March 13, 2004

Dear Nate,

I think you misunderstand my intent if you believe that I "reject the idea of receiving a personal spiritual witness."  In fact, a personal witness is paramount with me, to the extent that personal revelation or inspiration to me out-weighs all of that received by every Catholic, Protestant, Mormon and Fundamentalist combined.  This is so because I am accountable for my beliefs and consequent actions and not the beliefs of others.  For this reason, I must discount the divergent personal testimonies of the 'Short Crickers,' 'Centennial Parkers,' Kingstonites, Allredites and etc., though they may each number in the "thousands."

You struck upon the crux of the matter, I believe, when you suggest that the Hinckleyites "made an assumption"; assuming Hinckley is a prophet because one has a testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration.  Hinckley is as much a prophet as Ciaphas was High Priest.

By way of personal confession, this is what I did when I first approached the Lord concerning the 1886 Revelation and the 1890 Manifesto.  I neglected to "study it out in [my] mind."  I didn't properly research the '86 revelation and the Woolley story and "assumed" that they were connected; "assuming" that if the '86 revelation were true, the Woolley story must be true as well.  The result of my prayer was that I received the strongest witness that I had, to that time, yet received, that the '86 revelation was true and that the Manifesto was not God's will.  The Fundamentalist notion that the Manifesto was God's will to 'save the church' is just another deception in the Fundamentalist house of cards.  I was led to research the Woolley story because my attempts to explain the alleged chain of keys to others led to a "stupor of thought" and because, while writing my first flyer concerning interviews that my friends and I'd had with Mark E. Peterson and Henry Richards concerning the '86 revelation and plural marriage, I was constrained not to mention anything about the Woolley story.  I have in my possession, possibly the last letter ever written by Rulon Allred, wherein he requests 30 copies of my flyer, "An Appeal to President Kimball, Interviews with Henry Richards and Mark E. Peterson."  Allred was murdered before I received or could respond to his request; I had previously left him a copy.  I found out why Woolley's story was a "stupor of thought" as I read beyond Allred's "A Leaf in Review," Kraut's books, Short's "Questions on Plural Marriage," Bishop's "Keys of the Priesthood Illustrated" and various fundamentalist tracts and books and read J. Max Anderson's pirated manuscript, in those years before "the web," "Seek and Ye Shall Find."

What I found was that the best thing anyone could possibly say about the Woolley story is that it is moot.  Woolleyites always want to change the topic of discussion from Joseph Smith's resurrected state to the famous eight-hour meeting, for which they claim there are witnesses aplenty.  Witnesses to what?  John Taylor levitating and glowing?  You mentioned Daniel R. Bateman's testimony.  Aside from second-hand claims of what Bateman supposedly said, Bateman himself (purportedly) signed a statement (p.123, Keys of the Priesthood Illustrated, Bishop) wherein he states he didn't see the setting apart of five men (all dead by the time of his statement, except L.  Woolley)… "but have on different occasions heard the details of the same related by both Lorin C. Woolley and John W. Woolley, and from all circumstances with which I am familiar, I firmly believe the testimony of these two brethren to be true."

Let us suppose we are in a trial and a man is escorted into the courtroom and testifies as follows: "I am informed that John Doe has testified before me in this trial, I don't know what he said exactly (upon this occasion), but I know him to have been a good chap over the years and corroborate whatever he says."  Brother Doe is then escorted out of the courtroom.  Of what value is his testimony?  Bateman says nothing of the resurrected Joseph Smith or of John Taylor glowing and floating up off the floor.  What about George Earl ("Keys", p. 167) who was identified as being present at the location during the time of the supposed eight-hour meeting.  He signed a statement to the effect that scores of men over many years attempted to persuade him to sign a statement corroborating the purported events (Taylor in the air, "heavenly messengers," etc.) which events "Never did I see or hear any such things…it could not have escaped my observation had it occurred…"  Woolley Fundamentalists want us to understand Earl's words through the "Woolleyworld" fog of "doublethink."  Earl really, secretly wants us to believe what he did not actually say.

J. Max Anderson (in his pirated manuscript, if not his web site, I haven't visited it yet) shreds "Truth Magazine."  One apostle is claimed by Woolley to perform an ordination in Utah on a date in history when he was actually in the Sandwich Islands, etc. (maybe Lorin taught him how to fly, those years before the Wright Brothers).  All of Woolley's claims hinge on Joseph's supposed, resurrected state.  If that is a lie, then all the rest is as well.  Without more than one witness to the resurrected Joseph Smith, as stated, and lacking an empty grave, we are left with Woolley's failed prophecy and his false doctrines on priesthood conferral which do not stand up to documentation from John Taylor's correspondence nor ordination recorded in the Kirtland Revelation Book, etc.  At best, Woolley's story is moot; fanciful stories lacking corroboration, the "truth" however, is much more sinister and damning than merely being "moot."

As far as my "sweeping assumptions like this do not give you credit as someone who understands the subjects he is…trying to critique", i.e., associating 'Yucatan Man' with the Allreds instead of "Independents" like Darter, Kunz and the Bishops.  Perhaps, Nate, it is you who are uninformed owing to the possibility that 'Yucatan Man' is an embarrassment to the Allreds that they would just as soon have everyone forget.  Perhaps the Allreds never told you about Rulon Allred's failed expedition to the Yucatan to find the White Nephite whom Lorin had flown to on the breeze to, confer the keys of the kingdom.  After all, didn't Musser and Rulon have those keys, what did they hope to gain, did they doubt their own "apostolic" authority?  I refer you to page 326 of "Keys…Illustrated" by the Bishop brothers in which Musser, Barlow and Rulon Allred and others attempted to drive to the Yucatan to find the man with the keys (button, button, who's got the button?).  The expedition was aborted owing to a car wreck and the death of one of their numbers.  The day I handed out flyers at your church in Bluffdale, I brought the subject up with a couple of your brethren who talked with me after the meeting and they corroborated the trip, its purpose, the car accident and the death of one of the expedition.  While you call the story of 'Yucatan Man' "dubious," I wholeheartedly agree, yet Rulon Allred and Musser put enough credence in the tale to go on a quest to find the 'mystery man' of "White City," even costing one of the crusaders his life.  Do you suppose the real purpose of the 'quest' was to not find 'Yucatan Man' so as to prove that he did not exist, in the flawless logic of "Woolleyworld" 'doublethink'?  I think not.  I think Musser and Allred believed sincerely in the possibility of 'Yucatan Man,' much the same as my grandchildren believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.  One of the men in your congregation, who corroborated the trip and the unfortunate death, is one of Rulon's own sons.  Was he 'pulling my leg,' Nate, or are the Allreds treating you like a mushroom (feeding you ---- ---- and keeping you in the dark?)  So who is it, Nate, who lacks "understand[ing]" on these "subjects."  I shall confess to not being an expert on Woolley's tale if you wish; it has been many years since I gave serious study to the yarn and I will 'see' your "dubious" and 'raise you' one to boot.  Not only is the 'Yucatan Man' story "dubious," but the entire Woolley fable is precisely, perfectly and wonderously "dubious."  Is it not disconcerting to you, Nate, that the predecessor and brother of Owen Allred, "Apostle" and keeper of the keys of the kingdom, was off on a 'fool's errand' and 'wild goose chase' to the Yucatan to find what this predecessor supposedly already possessed?

If Rulon Allred doubted that he possessed the apostleship and keys of the kingdom, Nate, why shouldn't you?  If Rulon was disinclined to build his church and demand tithing, why should you be inclined to join and pay tithes to his successor?  Lorin Woolley's tales are shot full of holes, inconsistencies and unsubstantiated claims and uncorroborated rumors.  J. Max Anderson has written that book already.

Shannon Tracy's book has nothing to do with "evolutionary anthropology."  Tracy was attempting to generate an accurate 3-D bust of what Joseph and Hyrum looked like based on some of the same forensic science used to visually identify human remains.  Before the days of "virtual space" (computer-generated imagery), they would take a skull and add clay to it and put in plastic eye-balls.  This reconstruction was guided by anthropology; tissue and muscle thickness; skull shape could suggest race and therefore possible skin and eye color, etc.  Some amazing results have been achieved and some remains have been identified.  These techniques are still being used successfully.

The skull is a foundation for facial appearance:  a skull with a large protruding forehead simply coul not have belonged to Joseph Smith, no voodoo, no junk science, just common sense.  Fortunately, we know in 3-D space, the shape of Joseph's face, because a death mask was made.  One of the skulls in the Smith family cemetery was an exact photographic match, in profile, to the unusually shaped skull of Joseph as permanently frozen in the death mask.  The skull itself was not crushed, and did not require piecing back together (like "evolutionary anthropologists" do) so the forehead slope and nose bridge location are precisely as they were in life.

As to your response concerning the "unknown grave," if the Smith family did not believe that the remains of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma were actually found in the family plot, why did they so mark them upon their re-interring after 1928?

You conclude that the Smith family was "lying" to write a hymn that implied that they did not know where the brothers were buried ("The Unknown Grave") when, in fact, they did.  Now you are starting to catch on.  I would not call it a lie, but a deliberate, calculated deception, not motivated by avarice, lust or quest for power or empire like those lies told by Lorin Woolley and his proteges.  The Smith family simply didn't care to pinpoint the exact location of the earthly remains of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma to the world because they didn't want those remains desecrated.  End of story.  Was it a "lie" when the Smith family and the church conducted a funeral for two boxes of sand bags while the Smith Brothers secretly lie elsewhere?

It certainly was a ruse and a deception but "lie" implies self-serving treachery.  I would not class it a "lie."  Was it a "lie" to build a brick crypt and cover it with a stone slab and mark it as the final resting place of Emma when she, in fact, lay just feet away?

As for David Smith "lying" in his hymn, I would ask: had the "bee-house" been torn down and the stone foundation overgrown with sod when he wrote his song?  He might have a rough idea where the shed used to be, had it been torn down by then, but without a headstone to pinpoint the spot, six feet down and even just a couple of feet to one side is a lot of fruitless digging; perhaps to David, not knowing the grave's exact location made it "unknown"; besides, a man who would bury his mother a few feet away from an empty stone-and-brick crypt that ostensibly held her remains, would certainly not be above perpetuating a family ruse in song - all for a good cause of course.  Don't forget Alvin and the Smith family's collective memory.  Better to have to employ a ruse, than to dig up and disturb the remains of a loved one.  'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'

Nate, you will have to forgive my utter contempt for Lorin Woolley, et. Al., I approach the subject with a mixed sense (as the poet has said) of "revulsion and mirth" and treat it as a pernicious and diabolical fairy tale, because that is precisely what it is, a mousetrap for human flesh and souls.  Had you one credible scrap of historical or eye-witness, first-person evidence beyond Lorin Woolley, your "evidence" would merely be an unsuccessful assault on the revealed word of God as I have quoted from Isaiah and the Book of Mormon, for if your one little Allred "table" was not, in fact, "full of vomit," then you have overthrown Isaiah; and likewise, if your leader and his council are not "hypocrites" and "evil-doers" who utter sheer "folly," then you have overthrown Isaiah.  If the Allreds have not "all gone astray" and are not "taught by the precepts of men" then you have overthrown the Book of Mormon - congratulations if you can circumvent the word of God, for no one has, as yet, been able to.

While the power of priestcraft may be a temporary, exhilarating intoxicant, I should not want to be an apostle in name only, or be found claiming keys that I did not possess when the days comes when those who are not apostles are made known, and the day when the false prophets and idols of flesh are "cut off" out of the land.  I suggest that you do what you imply the Hinckleyites should do, sort your inspiration from your "assumptions," for the holy ghost will affirm plural marriage and the 1886 revelation, yet your path has taken you away from the revealed word of God to his prophets (scripture), something that the holy ghost would not lead you to do.

Have pity on me, Nate, and don't respond.  I have a commentary on Isaiah that needs finishing.

God save those of us who will be saved from priestcraft and abomination and whoredom and false doctrines.

Sincerely,

Mike Bingham

P.S.  Sorry I had to be the one to tell you, after your long journey to Emerald City in the land of Oz, that the old man behind the curtain pulling the levers (the wizard, the key-master) had, himself, been in search of a "dubious" wizard of his own, not exactly a confidence-builder in the great and powerful Rulon of Oz (Button, button, who's got the button?).  The abortive Yucatan quest shows that ---- ---- can kill you, especially when injested in sufficient quantities.

Nate, if you want to help that forky-tongued, furry, old, flying monkey, Lorin Woolley, just don't believe his lies.  To do so is just to heap more coals on his head as he roasts in hell for all the heartache and destruction his tall-tales have spun.