Heather Freeman: It was a warm August night, and the moon was full.  I trudged out into the woods behind my house, with a cell phone to provide the light and a small silver cup of water.

In a small clearing, I could see the moon high above. I sat down and gazed into the shimmering water inside the silver cup. I was hoping for a message from a moon goddess.

I looked at the moon's blurry reflection in the water for a long time. As my eyes grew tired, I began to see images in the reflection: A woman stirring a cauldron. Roots sinking deep into the earth. I probably could have looked even longer, but my legs were starting to ache. And then....

 [FOX SCREAM]

A screaming fox spooked the heck out of me! So I got my stuff together and walked back home. 

This practice is called scrying and is a useful method of divination. People use many materials for it, including jars of ink, black mirrors, and even literal crystal balls. Sometimes people use rocks with interesting patterns or occlusions -- and these are often called 'seer stones'. And we'll talk about seer stones a lot in this episode.

For me, dim lighting and patience are all I really need to see shapes eventually emerge. That night in the woods, I asked a moon goddess for a message. And I got one -- in a cup of water, as a vision. The word 'divination' literally means "inspired by a god."  Today, scrying is used by many magical practitioners, and it's not something we typically associate with religion. Certainly not Christian religions.

But about 200 years ago, a young Joseph Smith Jr. scried into a stone in a hat and used his seer stone to translate a mystical book that began a near-global religion: Mormonism.

You might already know a little bit about Mormonism. Maybe you've met young Mormons on their missions, spreading the gospel. Or maybe you've found the Book of Mormon in a hotel room next to the Bible. 

But what you might not know is that the origin of Mormonism is wrapped up in 19th-century American folk magic, including scrying. 

Eva: Smith's recounting of the first vision where he saw God the Father and God the Son separately and physically, he saw them in the flesh — that's a big heresy to most Christians.

Elizabeth “Liz” Fenton: His wife says that when he went to translate the book, he used his own seer stone, which he put in a hat. I think that line between earthly magic and a miracle — it's really blurry in this process.

Benjamin “Ben” Park: The LDS church had emphasized that, hey, Joseph Smith wasn't enmeshed in magic, Joseph Smith was a devout, pious Christian. 

Christopher Blythe:  From the beginning, there's a lot of conversation around mysteries, right? God reveals mysteries. And esotericism means religious secrets right?

Welcome back to Season 3 of Magic in the United States!  I’m Heather Freeman.

In today's episode, The Prophet and the Seerstone, we’ll learn how the birth of Mormonism in the 1800s is deeply intertwined with historical American folk magic practices, and how Mormons today navigate this seemingly sorceress past. 

We'll be right back. 

[BREAK]

Heather: Welcome back to Magic in the United States. I'm Heather Freeman. 

The Mormon origin story begins in 1805 in Sharon, Vermont. That's when the founder Joseph Smith Jr. was born. 

Ben: Joseph Smith was born to a large family with very religiously inclined parents, and nearly double digits of kids. They believed, like many families in early America, that their goal was to procreate – both to help on the farm, as well as to build their legacy. 

Heather: Dr. Benjamin Park is an Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University and author of American Zion: a New History of Mormonism. 

The Smith family started relatively well off financially and was involved in the ginseng trade. But their farming efforts failed time and again, and they soon found themselves in nearly vagabond status. 

Liz: Like many people in Vermont in the early 19th century, the Smith family finds that Vermont soil is really rocky. It's really hard to make a living. 

Heather: Dr. Elizabeth Fenton is a Professor of English at the University of Vermont and specializes in early U.S. literature and religion, including the Book of Mormon. 

Liz: The Smiths are in pretty difficult economic circumstances. There's a tremendous amount of poverty in the state, and so like a lot of people, they relocate to western New York state near Rochester.

Heather: At that time, 19th-century America was rich with what we might call today folk magic. 

In Season 2, Episode 4: Montague and Duck, we learned how folk magic practices and subsistence farming went hand in hand. If making ends meet was a struggle, you used whatever folk practices you had to get by – including magical practices. 

Joseph Smith Jr. and his family were really no different. 

Liz: These are practices that arrive with immigrants from Europe, the idea that objects like rods or stones could have supernatural enchantment to them, wasn't completely out of bounds in this place and time. The Smith family and their neighbors would have been familiar with the practice of, say, using divining rods to dig for wells or look for lost objects or treasures. 

Heather: For struggling families like the Smiths, the idea of finding valuable objects was really appealing – and could mean a family’s survival. So for these 19th-century Americans, magic and religion weren't necessarily separate. They worked together. 

Benjamin Park describes how a dowsing rod might have been used for treasure hunting -- yes, like actual treasure. 

Ben Park: Those who are going out on the quest would pray and ask for God or the spirits to direct them to what they are seeking. Then they will hold this rod — which has an elbow shape in it — they would hold the rod, and the rod would point in the direction they are supposed to go. And then it would point down when they are over the item that they're supposed to find whether it be treasure, or money left over from Spanish pirates, or water. 

Heather: In the beginning of the episode, I described how I used scrying to see visions –  to get inspired ideas and images.

But in the 19th century, Americans usually used scrying to achieve practical ends, like finding lost objects. In the case of buried treasure, it was a common belief that spirits or ghosts might be guarding the treasure and move it while you were digging. So scrying was a way of peeking behind the veil of the spirit world, in order to successfully find and retrieve buried treasure.

Liz Fenton: There's some evidence that members of the Smith family, including Joseph Smith Jr., used seer stones (or sometimes they're called peep stones) to look for treasure in the wilderness or on their neighbor's properties. 

Ben Park: Joseph Smith would take a seer stone, place it in a hat to cut out all surrounding light, and then while looking in the seer stone, would see a location or instructions and it would be from there that he would know, okay, we need to go to this location or this is how God is speaking to us. Very quickly, Joseph Smith Jr. became quite well known in the region for his use of the seer stone, with people across different counties and even states inviting him to go search with them. 

Heather: By the time he was twenty, Joseph Smith Jr. had earned a reputation for being a skilled treasure hunter. But he was also a spiritual seeker. At a time of many different religions vying for congregants, Joseph is trying to find the truest one. 

In Season 1 Episode 4, The Heartbreak of Harry Houdini, we visited upstate New York, where many new religious movements emerged over the 19th century. And it was in Western New York, near Rochester, that the Smith family relocated. 

Liz Fenton.

Liz Fenton: They were living in this place of like intense religious revivalism, so there are a lot of camp meetings, there's a lot of competition among different religious sects and churches for membership.  Joseph Smith is just kind of caught up in this era of both, like, intense Christian fervor, but also in some respects intense Christian confusion because there are so many options to choose from. I think of him as this, like, teenage guy, really interested in Christianity, really wanting to be devout, not quite knowing what to do, but also just struggling to make a living, doing a lot of farming labor, trying to help support the family that's also living in a lot of uncertainty. 

Ben Park: By the time that Joseph Smith gets into his teenagehood, his family is divided by religion, searching for economic stability, and in many ways struggling to find their footing in this American society that promised lots of opportunities but did not grant any assurances.

Heather: It was in this atmosphere of incredible religious revivalism – mixed with financial insecurity – that Joseph Smith Jr. had a supernatural experience that became the beginning of Mormonism.

Joseph was probably 14 years old when he decided he was going to ask God directly for an answer to his religious seeking. And one spring day he went out into the woods and began to pray.

Liz Fenton: And he starts praying for guidance about like – There's so many different kinds of Christianity, I don't know which one to choose, which sect is true? Which church should I join? And he receives a vision of the Lord and is told, none of them, they're all wrong.

Ben Park: God tells him, you should not join any of the existing religions, but instead there's going to be a new religion. Joseph Smith goes home and tells his family, who immediately believe him, and then he tells a minister who does not. Instead of just a personal conversion narrative, it is the formative moment of what is going to be a worldwide religion.

Heather: Today, among Mormons this is known as the first vision. And, as the name implies, this was just the beginning. But for the first few years, nothing really changed for Joseph. After the first vision, Joseph continued to pray for guidance. And eventually in 1823, a second vision occurred. 

Liz Fenton: It's, like, late at night and Smith is in bed, but he's been praying for guidance. And his bedroom is filled with white light, and he sees this, like, brilliant white figure, this figure he described as an angel named Moroni. 

Heather: Moroni tells Joseph that a book is buried in the hillside nearby and he has been chosen to unearth it. But this is no ordinary book — it's a series of gold plates inscribed in an ancient language, and several magical objects are buried with them, which will aid in their translation. But then the angel comes back several times that night with additional messages for the teenage Smith.

Liz Fenton: And he tells Smith, you've been chosen to do this, but you've got to be careful. You know, this is really serious business, and this book is going to reveal a lot. He says, also, you're going to be tempted to try to acquire this book to get rich, right? Like Satan is going to tell you that this book has monetary value. There are other things buried in the box with the book, things you can use to read the book and translate it.

Heather: Moroni warns Joseph that he’ll be sorely tempted to dig up and sell the items, but to resist that temptation. So, like any good, impetuous, American teenager, he goes to the location to dig them up.

Liz Fenton: But when he unearths the book, which is buried in this stone box with a stone on top, he's not able to take it out of the box. Moroni arrives again and says, it's not time, you're not ready to take it. 

Ben Park: You are not pure in intention, instead you need to spend several years reforming your ways. And eventually if you become righteous you can return to this hill every year on the same day and eventually receive this record. Joseph Smith goes home and tells both his family and his treasure seeking crew about what happened. And many of them embrace it because this actually fits in the treasure-seeking culture of the day, this idea of guardian spirits leading you to buried treasure and you have to go through cleansing steps before you are able to obtain it.

Heather: He waits, and keeps revisiting the location every year. Meanwhile, he's also wooing his future wife – Emma Hale. But he runs into a problem. Emma's family is skeptical of these practices. They consider treasure hunting unseemly for a good Christian family. So Joseph starts to change how he talks about his treasure hunting -- from the pursuit of material wealth, to the pursuit of spiritual truth.  

Ben Park: He's trying to win over Emma Hale, who's family is skeptical of these magic practices. And so the gold plates end up being restructured, not as a treasure dig, but as sacred records upon which you can find ancient scripture, another form of the Bible. What happens, is over the next few years, with each retelling, the story of those plates changes, from fitting in perfectly with the magic culture of America in 1823 to by 1826, 1827, Joseph Smith goes through his own reconversion process to a more devout religion. And so these gold plates begin as part of the folk magic culture of early America, and instead end up as a story of religious discovery.

Heather: Joseph continues on his quest for the gold plates, and Emma Hale becomes his principal accomplice. Emma believed in her future husband's visions and advocated for his holy work. And her confidence in Joseph's spiritual treasure hunting probably inspired him to keep seeking as well.

Ben Park: Emma Smith fervently believes that Joseph Smith is going to translate them and produce a new scriptural record that, instead of granting the Smith family riches, are going to expand the scriptural canon and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Heather: What began as Smith's vision – which he pursued with his treasure-hunting skills – birthed a new religion. 

With Emma waiting not far away, Joseph retrieved the tablets in September 1827. Because it’s unlikely anyone saw the tablets besides Joseph, over the years, some doubted this part of Joseph Smith's story. But, according to Smith, he almost immediately begins the translation process, which results in roughly 600 pages — The Book of Mormon. 

When we come back, we'll learn how folk magic and mysticism merged in the translation of the Book of Mormon, and we'll meet two contemporary Mormons who are navigating the spaces between magic, mysticism, and Christian faith. 

We'll be right back.

 [BREAK] 

Heather: Welcome back to Magic in the United States. I'm Heather Freeman. 

After four years, Joseph Smith Jr. finally acquired the gold tablets, revealed to him by the angel Moroni. And now he needs to translate them. 

Benjamin Park continues the story. 

Ben Park: When Joseph Smith starts translating these gold plates and producing a record, he draws from the tools that he already knew. 

Heather: Smith put his seer stone -- the same one he used to search for treasure with – inside of a hat. And then placed his face, close to the hat. 

Ben Park: And he claims that while looking in the hat at the stone, he would see the words written out, and then he would dictate those words to his scribe. So, Joseph Smith, the seer who found treasure, uses the same tools as Joseph Smith, the prophet, translating scripture.

Heather: In other words, instead of translating the tablets word for word, he used the folk magic practice of scrying to divine meaning from the tablets. And just as Emma was by Joseph’s side as he traveled to retrieve the golden tablets, she was also instrumental in the translation of them. 

Liz Fenton: He's engaged in a process that is supernatural in some way, divinely inspired, right? But it's Emma who is one of his first scribes and one of his most important scribes and Emma Smith also is the primary source that we have for descriptions of Smith's translation process. So she is the person who writes in her account that he put a seer stone in a hat, and that he would look in the hat.

Heather: According to some scholars, Smith dictates roughly 530 pages of text to his scribes in about 60 working days, a Herculean feat. 

But what does the Book of Mormon even say? Elizabeth Fenton studies this scriptural text as a work of 19th-century American literature and summarizes it. 

Liz Fenton: The book is called the Book of Mormon because Moroni's father is this guy named Mormon, and Mormon is the, like, editor and compiler of this book. The Book of Mormon tells a narrative that runs parallel to that of the Bible. Imagine you open up the Bible to the Book of Jeremiah, this character named Lehi — who's not in the Bible — stands up out of that text and walks off the page and then walks into the Book of Mormon.

Heather: It's also a composite text, meaning that the book is composed of many different stories by different authors. But the main story follows Lehi, who after failing to warn his people of impending tragedy, takes his family and flees into the wilderness. They eventually land on ships that take them to – you might've guessed it – the Americas. The book then goes on to describe a rupture within Lehi's family, warring between his descendants, and the story ultimately ends in genocide. But the contents of this book are still controversial to some to this day, from how it discusses Native Peoples of the Americas, to its handling of race and gender. 

Liz Fenton: There is a racialized reading of the Book of Mormon that has tended to treat whiteness as a sign of God's favor and to treat darkness or Blackness as a sign of distance from God. This is a source of great pain both within Mormonism and in the long history of the use of the Book of Mormon in a U. S. racial context. But it's something that I feel it's important to acknowledge.

Heather: So there's the text of the Book of Mormon itself, but even as it was being translated, Joseph Smith was getting divine instruction in real-time.

Ben Park: In the process of translating, Joseph Smith starts receiving revelations. He would speak as if he is the mouthpiece for God. These revelatory texts would not be in his voice, but in the voice of, ‘Thus saith the Lord, yada, yada, yada.’ And eventually, one of those commands tells Joseph Smith that he is going to establish a church. 

Heather: On April 6th, 1830, just days after The Book of Mormon came off the press, Smith and a small group of individuals formed the Church of Christ. From the beginning, Mormonism has faced controversy and criticism due to Joseph Smith's earlier treasure-seeking. 

Ben Park: Within a year of the LDS church being organized, there were exposés written by individuals who left the church claiming that Joseph Smith is a fraud because he was using the same seer stone that he searched for magic treasure, that same seer stone was used for translating the Book of Mormon.

Heather: While dowsing, scrying, and treasure hunting were common folk practices in Smith's circles, many others dismissed these practices as either backwards, superstitious, or unchristian. The word ‘magic’ was often applied as a pejorative. So from the Church's earliest days, Joseph Smith tried to distance his treasure-seeking from the divinely inspired work of finding and translating The Book of Mormon. 

Ben Park: Joseph Smith avoids that narrative entirely, refusing to admit that he uses the seer stone in public, instead saying, I use the gift and power of God. And ever since then, the LDS church had emphasized that, hey, Joseph Smith wasn't enmeshed in magic, Joseph Smith was a devout, pious Christian and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was not part of those treasure diggers, in fact, Joseph Smith was never really much of a treasure digger himself. 

Heather: Today, Joseph Smith Jr. is regarded as a martyr by many Mormons. He was murdered by an extrajudicial mob on June 27, 1844, in Carthage, Illinois. And that’s another story for another time. 

For most of the last two centuries, Mormon church leaders – including those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the LDS – continued to distance themselves from the dowsing, seer stones, and treasure hunting of Joseph Smith's earlier career.

But then the internet happened. Research about 19th-century American folk magic and Joseph Smith’s early years proliferated and made it impossible for the Church to ignore. And now things are starting to change.

Ben Park: It's not until a couple decades ago that the LDS church is willing to listen to its scholars and start emphasizing and publishing their views of showing that, actually, Joseph Smith used seer stones, he participated in magic — that's how he met Emma Smith, after all. 

Heather: Benjamin Park said that a few decades ago, several scholars — who were trusted by LDS officials — shared narratives that integrated the magical history of Mormonism without denigrating the faith. As a result, the Church started embracing those narratives.

Ben Park: Even more recently, they released high-resolution images of the seer stone that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon. Magic culture was ubiquitous in early America, there's nothing scandalous about it. 

Heather: In fact, in 2016, Mormon Elder Dieter Uchtdorf compared the seer stone to a smartphone.

Ben Park: Looking at a seer stone in the eighteen-teens and eighteen-twenties is akin to teenagers looking at iPhones now. That's just what people do. And so it's been sanctified through a particular narrative that reaffirms faith while downplaying the controversial aspects of it.

Heather: This official reappraisal of Mormonism’s earliest history is creating space for contemporary Mormons to continue research into the folklore and mystical practices of 19th-century Americans – including the first Mormons.

And this is true for a practitioner named Eva', who lives in Oklahoma. Today, she identifies as a Mormon, Catholic, and an esotericist. But she didn't start off that way.   

Eva: I was raised very non-denominational Christian, and through the years, I started seeing the flaws of a lot of the fundamentalist evangelical Christianity that I grew up around, being in the Bible Belt. And so I became a very militant atheist.

Heather: It was an old girlfriend of Eva's who introduced her to the LDS Church, which is the largest branch of Mormonism in the U.S. today. 

Eva: And at first I thought it was quite silly, honestly. But the more I leaned into it, the more I was interested in it, and the more I gave it a shot. The more I found it fascinating, and the more I found it as a complete worldview. And eventually, that did lead to a kind of mystical experience. And in Latter-day Saint jargon, that's usually called personal revelation, and I felt very called to go ahead and join the Church, as it was where I was supposed to be at the moment.

Heather: Eva deeply appreciated the writings of Joseph Smith Jr. — and she still does. But she eventually became disillusioned with the Church.

Eva: I was still very active, but once I realized I was trans, that specific church is very not accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, and so eventually I went ahead and left. 

Heather: Nevertheless, it was through Mormonism that Eva's religious and magical worlds expanded. 

Eva: Joseph Smith himself, his early explorations had a lot to do with folk magic and even some ceremonial magic. And so I was thinking if he could use these to become closer to God, why can't I? And so I started delving into various modes of the Western esoteric tradition. I was deeply fascinated by early classical Western esoteric thought, like Hermeticism and Gnosticism. And I thought, had Joseph known about it, oh, he would have loved this stuff! 

Heather: Today, Eva is part of a church within the independent sacramental movement, which practices Catholicism without the authority of the Vatican. 

Eva: And so, outwardly, I'm fairly Catholic, but I still identify as, and I still use a lot of parts of, Mormonism. Ultimately, I'm kind of this weird Mormon Catholic occultist.

Heather: Eva is finding a balancing point between magic and mysticism within her own religious, spiritual, and esoteric practices. 

And I want to introduce you to another Mormon - Christopher Blythe. Chris is an Assistant Professor of English at Brigham Young University, which is sponsored by the LDS church, and teaches classes on folklore and literature. 

He also hosts the podcast Angels and Seer Stones with his wife Christine, which explores the history and folklore of Mormonism. 

Like Eva, Chris wasn't born into Mormonism, but converted as a teenager. And like any good teenager conversion story, it starts with music and parties.

Chris Blythe: There was a movement called straight-edge punk going on in 1990s, which meant that you didn't drink alcohol and you didn't smoke, but you were a punk. And so it also meant that lots of Latter-day Saints that didn't drink, that didn't smoke, could all of a sudden think they were really hip and be part of this DC punk scene. 

Heather: Chris, who was raised Episcopalian, was about 12 or 13 at the time, and had been having intense conversations with his chaplain about theology. He was seeking a more meaningful truth in his religious life, even as an early teenager. 

At the same time, he was hanging out with his brother’s friends who were mostly Latter-day Saints.

Chris was hanging out with his brother and some of these straight-edge kids when a conversation with another teen about right and wrong, turned into a conversation about Mormonism. This other teen - who was a Mormon - invited Chris to meet some missionaries and he agreed to it.

Eventually, Chris was baptized and is today a devoted member of the LDS Church.

Chris Blythe: I like the organized nature of my faith, but I love the stories that go among my people. Joseph Smith, he's coming out of this era of the 1830s where he's even participating in this sort of angel-based maybe magic system, right? But by the time you get to the 1900s, people are encouraging Latter-day Saints not to speak openly about their most sacred spiritual experiences. Latter-day Saints have become really cautious about discussing all sorts of things that just mean a really, really great deal to us. And the result of that has been that we have this wonderful system of folklore. While you might not talk about your dream at church, or the time your grandpa spoke in tongues on his mission — they've been removed from those official settings — but they've come down right into the folk setting, in individual homes.

Heather: Morman folklore is diverse, from ghost stories to the healing properties of martyrdom canes. Chris celebrates this folklore and understands that magic might just be part of the spectrum of human, spiritual experiences.

Chris Blythe: So the living room for me, or the campfire, or, the two missionaries talking in their apartment is the most fascinating setting for Latter-day Saint culture. And in our podcast, we try to dive into all of that, and I love it.  It's just really fun to create avenues where they can speak so freely about things we've kind of become indoctrinated not to talk about 

…

Heather: Next week on Magic in the United States we’ll learn the story of Teresa Urrea, a Mexican folk healer who became a Borderlands heroine in the late 1800s. This curandera and spiritist inspired revolutionaries and captivated American audiences with her healing performances. 

Would you like to leave us a comment or thought on one of our episodes? Give us a ring 9 8 0 2 7 7 4 4 0 2. Or leave us a message or voicemail at magicintheunitedstates@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Magic in the United States was written and hosted by me, Heather Freeman. The show is produced by Amber Walker and edited by Lucy Perkins. Our associate producer is Noor Gill and the show is mixed by Jennie Cataldo. Fact-checking by Dania Suleman. The executive producer for PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzalez. The show's music is from APM music and Epidemic sound. And our project manager is Edwin Ochoa. 

Thanks to series advisors, Helen Berger, Danielle Boaz, Yvonne Chireau, Chas Clifton, Abel Gomez, Daniel Harms, Corey Hutcheson, Sean McLeod, Sabina Magliocco, Thorn Mooney, and Meg Whalen. Thanks to guests Christopher Blythe, Eva, Elizabeth Fenton, and Benjamin Park. This production was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. 

Wherever you are in the United States, the East, the West, the North, or the South, remember that magic is everywhere. I'm Heather Freeman and I'll see you at the crossroads.