Crime
[Definition of Crime]
[Crime Requires Oaths & Covenants]
Secret Societies
Egyptian Mythology on the Origin of the World
227 We are on the sixth chapter of Helaman now. It is one of those epoch chapters; it’s like chapter 46 and others. If this was all we had of the Book of Mormon, it would be enough to attest to its authenticity right down to the ground. This is a chapter on crime. It starts out happily and then suddenly things go sour. You notice we start out when they broke down all trade barriers and other barriers between them. They began to prosper greatly, and they could go to whatever parts of the land they would. The Lamanites could go wherever they wanted, and they had “free intercourse one with another, to buy and to sell, and to get gain according to their desire. And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites.” They had plenty of gold and silver. It was an almost gaudy civilization.
227 Helaman 6:11-13 The curious workmanship [is mentioned]. Verse 11: “And thus they did become rich. They did raise grain in abundance.... And they did multiply and wax exceedingly strong in the land. And they did raise many flocks and herds [agricultural and pastoral], yea many fallings. Behold their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth [they are trading their cloth here], of fine-twined linen and cloth of every kind, to clothe their nakedness.” You get these cultural notes all through the Book of Mormon.
227,228 Helaman 6:14-16 : “They did also have great joy and peace, yea, much preaching and many prophecies concerning that which was to come.” Well, everything is happy here, a good brotherhood, and all the rest of it. Then something happens in verse 15; things start to go sour again. What is going on here? Obviously, there is an underground, but what is it? The chief judge “Cezoram was murdered by an unknown hand as he sat upon the judgment-seat.” And his son was murdered also. The judge murdering goes right on. Well, as I said, there must be something going on here. The people began to grow exceedingly wicked all of a sudden, almost overnight. Why is that? Well, the next verse explains it again—how quickly we run into these things in a post-war boom or something like that. Notice the perils of peace.
228 Helaman 6:17 “For behold, the Lord had blessed them so long with the riches of the world that they had not been stirred up to anger, to wars, nor to bloodshed [this is how it happened]; therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches; yea, they began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another.” Why does it have to be that way? We notice it always does. That’s the way it works. That’s the only way you measure your wealth, to compare it with [the wealth of] someone else. “Therefore they began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get gain.”
228 Helaman 6:17 Anything to get gain, and notice that you’re right here on prime time in this verse 17. They rob and murder and plunder because of the four things Nephi talks about—the high living, the wealth, the display, the glitzy clubs, and the crime that goes right together with it. And the power, of course—power is the whole thing, and the luxurious living.
228 Helaman 67:19-21 Now it becomes systematized. The cooperative action is the most effective, we see here. There is a corporation formed that attracts members, and because of that they can do as they jolly well please, as we learn in verse 19. The crime ring is exposed—a mixed Mulekite, Nephite, Lamanite operation here. All of them were mixed in on it, as we learn in verse 9 as well. Verse 21: “Satan did stir up the hearts of the more part of the Nephites [most of the Nephites united with those robbers] ... and did enter into their covenants and their oaths [the whole nation seemed to become one big conspiracy here], that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, that they should not suffer for their murders, and their plunderings, and their stealings.” This is the other brotherhood. Notice they are entering into covenants. Recently, they were in another kind of covenant entirely.
228,229 The famous 125th section of the Book of the Dead lists forty-two basic crimes. Forty-two is a sacred number with the Egyptians, and you gel that very clearly in the book of Ether. We’ll see how forty-two figures all through the book of Ether. But forty-two is the number of crimes, just as it is the number of virtues. But that is far from a complete number, as King Benjamin tells us in his talk to the Nephites. Remember, he says, I cannot number the ways in which crime may be committed. I just have to tell you the few things you can do that are right. He actually says that he cannot enumerate all the ways that a person can sin. You can make up quite an impressive list, can’t you?
230 In the end there are degrees of crime, but there are no degrees of crime. There is a degree of offense with a musician. A mediocre musician is not better than a bad musician. A mediocre musician is a bad musician—or a mediocre dancer, artist, or actor [is a bad one]. It’s excruciating. Say, you have a guy who gives a violin recital, and he’s just a little bit off most of the time. Well, that’s horrifying. That gives you goose flesh and makes you want to scream. That’s just as bad as if he was completely off on every note. There are no degrees here. You distort it and it’s distorted, and that’s that. Little distortions can be the most deceptive and the most ruinous. A mediocre teacher, like myself, is a bad teacher; he is not just mediocre. If he is mediocre he is wasting the students’ time and his time and he’s bad. The good ones are—well, let me know when you find one.
230 The most violent crime, for example, and the most timid crime commit the same outrage. They rend and distort the structure of things; they tear everything apart. When I lose my temper and do something really violent to somebody, that’s breaking down the faith and trust that exist in society. But white collar crime is worse, because there you don’t at least have the courage to break into the bank and run a risk at night. In white collar crime you are deceiving friends who trust you. These are people who trust you, and you are robbing from them. That is far worse, I think, than knocking someone over the head. Not that we should practice either one. I’m not recommending it, but they are equally bad.
230 So, we live and move and have our being in a world of great and small crimes, and great and petty deceptions. But now the question the Book of Mormon brings up here, and this is an important one, is: Is there a center? Is there a nucleus? Is there a fountainhead? Is there a source? Is there a director to this operation? Is it a single operation that goes on
231 But is there any coordination? Is it part of one big operation? Is this run by Satan? Is there a Satan in charge of things here? Any operation, to be most effective, must be organized, coordinated, centralized, systematized. In other words it has to be managed. Now, here we have an example of this, and this is why you have these brotherhoods. We talked about the oaths and covenants to go with it. They are a vital and organic part of crime. You’ll always find these oaths and covenants because there has to be trust among criminals. To be more effective in your crime you must organize. As I have said before, one criminal can’t trust another unless he takes the most terrible oaths and must pay the most terrible penalty, so this is what happens.
232 The idea is that you have organized crime going on in a very early time. Along with that there is the Victory over Seth. I just happen to have a couple of pages in hieratic of the Salt Papyrus, 825A, which deals with the same thing in the beginning. This deals with the terrible times at the time of the Flood. It talks about how even the gods sat with their hands upon their heads mourning, and all the children of earth were in turmoil. It talks about the Flood and the terrible things that happened at that time because of the wickedness of men.
233 [Quoting from the Egyptian Shabako Stone] “Thou has committed crimes in the presence of God, and the mischief thou hast done has been reported to the most high God. And the Great Council has taken it under consideration. The secretary in heaven, the third member of the Godhead, has taken due note of it and has drawn up the list of indictments for the court. They are aware of what you have done; they bring these charges against you. Your ultimate condemnation will be the fire.”
233 The earth complains that it has been violated, as it does in the book of Moses. The world has rebelled; men are in a terrible state. Geb is Adam, our literal father. The principle of patriarchal succession is Geb. He organizes the human family. He is the first father on earth, Shu above but our first father, Geb, down here below. He addresses the Council of the Gods and asks why these things come forth before us. “Who is raising all this warfare among the children of men? The earth is in turmoil, the earth is in an uproar, completely disorganized because of them.”
233 Then [there are] the Sethians and the Cainites, of course, in the oldest books of Adam. A rich literature has come forth recently. After the children of Adam divided, the Sethians lived on the mountains. There were very few of them after the people had gone down into the plains and caroused, founded Babylon and become luxurious. And Nimrod had built the tower and all these things. Remember, the Book of Mormon will tell us all this. It goes back to the Tower.
234 There have always been these secret combinations and the two brotherhoods, each claiming to be the righteous one. The most famous perhaps were the Pythagoreans. How do you tell the difference? Each accuses the other of one evil. You’ll find from now on that there are large societies, usually suspected of being worldwide, of these brotherhoods, both good and evil ones. They are always accusing each other of just one crime, world domination. The Pythagoreans were very lofty thinkers. Their oaths and covenants, which came from Egypt, were secret They took sides unwisely in certain political things. Some popular uprisings burned them out and destroyed their order, but they were a great influence and they still are. They carried on in other orders after that. You have the Isiacs in early republican Rome, before the empire. They passed a law forbidding the cult of Isis to come from Egypt to practice in [Rome] because they thought it was a crime against the empire. They thought it was seeking world domination. They had an empire then, but they didn’t have an [emperor].
237 Now, what’s behind it all? We get the secret societies here. The Book of Mormon explains it to us. The best treatise you will find on this is Helaman 6 and what follows. In the first place there are no “-isms”; there are organizations. As Liddell Hart says, war is an individual affair. Religion and nationality are not basic. You can belong to anything you want. It’s not the party machine, the politburo or anything like that. It’s something else— personal ambition, etc.
237 Secondly, it must have a power base. It must have a market. As a way of robbery, piracy has been official. Then it was bootlegging and things like that. Today it’s drugs. It won’t be for always. It used to be pearls. It was cattle-stealing and then gambling, as in Vegas. You can build an empire on gambling. You can build an empire on drugs and all of these things. You can build an empire on prohibition of illicit things.
237,238 The third point is that the object has the broadest appeal. Those four things that both Nephis mention [1 Nephi 22:23; 3 Nephi 6:15] It is for money and for power; the one that holds the gun has the power. It is for popularity; they must have public support—they always do. And the lusts of the flesh—the glitzy clubs, the high-class dames, the Tony resorts and places like that. These all fit into the same setting that we are all so fond of today, as you know from your television.
238 The fourth point is that it must offer protection. The Book of Mormon goes right into this Gadianton stuff. It breaks it all down. You’ll find all these elements are there. You must offer protection.
238 The fifth is, it must seek an air of total respectability. The stretch limo, the overdressing and very expensive dressing, even piety. These people are good church members, like the Mafia—very pious family people, loyal to each other. They strive for an image of ultimate respectability. They have their own mystique. They are entirely independent of state.
238 This is the picture the Book of Mormon gives; it’s accurate and explicit enough to make its explanation of the whole thing quite creditable, as far as I am concerned. So isn’t it funny that three years ago we would have thought this was a waste of time? Maybe it’s a waste of time now, but that crime should take such a [prominent place]. First it’s war and then it’s crime in the Book of Mormon. These things that are emphasized have made the Book of Mormon unpopular. They have made it avoided. We didn’t want to read about these unpleasant things, but it keeps rubbing our noses into them. This is what it is talking about now. You read these chapters on crime and it makes you sick. So that is a great promise isn’t it?