Brother of Jared, the Psychedelic Bee Shaman who Worshiped the Mother Goddess

How’s that for a title? Sounds crazy, but it’s a pretty good summary of my theory about the brother of Jared. 

You see, I think the brother of Jared was a shaman. I’ve written before about how well the text of Ether supports the idea of his shamanism (see this post here as well).

But that’s not all. I think the brother of Jared was a bee shaman, like this guy:

Why do I think this?

It’s a long story, but it can all be traced back to one word:

DESERET

You have likely heard of this word before, but did you know how amazing it was? This article is about how the brother of Jared (who we will hereafter call BJ) might have been a bee shaman who spoke to a cloud of bees, likely used psychedelics, and probably worshiped the Mother Goddess… and I’ll use the word deseret to support it.

THEY FOLLOWED THE CLOUD/SWARM

So, not too far into the book of Ether, you’ll notice that the Jaredites have this cloud with them. The Lord hides behind this cloud. From there, He speaks to them (specifically to BJ). The Jaredites also seem to follow this cloud on their journey.

I think the cloud that BJ talked to and which led the Jaredites in the wilderness was actually a cloud of bees–also known as a swarm (check out this video of a swarm for illustration).

In order to understand this theory, we need to look closely at the etymologies of the word deseret. Moroni included this word in his abridgment of the Book of Ether, and it was not by accident.

Kevin Barney suggested that deseret is connected to the Hebrew word for “bee”, deborah (DBRH), the changing of the t to an h being accounted for by the historically-documented evolution of the feminine suffix in Hebrew. I’m no linguist, but I think that means deseret is an earlier form of the Hebrew word for bee; deborah came later. [2]

Either way, one of the meanings of deborah is “swarm”. I think Moroni confirms that deseret held some relation to deborah when he clarifies that they took “swarms of bees” with them (Ether 2:3).

Moroni describes that the band of people followed this cloud as it went before them:

Ether 2:5 And it came to pass that the Lord did go before them, and did talk with them as he stood in a cloud, and gave directions whither they should travel. 

Following a swarm of bees actually has some precedent in history, or legend, at least. Researcher Andrew Gough, who has written some incredibly fascinating articles on bees and the ancient world, describes it thus:

In Lithuania, the Bee goddess was known as Austheia, and legend asserts that when the Queen Bee left the hive in search of a new home, families would pack up and follow the Queen’s swarm until the Bees established a new hive, and any families united as a result of the exodus were bound together in a special relationship called ‘biciulyste’. [3]

And it wasn’t just Lithuanians. According to Gough, the Phoenicians had a practice that likely spawned the use of the phrase “make a bee-line”:

[The origins of the phrase] appear to stem from the time of the Phoenicians – the ancient sea-faring people who are said to have released Bees from their ships when approaching land in order to observe the direction that the land sensing swarm would travel. The Phoenicians would then make a ‘Bee-line’ in the direction of the Bees in the hope that land would soon follow. [4]

I wonder if the Jaredites did something similar as they “did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord.” (Ether 2:6)

Did you notice that Moroni points out that the Lord gave directions “as he stood in a cloud”? If you didn’t know, bees are actually really good at giving directions. They do it through their special waggle dance where they can effectively communicate to other bees the direction and distance of food. (Here’s a cool video about it.) They are truly amazing little creatures.

BJ COMMUNICATED WITH THE CLOUD/SWARM/LORD

Moroni writes that the Lord speaks to BJ from behind a cloud:

Ether 2:4 And it came to pass that when they had come down into the valley of Nimrod the Lord came down and talked with the brother of Jared; and he was in a cloud, and the brother of Jared saw him not.

Ether 2:14 And it came to pass at the end of four years that the Lord came again unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and talked with him. And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord.

(see also Ether 2:5)

So the Jaredites have this cloud of bees, and BJ talks to it—Well that’s what everyone else in the group sees: BJ talking to a cloud. But to BJ, he’s speaking with the Lord, and the Lord answers back. But why bees? Why would the Lord speak to BJ through a cloud of bees?

That’s a tricky question to answer, but I’ll take a crack at it.

Like I said above, I think BJ was a shaman. Andrew Gough explains this interesting tidbit about shamans, bees, and the Mayans:

And in the Mayan tradition in particular, shamans were especially attuned to the importance of the Bee and reflected their veneration in ritual and religion. For instance, in the Mayan Book of ‘The Chilam Balam of Chumayel’, the Ritual of the Four World Quarters features wild Bees as the liaisons between humans and sun gods. [5]

As I’ve studied, I’ve found fascinating links and parallels between the Mayans and the Jaredites. Now, before you get your knickers all in a twist and tell me with unshakable confidence that the Jaredites were the Olmec or that they lived in Canada, chill out! Think about it–Wouldn’t the Jaredites have been the ancestors of the Mayans–no matter where they lived? Why did Mayan SHAMANS see BEES as liaisons between humans and gods?

Could it be that it’s because their FOUNDING SHAMAN, BJ had to speak to God through a cloud of bees? I think so. Here’s what Gough also had to say about the Mayans:

The Mayan regarded the Bee as ‘Our Lady’, or sometimes, the ‘Royal Lady’ (kolil kab in Mayan), and shamans preserve the tradition of their ancestors by chanting Bee rituals… [6]

Ah yes… so it was a tradition passed down from their ancestors! That’s interesting, isn’t it?…

Apparently, associating bees with shamanism is something that goes way back, to times long before the Mayans or the civilizations of Mesopotamia. The reason this is so appears to be–dare I say it–hallucinogens.

You read that right. State-altering substances. Many people who experience strange phenomena, psychedelic trips, UFO abductions, visions, apparitions, etc, report that they hear a constant, bee-like hum or buzz throughout. Shamans, even tens of thousands of years ago, used these substances to communicate with the spirit world. Let’s continue with Gough for a moment:

And least we forget, it was the Bee that led ancient man to the plants whose hallucinogens transported consciousness into the spirit world of the gods. … Why then, should the … Bee, not have been worshipped? [7]

So then the question arises: If BJ was a shaman who spoke to bees, was he a user of psychedelic mushrooms, mad honey, or some other hallucinogenic plant? I don’t ask the question out of any disrespect for him. I believe him to be a great man who learned the ways of the Lord. But I think the text supports the idea he was a shaman, rather than a seasoned Old Testament prophet as most readers think… and shamans did and still do use that kind of stuff.

Either way though it’s irrelevant to the main hypothesis we’re discussing here. I think BJ spoke to the Lord through the bees (either in an altered state or not), and the Lord spoke back to him through the bees.

Actually, I should clarify my position a little bit. I think the Lord did speak back to him through the bees, but I think BJ, through the bees, was initially speaking to the Mother Goddess.

Now, you’re probably thinking that was quite a leap, and a preposterous one at that. 3 years ago I would’ve thought so too. But now I know way too much about bees and the book of Ether to rule it out as a probability. Allow me to explain.

The Mother Goddess and bees are inseparable. Anciently, bees were actually seen as manifestations of the Mother Goddess. Gough had this to say about that:

“The Mother Goddess is arguably the oldest deity in the archaeological record and her manifestations are numerous, including likenesses of butterflies, toads, hedgehogs – and dancing Bees. In the ancient world, dancing Bees appear to have been special – the Queen Bee in particular, for she was the Mother Goddess – leader and ruler of the hive, and was often portrayed in the presence of adorning Bee Goddesses and Bee Priestesses.” [8]

To people of the ancient world, the Mother Goddess was a bee; the bees were the Mother Goddess. This connection has been documented to go back some 8 to 10 thousand years and probably existed even earlier. As a man who lived in the ancient world, we actually should expect BJ to be a worshiper of some form of the Mother Goddess, “the oldest deity”, and to connect Her with bees. If so, we should also expect to find references to Her and bees throughout the book of Ether. And in fact, that’s exactly what we find–although extensive proof of this will have to come in a future blog post. 

There are SO MANY more references to Her in Ether, but for now let’s consider again the first and most famous one: deseret.

Ether 2:3 And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees.

Hugh Nibley promoted the discovery that deseret is practically identical to deshret (dšrt), the Egyptian word for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt [9]. This crown was very commonly drawn resting upon the head of the Egyptian mother goddess Neith, whose temple was called the House of the Bee [10]. This pretty compellingly suggests to me that by using deseret, Moroni is implying something about the Mother Goddess.

You might be wondering, why the Egyptian word in a Jaredite record? I personally don’t think the BJ had knowledge of or contact with Egyptians… but Moroni was the one who abridged the book in “the reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32). Mosiah, who apparently translated the book, may have translated the bee/mother-goddess word into “deseret” because it fit his understanding. Doesn’t necessarily mean BJ spoke Egyptian though.

So here we have BJ speaking to the Mother goddess through the cloud of bees. You read Ether 1-2, and obviously it’s the Lord in the story, not the Mother. You must think I’m crazy.

You’re probably not wrong about me… However, I propose that BJ thought he was praying to the Mother the whole time until his encounter on Mount Shelem in Ether 3. Remember how surprised he gets when he finally sees the Deity behind the cloud?

Ether 3:6 And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear.

The God he’s been speaking to wasn’t female—it was a Man! It wasn’t the Mother—it was the Son. Well, really the Father and the Son, as the Savior clarifies:

Ether 3:14Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have light, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.

I propose that BJ’s astonishment is more rooted in the fact that God was male than that He appeared to have flesh and blood… And maybe also because God didn’t look anything like a Bee?

I believe the effects of this mountaintop exchange persisted among BJ’s descendants well into Mayan times, because, unlike most cultures with their Bee Goddesses, the Mayans had a Bee God (named Ah Muzen Cab). A male! Which is weird because more than 95% of real bees are actually females, and the hive is presided over by the Queen [12]. Drones, the only males, only live a short time and die immediately after mating [13]. You’ve probably never seen a male bee in your life. It’s all about girl power in the beehive.

And get this!: Not only was the Mayan Bee Deity strangely male, but they also called him “the Saviour god”. [14]

Umm… does Ether 3:14 ring a bell to anyone else on that one?! BJ’s Mount Shelem theophany of the Savior perfectly explains this Mayan curiosity. The bee goddess of their ancestor bee shaman actually was a Savior God. It makes so much sense!

So while BJ starts off the journey using psychedelics and speaking to the Mother within the bee cloud, after Mount Shelem he knows that his God is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Son. And that’s why the Mayans revere a Bee God instead of Goddess, and why they call Him the Savior God… That’s what I think, anyway.

And I think Mosiah and/or Moroni wrote the story so that it was Jesus the whole time… because maybe it was Jesus the whole time. Or maybe they were uncomfortable with the founding shaman of the land being a seemingly-pagan worshiper of the Mother Goddess? Perhaps this is why Moroni reiterated who “the God of the land” was in Ether 2:12? I don’t know what the real reason was, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that Moroni was a big clue dropper, and deseret is a huge clue.

DABAR

But we’re not done examining the word deseret. There’s more to be mined there to support this theory about the bee shaman BJ.

We mentioned earlier how deborah may be a form of the word deseret. Deborah comes from the root word dabar, which has a ton of very peculiar meanings:

‘דבר’ – ‘dabar’: speak, say, talk, promise, tell, commune, pronounce, utter, command, declare, converse, warn, threaten, sing, to lead away, put to flight, wilderness (as dabar is root of midbar, meaning wilderness) [15]

I find these definitions extremely interesting for a root nestled inside of the word that means “bee”. You’ve got to ask why dabar gave rise to deborah… Maybe it’s got something to do with the reverence the ancients gave to both bees and the Mother Goddess? 

I don’t know what the reason is, but it’s remarkable that the Lord basically does all of these dabar things in Ether 1-3 while he’s hidden behind a cloud:

He speaks to them, He commands them, He leads them away, He warns and threatens them, He promises things to them (even a promised land), and He takes them to the wilderness. [16]:

Read the first part of Ether now and all these little dabars of the Lord will jump out at you. Isn’t it amazing how many little wordplays there are in this section of Ether? Could this be a clue that the Lord was in a cloud of deborahs?

DESCENDING

And then one last etymology for deseret comes from David Richins. After explaining that the name Jared is from the Hebrew yaret, meaning “to descend” or “to go down”, he points out that deseret may also contain the same yaret root: des + yaret [17]. This implies that deseret has something to do with descending.

Are the bees ever explicitly described as descending in Ether 1-3? No, but God (as He’s hidden in a cloud) is:

Ether 2:4And it came to pass that when they had come down into the valley of Nimrod the Lord came down and talked with the brother of Jared; and he was in a cloud, and the brother of Jared saw him not.

God Himself came down to speak with BJ, just as He would have to descend from heaven to speak to any mortal on earth. And just as any of us would do if we saw Him, BJ fell down at his feet (see also 3 Nephi 11:12). 

At this point, is it any surprise that The Mayan Bee God, Ah Muzen Cab, the Savior God, was also called the Descending God?

No joke. He was literally called and often depicted as “the Descending God”, upside down, descending to earth. Makes you wonder why the Mayans showed him this way. 

Could it be because the Lord came down to speak to their bee shaman ancestor? Could it be because Abinadi prophesied that “God himself should come down among the children of men, and take upon him the form of man” (Mosiah 13:34-35)? Could it be because the Nephites “saw a Man descending out of heaven” when the Savior God appeared to them (3 Nephi 11:8)?

You can’t make this stuff up, guys!

Along the same lines was how the Mayans viewed the planet Venus. They associated it with Kukulkan (also known as Quetzalcoatl), even believing the star was him in the sky [19]. If you’ve ever tried to connect Mesoamerica to the Book of Mormon, that name, Quetzalcoatl, might be familiar. Well, the Mayans had many names for Venus, one of which was Xux Ek, meaning Wasp Star [20]. I probably don’t have to tell you how close a wasp looks like a bee. But it’s even better than that because according to Gough, “the Maya believed Venus, symbolically, was a bee, due to its intelligent movements.” [21]

And there’s SO MUCH MORE about Venus, the Mayans, and the Jaredites that we can’t get into right now… However, part of Venus’ “intelligent” cycle is the evening star phase, during which the planet descends down to the earth every night, thus perhaps causing the Mayans to connect it to the Descending God.

Another name the Mayans had for Venus was Chac Ek, which means “red star” [22]. It’s a curious appellation because Venus doesn’t really appear red in the sky without the presence of some kind of pollution. However, David Richins suggests that deshret is the source of the words desert and red, which makes sense since it was the Red Crown of Lower Egypt [23]. Is it possible that the Mayans called Venus the Red Star because it was also connected to bees and gods and ultimately deseret? Interestingly, the hallucinogenic mad honey is also called Red Honey, because of its “brilliant red color” [24]. 

Hmm… Could deseret be a clue about how BJ got into the correct state to speak to the bees? If so, it wouldn’t surprise me. That little word is amazing.

CONCLUSION

So there was this cloud of bees that the BJ used to speak to, trying to reach the Mother Goddess. The Lord apparently answered back. He’s also known as the Father and the Son, the Savior God, the Mayan Bee God (Ah Muzen Cab), and the Descending God. He comes down and leads the Jaredites, speaks to them, commands them, promises them great things, and warns them of destruction if they’re wicked. All of these things are, in my opinion, baked into the once-simple word deseret… Such a mysterious word.

The epic story of the Jaredites begins with this bee-connected Descending God doing all these things for them; and it ends with destruction, about which Amaleki aptly described, sticking with the theme of deseret (des+yaret):

Omni 1:22 And the severity of the Lord fell upon them [the Jaredites] according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered in the land northward.

What do you think the Jaredites’ cloud was made out of? 

Still think it was water vapor?

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Sources and Notes

1. Bee shaman pic: https://www.reddit.com/r/algeria/comments/bn0bk8/the_algerian_tassili_mushroom_shaman_with_deerbee/ 
2. “Barney alternatively suggested deseret is connected to the Hebrew word for bee, deborah (dbrh), with the final -t being the older form of the word.8 Barney admits that he does not “have a similar solution” for the substation from b to s, but it is possible that the word could be related to Hebrew because of a small mistake in pronunciation or spelling.” https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/where-does-the-word-deseret-come-from 
3. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/
4. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee3/
5. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/ 
6. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/ 
7. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/ 
8. https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/ 
9. “In Egyptian, dšrt means the red crown (of the king of Lower Egypt). The Egyptian word for bee is bt. In the discussion of the sign dšrt, Alan Gardiner, in Egyptian Grammar, states that [the glyph for the dšrt crown] was used to replace [the glyph for bee] in two Egyptian titles where [the bee glyph] was used to mean the … King of Lower Egypt. … This substitution of [the dšrt crown] for [the bee] has led Nibley to associate the Egyptian word dšrt and the Book of Mormon word deseret.” https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/where-does-the-word-deseret-come-from ; https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/etymology-deseret 
10. “Neith was usually depicted as a woman wearing the red crown associated with Lower Egypt, holding crossed arrows and a bow” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Neith). “In Sais, Neith was regarded as the Goddess of the ‘House of the Bee’ and the Mother of RA; the ‘the ruler of all’. Neith’s House of the Bee bore a very curious inscription, indeed…” https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/  
11. Pic of Neith with the Red crown: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neith_with_Red_Crown.svg 
12. https://newint.org/features/2009/09/01/facts-about-bees 
13. Erika Thompson, Joe Rogan Experience Podcast #1908
14. Gough: “Curiously, the Bee god had another name in Mayan mythology – The Saviour God.” https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/ 
15. Definitions for dabar adapted from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1696/kjv/wlc/0-1/  and https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h4057/kjv/wlc/0-1/.
16. See also Dabar Yahweh, Gen 15:1, John 1 in https://biblematters.wordpress.com/tag/dabar-yahweh/ 
17.  David Richins: “The mentioning of deseret is not a random detail. The word deseret contains the same root as Jared (des + yaret). The record informs us that this word refers to a honey bee, but clearly there is more to it than that.” https://thelunchisfree.com/2016/09/22/the-descent-of-the-jaredites/ 
18. Descending God pic, credit Gough: https://andrewgough.co.uk/mesoamerican-bee-god-quest/ 
19. “A document from Central Mexico written in the late 1500s called the Annals of Cuauhtitlan associates the eight-day period between the Evening and Morning Star phases with the death and resurrection of Quetzalcoatl, a deity known as Kukulcan to the ancient Maya. Kukulcan was the sky god and the most powerful of the ancient Maya deities.” https://www.archaeology.org/issues/44-1211/features/304-uxmal-venus; “This star was the object of worship for the entire mesoamerican culture. In the maya vocabulary this planet/deity is depicted by the serpent god Kukulcan. This god who inspired fear and awe to the people of ancient yucatan. Kukulcan was a character who was half jaguar and half deity. His legend, which was well known through out the region, was in many ways similar to the planet venus.” http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/physics/dsalis/NS/ns/poot/The_mayan_world_of_venus.1.html; https://www.windows2universe.org/mythology/Kukulcan_venus.html 
20. “―For the Maya the importance of Venus, above all other planets, cannot be overstated. It was called Noh ek (great star), chac ek (red star), sastal ek (bright star), and xux ek (wasp star).”  https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1277&context=oa_theses 
21. Gough: “What is truly remarkable is that the Mayan king associated himself with Venus, a male deity and the most important planetary object of the Maya. Where this gets interesting is that the Maya believed Venus, symbolically, was a bee, due to its intelligent movements; like many ancients, the Maya appear to have been aware of the bee’s peculiar, figure-of-eight-shaped waggle dance. As a result, it was common for the king to depict himself as a drone bee, complete with drone-bee eyes, and a protruding tongue with which to taste the honey of his kingdom.”  https://andrewgough.co.uk/mesoamerican-bee-god-quest/ 
22. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1277&context=oa_theses 
23. https://thelunchisfree.com/2016/09/22/the-descent-of-the-jaredites/ 
24. https://backyardbeekeeping.iamcountryside.com/honey-beeswax/sweet-as-mad-honey/