http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865577571/Longest-living-LDS-general-authority-dies-at-age-106.html?pg=2

As a bit of historical background, in 1978 the church patriarch position was eliminated. This after a longtime battle between the Smith family descendants and other general authorities, who viewed the Smith family as a threat to their power.

Eldred Smith and his wife have been giving numerous firesides in which they showed such relics as the blood stained shirt worn by Hyrum when he was murdered and a box the golden plates were stored in. If you listened closely at these firesides, you migt hear the Smith take issue with the idea that the Joseph Smith and his family were uneducated, or even hint about women having a greater role in the church. Rather progressive.

Years ago they even showed the Jupiter talisman that was worn by Hyrum Smith when he was killed. Joseph Smith also wore one. The talismans were deemed to have special protective power.

The talisman hasn't been on display for some at the request of the church, which has tried to buy the talisman without success. I asked Eldred Smith about it in a meet and greet, and he told me he indeed had it but kept in under lock and key and would never give it up though the church had offered him huge sums. He fears it would be disappeared.

The fact that Joseph and Hyrum used magical tokens is little know within the Church and something that church correlation tries to cut outing her magical items in church history include a hankerhief used by leaders for healing, a blood amulet used by Brigham Young, and a special dagger.

See:
http://www.mrm.org/early-mormonism-and-magic-world-view

Wow, healing handkerchief? Blood amulet?

And those are servants of God?

Lie up lie, deceit upon deceit....

I read the Quinn book on early mormonism and the magic world view. I found the book incredibly interesting. In fact, at the time it strengthened my testimony of Joseph exactly because it made him a real person and washed off all the white wash from the LDS church. The church has done so much to make joseph an idealized prophet, that they have destroyed any chance of knowing the man. His words can be real moving and inspiring.

The state of the current church is altogether another story. Its just been a bunch of power hungry administrators one after the other and they have grown the church on a business model. They create impossible burdens for some to bear, often resulting in suicide and break downs. As long as the general membership is there, they don't care about the individual who suffers, ala the one sheep who wanders off, they only care about the 99 who remain.

There have been too many sources that indicate that the Smiths believed in the occult to dissuade me that it is untrue. Details like whether he had a Jupiter talisman on his person or not are not enough to tip the scales. Too many other stories indicate that the family made a significant part of their living doing folk magic. Even Joseph Smith's doctrines are tainted with the occult. The idea of heaven having levels is directly from occult ideas.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2013 05:36PM by rationalguy.

But word has it the Jupiter talisman was supposed to have the power to make women drop their bloomers. That power seems to have worked rather well.

I had the pleasure of hearing this man speak in a mormon church in Salt Lake City, about the year 2005.

He had the wood box you mention that he claimed the young man Joseph hid the gold plates in. I examined the box up close at his permission after the fireside. I was still a good faithful young man then.

After several years of study and reflection, I know the man is deluded or perpetuating a fraud.

First, he advises the viewer to observe the "grooves" in the box's bottom surface that arose because of supposedly repeated sliding in and out of the spine rings of the plates.

I just sat upon this claim for many years.

Then I began to think: How much would the plates weigh?

This page describes this problem. http://www.mormonthink.com/runningweb.htm

The plates, according to the best estimation of their dimensions, would have to weigh around 200 pounds.

But as I reflect on the dimensions of this wood box, and the dimensions of the lid opening through which he would have hefted it through repeatedly, countless times to make the supposed grooves-- He would have to be a young man of super human strength. Like, the Hulk. And if he were a Hulk he could not have fit his arms through this small lid opening.

I have done a fair bit of weight lifting as a young man in my 20's; and curling 200 pounds standing or bending over into this box would just simply be impossible. Impossible. Inconceiveable.

Perhaps Joseph had some object that looked like the plates but they could not have been gold plates. Or at least this box Mr. Eldred G. Smith is no evidence of it.