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11Temple Oaths After Lucifer tempts Adam and Eve, the Mormon god Elohim curses Lucifer for his crime, essentially as it appears in the Bible. Lucifer is to crawl on his belly and eat dust. Lucifer snarls back in defiance, "&I will take the treasures of the earth and buy up armies and navies, Popes and Priests and reign with blood and horror on the earth!" He then walks out as if Gods curse had no effect. This is very close to the Gnostic interpretation of the third chapter of Genesis, in which Elohim is depicted as a cunning, impotent spoilsport and Lucifer as the liberating hero, who actually leads Adam and Eve to see the "light." Gnosticism is, of course, one of the oldest heresies to plague Christianity. It has been condemned by many post-apostolic writers, and even by the New Testament writers. (31) Gnostics saw the God of the Hebrews as a false god (Demiurge) who was enslaving the earth and keeping man from realizing the divine light within him. In most Gnostic writings, Lucifer moves into Eden as an agent for the true god. He "initiates" Eve into the inner knowledge of gnosis through the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby freeing her from the slavery of the Demiurge (Jehovah). (32) Likewise, Freemasonry teaches that the Christian God is a demiurge. The arch-Mason, Albert Pike, speaking officially, called the deeds of the God of the Christians "&cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science." He said: "Lucifer is God and unfortunately Adonay (the God of the Christians) also is God. For the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black&pure and philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal with Adonay; but Lucifer, God of Light and God of Good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the God of Darkness and Evil |