The Role of Divination

#The Role of Divination (“Magic”) in Joseph Smith’s Early Life

#Introduction

Many well-read members of the Church know about Joseph Smith’s finding and carrying with him a seer stone from the time of his youth. For some of us this is a source of uneasiness. We are uncomfortable with the idea that Joseph and his family dabbled in “magic.” We are inclined to minimize the importance of Joseph’s seer stone. It is easy to attribute this bias to our most commonly available church history sources. They have little to say about Joseph’s use of his seer stone or his being involved in supernatural activities of any sort. Today, most of us are intuitively disinclined to think the Lord might participate in that type of interaction with man. In fact, wouldn’t Satan be more inclined than the Lord to encourage that type of activity?

We do know that Joseph’s family was frequently financially distressed. This left to Joseph and his brothers the responsibility of hiring themselves out to perform any work for which people were willing to pay. They simply had to find a way to supplement the family’s income. An obvious way is to sell one’s services to those who need help with physical labor. Many people in those days needed wells to provide them ready access to water. Others had heard there might be “treasure” buried on their land. Hence, there were an appreciable number of those willing to pay for help in finding and accessing water and trying to locate treasure. We concede that perhaps Joseph even hired himself out as a “seer” as well as a laborer. If people wished to try to find treasures, then Joseph was willing to help—both with the seeking and with the digging. And, we are not aware of his ever having located a valuable cash of buried treasure. Surely his work as a seer was not an important aspect of his life. Or was it?

Those of us who are students of the Book of Mormon are aware that Joseph’s seer stone did play a vital role in the translation of that ancient record. Why did Joseph’s bringing forth of the Book of Mormon obligatorily involve a seer stone? How might we explain that? We mostly attribute the actual process of translation to the Lord himself. After all, the Lord, through the prophet Moroni, did provide young Joseph with a device for translating—the Urim and Thummim. Joseph apparently made use of this device during the translating he did with Martin Harris in 1828. However, in 1829 Joseph used almost exclusively his own seer stone instead of the Urim and Thummim.

Anti-Mormons delight in throwing wrenches into the substance of our presuppositions, and prejudices in these matters. They insist that we minimize the role of divination in the lives of Joseph and his family. They maintain that Joseph was far more involved in “magic” they we want to believe. They claim that Joseph’s father, Joseph Smith Sr. was heavily involved in the use of divining rods and seer stones for obtaining information in supernatural ways even before Joseph Jr. was born. They report he was experienced in selling his services to others as a diviner. Further, they contend that Joseph Jr. was encouraged by his father and became involved in the same practices. They even point to evidence that Joseph Jr. even had something of a reputation for being unusually successful in divination activities.

This chapter will examine closely the truth of these claims and attempt to place them in an appropriate eternal context. As a vital resource for this chapter, I am indebted to Mark Ashurst-McGee, PhD, and his masters degree thesis written at Utah State University in 2000: A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet.

#Divination

Divination is the act of trying to foretell the future or obtain other information by “preternatural” means. Preternatural means “out of the ordinary” and implies the participation of occult or supernatural—”magical”—forces.

Attempts to categorize divination often meet with ambiguities and complexities. In general, however, we may acknowledge three general types of divination experiences:

1. Intuitive Divination. This is knowledge gained through divinely enabled hunch, insight, or presentiment (premonition or foreboding) in the mind of the diviner. The “diviner” is the receiver of this special knowledge.

2. Wisdom Divination. This type assumes correspondence between nonhuman and non-personal elements of the universe and the diviner here on earth. Examples include astrology, numerology, palm reading (palmistry), and physiognomy— discerning the character or characteristics of an individual from the form and features of the body.

3. Possession Divination. This category includes a number of methods whereby spirits in the universe communicate with diviners on earth by way of an intermediary. These intermediary entities can be human or non-human. The spirits are said to “possess” the intermediary entity—hence, the name “possession” divination.

Non-human media. When the intermediary entity is non-human, we may call this type of divination “mechanistic.” It is also sometimes called “augury.” Examples of mechanistic divination include:

a. A planchette (pencil) becomes “possessed” and spells out a message on a Ouija board. The message is thought to come from a spirit.

b. When a high priest casts lots, he expects the Lord to determine their outcome. The lots, then, are said to be possessed. The high priest is the diviner, or the receiver or beneficiary of the knowledge.

c. The use of a peep stone or seer stone to discern supernaturally-revealed information fits into this category.

Human media. When the intermediary entity is human we may refer to the process as “revelation” or “prophecy,” and the intermediary individual is a prophet. If we regard the prophet as the diviner, then there is no real intermediary entity. If we regard the prophet as the intermediary entity, then the information or revelation is intended for those to whom the prophet delivers it. For purposes of this system of categorization, these recipients of the messages are the “diviners.”

The term possession inaccurately describes prophecy because prophets are not possessed. They retain reason, self consciousness, and self control during their revelations. This type of divination can also be called “ecstatic.” Ecstatic does not necessarily imply any loss of reason or self control, but simply a preternatural event experienced within the mind or soul of the diviner.

Ascensional and descensional revelation. To the above categorization of divination, we may overlay another grouping. When the diviner initiates the revelatory experience, we may refer to the receipt of divine information as “ascensional revelation” (from earth up to heaven). When the experience is initiated by the Lord, it is “descensional revelation” (from heaven down to earth). The experience of Paul on the road to Damascus was an example of the latter. Sometimes both types are seen in one experience. For example in Ether 3 in the Book of Mormon, Jared and his people built eight barges with which to sail to the New World. To have light in these barges, which were entirely enclosed, Jared’s brother “did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass; and he did carry them in his hands upon the top of the mount, and cried again unto the Lord, saying . . . prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness” (Ether 3:1-4). The brother of Jared’s prayer on the mountain can be classified as an ascensional effort in divination. In response to his prayer, Jesus “stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. This part of experience of the brother of Jared can be classified as a descensional divination or revelation.

Different cultures prioritize these categories of divination in different ways. For example, Hindu belief holds intuitive divination in the highest regard followed by mechanistic divination with ecstatic or revelatory experience at the bottom of the list. Western civilization and Judeo-Christianity places prophetic revelatory experience at the top of the heap. In addition to prophecy, Judaism has also sanctioned lesser forms of divination such as Urim and Thummim and lots. Most Europeans have looked to the biblical prophets as the pinnacle of divinatory experience.

#Divination in the Environment of the Smith Family

The enthusiasm for divining for water or finding buried treasure has, for the most part, slipped away into a forgotten world. Though strange to us today, treasure seeking in eighteenth and early nineteenth century America was common. Many believed that treasures had been secreted in the earth by ancient inhabitants of the continent, Spanish explorers, pirates, or even the dwarves of European mythology. Treasure hunters usually looked to hills, caves, lost mines, and Native American mounds as places to find these hidden deposits. A legend, a map, or a dream of buried wealth often triggered the quest for treasure.

To aid those who had an interest in finding treasures, local specialists were often enlisted to use their divining rods or seer stones to locate the treasure. In order to conceal the location of the hidden wealth and, not wanting to share the treasure, fortune seekers often worked under the cover of darkness. This habit also spared them the ridicule of “sophisticated” onlookers.

Let us consider a few pertinent definitions.

Dowse. The verb dowse means to use a divining rod. The rod may be either forked or straight. The dowser holds the two branches of the fork in his hands with the main branch lifted upward or held level. The rod is thought to dip toward the ground and point to the object sought.

Dowsers used the rod to locate water and other objects such as metal. In 1826, the American Journal of Science (October 1826, 204) reported the general notion that “the rod is influenced by ores.” An article appearing in 1825 stated that the dipping of a divining rod “closely resembles the dip of the magnetic needle, when traversing a bed of ore” (“The Divining Rod,” The Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal, October 1825, 29).

Witch. The word “witch” is the name given to the individual, male or female, who uses a divining rod to look for water or other objects. The word seems to derive from witch hazel, a small tree or shrub with especially succulent and pliable branches. Early American dowsers preferred this wood for its elasticity, and because its unseasonable budding reminded them of Aaron’s rod that budded. Water witches used freshly cut branches of wood because of the water inside them. This practice rests on the principle of sympathy so prevalent in magic. The most well-known example of sympathetic magic is the Voodoo doll. By sticking needles into an imitation of an enemy, one can injure the actual person. Supposedly, the sympathies between the water in the “succulent twig” and the water under the ground resulted in an attraction that made discovery possible.

While living in Vermont and New York, the Smiths found themselves in a culture that included divining rods, seer stones, and treasure seeking. In Middletown, Rutland County, Vermont, Congregationalist excommunicant Nathaniel Wood led a “fraternity of rodsmen” who called themselves the “New Israelites.” We know very little of the New Israelites. The earliest source that mentions them is a short article that appeared in a Vermont newspaper in 1828. This article explained their use of rods for divination. They claimed inspired powers for curing all sorts of diseases. They also claimed intuitive knowledge of lost or stolen goods, and the ability to discover the hidden treasures of the earth. The instrument of their miraculous powers, was a cleft stick, or rod, something of the form of a “Y,” and when this talisman was firmly grasped in both hands, by its two points, it was believed to indicate the proper course to be pursued, or point out some substances of medicinal utility, or fix the locality of some valuable mine—whichever of these the diviner sought. The New Israelites were also intense and aggressive millennialists or adventists who looked forward to the imminent second coming of the Lord and the thousand years of peace.

This movement has been more commonly referred to as the “Wood Scrape.” The word scrape here means a distressing or embarrassing situation. The title refers to the heightened anxieties Nathaniel Wood’s group caused in Middletown when they predicted January 14, 1802 as a day of apocalypse (the Lord’s Second Coming). When the anticipated day of destruction came and went, the New Israelites decided to leave town. Most resettled in St. Lawrence County, New York. They continued to be involved with divination.

Actually, treasure seeking flourished throughout New York State. Caroline Rockwell Smith, who grew up just down the road from the Smith family farm, remembered “considerable digging for money in our neighborhood by men, women, and children.” Smith neighbors Joshua Stafford, William Stafford, and Sally Chase used seer stones in an effort to locate treasures.

#Public Image of Diviners

Contempt for treasure seeking became universal among the genteel or upper class by the early nineteenth century as part of their wider criticism of the common folk for inadequate ambition, lackluster work discipline, and attachment to unsupported traditions. Dowsing for water with a rod (“water witching”) fell under the same opprobrium. And yet, very few had the confidence to dig a well without having it “witched” first.

While the term water witch had its origins in the type of wood used (as mentioned above), the word “witch” had two meanings. Those people aspiring for gentility used the word “witch” to express their disdain for dowsing—one of “the monstrous births of the dark ages which yet survive” as one contemporary science magazine put it (“The Divining Rod,” American Journal of Science & Arts, October 1826, 211).

#Joseph Smith Senior’s Involvement in Divination

Joseph Smith Sr. may have inherited a tradition of divination and revelation from his father Asael. Joseph Smith Jr. wrote, “My grandfather, Asael Smith, long ago predicted that there would be a prophet raised up in his family, and my grandmother was fully satisfied that it was fulfilled in me” (HC, 2:443). Grandfather Asael Smith was clearly a man with a “millennialist” mind-set. Like other millennialists of his day, he anticipated the one thousand years of peace promised in the Bible. In a Christian eschatological timetable, the fulfillment of Asael’s prediction of a prophet would precede the Millennium. Millennialistic belief, then, determined that the predicted prophet must soon arise.

Asael’s extraordinary presentiment was noted by all in the family. Some descendants of Asael, aware of his prediction, wondered if they or one of their children might become the promised prophet? In 1828, Joseph Sr. wrote a letter to his father’s family telling them about his son’s recent spiritual experiences. But the story of the golden plates was just too strange for the extended family. Then Joseph Jr. himself wrote a letter. Asael’s son John read the letter and was impressed. His son George A. Smith later recounted, “I well remember the remark he made about it. “Why,” said he, “he writes like a prophet” (“A Discourse by Elder George A. Smith, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, August 2, 1857,” JD 5 [1857]:102-3).

Like his father, Joseph Smith Sr. was also a millennialist. Although their evidence is thin, D. Michael Quinn and John L. Brooke argue that while in Vermont Joseph Smith Sr. was one of the New Israelites (“Wood Scrapes”). As mentioned, they were enthusiastic millennialists (Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 116-135; John L Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire, 31, 50-58, 102-6, 121-24, 132-142, 213, 282, 357n12). Six decades after the “Wood Scrape” occurred, a local historian reported a rumor that Joseph Smith Sr. had resided in nearby Poultney, Vermont, during this time and had participated in the New Israelite group as one of its “leading rods-men” (Frisbie, The History of Middleton, Vermont, 62). The Smiths, however, in 1802 lived in the White River Valley on the other side of the Green Mountains” from Middletown. Current historical efforts to place Joseph Smith Sr. in Poultney at the turn of the century remind one of the former efforts to place Sidney Rigdon in Palmyra before 1830. Whether Joseph Smith Sr.’s associated with the New Israelites or not, he lived in a national culture of millennialism.

As an inheritor and perpetuator of a family tradition of millennial expectation, and living in a national environment wherein such expectations were common, Joseph Smith Sr. must also have scanned the temporal horizon for an imminent fulfillment of the idea of a new prophet. He probably expected that his father’s prediction of a prophet in the family would soon be fulfilled.

It has also been suggested that William Cowdery, the father of Oliver Cowdery, may have also been a member of the Wood Scrape in Vermont. The weight of the evidence, however, suggests he was not.

When did father Smith begin using a divining rod? In 1843 James C. Brewster who had searched for treasure with Joseph Smith Sr. in the Kirtland, Ohio, area recounted that in the summer of 1837 the elder Smith claimed, “I know more about money digging than any man in this generation, for I have been in the business more than thirty years” (pamphlet by James Colin Brewster: “Very Important! To the Mormon Money Diggers.” This pamphlet ends with “JAMES COLIN BREWSTER, Springfield, Missouri, March 20, 1843”). If Brewster can be trusted, Joseph had been hunting treasure as far back as 1807. Brewster’s reminiscence dates Joseph Smith Sr.’s treasure hunting back to his Vermont years. He moved New York in 1816. There is other evidence to suggest that Joseph Smith Sr. began treasure dowsing in Vermont (Early Mormon Documents 1:597, 624-25). Vermont treasure diviners used rods more than any other method to search for treasures. He moved to New York in 1816, and apparently he continued to dowse for water and treasure there.

Prior to 1816, Joseph Sr. and Lucy Smith contemplated a move to the west. Joseph and Lucy had moved their family a number of times, but always within the vicinity of their ancestral homeland. Pulling up roots to move westward posed a more difficult decision. If Joseph Sr. had a rod by this time, it makes sense that he would have inquired by it concerning the family move.

Joseph Sr.’s water witching and subterranean “dirty work” probably contributed to the negative statements some of his neighbors later made about him. In 1887, Joseph Rogers recalled, “Old Joe, was called a devil. He was very intemperate, profane, and vulgar in conversation” (Joseph Rogers, statement, Los Gatos, California, 16 May 1887, quoted in Arthur B. Deming, “Mormon Prophet,” Naked Truths about Mormonism [Oakland, California], April 1888, p.1, col. 2). James H. Kennedy called Joseph Smith Jr. “the well-digger’s son” as a term of opprobrium (James Harrison Kennedy, “The Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” 1890, Diedrich Willers Papers, Seneca Falls Historical Society, Seneca Falls, New York, 1, 10).

The Smith family spent their first three years in New York in the village of Palmyra. After that, they moved southward to the Palmyra-Manchester township line to farm. Local historians and former neighbors recalled that when the Smiths first moved to Palmyra they opened a “cake and beer shop” which featured ginger bread and root beer. Joseph Sr. and the boys supplemented the family income by hiring out as harvesters and well-diggers.

In addition to digging wells, the Smith males rocked wells, dug and rocked cisterns, and built fireplaces and rock walls. These forms of labor were commonly engaged in by those who worked as well-diggers and water witches. In their midtwentieth century study of American water witching, anthropologist Evan Z. Vogt and psychologist Ray Hyman found that the five most common occupations held by water witches were in order farmer, well-driller, retired people or pensioners, ranchers, and general laborers (Evon Z. Vogt and Ray Hyman, Water Witching U.S.A., 2d ed. [Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1959; Phoenix Book ed., 1979], 164). The Smiths had farmed in Vermont and would farm again as soon as possible. They also dug wells and hired out as general laborers. Joseph Sr. fit squarely within water witching culture. J. H. Kennedy, who interviewed the Smiths’ Wayne County neighbors in preparation for his 1888 book on Mormonism, wrote that Joseph Sr. had been a water witch (Kennedy, Early Days of Mormonism, 19. On Kennedy’s interviewing, see v-vi). In the summer of 1880, investigative journalist Frederic G. Mather visited the old Smith neighborhood and spoke with Orlando Saunders. He reported father Smith’s use of a “forked stick or hazel rod” to find water and treasure (Mather, “The Early Days of Mormonism,” Lippincott’s Magazine, August 1880, 198. On Joseph Smith Sr.’s water witching, see also Donald Enders’, “The Joseph Smith Sr. Family,” 222).

In 1825, the Smiths lost title to their farm and began paying rent to Lemuel Durfee who lived north of Palmyra Village. The Smiths paid part of their rent in labor. Donald L. Enders, curator of New York LDS sites, suggests that the Smiths dug and rocked some of the wells on the Durfee farm (“The Joseph Smith Sr. Family: Farmers of the Genesee,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, The Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr. [Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993], 222). It was at this time that the Smiths met Martin Harris, who lived just down the road from Durfee. Willard Bean wrote that Joseph Senior and Hyrum dug and rocked the well on the Martin Harris farm in the mid-1820s (Bean, A.B.C. History of Palmyra and the Beginning of “Mormonism,” 35). Bean did not mention whether Joseph Sr. witched the well, but one of the reasons Bean wrote his book was to counter local traditions about the Smith family’s treasure seeking. It was while they were digging this well that Martin became acquainted with the Smiths.

#Joseph Smith Junior’s Involvement in Divination

Over the last two decades, a number of scholarly studies by devout Latter-day Saint scholars and empathetic secularists have concluded that Joseph Smith was involved in treasure seeking and an early American milieu of beliefs and practices that many modem Americans would label “magic.” He was born into a family tradition of wisdom divination. It is likely his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, was largely instrumental in mentoring him in wisdom divination. He learned to use a divining rod largely from his father. Later on, again at the encouragement of his father, he evolved into the use of seer stones.

Actually little is known about Joseph’s use of the rod. He may have become involved in dowsing with a rod as early as 1817, shortly following the family’s arrival in New York from Vermont. He began using the seer stone when he looked into the seer stone of his neighbor Sally Chase probably in 1819. He began using his own seer stones by the early 1820s. It is possible that Joseph’s elder brothers, Alvin and Hyrum, were also involved in divination, but it is Joseph that is most often mentioned.

It was apparent early that Joseph was uncommonly gifted in using these divining instruments, and soon he had a reputation in Palmyra as the “village seer.” He hired himself out as a water witch and treasure hunter. He also used his instruments to look for stray livestock and other things as people needed.

Joseph held a “theocentric” view of the “gift of seeing.” That is, he felt that the gift was God-given and God-approved. Some time between 1825 and 1830, Joseph told Emma Smith’s brother Alvah “that his (Smith’s) gift in seeing with a stone and hat, was a gift from God” (“Mormonism,” The Susquehanna Register, and Northern

Pennsylvanian (Montrose, Pennsylvania), 1 May 1834, p. 1, col. 4). Joseph believed there were three essential elements in the so-called “dowsing formula.” All three needed to be present before successful divination could be accomplished. They were the rod, God, and the dowser. While all three were vital, God’s favor was the most important. This formula applied equally to the rod or the seer stone. The idea of the association of God and the use of rods was corroborated by early LDS scripture. Today, D&C 8:6 refers to one of Oliver Cowdery’s gifts. It is the “gift of Aaron.” It was referred to in the original manuscript of this revelation (the 1833 Book of Commandments) as “the gift of working with the rod.” Ancient Aaron was the elder brother of Moses, and with his rod in his hand he went before Moses as a spokesman. God had instructed that Moses’s rod (originally his shepherd’s staff—see Exodus 4:2-4) was to be the instrument by which he and Aaron would perform signs and wonders. This rod was then carried by Aaron, and was sometimes called the rod of God (see Exodus 4:20; 17:9) and sometimes the rod of Moses (see Exodus 9:23; 10:13; 17:5), but usually it was called the rod of Aaron (see Exodus 7:10, 12, 19; 8:5, 16). It was a tangible symbol of Aaron’s authority and stewardship, of his relationship to Moses and to God, and an instrument by which he accomplished what God commanded him through the mouth of Moses. The Book of Mormon includes a revelation received by Joseph of Egypt promising him that God would some day raise up a Moses for his people and would “give power unto him in a rod” (2 Nephi 3:17). The revelations to Oliver Cowdery regarding his “gift of working with the rod” stressed that this gift came from God and reminded, “without faith you can do nothing” (D&C 8:10).

Diviners were not all equal. Some had more of a gift than others. Also, apparently not just any stone would do. Apparently there were special stones that possessed some inherent virtue that made them particularly suitable for divining.

While digging wells in and around Palmyra in the 1817-19, Joseph’s rodsmanship was probably overshadowed by that of his father. However, in 1825, a treasure-hunter named Josiah Stowell would seek out Joseph Jr. for his gift of seeing. By obtaining a seer stone, Joseph Smith not only fulfilled his father’s expectations but also developed an individual identity.

It is possible that Joseph had more than two seer stones, but two of them are particularly well known—a brown one and a white one.

Joseph’s brown seer stone. Joseph’s first stone was probably found in late 1821 or early 1822. He likely saw the stone in 1819 or early 1820 by looking in the stone of a neighbor girl, Sarah (“Sally”) Chase. Sally was probably a little older than Joseph and grew up with him. It is not know exactly where Joseph found this stone. William Purple, a contemporary of Joseph Smith, wrote that Joseph saw his first stone in the ground about a mile from Lake Erie, “not far from the New York and Pennsylvania line” (“Joseph Smith, the Originator of Mormonism: Historical Reminiscences of the Town of Afton,” Chenango Union, 2 May 1877, p. 3, col. 8). This was about 150 miles from Palmyra. The time away from work that a journey of 150 miles would require may account for the time lapse between seeing the stone in vision and acquiring it. It is also possible that the great lake Purple remembered hearing about may have actually been lake Ontario, about twenty miles from the Smith home. Purple’s recollections in this matter were given over fifty years after the event. Whether Joseph traveled twenty miles or 150, this journey was vastly important and likely carried with it something of a rite of passage. Before, he had been a water dowser. He was about to become a more socially acceptable “village seer.” Brigham Young described his journey: He “went right to the spot & dug & found it” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 5:382-83). William Purple wrote that Joseph “did not have the glass [Sally Chase’s seer stone] with him, but he knew its exact location” (“Joseph Smith, the Originator of Mormonism,” Chenango Union, 2 May 1877, p. 3, col. 8).

Joseph’s First Vision of the Father and the Son may have occurred shortly after his vision of his first seer stone but before he actually obtained the first stone. It’s also possible that Joseph’s First Vision occurred shortly before his actually seeing his first seer stone in Sally Chase’s stone.

This first seer stone was buried fifteen feet underground in an “iron kettle.” Native American Indians of this area were known to have been using European pots or kettles by the early seventeenth century. In 1810, a copper kettle was unearthed from a native burial ground near Canandaigua, about ten miles to the south (Hill, Joseph Smith, the First Mormon, 71-71).

The stone is described as being “about the size of a small hen’s egg, in the shape of a high instepped shoe or a “baby’s foot.” It was composed of layers of different colors passing diagonally through it. It was very hard and smooth, perhaps from being carried in the pocket” (Kirkham, Francis, W. A New Witness for Christ in America, 2:365). Emma Smith once described it as “a small stone, not exactly black, but it was rather a dark color” (unpublished letter of Emma Smith Bidamon to Mrs. George W. Pilgrim, March 27, 1870, RLDS Archives P 4 F 20). Historian Andrew Jenson described the stone as an “oval shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg but more flat” (The Historical Record). This was the stone used in the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Following the translation of the Book of Mormon, this seer stone was passed on to Oliver Cowdery who maintained it in his possession until his death. It was then passed to his widow, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, who gave it to Phineas Young. Phineas took it to Utah and gave it to his brother, Brigham Young. From that time, with the exception of a brief hiatus when it was purchased by someone else, it has remained in the possession of the First Presidency where it remains today.

Joseph’s white stone. The second stone was found in 1822 in the context of digging a well for Willard Chase, the brother of Sally Chase. Actually, Joseph was not actually digging for water. He was specifically digging for a white seer stone he had visualized with the help of his first stone.

President Wilford Woodruff spoke about “the seer stone known as ‘Gazelem’, which was shown of the Lord to the Prophet Joseph to be some thirty feet under ground, and which he obtained by digging under the pretence of excavating for a well” (George A. Smith Papers, Box 174, folder 26, Manuscripts Division, Marriott Library, University of Utah). This stone was transparent or at least translucent. It’s size was probably comparable to the brown stone, but a little smaller.

Section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants speaks of those who will inherit the celestial kingdom and states that each will receive a “white stone”:

Then the white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17, will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one, whereby things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known; And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. The new name is the key word (verses 10-11).

The name Gazelem is interesting. Alma 37:23 has the Lord saying: “I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations.”

The punctuation of this verse suggests that “Gazelem” is the servant. The stone is the Urim and Thummim. If a comma were placed following the word servant, then the phrase might suggest that the title Gazelem referred instead to the stone. Perhaps it refers to both. It is interesting to recall that Jesus gave to Simon Peter the title “stone”: “And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone” (John 1:42). The title “Gazelem” in this verse may refer to any seer or prophet, but it has been suggested that it might be a direct reference to Joseph Smith. In the Doctrine and Covenants (pre-1981 editions only), Joseph Smith is called “Gazelam” (note the different spelling), which is perhaps a variant spelling of Gazelem.

Another notion about this white stone has persevered. Apparently, the white stone was superior to Joseph’s first (brown) stone. He had a greater capacity to see the future and other spiritual things with this stone. Apparently, at one point, using the white stone, Joseph began viewing individuals’ futures. Some neighbors spoke of Joseph’s “oracles” and “fortune telling.” Joseph Smith, himself, never used these terms. He referred to these practices as “blessings” and “prophecies.” Apparently the angel Moroni instructed Joseph to look into his stone to see the person he should marry. Joseph Knight wrote that Joseph “looked in his glass and found it was Emma Hale.” This was another way Joseph used his stone and developed his gift (Dean Jessee, “Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History,” 31. See also Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 163-64).

Joseph taught that the white stone of the Book of Revelation (Revelation 2:17) was a seer stone and that a stone existed for each righteous person. It is likely that Joseph identified his white stone as the white stone the Bible promised to the righteous. If so, his acquisition of the white stone symbolized that he had grown spiritually.

After finding the stone, a disagreement arose between Joseph and Willard Chase as to who actually owned the stone. Willard, of course, claimed ownership because it was found on his property. This disagreement was settled only gradually and grudgingly. The dispute between Joseph and Willard over the seer stone foreshadowed the dispute over the ownership of the golden plates that would ensue when Joseph obtained them. In 1827, Chase led the group of men who attacked Joseph and tried to steal the plates. Chase and other men had hunted for treasure with Joseph in earlier years and viewed the ancient record as a treasure of gold. They felt they were entitled to a share of the value of the plates. Chase may have based his claim to the plates in part on the fact that Joseph had discovered them with the white stone, which Chase considered his own property.

A tradition has grown up, even among several early members of the Church, that Joseph used his stone to find the plates of the Book of Mormon (and the Urim and Thummim). This has caused a dilemma, since Joseph’s accounts of finding them indicates that a heavenly visitor, Moroni, showed them to Joseph. Two authors, Richard Van Wagoner and Steve Walker have attempted to harmonize both versions of the event as given in Joseph Smith’s 1839 account of the Moroni visitation. Joseph recounted, “Moroni, the person who deposited the plates . . . appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them” (Elder’s Journal [Far West, Missouri], July 1838, p. 42, col. 2 - p. 43, col. 1.). Van Wagoner and Walker write, “The seer stone could have been the medium through which Moroni’s instructions were given” (Van Wagoner and Walker, “Joseph Smith: ‘The Gift of Seeing,’” 57).

To support their argument, Van Wagoner and Walker point to another event in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon: Joseph’s seer stone vision of Emma. According to Joseph Knight, Moroni “appeared and told him . . . he might have the Book if he brought with him the right person. Joseph says, ‘who is the right person?’ The answer was ‘you will know.’ Then he looked in his glass and found it was Emma Hale” (“Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History,” 31, spelling and punctuation corrected). Martin Harris related a similar story. When Joseph needed help to translate the Book of Mormon, the angel “told him to go and look in the spectacles, and he would show him the man that would assist him. That he did so, and he saw myself, Martin Harris, standing before him” (“Mormonism—No.11,” Tiffiny’s Monthly, June 1859, 169). The discovery of the gold plates could have followed a similar pattern: a visitation of the angel followed by a seer stone vision locating the object (or subject) under discussion.

While Joseph carried the brown stone on his person, he apparently kept this white stone in a safe place. Emma would later make a pouch for the brown stone. This probably occurred sometime after their wedding in January of 1827. In contrast, the white stone may have been kept in a box. Apparently, today this stone is also in the possession of the First Presidency.

One way seer stones were used in Joseph’s day was most peculiar and unique. They were place in the bottom of the crown of an inverted hat. The diviners face was then placed into the hat and the crown gathered about the face to exclude the light. Then, in the dark, the diviner could read the message on the stone. The student of the Book of Mormon will readily recognize this technique as the same as Joseph used to translate that book. The brown stone was utilized in translating the Book of Mormon. One account describing Joseph’s use of the white stone suggested that Joseph held the stone up to a light (the sun or a candle) in order to read messages off the stone. Thus, there may have been two fundamentally different processes for utilizing seer stones.

For eight years the Smiths hunted for treasure (from about 1818 to 1826). During this period, fewer than twenty ventures were documented (Vogel, Dan “The Locations of Joseph Smith’s Early Treasure Quests,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 27, no. 3 [fall 1994]: 197-231). Joseph described his best known treasure hunting venture:

In 1825 I hired with an old Gentleman, by name of Josiah Stoal [Stowell] who lived in Chenango County, State of New York. He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania. . . . He took me among the rest of his hands to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued to work for nearly a month without success in our undertaking, and finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging after it (Manuscript History of the Church, Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Church Archives, Book A-1, pp. 7-8, in PIS, 1:282. For a photograph of one of the silver mine excavations, see Church History in Black and White, 198).

#Joseph Jr.’s Transition from Treasure Seeker to Prophet

Over the years, several anti-Mormons have developed the theory that Joseph “stumbled” into prophethood “more by accident than by design.” After all, he already had a reputation for being a village seer. Then add to that Joseph’s ambitious nature, his creative imagination, need for an audience, and a desire for financial security. All of these coalesced and served as driving forces that led to his assumption of the prophetic role.

How did Joseph Smith really become a prophet? How would committed members of the Church describe the process? For most believing Latter-day Saints, the answer is quite simple: he was called by God. God the Father and Jesus Christ visited him in 1820 when he was only fourteen years of age. Intuitively most members of the Church see Joseph’s First Vision experience in the spring of 1820 simplistically as the defining moment in his life: Prior to that experience he was an inquisitive, conflicted young man confused about religion. Afterward, his direction and role were clear. He was to become the prophet of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Actually, at the time of Joseph’s First Vision, he was wavering between organized religion and folk magic. Historian Richard Bushman explained that the First Vision would have driven Joseph away from the organized churches in his mother’s social orbit toward the treasure-seeking culture of his father (“Joseph Smith’s Family Background,” 1-18, especially 11-14. See also Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 31). Perhaps it is more accurate to regard the First Vision as merely the beginning of a gradual transition in Joseph’s life. At the time of his vision experience, Joseph was a member of a family fighting for economic survival. Joseph Sr. was heavily involved in the practices of a diviner, and Joseph Jr. was becoming involved. Joseph Jr.’s focus was not particularly on materialistic self-aggrandizement. Rather he was fixed upon the issue of adequate financial resources for his family. His spiritual gift for divining was initially regarded by himself as a way to make money. Even following his epiphany in the sacred grove, he didn’t fully understand the eternal significance of his remarkable gift for receiving revelation. Joseph’s First Vision may have actually provided further impetus and direction for Joseph’s step-wise divinatory development. Is it possible that Jesus may have instructed Joseph to obtain a stone? Joseph would come to understand the awesome responsibility his First Vision had placed upon him only gradually.

In addition to grandpa Asael’s predictions of a prophet that was soon to be born in the Smith family, there is a rather extensive family tradition that Joseph Jr. was marked by his family—for other reasons—from an early age as one who was destined to become great. In those days, there was a tradition that a baby who was born with a “caul” or veil over its head was headed for greatness. The caul is a piece of the amniotic sac that separates from the rest of the sac and happens to affix itself to the baby’s head during the birth process. There is some evidence to suggest that Joseph had such a caul. Also there was a numerological tradition that a seventh son or a third son had more of a chance of becoming someone great. Joseph, of course, was a third son. Thus, the family’s expectations was a “naturalistic” factor that might have given some impetus and direction to young Joseph has he grew up.

Joseph’s preparation for eventually becoming a prophet developed and progressed through the decade of the 1820s. It moved through basic modes of divination including rods and seer stones to visions, angelic visitations, and theophanies. I do not doubt that this incremental development took place under the orchestration of the Lord.

Following the First Vision in the spring of 1820, Joseph received no further heavenly messengers until September 22, 1823, when he was visited by the prophet Moroni the last prophet in the Book of Mormon and the son of the prophet Mormon. Joseph Smith was subsequently tutored over at least the next four years in the ways of prophethood by the resurrected Moroni. Indeed, that four-year period may well have been required by Joseph to enable him to overcome his treasure-seeking mentality and become a true prophet. Moroni mentored Joseph much as the Old Testament prophet Elijah mentored his successor Elisha. Among other things, Moroni revealed to Joseph Smith the location of the golden plates from which he would translate the Book of Mormon.

In Joseph Smith’s day, there were laws in the state of New York that made the practice of “money digging” (treasure seeking) illegal. Undoubtedly this was because most of those involved in the business were swindlers out to make a quick dollar. Joseph was arrested in 1826 and charged with breaking this law. His trial in Chenango County turned out to be a watershed moment in Joseph’s life. Previous to the trial, he had mostly viewed his uncommon gifts at divining as a way to make money for his family. The trial, during which he was acquitted, proved to be an experience that started him on the path of using his divining gifts for more wholesome purposes such as finding lost property and eventually eternally significant purposes.

Actually neighbors and acquaintances spoke of Joseph’s role as a finder of things lost even before the 1826 trial. Around 1823, Joseph had begun to use his brown stone to find missing things. The 1826 court record confirms this by stating that Joseph had “been in the habit of looking through this stone (the brown stone] to find lost property for three years” (The court record is published in “A Document Discovered,” Utah Christian Advocate, January 1886, p.1 , cols. 1-3. On the authenticity of the record, see Marvin S. Hill, “Joseph Smith and the 1826 Trial: New Evidence and New Difficulties,” BYU Studies 12, no. 2, winter 1972: 223-233; “The 1826 Examination,” Bibliographic Essay 2, in Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism, 222-30).

Joseph Smith Sr.’s testimony in the 1826 court record is revealing. “He [Joseph Smith Sr.] swore that both he and his son were mortified that this wonderful power which God had so miraculously given him [Joseph Jr.] should be used only in search of filthy lucre” (William D. Purple, “Joseph Smith, the Originator of Mormonism,” Otenango Union, 2 May 1877, p. 3, col. 9). Following the trial, Joseph Jr. gave up treasure seeking entirely.

Historians’ narrow focus on the treasure-seeking component of the village seer role follows understandably from the historical record. When Smith’s early neighbors wrote about him, they usually emphasized treasure seeking in order to denigrate his religious claims. We get a different picture in the record of Joseph Smith’s court appearance. It is the only source mentioning seer stones that is contemporary to the time period in which Joseph functioned as a village seer. Notes of Joseph Sr.’s testimony read, “He [Joseph Jr.) had a certain stone, which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were . . . . and while at Palmyra he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was of various kinds” (A reproduction of the court minutes appears in “A Document Discovered,” Utah Christian Advocate, Salt Lake City, January 1886, p. 1, col. 1-2). This point was originally made by Richard Lloyd Anderson (“The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching” 533).

Following the trial, Joseph’s role and reputation as a village seer expanded when he began looking less for treasures and more for lost property and into the future. His ability to find lost items doubtless grew out of his previous treasure hunting. Martin Harris related that on one occasion Joseph used a seer stone to help him find a missing toothpick:

I was at the house of his father in Manchester, two miles south of Palmyra village, and was picking my teeth with a pin while sitting on the bars. The pin caught in my teeth, and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw. I jumped from the bars and looked for it Joseph and Northrop Sweet also did the same. We could not find it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him, “Take your stone.” I had never seen it, and did not know that he had it with him. He had it in his pocket. He took it and placed it in his hat . . . [he] placed his face in his hat. I watched him closely to see that he did not look [to] one side; he reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick, and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin (“Mormonism—No. II,” Tiffany’s Monthly, June 1859, 164, 411).

The Lord’s complicity in Joseph’s using instruments for divining is evidenced by a passage in the Book of Commandments: “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, for it is the work of God; and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know.” As already mentioned, when the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was published in 1835, “the gift of working with the rod” was changed to “the gift of Aaron” (D&C 8:6).

Another obvious indicator of the Lord’s approval of Joseph’s becoming skillful in using the seer stone was his using his brown stone to accomplish the translation of the Book of Mormon. In fact, in translating the book, he used the very same technique he had used previously for less enduring purposes. That is, he inverted his hat, placed the stone in the crown, placed his face in the hat and occluded the hat around his face to create darkness. He then directly read the revelatory message from off the seer stone.

Thus, we learn that Joseph’s gift of seeing in the stone was destined early to extend beyond treasure quest. As he matured, he used stones more and more to look into the future, to find stolen property, and to locate missing livestock. Most anti- Mormon authors have either missed or underappreciated this critical concept. Almost all have focused on the treasure seeking aspect of Joseph’s use of seer stones. It eventually became apparent that Joseph’s role in using a seer stone was considerably larger than treasure hunting. Religious Studies professor Jan Shipps, in her now standard study of Mormonism (Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985), writes, “Smith’s efforts to find ordinary buried treasure were gradually transformed into a search for treasure of infinitely greater value” (11). BYU history professor D. Michael Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1987) discusses the full range of activities in the village seer’s role. As might be predicted of Quinn, however, he focused sharply on treasure seeking.

Brigham Young, taught that “the gift of seeing was a natural gift” and that “there are thousands in the world who are natural born Seers, but when the Lord selected Joseph Smith to be his vice-gerent [a “gerent” is a ruler or manager] and mouthpiece upon the earth in this dispensation, he saw that he would be faithful and honor his calling” (Deseret News, Salt Lake City, 26 December 1860, p. 337, col. 3. This article reports a discourse delivered by President Brigham Young at the tabernacle in Salt Lake City on 23 December 1860). While Brigham’s statement acknowledged Joseph’s prior role as a seer, it returned to the simple explanation of a calling. God’s calling transformed Smith from a treasure seeker to village seer, and then to a prophet of God.

Joseph’s evolution through the sequence of his instruments of translation is another illustration of his progression from treasure seeker to prophet. When he began the process of translation in April 1828 with Martin Harris, he used the spectacles—the Urim and Thummim—and the plates to translate. The spectacles were apparently the most powerful tool Joseph had available to him. He was able to successfully use them when his own abilities were not yet fully developed. They were, however, awkward for him to use. They consisted of two large clear lenses, attached by a movable arm to the breastplate and fixed in a frame. When in the frame, they were placed too wide apart for Joseph’s eyes. In that fixed condition he had to use both of his eyes to look through one lens. Apparently, from time to time, he used the spectacles in different ways. At times he detached them from the frame and carried one or both with him, probably in a pouch. In this way, he could use them when he was away from home. At other times, he would put one or both lenses in the bottom of his hat and place his face in the hat, sealing out the light with his hands around his face.

The next most powerful tool he had was his white stone—the one he found on the property of Willard Chase. As mentioned, this seer stone was used either by holding it up to a light—a candle or the sun—or he could put it in the bottom of his hat. The least powerful of his translating tools was his brown seer stone. He was able to use this only when his own abilities to translate were more developed. This stone apparently provided less divine help and required more of his own native ability. The exact nature of that “ability” is not understood. As mentioned, it is felt that virtually the entire Book of Mormon was translated in 1829 using this brown stone.

The restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the organization of the Church were the final steps. They signaled Joseph’s transition from visions through the medium of the seer stones to unaided revelation. In 1866, early Mormon Zebedee Coltrin recalled that he had once asked Joseph “what he had done with the Urim and Thummi[m].” Joseph replied that “he had no further need of it . . . . He had the Melchizedek Priesthood, and with that he had the key to all knowledge and intelligence” (‘‘Record and Minute Book of the High Priests of Spanish Fork Ward opened 29th April 1866-1898,” 128-29, LDS Church Archives). Joseph later taught that all of the Old Testament prophets held the Melchizedek priesthood.

The pattern in the Old Testament conforms to Joseph’s divinatory development. Whereas Aaron and his successors in the High Priest’s office—holding the lesser priesthood—received revelation through the Urim and Thummim, the Old Testament prophets with the higher or Melchizedek Priesthood received revelation directly from God into their minds. After John the Baptist’s restoration of the Aaronic priesthood, Joseph still used the seer stone. After receiving the Melchizedek priesthood, he received direct revelation.

David Whitmer later wrote concerning Joseph’s transition from seer to prophet:

After the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished, early in the spring of 1830, before April 6th, Joseph gave the [brown] stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it, and he did not use the stone any more. . . . He told us that we would all have to depend on the Holy Ghost hereafter to be guided into truth and obtain the will of the Lord. The revelations after this came through Joseph as “mouth piece”; that is, he would inquire of the Lord, pray and ask concerning a matter, and speak out the revelation, which he thought to be a revelation from the Lord (“A Witness to the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon,” David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, 32. See also 30-36).

Further evidences of his status as prophet of God were soon to follow. These included the published collection of Joseph’s revelations published initially in the Book of Commandments in 1833 and later as the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. In June of 1830 he would begin his “new translation” of the Bible. Later on, he would “translate” the Book of Abraham, apparently using Egyptian papyri.

Following the organization of the Church in April 1830, Joseph “fell back” on the use of his media (Urim and Thummim, white stone, brown stone) only occasionally and temporarily. Orson Pratt Pratt, who witnessed several of Joseph’s revelations, observed:

Sometimes Joseph used a seer stone when enquiring of the Lord, and receiving revelation, but that he was so thoroughly endowed with the inspiration of the Almighty and the spirit of revelation that he oftener received them without any instrument, or other means than the operation of the spirit upon his mind (“Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Deseret Evening News, 23 November 1878, p. 1, col. 5).

In Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, Richard L. Bushman combines natural evolution with supernatural incursion to chart Joseph’s transition. According to Bushman, when Joseph first went to Cumorah in 1823 he viewed the golden plates in a treasure-hunting context. He intended to secure them as a treasure with which he could relieve his family’s poverty. As Joseph grasped the plates, the angel Moroni appeared, interrupting the natural course of events. The angel rebuked him, reminded him that this gold could not be sold, and informed him that the Lord’s purposes were bigger than the Smith family’s financial situation. In a later appearance, Moroni instructed Joseph to “quit the company of the money-diggers.” These moments of divine intervention served as impetus for Joseph’s evolution. “Although he did not repudiate the stone or ever deny its power to find treasure, Joseph Jr. began to orient himself toward a new mission obtaining and translating the book of Mormon” (73-74). Bushman also feels that Joseph’s 1826 trial expedited his reorientation from treasure seeker to his new purpose.

Richard L. Bushman has written further on the hypothesis that Joseph’s transition was incremental. In an essay on “Joseph Smith as Translator,” he writes that the “treasure-seeking stones from the magic culture . . . helped Joseph move step-by-step into his calling.” Bushman notes that when Joseph received the Urim and Thummim spectacles he knew how to use them because of his previous experience with the stones” (see The Prophet Puzzle: Interpretive Essays on Joseph Smith, ed. Bryan Waterman [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999], 79. See also Bushman, “The Secret History of Mormonism,” Sunstone, March 1996, 66-70).

In a metaphorical way, Joseph’s father represented his previous treasureseeking orientation, and his mother, his higher calling. Joseph Sr. initially refused to affiliate with any local church congregation. He remained an un-churched treasure hunter. His mother joined the Presbyterian Church. The plates of gold conformed with his father’s treasure-seeking beliefs while the translation of those plates into a sacred book accorded with his mother’s pursuit of Bible religion.

Joseph Smith Sr. may have initially failed to provide Joseph with an adequate spiritual father figure. One is reminded of the almost fatherly role, perhaps by default, Joseph Jr.’s elder brother Alvin played in his life. It does seem clear, however, that

Joseph Sr. became thoroughly converted to the gospel under the tutelage of his son. He died in 1840 the patriarch of the Church.

Although finding treasure eventually became less important to Joseph than finding lost property, none of his antagonistic contemporaries wrote much about that transition of his divination activities. Treasure seeking was more sensational and easier to ridicule, and so that is what they wrote about. For those who left early antagonistic accounts and for the historians who have used them, the context of treasure digging has provided an easy explanation of early Mormonism. Treasure seeking comprised only one part of the village seer role.

Mark Ashurst-McGee, in his introduction to his masters thesis, provided a thoughtful overview of the “transition theory”:

To elucidate the theory, I will specify four precise increments in Joseph Smith’s transition. First, Joseph Smith used the seer stone of a neighborhood girl to find a seer stone for himself. Second, he used his own seer stone to find a better seer stone. Third, he used this new superior stone to find a special seeric instrument that resembled a pair of glasses. Joseph considered these spectacles the ultimate seeric instrument, and identified them as a “Urim and Thummim” similar to that used in the Old Testament Fourth, he used the Urim and Thummim spectacles to train himself for unaided revelation.

These increments not only increased Smith’s seeric abilities, but sequentially aligned him with the role of the Old Testament prophets. To expand upon the [transition] theory, I will argue that Joseph’s transition from village seer to prophet forms only one phase in a larger progression. Joseph was born into a family tradition of divination. Coming out of this background, he learned to use a divining rod. After becoming a rodsman, he then progressed to village seer. Finally, he attained prophethood. With each step, Joseph moved further from mechanical divination and dowser to ecstatic revelation. I further explore the possibility that from the beginning Joseph Smith and his parents had some understanding of this process and its direction (masters thesis: A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet).

One might well raise the question as to why instruments such as the interpreters and the seer stone were needed in the translation process in the first place. Orson Pratt, who had considered this same question, reported that Joseph told him that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim “when he was inexperienced in the spirit of inspiration. But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operation of the Spirit and did not need the assistance of that instrument” (Richard Lloyd Anderson, “The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching”). Zebedee Coltrin, a friend of the

Prophet, related that he had once asked Joseph what he had done with the Urim and Thummim and that “Joseph said that he had no further need of it and he had given it to the angel Moroni. He had the Melchizedek Priesthood and with that priesthood he had the key to all knowledge and intelligence” (High Priests Record of Spanish Fork Branch, September, 128). These statements do not provide a complete answer to the question as to why the Lord required Joseph to utilize objects or instruments in the process of translation. I believe we are left with the idea that the seer stone and the Urim and Thummim represented the Lord’s part in the miraculous process, but more was required for the process to work—likely substantial personal preparation and effort were also required by the translator himself. The exact nature of that preparation is unknown.

#Divination Among Joseph’s Contemporaries

As early Mormon history unfolded, divining cropped up in other situations. In 1830, Book of Mormon witness Hiram Page used his seer stone to receive a series of revelations—one of which apparently located the New Jerusalem. Joseph Smith Jr. received a subsequent revelation in September of that year stating that Page’s revelations had come from Satan. The Lord revealed to Joseph, “I say unto you, that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter” (Book of Commandments 30:8, 11). For an analysis of the Page and Smith revelations, see Bruce G. Stewart, “Hiram Page: An Historical and Sociological Analysis of an Early Mormon Prototype” [master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1987], 112- 139, 145).

Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball used rods. In 1837, while voyaging to the British Isles, Heber C. Kimball had a visionary dream in which Joseph Smith appeared to him and gave him a rod “with which . . . to guide the ship.” On their return, Joseph gave rods to both Heber Kimball and to Brigham Young. Brother Kimball held his rod when praying for revelation. An early Church historian wrote that Brigham Young carried Oliver Cowdery’s Aaronic rod with him when he led the way to the Salt Lake Valley and then used it to point out where the temple should be built. This was actually a cane (Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 258).

#Conclusion

From 1830 to 1844 Joseph filled this role as prophet of God. He restored the principles and ordinances of the gospel in their primitive purity and ancient order untarnished by creed or tradition. Like Moses, he led the children of Israel. Like Peter, he presided over the church. As Richard Bushman notes, Joseph was living the Bible (Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism,183-88).

Joseph never denied his use of seer stones or repudiated their efficacy, but it is obvious to us that are students of his life that he did not speak of them publicly. An obvious example is his miraculous translation of the Book of Mormon. Why did Joseph recount only the descensional half of his history? One reason is that he did not want his past to be misunderstood in a way that would hurt the church. Bushman writes:

Conventional Christianity was fighting to protect itself from the Enlightenment critics’ charges of superstition, and, to prove their rationality, Christian apologists vented their anger on the remnants of magic carried down from an earlier time when magic and religion mingled. Joseph did not want to make himself a target for attacks that would cripple the work (“Joseph Smith as Translator,” 79).

Another reason Joseph neglected to write of his ascensional divination with rods and stones was simply that it held less meaning for him when compared to his experiences with descensional divination. Speaking face to face with God, the Father, prepared Joseph to be a prophet more than locating a well site. Joseph’s First Vision of the risen Christ made a larger impression on him than his first vision of his first seer stone. His discussions with the angel Moroni concerning the plates and the spectacles stood out in his memory more than when he used his white stone to see their location. With maturity, the Book of Mormon eventually eclipsed the spectacles in importance.

We have traced Joseph’s life through a remarkable transition. It began with a family background of belief in wisdom divination. Then he gained facility with a divining rod and seer stones. He eventually became recognized as a “village seer” who not only sought for treasures but also assisted those in need in finding lost objects. He then was mentored by the resurrected Moroni through his finding the gold plates and translating the Book of Mormon. Finally, he became a fully competent prophet of God—able to receive revelation without the help of any intermediary device. Obviously both naturalistic and divine influences were involved in this translation.

The story is so remarkable that even Joseph himself excused the doubter. Shortly before his assassination he stated, “I don’t blame you for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself” (Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies 18, no. 2, winter 1978: 208).