One of my readers brought the autobiography of Helen Mar Kimball to my attention, and highlighted a particularly odd passage:
"her house (Vilate Kimball) was the place appointed by the voice of the Spirit to hold the fast meeting, and the great blessing to be gained thereby was the administration of an angel or angels. I had a promise that day that I should be healed by the power of God. Up to this time I had remained feeble and unable to sit up but little, or to walk to a neighbor’s without having to lie down, and this I desired more than anything else of a temporal nature. In obedience to that spirit Mother Whitney, her daughter, Sarah Ann, Sisters Louisa Pitkin, Presendia Buel, Sarah Lawrence, Frances Swan, Harriet Sanders, Persis Young and two or three others who were there, all being my father’s wives but Sister Persis and Mother Whitney, met the next morning without eating or drinking. But no sooner had we begun to offer up our united prayers than the devil commenced his operations on the three little ones that were there, mother’s Brigham and her little babe, and Sarah Ann’s son, who was born on the journey from Nauvoo. It would be one and then the other. The eldest was playing in the room adjoining, and without any known cause, he commenced screaming; floundering and going into the most frightful contortions, which obliged us to stop and administer to him and rebuke that spirit in the name of Jesus, when the child quieted down and went to sleep. We had no sooner begun again to seek in prayer for the promised blessing, than we were again interrupted by my mother’s babe screaming, and it had lain sleeping peacefully till then. He was operated upon in a similar manner to the other, so we were under the necessity of again stopping to administer to him, when he was immediately relieved, and went to sleep. But just as soon as we commenced again to struggle for the blessing that had been promised, the third one was seized, and this continued through the day, and every time the evil spirits were rebuked by the power of the priesthood, which had been conferred upon us in the house of God in connection with our husbands. This only stimulated us to persevere, and that wrestle continued between the two powers, each seeking the supremacy, till finally we became satisfied that we would have to part with one of those little ones before we could obtain the coveted blessing. Therefore, when the day was nearly spent, and we had witnessed the workings of the two powers—one just in proportion to the other—the mothers concluded to call Bishop Whitney and relate this day’s experience and leave the decision with him, whether or not we had been directed by the right spirit. We broke our fast, and the bishop came about dusk and spent the best portion of the night in answering questions and explaining doctrines and things which the sisters had never before understood. He had previously expressed some fears that the sisters might be out of the way, seeing them meet together so often, but he changed his mind, for he was filled with the Holy Spirit the moment he entered the house. His mind was clear and like a fountain, and we only had to ask and receive, for our faith was such that it would take no denial. He told us that we were nearer obtaining what we had sought for, and the Lord was nearer than we had any idea of, and that our desires would have been realized had we given up one of those children. He said it was only through similar struggles that any great manifestations from on high were ever obtained. There were things that he uttered that night that he did not know of himself, but by the Spirit some choice truths were revealed through him, and they were of a most consoling nature to women, particularly to those who were making a willing sacrifice in helping their husbands to accomplish the great and mighty purposes which the Lord had commanded them to do, and they were promised that eventually all that were true and faithful would enjoy all that their hearts desired, or could conceive of; their trials and sufferings here would be swallowed up in the glory they had attained to through obedience, and they would be enthroned and reign as queens in the presence of God, eternities without end." - Women’s Exponent, vol. 14, no. 14, 15 December 1885, p. 105-6.
The patterns outlined in this passage closely parallel the ongoing struggles within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with regards to apostate groups such as the LDS Church of Satan, James Dee Harmston’s polygamist sect, and others:
-first, the groups meet in private residences, and seek private revelations centered around supernatural experiences;
-second, the groups characterize the power of Heavenly Father, Christ, and the Devil as equal, which is clearly blasphemous as seen in Mark 3:11, when the unclean spirits fell down before Christ and acknowledged him as the Son of God;
-third, the groups believe in exchange rather than grace for a desired result or outcome;
-finally, the groups believe in exchanges with spiritual entities that reach extremes well beyond scriptural limits, up to and including child sacrifice. This is explicitly cited in the Old Testament as grounds for God’s wrath against Israel for sacrificing their children to foreign gods such as Molech.1
At most, Heavenly Father tested Abraham’s faith with regards to Isaac, but He does not require the sacrifice of children in exchange for healing. Hebrews 1 makes it clear that Christ is the express image of Heavenly Father (v. 3); superior to the angels, with a more excellent name than the angels via His inheritance; and qualitatively different than the angels.
God did not say to the angels that they were His begotten Son, but He did command the angels of God to worship Christ. God did not say to the angels that they should sit at His right hand until He made their enemies His footstool. Instead, angels are characterized as ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation.
The Devil was an angel before his fall, and therefore he is qualitatively the lesser of Jesus Christ. There is no reality in which the power of Heavenly Father and Christ would be “just in proportion to the other” or the Devil. Revelation must be measured against the Scriptures, and what occurred during the events recounted in the excerpt from Helen Mar Kimball’s autobiography clearly evince that the source of the purported spiritual revelation were not of God. Instead, they were of the Adversary.
The reservations of Bishop Whitney with regards to the sisters meeting together often and potentially “being out of the way” are almost exactly the issue that the Church struggled with in the 20th century with regards to the True Order of Prayer in home ordinances under men such as James Dee Harmston. This conflict continues in the present day with any number of breakaway groups who develop private interpretations that supersede and even directly contradict Scripture, nearly all of which are rooted in supernatural revelations experienced by one individual who exports his or her experience to a wider group.
While Helen Mar Kimball and her sisters attributed their experience to God, the LDS Church of Satan rightfully recognized the origins of their supernatural experiences and revelations as having their genesis with Satan. They embraced those experiences and the Devil himself without reservation, as David Lee Hamblin’s daughters allege in their Victims Statements. While the Hamblin family and its various branches came to embrace satanic power over time, a wider problem within the LDS is the reality that seemingly orthodox members allow their overwhelming spiritual experiences to go unmeasured against Scripture and sound doctrine rooted in Scripture. They know, because they feel. Their feelings are so powerful, so authentically emotional, that the experience trumps prior revelation in the Word of God, superseding and supplanting that Word.
The Body of Christ is therefore fragmented into dozens if not hundreds of splinters, some of which depart the Church and others who stay within the Church and operate surreptitiously to bring the Church closer to their unique apostasies. The crisis of the Church is that many members lack the grounding in Scripture that would qualify them to exercise discernment when they encounter experiences such as those outlined by Helen Mar Kimball, which is why they are susceptible to the ministrations of men like James Dee Harmston and David Lee Hamblin, as well as others like James Warren Mooney. A sizeable percentage of Latter Day Saints never progress in their maturation to move beyond the milk to strong meat described in Hebrews 5:12 and 6:1-2.
The resulting vacuum enables the Devil and his earthly ministers to lead Saints astray, to groups like Mooney’s Native American church, where they seek spiritual healing and revelation through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs. The experiences they have are real, but they are from the Adversary. Scripture and sound doctrine rooted in Scripture, doctrine that corroborates Scripture rather than contradicting God’s revelation in Scripture, is the measuring stick by which such experiences are to be measured. We are commanded as Saints and as Christians to abstain from intoxicating agents, to adhere to the Restored Gospel, and to seek healing through Heavenly Father instead of apostates and their alternatives to the truth.
Apostates can deliver an experience, but they inevitably betray their true inspiration and motivation with a descent into abusive, exploitative, and criminal conduct. David Lee Hamblin raped his own daughters, and allegedly raped other children and adults as well. He facilitated the rapes of his own children by other men and women within his network, and this allegedly extended to James Warren Mooney, James Dee Harmston, David Leavitt, James Arrington, and Joe Bennion, among many others. All of this was done to gain access to power, spiritual and temporal.
The Hamblin Victims Statements make it clear that the LDS Church of Satan’s view of the relationship between Satan and Christ is exactly in line with Helen Mar Kimball’s perception: two powers, one just in proportion to the other. The CS believed that Satan would ultimately prevail as the rightful heir to the throne of Jehovah, but they held a dualistic view of good and evil completely unmoored from Scripture whereby Satan and Jesus Christ were roughly equal entities. As such, there was no need to fear blaspheming the Atonement or the penalties of obedience to the Devil, because the Outer Darkness was said to be the most beautiful location in eternity.
The passage cited above provides us with insight into practices and beliefs that closely parallel the practices of the LDS Church of Satan. It is one of many plausible pieces of evidence to show the potential genesis of the apostasies advanced by the LDS Church of Satan. IRA will continue to research these origins.
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Child-Sacrifice
Those tender shoots that popped up during the Restoration have grown into full fledged tares. Thanks for the fascinating connection to our history.
This is an interesting read, somewhat triggering, and quite insightful. I fear, however, that there may many stories like this that won't necessarily lead to the specific group that abused the Hamblin girls.
In my own story, I am realizing, that the adults coming in and out of my life, both family, and fellow ward and stake friends, were hyper-focused on warning us about the power of the Adversary, and in doing so, they actually provided a creepy environment with which he could enter in, thrive, and terrify a young child's mind. They loved to tell sensational stories to scare us from engaging in the activities that invited him, which actually invited him.
The Adversary will never lead us to a place of peace. As a child, I found few places of peace even though no one I knew was officially a member of any church but that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ironically, the most peaceful safe place I felt was that of the home of my fifth grade elementary school teacher who was a Christian of another faith. She lived a simple Christlike life.
This characteristic that I experienced in my childhood culture of focusing to warn of the dark power is not a characteristic that I have noticed anywhere else I have lived in the United States. I've been happily thriving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints finding what true peace feels like all over the mission field, in the Midwest, the Southeast, and the Northeast, but when I was living in Southern California, and Utah.....or was it just living there during the 80s and 90s.... different story.
I find that there are break-away groups continuing to form with card carrying recommend holders in the Intermountain West that are straying way off into a bizarre and dangerous path and Kresha can attest to that. These people do not represent true Latter-day Saints. They are either bored, confused, and/or money/power-seeking.
The Gospel is not that hard to live and not that bizarre. You get up, say your prayers, study the scriptures, work hard physically all day to improve your body, support yourself and your family, be present with those that God put in your path daily, serve a friend or a neighbor, and crash into bed at night.
An idle mind is a Devil's workshop and these sisters in this story, amazingly, had too much time in their Pioneer lives to be holding such an event. I wonder what else was being neglected? Certainly, the children. If they were tending to their children, they wouldn't have been so fitful and contortioned. Whatever they were dealing with could have been solved by a good walk in the Sunshine, or building of a snowman.