Mark Hofmann, the Salt Lake City documents dealer on trial for
murder, recently admitted in court that he planted the two bombs that
killed Steven Christensen and Katherine Sheets and that he forged at
least two documents purported to be key pieces in the puzzle of early
Mormon church history.
This affair has dealt a great blow to the reputation of the Mormon
church. The church has had to admit that it was buying documents from
hofmann to prevent their publication. The documents dealt with Mormon
prophet Joseph Smith's money-digging and involvement in occult
practices. The church, in its zeal to keep the purchases secret,
played right into Hofmann's hands by not having the documents examined
for authenticity. Sure enough, the documents later were found to be
forgeries.
Despite this, the documents forced Mormon scholars to own up to
Smith's background in occult practices and acknowledge that, the
documents aside, there was enough evidence to prove Smith's occult
involvement.
Therefore, Mormon scholars have begun trying to justify Smith's
practices, saying that he wasn't any worse than anybody else living at
that time because belief in and practice of magic was pervasive in
18th and early 19th century America.
The scholars go on to say that it was the coming of the
enlightenment and rationalism that changed people's outlook on occult
practices. These scholars say that since we don't live in that
culture any longer, it's hard for us to put ourselves in those
people's shoes.
However, research shows that as early as 1788 in New York, and
equally as early as Vermont, there were laws against occult practices
such as palmistry and witchcraft and that the press was generally
unfavorable to such claims.
Undaunted by that, Mormon scholars are now trying to find rationale
for Smith's occult practices. MORMON SCHOLAR DR. RICHARD ANDERSON
CONCEDED IN HIS LATEST BYU STUDIES ARTICLE THAT SMITH DID INDEED
PRACTICE MAGIC, (emphasis mine) but only up to 1826. When he dug up
the gold plates, Anderson says, he realized that he had a serious
mission and put his teenage follies behind him.
While this scenario is at best questionable, it does have one of
the staunch defenders of Mormon faith admitting that during the time
Smith supposedly was being prepared for the life of a prophet, he was
immersed in the occult and digging for money.
From the April-June PFO by WPW
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