Aimee K
Peace be Unto your Souls
A recent YouTube video from a connected and well-versed man has been making the rounds and causing a stir along the Wasatch front. He recorded himself reading a written statement before cutting himself off from any contact, including his own children. He said this was to remain humble, in the service of our Lord, and avoid praise. He didn’t want people’s potential fawning to distract him.
He made some very lofty claims. He declared some very bold things. He gave a warning and instructions for those who would be faithful.
Many people didn’t know what to make of it. Some people felt a sudden fear overtake them, wondering if this message could be the real thing and this was their last chance to be obedient. Like Lehi and his family fleeing into the wilderness before the destruction of Jerusalem.
Through my own experience I’ve earned some very valuable keys in discernment that I’m going to explain in detail.
- Grandeur
- Signs
- Urgency
Today, I recognize these things, not because I’m “just so smart”, but because I experienced them first hand. I was myself deceived in such a manner, believing them of myself. Whether that’s a function of the bipolar disorder that I have since been diagnosed with, or the work of lying spirits, I don’t know. There’s no need to personify the source of the deception, the result was the same. I was deceived.
At the time this happened I held some degree of respect and influence within my community. I was also passionate and loved to dig deep into the scriptures. Because I had already established myself as a reliable teacher my deception took not just myself, but a number of people, who I loved and trusted me, off the proverbial cliff.
Lack of Sleep
Reading material garnered from a near death experience (NDE) I found myself losing sleep. It had a visionary and prophetic nature to it and led me to other material; people’s dreams that seemed to have repeating, confirmatory themes. All of it was intertwined with scriptural messages, which for me, made it all the more interesting. The more I read, the more I lost sleep. Lack of sleep was the weakening needed to begin the decent into a manic, delusionary state.
We all operate on five distinct brainwaves: Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. Each of these brainwaves serves a unique purpose, affecting our behavior, thought processes, movement, and cognitive functions. While these brainwaves naturally manifest, our capacity to regulate and transition between them plays a crucial role in our ability to handle stress, manage both rational and irrational thoughts, and effectively handle tasks, among other cognitive functions.
Delta Waves (0 Hz to 4 Hz) are associated with the deep levels of relaxation and restorative sleep.
Theta Waves (4 Hz to 8 Hz) are normally found when we daydream or are asleep. These are also known as the “suggestible waves” because of their use in hypnosis and associated therapy.
Alpha Waves (8 Hz to 12 Hz) are the bridge between conscious and subconscious. Normally we experience these in a state of relaxation.
Beta Waves (12 Hz to 40 Hz) are most commonly found in awake people engaged in reasoning, calculation, reading, and thinking.
Gamma Waves (40 Hz to 100 Hz) are involved in processing more complex tasks and are associated with learning, memory, and processing new information.
Sleep deprivation can disrupt normal brainwave patterns, leading to an increase in Theta and sometimes Delta brainwave activity. This leaves a person highly suggestable and they will, without intervention, imperceptibly descend into a world of delusion.
To avoid ambiguity and excessive pronouns, I will refer to a person descending into such delusions as a “false prophet”.
Grandeur
We tend to recognize things associated with ourselves instinctively. In a crowded room full of many voices, any one of us would be able to single out our own name being said and focus in to hear more. This is how the delusions by association are spawned. Anything that remotely connects dots, no matter how illogical, will be taken as significant, meaningful, a sign from God or a confirmation down this personal rabbit hole. These patterns weave a disjointed and dreamlike tapestry where the false prophet is the center of a great unfolding about to take place. Threads may be pulled out of scripture, books, movies, personal daily interactions, ads that pop up, commercials, particular songs on the radio, etc.
For example, in the popular book/movie Dune the main character Paul rises to become a Messianic figure. In the recent adaption Timothee Chalamet plays the part of Paul Atreides, Muad’Dib. Someone named Timothy, descending into the delusions of a false prophet, might link himself with the actor’s name and the name Paul in the character in the story. Timothy would identify himself in this hero’s role and go on to subsequently link the Apostle Paul in scripture and on and on it goes.
A story starts to unfold where the false prophet is the main character. This is not an unfamiliar theme. Our entertainment, books and movies are chock-full of different renditions of the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey speaks deep to our soul. There’s a reason it resonates.
Unfortunately, at the point where a person descending into delusions becomes the hero to the community at large, this is where he/she goes off the rails as a false prophet. The false prophet will also use real or imagined connections to high profile people in order to garner credibility.
There is, clearly, a great unfolding of last day prophecy underway around the world. It is both exciting and perhaps a bit scary. We all have roles to play, but these within our own families. We each have our own preeminent need to connect directly to God.
The false prophet understands some great secret that is of vital importance to the world. They love the people in their community. Withholding information that could save lives or people from suffering would be a moral outrage and they accept the responsibility to deliver the message, despite the personal hazard.
The false prophet will also be asked to sacrifice something significant. What this looks like in execution usually involves the abandonment of familial responsibilities to spouse and children to leave for their mission serving the greater good. However, this is contrary to the order God has ordained:
And again verily I say unto you that every man who is obliged to provide for his own family, let him provide and he shall in no wise lose his crown, and let him labor in the church.
T&C 68:2But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Tim 1:13 RE
I would add that this also applies to women abandoning husbands and/or children.
Among the sacrifices that the false prophet feels he/she will be asked to make will be their own life, being taken by the enemy in the course of their mission to fulfill Biblical prophecy. They’ve come to terms with this, are willing to make the sacrifice. This is not without precedent, so the expectation does seem reasonable. Plenty of true prophets have been martyrs.
The false prophet may also feel that they have been promised great relief to their temporal needs. A windfall of money or some other tangible reward will be a byproduct of their mission for God. Be mindful that anything that false spirits have promised in the way of benefit or reward will also fall flat.
The delusions will gradually build, sometimes over months, until a full psychotic episode where everyone is looped into their waking nightmare.
What’s important to remember is that this model of the false prophet, he/she is not acting maliciously. When sanity returns and reason rules the day, the whole episode will be the source of keen embarrassment and public humiliation. Please keep this in mind and be willing to offer mercy and grace to those who are brought so low.
Signs
It might be that these lying spirits are required, by some natural law, to out themselves. They provide the signs by which one may know that they are false and deceiving. But between the declaration of the sign and the lack of fulfillment there is a great deal of angst, fear, doubt, and even action taken based on false information.
The signs are specific. So specific that it seems as though you are being given a preview of an already foregone conclusion. The certainty of the person sharing these signs is beyond doubt. It’s because they have been deceived themselves. There is no sense of lying. The delusion into which they’ve been drawn has convinced them so thoroughly that when they share, it is entirely benevolent, truthful and with humanity’s best interests at heart.
The pattern with God is that He offers signs. These are humble and often are just unlikely coincidences. For the shepherds, it was that the baby would wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Joseph may have momentarily placed our infant Lord in the stone watering manger to help Mary rearrange herself or get up to use the bathroom. It wasn’t anything momentous, just an unlikely moment in time and an improbable arrangement when the shepherds arrived. A newborn child, most likely would be found in the arms of His mother. But at this moment He was in the manger.
Signs of a false prophet will be repetition and fixation on certain themes, numbers, words, or ideas. This may be subtle or overt. Remembering how it worked in my own experience, I recognized one false prophet’s pattern was fixating on the numbers 1111. Staying within the context of his delusionary world I was able to convince him to dial 911. He did not realize what he had done until an emergency dispatcher came on the line. Despite this evidence confirming his psychosis, he denied that anything was wrong with him; or that he needed help. It wasn’t until he told someone that he was headed back to his house to resurrect his wife and children that police finally intervened.
Haldol is an emergency medication that will pull a person out of their dreamlike state. This is only available with a doctor’s intervention and prescription.
A false prophet will offer signs that will fall flat. You are not required to act prior to an offered sign that is said will confirm the message. That said, a stopped watch is right twice a day. Use discernment.
Urgency
High pressure sales, time-shares, and lying spirits always demand immediate action. The urgency is usually accompanied by an implied or explicit threat of doom and destruction should the hearers not act expeditiously. An earthquake will swallow your home and destroy everyone you love. A piece of the moon will crash into the ocean and flood all of the Eastern states. A nuclear bomb will be dropped on the city, you must flee to the mountains. Whatever the particular flavor of cataclysm or catastrophe, time is of the essence!
When I was in this state, I said enough to convince a childhood friend to fly home from an out-of-state work conference, gather up her family and what supplies they could manage and flee into higher ground towards the west.
The urgency driven by fear is not from God. If you have heard such warnings and have had fear grip your heart, take your shoes off, wiggle your toes into the soft earth to ground yourself and breathe. Tap it out and give voice to your feelings to acknowledge any fear you may be experiencing.
…the things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.
DHC 3:295
When urgent and immediate action is necessary God has a different approach.
Years before, in 2011, my five children and I went to the store to pick out some new toys. This was during a time when we were passing through an extremely difficult situation. My heart felt like it was crying out to God while putting on a brave face for my children. I was trying desperately to make things as normal as possible for them.
It was a hot summer day and after we had gotten our things from the store I couldn’t leave because it was well past the time when the baby should have eaten. So we stayed a bit longer, just sitting in the parking lot so I could nurse my son. I knew he would be hungry and I was grateful that he had been so patient with these errands. Rather than roll down the windows we had all of the car doors open, hoping to catch a cool breeze. The baby did nurse, but only a little. I offered him more when he let go, but he turned away again and just smiled up at me. Rather than press the issue, I got out to load him into his car seat. There was no sense of urgency or fear – so the only thing that really stood out was that the baby did not want to satisfy himself with a full tummy.
I climbed back into the car and buckled up. Announcing to my crew, “Let’s go” the children all closed their doors and put on their seat belts. It was perhaps 3 to 5 seconds after the doors all slammed shut that an entire swarming hive of bees flew what would have been through the car. They were blindly hitting the side of our car with fury as if we were in the middle of their pre-determined path. Bees pelted the windows. The entire car was enveloped in the massive swarm of bees as they passed over us. We watched in awe as this black cloud of bees continued away from us and crossed the freeway, covering all six lanes at once in their enormity.
I’m not sure how many times I’ve brushed up against death in my lifetime, but I can say with certainty that this was one of them. I am deathly allergic to bees. A single bee sting will send me into anaphylactic shock. I swell over my entire body including internally. My throat swells shut and I will suffocate.
I feel as though this was my own Passover from death. An answer to a prayer I didn’t even know to offer. And also a powerful confirmation to me that God was in control.
God does not operate in a state of urgency and panic. But he can respond to an immediate need by staving off a baby’s hunger resulting in a miracle of perfect timing.
At the Crossroads
After the signs have fallen flat, and there has been public humiliation the false prophet will be given a choice whether to repent (i.e. come to terms with reality) and begin the healing process, or remain in the state of power, importance, omniscience, and prophecy (i.e. the delusion). It feels better, for a vulnerable ego to stay where one is the mouthpiece of God and everyone else is just mistaken.
Long term: Intervention cannot thwart agency.
Without a community of support, love, mercy and understanding, the sane walk back into the light of day across the sharp edges of broken trust can be too much to make alone. For my part, I didn’t understand how to let it go. I re-lived the experience over and over. Members of my community didn’t know how to talk to me, or relate at all. I felt hopelessly isolated and alone. I knew people were talking about me behind my back. It was painful and devastating.
In a profound act of mercy, God had beforehand placed in my life a friend who was perfectly prepared to see me, to love me, to hear and understand me, despite the enormous fall from grace. We had well established a friendship, outside of the LDS community, before my psychotic “false prophet” episode. Her own father had been schizophrenic and died during an episode while being restrained in the hospital. His loss, early in her life, led her on a journey to understand her father, and she pursued a career in therapy serving on the front lines of the mental health battle field. She was instrumental in my healing process. It was a long road of rebuilding trust with myself, and learning how to discern God’s voice from that of the lying spirits.
So to summarize, here’s what I know:
- Grandeur, importance, specialness in any way outside of one’s own immediate family is deceit.
- God uses signs. Not everything is a sign. False prophets give false signs.
- Urgency is not of God. Calm down and think things through. If God is asking something of you, He will give you the space to carefully exercise your agency. If urgency is needed, He will calmly orchestrate things in such a way that the timing will appear flawless and miraculous in retrospect.
Not much Changes
Yet another second-hand rumor has been passed along to me. This latest rumor attributes things to me I would not say, have not said, and are not true. In response to this new rumor, I sent an email to the one who is the apparent source of the latest batch of falsehoods. Since I have no way of knowing how far the falsehoods have spread I want to reiterate again, I have NO SPOKESMAN.
You should trust no one to pass along something that I “really believe” or that I discuss “with trusted friends” or in a private meeting at which I “let out information” about important topics.
I speak openly, write and publish what I think, believe or know, and do not skulk around giving important information to friends, former neighbors or people I “will really visit with candidly.”
It disappoints me that this continues to be an issue. I assume they think doing this allows them to advance their mischief and make me responsible for it. But I don’t understand why anyone would believe these people when I clearly have said over and over that I don’t use others to advance ideas, deliver information, or pass along secret or “higher” things. It’s hogwash.
This blurb was written by Denver Snuffer in 2016, but was recently reposted in the Fellowships as a reminder. At first blush, it seemed in direct response to the unhinged YouTube video mentioned at the beginning of this post. The man posting on YouTube this week had, as it turns out, used an affiliation with Denver to inadvertently garner credibility. Not much has changed seven years later.
I expect that we will continue to see more of the same. My post now is both in response to and in anticipation of additional false prophets.
For in those days there shall also arise false christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if possible, they shall deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant.
Mark 6:4 (RE)
My only expectation in writing this post is that it will provide someone the tools to recognize the weakness (lack of sleep) allowing and pattern in the building of a false prophet (grandeur, signs, & urgency). I offer this, in naked vulnerability, to any who are willing to learn from my hard earned experience. Recognize it in yourself. Recognize it in your brother/sister, neighbor or friend. Trust but verify. Truth is edifying, uplifting and enlightening. Lying spirits have the opposite effect.
Like a forest has an intertwined network of roots, we are connected to each other. We need to rely on one another, check each other, and individually connect to God. Don’t expect someone else to do that for you. And when you do, don’t expect that God will direct you to be an intermediary between Him and anyone else.
And if in reading this you judge me to be untrustworthy, so be it. I already know I’m crazy.
…come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him.
As a P.S. another recurring con that has taken down God’s people is sexual in nature. This one requires both rational intention and secrecy in order to pull off. It too is enabled by a the lie of grandeur or “specialness”. Nobody is an exception to the commandments.
Literally, Don’t be a dick.
