Warren Jeffs: The Final Chapter?

This could be the end of the infamous Yearning For Zion ranch as Texas moves to seize the large property holding from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. The State contends that the ranch was used to further a criminal enterprise, one aspect of which was the crime for which FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was convicted last year -- molesting underage girls.

Investigators filed a warrant to seize the 1,600-acre ranch in West Texas under state law that allows seizure of property used to commit or facilitate criminal conduct.

According to a 91-page page affidavit in support of the search and seizure warrant served on the ranch in Eldorado, about 300 miles west of Dallas, church members purchased the property for about $1.3 million in 2003 with laundered money and used the property to sexually assault children and hide Jeffs in 2006 while he was a fugitive on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List.

According to the attorney general’s office, the ranch was purchased by church members at the order of Jeffs, who was based in Utah at the time but, “sought a rural location where the FLDS could operate a polygamist compound where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities.”

Jeffs's own records make clear that the ranch, originally referred to under the code name R17, was designed for criminal use. It's far enough from main roads and infrastructure to allow him to skirt everything from building codes to other "wicked laws, un-righteous laws passed by the government that could put us in jail..." I'm guessing those would be those pesky laws against polygamy and sexual abuse of minors.

As discussed, there have been indications that FLDS was removing itself from the extensive property -- such as constructing and then dismantling a sizable watchtower. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall and decided against defending the stronghold against an impending State takeover.

Where have they all gone, is the bigger question.

The church's numbers are dwindling due to excommunications, arrests, and deliberate fleeing. But there are also indications of organized relocation due to Jeffs's cryptic warnings and proclamations.

The State seems to determined to shut down Jeffs's Texas footprint completely and keep him incarcerated for the duration.

Officials call their attempt to seize the group's compound "the final chapter" in a multimillion-dollar battle against the polygamist sect, which authorities believe was centered around sexual abuse and funded through money laundering.

Authorities say Jeffs used the compound's temple to commit his crimes, saying it "was constructed in a special manner so that Warren Steed Jeffs could perpetuate sexual assaults in the Temple building."

And they quote from Jeffs' own designs and the group's "Priesthood Records": "There is a table, but it will be made so it can be a table or it can be a bed. It should be made so the tabletop can come off. It will be on wheels… This will be made so that it can be taken apart and stored in a closet where no one can see it. When I need it, I will pull it out and set it up… It will be covered with a sheet, but it will have a plastic cover to protect the mattress from what will happen on it."

So at least the mattress was safe. Young girls may have been raped and defiled on it. But the mattress was definitely safe.

And I definitely feel a little sick. The thing about FLDS and its creepy leader is that as bad as you think it is, it's so much worse.

A recent "20/20" report went behind the scenes and interviewed excommunicated members, shedding light on the increasingly restrictive control the imprisoned leader exerts. Many lives have been shattered by Jeffs's recent proclamations and paranoid weirdness. Not even his own brother has escaped banishment and the reallocation of his family. I guess he wasn't one of the lucky fifteen men still allowed to procreate. He and other "sons of perdition" have been removed from the dwindling gene pool. Meanwhile, numerous women have been excommunicated for the vile sin of having miscarriages. If that isn't a perfect storm of inbreeding disaster, I don't know what is.

While some long for the life they knew and worry for their immortal souls, others are enjoying their new-found liberation. A nineteen year old boy, freed from the 7-9 hours a day of forced labor he enjoyed in his childhood, can finally learn to read. They are all learning surprising things about history and government like that Warren Jeffs is not, in fact, the president of the United States. A sweet, little girl is finally able to wear a tiara and play with dolls. She says matter-of-factly, "We're considered apostates and wicked."

There is a little more insight into Jeffs's increasingly bizarre demands as he blames his followers for his incarceration and forces them to share in his suffering. Dietary restrictions like giving up corn and dairy products are part of their collective penance. The labor-intensive building of a million dollar home for Jeffs was supposed to cause his prison bars to melt and free him. It didn't.

I highly recommend viewing the episode, which can be found here. The commercials make it a little glitchy and you may need to reload it once or twice but it's well worth the effort.

Breaking Polygamy: Secrets of the Sect

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White Noise: The Fragrance

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There are a few fun facts that I learned in aromatherapy school. Our sense of smell, or olfaction, is one nerve synapse away from the limbic brain and clicks rapidly through the amygdala and hippocampus. So smells trigger memories and powerful emotional responses. Olfaction does not go through the neocortex, so there are no words that exclusively describe smells. We borrow adjectives from other sensory stimuli to describe them, like colors, sounds, and tastes. For instance, scents can be green, or loud, or fruity. Now comes a newly created scent profile called "white noise."

Another thing I learned in aromatherapy school is that, while this is a fascinating discovery about our sense of smell, the study described here does not constitute aromatherapy. Aromatherapy is the use of pure plant essences and offers numerous therapeutic properties above and beyond the psychoactive effects of scent. The fragrance industry relies heavily on chemically replicated scents and other derivatives of natural essences and I suspect that is the case here as well. Still. Fascinating.

Mixing multiple wavelegths that span the human visual range equally makes white light; mixing multiple frequencies that span the range of human hearing equally makes the whooshing hum of white noise. Neurobiologist Noam Sobel from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and his colleagues wanted to find out whether a similar phenomenon happens with smelling. [7 New Flavors Your Tongue May Taste]

In a series of experiments, they exposed participants to hundreds of equally mixed smells, some containing as few as one compound and others containing up to 43 components. They first had 56 participants compare mixtures of the same number of compounds with one another. For example, a person might compare a 40-compound mixture with a 40-compound mixture, neither of which had any components in common.

This experiment revealed that the more components in a mixture, the worse participants were at telling them apart. A four-component mixture smells less similar to other four-component mixtures than a 43-component mixture smells to other 43-component mixtures.

. . .

In other words, our brains treat smells as a single unit, not as a mixture of compounds to break down, analyze and put back together again. If they didn't, they'd never see mixtures of completely different compounds as smelling the same.

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Total Eclipse: Views from the Land Down Under

Yesterday was the last total solar eclipse we'll see until 2015. Aussies had a great view. The rest of us, not so much. But thanks to the wonders of technology, we can look at some pretty pictures. Is it as good as being there? No. But it's a little reminder of just how small this planet has become.

A total solar eclipse will occur on Tuesday afternoon, when the moon passes briefly between the Earth and the Sun, obscuring the solar rays and creating a 95-mile-wide shadow over parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

Only people who are lucky enough to be in northern Australia or somehow find themselves in the Indian or Pacific Oceans along the path of the eclipse -- where it will actually be early Wednesday morning -- will be able to see the celestial event.

But don't worry if you're not there in the flesh -- broadcasts of the eclipse will be available on several live streams and The Huffington Post is live blogging the event, bringing updates from astronomers and other experts, some of whom are on the ground in Australia.

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Adultery, Pat

Remember that great scene in The Crucible when John Proctor is pressed to recall the ten commandments and prove his devotion to God? He can remember them all, save one. He stammers, repeating some, but can't seem to come up with ten. His wife, Elizabeth, quietly chides him, "Adultery, John."

Such was playwright Arthur Miller's brilliant, psychological insight. The husband, whose affair with the young Abigail Williams has set a catastrophic sequence of events in motion, can't remember the commandment that names his sin.

Well, Pat Robertson seems to be revealing more and more of the strange, inner workings of his mind, lately. Last week it was a cringe inducing discussion about Shades of Grey. (Women like pornography? Since when?) And now comes this shameless apologia for the career ending indiscretions of General David Petraeus.

Robertson's reasoning goes like this: David Petraeus "is a man." Paula Broadwell is an "extremely good looking woman" and she was "throwing herself at him."

Such boys will be boys defenses of Petraeus's actions are to be expected... just not so much from an evangelical Christian minister on live television. I mean... has Pat Robertson actually read the Bible? It's only the seventh commandment. You know, that list of moral precepts that Robertson and his ilk have been demanding we all need to get back to?

This is varsity level cherry-picking of the Bible. I have been very critical of fundamentalist dissonance on issues like homosexuality -- which is only condemned in obscure passages and not entirely clearly -- and abortion -- which not only isn't forbidden in the Bible, but actually seems to be endorsed. I have yet to see Christian hardliners get as het up about pork, shellfish, polyester blends, and the numerous other things that are forbidden in the holy scripture they claim is the infallible word of God. But most of them at least have the good grace to condemn adultery.

Bear in mind that this is the same Pat Robertson who has said things like this:

“When you see the rise of blatant open homosexuality and lesbianism, what you also know is God has given a society up...and we’re at the mercy of the elements, the mercy of war, the mercy of economic disaster.” - 700 Club, 4-26-93 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

And this:

“The concept, the word for homosexual behavior is sodomy. That is what is used in the official documents. It is sodomy. It is repugnant. It has been prohibited and proscribed by sane society throughout countless millennia, centuries. People have understood that it is wrong. Now in America, not only is it happening, it is getting civil rights protection in the law, and these people are invading churches.” - 700 Club, 1-18-94 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

And my all-time favorite:

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - 1992 Iowa fundraising letter opposing a state equal-rights amendment ("Equal Rights Initiative in Iowa Attacked", Washington Post, 23 August 1992)

Cheating on your wife, though. That's cool. You know. If a chick is hot, sometimes you just have to hit that. I'm sure God will understand.

It would be tempting to write this off to senility, but Robertson has too long a history of spouting insane, sexist, patriarchal, nonsense, not to consider this of a piece with his ramblings. The creepy lasciviousness, though, seems new, and less than morally upright. So now we know, Pat Robertson isn't just a hypocrite. He's really just a dirty, old man.

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Missouri Preacher's Speech Against Gay Rights

Wow.

At first, this Missouri pastor's anti-gay speech seems akin to those delivered by a number of conservative preachers and other right-wing pundits nationwide over the past year.

. . .

But, as video of his speech reveals, the pastor has a few surprises up his sleeve.

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The Wizard of Wormholes

I've had The Wizard of Oz on my mind a lot lately, for some reason. When my daughter was little, she watched my video of the movie until I really got sick of it -- something I'd never thought possible. But lately I've been yearning to watch it. I'll need to get it on DVD... Anyway. I've been contemplating some of the metaphysical imagery that hadn't occurred to me previously. I should caveat that I've long been taken with some of the mythical themes.

That Dorothy is taking a shamanic journey into non-ordinary reality where she interacts with strange creatures and is assisted by guides seems obvious on its face. But there are some elements to that journey that deserve some analysis. This won't be a deep study. I may do that at some point. It's just some things that have been popping into my head of late.

Years ago, when I first read Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Women Who Run With the Wolves, it occurred to me that, in the movie, Dorothy also wore red shoes. In Estes's analysis of "The Red Shoes," our heroine who dances to her death under the spell of her magic shoes, is an orphan, like our Dorothy Gale. And the girl is raised by a somewhat overbearing and opinionated matriarch, who makes all the decisions for her orphan charge. While she acts out of love and compassion, she crushes the girl's soul, symbolized by the burning of the girl's own handmade, red shoes. The red, magical shoes she obtains later are a poor substitute for her now languishing, authentic wildness. Auntie Em is also loving, but overbearing. She is not terribly patient with Dorothy's emotional needs and drives. And she turns her beloved pet over to the local harridan. Dorothy's authentic self is being crushed, so like Estes's red shod heroine, she becomes reckless and impetuous, risking her own safety. These are interesting parallels that I've pondered when it comes to the underlying mythos of the film version of the story.

There are other mythical themes that have really just occurred to me over the past few days as this movie started ping-ponging around my head, despite the fact that I haven't watched or thought about it in some time.

Earlier today, a Facebook friend posted the above image. My first thought was that I can't seem to get away from this movie. My second thought was, is that a butterfly? I'd simply never noticed before that Glinda is wearing that classic symbol of transformation as a pendent.

I also hadn't noticed that the film contains some greater transformational themes. As discussed with regards to this year's Olympics, the rainbow is a symbol of alchemical transformation. And like the leprechaun whose mysterious gold waits at the end of rainbow, Dorothy finds a yellow brick road.

But the realization that has really captured my imagination of late, is that the Wizard of Oz is full of stargate imagery. Dorothy wishes upon a star and is transported by a vortex (wormhole) to a magical land over the rainbow.

There she traverses another great, spiraling vortex.

And having recovered her sense of personal power, she opens the stargate herself.

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If Thine Eye Be Single

Some synchronicities are ickier than others.

This is the first news story I read this morning.

South Florida beaches are usually places where people find sea shells, tiny crawling creatures and a shark tooth here and there, but a man walking on Pompano Beach Wednesday came across something out of the ordinary.

A giant eyeball.

Later today, a sneaky neighbor left a bucket of these on our doorstep.

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Is Mormonism Racist?

I was reminded again recently of how much insane, socially unacceptable, and terribly, terribly cruel, stuff is in the Bible. The writings that were compiled into that text were products of their time... and it was a fairly brutal chapter in human history. Today most but, rather stunningly, not all Christians would not support the idea of killing rebellious children, as that most recent example makes clear. The rejection of violent, homicidal, and genocidal, Biblical passages only really presents a problem for fundamentalists who still insist that every word in the book is the true and irrefutable word of God. Having been raised Episcopalian, leave say, I learned to look at the Bible through a somewhat different lens.

As Brian Keith Dalton, aka. Mister Deity, points out, this is much trickier for Mormons. Dalton, who apparently was a Mormon, explains that the Book of Mormon is literally true and "the most correct book on Earth" under Mormon doctrine. That makes it much harder to gaffe off the wackiest bits.

The racism that was so acceptable in the time of Joseph Smith is forever enshrined as unassailable truth in Mormonism. That would seem to leave non-racist Mormons -- let alone black Mormons -- with little to fall back on other than cognitive dissonance.

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How To Kill Your Rebellious Child

It's become quite fashionable to compare the "clobber verses" in the Bible condemning homosexuality to scripture no one in the modern world would endorse. I, myself, have written extensively on the hypocrisy of shrimp munching, polyester blend wearing, homophobes. An increasing number of gay-positive, evangelical Christians have likewise taken to pointing out the socially unacceptable passages that are avoided by the vast majority of fundamentalists. But every so often some Biblical purist calls our bluff.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is one of those scriptural passages no modern Christian could love.

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. ~ Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Yup. If your son is worthless lay-about, have him put to death.

Openly gay megachurch pastor Jim Swilley likes to point that one out as an example of the outrageous scriptural obscurities that no one would endorse today. But the Pastor Swilleys of the world are just not prepared for Charlie Fuqua, GOP candidate for the Arkansas legislature. Fuqua thinks a death penalty for rebellious youth is an idea whose time has come.

Via the Arkansas Times, here is passage from Fuqua's book God's Law.

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:

…

This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.

Fuqua has also advocated expelling Muslims from the United States, as a way to cure the "Muslim problem." But I'd be willing to bet that it's not because of extremist Muslim practices like honor killings of adulteresses and rape victims. He seems mystified at the idea that this view might place him outside the mainstream.

Fuqua said Saturday that he hadn't realized he'd become a target within his own party, which he said surprised him.

"I think my views are fairly well-accepted by most people," Fuqua said before hanging up, saying he was busy knocking on voters' doors. The attorney is running against incumbent Democratic Rep. James McLean in House District 63.

I don't know. Maybe there's something in the water in Arkansas. Two Republican pols in that great state have come out swinging for slavery. And at least one of them has turned to the holy scriptures to defend it.

In two letters, [State Rep. Loy] Mauch wrote about the Bible and slavery. The Arkansas Times quotes from a letter Mauch wrote in 2009:

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?

Goodness knows he could have dug deeper. You just have to flip around the Old Testament a little. The book of Exodus is a particularly rich source of wisdom on how to properly keep, beat (21:20-21), and breed (21:2-6) your slaves. I've long said that I could make a better Biblical argument for slavery than against homosexuality. But maybe I shouldn't risk giving lawmakers like Mauch and Fuqua any more ideas.

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Three Years Ago Today...

In Memory of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman

Today I find myself contemplating where I was and what I was doing when I first learned of the sweat lodge tragedy that took the lives of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and, ultimately, Liz Neuman. I was enjoying the long weekend with my husband's family when I read about the shocking deaths in the news. I thought, what a horrible, horrible accident. I was only barely aware of James Arthur Ray and thought his crime to be one of the kind of ignorance so typical of The Secret, with its stripped down versions of complex myths and traditions.

I was wrong. Ray's actions and inactions were so much worse than I could have ever imagined. The James Ray I came to know through watching every broadcast moment of a very long trial was a power thief who exploited the vulnerabilities of wonderful, beautiful people -- those who died and those who courageously testified about what they had experienced under his tutelage. Ray's was a very long trail of wreckage leading up to that stunning tragedy in the Arizona desert.

A year ago, I found myself waiting seemingly endlessly for the sentencing of James Arthur Ray, found guilty by a jury of his peers for causing these three deaths. Then as now my heart goes out to the family and friends of three very bright lights, snuffed out because of James Ray's recklessness. It goes out the family and friends of Colleen Conaway who also came to a tragic end at a James Ray seminar. And it goes out to the many people who were injured physically or emotionally by Ray's myriad abuses. Blessings and peace to you all.

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Gabriele Convicted for Blowing the Whistle

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Am I alone in seeing something almost poetic in the fact that the first whistleblower convicted in the Vatileaks scandal, Paolo Gabriele, bears the name of the Archangel Gabriel? Gabriel, the messenger of God who announced the pending births of Jesus and John the Baptist? Gabriel, depicted in art and literature as the angel who will blow his horn come judgment day? If I were Pope Benedict, I'd be more concerned than ever about that Fatima prophecy.

Be that as it may, the verdict is in and the Vatican court is satisfied that the butler did it. Gabriele, manservant to the pontiff, was sentenced to eighteen months for hanging the Church's dirty laundry out to dry. It seems he believed sunlight to be the best disinfectant.

Gabriele slipped internal documents, including some of Pope Benedict's private papers, to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.

Nuzzi's book, "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican for months and prompted an unprecedented response, with the pope naming a commission of cardinals to investigate the origin of the leaks alongside Vatican magistrates.

Gabriele insists he was only trying to save the Church from itself.

Gabriele has said he leaked the documents because he felt the pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican, and that exposing the problems publicly would put the church back on the right track.

. . .

"The thing I feel strongly in me is the conviction that I acted out of exclusive love, I would say visceral love, for the church of Christ and its visible head," Gabriele told the court in a steady voice. "I do not feel like a thief."

During the trial Gabriele claimed to have acted alone. But on other occasions he claimed that he was anything but. He alleged that there were at least twenty whistleblowers who, like himself, "want to help bring some transparency."

There's a fierce irony in the Vatican's aggressive investigation into Vatileakers like Gabriele. After decades of equivocating over whether or not child molesting priests should be turned over to the authorities, they brought the hammer down over some letters. The Church takes its secrecy very seriously.

Gabriele will serve out his sentence in his apartment, under house arrest. That is, unless the Pope decides to pardon him. Sources say this is likely and it might make His Holiness look like something other than a complete hypocrite. A wise leader, might also want to heed the message, rather than kill the messenger.

Well, it's Gabriel, Gabriel playin'! Gabriel, Gabriel sayin' "Will you be ready to go When I blow my horn?" Oh, blow, Gabriel, blow, Go on and blow, Gabriel, blow! I've been a sinner, I've been a scamp, But now I'm willin' to trim my lamp, So blow, Gabriel, blow! Oh, I was low, Gabriel, low, Mighty low, Gabriel, low. But now since I have seen the light, I'm good by day and I'm good by night, So blow, Gabriel, blow! ~ From "Blow, Gabriel Blow" in Anything Goes

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