Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Part I A Prepared People
- 1 Dreams of the Primal Adam
- 2 The True Spiritual Seed
- 3 Something of Our Ancestors
- Part II Hermetic Purity and Hermetic Danger
- Part III The Mormon Dispensation
- Appendix The Sectarian and Hermetic Circumstances of Mormon Origins in Vermont and New York
- Abbreviations Used in Notes
- Notes
- Index
2 - The True Spiritual Seed
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Part I A Prepared People
- 1 Dreams of the Primal Adam
- 2 The True Spiritual Seed
- 3 Something of Our Ancestors
- Part II Hermetic Purity and Hermetic Danger
- Part III The Mormon Dispensation
- Appendix The Sectarian and Hermetic Circumstances of Mormon Origins in Vermont and New York
- Abbreviations Used in Notes
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The family of Smiths held Joseph Jr. in high estimation on account of some supernatural power, which he was supposed to possess. This power he pretended to have received through the medium of a stone of peculiar quality. The stone was placed in a hat, in such a manner as to exclude all light, except that which emanated from the stone itself. The light of the stone, he pretended, enabled him to see anything he wished. Accordingly he discovered ghosts, infernal spirits, mountains of gold and silver, and many other invaluable treasures deposited in the earth. He would often tell his neighbors of his wonderful discoveries, and urge them to embark on the money-digging business.
Joseph Capron, Manchester, Ontario County, New York, November 8, 1833In the years before his assassination in 1844, Joseph Smith, the prophet and seer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, revealed to his people the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. Fulfilling the dream of paradisial hermeticism, the Mormon faithful, by the sealing powers of Elijah, would become gods, carried up in an endless progression to the highest kingdoms of glory.
This American realization of the hermetic theology was rooted in a very different hermetic experience. For at least five years in the mid-1820s, and possibly for many years thereafter, Joseph Smith was deeply involved in occult divination. From 1822, when he discovered a seer-stone in Willard Chase's well, through 1827, when he renounced “glass-looking” in a dramatic confrontation with his father-in-law, Isaac Hale, Smith was known for his powers with the seer-stone.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Refiner's FireThe Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844, pp. 30 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994