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1-1-1996 The ecrS et History of Mormonism Richard Bushman Claremont Graduate University
Recommended Citation Bushman, Richard L. “The eS cret History of Mormonism,” Sunstone 19.1 (March 1996), 66-70.
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Book of Mormon spoke of an old Bible from THE SECRETHISTORY which Smith and Oliver Cowdery contrived their account. Alexander Campbell said the OF MORMONISM Book of Mormon tried to answer all the theo- logical controversies that had troubled New ~o;k for the past ten years. Nineteenth-cen- THE REFINER'S FIRE: THE MAKING OF tury editions of Roget's Thesaurus linked MORMON COSMOLOGY, 1644-1844 Joseph Smith's revelations with Mohammed by John L. Brooke and false prophets. In the twentieth century Cambridge University Press, 1994 anti-Masonry was brought into the picture. In more recent years, the influence of primi- xix+421 pages, $34.95 tivist restorationism, republicanism, and magic have all received book-length treat- THE JOURNALS OF WILLIAM E. MCLELLIN, 1831-1836 ments by serious historians, and Harold edited by Jan Shipps and John W Welch Bloom has offered a gnostic Joseph Smith who, by dint of pure genius, recovered cabal- BYU Studies and University of Illinois Press, 1994 istic religion for nineteenth-century xxi+520 pages, $29.95 Americans. Brigham Young University scholars have discovered an extensive, intri- cate, and detailed context in ancient Israelitish and Middle Eastern culture. Now, in an ambitious and erudite reading of Mormon culture from the beginning to the present, John Brooke throws still more ingre- dients into the mix: first, hermeticism (the Reviewed by Richard L Bushman agglomeration of alchemy, Platonism, Gnosticism, and Egyptian theology that flourished in the Renaissance), and, second, the Radical Reformation, with its millennial, restorationist, and other doctrines. Though with The admitting that his is not "a well-rounded ap- wefilly read proach," Brooke claims that the first of these, Refiner's Fire because they hermeticism, explains "the inner logic of Mormon theology" (xvii). The Radical Reformation tradition, which includes Anabaptists, Quakers, and many other sects on the fringes of the ~a~isterial Reformation, is the better known and, in Brooke's telling, the lesser of the two influ- ences. Though elaborately worked out and HE HUNDREDS OF thousands of effect. That fact makes us think differently ingeniously formulated by Brooke, radical new converts added each year to the about his place in history. Why did ideas are familiar in their general outlines. Tnine million Mormons who now Mormonism survive, while hundreds of Millenarianism, for one, has received full comprise The Church of Jesus Christ of movements withered away, and then go on to treatment by Grant Underwood. Moreover, Latter-day Saints are a phenomenon of the outgrow all the other survivors? Harold when ~rookenarrates Mormon history, he present that changes the understanding of Bloom, noted literary critic and recent com- downplays the Radical Reformation. He gives the past. Joseph Smith might easily be dis- mentator on American religion, has called considerable space to tracing radical groups missed as another religious eccentric in a Joseph Smith an authentic religious genius. like the Connecticut Rogerenes through time of chaotic religious creativity had the This extravagant assessment, which would eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Mormons not persisted and flourished. But have drawn laughter and scorn in 1844, has New England, but when he gets to of all the visionaries and sectarian leaders to be taken seriously a century and a half Mormonism itself, radical influences recede. who formed new religions and communal after hi death, in light of the millions who In Brooke's view. radical doctrines con- orders in the 1830s and 1840s,Joseph Smith still regard him as a prophet. Joseph Smith tributed to ~ormonism,but did not shape its had the longest-lasting and most widespread now requires serious explanation. inner logic. Brooke thinks radical beliefs af- Beginning with the earliest revelations, in- fected the first few years, but after 1831 RJCHARD BUSHMAN is the author of Joseph terested observers have tried to "situate" added only details. His chief interest in the Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism and Mormonism culturally in an effort to explain radical sects is that they were open to the most recently The Refinement of America: the remarkable texts that nowed from Joseph hermeticism that he sees at Mormonism's Persons, Houses, Cities. He is Gouverneur Smith's mind. Where did the revelations center. Morris professor of history at Columbia come from, what background illuminates The Refiner's Fire can be read as an exten- University. their meaning? The first hostile readers of the sion of the scholarship on hermeticism that
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has appeared over the past thirty years, ever faithful would become gods. These parallels followers, and incidents of everyday life since Frances Yates's Giordano Bruno and the lead Brooke to argue that Mormonism moved Joseph to seek answers which then Hermetic Traditions (1964) reawakened in- should be understood as more of an hermetic grew in unforeseen directions, blossoming terest in the influence hermeticism had from restoration than a return to ~rimitive into emlications of doctrine that went far be- the Renaissance to the seventeenth century. Christianity yond the original stimulus. In a sense, Joseph The name "hermeticism" comes from Having heard presentations by Brooke be- Smith as revelator could be said to have had a Hermes Trismegistus, purportedly a divine fore reading The Refiner's Fire, and knowing green thumb: from the smallest seed he grew being whose revelations claimed to precede Lance Owens's scholarship on the Jewish ka- mustard trees. Moses but who is thought to be, in reality, a ballah, a related set of mystical teachings, I For the most part, however, we have creation of second- and third-century gnos- was prepared to look favorably on the rela- thought that the scriptural and doctrinal tics who fused Greek and Egyptian ideas. tionship of hermeticism and ~ormonism.' stimuli to inquire of God came from within The Florentine Cosimo Medici acquired a The idea of placing Mormonism against a the bounds of Protestantism. Mormonism collection of hermetic writings, the Corpus background different from standard has been understood as one variant of the Hermeticum, in Macedonia in 1460 and or- Protestant orthodoxy appealed to me. widespread Protestant impulse to restore dered his court scholar Marsilio Ficino to Although Mormons believe that Joseph primitive Christianity But what if, I specu- work on them. Recent scholarship has Smith received revelations directly from God, lated, orthodox Protestantism was too con- demonstrated the wide influence of hermeti- there is no denying that many of his ideas are fined to serve as a basis for the entire cism throughout Europe thereafter. Brooke not new. Other Christians taught faith and restoration? What if some of heaven's truths briefly recapitulates these studies and shows repentance, atonement through the sacrifice reached beyond the bounds of this single tra- how hermeticism's reach extends into eight- of Jesus Christ, resurrection, the promise of a dition, this one way of reading the Bible? eenth- and early nineteenth-century second coming, and so on. The revelations How refreshing it would be to discover an- America, right do& to the Smith family ln took ideas that were familiar to Christians other religious tradition, wherein other seeds America, the most complete expressions of and clarified them, or gave them new of religious truth could be found by a hermeticism occurred at the Ephrata meaning, as well as offering startlingly new prophet with a green thumb. Mormon Cloister, a German religious community of stories and doctrines. The gospel was both schblars who know kabbalah, hermeticism, mid-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, and new and everlasting. Robert Matthews has and the associated pursuits of alchemy have in Royal Arch Freemasonry, which had chap- suggested that retranslating the Bible felt sympathy for some of their doctrines. ters in many early nineteenth-century prompted Joseph Smith to seek elucidation, Why couldn't Joseph receive a spiritual stim- American towns. Drawing on hermeticism's which led to many new revelations growing ulus from this alternate source, thus ex- connections to alchemy, Brooke hints that out of biblical texts. The teachings of the reli- panding the boundaries of the Restoration? counterfeiters, miners, and virtually anyone gious world around him, questions from his So 1 began the perusal of The Refiner's Fire who mentioned the word "goldn could have transmitted hermetic secrets, although he eventually concludes that such shadowy fig- ures drew upon a "thin vein" (93). Brooke's primary reason for thinking her- meticism must have been transmitted to Mormonism is that he sees similarities to the mature teachings of Joseph Smith: (1) Hermetic philosophy taught that matter emerged from the divine spirit at creation, forming the great division of spirit and matter, along with other divisions such as light and dark, fire and water, and male and female. Mormonism taught that there is no such thing as immaterial matter; spirit is a re- fined form of matter. (2) Hermeticism sought the reunion of spirit and matter through the analogy of an alchemical mamage, the coni- unctio. Mormonism made celestial mamage a requirement for exaltation. (3) The goal of hermeticism was to recover divine power and perfection ("divinization" is Brooke's word). Mormonism promised that the
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with hope that connections could be made. I back and forth who might have carried the spirit, Mormonism defines spirit as matter. was not looking for the "sources" of Joseph's Cloister's ideas to New England, and there is Brooke admits that the Mormon creation ideas in the usual environmentalist sense of no evidence that the ideas took hold. story "did not quite match the hermetic ideal locating the places he mined to piece to- Another possible source of hermeticism of cieatio ex deb," but "it came quite closen gether his theology. My interest was in the was Royal Arch Freemasonry, whose roots (202). Other supposed similarities are sources of language used in the revelations, reached back to hermetic Rosicrucianism. equally mismatched. Alchemical marriage since we are told they are given in the lan- Brooke says that Joseph Smith Sr. was too sought to unite male and female opposites to guage of the recipients (D&C 1:24). Were poor to join the Masons himself, but he as- resolve them into one; Coniunctio resulted in there alternate ideas or words used in the sumes that, despite Masonic oaths of secrecy, a perfected hermaphroditic Adam with no revelations that would open vistas hidden to the family was "exposedn to Masonic ideas gender. Mormon celestial rnamage perpetu- conventional orthodoxies? Perhaps hermeti- through books and conversation. But ated gender through all eternity, including cism provided an expanded vocabulary for Freemasonry, by his own description, makes procreation of children. In Mormonism, Restoration revelations. virtually nothing of the fundamental her- sexual differences are never to end-scarcely My hope for development of this line of metic ideas that he believes most influenced what the hermetics had in mind. Many inquiry faltered, however, as I worked my Mormonism: the primal unity of spirit and Mormons will have trouble recognizing way through The Refiner's Fire. The historical matter, divine marriage, and divinization. Joseph's teachings in Brooke's hermeticism. evidence for a connection with Joseph simply Royal Arch Masonry embraced none of the Brooke's main argument is neither con- was not there. Brooke believes that he has re- doctrines that Brooke thinks were at the vincing nor discerning. The forcing of resem- covered the route of hermeticism from late heart of Mormonism's inner logic. If those blances results, I believe, from a compulsion Renaissance England to the northeastern hermetic elements were absent from that afflicts many non-Mormon writers: the United States in the nineteenth century. The Freemasonry, there is no visible link between requirement of foreclosing any possibility of path has to have been fairly broad, for, if the fundamental hermetic principles and divine revelation in Joseph's life requires un- argument is to work, hermeticism had to Mormonism. He cannot point to a single site believing writers to leave little room for any have made a powerful impact on Joseph where Joseph Smith could have learned creativity at all, for fear Mormons will Smith and on a large proportion of the about the ideas that supposedly influenced pounce upon any originality and declare it to people who believed him. These exotic ideas him most. Refiner's Fire is not only a history be the work of God. Brooke is determined to had to have ignited Smith's religious imagina- of the occult, it is itself occult in requiring se- find a precedent somewhere for every tion and displaced the conventional cret transmission of key ideas. The operant Mormon idea. even if he must reach back a Christianity of Methodism and Presbyter- words throughout the book are "might have" century or two. He tells us that baptism for ianism that was all about him. How did her- and "possibly" the dead was practiced at Ephrata and plural meticism amve in the northeastern United A lot of the argument rests on the pre- marriage was known among the German sect States in sufficient strength to arouse the sumed similarities of hermeticism and of Schwenkfelders in the Radical Prophet and his followers? Mormonism. But to a great extent, the simi- Reformation. The name of the Melchizedek Brooke points to hermetic ideas filtering larities are in the eye of the beholder. Each priesthood appeared in one of the Masonic into high culture through Emmanuel reader will have to decide if apples are basi- orders. Looking out over the vast sea of past Swedenborg via the Transcendentalists and a cally like oranges. his powerfully syn- cultural practices, Brooke's eye picks out few medical men who reportedly conducted thetic mind, Brooke sees similarities, and he every piece of floating debris that resembles a alchemical experiments, but he does not misses differences. Take spirit and matter, for Mormon idea. claim that the Smiths were in touch with instance. Hermeticism saw matter as coming This heavy-duty "culturalism," as Richard these bookish people. The other routes are from the divine spirit at creation and re- Poirier has termed it, in a review of David S. equally dim. The Ephrata Cloister, which turning to its primal condition as pure spirit. Reynolds's Walt Whitman's America (1994), Brooke calls the highwater mark of hermeti- Joseph Smith said that spirit was refined ha; its limits. Reynolds pursues the historical cism in the colonies, disappeared a half cen- matter and that matter was not created; both sources of Whitman's poetry with the same tury before Mormonism got started, hardly spirit and matter were eternal with God and energy that Brooke lavishes on Joseph Smith. evidence of hermeticism's vitality and via- would last for all eternity Instead of obliter- But in the end, Reynolds misses something. bility During Ephrata's brief existence, ating matter, Mormonism gives it eternal Poirier observes that Reynolds's "flat-minded Brooke can locate only a few visitors passing standing; instead of subsuming matter into understanding of the workings of literary
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languagen stops him from closely examining rather than through grace and atonement. find evidence of hermetic tastes in McLellin? the texts, and as a result, he fails to see that Brooke thinks that standard Protestant doc- The answer is no, but that in itself does not "Whitman inherits nothing that he does not trines gave way in Nauvoo during the height undercut Brooke's case. In Brooke's view, the change.n2Brooke cannot look too carefully at of the hermetic restoration and then re- Radical Reformation exercised the greatest ~oseph'sdistinctive ideas for fear he will find asserted themselves by the end of the nine- influence on the Book of Mormon and the changes and elaborations that cannot be ac- teenth century Taylor's Meditation and early revelations, so early converts may have counted for except to credit Joseph's- genius.- Atonement marked a return to reformation signed on to an especially vigorous rendition Harold Bloom's bestowal of that word on Christianity of millenarian and restorationist Christianity Joseph acknowledged Joseph Smith's cre- and nothing more. Then, as hermeticism ativity Brooke refuses to allow for any origi- ORMON historians will protest took hold through the 18305, these early nality except for a kind of pallid talent in this gloss of the 1840s and 1850s converts, Brooke would say, grew disillu- assembling old ideas. M and can easily assemble tons of ev- sioned and fell away McLellin's chronology Introducing the word "genius" is admit- idence (including the Articles of Faith) to follows that pattern. He preached tedly a dangerous game for secular writers, counter Brooke. But one part of his thesis can Mormonism through the midwest from 1832 for works ofgeniusare by their nature, inex- be tested by perusal of the edition of the to 1836, began to lose confidence in 1836, plicable. Genius, by common admission, car- William E. McLellin papers, which appeared and was entirely disaffected by 1838, when ries human achievement beyond the limits of within a few months of The Refiner's Fire. many other early Mormons left the Church. simple historical explanation, just as revela- McLellin's missionary diaries from 1831 Where McLellin fails to serve Brooke's tion does. To say that the Book of Mormon through 1836, published with full scholarly purpose is in his reasons for leaving the could only be written by a genius is logically apparatus, were a subject of ongoing contro- Church. Hermetic doctrines did not repel not much different from saying God revealed versy long before they saw the light of day him. Instead, he was disappointed when he it. In both cases, we admit that historical They were thought to be locked away in the did not have visions at the dedication of the analysis fails us. Genius implies that some Church vaults or in the hands of Mark Kirtland temple as Joseph Smith had human creations cannot be explained, and Hofmann, who had obtained them from pri- promised. McLellin himself said that he did yet we have no other way to-account for vate owners. Probably prompted by the-ru- not leave the Church because of its doctrines Mozart or Einstein. ~ontem~orarywriters mors, the Church did locate the diaries in the happily acknowledge artistic and scientific First Presidency vault. The documents disap genius but are loath to admit any form of re- pointed readers who believed that McLellin, Eighth Printing ligious inspiration. The consequence is flat- after his excommunication in 1838, would minded readings of Joseph Smith wherein have exposed the evildoings of Church P only similarities are permitted to show. None leaders. The diaries turned out to be an inter- of the wonder of his marvelous powers, esting but pedestrian, day-by-day record of FOR THOSE surely a part of his magnetism, finds its way missionary journeys with little to satisfy a WHO WONDER into secular accounts. taste for gossip. Managing Religious Questions and Doubts Brooke is an ingenious writer who works The preceding controversy, however, many themes. After connecting Mormonism prompted a full-scale treatment when the di- to hermeticism, he goes on to &lain the cy- iries finally came out. In the book, they are cles of change throughout Mormon history ensconced between two introductory essays The Book of Mormon and the first revela- and four studies of the diary offered as "sup tions, he says, were not under the influence plemental resources." Jan Shipps, John of hermeticism. The first converts were Welch, and William Hartley set the diaries in drawn by magic (seerstones and divining), the contexts of American religious history, miracles, and-the doctrines of the ~adiil scriptural narratives of missionary activity, Reformation. But after 1831, hermetic influ- and the history of the Church. The longest ences began to take over, until the hermetic essays are a full-fledged and highly informa- restoration was complete in Nauvoo in 1844 tive biography of McLellin by Lany Porter and continued into Utah through the middle and a analysis of sermon topics, 1850s. Then Brigham Young and other early audiences, and reception by Teresa kr.This hermeticists gradually retreated toward a is the kind of full-scale treatment that is re- D. Jeff Burton served for significant documents, of which more conventional Christianity John Taylor's Foreward by Lowell L. Bennion The Mediation and Atonement is cited as a doc- this is surely one. ument of standard Protestantism. Hermetic McLellinS diaries are usefully read with religion sought for power and redemption The Refiner's Fire because they provide a test through sacred knowledge and holy ritual for Brooke's arguments. DO we, for example, $7 at LDS Bookselle
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"but because the leading men to a great extent possible for a man to be saved in ignorance" NOTES left their religion and run into and after spec- (DQC 89:19, 121:33, 131:6). Those words ulation, pride, and popularity" (321). Like convev the uncalvinistic ~romisethat trea- 1. See "JosephSmith and Kabbalah: The Occult others, McLellin lost faith after the failure of sures bf knowledge rnigh; themselves be re- Connec'io".' ~ialogue:A Jou"Ml oj Momon nought the Mormon bank in Kirtland in 1836 and demptive and that access to the secrets of 27:3 (fall 1994). 117-196. Richard Poirier, .The EscapcArtist,m TheNou 1837. His was a conventional apostasy, God might bring mankind closer to heaven. mblic, 19 lune 1995. 33-39, scarcely a recoil from hermeticism. Brooke's comparison with hermeticism high- ' - Rather than bearing on Brooke's thesis, lights that ' side of Joseph ~m
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