An acquaintance of the Smith family, Peter Ingersoll (who was hired by Smith to help him and his wife Emma relocate), testified in a sworn affidavit that Smith privately confessed to Ingersoll that he was a fraud but that Smith nonetheless said he didn't expect to be able to give up his con jobbing habit, given the pressure being put on him by others (offering Smith money) to continue his bogus activities of treasure digging by use of a magic stone to find stashes in the earth:

“In the month of August, 1827, I was hired by Joseph Smith, Jr. to go to Pennsylvania, to move his wife’s household furniture up to Manchester, where his wife then was.”

“When we arrived at Mr. Hale’s, in Harmony, Pa. from which place he had taken his wife, a scene presented itself, truly affecting. His father-in-law (Mr. Hale) addressed Joseph, in a flood of tears: 'You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to her grave. You spend your time in digging for money--pretend to see in a stone, and thus try to deceive people.'

“Joseph wept, and acknowledged he could not see in a stone now, nor never could; and that his former pretensions in that respect, were all false. He then promised to give up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones.”

“Joseph told me on his return, that he intended to keep the promise which he had made to his father-in-law; 'but,' said he, 'it will be hard for me, for they will all oppose, as they want me to look in the stone for them to dig money.' And in fact it was as he predicted. They urged him, day after day, to resume his old practice of looking in the stone.”
(Peter Ingersoll Affidavit, Palmyra, Wayne County. New York, 2 December 1833; see Charles A. Shook, "True Origin of Book of Mormon"[Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1914], provided by "Spalding Studies Library--Special Collections," at: http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs2/1914Shk1.htm#pg016a)
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Smith's personal confession to being a fraud is cross-verified in an affidavit sworn by Smith's father-in-law, Isaac Hale. Moreover, the fraudulent nature of Smith's peep-stoning ventures eventually became public knowledge via the proceedings of an open court trial.

(google "Evidence Against Mormonism: Joseph Confesses," on "Questioning Mormonism: Reposting the Best of exmormon.org," 7 August 2008; for more on Smith's personal confession about his peep-stoning fakery, in addition to his conviction as a "glass-looker," see, "20 Concerns About Mormonism--[#]9. Joseph's Use of the Seer Stone to Find Treasure," http://20truths.info/mormon/treasure.html)



Edited 24 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2010 10:12PM by steve benson.

So before that maybe he hadn't seen anything, but he definitely did after he found the plates, and had Emma help him when they were married during this time...

OH heck, I just tripped myself up...let me start again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2010 10:02PM by steve benson.

Gonna give all my favorite Mormons seer stones for Christamas in a tin box with a copy of the Ensign article that explains how Joseph used them to translate the BoM.

Lord knows they don't want to read this story.

Kind of Off-Topic but along the lines of "What Did Joseph Smith Come to Believe?"

In the church and in the temple you hear the phrase, "Exaltations and Eternal lives".

Many look at this term in reference to the intergenerational family unit. I do not believe this is the case for it is in reference to Man and woman in the singular.

However, I gotta find the exact source where I read it, but as Joseph became more and more vested into Jewish Mysticism via his hebrew lessons with his Jewish pal and while spending a 'night/tryst' with one of his plural wives, she recorded in her diary/journal the concept Joseph spoke to her about on "Reincarnation". Not the Eastern Style of "I will come back as a butterfly" type, but along the lines of your eternal progression is based on, dare I say...repeating your life, until you get it right?

Joseph speaks about much more work / progression / advancement / learning / whatever to be done on the 'other side of the veil' etc. So I really wonder just what he truly was getting at. In his hodgepodge of doctrines stuffed under the Mormon Umbrella, and those he never dared venture to voice out of fear of the "only the BahBle is Gawd's Wurd"!, I wouldn't doubt that he did buy into that to a degree that even after this life there is more and that you have to re-live your life to a certain degree.

I mean, once you've crossed the threshold of reality into the realm of the pretend..I guess go big or go home.