My TBM dad told me he doesn’t understand why we don’t hear modern reports about the burning of the bush, heavenly visitations, etc anymore.

I said, “People do still see and hear those things. It’s just that now we medicate them.”

LOL

and a lot of them go off their medication. and sometimes you can't even tell the difference.

benefit of the doubt to the old stories, assuming that the stories were told by sincere people. The world is full of bullsh*tters. Hang out at a crowded bar and spend some time listening to conversations around you and it won't take long to pick out a dozen shameless bullsh*tters out of the crowd.

The fact that we can never seem to witness any of those amazing, supernatural events directly, or even personally know any credible person who directly witnessed such events, suggests to me that most if not all of the miraculous stories used to sell religious belief systems in the past are stories that were knowingly made up by bullsh*tters.

After studying the history of Joseph Smith, I have no doubt that he knew that he was a bullsh*tter the whole time. I have a hard time listening to apologists and even some non-Mormons and ex-Mormons who strain to come up with explanations that make it sound like Joseph Smith was sincere and believed he was getting real "revelations" and stuff, but that he was just deluded. I think the record is clear enough to show that he was a sociopathic liar who knowingly scammed people with the full intent to do so.

"Hey Fanny, the angel appeared to me again last night. He said that God not only wants us to do it, but that God commands that we do it. That's why your dad told you to do it. Not my idea. But we can't defy God, right?"

Anyone who can't see through the crap that Joseph was pulling on people...well...

The biggest miracle is the the TSCC has done as well as it has. Not a miracle of ghad, but of the cunning of mankind. It still amazes me that people still show up each week.

I'm pretty sure that Mormonism would be an obscure fleck of history now. There maybe would be some mainstream-ish religious groups in the area that could trace their history back to Joe Smith. But they would be tiny and probably would not even have any continuing connection with the Book of Mormon.

The thing that gave it all a multi-generational momentum was getting a large number of members to relocate to Utah where, being isolated and dependent on each other for survival, they formed a strong, coherent community and subculture, together with institutions, that developed into a critical mass of interconnected business and social ties that took on a life of its own. It was a strongly blended church-and-state situation up to the 1960s or so with close to 90% of the population being Mormons. Since the 1960s, the isolation has been steadily undermined and the cohesion and momentum of it all as a going concern seems to be rapidly approaching the end of the line.

After trudging off to Utah, they had a lot invested.

I thought all these revelations were supposed to be forthcoming in the revised ward meetings where members circle up their chairs and share their heavenly manifestations.

One of the books i read a couple of years ago on my way out addressed the story of one of Joseph Smith's close associates who specialized in 'herbs' and 'natural' substances. If you look at many of the 'miracles' and 'spiritual' manifestations of the time, you will see a similarity to the hallucinatory results of mushrooms and other substances. I would not rule this out as an explanation for many of the miracles and visions of the Joseph Smith time period. When I get a chance, i will look up the book which i think is still in my kindle library and provide the title and chapter.

Just think for a minute. Had McKay grown a beard and called Dr. Timothy Leary into the First Presidency, I betcha there would have been a lot more visions, revelations and heavenly visits.

That would have been different-groovy. No such luck! Fukc

M@t

I had a really bad trip on LDS.

robinsaintcloud Wrote:
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> One of the books i read a couple of years ago on
> my way out addressed the story of one of Joseph
> Smith's close associates who specialized in
> 'herbs' and 'natural' substances.

Yes robin, quite a few sites link Holy joe to substances. Stuff delivered to him by certain indian shamans and by illuminati agent "Dr." Luman Walters.

"Algonquin Indian shamans inhabiting the region from the Atlantic seaboard running north through eastern and
central Canada and south to the Ohio River are known to have used both Datura plant and Amanita Muscaria
mushroom in their religious ceremonies.20

Since Jess Groesbeck has shown that many aspects of Joseph
Smith’s visionary career is consistent with Amerindian shamanism, it is possible that Joseph Smith was maybe
mentored by an Algonquin shaman.

Root doctors are known to have used the visionary Datura plant in their magical practices.22

A possible Smith supplier of Datura was Black Pete.

Ol' Pete, an African-American, was called a revelator and root doctor. The fellow was from Pennsylvania and in 1825 may have met young Joe who was actively digging around for buried treasure.

After leaving PA, Black Pete became one of the earliest Mormon converts in Kirtland, Ohio, joining the Church in early 1831.

Pete was hanging about during the Kirtland visionary period of early 1831 when the strange manifestations likely associated with Datura plant ingestion were occurring.

D. Michael Quinn and Lance S. Owens have shown that Joseph Smith incorporated elements of ceremonial magic and alchemy imported from Europe.23"

Substances proved to be a powerful kick in the pants to the Mormonite cult back then.

Elderpoopjoy, what source do you quote above. I would like to know what the source if you can give it. I would like to explore the use of hallucinogens to help induce visions etc. by Joseph and perhaps others to enhance belief in Mormonism foundational claims.

This isn't very persuasive.

You describe Amerindian practices in the area but provide no link from there to JS or the Mormons. You then refer to "stuff delivered to him by certain indian shamans and by illuminati agent 'Dr.' Luman Walters" and yet offer no evidence that such delivery ever occurred.

Then you cite Quinn and Owens to the effect that JS and his family were deeply involved in the occult--which is true--but those authors don't provide any link to psychotropic substances either. IIRC, Quinn didn't even surmise such usage. This matters because most of frontier New England was involved in fringe Christianity but not in the use of hallucinogens.

Indeed, the evidence about the Kirtland "miracles" and "visions" all comes from long after the opening of the temple: there are no contemporaneous accounts of strange happenings. No contemporaneous accounts means no credible evidence of the miraculous. No evidence of the miraculous, in turn, means no need for an explanation.

Your conclusion that "substances proved to be a powerful kick in the pants to the Mormonite cult back then" is therefore supposition. Psychotropic substances are a solution looking for a problem. Such drug use may have happened, but absent evidence Occam would dispense with the idea quite quickly.

Nancy Rigdon Wrote:
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> My TBM dad told me he doesn’t understand why we
> don’t hear modern reports about the burning of
> the bush, heavenly visitations, etc anymore.

Where do we go?
Where do we go now?
Where do we go?
Oh, oh
Where do we go?
(Where do we go now?)
Oh where do we go now? (Where do we go?)
Where do we go? (Sweet Mormons)
Oh where do we go now?
Ay ay ay ay (where do we go now, where do we go)
Oh where do we go now?
Where do we go?
Oh, where do we go now?
Oh, where do we go?
Oh where do we go now?
Where do we go?
Oh, where do we go now?
No, no, no, no, no, no
Sweet Mormons
Sweet Mormons of mine?

I'm taking my vitamins and getting plenty of rest.

People still have heavenly visitations. About 20 years ago I visited a lady who was Baptist who lived way down South who was personally rescued by an angle. And the angle wasn't just any angle. This one was wearing a white robe with a scarlet sash and had a counselor on his right side and one on his left.

Thats quite the angle that angel has... :-P

Did she think it was acute angle?

And some people thought that trigonometry was a waste of time.

then an obtuse angle came along and removed all of the snow. We didn't care how obtuse the angle was. We were just glad that the streets were now clear.

Another time, we were out in the wilderness, and really hungry. We needed to catch a fish and prayed for help. We were finally able to catch a fish with the help of acute angle. Even if it had been a homely angle, we would have been grateful for the help. The fact that it was acute angle was just an added bonus.

And Joseph Smith had an angle, as well.

The old Greeks and Romans had monuments set up at the exact spots where some god or goddess showed up one day to help somebody.

not enough hot goddesses and angels.

Proclivities vary from person to person. As for my proclivities, o tell you the truth, I would have had a much keener interest in Joseph Smith's tall tales if he had seen Minerva/Athena, Juno and Venus in the woods or if the angel who coached Joe on getting the golden plates had been like Rona Downey (In Torched by an Angel). Instead, it was always just a bunch of guys in robes. Not fun to think about, TBH.

So when it became clear that they weren't true stories, they just weren't good enough as fictional stories to keep me interested.

It would also add to Mormonism's appeal if JS had written a really good book about those gods and goddesses, something like Homer or Hesiod. All the best religions have good characters and plots.