Posted by:
randyj
(
)
Date: May 20, 2014 08:50PM
As Stray Mutt noted, Michael Quinn's book "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View" exhaustively details it. Before Quinn, Jerald and Sandra Tanner published lots of info about it, some of which you can study at
http://utlm.org/topicalindexc.htm#Money-Digging%20and%20MagicSome pro-Mormon works even mentioned the issue---Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy, noted in her bio that Joseph, in his pre-church youth, possessed a "key" by which he could see items which could not be detected by the "natural eye." That "key" had to be his "peep-stone(s)", because during that era (1822-26) Joseph had not yet claimed to have received the "Urim & Thummim." Lucy also mentioned in passing that their family "engaged in the faculty of Abrac," meaning magical practices.
Here again is a link to an old post of mine wherein I quote Mormon scholars Richard Bushman and Leonard Arrington re: Joseph Smith's magical practices:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.religion.mormon/TLEKrfzHlG4/gAePh6fltbMJThe most important takeaway as concerns the legitimacy of Mormonism is that Smith was taken to court in March of 1826 on charges of defrauding an old man by charging him money and pretending that he could see treasure buried on the old man's land. And just a year and a half later, Smith was pretending to translate the golden plates by the same method: putting his "seer stone" into his hat, sticking his face in, and pretending to see the English translation of the writing.