It has a real outer-space cover, and chapter 1 tells about mysterious footsteps that were photographed on the moon during the landing in 1969. It was COVERED UP by the government, and only exposed by a Chinese scientist in an interview published in a grocery-checkout publication. So there are PEOPLE on the moon! And what is so amazing is: the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith had SAID SO, many years ago! The author quotes several diaries of early Mormons to the effect that Smith said it. To clinch it all, John Powell's autobiography describes how in a dream Joseph and Hyrum appeared to him and showed him a book which described the Lunarians in detail. So Heinerman concludes, "..from the information given us by the Prophet Joseph Smith, we know this about moon people..."
Chapter 2 tells about the life of people on Mercury, based on Lorenzo Snow's patriarchal blessing. (Lorenzo Snow was the fifth president and "prophet" of the LDS church.) And the proof of that is that Snow, after he died, visited his daughter and said he had been visiting other planets! Snow told her that the Mercurians were like the "pre-Adamite" inhabitants of the earth. So, you see, it all fits together. As Heinerman says, "Lorenzo Snow's unique travel experience to [Mercury] as a resurrected heavenly being stands as a lasting testament of what man can really achieve..." Isn't that marvelous?
Chapter 3 is called "The Sun and its strange Inhabitants." After describing the peculiar faces on the "sunstones" of the Nauvoo Temple, the author concludes that they represent the inhabitants of the sun. And in fact, Brigham Young SAID that the sun was inhabited! And then (just to clinch it) the Book of Abraham - which is SCRIPTURE! - says that the celestial kingdom is light and fire! So: The sun is a celestial kingdom!
Wait! There's more! You have read about the City of Enoch, that was taken up bodily? Well, That's the planet VENUS! Joseph Smith said (according to his plural wife Eliza R. Snow, as reported in Charles Lowell Walker's diary report about a conversation he had with her in 1881) that the earth was ninety times smaller now than it was when created. So, it MUST BE that part of it was taken away - when Enoch's city was taken? - of course! - and became the planet Venus. Wow!
Chapter 5 is about Mars. There are radio signals coming from Mars, and a giant STONE FACE visible on the Martian surface (photographs in the book). So there are people there, too!
What about the Lost Ten Tribes? Where do you think they are? Daniel Allen heard Joseph Smith say that he (JS) had had a vision in which John the Revelator appeared to him and told him that he (John) had taken them into space, to an asteroid (maybe Chiron?) So that settles that question.
But the clincher is BLACK HOLES! Where do you think the "Sons of Perdition" go? Right! THAT'S WHAT THE BLACK HOLES ARE FOR!
There is a happy ending to all this: "Families are Forever," (Chapter 9) and THAT'S WHY the universe is so full of solar systems: they are the families of all the gods.
GET THIS BOOK! Probably even Gordon B. Hinckley doesn't know about all this - (he doesn't even know that we can become gods! See "Gordon B. Hinckley As A Prophet")
(I was laughing so hard when I was reading this - it's in our county library! - that I was almost asked to leave.)
John Heinerman is the Director of the Anthropological Research Center, PO Box 1471, Salt Lake City, 84147.
I think that we all need to reevaluate, in light of this overwhelming scientific evidence, our position regarding the prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Heinerman is correct: the early prophets of the LDS church made some pronouncements on this subject (now usually denied or disavowed by present church leaders - while they still maintain that those former prophets were "divinely inspired" and "spoke the Word of God," at least on other matters):
Oliver B. Huntington recorded in his diary:
"The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the earth, being six feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style and are quite general in style or fashion of dress. They live to be very old; coming generally near a thousand years. This is the description of them as given by Joseph [Smith] the Seer, and he could see whatever he asked the Father in the name of Jesus to see" - Journal of Oliver B. Huntington, Vol 2, p 166, emphasis added
Here's Brigham Young (second president and "prophet" of the LDS church) on the inhabitants of the moon and the sun:
"I will tell you who the real fanatics are: they are they who adopt false principles and ideas as facts, and try to establish a superstructure upon, a false foundation. They are the fanatics; and however ardent and zealous they may be, they may reason or argue on false premises till doomsday, and the result will be false. If our religion is of this character we want to know it; we would like to find a philosopher who can prove it to us. We are called ignorant; so we are: but what of it? Are not all ignorant? I rather think so. Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? When we view its face we may see what is termed "the man in the moon," and what some philosophers declare are the shadows of mountains. But these sayings are very vague, and amount to nothing; and when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of their fellows. So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. It was made to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so will this earth when it is celestialized. Every planet in its first rude, organic state receives not the glory of God upon it, but is opaque; but when celestialized, every planet that God brings into existence is a body of light, but not till then. Christ is the light of this planet." - Journal of Discourses Vol. 13, p.271, emphasis added
Joseph Fielding Smith, apostle and later president of the church (as well as prophet, seer and revelator) said, in his book Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1, pp 88-89 (1954, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City) about the sun as a "celestial" body:
"It is my opinion that the great stars that we see, including our sun, are celestial worlds; at least worlds that have passed on to their exaltation or other final resurrected status. This is in conflict, of course, with the teachings of scientific men, who declare that the sun is losing its energy and gradually cooling off and will eventually be a dead world. I do not believe the Lord has any such thing in his plan. The Lord lives in 'everlasting burnings' we are informed. President Brigham Young has said that this earth when it is celestialized will shine like the sun, and why not?
"'If the people could fully understand this matter,' he said, 'they would perceive that it is perfectly reasonable and has been the law of all worlds. And this world, so benighted at present, and so lightly esteemed by infidels, ... when it becomes celestialized, it will be like the sun, and be prepared for the habitation of the saints, and be brought back into the presence of the Father and the Son. It will not then be an opaque body as it now is, but it will be like the stars of the firmament, full of light and glory; it will be a body of light. John compared it, in its celestialized state, to a sea of glass.' (Journal of Discourses 7:163)" [emphasis in original]
The following passage is from The Book of Abraham, one of the scriptures of the LDS church (1851 edition, pp 23-25, now chapter 3 in the modern Pearl of Great Price). The Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith claimed to have translated from papyrus written by Abraham's "own hand," has been shown to be completely bogus (see these links).
And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees; and I saw the Stars that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it; and the Lord said unto me, these are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God; I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order of that upon which thou standest. And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof, that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord's time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.And the Lord said unto me, the planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or greater than that upon which thou standest in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow: this is in order, because it standeth above the earth upon which thou standest; therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as to its number of days, and of months, and of years. And the Lord said unto me, now, Abraham, these two facts exist; behold, thine eyes see it: it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set times, yea the set time of the earth upon which thou standest, and the set time of the greater light, which is set to rule the day, and the set time of the lesser light, which is set to rule the night.
Now the set time of the lesser light, is a longer time as to its reckoning than the reckoning of the time of the earth upon which thou standest. And where these two facts exist, there shall be another fact above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still; and thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of tho Lord's time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order of that upon which thou standest. And it is given unto thee to know the set time of all the stars that are set to give light, until thou come near unto the throne of God.
Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made; and he said unto me, my son, my son, (and his hand was stretched out,) behold, I will shew you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof: and he said unto me, this is Shinehah, which is the Sun. And he said unto me, Kokob, which is Star. And he said unto me, Olea, which is the Moon. And he said unto me, Kokaubeam, which signifies Stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven. And it was in the night time when the Lord spake these words unto me, I will multiply thee, and thy seed after thee, like unto these; and if thou canst count the number of sands, so shall be the number of thy seeds.
And the Lord said unto me, Abraham, I shew these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words. If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me. Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star may exist above it; and there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it. Howbeit that he made the greater star, as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.