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

[_Maksutov]

Great comments, FS. Always looking for more sources. Even books that are a bit disappointing often point the way to better things.

[_Johannes]

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.

I was struck by the resemblance to Nibley's methods, which I hadn't expected. As for apologetics, my impression is that it may have been an apologia written by Quinn to himself. He sounds like a fascinating character, and it's a lasting shame on the LDS Church that it treated him as it did.

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.

I can't argue with this, although I've got a lot of time for methodological sloppiness

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.

Now this I didn't know. I've only read a small amount of Nibley (from Abraham in Egypt), and I had no idea that he was a structuralist. That makes his parallelomania appear in a somewhat different light. (Incidentally, I'd want to quibble with some of the dates above, but the general point is well taken.)

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.

This interests me a great deal, and I'd be interested to look at these new titles when they're available.

[_Johannes]

That Juvenile Instructor blog is fascinating.

[_ClarkGoble]

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.

Now this I didn't know. I've only read a small amount of Nibley (from Abraham in Egypt), and I had no idea that he was a structuralist. That makes his parallelomania appear in a somewhat different light. (Incidentally, I'd want to quibble with some of the dates above, but the general point is well taken.)

Yup if you read some of Nibley's more academic and serious works (some published in The Ancient State) you'll see the parallels to Eliade, Campbell or that whole style of thinking. (Indeed Eliade was quite positive towards Nibley as were many others of that era) It's the approach Nibley was taught in school and more or less what he's bringing in his apologetics. One should note that Nibley did study under a rival movement compared to Eliade (who as I recall was influenced by the phenomenological movement such as Heidegger). I'll confess though I don't recall all the nuances of the different schools of the era beyond most of them embracing structuralism of one sort or an other. Anyone who's read say Joseph Campbell's books on myth quickly sees the same flaws. i.e. taking structures from stories and divorcing the structures from their original context and marginalizing differences that might affect meaning. The main difference between Nibley and the structuralist movement of the first half of the 20th century were the grounds. Nibley often justified the structures on the basis of diffusion (i.e. ancient structures that persisted historically) Typically most structuralists of that era were still tied to structuralism in psychology such as Freud and Jung among others. So to them common religion patters reflected common structures in human thinking. Where it gets more interesting is that Nibley is pretty much a Platonist (in my opinion) and in practice a lot of the structuralists were as well. So the collective unconscious becomes for many in that pre-positivist conception of psychology not that different from a platonic Nous. Although most wouldn't come out and say that since Platonism was not exactly scientifically reputable.

So Nibley even though he'll make these gestures towards diffusionism will also often make appeals to common structures in revelation. You see that especially in his work on the Sophist and the Mantic in the second half of The Ancient State.

I tend to think that whole approach of structuralism and especially Freudian inspired psychology to be deeply problematic. That's not to say some of the arguments of Nibley aren't good. But it's definitely a mixed bag at the best of times.

But of course most of the writings are 60 - 70 years old at this point if not older. To say they're dated is an understatement.

[_moksha]

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.

It would be fun to have Dr. Peterson do a once over of the FARMS/FAIR apologetic materials with his dowsing rod. There might be some hidden nuggets yet to be discovered and like they say, "still waters run deep".

[_ClarkGoble]

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.

It would be fun to have Dr. Peterson do a once over of the FARMS/FAIR apologetic materials with his dowsing rod. There might be some hidden nuggets yet to be discovered and like they say, "still waters run deep".

While the initial run of reviews was in my mind overly harsh and unfair, at the same time many of the particular points of criticism are apt. A few aren't I think. The more interesting discussion around that era was on the mailing list Morm-Ant which I ran at the time discussing Quinn and then some rather bad papers making Kabbalistic comparisons. (Forget the name of the author)

[_Maksutov]

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.

It would be fun to have Dr. Peterson do a once over of the FARMS/FAIR apologetic materials with his dowsing rod. There might be some hidden nuggets yet to be discovered and like they say, "still waters run deep".

This is huge. Dan's ascension. It could be like a battlefield commission to prophet. He could rebuild FARMS on Temple Square! A new dispensation!

[_Johannes]

While the initial run of reviews was in my mind overly harsh and unfair, at the same time many of the particular points of criticism are apt. A few aren't I think. The more interesting discussion around that era was on the mailing list Morm-Ant which I ran at the time discussing Quinn and then some rather bad papers making Kabbalistic comparisons. (Forget the name of the author)

I'd be interested to know how his book was received at the time. I only read that review by Hamblin, and I only did that for a joke as I knew that it would just be a polemic. I suppose Hamblin's pedantry about "magic" as a category had some basis, but I really have little patience for fetishising theoretical issues like that. We all know it's a contested term, and at some point we just have to bracket the theoretical issues and do some history.

[_Johannes]

Yup if you read some of Nibley's more academic and serious works (some published in The Ancient State) you'll see the parallels to Eliade, Campbell or that whole style of thinking. (Indeed Eliade was quite positive towards Nibley as were many others of that era) It's the approach Nibley was taught in school and more or less what he's bringing in his apologetics. .... The main difference between Nibley and the structuralist movement of the first half of the 20th century were the grounds. Nibley often justified the structures on the basis of diffusion (i.e. ancient structures that persisted historically) Typically most structuralists of that era were still tied to structuralism in psychology such as Freud and Jung among others. So to them common religion patters reflected common structures in human thinking. Where it gets more interesting is that Nibley is pretty much a Platonist (in my opinion) and in practice a lot of the structuralists were as well. So the collective unconscious becomes for many in that pre-positivist conception of psychology not that different from a platonic Nous. Although most wouldn't come out and say that since Platonism was not exactly scientifically reputable.

So Nibley even though he'll make these gestures towards diffusionism will also often make appeals to common structures in revelation. You see that especially in his work on the Sophist and the Mantic in the second half of The Ancient State.

Thanks for that. Nibley makes a lot more sense against that background.... I'd only been aware of the diffusionist thrust of his work. It hadn't occurred to me to read him through Jungian glasses. I can see how he would make more sense from that perspective.

The Platonist angle is interesting too, as I'd got the impression that LDS scholars regard Plato as the enemy. I would have thought that Christian Platonism is too strongly tied to the Great Apostasy to make it salvageable from a Mormon perspective. Plus, LDS theology seems almost anti-metaphysical in its orientation. The distance from Heavenly Father to the Form of the Good would indeed need a mind like Nibley's to bridge.

[_ClarkGoble]

The Platonist angle is interesting too, as I'd got the impression that LDS scholars regard Plato as the enemy. I would have thought that Christian Platonism is too strongly tied to the Great Apostasy to make it salvageable from a Mormon perspective. Plus, LDS theology seems almost anti-metaphysical in its orientation. The distance from Heavenly Father to the Form of the Good would indeed need a mind like Nibley's to bridge.

I don't think that's accurate. I think the problem most (myself included) see is the conflating of the interventionist limited deity of pre-exilic Israel with the conception of God that Plato and Aristotle conceive of in terms of philosophical absolutes. Often in philosophical discussions this is called the God of Jerusalem and the God of Athens. To my eyes they are two completely different conceptions. (As an aside, the whole Nietzschean "god is dead" line is because most people had thrown out the theistic interventionist God but still had kept the platonic God. So Nietzsche's point was that this God was also dead yet prefused most scientific and philosophical thinking of the time - especially in Kant and Hegel)

Effectively the line between a deist and an atheist is blurry at best and typically without a lot of practical significance. I think Mormons actually dismiss talk of the absolutist God or the ground of Being. Yet even if Mormon thought doesn't address it there are philosophical needs for it. I just don't think such things are God.