Over the past 70 years, there have been few Latter-day Saint scholars who have been as profoundly inspirational, deeply puzzling, and self-deprecating as Hugh Nibley (1910-2005). Indeed, Brandon's own reading of Nibley inspired his career choice and launched his consciousness into the cosmic stratosphere. Nibley’s own contribution to Latter-day Saint thought ranges from apologetics, social critique, and temple theology. However, the primary core of Nibley's work, especially post-retirement from BYU in 1975, is the creation of what could be called a “cosmic Mormonism.” The temple, as a “scale model of the universe,” becomes a spring board for humanity to transition from the limited to the infinite, from the personal to the cosmic. Nibley's focus on this was so pervasive that he, almost singlehandedly, helped cultivate the temple-focused theology that the Church presently proclaims. In Nibley's youth, the temple was typically thought of as a secondary feature of Mormonism, with some, such as Truman G. Madsen, confessing that it was something foreign. Madsen himself would even confess to calling the temple endowment "pagan" and initially thinking that it had no place in Mormonism. Nibley helped change everyone's mind by demonstrating that Mormon temple practices have parallels with ancient temple practices in Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, Stonehenge, and the Hopi, to name a few. Nibley felt that the knowledge given in the temple orients cultures and creates worlds; when this knowledge--given by revelation--is ignored or disobeyed, ignorant chaos is the only result. As such, Nibley was a vociferous critic of the Church's engagement with politics and economics, charging the Latter-day Saints' advocacy of capitalism as God's gift to humanity as blasphemy that will reign down blood and horror on this earth. Since God commanded Joseph Smith to live the law of consecration (a form of communalism very similar to Marx's communist utopia), and since Latter-day Saints to this very day are under covenant to live that law and don't, he was quite critical about the direction of the Church. Nevertheless, he believed it to be the Kingdom of God and that it would eventually go right through calls to repentance and remembrance of what ought to be held most sacred in Mormonism. Suggested Reading for Over-Achievers - "Temple and Cosmos" by Hugh Nibley - "Approaching Zion" by Hugh Nibley - "Zeal Without Knowledge" by Hugh Nibley (access here: https://emp.byui.edu/andersonkc/zeal%20without%20knowledge.pdf) - "Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life" by Boyd Peterson - Forthcoming work on Nibley's "Heirocentric State" by Joseph Spencer - "The Sacred and Profane" by Mircea Eliade