Polygamy and Overlap: How James Dee Harmston Ties in with the LDS Church of Satan

Overlapping Heresies and Apostasies

Utah’s long and tortured history with polygamy has produced something of a conundrum for the current LDS leadership: publicly, the LDS condemns polygamy and maintains that it repudiated polygamy in the 1890 Manifesto issued by Wilford Woodruff. Woodruff’s proclamation did not dissolve existing plural marriages, and the LDS continued to perform plural marriage in the U.S., but the majority of its plural marriages were solemnised in Mexico and Canada. By 1904, President Joseph F. Smith issued a Second Manifesto, stating that polygamists would be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Smith’s actions were prompted by Congress’s hearings on Utah’s Senator-elect and LDS Apostle Reed Smoot.

Congress had previously refused to seat B.H. Roberts in the House of Representatives on the grounds that he was a polygamist, and the opponents of the LDS and its polygamist past were determined to deny Reed Smoot entry into the U.S. Senate. For the LDS, an institution not even a century old, the conflict was a painful flashpoint. In order to obtain continued legitimacy and entry into the mainstream of American life, the LDS had been forced to change its doctrine. Previously, polygamy was held to be essential for exaltation and entry into the Celestial Kingdom. The 1890 Manifesto repudiated this, and the 1904 Manifesto affirmed the LDS’s opposition to plural marriage.

The change in doctrine was necessary for Utah’s statehood, and for the practical survival of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 disincorporated the Church, making it possible for the federal government to seize the property of the Church if that property was valued at over $50,000. The U.S. Attorney for the Utah Territory began seizing stock and cash from Church accounts, and would likely have continued to seize real property in the form of meetinghouses and temples. Woodruff was facing the prospect of annihilation for the Latter Day Saints.

Publicly, he did what he had to do to stave off annihilation. Privately, Woodruff continued to tolerate the actions of his Apostles, who privately engaged in polygamy. Abraham H. Cannon, Matthias F. Cowley, Marriner W. Merrill, John Henry Smith, Joseph F. Smith, John W. Taylor, Abraham Owen Woodruff, and Brigham Young, Jr. all had multiple children by plural wives after the the 1890 Manifesto. George Teasdale had a child born to a plural wife in Mexico in 1898, and he had married that wife after the Manifesto. Lorenzo Snow’s wife Minnie Jensen had their child in Canada in 1896. From 1890 to 1905, eleven General Authorities had 27 wives who bore 76 children.

The LDS did not initially include the Manifestos in the Doctrine and Covenants, a fact notable to Latter Day Saints. Joseph Fielding Smith clearly articulated his position to Heber J. Grant in August 1891, then he denied that the 1890 Manifesto was a revelation from God abolishing plural marriage. Smith would take up the cause of polygamy and establish a means of perpetuating its practice, referring Latter Day Saints to Alexander F. MacDonald in Mexico and Matthias F. Cowley in the United States for polygamous sealings. In time, Smith began using Apostle Owen Woodruff to refer Latter Day Saints to MacDonald in Mexico, in direct violation of President Lorenzo Snow’s prohibition of further polygamist sealings.

This was extraordinary, because Smith was one of President Snow’s counselors within the First Presidency. While he was a counselor to Snow, Joseph F. Smith was blatantly undermining Snow’s position as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Church. The fight over polygamy would result in John W. Taylor’s excommunication on March 28, 1911. Taylor refused to accept the Second Manifesto, and his excommunication was not without opposition within the LDS. On May 21, 1965, he would be rebaptized by proxy despite the fact that he never repented for his embrace of polygamy.

John W. Taylor’s father, the third president of the LDS, allegedly received revelation from Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith in 1886 at the home of Lorin C. Woolley, while on the run from federal marshals seeking to arrest him for polygamy. According to Woolley, Christ and Smith had instructed John Taylor that polygamy had not been repealed by God. According to the revelation, God did not change, and neither did his laws and covenants, and in order to enter into the Celestial Kingdom, one must obey the commandment of plural marriage.

According to Lorin Woolley, Taylor then set apart five apostles, ordering those men to carry on with plural marriage regardless of the Church’s official policies. Those men were John W. Woolley, Lorin C. Woolley, George Q. Cannon, Samuel Bateman, and Charles Henry Wilcken. Taylor’s son John W. would quietly keep this revelation to himself from 1887-when he claimed to have discovered the written revelation in his father’s papers after the death of John Taylor-until 1911, when Taylor was facing excommunication over the issue of his continued polygamy. There are apocryphal quotes attributed to Quorum of the Twelve member Melvin C. Ballard and director of the Institute of Religion Reed Durham which affirm that the letter was in John Taylor’s handwriting.

The document, valid or not, gave rise to the fundamentalist LDS movement through Lorin C. Woolley, who claimed to have been a member of a secret council established on September 27, 1886. Woolley said that he had been ordained to the office of High Priest Apostle, and then elevated to membership in “The Council of the Seven Friends.” Woolley also claimed that the Council of the the Seven Friends existed outside of the Church and above the Church, and superseded the First Presidency of the Church.

Woolley’s claims, valid or not, gave rise to virtually every early polygamist group, from the Allreds to the FLDS.

No one corroborated Woolley’s claims because he conveniently waited until after his cohorts John W. Woolley, George Q. Cannon, Samuel Bateman, and Charles Henry Wilcken were all deceased. It was a convenient genesis to Mormon fundamentalist movement, one which gave rise to the actual organizations that would operate side by side with the LDS in Utah, Montana, Arizona, and Colorado.

The claims of the polygamists are belied by the Book of Mormon, which unequivocally condemns polygamy and denies a historical basis for its legitimacy in the practice of Old Testament patriarchs and figures like Solomon and David. In Jacob 2:24, the Lord says that David and Solomon’s plural marriages and their concubines were an abomination. In verse 26, God says that he “will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old,” and he goes on in verse 27 to command that no man shall have more than one wife, with concubines forbidden.

The Lord specifically says that He has heard the cries of his daughters, the wives of polygamist men, and He recognises that their cries are connected to the wickedness and abomination of their husbands. The analogy to Solomon and David carries over into the present day, because today’s polygamists base their legitimacy on the alleged polygamy of Joseph Smith and the open polygamy of Brigham Young. As Heavenly Father said in Jacob, it doesn’t matter what those of old have done. Nothing can overcome the strict prohibition of God where plural marriages and other forms of sexual immorality are concerned. If Joseph Smith entered into a polygamist union, he did so in defiance of God and in violation of the clear prohibition contained within the Book of Mormon. He committed whoredom, which is an abomination before God.

These facts alone are enough to condemn Brigham Young as an apostate. Heavenly Father did not suddenly contradict himself. No further revelation on the matter of marriage was required beyond that which was already spelled out within the Book of Mormon. In the concluding verse of Jacob, Heavenly Father is clear:

Behold, ye have done ^agreater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the ^bstrictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.

Today, the children of the LDS Church of Satan have overwhelmingly left the Church, and if they remain, they clearly do not keep their covenants. Craig and Suki Christensen have a daughter who is married to a woman. Joe and Lee Bennion’s daughter Zina is a tarot reader who promotes witchcraft. Their daughter Adah lives with her boyfriend, unmarried. All four of David Lee Hamblin’s daughters with his ex-wife Roselle Stevenson have left the LDS, as have many other children within the families of the CS.

The overwhelming majority of the named LDS Church of Satan members who remain active within the Church publicly promote same sex marriage, abortion, and other policies which contradict clear scriptural doctrine. For these individuals, revelation serves the same purpose it served for the polygamists: to legitimate whatever it is that they wish to see normalized or accepted. There is no need to measure purported revelation against Scripture, no need to “test all things, hold[ing] fast that which is good.”¹

For the polygamists as well as many LDS members, revelation from the First Presidency (either in Salt Lake or within their breakaway sects) is sufficient to override Scripture, which is held to be the Word of God. There is no need to reconcile current revelation with Scripture, because the god worshipped by polygamists and liberals within the LDS is similar in one respect: He evolves with the preferences of those who profess Him, even if those preferences lead to lives which flagrantly contradict what He has previously commanded in the Book of Mormon or the Bible.

The Make it Up As You Go Along ethos of the LDS Church of Satan groups led by Hamblin and Bennion in Provo and Spring City were a perfect foil for the polygamist groups run by Tom Green and James Harmston. James D. Harmston and his wife Elaine professed no line of sealing or priesthood authority; instead, they had received an entirely new dispensation from God. In the Eighties, Harmston held Bible studies within his residence where he employed the True Order of Prayer, or Temple Prayer.

The True Order of Prayer According to James D. Harmston

The difference between Harmston’s prayer and that of the mainline LDS was simple enough: Harmston believed he could commune with the dead through the True Order of Prayer, and so could his followers. Those followers could seek personal revelation through the True Order of Prayer in order to pierce the veil and speak to the dead. Harmston’s disciple John Pratt explained his position:

The notion has been totally lost to the church that the True Order of Prayer is for our benefit in communing with our dead, our Father in Heaven, and to pierce the veil and receive personal revelation. It is simply ritual now in the temple. Members are never taught that this might be a process that they could use themselves to obtain personal revelation. Now, as I review the Journal of Discourses, church history and other early personal histories, it is evident that there are many, many references to the use of the True Order of Prayer in the early church days for the personal benefit and blessings of the church members.²

John Pratt didn’t simply base his beliefs on his personal revelation. He cited Parley P. Pratt’s discourse Spiritual Communication as the foundation for his take on the True Order of Prayer and its purpose:

If, on the other hand, we deny the philosophy or the fact of spiritual communication between the living and those who have died, we deny the very fountain from which emanated the great truths or principles which were the foundation of both the ancient and modern Church. * * * Again--How do the Saints expect the necessary information by which to complete the ministrations for the salvation and exaltation of their friends who have died? By one holding the keys of the oracles of God, as a medium through which the living can hear from the dead. Shall <we>, then, deny the principle, the philosophy, the fact of communication between worlds? No! verily no! * * * And moreover, the Lord has appointed a Holy Priesthood on the earth, and in the heavens, and also in the world of spirits; which Priesthood is after the order or similitude of His Son; and has committed to this Priesthood the keys of holy and divine revelation, and of correspondence, or communication between angels, spirits, and men, and between all the holy departments, principalities, and powers of His government in all worlds. (PPP, JD 2:43)

This flies in the face of the Bible’s clear prohibitions against necromancy, or communication with the dead.

There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. -Deuteronomy 18:10-12

“Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:31

“If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.” Leviticus 20:6

“Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ² And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ³ For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ⁴ And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ And he burned his son as an offering^[a] and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.” -2 Kings 21:1-6.

James D. Harmston and his followers sought to use the True Order of Prayer not to receive revelation from God, but instead from the spirits of the dead. There was no effort to test the spirits that Harmston and his group communed with, as outlined in John 4:1. The spirits who communicate with us and contradict Scripture are of the Devil. The spirits that James Harmston and his group communed with instructed him that polygamy was valid, that Adam and God were one and the same, and that he had received a dispensation that permitted him to prophesy. Of course, James D. Harmston’s prophecies failed.

Harmston predicted impending doom in April 1999, and prophesied that Christ would return on March 25, 2000. This did not occur.

²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or^[a] who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. -Deuteronomy 18:20-22.

Harmston was a false prophet, and in Old Testament times he would have been executed.

James Harmston and the LDS Church of Satan held a mutual interest in piercing the veil to commune with the dead. Rachel Hamblin’s second victim statement details Harmston’s attendance at a CS ceremony in Spring City, where the CS members and Harmston and one of his senior wives went outside and performed a Resurrection or Triumph Ceremony. Rachel was forced to lie on the ground while Joe Bennion shoveled dirt over her to signify burial, as one of the other members used LDS temple name cards. Rachel was a proxy for the name on the card, as the CS used their ordinances to recruit the dead and raise them to Lucifer’s army.

If Rachel Hamblin is telling the truth, then James Harmston was present during CS ceremonies in which the group’s dedication to Lucifer was explicitly spelled out. In a Rebirth ceremony, Harmston supplied the boy who would later be sacrificed. Harmston was present during the boy’s sacrifice.³

The connection between Harmston’s True Order of Prayer and the CS’s “prayer circle” is explicitly spelled out by Katie Hamblin.

Redacted believed they could connect to spirits through objects, but also by knowing a spirit's names. They often called out names of different people that they said were spirits to come to their rituals. They felt even someone's name would give them a connection/power to call that person to come to them, but an object would allow them to "enslave them". They would spend a lot of time in cemeteries. Some of those cemeteries include the Spring City cemetery, the Fairview cemetery, the old Provo cemetery, the Manti cemetery, and other old pioneer cemeteries. They would do what they call a "cemetery sweep" as they "looked for spirits." They also performed ceremonies where they would stand in a circle and pray to find spirits and to be possessed with them as well—what they called a "prayer circle." They would make "deals" with these spirits, as discussed in other areas in this section for names and information. This was part of a larger purpose of their church, which is to gather all the spirits they can to be enslaved to them now and forever in Satan's kingdom. This is called "the gathering."⁴

Eliza Hamblin also details the CS’s overlap with Harmston in cemetery ordinances. Eliza claimed that James Harmston was the first to “house” a spirit at the cemetery, and he chose a six year old girl to rape while he was possessed. The girl was raped by other men within the group, and then James Harmston raped Eliza Hamblin as well.⁵

The heresies of men like Brigham Young and Parley P. Pratt paid dividends in later time, because men like David Lee Hamblin and James Harmston used those heresies as a doctrinal basis for their alleged criminal acts, including murder and child rape. The foundation of earlier apostasy provided a base for later innovators like Harmston and Hamblin to build upon.

The inevitable result of a false doctrine, of personal, private revelation unmeasured against the standards of Scripture, is abuse. It is the establishment of cults of personality around a man or certain men, who are believed to be imbued with the authority to do whatever they please. Their private revelations can be used to supplement and even supersede Scripture in the present day, as new revelations from a changing god.

James Harmston engaged in child rape and child sacrifice according to the Hamblin children. He used coercion on his younger wives, threatening them with hell fire and brimstone. The women he married lacked the financial means or ability to break away from his group. As such, Harmston, like many other polygamists, held the keys to both temporal and eternal results for the women he married.

Conclusion

There are no coincidences. The True Order of Prayer, or the prayer circle, was used by both Harmston’s group and the LDS Church of Satan for the same purpose: to commune with the dead, to invoke familiar spirits. There is no basis in Scripture, either in the Bible or the Book of Mormon for the perversion of the prayer circles along these lines. While religious freedom is assured, the authorities would be wise to realize why apostates innovate along these lines: to find justification for their criminal activities, such as child rape, adult rape, trafficking, and murder. Men like David Lee Hamblin and James Harmston seek to become a law unto themselves, and their actions fit within the definitions of various mental illnesses.

David Lee Hamblin was accused on multiple occasions of child rape, and a court in his divorce found that he had raped his two eldest daughters. He was on tape confessing to child rape in his 2012 to 2014 case. He was not convicted either time, and he now stands charged with two separate rapes against two other child victims. He lost his license as a therapist for sexually abusing his patients in the Nineties. Despite this, the authorities failed to protect the public. IRA is aware of Hamblin’s continued activity in healing circles as recently as a year ago, and children were allegedly present in those circles.

The failure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to unequivocally condemn polygamy in the same terms as the Book of Mormon-as whoredom and an abomination before God-has led to unimaginable evil. Brigham Young did not receive revelation from the same God who inspired the Book of Mormon, nor did Joseph Smith. The inspiration for polygamy originated elsewhere, and it has served as the foundation for incalculable evil that reaches into the present day in the form of David Lee Hamblin and his fellow members of the LDS Church of Satan. It is not a matter of private religious conscience or conviction: polygamists rape children and commit incest, and the authorities within the LDS and the civil government have every reason to come against polygamy with force.

The failure to act in a manner consistent with Scripture and obvious moral decency is directly responsible for the proliferation of men like James Harmston and David Lee Hamblin, who have used the cover of religious freedom to perpetrate crimes against women and children. The failure to reckon with its own tortured history on the issue of polygamy has rendered the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints an accessory after the fact, if not before the fact.

The Book of Mormon says what it says, and the Church should clarify its position on the Book of Mormon’s authority: does the Book of Mormon take precedence or do the falsifications of Brigham Young supersede the Book of Mormon? Even if the Church has firsthand source material in its position to prove that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, it would not matter: Joseph Smith was not, and will never be qualified, to contradict revelation in the Book of Mormon or the Bible. If he did, he was apostate.

False doctrine should be called out as such without hesitation.

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:21

2. John W. Pratt’s Letter to His Former LDS High Council, February 14, 1998, available at: https://mormonperfection.com/TLC/GospelDiscussionsFolder/JohnPratt/PrattLetterHighCouncil.htm

3. VS 2, pp. 31-33.

4. VS 3, pp. 117-118.

5. VS 4, pp. 59-60.