Sons Ahman/Aumen Israel is a small religious colony of less than a dozen adults with slightly more children living in trailers (caravans) in a sparcely populated part of the high mesa deserts of northern Arizona near the Utah border.

The Origin of the Name "Sons Ahman Israel"

The term "Sons Ahman Israel" is derived from an account by Latter Day Saint apostle Orson Pratt in which he reports the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith declaring that the proper name for God the Father in the "pure language" is AHMAN; the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is given as SON AHMAN and the name of men as SONS AHMAN [1]. This account is dated to 1833. In a revelation given through Joseph Smith in 1832 the Redeemer of mankind is identified as Son Ahman [2], one of many names and titles ascribed to Christ.

The term "Ahman" is, it is claimed, derived from the word "Amen" and literally means "truth". Thus the passage, "He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth..." (Isa.65:16) may refer to the "God of Ahman", or more simply, Ahman. The Lord, in speaking to the angel (pastor) of the Laodiceans, says: "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God" (Rev.3:14). Thus we find Christ also being called "the Ahman", for He is the truth (John 14:6). "For the promises of God in Him (Christ) are yea (Yes), and in Him Amen , unto the glory of God by us" (2 Cor.1:20). Ahman, then, it is claimed by SAI ("Sons Ahman Israel"), is one of the lesser known and used titles of Divinity and literally means "truth" and is not itself a proper name. It is applied equally to both God and Christ though the latter is often called Son Ahman by SAI to distinguish Him from the Father in the Latter Day Saint revelations. The term "Sons Ahman Israel" as applied to the followers of God is even rarer and refers specifically to those belonging to the covenant of Israel. Before the New Covenant (New Testament) Israel referred specifically to the chosen race of Semites descending through Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel, and all mystical schools or fellowships in Old Testament days (known as the Holy Order, or Patriarchal Order) were exclusively for Israelites-in-the-flesh. Since the coming of Christ Israel has been broadened to include the Gentiles of every nation on earth who accept Jesus as Saviour (e.g Rom.8:8ff), the "New Israel" of the New Covenant which transcends all racial barriers. As in the Old Testament, this Covenant has been known as the Holy Order, Patriarchal Order, or Church of the Firstborn. SAI calls it Sons Ahman Israel or the Chevra B'Qor though it has recently renamed itself 'Sons Aumen Israel', presumably to move out of the Mormon paradigm and into a purely New Age/Hindu one where Aum is the word used to describe their sound or first cause of the New Age god.

According to SAI, the first serious attempt to break out of the fundamentalist Utah Mormon chrysalis was the Church of Christ (Patriarchal), later renamed the Evangelical Church of Christ led by a man called John W. Bryant, otherwise known by the pseudonym "Samuel" who in 1974 broke with the fundamentalist Utah Mormon "Apostolic United Brethren", having joined the Mormon Church ten years earlier and served a mission in Japan before becoming affiliated with fundamentalists in the early 1970s. The Evangelical Church of Christ collapsed in about 1986 when Bryant abandoned his flock after major upheavals caused by public and members` reaction to his neo-Brighamite dictatorial behaviour and his bizzare and blasphemous marriage practices. Accused of being a fertility cult on account of the practice of sexual communism and homosexuality in his own secret order, called the "Church of Enoch" like Joseph Smith's, the Church soon disintegrated through mass inner apostacy and public hostility.

A few survivors formed a new church from the remnant calling itself the Church of the New Covenant of Christ which today openly embraces and proclaims Gnosticsm, calling itself a "Gnostic Church". John Bryant remains in hiding and indirectly runs this new Church. Apparently the multi-marriage system has been abandoned. Bryant attempted to prophetically write many scriptures such as the "Writings of Abraham", the "The Book of Elijah", "The Testimony of Mary", and several others. All of them are highly tainted by Bryant's own Utah Mormon background and claims to the successorship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bryant borrowed heavily from extant apocryphal and pseudepigraphical manuscripts, his Book of Elijah being a reworking of the Manual of Discipline found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran. His "translations" are therefore highly suspect.

Prelude to Sons Ahman Israel

We mention Bryant's Evangelical Church of Christ because Sons Ahman Israel is an outgrowth of this movement or Church. Sons Ahman Israel was formed by Gilbert Clark of San Antonio, Texas (who later changed his name by deed poll to "Davied Israel") on 25 January 1981 with five members from Bryant's Church. He was known as "David Clark" in the former organisation.

Gilbert Clark was raised by an inactive Utah Mormon mother and a non-Mormon father and became self-converted to the Book of Mormon and mission of Joseph Smith. In 1974 the young and naive Gilbert Clark set off towards Alaska in search of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Upon arriving in Alaska he planned to build a small ship and sail north in search on the Tribes which according to some Mormon folklore were located under the earth at the North Pole. On 6 September 1974 whilst staying in the basement flat of a friend in Anchorage he describes in his introduction to the Oracles of Mohonri an experience with first the devil and then a personal theophany of the 'Father' and the 'Son'.

The young Gilbert recounts that he was told that the Lord would be with him as He had been with Joseph Smith, Jr. and that he was called to a great labour. He was told to use his time wisely through study and prayer and to receive instruction from others who would educate him in the Gospel. Following this theophany Gilbert relocated to Salt Lake City and immersed himself in Restoration history in the libraries and archives there and sometimes during this period was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for, amongst other things, believing in the doctrine of "soul mates", the teaching that a man is foreordained to marriage to a particular woman, and vice verse. Little is known about this period of his life.

We next learn of a second claimed theophany paralleling in some ways the alleged visit to Joseph Smith of the angel 'Moroni' to Joseph Smith. He recounts how the "Ancient of Days" and His Son Jesus Christ laid hands upon his head and conferred the keys and powers pertaining to the "High Priesthood after the Order of the Aatic Yomen" [3].

We are informed that an intense period of angelic ministry followed in which the rites and ordinances of the Church of the Firstborn were revealed to him though beyond this we are told nothing. We next find Gilbert, who around this time assumed the name David, associated with John W. Bryant's Church in Fairhaven, Nevada.

David Clarks's history in the Bryant Church is very sketchy and he says only that during this time he became acquainted with the Utah Mormon temple ceremonies and its more esoteric traditions and learned something of communal living. He states that he left the Bryant Church on 6 September 1979 when the resurrected Joseph Smith appeared in his room [4] to explain the Utah-Mormon Temple Ceremonies. Between this time and the time Sons Ahman Israel (SAI) was organised on 25 January 1981 we know nothing.

David Clark and the Evangelical Church of Christ

Nothing arises out of a vacuum for the history of thought and behaviour, whether secular or religious, arises out of a particular background. The Mormon Restoration of 1830 arose out of an Orthodox Christian background, and particularly a Protestant one, and one has only to look at the early writings of the Restored Church to see that these were heavily coloured by protestantism out of which its earliest members came. The Restored Church as it stood in 1844 was a very different theological and ecclesiastical creature to the one in 1830 even though both were built on the same premises of apostacy and restoration. The Restoration process did not occur in one single event in 1830 but started then and over a fourteen year period we see the opening or blossoming of a theological and ecclestastical flower.

For example, the Restoration began in 1829-1830 adhering to the traditional Trinitarian doctrine of the Godhead and we find the Second Elder, Oliver Cowdery, preaching the same and even receiving revelations maintaining it [5]. By the time of the Kirtland period Trinitarianism had given way to the Ditheism of the Lectures on Faith (the Father and Son as separate Personages -- the Father a spirit and the Son tabernacled in flesh -- and the Holy Spirit the mind and will of Father and Son) and by Nauvoo this had given way to Tritheism (the Father and Son as resurrected Personages of spirit and flesh, and the Holy Spirit a Personage of spirit -- see D&C 130:22).

After the break-up of the Nauvoo church of 1844 the Reorganized Church retreated to Kirtland Ditheism whilst the Utah Mormon Church moved from Tritheism to Polytheism. After the 1890s the Utah Mormon Church retreated to Tritheism leaving the fundamentalists to continue Brigham Young's Polytheism (a potentially infinite number of gods). As we saw John Bryant came out of a fundamentalist Mormon background and we should not therefore be surprised to find his Evangelical Church of Christ building its base and branching out from polytheism, polygamy, Adam-God doctrine, blood atonement, and many other early Utah Mormon teachings. Bryant was to introduce Essene, Gnostic, Catholic, and various other teachings into his theology. By far the most radical development was his belief that Joseph Smith's polygyny (several women being married to one man, traditionally but inaccurately being called "polygamy") was but a prelude to multiple marriage, or a combination of polygyny and polyandry (several women being married to more than one man).

In the Bryant Church many men and women were simulataneously 'married' to one another, gaining the attention of the national media in the United States. At length bisexuals and possibly homosexuals were inducted into this blasphemous and diabolical combination and some of the most obscene temple ordinances that I have ever read introduced into worship practices. The whole moral structure collapsed with not only this sexual communism but also nude ordinances, and the use of alcohol in sacramental ordinances (principally brandy). In several ordinances women's breasts were sucked and in one a woman was masturbated to orgasm on a temple altar. It is no wonder that such sordid and filthy practices were condemned as fertility cultism by those leaving the Church and why this group was eventually bound to collapse.

We know little of what David Clark did in the Bryant Church beyond that which is contained in personal correspondences to the author and in the purported revelations received by Bryant himself and published in that Church's "Covenants & Commandments" (this has no relation whatsoever to the book of revelations of the same name used by the New Covenant Church of God). We do know that he was a High Priest in that organisation [6] and was marked for great things. He was involved with the Bryant Church's bookshop in Salt Lake City at one time. On 28 March 1980 John Bryant had a revelation addressed to several people who were rebelling against his authority -- some were preaching the "doctrine of Jezebel" (Section 1982-22, v.2 -- one of these later became associated with SAI), others were claiming priesthood keys that Bryant hadn't "given" them (v.3), some were teaching reincarnation (v.7), and so on. The largest part of the document is directed towards David Clark (vv.4-5):

"David [Clark], also [along with an Elder Kent L. Slight, husband of Loriann Slight who was teaching the doctrine of Jezebel -- the couple, along with most of those leaving Bryant's group, eventually separated and divorced], hath claimed the keys of Judah, but never at any time have I conferred keys upon him, saith the Lord. The keys of Judah were received by my son Joseph (Smith, Jr.) under my own hands in the Kirtland Temple (see D&C 110). These keys passed from him to Brigham Young [in actual fact to Joseph Smith III] and from him to John Taylor who held them until he conferred them [supernaturally or by a personal manifestation??] upon my servant Samuel (John W. Bryant) who holdeth them to this day.

"David have I blessed with much knowledge and spiritual gifts, for he was foreordained to be a mighty one in my kingdom, but his foreordination hath he prostituted, for he hath taught men and women to enter into acts of fornication and adultery as an holy act [i.e. apart from Bryant's authority] which thing is most abominable in my sight, saith the Lord. Never at any time have I told any man that he could commit fornication or adultery as an holy act, which thing is most abominable in my sight, saith the Lord. Never at any time have I told any man that he could commit fornication or adultery and escape the wrath of an offended God. I, the Lord, delight in the chastity of men and women, and look with loathing upon the uniting of men and women outside the sealing power, the keys of which power are vested in my servant Samuel [Bryant] and his heirs in the Holy Anointing.

"Moreover, David hath created ordinances which are not of me. The ordinances are eternal; they need not that men should improve upon them or create their own ordinances. Such ordinances are of hell and their father is the devil. Therefore, let all the people of my Church [Evangelical Church of Christ] beware that they follow not after seducing spirits, neither the doctrines of devils. Receive not those who preach such abominations, neither wish them godspeed, for in doing so ye become partakers of their abominations. Let the children of Light [Bryant's followers] cleave unto one another and reject those who call themselves the children of Light but seek after the darkness (David Clark's faction)."

This revelatory statement says much about the state of the Bryant Church and David's part in it. Bryant's authority was being undermined for some were going to David for 'light' and not him. Even one of Bryant's own wives was coming under David's influence:

"My daughter Havah [Bryant], I have brought thee from death unto life. Thou art mine, for I have purchased thee with my own blood. Take heed unto my word, for when I speak through my servant Samuel, it is even as my own voice. Many have rejected my word through him (Bryant), but such are in darkness at noonday, perceiving not the Light which is in their midst. Give not comfort to the enemies of my word [David Clark's faction], my daughter, for they are not just a little out of the way as thou supposest [clearly she had real doubts about the authenticity of David's claims], but are the servants of the Anti-Christ [i.e. anti-Bryant], and their iniquity shall hereafter be revealed to their shame and to the shame of those who consort with them. Such is David Clark who hath taught and done those things which are abominable in my sight, saith the Lord. Verily I say unto thee, Whoremongers and adulterers must and shall be without the gate of the holy city [New Jerusalem or City of Enoch], saith the Lord, for such cannot enter into my presence, worlds without end. And there are others...." (Section 1983-22, v.3).

Havah Bryant, born Jean Poulsen, married Jean Pratt, now known as Hava Pratt (following her divorce...she left her husband and children to join the Bryant Church) claims she was visited by the angels Shulem and Moroni at Fairhaven, beginning on 16 February 1981, who dictated a new scripture which she believes to be part of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon called the Writings of Moroni. Initially supported by her husband, John Bryant, it seems he became envious of this manifestation and that this may have been in part the cause of their marrital estrangement. The new revelation was initially called the Book of Havah and claims Moroni as the principle author. According to Hava anything belonging to the Firstborn Church is in principle a part of the "sealed portion", an interesting if slightly unusual concept. Hava Pratt and Dav[i]ed [Clark] Israel are the principal movers or founders of SAI.

The Evangelical Church of Christ left a trail of destruction behind it -- broken marriages, mentally disturbed people, and much spiritual pain. It also left a legacy of strange doctrines and practices which some of the survivors have perpetuated even in the absense of their leader, thanks largely to a book of ordinances (which this author has seen) known as the "Black Ordinance Book" after a man call Black whom we understand either recorded the ordinances or/and duplicated them.

Before we end our account of the Bryant Church it is important we understand the theological basis for their multiple marriage practices. Bryant claims he was visited by the wife of one of the Three Nephite apostles [7] with whom he had sexual intercourse because this was the only means by which the higher, or "patriarchal", Light of Christ could be transmitted from one person to another, the ordinance of laying on of hands being insufficient for this level of the Gospel. According to Bryant this form of multiple marriage is lived by the people in the City of Enoch otherwise known as the "fathers". This concept was co-opted by David Clark who took it further as we shall see.

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Footnotes

[1] Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, pub. Fred C. Collier, 1979, Salt Lake City, Section 16, pp.61-62; or Journal of Discourses (JD) 2:342. Return

[2] Doctrine & Covenants, D&C LDS 77:20, RLDS 78:4d; see also LDS 96:17, RLDS92:3f. Return

[3] Known as the "Atik Yomin" in Kabbalistic texts, meaning the "Ancient of Days", and associated with the sephira Kether. Return

[4] Gilbert Clark, letter to the author, dated January 31, 1988, p.2. Return

[5] See Section 8:10 of Unpublished Revelations, op.cit., p.54; compare with D&C LDS 20, RLDS 17 received by Joseph Smith, Jr. the following year in 1830. Return

[6] Cov.& Comm. p. 1982-xxviii, footnote 5. Return

[7] Believed by all Restorationists to have been made immortal at the time Christ allegedly visited the Americas and who are still supposedly wandering around the world today. Return

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