Hydraulic Despotism

January 13th, 2023 by G.

Many years ago I had a dream. I suppose I must have read Folk of the Fringe at the time.

In the dream Deseret was an Empire in the inner mountain west. It was a vaguely post apocalyptic setting. At least, there was no hint that anything else existed besides us fading off into wastelands and wilderness.

The empire was pretty loose but it did use access to temple rites as a means of keeping the periphery tied in. A hydraulic despotism but with living water.

I was a colonel (and a sort of priesthood legate) for a roving frontier cavalry unit. We were visiting places that may not have seen a central authority for decades. We rode in to some little mountain town in Arizona. Everyone from the Bishop on down was overjoyed to see us. At last! Less happily, we were there to collect taxes, but also do justice, provide various authorities that had been lacking for years, bring news of the outside world, correct any errors that had crept in to their administration both secular and religious and so on.

The problem was, they were in heresy. After so long disconnected their Bishop had made a little endowment house to keep his people happy. With good intentions, like Aaron and the golden calf. His version of the ceremony obviously suffered from memory flaws, I observed, but still had a rough beauty to it. I arrested him. and tore the thing down. Maybe executed him, I don’t recall. They were very unhappy, but what were they going to do, I had a horse drawn cannon and my troopers repeating rifles.

The disturbing thing was that my people come from little mountain towns in Arizona. In the way things can be in dreams, the little town was my town and the Bishop was one of my ancestors.

I remember the whole thing left me very unsettled.

Comments (2)

Tags: dreams and visions

January 13th, 2023 07:58:52

2 comments

E.C.
January 13, 2023

Whereas I had a dream last night (directly inspired by a story my Institute teacher told in class) about going to a meeting/tour of a temple with some GA or the temple president, and being so distracted by others’ irreverence that I did not remember anything he said, or the beauty of said temple – and it was beautiful, though not familiar.

I woke up and remembered a certain stake conference general session where I left steaming mad because everyone (and I do mean *everyone*) around me talked through the whole entire session. It was so loud that I could barely hear the speakers, who were doing their best to give us an incredible message about Christ’s Second Coming and the temple. And that was when I realized that Christ’s parable of the ten virgins was fair and accurate and painfully true, and that I had failed completely to be Christlike that day.

I think my dream was a warning to me against a certain kind of pride – the holier-than-thou pride of the Pharisees. Which was both unsettling and needed.

G.
January 14, 2023

It’s tough being as righteous as we are. 😉

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