Chasing Eve—Fulfilling Covenants Through Collective Falls

I do not believe I am providing any spoilers when I remind the reader that Adam and Eve transgressed God’s commands and fell thereby. Lehi went a long way toward rehabilitating them when he taught his son Jacob that “if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” 2 Nephi 2:22-25.

We know that Adam and Eve transgressed and thereby brought upon themselves the justice of God. Despite the fact that ultimately their fall was necessary to drive the plans of God forward, we must assume some culpability on their part, otherwise God would not be just, since He evicted them from the Garden of Eden.

However, by bringing the judgment of God on themselves, Adam and Eve brought things into motion that would ultimately offer benefit to the entire human race. They fell from a higher state to a lower so that others might be lifted in Christ. This pattern repeats on larger scales as well. Covenant nations fall, which is ultimately turned to greater good by the grace and planning of Jesus Christ.

In the case of Adam and Eve, they violated God’s commandment, which brought sin and death into the world. The sin and death in the world necessitated the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Their transgression also made it possible for all of the works of salvation and exaltation that would take place during this creative cycle. Their sin brought everything lower, but then Christ raises everything higher than could have been done without the sin and death. God is expert in making lemonade out of cosmic lemons.

It is important to stress that the judgments of God are doled out justly, according to the karma accumulated through the use of agency. God cannot destroy merely to pursue His ends without becoming unjust. Judgments are reaped when wickedness is sowed. The fact that God has baked destruction into His plan, as prophesied by the prophets, does not make it unjust or inevitable, as we will see later. Although prophecy may lead one to see the prophesied events as inevitable and therefore the actions that precipitate the destruction as in concordance with God’s law, the prophesied destruction is the product of man’s action in violation of God’s law. For the outcome to be just, the condemnation must be real, and it must be earned.

With this pattern in mind, I would like to revisit the scattering and gathering of Israel to demonstrate the same principle at work in the salvation and exaltation of the world.

Israel as God’s Chosen People

God covenanted with Abraham that Abraham’s seed would be the vehicle by which the rest of the earth would be blessed. Abraham 2:9-11. The birthright was passed down to Isaac, and then Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel and was the father of the twelve tribes. See Genesis 26:3, 28:13-15, 32:24-32: Ultimately, adoption into the lineage of Abraham is a function of salvation and a necessary part of exaltation. Paul taught that “ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for Ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if he be Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29.

Prior to the scattering of Israel, God covenanted with them collectively through Moses. This is recorded in the book of Exodus chapters 19-34. This article offers a summary of the covenant and identifies five promises within it, which I will quote below:

1. Israel will be God’s prized possession. Exodus 19:5
2. Israel will be a Kingdom of royal priests. Exodus 19:6
3. Israel will be a holy nation. Exodus 19:6
4. God will defend Israel from all her enemies. Exodus 23:22
5. God will be merciful and gracious and forgiving. Exodus 34:6-7[1]

As we know, Israel failed to keep its end of this covenant and thereby brought sufficient condemnation on itself that they were ultimately scattered throughout all nations. The scatterings were horrific events.

The northern Kingdom was sacked and scattered by the Assyrian armies. One scholar describes the practices of the Assyrian armies in detail. I am quoting it extensively to portray the kind of suffering that would have been inflicted on these people and to show a type of the kind of suffering that these events bring with them. I think it reflects the extent to which this people accumulated condemnation which was justly returned on them by God.

“A captured city was usually plundered and burnt to the ground, and its site was deliberately denuded by killing its trees. The loyalty of the troops was secured by dividing a large part of the spoils among them; their bravery was ensured by the general rule of the Near East that all captives in war might be enslaved or slain. Soldiers were rewarded for every severed head they brought in from the field, so that the aftermath of a victory generally witnessed the wholesale decapitation of fallen foes. Most often the prisoners, who would have consumed much food in a long campaign, and would have constituted a danger and nuisance in the rear, were dispatched after the battle; they knelt with their backs to their captors, who beat their heads in with clubs, or cut them off with cutlasses. Scribes stood by to count the number of prisoners taken and killed by each soldier, and apportioned the booty accordingly; the king, if time permitted, presided at the slaughter. The nobles among the defeated were given more special treatment: their ears, noses, hands and feet were sliced off, or they were thrown from high towers, or they and their children were beheaded, or flayed alive, or roasted over a slow fire. …

“In all departments of Assyrian life we meet with a patriarchal sternness natural to a people that lived by conquest, and in every sense on the border of barbarism. Just as the Romans took thousands of prisoners into lifelong slavery after their victories, and dragged others to the Circus Maximus to be torn to pieces by starving animals, so the Assyrians seemed to find satisfaction—or a necessary tutelage for their sons—in torturing captives, blinding children before the eyes of their parents, flaying men alive, roasting them in kilns, chaining them in cages for the amusement of the populace, and then sending the survivors off to execution. Ashurnasirpal tells how ‘all the chiefs who had revolted I flayed, with their skins I covered the pillar, some in the midst I walled up, others on stakes I impaled, still others I arranged around the pillar on stakes. … As for the chieftains and royal officers who had rebelled, I cut off their members.’ Ashurbanipal boasts that ‘I burned three thousand captives with fire, I left not a single one among them alive to serve as a hostage.’ Another of his inscriptions reads: ‘These warriors who had sinned against Ashur and had plotted evil against me … from their hostile mouths have I torn their tongues, and I have compassed their destruction. As for the others who remained alive, I offered them as a funerary sacrifice; … their lacerated members have I given unto the dogs, the swine, the wolves. … By accomplishing these deeds I have rejoiced the heart of the great gods.’ Another monarch instructs his artisans to engrave upon the bricks these claims on the admiration of posterity: ‘My war chariots crush men and beasts. … The monuments which I erect are made of human corpses from which I have cut the head and limbs. I cut off the hands of all those whom I capture alive.’ Reliefs at Nineveh show men being impaled or flayed, or having their tongues torn out; one shows a king gouging out the eyes of prisoners with a lance while he holds their heads conveniently in place with a cord passed through their lips.”[2]

These are the people that smote and scattered the northern tribes.

The Babylonians, who sieged and scattered the southern tribes were not all smiles and sunshine either. The Book of Lamentations describes the scene in Jerusalem during the siege:

“The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. . . .  They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.” Lamentations 4:45, 9-10.

The image of mothers boiling their children for food haunts me. But so great was the suffering within the walls of the city, that those parents may have felt they did those children a favor. The starving envied the slain.

For God to bring this kind of destruction on a people, there must have been some transgression that made it just. Indeed, Israel had breached its covenant with God and ripened in iniquity. They ignored the warnings of the prophets, killed and imprisoned them.

The prophets of the Old Testament likewise made it clear that Israel would be gathered again.[3] However, the prophets also taught that the upcoming scattering events would ultimately work to the benefit of those outside of the house of Israel.

The Book of 2 Baruch, or The Apocalypse of Baruch was written at the time of the scattering of the southern kingdom and expresses these themes well. Early in the text, the Lord tells Baruch, “I will scatter this people among the Gentiles that they may do good to the Gentiles.” 2 Baruch 1:3. This theme emerges in other places in 2 Baruch: “after a little time the building of Zion will be shaken in order that it may be built again. But that building will not remain, but will again after a time be rooted out, and will remain desolate until the time. And afterwards it must be renewed in glory, and perfected evermore.” 2 Baruch 32:2-4. And again: “For after these things time will come when your people shall fall into distress, so that they shall all run the risk of perishing together. Nevertheless, they will be saved, and their enemies will fall in their presence. And they will have in (due) time much joy. And at that time after a little interval Zion will again be rebuilt, and its offerings will again be restored, and the priests will return to their ministry, and also the Gentiles will come to glorify it.” 2 Baruch 68:1-5.

Furthermore, Baruch expressed to the people of his day that their failure to abide by the covenant given through Moses brought condemnation upon them: “for to you and to your fathers the Lord gave a law more excellent than to all peoples. And because your brethren transgressed the commandments of the Most High, He brought vengeance upon you and upon them.” 2 Baruch 77:3-4.

Thus, it was explained to them in that day that their failure to abide by the blessings bestowed on them as a nation warranted their destruction. But their destruction would be the means of bringing the covenant blessings to more people than before.

The Seed of Lehi

            Prior to his death, Lehi prophesied about the future of his seed in America. First, Lehi established the nature of this land as a promised land and blessings and curses that are attached to it: “this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.” 2 Nephi 1:7.

Like the other nations discussed herein, Lehi makes it clear that possession of a promised land raises the karmic stakes for the nation that possesses it. They will be blessed, so long as they are a righteous nation: “inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.” 2 Nephi 1:9.

For a wicked nation, there will be harsh judgment: “when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of the creation of the earth, and all men, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the world; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them.” 2 Nephi 1:10. More specifically, those judgments will come by way an internecine, ethnic conflict, and then by way of the gentiles, who will scatter and smite Lehi’s people and possess their land. 2 Nephi 1:11, 1 Nephi 12 and 13. I submit that this is a type of what the gentiles on this land now can expect.

With the seed of Lehi, we have a people that were placed in a very blessed situation. However, despite their blessed state, they transgressed and were judged with awful judgment. These passages make it clear that their destruction was a product of their own actions, and thus the judgments that befell them were justly administered. As tragic as this was, it paved the way for the Lord to push his work forward in a way that would ultimately widen the scope of those to be blessed by His work.

Gentiles and the Book of Mormon

            A day of divine justice rapidly approaches the gentiles. In Nephi’s singular vision recorded in 1 Nephi, Nephi prophesied the gentiles would find themselves in a state of exceeding blessedness in the latter days, occupying the promised land with the blessings noted by Lehi above.

“Nevertheless, thou beholdest that the Gentiles who have gone forth out of captivity, and have been lifted up by the power of God above all other nations, upon the face of the land which is choice above all other lands, which is the land that the Lord God hath covenanted with thy father that his seed should have for the land of their inheritance . . . . Neither will the Lord God suffer that the Gentiles shall forever remain in that awful state of blindness, which thou beholdest they are in, because of the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church, whose formation thou hast seen. Wherefore saith the Lamb of God: I will be merciful unto the Gentiles, unto the visiting of the remnant of the house of Israel in great judgment. And it came to pass that the angel of the Lord spake unto me, saying: Behold, saith the Lamb of God, after I have visited the remnant of the house of Israel—and this remnant of whom I speak is the seed of thy father—wherefore, after I have visited them in judgment, and smitten them by the hand of the Gentiles, and after the Gentiles do stumble exceedingly, because of the most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church, which is the mother of harlots, saith the Lamb—I will be merciful unto the Gentiles in that day, insomuch that I will bring forth unto them, in mine own power, much of my gospel, which shall be plain and precious, saith the Lamb.” 1 Nephi 13:30-34.

Not only would the gentiles have the Book of Mormon to guide them, Nephi “beheld other books, which came forth by the power of the Lamb, from the Gentiles unto them, unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true.” 1 Nephi 13:39.

When God pours these blessings out on the gentiles, it raises the karmic stakes for them to a very high degree. Nephi records: “if the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks—And harden not their hearts against the Lamb of God, they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father; yea, they shall be numbered among the house of Israel; and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever; they shall be no more brought down into captivity; and the house of Israel shall no more be confounded.” 1 Nephi 14:1-2 “And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me, Nephi, saying: Thou hast beheld that if the Gentiles repent it shall be well with them . . .” 1 Nephi 14:5. The Lord offered great things to the gentiles, on the one hand.

However, because the karmic stakes were raised by the bestowal of these peculiar blessings, the gentiles could not merely maintain their pre-blessing condition upon rejecting the fullness of the Lord’s gospel. They would either flourish or be destroyed. Note what the Angel tells Nephi in the remainder of verse 5 and continuing into verse 6:  “Thou hast beheld that if the Gentiles repent it shall be well with them; and thou also knowest concerning the covenants of the Lord unto the house of Israel; and thou also hast heard that whoso repenteth not must perish. Therefore, wo be unto the Gentiles if it so be that they harden their hearts against the Lamb of God.”

Nephi elaborates on the karmic consequences of the gentiles rejection of the blessings bestowed on them by the Lord: “For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the devil, of which I have spoken.” 1 Nephi 14:7.

The exchange that follows between the Angel and Nephi puts the karmic destruction of the gentiles firmly into the Lord’s plan to turn that destruction into the ultimate good of the human race: “And it came to pass that when the angel had spoken these words, he said unto me: Rememberest thou the covenants of the Father unto the house of Israel? I said unto him, Yea.” 1 Nephi 14:8. The angel is continually reminding Nephi that God has a plan to fulfill His covenants to all of the house of Israel, not just to bless the gentiles and Lehi’s seed. The plan moves forward as one group of people receive blessings and then reject them, leading to a just destruction. The destruction leads to a transition to the blessed state of a new people followed by another just destruction, which in turn is ultimately used to bless all of the people who will accept it.

The gentiles repeat the same pattern as the Jews. It is again essential to remember that the Lord’s destruction on the gentiles will be just. The Angel makes this perfectly clear to Nephi. Therefore, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that the gentiles are in a most contemptible state. And, given that the blessings of the gentiles are explicitly tied to 1) possession of a translated Book of Mormon, and 2) an inheritance on the promised land of the western continent, I will firmly contend that those gentiles who take lightly the Book of Mormon here in America are the prime generators of the karmic filth that will enable the Lord to justly pour out the judgments described by the prophets and Christ Himself. I submit that the that failure to regard the “other books which came forth by the power of the Lamb” to the gentiles likewise has added a measure of condemnation to the gentiles.[4]

Nephi describes those judgments from one angle: “And it came to pass that I beheld that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God. . . .  And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the earth.” 1 Nephi 14:13-15.

Christ focuses more on the gentiles in His warning when visiting the seed of Lehi in the new world. First, like Nephi, Christ establishes the heightened karmic stakes for the gentiles: “For it is wisdom in the Father that [the gentiles] should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things might come forth from them unto a remnant of your seed, that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel; Therefore, when these works and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter shall come forth from the Gentiles, unto your seed which shall dwindle in unbelief because of iniquity; For thus it behooveth the Father that it should come forth from the Gentiles, that he may show forth his power unto the Gentiles, for this cause that the Gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent and come unto me and be baptized in my name and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel.” 3 Nephi 21:4-6.

Next, Christ shows us the other side of that coin in haunting detail: “wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots; And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds; And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers; Thy graven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands; And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities. And it shall come to pass that all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away. For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that day whosoever will not repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel; And I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.” 3 Nephi 21:14-21.[5]

This is what awaits the gentiles. All the corporate platitudes and stock portfolios, all of the mealy-mouthed attempts to preach the gospel in Babylon’s good graces, will not provide shelter from God’s judgment or negate God’s word. Preach these things and prepare for them or call Christ a liar. And never forget that the judgments of God will always be just.

Remember that the destruction of the gentiles is not the end of the story. The destruction of the gentiles is the means by which God shifts His work to include all of the house of Israel. Christ says:

“But if [the gentiles] will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance; And they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob, and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city, which shall be called the New Jerusalem. And then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem. And then shall the power of heaven come down among them; and I also will be in the midst.” 3 Nephi 21:22-25.

First, the repentant gentile individuals are promised an inheritance with the remnant of Jacob in America, where they will build the New Jerusalem amidst the power of heaven. From there, the blessings flow out to the rest of the people of that day: “And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people.”[6]  

From there, the blessings flow to the rest of the lost tribes: “Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem. Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people, with the Father to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name. Yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father among all nations in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance. And they shall go out from all nations; and they shall not go out in haste, nor go by flight, for I will go before them, saith the Father, and I will be their rearward.” 3 Nephi 21:26-29.

Nephi stated that “when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel.” 1 Nephi 14:17.

When the time of the gentiles fully comes in, first the land of America will experience immense hardship and then blessing as the New Jerusalem is established here. After that, blessings flow outward until they are available to all of the world. The Book of Mormon makes it clear that the fall of the gentiles is the catalyst for this monumental shift. Their rejection of the blessings that Christ poured out upon them makes it just for them to be destroyed and have their blessings returned to the seed of Lehi and then all the house of Israel, completing the chiastic pattern that began millennia ago.  

Jesus Christ as the Inversion of this Theme

            In the Gospel of John, he records the Savior’s comments to the disciples shortly before His passion and crucifixion. “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” John 12:23-24.

Here, we have the same concept that was shown among the nations. The Savior’s death would be the means of the spreading the love of God to all mankind. But this death would be to atone so that others could escape the demands of justice, being the sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God. Christ goes through the same process as the wicked nations, but He does so to negative the karmic effects of wickedness for others, not as the product of His own wickedness. But, similar to Christ, the corns of wheat of Israel, the seed of Lehi, and the gentiles, suffered and will suffer agonizing deaths to bring fruit to greater numbers in greater ways.

Conclusion

            God is just. The fact that destruction has been prophesied upon the gentiles, and that the destruction of the gentiles is prerequisite to the full gathering of the house of Israel, tell us in no uncertain terms that the gentiles are in a woeful state of wickedness, especially as it pertains to their reception of the fullness of the gospel contained in the Book of Mormon. Those who profess Christ’s name as believers of the Book of Mormon should pause and reflect on their attentiveness to its message and without relying on the arm of man to spoon-feed it to them.

The descent, destruction, and redemption of (some of) the gentiles comes in a pattern as old as this creation itself. Eve and Adam brought upon themselves judgment through their transgression, which judgment was used by a wise God to offer ascension to all of the earth. Israel transgressed and was justly scattered throughout the world, but their gathering will bring remnants from all nations with them. Lehi’s seed transgressed and was justly scattered and smitten, making way for the gentiles to obtain this land of promise and to receive the fullness of the gospel of Christ from the Book of Mormon. The gentiles’ time is up, and it ends in tribulation. The Lord has promised to “execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.”

What comes next, however, is nothing less than the beginning of the vindication of Eve and Adam, for which they have waited since that fateful day in the garden.

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[1] God’s Covenant Through Moses, by Pastor John Piper. Published at Desiring God.

[2] Our Oriental Heritage, by Will Durant, as quoted in an LDS Church Old Testament study manual, source here.

[3] Nephi summarizes this aspect of the message of Isaiah this way: “And I did rehearse unto them the words of Isaiah, who spake concerning the restoration of the Jews, or of the house of Israel; and after they were restored they should no more be confounded, neither should they be scattered again.” 1 Nephi 15:20.

[4] For an inspired take on some of these other books, see the essay “Other Books by the Power of the Lamb” from Alaris.

[5] Perhaps the readers of the footnotes will permit me to make an obnoxiously long detour here for something that I believe explains this concept well. I have always loved the song “Astronomy,” especially Metallica’s cover on the 1998 album Garage Inc. The song is originally from Blue Oyster Cult. Blue Oyster Cult was started and maintained by music industry executive Sandy Pearlman, who had developed a fictional mythos called “the soft doctrines of Imaginos.” I found a marvelous explanation of this concept and mythos in a Quora post, from which I will copy here. I find this story to be a very powerful testimony to the truth of national karma, which concept I find to not only be scriptural, but to be one of the main messages of the Bible and Book of Mormon.

Begin quote (formatting is from the original):

“THE BACKGROUND: ‘Out beyond the Europe’s rim the Spaniards met the Indians.’ This, then, is the original encounter, the deep background of the Imaginos saga, the table upon which the whole myth unfolds. To the Spaniards, agents of a Catholic Sovereign, the New World was no place of grace. To the Spaniards, the first Europeans to find a New World, what they found was not good. It was anti-genesis, anti-Eden, seat of evil, pit of darkness. All the shinning [sic] silver of Mexico and all its bright, bright gold, herein became no luminous mirror of delight, but, rather, a mirror of blackness. The priests in the expeditions could imagine no place worse than this place, albeit new, visibly in the thrall of invisible spirits. All the shinning [sic] silver of Mexico and all its bright, bright gold, becomes, when striven for beyond all limit, that which is beyond limit. On the luminous surface of a noble metal, corruptible by no agent of this world, the Spaniards could read no reason to turn back now. Even then, it had become to [sic] late. In the mirror of blackness, where no light can shine and no image collects, the Spaniards discovered for themselves an image of the self without limit: the invention of all new things, the invention of genocide; all things are permitted. For hundreds of years, all the gold in the world came from the New World. Melted and re-melted, incorruptible, but soft, its luminosity circulated throughout Europe: the seduction of the Old World by the New World –innocence corrupts experience. The destruction of Spanish power was accomplished by the England of Elizabeth. Her occult adviser a Dr. John Dee. He spoke, he said, with invisible spirits and in his possession was a magic mirror of black volcanic glass, obsidian. It was fashioned in Mexico.“

This answer represents my first faltering steps along this path, and acknowledges my limited intellectual understanding of a cosmic mystery which extends vastly farther than mere intellect can follow. In its basic essence, I view The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos as

… a karmic vortex … a cyclic, cyclonic psychic gyre of mystical and incalculable power originating in the Old World, traveling to the New World and returning back again …

It was Sandy Pearlman’s conceit that the Soft Doctrines do not unfold linearly in the scientifically understood conceptions of “space” and “time”. Therefore any summary, like the one I’m about to explicate, necessarily falls short of an accurate accounting of the entire story. But if I were to make an admittedly futile attempt to explain my faulty understanding of The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos in a single (run-on) sentence, it might be:

The fifteenth and sixteenth century Old World, in the form of the Spanish conquistadors, transferred the dark psychic energies of its collective unconscious to the New World, introducing to the Americas its plagues of missionary religion, communicable diseases, military technologies, and cultural genocide; the resulting devastating psychic shockwaves were absorbed into a mysterious obsidian mirror in the Mexican jungle which, in 1892-3, was taken to the Old World by the mysterious once-human being known as Imaginos (a.k.a. Desdinova) and ensconced in England, where for decades it karmically re-emitted those mephitic psychic energies throughout Europe, eventually manifesting in the cataclysmic First and Second World Wars.

End quote.

The image of a fallen star named Imaginos/Desdinova  dispensing justice to the gentiles for their actions in the new world strikes something deep within me. The name Desdenova is something of a mystery. It may mean “From a Star” or “From the New Star.” A “nova” is “a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness and then slowly returning to its original state over a few months.” So, “From the Nova” may bring some peculiar energy to that name. In Astronomy, Desdenova is called “eternal light” and “a light that never warms,” such as a distant star, not our sun. In some form, the story of Imaginos is the story of our time. I am fully capable of accepting a second witness from an old rock song.

[6] There is some ambiguity about what Christ means by “the remnant of this people.” He seems to have implied that at this point, blessings have already been extended to “the remnant of Jacob.” One possibility is that the remnant of Jacob is comprised of a subset of Lehi’s seed, and they will receive these blessings first, followed by the rest of Lehi’s seed. Another possibility is that the remnant of Jacob is Lehi’s seed, and the other nations present in the new world during Christ’s day are the “remnant of this people” to whom Christ refers. I find the latter more likely, although I do not know the answer.