Looking for two talks by Hugh Nibley

[masonwheeler]

I've had two talks by Professor Nibley on my mind lately, and I can't seem to find them.

The first was an article in one of the The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley books--but I can't remember which one--talking about "gold and silver and the riches of the earth" and examining links in many ancient cultures' mythologies between Satan-figures, a hell beneath the surface of the earth, and mining. Does anyone recognize that or know which book it was in?

The second was a lecture, presented on cassette tape, that I heard back when we still used cassette tapes, in which he gave a very interesting analysis of secret combinations such as the Gadianton Robbers. He talked about how, although we tend to think of them as Mafia analogues, the group that eventually brought Nephite society to its knees looked much more like "respectable businessmen" than criminals hiding in shadows. I realize this is a very vague description. I only heard it being played back once, while riding in someone else's car, and I was told it was a talk by Hugh Nibley. If not, it was still very interesting, and I'm still interested in finding a copy of it, or a transcript of the lecture.

Do either of these lectures ring any bells to anyone here, who might be able to help me find what they were published under?

[Hemidakota]

[1] "Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless". The chapter is called 'Treasures in the Heavens

Ths is a transcript of a talk given in 1967 in Glendale, California, where Hugh Nibley lived during his teenage years. The informal style typical of his talks has been preserved. Nibley himself says he speaks much too fast, and the frequent repetitions are to make sure he is understood. The reader who seeks documentation for statements made in this talk is referred to "Treasures in the Heavens," of which this is a more popular and Church-related presentation.

[Hemidakota]

[2] "Teachings of the Book of Mormon", vol. 3, by Hugh Nibley

Lecture 77, "Helaman 6: Modern Wickedness, Cain and the Origin of Secret Combinations"

[livy111us]

There are quite a few Nibley lectures on Youtube. Just find fairldsorg youtube site, and then go to their playlist. They've got a lot of them.

[masonwheeler]

[1] "Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless". The chapter is called 'Treasures in the Heavens

I found that online at rsc.byu.edu. It's not what I was thinking of, not even close. The next chapter, Subduing the Earth: Man's Dominion, came close, touching on similar themes, but it's not the one I was thinking of either. Thanks, though. :)

[Vort]

No idea, but I'm posting so I can keep track of this thread.

Have you looked through speeches.byu.edu? I think the talks you mention are not there on mp3, because I have downloaded and listened to most of them (all of them, but I just found out there are several "new" ones put up recently).

[masonwheeler]

I found the first one. It was called "Stewardship Of The Air", available at Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints - Stewardship of the Air

I found Hemidakota's second guess, and it's not what I was looking for either. As I've been thinking about it, I remembered a specific part. Towards the beginning, he said something that went something like this. Not an exact quote, but something along the lines of:

"I frequently hear students talking about how Jacob 2 says that if they're righteous, that they are justified in seeking wealth, that 'after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them,' and that since they're righteous, worthy members of the Church, that that means it's OK to go out and get rich. They're missing the point of the verse, which is that 'ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.' It's about taking the resources that God blesses you with and using them to help others. Amassing a personal fortune is never part of the program."

Not the exact words, probably not even close, but that's the sense of what he said towards the start of the talk, and then somehow he got off on Gadiantons and businessmen. I hope this can help someone direct me towards the right lecture?

Thanks to everyone who's offered suggestions so far!

[Hemidakota]

I will look...I have all of his writings.

[Hemidakota]

Lecture 43 "Alma 1-2: Escapes Wealth" By Hugh B. Nibley

[partial content]

So everyone must pass the wealth test, and it's the hardest of all. Remember, Satan's office is to try men and to tempt them. How does he do it? You can have anything in this world for money. That's the way he is going to tempt you, of course. We are to be tested to see if we will be faithful and true in all things whatsoever the Lord commands. He is very experienced in this, and he knows what the number one temptation is. In 1 Ne. 22:23 he tells us the four things, and repeats them again in 3 Ne. 6:15 . The things we can't resist are, in this order: power, gain, popularity, and lusts of the flesh. And they are all interrelated; they are all built around ego, pride, etc.

Here's an interesting speech by Brother Warner Woodworth, 1 who is on our faculty here. Incidentally, this is from a book that I have too. I could have read it from that book, but I would have gotten started and never let up. He has some discreet quotations to show us what the problem is. "A top executive described his work experience in several different companies this way: `We always saw signs of physical affliction because of stress and strain. Ulcers, violent headaches. In one of the large corporations, the chief executive officer ate Gelusil by the minute. That's for ulcers. [He] had a private dining room with his private chef. All he ever ate was well-done steak.' He went on, 'You're always on guard. Did you ever see a jungle animal that wasn't on guard? You're always looking over your shoulder. You don't know who's following you.'"

Now this doesn't seem to be the order of Zion or sacred things, where they had all things in common and no poor among them. The four things that Nephi talks about are first power, then gain, then popularity and fame, and then sex and all the lusts of the flesh. They all go together, you'll notice, if you watch your prime-time TV-as I do very faithfully, of course [laughter]. I did Friday night for once because my son was on a soap opera. In fact, had quite a big part. It was the most sordid, silly, disgusting, and sickening thing. He said, "They have to come up with a new story every day." They have to keep ten stories ahead, so the writers get together and just cook up any combination of sordid relations -some married person is two-timing his spouse; they divorce. Someone has an abortion. It goes on and on and on. It's utterly nasty, and here my son is cashing in on it! I never could correct that kid, but he's the most faithful member of the Church I've ever known. Oh boy, is he dedicated; he makes me look like an atheist.

[Quoting from Brother Woodworth's article]: "'A man wants to get to the top of the corporation not for the money involved. After a certain point, how much more money can you make? In my climb, I'll be honest, money was secondary [but it was there]. Unless you have tremendous demands, yachts, private airplanes-you get to a certain point [and] money isn't that important. It's the power, the status, the prestige. Frankly, it's delightful to be on top and have everyone call you Mr. Ross and have a plane at your disposal and a car and a driver at your disposal. [This is like King Noah]. When you come into town, there's people to take care of you. When you walk into a board meeting, everybody gets up and says hello. I don't think there's any human being who doesn't love that. It's a nice feeling.'"

Then here's an interview with a [ presidential campaign manager]: "'Running for President feels exactly like being president. The ordinary experiences of life melt away, are replaced by a constant swirl of limousines and money, jet planes and prepared statements, secret service men and gorgeous political groupies. There is almost an infinite sense of power and prestige. It feels wonderful, which is why it's so terrible. [The Book of Mormon always zeros in on pride as head of the list; it's the first of the deadly sins in the classic list.] Yes, I particularly remember the feeling of riding alone in the limousine with a motorcycle escort. Everybody was peering in at me. To them I was a blur: power in motion. To me they were a frozen milieu of still, dumb, gawking faces-as if captured by a strobe light. During those moments I knew the glory the president himself knows and it was an impressive experience. Had it continued, I have no doubt that I would have succumbed to it absolutely.'"

Unless you have a general like MacArthur, who had immense ability, of course, it's the uniform you salute. It's an interesting thing that the military who live for rank never have any illusions about it because they know how people get promoted. We were always told it's the uniform you salute, not the person. He doesn't think he has made a great achievement; maybe they needed him, he had a friend in the right place, or something. But this sort of thing gets to us.

"The interviewer asked, 'Succumbed to what?' [The campaign manager replied], 'To the atrocious assumption that I was more important than other people. [Think of your neighbors like yourself, that you are all alike. I would have this inequality done away with, said King Benjamin.] And I would not have been evil to have done so-just human. If your repeated experience is that you're in motion and everyone else is frozen on the side of the road, it is only reasonable to conclude that you are a more important person than they, that they expect you to run the universe for them. You don't feel as though you are being corrupted by power. You feel as though you are intelligently responding to empirical evidence. And that is power's greatest corruption: the tragic and universal misconception by the wielder of power that it isn't corrupting him.'"

Of course, it's the same thing with money. That's the famous dictum of Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." So look out for power! So we have these things [to look out for]. 1 Ne. 22:23 calls them "gain, power, popularity, and the lusts of the flesh." And 3 Ne. 6:15 calls them "power, authority, riches, and the vain things of the world." Who can handle these things? If you are going into the eternities to rule and reign in the house of Israel forever, you can't go on with a defect like this. As a mortal, you are here to be tested. "This life is a time of probation." This is the hardest test of all-can you be trusted for infinity? This means, can you be left completely alone for endless ages without doing infinite damage? Well, who can? You make the average person president of a committee of three and he starts acting like Genghis Khan. I've seen that happen again and again. That's the world we live in.

In Alma 1:29-31 the people had the wealth and still were righteous, so the question arises: Are wealth and virtue compatible? We all like to think they are. Today we are actually preaching that sexual promiscuity and virtue are compatible; people are actually trying to believe that. They want that too. Actually, this vice is less absorbing, less persistent, less demanding, less predatory, and less hypocritical than the pursuit of gain. Sex is way down the list compared with the other one, certainly in the Book of Mormon. But this problem here is treated by no one as well as Brigham Young, so here we go. I'm going to read you some passages from Brother Brigham, who was our greatest businessman and the greatest leader in American history. Nobody performed anything like what he did as a leader. George Washington is the only one within shouting distance of that. I just noticed this passage. I hadn't intended to read it, but this is thrown in at no extra charge. We often hear the strange perversion of that saying, "The idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer," which means that the idle rich shall not eat the bread of the laboring poor. That's the way it has been throughout history; the poor have been ground down supporting the rich. Brigham said, 2 "Man has become so perverted as to debar his fellows as much as possible from these blessings, and constrain them by physical force or circumstances to contribute the proceeds of their labor to sustain the favored few." He discovered the conflict at an early age. Can you have them both? He said he "sought for riches [when he was nineteen], [p.234] but in vain; there was always something that kept telling me that happiness originated in higher pursuits."

This was the Sunday School lesson for last Sunday, as a matter of fact: D&C 6:7 . This was the first specific commandment once the conditions were agreed on with the Lord and had been clearly explained and accepted by the brethren to carry on the work. He said they must have faith and all the other things. Then he gave the first specific rule, the first explicit order in clear and ringing words: "Seek not for riches, but for wisdomÂ…" They are clearly marked alternatives-not seek for wisdom more than riches, but seek for the one and not for the other. They are mutually exclusive. "You cannot serve God and mammon," the Lord says. You must necessarily hate the one and love the other, and you must "serve God with an eye which is single to his glory." This is a common rationalization, and Brigham has a lot to say about it. At the very beginning of the Church, Joseph Smith said, "God has often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the Church." You are not going to have covetousness and revelation.

This is more or less chronologically arranged. "In 1855 Brigham pointed out the way in which love of knowledge and love of wealth, like antipathetical sets of glands, render each other ineffective: `It is possible for a man who loves the world [riches] to overcome that love, to get knowledge, to understand until he sees things as they really are; then he will not love the world, but will see it as it isÂ….' In 1859 [he said], `I desire to see everybody on the track of improvement.Â…But when you so love your propertyÂ…as though your affections were placed upon the changing, fading things of earth, it is impossible to increase in knowledge of the truth.'"

"In 1860 [he said], 'There are hundreds in this community [he is talking about the little community in the valley; it was getting quite big then] who are more eager to become rich in the perishable things of this world than to adorn their mindsÂ…with a knowledge of things as they were, as they are, and as they are to come.' In 1862: 'No man who possesses the wealth of wisdom would worship the wealth of mammon.' In 1863: If we go on 'lusting after the grovelling things of this life which perish with the handling,' we shall surely 'remain fixed with a very limited amount of knowledge, and like a door upon its hinges, move to and fro one year after another without any visible advancement or improvement [until retirement comes, and then you die of ulcers]Â…Man is made in the image of God, but what do we know of him or ourselves when we suffer ourselves to love and worship the god of this world-riches?'"

Then twelve years later he said, "When you see the Latter-day Saints greedy and covetous for the things of this world, do you think their minds are in a fit condition to be written on by the pen of revelation?Â…We frequently hear our merchants say they cannot do business and then go into the pulpit to preach." It doesn't seem to bother them anymore. Some feel that you can have a balance of the one and the other. He says, no balance. "A man or a woman who places the wealth of this world and the things of time in the scales against the things of God and the wisdom of eternity has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no heart to understand.Â…The covetous, those who are striving continually to build themselves up in the things of this life [which we call success] will be poor indeed; they will be poor in spirit and poor in heavenly things."

This is a thing Joseph Smith talked about. He said, "You must not be contracted; but you must be liberal in your feelings."

Brigham Young said, "`Let us not narrow ourselves up.Â…This same lack of comprehensiveness of mind is also very noticeable at times with some men who happen to accumulate property, and it leads them to forsake the spirit of the gospel. Does it not prove that there is a contractedness of mind in those who do so, which should not be? Business is by its very nature narrowing [We are seeing this today with the insider trading and the takeovers; it all depends on secrecy and limited information]: Take for instance the financial circles, the commerce of the world, those business men, where they have their opponents theyÂ…with all the secrecy of the grave I might say, will seek to carry out their schemes unknown to their opponents in order that they may win. Like a man at the table with cards in his hands, unseen by any but himself, he will take advantage as far as he can [that's exactly the game they are playing-that's the stock market]. So says the politician. So says the world of Christendom, so says the world of the heathens, and it is party upon party, sect after sect, division upon division, and we are all for ourselves.'" Well, we are told that's the right thing. It's a privatized world.

Finally, "Brigham told the well-heeled Saints [and there are lots more of these to the same effect] to 'keep their riches, and with them I promise you leanness of soul, darkness of mind, narrow and contracted hearts, and the bowels of your compassion will be shut upÂ….' Even so, Joseph Smith had warned against "those contracted feelings that influence the children of men' who judge each other 'according to the narrow, contracted notions of men' while `the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard.'" That reads like a paraphrase of King Benjamin, doesn't it? This is the theme we have here then. It goes on in the [Doctrine and Covenants] and says, "Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich." We mentioned the people who had everything and had nothing.

In their prosperous circumstances, they behaved themselves. There were no deserving poor, and they were equal. But this next thing is very important: Those who didn't belong to the church took another business-they were taking to sorceries. This is what you do-games of chance and luck, the stock market sort of thing. Verse 32: "For those who did not belong to their church did indulge themselves in sorceries, and in idolatry or idleness, and in babblings, and in envyings and strife [gossip about this and that]; wearing costly apparel [dressing for success; it's all one picture-all centered around personal gain, all the prime-time mix]; being lifted up in the pride of their own eyes; persecuting, lying, thieving, robbing, committing whoredoms, and murdering, and all manner of wickedness [this is really competitive stuff that was going on]; nevertheless, the law was put in force [they had laws] upon all those who did transgress it, inasmuch as it was possible."

That's an important qualification. They were doing all these wicked things, but you can't put a person in jail just for being mean, or being cruel, or for oppressing on a debt, or putting a widow out of business. You can't do that. We have to let people do what they want to, so this goes on. So they had two definite societies. In one they did not set their hearts on riches and were liberal to all. In the other they were in for all they could get. Were they grabbing-striving for success and all the rest!

[deila]

I have digitzed Nibley's talks from the old cassettes. You can find them on my website as mp3 versions. It will be there:

Nibley MP3

I've had two talks by Professor Nibley on my mind lately, and I can't seem to find them.

The first was an article in one of the The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley books--but I can't remember which one--talking about "gold and silver and the riches of the earth" and examining links in many ancient cultures' mythologies between Satan-figures, a hell beneath the surface of the earth, and mining. Does anyone recognize that or know which book it was in?

The second was a lecture, presented on cassette tape, that I heard back when we still used cassette tapes, in which he gave a very interesting analysis of secret combinations such as the Gadianton Robbers. He talked about how, although we tend to think of them as Mafia analogues, the group that eventually brought Nephite society to its knees looked much more like "respectable businessmen" than criminals hiding in shadows. I realize this is a very vague description. I only heard it being played back once, while riding in someone else's car, and I was told it was a talk by Hugh Nibley. If not, it was still very interesting, and I'm still interested in finding a copy of it, or a transcript of the lecture.

Do either of these lectures ring any bells to anyone here, who might be able to help me find what they were published under?