Joseph Smith's Early Histories

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_Res Ipsa
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Lemmie wrote:
Res Ipsa wrote:When I was a kid, I ran into dowsing in the eastern, more rural, part of the state. When a family friend was looking for a new well site, I tried it with a forked willow stick. Sure enough, at the place where the other dossiers had found water, I could feel the stick pull down to the ground. Of course, I’d already been told what the stick was supposed to do and where it was supposed to do it.

I never heard any LDS person refer to dowsing as a spiritual gift.

Which state?


Oh, sorry. Washington.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

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_grindael
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

Here is another tortured paragraph from the article (and I'd love for y'all to read it and give me opinions - I can really use the perspectives - I'm hip deep in this stuff now):

Folklorist David Allred reminds scholars how folklorists helped de-exoticize the common magic/religion distinction by showing them to be functionally and structurally very similar concepts whose differences have more to do with culturally constructed notions emerging from relationships of group identity, prestige, and power than they do from any intrinsic qualities of magic or religion. (pg. 80)


The differences between magic and religion is all culture clash? Really?
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

And yeah, I believe that it is an LDS thing, but I was thinking in the Utah area. Washington makes sense and so does Oregon, but I never saw any of it and I spent a lot of time on rural farms growing up there.

I really, really doubt it is as widespread as he tries to make it out to be though.
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _Res Ipsa »

grindael wrote:Here is another tortured paragraph from the article (and I'd love for y'all to read it and give me opinions - I can really use the perspectives - I'm hip deep in this stuff now):

Folklorist David Allred reminds scholars how folklorists helped de-exoticize the common magic/religion distinction by showing them to be functionally and structurally very similar concepts whose differences have more to do with culturally constructed notions emerging from relationships of group identity, prestige, and power than they do from any intrinsic qualities of magic or religion. (pg. 80)


The differences between magic and religion is all culture clash? Really?


It’s mostly tortured paragraphs. But, yeah, magic is religion is science and maybe dowsing has a scientific basis and maybe God told Smith he was authorized to practice glass looking. So don’t worry your pretty little heads over treasure digging and Jupiter Talismans. He sure loves him some postmodernism.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

What's interesting is the amount of Mormons publishing on this, and using Oxford University Press to do it. It gets this crap into the mainstream, and they are trying to overturn the real narrative, that all this was a subculture in America, a subculture rife with fraud and con men (and women) who used "magic" to dupe people. It was gradually (over the first half of the 19th century) debunked, but "Spiritualism" with mediums and seances and sects like the "Godbeites" rose out of it's ashes and then that was all debunked by those like Houdini in the early 20th century.

Yeah, religion and magic are alike in that they rely on the supernatural, but that is really all they have in common in the modern industrial era. And yes "folkmagic" was a popular subculture because it is so broad that a lot of people embraced parts of it. But not all were "witches" or "warlocks" or any of that other crap, they thought there was something to dowsing, or would go on a midnight run with some of the boys to search for Kidd's treasure, hiring a peeper to help them out.

It is really that much different than our modern Lottery? At least there is a slim chance to win something... but people do all kinds of things to try and win, pray, cast spells, do it all, just as they did with moneydigging. Do we then believe that the Lottery was a part of ancient Apostolic Christianity because lots of Christians pray to win it?

It's all silly and it done with the agenda to make what Smith did less odd and strange. And then there are the Mormons themselves who condemn the very thing the apologists are trying to legitimize! Here is something from my first Part of "Ghosts & Angels", and this was in 1841 (sorry no links):

Yet, while Woodruff was in England, he called such practices "not of God". This is from the journal of Alfred Rolland Cordon:

"Saturday Evening 27th Mar 1841 I attended A council Meeting Elders G. A. Smith and W. Woodruff and a good number of Officers. a charge was brought against bro W Mountford for using Magic, The case was as follows, This bro Mountford had in his posession several Glasses or Chrystals as he called them. they are about the size of a Gooses Egg made flat at each end. he also had a long list of prayers wrote down which he used. The prayer was unto certain Spirits which he said was in the Air which says he when I pray to them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, any thing that I [283] want will come into the Glass. for instance if A Young woman had a desire to know who she would have for an Husband, she came to him and made the case known, and he brought out his Chrystals and prayed unto a certain Spirit then she must peep into the Chrystal and in it she would see the Young man that would become her husband Elder Woodruff made some observations on the subject. when it was moved and Unanimously carried that no such Magic work be allowed in the Church." (Journal of Alfred Rolland Cordon)

The next day,

Meeting was Opened by Prayer by the President. It was Unanimoulsy carried that no such thing as Magic, Fortunetelling, Witchcraft or any such devices should be allowed in the Church. And that fellowship would be withdrawn from any who used or caused to be used any of the aforesaid things. It was also moved and carried that a letter of recomendation be presented to Elders, W. Woodruff and G. A. Smith. (Sunday, March 28, 1841).

These are the same practices that the Smith family were using in Palmyra, and that Joseph continued to use throughout his life. Woodruff wrote up the incident this way:

I walked with several Brethren to Hanley & Sat in Council with many of the Officers. Among other business that was brought up was the case of a Brother Mumford who was ingaged in the Magic or Blackart fortune telling &c which prevails to a great extent in this Country. [England] But as he persisted in his course after being laboured with the Council Withdrew fellowship from him. He was holding the office of a Priest & one thing is worthy of notice that while the Priesthood was upon him, he could not see his majic glasses as before untill after he ceased to fill the Priest office & rejected our council. (Wilford Woodruff's Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.74)

The President then brought up the case of a Br Moumford, who was holding the office of a Priest, from whome fellowship had been withdrawn by the council of officers in consequence of his practizing fortune Telling, Magic, Black art &c & called upon Elders Woodruff & Cordon to express their feelings upon the subject when Elder Woodruff arose, & spoke Briefly upon the subject, & informed the assembly that we had no such custom or practice in the Church, & that we should not fellowship any individual who Practiced Magic fortune Telling, Black art &c for it was not of God. When It was moved & carried by the whole church that fellowship be withdrawn from Br Moumford. (Wilford Woodruff's Journal, Vol. 2, 1841–1845, p.75)

He calls what Monford did, "Black Art" which included fortune telling, finding lost things, treasure hunting, etc., He is basically saying that using the peepstone did not work when "the Priesthood was upon him." Interesting he calls them "magic glasses". Monford claimed that, "anything that I want will come into the glass." 

Note that Joseph Smith had claimed, "...but he seamed to think more of the glasses or the urim a and thummem  then than he did of the plates for says he I CAN SEE ANYTHING they are Marvelus" (Joseph Knight Recollection)

What are we to make of this? That like with "revelations', they can only come through the leader of the church? So where are the church instructions on "seeing" or peep-stones? Nowhere to be found, although there is some mention of "white stones" that will be given to people after they are resurrected. (See D&C 130:10). But here on earth, the church made it's position clear at a Conference in 1902, in an address by Apostle John W. Taylor:

I want to advise the young ladies, while upon this subject, not to follow after peep-stone women, fortune-tellers, or those claiming to have a familiar spirit, to get them to tell you the kind of a husband you will marry, or you young men the kind of a wife you will get. (Conference Report, Sunday, April 6, 1902).

Taylor continues by quoting the very passage in Isaiah that I quoted above, but adds a bit more:

"And they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness." (Isaiah 8:21-22, KJV)

Taylor then tells the "Saints",

Now my brethren and sisters, this has been literally fulfilled upon the idolatrous nations of the earth. Let us not be deceived, my brethren and sisters, or lead astray by those who are muttering and seeking to give the people a little temporal satisfaction, for it will result in incurring the displeasure of God upon us. (ibid)

Taylor actually tells the "Saints" to go to their Patriarch to get such information, but when has a church patriarch ever told anyone which husband or wife they were going to marry? My own patriarchal blessing simply said that I would "leave seed in the earth", but I never had any children, much to my relief. No wonder people sought out the Peekers. They probably made things much more interesting. But... here's an interesting response from "Ask Gramps" about this very subject. As you might suspect, he's not down with the idea that patriarchs do any such thing and advises the young woman who asked to "change your approach".


I think you will find the series interesting when I get it up. Thanks for all the comments and input it really helps and I appreciate it.

~g
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

What's interesting is that the major part of the population stuck with the "mainstream" religions, and considered them legitimate, while rejecting the magic subculture and the Spiritualism that sprang out of it. It is still a very broad subculture in the world though, but hands down, the major religions have them beat. I was really kind of stunned by the way the dowsers in the video just could not believe that what they did would not work in a controlled test. It just shows what those who believe in science are up against. And I found this vid by Randi just hilarious...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMtuWymUzz4
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

Ok all you Mormon theologians...

Here's something I was thinking about, when trying to come to grips with the story of the ghost/angel from early Mormonism...

Here is Mark Ashurst-McGee,

Philastus Hurlbut collected Willard Chase’s description of Moroni as a treasure guardian in 1833. However, at the same time, Hurlbut collected Abigail Harris’s statement describing Moroni as “the spirit of one of the Saints that was upon this continent” as well as Henry Harris’s statement identifying Moroni as an “angel.” Although the Chase account predates the official history of the Church, it does not predate Joseph Smith’s 1832 history, which describes Moroni as “an angel of the Lord.” http://mormonhistoricsites.org/wp-conte ... ll2001.pdf


Yet the 1832 account does nothing of the kind:

when I was seventeen years of age I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision for behold an angel of the Lord came and stood before me and it was by night and he [the angel] called me by name and he [the angel] said the Lord had forgiven me my sins and he [the angel] revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester Ontario County N.Y. there was plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni & his fathers the servants of the living God in ancient days and deposited by th[e] commandments of God and kept by the power thereof and that I should go and get them and he [the angel] revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitents of of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments & revelations and it was on the 22d day of Sept. AD 1822 and thus he [the angel] appeared unto me three times in one night and once on the next day and then I immediately went to the place and found where the plates was deposited as the angel of the Lord had commanded me and straightway made three attempts to get them and then being excedingly frightened I supposed it had been a dreem of Vision but when I considred I knew that it was not therefore I cried unto the Lord in the agony of my soul why can I not obtain them behold the angel appeared unto me again and said unto me you have not kept the commandments of the Lord which I gave unto you therefore you cannot now obtain them for the time is not yet fulfilled therefore thou wast left unto temptation that thou mightest be made accquainted of with the power of the advisary therefore repent and call on the Lord thou shalt be forgiven and in his own due time thou shalt obtain them


Smith speaks of "Maroni", but only as an engraver of the plates. The angel is not named as none of the angels in the Book of Mormon were. There is no teaching from Smith or anyone else that angels were resurrected humans or pre mortal spirits at that time. Those teachings came later.

There is a difference at the beginning, the personage was described as a "spirit of one of the Saints", [dead person], a bloody ghost [dead person], Spaniard [dead person], etc.

It was not until after 1827 that the dead person becomes an "angel". But... Did Joseph Smith and others from his family consider dead people as angels? We simply don't know. In 1823 Joseph was partial to the Methodist Faith, and was a member for a time in the Juvenile debating club in Palmyra and a part time Exhorter. What did the Methodist's teach about angels? Angels were considered to be God's special messengers, winged creatures created by God, and though they were spiritual beings, they were not dead or deceased humans. 

In the Book of Mormon angels are mentioned 145 times, but not one of them is given a name. In the Bible this too is the case for most of the appearances of angels, with only a few very important angels being named. That is because they were looked upon as a creation of God different from human beings:

“The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith.  The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition” (#328).  Given that we do believe in angels, we define them as pure spirits and personal beings with intelligence and free will.  They are immortal beings.  As the Bible attests, they appear to humans as apparitions with a human form. (From the Catholics)


Thus when the Book of Mormon was first introduced to the public, it was a generic angel who appeared to Smith, "the spirit of the almighty". (Palmyra Freeman) Joseph didn't even clarify that angels did not have wings until much later in his career.

So.. for those like Ashurst-McGee to make such statements is disingenuous.Where is it in this statement that he identifies Moroni as the angel?

The character of Joseph Smith, Jr. for truth and veracity was such, that I would not believe him under oath. I was once on a jury before a Justice's Court and the Jury could not, and did not, believe his testimony to be true. After he pretended to have found the gold plates, I had a conversation with him, and asked him where he found them and how he come to know where they were. He said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the place of deposit; that an angel appeared, and told him he could not get the plates until he was married, and that when he saw the woman that was to he his wife, he should know her; and she would know him. He then went to Pennsylvania, got his wife, and they both went together and got the gold plates... (Henry Harris, Mormonism Unvailed, 1833, 252.)


So when Joseph began calling the personage an "angel" in 1827, it was simply a generic term for a "spirit of the almighty", and not the dead Moroni. That came later. There are those who try to claim that Moroni was identified as the angel in 1831 by Leman Copley, but that's kind of a stretch. They story goes that Copley heard it from Joseph Knight, that Smith was on the road one day and saw an old man who had a box and said do you want to see what's in it, it's a monkey, give me five coppers. Smith answered that he had seen lots of monkey's so... no thanks, and went on his way. Smith then prays about it and finds out it is "Moroni" and God told him that he had the plates in the box and that Joseph could have gotten them back. Told third hand and published in Mormonism Unvailed. E. D. Howe loved the story and had a picture made which appears in the front of the book.

There were all kinds of these stories going around during the manuscript phase, with old men appearing with plates and angels harrowing fields, etc. It's really not good evidence of anything.

Ashurst-McGee argues that since Joseph Smith & Martin Harris, & other witnesses are all first hand accounts, they take precedence over any and all other accounts. It's rather ridiculous. I'm thinking he didn't consider Stephen Burnett's account of what Harris told him in Kirtland or lots of other evidence... and he claims that even if Joseph's accounts contradict each other... it just doesn't matter cause other evidence does the same thing... But you see just this one example of his flawed methodology... I'm not impressed by any of his arguments that the angel story came first.
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _grindael »

Ashurst-McGee identifies the personage in this account as an angel. Really???

Palmyra, Wayne Co. N. Y. 11th mo. 28th, 1833.

In the early part of the winter in 1828, I made a visit to Martin Harris and was joined in company by Jos. Smith, sen. and his wife. The Gold Bible business, so called, was the topic of conversation, to which I paid particular attention that I might learn the truth of the whole matter.--They told me that the report that Joseph, jun. had found golden plates, was true, and that he was in Harmony, Pa. translating them--that such plates were in existence, and that Joseph, jun. was to obtain them, was revealed to him by the spirit of one or the Saints that was on this continent, previous to its being discovered by Columbus. Old Mrs. Smith observed that she thought he must be a Quaker, as he was dressed very plain. They said that the plates he then had in possession were but an introduction to the Gold Bible--that all of them upon which the Bible was written, were so heavy that it would take four stout men to load them into a cart--that Joseph had also discovered by looking through his stone, the vessel in which the gold was melted from which the plates were made, and also the machine with which they were rolled; he also discovered in the bottom of the vessel three balls of gold, each as large as his fist. The old lady said also, that after the book was translated, the plates were to be publicly exhibited--admittance 0-5 cents. She calculated it would bring in annually an enormous sum of money--that money would then be very plenty, and the book would also sell for a great price, as it was something entirely new--that they had been commanded to obtain all the money they could borrow for present necessity, and to repay with gold. The remainder was to be kept in store for the benefit of their family and children. This and the like conversation detained me until about 11 o'clock. Early the next morning, the mystery of the Spirit being like myself (one of the order called Friends) was revealed by the following circumstance: The old lady took me into another room, and after closing the door, she said, "have you four or five dollars in money that you can lend until our business is brought to a close? the spirit has said you shall receive four fold." I told her that when I gave, I did it not expecting to receive again--as for money I had none to lend. I then asked her what her particular want of money was; to which she replied "Joseph wants to take the stage and come home from Pennsylvania to see what we are all about." To which I replied, he might look in his stone and save his time and money. The old lady seemed confused, and left the room, and thus ended the visit.

In the second month following, Martin Harris and his wife were (at my house. In conversation about Mormonites she observed, that she wished her husband would quit them as she believed it was all false and a delusion. To which I heard Mr. Harris reply : "What if it is a lie; if you will let me alone I will make money out of it! I was both an eye and an ear witness of what has been stated above, which is now fresh in my memory, and I give it to the world for the good of mankind. I speak the truth and lie not, God bearing me his witness. ABIGAIL HARRIS, Mormonism Unvailed, 253)


Didn't Lucy do this very thing with the Book of Abraham Mummies... but for a quarter? :lol:
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Re: Joseph Smith's Early Histories

Post by _Fence Sitter »

Res Ipsa wrote:When I was a kid, I ran into dowsing in the eastern, more rural, part of the state. When a family friend was looking for a new well site, I tried it with a forked willow stick. Sure enough, at the place where the other dossiers had found water, I could feel the stick pull down to the ground. Of course, I’d already been told what the stick was supposed to do and where it was supposed to do it.

I never heard any LDS person refer to dowsing as a spiritual gift.


It would be simple to test the dowser's claim that the "sprout" was providing information. After he/she identified a spot to dig or drill, move them away from that spot, blindfold them, spin them around like "pin-the -tail-on-the-donkey and see if they find the same spot again.


Not going to happen.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
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