by Pete Earley
The Mitsubishi truck had less than two thousand miles on it and was only five months old. Richard sold it for $5,500. He gave the money to Jeffrey as evidence that he no longer intended to let possessions rule his life. Jeffrey was pleased. He told Richard that he was welcome to move in permanently with him and Alice and he said that Richard didn’t need to find a job. Jeffrey would take care of him, in return, for the rest of Richard’s inheritance. Richard agreed.
“I told him that he was doing the right thing in the eyes of God,” Jeffrey remembered, “and his depression went away and he started making real headway in his studies.”
By the fall of 1986, Jeffrey had attracted a core group of “disciples.” Kevin and Richard lived with him in the house. Danny and Sharon lived across the street in student apartments that they rented from the church. About twice a week, Jeffrey would teach special classes just for them at his house. Most focused on how the RLDS Church had fallen away from the scriptures by becoming too liberal. The group studied scriptures that talked about how God would someday cause a new prophet to rise up and restore Zion.
It was during this period that Alice had a strange dream. It was dark in her dream and all she could hear at first was a whirling noise, like the sound of helicopter blades chopping the air as they began to turn. A light appeared—a spotlight illuminating a boxing ring. Alice was inside a huge auditorium, high up, away from the ring, in the cheap seats. Two men were wrestling, their muscular, well tanned bodies dressed in skintight trunks. One of them lifted his opponent and slammed him on the mat. Everyone yelled, but Alice turned away. She knew someone was watching her. Someone was waiting for her. At that point, Alice woke up. She told Jeffrey about the dream the next morning.
“God is trying to show me something,” she said. “But I don’t understand.”
A short time later, Kevin saw the movie The Highlander, and when he got home, he told Jeffrey and Alice that they had to see it. They went the next afternoon. The movie began in total darkness. Blood-red words suddenly appeared on the screen and the voice of Sean Connery vibrated through the theater.
“From the dawn of time we came, moving silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the gathering, when the few that remain will battle until the last. No one has ever known that we were among you—until now.”
The screenplay, based on a story by Gregory Widen, followed the adventures of Conner Macleod; a Scot who should have died in 1536 when he was wounded in battle, but who miraculously survived and later discovered that he was a member of a rare race of immortals. These men could be killed only when they were beheaded with a sword. During the centuries that followed, Macleod and the other immortals lived like ordinary people until the time of the “gathering,” when all of them met to fight. Only one could claim the ultimate prize-complete knowledge of everything in the world.
Within seconds after the move began, Alice grabbed Jeffrey’s arm. “This is it!” she announced. “This is my dream.”
The first scene in the movie was shot in an auditorium where a yelling crowd was watching a professional wrestling match. The camera panned the fans and then zeroed in on the hero, who was sitting near the top of the auditorium in the cheap seats scanning the mob for his adversary.
“It is exactly like my dream,” Alice whispered. During the next 110 minutes of the movie, Alice repeatedly squeezed Jeffrey’s arm. She didn’t have to say anything to him. He knew what she meant. He saw dozens of similarities between the film and his life.
“It was like watching our own lives being played out on the screen,” Jeffrey later explained. “The term ‘the gathering’ was straight from Joseph Smith, Jr. . . . The prize was also scriptural. One man gets the power . . . to know everything in the world. Holiness is defined in the Book of Mormon as knowing all things, becoming one with God.”
After the movie, as Jeffrey and Alice were walking to their car, Alice suddenly stopped.
“Listen,” she said.
Jeffrey looked around. He was quiet.
“It’s the same whirling noise that we heard in the theater,” said Alice.
She looked at Jeffrey and waited for him to look directly at her. “Why is this happening to us?” she asked. “Jeffrey, why are you so different from other men?”
Jeffrey didn’t say anything.
“I want to see it again,” Alice said. “The movie.”
They returned to the theater. That afternoon they watched the movie over and over and over again until the theater closed. The next day the two of them came back. They saw the show a total of seven times that weekend.
The following night, Jeffrey got out his scriptures and spread them and several other books out on the floor of the living room. He was looking for a specific story in the Book of Mormon about three Nephites whom God made immortal. These faithful saints, according to the Mormon scriptures, are still walking among ordinary humans, ministering to the faithful, unknown to everyone.
“I became convinced that God had moved the director and screenwriter of that movie,” said Jeffrey. “God had moved them to make it solely because he wanted Alice and me to see it. He wanted me to know that I was truly different from other men.”
Alice watched Jeffrey as he read his scriptures. “Jeffrey was totally oblivious to everything around him when he studied,” she recalled. “He called it ‘Becoming one with the word’ and the house could be on fire and he wouldn’t know it. I never knew anyone who loved to learn as much as him. It was second only to his love of sex. “
Alice went out into the living room, sat beside him, put her arms around him and asked: “Jeffrey, who are you?”
“Who do you think I am?” he replied.
“I don’t know, Jeffrey, but you are not like anyone I’ve ever known or seen.”
“I think we need to find an answer to your question,” he replied. “I think it is time to find out who I really am.”
Chapter 22
JEFFREY went to the temple to pray. But he didn’t know exactly what to ask. “Alice got real pushy after we saw The Highlander. She’d say, ‘Are you the great last prophet that we’re all looking for?’ . . . The thought had hit me from time to time. I would wonder, ‘Why am I the only one seeing these things?’ The thought entering my mind was ‘Who the heck am I even to think that I am this man?’ but Alice kept pushing and I kept wondering, ‘Could it be true? Could I really be this prophet, this seer? Is God choosing me?”’
The longer Jeffrey thought about it, the more logical it seemed. He had read about all of the prophets and he thought that he had the same qualities as they had. “The most important thing is your willingness to do what God asks. I have never cared what other people thought. I had always loved the scriptures. I began to realize that it could be true. I could be the last seer. Why not?”
There was only one real glitch in his mind. Prophets were supposed to proclaim a great revelation. Joseph Smith, Jr., had brought forth the Book of Mormon. What did Jeffrey have to reveal? “I said to God, ‘Okay, if I’m supposed to be this great last servant, the one like Moses, then what am I supposed to reveal to the world? Tell me, God. Show me what you want me to reveal. And I began to pray.”
Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes. Nothing happened. No voices. No beams of light. No personages. No signs of any kind came to Jeffrey. After an hour, his mind wandered. He thought about The Highlander, about being immortal. He decided to read his scriptures, and for no apparent reason, he turned to Genesis and read chapter 6. In the standard Bible, chapter 6 contains twenty-two verses that describe the descendants of Adam and the building of Noah’s ark. But Jeffrey was reading the “inspired” Bible as translated by Joseph Smith, Jr., and when Smith rewrote chapter 6, he added forty-nine verses. Most described men who later showed up in the Book of Mormon. Their names were inserted in the genealogy of Adam to prove that they were his direct descendants and not fictional characters. Perhaps the most amazing addition that Smith made, however, was a s
eries of verses in Genesis that described the eventual birth of Jesus Christ, the Millennium, and how the latter-day saints would be raised up to rule the earth. It was these verses that Jeffrey was reading, and when he came to verse 60, a specific line caught his eye.
. . . In the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name; and the name of his only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous judge, who shall come in the meridian of time.
By this time, Jeffrey had fallen into the habit of diagraming every verse that he read to see if it was “God’s words or man’s.
[A] In the language of Adam
[B] Man of Holiness
[C] is his name
[C] and the name of his only begotten
[B] is the Son of Man
[A] even Jesus Christ
Lines [C] clearly mirrored each other because the word “name” was in each. Jeffrey decided that the [B] lines also were parallel because “Son of Man” was synonymous with “Man of Holiness.” But the [A] lines clearly didn’t match. The first one talked about the “language of Adam.” The second line talked about “Jesus Christ.”
Jeffrey closed his Bible. He was frustrated. He tried to pray, but he couldn’t concentrate. “I felt that God was telling me that He had already shown me everything that I needed to know. All I had to do was open my eyes.” Jeffrey glanced around the temple. “God had directed me to Kirtland. The scriptures said that if I went to the Ohio, I would be endowed with the power. The secret had to be in the temple. What was I missing?”
He decided to read every verse in the scriptures that described the building of temples. He began in Exodus, chapter 25, where he came across these lines:
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof . . .
The word “pattern” had been repeated. Jeffrey continued on. In First Chronicles, chapter 28, he read several verses that quoted God telling David how his son Solomon was to build a temple. Verse 11 read:
Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern . . .
It was in verse 12 too:
And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit . . .
Jeffrey found it again in verse 19:
All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern . . .
Jeffrey felt that he was on to something. Like a bird eating bread crumbs dropped in a line, he continued on. He turned to chapter 43 of Ezekiel. At this point in Jewish history, Solomon’s temple had been destroyed and the Hebrews had been taken into captivity in Babylon. In verse 10, Jeffrey read about Ezekiel’s vision of how the temple—the house—should be rebuilt and how the Jews—the House of Israel—should construct it.
Thou son of man, show the house to the House of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. . . .
“Everywhere I looked, I found mention of this ‘pattern’ but I still didn’t know what it was, only that it came from God.”
In the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 8, verses 5 and 6, Jeffrey found the word “pattern” once again.
. . . See, saith he [God], that thou make all things according to the pattern . . .
“Was it coincidence,” Jeffrey asked, “that every time there was a mention of a temple, there was talk about this mysterious ‘pattern’ from God?”
Jeffrey decided to see if the word “pattern” was mentioned in his Mormon scriptures. In Section 52 of the Doctrine and Covenants, he found this verse:
And again, I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived; for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth deceiving the nations. . . .
Jeffrey closed his scriptures. He knew that God had given Moses a “pattern.” He knew that God had given David a “pattern.” He knew that God had given Ezekiel a “pattern.” According to Section 52, this “pattern” was in all things that God made and those verses also told him that he could use this pattern to tell whether or not he was being deceived by Satan.
But what was the “pattern”?
Jeffrey had an idea. God told Joseph Smith exactly how he wanted the Kirtland temple to be built, so the pattern had to be in the temple. What made the Kirtland temple different? Jeffrey looked around. Other churches usually had only one or two pulpits and they were always located at the front of the sanctuary. But the Kirtland temple had pulpits at the front and rear of the chamber. This was something that visitors frequently asked about. Why so many pulpits—more than twenty? Jeffrey knew that the pulpits were used by various priesthood members.
“I had looked at these pulpits every day, but until that night, I had not really seen them,” Jeffrey said. “Suddenly my intelligence clicked in and I saw the pattern. If you cut the temple exactly in half, you would have the exact same number of pulpits on each half. You would have the exact same number of columns, the exact same number of doors, the exact same number of windows. Both sides would mirror each other. The entire building was chiastic.
“I had finally found the pattern. I realized that everything that God does is according to this mirror imaging or chiastic pattern. Everything.”
Jeffrey decided to check his theory. “What was the most important thing that God has created? Man. He created man in his own image. I thought about my own body. If you cut a man in half lengthwise, both sides would be equal.”
There was only one problem. It was the same nagging one that Eleanor Lord had first mentioned. What about all of the scriptures that weren’t written chiastically, such as the Lord’s Prayer and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount? If everything made by God was chiastic, then why not these verses?
Jeffrey thought for a moment and then had the answer. Just because the verses didn’t appear to mirror each other in English didn’t mean that they weren’t synonymous in Hebrew. “Maybe they were translated wrong.” And then Jeffrey had an even more startling thought. “Why would God worry about English or Hebrew?” If God spoke chiastically, then the words were chiastic, and if they didn’t seem synonymous to humans that was because “mankind really doesn’t understand how to interpret God’s words.”
“Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to interpret them because that was the job of a prophet,” Jeffrey said. “Only a seer could see how the verses were chiastic.”
Jeffrey opened up his Bible and looked again at verse 60 in Genesis.
[A] In the language of Adam
[B] Man of Holiness
[C] is his name
[C] and the name of his only begotten
[B] is the Son of Man
[A] even Jesus Christ
If Jeffrey was correct, lines [A] had to match. As he sat there studying them, Jeffrey suddenly received “the power” to see “the truth.”
“The scales fell from my eyes.” The line “in the language of Adam” was exactly the same as the line “even Jesus Christ,” Jeffrey decided, because “Jesus Christ spoke in the language of Adam.’’
“It all fit.’’
Jeffrey began reading other scriptures. He discovered that every one of them held some new meaning that only he could reveal by way of the pattern. Jeffrey had found his great revelation. Now he could declare himself a prophet.
“I immediately began searching the scriptures to see what my role was.’’ A few hours later, Jeffrey returned home and woke up Alice, who had gone to bed. He told her that he finally understood the vision that he had seen on Halloween night in 1983 when Damon ruptured his liver and had been rushed to the hospital for surgery. That was when Jeffrey suddenly had been at the foot of the cross watching Jesus die.
“I didn’t imagine that,” he explained. It really hadn’t been a vision at all. It had been a flashback. “Alice,” Jeffrey said, “the reason why I could see the crucifixion was because I was actually there when it happened.”
In what sounded remarkably like the plot of The
Highlander, Jeffrey explained that God had created eight great seers at “the beginning of time.’’ These men had lived through the centuries without knowing that they were immortal until God needed them. At that point, God gave them the power to understand who they were. “I have lived countless other lives before!”
“What?” Alice replied, startled.
“I had no recollection of my previous lives because my eyes were sealed by God. But now it is my time. I am the last seer. My eyes are being unsealed so that I can bring the pattern into the world and redeem Zion.”
Jeffrey was so excited that he couldn’t sleep. He decided to return to the temple and pray. When he walked into the lower court and looked up at the pulpits, he saw an angel. Years later, during an interview in the Lake County jail, Jeffrey would recall what he saw that night in the Kirtland temple. During the story, he would break down in tears and take several minutes to regain his composure.
“The angel was Joseph [Smith Jr.]. He didn’t speak,” Jeffrey said. “But I looked at him and he smiled. He smiled a big smile and all the fear that I had in my heart was pulled away and I felt the greatest joy and peace that I had ever felt. I sensed the purity of Christ’s love. . . . And I understood why he was smiling. He looked at me, and in a very simple sense, there was a change of command taking place. He had waited for me a long time and now his job was finished. I was finally at the point where it could happen, where he could turn the role of the prophet over to me so that the scriptures could be fulfilled.”
Chapter 23
NEITHER Jeffrey nor Alice felt it was “scriptural” for them to announce in the fall of 1986 that Jeffrey was the last seer. Christ had waited for his disciples to figure out for themselves that He was the “Son of the living God.” Even so, Jeffrey and Alice decided it would be okay to drop a few hints. At the visitors’ center, Alice asked Eleanor and Tom why Jeffrey had so many curious things happen to him.