By Kurt Van Gorden

Kurt Van Gorden is an ordained minister and directs two missions to the cults:
Jude 3 Missions and the Utah Gospel Mission.
He is a researcher, contributor, and editor for 16 apologetic books.
http://www.utahgospelmission.com

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Title page of 1851 Deseret Almanac.
(All images are from the digitized collection of Kurt Van Gorden. Public Domain.)

In 2007, while co-writing The Kingdom of the Occult (Nelson, 2008), I was investigating whether astrology or horoscopes carried any sway among Mormon leaders.¹ That was when I discovered thirteen issues of the Deseret Almanac series, published from 1851-1865, which I had never seen before. They were compiled by a respected Latter-day Saint and educator, William Wines (W. W.) Phelps,² and printed by a member of the LDS First Presidency, Willard Richards, the Second Counselor to Brigham Young. Not to be confused with the modern LDS publication under a similar name, Deseret News Church Almanac (1974 to the present), the nineteenth-century publication followed the motif of New England and European almanacs, with calendric coordination of planetary movement and weather forecasting, although the Deseret Almanac rejected astrological (occult) forecasting.

These early publications yield a trove of new quotations, offering fresh insights of nineteenth-century Mormon doctrine, its propagation, and in some cases, its changes.³

This cache of documents, which seems like an odd place for doctrine, provides us with multiple references about the uniquely Mormon concepts that God the Father is a resurrected mortal man who was born on another planet, that the Father has a father god who is Jesus’ grandfather god, that the Father is married to the Queen of Heaven, also known as Mother God, that the Father was married to Mary to prevent Jesus from being an illegitimate child, that many gods exist, that Satan is also a spirit son of God, that the sun, moon, and stars are inhabited by humans, that dark-skinned people (particularly Lamanites and Blacks) are under a curse, and that the Bible contains a great many blunders. Numerous curiosities are mentioned in passing, such as Adam came to Earth from the planet Kolob and brought seeds to plant the Garden of Eden and that he lived in the Americas (Missouri, in particular) for 997 years.

Various repositories yielded clear copies of each edition of the Deseret Almanac and I was amazed at the doctrinal items crammed into the calendar pages. Eventually, I collected enough scans and photographs to make a feasible set.⁴ In a search of hundreds of Mormon books, only a few acknowledged the almanac’s existence. Stranger yet, none of these references gave any indication that they contain a wealth of LDS doctrinal matters, including the only scholarly analysis of them, by David J. Whittaker, in his BYU Studies essay.⁵

Background of the Deseret Almanac

Whittaker creates an exciting atmosphere as he threads together how the earliest Mormons, from Joseph Smith’s family to other New England Mormons, used and relied upon almanacs. Indeed, almanacs, in general, held a rich heritage in early America. Phelps considered his almanacs indispensable to Latter-day Saints, stating in an 1860 advertisement that “A person without an almanac is somewhat like a ship without a compass; he never knows what to do, nor when to do it.” Like any good salesman, he added, “Buy Almanacs, and pay the maker” (Almanac, 1860, 32). Whittaker adds these almanacs to other historical works that “constitute a large body of source material for those who wish to probe the intellectual and cultural history of early Mormonism.”⁶ “Almanacs,” he said, “were mirrors of, as much as they were windows to, early Mormons.”⁷

William W. Phelps was the original periodical publisher for the Mormon Church.⁸ He was one of Joseph Smith’s scribes and was, uniquely, Smith’s ghostwriter for certain works.⁹ It is not a stretch to say that he knew the prophet’s mind and was trusted by Smith to convey his thoughts. During these early years, as one Mormon historian observes, Phelps was a “Prominent Church leader 1831-38.”¹⁰ Still, he ran afoul of Smith in 1839, causing a brief excommunication, but Smith restored him through rebaptism the following year.

Phelps supported Brigham Young’s prophetic succession, though he was again briefly excommunicated and rebaptized in 1847, he still followed Young and the Mormons to Salt Lake City in 1849, residing there until his death in 1872.¹¹ When he began publishing the almanacs, it was conducted with the counsel and approval of Brigham Young.¹² The two were so closely associated on the almanac project that Brigham Young’s surviving copy of the 1854 Deseret Almanac is a special, leather-bound edition with the title and his name embossed in gold.¹³

There were thirteen almanacs published by Phelps between 1851 and 1865.¹⁴ The title changed three times; initially it was the Deseret Almanac, covering 1851 through 1858. It changed to the Almanac in 1859 through 1864 and then back again to the Deseret Almanac in 1865. Collectively I will refer to them as the Deseret Almanac.

The 1851 almanacs were originally distributed and sold through the Post Office.¹⁵ Willard Richards, who was the editor of the Deseret News, provided editorial space for Phelps to explain why the almanacs are important and why they lack astrological information.¹⁶ Richards had a personal stake in promoting the almanac, so he published an announcement in the Deseret News, stating that it is “desirable, useful, and acceptable to the Saints of Deseret.”¹⁷ The LDS Church also profited by distributing the almanacs. Beginning in 1852, they were sold through the Church’s Tithing Office. There, the almanacs could be purchased by “cash, butter, eggs, cheese, lard, tallow, and such other chicken fixins [sic] as may be convenient and valuable.”¹⁸

Phelps published a renouncement of astrology in the first three almanacs, 1851-1853. His article for the Deseret News was rationally sound and contained reasons why astrology is untrustworthy. Later, though, in 1857, Brigham Young persuaded him that astrology was true and belonged to the holy Priesthood, so Phelps changed his mind accordingly. Both Young and Phelps rejected astrology again in 1861.¹⁹

The Contents

The first few almanacs (1851-1854) contain most of the theological statements of interest to students of Mormonism. The Improvement Era commented on them in 1948, “Of course the Deseret Almanacs were published for the benefit of the Church and contained Church historical material, including the birthdates of the General Authorities.”²⁰ Still, there will be Mormons who will object to these quotations but the implications cannot be ignored.

First, we have theological statements that are exclusively LDS. The Mormon cosmology of gods and goddesses, interplanetary kingdoms, and spirit-children, are examples of these exclusive doctrines. These speak of a restoration to a Mormon, but unusual or heretical concepts to a Christian.

Second, Mormons may attempt to brush them aside as merely Phelps’s opinion. This, however, magnifies the problem rather than solving it, since Phelps relied upon input from Brigham Young and Willard Richards, both members of the First Presidency. Nobody is claiming scriptural status for the almanacs, but only succinct doctrinal statements from one who was entrusted by Smith as his ghostwriter.

Third, there were no retractions or corrections of the Mormon doctrinal statements in subsequent editions, like what there was for astrology. Astrology was renounced in 1851, then reevaluated and codified by Young in 1857, and once again renounced in 1861.²¹ Yet all of the Mormon doctrinal statements remain intact without alteration by Phelps, Young, Richards, or any other LDS leader.

Fourth, the dissemination of the almanacs primarily came through the Church Tithing Office. This speaks volumes about the acceptance of the Mormon doctrinal statements contained in them. It was not shocking or surprising to Latter-day Saints when they read the doctrinal statements in the almanacs, because that is what was already being taught.

Fifth, there are three newer arguments that are offered by Mormon intellectuals that we may encounter. One of these is the “obscure source” argument. The thinking is that if the quotation can be marginalized as either an obscure source or a thoughtless, random one-time statement, then they no longer need to deal with it. This argument fails to recognize the fifteen-year historical weight of Phelps’s almanacs and its distribution by the LDS Church. Their historical significance belies any attempt to marginalize them.

Another tactic is to diminish the importance of a quotation from an older LDS source based upon what some Mormon defenders call “Mormon Reformation” thinking. They believe that by assigning undesirable quotations to the reformation time frame, then they do not a have to account for its subject or its existence. Former BYU professor Robert Millet has popularized this and he attempts to draw a parallel between the Mormon Reformation and the fiery sermons preached by Jonathan Edwards and Protestant revivalists.

The fallacy of a false analogy arises in Millet’s position. Jonathan Edwards and Protestant revivalists did not preach false doctrine in order to bring people to the truth. Essentially, Millet and others argue for using false doctrine, like Brigham Young’s “blood atonement” sermons (their best example), to bring wayward Mormons back to restoration truth. This objection does not diminish Phelps’s doctrinal statements, which were written for the purpose of dissemination under the authority and counsel of the First Presidency. The almanacs, mainly from 1851-1854, do not fit the time period of the Mormon Reformation, which is restricted by two Mormon scholars from late 1855 to mid-1857 or more narrowly between early 1856 and mid-1857.²²

Another popular objection that we encounter is the “yawn” effect. That is, the Maxwell Institute (formerly the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies—FARMS) fosters the idea that Evangelical Christians rehash the same old worn-out statements and quotations that have been published for decades.²³ Apparently, the reasoning is that if a quotation can be labeled as boring, with a yawn for emphasis, then it no longer needs to be answered or even acknowledged.

However, merely closing one’s eyes to it does not make it go away. One reason why Evangelical Christians often repeat the same theme is simply because each time they have a new audience. By analogy, one would be remiss to condemn a school teacher as boring because he or she teaches the same lessons without considering that each year it is also a new audience. The same is true among Evangelicals who compare Christianity with competing religious truth claims.

God the Father is a resurrected mortal man who was born on another planet.

The Mormon view that God progressed from a man to an exalted Being is different from anything found in the history of Christianity. In proper theology, the nature and attributes of God are perfect and absolute. We call God immutable for good reason, since he himself declared, “I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). ²⁴ God does not change with time, he does not grow older (Psalm 102:26) or learn new things (Psalm 139:1‑6) or become more powerful (Matthew 19:26). He is immutable. This prevents him from becoming a lying, evil, or unholy being, which is impossible, according to (Hebrews 6:17-18).

Mormonism supersedes biblical teachings with new revelation about God. In the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith wrote, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s . . .” (130:22). His revelatory powers were on full display when he preached one of his most famous sermons, the King Follett Discourse. In it, he told Latter-day Saints that their God began with a human body like theirs. Smith said, “I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is . . . God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.”²⁵ In this April 7, 1844, funeral sermon, Joseph Smith revealed that God the Father was a man from another earthlike planet.

The planet where God the Father was born and grew up, where he “dwelt on an earth,” is not Kolob. Kolob is the planet mentioned in the Book of Abraham as “nigh unto the throne of God” (Abraham 3:9). The planet where the Father was born remained a mystery to many Mormons. If we look back to the mid-1850s, we will find that the name of the Father’s birth planet was known by quite a number of Latter-day Saints. In fact, all subscribers and readers of the Deseret Almanac knew about it. Phelps made the following statements on the daily calendar about Teman being the planet where God the Father was born, reared, and worshiped a god who preceded him. In poetic form, he wrote,

God, like man, has a spirit,
God was a man and came from Teman.
(Deseret Almanac, 1852, 7).

The following two statements are in the same edition where Teman is mentioned:

OUR FATHER IN THE HEAVENS.
. . . Then our Father in his youth,
Came from Teman full of truth . . .
(Deseret Almanac, 1852, 8)

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HEAVENS.
. . . Every world “rolls on its wings,” and is controlled by a God . . .
—and, as quick as sight or thought, a look, a sign, or a hint to God in Kolob, Teman, or any glorified kingdom, brings assistance, that earth and hell cannot demonstrate.
(Deseret Almanac, 1852, 37)

Phelps wrote that preexistent spirit babies lived on Kolob. Teman, though, is where God keeps records.

Call, O call me back to Kolob, 
When the resurrection’s pass’d! 
For I love my Father’s garden— 
Where the first will be the last:— 
(Deseret Almanac, 1854, 6) 

In his mansion with my mother 
As I sat upon her knee!— 
Sacred records kept in “Teman,” 
Till the flesh has conquered sin,— 
By the Priesthood, faith and virtue. 
Then I’ll know them all again! 
(Deseret Almanac, 1854, 8)

God the Father had a Father God before him, who is Jesus’ grandfather god.

In the article below, Phelps synthesized the Book of Abraham with Smith’s teaching about the Father’s god, who is Jesus’ grandfather god. This is based upon a false reading of Habakkuk 3:3.

BIBLE ASTRONOMY.

The nearest “fixed star” must be Mount Paran, mentioned by Habakkuk, the fruitful world of glory where the “Holy One” came from; or rather Kolob, where our Father in the Heavens resides in the midst of his glory and kingdoms.

The next nearest “fixed star,” also mentioned by Habakkuk, must be Teman, the world of perfection where God came from to do the works of his Father, spoken of by John the Revelator, [Rev. 1.6] which Father of God, and the grandfather of Jesus Christ, must now be living, is one of the eternity of eternities—which closes the Lord’s prayer in the Greek version, and is mentioned by John [Rev. 19—3, &c.]

If, as Paul says, there are “Lords many, and Gods many,” and each has the control of a renewed or resurrected world, which continually shines as a “fixed star;” Heaven must be a large blessed universe of intelligent worlds. What say the learned D.D’s. on this head? Paul ascended to the third Heaven, and heard things unlawful to utter then,—but all things are to be revealed in the last days.—Open the windows of Heaven. (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 5)

Deseret Almanac, 1852, page 5. Jesus’ grandfather god.

Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father had a Father when he was on his earthlike planet. Smith used Revelation 1:6 (“And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father”) to support his idea, which Phelps repeated. However, Smith misread the King James Version in Revelation 1:6 and did not check his rendering of it against the Greek New Testament. Smith and Phelps are reading it as two persons, “God and his Father,” whereas the Greek New Testament text has one definite article, indicating one person, which is properly translated as “His God and Father.”²⁶

Joseph Smith contradicts his earlier rendering with his “Joseph Smith Translation” [of the Bible] on Revelation 1:6. When he had the opportunity to call attention to the two gods that he preached in 1844, from Rev. 1:6, he instead translated it as one God: “And hath made us kings and priest unto God, his Father: to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” Smith removed the word “and,” making both “God” and “Father” descriptions of one person.

God the Father is married to a celestial goddess wife, the Queen of Heaven, also known as Mother God in Mormonism.

The Mother God doctrine in Mormonism is an elusive one. Only in recent years have we seen more sincere, open and frank discussions about the Father’s heavenly wife among Mormons. Most quotations about her, though few, were indirect and were implied with vague terms, like “heavenly parents.” The most popular and perhaps boldest quotation is the third stanza of the 160-year-old hymn, “O My Father,” penned by Eliza Snow in October 1845, and it remains in the Mormon hymnal today:

In the heav’ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason—truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a mother there.

Phelps, whose doctrinal input is the core of our study, wrote a hymn about Mother God a year ahead of Snow. He indirectly wrote of her in the Times and Seasons, but by the end of 1844, he was calling her the Father’s partner, “Mother, the Queen,” in a hymn sung during the dedication of the Nauvoo Seventies Hall, in December 1844:²⁸

Come to me; here's the myst’ry that man hath not seen:
Here’s our Father in heaven, and Mother, the Queen,
Here are worlds that have been, and the worlds yet to be:
Here’s eternity,—endless; amen: Come to me.

Still, aside from Snow’s popular hymn, there are two often-quoted General Authorities who published books that included Mother God up to the mid-1900s, Apostle James E. Talmage, in 1901, and Milton Hunter, a member of the First Council of Seventy, in 1945.

Talmage, in his exposition of the LDS Articles of Faith, wrote, “Neither of the sexes is complete in itself as a counterpart of Deity. We are expressly told that God is the Father of spirits, and to apprehend the literalness of this solemn truth we must know that a mother of spirits is an existent personality.”³⁰

Hunter wrote, “The stupendous truth of the existence of a Heavenly Mother, as well as a Heavenly Father, became established facts in Mormon theology.”³¹ In later years, he added, “Thus males were created in the image and likeness of God the Eternal Father while the females were formed in the image and likeness of God their Eternal Mother.”³² Other than that, the discussions were privileged and infrequent, intended for the faithful Saints at LDS Conferences or faithful readers of Improvement Era and Ensign.

It was not until the more open years in the last half of the twentieth century that we find candid references to Mother God, especially in topical references, like the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (1992) and Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine (1966), where each devoted an entry to her. By the twenty-first century, we find Mormon publications venturing into the discussion along with books by Mormon women of a feminist flair.³³ None are quite as authoritative as the official website of the LDS Church, where an essay directly referenced her in 2014.³⁴ Earlier published references have been scant to say the best of them. The exception is the Deseret Almanac of the mid-1850s, which provide six published and circulated direct quotations about her.

There are three views of “the Queen of Heaven” among Mormon writers. One is in the doctrinal sense, where the Queen of Heaven is Mother God. The other two are condemned as pagan by Mormons, both in Jeremiah’s day, where the people worshiped the Queen of Heaven, and in the Christian era, where Catholics venerate Mary as the Queen of Heaven. Returning to the former, the sense in which Mormons believe that it describes Mother God, this originated in Nauvoo, in 1844, with Phelps’ Times and Seasons hymn and the following article.

A letter by William Smith, one of Joseph Smith’s brothers, dated November 10, 1844, was published in the Times and Seasons by the editor, John Taylor, an Apostle at the time. W. W. Phelps was assigned to answer it, which he did on December 25, 1844. In his answer, we find Mother God referred to twice as the Queen of Heaven in an official LDS periodical.³⁵ These two periodicals precede the Deseret Almanac by ten years.

Phelps expanded on this idea in an 1852 Deseret Almanac article entitled, “The Eternal Mother.” Below is the first article solely devoted to Mother God in Mormonism.

THE ETERNAL MOTHER.

The 11th chapter and 7th verse of Job, rightly rendered from the original Hebrew, reads:—“Who has searched out God? Canst thou find out the Eternal Mother? Canst thou find out the perfection of the Almighty?”

All right; spiritually or temporally, there cannot be a father without a mother, in truth, to continue the ad infinitum of lives,—except the sectarian god, who has neither body, parts, or passions; he has no wife, and, of course, he had no mother. “Oh gracious!” inquires the philosophising [sic] granny, “where did he come from?” “Why,” replies the King’s Jester, “maybe he is one of the Misses Lucifer”s come-by-chances:” Now hush, you,—slandering the Prince of this world’s family. Hush! (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 32)

Deseret Almanac, 1852, page 32.

Notice here that Phelps found it irresistible to take shots at the biblical God because we, as Christians, do not teach that the Father has a body, a wife, and a mother. He then ridiculed Christianity as an entity by calling us Lucifer’s family, “the Prince of this world’s family.” In this article, he agrees with Joseph Smith that the Father had a Father, but he goes further by opening up a succession of Mother Gods; the Father had a Mother too.

Prior to this, in the 1851 issue, he asked “Who is the Queen of Heaven?” His answer followed, “The King’s wife” (Deseret Almanac, 1851, 9). Then in the calendar “fillers” for the following year, he added, “there are Kings, there are Queens . . . The Queen of heaven hath a husband” (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 10, 13). We further find a blessing by the Heavenly Parents upon their Son, “the blessing of the King and Queen of heaven, upon their Son, before he came down, upon his mission . . .” (Deseret Almanac, 1854, 24). Phelps, who adapted well to prose and poetry, wrote a short blurb about “The Epitome of Truth.” In it, he includes, among other things, “The Virtues of the Queens of Heaven” (Deseret Almanac, 1855, 20).

No current Mormon writer credits Phelps with the origin of his 1852 statement, “There cannot be a father without a mother,” yet it has been often quoted in Mormon speeches and was included in Bruce R. McConkie’s Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 2:159.

Polytheism—the belief that many gods exist and man can become a god.

One does not have to worship multiple gods in order to be a polytheist. All one has to do is recognize the existence of more than one god and, by definition, one is a poly-theist. Everything we have seen so far, the Father’s Father, the Father’s Mother, the Father’s wife, and the heavenly Kings and Queens, speak of polytheism, which doctrine is rejected by the Bible. Jews, and therefore Christians, are strictly monotheists. Both the Old and New Testaments attest to this. If one God exists without compromising the terms, then everything discussed so far in Mormonism falls woefully short of the truth. Consider these verses:

• Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
  (Deuteronomy 4:39)
• Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.
  (Deuteronomy 6:4)
• Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
  (Isaiah 43:10)
• Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.
  (Isaiah 44:8)
• And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.
  (Mark 12:29)
• Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
  (James 2:19)

Whether one calls it polytheism or plural gods, it is the same. We begin with another short article by Phelps in which he not only promotes polytheism, but he claims that Virgil was a Mormon!

VIRGIL A MORMON.

Virgil, the poet, who was born 70 years before Christ, and flourished and died before the birth of Jesus, represents the Great Apollo, speaking from the heavens, and addressing a youth thus:

“Macie nova virtute puer, sic itur ad astra;
“Diis genite, et geniture Deos.”

Imitated in English thus:

Go on in virtue, boy; so is the way to the stars;
You were begotten by the gods, and gods by you must be begot.
(Deseret Almanac, 1852, 32)

We see that Phelps enjoys the idea that Virgil’s polytheism parallels his, including gods begetting humans and humans begetting gods. The myriad of begotten gods in Mormonism is reflected in the Deseret Almanac, in 1852, where it is stated that gods control the planets, “as Paul says, there are “Lords many, and Gods many,” and each has the control of a renewed or resurrected world, which continually shines as a “fixed star” (1852, 6).

This is one of the most misapplied Bible verses used by Mormons, 1 Corinthians 8:5b, “as there be gods many, and lords many.” Paul is using it as an argument against polytheism and he completes his argument for monotheism in verse 6, “But to us there is but one God. . . .” Yet the Latter-day Saints often quote it, out of context, in support of polytheism.

The following quotations from the almanacs leave no doubt that polytheism is embraced:

• Eternity enlarges the scope of universal pleasure amid the glory of Gods.
  (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 47)
• Salvation belongs to saved beings—but exaltation belongs to the Gods.
  (Deseret Almanac, 1853, 7)
• Light is as the great ocean of the Gods, for the commerce of the heavens, without attraction or gravity.
  (Deseret Almanac, 1853, 13)
• Economy in labor, economy in land, economy in living, economy in salvation, economy in heaven, and economy with God, constitute one portion of glory, that is as infinite and eternal and perpetually progressive, as the perfections of the Gods, which increase with the ceaseless rounds of eternities.
  (Deseret Almanac, 1854, 12)
• The Book of Abraham as translated by Joseph Smith, gives seven thousand years for the creation by the Gods.
  (Almanac, 1860, 22)
• Zion Is the house of the Gods, said Obadiah.
  (Almanac, 1864, 26)

Preexistent spirit-children and Mary’s other husband, God.

In Mormonism, the Father was once a mortal and evidently retains procreative powers in his resurrected, exalted state. He procreates children in heaven with his wife, among whom Jesus was the firstborn and Lucifer was the second (cf. Book of Moses 1:13), and everyone else followed. The term “sired” is used frequently in Mormonism to describe the sexual procreative act of the Father begetting spirit children in heaven and siring the body of Jesus on earth. Of Jesus’ preexistence, Phelps wrote, “. . . he had a Father and Mother in heaven” (Deseret Almanac, 1854, 22).

In a search of the word sired, as used in a database of Mormon books, it is used seven times to represent God the Father begetting us through his goddess wife, as preexistent spirit children and twice of him siring the preexistent Jesus.³⁶ The word sired is used nineteen times to describe the Father siring the body of Jesus on earth through Mary, which is why two early Mormons, Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, legitimized it by claiming that the Father was married to Mary, as her other husband. Now we have another source stating the same thing, from the Deseret Almanac. This was not a hidden doctrine in the 1850s. It was published widely through The Seer, by Pratt, Young’s sermons (Journal of Discourses), and the Deseret Almanac, by Phelps.

Phelps stated, “God was married, or how could he beget his Son Jesus Christ lawfully, and do the works of his father?” (Deseret Almanac, 1853, 7). In other words, had the Father not been married to Mary, then their child Jesus would have been illegitimate. This accords perfectly with what Young and Pratt said on the same subject, but Phelps and the Deseret Almanac would have been first to publish it, which makes Apostle Pratt and Prophet Young following his lead.³⁷

The Father sired all of the preexistent spirit children in heaven with his goddess wife. The Mormon plan of eternal increase and progression necessitates that the spirits are sent to the earth for probation. Once here, depending upon their obedience to the laws and covenants of the gospel, they can resurrect as potential gods and continue the cycle. In reference to this heavenly act of siring, the almanacs refer to it as “breeding” in the “celestial marriage bed.” Phelps wrote, “And the Saints, all sinless, royal Infant spirits breed—Blessing thus, as Michael did, The celestial marriage bed; Holy worlds!— progression is eternal: so decreed.” (Almanac, 1862, 32).

Phelps spoke again of the preexistence, “To give a full history of Spirits, begotten, raised, educated, and destinated, in the celestial world, would require the ‘memory’ and ‘experience’ we left there when we chose to take our mission for this world” (Deseret Almanac, 1854, 22). He also mentioned the preexistence of Lucifer as a spirit child of God. Satan’s birth was part of our lost memory that he referred to, “Nobody on earth knows Satan’s nativity” (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 27). To claim that Satan has a nativity is consistent with the Book of Moses 5:13.

Adam and the Garden of Eden in Missouri.

In the preexistence, according to some Mormon writers, Adam (some say all of us) helped to make the earth. It is taught among the Mormons that the earth is a copy of another planet. Everything was brought here in seed form and planted, often referred to as first spiritual then temporal. The Deseret Almanac clarifies it, “Who is the ‘oldest inhabitant?’ Adam, according to the Bible. Where did Adam get his seed for the garden of Eden? Brought it from his father’s garden. Earthly things are pattern’d after heavenly” (1853, 8).

Adam planted seeds in the earth, particularly in the Garden of Eden that was located in today’s Missouri, and he lived there for nearly 1,000 years. The council of Gods sent Adam to the earth, “English bids fair, to become the great, last, and best, till the Lord restores a ‘pure language,’ even the one that Adam brought from Kolob, or the celestial garden, when he came to this globe and gave names to all,—according to the council of the Gods in the ‘elder world’” (Deseret Almanac, 1853, 14). Phelps also stated, “Adam, in Adam-ondi-Ahman [Missouri], held a blessing meeting, and blessed his children—aged 997 years, three years previous to his death” (Deseret Almanac, 1852, 38).

In this article, Phelps is praising the strengths of the United States in relationship to the Bible. He states that Adam lived in what is now the United States, as did Enoch, and Noah, where he also built his ark. He wrote:

The land where the “United States” once flourished as a free government for the good of mankind, was a “choice land” beyond the common knowledge of the world. Upon that land was planted the Garden of Eden, before Satan brought sin along to try virtue. Upon that land, Adam offered sacrifice, repented, was baptized, received the gift of the Holy Ghost, raised a large family by Eve. Upon that land, Enoch built up Zion, which was translated to heaven. Upon that land, Noah built the Ark, which saved some of all flesh for the present world. (Almanac, 1862, 30)

Condemnation of the Bible.

The eighth Article of Faith in the LDS Church states, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” Notice that doubt is cast only upon the Bible, but not upon the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon fostered skepticism about the Bible in several places, so it is no wonder that Mormons question the Bible.³⁸ The Almanac states it with these words:

TRANSLATORS’ BLUNDERS.

The Bible contains a great many blunders which causes the unlearned to doubt the divine authority of revelation. The Book of Mormon, the Saints true interpreter, says, all the most plain and precious parts of Scripture were taken away—by the translators. (Almanac, 1861, 22)

People on the sun, moon, and stars.

There have been statements made from the time of Joseph Smith to Brigham Young, claiming that there were inhabitants of the moon and the sun. Young said, “Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? . . . when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the ignorant of their fellows. So it is in 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.”³⁹

This was not an uncommon thought in the nineteenth century. As a church publication, though, we would not expect such speculation. The Deseret Almanac references people on the sun, “Now who lives in the sun? Now Sects! Wonder! Philosophers stare!” (1852, 13). The almanac had even more to say about the inhabitants of the moon, who view the earth through their telescopes and read by the light of the earth:

THE MOON.

Every one, perhaps, is not aware how the earth appears to the inhabitants of the Moon. As more than three fifths of the earth is covered with water, and being nearly 13 times larger than the moon, a full earth must be a grand sight! The earth light there must be sufficient to read and work by. Again, as the moon always keeps the same side to the earth, those who live on the back side, must naturally enjoy themselves in taking pleasure rides to the Frontiers, to view through their telescopes, and Urim and Thumims, the earth’s grandeur, and glory, and some of the curiosities of their next worldly neighbors. (Deseret Almanac, 1852, page 23.)

Deseret Almanac, 1852, page 23.

Aside from our neighboring planets in this solar system, the distant stars are also inhabited, “The stars are worlds of people” (Deseret Almanac, 1853, 5). Phelps also taught the “Priesthood” presides “over the planets and stars, and their beings, forever . . . to the millions of worlds and their people, forever” (Deseret Almanac, 1851, 3).

Racist statements about Indians and Blacks.

The Book of Mormon presents the world with the idea that sinfulness directly influences skin tone. The Book of Mormon divides people into two classes, white and dark. It classifies one group of people as “white, exceedingly fair, and delightsome,” the Nephites (2 Nephi 5:21). The other group, “a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations,” who are the Lamanites (1 Nephi 12:23). These people were cursed by God with dark skin, “the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them (2 Nephi 5:21).

Joseph Smith added the same concept to the Book of Moses, with a racist curse upon Blacks, “and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people . . . the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them” (Book of Moses 7:8, 22).

The almanacs also carried the racist idea that Lamanites and Blacks are cursed with dark skin, “What Makes the difference in color among men? Transgressions of crime” (Deseret Almanac, 1851, 9). And, Phelps published this poem at the brink of the Civil War, in 1860:

And then, alas! Ham’s Canaan,
So dark—must dig (ah me !)
The “‘servants’ servant,” be
The under stock of ages
—Still cursed, and black.
(Deseret Almanac, 1860, 28)

Conclusion:

There was a wealth of information to mine from these almanacs that have rarely been cited in any works. The usefulness of these quotations is not so much a question of their authority to speak for the LDS Church, though they were distributed through the Tithing Office, but they show us that some of the teachings that circulated in the mid-1800s were not isolated statements or random thoughts. They were teachings that were left in a record that sheds light upon the Mormon thinking and culture of the day.

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[Note: A scanned collection of the Deseret Almanac is also available in the Signature Books collection on the Internet Archive. ]

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Footnotes:

1. Walter R. Martin, Jill Martin-Rische, Kurt Van Gorden, The Kingdom of the Occult (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008). ↩︎
2. W. W. Phelps, was appointed a regent for the Deseret University, which later became the University of Utah. Cf., Deseret Almanac, 1852, 48. See also David J. Whittaker, who wrote that one purpose of almanacs was to educate, “Almanacs in the New England Heritage of Mormonism,” BYU Studies, 29:4, (Fall 1989), 100, 104. ↩︎
3. This is the first full publication and categorization of these
   quotations, although this article is based upon my former lecture “New Discoveries in Old Documents” at the 2014 Capstone Conference in Salt Lake City, April 12, 2014. ↩︎
4. The LDS Church just recently put a set of the almanacs online, but their copies are copyrighted by the Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (the copyright arm of the church). All images used herein are from my digitized scans, photographs, and collections in the public domain and do not infringe in any way upon the copyright of IRI. ↩︎
5. Whittaker, 89-113. Another scholarly assessment that focused on the occult genre, but avoided all of the religious statements, is D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1987), 215-216. ↩︎
6. Whittaker, 109. ↩︎
7. Whittaker, 216. ↩︎
8. Phelps printed the first official LDS periodical, The Evening and Morning Star, in Independence, Missouri (1832). He suffered persecution by vigilante mobs who attacked his house and his printing office, destroying his printing press in 1833. He served on scripture compilation committees and wrote hymns that remain in the LDS hymnal. ↩︎
9. Whittaker, 112, n. 42, where he references a personal letter from Phelps to Brigham Young in which Phelps claimed to pen some of Smith’s work. See also Samuel Brown, “The Translator and the Ghostwriter: Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps,” Journal of Mormon History, vol. 34, no. 1, (Winter 2008), 26-62. ↩︎
10. Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Deseret Books Co., 1985), 87. ↩︎
11. Cook, 87-88. Phelps served on the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah (1841-1857), was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and was appointed the Superintendent of Meteorological Observations (1857). Interestingly, his associate for the almanacs, Richards, was President of the Legislature Assembly while Phelps served his position. ↩︎
12. Whittaker references a number of personal letters between Phelps and Young, where he sought Young’s counsel and input prior to publishing them. See Whittaker, 112, n. 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, and 113, n. 50. ↩︎
13. Anonymous editorial, Improvement Era, 1948, in LDS Collector’s Library 2005, software edition (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005). ↩︎
14. Del Van Orden, Guy L. Dorris and David J. Whittaker incorrectly state that Phelps had fourteen published almanacs. They are counting the 1866 manuscript as “published,” when it never saw the press. See Van Orden, Dell, “Almanacs” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vols. 1-4 (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1:36. Dorris, Guy L. “Almanacs” (Garr, Cannon and Cowan, eds., Encyclopedia of LDS History) in LDS Collector’s Library 2005, software edition (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005). ↩︎
15. Deseret News, (8 February 1851): 2. This is not surprising, since Richards, the printer, was also the Postmaster for the Post Office at the time. ↩︎
16. Ibid. Also in Deseret News, (8 March 1851): 3. ↩︎
17. Deseret News, (25 January 1851): 5. ↩︎
18. Deseret News, (2 July 1852): 2. ↩︎
19. This is one of Whittaker’s most interesting footnotes. He wrote, “Phelps, of course, was not a farmer, and by 1857 changed his mind about astrology after a discussion with Brigham Young. After President Young told him that he believed astrology was true, Phelps wrote to Young, ‘I believe I did wrong in saying I did not know what astrology was . . . so I will now say that astrology is one of the sciences belonging to the holy Priesthood perverted by vain man.’” Whittaker, 112-113, n. 50. ↩︎
20. Improvement Era, (1948). ↩︎
21. See n. 16 on previous page. In January 1857, the Utah Territorial Legislature created an office of Superintendent of Meteorological Observations and appointed Phelps as its first superintendent. Whittaker, 103. This may have fostered renewed discussion about the place of astrology in Mormon thinking, which Young then favored. ↩︎
22. See Thomas G. Alexander, “Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 25, no. 2, (Summer 1992), 25-38, and Gustive O. Larson, “The Mormon Reformation,” Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1, (January 1958), 45-63. ↩︎
23. For more information about these and other arguments, see my review of Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack Latter-day Saints (Aspen, 1998) in the Christian Research Journal, 1999, volume 21, no. 4; and Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique of Mormon Scholarship (Livermore, CA: Wingspan Press, 2006). ↩︎
24. The immutability (changelessness) of God is itself a divine attribute. It is based upon both observations of his nature in Scripture and his self-declaration. The word “immutable” is used twice in Hebrews 6:17-18, to declare God’s absoluteness in his decrees and nature. God, in Malachi 3:6 states it strongly, “I change not,” and Hebrews 1:10-12 tells us that He remains the same. ↩︎
25. Joseph Smith—The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (7 vols.) 6:305-306. ↩︎
26. See Jameson Fausset, Brown Bible Commentary, at reference cited, Ages Software edition (Albany, OR: 1997). See also A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures of the Greek New Testament, at reference cited, Ages Software edition, (Albany, OR: 1997), where he states,“Unto his God and Father (tōi theōi kai patri autou). Dative case and autou (Christ) applies to both theōi and patri. Jesus spoke of the Father as his God (Mat. 27:46; John 20:17) and Paul uses like language (Eph. 1:17), as does Peter (1 Peter 1:3). ↩︎
27. Originally under the title “My Father in Heaven,” it was published in the Mormon periodical, Times and Seasons 6 (15 November 1845): 1039, and it entered the Mormon hymnal in 1851. So beloved is her hymn that it has been quoted in a few LDS Conference speeches by General Authorities as a reference. Other General Authorities have quoted her in their books when discussing Mother God in a more genteel manner, as “heavenly parents.” ↩︎
28. The less direct reference by Phelps states, “The woman hid for good, When she, as queen of heaven, In gold of Ophir stood,” in Times and Seasons 5 (1 February 1844): 431. ↩︎
29. W. W. Phelps, “A Voice From the Prophet. ‘Come to Me,’” in Times and Seasons 6 (15 January 1845): 783. ↩︎
30. James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1901), 401. ↩︎
31. Milton R. Hunter, Gospel Through the Ages (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1945), 104. ↩︎
32. Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1951), 114. ↩︎
33. For thorough study of nearly 600 direct and indirect references to Mother God, see David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “A Mother There: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven” in BYU Studies (50:1 Winter 2011), 71-97; and Maxine Hanks, ed., Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992). ↩︎
34. “Becoming like God,” accessed March 2014, at https://www.lds.org/topics/becoming-like-god?lang=eng. [Later relocated to]: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng ↩︎
35. Phelps wrote, “Thy father is God, thy mother is the Queen of heaven, and so thy whole history, from eternity to eternity, is the laws, ordinances and truth of the ‘Gods’ embracing the simple plan of salvation . . . In fact the Jews thought so much of this coronation among Gods and Goddesses; Kings and Queens of heaven, that they broke over all restraints and actually began to worship the ‘Queen of heaven,’ according to Jeremiah.” Times and Seasons, vol. 5 (1 January1845): 758. Note here that he bifurcates between what he sees as the true Queen and the false worship of her. ↩︎
36. Cf., LDS Collectors Library 2005 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2005). ↩︎
37. Orson Pratt wrote, “The Father and Mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have been, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father . . . Inasmuch as God was the first husband to her, it may be that He only gave her to be the wife of Joseph while in this mortal state,” (“Celestial Marriage,” in The Seer, vol. 1, no. 10 (October 1853), 158. Young made his declaration August 19, 1866, “The man Joseph, the husband of Mary, did not, that we know of, have more than one wife, but Mary the wife of Joseph had another husband. On this account infidels have called the Savior a bastard.” (Journal of Discourses, 11:268). Young and Pratt use both arguments that Phelps used, the Father was Mary’s husband to prevent Jesus from being illegitimate. ↩︎
38. Cf., 2 Nephi 29:3-6; 29:10. ↩︎
39. Journal of Discourses, 13:271. ↩︎

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