That tickles me inside. Thank you. I look forward to your thoughts.janderich wrote:Amonhi, Sometimes you amaze me, and your above post is certainly one of those times. I agree with almost everything you have said (except perhaps some specifics about this conglomerate God). But I will comment in detail later when I have more time.
Yes, Alexis Carrel. Here an ASU.edu article on him that also mentions the questionablity of the experiment as a way to prove his conclusion that the heart tissue can be sustained indefinitely. Unproven hypotheses in red.Finrock wrote:Amonhi,
I was interested in the chicken heart story and wanted to learn more about it so I looked it up. I believe you are referencing to a French surgeon and biologist named Alexis Carrel. First, he didn't preserve a whole heart but rather tissue cultured from an embryonic chicken heart. His experiment has never been replicated and it appears that it has now been somewhat debunked. Instead of it being the same cells living on, new cells were being introduced in to the sample over time..."The plasma used to grow the 'immortal' heart cells was contaminated with heart cells, so instead of the same cells forever, the slides were restocked with fresh cells every transfer".
-Finrock
While the tissue cannot live indefinitely, like he tried to prove, it can live outside of us. Heart transplants and other common surgeries show this reality as well. I used this experiment to show that organs can live outside of a host body for an extended period of time (more than a few minutes) showing that the physical/spiritual organ itself as an organization of intelligence is independently organized so as to not require our consciousness, physical body or even spirit to remain alive and functioning if its food/waste needs are met.The basic tissue culture techniques used to generate the immortal chick heart tissue were first described in Carrel’s paper “The Permanent Life of Tissues outside of the Organism,” published in 1912. In his experiment, Carrel adopted Ross Granville Harrison’s hanging drop method for culturing chick heart tissues. Small fragments of embryonic chick heart tissue were placed on a clear cover that sits on top of a slide, called a coverslip, in a drop of liquid composed of chick blood plasma and water. After the medium made of blood plasma and water had coagulated, the coverslip was inverted over a slide. The whole slide was then incubated at 39 degrees Celcius. After the culture grew for two to three days, the tissue was passaged, wherein a fragment of the tissue was removed, washed, and put into new medium so that the growth could continue and a secondary tissue culture could be generated. The chick heart tissues in this early stage of in vitro culturing continued to pulsate. Before Carrel submitted his paper for publication, the chick heart tissue had been growing and pulsating for about three months, from 17 January to 16 March 1912. In his paper, “On the Permanent Life of Tissues outside of the Organism,” Carrel hypothesized that the lifespan of cultured tissues could be lengthened indefinitely and tissues should intrinsically be able to maintain permanent life in vitro under ideal culturing methods.
The responsibility of maintaining the chick heart tissue culture was transferred to Carrel’s associate, Albert Ebeling, in June of 1912. Although some of the cultures became contaminated, Ebeling managed to preserve one line of cell cultures. In a paper published in 1913, “The Permanent Life of Connective Tissue outside of the Organism,” Ebeling listed the sub-culturing and tissue growth conditions in detail, including records of the 129 passages, or times at which the cultured cells were segregated into new medium for sub-culturing, that Carrel, Ebeling, and assistants had performed from 17 January 1912 to 15 January 1913. This record shows that in March of 1912, the growth rate of the tissues increased following the inclusion of a chick embryo extract into the culture medium. After this finding, the chick embryo extract became a standard component of the medium used by Carrel’s group. Although the cells' growths accelerated in March, the pulsations began to slow, and eventually ceased by April of 1912. By the time the 1913 paper was published, the chick heart tissue cells had been proliferating in vitro for more than a year. - https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/alexis-car ... -1912-1946
I agree with all the concepts you have explained here. There is a beautiful book I highly recommend called "The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science" it is written by Andreas Weber who is a German academic, scholar, and beautiful thinker. I'll share some of what he has to say in my responses. First regarding life and what it is composed of.Amonhi wrote:I love this quote and your way of thinking. Let me attempt to expand it...That which is in all things is called "holy spirit" or the "light of Christ" or a number of other terms. It is in large part a mystery, however we have been given some insight. Elder Widtsoe described it in these terms, "It is a spirit of intelligence that permeates the universe and gives understanding to the spirits of men. The phenomena of existence are but expressions of this divine medium." (Evidences and Reconciliations, Section II Ch7). Note the term, divine medium. This medium is not God, but God partakes of it just as do we when we when we say we are "filled with the spirit" or when we use the spirit to effect change in the physical world. It is through this medium that God communicates which his children and is in all and through all. But please do not make the gross mistake of believing that this medium is God, such would be utter folly.
Your physical body is you. It is alive. However, I could remove significant parts of it and they would remain alive even if you died. I could take your heart and put it into another person and it would remain alive. A doctor once took a fresh chicken heart and put it into a solution that provided it with food. He changed the solution regularly and kept the heart alive and pumping for some ridiculous number of years beyond the normal life expectancy of a chicken. The point being that the cells in that heart were alive by themselves, independent of the chicken. They needed to be provided food and waste removal, but the cells remained alive, ate food, put off waste, reproduced and replaced themselves. Cells in our bodies are intelligence organized into living things. We, our bodies are organizations of intelligence. You are the governing intelligence of your body. But if you try to point to the part of you that is really that governing intelligence, you do not point to your leg. You don't point to your gut or your heart or liver. you point to your head. If you get very specific, you don't point to your eye or your ear. Try it yourself... point to YOU. you will find that your consciousness is found ruffly where the following intersect...
- between your eyes going back into your head a few inches,
- in the center point between your temples
- down from the crown of you head a few inches
If you put your finger anywhere on your head, you can tell that YOU are either forward or backward, up or down, inside or out from that point. You govern the intelligences that are organized into your body.
You are found in your pituitary glad hidden inside the brain. If you damage or remove that, then you no longer govern your body and it dies. Any other part of the brain can be damaged and removed and while you lose function, you will continue to live.
If I am giving you a blessing, I might refer to YOU, and you, "You have been..." or I my refer to some part of your body and say, "You're heart will..."
There is a distinction between you and your body.
Your heart has a governing intelligence which is independant of You and so can be removed and remain alive and functioning. If I were to speak of your heart, I would say, your heart is in you, not in your governing intelligence, but in you meaning your body. I would also acknowledge that you are in your heart, not your governing intelligence, or not that Your governing intelligence lives in your heart, but that you are the whole body including your heart. Regarding your body, you are in all things and through all things and round about all things, etc.
Everything organized intelligence is built in a similar fashion as your body. Trees are organizations of intelligences. I can take a cutting from one tree and graft it into another or even sprout it and start a new independant tree with its own governing intelligence. If I talk to or command the tree, I do not talk to the individual intelligences of the tree but to the tree as a whole. That governing intelligence.
Similar to part of what you said above, I would say that each intelligence, or being, has consciousness. The less organized the more dispersed is that consciousness. As an intelligence grows in complexity it develops a more centralized intelligence. Andreas Weber explains this in terms of swarms. He says researchers sometimes call ant or bee swarms superorganisms, "Many of their behaviors can be understood better if we view the whole state as indeed one single being and its members as the cells of one body. Seen from this vantage point, biologists begin to understand that our body can be viewed as a swarm as well, or rather as a super-swarm consisting of multitude of lower-level swarms. We consist of billions of single individuals. Our body cells in principle and in the test tube are able to thrive alone. In order to function as a whole organism, they need to tune their behaviors to one another" (p. 274)Unorganized intelligence is a little different. It is governed by thought forms.
For example, can you point to the governing intelligence of a mountain? Which rock or particle of dirt do you point to? If you removed that rock or particle of dirt does the mountain move with it? No. It is unorganized. yet, we can speak to the mountain and command it to move and it will. What we are speaking to? We are speaking to the collective conglomerate of all the intelligences of the mountain. If you speak to a forest, you are speaking to the collective intelligence of all the trees in the forest. The principle on which they function is "Thought forms".
Consider america. Millions of people with variety of thoughts. The president of the US might be considered the governing intelligence or God of the country as it he has more individual power than any other intelligence in the country. There is however something else... a "thought form". When 911 happened, the entire country was focused on the same thing. When there is an election, the country is largely united in thinking about the election. Whatever the BIG news is, that is what the country thinks about. That thought form is like a brain. Millions of individual cells working together to think through problems, events, make decisions, etc. each individual cell providing thoughts, information, expressions, opinions, value. It is a conscientiousness. Just like the mountain, there is no single intelligence that governs it, but it is the conglomeration of all the intelligences that make up the parts.
The thought form in the mountain or the forest or the sea or whatever unorganized intelligence we are looking at is the governing principle of that intelligence.
Did you notice that America has both a thought form and a governing intelligence. Both. As do we. As do all organized things. Our church has the prophet, but there are also various thought forms and an overall thought form.
Does the entire universe work like our bodies? Does each being in it act as a specialized cell, and each world as a nerve center achieving it's own ends but ultimately building the whole? I believe it may indeed be so.If we can command the mountain to move, then we directing the conglomerate intelligence or Thought Form. If you command the waves of the sea, then you talk to the Thought Form. When you stop the rain, you are connecting with the thought form or conglomerate intelligence, not each individual rain drop. (Speaking from experience...)
The individuals that make up the whole are connected by a spiritual link known as the light of Christ. It is this principle by which the same invention is created at the same time in different parts of the world without knowledge of each other. This spiritual network of thought and emotion that connects us together is not just simply cell phone signal that without seeing it transfers information. It is a network so complex that it forms a collective mind or a brain similar to ours with the network of individual neurons. The governing intelligence is subject to the conglomerate mind. It cannot over rule them. If they want a king, then either God persuades them or they get a king.
Sometimes the rain says "no, I need to come" and you have to negotiate with it to see if it has to come everywhere or just one place or maybe it could miss an area, etc. Sometimes you just can't win and it rains and you can't command it to do otherwise because its goals to provide water to a region are in direct conflict with your goals to enjoy a day at the park.
The universe has a governing intelligence and a thought form. The though form is greater than the individual governing intelligence. All power and influence must be done by persuasion, no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood. Because the principles of righteousness that we must learn to become a God are the same principles of righteousness that we must maintain to remain a God, God cannot maintain power or influence by any means except persuasion, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned, etc.
Is there more matter organized or unorganized in our universe? Are there more mountains and seas or organizations of intelligences like animals, plants etc.
Again the "thought form" is not The Father or God just as our consciousness is not God to our cells. Let me push this comparison between our body and the universe a little further. What is human cognition and feeling? How does it work? Of course I don't know all of this, but let me introduce one thought from the same book I have been quoting, "Feeling needs matter like fish need water. Without matter, the language of feeling could not appear - because feeling would not be there". Further, "...mind is nothing different from body. It is body. (p 125, italics in original). If this is true then we together with all other beings in the universe cannot only feel Spirit (Light of Christ, etc), but are the core of it. There is no other. We ourselves along with all other beings are spirit and spirit is us. As the Savior says, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:21).All God's are governed by the whole and have power because of their honor which the Whole has for Gods. Two Gods can be standing next to each other and they are equally empowered by the whole of creation. Neither God is higher than the other but there is one that is greater than both of them. It is the spiritual collective of every thing that exists. It is this collective that existed before God and which God is part of. It is the light of Christ which fits the description:Some would consider this universal governing intelligence to be the God of Gods because Gods cannot act contrary to it, it gives the Gods power, and judges them and governs them just as this scripture says. Just as your body give YOU power. Your legs honor you and obey you. your arms honor you and obey you. But if you put your hand in the fire, it will only honor you so far and if you can't convince your hand that it needs to be burned, it will remove itself and YOU can't fight it. So, while you Lord over your body, your body Lords over you as well. It is a partnership. if you are a bishop, you can only do what the ward will allow you to do. You must persuade the ward to go where you want to go and at the speed you want to go or you will end up banging heads with the ward because it has thought forms that are a collective mind or collective intelligence.The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things. - D&C 88
It may not fit the definition of a God to you, but it does to some. It is a spirit because it is thought. It is physical because everything in creation is part off it. But you cannot commune with it by means of the physical just as you cannot speak to the whole mountain or the sea by physical means. You must spiritually speak to the thought form as a spirit.
And when a miracle is done, it is not you that did the miracle, it is the millions of intelligences that worked together to make the desired change. The thought form is considered The Father or God. It is the Father that does the miracle. Just as with people, all intelligence is motivated by principles. The most important of the principles is love. It is Christ (Love) that is the motivation for the Father (Conglomerate of intelligences) to do the miracle.
For "name of Christ", see D&C 132:7-14, the name of Christ is the medium of the Holy Ghost by which we commune with and obtain the agreement or promise of God or the conglomerate intelligences which have agreed to obey. Without that agreement, there is no promise or power, obligations, expectation, etc. Jesus only had power which His Father gave to Him, as do we. Where does any God gain power or what gives any God power, even the God or Father of our spirits? The collective intelligence that that God governs.3 Nephi 18:20
20 And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father (Conglomerate of intelligences) in my name (Christ or love, peace, joy, etc.), which is right (honorable and moral or truth which the intelligences recognizewithout over ruling them and forcing your will on them, ie. by use of persuasion), believing that ye shall receive (Faith precedes the miracle because of "observational Bias"), behold it shall be given unto you.
Cleon Skousen explained the principle of the thought form without using the words "thought Form" very well in his article: The Meaning of the Atonement - HERE
His application of the principle to the atonement was not accurate, IMO, but he expressed the principle well.
Have you ever considered that your legs do all the work wherever you go and your upper body merely goes along for the ride?Kitkat wrote:The scriptures say, we are not our own, but bought with a price (1 cor. 6:19) and which of us by taking thought can add 1 cubit to our stature? (Matt.6:27)
I find it so interesting that on one level, I have total control over how my body acts. For example I choose how I move my body, if I stand, if I sit, I even get to choose my emotions and so on, but if you look deeper there are aspects of my body in which my control is completely limited. Do I get to choose how my blood flows? Or if I want to digest the food I have consumed? Do I even know the first thing about growing finger nails, or repairing a bruise or broken bone? Even very skilled physicians have only a barbaric knowledge compared to what the body can do to heal itself. It was always amazing to me when I was expecting that my body knew how to create a body for a baby! I did nothing different. All I have to do is eat food and rest...
It really is God lending us breath right? The elements that make up my physical body function without "me" directing their every action. I am not intimately involved with coaching my body on how to grow, how to see, how to hear, that part of me is a gift from God.
So even though I possess a physical body, God is still functioning through me.
Well, yes, but only because they both do my bidding. My arms only go along because I allow them to, but If someone grabbed my legs and tried to pull me, my upper body could resist by grabbing onto something. My legs and arms do MY bidding - my liver, not so muchfreedomforall wrote:Have you ever considered that your legs do all the work wherever you go and your upper body merely goes along for the ride?Kitkat wrote:The scriptures say, we are not our own, but bought with a price (1 cor. 6:19) and which of us by taking thought can add 1 cubit to our stature? (Matt.6:27)
I find it so interesting that on one level, I have total control over how my body acts. For example I choose how I move my body, if I stand, if I sit, I even get to choose my emotions and so on, but if you look deeper there are aspects of my body in which my control is completely limited. Do I get to choose how my blood flows? Or if I want to digest the food I have consumed? Do I even know the first thing about growing finger nails, or repairing a bruise or broken bone? Even very skilled physicians have only a barbaric knowledge compared to what the body can do to heal itself. It was always amazing to me when I was expecting that my body knew how to create a body for a baby! I did nothing different. All I have to do is eat food and rest...
It really is God lending us breath right? The elements that make up my physical body function without "me" directing their every action. I am not intimately involved with coaching my body on how to grow, how to see, how to hear, that part of me is a gift from God.
So even though I possess a physical body, God is still functioning through me.
Here's a case of feeling totally out of control, beware of restroom runs at two in the morning.Kitkat wrote:Well, yes, but only because they both do my bidding. My arms only go along because I allow them to, but If someone grabbed my legs and tried to pull me, my upper body could resist by grabbing onto something. My legs and arms do MY bidding - my liver, not so muchfreedomforall wrote:Have you ever considered that your legs do all the work wherever you go and your upper body merely goes along for the ride?Kitkat wrote:The scriptures say, we are not our own, but bought with a price (1 cor. 6:19) and which of us by taking thought can add 1 cubit to our stature? (Matt.6:27)
I find it so interesting that on one level, I have total control over how my body acts. For example I choose how I move my body, if I stand, if I sit, I even get to choose my emotions and so on, but if you look deeper there are aspects of my body in which my control is completely limited. Do I get to choose how my blood flows? Or if I want to digest the food I have consumed? Do I even know the first thing about growing finger nails, or repairing a bruise or broken bone? Even very skilled physicians have only a barbaric knowledge compared to what the body can do to heal itself. It was always amazing to me when I was expecting that my body knew how to create a body for a baby! I did nothing different. All I have to do is eat food and rest...
It really is God lending us breath right? The elements that make up my physical body function without "me" directing their every action. I am not intimately involved with coaching my body on how to grow, how to see, how to hear, that part of me is a gift from God.
So even though I possess a physical body, God is still functioning through me.
That was great. Thank you. I wanted to share this with you. I am sure some people will not appreciate it, but I think you and others will in light of this conversation.janderich wrote:...(Amazing post)...
I'm afraid that's about the best I can explain it at the moment. Love the conversation.
The third verse of the song, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" says the following:In this vision, I learned how true these statements really are...The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
...
While serving a mission in Ireland, I came across a member named John. He was an odd sort about 45-50 years old. Not much to look at with his missing/rotted teeth, buzzed grey hair and coke bottle glasses... Due to his handicaps he was "on the dol" or government welfare system. This afforded him significant time to work with the missionaries and perform other church services. He was wonderfully funny and could tell the most beautiful stories of his life if you could muster the patience to hear all the details. I will tell you some of his story to the best of my recollection...)
His life was much like a Forest Gump story! He was one of the first people to learn and master the electric guitar in Europe. This caused him to meet the most interesting people like the Beetles and he is playing the electric guitar in many of the Records made in England which feature the electric guitar during that era. I think I could tell his story for hours, but instead I will focus briefly on a few of the highlights that lead up to my vision...
He looked like a poor old man, missing most of his teeth and what teeth he had certainly wouldn't last much longer. There was nothing about him that you would value him worth 5 cents of your time. But, I liked to ask people about their conversion stories and his conversion was as valid as anyone else's, so I wanted to hear it. I'm so glad I asked...
John's conversion story starts when he returns back to college where he met the girl of his dreams. After falling madly in love, they plan to get married. Her father was going to perform the marriage as he was a preacher in high mountains of Switzerland. One week before the marriage, his love and her father were traveling in the mountains doing church business and there was an accident involving dangerous weather and they went off a cliff and died. (He was crying at this point.)
He was so devastated that he lost most of his memory of the following week including traveling to the funeral, traveling home and the following week or more sitting in bed depressed. Everything he knows about this period has been told to him by his friends after the fact. At some point, his friends had been worried about him as he disappeared from life. They busted down his door to find him weak in bed having not had food or water for some time. They called the ambulance and he was rushed to the hospital they tried to revive him, but ultimately they were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead, he died of a broken heart...
He death was a typical near death story where he found himself watching people trying to save his life. But he had no reason to live. At some point he was visited by two people who introduced themselves as "Joseph Smith" and "William Garland ****" who were both ancestors of his. He had heard of William because the middle name had been passed down for generations, and he got it. But he had never heard of this Joseph Smith guy.
They then proceeded to teach him the gospel, the plan of salvation and every lesson you which they would teach in church but don't. He saw vision upon vision of thing that had been and were to come. When they finished, he said, alright then, what am I to do with all this information? They told him he was going to go back and he needed to find the Church that taught what he had just been taught, join it, and assist it as well as a few other personal life mission type things. He was also given "Predictions" which was a major world event for each year from then until the year 2023. (All of which have come true so far.)
So, next thing he knows, he wakes up under a cloth and he can't breath very well. He is extremely weak having become mortal again and having not left his body in a great state. the doctors had declared him dead, and covered his body with a sheet and put him to the side in preparation to send him to the morgue.
Someone saw him stirring and wrote it off as natural twitching, until he mustered all his effort to make a sound. Then to their shock, they took off the cover and saw him struggling to live...
Being dead takes its toll on a body and he was never quite the same. He was slower and had what he called "kinks" in his brain. He remembered everything he had learned with extreme clarity and after a number of months in the hospital, he began looking for the church...
Some time later John was rummaging through his family stuff and found a letter to someone in his family line saying, "He's dead, they killed him, the Prophet Joseph Smith is dead..." There was no church mentioned or anything useful, just notably of interest.
Hundreds of churches and years later, he gave up actively seeking the church having decided that it didn't exist in Europe. He had been ridiculed and cursed for his crazy ideas and told that they were false and evil. He learned to keep them to himself to avoid ridicule from the religious leaders and experts. One day, after moving to Northern Ireland, he received a knock at the door. Two LDS Sister missionaries "had knocked on my door and wanted to talk religion. I said, very well, come in and let's have at it. To which they replied that they couldn't come in. And I said, then why did you bother knock'n my door?" They explained the policy and set up an appointment for him to meet them at one of the member's houses.
...
Some time later, he had receives all 6 discussions, twice... And he had no issue with what he was being told, but he was waiting for them to get past the primary lessons and start talking about the real stuff. They had invited him to be baptized multiple times and he had declined because he didn't know if this was really the church or not. Finally he felt he needed to fish or cut bait and stop leading these nice young women along. He decided to break one of his rules and ask them two questions that would seal the deal. If they were like every other church they would cry blasphemy and kick him out on his ear...
So, at his next appointment, (Saturday night), he had a similar dialog to the following:
John - "Do you believe that there are multiple Gods, perhaps even thousands of them?"
Sister missionary - (Nervously), "Well, John, we don't generally discuss this with our prospective converts as this is a much deeper discussion, but the short answer is, Yes, we do."
John - (Surprised, but still uncertain and bracing himself for their response to his next question...) "Well, Sisters, do you believe that we could become one of those Gods?"
The Sisters looked at each other, thinking that John had gotten a hold of some anti-Mormon literature... - "Uh, well, yes John we do believe that we are children of God, that we were created in His image and if we follow the path He has laid out for us that we can someday be like Him."
John was in shock! He immediately stood up and walked out the door. He couldn't believe that he had finally found the church. He walked the mile or so home and went straight up to bed. The spirit was nailing him hard. He laid awake all night while, "The spirit was banging out the kinks in my brain."
The sisters had no idea what was happening but figured that they would not see him again.
The next morning, (Sunday), he "floated" the mile to church. The Sister's were shocked to see him there! They rushed over to him and he straight way told them he would like to be baptized at the next available service. (We don't get many baptisms in Ireland, so, there were lots of openings...)
After having this little dialog with the Sister missionaries about becoming Gods, he figured that everyone knew what he knew, like the Sister's who knew we could become Gods but didn't say anything. So, the Sunday after his baptism, he was sitting in Gospel Doctrine class and they were discussing the Millennium. The teacher asked, "What are some things that will happen in the Millennium?" After a few others had answered, he raised his hand and said, "At the beginning of the Millennium, Christ will return with his wife, and together they will..." When he saw the teacher's eyes, he realized that he must have done something wrong... So he ended abruptly...and the teacher reiterated that Christ would return and moved on...
After a few instances like that, John learned to stop commenting and just listen to the lesson...
Years later..., while eating lunch at his house, my companion and I are talking to him.
I being one to enjoy a good deep conversation and egging him on trying to get him to squeal and tell me all the good stuff he knows... And knowing that he was taught personally by Joseph Smith and an Angelic Family relative, I wanted to know what he might have been taught.
We eventually got to discussing the First Vision. He was telling me how some people think that Joseph Smith literally saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in the grove. He said, "It must have been a vision or something because he couldn't have possibly seen God. I dn't see ho it could have possibly happened. I mean, how could God have possibly fit in a little grove? How could Joseph Smith have possibly have been able to see and comprehend God? It would be like an ant looking at you and comprehending you and having a chat, or like you going down to a cell in you big toe and saying Hi, how are you and carrying on a conversation with a cell in your big toe."
I was hearing what he was saying, but I couldn't comprehend it. I just grasped onto anything I could but fell like I was missing the whole conversation because I couldn't fathom what he was saying. All I could think was, "!!!! What is he going on about? !!!!!"
My companion thought he was off his rocker and didn't put much stock in him. My companion enjoyed playing his famous guitar that was used in the recordings of the various albums and seeing pictures of John with various celebrities, etc., but once he started talking deep doctrine or even new doctrine, he blew John off. I on the other hand believed his story and knew much of what he said or at least knew about the topic like Christ being married. I just couldn't comprehend what he was saying right now about Joseph Smith's First Vision ... It confused me. He was supposed to have extra information and I couldn't even fathom what he was trying to say...
It really bugged me! Our lunch was over and I was so lost that I felt like I had missed some really neat information, but he was speaking so far about my comprehension, that I couldn't do more than look at him with a dumbfounded expression.
As my companion and I traveled to our next appointment, we walked through an unkempt grass field. I was mauling over what John had said and trying to make some sense of it or even grasp onto even a single familiar point. Suddenly, in an instant, I was caught up in a vision. I was flying through space at tremendous speeds. Stars and solar systems were whizzing past me until I shot out of our galaxy. Then moving even faster, I saw countless galaxies flying by. I continued on watching galaxies whiz past me until I reached a part of space where there were no more stars. I kept moving out into the void, further and further. I turned around so I could see the galaxies that I had just flown past getting farther and farther away. As I went further and further away, they appeared to get closer and closer to each other so that it quickly became hard to see the space between the galaxies. There were so many of them. More stars than I could imagine. And they all stopped in the same place as if there was an invisible wall holding them back. There were no stars in front of me, above or below, only behind me like a great wall of light made of countless pricks of light. On my side of the wall there was void. on the other side of the wall were countless galaxies full of countless stars.
The further I went away from the galaxies the closer they appeared to get until I couldn't separate them anymore and they looked like a single solid object that was extremely HUGE.
I kept going out even faster until I could see that the object wasn't flat like a wall at all. It was a 3D object. As I proceeded further away, the shape of this object finally came into focus and I saw that it was a being/person. A Giant being/person!!! I had come out of it somewhere around the shoulder. Then just as quickly as this being had come into focus, I could see being/person was interacting with other similar beings/people in a room in a house or building on a planet full of similar people. I was an infinitely tiny spec in their world. I was told that this "Person" or being, was God and was in tune with and governed everything in my "universe". (Each of these beings was a universe.) And that the planet these beings lived on was full of beings/people in an endless universe of planets and stars and galaxies similar to the ones I was familiar with but on a Macrocosmic scale. I was told by the spirit that as far as I was concerned, I could continue up and out of that universe to see another being created of/by it and that I would find the same thing happening an infinite number of times if I were to continue to move up and out away from this being. And that as much matter as I thought was in the "universe" or being which I belonged to, there was infinitely more matter than I could comprehend. I was mind blown!
I then flew back toward the arm of the being I came out of until I again saw the galaxies and then into one galaxy as the stars again separated and could be individually distinguished and I was again passing them at incredible speeds. I finally came to the planet earth and flew down through the sky until I saw myself walking in the field with my companion. I was frozen in mid step. Everything else was frozen too, but I only barely noticed that. I flew at my own body with incredible speed and then it was as if I got smaller as I approached my body which instantly got bigger and I could see tissue, then cells and their tissues and then eventually clusters of atoms and then electrons circling the nucleus's like planets circling stars in solar systems. I flew through them like I had the stars until I came to a particular electron and sped down to it where I saw life forms living and dying whole life times in fractions of seconds. I was told that I could go down further to infinite levels of microcosmic world inside microcosmic world and not find the smallest life forms in existence.
Then, without a further word, I was instantly back in my own body/mind walking in a field. I thought I was actually gone except that my companion was oblivious and the whole thing had happened in less time than it finish a single step. It was an amazing vision!
With that in mind, the song "If You Could Hie to Kolob" takes on deeper meaning and a very personal relevance. The song is now about my own personal experience and has rich and deep meaning. I hope you can now appreciate it as much as I do.
1. If you could hie to Kolob
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward
With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?
2. Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?
Methinks the Spirit whispers,
"No man has found 'pure space,'
Nor seen the outside curtains,
Where nothing has a place."
3. The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
There is no end to race.
4. There is no end to virtue;
There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light.
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.
5. There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
Text: William W. Phelps, 1792-1872
Interesting. Do you believe this is true? That this represents reality? How things really are?Amonhi wrote:That was great. Thank you. I wanted to share this with you. I am sure some people will not appreciate it, but I think you and others will in light of this conversation.janderich wrote:...(Amazing post)...
I'm afraid that's about the best I can explain it at the moment. Love the conversation.
One of my friends, an Elliaison Contributor that goes by the name of Seeker on the Elliaison forum, (He and his wife share their C&E story and one of their experiences meeting Christ - HERE), shared the following, (I think it was on the Elliaison forum somewhere, but I didn't want to lose it, so I copied it and am sharing my copy. Here is what he said,
The third verse of the song, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" says the following:In this vision, I learned how true these statements really are...The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
...
While serving a mission in Ireland, I came across a member named John. He was an odd sort about 45-50 years old. Not much to look at with his missing/rotted teeth, buzzed grey hair and coke bottle glasses... Due to his handicaps he was "on the dol" or government welfare system. This afforded him significant time to work with the missionaries and perform other church services. He was wonderfully funny and could tell the most beautiful stories of his life if you could muster the patience to hear all the details. I will tell you some of his story to the best of my recollection...)
His life was much like a Forest Gump story! He was one of the first people to learn and master the electric guitar in Europe. This caused him to meet the most interesting people like the Beetles and he is playing the electric guitar in many of the Records made in England which feature the electric guitar during that era. I think I could tell his story for hours, but instead I will focus briefly on a few of the highlights that lead up to my vision...
He looked like a poor old man, missing most of his teeth and what teeth he had certainly wouldn't last much longer. There was nothing about him that you would value him worth 5 cents of your time. But, I liked to ask people about their conversion stories and his conversion was as valid as anyone else's, so I wanted to hear it. I'm so glad I asked...
John's conversion story starts when he returns back to college where he met the girl of his dreams. After falling madly in love, they plan to get married. Her father was going to perform the marriage as he was a preacher in high mountains of Switzerland. One week before the marriage, his love and her father were traveling in the mountains doing church business and there was an accident involving dangerous weather and they went off a cliff and died. (He was crying at this point.)
He was so devastated that he lost most of his memory of the following week including traveling to the funeral, traveling home and the following week or more sitting in bed depressed. Everything he knows about this period has been told to him by his friends after the fact. At some point, his friends had been worried about him as he disappeared from life. They busted down his door to find him weak in bed having not had food or water for some time. They called the ambulance and he was rushed to the hospital they tried to revive him, but ultimately they were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead, he died of a broken heart...
He death was a typical near death story where he found himself watching people trying to save his life. But he had no reason to live. At some point he was visited by two people who introduced themselves as "Joseph Smith" and "William Garland ****" who were both ancestors of his. He had heard of William because the middle name had been passed down for generations, and he got it. But he had never heard of this Joseph Smith guy.
They then proceeded to teach him the gospel, the plan of salvation and every lesson you which they would teach in church but don't. He saw vision upon vision of thing that had been and were to come. When they finished, he said, alright then, what am I to do with all this information? They told him he was going to go back and he needed to find the Church that taught what he had just been taught, join it, and assist it as well as a few other personal life mission type things. He was also given "Predictions" which was a major world event for each year from then until the year 2023. (All of which have come true so far.)
So, next thing he knows, he wakes up under a cloth and he can't breath very well. He is extremely weak having become mortal again and having not left his body in a great state. the doctors had declared him dead, and covered his body with a sheet and put him to the side in preparation to send him to the morgue.
Someone saw him stirring and wrote it off as natural twitching, until he mustered all his effort to make a sound. Then to their shock, they took off the cover and saw him struggling to live...
Being dead takes its toll on a body and he was never quite the same. He was slower and had what he called "kinks" in his brain. He remembered everything he had learned with extreme clarity and after a number of months in the hospital, he began looking for the church...
Some time later John was rummaging through his family stuff and found a letter to someone in his family line saying, "He's dead, they killed him, the Prophet Joseph Smith is dead..." There was no church mentioned or anything useful, just notably of interest.
Hundreds of churches and years later, he gave up actively seeking the church having decided that it didn't exist in Europe. He had been ridiculed and cursed for his crazy ideas and told that they were false and evil. He learned to keep them to himself to avoid ridicule from the religious leaders and experts. One day, after moving to Northern Ireland, he received a knock at the door. Two LDS Sister missionaries "had knocked on my door and wanted to talk religion. I said, very well, come in and let's have at it. To which they replied that they couldn't come in. And I said, then why did you bother knock'n my door?" They explained the policy and set up an appointment for him to meet them at one of the member's houses.
...
Some time later, he had receives all 6 discussions, twice... And he had no issue with what he was being told, but he was waiting for them to get past the primary lessons and start talking about the real stuff. They had invited him to be baptized multiple times and he had declined because he didn't know if this was really the church or not. Finally he felt he needed to fish or cut bait and stop leading these nice young women along. He decided to break one of his rules and ask them two questions that would seal the deal. If they were like every other church they would cry blasphemy and kick him out on his ear...
So, at his next appointment, (Saturday night), he had a similar dialog to the following:
John - "Do you believe that there are multiple Gods, perhaps even thousands of them?"
Sister missionary - (Nervously), "Well, John, we don't generally discuss this with our prospective converts as this is a much deeper discussion, but the short answer is, Yes, we do."
John - (Surprised, but still uncertain and bracing himself for their response to his next question...) "Well, Sisters, do you believe that we could become one of those Gods?"
The Sisters looked at each other, thinking that John had gotten a hold of some anti-Mormon literature... - "Uh, well, yes John we do believe that we are children of God, that we were created in His image and if we follow the path He has laid out for us that we can someday be like Him."
John was in shock! He immediately stood up and walked out the door. He couldn't believe that he had finally found the church. He walked the mile or so home and went straight up to bed. The spirit was nailing him hard. He laid awake all night while, "The spirit was banging out the kinks in my brain."
The sisters had no idea what was happening but figured that they would not see him again.
The next morning, (Sunday), he "floated" the mile to church. The Sister's were shocked to see him there! They rushed over to him and he straight way told them he would like to be baptized at the next available service. (We don't get many baptisms in Ireland, so, there were lots of openings...)
After having this little dialog with the Sister missionaries about becoming Gods, he figured that everyone knew what he knew, like the Sister's who knew we could become Gods but didn't say anything. So, the Sunday after his baptism, he was sitting in Gospel Doctrine class and they were discussing the Millennium. The teacher asked, "What are some things that will happen in the Millennium?" After a few others had answered, he raised his hand and said, "At the beginning of the Millennium, Christ will return with his wife, and together they will..." When he saw the teacher's eyes, he realized that he must have done something wrong... So he ended abruptly...and the teacher reiterated that Christ would return and moved on...
After a few instances like that, John learned to stop commenting and just listen to the lesson...
Years later..., while eating lunch at his house, my companion and I are talking to him.
I being one to enjoy a good deep conversation and egging him on trying to get him to squeal and tell me all the good stuff he knows... And knowing that he was taught personally by Joseph Smith and an Angelic Family relative, I wanted to know what he might have been taught.
We eventually got to discussing the First Vision. He was telling me how some people think that Joseph Smith literally saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in the grove. He said, "It must have been a vision or something because he couldn't have possibly seen God. I dn't see ho it could have possibly happened. I mean, how could God have possibly fit in a little grove? How could Joseph Smith have possibly have been able to see and comprehend God? It would be like an ant looking at you and comprehending you and having a chat, or like you going down to a cell in you big toe and saying Hi, how are you and carrying on a conversation with a cell in your big toe."
I was hearing what he was saying, but I couldn't comprehend it. I just grasped onto anything I could but fell like I was missing the whole conversation because I couldn't fathom what he was saying. All I could think was, "!!!! What is he going on about? !!!!!"
My companion thought he was off his rocker and didn't put much stock in him. My companion enjoyed playing his famous guitar that was used in the recordings of the various albums and seeing pictures of John with various celebrities, etc., but once he started talking deep doctrine or even new doctrine, he blew John off. I on the other hand believed his story and knew much of what he said or at least knew about the topic like Christ being married. I just couldn't comprehend what he was saying right now about Joseph Smith's First Vision ... It confused me. He was supposed to have extra information and I couldn't even fathom what he was trying to say...
It really bugged me! Our lunch was over and I was so lost that I felt like I had missed some really neat information, but he was speaking so far about my comprehension, that I couldn't do more than look at him with a dumbfounded expression.
As my companion and I traveled to our next appointment, we walked through an unkempt grass field. I was mauling over what John had said and trying to make some sense of it or even grasp onto even a single familiar point. Suddenly, in an instant, I was caught up in a vision. I was flying through space at tremendous speeds. Stars and solar systems were whizzing past me until I shot out of our galaxy. Then moving even faster, I saw countless galaxies flying by. I continued on watching galaxies whiz past me until I reached a part of space where there were no more stars. I kept moving out into the void, further and further. I turned around so I could see the galaxies that I had just flown past getting farther and farther away. As I went further and further away, they appeared to get closer and closer to each other so that it quickly became hard to see the space between the galaxies. There were so many of them. More stars than I could imagine. And they all stopped in the same place as if there was an invisible wall holding them back. There were no stars in front of me, above or below, only behind me like a great wall of light made of countless pricks of light. On my side of the wall there was void. on the other side of the wall were countless galaxies full of countless stars.
The further I went away from the galaxies the closer they appeared to get until I couldn't separate them anymore and they looked like a single solid object that was extremely HUGE.
I kept going out even faster until I could see that the object wasn't flat like a wall at all. It was a 3D object. As I proceeded further away, the shape of this object finally came into focus and I saw that it was a being/person. A Giant being/person!!! I had come out of it somewhere around the shoulder. Then just as quickly as this being had come into focus, I could see being/person was interacting with other similar beings/people in a room in a house or building on a planet full of similar people. I was an infinitely tiny spec in their world. I was told that this "Person" or being, was God and was in tune with and governed everything in my "universe". (Each of these beings was a universe.) And that the planet these beings lived on was full of beings/people in an endless universe of planets and stars and galaxies similar to the ones I was familiar with but on a Macrocosmic scale. I was told by the spirit that as far as I was concerned, I could continue up and out of that universe to see another being created of/by it and that I would find the same thing happening an infinite number of times if I were to continue to move up and out away from this being. And that as much matter as I thought was in the "universe" or being which I belonged to, there was infinitely more matter than I could comprehend. I was mind blown!
I then flew back toward the arm of the being I came out of until I again saw the galaxies and then into one galaxy as the stars again separated and could be individually distinguished and I was again passing them at incredible speeds. I finally came to the planet earth and flew down through the sky until I saw myself walking in the field with my companion. I was frozen in mid step. Everything else was frozen too, but I only barely noticed that. I flew at my own body with incredible speed and then it was as if I got smaller as I approached my body which instantly got bigger and I could see tissue, then cells and their tissues and then eventually clusters of atoms and then electrons circling the nucleus's like planets circling stars in solar systems. I flew through them like I had the stars until I came to a particular electron and sped down to it where I saw life forms living and dying whole life times in fractions of seconds. I was told that I could go down further to infinite levels of microcosmic world inside microcosmic world and not find the smallest life forms in existence.
Then, without a further word, I was instantly back in my own body/mind walking in a field. I thought I was actually gone except that my companion was oblivious and the whole thing had happened in less time than it finish a single step. It was an amazing vision!
With that in mind, the song "If You Could Hie to Kolob" takes on deeper meaning and a very personal relevance. The song is now about my own personal experience and has rich and deep meaning. I hope you can now appreciate it as much as I do.
1. If you could hie to Kolob
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward
With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?
2. Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?
Methinks the Spirit whispers,
"No man has found 'pure space,'
Nor seen the outside curtains,
Where nothing has a place."
3. The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
There is no end to race.
4. There is no end to virtue;
There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light.
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.
5. There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
Text: William W. Phelps, 1792-1872
Peace,
Amonhi
Some people might have hundreds of parameciums inside their body.butterfly wrote:It's odd to think we might be gods to beings living within our cells.
Uuggg, you're making me itch :-sfreedomforall wrote:Some people might have hundreds of parameciums inside their body.butterfly wrote:It's odd to think we might be gods to beings living within our cells.
I feel sorry for the beings living within my cells (assuming they exist). I'm not much of a god.butterfly wrote:It's odd to think we might be gods to beings living within our cells.
I think you're a good god :ymhug:Finrock wrote:I feel sorry for the beings living within my cells (assuming they exist). I'm not much of a god.butterfly wrote:It's odd to think we might be gods to beings living within our cells.
-Finrock
Well, I know John is a real person and Seeker is a real person and Seeker's wife met John at some point and she heard his story, so between John and Seeker, we have two witnesses... The third witness comes from what we already know and have access to... as follows:Finrock wrote:Interesting. Do you believe this is true? That this represents reality? How things really are?Amonhi wrote:That was great. Thank you. I wanted to share this with you. I am sure some people will not appreciate it, but I think you and others will in light of this conversation.janderich wrote:...(Amazing post)...
I'm afraid that's about the best I can explain it at the moment. Love the conversation.
One of my friends, an Elliaison Contributor that goes by the name of Seeker on the Elliaison forum, (He and his wife share their C&E story and one of their experiences meeting Christ - HERE), shared the following, (I think it was on the Elliaison forum somewhere, but I didn't want to lose it, so I copied it and am sharing my copy. Here is what he said,
The third verse of the song, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" says the following:In this vision, I learned how true these statements really are...The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
...
...(cool story about levels upon levels of creation)...
-Finrock
Moro. 10:34butterfly wrote:So when we talk about God judging us on judgment day and spirits returning to that God which gave them life, what is really being communicated?
We know Jesus doesn't judge us. Who do you think flooded the world and killed millions?
I guess God the Father of our spirits could be a possible judge, but that doesn't seem accurate.
We could somehow judge ourselves...
But the scriptures talk about standing before the pleasing bar of God. Is there such a thing with this kind of Supreme God?
Good pointfreedomforall wrote:Moro. 10:34butterfly wrote:So when we talk about God judging us on judgment day and spirits returning to that God which gave them life, what is really being communicated?
We know Jesus doesn't judge us. Who do you think flooded the world and killed millions?
I guess God the Father of our spirits could be a possible judge, but that doesn't seem accurate.
We could somehow judge ourselves...
But the scriptures talk about standing before the pleasing bar of God. Is there such a thing with this kind of Supreme God?
34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.
Ex. 6:3
3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them
Jehovah is Jesus, he who is our eternal judge.
Amonhi wrote:
And when a miracle is done, it is not you that did the miracle, it is the millions of intelligences that worked together to make the desired change. The thought form is considered The Father or God. It is the Father that does the miracle. Just as with people, all intelligence is motivated by principles. The most important of the principles is love. It is Christ (Love) that is the motivation for the Father (Conglomerate of intelligences) to do the miracle.
For "name of Christ", see D&C 132:7-14, the name of Christ is the medium of the Holy Ghost by which we commune with and obtain the agreement or promise of God or the conglomerate intelligences which have agreed to obey. Without that agreement, there is no promise or power, obligations, expectation, etc. Jesus only had power which His Father gave to Him, as do we. Where does any God gain power or what gives any God power, even the God or Father of our spirits? The collective intelligence that that God governs.3 Nephi 18:20
20 And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father (Conglomerate of intelligences) in my name (Christ or love, peace, joy, etc.), which is right (honorable and moral or truth which the intelligences recognizewithout over ruling them and forcing your will on them, ie. by use of persuasion), believing that ye shall receive (Faith precedes the miracle because of "observational Bias"), behold it shall be given unto you.
Peace,
Amonhi
