The Seer (periodical)

[1] After the LDS Church publicly acknowledged that it was teaching and practicing plural marriage at its September 1852 conference, LDS Church president Brigham Young dispatched apostle Orson Pratt to Washington, D.C., where he was asked to publish an apologetic magazine targeted at non-Mormons.

Throughout its publication history, the majority of Pratt's writing stressed the rationality of the doctrine of plural marriage.

[2] For example, Pratt dedicated 107 of the 192 total pages of The Seer to a twelve-part exposition on what he called celestial marriage.

In 1865, a majority of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church officially condemned some of Pratt's doctrinal declarations contained in The Seer regarding the nature of the Holy Ghost, the Godhead (the term Latter-day Saints use to refer to the Trinity), and intelligence: "The Seer [and other writings by Pratt] contain doctrines which we cannot sanction, and which we have felt impressed to disown, so that the Saints who now live, and who may live hereafter, may not be misled by our silence, or be left to misinterpret it.

"[4] Despite the failure of The Seer and the controversy that resulted from some of its contents, many of the traditional explanations and justifications for Mormon polygamy had their beginning in Pratt's writings in the magazine.