Why would that destroy his credibility and ruin everything he'd done in the past?
It didn't. His former work in the past destroyed his credibility, as I have noted with hismagnum opus on the Magic World View. It flopped, and he wouldn't let it go. His 2nd edition was not an update, it was a grind against those who destroyed his scholarship the first time around. The 2nd time around FARMS so man-handled his lunacy in that book that it was the end. FARMS reviews were simply brilliant on both editions.
JustMe wrote:It didn't. His former work in the past destroyed his credibility, as I have noted with hismagnum opus on the Magic World View. It flopped, and he wouldn't let it go. His 2nd edition was not an update, it was a grind against those who destroyed his scholarship the first time around. The 2nd time around FARMS so man-handled his lunacy in that book that it was the end. FARMS reviews were simply brilliant on both editions.
Did you read the earlier reviews I linked from Signature, Kerry? Or is Korihor's Press too much to handle?
Did FARMS ever admit that they also got the Salamander letter wrong?
They analyzed the contextual aspects of it, and never claimed it was accurate, so far as I am aware. If they did accept it, they later recanted (unlike QUinn's vain error of refusing to let the evidence sway his facts) and produced some doggone great materials on it and other like subjects. FARMS self-corrected, Quinn self-destructed, regardless of what Korihor Press ever came up with......
From Carma Wadley's review, which I think is overlooked, yet the most significant thing he said - "Quinn relies to a great extent on circumstantial evidence—papers and objects that by tradition belonged to the Smith family and have been passed on to succeeding generations. There are accounts from neighbors, both friendly and unfriendly, but little from the Smith family itself. At one point, Lucy Mack Smith denied that such activities detracted from their farming—as some had claimed—but did not deny (nor actually confirm) the practice of such activities.
There are places where Quinn may make too much of the magical view." (bold is my emphasis)
Alan Taylor in Dialogue has a fascinating comment... fascinating because it is *precisely* what the FARMS reviewers noted of Quinn.
Despite a valiant effort, Quinn fails to clarify the elusive (and usually illusive) distinction between magic and religion. On the one hand he recognizes that in examining the practice of any particular faith it is virtually impossible to disentangle the two (pp. xii-xvi); and yet in his title and most of his text he insists upon a distinct "magic world view" that presumably sets Joseph Smith's generation apart from our own. I think he starts out on the right track when he argues that "magic" perceives life, spirit, and power in all matter—organic and inorganic (p. xii). Consequently, those who subscribe to "magic" believe that they can empirically learn rituals to master and manipulate the life-spirit-power all around them. The premise is spiritual, but the logic is scientific. But Quinn does not follow up that promising definition of "magic" to counter-define "religion" as an effort (and invariably an incomplete effort) to divorce spirit from matter and set divine power off in a distinct, distant, and immaterial realm. Such a divorce renders it impossible for individuals to immediately and precisely affect their circumstances by manipulating their spiritual content. Instead, Quinn settles for an unsatisfactory (and I think misleading) observation... (underline emphasis mine)
Helen Cannon - Now this digression into the parenthetical citation material may seem unnecessary, but it may also be the point on which Quinn's book succeeds or fails. It would take a very long time to trace and evaluate Quinn's barrage of sources, and as with an artillery barrage, some will hit the mark; others fall wide. There will be readers who will object to what might be labeled indiscriminate use of sources. I find his chapter linking Smith's views with astrological signs to be thinly and tenuously supported. It is stretching it a little to imply that because Joseph Smith seemed "to fit exactly the astrological predictions of his Jupiter-determined physical appearance," he therefore had to have a belief in astrology.
Paul M. Edwards - Somehow I was expecting more from this book—perhaps because I have heard D. Michael Quinn speak on several occasions, and each time he referred to the soon-to-be-completed work as containing the "full story." Yet, I do not feel he has given us the whole story. No doubt, he has presented the facts (he is an exceptionally fIne scholar and is, above all else, a careful researcher). There is, however, considerable doubt in my mind whether some of the conclusions he reached are valid reflections of those facts. There is little room to question that Joseph Smith mirrored his culture, nor that he was influenced and drew upon folk beliefs in the presentations of his religious convictions. The Smith family reflected a magic world view common to the folk culture of America in the early nineteenth century. This is neither earthshaking nor informative if that is all there is to the story. What it means in terms of the experiences significant to the Mormon movement is still open to question. And I believe if Michael Quinn knew what it meant or drew conclusions based on the vast information he has collected, he has not said so yet.
Sterling McMurrin - Like most studies, Quinn's work has its weaknesses: a penchant for generalization, for instance, that sometimes overlooks differences in place and time, excessive attention at times to matters more or less irrelevant to the case of Mormonism, and a failure to exploit fully the implications of important instances of magic with which he is concerned. And there is the problem of treating such things as astrology and phrenology as if they were more or less similar in nature to manipulative magic. Finally, there is one gnawing problem that I have in reading the book. Just where does Quinn himself stand with reference to magic in relation to the belief claims of Mormonism? He is not obligated to discuss his own views, but in the introduction he makes it clear that the magical beliefs and practices of Joseph Smith and his family and associates in no way affect his faith in the truth of Mormonism. He states unequivocally, "I believe in Gods, angels, spirits, and devils, and that they have communicated with humankind" (xx). Perhaps the secret of Quinn's sturdy faith lies in his position that while magic and religion are not "identical entities," they are not "polar opposites" (xvi). He is certainly correct that religion has usually, if not always, been infected with what today we regard as magic and superstition. But, at least on the surface, he seems to be remarkably generous in his attitude toward such things, almost as if, after all, they are really God's way of dealing with the masses, or even with their prophets. They are man's way of dealing with God, but surely not God's way of dealing with man. William A. Wilson - Quinn's book is an important work. It will be the starting point for any future studies of magic and the origins of Mormonism. Its richly documented pages tease the fancy and suggest numerous directions for research. But its basic argument, built on a foundation of unproven associations and parallel evidence and relying on an untenable notion of the folk, must remain in doubt.
And so it goes on and on……… it’s not the final word, and none of these reviews were near as equal nor impressive as the FARMS reviews. They were far more comprehensive, careful, and valid.