By Sandra Tanner

In the small farming community of Sharon, Vermont, on December 23, 1805, Lucy Smith gave birth to her fifth child, Joseph Smith, Jr. While the proud parents doubtlessly had high hopes for the son who bore his father’s name, they could hardly have imagined that he would one day produce new books of scripture and start a church that would eventually grow to over 13 million members. In the following I will outline three areas of influence that helped to shape Joseph Smith’s religious career:

1. Smith’s religious environment
2. The Smith family’s involvement with folk magic
3. The public interest in the American Indians.

1. Joseph Smith’s Religious Environment

Many people in the New England area during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s were turning away from organized religion, believing that most denominations had fallen into apostate practices. It was a time in America of religious upheaval, revivals and new sects. Many Christians were looking for a restoration of the New Testament church. Fawn Brodie described the religious turmoil of the day:

The Methodists split four ways between 1814 and 1830. The Baptists split into Reformed Baptists, Hard-Shell Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, Seventh-Day Baptists, Footwashers, and other sects. Unfettered religious liberty began spawning a host of new religions.¹

Many in that day were drawn to the “Seeker” movement and its rejection of organized churches. Historian Dan Vogel comments:

The primitive gospel movement emerged first among the “common” folk of New England, the South, and West between the years 1790 and 1830.²

Those termed “Seekers” were waiting for a new dispensation of apostolic authority. Vogel further observed:

One independent Seeker, Asa Wild, of Amsterdam, New York, published in 1824 a short work describing his revolt against Puritanism and his conversion to Seekerism. His work, A Short Sketch of the Religious Experience, and Spiritual Travels, of Asa Wild, outlines the classic Seeker position and demonstrates his yearning for a restoration and the Millennium.³

While both of Joseph Smith’s parents professed Christianity, they came from families that were divided over religion.

Lucy Smith’s parents were not united in their faith. Lucy’s mother was a staunch Congregationalist while her father, Solomon Mack, advocated Universalism which maintained that God would save all mankind. Then in 1811 Solomon claimed to have a religious conversion and wrote a small book detailing his new faith and return to orthodoxy.⁴ Later the Book of Mormon, published in 1830, would reflect elements of the Universalist debate.

In the [Book of Mormon’s] book of Alma we read of a certain man named Nehor whose preaching echoed that of the Universalists. He went about preaching that “all mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.”⁵ The Book of Mormon goes on to relate that after killing a man of God who tried to call him to repentance, Nehor was sentenced to death. Just before he died he repented of his false teachings.⁶

Those familiar with the revival literature of Joseph Smith’s day recognize similar teachings in the Book of Mormon. Fawn Brodie observed:

In the speeches of the Nephite prophets one may find the religious conflicts that were splitting the churches in the 1820’s. Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ, wrote in the first able review of the Book of Mormon: “This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his Book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years. He decided all the great controversies:—infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonry, republican government and the rights of man. . . . But he is better skilled in the controversies in New York than in the geography or history of Judea. He makes John baptize in the village of Bethabara and says Jesus was born in Jerusalem.”⁷

Curiously, while the Book of Mormon addresses many of the doctrinal disputes of Smith’s day, it does not contain the major doctrines of Mormonism that separate it from standard Christianity. While the Book of Mormon condemned Universalism, by 1832 Smith seems to have changed his mind. Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the LDS books of scripture, teaches three levels of heaven, with a place for practically everyone. The Book of Mormon contains no teaching on the need for temple rituals, eternal marriage, plural gods, man’s pre-mortal existence, proxy work for the dead, three levels of heaven or eternal progression. In fact, the Book of Mormon declares that death seals one’s fate and that there is no opportunity to repent after one dies (see Alma 34:31-35).

Long before his own religious quest, Joseph Smith’s uncle Jason, Lucy’s oldest brother, “became a ‘Seeker’ and set up a quasi-communistic society of thirty indigent families whose economic and spiritual welfare he sought to direct.”⁸ In this environment of competing philosophies, Lucy felt undecided about church membership. She later wrote about this period in her life:

If I remain a member of no church, all religious people will say I am of the world; and if I join some one of the different denominations, all the rest will say I am in error. No church will admit that I am right, except the one with which I am associated. This makes them witness against each other; and how can I decide in such a case as this, seeing they are all unlike the Church of Christ, as it existed in former days!⁹

Joseph Smith’s father came from a similar background. Dan Vogel explains:

In 1796 Lucy married a man similarly perplexed about religion, although his Primitivism stemmed from independence more than from uncertainty. Joseph Smith, Sr., was more liberal, apparently agreeing with Lucy’s father about universal salvation. Joseph Smith, Sr., had been raised by a father whose curious blend of theological views was legendary in his community of Topsfield, Massachusetts. Joseph’s father, Asael, was a rationalist whose beliefs included Universalism and Seekerism. He refused to join any of the churches “because he could not reconcile their teachings with the scriptures and his reason.”¹⁰

According to Lucy Smith, her husband (Joseph Smith, Sr.) had a number of dreams, or visions prior to young Joseph’s visions. LDS historian Richard Bushman noted:

In many of the dreams, Joseph Sr. found himself alone, decrepit, or ill, or on a vaguely defined quest. In one, he traveled alone in “the desolate world,” on a road “so broad and barren, that I wondered why I should travel in it.” In another he was in a “gloomy desert” amidst “the most death-like silence.” Usually the desolation was followed by redemption, a flower-filled garden or the fruit of an “exceedingly handsome” tree representing the love of God.¹¹

One of the father’s visions, in 1811, seems to be the inspiration for a section in the Book of Mormon. As Lucy Smith recounted, Joseph Smith, Sr., described seeing both a broad and a narrow path. Upon entering the narrow path he came to a stream of water, then a tree bearing white fruit. After tasting the fruit he tried to persuade his family to partake as well. He then saw a great building filled with finely dressed people, mocking those who partook of the fruit.¹² This should be compared with 1 Nephi 8:8–11:36, where we read of Lehi and Nephi’s visions of the tree of life. They describe seeing a river, a narrow path, a tree bearing white fruit and a building full of finely dressed people who mock those who partake of the fruit.¹³

By the 1820’s Lucy Smith was longing for some sort of religious affiliation. A family disaster would complicate this search. In 1823 the Smith’s oldest son, Alvin, died from a bowel obstruction and at the funeral the minister inferred that Alvin had gone to hell as he was not a baptized member of a church.¹⁴ This cemented Joseph Smith, Sr., in his rejection of organized religion.

When Lucy Smith attended the 1824 and 1825 Palmyra revival Joseph Smith, Sr., refused to accompany her. As a result of these meetings Lucy Smith, her sons Hyrum and Samuel, and a daughter, joined the Presbyterian Church. This division in the home obviously impacted Joseph Smith, Jr. LDS historian Richard Bushman observed:

If there was a personal motive for Joseph Smith Jr.’s revelations, it was to satisfy his family’s religious want and, above all, to meet the need of his oft-defeated, unmoored father.¹⁵

During these years young Joseph Smith had been attending various religious meetings, revivals, and even joined the local young people’s debating club. At times he participated in revival meetings as an “exhorter,” one who would speak after the regular sermon and “exhort” the audience to follow the admonitions of the preacher. When writing about these events many years later, Joseph explained:

During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. . . . The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists . . .¹⁶

Retired LDS Institute Director Grant Palmer has pointed out the similarity between the Methodist camp meetings that Smith would have attended and events spoken of in the Book of Mormon:

We have not taken Joseph Smith seriously enough when he stated that he had an “intimate acquaintance” with evangelical religion and that he was “somewhat partial” to the Methodists. Protestant concepts appear to abound in his discourses and experiences. For example, a Methodist camp meeting was held one mile from Palmyra, New York, on 7 June 1826—a pivotal time in Joseph Smith’s life. Preparations for a camp meeting included leasing and consecrating the ground. Thus the “ground within the circle of the tents is considered sacred to the worship of God, and is our chapel.” The Methodists referred to these “consecrated grounds” as their “house of God” or temple. The Palmyra camp meeting reportedly attracted over 10,000 people. Families came from all parts of the 100-mile conference district and pitched their tents facing the raised “stand” where the preachers were seated, including one named Benjamin G. Paddock . . . This large crowd heard the “valedictory” or farewell speech of their beloved “Bishop M’kendree [who] made his appearance among us for the last time.” . . . In his emaciated and “feeble” condition, he spoke of his love for the people and then delivered a powerful message that covered “the whole process of personal salvation.” Tremendous unity prevailed among the crowd, and “nearly every unconverted person on the ground” committed oneself to Christ . . .

This is reminiscent of King Benjamin’s speech to the Zarahemlans in the Book of Mormon, whose chronicler describes the setting:

The people gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might go up to the temple to hear the [last] words which [their beloved] king Benjamin should speak unto them . . . [T]hey pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family . . . every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple . . . the multitude being so great that king Benjamin . . . caused a tower to be erected . . . [And he said from the platform,] I am about to go down to my grave . . . I can no longer be your teacher . . . For even at this time my whole frame doth tremble exceedingly while attempting to speak unto you (Mosiah 2:1, 5-7, 28-30).¹⁷

Palmer also observed:

Evangelical meetings in western New York in the 1820s were characterized by (1) camp settings; (2) preaching that interlaced paraphrased biblical passages with revival terminology designed to produce a powerful emotional impact; (3) a conversion pattern characterized by a conviction of sin, intense prayer for forgiveness, and a sweet calming assurance of being forgiven, often accompanied by trembling, tears, falling, and other physical manifestations; (4) denunciation of Deists, Unitarians, Universalists, and agnostics; and (5) vivid descriptions of the degenerate state of human beings. While all five of these elements formed a pattern that was typical in Joseph Smith’s environment, one would not expect to find them packaged together in the discourses and experiences of ancient Americans. It is more believable that the Protestant Reformation, including its evolving doctrines and practices down to Joseph Smith’s era, influenced these sections of the Book of Mormon.¹⁸

The LDS Church has traditionally emphasized Joseph Smith’s lack of education to establish that the Book of Mormon was beyond Smith’s writing ability. However, Grant Palmer observed:

Thus we have an image of Joseph Smith as one “not learned” (see Isa. 29:12). While this accurately describes his formal education, it misstates his knowledge of the Bible, of evangelical Protestantism, and of American antiquities within his environment. He wrote in his 1832 history that his parents were thorough in “instructing me in the christian religion” and that, from age twelve on, he became a serious Bible student by “the scriptures.”¹⁹

An examination of Joseph Smith’s 1832 handwritten account of his early life shows that he was trained in penmanship and could compose his thoughts.

Joseph Smith’s 1832 diary account of his first vision in his own handwriting.

The extensive plagiarism of phrases from the King James Bible in the Book of Mormon demonstrates Joseph Smith’s familiarity with the text. Jacob, in the Book of Mormon, sounds amazingly like Paul in the New Testament:

• 2 Nephi 9:39
  “to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life”
• Romans 8:6
  “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life”

The Book of Mormon quote was supposedly written in approximately 550 B.C., while Paul’s letter was probably written about 56 A.D. To add to the problem, Jacob’s wording is exactly like the English translation of the King James Bible, published in 1611 A.D. That the same phrases from the King James translation are used throughout the Book of Mormon demonstrates that the author had to have lived after 1611.²⁰

Joseph Smith later claimed that it was because of a revival in the neighborhood that he went out into the woods to pray and received his first vision. He placed the date in 1820, however the description of the revival given by family members places the date in the 1824-25 time-frame, after part of the family had joined the Presbyterian Church.²¹

But even his claim of a vision was not an unusual occurrence during the many revivals in New York. Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of his first vision, published in the Pearl of Great Price, tells how in 1820 he went into a grove to pray to know which church to join. At first a dark power overtook him, then crying out to God, he observed a great light. Two beings appeared and told him he was not to join any of them as they were “all wrong” and that “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.” He concluded, “When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home.”²² These two beings are identified today as God the father and Jesus Christ.

Richard Bushman recounted the vision of Norris Stearns whose 1815 story sounds very much like Joseph Smith’s account:

“One was God, my Maker, almost in bodily shape like a man. His face was, as it were a flame of Fire, and his body, as it had been a Pillar and a Cloud. . . . Below him stood Jesus Christ my Redeemer, in perfect shape like a man.”²³

In 1816 a minister by the name of Elias Smith published a book in which he told of his conversion. Notice the similarity to Joseph Smith’s first account:

I went into the woods . . . a light appeared from heaven . . . My mind seemed to rise in that light to the throne of God and the Lamb. . . . The Lamb once slain appeared to my understanding, and while viewing him, I felt such love to him as I never felt to any thing earthly. . . . It is not possible for me to tell how long I remained in that situation . . .²⁴

Alexander Campbell wrote the following on March 1, 1824, concerning a revival in New York: “Enthusiasm flourishes. . . . This man was regenerated when asleep, by a vision of the night. That man heard a voice in the woods, saying, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee.’ A third saw his Savior descending to the tops of the trees at noon day.”²⁵

Asa Wild claimed to have a vision which is very similar to the story Joseph Smith later published. It was printed in the Wayne Sentinel (the newspaper to which the Smith family apparently subscribed) on October 22, 1823:

It seemed as if my mind . . . was struck motionless, as well as into nothing, before the awful and glorious majesty of the Great Jehovah. He then spake . . . He also told me, that every denomination of professing Christians had become extremely corrupt. . . .²⁶

With so many people dissatisfied with the churches of the day, telling of visions and looking for some sort of restoration, it is easy to see why some people would be attracted to Joseph Smith’s claims and the Book of Mormon, which echoed many of the same views.

2. The Smith Family and Magic

In the 1820’s many people believed in magical stones that allowed the owner to discern the location of lost treasures. For instance, the Wayne Sentinel, published in Joseph Smith’s neighborhood, reprinted the following from the Windsor (Vermont) Journal:

Money digging.—We are sorry to observe even in this enlightened age, so prevalent a disposition to credit the accounts of the Marvellous. Even the frightful stories of money being hid under the surface of the earth, and enchanted by the Devil or Robert Kidd, are received by many of our respectable fellow citizens as truths. . . . A respectable gentleman in Tunbridge, was informed by means of a dream, that a chest of money was buried on a small island. . . . After having been directed by the mineral rod where to search for the money . . . he and his laborers came . . . upon a chest of gold . . . the chest moved off through the mud, and has not been seen or heard of since.²⁷

Another similar story was printed on December 27, 1825, in the Wayne Sentinel:

Wonderful Discovery.—A few days since was discovered in this town, by the help of a mineral stone, (which becomes transparent when placed in a hat and the light excluded by the face of him who looks into it, provided he is fortune’s favorite), a monstrous potash kettle in the bowels of old mother Earth, filled with the purest bullion. . . . His Satanic Majesty, or some other invisible agent, appears to keep it under marching orders; for no sooner is it dug on to in one place, than it moves off like “false delusive hope,” to another still more remote.²⁸

In 1822 Joseph Smith found a magic “seer stone” like the one mentioned in the newspaper while digging a well for his neighbor, Willard Chase. In 1833 Mr. Chase gave his account of the event:

In the year 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employed Alvin and Joseph Smith to assist me; the latter of whom is now known as the Mormon prophet. After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat, and then his face into the top of his hat. . . . After obtaining the stone, he began to publish abroad what wonders he could discover by looking in it, . . . ²⁹

A few years later Joseph Smith would use this same stone to produce the Book of Mormon. One of Smith’s followers, David Whitmer described the process:

I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing.³⁰

This process is described in the Book of Mormon:

Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer.³¹

In 1834 E. D. Howe published his exposé titled Mormonism Unvailed in which he printed a number of statements by neighbors of the Smiths recounting their involvement with magic and money digging. Willard Stafford wrote:

I first became acquainted with Joseph, Sen., and his family in the year 1820. They lived, at that time, in Palmyra, about one mile and a half from my residence. A great part of their time was devoted to digging for money: . . . I had heard them tell marvelous tales, respecting the discoveries they had made in their peculiar occupation of money digging. They would say, for instance, that in such an place, in such an hill, on a certain man’s farm, there were deposited kegs, barrels and hogheads of coined silver and gold—bars of gold, golden images, brass kettles filled with gold and silver—gold candlesticks, swords, &c, &c.³²

In 1825, after hearing of Smith’s powers, a man named Josiah Stowell came to Palmyra to hire the Smiths to help him look for a silver mine in Pennsylvania. At that time Joseph and his father entered into an agreement with those searching for the treasure, to share anything found in the dig. Smith’s stone was to be their key to finding the silver. Smith’s mother relates that Mr. Stowell specifically sought out Joseph Smith due to his special powers. Lucy Smith wrote:

A short time before the house was completed [1825], a man by the name of Josiah Stoal came from Chenango county, New York, with the view of getting Joseph to assist him in digging for a silver mine. He came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain means by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.³³

However, a relative of Mr. Stowell became worried that Joseph Smith was defrauding the man and filed charges against him in 1826. H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley Walters commented:

While Joseph Smith was working for Josiah Stowell, he was brought before a court on charges sworn against him by a nephew of Josiah Stowell, Peter G. Bridgman (or Bridgeman). Apparently Bridgman became concerned that his uncle’s money was being spent in the pursuit of elusive treasure. Accounts of these charges corroborate Smith’s treasure hunting in southern New York and Pennsylvania.³⁴

Joseph Smith was arrested and brought before Justice Albert Neeley on March 20, 1826. Justice Neeley’s record refers to Smith as “The Glass looker.”³⁵ (See photo below.) At the hearing Josiah Stowell testified

that prisoner had been at his house something like five months; had been employed by him to work on farm part time; that he [Joseph] pretended to have skill of telling where hidden treasures in the earth were by means of looking through a certain stone; that prisoner had looked for him sometimes; once to tell him about money buried in Bend Mountain in Pennsylvania, once for gold on Monument Hill, and once for a salt spring; and that he positively knew that the prisoner could tell, and did possess the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone; . . . ³⁶

Justice Albert Neeley’s bill referring to Joseph Smith as “The Glass looker.”

Detail of Justice Neely’s bill, with transcription of the “Glass Looker” reference and the fees.

There is a difference of opinion among historians if this was actually the trial or a preliminary hearing. Regardless, it demonstrates Smith’s involvement in treasure hunting by means of his stone. Joseph Smith would have been twenty years old at the time and was evidently allowed to leave the county. When he later claimed to have found the gold plates containing the Book of Mormon, the money-diggers came seeking their share of the treasure. Martin Harris wrote:

The money-diggers claimed that they had as much right to the plates as Joseph had, as they were in company together. They claimed that Joseph had been a traitor, and had appropriated to himself that which belonged to them. For this reason Joseph was afraid of them, and continued concealing the plates.³⁷

While Joseph Smith was in the employ of Mr. Stowell, he met his future bride, Emma Hale, while boarding with her family. However, her father, Isaac Hale, would not give his consent to their marriage due to Smith’s magic pursuits and money digging.

Soon after this, in January of 1827, Joseph and Emma eloped and moved to Palmyra, New York. Later Joseph told Mr. Hale that “he had given up what he called ‘glass-looking,’ and that he expected to work hard for a living.”³⁸ However, instead of settling down as a farmer, Smith was soon engaged in translating the ancient record supposedly found in the Hill Cumorah, a few miles from Smith’s home. Smith claimed an angel had earlier shown him the plates, but he wasn’t able to acquire them until September of 1827. He then turned his efforts to dictating to various scribes his translation of the Book of Mormon. Finding it hard to work on the manuscript at the Smith home, Joseph and Emma moved back to the Hale’s farm. After working on the manuscript through the winter and early spring, Joseph Smith was persuaded by Martin Harris, one of his followers, to loan him the first 116 pages of the manuscript to show his wife. Mrs. Harris, believing the whole enterprise to be a deception, was strongly opposed to Martin’s plan to mortgage his farm to finance the publishing of the Book of Mormon.

In the meantime Emma Smith gave birth to their first child in June of 1828. Not only did their son die soon after birth, but Emma became very ill as well. Joseph’s mother, Lucy, recounted that Emma “seemed, for some time, more like sinking with her infant into the mansion of the dead, than remaining with her husband among the living. Her situation was such for two weeks, that Joseph slept not an hour in undisturbed quiet.”³⁹

As Joseph and Emma came to grips with the loss of their son, Joseph began to wonder about Harris and the manuscript. He then traveled to Palmyra to retrieve the pages, only to learn from Harris that they were missing. Upon hearing of the theft of the pages Joseph Smith cried out in despair, “Oh, my God! . . . All is lost! all is lost! What shall I do? I have sinned—it is I who tempted the wrath of God.”⁴⁰

Evidently the death of the Smiths’ first child, and the loss of the 116 pages caused Joseph to seriously reconsider his religious views and he sought membership in the Methodist Church. When Joseph Lewis, Emma’s cousin, learned of this act, he felt that “it was a disgrace to the church to have a practicing necromancer, a dealer in enchantments and bleeding ghosts, in it.” Mr. Lewis told him either to “publicly ask to have his name stricken from the class book, or stand a disciplinary investigation.” Mr. Lewis stated that Joseph Smith immediately requested his name to be taken off the class book.⁴¹

Joseph Smith soon regained his confidence and returned to his work of dictating the Book of Mormon.

Quoted earlier was an account from the Smiths’ local newspaper about cursed treasures that slip further into the ground when someone tries to unearth them. This same type of phenomenon is echoed in the Book of Mormon. In the thirteenth chapter of Helaman we read:

31 And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them. . . . And then shall ye lament, and say: . . . O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us.

34 Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle.

35 Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.

36 O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.

Thus we see how Smith’s view of treasures hidden in the ground carried over into his book of scripture.

Years later when Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy, wrote her memoirs, she explained that the family always balanced their time between working, magical pursuits, and their faith (original spelling retained):

I shall change my theme for the present but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue another topic for a season that we stop our labor and went <at> trying to win the faculty of Abrac drawing Magic circles or sooth saying to the neglect of all kinds of business we never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation but whilst we worked with our hands we endeavored to remember the service of & the welfare of our souls.⁴²

Lucy Smith mentioned the family’s use of Abrac. This was a magical word that when written as a triangle on a piece of paper, and hung around the neck, was supposed to help sick people recover.⁴³

Joseph Smith also owned a Jupiter talisman, a silver medallion containing magic inscriptions. Joseph’s widow [Emma] later passed the object on to her step-son, Charles Bidamon, who in turn sold it to Mormon collector, Wilford C. Wood, of Woods Cross, Utah. Bidamon gave the following affidavit:

This is to certify that I have sold to Wilford C. Wood of Woods Cross Utah. A silver piece bearing the inscription. “Confirms O Deus Potentissimus” [written around the outer edge of the piece] and numerous hieroglyphical inscriptions.

This piece came to me through the relationship of my father Major L. C. Bidamon who married the Prophet Joseph Smith’s widow, Emma Smith.

I certify that I have many times heard her say, when being interviewed, and showing the piece. That it was in the Prophets pocket when he was martyred at Carthage Ill.⁴⁴

The same talisman is reproduced in The Magus, by Francis Barrett, published in 1804. Mormon scholar Reed C. Durham explains that a Jupiter talisman is used to guarantee the possessor of such an object “the gain of riches, and favor, and power, and love and peace; and to confirm honors, and dignities.”⁴⁵

Besides the use of seer stones and a talisman, the Smiths used divining rods, sticks that were usually forked, to both look for water and to locate treasures. A friend of the family recounted a conversation with Joseph Smith, Sr., in which Smith explained he had “spent both time and money” searching for buried treasure using “divining rods.”⁴⁶

Man using a divining rod

Joseph Smith’s principal scribe, Oliver Cowdery, was also involved with folk magic. One important change Joseph Smith made in his revelations was an obvious attempt to cover up the endorsement of Oliver Cowdery’s supposed gift from God to work with a divining rod. In the 1833 printing of Smith’s revelations, titled Book of Commandments, was an 1829 revelation given to Oliver Cowdery that stated:

Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands. . . . (7:3).

However, in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants this revelation was edited to say:

Now this is not all thy gift, for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things; Behold, there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you.⁴⁷

Notice that the words “working with the rod” and “rod of nature” have been changed to the more respectable sounding “gift of Aaron.”

Those who used divining rods were at times referred to as “rodsmen.” Richard P. Howard, RLDS Church historian, observed:

Several writers have established that both in Vermont and in western New York in the early 1800’s, one of the many forms which enthusiastic religion took was the adaptation of the witch hazel stick . . . For example, the “divining rod” was used effectively by one Nathaniel Wood in Rutland County, Vermont, in 1801. Wood, Winchell, William Cowdery, Jr., and his son, Oliver Cowdery, all had some knowledge of and associations with the various uses, both secular and sacred, of the forked witch hazel rod. Winchell and others used such a rod in seeking buried treasure . . . when Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery in April, 1829, he found a man peculiarly adept in the use of the forked rod . . . and against the background of his own experiments with and uses of oracular media, Joseph Smith’s April, 1829, affirmations about Cowdery’s unnatural powers related to working with the rod are quite understandable . . .⁴⁸

Mormon historians now concede the reality of the Smith family’s involvement with magic. D. Michael Quinn, in his book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, observes:

Friendly sources corroborate hostile non-Mormon accounts. As historian Richard L. Bushman has written: “There had always been evidence of it (‘money-digging in the Smith family’) in the hostile affidavits from the Smith’s neighbors, evidence which Mormons dismissed as hopelessly biased. But when I got into the sources, I found evidence from friendly contemporaries as well, Martin Harris, Joseph Knight, Oliver Cowdery, and Lucy Mack Smith. All of these witnesses persuaded me treasure-seeking and vernacular magic were part of the Smith family tradition, and that the hostile witnesses, including the 1826 trial record, had to be taken seriously.” BYU historian Marvin S. Hill has likewise observed: “Now, most historians, Mormon or not, who work with the sources, accept as fact Joseph Smith’s career as village magician.”⁴⁹

3. Contemporary Attitudes About the American Indians

In the early 1800’s there was high interest in the American Indian culture and artifacts resulting in many books and newspaper articles. The local newspapers occasionally ran stories about the Indians. The Palmyra Register for May 26, 1819, reported that one writer

believes (and we think with good reason) that this country was once inhabited by a race of people, at least, partially civilized, & that this race has been exterminated by the forefathers of the present and late tribes of Indians in this country.

Furthermore, the following was published in the Smiths’ local newspaper, the Wayne Sentinel, in 1825:

Those who are most conversant with the public and private economy of the Indians, are strongly of opinion that they are the lineal descendants of the Israelites, and my own researches go far to confirm me in the same belief.⁵⁰

Dan Vogel gave the following overview of Smith’s environment:

By 1830 knowledge of the impressive ruined cities of the Maya of Central America and the Inca of South America was commonplace in the northeastern United States. In addition, the inhabitants of those states were almost daily reminded of the building acumen of the early Indians: the remnants of fortifications as well as burial mounds dotted the area. Since most nineteenth-century Americans did not make distinctions among the various cultures and lifestyles of the native Americans and instead thought of these disparate groups as belonging to one race—the Indian—they also tended to see all of these ruins as coming from one group. What must this group have been like to have engineered such structures? The Book of Mormon tells the story of such a people and provides possible answers to persistent questions about their history.⁵¹

There were a number of books printed in Joseph Smith’s day to provide such answers. It was a common theory that the American Indians descended from Israel—the very idea put forward in the Book of Mormon.

In 1652 Menasseh Ben Israel’s Hope of Israel was published in England. This Jewish rabbi was a firm believer that remnants of the ten tribes of Israel had been discovered in the Americas.⁵²

In 1775 James Adair published The History of the American Indians. He theorized that there were twenty-three parallels between Indian and Jewish customs. For example, he claimed the Indians spoke a corrupt form of Hebrew, honored the Jewish Sabbath, performed circumcision, and offered animal sacrifice. He discussed various theories explaining Indian origins, problems of transoceanic crossing, and the theory that the mound builders were a white group more advanced than the Indians.⁵³

A popular book of Smith’s day was View of the Hebrews, by Rev. Ethan Smith, printed in 1823, with a second edition in 1825. LDS General Authority B. H. Roberts wrote extensively about the parallels between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon.⁵⁴ Rev. Robert Hullinger gave the following summary of B. H. Roberts’ parallels:

According to Roberts’s later studies, some features of View of the Hebrews are paralleled in the Book of Mormon. (1) Indians buried a book they could no longer read. (2) A Mr. Merrick found some dark yellow parchment leaves in “Indian Hill.” (3) Native Americans had inspired prophets and charismatic gifts, as well as (4) their own kind of Urim and Thummim and breastplate. (5) Ethan Smith produced evidence to show that ancient Mexican Indians were no strangers to Egyptian hieroglyphics. (6) An overthrown civilization in America is to be seen from its ruined monuments and forts and mounds. The barbarous tribes—barbarous because they had lost the civilized arts—greeting the Europeans were descendants of the lost civilization. (7) Chapter one of View of the Hebrews is a thirty-two page account of the historical destruction of Jerusalem. (8) There are many references to Israel’s scattering and being “gathered” in the last days. (9) Isaiah is quoted for twenty chapters to demonstrate the restoration of Israel. In Isaiah 18 a request is made to save Israel in America. (10) The United States is asked to evangelize the native Americans. (11) Ethan Smith cited Humboldt’s New Spain to show the characteristics of Central American civilization; the same are in the Book of Mormon. (12) The legends of Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican messiah, are paralleled in the Book of Mormon by Christ’s appearing in the western hemisphere . . . Roberts came to recognize that, at least in the case of Ethan Smith’s book, such works were widely available.⁵⁵

Researcher and author Simon Southerton observed:

In spite of its extensive similarities with the Book of Mormon, View of the Hebrews should not be regarded as the sole source of inspiration for the book. The basic themes running through both publications merely reflected the most commonly accepted myths surrounding the mounds, the Indians, and the original colonization of America. The principal difference is that Ethan Smith’s work was open speculation, whereas the Book of Mormon was a narrative that purported to be a literal, eyewitness account of what happened . . . The white man’s perceptions of Native Americans and the Mound Builder myth, both of which permeated the New England society of Joseph Smith’s day, became embedded in Mormon scripture. In many respects, the characteristics of the Book of Mormon Lamanites mirror the misunderstandings that surfaced in the froth of frontier speculation. The Mound Builder myth receives scriptural confirmation in the closing chapters of the Book of Mormon story where the final destruction of the fair-skinned civilized Nephites occurs at the hand of their brethren, the savage, dark-skinned Lamanites. The story must have appeared plausible to early Americans who, for most of the nineteenth century, believed that Native Americans were responsible for the genocide of the postulated earlier, advanced race. The stereotypes and misunderstandings served to validate the Europeans’ theft of native lands as an act of retribution; American Indians were themselves intruders in a land that had belonged to an earlier race—one that was comfortingly familiar to white colonists.⁵⁶

That Joseph Smith was intrigued with the stories of the earliest inhabitants of the New World can be seen in Lucy Smith’s memoirs. She noted Joseph’s storytelling ability and interest in the Indians:

During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.⁵⁷

It should be borne in mind that the Book of Mormon parallels the views of Smith’s day; it does not parallel archaeology today.⁵⁸ This is one of the areas which demonstrate that the Book of Mormon was written in the 1820’s, not 600 B.C. to 421 A.D.

In 1996 the Smithsonian Institute stated:

The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia . . .

One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time when the early big game hunters spread across the Americas.)

Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron . . .

Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland.⁵⁹

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[Click here to view the Smithsonian letter.]

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Conclusion

Thus we see the disputes over religion preceding Joseph Smith’s founding of a church supplied the ideas for his new religion. The Book of Mormon contains many of the same doctrinal debates that were raging in Joseph Smith’s area. His first vision mirrors many others of the day. His new religion supplied the necessary means to unite his family on both doctrine and church affiliation.

His family was also immersed in the magical world view of the day, practicing water-witching, stone gazing and appealing to the “faculty of Abrac.” The same phenomenon of slipping treasures appears in the Book of Mormon as it did in Smith’s money-digging. Joseph’s use of an object to discern the will of God is also reflected in the Book of Mormon.

The regional discussion and curiosity about the origin of the American Indians and their possible descent from Israelites provided a framework for Smith’s new book of scripture.

From this we conclude that Joseph Smith’s environment provided the components necessary to author the Book of Mormon and start his new church.

Just as the Methodist leaders pleaded with Joseph Smith to renounce his unbiblical beliefs and practices, we plead with our LDS friends to come back to Biblical Christianity. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the father but by me” (John 14:6).

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Footnotes:

1. Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York: Knopf, 1945), p. 3. ↩︎
2. Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), p. 26. ↩︎
3. Ibid., p.15 ↩︎
4. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, p. 3 ↩︎
5. Book of Mormon, Alma 1:4. ↩︎
6. Alma 1:15. ↩︎
7. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, pp. 69-70. ↩︎
8. Ibid., p. 4 ↩︎
9. Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, England: S. W. Richards, 1853), p. 37. ↩︎
10. Vogel, Religious Seekers, p. 26. ↩︎
11. Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 36. ↩︎
12. Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, pp. 58-59. ↩︎
13. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith’s Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 2010), pp. 161-163. ↩︎
14. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, p. 28. ↩︎
15. Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, pp. 16-17. ↩︎
16. Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith—History 1:8-20. ↩︎
17. Grant H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), pp. 96-97. ↩︎
18. Ibid., p. 96. ↩︎
19. Ibid., p. 44. ↩︎
20. See Joseph Smith’s Plagiarism, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. ↩︎
21. See chapter 2, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record, H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994). ↩︎
22. See Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith—History 1:15-20. ↩︎
23. Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, p. 41. ↩︎
24. Elias Smith, The Life, Conversion, Preaching, Travels, and Sufferings of Elias Smith (Portsmouth, N.H.: Beck & Foster, 1816), pp. 58-59. ↩︎
25. Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist (1827) vol. 1, pp. 148-149, as quoted in The Changing World of Mormonism, Jerald and Sandra Tanner (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), pp. 159-160. ↩︎
26. Wayne Sentinel (Oct. 22, 1823), as quoted in The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 160. ↩︎
27. Wayne Sentinel (February 16, 1825). ↩︎
28. As quoted in Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? Jerald and Sandra Tanner (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 2008), p. 48. Online at: https://archive.org/details/mormonismshadoworreality_digital ↩︎
29. Affidavit of Willard Chase, as quoted in Mormonism Unvailed, E. D. Howe (Painesville, Ohio: 1834), pp. 240-241. ↩︎
30. David Whitmer, An Address To All Believers In Christ, (Richmond, Missouri, 1887), p. 12. ↩︎
31. Book of Mormon, Mosiah 8:13. ↩︎
32. Affidavit of William Stafford, as quoted in Mormonism Unvailed, p. 237. ↩︎
33. Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, pp. 91-92. Also quoted in Early Mormon Documents, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), vol. 1, p. 309. ↩︎
34. Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, p. 70. ↩︎
35. For more on the 1826 trial, see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? pp. 32-38. ↩︎
36. Fraser’s Magazine (February, 1873): pp. 229-230, as quoted in Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? p. 32. ↩︎
37. Tiffany’s Monthly (August 1859). ↩︎
38. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 263-264. ↩︎
39. Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, p. 118. ↩︎
40. Ibid., p. 121. ↩︎
41. The Amboy Journal (June 11, 1879): p. 1. ↩︎
42. Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), p. 323. ↩︎
43. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism, Magic and Masonry (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1988), pp. 20-21, 55. For more information on Abrac, see Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, D. Michael Quinn (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), pp. 68-70. ↩︎
44. Affidavit as printed in Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, p. 5. ↩︎
45. Reed Durham, talk given April 20, 1974, at the 1975 Mormon History Association, as printed in Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, p. 3. Also in No Help for the Widow’s Son, photocopy available through Utah Lighthouse Ministry. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20250104113927/https://www.christopherrandallnicholson.com/is-there-no-help-for-the-widows-son.html ↩︎
46. Quinn, Magic World View, p. 33. ↩︎
47. 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Section XXXIV; 1981 Doctrine and Covenants 8:6-7. ↩︎
48. Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development (Independence: Herald House, 1969), pp. 211-14. ↩︎
49. Quinn, Magic World View, p. 59. ↩︎
50. Wayne Sentinel (October 11, 1825). ↩︎
51. Dan Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), p. 21. Online at: https://archive.org/details/IndianOrigins ↩︎
52. Ibid., p. 117. ↩︎
53. Ibid., p. 105. ↩︎
54. B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham D. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992). ↩︎
55. Robert N. Hullinger, Joseph Smith’s Response to Skepticism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), pp. 183-184. ↩︎
56. Simon G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), pp. 29-31. ↩︎
57. Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, p. 85. ↩︎
58. See statements by Mayan scholar, Michael D. Coe in Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling (San Francisco: Harper, 1999), pp. 270-273. ↩︎
59. Statement by the Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology, Washington D.C., 1996. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20060614030440/https://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/smithsonianletter.htm ↩︎

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