20. He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, ‘Never mind, all is well — I am well enough off.’ I then said to my mother, ‘I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.’ It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me? Why the opposition and persecution that arose against me, almost in my infancy? (Joseph Smith — History 1:5&13-20 viz Pearl of Great Price)
‘O shame! Where is thy blush?’ (III iv 83) ‘Such an act/ That blurs the grace and blush of modesty’ (III iv 42-43), ‘’Tis as easy as lying’ (III ii 333) — ‘Then I would you were so honest a man’ (II ii 177). ‘I like him not’ (III iii 1). ‘All is not well;/ I doubt some foul play’ (I ii 253-254). This ‘goblin damned’ (I iv 40) brings ‘blasts from hell’ (I iv 41) and with ‘intents wicked’ (I iv 42) sinks ‘Into the madness wherein now he raves’ (II ii 150). ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in it’ (II ii 205). Madness in grating ‘ones must not unwatched go’ (III i 187). ‘O, Joseph! Thy ‘offence is rank, it smells to heaven’ (III iii 36). ‘Confess yourself to heaven’ (III iv 150). ‘Alas, he’s mad!’ (III iv 106)
What in the name of Bruce Wayne inspired the Godfather and the Boy Wonder Jesus to conspire with the gangsta paedophilic sociopath conman joker Joseph Smith in the woods? After thirteen and a half billion years of evolution the Godfather is back for a Mafiosi meeting to induct the new made-man Don Joseph.
The trail of evidence leads down the wooded garden path and is perhaps the worst example of the Long Con perpetrated in the modern era. Religious revivals were common but the local religious revival that supposedly inspired Joseph Smith did not kick off around 1820. Joseph was raised in a religious household so this can hardly be his first attempt vocally to pray. If you go down to the woods today — call the cops!
Re: ‘It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty’.
Yep. I’ve been to the sacred grove in the spring. I think it was in early May.
The ground was pure mush. The only thing that kept me from sinking was the thick layer of leaves.
I walked there via a modern-day paved road. If I’d had to walk across fields to get there I would have been knee-deep in mud. It would have been a mess. The sacred grove is a very wet woodland. There were droves of huge mosquitoes that made it miserable. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I was told that they now spray to keep the mosquitoes from carrying off the tourists. They also put down thick mulch on the path to control mud.
The only time it wouldn’t be muddy is in the middle of summer, or when the ground is frozen in winter. Mia, Recovery From Mormonism board post 7th June 2012
The flowery prose which Joseph struggles to imitate — ‘I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me’ and ‘Thick darkness gathered around me’ — tries to prove too much. Joseph was ‘seized’; the darkness was ‘thick’. How would the devil know that Joseph is consecrated to be the new Mormon Don wooed in the woods? Why would the devil bother freezing Joseph’s tongue when all rash efforts were bound to prove futile?
This stretched account of struggling with forces of darkness, prior to a Skull-n-Bones tap on the shoulder from the Almighty, is a common theme which Joseph plagiarises from familiar visions:
12. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, and horror of great darkness fell upon him.
13. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. Genesis 15
God works not so much in mysterious ways as with mass insanity, for having shown little interest in the fate of any Church for thousands of years, God is convinced that 1820 is high time to get serious with a fascist structure, and Joe is the man to handle the plan. God neglects to vouchsafe the human race with a scientific explanation for the Meaning of Life, or with a vast vault of valuable information, or even a Widow’s mite of information, or more importantly racing tips for winners at Royal Ascot. You can picture Marlow Brando as the Godfather puffy-cheeked and pointing to His cool golden Nordic Consigliere — ‘This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!’ God seems to have swallowed His tongue since the verbal diarrhoea happy days and killing sprees of the Hivites and Canaanites and Hittites. Hot-to-trot Jesus has hardened the holy message in eighteen hundred years — no more blessed — no more big-hearted shepherd — but flocks of faithful sheep are ‘far from me’; their hymns and prayers are quickly dismissed as ‘an abomination’ and ‘corrupt’; the unassuming soporific Sunday sermon is slated as ‘the commandments of men’; and Lard alone knows what is meant by ‘they deny the power thereof’. Just in case Joseph jeopardises and disjoints the story with a superfluity of flowery prose, the reader is rejected from the jaw-jaw with Jesus, and Joseph alone is privy to a private Mafioso meeting of minds — ‘many other things did he say unto me’ — CENSORED — ‘I cannot write at this time’. An absence of two thousand years and just as we joint to the juicy bit, Jesus pulls the Jacob’s ladder of communication and we get jack-shit.
The sham ‘goblin damned’ Joseph Smith never requited his Hamlet the ‘same strict and most observant watch’ (Hamlet I i 71) as the family black-winged Bible for he fails to doubt the validity of his visitors who are more likely to have ventured from the dark side than the lush Elysian Fields of God’s private kick-a-about hanging gardens.
The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil.
And the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape. Hamlet soliloquy II ii 573-575
The ‘indifferent honest’, ‘proud’, ‘ambitious’, money-digging, stone-staring Joseph Smith, ‘with more offences at my beck that I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape’ (Hamlet III i @ 122) is not bright enough to have smelted this tall tale alone, and just as we can identify the elements of literature available in Joseph’s home town that alchemised the forging process of the Book of Mormon, we can identify the long tall tales that simmered in the library and folklore of Joseph’s home town:
As I lay apparently upon the brink of eternal woe, seeing nothing but death before me, suddenly there came a sweet flow of the love of God to my soul ... There appeared a small gleam of light in the room, above the brightness of the sun ... I saw two spirits, which I knew at the first sight. But if I had the tongue of an Angel I could not describe their glory, for they brought the joys of heaven with them. One was God, my Maker, almost in bodily shape like a man. His face was, as it were a flame of Fire, and his body, as it had been a Pillar and a Cloud. In looking steadfastly to discern features, I could see none, but a small glimpse would appear in some other place. Below him stood Jesus Christ my Redeemer, in perfect shape like a man — His face was not ablaze, but had the countenance of fire, being bright and shining. His Father’s will appeared to be his! All was condescension, peace, and love. Norris Stearns, The Religious Experience, cited Richard Bushman, The Visionary World of Joseph Smith