Excerpts from CNN Article: Why the ‘Mormon’ Church Changed its Name:

"When the messages come during the dark of night, Russell M. Nelson reaches for his lighted pen and takes dictation from the Lord.

"'OK dear, it's happening,' the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells his wife, Wendy Nelson.

"'I just remain quiet and soon he's sitting up at the side of the bed, writing,' she said in a recent church video.

"Sometimes the spirit prompts the prophet's wife to leave the bed, though she'd rather sleep. One such morning, Wendy Nelson told Mormon leaders, her husband emerged from the bedroom waving a yellow notebook.

"'Wendy, you won't believe what's been happening for two hours,' she recalled Russell Nelson saying. "The Lord has given me detailed instructions on a process I am to follow."

"Nelson's nighttime messages have 'increased exponentially,' his wife said, since last year when the 94-year-old took the helm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.

"'One of the things the Spirit has repeatedly impressed upon my mind since my new calling as President of the Church,' Nelson said, 'is how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will.'

"Through a spokesman, Nelson declined an interview about his revelations. But more than any Mormon president in recent memory, he speaks openly and often about his divine communications, some of which have significant consequences for the 16.6 million-member church. Last year, Nelson announced that God had told him the church should drop the moniker "Mormon," a nickname that has stuck since the 1800s.

"'The Lord impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He decreed for his church,' Nelson said, 'the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.'

"The church has changed its websites, social media accounts, email addresses, even the name of its famous "Mormon" Tabernacle Choir based on Nelson's revelation. Church leaders have also lobbied the media to stop referring to Latter-day Saints as "Mormons."

"Many church members say they are energized and inspired by Nelson's prophecies, and reassured that God directs their church through a chaotic and confusing time.

"But others express discomfort with Nelson's "because God told me so" use of authority and worry that it leaves little flexibility for younger Mormons struggling with deep questions about the religion.
…

'Moses in a business suit'

"Lots of religions talk about revelations. They fill much of the New Testament's last book and many parts of the older Hebrew Bible, from the burning bush that inspired Moses to the "still, small voice" who whispered to Elijah.

"But many modern believers consider both Bibles to be closed canons, the last words we'll hear from God before the final trumpet blows. It's not that these religions consider prophesy passe. They just think the era of prophecy has passed. Even Pope Francis speaks of "discerning" God's will, but rarely of revelations.

"Latter-day Saints, as they prefer to be called, believe in continuing revelation. Their canon is open, ready to be revised or supplemented by its top cadre of leaders, first among whom is the church's president, who is considered a "prophet, seer and revelator." In some circles, Nelson is called, simply, "the Prophet."
…

"Mormonism began after Joseph Smith said he saw God and Jesus in a vision while praying in a grove of trees.

"'There's no mistaking it, this is Moses in a business suit,' [Kathleen] Flake [expert on Mormonism at the University of Virginia] said of the Mormon presidency, 'someone who can lead people, write Scripture and talk to God.'

"The importance of prophecy dates back to the faith's founder, Joseph Smith, who said God told him to restore the Christian church. According to some Mormons, Christian churches' lack of openness to new revelations is partly to blame for their apostasies.

"Brigham Young, one of Smith's successors, told Mormons that opening a channel of communication with God should be their "first and foremost duty." They should seek divine counsel on even the "most trifling matters."

"In an early echo of Nelson's yellow notebook, Young instructed Mormons that, to receive revelations, their soul should be "as pure and clean as a piece of blank paper that lies upon the desk."

"But prophecy can be a messy business, as Joseph Smith found out when other Mormons claimed to have divine sanction for their vision of the church. Smith ended the competition by claiming that God told him only the faith's top prophets could speak for the whole church, a restriction that stands to this day. Mormons now believe that revelations are parceled out according to one's role in the church and in wider society.

"Huge decisions have been made based on Mormon presidents' prophecies, according to church leaders, including ending the practice of polygamy and opening the priesthood to men of African descent.

"In his first churchwide address as president, Nelson said revelations can guide Mormons through the chaos of modern life.
…

'A major victory for Satan'

"Raised in a non-religious home, Nelson read the Mormon scriptures at a young age and was convinced. So convinced that he went home and smashed his parents' liquor supply.

"Since then, divine omens have played an important role in his life, Nelson says.
…

"During his time as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of the church's top echelons of leadership, Nelson said that he prayed for revelations daily. In 2016, before he became president, he defended the church's then-new policy of calling LGBT couples "apostates" and effectively barring their children from baptism.

"When liberal Mormons criticized the policy, Nelson called it "the will of the Lord" as expressed to former president Thomas Monson.

"Some Mormons say Nelson was trying to shore up a man-made decision by calling it a revelation, but the criticism seems not to have slowed his revelation roll.

"Since taking office in 2018, Nelson has instituted a number of changes, including: cutting an hour from Sunday church meetings, modifying home ministry programs, consolidating levels of church leadership, eliminating historical pageants, announcing a new edition of Mormon hymns, revising guidelines for bishops who counsel young adults, allowing missionaries to contact their families more often and ending the church's 100-year association with the Boy Scouts.

"Not all of the changes were based on revelations, church leaders said. But, since they come from the top, they are all assumed to have the prophet's stamp of approval, and therefore God's as well.

"Of Nelson's reforms, none has received as much attention as the revelation about the church's name. Church leaders say "Mormon," which refers to a prophet who plays a pivotal role in the Book of Mormon, still holds a place of honor in the faith, but, as a reference to Latter-day Saints, it is an inaccuracy imposed by outsiders. (For that matter, the words "Shakers" and "Quakers" started as pejorative nicknames as well.)

"Nelson has been forceful in his rejection of the "Mormon" nickname, saying it offends God and represents "a major victory for Satan." He made a similar argument in 1990, when he was a church leader, but was apparently rebuffed by superiors.

"Asked about the apparent contradiction -- why would previous Mormon prophets reject what is now apparently God's will? -- church spokesman Eric Hawkins said the church has a saying: The most important prophet is the living one.

"'God may have different intentions for the church at different times,' Hawkins said. 'That's baked into the notion that the church can change.'
…

"… it's hard to be a prophet in the age of the iPhone, when any statement can be fact-checked in real time.

"Dropping the "Mormon" moniker affected everything from websites to the famous Tabernacle Choir.
…

"In many ways, Mormonism is not so different from other American religions, which are also grappling with crises of authority and struggling to connect with increasingly secular millennials.

"Thus far, Nelson's strategy seems to entail liberal use of his "trump card," as Evans put it: his authority as the church's chief prophet, seer and revelator.

"In what you might call a prophetic speech, Nelson told Mormon millennials in 2016 that, in a society littered with "servants of Satan," only God's own prophets can be truly trusted.

"'Prophets see ahead. They see the harrowing dangers the adversary has placed or will yet place in our path. Prophets also foresee the grand possibilities and privileges awaiting those who listen with the intent to obey.'

"If there's one thing we know, it's that Nelson is listening and writing it all down on his yellow notebook."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/us/mormon-lds-name-change-revelation/index.html


My comment: Between mention of the lighted pen and the yellow notebook, and use of the name 'Mormon' throughout an article about the church's name change, it seems like this writer is tongue-in-cheek in this report.

The "Moses in a Business Suit" heading gave me a good chuckle. So amusing. Makes things sound a whole lot more exciting in Mormonism than they actually are. Maybe more like the lions' den for its adherents, especially the "unwanted" groups such as LGBTQ, as mentioned in the write-up. Ever the popular message: If you don't measure up to [fill in the blanks with our prejudices and preferences] then God doesn't want you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2019 01:53AM by Nightingale.

Russel Nelson is delusional or a lair. Probably the person he lies to the most is himself.

So...where are all of these revelations now? How does god feel about climate change and carbon emissions? It seems the people on this planet are killing off a lot of his creations and still no word from god?

How about the rise in income inequality? God remains silent on this issue. God is silent on immigration as well.

It seems there are a lot of global issues we are currently facing that god wants to ignore.

All of these issues are nothing compared to the importance of the moromon name-change. At least from mormon god's perspective...

Yes, praydude. If you were in direct communication with the Almighty, revelation about earrings and underwear would be a tad disappointing. At least Moses got to lead a pilgrimage. "Let my people go".

Indeed.

"Let my sheeple pay"

My thoughts precisely. When I heard about the changes, I told my brother that it seems like a pretty trivial and puny God who's only focus was on the name of his church and whether his beliebers should go to meetings one hour less each Sunday. With all of the pressing problems confronting humankind, these issues are so far down the list as to be almost nonsensical. One would think that if Nelson had a conduit to God, he would ask for the cure to cancer or some equivalent information that would be so beneficial to all of us. If Nelson had a press conference and announced that he had a formula to a medicine which would cure cancer and that he had received it from God, imagine what a missionary tool that would be. Of course, Nelson isn't talking to God, because apparently something that grand and beneficial to all of us, just isn't that appealing to God. He would rather have us in misery, while he tells his chosen prophet to change the name of his church and let the missionaries call home more often.

In mormonism don't you have to put forth the effort first before you get your heavenly reward? You see, if God were to have given that formula to person not involved in the drug industry then it would be like that person hadn't put forth the effort to discover the cure and ask if his/her formulation was the correct one.

My congrats on your skilled excerpting and presentation, Nightingale!

I learned a lot from this, and the things I learned were things I needed to know.

Kudos for a great job!

Thanks Tevai. You are always so positive and encouraging. Two minutes with you is worth more than ten thousand empty SMs.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks Tevai. You are always so positive and
> encouraging. Two minutes with you is worth more
> than ten thousand empty SMs.

:) :)

This made me laugh too: Brigham Young's statement about receiving revelation being "...an early echo of Nelson's yellow notebook".

On a different note, the first half of this sentence could only be uttered by a nevermo:

"In many ways, Mormonism is not so different from other American religions, which are also grappling with crises of authority and struggling to connect with increasingly secular millennials."

If you take the entire sentence, in that sense I guess the first thought can pass. But in a broader sense, Mormonism is *very* different from other religions, as many exmos would undoubtedly declare. The lifelong shunning if you leave the church, for one. Consequences include losing family, marriage and (so-called) friends, jobs, education (being booted from the Lord's University perhaps), etc. Some fundamentalist non-mo churches are similar in this regard but not the mainstream ones.

Not that similar at all.

Moses had a mighty staff. Russ has a lighted pen.
At least most of us quit being Mormon before Russ said it wasn't cool to be Mormon.

Nelson has a mighty staff as well: thousands of flunkies who hang on his every word.

Are these excerpts real? I can't always tell because the word vomit coming from the people-appointed prophets tend to sound like their own parodies!

Yes, they are real.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/us/mormon-lds-name-change-revelation/index.html

It's a good article.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2019 06:23PM by Lot's Wife.

Because he heard us using MORmON

So the Lord can't visit Russ during office hours? I guess Kolob is in a different time zone.

But, you know, if waking up with ideas constitutes revelation from God, then he must want me to have wild sex with a certain woman I met once. Or he wants me to masturbate.

"OK dear, it's happening," the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells his wife, Wendy Nelson. "Time to change my Depends!"

Thanks for sharing this CNN article and kudos to the journalist for doing such an excellent job. I do wonder if the MormonCult will print this in their newspaper or Ensign, ha ha ha.

If the cult is actually being more transparent as boasted, here is a terrific place to have their actions speak louder than their words.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> …
>
>
> Nelson has been forceful in his rejection of the
> "Mormon" nickname, saying it offends God and
> represents "a major victory for Satan." HE MADE A SIMILAR ARGUMENT IN 1990, WHEN HE WAS A CHURCH LEADER, BUT WAS APPARENTLY REBUFFED BY SUPERIORS.
>
> Asked about the apparent contradiction -- why
> would previous Mormon prophets reject what is now
> apparently God's will? -- church spokesman Eric
> Hawkins said the church has a saying: The most
> important prophet is the living one.
>
> "God may have different intentions for the church
> at different times," Hawkins said. "That's baked
> into the notion that the church can change."
> …
>
> …
> My comment: Between mention of the lighted pen and
> the yellow notebook, and use of the name 'Mormon'
> throughout an article about the church's name
> change, it seems like this writer is
> tongue-in-cheek in this report.

Yes, it looks like the writer(s) did their homework on this one. To anyone who is not a devout, gotta-believe-at-any-cost, Mormon, the picture given in this article is not a reverential portrayal of a great man of God. It's an unflattering, farcical look at someone who is clearly delusional.

The two paragraphs above are particularly effective at highlighting the delusion. At the beginning of the article, you get the impression (which apparently is a synonym for "revelation" in the Mormon church these days) that the campaign against the "Mormon" nickname is a new revelation that Nelson received AFTER becoming Prophet and he is now simply obeying and implementing the WORD OF GOD (as recorded on his yellow pad).

Then, toward the end of the article, you get to the underlying truth: The Mormon nickname thing was just a personal pet peeve that Nelson has nursed for nearly 30 years. In fact, his pet peeve was expressly rejected by previous prophets. Now that he is the Prophet, a miracle occurs! How amazing! How marvelous! In the middle of the night, God reveals to Nelson that Nelson's pet peeve is now a real, actionable revelation! (Well, God didn't exactly say it. But Nelson got impressions in his mind that he interpreted as being the "Will of God".)

Then Hawkins gives the classic dog-ate-my-homework spin on it. Living prophet trumps dead prophet! So there! We know that because that's what past living prophets said when they were living and that's what the current living prophet says. Living prophet always trumps dead prophet! Take that Hinckley! Until a dead prophet comes forth to refute this principle, it will continue to stand. Shssshh... Listen, do you hear any dead prophets? Me neither. We win.

Most readers of reasonable intelligence will read it and laugh sardonically.

Asked about the apparent contradiction -- why
> would previous Mormon prophets reject what is now
> apparently God's will? -- church spokesman Eric
> Hawkins said the church has a saying: The most
> important prophet is the living one.
>
> "God may have different intentions for the church
> at different times," Hawkins said. "That's baked
> into the notion that the church can change."

And with that simple get-out-of-jail-free explanation, literally anything goes. There is no need for logical consistency. Eternal truths become eternally changing truths. Nothing any past prophets ever said have any relevance if and when they are contradicted by a living prophet...and the foundation on which Mormons build their lives is as solid as a marshmallow on a hot day.

Of course the implication is that if you're a relatively young Mormon you shouldn't be too quick to make any life decisions based on anything that the current "living prophet" is saying because he's probably not going to be around too much longer. Maybe another decade tops. So better to wait and see what the next living prophet says. You don't want to be like the girl who listened to the "living prophet" in 1888 and entered into a polygamous marriage with a stinky old man 40 years her senior as a result--only to find out from a new "living prophet" 2 years later that God now wants all polygamous marriages to cease and now prohibits such marriages. "Damn! If only I had waited a couple more years for the next living prophet, instead of throwing my life away following the counsel of the previous living prophet!"

I suppose a young mormon could state in their next sacrament meeting talk to not bother reading the words of the prophets. Only pay attention to Nelson.

Bottomline: The leaders are full of themselves and believe the crap coming from their mouths.

If Wendy’s husband is really talking to the real God it seems rather disrespectful that she doesn’t launch out of bed and get down on her knees in humility...she’s on holy ground. She just rolls over. At least put on a robe.

Wow - Nightingale. This definitely needs to be archived. I will try to be more active in doing that.

I know, Eric. I think they are giving away more inside info than they realize. Describing the process that turns out to be so domestic and mundane can certainly take away the awesomeness of a supposed contact from the Supreme Being.

Or is it that Mormons are so used to the supernaturalness of it all that it's NO BIG DEAL such that you wouldn't even want to wake up for it? Like a space ship landing in your back yard for only 12 minutes out of all eternity and you're too busy watching your favourite soap to want to bother with that strange craft on your lawn?

Uncle Rusty is talking with the “demonic overlord” of Mormonism. Ever heard of “the witching hour”? This is when Uncle Rusty receives his instructions.

Because "MORmON P0rn" scares the jizz outta him!

This is sooo funny. The church is going through pure thrash, nonsense, unnecessary changes, chaos, confusion, frustration, and madness all at the hands of a person who is clearly brain impaired - onset of full-blown dementia.

Can you imagine your kid smashing your liquor bottles in a fit of righteous rage? I say it didn't happen.

fables. (Gotta build up the legend and the myth.)

Then again, it's not too hard to imagine Russell smashing and destroying things in a fit of self-righteous rage.

It took the Mormon Tabernacle Choir about a century to build up their brand name and goodwill globally, to the point where even people who didn't particularly like the LSD Church viewed the MoTabs as an innocuous and decent choir and general source of "inspirational music" for those people of various faiths who are into that kind of thing.

Russell smashed all that in a fit of self-righteous rage against the "Mormon" nickname. He's also been taking his sledge hammer to a lot of things that he apparently had been seething about in relatively quiet frustration for decades.

Pageants? Smashed and obliterated.

Some of the things he's trashed and smashed are things that it makes some sense for them to be trashed and smashed, e.g. the veil and submission-to-husband oaths in the temple ceremony (but of course the fact that they were all approved by all past prophets and are now rejected by this prophet should be raising serious questions in the minds of the few remaining Mormons who still have minds of their own).

I noticed that too, Don. Could be urban legend. Grew in the telling over the years. What punishment would a parent mete out to a kid who did something that extreme? Not to mention expensive? It's interesting to know that the current prophet was a convert. I didn't even know that it's possible to be a non-BIC prophet these days.

IOW, they were "Mormons" but they weren't devoted to Mormonism. His bio says that they sent him to church, even though they didn't go themselves. His dad was a reporter for the Deseret News.

It was probably a weird way to get his first doses of cognitive dissonance growing up. His mom and dad telling him that going to church is good, but not going themselves.

Makes you wonder if something happened in his childhood that made him hate the "Mormon" nickname so much. Maybe he heard people calling his parents "jack-Mormons" and the whole thing had such a negative connotation in his mind that he felt like the name "Mormon" itself was an insult and pejorative in all cases.

I can imagine a disturbed kid smashing his parents’ liquor collection. They probably let him off easy since they were sending him to church. Maybe he was “moved by the spirit”. The story works as virtue signaling only in Mormonism or other ultra conservative groups.

Birds of a feather flock together. These ultra conservative guys are low in openness and high in disgust sensitivity. Russ demonstrated it at an early age. He wasn’t just a Mormon. He was an extremist Mormon. There’s no room for moderate Mormons in today’s church, which kind of makes sense. Cults are for extremists.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2019 10:55AM by babyloncansuckit.

Nelson reaches for his lighted pen.
Most people would switch on the light, you know that invention called electricity, but never mind.



Do mormons believe automatic writing is ok?
I couldn't find any information detailing the mormon stance on automatic writing.
I did find a baptist forum explaining their take on automatic writing:

https://www.baptistboard.com/threads/automatic-writing-can-it-also-be-from-god.11747/

https://www.bible-knowledge.com/dangers-of-automatic-writing/


The only info I could find is Fair Mormon defending a stance on automatic writing stating that it is evil or against mormon belief except for that time when Joseph Smith did it. You know, the following predictable convoluted bit of game playing.



https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Authorship_theories/Automatic_writing
Question: Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon through a process known as "automatic writing?"
Without a logical explanation of its source, some critics have turned to supernatural explanations that do not involve the divine as Joseph testified
At least one critic of the Book of Mormon attempts to explain the complexity of the book by suggesting that Joseph Smith wrote it using a process called "automatic writing" or "spirit writing." The person who proposes this idea, Scott Dunn, gives us the following definition of automatic writing:

“The ability to dictate or write material in a relatively rapid, seemingly effortless and fluent manner. Moreover, the practitioner of automatic writing does not consciously compose the material. Indeed, except for sometimes knowing a word or two moments in advance of writing or speaking, the individual is typically unaware of what the content of the writing will be.”

Mr. Dunn gives multiple examples of documented automatic writing experiences and correlates them with various facts surrounding the origins of the Book of Mormon. Some people write with just a pencil while others use objects such as stones or crystals to receive the text that is to be written. This information could lead one to draw the conclusion that the Book of Mormon’s origins are something other than divine.

Critics have come up empty handed after many attempts to refute the divinity of the Book of Mormon. The historical documentation and modern-day evaluations disprove the possibility that Joseph Smith wrote the book himself. Mr. Dunn explains this in his own paper: “Virtually all available historical evidence militates against the possibility of calculated fraud.” Without a logical explanation of its source, some critics have turned to supernatural explanations that do not involve the divine as Joseph testified. As people have tried to attribute the writing/translation of the Book of Mormon to something other than divine the accusations have been proven incorrect. This has lead to an increase in the complexity of the claims. Similarly, more complex research has been conducted to thwart the negative claims. The only claims left are those of supernatural origin, either the book is of God or the devil.

If one believes that Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon by way of divinely inspired automatic writing, Mr. Dunn gives us the following explanation:

“It may be, for example, that automatic writing is God's true means of giving revelations and translations (in the case of Joseph Smith) which has been counterfeited by Satan (in the cases of Jane Roberts, Pearl Curran, and others).”

One may ask why these other cases exist. In general, there are many examples of the adversary mimicking the ways of the Lord to deceive mankind. He knew that the Book of Mormon would be a great work in the hands of the Lord to bring about the salvation of many souls and to be the foundation for His restored church. It is not hard to believe that Satan would try to create similar stories to that of Joseph’s in an effort to discredit the work of the Lord.

--------
It always fascinates me when apologists use clever manipulation to defend either approach as seen in the last paragraph.

Fair likely defended against the Sun Stone article:

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/050-16-26.pdf


===================

When Emer Harris used a stone. After Smith announced that these revelations were of the devil, Page agreed to discard the stone which, according to a contemporary, was "Broke to powder and the writings Burnt.
30;Doctrine and Covenants 28:11. Emer Harris, a brother of Martin Harris, said that Page's black stone was "Broke to powder." Quoted in Quinn, 248. According to Richard Bushman, Smith "recognized the danger of the competing revelations. Acknowledging every visionary outburst could splinter the church." After this the church affirmed that only Joseph Smith was to "receive and write Revelations & Commandments." Bushman 2005, pp. 120–21

count as automatic writing. In "automatic writing" scenarios, the person who is supposedly channeling inspiration does not even know what he/she is writing while the writing is going on. They go into a trance and their hand moves of its own accord (or, more accurately, is controlled by the entity who is communicating through the medium).

In Nelson's case, what they are describing is the very ordinary and very common practice of getting some ideas in your head while laying in bed at night...and then getting up to write them down while they're fresh in your mind, so that you won't forget them later. The only difference is that Nelson calls this "getting revelation". Normal people call it "writing your ideas down on paper, so that you won't forget them later."

As for gazing at crystals, automatic writing, ouija boards and stuff like that, the Mormon church has always frowned on such things being delved into by ordinary Mormons. But there is no reason to think that they wouldn't make an exception for their top prophet guy. After all, Joseph Smith supposedly "translated" the Book of Mormon by seeing words appear in a rock. (The real reason for discouraging ordinary Mormons from getting into such things is that they don't want ordinary Mormons to think that they can bypass the Mormon leaders in getting "revelation" and "communications" from God and angels.)

Ascribing an "automatic writing" process to Joseph Smith and the translation of the golden plates is a long stretch at best. There is nothing in the historical record that would support it. Joseph Smith always used scribes to write down what he told them to write according to all accounts. Most of the translation was also done with the rock-in-the-hat gimmick (i.e. Joe sticking his magic rock in his hat and then burying his face in the hat and reading off the words that appeared in the rock, so that the scribe would then write them down). Common sense indicates that it was all a scam. There were no golden plates. There were no words appearing in a rock. I doubt that most of it even came when Joe was performing his sacred stone and holy hat routine. Most likely, he and Oliver Cowdery were getting the materials (often plagiarized) and working together on writing the book without any supernatural element. The peepstone act was just an act they put on from time to time to bamboozle the easily bamboozable.

Mary Baker Eddy claimed to have written her textbook, "Science & Health With Key To the Scriptures" late at night, unaware of what she was writing. She called herself a "scribe" of "Divine Mind." She further said she had no recollection of what she wrote, and had to read, and study, it for herself the next day--this "Christian Science" was new to her.

What is overlooked in her experience is that she was circulating in Spiritist religious groups at the time, and participating in seances. "Automatic writing" is a phenomenon that shows up in Spiritism. Some people claim it is an authentic manifestation of the supernatural; others dismiss it as a psychological phenomenon. Whatever the explanation, I consider it dangerous.

As the Sunstone article points out, the New Age "Course In Miracles" was " received via automatic writing. So was the Book of Urantia and the pseudo-Christian devotion books, "God Calling." If you hold to a Biblical faith, these are demonic.

Interesting thing about Eddy's "Science & Health:" her "revelation" went through numerous editions with major revisions, entire chapters changed reordered, disappearing, being rewritten, etc. If her revelations were really of God, don't you think He would have gotten it "write" the first time? And would He have needed an ordained Unitarian freelance ghost (pun very much intended) writer to edit and re-"right" so much of it?

PS We haven't heard from "Spiritist" in quite a while, have we?

For a number of years I would wake up regularly at 3 A.M. I grew to love the still of the night. I would often write in my journal. Like Rusty, my mind would often use its initial dream time to gather, sort, and consolidate ideas. I just didn't call it, "revelation."

God would be more effective for everyone if the data dump came during the day and not in some inconvenient early morning hour when you should be asleep for the body to recover.

God is the most pathetic project manager to have ever existed. Timelines, goals, and the message has been all over the place and the perfect creator can't get the message straight for the his prophets.

Nelson's Trump card of saying only he is the prophet and can make these declarations is no better than horny Joe trying to figure out a process in order to fool women to sleep with him.

Most of the responses thus far have focused on Russell M. Nelson and with good reason. He is, after all, the LDS church's "prophet, seer, and revelator,", and his words are intended to be accepted by the faithful as gospel.

Yet I'm more interested in the delusional behavior of his current wife, Wendy. Not only does she back him up, but she has come up with some cock-and-bull story about how her 94-year-old husband will wake her up in the middle of the night so that he can write his "prophesys" using a light pen.

For background (which most probably already know), Wendy is Russell's second wife; prior to that, she served as a professor (religious?) at Brigham Young University (BYU). If memory serves, she is approximately 30 years Russell's junior, making her young enough to be his daughter. And, at BYU, she proved herself to be just as delusional as she is today.

The one story I keep remembering about Wendy Watson Nelson (it was posted here and elsewhere) was that while she was a professor at BYU, she made public comments about "spiritual" sex versus "non-spiritual" sex. While the idea has floated around a bit (I remember being introduced to the concept while in a Jesuit high school back in the 1970s), nevertheless it was the first time I read of someone inside of the LDS church stating it. And, like the Jesuit priests, Ms. Watson had absolutely no idea what she was talking about (she had never been married). As one poster (I think it was IficouldhietoKolob) put it at the time (and I'm paraphrasing from memory), sex is performed the same way, regardless of whether it is physical or "spiritual."

What I'm pointing out is that regardless of how consequential the changes are (and this change is pretty consequential, particularly for the media covering church goings-on, though not as consequential as, say, if Mr. Nelson had proposed to bring back earthly polligamy), Wendy Watson Nelson's words regarding how her husband creates LDS church policy should be taken with a grain of salt. She is about as deluded as he is and, I'm sure, just as prone to lying, even if in her own mind she either doesn't recognize her statements as lies or she recognizes them as lies but views them as necessary for the survival of her church.

Spiritual sex vs non spiritual sex?

I have got to hear that BYU lecture!

It deserves its own thread.

related to marriage and family therapy. So the "spiritual sex" versus "non-spiritual sex" thing was probably a gimmick that she used in therapy sessions. (One does wonder how much credibility she had with struggling married couples if she was therapizing them from a position of "no sex" virginity.)

She probably couldn't even explain it in any detail, if pressed on it by a determined person.

W: "Well, spiritual sex is...uh...spiritual, and non-spiritual sex is...uh...non-spiritual."

Student: "Oh, you mean that non-spiritual sex is like the kind of sex you would have if you were filled with all of the animal lust and beastly urges of a rutting rhinoceros, just full of crazed lust and desire...just going for it like there's no tomorrow?"

W: "Oh, my! I never really thought about it in that way."

Student: "So now that we know what non-spiritual sex is, can you explain a bit more what spiritual sex is?"

W: "Well, I suppose it would be like holding hands with someone you love while reading the scriptures and praying together for forgiveness if one of you gets a little too frisky and some buttons inadvertently are undone."

Student: "Oh...that. I have to admit that it's a bit disappointing. I thought there might be some kind of electromagnetic aspect to it."

For posters Wally Prince and Eli and others who want to know about this subject, please see the new thread I started at

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2210072

And thanks, Wally Prince, for correcting me on what Wendy Watson Nelson's professorship was in--though it sure looks to me like she would have been a better religion professor. Finally, it should be noted that Mrs. Watson did not use the term "non-spiritual sex," (I thought she did); rather, she uses the term "worldly sex" to explain how she views conventional intimate behavior.