Found My Own Seer Stone.

[Bernard Gui]

12 hours ago, 2BizE said:

19 th century folk magic and occult/superstition. Many people were very superstitious and believed in magic and the occult.  It was no wonder they believed a man could place a rock in a hat and find buried treasure, even buried gold plates.

What do you think of the miracles performed by Jesus?

[whisker]

16 hours ago, 2BizE said:

19 th century folk magic and occult/superstition. Many people were very superstitious and believed in magic and the occult.  It was no wonder they believed a man could place a rock in a hat and find buried treasure, even buried gold plates.

 

"Superstitious Customs and Divining Methods" (what could be called "Randomizing Elements") are at the core of reality and the foundation of human culture. 

Religion can't fight with modern science and it's a mistake to expect them to; They play different games.  Science is in the business of classifying events that can be noticed, repeated, studied, improved , isolated and thus producible ad infinitum. Attempting the same with spirituality is like trying to catch a river with a lasso. All you get back get is a soggy rope and the water keeps going.

These "ritualistic" methods.... They aren't concavities (particles, crests) that can be replicated in a lab; they are convex processes (waves, troughs) that allow one to see the reflection of their own being in that exact moment of time--- something that only ever happens once in the universe.

We can't find a way to actually peek into someone subjective experience, thus science is blind to this. All tangible certainty is out the window. And that's good-- the ego must be silence for the River Life to speak...

A randomizer props your next decision up against a wall, fork or split. When the device or channel makes a decision, your subconscious reacts naturally to the result and--- gotcha!

A deeper, intuitive judgment reveals its self--  intension has pierce the dissonance of uncertainty.

The 19th century was the formative phase of American culture, and were the tools available to a prophet/shaman/diviner at the time. Please examine the spiritual soil on which the seeds were planted.

[whisker]

7 hours ago, whisker said:

"These "ritualistic" methods.... "

 

Correction (I swapped terms, oops):

They aren't convexities (particles, crests) that can be replicated in a lab; they are concave processes (waves, troughs).

[Hamba Tuhan]

14 hours ago, whisker said:

Science is in the business of classifying events that can be noticed, repeated, studied, improved , isolated and thus producible ad infinitum.

Exactly. And God is not a process; He's our Father. And people tend to be far more unpredictable than natural processes ... especially when they posses all knowledge and therefore can perfectly individualise responses to both us and our circumstances.

But then, I remember thinking as a small child that my parents were unpredictable. In part they were, but in large part, I just didn't see what they saw. Now that I do, their 'inconsistencies' make perfect sense to me.

[whisker]

13 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Now that I do, their 'inconsistencies' make perfect sense to me.

Beautiful. I'm experiencing that realization at the moment.

[alter idem]

On 5/2/2020 at 10:26 AM, Bernard Gui said:

Ahhh. The “old white hat” trick. This would seem to contradict the “translucent” description of the hat in Tacenda’s RFM report. In that one, he fooled everyone by seeing through the hat, but in the other, he fooled them by not seeing through the hat. Maybe there was a hole in the hat thorough which he could locate pins. The secret flap would also be a great place to hide a rabbit. On the other hand, if Martin’s story is true, then Joseph really must have had some sort of super powers. I wonder how he could find a pin on the floor but not Captain Kidds’ treasure in the ground. The mass of the metal must not have been a factor. Maybe he was yanking Martin’s chain...he saw where the pin fell and was just having a little fun. I wonder how accurate these kinds of tales are. How reliable are almost 40 year old memories recounted about Joseph in Tiffany’s Monthly? 

BTW, I own two white hats.

I had the same thought.  It will be interesting to find out on the other side, just how many of these stories were embellished or totally made up.

[alter idem]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:35 PM, Tacenda said:

I understand your not wanting to believe Joseph did this. But what if he really didn't need any of it, and just wanted to use one. It didn't appear he needed it for the D&C or the BoA, or I could be wrong. 

I think it's more that it's not feasible.  As I read the explanation that he puts his head in the hat, then he's blocking the light he would need to read a paper. And he'd have to waste lots of valuable papers doing this. Where did he get all those loose papers and who wrote on them? Then switching out the papers, hiding them in a small house where no one would see? This must involve a conspiracy as he'd need help, and we're back to the fact there was no evidence to support a conspiracy to fake the bofm. So, I think radio free Mormon's theory is pretty far fetched.

[alter idem]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:54 PM, Tacenda said:

I listened to RadioFreemormon's latest podcast while going for a walk. He is a magician I guess, and said that Joseph Smith is using a stone to throw people off, and in actuality it's the top hat being white and translucent that is the trick. He seems to think that Joseph had someway put a paper in the hat to read, maybe a secret flap or something. And when they'd take a break from translating he'd change out the paper or something. Has FairMormon discussed this? Or has any apologist attempted to discredit something like that happening?

I think his theory is so ludicrous it's not worth FairMormon etc taking it seriously, it was discredited just on this thread. He must not have taken much time to think about it before putting it out. But thanks for sharing, it gave me a good laugh.

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, alter idem said:

I think his theory is so ludicrous it's not worth FairMormon etc taking it seriously, it was discredited just on this thread. He must not have taken much time to think about it before putting it out. But thanks for sharing, it gave me a good laugh.

 Unless something gets traction, we don’t usually write anything up unless it is of interest to ourselves. We are after all a volunteer organization doing this in our spare time and paying for the privilege rather than being paid.  There is plenty questioners want us to give our attention to without looking for trivial stuff. 

[alter idem]

I just read this quote from Emma Smith about her time as scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon.  She said this:  'I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it and dictating hour after hour, with nothing between us.  He had neither mss nor book to read from.  If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.  The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in.'  Then she goes on to describe the sound and feel of the plates and their rustling metal pages.  (Interview by her son, Joseph Smith III 1879 (rough stone rolling, pg 57)

Seems like Radiofreemormon, in suggesting his 'theory' about the translation process, is ignoring Emma's already responding to those who apparently made similar allegations (his theory isn't new).  Joseph had his face 'buried' so no light could penetrate the hat, it wasn't translucent and he had nothing he could have read from, and if he had, she would have known it, he couldn't have pulled off a charade of this nature and she would not have supported him if he'd tried.

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, alter idem said:

I think his theory is so ludicrous it's not worth FairMormon etc taking it seriously, it was discredited just on this thread. He must not have taken much time to think about it before putting it out. But thanks for sharing, it gave me a good laugh.

You're welcome! I don't find it that convincing at all.

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I don't find it that convincing at all.

One certainly hopes Mr Free Mormon is more convincing when he's trying to help drink drivers escape punishment in court.

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

One certainly hopes Mr Free Mormon is more convincing when he's trying to help drink drivers escape punishment in court.

I don't, I hope he is very unconvincing...I think drunk drivers should have extremely high penalties unless they can prove someone spiked their drink.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Calm

[Tacenda]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don't, I hope he is very unconvincing...I think drunk drivers should have extremely high penalties unless they can prove someone spiked their drink.

I didn't know what kind of lawyer he was, interesting.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I don't, I hope he is very unconvincing...I think drunk drivers should have extremely high penalties unless they can prove someone spiked their drink.

Sorry, I forgot to use sarcasm marks!

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Sorry, I forgot to use sarcasm marks!

Yeah, I figure...but that kind of stuff I don't do sarcasm myself, it disturbs me too much.  Diminished capacity because of something one can't control, I can accept that...but the first drink is under the vast majority of people's control even they remove their ability for later drinks.  If you are going to drink, make sure it is impossible for you to drive what becomes a lethal weapon when someone drunk is behind the wheel.

As long as we have a culture of drinking, we need to make sure it is easy, admirable, and safe for people to let others drive them.  

[nuclearfuels]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:38 AM, sunstoned said:

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.   

I use GPS and probability to hunt for treasure or dig for money if you will. 

I love it.

[Fair Dinkum]

On 4/28/2020 at 7:03 PM, 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?

So a little confession.  I have little problem with an ancient  breastplate with silver bars holding 2 translucent stones with which to look through AKA a Urim & Thummin, nor do I have much problem with the stone's that the finger of God touched that illuminated the Jaredite Barges. I have founds ways to  accept these stories. But transferring that to an ordinary rock found at the bottom of a well excavation sight, I do struggle to find the faith with which to support belief.  It stretches credulity.   To me this is the most bizarre article of required faith with in the churches claims.

I look at this rock and see an ordinary rock and I have very serious doubts that President Nelson has ever tested the veracity of the stone in the hat.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Fair Dinkum

[Fair Dinkum]

We can all have our own seer stone

[JAHS]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

So a little confession.  I have little problem with an ancient  breastplate with silver bars holding 2 translucent stones with which to look through AKA a Urim & Thummin, nor do I have much problem with the stone's that the finger of God touched that illuminated the Jaredite Barges. I have founds ways to  accept these stories. But transferring that to an ordinary rock found at the bottom of a well excavation sight, I do struggle to find the faith with which to support belief.  It stretches credulity.   To me this is the most bizarre article of required faith with in the churches claims.

I look at this rock and see an ordinary rock and I have very serious doubts that President Nelson has ever tested the veracity of the stone in the hat.

The stones that God touched were stones that the Brother of Jared made himself out of ordinary rock he found much like the ordinary stone Joseph Smith found in the well. The difference is that they were both made supernatural through the power of God. The rod of Aaron was also most likely a normal piece of wood that was also put to supernatural use by the power of God to perform the miracles that were done with it. Since God is all powerful I don't see why He could not make any ordinary object a useful tool for man through which he demonstrates His power. 

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

So a little confession.  I have little problem with an ancient  breastplate with silver bars holding 2 translucent stones with which to look through AKA a Urim & Thummin, nor do I have much problem with the stone's that the finger of God touched that illuminated the Jaredite Barges. I have founds ways to  accept these stories. But transferring that to an ordinary rock found at the bottom of a well excavation sight, I do struggle to find the faith with which to support belief.  It stretches credulity.   To me this is the most bizarre article of required faith with in the churches claims.

I look at this rock and see an ordinary rock and I have very serious doubts that President Nelson has ever tested the veracity of the stone in the hat.

Were the stones that God touched out of the ordinary before he touched them?

If God the Spirit touches a stone, might not that change it as well as if God the Son did?

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I look at this rock and see an ordinary rock ...

That's what I see too. I think that's a natural response.

My first year at university, I dated a Latter-day Saint student who shared with me that God spoke to her through dreams. Because I really liked her, I pretended that was OK, but in my head, I was laughing at her gullibility and foolishness. I knew dreams. I'd taken a bath in the middle of my primary school, spent an entire night being chased by werewolves, flown like Superman, and run down an endless spiral staircase with a giant Pacman behind me. Dreams are the crazy things that our brains do when we give them free rein -- no God involved.

And then one night, several months later, I had a dream that didn't involve Pacman or werewolves or showing up to class only to realise I'd forgot about the exam. It was different to every other dream I'd had before. It lasted the entire night. I woke up the next morning filled with a joy and peace that I craved to recapture. The message was clear: I needed to serve a mission.

My parents didn't want me to serve a mission. In fact, only weeks earlier, they had asked me not to even consider it for at least a year or two. That suited me just fine. And my bishop at the university was happy with that too. All was well. Until a dream -- perhaps? -- told me that I needed to serve a mission ...

So I started acting on that message, just a little here and a little there. Doors opened. My pathway seemed more obvious. The final 'obstacle' was my parents' disapproval. One evening, after repeated prayer, I rang them to discuss this. My mum answered the phone and asked me if I wanted to discuss serving a mission. What?! I said yes and asked how she knew that. She told me that she and Dad were still on their knees, having finished their evening prayers together. At the end of which, she had said to my dad, 'Hamba needs to serve a mission'. To which he replied, 'You got that message too?' And so they'd stayed on their knees discussing what to make of this new instruction, how to accept it, how to act on it. That's when the phone had rung.

More than a year later, as I was serving in my third area, I started teaching a woman who asked me why I was serving a mission. I'd never shared it before, but I decided to tell her about my dream. I did so in detail, including one detail that had always bothered me: visiting the home of a famous rock star. I mean, surely that wasn't from God. In fact, that detail meant that, despite having left to serve, I still wasn't sure that God had spoken to me. Maybe it was just one more crazy dream -- not too dissimilar to werewolves?

She seemed stunned. 'When do you want to go?' she asked.

'What?'

'When do you want to go?'

It turned out that this woman's mother, who was a real estate agent, had just sold a house down the street and around the corner to the very rock star I had dreamt that I would meet as a missionary.

We visited twice Nothing came of it ... except, finally, the assurance to me that God can and does speak to people through dreams.

That's an experience I have now had multiple times. Each time the communication has been fully verified. I no longer find it odd when people say that God spoke to them through something completely ordinary that happens to each of us every night. That doesn't mean that I have to believe it each time someone says that. I still think some people can be wrong. But I know for myself that it's a real possibility.

[alter idem]

On 5/12/2020 at 8:47 AM, Fair Dinkum said:

So a little confession.  I have little problem with an ancient  breastplate with silver bars holding 2 translucent stones with which to look through AKA a Urim & Thummin, nor do I have much problem with the stone's that the finger of God touched that illuminated the Jaredite Barges. I have founds ways to  accept these stories. But transferring that to an ordinary rock found at the bottom of a well excavation sight, I do struggle to find the faith with which to support belief.  It stretches credulity.   To me this is the most bizarre article of required faith with in the churches claims.

I look at this rock and see an ordinary rock and I have very serious doubts that President Nelson has ever tested the veracity of the stone in the hat.

I'm reading Rough Stone Rolling,  the biography of Joseph Smith Jr,  and had an interesting thought come to me. Joseph's dabbling with a seer stone to find lost items for others and treasure has often bothered me,  as it somewhat sullied his reputation and these activities have often been buried, minimized or apologetically explained within the church, Imo. Even the stone in the hat was not spoken of in mainstream for a long time. But the thought came to me that Joseph had a gift of seership, it was a gift of the spirit and like all these gifts, it could be used to bless and serve others and glorify God or could be used to serve oneself and in worldly pursuits.  Joseph's most important mission would require his ability and skill to be honed and strengthened to exersize this gift.

His mother said he had a gift and then found the stone and started using it, I presume as he'd seen others use what they viewed as a special stone. This is biblical,  so it wasn't considered out of the norm for Christians.  Joseph learned to use his gift in ways that helped others but also helped himself by gaining a reputation that he was skilled in finding lost things, buried treasure etc and it paid money,  something the family desperately needed. He used it this way for a couple of years, but as he matured and began to understand more his divine mission,  he started to pull away from treasure hunting and that crowd. I think this was hard, because they believed in his abilities, and wanted him to keep using his gift, giving them work too. Putting the stone in the hat was a common way to do it, which I assume Joseph learned from other seer stone users. But it tied him back to money digging ways,  which most are uncomfortable with, imo. However,  I feel that his early efforts in money digging trained and prepared him as he came to mature in the use of his gift.  

 Moroni didn't tell him how to translate, Joseph had to figure it out, study it out in his mind etc, and prepare spiritually and I think in his first efforts at translation he might have tried to rely on his early efforts at finding things; it was likely a hit and miss learning curve but with time, he came to understand he must humble himself and rely on God completely,  for the translation to come to him. It was slow and rocky at first, especially the setback of losing the 116 pages, which was an awful experience that really humbled, corrected and taught him. It was  learning through line upon line, developing a faith and reliance on the spirit, till he was fully prepared and ready to complete what seems an impossible task given him by God. God also sent help--Oliver Cowdery came, others helped, by offering a suitable place for working on the translation unencumbered, and food, writing supplies were given. It all came together and the translation flowed at incredible proportions till they completed the huge task in just a couple of months.

I propose that none of that was going to happen unless Joseph began by using that seer stone as a 'money digger'. It was the plan. Maybe someone more righteous and spiritually in tune as a teen could've done it without getting involved with a superstitious pursuit,  but I personally doubt it.  God chose him, one of the weak things of the world, in humble circumstances too.

 And where else was Joseph going to get an education or learn how to develop what was perceived as magical or supernatural abilities in the 1820s, but from the magical and superstitious things of his times? 

This is my personal opinion,  but it probably was an ordinary rock, the object wasn't what was important (though consecrating an ordinary object makes a difference imo),  it was a tool for directing his faith and concentration, reliance to trust that God had a task and he would provide a way. Imo, if the stone etc was really necessary,  then Joseph would have needed to use the Urim and Thummin every time, so I don't believe the gift of seership actually requires a tool. 

[cacheman]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:37 AM, Hamba Tuhan said:

Sorry, I forgot to use sarcasm marks!

I hope that anyone accused of a crime receives competent representation from lawyers looking out for their best interest.  As a fellow American,  I would hope that you agree. 

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 hours ago, cacheman said:

As a fellow American,  I would hope that you agree. 

What makes you assume I'm an American?