The Lower & Higher Priesthoods

This article is convoluted. Rewrite.

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction... (James 1:27)”

 

Introduction

Organized earthly religion is a schoolmaster or preparatory gospel that tries to bring us up to a higher form or truer, heavenly religion; which is essentially a harmonic, balanced life which is at-one or unified with all of creation. The truths of this principle are hidden in the scriptures and symbols of all earthly religion–but more especially in the LDS Church and temple ceremony.  Most LDS members are well aware of the offices, functions, duties and responsibilities of the two main divisions of the priesthood–the Aaronic and Melchizedek. However, many may not realize the important principles that the liturgy concerning these priesthoods is trying to convey.  Were these concepts better understood, many of the problems inherent in organized religion could be resolved. In fact, all of the issues surrounding the apostasy of medieval Christianity and needed reformation and restorationism movements are dealt with in this symbolism.

Organized religion’s goal is to create a people who do not need organized religion. To create a people who can live in zionistic harmonious communities led directly by personal revelation from the creator with no need for intermediate kings, priests, popes, rituals, principalities, rigid laws, armies, prisons or presidents.  A people who are in all ways one with eachother and one with God. This is the blessed state of those in the highest heavens who we call god and the destiny which all the worlds religions (and especially mormonism) teaches in their creation dramas, priesthood organizations, scriptural stories and a myriad of other ways.

The Lower & Higher Priesthoods

The LDS Doctrine and Covenants describes things well in D&C 84 when describing the differences and symbolism behind these priesthoods. In v. we see that the “higher” priesthood holds the keys to the mysteries of the knowledge of God and seeks to help man “see the face of God”.  Through learning the principles of these mysteries Moses was able to regain God’s presence and talk with him face to face—and he sought to help the Children of Israel do so as well. But because Israel was unbelieving, hard-hearted, and simply not ready God gave them a “lower or preparatory priesthood” and religion to help them along their spiritual journey. And so it is with all earthly organized religion.  It is a lower or preparatory system devised to help people learn to re-enter God’s garden; a schoolmaster as Hebrews puts it, to bring us up to Christ.

The higher priesthood essentially has one goal; to re-unite us with God. By descending into flesh mankind has forgotten who God is and what he stands for. Passing through the veil we forget that our source is God and our destiny is God.  We were a part of God and we will be a part of Him again once we raise our consciousness and ‘overcome’ the psychological obstacles which keep us from Unity with the divine.  Religion is not God, nor is it expressly his organization. The

 

 

 

Outline.

In the Mosaic Law

-aaron built an idol, so god made him a priest of the lower priesthood to give israel the idol they desired.

In the Temple Drama

-the garden drama symbolizes this also, lucifer offered adam and eve ‘the law’ which is the knowledge of good and evil. This kabalistic tree of knowledge, stands in opposition to the tree of life. To be fully redeamed is to be ‘one’ with god, or in his presence. When we obtain knowlege from a mediator, we become blinded by him and he becomes our god. We are blinded because mediators take us away from the higher god (kicked out of the garden and god’s presence). In the LDS creation drama & temple depiction Satan becomes very angry when he is ‘cursed’ for giving knowledge of the law (good and evil) to adam and eve. Why do you think he is so mad, when he is simply excersizing his ‘priestly right’, doing what is done ‘in other worlds’? Because he thought he was being righteous and doing the will of the Father! Much like Aaron & his posterity, when many in religion find they are cursed for spending so much time and energy ‘giving religion’ to the posterity of Adam and Eve (doing what they thought was God’s will) they to may get angry and rebel.

In Paul’s Teachings

-Paul was all about teaching this lesson.  Law worketh death, spirit breatheth life.

In Joseph Smith’s Teachings

Joseph Smith compared the gospel program to building a temple (find quote, sprit of elias, spirit of elijah is cap stone). Essentially we are building an idol or a making a sacrifice and in the end we are going to have learned a lot about ourselves and eachother, and then we will set it on fire and watch it burn. Just like any of our earthly posesions and creations, those who can’t let go will arrrest thier own progress and quite possibly turn into bitter enemies of god. We must learn that God can not be housed in buildings built by human hands, but only in our hearts. His law cant be held by tablets of stone, but by tablets of our hearts. We will etrnally rise, but our church organizations will fall. (song, we’re going to let it burn, burn, burn)..

 

-true religion is this, to feed the hungary, visit the fatherless…

-start by talking about the symbolizm of the two priesthoods

[make chart comparing two priesthoods, showinging temple spires symbols, etc..] -there is a lower and higher priesthood. these are symbolized by the LDS aaronic and melchezidek. the aaronic is over the “outward ordinances” of the law, the melchezidek is over spiritual things. “outward ordinances” are things meant to point people toward the inward or true meaning of the law or ‘spirit’ of the law. It is a schoolmaster.

-this relationship is symbolized by the ‘temporal’ (earthly) and ‘spiritual’ (heavenly) aspects of these priesthoods (ref). Thus earthly religion and most especially all physical ordinances and ritualistic aspects of religion are part of the lower law or priesthood.

-these two priesthoods also symbolize the terrestrial and celestial. The earthly religions are ruled by terrestrial beings, and since the terrestrial glory has mixed polarity, it is administered by both positive and negative beings. God and Lucifer.
-the higher law has two counsels, love god and love your neighbor. The lower has a mutitude of ‘shalls and shall nots’

-once you chizel a law in stone, it looses much of its redemptive power.

 

-organized religion, is not true religion. The tao tries to teach this… the tao that can be named, is not the true toa, etc… (quote this)

 

-one of christ’s temptations was to make himself a political king, the other was to make himself a religious leader.

-D&C 121 shows this paradox ‘no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood’. Well to fully live that there can be no ‘visible’ priesthood. If you have a structured governmental prieshtood organized which regulates through laws and strictures then you have a priesthood which is maintaining power or influence by virtue of priesthood organization.
TAKE AWAY POINT.
As soon as you stand between god and man, you block man’s view of god–unless you are invisible or exactly like god. This is the symbolism that the trinity is trying to teach (that christ is in the express image of the father), but the truth is that all mediators distort the light. like a prism dividing the light into 7 or 12 colors. they try to ‘bring us up to’ the father, but in reality they distort the light (oahspe quote on religion).
-Start with the mystic cosmology? (from Aquarian gospel?) In the beginning there was only unity, this unified singularity was God. From the one came two, and the two bore a son who was the third. From these three came the seven and from the seven all that is. It was only after the seven (symbolized by the seven Elohim and seven creation periods) that good and evil was born. Before the Fall of Man there was no good or evil… all was of God and all was good.

 

INTEGRATE AND DELETE THESE ARTICLES.

https://gatheredin.one/57/the-lower-priesthood-of-aaron/

 

 

-These two polarities of good and evil can be pictured on a continuum… t In their most primal sense, good is that which tends to unity and harmony. Evil is that which tends toward disharmony, entropy and chaos. Let’s define “progression” as the paths that tend toward unity.

-On the path of progression to the destination of unity, there are two roads; service to self (selfishness) and service to others (selflessness). These are the left and right hand paths.

-these are symbolized by the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods; the universal governance structures.

-they can be visualized as side by side or as one leading to the other.

-Each form of government exists on a continuum epitomized by these paths at the extremes. These two paths are explained well in the “Law of One” material, but proven in human history. They are symbolized by the Lion and the Lamb of scripture. (The Lion of Judah and Lamb of Joseph, the Lamb of Christ and Lion of the pseudo-Christ).

On one side is service-to-others governments. This is a government where freedom and agency are respective above all. It is rule of law by love and freedom. It is consensus driven system where all energy, resources and power are equally shared. This is the law Christ brought and in its purest form requires that all participants be at least 51% selfless, or willing to put another’s will above their own in any confrontation of wills. Even one selfish person can destroy this government (because all the selfless will submit their wills for his/her desire for power and resources). This does not exist on telestial earth but is the government of the upper heavens and the goal of all true Christians. Democracy on earth tries to emulate this government as much as possible according to the grade of selfishness/selflessness of the people. In this government people are so selfless that they are all equal and unified in all things. It has no need for a king or leader (like Israel during the reign of the judges), and if one is appointed he stays equal in power, authority and wealth with the people. In fact no one would allow themselves to be made a king or master for fear of what this would do the balance of power and self-determination of others. It is a hard concept for those on telestial earth to grasp because it is not possible in the telestial glory. In this realm the governments and religions have to have aspects of top-down governance in both our political and religious systems in order to regulate the selfish populace.

On the other extreme is service-to-self governments. These are top down governance systems which put force over agency. Since in it’s purest form everyone puts themselves above all others this government is epitomized by the law of the jungle. The government structure which naturally forms among brutish beasts who have no concept of selfless giving. A hierarchy naturally forms where the strong rule over the week, the many over the few. The lions (elite) rule from a position of power and all the nations wealth/resources flow to them. They are dictatorships and monarchies. The head is tyrant and usually an egomaniac of which people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao are good examples. They believe themselves to be Gods and wish to be worshiped as such. When they die they often become false-gods ruling in the lower heavens. They deny the existence of any beings higher than them, calling themselves the “most high god”, when in fact they are at heart atheists. They rule by force with armies and in heaven become Lords of Hosts.

-the true God of this world (who in fact is more of a quorum or ruling body) always acknowledges the existence of the Father. The Father is a symbol of the infinite nature of conscious beings in the universe on top of being an actual representative from the star system currently nurturing us.

-the current true God of this world (who works on a scheduled rotation as Oahspe and the D&C teaches, allows people to chose which Gods they will follow, as he allowed the children of Israel to chose at the Mount of Sinai.

-the lower priesthood is a governmental structure ruled by lower more selfish gods, all of which follow the father in their own egotistical distorted ways.

-it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished, and similarly it is by the wicked that the wicked are ruled.

-when the children of Israel rejected the higher rule of the Melchizedek priesthood, they were given over to the lower Aaronic priesthood. Which is administered by much harsher Gods, who although regulated by earth’s “most high” God. Are themselves a bit tyrannical, but that’s what they wanted so that’s what god gave them.

-the God of the old testament is not a very nice guy. people who haven’t come to terms with that either haven’t actually read the old testament (or an understandable translation of it), are deluded (put me in this category) or they didn’t give any thought to what they were reading. The God of the old testament constantly threatens to kill off all of Israel. He institute laws where not only are perpetrators executed, they are brutally executed by their piers with stones. He wages an ethnic cleansing campaign against the inhabitants of the Holy Land. We justify that they were wicked, but really, so was Israel. (it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished). Curious where the principle of jihad comes from? Read the conquest of Joshua. The God of the old testament uses every governance principle used by the earth’s most nefarious dictators. From genocide, to infanticide. From a personality cult to a religious and political caste system. Their laws were often brutal and their freedoms few… all because this is what they wanted. It is all Israel was ready for.

-Aaron gave the people what they wanted… they wanted a god that could be seen, an idol like the Egyptians had.. so he gave it to them. He became their idolatrous priest, so God gave/cursed his posterity with the job of being idolatrous priests. The wanted the blood of scape-goats to cleanse them from sin, so God gave them the idolatrous law of sacrifice.

-the mosaic law was a lower law led by lower gods and lower priests, but it was a schoolmaster to lead them to the higher law.

-two towers of temple are symbols of two priesthoods (also symbolized by upper and lower chakras.)

Other articles on the priesthood

see The Difference Between the Priesthood & Prophets https://gatheredin.one/326/the-difference-between-the-priesthood-prophets/

Also this artilce I found written by an anonymous individual in

Also an article on the lower, temporal, Aaronic priesthood https://gatheredin.one/57/the-lower-priesthood-of-aaron/