Emotional and Mental Manipulation that Obstructs Being

Part I

September 20, 2005

It is not enough for us to just heal our obstructions to Being the Christ. We are here in embodiment to be and give love. And these lessons in love take us to many places and in contact with many people.

One of the major causes of difficulty on the planet today and for eons, is the culture of women as a less than men. Women have been treated as subjects of men in many cultures throughout many ages. The loss of love and self-esteem in women has been tremendous. And if you look at the idea that reincarnation may allow the crossing of souls from male to female and female to male, you can imagine that none of us are exempt from the psychological damage to our psyches from this programming against women.

In this first part, I will give an example of religious maltreatment of women, using the Mormon religion as an example. The reason I pick this religion as an example is because Kim and I were sent to Utah by El Morya in 1997. We were to uproot our family and our well paying jobs and career, our comfortable living with no debt or money issues, and start over again in Utah.

For Kim and I, it was the greatest growing experience one could have. On the one hand, it was very easy living in Utah. On the other hand, it was very difficult. It was easy because we had the guidance of the Holy Spirit and through our inner attunement could always be in the right place at the right time to balance karma and procure what we needed, whether it be a job or car. We also were both individually guided to move spiritually along a path that only we could do through oneness with our Higher Self. We did not know on the outer these things, but we followed the inner direction so that we each were brought to experience our own tests, intiations on the Cosmic Tree of Life, and fulfill our dharma and karma. In other words, we were taken to the place of Being.

On the other hand, it was the most difficult experience we had ever had with living in a community and learning to adapt to the situation we could not change, but were forced to endure. So we withdrew, and maybe were even forced to withdraw from this experience, so that we could go within and find our true Self. But for whatever reason, withdrawing was both socially and personally. We were asked to be celebate for most of the years we lived in Utah. And we were welcomed into the community and neighborhood, as much as we were ostracized. If both could be possible at the same time! But it was as if you were included in a superficial way, but really you were excluded. It was all a pretense.

So this example of the division of women from men was not something learned in the textbooks, but experienced personally as we lived in the society of Mormons for 5 years.

 
Programming from within Religious Cultures

The mental health system in the U.S. has been designed to get your behavior and emotions under control, with drugs as the standard assistance, so that you can fit back into the emotionally dysfunctional system. Utah is a unique state because they do not have much diversity in religion. Statistics vary, but you may find some statistics stating that 70% of Utahans are Mormon or LDS as they call themselves, but I have seen the figure as high as 86%. The following is not to discredit LDS followers, but to point out the psychological effects of so dominant a culture in a thriving community on the outside, but at times, a very dysfunctional system from within and the often hidden ramifications. Utah statistics are very disturbing because it is common belief that a religious people, and a very family oriented religion, would be a strong, loving example of healthy families.

For example Utah has the highest rate of young male suicides and the highest rate of mental health drug intervention, especially in women. More Utahans take Prozac-style drugs than in any other state, according to a study conducted in June of 2001. The study indicated that Utah residents average 1.1 prescriptions per person per year of medications such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil. The national average is 0.7. Utah women, the group accounting for the largest percentage of anti-depressant use, are under larger amounts of stress because of the large family size encouraged by their Mormon beliefs. According to the Center for Disease Control the leading cause of death in America is heart disease, with suicide ranking eleventh. But in Utah the Department of Health reports the leading cause of death for males between the ages of 15-44 is suicide.

Mormon Church leaders deny that these issues are prevalent, citing that these suicides and drug issues are more prevalent in the individuals living in the State but outside their religion. I personally talked with the district stake president, in bringing Satanic rituals practiced by the Mormon youth to his attention, in which he admitted knowing about it but basically left it up to individual Wards (local congregations) and their bishops to deal with the problem. Which left me baffled that there was no system in place to deal with large scale problems that were generally swept under the rug and ignored.

Before I went to the town of Hyrum, where we bought our home in Utah, I was given a book by a Mormon, “Mary Fielding Smith, Daughter of Britain.” Mary was the wife of Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith’s brother, founder of the Mormon religion. The Mormon who gave the book to me was in Montana, and became a Keeper of the Flame in the Summit Lighthouse. But she never let the Mormon culture go. It formed her past and affected her present. She did not say why she sent me the book, but I read it and enjoyed the biography of this remarkable woman. Most of the book was about her life after her husband Hyrum and his brother, Joseph were murdered.

I was living in Logan at the time, the next town over from Hyrum. Kim and I decided since El Morya was sending us to Utah, that the nicest place to live in Utah was the northern most area, which had a beautiful mountain range and just happened to be the settling place of the Danish immigrants (and Kim's place of birth) who were converts to the Mormon religion.

They were homesick for their country, and the area that most suited their homeland, was the Logan area, as the mountain range brought rain to a normal desert clime and thus brought some greenery. We were drawn there, not knowing the Danish colonized this area, but drawn to move there because of the beauty, liking the greenery and mountains which reminded us our where we were coming from in Paradise Valley, Montana.

We found a very reasonable house, by the grace of God and the Master’s help, and got started with a six month lease on a nice home that was on the market and didn’t sell. Rental was very expensive there, being a college town. When our lease was almost up, I was directed from the voice within to look for a house to buy. Kim thought it strange, as he thought we would just continue to live there with a new lease. But we went out and looked and it turned out that the first house we looked at, we bought. A week later we received a notice in the mail that we were being evicted at the end of our lease, the owner was putting the house back on the market. So I was most grateful for the early warning and advice.

The house we found was in the next town, Hyrum. It was not any coincidence that Kim was in the heartland of Danish descendents and I living in a town called Hyrum and amongst the Mormons. Things begin to unfold in that most mysterious way when you are following inner direction.

I received a call from the Mormon woman who sent me the book, asking did I read the book and what did I think. I told her I liked it very much, Mary was very inspiring and a truly devoted woman to God. Mary was the daughter of a English minister, who left England with her sister and brother to immigrate to the United States and later joined the Mormon community developing in Ohio. Hyrum’s wife died and left several children and Mary was chosen to fill the deceased woman’s shoes, wedding Hyrum. Her sister later became another wife of Hyrum’s, as it was during the early years when polygamy was openly practiced.

Polygamy in Utah
My Mormon friend proceeded to tell me that she received from within that I was this woman in a prior life. I shrugged it off as ludicrous, I would never have fallen for this new movement, I told myself. And then I received from the Master El Morya that it was true. It rocked me tremendously. I had previously followed the inner prompting to study judiciously the ins and outs of this religion. And I had come to the conclusion that Joseph was a false leader and the religion was based on many lies. Having come to that realization, I was stunned to realize that I could have been duped to follow a false prophet in another time. But I felt the pieces coming together. I lived in a town called Hyrum and I had recently had a dream where I saw myself in the past as a pregnant woman and married to this man who was married to other women. The present day thought of my own sister married to the same man left me in disgust and I knew why I had such an abhorrent idea to polygamy.

I was drawn to pray, from the guidance within over the prior year, about the polygamist situation upon making the discovery immediately upon arriving in Utah, that there were polygamists cultures still existing in certain remote areas of Utah and Arizona. More came to public light in the years we lived there as several charges were brought against one polygamist for taking on a wife as young as 13. There is estimated about 30,000 polygamists in Utah today and they are rarely bothered as the religious members of the LDS faith are often themselves the public prosecutors and politicians. Utahns often are paying the welfare costs for many of these children conceived, because their mother’s were legally unmarried and had no income.

The practice started when Joseph Smith, the founder, proclaimed that he had a message from God where God told him he must obey this new law, as stated in Doctrine and Covenants: “For behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory."

“..if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified."

Brigham Young, Smith's successor, went on to have 50 wives, even declaring, "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy." (Journal of Discourses)

These women, in the past and presently today, adhered to this religious practice, either not able or willing to speak out, or so programmed to not even see the abomination that such practices can have on the psychology of themselves and their children. The sacred relationship between a man and a woman was annulled in this relationship of one man to several women. There was often domestic violence in these relationships and jealousy and inferiority issues amongst the women. Their inner guidance was set aside for the self-proclaimed prophets and their word.

The Tables are Turned
Why am I telling you this story? Because we were brought to this area and this culture for a reason. We had just moved from a predominately ascended master community, both of us working for years in a business with mostly Church members as employees. We were the insiders and the occasional employee who was not in the Church was the outsider. Our roles became reversed in Utah. We were the outcasts, the gentiles as all non-Mormons are called, in the Mormon community and we were ostracized by some who only wanted to associate with their fellow religious members. We worked in predominately Mormon businesses. We experienced what it was like to live and work in a strong religious movement and being the outsider, just as we witnessed the non Church members being the outsiders in our community and workplace in Montana.

Why did El Morya send us to have this experience? He directed our lives to fulfill our karma, our dharma and our edification in Being. We would never have moved to Utah—never. In fact, Kim fought the idea for months. I wanted to go to follow God’s direction and knew it was what we needed to do. We were free to go anywhere in Utah, the only direction was go to Utah. And yet we found ourselves in the heart of the very place our karma lie. Kim for his karma with the Danish Mormons and I with the karma of my life with Hyrum and Mary’s tie to my soul. I later found out that I really was not Mary in a prior life, but her life I needed to identify with at that time to achieve the growth I needed and to understand the culture.*

We discovered the profound effect social and religious control has upon people and how they abdicate their own Self for the outer rituals and programming and the strong control this wrought over their lives. We meant people who were immoveable in their consciousness. People who were like robots in spewing out their programmed answers to their perceived enemies: anyone who didn’t believe as they did. This culture was the strongest I had ever experienced in religious programming. And I say that because of the history of persecution to Joseph Smith from the very beginning of his proclamations, this culture had developed safeguards and methods to keep a tight control over their members. It was very intact and very effective. It was brainwashing.

Mary Smith was an enigma to this culture and to the present day Mormon women. She had strong leadership and an example that paved the way for the early Mormon women in how they could be individuals in a society that cast women as property. She was willing to follow the inner guidance and go against the culture, not remarrying and yet becoming the sole source of care for her family. Mary raised seven children by herself, after her husband was murdered along with Joseph Smith, and she even took in several elderly people to care for them. One of her sons, Joseph Smith, went on to become a prominent Mormon prophet.

After her husband died, Mary crossed the Rocky Mountains with all her children, in her own wagon, along with a wagon train. Along the way she lost a wagon wheel and even lost her oxen that were pulling her wagon. But relying on faith and prayer, she always rebounded. When her oxen disappeared one morning, she recovered them through prayer and the gift of insight that came through the agency of the Holy Spirit. It was discovered that her adversaries stole her oxen and hid them. After her children spent hours looking everywhere for them, they returned to find their mother on her knees praying and then she got up and walked directly to where she was led through the Holy Spirit to find them. The other time one of her oxen died, she anointed it with oil and prayed and the oxen came back to life.

Mary went into the religious movement with her eyes wide open, having the Holy Spirit herself, she was a woman unto her own self. She was the first wife of Hyrum, after his wife died, but he later took on the additional wives which she objected to, but acquiesced to in time, as many women had to. One woman said of her polygamist family that polygamy was the most hateful thing in the world to her mother, dreaded and abhorred. But she was afraid to oppose it, lest she be found fighting against the Lord.

This was the main reason so many women grudgingly accepted polygamy. The elders of the church assured these women that those who refused to practice polygamy would be damned, and since the men spoke for God, the believers had to comply. If a man felt his wife was not behaving properly, he could always find a more compliant one. Because all women must be married to go to heaven, the pressure to conform to the expectations of men was incredible. The culture did not honor or condone women’s opinions or that they may have the gift of the Holy Spirit. Men were and are the only ones in the religion that were allowed to prophecize, although women are allowed to commune within, just not share it.

Mary was mocked for trying to cross the Rocky Mountains, and the Mormon men even bet that she would not make it and were instrumental in causing many problems for her along the way. Mary’s gift of inner communication with the Spirit of God led her and kept her strong throughout her life. The culture did not support her own communication with God, but mocked her for it. In the years following reading this story of Mary’s life, I came to know personally this mockery for my present day communication via the Holy Spirit and my willingness to follow the inner law and direction. And it often came from the least expected sources, from those who professed to love God and follow his direction, within the same religious community I had spent the last 25 years. Some of the very people who scorned me had been friends, and some were leaders who people looked up to in following them for outer direction.

Religion as a means to control
This was and is mental and emotional coercion, and the direct opposition to the love of God and the holding of the immaculate concept in love. Religion had become a means of control and subjection including purposeful threats of rejection from or disapproval by spouses, men and peer groups, with anger and even violence through loved ones. For Mary, she knew that whatever she set her mind to do, she would do it with the Lord at her side. This particular religion, although allowing inner communication, overrides the inner with the outer prophets of the male dominated culture, that set the standard for what is acceptable and not in the running of communities, the relationships between husband and wives, the family standards and everything that we normally would conceive of as a private matter and responsibility of husband and wife to decide together.

This is an abomination to the free will of the individual and the attunement with the Mind of God within. Just as in the Catholic Church and the Priest scandals, the Mormon culture was not dealing with the emotional dysfunctions of their members and leaders that the church culture was fostering. Mormon leaders have no restrictions to marriage and, in fact, are encouraged to marry and do so. Good Mormon men may be catapulted to become gods in heaven, upon their passing, receiving their own planet to rule over, but women have no status in heaven, except through earthly marriage. "Celestial" marriage, as this eternal marriage is often called, is essential for Mormon women.

Without being celestially married to a holder of the priesthood, a woman cannot be "saved" and the more wives a man has as he enters the Kingdom of Heaven, the higher his stature will be.

Because of the doctrine of celestial marriage, it is very difficult for Mormon women to obtain divorces in the church. Women are told that "divorce is usually the result of one or both not living the gospel," and that a woman who wants a divorce is "untrue to the covenants she has made in the house of the Lord." After a civil divorce, a woman's temple recommend is rescinded and she is considered unworthy to enter the temple, until she can prove to the heads of the church that the divorce was not caused by adultery. This is done by describing one's sexual activities very exactly in a series of letters to the male church authorities. Believers must submit to this humiliating rule in order to avoid spending eternity with their ex-husbands, because they must be able to enter the temple to obtain a "cancellation of sealing."

The coveted temple recommend is a must for all good Mormon women. The temple is the place where all secret and ceremonial rituals are performed by good Mormons and they must be recommended as worthy individuals by members of the priesthood to enter. No one else is allowed in, except by a temple recommend. Mormons believe that the family relationships – between husband and wife and between parent and child – can be made eternal by the authority of the Mormon priesthood. The ceremonies in which this is done are called "sealings."

Young Mormons are taught that their goal in choosing a life's mate should be to select another Mormon who is worthy to be endowed and married in a sealing ceremony in the temple. To marry anyone else, they are taught, would be to sacrifice one's hopes of exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of heaven, since only those people whose marriages are sealed "for time and all eternity" will be in that highest glory. Thus, good Mormon couples first get their endowment, and then have their wedding in the temple, in one of the sealing rooms.

The Mormon culture is a good example of a culture and community that has religion and love of God at its heart, but has gone very wrong in the dealing with human nature and our relationship to love. The Mormon position on women has changed little since the early 1800's, when the official view was that a woman's primary place is in the home, where she is to rear children and abide by the righteous counsel of her husband. This attitude, coupled with the doctrine of polygamy and the absolute power claimed by the men of the church, created a legacy of profound sexism which modern Mormonism has been unable to escape even though they left behind the polygamy to conform to the United States government laws and thereby have Utah join the State of the Union.

Mormonism has created an ingenious system of oppression, in which opposition towards men is tantamount to arguing with God. The Mormon religion makes no distinction between clergy and laity, at least with regard to men. All Mormon men are ordained as members of the "priesthood," with the absolute authority to preach the gospel, bestow blessings, prophecy, perform healings and baptisms, and generally speak for God.

Large families are encouraged. Nurturance to large families is very difficult because of the increased financial and physical needs of these families whereby women are encouraged to stay at home. Young men are expected to give up two years of their young lives to become missionaries before they may marry and settle down. Thus the pressure is increased on both spouses to meet the physical, mental, and emotional needs of the family, and the culture pressures on the children are enormous. The result is high suicides, women and children in emotional denial and the subsequent loss of self worth and love. And this is just a sampling of one dysfunctional culture.

The Catholics have created another, as well as Bible toting Evangelists and their hell and brimstone preaching. Muslims have their Koran and Hindus have their Gods. All of these various religions and cultures foster a belief that someone else is responsible for your emotional and mental state and how you live your life. Try being a Christian and living in a Muslim culture, or a Muslim living in a Evangelistic culture. Try being a Catholic in a Hindu culture or a Hindu in a Catholic culture.

Because of early childhood programming and the subsequent loss of self identity through the emotional and mental abuse in the dysfunctional societal systems, most adults don’t know who they really are. They often tend to be followers, without the ability to make clear decisions from the guidance and intuitive faculties within. They either lack the will or desire to break out of boxes imposed upon them from outer religions or cultures or through fear they are being controlled, as related in the examples of the Mormon culture.

The subconscious attitudes adopted because of these programs dictate the adult's reaction to, and path through, life. Thus most adults walk around looking like and trying to act like adults, while reacting to life out of the emotional wounds and attitudes starting in their childhood and reinforced through societies and cultures. They keep repeating the patterns of mental and emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment and manipulation, experienced from early childhood and then pass these patterns on to their children.

In Part II, we’ll look at how society deals with our mental and emotional health through the mental health field of psychology and psychoanalysis and healing our minds through the understanding of our psyches through the Mind of God.

*As mature sons and daughters of God, we may enter embodiment and take on the karma of the people. This is a calling that not all will or can do, but if you have balanced your karma and seek to continue to help the evolutions of earth, you may return in embodiment again, and take on certain aspects of world karma. In this way, because of your maturity, you may help pull up any evolutions of beings who may still be trapped in certain states of conciousness. But the key is that you will not know you are doing this. But you will come into embodiment and experience the veil, which will obscure your real Being, and cause you to succumb to the programming and difficult situations you enter in family units. Some may not see the light until many embodiments have passed, falling instead to lower and lower levels before awakening and finding the path once again and fulfilling this dharma and balancing all their karma once again.

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