I think Joseph Smith actually intuited the truth about all religions and reality. We want to shy away from the attitudes and strategies found in books like The Prince and The 48 Laws of Power and the philosophy in the books of Nietzsche. But the truth is these books often represent the core reality of nature as-it-is, not just among the other apes and other animal species, but among we humans ourselves.
This is why I find the work of Dr. Paul Dobransky M.D. so useful because he integrates the best of our ethics and ideals with the reality of biology and psychology in his Quantum Psychology and Mature Masculine Power 3.0 programs, that integrate our human instincts and higher ethical ideals. Dr. Paul is clear that there is an innate masculine drive for territory, rank and power; and that life is irritable meaning it makes decisions and seeks to grow and flourish.
Joseph Smith intuited the same ideas found in the work of Dr. Paul years before MindOS. Only Smith spoke in poetic language producing his own holy book called The Book of Mormon: where he speaks of the reality that there are things that act and things that are acted upon, and there is an opposition in all things; while man is that he might have joy; and that Joy results from competition and triumphing over obstacles in a field of opposite forces and yin yang polarities.
The Book of Mormon is also full of sayings that supports the Nietzschean concept of Will to Power or antifragility, with passages like like: arise from the dust and be men, or I will make weak things become strong, and I will consecrate thy afflictions for thy good. In other words, there is a psychological energy of antifragility or self-overcoming Will to Power in Mormon Scripture. The Mormon Jesus waxes strong and doesn't say to pluck out your eye and be celibate but to be a sexual being and grow in power and dominion, which in turn honors the Father God over this earth.
Meanwhile, in Mormonism God is not some bodyless nothing which makes Protestant and Catholic Christians despise their body because the highest being with ultimate status is a bodyless no-thing, which make their body something to despise. To counteract that, either consciously or unconsciously, Joseph Smith declared that God the Father has a physical and tangible fleshly body. This radical notion undermined centuries of Augustinian Christendom and affirmed the goodness of sensual body and the flesh; thus empowering early Mormons to overcome the shaming tactics of the priests and monks of Augustinian Christendom.
Joseph Smith also opposed the stale and docile notions of the Catholic and Protestant ideas of heaven. The Mormon Heaven is not some utopia with neverending harp playing on a cloud. Instead, God does not want you to grovel before him remaining permanently stagnant as an angel on a cloud forever. Instead, the Gods in the High God's Divine Council want others to also excel and become great like the Gods themselves. Thus one finds the energy of ongoing Will to Power with humans growing into gods and expanding the Divine Species of Gods: through their increase of lives and reigning over globes as exalted beings. Thus the biological drive for territory, status and power is affirmed in Mormonism.
A key term used frequently in Mormonism to describe the highest rank of those in heaven as holy beings is the word exaltation; as those who become gods become exalted beings. The word exaltation in the 1828 dictionary is defined as:
noun The act of raising high.
1. Elevation to power, office, rank, dignity or excellence.
2. Elevated state; state of greatness or dignity.
I wondered at my flight, and change
To this high exaltation
3. In pharmacy, the refinement or subtilization of bodies or their qualities and virtues, or the increase of their strength.
4. In astrology, the dignity of a planet in which its powers are increased.
Joseph encapsulated the Mormon will to power when he said in the King Follett Discourse:
You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power; ...
Joseph Smith postponed the second coming until at least he was 85 years old in order to discount the fear mongering of the Millerites of the time. For if people were demotivated from growing the Mormon Movement because they expected Christ would come back at any second, then their will to power would be squelched. So Joseph Smith removes these predictions of the second coming in order to open up the field of possibility and growth. Rather than emphasizing celibacy and wallowing in a cave awaiting Christ like other Christians, he instead brought Heaven to Earth here and now; by becoming clever and sealing friends and wives unto high ranking males in order to generate a People like Abraham did; and also to increase your territory, status and power into the eternities. For Joseph reasoned from the Bible that if we are to be co-heirs with Christ and Christ is a high status kingly figure, then Christians would likewise become high ranking gods and be exalted just like all kings gain access to greater territory, status and power.
The First God, or the supreme governing power, according to the Lectures on Faith is akin to a field of energy or an emergent formative power: that expands into forms and personages through competition and sacrifices: which is symbolized by Christ as the sacrificed redeemer. Christ is thus the ultimate example of antifragility.
The idea that there was direct control of Joseph Smith's mind as if he were an antenna to God's will when forming his revelations and composing scripture, denies Free Will. The truth is Smith was all-too-human and tapped into the will to power. He outcompeted other religionists in the market place of religious ideas. The fact is there is competition even in religion. There was competition between Paul and the Jerusalem sect. There was competition between Jesus and the Pharisees. There was competition between Joseph Smith and the Protestants. There was competition between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt. There was competition between McMurrin and McConkey.
This screenshot of a YouTube video captures exactly what I'm talking about:
In the video, the Protestant with the hat tries to one-up the Catholic priest by maneuvering around the history of the compilation of the Bible -- being put together by the Catholic Church -- by saying men did not compile the books of the Bible but divine intervention did; and the books themselves are inspired, not necessarily the men compiling the books that make up the Bible. Clever move, except that the books of the Bible were also composed by men as well. The assertion that they are inspired is simply a power move, which cannot be proven rationally nor scientifically; but can only be appealed to subjectively based on faith and personal conviction. Such a Protestant will often, in turn hypocritically deny the subjective testimony of the Mormon in regards to their conviction that their scriptures are true.
Religion is about territory, rank and power. It is all about the "authority" of the words and those who control the words with their ideology or creed and those who act out those selected words. The words are used to scare or inspire or control or liberate. No matter how the words are used they are part of the means of the attempt to gain territory, status and power.
I remember when I was in high school, part of PE (Physical Education) was we had to be in a school tournament where we all wrestled for rank. Before the tournament, I remember how I kept pinning my classmates while wrestling in PE class. We were sophomores. They said I kept pinning them because I had strong legs, not wanting to give me any credit for my upper body strength. Lacking wrestling training outside my PE class, in the tournament I won some matches but then lost to those who had wrestling training. That is the way it goes. So it is with religion, its a competition for territory, rank and power.
The truth is even early Christianity is engaged in the pursuit of territory, status and strength. For example, Paul appeals to the ego of his religious clients by telling them that they are going to be elevated to the status of a god or holy one because they will be over the angels and judge them as gods in Jehovah's Divine Council. Paul outcompetes the leaders of the Jerusalem sect by claiming that his divine message (gospel) did not come from them by word of mouth (i.e. he didn't learn it from mortals) but it came directly to him through revelation (that is he channeled the voice of resurrected Christ).
The Book of Revelation does not have a kingly CEO coming down from the sky and putting the bad guys in prison and setting everything in order peacefully and "civilly" by modern standards. Instead, the divine King of kings rides on a war horse and unleashes terror and catastrophe and annihilates his enemies and rules over them by forcing them to bow before him. This is not the language of passivity or kumbaya peace on earth utopianism. This is Alpha God behavior and a will to power.
When you begin to see religion through the eyes of biology and Nietzsche's philosophy and MindOS (or Quantum Psychology) by Dr. Paul, everything makes sense. You cannot divorce the masculine lifeward drive for territory, rank and power (as Dr Paul puts it). You cannot remove psychological boundaries. Religion is just another realm in life's arenas of competition for territory, status and strength.
Whatever is empowering to the religious group as a whole, whatever expands its territory and elevates the status of the members, is good from the perspective of Life. This is again why Paul says that his fellow Christians should stop squabbling with each other and taking each other to court by appealing to their pride and saying that they're going to be elevated to such a high status that they will be above the lower angels as superior holy ones; which meant they would have a deified body like the gods in Jehovah's Divine Council.
This is the clue to understanding all religion and in particular Mormonism. If Mormonism was only about peace, humility and unity, then it would have disbanded in order to avoid the constant chaos and discord caused by its beliefs which annoyed their Protestants neighbors. Joseph Smith and his movement was a Will to Power: it was an attempt to expand in territory and elevate their rank as a religious group among the competing religious ideas of the time. The story of Mormonism is thus a story of a People gaining greater territory, status and power. It is a story of success and grit and determination. It is not a story of only pacifism and kumbaya peace on earth goodwill toward men. If that was really what Mormonism was all about, it would have disbanded to avoid any conflict. Joseph Smith (and later Brigham Young) were not going to do that; for at the core of Mormonism was a theology of opening your mouth and assertively speaking up in order to convert people to the movement.
According to the Lectures on Faith, at the core of the LDS Movement was the belief that all reality is grounded in an independent material substance or being (Deity) with the attributes of seeking power and dominion through faith as a principle of action; the Lectures conclude with the idea that those attributes are to be imitated by the LDS Christian who learns to sacrifice in order to regrow into a deified Christian: who then is eventually exalted in dominion and power like mighty Jehovah.
So for me, to study Mormonism is in part to study the psychological mechanisms of the will to power, that a group like the LDS utilizes to become a powerful and flourishing people.
