When Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon saw the vision of the three Mormon heavens (a doctrine that distinctively sets Mormonism apart from other Christian religions), there were 11 other men in the room who didn’t see a thing.

I meant, I understand and can respect what you are saying.

As to whether visions still occur, I agree that they are pretty common still, but not discussed openly. If someone told me about their vision, I’d probably be skeptical and would definitely consider the source, but I’m a product of the time we live in. People used to discuss these things very openly in society, and we just don’t do that now. I know of several visions and dreams that have occurred in my family or that I have had that were significant and important to me or to family members, but there is no point to sharing them broadly. They were for that individual’s benefit. Is the point to sharing them to “prove” that the church is still brimming with personal revelation? We can’t prove spiritual matters. Individual conversion is not a matter of proof. So, for better or worse, I don’t see the need.

“I understand and agree with what you are saying to a degree, but I just want to point out that “it either happened or it didn’t happen” actually is a pretty ambiguous statement as far as HOW it happened”

I completely agree with the statement being “ambiguous”, but remember I’m just quoting the guy who actually made the ambiguous statement. Thanks for the respectful answer.

To your point about not calling JS a fraud, many people claim to have communication with the divine and I would be the last person to say they didn’t have it. In fairness, I wasn’t there in the woods that day, so I can’t possibly know what communication, if any, JS had with God. On the same point, nobody here actually knows what happened that day either.

I used to state that “I knew” the First Vision occurred based on what I perceived were strong feelings in my heart about it. For some, those feelings will outweigh anything else. We think God is talking to us and thereby we get our ego stroked as well as go from simply believing to knowing. I say it’s an ego thing because we now also think that we’re worthy enough to have God communicate directly with us.

One of the great waking moments of my life came when I realized those feelings are not always correct. Therefore, basing truth claims of the church strictly on feelings of what one perceives as the spirit is flawed in my opinion. Throughout our lives we tend to remember the times the feelings worked out to show truth and forget the times they don’t. For me, it came to a head when my mother died. I won’t go into the whole story; sufficient to say that she had what we all felt was a powerful spiritual blessing by the Bishop and then died the next day anyway. At the funeral, the Bishop expressed his great bewilderment at feeling so good about what he pronounced in the blessing and then having just the opposite transpire. For him, it made him question his worthiness to give blessings. For me, it was an awakening to understanding that feelings are much more apart of us chemically then spiritually. I’m not saying that God never talks to any of us. I’m just saying for me, that communication path is much more complex than my Mormon upbringing led me to believe. I think the same applies to JS; from my studies, it would seem that he was sincere in his belief that he had experienced something supernatural in his early youth. My point being, he could be 100% sure of his experience and yet in reality nothing actually happened. Just as some claim to “know” having faith no-longer, and yet the truth is actually quite different then their knowledge.

I think I see what you’re getting at. What we think happened partly determines what lessons we derive from the story. My post next week gets into the meanings we derive.

I agree with you entirely. Elder Holland has made similar statements to Hinckley, and they are obviously for polemical purposes. No one who has arrived at a nuanced understanding of our founding events will be seduced by stark black-white dualism anymore. It’s untrue to life.

I look forward to Nick’s post on certainty, as I think we add a thick, glossy patina of certitude to most events in our past, witness the seagulls eating crickets story, which is being slowly neglected in our storytelling now…

I personally found his talk very hard to reconcile. I have tried to walk the middle path and find the good associated in fellowship with the saints, all-the-while feeling like the First Vision was at best believed by Joseph as a type 2 event (thanks Benjamin) or at worst made up to add validity to his claims of divine authority. Based on the things Joseph was teaching in the early days of the church, it seems quite clear that he didn’t develop an understanding of God being corporeal and separate from the Son until after 1835 or so. According to some LDS scholars, missionary work in the 1830’s didn’t involve any mention of the First Vision. That would seem to indicate that the event was not core to the restoration claims of the church and only became important after the Kirtland rebellion.

Call me cynical, but taking what would seem to be a personal spiritual experience of Joseph’s, thereby making it unimportant for the rest of us, and turning it in the most important part of the restoration would seem problematic. If he had a type 3 event, as some have stated, it would seem to me that it would have been the first thing out of his mouth when telling folks why the modern Christian world was wrong and he had the truth. That was the premise of the missionary program when I was out. The very first thing we taught was the First Vision and its importance… I can’t buy into the argument that it was too scared to talk about early on as that would mean it still should be too scared to just put out there to anyone who opens their door to missionaries.

Just my perspective on the whole First Vision thing, please feel free help me see the error in my logic…

Eight months ago I came to the Bloggernacle to do two things: 1) To learn from others about their experiences with the things of the Spirit, 2) to share my experiences. I didn’t know what to expect so I just jumped in. I soon learned that the things of the spirit are rarely talked about in the major LDS blogs. So I’ve set up my own blog. I am finding that people using google are interested in two subjects, prayer and repentance. Those post receive a lot of interest. However, few leave comments.

I suppose it’s like many other things we encounter in life– there is a wide range of talent and capability manifest by men and women in every endeavor mankind undertakes, and apparently this is true with things of the spirit.

What I meant by the “greater manifestations” as nothing to do with me, it has to do with the type of manifestation. A vision is “greater” in its impact than an impression.

This is precisely what I grew to find discomforting about LDS quorums. Little games of “spiritual one-upmanship,” in which one seems to feel some great need to establish themselves as more devout, more “spiritually mature,” etc. “What? You dare disagree with me? Well, obviously you just aren’t experienced with the GREATER manifestations of the spirit! When you have lots of time and experience, like ME, then you’ll come bowing and scraping at my feet, to acknowledge my glorious superiority!” Ugly and repulsive.

Good question. From the post and comments I read the discussion was dealing with theory only. There are enough church members who have experienced the things of the spirit that dealing with theory isn’t necessary.

Nick said; I’ve certainly had spiritual experiences which I interpreted as visions or revelations at the time, but subsequently had reason to reconsider. Sometimes I had to conclude that they were not “authentic.”

My experience differs when it comes to the greater manifestations of the spirit. A vision is presented with sufficient power that the recipient is unable to a misunderstand what the Lord is communicating to him/her. A “feeling” or an impression can be misunderstood. We are taught that it takes time and experience to develop and grow in our ability to discern impressions. On occasion, I’ve make mistakes thinking an impression that came to my mind was from the Lord, however, as events related to the impression came about I had to conclude that I had erred.

Jared, what makes you certain that nobody in this discussion has had experienced which they believe were spiritual visions? Experiencing a vision doesn’t make you automatically believe every other person’s claims of receiving visions. For that matter, experiencing a vision doesn’t even make the receiver sure that they have received a vision. I’ve certainly had spiritual experiences which I interpreted as visions or revelations at the time, but subsequently had reason to reconsider. Sometimes I had to conclude that they were not “authentic.” Others I’m still not able to define with absolute certainty.

I think you’re right, Ray. It seems, however, that a culture developed in the LDS church where it wasn’t considered “appropriate” to share certain kinds of spiritual experiences publicly. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young certainly advised against indiscrete sharing of personal revelation, for a variety of reasons. I think this cultural phenomenon goes beyond what they were saying, though.

In a weird sort of way, this cultural sense of discretion has produced an unfortunate side effect. If you step into your same random LDS congregation on Fast Sunday, and an average member (i.e. not one in a “high” position of ecclesiastical leadership) happens to describe a vision they receieved, what will be the reaction? Some may quietly think it was “inappropriate,” but I think it’s fair to say a majority will conclude the speaker is imbalanced. The relative absence of sharing these stories eventually makes the stories sound less and less credible to their intended audience.

There are more explicitly “visionary” episodes recorded in the the D&C, of course, the most spectacular of which is D&C 76:11-24. This account, too, however, mentions seeing the Only Begotten of the Father on the right hand of God (v.23).

I’m not sure if this helps shed further light upon the First Vision or not, but maybe. They probably have influenced subsequent readings of the First Vision accounts as visitations, however, because they suggest physical interaction with the heavenly beings (ordination involving laying on of hands(?), Moroni showing the Golden Plates and other artifacts, etc.). Terryl Givens talks about this emphasis on the physicality of God and the tangible, artifactual nature of our theology as one of the major distinguishing features of Mormonism in contrast to other Christian faiths of the 19th century.

Fascinating discussion.

I will say this from having worked with a group of schizophrenics. Anyone who suggests that JS was schizophrenic and was able to accomplish what he did, all while completely untreated in any way, has likely never worked with anyone with schizophrenia. The disease is completely and utterly debilitating for the vast majority of complainants, and I do not credit such theories as even worth the time it takes to speak them. Not even worth debunking.

I’ve thought more about my taxonomy, and I’m still considering (busy week at work, so not much time). Let me say this: in reading some of the subsequent discussion I’ve noted a disturbing amount of discussion about whether or not there are still visions.

I will agree with Bill and Nick and others who state that it does indeed seem as if there are fewer and fewer public statements of ‘I have seen in vision a need to do this…” followed by a new policy for the Church. Or for church leaders to make certain things explicit. I sometimes wonder why this is, but I do not think that this is because such things are not happening.

There are often sacred, very intimate (and there is, unfortunately, no better word to use for this) experiences that a person can have that one does not share. Many of these are what I referred to as either Type 0 (Glimpses) experiences, or even Type 2 (angelic) experiences, which would only be shared as doctrinal if one is the prophet of the church (something the early church took a bit to explain, very patiently, to its members).

The unfortunate effect of all this is that this means that all but those experience shared by the prophet over the pulpit at General Conference are now considered ‘glurge’, or at best anecdotal. This means that the scientific observer is going to discount, and seemingly justified in doing so, all accounts of LDS visions, miracles, priesthood blessings healing the sick, and everything else that happens. So how does a member know whether or not these things actually occur? Ultimately, the only way becomes to seek these experiences personally, even in a time when mass email, nearly instantaneous communication and blogs are common. Which, I rather suspect, may be exactly what the Lord is after.

I will say this, I know from personal experience that the Type 0 experiences do happen. I know from personal experience that Priesthood Blessings have power. Those are cause and effect observations. I have faith that there is a God in Heaven, and that He hears and answers prayers. I have faith that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was established by that same God and is led by him through a prophet. I know that there are a lot of things that I don’t know, and that I’m a big dummy sometimes. I have doubts at times, and there are times when I have had serious questions. During those times, though, I have always come back to the fact that there are certain experiences that I cannot explain away that easily.

Now, that aside, personal feelings and witnesses put back where I want them, let me say this: I also think there may be a very solid reason that the Church leadership is less prone to speak of visions so directly. As Bill mentioned one possible, and not unreasonable, explanation is that the LDS church has apostasized. I can see that perspective, offensive as it may be. However if we are to reject it, we must provide an alternate hypothesis. You cannot reject any hypothesis, no matter how offensive, simply because it is offensive, so long as it is the only standing hypothesis that fits the facts. Of course, it remains to be seen that it does fit the facts (I argue that it does not). Instead we must, as a community, provide an alternate hypothesis.

I would argue that LDS leadership has begun under-reporting visions not only because of their sacred nature (alternate hypothesis 1, which is somewhat unsatisfactory), but also because their administrative nature. I suspect that most of the visions that 12 and 1st presidency receive currently are either dealing with items of an extremely personal nature or an extremely administrative nature, and are therefore deemed too sacred or of no special interest, and are therefore not shared. Of course, I have no real idea about this, and I could be completely off, having never been in that position.

Oh well. Enjoy.