Dan Vogel Responds to Lars Nielsen (Part 6) - Liahona

[dan vogel]

Is the Book of Mormon’s Liahona, a magical compass, a Kircherism?

Is the Liahona a Kircherism? Lars uncritically assumes it is. He apparently can’t conceive of Joseph Smith inventing it himself, although such an instrument was perfectly at home with folk magical divining rods and seer stones.

Of course, “an author [Spalding or Smith] can be influenced by a famous object and still alter it somewhat to fit the purposes of his or her fiction,” as Lars maintains. However, the balls that Kircher invented, the ones that had spindles, were not made of brass but of glass filled with mineral oil. The brass ball in one of Kircher’s devices, as referred to by Lars, had no spindle. If Spalding could be influenced by Kircher’s brass ball, then Joseph Smith could be influenced by similar brass balls from his environment. Obviously, Joseph Smith’s main inspiration was the compass. None of Kircher’s balls were used the determine the direction of travel. The one referred to by Lars only showed the direction of the wind. The Liahona was provided by God because the compass had not been invented yet. Debates about the origin of Native Americans in Joseph Smith’s day sometimes involved denying transoceanic crossings based on the lack of the Mariner’s compass. Unlike Kircher’s balls and more like a compass, the Liahona had a second pointer.

Lars, you go on and on about spiritual electromagnetism, but this idea was not foreign to Joseph Smith. He was familiar with divining rods and the pseudoscientific explanations of how they operated. Nephi’s shocking his brothers is not unlike what Joseph Smith claimed he experienced from touching the plates, which in turn was borrowed from enchanted treasure lore. Similarly, Joseph Smith no doubt knew about the “falling power” of the spirit experienced by some of those who attended revival meetings, which is reflected in the Book of Mormon. The power by which the Liahona operated is not exclusive to Kircher.

As previously mentioned, your discussion of electromagnetism in The Romance of Celes is irrelevant since the romance was written by Spalding’s second cousin sometime after Thomas Dick published “Philosophy of a Future State” in 1828, but probably after his marriage in 1832, and before his death in 1862. This fact should cause you to question the many parallels you see between the Book of Mormon and the Celes MS.

At about 1:58:16, you misinterpreted my statement that Kircher claimed the spindles worked by “spiritual forces, electric forces, and magnetic forces.” I don’t see why you had a problem with this. You have repeatedly said in one form or another that Kircher claimed the spindles as operated by “spiritual electromagnetism.” I just chose the phrase Kircher used to describe the power. I clearly state that this was Kircher’s misdirection (not yours). Kircher knew it was just a trick, so what he said about how the spindles worked was fiction, like any magician’s patter. However, this should not be confused with Kircher’s true beliefs, even when he was not talking about his glass balls.

Beginning at 2:02:32, you criticize sole-authorship theorists. “Understandably, sole-authorship enthusiasts latch on to ideas like this in an attempt to say that anything in The Book of Mormon could have come from anything in Joseph Smith’s milieu, and so consequently, there is no need to entertain any evidence (textual or historical) that points to anyone else having composed any parts of The Book of Mormon. Such thinking is narrow and fallacious.”

This mischaracterizes my argument for Joseph Smith’s independent invention of the Liahona. The Liahona isn’t that complicated for Joseph Smith to have invented. He simply incased a compass inside a brass ball. Then he drew on folk magic lore to endow it with special powers. The Liahona is only vaguely similar to Kircher’s glass balls, but this comparison breaks down upon closer inspection. The writing on Kircher’s balls didn’t appear and disappear. The spindles pointed out letters like an Ouija board. The point here is that whatever similarity you see between Kircher’s balls to the Liahona isn’t strong enough on its own to overturn what we know about Joseph Smith and the production of the Book of Mormon from better evidence. It seems to me that Kircher and Smith arrived at comparable devices based on their individual needs and influences. Insisting that the Liahona couldn’t exist without the precursor of Kircher’s balls is extremely narrow and fallacious.

So, to be clear, I didn’t say the brass hand warmers were the source of Joseph Smith’s Liahona. (by the way, I’m not married to the hand warmers as an explanation and appreciate the correction.) I merely offered it and other brass spheres (such as the astrolabe) as possible influences for the spherical brass shape, not for the entire device. So it’s laughable when you say the brass hand warmers (shadow balls) or astrolabe have no pointers.

Composition fallacy does not apply because I haven’t argued that “X could not have been influenced by Y as a whole because X doesn’t contain each and every attribute of Y.” However, you say this just after pointing out that the hand warmers don’t have all the features of the Liahona, which misses my point entirely. My argument is that the Liahona is not necessarily a Kircherism as you uncritically assume. You have exaggerated the similarities and you have connected it to the Book of Mormon solely on the strength of the parallel. So, naturally, I need to point out the differences and show how Joseph Smith could have invented the Liahona himself. Kircher’s balls with pointers were glass, not brass; they were filled wit mineral oil; they had one pointer, not two; the writing on them was permanent; they operated much like an Ouija board than a compass.

On the Bayesian scale, how certain are you that the Liahona is a Kircherism in the Book of Mormon and not Joseph Smith’s invention?

[Shulem]

Is the Liahona a Kircherism? Lars uncritically assumes it is. He apparently can’t conceive of Joseph Smith inventing it himself, although such an instrument was perfectly at home with folk magical divining rods and seer stones.

Of course, “an author [Spalding or Smith] can be influenced by a famous object and still alter it somewhat to fit the purposes of his or her fiction,” as Lars maintains.

<snip>

So, naturally, I need to point out the differences and show how Joseph Smith could have invented the Liahona himself.

Dan,

That was a great post from start to finish, and I would like to add to it for additional thought or comment as needed. But in doing so, please permit me to paste a few posts from a couple of my threads that touch upon the mystery of the Liahona which will serve to add content in better understanding how to sort the mystery and examine it from certain points of view.

Chapter eight of Don Bradley's book (The Lost 116 Pages) provides extremely interesting details about Lehi's magic brass ball -- the so-called Liahona. I liken this ball ("director") to an Ouija spirit communicating with the living and to those who seek guidance from unseen forces -- the supernatural. It's a strange form in which to practice divination by using the magic ball with moving spindles which serve to direct and inform the reader on what do to. You must obey the spirit of the ball! It is an enchantment. Bow your head before that spirit and let the Ouija do its work and speak through the ball.

Fayette Lapham as cited earlier provides additional information in which the ball "went before them having two pointers, one pointing steadily the way they should go, the other the way to where they could get provisions and other necessaries." So the ball was used as a means to an end in order to get what they needed.

Another of Harris's close friends who was familiar with the lost manuscript provided information about the magic ball described therein. Through him we learn things that were not transferred over to the replacement version as given through the eyes of Nephi. The following descriptions undoubtedly detail Lehi's personal account from the lost manuscript as he worked the magic ball:

The last of the sacred things to be named, is a curious Ball, spoken of in the Book of Mormon, and called Directors, from the circumstance, of there being in it two steel points, (called spindles, in the Book of Mormon,) which points directed the enquirer by faith the proper course to take. This instrument is composed of a small brass ball, about three inches in diameter, having two steel points coming out of it, in opposite directions. Around each of these points, are 12 squares, and between these 24 squares on the ball, are figures of various descriptions, representing various things on the earth, as vegetation, animals, running streams of water, &c.

Bradley sums up the idea that the ball was used to acquire necessities of daily living such as food and water. He indicates how one spindle pointed the way they should travel in the wilderness and the other spindle pointed at one of the pictures symbols around the ball which identified what they would find once they reached the destination. So, the magic brass ball having two spindles, one which points at the picture telling what they will receive and the other spindle points the way they must go in order to receive the promised reward.

That pretty much sums up Bradley's ability to explain the ball as he thinks within the confines of the faithful Mormon box, but I can do more as I think outside *that* box. I think it's pretty clear that this kind of magic divination produced by Joseph Smith is not anything modern Mormonism wants to embrace today. The Church today is nothing like what Joseph Smith set up and the prophets today are nothing like Joseph Smith.

More later on this magic ball...

Around each of these points, are 12 squares, and between these 24 squares on the ball

Let's be very clear about something, shall we? The information given in the testimonial of Francis Bishop about his understanding of Lehi's magic ball is not something he concocted out of thin air of his own accord. Neither is it something that Harris would have simply made up in describing the physical characteristics of the ball. This information is extremely explicit and exactly precise and could have only come from one possible source leading straight back to the horse's mouth, Joseph Smith. Logically, there are two ways this information could have been originally revealed:

1. The 12 & 24 was written into the text of the "Book of Lehi" in which that information within the missing manuscript was understood by the direct reading of the manuscript and relayed thereafter on that account.

2. Joseph Smith gave additional information through instruction or a sermon about the Liahona which was not recorded other than through Bishop who relayed what he heard via Harris and Smith.

Bottom line:

The 12 & 24 came from Joseph Smith!


More later...

In order to understand the true operation of the Liahona it becomes necessary to think of it in the same way Joseph Smith may have thought of it. Smith’s stories are made up and dressed with imagination. The Liahona was not an actual device but was make-believe and did not operate like an ordinary magnetic compass subject to the laws of nature. It was conceived as a magical device that operated purely based on faith and diligence of the operator, or in other words the spindles moved about and pointed due to the faith of those who believed they could work the compass through the Spirit of God. Smith did not view it with ordinary means like that of the sureness of a magnetic compass but this compass was purely magical in nature.

So, the 12 & 24 in Smith’s mind very likely represented the hours of the day and the hours of the night in which spindles operated through time and space. One spindle indicated the reward they might receive through their diligence and effort in maintaining faith and the other spindle pointed the direction in which they must go to find what it was that was being provided by the goodness of God.

I think, once we put in perspective that Smith’s Liahona was a figment of his imagination it becomes relatively easy to put the pieces together in realizing that the whole thing was mere fantasy and the order of operations to work that fantasy worked by principles that had nothing to do with science or reality.

Bottom line: There was no actual Liahona. There was no real Lehi. There were no gold plates. It’s all just a make-believe story given for the sole purpose to instill faith in things that do not exist.

[Physics Guy]

Kircher looks to be an interesting writer and someday I should probably read his old books from the mid 1600s. He was writing at a time when some optical and magnetic phenomena were first beginning to get some systematic study. These were the last couple of generations before Newton, and the scientific revolution was almost at hand.

Perhaps the thing about the mindset of that time that is hardest to imagine now is that there had never been such a revolution before. If people like Kircher had had a modern scientific mindset with their primitive knowledge, they would have been tentative and minimal about everything; but they had no idea how little they knew. So instead they all had Dunning-Kruger confidence that they understood everything, and freely wrote all kinds of nonsense.

And to me this is the point about Smith getting ideas from Kircher. Kircher's ideas weren't any amazing bullseye insights into science, but neither were they wildly imaginative flights of fantasy. They were the kind of guesses that intelligent people who were ignorant of modern science might easily make. Given the actual existence of lodestones and magnetic compasses, imagining liahona-like gadgets doesn't take a creative or scientific genius. If Kircher could do it, Smith or someone else could do it, too, independently.

[dan vogel]

Is the Liahona a Kircherism? Lars uncritically assumes it is. He apparently can’t conceive of Joseph Smith inventing it himself, although such an instrument was perfectly at home with folk magical divining rods and seer stones.

Of course, “an author [Spalding or Smith] can be influenced by a famous object and still alter it somewhat to fit the purposes of his or her fiction,” as Lars maintains.

<snip>

So, naturally, I need to point out the differences and show how Joseph Smith could have invented the Liahona himself.

Dan,

That was a great post from start to finish, and I would like to add to it for additional thought or comment as needed. But in doing so, please permit me to paste a few posts from a couple of my threads that touch upon the mystery of the Liahona which will serve to add content in better understanding how to sort the mystery and examine it from certain points of view.

Chapter eight of Don Bradley's book (The Lost 116 Pages) provides extremely interesting details about Lehi's magic brass ball -- the so-called Liahona. I liken this ball ("director") to an Ouija spirit communicating with the living and to those who seek guidance from unseen forces -- the supernatural. It's a strange form in which to practice divination by using the magic ball with moving spindles which serve to direct and inform the reader on what do to. You must obey the spirit of the ball! It is an enchantment. Bow your head before that spirit and let the Ouija do its work and speak through the ball.

Fayette Lapham as cited earlier provides additional information in which the ball "went before them having two pointers, one pointing steadily the way they should go, the other the way to where they could get provisions and other necessaries." So the ball was used as a means to an end in order to get what they needed.

Another of Harris's close friends who was familiar with the lost manuscript provided information about the magic ball described therein. Through him we learn things that were not transferred over to the replacement version as given through the eyes of Nephi. The following descriptions undoubtedly detail Lehi's personal account from the lost manuscript as he worked the magic ball:





Bradley sums up the idea that the ball was used to acquire necessities of daily living such as food and water. He indicates how one spindle pointed the way they should travel in the wilderness and the other spindle pointed at one of the pictures symbols around the ball which identified what they would find once they reached the destination. So, the magic brass ball having two spindles, one which points at the picture telling what they will receive and the other spindle points the way they must go in order to receive the promised reward.

That pretty much sums up Bradley's ability to explain the ball as he thinks within the confines of the faithful Mormon box, but I can do more as I think outside *that* box. I think it's pretty clear that this kind of magic divination produced by Joseph Smith is not anything modern Mormonism wants to embrace today. The Church today is nothing like what Joseph Smith set up and the prophets today are nothing like Joseph Smith.

More later on this magic ball...

Let's be very clear about something, shall we? The information given in the testimonial of Francis Bishop about his understanding of Lehi's magic ball is not something he concocted out of thin air of his own accord. Neither is it something that Harris would have simply made up in describing the physical characteristics of the ball. This information is extremely explicit and exactly precise and could have only come from one possible source leading straight back to the horse's mouth, Joseph Smith. Logically, there are two ways this information could have been originally revealed:

1. The 12 & 24 was written into the text of the "Book of Lehi" in which that information within the missing manuscript was understood by the direct reading of the manuscript and relayed thereafter on that account.

2. Joseph Smith gave additional information through instruction or a sermon about the Liahona which was not recorded other than through Bishop who relayed what he heard via Harris and Smith.

Bottom line:

The 12 & 24 came from Joseph Smith!


More later...

In order to understand the true operation of the Liahona it becomes necessary to think of it in the same way Joseph Smith may have thought of it. Smith’s stories are made up and dressed with imagination. The Liahona was not an actual device but was make-believe and did not operate like an ordinary magnetic compass subject to the laws of nature. It was conceived as a magical device that operated purely based on faith and diligence of the operator, or in other words the spindles moved about and pointed due to the faith of those who believed they could work the compass through the Spirit of God. Smith did not view it with ordinary means like that of the sureness of a magnetic compass but this compass was purely magical in nature.

So, the 12 & 24 in Smith’s mind very likely represented the hours of the day and the hours of the night in which spindles operated through time and space. One spindle indicated the reward they might receive through their diligence and effort in maintaining faith and the other spindle pointed the direction in which they must go to find what it was that was being provided by the goodness of God.

I think, once we put in perspective that Smith’s Liahona was a figment of his imagination it becomes relatively easy to put the pieces together in realizing that the whole thing was mere fantasy and the order of operations to work that fantasy worked by principles that had nothing to do with science or reality.

Bottom line: There was no actual Liahona. There was no real Lehi. There were no gold plates. It’s all just a make-believe story given for the sole purpose to instill faith in things that do not exist.

I appreciate your comments. I'm not impressed with Gladden Bishop's description, even if it came from Harris. That's just Bradley's speculation. Harris would have only seen it in vision, which came out of his imagination. But more likely Bishop was full of crap. The Book of Mormon is our only source. Of course, there was no real Liahona. The Book of Mormon calls it a compass, so I imagine it worked like a compass, only the second pointer couldn't be set by Lehi because he didn't know where he was going.

[Shulem]

I appreciate your comments. I'm not impressed with Gladden Bishop's description, even if it came from Harris. That's just Bradley's speculation. Harris would have only seen it in vision, which came out of his imagination. But more likely Bishop was full of crap. The Book of Mormon is our only source. Of course, there was no real Liahona. The Book of Mormon calls it a compass, so I imagine it worked like a compass, only the second pointer couldn't be set by Lehi because he didn't know where he was going.

I agree, the text of the Book of Mormon is the basis and foundation on which we can best understand what Smith meant. I try to keep an open mind and I do try to ponder and study all aspects in order to arrive at an intelligent conclusion that resonates with me. I assume you do the same in your studies. I think we can safely assume that "compass" in the Book of Mormon meant pretty much what was defined in Smith's vocabulary of his times, plus any spiritual implications he might want to add in order to embellish his fictitious story involving supernatural devices.

COMPASS, noun

5. An instrument for directing or ascertaining the course of ships at sea, consisting of a circular box, containing a paper card marked with the thirty two points of direction, fixed on a magnetic needle, that always points to the north, the variation excepted. The needle with the card turns on a pin in the center of the box. In the center of the needle is fixed a brass conical socket or cap, by which the card hanging on the pin turns freely round the center. The box is covered with glass, to prevent the motion of the card from being disturbed by the wind.

It's curious how Bishop says that 12 & 24 squares are what comprised the points of the Liahona when 32 points is the full standard compass rose. However, the ancient Chinese used a 24-pointed compass. Is it possible that an ancient Chinese compass could have influenced Smith's Liahona as described by Bishop? We must take everything into consideration, wouldn't you say?

Ming dynasty 24-pointed compass