Seer stone (Latter Day Saints)

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For other uses, see Seer stone.

In early Latter Day Saint history, seer stones were stones used, primarily (but not exclusively) by Joseph Smith, Jr., to receive revelations from God. Smith owned at least two seer stones, which he had earlier employed for treasure seeking before he founded the church.[1] Other early Mormons such as Hiram Page, David Whitmer, and Jacob Whitmer also owned seer stones.[2] Seer stones are mentioned in the Book of Mormon and in other Latter Day Saint scriptures. James Strang, who claimed to be Joseph Smith's designated successor, also unearthed what he said were ancient metal plates and translated them using seer stones.

Contents

[edit] History

Some early nineteenth-century Americans used seer stones in attempts to gain revelations from God or to find buried treasure.[3] Beginning in the early 1820s, Joseph Smith was paid to act as a "seer" in (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to locate lost items and find precious metals hidden in the earth.[4] Smith's procedure was to place the stone in a white stovepipe hat, put his face over the hat to block the light, and then "see" the necessary information in the stone's reflections.[5] His favored stone, chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg,[6] was found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors.[7] In the words of Richard Bushman, there is ample evidence that Smith never "repudiated the stones or denied their power to find treasure. Remnants of the magical culture stayed with him to the end."[8]

In 1830 Hiram Page, one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, received a series of revelations through a black seer stone. After Smith announced that these revelations were of the devil, Page agreed to discard the stone which, according to a contemporary, was "Broke to powder and the writings Burnt."[9] Apparently the apostasy of some early Mormon believers can be traced to Smith's move away from the use of seer stones. The Whitmer family, devoted to their importance, "later said their disenchantment with Mormonism began when Joseph Smith stopped using his seer stone as an instrument of revelation."[10]

[edit] Seer Stones and the Urim and Thummim

Main article: Urim and Thummim (Latter Day Saints)
Joseph Smith dictated the manuscript of the Book of Mormon while looking at his seer stone or "Urim and Thummim" in his hat.[11]

In dictating the Book of Mormon from the Golden Plates, Smith said he used "interpreters," a pair of crystals joined in the form of a large pair of spectacles, which he later referred to as "Urim and Thummim." In 1823 Smith said that an angel told him of the existence of Golden Plates, along with which would be found "two stones in silver bows" fastened to a breastplate, which the angel called the Urim and Thummim and which he said God had prepared for translating the plates.[12] (His mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described them as crystal-like: "two smooth three-cornered diamonds.")[13] Smith and his early Mormon contemporaries seem to have used the terms "seer stone" and "Urim and Thummim" interchangeably. Although Smith always referred to the Book of Mormon "interpreters" as the Urim and Thummim, he may or may not have intended to make a distinction between that device and the seer stones that he used in scrying.[14] In the Book of Mormon, prophets such as the Brother of Jared and Mosiah also use devices called "interpreters" to receive revelation for their people, and the Doctrine and Covenants declares these interpreters to have been Urim and Thummim.[15]

In 1827 Smith was revisited by the angel who revealed the location of the objects buried in a hillside. After translating the Book of Mormon Smith returned the plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel, whom he identified as the resurrected Moroni. Joseph Smith reportedly told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was an inexperienced translator, but that as he grew in experience he no longer needed such assistance.[16]

Mormons believe that the Urim and Thummim of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were the functional equivalent of the Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Old Testament, but there is no indication in the Old Testament that the Urim and Thummin were used to translate documents.[17] Some Mormons believe that there were three different Urim and Thummim: the one of the Old Testament and two mentioned in the Book of Mormon, one used by the Jaredites and the other by King Mosiah.[18] (LDS members believe that the one used by Smith is the one originally possessed by the Jaredites.)[19]

[edit] Seer Stones and the contemporary LDS Church

One of the official titles of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator." According to Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth president, the LDS church continued to own one of Joseph Smith's seer stones. Nevertheless, since the nineteenth century, no President of the Church has openly used such a stone in his role as "seer and revelator."[20]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ For a survey of Smith's use of seer stones by a respected scholar and LDS patriarch, see Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 45-52. "Joseph had discovered two stones, one in 1822, while digging a well with Willard Chase a half mile from the Smith farm. The source of the other stone is uncertain." (48) Smith may have also acquired another, a green stone, while he was living in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 43-44.
  2. ^ Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1: 322-23; D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1998), 239-40, 247-48. A contemporary recalled that in Kirtland, "Mormon elders and women often searched the bed of the river for stones with holes caused by the sand washing out, to peep into." Quoted in Quinn, 248.
  3. ^ See Ronald W. Walker, "The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting," BYU Studies, 24 (1984),: 429-59.
  4. ^ Martin Harris did say that Smith once found a pin in a pile of shavings with the aid of a stone. Harris interview with Joel Tiffany, 1859, in EMD, 2: 303.
  5. ^ Harris 1859, p. 164; Hale 1834, p. 265; Clark 1842, p. 225; Mather 1880, p. 199;Bushman 2005, pp. 50–51, 54–55.
  6. ^ Roberts 1930, p. 129.
  7. ^ Harris 1859, p. 163. The stone was found in either 1819 (Tucker 1867, pp. 19–20, Bennett 1893), 1820 (Lapham 1870, pp. 305–306) or 1822 (Chase 1833, p. 240) in a well he was helping to dig.
  8. ^ Bushman, 51.
  9. ^ Doctrine and Covenants 28:11. Emer Harris, a brother of Martin Harris, said that Page's black stone was "Broke to powder." Quoted in Quinn, 248. According to Richard Bushman, Smith "recognized the danger of the competing revelations. Acknowledging every visionary outburst could splinter the church." After this the church affirmed that only Joseph Smith was to "receive and write Revelations & Commandments." Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 120-21.
  10. ^ Quinn, 248; Dennis A. Wright, "The Hiram Page Stone: A Lesson IN Church Government, in Leon R. Hartshorn, Dennis A. Wright, and Craig J. Ostler,ed., The Doctrine and Covenants: A Book of Answers, The 25th Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1996), 87.
  11. ^ David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses, described Smith's method of translation:"Joseph Smith 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. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man." David Whitmer, Address to All Believers in Christ Part 1 (1886)
  12. ^ Joseph Smith-History.
  13. ^ Smith, Lucy Mack (1853). "Biographical sketches of Joseph Smith the prophet, and his progenitors for many generations." (PDF). Brigham Young University Religious Education Archive. pp. 101. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/NCMP1847-1877&CISOPTR=2913. Retrieved 2006-02-02. "It [Joseph's Urim and Thummim]; also at EMD, 1: 328-29." 
  14. ^ Richard Van Wagoner and Steven Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15:2 (Summer 1982): 59–63. In Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), D. Michael Quinn argues that by 1829 Smith was using "biblical terminology to mainstream an instrument and practice of folk magic....There was no reference to the Urim and Thummim in the headings of the Book of Commandments (1833) or in the headings of the only editions of the Doctrine and Covenants prepared during Smith's life."(175)
  15. ^ D&C 17. The LDS Bible Dictionary defines the Urim and Thummim as "an instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord and in translating languages."
  16. ^ "Two Days´ Meeting at Brigham City," Millennial Star 36 [1874]:498–99).
  17. ^ There are seven references to the Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament: Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 27:21; Deuteronomy 33:8; 1 Samuel 28:6; Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:65.
  18. ^ Mosiah 8:13, 15-17:
    13 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.
    15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.
    16 And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God.
    17 But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known.
  19. ^ D&C 10:1; see Bruce R. McConkie,Mormon Doctrine(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 818-819.
  20. ^ Joseph Fielding Smith (tenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1970-72) wrote, “The statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated. The Urim and Thummim so spoken of, however, was the seer stone which was in the possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith in early days. This seer stone is currently in the possession of the Church.” Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-56), 3: 225.

[edit] References

  1. Van Wagoner, Richard S. (Summer 1982), "Joseph Smith: The Gift of Seeing", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (2): 48–68, http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=16574&REC=16 .
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