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Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic/Further Reading
Contents
Further reading
Further reading
FairMormon Answers articles
"Magic" in Mormon history
Jump to Subtopic:
Joseph Smith and folk magic or the occult
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: What is the distinction between belief in "folk magic" and a religious belief in the supernatural?
- Question: Were Joseph Smith's spiritual experiences originally products of magic and the occult?
- Question: What were the attitudes of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries toward "magic"?
- Question: How did Joseph Smith use his seer stones as a youth?
- Question: Was a "vagabond fortune-teller" named Walters Joseph Smith's "mentor"?
- Question: Does Lucy Mack Smith's mention of the "faculty of Abrac" and "magic circles" evidence that "magick" played a strong role in the Smith family's early life?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith, Sr. practice "divination"?
- Question: Did early members of the "Mormon" Church believe in witchcraft?
- Question: Was the fact that the recovery of the Book of Mormon plates occurred on the autumnal equinox somehow significant?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith derive his religious ideas in part from a mysticism called Kabbalah?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith have a Jupiter talisman on his person at the time of his death?
- Question: What is the source of the story about Joseph Smith possessing a Jupiter talisman?
- Stephen Robinson: "In the case of the Jupiter coin, this same extrapolation error is compounded with a very uncritical acceptance of the artifact in the first place"
- Question: Could the list of items on Joseph's person at the time of his death have been incomplete?
- Question: What is the probability that Joseph Smith possessed items related to "magic"?
- Question: Was a "magic dagger" once owned by Hyrum Smith?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon’s reference to “slippery treasures” stem from Joseph Smith’s involvement in money digging and the occult?
FairMormon web site
"Magic" FAIR web links |
- Matthew B. Brown, “Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith’s Foundational Stories,” 2006 FAIR Conference lecture
Debunks the “Walters the Magician” rumor floating around Palmyra, New York. FAIR link - Brant A. Gardner, "Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate With a Rock in His Hat?," 2009 FAIR Conference lecture, 7 August 2009 off-site
1826 trial FAIR web links |
- Russell Anderson, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," (2002 FAIR Conference presentation.) FAIR link (Key source)
- Danel W. Bachman, "Mormonism -- Shadow or Reality? History or Propaganda? Joseph Smith as a Case Study," (2000 FAIR Conference presentation.) FAIR link
- Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith Miscellany," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, 2005 FAIR Conference). FAIR link
Video
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Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories, Matthew Brown, 2006 FAIR Conference |
- Part 1: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
- Part 2: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
- Part 3: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
- Part 4: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
- Part 5: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
- Part 5: Revised or Unaltered?: Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories
External links
"Magic" web links |
- Richard L. Anderson, "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reappraised," Brigham Young University Studies 10 no. 3 (1970), 283–314. PDF link
Discusses content of Hurlbut ‘affidavits’ / Stafford, Chase, Ingersoll, Deming ‘affidavits’ – money digging / other Smith family with seerstone. - Richard L. Anderson, "The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching," Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (1984). PDF link
Caution: this article was published before Mark Hofmann's forgeries were discovered. It may treat fraudulent documents as genuine. Click for list of known forged documents.
Discusses money-digging; Salem treasure hunting episode; fraudulent 1838 Missouri treasure hunting revelation; Wood Scrape; “gift of Aaron”; “wand or rod”; Heber C. Kimball rod and prayer; magic; occult; divining lost objects; seerstone; parchments; talisman - Richard L. Anderson, "The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction," Ensign (August 1987), 58.off-site
Discusses Salamander Letter / Magic; Chase affidavit; Saunders memories; rumored Oliver Cowdery history - Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Review of Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined by Rodger I. Anderson," FARMS Review of Books 3/1 (1991): 52–80. off-site
Discusses seerstones; magic; money-digging; animal sacrifice; ‘faculty of Abrac’. - Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Moroni as Angel and as Treasure Guardian," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 34–100. [{{{url}}} off-site] wiki
- Davis Bitton, "Review of John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: the Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844," Brigham Young University Studies 34 no. 4 (1994–95), 182–192. PDF link
- John Gee, "Abracadabra, Isaac and Jacob (Review of The Use of Egyptian Magical Papyri to Authenticate the Book of Abraham: A Critical Review by Edward H. Ashment)," FARMS Review of Books 7/1 (1995): 19–84. off-site
- John Gee, "'Bird Island' Revisited, or the Book of Mormon through Pyramidal Kabbalistic Glasses: Review of Written by the Finger of God: A Testimony of Joseph Smith's Translations by Joe Sampson," FARMS Review of Books 7/1 (1995): 219–228. off-site
- John Gee, "Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 185–224. [{{{url}}} off-site] (Key source)
- William J. Hamblin, "'Everything Is Everything': Was Joseph Smith Influenced by Kabbalah? Review of Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection by Lance S. Owens," FARMS Review of Books 8/2 (1996): 251–325. off-site
- William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]
- William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, and George L. Mitton, "Review of John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: the Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844," Brigham Young University Studies 34 no. 4 (1994–95), 167–181. PDF link
- William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, and George L. Mitton, "Mormon in the Fiery Furnace Or, Loftes Tryk Goes to Cambridge] (Review of The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 by John L. Brooke)," FARMS Review of Books 6/2 (1994): 3–58. off-site
Shorter version of BYU Studies paper above; discusses Hermeticism; Masonry - Marvin S. Hill, "Money-Digging Folklore and the Beginnings of Mormonism: An Interpretive Suggestion," Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 473–488.
Caution: this article was published before Mark Hofmann's forgeries were discovered. It may treat fraudulent documents as genuine. Click for list of known forged documents.off-site - Rhett S. James, "Writing History Must Not Be an Act of Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 395–414. [{{{url}}} off-site]
- Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of: "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism")," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 11–82. off-site
- Larry E. Morris, "Joseph Smith and "Interpretive Biography", review of Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet by Dan Vogel," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 321–374. [{{{url}}} off-site] wiki
- Stephen E. Robinson, "Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, by D. Michael Quinn," Brigham Young University Studies 27 no. 4 (1987), ?–??. PDF link
- Matthew Roper, "Unanswered Mormon Scholars (Review of Answering Mormon Scholars: A Response to Criticism Raised by Mormon Defenders)," FARMS Review of Books 9/1 (1997): 87–145. [ off-site] (page 87–145; see especially section "Joseph Smith and 'Magic'")
- Janet Thomas, "Magic," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 2:849.off-site
- Ronald W. Walker, "Joseph Smith: The Palmyra Seer,," Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 461–472.off-site
Caution: this article was published before Mark Hofmann's forgeries were discovered. It may treat fraudulent documents as genuine. Click for list of known forged documents. - Ronald W. Walker, "The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting," Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 427–459.off-site
Caution: this article was published before Mark Hofmann's forgeries were discovered. It may treat fraudulent documents as genuine. Click for list of known forged documents. - Benson Whittle, "review of Michael Quinn, Mormonism and the Magic World View, 1st ed.," Brigham Young University Studies 27 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 105–121.off-site
- William A. Wilson, "review of Michael Quinn, Mormonism and the Magic World View, 1st ed.," Brigham Young University Studies 27 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 96–104.off-site
Printed material
"Magic" printed materials |
- Mark Ashurst-McGee, "A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet," (Master's Thesis, University of Utah, Logan, Utah, 2000).
- Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith's Family Background," in The Prophet Joseph: Essays on the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith, ed. Larry C. Porter and Susan Easton Black (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), 1–18. ISBN 0875791778. GL direct link
- Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 41–52.
- Stephen D. Ricks and Daniel C. Peterson, “Joseph Smith and ‘Magic’: Methodological Reflections on the Use of a Term,” in Robert L. Millet, ed., To Be Learned Is Good If . . . (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987), 129–147.
Rod of Nature
- Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler, "Revelations of the Restoration," (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 86-88.