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JOSEPH SMITH, JR: Founder and first "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" (1805-1844)(Mormon - OPEN)
Uncommon Sense Ministries, Inc. ^ | 2001 | Sword of the Spirit

Posted on 10/24/2010 8:05:32 AM PDT by Colofornian

Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith. Both parents were poorly educated, very superstitious, and deeply involved in the occult (magic). The destitute Smith family moved frequently, with the mystical Joseph Sr. etching out a meager existence by farming, digging for buried treasure, and "water witching." When all else failed, he even attempted to mint his own money (a practice that was disliked by the local constabulary).

The Smith family had a reputation for low moral character. According to more than sixty affidavits signed by members of the community, "...we have no hesitation in saying, that we consider them destitute of moral character, which ought to entitle them to the confidence of the community. They were particularly famous for visionary projects, spent much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in the earth;...Joseph Smith, Senior, and his son Joseph, were in particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious habits." 1

Joseph, Jr. learned well from the poor examples shown by his parents. According to one acquaintance, "...his habits of exaggeration and untruthfulness...and by reason of the extravagances of his statement, his word was received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. He would utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvelous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity." 2

Joseph Smith, Jr. spent his youth practicing what we know today to be witchcraft and occultism--drawing magic circles, crystal gazing (with his famous "peep stone"), water-witching, sacrificing animals to manipulate the spirits, enchantments, communication with familiar spirits (necromancy), and astrological magic talismans and swords.

SNIP

(1) Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism, 1983, p. 25 (from Mormonism Unvailed, E. D. Howe, 1834, p. 261) (2) Ibid. (from The Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism, Tucker, 1847, p. 16)

(Excerpt) Read more at usminc.org ...


TOPICS: Apologetics; History; Other Christian; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: inman; josephsmith; lds; mormon; occult
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This is a continuation of...

The October Other-World Series:

They see dead people?

Are ghosts among us? Many believe in spirits, but churches offer stern warnings
The "familiar spirit" in 2 Nephi 26:16

Current focus -- The Occult History of Joseph Smith: Home Field -- The early 1800s:

What kind of a home environment did Joseph Smith have?

1 posted on 10/24/2010 8:05:37 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian

What a bunch of nuts.


2 posted on 10/24/2010 8:25:03 AM PDT by humblegunner (Pablo is very wily)
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To: Colofornian
More Truth about the LDS and the “prophet”:

http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/

It will make you cry that there are very good people who have been taken in by all of this, and often folks who were taken off the path of true salvation.

3 posted on 10/24/2010 8:26:13 AM PDT by ejonesie22 (8/30/10, the day Truth won.)
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To: Colofornian

He may very well have been a paranoid schizophrenic, and it sounds like the whole family may have needed meds.
It’s always struck me as sad, given how lovely most Mormons are... that they’ve been taken in by this.


4 posted on 10/24/2010 8:43:20 AM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
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To: Colofornian

Sounds like someone in leadership today - Obummer. Just another cult leader. Jospeh Smith received his so called writings from the angel Moroni - Take the i off and what do you have Moron. This speaks of what Smith was a Moron. Must have been the the mushrooms he found and they affected his mind with hallucinations and bizarre dreams and he even had bizarre writings. No wonder it is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints = Mormons or is truly the readers from the visions of a Moron. because they ain’t no saints


5 posted on 10/24/2010 8:49:33 AM PDT by hondact200 ( Lincoln Freed the Enslaved. Obama Enslaves the Free. Obama is Americas Greatest Threat)
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To: Colofornian

It’s Sunday. Time for the weekly “Whack a Mormon” post.


6 posted on 10/24/2010 9:03:07 AM PDT by donozark (43 years of therapy made me the man I am today....)
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To: ejonesie22

While driving OTR truck, stopping at numerous truckstops, I met very nice and polite immigrant drivers with various religious faiths, even met a few atheists. Sometimes they would want to discuss faith, but most of the time didn’t want to get into a situation where the end result is, “I’m right and you’re wrong”.

Once in a while I would meet a hungry heart that was eager to learn about the Lord. That was always an amazing experience.

Living in west central Illinios, I have been through Nauvoo many times, usually without stopping. Once, when the LDS had just finnihed their new temple there, the wife and I took the time to drive around, looking at their restored old brick houses, which was interesting. We saw some of their statues, and their various plaques glorifying the Smiths, Young, and others. To know the truth, and see such vain erroneous worship attached to name of Jesus, is something that stirs the soul, probably not unlike what Paul felt when he walked around Athens.


7 posted on 10/24/2010 9:16:55 AM PDT by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....nearly 2,000 years and still working today!)
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To: Colofornian

But, but, but.....Paul was a murderer!!


8 posted on 10/24/2010 9:19:54 AM PDT by Osage Orange (MOLON LABE)
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To: donozark

“Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:” Prov. 1:20

A true witness cannot be hid.

Your homepage quote about the chief, saying that one cannot live in the woods and be neutral, is possibly the strongest a truth on your list.

The Lord does not like the neutral position, or more accurately, the lukewarm.


9 posted on 10/24/2010 9:39:14 AM PDT by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....nearly 2,000 years and still working today!)
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To: Zuriel

HE doesn’t like Independents either?


10 posted on 10/24/2010 9:42:26 AM PDT by donozark (43 years of therapy made me the man I am today....)
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To: Colofornian

These people do not call for extermination of Jews and Infidels...

They do not convert people by using force...

Mormons are free to practice their religion just as everyone else is free to practice the religion of their choice.

With all the real problems we have to deal with in America today, why is this important???


11 posted on 10/24/2010 9:47:17 AM PDT by everlast
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To: All
Be sure to also see:

JOSEPH SMITH’S INVOLVEMENT WITH MAGIC, MASONRY, AND THE OCCULT

GOD-MEN AND SPIRITUAL VEGETABLES: The Occult Worldview of Mormonism

12 posted on 10/24/2010 9:50:06 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian

sacrificing animals to manipulate the spirits,
_____________________________________________________

Joey Smith sometimes chased a sheep until it dropped dead with exhaustion..

For fun and “prophet”


13 posted on 10/24/2010 9:51:15 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: everlast
These people do not call for extermination of Jews and Infidels...They do not convert people by using force...Mormons are free to practice their religion just as everyone else is free to practice the religion of their choice. With all the real problems we have to deal with in America today, why is this important???

I don't call for anybody's extermination (well, maybe a few murderers now and then re: capital punishment)
I don't use force to convert anybody
I am free to practice my religion just as everyone else is free to practice the religion of their choice. With all the real problems we have to deal in America today, why is your comment important?

14 posted on 10/24/2010 9:54:37 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian

sacrificing animals to manipulate the spirits,
_____________________________________________________

The evidence seems to show that Joseph Smith did make sacrifices to the demons. In an affidavit published in 1834, William Stafford, one of the neighbors of the Smith family, reported the following:

Joseph Smith, Sen., came to me one night, and told me that Joseph Smith Jr. had been looking in his glass, and had seen, not many rods from his house, two or three kegs of gold and silver… Joseph, Sen. first made a circle, twelve or fourteen feet in diameter. This circle, said he, contains the treasure. He then stuck in the ground a row of witch hazel sticks, around the said circle, for the purpose of keeping off the evil spirits. Within this circle he made another, of about eight or ten feet in diameter. He walked around three times on the periphery of this last circle, muttering to himself something which I could not understand. He next stuck a steel rod in the centre of the circles, and then enjoined profound silence upon us, lest we should arouse the evil spirit who had the charge of these treasures.

After we had dug a trench about five feet in depth around the rod, the old man… went to the house to inquire of young Joseph the cause of our disappointment. He soon returned and said, that Joseph had remained all this time in the house, looking in his stone and watching the motions of the evil spirit – that he saw the spirit come up to the ring and as soon as it beheld the cone which we had formed around the rod, it caused the money to sink… another time, they devised a scheme, by which they might satiate their hunger, with the mutton of one of my sheep. They had seen in my flock a sheep, a large, fat, black weather. Old Joseph and one of the boys came to me one day, and said that Joseph Jr. had discovered some very remarkable and valuable treasures, which could be procured only in one way. That way, was as follows: – That a black sheep should be taken to the ground where the treasures were concealed – that after cutting its throat, it should be led around in a circle while bleeding. This being done, the wrath of the evil spirit would be appeased: the treasures could then be obtained, and my share of them was to be four fold.

To gratify my curiosity, I let them have a large fat sheep. They afterwards informed me, that the sheep was killed pursuant to commandment; but as there was some mistake in the process, it did not have the desired effect. This, I believe, is the only time they ever made money-digging a profitable business. (Mormonism Unvailed, 1834, pages 238-239; also reproduced in Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2, pp.59-61)

The reader will notice that it was a “black” sheep that was supposed to have been sacrificed. This is interesting because The Greater Key of Solomon, page 122, says that, “Sometimes white animals are sacrificed to the good Spirits and black to the evil.”

In any case, the Mormon apologist Richard L. Anderson says that, “If there was such an event of a borrowed sheep, it had nothing to do with dishonesty.” (Brigham Young University Studies, Spring 1970, page 295) On page 249 of the same article, Professor Anderson quotes the following from BYU Professor M. Wilford Poulson’s notes of a conversation with Wallace Miner: “I once asked Stafford if Smith did steal a sheep from him. He said no, not exactly. He said, he did miss a black sheep, but soon Joseph came and admitted he took it for sacrifice but he was willing to work for it. He made wooden sap buckets to fully pay for it.”

C. R. Stafford testified concerning the same incident: “Jo Smith, the prophet, told my uncle, William Stafford, he wanted a fat, black sheep. He said he wanted to cut its throat and make it walk in a circle three times around and it would prevent a pot of money from leaving.” (Naked Truths About Mormonism, January 1888, page 3; also reproduced in Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2, p. 197)

The current leaders of the Mormon Church have turned away from many of the occultic practices, which played such an important role in the church Joseph Smith founded. In fact, the church hierarchy has publicly condemned magic. Most Mormons are not aware of Joseph Smith’s involvement in the occult because their leaders have systematically covered up the more embarrassing parts of Smith’s history.

http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no95.htm


15 posted on 10/24/2010 9:56:43 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: donozark

Independents? LOL

They’ve taken a position though; a position that somebody will want to take away sooner or later. Then they will have to take a position of fight or surrender. Someone will eventually desire their ‘woods’. It’s ‘for the children’, donchaknow.


16 posted on 10/24/2010 9:57:34 AM PDT by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....nearly 2,000 years and still working today!)
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To: Colofornian

sacrificing animals to manipulate the spirits,
_____________________________________________________

Animal Sacrifices

Animal sacrifices were often a part of the magic rituals that accompanied money-digging. In the first edition of his book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, p.144, Dr. D. Michael Quinn gives this information: “A cousin of Smith’s wife Emma reported that Smith ‘translated the book of Mormon by means of the same peep stone, and under the same inspiration that directed his enchantments and dog sacrifices; it was all by the same spirit’ (H. Lewis 1879).”

In a magic book known as The Greater Key of Solomon, page 122, we read that “In many operations it is necessary to make some sort of sacrifice unto the demons, and in various ways… Such sacrifices consist of the blood and sometimes of the flesh.”

http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no95.htm


17 posted on 10/24/2010 9:57:54 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: donozark

“It’s Sunday. Time for the weekly “Whack a Mormon” post.”

“It’s Sunday. Time for the weekly “Whacky Mormon” post.”

Fixed it for you! No charge.

ampu


18 posted on 10/24/2010 10:02:52 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: everlast

**With all the real problems we have to deal with in America today, why is this important???**

If you believe that there is a real hell, where souls will spend eternity, not just a few decades, then that should answer you’re own question about importance.

Heaven and hell are real, and this eternal matter does not have borders, language, and cultural restrictions.


19 posted on 10/24/2010 10:04:56 AM PDT by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....nearly 2,000 years and still working today!)
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To: Osage Orange

But, but, but.....Paul was a murderer!!
________________________________________________

Thats OK so was Hitler...

But the mo0rmons have dead dunked Hitler into a nice neighbor mormon...

with temple recommend, endowments, sealings, ordinances...

Hitler is now in the so called “celestial kingdom” the highest level of the mormon Nirvana/Valhalla with his many young mormon “wives” ...along with the 6 million Jews who were his victims..

and his buddies Mohammad, Joseph Stalin, Lenin, Joey Smith,Briggie Young, John Taylor and Gordo Hinckley et al


20 posted on 10/24/2010 10:07:01 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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