Joseph Smith's First Vision

[Hong Xiuquan]

When God spoke of true churches he was not speaking of individuals - he was speaking of organisations. So it is irrelevant whether in some of the had repented and asked God for forgiveness.

God's desire is that man can become like him. As Jesus said "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect". So two things are important to consider:

1. To become like God we must know his true character: "For this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom though hast sent" John 17:3
2. We must know his commandments: "If ye love me keep my commandments" John 14:15
3. We must have the ordinances of the gospel done: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
4. The person doing the ordinances must have authority from God: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matt 18:18 (Note this was not said to all Jesus disciples - this was only addressing the twelve).
5. As the God is one God so his true church is one church: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" Eph. 4:5 Also Note Corinthians 1:10-13

Clearly these requirements speak to the fact that gods church cannot be divided up among denominations. It also speaks to the fact that there is more to the plan of salvation than simply accepting Jesus sacrifice. We are not just to repent - we are expected to become like God. So we need to have the correct knowledge of God.

Jesus told us to pray the God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Do you suppose people are divided into denominations in heaven? I do not think so. And therefore I do not think it is God's will that we should be divided on earth.

To Joseph Smith and the Church God said "If ye are not one ye are not mine"

Thank you for your response Thanda. I've read what you have written here. Mormons have denominations too. There was a split...and now you also have the reformed church or reorganized church of the latter day saints.

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

Make Shi...er, Stuff Up.

I noticed your signature sentence. This would be interpreted as "Abraham's Bosom" or "Abraham's Side" as mentioned in Luke 16:19-31.

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

No, Quite the opposite.

I had assumed he was a Mormon. He has led me astray. His first comment to me was "I can confirm from the HS that the book of Mormon is true". He must have been kidding then. He has wasted a lot of my time. What are his true beliefs?

 

[Thanda]

Thank you for your response Thanda. I've read what you have written here. Mormons have denominations too. There was a split...and now you also have the reformed church or reorganized church of the latter day saints.

True. That means our denominations cannot all be correct. Only one of them can be.

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

What I find interesting is that these so called "prophets" always seem to be alone (no witnesses) when they receive their visions. In other words, they can just MSU and pawn it off on others.

I still don't know what MSU means.....seriously!

Yes, witnesses are important. If you look at the appearances of Jesus after he rose from the dead (in the New Testament), he always revealed himself to more than one person.

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

True. That means our denominations cannot all be correct. Only one of them can be.

Well, the reformed one would say they are the true church. Don't they teach that JS went astray at the end of his life, and they only use the earlier visions etc. Could you explain further?

 

[Thanda]

Well, the reformed one would say they are the true church. Don't they teach that JS went astray at the end of his life, and they only use the earlier visions etc. Could you explain further?

I don't know much about them. Anyone can say anything they want. Each person has to verify the truth for himself through the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

 

[Muffled]

So, you are not a Mormon then?

I believe I am not one and I do not see myself as an opponent of Mormonism. I simply report what God tells me about Mormonism.

 

[Muffled]

It is very personal, but I've shared it online before. To just quote myself, I'll paste it here so as not to have to retype everything. Tell me if this doesn't sound similar to JS. I'll explain more in detail after just sharing this:

I fully believe you experienced that. I've experienced something very similar. A point in my life of great crisis; an event that took me to the edge of death; a cry of desperation for help out into the utter darkness; white light suddenly appearing everywhere, in an instant driving everything else out that tormented me; a complete cessation of time; infinite peace, infinite love, infinite knowledge, infinite awareness, infinite power, infinite grace and compassion, all in only a sliver of an inconceivable infinity that lay beyond that; and then a gentle voice of infinite compassion and awareness speaking only my name, conveying my life's story before my eyes in an instant of utter timelessness with the knowledge spoken without words to my mind that I was never alone, that was loved beyond all knowledge. Shall I continue?

Rising from this vision I felt all the pain of my heart come gushing out of the deepest part of my soul in a torrent of tears, being both afraid and amazed at what had just happened. Two days later, I began what began my lifelong search for understanding of this. Being raised in a Christian culture, seeking out a minister seemed the most appropriate beginning. I openly shared my experience with wonder and puzzlement in my voice, to the stolid looks of the minister who gave little response. The following day I spoke to another, this time a Catholic priest, who likewise sat with a blank stare and his offering what I learned later to be the typical Catholic response of asking if I had anything to confess.

I left feeling discouraged, lost, and confused, yet with this knowledge in my heart. Suddenly, without any warning or indication, the entire Universe opened to me before my eyes, as if a great curtain opened in an instant. I suddenly saw for the first time in my life - color. The world was full of color, with vibrant greens and blues everywhere! The World was full of light and love and color, and permeated everything as a sort of living joy that surrounded me, moved through me, and began flowing out of the most unimaginably deepest part of my being out into the world in a sort of song, as can only be described as utter, living love. I saw people walking by me, and rather than feeling darkness and shame in my heart and averting my eyes away as in my past, instead I felt pure love and joy. No thoughts of darkness were in me anywhere at that moment, and I felt truly alive for the first time in my life.​

Ok, so what you see above corresponds with JS's experience, which also corresponds with a lot of people's peak experiences like this. These are not uncommon. Allow me to do a side by side comparison of what he said, with what I experienced:

JS: " immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction."

Me: I had slipped into the state of deep sleep where I became consciously aware my life was slipping away. I saw blackness everywhere crushing down on me, snuffing out my very existence. I KNEW I was going to die, that everything was being lost and I would become no more. Fear seized me so I could not move or speak or wake myself from this terror.

JS: "But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction- not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being- just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me."

Me: In that moment of absolute terror that blackness was swallowing my life into death, I put forth everything within in in one last hope and cried out with everything within me, "God help me!". At the instant, everything ceased. There was infinite White Light that came down in an instant from above and filled every space to where I had no other awareness save for that which enveloped me in Infinite Love, Infinite Compassion, Infinite Peace, Infinite Awareness in but a sliver of an infinity beyond itself, which was infinite in itself. Time did not exist.

JS: "It not sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said , pointing to the other-This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

Me: There was nothing but this Infinite Love, and Infinite Mind looking down upon me, as it were, with such Grace that it was greater than the power of the whole universe, yet held in Infinite Compassion. I heard my name spoken in a pure voice in a single word to my mind, then saw my life from my childhood on, with the knowledge that this Infinite Power, this Infinite Being was always there, and I with it despite my own unawareness.​

So, now that we have established that I too have had what is pretty parallel to the description given by Joseph Smith, up to the point he goes off into a theological quibble with the established religions of his day and believes he is called to start of new religion, you can see that the experience is the same, but how these are understood are matters of the person's individual interpretations. I will happily go down that road of discussion with you. These sorts of experiences are not uncommon. They are very similar. But how people interpret them, what they do with them, will differ of course.

But be assured, my experience happened as described by me, and that description does not begin to come close to truly describing what is beyond description. And, as a mystic now today, I find my home back in the arms of this every time in meditation, there is Knowledge there to be had, but I do not interpret this to go start a new religion. I look forward to your thoughts, and I share them with you because you impress me as a thoughtful person, otherwise I wouldn't.

I believe my experience has many similarities. The difference is that I was receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior and then had the vision so there was no darkness in it. I didn't feel cmpelled to run out and relate my experience but I did testify about it when being reviewed by the church elders for Baptism. I don't believe there is much anyone can say because although the events have similarities there are also differences because the visions are personal.

I believe I can understand JS's confusion. He was told not to join a church so where did that leave him? Since he doesn't report asking further what he should do one must think he decided to start a new church as his own idea. Starting ones own church appeals to the ego. My experience was different: I was told what to do. He said "pour out your cup of love and it will never be empty."

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

I believe my experience has many similarities. The difference is that I was receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior and then had the vision so there was no darkness in it. I didn't feel cmpelled to run out and relate my experience but I did testify about it when being reviewed by the church elders for Baptism. I don't believe there is much anyone can say because although the events have similarities there are also differences because the visions are personal.

I believe I can understand JS's confusion. He was told not to join a church so where did that leave him? Since he doesn't report asking further what he should do one must think he decided to start a new church as his own idea. Starting ones own church appeals to the ego. My experience was different: I was told what to do. He said "pour out your cup of love and it will never be empty."

Have you shared your full experience on the forum? If so, where can I read it? If not, could you share it with us?

 

[Muffled]

Have you shared your full experience on the forum? If so, where can I read it? If not, could you share it with us?

I believe I have not shared it yet.

I believe I can relate it, sahring is a different matter.

I was a church attending person (sang in the choir) but I did not know Jesus as Lord and Savior. My life had been going out of control and I felt it need new ownership by God for my life to go right. This was based upon my belief that God is good. As a result I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. Upon doing so with my eyes shut, I had a vision of a soft white light surrounding me and it was full of peace and love. Jesus showed me a picture of a cup pouring out a liquid and He said "I fill your cup with love; pour out you cup and it will never go empty." I believe Jesus was bringing to memory the hymn we sang in choir the previous sunday: "Flll My Cup."

 

[Hong Xiuquan]

I believe I have not shared it yet.

I believe I can relate it, sahring is a different matter.

I was a church attending person (sang in the choir) but I did not know Jesus as Lord and Savior. My life had been going out of control and I felt it need new ownership by God for my life to go right. This was based upon my belief that God is good. As a result I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. Upon doing so with my eyes shut, I had a vision of a soft white light surrounding me and it was full of peace and love. Jesus showed me a picture of a cup pouring out a liquid and He said "I fill your cup with love; pour out you cup and it will never go empty." I believe Jesus was bringing to memory the hymn we sang in choir the previous sunday: "Flll My Cup."

Beautiful. Praise God! Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[Windwalker]

I believe my experience has many similarities. The difference is that I was receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior and then had the vision so there was no darkness in it.

Out of curiosity was there tension buildup in your life prior to leading to your conversion? Typically if someone has a powerful conversion experience it tends to be in response to a powerful release. One could argue that someone may not be aware consciously of all the underlying tension because it has been so repressed or suppressed that they did not consciously see the full bucket that was there waiting to be released. But the types of responses, the magnitude of release that one experiences appears to be proportionate to the amount of tension that existed on deep internal levels.

For myself, that experience came during a time of great existential crisis in my life, not knowing who I was, feeling cut off from the world, and worse from myself. I had lost emotional connections to everyone and everything. That experience I had was the moment of release into being, quite literally, "born again". It changed my entire life, and to this day it stands as the core of who I am and became.

The analogy I like to use to describe these sorts of spontaneous 'peak experiences', is like that of holding a slingshot in your hand out in front of you. Imagine you are that slingshot and tension is being applied to the band, pulling down on it with more and more force. Finally, it comes to a point of tension on the band that it has to be released or it is going to break. Suddenly, you make a choice somewhere deep inside of you to let go of the band. Pow!! It shoots straight out of your hand, up beyond the slingshot in your other hand you are holding stationary, and sails up way beyond it, into the sky, touching the face of the clouds even! In that moment, you see above the cities, above the mountains, above the clouds that you lived underneath and you see the world for the first time. Then, after some time the band falls back down to settle into equilibrium with the height of the slingshot you are holding, so it settles. But what it opened you to, what you saw, is forever part of you now, and becomes an influence on your growth, at what height you hold that slingshot from the ground.

How high that rubber band shoots up into the sky depends on how much or how little tension underlays the release. A 'conversion experience' typically is the result of a sudden release of underlying tension, again it may or may not be something we are consciously aware of, but its symptoms would be there, such as depression, drug abuse, anxieties, paranoia, loneliness, etc, etc.

I didn't feel cmpelled to run out and relate my experience but I did testify about it when being reviewed by the church elders for Baptism. I don't believe there is much anyone can say because although the events have similarities there are also differences because the visions are personal.

Certainly yes, they will manifest differently for different persons, depending on many factors, but there is obvious underlying similarities. The reason I went to talk to others of my experience is to seek for further understanding and guidance. I sought to come to know and understand what had been opened to me, as it was in reality, ultimate Truth and Reality. It took me many years of walking my path to 'come home' as it were, to 'begin where I began', in how I put it.

I believe I can understand JS's confusion. He was told not to join a church so where did that leave him?

What I find interesting in JS's self-reporting of his experience is that you can see he was experiencing this underlying tension I was describing above in my slingshot analogy of the peak experience. He was torn in what direction to go in his life. He was seeking for answers to some need for stability, some foundation for himself. He doubtless felt adrift in himself, else why would this be a pressing question? Potentially there could have be some psychological stability issues too, not to rule that out, but these sorts of existential matters create an extraordinary amount of need and pressure in one's life. Whatever the exact personal catalyst was that set this experience in motion, it's clear there was this interplay at work within him.

I should talk about the "type" of peak experience he had and what the underlying mechanisms are that go into this. What he experienced was a "subtle state experience", the appearance of light, the voice from heaven, a manifestation of heavenly figures, etc. There are actually higher states than these, but to focus solely on this for the purpose of discussion, what happens in these subtle-state experiences is what can be described as the subconscious mind manifesting itself to the conscious mind in visionary ways. How to put this? We already have the answers to our own questions, somewhere in there, at whatever level that may be, and from whatever source of knowing. We may experience a vision of the Christ, who will then guide us, teach us, direct us to the answer we seek "from above" as it were. It gets a little tricky here to explain this, so bear with me.

Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus is a classic example of this. Here is Paul passionate to serve God, trying to keep the Jewish faith pure so people can find God, as Judaism was actually popular with the gentiles. So in his passion to his religion he felt to persecute these followers of Jesus sect. In time, there was an obvious tension this was creating for him on a deep level, doubtless this was not realized consciously by him, but the tension was there. Here, people were coming to the Jewish faith in droves though these he sought to suppress. Was he doing the right thing? You have the religion on the one hand saying they were wrong, and yet they were getting results. Were they really all that wrong? Did it matter that much, if the greater good was being served, if God was being served?

So here he goes on another mission to set himself against those he was doubtless having internal struggles with, however repressed that may have been, then "Pow!!". The tension let loose from his hand, and he had a peak experience, a subtle-state experience, a vision of the Christ who set him straight. "It's harder for you to kick against the thorns", he heard. He already knew this! Deep inside, he already knew it. The experience allowed that deep inner knowledge to present itself to his conscious mind in such a way he could hear it. He told himself, in essence, what he already knew he needed to do, and that was to stop what he was doing. This then lead of course to his conversion to join those he previously had set himself against.

So Joseph Smith then told himself, through the subtle manifestation of an angel, to 'not join any church'. He already knew that answer, and it was his subconscious mind telling his conscious mind something in such a way that he could listen to himself.

Now this is not in any way meant to belittle or dismiss such experiences as "just the brain", or some such reductionist nonsense as that. It goes quite a lot deeper than what high-level understanding I laid out here, and I think I may start a different topic in another forum, such as the Mysticism DIR on this point picking up from this post. Suffice to say, the experience is real, and what we may hear may be quite helpful to us indeed. How we interpret these things is however something we should have some basic understanding of, and not go off the deepend, believing we are called to be the next messiah. That can happen, but the view that we are unique or special above all others, tends to indicate a problem. It's often the difference between the mystic and the schizophrenic.

Since he doesn't report asking further what he should do one must think he decided to start a new church as his own idea. Starting ones own church appeals to the ego.

Yeah, I'm not sure the whole background of why he started a church, but I would suspect it had to do with those who saw something in his 'vision' that they could rally themselves around. This is typical in the birth of a religion surrounding someone with a mystical experience, a movement forming around this person's ideas, and then a religion becoming estabished with all its organization bodies, and supporting teachings and writings.

Heck, speaking of Paul, he was very much a man of ego, while at the same time he had very clear and unmistakable mystical experience he speaks of in many places of his writings. I don't believe Joseph Smith was what I would call a mystic however. I think he was a charismatic man who had a peak experience, possible some mental issues too from what I've heard elsewhere, who was a man of his times and culture of new religions being born in the wake of the Great Disappointment in American History. Many movements were born at the same time in the wake of that, and so it just caught on and became it's own self-sustaining body, fed by persecutions, etc. Not an uncommon story.

My experience was different: I was told what to do. He said "pour out your cup of love and it will never be empty."

Yes, this sort of thing I am personally familiar with. I like what you heard.

 

[Katzpur]

The Bible is a closed canon. It was agreed upon a long time ago in an international church council, to stop heresy from seeping in, and to protect the integrity of the Bible.

Do you realize what you just said? A council of men decided this! God didn't! And did their decision keep heresy from seeping in? Hardly. Granted, by the time this council convened, God had long-since stopped directing His Church, since the Apostles had been martyred and the authority they'd held been lost. But since that authority had been lost, by whose authority did this council make their decision?

Jesus said he would come again in the clouds of glory. We have not seen this event yet.

That's right, we haven't.

therefore, based on this, he did not go and live in another land called America and choose another 12 disciples...

Jesus never really "went to live in another land called America." The Book of Mormon recounts a visit He made to a group of people somewhere in the Western Hemisphere to teach them His gospel. Is there some reason why you believe He either wouldn't have cared enough about them to do so or was incapable of doing so? According to John's gospel, He actually had said to His followers, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." I realize that there are many interpretations of this verse, but here's what we Mormons believe:

1. Jesus had previously said that His own personal mission was solely to those of the house of Israel. He never preached to anyone else.
2. He always referred to those of the house of Israel as "His sheep."
3. He would later (just prior to His ascent into Heaven) tell His Apostles to teach His gospel to all nations.
4. He said other sheep (more people from the house of Israel) would hear His voice. In other words, He personally would speak to them so that they would know that what was being taught was of God.
5. They would then have His gospel, just as His sheep on the Eastern Hemisphere would and, even though they were physically separated, they would be one fold with a single shepherd -- Him.

 

[Katzpur]

Katzpur....before I forget....I wish to discuss this: I'm still trying to get my head around the need for a Mormon to be saved by the blood of Christ and for the need to be baptized. Why? Because Mormon folk believe that everyone on Earth was in the pre-existence as spirit beings. They were with God before...in Heaven. Only pure, saved people can be near and live with God. If unsaved and impure they would contaminate Heaven. Therefore, a spirit that was in the pre-existence would have already been saved. They come to Earth as saved beings....and leave as saved beings. Where is the need for water baptism and the covering of the blood sacrifice of Christ? (please take my words in a nice way). God bless.

Hong Xiuquan, your question was obvious sincere and non-confrontational. I am going to need a little bit of time to respond to you in the way you deserve. I've got to collect my thoughts and make sure I don't leave anything important out. So I am going to ask your patience until tomorrow. Thank you.

 

[Katzpur]

I had assumed he was a Mormon. He has led me astray. His first comment to me was "I can confirm from the HS that the book of Mormon is true". He must have been kidding then. He has wasted a lot of my time. What are his true beliefs?

I suspect there is a typo in his post. He has been quite upfront in saying that he believes that Moroni was actually not an angel but a demon.

 

[Katzpur]

Katzpur....before I forget....I wish to discuss this: I'm still trying to get my head around the need for a Mormon to be saved by the blood of Christ and for the need to be baptized. Why? Because Mormon folk believe that everyone on Earth was in the pre-existence as spirit beings. They were with God before...in Heaven. Only pure, saved people can be near and live with God. If unsaved and impure they would contaminate Heaven. Therefore, a spirit that was in the pre-existence would have already been saved. They come to Earth as saved beings....and leave as saved beings. Where is the need for water baptism and the covering of the blood sacrifice of Christ? (please take my words in a nice way). God bless.

Hong Xiuquan, here is my answer:

For Mormons, the goal is not simply to be with God, but to grow to be like Him. The spirits who were with God in Heaven weren't all good and pure. Lucifer wasn't, and he was most certainly with God in Heaven. We believe that a full third of the host of Heaven (those spirit beings) fought alongside Lucifer when he rebelled against God and that they were cast out of Heaven along with him, never again to live in God's presence. The traditional Christian understanding is that Lucifer rebelled because he sought to exalt himself above God. The Mormon understanding has a bit more depth to it. I'm not sure if you are familiar with this doctrine or not, so I'll explain it.

We believe that God called all of us together and presented a plan to us whereby we could take the next step towards becoming like Him. This would involve our leaving His presence for a period of time and experiencing mortality, gaining a physical body and learning to be able to distinguish between good and evil. For instance, if you and your child were in a room together and you told him not to eat any of the candy in the dish on the coffee table, he'd probably mind you as long as you were there keeping an eye on him. If you were to leave the room for a few minutes, though, we both know what would probably happen. At any rate, He explained how our mortal probation would enable us to progress far beyond what we would be possible for us were we to never leave His side.

He then explained that we would need to be completely obedient to His commandments in order to return to Him in the future, and said that He could not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. At that point, we must have felt terrible. Something we wanted so much was apparently out of our reach. Then, Jesus Christ stepped forward and offered to pay the price for our sins, enabling us to be able to return to God's presence clean and pure. He recognized the need for us to experience mortality, but He knew that, unlike Him, we were flawed and would at one point or another, be guilty of sinning. He loved us so much that He was willing to endure the punishment that we would earn by our disobedience. He insisted, however, that the glory be His Father's.

Lucifer, arrogant and rebellious, was very much opposed to Jesus' offer and to their Father's Plan for the Salvation of mankind. Unlike Jesus, he wanted the plan to take away our free will. He was fine with us experiencing mortality, but it would be without the privilege of choosing for ourselves. Naturally, we couldn't learn if we were never given the opportunity to make mistakes, but that didn't matter to him. If we made so mistakes and committed no sins, there would be no need for a redeemer. (That would pretty much let him off the hook!) The thing is, he insisted that he receive all of the glory for getting all of us back into God's presence. Our Father in Heaven would essentially be forgotten and he would be our new God.

This is what we believe to be the reason behind the War in Heaven as described in Revelation. Those who chose Christ fought with the Archangel, Michael, against Lucifer and won the blessing of being able to take the first step towards becoming like their Father. Those who fought with Lucifer ended up losing everything.

If you stop to think about it, what father would not be honored to have his son say, "Dad, you are my role model. It is my goal to eventually be like you in every way"? I would imagine that almost any rather would rather hear that than, "Dad, you're the best. I never want to leave your side. I always want to be your little boy and rely on you to tell me everything I should do."

So, the bottom line is that we believe God's Plan to have included a probationary period during which we would learn how important it is to obey Him and honor Him, even if we are separated from Him. Only by doing so would we be able to attain a much greater reward than if we'd never left His presence.

 

[idea]

How high that rubber band shoots up into the sky depends on how much or how little tension underlays the release. A 'conversion experience' typically is the result of a sudden release of underlying tension, again it may or may not be something we are consciously aware of, but its symptoms would be there, such as depression, drug abuse, anxieties, paranoia, loneliness, etc, etc.

Nice theory, but what I experienced was not a release of tension. I went to an LDS church to fulfill an assignment for a comparative religions class. (We were assigned to go meet with a religious community we were unfamiliar with, then write about the experience). I was not seeking anything, I was not interested in giving my life to Jesus, I was not religiously inclined at all - the only reason I was in the comparative religions class was because it was the only thing that fit into my schedule, and I needed an elective... It was a pretty big shock to me to find out that God/Jesus/Spirits etc. are real. Look up the phrase "fear not" in the scriptures, I can relate to a few of those accounts...

In any event, everyone has to experience it for themselves to know what it is all about.

 

[JustWondering]

You're right, HongXiuquan, it was incredibly unusual for Heavenly Father to appear personally to Joseph, but not entirely unprecedented. At Christ's baptism there was a voice declaring "This is my beloved Son.". Granted, just a voice but clearly a separate being from Christ.

When you consider the standard teachings that the Father and the Son are the same person (along with the Holy Ghost), to me it makes sense for both to appear to Joseph at the same time, no better way to demonstrate a very critical point about Their nature.

As for the idea of Joseph being possessed, I can see where you get the idea. He was clearly attacked while trying to pray in the grove, but the possessions experienced in the Bible that I can think of off the top of my head werent momentary events that left no lasting effect. Those who had demons cast out of hem by Christ and the prophets and apostles were continually afflicted with the effects.

If they are the same person wouldn't it have made more sense for a two-headed person to appear before Smith?

 

[Windwalker]

Nice theory, but what I experienced was not a release of tension.

You were actually quoting me, and not Muffled in your response. Not sure how his/her name was the one quoted.

Anyway, what I had also said was this, "One could argue that someone may not be aware consciously of all the underlying tension because it has been so repressed or suppressed that they did not consciously see the full bucket that was there waiting to be released. But the types of responses, the magnitude of release that one experiences appears to be proportionate to the amount of tension that existed on deep internal levels."

As I said, and this is very true, people may be carrying things with them for year and not be consciously aware of them. But they are there brewing under the surface nonetheless. We become so accustomed to them they are just part of the landscape for us that we don't see them. Sometimes we may never actually fully understand what was there. It took me some time and distance to understand the surrounding reasons for what put me in a position to be 'ready' for that sort of experience. I can see it in hindsight now, but at the time, you can't see the eyes you were accustomed to looking out through. The experience is felt as something "outside" of you, because it is a state of being beyond your normal set of eyes you are looking out of that you self-identify as.

I was not seeking anything, I was not interested in giving my life to Jesus, I was not religiously inclined at all - the only reason I was in the comparative religions class was because it was the only thing that fit into my schedule, and I needed an elective... It was a pretty big shock to me to find out that God/Jesus/Spirits etc. are real.

More or less the same was true of me. I was not religious, not raised in a religious home, not looking for God, etc. I was simply tired of my life as it was and needed to change. My experience was profoundly religious, but it was not the result of something someone told me. It was spontaneous. And shock, doesn't begin to describe it. Utterly life changing comes closer, universe changing, nothing was the same since also work better.

Think about these things in terms of the fertile ground in the parable of the sower and the seed. The same seed falls not on different types of people, but on different types of soil of that same person and different stages in their lives. The seed rains down constantly at all times in our lives, but we have to be in the right place, the soil has be in the correct supporting conditions for it to take root and grow. It can come from anywhere or anything really, because it isn't ultimately a truth outside our own selves but rather inside us, but what the point is that in your experience, as in mind, you were ready, for whatever mysterious reasons it may appear to be. And the metaphor applies for all manner of types of seeds. Even if we may believe we are open, sometimes we just are ready yet for the next understanding to come. And so forth.