Found My Own Seer Stone.

[JAHS]

I never get any bars on it though.  😉

Three serious questions:
1. What was it about the original stone that Joseph Smith found that made him think it was a seer stone?
2. Was there anything special about it or was it 100% revelation and the stone was only a tool? Would any stone work?
3. How many bars would President Nelson get on that original stone we have now?

Edited April 29, 2020 by JAHS

[teddyaware]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

I never get any bars on it though. 

Three questions:
1. What was it about the original stone that Joseph Smith found that made him think it was a seer stone?
2. Was there anything special about it or was it 100% revelation and the stone was only a tool? Would any stone work?
3. How many bars would President Nelson get on that original stone we have now?

Just as the Lord was able to use his matchless knowledge and power to transform the brother of Jared’s 16 ordinary pieces of glass into inexhaustible sources of intense physical light, the Lord was also able to temporarily transform an ordinary stone into a powerful source of revelatory spiritual light and knowledge.

4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.
5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men. (Ether 3)

[sunstoned]

3 minutes ago, teddyaware said:

Just as the Lord was able to use his matchless knowledge and power to transform the brother of Jared’s 16 ordinary pieces of glass into inexhaustible sources of intense physical light, the Lord was also able to temporarily transform an ordinary stone into a powerful source of revelatory spiritual light and knowledge.

4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.
5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men. (Ether 3)

One question. Did the Lord temporarily transform the ordinary stone into a powerful source of spiritual light for both Joseph's treasure hunting and translation?  I get confused on this because it seams Joseph used the same process for both.

[JAHS]

4 minutes ago, teddyaware said:

Just as the Lord was able to use his matchless knowledge and power to transform the brother of Jared’s 16 ordinary pieces of glass into inexhaustible sources of intense physical light, the Lord was also able to temporarily transform an ordinary stone into a powerful source of revelatory spiritual light and knowledge.

4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.
5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men. (Ether 3)

Sounds reasonable. I just wonder when Joseph Smith found his seer stone in a well he was digging did he think.   "Hey, this is a seer stone".  Or did he just think "I could use this as a seer stone"
I guess there's no real such details about what he was thinking when he found it. I am just wondering if it was a seer stone before he found it or did it become one in his hands? Your scriptures would support the latter. The staff Moses and Aaron used was probably just a regular stick of wood before they got it.

[JAHS]

21 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

One question. Did the Lord temporarily transform the ordinary stone into a powerful source of spiritual light for both Joseph's treasure hunting and translation?  I get confused on this because it seams Joseph used the same process for both.

I don't think it was ever actually successfully used  for treasure hunting but he was successful in using it for translation purposes.

[sunstoned]

7 minutes ago, JAHS said:

I don't think it was ever actually successfully used  for treasure hunting but he was successful in using it for translation purposes.

This is one of the parts of the story that I find hard to believe. He used the same stone to treasure hunt (which could be argued was just a con). and he used the the same stone in the same way to "translate" the BoM.   

[teddyaware]

55 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

One question. Did the Lord temporarily transform the ordinary stone into a powerful source of spiritual light for both Joseph's treasure hunting and translation?  I get confused on this because it seams Joseph used the same process for both.

If Joseph’s fancied peep stone of his earlier days was, in fact, the very same stone he used to translate the Book of Mormon, then the answer is the Lord could take that stone and transform it into a real, functioning seer stone just as well as he could any other stone on planet earth. In fact, we’re told that when this earth is celestialized the whole mass of it, including that storied stone of Joseph’s, is going to be transformed by the power of God into a gigantic Urim and Thummim. That means that every stone in the world, including the ones that look like the least likely candidates, are all eventually going to be amalgamated and then transformed into an immense Urim and Thummim.

8 The place where God resides is a great Urim and Thummim.

9 This earth in it’s sanctified and immortal state, will be made like unto crystal and will be a Urim and Thummim to the inhabitants who dwell thereon... (D&C 130)

Edited April 29, 2020 by teddyaware

[teddyaware]

50 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Sounds reasonable. I just wonder when Joseph Smith found his seer stone in a well he was digging did he think.   "Hey, this is a seer stone".  Or did he just think "I could use this as a seer stone"
I guess there's no real such details about what he was thinking when he found it. I am just wondering if it was a seer stone before he found it or did it become one in his hands? Your scriptures would support the latter. The staff Moses and Aaron used was probably just a regular stick of wood before they got it.

It appears to me that for whatever reason — perhaps an extraordinary aptitude and affinity for spiritual things that he acquired in the preexistence — Joseph was intuitively attuned to such possibilities even before the First Vision.

[snowflake]

13 hours ago, JAHS said:

I never get any bars on it though.  😉

Three serious questions:
1. What was it about the original stone that Joseph Smith found that made him think it was a seer stone?
2. Was there anything special about it or was it 100% revelation and the stone was only a tool? Would any stone work?
3. How many bars would President Nelson get on that original stone we have now?

The seer stones are one of the best relics and tangible evidences for the whole Joseph Smith story.....I find them fascinating and when I first started researching Joseph Smith and the origins of the LDS church I had one of those......wait.....is this for real?....... moments. They are magical, mystical, full of awe, powerful, sacred and reminded me of Indiana Jones!

[CV75]

13 hours ago, JAHS said:

Three serious questions:
1. What was it about the original stone that Joseph Smith found that made him think it was a seer stone?
2. Was there anything special about it or was it 100% revelation and the stone was only a tool? Would any stone work?
3. How many bars would President Nelson get on that original stone we have now?

My opinion, based on various accounts and other opinions:

1. I'm sure it was Joseph's belief system at the time that brought him to the conclusion it was a seer stone. The Lord then accommodated and blessed him for using the "technology" of the day in good-faith for righteous aims.

2. I'm sure that any stone that Joseph picked under the same circumstances would have served the Lord's purposes in getting Joseph into a frame of mind to receive revelation.

3. I'm sure that President Nelson does not share the same belief system that young Joseph did back in 1822.

[CV75]

11 hours ago, sunstoned said:

One question. Did the Lord temporarily transform the ordinary stone into a powerful source of spiritual light for both Joseph's treasure hunting and translation?  I get confused on this because it seams Joseph used the same process for both.

I'm sure at that stage, Joseph found both aims worthy of divine help as he understood it, and that the Lord demonstrated divine grace for the translation process. We see how Joseph learned the difference between his will and the Lord's, and his proactive efforts and submission to the Lord's commandments, sometimes in very painful ways.

[JAHS]

7 minutes ago, CV75 said:

3. I'm sure that President Nelson does not share the same belief system that young Joseph did back in 1822.

We assume that the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon will some day be opened and translated. Would the current prophet use the seer stone for that purpose or some other way more contemporary with what we have today?

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, JAHS said:

I never get any bars on it though.  😉............................

Three serious questions:
1. What was it about the original stone that Joseph Smith found that made him think it was a seer stone?
2. Was there anything special about it or was it 100% revelation and the stone was only a tool? Would any stone work?
3. How many bars would President Nelson get on that original stone we have now?

1. Joseph wasn't the only person in early America to have and use such stones.  People in his region had such stones, and they believed in their effectiveness.  Non-Mormon historian Jon Butler said that “the survival of European occult or magical practices in the American colonies” was entirely normal, and that “magic and Christianity in colonial America were not generically different entities but were subsets of the same phenomenon – religion” (“Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760," American Historical Review, 84/2 [April 1979]:318-319).  Mike Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View contains the following from an 1820 Palmyra newspaper article and other contemporary sources:

Quote

. . . peep stones or pebbles, taken promiscuously from the brook or field, were placed in a hat or other situation excluded from the light, when some witch or wizard (for these performances were not confined to either sex) applied their eyes, and nearly starting their [eye]balls from their sockets, declared they saw all the wonders of nature, including of course, ample stores of silver and gold.
 
Sally Chase was known to use a hat with a seer stone in it.
 
In Essex Vermont in1824 a local treasure seeker "carried in his hat the mystical stone in which he could see the precise locality and enormous quantity of the concealed precious metals."
 
"In 1815 in Rochester (New York) the 18 year old son of a British immigrant named Smith found a round stone the size of a man's fist. For a time he guided Rochester's residents in search of buried treasure after adjusting the stone in his hat."

Joseph himself was able to find lost items for people with his stone.  His friends told stories about it.

Even earlier, Wolfram von Eschenbach portrayed the Holy Grail as a green stone or “super jewel” upon which writing could appear, in his medieval Parzival (H. Mustard & C. Passage, trans., Parzival: A Romance of the Middle Ages [1961], xv,xli-xlv).   Even earlier, in Jewish Midrash Genesis Rabba 31:11 (on Gen 6:16 tsohar) had Noah using some sort of precious stone (tsohar) to provide light during the twelve months in the enclosed Ark, telling time by noting the sparkle of the stone at night and dimness during the day.  Just so, in Talmud Babli Soferim 21:9 (43b), Abraham used a bowl of brilliant precious stones to provide light in a sunless city he had built, and he also "had a precious stone suspended from his neck, and every sick that gazed upon it was immediately healed of his disease" (TB Baba Batra 16b).  The similarity here to the special stones in Ether 3:1-6,23-24, and 6:2-3 should not be missed.

2.  Why would it matter which stone was used?

3. Pres Nelson would only get as many bars as God thought he needed at the time, whether he pulled out Joseph's stone from the LDS Archives, or indeed picked up Oliver's rod (which Brother Brigham brought west).  If God didn't think he needed any, he'd get no power bars.

[The Nehor]

The idea that the stone was transformed into something else is probably incorrect. Any miracle in the translation probably did not involve the stone's properties changing.

[Tacenda]

What do you all think of the comparison of the seer stone to a cell phone? When I first moved to my current ward two years ago, I took the advice from members here on the board to be open about my struggles with belief and get some help through my bishop or elsewhere in the ward because in my previous ward I didn't meet with my bishop, only through one email.

My husband and I both met with our current bishop and we didn't say what our struggles were over specifically with history of the church but our bishop immediately went to the matter of the seer stone in a hat and the method of translation. He picked up his cell phone and said it's no different than using a cell phone, and may have quoted Elder Uchtdorf's example. I don't blame him, he may have just helped someone like me and they discussed that specific item.

 

[CV75]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

We assume that the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon will some day be opened and translated. Would the current prophet use the seer stone for that purpose or some other way more contemporary with what we have today?

I lean toward the Seer/translator using the stones that were placed in the box with the plates, in order to be consistent with magnifying the Lord's purpose in preparing them, since they were taken away from Joseph and will again be restored to the President of the Church (along with the sealed portion of the book and perhaps the other relics). I cannot think of a modern counterpart to a seer stone*, but that would be a personal choice/understanding held by the Prophet/Seer/Revelator anyway.

* Apart from any recent examples of physical materials given in relation to #HearHim, but those are so much more subtle than a rock!

[CV75]

10 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

What do you all think of the comparison of the seer stone to a cell phone? When I first moved to my current ward two years ago, I took the advice from members here on the board to be open about my struggles with belief and get some help through my bishop or elsewhere in the ward because in my previous ward I didn't meet with my bishop, only through one email.

My husband and I both met with our current bishop and we didn't say what our struggles were over specifically with history of the church but our bishop immediately went to the matter of the seer stone in a hat and the method of translation. He picked up his cell phone and said it's no different than using a cell phone, and may have quoted Elder Uchtdorf's example. I don't blame him, he may have just helped someone like me and they discussed that specific item.

It would need to be a cell phone that only the Lord spoke through, and that the person listening selected, believing it was prepared for them for that purpose. Not everyone could use Joseph's seer stone successfully, even by imitation.

[JAHS]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Joseph wasn't the only person in early America to have and use such stones.  People in his region had such stones, and they believed in their effectiveness. 

I am just wondering what made people decide that what they had was a seer stone apart from any other stone one might pick up off the ground.

[strappinglad]

I find the incident of Martin switching the stone out and seeing the Joseph was unable to translate , interesting. Apparently not just any stone would do. Then again, if God was aware of the trick, He could have withheld the translation on purpose to thwart Martin. 

[Tacenda]

9 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

I find the incident of Martin switching the stone out and seeing the Joseph was unable to translate , interesting. Apparently not just any stone would do. Then again, if God was aware of the trick, He could have withheld the translation on purpose to thwart Martin. 

Surely Joseph was on to him.

[strappinglad]

That's spelled Shirley , Tacenda. 😎

[CV75]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

I am just wondering what made people decide that what they had was a seer stone apart from any other stone one might pick up off the ground.

My understanding is that they believed they had a gift to find and use it, believed they received a sign or omen to do so, or believed in acting on "lucky penny" moments.

Edited April 29, 2020 by CV75

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

That's spelled Shirley , Tacenda. 😎

Well if that works better, haha!

 

[Calm]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that the stone was transformed into something else is probably incorrect. Any miracle in the translation probably did not involve the stone's properties changing.

I agree, but there may be physical properties that we are not aware of that God could make use of to have the stone release light. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

Mine:

I found the banded jasper on the climb out of our deepest gorge a few years ago. It really stood out as the geology of the gorge is quite simple: c. 170 metres of limestone at the base topped with c. 230 metres of shale (which makes the steeper sections of the track quite treacherous, both down and up).

The white stone I found under one of the pews at church whilst vacuuming one Saturday morning a short time later. It was clearly a keeper as well. In my world, keeping an eye out for and picking up interesting stones is just what boys do. When I was very little, I had cigar boxes filled with them, and always one or two in my pockets.

I haven't seen anything in/with either of them, but then I never expected to.

What I do know, with certainty, is that God reveals verifiable information through visions ... including during a morning 'fireside' with what must have been the world's most boring Area Seventy ...

Edited April 30, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan