I introduce a new translation of Joseph Smith's First Vision, giving some background to this interpretation of his mystical experience, the nature of translation, its pseudepigraphal nature, how it was done, and more.
Tag: Mormonism
On Lineages and Transmissions of Mystical Knowledge and Spiritual Power
Can mysticism or spirituality be transmitted from one person to another? I suggest yes and no.
The Radical Irony of Mystical Experience: The Overview Effect of the Divine
The ironies and paradoxes run high and deep in mystical experience. Here is some of what I've experienced.
The Glory of God is Consciousness
A reinterpretation of a revelation to Joseph Smith on the glory of God.
A Mystical Reinterpretation of the Mormon (Christian) view of the Nature of God
This is my response to a recent video produced by the LDS Church on the nature of God. My reinterpretation moves away from the supernatural dualistic interpretation, towards a more immanent nondualistic interpretation of the Divine.
Relative Truth, Knowledge, and Morals in Mormonism, Law, and Mysticism
Will we ever discover the absolute truth, moral or intellectual, or otherwise? Can we ever know the Absolute?
By finding Nothing, we find Everything
A recent discovery of a galaxy without dark matter may be evidence or even proof for dark matter. We can compare this to mysticism and spirituality.
The Mystical State of Consciousness in Joseph Smith’s First Vision
I suggest that Joseph Smith's earliest direct encounters with God happened in mystical experience, or what is also known as altered states of consciousness.
Thoughts about "From Naïveté to Wisdom," the Pattern of the Spiritual Journey
I want to say a few thoughts about Richard Rohr's daily meditation today about "From Naïveté to Wisdom." Please click the link to read it. It's a beautiful simplified perspective of the faith journey: from order, to disorder, and then reorder.
Reconstructing the narrative surrounding the origins of the Book of Mormon
It's taken more time to write about this reconstruction, because it is perhaps a more sensitive subject, and more complex, than any I have written before about Mormonism or Christianity, yes, even more so than Jesus or Joseph Smith (which might be an indication that something is off-kilter). The Salt Lake City based Latter-day Saints take the Book of Mormon very seriously as a holy text, as scripture revealed by God, similar to the Bible, and perhaps even more important than the Bible. The Book of Mormon is one thing that makes them unique, their own testament of the divinity of "Jesus Christ," which they believe is also evidence of the unique prophethood of Joseph Smith and the divinity of the church he organized as God's "true church." But I think the truth may be much more nuanced.