Peter Levenda - The Angel and the Sorcerer

THE ANGEL

AND THE

SORCERER

The Remarkable Story of the Occult Origins of Mormonism and the Rise of Mormons in American Politics

PETER LEVENDA

IBIS PRESS

Lake Worth, FL

Published in 2012 by Ibis Press

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Copyright 2012 by Peter Levenda

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ISBN 978-0-89254-200-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

A S THESE LINES ARE BEING WRITTEN, there is a Mormon running for the Republican Party's nominee for president in the 2012 election. What many people may not realize is that Willard Mitt Romney is not the first Mormon to run for President of the United States.

That honor goes to the founder of Mormonism himself, Joseph Smith Jr.

What many people also may not realize is that Mitt Romney is not the first Mormon to be focused on the acquisition of wealth.

That honor also goes to the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith Jr.

In fact, and according to at least one critic, Joseph Smith Jr. was the first real leveraged buyout king, anticipating Mitt Romney's career by at least 150 years.

The story of the origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly referred to as the LDS Church or simply as the Mormons, is a story of treasure-hunters and sorcerers. This book is not an attempt to denigrate Mormonism or Mormon politicians or presidential candidates, even though the facts presented here may seem at times outrageous or bizarre. This is the real story of a religious denomination that some consider a cult, even a dangerous cult. Since I have written several books that touch on the subject of religious deviance, I am sensitive to the label cult and do not use it lightly. After all, Christianity began as a cult, as a renegade Jewish sect: a spiritual practice observed in secret, in hidden catacombs and Roman cemeteries before it became a state religion in the fourth century CE. One uses the term cult at one's peril.

Yet in the case of Mormonism we have a number of factors that drive Evangelical Christians crazy and which arouse suspicion in members of other denominations as well.

For instance, Mormonism's roots in ritual magic. Or its involvement with Freemasonry. The outlawed practice of plural marriage. And the strange practice of the baptism of the dead by which the LDS Church converts departed souls of other faiths to Mormonism (presumably without their consent!).

If we deconstruct the history and practices of the LDS Church we gradually come to the realization that what we are seeing is something truly different from contemporary mainstream Christianity. It should be noted that Mormons consider themselves Christians, even though many Christian denominations refuse to extend that designation to the LDS Church. My intention is not to come down on one side or another in that particular debate. What I want to do, however, is make the data available in order to enable a reader who may not be aware of Mormonism's strange history to make an informed decisioneither as a seeker after spiritual knowledge, perhaps considering conversion, or as a voter in an election.

The controversy over John F. Kennedy's candidacy for president is still fresh in my mind, of course. I was only ten years old when he was elected, but the fact that he was a Roman Catholicas I was born and raisedwas a staple of discussions at home and at school. Kennedy was accused of having allegiance to the Vatican rather than to the United States, forcing him to make an impassioned speech in which he made his loyalties clear.

It may be time for Mitt Romneyor for whatever Mormon political contenders may come after himto consider making the same sort of speech, in order to allay the fears of Evangelicals and others who believe that there is something very unusual about Mormonism.

In the United States, we believe that Church and State are separate. Of course, they are, according to the US Constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights. But religious feeling and political agendas are often brought together in a single political candidate. We are, after all, human beings and subject to human emotion and psychological conditions. However much we try to compartmentalize our political beliefs and our religious beliefs, in terms of everyday activity the one may wash over into the other. We know this because the political influence of various religious groups is well-known, and reported endlessly in the media.

Ronald Reagan, who is idolized by many on the political Right, was a member of the same religious denomination (the Disciples of Christ) as Jim Jones, the preacher responsible for the Jonestown massacre of 1979. Reagan believed in an impending apocalypse, the End of Days. Jim Jones did his best to bring it on, at least for his followers in the Guyanese jungle where they met their hideous fate. The phrase drink the Kool-Aid as a reference to mindlessly following an agenda or a leader comes from the mass murder and suicide at Jonestown where many of the victims were told to drink a cyanide-laced soft drink.

George W. Bush famously told Evangelical Christians that God had told him to run for president.

But Richard Nixon, as the nation's first and so-far only, Quaker president, ignored his religion's pacifist teachings entirely when he ordered the Christmas bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

What is worse, then, we may ask: a religious zealot as president, or a religious hypocrite?

As the above examples suggest, the answer to this question may depend on the religion. And that is where this conversation about Mormonism must begin. Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholicsand Americans in generalshould ask their political candidates (and especially their presidential candidates) whether or not they are true believers in their respective religions. Had Richard Nixon been a true Quaker, it is entirely possible that Cambodia would never have been bombed and that the Vietnam War would have ended years earlier. Had Ronald Reagan truly believed in the apocalypse and the Second Coming of Jesus, he might have hurried it along with a few well-placed missiles.

If a person running for President of the United States is a true Mormonwhat does that mean for the rest of us?

The author's intention is that this book goes somewhat towards answering that question.

ORIGINS

CHAPTER ONE:

THE SORCERER

Samuel Smith v. Mary Easty.

The deposition of Samuell Smith of Boxford aged about 25 years who testifieth and saith that about five years since I was one night at the house of Isaac Estick [Easty] of Topsfield and I was as far as I know not Rude in discorse and the above said Esticks wife said to me I would not have you be so rude in discorse for I might Rue it here after and as I was agoeing home that night about a quarter of a mile from the said Esticks house by a stone wall I Received a little blow on my shoulder with I know not what and the stone wall rattled very much which affrighted me my horse also was affrighted very much but I cannot give the reason of it.