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Book Review

Secret History: An Eyewitness Account of the Rise of Mormonism

A Translation of Vor Tids Muhamed

John Ahmanson (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984) HB 179pp.

Translated by Gleason L. Archer

Reviewed by Kurt Van Gorden

 

With an unending stream of recent books on Mormonism, what makes the Secret History unique compared to its dust-collecting sidekicks? In short, the Secret History is an English translation of John Ahmanson’s 1876 Danish text, Vor Tids Muhamed, of which three original copies are known to exist. Ahmanson was one of several thousand 1850 converts to Mormonism who left Denmark to follow Brigham Young and the other Mormon prophets and apostles. In America, he trekked five hundred miles by foot, over rugged terrain, pulling the family’s possessions in a handcart to reach Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ahmanson opens his heart to the reader as he struggles with personal responsibility for the hardships endured by his fellow countrymen, many of whom he led into Mormonism and to its Zion, only to watch them die along the way. Once the ragged company reached Salt Lake City, the renewed life and joy was short lived, since Ahmanson found that the closer he got to the prophet Brigham Young and the Mormon leaders, the more he realized that he and his countrymen had been deceived.

Ahmanson’s original title, Vor Tids Muhamed, was one of the earliest parallels drawn between the founders of Mormonism and Islam—Joseph Smith and Muhammad. Although his parallel strikes a chord, the most revealing part of the book is his whistle-blowing exposé of Mormon leadership, their secret temple rituals, and their mind-boggling history of criminal and murderous conduct in the name of God.

This translation duplicates Ahmanson’s layout, including his introduction, footnotes, and his page breaks. Dr. Gleason L. Archer, an accomplished linguist, realized the value of Ahmanson’s work. He flanked himself with qualified researchers, like Utah-based Chris Alex Vlachos, who assisted him in confirming and footnoting historical matters. The only new material was Dr. Archer’s preface, introduction, and footnotes. The contemporary title, Secret History: An Eyewitness Account of the Rise of Mormonism, was named after the ninth chapter and was added for appeal.

Ahmanson begins his account in a small Baptist Church that he attended in Copenhagen [15]. Four nicely dressed American visited one Sunday and sat in the back of the service. They befriended the congregation, and within a few weeks, convinced most of the Baptists that Mormonism was God’s authorized church [17]. Their persuasive speech had the entire congregation talking about the whole Baptist church changing to Mormonism. They apparently dumbfounded the pastor who was almost persuaded to join. The Mormons split the tiny congregation when the pastor refused conversion. However, the Mormon missionaries seduced enough converts from the pastor that they were able to organize the first Scandinavian Mormon Church from the Baptist fold [18].

Ahmanson was among these first converts of the newly born church. After ordaining him as an elder, the Mormons sent him to Norway. While there, he and six other Mormon missionaries were jailed. Ahmanson blames the jailing upon the Mormons not being forthright about their purpose to Norwegian officials. The Norwegian government, being a Lutheran Church-State, assigned theologians at the University of Christiania to check the doctrine and background of Mormonism. Their report was everything but flattering. They wrote a paper condemning Mormonism as a dubious and suspicious organization and questioned whether it was even Christian [21].

The missionaries called this persecution and remained jailed for seven months [23]. Upon their release and return to Denmark, the news of polygamy among American Mormons was circulating Denmark. The Mormons had no small task trying to answer this charge. This caused Ahmanson to reconsider what he had joined, but his decision was final as he planned to go to the Mormon Zion, Salt Lake City, and receive special “spiritual gifts.” A temple was promised in Salt Lake City wherein priesthood endowments would protect them from the wrath of God that was about to be poured out upon the sinful nations [25].

The book is insightful on the thought processes about turning one’s body, soul, and mind over to a controlling group like Mormonism. Long before the 20^th century books on sects and cults, Ahmanson laid out the same pattern in 1876 as what is found in modern cults.

Candidly, Ahmanson speaks of the ignorance factor, “There are probably thousands of our compatriots living in Utah who because of the language factor alone are not only ignorant about Mormonism and its history in general, but also about the unnatural and criminal obligations which they have entered into in ‘the Endowment House’ ” [14]. Concerning conversion pressure, he says, “Such reflections as these [the persuasiveness of the Mormon missionaries] necessarily had to impel me eventually . . . to the unavoidable ‘either . . . or’—that is, either to accept the new teachings or to give up my faith in the Bible as God’s word—I chose the former” [19]. About the lure of promise, he wrote, “in order to attain the most important and glorious gifts of counsel, first one had to travel to Utah and give themselves over wholly and completely to the Mormons’ power” [25]. The single-leadership and authority of Brigham Young was explained as, “The unbounded power and influence Brigham exerts over the Mormon people becomes understandable when one takes into consideration . . . the enormous revenues that stand at his disposal . . . he receives and administers the revenues of the Church” [50]. And on obedience, he wrote, “It has only one great commandment, ‘blind, unconditional obedience’ to the Prophet and the leaders of the Church” [54]. These and other valuable insights perfectly parallel the 1970s sociological, psychological, and theological works on cultism without the modern authors having knowledge of Ahmanson’s 1876 book. He appears to be writing ahead of his time.

Ahmanson and one hundred sixty-two Danes left Copenhagen in 1856 to go to Zion [27]. He tells how the Mormon prophet Brigham Young was struck with an idea that same year that new emigrants need “not burden the church with the expense of travel” by horse- and oxen-drawn wagons, when they can pull their own load by foot with “handcarts.” The emigrants were met on the second half of their journey, in Iowa City, by a team of Mormon carpenters who issued the two-wheeled handcarts. One handcart was allotted to five people, which severely limited anything that went further on their journey. Ahmanson was the only Dane who spoke competent English, so he was placed in charge of a company of nearly five hundred people. Their hardships were plentiful, including the loss of livestock, freezing, food rationing, and death. Here, he is careful not to overburden the reader, but he tells enough about “these two-wheeled infernal machines invented by Brigham Young” to let the reader feel their daily pain [33].

In theology, Ahmanson recounts how he first heard about polytheism and the denial of the Trinity [one God in three Eternal Persons] in Mormon theology. He recounts how men in Mormonism can become gods and how some Mormons referenced Brigham Young as “their god.”  Mere men were viewed as gods in the flesh [46]. What further circulated the congregation was Brigham Young’s teachings that “Adam is our Father and God—the only God we have anything to do with” [46]. He heard prophet Young ridicule the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the pulpit. Here, Dr. Archer footnotes Ahmanson’s remembrance with quotations from available Mormon sources. The reader must remember that Ahmanson was translating Brigham’s English to Danish, and Dr. Archer translated it back to English, yet, remarkably, nothing was lost when the quotations are compared to current Mormon publications.

Among the other disturbing trends was the Mormon practice of diminishing the Bible as “old leaven,” and the Mormon revelations as “clean flour.” Ahmanson discovered that among the Danes who had arrived in Utah before him, that they diminished Christ as well, equating him with Moses, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young [49]. What frightened him the most was the new revelation on “blood atonement,” where unfaithful Mormons would be killed for violation of their Priesthood covenants or Temple Endowments.

By April, 1857, Ahmanson and many other emigrants had their fill of the “promised land” and left for Nebraska. This was only six months prior to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where Mormons dressed like Indians and bribed a few Indians to help them massacre a wagon train of one hundred twenty California-bound emigrants from Arkansas. Only recently has the Mormon Church shared direct responsibility for the atrocity, which, again, shows the accuracy of Ahmanson in his day. Ahmanson devotes chapters to discussing the massacre, polygamy, the origin of the Book of Mormon, blood atonement, and a brief sketch of Mormon history.

The “Secret Mormonism” is a chapter devoted to the cultic mind, “Obedience—blind and unconditional obedience—is the first and great commandment on which hand the Law and Prophets in the State of Brigham Young.”  The people of Zion take orders without question [130]. Ahmanson sounds a warning to any culture or religion that demands such blind obedience. He discusses the Mormon Endowment ceremony and how it binds the Mormon’s allegiance to his church leaders. Shortly before his exodus from Mormonism, he was handed a tract in Salt Lake City that discussed the Endowment ceremony. Many of these items later appeared in a book by John Hyde, another dissident of Mormonism. His belief that Hyde correctly portrayed the Endowment was confirmed by his recollection of the earlier tract, so he freely used Hyde’s text to prove his point that the secret Endowment ceremony enslaves the soul to serve Mormon leaders in strict obedience.

In conclusion, Ahmanson writes that Mormonism cannot be from God, because “a Society which has to hide itself in the dark [through the secret temple ceremonies and endowment ceremonies] cannot be from Him who is the Light and the Father of light . . .” [141]. He charges them with deception throughout the book, warning others about their “lies” and their stealth practice of presenting themselves as restored Christianity, when in reality they deny the truths of the Bible and Christ [47].

In my observation, as a former Utah resident, Ahmanson was on target. Even though today’s Mormonism has abandoned the murder of apostates, the Adam-god doctrine, and polygamy, the underlying foundation upon which these corruptions were built still remains in Mormonism, that is, new revelation that supplants the Bible. Today’s Mormon missionaries go to the doors of the world with a message that “we are Christians” and “we believe in the Bible.”  In reality, they hold the Bible as an inferior work to the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and current church leadership. They teach several non-Christian doctrines that any student of the Bible will quickly identify as false: namely, polytheism—that many gods and goddesses exist, that God the Father began as a man on another planet who, who worshipped a god above him, and who was elevated to become a god after his death. He is only one god among many gods. He, according to Mormonism, is married to at least one goddess wife in heaven, referred to as “Mother god” in Mormonism. He and his wives procreated spirit-children in heaven. Jesus was the firstborn, and Lucifer (who became Satan) was the second, and the Holy Ghost is a spirit-man, who is also one of the offspring of Mother and Father god. They teach that we were sent to earth for a probationary period and that we were made to forget our preexistence. They also teach that every Mormon today has the potential of becoming a god or goddess, just like Mother and Father god did. Only those who are married in Mormon temples will progress godhood, therefore, they have also taught that Jesus was married and had children, since he progressed the same as all other gods. These doctrinal revelations are enough to justify the statement that they do not represent historic Christianity.  The aforementioned 1850s Norwegian investigation into Mormonism was quite accurate when it questioned whether Mormonism was Christian at all.

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