Cunning folk traditions and the Latter Day Saint movement
[5] The extent that the founder of the movement Joseph Smith and his early followers participated in the culture has been the subject of controversy since before the church's founding in 1830, and continues to this day.
The Smith family practiced a form of folk religion,[8] which, although not uncommon in this time and place, was criticized by many contemporary Protestants "as either fraudulent illusion or the workings of the Devil.
"[9] Both Joseph Smith Sr. and at least two of his sons worked at "money digging," using seer stones in mostly unsuccessful attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.
[10] In a draft of her memoirs, Lucy Mack Smith referred to folk magic:I shall change my theme for the present, but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue another topic for a season that we stopt our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles or soothsaying, to the neglect of all kinds of business.
"[13] Smith reports using seer stones in the translation of the Book of Mormon,[14] as well as in the reception of several early revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants.
"[20] In late 1825, Josiah Stowell, a well-to-do farmer from South Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, who had been searching for a lost Spanish mine near Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania with another seer, traveled to Manchester to hire Smith "on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys, by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.
Joseph Sr. explained the "spirit" was a "little old man with a long beard", while an account based on Oliver Cowdery described "an angel of light" appearing to Smith in a dream.
[22] Smith said that on the night of Sunday, September 21, 1823, an angel visited him and told him of the location of the gold plates that contained the Book of Mormon.
[23] While Smith is not known to have explicitly assigned significance to the date, it has been noted that September 21, 1823 was an especially auspicious night in astrological terms, being a full moon, and autumnal equinox.
[26] One of Joseph Smith's early revelations, now canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, stated that Oliver Cowdery had the power to use a divining rod.
[30] In 1843, James C. Brewster, who had formed a splinter group, claimed that in 1836 prior to an Ohio treasure quest, that presiding Patriarch Joseph Smith Sr. "anointed the mineral rods and seeing stones with consecrated oil, and prayed over them in the house of the Lord in Kirtland.
[34] Apostle Willard Richards had a black cane that he used to lay on people's head who had a sickness in order to heal them "through the power of God.
[6] Historian D. Michael Quinn states "Until the Book of Mormon thrust young Smith into prominence, Palmyra's most notable seer was Sally Chase, who used a greenish-colored stone.
'"[37] Historian Richard Bushman adds Chauncy Hart, and an unnamed man in Susquehanna County, both of whom had stones with which they found lost objects.
[28] A young woman living at the home of David Whitmer in Ohio in 1838 reported receiving a number of revelations about the downfall of Joseph Smith by looking through a black stone that she had found.
[42] In 1841, apostles Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith confiscated several seer stones and grimoires from convert William Mountford in Staffordshire, England.
It seems probable, therefore, that Joseph Sr. himself may have been the source of the rumor, that the story was a ruse to exhume Alvin's body for its use in attempting to get the gold plates.
Historian D. Michael Quinn, in his book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, suggests that the newspaper notice published by Smith Sr. is evidence that the "guardian," "spirit" or "angel" commanded Joseph to bring a piece of Alvin's body to the hiding place of the golden plates as a requirement for seeing them.
Additionally, Quinn suggests that this information was obscured in official church history because it implies Smith's participation in necromancy.
"[51] In 1834, the book Mormonism Unvailed reported that Joseph Smith had "become very expert in the arts of necromancy, jugling, the use of the divining rod, and looking into what they termed a 'peep-stone'".
[52] The book featured an account of Smith neighbor William Stafford who relayed a story of Joseph sacrificing a black sheep to appease an evil spirit guarding a treasure.
[56] Smith, and then later Brigham Young, also owned a silver "Masonic Dove Medallion," which is inscribed on the back "Fortitude Lodge No.
[65][66][67] In 1852, Brigham Young gave his approval to a convert to study and begin practicing astrology, only to change his recommendation a year later, calling it "a dangerous thing to meddle with".
[74] One notable post-1868 exception was John Steele, who practiced astrology into the 20th century while in good standing with the church in Parowan and Toquerville, taking local leadership positions and eventually being called as a patriarch in 1903.
[79] Owners of these canes included Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Willard Snow, Perrigrine Sessions, Philo Dibble, James Bird, William S. Wadsworth, Heber C. Kimball, Lucius Scovil, Sidney Rigdon, and Dimick B. Huntington.
In an 1857 sermon, Kimball stated that "the day will come when there will be multitudes who will be healed and blessed through the instrumentality of those canes, and the devil cannot overcome those who have them, in consequence of their faith and confidence in the virtues connected with them.
