Joseph Smith And His Magic Seer Stone: A Rare Act Of Honesty Out Of Salt Lake City

Joseph Smith's magic seer stone

One of the deeply held tenets of mormonism is that the founder of their religion, Joseph Smith, was the "prophet of the restoration". Based on this belief and the alleged apostasy of all other Christians since the earliest days of the church, Smith claimed to be a prophet and seer divinely chosen to restore genuine Christianity in the form of the religion known as Mormonism. His signature feat was the "translation" of a book known as the Book of Mormon from a record inscribed on golden plates that purports to describe a Jewish civilization that existed in America in tandem with the events described in the Bible, culminating in a visit to this civilization by Christ. The account has proven problematic as the plates were never actually seen by anyone but Smith, there is no such language as "reformed Egyptian" which Smith claimed the plates were written in and there is no evidence of a proto-Jewish/Christian civilization anywhere in the Americas. Prospective converts to mormonism are asked to take Smith's claim on faith and "pray about the Book of Mormon". Compounding the problem for mormons are the wildly varying accounts Smith provided for this entire process, from being confused apparently by the number and identity of various divine visitors who told him where to find the conveniently located golden plates and the method he used for "translation". The story has changed a lot and one key facet, Smith's claim to have used a seer stone in a hat to translate the book of mormon, has been mostly hidden from mormon members. These members would often find out about this online and be quite disenchanted with the church for hiding the embarrassing truth.

What occurred recently is remarkable for its rarity. The mormon church revealed the existence of the seer stones and a picture of one called the "Chocolate Easter Egg" stone (see picture). Now the spin they are putting on this article for the October issue of Ensign Magazine, the mormon church's main periodical, would make even  the most experienced carnival ride aficionado barf in dizziness but it is a huge deal that they are finally being honest with the way that the "Book of Mormon" was alleged to be translated. It is quite a difference from the way it has always been portrayed in mormon literature. For example, the picture on the left shows (from the official mormon website) how it has often been portrayed. Notice that Smith and Oliver Cowdery (the scribe) are sitting at a table. Cowdery can clearly see the plates even though the evidence suggests that neither Cowdery or anyone else actually saw the plates.  There are no physical aids to translation, like a magic stone in a hat, rather it looks like Smith is reading directly from  the plates and Cowdery is writing what Smith "translated". Other renditions are different, some with the curtain, some with Smith wearing the breastplate and "Urim and Thummim". As Smith moved west and his following grew, his accounts of critical events changed quite dramatically.

I don't know about you but if I was visited by angelic visitors I would remember who they were and how many there were. Likewise if I translated a book claiming to be "another testament of Jesus Christ" and the most important event in the history of Christianity since the crucifixion, I would recall if I was reading it directly or via a stone in a hat to get the "revelation". Young Joseph Smith possessed a vivid imagination and the account of the first vision and the translation of the "Book of Mormon" bear all the marks of someone making it up as he went, in much the same way that he claimed to translate papyri that were later shown to say nothing at all what Smith claimed.

The easily debunked claims of virtually all of early mormonism are not really the point to this. What is the point is that the mormon leadership is finally admitting in public to issues like Joseph Smith "marrying" dozens of women, including some already married and others as young as 14 as well as his use of pagan and folk magic devices like the "seer stone" in a hat and the alleged "Urim and Thummim". This rare show of honesty in public is a stark contrast to the normally secretive mormon elite that hides most information very closely, only permitting carefully vetted documents out in public, and might be a sign of waving the white flag after realizing that in this day and age any inquisitive mormon or prospective convert can find plenty of evidence of shenanigans with the historical record. When the opening lines of thousands of young missionaries is shown to be malarkey, it is no wonder that mormons are leaving the church or becoming "inactive" in huge numbers.

Hopefully the foundations of this cultic religion will continue to crumble but as always my sincere and prayerful desire is that Christians are there to catch people when the house of cards that is mormonism collapses. As I have said on many occasions, it is not enough to prove mormonism false, a fairly easy task. It is critical that we also show them the real Jesus Christ. An active mormon, a mormon apostate or an atheist all have the same need for the redeeming power of the true Gospel.

For my testimony of being saved out of mormonism please see Our Journey Out Of Mormonism: Saved By Sovereign Grace.

For other, older blog posts from me on mormonism see The Fo-Mo Chronicles

Other valuable sources of information

Utah Lighthouse Ministry Sandra Tanner and her late husband Jerald, one of the originals and a vast repository of knowledge and research!

Mormonism Research Ministry Another treasure trove!

God Never Sinned

Mormon Coffee



Joseph Smith seer stones false prophet LDS mormon mormonism church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints.

Prescription versus description

Everything in the Bible is true. That is a basic belief of the Christian faith. But just because something is recorded in Scripture does not make it a command or doctrine. Unbelievers make all sorts of claims of what the Bible approves of, but most of their examples are descriptive in nature.

It is something I have been dealing with on Mormon Coffee and Pastor Michael Jones was talking about it in relation to mistakes critics of the Bible make (at least I think that is what he was saying, it was hot in the fellowship hall and I was stuffed with fried chicken, so I was a little groggy), that is mistaking Biblical description for Biblical prescription.

Mormonism is a great example of people doing this. Mormons baptize people for the dead. Why? Because of an obscure descriptive reference in 1 Corinthians: Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (1 Corinthians 15:29) Does that say to baptize the dead? No, it describes something the church in Corinth was doing, a church with a myriad of false doctrines running rampant. Paul mentions it in passing and millions of people practice it is a commandment.

A better example is polygamy. Mormons formerly practiced and still believe in polygamy. The doctrine is still in their Scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants 132 (D&C 132)

The "revelation" that Joseph Smith received after getting caught with multiple wives starts off as follows:

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—

2 Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.

3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.

4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

5 For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.

6 And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

7 And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

Notice that when Smith begins his defense of his polygamy, he refers back to the many wives of Old Testament prophets. Smith's logic is: Abraham was a prophet. I am a prophet. Abraham had lots of wives. I can have lots of wives. That is the story. When you ask a typical mormon about polygamy, they will at first brush it off "we don't do that anymore". If you get deeper and keep pressing, it is that "Well Old Testament prophets had plural marriages" While it is true that some OT prophets had multiple wives, it is also true that they were never commanded to do so. In fact they typically were in rebellion against God when they did so and it had negative consequences for them. Abraham, after being told to do so by his wife (an important lesson for husbands everywhere), took his wife's handmaiden Haggar and impregnated her, believing wrongly that God was not keeping His covenant to give Abraham a son.The results are disastrous. Sarah becomes jealous of Haggar's son Ishmael and Haggar is catty toward Sarah because she was able to provide the son that Sarah apparently couldn't. This leads to conflict that results in Haggar and Ishmael being cast out of the camp, where Ishmael would have died of dehydration if God hadn't intervened. That story is hardly a ringing endorsement of polygamy, but mormons still cite Abraham as a defense of Joseph Smith and his polygamous ways.

After Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, the Bible records Lot committing incest with his two daughters. Based on mormon logic, that means that if current mormon prophet Thomas Monson announced that incest was a new and everlasting covenant, it would have the same standing. You might say that is silly, but that is exactly the kind of thing that comes from misreading the Bible. The Bible is not a Bartlett's Quotations, it is a uniform and complete story that is meant to be read as a whole. Reading verses out of context and outside of the total Biblical witness invariably leads to false doctrine being taught.

The priesthood lineage

The mormon church holds that the "priesthood" was lost after the death of the last of the original apostles and in large part because of the loss of the priesthood, the church fell into apostasy until it was restored to Joseph Smith in 1829, and then passed on by the laying on of hands up to modern days. It is one of the major tenets of mormonism that the prophets of the church hold the keys of priesthood authority and as such have exclusive authority to speak on mattters of doctrine in our days. You can read the mormon official version of these events here.

In our mormon days I was bestowed this priesthood and given a lineage showing the trail from Jesus Christ to the apostles to Joseph Smith to Brigham Young and so on, until we see Peter Kilger from New Hampshire granting that same priesthood held by Peter, James and John to me. The top image is that lineage. The whole letter is below...this priesthood was stripped from me, along with all of the blessings that accompany it when I requested my name be removed from the membership list of the mormon church. I need to track that letter down and post it online as well.

The Fruits of False Prophets

Joseph Smith and David Koresh: Two very similar men seperated by 150 years.

A comparison that has interested me for some time is the eerie relationship between mormon founder Joseph Smith and Branch Davidian David Koresh. America has long been a breeding ground for cults and megalomaniac religious leaders. One of the hallmarks of American society is the open and free expression of religion, and that freedom has led to both wonderful fruit and at the same time cults and heretical movements. All cult leaders have common features, but Smith and Koresh really interest me, in part because of my former life in mormonism and a clear recollection of Waco, and also because they seem so much more similar than other cult group leaders. I am certainly not the first person to note this comparison, The Watchman Expositor addressed this very topic years ago, and while it is pretty brief, it does describe a good overview of the similarities between these two self-proclaimed "prophets"

Claims to a prophetic mantle

Both Smith and Koresh claimed to have unique status as a prophet, with a status that is normally reserved for Biblical prophets. They used their forceful personalities and personal charisma to attract followers into their cults by appealing to their general disaffection with existing churches. Both men cultivated an "us versus them", true believer versus apostate dichotomy that further cemented their followers dependence on them. Like all cults, anyone who questioned the cult or it's leader was a threat and was to be shunned. Both cult leaders sought to place themselves between their followers and the rest of the world, and that division led to many of their deaths.

Sexual preoccupation and polygamy

Another common thread is the use of their prophetic authority to engage in polygamy. Smith and several of his successors were notorious for the polygamous practices, in Smith's case with as many as a dozen (or more) other women, including teens as young as 14. Koresh is described as: "never thought above his belt buckle", and was "married" to as many as 19 women. Like Smith, it is reported that Koresh had relations with young girls, at least one of which was only 12 years old. I am not sure if they both used the idea of being a prophet as a way to obtain women or if it developed afterwards.

Obsession with martyrdom

It is no coincidence that both men saw their lives end in bloodshed. They both had an apparent obsession with being martyrs, Smith showing up at a jail where he knew he was likely to be at least roughed up by mobs and Koresh engaging in a gun battle with the Feds that was going to end up with his people dead. Koresh could have ended the standoff at any time by surrendering but instead chose death in a fiery conflagration.

Paranoia toward the government and outsiders leading to isolation

The Branch Davidians, living when they did, could not form a whole community like Nauvoo but their isolated compound in Waco was as close as you could get. With limited contact and complete reliance on Koresh, it became easier to cultivate a paranoia toward the government. Smith went even further, creating in Nauvoo, IL his own city with it's own militia force and Smith declaring himself to be a "general". For both men, isolation from the general society allowed them to control their followers and practice polygamy relatively unopposed.

Had Joseph Smith lived in modern times, he very well could have turned out like Koresh and had Koresh been born 150 years earlier, I could very easily see him starting a movement similar to mormonism. Both men put themselves before their followers, used them and led many to an early death. False teachers and prophets will always be with us, which is why staying grounded in the Word is so important.

The "Book of Abraham" Exposed

The Book of Abraham contains much of the most distinct mormon doctrines, doctrines that frankly don't even show up in the Book of Mormon. Despite that, it is not something (at least when we joined) something that is given out to investigators. Unlike the book of mormon, you have to buy your own book of Abraham, normally as part of your "quad". One of the best books I have read on the falsehoods of mormonism is By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, which shows definitively the lies of the "translation" of the book of Abraham. There is now an online video that covers much of this material, if you have an hour sit back and watch!



(Hat Tip: Mormon Coffee)

Great video on the origins of the Book of Mormon

Despite the popularized version that the mormon church peddles today, the original story of the translation of the golden plates that formed the book of mormon is quite different....




(HT: Mormon Coffee)

Further proof of the results of the degradation of marriage

Why we need to define marriage as exclusively the union between one man and one woman...

When homosexuals started to clamor for the right to marry, many warned that doing so would so weaken the foundations of marriage that every crackpot and deviant would demand the same rights. We were told we were alarmist homophobes. Now this from Yahoo! News...

Fundamental Mormons seek recognition for polygamy

By Jason Szep Tue Jun 12, 7:17 AM ET
CENTENNIAL PARK, Arizona (Reuters) - When Ephraim Hammon returns home from a day of working construction near Arizona's border with Utah, he's greeted by his wife SherylLynne. And then by his wife Leah.

Polygamy, once hidden in the shadows of Utah and Arizona, is breaking into the open as fundamentalist Mormons push to decriminalize it on religious grounds, while at the same time stamping out abuses such as forced marriages of underage brides.

The growing confidence of polygamists and their willingness to go public come at an awkward moment for mainstream Mormons, who are now in the spotlight as Republican Mitt Romney, a prominent Mormon, seeks the U.S. presidency.

Wow, no one saw this coming! Predictably, fundamental mormons claim that they are fighting the same struggle as the civil rights movement, the same argument we hear from homosexual advocates....

Her husband likened the struggle for acceptance with the civil rights movement. "It's like the work Martin Luther King did in relation with African Americans," he said, holding year-old Ava, one of his eight children, in the living room of his three-story home in Centennial Park, a dry, dusty Arizona town run by polygamists near the Utah border.

The thought that those fighting for equal rights for those born of one skin color being compared to those who choose a deviant lifestyle, whether homosexuality, pedophilia or polygamy is grotesque and rightly riles up civil rights activists who see that the comparison is ridiculous. The article does point out in several places that fundamental mormons are in many ways more true to the original church than the modern, sanitized mormon church..

Excommunicated by the church, they see themselves as true believers in Mormonism as practiced by founder Joseph Smith.

Historians say Smith took at least two dozen wives, some of them before 1843, the year he announced a revelation from God saying polygamy was a crucial key to entering the Kingdom of Heaven...

I did love this line...

"I don't think the revelation that Joseph Smith received came from Christ," said John Llewellyn, a retired Salt Lake County policeman who once practiced polygamy but now campaigns against it. "I think it came from his Y (male) chromosome."

Exactly right. The polygamy revelation of Joseph Smith was nothing more than a cover for his adultery and license to commit even more of the same. Marriage must be defended now before it is completely destroyed in this society.