Two Women: Two Churches
John described two women in his vision on Patmos that symbolically represent two groups. The first woman is described thus:
And there appeared a great sign in heaven, in the likeness of things on the earth: a woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And the woman, being with child, cried, travailing in birth and pained to be delivered... And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God and his throne. (
Revelation 12:1-5)
Later John reveals her identity: she is the church of God, her child was the Kingdom of God and his Christ. Joseph Smith taught they were distinctly different entities from one another.
And the second woman:
And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten thorns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls, and having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great awe. (Revelation 17: 3-5)
John also reveals her identity: "the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth." (17:18)
Nephi also saw what John saw. He described the two women in this way:
And it came to pass that he [the angel] said unto me: Look, and behold the great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil. And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. (1 Nephi 14: 9-10, Emphasis Added)
As for the first woman, we know she is not the LDS Church, or any organization for that matter. She represents the humble followers of Christ, spread throughout the margins of society, whose numbers are few.
But who is the second woman, who "reigns over the kings of the earth?" Indeed, what is the "Great and Abominable church of the devil"? H. Verlan Andersen, a friend of President Benson's and a good man, wrote a book with that very title. He concluded that the church of the devil is "prostituted government." He was definitely on the right track but the rabbit hole goes much, much deeper. I am going to attempt to plunge deep down that abyss in this post, but there is so much material that I might have to stretch this out in several parts. Nevertheless, this stuff is important and needs to be addressed. It is the only way to understand how the world really works and what is behind current agendas like the Covid "pandemic."
The Secret Plans of the Gadiantons
Thanks to the Book of Mormon we know about
Secret Combinations and their plan of world domination. However, the prophets did not reveal to us the details of the secret plans and oaths of the conspirators, yet we are told by Moroni that "they are had among all people." This omission was not because God wants us to remain ignorant of the oaths, but rather because there was limited room on the plates and the "secret plans" are literally everywhere, hidden in plain sight all around us. But they do give us clues as to where to start looking:
And behold, I am Giddianhi; and I am the governor of this
secret society of Gadianton; which society and the works thereof I know to be good; and they are of
ancient date and they have been handed down unto us. (
3 Ne 3:9 Emphasis Added)
"Ancient date." That is where we start. Keep in mind what Giddianhi said, "and the works thereof I know to be good." Make no mistake, this is a religion, and they believe it to be the correct one. Their object of worship is Lucifer, the "Light Bearer," (lucious is the Latin word for light). Just as we make covenants with Christ, they make them with Lucifer:
And Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die; and this that thy father may not know it; and this day I will deliver thy brother Abel into thine hands. (Moses 5:29)
Here the modus operandi of that church is revealed. They make covenants with Satan by taking blood oaths, pledging to die if they tell the secret, and using murder to get gain:
And Satan sware unto Cain that he would do according to his commands. And all these things were done in secret. And Cain said: Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain. Wherefore Cain was called Master Mahan, and he gloried in his wickedness. (Moses 5: 30-31)
It is imperative to remember that God does not work in darkness. He does nothing in secret. Everything he does is plain and precious, easy to understand, available to everyone, nondiscriminatory, and openly published. He does not require a "worthiness certificate" to enter a place where "sacred" (actually secret) oaths are sworn to an organization. He does not require secret hand shakes, signs, or tokens to pass through a "veil," or to advance to a "world" beyond this earthly one. These are all tenets of Satan's church, not God's. Keep that in mind as we proceed. Another clue from the Book of Mormon:
And it came to pass that they had their signs, yea, their secret signs, and their secret words; and this that they might distinguish a brother who had entered into the covenant..." (Hel 6:22)
What types of secret societies and fraternal orders use secret signs and handshakes? Their are hoards of them, but the Freemasonic Order is the ground level. They provide the vetting ground for Satan's church, and very few move up the ranks. Most of them are good people who think they belong to a benign and philanthropic fraternity, but nothing could be further from the truth. The word Freemason has a dual meaning. To the unillumined, it sounds like a society based upon building and construction, a symbol of their role in framing and directing society. But to the initiated, the meaning has ancient underpinnings.
In the Greek, masonry is a corruption of the word mesouraneo, which denotes the phrase, "I am in the midst of heaven." And what is heaven but the firmament, where all the great orbs appear to man. The sun is the center of "heaven" or the sky from our perspective on earth, and hence is the source of all light to us. But the derivation goes back even further. The modern word "free" is similar to the Egyptian Phre, meaning the sun, and the prefix of the word mason, mas, means a child. Hence the Egyptian Phre-Massen, literally means Children of the Sun, or the Sons of Light. (Brown, Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy, p. 64)
And who is the bringer of light to these organizations? Lucifer, of course. Just as Christians become the sons of God, the highest initiates become the sons of light, or Lucifer. Nephi was right. There are only two churches. Everything that is taught in this world is derived from one or the other. To understand the significance of the harlot John saw, we have to go back to ancient Egypt. She represents the Mystery Schools (Mystery Babylon), the very organizations in which the secret plans of the Gadiantons have been passed down through the ages.
The Osirian Cycle and Egyptian Sun Worship
To understand what the Mystery Schools are based upon, you have to be familiar with the Fable of Osiris. Although we know that Cain was the first to receive the mysteries from Satan, the history is easily traced to Egypt, which is the best place to start.
The Fable of Osiris is best explained by Manly P. Hall, who is regarded by Masons as the most prolific writer on the mysteries and "secreting teachings of the ages." In what follows I'll be paraphrasing from Hall's book,
Freemasonry and the Ancient Egyptians, which is quoted at length in D. Christian Markham's comprehensive work,
There are Save Two Churches Only: Volume I. This book is mind-blowing, by the way, and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Mystery Schools from the perspective of the Restoration.
Hall pulls his account from Plutarch, the Roman philosopher, who is also a mystery school initiate, and begins with Egyptian mythology starting with the goddess Nut, also known as Rhea. She is the wife of Seb/Saturn but also marries her own son Ra or Helios the sun god. Then she cheats on him with Seb (these gods are promiscuous and apparently incestuous), and becomes pregnant. When Ra finds out he declares that she "will not have progeny in any month or year." Nut tricks Ra with the help of Thoth (Mercury), a gambler who won some illuminations from the moon goddess and uses them to add 5 extra days to the Egyptian calendar, extending the year from 360 days (the exact amount of degrees in a circle), to 365 days.
On those five extra days, safely hidden from Ra, Nut has her children in this order:
1. Osiris who becomes "Lord of all the Earth."
2. Aroueris (the elder Horus)
3. Typhon or Set
4. Isis
5. Nephthys
Osiris becomes the King of Egypt and marries Isis. Typhon, married to Nephthys, is the jealous and ambitious brother who conspires to kill Osiris with the help of 72 others. As Osiris is traveling the world and teaching the people law and religion, Typhon fashions an elaborate chest that fits his brother's body perfectly. On the day of his return to Egypt, the chest is brought to the King's banquet feast and Typhon announces that the chest will be rewarded to whomever most nearly fits in it. One by one each prince tried to lay in the box but none were the perfect size (think Cinderella and the glass slipper; these stories don't came out of thin air). Finally, when it was Osiris' turn, his body fit like a glove. Upon his entering the chest the 72 conspirators clamped it shut, nailed it, and poured hot lead over the cracks, and thereupon cast the chest into the Nile where it meets the sea.
Isis wandered all of Egypt looking for the box. She eventually finds it on the coast of Byblos (meaning bible or book), where a Tamarisk tree has grown around the chest totally enveloping it into its trunk. When the king of Byblos discovers it he orders the tree cut down and made into a pillar at his palace. Isis went to the kingdom in disguise as the queen's nurse and at night would transform into a swallow, flying around the pillar and bemoaning her husband. At length, she revealed her true identity and petitioned the king to cut out the chest. Retreating to the desert, she performed magical rites whereupon Osiris' body was temporarily reanimated, and from this union she becomes pregnant with the child Horus (the younger one). Fearing for the child's life, she left the chest and delivered him in a secluded place unbeknownst to the tyrant Typhon.
Typhon chanced upon the chest, and knowing the magical powers of Isis, cut the body up into 14 parts (a very significant number to the mystery schools) and spread them over all of Egypt. He also held Isis and Horus prisoner until they escaped with the help of Thoth. Isis hid Horus in a papyrus swamp and once again traversed Egypt looking for the body parts of her dead husband. She eventually recovered them all except for the phallus, or penis. Through her magic she was able to reproduce this organ in gold, and with his body whole again she ensured his complete transition to the underworld. (please note the Egyptian obelisk is the symbol of Osiris' phallus and can be found in
architecture all around the world; we have several in the United States, the picture below is of the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas).
What happened to the original phallus? It was cast into the Nile and devoured by three fishes who represent
Ignorance, Superstition, and Fear.
These concepts also symbolize the Church, the State, and the Mob.
These are how the mystery schools keep you, whom they refer to as the “profane,” in the dark and easily subjugated. More on this later.
Little Horus receives a vision from his father instructing him how to overcome the hosts of Typhon, and upon prevailing, takes him prisoner. Yet queen Isis doesn't have the heart to execute her brother. Horus is angered by this and removes her royal insignia from her head, but the ever helpful Thoth gave her a new helmet in the shape of an Ox's head. Typhon is released and Horus does battle with him yet again, eventually prevailing and winning the kingdom. In some respects he becomes the literal reincarnation of Osiris; the two are sometimes considered one and the same.
Isis and Osiris have one last union. The shade of his body visits her from the underworld and she is imbued with an immaculate conception, because "she knew no man" (sound familiar?). Keep in mind throughout this narrative that "God creates and Satan imitates."1
