Quinn's "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View"

[_Johannes]

I have finally got around to reading this "standard work". Here are some random thoughts about it.

As is well known, Quinn's thesis is that esoteric and magical beliefs and practices were common among ordinary Americans in the early 19th century, and that they strongly influenced the career of Joseph Smith.

Quinn's method is oddly reminiscent of Hugh Nibley. He is extremely well read. He throws everything that he can at the wall, and some of it sticks. Some of what he says is genuinely convincing: he presents evidence, for example, that supposedly rare and obscure occult books were in fact freely available to frontier farmers in Smith's day. He also makes it clear that the Smith family owned magical paraphernalia, including a Jupiter talisman that was on Smith's body when he was killed.

Other claims that Quinn makes are less plausible. He reads esotericism into the text of the Book of Mormon, for example, seeing "secret" as a synonym for "occult". I didn't find this convincing.

There is also a grey area between plausibility and implausibility. For example, Quinn argues that Smith singled out astrologically significant dates for doing important things. This claim simply cannot be proven at this distance, and I don't know how we would control for confirmation bias.

What I'm now going to do is look at some FARMS/FAIR apologetic materials and see what they have to say about the book. I'm pretty sure that DCP will have published a thoughtful, fair-minded review of the work when it came out.

[_Johannes]

I've just had a look at this review:

http://publications.mi.BYU.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1452&index=16

It's too long for me to read in full, but the subtext seems to be that Professor Hamblin sees "magic" as a pejorative term and doesn't want it used to describe his religion. Ironically, as Quinn himself points out in the book, this prejudice against magic is an identifiable product of EV and rationalist attitudes, so Hamblin is attacking a fellow Mormon on the basis of a premise which he has derived from his opponents.

[_Maksutov]

You will not find a thorough and substantive review on the magic issues from Hamblin or Peterson. They don't have the background in studying the religions of the burnt over district and the conditions that gave rise to them. If you are reading the latest edition of Quinn's book, he treats the criticisms extensively and quite effectively.

Smith's influences included the cunning folk traditions of his English forebears, the mystical German practices of the various Pennsylvanian groups, Swedenborg, John Dee, numerous others. These cultural currents would also lead to Spiritualism in the generation after Smith's. The Refiner's Fire goes into quite a bit of detail regarding the background of the populations that produced the earliest converts. They were a rich stew of religious and occult innovations that cannot be waved away as DCP and Hamblin have done.

[_Johannes]

You will not find a thorough and substantive review on the magic issues from Hamblin or Peterson. They don't have the background in studying the religions of the burnt over district and the conditions that gave rise to them. If you are reading the latest edition of Quinn's book, he treats the criticisms extensively and quite effectively.

Yes, he has some (justifiably) harsh words for "polemicists". One of the disturbing things about that Hamblin review was that Hamblin freely admitted that he was doing polemics, in the sense of aggressively attacking Quinn, and objected only to the suggestion that he was being dishonest. He's a terrible advert for his faith, but sadly there are Hamblins in all churches. "See how those Christians love one another."

Smith's influences included the cunning folk traditions of his English forebears, the mystical German practices of the various Pennsylvanian groups, Swedenborg, John Dee, numerous others. These cultural currents would also lead to Spiritualism in the generation after Smith's. The Refiner's Fire goes into quite a bit of detail regarding the background of the populations that produced the earliest converts. They were a rich stew of religious and occult innovations that cannot be waved away as DCP and Hamblin have done.

The Refiner's Fire interests me, but I've done no more than glance at it so far. I understand that it makes stronger claims than Quinn and goes back further in time.

Quinn's portrait of early Mormonism is very plausible, if unfamiliar and even weird from a modern LDS (or rationalist) perspective. It is a world of cunning folk mixed with influences from academic esotericism, of divining rods and Mars daggers, of horoscopes and seer stones. I love all this stuff, but I can see how a correlated Mormon might not understand what a prophet of God was doing with Jehovah-Jehovah-Jehovah parchments and magic circles. They'd probably be shocked at some of the Old Testament prophets too. A prophet has not always been a man who wears a business suit and cuts the ribbon on real estate developments.

Quinn is probably overstating his case, but he proves enough to put the "magick" back into Mormonism, in my view.

[_Maksutov]

Putting a coat of religious respectability on pagan or occult characters and practices is an old game. It's central to syncretism. One great example is in the veneration of Catholic saints. Many of the saints are products of layers of tradition, myth, error and expediency. The church learned to assimilate as much as possible the local customs of the peoples occupied by Imperial Rome while proclaiming the primacy of the Christian God.

Like many other cult creators, Joseph started out with physical phemomena and 'miracles' but quickly moved on to more respectable, Biblical and traditional forms. The peepstones were retired in favor of direct revelation/channeling. This follows the pattern of psychic mediums who progress from impressions received from personal artifacts or scrying to the experience of direct visions and revelations.

What is often lost sight of nowadays is that the vast majority of the "magical" beliefs and practices were integrated with many Christian beliefs. John Dee and Edward Kelly prayed before their sessions with the angels and Joseph's money diggers likely did the same. Mormons have even been accused of a form of necromancy in their baptisms of the dead. They eschew items like crystal balls and ouija boards because they believe they actually work and would create a connection with evil spirits. The lack of a skeptical, analytical model and tradition among the Mormons might provide a clue as to their vulnerability to affinity fraud and other abuses.

[_ClarkGoble]

Quinn's book isn't nearly as bad as critics make it out but it is basically an apologetic book with the similar failings of that genre. It's not apologetics like what FARMS used to do but really is using a pretty similar methodology to what Nibley used to do with all the associated flaws.

The main flaws are conceptual. Magic is used in a very loose and vague way and often untied to larger theoretic structures. One might defend this due to the era in which it was written, but honestly there already were quite a few good books on the history of European folk magic that had fairly robust theoretic scaffolding.

Associated with this loose and often equivocative use of "magic" is how he uses neoPlatonism. In several places he uses parallels without disclosing what the categories or structures mean in their original context. (This is particularly glaring where he ties the three degrees of glory to the three degrees of emanation in neoPlatonism) Again this is common in Nibley too but Nibley's basically writing in the genre of structuralism popular from the 1920's onward. However structuralism came under extreme critique in the 1960's and by the 1980's was pretty dead. So while you might expect to see this sort of thing from Nibley apologetics and even Myth criticism by people like Joseph Campbell it's kind of surprising to see it in a history book from the 1990's.

This problem of not really explaining context to the parallels one finds is the main issue. To be fair to the data one really ought engage with the differences from original and purported early Mormon use. (Which in some cases was pretty speculative) This isn't to dismiss the parallels he finds, but one has to approach it with a fair bit of skepticism to how he presents the parallels. In some cases more recent books have covered the data far better. It's a very dated book. In other cases forthcoming books will do much better on topics like neoPlatonism.

Mormon history writing of the last 10 years is head and shoulders above the New Mormon History that Quinn was a part of. The biggest improvement is in making connections with larger theoretic scaffolding out of philosophy, economics and more. A lot more needs to be written on masonry, neoplatonic and other esoteric connections to early Mormonism as well as conceptions of folk materialism and conceptions of God and angels. In some cases books on these are coming out. Quinn's to be praised for starting the process but the book itself is extremely dated and primarily valuable for finding parallels but not their analysis.

[_Fence Sitter]

This problem of not really explaining context to the parallels one finds is the main issue. To be fair to the data one really ought engage with the differences from original and purported early Mormon use. (Which in some cases was pretty speculative) This isn't to dismiss the parallels he finds, but one has to approach it with a fair bit of skepticism to how he presents the parallels. In some cases more recent books have covered the data far better. It's a very dated book. In other cases forthcoming books will do much better on topics like neoPlatonism.

Mormon history writing of the last 10 years is head and shoulders above the New Mormon History that Quinn was a part of. The biggest improvement is in making connections with larger theoretic scaffolding out of philosophy, economics and more. A lot more needs to be written on masonry, neoplatonic and other esoteric connections to early Mormonism as well as conceptions of folk materialism and conceptions of God and angels. In some cases books on these are coming out. Quinn's to be praised for starting the process but the book itself is extremely dated and primarily valuable for finding parallels but not their analysis.

I would be very interested in your recommendations of those books that you think have covered the data far better as well as any teases you can offer for books that are coming out.

Have you read Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting? I am currently reading it and while it is mildly interesting, it suffers, in my opinion, from speculation and conjecture.

Thanks

[_Maksutov]

This problem of not really explaining context to the parallels one finds is the main issue. To be fair to the data one really ought engage with the differences from original and purported early Mormon use. (Which in some cases was pretty speculative) This isn't to dismiss the parallels he finds, but one has to approach it with a fair bit of skepticism to how he presents the parallels. In some cases more recent books have covered the data far better. It's a very dated book. In other cases forthcoming books will do much better on topics like neoPlatonism.

Mormon history writing of the last 10 years is head and shoulders above the New Mormon History that Quinn was a part of. The biggest improvement is in making connections with larger theoretic scaffolding out of philosophy, economics and more. A lot more needs to be written on masonry, neoplatonic and other esoteric connections to early Mormonism as well as conceptions of folk materialism and conceptions of God and angels. In some cases books on these are coming out. Quinn's to be praised for starting the process but the book itself is extremely dated and primarily valuable for finding parallels but not their analysis.

I would be very interested in your recommendations of those books that you think have covered the data far better as well as any teases you can offer for books that are coming out.

Have you read Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting? I am currently reading it and while it is mildly interesting, it suffers, in my opinion, from speculation and conjecture.

Thanks

I haven't read the book you mention but there are discussions of counterfeiting in Brookes' The Refiners Fire, pp 229-233.

[_ClarkGoble]

I would be very interested in your recommendations of those books that you think have covered the data far better as well as any teases you can offer for books that are coming out.

Have you read Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting? I am currently reading it and while it is mildly interesting, it suffers, in my opinion, from speculation and conjecture.

Juvenile Instructor has had some good posts on neoPlatonism - particularly translations of Plato available in the early 19th century. There were some good books on masonry coming out but apparently none of them ended up getting published. Which is unfortunate as the intertwining of masonry and Mormonism was far more extensive than many realize. (Not that this necessarily has theological implications - more for a strong culture for early Utah leadership much as the enlightenment is broadly for both 19th and 20th century Mormonism)

I've not read that particular paper although I've read Brookes. It's by far the weakest part of his book. I think the counterfeiting/hermetic connection is dubious at best. Even those praising Brooke usually dismiss that chapter. I think Brooke's book is a mixed bag. Like Quinn it's from the beginning of that genre so I think we have to cut it a bit of slack. It's trailblazing but trailblazing books almost always get dated quickly as new scholars investigate more carefully the claims and apply the approaches to other areas. Other than the counterfeiting chapter I think it much better than Quinn and it doesn't have the theoretic problems' Quinn's does. That's partially because it's less ambitious too though.

I should add that while Quinn and Brookes were controversial when they first came out I think that passed pretty quickly. i.e. old reviews don't really represent how they are viewed. While I think in the details Quinn in particular is problematic, most of their broader themes are pretty well accepted. Indeed if you read the recent book on the translation of the Book of Mormon (forget the publisher -- BYU or Deseret Books) a lot of the themes are part and parcel of the faithful view. Ditto Rough Stone Rolling.

[Guest]

Have you read Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting? I am currently reading it and while it is mildly interesting, it suffers, in my opinion, from speculation and conjecture.

Thanks

I haven't read the book you mention but there are discussions of counterfeiting in Brookes' The Refiners Fire, pp 229-233.

I started with Brookes, which led me to A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States and then I went to Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting.

I like Brookes', The Refiners Fire, a lot.

I highly recommend Mihm's A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States. It gives a great picture of 19th century counterfeiting leading up to and during the civil war as well as providing an excellent overview of the transition from private institutions issuing paper money to government backed paper currency, after the civil war. It provides an excellent picture of the national banking & currency milieu in which Joseph Smith & Co tried to create the Kirtland Safety society.

I have mixed feelings about Secret Combinations Evidences of Early Mormon Counterfeiting so far. I have not yet finished it, but as an argument for early Mormons involvement with counterfeiting it has a whole lot of "hey this guy was somewhere nearby or this was the friend of Joseph Smith's 3rd cousin, so Joseph Smith & Co must have been counterfeiters or involved with it somehow. I am not sure I buy it as forcefully as she is trying to prove it.

It does have some new information to me on members who she claims were involvemed with counterfeiting. Evidences that Joseph Smith Jr., Joseph Smith Sr. OC, BY, the Whitmers & HK were familiar with each other long before Joseph Smith started writing the Book of Mormon and that they were also involved with the occult, treasure hunting, peddling, Masonry, printing and so on before the Book of Mormon was created. She also has some interesting information about Issac Hale first being involved with Joseph Smith as a sponsor of treasure hunting, before he turned against him.

There is a lot of information in the book so I think it is worth reading, I just don't buy her argument that this proves Joseph Smith & Co were heavily involved in counterfeiting all along. Counterfeiting was pervasive back then. If a bank or other institution was issuing notes, it was a safe bet there were also counterfeiters copying those notes and many times the same people who were issuing notes for a bank legitimately, would also issue them on the side. (This is what Parrish, Cowdery, and others were accused of and part of the reason they were run out of Far West.)

So it is no surprise that given their background in printing and the fact that everyone else was starting up banks, that Joseph Smith and Co, decided to give it a try by creating the Kirtland Safety Society Bank. What resulted was a mixture of gross incompetence and outright fraud. They were refused a state charter and didn't even bother to file proper papers to incorporate the society. No taxes were ever paid by the company and after passing out at least $150,000.00 in bills with less than $6000.00 in specie to back it up, of course it failed, with the guy who claimed a revelation from God that it would swallow up all other banks, running away pointing the finger of blame at his underlings.