Spiritual Secret Combinations

Lesson 9

Topics: Secret Combinations, Conspiracy, Religion, Spiritualism, Occult, New Age Movement

The previous lesson focused on political secret combinations. Knowing that such threats exist politically, it should also be obvious that the conspiracy works on a variety of fronts to implement its agenda – through government, education, science, business, religion, etc. This lesson focuses on the spiritual secret combination.

Satan, appearing as an angel of light, is deceiving many people today. Satan’s argument in the war in heaven must have seemed so good, so true and right that his followers honestly believed it was the better way – after all, these were spirits who dwelt in the presence of God, the Father; they are his children. Even today Satan continues to deceive, causing many, even those professing to follow Christ, to embrace false principles, and to call evil good and good evil.

Usually when we think of the temptations of the devil, it is in regards to doing that which the world commonly recognizes as bad, such as stealing, lying, murder, and all manners of vices. What is not as frequently spoken of, and often unrecognized, is how Lucifer is deceiving people today, appearing as an angel of light. Satan’s deceptions in this manner are often confused as being good, yet one of the keys in recognizing such deceptions is that these paths do not lead to Christ. For there is only one path to Christ and it is straight and narrow.

What are spiritual secret combinations?

Spiritual secret combinations would be those things that could be considered counterfeits to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. This includes teachings found in many religions, even sometimes within Christianity itself. One of the primary counterfeit gospels gaining popularity today is associated with the new age movement (you may have heard of The Secret, The Law of Attraction, etc.). Early Mormon church leaders referred to it as spiritualism. This is nothing new, simply a “re-branding” of what the Latter-day Saints recognized was taking root since the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in modern times. This is not to say that everything associated with that movement is wrong but there is a side to the new age movement that is a counterfeit of the truth. From the time of Adam and Eve, Lucifer has presented his false doctrine to man.

Joseph F. Smith said that:

Spiritualism started in the United States about the time that Joseph Smith received his visions from the heavens. What more natural than that Lucifer should begin revealing himself to men in his cunning way, in order to deceive them and to distract their minds from the truth that God was revealing? And he has kept it up pretty well ever since. (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p.503)

According to James E. Talmage:

The restoration of the Priesthood to earth in this age of the world was followed by a phenomenal growth of the vagaries of spiritualism, whereby many were led to put their trust in Satan’s counterfeit of God’s eternal power. (Elder James E. Talmage, p. AF:211)

If Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” and no one can get to God the Father except through Christ, then it would stand to reason that religions that do not recognize that as truth are part of the counterfeit. The New Age movement promotes a worship of self (“God is within you”) and freedom from guilt (“there is no such thing as sin”). It also teaches the Law of Attraction which in contradiction to the Law of the Harvest.

In preface to sharing a related story in his book, No More Strangers Volume 3, Elder Hartman Rector stated:

Members of the Church are warned to carefully keep the commandments of God and are told that then spiritual experiences will come as a result of their faith and their need. These experiences will come from God and not from the adversary. But when people who are not in condition to receive communication from the Lord, court the spirit of the devil by literally seeking “spiritual” experiences, they place themselves in jeopardy every hour to be “sifted as wheat.” These experiences cannot be credited to the Lord or considered to be to the good of the individual. All forms of spiritualism are subject to control by Satan, from fortune-telling to transcendental meditation, etc., and should be avoided as we would avoid the plague.

After much false wandering through the spiritualism maze, Ruth Stevens finally came home to the restored Church of Jesus Christ and its truth. That truth reveals all other systems in their real colors, including those whose black foundation is of Satan.

This account is deliberately given in some detail so that readers may be made aware of the dangers of seeking “spiritual” experiences outside of the gospel pattern…

James E. Talmage said:

Satan has shown himself to be an accomplished strategist and a skillful imitator; the most deplorable of his victories are due to his simulation of good, whereby the undiscerning have been led captive. Let no one be deluded with the thought that any act, the immediate result of which appears to be benign, is necessarily productive of permanent good. It may serve the dark purposes of Satan to play upon the human sense of goodness, even to the extent of healing the body and apparently of thwarting death. (Elder James E. Talmage, p. Articles of Faith:211)

Apostle Orson F. Whitney also spoke about spiritualism:

Spiritualism is not altogether what some people imagine. Despite the frauds connected with it, it is a reality, and was recognized as such long before Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir A. Conan Doyle proclaimed their conversion thereto, thus lending to it the prestige of their illustrious names. But all realities are not righteous. Because there is a devil – an actual demon and his dupes – is no reason why we should associate with them, confide in them, or accept their evil communications. (Orson F. Whitney, Saturday Night Thoughts – Do The Dead Return?)

Elder James H. Moyle spoke about spiritualism in General Conference:

Fifty years ago or more when I was a boy, and when spiritualism was being introduced, I heard the elders of the Church say that the time would come when all of the great truths of the gospel would in some way be more or less duplicated, as spiritualism was then attempting to duplicate one of the features of the truth revealed in our time. Later came a science of healing, by faith and a popular religion, its chief corner stone being healing by faith. (Elder James H. Moyle, General Conference, October 1929, Third Day – Afternoon Meeting)

The modern new age movement has many roots going back to Helena Blavatsky, a Russian occultist, spirit medium, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Some of the others considered founders of the modern new age movement are: David Spangler, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, and Alice Bailey. Blavatsky taught that “it is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God. Satan (or Lucifer) represents the Centrifugal Energy of the Universe”. She wrote a book entitled “The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy”. Part of the goal of this movement is to help the cause of a one world government and one world religion.

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Other recommended related resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qbRMwMccfM

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Lessons on Liberty – Table of Contents