Moldeo con arena ligada con arcilla (moldeo en verde)

Smith explicitly rejected the church his mother attended, Presbyterianism, and, as described below, Mormonism had a number of things in common with his father’s beliefs.

10 _{Tunbridge Town Record, 6 December 1797 in Early Mormon Documents, 1:634.}

11 _{Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. H. Michael Marquardt}

(Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007). Joseph Smith Sr. gave blessings from 1834 until his death in 1840, at which time his son Hyrum became the patriarch.

12 _{Green Mountain Boys to Thomas Sharp, 1:597.}

13 _{Joseph Smith, Revision of the Bible. josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/old-testament-revision.} 14 _{Lucy Smith, “Preliminary Remarks,” in Early Mormon Documents, 1:250.}

physically, visually, and emotionally.”15 _{Joseph Sr.’s hostility toward the religious}

establishment was based largely on his religious inclination toward supernaturalism.

Joseph Sr.’s supernaturalism took a number of forms, including the supernatural quest for treasure. Grimoires were important to treasure diggers and a number of clues suggest that Joseph Sr. had some knowledge of grimoires.16 _{One indication of this knowledge are three}

lamens, or papers with invoking diagrams on them, owned by the family of Joseph Sr.’s son Hyrum, which drew upon diagrams found in different grimoires (see below). In addition, Lucy recorded a number of Joseph Sr.’s dreams in her autobiography that had a number of similarities to visions found in John Dee’s writings (see below).

One of the best clues for understanding Joseph Sr.’s influences were the “patriarchal blessings” that he gave to his son’s followers. Joseph Jr. appointed his father to the office of patriarch in 1834 with the responsibility of giving Mormons blessings like the biblical patriarchs had done for their children. Such blessings of parents to children were also a medieval and early modern folk practice. Keith Thomas refers to the practice, “based on patriarchal authority,” in which children received “blessings from their parents. This was no sentimental triviality, but a solemn act which Puritans regarded as an obnoxious Popish survival.”17 _{Joseph Sr. made a number of promises in his blessings that were similar to what}

the grimoires promised those who invokes spirits: the ability to fly, the ability to visit other

15 _{Taylor, “Free Seekers,” 51.}

16 _{Dillinger, Magical Treasure Hunting, 93. Argues Owen Davies, “While there is no evidence that the Smiths}

and their followers owned copies of Scot, Sibly, or Barrett, there is little doubt that the Smith parchments were used for overly magical protective purposes, and were derived primarily from Scot and Sibly.” Owen Davies,

Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 149.

17 _{Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth}

lands, and the ability to know where treasure was buried.18 _{Joseph Sr. was said to have been}

involved with a proto-religious group called the New Israelites that have many similarities to Mormonism. A statement about finding gold to pave the streets of the New Jerusalem from one of Joseph Sr. blessings provides additional support to the claim (see below). Finally, blessings that Joseph Sr. gave that promised those being blessed that they would visit other planets and preach to the dead suggest Swedenborgian influence since Swedenborg claimed to do both of these things in his spirit journeys (see Chapter Five).

This is not to say the Joseph Jr. was the unadulterated embodiment of his father’s religiosity. In his youth, Joseph Jr. embraced Methodism seemingly in opposition to his parents’ practices, and Joseph Sr. lamented to his family, “It is a source of grief to me that I have not been more fruitful to the Lord in the days which are passed than I have: I have not always set the example before my family that I ought: I have not been diligent in teaching them the commandments of the Lord, but Have rather manifested a light and a trifling mind.” Joseph Sr. went so far as to suggest that he may have been an embarrassment to his children and suggested that drunkenness may have been a reason for this. Nevertheless, Joseph Sr. felt that his children had stood my him, telling Joseph Jr. in a blessing, “Thou has stood by thy father, and like Shem, would have covered his nakedness, rather than see him exposed to shame.”19 _{Joseph Jr. not only appointed his father to the office of patriarch in his church but}

he also expressed considerable joy when his father was first baptized into his church.20 _In

18 _{Early Patriarchal Blessings, 104, 105, 119 for flying to other lands, 105, 109, 155 for treasure. Compare to}

Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Brinsley Nocholson (1584, reprint; London, 1886), 477, 482 for flying, 340, 347, 355, 474, 477, 495, 496.

19 _{Joseph Smith Sr. Introductory Comments, Blessing for Hyrum Smith, Blessing for Joseph Smith Jr., in Early}

Mormon Documents, 1:468-71.

many ways, Joseph Jr., the chosen son, fulfilled his father’s religious hopes, and in so doing, fulfilled his own.

Dreams. In Joseph Sr.’s remarks to his children, he said that despite his

shortcomings, “The Lord has often visited me in visions and in dreams, and has brought me, with my family, through many afflictions, and I this day thank his holy name.”21 _Dreams

were very important to the Smiths; Lucy recorded several of hers and her husband’s dreams in her history.22 _{Interestingly, the dreams of Joseph Sr.’s that Lucy recorded had a number of}

similarities to some of John Dee’s visions recorded in his published angel diary. In the first dream, Lucy recorded Joseph Sr. saying, “I seemed to be traveling in an open barren field … I could see nothing but dead fallen timber.” Dee’s seer, Edward Kelley, said he saw “a great plain like unto a field, as though it were Mile over in the end of it there is a great high rotten Tree.” Joseph Sr. said that he had a spirit guide who told him that “this field is the world which is ina[n]imate & dumb as to the things pertaining to the true religion or the order of heavenly things all is darkness.” At then end of the vision of the tree, Kelley heard a voice declare, “Wo be unto the World … how wicked are those that are governed by you, how wicked are you; and how abominable.” The guide then told Joseph Sr. to look for a box, “whose contents will make you wise.” Joseph Sr. found the box, opened it, began to taste the contents, but then “all manner of beasts and horned cattle and roaring animals rose up on every side and rushed upon me … I was forced to drop the box and fly for my life … I awoke trembling with terror.”23 _{In an earlier vision of a tree, Kelley saw horned men coming out of}

the tree and saw that one of the horned men “pulled his horns, skulled and all, and thereof gave to eat [John Dee and Edward Kelley] and the other seven; and they did eat: and so all

21 _{Smith Sr., Introductory Comments, 1:469.}

22 _{Smith, Biographical Sketches, 1:254-59, 278-79, 283, 287.}

the Vision did vanish away.”24 _{Despite the similarities between Dee’s and Joseph Sr.’s}

visions, Dee was able to attain things that Joseph Sr. was not.

Lucy’s next recorded vision of her husband’s is very similar to Lehi’s dream in the Book of Mormon25 _{Lehi’s dream also had a number of similarities to both Joseph Sr.’s first}

dream and John Dee’s vision of the tree and Dee’s tree vision also had a number of similarities to another tree vision in the Book of Mormon: the vision of the olive tree. I discuss the similarities between these tree visions in the next chapter, where I discuss the Book of Mormon. The point to be made here is that this dream of Joseph Sr.’s also had similarities to visions that Dee recorded in his spirit diary.

Joseph Sr.’s next dreams bore resemblance to another of Dee’s visions. Joseph Sr. said he dreamed he was sick and lame and that his guide told him that if he made it to a particular garden he would be healed. The guide told Joseph Sr. to walk until he got to a large gate and then go inside. Dee also described a vision of people trying to get into a garden and passing through a gate; both gardens also contained beautiful flowers. Joseph Sr. said that in the garden, twenty-four wooden statues that lined the path bowed down to him as he passed. “Then I asked my guide what was the meaning of all this he began to explain the vision when I suddenly awoke.” Dee did not describe bowing statues but the angel told Dee that a person with “testimony” was worthy to enter the garden but if he or she did not have the proper “garments,” “lo, is alwayes as a mist between him and true wisdom, yet he thinketh himself satisfied.”26 _{Without the proper clothing, the angels told Dee, those who}

entered the garden would not understand, and Joseph Sr., who did not mention receiving the proper clothing said he did not understand what happened in the garden.

24 _{Dee, True and Faithful Relation, 376, emphasis in original.} 25 _{Smith, Biographical Sketches, 1:256-59.}

Joseph Sr.’s final two dreams both focused on him lacking something. In the first, Joseph Sr. saw many hurrying toward a “meeting” which he believed to be the last judgment. When he got to a building many people were trying to get in and Joseph Sr. stood back feeling there was no hurry. But when he came to the door it was shut and a person at the door told him he was too late. Despairing, Joseph Sr. prayed to the Lord and an angel appear who asked “if he had not [le]ft something undone if he had done all that was necessary in order to get admission.” Joseph Sr. responded, “I done all I know.” Joseph Sr. then pled with God to forgive his sins and he was allowed to enter. Joseph Sr.’s final dream was even more explicit about him missing something. Joseph Sr. dreamed that he saw a peddler who told him that he could not trade with Joseph Sr. any more but that he had come to tell Joseph Sr. “there is but one thing lacking pertaining to your souls salvation.” Joseph Sr. asked the peddler to write what it was on a piece of paper, but as he looked for pen and paper “in my excitement I awoke.”27 _{Thus Joseph Sr. never discerned in his dreams what he lacked.}

The angel told Dee that there would be “a mist between him and true wisdom” for those who did not have the proper clothing and those who underwent Joseph Jr.’s temple ritual wore ritual clothing and were given an undergarment to always wear; Joseph Sr.’s son made sure that the faithful received the proper clothing (Chapter Seven). Many years later, Joseph Sr.’s grandson, Joseph F. Smith, the nephew of Joseph Jr. who would become president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reported having a dream very similar to that of his grandfather. He too dreamed he was on a journey and felt that he needed to hurry and at last came to “a wonderful mansion.” As he hurried to the mansion he saw a sign that said “Bath” so he stopped to clean himself and then put on “white, clean garments.” Joseph F. then hurried to the door of the mansion, which, as in his grandfather’s

dream, was closed. Joseph Jr. opened the door, “He looked at me a little reprovingly, and the first words he said: ‘Joseph, you are late.’” Joseph F., however, replied confidently, “‘Yes, but I am clean—I am clean.’” Joseph Jr. then led Joseph F. into the mansion.28 _{Though, like}

his grandfather, Joseph F. was late, unlike Joseph Sr. who had to plead for forgiveness in order to enter the building, Joseph F., having undergone the proper ritual and having on the proper clothing, was already clean.29

Joseph Sr.’s dreams suggest that he yearned to have what the faithful had received in Dee’s visions: the divine wisdom that came from the holy food and the holy garments. Joseph Sr.’s dreams convinced him that he could not receive such wisdom from the

established churches. After her husband’s first dream, Lucy wrote, “From this forward, my husband seemed more confirmed than ever, in his opinion that there was no order or class of religionists that knew any more concerning the Kingdom of God, than those of the world, or such as made no profession of religion whatever.”30 _{Again, the Book of Mormon said that}

truth was missing from the Bible and the churches, and Joseph Sr.’s religiosity likely influenced such a belief. Joseph Sr. and Jr. would therefore have to look elsewhere for this fuller truth and John Dee may have been one source of inspiration for how to proceed.

The New Israelites. Possibly the most significant, and certainly the most debated, aspect of the Smiths foray in Vermont was Joseph Sr.’s possible involvement with a proto- religious movement called the New Israelites. Led by Nathaniel Wood, a radical

Congregationalist pastor, who was kicked out of the church for his radical, supernatural beliefs, the New Israelites of Middletown, Vermont, believed that among the settlers of the

28 _{Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine: Selections From the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith (1919,}

reprint; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1998), 541-43.

29 _{Washing and clean clothing were part or a number of rituals including those found in grimoires. Smith’s}

temple ritual also included those rituals (Chapter Seven).

area were those who were of unbeknownst Israelite descent. Such individuals could be discovered by revelation through diving rods and one Winchell taught the New Israelites to use the diving rods and to search for buried treasure. One participant said “they had found that there was a vast quantity of [treasure] in the earth … and expected to get enough to pave the streets of the New Jerusalem.” The New Israelites expected the advent shortly and their leader predicted an earthquake that would wipe out the Gentiles. Such claims aggravated the other townspeople who called out the militia to disperse the New Israelites. The principle historian of the movement, Barnes Frisbee, claimed in his history in 1867 that both Joseph Smith Sr. and Warren Cowdery, the father of Oliver Cowdery, may have been involved with the New Israelites and declared, “that it is my honest belief that this Wood movement here in Middletown was one source, if not the main source, from which came this monster—

Mormonism.”31

Frisbee’s claim has brought considerable debate from scholars.32 _{Written in 1867,}

Frisbee’s account is late and the Smiths said they were living forty miles away at Tunbridge, Vermont, during that time.33 _{Yet there were a number of similarities between Mormonism}

and the New Israelites—claims to Israelite descent, treasure digging, revelation, and millenarianism—and these were described in an 1828 newspaper article on the New

Israelites.34 _{Furthermore, Frisbee said that the Winchell who introduced the New Israelites to}

31 _{Barnes Frisbee, The History of Middletown, Vermont (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1867) in Early Mormon}

Documents, 1:600-21, quotes at 613 and 621.

32 _{Richard L. Anderson, “The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching,” BYU Studies 24 (1984):489-560}

and Larry E. Morris, “Oliver Cowdery’s Vermont Years and the Origins of Mormonism,” BYU Studies 39 no. 1 (2000): 106-29 argue against Mormon connections to the Wood Scrape while Michael Quinn, Magic World

View, 121-27, argues for the connection.

33 _{Smith’s grandfather Asael moved to Tunbridge with his family in in 1791 and Joseph Sr. bought a farm there}

in 1795. Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 15. Quinn notes that a Joseph Smith shows up on the census records for 1800 both at Turnbridge and Poultney, near Middletown, where the Cowderys lived. Neither record described the Smith family precisely. Quinn, Magic World View, 125.

divining rods and treasure digging stayed in Warren Cowdery’s home and Frisbee argued that this same Winchell also prompted Joseph Sr.’s treasure digging in New York.35 _That

Warren’s son Oliver, though a stranger to Smith, began serving as Smith’s scribe for the Book of Mormon just two days after the two met suggests the Smiths and the Cowderys may have had a prior connection.36 _{In terms of the Smiths’ connection to Winchell, Michael}

Quinn found evidence of one Justus Winchel in western New York who spent time in Palmyra.37 _{In addition to the general similarities between Mormonism and the New}

Israelites, Joseph’s Sr.’s patriarchal blessings would tell those being blessed which tribe of the house of Israel they belonged in addition to general blessings. Frisbee said the New Israelites determined which people were of Israelite descent by using diving rods, and even described an incident where a New Israelite used the rod to determine to which tribe a person belonged.38 _{Even more striking was Joseph Sr. blessing to Nathan Cheney: “Thou shalt have}

powers to bring up treasures of gold hid in the earth 4000 years Thou shalt have gold enough to pave the streets of the New Jerusalem, if thou exertest thyself having faith in God.”39

Again, Frisbee said that the New Israelites had made a similar claim.

35 _{Frisbie, History of Middletown, 1:618. One of Smith’s early revelations also said the Oliver Cowdery had}

“another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod.” A Book of Commandments for the Government of the

Church of Christ (Zion [Jackson County, Missouri]: W. W. Phelps, 1833), 19. This suggested that Cowdery

used a divining rod like Winchell and the New Israelites. This passage was later changed in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants to “the gift of Aaron,” (161). Current DC 8:6. Aaron, the brother of Moses, had a special rod by which he performed miracles. Exodus 7:9-12, 19-20; 8:5, 16-17.

36 _{Smith recorded “On the fifth day of Aprile Eighteen hundred and twenty nine Oliver Cowdery came to my}

house, until when I had never seen him.” Joseph Smith, Manuscript History, Early Mormon Documents, 1:74. It is possible that the families knew each other but that this was the first time that Joseph Jr. and Oliver had met. Smith used the pronoun “I” instead of “we.” If the Smiths and Cowderys were connected by association with the New Israelites, a group that was seen as so odious that they were violently suppressed, they may have wanted to keep the connection quiet.

37 _{The local paper said that Justus Winchel had unclaimed mail in Palmyra in 1819 and 1824. Quinn, Magic}

World View, 121-22.

38 _{Frisbie, History of Middletown, 1:612.}

39 _{Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. H. Michael Marquardt}

All these similarities and possible connections indicate that the Smiths likely had some connection to or knowledge of the New Israelites. If so, the religious aspirations of the New Israelites, with many similarities to Mormonism, would have been a part of the Smith family’s religiosity, and would have inclined Smith to read and be influenced by Allen’s Modern Judaism.

Lucy’s Statement. The Smiths engaged in rites meant to facilitate supernatural