Mormonism 1:5 - “We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.”
What It Is:
As the fifth dictation, this statement sets apart the ability to speak for the church specifically, ensuring that outsiders cannot step in to claim a duty as “called by God.” Instead, advancement must be agreed upon by the leaders of the organization, ensuring the stability of their ecclesiastical structure. It assumes that those who have already been “called by God” would always be informed of additional participants' arrival.
They have quorums of apostles and leaders of elders who oversee different regiments of the church while maintaining a strict hierarchy of whose insights and revelations are more valid and must be kowtowed to. They believe that no one would ever be called of God unless they have lived as a member, strictly adhered to their rules and rituals, and have already been progressing through previous positions. Emphasizing that no one is allowed to receive revelation or insights for those they do not have authority over, they insist there are very real spiritual threats that overtake people claiming to be different celestial entities, only to lead members astray from the truth.
When It Started
Spiritual revelation is not new. However, when it has a specific standard to meet, it needs to undergo a logical evaluation, comparing it to specific doctrine already determined as gospel truth. Therefore, even though this church did not start this way, it can only maintain the direction the original standard has set forth. Even as in Joseph’s time, there are endless people claiming to be “called by God” with a multitude of revelations, even among members, which pull people in different directions and seem confusing due to what many would call inconsistencies.
Therefore, Joseph established the ordaining of revelators, which sets apart who can have revelation for the church members and who can only have them for themselves. Thus, even if God speaks to you, in the eyes of the church, you are either only receiving guidance for yourself and your family, or it is all from some sort of adversary seeking to deliberately deceive and lead you “astray.”
It became very important to recognize that not just anyone could administer the truth simply through education and study. While they were able to reiterate the literary jargon or express delineated imaginary symbolism, one’s calling to teach must be set apart from the common. Therefore, even if they may remain indistinguishable and uninspiring, they rest on who has authority to make decisions. While they are open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they assume it is only available for extraordinary revelations and not daily operations.
Even when Joseph Smith was being ordained by every imaginable historical and biblical figure, more specifically, through the literal hands-on blessing by the souls of John the Baptist, and Peter, James, and John, and many others, he was being set apart and given priesthood authority, restoring to the world what only they remained to have. This church claims to be the only one with said priesthood, a very important aspect with a unique structure that sets it apart from other priesthoods earned. This authority is passed down through the laying on of hands blessings, ordaining them as priesthood holders.
Where We Relate
Undefinable and Expansive has concurred that energetic or “spiritual” transformations can definitely take place through practices involving such things as the “laying on of hands.” We have no doubt that anything is possible, including the visitations of historically influential figures, as well as the administration of their specifically profound abilities, which they could claim as their “priesthood.”
We recognize the need for the organization of ecclesiastical governments and the protection of structures for the temporal perceptions of humans, as well as the diligent efforts made by members to maintain the purpose of such structures originally set forth by the organizers, understandably requiring specific education and skill set among those who represent the definition of the structure.
We also find the need for being “called by God” an essential requirement of those driven and designed to teach of its reality. We agree that no one should try to be a teacher of God if they are not called to be through their authority’s revelation or a profound experience of their own. As well as those called in the same fashion but afraid to, should do all they can to fulfill said calling. We find it beneficial for rituals with those whose authority is already supported to proclaim promotions and advancements among those supporters.
Why It Seems
The beautiful way in which reality works allows the freedom for nearly any form of structure to appear possible and even show literal evidence of its justification, while continuing to make it possible for others to have what would appear to be contradictory evidence, which would lead each other in a different direction if they were open to believing it. However, to believe two or more contrasting structures could fill the same space is contradictory in itself, not only to the beliefs but to the dimensional paradigm they insist upon. Where they believe such things are not possible, even if that belief preaches miraculousness, they insist that contradiction is not acceptable and that others should be or will naturally be eliminated.
If miraculousness is possible, anything is; therefore, the existence of contradictory concepts can also be true, like those of contradictory religious prophecies or their kingdoms. For in this world, it is in itself a “kingdom,” and what is possible in it would be its ruling. However, the belief that there is a person who broke these rules must therefore be its king, its authority. Therefore, if there were any other body with such evidence of miraculousness, they must be an adversary or challenger, but never an authority like the other. Insisting that another body could not also break these rules contradicts the belief that “anything is possible” and reinforces that only some things are. If one man can do it, so can you, or you do not believe miracles outside of your paradigm are possible.
There is a distinct underlying belief that what “God” is must remain what the world calls “constant,” meaning that it fits into worldly standards of being the same and acting the same throughout eternity, instead of having a characteristic such as the “constant of chaos,” which would only be consistent if it were represented through randomization. Instead, they insist that consistency regards the standard of particular teachings, written for humans about salvation, which would not be consistent for eternity, but only as long as suffering exists and humans need saving.
They would deny Joseph Smith today if his restoration came the same way it did because it does not follow this structure. Yes, the world in itself is a structure, and therefore it has definitions of what it is and is not. A religious organization of any kind is the presence of the definitions that make it so and the definitions of what don’t. That is what makes it possible to peer into one and believe you do so, believing it is not another. If the structure must be maintained, it must maintain what defines it as that structure. Nevertheless, if the rules can be broken, then it would in reality be something else. Where is a kingdom if its walls have been broken? Is it everywhere, or could it even be said to exist?
This world is a place of definition; it is required in order to have structures. You cannot have something defined as one thing while also being defined as another unless it goes through a molecular and chemical change; it remains the properties it represents. It has been said that “if it looks like one, talks like one, walks, feels, and sounds like one, then it must be one of them.” That’s to suggest that if something was one thing, but then appeared to act, sound, or feel like something else, it would no longer be what it was originally. Part of the entertainment of masks and costumes lies in the fact that, from our perspective of the world, it is impossible for there to be two or more truths about what something is. If there have been miracles, then this world, this kingdom, is not what it appears to be, for its walls have been broken. It either does not actually exist, or what it actually is, is everywhere, and the rules are different from what we adhere to.
If there have been beings who have broken these rules, then we simply obey them, and they are not required. In this world, it does seem that our ability to obey has something to do with our “free will” in our conscious application—a form of knowledge we use to make decisions in favor of our authority or against it. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of this same application when it comes to the physical laws of the world. However, we believe it has been for a select few chosen to lead us. Somewhere by our own “free will,” we are choosing to obey these laws, or else no one has ever broken them. They are not enforced upon us; the unfortunate part is that this habit of thinking is applied to spiritual truths, where we are enforcing our rules on them.
With An Open-mind
That is to say, if it is required that spiritual truth come into our perspective through specific definitions in order to be true, then we are denying what it actually is. If others can come with spiritual teachings that seem to contradict our own, it is not only the others that are wrong, but something about our own is as well. If the evidence reveals that it is one way while also revealing that it is another, both conclusions are wrong. There must be a third option, defining and making it possible to have the evidence of both.
This third option exists because where we exist is actually the Wholly Spiritual Universe, and our eyes are fixated on definitions—the definitions that make a world seem real, as a dimension of specific laws. Both truths can only be true in a subcategory to the actual truth, or neither is true at all.
Many religious practitioners can list historical evidence of why their religion is true, while others can do the same, insisting upon contradictory truths. Of course, one or both could be lies, but with the assumption that there is truth in them, then the place where we live allows these contradictions. In the same sense, allowing miraculousness in a world while also allowing the obedience of its laws is the allowance of contradiction.
What we experience and call “a world” is only that way by what we’ve made of it. In reality, it is far different and far more encompassing. As much as we believe we have come into the world the same way others have after us, this is a mental replacement for what actually occurred. Why there are so many details that could be discussed in explanation, simply put: you do not remember how you came into the world, and you assume it is the same way as you have seen thereafter.
In the beginning, you made the world around you, with the thoughts of what it could be from within you. The Wholly Spiritual Universe is designed to represent you and all the contradictory ideas you have had. While many of them cannot remain in the same place and maintain its structure where you find consistency, it has been able to put them in other places, in other people, with other religious practices. Shaping their edges like kingdoms, defining their truths as options to choose from while maintaining your own.
Therefore, it must not be concerned with the exact representation of truth, but instead with representing secular concepts of truth, while being the representation of truth in doing so. Truth, even as the world has all options of what it can be perceived as contained within it, and you have assigned yourself a particular truth to practice, insisting that your denial of the actual truth can be altered while you enforce your ideas of it upon it.
The whole universe is filled directly with all your ideas. It cannot be recognized as this representation when the particular definitions they represent are believed as solid and separate items. In order for the truth to be recognized, the whole must be perceived. One cannot understand the truth of all when they insist upon the truth for a few.
How We Unite
If there are others proposing contradictory concepts, then the universe of as it was defined does not walk, talk, and appear to be what we are currently attempting to maintain it as. If I want to know absolute truth, I do not have to practice all religions, but I have to understand how all religions could be true. The Wholly Spiritual Universe and its entirety is here for you, and while it is stagnant, it maintains structures of people. However, when you are seeking to be inspired by it and are open to what it says, it speaks through all people; it speaks through all truths. It attempts to show you and teach you what you are as all definitions. Required to use definitions in order to show you this, it can only reveal itself to those willing to see past them.
While it is impossible for every “truth” to be the entirety of truth, each of them reveals aspects of it. As we learn to grasp the all-encompassing concept of truth, which allows them all, we then begin to reveal our reality as that actual truth. Therefore, the closest way to live as truth is to allow all of them to temporarily contradict each other, understanding that they are aspects that will eventually come together as one. Sure, it is important for each structure of truth to maintain a definition of what it is, as long as it understands that it does so in the denial of the actual truth, which unites them.
While the dimension of “God” is constant, the revealing of it is through inconsistent options, where it has revealed itself in opposing fashions specifically for the person it revealed itself to. It is not concerned with what it appears to be, but that it appears at all and joins with them where they believe they are and what their truth says it is.
How It’s True
Therefore, on the journey to truth, we must trust each other, for contained within ourselves is the representative of the actual truth. We should allow every contradiction we find to chip away at the beliefs we have opposing them, for it doesn’t just eliminate ours but also the challenger’s. Shaping us as it teaches us through all things, we will find the constant which remains consistent throughout all truths as it denies nothing but the denial of others.
No one in any shape can be “God” alone, but all can be different degrees and aspects of “God,” of which our sum collective is. If you actually want to know “God,” you must accept who it is everywhere, in everyone.
“Why They Are Right” (book series)
By Rev. Devan Jesse Byrne
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The author of The Statutes Of The Divinely Realized the essence of Undefinable and Expansive, here to coach spiritual people to discover their multidimensional reality beyond the veil.
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