized. Literally. I could claim a little bit of credit for resulting in a baptism from having performed an exorcism on a house. Eat your heart out, Chris Blythe.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: That's pretty based.
[00:34:02] Speaker D: Very cool.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Father has had experiences where he's had to use that too, but I never have. My, my entire existence is very unsupernatural. And so part of me when I read those things, like, they're so interesting. It's so cool and esoteric and all those things. But I wonder, like, why, like, why do we need to know this stuff? Isn't this something? Like, sure, certainly Joseph Smith needed to know it because he had, he was the prophet. He had real encounters with both angelic and demonic influences. But like, do we really need to know this stuff? Like, why is it canonized? But the answer is yes.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Like, I have a, I have a thought on that too. Jasmine is. I, I, I, I think, you know, it was mentioned earlier that, like, you know, there, there's, there's the Godbyites and there's break offs and we talked about, you know, all these people kind of breaking off, declaring their own authority. But, but, but Joseph Smith was like preoccupied with this question about Deception. He's preoccupied with it, like, to the point that not only does it show up all throughout the Doctrine and Covenants, but, like, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the, you know, one of the accounts as you were scrolling down, like, Harvey Whitlock, like, what happens to Harvey Whitlock? It's insane. And there's all of these witnesses to it, you know, where they're like, yeah, Harvey Whitlock, like, got super possessed and his, his eyes turn into oval O's, whatever the heck that means. And he, like, he, like, turns into this kind of, like, creature thing. All these people say this happened, and they spend the afternoon casting spirits out of each other, and people are flying around the room. We have, we have these witnesses of people, like, levitating, like, something out of the Exorcist. What's, what's more interesting about this, this, this account is that when this first happens to Harvey Whitlock, Hiram turns to Joseph and he's like, this is terrible. Like, we need to do something. And Joseph's like, hold on, hold on. Like, we don't, we don't know. We don't know if this is from God or from Satan. And he, like, says a prayer, and then they're like, okay, it's from, it's from Satan. Like, we need to do something about it. But what, what is so fascinating to me is that Joseph himself seems so skeptical and so, like, careful about whether something is from the divine or from hell because he has this, this methodology of, like, I do not want to be deceived. And, and, you know, for, for most people kind of going about their lives, like, I, I, I think we, I think we have the tendency to kind of, like, normalize these things or try, try to, like, try to, try to fit spirituality into a, an almost like, like a secular box where it can fit and it's respectable. And, like, who really believes this kind of stuff? But, but people all over the earth, like, cite these kind of bizarre experiences all the time. And the fact that, like, if something is highly strange and supernatural, you might not quite know what to make of it or, like, where it came from, I think is really, really interesting. And it seems to be something that, that Joseph Smith is, like, constantly going back to. We also have our evangelical friends who think that, like, because he's using seer stones or divining rods or these, these, these, these artifacts, you know, this, this very material spirituality, that somehow it must be demonic, when in fact what Joseph says is like, no, these things can be used for both good and bad. And it, and it has, it has to do more with like, what is the influence, not what is the object or what is the material itself. And so, like, how he responds to Harvey Whitlock, I think is very, very telling in why so much of the theology points back to discerning truth from error. Like, this is a huge focus of early Latter Day Saints.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: It is very interesting that Joseph Smith is preoccupied with deception. And I wonder what that says about his sincerity.
Obviously, people who are not of our faith, a lot of Christ, other Christians will say that, oh, Joseph Smith was just. Maybe he was sincere, but he was deceived by a devil. Like, based on what we know of DNC129, all of his angelic encounters. Like, can you even make an argument for him being deceived by a devil?
Like, what. What would be the. How would you know for sure that Joseph Smith really was being followed, was being instructed by an angel versus being instructed by a devil? Maybe this whole thing is just a charade with an army of demons, you know, ordaining a fake priesthood to Oliver and to Sidney Rigdon and all the people. So like, what's, what's the response to this whole thing is just a demonic charade versus maybe this is really of God.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: That's silly.
[00:38:32] Speaker C: Can I share a meme?
Well, while we consider that question, shout out to Mormoner for, for this incredible meme they did a little while ago.
Yeah. Barrett mentioned something about like how Joseph Smith tries to be very scrupulous about determining if, if, if some sort of ministration is divine or satanic. I would also point out that kind of. These days, and especially in the Catholic Church, there's also a big emphasis on is this thing just like psychological? Is it, is it natural or supernatural too? Right. There's also the, the tendency towards kind of superstition or attributing to demonic forces. It's just maybe, you know, schizophrenia or, or a coincidence or something. I just thought I would point that out. Some spirit mentioned it. But to Jasmine's question, I just thought this was kind of funny because, guys, have you heard of Galatians 1:8? Do you know what Galatians 1:8 says about if we are an angel from heaven. An angel from heaven, guys, who else could that be talking about but Moroni? I think that this is a pretty good humorous way to sort of counter this idea is like, look what Merlin. I said, okay?
Like, look at the content of what he, of what he taught Joseph Smith. A lot of it's quoting the Bible. Right. I think really what we have to get into in terms of like the epistemology of was Moroni a demon or not? Like our evangelical friends consistently want to tell us is like the proof is in the pudding with what is the Book of Mormon teaching? Right.
It's, it's just not good enough to just say, well, he was an angel of light. And Galatians 1:8 says that angels of light are always demons. Or that's like a wild over reading or misreading of the text. Right? Yeah.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: So what about Gabriel?
[00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah, Gabriel. What about to Mary John in the book of Revelation on the island of Patmos? You know what I mean?
What about the angel appears to Paul on the road to Damascus, right. The angel of the Lord that appears to him, etc. Etc. So I think, you know, getting beyond the proof text, we're getting into interesting sort of theological epistemology.
I will also point out, I'll give a little nod to my friend Kyle Beshears, who himself is a Baptist pastor and an evangelical scholar who's published a book on the church recently.
He and I've been talking about this about like the, the reception history of Galatians 1:8, both within Christianity generally and with Mormon Christian interaction specifically before 1830. Guys, guess what? Protestants are using Galatians 1:8 to dig on. Do you want to guess in a million years?
Catholics.
[00:41:03] Speaker D: I was going to say, like Mary apparitions or something.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. So they're using Galatians 1:18.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: And the context of. Go ahead, Jasmine, if I remember correctly, is that it's not just, you know, a censorship of all angels. He's specifically talking about like following the law.
So like the law of Moses, like, hey, we're not following the law of Moses anymore. Even if an angel comes and tells you that, like it's, it's not true. And so it's like he's talking like a very specific use case here that a lot of people will then over apply.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Well, not only is he holding.
Go ahead, Neil.
[00:41:36] Speaker D: I was just gonna say not only is he talking about something very specific, at least as I read it. I've always felt like that's just kind of hyperbole from Paul. Like he's just trying to make the point that like, hey guys, I delivered the gospel to you and if someone comes along with a different message, I don't care. I don't care if it's an angel. You do not depart from it because I know what I taught you is true. Right? That's like, it's not really supposed to be like this proof text or this test of like, yeah, even, even angels can, you know, teach you false things. Like, that's like his point is like, hey, I, I, I, I know what I delivered to you was the true gospel, so don't deviate from it. It's just kind of this hyperbole from him that's being taken, like, blown way out of proportion and used as a bludgeon against, you know, well, basically Latter Day Saints and Muslims because they both have an angel in their story. Right.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Well, I know.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Go ahead, Barrett.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Well, I was just gonna say. Oh, it's like there's, there's this hyper fixation on, on angels and, and moroni and Galatians 1a. It's like, oh, you guys have this angel. You guys have a prophet. But it ignores other parts in the New Testament that like, set a precedent for this. Jesus Christ the Savior is accused of, of, you know, working with the power of, of the devil, and he makes the argument, can, can Satan cast out Satan to, to Jasmine's question earlier of Joseph Smith's preoccupation with deception and teaching the saints, like, like, hey, like, it's really important we don't get deceived, which is, which is on, on, you know, on some level has to be attached to this idea that it's like the, you know, the, the faiths having a form of godliness but denying the power and, and sort of losing this connection, this pure connection to the divine. It doesn't, it doesn't track with him either, being deceived and sincerely asking for answers which, you know, we all know, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. God. God will deliver on this promise. But also like him as a deceiver, this idea that Joseph is, is in turn deceiving anybody.
It doesn't seem very congruent with this, this characteristic of Joseph where he's like, very, very hyper fixated on this specifically, not not seeping into himself or into the people that he leads. And so like, you know, when it comes to the New Testament even, and Christ as a, as, as sort of the, the, the archetypal, the archetype for all of us, you know, the, the, the perfect person. Like he's casting out demons and, and dealing with devils left and right, this always attends anywhere. And so anywhere that there's, there's, there's, there's like legitimate spirituality. You also have this, this kind of, this attachment of, of the, the accusation of deception. And so I have kind of come to the conclusion that like when, when someone is especially hyper fixated on that idea of like you, you are deceived, you must be deceived. They themselves might be the one accidentally kind of following that deception which, which we see, we see take shape in earlier forms of the endowment that kind of, that kind of like have this dialogue between, between the restored gospel and then kind of the, the, the creedal.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: Creedal Christianity.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: I personally resonate with the argument that like the by year fruits, you shall know them. Like, like you said with Stephen about like, what does the book Mormon actually teach? If this is really a demonic book, if this is a demonic production, then it does like a terrible job of being demonic. You know, it's drawing people to Christ. We rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we testify of Christ. And it's all about how the atonement of Jesus Christ saves you. And then the revelations that come after that are all about how it's through Christ we are saved and revealing new ordinances and, and covenants that will draw us into a closer relationship with our heavenly Father and with Jesus Christ alike.
I don't know. I think it's a terrible job being demonic. I mean, the whole thing is about being very like drawn to Jesus Christ. But that meme you shared Stephen with, bro, I'm just quoting the Bible. I'll take you, bro, I'm just quoting the Bible and I'll raise you angel with a drawn sword commanding Joseph Smith that he has to practice plural marriage.
So this one actually ties really closely with the actual horror film the angel because it's, it's dealing with plural marriage. But maybe, let's take city.
Let's say for the sake of argument that Joseph Smith really had an angel appeared to him and was divine that restored the gospel. But then 1840s comes along in Nauvoo. Is he now deceived by actually a devil? And so plural marriage actually isn't sanctioned of God? What say you guys to that?
[00:46:14] Speaker C: I'm sure that Michelle Stone has a hot take about that, right?
Yeah, I don't know. It. It's interesting. The problem with the angel with the drawn sword accounts is the fact that they're all like pretty late and secondhand, so who knows what the specific details are, right?
I don't dismiss them out of hand. Brian Hales, I think, has made a convincing argument that there's enough of a, of a sort of a, an amalgamation or a. That's not the way I'm talking about. There's a critical mass of these accounts from people close to Joseph Smith independent of each other. This seems to indicate he did have some kind of a reportedly supernatural experience with a divine or supernatural personage telling him to do this.
I mean, beyond just kind of like the vibe check of like, what angels tell you to practice plural marriage, like, I don't know how much we can adjudicate that based on the, the information we have. Right.
And I mean, as with any claims of supernatural encounter, you'll always find ways that you can debate whether it's legitimate or not. Right. So, I mean, when we're talking about
[00:47:15] Speaker A: the supernatural in general, it's, it's hard.
[00:47:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm sure people have very strong feelings about it, but I'm just like, I don't know, I feel like it was from God because of, like, other scriptures and stuff, but I don't know what to tell you.
[00:47:27] Speaker D: I, I just kind of think at some point you've gotta, like, you've got to decide, like, do you believe Joseph is a prophet of God? Right. And if you do, like, well, do you trust the, like God's prophet to actually be able to successfully discern between demons and, and, and actual angels? Especially you know, after he's.
[00:47:50] Speaker C: It.
[00:47:51] Speaker D: I mean, it's been 22 years since his first divine encounter, and in that very first encounter, he's already got that polarization of the demonic force and then the coming of God in Christ. Right. And so, you know, it just comes down to whether you have a testimony, I think.
And if you do, then it, I mean, it makes no sense unless you have actual evidence and grounds to the contrary. Right. It makes no sense to think he was deceived, you know. You know, several years into his career as a prophet after having had so many incredible experiences, like, I, I trust someone who has stood in the presence of God, who has stood in the presence of Christ, who has stood in the presence of actual angels, who has had the kinds of experiences he had at the Kirtland Temple and things like that. I trust someone like that to be able to discern the difference.
That's what it comes down to for me.
[00:48:48] Speaker C: I just want to point out very quickly, too, it just occurred to me offhand, and I have the references people like to make fun of this. Oh, angel with a drawn sword. Right? How dumb. How can. Or how convenient, right, guys? That's a biblical thing. So numbers 22, the angel, the drawn sword comes to Balaam riding his donkey.
King David, 1st Chronicles 21 Samuel 24, the angel of the Lord stretches out his sword over Jerusalem because of the census.
Cherubim have a flaming sword in the Garden of Eden. And in Joshua 5, the commander of the Lord's army that leads the Israelites to conquer Canaan has a drawn sword. Right? So I don't know every time in the Bible when an angel, the drawn sword shows up, it's a good angel that's sent from God. So it follows the pattern, I guess.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: I, I do think on the, on the subject of deception and, and the demonic, like I, I really agree with you Neil, and, and feel similarly, but also in order to not misrepresent what the, what the arguments are most, most of the crowd, at least from within the Latter Day Saint movement would, would, would very much agree. And they would say, yeah, no, Joseph Smith, that didn't happen to him. It's Brigham Young and others who make it up later. And they attribute these things to, to Joseph Smith. And I, I do think this is again why it's important to kind of get at the root of like, like, like what is the why? What is the why behind these things? What is the why behind why? Why? Other Christians, and particularly evangelicals, like what they think it means to be deceived, what is the why behind why Latter Day Saints would not want to be and what they think it means to be deceived. And it's like, okay, well when it comes to plural marriage, for example, like, like what on earth would, would Satan even be getting at? It seems to be the case that for our, you know, non LDS Christian friends, there is a hyper fixation on correct knowledge. Like, like if you don't believe the right thing, then you could be deceived and then you could be thrown into hell versus Latter Day Saints. While we don't have a workspace theology, it's like, well if you don't do the right thing, if you don't do the works of Abraham, for example, if you don't like make certain covenants, then you will be deceived and limited in your progression and your ability to be close to God. And that's, that's something a little bit separate from salvation. It's not a works based salvation, but like what, what the actual like philosophical function of the thing is.
And so like it seems to me that whenever God shows up, he asks a really hard, really seemingly terrible thing, that it's like, why on earth do you want me to do this? We're reading Jeremiah right this week. Like come follow me. Where it's like, oh no, like God's here and he's going to ask me to do the thing I absolutely don't want to do. And then it turns out that that thing is actually exactly what you needed, even if you didn't think it's what you wanted. And this is the whole promise of the Abrahamic covenant. This is, this is where, like, sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. Heaven, you have opposition, you have. Joseph Smith says you have to descend essentially into hell to save a soul, and then you'll know the heights of glory. Satan, it feels like when he comes along trying to deceive, is extremely seductive. That's his methodology. He's here to tell you that the very thing that you thought was true, in fact is true. Actually, as it turns out, you were right all along. Like, congrats to you, you know, and this is what I think is the terror that, like, the difference of the terror of God versus the terror of Satan is like, both are scary, you know, like both paths are going to terrify you in some way, but one will be holy and, and one will be horrible and, and ultimately the, the, the, the outcome of like, what's on the other side, whether you're going from sweet to bitter or bitter to sweet, I don't know. That's, that's kind of how I see it. And this is where, like, to Jasmine's point, like, what, what on earth does Satan get out of convincing a bunch of Mormons to read this book that points them to Jesus Christ and to be better people other than. It's like, oh, like, he tricked him on the minutia. He tricked him on the, like, the correct belief, like, score for us. They're all going to hell. You know, that's just, to me, I don't know, like, like, of course I'm biased and I'm a Latter Day Saint, but also to me that's absurd. And it's just, it's a laughable, it's a laughable theology to think that way.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: Here, here.
So final thoughts as we wrap up here. What is our main takeaway for why we even need a D&C129? Why do we need to discern angels from demons if most of our life is relatively unsupernatural?
[00:53:28] Speaker C: Can I answer that with another quick sort of story? And I'm going to get a little meta here about this.
So my wife and I recently were listening to the Harry Potter audiobook, the new ones they've done right, and we're listening to Prisoner of Azkaban and there's the famous Bogart in the. In the closet, right? Or the. Whatever, the wardrobe and the Bogart takes the form of whatever you fear most. And some of these kids, it's like a mummy or a spider with Ron Weasley or whatever. And my wife and I were thinking about this, and we're thinking, what is our Bogart in the closet, right? Like, what is the thing? Like, if this magical being appeared to us, what would it appear as?
And there's, of course, the obvious things like, like, I really genuinely do hate spiders. I'm like Ron Weasley. You know what I mean? So would it be a giant spider? And I asked my wife, and she actually had something really kind of interesting. She. She paused and she says, I think my biggest fear would be that it turns out my religion's not true.
And I think, like, yeah, that's kind of mine too. Like, and by that I mean, like, like my worldview, what I believe, how I view the world, what I think about people, about God, whatever. So I think this gets to Barrett's point about the fact that, like. And to your question, Jasmine, like, kind of what, what Barrett's movie, the angel, is about, one of the ways I read it, and what I think you're getting at, Jasmine, is the. The fear of deception and the terror and the horror of being deceived, right? And that can be on, like, little small things, but it can be on the big things. Our worldview, our religion, our relationships, things like that.
So why do we need a section 129?
I think fundamentally it is to warn us about the reality of deception and that sometimes the stakes are really high if. If we are deceived, right? Like, I've been on the record to say if our religion is Latter Day Saints isn't true, like, if it could be, like, objectively proved to me tomorrow, it's not true. Man, I have a serious problem here. You know what I mean? If we find out the gold plates never existed, Joseph Smith made up the angel, whatever, or that the tomb, if there's no empty tomb after three days, right, we have a serious problem. And that, to me would have a lot of horror that comes with it about what I view about the afterlife, life, people, all that kind of stuff. So that is this making sense, I think, kind of in a bigger sort of meta sense. That's what Section 129 is about, avoiding deception and the horrors of deception. Because the stakes can be very high, I think.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I think that's really great. As I was thinking about this I was reflecting about like how the temple teaches us very specific symbols and knowledge to help us discern between true and false messengers. And that's what DNC 129 is doing. And so in a sense that, yes, there's a very literal aspect to this of like, here's how you discern physically, but also it makes me think of the more symbolic message it's sharing about discerning true from false. I know like ex Mormons and other Christians will make fun of us a lot. They're like, oh, you need secret handshakes to get into heaven. And like, well, joke's on you because I'm an ex Mormon and I left the church, but I know the secret handshake, so I'm going to get into heaven. And, and obviously like that's just, just not how this works. Like you can't just physically know the thing and that's going to get you into heaven any more than someone who lived a perfect, immaculate, sinless life but lived in 800 B.C. before the restored gospel is going to be thrust down to hell because of their lack of knowing. The secret handshakes, like, it's a, it's, it's literal, but it's also a symbol of like how the covenant relationship you have with God, the, the experience you have in drawing close to him and how you've lived that godly life. And so I'd to think that in addition to the very real circumstances of 1 DNC 129, it also sends a message to me about, like you said, like, the stakes are high. And discerning between truth and error, not just demons and angels, but just truth and error generally is a really important aspect of being a Latter Day Saint, of being a covenant disciple of Jesus Christ, of like learning the Gospel. Well, so you know, when you're being deceived.
Any final thoughts from you guys?
[00:57:24] Speaker D: I'll, I'll go and then we can let our guest here, Barrett, have the last word. But I just think like when you ask like, why do we need this? For one thing, obviously when DNC129 was given is a different time in a different place. And as, as we, we've talked about here and as like that Alonzo Gaskell paper shows and stuff, like it was a time when there was a lot of like demon possession and stuff like that happening and there were some real. I, I think, I think the DNC 129 comes out of a real space of fear about, about being deceived by, by demonic Forces appearing as angels of light. Right. And that this could be a real.
A real problem, a serious confusion that could happen. And.
And I would say it's probably still just as real. We just maybe don't. We. We have. We have tamed it. We have tamed the. The supernatural as. As you might say, and. And we hold it at a distance. But, I mean, in our episode with Walker, we kind of talked about actually there are millions of people every year who claim to have had a demonic encounter. Right. Millions of people globally every year claim to have. Have experienced that. Claim to have experienced an exorcism, that kind of thing. Right. And so I don't know that it is totally irrelevant to have that kind of thing in our canon. And I would also just say who knows what the future holds? Like, you know, you never know if there. If there's a apocalyptic collapse of society, the supernatural may burst free again too, in people's lives. Right. As, you know, in a Mad Max sort of world. I don't know.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: Or in an AI world.
[00:59:11] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: We're shaking hands with AI agents.
[00:59:15] Speaker D: I'm just saying we shouldn't get. I don't think we should get too caught up in like, well, us living in. In the civilized west of the early 21st century and people who. Who besides Stephen apparently, who just generally don't have these kinds of supernatural encounters because we've. Maybe because we've. We're just so skeptical. Skeptical of them in the first place that the devils just don't try. I don't know.
But whatever the case may be, right, we shouldn't get so caught up in that. In this moment that we're in, and think that this revelation is only for us.
Right. It's. It's got a longer lifespan than. Than our moment in time. Right. And. And broader use than what we might get out of it in our. In our time. So, anyway, that's my thoughts. Let's let Barrett take it away here.
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Okay. Well, thank you, guys. First of all, I've just been such an honor to be on here, and I'm. I'm such an admirer of the work you do and, and all three of you and just independently and together and just. Just the. The.
Yeah. The work you do in the faith. So. So it's. It's been a really cool discussion, and I'm of the opinion that.
[01:00:35] Speaker C: President.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: You know, President Nelson said that, you know, in that. That in coming days that you would have to stay very close to the Holy Ghost to. To. To. And keep the spirit with you to, to be able to survive spiritually. Okay.
And, and you know, we, we have like to Stephen's point, there, there are this, there's this kind of folklore and superstition that, that missionaries I think especially have either as a result of the mantle or as a result of their heightened superstition, or maybe it's both. But like you have plenty of people that have these kind of supernatural experiences. What Latter Day Saint would, would tell you they haven't had a spiritual experience, at least some kind of, of spiritual experience. And, and everybody kind of experiences that a little bit differently. But when I think about the utility of something like DNC 129 and, and taken in conjunction with the rest of the revelations, I think of how vital and relevant and unchanging the need to understand how deception and possession like works is that I, I don't think that's gone anywhere. I think that to the extent that you have a sort of less superstitious culture, that the ability to become persuaded of something that is ultimately pernicious or, or, or bad becomes more subtle. And the Book of Mormon talks about this, that, that, that the devil works in these different ways. And to some he says that I'm no devil, for there is none. And, and so I love these old stories. I love this crazy, scary stuff, probably in part because I have a taste for it, but also because I think it is so rich and relevant to today how lots of, lots of Latter Day Saints in particular, I think get really hyped up about certain philosophies and ideas that are very prevalent and very tempting and very enticing and very enticing from our friends who are also very religious.
And that a, a hard, hard look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ insists and even demands that, that we don't be deceived, that we don't be seduced, that we don't be possessed. And when it comes to DNC129, I think the larger philosophical point is to try the spirits, right, and look at the fruit and, and go. Does this square with the, with the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ or is this satanic and is it Satan appearing as an angel of light? Right? That's how I look at these things. I think that, I think that we're in an era where it's like to him who has ears to hear, let him hear.
And, and you know, I don't think I need to be subtle when I say that like we're, we're, we're, we're entering a time when Latter Day Saints are kind of turning on each other for ideological reasons rather than remembering and centering themselves with the, you know, the Lord who doesn't turn to the right hand or the left hand, but, but his way is, is straight and narrow and it's, and it's a simple gospel. So anyway, I hope that wasn't too highbrow philosophical, but that's, that's genuinely what I believe about possession and that's really what the angel is about.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, well said. If any of you want to dive into the lore of DNC129, the paper we had been mentioning is Alonzo Gaskell and entitled doctrine and covenants 129 and the reality of Satan's Physicality from the Religious Educator will link down below. And if you want to watch the horror film the angel, you can find it on YouTube. Search on YouTube the Angel Horror Short Film and you'll be sure to find it. It is all sorts of good fun. If you're into deep lore like we are, remember, you can study deeply, believe boldly, and we'll see you next time.
