JOSEPH sMITH'S Character

[_Gaia]

Hi Everyone -

I always find it interesting and somewhat curious that those who "diss" Joseph Smith never quite get around to admitting that he was a remarkable and (many -- both Mormon and non believers feel) -- a very influential guy - in fact, one of the most influential people of the 19th Century.

While it's certainly true that he had many faults, NOBODY is a one-dimensional character, and Joseph Smith is no different; those who only see him in single, monochromatic terms, miss a great deal: He was a complicated, fascinating character.


Joseph Smith is a little like those psychological ink-blot tests: He seems to bring out of each individual, whatever is within THEM -- everyone sees whatever they WANT to see in him. Many LDS overly idealize and sentimentalize him, while knowing little of his real character or accomplishments; and many non (or ex) LDS demonize him, while making the very same mistake -- they know little of the real man, or his very real accomplishments.

in my opinion, Joseph Smith was a fascinating, flawed, and very gifted, human being. He could be gullible, impetuous, capricious, prideful, egotistical and vain. He had a tendency to let his hormones run wild and over-rule any good judgment he might have possessed; and a strange need to collect more females than any five men could ever need or want. He had frequent poor judgement in people and a tendency to make too-fast friendships with men he should have known better than to trust -- even to (briefly) prefer them over his more faithful, tried-and-true friends. He articulated many great and noble values -- until they happened to interfere with reality -- what he wanted or didn't want....

Even during his own lifetime, many of his followers admitted that he behaved and spoke less like a Prophet than a backwoodsman. Many thought his brother Hyrum seemed more like (their idea of) a "Prophet", because Joseph had a playful and animated, even child-like, spirit about him.


But it is as wrong to *demonize* a man as it is to "deify" him. Many have made the mistake of doing exactly what they seem to dislike about his followers -- focusing on the elements of his personality that are of most interest to (and prove) THEIR prejudices, and being pretty much blind to anything else.

That's just as wrong in understanding and appreciating (and i'm using that term in a very wide sense) the man.

The truth is that Smith was a very human, flawed individual -- but he could also be remarkably, even amazingly compassionate, warm, friendly, open, playful, charismatic, convincing, and deeply, profoundly spiritual and mystical.

In fact, Joseph Smith was a remarkable Mystic - and anyone who wants to be fair must view him in that light. By the reports of those who actually knew and were close to him, he frequently launched into extended visions -- some of which were simultaneously SHARED and reported by those around him. Now i s'pose that someone might call that "mass hysteria" if they absolutely cannot bring themselves to imagine that a very flawed, fallible, rough human being could possibly also have a spiritual-mystical side -- but then that's their issue, isn't it.


Maybe as a psychologist i'm able to understand and appreciate paradox and contradiction in people (and issues) a bit -- because i see it all the time, and i think it's incredibly unfair to judge a man and his entire life by a few very limited (and solely negative) issues or traits.

Do you know of any person who is either all good or all bad??? Very few really are.

One more note, just cause i think (hope) some here may be able to appreciate this point:

I believe it's a sign of maturity and wisdom to *resist* either deifying or demonizing a person. To the degree that we can do so, i think it demonstrates that we've come to some peace about our OWN very complicated Shadows and Brightness.

Blessings to all --
~Gaia

[_harmony]

Yeah, so? Big deal. Lots of people are the same... and don't claim to be prophets.

[_Madison54]

Yeah, so? Big deal. Lots of people are the same... and don't claim to be prophets.

Nor do they ask for people's money, property, wives, daughters, and their blind obedience and loyalty.

There's no doubt (at least in my mind) that Joseph Smith was a complicated, charismatic man who many of the saints loved. I'm sure he could be loving and loads of fun to be around. But, that does not negate all the pain, death and destruction he caused.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Yes, he was a remarkable, flawed, complex person, like we all are. I'm not sure I'd say he's one of the most influential people of the nineteenth century, as that seems more than a bit overstated. He's certainly not in the same league as Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Marx, Engels, Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Bismarck, Disraeli, Edison, Bell, Morse, and so on.

[_DarkHelmet]

I agree with others. I think Joseph Smith is a very interesting character. But you can't get around the fact that The Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham are obvious frauds that he used to start a religion to give himself power. It's hard to make a case for a good guy from that foundation.

[_Fence Sitter]

I believe it's a sign of maturity and wisdom to *resist* either deifying or demonizing a person. To the degree that we can do so, i think it demonstrates that we've come to some peace about our OWN very complicated Shadows and Brightness.

Blessings to all --
~Gaia

I agree Joseph Smith was a complicated character and accomplished an enormous amount in his life. If his life was just one big con, one still has to admire the panache with which he lived. The problem is that most people believe he was a prophet or a fraud. How does one hold conversations regarding his life, with defenders who approach him as nearly perfect or critics who think he is the devil himself, without appearing to demonize or deify him?

[_Chap]

I believe it's a sign of maturity and wisdom to *resist* either deifying or demonizing a person. To the degree that we can do so, i think it demonstrates that we've come to some peace about our OWN very complicated Shadows and Brightness.

Blessings to all --
~Gaia

I agree Joseph Smith was a complicated character and accomplished an enormous amount in his life. If his life was just one big con, one still has to admire the panache with which he lived. The problem is that most people believe he was a prophet or a fraud. How does one hold conversations regarding his life, with defenders who approach him as nearly perfect or critics who think he is the devil himself, without appearing to demonize or deify him?

I don't think he was the devil himself. I just think he was either radically deluded, or else a pretty skilled fraudster, or more likely a bit of one and a bit of the other. And when he wanted something, he made sure he got it without worrying too much about the ethical implications.

[_Fence Sitter]

I don't think he was the devil himself. I just think he was either radically deluded, or else a pretty skilled fraudster, or more likely a bit of one and a bit of the other. And when he wanted something, he made sure he got it without worrying too much about the ethical implications.

I think there are quite a few of us here on this board that see him as the complex character he is. I think those Mormons that look into his life to any depth also see that complexity. Unfortunately for the world at large, those that are familiar at all with Joseph Smith, write him off as pure fraud, and the majority of Mormons, who have been taught not to look too closely, see him as second to Jesus in God's plan.

It's hard to hold a civil discussion with either of those latter two groups.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I don't think he was the devil himself. I just think he was either radically deluded, or else a pretty skilled fraudster, or more likely a bit of one and a bit of the other. And when he wanted something, he made sure he got it without worrying too much about the ethical implications.

+10

No need to vilify or deify the man. He was what he was.

[_Gaia]

Yes, he was a remarkable, flawed, complex person, like we all are. I'm not sure I'd say he's one of the most influential people of the nineteenth century, as that seems more than a bit overstated.

GAIA:

Hi Bob --

In a very interesting series of articles ( http://www.gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm ) titled, "Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection" (by Lance S. Owens) -- and a much shorter introductory article by the same author, published in Gnosis: A Journal of Western Inner Traditions, Spring 1995: titled "Joseph Smith: America's Hermetic Prophet", Owens finds "considerable value in turning full attention to the revolutionary view of Joseph Smith provided by Harold Bloom in his critique of The American Religion."

Broadly informed as a critic of the creative imagination and its Kabbalistic, Gnostic undertones in Western culture--and perhaps one of the most prominent literary figures in America--Bloom has intuitively recognized within Joseph Smith a familiar spirit, a genius wed in nature to both the millennia-old visions of Gnosticism in its many guises, and the imaginative flux of poesy. Individuals less informed in the history and nature of Kabbalism--or of Hermetic, Alchemical and Rosicrucian mysticism, traditions influenced by a creative interaction with Kabbalah--may have difficulty apprehending the basis of his insight. Indisputably, the aegis of "orthodox" Mormon historiography is violently breached by Bloom's intuition linking the prophet's visionary bent with the occult aspirations of Jewish Kabbalah, the great mystical and prophetic tradition of Israel.

Bloom is, of course, not a historian but a critic and interpreter of creative visions, and his reading of Smith depends perhaps less on historical detail than on his intuition for the poetic imagination. The affinity of Smith for these traditions is, nonetheless, evident to an educated eye.

What is clear is that Smith and his apostles restated what Moshe Idel, our great living scholar of Kabbalah, persuades me was the archaic or original Jewish religion. . . . My observation certainly does find enormous validity in Smith's imaginative recapture of crucial elements, elements evaded by normative Judaism and by the Church after it. The God of Joseph Smith is a daring revival of the God of some of the Kabbalists and Gnostics, prophetic sages who, like Smith himself, asserted that they had returned to the true religion. . . . Either there was a more direct Kabbalistic influence upon Smith than we know, or, far more likely, his genius reinvented Kabbalah in the effort necessary to restore archaic Judaism.2

* * *

I think that's a very interesting view, seldom if ever appreciated, by Joseph Smith's critics.

Blessings -
~Gaia